Well, last week I received in the final tweaked version of TZ episode "The 16 MM Shrine" starring Kathy Garver and Charles Shaughnessy. It came out great! I hope all of you reading this have a chance to hear it. The next TZ show that Cerny is working on is "The Mirror" starring Tony Plana. As Dennis Etchison describes it: That's the one that Peter Falk starred in on the original TV show. The original was an anti-Castro tract, with Falk made to look like a clone of Fidel, who becomes a ruthless, bloodthirsty dictator as soon as he takes over. It was very much of its time, expressing America's hostility toward the new regime in Cuba. An angry, one-sided propaganda piece. Serling called him Clemente, with D'Allesandro as a stand-in for Che. Rather than arguing the pros and cons of Castro, the radio version is less specific. It is set in what could be any Latin American country ruled by a dictator. The basic point is sound - that fear and paranoia can make any new leader a dictator himself. It is a cautionary tale about the corrupting dangers of power.

I was so happy to have cast the amazing Cuban-American actor Tony Plana in the lead role. You can see him each week as the dad on "Ugly Betty." What a pleasure it was working with him, not only on this story but on "Young Man's Fancy" too. I think he had a really fun time getting to play two completely opposite characters and he totally knocked them out of the park. I can't wait for you to hear them.

We're close to releasing TWILIGHT ZONE collection 14, which will have 10 shows on 10 CDs. The shows are:
Night Call – Mariette Hartley
Kick the Can – Shelley Berman & Stan Freberg
A Game of Pool – Wade Williams
A Penny For Your Thoughts – David Eigenberg
Free Dirt – Eric Bogosian
Number 12 Looks Just Like You – Bonnie Somerville
On Thursday We Leave For Home – Barry Bostwick
Third From the Sun – Fred Willard
The Trouble With Templeton – Michael York
The Mirror – Tony Plana.

We're hard at work producing MYSTERY THEATER hosted by Christopher Lee which launches March 2nd and will be a showcase for the best of the best in radio mystery, detective and science-fiction -- so be sure to listen. Well, that's all for now, HAPPY HOLIDAYS and join me next time for MORE NEWS FROM THE ZONE!

We're getting ready to mail out our MYSTERY THEATER flyer and CD demo to prospective radio stations across the country. My hope is that we sign up 50 to 75 stations to start and build it to 200 or more stations by the end of 2009. MYSTERY THEATER officially launches March 2nd, 2009.

I've had the great pleasure of working with Christopher Lee as host. He's voiced the first 50 shows (from London), which is the first 10 weeks. We're in the process of building a wonderful website for the series at www.mysterytheater.com (not up yet). Eventually, listeners will be able to find thousands of mystery, detective, and science-fiction radio shows available at our site for download or CD sale. The site will be a great place to visit and I'll keep you posted on the progress.

On the TZ front, this week I received in "The 16 MM Shrine" starring Kathy Garver and Charles Shaughnessy. It needed some tweaks here and there and is back in the capable hands of Matt Sauro at Cerny American Creative. I'm told that the final version will be here today, so I'm looking forward to that.

Recently, I've received in TZ radio drama scripts for "Eye of the Beholder" by Barry Richart, "Once Upon a Time" and "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" by Matthew Elliott, " and a fresh 'never before seen or heard' episode called "And Cauldron Bubble" by Christine Watson. I'm looking forward to producing these shows in 2009. We have scripts out for consideration to Billy Zane and Christopher Lee and Tim Kazurinsky is going to come in, in a few weeks to star in two great shows. It's always so much fun working with Tim, he's simply amazing.

On the Old Testament audio Bible front, we just recorded Max von Sydow as "Noah" from the South of France and he was absolutely brilliant. Also, we recorded my good friend Malcolm McDowell as "King Solomon," Wade Williams as "Gideon" and we just signed John Rhys-Davies as "Saul." I can't wait for everyone to hear Malcolm, Max, Wade and all the cast in this epic Old Testament audio project to be released in October 2009.

Well, that's all for now, join me next time for MORE NEWS FROM THE ZONE!