Month: November 2019

Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice Season Six Review

After five seasons and thirty-six episodes, Black Jack Justice had established  the main characters of Jack Justice (Christopher Mott) and Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective (Andrea Lyons). Season six features a fair share of experimental episodes.

“Cops and Robbers” is a story told mostly by the supporting cast, “The Sky’s the Limit” is a story of a Poker game where the players try to suss out what happened on a case where no one has all the facts. “Man’s Best Friend is told from the perspective of the office dog, King.

Of the three, I think “Sky’s the Limit” was probably the best. It’s definitely fun to hear the story pieced together and to be learning details as the characters are. The ending is a bit ambiguous but it’s still a lot of fun. The other two stories have their moments but don’t work as well. The side characters are not as interesting as Jack and Trixie so that limited my enjoyment of “Cops and Robbers.” As for, “Man’s Best Friend,” the dog narration part landed flat. The approach seemed to be, “I’m a dog who thinks he’s a detective.” I think it would have been funnier had he been thinking more like an actual dog.

I personally preferred the other three episodes which were more traditional Justice and Dixon mysteries. “The Albatross” was my favorite as Lieutenant Sabian (Gregg Taylor) hires them to look into the murder of a black girl in a tenement which his superiors want him to lay off of. The episode examines the idea that certain unresolved cases haunt detectives, whether official or otherwise.  It’s a well-done episode.

Overall, while I’m not crazy about all the experimental episodes in this season, I still enjoyed it pretty well.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

You can download Black Justice Season Six from Decoder Ring Theatre.

EP2996: Dragnet: The Big Bird

Jack Webb

Friday and Smith search for a burglar who breaks into homes and kills any pet birds.

Original Air Date: February 1, 1955

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EP2995: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The S.S. Malay Trader Ship

Edmond O'Brien

Johnny goes undercover as a seaman on a Corpus Christi-bound ship to prevent the destruction of the ship and its cargo.

Original Air Date: February 10, 1950

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EP2994: Boston Blackie: The Harry Clark Mob Murders

Richard Kollmar
A crook comes to Blackie for protection and is then murder.
Original Air Date: April 6, 1949

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AWR0086: Birds Eye Open House: Guest Groucho Marx

Amazing World of Radio

Groucho Marx agrees to bring the Turkey to Dinah Shore’s Thanksgiving Party and he does, but to Dinah’s chagrin, the turkey’s alive.

Original Air Date: November 22, 1945
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EP2993: Rocky Jordan: The Money Changers

Jack Moyles

Rocky finds himself targetted by a gangster when he refuses to participate in a black market currency racket.

Original Air Date: July 30, 1950

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EP2992: It’s a Crime, Mr. Collins: The Brown Paper Bag

Gail Collins’ wedding night is ruined when a man dies on the front door of her honeymoon suite.

Original Air Date: March 4, 1957

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EP2991: Box 13: Extra! Extra!

A newspaper boy asks Dan to clear his father of a jewel theft.

Original Air Date: November 14, 1947

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Video Theater 169: Racket Squad Kite High

A funeral home director goes to Vegas to get away from his mother-in-law and finds himself the target of conmen running a private game. ‘

Original Air Date: September 6, 1951

Season 2, Episode 1

Book Review: Dragnet Dailies Septemer-November 1952


Dragnet was not only a radio program, a TV program, and a movie in the 1950s, it was a pop culture phenomenon that not only led to spin-off novels and board games but a daily newspaper strip that spanned from 1952-1955.

Single strips have surfaced. Lewis Lovehaug (aka Linkara) did a review of an Australian Dragnet comic book which appears to have been made up of several edited newspaper strips. A few strips have appeared on various blogs around on the Internet. There does seem to be disagreement on the start date with many websites indicating 1953 as the start date, but this appears to be inaccurate. As best I can tell, it started in June 1952 and continued through May 1955.

This book collects an entire storyline from September 22-November 8, 1952. The overall plot is a good, standard Dragnet story about a search for a drug ring with the first clue coming at the scene of a drug-related accident.

The story features Frank Smith as a young police officer rather than the middle-aged character we came to know on TV. The Dragnet strip began in the interim period between the time Barton Yarborough (who played Friday’s first partner Ben Romero) died and when Ben Alexander was cast as Frank Smith. Clearly, the idea of having Friday with a younger partner appealed to Jack Webb. In addition to the newspaper strip, on a radio show, a young Martin Milner was cast as Friday’s partner Bill Lockwood for a month, but it didn’t work out, with Milner entering the military during Korea foreclosing the possibility. The newspaper strip Frank Smith does have a resemblance to Milner with a touch of Jimmy Olsen thrown in. The one plot complication is Joe Friday having a young partner makes Joe Friday going undercover as a college student seem silly. Smith would have been a more natural fit.

The art is decent with a fair likeness of Jack Webb as Friday. To be honest, it’s tough to tell how much of the mediocrity in the art has to do with the art and how much of it has to do with the quality of the scan of the material.

If you’ve read other collections of major newspaper strips, such as those published by the American Comics Library, this will probably not be all that impressive. Collections of major strips are often carefully restored. The collections are readable public domain comic strips of fair quality.

In addition, the price of $7.99 for a 42-strip story is a bit steep. Still, if you want to enjoy Dragnet as a newspaper strip and want to own a physical book as opposed to downloading them online then you may enjoy this book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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EP2990: Dragnet: The Big Bounce

Jack Webb

Friday and Smith search for a man passing bad checks using the name of a dead actor.

Original Air Date: January 25, 1955

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EP2989: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: Death Takes a Working Day

Edmond O'Brien

Johnny investigates the death of a wealthy insured man.

Original Air Date: February 3, 1950

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EP2988: Boston Blackie: The Amadon Pearl Murders

Richard Kollmar

Blackie matches wits with two different sets of jewel thieves to steal the million dollar Amadon Pearls.

Original Air Date: March 30, 1949
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EP2987: Rocky Jordan: Cairo Tour

Jack Moyles

While visiting the docks in Cairo, Rocky is kissed by a beautiful American tourist.
Original Air Date: July 23, 1950

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EP2986: Let George Do It: Red Spots in the Snow

George is called to a ski resort to protect a famous Hollywood director.

Original Air Date: Unknown

Likely Rebroadcast Date: November 25, 1952

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