First visit
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Seventy thousand recordings is a wonderful problem. Here is one hour that solves it.
Six series, in order, each holding up a different corner of what radio drama and comedy actually sounded like. Play the first episode of each. If one of them takes hold, stay there — every run on this site is complete as far as it survives.
Step One
Suspense1940–1962
CBS built it as radio's showcase thriller and hired film stars to play against type. Start anywhere: each half hour is a self-contained story, and the writing and sound work are the best case anyone can make for the medium.
Open the runStep Two
The Lone Ranger1935–1957
The most-held run in the whole archive, and the sound of American children's radio: hoofbeats, a masked rider and Rossini played at full tilt three nights a week.
Open the runStep Three
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar1948–1962
An insurance investigator who files his story as an expense account. Tight, dry and plotted like a good short story — the last dramatic series on network radio.
Open the runStep Four
Fibber McGee and Molly1931–1959
Domestic comedy built around catchphrases, a crowded hall closet and a studio audience that knew every beat. This is what most of America actually had on.
Open the runStep Five
The Whistler1942–1955
West-coast crime melodrama with a narrator who knows how it ends and won't say. Almost every episode turns on the last ninety seconds.
Open the runStep Six
Lux Radio Theater1935–1955
Hollywood pictures cut down to an hour and performed live, often by the original cast. The closest thing radio had to a red carpet.
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