How Did You Discover Old Time Radio?

[LizzieMaine]

For me, it actually started with randomly twisting the AM dial at night, after the Red Sox game was over. I'd pick up stations from all around the East and Midwest, and one night when I was about 11, I stumbled across the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, which had just begun airing. This was my first exposure to radio drama, and while I was kind of unsettled by the spooky stuff, I figured there had to be more of it somewhere -- so I kept twisting and tuning until I found a couple of stations in Boston that aired reruns of various vintage shows.

One of the real highlights of those days was a special weekend put on by WBZ out of Boston, where they ran Old Time Radio pretty much continuously -- and I listened to as much of it as I could. The year after that, NBC radio celebrated its 50th anniversary with a special series of shows that really got me hooked -- it was the first time I had any kind of real historic context for the stuff I was listening to, and it got me to where I wanted to start looking for books and articles.

Around that time, our local public radio station started airing reruns of "The Great Gildersleeve," "Duffy's Tavern," "The Aldrich Family," and "You Bet Your Life," which gave my my first exposure to these specific programs -- and not long after that, I saw an ad in a magazine for Radiola records and cassettes. I sent away for one -- containing two episodes of "Fibber McGee and Molly," and it must've cost me all of $3.79. And that was the start of a collection that now numbers over 5000 hours and takes up pretty much my entire office. (I have yet to convert to digital formats. I hear they save space...)

So anyway, that's how I got hooked -- how about you?

 

[deanglen]

My Dad. He's worked in it since 1950.

dean

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

When I was a kid in the 1960s, we spent our summers in a little cabin up near Eureka in northern California. We didn't have a TV set there, but we had a wood cabinet tube type table radio and we'd listen to KGO in San Francisco at night. That was news/talk, but it began my fascination with radio in general and it was a short step to the Golden Age of radio from there.

Does anybody remember Ira Blue? His theme music was "Rhapsody in Blue" and I can't hear that without thinking of him.

 

[The Reno Kid]

I was living in Germany in 1987 and the Armed Forces Network played The Falcon and Johnny Dollar back to back every night just before I went to bed. I was hooked.

 

[Harp]

Radio

My earliest memories trace back to my grandfather's large
wooden, almost "cathedral-arched" radio, and the sounds emitted
competed with my fascination with the glowing tubes seen through
space bar/holes cut in the hardboard back. I developed an interest
in history; especially WWII: FDR's fireside chat recordings; Churchill's
inspiring oratory; and CBS icon Ed Murrow's London broadcasts,
all of which captivated and revealed the power and grandeur that
is radio; along with the nobility and heroism of that time. In high
school, I got hooked on jazz and big band swing, thanks to local
Chicago stations that kept the flame burning bright. In the Army,
I once "owned" a M109A1 high powered field radio that was used to
listen in on communist transmissions. Bolted onto a jeep, we ran
"radio ambushes" along the Yugoslavian-Greek border. I also found that
I could pick up WCFL in Chicago from Macedonia by bouncing around
Panama Canal ship tanker traffic signals. "Radio Free Europe" broadcasts
shot past Warsaw Pact signal blocks, which I caught with a fairly cheap
portable set purchased at a PX. I wired the set's back and connected
the loose end tie to a barbed wire security fence, laying out a huge
rectangular antenna. Since those days I've found that I need to
scrounge around for local old-time broadcasts here, but some good
programs like, "When Radio Was" regularly play at midnite over WBBM
79* AM. I seem to have missed the entertainment sit-com/drama stuff,
so have learned a great deal by reading the FL threads posted by our
highly knowledgable members! Thanks a bunch guys.

 

[Elaina]

Traveling across country with my adopted grandpa (who ALSO got me into swing dancing and vintage wear). Man is a zoot suiter, ex-army air corp, shrapnel in his tooshie toting contradiction of a cool person.

He popped some into his tape player and we went from California to Oklahoma listening to oldies like that. I wish I could remember what it was, but I was 4.

Elaina

 

[Barry]

I live in the DC area and WAMU (NPR) is a local station. I listened to the re-broadcasts of radio shows quite a bit in college and some in high school.

Also, one of my roommates in college had a bunch of old radio show on cassette tapes. I think he had quite a few of the Groucho Marx "You bet your life shows."

I still remember two episodes. In one, the contestant was either an actress or model or both. Groucho was just stunned and probably smitten. You could just hear it in his voice. He practically stammered over a few words.

In another episode he featured a newly engaged couple and a young kid, I think the kid's name was Doogie or Dougie. My roommate back then said he thought "Dougie" went on to become a famous surfer and surfboard designer. Anyways, Groucho asked the couple about their early courtship and the woman said "Well, he came over to my house for dinner one night, and sometime later on, I went to his house for dinner." Groucho asked Dougie, "Dougie, well what do you think of that?" Dougie said "Sounds like they were really hungry!" I still laugh about that. I might have to see if that episode is out on CD.

Barry

 

[CharlieH.]

The single item that pulled me into old time radio was a certain 1938 broadcast by Orson Welles.
I couldn't believe that a radio broadcast could cause such an uproar, and when I found out it was available, I knew I had to listen to it. When I finally did (late at night, with the lights off) I got chills. Next thing you know, I was listening to the Mel Blanc show, then Jack Benny, then the Camel Caravan, and here I am now listening to a speech by FDR.

 

[Kent Allard]

For me it was the records of OTR at my library when I was about 8 years old. I saw this picture of a man wearing a cloak and wearing what looked like a red scarf and I had to know more.

From such small beginnings began an obsession that lasts to this day.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

We had a local station that would play recordings of the old shows back in the very early 70's.

At the same time I found a bunch of 78's from my parents days, and picked up an old wooden Zenith tabletop radio/phono at a garage sale on my block.
(I wish I still had that combo)

That was all it took to get me started.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

The first time I heard old time radio was when my uncle on my mom's side gave me a few cassette tapes with Jack Benny and Baby Snooks on each side. I believe there were a couple others but I always would listen to the Baby Snooks episodes, "Daddy's Old Flame", "Halloween" and "Child Psychology" while going to sleep. After a few years my uncle gave me MP3 discs and those replaced the cassettes. I've sought to recruit listners out of all of my friends and they all have something good to say about it. I always wanted to listen to them where I would invite a small group of people, turn all the lights but a single lamp out and everyone just sits by the radio and we'd listen to a few shows.

My collection hasn't doubled but it's getting there (over 1,000 shows)

 

[The Wolf]

I used to The Green Hornet being re-broadcast on the radio. Then the comedies. After a while I found some tapes in a store.
When I found they could be ordered by mail I was hooked. At one point I got three catalogs in the mail that specialised in old radio shows.
Now I only get Radio Spirits.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Sunny]

A friend of mine loaned my family a set of tapes he'd gotten for his birthday. This was back in 1998, I think; I'm the eldest child in my family, and I was 15. Our tape player ended up eating one of the tapes, so we replaced my friend's set with a new one and kept the old. Then we found out that KRLD (Dallas-Fort Worth) was playing shows from 10-midnight on Fridays; for months my brother stayed up late to record them.

Of course we never could get enough of any one series to really take off, but we certainly enjoyed them and certain tapes got pretty worn. One of my all-time favorites is the Phil Harris-Alice Faye episode called "The Chaperones, or, Plug the Hole in the Silo, Father, the Corn Is Leaking Out." Another one, "Little Alice's First Date," has a terrific Dragnet spoof. "It was Harris, my name is Friday-I mean it was Friday, my name is Harris." lol

And then I went away to college, plugged into the university network, and discovered free OTR on .mp3. Off to the races! A year ago, before I ever bought any, I had over 1,700 episodes. I'm sure my "collection" is well on its way to 3,000 by now. I'm now wondering how big an iPod I'd need to hold the entire available run of Richard Diamond...

 

[Riposte3]

Satellite radio! I got an XM radio because the stations around here are pretty horrible, and stumbled across ch. 164 "XM Radio Classics" during "The Shadow" and was hooked. Now I listen to it pretty regularly.

-Jake

 

[BJonas]

My grandma had a few tapes when I was a kid, she ended up giving them to me: Inner Sanctum, Abbott and Costello, Sorry, Wrong Number, Green Hornet, and, of course, The Shadow.

 

[Mark Finn]

I got hooked in the 1970s, while driving the backroads of Texas with my father and step-mother in the front seat. The AM station out in the boonies played episodes of The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and the Green Hornet. Every time we'd go out to the country, I'd demand to listen to that station on the way home. Scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid, but it also hooked me for life.

 

[s7eng]

I bought a few tapes in the early eighties. I liked the older movies and was curios. I now have several on my MP3 player. My tapes included Abbott and Costello, Green Hornet, Jack Benny, The Shadow and War of the Worlds.

 

[52Styleline]

I am old enough that I caught the very last of major radio network programming as a small child in the early 1950's. This was before anyone in my town had a tv set so radio continued to be our primary entertainment.

Although I was very young, enough of that exposure must have taken root in my "little gray cells" to motivate a lifelong enjoyment of OTR.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I listened to it when I was a kid. Favorite programs then were The Lone Ranger and Sgt Preston of the Yukon. Mother listened to a music station in the mid-to-late 40's up through the 50's, so knew all the "Your Hit Parade" hits before we got a TV in 1951.

I had to use my imagination (and read comics) to envision my Lone Ranger and I recall I was disappointed when I saw the TV show because Clayton Moore did not look like my Lone Ranger. He was OK, but not what I would have envisioned, plus I didn't like his powder blue outfit.

Also, I can recall listening to Gangbusters, Fibber McGee and Molly, and I've forgotten the names of some local stuff.

karol

 

[panamag8or]

In the late 70's a guy by the name of bill Sabis started a little show on the local NPR station, WRUF. For two hours each Sunday night, I could listen to great OTR, with insightful commentary by the host. Then right after he signed off CBSRMT started. Sabis is no longer the host, but the show lives on still.