THURSDAY 2-3PM
http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Weird-Circle.html
A good story is a good story, whether it was written two weeks ago, two decades ago, or even two centuries ago. And nowhere is that truer than in “The Weird Circle,” a half-hour anthology series that was first aired back in 1943.
The stories offered by “The Weird Circle” were generally adapted from popular fiction – popular fiction of the 19th century, that is. And since the focus was on horror and suspense, the macabre, atmospheric, and often ironic tales of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe and Honore de Balzac were a staple of its success. Also included were such familiar chestnuts as “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens’ “The Queer Client”, Charlotte Bronte’s novel “Jane Eyre” (also a particular favorite of Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater company), and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Stories of this vintage, rooted in the Victorian attitudes and morality of the 1800s, generally made for good radio drama; they were, after all, classics, familiar to anyone with a public school education. The primarily first-person narrative of most of the stories chosen made them relatively easy to convert into script form: introduce a narrator, establish the scene, and then carry on with the plot. And, of course, since they were out of copyright, there were no literary rights to be paid — a sizeable cost savings for any producer looking to budget a weekly series, then or now.
“The Weird Circle” was produced in New York City by the National Broadcasting Company, under the auspices of its Radio-Recording Division. Though best known for live programs over its Red and Blue Networks, NBC produced and recorded a great many shows for syndication to local stations, including such diverse dramatic programs as “Playhouse of Favorites”, “Five Minute Mysteries”, “Destiny Trails”, and “Betty and Bob” (a five-a-week daily “soap opera” featuring Arlene Francis), as well as quarter-hour musical programs starring performers ranging from Carson Robison and his Buckaroos to Ferde Grofe and his Orchestra. The quality of these syndicated shows was, for the most part, consistent with NBC’s regular prime-time fare and, a result, were often aired by local stations as either special features or programmed between other shows on the network at the time.