Bill Cosby did a classic tribute to this in the sixties, which someone (not me, damnit!) just stuck in the hopper. Most people probably never knew it was based on a real broadcast. I certainly didn't... until the internet! Even if there was no porn, the internet would still rule!

If you've never heard "Lights Out", I think it stands up today better than any other old time radio program I've heard. I used to have a recording, from the days of napster, of a guest appearance from Boris Karloff. It was REALLY scary, something about a man tricked into comitting suicide by a malevolant force. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that the medium of radio allowed Karloff to shriek and groan and chew the scenery and get away with it. In radio, if the writing and the acting was good, "over the top" didn't exist.

Somebody ought to bring it back for the internet.

Lights Out is one of my favorites of the "old time radio" horror series, right up there with Arch Obler's follow up "Quiet, Please" and the relatively recent CBC Radio series from the early 80's, "Nightfall".

They certainly made use of sound effects for this series; some of these stories were pretty gruesome, like "Murder Castle" where a maniac has turned his stately manor into a deathtrap for victims, complete with a room he locks people inside of before flicking the switch to suck out all of the air inside, or "Death Robbery" featuring Karloff as a scientist who attempts brings his wife back from the dead, only to have her turn out to be homicidal maniac who gibbers insanely.

Anybody who has the pleasure of finding the album "Drop Dead! An Exercise In Horror" can enjoy this skit along with "The Dark", a warped little piece that got referenced by The Simpsons of all things (end of Treehouse of Horror V), and a surprisingly vicious number called "A Day at the Dentist".

Just found what appears to be a huge cache of free Lights Out Downloads at archive.org

http://www.archive.org/details/lightsouteverybody