While we’re waiting on poor ol’ archive.org to get back up and running, I thought I’d do a follow up to the previous post about classic old time radio horror shows. Hope ya’ll had a chance to listen to ’em, they’re some of my favorites, but this week’s audient void holds a special place in my heart, because they’re largely the reason why I got into H.P. Lovecraft and Weird Fiction in the first place.

Growin’ up, I was a pretty voracious reader, but my preference was always sci-fi and fantasy. This was due, mostly, to a extremely nice collection of vintage paperbacks that had been my dad’s back when he was a kid in 60s…Heinlein, PKD, Harlan Ellison, Le Guin, really a phenomenal collection that was very important to little Eric’s reading development. With a solid underpinning in the classics, I’d often make a bee-line for the SF and Fantasy section of the bookstore where, more often then not, I’d have a glance at the generally smaller HORROR section that neighbored them.

NOW, I liked spooky shit as a kid – in elementary school I’d been a big fan of John Bellairs, for instance, and I loved a collection of ghost stories or werewolf “histories,” stuff like that, but I’d never been a big reader of horror fiction – I remember trying King and deciding it wasn’t really my cup o’ tea. This opinion was further bolstered by the horror section in the bookstore, and IN PARTICULAR those very gruesome Del Ray Lovecraft paperback covers. You know the one’s I mean, with like flayed torsos hanging on hooks, shit like that? For me, they were simply too disgusting. You gotta remember, at that time, my favorite monster movies were absolutely classic Universal movies, right? Yer Mummies and yer Draculas, nothing to intense and certainly nothing gory, and those Del Ray covers made it seem like this Lovecraft clown’s stories must’ve been nonstop chop-em-ups!

Anyway, skip forward to college, I’m in Gainesville FL listening to the UF public radio station while I’m doing fossil prep work (I was assembling an Aphelops jaw bone). It’s late Oct, they’re doing special Halloween programming, and one night they put on a special Old Time Radio horror block that STARTS with some Lovecraft adaptations, including “The Dunwich Horror” from the 40s, the “Rats in the Walls” and “The Outsider” from the 60s. And I’ll be damned if they’re not an absolute blast, fun and interesting and spooky, nothing at all like what I imagined what they were like based on those ol’ Del Ray covers! After that I spent a lot of time in the library’s Special Collections, reading a bunch of old original Weird Tales that they had.

So, anyway, these three Lovecraft adaptations hold a special place in my heart, and I hope you’ll give ’em a chance!

The Dunwich Horror – Suspense, 1945 – a true classic that takes a fairly long Lovecraft tale and somehow smoothly gets it down to under 30 minutes. Great voice acting in this one, particularly in the case of Wilbur Whatley’s strange horrible voice. Well done, and it’s fun to think about people in the 40s hearing someone shouting “Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth!” on their radios!

The Rats in the Walls – Black Mass, 1964 – this is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories of all time (terrible racist name of the cat notwithstanding), and this is a great radio adaptation, extremely faithful and with a real sense of building dread. The final descent into madness is really well done, too; not too surprising, but the secret to good audio horror is good voice work, and I feel like this show has some talent in that regard!

The Outsider – Black Mass, 1964 – one of Lovecraft’s lesser stories, but this is still a good, atmospheric adaptation that is a lot of fun. Ganked this one off an old time radio website years ago, so it’s got a modern intro, just fyi.

Anyway, it’s fun stuff, and if you, like me, enjoy Lovecraft, these are some real treats. Enough for now, happy listening!