I rated every episode out of 5 stars; breaking them down by seasons here's how the averages came out:
- 1947-1948 Season: (episodes #2-54) 4.32 average
- 1949 Season: (episodes #55-76) 4.57 average
- 1959-1950 Season: (epsiodes #77-122) 4.08 average
- 1950-1951 Season: (episodes #123-148) 4.42 average
- 1952-1953 Season: (episodes #149-195) 3.76 average
- 1954 Season (episodes #196-219) 3.32 average
It isn't too surprising to see the last season's average is the lowest, but I think 3.32 is still a good ranking for an old-time radio series. There were still some very good episodes in that season. What's a bit more surprising is that the 1949 season (which lasted just half of a regular season) had the best average - probably because in that season there were a number of new versions of the best scripts from the previous season.
I also kept track of where in the world episodes were set. Here's how the settings break down by percentage:
- Asia and the Pacific: 26%
- USA and Canada: 25%
- The "high seas": 22%
- Mexico, South America and the Caribbean: 20%
- England: 12%
- Other European Settings: 11%
- Africa: 7%
- The Middle East: 1%
- Other Planets: 1%
So Asia had a significant impact on this series, being the most common part of the world to appear. Note as well that "the high seas" rank very high. When you think of Escape, I think you do tend to think of William Conrad, a boat and a snake.
Although the USA ranks high, that doesn't diminish the exotic settings of the series; even stories set in the USA could involve nightmarish department stores ("Evening Primrose"), New Orleans at Mardi Gras ("The Man Who Stole the Bible"), historical adventures ("Command") or the end of the world ("Earth Abides"). Escape promised to bring its listeners into a world of high adventure and they did so, even amidst the everyday world.
Throughout its 7 years on the air, Escape demonstrated its versatility, offering tales from the espionage genre, westerns and science fiction. There were stories of pirates and smuggling alongside wartime exploits, comedic misfortunes and surviving the wrath of nature. You never knew exactly where in the world or what kind of adventure each episode of Escape brought but you could always count on the series to deliver a steady script with able performers and sound technicians. There are only a handful of episodes I don't recommend and that's against a multitude of episodes that I believe can be called among radio's greatest ("Leiningen versus the Ants"; "Taboo"; "Bloodbath"; "A Shipment of Mute Fate"; "Red Wine"; "The Fourth Man"; "Three Skeleton Key"; "A Study in Wax"; "Earth Abides"; "S.S. San Pedro"; "Confession"; "The Young Man with the Cream Tarts"; "Present Tense"; and more).
Escape has long been considered a sibling series to Suspense because they shared so many creative talents (including swapping scripts between the shows). Suspense ran 20 years so never managed the consistency of Escape (I'm certain if I created a Suspense episode guide there would be multiple seasons with averages under 3.32). I believe Escape holds up extremely well among old-time radio series and will continue to be enjoyed for as long as there is interest in audio drama.
4 comments:
Amazing work. My laptop died and I lost your bookmark and I couldn't find the site easily. I am not sure what the name represents but it sounds like a sports facility section.
One thing about show quality in terms of seasons is that there can often be noise in the data set across seasons that might disappear if done say, in ten show intervals. The other thing is that if people are like me, you tend to disproportionately listen to the first page of years-long Otr shows on Archive.org. If you listen at night, one might hear various parts but not a whole show which happened to me over and over again with Owl Creek. It is about dreaming, no?
I don't know if you listen to the Big Broadcast which is a well-known show here in the DC area. Along with your writings about shows with only a season or less of shows, it is a great show although becoming a bit eh, pandering. They won't play Amos and Andy which I challenge anyone not to enjoy if you are focusing only on the scripts and the actors and not the rest. Amos and Andy resembles Leave it to Beaver in some ways in terms of the situations they the guys get into. The lawyer on Seinfeld who was African-American is almost certainly stolen from Amos and Andy, not based upon Johnnie Cochrane.
But they do play Lum and Abner on the Big Broadcast and I usually turn it off for those 15 minutes. ABC was not exactly well-known for quality Our although it's complicated because it broke off from NBC. Lum and Abner is just inane but not funny at all inane, just stupid. At least Amos and Andy had multiple characters and personifies. Lum and Abner was well, just those two guys speaking inanities in some sort of purported Southern-ish dialect. Bizarrely enough, to replace a great but now somewhat offensive show with a show about two white middle aged guys from Arkansas, I think, is something only a programming person could concept.
Amos and Andy was the first television show with an all African American cast but only lasted one season because of the radio show, which ironically continued almost into the 60's while the television show which was wildly popular with black audiences got pulled for controversy. This was about 1951 or so and then there were no blacks on shows again except here and there. One supposes Beulah is still allowable and the Goldbergs.
I worry about the Jack Benny show however, another amazing show with some suspect racial overtones. I think it is mostly safe because Rochester occupies a well-known trope in fiction and he is usually shown besting Jack. On the other hand, some of the comments about Rochester's life-style away from the Benny dwelling are mostly negative and involve drinking, gambling and carousing with women. On the other hand, Phil Harris, receives similar disparaging comments. Harris is always the highlight of any Benny program with Day's solos often being snoozer material. Seems so strange nowadays to interrupt what was basically a sitcom with musical interludes. LSMFT. Those ads, unlike the Fatima ads on Dragnet are not excised on Jack Benny as they were intricately woven into the show and Burns and Allen had similar such ads. Mr. Kitzel is always a highlight and with Benny being Jewish, it never came off as disparaging but just good fun.
In some ways, we have vast amounts of Otr extant but compared to television, I hope we don't see other shows become program non grata. I am sure Escape is full of stereotypes due to its large foreign/exotic locations but eh, it's hard. Gone with the Wind is probably not in danger of being erased because it was too prominent. Birth of a Nation seems to be almost "forbidden" material to watch now except as a "historian". I need to turn off spell-check because it keeps thinking Our is Our and not OTR.
And lest I forget, Rochester was retconned in a very special Benny episode where Amos and Andy appear and through some contrivance, provide Jack with Rochester as a valet.
https://hometownstohollywood.com/editorials/rochester-and-jack-breaking-racial-barriers/
It was well into the 60's when blacks began appearing on network television again. Scary Movie mines Amos and Andy and other minstrel humor into hundreds of millions of dollars but if the creators had been white, a fair amount of Scary Movie might be considered stereotypical and offensive. Comedy is not easy and often, it has to be produced by the members of a certain group that can "get away" with what would be considered controversial by others.
While the body of extant OTR is large, it's not that large as we are mostly talking about 30 years of often-destroyed content. I just find it a shame that Amos and Andy has become so stigmatized that people are almost afraid to listen to a single episode. But it does seem to have deflected criticism from shows like Jack Benny that had some types of "minstrel-oriented" content. It's as though, hey, we banned Amos and Andy and all of the rest of OTR is therefore, fine. Eh. Maybe you know some others but even in television, Amos and Andy is the only series that people know about that was essentially hounded into non-existence. Hee Haw went on for decades but whites in the South and rural areas are in the majority so it was only rarely seen as offensive. Benny Hill was offensive to Brits and also to men and human beings in general but boy was that a big deal in the late 70's. Don't pop that balloon, Benny.
Most similar show to Escape in terms of content is probably High Adventure which I enjoy but there don't seem to be many remaining American episodes. Virtually all of them were made in South Africa which is no criticism but really rather praise. The difference is that Escape has far better scripts and often famous ones with very well known actors.
But in terms of content, there is also a difference which is difficult to state but the High Adventure shows are less focused on moral character or individual failings and more so focused on perhaps ordinary people forced to deal with a variety of situation often against environmental sources. It also has a great opening sequence. One internet writer found High Adventure to focus more so on men as men and not perhaps so much as conflicted human being. Much of Escape deals with OCD, personality failings, class distinctions and colonialism. High Adventure more so might focus on the one big event of someone's life that could involve being lost at sea, in the woods, fighting fires, fighting natives and so forth. It is somehow less overwrought. It's clearly not as good as Escape in terms of great episodes but the run of the mill episodes are sometimes more interesting to me because they are not so dark. Escape seems to have an underlying view of the universe as malevolent. Dragnet vs. Squad Cars is similar. Dragnet is famous with Jack Webb but it's definitely overwrought often to easy parody. Dum dum dum dum....
Since you like listening to shows without many episodes, check out the Australian Gunsmoke. It's actually fascinating and very, very good and the accents are pretty good. I think there are ten episodes.
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_High_Adventure_Singles
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