MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Seriousness Anyone else like old radio shows?

jgray · 06-29-2009, 08:43 PM

I guess you could say that I like OTR. I have over 200GB worth of MP3 files

Everything I have was aired on US radio, although a few series were originally British (the Holmes stuff in particular).

As for comedy, I never cared for most of the British comedy shows that I have heard or seen. Monty Python is an exception, but even there, I don't like all of their stuff. Two of my favorite US OTR comedy shows are "Jack Benny" and "Amos 'n Andy". Very funny stuff, even today.

"Praire Home Companion" isn't considered OTR, as even at 35 years, that means it started in 1974. One of the last real OTR programs that I am aware of was "Gunsmoke". A radio program that sort of resurected the ghost of OTR for a while was "CBS Radio Mystery Theater".

"X Minus One" and the later "Dimension X" were the best adult oriented SF programs on radio. Both drew from the major SF magazines of the day for their stories. There were one or two other adult SF programs, but they weren't very good IMO. For juvenile SF, there were several to choose from, some quite good.

For drama, there were quite a few radio shows of this type aired over the years. The one that almost everyone knows is "Mercury Theater on the Air", because of the infamous 1938 adaptation of "War of the Worlds". That is a great episode to listen to, BTW.

Two excellent programs that were a mix of drama, mystery, thriller, fantasy, SF, etc. were "Suspense" and "Escape". Suspense in particular is worth listening to.

For adult westerns, I already mentioned "Gunsmoke". Two other fine programs were "Tales of the Texas Rangers", starring Joel McCrea, and "The Six Shooter", starring Jimmy Stewart.

The Internet Archive (archive.org) was mentioned as a source of OTR. There is quite a bit of OTR there for download, some good and some not. If you want the best quality, most complete collections of a particular show, look on archive.org for the distributions by OTRR (Old Time Radio Researchers). OTRR will have a distribution listed two ways - a CD image (ISO) and individual MP3 files for download.

If you can't find an OTRR distribution of a show you want, then see what archive.org has from someone else. The quality and completeness of these "other" OTR sets is quite variable, however.

Another source are the Yahoo OTR groups that you can join, where they "round robin" a set of CDs to group members via snail mail. There are also some OTR forums on the net that make downloads available.

Whatever you do, try to avoid spending money with the many vendors selling OTR. They are just making a buck off of the efforts of others. Also, they generally don't put any effort into making sure that the OTR they sell is good, bad or indifferent. They just fill up a disk and sell it.

With few exceptions, most of the US OTR that is available did not have the copyrights renewed and is public domain. "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" is still copyrighted and I'm not sure about "The Lone Ranger".

06-29-2009, 08:43 PM	#30
jgray Fanatic Posts: 554 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	OTR I guess you could say that I like OTR. I have over 200GB worth of MP3 files Everything I have was aired on US radio, although a few series were originally British (the Holmes stuff in particular). As for comedy, I never cared for most of the British comedy shows that I have heard or seen. Monty Python is an exception, but even there, I don't like all of their stuff. Two of my favorite US OTR comedy shows are "Jack Benny" and "Amos 'n Andy". Very funny stuff, even today. "Praire Home Companion" isn't considered OTR, as even at 35 years, that means it started in 1974. One of the last real OTR programs that I am aware of was "Gunsmoke". A radio program that sort of resurected the ghost of OTR for a while was "CBS Radio Mystery Theater". "X Minus One" and the later "Dimension X" were the best adult oriented SF programs on radio. Both drew from the major SF magazines of the day for their stories. There were one or two other adult SF programs, but they weren't very good IMO. For juvenile SF, there were several to choose from, some quite good. For drama, there were quite a few radio shows of this type aired over the years. The one that almost everyone knows is "Mercury Theater on the Air", because of the infamous 1938 adaptation of "War of the Worlds". That is a great episode to listen to, BTW. Two excellent programs that were a mix of drama, mystery, thriller, fantasy, SF, etc. were "Suspense" and "Escape". Suspense in particular is worth listening to. For adult westerns, I already mentioned "Gunsmoke". Two other fine programs were "Tales of the Texas Rangers", starring Joel McCrea, and "The Six Shooter", starring Jimmy Stewart. The Internet Archive (archive.org) was mentioned as a source of OTR. There is quite a bit of OTR there for download, some good and some not. If you want the best quality, most complete collections of a particular show, look on archive.org for the distributions by OTRR (Old Time Radio Researchers). OTRR will have a distribution listed two ways - a CD image (ISO) and individual MP3 files for download. If you can't find an OTRR distribution of a show you want, then see what archive.org has from someone else. The quality and completeness of these "other" OTR sets is quite variable, however. Another source are the Yahoo OTR groups that you can join, where they "round robin" a set of CDs to group members via snail mail. There are also some OTR forums on the net that make downloads available. Whatever you do, try to avoid spending money with the many vendors selling OTR. They are just making a buck off of the efforts of others. Also, they generally don't put any effort into making sure that the OTR they sell is good, bad or indifferent. They just fill up a disk and sell it. With few exceptions, most of the US OTR that is available did not have the copyrights renewed and is public domain. "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" is still copyrighted and I'm not sure about "The Lone Ranger".