X Minus 1

Back in the day, radio serials were popular forms of entertainment. Mystery and science fiction were two of the genres you might have actually listened to. X Minus 1 was a science fiction radio program, each week featuring a different story. X Minus 1 was the follow-up to the program Dimension X on NBC radio.

Stories on X Minus 1 that I remember include:

• Universe (05/05/55)
• The Green Hills of Earth (07/07/55)
• Mars Is Heaven (05/08/55)
• Skulking Permit (02/15/56)
• Project Mastedon (06/05/56)
• Colony (10/10/56)
• Hostess (12/12/56)

The show, which ran on NBC from 1955 to 1958, featured dramatized versions of short stories by writers liked Robert Heinlein, Frederic Pohl, Issac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury (including a not very subtle adaptation of his creepy "Mars is Heaven" (05/08/55)). While the show had different stories each week (it was not a serial), the opening was always the same:

Countdown for blast-off. X Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, (pause) X Minus 1, Fire! (Sound of engines firing) From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future. Adventures in which you will live in a million could-be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Corporation in cooperation with Astounding Science Fiction presents . . . . X Minus One!

Also a wonderfully bizarre song by the Android Sisters on Songs of Electronic Despair. Not coincidentally, it's about old-time radio, among other things, and contains the great quote "Relationships...who's got the time anymore?" Somehow, the music seems to capture, more than anything else, the evanescent quality of expressionist cinema.