Sarcastic Voyage - Radio Plays - Mary Madison: Kill the Front Page

Hard-talking reporter Mary Madison is back, pursuing the perpetrators of a sinister hypnosis plot

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The next logical step for Mary after Bury the Lead, we thought, was to team her up with, if not an equal, at least a colleague. We'd always thought of Mary as our version of Batman (tenacious, focused, largely unstoppable), so we turned to the amazing "World's Finest" three-parter from Bruce Timm's Superman animated series for inspiration. You probably won't find much in the way of actual direct influence in this, but it's definitely there.
Ruth Russell was based largely on Torchy Blane, the protagonist of a series of "fast-talking girl reporter" movies from the 30s and, weirdly, the original inspiration for Lois Lane. (Weirdly because of the aforementioned — we weren't intentionally trying to tie every aspect of this to Superman.)
Our first story had a noir feel to it, so we wanted to do something a little different with this one. We were going for a bit of a Hitchcock vibe. I'm not sure we entirely pulled that off, but it definitely took us to someplace new that, on the whole, we were pretty satisfied with.
By total coincidence, Marvel's Agent Carter TV series dropped the same week we released this radio play. Both stories involved women dealing with the aftermath of World War II — specifically, being asked to step back from the useful jobs they had while the men were away at war and resume their roles as wives and mothers.
I really like how this opening sequence unfolds, with the music and credits intercut with Mary doing her Mary thing. It might be the most — for want of a better word — cinematic thing we've done in this medium.
Making Ruth polyamorous and bisexual was a deliberate choice — it served to further distinguish her from the probably asexual Mary and it's another attempt by us to be better with representation.
King's insanity will be clarified in Citizen Crotch but I don't think that information is essential to understand what's happening here. The war's over and he's being a misogynist jerk, is the gist of it.
Also we later learn he was deaf, which is why the hypnotizing whistle didn't affect him. This is a detail we probably should have made more clear in this story.
"Avagadro Way just past sixth" is a dumb math/science joke.
I'm pretty sure all of the cops in Mary's city are Irish.
"Lovesick nun" is a thing that Amanda insists is a trope. She's wrong. We would address this in greater detail with an actual “lovesick nun” story in episode 4 of Sarcastic Voyage Theatre some years later.
Once again, Tordovia stands in for every offensive foreign power in movies and TV. Thanks, country we made up!
Ruth's love of eggs comes from Amanda's equally powerful obsession with eggs.
Ruth having been in the war was inspired by No Job for a Woman, a fantastic documentary about female reporters during World War II who snuck off overseas to cover the action.
Mary and Ruth trying each other's tactics in the third act is one of my favorite things that Amanda and I have ever written together.
Making the typically goofy Tordovian accent sinister was a major challenge, and Sabrina was completely up to it in the torture scene. But then she also completely sells the comedy of "those ropes were no match for my untying!"
The Tordovian film being shown at the end is "Diving!," one of the first sketches starring Tordovia's own Frank and Sandra.

Credits

Duncan Boszko - Agent Nelson

Mark Boszko - O'Shaughnessey

Dave Fields - Harold King

Brian Lynch - Herbert

Caitlin Obom - Starlet

Kara O'Connor - Ruth Russell

Nicole Santora - King's Secretary

Amanda Smith - Mary Madison

Sabrina Snyder - Spradley

Jason Wallace - Ambassador Kutch

Ron “AAlgar” Watt - Governor Chapman

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Written & directed by Amanda Smith and Ron “AAlgar” Watt