''Lights Out'' is an American
old-time radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early ...
program devoted mostly to
horror and the supernatural.
Created by
Wyllis Cooper
Wyllis Oswald Cooper (January 26, 1899 – June 22, 1955) was an American writer and producer.
He is best remembered for creating and writing the Golden Age of Radio, old time radio programs ''Lights Out (radio show), Lights Out'' (1934&ndash ...
and then eventually taken over by
Arch Oboler, versions of ''Lights Out'' aired on different networks, at various times, from January 3, 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. ''Lights Out'' was one of the earliest radio horror programs, predating ''
Suspense'' and ''
Inner Sanctum''.
History
The Wyllis Cooper era
In the fall of 1933,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
writer
Wyllis Cooper
Wyllis Oswald Cooper (January 26, 1899 – June 22, 1955) was an American writer and producer.
He is best remembered for creating and writing the Golden Age of Radio, old time radio programs ''Lights Out (radio show), Lights Out'' (1934&ndash ...
conceived the idea of "a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour." The idea was to offer listeners a dramatic program late at night, at a time when the competition was mostly airing music. At some point, the serial concept was dropped in favor of an anthology format emphasizing crime thrillers and the supernatural. The first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on a local NBC station, WENR, at midnight Wednesdays, starting in January 1934. By April, the series proved successful enough to expand to a half-hour. In January 1935, the show was discontinued in order to ease Cooper's workload (he was then writing scripts for the network's prestigious ''Immortal Dramas'' program), but was brought back by huge popular demand a few weeks later. After a successful tryout in New York City, the series was picked up by NBC in April 1935 and broadcast nationally, usually late at night and always on Wednesdays. Cooper stayed on the program until June 1936, when another Chicago writer,
Arch Oboler, took over. By the time Cooper left, the series had inspired about 600 fan clubs.
Cooper's run was characterized by grisly stories spiked with dark, tongue-in-cheek humor, a sort of radio
Grand Guignol
''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in natura ...
. A character might be buried, eaten, or skinned alive, vaporized in a ladle of white-hot steel, absorbed by a giant slurping
amoeba
An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudop ...
, have his arm torn off by a robot, or forced to endure torture, beating or decapitation—always with the appropriate blood-curdling acting and
sound effects
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
.
Though there had been efforts at horror on radio previously (notably ''
The Witch's Tale''), there does not seem to have been anything quite as explicit or outrageous as this on a regular basis. When ''Lights Out'' switched to the national network, a decision was made to tone down the gore and emphasize tamer fantasy and ghost stories.
Only one recording survives from Cooper's 1934–1936 run, but his less gruesome scripts were occasionally rebroadcast. An interesting example is his "Three Men," which became the series' annual Christmas show (a 1937 version circulates among collectors under titles like "Uninhabited" or "Christmas Story"); it has a plot typical of Cooper's gentler fantasies. On the first Christmas after World War I, three Allied officers meet by chance in a train compartment and find one another vaguely familiar. They fall asleep and share a dream in which they are the
Three Wise Men
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 190 ...
searching for Jesus. But is it really a dream? In the best tradition of supernatural twist endings, Cooper has the officers wake to find a strange odor in their compartment—which turns out to be
myrrh and
frankincense.
In the mid-1940s, Cooper's decade-old scripts were used for three brief summertime revivals of ''Lights Out''. The surviving recordings reveal that Cooper was experimenting with both
stream of consciousness
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...
and first-person narration a few years before these techniques were popularized in American radio drama by, among others,
Arch Oboler and
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
. In one tale (''The Haunted Cell'', original broadcast date unknown, rebroadcast 7/20/1946), a murderer describes how the Chicago police try to beat a confession out of him. When that doesn't work, they put him in a jail cell haunted by the ghost of a previous occupant, a smooth gangster named Skeeter Dempsey who describes his own execution and discusses the
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
knowledgeably. In the final twist, the narrator reveals that he has taken Skeeter's advice to commit suicide and is now himself a ghost.
Another story, originally broadcast in March 1935 as "After Five O'Clock" and revived in 1945 as "Man in the Middle," allows us to follow the thoughts of a businessman as he spends a day at the office cheating on his wife with his secretary. The amusing contrast between what the protagonist thinks to himself and what he says out loud to the other characters enlivens one of Cooper's favorite plot devices, the
love triangle.
One radio critic, in reviewing a March 1935 episode that used multiple first-person narrators, said:
Other Cooper scripts are more routine, perhaps in part because the author's attention was divided by other projects. From the summer of 1933 until August 1935, Cooper was NBC Chicago's continuity chief, supervising a staff of writers and editing their scripts. He resigned in order to devote more time to ''Lights Out'' as well as a daily
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
adventure
serial, ''Flying Time''. At various times, he also served on NBC's Program Planning Board, wrote the soap opera ''
Betty and Bob
''Betty and Bob'' is a radio soap opera. The soap opera followed the lives of Betty and Bob Drake. Betty was a secretary who falls madly in love with her boss, bachelor Bob Drake. The two wed and each day, the subject matter dealt with everything ...
'', and commuted weekly to produce another program in Des Moines, Iowa.
From early 1934 to mid 1936, Cooper produced close to 120 scripts for ''Lights Out''. Some episode titles (all from 1935) include "The Mine of Lost Skulls," "Sepulzeda's Revenge," "Three Lights From a Match," "Play Without a Name," and "Lost in the Catacombs" (about a honeymoon couple in Rome who lose their way in the
catacombs
Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire.
Etymology and history
The first place to be referred ...
under the city). Typical plots included:
* A novelist, struggling to write a
locked room mystery
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder ("locked-room murder"), is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perpet ...
, locks himself in his office only to be interrupted by a stranger who resembles the story's murderer.
* A killer named "Nails" Malone has "a conference with his conscience" about the murders he's committed.
* A scientist accidentally creates a giant
amoeba
An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudop ...
that grows rapidly, eats living things (like the lab assistant's cat), and exhibits powers of mind control.
The show benefited tremendously from Chicago's considerable pool of creative talent. The city was, like New York, one of the main centers of radio production in 1930s America. Among the actors who participated regularly during the Cooper era were Sidney Ellstrom, Art Jacobson, Don Briggs, Bernardine Flynn, Betty Lou Gerson, and Betty Winkler. The sound effects technicians frequently had to perform numerous experiments to achieve the desired noises. Cooper once had them build a gallows and wasn't satisfied until one of the sound men personally dropped through the trap. The series had little music scoring save for the thirteen chime notes that opened the program (after a deep voice intoned, "Lights out, everybody!") and an ominous gong which was used to punctuate a scene and provide the transition to another.
A veteran radio dramatist,
Ferrin Fraser
Ferrin Fraser (May 11, 1903 – April 1, 1969 in Lockport (city), New York, Lockport, New York) was a radio scriptwriter and short story author who collaborated with Frank Buck (animal collector), Frank Buck on radio scripts and five books.
Edu ...
, wrote some of the scripts.
The Arch Oboler era
When Cooper departed, his replacement—a young, eccentric and ambitious
Arch Oboler—picked up where he left off, often following Cooper's general example but investing the scripts with his own concerns. Oboler made imaginative use of stream-of-consciousness narration and sometimes introduced social and political themes that reflected his commitment to antifascist liberalism.
Although in later years ''Lights Out'' would be closely associated with Oboler, he was always quick to credit Cooper as the series' creator and spoke highly of the older author, calling him "the unsung pioneer of radio dramatic techniques" and the first person Oboler knew of who understood that radio drama could be an art form.
In June 1936, Oboler's first script for ''Lights Out'' was "Burial Service," about a paralyzed girl who is buried alive. NBC was flooded with outraged letters in response. His next story, one of his most popular efforts, was the frequently repeated "Catwife," about the desperate husband of a woman who turns into a giant feline. He followed with "The Dictator," about Roman emperor
Caligula
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...
. This set the pattern for Oboler's run: For every two horror episodes, he said later, he would try to write one drama on subjects that were ostensibly more serious, usually moral, social, and political issues.
Like Cooper, Oboler was much in demand and highly prolific. While working on ''Lights Out'', he wrote numerous dramatic sketches for variety shows (''
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
''The Chase and Sanborn Hour'' is the umbrella title for a series of American comedy and variety radio shows sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. during the years 1929 to ...
'',
Rudy Vallee
Rudy or Rudi is a masculine given name, sometimes short for Rudolf, Rudolph, Rawad, Rudra, Ruairidh, or variations thereof, a nickname and a surname which may refer to:
People Given name or nickname
*Rudolf Rudy Andeweg (born 1952), Dutch poli ...
's programs), anthologies (''Grand Hotel'', ''
The First Nighter Program
''The First Nighter Program'' was a long-running radio anthology comedy-drama series broadcast from November 27, 1930, to September 27, 1953. The host was Mr. First Nighter (Charles P. Hughes, Macdonald Carey, Bret Morrison, Marvin Miller, Don ...
'', ''The
Irene Rich
Irene Rich (born Irene Frances Luther; October 13, 1891 – April 22, 1988) was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies, as well as radio.
Early life
Rich was born in Buffalo, New York.
At age 17, she wed Elvo Elc ...
Show'') and specials. In August 1936, singer Vallee, then the dean of variety show hosts, claimed that ''Lights Out'' was his favorite series. Oboler occasionally redrafted his ''Lights Out'' scripts for use on Vallee's and other variety hours. A version of Oboler's "Prelude to Murder" starring
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre (; born László Löwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movin ...
and
Olivia de Havilland
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was a British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. ...
was scheduled to air on a November 1936 Vallee broadcast. Other ''Lights Out'' plays that turned up on various late 1930s variety programs included "Danse Macabre" (with
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
), "Alter Ego" (with
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
) and "The Harp."
Oboler met the demand by adopting an unusual scripting procedure: He would lie in bed at night, smoke cigarettes, and improvise into a
Dictaphone
Dictaphone was an American company founded by Alexander Graham Bell
that produced dictation machines. It is now a division of Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Although the name "Dictaphone" is a trademark, it has ...
, acting out every line of the play. In this way, he was able to complete a script quickly, sometimes in as little as 30 minutes, though he might take as long as three or four hours. In the morning, a stenographer would type up the recording for Oboler's revisions. Years later, Rod Serling, who counted radio fantasists like Cooper, Oboler, and
Norman Corwin
Norman Lewis Corwin (May 3, 1910 – October 18, 2011) was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing. His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the ...
among his inspirations, would use a similar process to churn out his many teleplays for ''
The Twilight Zone
''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, su ...
'', a series that in many respects was to television what ''Lights Out'' was to radio.
Despite acclaim for Oboler's dramas, NBC announced it was canceling the series in the summer of 1937—"just to see whether listeners are still faithful to it," according to one press report but also, it seems, to allow the hard-working author a vacation. Another outcry from fans led to the program's return that September for another season.
In the spring of 1938, the series earned a good deal of publicity for its fourth anniversary as a half-hour show when actor
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
, the star of many a Hollywood horror film, traveled to Chicago to appear in five consecutive episodes. Among his roles: an accused murderer haunted by an unearthly woman-like demonic creature (played by
Templeton Fox) urging him to "kill...kill...kill" in "The Dream"; the desperate husband in a rebroadcast of "Catwife"; and a mad, violin-playing hermit who imprisons a pair of women, threatening to murder one and marry the other, in "Valse Triste."
Oboler left in the summer of 1938 to pursue other projects, writing and directing several critically acclaimed dramatic anthology series: ''
Arch Oboler's Plays
''Arch Oboler's Plays'' is a radio anthology series written, produced and directed by Arch Oboler. Minus a sponsor, it ran for one year, airing Saturday evenings on NBC from March 25, 1939, to March 23, 1940, and revived five years later on Mutual ...
'', ''
Everyman's Theatre'', and ''Plays for Americans''. A variety of NBC staff writers and freelancers filled in until ''Lights Out'' was canceled in 1939. NBC Chicago continuity editor Ken Robinson supervised some of the writing. Regular contributors included William Fifield and Hobart Donovan. A recording of the fifth anniversary show survives from this season. Donovan's "The Devil's Due," about criminals haunted by a mysterious stranger, is in keeping with the formula laid down by Cooper.
In 1942, Oboler, needing money, revived the series for a year on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
. Airing in prime time instead of late at night, the program was sponsored by the makers of Ironized Yeast. Most of the ''Lights Out'' recordings that exist today come from this version of the show. For this revival, each episode 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.
Directing and hosting the 1942–43 broadcasts, mostly from New York and Hollywood, Oboler not only reused scripts from his 1936–38 run but also revived some of the more fantasy-oriented plays from his other, more recent anthology series. Some episodes had originally aired on the author's groundbreaking, critically acclaimed 1939–1940 program ''Arch Oboler's Plays'', among them:
* "The Ugliest Man in the World," a sentimental tale of a hideously deformed man seeking love in a cruel world, inspired by Boris Karloff's typecasting in horror roles.
* "Bathysphere," a political thriller about a scientist and a dictator sharing a deep sea diving bell.
* "Visitor from Hades," about a bickering married couple trapped in their apartment by a doppelgänger.
Another unusual script, "Execution," about a mysterious French woman who bedevils the Nazis trying to hang her, had previously aired on Oboler's wartime propaganda series ''Plays for Americans''.
Like Cooper, Oboler made effective use of atmospheric sound effects, perhaps most memorably in his legendary "Chicken Heart," a script that debuted in 1937 and was rebroadcast in 1938 and 1942. It features the simple but effective "thump-thump" of an ever-growing, ever-beating chicken heart which, thanks to a scientific experiment gone wrong, threatens to engulf the entire world. Although the story bears similarities to an earlier Cooper episode (about an ever-growing amoeba that makes an ominous "slurp! slurp!" sound), Oboler's unique choice of monster was inspired by a ''Chicago Tribune'' article announcing that scientists had succeeded in keeping a chicken heart alive for a considerable period of time after its having been removed from the chicken. Recordings of the original radio broadcasts are lost or unavailable, although Oboler later recreated this episode for a record album in 1962. Part of the episode's notoriety stems from a popular standup routine by comedian
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
(on his 1966 album ''
Wonderfulness
''Wonderfulness'' (1966) is the fourth album of stand-up comedy performances by Bill Cosby. The title comes from a catchphrase used in Cosby's television series, ''I Spy''.
This was the first of several Cosby albums to be recorded live at Harr ...
''), an account of his staying up late as a child to listen to scary radio shows against his parents' wishes and being terrified by the chicken heart. Cosby also referenced the episode in a camping episode of ''
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
''Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids'' is an American animated television series created, produced, and hosted (in live action bookends) by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert and himself. Film ...
''.
Other well-remembered Oboler tales, many of them written in the 1930s and rebroadcast in the '40s, include:
* "Come to the Bank," in which a man learns to walk through walls but gets stuck when he tries to rob a vault.
* "Oxychloride X," about a chemist who invents a substance that can eat through anything.
* "Murder Castle," based on the real-life case of
H. H. Holmes
Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861 – May 7, 1896), better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American con artist and serial killer, the subject of more than 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. Until his execution in 1896, he ...
, Chicago's notorious serial killer.
* "Profits Unlimited," a still-relevant allegory on the promises and dangers of capitalism.
* "Spider," in which two men attempt to capture a giant
arachnid
Arachnida () is a class of joint-legged invertebrate animals (arthropods), in the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, camel spiders, whip spiders and vinegaroon ...
.
* "The Flame," a weird exercise in supernatural
pyromania
Pyromania is an impulse control disorder in which individuals repeatedly fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires, to relieve some tension or for instant gratification. The term ''pyromania'' comes from the Greek word (''pyr'', 'fi ...
.
* "Sub-Basement," which finds yet another husband and wife in peril—this time trapped far beneath a department store in the subterranean railway of the
Chicago Tunnel Company
The Chicago Tunnel Company was the builder and operator of a narrow-gauge railway freight tunnel network under downtown Chicago, Illinois. This was regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission as an interurban even though it operated entire ...
.
''Lights Out'' often featured
metafictional humor. Perhaps inspired by Cooper's "The Coffin in Studio B," in which actors rehearsing an episode of ''Lights Out'' are interrupted by a mysterious coffin salesman peddling his wares, Oboler wrote stories like "Murder in the Script Department," in which two ''Lights Out'' script typists become trapped in their building after hours as frightening, unexplained events occur. In "The Author and the Thing," Oboler even plays himself pitted against one of his own monstrous creations.
After the 1942–43 ''Lights Out'', Oboler continued to work in radio (''Everything for the Boys'' and revivals of ''Arch Oboler's Plays'') and pursued a second career in filmmaking, first in the
Hollywood mainstream and then as an independent producer, writing and directing a number of offbeat, low-budget films, including ''
Five
5 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
5, five or number 5 may also refer to:
* AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era
* 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era
Literature
* ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram
* ''5'' (comics), an awa ...
,'' about survivors of a nuclear war, ''
The Twonky,'' a satire of television, and the
3-D film
3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion pict ...
''
Bwana Devil
''Bwana Devil'' is a 1952 American adventure B movie written, directed, and produced by Arch Oboler, and starring Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, and Nigel Bruce. ''Bwana Devil'' is based on the true story of the Tsavo maneaters and filmed wit ...
'', which made a huge profit on a small investment. He dabbled in live television (a six-episode 1949 anthology series, ''Arch Oboler Comedy Theater''), playwriting (''
Night of the Auk
''Night of the Auk'' is a 1956 Broadway drama in three acts written by Arch Oboler. It is a science fiction drama in blank verse about space travelers returning to Earth after the first Moon landing. The play was based on Oboler's radio play ''Roc ...
''), and fiction (''House on Fire''). In 1962, he produced a spoken-word album entitled ''Drop Dead!'' (
Capitol
A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity.
Specific capitols include:
* United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
* Numerous ...
T/ST-1763), which recreated abbreviated versions of his ''Lights Out'' thrillers, including "Chicken Heart" and "The Dark," about a mysterious creeping mist that turns people inside-out. In 1971–1972, Oboler produced a syndicated radio series, ''The Devil and Mr. O'' (he liked for people to call him "Mr. O"), which featured vintage recordings from ''Lights Out'' and his other series with newly recorded introductions by Mr. O himself.
Later revivals
The success of Oboler's 1942–1943 ''Lights Out'' revival was part of a trend in 1940s American radio toward more horror. Genre series like ''
Inner Sanctum,'' ''
Suspense'' and others drew increasingly large ratings. Perhaps with this in mind, NBC broadcast another ''Lights Out'' revival series from New York in the summer of 1945, using seven of Wyllis Cooper's original 1930s scripts. Like Oboler's, this revival aired in the early evening and not late at night, and because of this, it was reported, "only those Cooper scripts which stressed fantasy rather than horror" were broadcast. These included a bloodless ghost story about a man who accidentally condemns his dead wife to haunt a nearby cemetery and "The Rocket Ship", science fiction involving interstellar travel. Cooper, then an advertising executive at New York's Compton Agency, may have had little or nothing to do with the actual broadcasts other than allowing his scripts to be performed.
This was followed by an eight-episode revival in the summer of 1946, from NBC Chicago, although at least one of the scripts is not by Cooper (an adaptation of
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
' "
The Signal-Man
"The Signal-Man" is a first-person horror/mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the ''Mugby Junction'' collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of '' All the Year Round''.
The railway signal-man of the title tells the na ...
"). This series also avoided the use of outright gore. In fact, a review in ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' complained that the premiere episode, "The Seven Plovers", was "a little too serious in content for a thriller" since it included "religious background, philosophical discussion and dream diagnosis ..."
A third series of eight vintage Cooper scripts was scheduled to run in the summer of 1947 as well. Broadcast from Hollywood over ABC Radio, it starred Boris Karloff and was sponsored by Eversharp, whose company president canceled the series after the third episode, apparently unhappy with the gruesome subject matter. The premiere, "Death Robbery", featured Karloff as a scientist who brings his wife back from the dead, only to find she's become a gibbering homicidal maniac. An uncredited
Lurene Tuttle plays the wife. This episode is one of the few surviving examples of Cooper's ''Lights Out'' work that reflects the sort of explicit horror that characterized the original series. Eversharp paid off Cooper for his five unused scripts and ''Lights Out'' ended its long run on network radio.
From 1936 to 1939, Cooper pursued a screenwriting career in Hollywood (his major credits are the screenplay for Universal's 1939 ''
Son of Frankenstein
''Son of Frankenstein'' is a 1939 American horror film that was directed by Rowland V. Lee and stars Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The film is the third in Universal Pictures' ''Frankenstein'' series and is the follow-up to the ...
'' and contributions to the
Mr. Moto
Mr. Moto is a fictional Japanese secret agent created by the American author John P. Marquand. He appeared in six novels by Marquand published between 1935 and 1957. Marquand initially created the character for the ''Saturday Evening Post'', whi ...
mystery series starring Peter Lorre) but continued to work in radio, advertising and, later, television. By 1940, he had changed the spelling of his name from "Willis" to "Wyllis" (to satisfy "his wife's
numerological
Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...
inclinations") and lived mainly in the New York City area where he worked on a number of radio programs, the most important of which was probably Edward M. Kirby's popular and acclaimed government propaganda series, ''The Army Hour,'' which Cooper wrote, produced and directed for its first year.
In 1947, Cooper created ''
Quiet, Please
''Quiet, Please!'' was a radio fantasy and horror program created by Wyllis Cooper, also known for creating '' Lights Out''. Ernest Chappell was the show's announcer and lead actor. ''Quiet, Please'' debuted June 8, 1947 on the Mutual Broadca ...
,'' another radio program dealing with the supernatural, which he wrote and directed until 1949, occasionally borrowing ideas from his ''Lights Out'' stories while creating wholly new scripts that were often more sophisticated than his 1930s originals. In 1949 and 1950, he produced (and contributed scripts to) three live TV series that frequently dealt with the supernatural: ''Volume One'', ''Escape'' and ''Stage 13''.
Television
In 1946,
NBC Television
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
brought ''Lights Out'' to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by
Fred Coe
Frederick Hayden Hughs Coe (December 23, 1914 – April 29, 1979) was an American television producer and director most famous for '' The Goodyear Television Playhouse''/''The Philco Television Playhouse'' in 1948-1955 and ''Playhouse 90'' from 1 ...
, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. ''Variety'' gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but ''Lights Out'' did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Coe initially produced this second series but, for much of its run, the live 1949–1952 program was sponsored by appliance maker
Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...
, produced by Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr., directed by Laurence Schwab, Jr., and hosted by
Frank Gallop
Frank Gallop (June 30, 1900 in Boston, Massachusetts – May 17, 1988 in Palm Beach, Florida) was an American radio and television personality.
Radio
Early days
Frank Gallop went into broadcasting by chance. Born and raised in Boston's Back ...
. Critical response was mixed but the program was successful for several seasons (sometimes appearing in the weekly lists of the ten most watched network shows) until competition from the massively popular sitcom ''
I Love Lucy
''I Love Lucy'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning six seasons. The show starred Lucille Ball, her husband, Desi Arnaz, along with ...
'' on CBS helped to kill it off.
The 1949–1952 series featured scripts by a variety of authors, including a young
Ira Levin
Ira Marvin Levin (August 27, 1929 – November 12, 2007) was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels ''A Kiss Before Dying (novel), A Kiss Before Dying'' (1953), ''Rosemary's Baby (novel), Rosemary's Baby'' ...
. In 1951, producer Swope even bought a few stories from Cooper and Oboler. "Dead Man's Coat," starring
Basil Rathbone
Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume ...
, was adapted from one of Cooper's 1930s plays (and not to be confused with his ''Quiet, Please'' episode "Wear the Dead Man's Coat" with which it shares a similar premise). Oboler's "And Adam Begot," adapted by
Ernest Kinoy
Ernest Kinoy (April 1, 1925 – November 10, 2014) was an American writer, screenwriter and playwright.
Early life
Kinoy was born in New York City on April 1, 1925; his parents, Albert and Sarah Kinoy (formerly Forstadt), were both high-school ...
from a radio play, starred
Kent Smith
Frank Kent Smith (March 19, 1907 – April 23, 1985) was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film, theatre and television.
Early years
Smith was the son of Mr. and Mrs. James E. Smith. He was born in New York City and was educated ...
. Among the young actors employed was
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen (11 February 192628 November 2010) was a Canadian actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters.
Nielsen was bo ...
, who appeared in several episodes including "The Lost Will of Dr. Rant," based on "
The Tractate Middoth", an
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambrid ...
story. These and many others are available on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
.
Other notable guest stars included
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft (born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano; September 17, 1931 – June 6, 2005) was an American actress. Respected for her acting prowess and versatility, Bancroft received an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, tw ...
,
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
,
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an American actress of film, theatre and television. In a career spanning over 70 years, she has won an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, alongside nominations for a Golden Globe Award and two Brit ...
,
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb (born Leo Jacoby; December 8, 1911February 11, 1976) was an American actor, known both for film roles and his work on the Broadway stage. He often played arrogant, intimidating and abrasive characters, but he also acted as respectabl ...
,
Anthony Quinn
Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...
,
Jessica Tandy
Jessie Alice Tandy (7 June 1909 – 11 September 1994) was a British-American actress. Tandy appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe ...
,
Veronica Lake
Constance Frances Marie Ockelman (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973), known professionally as Veronica Lake, was an American film, stage, and television actress. Lake was best known for her femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd ...
,
John Forsythe
John Forsythe (January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, drama teacher and philanthropist whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety s ...
,
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
,
Beatrice Straight
Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American theatre, film and television actress and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was an Academy Award and Tony Award winner as well as an Emmy Award nominee.
...
,
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach (; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. From his 1945 Broadway debut to his last film appearance, Wallach's entertainment career spanned 65 years. Origina ...
,
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, art historian, art collector and gourmet cook. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. Price has two stars on the Hollywood Wal ...
,
Jane Wyatt
Jane Waddington Wyatt ( ; August 12, 1910 – October 20, 2006) was an American actress. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's ''Lost Horizon'', but is likely best known for her role as the housewife and mother Marga ...
, and
Jack Palance
Jack Palance ( ; born Volodymyr Palahniuk ( uk, Володимир Палагню́к); February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American actor known for playing tough guys and villains. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, all fo ...
.
Notable directors included
Delbert Mann
Delbert Martin Mann Jr. (January 30, 1920 – November 11, 2007) was an American television and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film '' Marty'' (1955), adapted from a 1953 teleplay of the same name which h ...
and
Fred Coe
Frederick Hayden Hughs Coe (December 23, 1914 – April 29, 1979) was an American television producer and director most famous for '' The Goodyear Television Playhouse''/''The Philco Television Playhouse'' in 1948-1955 and ''Playhouse 90'' from 1 ...
.
Episodes
Later versions
In 1972, NBC aired yet another TV incarnation of ''Lights Out,'' a TV movie pilot which was not well received. In fact, Oboler (who was then syndicating his ''The Devil and Mr. O'' radio show) announced publicly that he had nothing to do with it.
In 1995, the network announced it was developing a TV movie and "potential miniseries" called ''Lights Out'' which, it was stressed, was "not being adapted from the radio series." Although Oboler retained the rights to his radio scripts, NBC still owns the rights to the series' title.
Despite its modest television success, radio historian John Dunning
suggested that the legend of ''Lights Out'' is firmly rooted in radio.
Influence
*"Chicken Heart," a routine from comedian
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
's album ''
Wonderfulness
''Wonderfulness'' (1966) is the fourth album of stand-up comedy performances by Bill Cosby. The title comes from a catchphrase used in Cosby's television series, ''I Spy''.
This was the first of several Cosby albums to be recorded live at Harr ...
'', includes a (not entirely faithful) retelling of the ''Lights Out'' episode with the same title. As a result, many believe the story originated with Cosby.
*"What the Devil" (1942), about two motorists menaced by a truck whose driver they cannot see, was similar in plot to
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
's TV movie ''
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...
'', adapted by
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science fictio ...
from his own short story. Oboler, feeling his copyright had been infringed, claimed in an interview that he "reached for a lawyer and got paid off by Universal Studios."
[United Press International article by Vernon Scott, October 1986]
*The ''Lights Out'' television episode "The Martian Eyes" starred
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television.
Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "on ...
as a man whose glasses enable him to see Martian invaders who have disguised themselves as normal people. A similar premise in
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
's 1988 film ''
They Live
''They Live'' is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the fil ...
'' was adapted from the story by
Ray Nelson, who reworked the idea from his friend
Philip K. Dick's never-produced film treatment for an episode of ''
The Invaders
''The Invaders'' is an American science-fiction television series created by Larry Cohen that aired on ABC for two seasons, from 1967 to 1968. Roy Thinnes stars as David Vincent, who after stumbling across evidence of an in-progress invas ...
'' TV series.
*''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'' annual ''
Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
'' episode "
Treehouse of Horror V
"Treehouse of Horror V" is the sixth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the fifth episode in the ''Treehouse of Horror'' series. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States ...
" referenced Oboler's "The Dark" about a mysterious
fog
Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influ ...
that turns people inside-out. In the episode, the Simpsons and Groundskeeper Willie turn inside out, and then break into a song and dance number. No recordings of the original broadcasts of "The Dark" have survived, but Oboler recorded a memorable remake for his 1962 stereo album ''Drop Dead!''
*
Wally Phillips
Walter Phillips (July 7, 1925 – March 26, 2008) was an American radio personality best known for hosting WGN's morning radio show from Chicago for 21 years from January 1965 until July 1986, and was number one in the morning slot from 19 ...
, former morning personality for Chicago's
WGN radio, used to play "The Dark" every year on
Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
.
*Jonathan Sims cites Lights Out as an influence for ''
The Magnus Archives
''The Magnus Archives'' is a horror fiction podcast written by Jonathan Sims, directed by Alexander J. Newall, and distributed by Rusty Quill. Sims narrated the podcast in-character as the main character, Jonathan Sims, the newly appointed Hea ...
''.
*''
The NoSleep Podcast
''The NoSleep Podcast'' is an anthology horror fiction podcast.
History overview
NoSleep began as a subreddit, or forum, on Reddit where people would exchange scary stories and frightening experiences. With the popularity of NoSleep, a membe ...
'' has adapted the stories "Death Robbery", "Murder Castle", and "Ghost Party" for episodes of their "Old Time Radio" specials.
*''
Lights Out Podcast'' is a spiritual successor that shares the same dark and horror elements.
See also
*
List of ''Lights Out'' episodes
References
Listen to
Theater of the Ears: ''Lights Out''''Lights Out'', radio series; 86 episodes available for downloadat the Internet Archive
External links
25 Television episodes available for streaming or download''Internet archive'' retrieved 2010 October 23
Selection of ''Lights Out'' radio scripts at Generic Radio Workshop– plot summaries and reviews.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lights Out (Radio Show)
1950s American anthology television series
1930s American radio programs
1940s American radio programs
1946 American television series debuts
1949 American television series debuts
1952 American television series endings
ABC radio programs
American radio dramas
Anthology radio series
Black-and-white American television shows
CBS Radio programs
Fantasy radio programs
Horror fiction radio programmes
NBC original programming
NBC radio programs