Radio review – “Abbott and Costello” – Bela Lugosi (1948) ***

I’d never heard an Abbott and Costello radio show before – they’re terrific, a half hour of consistent laughs. It was a lot of fun listening to it with a laugh track, too (the laugh track on the sitcom of theirs I’ve got doesn’t seem to work). The plot is light – Costello tries to be sheriff of Encino and winds up in a haunted house. Bela Lugosi guest stars as himself, a genuine killer for a change instead of a red herring. He gets to say some one liners instead of just giving feed lines; he kicks some goals too (“Why do you speak quietly” “I was raised in a library”) although he muffles his final one, a gag about having to run away from the police because he was parked in a one hour zone.