Lights Out CD Arch Oboler OTR Old Time Radio 85 LOST EPISODES (1934)
Lights Out was created in Chicago by Wyllis Cooper in 1934, and the first series of shows ran 15 minutes on a local station. In 1935 the show was picked up by NBC and was reformatted to the standard half-hour length. Cooper stayed on the program for a while as writer, but when another writer on the show, Arch Oboler, was promoted to director and host the series took off in popularity. Each show began with an ominously tolling bell, over which Oboler read the cryptic tagline: "It...is...later...than...you...think." This was followed by a dour "warning" to listeners to turn off their radios if they felt their constitutions were too delicate to handle the frightening tale that was about to unfold. Naturally, the intended—and successful—effect of this was more tantalizing than off-putting. While many of the episodes may seem dated today, more retain their ability to generate chills. Oboler's horror tales made effective use of sound effects and atmosphere. Listeners were treated to the ghastly sounds of skulls being crushed and people being eaten. One episode, 1937's "Chicken Heart", is said to have frightened listeners almost as badly as Orson Welles' Mercury Theater presentation of The War of the Worlds did the following year. Bill Cosby's 1966 album Wonderfulness relates his humorous account of staying up late against his parent' wishes and being frightened by this episode. A winking sense of self-referential, metafictional humor sometimes enlivened the proceedings; in "The Coffin in Studio B", two Lights Out script typists become trapped in their building after hours as frightening, unexplained events occour.
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