The Fourth Tower of Inverness - History

History

The Fourth Tower of Inverness was written and directed by Meatball Fulton. The initial story concept was created while he was staying at a farmhouse outside of Montreal, Canada. The farm was called Inverness, and was named and designed after a house the original owner had owned in Inverness, Scotland. It had been abandoned for ten years, but was being looked after by an old caretaker. The initial characters were written for other guests at the farmhouse, who were friends and acquaintances of Meatball Fulton, although the series was not produced at this time.

In June 1970, Meatball Fulton moved to Fort Edward, New York to help found ZBS Media, with a focus on producing commercials for various musical acts such as Billy Joel, Little Feat, Jefferson Airplane and Captain Beefheart. After about a year and a half of this, he became bored with writing commercials, and had an uncomfortable experience producing an album for Abbie Hoffman. Remembering the radio play he had written back in Montreal, he decided to produce his own script. The story was fleshed out, actors were cast, and the episodes were produced periodically whenever new scripts were written. The amateur nature of the production can still be heard, with occasional breaking of character by the cast, and laughing when lines are flubbed. (Bloopers).

Eventually a backer was found, Augie Blume of Grunt Records, who help shape the series down to 7-minute daily episodes, and half-hour weekend episodes. The Fourth Tower of Inverness played on 350 college stations, where it was a hit. The series has since been broadcast in several different formats, such as on NPR Playhouse and The Watt from Pedro Show. It is also available for purchase in almost every available audio format, such as cassette, CD and MP3.