The 1954 radio drama that introduced the world to Godzilla

- September 17, 2022

Did you know that the original 1954 Godzilla film actually isn't the debut of Godzilla? You'd think it'd be as it sparked a whole new genre of film, and has caused such a big influence allowing the character to be celebrated to this day but actually, his first appearance was a 1954 radio drama based off the first draft of the script, which ran from July 17th to September 25th in 1954. It was titled 怪獣ゴジラ or, translated into English, The Monster Godzilla. Unfortunately, not much is known about this little oddity outside of the cast and crew, and the fact it even exists. It's a little baffling, not gonna lie, it's weird to think the first public appearance of Godzilla wasn't actually the movie, but some tie-in radio drama from the 1950s most people, if not all, seem to have forgotten about, you'd think for how large and important Godzilla is, it'd be archived better as much more, random obscure stuff is archived, like the 1993 comic Godzilla vs. Charles Barkley, which was a tie-in for the Nike commercial. From my research, the first time it's been brought up since 1954, at least in official reading media, was the aptly titled book from 2003, Godzilla Dictionary, where it's listed as one of the columns and it also talks about the novel called Monster Godzilla. Now, I don't have the book on hand and even if I did, I still don't know how to read Japanese as I don't believe this got a English release, so I can't write about what it's probably about, but if I had to make any guesses, it'd most likely be the same plot as the movie with some differences as it's based upon the first iteration of the screenplay. I did find this small section of a magazine called Japanese Giants that does talk about but it doesn't add anything of note with the exception of the description of the extensive use of sound effects and narration to make up for the lack of visuals, and the soundtrack being described as over the top, and week. We do get a description of Godzilla's roar though with it sounding like a "lion with laryngitis rather than a giant monster". Searching any of the titles in both Japanese, romanized, and English, all yield the same results, which all talk about what I've mentioned before, which does actually include an interesting result. With a topic like this, it's no surprise there would be forum posts talking about the topic, which there were 2 distinct ones, the first one I found, from Toho Kingdom, asked about it's existence, and unfortunately it didn't really give much information as the forum devolved into discussing the public rights to Godzilla, though it is where I found the Japanese Giants magazine that talks about the radio drama. The second forum post I found hails from the Godzilla fansite, Godzilla Movies, where the user True American Godzilla asks where to find it, a few responses later with nothing and there's a video posted that is an excerpt from the radio drama, more specifically, the music. I've listened through it all and there is some narration included as well, and it is dramatic as described in the magazine. The description does specify that the composer is done by Keima Hashimoto, whose composing work I can't seem to find. The comments do specify where the recording comes from though, and it says that it was attached to a Godzilla watch and that the radio drama was uploaded to... NicoNico... Why didn't I think to look there before? If you're not aware, NicoNico is basically a Japanese version of YouTube. After doing some searching, nothing showed up, as expected, the video the video uploader was talking about is either taken down, and if it were to be the drama, it'd probably be the final episode as that was included on a 2001 CD made in celebration of Godzilla for the anniversary of the movie titled Godzilla Sound Memorial. I haven't found time to mention it and I haven't mostly because the fact there's not much I can mention other than it contains the final episode of the drama. It's an extremely rare release as only 1,000 were produced and the CD can go upwards of 150 dollars, which I don't have, and if I did I probably wouldn't spend that much on a Godzilla CD. Since it would be a CD it'd be easy to rip and upload but unfortunately, from my searching, is nowhere to be found, so it's still missing by default. It's a shame that this is mostly lost as it seems to be a very important piece of media to the Godzilla franchise, and considering how much I love Godzilla, it's no surprise I would love for this to be found. It's a possibility though it may never be found, but there's hope I guess, from some end. I probably forgot to mention a few things so if I did please feel free to look at the sources I provided at the bottom of this post. I hope one day this is found, either the episode on the CD, or the full show, I'll take either one at this point.