The Cabinet of Dr. Fritz

The Cabinet of Dr. Fritz was a 1984 binaural radio drama series produced by Thomas Lopez and the ZBS Foundation for NPR. At the beginning of each show, it was suggested that listeners wear headphones.

Production
“Fritz” was the nickname Lopez gave to the human head-shaped microphone he and his team used to record their three-dimensional productions, but its official name was the Neumann Ku81 Dummy Head. A solid rubber head with microphones set inside the ear chambers, it was designed to record sounds the way a human being would hear them.

While the ZBS Foundation had been working with 3D sound since its founding in 1970, The Cabinet of Dr. Fritz series grew out of ZBS’ adaptation of Sticks, a Karl Edward Wagner short horror story set inside an abandoned house. Lopez recorded the drama on location, with actors performing for the dummy head microphone in an actual abandoned house across the Hudson River from where he lived. The binaural sound was such a great fit for the horror genre that Lopez set out to create an entire series of creepy stories recorded in 3D sound.

The series was produced with funds provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through National Public Radio Satellite Program Development Fund.

Reception
Reviews were generally favorable. In Stereophile, Thomas J. Norton wrote of Sticks: "Clearly demonstrates the dramatic possibilities of the binaural art... It's a striking recording... The sense of depth and space is startling; the ambient feel of the environment combined with the sense of movement and positioning of the dialog and highly effective sound effect makes for a memorable experience... Listen in a darkened room for maximum impact."

John Sunier's review in Audio:

"The Mist, when heard in the proper setting (at night, in the dark) with good stereo headphones, can be much more scary than a motion picture of a Stephen King story. It ran over three of the programs in the series, for a total of 90 minutes-the same as a feature film, interestingly enough. The other excellent use of binaural in the radio drama series was the story Aura, by Latin American author Carlos Fuentes."

Episodes
Below is a complete list of the show's 13-episode run.