When I was a kid we had a blue Bakelite radio made, I recall, by Western Electric. No TV. Just a radio. And that was okay because, for one thing I didn’t know about TV, and for another, every so often during the week I got to listen to some great radio programs. The Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, Hopalong Cassidy, the Shadow and others kick-started my imagination and taught me the power of a narrative.
Thanks to the marvellous Internet Archive [1], you can now listen to some of these “Old Time Radio” shows. The basic start page [2] offers you a chance to browse by title, look at the latest additions to the radio archive, choose one of the most popular downloads, or pick a staff pick.
There’s Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes [3], dozens and dozens of Superman [4] (which began with this catch line, “faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets”), The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet [5], Perry Mason [6], and much much more, as they say.
When you find what you like, you can either listen to it online, using the provided player, download the MP3s, or stream a program in hi- or lo-fi.
And just in case there are some of you who simply must have pictures to go along with your story, here’s a link to the Internet Archive’s collection of 23 animated movies of Superman [7] (“faster than a streak of lightening, more powerful than the pounding surf, mightier than a hurricane” — no kidding: 1942).