The main story: A \"he said, she said\" farce at the coroner\'s inquest\".

- Ambrose Bierce, who himself met a mysterious ending, wrote several short stories that were used as RMT plays. One was about two friends from Ohio who went to (the Civil) war and met their end on the battlefields of Tennessee, another \"An occurence at Owl Creek Bridge\". I think he also wrote a story which was the basis for the RMT play \"The rivals\". All were Civil War stories - Bierce was a Civil War veteran himself. I liked his plays because he wove history with the supernatural.

- This was an interesting \"lashup\" of RMT talent: Arnold Moss (who adapted this story), Evie Juster, Robert Kaliban, Robert Dryden...I got a kick out of Kaliban\'s American Indian character (a bit wooden, no pun intended) and Ms. Juster\'s vixenized version of Ellie Mae Clampett. Even then, the bulk of the testimonies at the Coroner\'s inquest were more comedic than serious.

- Moss and Dryden were, as always, heavyweights. Was there a better choice than Dryden to play a county coroner who want to get to the truth (or maybe not)?

- I hate saying this, but remember Homer Simpson\'s classic line \"Doh\"? The one who did \"Doh\" better than any other RMT actor was none other than the Shakespearian-trained actor Moss - listen to his wails and moans whenever he gets bit by a rattlesnake or something far worse. Hate to laugh at tragedy but no one made guttural wails more amusing, IMO, than the late Dr. Moss.


The real story: the d*mned thing

- Midnight, here\'s the story itself, by Ambrose Bierce &nbsp;vs. the day of the RMT.

- According to an essayist, speaking of the author: \"Bierce was never a great writer. He has painful faults of vulgarity and cheapness of imagination. But...his style, for one thing, will preserve him; and the purity of his misanthropy, too, will help to keep him alive.\"

I think the signature line in this story, delivered by Moss and containing a simultaneous request for divine supplication and blasphemy, corroborates that judgment:

\"And, God help me! the d*mned thing is of such a colour!\"

(And (again, tip of the hat to Midnight) how cool was it to describe such a monster as being of a color that\'s invisible to human eyes, like certain sounds are unhearable by our ears?)

- And (tip of the hat to AmericanElm)...the beast is described as making a noise like a pack of wild dogs, which are used as sound effects in the story. However, when you listen, that\'s not the only noise which accompanies the d*mned thing.

The weird vibrato sound effect sounds at first like something one would expect of a space alien, and perhaps that indeed was the origin of the creature.

But then, I remembered: \"I\'ve heard this type of sound before, in the only other movie/program I\'ve ever heard of that\'s ever featured an invisible monster.\"

- The Adventures of Jonny Quest: The Invisible Monster (Part 1 = YouTube, 6:30 - you hear the monster for the first time at the 3:10 mark, then many times thereafter through the end of the episode)

- The Adventures of Jonny Quest: The Invisible Monster (Part 2 = YouTube, 6:30)

- The Adventures of Jonny Quest: The Invisible Monster (Part 3 = YouTube, 6:30)

Obviously, this JQ show was also influenced by \"Dr. Frankenstein\'s Monster\"...but that sound...and this episode aired a decade before the RMT adaptation of \"The d*mned thing\".

Hmmm....<br><br>