The Good Old Days of Radio Show

This week we are peeking into our Christmas stocking of the past to look in on Christmas as it was in 1946. Today we have not one, but two Jack Benny shows from this year, and Jack’s visit to the department store to buy Christmas presents from the frazzled clerk played by the voice of hundred Leon Schlesinger cartoons, Mel Blanc. This is the first time Jack and his friends would create this annual...

Our series on technology out of control continues today with a fabulous study in irony by the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. This story of two men scheming for a secret vacation getaway from their wives has been dramatized elsewhere, but none as perfectly executed as this 1955 version from X Minus One. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group f...

In broadcast history, radio was a regular component of the lives of the American public, bringing them the latest news, entertainers, and events. And perhaps more than any other medium, radio stars were on hand to celebrate the holidays. This year we are peeking back in time to see what Christmas on the radio was all about. Our first stop: Christmas 1941, with the popular series Fibber McGee and M...

Gather your family around, it's our second Thanksgiving show! And keeping with our short-lived tradition, we are presenting a Walt Disney classic with a twist. This year, it's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," as told by the popular ventriloquist and comedian, Edgar Bergen, and Charlie McCarthy. And with Jane Powell as Snow White and Billy Gilbert as Sneezy, it's a show that is still entertaining...

Today we say the secret word, and travel back to visit the late 1940s to another early You Bet Your Life. It's the game show that was more about the contestant's conversations with the ever-witty quiz-master Groucho Marx than the game itself. And John shares some wonderful stories about the real life friendship of Groucho and George Fenneman. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subs...

Today's story has nothing to do with the modern horror franchise. Rather, this is a somewhat humorous, somewhat disturbing story of a wimpy man who can't get the girl or the job, who suddenly finds himself the proud owner of a "build-a-man" kit from the future. Like all stories about technology gone awry, although helpful in the beginning, things soon get out of control. Visit our website: https:/...

Today we are featuring a creative fantasy story about a cowardly knight named William the Terrified (played by Dennis Day), who must go on a quest to find Mother Nature and Father Time, and defeat a number of "Swonks" and a "Rhinosodragon", to overcome his fear and win the heart of his lady fair. The story is narrated by the comedy great Fred Allen, and the sound effects are spectacular, which jud...

This is the second in our new series featuring stories about artificial intelligence. "Dwellers In Silence" is an eerie story of an abandoned earth with a group of lone survivors by one of our favorite writers, Ray Bradbury. Originally a 1948 short story that later became part of The Martian Chronicles compilation, the story explores concepts of organic automatons, and the ethics of man-created li...

Phil Harris and Alice Faye are back today with a comedy that was a real original of the time. Bandleader Phil Harris and his guitar-strumming counterpart, Franky, have to do some plumbing work today, and as you might imagine, the shenanigans are at an all-time high. Look out for Julius's cough which brings down the house! Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook...

With all the recent discussions around artificial intelligence, we decided to travel back to the 1950s, when the subject of machines capable of sentience was also very much in the public consciousness. We are beginning this series today with a wild story that perfectly encapsulates this theme, about machines turning against mankind. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to o...

Today comedian Henry Morgan is back and takes pot shots at just about everything, from popular radio programs, to politics, to commercials. This episode features blood pressure tests for radio listeners, a Russian gossip column, and a preview of the coming attraction, "Blubber." Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the latest...

This is our Halloween episode, and today we have one of radio's strangest shows, an episode of Lights Out! with a disturbing story of a husband and his wife who transforms into a cat. Boris Karloff performed this bizarre radio play four times, and this intense recording from 1938 is the only one known to survive. Joining us for this final show in our month-long tribute to Boris Karloff is his daug...

Our month-long salute, focusing on the radio work of the beloved "monster" of the movies Boris Karloff continues. Today we are joined once again by Boris Karloff's daughter Sara Karloff to listen with her to a rare early surviving Inner Sanctum Mystery starring her father as a gentle man with super-hearing who meets a wicked man with super-sight, in a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short...

Today we feature another Boris Karloff radio classic, from a series of appearances he made in 1938 on the famous horror series, Lights Out! This is not long after Arch Oboler took over as the principle writer of the series. This is a creepy tale of a man who never had a dream, but is suddenly haunted by a nightmare from the pit of hell. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe...

Boris Karloff month continues, and today the famous horror movie star shows up on another comedy program, The Jack Benny Show. In this episode from 1947, Jack reads a melodramatic novel called, "I Was Condemned," which features Boris Karloff, and parodies many of the tropes found in radio horror shows of the time. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group f...

Today we are joined once again by Sara Karloff, daughter of Boris Karloff, in our month-long tribute to the famous actor's radio work. We are jumping forward to 1952 today to hear the 66-year-old Boris Karloff starring in the story of a serial killer who is triggered by canaries. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the lates...

It's the second week of our month-long salute to Boris Karloff, and if you like wacky off-the-wall humor, and Boris Karloff, you've come to the right podcast! Today it's musical slapstick mayhem as we feature Boris Karloff in a guest appearance on the The Spike Jones Show. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the latest podca...

Boris Karloff Month continues today with Mr. Karloff in a mystery about a Scotland Yard detective with amnesia who begins unraveling the dark secrets of his own past in an episode of Suspense from 1945. Joining us once again is Boris Karloff's daughter, Sara Karloff, to listen and discuss this show. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discus...

October is Trick Or Treat Month, and we are dedicating the entire month to one of the silver screen's greatest monsters, Boris Karloff. Joining John today is Boris Karloff's daughter, Sara Karloff, to discuss his extensive radio career, and together they listen to one of Boris's iconic roles as "Jonathan" in Arsenic and Old Lace. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our...

Today is the last of our 10-week tribute to Lucille Fletcher, and we are featuring one of her last original radio scripts. Don Ramlow joins John one final time to discuss this is a hidden gem from the radio writer, about a woman whose obsession leads her down a dark path of mind games. It features an incredible and uncomfortable performance by Nancy Kelly. We also feature a rare radio interview wi...

Another uncirculated episode of It Pays To Be Ignorant today from August 11, 1944. This zany, quick-talking joke-fest features a veteran vaudeville troupe headed up by Tom Howard as the quiz master, and George Shelton, Lulu McConnell, and Harry McNaughton as the crazy panelists in this satire of popular game shows of the era. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Face...

Today a Rear Window-esque style mystery from writer Lucille Fletcher, about a man who sees a dead body from an adjacent rooming house window. Special guest Don Ramlow is here with John to discuss this 1946 story from the pen of Lucille Fletcher. This 1948 version stars the famous Hollywood actor and director Robert Montgomery.  Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Fa...

If you know what was popular during the 1940s and '50s, it's especially baffling to think how comedian Henry Morgan ever got a chance to make this show. We are headed back to the post-War United States to hear a commentary on The Mikado, a visit to the town of "Cornpone", and a romantic adventure called, "Is Morgan Really Dead?" Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our F...

Last week we completed our trip through a phase of Lucille Fletcher's most celebrated radio scripts, and we now enter the "sunset" period of her radio writing career. Special guest Don Ramlow joins John again in today's podcast to discuss The Furnished Floor,  a ghostly story about a strange widower whose wife makes an unexpected return in an upstairs apartment. Visit our website: https://goodoldd...

After several weeks of incredibly intense Thursday podcasts, we are taking a breather today with this light offering from The CBS Radio Workshop. This is the Cinderella story as we all have heard it. But it's also the Cinderella story as no one has ever heard it. Vincent Price and Lurlene Tuttle exchange barbs as opposing storytellers in this amusing program from the mid-1950s. Visit our website:...