Radio's Clown Prince and A Look Forward to Baseball in the 1990's

Yes, you read the headline correctly.  We look forward to 1990's baseball this week on the OTR Express.

But first, we have a fun show from Red Skelton, he of the many characters. 

If this photo doesn't tell you everything you need to know about Red Skelton, I don't know what will.

Then, we take a hard left and listen to one of my favorite radio programs of all time - X Minus One.  X Minus One could be counted on consistently to stretch the listener's imagination, and this week is no different. 

Though considerably less "heavy" than normal X Minus One material, "Martian Sam" gives us a prediction of what baseball will be like 40 years in the future...in the far off distance of the 1990's.  In one aspect, the show gets it right...teams were looking for any advantage they could get.

Except instead of Martian pitchers named Sam with long arms, they had Earthmen sluggers named Barry and Sammy with big heads.... 

Sam's home planet.

Show #10 - Gunsmoke & X Minus One

This week on the Old Time Radio Express we listen to a couple of the great programs from the sunset of the golden age of radio - Gunsmoke and X Minus One.   We start with Gunsmoke and the tale "Blood Money".  Gunsmoke was dubbed radio's "adult" western - with the term "adult" meaning simply that it was directed more towards the grown-ups than the Hopalong Cassidys and Lone Rangers of the western genre.

Indeed, when I was younger and first listened to Gunsmoke, I didn't appreciate it.  The resolutions to the shows were unsatisfying, if there were any at all.  Often, Marshal Dillon and the rest of Dodge City were left at the end of the show no better off than they were at the beginning.  As someone who was used to the Lone Ranger forcing a confession out of the bad hombres and then riding off into the sunset with a "Hi-Yo Silver, away!", Gunsmoke was a sea change.

The older I got, though, and realized that life doesn't always wrap things up in a bow, the more I appreciated Gunsmoke, and today it ranks as one of my favorite old time radio shows.

X Minus One, on the other hand, has always been one of my favorites.  I can still remember the tagline for "Knock", the first X Minus One program that I heard:  "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.  There was a knock at the door".  How can you not be intrigued by a teaser like that?

Like Gunsmoke, X Minus One was consistently high quality.  X Minus One used its science fiction status to its benefit, as it was able to subtly address heavy topics such as racism, genocide and colonialism that other programs could not.  This particular X Minus One stories - "Cold Equations" - is one of the more famous tales.