The Fourth Tower of Inverness
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| The Fourth Tower of Inverness | |
| Genre | Comedy-drama |
|---|---|
| Running time | 12 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Languages | English |
| Starring | Robert Lorick |
| Announcer | Dave Herman |
| Writers | Meatball Fulton |
| Directors | Meatball Fulton |
| Recording studio | United States |
| Air dates | 1972 to date |
| Website http://www.zbs.org/ |
|
The Fourth Tower of Inverness is a 1972 radio drama, produced by the ZBS Foundation. It is the beginning of the Jack Flanders adventure series, and combines elements of Americana and Old-time radio with metaphysical concepts such as past life regression, Sufi wisdom, Tibetan Buddhism and shamanistic communication with the natural world.
The adventure takes place in an estate called Inverness, and the action focuses upon a mysterious "Fourth Tower" from which previous wanderers have not returned. The program was originally broadcast in 7-minute long episodes and runs a total of seven and half hours.
Contents |
[edit] History
The Fourth Tower of Inverness was written and directed by Meatball Fulton. The initial story concept was created while he was staying at a farmhouse outside of Montreal, Canada. The farm was called Inverness, and was named and designed after a house the original owner had owned in Inverness, Scotland. It had been abandoned for ten years, but was being looked after by an old caretaker. The initial characters were written for other guests at the farmhouse, made up of various friends and acquaintances of Meatball Fulton, although the series was not produced at this time.[1]
In June 1970, Meatball Fulton moved to Fort Edward, New York to help found ZBS Media, with a focus on producing commercials for various musical acts such as Billy Joel, Little Feat, the Jefferson Airplane and Captain Beefheart. After about a year and a half of this, he became bored with writing commercials, and had an uncomfortable experience producing an album for Abbie Hoffman.[2] Remembering the radio play he had written back in Montreal, he decided to produce his own script. The story was fleshed out, actors were cast, and the episodes were produced periodically when ever new scripts were written. The amature nature of the production can still be heard, with frequent breaking of character by the cast, and laughing when lines are flubbed.
Eventually a backer was found, Augie Blume of Grunt Records, who help shape the series down to 7-minute daily episodes, and half-hour weekend episodes. The Fourth Tower of Inverness played on 350 college stations, where it was a hit.[1]The series has since been broadcast in several different formats, such as on NPR Playhouse and The Watt from Pedro Show. It is also available for purchase in almost every available audio format, such as cassette, CD and Mp3.
[edit] Story
Jack Flanders, a hitchhiker and drifter, is invited to the estate of his aunt, Lady Sara Jowls. While making his way to the estate, he sees an outline of the mansion, with four distinct towers reaching up to the sky, though his aunt and everyone else who lives there insists there are only three.
Jack slowly becomes familiar with the strange inhabitents of Inverness, including the mansion's caretaker, Old Far-seeing Art, who can listen to the aum sound emintating from the center of the Universe, and tends to the estates hedge maze, a place that only he can enter without going insane. Others include Dr. Mazoola, an alchemist of the first order, Jives the Butler, who is an old quick-change artist with a dry sense of humor, the Madonna Vampira, an energy vampire who lives in the mansions hollow walls, and Little Frieda, a venusian who is a million years old, but looks like a small girl with large pigtails and a penchant for smoking huge Havana cigars.
The group each teach Jack lessons, from an explanation of the Tibeten Wheel of Life to a past-life regression and a lesson on how to draw energy from trees. Each person is slowly preparing Jack for his upcoming adventure, of which he knows nothing about.
Lady Jowls husband, Sir Henry Jowls, once reigned over this mansion, but Jack learns that he vanished from this world without a trace some years ago. Lady Jowls is disturbed by the recent happenings at the mansion. One of these happenings, as she describes to her nephew, concerns an old jukebox somewhere in one of the mansion’s three tall towers, that plays the song angel baby whenever an accident is about to occur. Accidents do occur, from simple misunderstandings involving an aroused kundalini to the actual presence of a fire-breathing dragon.
Jack realizes the music of the jukebox is actually coming from the invisible Fourth Tower, and is determined to find its source. It is said that in the past, eight people have seen and entered the fourth tower of Inverness, and none have returned alive. Jack Flanders is the ninth.
[edit] Cast
- Jack Flanders - Robert Lorick
- Little Frieda - P.J. Orte
- Narrator/Dr. Mazoolah - Dave Herman
- The Madonna Vampira - Laura Estermann
- Chief Wampum/Old Far-Seeing Art - Meatball Fulton
- Lord Jowls - Murray Head
- Meanie Eenie/Lady Jowls - Valerie Mamches
- Intro-Outro themes - Paul Combs
- Outro-Announcer - Mark Stone
- Engineering - Virgil Snakeskin
[edit] Intro
Each episode of the Fourth Tower of Inverness begins:
"High atop a mountain, above the pines and mist that surrounds the bay of Inverness, there stands an incredible mansion. Its three towers appear to pierce the sky, its windows are like a thousand eyes turned inward, and its doors, hinged on time, open into endless space. The Fourth Tower of Inverness!"
[edit] Jukeboxes
During his adventures in the Fourth Tower, Jack Flanders encounters several jukeboxes, each with a different theme.
- Whirlitzer of Wisdom - This is the first jukebox discovered, and the only one outside of the Fourth Tower. For the price of a dime, it plays various wisdoms by people such as Ram Dass and Don Van Vliet (billed as the Venerable Van Vliet). Its name is based on the classic Wurlitzer jukebox.
- Great Green Jade Jukebox - This is the second jukebox discovered, inside the Fourth Tower. It is able to bring a city to life, replaying encounters in order. In order to reach the next step, track 2 must be played, and so on.
- Bodhisattva Jukebox - This is the final jukebox discovered inside the Fourth Tower. It features chants by Bhagavan Das, and listening to it brings understanding. The characters heads and arms expand, much in the same way as the bodhisattva Kannon.
- Lotus Jukebox - Although this is what he is searching for, in this series Jack Flanders never finds the Lotus Jukebox, which plays the song Angel Baby. He encounters it again in the later adventure, The Ah-Ha Phenomenon.
[edit] Influences
The idea of a jukebox that plays whenever an accident was about to occur was based on and paying homage to an episode of the radio show I Love a Mystery, which featured an organ playing in the basement whenever an accident would occur. The name of the lead character, Jack Flanders, was also in homage to the hero on I Love a Mystery, Jack Packard.[3]
The past life regression sequence is taken from a real life experience, and shows the actual past life relationships between series author Meatball Fulton and actress Laura Estermann, who plays the Madonna Vampira.[3]
[edit] Sequel
The Fourth Tower of Inverness is the beginning of the Jack Flanders’s series, and several of the characters introduced continue to appear in later adventures. Jack briefly returns to the mansion of Inverness in Moon Over Morocco (1973), and the quest for the Lotus Jukebox continues in The Ah-Ha Phenomena (1977). However, a direct sequel was produced in 2000, Return to Inverness, which re-united most of the original cast.
