Last week, I wrote about our Ten Most Exciting Episodes. This week as we approach the big 1000 number, we continue the celebration with a look back at our most humorous episodes:

10) Pat Novak: Wendy Morris

Really, I could have put any episode of Pat Novak for Hire on this list (with one exception we’ll talk about next week.) and it’d fit. Pat Novak had the best line of patter and some of cleverest lines in all of radio, and a unique style of Novak-speak. This may have been the best in my memory, however, any episode could go on this list.

9) Leonidas Witherall: The State Fair Murder Case

A predictable murder of an unpleasant woman at the state fair is punched by clever deduction and light comedy.

8) Let George Do It: The Brooksdale Orphanage

Early episodes of Let George Do It were trying to be funny as a detective comedy complete with laugh track. Usually, the humor came up lame such as in the awful Cousin Jeff and the Pig. In this one, it works. It’s not George’s greatest moment, and I actually received a complaint from a new listener who thought I’d snookered him by advertising this as a detective’s podcast. Still, if you keep an open mind, it’s a pretty good show.

7) Lux Radio Theater: The Thin Man

Cecil B. Demille brings together William Powell and Mryna Loy to perform their roles from the classic detective comedy.

6) Jeff Regan: She’s Lovely, She’s Engaged, She Eats Soybeans 

After Jack Webb left Jeff Regan, the show retooled with Frank Graham taking the lead role of Jeff Regan and comic character actor Frank Nelson took over as the boss Anthony J Lyon and turned the character into a lovable scoundrel. The result was a new series with some hard boiled elements, but also a few lighter comedic touches as illustrated in this story of Regan trying to guard a beautiful model on a health food kick.

5) Candy Matson: Devil in the Deep Freeze

A classically quirky Candy Matson story that finds Candy hired to find out who killed a man in a devil costume found in a theater. A hilarious solution follows with some pretty good action

4) Columbia Worshop: Murder in Studio One

We paid tribute to the late great Norman Corwin when he died in 2011 when playing this episode of the Columbia Workshop. Corwin was known for his powerful poetry, not his skill as a mystery writer, but this is a pretty good satirical comedy mystery as Helen Hayes investigates the murder of a man who may have deserved his fate as he was a traitor.

3) Barrie Craig; A Very Odd Job

Barrie Craig is hired to deliver a puppet to a showgirl in one of the oddest adventures of his career.

2) X Minus One: Protective Mimicry

Veteran radio character actor Mandell Kramer plays a futuristic T-man in search of a counterfeiter. The story is played relatively straight-laced which makes its humorous funny, and the denouement of the case is a classic.

1) Sherlock Holmes: The Second Generation

Does being able to fool Sherlock Holmes run in the family? The daughter of Irene Adler sure hopes so in this Rathbone-Bruce Holmes story.

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