Saddest Old Time Radio Shows

The ancient Greeks taught that the flipside of comedy is tragedy. Literary tragedy follows some well-defined rules to elicit the greatest emotional response. Greek dramatic tragedy is defined by elements such as hubris, or the sin of pride which leads to the fall of a hero. In other instances, sadness is the result of a loss of innocence, the sense that the world is changing, perhaps not for the better, but inevitably and there is nothing we can do about it.

Artistically, it seems easier to make listeners laugh than it is to make them cry because people simply prefer to laugh. The philosopher Aristotle taught that tragedy was a means of cleaning the soul through the experience of catharsis. Only by experiencing the bitter can we truly enjoy the sweet, we can only understand the light after we have experienced the dark.

Some would argue that there is enough genuine sadness in the world that there is no need for tragedy in art. We would like to point out that sometimes the thing which will make us the happiest is to enjoy a good cry, and with that in mind we present the following stories and more.

• Amos 'n' Andy, Wartime New Year's Eve Program, NBC, December 31, 1943. A tragic lesson wrapped in a comedy can be especially effective, as we see when Amos says goodbye to the year 1943, a year which has had more than its share of tragedy and War along with local troubles. In a dream sequence, Amos sees the old year as a condemned thug, ably played by Edward G. Robinson, who has briefly escaped from the Death House but his fate is sealed. Andy appears to remind us that good things happen in even the worst years. This makes 1943's shocking on-air suicide all the more poignant.
• Truth or Consequences, Christmas Episode, 1947. Ralph Edwards usually rides herd on nonstop merriment, which listeners would naturally expect with Santa's annual visit so close. In this episode, the show visits a disabled veteran at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital. The producers use the magic of radio to take him to his hometown of Greenville, Tennessee for a surprise visit with all his friends.
• Arch Oboler's Plays, "Johnny Got His Gun," 1941. A chilling vision of a veteran lying in a hospital bed, the War has left him without eyes, ears, mouth, arms, or legs. The powerful acting of James Cagney shows what it is to live without being able to communicate with any other human being, to be doomed to simply remember.
• Suspense, "The Long Night," July 13, 1958. This is the second time Frank Lovejoy has performed this script for Suspense, the story of a pilot, lost and blind during a night flight over the Midwest. As frightening as the situation is, since the first performance, Lovejoy has achieved his private pilot's certification.
• Quiet Please, "Adam and the Darkest Day", November 7, 1948. One of the last people on Earth tells what it was like, thirty years ago, when the bombs began to fall.
• Dragnet, ".22 Rifle for Christmas" December 22, 1949. The Christmas season takes a terrible turn when one young boy shows his special present to his young friend with incredibly tragic results.

See also: Tales of Tragedy