What is the chilling legacy of “Chicken Heart,” a seven-minute radio drama that first aired in 1937 on the iconic show Lights Out? Join us as we explore the eerie world crafted by Arch Oboler and discuss how this seemingly simple tale continues to haunt pop culture today. What makes “Chicken Heart” resonate so strongly in the contemporary era? We’ll delve into the historical context, the media landscape, and the anxieties of the pre-WWII era that shaped this story.
Using Blake Snyder’s (2005) framework from Save the Cat, along with media theories from Slavoj Žižek and Stuart Hall, we will uncover the compelling story structure and the unstoppable horror tropes it embodies. We will also examine its cultural impact through insights from Stephen King’s analysis of radio horror and Bill Cosby’s comedic retelling.
Join us for an exploration of why “Chicken Heart” endures, revealing how sound continues to evoke terror in this timeless classic!
Sources
Halloween Heartthrob: The “Chicken Heart” that Gobbled Up the Globe | Timeless
Bill Cosby, Chicken Heart sketch YouTube (starts at 8:17)
📝 Show Full Transcription
This is an AI-generated audio transcript, and it may contain errors. We may update or correct this transcript in the future. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about the information in this transcript. The audio is the official record of this episode.
Craig
Alright, welcome here to media mothership here on Edge Radio 99.3 FM.
Speaker 3
What made half life, Alex there we.
Speaker
OK. Yeah.
Craig
Go. Yes. Alright. So as always, we’re using the wonderful technology from Edge Radio studios here at Nepal, Luna, Hobart TAS. And I’m your host, Craig. On this show, we explore how media can cheap our understanding of the world around us. Last week we took a deep dive into various parts of pop culture, including some and. Or Star Wars? Stuff and a little bit of discussion of anime as well as some news and current pop culture topics. Today’s topic we’re going to do a huge deep dive into. Horror and radio. I came across some really fascinating discussion from Stephen King in his book dance Macabre, talking about the impact of radio, effectively conveying horror. So we’re going to listen to a classic short 7 minute. Horror. Drama called Chicken Hearts Chicken Heart the most unlikely of things that could drive horror into the heart of a listener. So we listen to that. Some people might also know of chicken heart from the fantastic, though now problematic Bill Cosby sketch that he did in one of his early live up. Live stand up albums we’ll we’ll. Unpack all of that. That and a whole bunch of other stuff on media mothership today, but the main question is, you know, this, this, this idea of how it has seven minute radio drama from 1937 can still I, I reckon haunt pop culture today. I reckon there’s some. Lessons and some interesting. Political reverberations that chicken hearts. Echoes with today’s politics, particularly the news we’re hearing out of California and the kind of. Trump military police crackdown that’s going on there I. Think there’s chicken heart? Is in conversation with even scary politics like that today. So keep listening to. Media mothership with myself Craig here on Edge Radio, 99.3 FM. Of course. If you do have any comments while we’re doing today, show you can SMS US directly in the studio on 0488811707 or reach out to us via the live stream. On YouTube and Twitch. OK, welcome back now. Musical accompaniment, the thumb, Hogan. Chicken hearts. So I guess to set up this idea of how a 7 minute radio drama from way back in 1937 still packs a punch. Or does it?
Speaker
We’ll, we’ll, we’ll.
Craig
Look a little bit about the history first of it, why this kind of? Matters so chicken Hearts broadcast 1937. It’s written by one of the big names in radio dramas, particular horror Arch Oboler, and he wrote for the radio drama series mainly lights out. We’ll listen to the Bill Cosby sketch, which kind of amps up the experience of watching. Or sorry, of listening to radio dramas like Light Sounds briefly before we dive into listening to it, the the story of Chicken Heart is is basically a scientific experiment which goes horribly wrong. You know, it starts with this idea of a checking. And then as we’ll hear. Things escalate into this crazy panic. To put it in a little bit of context, I guess you got to understand that at the time this was written in the 1930s, you’ve got this really cool, fascinating glimpse into some of the I reckon the key anxieties. That were echoing or that were occurring in that time in the late 30s. Think about it. I mean, here we are pretty much in the Golden Age of radio in the 30s. You know, television has certainly not. Made an impact, right? You you really needing to earn to the 50s and 60s? Nineteen 30S was still dominated by radio. Radio was the form of of popular entertainment and communication and a series like lights, Lights out. And this is one of the early episodes. From it is part of what was making radio drama something so exciting for people to listen into. Now, importantly, some of you. Guys might have. Heard of the classic media panic radio drama that was Orson Welles? War of the world? That was the one, of course, that led to a huge panic around the power of media and radio to again shape the way people perceived reality around them. You know, war of the worlds based on HD World’s Classic novel was broadcast in radio, formed by Orson Welles and done in such a manner. That people thought the live broadcast that was occurring was actually happening. And again it did that by echoing some of the broadcasts that were happening at that point from the. Blitz that was occurring on England during World War Two from the German air bombings and evoking that sense of disaster, the Hindenburg disaster, which was broadcast on radio. So again this. Chicken heart occurs one year, so it’s broadcast to one year before war of the Worlds, but I think it sets up the same type of media panic and certainly Bill Cosby’s comedy sketch about his experience listening to Chicken Heart is all about. The media panic he experienced listening to chicken heart. So we’ll play a little bit of that Bill Cosby thing as well as the Stephen King analysis of Chicken Heart shortly. But before we go any further, the other thing to listen out for I guess is this idea that in the 1930s you got to see this movement of of kind of science and medicine. That’s going through incredibly rapid advancements. You know, we’ve only had flights occurring, you know, in the 1913 era. So 1930s is only 20 years after flights. You’ve got the expansion of a number of technologies, including radio itself. Of. So. Chicken Heart is is kind of in conversation with some of these fears and you know, kind of technological determinism that is taking up around science at the moment. The kind of humorous of science and 37, I mean, while World War 2 hasn’t occurred yet, that won’t be until 1939. And Germanys’s invasion of Poland. Nevertheless, you’ve still got. What is it? I think the Marco Polo incidents occurred with Japan and China launching that conflict between Japan going through into China. So we’re really at the brink of World War 2 during this time. I mean, there’s a lot of of of stress that’s occurring here. I mean, Hitler’s in power, Hitler’s starting to gobble up little spots. I’m not sure if Czechoslovakia. Or so Dayton land has fallen into Germany yet, but it’s right around that period. You’ve got Chamberlain, you’ve got piercement occurring. We’re at the brink of war, right? It’s certainly gearing up. So I think this, this theme that we’ll hear about in chicken heart of. And unstoppable destructive force. Is is certainly. I think in conversation with that point in history, so a little bit of media induced panic. So as you’re listening to this, think about, you know, if you turn the lights out literally the name of the horror serial, this is broadcast in it’s lights out. So turn those lights out. Listen to this episode. Think about whether it could induce a bit of panic. What’s also interesting about? The final point about chicken heart before we listen to. Is, as we’ll unpack. The fact that you’ve got some really memorable comedy interpretations. Yeah, Bill Cosby’s famous retelling as well as it being in Stephen King’s book dance Macabre, which is his analysis of horror as a genre, what makes horror work. And he talked specifically about chicken heart. So let’s give a listen now to the 1937 chicken heart. This has been remastered again. It’s a classic from radio. Horror. And created by Arch Uber. You know one of the big masters of. Terror that we’ll listen to. So here is chicken heart. We’ll play the whole thing. It only goes to 7 minutes. 40 seconds. So sit back, enjoy, grab a coffee or tea and listen to chicken heart.
Speaker 4
Do you remember some time ago in an eastern scientific institution? They kept the peace of heart alive for weeks on end. Well, I got to thinking, what if that heart began to grow? And grow and grow. Grow.
Speaker 5
Hello. Hello. Operator. Give me Mr Reagan fast. Hello, Mr Reagan. This is Lewis. Listen, get me a rewrite, man. The things still growing. No cheap. I tell you the truth. That corridors choked with living, crawling flesh. No, no, no, I’m not drunk. I’m telling you the truth. That little piece of flesh has grown until now. It’s. Jamming that building. All inside the space of an hour. You’ve got to believe me. It’s the greatest news story of the generation. And here you argue with me. I tell you, it’s the truth. You’ve got to believe in you.
Speaker 3
You must believe me, I tell you, the only hope is to burn the building to. The ground that one. Now, wait a minute. Wait. A minute. Take it. I tell you. Burn it to the. Ground burn and I tell you, take it. Easy. I sent in a call. Don’t you understand? For some reason I cannot even imagine, this tissue is doubling in size every hour. Do you know what that means? In another hour it will be twice the size it is now, and long before that it will break open the building with the force of its pressure, and then it will be free in the street. Do you hear me? Free. On the street and then those those tentacles of protoplasm stretching out to feed on anything they can reach.
Speaker 6
What’s happening? You see the walls cracking? They want. I want you.
Speaker 3
I tried to warn them. But now it is too late. The heart is free.
Speaker 8
Where is it?
Speaker 7
Gentlemen, gentlemen, come to order. Please, gentlemen. Please. Quiet, quiet, please. Please. Please now as mayor, no one realises more than I do the necessity of immediate action in terming this unspeakable unbelievable emergency. Can I assure you that I.
Speaker 8
I cut the speeches, Mike, that blasted thing is spreading like a forest fire. All the governor.
Speaker 7
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Please wait here. Is Doctor Albert from the Research Institute. Speak. Step up here. Doctor, do so.
Speaker 9
Aaron.
Speaker 10
Let’s see what he says.
Speaker 3
Gentlemen. It was in my institute this horror began. And if you give me a chance, perhaps I can stop it. What is your?
Speaker 7
Doctor, tell us first what that monster really is, yes.
Speaker 3
Yes, I will tell you that great ever growing mass of flesh it is or it was a chicken heart.
Speaker 7
Hard. Are you crazy?
Speaker 5
Men.
Speaker 7
Yes. Chicken heart. Chicken heart. Listen to me, you fool. Listen, listen. Up there, who knows what he’s talking about.
Speaker 3
I tell you that mass of flesh was a chicken heart, the tissue of which for some reason is undergoing constant, rapid, accelerating growth with every passing hour, its growth is doubling. Do you know what that means? If it is now one block in size within 30 hours, that cannibal flesh will have increased in size. To 1 square block to the 30th power in 30 hours. Every inch of this whole city will be crushed under that moving. Within 60 hours it will have covered the entire state within two weeks, the entire United States. You ask for the National Guard. I say call out the entire army. We’ll ask this thing off the earth.
Speaker 8
Already Keith pumpers already all hoses coupled up. We’ll flood that thing with water from all.
Speaker 10
Angles alright, here’s the signal.
Speaker 7
Open them up full blast.
Speaker 8
Chief work out. That’s reaching out. Get back everybody, everybody.
Speaker 3
Is what good is water? I told them the only hope is artillery. Bums.
Speaker 10
All National Guardsmen report to your armouries. All National Guardsmen report to your armouries. General mobilisation.
Speaker 8
Battery in position, Sir.
Speaker 10
Firing on the album.
Speaker 7
Sir.
Speaker 11
Then.
Speaker 3
Aye.
Speaker 9
Hi here.
Speaker 3
Useless. It has grown too large and it grows too quickly. The flesh is already engulfing the guns. They came too late.
Speaker 5
You all right now, Doctor Albert? Yes.
Speaker 3
Yes, I’m all right, Mr. Lewis.
Speaker 5
Well, I sure am glad I located you. I stole as long as I could. Another 10 minutes and we could have taken off that blasted protoplasm or whatever it is was sucking at the wheels by the. Time we left the. Yes, yes, I saw 5000 feet. Well, we’ll cruise around up here for a few minutes and. Then head W it will.
Speaker 3
Do no good.
Speaker 5
You can’t mean it it it must stop growing sometime it must.
Speaker 3
Look at it down there. The grey blankets of evil covering. See how the roads are black with men and women and their children running for their lives. See how the protoplasmic grave reaches out and engulfs them. See.
Speaker 5
Stop it. Stop talking like that. We’ll get away the government. They’ll send bombing planes, poison gas.
Speaker 3
No. Listen to me, Lewis. You remember only a handful of days ago you asked me my prophecy of the end of the. With you remember my answer? Ohh such a scholarly prophecy. Cessation of Earth rotation. Mighty sounding astronomical theories. But now this is reality. Lewis. The end has come for humanity. Not in the red of atomic fusion. Not in the glory of interstellar combustion. Not in the piece of white. Hold silence, but with that, that creeping, grasping flesh below us. It is a joke. Hey, Lewis, a great joke. The joke of the cosmos. The end of mankind.
Speaker 6
No.
Speaker 11
Oh.
Speaker 3
Because of the chickens.
Speaker 9
No, we won’t die. I can’t die. I’ll find a safe landing somewhere. I’ll find a place. The motor. It’s cut out. We’re a spin. I can’t get.
Speaker 3
Out of it, I told you, doom. No, no mankind. Doom. No.
Speaker 9
We’re falling right into it, into the heart.
Craig
All right. There we have it. The chicken heart. One of the classic all time horror. Radio dramas. Let’s break this down first in terms of bleak Snyders see if the cat theory or script writing we’ve. Looked at black, bleak. Snyder, before he has proposed a number of ways in which, if you want to write a great movie, there’s. Specific number of story beats. You’ve gotta make sure you tick off. Let’s see if breaking down. Chicken hearts align strongly and reveals this kind of classic story build building structure that saves the cat is built around, so Snyder starts with the idea that you’ve got to start strongly with a good opening image. You’ve got to establish the world through that so. The radio drama Chicken Heart starts with the scientist talking about, you know, remember when they were able to create a heart. So establishing the idea of science, establishing the idea of science, being able to create amazing things. And this idea of hubris, right, that we’re we’re setting up this. Environment this this world where humans are masters over nature, they’re able to create anything they want, including a heart. So that’s the establishing image that first seen and we quickly go to the reporter setting up the theme, which is the report is calling back to his office. With a panic tone staying, you know? Ohh my God. It’s about to explode, right? The building that the heart was in as as, as you know, the the the heart’s been growing, it’s going to burst the walls and we have the scientists trying to warn everyone that this thing is just going to keep growing. So that’s kind of setting up this theme of of scientific ambition and and panic. Around the consequences if they become uncontrollable, so that that’s pretty much immediately the second scene we see that nicely as Snyder is saying, establishing the theme. You know panic. Scientific hubris, unchecked experiment, and then we have this setup as the hearts growing. We’re becoming aware of it. The fourth story beat that Snyder talks about is is an inciting incident. And it’s it’s around I guess the the walls have broken from the building that contain the hearts. So I’d say that’s probably the scene that’s the inciting incident. The fact that this heart is now growing uncontrollably, that’s the catalyst that then sets up the rest of the story, which is how are we going to stop this heart? Growing. Right. What’s going on? They’re they’re. They’re now realising that this scientific experiment is spiralling out of control, so we have seen five. Well story 5, which is the debate. Can it be stopped? So we have this classic scene where scientists, the mayors there and they’re all struggling to figure out how they’re going to fix this. They’re debating. Possible solutions? So we break now into Act 2. This is storytelling .6, which is the point of no return, right? So at this point the heart has continued to escape containment. We have the great scene. Where the local authorities are trying to use water, right, they’ve got the hoses out and they’re just trying to hose it down and it’s not working right. So there’s a sense of dread that’s creeping in that the world now is in full crisis mode. Water is not worked. The scientist has said, I told the fools what wouldn’t work. They’ve got to use artillery and bombs. Alright. So then we move into storytelling beat 7, which is fun and games. As the horror escalates. You’ve got the great scenes of that, you know, artillery being called in, the bombs being directed, the militaries involved, all these escalating panic movements as they’re futilely, they’re futile, ISM, they’re they’re they’re they’re not able to destroy the heart with any of the fun and games. That Snyder refers to as this story beat as we see a series of of kind of kind of core horror spectacles being described to us in the radio drama. There’s no real sense of well, there’s a kind of a false hope, right? So the false hope would be that scene near the end where the scientist is on the. The aeroplane, right. We had that scene where the his, his assistant or or helper has managed to get the aeroplane off the ground. The scientist that was involved in the research has made it onto that aeroplane and. And it. It’s a kind of midpoint, false hope moment where it looks like they might be able to get out of it. Right. So the pilots say, you know, we’ll just circle around a bit. We’ll try to figure out what to do next. But that effort is all in fail because we’re at Story Week 9, which is the bad guys closing right this chicken heart, the bad guy, the villain, the force of Nature has continued to expand. The scientist in the aeroplane is just saying it’s all hopeless. Destruction is inevitable. Story bit 10 all is lost, right? There’s a final realisation, right? The the pilots refusing to acknowledge this. I know I can’t die now. This can’t happen. But who’s lost? And we’re now into a full dystopic, pessimistic story with story beat 11 dark night of the soul. So the scientist and the pilots in the aeroplane now confronts their powerlessness, right? And the scientist. Kind of reflects on his own humour. This, and we reached this wonderful kind of finale right where the growth of the hearts being recognised as impossible to stop this kind of ultimate horror is being seen below them. He’s talking about the grey heart, the little black dots of people trying to escape. We have the finale where this height is is is consuming everything and that that theme of that we established in scene one with the reporters cooling his base at the scientists saying, you know, those fools have got to listen to. Me that these unchecked forces are now beyond human control, with a wonderful final image.
Speaker 1
Which is a.
Craig
Sound effect image, of course. For radio of the splats of the the aeroplane losing its engine right and spiralling out of control, and this wonderful final sound of the SPLAT as the aeroplane crashes into the heart. So it’s certainly a really strong. Story in terms of breaking it down in those fourteen save the cat story beats in terms of where Snyder would place this as a genre. As you know, he he defines genres in terms of specifically memorable thought. So it’s not a horror genre. He would say this is a monster in the house. Subgenre right where you have this unstoppable force, right. The monster in the house, which is just wreaking havoc in this case due to human error. Right, the scientists tubers. And it’s got that classic structure that follows the kind of escalating tension and inevitable doom story. So it’s considered a classic of being able to map that out. It’s a wonderful kind of inevitable doom. 7 minutes, 7 1/2. And it’s packs in a lot. And again, Bill Cosby’s little comedy routine on his experience as a child listening to this drives that home. But before you get to Bill Cosby, let’s listen to how Stephen King, the well known horror author, explains why he thinks. Chicken heart matters. And it’s really important to listen to, even to it now. So this is in Stephen King’s dance macabre book, which is his writing about why horror works, how it works in movies, how it works in literature, and what we’re going to be hearing about is, is a little snippet from the audio book. Created by William Derfus derfus. So we’ll listen to hear Steven you talking about the importance of radio horror and in particular, the author of it, Arch Ublas. Chicken heart.
Speaker 1
3. We’re almost done with our brief discussion of radio. Now. I think that to do much more would be to risk droning along like one of those tiresome cinema buffs want to spend the night telling you how Charlie Chaplin was the greatest screen actor who ever lived, or that the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns stand at the apex of the existential absurdist movement. But no discussion of the phenomenon of radio terror, no matter how brief, would be complete without some mention of the genres Primo 2. Not Orson Welles, but Arch Oboler, the first playwright to have his own National Radio series, the chilling Lights out. Lights out was actually broadcast in the 40s, but enough of the programmes were rebroadcast in the 50s and even in the 60s. For me to feel I can justify their inclusion here. The one I remember most vividly from its rebroadcast on Dimension X was the chicken heart that ate the world oboler like so many people in the horror field, Alfred Hitchcock, as another prime example, are extremely alert to the humour implicit in horror, and this alertness was never on better view than in the chicken. Art story made you giggle at its very absurdity, even as the goose flesh raced up and down your arms.
Speaker
Which?
Speaker 1
You remember that only a few days ago you asked me my opinion on how the world would end. The scholarly scientist who is unwittingly perpetrated the horror on an unsuspecting world solemnly tells his young protege as they fly at 5000 feet in a light plain over the ever growing chicken heart. You remember my answer. Uh, such a scholarly prophecy. Mighty sounding theories about cessation of Earth, rotation, entropy, but now this is reality, Lewis. The end is come for humanity. Not in the red of atomic fusion, not in the glory of interstellar combustion. Not in the piece of white cold silence. But with that, that creeping, grasping flesh below us.
Speaker 12
It was a joke. Gay Lewis. The joke of the cosmos, the end of mankind because of a chicken heart.
Speaker 1
No Louis jibbers. No, I can’t die. I’ll find a safe landing place. But then, perfectly on cue, the comforting drone of a planes engine in the background becomes a coughing stutter. We’re in a spin, Lewis screams.
Speaker 12
The end of all mankind.
Speaker 1
The doctor proclaims and stentorian tones and the two of them falled directly into the chicken heart. We hear it. Steady, beat louder, louder, and then the sickly splash that ends the play. Part of Obler’s real genius was that when Chicken Heart ended, you felt like laughing and throwing up at the same time. Cue the bombers, an old radio bit used to run drone of bombers in the background. The minds eye visualises a sky black with flying forts. Dropped the ice cream into Puget Sound. The voice continues. Whining hydraulic sound of Bombay’s opening a rising whistle followed by a gigantic splash. All right. Cue the chocolate syrup, the whipped cream. And drop the maraschino cherry. Is. We hear a great liquid squishing sound as the chocolate syrup goes, then a huge hissing as the whipped cream follows. These sounds are followed by a heavy plop, plop, plop in the background. And, absurd as it may be, the mind responds to these cues that interior eye actually sees a series of gigantic ice cream sundaes rising out of Puget Sound like strange volcanic. Stones, each with a maraschino cherry the size of Seattle’s Kingdom. On top of it. In fact, we see those disgustingly red cocktail cherries raining down, plopping into all thou whipped cream and leaving craters nearly the size of great Tycho. Thank the genius of Stan Freberg. Arch Oboler A restlessly intelligent man who was also involved in. Movies 5 one of the first films to deal with the survival of Mankind after World War 3 was Obler’s brainchild. And the legitimate theatre utilised 2 of radios. Great strengths. The first in the minds innate obedience, its willingness to try to see whatever someone suggests it see, no matter how absurd the second is, the fact that fear and horror are blinding emotions that knock our adult pins from beneath us. That leave us groping in the dark like children who cannot find the light. Radio is, of course, the blind medium, and only obler used it so well or so completely. Of course, our modern years pick up the necessary conventions of the medium that have been outgrown, mostly due to our growing dependence on the visual and our. Set of reality. But these were standard practises which audiences of the day had no trouble accepting. Like tornieri’s paper mache, Rockwall and cat people. If these conventions seem jarring to listeners of the 80s, as the asides in a Shakespearean play seemed jarring to a novice playgoer, then that is our problem to work out as best we can. One of these conventions is the constant use of narration to move the story. A second is dialogue as description, a technique necessary to radio but one TV, and the movies have rendered obsolete. Here, for instance, from the chicken heart that ate the world is Doctor Albert’s discussing the chicken heart itself with Louis. Read the passage and then ask yourself how true this speech rings to your TV and movie trained ears. Look at it down there. A great blanket of evil covering everything. See how the roads are black with men and women and their children fleeing for their lives. See how the protoplasmic grey reaches out and engulfs them. On TV, this would be laughed out of cord as total corn. It is not hip as they say. But heard in the darkness, coupled with the drone of the light planes engine in the background, it worked very well indeed. Willingly or unwillingly, the mind conjures up the image. Oboler wants this great Jelly like BLOB beating rhythmically, swallowing up the refugees as they run. Ironically, television in the early talkies both depended on the largely auditory conventions of radio. Until these, alright, we’ll.
Craig
Post this that. Stephen King talking about why Chicken Heart works so well and how we really need to rewire ourselves to think about how. You know. Radio works as a theatre of the mind. How it doesn’t draw upon the same types of suspension of disbelief that we’ve become familiar with through TV and movies, where we want to visualise it. We want to see it. There’s pleasure in the watching of it here. It’s all in the minds eye and as king. Asks us when we listen to or read that last scene. That final scene of the scientists giving up hope and saying we’re all doomed. And looking down at the pulsating, growing, fleshy heart. Again, he says, you know, this work to our TV is and his feeling is it’s quite laughable. It wouldn’t. So let’s dive further into that idea of the theatre of the mind and how effectively it can work as kings setting out here. He’s saying it’s a really significant moment. To imagine through your mind’s eye the theatre of the mind, which really. Is able to do. By listening to one of the other important cultural effects that chicken heart had on pop culture, and this is Bill Cosby’s famous 1966 album Wonderfulness. Which was part of one of his. Live comedy acts and this is his famous discussion of chicken hearts. Of course, Bill Cosby famous. For you know. Fat, Alberts, Cosby, kids and so forth, and equally probably more infamous now for his criminal activities. And law cases against him and being found guilty of rape, SO1 can’t unpack that from what we’re about to hear, important to say, of course, and deeply problematic individual. People. But let’s listen to this famous comedy routine he has, which I do think speaks to Stephen King’s point around trying to understand how theatre of the mind works and how effective Arch Ogler was with chicken hearts at creating this. So let’s listen now to a a little bit from the sketch. From the 1966 album Wonderfulness by Bill Cosby.
Speaker 11
Go ahead, scare me to. I’m ready. I’m ready. Scare me, man. Come on now. And welcome to. Lights. Ohh yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Scare me. I was dumb enough to do whatever the guy said to do on the radio. Turn your lights off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To round, go on, scare me to death. I’m ready. Tonight’s episode is about a chicken heart. A chicken heart that ate up New York City. Yeah, go chicken heart. Go, go get him. Eat him up. Chicken heart scare me to death. I’m. I’m ready. I’m ready. The Chicken heart was kept alive. 5. In a laboratory and of that special solution, half blood, half sodium solution, right? One day a careless janitor. Knock that over, he went to get away to clean it up. The chicken heart grew. 6 foot 5 inches and in search. Of human blood. The janitor came back, opened the door. Them up.
Speaker 9
What?
Speaker 11
Go get him chicken high. Go get him. Go get him. It moved out into the hallway, rang for the elevator.
Speaker 13
4th floor.
Speaker 11
Go get him chicken high. Go get him. You will. Moved out into the street. Ate up all the cabs. The Empire State Building. Ate up their jersey Turnpike. It’s in your home state. It’s outside of your door. And it’s going to eat you up.
Speaker 13
Ohh, got my jello star spirited all over the floor. I set the sofa on fire. You won’t come there smoking fire and jello. My father came in the house and what? 1000 sober doing on fire coming out of the chicken was gonna eat. OK, zip. What chicken are you talking about? Who went on the radio show? You the idiot. Turn it off.
Speaker 11
I hadn’t thought of that. For two years, anybody that passed by our House.
Speaker 14
Hmm. My father, whether he knew him or not, would call him in. Hey, come on. I want to. Show you my dumb kid. Ohh and tell him you burn up $100 sofa and broke your father’s arm. Save us from that.
Craig
So that’s the classic 1966 Bill Cosby routine. Chicken hearts again, I think really putting you in the feeling of listening to that live. With a panic that can trigger into ones imagination. And of course, what’s interesting here is, you know Bill Cosby. Acknowledging the again talking about how Stuart Hall would talk about the reading positions here, you’ve got the dominant reading position of Chicken Heart, which is it’s a really good Horror Story, right? It has this good escalating horror that’s going to it, which interestingly, Bill Cosby sets up and in a really kind of fan fiction way. Actually embellishes and explains how the hearts started to grow. That a janitor accidentally knocked over some chemical the chemical got into the heart and just caused this unlikely growth of the heart that the scientists had had had kept alive. So one that you have the dominant reading, but then? You have, you know, Bill. Cosby, which is kind of doing his own, it’s a. Version of that. For comedy effect, talking about, you know, if you if you took it literally, it suddenly becomes insane. It says it’s weird that you would believe this suddenly. So much so that you’d set. Lie to you’re so fit to protect yourself, and again the whole absurdity of listening to the. Escalating horror that you you you’re only listening to radio show yet it seems so real. It seems like it’s happening so much like a year later. From this you’ll have awesome wells or the world’s broadcast, which notoriously led to people arming themselves, getting out of their homes to try to defend their communities. That that they. Were seeing this as real equally here for comedy Effect, Bill Cosby’s comic retelling of it being that kind. Of you know. It’s looking at it on paper, as Stephen King says, it’s. Kind of laughable. How can this chicken heart be so terrifying? That is absurd. Yet it is this masterful, I think, combination of of of you know, comic, horror and and kind of over identifying with the fear as a Zizek, Zizek the philosopher. Would talk about this, this, this kind of humour that occurs with extreme. Year where the terror is so ratchet it up that it gets to a point of absurdity which you know is, I think, the heart of Bill Cosby’s comedy routine there and and and also. Yeah. Obviously some listeners have have have registered that. Thanks Anna for smashing in. I’m glad it was fun to listen to that on the way home in the car. Because yeah, I think it does hold up 1937. This broadcast was first made, but it’s such an effective bit of. Of horror that it’s. Worthy of of unpacking it and also looking at the cultural impact it’s had, Steven. Being fantastic, one of the best horror authors, as well as Bill Cosby, turning it both into a bit of cultural touchstone to discuss. You know, Bill Cosby’s 1966 community and dance macabre. What came out in the early 80s. So there you’re looking at 20 year periods where this. Cultural touchstone of the 1937 radio drama You know still gets discussed and talked about. The other thing that’s so interesting I think about.
Speaker
Yes.
Craig
The chicken heart is this idea of, you know, the the absurd logic of it, that the system that you see that’s occurring around the chicken hearts, you know that, you know, the science system, the military system, the police system, the journalism system. All it does is kind of reinforces what they’re trying to stop, right? So they’re all trying to stop the growth of the chicken hearts. And again, this is what Zizek says is so powerful about horror stories that often they’re these tales. Of trying to stop the threats and particularly where the story is, you know, the darks tea time of the soul, the kind of, you know, and we lose, it’s about the system itself being broken, that the system itself is trying to stop the threat. But the more it tries to stop the threat, the worse the threat. That’s it’s bringing more amplification to the threat. And this is Isaac. ‘S theory of how he sees. Some abuses of power occurring, some kind of logics of of of ideology, that are growing exponentially and out of control, that the system might have begun with good intentions, but as it’s released some destructive force, the more that the system tries to stop that destruction. It in so. Amplifies it. So again, interesting kind of resonances. I think with Trump’s response to California today, right? How is it that the system, you know, claims of trying to stop violence yet still escalate violence? Right. So this logic, this paradox between. Just like the chicken heart, the expanding Organism. Which is paradoxically, being accelerated by its growth as. More bombing is occurring. More attempts to destroy it is happening, so there’s some really interesting philosophical questions that are occurring there as well as, as you know, Stephen King’s pointing out a really master class in how to create a story in 7 1/2 minutes. That is about the escalation of horror, the escalation of terror that works so effectively in radio. So it’s worth, you know if you’ve got a bit of time going back listening to lights out, a great 1930s forties radio serial drama. We’ve talked about other great moments in horror radio dramas like the thing on the FOURBLE board, which is more of a psychological horror. Chicken heart is pretty much. A fantastic example of more of your minimalist horror where the sound effects do all the heavy lifting for the for the panic, whereas the thing on the fourble board which is considered to be another great horror radio drama, really escalates that through this eerie narration. As the characters interact, listen back to our episode on. The thing on the forward board for more discussion on that. But yeah, we’ll. Dip into some more radio drama and piece together why it still matters in future shows. Again, I hope you thought the chicken heart was a nice bit of timeless horror, and in particular, listen back to it. Think of how sound based. Fear works, and if it’s still effective today as it was in 1937, turn those lights out and listen to it. And see if, umm, you know a true experience of horror isn’t just about monsters, but maybe about our inability to control the unknown. So that’s medium other for another week, we’ll be taking a break next week as they do a little bit of field research up in Launceston to bring some new interesting. Freeze to the airwaves in a fortnight time so no show. Next Thursday the 19th of June. Thanks everyone for listening to me and mother shipments. Radio. You can listen back to other audio notes for the show on your podcast supplier of choice. As well as catch visuals of the show on YouTube and Twitch, keep listening now to some really cool edge radio tunes.
