Old Time Radio

This past Saturday while working I listened to several hours of Old Time Radio (OTR) programs. I first discovered OTR when I was a kid. I really don't know why a 10 year-old would be listening to the local all-news radio station (on the AM band! in mono!), but I did. One night while listening some old radio program came on and I was hooked. The mists of time have destroyed the memory of that first program, but this station tended to play comedy programs. I remember getting a big kick out of Fibber McGee's closet. Strangely, my closet resembles his.

A few years after my initial discovery I heard a program called Theatre of the Mind that aired on an FM station out of Toronto at 11 pm on Sunday nights. (Can anyone tell me why I was so tired on Monday mornings?) I listened religiously for about five or six years before the program went away. This is the program that introduced me to shows like The Shadow and Suspense.

Fast forward a couple of decades to my discovery of Internet radio. I was thrilled to find Brando Classic OTR especially with its listen free link. This website and many others have thousands of shows available. If you didn't guess already my favorite day to listen is Saturday. This is the day when some of the old sci-fi shows are aired. It is a joy to listen to programs like X Minus 1 and Dimension X (they aired many of the same episodes). Some of the scripts these shows used were originals, but most were adaptations of stories published in the magazines Galaxy and Astounding. These shows originally ran in the 1950s and the adaptions are of stories by writers you mights recognize like Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Leinster, Sheckley, and Simak. I'm leaving off many other recognizable names, but you can get full episode listings at the provided links.

Most of the stories are set in the future, like 1995. The stories are dated for the most part, but they still get me to think about what should have been. This is why I like SF so much and hard SF in particular. It gives me hope that tomorrow will be filled with wonders that I could not imagine today and that some day I will finally get to take that trip to the moon. How cool will that be?