HIS PARODY IS A REAL ENIGMA. It was originally sent to me a several years ago from a friend who claimed he had heard it on a local radio station in Ohio, many years before. It occasionally winds up in CD-ROM collections of OTR shows, but with little or no attribution except its name, “Sherlock Holmes, 1965″, and the company that apparently produced it, Midnight Productions.

It’s difficult to deduce much about its origins. As as educated guess, I’d certainly say it was an American production –the jarring accents certainly give that away– and it was produced by an amateur-grade production company with decent studio access. The sound is clear, and while the show does have a few funny lines and situations, it’s far from top quality writing or acting. No web searches, ranging from Google to eBay to copyright databases, I’ve done have led me to any further information about the recording, nor the production company, which leads me to believe it is probably defunct. As for dating this, it does appear to be a recording from the sixties or seventies, but most shows produced from the late sixties to the early eighties do have a certain “sound” that is indicative of the equipment and effects common across that time period. Owing to the obvious, most people just assume the production date of this is 1965.

At any rate, this is a rare play that does have an interesting premise (pre- Austin Powers), wherein the very aged Holmes and Watson go searching for a new case in the mid-sixties. The jokes are no funnier nor worse than most other parodies, and so should fit nicely into the library of most Sherlockians who collect such things.

Download: Sherlock Holmes, 1965, by Midnight Productions

If you do know anything more about his recording, I’d love to hear from you.