The World Adventures ClubEpisode: Papua Escape

The Baby Snooks ShowEpisode: House Breaking (4/4/1939)

The Baby Snooks Show was an American radio program starring comedienne and Ziegfeld Follies alumna Fanny Brice as a mischievous young girl who was 40 years younger than the actress who played her when she first went on the air. The series began on CBS September 17, 1944, airing on Sunday evenings at 6:30pm as Post Toasties Time (for sponsor General Foods). The title soon changed to The Baby Snooks Show, and the series was sometimes called Baby Snooks and Daddy. source: wikipedia.org

 

 

Lum and AbnerEpisode: Friday Night Sociable (1/1/1933)

Lum and Abner was an American radio comedy network program created by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff that was aired from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in the small town of Waters, Arkansas, near where Lauck and Goff grew up, the showed proved immensely popular. In 1936, Waters changed its name to Pine Ridge after the show's fictional town.
source: wikipedia.org

 

SuspenseEpisode: The Shelter ( 10/28/1954)

Planet Yesteryear proudly presents A week a Ray Bradbury In Honor of the late great Ray Bradbury

NBC Presents: Short Story was a half-hour program offering dramatizations of contemporary American short stories by famed writers such as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Shirley Jackson.

 Broadcasting from Hollywood, the series premiered February 21, 1951 on NBC with an adaptation of "Fifty Grand" by Ernest Hemingway. Script editor for the series was Hugh Kemp, who supervised scripts by George Lefferts, Ernest Kinoy and others. The series was first heard on Wednesdays at 10:30pm EST and then moved May 4 to Fridays at 8:00pm. Featuring stories by Conrad Aiken ("Silent Snow, Secret Snow"), Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benét, Ring Lardner and John Steinbeck, the first series continued until July 13. The dramas were directed by Andrew C. Love. Overall supervision of production was by Margaret Cuthbert and Wade Arnold. Lamont Johnson, Don Stanley and John Wald were the announcers. source: wikipedia.org




Nbc Short Story
Episode: The Rocket (1/4/1952)

Planet Yesteryear proudly presents A week a Ray Bradbury In Honor of the late great Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book lies somewhere between a short story collection and an episodic novel, containing stories Bradbury originally published in the late 1940s in science fiction magazines. The stories were loosely woven together with a series of short, interstitial vignettes for
publication. source: wikipedia.org




Dimension X
Episode:  The Martian Chronicles (8/18/1950)

Planet Yesteryear proudly presents A week a Ray Bradbury In Honor of the late great Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury was a legendary sci-fi writer whose works were translated in more than 40 languages and sold tens of millions of copies around the world. Although his imagination created a world of new technical and intellectual ideas, he had never driven a car and did not have one. He was born Ray Douglas Bradbury on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He was the third son in the family. His father, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, was a telephone lineman and technician. His mother, Esther Marie Bradbury (nee Moberg), was a Swedish immigrant. His grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers. In 1934 his family settled in Los Angeles, California. There young Bradbury often roller-skated through Hollywood, trying to spot celebrities.

Young Bradbury attended Los Angeles High School. There he was involved in the drama club and planned to become an actor. He graduated from high school in 1938 and had no more formal education. He learned from reading works of such writers as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others.

From 1938 to 1942 he was selling newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles, spending days in the local library and nights at the typewriter. At that time he published his stories in fanzines. In 1941 Ray Bradbury published his first paid work, a short story titled "Pendulum", in the pulp magazine Super Science Stories, and became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. He published a collection of stories as his first book, "Dark Carnival" (1947). That same year he married Marguerite McClure (1922-2003), whom he met at a book store a year earlier. They had four daughters and eight grandchildren.

Bradbury shot to international fame after publication of his short story collection "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), which was partially based on ideas from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Then he followed the anti-Utopian writers Yevgeni Zamyatin and Aldous Huxley in his best known work, "Farenheit 451" (1953). The 1966 film adaptation (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)) by director 'Francois Truffaut' , starring Julie Christie, received several nominations. Bradbury was not happy with the 1980 TV adaptation ("The Martian Chronicles" (1980)) starring Rock Hudson. His other novels and stories also have been adapted to films and television, as well as for radio, theatre and comic books. Bradbury had written episodes for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series, as well as for many other TV productions. His total literary output is close to 600 short stories, more than 30 books and numerous poems and plays. He was writing daily.

In 2004 Bradbury received a National Medal of Arts. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Blvd. An asteroid is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury", and the Apollo astronaut named a crater on the moon "Dandelion Crater", after his novel, 'Dandelion Wine'. Bradbury also received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America, an Emmy Award for his work as a writer on 'The Halloween Tree', and many other awards and honors. source: IMDB.com




Escape
Episode: The Earthman
 

Planet Yesteryear proudly presentsA week a Ray BradburyIn Honor of the late great Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

 By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. His name would appear near the top of any list of major science fiction writers of the 20th century, beside those of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and the Polish author Stanislaw Lem. His books are still being taught in schools, where many a reader has been introduced to them half a century after they first appeared. Many readers have said Mr. Bradbury’s stories fired their own imaginations.

 More than eight million copies of his books have been sold in 36 languages. They include the short-story collections “The Martian Chronicles,” “The Illustrated Man” and “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” and the novels “Fahrenheit 451” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”source: NYTimes.com

 

Suspense
Episode: The Whole Towns Sleeping (6/14/1955)

Planet Yesteryear proudly presentsA week a Ray BradburyIn Honor of the late great Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction and horror stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers of speculative fiction. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films. source: wikipedia.org

 Ray Bradbury had a big impact in sci-fi and horror writing. He wrote some of my all time favorite old-time radio programs. His writings were in programs such as X-Minus One, Suspense, Escape and many more. Some of his writings were featured in shows such as The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock. I really enjoyed his television for The Ray Bradbury Theater which featured some of his old time radio shows such as today's show Mars is heaven. His work really inspires me, and one day I would like to put my words into a radio drama. Ray Bradbury may of passed away last week, but his work will live on forever.
RIP Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

 

 X-MINUS ONE Episode: Mars Is Heaven (5/8/1955)
 

Nero WolfeEpisode: The Missing Book (12/15/1946)

Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's residence, a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street, features prominently in the series. Many radio, television and film adaptations were made from his works.
source: wikipedia.org

NightfallEpisode: Darkside of the mind (1/23/1981)

Nightfall is the title of a radio drama series produced and aired by CBC Radio (see Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) 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. One episode was even adapted from a folk song by Stan Rogers. Some of Nightfall's episodes were so terrifying that the CBC registered numerous complaints and some affiliate stations dropped it. Despite this, the series went on to become 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.

Nightfall was the brainchild of producer Bill Howell, who was best known at the time for his work on CBC Playhouse and the cult favorite adventure series, Johnny Chase: Secret Agent of Space. (Howell later went on to be executive producer of CBC Radio's highly-popular series, The Mystery Project, which ran from 1992 to 2004.) When CBC Radio was revamped and given an expanded budget in 1980, Howell approached the newly-appointed Head of Radio Drama, Susan Rubes, about his idea for a supernatural/horror anthology series that would push the envelope. Though not a fan of the horror genre, Rubes recognized a hit when she saw one and gave Howell the green light to begin production. Bill Howell served as Executive Producer of Nightfall at CBC Toronto for the first two seasons. The reins were passed for the third season to veteran CBC Radio producer Don Kowalchuk (Doctor Bundolo's Pandemonium Medicine Show) at CBC Vancouver.

Nightfall featured two hosts during its run. The Toronto years (1980–1982) were hosted by "the mysterious Luther Kranst", a character created by Bill Howell's devious imagination and played by character actor Henry Ramer. For its Vancouver run (1982–1983), Don Kowalchuk worked with voice actor Bill Reiter to develop the character of Frederick Hende. source: wikipedia.org

Lux Radio Theater Episode: Notorious (1/26/1948)

Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934-35); CBS (1935-54) and NBC (1954-55). Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences. It became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s.
source: wikipedia.org

 

SuspenseEpisode: August Heat (5/31/1945)

Half Hour to KillEpisode: Blackout (10/29/1946)

Half Hour to Kill is a rare old time radio gem I was lucky enough come across. It's a suspenseful mystery program from 1946 that never was even aired. The only episode ever made is titled "Blackout" hope you enjoy it.

 

A Date with JudyEpisode: Aunt Lily Needs a Date (8/11/1942)

A Date with Judy was a comedy radio series aimed at a teenage audience which had a long run from 1941 to 1950. The show began as a summer replacement for Bob Hope's show, sponsored by Pepsodent and airing on NBC from June 24 to September 16, 1941, with 14-year-old Ann Gillis in the title role. Dellie Ellis portrayed Judy Foster when the series returned the next summer (June 23 – September 15, 1942). Louise Erickson took over the role the following summer (June 30 – September 22, 1943) when the series, with Bristol Myers as its new sponsor, replaced The Eddie Cantor Show for the summer. Louise Erickson continued in the role of Judy over the next seven years as the series, sponsored by Tums, aired from January 18, 1944 to January 4, 1949. Ford Motors and Revere Cameras were the sponsors for the final season of the radio series on ABC from October 13, 1949 to May 25, 1950. source: wikipedia.org

Old Vs New

Here are some very cool vintage radio ads from the 1950's. They show you how much quality was put into them, and if you compare these radios to the ones out today i'm sure the new ones have better sound quality. But these radios were built stronger and more durable. I would like to see what today's radios will look like in 50 or 60 years. I'm sure many of these vintage radios still exist today and are still in great working condition. Being an old-time radio fan I really appreciate these ads. If I was only born in the golden age.  Enjoy these wholesome vintage radio commercials.

True Detective MysteriesEpisode: Rattlesnake and Barefoot Bride

True Detective Mysteries radio series was based on the True Detective magazine. Later it was sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry Candy, but kept the same name. Each week the show presented the case history of an actual crime. Many were told from the criminals point of view.

 

X MINUS ONE Double Feature

Episode: The Trap (2/13/1957)
Two drunken hunters come upon a machine in the woods and the listener gets theirs as well as the alien's view




Episode: Hallucination Orbit (5/15/1956)
A tale of a spaceman orbiting Pluto. Did he or did he imagine what he saw?