THE INVESTIGATOR A Political Satire Documentary PRIVATE LP JOHN DRAINIE McCarthy

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THE INVESTIGATOR A Political Satire Documentary PRIVATE LP JOHN DRAINIE McCarthy
1954 LP  Discuriosities label
EX- / VG  (see Condition Description for details)

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The Investigator in Historical and Personal Context
Gerald Gross
The Journal for MultiMedia History
Volume 3, 2000

Reuben Ship's celebrated radio satire of the work of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and its chairman, Joseph McCarthy, was first aired nationally in Canada by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on May 30, 1954. For the most part, the drama was reviewed favorably in Canada. In the USA, it was reviewed in a positive light by the New York Times and by the left-wing press (including New Masses), but it was excoriated by the right wing as anti-American propaganda. By mid-June, tapes of the broadcast were circulating in the USA. There, some attempts to broadcast the CBC production on both coasts caused objections from the American Legion and private individuals.

About 100,000 copies of a long-playing record made from the CBC production of "The Investigator" were sold during 1954 and 1955, mostly in the US. The LP appeared on an obscure label named "Discuriousities" created by two enterprising Americans to sell the recording-probably in collaboration with Ship himself. The record was described as communist propaganda by Ed Sullivan in his newspaper column and in other publications; it was given positive notice (again) in The New York Times, which wondered if the satire might cause friction between the US and Canada. The New Republic informed readers that a chuckling President Eisenhower had it played at a meeting of his cabinet. In Ottawa, Hugh Lennard, a Conservative member of Parliament, castigated the Canadian Government for allowing the broadcast. The Australian Broadcasting Company requested broadcasting rights and the production was praised highly when it was aired by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) a year or so later. The play was widely known in disparate places by a variety of audiences. The controversy around the work relates to many factors, not the least of which was the timing of its broadcast during a high point of the Red Scare following WW II . . .