Radio history of Lights Out and host Arch Olber and Wyllis Cooper.

Lights Out

1934 - 1939

1942 - 1947

Arch Oboler took over as writer/ director in 1936 amd evemtually hosted the show as well.

Lights Out was originally a 15 minute program created by Wyllis Cooper, but it was eventually expanded to 30 minutes (Buxton, 140). Cooper was a magnificent horror writer, but he moved to Hollywood in 1936 to try his hand at script writing (Dunning, 399). Cooper wrote Son Of Frankenstein and other screenplays, but nothing as remarkable as his radio stories. Arch Oboler took over the show and Lights Out grew into a household name. Obler's incredible plots included a "Chicken Heart" that ate the world, or in the case of "Meteor Man," a large alien head that floated about hungry for humans. It became increasingly difficult for Oboler to top his last story. By 1938, he also left the show to write anti-Nazi propaganda for a series called Arch Olber's Plays. Lights Out continued for another year with other NBC writers and directors. Then Oboler brought it back in 1942 and became the host, using Bob LeMond as his announcer (Dunning, 400). This was the year during the war that that the series really took off. He left it again in 1943 and it was reduced to summer status and recycled older Cooper scripts. But Oboler would return with more of his Lights Out stories from 1970 to 1973 with The Devil and Mr. O.

Lights Out featured graphic stories and very explicate sound effects. People would have their heads chopped off, or you would hear them getting stabbed, or even getting turned inside out by a strange mist. (The sound effect was achieved by a straw basket being crushed while a wet rubber glove was pulled inside out.) But the one thing that Lights Out didn't use very often was music, and in my opinion, this fun series could have been even better with it. Cooper seems to have concurred. When he returned to radio in 1948, he included plenty of music with Quiet Please, a short lived series that many consider superior, despite its smaller budget, staff, and audience..

But don't let this one criticism taint your opinion of the original Lights Out. It was a landmark series with stories that may seem dated now, but in their time, scared the tar out out of listeners. In fact, I was told an amusing story by a World War 2 vet. He explained that his outfit was getting ready to go fight the Germans in Europe. Each evening, they would turn on the radio in the barracks and let everyone listen before Taps. One night, Lights Out was playing and the entire barracks became engrossed in the story of a Chicken Heart that grew bigger and bigger until it started to eat entire cities. The sound of the thumping Chicken Heart grew louder just before it struck. The story was about to end as the thumping grew louder and louder until suddenly -- the power for the entire base cut off without warning. He said the soldiers in the barracks nearly exploded in fright. They weren't afraid to charge Nazi machine gun nests, but getting stuck in the dark after Lights Out had spooked them was too much!

Wyllis Cooper created Lights Out, but left to Hollywood in 1936 to try his hand at screenwriting.

The Standard Intro:

(Hear it in Real Audio!)

Sfx: Gong!

Narrator: "Lights Out--- everybody..."

Sfx: Clock chimes midnight, at each strike, the narrator speaks...

Narrator: "It... Is... Later... Than... You... Think!"

Announcer: "Lights Out brings you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal, dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown. We tell you this frankly, so if you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays, we urgely calmly, but sincerely, to turn off your radio... now."

Sfx: GONG!

An Opening Narration:

Arch Oboler: "Let's go back tonight to another time. The time of King George the third of England. But our story tonight is not of monarchy. It's the story of an ordinary man by the name of Samuel Jones who had the extraordinary profession of ... State Executioner."

Announcer: "Tonight's Lights Out presents another psychological drama. A play in which the principal part is taken, not by the character himself, but his thoughts. The voice you are about to hear is that of the thoughts of one Samuel Jones, the State Executioner for his majesty George The Third. He sits alone in a dismal room, and these... are his thoughts."

An Ending Narration and Closing:

Announcer: (Reads commercial, then...) "And now, what about next week Mr. Oboler?":

Oboler: "Well Frank, to live forever... To live forever. Which one among us has not thought of that, to live forever? Through these years and the next and the next, and all through space and all time. That's what our play is about next week and its title: 'The Immortal Gentleman.' But that, as usual, is next week.

Announcer: "Yes, tune in next Tuesday again for Arch Obler's eerie story, 'The Immortal Gentleman.'"

Hear An Actual Episode!

(Courtesy of The Monster Club)

Valse Trieste - Two woman find themselves captured by a madman who wants to marry one of them...the other will die!

The Little People - A scientist murders, then shrinks the bodies of his wife and her lover.

Little Old Lady - A woman and her friend go to visit her aunt Harriet, only to discover something horrible about her cat.

The Spider - Two men encounter a giant spider in the jungle.

Sub Basement - A mal-intending man takes his cheating wife to the sub basement of the department store where he works and discovers a horrible creature.

Cat Wife - A man discovers that his wife is a giant cat.

The Organ - A family rents a haunted house in the country.

The Dark - A weird "creeping darkness" turns people inside out. (from Obler's lp, "Drop Dead")

Revolt of the Worms - A scientist experiments with growth hormones, invoking monstrous results

Hear more, FREE!

Hear up to 25 different episodes of Lights Out in RealPlayer!

(RealPlayer allows you to continue to browse other sites while you listen.)

Bonus Lights Out script related sites:

Script to Willis Cooper's Light's Out story "The Haunted Cell"

Other Willis Cooper scripts, including Lights Out .

OTR Plot Spot synopis of various episodes from Lights Out: http://www.otrplotspot.com/LightsOut.htm

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