I've been listening to the old time radio station on Sirius lately, and have enjoyed a lot of old shows. Some favorites:

Comedies:

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
The Aldrich Family
Burns and Allen
The Charlie McCarthy Show
Damon Runyan Theatre
Duffy's Tavern
Fibber McGee and Molly
The Great Gildersleeve
Halls of Ivy
It's Higgins, Sir
The Jack Benny Program
The Life of Riley
Life with Luigi
My Favorite Husband
My Friend Irma
Our Miss Brooks
The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show
The Stan Freberg Show

Dramas:

Dragnet
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
The Shadow
Sherlock Holmes
Gunsmoke

Anthologies:

Arch Oboler's Plays
Suspense
Screen Directors Playhouse (abridged versions of popular movies, usually with one or more of the original stars)
The Screen Guild Theater
Lux Radio Theater
X Minus One

A question: I heard a comedy that I think starred Dennis Day. It was kind of like a Fractured Fairy Tale, about a knight who was afraid to be brave. I think that it was part of an anthology series that tried to teach good values. Anyone know what that was? [Edit: It was "William the Terrified," on a show called Family Theater.]

back in the 80s a lot of radio stations used to play the old radio shows from the 30s 40s, and 50s (when they were fighting a losing battle with TV). A local station where I was living at the time played them on weeknights and I recorded them on cassette. I also subscribed to a mail-order company back then that sold them on cassette, so I have a lot of them on tape and I listen to them all the time.

Does The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas count?

I was a fan of Abbott and Costello and back in 1978 I saw a Abbott and Costello on radio LP at the record shop. I got into the radio shows after that

People make fun of Edgar Berger being on the radio because you can't tell if a ventriloquist is moving his lips. His shows were funny, though. The show I've heard recently that I think is even more unlikely starred Blackstone the Magician. A magician on the radio!

Edger BERGEN not Berger. His daughter is Candace Bergen of "MURPHY BROWN".

Several years ago, I attended a lecture where the host talked about and gave the audience cds of old time radio shows. Some were so so but a few I really did like. Where does one picked up Sirius radio and do you paid to listen??

You don't need Sirius. Save your money! I can give you some links for free:


OTR.net (http://www.otr.net/)

Old Radio Programs (https://oldradioprograms.us/)

Times Past (http://otrarchive.blogspot.com/)

Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio)

ROK Radio - Live Feeds (http://rokradio.com/)

OTR Library (http://otrrlibrary.org/index.html)

Thanks to you all. I will look into the links and see- oops- hear what I can find.

back in the 80s a lot of radio stations used to play the old radio shows from the 30s 40s, and 50s (when they were fighting a losing battle with TV). A local station where I was living at the time played them on weeknights and I recorded them on cassette. I also subscribed to a mail-order company back then that sold them on cassette, so I have a lot of them on tape and I listen to them all the time.

How can you listen to radio ONLY shows when you've grown up with TV?? It would be like watching a TV show but turning the picture off & just listening to the audio!

As a novelty hearing 1 or 2 might be nice but not many different ones.

You just fill in with your imagination. It's like the difference between watching a ballgame or listening to the same game on the radio.

Right, I can understand that but the vast majority of people would rather watch a game that simply listen to it.

However if you were on the road taking a long road trip or something I can understand listening to a radio show.

I always assumed 'transcribed' meant that it was not broadcast 'live,' but recorded (sometimes before an audience, sometimes not) on a transcription disc for later airing. Became more common after the war, with Bing Crosby and "Philco Radio Time" somewhat leading the way. Although, there were numerous syndicated shows, going back to the early-30s, recorded on disc, and peddled around the various stations across the country. Usually of the juvenile-adventure variety. Probably a fair number of discs were made, for distribution. One of the reasons I think the survival rate for those type of shows is also much better, compared to their 'live' network counterpart shows, which in most cases weren't even preserved to disc at all. Hence, we have near-complete runs of things like "Speed Gibson" or "Jerry at Fair Oaks," while with the first several years of the "Lone Rangers" series, nothing exists.

It's a real shame more shows from the 1930s don't survive. I'd always wanted to hear a bit more from the very popular radio comedy stars of that era, like Joe Penner, Ed Wynn, Jack Pearl, Eddie Cantor, and such.

I always assumed 'transcribed' meant that it was not broadcast 'live,' but recorded
Yes that's one definition of transcribed.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcribe

Sherlock Holmes radio shows with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were really good. Another favorite is Lum N Abner.