Pulp Musicals is an original radio musical series created by Matt Dahan. The first episode The Great Moon Hoax premiered on November 19, 2021. Episode 2: The Brick Satellite is premiered on August 21, 2022 and Episode 3: The Ghosts of Antikythera premiered on September 24, 2023.
The Great Moon Hoax follows the Stratford twins - Samuel Stratford, a writer for the New York Sun, and Rose Stratford, who runs the Stratford Family Paper Stand - who create a Hoax about life on the Moon using the name of Sir John Herschel, a famous scientist, and everything rapidly spirals off from there as they use the Sun to release the story to the world. It's a story of science, horror, myth and magic, and of imagination running at breakneck speeds. As well, it's at least partially based on true events, as the Great Moon Hoax was actually published by the New York Sun back in 1835.
Warning! Spoilers are unmarked, proceed at your own risk.
Tropes:
- Abandonment-Induced Animosity: Benjamin Park, the Stratfords' friend, helped them create the Hoax, by using his status as editor to sneak it in with the next edition's paper. However, once it gets big, he gets nothing - no raise, no promotion, and feels as if he's been left behind. This ends up with him revealing the truth of the Hoax to a competitor of the Sun, once he sees his chance to get paid for all the work he's done.
- Aborted Declaration of Love: John seems about to do this to Rose when Charles has a gun trained on them, about to shoot, when he stops to wonder where she's gone. (She's about to hit Charles with her printing press plate.)
- Chekhov's Gun: More like Chekov's Printing Press Plate.
- Found Family: Rose, Samuel, John and Margaret - friends in name, family in brick!
- Leitmotif: Matt Dahan is a master at these, and they flourish in Pulp Musicals! A special shoutout goes to the Radiance leitmotif.
- Sibling Seniority Squabble: Rose argues that since she's the eldest Stratford, she gets to call Samuel her baby brother. Despite him only being a couple of minutes younger than her.
- Wistful Amnesia: Margaret Cavendish doesn't remember anything about who she was before, merely that she had a connection with the moon. She describes her experiences as experiencing "phantom pains" when it comes to her lack of memory, and only knowing that somewhere out there, there was something she was missing.
