Isn radio drama a dead artistic medium, mainly produced in the early days of mass media before television took over?
Well, it’s true that the popular peak of radio drama happened 30 years before I was born, which is why it’s so often associated with “Old-Time Radio” to the point where the terms are almost synonymous for many people. But video most certainly did not kill the radio star. The tradition was kept alive though the 1970s by shows like “The CBS Radio Mystery Theater” and the late, lamented Douglas Adams’ “The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy,” and continues today with Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and the Firesign Theater. Those are the most widely known names, but by no means the only ones; Jerry Stearns of Great Northern Audio has a voluminous page of other radiodrama shows on the web you might want to look at. (And as long as I’m plugging other shows, you ought to check out these websites on Joe Frank; Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater radio dramas (including the famous “War of the Worlds”); Welles’ “The Black Museum,” and the 1930s-era The Shadow.
Well, it’s true that the popular peak of radio drama happened 30 years before I was born, which is why it’s so often associated with “Old-Time Radio” to the point where the terms are almost synonymous for many people. But video most certainly did not kill the radio star. The tradition was kept alive though the 1970s by shows like “The CBS Radio Mystery Theater” and the late, lamented Douglas Adams’ “The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy,” and continues today with Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and the Firesign Theater. Those are the most widely known names, but by no means the only ones; Jerry Stearns of Great Northern Audio has a voluminous page of other radiodrama shows on the web you might want to look at.
