The 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century selected by Walter Cronkite

The collection also has tremendous historical cachet, providing an intriguing glimpse of the sensibilities of a bygone era. Retro buffs will be delighted by the vintage radio ads that accompany the broadcasts. These unbelievably enthusiastic pitches for cigarettes and hair tonics are fascinating, occasionally hilarious reminders that these were very different times: in one 1946 broadcast, Camel Cigarettes boasts of the cartons of smokes it donated to veterans' hospitals. As both a time capsule and a survey of first-rate entertainment, the collection is a treasure, whether you were raised on radio or are uncovering its charms for the first time. (Running time: 30 hours) --Andrew Neiland

Book Description
It is with great pride that Radio Spirits has teamed with Walter Cronkite in selecting The 60 Greatest Old Time Radio Shows of the 20th century. You'll hear Orson Welles' legendary "War of the World's", Abbott and Costello's famous "Who's on First?" routine, Jack Benny's hilarious "Money or Your Life" show and many more oldtime radio favorites! This unparalleled collection includes a booklet containing rare photographs and a detailed history on each of the 60 greatest old-time radio shows of the 20th century and a foreword written by Walter Cronkite. This collection also includes a wonderful audio foreword detailing the history of radio by Walter Cronkite.

Like Comedy? You'll get such classics as Jack Benny's "Your Money, or Your Life?", Abott & Costello's "Who's On First?", and the infamous Don Ameche & Mae West "Adam&Eve" sketch, on The Chase And Sanbourn Hour.

Like to be scared out of your wits? The best horror broadcast of all time "The Thing On The Fourble Board" will certinly do the job, as will Escape's nail-bitting classic "Three Skeleton Key", and it's other shocker "Leinengan Vs. The Ants". Add that up with the haunting Mercury Summer theatre episode "The Hitchhiker", and there's 2 Hours worth of terror!

There's all sorts of other great show, but I'm in a rush! OTR fans, take my word for it, this set rules!


The best collection available   August 24, 2001
 29 out of 30 found this review helpful

I am very happy with this collection. Old Time Radio continues to be hard to obtain in a decent format, and finding it on CD is even more difficult. In light of this, "The 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century" is the best, all-around collection I have found.

There are some real gems here. The dramatization of Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall (X Minus One)" is very well done. Adolph Huxley introduces his classic "Brave New World (CBS Radio Workshop)," and Abbott and Costello shine as usual with "Who's on First (Abbott and Costello Show)." Orson Wells is well represented in a variety of genres, doing good work with "The Hitchhiker (Mercury Summer Theater) and "White God (The Shadow)." His classic "War of the Worlds (Mercury Theater on the Air)" is included, although if you buy any Old Time Radio collections, you tend to end up with several copies of this. A nice episode of Bold Venture stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. "Sorry Wrong Number (Suspense)" is considered one of the finest examples of the genre, and Orson Welles considered it to be the best script available. Bing Crosby is great in his performances

Personally, I would have picked a slightly different collection of the 60 greatest, but they did not ask me. The collection is a little heavy on comedy and variety shows. This type of humor tends not to translate well over the years, and you may not know the references. The patriotic pieces are very heavy handed, and America operates under a different set of morals. "God, and plutonium, are on our side..." I could do without any Baby Snooks.

All together, the good episodes far outweigh the mediocre. I am definitely happy with this purchase, and have listened to episodes multiple times.


Maybe this is why Radio died.   March 29, 2000
 16 out of 34 found this review helpful

This collection of old-time radio programs is barely passable. The selection of shows only brings out how dull and very TV-like radio could be. Listening to these "great" Jack Benny and Edgar Bergen episodes (and they give us two or three shows from each) you may be left wondering --what on earth were people laughing at (and I like both these comedians). And why would The Jazz Singer be on here. It has freak appeal, but surely there were better Lux Theater productions. The only redeeming tapes in this entire collection are one with an odd Christmas episode from Dragnet, and the tape devoted entrely to Yours Truly Johnny Dollar. The other episodes are --for the most part-- barely passable... definitely not anywhere near the best radio shows ever. But that title probably wouldn't sell many tapes.


Cronkite can pick 'em   February 9, 2000
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

This was just the companion I needed when I drove 14 hours home for Christmas. The selection is kind of heavy on "christmas episodes" so it was even more perfect. Granted I am a radio "buff" but this collection exposed me to a lot of "new" old shows.


Valuable living history   December 19, 1999
 44 out of 47 found this review helpful

Radio Spirits, Inc. is in the process of making available on tapes (and a few on CDs) to a video-oriented public just about every popular radio show of the century that will end on New Year's Eve of 2000. Not only is their catalogue bursting with individual programs, but they have boxed sets of 60 shows each on 20 cassettes packaged by type: science fiction, detective, comedy, and so on. Their latest offering in that format is titled -- and lest one exclaim "Sez who?" the rest of the title is "Selected by Walter Cronkite." Of course, we cannot be sure if he chose each episode personally. The box tells us that "Radio Spirits has teamed" with him in the selection. For some of these choices, I fell into violent disagreement with the use of "greatest"; but all in all this is as remarkable a collection as are the earlier releases and quite different from them in one important respect. Several of the shows are highly poetical and designed to help audiences through the war and postwar years back in the 1940s. The one called "We Hold These Truths" gives us Jimmy Stewart in a Norman Corwin tribute to the Bill of Rights, while Orson Welles intones the purple prose of Corwin's "Fourteen August." I found a salute to Carl Sandburg somewhat overlong. However Corwin's "The Undecided Molecule" is not only all in verse and truly funny, but features Robert Benchley and Groucho Marx among several other stars. Of course Cronkite would include a full Walter Winchell broadcast when a few seconds' sample would have sufficed, and the Vic and Sade episode chosen is particularly vapid. (Were they all like that, can some reader tell me?) But choosing the Abbott and Costello show that has not only the "Who's on First" but also the "Bob Feller" routine was right on target, as was the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show in which Mae West got herself banned from the air for her suggestive reading of Eve in a sketch in which Don Ameche plays Adam. Other highlights are the "Sorry, Wrong Number" with Agnes Moorehead ("Suspense") and the same author's "The Hitchhiker" with Orson Welles ("Mercury Summer Theater"). Mr. Welles' famous Mercury Theater "War of the Worlds" is the first selection, by the way, to be matched in terror only by "Three Skeleton Key" ("Escape") in which Vincent Price and two men are trapped in a lighthouse by millions of rats! Or the classic "Leinengen vs. the Ants" ("Escape") in which William Conrad defies several square miles of the man-eaters. For comedy we have Baby Snooks, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Desi and Lucy (with the Mertz's), Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (in a particular funny Philco Radio Time Episode), and a host of comics in a Dick Tracy spoof on a "Command Performance" designed for GI's overseas. For drama we have, among many, the science fiction "Nightfall" ("X-Minus One") the western "From Here to Boston" ("Have Gun, Will Travel") the mystery "The Death Bed Caper" ("Sam Spade, Detective") the suspenseful "The Shadow of Death" ("Inner Sanctum") and the speculative "Brave New World" ("The CBS Radio Workshop"). (I regret I simply do not have the space to list them all, but you can contact me for more details.) Different from the other sets is the format that mixes 60 and 90 minute shows with shorter ones, so that an entire tape can be devoted to a sequence of "Johnny Dollar" episodes. But you still get 60 shows, if each episode counts as one! As I said when I reviewed some of the earlier releases, this is a terrific educational tool if used correctly. The Bill of Rights broadcast, for example, would do a better job letting the young know about those original 10 amendments than any textbook could. And think what a teacher could do in having a class write its own radio show after hearing some of these! I believe there is a CD version available, but I find CDs leave out the commercials to make room on a side that cannot hold more than 79 minutes. But in either format, this collection (as are the others, of course) is a most enjoyable, if not a most valuable, set to have and to play many times. Perhaps if we understood better where we came, we might make a better job of where we are going.