The Secret Word is Chair (YBYL)

Not much to say about this other than these old game shows are still a great listen. Groucho was really fast on his feet and its great to listen to him try to steer the conversation toward a joke.

You Bet Your Life
The Secret Word is Chair
5 Oct 1949
19491005(000)_YBYL_Word=Chair.mp3

Groucho Marx

The Last Objective (DIMX)

Deep beneath the earth's irradiated crust, the crew of a mole-like death machine wage a final war against the enemy and themselves.

I like to think of this one as the "imperfect storm." It has all kinds of stuff in it that should make me giggle with glee. An android that fails to understand its inhumanity and is apparently addicted to cigarettes. A post-apocalyptic landscape of the wildest description. A society run by tyrannical psychological profilers. And yet, it fails to make much sense beyond the typical 1950's cautionary note about the horrors of atomic war. I keep listening to it anyway, though, hoping I'm wrong. I think this is the third time. Maybe just one more...

Dimension X #35
The Last Objective
3 June 1951
19510603(035)_DIMX_TheLastObjective.mp3
NBC net. Ernest Kinoy (adaptor), George Mathis (engineer), Jack Grimes, Lawson Zerbe, Norman Rose (host), Paul Carter (author), Ralph Bell, Wendell Holmes, William Welch (producer), Albert Buhrman (music), Edward King (director), Joseph Julian, Bob Warren (announcer), William Zuckert, Cameron Prud'Homme, Staats Cotsworth.

Staats Cotsworth

A Dream of Armageddon (ESCP)

In dreams, a man visits the year 2200 and watches as civilization crumbles before the horrors of war.

When you want a great script, especially when you have a classic on your hands, there's nobody better than Les Crutchfield. The cautionary note about future war and the back-and-forth transference in this tale remind me a lot of the excellent Dimension X episode, Time and Time Again. 

In some ways the best part of this episode is the end sequence. The narrator is well and truly trapped in the horror of the future.

Escape #52
Dream of Armageddon
September 09 1948
19480905(052)_ESCP_DreamOfArmageddon.mp3
CBS net. Betty Lou Gerson, Charlotte Lawrence, Erik Rolf, H. G. Wells (author), Jack Kruschen, John Dehner, Les Crutchfield (adaptor), Stacy Harris (doubles), John Dunkel (script supervisor), Ivan Ditmars (music), Roy Rowan (announcer), Norman Macdonnell (director).

Les Crutchfield

Present Tense (ESCP)

Vincent Price plays a raving lunatic, axe murder, and yoga master?

This is a pretty weird one.

Escape #96
Present Tense
31 January 1950
19500131(096)_ESCP_PresentTense(2).mp3
CBS net origination, AFRTS rebroadcast. Vincent Price, James Poe (writer), William N. Robson (producer, director), Charles McGraw, Joan Banks, Harry Bartell, Ben Wright, Tom Tully, William Lally, Jeff Corey, Paul Frees, Del Castillo (arranger, conductor)

Vincent Price, 1938

The Fourth Man (ESCP)

Three escaped convicts aboard a raft in the South Pacific talk of what they will do with their freedom after being picked up by a pre-arranged boat. The fourth man in the raft is a savage, a cannibal that the convicts consider to be subhuman, who has been charged with conveying them to the boat. But the boat is late, and the convicts begin to quarrel and resent the savage's composure.

Escape #7
The Fourth Man
August 18 1947
19470818(007)_ESCP_TheFourthMan(PaulFrees).mp3
CBS net. William Johnstone (narrator), Paul Frees, Joseph Kearns, John Russell (author), Irving Ravetch (adaptor), William N. Robson (producer, director), Nestor Paiva, Cy Feuer (composer, conductor)

Paul Frees, man of a thousand voices