Plaza101.com is the place to find classic radio shows. Very few outlets these days provide the resources to own and listen to these great blasts from the past. And they provide online price comparisons as well, so the radio listening fan can find the variety they want and still save money too.

These radio classics that aired in the 1930’s, the 1940’s, and the 1950’s were called the theatre of the mind. They featured popular heroes of novels and movies, and were the place for many actors and film greats to get extra work and launch careers. Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater may be the best known of these. Plaza101.com provides the opportunity to hear these classic shows, including his famous adaptation of HG Well’s novel The War of the Worlds, which caused an international panic when it aired in 1930 because so many people thought it was an actual newscast and not a radio drama. From there of course, Orson Welles went on to produce Citizen Kane, considered the greatest film ever made by many critics and it also is available through plaza101.com.

Many of these radio programs that can be acquired through plaza101.com featured children’s programs. These were also enjoyed by adults however. They included the very popular Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet about the Lone Ranger’s nephew in modern times, Superman, Archie and Jughead, Dobie Gillis, Captain Midnight and his Secret Squadron, the Adventures of Jack Armstrong the All American Boy, and perhaps the most famous of all radio shows for kids, The Shadow. Orson Welles in fact played the voice of the Shadow, the crime fighter who could cloud men’s minds and knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Many shows that became popular on TV later started on radio. Sky King, the cowboy who flew in a Cessna airplane started on the radio. So did Marshall Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke, one of the longest running shows on television. Also Nero Wolfe, the hero of dozens of detective novels and two television shows was a popular radio attraction. For that matter other detectives included Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man movie fame, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow, and others. If not for radio shows the later renaissance of detectives on television may not have happened at all.

Plaza101.com can allow the fan to acquire these great pieces of the past of our popular culture, and the enjoyment will last for hours and hours.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 8:42 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.