Today we are venturing into the world of 1957 sci-fi. The story is called "The Coffin Cure," by physician turned science fiction writer Alan E. Nourse. A cure for the common cold has been found, but it's pushed out to the public a little too quickly, with unpleasant side effects (sounds like something ripped out of modern day headlines). The whole …

By Lord Byron

Actor Jack Webb was best known for his persuasive portrayal of police Sergeant Joe Friday. Today we get to hear Jack Webb as a criminal. The story is another in our 10-week tribute to the prolific pulp mystery writer and novelist Cornell Woolrich. Joining us once again to discuss this story is researcher Dr. Joe Webb (no relation to Jack Webb or Jo…

The following story is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. We bring you "Dragnet," the granddaddy of all true crime police procedurals. Jack Webb was the mastermind behind the series that showed the boys in blue in a heroic light after many years of media mockery. This is an early episode of the series, and the first to …

By Emily Dickinson

By Matthew Arnold

Today we have another story of a person seemingly vanishing off the face of the earth. But this time her finance is having none of it! We continue with our 10 episode series devoted to mystery writer Cornell Woolrich, the author of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window." His story "I Won't Take A Minute" is about a man trying desperately to find his swee…

Today we present the classic of dystopian fiction, George Orwell's hopeless tale of the future, "1984." There are a few curious things about this adaptation, not least of which is the proximity of this broadcast to the release of the book just a few months prior. It's the story of "Big Brother is Watching You", TV screens with no on/off switches, "…

It's our annual Easter program, and those of you who have been with us from the start know we have presented some unusual selections for this episode. This year is no exception, with the little known story of Martin Niemöller, and an obscure little episode of "Cavalcade of America" about a German pastor who stood up against Hitler during the rise o…

The movie "Buck Privates," which launched Bud Abbott and Lou Costello into meteoric box office superstars, is one of the best fun flicks of the early 1940s. Months prior to the US entering WWII, "Buck Privates" has the added curiosity of the army as a "peacetime" operation, but with all the flair of a rah-rah America-at-war classic. We are presenti…

Cary Grant gives a powerful performance in the story of a man who wakes up in the street after an accident, not remembering the last few years of his life. The problem is, he is being pursued by the police for a crime he supposedly committed, and now must prove his innocence before he's caught. This is another exciting fast-paced thriller from the …

Edgar Bergen and his wooden dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, though predominantly radio stars, briefly appeared in the Walt Disney film "Fun and Fancy Free.” This episode of the Bergen show will be a treat for Disneyphiles. Walt himself makes a rare guest appearance to promote the film, as well as Donald Duck (played by Clarence Nash), …

If you prefer your murderous plots to be confined to the comfort of your podcast listening, you have come to the right place. Today a man is convinced he has been implicated in a crime while drugged, and he must find the killer. The only clue he has is the terrible dream in which he remembers only fleeting details. Our subject is Cornell Woolrich's…

It’s the 10th show of the Stan Freberg Show. This clever variety/comedy is a real slice of 1957, with its early Rock 'n' Roll, big band music, and Heartbreak Hotel parody. This episode includes a build-it-yourself knock-down grand piano, a tour through a Chinese fortune cookie factory, and another (and last) lecture on Hi Fi by Dr. Herman Horn. Vis…

If you like Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film "Rear Window," you may know it was based off a story by one of the kings of the pulp mystery, Cornell Woolrich. Today we are beginning a new 10 part series presenting the best Cornell Woolrich stories adapted for radio. And, yes, they are very much like Hitchcock's "Rear Window." Returning to our microphones…

In the 1930s, comedian Fanny Brice created the character Baby Snooks, which she performed with character actor Hanley Stafford on MGM’s big budget series “Good News.” The skits were well written, and Brice’s performance is so convincing on radio it’s sometimes difficult to tell she was a 60-year-old woman. Today we’re bringing you four skits with B…

We have one last visit with researcher Keith Scott today as he packs up his bag of magic tricks. But he has one last tale to amaze, a good example of "Escape" in its latter days. It's a fun adventure story of an average American Merchant Marine caught up into international intrigue, and shows the level of excellence in technical innovation that had…

While tracking down a criminal on the open range, United States Marshal Matt Dillion loses his horse and must bring his convict in on the rustic stagecoach, and the two strike up an unusual trust. This is an absorbing picture of the sensationalized American west, with wonderful immersive sound, colorful characters, and a great example of why this w…

As our "Top 10 Escape" series nears a close, Keith Scott has returned with an interesting adventure yarn from late in the run all about explorers competing to be the first to reach the top of Mount Everest. This exciting story of tough men vs. nature follows a fictional expedition to the top, and is a fascinating combination of truth and lore, just…

Husband and wife comedy teams on radio continues, and we are looking at the East Coast counterpart of Jack Benny and his wife Mary Livingstone today. Fred Allen was the comedian, and his beautiful wife Portland Hoffa participated as a foil. Nonetheless, she was with Fred from the early days of vaudeville and always exchanged lines with him in his o…

During its significant run, the radio series "Escape," much more than its big brother series "Suspense," often put an emphasis on great English adventure literature. Sometimes it drifted into the area of pulp, but Escape more often adapted stories that were considered classics of the genre by celebrated authors. Such is the case with "Journey Into …

Well, it's Jack Benny's birthday again, which is, if you are at all familiar with popular vintage comedy entertainment, on Valentine's Day. As such we are bringing you not only Jack Benny, but a Jack Benny episode from 1947 all about his birthday party. Joining the festivities are two of Jack's favorites on the show, Violinist Isaac Stern, and Rona…

Today's episode is one of the all-time great stories of drawn out tension, and is an excellent example of the power of the spoken word and the great unsung radio actors of the 1950s. The story is "Poison" by Roald Dahl. Jack Webb (best known for his portrayal of Joe Friday on "Dragnet") and William Conrad ("Cannon" on the 1971 TV series) are Americ…

We are paying a visit to Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard today, one of the most famous married in real life husband and wife comedy teams on 1950s television. They started in radio, and like many entertainer couples had achieved a certain fame before marriage. The family sitcom that would eventually star themselves and their two real-life sons wo…

Our series of Top 10 episodes from the "Escape" radio series continues today with a wild adventure in the chaos and madness of Mardis Gras in 1950s New Orleans. A man attempting to sleep through the ruckus of the celebration gets his hands on a Gideons bible that happens to have some secret coded messages inside, and now he's being pursued by a maf…

Jim and Marion Jordan, also known as Fibber McGee and Molly, is the next husband and wife comedy team that we are looking at today. Although they made some movies, McGee and Molly were most famous on the radio, and built their own world of zany characters who were constantly dropping in at their house at "79 Wistful Vista." Today Fibber has created…

A few weeks ago in Keith Scott's series of "Top 10 Escape" we presented the mystery of a vanishing train. Today we have another baffling vanishing mystery. The story is about a woman and her mother attending the Paris Exhibition of 1889, when the mother suddenly disappears under mysterious circumstances, and everyone seems to deny she ever existed.…

Another popular husband and wife comedy team that were married in real life was Phil Harris and Alice Faye. Regular listeners to the podcast will be familiar with this show, because it's one of the funniest that still holds up today. By the time of its broadcast Alice Faye had been out of show business quite awhile, and Phil Harris, was at the heig…

This week we are revisiting a classic radio story, "Three Skeleton Key." We did this one early in our podcast, which starred Vincent Price. Today as part of our series dedicated to "Escape," researcher Keith Scott has brought "Three Skeleton Key" starring Elliott Reid, the first time this story was done on radio in 1948. It's the story of three men…

In the days of vintage entertainment from the vaudeville era all the way into the 1950s, some of the highest ranking entertainers were comedy husband and wife teams that were married in real life. Perhaps the most famous of these teams was "George and Gracie." Today we are looking at this famous comedy team and listening to a broadcast from the lat…

Keeping with the theme of trains from last week, radio researcher Keith Scott has brought a fast-moving, two-fisted thriller, written by Graham Greene and staring one of the great actors of radio, William Conrad. Conrad was used regularly on Escape, and his powerful voice became one of the signatures of the series. Visit our website: https://goodol…

If you like stupid jokes and bizarre off-the-wall parodies of long forgotten radio shows and personalities, Henry Morgan was a unique gem from the Golden Age of Entertainment. In this episode, he kids everything from his own looks, to Hollywood columnists, to daytime radio serials. Everything that should've broken the medium. Even if you have no cl…

It's the late 1800s, and a special ordered train has vanished without a trace somewhere between Liverpool and London. So begins the strange mystery yarn by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told in the entertaining tradition of Doyle, that makes Sherlock Holmes still endure today. Join John and our special guest Keith Scott for this second delving into the gr…

Happy 2024! Well, we all seem to be here with everything still intact, so to usher in this New Year, we are once again bringing you a great variety show from the Golden Age of Hollywood. This was an expensive show, with only the top movie stars of the day, and in this wild episode Dick Powell gives Lou Costello a singing lesson, and George Raft sho…

This week we invited back our friend, radio researcher Keith Scott. Keith graciously agreed to be with us for a new series of 10 episodes about one of his favorite series, "Escape." It was an extraordinary show from late in radio, and Keith has selected 10 unusual Escape episodes to represent the series, starting with Rudyard Kipling's "Drums of th…

This week for fans of the Marx Brothers we produced two offerings. For the podcast, it's a variety show episode of Command Performance, with Spencer Tracy as master of ceremonies, and popular entertainers of the time (including Victor Borge doing his famous phonetic punctuation routine), and Groucho Marx in a "John and Mary Thorndyke" sketch with B…

It's the last stop on our Christmas list, and for our big winter spectacular, what better than a grand, whopping, two-hour Christmas blockbuster, packed with more top entertainers of vintage Hollywood than you can shake a reindeer at? This fun holiday sleigh ride features Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Herbert Marshall, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Co…

This is the last episode before our big Christmas extravaganza, and it's a fun one. First, Bing and Jimmy are back for one final trip to the store, and then George Burns and Gracie Allen present their Christmas fairytale at the North Pole, with the famous character actress Edna May Oliver playing the Wicked Witch. Those familiar with the Burns and …

This is the final in our series of "Top 10 Radio Noir", and we're bringing an episode of a popular West Coast only radio pulp series, "The Whistler." The story concerns a shady attorney who gets in too deep with the wrong side. The Whistler played by announcer Bill Forman was a conscience-like voice who narrated the story of someone in the process …

Today our annual Christmas Advent continues with another shopping trip with Jimmy and Bing as Jimmy is returning his Christmas gift, and Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire reprising their roles to present a condensed version of Irving Berlin's Christmas classic "Holiday Inn" (Fred Astaire even dances on the radio!). All this, and a shot with Fibber McGee…

Since this episode lands right on Pearl Harbor remembrance day, we decided to pause from our current series to go back and bring you a show that was produced at a time when the events of Pearl Harbor and the bloody aftermath of WWII was still fresh in the public's memory. Jimmy Stewart gives a marvelous performance in this taut thriller of a paraly…

Again this week we are visiting 1947 to take a listen to Christmas of the past. Jack Benny was the number one comedian and the number one show in this year, and their annual "Christmas shopping" episode was a tradition, with many of the characters staples that would move into television. In addition we have a bonus clip of Bing Crosby and Jimmy Ste…

"Crossfire" was an interesting mystery/film noir from 1947, about a group of soldiers, antisemitism, and the sudden violent murder of Joseph Samuels. This radio version of the film is a full-hour Suspense show and pulled in an impressive cast of high powered movie stars to reprise the five principles in the story: Robert Young as Inspector Finley, …

With Thanksgiving officially past, the gloves are off for our annual march toward Christmas. And as has become our tradition, in this year of 2023, we are looking back at the Ghost of Christmas Past. Our first visit is with perhaps radio's most beloved couple, Fibber McGee and Molly. As well as being a cleverly written show, this series celebrates …

Happy Thanksgiving! This year for our annual turkey show, we are going back to Thanksgiving Day of 1942 to hear a fascinating program written and narrated by the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and farmer Louis Bromfield that celebrates legacy, and those who work the soil. As with many shows produced in the early days of WWII, there is a looming da…

A few weeks ago we featured a Jack Benny Show that parodied the movie, "It's A Wonderful Life." Today we are listening to the follow-up show, which is a look at "what happened" immediately after the curtain went down on that show. Victor Moore, the largely forgotten actor/comedian of the era, makes a return visit as Jack's guardian angel. Visit our…

It's back to the half-hour format of "Suspense" series this week, and as radio noir goes, Suspense was the absolute best. Today we are presenting the one appearance of Judy Garland on the series. Garland really gets to show her dramatic acting chops in this one, as a carhop in Hollywood who is abducted by a homicidal maniac (played by future "Suspe…

We are joined by Nick Santa Maria, writer, comedian, and Abbott and Costello expert, for a second discussion about "The Boys." Today they discuss their meteoric rise to fame, the tragic story of Lou Costello, and The Andrews Sisters, among other topics. In addition we're listening to another Abbott and Costello radio show from 1945, and Bud and Lou…

In the late 1940s, the famous series "Suspense" took a short departure from its half-hour format to a one-hour stint hosted by movie actor Robert Montgomery. On paper it sounds perfect, but most fans agree this was a mediocre run that would thankfully return to its normal format. One of the first of these ventures is a one-hour expanded script from…

Today we are bringing you the first of two tributes to "The Boys," Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Joining us will be Abbott and Costello historian Nick Santa Maria, who will be talking about where the famous comedy team came from, their best films, their radio show, and their legacy. Also we will be hearing one of their radio shows from 1944. The Ann…