Lights Out
In my opinion, April was a strange time of year for NBC to debut a series featuring tales of horror and suspense, which I'd consider better suited to be introduced as the days shorten, into the fall...
However, writing genius Wyllis Cooper had always intended his series Lights Out to be "a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour." so I guess it didn't matter what time of year it was.
Wyllis Cooper was born in 1899, and by his late twenties he had embarked upon a successful writing career. He wrote the radio scripts for the 1929-1931 radio series The Empire Builders, before creating his best known dramatic series, Lights Out.
The thirty minute drama began in 1934 as a regional program, before being picked up by NBC, debuting on April 17th 1935, and the programs were renowned for having the most grisly sound effects ever heard on radio. This included the sounds of; heads rolling, bones being crushed, people falling from great heights and splattering wetly on the pavement, garrottings, chokings, heads split by cleavers and the worst of all, the sound of human flesh being eaten!
The series was a massive hit, with fan clubs popping up all over the country, and opening up an amazing opportunity for Cooper, who was tempted by the lure of Hollywood. He resigned from NBC in June 1936, and went on to write for several film studios. He wrote the screenplay for the classic film, “Son of Frankenstein” and also penned several “Mr. Moto” films. “Ygor,” a character in “Son of Frankenstein” was one of the most memorable that he created.
This opened the door for another master of the macabre, a young and ambitious Arch Oboler, to pick up where he left off. His work really stood out in his time, as it was somewhat controversial and always creatively delivered. For instance, his first script for Lights Out was called Burial Service, about a paralyzed girl who is mistakenly buried alive. After its broadcast, the listeners responded with outrage, and NBC was flooded with complaints. Oboler said he would never again write a script with such a personal theme that could affect thousands.
He put it this way: “I had taken a believable situation and underwritten it so completely that each listener filled the silences with the terrors of his own soul. When the coffin lid closed inexorably on the conscious yet cataleptically paralyzed young girl in my play, the reality of the moment, to thousands of listeners who had buried someone close, was the horrifying thought that perhaps sister, or brother, or mother, had also been buried….alive.”
Lights Out was the pioneer in a whole new radio genre, with series such as Weird Circle and Inner Sanctum, following this new trend, and even Suspense, Escape and The Whistler using similar writing techniques.
There are currently 54 episodes of Lights Out available on RUSC, and we have another twenty or so in the RUSC archives, which I will be adding over the coming weeks.
Happy listening my friends,
