Showing results by author "Original Radio Broadcasts" in All Categories

Ronald and Benita Colman made 20 guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program, including some of the most hilarious entries in the series. The Colmans' refined personaes played an excellent "grand opera" to the "ragtime" of Jack's mercenary enterprises. In this set, you'll hear the dashing Ronald read the winning entry of the "I Can't Stand Jack Benny" contest. You will also hear Benita receive the third longest laugh ever on the Benny radio program. It's no wonder that The Colmans' visits to Benny's radio series have become listener classics.

Hit the road, Jack! Take a train, a plane, or even a ship! Wherever he goes, and however he gets there, Jack Benny is always good for a laugh. Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Dennis Day, and Don Wilson come along for the ride in 16 travel themed adventures in this collection. Climb aboard for coast to coast clowning, with special appearances by the infamous racetrack “tout” (Sheldon Leonard) and the reliable railway announcer (Mel Blanc). “Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc-amonga!”

Radio’s dark alleys and rain-swept side streets were prowled by plenty of detectives - but, only one of them sat down each week at the piano, after the felons were safely jugged, and crooned to his girlfriend. Dick Powell, the tenacious man with the sweet tenor voice, stars as Richard Diamond, Private Detective! Diamond is a delightfully unpredictable detective - as much inclined to shoot off his mouth in a tight spot as he is to shoot off his gun - who can take more than his share of punishment from goons and gunsels without having his sense of humor take a beating.

Philo Vance, America's most popular fictional detective of the 1920s and 1930s, moved from S. S. Van Dine's novels onto the silver screen and later radio. The aristocratic amateur sleuth was portrayed in more than 100 radio broadcasts by Jackson Beck, the versatile actor who had previously starred as the Cisco Kid and announced The Adventures of Superman. Return to the scene of the crime in 18 classic whodunits, costarring Joan Alexander (radio's Lois Lane) as Ellen Deering and George Petrie as District Attorney Markham.

When last we left our pals from Pine Ridge, they were involved in considerable intrigue. They were receiving reports from the Masked Muskrat, threats from the Black Pelican, and a baby from a melancholy mother. The further adventures of Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody find them confounded by one commotion after another. At the Jot 'em Down Store, there is much bother about the baby, a mystery about a coat-of-arms, and mischief about ghosts, gunshots, and gold mines.

The boys from Pine Ridge get quite an education when the town finds itself in need of a new school teacher. The candidate they hire is eminently qualified - and not at all what president of the school board, Lum Edwards, had in mind! Professor Sloane, tireless in the pursuit of knowledge, spearheads ambitious plans for an observatory, a rocket ship, and a trip to Mars - manned by none other than Lum and Abner! With financial backing from the unscrupulous Squire Skimp, the duo declares themselves "scientifics" and set their sights on the stars.

In the realm of unforgettable radio voices, there is one that stands head and shoulders above all others - one distinctive voice that could never be convincingly duplicated, one that brought its owner undreamed of success. It was a voice of sandpaper and gravel and rusty scrap iron, rasping over a nation's loudspeakers for more than 30 years.

An orange glow peeks through the window on a crisp October night. Is it a jack-o'-lantern? Or, is it the radio dial? It's both! This collection of radio's happiest Halloween moments is replete with good old-fashioned haunted houses, costume parties, cemeteries, tricks and treats. Have fun with favorites like Jack Benny, Hal Peary, William Bendix, Ozzie and Harriet, Lucille Ball, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Boris Karloff. This wholesome, family-oriented on-air All Hallows' Eve comedy celebration includes 12 digitally restored and remastered episodes.

It's a new season, a new network, a new bandleader, and a new sponsor - but it's still the same great comedy couple! Radio favorites George Burns and Gracie Allen laugh it up big time in 16 gag-packed broadcasts from 1940-41. The cast will crack you up with silly skits, a bonkers breach of promise suit, and the madness of a mink coat mistake. You'll hear bandleader Artie Shaw, a couple of special guests, and a few rare episodes, as well!

What's more entertaining than a witty, snappy-talking detective? How about two witty, snappy-talking detectives? Publisher Jerry North and his always inquisitive wife Pamela are sophisticated sleuthing spouses who solved cases everywhere from magazine fiction, to novels, the stage, movies, radio and television. In these eight digitally remastered episodes from their long running radio series, the Norths can't seem to avoid mysteries and murders. In spite of Jerry's best attempts to put aside corpses and confessions - even quiet evenings at home and romantic ocean cruises turns deadly!

For gamblers, burlesque queens, murderers and innocents, comedy and tragedy were found in equal measure on the streets of Damon Runyon's Manhattan. Runyon, one of the most popular and widely-read figures of the Golden Age of the American Short Story, found his work was cut to measure for success in the most verbal medium of all: radio drama. John Brown stars as the glib Broadway, whose scene-setting brings a distinctive unifying touch to these fourteen digitally remastered episodes of the classic Damon Runyon Theatre radio series.

The voice of Bob Bailey conjured both the weariness of the world and all its kindness. You may know him best as Johnny Dollar or George Valentine, but he was so much more. Sample the breadth of Bob Bailey's talent in this tribute collection. Here are 10 hours of classic radio dramas, comedies, mysteries, and even a science fiction tale…all of which feature the talented thespian. You'll also hear wonderful performances by an array of outstanding co-stars, including Shelley Winters, Raymond Burr, Mercedes McCambridge, Burgess Meredith, John Dehner, and many more.

Secrets, suspicions, and suspense rise up thick as the Seattle fog in seventeen post-war noirs set in the Pacific Northwest. Produced and directed by Jim French, these new-time radio episodes bring back the classic radio style.

Picture it. You're in occupied France. You're walking the back alleys of Mozambique. You're aboard an ocean liner...and you're in peril! Can you survive the danger of a wartime thriller, the adventure of a big game hunt, an exploit of international intrigue? This 12-episode collection drops you into exciting stories by H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Robert Louis Stevenson, where you'll find spies, science fiction, and suspense.

If there's one lesson to be learned from science-fiction, it's that nothing lasts forever. From human lives to vast civilizations, the overarching theme of the genre is that the old will give way to the new. Look to futures past with X Minus One! One of the most imaginative series of the 1950s brings you to adventures in worlds beyond fear, beyond imagination, beyond the farthest stars. Works by the leading genre authors of the day (including Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, and Clifford Simak) were turned into tight, well-acted half-hour dramatizations.

Enter the world of The Whistler, a scheming story-teller who goads the guilty towards their own downfall. Oh, the identity of the murder is never a mystery, but there's always a shocking twist in the tale!

Walk the streets of Dodge City with William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon in 20 masterpieces of western storytelling. Dillon was not a straight-backed rider with a steely jaw. He was a man who had seen too much, a survivor of conflicts he'd rather have avoided…a man who knew only too well what errors of judgment could cost on the frontier. Parley Baer played Dillon's sidekick Chester, a seemingly naive yokel who was nevertheless as cold-blooded as Dillon when occasion demanded.

Jack Webb and Barton Yarborough star as Joe Friday and Ben Romero - just a couple of cops doing their job. Follow them step-by-step through 20 true-to-life cases, drawn from the files of the Los Angeles Police Department. Their dialogue was never clichéd or exaggerated, and their cases never relied on jumped-up action sequences to deliver impact. Whether they were on the trail of a car thief with violent tendencies, a fast-moving gang of safecrackers, a kidnapper, a mail thief, or a murderer, their job was the same: Get 'em.

By the 1956-57 season, Gunsmoke had reached the peak of its dramatic power as radio’s foremost adult western, with its powerful scripts and careful characterizations. William Conrad leads the cast as Marshal Matt Dillon, along with Parley Baer as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as Kitty. The citizens of Dodge City, Kansas emerged as living, breathing embodiments of frontier America in radio dramas that represent the medium at its most potent. Experience 27 hard-hitting adventures from this landmark season in this collection!

So Frankie Remley asked Phil Harrisand they'd soon find out, kicking off a memorable run of The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. The Rexall years marked the peak of the program's popularity, and the laughs come thick and fast! Join Phil, Alice, Elliott Lewis, Walter Tetley, Robert North, and the whole gang for the first 20 surviving episodes of the 1948-49 season.