Radio Classics For The 21st Century
The 1930′s-1950′s was the Golden Age Of Radio. There were decent radio classics on every night that you could huddle round the fire to and be thrilled by, Suspense, Escape, Inner Sanctum and The Whilster are just a few of these. There is no surprise really that it became known as the Golden Age of Radio
In the early 1960s these old radio shows as form of entertainment died out completely. It didn’t disappear all of a sudden. It started to die our from the early 1950s and had pretty much gone by the time the last episode of Yours Truly Johnn Dollar was broadcast in 1962.
There was a brief comeback in the 70s and 80s when Himan Brown’s CBS Radio Mystery Theatre ran from 1972-1982. Since then however radio has not been the same.
There is however one show that did stand out above the others called “Tales from the Morgue”.
This is a show where an elderly morgue attendant sells a series of short stories.
The stories Chet relates are all quite fanciful. Many of them are SCI-FI or supernatural. They border on outrageous but that is how they are meant to be.
About half of these shows include a character call Elmer who always seems to find himself in some interesting situations.
The creators of the series themselves admit the show is rather off-beat, but it’s not without it’s very own charm, which lies within the humorous writing and the recurring characters.
This series was created and produced by M&J Audio Theater. The M stands for Mark Sawyer and the J is for Jay Reel.
They are childhood friends who met in school. X Minus One, Lum and Abner and Gunsmoke are examples of old time radio shows that they both enjoyed and started their interest in radio drama. You can tell that the stories they wrote are heavily influenced by these shows from the plots and the character voices.The creaking door opening, the host’s oddly humorous manner and the pleasant dreams ending are an undeniable salute to “The Inner Sanctum” and Himan Brown.
Mark Sawyer and J Reel collaborated on as many as 20 characters in these stories, possibly more. Jay is the voice of Chet Chetter, Elmer Korn, the Sheriff, Roland, and Gale Headrush Taylor. Mark only admits to being the voice of Cecil Farris and various incidental characters.
Mark and Jay produced the first Chet Chetter story, “The Highway of Death” in 1989. It was born from a series of ninety-five episodes, which they recorded between 1980 to 1995. They call it “The Conofrof Saga”.
They submitted “The Highway of Death” to National Public Radio and were amazed when NPR responded with an order for three more stories. The four episodes were accepted and broadcast on NPR Playhouse in 1990. In 1991 NPR requested 9 more episodes be written of “Tales from The Morgue”. All 13 episodes were played in 1992 as a full series.
A few online production houses are finding an audience for their own audio shows since then.
It is strange how things can go full circle. From the days of old time radio right through to the high tech world of the Internet today.
In the Golden Age of Radio there was a demand for these hight quality old radio shows and it shows that this is still the case today. The medium might have changed, but maybe the entertainment people enjoy hasn’t changed quite as much as we might sometimes think.
Websites such as www.rusc.com make these old time radio shows available for you to download or stream so they can be enjoyed into the 21st century and beyond!
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