It's hard to find a more epochal moment in American history than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The global and political and historical reverberations from that devastating day in Dallas still haunt us today.
And for comedy writer Bill Oakley, Nov. 22, 1963 provides a thought experiment that's rich for comedy with his new audio project, "Space: 1969," for Audible Originals.
Oakley tells Wisconsin Public Radio's "BETA" it's a project he's been toying with for some time.
"I've had this idea for at least 15 years in various, various forms and not so much the idea that you see — or, rather, that you hear — in the current version," Oakley says.
The conceit behind "Space: 1969" is that Kennedy survived the attempt on his life in Dallas, presenting an alternative timeline of events. Kennedy ends the war in Vietnam and allocates the resources into the space race.
"It's a sci-fi retro comedy, which puts it into three different niches," says Oakley. "Which is why it would never be appropriate for television, but makes a fine audiobook."
If the idea sounds familiar, it is. Oakley himself jokes that much of the inspiration comes from Stephen King's revisionist history novel, "11/22/63" which deals with that exact conceit. Oakley adds his signature spin to the idea though — humor.
"I always thought it would be funny if, 'Well, he survived, but he wasn't quite right.' And that's kind of the premise of this whole series," says Oakley. "John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt, but when he woke up, he wasn't quite the same."
If the idea isn't wholly original, the presentation surely is. Oakley originally conceived of the idea as a TV project or perhaps an animation. But, being a veteran of television production, he knew the expense and the pitfalls of bringing this story to life in that medium. So, he pivoted to Audible and pitched it as a limited series audio story.
"This is a weird thing. Audible only has two types of things. They have audiobooks and podcasts. And up until a few hours before this thing was released, we still couldn't figure out whether this was an audiobook or a podcast. So, it's really like an old-time radio show," Oakley says.
Writing for that medium presented several new challenges and inspirations for Oakley. With no visuals at his disposal, he ended up creating a new protagonist, voiced by "Russian Doll" star and creator, Natasha Lyonne.
"I wrote the whole thing with her in my head, with her saying every line, and we were lucky enough to actually get her. It was a remarkable occurrence," Oakley says, unsure of what he would've done had Lyonne been unavailable.
"I'm sure we would have cast someone else, but it might not have been someone with the comic chops that Natasha has. Or I might have had to rewrite every nurse Nancy line, all 4,000 of them to accommodate a different actress," he says.
The sheer scope of writing a 10-episode audio series was a far cry from anything Oakley had ever done before.
"It was an immense challenge. It took a lot of mapping out. I wanted a story that had a number of twists and turns that would keep the listener involved," he explains.
"You're tracking three major stories in this, and so I kind of intertwined the three stories so that each one would play off one another. And then also when there was a moment that each one of them had a cliffhanger towards the end of each episode," Oakley continues. "This is the longest thing I ever wrote. I wrote this by myself, and the script was 552 pages. I mean, this was a lot of work."
Oakley says this writing required a whole new level of self-discipline and that he relied a lot on the same process he used on the "Simpsons" to (Mr.) plow through it.
"The Simpsons was done almost as a radio show, and it does rely on a lot of audio initially before the animators come in. And so, I wrote this using 'The Simpsons' script format. It honestly was kind of just like writing a Simpsons script, except I had to describe stuff. Like you couldn't rely on people seeing things. So, I made a joke out of that many times," says Oakley.
"I decided that's also why I needed a narrator," he continues.
Without revealing spoilers, the narrator is another prominent '60s personality that provides Oakley and his cast and sound designers a lot of opportunities to break the fourth wall for jokes.
All that hard work has paid off. Oakley is pleased with the early reviews of the series and has called it his best and funniest work. It also might be his most personal.
"I didn't write it to please anybody but me. That's the remarkable thing. It did not have to go through a development process like every other project I've ever done. And in this case, I was able to be incredibly self-indulgent. And I'm so glad that the audience has responded," says Oakley.
It also looks as though it may spawn a sequel series tentatively titled "Space:1972," which Oakley was fairly mum about.
"I have the story all worked out, and I won't go into any more detail — but I will say that at the moment, it looks like it may actually happen, which is a thrill. I haven't been too excited about any work developments in a very long time and writing 'Space:1972' is going to be absolutely fantastic," he says.