Creeps by Night:
The Final Reckoning (5/2/44)
Suspense:
Menace In Wax (11/11/42)
X Minus One:
And the Moon Be Still as Bright (4/22/55)
The Mysterious Traveler:
Murder Goes Free (7/14/46)

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Play Show (Right click to download).

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The Final Reckoning” – May the 2nd of 1944

Creeps by Night Was A 1944 horror series with two hosts, one for each coast. in New York it was hosted by the anonymous, “Dr. X” who, as near as I can find, is anonymous to this day. From Hollywood it was hosted by Boris Karloff.

Although,  did often feature the conventions typical of horror, werewolves and the like. It often provided a twist ending that brought an unexpected buoyancy to otherwise common place yarns. Karloff himself once said that, “There is no greater mystery than the mystery of the mind.” And many of the episodes dealt in psychological, rather than literal, horror.
Then as now, excellence is not a guarantee of long life.

Creeps by Night did not, “Live long and prosper”. It was a short lived series and only a few episodes seem to have survived. Too common a story in the annals of old time radio.

“The Final Reckoning” an episode starring Boris Karloff which aired first on May the 2nd of 1944. This is the story of George Miller, who was played for a Patsy by an associate. For twenty long years Miller had only one dream… a dream of murder, only one aspiration, his revenge. Then one day Miller, through careful planning and unbelievable patients, finds his chance when he manages to take the place of a barber giving the villain a shave.This turn of events creates the chance to play out a fine scene with Miller carefully, almost lovingly, tracing the contours of his victims throat with the edge of a straight razor. It’s heady stuff.

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Suspense – “Menace In Wax”  from Nov. 11th of 1942.

Suspense is one of the classics of old time radio. Some fans have special favorites in the thriller/chiller/macabre genre, but most agree that Suspense is right at the top.

The guiding light of this show was William Spier, whose formula of human drama set in interesting situations attracted the best of Hollywood and radio actors. Orson Welles was in many episodes. Cary Grant said, “If I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.”

Spier’s method with actors was to keep them under-rehearsed, and there-by a bit uneasy. He got great performances, and the show gained great popularity.

All the production values were first class. With Bernard Hermann, who had worked with Orson Welles on the Mercury Theater and would work with Alfred Hitchcock, doing the musical scores.

“Menace In Wax”. This is a world war II drama set in the city of London involving… I’ll bet you already know… Nazis! Better yet despicable Nazi spies! Do I need to say anything else? Nazi spies! What more could you want?

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X Minus One , “And the Moon Be Still as Bright” April the 22nd of 1955.

X Minus One is considered the finest science fiction drama ever produced for radio. It was  not the first. That honor belongs to 2000+. It wasn’t the second, That would be Dimension X. In fact the first 15 episodes of it’s  1955 to 1958 run on NBC were new versions of Dimension X episodes. The remainder were all most entirely adaptations of recently published science fiction stories (Mostly from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine) usually written by the leading writers of the time, including  Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, J.T. McIntosh, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon.
For all of us who were weaned on  The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone and for the Trekkies (er,Trekkers) among us, you should know that X Minus One is the forefather of the science fiction you grew up on. You will find that it still is some of the best Science Fiction ever aired.

X Minus One and Ray Bradbury with one of his stories set on Mars, “And the Moon Be Still as Bright”. This story was first published in the Thrilling Wonder Stories issue for June of 1948 and would later be included in The Martian Chronicles as the opening story about the Fourth Expedition. Back in show eight we ran X Minus One’s adaptation of “Mars is Heaven”( AKA, “The Third Expedition”), you may want to check that out. This Episode aired on April the 22nd of 1955.
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The Mysterious Traveler – Murder Goes Free (7/14/46).

A close cousin to the Whistler and the Strange Dr Weird, the Mysterious Traveller was another memorable radio host. Easy to imagine yourself on a train, at night, seated next to a curious gentleman who invites you “to join me on another journey into the strange and terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable — if you can!”
The Mysterious Traveler was the second outing for pulp writers Robert Arthur and David P. Kogan. Their first effort, a show called  Dark Destiny, ran for parts of 1942 and 1943 on The Mutual Broadcasting System. This show was, unfortunately. not particularly successful. Surviving for only 27 episodes of which only one is known to still exist.
For this, their next effort, they teamed up with producer/director Sherman ‘Jock’ MacGregor, and actor Maurice Tarplin to create a show that would have a very successful run on  Mutual  between 1944 and 1952. Eventually becoming one of the highest rated programs of the era and spawning a handful of spin offs.

When a man fails in his attempt to buy off a gold-digger, he decides to just kill her. He manages it, much to his sorrow! This show aired on March the 31st of 1945 and for some reason it was identified as the last show of the series. It wasn’t, the show actually closed after the July 14th show of 1946.