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This set represents thousands of hours of work by Dr. Joe Webb and others to assemble the highest quality episodes available and document as completely as possible one of the most recognized old-time radio series. Episodes will be added to this playlist until all have been released by the summer of 2025.
Suspense was one of radio's greatest series, with a tenure of 20 years covering parts of three decades. An anthology, the program featured many of the most prominent Hollywood and Broadway performers, a top-notch production team, and superb direction. As radio drama met its slow demise in favor of television in the 1950s, Suspense remained a staple of the genre through the 1950s and the early 1960s, cast with veteran radio performers of exceptional talent.
The show was created by CBS executive Charles Vanda, who originally conceived a gothic mystery series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. That did not work out, but Vanda and William Spier kept pitching the idea to CBS. It was finally approved, and the series came to the air in June 1942. Vanda was called into military service a few weeks later, and Spier took over the series and changed the Suspense strategy to be based in Hollywood rather than New York and to focus on Hollywood stars. The story format changed feature first-person-narrative in most episodes.
While Suspense is considered a solid mainstay of the radio era, its life was actually rockier than commonly believed. It had a troubled history, was nearly canceled in 1947, had a disastrous (and thankfully short) hour-long format in early 1948, and seemed on the verge of cancellation for much of the late 1950s.
The show had big budgets in the 1940s to pay the big stars, the best writers and technicians, and a full orchestra with musicians of the highest caliber. Its custom-composed music was just as important to the broadcasts as the actors and the scriptwriters were.
The 1950s radio series saw their budgets cut and shifted to television. Suspense survived and was even a very successful television series in the early 1950s. Because Suspense was an anthology, they were able to shift from the big Hollywood stars strategy to lesser-stature movie performers and reliance on the medium’s most extraordinary radio performers. Those highly talented radio veterans were mostly anonymous in public, but radio listeners and classic radio enthusiasts knew and still know them well. Costs could be contained because there were no stars under contract to play the leads in every episode, and its stories and casts changed every week. The production could focus on its best qualities rather than feeding a star’s notoriety or publicity needs.
The show’s long tenure also meant that it had to navigate an audience that was changing and turning over. The series began re-present its best scripts and those of similar programs (such as Escape, Romance, and others) from earlier years. It’s not a repeat if you never heard it before. And if Suspense repeated it, that usually meant it was a darned good script since they had hundreds to choose from. A repeat meant the chance it could be savored once more.
The series was moved back to New York in 1959 and persisted until that day of September 30, 1962 which became known among collectors as the “day radio drama died.” That was when Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar had their final broadcasts. And the idea that it could return again seemed hopeless, and any thought of future series such as CBS Radio Mystery Theater and others in the 1970s and 1980s seemed like an impossibility.
Wasn't sure where to drop this, but this is pretty cool: