Before Audiobooks, There Was Old Time Radio
Ah…the winter holidays. Family. Celebrations. Merriment. Food. Traditions. Friends. And…car rides. Long car rides.
Growing up, my family’s holidays consisted of driving – and a lot of it. Back in the day, before car seats and seat belt laws, I can remember sitting in between my mom and dad in the front seat of our wood paneled station wagon as we made our way throughout the Midwest from one family gathering to the next and then back home. My three siblings had “claimed” their spots in the station wagon, and we would wait for our father to locate syndicated Old Time Radio shows. Fibber McGee and Molly? Suspense? Abbott and Costello? The Shadow? Or The Cinnamon Bear? To be honest, it didn’t matter what show he found. With a twist of the dial, we were all engaged in the program, and the car ride became our own family story hour.
Now as an adult, my holidays still consist of long car rides. For upcoming travels, it’s possible to relive the “Golden Age of Radio” with materials from the library’s collection as well as several Internet resources. The following web sites provide free downloads of Old Time Radio (OTR) shows. MP3 files can be downloaded onto a computer and made into a CD or transferred to an MP3 player for car ride fun:
Growing up, my family’s holidays consisted of driving – and a lot of it. Back in the day, before car seats and seat belt laws, I can remember sitting in between my mom and dad in the front seat of our wood paneled station wagon as we made our way throughout the Midwest from one family gathering to the next and then back home. My three siblings had “claimed” their spots in the station wagon, and we would wait for our father to locate syndicated Old Time Radio shows. Fibber McGee and Molly? Suspense? Abbott and Costello? The Shadow? Or The Cinnamon Bear? To be honest, it didn’t matter what show he found. With a twist of the dial, we were all engaged in the program, and the car ride became our own family story hour.
Now as an adult, my holidays still consist of long car rides. For upcoming travels, it’s possible to relive the “Golden Age of Radio” with materials from the library’s collection as well as several Internet resources. The following web sites provide free downloads of Old Time Radio (OTR) shows. MP3 files can be downloaded onto a computer and made into a CD or transferred to an MP3 player for car ride fun:
- Internet Archive has over 1800 individual episodes available (in MP3 format, as well as ogg vorbis format for the Linux users out there).
- Old time Radio Fans offers hundreds of OTR episodes from approximately 75 radio series.
- Old Radio World features “thousands” of downloads from some of the most popular radio programs of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
- OTR Network contains over 12,000 OTR episodes from 160+ programs.
- Radio Lovers has episodes from over 200 series available for download.
Also, if you need help getting a holiday play list together, The Original Old-Time Radio WWW Pages has created a guide to programs and individual episodes with holiday themes.
I can already hear Fibber McGee’s closet door opening up….
Safe travels and happy holidays,
- Anna, Hopewell Branch
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