Old-Time Radio

A dozen years ago, when I was about 13, I made a discovery. And, no, it was not the discovery that I was suddenly able to grow hair on my face – for, you see, I am still waiting to make that discovery. Be that as it may, the discovery I made was a discovery of a whole new world, at least to me. That world is the world of old-time radio. The local news station was playing old-time radio shows on weekend evenings, and I decided to tune in one night. The shows grabbed my interest almost from the start, and I was a regular listener until the station stopped airing the feature some years ago. But I still had some collections of shows on audio tapes and CDs, and for the past couple years I have been able to download many shows off the internet for free. I listen to them now on my MP3 player every weekend. Let me take a moment to describe for you this world of old-time radio.
The “golden age” of old-time radio began in the 1930s, hardly a decade after the radio came to prominence as a communication medium, and it lasted well into the 1950s before it slowly died off due to the rise of the television. It may be hard for us in 2009 to believe it, but there used to be a day when there were no TV sets or computers. There was only radio, and it was from radio that people got their news, their sports, their music, and their entertainment. There was no picture, only sound – which meant that you could listen and create the scene, whatever it was, in your own mind. Herein, to a great extent, lies the magic of old-time radio.
Radio shows back then were roughly the equivalent of a TV show in our day – they were acted out by a cast, had commercials in some cases (though much, much shorter in length), were broadcast weekly (some were daily affairs), and generally lasted a half-hour (a few were as short as 15 minutes or as long as an hour). There were news shows, music shows, and quiz shows, but the vast majority of the great old-time radio shows were fictional stories of some kind. And the amazing part of it is they were usually always broadcast live – which meant that there could be no slip-ups and that the best shows had to have talented actors in order to be pulled off smoothly. Some radio actors were the same ones Americans saw in the movie theaters – James Stewart starred in his own Western show in the 1950s – but many of them are not as familiar to our modern ears, having made their careers sometimes exclusively on the radio and sometimes on both radio and silver screen.
Old-time radio shows came in a great variety. There were detective shows, mystery shows, adventure shows, dramas, westerns, comedy, and science fiction. Old-time radio helped perpetuate the legend of the “hard-boiled detective” with such fictional creations as Richard Diamond, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Dick Tracy, Boston Blackie, and Philo Vance. Many of these gumshoes followed the clues as the famous old-time radio pipe organ played ominously in the background. Still other detective shows were based on real life. “Gangbusters” and “This is Your FBI” took their plots from the files of the FBI, and “Tales of the Texas Rangers” told true stories of that famous Texas law enforcement body.
Mystery shows came in different flavors. There were the shows that dwelt on creepy things like ghosts and goblins and monsters. The most famous of these shows was “Lights Out”. Even its customary opening could send shivers down a listener’s spine – a deep voice intoned, “Lights out…everybody!”, after which, in between the deep “dong’s” of a grandfather clock, the same voice would say “It…is…later…than…you…think!” Then the host would warn listeners who frightened easily to turn off their radios now. Other shows like “Quiet Please”, “Dark Fantasy”, “The Weird Circle”, and “The Hermit’s Cave” were similar in their depictions of weird and strange stories.
But other mystery shows had a more earthly, though no less chilling, feel. “The Black Museum”, narrated by the great Orson Welles, picked an object each week that was supposedly involved in a murder case, and told its story. “Escape” offered listeners who wanted to “get away from it all” strange and interesting stories from settings all over the world. “Suspense” was “well-calculated” to give you just that, as it drew out a mysterious story, withholding the resolution to the very end. “The Whistler”, with its famous whistled opening tune, often told of someone who committed a crime or some other misdeed and thought he got away with it, only to be unexpectedly caught in the end. Another famous mystery, “The Shadow”, was a mixture of a detective show and the macabre. Its hero fought crime by somehow making it so that the bad guys only heard his chuckling voice. His lines at the beginning and end of the show were some of the most famous in radio – “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” and “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit – crime does not pay! The Shadow knows!”
Adventure shows also came in varied forms. There were the superheroes like Superman and the Green Hornet, who had one persona by day and a crime-fighting alter-ego by night. “Box 13” was the story of a man who accepted, by mail, any offer of adventure that came his way. “I Was a Communist for the FBI” was broadcast in the early days of the Cold War and told of the adventures of an FBI agent who infiltrated Communist groups who in turn tried to infiltrate American society.
Dramas sought to bring to life great stories from literature and the big screen. “Lux Radio Theater” and “Screen Directors Playhouse” were just two of the shows that brought great film actors into the radio studio to re-create their movie roles. Other shows like “Mercury Theater”, “CBS Radio Workshop”, and “The Hallmark Playhouse” dramatized great literature from past and modern eras. Other dramas like “You Are There” and “Mister President” acted out famous stories from history and the lives of American presidents, respectively. There was even something for the children, as evidenced by the show “Let’s Pretend”, whose cast of “pretenders” brought young listeners radio versions of children’s stories and fairy tales.
Just as in the movies, there were westerns on the radio, especially in the 1950s. “Gunsmoke” (which also became a TV show), about Marshall Matt Dillon, was probably the most popular, followed closely by “The Lone Ranger”. There was also “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “The Six-Shooter”; the latter starred James Stewart (of “George Bailey” fame) as a kind-hearted but adventurous drifter.
The 1950s also saw the heyday of most of the successful science fiction shows on radio, of which there were only a few. The best of them were “X Minus One” and “Dimension X”, which showcased the famous science fiction stories of such writers as Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. These stories could at times be a little chilling and at other times somewhat laughable, with their fantastic images of what life might be like in the 1980s or the 1990s or beyond.
But not all the old-time radio shows were intended to be serious in nature. Many of them were meant only to make the listener laugh, and there was plenty of laughter to go around. My own favorite is the long-running “Jack Benny Program”, about which I have already written an article. His rival Fred Allen had his own show, featuring “Allen’s Alley”, which was populated by several humorous characters who would answer the “question of the week” posed by Allen himself. There were other famous comedians who had their own shows – George Burns and his wife Gracie, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Milton Berle, and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (with his wooden sidekick Charlie McCarthy) were among the best. Then there were the situation comedies. Ozzie and Harriet were on the radio before they were on television. “Fibber McGee and Molly” had their own ridiculous adventures. “The Great Gildersleeve” was known for his merry (and sometimes not-so-merry) chuckle. “Our Miss Brooks” was about a teacher in a school; “My Friend Irma” was about a clueless blonde; “My Favorite Husband” starred Lucille Ball and was a forerunner of sorts of television’s “I Love Lucy”; “The Aldrich Family” featured Henry Aldrich, a squeaky-voiced teenager; and “The Life of Riley” followed the misadventures of a rather hapless Brooklynite.
There were scores of other shows besides the ones I mentioned here. Some of them were wildly successful and ran for decades, while others only had a season, if that, on the air. Some were more exciting than others. All of them, in their own unique way, shine some light on what it was like to live in the decades before, during, and after World War II, and as such their historical value is fairly high. But if you’re like me, you’ll enjoy them simply for their entertainment value. Most of them are complex enough to hold your interest while still being clean and simple enough for the entire family to enjoy – something that may not be able to be said for everything the media puts out today. So sometime when you’re bored, take a listen to a couple of these great shows. They’ve brightened my life considerably, and who knows? You might discover a whole new world yourself.