A long time ago, in 1977, I saw Star Wars in a movie theater. It immediately resonated with me and that fall, I created an audio parody of it. I was 14 years old. My voice had just changed. (I still sound the same today.) I did all the voices, wrote the script, and produced the final cassette tape in real time without using technical things like mixing.
The characters I created are based on some people from my middle school, Park Junior High School. There is Mr. Blanchard, my shop teacher, and a student, David. They are the protagonists. Another teacher was Mr. Kline, who is the antagonist. (Sorry Mr. Kline.) I also was infatuated with this beautiful girl by the name of Susan Kret of Scotch Plains, our hometown, (but she wasn't infatuated with me.) I started to write her part as Princess Sue Kret, but I quickly realized that I would sound ridiculous imitating a girl's voice, so I left her out. Anyway, my goal was to entertain my friends.
I listened to a lot of radio, FM and AM stations. I tried to imitate a radio show, where you can paint pictures with words and sounds and do incredible things. I used a Radio Shack tape recorder and CrO2 (Chromium dioxide) cassette tape. It had an input for a left microphone and a right. But it had ALC (Automatic Level Control) and frequently would cut out on me. I bought a Radio Shack stereo mike. I used the Star Wars Soundtrack for the music, and a Star Wars record for some of the sound effects. All the sound effects were played on two cheap little tape recorders. The music was played on a cheap stereo. I made stereo cassette copies for everyone, and they don't exist anymore as far as I know. (Maybe in somebody's drawer somewhere.) In 1992, I made the mistake of lending my original tape to a friend from grad school, and she lost it! Fortunately, I had given a mono copy on a normal bias tape to my brother, so Blanchard Wars was not lost. (Whew! That was a close one!) The copy you hear is from his cassette tape. The sound of the recording definitely makes it a period piece.
Enjoy Blanchard Wars! ...and thank you, George Lucas!
