The document discusses the Golden Age of Radio from 1934-1950. It highlights how radio was intimate and brought stories and the world into people's homes. President Roosevelt used radio to directly speak to Americans through his "Fireside Chats." Radio stimulated the imagination through storytelling and a lack of visuals. Popular programs like The Jack Benny Show developed characters over time through comedy and drama. Programs like The Mercury Theatre on the Air and Quiet Please used first person narratives and sound effects to tell suspenseful stories that engaged listeners' imaginations.

1. The Golden Age of Radio: 1934 - 1950

2. Intimacy

3. Radio was intimate.
It was a member of
your family.
It sat in your living
room,
brought the world
into your home,
and it told you
stories.

4. President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt
understood this,
and used radio to
talk directly, simply
and quietly to each
individual American.
Intimacy

5. His “Fireside Chats” helped calm a nation through both the Great Depression and
World War II.
12/29/1940
Remember this voice
FDR - Fireside Chat - National Security 12-29-1940
https://youtu.be/EaQH2LsghZk (Listen to the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds)
2:30
Intimacy

6. Imagination

7. Radio: The Theater of the Imagination

8. I like radio
more than
television.
The
pictures are
better.
Letter from America by Alistair Cooke History of conventions - 17 July 1992 http://tinyurl.com/h5zg2ah
Imagination

9. Imagination
Stan Freberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Freberg
In 1966, comedian, radio pioneer and advertising executive Stan Freberg,
working for the Radio Advertising Bureau, aptly illustrated the power of radio
to generate imagery in the imagination of the listener and thereby directly
involve the listener a a co-creator.

10. “Stretching the Imagination”
Stan Freberg and Sarah Vaughn, 1966
Radio Advertising Bureau
2:00
Imagination
Listen https://soundcloud.com/enbowen/stretching-the-imagination

11. The serial nature of radio allowed
for character to be developed
through the course of a series, for
comedy and drama to be based on
personalities made familiar over
time.

12. Jack Benny was one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th
century, movie actor, stand-up performer, radio personality, and
eventually television star.
His radio show was one of the most popular of the Golden Age of Radio.
In a precursor to what we would today call “meta,” on his radio show he
played “himself,” a star with his own radio show. His supporting cast
were the actors who worked with him on his show. His radio show was a
radio show within a radio show.
Over the course of the series he established
a clear persona.
Among his many character defects, he was
depicted as unrelentingly cheap. And much of
the humor of his show played off this trait.
Jack Benny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Benny

13. The Jack Benny Show
March 28, 1948 “Your Money or Your Life”
The following clip illustrates the humor derived from Benny’s established stinginess.
Benny and his cast would perform in a studio or on stage, standing behind stationary
microphones. Notice how the use of simple sound effects suggest setting and
movement.

14. The Jack Benny Show
March 28, 1948 “Your Money or Your Life”
1:56
Listen http://tinyurl.com/hkzxpw5
The Jack Benny Program “Your Money of Your Life”
https://youtu.be/p_XkdmRkOL0

15. The Jack Benny Show
December 7, 1947 “The Violin Lesson”
Mel Blanc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Blanc
Another character trait established for Benny involved his complete obliviousness to
his own ineptitude as a violin player.
In the following clip, Jack takes a violin lesson. His teacher is played by Mel Blanc,
“man of a thousand voices,” later known for his vocal portrayals of Bugs Bunny, Daffy
Duck, Porky Pig, and many more. Among the many characters Blanc played for Benny,
he was also the sound of Benny’s stuttering jalopy.

16. The Jack Benny Show
December 7, 1947 “The Violin Lesson”
5:00
Listen https://soundcloud.com/enbowen/benny-vault-edit-parta
The Jack Benny Album No. 2 https://youtu.be/PSXv5Qc8Row

17. The Jack Benny Show
December 7, 1947 “The Violin Lesson”
In the second clip, not only is the humor derived from Benny’s miserliness, but sound
effects are used to suggest a setting unlikely to actually exist in the home the series
has suggested as Benny’s residence.

18. The Jack Benny Show
December 7, 1947 “The Violin Lesson”
4:09
Imagination
Listen http://tinyurl.com/hkzxpw5
The Jack Benny Album No. 2 https://youtu.be/PSXv5Qc8Row

19. Lights Out
Lights Out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_Out_(radio_show)
Arch Oboler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Oboler
Imagination
The radio series “Lights Out” was an anthology horror program that made
extensive use of description and suggestion to eerie effect. It was created by
Wyllis Cooper and later written and run by playwright Arch Oboler.
Oboler’s “The Chicken Heart” is one of the series’ most famous episodes, largely
due to a comedy routine about the broadcast recorded by Bill Cosby in 1966.
“The Dark” is another episode remembered for its horrific “imagery.” Both
episodes have been lost, but Oboler recreated them for a recording in 1962
titled “Drop Dead.”

20. Lights Out “The Chicken Heart”
March 10, 1937 (Recreated in 1962)
Listen to https://youtu.be/G_OD_jUnYNM
7:38
Imagination

21. Lights Out “The Chicken Heart”
March 10, 1937 (Recreated in 1999)
Or listen to https://youtu.be/bwgmmMYshJQ
7:21
Imagination

22. Lights Out “The Dark”
December 29, 1937 (Recreated in 1962)
Listen to Lights Out - "The Dark" - Scary Story 4 https://youtu.be/HC2mNJcYtvw
8:10
Imagination

23. Wonderfulness “Chicken Heart”
Bill Cosby, 1966
6:23
Imagination
Listen to https://youtu.be/3vPimtcK3-A

24. Quiet Please
Imagination
Quiet Please https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet,_Please
Wyllis Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyllis_Cooper
Quiet Please http://www.quietplease.org/
“Quiet Please,” also created by Wyllis Cooper, was another fantasy / horror
anthology program. The show’s announcer was Ernest Chappell.
Wyllis Cooper Ernest Chappell

25. Quiet Please
Imagination
In “The Thing on the Fourble Board,” sound and description create an almost
unimaginable horror.
Notice that you, the listener, are a character in the story. You are a visitor to the
narrator’s home.

26. “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
Quiet Please, August 9, 1948
2:57
Imagination
Listen to http://tinyurl.com/jj2zea3
The Thing on the Fourble Board https://youtu.be/qEiHNihRMRI

27. “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
Quiet Please, August 9, 1948
Imagination
The narrator tells you that the “fourble board” is a small platform
that runs around the outside of an oil derrick about half way up.
One night geologist Billy Grunewald thinks he hears someone on the
fourble board. He and the narrator investigate and find a gold ring in
a core sample from a mile underground that’s over a million years
old, and a mud-covered finger made of rock that’s invisible when the
mud is removed.
Later that night Grunewald is killed, his neck broken, the ring stolen.
It is just the first unexplained death.
The derrick is closed.

28. “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
Quiet Please, August 9, 1948
5:28
Imagination
Listen to http://tinyurl.com/zdezgpd
The Thing on the Fourble Board https://youtu.be/ilRbcBhD9_0

29. Quiet Please
Imagination
The Creepiest Radio Show Ever? http://tinyurl.com/jh6x2zn
Not only are you, the listener, a character in the story. You die at the end.

30. First Person
Narrative

31. “First Person Singular”
Beginning in 1938, Orson Welles directed his acting
company in weekly literary adaptations for CBS radio. He
told all his stories from a first person perspective, harnessing
the intimacy and directness of the medium. Beginning as
“First Person Singular,” the show was soon retitled “The
Mercury Theatre on the Air,” named for Welles’ theatrical
company.
Mercury Theatre History http://www.mercurytheatre.info/history

32. “First Person Singular”
“The Mercury Theatre
on the Air” was a critical
if not a ratings success.
Welles was a master of
radio as a dramatic
medium. He conducted
his programs from a
podium, as if the show
were a symphony, and
his actors and
technicians an orchestra.
He used the medium
with as no one before or
since.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mercury_Theatre_on_the_Air

33. “Treasure Island”
The Mercury Theatre on the Air, July 18, 1938
6:50
Listen to http://tinyurl.com/he6hwt2
Treasure Island – Mercury Theatre https://youtu.be/56jKvwtJJq0
Welles’ command of pacing, his unusual use of silence, and the sounds of a tapping
cane and distant whistling added suspense to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale
of pirates.

34. “Dracula”
The Mercury Theatre on the Air, July 30, 1938
For his adaptation of Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel, Welles was able to tell the story from several first person
perspectives, just as Stoker had. From the CBS studio in New York, he staged in sound a great chase through the
wilderness of Transylvania.
6:50
Listen to http://tinyurl.com/gm5wn4f
Dracula – Mercury Theatre https://youtu.be/SK4frrg7SyU