There is something immensely comforting for me about
old-time radio. During the heyday of American narrative audio broadcasts (approximately
1930-1960), millions tuned in to a wide variety of programs, hundreds of shows
ranging from soap operas to science fiction. At present, the massive influx of
podcasts has revived interest in audial work, and even the creation of new narrative
radio series. For myself and a few fellow fanatics, the old shows are still something
we enjoy on a regular basis.
My dad got me hooked on that great first wave of radio
programs. I remember working out in the garage with him one weekend in Denver,
when I was around the age of 12. He twisted the dial of a battered old Bakelite
radio, searching for the sound of sports. Suddenly, he found something different
and turned it up. It was Jack Armstrong,
the All-American Boy. The 15-minute juvenile adventure serial was cheesy
and ludicrous — and I was hooked immediately.
The local old-time radio show was curated, produced, and
hosted locally by the affable and relaxed writer John Dunning. I would follow
him around the dial from station to station as his program evolved. Once a
week, depending on how much time the station gave him — he was usually blessed
with two- to three-hour slots, which gave him plenty of time to schedule a nice
variety of shows — he would entrance me. He played every important show (as
long as the sound quality held up), and many lesser-known gems, and filled in
the context for each show with a comprehensive exactitude that is codified in
his immense and deeply enjoyable reference work about the period, On the Air.
What’s the appeal? First and foremost is the idea of
compelling the listening audience to collaborate by implementing its
imagination. With film and television, the visual is codified and defines how
we remember and think about the performance. In radio, you are free (in fact
required) to flesh out the story in your imagination. This leeway, this necessity
to make the brain work, is exhilarating. When one prominent show came on the
air, the announcer proclaimed, “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a
life of romantic adventure? We offer you Escape!
Designed to free you from the four walls of today . . .” If you give yourself
over the process, it’s mighty mind-expanding.
Next, versatility on the cheap. A handful of sound effects,
some appropriate music, and solid performances take the listener anywhere you
want. You can go to the moon, or sail to a treasure island. You can inhabit the
mind of a murderer, or that of a precocious child. It is easier to move into
the place of characters via audio than in any other medium.
Then there’s the nostalgia factor. Growing up, I was
marinated in the mainstream culture of decades earlier, which turned me into a
person of the 1930s. There is something about traveling back in time, into
earlier (and, you might say, more primitive) modes of entertainment, which both
takes me out of myself and grounds me. Despite the Great Depression and World
War II, my parents’ childhood world was a stable one. I identify these old
shows with that feeling.
Part of this legacy consists of some very inappropriate
racial stereotypes. One of the most popular comedies on the air, Amos ‘n’ Andy, featured white men
pretending to be black. The show is well-written, but it leans on and reinforces
popular prejudices, rendering it unlistenable today. On the sitcom Fibber McGee and Molly, their Black maid
Beulah was played by a white man, Marlin Hurt. Even on the tolerant Jack Benny
show, the clever servant Rochester (Eddie Anderson) initially referenced
attributes such as a penchant for razors, dice, and gin. There are Asian
stereotypes in many shows, most notably Terry
and the Pirates and Have Gun, Will
Travel. Even Life with Luigi trafficked
in obnoxious ethnic types. Replays of these broadcasts require warnings and
contextualization. When it came to racial equality in that era, radio was just
as behind as everything else.
Finally, the warm glow of sound issuing from the speaker
surrounds me and lifts me up. The simple comfort of the human voice, speaking
seemingly only to you, confers contentment.
So where do you begin? My list of recommendations follows,
grouped by genre. How to find them? It takes a bit of sleuthing to dig up these
shows, but the digital revolution has made it much easier. I utilize primarily
the Internet Archive’s Old Time Radio pages, as well as the excellent RadioEchoes, which carries classic British as well as American radio. YouTube is
also a valuable source.
COMEDY
Vic and Sade
The ultimate use of radio in the comedy format can be found
in this series of 15-minute freestanding sketches that took in the “the small
house halfway up in the next block” in an anonymous small Midwestern town. For
the bulk of the show, it was populated by only three characters: Victor Gook,
his wife Sade, and their son Rush. Through their incidental conversations, the
listener got to hear about the most bizarre and surreal collection of people (Fred
Stembottom, Y.Y. Flirch, et al), places (The Tiny Petite Pheasant Feather Tea
Shoppe, the Bright Kentucky Hotel) and events put out in any medium. The show
was enormously popular during its run from 1932 to 1945. From simple premises
such as “40 Pounds of Golf Clubs” and “Grandpa Snyder’s Christmas Cards” came complicated
curlicues of contorted nonsense. Most importantly, the players sounded like
regular folks, comfortable in their own skins and absorbed in the minutiae and
absurdities of everyday life.
Others: The Jack Benny
Program, The Fred Allen Show, Abbott and Costello, Baby Snooks, Bob Hope, Bob
and Ray, Burns and Allen, Duffy’s Tavern, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,
Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Lum and Abner, Our Miss Brooks,
Phil Harris-Alive Faye Show, The Red Skelton Show
THRILLER
Inner Sanctum
Mysteries
The home of the infamous squeaking door, Inner Sanctum (1941-1952) led its
listeners down gloomy and improbable corridors. Each week, it delivered
completely over-the-top melodrama larded down with gore, it was something you
wanted to listen to with the lights on. The creepy organ soundtrack and the
show’s sardonic, punning host only made it better. Sometimes the plots were so
absurd that you end up laughing — but it was still entertaining.
Others: Lights Out, The Whistler,
Murder at Midnight, Dark Fantasy
SOAP OPERA
One Man’s Family
I am not a fan of these daily/weekly weepies, but radio
started the soap opera genre (so named because soap companies, trying to reach
the housewife, were often sponsors of these shows), and it ran strongly on the
airwaves from beginning to end of the era. Some series even successfully
transferred to television. The gold standard for the long, involved, and
slow-moving intertwined narratives was this show (1932-1959), scripted by the
prolific and talented Carlton E. Morse, who also created the excellent serial
adventure I Love a Mystery. In Family,
four generations of the Barbour family lived, loved, laughed, and lost together
in weekly nuggets of conversation and consternation.
DETECTIVE
Richard Diamond
Private Detective
Not the first wisecracking detective but certainly one of
the best (1949-1953). Former crooner Dick Powell played Diamond (his name a nod
to Sam Spade), a cocky, bemused private eye who sometimes burst into song to
cap an episode. He good-naturedly jousted with his pal the police lieutenant
and solved crimes and other mysteries with one eyebrow cocked.
Others: Philip
Marlowe, Sam Spade, Boston Blackie, Dragnet, Gang Busters, The Saint, The
Shadow, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Candy Matson
ADVENTURE
Escape and Suspense
You can tell from the list of other shows below that most
adventure radio was geared toward kids. Escape
(1947-1954) and Suspense (1942-1962)
were different. They were for grown-up listeners, featured top-notch production
values, and rarely proved tedious. Escape
stuck mainly to adventure and action; Suspense
trafficked in mystery and crime, often featuring big Hollywood names in the
cast. These two shows drew talented people into their making, and remain
memorable.
Others: Green Hornet,
Superman, Buck Rogers, Challenge of the Yukon, Terry and the Pirates, Chandu
the Magician, I Love a Mystery, Voyage of the Scarlet Queen
WESTERNS
The Lone Ranger
The Masked Rider of the Plains was created specifically for
radio, and remains its most iconic figure. He was a Texas Ranger who was left
for dead by outlaws, but who survived and disguised his identity so that he
could wreak havoc against badmen everywhere in the Old West. From 1933 to 1956,
he fought for justice with his faithful Indian companion, Tonto. This was kid
stuff, but later Western series adopted a much more mature approach, especially
Gunsmoke. It’s difficult to realize
now that, at least until the 1960s, the Western genre was the nation’s most
popular.
Others: The Cisco Kid,
Fort Laramie, Frontier Gentleman, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, Gunsmoke, Have Gun
Will Travel, Hopalong Cassidy, The Roy Rogers Show
QUIZ SHOW
Information Please
Most quiz shows were dopey giveaways, but Information Please (1938-1948) was
different. In it, listeners sent in questions in an effort to stump four brainy
panelists, a team usually anchored by columnist Franklin P. Adams, sportswriter
John Kieran, and pianist Oscar Levant. It was a funny, freewheeling show and
for a time was wildly popular. It is still fun to listen in and play along.
(Its mirror opposite It Pays to Be
Ignorant lined up three comics who gloriously biffed on questions such as
“Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?”, getting confused, going off on tangents, and
generally abusing the show’s long-suffering host Tom Howard. Of course, in You Bet Your Life, the format was given
another twist as host Groucho Marx teased the contestants unmercifully.
Others: Doctor I.Q.,
It Pays to Be Ignorant, You Bet Your Life
SCI-FI
Dimension X
Science fiction was a late comer to radio, and again was
thought of primarily as kid stuff. However, many interesting ideas and sardonic
observations were unfolded through the genre, and Dimension X (1950-1951) was a strong contender. It was reborn (and
scripts were reused) as X Minus One (1955-1958).
Both shows took some of the best work of the most skilled sci-fi writers of the
day.
Others: X Minus One
DRAMA
Mercury Theatre on the
Air
“Straight” drama was a surprisingly weak genre on radio. The
need for family-friendly content meant that many topics were off-limits. The
first show to demonstrate the amazing power of radio was the infamous Mercury show of Oct. 30, 1938 —
Mercury’s adaptation of “The War of the Worlds.” The production was so
realistic that the entire nation panicked. The series was the brainchild of
Orson Welles and John Houseman, who first made a splash on the air with an epic
three-and-a-half hour adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” The Mercury
had confidence in the listener’s ability to absorb complex material, and its mature
and intelligent approach made it the most engaging of dramatic offerings on the
air.
Others: Columbia
Workshop, Columbia Presents Corwin, Lux Radio Theatre, NBC University Theatre
