Listen Hear - Audio Theatre To Learn
From
Advice from Tony Palermo
My rave review of the box set of cassettes/CD's called "The 60 Greatest
Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century" (selected by Walter Cronkite) put out
by the Radio Spirits label. This is
from a post I made to the radio drama e-mail discussion
list.
The Canon of Radio Drama -- a rave review
From: Tony Palermo
To: Radio Drama List
Subject: The Canon of Radio Drama
Fellow radio creators:
As writers and producers, most of us have listened to a number of old time
radio shows. But I'll admit I'm hardly as well versed in the OTR classics as I
am in literature or music or cinema. Today, it's easy to go to the library or
corner video store and get a hold of Shakespeare or Mark Twain, or Orson Welles
or Hitchcock classics, but the OTR classics can be expensive or difficult to
find. Well, no longer!
I just bought a tremendous collection of OTR shows put out by the Radio
Spirits label
http://www.radiospirits.com/
I highly recommend their 30 hour collection called "The 60 Greatest Old-Time
Radio Shows of the 20th Century" (selected by Walter Cronkite.)
All the greats are here:
War of the Worlds
Sorry, Wrong Number
On a Note of Triumph -- Norman Corwin's famous V-E day show
The Hitchhiker
"Cat Wife" -- Arch Obler's Light's Out hit.
Three Skeleton Key
Brave New World
The Martian Chronicles
As well as great examples of the genre shows; Lone Ranger, Superman, The
Saint, X-Minus One, The Shadow, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Gunsmoke, Let's
Pretend, etc.
And plenty of comedy and variety shows; Chase & Sanborn Hour, Eddie
Cantor, Abbot & Costello, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, The Bickersons, Arthur
Godfrey, I Love Lucy, The Great Gildersleeve, etc.
I picked up the cassette collection for $30 at one of those Costco-club
wholesale warehouse stores. You can also get it on CD, direct from Radio
Spirits--at a higher cost (but still cheaper than
www.amazon.com). You may have seen Radio
Spirit's other collections "OTR's Greatest Detectives" (Mysteries, Westerns,
etc.) Well, this collection tops them all for the breadth and quality of the
shows.
I regularly do radio dramas at the Museum of Television & Radio in Los
Angeles http://www.mtr.org and they have many
of these shows in their collection, but unless you spend a lot of time at the
museum, it's tough to find all the best programs at a good price with great
sound quality. If there are no OTR broadcasts in your area--you've probably
never heard most of these gems. Well...walk! Run! Click! Get this collection
today!
Every one who works in radio will benefit by having this "canon" of radio
drama close at hand. Just as in film and literature, if you've studied the
classics--you can learn how it's supposed to be done. You can also hear just how
great these radio artists really were. Like Leonard Maltin's excellent book on
the radio arts,
"The
Great American Broadcast," this classic collection is an inspiration to
writers/producers!
An example: I had read about the famous Escape! episode,
"Three Skeleton Key" (where lighthouse keepers are invaded by a derelict
ship overflowing with millions of rats), but I'd never heard it. I'm friends
with Cliff Thorsness, the CBS sound effects wizard who won an award for his SFX
on this 1950 show. Cliff even helped me with SFX for a similar rat effect on one
of my shows. I had no idea his show was so good! Wow! This is great, gripping
radio! It's the kind of stuff we'd kill to produce, even today! And at the end
of the program--the announcer goes on to praise Cliff and his SFX team for their
superb work. This show alone was worth the $30. It's a textbook example of using
dialogue, music and sound effects to create "a world--before your very ears."
Bravo!
Some may scoff at the notion of "moldy" old time radio--you've probably heard
some melodramatic, clichéd junk--and written it off. Well, this ISN'T that
junk--it's the absolute best and some of it will knock your socks off!
Everything you are doing in radio has been done before--and probably done my
somebody much better than you. You could learn something--I did.
I'm sure most current radio artists have heard "War of the Worlds," but there
are many other great shows here that haven't gotten such exposure. If you were
learning to compose dramatic underscoring, how good would you be if your only
exposure to Bernard Herrmann was the shower cue from "Psycho" and you just "made
up" the rest?
Get an education--a good education. You can start here. It's Radio Drama 101
in a box!
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