If you mention Green Acres, people think of the 1965-71 Sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. But fifteen years before Green Acres came to TV, it came to radio.
CBS broadcast Granby’s Green Acres as a Summer replacement series. Granby’s Green Acres told the story of John Granby, a Banker who got fed up with city life and took his wife and family to relocate to a farm.
Sound familiar?
The radio Green Acres were written by a 33-year old writer, who would go on to write 150 of the 170 TV episodes of Green Acres.
There were quite a few similarities between the radio and TV versions of Green Acres. Both featured a scatter-brained Mr. Kimball (although the radio Mr. Kimball ran the county store rather than being the County Agent.) Granby also had a farm hand named Eb. The radio show had some good bits that Sommers would dust off for early TV episodes.
An early Green Acres TV episode where Oliver can’t decide what to plant has its basis in the radio episode, “Mr. Granby Plants a Crop.”
And this great little bit of dialogue was transplanted directly from the radio:
Oliver: I’d take a seed, a tiny little seed, I’d plant it in the ground, I’d put some dirt on it, I’d water it, and pretty soon, do you know what I would have?
Lisa: A dirty little wet seed.
At the end of the radio run. John Granby (Gale Gordon) told listeners to send letters in to their local CBS station with their thoughts on Granby’s Green Acres. The show never returned to the air.
There were many reasons the show didn’t make it in 1950. First, I don’t think audiences were ready for it. Americans had migrated in large numbers to cities like New York and Los Angeles in search of economic opportunities. Granby’s desire to move to the country seemed absurd. When Green Acres appeared on TV, it was a very different world with violence, unrest, and crime on the rise. Moving to Hooterville sounded a lot less crazy and made us more sympathetic with Mr. Douglas.
The biggest problem with Granby’s Green Acres may have been that it just wasn’t ready for prime time. Granby is too much of a cantankerous blowhard. The radio version gives you an appreciation of the talent with which Eddie Albert played the role of Oliver Wendell Douglas, as a complex mix of bombast, idealism, practicality, and romance that makes the character a joy to watch.
In the radio version, Sommers only had given real airtime to Mr. Kimball from the store, and a know-it-all all County Agent who always ate Granby’s supper. Pretty thin gruel.
Not continuing Granby’s Green Acres was a smart decision. Even with great comics like Burns and Allen leaving radio for television, radio comedy was still undergoing a golden age and Sommers’s creation simply was not in the same league as shows like Our Miss Brooks,Life of Riley, and Life with Luigi.
It also had a nice aftermath. Sommers continued to develop as a writer and work in the world of television, writing on such shows as Amos and Andy, Dennis the Menace, and Petticoat Junction. When Green Acres got its second beginning, it became one of television’s most beloved sitcoms.
It features Pat Buttram turning in the role Mr. Haney, who is always trying to sell Mr. Douglas something, Eva Gabor as the sweet but often confusing Hungarian princess Lisa Douglas, and the Ziffels, who treat their pig like he’s their son, and much more.
While the radio show didn’t have these elements, it serves as a rough draft of Green Acres, which makes it an interesting listen.
You can listen to Granby’s Green Acres here. You can currently watch Green Acresfor free with Pluo.
*The tenth volume of Radio Archive’s Great Gildersleeve collection collects all of the circulating episodes of The Great Gildersleeve from March 12-June 25,1944, which includes the conclusion of the 1943-44 radio season, and also wraps up the third season’s storyline.
There are lost episodes in sets for this season, but thankfully, the final nine episodes are in circulation, which is really helpful, as the ongoing story really takes center stage. Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) has already decided to run for Mayor of Summerfield, but he also ends up proposing marriage. School principal Eve Goodwin (Bea Benaderet) has agreed to marry Gildersleeve if he manages to win victory in the June 25 primary. If he doesn’t … she keeps her cards pretty close to the vest on what her response will be.
Gildersleeve’s relationship with Eve is interesting. There’s a three-episode arc involving Eve’s mother’s visit to Summerfield and Gildersleeve meeting her. It’s an interesting dynamic. He’s initially nervous but actually finds himself liking her. But when the dynamic between Eve and her mother starts to get in the way of romance, Gildersleeve has to try to work through the complicated and difficult wartime travel situation to get her back to her home. It’s a very different sort of mix and shows a bit more nuance than the typical hostile relationship.
The light-hearted campaign storyline was interesting to listen to, particularly as a far less lighthearted election was playing out while I was listening to the volume. One thing I had to appreciate is that they worked up a backstory for Summerfield’s political situation. Because people of all parties listened to the radio, they didn’t want to offend anyone. So there are two generically named parties in Summerfield and the writers worked up an entire story of how they split, and Republicans and Democrats ended up in both of them. Now, it might take some suspension of disbelief to believe that Summerfield formed its own pocket political universe, but the writers earn right to the benefit of the doubt with the detail they put into this explanation.
The war figures in this story in subte and not-so-subtle ways. In addition to creating a plot point that makes it hard for Eve’s mother to leave town, the end of the show is given to in-universe PSAs that are surprisingly effective.
Gildersleeve’s challenge to the incumbent Mayor gets off to a rocky start. However, a turning point is when the Mayor decides to put Gildersleeve on the spot and have him sing at the town picnic. Gildersleeve wows the crowd and is asked for countless encores, gaining in popularity and heading to frontrunner status. However, as election day and potentially the date for setting his wedding near, we’re treated to the same internal conflict that Gildersleeve shows in the previous season. He’s a man of big ambitions and big dreams but he also likes his status quo life and is afraid of it changing. Will he win despite himself or will subtle (and sometimes not-too-subtle) self-sabotage doom him?
Without giving away the ending, I like the way the writers handle it. The show’s final episode offers a satisfying conclusion to Gildersleeve’s story line without feeling like a retread of season two’s conclusion, while still being true to the character. As usual, the series features strong supporting performances, with Gildersleeve’s iconic supporting characters like Judge Hooker (Earle Ross), Mr. Peavey the Druggist (Richard LeGrand), Floyd the Barber (Arthur Q. Bryan), and his cook Birdie (Lillian Randolph).
There are few points for real complaint with the box set or the season as a whole. As usual, Radio Archives provides a high-quality production which provides a better listening experience than most circulating Gildersleeve episodes. One might wish that there were more episodes, with a greater focus on Gildersleeve‘s supporting cast. But the number of lost episodes makes this judgment hard, as there could have been more episodes focusing on supporting players, but they’re lost. The only real complaint is that the character of Gildersleeve’s niece Marjorie (Lurene Tuttle) seems a little less mature this season, which leads to some weaker jokes.
Still, what we have of season three is very strong. It mixes music, romance, comedy, drama, and a bit of political satire for good measure to create a really grand listening experience.
Theater Five was the first great attempt to revive network radio drama after the end of the Golden Age of Network Radio Drama on September 30, 1962. Theater Five was launched in 1964 as a five-day-a-week series broadcast on ABC and originated in New York.
The Theater Five Project seeks to document the series and upgrade the circulating episodes of the program. In celebration of the sixtieth anniversary, a newly upgraded sixtieth-anniversary collection was posted. In addition to improved audio and thorough documentation, the collection includes one newly recovered episode that has not been in circulation among collectors, “And Dream No More.”
“And Dream No More” was broadcast on June 3,1965 and starred Conrad Nagel, a silent film matinee idol and later as a character in multiple mediums as well as a radio and TV personality and host. Nagel plays Dr. Roger Borton, a psychiatrist who has reached the portion of his career where he’s given up actually paying attention to what his patients say. In an early scene, Borton prescribes a pill to a patient dealing with a fear of crowds who objects. The doctor makes no attempts to respond and just tells him to do it and see him back there. Borton has developed a grand theory of everything that explains all mental illnesses: that they all come down to a fear of death. When a maid (Frances Cheney) for a wealthy client comes in troubled by predictive dreams, Borton already “knows” what’s going on and plans to treat her in time to leave for a golf game with a fellow doctor. But does he really?
Both Nagel and Cheney are great. Cheney does a good job portraying someone who really wants help but is in doubt of his very confident but also very pat answer. Nagel is superb in bringing a super-confident and overbearing character to life. The script by science fiction pioneer Nelson Bond is a taut piece of work that examines not only predictive dreams but the limits of human knowledge.
It’s a solid and thought-provoking script that enhances the already-strong circulating Theater Five canon.
The late Jim French is best remembered for his greatest creation, the Seattle-based, modern private eye Harry Nile. However, French produced many detective and crime shows during his remarkable four-decades-plus in radio. Imagination Theatre: The Investigators (affiliate link) from Radio Spirits is a sampler pack of nine different crime shows that French produced over the years as part of his Imagination Theatre
The set kicks off with three episodes of Harry Nile. These shows come from 1999, towards the tail end of the run of Phil Harper (the original actor to play Harry Nile). We’ve reviewed this series extensively before, but for those who haven’t heard of it, Harry Nile is a period piece set in late 1939 through the late 1950s. Initially, the titular detective worked out of Los Angeles, but then he moved to Seattle, where French’s research and attention to detail really shine. The episodes are superb. They’re tailored to provide a complete, compelling mystery in just about twenty minutes.
Next come three episodes of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which isn’t to be confused with the BBC Radio series of the same name. This stars John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson. I’d listened to one of these before and hadn’t thought much of it. However, I did enjoy these. While they’re not the greatest of the Holmes pastiches, and a few of the British accents are a bit iffy, the stories do have a Doyle-esque feel to them. While I wouldn’t consider them in the same league as Big Finish’s or the BBC interpretations, it’s better than the 1947-49 radio version with John Stanley. If you enjoyed that take, you’ll enjoy this one as well.
Following that, we’re treated to two episodes of The Adventures of Dameron, which I was happy about. Dameron was French’s first radio detective. The episodes in this set aired in 1972 and were set in contemporary times. Dameron (Robert E. Lee Hardwick) is a freelance troubleshooter who takes on all sorts of cases. He’s like a 1970s Frank Race, though generally with better production quality. There’s a dearth of 1970s radio detectives, so the two in this set are a definite treat. We also get to hear actress Pat French, who later played the role of Harry Nile’s secretary and partner, Murphy.
We further get two episodes of Mr. Darnborough Investigates, starring David Natalie. These are cozy mysteries made in 2005 and 2015, but they could have been done in the Golden Age of Radio or over the BBC in the 1940s. Darnsborough is a gentleman detective who calls to mind Campion and Lord Peter Wimsey. If you enjoy those characters, you’ll like Darnsborough.
Then we get a couple episodes of Kerides the Thinker. This series has a different setting for a mystery series: third century BC Alexandria, Egypt. Kerides (Ulrick Dihle) is a travelling Greek student who goes around solving mysteries, accompanied by Adria, a former slave girl (Sarah Schenkkhan), who was freed after Kerides revealed her former master is a murderer. On one hand, I love the idea for the setting and it’s clear that the writers did their homework. On the other hand, the mysteries are so-so and the way Adria is written makes her seem insufferably whiny and unpleasant. Instead of being grateful for her freedom, she’s upset that she has lost her place in the world and has no idea what to do. It’s an interesting concept, but the way it’s realized doesn’t quite work for me.
Next up are three episodes of Kincaid, the Strange Seeker, starring Terry Rose. This one is a series about a TV reporter who investigates mysteries that always have a supernatural cause, such as bank robberies that turn out to be done by ghosts. I’m not a fan of supernatural mysteries, and I also wasn’t sure how to feel about these episodes. They aren’t scary and they don’t have a Twilight Zone-style twist. The stories seem off-the-wall more than anything else. In addition, I was bothered by how Kincaid gets hit with unwarranted skepticism despite a solid track record. Other than that, the production values are still good. This just wasn’t my thing.
Following this, we’re given three episodes of Raffles, the Gentleman Thief, starring John Armstrong. These are based on the character of A.J. Raffles, a brilliant gentleman thief created by E.W. Hornung. These were popular in their time but have faded from public consciousness. The adaptation does a good job of capturing the spirit of the original stories with good acting and good effects. The first two episodes are adaptations of Hornung’s original stories and the third is a solid pastiche. I’m not a huge fan of Raffles, but I could appreciate the way they handled the character. My only complaint is that Raffles, particularly as portrayed in these stories, isn’t an investigator of any sort, but plenty of people who enjoy detective fiction love Raffles. If you do, you will enjoy these stories.
Then we have the Hilary Caine Mysteries, which is my second favorite thing that Jim French Productions put out. It features Australian actress Karen Heaven as Hilary Caine, an on-staff “girl detective” for the British Tittle-Tattle Magazine. The series is set in the 1930s and finds Hilary stumbling into a crime scene being investigated by Inspector Finn (Randy Hoffmeyer). At first, she seems to be a bit silly, but ultimately she shows her cunning in solving the case. These are fun, light mysteries and Heaven is wonderful in the role of Hilary Caine.
The collection rounds up with two episodes (including one double-length episode) of the Anthony Rathe Chronicles, which is a modern British drama that follows the career of a guilt-ridden attorney who solves crimes to atone for a case he got wrong. It definitely has a modern BBC feel. It’s a bit soapy for my tastes, but the mysteries are well-written.
Overall, this was a fun mix of programs. While I liked some more than others, it was interesting to hear or re-listen to such a variety of detectives. It’s great to have a chance to appreciate all the audio dramas Jim French put out over nearly half a century, when most people thought audio drama was a thing of the past. I also think the success of this set may help Radio Spirits determine whether they release larger sets for Jim French series outside of the quite popular Harry Nile and Sherlock Holmes series.
Solving a mystery is hard. It’s even harder if you’re trying to do it on an Earth nearing an apocalypse. It’s particularly challenging if you’ve been dead for thousands of years. However, Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) has to do just that to return to her family and a happy electronic afterlife in the first box set, “Last Words”, for her new Doctor Who spin-off series from Big Finish Production, The Life and Death of River Song.
Background
For the uninitiated, or even those who only saw Doctor Who on television, some explanation is in order. River Song was introduced as a character in the fourth series of Doctor Who in 2008 in the two-part story, The Silence in the Library andForest of the Dead. She and the Doctor arrive at a mysteriously abandoned library planet. She knows who the Doctor (David Tennant) is but he doesn’t recognize her. The Doctor is a time traveler and she’d met him in his future and they’d had a life of adventures together and (it’ll eventually be revealed) she had married the Doctor. These adventures would play out onscreen during the tenure of Tennant’s successors, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.
In her first adventure on-screen, she dies heroically saving the Doctor. However, in last dramatic scene, the Doctor is able to save her data pattern and mental essence onto the library’s massive cloud, along with all the friends she had with her when they came to the Library, giving her a happy digital afterlife.
Of course, her further on-screen adventures add depth to her backstory. They also establish that she operated as a private eye during the 1930s, using the name Melody Malone.
In addition to her on-screen work, Kingston appears in twelve series’ worth of box sets in her previous series, The Diaries of River Song, as well as making guest appearances in numerous Big Finish Doctor Who audio series. None of these extra adventures are necessary to understand this set story, which occurrs after her time being stored in the library.
The Set-Up
It’s the distant future andapocalyptic solar flares are threatening to devastate Earth and its terrestrial-bound inhabitants, who long ago abandoned space travel. A multi-billionaire mogul (Greg Wise) has a bunker and plans to remake the world in his own image once the dust settles. But there’s a fly in the ointment, and mysterious forces could undermine his plans. To get to the bottom of this, he needs help. He acquires the library where River’s essence is housed and extracts that essence into a cloned body – a decaying cloned body.
He tasks River with finding a missing scientist who is the key to the whole conspiracy. If she helps him, she’ll get placed back in the library. If she doesn’t, she’ll die and be forever separated from her family. River thus finds herself alone, in an apocalyptic world of failing technologies and a doomed humanity. Her life depends on her uncovering a dangerous secret that people will kill to keep her from discovering.
Review
This isn’t the first time River Song has played detective (see my review of Series 7 of The Diary of River Song) but this story is different in that the entire four-hour box set tells a single story, a single apocalyptic mystery adventure. While the chapters have different titles, this is mostly a continual stream of the same story. Only the second chapter, “Fate and Fatality”, could be said to be set apart, as some listeners might be confused by River Song apparently being in a regency historical. But really it’s all the same piece.
What we’re given is a complex and well-developed plot that blends the detective and mystery genres seamlessly into the apocalyptic setting. The result is a thoroughly engaging bit of techno-noir within the frame of the Doctor Who universe.
As usual, Big Finish provides a solid cast of regulars from the British acting community with solid performances all around. Greg Wise is appropriately sinister as the ruthless billionaire. Jamie Parker does a great job playing a complex character whose morality and motives remain a mystery until the final chapter.
It’s Kingston who puts in the best performance. Writer Rob Valentine had been under the impression that this would be the last River Song story and wrote it accordingly. In the midst of the mystery and high speed chases, Valentine shows sensitivity in exploring River as a character with emotional beats as she deals with living in a world without her husband or her library family. However, Valentine avoids making this a navel-gazing production by letting River Song’s actions show who she is more than her words.
Overall Thoughts:
It’s tough to make a four-hour full-cast audio drama work. But Big Finish nailed it. Last Words offers an engaging mystery, sci-fi action, a few laughs, and some beautifully played emotional moments that make this one of the best Big Finish releases of the year, and one of Kingston’s strongest performances.
Colonial Theatre released the third of its Perry Mason audio dramas, “The Case of the Lucky Legs.” As with the first two, this is an audio drama based on the original Perry Mason novels of the 1930s, but produced in the 21st Century.
Perry Mason is retained initially to take legal action against a beauty contest promoter who cheated small-town businessmen and a local young woman by promising her stardom as the winner of a Lucky Legs contest and then leaving her high and dry in Hollywood. When Perry goes to have a discussion with the con man, he finds the man murdered.
Perry finds himself dodging the police until he can find the truth, questioning the witnesses, all while not even sure who the client is, as the man who gave a retainer for $5,000 to file the lawsuit keeps changing who Perry is supposed to represent.
The recording is quite a bit shorter than the previous Perry Mason stories that Colonial Theater had done and the length works for this story. It really creates a very tight and well-paced mystery. The plot is full of twists and surprises. At one point, Perry even hires another detective agency to spy on Paul Drake’s operative, only it turns out they are working for the man who paid him.
If there is one criticism I have for the production, it is that role of the winner of the Lucky Legs contest had a voice that didn’t fit the part. She sounded more like 14 rather than 21. Still, that’s a minor flaw in a brilliant production.
Radio Archives’s ninth set of Great Gildersleeve episodes featuring Harold Peary contains twelve episodes, all the circulating programs from September 19, 1943 to March 19, 1944. The bulk of the third season of Gildersleeve focuses on Gildersleeve’s love life. The over-arching through-line in the story is about the love triangle between himself, the very newly widowed Leila Ransom (Shirley Mitchell), and elementary school principal Eve Goodwin (Bea Benaderet), who both find themselves vying for Gildersleeve’s affections.
Beyond this, the episodes are mostly self-contained stories that cover a lot of ground. In one episode, Gildersleeve having agitated against the old water commissioner in the previous season, he finds himself in “hot water” when low water pressure becomes a problem. My favorite episode is “Sleight Ride”, in which Gildersleeve gets together some male friends in the hopes of getting Eve and Leila to join them. The episode is nice for some fun character interactions. It’s also a bit of a time capsule, capturing a practice that you don’t see anymore except for some really rural parts of the country. It was probably out of style by 1944 in most places, but it was a plausible good time to have in a small town where gas rationing limited how much people could drive. The set ends with Gildersleeve launching a mayoral run (and immediately trying to ditch an important meeting with a congressman for the sake of his social life.)
The relationship angle is the most prominent part of the set and also the most frustrating. Once again, this has nothing to do with Radio Archives, but with the episodes missing from circulation. Of the twenty-seven episodes that aired during this time period, there are only twelve in circulation, and the fourteen missing episodes come in chunks of three, seven, and four weeks, so you feel like you’ve missed a few important points in the ongoing romance angle.
Gildersleeve, as a great sitcom hero, manages to provide plenty of situations that lead to misunderstandings, mostly in understandable ways. He’s non-committal and wants to avoid making up his mind, and when he does, he manages to say the wrong thing and botch things up. And by the end of this set, due to his indecision, rivals are emerging for him in both women’s lives, so maybe we’ll write about a love pentagon in the next set. Of course, he’s not the only one to cause problems. In one episode, Leila tricks Gildersleeve’s cook, Birdie (Lillian Randolph), into letting her take Gildersleeve’s roast. A major issue in an era defined by meat rationing!
The only real issue with Gildersleeve that seems a bit too stupid to be funny is that he keeps actively working to bring Lelia and Eve together for social occasions. They don’t like each other, it’s awkward, and ends uncomfortably for him. There’s no logical in-universe reason to do it. It just makes the story a bit convenient for the writers.
Still, it doesn’t happen that often in twelve episodes, and the series is enjoyable, with a solid ongoing cast. And, as always, Radio Archives does a beautiful job with the transfers. If you’ve enjoyed past GIldersleeve sets, you’ll enjoy this one, even while wishing we could hear all the missing episodes in this collection.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been posting reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series. However, we’re getting creative this week. The only thing this week’s villain has was a brief cameo as himself, in the second-to-last episode of Kojak. So I decided it’d be nice to review a CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode with another Batman villain who didn’t appear during the Golden Age of Radio, but did some work during the era of radio revival. I’m referring to Julie Newmar, who played Catwoman in seasons one and two of Batman.
In the March 1974 episode, a woman (Newmar) grows alarmed when her father becomes increasingly scared and paranoid. She summons her fiancé (Mandel Kramer) back from his trip to China to help sort things out. The fiancé checks with his millionaire future father-in-law and finds that he’s joined the Prometheus Society, a secret society that wants to bring back moral order to the world by doing stuff (making movies, releasing books) that they’ve not actually done with the donations they’ve received. They are led by a man who claims the ability to control fire, which he demonstrates by setting himself on fire without being burned at every meeting.
The millionaire future father-in-law has been commanded to fork over a million-dollar donation. One of his fellow society members had declined to do so, only to have his feet catch fire while he was at home, leaving such severe burns on his leg that it put him in a wheelchair. The fiancé calls in an old Marine buddy from Vietnam, who had since become a private detective, to help sort of everything out.
All in all, this is a solid mystery. There’s some great atmosphere and a good puzzle throughout that’s well-acted and even has one shocking surprise towards the end of the second act. The ending is harsh, with rough justice being arranged in a way that reminds you that this isn’t the Golden Age of Radio, although it has a strong “moral” about the danger of playing with fire.
My big complaint is that there’s not a ton for Julie Newmar to do in this. Her character brings in the fiancé, and her father reveals what’s going to the fiancé on the condition the fiancé not tell his adult daughter because I guess she can’t handle it. After this, she gets two scenes with nothing to do. It’s a waste of a talented actress, who had a significant number of credits to her name. I can only imagine that this script wasn’t written with her mind, but she happened to be available at the time and took the work, which usually amounted to half a day for a modest wage. On the bright side, she didn’t have to do much work for it.
Overall, other than the waste of Julie Newmar and a so
“Your Move, Mr. Ellers” aired over the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre on December 30, 1976. In the episode, an insurance investigator (Bob Readick) is investigating a series of thefts that have occurred over several years from a respected jeweler. He’s concluded it must be an inside job and his suspicions appear to have fallen on the firm’s most respected employee, the chess-loving Mister Ellers (Roger De Koven), who has a friend (Jackson Beck) with a shady past and maybe a shady present. And the young man (Jack Grimes) Ellers mentored seems to have found himself in the middle.
For today’s old-time radio fans, the casting of this episode includes some wonderful Easter egs. Readick was the immediate successor to Bob Bailey as radio’s most well-known insurance investigator. In addition, the other three members of the cast were all veterans of the Golden Age of Radio. Grimes had voiced Jimmy Olsen on “The Adventures of Superman”, where he also worked with Beck, who served as announcer and was the star of several old-time radio series, including “Philo Vance”. DeKoven was no star, but a consumate character actor who was perfect for a role like Ellers’.
While Readick’s presence evokes Johnny Dollar, I actually think the episode has undertones that evoke a more contemporary influence: Columbo. At one point, the insurance investigator states that he had Ellers convinced he was an incompetent bungler: the exact sort of situation that Columbo thrived on. And while we don’t “see” (or hear) the crime committed beforehand, and it’s not a strict inverted mystery, it definitely isn’t exactly a traditional whodunit either.
The story uses chess as a theme, and weaves through the narrative right up to a satisfying and insightful conclusion. It’s a carefully plotted and well-produced play performed by four pros who know their business. There are certain plots that are a bit predictable, but more than enough surprises and good drama to make this a very satisfying forty-five minutes of listening.
The eighth volume of The Great GIldersleeve from Radio Archives collects the twelve circulating episodes between episodes seventy-seven to ninety-one and all starring Harold Peary in the titular role as Tow Water Commissioner Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve. This set takes us through the end of the show’s second season and features two episodes of the third, all from 1943. While there are three lost episodes, it feels like we miss less that impacted ongoing plotlines than in previous box sets. The big exception would be that the mini-feud between Gildersleeve and Judge Hooker (Earle Ross) over a fender appears to have been ironed out in the missing eightieth episode.
I have to praise Radio Archives for the wonderful cover art that they commissioned for this set, with Gildersleeve and Leila Ransom (Shirley Mitchell) as the the focal point of the first ten episodes of the set, which build up to their scheduled nuptials. Related plots deal with planning the wedding and the honeymoon, as well as Gildersleeve’s attempt to work up a budget. I think the second half of the season gives a bit more meat to Leila as a character beyond “Southern Belle who likes to manipulate men,” making her much more sympathetic and well-rounded. In the season finale, just before the show went on summer vacation, the wedding day found Gildersleeve with a serious case of cold feet, leading to a shocking season-ending twist.
There is more than the wedding going on in Summerfield in this set. This box set also sees the introduction of Ben (played by future Dragnet co-Star Ben Alexander) as the bashful young beau of Marjorie (Lurene Tuttle) and he makes a fun addition to the cast. Meanwhile, Leroy (Walter Tetley) goes to work for Mr. Peavey, the druggist (played brilliantly by Richard LeGrand) in the second half of the season. Gildersleeve and a few of his pals also sing together, which is a foretaste of the coming of the Jolly Boys Club in later seasons.
The War features, although in a smaller way, during the second half of season two. When Leroy gets his first paycheck, he buys a lot of knick-knacks for the family and otherwise wastes it on typical kid things. He is reproved for not using some of his money to buy war bonds. Season three’s larger focus on the War would show up in the final episode in the set.
The new focus was due to the donation of the sponsor, Kraft, to the Third War Loan Drive. The town is focused on selling more bonds to meet its quota and sends the head of city departments out canvassing (including Gildersleeve) door-to-door to sell bonds. Yet, in many ways, Gildersleeve’s heart is just not in it. For one thing, he is mad at the chairman of the drive, the local newspaper editor. He tries to start a one-way feud over the editor having published an editorial raising reasonable concerns about the town’s water quality, and drags his feet on getting out to cover his territory. Gildersleeve also expresses frustration with the war, with how it has disrupted the world and changed the general focus and behavior of women. Nearly two years after Pearl Harbor, Gildersleeve is no doubt speaking for many listeners. Yet, the end of the episode brings him, and hopefully other war-weary Americans, back to center.
The episode may be the strongest of the set for showing Gildersleeve’s humanity. And really that’s the strength of the series. Gildersleeve is a funny character, but ultimately quite human with both big flaws (such as as being a loud-mouth and braggart) and positives such as being well-intentioned, responsible, and caring. And after its second season, Summerfield feels far more like a real town where real people live, which makes the comedy far more satisfying.
Overall, this is another strong collection from an old time radio sitcom that was getting even better as it went along.
A big Hollywood studio grabs at a recently popular film franchise from the past, turns it into a series, and uses it as a centerpiece of a new package of programs. Sounds like the story of the latest Netflix/Disney/Paramount series.
It actually happened in 1949. MGM launched MGM Radio Attractions, a package of syndicated radio programs that would eventually land on the Mutual Broadcasting System. While there were some original series not based on any actual movies, and they would add the British-produced Black Museum in 1951, MGM leaned heavily into their film legacy. MGM played into its back catalog of film hits with MGM Theatre of the Air adapting old MGM movies as a sort of low-budget answer to The Lux Radio Theatre, and then it took its short film series, Crime Does Not Pay, and turned that into a radio series. It had Ann Sothern reprise her role in the ten Maisie films in The Adventures of Maisie. Lew Ayers and Lionel Barrymore were invited to pick up their stethoscopes and play their parts from the Dr. Kildare series. And to bring us to our subject, Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, and Fay Holden were invited to bring the Hardy Family of fifteen films to radio.
The Hardy Family first appeared in a 1928 play called Skidding, which was adapted to film in 1937, A Family Affair, and featured sixteen-year-old Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy, with his father played by Barrymore. It was decided to make a series centered around the Hardy family, with Stone cast to play Judge Hardy and Fay Holden to play his wife Emily. The series was popular, although the one public domain entry and final film, “Love Laughs at Andy Hardy” may be the best-known to non-fans. The series follows Hardy as he grows up and goes through the pangs of life and young adulthood and all the various misadventures that happen along the way.
Of all the major film tie-ins, this is probably the one that has fared worst in terms of serving episodes and quality of recordings, although they’re still listenable. There were likely 78 episodes made, but there are maybe a dozen that you could collect from various websites. The Internet Archive has a decent sample of what’s out there. In reducing Hardy’s adventures from feature-length films to half hour radio programs, the result is much more typical sitcom fare. The radio series didn’t feature the film character of Aunt Milly, and while some lost episodes might mention her, it appears that Andy Hardy’s sister went the way of Chuck Cunningham, as all dialogue seems to indicate that Andy is an only child.
Most of the episodes center on something happening to Andy which he views as magnificently stupendous and the most amazing thing to ever happen to anyone. Invariably it’s not, and there’s no chance for it to be. And the comedy ultimately centers on his over-the-top expectations and imagination meeting reality.
This is a series where the scripts are decent, but nothing amazing. What ultimately makes the series are the performances. Mickey Rooney brought massive, manic energy to the role. These stories had to be faced and he powered through each episode with one of the most energetic performances you’ll ever hear. Fay Holden plays Emily Hardy with a sort of eccentricity that’s reminiscent of a more low-key Gracie Allen. Lewis Stone’s Judge Hardy is a calm voice of reason that brings balance to the stories. With their work in film, they play off each other beautifully.
The series lacks a lot of the heart of films, which included some moments that brought heart and sentiment that the radio series lacks. But it also doesn’t undermine the films. If you want a decent sitcom with a talented cast who gives each script their all, or if you’re a fan of the Andy Hardy films, this series is worth checking out.
The seventh volume of The Great Gildersleeve from Radio Archives features twelve episodes that aired between November 29, 1942 and April 4, 1943. This stretch of episodes continues along the same lines as previous volumes, with its typical cast of characters including his niece Marjorie and nephew Leroy, the cook Birdie, and key characters from around town, such as Judge Hooker, Mr. Peavey, and Floyd the Barber. Gildersleeve’s budding off-again on-again romance with Leila Ransom takes center stage. It also introduces the bashful and easily manipulated boyfriend of Marjorie, Ben (played by future Dragnet co-star Ben Alexander.)
Highlights of the season including a lovely Christmas episode, less with a centralized plot but more with a series of vignettes that capture someone trying to celebrate Christmas with good cheer even while being patriotic and operating on a limited budget.
The series also has a formal crossover with Fibber McGee and Molly (Jim and Marion Jordan), with radio’s most iconic comedy couple traveling from Wistful Vista to Summerfield, which is a nice moment for fans, as the Gildersleeve character started on Fibber McGee. This crossover occurs after Gildersleeve and his nephew Leroy (Walter Tetley) appear on the post-Christmas episode of Fibber McGee and Molly, in which the Jordans had been unable to appear due to a health issue.
The episode “Income Tax Time” is a fine patriotic episode about the importance of everyone reporting their income tax, as Gildersleeve struggles with whether to report his interest income. The great part of the episode is that through all the sincere patriotism, the episode has a hilarious twist ending that’s comedy gold.
On the war front, there is also an episode warning about the danger of over-vigilance and assuming the worst and getting paranoid, as Gildersleeve accidentally starts spreading a rumor about sabotage and creates all kinds of problems.
There’s nothing wrong with this set in terms of its audio quality. It collects the episodes that Radio Archives was able to lay its hands on with the highest quality available. Missing episodes are a fact of life for old time radio listeners but they’re especially felt here. The collection covers 19 weeks but there are only twelve episodes available. This leads to some changes occurring perhaps in missing episodes or off-screen. For example, Gildersleeve’s super-competent secretary disappears without explanation, and is replaced by barely competent help whom Gildersleeve keeps meaning to fire but never gets the time. In addition, the engagement between Leila and Gildersleeve is called off in one episode but apparently things are patched by the time the circulating episode was released four weeks later.
Probably the biggest challenge for many modern listeners to enjoy is the Gildersleeve-Leila Ransom relationship. While Leila fits into a comedy trope of the time, she’s messed up. She uses flattery to get men to do what she wants and to keep them competing with one another for her affection. She’s prone to over-the-top jealousy, and any deviation of plans to do something else is met with a manipulative, pouty statement like, “Well, Throckmorton, if working late because you’re in a job that oversees infrastructure in the middle of the War is more than me, that’s fine.” Lelia is well-played by a really talented actress, Shirley Mitchell, who played many of these sorst of characters. She does her best with the material given. Still, a bit of Leila can go a long way, and some of these episodes have a little bit too much.
Still, despite Leila’s antics, this is an enjoyable set. Ben is fun, and the barbershop setting helps to give the show a sense of rhythym. The show in its second season is clearly moving in the right direction.
The Red Panda Adventures by Decoder Ring Theater was one of the earliest of the new podcast audio dramas to be released in recent years. It launched for the first time in October 2005, with a new episode airing every two weeks until December, with the second half of the series airing every two weeks beginning in April 2006.
The Red Panda Adventures is set in the 1930s in Toronto (where the series was produced). The series is a mash-up between The Green Hornet and The Shadow radio series while adding its own unique improvements.
It’s like both series in that the hero is a wealthy young man, though it leans more towards The Shadow in that The Red Panda (Greg Taylor) has no active business concerns in his dual identity that we’re told about.
The Red Panda is like The Shadow in that he has strange hypnotic powers. However, unlikeTthe Shadow, he doesn’t limit his mind-control powers to a single trick of invisibility. He creates all manner of elaborate mental illusions, such as making the villain see multiple versions of himself. It’s a much more imaginative take on the idea. The villains also bear a strong resemblance to The Shadow’s big, over-the-top megalomaniacs.
The Green Hornet influences can be seen in the hero’s super-fast car and crime-fighting gadgets, as well as the suspicious attitude by which he’s viewed by police. However, unlike the Green Hornet, the Red Panda doesn’t try to pass himself off as a criminal mastermind.
Of course, the Red Panda goes beyond what the original mystery men of the 1930s did on radio, with a greater sense of superheroics, and the series intro actually refers to him as Canada’s greatest superhero.
Perhaps the most unique thing about The Red Panda is his sidekick, Kit Baxter (aka. The Flying Squirrel) played by Clarissa Der Nederlanden Taylor. She’s a very well-written and well-rounded character. She’s tough and more prone to using physical violence than the Red Panda, occasionally getting carried away with it.
Her relationship with the Red Panda is complicated. Like the female assistants of many golden-age heroes, she pines for him, while he feigns cluelessness about her feelings in this first season. Yet you also get a strong sense of the Red Panda being a mentor figure to her, and also being protective of her without being smothering. The dynamic between the two is probably the strength of the series.
In terms of the plots, this first series has a lot of standard, boilerplate stories. There’s the episode with someone impersonating the Red Panda, there’s the episode with a mysterious ghost ship, and the episode with the cursed house, and the one where a hunter decides to hunt the most deadly game of all: The Red Panda. Probably the most interesting and original episode is “The Devil’s Due,” where the Red Panda investigates a series of deaths where the victims sold their souls to the Devil, and he’s here to collect…or is he? Even though most of the plots are well-worn, they’re also well-executed and the strength of the characterization helps the stories to work. While later seasons would be more innovative, this season serves to establish the characters and their world.
The tone of this first season is relatively light. While there are some scary moments, as well as a few violent ones, the series doesn’t try for the constant dark and foreboding feel of The Shadow. It also isn’t designed in such a way that you’re likely to forget that you’re listening to a production made in the twenty-first century rather than one in the 1930s, like many of the early episodes of Harry Nile. It’s a clear homage to the Golden Age of Radio, but it is also a modern production. At the same time, it’s not goofy or a parody like the original Red Panda Universe (a topic for another time).
If the first season had any weakness, it is the sound design, which on occasion doen’t support the show and the epic scale of the adventures portrayed. But doesn’t detract too much from the series because of the strong characterization and also because it played off Golden Age Radio Dramas, where the quality of sound effects and sound design really could vary.
Overall, this is a very strong start to a much-beloved Internet series.
Black Jack Justice was produced by Decoder Ring Theatre in Canada. Like The Red Panda, it’s a period series. Black Jack Justice is set after World War II and is a detective series in the style of hard-boiled detective shows like Philip Marlowe and That Hammer Guy.
Unlike most narrated private eye series, Black Jack Justice features two detectives, and each takes turns narrating the story. The series stars Christopher Mott as Jack Justice and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon: Girl Detective, his partner. Writer Gregg Taylor plays their recurring police foil, Lieutenant Sabien.
The format of the series works well. Both characters are hard-boiled, but their styles vary. Justice’s narration tends to be a bit more world-weary and sarcastic, while Dixon is lighter and more smart-alecky in her approach. It makes for interesting narration and also good banter between the characters.
There’s definite friction between them, and lots of sniping back and forth. Still, there’s a great amount of professional respect as well as a shared sense of right and wrong.
The first season features twelve episodes, unlike future seasons which would included only six. The episode titles in this first season employed many puns on Justice’s name, such as, “Justice Served Cold,” “Justice Delayed,” “Justice be Done,” and “Hammer of Justice.”
Almost every episode has a good mystery plot. The stories are intellectually engaging and often offer surprising solutions. Most have a tone and style that would fit into the golden age of radio. On some issues, particularly the role of women and domestic violence, it feels a bit more modern, but it doesn’t go overboard.
The music is great, particularly what’s used during the narration. It establishes the mood well.
The only episode that left me a bit cold was the series finale, “Justice and the Happy Ending.” The mystery was not challenging and the plot ultimately came down to how Justice would handle a temptation. However, it was somewhat predictable the way it played out.
Still, the season is overall quite strong. If you love golden age detective shows, it’s definitely worth a listen.
Even when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet had a certain reputation, as a somewhat bland brand of entertainment. Even though I watched a lot of reruns, Ozzie and Harriet were never on. The only time I saw them in a TV listing was for a PBS marathon that was way past my bedtime.
I watched a VHS release of their 1952 movie Here Come the Nelsons and found it pretty funny at the time. Whether I still would I don’t know as it was never released on DVD, and the entire TV series waited decades for an official DVD release, even as public domain episodes became available from various companies. The official DVD releases of the first two seasons came out in 2022, with the entire series landing on DVD in 2023. Now the entire series is available for streaming through Amazon – all fourteen, yes, fourteen seasons, adding to more than four hundred episodes. That’s more than stalwarts like Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett began airing on television in 1952, the year after I Love Lucy premiered over at CBS. By the time it left, The Andy Griffith show had been on the air for five seasons, and Get Smart had just finished its first. Yet its history was even longer than that, as Ozzie and Harriet had begun over radio.
Before The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Harriet Hilliard (born Peggy Lou Snyder) was a singer when she met bandleader Ozzie Nelson. The two worked together on programs for the Bakers of America in the 1930s and were married in 1935. In 1941, they joined the Raleigh Cigarette program featuring Red Skelton. Ozzie led the band and Harriet served as vocalist and also appeared in the comedic sketches, most notably as the mother of Junior, Skelton’s “Mean Widdle Kid” character.
In 1944, Skelton was drafted, leading to the end of his radio program, but this would provide an opportunity for the couple. Ozzie wanted to find a way for them to spend more time with their children, and a radio sitcom proved the perfect opportunity to shift their careers from their more demanding schedule.
America’s Favorite Young Couple
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet premiered in October 1944, and was a domestic comedy based on the Nelsons’ home life. Ozzie and Harriet, aged thirty-seven and thirty-nine, were billed as “America’s Favorite Young Couple” and continued to be billed as such well into their forties (one of those things you could get away with over radio). The series was initially heard over CBS, but later switched to NBC, and finally ABC. The series was sponsored by International Silver and later by Heinz.
For the first five years, the Nelsons’ sons David and Ricky were played by child actors, until a 1948 guest appearance by Bing Crosby pushed Ozzie towards having their sons play themselves, starting in 1949.
John Brown was the most prominent supporting cast member. He played Ozziet and Harriet’s neighbor, Mister Thornberry, or “Thorny.” It’s worth noting that, for much of the run, Brown was also a regular cast member on the sitcoms My Friend Irma as Irma’s boyfriend Al, and on The Life of Riley as both Riley’s neighbor Gillis and Digby O’Dell, “the friendly undertaker.” Brown was therefore doing triple duty most weeks until the early 1950s, or perhaps quadruple if you count both Life of Riley roles.
The Circulating Episodes
The series aired 402 episodes over the radio, of which around eighty are in circulation. The various websites that post the series feature a lot of mis-dated and duplicate episodes. I tried to listen to every episode and ended up having to use three or four sources to find them all.
In general, the circulating episodes are spread throughout the series run, with a higher number of episodes coming from the last season, and only two episodes from 1946 in circulation. This is only because long-running comedy programs evolve, and the episodes of Ozzie and Harriet that were considered worthy of saving come towards the tail end of its run over radio, rather than the earliest years. I can only evaluate what I have, but it’s always possible that more episodes might alter the evaluation of the series.
Review of the Episodes
In some early episodes, Ozzie and Harriet did the sort of musical skits that they did on The Red Skelton Show, but this ended early in the series run. What remained was a style of comedy that stood out from its peers for what it wasn’t as much as what it was.
For one thing, there were no catchphrases. Old Time Radio comedies of the era relied on them. You’ll find no equivalent to, “Tain’t funny, McGee,” “You’re looking fine, very natural,” “What a revoltin’ development this is,” “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that,” or “Hello, my fellow, pupil,” recurring lines that filled other sitcoms and earned the actors laughter and applause before an actual joke
The comedy felt more grounded than many of its old-time radio contemporaries There were comic misunderstandings, a scheme or two, and a few lies told throughout the series, but it never reached a point where it stretched your disbelief. The series didn’t rely on characters being inordinately stupid, greedy, or out of touch with reality to make the plot work. In some ways, I think it’s less discussed than most other old-time radio comedies because it’s so different.
Most episodes center around Ozzie’s ill-fated ideas. Ozzie is written as the one person in the Nelson house most likely to get carried away with some new fancy gizmo, make a big bet, propose major changes to the family, and the one most likely to put on airs or to boast of something that reality won’t cash. The other source of comedy is the Nelson boys, acting like brothers and finding ways to pick at each other, with Ricky, especially, having some great lines. Harriet is likable, charming, and always seems to be a step ahead of Ozzie in the end.
The series has some fairly clever episodes. My favorite had to be the episode where Ozzie and Thorny try to boost the neglected small-town minor league baseball club, and get some help from a local used-car salesman (played by Gale Gordon), who has some ideas on how to improve the team. This is probably peak writing for the series, and also an interesting turn for Gordon, whose later career was defined by playing bombastic authoritarians like Osgood Conklin with a slow burn. This really showed some of his range as a performer.
If the series has one fault, it’s that it feels almost too domestic, particularly in some episodes where the action (such as it is) doesn’t leave the Nelsons’ home. Indeed, there are way too many circulating episodes where everything happens either at their house or immediately next door. Also, there’s a certain generic feeling to the series, with the lack of recurring characters in their generic (and never-named) suburban hometown, and Ozzie having a job that’s never specifically mentioned in the radio episodes, and even the local store that is known as “The Emporium”, rather than a specific name. That the episodes have a general feeling of things going wrong precisely when Ozzie tries anything new leads to a (perhaps unintentional) ethos of, “Do what you’ve always done. You’re a fool if you try to do anything different.” So, if you wanted to create some superficially pleasant 1950s sitcom world with a dark reality behind it, this would probably be what you’d base it on.
Also, I think Harriet is almost too nice and too understanding. While Ozzie isn’t at the extreme end of boneheaded radio sitcom husbands, he does some things that most wives would lose their cool over. I actually got a thrill from the one episode in which Harriet loses her temper with him when he tries to teach her to play golf.
Conclusion:
All in all, The Ozzie and Harriett radio program comes down to a matter of taste. For what it is, it works. It’s a light, mostly inoffensive family comedy that’s generally a bit more subdued than its contemporaries. If you prefer the more extreme situations of something like The Burns and Allen Show, or the characters that inhabit places like Summerfield in The Great Gildersleeve, this may not be for you. But if you’re in a mood for a comedy that’s a bit silly, and you can overlook the overly generic nature of the setting, this may be worth seeking out.
