Stay Tuned For Terror
1945
Robert Bloch was the writer to this mysterious series. (Click image for his 1989 photo)
Stay Tuned For Terror was penned by veteran horror writer Robert Bloch. According to Richard Hand's OTR book, Terror On The Air, it was a 15 minute series starring Boris Karloff. Oddly enough, I can't find any other references to Karloff being a regular on the series. However, Hand makes the statement twice (Hand, 10, 52). It's hard to confirm elsewhere though, because no recordings of the series are known to exist, and the few radio listings that have been found in newspapers of the day* don't list the actors. It is also uncertain who the host of the series was, or whether Bloch himself ever spoke about his stories on the air as Arch Oboler often did in Lights Out!
In spite of this uncertainty, or maybe because of it, Stay Tuned For Terror has become a missing "Holy Grail" show for OTR archivist who dream of finding lost treasures. It certainly had the ingredients to be something exceptional, with two of horror's best known talents involved: one, a popular shock author, and the other, Hollywood's most famous monster man (if, in fact, he was a show regular). Some speculate that recordings are likely, because the show was not aired live. It was recorded in WMAQ in Chicago, three episodes at a time, one day per week. Bloch drove in from Milwaukee to attend all the recording sessions, and transcriptions were also sent various stations, including ones in Canada (Digital Deli Too). We can always hope one or more of those disks will resurface.
Some feel confident that the popularity of the show would almost certainly have motivated a few select listeners to record shows at home from their radios. But in 1945, magnetic tape was not yet available in American households, nor were phonographic recording devices made for home use. What is more bewildering is why the actual radio scripts haven't surfaced after all these years. Bloch was a well known author and talked about them enough in various interviews. (It was the only program where he was given complete control, and he was obviously quite proud of the results). Of course, they might have been recycled as short stories in Weird Tales magazine, which also promoted the show as "Weird Tales' Stay Tuned For Terror" (Digital Deli Too). You would imagine Bloch kept his 39 or so original scripts tucked away, if not, the actual disks. Alas, he died in 1994, so the odds of anything turning up now grow dimmer with each passing year.
*Wisconsin State Journal, June 13, 15, 18, 20, 22 , 1945. See Digital Deli Too)
Read the titles to all 39 different episodes courtesy of the OTRR group.
rev. 1.25.10 **