Mystery House (radio drama)

Last updated

Mystery House was a radio drama series which began broadcasting on NBC in 1929. The program was an early effort at bringing thriller and suspense dramas to the airwaves.

Contents

The Oakland Tribune offered this description of the program on September 21, 1930:

Mystery House to Offer More Thrills
Thrills and spine-chilling happenings framed against a musical background are again promised NBC listeners when another episode of Mystery House is released this evening between 5:45 and 6:15 o'clock, P.S.T. The melodrama serial is to be heard on KGO. [1]

Cast

Chester Stratton played Lynn Edwards, and Teresa Dale played Mrs. Pendergast. [2]

Formats of fear

A later series with the same title prompted speculation at Radio Archives:

Mystery House staffers would perform in each half-hour drama, while others would provide sound effects, rewrite scripts and so on. But could this really succeed as a business model? Would people buy a mystery book if they already knew the ending? An interesting question, considering how little information there is available about the firm -- or if, in fact, it even existed. Research into this query turned up an address for "Mystery House" at 70 Park Avenue in New York City, where a hotel now stands, and that the publishing firm ceased operation sometime after 1964. As for the broadcast history behind the series, the "shroud of mystery" remains intact. Newspaper archives report a series with that name as having been broadcast in 1929 over WGN in Chicago and apparently still on the air as late as 1951. The show was broadcast in a variety of formats; sometimes as a weekly half-hour, sometimes as a five-day-a-week quarter-hour show. Mystery House has also been associated with appearances on WOR in New York; both WOR and WGN were flagship stations of the Mutual network at that time. [3]

Related Research Articles

Radio drama Purely acoustic dramatized performance

Radio drama is a dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story: "It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension." Radio drama includes plays specifically written for radio, docudrama, dramatized works of fiction, as well as plays originally written for the theatre, including musical theatre and opera.

Golden Age of Radio An era of popular entertainment in the United States centered on radio productions

The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows.

The WB American television network

The WB Television Network was an American television network first launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, with the former acting as controlling partner. The network principally aired programs targeting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 12 and 34, with its Children's Division, Kids' WB, geared toward children ages 6 to 12. The common metonym of the network called "The Frog", referring to a former mascot Michigan J. Frog.

<i>Amos n Andy</i> television and radio series

Amos 'n' Andy is an American radio and television sitcom set in Harlem, the historic center of Afro-American culture in New York City. The original radio show, which ran from 1928 to 1960, was created, written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who played Amos Jones (Gosden) and Andrew Hogg Brown (Correll), as well as incidental characters.

Mutual Broadcasting System Former American radio broadcasting network

The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, Mutual was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and Notre Dame football. From the mid-1930s and until the retirement of the network in 1999, Mutual ran a highly respected news service accompanied by a variety of popular commentary shows. During the late 1970s, Mutual pioneered the nationwide late night call-in radio show and introduced the country to Larry King.

WGN-TV Independent TV station in Chicago

WGN-TV, virtual channel 9, is an independent television station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by the Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister property to news/talk/sports radio station WGN. WGN-TV's second digital subchannel serves as an owned-and-operated station of Nexstar's national classic television multicast network Antenna TV, which is headquartered at the WGN-TV studios.

<i>Lights Out</i> (radio show) extremely popular American old-time radio program

Lights Out is an American old-time radio program devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural.

Broadcast network group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source

A terrestrial network is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, PBS (USA), Global (Canada), ITV (UK), ABC (Australia), KBS, and ABS-CBN (Philippines) are TV networks that provide programming for local terrestrial television station affiliates to air using signals that can be picked up by the home television sets of local viewers. Networks generally, but not always, operate on a national scale; that is, they cover an entire country.

Bob and Ray American comedy duo

Bob and Ray were an American comedy duo whose career spanned five decades. Composed of comedians Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990), the duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.

WOR (AM) Clear-channel AM radio station in New York City

WOR is a 50,000 watt Class A clear-channel AM radio station owned by iHeartMedia and licensed to New York City. The station airs a mix of local and syndicated talk radio shows, primarily from co-owned Premiere Networks, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. The independently syndicated Dave Ramsey Show is heard at night. Since 2016, the station has served as the New York network affiliate for co-owned NBC News Radio.

WGN (AM) radio station in Chicago, Illinois

WGN, 720 kHz, is a commercial AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on the 18th floor of 303 East Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop, while its transmitter is located in Elk Grove Village. Since around 1990, WGN has maintained a news/talk format. WGN does not broadcast in HD.

Superstation is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television signal—usually a commercially licensed station—that is retransmitted via communications satellite or microwave relay to multichannel television providers over a broad area beyond its primary terrestrial signal range.

WWOR-TV MyNetworkTV station in Secaucus, New Jersey

WWOR-TV, virtual channel 9, is the flagship station of the MyNetworkTV programming service, licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States and serving the New York City television market. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as part of a duopoly with New York-licensed Fox flagship WNYW. The two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood; WWOR-TV's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center. Previously, WWOR maintained separate studios at 9 Broadcast Plaza on Meadowlands Parkway in Secaucus, while the WNYW facilities only housed WWOR's master control and some internal operations.

WFLD Fox TV station in Chicago

WFLD, virtual channel 32, is a Fox owned-and-operated television station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as part of a duopoly with Gary, Indiana-licensed MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WPWR-TV. The two stations share studios at Michigan Plaza on North Michigan Avenue in the Chicago Loop, and transmitter facilities atop the Willis Tower on South Wacker Drive in the Loop business district. On cable, WFLD can be seen on Comcast Xfinity channel 12 in most parts of the Chicago area.

WGN America American television channel

WGN America is an American subscription television network that is owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and is the company's only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. WGN America runs a mixture of recent and older comedy and drama series, and theatrical feature films.

Bob Elson

Robert A. Elson was a pioneering American sportscaster.

Blue Network US radio network (1927-1945), business division of National Broadcasting Company

The Blue Network was the on-air name of the now defunct American radio network, which ran from 1927 to 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the independent Blue Network was born of a divestiture in 1942, arising from antitrust litigation, and is the direct predecessor of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC)—organized 1943–1945 as a separate independent radio network and later TV broadcaster.

Tribune Entertainment was a television production and syndication company owned and operated by Tribune Broadcasting. The company was started in the mid-1980s. Many programs offered from Tribune Entertainment have been broadcast on the company's television stations.

WSNS-TV Telemundo TV station in Chicago

WSNS-TV, virtual channel 44, is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States. The station is owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal, as part of a duopoly with NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-TV ; NBCUniversal, a Comcast subsidiary, owns both networks, along with regional sports network NBC Sports Chicago. WSNS-TV and WMAQ-TV share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood and transmitter facilities atop the Willis Tower on South Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop.

Major League Baseball on NBC Sports refers to Major League Baseball television coverage on the chain of NBC Sports regional networks.

References

  1. ↑ "Mystery House to Offer More Thrills," Oakland Tribune, September 21, 1930.
  2. ↑ "What Do You Want to Know?" (PDF). Radio and Television Mirror. 15 (2): 37. December 1940. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
  3. ↑ Radio Archives
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.