Escape (1947-1954) aired “The Time Machine” on May 9, 1948 as the show’s 40th episode. Not surprisingly, we have aired many episodes (35+) of this top-shelf program over the past 14 years, the last coming in November of 2022. A spinoff and sister show of the highly popular radio program Suspense (1942-62), Escape produced (according to one source) 251 episodes of which 241 were unique stories, plots, or scripts. Escape concentrated on adventure tales, some with an SF/F theme, though the straight adventure tale set in exotic locales was its meat and potatoes. Escape soon established itself with an even more focused approach to action and exotic adventure, dramatizing literary classics (from such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Nelson Bond, Ray Bradbury, Eric Ambler, Jack London and others) while at the same time treating its audience to many brand new tales, a fair number of which have become radio classics. In fact, some of Escape‘s original shows were so well written, acted, and produced they were later reincarnated for episodes of Suspense.

While strangely not consistently supported by its host network CBS, that rarely gave advance notice of upcoming program titles and moved the show to different times and days willy-nilly no fewer than 18 times over its 7-year run, the show found a faithful audience, and continued to produce well-written scripts with many of the finest actors in radio.

(H)erbert (G)eorge Wells (1866-1946) saw his short novel The Time Machine published in 1895, while still in his 20s. The now classic story has been adapted in numerous media over the intervening decades, including print, radio, TV, and film, not to mention comic books.

This necessarily highly condensed adaptation does a creditable job of hitting the general storyline’s high points, but differs here and there from both the novel and the famous, iconic George Pal film from 1960. Both the novel and the film have a single Time Traveller, while this radio version adds the Time Travellers friend as they travel into the far future. The novel describes the physical attributes of the complacent, sheeplike, Eloi as being small in stature, with small ears, a pointy chin, large eyes, and a red line for a mouth, while the radio and film versions depict them as looking more like contemporary humans. Their demeanor, however, is similar in all three versions:  they are basically apathetic and uninquisitive, content to live their simple lives in blissful ignorance of the world around them, all their food and clothing needs taken care of by the cannibalistic Morlocks, those who live underground and treat the naive Eloi like cattle.

The accepted consensus concerning the political theme of the story is that the Eloi, in the far distant past, were the ruling elites, while the Morlocks have evolved from the working class and now feed and clothe the Eloi to fatten them up for the Morlocks main source of food. Since more folks have no doubt seen the classic 1960 film than have read the original novel, they will no doubt have no recourse but to view this audio dramatization against the fully fleshed-out film for similarities or disparities, but try to remember that this audio version aired some 12 years before the film existed, and enjoy this timeless story.

Play Time: 29:30

{“The Time Machine” aired on a Sunday evening, which meant the neighborhood gang would head for the corner newsstand after school the next day. They were in luck with some excellent finds. The Astounding SF (1930-present, now Analog) issue below was a virtual gold mine, with stories by A. E. van Vogt, Murray Leinster, L. Ron Hubbard, John D. MacDonald, and the 3rd and concluding part of Jack Williamson’s novel “And Searching Mind,” which everyone knows now as probably his most famous novel, retitled as 1949’s The Humanoids. ASF was a monthly in 1948. The Avon Fantasy Reader #6 (May 1948) was the brainchild of Donald A. Wollheim, who started the first SF-only publishing company as DAW Books in the early 1970s. The Fantasy Reader series selected classic stories from the past for newer readers unable to find them anywhere else. It ran from 1947-52 with 18 issues in all. 1947 saw the first 5 issues, with 1948-51 seeing 3 each year, and 1952 seeing only a single issue to end the series run. fantastic Adventures (1939-53) was another of Raymond Palmer’s ubiquitous publishing offspring, and while not at the same quality level as most other publications of the time, it managed to attract enough loyal readers to last well over a decade. The issue below saw a complete novel by Howard Browne, and short stories by the likes of the veteran Robert Moore Williams, and one story each by Leroy Yerxa and Richard Casey (both of whom are unknown to me). It was a monthly in 1948, and it should be noted that Palmer turned the editorial reins over to Howard Browne in 1950.}

[Left: Astounding, 5/48 – Center: Avon Fantasy Reader, 5/48 – Right: fantastic, 5/48]

To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.