Bogeyman Weather

*original airdate 10/24/1935     Ah, you've once again stepped into my library, and just in time to hear this frightful tale I call,  "Be Careful What You Wish For...Because Good Things Don't Come To Those Who Don't Wait!"   "Aw, boy, does this ever stink," thought Fedger Melcupp, looking at the hillock of papers his boss just deposited on his desk. "So glad we put you on salary," said Mr. Slebenner, "the overtime it'll take you to finish this would've put a real crimp in my bonus if you were still hourly." The boss turned and walked away. Fedger made sure no one was looking and then glared at the departing back. By quarter to seven, Fedger had made little progress. The office was empty.  "I can't take this!" said Fedger, embarrassed by the timidity of his voice, "if only there was a way to skip all this." "Maybe there is," someone close by said. "Who...who's there?" said Fedger....

 *original airdate 10/31/1936 "Ah, welcome to my library. I'm Professor Spookense Creepenham. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? A chilling tale of the unknown? Of course, I forgot to mention, this library...is haunted!" THE HAUNTED LIBRARY OF PROFESSOR CREEPENHAM is brought to you by Clytemnestorhoffer's Lax-O-Fizz. Ease your business - with Lax-O-Fizz! Say, Professor, you're looking awfully slender this evening. "Oh, you're just saying that because you can see my skeleton through my ethereal robes." And a whole lot more, wowza! But what's your secret? "I simply mix two teaspoons of Clytemnesterhoffer's Lax-O-Fizz into a glass of warm milk or gin and unwanted pounds melt away like water out of a duck's back." Surely, you mean OFF a duck's back. "And I like the way the fizzy bubbles tickle my nose." Well, you heard the lady. Lighten your duties - with Clytemnestorhoffer's Lax-O-Fizz! Now back to THE HAUNTED L...

Conversation tends, particularly on long winter evenings like these, to drift toward matters of the supernatural. My hockey team and I were gathered around the fireplace in the locker room enjoying our post-game brandy and smoking our pipes while debating whether a soul was capable of remaining on this Earth after departing the body. Many of us answered staunchly in the negative, while some conceded the possibility, however unlikely, but it was Ashburdle who had this to say: "Gentleman, you will not find a less superstitious person than I, and yet, the incredible events I am about to relate are not superstition, but fact!" We continued listening as we were wont to do when one of our number was speaking. "Years ago, on a night much like this, except the air was full of thunder and lightning, rather than snow, for it was summertime, you see, I found myself driven by the storm to seek shelter at a lonely inn well out in the country. The food was terrible and not l...

I remember the accident clearly: the screeching of the brakes, the smash of the windshield, the steering column crushing through my chest, through my spine, and out my back, the release of my bowels. Then nothing... ...Nothing until I found myself in an operating room with a high pitched tone shrilling in my ears. Strangely, I was standing amongst the doctors and nurses, looking down on a patient who bore an uncanny resemblance to me. Why, in fact, it was me! I had just realized this when the doctor pronounced me dead. Dead? I, who was standing right next to him, the way a living person would? "But doctor!" said I, "There must be a mistake! I've never felt better in my life! Look at that gaping chest wound, the grizzly soup of organs and vertebrae, and yet I here I stand! Surely, the sign of a healthy, living person!" But the doctor seemed not to hear me. In fact, no one in that room acted as though they could hear me, which seemed frightfully rude, if not downr...

You've probably heard some phony cop on TV explaining how, in real life, we don't call suspects 'perps.' Well, I'm a real cop, a homicide detective, and we do call our suspects 'perps.' It stands for 'Potentially Eligible for Rehabilitation Program' which is also short for perpetrator, but we don't know what the 'etrator' stands for anymore because that part of the manual got blood on it from the last smart guy who started smarting off about what real cops do or do not call their suspects. The perp waiting for me in the interview room was a shabby-looking hippy type, all long hair and scraggly beard, and the headache that had gripped one side of my head all morning squeezed a little bit tighter when I saw what was in store for me. "Alright, Mr. Mann, we know you were the last person to see Matthew Scribner alive. Start talking." "What would you like me to talk about?" he said, the very picture of innocence. ...

Everybody knows me. Everybody knows Johnny Large Print. At least that's what they call me. But I'm not here to tell you about my nickname. I'm here to tell you how the skill that got me that nickname saved the 1955 World's Fair and cancelled the 1956 World's Fair. But in order to do that, I guess I better tell you about my nickname. When I was a kid, the only thing I hated more than reading was writing. My pops knew this but his old man eyes had trouble reading the tiny print in the newspapers. So every morning, as soon as that paper hit the sidewalk, he made me run out to get it and start copying every single article in letters big enough so as not to strain his eyes.  At first, it took me so long I wouldn't even have time to eat breakfast before I went off to school, but pretty soon I got so good at it I'd have time for two or even three breakfasts. When word eventually got out (the garbage men in Grover's Holler were notorious gossips), that's...