The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 Related to: And Adam Begot
 from antiquity to 2017



   Arch Oboler’s Plays
by Arch Oboler
First time travel: 9 Sep 1939

Arch Oboler was a prolific radio playright from the mid-1930s, starting with NBC’s Lights Out radio show. One of the stories in the 1939 Arch Oboler’s Plays series was “And Adam Begot,” which told the story of two men and a woman thrown back into prehistoric times. The story appear in print in a 1944 anthology, was reprised for the 1951 Lights Out tv show, and formed the basis for a 1953 Steve Ditko story in the Black Magic comic book.

 The young dramalist expects to face his biggest casting problem in filling the roles of the two Neanderthal men which he has written into “And Adam Begot.” He wants a voice, he explains, which will instantly suggest a cave-man to the radio listener. With that in mind, he conducted a survey of what people expect in a Neanderthal voice. “A cross-section of the answers,” Oboler says, “suggests a bass voiced prizefighter, talking double talk with his mouth full of hot potatoes.” 

—The Lima News, 9 Sep 1939




   “And Adam Begot”
by Arch Oboler
First publication: Out of This World, May 1944

I haven’t yet read this story, which came from Oboler’s 1939 radio play of the same name. It was later turned into a tv episode of Lights Out and was the basis of a Steve Ditko story in the Black Magic comic book (1953).



   Lights Out
created by Fred Coe
First time travel: 2 Jul 1951

I wonder whether Lights Out was the earliest sf anthology tv show. The first four episodes were live broadcasts on New York’s WNBT-TV (NBC) starting on 3 Jun 1946. It was renewed by NBC for three seasons of national broadcast starting 26 Jul 1949, and I spotted at least two time-travel episodes. Some episodes have found their way to Youtube, although I watched “And Adam Beget” on Disk 5 of the Netflix offering. I haven’t yet listened to any of the earlier radio broadcasts.

The episode “And Adam Beget” came from a 1939 radio episode of Arch Oboler’s Plays, and it formed the basis for a 1953 Steve Ditko story, “A Hole in His Head,” in the Black Magic comic book.
  1. And Adam Begot (2 Jul 1951) time warp to prehistoric past
  2. Of Time and Third Avenue (30 Dec 1951) from Bester’s story

 You don’t understand. Look at the short, hairy, twisted body—the neck bent, the head thrust forward, those enormous brows, the short flat nose . . . 

—from “And Adam Begot ”




   Black Magic
edited by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
First time travel: Black Magic 27, Nov 1953

Simon and Kirby put together the Black Magic horror comic for Prize Comics in the fifties, and there was at least one time-travel story, “A Hole in His Head” by none other than an early Steve Ditko. That story was based on a 1951 tv episode of Lights Out (“And Adam Begot”) written by Arch Oboler and taken from the 1939 radio show Arch Oboler’s Plays.

 Somehow we have stepped out of our own time into another. 

—from “A Hole in His Head”


 

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Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)