This is a 64 kbs version of a weekly program which began on a now defunct low power FM station (KSOW) in Cottage Grove, OR Since there seems to be some interest in the show I have decided to continue . In this connection, I will post a new show by Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. I will post a new show by Tuesday or Wednesday of each week.
In the main, each episode consists of four approximately 30-minute long programs (not always, as sometimes I use a longer form show, so it may be 3 or fewer) and some filler to bring them in at 120 minutes.
Suspense: The Burning Court (06/17/42). Price of Fear: Is Anyone There?. SF68: Quest (1968). The Bakerâs Broadcast (Believe It or Not): Aviation Oddities (12/1/35).
Segment One:
Suspense â The Burning Court (06/17/42). Suspense, one of the classics of old-time radio, began on July 22nd of 1940 with an episode called, âThe Lodgerâ on Forecast, a show which premiered the pilot episodes of new series. The series then began its regular weekly broadcasts on July 17, 1942.
Some fans of OTR have other. special favorites in the thriller/chiller/macabre genre, but most agree that Suspense is right at the top.
The guiding light of this show was William Spier, whose formula of human drama set in interesting situations attracted the best of Hollywood and radio actors. Orson Welles was in many episodes. Cary Grant said, âIf I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.â
Spierâs method with actors was to keep them under-rehearsed, and there-by a bit uneasy. He got great performances, and the show gained great popularity.
All the production values were first class. Bernard Hermann, who had worked with Orson Welles on the Mercury Theater and would work with Alfred Hitchcock, doing the musical scores.
This is the first episode of the regular series. Based on John Dickson Carrâs classic tale which combines hints of the supernatural and an âimpossibleâ murder (No, Scooby-Do is nowhere to be found in this one).
It was an auspicious start, as Carr would be a prolific contributor of original stories and previously published material that the staff writers for Suspense (as they did here) would adapt for their use.
This adaptation of the novel, The Burning Court is very well done by Harold Medford. It stars Charlie Ruggles, a well-known comedic actor of the period. He is well and successfully out of type for this episode.
Segment Two: Price Of Fear â Is Anybody There (07/04/83) The Price Of Fear was a Horror-Mystery program produced sporadically by BBC Radio between 1972 and 1982. It was enormously successful in the United Kingdom and abroad,with a total of 22 episodes made.
Dramatizing the most chilling stories they could find and drawing on talented new writers, as well as adaptations of the works of established writers: Roald Dahl, A.M. Burrage, Stanley Ellin, Bram Stoker, and others.
The show was hosted by, and usually starred, Vincent Price. Whose wealth of experience with stories of horror and suspense on radio, television, and, of course, movies backdropped the series in a way only a handful of performers could. This and the way Price narrated these tales as though he himself had actually lived them was in no small part responsible for the success of the show.
In these days of the exaltation of entrepreneurship it is gratifying to see that opportunities abound, not just for the young but the elderly as well.
Tonight on The Price of Fear we have the story of two elderly sisters, a long-dead Ruler of an Incan Empire and a butt-load of phony-baloney and hocus-pocus. In this story told in the grand, if somewhat frayed tradition of popular entertainment the phony-baloney turns out to be a lot less phony and somewhat less baloney than everyone expected.
Segment Three:
SF68 â Quest (1968) SF68 was a South African broadcast featuring high-caliber adoptions of mostly previously published short stories from established science fiction writers, like Bradbury, Ellison, and Leinster. The shows were well made and the stories interesting. Produced and directed by the dean of South African radio drama, Michael McCabe. It was an unfortunately short-lived series that had its run in, appropriately enough, 1968. The series was dropped in favor of a mystery/horror series called Beyond Midnight, whose run was far more successful and in it self was a good show.
In this story, we have a future Megalopolis run by machines a man searches for something real. Anything real. Something organic.
ââ¦Highly original SF social commentary about one manâs odyssey for something ârealâ. The best episode in this all to short series. Very well written, acted, and plotted and with a great, but disturbing âsound the alarmâ â hopefully incorrect â very dire prediction in grand ole Sci Fi tradition. â Bruce Fisher.
Segment Four:
The Bakerâs Broadcast (Believe It or Not) â Aviation Oddities (12/1/35)
Robert Ripley began his career as a sports cartoonist on the New York Globe, where in October of 1919 he created the print version of Believe It or Not.
In April 1930, Ripley brought Believe It or Not to radio, the first of several series that would wander the airwaves and be heard in different incarnations on NBC, CBS, and Mutual. These broadcasts varied in length from 15 minutes to 1.
Ripleyâs debut on The Collier Hour brought a strong reaction from the listeners. Knowing a good thing when they heard it, NBC gave Ripley a Monday night spot beginning on April 14, 1930. By 1931 He was airing spots twice a week on NBCâs Saturday Party.
Ripley would host The Bakerâs Broadcast from 1935 to 1937. Between 1937 and 1938 He bounced around several different NBC time slots and then took to the road with, See America First with Bob Ripley (1939â40) on CBS. This program would mutate and expand into a 1942 program featuring Latin music, See All the Americas.
During World War II Ripley would be heard five nights a week on Mutual in shows with an emphasis on the war. Then came Romance, Rhythm, and Ripley airing on CBS in 1945. From 1947 to 1948. Pages from Robert L. Ripleyâs Radio Scrapbook.
The program ended in 1948 as Ripley and Believe It Or Not migrated to Television.
Finally, the show was resurrected in the 1970s. When there were produced a series of over 400 one-minute episodes for use as fillers.
Robert Ripley is known for several radio firsts. He was the first to broadcast nationwide on a radio network from mid-ocean, and he also participated in the first broadcast from Buenos Aires to New York. Assisted by a corps of translators, he was the first to broadcast to every nation in the world simultaneously.
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