OTR Halloween 2023 Day 7: "I Remember Tomorrow"

"Would you tell me the time, please? Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I just wanted to see how much more time I have before a certain thing happens. I wanted to see if I have time enough to tell you what's going to happen."

Several of creator Wyllis Cooper's Quiet, Please stories involve time travel; in this case, our protagonist is an alcoholic scientist who is hired by criminals to unlock the secret of time travel. The scientist succeeds and then learns how he's going to die - but he mostly accepts his fate, as he's clearly a man already on a path to self-destruction. Like many time travel adventures there's a suggestion that time cannot be changed, but the scientist does make an effort to obtain justice by recruiting assistance from you, the listener!

"I Remember Tomorrow" was originally broadcast July 27, 1947. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 6: "Where Do You Get Your Ideas?"

"All I said to him was 'Where do you get your ideas?' and look what he did to me. I came in this bar, and I sat down quiet by myself, and I said to the bartender Charlie, make me a dry Manhattan and put two olives in it. So I had my dry Manhattan, and then I had another, and I began to look around. There wasn't anybody else in the bar but this skinny little guy in a corduroy shirt sitting down at the other end of the bar drinking ginger ale, and talking, kind of, to Charlie."

This story places creator Wyllis Cooper himself as one of the characters (although I believe he's impersonated by an actor). Cooper heads to a bar for a drink and is repeatedly bothered by a drunken man who is fascinated by Cooper's work and has ideas for stories he could tell about men from Mars; it seems these stories are based on the drunkard's own life! This is another light-hearted story and one of many episodes of Quiet, Please in which Cooper breaks down the fourth wall to comment upon his little spook show.

"Where Do You Get Your Ideas?" was originally broadcast February 20, 1949. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 5: "Wear the Dead Man's Coat"

"Lemme see... yesterday, that's one day; the day before, that's two; the day before that, that's three - three days. Three days, all right. Doc was right. That fixes me. You think it don't? Well, listen..."

Two men with little money to their names find a dead man. One of the men takes the dead man's coat and puts it on, then discovers he's become invisible to those around him. "Wear the dead man's coat, no one takes note!" At first it seems like a great gift with powerful potential for abuse, but the coat comes with an awful hidden price. This is an excellent horror story whose tension builds as the protagonist gradually realizes the horrible fate he's subjected himself to.

"Wear the Dead Man's Coat" was originally broadcast February 23, 1948. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org. There's also a great episode of the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast where they listen to and discuss "Wear the Dead Man's Coat," you'll find it right here.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 4: "Prest-o Change-o, I'm Sure"

"Oh, uh, excuse me. Uh, you really must excuse me. It's an old joke I haven't thought of in years. A joke that Johnny Martins and I used to kill ourselves over- and, to me, it's still funny. Ah, probably you won't crack a smile even but I must tell ya, I really must. You say to me, 'Sarsfield, can you make an elephant disappear?' And I say, 'Sure. Where's the elephant?' Uh, that's all. Really. Oh, I told you it wouldn't sound funny to you but, to me, it brings back memories. I wonder where poor Johnny Martins is. All those years, ah, Johnny and I used to have fits just fits laughin' at our bum joke. Er, that is, we did till I made an elephant disappear."

I think I break a little from the majority of Quiet, Please fans where the humourous episodes are concerned - I rather like them! "Prest-o Change-o, I'm Sure" is played primarily for laughs as the protagonist obtains great magical power but gets a bit muddled as to how to apply it, frequently resulting in a muffed spell and a request for someone to "disappear." But where do people go after he's made them disappear?

"Prest-o Change-o, I'm Sure" was originally broadcast August 16, 1948. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 3: "Northern Lights"

"This is a story about the temporal displacement of mass. It is also a story about teleportation. Do you know what those terms mean? No, I didn't think you did, but you stay right where you are, my charming friend, and you're quite likely to find out. You just stay right there and listen- I'll tell you everything you want to know. And maybe- well, maybe a couple of things you're not terribly anxious to know."

Not every episode of Quiet, Please could be classified as horror (generally the series is perhaps best dubbed 'dark fantasy') but "Northern Lights" is a potent example of how terrifying the program could be. And this is despite what sounds like a ridiculous premise - fuzzy caterpillers who ride in on the Aurora Borealis and learn to sing in English. This should be high camp, but it isn't. It's not just horror, it's cosmic horror - it's the type of horror television's the Outer Limits would later tap into. "Northern Lights" is extremely effective!

"Northern Lights" was originally broadcast January 30, 1949. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org. There is also a great discussion of "Northern Lights" on the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast that you can hear on their website, here.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 2: "Let the Lilies Consider"

"We... consider the lilies and some of us love them. Do you suppose the lilies consider us and... sometimes return our love?"

Here we have an episode of Quiet, Please that feels like a forgotten Algernon Blackwood tale. As in Blackwood's fiction, nature has an overwhelming presence, a fascination that overcomes and subsumes humanity. In this case, it's about a man who loves his flowers (especially lilies) and his wife who does not. Under interrogation by the police over his wife's disappearance, the man goes into how the flowers came between them and the weird outcome of this conflict.

"Let the Lilies Consider" was originally broadcast June 28, 1948. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org. For another view on this episode, I recommend the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast, who listened to and discussed this episode in an early installment that you can listen to on their website.

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 1: "Beezer's Cellar"

I often like to spend Octobers on this blog performing a 31-day countdown to Halloween with some appropriate Halloween program. This year, I'm looking at the excellent series Quiet, Please which was written and directed by Wyllis Cooper.

"I looked at Marlena; Marlena looked at me when we heard this old guy talkin' about Beezer's cellar. 'Get a load of this Marlena,' I said, and she picked up a french fry and ate it very quiet while we listened to the old guy. He was sounding off to another old guy and the other old guy couldn't get a word in edgeways."

Three criminals overhear a discussion of "Beezer's Cellar" and the legend of the unusual six-fingered man who built it, then committed suicide. The cellar is deserted and shunned; the criminals think that renders it an ideal spot to hide their stolen money.

Although morality fables are a well-known feature of Arch Oboler's Lights Out series, Wyllis Cooper had a similar determination to depict in his radio scripts a strong moral code and sense of justice. At it's heart, that's what the criminals find in "Beezer's Cellar" - justice. And at the very end... a little mercy.

"Beezer's Cellar" was originally broadcast October 10, 1948. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org. This episode was listened to and discussed on the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast and you can hear it for yourself on their website if you're so inclined!