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Old Radio Shows   Today we are surrounded by more technology than ever before. We live in the age of the iPod, the mobile phone and the home computer. TV's are bigger and better than they have ever been and the shows on them contain levels of CGI and other special effects that would never have been possible even ten or twenty years ago.  Even the humble radio is not so humble anymore. Today's radio listeners will often be listening to their favourite shows on a DAB radio or even on their mobile phone. In the 1940s, 50s  and 60s though, none of these things were even dreamed of, and in some quarters the radio may still have been called the wireless and it was not until the early 1960's that transistor radios began to catch on. Before that radios had to rely on vacuum tubes, which had a tendency to burn out and so needed to be replaced. The technology was not the only different thing in those days either. The shows were different as well and radio dramas were much more popular than they are now. The world may have moved on and left those days behind, but recordings of a lot of the shows remain. Many of them are available in various online archives and it can be quite refreshing to listen to these little slices of yester-year, with their advertisements for Bio Tex and Ogden's Rolling Tobacco. Many of the old radio shows broadcast dramatizations of horror stories and, as this is a horror site, those are the shows that I will try and archive on this site and you will find the links to them further down this page. When you click a link and visit your chosen webpage you will be able to play the episode using the player controls on the page.  Each page also has a download link so that you can download the mp3 file to your own computer and listen to any time that you want. Heck you could even transfer it to one of those modern newfangled iPod thingummyjigs.    Beyond Midnight  Beyond Midnight was produced in South Africa in the late 1960s by Michael McCabe and the show was broadcast at half-past-nine on a Friday night.  Most of  the shows could be classed as being in the horror genre and the series included adaptations of classic tales like The Signalman, The Phantom Coach and The Monkey's Paw. 40th Birthday         Dear Ghost          Let Me See Your Face   Something On His Mind      The Man Who Sold His Soul     The Party      The Room   The Signalman     The Thing in the Cabin The Visits   Dark Fantasy Dark Fantasy was first aired in November 1941. It originated from the radio station WKY in Oklahoma City and was aired on NBC stations on a Friday night. Only 31 episodes were recorded and the final episode aired in June 1942. Resolution 1841          The Curse of the Neanderthal                     The Demon Tree     The House of Bread    The Man Who Came Back      The Thing From The Sea   Inner Sanctum Mysteries Inner Sanctum Mysteries was first broadcast in January 1941 and by the time the final show was aired in October 1952. There were 526 shows in the series. The early shows were introduced by Raymond Edward Johnson. When Johnson left the show in 1945 and enlisted in the army he was replaced by the Broadway actor Paul McGrath. Inner Sanctum Mysteries was a very popular show in its day and stars like Boris Karloff , Peter Lorre, Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith gave fine performances. Heck, even old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, was happy to lend his voice to an episode: Enchanted Ghost. Death is a Joker                 The Death Laugh                 The Fog        The Man From Yesterday                     The Melody of Death   The Silent Hands    The Skull That Walked    The Tell-Tale Heart Mystery in the Air  The radio series Mystery in the Air was aired in 1947 and every show was introduced by Harry Morgan's never failing announcement that Mystery in the Air starred Peter Lorre and was presented by Camel Cigarettes. I always remember Peter Lorre best for his role as Ugarte in the film Casablanca and he has such a distinctive voice that, once heard, it is never forgotten. I must admit, though, that I think that Lorres' acting in Mystery in the Air comes across as a little forced at times. This was, however, quite a popular show in its day and included dramatizations of works by authors like Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allan Poe. The shows listed below are in alphabetical order, to see the shows listed in order of their broadcast date see the Episode Index. The Horla      The Black Cat    The Lodger The Marvellous Barastro      The Mask of Medusa   The Queen of Spades   The Hermit's Cave The Hermit's Cave was a weekly radio show sponsored by Olga Coal. The series was first aired in 1935 and was not discontinued until about a decade later. The Hermit presented each show from his cave while, outside, the wind and the wolves competed to see who could howl the loudest. Inside the cave the sound of the Hermit cackling as he introduced the evening's story was much more unnerving than either. Several actors played the Hermit, through the years, but John Dehner is probably the one most famous for it. Buried Alive           Plantation Mystery       The Story Without End Spirit Vengeance     Vampire's Desire   The Weird Circle The Weird Circle was broadcast between 1943 and 1947 and there were a total of 78 shows in the series, including dramatizations of famous classic tales of horror like Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Guy de Maupassant's The Hand. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde                   The Ancient Mariner   The Bride of Death              The Fall of the House of Usher The House and the Brain      The Old Nurse's Story The Vendetta HOME