Granny Creech digs up the radio spots for The Day of the Triffids…

It is hotter than blazes here in Squirrel Hollow!

I was working in my garden the other day, sweating, cussing and cursing at the top of my voice, when my neighbor and best friend, Esmeree Grimshaw, came around the corner of the house into my backyard. She was carrying a small box.

“Granny!” she exclaimed, setting the box down on my back porch. “What in the world is going on? Why are you yelling so much?”

“These…danged…triffids are driving me crazy! Every summer when I come out here I am faced with pulling up all of these blasted weeds. I don’t know where they all come from. Danged triffids!”

Esmeree smiled gently at me. “Oh, Granny, you’re so silly. Here…let me help.”

So, for the next hour we sat in the dirt, pulling out all the invaders that seem to choose my garden to grow in, year after year. I don’t know how they keep coming back, but they are ugly little critters. I “fondly” call all these ugly weeds and stalks in my garden “triffids”. As we pulled them out, my grumbling continued.

“Well, why don’t you just use salt water to kill them?” Esmeree asked.

We both looked at each other and started to laugh.

“Okay,” I said. “You got me. Enough about triffids.”

“At least they don’t pull themselves out of the ground and chase you,” she said, with a sly little grin.

We went into the house and washed our hands. We cooled off with glasses of sassafras iced tea. Esmeree told me the reason she came by was to drop off  a box full of radio spots from The Radio Reaper. She opened the back door and brought in the box she had left on the porch. We spent the next few minutes going through it. Suddenly, Esmeree began to laugh. She handed me a record. “Here’s your next story,” she said.

I looked at the record she was holding and started to laugh, too. “That’s it,” I said. The Day of the Triffids. How fitting!”

The Day of the Triffids is a 1963 British film based on the 1951 novel by John Wyndham. When most of the entire world is blinded from watching a spectacular meteor shower, it is soon discovered that the meteorites contained spores which grow into giant mobile, man-eating plants. The story follows several characters who survive the blindness for various reasons and the trials they face.

The movie features many disturbing scenes of the general populace faced with sudden blindness: streets deserted of vehicular traffic while crowds of people stagger about; a train full of blind passengers crashing into a train station and the ensuing panic as injured passengers desperately grope their way around; and the moment when passengers on an airliner realize they and the pilots are all blind and the realization of their impending doom. Composite shots of burning cities and excellent matte paintings of  landmarks and streets with dozens of crashed vehicles, and a shot of hundreds of triffids growing in a giant crater, add to the terror.

When I first saw The Day of the Triffids, I felt I was watching two movies rolled into one. I later found out I was.  It seems that, according to the Internet Movie DataBase, the initial film starred Howard Keel and Nicole Maurey and centered on their adventures with the triffids. When production was over, the producers found they didn’t have enough footage to release as a full length movie. So, they brought on Janette Scott and Kieron Moore, created a new storyline set in a deserted lighthouse, and filmed their encounters with the triffids. The two stories were blended together into the movie we have now. It ends with a rather “War of the Worlds” tone as Moore and Scott find out that sea water dissolves and kills the triffids. Sea water, from whence mankind got its origin, now serves as its preserver.

The radio spots are awesome! They reflect the mystery and terror of the movie. Complete with amazing announcers, effective sound effects and music, the spots are some of the best I’ve heard. So, thanks to The Radio Reaper, have a listen and beware the unknown weeds in your garden: They may be…triffids!

Here are 10, 30, and 60 second radio spots to fill you with terror.