By this, I mean actual episodes, rather than radio programs in general. Some of my picks:

1. Backseat Driver (Suspense). Not only is it a well constructed story, but it's a really weird sensation to hear Fibber McGee and Molly on Suspense (naturally, this was during Harlow Wilcox's time as announcer.)

2. Revenge is Murder (The Shadow). This particular episode manages to actually be quite good as opposed to being merely campy.

3. The Dunwich Horror (Suspense). Just goes to show that Lovecraft is infinitely better suited for adaptation to radio as opposed to film.

More later.

"Behind The Locked Door" - The Mysterious Traveller . . . oh, man this one creeped me out, even if the premise is a little far fetched.

5. The Thirteenth Truck (Escape). Never have I encountered a war story that felt and sounded so real. In particular, instead of inflicting cheesy accents on us, the Germans speak German.

6. The New Sheriff (The Six Shooter). Fun little story where Ponsett gets elected sheriff and mayor of a town (and loses the coroner election by only four votes).

7. Aces and Eights (Frontier Gentleman). A nice little retelling of Wild Bill Hickok's demise.

8. The Haunted House (The Great Gildersleeve). This episode had scads of great lines and a hilarious resolution (the horrible moaning coming from the haunted house was Peavy practicing his cello as Mrs. Peavy wouldn't let him do it at home).

9. The House on Lost Man's Bluff (The Hermit's Cave). An effective horror story. If the laugh of the story's supernatural nasty doesn't send a chill down your spine, then you might not have one.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" with Agnes Moorehead. Bone chilling! Spine tingling!

I must respectfully disagree with that. Any of what you described was overwhelmed by by the fact that Moorehead's character was intensely annoying. Moorehead's shameless overacting doesn't help matters much.

I think that was supposed to be the point-if Mrs. Stevenson had been nicer she wouldn't have been killed.

This is from a booklet the came with "Old Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century": "Some of the value of the radio show was its intensity, and the fact that by the time it ended, you felt that this woman had dug her own grave."

Well, I'll just leave it that I consider it overrated and I'm not alone in that belief (Jeff Dickson at OTR Plot Spot and John Dunning, author of The OTR Encyclopedia, have similar feelings).
Crisis at Eastercreek (The Six Shooter). The various tough hombres played by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have nothing on Ponsett in the nerve and guts department, as in this episode, he walks into an outlaw camp and requests donations for the local church to get a new organ.

I consider "Sorry, Wrong Number" to be a good but not great example of OTR. Agnes Moorehead does a wonderful job with a difficult character, but there really is no repeat value. It just tends to get frustrating listening to it again, and then you start to pick up on some plot problems. But then, many "one-man show" type stories have the same problem...

And I still can't believe they made a movie of this to boot.

Two movies: one starring Barbara Stanwick in 1948 and one with Loni Anderson in 1989.

I agree that it was not the best show ever put on. "The Thing that Cries in the Night" on I Love a Mystery was much better, even though the cry of the "thing" sounded more like a buzzsaw that a baby.

A novel of "Sorry, Wrong Number" was also written - it was incredibly padded.

I own the collection "60 Greatest OTR Shows Ever" from Radio Spirits.

As Cher would say: "As if!"

It's a fun collection to be sure, but who really thinks that--

*The Charlie McCarthy episode that ran AGAINST Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast
*A kind of limp Christmas show of The Six Shooter
*One of the most preachy episodes of Big Town ever
*An episode of I LOVE LUCY?!
*A rather predictable episode of Gunsmoke

are the greatest OTR radio episodes ever?

Also, the collection is more into "historical significance" than just greatest. That is the only reason why Arthur Godfrey and Walter Winchell are included. The collection did include some neat little things like:

"Red Wind" from the Philip Marlowe show that starred Van Heflin. Heflin is perfect, and the episode perfectly captures that lazy, sleazy world of Chandler.

"Brave New World" from the CBS Radio Workshop. I had never read the story, so it was really neat to hear.

The final episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel." John Dehner was superb in that role, and the final ending more than redeems a just-okay episode. Hearing the train puff out with the man called Paladin for the last time is sort of touching.

There was also a presentation of "Johnny Get Your Gun" starring James Cagney. We discussed the story in English class, so I listened to it. The thing is sort of hit-and-miss, but the ending is powerful stuff. When Cagney tells the "big guys" to consider what happens to people like him when war happens, one must remember that in about a year and a half, the U.S. would enter World War II.

A really neat collection I also own is the "Greatest CBS Shows" ever. This really picks up on some neat oddities that have slipped through the cracks elsewhere (want to hear My Friend Irma or My Little Margie or The Mel Blanc Show?).

The Mysterious Traveler - "Death Is The Judge" - this is one of the best episodes of TMT and hence one of the best OTR episodes ever in the mystery/suspense genre. Somewhat reminiscent of and probably inspired by "The Monkey's Paw" but with thicker suspense and impending horror and with a conclusion much more heavily saturated by irony. The last few minutes of this one really had me on the edge of my seat. It deals with an upper-class couples discovery in a curio shop of an ancient Chinese bell with the power to restore life to the dead, but which demands a terrible cost in return. I remember reading the print version of this Robert A. Arthur story (titled "The Rose-Crystal Bell") in the fifth grade and it still ranks as one of the all-time best horror stories I've ever read.

Lynching Man (Gunsmoke)- The ending of this episode has so much irony you could attract it with a magnet.

Quiz Kids vs. Jello Kids (Jack Benny Program)- Ah yes, the Quiz Kids. These prodigies were notorious for regularly trouncing university professors. So what sort of chance do the likes of Phil Harris and Dennis Day stand? This is also the episode where Rochester informs Jack that Carmichael ate the gas man.

Conspiracy (Tales of the Texas Rangers)- While this show has always had a high level of quality, this episode particularly impresses. Normally, Pearson can rely on the local sheriff for assistance. But in this case, not only was the sheriff corrupt, but so was practically all the rest of the county government.

Regarding Sorry, Wrong Number, I think this is one of the episodes that is best heard as a "One-Time Deal." The second time through, there's really no point (no clever dialogue or memorable scenes), so you start to wonder a little about the plot, start to critique performances. The third time you're just blah.

When I was in 6th grade (lets, see... that was... no, I can't count that high... many years ago), I was the (entire) stage crew for a stage production of "Sorry, Wrong Number".

Look Pleasant, Please (Box 13)- At its best, the plotlines of Box 13 were incredibly twisted. And this is probably the most twisted episode of the lot (though Blackmail is Murder runs a close second).

S.O.S. (The Mysterious Traveler)- When I first heard this, the ending just blew me away. I sure didn't see that coming, and I doubt that anyone else did either. I won't actually say what it is, but it just wouldn't work on TV.

Episode Eight of The Stan Freberg Show- There were plenty of hilarious sketches in this one, including The Story of the Good Humor Men, an episode of Face the Funnies, and the classic St. George and the Dragon-net

The King's Birthday (Suspense)- This was the first episode of Suspense I had ever heard and it gave me a good impression of the show.

"War of The Worlds" w/ Orson Welles

"The Hiddenburg Disaster" w/ Herb Morrison

"The Kennedy Assassination: Dallas Radio"...one person they interviewed said they saw someone standing on the grassy knoll by the fence. They were immediately cut off....hmmm...I wonder why

I don't know where else to put this, but - Here's where Arthur Godfrey fired Julius LaRosa on the air in 1953. Godfrey was apparently a control freak, and was livid when LaRosa went behind Godfrey's back and hired his own manager. Godfrey's career never really recovered from that (especially when he explained LaRosa's firing as his "lack of humility", which became material for a multitude of comics and satirists) and he died in relative obscurity in 1983.