Quiet, Please - The Thing on the Fourble Board

Somehow, despite all of their successes, neither Escape nor Suspense was able to claim that they had produced "the scariest episode" from the golden age of American radio. That distinction belongs to the series Quiet, Please for their episode, "The Thing on the Fourble Board." It is still considered the best in radio horror.

Quiet, Please was an unusual fantasy/horror radio show that ran from 1947 to 1949 on ABC. The series was known for its masterful use of silence and for its unique style of story presentation. Like Escape, the show never had a regular sponsor and Quiet, Please bounced around in different time slots for most of its duration. The series lasted for 109 episodes and then disappeared. For many years only 12 recordings were known to exist among collectors, but that changed in the 1980's when more than 80 "lost" episodes became available to the public.

"The Thing on the Fourble Board" is an episode that will haunt you every time you see an oil derrick. The script for this episode, as well as every other episode of Quiet, Please, is available at www.quietplease.org.

"The Thing on the Fouble Board" was written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and featured Ernest Chappell. This episode aired on August 9, 1948.

.  Download qpls.1948.08.09_The_Thing_on_the_Fourbleboard.mp3

(Image of oil drilling rig from Wikimedia Commons)

Comments

[Rich]

Fourble Board should be known as a great work of horror fiction even beyond the bounds of OTR. Stands up to anything King, Barker, Bloch or Matheson wrote, and I have a feeling they would agree.

[Mike Hobart]

This is THE radio horror episode par excellence.

Once heard, never forgotten.

[john]

This is, indeed, a great piece of work. Very minimal but it will come to life in your imagination.

[Gary Digital Williams]

"Quiet Please" can be a tough show to listen to. Some of the episodes don't work quite as well for me.

But "The Thing on the Fourble Board" does not fall into that category. This is just a classic show!

[keke]

...definitely had a creepy dream after listening to this...

Awesome story!

[Tom Gabriel]

The Thing on the Fourble Board is an example of the power of radio drama at its best--it is minimalist, with periods of silence, few sound effects, and dialog spoken quietly for the most part, and it all works better than a hundred people shouting, loud sound effects, and something audible happening every second. It works because it is effective storytelling, which doesn't always require lots of things going on, especially in the medium which has been called "theater of the mind"--old time radio. The imagination supplies all the horror that isn't supplied by what it hears--if it's all done right. The Thing on the Fourble Board is done exceptionally, memorably, and effectively right.

[Ged]

It has the same slow build of unease, and the same use of mundane language to counterpoint the bizarre as Shadow Over Innsmouth, but that ending just resonates afterward, more than Lovecraft achieved. It's a beautiful piece of writing, beautifully acted. It deserves to be better known.

[Alex]

When the protagonist hears the "crying" on the fourbleboard, I was ready to check out and call it an overrated episode. But then when he flings the bucket of paint at the thing and starts describing it...the episode totally won me over.

Then when I remembered his comment about meeting his wife later, I literally gasped, "No!"

Very bizarre...

[Philippa]

I see I stand alone in my hearty dislike of this episode. I felt disappointed in it. I've heard "Quiet, Please" before, and usually found it intriguing. But not this one. I even wondered if this, the ending in particular, was meant as dark comedy because it failed to give me chills and because the last part was so odd.
I was very curious to hear what so many people considered the scariest show ever, and I'm glad I was able to listen. Thank you for posting it.

[Robert]

So much for Philippa's dissenting opinion. Now I'll agree with the consensus--this is one of the very best horror stories ever written for the medium of radio.