Dimension X

Dimension X was an NBC radio programme broadcast from 8 April 1950 to 29 September 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded.

Dimension X was not the first adult science fiction series on radio, but the acquisition of previously published stories immediately gave it a strong standing with the science fiction community, as did the choice of well established, respected writers in the field such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Robert A. Heinlein. Other notable writers whose stories were adapted for the series include Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown, Murray Leinster, H. Beam Piper, Frank M. Robinson, Clifford D. Simak, William Tenn, Jack Vance, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Williamson and Donald A. Wollheim.

Producers Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts adapted most of the stories and also provided original scripts.
Episode 21: The Parade

An ad agency is hired by a man insisting he is from Mars to promote an upcoming parade marking the arrival of Martians on Earth. Of course, he must be lying, or simply crazy...

​First broadcast: 25 August 1950.
Original Story by George Lefferts.
​Cast: Joseph Curtin, Berry Kroeger, Alexander Scourby, John McGovern, Agnes Young, Joseph Julian, Edwin Jerome.
Episode 22: The Roads Must Roll

In the future, America depends on an electro-hydraulic road system which acts as a conveyor belt to transport people and cargo. The system works well, until the engineers' union which maintains the roads stages a strike as a bid to gain power.

First broadcast: 1 September 1950.
Original Story by Robert A. Heinlein.
​Cast: Wendell Holmes, Ralph Bell, Joseph Boland, Karl Weber.
Episode 23: The Outer Limit

A test pilot on an experimental high altitude aircraft with only ten minutes worth of fuel disappears from radar for ten hours, yet returns safely. Of course, it is impossible, as is his story of contact with aliens and the dire warning they have for Mankind. Repeat of Episode 1.

First broadcast: 8 September 1950.
Original Story by Graham Doar.
​Cast: Joseph Julian, Wendell Holmes, Joe DiSantis, Elaine Rost, Bill Griffis, Ross Martin, Skip Homeier.
Episode 24: Hello, Tomorrow

To escape a world of radioactive dust and intense gamma radiation, the survivors of the 3rd Atomic War burrowed underground and, over the next 2,000 years, rebuilt civilization. But with scant resources, such a civilization has no place for the genetically inferior... or for a geneticist who falls in love with one of them.

​First broadcast: 15 September 1950.
Original Story by George Lefferts.
​Cast: Nancy Olson, Santos Ortega, Donald Buka, William Keene, Bill Zuckert.
Episode 25: Dr. Grimshaw's Sanitorium

A Private Eye infiltrates an insane asylum to investigate rumours of strange goings-on, and discovers some bizarre physical transformations.

​First broadcast: 22 September 1950.
Original Story by Fletcher Pratt.
​Cast: Karl Weber, Roger De Koven, Stefan Schnabel, William Redfield, Edwin Jerome, Kermit Murdock.
Episode 26: And The Moon Be Still As Bright

As though wiping out the Martian race with Earthborn diseases weren't enough, humans demonstrate a hostile contempt for what relics and monuments the Martians left behind — until one man with a conscience and a gun decides to stand up for the dead. Part of Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles future history.

​First broadcast: 29 September 1950.
Original Story by Ray Bradbury.
​Cast: Alexander Scourby, Wendell Holmes, Danny Ocko, Joseph Julian, John McGovern.
Episode 27: No Contact

A strange invisible barrier is frustrating Man's attempts to explore the depths of space. Five expeditions have been lost trying to cross it, their fate a mystery since no signal can pass through the barrier. This is the story of the sixth... Repeat of episode 4.
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​First broadcast: 29 October 1950.
Original Story by George Lefferts and Ernest Kinoy.
​Cast: Luis Van Rooten, Donald Buka, Cameron Prud'homme, Matt Crowley, Wendell Holmes, John McGovern, Mel Brandt.
Episode 28: The Professor Was A Thief

New York city goes into a panic when Grant's Tomb vanishes into thin air. When a bookish little professor claims responsibility, the press laugh at him... until the Empire State Building goes missing, too.
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​First broadcast: 5 November 1950.
Original Story by L. Ron Hubbard.
​Cast: Arthur Maitland, John Larkin, John Gibson, Joseph Julian, Ralph Bell, Bob Hastings.
Episode 29: Shanghaied

A man is drugged and press-ganged from his own stag party to serve on board a deep space freighter outward bound on a fifteen year round trip to Alpha Centauri.

​First broadcast: 12 November 1950.
Original Story by Ernest Kinoy.
​Cast: John Sylvester, Bill Griffis, Leon Janney, Bill Zuckert, Jackie Grimes, Joe DiSantis.
Episode 30: Competition

A young woman hoping for a bright new life in the colonies of the Rim Worlds instead finds herself kidnapped and used as a pawn in a deadly war between rival frontier corporate pirates.

​First broadcast: 19 November 1950.
Original Story by E. Mayne Hull.
​Cast: Elaine Rost, Les Tremayne, Joseph Julian, Ed Latimer, Staats Cotsworth, John McGovern, Peter Capell.