DakotaSmith, thanks a lot for the Old Time Radio links.
Not a problem. I think any fan of SF should listen to
Dimension X and
X-Minus One. They were some of the best shows of the day, not to mention the best SF.
Our fathers' and now grandfathers' era of fan listened to these two shows just as religiously as we watch
Doctor Who or
Battlestar Galactica, after all. Even modern
Star Trek, when it's been worth it ...
But the
Internet Archive really is your friend if you're into OTR or want to hear more of it. Most of the shows are now in the public domain, which means the Archive has an enormous collection.
It's not all great. There was a lot of low-budget stuff produced with just an organ for music and one over-worked sound effects guy who was so dedicated that he rarely missed a cue. It's like any other medium, with it's crap along with its genius.
In fact, in the larger genre of OTR I'd categorize
Dimension X and
X-Minus One not as genius radio, but a solid, well-executed and produced stories. They always had an orchestra, they had well-thought-out sound effects that helped tell the story. A few of the episodes were great radio, but not all of them.
They didn't push any boundaries of the medium, but told great stories.
Dragnet, on the other hand, features some serious genius in action. I recommend any two-part episode you see.
There's always a good chance that any random episode will be pretty damned good radio -- but Webb knew a really good story when he saw one. The two-parters were all really good stories.
Try "
The Big Man": Friday goes undercover for
six months to break a narcotics ring. He completely insinuates himself into a local gang in part 1 (resulting in their apprehension), then goes onto an undercover surveilance detail to catch the kingpin in part 2.
Fantastic radio: if the seagulls don't convince you that Friday and his men are eating lunch at the coast, nothing will. Listen to the scene carefully (you'll know which one) and see everything Webb put into it. The location, the dialog (some of which is very minor personal stuff that's brilliantly understated characterization) ... everything you hear puts you into an undercover surveillance detail who are now bored stiff from watching their little chunk of the real estate around the kingpin's house. Nobody says they're bored stiff because professional cops like Friday never bellyached about the downside of the job. Stakeouts were boring, and that was that.
But you can hear it in their voices, their conversation, the way they talk to the Captain when he comes to debrief them about the day's activities, hoping he'll bring news of some movement that will take them off surveillance. Yet right along with it, he's slipped in a ton of exposition about why they're doing the surveillance and how it fits into the bigger plan. Yet none of it ever seems forced. You're given all this stuff, layers, really, but it sounds perfectly natural.
Great story, brilliant radio. There's a reason
Dragnet ran 314 episodes, the overwhelming majority produced concurrent with the weekly TV series. It's just that good. Plus, Jack Webb loved radio and resisted giving it up until 1957. He was one of the last major hold-outs.
Of course, there's a lot of OTR. Sit-coms, movie adaptations featuring the original casts, stand-up comedy, daytime soaps, detective shows, police shows, spy dramas, screwball comedies, thrillers ... it was an entire industry that young people today know almost nothing about. It was literally the broadcast television of its day, with thousands of hours' of airtime.
Most of it didn't survive, of course. Only rich listeners could afford the cutting-edge equipment to actually record what came over the radio, and even then they made pre-vinyl 78RPM record albums. What's left is mostly from affilliate stations that made recordings for delayed or later broadcast (again, pre-vinyl 78RPMs).
Of course, "high-tech" at the time meant you plopped the recorder's microphone in front of the speaker from your network feed and told everybody to shut up for the next half hour. Not exactly hi-fidelity.
Very occasionally, a network kept the original recordings, usually on well-preserved pre-vinyl 78s. You can usually tell those, as they lack the sound deficiencies you sort of come to expect of OTR. It gives you an idea of just how good these must have sounded when they first aired and with good reception.
Thankfully, a fair number of
Dragnet survived that way -- some
Dimension X/
X-Minus One, too. I think "Green Hills" is one of those. The sound quality is very, very good for OTR.
Almost all of it is in the public domain and can be downloaded or streamed for free.
As I say, a bit of a passion of mine ... hope you get some fun from the links.
Dakota Smith
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