Blog-o-ween 2022: Lights Out

Four days, people, FOUR DAYS! Can you believe it? Halloween is right around the corner, and what better way to get in the right frame o' mind than with some old time radio? Today's Blog-o-ween entry is a bit of a return to how we started the month off. Cast your mind back, if you will, and recall that on Day One we listened to a short tale from Arch Oboler called "A Day at the Dentist." Now, that tale was from a 1962 album called Drop Dead!: An Exercise in Horror!, which was a collection of plays that Mr. Oboler originally presented on the radio in the 1930s and 40s. Today, we will be going back to the source, to the show for which Mr. Oboler is most famous, Lights Out.

Created in 1934 by Wyllis Cooper, Lights Out originally began as a series of 15-minute shows on Chicago's WENR, an NBC affiliate. For the two years that Cooper produced the program, Lights Out was often a tongue-in cheek, Grand Guignol type of show. By the time Cooper left in 1936, Lights Out was broadcast nationally and had around 600 fan clubs.

After Cooper left the program, young writer Arch Oboler stepped to the fore. Oboler's work often used stream-of-consciousness narration and highlighted the author's dedication to antifascist liberalism. (In other words, Oboler was woke!) Under Oboler's aegis, Lights Out became radio's premier horror and supernatural fantasy radio program. Even while garnering much praise, Oboler always made sure he credited Cooper for being "the unsung pioneer of radio dramatic techniques."

Oboler left the series in 1938, and the show carried on without him for another year. In 1942, Oboler revived the series, breathing life into the show for another year. Lights Out was revived from time to time over the next few years, using scripts from previous iterations. From 1949 to 1952, Lights Out made the jump to television as a live program. And while there have been many attempts over the years to resuscitate the show on TV, Lights Out remains a program best enjoyed by the ear and not the eye.

For our first episode today, we are going back to the year 1938. Arch Oboler says in his introduction to "Super Feature" (also known as "Monster off the Screen" and "Creature off the Film"):

"Someone asked me what's the most frightening thing in the world. My answer was 'The familiar.' The common, everyday thing that is no longer commonplace."

I think that is an answer that Richard Matheson and Stephen King would understand very well. In "Super Feature," two men bring a motion picture show to a small town. One of the films is a monster movie, but it seems that the silver screen isn't big enough to hold the creature!

Next, we have the story "Knock at the Door" from 1942. It's a tale as old as time: a young woman decides to murder her mother-in-law for gain. If you heard it once, you heard it a million times, amirite? The one difference to this story is the older woman doesn't stay dead.

Our last Lights Out episode is from 1943. It is called "The Dream" (not to be confused with another episode by the same name starring Boris Karloff). A woman refuses to sleep in order to avoid a recurring nightmare about a child asking for his father. Unfortunately, her doctor prescribes sleeping pills, and she soon comes face to face with her fear. What is real...and what is the dream?