Theater of the Mind....

...so has radio drama/comedy been called.

Every Sunday, it has been my curse to work on Sunday in DC...a 76 mile door to door one way excursion up I-95 to work for you, the American Taxpayer. (Snide comments about federal employees are surprisingly appropriate ;) )

What makes this drive bearable is my car...a Hyundai Elantra that provides me with 3 options for getting an OTR (old time radio fix)...an aux input for my mp3 player, a cd player that reads mp3 and XM radio (which may not be with us here longer).

This morning, as I drove up, I was alongside Johnny Dollar as he investigated another insurance fraud where a "respectable doctor" is brought to justice and later as he "digs" for the truth to discover a killer.

Some have asked me in the past why I love old time radio. In some ways, its hard to explain a fascination with a form of entertainment that died years ago and despite some attempts at revival has never come back to life.

A recent post of mine mentioned I dont like much of today's tv....albeit with a few exceptions. TV can be a great informational, teaching, entertainment tool but more often than not suffers from a multitude of failures. Two examples are striving for the "lowest common denominator" (read into that gutter, non funny humor that tries to pass for humor) and a formula mentality that creates a blandness, a sameness that you have seen this before.

In its heyday, radio had a vibrant energy. There was no "sameness" all over the dial. There was a lifeblood of vitality. And this vitality was not limited to Hollywood. Not everything came from one source. You could live in Oklahoma City and create a series that would be picked up by a major network and carried nationwide. Scott Bishop did that with his series Dark Fantasy, and Richard Thorne created Hall of Fantasy in Utah. Each was picked up by a major network NBC and Mutual respectively. Or you could be WXYZ in Chicago that during the depression years came up with three series that went national and are still famous having bridged radio into television and films. Challenge of the Yukon, The Green Hornet, and The Lone Ranger are the shows that this station created.

Any one day on the radio would be a smorgasboard of variety...not only in types of programming but writing, acting, etc. Television and films are guilty of letting great visuals, flashy graphics hide hackneyed writing, wooden acting, poor direction. You can sit a dozen people in front of a tv watching the Simpsons and everyone sees the same thing. You cant go back days, weeks later and recall too much about the show....just that it was funny at the time.

Radio however did not have the visuals, it did not have the graphics. All it had was sound. And a show as well as the mediums success depended on the sound. Take the same dozen people, place them in a room with a radio and let them listen to a Johnny Dollar episode. Each one will have a different "movie" in their mind. Their Dollar will be unique and different to them because they are creating it in their mind. Tight writing, skillful voice acting and direction along with skillful use of sound effects could make the best radio show of yesterday be just as effective today.

Orson Welles realized the power of radio on halloween 1938 with War of the Worlds a broadcast that started a panic as listeners truly believed an invasion by aliens had begun. Arch Obler experimented with the effectiveness of sound as a storyteller with Lights Out. Jack Benny with his skilled writers and coworkers (not to mention his own abilities) created a skinflint cheapskate personna on his own show. That personna was so artfully crafted that a famous skit is where Benny is held up and the robber tells him twice "Your money or your life". His response "I'm thinking about it" drew one of the shows longest laughs. Why? Because it was such a perfect response by a character listeners had created in their mind. The Jack Benny of real life was nothing like the Jack Benny of the show. But because of the skills, talents of the people involved, Jack and his world seemed real life.

Of course, not all old time radio is excellently crafted. A lot is quick, rushed, or bored work. A listen to any Philo Vance show will prove that one. But there are many gems to be found. And on a lazy day, when you want to expand your mind, open up the imagination, radio theatre is a great way to go.

Some of the greatest shows of yesterday could still hold their fascination today. I see that in the interest 2 of my nephews and nieces have in the shows. I hear it every time I listen to a radio show where by the skillful and artful work by talented writers, musicians, sound effects