The Good Old Days of Radio Show

Today it’s a 1947 episode of Escape featuring a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic story, "The Country of the Blind." Starring the versatile Paul Frees, it's a social commentary dressed up as an eerie adventure story. It follows a mountain climber who stumbles into a hidden valley where everyone has been blind for generations. Certain that his ability to see will make him extraordinary, he qu...

It’s the first Tuesday of the month, and we are bringing you another “lost" program, the long-missing 1947 fall premiere of The Henry Morgan Show. Back from his summer break, Morgan wastes no time taking aim at everything in sight. Through a mix of topical jokes, satire, and absurd sketches, he pokes fun at the radio world of the time, including famous news commentators like Gabriel Heatter and H....

Happy 4th of July again. This year, we are featuring yet another Norman Corwin production. This is a World War II-era Independence Day drama from 1944: "Home for the Fourth," featuring a score by Bernard Herrmann. It’s about a young soldier named Eddie who comes home on leave to spend the Fourth of July with his family and friends. But as the holiday unfolds, unexpected news changes the mood and r...

We're taking a look at a weird piece of broadcasting history, a 1955 episode of The Edgar Bergen Show from the twilight years of network radio. If you're expecting classic Charlie McCarthy, you may be surprised. By 1955, radio entertainment was on life support, and many longtime stars were experimenting with new formats to stay on the air. In this version of the show, Edgar Bergen serves more as a...

We're returning to early Inner Sanctum this week to bring you a 1944 episode starring the incomparable Peter Lorre. Lorre plays a comedian who becomes convinced that he committed murder. As the story unfolds, paranoia takes over, leading to the kind of outrageous plot twists that made Inner Sanctum a radio favorite. This version comes from the Armed Forces Radio Service and includes a special intr...

Tuesday is occasionally reserved for the bizarre, and we've got that for you today. The CBS Radio Workshop was an experimental program, often with programs that defied conventional tropes. Originally broadcast in April 1956, "The Record Collectors" is an over-the-top satire hosted by John Dehner. The program introduces two eccentric (and fictional) record collectors who are convinced that music pe...

Today we bring you Boris Karloff. He's appearing here on Great Scenes from Great Plays in a strange fantasy, in which he plays Mr. Brink, the personification of Death himself. The story follows an elderly grandfather who discovers a way to trap Death in a magical apple tree. This will be the second time we've presented this story, but with a completely different cast. You can find the other versio...

It's episode 500, and if you will forgive a self-aggrandizing episode, we think we've earned a show where we talk about The Good Old Days Of Radio Show for almost three hours. You may not want to hear this, but we're going back beyond the podcast, to the show's early beginnings on early '90s local radio, and even get to hear what John Tefteller sounded like back then. Then in the second half of th...

Today, we dig into a rare Inner Sanctum Mystery broadcast, with a very early 1941 episode starring Myron McCormick. According to most sources, only a fragment of this broadcast survived, but we have a transcription disc containing the entire story, making this a real treat for fans of early radio horror. The story takes us to a remote Arctic mountain shrouded in legend, where a group of climbers s...

This week, we’re spending some time with Jack Benny and the gang in a March 1947 episode of The Jack Benny Program, as Jack gets ready for a vaudeville tour that will take him to Chicago and New York. Jack's sophisticated neighbor Ronald Colman is his guest on this show, and is forced to ride in his famously worn-out car. John shares a little background on the show's writing team and the feud betw...

This week, we’ve got a rare find: Inner Sanctum Mystery with the long-lost 1944 episode “The Dream,” with an appearance by Orson Welles, of all people, as star on the show, at a time where Welles had reached the peak of his celebrity status. Host John Tefteller shares the story behind the recording, made by engineer Rudy Van Gelder. The story follows Judge Robert Branscolm, a respected man trouble...

It’s the first Tuesday of the month again, and that means we’re bringing out a “lost” show. This week, we’re turning to comedy, and this one we consider quite special, as it belongs to the off-beat and somewhat infamous comedy series, The Henry Morgan Show. From about late in its first season in ‘47, most of the episodes are missing, which has left much about the series strictly lore. This is one...

Today we’ve got a mystery for you, and we’re asking help from all amateur and professional researchers in our audience: help us figure out this episode of Lights Out! We know it’s an early one, and that’s about it. It comes with no confirmed title or air date. Instead of the usual supernatural chills, this one leans hard into gritty crime drama. It follows a gang of bank robbers whose plan unravel...

Today we’ve got a 1944 broadcast featuring Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks and the Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan. They partnered together for a short time on Maxwell House Coffee Time, a condensed half-hour comedy/variety show. This version comes from an Armed Forces Radio Service recording, so instead of the original commercials, you’ll hear music filling those breaks, the way it went out to the...

We go all the way back to 1939 for one of the earliest surviving episodes of Lights Out, the sum total of which you can count on one hand. This one follows two hardened criminals on the run after a string of brutal crimes, thinking they’ve finally found a place to lay low. But on a foggy night, they cross paths with a snappy-dressed stranger who knows far too much about them. From there, the story...

This week, we’re stepping into a big, star-packed 1946 radio special celebrating 45 years of Walgreens. Bob Hope plays host (and hotel owner) in a fast-moving comedy variety show signature of the era, filled with one-liners, sketches, and a lineup of big budget guests including (but not limited to) the Andrews Sisters, Frank Morgan, and Dennis Day. We’re not sure if this was really radio’s “bigges...

This week, we wrap up our 10-part Crime Classics series with an unusual true crime story. John Tefteller is once again joined by researcher Karl Schadow and Bernard Herrmann expert Steven C. Smith to take a last look at what made this show so unique. This 1954 episode leans into the series’ signature mix of dark humor and true crime, telling a gritty tale of a heist gone wrong on the streets of Ba...

We're on the final week on our Crime Classics series on Thursday, and today we’ve got a fun late-era episode of The Phil Harris–Alice Faye Show from March 1954 to feature the comedy work of Elliott Lewis. The police are after Phil for something, and of course he is hiding under the porch. All of the usual over-the-top Harris-Faye madness ensues from there. You’ll also hear RCA Victor ads up front,...

This week, we dive into another famous true crime story, Crime Classics brings us “The Bloody, Bloody Banks of Fall River.” Host John Tefteller is joined by researcher Karl Schadow and Bernard Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith to unpack this 1950s take on the Lizzie Borden case. The episode walks us through the tense, tightly wound world of the Borden household, leading up to the infamous murder...

This week, to enhance our Crime Classics episode from last Thursday, we have a Robert Bloch story that was talked about in that episode called, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” presented on the Molle Mystery Theater. This story takes the infamous killer out of Victorian London and drops him into modern-day Chicago… with a twist. What if Jack the Ripper never died? What if he’s been staying alive al...

This week, we step into the foggy streets of Victorian London with Crime Classics, and possibly the most intriguing real-life unsolved mysteries of all time, “Good Evening, My Name Is Jack the Ripper.” John Tefteller, along with researcher Karl Schadow and Bernard Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith, takes a closer look at the Whitechapel murders, focusing not just on the crimes, but on the lives...

Today, we conclude our Lincoln-themed series through the lens of time travel, from The Mysterious Traveler, with a story about a physicist and a historian attempting to project a modern mind into the past, hoping to prevent Lincoln’s assassination. The plan is to influence events from the inside… but things don’t go as expected. In true radio fashion, the story takes a sharp turn that flips the en...

This week, we take a more serious turn with Crime Classics and its 1953 episode that zooms in on a crime that had a tremendous impact on the nation, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Host John Tefteller, along with researcher Karl Schadow and Bernard Herrmann expert Steven C. Smith, explores how this installment breaks from the series’ usual dark humor and leans into a somber retelling of one...

This week, we kick off a three-part series on Abraham Lincoln, to compliment our Crime Classics episode on Thursday. We're starting out with a 1938 broadcast from The Mercury Theatre on the Air, starring Orson Welles; a dramatic, personal look at Lincoln’s life during the Civil War, built from a mix of theatrical storytelling and his own words, pulled from letters and speeches. You’ll hear the wei...

This week, we are serving up another dainty confection from Crime Classics. John Tefteller, along with researcher Karl Schadow and Bernard Herrmann expert Steven C. Smith, takes a closer look at this 1953 episode, based on the real-life case of a Frenchwoman accused of poisoning her husband with arsenic… hidden in a homemade cake. Like all Crime Classics episodes, it’s told with rye dialogue and n...