What intrigues me about Alonzo Deen Cole

At this particular moment in time, what intrigues me the most about Alonzo Deen Cole - aside from the fact that The Witch's Tale is so irresistably enjoyable - are the following two aspects of the items previously posted here:

 

1.  The Find a Grave web entry reports, "[A]uthor Read G. Burgan noted that 'nearly all radio, television, and even comic book horror series that followed borrowed liberally, and often shamelessly from the conventions first developed by Cole'."  And the Wikipedia entry adds, "EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines was inspired by Cole's Old Nancy host to create the character the Old Witch, illustrated by Graham Ingels as the host of EC's The Haunt of Fear."  More on this in future posts.

 

2.  The Find a Grave entry reports, "After the series had ended, while packing to move to California, Cole destroyed all of his original recordings of 'The Witch's Tale'. Only about 30 recordings of the original 332 episodes still exist in poor condition."  (I'll have to find the website to confirm this, but I've read that Cole arrived at this decision after determining that his recordings of "The Witch's Tale" wouldn't be worth shipping, when he moved from the east coast to the west coast.)  Thankfully, I think more episodes than this have been discovered over the years, but, hopefully, that can be pinned-down as well.

 

The first point highlights the reason why this blog should exist - it is criminal that Cole is not a household name.  As Sam Moskowitz said in 1993: "[P]ractitioners of the arts in all fields have their works preserved and are remembered because of the enthusiasm and loyalty of a group of fans. This is as true for moving pictures and music as it is for literature. No such organized group of devotees currently exists for Alonzo Deen Cole and he survives only in the form of records and tapes that have been preserved by collectors of radio memorabilia."

And the second point just makes me want to learn more about Cole as a person.