For anyone who's been tuning in to Audiocast lately, a series of early radio commercials, or "spots" have been posted for your listening, er, pleasure.

Yes, they're hokey and occassionally a bit awkward ("Luke takes Leia in his strong, young arms", "what's next for our plucky heroes?" and so on and so forth), but hey, in a way, they're pretty cool too.

I've always had a keen interest in how the first film was marketed to the public -- posters, movie trailers, TV commercials, etc. -- and the radio spots were an integral part of that package. They've received little attention over the years for two reasons -- they're pretty tough to find, and there's been no medium to effectively present them. Finally, however, Audiocast is here.

I found my first set of spots (actually, the series we just finished posting yesterday) at a toy show back in the late '80s. It was a vinyl record stashed in with a bunch of junk collectibles in a clearance box, and I was able to grab it for just a few bucks. The series was labeled "Campaign E", which suggested that at least four other campaigns preceded it (actually, there were six, with the "F" campaign from 1979 airing tonight). I was instantly hooked, and the search was on to locate the rest.

I've since been able to find Campaigns A, B, E, and F, and a Spanish version of C. So the English C and D are still at large, and if anyone's got any leads, please drop me a line! These typically arrived at radio stations on 7-inch vinyl records or a reel of tape, usually in a plain manilla envelope or white box.

I've been able to find a single spot from Empire, as well as a couple from the first Ewok televised movie, which we'll be presenting in the coming weeks. Still looking for any Jedi ads -- if you've got one, I'd like to hear about it!

And if any ads exist for the Holiday Special, well, finding one of those just might make my year.

Enjoy the listen.