Retro Radio: Old Time Radio in the Dark

His fiancée disappears without a trace the night they were supposed to set their wedding date, and the deeper Peter digs, the closer he gets to a secret the government would rather keep buried.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Vanishing Lady” (February 23, 1978) ***WD00:47:12.759 = Lux Radio Theater, “Strangers On a Train” (December 03, 1951)01:42:29.027 = Macabre, “Man In The Mirror” (November 27, 1961) ***WD02:11:29.529 = Philip Marlowe, “Ladies Night” (February 21, 1950)02:42:27.542 = The Black Mass, “Nightmare” (January 18, 1964) ***WD03:09:50.427 = Michael Shayne, “Date With a Wedding” (May 14, 1945) ***WD03:39:01.077 = Beyond Midnight, “Sheriff’s Wife” (1969) ***WD (LQ)04:07:02.485 = Mindwebs, “When It Changed” (1976-1984) ***WD04:34:02.016 = Mystery In The Air, “Horla” (August 21, 1947) ***WD05:03:52.064 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0698

Step right up, Weirdos! Got a strange idea rattling around in your skull — a haunting nobody believes, a cryptid your uncle swears he saw, some true-crime case that still keeps you up at night? Jukebox Weirdo turns it into a real, honest-to-goodness song. You bring the weird, you pick the band off the Weird Darkness Records roster, and I write it and produce it — with your name on the idea. And if it's a keeper, I'll send it out to Spotify, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and everywhere else, so you can crank it for everybody you know and holler, "THAT'S my song!" Want in? Become an Official Weirdo at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL and send me your idea. Let's make something strange together!

A young woman hired to care for an invalid widow in a crumbling Hudson River mansion soon learns why her brooding employer forbids every mirror in the house—and why the dogs are always watching.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Reflected Terror” (February 10, 1978) ***WD00:46:05.827 = Deep Night CBC, “Ice Screams” (August 05, 2005)01:20:02.229 = Calling All Detectives, “The Necktie” (1947)01:29:12.083 = The Devil and Mr. O, “Balance Sheet” (December 24, 1971(01:59:18.938 = Diary of Fate, “Walter Vincent” (May 25, 1948) ***WD02:28:14.559 = Dimension X, “The Parade” (August 25, 1950) ***WD02:55:28.216 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “The Man Who Lived Twice” (January 30, 1945) ***WD03:08:09.231 = The Eleventh Hour, “Bomb” (ADU)03:34:51.891 = Escape, “Action” (July 21, 1949)04:04:04.818 = Murder By Experts, “The Big Money” (July 25, 1949)04:33:28.472 = Exploring Tomorrow, “Diamond Mountain of Venus / aka Inferiority” (June 04, 1958)04:53:28.724 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0695

Four aged friends gather in an eccentric doctor's shadowed study, where he offers each of them a single glass of water he swears was drawn from the Fountain of Youth.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” (February 07, 1978) ***WD00:47:39.915 = Arch Oboler’s Plays, “Engulfed Cathedral” (May 06, 1939) ***WD01:17:52.594 = BBC Radio 4/Radio 7 Ghost Story, “Jonas” (mid 1970s)02:46:16.760 = Night Beat, “They” (August 17, 1951)03:15:39.186 = Beyond The Green Door, “Mrs Curlew — Poisoner Marries Major” (1966) ***WD03:19:27.495 = The Black Book, “My Favorite Corpse” (February 24, 1952) ***WD03:35:06.168 = *SHOW NAME UNKNOWN*, “Black Ghost” (1930) ***WD04:01:09.186 = Barry Craig, “The Judge And The Champ” (October 17, 1951) ***WD04:31:00.486 = Box 13, “The Hot Box” (December 26, 1948)04:57:42.628 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0693

A fragile young mother, alone with her infant daughter in a remote old mill, becomes certain that something is moving in the deep black pool behind her bedroom wall, and that the villagers fighting to keep it filled know exactly what it wants.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Ice Palace” (January 31, 1978) ***WD00:46:31.886 = BBC Radio 4 Spinechillers, “Witch Water Green” (1984) ***WD01:43:45.218 = Strange Wills, “Girl From Shadowland” (August 10, 1946)02:13:05.441 = Strange, “Phantom Wagoneer” (March 21, 1955) ***WD02:26:39.689 = Suspense, “Portrait Without a Face” (March 02, 1944) ***WD02:57:22.906 = Tales of the Frightened, “Man in a Raincoat” (1957)03:02:18.144 = The Creaking Door, “A Day of Truce” (October 12, 1964) ***WD (LQ)03:32:29.501 = The Saint, “Murder On The High Seas” (October 01, 1947)03:56:44.596 = Theater Five, “A Little Piece of Candle” (November 18, 1964)04:16:57.180 = Theater 1030, “The Thing In The Hall” (1968-1971) ***WD04:46:19.007 = Tales From The Tomb, “Don’t Drink With Strangers (1960s)04:49:56.396 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0691

At her own party, a wealthy widow watches her trusted investment counselor's fingers close around a small copper idol — the Queen of Thieves — as if the little goddess had reached out of the shadows and chosen him for her own.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Ranee of Rajputana” (January 24, 1978) ***WD00:47:42.858 = Mr. Keen, “the Boy Who Used Big Words” (February 10, 1944) ***WD01:16:48.935 = Murder at Midnight, “Black Swan” (August 18, 1947)01:44:05.862 = The Black Museum, “Shilling” (1952) ***WD02:09:13.868 = Mysterious Traveler, “Stranger In The House” (January 29, 1952)02:40:26.038 = Mystery House, “Murder Takes Practice” (April 21, 1946) ***WD03:07:28.614 = Night Beat, “Antonio’s Return” (July 13, 1951) ***WD03:36:51.555 = Nightfall, “After Sunset” (April 29, 1983)04:03:47.330 = Obsession, “Dynamite” (October 09, 1950) ***WD04:34:36.912 = Pat Novak For Hire, “Jack of Clubs” (February 20, 1949) ***WD05:04:05.819 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0689

A dying woman swears there's a prowler downstairs, but what her husband finds in the dark kitchen is a timid little ghost who can't remember why he's come.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Forgetful Ghost” (January 23, 1978) ***WD00:46:42.148 = Philip Marlowe, “Grim Echo” (February 14, 1950)01:16:14.347 = Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, “The Ghost To Ghost Matter” (May 18, 1958) ***WD01:41:29.916 = The Black Mass, “Ash Tree” (December 18, 1963) ***WD02:11:43.744 = Michael Shayne, “Big Voice Means a Big Body” (May 07, 1945)02:42:36.427 = Beyond Midnight, “The Yellow Room” (June 06, 1969) ***WD03:13:43.776 = MindWebs, “Desertion” (February 18, 1982)03:44:37.897 = Mystery In The Air, “The Marvelous Barastro” (August 07, 1947)04:13:52.519 = Molle Mystery Theater, “Follow That Cab” (April 19, 1946)04:43:19.587 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0688This #RetroRadio episode, "A Ghost Who Forgot Why He Came, a Dying Wife, a Final Anniversary," gathers nine vintage old-time-radio broadcasts of mystery, horror, and the supernatural — from a haunted ash tree in 17th-century England to a converted man walking the crushing surface of Jupiter.The CBS Radio Mystery Theater opens the night with "The Forgetful Ghost," in which a dying Eve Gordon wakes her husband Sam in the small hours, certain a prowler is moving through their locked-up house — but when Sam creeps down to the dark kitchen with his hickory walking stick raised, the intruder turns out to be a meek, see-through little man named Peter Pruitt, a ghost who can't recall why he was sent or whom he came to fetch, even as the couple's fortieth wedding anniversary draws closer by the hour. Host E.G. Marshall, a script by Ian Martin, and Mandel Kramer in the lead carry this January 23, 1978 tale of a haunting that proves gentler, and far stranger, than it first appears.Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe takes the wheel in "The Grim Echo," skidding off a blizzard-blind mountain road and into a snow-filled culvert directly in front of Echo Lodge — the one place on earth where the name Philip Marlowe is pure poison. Six months earlier Marlowe shot and killed Virgil Barucki in a Los Angeles alley, and now the storm has trapped him with Barucki's grieving widow Helen, his sister Donna, his mother, and the handyman Ralph Tolman, while an "accidental" cabin explosion and a stolen .38 revolver make it clear that someone inside Echo Lodge wants him frozen, or dead. Gerald Mohr stars in this February 14, 1950 chiller.Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar sends the freelance insurance investigator with the action-packed expense account into "The Ghost To Ghost Matter," after a frantic Oscar Trimley telephones from the sleepy mill town of Lake City, New Jersey, swearing that Ian McAndrews — the town's founder, dead five years and already paid out at $55,000 on his life policy — has come back to haunt the streets. Every midnight the old clock tower strikes thirteen, bats pour from the belfry, and a wail rises over the lake, so Dollar brings along old flame Nancy Turner to size up a town that insists its founder's ghost simply won't rest. Bob Bailey stars in this May 18, 1958 mystery out of Hartford, Connecticut.The Black Mass adapts M.R. James's classic "The Ash Tree," set at Castringham Hall in Suffolk, England, where the witch trials of 1690 brought the hanging of Mrs. Mothersole — condemned largely on the testimony of Sir Matthew Fell, who swore he watched her climb the great ash tree beside the house at the full of the moon to cut twigs with a peculiarly curved knife. When Sir Matthew is found dead and black in his bed beneath that same tree, the curse the witch promised begins working its way down through the generations of the Fell family and through whatever still lives inside the hollow trunk of the ash. A December 18, 1963 telling of one of the most quietly horrifying ghost stories ever written.The Adventures of Michael Shayne brings private detective Mike Shayne and his secretary Phyllis Knight into "Big Voice Means a Big Body," when 230-pound opera star Madame Jolene Toulot sweeps into the office waving an anonymous letter that threatens her life if she publishes her scandalous tell-all memoirs. With a roster of suspects who'd all rather stay out of the book — old suitor Roderick MacKenzie of the Newport MacKenzies, ex-husband and aspiring congressman Edwin Buck, rival soprano Leonora Baril, and the maestro Savadel — Shayne heads to the Figaro Theatre for a double bill of Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, where the diva's fifth farewell performance takes a fatal turn. Wally Maher and Cathy Lewis star in this May 7, 1945 case.Beyond Midnight, the eerie South African series, presents "The Yellow Room," in which the avowed atheist Ronald Todd accepts a wager from the elderly Mrs. Watts: one thousand pounds to spend a single night, entirely alone, in the haunted north wing of Chancellors — the very room where the ghost-hunting sixth Duke of Wallingford lost his sanity and a captain of the Hussars leapt to his death. Over Father Doyle's warnings, Todd is locked in with seven candles for company and a copy of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and as the clock passes midnight the candles begin going out one by one. Michael McCabe produced this June 6, 1969 broadcast.MindWebs turns to science fiction with Clifford Simak's "Desertion," set in Dome Number Three of the Jovian Survey Commission on the surface of Jupiter, where the planet's crushing fifteen thousand pounds per square inch of pressure and its ammonia rains make unprotected human life impossible. To conquer it, Kent Fowler has been converting his men into "lopers," the planet's native life form — but four men have already loped out into the howling gale two by two and never come back, and now young Harold Allen is next through Miss Stanley's converter. When Fowler at last sends out his own aging dog, Towser, the truth about why no one returns finally begins to surface. A February 18, 1982 reading hosted by Michael Hansen.Mystery in the Air stars Peter Lorre in Ben Hecht's "The Marvelous Barastro," opening as the magician and hypnotist Barastro walks into the office of criminal lawyer Amos G. Hall and calmly announces that he intends to commit a murder before the night is out. His target is Rico Sansoni, a rival hypnotist who once stole away the affections of Barastro's blind wife Anna by studying and mastering the magician's own voice — close enough to deceive even her in the dark. As Barastro recounts hunting his enemy from country to country and city to city, the line between the two illusionists grows harder and harder to draw. An August 7, 1947 broadcast sponsored by Camel cigarettes.Molle Mystery Theater closes the night on a lighter note with the comedy "Follow That Cab," starring two New York City cabbies, Mo and Julius, who have read so many issues of Absolutely Authentic True Crime Fiction — and idolized its hero, detective Daniel Daremore — that they're convinced they can crack any case. When a fare leaps from the cab without paying and a song publisher named Larkin turns up shot dead in his apartment, the pair wipe away the fingerprints to make the murder "more baffling," let their prime suspect walk, and bumble their way toward a stolen song called "Joan," a desperate songwriter named Boynton, and a mysterious redhead. Written by Sid and Larry Sloan, this April 19, 1946 farce sends up the whole hardboiled detective genre with host Jeffrey Barnes presiding.

In 1981, National Public Radio turned the biggest movie in the world into a thirteen-episode radio epic that went on to break the network's listening records. George Lucas sold the rights for a single dollar and handed over the original sound effects and John Williams' score, letting a full cast bring the galaxy to life in sound alone. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised Luke Skywalker and C-3PO in a sweeping retelling that expands well beyond the film — the original Star Wars as you've never heard it.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:02:26.702 = Episode 01: A Wind To Shake The Stars00:29:28.616 = Episode 02: Points of Origin00:57:12.772 = Episode 03: Black Knight, White Princess and Pawns01:24:56.510 = Episode 04: While Giants Mark Time01:52:19.601 = Episode 05: Jedi That Was, Jedi To Be02:19:58.041 = Episode 06: The Millennium Falcon Deal02:46:11.104 = Episode 07: The Han Solo Solution03:11:18.777 = Episode 08: Death Star’s Transit03:39:30.428 = Episode 09: Rogues, Rebels and Robots04:07:04.628 = Episode 10: The Luke Skywalker Initiative04:31:53.682 = Episode 11: The Jedi Nexus04:58:33.511 = Episode 12: The Case For Rebellion05:26:28.922 = Episode 13: Force And Counter Force05:54:27.266 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRRSW01