 The CBS Radio Mystery Theater logo The CBS Radio Mystery Theater (or CBSRMT) was an ambitious and sustained attempt in the 1970s to revive the great drama of old-time radio. Created by Himan Brown (who had by then become a radio legend due to his work on Inner Sanctum Mysteries and other shows dating back to the 1930s), and aired on affiliate stations across the CBS Radio network, the series began its long run on January 6, 1974. The final episode ran on December 31, 1982. Image File history File links Cbsrmtlogo. ...
Image File history File links Cbsrmtlogo. ...
Ad for an Atwater Kent radio receiver in the Ladies Home Journal (September, 1926) Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio are phrases used to refer to radio programs (audio theater) mainly broadcast, in the USA, during the 1920s through the late 1950s. ...
Raymond Edward Johnson Inner Sanctum Mysteries was a popular old-time radio program that aired from January 7, 1941 to October 5, 1952. ...
CBS Radio Inc. ...
January 6 is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...
December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The show was broadcast nightly and ran for one hour, including news and commercials. Typically, a week consisted of three to four new episodes, with the remainder of the week filled out with reruns. There were a total of 1399 original episodes broadcast. The total number of broadcasts, including reruns, was 2969.
The format was similar to that of classic old time radio shows such as the Mysterious Traveler and the Whistler, in that there is a host, E.G. Marshall, who introduces each episode and provides pithy wisdom throughout, but unlike the hosts of those shows, Marshall is fully mortal, merely someone whose heightened insight and erudition plunge the listener into the world of the macabre.
The show began with the ominous sound of a creaking door, slowly opening to invite listeners in for the evening's adventure, accompanied by Marshall's disturbing utterance of, "Come in. Welcome. I am E.G. Marshall." At the end of each show, the crypt's door would swing shut, followed by Marshall's classic sign off, "Until next time, pleasant...dreams?," segueing into the show's haunting woodwind theme music.
Marshall hosted the program every year but the final one, when actress Tammy Grimes took over, maintaining the format. Marshall is the name of several places in the United States of America: Marshall, Alaska Marshall, Arkansas Marshall, Illinois Marshall, Indiana Marshall, Michigan Marshall, Minnesota Marshall, Missouri Marshall, Oklahoma Marshall, North Carolina Marshall, Texas Marshall, Virginia Marshall, Wisconsin Marshall, Dane County, Wisconsin Marshall, Richland County, Wisconsin Marshall, Rusk County, Wisconsin...
Tammy Grimes (born January 30, 1934) is an award-winning actress and singer. ...
Scope
Despite the show's title, Brown expanded its scope beyond mysteries to include horror, science fiction, historical drama and comedy, along with seasonal dramas at Christmas. Nevertheless, as stated by Marshall at each show's finish, the show's focus was on "adventures into the macabre." Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). ...
Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ...
Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...
A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, where the time the action takes place in predates the time of the first publication -- distinguish and contrast the genre of alternate history. ...
Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). ...
In addition to original stories, there were adaptations of classic tales by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe (no fewer than seven Poe stories were adapted in 1975 alone), O. Henry, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Dickens and others. Later in the series Brown experimented with five-episode adaptations of novels such as Les Misérables and The Last Days of Pompeii, as well as an original five-part story about Egyptian queen Nefertiti with Tammy Grimes in the title role. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ...
William Sydney Porter in his thirties O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862–June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term O. Henry Ending. His middle name at birth was Sidney; he later changed the...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, the lead section of this article may need to be expanded. ...
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842–1914?) was an American satirist, critic, social commentator, poet, short story writer, editor, and journalist. ...
Dickens redirects here. ...
Les Misérables (translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Victims) (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo. ...
The Last Days of Pompeii was written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. ...
Bust of Nefertiti from Berlins Altes Museum. ...
Notable performers Prominent actors from radio and screen performed on the series, including Morey Amsterdam, Mason Adams, Richard Crenna, Keir Dullea, Morgan Fairchild, Jack Grimes, Fred Gwynne, Joan Hackett, Larry Haines, Paul Hecht, Kim Hunter, John Lithgow, Mercedes McCambridge, Agnes Moorehead, Tony Roberts, Marian Seldes, Roy Thinnes and a young Sarah Jessica Parker. Parker was credited as Sarah Parker, for the show the Child Cat's Paw, which ran originally on May 17th, 1977. Morey Amsterdam on Match Game 73. ...
Richard Donald Crenna (November 30, 1926 - January 17, 2003) was an American actor. ...
Keir Dullea (born May 30, 1936) is an actor best remembered for his role as astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984s 2010: The Year We Make Contact. ...
Morgan Fairchild (born February 3, 1950) is an American actress. ...
Frederick Hubbard Gwynne (July 10, 1926 – July 2, 1993) was a 6 ft 5 in (1. ...
Joan Hackett (March 1, 1934 - October 8, 1983) was a New York City-born American actress of Irish and Italian extraction, who appeared on stage, in films and on television. ...
Larry Haines (born Larry Hecht on August 3, 1918 in Mount Vernon, New York) is an American actor. ...
Paul Hecht (b. ...
Kim Hunter (b. ...
John Arthur Lithgow (pronounced lith-go) (born October 19, 1945, in Rochester, New York) is an actor perhaps best-known for his starring role as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. ...
Mercedes Agnes Carlotta McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an Academy Award-winning American actress. ...
Moorehead as Endora on Bewitched Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an Oscar-nominated American character actress. ...
Anthony (Tony) Roberts (born August 4, 1969) is a professional Welsh football player. ...
Marian Seldes ( born Aug 23, 1928 in New York City) is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned five decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame. ...
Roy Thinnes (born April 6. ...
The Wicked Witch of the West (born March 25, 1965) is a Golden Globe and Emmy winning American actress and an Emmy-winning producer, with a portfolio of television, movie, and theatre performances. ...
Actors were paid union scale at around $73.92 per show. Writers earned a flat rate of $350.00 per show. The production took place with assembly-line precision. Brown would meet with actors at 9:00am for the first reading of the script. After he assigned roles, the recording began. By noon the recording of the actors was complete, and Brown handed everyone their checks. This was followed by post-production in the afternoon.
Awards In 1975, CBSRMT won the prestigious Peabody Award, and in 1990 it was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. In 1998, the still-active Brown attempted a brief revival of the series, rebroadcasting selected old episodes with his own introductions replacing Marshall's. The George Foster Peabody Awards, more commonly referred to as the Peabody Awards, are annual international awards given for excellence in radio and television broadcasting and cable television. ...
The National Radio Hall of Fame and Museum, an offshoot of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, Illinois, recognizes and showcases those who have contributed to the development of the medium throughout its history in the United States. ...
Continuing popularity CBSRMT remains perennially popular with collectors to this day, with numerous websites and discussion forums. A Usenet newsgroup is devoted to trading MP3 files of episodes. Himan Brown has explored selling copies of CBSRMT shows by asking on his website [1] whether of not people would be willing to purchase original recordings of his program. Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed bulletin board system (BBS). ...
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format, designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. ...
One of the most interesting aspects for some collectors of CBSRMT is that some of the shows were taped with both news and commercials embedded, which provides an illuminating insight into the period in which the show ran.
While some fans of Old Time Radio may judge CBSRMT as inferior to similar shows from the past, such as the Inner Sanctum, Suspense and the Mysterious Traveler, which were produced in a 30-minute format, such comparisons must take into account the sheer prodigiousness of production by Himan Brown and his players. At the rate of one show per day, it would take nearly four years to listen to each of the 1399 hour-long episodes of CBSRMT.
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