Columbia Workshop

Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on CBS from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47. The series was conceived by radio engineer, writer and director Irving Reis as a platform for experimental radio techniques, both technical and creative. The series included episodes of drama, music and documentaries. Collected here are the SF and fantasy episodes, including those with only a slight inclination towards the genre, such as the supernatural and fairy tale. Some episodes are omitted due to poor audio quality.

​Please note that the episode numbers given below are merely the order in which the episodes are thought to have been broadcast — they are not the actual episode numbers.
Episode 1: Experiment / Highway Incident

​Does a young woman in England have a psychic connection to her fiancé trapped in an Antarctic blizzard?
Note: the second story in this episode, Highway Incident, is not an SF or fantasy story.

​First broadcast: 8 August 1936.
Original Story by Mary Parkington (Experiment) & Brian J. Byrne (Highway Incident).
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 2: A Voyage To Brobdingnag

​Excerpt from Gulliver's Travels, performed using experimental sound effect techniques. There is a five minute explanation of how the effects were produced at the end of the episode.

First broadcast: 12 September 1936.
Original Story by Jonathan Swift.
​Cast: Ray Collins (rest of cast unknown).
Episode 3: The Dream Maker

Lighthearted tale of the spirits responsible for nightmares, and the rivalry between the Amalgamated Association of Nightmare Breeders and the Ancient Order of House Haunters. The last ten minutes of the episode is a demonstration of the use of the ‘sound microscope’ to explain ghostly noises.

First broadcast: 26 September 1936.
Original Story by Charles Burton.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 4: The Gods of The Mountain

A group of beggars con a city’s populace into thinking they are gods, with unfortunate consequences.
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​First broadcast: 19 December 1936.
Original Story by Lord Dunsany.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 5: The Happy Prince

Fairy tale of a statue and a swallow who perform good deeds for the inhabitants of an ungrateful town and ultimately get their just reward.

​First broadcast: 26 December 1936.
Original Story by Oscar Wilde.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 6: Public Domain

Fictional characters from Dickens, Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll escape down Copyright Lane to freedom in The Public Domain.

​First broadcast: 2 January 1937.
Original Story by Eustace Wyatt.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 7: A Voyage To Lilliput

Another excerpt from Gulliver’s Travels, this time illustrating the skill of the sound control engineer. The first eight minutes of the episode is an explanation of sound mixing techniques.

​First broadcast: 9 January 1937.
Original Story by Jonathan Swift.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 8: The Signalman

Does a ghostly apparition warn a railway signalman of impending doom?
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​First broadcast: 23 January 1937.
Original Story by Charles Dickens.
​Cast: Alfred Shirley, Burford Hampden, George Gaul.
Episode 9: Danse Macabre

Death brings his fiddle to the mortal realm in search of someone to dance for him.

​First broadcast: 21 March 1937.
Original Story by Helen Bergavoy and George Zachary.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 10: The Fall of The City

Thought to be an allegory for the rise of Nazism, this story sees a resurrected dead woman prophesying the coming of a conqueror to The City.

​First broadcast: 11 April 1937.
Original Story by Archibald MacLeish.
​Cast: House Jameson, Orson Welles, Adelaide Klein, Carleton Young, Burgess Meredith, Dwight Weist, Edgar Stehli, William Pringle, Guy Repp, Brandon Peters, Karl Swenson, Dan Davies, Kenneth Delmar.
Episode 11: R.U.R.

The robots are revolting in Karel Čapek’s famous play, which introduced the word robot to the English language.

​First broadcast: 18 April 1937.
Original Story by Karel Čapek.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 12: Drums of Conscience

An Alabama murderer comes to believe that the ghosts of the last slave ship from Africa are out to get him for his sins.

​First broadcast: 2 May 1937.
Original Story by Unknown.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 13: A Night At An Inn

A gang of thieves, who have stolen the eye of an idol, get more than they bargained for at a remote inn. The episode is preceded by an announcement of the death of John D. Rockefeller.

​First broadcast: 23 May 1937.
Original Story by Lord Dunsany.
​Cast: Alfred Shirley, Louis Hector, Santos Ortega, Eustace Wyatt, Guy Repp.
Episode 14: The Devil And Daniel Webster

America’s greatest lawyer takes on the Devil, after a farmer sells his soul for seven years good luck.

​First broadcast: 1 August 1937.
Original Story by Stephen Vincent Benét.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 15: An Incident of the Cosmos / The Last Citation

An Incident of the Cosmos: An alien astronomer speculates if life could exist on the planet known as Earth, as he observes it through his telescope.
The Last Citation: An army General faces court-martial in the afterlife.

​First broadcast: 8 August 1937.
Original Story by Paul Y. Anderson (An Incident of The Cosmos) & John Whedon (The Last Citation).
​Cast: William Pringle (rest of cast unknown).
Episode 16: S.S. San Pedro

The mysterious and creepy Dr. Percival stays with an old sea captain as he goes down with his ship.

​First broadcast: 5 September 1937.
Original Story by James Gould Cozzens.
​Cast: Unknown.
Episode 17: Alice In Wonderland, Part 1

An adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s fantasy, using music in place of sound effects. Part one ends with Alice’s encounter with the Cheshire cat.

​First broadcast: 26 September 1937.
Original Story by Lewis Carroll.
​Cast: Helen Claire (rest of cast unknown).
Episode 18: Alice In Wonderland, Part 2

Part 2 of Lewis Carroll’s fantasy sees Alice meet the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, and attend the trial of the Knave of Hearts.

​First broadcast: 3 October 1937.
Original Story by Lewis Carroll.
​Cast: Helen Claire (rest of cast unknown).
Episode 19: The Killers / Illusion

Illusion: A couple find themselves on a mysterious road, leading to the ‘Gate of Inquiry’.
Note: the first story in this episode, The Killers, is a gangster story, not an SF or fantasy story.

​First broadcast: 17 October 1937.
Original Story by Ernest Hemingway (The Killers) & Georgia Backus (Illusion).
​Cast: Paul Stewart, Edmond MacDonald, Walter Vaughn.
Episode 20: The Horla

Was a man driven to murder and suicide by madness, or was he being haunted by an invisible, vampire-like creature — the Horla?

​First broadcast: 7 November 1937.
Original Story by Guy de Maupassant.
​Cast: Alfred Shirley, Edgar Stelhi, Santos Ortega, Morgan Farley.