The Good Old Days of Radio Show

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 Fear" which is a fast-moving twisty thriller novel...

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 Ronald and Benita Colman. Another great comedy show! V...

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 Americans in India, one of whom is trapped in bed with a...

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 would far eclipse their earlier careers. This episod...

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 mafia ring. Keith Scott joins us to discuss this orig...

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 an invention that he believes will change the avi...

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. This is not the same story as Hitchcock's "The La...

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 height of his fame thanks to his long time situation o...

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 trapped in a lighthouse by a mischief of rats. Th...

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 late '40s that tackled an extravagant fashion trend o...

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://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group...

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 clue what he is riffing on, we think this strange ra...

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 great radio series," Escape!" Visit our website: htt...

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 shows up for a feely sketch, among others. Abbott and...

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 the Fore and Aft." It's a character-centered story o...

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 Barbara Stanwyck. We also filmed an exclusive for o...

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 Colonna, Johnny Mercer, Judy Garland, Ed Gardner, Fr...

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 Allen TV show will find this one a curiosity, as i...

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 of committing some crime. Its claim to fame (besid...

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 and Molly. This is an episode chock-full of class...

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 paralyzed soldier, whose condition is overcome by his de...

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 Stewart Christmas shopping from 1951. Visit our websi...

"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, Robert Mitchum as Keely, Robert Ryan as Montgomery...

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 the American ideal of good friends and neighbors....

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 dark  presence. But this story looks past that with...