Gordon Payton - The CBS Radio Mystery Theater: An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting, 1974-1982

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data are available
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Payton, Gordon, 1959
The CBS radio mystery theater : an episode guide and handbook to nine years of broadcasting, 19741982 / Gordon Payton and Martin Grams, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7864-1890-9
1. CBS radio mystery theater (Radio program) I. Grams, Martin, Jr. II. Title.
PN1991.77.C43P38 2004
791.44'72dc21 98-33440 CIP
1999 Gordon Payton and Martin Grams, Jr. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image 2004 Comstock, Inc.
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the following for their help and contribution in making this book as complete and informative as possible: Jay Hickerson, Rosemary Rice, Ralph Bell, Harvey, Larry and John Gassman of SPERDVAC, Katherine Wiley of Harford County Public Library, Elliott Reid, and, of course, Himan Brown.

Special thanks to Ted Okuda of Filmfax magazine (P.O. Box 1900, Evanston IL 60202), who allowed us to reprint a few quotes from his Voices of Terror article, written by Jack Roberts, which was originally printed in the June/July 1994 issue (# 45).

For those whose ears have not heard the screams of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, allow us to give you a small peek at the population that lurked within Americas radio speakers during the late 1970s and early 1980s: banshees, leprechauns, vampires, zombies, killer plants, warlocks, aliens, Egyp-tian cats, a golem, reincarnated spirits, Druids, ghosts, clairvoyants, witches, lycanthropes, somnambulists, alchemists, Dracula, Dorian Gray, dwarfs, and to top it off, Frankensteins monster. And that was just the first year!

Almost every day, for nine years, Mystery Theater brought monsters, murderers and mayhem together for a whole hour each evening. Created, produced, and directed by Himan Brown, the series remains a landmark in radio drama. But Mystery Theater ended over fifteen years ago and no one has yet been able to gather enough information to write a book detailing the history and the episodesuntil now.

This book offers a detailed log (Episode Guide) of each and every Mystery Theater episode ever broadcast. Descriptive information includes exact titles, air dates and rebroadcast dates, episode numbers, cast lists, writer and adapter credits, and a story line synopsis. This material comes directly from CBS press releases in order to insure complete accuracy. Name spellings (including that of the showTheater rather than Theatre) are in keeping with the press material except where that material contained obvious mistakes, i.e. the misspelling of a well-known actor or author.

Also included whenever possible are notes of interest such as information about the actors and actresses, quotes from performers and writers (many from personal interviews), anecdotes about various scripts and sound effects, and other worthwhile tidbits.

The episodes are listed in order of broadcast, not in order of recording. If an episode is a rebroadcast, the rebroadcast date is followed by the original air date. The reader can find complete information on the episode by turning back to the original air date.

The index includes the title of each episode as well as performers and other personnel.

An introductory Short History offers an overview of the shows production from the origin of the series to the demise. Thanks to Tony Roberts, who appeared on the program frequently, an example of what the rehearsals were like is featured in this history.

We invite your enjoyment of our book. We hope that it may entertain as well as inform, and that it will provide much pleasure for those of a macabre, mystery-loving frame of mind.

Himan Brown was the brain of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. His experience as a producer and director was unparalleled. The Adventures of the Thin Man, The Affairs of Peter Salem, Bulldog Drummond, Joyce Jordan, The NBC Radio Theatre, Grand Central Station, Terry and the Pirates, Dick Tracy, and numerous others were part of his doing. But his experience in radio stretched back even farther.

I sold The Rise of the Goldbergs to NBC in 1929, recalled Brown, and I played Jake for six months. I was in knee pants, so to speak, and I played the father, Gertrude Bergs husband. And then I did a series called Little Italy, in which I played the father. I figured if it worked for a Jewish audience, it will work for an Italian audience. I then stopped acting. Occasionally Ill do a small part, just for the fun of it.

Mystery Theater was very similar to Browns previous Inner Sanctum Mysteries of the 1940s and 1950s, the series for which he was best remembered until the premiere of Mystery Theater. Each Mystery episode opened with the sound of a creaking door, inviting the audience in for an hour of bone-chilling, spine-shifting, hair-raising tales of murder and mayhem. This popular creaking door openinganother of Browns brainstormshad been used on the Inner Sanctum. Like Inner Sanctum, the Mystery Theater stories were mainly mystery, with supernatural overtones for chills. It is worth noting that the creaking door is just one of two sounds to have ever been copyrighted in the history of the copyright office. (The other is NBCs three-chime signature.)

When the press release from CBS went out to newspapers across the country, Brown announced that Mystery Theater would be the most exciting break-through of the last ten years. It was indeed, the return of the art form of radio drama. Brown insisted that his programs would be contemporary in everything from technical effects to subjects and characters, including a female police lieutenant, a child born out of wedlock, abortion, and a man coping with sterility. Our whole approach, he emphasized, is more adult.

When other stations saw the popularity of Mystery Theater, they, too, began broadcasting drama, in shows such as The Sears Radio Theater and Nightfall. At this time, other drama series had just started their new broadcast runs. Rod Serlings The Zero Hour and Hollywood Radio Theater were receiving critical acclaim. But Mystery Theater far outlasted them allwhich shows how right Brown was to pursue his more adult approach.

Able to avoid the economic perils of syndication, CBS introduced The CBS Radio Mystery Theater on January 6, 1974, as part of a new network radio service called The C.B.S. Radio Drama Network. Other shows were in the planning stages; the goal was to revive radio drama, which was picking up in popularity due to the nostalgia boom at the time. Each episode of