Showing results by author "Radio Shows of the Past!" in All Categories

The Zero Hour (aka Hollywood Radio Theater) was a 1973–74 American radio drama anthology series hosted by Rod Serling. With tales of mystery, adventure and suspense, the program was broadcast for two seasons. Some of the scripts were written by Serling.The radio series debuted on September 3, 1973, in syndication, and was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System in December. The original format featured five-part dramas broadcast Monday through Friday with the story coming to a conclusion on Friday. Including commercials, each part was approximately 30 minutes long. Mutual affiliates were...

One of the longest running young-adult-oriented old radio shows during the golden age of radio was the widely popular "Dick Tracy." The series aired over a period of 14 years, from 1934 - 1948, and was based on a newspaper comic strip. This juvenile police detective radio program began as a 15-minute show which was later extended to a full 30-minutes due to popular demand.The series’ central theme was crime-fighting taken to a higher level by the many mind boggling plot twists the shows writer’s came up with. What set Dick Tracy apart from other old time radio serializations was his use of...

The English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling was broadcast to audiences in the United Kingdom on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The programme began on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when the British Army overran Hamburg. The next scheduled broadcast was made by Horst Pinschewer (also known as Geoffrey Perry), a German-Jewish refugee serving in the British Army who announced the British takeover. Pinschewer was later responsible for the capture of William Joyce.Through such broadcasts, the ...

An alien archaeologist takes over a Scottish village surrounded by a radioactive cloud and devastationThe archaeologist examines the past lives of the village's inhabitants by "unpeeling" layers of timeCast: Gayanne Potter as Jill LoganSimon Tait as Dan CollinsJoanna Tope as Dr Beth GrangerSandy Neilson as Captain CairnsLesley Hart as Heather LoganStevie Hannan as Soldier/Pilot/JamieJohn Paul Hurley as the TechnicianWriter: Marty Ross wrote the program specifically for the BBC

Are you looking to listen to authentic World War 2 News Broadcast? This podcast offers speaches and real, original World War 2 News Broadcast from the start of World War 2 all the way to the surrender and the US winning the war.

Nelson Olmsted was one of the last great radio horror performers. Born Leroy Nelson Olmsted, Jr. on January 28, 1914 in Minnesota, he was raised in Texas, where he became an announcer for local radio stations. For the album notes on his Sleep No More album, he offered a bit of biography:“By the time I moved to WBAP in Ft. Worth... the announcer's life seemed endlessly sterile.What to do about it? Dramatic shows cost money and there were no budgets. The cheapest drama for radio I could think of was good literature, read aloud. Especially the work of that great dramatist who never wrote a play...

Dick Barton – Special Agent is a radio thriller serial that was broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-minute episodes at 6.45 (later 6.15) each weekday evening. From 11 January 1947 an additional "omnibus" edition repeated all of the week's programmes each Saturday morning between 11.00 and 12.00. In all, 711 episodes were produced and the serial achieved a peak audience of 20 million. Its end was marked by a leading article in The Times.The serial ...

The Adventures of Harry Lime is one of the most successful series created by prolific British radio producer Harry Alan Towers and his company Towers of London. Towers and Graham Greene, author of The Third Man, had the same literary agent, and Towers learned that Greene had not sold the rights to the character of Harry Lime to Alexander Korda when he sold Korda The Third Man. Towers quickly bought the rights to the character and in 1951 he put a syndicated radio series into production. Orson Welles reprised the role of Harry Lime in a series of adventures that preceded the story told ...

The Strange Dr. Weird is a radio program broadcast on Mutual from 1944 to 1945.Sponsored by Adam Hats, the drama is notable in part because it was a sister series to The Mysterious Traveler, both in theme and its narrator. Maurice Tarplin, who was also the creepy voice of The Mysterious Traveler. Many of the scripts were condensed 15-minute versions of scripts originally broadcast on The Mysterious Traveler.To the accompaniment of an organ's spooky strains, Tarplin introduced each episode:Good evening. Come in, won't you? Why, what's the matter?You seem a bit nervous. Perhaps the ...

K.C. Smith, a man who is trained to handle any fiend in the Middle East, is also very fluent in all the Easternydialects and is familiar with the customs there. Everyday, he ventures out into the streets, while shrouded in the Middle Eastern garbs, in order to get the scoop on any foul play that might arise in these ancient cities full of mosques, bazaars, and oriental palaces. Smith will do whatever it takes to get all the information needed to bring down the local warlords, all in the name of the Ghost Corps.

Tales of Tomorrow was a science fiction anthology radio series based on stories from science fiction magazines, such as Galaxy. The radio series was produced in 1953 following the success of the television series of the same name. The original television series aired live from 1951 to 1953 and was produced by George F. Foley. It featured a number of notable performers, including Boris Karloff, James Dean, and Veronica Lake. The series was considered to be a ground-breaking sci-fi program and had many similarities to the later Twilight Zone.

World War II newsreels often included sounds such as the hum of motors, the whistling of bombs, and explosions, but these sounds were rarely authenticated as field recordings. Here are some other things to know about World War II newsreels: Sound newsreelsThe arrival of sound newsreels in 1929 changed the way people experienced news and armed conflict. PropagandaNewsreels were used to spread propaganda, with countries carefully editing news reports to combine propaganda and straight news. The United States Office of War InformationThe OWI produced a series of 267 newsreels called The ...

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches,...

The 15-minute continuing series Perry Mason aired weekdays October 18, 1943 – December 30, 1955, on CBS Radio. Geared more towards action than courtroom drama, it mixed mystery and soap opera, with attorney Perry Mason sometimes even exchanging gunfire with criminals.Erle Stanley Gardner's literary success with the Perry Mason novels convinced Warner Bros. to try its hand, unsuccessfully, with some motion pictures. However, the Perry Mason radio show stayed on the air for 12 years.As The Edge of Night, it ran for another 30 years on television, but Gardner disliked the proposed daytime ...

The Buck Rogers comic strip had been commercially very successful, spawning novelizations and children's toys, and King Features Syndicate decided to create its own science fiction comic strip to compete with it. At first, King Features tried to purchase the rights to the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. However, the syndicate was unable to reach an agreement with Burroughs. King Features then turned to Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to create the story.One source for Flash Gordon was the Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide (1933). The book's themes ...

The stories followed the 30th-century adventures of Commander-in-Chief Buzz Corry (Ed Kemmer) of the United Planets Space Patrol and his young sidekick Cadet Happy (Lyn Osborn), as they faced interplanetary villains with diabolical schemes. The show was targeted to children, but attracted a sizable adult audience. Many episodes featured commercial tie-in merchandise, like toys and mail-order premiums, that were advertised during commercial breaks. Many of the ads for corporate sponsor Ralston Purina's Chex cereals used the show's space opera motif in their pitches. A unique feature of...

The Whistler is an American radio mystery drama which ran from May 16, 1942, until September 22, 1955, on the west-coast regional CBS radio network. The show was also broadcast in Chicago and over Armed Forces Radio. On the west coast, it was sponsored by the Signal Oil Company: "That whistle is your signal for the Signal Oil program, The Whistler." There were also two short-lived attempts to form east-coast broadcast spurs: July 3 to September 25, 1946, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company; and March 26, 1947, to September 29, 1948, sponsored by Household Finance. The program was ...

The series originated on January 31, 1936, on WXYZ, the same local Detroit station that originated its companion shows The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon. Beginning April 12, 1938, the station supplied the series to the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network, and then to NBC Blue and its successors, the Blue Network and ABC Network, from November 16, 1939, through September 8, 1950. It returned from September 10 to December 5, 1952.It was sponsored by General Mills from January to August 1948 and by Orange Crush in its brief 1952 run. Distinguished by its use of classical music for ...

Abbott Mysteries was a comedy-mystery radio program adapted from the novels of Frances Crane (1896-1981). Initially a summer replacement for Quick As a Flash, the series was heard on Mutual and NBC between the years 1945 and 1955.The Mutual series, sponsored by Helbros Watches, debuted June 10, 1945, airing Sundays at 6 p.m. The scripts by Howard Merrill and Ed Adamson were in the lighthearted tradition of Mr. and Mrs. North. Julie Stevens and Charles Webster starred as Jean and Pat Abbott, a San Francisco married couple "who were habitually involved in various sorts of mayhem and in ...

Frankenstein is a frame story written in epistolary form. Set in the 18th century, it documents a fictional correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville.Captain Walton introductory narrativeCaptain Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole in hopes of expanding scientific knowledge. After departing from Archangel, the ship is trapped by pack ice on the journey across the Arctic Ocean. During this time, the crew spots a dog sled driven by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the ice splits apart, freeing the ship, and the...