Month: April 2010

EP0135: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: Death Takes a Working Day

Edmond O'Brien

Johnny Dollar heads to Fairfield County to solve the murderer of an insured to assure that the murderer doesn’t collect insurance money.

Original Air Date: February 3, 1950

This is the first show for Edmond O’Brien. To learn more about about Edmond O’Brien’s life and work, check out http://www.edmondobrien.com/

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EP0134: Sherlock Holmes: The Problem of Thor Bridge

Holmes is called in to investigate the death of the wife of a wealthy man,  who is in loved with the alleged murderess.

Original Air Date: October 1, 1945

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EP0133: Let George Do It: The Impatient Redhead

A red-headed beer heiress hires George to find out why a Spanish nobleman isn’t interested in marrying her. The family’s servant was going to tell George everything, but she commits suicide rather than reveal the family’s secret.

Original Air Date: September 6, 1948

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EP0132: Jeff Regan: The Man in the Door

The Lyon sends Regan down to get a potential client to sign a contract. The client falls dead at Regan’s feet before he can sign it.

Original Air Date: August 28, 1948

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EP0131: Box 13: Flash of Light

Dan Holiday needs to help a man visiting the city from a small town find out why he was kidnapped and drugged.

Original Air Date: June 30, 1948

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The Big List of Classic Online TV Detective Shows

Below is a list of  TV detective and police shows made available to watch online via Hulu, CBS, and In2TV. Most of these are not public domain but available through ad-supported watching

Adam-12

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Dragnet

Hart to Hart

Hawaii 5-0

Highway Patrol

Kojak

Moonlighting

New Dragnet

Perry Mason

The Rockford Files

Spencer for Hire

Starsky and Hutch

S.W.A.T.

EP0130: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Haiti Adventure

*Johnny is skeptical when he’s dispatched to Haiti to protect the life of a wealthy drunk insured for $150,000 who has became sick from a voodoo curse.

Original Air Date: December 17, 1949

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EP0129: Sherlock Holmes: The Eyes of Mr. Leyton

Holmes tries to prevent a murder in an opium den.

Original Air Date: September 24, 1945

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EP0128: Let George Do It: A Minor Case of Murder

A young street gang retains George to prove that their ring leader didn’t kill his stepfather.

Original Air Date: August 30, 1948

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EP0127: Jeff Regan: The Man Who Came Back

Regan is hired to track down an ex-con who has been making threatening phone calls to the wealthy man who sent him up.

Original Air Date: August 21, 1948

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EP0126: Box 13: Delinquent Dilemma

*A mother whose son is accused of robbery believes him innocent and wants Dan to help him. The son, however wants Dan to back off.

Original Air Date:  June 23, 1948
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The Gold Standard for Radio Research

I’ve added a new link to the sidebar, for the RadioGoldIndex.

The Radio Gold Index is an incredibly helpful radio research tool. It provides information on an exhaustive collection of golden age radio. The two most helpful functions in the site are the ability to search by program and to search by artist. With either search, you pull up a list of shows that usually include a synopsis of the plot and the known cast of the show. Thus, for most of old radio shows, the Radio Gold Index is the closest thing to episode guide, they’ve got.

The story of the proprietor, Mr.  J. David Goldin, his involvement in radio preservation, and how he accumulated his extensive collection is also a fascinating story in itself. One of my favorite parts of the story is where Goldin finds himself a victim of some journalistic mythmaking:

A former reporter for the Boston Globe did a story about me once in a trade publication. Describing me as “a young man (who) worked weekends at an important New York radio station,” he quoted me as saying that I “showed up at the rear of the radio station…loaded (transcriptions of) old shows into the back of a truck” and made a small fortune by “pilfering” those great old shows. Before calling my lawyers, I tracked the writer to his retirement home in Florida and gave him a call. We had a pleasant chat and he later admitted (in writing) that his “facts” were based on an interview he did with me “20 or 25 years ago” and that “I was relying on my memory (of that interview). There may have been some minor errors.”

Minor errors would be an understatement. Goldin describes the actual way he accumulated his collection and the truth makes for less journalistic fodder, but is still a fascinating read that I enjoyed for the pure value of understanding where these shows come.  You can read the rest of the story here.

Of course,  Goldin’s database isn’t perfect and he concedes as much on the front page. There are a few errors to be found such as Goldin listing a Sam Spade Episode from 1949 as guest starring Jack Webb when Webb’s show Johnny Madero was mentioned but Webb himself never made an appearance.  The problem is that The Radio Gold Index is so respected that its errors are copied by other sites.

However, even with the occasional hiccup, it is still a fascinating, mostly accurate tool that gives you a window into the history of the golden ages greatest shows.

EP0125: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Circus Animal Show

*Johnny is off to Georgia to guard a black leopard that has been the target of dangerous thieves.

Original Air Date: December 10, 1949

http://johnnydollarair.com

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EP0124: Sherlock Holmes: The Out of Date Murder

Holmes and Watson find a body that at first appears to answer the mystery of a disappearance more than a century before. However, Holmes suspects the corpse is of more recent vintage:

Original Air Date: September 17, 1945

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EP0123: Let George Do It: The Corpse that Took a Powder

A hysterical letter threatening suicide sends George cross town where he finds the woman who wrote him dead from an apparent suicide. When he goes in to the other room to call Lieutenant Riley, he finds the body gone and that the gun by the body had never been fired.

Original Air Date: August 23, 1948

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