Last fall, Toronto’s Decoder Ring Theatre brought a regular original audio drama series to podcasting in the form of The Red Panda Adventures. Now the company is debuting its second original series for podcast. Black Jack Justice debuts Jan. 7 and runs for six episodes. The noir-style pulp detective series is based on the play-within-a-play featured in Decoder Ring Theatre’s Fringe Festival hit of the same name. Following this run, Black Jack Justice will return in July for a further six episodes.
The programs are done in the style of the golden age of radio and therefore have a break in the middle, which Decoder Ring is hoping to fill with a sponsor, says creator Gregg Taylor. ‘What we’d really love to do is find a sponsor who’d like us to create original ‘old-timey’ advertisements, to let us do for them what Sam Spade did for Wildroot Hair Cream. But we’d certainly be interested in any sort of advertiser participation.’ Taylor says the audience comes from all over Canada and the U.S. and ranges from comics-loving university students to the original fans of old-time radio before it became old-time. Since the launch of The Red Panda Adventures, Decoder Ring’s eps have been downloaded by more than 10,000 listeners.
