Radio!
You guys sent in some terrific radio show information after yesterday's post.First, Doug Perini e-mailed about The Vintage Radio Place, which has a huge collection of vintage radio shows.
Roy Seney let me know that there is an online archive for every episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and it's here: CBS Radio Mystery Theater. I'm listening to an episode right now, actually, and it's excellent.
Geoff Engelstein sent in this entirely terrific remembrance:
I remember when I was probably around 17 (~1980-81) I was playing with my radio and bouncing around the dial, and then stumbled on a science fiction radio show - that turned out to be the first episode of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, being broadcast out of NYC.
I was (understandably) just blown away, and tried as hard as possible to be around each week at the same time to listen to the next installment.
The thing about radio dramas like that back then is that they weren't really advertised anywhere. You just had to discover them. Plus it was completely enhanced by the fuzziness of the signal and the way it faded in and out. You had to work for it back then, and really LISTEN, which I think just amped everything up.
The books came out years later, and many folks still don't know or haven't heard those original radio dramas. But to my mind they are still the best rendition of that story, by far.
I was so happy when I was able to get them on CD - special ordered from the BBC and shipped from the UK - and was able to relive those days curled up in bed straining between the static to hear what happened next to Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Also, Chris Volny sent this in:
1. I started listening to Radio Mystery Theater exactly the way you did; I was playing (illegally) with my brother’s radio, found it and was hooked. I was probably about the same age too, at 13 years for me it would have been 1975. Several years later, 1982, I had joined the US Air Force and stationed in Japan was put on the midnight to morning shift. I walked into the shop and heard Radio Mystery Theater on the Armed Forces network! That was awesome, but I was the only one who appreciated it.
2. Fallout 3 has a mod for the in-game radio called X Minus One! I’ve listened to all those episodes while wandering the Washington DC wasteland.
Seriously, that is the best gaming mod ever. It makes me want to fire up Fallout 3 again, just to install that mod.
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