New to Old-Time Radio? Start Here

Play the Start Here station

21 famous shows, one after another. Or pick one from the list below.

What is old-time radio?

Before television, radio was the entertainment in American homes. Commercial broadcasting began in the early 1920s; Pittsburgh's KDKA went on the air in 1920. By 1930, 40 percent of households had a radio, and by 1940, 83 percent of homes did. Families gathered around the set in the evening for comedies, mysteries, westerns, dramas, music and the news.

Fans call those years the Golden Age of Radio, and the shows “old-time radio,” or OTR. Many programs were paid for by a single sponsor whose name was part of the show, like Lux Radio Theatre. In the 1950s television took over most of the comedies and dramas, and the last two network dramas, Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, signed off on September 30, 1962.

Radio drama has long been called the “theater of the mind.” There's nothing to watch: voices, music and sound effects set the scene, and your imagination builds the rest.

What you'll find in Radio Days

36,303 episodes of 381 shows, free to play, from the 1930s to the 1960s: 7,700 comedies, 5,282 detective shows, 4,577 dramas, 3,858 westerns, 3,119 kids' adventure serials, 2,679 adventures, 2,471 thrillers and horror, 1,859 soap operas, 1,751 history dramas, 2,118 variety and music shows, 390 science fiction, 302 big band broadcasts and 197 newscasts.

• Stations. Pick a show and Radio Days plays it like a radio, one episode after another. Browse by Category at the top of the station list holds them all.
• On This Day plays shows first heard on today's date.
• The network buttons (NBC, CBS, ABC and Mutual) under the dial play what that network had on at this time of the evening, from real schedules of 1946 to 1951.
• Set the Mood, in the Menu, mixes shows by feeling: spooky, funny, a whodunit and more.
• Kids' Channel and Special Programs: kids' serials, American history, movie stars on the radio, great literature and the holidays.
• Liner Notes tell the story behind each show. The Menu also has the Magazine Rack (radio magazines of the day) and Radio Premiums (rings, badges and decoders the shows offered).
• Ask Albert, the round robot button, answers questions about the shows.

Where to start

Tap a title to play it. The Start Here station plays them in this order.

1. The Mercury Theatre on the Air: “The War of the Worlds” October 30, 1938
   Drama: the most famous radio broadcast of all. Martians land in New Jersey, told as breaking news.
2. The Jack Benny Program: “Your Money or Your Life” March 28, 1948
   Comedy: the first time a robber says "Your money or your life."
3. The Shadow: “The Death House Rescue” September 26, 1937
   Mystery: Orson Welles in the first show with the Shadow as a crime fighter.
4. Fibber McGee and Molly: “The Missing Screwdriver” October 15, 1940
   Comedy: the great search for a screwdriver, and yes, the closet.
5. The Lone Ranger: “The Lone Ranger's Origin” June 30, 1948
   Western: how the Lone Ranger came to be, and how he found Silver.
6. Suspense: “Sorry, Wrong Number” May 25, 1943
   Suspense: a bedridden woman overhears a murder plot on a crossed telephone line.
7. The Abbott and Costello Show: “Costello Buys Gifts for Cast” June 8, 1944
   Comedy: Abbott and Costello do Who's on First.
8. Gunsmoke: “Billy the Kid” April 26, 1952
   Western: the very first Gunsmoke.
9. The Adventures of Superman: “The Baby from Krypton” February 12, 1940
   Kids' adventure: chapter one, Superman's arrival on Earth.
10. Our Miss Brooks: “Mr. Conklin Comes to Madison High” July 19, 1948
    Comedy: Eve Arden's first show as the schoolteacher Miss Brooks.
11. Dragnet: “The Werewolf” June 17, 1949
    Police drama: Jack Webb as Joe Friday, and the first show to use the famous Dragnet theme.
12. X Minus One: “A Pail of Air” March 28, 1956
    Science fiction: the last family on a frozen Earth.
13. The Great Gildersleeve: “Gildy Arrives in Summerfield” August 31, 1941
    Comedy: the very first Great Gildersleeve, a spin-off from Fibber McGee and Molly.
14. Escape: “Three Skeleton Key” March 17, 1950
    Adventure: Vincent Price and two lighthouse keepers besieged by rats.
15. Inner Sanctum Mysteries: “The Tell-Tale Heart” August 3, 1941
    Horror: Boris Karloff in Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, behind the creaking door.
16. Have Gun - Will Travel: “Strange Vendetta” November 23, 1958
    Western: the first radio show of Paladin, the gun for hire.
17. Lux Radio Theatre: “The Wizard of Oz” December 25, 1950
    Hollywood on the air: Lux Radio Theatre's Wizard of Oz, on Christmas night.
18. Quiet, Please: “The Thing on the Fourble Board” August 9, 1948
    Horror: often called one of the best horror shows ever broadcast.
19. Command Performance: “Program 95: Dinah Shore, Abbott and Costello, Fats Waller” December 4, 1943
    Wartime radio: Command Performance with Abbott and Costello, Dinah Shore and Fats Waller.
20. Lights Out: “Cat Wife” April 6, 1938
    Horror: Boris Karloff in the story listeners voted the best Lights Out.
21. The Whistler: “Retribution” May 16, 1942
    Mystery: the first show of The Whistler, with its famous whistled theme.

About Radio Days

Radio Days comes from Dennis Wright, a former broadcaster who worked on the air in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest as Dennis Russell, a longtime collector of old-time radio, and the founder of the Radio Days Theater of the Mind Museum. The museum is closed now, but some of its collection is here to see: the rings, badges, decoders and other radio premiums in Radio Premiums (in the Menu), and photos from the museum's archive on the stations and in Liner Notes. Radio Days is free, with no ads, so these shows can be heard again the way they were meant to be: one after another, by the radio.

Sources: Golden Age of Radio, Wikipedia; What is Old Time Radio?, Atlanta Radio Theatre Company; Neil Verma, Theater of the Mind (University of Chicago Press, 2012).