The Weird Circle Radio Program

• 1930 The Shadow
• 1931 The Witches Tale
• 1932 Fu Manchu
• 1932 Witching Hour
• 1935 The Hermit's Cave
• 1936 Devil's Scapbook
• 1936 Lights Out!
• 1937 The Black Chapel
• 1939 Arch Oboler's Plays
• 1940 Everyman's Theater
• 1941 Dark Fantasy
• 1941 Inner Sanctum
• 1941 Lew Loyal
• 1942 The Whistler
• 1943 Horror, Inc. with Eva Le Galliene
• 1943 The Mysterious Traveler
• 1943 Weird Circle
• 1944 Creeps By Night
• 1944 The Haunting Hour
• 1944 The Strange Dr. Weird
• 1945 Stay Tuned for Terror
• 1945 Illusion
• 1945 The Sealed Book
• 1945 With Book and Pipe
• 1946 Murder At Midnight
• 1947 Quiet! Please
• 1948 Cabin B-13
• 1951 The Whisperer
• 1952 The Black Book
• 1953 Nightmare Theater
• 1956 Sleep No More
• 1961 AFRTS' own AVN-produced Macabre.

Weird Circle was another high quality syndicated feature from ZIV Productions, and as such its sound quality, voice talent, and production values meet ZIV's traditional high standards. As a consequence of ZIV's high standards, the resulting recordings have stood the test of time--a huge bonus for Golden Age Radio transcriptionists, preservationists and collectors.

The program was reportedly recorded out of ZIV Radio Productions' New York Studios, and almost immediately licensed to NBC-Red/RCA and the Mutual Broadcasting System, consisting of two, 39-script seasons of 25-minute productions, for local sponsors and networks alike. As illustrated in the Provenances section, NBC/RCA Thesaurus created their own set of transcription disks as well, as did the Armed Forces Radio and Televsion Service (AFRTS).

Sponsors varied as the series was picked up throughout affiliate stations across the U.S. One incarnation of note was Ogden Fine Cut Tobacco's sponsorship of The Weird Circle, packaged as The Odgen's Playhouse. Ogden's Playhouse didn't air the run in order. It aired other features under the Ogden's Playhouse banner as well. Other sponsors of note were the Farr Ice Cream Company, 7-Up, and Remar's Bread.

The Weird Circle's earliest airing appears to have been over Chicago's W-G-N, a founding Mutual Broadcasting System station, as a sustaining program for its first season (the program aired as two syndicated seasons of productions). Previous difficulty in nailing down the program's episode sequence and earliest broadcast run are probably contributing factors in the poor results of past efforts to document this otherwise highly collectable program.

As continuing attempts to fully document this program evolve, we're certain that other Golden Age Radio collectors will grow to appreciate this all-too-often overlooked program as much as we have.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

All above cited provenances are in error in one form or another. The most helpful provenances was the log of the radioGOLDINdex.

The Weird Circle was a syndicated program, therefore specific dates, times and episodes are prone to change, depending on the affiliate market over which the program aired. Thus, as we've done with other programs, we'll provide our best reconstruction of a complete chronological run, followed by a separate list of script titles.

Jerry Haendiges' The Weird Circle commercial catalog inaccurately cites the New York Times as the earliest run. Our research has revealed at least one earlier run over W-G-N Chicago--a founding Mutual Broadcasting affiliate, which serves as the basis for our log. Terry Salomonson also cites the later WOR New York Times listed run as the earliest, though to his credit, he allows for the possibility of an earlier run having aired--though we remain at a loss as to how he determined his dating. Predictably, the Hickerson Guide, Martin Grams' Radio Drama, and the OTRR logs suffer the same cross-contaminating inaccuracies, as so often occurs in 'otr'.

Quite simply, all other circulating 'as broadcast' catalogs (e.g., dated) of The Weird Circle are completely and irrevocabaly in error--and quite obviously, without any historical foundation whatsoever. Nor can we substantiate any original air dates beyond broadcast No. 54 on October 13, 1944. What you see below is all that can be honestly represented as of this writing. The commercial otr community has been well aware of these facts for thirty-seven years. There's very little likelihood they'll ever budge on them in the future--as long as there remains a lucrative market for inaccuracy and misrepresentation.

Our lists below attempt to resolve as many of those spelling errors and author attribution inaccuracies as we could.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here's the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2009 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

The Weird Circle Series Chronological Log

The Weird Circle Series Script Log

AFRTS END-808 (1965 Re-issue) 'Weird Circle' Log

The Weird Circle Biographies

Ziv produced several programs for WLW, during which time he met John L. Sinn, a writer who would eventually become Ziv's right-hand man. So it was that in 1937, Ziv and Sinn launched the Frederick W. Ziv Company as a programming syndicator. Frederick Ziv had recognized early on, that local and regional advertisers could not--and cannot--compete with national-brand sponsors. The Brand-name sponsors gain a significant tax position by expensing all of their investments in Radio sponsorship, but the local radio stations and smaller network affiliates could never recoup that kind of investment on their own.

Enter Frederick Ziv and his made-to-order solution. In a programming environment dominated by live broadcasts, Ziv produced pre-recorded programs; "transcriptions" recorded onto acetate discs and thus bypassing the networks by selling his programming directly to local advertisers market-by-market basis.

Programming was priced according to the size of each market, which gave local sponsors a chance to break into radio with affordable quality programming that could be scheduled in any available slot on a station's schedule.

Indeed, Ziv produced a wide range of programming for radio: sports, music, talk shows, soap operas, anthology dramas, and action-adventure series such as Boston Blackie, Philo Vance, and The Cisco Kid. Thus it was that by 1948, Frederic Ziv had become the largest packager/syndicator of radio programming--the primary source of programming outside the networks.