Boris Karloff and LIGHTS OUT: The 1938 Proposal

It was the spring of 1934. Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy had been on the radio waves for only eight months and the script writer, having completed over 100 scripts of the radio serial, was showing signs of wear. Executives at Blackett-Sample-Hummert, Inc., the advertising agency representing the sponsor, General Mills, was seeking a new script writer to take over the assignment. In May of 1934, Arch Oboler, then a resident of Chicago, Illinois, where the children’s radio program originated, was approached with an offer to take over the scriptwriting chores. 

Oboler listened to the program for a week, reviewed sample radio scripts, and provided a critique. Oboler claimed the Jack Armstrong program lacked the lighter, humorous touches that were so characteristic of high school activities and proposed (should he be accepted for the assignment) to introduce a new character to the program for comic relief: Sammy “Fat” Wells. Sammy would, as it turns out, become the best football player Hudson High ever had, despite the fact that Sammy was full of harmless pranks and bubbling with laughter. Oboler wrote a multi-page “General Synopsis of Future Story Development” and submitted it to the ad agency. The agency promptly declined. Oboler’s proposal was not off the tracks, but certainly not in the direction the producers (and the sponsor) were looking for. Oboler never wrote for Jack Armstrong.

Historical hypotheticals applied, this was perhaps for the best for Arch Oboler’s future would soon be cemented with a radio horror program called Lights Out. Had Oboler received the assignment from the agency, and wrote for the daily serial, he might not have ventured into the field of radio horrors… and Lights Out might have become a different program than we know it today.

Today, as fans of old-time radio often associate Oboler with the horror anthology, he has been erroneously cited as the creator of Lights Out. That duty should properly belong to Wyllis Cooper.

According to an article in the November 28, 1933, issue of Variety, Wyllis Cooper conceived the idea of “a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour.” Radio station WENR, a Chicago affiliate of NBC, agreed to give Cooper a 15-minute time slot at midnight, while the competing radio stations were primarily focused on music. More fantasy and supernatural than mystery, Cooper’s tales generated a number of letters from radio listeners concerned about the spooky offerings. The network reviewed those letters and confirmed what they were curious to know: were people listening at such a late-night hour? Within four months the program expanded to a 30-minute time slot and the station sought sponsorship from a local business. After a year of terrifying late-night bedtime stories, and no sponsor having signed on the bottom line, the program was dropped in order to ease Cooper’s scriptwriting workload – especially since another of Cooper’s programs, Immortal Dramas, was sponsored by a major advertising company. The Lights Out program was brought back to the airwaves a few weeks later in spotted increments, including an unsuccessful tryout in New York City to take the program nationwide, and finally picked up nationally in April 1935 over NBC. Cooper remained the role writer through May of 1936, when he accepted an offer to go to Hollywood and write screenplays.

Very little survives from the Chicago-Wyllis Cooper era but a number of his 1934-1935 radio scripts would later be recycled for use on Fantasies from Lights Out (summer of 1945), two additional revivals of the series in the summers of 1946 and 1947, and a number of episodes of Quiet Please (1947-1949). Cooper’s style of more often a first-person narrative, sometimes with a stream-of-consciousness approach. 

Beginning with the broadcast of June 3, 1936, Arch Oboler would take over as the new script writer for Lights Out. Oboler, hoping to maintain the style of Cooper, carried over the stream-of-consciousness technique for many of his radio scripts. Oboler would be paid $50 for every half-hour script he provided to NBC, later contracted to $75 beginning November 18, 1936, then $100 by September of 1937. Oboler would not be the only script writer for Lights Out during this time period, but he certainly wrote the majority of the scripts.

Oboler’s first script for Lights Out would ultimately become the most talked about over the years, “Burial Services,” broadcast June 3, 1936. Because a recording is not known to exist, we have only the radio script to consult. Following the signature opening of 13 chime notes, the audience is introduced to two grave diggers who were asked to prepare a coffin for services. The young girl, Jeanie, died of apparent heart failure on the morning of her wedding day. In the background, the pleas of the young girl who lay comatose, paralyzed, unable to speak or move, begged to be heard or observed. But the casket remained closed as the men and women who gathered for the burial service, exchanged words of encouragement to each other. For the benefit of the audience, the inner thoughts of those same characters revealed a different story. Jeanie’s mother wanted the girl dead to inherit a fortune. Tom Randolph, Jeanie’s fiancé, now finds himself the adoration of Jeanie’s sister, Irene. The only kind words spoken during the drama was that of the minister, who delivered his speech. At the conclusion of the drama, Jeanie gave one last attempt to alert the men and women who attended the burial service, but the casket was closed shut. As the casket was lowered in the grave, and the minister delivered the final words, one of the undertaker’s assistants remarked, “Gosh, Joe! She did look alive!”

Following the broadcast, the network received letters from multiple listeners who felt the horror was too realistic and should not have been broadcast. Despite the fact the program was a late-night horror offering designed for a specific clientele, it would be this incident that Oboler would later be prompted to issue a warning before every Lights Out broadcast that he scripted during the 1942-43 season. (“Lights Out brings you stories of the supernatural and the super-normal… dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown. We tell you this frankly so if you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays, we urge you, calmly but sincerely, to turn off your radio now.”)

Arch Oboler and Boris Karloff

Like Cooper, Oboler would soon make the trip out to Hollywood to write for numerous programs including the Rudy Vallee variety program, The Chase and Sanborn Program starring Edgar Bergen, Your Hollywood Parade, The Texaco Star Theatre program, and the Good News program. Among the many dramatic sketches which Oboler would provide for the guest stars on those programs, Oboler would pen the now-historically-notorious “Adam and Eve” sketch that featured Mae West in the lead.

In the spring of 1938, Boris Karloff signed contract to make five guest appearance on Lights Out, a program which rarely had any celebrities make guest appearances. Known for playing killers and ghouls on the silver screen, the actor’s appearances on any horror program were considered gold for both sponsors and the network. Arch Oboler was being paid $500 per Lights Out radio script in 1938, and the network agreed to pay $750 per script if Boris Karloff played the lead. (Contract between Oboler and NBC was dated March 28, 1938.) The five broadcasts originated from WMAQ, the radio studio in Chicago, where Karloff was in town for the stage production of The Tell-Tale Heart.

Among those five consecutive broadcasts were two that are noteworthy to mention for the fact that the radio broadcasts do not exist in collector hands. In “Three Matches” (April 13, 1938), young Sally Taylor is slated to marry the wealthy Eric Marden (played by Boris Karloff), whom no one in society likes. Marden is 30 years older than Sally. At the cathedral Marden waits impatiently for Sally to arrive, only to discover she was a no-show. A telegram arrived indicating that she was appreciative for him helping her, and Sally’s sister, Jean, but she could not marry Marden on the grounds that she truly loved Vincent Rogers. When the members of the family learn the news, Marden is subjected to laughter and embarrassment. 

One month later, the newlyweds return from their honeymoon. To show no hard feelings, Marden invites the lovebirds to his cabin high up in the mountains, away from society. The countryside was lonely and desolate. When Vincent and Sally share a laugh, the psychotic Marden Marden takes the laughing personal and pulls a gun, shooting Vincent and Sally dead. After arranging for the car to go over the cliff and explode, burning in a rubble, Marden laughs madly as he plans to marry Jean Taylor. 

Weeks pass and Marden woos the young lady, then arranges for marriage. After the wedding, the two venture to Marden’s lonely countryside cabin. Jean flees into the storm to escape, realizing she made an error in judgement. Marden, however, in trying to stay warm and figuring Jean will return when she realizes she has nowhere to go, lights a number of matches to get a fire started in the fireplace. Every time he lit a match, he caught a glimpse of Sally and hears her ghostly voice. When the ghostly figure shows up at the door, Marden beckons her in. He soon discovers that, as she held him in embrace, her wedding dress was on fire. Her face turned into flames. Eric Marden suffers a horrible and agonizing pain. As his body, scorched and dead, lay on the ground, the voice of Sally could be heard with a triumphant finality in the way she speaks: “Eric… Now there’s nothing left of you… to rot!”

In the episode titled “Night on the Mountain” (broadcast April 20, 1938), Karloff played a convicted felon named Roger Thomson who, having been found guilty of murder, was electrocuted in the chair – but not before begging for a second chance. Lying in the morgue, Thomson discovers the electric that coursed through his veins never killed him but instead made his blood bubble. Thomson was now a walking vampire who bit the neck of the doctor, the prison guard and anyone else who stood in his way. Drinking the blood of his victims, to stay alive, the killer hid in a cave up in the mountains, where bats flew out to feed. Thomson waited until the police dragnet died down and then made for the cabin in the woods. Hoping to seek revenge against a woman named Ruth, who Thomson loved and killed for, the walking vampire wandered the forest and grew so weak that at one point he had to attack a young boy and drink the youth’s blood. During his climatic encounter with Ruth, Thomson discovers she was indeed in love with him – not the man he killed who he thought was her secret lover. Not wanting to exact revenge against her, Thomson returned to the prison where the warden once again had to walk his condemned man to the electric chair – and this time Thomson is begging for the electric current.

Boris Karloff’s friendship with Arch Oboler remained more professional than personal. Karloff enjoyed acting before the microphone as it never affected his screen career and such acting assignments added income to his bottom line. After a brief discussion, Oboler and Karloff agreed to continue a series of horror dramas, penned by Oboler, using the Lights Out! name, if Oboler would be able to get a sponsor to afford Karloff’s fee.

In a letter dated May 18, 1938, Oboler told Karloff that “the fantasy series is still doing well; they tell me it should happen by the end of July.” On August 30, Oboler wrote to Karloff: “Believe it or not, the R and R agency is even more enthusiastic about the program than ever. I’m to have a conference with the sponsor sometime within the next few days at which time definite plans for the fall are to be made.”

Sadly, the deal never went through. On December 23, Oboler wrote back to Robert Kendall of NBC notifying the network that “I am cancelling the agreement dated March 28^th, 1938, authorizing you to sell my services on a program titled Lights Out starring Boris Karloff.” Sadly, the proposed weekly series with Karloff in the lead never met fruition.

THE GREEN HORNET: The Case Study About Muggs

Even fans of The Green Hornet radio program may not be aware of a recurring character known as Muggs, who made his first appearance on the program with the broadcast of November 17, 1936, revealing his prior association with Mike Axford, who resented the shady character. Muggs was only on the program for a year and because the first two years of the radio program was not recorded on a regular basis, few are aware of Muggs. Here is a quick rundown about the character.

Britt Reid took advantage of Muggs when he made his second appearance on the program (December 1, 1936), framing him for a crime he did not commit in order to see a large-scale racketeer sent to prison. Ed Lowry, who made it his business to know a number of underworld informants, later confessed that Muggs was one of them. A shady but lovable Damon Runyon-style character on the series, Muggs was small in size and often repeated that he was always misjudged, a child of fate. “I never was guilty as they made me out,” he explained. “I been abused all me life, s’help me. I been abused.” 

Muggs was a wanted man in St. Louis, Missouri. He forgot which house was his late one evening and discovered his mistake — to his advantage. He was in a house loaded with jewels so he fled the state before the cops could catch him. Throughout the series he remained in New York City to avoid arrest and conviction in the Midwest. Casey liked Muggs, even telling Axford that “he’s cute”” in one episode. Muggs, in turn, referred to Miss Case as “Toots.”

 

For the broadcast of December 24, 1936, Muggs made his third appearance and tried to explain to Miss Case why he was in prison.

 

CASE: So you’ve been in jail, eh Muggs?

 

MUGGS: Yere, but don’t make no cracks about it, see? I done somet’n dat I’m proud of. It’s de Green Hornet dat ast me tuh take a short rap.

 

CASE: The Green Hornet! Good grief!

 

MUGGS: Yere, I t’ought dat’d make yuh open dem high power eyes.

 

CASE: Never mind my eyes!

 

MUGGS: Okay, Toots.

 

CASE: An’ cut out the Toots!

 

MUGGS: All right, all right, but lemme tell yuh, by takin’ a short rap in de big house, I helped dat Green Hornet send some real crooks down fer keeps, s’help me! I done a good turn, dat’s what! But now I’m a free man! 

 

When Kato was in Japan visiting family, Muggs appeared in six consecutive episodes. On the broadcast of August 24, 1937, Reid admitted that Muggs was a first-class substitute for the Oriental. Muggs served as a general handyman — except for cooking, which Axford handled with care. Muggs spoke with metaphorical proverbs such as “It’s de end of a beautiful friendship,” “I’m heapin’ coals o’ fire on yer head,” and “I’m filled wit news and bubblin’ over.” This, of course, drove Axford up the wall, but he later admitted after Muggs left that he was going to miss the little guy. (During the broadcast of August 26, 1937, Reid prepared the Black Beauty and comments, “I’ll be glad as Axford to see Kato back. This black beauty begins to show the lack of Kato’s care.”)

 

On the broadcast of September 7, 1937, Reid explains to Axford the reason why Muggs left town (and the radio program, never to return again). It seems Muggs went west to help the senior Reid straighten out his tangle in the oil fields, so Britt paid for the one-way ticket. Axford remarked, “Wit’ Muggs helping him, he won’t never git things straightened around out there. The chances are he’ll be there from now on.”

NOTES: The above contains excerpts from The Green Hornet: A History of Radio, Motion-Pictures, Comics and Television, by Terry Salomonson and Martin Grams, Jr.

BAT MASTERSON: Archiving the Television Series

Lawman, Indian fighter, scout and professional gambler. That's the way Bat Masterson was portrayed on a television program starring Gene Barry in the title role, broadcast over NBC from 1959 to 1961. The classic Western television series was produced by ZIV-TV, famous for producing such classics as Science Fiction Theater, I Led Three Lives, Highway Patrol and Sea Hunt.

The program featured Masterson's adventures through the pioneering West, meeting criminals and beautiful women along the way. With a derby hat, a gold-topped cane and clothes that fancied himself as a dandy, the program ran a total of three seasons. Along the way, Barry went on strike for merchandising which was never extensively detailed in his salary contract. For your amusement, here are some archival letters and telegrams that reveal some fascinating behind-the-scenes trivia. (Remember to click on the photo to enlarge.)

The Lost Radio Adventures of "RENFREW OF THE MOUNTED"

After a healthy run over CBS as a five-times-a-week serial, Renfrew of the Mounted returned to the air as a weekly half-hour adventure program over NBC-Blue. Launched on the evening of January 7, 1939, the network agreed to produce a 30-minute weekly program with the hope that a sponsor would be interested in signing on the bottom line. Producer Phil Goldstone of Criterion Pictures, responsible for the big screen adventures of Renfrew, created a momentary stir when he consulted the network about a clause in his contract that stipulated his rights to have a market tie-in with the cast of the motion pictures. To avoid conflict of interest with the movie studio, executives at NBC-Blue agreed to allow James Newill, the screen Renfrew, to play the starring role if the program moved to the West Coast. In the meantime, the new half-hour format would originate from the studios in New York City, known to all interests as “a substitute cast,” although House Jameson and Brad Barker were merely reprising their roles from the 1936–37 series.

 

George Ludlam was hired to write the scripts, based on 14-page plot summaries by Laurie York Erskine, who had no time to write two drafts of a weekly half-hour radio script. Ludlam, an experienced script writer with such credits as For Men Only and Spy at Large under his belt, would eventually go on to establish The Adventures of Superman for radio in early 1940. Without the continuation format of a daily serial, these half-hour stories were superior on many levels.

 

The adventures dramatized during the half-hour rendition of Renfrew of the Mounted consisted of both single-episode adventures and multi-episode story arcs. A number of recurring characters bridged continuity even when Renfrew was solving cases within one radio broadcast. Some of the half-hour adventures were adaptations of short stories written years prior by Erskine, others recycled material from short stories with revisions, and a number of them were originals. The episode “Redheads Won’t Stay Down,” broadcast February 18, 1939, was adapted from a story in Renfrew Rides North (1931). The episode “Signals in the Dark,” broadcast June 29, 1940, was inspired by the seafaring stories of the ships that mysteriously wrecked in the fog at San Francisco Bay — one in particular that disappeared without a trace but today is assumed to have wrecked and sunk.

 

Despite all the publicity, however, the radio program expired after the broadcast of October 12, 1940, with Renfrew riding the range on the silver screen courtesy of second-run theatres. The final movie in the franchise was released nationally back in July. On October 3, 1940, L.H. Titterton, manager of the Script Division at NBC, wrote to Douglas Storer with an official verdict: “Renfrew has been with us through thick and thin for several seasons now and much effort and time on everybody’s part has been expended to find a sponsor. We have not succeeded and for this we are very sorry. However, time is so precious on the air that we feel that we will just have to kiss Renfrew goodbye and make the last broadcast October 12. I want to thank you for your courtesy during the long months of the Renfrew programs and tell you that we want to be able to work out another program arrangement with you sometime in the future.”

 

According to production and call sheets in the NBC files, every half-hour episode was recorded. Sadly, like the fifteen-minute radio serial before it, recordings of the radio broadcasts were subject to the ravages of time. Fewer than half a dozen recordings from the 1939–1940 series are known to exist in collector hands, and the transcription discs for the remainder of the broadcasts are presumed “lost.”

 

The following are plot summaries gleaned from review of the radio scripts, filling in the gap that “lost” recordings would not be able to provide.

 

EPISODE #63, “THE CLASH IN THE BRAMBLES”

Broadcast March 23, 1940

CAST: Roger DeKoven, Sean Dillon, James McCallion, Jose Perez, and Elliot Reid.

PLOT: Winslow, the head of the Northern Star Mining Company, has discovered the tradeoff to making his fortune when subjected to threats and blackmail. His son, Denny Winslow, proves to be a tenderfoot when he sets out for a three-week vacation near the Arctic with Todd Gordon, son of the mining company’s superintendent. Todd proves to be a thoroughly experienced woodsman as they start roughing the countryside on a prospecting trip. Mac and Reno, having tailed the company plane, find the boys and kidnap Denny in the hopes of collecting a tidy ransom. Three weeks later, Denny returns to the company to report the kidnapping of Todd, who’d been mistaken for Denny by the kidnappers. Hoping to find the hideout, Renfrew flies up to Retribution and starts exploring every lake within 50 miles. After finding the location, Renfrew jumps back into the plane when he observes the kidnappers attempting to flee. In what could be described as minor aerial combat, Renfrew shoots both motors on their plane, then covers the men when they are forced to land. In desperation, the kidnappers threaten to shoot Todd, until Renfrew points out the obvious: doing so will only mean they would hang inside a month. Realizing their position, the men surrender only to discover how they’d given away their position to Renfrew so quickly… when Todd was forced to go out and fetch firewood for the stove, he’d spelled his name in the sand by the lake. And imagine their surprise when they discover they’d kidnapped the wrong person in the first place!

 

EPISODE #64, “THE CASE OF DAN CHESTER”

Broadcast March 30, 1940

CAST: Lester Chambers, Dennis Hoey, Fred Knight, Eric Rolf, and Eddie Wragge.

PLOT: Inspector Renfrew is on the trail of Jake Grenstadt, an outlaw who’d headed a gang of ruffians wanted for breaking into stores and camps and robbing up and down along the border. Dressed in plain clothes, Renfrew ventures to the new mining fields along the Tawney River, far up in the northern mountains. Along the way he meets Jim Chester and his son Dan, who are venturing north to open a store; they have a wagon full of provisions they intend to sell to millionaire miners. When Jake Grenstadt shows up, he demands Jim Chester pay for a license to operate a business in the area — a rule he himself had created. Regardless of Jim’s rudeness to the disguised Renfrew, the Mountie overpowers the criminal and throws him into a barrel of molasses, damaging Grenstadt’s ego. The criminal later plans to smash up Chester’s tent of provisions by starting a stampede with beef cattle, while Renfrew is asked by the town residents for help — the town’s been under Grenstadt’s thumb for long enough. Regardless of the fact that Jim Chester has treated Renfrew with disrespect, young Dan agreed to follow instructions and keep tabs on the local cattle. When Grenstadt and his men show up to start a stampede, Dan blows his whistle to alert the law. Renfrew arrives, along with a local who has been deputized, to thwart the scheme and place the racketeers under arrest for robbery and attempted murder. Jim Chester makes a mental note: In the future he will be kind to strangers.

 

EPISODE #80, “SPARE THE ROD!”

Broadcast July 20, 1940

CAST: Charita Bauer, Ray Bramley, Jean Dillon, Frank Lovejoy, and

Clementine Turrell.

PLOT: Corporal Sheehan is assigned to investigate a daylight holdup of the Marvale Bank, involving a stolen car left wrecked beside a main highway that runs through the Canadian Rockies. The bandits have vanished into thin air, making their escape in an area studded with summer resorts. Renfrew offers assistance, suspecting the robbers are hiding out by playing the part of vacationing guests — riding the trails, out on the golf course, or taking a plunge in the pools. At one summer resort in particular, Sheehan falls victim to a practical joke in a mudhole, masterminded by tourists Connie Gordon and her sister Sheila. After Renfrew reminds Connie that any action calculated to destroy respect for the uniform reduces the strength of the law, Connie throws a tomato at Renfrew in disgust. Later, Connie and Sheila befriend Charley Pierson, the leader of the bandit gang. Unaware of Pierson’s real identity, she soon realizes that her life is in danger. When Renfrew discovers the situation, he and Sheehan employ a couple of additional Mounties to help apprehend the bandits — teaching Connie a lesson not to shame the very men responsible for protecting her.

 

NOTES: It was instructed that the character of Jumbo, one of the bandits, was to be played like James Cagney.

NOTE: Plots are reprinted with permission from Renfrew of the Mounted: A History of Laurie York Erskine's Canadian Mounted Franchise by Martin Grams, Jr.