Elspeth Eric stars in a script by Ralph Bell and Eugene Francis. A serial killer wants to discourage the inflow of new residents in an upscale suburban housing development. He contends it is in conflict with the area’s simpler rural life. There are no clues and or pattern to the killings other than the victim was home alone. As the story opens, we learn that it’s the “eggman,” the man who raises and delivers the eggs that families use to their doorstep, a bit of rural charm that probably attracted many of those new homeowners. The long-time residents can see the writing on the wall about their rural way of life. One of the residents, the killer, decides to take a vicious approach in defiance of the cascade of new residents.
There is a little girl in the story who tests her parent’s patience in what might be called “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” by some psychologists today. She learns at the end of the story that she can’t always get what she wants. An important scene is that she leaves one of her roller skates out in a hallway, causing her father to fall and bump his head. That sets up a plot element that is used later.
After the 20:45 mark in the network recording and 19:45 in the AFRS recording, the end of the story is negatively affected by what seem to be amateurish sound effects and wooden acting at that point.
One of the story elements is a call to the police, with the caller asking a telephone operator to accomplish it. The “911” service that is often taken for granted today was about 10 years away for many areas in the US, with some getting it as early as 1968. It revolutionized deployment of legal, fire, and medical response teams.
Refrigeration and proximity to supermarkets reduced the need for home delivery of milk, dairy products, and eggs. Most delivery services ended in the 1970s. There are some specialty dairies that still offer the services in limited areas. For the remote and growing housing development in the story, eggmen were being elbowed out to supermarkets, and were a part of the story’s “the city is moving to the country” theme.
The program was recorded on Tuesday, March 1, 1960. Rehearsal began at 3:00pm and ended at 6:30pm. Recording was done from 6:30pm to 7:00pm.
The working title of the script, and sent out in newspaper publicity, was “Sleeping is for Children.”
Two recordings have survived. The network recording is a WROW aircheck and is very listenable. The Armed Forces Radio Service recording (AFRS#776) has cleaner, richer sound, and is the preferred one of the two. The recording was not released with the usual “And now…” opening.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP600306
THE CAST
Elspeth Eric (Ellen Gordon), Ralph Bell (Walter Gordon), Sarah Fussell (Stephanie Gordon), Bill Adams (Beppler), Betty Garde (Rosa), Ruth Tobin (Mrs. Worth), Peter Fernandez (Joe), Sam Gray (Cop), Eugene Francis (Newscaster)
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