Quiet Please

Quiet, Please... Quiet Please.

Not many people today remember the golden age of radio horror. But those that do will never forget Quiet Please.

Running from 1947 to 1949, Quiet Please was written and directed by Wyllis Cooper, who had previously worked on another horror program, Lights Out (best known today from a Bill Cosby routine where he reminisces about the infamous "Chicken Heart" episode), in the 1930s, and starred Ernest Chapel. Nearly every episode took the form of Chapel's character recounting a story of something strange and horrifying that happened to him, sometimes leading up to his inevitable demise. These tales would range from ghost stories to things that were... weirder.

Though it ran for barely over 100 episodes, the show left a lasting impact. Rod Serling himself credited it as an influence on The Twilight Zone, both sharing a mix of science fiction and horror episodes and often containing relevant social messages. The 60th episode of the show, The Thing on the Fourble Board, is often credited (and rightly so) as the scariest radio program ever broadcast.

The series is available for free here.

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The series provides examples of:

• Adult Child: Played to extremely creepy effect in Clarissa. Think Kiyoko from Akira...
• The All-Concealing "I": In a few stories, including We Were Here First, Quiet Please and Portrait of a Character, Chappy portrays a character who isn't human.
• Bizarrchitecture: The very first episode, Nothing Behind the Door, is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. No, it's not an empty room. It's Nothing.
• Cute Monster Girl: "Mike".
• Dug Too Deep: A Fourble board, for those who don't know, is part of an oil-drilling rig. How do you think the Thing of the title got up there?
• Eldritch Abomination: The title character of The Thing on the Fourble Board.
• Fan Nickname: Ernest Chapel is often called Chappy for short on fan forums.
• Hell Is That Noise: Cecile Roy's performance as "Mike", consisting entirely of cries and screams, is genuinely terrifying.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In some cases, quite literally.
• Shout-Out: The title of Episode 59, It's Later than You Think, about a magic time-travelling watch, is a reference to the Tagline of Lights Out.
• Spooky Photographs: Inverted in Thirteen and Eight, where the photographer keeps seeing a man who never shows up in the pictures.
• Theme Tune Cameo: Come In, Eddie, 12 To 5 and Symphony In D Minor feature the show's theme tune, Cesar Franck's Symphony In D minor in the story.