Diary Of Fate
“Peter Drake”
(2/2/48).
***
Lights Out:
“Chicken Heart”
(2/23/38).
***
Dimension X:
Nightfall
(9/9/51).
***
LibriVox:
H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Street”
(Dec. 1920).
***
Heed well you who listen, and remember, there is a page for you in, "The Diary of Fate."
"The Diary of Fate" was a horror program where “Fate”, personified in the person of actor Herbert Lytton, narrates a morality tale, and woe be to the person on the wrong end. This program plays the usual stories of murder, hitchhikers, blackmail, love gone wrong, and the guilty getting their just desserts. The character of Fate plays a bit more of a role than mere observer; he creates situations to force the protagonist into a choice. For the sake of the show, they always choose badly, and the audience gets to listen to their demise unfold.
The show aired from 1947 to 1948, only 24 episodes are known to survive. The show wasn’t as successful as similar shows, like Inner Sanctum, but it did have solid stars, including Lurene Tuttle, Larry Dobkin, Hal Sawyer, Gloria Blondell, Frank Albertson, Jerry Hausner, Howard McNear, Peter Leeds, Ken Peters, Daws Butler and William Johnstone.
February the 23rd of 1948 entry in the “The Diary Of Fate” . A peak into the life of “Peter Drake”. A man comfortable in his life and work. Peter loves his wife Marsha, a proud, greedy woman. And because of that love he finds himself with his pistol pressed against his temple by his own hand.
Light’s Out, one of the most famous radio shows of all time. Pretty much everyone has heard of it. Although , I admit sometimes this awareness is limited to Bill Cosby’s Chicken Heart routine.
Created by Willis Cooper in 1934, and passed on to Arch Oboler in 1936. Lights Out as a radio series would finally succumb to its own mortality in 1947. The franchise did not end with the demise of the radio show. Lights Out would turn up as a TV series from 1949 to 1952. There have been occasional attempts to revive the series that never had any notable success.
It’s only 11 minutes long it’s from February 23rd of 1938. Far more people have heard of it than have ever heard it. Now, is your chance . From Light’s Out and the pen and tongue in cheek of Arch Olber, it’s the “Chicken Heart”.
Dimension X (April 8 of 1950 – September of 1951) was not the first Science Fiction anthology series on radio, (that distinction belongs to the short-lived and not particularly lamented 2000 plus ) It, however, was the first to utilize published stories from established Science fiction authors, mostly drawing from short stories appearing in Smith and Street’s, Astounding Science Fiction. The show made a practice of adapting the work’s of authors such as Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein and many others.
A footnote to history is that dimension X was one of the first shows to be recorded on tape. This was so new that one show, “Mars is Heaven”, had to be re-recorded 3 times because the engineer kept erasing the tape while editing it.
This time it’s Dimension X’s adaptation of one of the most famous stories by one of the most Famous Science Fiction authors of all time. Isaac Asimov’s, “Nightfall” from September the 9th of 1951
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.
The last segment is (thanks again to the Librivox Project) Glen Hallstrom (AKA Smokestack Jones ) reading H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Street” which was Published in December of 1920 by The Wolverine magazine.
Night Transmissions 
Leave a comment