The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio The great ones are back in action.

Review: Radio Archives: Let George Do It, Volume 1

Let George Do It, starring Bob Bailey has more episodes in circulation than Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

Combined.

With the exception of one episode featuring Ken Peters, and another featuring Alan Soule, all the episodes star Bob Bailey as a detective that defies the traditional Hard-Boiled/Soft-Boiled division with his mix of solid action with incredible mind-blowing solutions to his cases.

However, the Great Detective's adventures remain somewhat incomplete. Digital Deli estimates there were 420 episodes in Let George Do It's 1946-54 run. While, its possible given what little we know about the last two years of the show's run, that it could have been slightly less than that, what's indisputable is that half of George Valentine's radio adventures have been missing.

Radio Archives helps to fill this gap a little bit with its Let George Do It collections. As Let George Do It was winding down its main run on Don Lee Mutual, Harry Goodman productions was syndicating earlier episodes in Canada. Radio Archives has released these syndicated episodes and many of them are episodes that are lost from the Don Lee syndication and not in general circulation.

I received Volume 1 for Christmas and was quite pleased with the set. The audio was fantastic. While I have no problem sitting through crackily mp3s, the sound quality on these CDs is astounding and a nice bonus.

But of course, the big prize was the episodes themselves, fifteen of which are not in general circulation, and of the five that are in circulation, I'd only heard one previously. So, this was a real treat.

These are my favorite episodes:

• What Became of Terry Cable?
• Sucker Stunt
• The Fearless Clown
• The Ant Hill

However, every episode was a pleasure to listen to, and I can hardly get Volume 2.

My only complaints are that the announcer that Harry Goodman used to replace the Standard Oil announcer Bud Hiestrand was downright irritating for the first nine or ten episodes, though that is hardly Radio Archives fault. Their back cover copy also states George Valentine was a an ex-police officer when he was an ex-GI.

However, these are minor issues for such a great release.  I heartily reccomend this for high quality episodes that are out of circulation.

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