Dark Fantasy:

“The Man Who Came Back (8/21/48).

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Nightfall:

“Love and the Lonely One”.(7/4/80)

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LibriVox:  Evelyn E. Smith’s:

“The Blue Tower”(1958).

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Mystery in the Air:

“The Marvelous Barastro” (8/7/47).

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Strange Doctor Weird:

“The Man Who Lived Twice” (1/30/45).

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Originating from WKY in Oklahoma City Dark Fantasy was a short lived program (producing only 31 episodes) dedicated to tales of the unknown on Friday nights for parts of 1941 and 1942.

Oklahoma City was far from alone in producing it’s own successful series. In point of fact many excellent programs were produced in places that today would seem surprising. Of course, thinking about it, the barriers to entry to radio production were and are much lower than for movies or television. All you really need is a little equipment and a few talented people of which there was then, and is now, no monopoly of in Hollywood.

Dark Fantasy had a shoestring of a budget which the show was able to rise above through the creative establishment of an effective but spare atmospheric ambiance resulting in an excellent show that was, in some ways, well ahead of it’s time.

Dark Fantasy was written by Scott Bishop, who would later write for The Mysterious Traveler and The Sealed Book.

Keith Paynton served as announcer.

We start off with a segment of Dark Fantasy from August 21st of 1948.

It’s an old story. A wronged husband, an unfaithful wife, a cad and a murder. Oh, and also, a promise to return from the grave.

Nightfall, was a radio drama series produced  by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. The series became one of the most popular shows in CBC Radio history, running 100 episodes that featured a mix of original tales and  adaptations of both classic and obscure short stories.

The Second segment is from the CBC’s program Nightfall. “Love and the Lonely One” From July the 4th of 1980.

I guess this is a program of firsts. “Love and the Lonely One” is also the premiere show for its series. It’s a story about George, Fred, a cadaver, and a sorority house. As you can see it brings together all of the ingredients for a tight little horror story, or a teen comedy from Troma Pictures.

From the LibriVox website..

“Established in 2005 by Hugh McGuire, LibriVox is a world wide group of volunteers who record, catalog and publish works as audio files to  provide audiobooks and readings of short stories and poetry at no cost to all comers.
The LibriVox mission is “the acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.
By recording books that are in the public domain, LibriVox is giving people access to audio versions of classics such as books by Louise May Alcott through to Israel Zangwall, with hundreds more in between. These include works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and HG Wells. Books by a huge range of different authors are being recorded and published constantly.

The LibriVox catalog provides an up to date list of all the different audiobooks that are available currently”.

For segment three we turn to the LibriVox project again… this time volunteer Betsie Bush reads Evelyn E. Smith’s “The Blue Tower”. “The Blue Tower” was originally published in Galaxy magazine’s February, 1958 issue.

There can be no doubt about it. Peter Lorre was born to do radio. He always just saunters in and begins to chew up the scenery. He does it every time. He does it in Mystery In The Air. His NBC summer replacement show for the Abbot and Costello program.

There is another familiar voice on this show, that of the announcer Mr. Harry Morgan. We all tend these days to think of Morgan as a T.V actor ( Col. Potter of M.A.S.H.). But like most early T.V. actors Morgan had deep roots in radio.

Sponsored by Camel Cigarettes the show ran between 1945 and 1947. Today I can find only eight episodes (those are from 1947). We can, however hope. Although it does not happen every day, or even very often. It is not unheard of for lost episodes of old radio shows to reappear covered with the dust of time and the cobwebs of someone’s attic.


You never know. It could happen.

For segment four we run with “The Marvelous Barastro”, an episode of Mystery in the Air from August the 7th of 1947.

It stars Peter Lorre as a vengeful magician. From a script by Ben Hecht.”The Marvelous Barastro” was also done for the series Suspense in 1944 starring Orson Welles.

Also in this segment is a Strange Doctor Weird, “The Man Who Lived Twice” from January the 30th of 1945.