Lights Out, featuring "tales of the supernatural and the supernormal", was created in Chicago by writer Wyllis Cooper in 1934, and the first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on a local NBC station, WENR. By April 1934, the series was expanded to a half hour in length and moved to midnight Wednesdays. In January 1935, the show was discontinued in order to ease Cooper's workload (he was then writing scripts for the network's prestigious Immortal Dramas program), but was brought back by huge popular demand a few weeks later. After a successful tryout in New York City, the series was picked up by NBC in April 1935 and broadcast nationally, usually late at night and always on Wednesdays. Cooper stayed on the program until June 1936, when another Chicago writer, Arch Oboler, took over. By the time Cooper left, the series had inspired about 600 fan clubs. Cooper's run was characterized by grisly stories spiked with dark, tongue-in-cheek humor, a sort of radio Grand Guignol. A character might be buried or eaten or skinned alive, vaporized in a ladle of white-hot steel, absorbed by a giant slurping amoeba, have his arm torn off by a robot, tortured or decapitated -- always with the appropriate blood-curdling acting and sound effects.

THIS EPISODE:

July 20, 1943. Program #15. CBS net origination, syndicated rebroadcast. "Profits Unlimited". Commercials added locally. A fascinating story about an island filled with zombie-like workers and a strange inheritance. Syndicated program title: "The Devil and Mr. O." The story is also known as "Efficiency Island." Arch Oboler (writer, host), Mercedes  McCambridge. 25 minutes.

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