I do also quite enjoy Laurel And Hardy, and they are quite different but somehow similar in my mind.

We could have an entire conversation about old time radio people... the theater of the ear, theater of the mind was a big part of my growing up.

I saw their godawful movies when I was a kid. They were comedy geniuses much earlier in their career - think "Who's on First?" but the 1950s movies were bad.

Now ask me about the Three Stooges. 😉

I'm sure you know of this already, but creative audio storytelling doesn't get more interesing than H2G2:

archive.org/details/hitchhiker…

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: BBC Radio : BBC Radio 4 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4,...

^{Internet Archive}

@AlgoCompSynth Check out some random episodes of their radio show to get a better taste of why they were popular before their awful movies:

radioechoes.com/?page=series&g…

@ErgonWolf I've heard a few of them - I am more into Benny, Burns and Allen, Fred Allen and Fibber McGee and Molly.

And the ultimate radio comic - Stan Freberg.

@AlgoCompSynth Actually, Rochard, you might appreciate listening to The Archers. It was created as an educational vehicle for rural UK farmers but it's also a soap opera but it's also a reflection of modern UK events, and it's general only done for maybe 10 minutes a day.

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnkc/…

It's an effective example of how storytelling can be done mostly through script and voice work with minimal investment in a lot of unique sound effects.

BBC Radio 4 - The Archers Omnibus - Downloads

Podcast downloads for The Archers Omnibus

^BBC

@AlgoCompSynth I do admit I'm overly fond of Jack Benny... his cast and writers were easily a step above a lot of other shows. And Fibber's closet will never get sorted out.

I remember listening to new episodes of CBS Mystery Radio Theater up until I was nearly in high school, which was a bit of a trip.

I wish the US were still producing radio plays. I do still listen to The Archers from the BBC from time to time... that's a surreal trip with how the passage of time works on that show.

@AlgoCompSynth I think Burns And Allen were really fortunate in that they already had some film experience when they moved to television, so it wasn't a huge leap for them. Also, Gracie worked SO well when you could see her face being vacant while she said her lines, and George's cigar and eyebrows were second only to Groucho's...

Jack Benny also sort of worked well on television, surprisingly.

@AlgoCompSynth Those Omnibus episodes are a full week's worth of episodes stitched together into a single listening experience. That's what they are listed a week apart.

When I was doing a lot of long distance driving I would download those as part of my podcast listening.

I first started listening to The Archers when I was an exchange student to Hannover in [then West] Germany in the late Eighties. And Hannover was in the zone of Germany that was managed by the British forces, and so I was listening to British Forces Broadcasting Service... BFBS... and they had The Archers on 5 days a week... I was only 18 and it was a tenuous link to home... despite the UK not being my home at all.

Anyway, The Archers... the Omnibus... Go back a few weeks and pick up the story in medias res, and then continue for a while. It can be quite engrossing!

I'll shut up now.

Also the Star Wars trilogy was adapted by NPR at one point:

bbs.boingboing.net/t/may-the-f…

May the fourth be with you - download or listen to the original NPR Star Wars radio plays at the Internet Archive

Star Wars:A New Hope The Original NPR Drama Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama NPR - Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

^{Boing Boing BBS}

@Virginicus The movies as a younger kid, then the radio shows as teen & older, and finally the TV show that recycled a lot of the original routines.

The radio episodes were on LP, then cassette, so they got played a lot. I guess they also made it to CD. On Audible now?