How Did You Discover Old Time Radio?

[The D.A.]

My father was a big fan of old time radio, and he probably had over a hundred reel-to-reel tapes that he bought from a mail order catalog. When I was very young we would listen for hours to a wide variety of programs. I especially remember The Shadow, Captain Midnight, Gunsmoke, Terry and the Pirates, and some program about the adventures of a British newspaper reporter in the Old West. It all ended when I decided to insert a partially-consumed lollipop into the works of the tape player while it was running. The result was a disaster, with tape going everywhere, my dad storming back into the room demanding to know what had happened, and me pleading ignorance (with partially-consumed lollipop in hand). He quickly got to the bottom of things when he opened the player up and found pieces of lollipop in the mechanism. Despite my dad's efforts to clean the player, it never really was the same after that, and we stopped listening to the tapes soon after. My dad still has all of the tapes, but now they're over 30 years old and have been stored in a box in the garage, so they're probably junk.

For a while in the early to mid '70s a Kansas City AM radio station aired The Shadow in the afternoons, and I used to listen to that. Then the Kansas City Mob blew-up the River Quay area, where the radio station was located, and that was the end of that.

Later I listened to the radio dramatizations of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Lord of the Rings on NPR. While not vintage, they certainly were made in the spirit of the OTR programs.

 

[The D.A.]

Please ignore the strangely-placed emoticons in the above post. I have no idea why they are there.

 

[Shangas]

I discovered OTR through listening to audiobooks/talking-books/books-on-tape (at the time, books-on-CD didn't exist).

I first chased after Sherlock Holmes OTR episodes. But I now have a rather impressive collection of the classics. Abbott & Costello, Jack Benny, Dragnet, Richard Diamond, Philip Marlowe, etc, etc, etc...I did try and collect Amos'n'Andy because I know how famous it is, but I just never found the jokes funny. Or at least, not as funny as I found the jokes on other radio-shows.

 

[Espee]

A DJ named Clark Race on KMPC Los Angeles around 1973. Saturday nights at 10:00. The first show I heard was Amos n Andy-- I scribbled some notes about character names and the commercials, to ask my folks if they remembered.
The next time, I made a cassette recording of Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater-- "High Sierra" starring Bogie from the film, joined by Ida Lupino. The announcer was Truman Bradley. It takes me back whenever I hear him on a Burns & Allen show... he was also narrator for the movie "Call Northside 777."
Soon I was listening to Frank Bresee's Golden Days of Radio feature on the Roger Carroll Show (also KMPC) and the documentary/interview/rebroadcast series Don't Touch That Dial on KRLA.

("Frontier Gentleman" starring John Dehner is the one about the English newspaperman in the Wild West.)

 

[Wally_Hood]

Wow, I didn't know this thread existed~ I stumbled upon OTR when I heard a program call The Old Time Radio Show, hosted by Bobb Lynes. The program ran on an fm rock and roll station at night; tuning in to listen to music, I heard Chandu the Magician and my interest was piqued. I started recording the shows off the radio on cassette, then joined SPERDVAC and started renting shows through the mail. I attended at least one of the meetings and heard Lina Romay talk about her radio experiences. I tracked down Dunning's Tune In Yesterday and still read through it from time to time.

In the mix during those years I also recorded Same Time, Same Station with the Gassman brothers, John and Larry. Then I started recording the KNX nightly broadcasts until the management dropped the shows. At some point I checked out OTR on CD from the library. Nowadays there's a wealth of OTR on the net.

 

[Orlando]

I was started rendomely music on radio and some of Radio channels are playing only old time songs and show's
i listen only these show's on my radio because here is only play old time songs and i like old songs...
I discovered my old time radio by randomely listening......

 

[Godfrey]

My parents were very against watching TV for hours on end. My sister and I were always encouraged to make our own games, play music, and get out into the sunshine. The one concession was listening to the radio. My parents bought us tapes of Flash Gordon, Superman, The Shadow, Gunsmoke, Captain Midnight, and lots of others. We wore the tapes thin replaying it and could quote episodes verbatim. They were great. When Lord of The Rings was broadcast our love of radio was pretty much finalized.

When I became a teenager the stuff was 'dumb', when I hit 16 I rediscovered it along with the music. Now the radio plays are still ready and rolling for long drives and slow pubic transport. They are the best, as much of the action lives in my imagination - just like it did when I was a kid.

 

[Kirk H.]

I discovered OTR when I was a kid and got my first cassette player for Christmas. I went to the public library and discovered some OTR tapes of the Green Hornet, The Shadow, Dragnet, and Boston Blackie. I was hooked. It was great how you got to use your imagination while listening. I now enjoy the OTR channel on Sirius XM when I am driving.

 

[rocketeer]

How about those old LPs based on radio shows from the 1960s. Cruzin' I think they were titled, a series of recordings re-created with original disc jockeys ads and jingles together with music from the era. They ran from 1955 to the mid 1960s. I had the LPs on tape and it sounded just like a real broadcast, especially if put on the old type cassette in your car.
A bit strange to us English as these were American radio stations and we had only just got commercial radio in the 1970s.
The nearest I have come to these is Hy-Lit radio, an internet station.

 

[vitanola]

How about those old LPs based on radio shows from the 1960s. Cruzin' I think they were titled, a series of recordings re-created with original disc jockeys ads and jingles together with music from the era. They ran from 1955 to the mid 1960s. I had the LPs on tape and it sounded just like a real broadcast, especially if put on the old type cassette in your car.
A bit strange to us English as these were American radio stations and we had only just got commercial radio in the 1970s.
The nearest I have come to these is Hy-Lit radio, an internet station.

I'm sure that they are very nice, evocative and nostalgic, but the sort of program that you describe is the thing which replaced "Old-Time Radio", commonly referred to as OTR, after dramatic and comedy programming was driven off of the air by television.

When folks her refer to "Old-Time Radio" here on the Lounge, they are generally referring to " a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s. During this period, when radio was dominant and filled with a variety of formats and genres, people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs."

In Great Britain, this period lasted in some cases until the coming of commercial competition in the 1970's

 

[overlord4215]

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

Same here but it was Johhny Dollar insurance claim detective .

 

[Espee]

I just remembered a Mr. Schilling, who taught English in 7th and 8th grade. He'd play OTR once every couple weeks. One of the few bright spots for me in Intermediate School.

 

[TackCollector]

I can't ever remember not having "old time radio" as a part of life, lol. I never liked much of the music of my generation. I was raised on old-fashioned Broadway show tunes, bluegrass, gospel, and big band. I grew up in a small town in a rural area and there were a lot of older people who kept barber shop, big band, bluegrass, square dance, '50s lounge, '50s rock 'n roll available to us kids. Not to mention polkas, haha. (Some of those polka bands were smokin' hot, like top jazz players doing polka.)

My dad had a job that had him driving all over this rural area, and he'd buy old records at yard sales, or people would give him vintage "kid's records" (How much is that doggie in the window, old cleaned-up sea chanteys, etc.) and old '50s country records and such. He bought us kids records of old radio shows like The Shadow and The Green Hornet, and Fibber McGee's Closet (not sure if I spelled that right but I'm not going to look it up.) My sister and brother went all-modern, but I was the one who loved old stuff of all kinds.

My parents had old tube radios from the '40s and '50s that got AM only, and that was our radio music: Whatever they tuned in. The AM station WPIC had a guy who went by the name Buzz Eubanks (or at least it sounded like that) ran a big band show for hours every Sunday. He had an awesome collection of big band music, and he made it come alive. A couple of local restaurants also played big band for your listening and dining pleasure, whether you liked it or not. I can remember organ music and big band being played over the PA system at Cascade Park in New Castle when I was a real little kid.

One of those tube radios my parents have is an old super deluxe RCA entertainment center of some kind. It had a small TV, a 33/78 RPM record player, an AM radio, and an impressive speaker system in a mahogany cabinet. My parents live at the top of a big hill, in a Victorian house, and that RCA was on the second floor and still is. Perfect for pulling in AM radio at night. I'd listen to the Wheeling Jamboree and a station (might have been WWL, before it went talk) in Slidell, LA that did a night show for truckers. And others that I can't recall the call letters of. Night and that hill made all kinds of interesting stuff come in.

WKHR FM from Cleveland is where I get my big band fixes now. They are WKHR.org online. They run those old radio dramas and maybe comedies on Saturday nights or is it Sunday nights? I can't remember.

 

[TackCollector]

Back in the 70's I use to listen to CBS radio and they would play an hour of Old Radio Shows on the Drama Hour followed by CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

Now that you mention it, I think I listened to some of those, too, on that RCA. But it was on some distant station that usually didn't come in all that well and sometimes not at all.

 

[TackCollector]

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, ...

Oh, yes. THAT one. My dad vividly recalls that War of the Worlds that he heard as a kid. He said they were traveling someplace, in their car, and could only sporadically pick it up on the car radio. It really scared them half to death because the broadcast faded in and out and they had to change stations a couple of times, and they thought it was real. He said they didn't learn that it was just a show until they arrived at their destination and their relatives told them it was just a show. Can you imagine that journey?

 

[decojoe67]

I came across some cassettes of old radio shows in my local library when I was about 13. I remember the first one I heard was Amos and Andy and I was cracking-up! I loved at how you could create the scene in your mind. Not long afterwards I aquired a 1939 Zenith console radio from a local antiques shop. I would scan the dial at night and occasionally come across an old radio show. It was like time travel to me! I loved it. The glow of the dial, the rich tube sound, and the background noise of AM. To this day I love to listen to old radio shows from my AM transmitter on a random set from my collection. I feel it's a rare treat to experience one of the best and shortest lived forms of entertainment in history!

 

[CSG]

I recall coming across old radio shows on KPFK in LA in the late 60's or early 70's. They played old radio shows on occasion (like once a week?) along with Dr. Demento, early Firesign, etc. At some point, I recorded a number of them on cassettes by sticking the mic in front of the speaker.

By 1974, I'd bought an old Capehart-Farnsworth radio/record player and enjoyed late night DXing. I collected some pre-recorded cassettes as well but never managed to hook up a cassette deck to the radio.

Then, along came the internet but most of my listening was through modern stereo gear until I finally acquired a restored 1936 Zenith with an added RCA input wired in. Now, I run the computer into the stereo and from the stereo into the Zenith. I can run the computer straight into the radio but by using the stereo amp's DAC I get better processing and the benefit of my remote control for volume.

I also recall that in the very early 60's, I'd catch occasional old radio shows from a local LA AM radio station. I had a crystal radio I'd built and spent a lot of time scanning when I was supposed to be in bed.

Anyway, it's been close to a 50 year interest and stronger now than ever.

 

[CSG]

I should have added these links to free OTR sites. I don't download, I stream. These are from my bookmark OTR folder:

http://www.otr.net/
http://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
http://radiolovers.com/
http://www.oldradioworld.com/
http://wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=otr
http://wrvo.org/programs/tuned-yesterday-wrvo-1-npr-news
http://wamu.org/programs/the_big_broadcast
http://otrrlibrary.org/

 

[OttawaMan]

Let's not forget http://www.brandoclassicotr.com

 

[Historyteach24]

I was given a satellite radio for Christmas and stumbled upon it during an episode of the saint. I recognized Vincent price and gave it a listen. I was a radio student for two years so this went right along with my life interests and goals. I gave up my own radio dreams but still listen to our almost nightly it is just a part of my life now