Shout-Out-Cast

Although I have written on many occasions about the old-time radio show that airs Sunday nights on KFAQ, I must confess that I have stopped listening to it in the past month or so. There were several reasons. They had cut the show from three hours to two. They had started inserting frequent commercials into the live webcast of the show that were not present on air, meaning that the show you were listening to would cut off suddenly in the middle for three minutes or more, then be rejoined in progress later on (meaning you just missed whatever happened during those three minutes).

And the mix of shows was becoming less interesting. There were more newscasts and nostalgic sports shows, fewer dramas and comedies. And of course, host Joe Riddle is a huge fan of Lum and Abner, going so far as to sometimes air two episodes a night. And since I've never much liked the boys from Pine Ridge, Arkansas, that would add up to a fourth of the show that I couldn't stand.

Luckily, the awesome Eilis O'Neal (who also happens to be one of our Atlantis Irregulars) brought me a flyer from local bookstore Gardner's Used Books, who have started up an on-line old-time radio station at gbsradionetwork.com. They actually have several stations, broken out by genre. I've been listening to the horror station, of course, because it's October.

In general, I like the mix of shows. They play the usual suspects: Lights Out, The Hermit's Cave, Quiet Please. However, one odd feature is that they don't seem to play any Inner Sanctum, the American show which was introduced by the famous "creaking door." However, they play the hell out of a British take-off titled The Creaking Door. One caveat: the audio quality is really variable (a frequent danger with old radio transcription disks). Some programs can barely be understood.

But I like the idea a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop the concept further.

In other news, I still haven't gotten things rolling on my big Halloween Secret Project, but I've been rolling ideas around and work should start in earnest next week.