The Good Old Days of Radio Show

Episode 427: The Mask Of Medusa

On this first Thursday of October we are featuring a chilling installment from the classic series Mystery in the Air, starring the famous Peter Lorre. Originally broadcast on September 4, 1947 (and yes, sponsored by Camel Cigarettes), the story is titled The Mask of Medusa. The plot takes us into the world of a wax museum owner with a horrifying secret: the “figures” in his museum aren’t wax at all, but real people transformed into living statues by the ancient Mask of Medusa. One of these victims narrates the terror of being trapped, fully conscious but unable to move, while surrounded by forty-seven other frozen murderers. It’s Peter Lorre at his creepy best, in a story that mixes horror, mythology, and 1940s radio magic.

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Episode 426: Nothing Behind the Door

On this episode, in addition to listening to a newly restored version of “Nothing Behind the Door” by Wyllis Cooper, John and Joel Tefteller dive into the fascinating (and often painstaking) world of audio restoration. They’re joined by Corey Harker, president of SPERDVAC (the Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety, and Comedy) to talk about the group’s history and its renewed push to keep classic radio alive. Corey and Joel get into the nuts and bolts of working with old transcription discs: how to clean up the sound without making it artificial, and just how much time and care goes into the process. To really show the difference, they play “before and after” examples from Quiet Please and Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, a great reminder of why professional restoration matters. It’s all about making sure these historic recordings don’t just survive, but can actually be enjoyed by listeners today and generations to come.

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Episode 425: 10 More Monsters: The Loup-Garou

This episode wraps up our 10 More Monsters series with a once-lost recording of Escape. It’s a tense story set in the Louisiana bayou, where villagers suspect a stranger named Zeb of being a loup-garou ("werewolf") after livestock disappear and a baby dies. Host John Tefteller shares the story of how this rare episode turned up in a collection of reel-to-reel tapes from a late collector, and what it means for preserving old-time radio treasures.

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Episode 424: The Birds

This time on The Good Old Days of Radio Show, we’re looking at another rare take on Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds. This is an hour-long version from 1953, a year earlier than the Escape version we presented last week. The story here follows John Waite (played in this version by Herbert Marshall), a writer living with his family on the Dover coast, as the birds go from being a minor annoyance to a terrifying, organized threat that forces the family to barricade themselves inside their home. 

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Episode 423: 10 More Monsters: The Birds

On this episode we bring you “More Monsters” with an early radio adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic short story The Birds. Long before Alfred Hitchcock turned it into a famous film, the story was produced on the radio series Escape, starring British actor Ben Wright. John sets the stage with some background on the show and the tricky business of preserving old recordings. The story is a chilling tale of a family on the English coast facing wave after wave of birds that seem to be growing more aggressive and more organized than anyone could have imagined.

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Episode 422: Famous Radio "Brats"

Today we’re featuring two skits with Fanny Brice as “Baby Snooks,” where Snooks drives “Daddy” (played brilliantly by radio veteran Hanley Stafford) up the wall with forged report cards and phony camp emergencies. In between, you’ll hear Red Skelton as “Junior the Mean Widdle Kid.” Unlike Fanny Brice, Skelton didn’t sound much like a kid, which was part of the uniqueness of the character. These rare recordings, taken from original master discs and dating back to 1942, showcase the early days of two unforgettable radio brats at their mischievous best.

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Episode 421: 10 More Monsters: If You Believe

What if a monster could come to life just because enough people believed in it? That’s the unique premise behind today’s episode of The Mysterious Traveler, titled If You Believe, first aired on December 29, 1946. Our More Monsters host, John Tefteller, sets the scene for this strange tale of Professor Jonathan Davis, a solitary scientist working quietly to create artificial life. But when slick newspaper reporter Dan Duncan spins the story into headlines about a man building a monster, public imagination runs wild, and in a chilling twist, their belief actually turns Davis’s harmless protoplasmic experiment into a grotesque, living creature.

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Episode 420: The Jack Kirkwood Show

Today’s show takes us to September 24, 1950, for an episode of The Jack Kirkwood Show, a fast-paced satirical comedy that aired on the Mutual Radio Network. Kirkwood is not very well remembered, but his crazy humor is in the vein of Stan Freberg or Henry Morgan. This episode is packed with sketches, musical numbers, and recurring bits like “Mad House Theater” and “Poet’s Nook,” all built around Kirkwood’s wordplay, sly observations, and quick back-and-forth with his cast, including Connie Haines, Wally Brown, and Lillian Leigh. 

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Episode 419: 10 More Monsters: Gem of Purest Ray

This time monsters are lurking in the deep. This episode of Quiet, Please from 1948 is a haunting tale with a twist. It centers on a Greek doctor who calmly confesses to murdering people he swears are fish-like Atlanteans living among us in secret and plotting to wipe out the surface world. In his account, he describes traveling to the sunken city of Atlantis. We also take a look at the story’s eerie sea dwellers and other works in pop culture, from H.G. Wells’ Into the Abyss to Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water.

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Episode 418: Gracie at Carnegie Hall

A visit with George and Gracie today. We go back to the spring of 1943 for a full episode of The Burns and Allen Show, the beloved comedy series. This time, Gracie has cooked up a plan to play a “One-Finger Concerto” with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, much to George’s horror. Along the way there’s a running gag about Gracie’s “friend,” who turns out to be none other than her pet duck, Herman, voiced by Clarence Nash (yes, the voice of Donald Duck himself). You’ll also hear those wonderfully period ads for Vims Vitamins and Swan Soap. Host John Tefteller rounds things out with historical notes on the episode, from Whiteman’s controversial “King of Jazz” title to the star power behind the mic.

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