The Mysterious Traveler - "The Last Survivor" (10-11-45)

The Last Survivor (Aired October 11, 1945)

Between 1944 and 1952, The Mysterious Traveler eventually became one of the sixteen highest rated Radio programs of their era. WOR and MBS took great pride in putting together a program that could rival Radio giants CBS, ABC, and NBC throughout the era. During its heyday The Mysterious Traveler spawned several similar thriller genre programs such as The Strange Dr. Wierd (1945), The Sealed Book (1945), Dark Venture (1946), Murder By Experts (1949), and The Teller of Tales (1950). The thriller genre was not new to Radio in the 1940s. The Witch's Tale had aired from 1931 to 1938 over The Mutual Broadcasting System and WOR. CBS had tried--and failed at--their own The Witching Hour for three months in 1932. Oklahoma Radio station WKY had successfully aired their own Dark Fantasy (1941) anthology of thrillers, which was immediately picked up by NBC for a national run. But clearly, The Mutual system and WOR appear to have acquired the inside track for the thriller genre for almost two decades.

THIS EPISODE:
 
October 11, 1945. Mutual-Don Lee network. "The Last Survivor". Sustaining. The spacemen in the first ship returning from Mars witness the destruction of the entire Earth. Maurice Tarplin (as "The Traveler"), Ralph Bell, Robert Dryden, Robert A. Arthur (writer, producer, director), David Kogan (writer, producer, director). 28:41. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.