Found on what must have been a test reel, this strange little story has all the telltale elements of a Van Guarrault original. Perhaps it was an exercise, a dark story of supernatural murder with an undeniably absurd premise. In any event, this bizarre fable was never developed into anything more, and sits as the first of several odd one-offs on a reel marked "VG Sketches '49-'50".

"The Toad Necromancer", by Van Guarrault (1949)

Long thought only a ghostly rumor, the horror radio drama Charnel Bells never aired in its day. Recorded from 1949-51, the show's content and storytelling was deemed "too crazy by half" by then-influential critic Chester Keswick and "downright un-Christian" by legendary radio producer Jean Wooder.

Time has not been kind to these old ribbons of magnetic fear, but the painstakingly slow process of restoration will, hopefully, be worth the decades-long wait. Tonight, you are invited to experience a strange phantom, a whispered rumor from the haunted past.

Charnel Bells toll once more.

Fiction

Science Fiction

Long thought only a ghostly rumor, the horror radio drama Charnel Bells never aired in its day. Recorded from 1949-51, the show's content and storytelling was deemed "too crazy by half" by then-influential critic Chester Keswick and "downright un-Christian" by legendary radio producer Jean Wooder. Time has not been kind to these old ribbons of magnetic fear, but the painstakingly slow process of restoration will, hopefully, be worth the decades-long wait. Tonight, you are invited to experience a strange phantom, a whispered rumor from the haunted past. Charnel Bells toll once more.

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"The Toad Necromancer", by Van Guarrault (1949)

"The Toad Necromancer", by Van Guarrault (1949)