Flashback Radio: "The Thing on the Fourble Board"

For the month of October and the Halloween season, I thought it would be fun to revisit some classic Old-Time Radio horrors. My friend and former podcast co-commentator, Jason, hasn't heard many of these before, so he was up for giving them a listen. 

The first one I selected is often considered among the great horror/fantasy anthology episodes: "The Thing on the Fourble Board." It was an episode of Quiet, Please broadcast on August 9, 1948. It concerns workers on an oil derrick having an encounter with something strange emerging from under the earth.

Quiet, Please was created by Wyllis Cooper who had worked on another, well-regarded anthology show called Lights Out (which we'll be sampling later in the month) before this one. For a long time, most episodes of Quiet, Please were thought to be lost but in the late 80s, recordings of the majority of the episodes were rediscovered. Now they can be found on the Internet Archive.

Trey: So, Jason, what did you think of the episode?

Jason: For our inaugural review, we got a doozy. I found the episode to be compelling from the beginning with its Lovecraftian invocation of deep time. I half-expected a rationalized fantasy along the lines of At the Mountains of Madness. What we got instead was decidedly more dreamlike, and firmly on the nightmarish side of the bed. 

The performances were excellent, cliched elements enjoyed new life, not a moment of its scant running time was wasted, and the twist ending brought to mind the very best of the EC horror comics. I'd go into spoiler territory, but with its long years of obscurity I suspect many will not have heard this before, and I recommend they do. 

If I would have heard this around the family radio as a child, I would have contemplated its subtleties long into the wee hours. As it was, I was suitably disturbed on my morning drive to work. Good fun!

Your thoughts?

Trey: I think two things standout to me, as making it work really well. The very grounded, realistic discussion of the oil worker's trade (including the definition of the obscure "fourble" of the title) and the uncanny vocalizations given "Mike", presumably by Cecil Roy.

Jason: The old-timey organ musical accompaniment had a potent, almost psychedelic effect during the description of the storyteller's dreams as triggered by the uncanny revelation. This episode was also a great example of how a strictly verbal/audial media avoided what could have been risible if presented visually, especially in 1948, regarding the description of the unknown entity. 

Trey: It is definitely a story well-fitted to its medium.  I think it will be interesting as we go through the month to compare how different shows take a different approach to sound effects and music to produce atmosphere