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Quiet, Please, the dark fantasy anthology series that blended a creative mind, a small audience, and a minuscule budget into a mind-bending exploration of radio’s unique and often terrifying ability to engross and shock its listeners.
Because cult shows attracted such small audiences when they were first produced, and because they were frequently aired without the financial support of a sponsor, a great many of them have not survived and those that do exist today survive only in edited and/or poor quality versions. But, as any fan of such shows will testify, it seems that none of the cult shows have suffered as much as Wyllis Cooper’s Quiet, Please. Aired as an unsponsored sustainer between 1947 and 1949, first on Mutual and later on ABC, the majority of shows in the series do exist — but, considering how downright lousy most of them sound, its apparent that the recordings spent quite a few years in less than idea storage conditions!
Quality Warning!
The transcription discs for Quiet, Please were in deplorable condition, with pops, scratches, hiss, and other audio artifacts that could not be removed without destroying the content of the programs. The project was daunting — but we were lucky in that restoration technician Mark Koldys was a big fan of the series and was willing to tackle its restoration. Mark is a well-known producer of classical music and is also active in the re-release of many movie soundtrack recordings, so his time is limited — but, still, he spent three full years working to bring seventy-six half-hour Quiet, Please shows back to life once again. Second by second, minute by minute, and hour by hour, Mark struggled to clean up the shows to the best of his expert technical ability.
* These programs, though taken from low-generation tapes and restored to the best of our ability, remain the worst sounding shows that the Archives has ever restored. A great deal of work has gone into making them sound as good as possible, but they retain a great deal of the wear and tear of the discs from which they came.
* If you purchase radio shows primarily because of the audio quality, you might not want to purchase this set. Despite sounding far better than they ever have before, these Quiet, Please shows remain a challenge to enjoy on a strictly casual basis.
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