Radio’s “outstanding theater of thrills,” as the anthology series Suspense presented itself, featured a variety of stories in its nearly 20 year run (1943-1962): crime, paranormal, and sometimes sci-fi—including this episode, “That Real Crazy Infinity.” Written by Dick Dowling, directed by Bruno Zirato, and aired May 27, 1962 during Suspense’s final year, “Crazy Infinity” is an odd, lighthearted time travel, in which a couple of down on their luck beatniks meet a mad scientist desperate to invent a time machine so he can…listen to music.
Come with me now on a way out trip to a real happenin’ time.
An announcer drops the show’s tagline, “And now, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspensssssse…” segueing into horn-filled jazz music, voices and dishware clacking that sets the scene in a dive restaurant.
Two fellas slang it up as they lament their lack of bread.
“We still got our horns,” one says.
“Yeah, but do we blow ’em or hawk ’em?” says the other.
Stuck in a nameless burg, they’re looking for a gig to pay their travel expenses back to NYC.
They ask the “tomato behind the counter” where they can pick up a fast buck. The waitress, Jenny (Athena Lorde), shrugs. A nosy guy with a high-pitched voice muscles into the conversation. His name’s Charlie (Robert Dryden, longtime radio actor who also appeared on Saturday Night Live in its first season) and he owns an electronics store in town. Our hepcats intro themselves as Bud (radio/TV actor Jack Grimes, who voiced Sparky & Chim-Chim on Speed Racer, and played TJ Thistle on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet) and Lou (Richard Holland).
Jack Grimes (r) didn’t mind being called a Space Cadet
Bud, Lou, and Charlie head off to Professor Hagan’s mysterious estate, where they grunt and groan under the enormous weight of the equipment they’re delivering.
“What’s in here, rocks?” Bud carps. I’m thinking it had better be parts for a time machine, after last month’s Old Time Travel Radio fake-out.
Speaking of fake-outs, Charlie tells the boys he’s gotta get something from the truck—then skedaddles. “The money’s in your coat pocket,” he shouts as he peels out of the driveway. Bud and Lou totally did not see that coming. Yeah, you know who did? That tomato behind the counter. Moral of the story, always listen to your waitress.
Lou watches Charlie’s truck disappear. “It happened again, man,” he says. “We’re blowing a chorus with no lead.” I don’t know what that means, but it tells me something—Bud and Lou have been suckered before.
Cut to Professor Hagan’s house. Turns out he’s not a Martian or a serial killer or an insurance salesman eager to bust out the latest actuarial table and lay it on them. He’s just a nice, eccentric scientist determined to serve the boys a proper tea to thank them for the delivery. Hagan (Court Benson) even offers to let the guys stay overnight. Lou’s like, yeah, no, but Bud’s all over free room and board and accepts for both of them.
“Splendid!” Hagan gushes. “You don’t know how happy I am to get this equipment, I must replace some tubes in my Infiniphone.” Ooh, science-fiction-y, I’m intrigued. But, tubes? Weren’t the guys toting 16 tons up the professor’s front steps? How much do tubes weigh, anyway?
The Infiniphone, Hagan lectures, allows him to enjoy classical music concerts from the great masters. He invites Bud and Lou to join him in listening. “Yeah, that’ll be a gasser,” Bud says, full of snark. “You got a lot of records?”
Records? We don’t need records, the professor says, explaining that all sound trails off into infinity, and his machine tunes into that infinity, allowing him to hear masterworks in their original form, exactly as they were played centuries ago. Cool, I say. Kook, Bud says. Can I get more coffee? Lou says, clearly not paying attention.
The professor confesses he doesn’t dig modern society as much as he does the good old days, and “I’ll soon become a part of the great classical past I love so well.” This is the point when Bud should grab Lou by the ear and depart post-haste, but he’s too invested in the plotline now to bail before the conclusion.
Hagan asks if they want him to demo the Infiniphone. Bud’s an enthusiastic yes, telling Lou maybe they can find some way to scam the old guy out a few bucks by indulging his crazy self. Lou likes the professor, so he’s pretty meh on the plan.
Hagan explains the Infiniphone works “by patching the thingy-whatsit into the hoosamajiggy, and we can choose any past year we wish.” Clear as mud, Professor.
Bud volunteers Lou to give it a try and he tunes into some dude delivering a Latin lecture in 46 BCE. “I’m afraid it’s Julius Caesar again,” Hagan chuckles. “He’s always making speeches.” Lou spins the dial once more and stops at the sound of a wailing trumpet. “Whoa,” Lou cries. “That’s Berigan.” As in jazz great Bunny Berigan.
Bud gets as jittery as a five-year-old outside a locked bathroom door. “We gotta record this,” he cries. And it’s not the wonders of music traveling through time that wows him. He’s hatched a scheme—record Berigan and sell the record as a “lost” treasure rediscovered. The professor’s all, sure, whatever, I gotta get back to work on my “Infinitransiter.” That better be scientist speak for time machine.
Way out 50s jazz music segues us to Bud and Lou making a recording. Bud’s mentally ka-chinging all the bread they’re going to make from the “lost” Berigan sessions. Now, having endured too many years of windy, off-key bugling at my sons’ Boy Scout camp, I can’t claim a fondness for trumpet, but this jazz man blows a mean horn, so I can appreciate Lou’s dreamy murmurings as Bud chides him for paying more attention to the music than the task of taping it.
Dinner with the professor ends with Hagan saying he doesn’t plan to be around much longer. A big hint that he’s about to time travel, but ol’ Bud doesn’t get it.
“Will you leave the Infiniphone?” Bud asks, dollar signs in his eyes.
“We’ll see,” Prof. Hagan says, which in my house growing up always meant no, so Bud better finish his recordings while he has the chance.
Meanwhile, Lou’s become entranced by the music: “I’m stoned, I’ve never heard such wailing in my life. I’d give up the best gig in the world just to sit in with those cats, no bread, man, just for kicks!” The professor says he feels the same way, minus the slang, about the classical musicians of the 1800s, and will be leaving soon to spend his life with them. Bud rolls his eyes at them both.
Leaving Lou to make more recordings, Bud heads to town to hawk his Berigan “find.” He finds a buyer who’ll give him $25-grand for his discovery, but he has to fork over dozens of records. A cinch, Bud says, my partner is taking care of that right now.
Or so he thinks.
Back at the Professor’s, Bud finds Lou too busy jamming with his jazz age pals to do any work. Hagan comes in, announces he’s completed his Infinitransiter, and well, see ya, I’m off to the 1820s.
Lou’s all, can I hitch a lift? You can drop me off in the 1920s. And then they’re gone, real gone.
Before Bud can ask himself what just happened, an explosion rocks the house. “Well, the papers gave it quite a play,” he says. “They said mad professor and musician die in an explosion.” Bud goes on to say he woke up in the hospital and there was nothing left of the professor’s place, except the one tape Lou managed to record, the one tape Bud was going to make a bundle off of—the jazz greats jamming, with Lou sitting in, just for kicks.
“I hope he’s having a ball,” Bud says, wrapping up. “Out there, in that real crazy infinity.”
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