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91-535: The format was similar to that of classic old time radio shows like The Mysterious Traveler and The Whistler , in that the episodes were introduced by host E. G. Marshall who provided pithy wisdom and commentary throughout. Unlike the hosts of those earlier programs, Marshall is fully mortal, merely someone whose heightened insight and erudition plunge the listener into the world of the macabre. As with Himan Brown's prior Inner Sanctum Mysteries , each episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater opened and closed with

182-552: A mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds , which had been presented as a faux newscast. The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies , Champion Spark Plug Hour , The Clicquot Club Eskimos , and King Biscuit Time ; commercials, as they are known in

273-483: A radio network 's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affiliated station, which might have four or more lathes. A small local station often had none. Two lathes were required to capture a program longer than 15 minutes without losing parts of it while discs were flipped over or changed, along with a trained technician to operate them and monitor the recording while it was being made. However, some surviving recordings were produced by local stations. When

364-400: A "hill and dale" vertically modulated groove, rather than the "lateral" side-to-side modulation found on the records being made for home use at that time. The large slow-speed discs could easily contain fifteen minutes on each side, allowing an hour-long program to be recorded on only two discs. The lacquer was softer than shellac or vinyl and wore more rapidly, allowing only a few playbacks with

455-462: A brief history of the program and an episode guide. A partial list of errors in this guide is maintained on The Long Trek website. In October 2006, Michael Anthony Stahl published The CBS Radio Mystery Theater As An Educational Degree . Golden Age of Radio The Golden Age of Radio , also known as the old-time radio ( OTR ) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it

546-410: A daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams , which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em , which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960,

637-404: A good wire recording was comparable to acetate discs and by comparison the wire was practically indestructible, but it was soon rendered obsolete by the more manageable and easily edited medium of magnetic tape. The Last Days of Pompeii The Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. The novel was inspired by the painting The Last Day of Pompeii by

728-497: A group headed by RCA , which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company . Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of

819-455: A guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS . Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance , begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924,

910-416: A high-quality radio's audio output was recorded directly, rather than by holding a microphone up to its speaker, the recorded sound quality was very good. However, because the wire cost money and, like magnetic tape , could be repeatedly re-used to make new recordings, only a few complete broadcasts appear to have survived on this medium. In fact, there was little home recording of complete radio programs until

1001-504: A home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio, a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the center of American life. 83% of American homes would own

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1092-659: A lightning strike. Nydia leads Glaucus and Ione to safety on a ship in the Bay of Naples , as because of her blindness she is used to going about in utter darkness while sighted people are made helpless in the cloud of volcanic dust. The next morning she commits suicide by quietly slipping into the sea; death is preferable to the agony of her unrequited love for Glaucus. Ten years pass, and Glaucus writes to Sallust, now living in Rome, of his and Ione's happiness in Athens. They have built Nydia

1183-460: A major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became

1274-436: A network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM ( amplitude modulation ), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from

1365-491: A new generation of listeners to many of the great voices from radio's golden age , including Joan Banks , Jackson Beck , Virginia Gregg , Victor Jory , Mandel Kramer , Marvin Miller , Dan Ocko, Santos Ortega , Alan Reed , Rosemary Rice , Anne Seymour , Arnold Stang , Les Tremayne , Lurene Tuttle and Janet Waldo . A number of well-known veteran and future stars of stage, film and TV made appearances, including: When

1456-528: A new religion in Christianity . Nydia unwittingly helps Julia, a rich young woman who has eyes for Glaucus, obtain a love potion from Arbaces to win Glaucus's love. But the love potion is really a poison that will turn Glaucus mad. Nydia steals the potion and administers it; Glaucus drinks only a small amount and begins raving wildly. Apaecides and Olinthus, an early Christian, determine to publicly reveal

1547-461: A radio by 1940. Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927 , which included

1638-879: A series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch ), and Macbeth . Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense , Escape , The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin , Carlton E. Morse , David Goodis , Archibald MacLeish , Arthur Miller , Arch Oboler , Wyllis Cooper , Rod Serling , Jay Bennett , and Irwin Shaw . Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of

1729-447: A service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to

1820-489: A sponsor's product. These items were offered on adventure shows. Young listeners had to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase . Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin , NBC Short Story , Arch Oboler's Plays , Quiet, Please , and CBS Radio Workshop . Orson Welles 's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be

1911-459: A substantial number of copies of an electrical transcription were required, as for the distribution of a syndicated program, they were produced by the same process used to make ordinary records. A master recording was cut, then electroplated to produce a stamper from which pressings in vinyl (or, in the case of transcription discs pressed before about 1935, shellac) were molded in a record press. The Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) had its origins in

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2002-608: A weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan . Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie , Dick Tracy , Gasoline Alley , The Gumps , Li'l Abner , Little Orphan Annie , Popeye the Sailor , Red Ryder , Reg'lar Fellers , Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler . Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books

2093-484: Is the only surviving recording of a program. There was some home recording of radio broadcasts in the 1930s and 1940s. Examples from as early as 1930 have been documented. During these years, home recordings were made with disc recorders, most of which were only capable of storing about four minutes of a radio program on each side of a twelve-inch 78 rpm record. Most home recordings were made on even shorter-playing ten-inch or smaller discs. Some home disc recorders offered

2184-410: Is yet a third prisoner of Arbaces. She smuggles a letter to Glaucus's friend Sallust, begging him to rescue them. Glaucus is convicted of the murder of Apaecides, Olinthus of heresy, and their sentence is to be fed to wild cats in the amphitheatre. All Pompeii gathers in the amphitheatre for the bloody gladiatorial games. Just as Glaucus is led into the arena with the lion—who, distressed by awareness of

2275-611: The Columbia Broadcasting System in support of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives and President Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy . Included among the popular shows was Viva America which showcased leading musical artists from both North and South America for the entertainment of America's troops. Included among the regular performers were: Alfredo Antonini , Juan Arvizu , Nestor Mesta Chayres , Kate Smith , and John Serry Sr. After

2366-450: The 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce , famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle 's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became

2457-411: The 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. During the first three decades of radio , from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped;

2548-671: The 1975 season, was also turned into a novel by the same name, first published in 1985. In 1976, a paperback anthology with three short stories adapted from the series' radio scripts was published by Pocket Library, Strange Tales from the CBS Radio Mystery Theater , edited and with a foreword by Himan Brown. In January 1999, McFarland & Company, Inc. published The CBS Radio Mystery Theater: An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting. 1974–1982 . The book, by Gordon Payton and Martin Grams, Jr. , includes

2639-510: The AFRS during the Golden Age were recorded as electrical transcription discs, vinyl copies of which were shipped to stations overseas to be broadcast to the troops. People in the United States rarely ever heard programming from the AFRS, though AFRS recordings of Golden Age network shows were occasionally broadcast on some domestic stations beginning in the 1950s. In some cases, the AFRS disc

2730-558: The Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse , in a lecture given at Harvard University . In 1932 Fessenden cited

2821-521: The Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii (1856), was based on a character from the book. Pompeii, A.D. 79. Athenian nobleman Glaucus arrives in the bustling and gaudy Roman town and quickly falls in love with the beautiful Greek Ione. Ione's former guardian, the malevolent Egyptian sorcerer Arbaces, has designs on Ione and sets out to destroy their budding happiness. Arbaces has already ruined Ione's sensitive brother Apaecides by luring him to join

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2912-662: The Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden" and also in James O'Neal's essays. An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as

3003-558: The Christmas season: An adaptation of A Christmas Carol , starring host E.G. Marshall as Scrooge, was broadcast every Christmas Eve with the exception of 1974 and 1982. In addition to original stories, there were adaptations of classic tales by such writers as O. Henry , Ambrose Bierce , Algernon Blackwood , Wilkie Collins , Arthur Conan Doyle , Charles Dickens , H. Rider Haggard , Henry James , Guy de Maupassant , Edith Wharton , Oscar Wilde and others. Brown typically devoted

3094-467: The Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. The capability of

3185-637: The Russian painter Karl Briullov , which Bulwer-Lytton had seen in Milan. It culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The novel uses its characters to contrast the decadent culture of 1st-century Rome with both older cultures and coming trends. The protagonist, Glaucus, represents the Greeks who have been subordinated by Rome, and his nemesis Arbaces

3276-470: The U.S. War Department 's quest to improve troop morale. This quest began with short-wave broadcasts of educational and information programs to troops in 1940. In 1941, the War Department began issuing "Buddy Kits" (B-Kits) to departing troops, which consisted of radios, 78 rpm records and electrical transcription discs of radio shows. However, with the entrance of the United States into World War II,

3367-479: The War Department decided that it needed to improve the quality and quantity of its offerings. This began with the broadcasting of its own original variety programs. Command Performance was the first of these, produced for the first time on March 1, 1942. On May 26, 1942, the Armed Forces Radio Service was formally established. Originally, its programming comprised network radio shows with

3458-409: The blanks varied in both size and composition, but most often they were simply bare aluminum and the groove was indented rather than cut. Typically, these very early recordings were not made by the network or radio station, but by a private recording service contracted by the broadcast sponsor or one of the performers. The bare aluminum discs were typically 10 or 12 inches in diameter and recorded at

3549-408: The carpeted floor after use. Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II,

3640-399: The coming eruption, spares his life and returns to his cage—Sallust bursts into the arena and reveals Arbaces's plot. The crowd demands that Arbaces be thrown to the lion, but it is too late: Vesuvius begins to erupt. Ash and stone rain down, causing mass panic. Glaucus rescues Ione from the house of Arbaces, but in the chaotic streets they meet Arbaces, who tries to seize Ione but is killed by

3731-570: The commercials removed. However, it soon began producing original programming, such as Mail Call , G.I. Journal , Jubilee and GI Jive . At its peak in 1945, the Service produced around 20 hours of original programming each week. From 1943 until 1949 the AFRS also broadcast programs developed through the collaborative efforts of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and

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3822-417: The country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network . The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were

3913-411: The decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in

4004-465: The deception of the cult of Isis. Arbaces, recovered from his wounds, overhears and stabs Apaecides to death; he then pins the crime on Glaucus, who has stumbled onto the scene. Arbaces has himself declared the legal guardian of Ione, who is convinced that Arbaces is her brother's murderer, and imprisons her at his mansion. He also imprisons Nydia, who discovers that there is an eyewitness to the murder who can prove Glaucus's innocence—the priest Calenus, who

4095-399: The disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the center of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of

4186-425: The duration of the war. In the late 1940s, wire recorders became a readily obtainable means of recording radio programs. On a per-minute basis, it was less expensive to record a broadcast on wire than on discs. The one-hour program that required the four sides of two 16-inch discs could be recorded intact on a single spool of wire less than three inches in diameter and about half an inch thick. The audio fidelity of

4277-410: The early 1950s, when increasingly affordable reel-to-reel tape recorders for home use were introduced to the market. Before the early 1950s, when radio networks and local stations wanted to preserve a live broadcast, they did so by means of special phonograph records known as " electrical transcriptions " (ETs), made by cutting a sound-modulated groove into a blank disc. At first, in the early 1930s,

4368-419: The expense of recorders and the limitations of the recording media, home recording of broadcasts was not common during this period and it was usually limited to brief excerpts. The lack of suitable home recording equipment was somewhat relieved in 1947 with the availability of magnetic wire recorders for domestic use. These were capable of recording an hour-long broadcast on a single small spool of wire, and if

4459-606: The few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra , which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as

4550-403: The finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes , in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom , Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities , Lost Horizon , and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . It

4641-601: The first full week of each January to a five- or seven-part series on a common theme. These included a full week of stories by an American writer, ( Edgar Allan Poe in 1975, Mark Twain in 1976); week-long adaptations of classic novels ( The Last Days of Pompeii in 1980, Les Misérables in 1982); and original dramas about historical figures ( Nefertiti in 1979, Alexander the Great in 1981). The works of Russian writers, including Gogol , Dostoevsky and Tolstoy , were also adapted. Radio historian John Dunning has criticized

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4732-467: The first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All , which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show

4823-572: The formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40 , which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of

4914-570: The gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner , Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan . Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This? , panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant , and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones , Stoopnagle and Budd , Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray . British comedy reached American shores in

5005-542: The heavy pickups and steel needles then in use before deterioration became audible. During World War II, aluminum became a necessary material for the war effort and was in short supply. This caused an alternative to be sought for the base on which to coat the lacquer. Glass, despite its obvious disadvantage of fragility, had occasionally been used in earlier years because it could provide a perfectly smooth and even supporting surface for mastering and other critical applications. Glass base recording blanks came into general use for

5096-473: The home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays , mystery serials, soap operas , quiz shows , talent shows , daytime and evening variety hours , situation comedies , play-by-play sports, children's shows , cooking shows , and more. In

5187-542: The information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph ; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy ; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code . At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio

5278-752: The last four daytime radio dramas— Young Dr. Malone , Right to Happiness , The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins , all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network —were brought to an end. The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders , The Cisco Kid , Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy , Captain Midnight , and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters . Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums were often linked to

5369-529: The late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour . Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts ; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers , continue to this day around the world, and are one of

5460-411: The modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes , and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in

5551-542: The music from the score for Twilight Zone episode "Two", composed by Nathan Van Cleave . Series listeners will immediately recognize the "RMT Theme" beginning about 1:35 on the "Two" soundtrack selection from the Twilight Zone CD boxed set. Other background tracks from the Twilight Zone music library, to which CBS owned full rights, were featured repeatedly in episodes of CBSRMT . The theme song and

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5642-472: The networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of prerecorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs . Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs . Programs were normally recorded at 33 1 ⁄ 3 rpm on 16-inch discs,

5733-414: The new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news : headlines, remote reporting , sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop ), panel discussions , weather reports , and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s , eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated reports of

5824-411: The ominous sound of a creaking door. This sound effect is accompanied by Marshall's greeting, "Come in!… Welcome. I'm E. G. Marshall." At each show's conclusion, the door swings shut, and Marshall signs off with: "Until next time, pleasant… dreams?" This is followed by an extended variation of the show's theme music. CBSRMT was broadcast each weeknight, at first with a new program each night. Later in

5915-412: The only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as " The Speckled Band ". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare , which featured him in

6006-436: The option of the 33 1 ⁄ 3 rpm speed used for electrical transcriptions, allowing a recording more than twice as long to be made, although with reduced audio quality. Office dictation equipment was sometimes pressed into service for making recordings of radio broadcasts, but the audio quality of these devices was poor and the resulting recordings were in odd formats that had to be played back on similar equipment. Due to

6097-503: The other music was also previously used in the 1950s and 1960s in other CBS-owned radio and television dramas ( Perry Mason ; Rawhide ; The Fugitive ; Gunsmoke ; Have Gun Will Travel ; Suspense ; Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar ; etc.), in addition to Twilight Zone , as it was all owned by CBS. Despite the show's title, Brown expanded its scope beyond mysteries to include horror , science fiction , historical drama , westerns and comedy , along with seasonal dramas during

6188-406: The program began in 1974, actors were paid union scale; at the time around $ 73.92 per episode. Writers earned a flat rate of $ 350 per episode. Production took place with assembly-line precision. Brown met with actors at 9:00 a.m. for the first script reading. After roles were assigned, recording began. By noon, the recording of the actors was complete, and Brown handed everyone checks. The program

6279-898: The quality of the show's script writing, arguing that Brown used writers for many scripts "who were by their nature performers" rather than writers. Prominent actors from the stage, radio, film and television performed on the series. Notable regulars included Mason Adams , Lloyd Battista , John Beal , Robert Dryden, Teri Keane , Ralph Bell, Howard Da Silva , Keir Dullea , Patricia Elliot , Morgan Fairchild , Bernard Grant , Veleka Gray , Jack Grimes , Fred Gwynne , Marian Hailey , Larry Haines , Paul Hecht , Celeste Holm , Russell Horton , Kim Hunter , Richard Kiley , John Lithgow , Roberta Maxwell , Mercedes McCambridge , Kevin McCarthy , Arnold Moss , William Redfield , Tony Roberts , Norman Rose , Alexander Scourby , Marian Seldes , Kristoffer Tabori and Michael Tolan . The series introduced

6370-413: The remainder of the series' final season, maintaining the format. Himan Brown re-recorded E. G. Marshall's original host segments for NPR's broadcast of the show in the 2000s. The series' theme music features three descending notes from double basses, a stopped horn sting and timpani roll, then a low, eerie theme played by the bass clarinet . The opening and closing themes for CBSRMT are excerpted from

6461-443: The run, three or four episodes were new originals each week, and the remainder repeats. There were 1,399 original episodes. The total number of broadcasts, including repeats, was 2,969. Each episode was allotted a full hour of airtime, but after commercials and newscasts, each episode typically ran for around 45 minutes. E. G. Marshall hosted the program from January 1974 until February 1, 1982, when actress Tammy Grimes took over for

6552-436: The series. All episodes are available, and many recordings include original network and local news and commercials, providing insights into the period in which the episodes were broadcast. The episode "Children of Death", broadcast February 5, 1976, written by Sam Dann, served as the basis for Dann's 1979 novel The Third Body , published by Popular Library. Another of his stories for Mystery Theater , "Goodbye, Karl Erich" from

6643-403: The standard format used for such " electrical transcriptions " from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at

6734-419: The still older culture of Egypt. Olinthus is the chief representative of the nascent Christian religion, which is presented favourably but not uncritically. The Witch of Vesuvius, though she has no supernatural powers, shows Bulwer-Lytton's interest in the occult —a theme which would emerge in his later writing, particularly The Coming Race . A popular sculpture by American sculptor Randolph Rogers , Nydia,

6825-513: The then-standard speed of 78 rpm , which meant that several disc sides were required to accommodate even a 15-minute program. By about 1936, 16-inch aluminum-based discs coated with cellulose nitrate lacquer, commonly known as acetates and recorded at a speed of 33 1 ⁄ 3 rpm, had been adopted by the networks and individual radio stations as the standard medium for recording broadcasts. The making of such recordings, at least for some purposes, then became routine. Some discs were recorded using

6916-472: The vice-ridden priesthood of Isis. The blind slave Nydia is rescued from her abusive owners, Burbo and Stratonice, by Glaucus, for whom she secretly pines. Arbaces horrifies Ione by declaring his love for her, and flying into a rage when she refuses him. Glaucus and Apaecides rescue her from his grip, but Arbaces is struck down by an earthquake, a sign of Vesuvius' coming eruption. Glaucus and Ione exult in their love, much to Nydia's torment, while Apaecides finds

7007-668: The war, the AFRS continued providing programming to troops in Europe. During the 1950s and early 1960s it presented performances by the Army's only symphonic orchestra ensemble—the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra . It also provided programming for future wars that the United States was involved in. It survives today as a component of the American Forces Network (AFN). All of the shows aired by

7098-417: The way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at

7189-588: The world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it

7280-637: Was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit ; owned by The Detroit News , the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA , being established in Pittsburgh . The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time

7371-546: Was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949. The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to

7462-455: Was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster 's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson . The first program generally considered to be

7553-666: Was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame . On May 6, 1979, Himan Brown was presented a Broadcast Preceptor Award by San Francisco State University for his contributions with the CBSRMT . From June 3 to November 27, 1998, CBSRMT was rebroadcast over CBS radio affiliates and, in 2000, on some NPR stations, in both cases, Himan Brown re-recorded the original introduction and narrations of E.G. Marshall and Tammy Grimes. CBSRMT remains popular with listeners of audio drama, with numerous websites and podcasts devoted to

7644-492: Was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells 's The War of the Worlds , formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson , and a 90-minute Hamlet , starring John Gielgud . Recordings of many of these programs survive. During

7735-1120: Was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville . It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby , Abbott and Costello , Fred Allen , Jack Benny , Victor Borge , Fanny Brice , Billie Burke , Bob Burns , Judy Canova , Eddie Cantor , Jimmy Durante , Burns and Allen , Phil Harris , Edgar Bergen , Bob Hope , Groucho Marx , Jean Shepherd , Red Skelton and Ed Wynn . Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy , Easy Aces , Ethel and Albert , Fibber McGee and Molly , The Goldbergs , The Great Gildersleeve , The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume ), Meet Corliss Archer , Meet Millie , and Our Miss Brooks . Radio comedy ran

7826-600: Was taped in New York at the CBS Studio Building , 49 East 52nd Street in Studio G, formerly Studio 27 (renamed Studio 'G' in honor of Arthur Godfrey whose programs originated in the building for decades). Below is a list of the number of first-run episodes broadcast on each of the nine seasons of the series, with links to a list of each season's episodes. In 1974, CBSRMT won a Peabody Award , and in 1990 it

7917-459: Was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold , but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt

8008-448: Was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium . It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium , and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to

8099-489: Was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ . Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Through

8190-570: Was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone , commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of

8281-445: Was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver . After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program

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