First it was a Radio Story!
With the 2017 Oscars on the horizon, we’re thinking about the podcasts & radio stories that made it all the way to Hollywood.
Radio has a long history of inspiring films & TV - for example, everyone knows War of the Worlds was a radio program first. The UK has been especially successful in these adaptations, including The Goon Show, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & The Mighty Boosh . Even Flight of the Conchords began as a mostly-improvised program on BBC Radio 2!
But we were curious: have other individual stories - as in, stand alone radio pieces - inspired movies and shows in the past? The answer is YES, and here is a playlist of some of our favorites.
AND THE NOMINEES ARE... (scroll down to listen)
Original radio story: Teen Contender / Radio Diaries (2012)
On screen: T-Rex / PBS (2015)
Original radio story: The Giant Pool of Money (INC) / This American Life (2008)
On screen: The Big Short / Paramount Pictures (2015)
Original radio story: Hana’s Suitcase / CBC (2001)
On screen: Inside Hana’s Suitcase / Menemsha Films (2012)
Original radio story: In The Event Of An Emergency, Put Your Sister In An Upright Position / This American Life (2001)
On screen: Unaccompanied Minors / Warner Bros (2006)
Original radio story: Ghetto Life 101 / Sound Portraits & WBEZ (1993)
On screen: Our America / Showtime Networks (2002)
Teen Contender
Sixteen-year-old Claressa Shields has a dream, to be at the 2012 Olympic finals and hear the announcer call out, "The first woman Olympian boxer at 165 pounds - Claressa Shields!"
- 2012
- 15:37
- Joe Richman
- Samara Freemark
- Sue Jaye Johnson
The Giant Pool of Money (INC)
This documentary, a special collaboration between This American Life and NPR News, deconstructs the current housing crisis.
- 2008
- 59:02
- Adam Davidson
- Alex Blumberg
Hana's Suitcase
When the Children's Holocaust Education Center in Tokyo acquired Hana Brady's suitcase, all they knew was that Hana was born in Czechoslovakia in 1931 and died at Auschwitz at age 13.
- 2001
- 29:08
- Karen Levine
In The Event Of An Emergency, Put Your Sister In An Upright Position
Every year on the day after Christmas, children of divorced parents are shuttled across the United States, from one parent to the other.
- 2001
- 29:08
- Susan Burton
Ghetto Life 101
In 1993, LeAlan Jones (age 13) and Lloyd Newman (age 14) collaborated with public radio producer David Isay to create an audio diary of life on Chicago's South Side.
- 1993
- 30:20
- David Isay