Himan Brown's Radio Mystery Theater© | Original Archive | Full Episodes!

Series produced with CUNY TV

Radio producer Himan Brown created over 10,000 programs in his lifetime, with a vigor and intensity that kept him going for a century.  His life and prodigious output are celebrated in the podcast series Audio Maverick.  Now, CUNYTV and Radio Drama Network offer rebroadcasts of a select group of Brown’s programs in a new series called If You Please, Himan Brown’s Radio Mystery Theater.

Brown flourished during the Golden Age of Radio, the period between the late 1920s and the 1940s during which radio was the dominant entertainment medium in the country.  But he was especially proud of his inventive reimagining of radio drama for contemporary times—the CBS Radio Mystery Theater series, which ran from 1974 to 1982.  Our new series—beginning with two 13-week seasons—will offer some of these exciting works again.

Each of our thirteen programs will be introduced by editor and former communications director John Slavney, who is authoring the definitive guide to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater programs and will share details about the original series host—the distinguished actor EG Marshall—the playwrights, the actors, and the origin stories of some very strange plots.

If You Please…Himan Brown's Radio Mystery Theater© Series Trailers

Audio Maverick Episodes 1-9

Audio Maverick

Series produced with CUNY TV

The history of radio crackles to life with Audio Maverick, a 9-part documentary about one of the most visionary figures in radio, Himan Brown. Explore the Golden Age of radio through Brown’s life, as we travel from the birth of audio drama to the programs that brought millions of families into their living rooms every night. CUNY TV and the Himan Brown Archive assemble the story of how radio became an entertainment medium through archival audio of some of the most famous audio dramas, contemporary interviews with media scholars, and discussions with a new generation of audio mavericks that he inspired.

 Bonus: Episode 10

In this bonus episode of Audio Maverick, we feature The Life of Himan Brown, a video tribute created by some of Brown’s CBS Radio Mystery Theater actors: Patricia Elliott, Paul Hecht, Russell Horton, Bob Kaliban, Roberta Maxwell, Tony Roberts, and Jada Rowland. The work was written by Jerome Coopersmith, who authored a number of the plays featured on the CBS series; directed by Paul Hecht, and produced by Brown’s granddaughter Melina Brown and CUNY TV’s then-Executive Director Robert Isaacson.