Old-Time-Radio - Bringing Culture To The Masses

by Cassandra Morrison, Friend of RUSC  

On Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde can't you speed this one up a bit? The suspense is getting terrible and you only have half the episodes uploaded!!!

Did you note the effectiveness of the quote from Milton's L'Allegro that Lanyon delivers in episode 14?

"Hence loathed Melancholy
Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian Cave forlorn
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy,
Find out som uncouth cell,
Wher brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-Raven sings;
There under Ebon shades, and low-brow'd Rocks,
As ragged as thy Locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell."

Brrr!!! But that's another thing about old-time-radio that needs to be appreciated...it always seems to point the listener in the direction of the greatest literature and the greatest music that the human mind has produced. The use of music by Rossini and Liszt (The Lone Ranger) Sibelius (I Love A Mystery) and Saint-Saens (The Shadow) reminds the listener that, while there's nothing wrong with "pop culture" there are other and higher things that can be appreciated and enjoyed as well.

I'm starting to sound a bit pompous and I don't mean to...I adore pop culture...but I also enjoy the breath from the infinite reaches of art that can be found, now and then, so often in old-time-radio and so rarely in modern productions.  This is not as true in the UK as it is in the US...here in the US radio and television programs are produced primarily to sell products (with a few exceptions such as public television) but quality of the kind found on the BBC or that used to be heard in the Mercury Theater Productions or in this....well, these have almost vanished.

But maybe they'll come back one day...they are not lost...only forgotten for the moment.

Anyway, thanks for being there RUSC!!!  Cassie.

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To speed things up a little I will add some extra episodes of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde over this weekend and the forthcoming Thanksgiving weekend.

Happy listening my friends,