Radio brought you

[froggy]

Shows like.....

"War of the Worlds" 1938 Radio Broadcast:

 

[Pogo]

Radio is an inherently and inarguably superior medium to TV. Always will be. "War of the Worlds" is a good example of why that is --- it lets the imagination breathe. From the descriptions the listener concots his or her own scenery, characters and effects. TV by contrast sits you down and dictates every detail of every sense. The mind becomes a passive sponge. And unlike radio you can't do anything else but watch and obey.

It's instructive to walk into a room where there's a TV playing and instead of being drawn to the TV, watch the watchers and observe. Zombies. Passive, docile and obedient sponges, intellectual legs spread wide for the Advertiser.

But why is this thread in "TV"?

 

[Alystyr]

Shows like.....

"War of the Worlds" 1938 Radio Broadcast

Don't forget the many popular radio serials such as The Shadow, Buck Rogers, Captain Midnight - even Dragnet. Can't find stuff like that anymore.
Best thing about it was that it allowed people to use their imaginations to picture what was going on.
It wasn't called the Golden Age for nothing.

But why is this thread in "TV"?

I figure that it's because it doesn't fit anywhere else. Besides, radio was the "TV" of its era.

 

[froggy]

Radio is an inherently and inarguably superior medium to TV. Always will be. "War of the Worlds" is a good example of why that is --- it lets the imagination breathe. From the descriptions the listener concots his or her own scenery, characters and effects. TV by contrast sits you down and dictates every detail of every sense. The mind becomes a passive sponge. And unlike radio you can't do anything else but watch and obey.

It's instructive to walk into a room where there's a TV playing and instead of being drawn to the TV, watch the watchers and observe. Zombies. Passive, docile and obedient sponges, intellectual legs spread wide for the Advertiser.

But why is this thread in "TV"?

Where should it be? Lol

 

[froggy]

Welles scares nation - Oct 30, 1938 - HISTORY.com

 

[Pogo]

Radio is an inherently and inarguably superior medium to TV. Always will be. "War of the Worlds" is a good example of why that is --- it lets the imagination breathe. From the descriptions the listener concots his or her own scenery, characters and effects. TV by contrast sits you down and dictates every detail of every sense. The mind becomes a passive sponge. And unlike radio you can't do anything else but watch and obey.

It's instructive to walk into a room where there's a TV playing and instead of being drawn to the TV, watch the watchers and observe. Zombies. Passive, docile and obedient sponges, intellectual legs spread wide for the Advertiser.

But why is this thread in "TV"?

Where should it be? Lol

"Media" most likely.

Then again, in a way it's well placed, to show TV what a loser it is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

WSM

WSM (AM) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[froggy]

Hudson And Landry The Prospectors:

I remember this one from the a.m. days

 

[Pogo]

WSM

WSM (AM) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

​

WSM's diamond-shaped "Blaw-Knox" design tower, one of only about five left in the country, which is visible from I-65. A great many musicians got their aural imaginations opened up by what came out of that thing over the years.

 

[Pogo]

Author, folklorist and one-time gubernatorial candidate Stetson Kennedy was one of the most outspoken opponents of Southern racism from the South, a contemporary of Lillian Smith and Erskine Caldwell. Kennedy famously infiltrated his local Klavern in the 1940s, became a member, and tried to ferret out what information he could to relay to the authorities. Having noticed that beneath some of the members' robes were police/sheriff's uniforms, he went instead to the FBI, who weren't very interested and to the extent they were, blew the ball game: "So I got a call from the FBI last week", the Klan leader noted at the next meeting....

So Kennedy came up with another angle that was absolutely brilliant --- Radio.

Noticing some boys playing "cops and robbers" in the street, it occurred to him that since the recent fall of Germany and Japan in World War Two, the radio theater hero Superman --- the centerpiece of a program that was wildly popular and broadcast every day on radio (TV wasn't established yet) --- had run short of villains to fight.

So he gave them one: the Klan.

The Klan would use secret passwords for access to its meetings which would change every week. Kennedy, still an undiscovered mole, would pass these passwords on to the writers of Superman, who would work them, intact, into the script in stark realism. Not only were the Klan's "secret" passwords and silly rituals being broadcast coast-to-coast, their absurd philosophy was hung out to dry in the script:


Segret Wilson
Come now, Riggs. Is it possible that you really believe all that stuff about getting rid of the foreigners? That "one race, one religion, one color" hokum?

Matt Riggs
Hokum? Why, it's the absolute truth. We've got to save America from foreign elements.

Segret Wilson
Well, I'll be-- I thought you had brains, Riggs. But you've become drunk on the slop we put up for the suckers.

Matt Riggs
Suckers? Who are you calling--

Segret Wilson
Our members, Riggs. The poor fish who want to hate and blame somebody else for their failures in life. The saps who believe drivel such as, a man is a dangerous enemy because he goes to a different church. The little nobodies who want to believe some other race is inferior so they can feel superior. The jerks who go for that "100% American" rot.

Matt Riggs
Rot? You mean you don't believe?

Segret Wilson
Of course not. You must know there is no such thing as what we call 100% American. Everyone here except the Indians is descended from foreigners.

Matt Riggs
Why, blast you, Wilson. You sound like a dirty foreigner yourself.

Segret Wilson
I'm running a business, Riggs. And so are you. We deal in one of the oldest and most profitable commodities on Earth: Hate.

"The Adventures of Superman: Clan of the Fiery Cross" began the first of its 16 episodes on June 10, 1946. Having failed to interest local or federal authorities on what info he could ferret out by infiltrating the Klan, Stetson Kennedy went to a far more powerful entity -- the hearts and minds of the people, via mass media. The Klan was now an enemy of Superman -- an American icon.

The same little kids that were dressing up as the latter character of "cops and robbers" with no uncertainty about who the "bad guy" was --- were now dressing up in hoods, mocking what they'd heard on the radio. Seeing their own kids playing "cops and Klanners", Klanners were kwitting, rather than chance being found out and embarrassed. By the end of the 1940s people were showing up to Klan rallies not to join, but to mock them. And it's said that within two weeks of the broadcast Klan recruitment was down to zero.

 

[IsaacNewton]

I used to love listening to this show in the early 80s. Too bad radio like this has gone away. The CBS Radio Mystery Theater.