THE AUTHOR AND THE THING
[RADIO-SCRIPT]
Arch Oboler’s self-reflexive script figures himself into the grisly action as Oboler the writer
conjures up a hideous monster for his next Lights Out plot… Oboler uses a metafiction approach
as both a clever story device and a form of self-promotion.
[Winnipeg Free Press] “The author of the play himself as the leading character in the ‘Lights
Out’ drama… Although the writer is the central character, Author Arch Oboler will not play the
role. He’ll sit safely at home and hear himself go through a very uncomfortable evening.”
[Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1936] "Lights Out," the midnight horror show written by Arch
Oboler, put on a drama Wednesday night in which Oboler cast himself, his mother, his brother,
and a girl friend. A monster enters his room (according to the script and Oboler's imagination)
and consumes his brother and mother and murders his girl friend. "Oboler" summons the police,
who can find no monster. So they hold "Oboler." A sanity hearing ensues in which physicians
bearing the surnames of the radio editors of Chicago examine him. They pronounce him a lunatic.
And then the thing comes and consumes him!
At the conclusion of the broadcast your reporter made a telephone call to Oboler's home and
finding him in New York, apologized to his mother for disturbing her at such a late hour.
"That's quite all right," she said. "Your call reassures me that I am still alive. I heard the
broadcast all alone here except for our dog!"
Shirley Frohlich, The Billboard, October 16, 1943] Lights Out Reviewed Tuesday, 8-8:30 p.m.
Style — Melodrama. Sponsor — Ironized Yeast Co., Inc. Agency — Ruthrauff & Ryan, Inc. Station
— WABC (New York) and CBS.
Author Arch Oboler was probably trying to prove in The Author and the Thing (he's writing those
win-the-war dramas again, now that he's fortified himself financially on Ironized Yeast) that his
commercial ending could be as auspicious as his beginning. His first mistake was telling his press
agent. Prior to Tuesday's show, every radio ed's desk received the news that Oboler was planning
to wind up Lights Out by bumping himself off and involving his Hollywood enemies and friends
as accomplices and victims (interchangeably, not respectively). The only victims turned out to be
Oboler's own defenseless mother and brother, and Mercedes McCambridge, radio actress. His
second mistake was to try to kid the handiwork that feeds (or fed) him. Oboler played himself in
this one, the author of the Lights Out series, dreaming up his final play. Because he's been
dwelling on evil thoughts for the past seven days and nights (it says in a medieval tome he
happens to have around the house), he conjures up a super-monster, the embodiment of all evil,
who knocks off mom, brother, leading lady and finally Oboler, who winds up where he modestly
claims to belong — in hell. Before the final kick-off, however, Oboler, a good egg at heart, informs
the authorities about the murders and, since no one believes the story about the monster (he's
invisible to everyone but his conjurer), Oboler comes up before the lunacy commission. He's
pronounced insane on the basis of his peculiar shirts and the plays he writes. The farce isn't good
or novel enough to be funny, but there's just enough of it to take the edge off whatever chills of the
obvious plot. Result, therefore, wasn't even good Oboler.”
[CHRONOLOGY]
LIGHTS OUT (WMAQ, CHICAGO—NBC-RED)
[Wednesday—
September 9, 1936 “The Author and the Thing”
[“…Arch Oboler writes himself a Frankenstein monster for tonight’s
broadcast… Oboler will be the central character in the sketch, although
he will not actually appear as an actor… Searching until weary for an idea
for an episode, the author dozes as he sits at his typewriter, his hands idle
in his lap. Somehow, maybe from news of the day, thoughts turn to the
Far East and to the dragon that shakes the earth. The idea shapes itself
into something awe-inspiring and a great green monster assumes
proportions from the curling smoke of a little cigarette. Soon the
gruesome animation grasps the dreamer by the shoulder and shakes him
into activity…”]
SCRIPT: Arch Oboler.
LIGHTS OUT (KNX, HOLLYWOOD—CBS)
[
September 28, 1943 “The Author and the Thing”
[“…In a jovial mood Arch Oboler turns actor in the role of himself during
his drama ‘The Author of [sic] the Thing’… In the script Oboler murders
his enemies and takes his friends to heaven…”]
SCRIPT: Arch Oboler.
PERSONNEL: Arch Oboler (director).
CAST: Mercedes McCam bridge, Arch Oboler, et al.
EXTANT RECORDING