I’m willing to bet there’s a defunct thread on the topic somewhere, but damn if I’m gonna try to find it with my rather clunky browser (the search ran so much faster on my work computer). So who likes old-time radio? What’s your favorite show? Anyone do re-enactments?
I love old-time radio.
I listen to it on the web, and also the 1070 KMX a LA station plays it every night at 9 oclock. I think there schedule changes every few months, the only consistent thing I have noticed is that they play Jack Benny every Saturday night.
I like all kinds of shows, they each have their own quirks and fun to them.
The Adventures of Harry Lime is an interesting show because it stars an older Orson Welles, he was just doing it to make some money between movies, so its kind of fun to hear the difference between this Welles and the younger Welles who became famous for the Shadow and his Martian broadcast.
I enjoy Dimension X and X-Minus One for its great Sci-Fi stories, some are serious, others are fun quirky things. But, they are all based on some of the best writers of the day. Asimov, Vonnegut, Bradbury, and other authors I can’t think of at the moment.
The Jack Benny show is great because you can hear Mel Blanc do Polar Bears before Bugs Bunny was even thought of. Of course, alot of the jokes fall flat because they are based on pop culture icons, that have been buried for decades, but enough of it is still funny for me to look forward to hearing new programs.
Dragnet is fun because its so damn cheesy. Jack Webb picked up that style of program early on and never let go.
Gunsmoke, I enjoy this show because they got far more violent and edgey than other shows on at the same time. They certainly are tame by today’s standards, but when you compare a Gunsmoke to some of the other programs it definitley had a hard edge, which added to the program, and it made the humorous interludes with Doc or the assistant even funnier.
I know there are other shows, I just can’t think of them right now. What are some of your favorites, Otto? Do you do re-enactments? I never have.
pat
PS:
I don’t think this topic has been covered, thanks for starting it, its something I like to talk about.
I love OTR. I spend way too much of my money on tapes because of it. My favorite is Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; I created the web page I just linked to. It’s got info about the show, some jokes from it, and links to places online where you can hear it for free.
I also like Abbot and Costello, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and The Shadow.
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Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man?
Well?
Who?
THE SHADOW KNOWS!!! (Start the theremin!)
I love OTR. Unfortunatly, there’s not a lot of re-broadcasts around this neck of the woods. Used to be lots on overnight radio, but I can’t find any “theatre of the mind” on the air anymore. (The sad state of radio…and I work in the industry.) However, just before Christmas, I found a 7 CD set of OTR shows. (Actually there were a number of sets, this particular one was OTR-Comedy) I got it for a my dad and he loves it!
Anyone ever listen to “I Love a Mystery” or “The Inner Sanctum”? (That one scared the b’gee-beeies out of me when I was a young 'un.–They used the sound of pulling scotch tape off a roll to create the sound of stripping flesh off a corpse. Gave me the willies for days!)
My fate keeps getting in the way of my destiny.
I’m also a big fan of Dimension X and X-Minus One. In high school I exhausted just about every short story anthology of 1940s and 1950s SF ever published. A couple years later, in my college days, while delivering pizzas I’d listen to KNX on the car radio. I think the SF shows were on Wednesday nights. I don’t think they did a single story I hadn’t already read, but they were always entertaining.
Some shows that KNX used to air that Pat hasn’t already mentioned:
Sgt Preston was always taking credit for the real hero of the show; his dog, King of the Yukon.
Tales of the Texas Rangers and Gangbusters: two shows whose violence is unrivaled by anything ever aired on TV.
The Six-Shooter starring Jimmy Stewart.
Night Beat and Box Thirteen were both about reporters, I think.
Burns and Allen and The Edgar Bergan Show whould take turns airing on Saturdays after Jack Benny. Another humorous show you’d hear every now and then was Damon Runyan Theater
For a while, I used to listen to old radio shows on KPPC on Sunday evenings. The only one I remember really liking was a show from the '50s called Johnny Dollar about an intrepid insurance investigator. I think I read somewhere thatJohnny Dollar was the last radio drama series to air before being run out of business by TV. I think The Stan Freberg Show (a collection of which I have on tape) holds this distinction for radio comedies.
Those are all before my time, but when I was a kid I used to listen to E.G. Marshall’s Radio Mystery Theatre on KNX 1070, Los Angeles. This was in the 70s.
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“We don’t get much call for that around here, Sir.”
If you have real player, Scifi.com has several old time radio shows on line…