Back in January, when I reviewed what I still believed to be the worst movie of 2011, “The Green Hornet,” I lamented that the movie wasn’t true to its radio origins. Back before there was television, radio was the daily home of storytelling and because there were no visuals, the listener’s mind was the canvas that the radio cast painted on.
My mom would often speak of families gathering around the radio to listen to the adventures of Superman, or the Blue Beetle or Boston Blackie or Philip Marlowe. Programs like the Green Hornet and the Shadow were eagerly look forward to by young minds living in the dark days of World War II. These programs assured its audience that justice always triumphs and doing good was its own reward.
The website Botar has collected many of these programs as mp3 downloads which are available for free on their site or at iTunes. In addition to the detective programs, you’ll find comedies like Fibber Mcgee & Molly and Burns & Allen. Be sure to check out the classic Mercury Theatre on the Air and its 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds which set off a world-wide panic.
Most of us are too young to have listened to these “theater of the mind” shows when originally broadcast,” but Botar has captured these programs in a time capsule and has made them available to us whenever we want.