Step back into the atmospheric world of bony creeps and cobwebs as we continue our trek through City of the Dead, episode 7. In this production from 1944, Captain Friday and Jimmy Parker continue to explore the ancient cemetery for answers. And yep, Captain Friday disappears! Carlton E. Morse's adventure serial is coming to a head! Visit our websit…

Welcome back to The Good Old Days of Radio Show! This week, we're diving into a classic comedy episode featuring Henry Morgan and his sidekick Arnold Stang, broadcast on May 7th, 1947. In this episode Morgan skewers the absurdities of 1940s vacation planning with his own fictitious travel agency, pitching 'Lovely Camp Schmo.' Also a spoof on the wo…

Join us for episode six of our trek through Carlton E. Morse's classic radio series, The City of the Dead (1944). In this episode, titled "The Ghoul in the Grave," Captain Friday and his companions uncover more about the elusive black pearls and the unsettling skeleton that seems to have a mind of its own. It's 1940s pulp adventure/mystery/horror a…

In this episode of The Good Old Days of Radio Show, host John Tefteller takes you back to November 4, 1945, with a twist on a classic pairing. Featuring an episode of Request Performance, the American version of Command Performance, you'll hear Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce—famous for their portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson—swap roles i…

In this episode, we're back into the creepy world of Carlton E. Morse, one of the great writers of Mystery Radio. We feature Adventures by Morse from 1944, a 10-part cliffhanger series titled The City of the Dead. The story follows Captain Friday as he uncovers chilling mysteries in an old cemetery where the dead may not rest in peace. High adventu…

In this episode of "The Good Old Days of Radio Show," host John Tefteller takes a break from our usual programming to delve into the oft overlooked world of old-time radio preservation. John shares his personal journey as a collector, starting in 1972, and the challenges he faces in saving these historical treasures. With a growing collection that …

In this thrilling episode of The Good Old Days of Radio Show, we continue our journey through Carlton E. Morse's gripping horror series, Adventures by Morse. Join us for Episode 4 of The City of the Dead, titled "Old Claw Foot," where we once again encounter phantom figure, and three bodies in a secret cellar. Visit our website: https://goodolddays…

Today grab your cup of Joe, we're feet first into a classic period of the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, originally broadcast on January 3, 1946. This episode deals with the post-war housing shortage as George and Gracie decide to repurpose their den to help a returning serviceman. Their neighbor, Meredith Willson (famed writer of "The Music M…

Today we dive into another chilling installment of our special action-packed radio serial from 1944, featuring the suspenseful third episode of "Adventures by Morse: The City of the Dead," titled "The Body That Walked Off." Captain Friday and his crew face a chilling discovery as a grave is reopened, and a dead man’s body mysteriously vanishes. Vis…

This week, we shine the spotlight on the legendary W.C. Fields, a comedic genius whose biting wit and unique persona left an indelible mark on the entertainment world. In this episode, we explore one of WC Fields' final performances from October 1945, featuring his famous "Temperance Lecture." Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subs…

We bring you chapter two in Carlton E. Morse's "City of the Dead" radio serial. This week's chapter, "I've Dug Up Something Ghastly" continues the atmospheric mystery tale as the mayor is shot in an old church, leading to the involvement of Captain Friday (played by Elliot Lewis), the mayor's son and a private investigator. Visit our website: https…

It's been awhile since we've brought Red Skelton to the show. Skelton's humor is energetic and fun to listen to, revolving around his wild and eccentric characters. This episode is all about "People Celebrating," featuring sketches with Clem Kadiddlehopper and "The Mean Widdle Mean Kid." Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe …

Ghosts cry, a phantom bell tolls, and a claw-footed monster roams around at night in "The City of the Dead." Today we begin a 10-Part Carlton E. Morse mystery/thriller from his brief syndicated series "Adventures By Morse." This is "I Love A Mystery" on steroids. A dark, foggy mystery set in a graveyard, with Morse at his imaginative best. Visit ou…

It's episode number 12 of a series. And now we are counting down to the last few episodes in this late radio comedy, "The Stan Freberg Show." In this episode, we get an interview with a test-pilot while on a high-speed rocket sled, how to fix a kitchen faucet, and a live version of Freberg's popular Capitol Record parody of "Sh-Boom." Visit our web…

It's the last in our series of "10 More Great Sci-Fi Stories" as presented on vintage radio. Today, we depart from Dimension X and X Minus One to present a post-apocalyptic story by George R. Stewart, a best-selling author who was the great granddaddy of the "disaster" genre. His story The Earth Abides imagines what it might be like to be the last …

Today the feature is once again Groucho Marx. This is Groucho from 1946 on a funny "Mail Call" program. "Mail Call" was Armed Forces-only popular entertainment show generally recorded in front of military camps, and sent by transcription to be aired overseas. Groucho does a lot of adlibbing here, and sings a wartime version of one of his famous son…

Today we are nearing the conclusion of "10 More Great Sci-Fi Stories." This story is just too weird and wildly imaginative to not include in this list. A man repeatedly relives the same day, waking up every morning screaming. This Frederik Pohl story manages to be both highly original and explore popular themes of media paranoia of the era. Visit o…

We continue through some of the best Jack Benny shows from the year 1947. Today's episode is the Jack Benny Show at his best. It features two interesting guests, the famous singer/songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, and the high-powered movie studio executive, Samuel Goldwyn. Don't miss Jack and Goldwyn trying to hold it together reading the hilarious scr…

Today we imagine a future where the entire transit system is made up of gigantic conveyer belts, where you can have breakfast and a cup of coffee in a café on your way to work. But what happens when the engineers have a labor strike? Robert Heinlein is the author of this famous short story, as we continue our journey exploring the world of great sc…

In this episode, we dive into the world of Bob and Ray, the legendary comedy duo that revolutionized radio and television. Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding's weird improvised characters and satire influenced an entire generation of comedy. Today we listen to a Bob and Ray half-hour show from 1954. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subs…

Today we selected a story that doesn't deal with the unusual aliens and fantastic elements so much, but delves into the psychology of complete human isolation. A man has been alone in an outpost in outer space for six years, and lives side by side with his delusions. Now that the time has come to relieve him of his duties, will he know what is real…

It's our 300th episode! That's important to us, anyway, so we are celebrating with an extra whiz-bang extravaganza. It's a 90-minute episode of "The Big Show," the audio showcase of the most popular entertainers from 1951. We are calling this a tribute to Vaudeville, because this particular episode also features several hilarious comedy teams from …

Its summer, and we are back this week to continue with some of the best science fiction to come from the golden age of radio and sci-fi. Today's imaginative story mixes Nazis and "shrinking" technology. This story by the lesser known writer Villiers Gerson is "Fantastic Voyage" with a unique spin. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ …

Another great Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show. Phil is worried about getting his tonsils removed and is getting no sympathy from anyone. A lot of sitcoms from the time dealt with this topic, but perhaps none of them as uniquely and hilariously as the writers, Ray singer and Dick Chevillat. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscrib…

Happy Independence Day! It's difficult finding great radio specials for July 4th, because all the big shows were on summer break. However, patriotic and historical shows abounded, and this well-written play digs into the backstory of the writing of the Declaration of Independence. It speculates on the wording of the document, and imagines what the …

For the third and final week of our mini-tribute to the early work of Jack Webb, who was most famous for "Dragnet," we are going back to one of his first radio acting performances on the exceptional CBS series "Escape." This is an emotionally dramatic role for Webb, who usually played it cold, as a tightly-wound individual such as Pat Novak or Pete…

This week's great science fiction story is by Murray Leinster. He is most famous for his story on artificial intelligence "A Logic Named Joe," where he uncannily predicted the Internet. This story is a little more thinky, as it wrestles with heady problems of a "first contact" with an alien intelligence. Earth explorers encounter an alien ship in t…

Moving along from last week's grimy waterfront detective Pat Novak, we look at TV and radio actor Jack Webb in a similar role, Pete Kelly, a musician who travelled amongst the seedy world of jazz musicians and crime lords. Learn on this episode how authentic this show was, and how "Pete Kelly's Blues" really had very little to do with "the blues" a…

Today's unusual science fiction story is by Hugo-Award winning writer Mark Clifton, and deals with children who are a step beyond the genius IQ. They are "Brights," and they have figured out how to manipulate the space-time continuum, making the inter-dimensional cosmos their playground. This creates a thorny problem for their parents, the "Tweens"…

We did a Pat Novak last year, and the dialogue writing was so outrageous, we had to go back to hear more. Jack Webb did this series briefly before becoming typecast as 'Joe Friday' on Dragnet. Here he is playing a skeezy private detective on the dirty San Francisco waterfront. Webb's delivery is so earnest and deadpan, it's no wonder this obscure s…

This is a compelling story of a family that survived a cataclysmic event, when a passing meteorite pulls the earth out of Axis and away from the sun. It is a story that is at the same time claustrophobic, about a family clinging to life in "the nest," and vast, as they must go to fetch frozen air in the frozen wastes in order to keep breathing. It'…

It's episode 11 of 15 for the Stan Freberg Show today, the last network comedy show. In this episode, the star sportscaster "Cliff Les Hutley" from the dressing room of Bearcat Panther Tigers, a trombone playing dog, and Bang Gunley, US Marshal. Inventive radio from a time when all eyes were glued to TV. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradi…

Another great science fiction story today from one of our favorite writers of the Golden Age and beyond, Ray Bradbury. This is may be his best time travel story, about a couple from the future, who travel back in time to escape the horrors of a world consumed by war. They are being pursued though, by an agent from the future who is attempting to se…

Broadcasting from San Francisco, Jack and the gang are back. This is one of the few episodes we've played so far in our journey through this series where Jack and the cast are on stage performing the show, a staple of Jack Benny from the early years, which was like a variety program of the earlier vaudeville format. Joining them is the Academy Awar…

We begin a new series this week, with science fiction stories that are still as imaginative, mind-blowing, and entertaining as they were originally written. Our first stop is an author who is best-known for his i-Robot/Foundations series, Isaac Asimov. This is his riveting stand-alone short story all about cancer, and the "real" cause of cancer, th…

Groucho Marx is back with George Fenneman in the hugely popular radio/TV show about men and women betting and guessing. But mostly about getting a chance to exchange quips with Groucho. We're once again in the early Desoto years with this episode, and John talks about how the TV and radio show differed, and the famous "duck." Visit our website: htt…

After WWII, and before "The Great Escape," radio gave us "Four Went Home," a great little condensed story about some POWs who decide to break out of a Nazi prison camp. It was written by a name that keeps coming up synonymous with excellent tales of adventure and horror in later years, Antony Ellis. This is our tribute to Memorial Day, and the brav…

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Bob Hope playing Superman? Yes, Command Performance ventures into its second comic hero spoof. This one stars Hope as Clark Kent (A.K.A. Superman), Paulette Goddard, and features the inspired casting of Bela Lugosi as the Man of Steel's nemesis, Dr. Bikini, and his minion, Professor Atoll, played…

Today Mickey Rooney stars as an expelled student who discovers the brutal murder of his stepmother and, assuming it was committed by his father, frames himself for the crime. However, he soon realizes his father is innocent, and he has taken the rap for the true perpetrator. This is the 10th and final tale by mystery writer Cornell Woolrich, and an…

Nightbeat was a noir-style suspenseful melodrama from the early 1950s, and a vehicle for the actor Frank Lovejoy. We featured Frank Lovejoy in last Thursday's episode, so we're showing you his showcase series, where he played a newspaper reporter searching the night for unusual human interest stories. This is the first episode of this series, which…

Today's story is a grim departure from Cornell Woolrich's usual man-on-the-run suspenseful mystery, as we plunge into the gloomy world of New Orleans, voodoo, and jazz music. This is an extraordinary production of the Cornell Woolrich story, "Papa Benjamin," about a bandleader who steals an unholy rhythm, and gets a curse put upon him, which leads …

Another East Coast vintage comedy program this week. Fred Allen was far, far more mainstream than the programs we featured for the preceding two weeks, and he is probably best known for his "Allen's Alley" segment. But like Henry Morgan and It Pays To Be Ignorant, many of these jokes tended toward topical and regional. Though this type of humor was…

It begins with a train wreck, and an unhappy woman who assumes the identity of a burn victim. But how long can she continue this charade? That's the premise of today's story by mystery writer Cornell Woolrich. Our very special guest researcher Dr. Joe Webb is with us again to discuss this episode of the radio series "Suspense" from 1946 which stars…

Like last week's Henry Morgan Show, we are again featuring zany East Coast comedians. This week, a "lost" episode of It Pays To Be Ignorant from February 16, 1945. This one is another onslaught, machine-gun round of rapid-fire Dad jokes, some of them hitting so fast, by the time you get it you are halfway through the next one. We are happy to be ab…

Today on the podcast, a woman learns that her husband won a lottery. The only problem is, the ticket is in the pocket of his coat... buried with his body. So begins a story with a darkly comic bent from the pen of Cornell Woolrich, the king of the pulps all throughout the 1940s. Agnes Moorehead (best remembered for her intense performance on "Sorry…

Today, the second episode of the fully produced half-hour Henry Morgan Show. This episode is a non-stop barrage of wise-cracks, crazy voices, and weird musical interludes. Who cares if one bombed? It was on to the next so fast, it didn't matter. This is before Morgan got a sponsor for the show, so like the later Stan Freberg Show, he gets a chance …

What would you do if you knew your spouse was a wanted criminal? To make matters worse, she was a fire starter and you were an insurance investigator? That's the dilemma of the protagonist in this story by the popular mystery writer we are featuring all this month on the podcast, Cornell Woolrich. We are pleased to be joined once again by radio res…

Today we are venturing into the world of 1957 sci-fi. The story is called "The Coffin Cure," by physician turned science fiction writer Alan E. Nourse. A cure for the common cold has been found, but it's pushed out to the public a little too quickly, with unpleasant side effects (sounds like something ripped out of modern day headlines). The whole …

Actor Jack Webb was best known for his persuasive portrayal of police Sergeant Joe Friday. Today we get to hear Jack Webb as a criminal. The story is another in our 10-week tribute to the prolific pulp mystery writer and novelist Cornell Woolrich. Joining us once again to discuss this story is researcher Dr. Joe Webb (no relation to Jack Webb or Jo…

The following story is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. We bring you "Dragnet," the granddaddy of all true crime police procedurals. Jack Webb was the mastermind behind the series that showed the boys in blue in a heroic light after many years of media mockery. This is an early episode of the series, and the first to …