An Introduction To Radio Drama

[Cry Me A River]

Cliff Notes - Old Time Radio is just like tv or the movies, except no pictures. Great for driving or all night Internet!!! Direct links to hand-picked sample episodes at the bottom of post.


The golden age of radio lasted from the 30's to 50's before radio was crushed by television. Since then radio has been relegated almost completely to music, news and talk shows. However, prior to TV it was radio that entertained America and tens of thousands of hours of high quality drama, comedy and variety was produced.

This medium is collectively referred to as Old Time Radio and much of this survives today and is readily available. A lot of it is obviously really dated, but some of it holds up really, really well. Particularly if you have any interest in old movies or television. If you're doing a long drive, this stuff absolutely eats up the miles! A handfull of episodes and suddenly you're through two or three hours without even noticing it. If you're driving alone, at night, put on some of the spookier stuff and no worries about falling asleep at the wheel.

If you're familiar with Books On Tape, this is similar but FAR better. Old Time Radio features full casts, high production values including sound effects and often features big movie stars of the day. Some of these shows and their stars made the transition to television. Many did not.

I personally only go for the dramas (I find most of the comedies really dated, YMMV). Most of this material is in the public domain, btw, since nobody bothered renewing copyrights so you don't even have to feel guilty about downloading it (and I can post links!)

Here's a rundown of some of the most acclaimed series:


X Minus One and Dimension X - These two series dramatised science fiction stories from Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Magazine. If you love golden age science fiction, this is for you.

This [censored] is AMAZING!!! If the names Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov, Williamson, Pohl, Leiber and Sheckley mean anything to you, these shows will blow you away.

Get them here:

http://www.archive.org/details/XMinus1_A

Some of my favorite episodes "A Pail of Air" (Leiber), "A Gun for Dinosaur" (L. Sprague DeCamp), "The Cave of Night", "Lulungamena" (Gordon R. Dickson - A Dorsai! story).


Suspense is a thriller anthology. This was the 24 or Lost of it's day. Awesome production values with huge, huge stars. Perhaps most famous for its dramatisation of "Sorry Wrong Number".

Some episodes are horror, mystery, crime, drama, SUSPENCE!

Get it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/SUSPENSE


Gunsmoke is one of the great western dramas that later made the jump to television and ran forever. Great writing, acting, production values. If you like westerns in the least, you will love Gunsmoke.

Get it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_Certified_Gunsmoke


The 70's saw a rivival in radio drama and CBS Radio Mystery Theatre was at the forefront. This is a crime/horror/mystery/drama/science fiction series similar to Suspense. However where most golden age shows were a half hour CBSRMT was an hour (minus commercials in both cases, though many golden age shows include original commercials which can be pretty cool). 1,399 original episodes broadcast over 8 years ('74-'82).

As this is much more recent, it's not public domain so I can't give you a link but episodes are not hard to find.



There's THOUSANDS of series, these should get you started (best of the best and all that) but I'll mention one more. My wife's favorite series is:

Your's truly, Johnny Dollar "The man with the action packed expense account". This is essentially a noir(ish not exactly Otto Preminger level of darkness) mystery series about an insurance investigator. Very, very good.

Get it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_..._Johnny_Dollar


Okay, one last one, one of my personal favorites:

The Lives of Harry Lime is a PREQUEL to The Third Man, the classic Orson Welles movie. This stars Orson Welles as the title character. This is pretty noir, with a real anti-hero for the lead.

Get it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheLivesOfHarryLime


Also: The Adventures of Superman (Huge series, thousands of episodes!), The Shadow, Dragnet, Nero Wolfe, I Was A Communist For The FBI, Have Gun Will Travel, The Lone Ranger.





Here are some direct links to EXCELLENT shows for anyone who's interested in giving Old Time Radio a try. Just right click and open in a new window or tab.

X Minus One - The Cave Of Night - An astronaut is stranded in orbit and all the world listens to his radio calls for help.
X Minus One - A Pail of Air - Survival involves some unusual techniques in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
X Minus One - Cold Equation - An astronaut must make a terrible decision based on cold, hard, math.

Adventures Of Philip Marlowe - Red Wind - Adaptation of the classic Raymond Chandler story. The original story is IMHO, one of the greatest things ever written. This is a very solid adaptation though it prunes some of the classic hard-boiled dialog between Marlowe and the cops.

Suspense - Sorry, Wrong Number - Classic thriller from the days before Caller ID.

Mercury Theater - War of the Worlds - The original broadcast that started a panic.

The Lives Of Harry Lime - Too Many Crooks - Opening episode of the prequel series to The Third Man.

Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - The McCormick Matter Part 1 - A dying grifter has a last request.
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - The McCormick Matter Part 2
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - The McCormick Matter Part 3
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - The McCormick Matter Part 4
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - The McCormick Matter Part 5

Suspense - Donovan's Brain Part 1 - Orson Welles in a classic creepy tale.
Suspense - Donovan's Brain Part 2

[Runkmud]

Awesome, thanks a ton, can't wait to DL them and listen to them on my road trips [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Another great albeit more modern sci fi serial was a show called Ruby, I highly recommend it.

[Sniper]

This is an awesome post, I look forward to checking out your radio picks.

[Hey_Porter]

Last road trip I discovered that XM has an old time radio station, and it is EXCELLENT. Made the six hour drive fly by, as I listened to multiple episodes of Dragnet, The Green Hornet, Tales of the Texas Rangers, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, The Lone Ranger, and Gunsmoke. One of the best parts about it is they are really good (i.e., it always happens) at starting each new episode on the half hour, so you never have to wait long for a new episode. I was surprised at how entertaining they all were.

[Blarg]

Great post! I don't know what the M3U format is, but I hope it plays on my Sansa Sandisk e280 -- or, well, anywhere.(?)

I just bought the first three episodes of The Adventures of Superman from audiobooks last week, and of The Shadow. I'm really looking forward to hearing them. I heard just a minute from one of the The Shadow programs like 20 years ago and it was so great I always hoped to have another shot at it. I hope these radio shows become more popular, because the few I've heard in my life are really a lot of fun.

Good job on spreading the word! I hope I find lots of free stuff here I like.

FWIW, the stuff I paid for on audiobooks was really cheap, like a buck an hour of programming.

[Cry Me A River]

I got into these many years ago when I was a collectables dealer. I was selling at a comic book show with a buddy of mine and he brought a bunch of shows on tape which we played all day at the show. I was all, "ZOMG! How did I not know about this chit!!!" Even worse that I actually should have, as a kid we used to listen to CBS Radio Mystery Theatre at our summer cottage, and I also had a couple LPs of The Shadow and Superman radio shows as a kid.

Nothing better than driving through the back woods in the middle of the night after some trading card show listening to Inner Sanctum or The Whisperer.

There's TONS of shows at www.archive.org.

A good place for logs (episode guides) is Jerry's:

http://www.otrsite.com/radiolog/index.html

The main page also has a huge list of series titles so you can browse through looking for interesting "new" shows.

A few more of the best X Minus One episodes (resposted from my shill post in the SciFi Movie thread):

X Minus One - A Gun For Dinosaur - Hunting prehistoric game for fun and profit. From a story by L. Sprague DeCamp.

X Minus One - Nightfall - A planet that has night only once every 2500 years. That night is approaching and all records have been lost from the last nightfall. From a story by by Isaac Asimov

X Minus One - Lulungameena - Tensions run high among the personnel of a remote station. A Dorsai tale. From a story by Gordon R. Dickson.

X Minus One - Surface Tension - An unusual space expedition. From a story by James Blish.

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, the stuff I paid for on audiobooks was really cheap, like a buck an hour of programming.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, most of this stuff is in the public domain though there are obviously trademark issues with characters like Superman or The Shadow. So what's available in commercial format is usually pretty cheap because there's no royalties (or very little, re: trademarks) - Like Penguin Classics, Shakespeare reprints, that kind of stuff. You can sometimes find a decent selection in some book stores, but there's huge amount available online if you just know to look for it.

The M3U file is a playlist. You actually don't need 'em, just the MP3 files.

[Blarg]

Ah, I see, thanks.

I predict having a total blast checking this stuff out.

[youtalkfunny]

I'm the only one who likes the comedies more than the dramas?

Sure, they're dated, but how is this not funny?:

ABBOTT: Officer Jones is at 9th and Main.

COSTELLO: No, Officer Jones is now at 12th and Broadway.

ABBOTT: Who moved him over there?

COSTELLO: A brand-new red Hudson, doing about 90.

Dated, shmated, it's funny.

I'll LOL more times in a 30-minute Jack Benny program, then an entire season of any sit-com produced in the last ten years.

Sirius has an Old Time Radio channel, as well. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

EDIT: BTW, the funniest stuff ever is when Abbott gets a little tongue tied, and Costello goes off the script, and makes Abbott say the set-up line correctly before he delivers the punch line. Example:

DIRECTOR: As the story begins, we see Lana Turner riding a horse through the park.

COSTELLO: What park?

ABBOTT: What difference park, park, what park.

COSTELLO: (short pause) Give it to me in English this time.

(audience cracks up)

ABBOTT: It's in a park! So what? (still hasn't said the line, "What difference does it make, 'what park'? ")

COSTELLO: (still refusing to deliver a punchline without the proper set-up) Are you on page two?

(audience is dying)

ABBOTT: (finally getting it right) What difference does it make, 'what park'?

COSTELLO: Well it makes a lot of difference, if it's Griffith Park. My mother won't let me go there, she hates the place.

ABBOTT: How come?

COSTELLO: That's where she met my father.

(No, the punch line was nothing special. But hearing live comedians try to fight their way through a flubbed scene was hilarious.)