BW - EP147—007: The Launch Of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater—The CBSRMT Beyond 1974

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 28th, 1974 — CBS 'Theater's' Brown Burns about Serling "I'm proud of every minute we're on the air...and I'll stand up for every single show I do." Speaking of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater was Himan Brown, executive producer of the nationwide show that premiered January 6th and has garnered good ratings. His comments were the beginning of a rebuttal to negative remarks made about the show and The Zero Hour on these pages June 16th by Rod Serling, who narrated the latter program, which was dropped by Mutual last Friday. Brown burned. “My stories have complete relevancy to all that's going on now--exorcism, reincarnation--all stories of the moment. We're doing contemporary stories with the best writers and actors in the business. I think radio drama, contrary to what Serling says, is here forever and a day--and never will be off the networks again." Serling has written TV shows, movies, and books, but his only previous radio drama was written while he was a summer replacement at WLW in Cincinnati. "It’s all sour grapes. Serling's relationship to radio has been a total failure," Brown said. “His criticism of his own show is a complete slur of his own integrity, because in the past he lent his narrative name or talents to what he wrote. The implication is that he was much involved with the stories on The Zero Hour and that's a fake.” Brown believes in Mystery Theater with all his heart. “It took me fifteen years to sell it, but it's been a happy fulfillment." The show has gone so well that Brown has a verbal renewal to go into a second year. He wouldn't discuss it, but Brown admitted that he has packaged a two-hour weekly Sunday drama series for CBS Radio that would debut early next year. Getting back to Mystery Theater, Brown admitted that he can't bat one-thousand on the series. "But I'll bat eight-hundred." He produces, directs, edits scripts, casts the shows and signs the checks. “The show has gone far beyond anything I ever hoped for. People are listening seven nights a week. The minute we put on the first repeats, the stations' switchboards lit up.” The first year's contract calls for one-hundred ninety-five new shows and one-hundred seventy repeats. Usually produced in New York, the program will invade Hollywood for talent there for the recording of eight mysteries, beginning August 5th. Born in Manhattan and with degrees from City College of New York and Brooklyn Law School--although he has never practiced law--Brown moved into TV production when radio drama fell by the wayside some fifteen years ago. Now, with The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, he's back home. "It's the greatest homecoming a man could possibly want." — Raymond P. Hart Although Rod Serling was disappointed with Mutual broadcasting’s treatment of The Zero Hour, as covered in the previous episode of Breaking Walls, in 1974 Himan Brown’s Mystery Theater won a Peabody Award for helping to usher in a new era of radio entertainment. It would run for eight more years until finally going off the air on December 31st, 1982. More than fifteen hundred episodes were produced. Most survive in listening quality.