Posted by : Ray Plumlee in (X-1)
Posted on March 18th, 2010
Introduction To The Old Time Radio Science Fiction Anthology Series X-1
Tagged Under : 1950s, Galaxy, manned space, Mars, Martian, Old Time Radio, OTR, Outer Space, sci-fi, science fiction, Spaceship, Spacmans Luck, X-1
X-1 Classic Science Fiction Radio Show
X-1 was a half-hour NBC science fiction anthology series first heard on 22 April 1955 that was a revival of NBC’s earlier science fiction anthology series, Dimension X which ran from 8 April 1950 through 29 September 1951. Both series’s are remembered for their really high quality science fiction stories.
With its magazine affiliation, two dozen shows from Astounding Science Fiction were followed by almost 90 were from the pages of Galaxy Magazine. A total of 125 programs were broadcast, some repeats or remakes, were aired until the last show of 9 January 1958.
Get MP3 Collection of X-1 Episodes
X-1 holds the record for the longest running science fiction radio series ever produced, airing on NBC for almost three years (1955-58) and spanning 113 episodes, and one revival show that had nothing to do with the original production. The early 1970s brought a wave of nostalgia for old-time radio and a new experimental episode, “The Iron Chancellor” by Robert Silverberg, was created in 1973, but it failed to revive the series. NBC also tried broadcasting the old recordings, but their irregular once-monthly scheduling kept even devoted listeners from following the broadcasts.
The first X-1 shows used scripts first heard on Dimension X, but once established on their own began creating new shows featuring adventures into deeper space with new works by modern popular science fiction authors including Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, J.T. McIntosh, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon among others.
X-1 opened with announcer Fred Collins delivering the countdown:
X-X-x – x
MINUS -Minus – minus – minus
ONE -ONE – one – one
Countdown for blastoff, minus five, four, three, two, minus one. Fire! From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction presents. X Minus One!
Listen to the X-1 Show Intro clip:
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Many of the X-1 episodes dealt with future human existence and space travel. Martians play a prominent roll in the series, in one episode humans exterminate all the Martians with chicken pox. Martians later hire an advertising agency to give the invaders popular PR campaign to announce their arrival on our planet. In another episode, a detective agency is hired to find all the Martins living in America.
Other episodes deal with the apprehension of scientific progress such as atomic weapons destroying the world. Keeping on the topic of the Spacemen’s Luck website the episodes that will be showcased will be those whose themes are of space travel.
The show was intended for adults, but children could listen and be both fascinated and entertained. The most memorable episodes where those where the aliens triumphed, for instance, Ray Bradbury’s Mars Is Heaven, where the last earthman is trying, frantically, to radio home while the Martians break into his space ship and overwhelm him.
Among some of X-1′s best episodes are “The Cold Equation” a sobering tale of a young woman who stows away on a spaceship only to learn that the fuel supply is critical and her weight has pushed it beyond the spacecraft’s mission limit’s. Another, now classic, episode was “The Martian Death March” where a race of spider-beings leave its earth imposed reservation and undertake the long march home. The episode “Junkyard” was about a space expedition that comes upon a dumping ground of spaceships on an unoccupied world where they discover that something is sucking out the crews collective intelligence. The crew then realize that there isn’t even enough know-how left to them to run the ship. In “Hallucination Orbit” a space pioneer is left alone on a rock near Pluto for so long the he can’t tell if what he sees, including bosomy female rescuers are is real.
This show is a must for those of you who are fans of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. So sit back and enjoy the talents of some of the best classic science fiction authors.
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