October 05, 2007
Lights Out
was a suspense and horror radio show that had its debut in 1934. It was one of the first shows to develop distinct sound effects and scripts specifically aimed at an audience that could only listen and not watch the action.
The Creaking Door was a South African horror radio show that billed itself as "the tops in spine chillers" and were probably broadcast in the 50s, in the same vein as The Inner Sanctum. Escape and its sister show Suspense were considered two of the top shows ever done on the radio, with many well-written episodes of horror, suspense, and adventure. The Monster Club has collected an excellent sampler in their top 100 picks of Old Time Horror and Scifi Radio if you'd like to sample different shows. The club also produces an internet radio show full of mystery, murder, suspense, and spine chillers. And for more Old Time Radio goodness, RadioLovers supports a large online archive.
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Good stuff! My favorites are X Minus One and Quiet Please. The sound quality on the X Minus One shows is just excellent. The quality on the surviving Quiet Please broadcasts can be a mixed bag, but the quality of the writing is worth putting up with some distortion and hiss. X Minus One is classic sci-fi, while Quiet Please is a lot like the original Twlight Zone or Outer Limits. The recordings of Lux Radio Theater on the Internet Archive are of good quality as well. They're more general, being mostly versions of then-popular movies (often with the original casts) or best selling novels adapted for radio. Civil Defense, narrated by Orson Welles is a real Cold War paranoia, duck and cover, we're all going to die horribly in nuclear fire any second treat.
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I bought some Lights Out eps online and never regretted it. Great stuff to listen to on long trips at night. And the ads before and after the stories are great fun to listen to. Makes me want so Ironized Yeast! :)
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Hmmmm, I know what I'll be putting on my MP3 player for the bus ride home! Ta very much, Vera, love! "The Creaking Door" makes me think of "The Scary Door" from Futurama.
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Excellent post, Christophine! I've been a fan of "old time radio" for some time. Once you get hooked, it's amazing how much more there is out there to discover. I've purchased some shows through OTR Cat as they have quite an extensive collection - some of which I havne't been able to find for free online (It also made for a nice birthday present for my father one year - - he was able to re-listen to some of the shows he listened to as a small child). One of my favorites is The Shadow. I was always fond of Orson Welles...
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Yes, although "The Scary Door" was primarily a "Twilight Zone" parody, it was informed by older shows too, and I'm sure (but not formally confirmed) that the title was a "Creaking Door" reference. Never underestimate the smarts of the Futurama writers. (And never OVERestimate the smarts of Family Guy writers)
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Before there was Lights Out, there was The Witch's Tale. Arguably the first horror anthology outside print, it introduced the first horror host (Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, and her black cat Satan) in any medium. (God, I love Old Nancy. "A hundred and eight year old I be. A hundred and eight year old. Satan, tell those people to douse their lights. Douse 'em out good. Now look deep into the embers. Deep into the embers. Yer standin' in a house in New Orleans, late in the last century....") The Witch's Tale was early enough that it didn't really make use of the unique possibilities of radio, but it's a great historical document of pre-radio, pre-soundie stage acting, as well as some very cool old horror stories. The Creaking Door "borrowed"* a lot of scripts and concepts from the long-running Inner Sanctum Mysteries. Inner Sanctum Mysteries was more of a mainstream, prime-time horror anthology, unlike Quiet Please and other Lights Out spinoffs and ripoffs that aired at odd hours and often without sponsors. On the other hand, Inner Sanctum's host, Raymond, was one of the best pre-TV horror hosts, and a big influence on late-night movie hosts, such as Zacherle. The great Wyllis Cooper started out as a writer on Lights Out, but quit around the time Arch Oboler's ego threatened to eat Chicago (mp3). He was the genius behind Quiet, Please. He wrote "The Thing on the Fourble Board," which is widely considered the finest radio drama of all time. Many, including myself, consider it the greatest work of horror/science fiction/fantasy ever produced outside of print media. * For all you copyfighters out there: classic American Old Time Radio operated without any basic copyright protection from its inception until 1976, when it had already been effectively dead for 15 or 20 years. There's a great academic/legal paper on how radio dramas produced thousands of hours of original entertainment without copyright protection, for someone who has the stuff to write it.
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Radio was/is a wonderful medium for those who like to actually use their brain for entertainment. Our local public radio station uses the tagline "where the pictures are always better in the theater of the mind" and I think that pretty much sums it up. Great stuff, fine links. And while we're at it, the old "Gunsmoke" radio show, with William Conrad's superb baritone Marshal Dillon and great scripts to match, was great adult entertainment, engrossing and vivid. Too bad the medium's been abandoned in favor of... sitcoms about cavemen? Ugh. Now I think I'll download some of this fine and satisfying radio fare.
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Oddly enough, I've never enjoyed radio theater, and I think I have a pretty vivid imagination. I prefer being read to, but even audio tapes are often too slow, and my imagination gets ahead of the action. I do love when the reader's voice helps flesh out a character, though. Interesting, M Valdemar. I'm surprised no one has snapped that idea up already. What a great dissertation!