We don't usually do this sort of thing around here, but I feel I owe it to Wyllis Cooper and Ernest Chappell to hoist a dry one to QUIET,PLEASE, their phenomenally wide-ranging radio series. Cooper wrote and directed every episode, and Chappell was the main and often the solo voice actor. Personally I think it's the greatest thing of its kind ever achieved; and its kind includes SUSPENSE, THE WHISTLER, and LIGHTS OUT. The link above will take you to a site where you can listen to all available episodes; for what it's worth # 88 is my all-time favorite radio show ever.
Even better than Joe Frank?!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link -- I'm an old radio goof and I listen to a lot of programs while working. I often just put WNAR on - http://www.wnar-am.com/
ReplyDeleteIt's a small station in PA that went online a few years ago to expand its audience (it can only broadcast for a mile or five). 24 hr-a-day OTR. A lot of the old horror and crime series, and radio oddities from Canada and South Africa, as well as straggler shows from the post-Golden Age, 70's reworkings of Lights Out (CBS Mystery Theater) and the like. They play The Creaking Door (Canadian version) as well. Fun stuff. I'll shut up now.
Hiya Robert-
ReplyDeleteOn the whole I think QUIET, PLEASE is a more impressive achievement than Joe Frank's work (which as you know I love dearly). Every QP episode is written and directed by Cooper alone; JF had/has collaborative help with many of his productions.
I think the QP stories are more varied in their settings, characters and emotional tones; and they simultaneously embrace, play off of and avoid the clichés and conventions of the genre in a way that is astonishing. There is a huge amount of originality in these stories.
Also, Cooper does more with less; a few voices, a piano, and an organ are usually all there is. And the QP stories are limited by a half-hour duration and the cultural and commercial restrictions of the day (the late 40's), compared to JF's relative artistic and technical freedom.
But as I say, I love them both.
Ohh the MP3 compression on that site is terrible! I know it was AM radio to begin with.. but even AM deserves more fidelity than the recordings on that site..! Agh! Neat stuff, though, says a 36 year old man in Portland.
ReplyDeleteWhew! That is pretty intense. Tread carefully.
ReplyDeleteI've got about 33 hours' worth of Quiet, Please episodes on this computer, and I am at work. I love that show. Lights Out is pretty great, too (and no surprise, as it's another Wyllis Cooper creation).
ReplyDeleteYou know, I believe I actually haven't heard #88--"Where Do You Get Your Ideas?"--yet. I think I'll check that out today.
I wish to God someone could explain "Adam and the Darkest Day" to me. The more I think about that one, the less sense it makes. But, God, the atmosphere is great.
My favorite is #60, the Thing on the Fourble Board. Northern Lights is great too.
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