A series of psychological drama produced by Wyllis Cooper (Lights Out!), starring the magnificent vocal artistry of Ernest Chappell. Each week Chappell’s narration would bring a new story and a new character.
A radio personality gets a call after a political speech that sends him into a dipsy-doodle. An old lady tells him to drop dead! He becomes obsessed because he can’t figure out why. She does it again! He feels cursed, but he doesn’t even know who it was. Eventually he does drop dead, but we don’t know how, the narrator just says he did.
Beezer’s Cellar
Three criminals hide loot in a haunted old foundation and find a bottomless well that grows larger as the floor collapses beneath them!
Bring Me to Life
An author begins to receive messages from a character on his typewriter. When a villain becomes real, he relies on the typewriter to save him.
Calling All Souls
An innocent man on death-row has an out-of-body experience on All Souls Night and joins the spirits of the murdered couple to discover the true killer’s identity. He discovers who it was and gathers knowledge of enough evidence to clear his name! But the ghosts can’t let him return…
Camera Obscura
Phil loans his girlfriend two hundred bucks, then ghosts on her. Little does she know the guy she turns to is the one who tied him to the pier before high tide! When Cy takes her to a touristy gimmick where you can see the whole town on a table because of a giant rooftop lens, what he sees is the dead man beckoning to him. The woman can see him too, and she figures it out… so he kills her, too, and tosses her body under the table. Then guess how many people he sees in the camera image? Hope he can hold his breath for a looong time!
Clarissa
A poor man takes a room with an old man filled with vitality and his daughter’s ghost. Beautiful atmosphere. Worth listening twice, as the twist is not spelled out.
Dark Gray Magic
A man unwittingly casts a spell to summon a demon who must teach him black magic, but the klutz can’t quite figure it out. The demon, who looks like a little boy, keeps trying to get the man to kill his best friend, Lumin, or at least steal his wife. In the end, he finally manages to turn the demon into something else.
Dark Rosaleen
Suicidal widower is taken on a magic boat ride to the Isle of the Blessed. Long, boring soliloquy. St. Patrick rows him to limbo to meet the Sean Bhean Bhocht. Not horror. [Referencing the poem Dark Rosaleen by James Clarence Mangan]
Don’t Tell Me About Halloween
In the 1600s, a man meets and marries a witch… but he only sees her one night a year: Halloween. He finds himself lonely across the decades, but as long as she’s alive, so will he be alive. Turns out this witch is a really jealous one and turns his lovers into things…
Evening and The Morning, The
If you pick a flower from a new grave and throw it away, the place it lands will be haunted by its owner forever. When this dope convinces his female friend to let go of the bitter memory of a bloom from her husband’s burial, he then feels beholden to help her rejoin her true love… by killing her and taking a flower from her grave to the same place.
Girl With the Flaxen Hair, The
See “Pavane”, The title this script used the second time it was aired.
Good Ghost
A guy is knocked off by a mug who’s in love with his girl, but he helps his murderer get rich to benefit her when they end up together. The ghost discovers his love destitute and beaten, and gets revenge in a nefarious, but creative way!
Green Light
A one-legged railroad man watches a locomotive fly through his station and crash at the next bend! When no debris is found, they call it a ghost train. He red-lights it next time through, and the conductor offers him a ride…
House Where I was Born, The
A man reminisces about the town he grew up in, leaving clues that yes, he died in the war, and the narrator is a ghost. Oh, but it goes ON. The jerk left his wife to go to America against her wishes before he was drafted. And it goes on… and on… and on…
If I Should Wake Before I Die
Like Alec Guiness’ famous line in A Bridge Over the River Kwai, A scientist who cares only for knowledge, without regard for the military application of his discovered secrets, destroys his rivals… and the moon! Will he be enlightened before there is no world left to appreciate his work?
Inquest
A cruel man is on trial for his brother-in-law’s murder. He claims self-defense… but who is the judge?
Is This Murder?
The apprentice of a maker of prosthetic limbs takes on an extra project: an automaton like Frankenstein’s monster! But where will he get a brain? When he is crippled by an accident, it might be him, or, it might be his fiancee. Mystery builds. If you kill a mechanical man is it really murder? And if a mechanical man kills…?
It Is Later Than You Think
A man receives a gold watch as he goes off to war, then discovers it can move him up to 12 hours in time. After his C.O. puts the moves on his fiancee, the watch gets stuck and he gets shot in action… but he survives, for a while.
Kill Me Again
A man sells his soul for a million dollars… but has never truly sinned; so the Devil makes him a deal. He incites others to murder him. Over and over… but it weighs on him, and he is denied a vacation, which makes him irritable. He hides. How long can he avoid being killed …again?
Let the Lilies Consider
A man loves his flower garden, and the lilies love him– but they hate his wife. When there is an inquest into her disappearance, a very tall lily appears.
Light the Lamp for Me
A lamp takes a man into the past, but he squanders the gift. At the end of his life, he feels he bears a debt and uses the lamp’s ability to cast him into the future just one time, perhaps to bring back a gift of knowledge, but leaves his matches behind… and finds himself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland! Can you change the future? Can you light the lamp to bring him home?
Little Fellow
A circus small person is gifted a genuine Egyptian scarab granting him three wishes. He flubs them all, but in the end he finds a way to become the same size as the fat lady he is in love with.
Little Visitor
An amnesiac encounters a strange boy who tells him stories about how he once stole money, encouraging the adult to do so the same. He conveys a story about how he once stabbed his sister’s doll… and the man’s wife did discover all the cash he stole…
Man Who Knew Everything
A narrative by a man who knows it all… (but he can’t tell the future.)He knows how he will die, by brain aneurysm, but he doesn’t know when. He wants to tell you about the weird trio of scoundrels he’s seen following you. Something you’ve got to know… your life depends on it! Guess what happens?
Man Who Stole a Planet, The
A bizarre tale about an explorer who discovered a tiny silver model of Earth in an ancient Mayan temple. He is continually assailed by high priests trying to kill him, and narrating across the fourth wall, he shows us how he can affect weather patterns across the globe by toying with his trinket!
Mile High and A Mile Deep
The script survives, but not the original broadcast, so you need to find a re-enactment. Two boys get lost a mile down in a copper mine. They find ancient wall paintings in a tunnel that was already there when miners reached 3,200 feet! One boy is claustrophobic. But a voice from the dark assures the other, “He’s not scared any more.” It was spoken by a man who had been buried alive a year before. It’s really creepy. Such potential… then it ends with a bottomless crevasse where Mother Earth demands regular human sacrifices at the few entrances to the depths of her fire pit found around the globe.
My Son John
A single dad sends his son off to war, and four months later he gets a letter. But he can’t read it. He visits a witch who helps him call his son back from the dead, but it turns out John never actually died. Well, he did… he was turned by Count Dracula himself! Pops has a hard time with all the hunting, though. So what’s a guy to do?
Never Send to Know
“…for whom the bell tolls…” An ethically challenged private eye admits his career is pretty boring until a ghost shows up and offers him a million dollars (dripping with blood) to find out who killed him. But he has no idea what his own name was. You can easily guess the ending, but the secretary is pretty funny.
Northern Lights, The
When two scientists discover how to move objects through time, they also matter-transfer psychic wooly-bear caterpillars from the the icy “world” associated with the Northern Lights. They say they will take over our world, but first they have to make it cold. Then they begin to make it happen!
Nothing Behind the Door
A mysterious door is locked to the public at observatory. The door is a gateway to the stars… where the Nothing is.
Other Side of the Stars, The
Music comes from a deep hole in the desert, and something is at the bottom. Aliens talk in music & are on the way to conquer Earth. Very Lovecraftian.
Pavanne
Playing the piano late one night, a man hears the voice of a little girl. When he turns on the light, she disappears. Because he and his wife desperately want a daughter, he is heart broken. She comes back to him, though, and he falls in love. Is she a ghost? It might be less emotionally wrenching if she was. [The musical score is by Maurice Ravel: Pavane for Dead Princess]
Presto-Change-o, I’m Sure
Garfield is loaned a magic wand by Prof. Cagliostro and starts making things disappear. Like a gorilla and his angry wife. Then he starts making mistakes.
Rain on New Year’s Eve
An overworked script writer deals with constant re-writes. His wish that he actually was his faceless monster is granted, but only on New Year.
Red and White Guidon
When the flag carrier of a company of cavalry men is shot by Indians, the guidon is entrusted to a man who knows it stands for the men themselves. His spirit tells the story of why he cannot get into Fiddler’s Green: he lost the flag at Custer’s Last Stand.
“There’s no such thing as strong whiskey, only weak men.”
Room Where Ghosts Lived, The
A man discovers his house contains a room filled with trapped ghosts and releases them, but falls in love with a spirit. The final solution to his weird love is provided by an old soldier.
Symphony in D Minor
A blind psychologist hypnotizes his brutish friend Ray when he discovers the goon’s plan to run away with his wife. Johannes uses an obnoxious binaural induction tone to place a trigger: when Ray hears the Quiet, Please theme song, he’ll strangle Carol! When a fuse blows and the cops show up too early for the vinyl to be heard, Ray remembers… and the couple plan to turn the tables by pushing Johannes out the window! But that’s not the only post-hypnotic suggestion he left! [Symphony in D Minor by Cesar Franck]
Take Me Out to The Graveyard
A cab driver is asked to take a fare to the cemetery.The rider insists he’s going there to die! He feels great, it’s not a suicide… He dies! …and so do the next three fares before the cabbie is up before the licensing commissioner. The inspector asks to see his driving. To the graveyard! They both stop to smell the lilies on the way.
Tanglefoot
Two guys raise a pet fly… that grows over eight inches long. Its progeny escapes. They call flypaper ‘tanglefoot.’
Tap the Heat, Bogdan
When an Irishman steals his girl, big bohunk steel worker Bogdan aspires to murder. Luring Manas McGuire close to the ladel one day, he makes himself a very special ingot.
There Are Shadows Here
A woman who wears a perfume called Russian Leather pursues a man urging him to come with her. All we ever see is her shadow. The man’s ginger beer-totalling bartender friend banishes the shade with magic… but too late– the man’s shadow is gone!
Thing on the Fourble Board, The
A geologist on an oil rig discovers a gold ring buried since prehistoric times. Then an invisible finger. What’s that noise up above? Disturbing sounds from a roughneck’s new girlfriend!
Thirteen and Eight
Newspaper men are photo-bombed by a man who appears to be transparent. The apparition becomes more solid in each photo. It is finally a clear image at the scene when the reporter, who coins a “Killer Car”, gets hit by it.
Three
A man is haunted by the number three. He kills the bartender named Drei. No explanation is given for the phobia.
Three Thousand Words
A dwarf approaches his brother and his wife and discovers they are running a spiritualism racket. Because the brother is so stingy with the proceeds, the wife helps knock him off! The little person happens to be a ventriloquist and can mimic his brother’s voice perfectly… so he takes the place of the dummy used to channel the spirits. But can he trust his brother’s widow?
Time of the Big Snow, The
A feel-good story in which two kids get lost in a snow storm, but find shelter in a mysterious, empty house occupied by the Goddess. They are discovered safe in a field nearby. Many years later, they receive a phone call from the old woman who needs help plucking her geese!
Valentine
A man leaves a small town for a job in Congress, neglecting his sweetheart, never writing while she pines for him. AHas a sad, romantic soundtrack. Spoiler: The man is Lincoln, and his heart, Mary Todd.
Wear the Dead Man’s Coat
Bum gets a warm jacket and discovers he is invisible. You die the day you put it on, but stay alive, invisible– it can’t be removed, ever.
Whence Came You?
An archaeologist is trapped in the temple of the children of Osiris after a man is killed by what looks to have been a giant hawk’s beak.
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
A drunk named Basil asks a radio writer where he finds inspiration for his murderous stories… then explains that he kills is girlfriend Helen every night! “She won’t stay dead.” When no one wants to hear the drunk’s stories about about men on the moon, Basil gets belligerent… then actually shoots Helen right in the bar! (You can’t kill people on the moon, they don’t die.) Helen? She’s fine. She has four arms and pulls off her second head when she wants to fit in.
