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Audio Programs

©1995

Digitally remixed from the original masters.

MP3 Audio Sample (2.5 MB)

(A Great Northern Audio Theatre Double Header,
with Solid State University )

The Tumbleweed Roundup film series:
  • Secret of the Red Desert, 1947
  • Tumbleweed Roundup, 1948
  • The Western Hills Aglow, 1949
  • Smoke and Mirrors on the Range, 1949
  • Into the Big Sky, 1950 (color)

"The writing is razor sharp, the story sparkles and captivates - ideally suited to the audio medium. Stearns & Price really know how to write Audio Theatre!"
--Roger Gregg, Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, Ireland.

Mack Brown is looking for a part of his childhood. He remembers all those old "Tumbleweed Roundup" movies he saw as a kid, and wonders what happened to them. They don't show up on late-night TV or in video stores. So he begins looking around.
He visits an old friend, finds one of the cowboys who made the original films, attends a gathering of the Tumbleweed Roundup Reenactment Society, and gets caught up in a conspiracy.

The Tumbleweed Roundup films, now lost, were done by real cowboys on the Wyoming ranch of Major Jack Aisdell, an Englishman rancher. There was a western realism that was natural and believeable and not apparent in other films. Yet there was also a fantastic element from the unexplainable special effects and the cowboys' friendship with the Short Shoes, a little green Injun tribe.

"Several years ago I saw tumbleweeds blowing across the road in South Dakota and wondered if they were on their annual migration to the North. Perhaps later in the year they'd all migrate back to the Southwest for the winter. Put that together with my desire to do a science fiction western and to work with Brian Price, and we got 'Tumbleweed Roundup.'" - Jerry

CAST & CREW:
  • Damiian Mariio Lang as Mack Brown
  • Lou Green as Chester "Weebee" Smallby
  • Thea Alexander as Darla Aisdell and Elie
  • Lindy Combs as Gretchen
  • Charlie Meitzner as Caddywampus Parker and Jim Wakely
  • Doug Clow as Clem and Bob McKnight
  • Barb Economon as Tully Marshall, and
  • Jerry Stearns as Ted Silver (of 'Silver's Screenings')
  • Mark Wheat as Major Jack Aisdell
  • Sarah Cardin as Bob's Wife
    •

    Music:

    • Tumbleweed Roundup Theme by Mike Wheaton.
    • Darla's Theme, on Pedal Steel guitar by Johnny Fields.

    Artwork by Ken Fletcher.

    Written by Brian Price and Jerry Stearns
    Directed by Brian Price
    Produced and digital remix by Jerry Stearns

    Thanks to Film in the Cities, and to KUOM "Radio K" at the University of Minnesota,

    Funding:

    This program was made possible by a grant from the Minnesota Science Fiction Society, and by a grant from The Midwest Media Artists Access Center (MMAAC) with funds made available by The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council through an appropriation from the Minnesota Legislature, and the Media Fund created by the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts.

    A Great Northern Audio Theatre
    Double Header

    Tumbleweed Roundup - 31:00
    Tumbleweed Roundup Theme Song - 3:57
    Solid State University - 28:42

    (Tumbleweed Roundup Theme,
    © 1995 Wheaton/Price
    McClure & Trowbridge Publishing, BMI)

    Tumbleweed Roundup Denials

    Addendum to the 1951 National Guide to Federal, State and Municipal Unofficial and Off-the-Record Denials, Disclaimers and Retractions, Vol. XVII

    1. The United States Air Force has no record of operating any secret and/or experimental landing strips in the vicinity of the Antelope Hills, WY and further denies that anything of interest ever landed there.

    2. The Ursus americanus Anti-Defamation League strongly denies that any bears (black or grizzly) play poker, roulette or any other game of chance. They further deny that bears cheat. The UAADL suggests that these accusations are referring to ferrets.

       
    3. The American Poultry Protection Council knows of no report of a chicken purportedly named Clem being accidently boiled and/or eaten on an undisclosed Wyoming ranch in the years 1950 or 1951 (statistics for 1949 unavailable).

       
    4. A spokesman for the Shortshoe Indian tribal council rejects that there is any evidence supporting the notion that members of their tribe are any shorter than any other indigenous group of North Americans. When presented with a photograph showing a group of Shortshoes appearing to be 1 to 2 feet shorter than the people they were standing next to, the spokesman suggested his tribesmen may have been standing in a ditch or other similar hole.

       
    5. The Dented Recreational Vehicle Association claim that reports in an addendum to its 1951 Annual Review that any mention and/or newspaper account of members' trailers and/or vehicles floating, levitating, or being picked up on NORAD radar are greatly exaggerated.

       
    6. Furthermore, from 1948-1951 no tumbleweed has ever been officially reported lost or stolen, and although clocked at a top speed of 85 mph, no tumbleweed has been officially detected on radar or other motion-sensitive detection equipment.