This richly detailed examination of two branches of American entertainment focuses on the various ways that radio stations and air personalities have been depicted in motion pictures, from 1926's The Radio Detective to more recent films like 2006's A Prairie Home Companion. Cinematic portrayals of various aspects of radio are covered, including disc jockeys, sports broadcasts, religious programs, and the talk-radio format. Such films as The Big Broadcast (1932), Reveille with Beverly (1943), Mister Rock and Roll (1957), WUSA (1970), Radio Days (1987) and Private Parts (1997) provide fascinating insights not only into their own times, but also into the historical eras that some of these films have endeavored to recreate. A chronological filmography of more than 600 titles is included.

* ABA "Indie Next List" pick for March 2022. * 2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards, Winner. * Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, Shortlist. * "A Best Book of 2022" —NYLON, Glamour, Refinery29 UK, Harpers BAZAAR UK * "A Most Anticipated Book" —Lit Hub, The Millions New Animal is a poignant, darkly comedic look at human connection from a biting and original new voice in Ella Baxter. Amelia Aurelia is approaching thirty and her closest relationships — other than her mother — are through her dating apps. She works at the family mortuary business as a cosmetic mortician with her eccentric step-father and older brother, whose throuple’s current preoccupation is with what type of snake to adopt. When Amelia’s affectionate mother passes away without warning, she is left without anchor. Fleeing the funeral, she seeks solace with her birth-father in Tasmania and stumbles into the local BDSM community, where her riotous attempts to belong are met with confusion, shock, and empathy. Hilarious and heartfelt, New Animal reveals hard-won truths as Amelia struggles to find her place in the world without her mother, with the help of her two well-intentioned fathers and adventures at the kink club.

The life-long inventor, Lee de Forest invented the three-element vacuum tube used between 1906 and 1916 as a detector, amplifier, and oscillator of radio waves. Beginning in 1918 he began to develop a light valve, a device for writing and reading sound using light patterns. While he received many patents for his process, he was initially ignored by the film industry. In order to promote and demonstrate his process he made several hundred sound short films, he rented space for their showing; he sold the tickets and did the publicity to gain audiences for his invention. Lee de Forest officially brought sound to film in 1919. Lee De Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film is about both invention and early film making; de Forest as the scientist and producer, director, and writer of the content. This book tells the story of de Forest’s contribution in changing the history of film through the incorporation of sound. The text includes primary source historical material, U.S. patents and richly-illustrated photos of Lee de Forest’s experiments. Readers will greatly benefit from an understanding of the transition from silent to audio motion pictures, the impact this had on the scientific community and the popular culture, as well as the economics of the entertainment industry.

From Weimar Germany to Hollywood to East Berlin, Brecht on Film and Radio gathers together a selection of Bertolt Brecht's own writings on the new film and broadcast media that revolutionised arts and communication in the twentieth century. Bertolt Brecht's hugely influential views on drama, acting and stage production have long been widely recognised. Less familiar, but of profound importance, are his writings on film and radio. From Weimar Germany to Hollywood to East Berlin, Brecht on Film and Radio gathers together for the first time a selection of Brecht's own writings on the new film and broadcast media that fascinated him throughout his life and revolutionised arts and communication in the twentieth century. Marc Silberman's full editorial commentary sets Brecht's ideas in the context of his other work. "I strongly wish that after their invention of the radio the bourgeoisie would make a further invention that enables us to fix for all time what the radio communicates. Later generations would then have the opportunity to marvel how a caste was able to tell the whole planet what it had to say and at the same time how it enabled the planet to see that it had nothing to say." (Bertolt Brecht)

Mass Appeal describes the changing world of American popular culture from the first sound movies through the age of television. In short vignettes, the book reveals the career patterns of people who became big movie, TV, or radio stars. Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson symbolize the early stars of sound movies. Groucho Marx and Fred Astaire represent the movie stars of the 1930s, and Jack Benny stands in for the 1930s performers who achieved their success on radio. Katharine Hepburn, a stage and film star, illustrates the cultural trends of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Humphrey Bogart and Bob Hope serve as examples of performers who achieved great success during the Second World War. Walt Disney, Woody Allen, and Lucille Ball, among others, become the representative figures of the postwar world. Through these vignettes, the reader comes to understand the development of American mass media in the twentieth century.

“Your fear, your own lives, have become your entertainment.”—Talk Radio “More timely today than it was twenty years ago . . . Radio crackles with intensity.”—Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News “The most lacerating portrait of a human meltdown this side of a Francis Bacon painting. . . . This revival, like the original production, allows its star to grab an audience by the lapels and shake it into submission.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio—his breakthrough 1987 Public Theater hit that was made into a film by Oliver Stone—has been revived in a “mesmerizing” (Newsday) production on Broadway, with Liev Schreiber playing the role of the late-night shock jock that Bogosian himself originated. The drama is set in the studio of Cleveland’s WTLK Radio over the course of Barry Champlain’s two-hour broadcast, being scrutinized that night by producers with an interest in taking the show national, and fueled as always by coffee, cocaine, and Jack Daniel’s. Barry’s jousts with his unseen callers—ranging from a white supremacist to a woman obsessed with her garbage disposal—are peppered with insights into his character from his ex-deejay pal and his sometime girlfriend/producer, and punctuated with a transformative visit from an embodied voice. Eric Bogosian is a writer and actor who over the last twenty years has authored five full-length plays and created six full-length solos for himself, including subUrbia; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead;and Drinking in America. He is the recipient of three OBIE Awards and a Drama Desk Award, and has toured throughout the United States and Europe.

To today's radio listener, it is difficult to imagine the influence radio once held over the American people. Unlike movies or newspapers, radio both informed and entertained its audience without requiring them to participate. Part of its success depended upon the people who created the sound effects--a squeaking door, the approach of a horse, or a typewriter. The author did live sound effects during the "Golden Age" of radio. He provides many insights into the early days of the medium as it grappled with entertaining an audience based on a single sense (hearing). How the sounds were produced is fully covered as are the artists responsible for their production. Stories of successful effects production are balanced by embarrassing or funny failures. A list of artists and their shows is included.