Network broadcast date: Monday,
December 7, 1964
Bug Off
Genre: Horror
Author: Marquita Fisher
Production number: 94
Production date: Monday,
November 23, 1964
Director: Warren Somerville
Plotline: Desperate to get through to the police, a babysitter struggles just to get past a couple teenagers chatting away on the party line, convinced it’s all a joke.
Listen:
https://archive.org/details/T5project/Theater+Five+641207+091+Bug+Off.flac
Cast: Bernard Grant, Evie Juster, Jimsey Somers, Rosemary Rice, Donald Buka, Cecil Roy
Notes:
Fisher was a writer at NBC for TV and radio in the late 1950s
On May 17, 2022, Kristi Noel wrote this comment on the Old Time Radio Researchers Facebook page:
Thank you, Kristi, for your comment! T5 was making an effort to be "contemporary" and the "British Invasion" music was one of the ways to do that, for sure. It was less than a year after the Fab Four had their three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and they were taking the nation's music airwaves by storm.I was listening to Theater Five and came across an episode called "Bug Off" from December 7, 1964. A teenage girl is babysitting a young boy who is sick and she's trying get ahold of the parents. In the meantime, she likes to tell lies and no one believes her when she tries to explain that the boy is sick. The parents live out the county where there is a party-line. Every time she picks up the phone, her classmates are on it and won't hang up so she can contact the parents.I was surprised when after the parents left, the girl switches on a radio and guess what's playing? The Beatles' cover of 'Roll Over Beethoven.' When she returns to the living room to try and call again, we hear 'Thank You Girl' and then a snippet of their version of 'You Really Got A Hold On Me.' This was the real deal, no generic group sounding like The Beatles or something similar like they did with every TV show back then. Interesting how the production was allowed to use actual Beatles songs in this episode.