Theme Time Radio Hour Season One - Overview

Overview

With the exception of the Halloween show - Episode 26 - introduced by comedian Steven Wright, all the episodes in Season One were introduced by an uncredited Ellen Barkin who would open with the lines, "It's night (or night time) in the Big City" and then describe a city scene - such as a woman walking in the rain, a shopkeeper closing his doors, angry hookers arguing on a street corner - before introducing the show and "your host, Bob Dylan." Barkin would identify herself in a Christmas greeting delivered to listeners on Season One's Christmas/New Year Special - Episode 34 - ending fan speculation as to whether it was her voice in the introduction. Barkin was officially named as the show's introductory announcer in an XM press release for Season Two.

Season One's closing credits were delivered by announcer "Pierre Mancini," probably a pseudonym of producer Eddie Gorodetsky, whose voice - which can be heard in several movies as well as in the Peter Wolf song, "Mars Needs Women" - sounds identical to "Mancini's."

Interspersed between the music on the shows are old station promos and jingles; pre-recorded show promos and commentary from personalities such as Penn Jillette, Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman; Dylan answering email the show has supposedly received (some of the emails are obviously made up. However, at least one email read on the "Friends and Neighbors" episode, came from a real listener.); Dylan reading poetry, often citing the author as a "def poet;" occasional food and drink recipes; even household cleaning tips from Dylan; and his comments on the music and musicians the show is featuring. Although most of Dylan's monologues are scripted - keen-eared listeners can hear him turning pages and members of various Dylan Web forums have pointed out the similarities between his stories and Wikipedia entries on the same subject - he has had the occasional memorable outburst which sounded as if it came directly from the heart, such as this one on country music from the "Friends and Neighbors" episode (Episode 17):

“Now I love country music, but I say ‘What happened to it?’

"You hear a song like this and it’s obvious it’s about real people, and real emotions, and real problems, that’s all, that’s the country music we learned to love. Now days they want to sweep all the problems under the rug and pretend they don’t exist.

"Well guess what folks – they do exist! And if you try and sweep 'em under the rug, they’re just gonna pop up somewhere else. So we might as well all just face it and listen to the old style country music, the real country music. You know, about drinking and sleeping around. That’s my kinda country music, and I hope yours!"

All but three of Season One's episodes ran one hour in length, the exceptions being the 2-hour Christmas/New Year special, the 2-hour season finale (Episode 50 - "Spring Cleaning") and Episode 24, "Time," which ran into overtime for approximately 13 additional minutes, apparently in a joking reference to the episode's subject matter.