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Thread: Arch Oboler: Lights Out and The Mae West Broadcasting Ban

  1. #1
    radiojane Guest

    Arch Oboler: Lights Out and The Mae West Broadcasting Ban

    Interesting fellow. Loved his work. Scared the crap out of me.

    Arch Oboler (December 7, 1907 – March 19, 1987) was a playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, and director who was active in radio, films, theatre and television. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Leon Oboler and Clara Oboler, Jewish immigrants from Riga, Latvia. He briefly attended the University of Chicago prior to dropping out to pursue his writing career full time.
    Oboler generated much attention for his radio scripts, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Although some noted a tendency for gruesomeness, he received praise as one of broadcasting's top talents, and he is regarded today as one of the innovators of radio drama.
    Oboler sold his first radio scripts while still in high school during the 1920s and rose to fame when he began scripting the NBC horror anthology Lights Out in 1936. He later found notoriety with his script contribution to the 12 December 1937 edition of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. In Oboler's sketch, host Don Ameche and guest Mae West portrayed a slightly bawdy Adam and Eve, satirizing the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden. On the surface, the sketch did not feature much more than West's customary suggestive double-entendres, and today the sketch seems extremely tame. But in 1937, that sketch and a subsequent routine featuring West trading suggestive quips with Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy helped the broadcast cause a furor that resulted in West being banned from broadcasting and from being mentioned at all on NBC programming for 15 years.
    When Oboler took over Lights Out in 1936, the show was already a sensation because of creator Wyllis Cooper's violent, quirky scripts and Oboler continued in a similar vein. One of Oboler's best remembered scripts for Lights Out was Chicken Heart, first broadcast March 10, 1937:
    Curiously, in the 1960s, "Chicken Heart" became more associated with comedian Bill Cosby than Oboler. Cosby's retelling of the radio drama with humorous vocalized sound effects became one of his most popular comedy routines, recorded on Cosby's Wonderfulness (1966) and available today on both YouTube and a CD reissue.
    In 1939-40, Oboler introduced another series, Arch Oboler's Plays, on CBS. In addition to horror tales, the dramas on this series often employed more topical material, especially regarding early World War II events, and the cast featured many leading film actors. After a year on CBS, it returned for a short run on Mutual in 1945, and it was syndicated in 1964.
    In making a leap from radio to film, Oboler was sometimes compared to Orson Welles; both considered boy geniuses of radio suspense.
    His screen credits include Escape (1940) and On Our Merry Way (1948). By 1945, he moved into directing with Bewitched and Strange Holiday, followed by the post-apocalyptic Five (1951), filmed at his own Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house.
    Oboler made film history with the 3-D effects in Bwana Devil (1952). The Twonky (1953) was adapted from the Lewis Padgett short story in the September, 1942, issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Oboler returned to films with another 3-D feature, The Bubble, in 1966.
    In 1949, Oboler helmed an anthology television series, Oboler's Comedy Theatre (aka Arch Oboler's Comedy Theater) which ran for six episodes from September to November. In the premiere show, "Ostrich in Bed," a couple awaiting the arrival of a dinner guest find an ostrich in their bedroom. In "Mr. Dydee" a dim-witted horse player inherits a diaper service.

    Oboler's works have been published in several anthologies and recordings. His work on radio is prized today by collectors.
    On April 7, 1958, Oboler's six-year-old son, Peter, drowned in rainwater collected in excavations at Oboler's Malibu home. Arch Oboler died in Westlake Village, California in 1987.

    Heres some of his work for free listening
    http://www.archive.org/details/ArchOboler01

    I'm trying to find a transcript of the Mae West broadcast. I don't think I have that episode. Will post when I have it. All I remember is that it was actually really tame, and that the script was pre approved. It was Mae's delivery that caused trouble!
    Last edited by radiojane; 01-15-2009 at 04:20 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    greater Boston area
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    321
    A number of my friends here in Boston are involved with a group called the Post-Meridian Radio Players; they do "audio theatre", which is basically re-doing old radio scripts (or sometimes writing new ones in that same style), but onstage & in costume--they performed as part of First Night on New Year's Eve at the Orpheum Theatre, and I got to play makeup artist for the night. Chicken Heart is one of their signature pieces--they've done it for Halloween, at Arisia (big science fiction/fantasy convention), and now for NYE as well. It's very much of its time and place (for starters, it's more than a little sexist, although we've all known people like the busybody trustee wives), but still spooky, and I can imagine just how much it could scare the crap out of someone listening to it in 1937.

  3. #3
    radiojane Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by RobinTMP View Post
    A number of my friends here in Boston are involved with a group called the Post-Meridian Radio Players; they do "audio theatre", which is basically re-doing old radio scripts (or sometimes writing new ones in that same style), but onstage & in costume--they performed as part of First Night on New Year's Eve at the Orpheum Theatre, and I got to play makeup artist for the night. Chicken Heart is one of their signature pieces--they've done it for Halloween, at Arisia (big science fiction/fantasy convention), and now for NYE as well. It's very much of its time and place (for starters, it's more than a little sexist, although we've all known people like the busybody trustee wives), but still spooky, and I can imagine just how much it could scare the crap out of someone listening to it in 1937.
    That must be really cool to see. I remember finding a filmed taping of a Benny broadcast and watching in amazement. I never could believe they could create all that standing at a mike.

  4. #4
    Long Gone Day Guest
    Jane....I..just..went..to..listen..to..the..above..link..and..its..not..working...
    Am..I..doing..somethin..wrong?

  5. #5
    radiojane Guest
    I edited the link, seems to work now...

  6. #6
    Long Gone Day Guest
    Thank...ya.....Im..gonna..listen..to..it..when..I..go..to..sleep..so..I..get
    sceered......
    Last edited by Long Gone Day; 01-15-2009 at 04:43 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    Middle Earth
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    13,009
    I remember some radio serials. Lone Ranger comes to mind. The TV never matched my imagination listening to the radio.
    Stay in Drugs. Eat your School. Don't do Vegetables.

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