The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society

This episode of Lights Out comes from our Listener Library based on a recommendation from our mysterious listener, Zachary! Thanks, Zachary! This particular story, entitled “Death Robbery,” is one of the few surviving episodes to feature a script written by the creator Wyllis Cooper, and even these extant recordings are all revivals of Cooper’s writing broadcast after he left the show. The tale fe...

This is the second of two episodes recorded live in front of an audience at Open Eye Theatre, featuring special guest, Shanan Custer! Our audience joined us listening to “If a Body Need a Body Just Call Burke and Hare” from Crime Classics! In the poorest parts of mid-19th century Edinburgh, William Burke and William Hare find a path to quick money by providing medical schools with fresh cadavers....

This episode is the first of two recorded live in front of an audience at Open Eye Theatre, featuring special guest, Shanan Custer! We started the evening with the legendary Ethel Merman starring in “Never Follow a Banjo Act” from Suspense! In this story, Merman plays an “mature” singer hired to share the stage with a young heartthrob whose last co-star suffered an unfortunate accident. Will she m...

We’re late, but that won’t stop us from celebrating Father’s Day! To mark the occasion, we’re heading down to the Listener Library for a dad-themed episode of Night Beat entitled “Expectant Father.” Our thanks to Diana for recommending the story! Your usual hosts are joined this time by our summer intern (and Joshua’s son) Aaron! We’re listening to the story of journalist Randy Stone and the night...

We’re headed back to the Old West, this time listening to an episode of Frontier Gentleman, entitled “The Honky Tonkers!” In this story, the titular British journalist finds himself passing the night in a rough-and-tumble saloon where a drunken argument breaks out. Guns are drawn, blood is spilled, and the true natures of the assembled crowd are revealed. How will these lawless souls handle the co...

Our thanks to our mysterious listener Joe, whose extraordinary effort convinced us to visit a corner of the Listener Library we’ve been known to avoid, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater section! Based on Joe’s recommendation, we’re listening to an episode entitled, “The Chess Master,” featuring a performance by Fred Gwynn! The story features a man who has recently lost his job sitting down for a game...

What’s on the other side of the world’s squeakiest door? Another episode of Inner Sanctum Mystery of course! This installment, entitled “The Voice on the Wire,” features a young widow who is being apparently haunted by the ghosts of her late husband and their dog. She hears his voice on the phone threatening her imminent death! Is it possible that one of the visitors she is entertaining is really...

OWho’s that singing in the Listener Library? Richard Diamond Private Detective, of course! Our thanks to our mysterious listener Matt for recommending “The House of Mystery Case!” A client has called on our musical protagonist to help her uncover the secrets behind her supposedly haunted house. If she doesn’t have the nerve to remain, she will lose her inheritance, but staying put could prove fata...

It’s been more than five years since the last time we checked out an episode of Macabre. This week, we return for a story titled “Final Resting Place!” This installment of the series recorded by members of the Far East Network features a pair of young newlyweds who take up a bizarre challenge at a small-town carnival that could potentially prove fatal! Can hypnotism sustain life for a week? Does t...

Our Mysterious Listener Anna has sent us to the Listener Library for “Clarissa,” an episode of Quiet Please! Thanks, Anna! This story features a young mathematician who befriends the elderly man who rents a room to him. Soon, the younger man begins to hear the singing of an unseen child. The landlord claims that it is his daughter, but he prefer to keep her out of sight. Why does he insist on this...

This week features Appointment with Fear’s adaptation of a classic tale of torment and despair by Edgar Allen Poe! “The Pit and the Pendulum” tells the story of a soldier in Napoleon’s army who is captured and then sentenced by the Spanish Inquisition to a horrific fate. What torture awaits him in this diabolical prison? Does he have any hope of survival or rescue? What series did Eric start explo...

We’ve had many requests for this particular installment from the Listener Library, “Specialty of the House” from The Price of Fear! As was always the case with the series, Vincent Price stars as a fictionalized version of himself, relating diabolical tales from his adventures as a globe-trotting gourmand. This particular script is actually an adaptation of a short story by Stanley Ellin about a sm...

This week we go way back for an episode of The Witch’s Tale, “The Statue of Thor”! The story features a hedonistic sculptor who constantly ridicules the brawny model posing for him. As the artist grows more cruel and self-indulgent, he may incur the wrath of the gods! Will the the model catch on to the artist’s true intentions? What will the statue look like when it is complete? Can we remember th...

Our thanks to our mysterious listener Jessica for sending us back to our Listener Library for “Never Pester Chester” from Gunsmoke! This episode features Marshal Dillon on the trail of two cruel men who made the mistake of attacking his friend Chester. But given Dillon’s anger and sense of responsibility, it isn’t clear if he intends to deliver justice or revenge! How will he track these men down?...

For our 250th episode we listen to an adaptation of a landmark detective story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem,” presented by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes! In this broadcast, Sir John Gielgud’s Sherlock Holmes attempts to once and for all put an end to the criminal machinations of Orson Welles’ James Moriarty! Will the World’s Greatest Detective be able to outsmart the Napoleon o...

Join us this week for an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s short story, “Kaleidoscope,” presented by Suspense! A group of astronauts suddenly find themselves in a hopeless situation, one that forces them to confront how they’ve lived their lives. Some are content, others bitter. But does any of that matter when facing death? Are we all just floating through life, isolated and scared? Are we going to li...

It’s been almost 250 episodes and we are still discovering shows we’ve never listened to before! This week, we check out Up for Parole! Based on real cases, the show presents stories as told by convicts addressing a parole board. This installment, “The Case of Clarence Hogan,” features a ranch hand whose hard life led him to being jailed as a cattle rustler and an accessory to murder. What path ca...

We’re paying another visit to our Listener Library for an episode of Suspense recommended to us by our Patreon supporter, Marc. Thanks, Marc! This production adapts A.M. Burrage’s story, “The Waxwork,” and features a one-man performance by William Conrad! In this story, a journalist in need of cash bargains to pass the night in a room inside a wax museum. In this hall, each figure depicts a notori...

Our Patreon supporter James suggested that we listen to “The Blind Beggar Dies” from The Shadow! In this story, the enigmatic vigilante seeks justice for the murder of a blind man and fights to protect the city’s poor. But even the power to cloud men’s minds may not be enough to save him if the enemy knows his plan! How will the Shadow bring these vicious killers to justice? What requirements must...

Many thanks to our Patreon supporter Chris for suggesting we take up the challenge of this Theatre 10:30 episode, “Trespassers Will Be Experimented Upon!” written by Anthony Lee Flanders. This strange narrative features a brilliant scientist and his acclaimed sex-symbol wife racing through a storm to a castle in Saskatchewan. There, they will come face to face with…the Baron! Their battle of wits...

Our thanks to our Patreon supporter Jules for suggesting this episode of Lights Out, “Subbasement!” The story features a husband grudgingly granting his wife a tour of his subterranean workplace. Beneath the city’s department stores, the buildings are connected by a dark tunnel that seems to be abandoned as the couple make their way through the darkness. Why has chosen this evening to provide his...

We’re beginning 2022 with a little enticement to join our Patreon page! When our patrons checked out their monthly bonus content in August of last year, they got an installment of the members-only series, Secrets of the Mysterious Old Radio, which featured “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” from Escape! And as it happens, they voted to declare this episode the second best from 2021! Now we’re shari...

Happy New Year! We are celebrating every last drop of the holiday season, ending the year with our traditional presentation of different adaptations of Charles Dickens’ other famous ghost story, “The Signal-Man.” The first time we did this, we listened to the 1956 Suspense version featuring Sarah Churchill. This time around, we return to Suspense in 1959 featuring Ellen Drew. As before, this story...

Merry Christmas! It’s time for another visit from our favorite fat man, Nero Wolfe! Legendary actor Sydney Greenstreet brought Rex Stout’s famous detective to life throughout The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe! In this episode, “The Case of the Slaughtered Santas,” Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin are called upon to solve a series of murders in which all the victims share a distinctive occupat...

Our holiday celebration continues! Tim is again offering a gift episode to his co-hosts! This time, his selection is a present for Joshua, “Murder on the Train” from The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall! The series is based on a run of detective novels by Alice Tilton, a pen name used by Phoebe Atwood Taylor! The episode features the titular detective travelling by rail with his housekeeper, Mrs....