Boxcars711 Old Time Radio

Benny plays a big band trumpeter who falls asleep and dreams he is an archangel, sent to destroy earth because persecution and hatred have soared out of control. A light-hearted, farcical approach to the apocolypse that's quite enjoyable, despite Benny's longstanding jokes about being ashamed of it. The plot involves the third trumpet player in the orchestra of a radio program, named the Paradise...

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves a professor who leads his nephew and hired guide down a volcano in Iceland to the "Center of the Earth".  This audio theater production is from BBC 1963. The story begins on Sunday 24 May 1863, in the Lidenbrock house in Hamburg, with Professor Lidenbrock rushing home to peruse his latest...

Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshall starring Richard Conte is a selection from THE HALLMARK PLAYHOUSE which was heard over CBS stations on Thursday evenings sponsored by, of course, Hallmark Greeting Cards. This story is from the Stuart N. Lake book Frontier Marshall, a 1931 biography of Wyatt Earp. It aired March 24, 1949.

This was ABC's attempt to recapture some of what radio was. The effort was not the best, but at least an effort was made. The stories ranged from science fiction, comedy, social drama and human interest drama, to detective mystery, psychological drama, melodrama and suspense drama. News programs help fill out the remaining time left in the 30 minute time spot from 5 - 5:30 p.m. Click Here to Send...

The radio show first aired on April 26, 1952 and ran until June 18, 1961 on the CBS radio network. The series starred William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, and Parley Baer as Deputy Chester Proudfoot. Doc's first name and Chester's last name were changed for the television program. Gunsmoke was notable for its critically acclaime...

Tells the story of an alcoholic, Milland, on a weekend bender. While on his bender he stops in at his favorite watering stop - Nat's Bar on Third Avenue, based on the legendary P. J. Clarke's. There he seeks companionship in his drinking with congenial bartender Nat (Howard da Silva). As the weekend continues, Milland drifts deeper and deeper into his living nightmare, committing crimes and even s...

This Is Your FBI was a radio crime drama which aired in the United States on ABC from April 6, 1945 to January 30, 1953. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave it his endorsement, calling it "the finest dramatic program on the air." Producer-director Jerry Devine was given access to FBI files by Hoover, and the resulting dramatizations of FBI cases were narrated by Frank Lovejoy (1945), Dean Carleton (194...

Written and directed by Robert A. Arthur and David Kogan, the series began on the Mutual Broadcasting System, December 5, 1943, continuing in many different timeslots until September 16, 1952. Unlike many other shows of the era, The Mysterious Traveler was without a sponsor for its entire run. The lonely sound of a distant locomotive heralded the arrival of the malevolent narrator, portrayed by Ma...

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Tales of horror recreated by great actors, a spooky organ and chilling sound effects presented by a creepy, rib-tickling host, was a strange brew indeed. Inner Sanctum did it in spades! To this day the show remains a wonderful "guilty" pleasure of many old time radio fans, who listened back then when these shows first fired the imaginations of all but the most jaded.

Father Knows Best, a family comedy of the 1950s, is perhaps more important for what it has come to represent than for what it actually was. In essence, the series was one of a slew of middle-class family sitcoms in which moms were moms, kids were kids, and fathers knew best. Today, many critics view it, at best, as high camp fun, and, at worst, as part of what critic David Marc once labeled the "A...

NIGHTFALL was a horror series heard over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation first from July 4, 1980 to May 22, 1981 and then from November 20, 1981 to June 24, 1983.  Thirty shows were selected from the first season to be rebroadcast on NPR from October 2, 1981 to June 25, 1982. Since it is a fairly modern series, most shows are available in stereo. Because it's a modern series, it's not widely...

The Jack Benny Program is a classic comedy that is truly one of the best-loved programs from the Golden Age of Radio. It started life as The Canada Dry Program in 1932 on the Blue Network and finished off as The Lucky Strike Program on CBS in 1955. In between, it kept the audience in stitches and established Benny as one of America's all-time great comedians.

SYNDICATED  STARS: Dana Andrews as MATT CVETIC who infiltrated top ranks of the Communist Party. I Was a Communist for the FBI was an American espionage thriller radio series with 78 episodes syndicated by Ziv to more than 600 stations in 1952-54. Made without FBI cooperation, the series was adapted from the book by undercover agent Matt Cvetic, who was portrayed by Dana Andrews. The series was cr...

The Story of Dr. Kildare was based on the popular MGM films that were produced in the 1940's, so a radio version in 1949 made perfect sense. The screen actor Lew Ayres played Dr. Kildare in the films, and continued the role in this radio show. The great thespian Lionel Barrymore continued in his role as Kildare's mentor, Dr. Leonard Gillespie. Together the two fight an unending battle against dise...

The series premiered on Monday 02/05/79 and offered a different genre each weekday night.  Each genre was hosted by a different celebrity.  The program was produced on Paramount's Stage F in Hollywood.  These first 130 programs were broadcast over a six month period and then rebroadcast over the following six months.  From 02/14/80 to 12/19/81 this series was heard again, this time over Mutual, as...

The Sealed Book starred Philip Clarke as the keeper of the book, a croaking, cackling hermit, with knowledge of the black arts, who in each show unlocked the great padlock that kept the sealed book safe from prying eyes. There was a spook story each week with tales of secrets and mysteries of mankind through the ages. This MUTUAL network entry in the horror and mystery genre was far from the best...

Our Miss Brooks, an American situation comedy, began as a radio hit in 1948 and migrated to television in 1952, becoming one of the earlier hits of the so-called Golden Age of Television, and making a star out of Eve Arden (1908-1990) as comely, wisecracking, but humane high school English teacher Connie Brooks. The show hooked around Connie's daily relationships with Madison High School students,...

The Six Shooter, the only radio series staring James Stewart, aired on September 20, 1953. In this radio western, Jimmy played Britt Ponset, a man with a reputation for having a fast gun but is really very different from the hard, tough talking gun slinger type. Here the hero is a slow talking, thinking man who is ready with his gun, but first looks for options to violence. James Stewart played th...

Quiet, Please had its roots in the Campbell Playhouse (1938 - 1941), the successor to Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, who achieved notoriety with their 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds. Cooper was a writer for the Campbell Playhouse, and Chappell was the announcer. They became friends, though Chappell had little (if any) acting experience, Cooper imagined him as the sta...

Rogue's Gallery came to the Mutual network on September 27, 1945 with Dick Powell portraying Richard Rogue, a private detective who invariably ended up getting knocked out each week and spending his dream time in acerbic conversation with his subconscious self, Eugor. Rogue's Gallery was, in a sense, Dick Powell's rehearsal for Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Powell played private detective Ri...

Frank Lovejoy stars as Randy Stone, a toughened, street-wise Chicago Star reporter working the Nightbeat in the early 1950's. Sometimes the capers are cops and robbers. Or just normal people in trouble. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes fate twists their arm. Sometimes they're just too scared or confused to know the difference. Lovejoy is a seasoned pro of radio and film with an honest, grippin...

The show first broadcast its fantastic thirty-minute crime mystery series in May 1942 and did not finish until September 1948. There were more than 450 shows of murder and intrigue in all. Although it ran for 6 years it was broadcast for only one year on a national network. The show opened to the sound of footsteps and an eerie whistle, which went on throughout the introductory music. The Whistler...

Mystery Playhouse was a short run series staring Peter Lorre as host. Each episode was preceded by Lorre's show description. In today's program,  Last Laugh Murder (1943), Lorre introduces a muder mystery investigated by the famous Nero Wolfe. Wolf appears at first to be totally wrong in his evaluations, later proving his skills were never flawed and his observations no less than brilliant.

Dadâs Army was a British broad-comedy sitcom. Consistently good writing and a wonderful cast of old timers and newer talents combined to produce a whimsical period-piece that continues, justifiably, to be savoured and has now assumed a place in the 'hall of greats' pantheon, adored by new generations of the British public. The unmistakable voice of Bud Flanagan singing 'Who Do You Think You Are Ki...