Quiet, Please! was a radio fantasy and horror program created by Wyllis Cooper, also known for creating Lights Out. Ernest Chappell was the show's announcer and lead actor. Quiet, Please debuted June 8, 1947, on the Mutual Broadcasting System, and its last episode was broadcast June 25, 1949, on the ABC. A total of 106 shows were broadcast, with only a very few of them repeats. Earning relatively little notice during its initial run, Quiet, Please has since been praised as one of the finest efforts of the golden age of American radio drama. Professor Richard J. Hand of the University of Glamorgan, in a detailed critical analysis of the series, argued that Cooper and Chappell "created works of astonishing originality"; he further describes the program as an "extraordinary body of work" which established Cooper "as one of the greatest auteurs of horror radio". Similarly, radio historian Ron Lackmann declares that the episodes "were exceptionally well written and outstandingly acted", while John Dunning describes the show as "a potent series bristling with rich imagination."
Broadcast history
Background Quiet, Please had its roots in The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940), the successor to Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which achieved notoriety with its 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds. Cooper was a writer for The Campbell Playhouse, and Chappell was the announcer. They became friends, and though Chappell had little (if any) acting experience, Cooper imagined him as the star of a new radio program. Cooper's earlier Lights Out was famous for its gruesome stories and sound effects, but for Quiet, Please, Cooper would cultivate a subdued, slower-paced, and much quieter atmosphere that could still, at its best, match Lights Out for frights and thrills. Chappell had ample experience in radio, but mostly as an announcer. As Hand writes, "With Quiet, Please, Cooper gave Ernest Chappell the chance to act, and the result was a revelation. Chappell proved himself to be versatile in accent and delivery." The differences could be broad or subtle, but in nearly every episode, Chappell created a distinctive character, rarely using the same traits in multiple episodes. Writer Harlan Ellison, a longtime Quiet, Please fan, writes that the programs were "backed by sound effects and music...but it was essentially Chappell, just speaking softly. Quietly. Terrifyingly." Ellison also describes Chappell as having "one of the great radio voices. A sound that combined urbanity with storytelling wisdom."
On the air Quiet, Please was produced at WOR in New York City, and began on the Mutual Network on June 8, 1947. Beginning in September 1948, it was syndicated by ABC, though CBS executive Davidson Taylor expressed an interest in the show, writing in a memo in March 1948, "I like this show a lot and believe we could get it if we wanted." Each episode began with Chappell intoning the show's title, followed by a long pause (sometimes up to seven seconds), before repeating the title. Then, the show's theme music was played, a dirgey, funereal organ and Novachord version of a portion of the second movement of César Franck's Symphony in D Minor. The introduction established the sparse, understated tone of the show, and has inspired collectors and reviewers to remark upon Cooper's use of the dramatic power of silence.
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