For a small taste of this great
series,
listen to the preview below.
This show comes on CD In MP3 Format
Lights Out was an old-time radio program
featuring "tales of the supernatural and the supernormal." It was immensely
popular, and was one of the first horror programs, predating Suspense and
Inner Sanctum. In its heyday, Lights Out rivaled the popularity of those
shows. It was adapted to television for five successful years in the early
1950s, but radio historian John Dunning reports that the legend of Lights
Out is firmly rooted in radio.
Lights Out ran through several series and networks, from January 1, 1934 to
August 6, 1947. The principal sponsor was Ironized Yeast. Most episodes were
broadcast at midnight. Lights Out then made the transition to television in
1949, where it was broadcast until 1952.
Lights Out was created in Chicago by writer Wyllis Cooper in 1934. The first
series of shows, each 15 minutes long, ran on a local NBC station, WENR. By
April 1934, the series was expanded to a half hour in length and moved to
midnight Wednesdays. In January 1935, the show was discontinued in order to
ease Cooper's workload, but was brought back by huge popular demand a few
weeks later.
After a successful tryout in New York City, the series was picked up by NBC
in April 1935 and broadcast nationally, usually late at night and always on
Wednesdays. Cooper stayed on the program until June 1936, when another
Chicago writer, Arch Oboler, took over. By the time Cooper left, the series
had inspired about 600 fan clubs.
Among the actors who participated regularly during the Cooper era were
Sidney Ellstrom, Art Jacobson, Don Briggs, Bernardine Flynn, Betty Lou
Gerson, and Betty Winkler. The sound effects technicians frequently had to
perform numerous experiments to achieve the desired noises. The series had
little music scoring save for the thirteen chime notes that opened the
program (after a deep voice intoned, "Lights out, everybody!") and an
ominous gong which was used to punctuate a scene and provide the transition
to another.
When Cooper departed, his replacement, a young, eccentric and ambitious Arch
Oboler, picked up where he left off, often following Cooper's general
example but putting his own spin in the scripts. Although in later years
Lights Out would be closely associated with Oboler, he was always quick to
credit Wyllis Cooper as the series' creator and spoke highly of the older
author, calling him "the unsung pioneer of radio dramatic techniques" and
the first person Oboler knew of who understood that radio drama could be an
art form.
Despite acclaim for Oboler's dramas, NBC announced it was canceling the
series in the summer of 1937 -- "just to see whether listeners are still
faithful to it", according to one press report but also to allow the
hard-working author a vacation. Another outcry from fans led to the
program's return that September for another year.
Oboler left in the summer of 1938 to pursue other projects, writing and
directing several critically acclaimed dramatic anthology series -- Arch
Oboler's Plays, Everyman's Theatre and Plays for Americans.
So sit back and hold onto your popcorn while enjoying “tales of the
supernatural and the supernormal” and remember “Lights Out Everybody” - “if
you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays we
urge you calmly but sincerely to turn off your radio NOW”.
You have over 68 episodes
and 29 plus hours, so what are you waiting for!
The following are the episodes contained on the CD.
360617 Cat Wife
360805 Money Money Money
360916 The Sea
361014 The Fast One
361209 Nobody Died
370310 Chicken Heart
370317 State Executioner
370414 The Little People
370512 Organ
370526 Until Dead
370616 The Meteor Man
370623 Happy Ending
370714 Lord Marley Ghost
371117 Little Old Lady
371222 Christmas Story
371229 The Dark
380216 Murder Castle
380316 Super Feature
380323 The Dream
380330 Valse Triste
380511 It Happened
390426 Devils Due
421013 Revolt of the Worms
421020 Poltergeist
421027 Mungahra
421110 Bon Voyage
421117 Come to the Bank
421201 Story Of Mr. Maggs
421208 Scoop
421215 A Knock At The Door
430105 Fast One
430119 Devil Mr. Alleycat
430126 Protective Mr. Drogen
430209 We Dug It Up
430216 Oxychloride X
430223 They Met at Dorset
430309 Ball Paris Macabre
430323 Flame
430406 Superfeature
430413 Archer
430420 Kill
430427 Execution
430504 Heavenly Jeep
430511 Murder in the Script Department
430518 Spider
430601 Ugliest Man in the World
430608 The Organ
430615 Prelude to Murder
430622 Nature Study
430629 Bathy Sphere
430713 Visitor From Hades
430720 Profits Unlimited
430810 Sakhalin
430824 Subbasement
430831 Immortal Gentleman
430907 Lord Marley Guest
430914 The Word
430921 Mirage
430928 Author and the Thing
450721 Reunion After Death
450728 Rocket Ship
450825 Man in the Middle
450901 The Day The Sun Exploded
460713 The Coffin in Studio b
460720 Haunted Cell
460727 Battle of the Magicians
460803 The Revenge of India
460810 Ghost on the Newsreel Negative
460824 The Signal Man
470716 Death Robbery
We want to thank Wikipedia for some of the background
information on this show.
Presented for your enjoyment is an entire episode for you to sample.
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Source
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Please note that the
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