What the Unexpected has that no other show has is a surprise ending. Okay, I should clarify... the Whistler had surprise endings; the Diary of Fate did too. But the Unexpected was not a genre program in the traditional sense. If "surprise ending" is a genre then that's where the Unexpected fits. Sometimes it was a crime/thriller show, other times a comedy program or even a romance show. Unlike the Chase, the lack of genre is not a detriment - far from it. Since every episode has a surprise ending, the climaxes land in a way other programs couldn't achieve.
To explain what I mean, I'll look at the climax of the episode "Birthday Present." All her life, a woman has been given the second-best things in life. For once she hopes her husband might give her the very best by buying her a gold bracelet, but once again she is disappointed - the gift is silver. She decides to exchange it and pay the difference to obtain the gold bracelet, only to learn the bracelet is actually platinum - her husband gave her something even more valuable than gold. She was not given second-best.
That's not an exceptional story, but it's atypical for radio. If that plot had appeared on the Whistler then it would have been much the same - except that the wife would have tried to kill or steal to get the gold bracelet, with the platinum an ironic reveal after her arrest. But the Unexpected has the most unexpected climaxes of all - happy endings! What a concept!
The Unexpected is not a very demanding program - it's short, fast-paced (certainly much better paced than the Strange Dr. Weird) and has an agreeable surprise at the end. It's unpretentious (unlike the very pretentious Diary of Fate). I like it - check it out if you like the Whistler.
2 comments:
Once in a while I will pour through archive.org looking for semi-gems and you seem to notice the same ones. There are some decent 15 minute shows here and there but it's not much time to develop a story. X-Minus One remains my favorite show of all. Exploring Tomorrow is a decent companion but the audio is quite poor.
Near where I live in Washington, DC, we have a pretty well-known show called the Big Broadcast and they always play four hours on Sunday nights with Johnny Dollar, Gunsmoke and Dragnet being on weekly. Jack Benny is on their shows often and I have become a Ronald Colman fan via listening to the Benny show. X-Minus One has a lot of great scripts both in house and by outside writers and I love the big intro beginning.
It's interesting that the Jack Benny show has managed to be viewed as respectable in spite of the two main characters being heavily stereotyped, if you count Benny as Jewish even though he is sort of nothing/Christian on the shows.
You really have a lot of knowledge about OTR for such a young man. It was the Walter Cronkite offering that really got me into OTR after listening to CBSRMT growing up. When I started following OTR, CBS Radio Mystery Theater was sort of suspect as Old Time Radio but it was a worhy show. They rarely play it on the Big Broadcast at WAMU most likely due to the length and the "fact" that OTR ended in 1962. I lived in Brazil for eight months but never made it to Africa.
I gave Moon over Africa a few tries but couldn't make much of it but there's a fair amoun of really decent OTR from South Africa.
Hi Jane,
It's hard to go wrong with shows like those you mentioned - especially Benny. Radio comedy doesn't always hold up, but somehow Benny still works. Benny's stinginess could've been a Jewish characteristic but for the fact that Benny never identified himself as a Jew and the Jewish characters on his show (Artie Auerbach as Mr. Kitzel, Sam Hearn as Schlepperman) weren't defined as being stingy. Jack's stinginess became so legendary that I think it transcends his own identity. Benny himself grew uncomfortable with the characterization but he acknowledged it was always good for a laugh.
I have heard a little of South African radio - I do find their advertisements a bit annoying.
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