Fighting Cops and Dinos

On the Radio Shows "Dick Tracy" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth"

I have never taken an ear to older radio shows. When looking through the selection of old programing available, I found two that my interest: “Dick Tracy” (because I love the movie, awful as it is) and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (because I enjoyed the novel). These two programs, like many of the things aired on radio at the time, were episodic in nature and held characters that were portrayed were stereotypical archetypes. Radio then was like television, used to entertain through acting, script, and talk shows. Radio in the modern era is still used for talk shows, but they are pocketed amongst the more frequently consumed music tracks. Modern radio is home to mostly music, stations featuring songs for the majority of their air time, while including blips of talk shows or, in certain cases, live sports reporting. But the episodic series has vanished from modern radio. This is due to the invention of the television and the shows pertained therein. 

Most of the old fashioned radio programs were constructed and acted out much like television shows are today. They consisted of series of short stories (or one long story carried out in parts)—chapters the characters played out each week.  The build in plot and character development is evident in both old time radio shows and modern televised series. It is obvious that television took the framework of radio shows and applied it to their criteria. 

Out of the few shows I peeked at, the ones I have chosen to analyze, “Dick Tracy” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” caught my attention the most. “Dick Tracy” achieved this through merely being Dick Tracy—I loved the tacky 80’s movie, so I was curious as to what the original radio series was like. It turns out that the radio show is just as tacky as the movie. The character of Tracy retains his silly swagger and the bad guys are just as awful with hideous voices and ridiculous names. As for “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” I enjoyed the novel and began the series with a literary eye. Because the shows at the time were auditory and not visual, the scenes and people had to be described by the actors in detail so that the audience could get a feel for what was happening in the scene. This lead to a vary novel-like delivery. I thoroughly enjoyed the character’s descriptions and the old-timey narration of the professor. I felt like I was reading the novel through actors.

As for the popularity of the two shows, both have adventurous, thrilling plots that transport listeners to another time and place. The escapism allowed citizens to get lost in a journey that was not their own—in this case, they were either fighting mobsters to save some dames or plummeting into a fantastic realm hidden beneath the crust of the Earth. In regards to the type of media, I believe that people preferred radio to print because they could hear human voices acting out or otherwise speaking the entertainment that they sought instead of just reading flat words. The likening to radio shows over film may have been caused by the episodic nature of radio. Because the episodes were short enough to catch in between other plans and listened to whilst going about everyday tasks, the appeal of radio prevailed. This also may have been caused by the fact that people did not have to leave their homes to listen to radio shows, as opposed to going out to the movies. Also, going to see films cost money, whereas turning on the radio (after the device was paid for once) did not cause its audience to spend a cent. 

There are some similarities between old school radio shows and modern television. One of these commonalities are the stereotypes (“Dick Tracy” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” both feature block characters: cops and robbers, Bogart style, and the old-fashioned professor and the young adventurer) portrayed. Another similarity is the use of over-acting. This type of acting is still noticeable among certain shows, like soap operas, cheesy episodic series, and reality television. Television has also done a good job of retaining original style: “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is comparable with the semi-popular television series “Lost Word” based on the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Some differences between TV and radio are that there are fewer stations compared to radio, which provides a better sense of community because more people are watching the same thing. This is less apparent in the modern era, because networks are branching out and the size of the public’s television selection is growing.