You can have your Star Treks, your X-Files and your Expanses. I prefer my SF dramas on radio, partly because I was raised on CBC Radio, BBC World Service and CKMS1, and partly because (as Stan Freberg pointed out) radio’s visual effects are so convincing. We live in a golden age of online archives; many of the classic anthology-style science fiction shows are online. That said, not all radio shows are created equal.
Mutual Broadcasting System’s 2000 Plus (1950 – 1952), for example, is historically significant as the very first anthology-style SF radio. It’s not especially entertaining. The existing archives of CBS’s Beyond Tomorrow (1950), ABC’s Tales of Tomorrow (1953) and ABC’s World Security Workshop (1946 – 1947) are fragmentary or nonexistent.
The Mutual Broadcasting System’s Exploring Tomorrow (1957 – 1958) adapted stories from Astounding Magazine (now Analog Science Fiction and Fact). Astounding editor John W. Campbell served as its announcer, breaking into stories mid-broadcast to comment on the narratives. I found Campbell’s interruptions more distracting than illuminating, but if you’re an Astounding fan or just curious what Campbell sounded like, this is the show for you.
Stargazing in Canada can get you eaten by wolves but we’ve still produced some decent SF, and some of that has been on radio. CBC’s Nightfall (1980 – 1983) and Vanishing Point (1984 – 1991) both drew on published works (often from outside genre) and both had excellent production values. Nightfall was marred by some pretty off-putting misogyny, however, even taking into account the era it is from. Both were very, very Canadian, verging on self-parody; judging by the recurring tropes in Nightfall, the iconic Nightfall story would be one where a vacation in a small town ended with a Toronto woman’s murder at the hands of misguided scientists. While it snowed.
South Africa offered Michael McCabe’s SF 68 (1968), which featured adaptations of stories by authors like Ellison, Le Guin, and Bradbury. The production values were solid. I have no idea how McCabe secured rights for stories by authors I am pretty sure disapproved of Apartheid2. The ads were aimed at housewives, which makes me wonder about the demographics of 1960s-era South African SF fandom.
NPR’s Sci-Fi Radio (1989) only had 26 episodes. Producer Kevin Singer had a pretty good grasp of which magazine stories could be adapted to radio, so it’s a shame he didn’t have a longer run.
There are three shows that stand out over all the others:
WHA’s Mindwebs (1976-1984) was the most delightful surprise of my concerted forage for audio SF. I had no idea it existed and came across it more or less by accident. Helmed by Michael Hanson, it leaned more towards narration than the full cast dramatizations than I prefer. That said, the performances were top-notch. A generation more recent than most classic SF radio shows, it drew from a more contemporary selection of science fiction.
NBC’s Dimension X (1950-1951) and X Minus One (1955-1958) shared a network, some staff and initial source material for scripts. The first fifteen scripts for X Minus One were repurposed Dimension X scripts. Although the shows began by adapting stories from Astounding, X Minus One turned to more sophisticated material from Galaxy Magazine.
Although I was not even born when X Minus One went off the air, thanks to CBC’s habit of broadcasting cheap affordably priced material as filler valuable historical content during the summer, I knew that announcer Fred Collins’ intro—
Count down for blast-off. X minus five… four… three… two… X minus one… Fire!
From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future, adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street & Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine present:
X— X– x– x– MINUS— MINUS –Minus–minus– ONE–ONE– One–one…
—promised twenty-odd minutes of adventure (plus some fascinating ads). Having learned from my ongoing Because My Tears Are Delicious To You reviews that older SF often ages badly, I was bit hesitant to revisit this old favourite, but for the most part it withstood the test of time. I do wonder at the number of Madison Avenue-related stories.
While X Minus One had stronger material overall, Dimension X had what may be the single greatest ad lib in the history of broadcast science fiction. During their June 24, 1950 adaptation of Heinlein’s Destination Moon, immediately following an impassioned plea by one character for world government and global peace, an announcer broke in to inform listeners that North Korea had invaded South Korea. Underlining the need for world peace with a real-world conflict that could very easily have tipped over into a nuclear exchange? That’s the kind of dedication I wish more producers demonstrated.
1: “CKMS?” you ask, “What’s CKMS?” It was the University of Waterloo’s radio station, which broadcast with a magnificent however-many-watts two hamsters on a treadmill could generate. The significant thing about CKMS is that the radio serials it broadcast were the first works I encountered of Tor author James Alan Gardner, whose All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault is on sale now.
2: Listeners uncomfortable about listening to a product of Apartheid-era South Africa should do their best not to remember that almost all of the American shows mentioned herein emerged from Jim Crow-era USA. Not to mention what was going in Canada when Nightfall and Vanishing Point were on the air.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is surprisingly flammable.
I love listening to the old Dimension X and X Minus One shows, especially when they have tales of that far off time 1970 (A Logic Named Joe for example) or humanity’s exploration of Mars in the latter half of the 20th century.
If you are in the US and your library uses Hoopla, they have a crazy large collection of radio dramas (including the X shows), including tons (or would it be tonnes) of Big Finish productions.
The Star Wars Radio Drama on NPR is a must-hear. I most recently got it off a Humble Bundle, but I’m sure it’s acquirable elsewhere.
One of the CD rereleases of the Star Wars Radio drama included interviews with the cast. Most memorable was the one with a young Mark Hamill, who was thrilled to have the opportunity since he doubted he’d ever get the chance to do voice work again.
You’d think podcasts would be a logical place for me to look for more material along this line but there’s so much material out there, I have no idea where to begin.
I listen to Sci-Fi Old Time Radio, streaming from Livonia, Michigan, via the TuneIn Radio app (but it’s available many other places). It regularly has X Minus 1, Dimension X, and Twilight Zone.
James, how on earth do you talk about radio SF and not mention The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
Hitchhikers is a classic science fiction show but it is not a classic anthology-style science fiction show.
Another non-anthology-but classic-SF-show was Hour 25. http://www.hour25.net
Thank you! Although that url does not seem to work for me.
I once made the mistake of beginning the radio sf adventure series Alien Worlds because supposedly JMS (the fellow who created Babylon Five) worked on it. Ha ha. He did one script that was never produced; the rest of the show would have had to get up early and work hard to aspire to be merely terrible.
And if you’re in the mood for a radio documentary about science fiction, I’ve got one for you:
Voices of 1956: Hear Asimov, Bradbury, and Campbell on the State of Science Fiction
You want us to ask about “eaten by wolves”, don’t you? You have a story ready, don’t you?
Okay, I’ll bite.
I guess the old BBC Doctor Who radio shows also don’t qualify as ‘anthology’?
It’s worthwhile keeping an ear on BBC Radio 4 Extra. They don’t run as much science fiction as they used to, but they do run things from a variety of eras. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/categories/drama-scifiandfantasy.
Mindwebs! Yes! Discovered the show when I started college in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1977, and listened (and sometimes taped) every Saturday until they went off air just before I moved a out to Oregon for grad school in 1985. Wonder where those cassettes went?
WHA’s Chapter a Day also did an excellent multi-voice adaptation of A Canticle for Leibowitz that’s also well-worth tracking down on the Internet.
And does anyone else remember NPR’s radio adaptation of Star Wars?
12: Actually, no. A relative used to play with wolves and commented that it was really clear the wolves were aware eating the human was an option if they got peckish, they were never hungry enough to bother.
Now, moose. Those I have stories about.
In 1948 or ’49 (I was 8 or 9) a voice thundered at me out of the radio: “YOU ARE THE DEAD.” After calming down, I learned that was “Big Brother” in what must have been one of the first U.S. broadcasts of *1984*–but I haven’t come across further info. The BBC of course has chapter and verse on their own versions.
Clicking the link @9 doesn’t work because it has an extra space, but if you copy and paste the visible version it works. I fixed the link:
http://www.hour25.net
X— X– x– x– MINUS— MINUS –Minus–minus– ONE–ONE– One–one
This brings back memories! I was lucky enough to have parents who loved old radio and a local radio station that broadcast this and other old radio programs every night at 9:00. I fell asleep to X-minus One at least once a week. Thanks for reminding me of this great show.
And thanks for the great listening finds @2 and @6. But also, curse you! My TBL list is as long as my TBR list now!
I love audio dramas. I am too young to remember the heyday of radio plays, but I got hooked one Saturday night in the 1990s, on a long drive home from reserve duty in Boston, when an episode of NPR’s Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back aired. I mostly buy them on discs, since I am not very good with downloading and podcasting and all that stuff. Favorites from the classic radio days include the above mentioned X minus One, and there are also a lot of good newer ones as well: the various Star Wars audios (see this link for an article I wrote on them: https://www.tor.com/2015/12/16/sounds-of-star-wars-the-audio-dramas/), Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Doctor Who adventures and spinoffs, and I very much like the recent BBC adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Stardust. I usually listen to them in the car, but I am going to have to figure out how to adapt to retirement, as I don’t drive nearly as much as I used to.
Mr Nicoll,
Regarding apartheid South Africa (which, if I recall, one of their politicians said, was inspired by the US’s south), two of their most prominent writers, Alan Paton (Cry the Beloved Country was required reading in my high school 45 years ago) and Nadine Gordimer, were anti-apartheid activists, the latter even joining the ANC. Both dealt with censorship, travel bans, and general low-level government harassment.
Very few countries have histories without periods of government-encouraged rapine, murder, ethnic cleansing, and similar nastiness. If we want to stop reading or listening to their writers, I think we’d be roughly limited to nothing.
And let’s remember, the US was still dealing with segregation issues, even on broadcast televsion in that time period.
I have fond memories of X Minus One, although as repeats in the early 80s. My father was a fan of comedy radio shows, and introduced me to the genre. There was one specific episode of X Minus One that stuck with me all these years, “A Pail of Air,” which I have just now discovered was a Fritz Leiber story. No wonder I thought it was good.
“A Pail of Air” is a story I’ll never forget, but I’m only familiar with the print version. I’m going to have to do some looking for the X Minus One version; that story is perfect for radio drama treatment.
Haha! I think we were at Waterloo together (76-80; when, in fact, my friend Max ran Hitchhiker’s Guide on CKMS! and we played D&D in the control room)
I love that the column starts with a still from Contact!
Coincidentally, I read “A Pail of Air” within the last month.
The internet archive has tons of this stuff and many other old-time radio genres like horror and detective drama. https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles
I remember that in the 1970’s and into the early 1980’s, Lunacon used to have a “Radio Room” where they set up tape players to run episodes of Dimension X and X Minus One throughout the convention. There were always at least a few people in the room at any given time.
Recently I found that Sirius XM has been running episodes of both shows occasionally on the “Classic Radio” channel (just heard the other day an adaptation of “The Roads Must Roll.”) CDs of episodes are also available from an outfit called Radio Spirits.
I remember that Lunacon Radio Room! Heard an H. Beam Piper story there one year, if my memory serves me correctly.
And Canada’s reservation system for categorizing and managing the First Nations.
Just… My first year as a student [1] was 1980. I did later train at CKMS but never went on the air. I still remember the most important lesson I learned there: don’t stand too close to the bulk eraser if you like the magnetic strip on your bank card.
1: My dad taught there so I was on campus off and on since 1961. I saw my first dead body there in 1968! Guy in a VW bug pulling out onto Columbia got t-boned by a Ford. Basically crushed the bug like a tin can. Very interesting for a seven year old.
Many years ago, when camping in probably Killbear or Ipperwash, we were listening to a science fiction radio show called (I believe) the Night Raiders of Kalamar…Just wondering if anyone has heard of it? I have googled a lot, but no luck.
I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to answer the last question in case anyone is still checking it. “Night Riders of Kalimar” was an episode of the late-’70s radio series “Alien Worlds” about the crew of a space station. You can find out more about it here:
http://www.otrplotspot.com/alienWorlds.html
Eaten by wolves? Isn’t the real risk being exsanguinated and tortured to death by black flies
It would only dip into the SF genre once a season or so, but the old radio comedy “The Navy Lark” is also well worth a listen. And it stars Jon Pertwee, Who may have had a sf roll or two in his time. Anything past the first two seasons is a pretty good bet, and it would generally roll across every genre from 1960s spy shows to old fashioned Hammer Horror plots, no genre would be left un-parodied and poked fun at.
I can remember back in the 90’s, there was a string of science fiction serials broadcast by my local NPR station. They were newly produced (I think by a small company in upstate NY). They were a bit surreal. Some of the few details I can recall was a character that was a “Frankie” (A sapient robot or manufactured person) and a talking car name Mustafa.
Does this trigger any brain cells for anyone?
Been looking for that one for years! Found it!
Ruby, the Intergalactic Gumshoe, by ZBS Productions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_the_Galactic_Gumshoe