Who here likes old time radio?

[lucidmadman]

I'm listening to 'crime' shows on a station that streams on Live365. DRAGNET, RICHARD DIAMOND, THE SHADOW, etc...
I like the 'horror' shows best. LIGHTS OUT, THE WITCH'S TALE, THE WEIRD CIRCLE.
I even like some of the comedy/variety shows. Jack Benny really WAS funny.
I grew up with early TV and missed the radio era. I really enjoy hearing it again for the first time. It's a great escape from the present.
Anyone else do this?

[Lostmessage]

1. I do

Have you ever been to the broadcast museum and watched the actors reinact the old series?

[lucidmadman]

4. No I have not...

...I've read some books about it though. One, whose name and author slips my mind at the moment, said one of things about radio as opposed to TV was that the writer/creators of radio shows really liked and knew the genres they worked in. The horror writers loved horror. They weren't generalists.
Where's the museum you speak of?
I know there's some folks in Seattle doing radio. IMAGINATION THEATRE I think it's called. I've heard it at odd hours on AM stations.
What shows/genres do you like?

[acmavm]

2. Live 365? You say you can access via internet? Got a link?

.

[lucidmadman]

6. Link...

http://www.live365.com/index.live

Search 'Spoken word' in the genre list. The station I'm listening to now is called OTRNOW.

[Don_G]

3. I Do

Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Red Skeleton.

The jokes weren't all that great, but the timing and ad-libs were always perfect.

[lucidmadman]

5. I've heard some really funny...

...tapes of Steve Allen circa late '40s. One where he was announcing wrestling and making up names of various 'holds'. Way funny.

[Lostmessage]

7. You would love the Broadcast Museum

It has Jack Berny's vault, Charlie McCarthy, old time sets and you can reenact the old radio series.
I am not sure the names of some of the shows but they have everything from the past.
I love it and it's one of my very favorite places to go. You pay 3 dollars and you can watch TV Shows from the past also.

[lucidmadman]

9. Jack Benny....

Stickup guy: "Your money or your life?"
Benny:(silence)
Stickup guy: "Well, what's it gonna be?"
Benny: "I'm thinking".

I've read that when Johnny Carson first came to Hollywood from Nebraska it was to write for Red Skeleton.

[Lostmessage]

11. You walk into his vault

The lights start flashing and sirens go off and you hear something that sounds like a cow mooing and the vault feels like it is moving.

[Don_G]

19. Translate That From Radio To TV

And maybe two little known facts: he played the Chello on a concert level and arranged to have a flower delivered to his wife every day from his death until hers.

Jack Benny is my favorite for that alone...perfect timing and the thought behind it.

[Lostmessage]

8. Check this link out

http://www.museum.tv/

[REP]

10. Bob & Ray

I love Bob and Ray. I also adore Stan Freberg's radio work (mostly ads, but oh what ads!).

[lucidmadman]

13. Me too...

...one of the stations I listen to RADIO TIME MACHINE plays quite a bit of Bob and Ray. I actually remember listening to Stan Freiberg's(sp?) show in the early '60s with my dad. It was only on for a short time because it never got a regular sponsor. I was too young to 'get' the jokes, but I remember my dad almost busting a gut.

[REP]

16. "House of Toast"

and the Silver Throated Wally Ballou are some of my favorite B&R routines.

Ever hear Freberg's ad where they built the world's largest ice-cream sundae?

[beevul]

Lets not forget one of the best of all time...

War of the worlds. Ok, maybe not greatest, but certainly famous.

[lucidmadman]

15. I remember hearing...

...a version in the early '60s that Scott Beach did on radio in the SF Bay Area. He updated things and used local place names. It WAS actually scary, at least to my 10 or 11 year old mind...

[Shanty Oilish]

12. Oh yeah! You could still hear lots of it in the 50's

and early 60's. All you needed was access to an old person with a radio. I was listening to radio drama up to around 1965. Some places I lived, nobody had tv for hundreds of miles around.

[lucidmadman]

14. Did you have any favorites?

...I really like the horror shows. When Arch Oboler says "Lights out everybody" I like to turn the lights out. Let the imagination take over...

[RebelOne]

18. Inner Sanctum was my favorite.

Great scary show. It opened with a creaky door.

[lucidmadman]

17. Link..

http://209.151.137.58/Cyber49er/index.html

This site has a lot of shows archived so you can pick and chose.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. Yes and No

The old stuff ... no, not much. It really depends on the actual content of the show. The new stuff, generally yes. This includes the Firesign Theater.

This winter, I have been working on a proposal for a series. It's an interesting process. I've found that audio-only theater has become more popular since the Internet was established. It's probably because it's much less expensive to produce a radio show than a movie or a TV program.

--bkl

[lucidmadman]

34. Interesting that the 'net...

...is opening up audio theater possibilities again. Samuel Beckett did a radio play, didn't he?
I know what you mean about the 'old' shows. Some are pretty low fi and low budget. But there were some cadillacs. I recommend SUSPENSE and ESCAPE as having high production values, good acting, good stories. If you ever get a chance to hear THREE SKELETON KEY with Vincent Price from the ESCAPE series, do so. There were several versions on different shows. The ESCAPE one with Price is the best, IMO.
I remember FIRESIGN from 'free-form' FM in the late '60s. In addition to their original 'creative' work they did commercials. I remember their ad for Blue Cheer's first album VINCIBUS ERUPTUM ("Throw up and live" as the FT had it). Weird what one remembers...

[non sociopath skin]

21. The Shadow is wonderful stuff ...

.. The BBC ran some of them on Radio 5 in the late 90s and I managed to get hold of some tapes in the States.

Love Jack Benny. Still remember my favourite line from one of his TV shows: when asked for his Social Security number he gave a smug smile and said, "One".

The Skin

[trof]

22. Fibber McGhee and Molly

Fibber's famous hall closet and Molly's "tain't funny, McGhee".
Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker.

[arwalden]

23. I Like Black and White Radio Too.

[trof]

24. You can't be serious.

That's the other thread.

[arwalden]

26. CBS Radio Mystery Theater (In The 1970's)

was one of my favorites.

-- Allen

[lucidmadman]

33. Same guy who produced INNER SANCTUM...

...did CBS MYSTERY THEATER. Hyman Brown, I think his name was. Same 'creaking door' at the beginning of both shows.
I was listening to CBSMT on one of the streaming stations and it included a newscast on the hour from 1974 or so. The news from the Middle East sounded pretty much like it does today and I forgot that I was listening to news from 30 years ago. Then they announced that Patty Hearst had been kidnapped!!! No! not again!!!

[thebigidea]

25. sure! I love writing with it on in the background. Sets the tone real nice

I love "Phillip Marlowe," "Johnny Dollar," "The Goon Show," and Groucho's quiz show...

[lucidmadman]

36. At one point there was...

...an all GOON SHOW station on LIVE 365. Choice.

Another station played tapes of old Jean Sheppard ("A christmas Story")late night shows. Now, that guy could tell stories...

[thebigidea]

38. yeah, I forgot to mention him... I'm still trying to work through...

100s of hours of it. Its wonderful at like 1-4AM, love the way Shepherd starts rambling and then eventually comes full circle and ties it all up together, topped with a goofy song.

Excelsior, fatheads!

[lucidmadman]

39. I remember a book Shepherd used to...

...talk about: I,LIBERTINE. I've read that Theodore Sturgeon actually, to go along with the spoof, wrote a book by that name.

Another station on LIVE 365 used to play tapes of old Wolfman Jack shows...not the songs, but just the demented chatter and ads:

"Get ALPO dog food, the Wolfman eat it all the time".

"At your next Masola party babies get COLT 45 Stout Malt liquor."

"XERB, the big X over Los Angeles babies."

Being able to blast at 100,000 watts from offshore probably did X out a lot of LA stations....

[Tracer]

27. As a child ...

... I certainly remember eagerly listening to "Seargent Preston of the Yukon" and "The Lone Ranger" (there was no television in my house until I was 11 years old!).

There was another radio show where the tag line went something like "plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!"

Can anyone identify?

[progressivejazz]

35. You've named my favorite two shows as a kid.

As far as the other one goes, I as far as I recall it was sponsored by Buster Brown shoes; could it have been "The Buster Brown Show"? Some folks here at DU know, because I've seen it referred to before, with its actual name and the name of the "star".

[lucidmadman]

37. I remember it from TV...

...ANDY'S GANG with Andy Devine...

[bleedingheart]

28. Too young to have remembered the originals but I like Garrison K's show

on public radio on Sundays...its great...

[Misinformed01]

29. Innersanctum

used to scare the hell out of me as a child! :)

I love the old radio shows

[Pobeka]

30. Thanks to everyone who responded, I had forgotten old time radio

I have memories of some of the horror/mystery shows, but would not have, nor could have remembered their names.

I will now be able to rekindle that old flame!

[lucidmadman]

32. That's so neat...

...this thread really took on a life of it's own. I hope you got the links I posted above. On Live 365 there's several stations that stream Old Time Radio and the other link to Cyber 49er allows you to chose individual shows from an archive. I'm glad your memory was stirred.

[Pobeka]

40. OH YEAH, those links are now bookmarked! Thanks for this thread! n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

31. Burns and Allen

Gracie was pure genius...George was, well, alright, but Gracie was the show.