This FAQ proposes to answer some of the
basic questions people may have about Nightfall.
It will be updated from time-to-time, so keep an eye on it.
<This section is still under development: more
questions to be added>
1. What is Nightfall?
2. Who made Nightfall?
3. When was Nightfall made?
4. When did Nightfall air?
5. Where was Nightfall made?
6. Who created Nightfall?
7. How many episodes of Nightfall
were there?
8. What kind of stories made up the Nightfall
series?
9. Who wrote for Nightfall?
10. Who starred in Nightfall?
11. Where can I hear episodes of Nightfall?
1.
What is Nightfall?
Nightfall is a half-hour radio drama
series in the supernatural/horror genre that aired in Canada in the
early 1980's.
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2. Who made Nightfall?
It was produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
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3. When was Nightfall
made?
The series ran from July 1980 until June of 1983.
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4. When did Nightfall
air?
The series originally aired Friday nights at 7:30pm. After its cancellation
in June 1983, a selection of episodes was repeated on Friday nights
as part of Arts National Presents Friday Night, hosted by Ian
Alexander, under the title Nightfall Mystery Theatre. These reruns would start between 10:00pm and 10:30pm.
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5. Where was Nightfall
made?
About 70% of Nightfall episodes were
produced at CBC Studio G--formerly the Havergal School--on Jarvis Street
in downtown Toronto. The remaining stories were produced at CBC facilities
in Vancouver, Edmonton, Montréal, Halifax, Calgary and St. Johns.
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6. Who created Nightfall?
Nightfall was the brainchild of Bill
Howell, a radio drama producer at CBC Toronto known for his work on
shows like CBC Playhouse and the popular sci-fi/adventure series
Johnny Chase: Secret Agent of Space.
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7. How many episodes of Nightfall
were there?
There were 100 programs all together: 99 were made by the CBC and one
was a "special guest production" made by Clack Sound Studios
in New York City.
When Nightfall was cancelled, the last
six time-slots were filled with episodes from the BBC Radio series,
Arthur C. Clarke's World of Science Fiction. These programs
are commonly included in many episode lists, on-line guides and broadcast
logs, but are not actual episodes of Nightfall
and would not be included in any syndication package or CD release.
However, due to their popularity and long-standing association with
Nightfall, we've included them in the
Episode Guide under
"Lost" & Other Episodes.
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8. What kind of stories made
up the Nightfall
series?
While the overall image the CBC created for Nightfall
was as a supernatural/horrow series, a large variety of genres were
represented throughout its run. Many were, of course, outright horror
stories (such as Len Peterson's adaptation of "The Stone Ship"
and Brian Taylor's "After Sunset"), and some had a more supernatural
feel (such as Arthur Samuels' "The Repossession" and Bill
Gray's "Gerald"). There were only a handful of science-fiction
stories (like Len Peterson's adaptation of "They Bite" and
John G. Fisher's "Assassin Game", but more than a few crime
dramas (like Max Ferguson's "Dark Side of the Mind" and Steve
Petch's "Beyond the Law").
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9. Who wrote for Nightfall?
Between a quarter and one fifth of Nightfall
episodes were adaptations of
classic and contemporary stories by such authors as Charles Dickens,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mikhail Bulgakov, Peter S. Beagle, Edith Wharton
and F. Marion Crawford. The rest were original stories by a mixture
of new and established Canadian writers. Tim Wynne-Jones, Arthur Samuels,
Janet Bonellie, Len Peterson, Max Ferguson, Mavor Moore, Steve Petch
and Roy Sallows are only a handful of the nearly 60 people to write
for the series.
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10. Who starred in
Nightfall?
Many of Canada's famous acting personalities and then up-and-comers
made appearances in Nightfall. Chris
Wiggins, Gerard Parkes, Kate Reid, Colin Fox, Elva Mai Hoover, John
Stocker, Saul Rubinek, David Calderisi, and Richard Donat are just a
few of the over 250 actors the show featured during its run.
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11. Where can I hear episodes of Nightfall?
Sadly, licensing and royalty issues hamper the syndication and commercial sale of Nightfall episodes today. In the mid-1980s and the latter 1990s, 30+ episodes of the series were released on cassette by both the CBC and as part of the Durkin-Hayes Paperback Audio series, some of which can be found on eBay, other on-line auction sites or used book dealers.
In 2003 a CD containing four episodes of the series (Wildcats, Future Fear, The Jogger and No Admittance/No Exit) was released by CBC Audio and is available through Amazon and the CBC's on-line shop.
There is a grass-roots effort underway in Canada to make as many of the thousands of shows gathering dust in the CBC Radio Archives as possible available to the general public. This effort, or something like it, will likely be what frees Nightfall to be enjoyed by the ears of radio horror fans everywhere.
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