OTR Halloween Day 1: Arch Oboler's Plays

As I've often done in the past, all this month I'm going to make a daily feature on this blog where I examine spooky old-time radio shows in honour of Halloween. It was from listening to spooky Halloween shows on my local radio station that I first became a fan of old-time radio, so it's well worth honouring. Often I would select a particular series and look at 31 examples of its run but this time I'm going to choose a single episode from 31 different programs. Were there even 31 decent spooky old-time radio series that still have at least one surviving episode? Let's find out!

First up is Arch Oboler's Plays. This was Oboler's 'prestige' program, a dramatic anthology usually centered on social issues of the day. But of course, Oboler was also known for running the horror series Lights Out for many years and that program has overshadowed the rest of his body of work (and he was rather prodigious back in the day). In fact, a number of episodes of Arch Oboler's Plays are - even now - in circulation as episodes of Lights Out.

And to be fair, some episodes of Arch Oboler's Plays really do sound like an episode of Lights Out; take for instance "Crazytown." Like other episodes of the series, it focuses in a contemporary matter; being 1939, World War II was at the top of Oboler's mind. In "Crazytown," two members of an Italian bomber crew find themselves in a town inhabited by, well, crazy people. Hence, "Crazytown." From there it definitely plays out like an episode of Lights Out!

You can hear "Crazytown" on YouTube.