In Podcast Welcome to Night Vale, Community Radio meets Stephen King
When people hear podcast, they think of NPR-esque recordings of business news and market information from newspapers and think tanks. Due to that stereotype, podcasts are dismissed offhand by some as better left to white-collar suburbanites making their morning commute. However, Welcome to Night Vale is a peculiarity in the normal catalog of podcasts, showing a beacon of dark fiction for those seeking the interesting narratives of the abnormal and strange.
Welcome to Night Vale is a very unique, interesting, and entertaining bimonthly podcast following "community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events." The podcast is narrated as though from a fictional radio station and the 30-minute long episodes are community radio segments given by the local host Cecil Gershwin Palmer, voiced by Cecil Baldwin. The community of Night Vale is anything but tame though, and the town and the events that occur in it are rife with the paranormal and strange. Imagine it as public access radio meets the The Twilight Zone.
According to a past interview with NPR, creator Joseph Fink envisioned the namesake town radio after he “...came up with this idea of a town in the desert where all conspiracy theories were real, and we would just go from there with that understood."
While the concept may sound menacing, the actual episodes are relatively mild. Part of the story of Night Vale is the town’s odd acceptance of the abnormal that inhabits the town, and first-time listeners will be caught off guard by the casual references to the angels at Old Woman Josie’s house and the toxic gas cloud that eventually became school board president. The format of community radio negates most of the horror that would probably be present if the podcast was narrated as though it were a Stephen King novel, but instead puts the paranormal back into the podcast’s tension and juxtaposition that makes the episodes interesting. However, this does not mean that all the paranormal events are accepted without any reaction, and many episodes revolve around divergent events from the standard life of Night Vale, keeping the narratives appealing and entertaining.
The individual episodes are mostly self-contained in their own miniature narrative, but the basic format of the episodes are kept standard and follow an overarcing storyline across the podcast. Development in the overall plotline and characters of Night Vale do exist, but are slow and occur over many episodes. This type of narrative is called longform storytelling, and thus episodes rarely contain significant plot developments. However, the larger plotline of Night Vale is always carried on through the running jokes, references, and the inclusion of smaller plot details into the larger plotline.
The style of Welcome to Night Vale is the true defining aspect of the podcast, and for any fan of the paranormal the show is a fun combination of all your favorite stories of the unnatural and eerie, as well as some new ones. While many details of the plot are familiar, some are distinctly original and create new alluring stories and ideas of the fantastical. These narratives, combined with the dark humor present in the contradictory community radio, give Welcome to Night Vale a unique appeal as well as a definite niche.
The podcast has extended beyond it’s humble beginnings, and now does national tours for live readings of episodes as well as a novel that became Amazon's #2 title seven months ahead of its release date. In addition to Welcome to Night Vale, the banner company Night Vale Presents launched other serial podcasts, such as Alice Isn't Dead and Within the Wires, that follow the same surreal and paranormal style as the flagship podcast.
Welcome to Night Vale is immensely interesting for those with affinity for the paranormal and dark humor. While the episodes are not novels in regards to their story lines, they are nonetheless humorous and entertaining. Perfect for the long car ride (however not recommended for road trips at night through the Southeastern United States) or if you just want to listen to an interesting story, Welcome to Night Vale is available at all podcast outlets, as well as on their website welcometonightvale.com. If you’re in for some intriguing stories to satisfy your curiosity and love for the surreal and paranormal, then, as Cecil says, “turn on your radio and hide.”
