The Fourth Tower of Inverness

Infobox Radio Show
show_name = The Fourth Tower of Inverness


format = Comedy-drama
runtime = 12 minutes
country = flagicon|United States United States
language = English
starring = Robert Lorick

announcer = Dave Herman
writer = Meatball Fulton
director = Meatball Fulton
executive_producer =
narrated =
record_location = United States
first_aired = 1972
num_episodes =
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. ZBS.org [http://www.zbs.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1 link] (The Fourth Tower of Inverness)] National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc "Meatball Fulton Profile" " [http://www.natf.org/profiles/lopez.html link] (Interview with Meatball Fulton)]

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.

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.Zounds! [http://www.whirlitzer.org/zounds1.html link] (The ZBS Story Part 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, 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.Zounds! [http://www.whirlitzer.org/zounds2.html link] (The ZBS Story Part 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 whenever new scripts were written. The amateur 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.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.

tory

Jack Flanders, a hitchhiker and drifter, is invited to the estate of his aunt, Lady Sara Jowls. As Jack approaches the estate, he sees an outline of the mansion silhouetted against the night sky, 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 inhabitants of Inverness, including the mansion's caretaker, Old Far-seeing Art, who can listen to the aum sound emanating from the center of the Universe, and tends to the estate's 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 mansion's hollow walls, and Little Frieda, a Venusian who is a "million and a half" years old, but looks like a small girl with large pigtails and a penchant for smoking huge Havana cigars.

The group teach Jack what he needs to know in order to successfully enter, and more importantly, return from, the Fourth Tower, ranging from an explanation of the Tibeten Wheel of Life to a past-life regression and a lesson on how to draw energy from trees.

Lady Jowls' husband, Sir Henry Jowls, vanished into the mysterious Fourth Tower without a trace some years ago. Lady Jowls is disturbed by the recent happenings at the mansion, in particular 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 have been on the rise in Inverness recently, and range from simple misunderstandings involving an aroused kundalini to a fire-breathing dragon.

Jack realizes that the mysterious jukebox must be playing in 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.

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

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!"

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.

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.National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc "Meatball Fulton Profile" " [http://www.natf.org/profiles/lopez.html link] (Interview with Meatball Fulton)]

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.

equel

The Fourth Tower of Inverness is the beginning of the Jack Flanders 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.

References

External links

* [http://zbs.org ZBS Foundation]
* [http://www.whirlitzer.org/ Whirlitzer of Wisdom fansite]