Over at the Marvel Appendix, we're celebrating the life of our deceased colleague Ronald Byrd by completing a number of profiles he'd researched but hadn't completed. All of them are characters from the Anti-Registration Underground group seen in Civil War: Front Line. Back when those comics were published, writer Paul Jenkins gave Ronald permission to create backgrounds for all of them; Ronald wrote entire biographies for each character, but very little of what he wrote wound up in print. To celebrate his passion for these extremely obscure characters, many of us at the Marvel Appendix are completing Ronald's work; for my part, I finished the profile for Johnny Justice; there are many more available today, with others planned for tomorrow.
Inner Sanctum Mysteries ran from January 7, 1941 until October 5, 1952, appearing on NBC Blue, ABC and CBS. It had a lot of sponsors, starting with Carter's Little Liver Pills (1941-1943). They also had Bromo-Seltzer (1946-1950), with the talking train (why didn't they sponsor The Mysterious Traveler?), Mars candy bars (1951-1952) and, perhaps most memorably, Lipton Tea and Lipton Soups (1945-1946). The series was produced and directed by Himan Brown; the writers included Milton Lewis, Emile Tepperman and Robert Sloane. The series seldom adapted scripts from other sources, it was generally original scripts (even their rare adaptations, such as their version of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" were only dimly inspired by the original stories).
Inner Sanctum Mysteries had what is genuinely one of the best and easily most memorable openings in all of old-time radio - the sound of that immense, creaky, squeaking door opening. From within this Inner Sanctum, the show's host (Raymond Edward Johnson, 1941-1945 and Paul McGrath, 1945-1952) would invite the listener inside, sharing a few morbidly bad puns about murder before starting the night's drama.
When I first got on the internet, it was fashionable in old-time radio fandom to call out Inner Sanctum Mysteries for it's "cop-out endings," which I saw referenced time and again on OTR fan pages. To this they were referring to the lack of the supernatural on the program; frequently, it would seem as though a character were threatened by a ghost or a demon or a witch, yet the climax would insist that no, they weren't. If the plot were about a dead man having come back to life then he probably faked his death to begin with, or his return was being fabricated by someone to elicit a confession from the killer.
Now, there are plenty of OTR shows where the supernatural is present - just look at Dark Fantasy - or maybe don't, because it's not a very good program. Inner Sanctum Mysteries never promised its listeners ghost stories and, although the show occasionally let the listener wonder "maybe it was a ghost" the bulk of shows landed on "maybe not." Why then, were OTR fans circa late 1990s so upset with Inner Sanctum Mysteries? My theory is that it's that creaking door's fault; it's such a terrific noise, you think it must surely belong to a supernatural program. Inner Sanctum Mysteries was a horror program, sure, but not a supernatural horror show.
Instead, the way I describe Inner Sanctum Mysteries is a "nightmare show." In this series, everything is off-kilter - no one is reliable. Now, I get truly frustrated at the episodes with unreliable narrators, which I think is an even bigger "cop-out" than the lack of a genuine ghost. But generally, on Inner Sanctum Mysteries, everyone is suspect; the casts tend to be reasonably small (usually around 5 people) and nearly all of them deliver their lines with some underlying menace, even if they aren't the episode's villain. This isn't like Suspense, where if a character enters a diner, there might be a few lines from a waitress just to establish setting and mood; on Inner Sanctum Mysteries, if a character enters a diner and the waitress has dialogue, that waitress will probably try to kill or blackmail (or be killed or blackmailed by) the lead character. Inner Sanctum Mysteries inhabited a nightmarish world of sin, crime and murder; frequently, even the police were shown to be corrupt; there were precious few authority figures one could turn to for help when they were in an episode of Inner Sanctum; if you weren't crooked, you were probably about to be murdered.
The series got its name from an imprint of books which the Sanctum's host would often promote during the show's outro (the cover to the left is one of many such examples). Mr. Host also had a lot of banter with one Mary Bennett, the spokesperson for Lipton Tea and Lipton Soups. Fans of the show bring up Mary so often, you'd think she was a major part of the series, but Lipton only sponsored the program from 1945-1946 for about 18 months; we just have so many episodes from that era that her minor presence forms a large sample of what remains. Fans are split on Mary, who would often break the tension of the play at the half-way mark ("Gracious, Mr. Host!") before launching into her Lipton commercial.
Maybe Mary's presence made the show more palatable to audiences who, in those days, got pretty upset about violence on the radio; it's why Lights Out could only get a laxative to sponsor them. I see Mary's gentle, polite banter with Mr. Host as a compromise that helped keep the show on the air, even when extremely bloody episodes were being aired under the Lipton banner ("The Judas Clock," for example, is possibly the show's goriest episode - and Lipton sponsored it).
As well, I think Mr. Host's jokes and banter at the start, middle and end of each broadcast are interesting as a kind of defensive measure taken by horror; there's a curious link between comedy and horror (just look at how many horror films of the same era had comic relief or how many comedy films of the era involve ghosts or haunted houses). In the case of Inner Sanctum Mysteries, it's a way of relieving the tension, to let the listener know, hey, they're all right, it's just entertainment. I think as well, making jokes about horror is a way for grown men to help defend their love of the genre, which is seen as either too childish or too morbid by outsiders. If you can claim it's all "camp," then you have an acceptable justification for your love of the genre.
One unusual aspect of the program is that they sometimes repeated scripts but swapped the lead character's gender (along with some other details) which made those stories come across quite differently. Compare "Dead Man's Holiday" (June 19, 1945) to "The Unburied Dead" (May 16, 1949) or "Death Demon" (July 5, 1948) to "The Magic Tile" (August 10, 1952).
Himan Brown later produced The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre (1974-1982) in the "new time radio" era. He brought the creaking door with him, but it's always deflating when instead of hearing a revolting joke by Mr. Host on the other side of the door, one hears the grandfatherly E. G. Marshall. Although he hosted some genuine ghost stories on that show, as an announcer, he did not match the door. At least Himan Brown was a faithful producer who gave work to old Inner Sanctum veterans like Paul McGrath, Larry Haines and Mason Adams.
There was also a series of six Inner Sanctum movies at Universal, each one starring Lon Chaney Jr., but they were trading on the name of the book series, not the radio show, which makes those films a bit disappointing to watch as a fan of the radio program (if you want to watch them, Weird Woman is probably the best). In 1954, Inner Sanctum Mysteries became a television series complete with the creaking door, Paul McGrath's voice as Mr. Host and a number of stories adapted right from the radio show! There are still four of these shows in existence and they're easy to find on YouTube.
I have a lot of affection for Inner Sanctum Mysteries; the plots didn't always hold up to much scrutiny but they told sensational stories that I find entertaining to this day - even the few truly bad episodes have their charm.
Here's the Old Time Radio Researchers' YouTube playlist of Inner Sanctum Mysteries:
On Halloween: My recommended listening list of Inner Sanctum Mysteries!
It's the end of the Marvel Appendix's celebration of the New Universe's 40th anniversary today... let's go out with a bang! That is, let's finish by spotlighting The Pitt by my friend Jeff Christiansen. We started with the White Event; we finish with the Black Event! I hope you enjoyed this special event, you can see all of the new profiles on the Appendix's update page.
I've written personal eulogies for a number of comic book professionals over the years. Most, I never met; others, I met in passing; a few I had some memorable interactions with. But it's a different matter to eulogize a comics person whom I knew as a peer - a collaborator - a friend.
Ronald Byrd started writing for the Marvel Appendix in 2002 when I was an editor there; although I didn't edit his work, by 2003 we had both been welcomed aboard Marvel's now-forgotten Marvel Encycloepdia project, which started our professional assocation with Marvel Comics. The following year, we were both made part of the new Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe staff of writers. That year, he and I co-wrote The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Golden Age Marvel 2004. At the time, he and I were the only two writers at the OHOTMU who had a fondness for pre-1961 Marvel comics; I think we divided that book exactly 50/50 between us.
In 2005 I started taking on head writer duties, which meant I had a say in which writers were assigned to my projects. As head writer, I employed Ronald on my first book, Marvel Monsters: From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone and subsequently on the Marvel Westerns: Outlaw Files, All-New Iron Manual, Iron Manual Mark 3, Dark Reign Files, Marvel Pets Handbook and Marvel Mystery Handbook: 70th Anniversary Special. This was in addition to our ongoing work collaborating on other handbooks, files books and The Official Index to the Marvel Universe. I know Ronald was disappointed that I didn't bring him in on the Marvel Atlas, but I was trying to keep the number of writers very low on that book in order to maintain consistency of style.
I recall getting very upset at Ronald over his history of Wolverine, such as appeared in Ronald's book Wolverine Saga. Ronald not only missed that a reference to Wolverine serving in the Devil's Brigade was referring to a real-life World War II unit, he thought it was a World War I reference! I couldn't budge him on this issue and it really got under my skin, as my great-uncle had served in the Devil's Brigade. I accused him of being myopic; I think it's the only time we had a serious disagreement. In retrospect, given all the nonsense that's been added to Logan's war record, maybe it's for the best that the character served in a fictional Devil's Brigade that just happened to have the same name as a real-life unit.
During the Civil War event, Ronald received permission from writer Paul Jenkins to establish backstories for a number of costumed characters who appeared in the background of Jenkins' Civil War Frontline stories. Some of Ronald's details made it into Civil War Files and the handbooks, but he really threw himself into sketching out complete biographies for those characters and they're very interesting reading with fun ideas for super-hero origin stories and explanations for why these character had been in opposition to Civil War's Superhuman Registration Act. Most of them have been written up on the Appendix - check out Canasta and Basic Black for example - the comments sections have his full biographies.
Paul Jenkins also looked to Ronald for aid in writing his mini-series All Winners Squad: Band of Heroes. As a tribute to Ronald, he named the character Sgt. Byrd after him! Unfortunately, the series was cancelled by Marvel after the 5th issue, leaving the remaining 3 issues unpublished to this day.
I quit writing for Marvel in 2012 and distanced myself from the Marvel Appendix as well. From time to time, Ronald would reach out to me to ask questions and brainstorm but I'm afraid I was often very curt with him - I wanted to make a clean break from that part of my life. I'm ashamed to say that the last time he messaged me, I didn't even respond. I was aware that Ronald's health had recently diminished but news of his death still shocked me when I received it yesterday.
Like all of us who served on the handbooks circa 2004-2012, Ronald had that particular knack for catching small details and delving into minutia. He knew we were ultimately writing about fictional universes, but he was determined to maintain versimilitude - and he had fun while he was doing it.
As long as Marvel endures, Ronald's contributions will remain a part of it, even after he - and I - have passed out of living memory. I don't know where Ronald was in terms of religious belief. But as a handbook writer, I think the most worthy words I can share are those of our patron, Mark Gruenwald, creator of the handbooks; these quotes of Gruenwald's made me think of Ronald:
Love something that's unlovable by most people's standards. It's good practice for your spirit.
Someday the universe will tire of me and will break me down into the components I came from. Right now I'd mind if that happened, but when the time comes I imagine I will welcome no longer being separate from the rest of reality.
Everything ultimately succumbs to entropy, but until it does, enjoy it.
Today is the 6th day of the Marvel Appendix's New Universe 40th Anniversary celebration! Today we're spotlighting Sponge from Mark Gruenwald and Paul Ryan's D.P.7! She was a later addition to the cast, a woman with an odd ability (absorbing moisture) and a decided interest in Dave Landers! The other new profiles today are all from D.P.7, featuring all of the patients from the Clinic for Paranormal Research who hadn't previously been profiled! Check them out on the update page!
The New Universe 40th Anniversary celebration at the Marvel Appendix continues today with profiles on the series Nightmask and Kickers Inc., including a spotlight on The All-American, alias Jack Magniconte, the lead character of Kickers Inc.! All of the new profiles can be found on the update page!
It's the 4th day of our New Universe 40th Anniversary celebration at the Marvel Appendix and today we're spotlighting Mark Hazzard, who headlined his own series! My old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe collaborator Stuart Vandal wrote this one. We also have some more Justice and Psi-Force characters. See them all on the update page!
