Claudia

[donnie]

Interesting...so would you say the show script was pretty faithful to the book, overall? What do you think of the author's writing style?

[Kitty]

I love the writing style. The books run through it all, though. I'm only on like the third chapter and she's already had the baby and about to look at the house.

[Kitty]

One thing I noticed is that Mr. Tucker is not at all central to the story, and some things that were a whole episode worth in detail are just brushed over. For example, there is no fighting for the walnut tree or deliberating over price. The fixing of the house, workers encountered, hardly any mention, except that it was done. In fact, I'm not so sure that Mr. Tucker has been mentioned at all.

Btw, which episode are you on? It will be easier to be careful comparing if I knew.

[donnie]

Interesting about Mr. Tucker! Maybe they had on hand a good New England rural-type voice actor, and thought it would add some color. Or maybe they just needed to pad the script timewise?

Actually, I dropped out of the habit of listening awhile back due to this and that. I'm still at ~285 or so, I think, so a ways to go. (David is about to return to work after the accident.) I've been missing it and will listen to some this afternoon.

[Kitty]

Ok! You're pretty far in there. Don't forget to leave some comments about any of it!

[donnie]

I listened today to the episode 290 about the football game, “a MAN’s game,” as David terms it. He then proceeds to explain it to poor, clueless little Claudia (or so he regards her —of course, she eggs him on by playing that role to the hilt. )

It occurred to me that so much of the dialogue in so many episodes is concerned with the differences between men and women. Claudia is always making comments about how men are (usually complimentary); and a full half of what David says consists of comments about how women are (usually not complimentary). Is this true of the dialogue in the book?

Constantly differentiating between men and women seemed to be something that was vitally important to the characters. I’m thinking that probably reflects something about society at that time, a strong need to keep men and women separated with a clear, sharp line in all ways. Contrast that with today….

If Claudia and David are typical of people of the era, I wonder if a blurring of lines was the fear—either consciously or unconsciously - ? Otherwise, why would they be constantly feeling they needed to define men and women? Some of that dialogue—or I guess mainly just the sheer amount of it—seems odd today. What do you think?

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. At any rate, I think it’s interesting how society can change so much in a few decades.

[donnie]

Just finished the episode about Jared's teeth. I know you're not too crazy about Jared, but I think he's so funny and entertaining. After the show, Joe credited those who played Jared and Mr. Warren. I was going to look him up, but forgot the name.

The one playing Mr. Warren sounds as if his mouth is stuffed with cotton. I liked the first actor that played Mr. Warren way back better, but I guess they wanted to go with a more comic voice for all the cow-trading stuff.

[donnie]

I have a question about episode #294, the Eastbrook Armistice Day episode. If you can remember, what is that very strange instrument playing taps? I think it's supposed to be a bugle, but it sounds very much like a woman humming and attempting to imitate one. Very odd.

I've noticed other imitation sounds made by actors—especially Shakespeare's meow. Couldn't they have gotten a recording of an actual cat?

[Kitty]

I listened today to the episode 290 about the football game, “a MAN’s game,” as David terms it. He then proceeds to explain it to poor, clueless little Claudia (or so he regards her —of course, she eggs him on by playing that role to the hilt. )
It occurred to me that so much of the dialogue in so many episodes is concerned with the differences between men and women. Claudia is always making comments about how men are (usually complimentary); and a full half of what David says consists of comments about how women are (usually not complimentary). Is this true of the dialogue in the book?

I don't think so, really. The book does reference how naive she is and how he knows so much more because he is so much older, but I don't think it's because he's a man per se.

Constantly differentiating between men and women seemed to be something that was vitally important to the characters. I’m thinking that probably reflects something about society at that time, a strong need to keep men and women separated with a clear, sharp line in all ways. Contrast that with today….
If Claudia and David are typical of people of the era, I wonder if a blurring of lines was the fear—either consciously or unconsciously - ? Otherwise, why would they be constantly feeling they needed to define men and women? Some of that dialogue—or I guess mainly just the sheer amount of it—seems odd today. What do you think?

This is definitely a talking point in a lot of radio shows that deal with married couples. It does seem that they were trying to beat into the public's consciousness that the woman took care of the house and children while the men went out to work (which, of course, was the norm) but it seemed extremely heavy handed back then. I wonder if they were worried (maybe foreseeing) that women were going to have to go out to work not too long in the future, and it would soon be a rarity that the woman would just be housekeeper. It was already happening because of the wars.

The thought that women were not good for much else except cooking and taking care of the household duties is off-putting. The thing bothers me most is the learning block. What I mean is, they made it sound like women were totally stupid when it came to technical matters - math and science were totally foreign and unlearn-able for women somehow. What's even more off-putting is the fact that the characters in old radio/tv shows is that the characters accepted it somehow as something that would never be useful for women, never needed to be learned, and so the female characters would shrug their shoulders and say oh, well, that's for men to know, anyway. I love to learn about many things. I feel like it would be a huge waste for someone not to care to learn.

[Kitty]

I have a question about episode #294, the Eastbrook Armistice Day episode. If you can remember, what is that very strange instrument playing taps? I think it's supposed to be a bugle, but it sounds very much like a woman humming and attempting to imitate one. Very odd.

I've noticed other imitation sounds made by actors—especially Shakespeare's meow. Couldn't they have gotten a recording of an actual cat?

If I'm not mistaken, the baby's cry also sounds like a grown person. I always hated that they did that, including using grown ups for children's voices. I went back, and that is definitely a person humming to make it sound like a bugle. Maybe they didn't have a bugle handy. Maybe they thought it was too loud of an instrument to be used on the quiet little program called Claudia. I didn't even give it any thought the first time I listened! Good catch.

As per your other post about the actors who did Warren and Tucker, the names were Cameron Andrews and Stewart Macintosh.