Lights Out: A Knock at the Door – ComicWeb Old Time Radio Podcast

ComicWeb Old Time Radio
Program: Lights Out
Episode: A Knock at the Door
Original Airdate: 12/15/1942

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Episode Summary:
Ella married Jay Kroger. Unfortunately, the package includes Jay’s mother. When Jay introduces Ella to his mother, his mother simply refers to Ella as “a woman.” Things kind of go downhill from there. So, Ella’s mother-in-law winds up drowned in the well in the basement. Ella’s mental state, already fragile due to the whole “murdering your mother-in-law” thing, worsens when said mother-in-law starts knocking on the basement door. Jay, well, Jay is not the brightest bulb. He thinks everything is pretty much okay, despite marrying a murderer and now having a zombie for a mother. But this story is not about Jay. Ella is having a hard time with this turn of events. Much like Hamlet, Ella is torn with indecision, she wants to re-kill the mother, and Jay, then she decides to kill herself. If there is a moral to the story its, don’t change your mind when its too late. (Or have better upper body strength, I’m not really sure if there is a moral.)

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Program Summary:
“Lights Out Everybody”
If it was midnight Wednesday, the radio was tuned to NBC for Lights Out, a show that featured tales of the supernatural and the supernormal. It was the first of the horror/suspense radio shows, predating Inner Sanctum and Suspense.

At first, the show was first written by Wyllis Cooper, he emphasized great sound effects and gripping stories. In 1936 Arch Oboler took over the writing and he brought the show through its huge successes. Hit stories like Cat Wife and Chicken Heart (and if you get a chance, listen to Bill Cosby’s comedy routine on the Chicken Heart) still evoke memories today. The stories called for all sorts of horror: breaking bones, blood dripping, heads being severed, and who can forget human flesh being eaten. The glory of the show was that they had a sound effects team up to the challenge. But rather than actually kill people for the show, they experimented and found out that a soaked rag thrown against a wall sounded like a body slamming against pavement, maple syrup sounded like blood, and so on and so on. The stories are also notable for the chances that Oboler took, he played with first person narratives, stream of consciousness. In short, he pushed the envelope of what radio could deliver.

The show had such a following that when NBC tried to cancel the show in 1937 fans protested in the hundreds and kept the show going. Similar to Star Trek in the 1960s.

Lights Out ran from 1934 through 1939. Then it went through several reboots, each less successful then the previous one. The last radio show aired in 1947. Then Lights Out was on television from 1949-1952.

It..is..later..than..you..think