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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Red Panda Adventures, Season Nine

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The Ninth Season of the Red Panda Adventures finds the world in flux. It’s now a question of when rather than if the Allies will be victorious. But what happens afterwards is an open question.

The series is split into two parts. The bulk of the season focuses on supervillains previewing the sort of threats that will be on the ground after World War II. This is represented by an old villain returning in a new guise to take over Toronto and exact revenge on the Red Panda. In addition, we get an episode where the Red Panda battles villains known as the Rocket Men. These stories are fun, exciting, and pulpy in the way so many of the early Red Panda Adventure were.

The other part is cleaning up the war and dealing with what might come in a post-War world. Of particular concern is their old nemesis Professor Von Schlitz, who is going whole hog cooperating with the Americans. The Red Panda fears the German scientist will corrupt the Americans and use them for his evil ends. And the robotic red ensign wants revenge on Von Schlitz for the murder of the robot’s human wife at the start of the war. This leads our heroes into tight spots.

The “V E Day” episode deserves praise. It’s an anthology episode that told different stories with differing themes all structured around VE Day. The episode is great listening and points to the potential future of the show.

After nine seasons and 108 episodes, the series was still going strong, with the 100th episode airing without ceremony. Much like the Red Panda himself, the series might be past its peak, but it still packs a punch with exciting stories, fun dialogue, and a real sense of classic pulp adventure. The Ninth Season was a worthwhile and satisfying listen.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

You can listen to the entirety of Season 9 of the Red Panda Adventures online.

Golden Age Article

The Four Silliest Tropes in Detective Fiction

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I’ve experienced a lot of mysteries. I’ve listened to thousands of mystery plays and watched hundreds of hours of mystery TV shows and movies, and read a lot of mystery novels and short stories. With all those mysteries under my belt, I’ve noticed some popular tropes or plot points that often are silly and don’t make sense. Most of these can be used effectively if done right, but they so rarely are.

4) The Dying Clue

You’ve been shot, poisoned, or knifed. You have seconds to live and you know who your murderer is and want to reveal who murdered you, so you leave a dying clue.

Dying clues get silly when they get complicated. The dying person may have 20-30 seconds to leave a clue. They don’t have time to develop a complex cipher based on objects on their desk or develop codes. Sometimes the writer knows they’re being absurd and will write an excuse for their overly complicated last clues. “She loved puzzles,” they write as an explanation for why the victim left behind a clue requiring knowledge of proper verb tenses in Swahili and popular Elizabethan riddles. (I exaggerate slightly.) These seem to be ways writers show their cleverness but I have yet to see a dying clue that was more clever than it was ridiculous.

Better Ways to Do It:

Keeping the dying clue simple is a good idea in theory but if it’s too simple, you don’t have much of a mystery. I like the idea of an unfinished dying clue that’s puzzling because the victim couldn’t finish it before expiring.

Another great idea is to make the dying clue a distraction. For example, sometimes the killer will fake a dying clue to implicate someone else. Or it might be possible the victim thinks they know who the killer is but don’t, or imagine someone who hates another person so much they would rather that person suffer than their actual murderer be found.

3) Witness Getting Killed Before They Can Talk to the Detective

The detective takes a phone call from a witness.

The witness cries out. “I know who did it and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Who was it?”

“Not over the phone. Meet me in an hour at the old, poorly lit warehouse with no street lights where the killer could come up from behind me, murder me, get my body out of sight, and get away with no possibility of any direct witnesses.”

The detective says, “See you then,” before hanging up the phone.

Of course, the detective finds the witness murdered but maybe a clue that will point him towards the culprit.

This should not be confused with the witness about to reveal everything right away and then they’re shot. That builds suspense. It annoys the audience but the writer has to have their fun.

The problem with the, “Meet me and I’ll tell you who did it.” trope is it makes the detective into something of a sap. I used this once in my novel Slime Incorporated, but this was my hero’s first murder mystery. However, I’ve read characters who have appeared across multiple novels and/or TV episodes who have lost a witness that way before and agree to it anyway without batting an eye, which makes them thick and foolish. Plus everyone expects it’s coming.

Better Ways to Do It:

The detective should have enough sense to try and dissuade their witness from making such an obvious mistake. Maybe they try to get them to stay where they’re at or to meet them near a public place or to tell them over the phone. If the writer needs to kill off the witness, it can be despite the detective’s best efforts, not because the detective didn’t remember the last time a witness was gunned down in a hail of bullets.

Also, misdirection can work here. One of my favorite alternatives is to have the witness survive and turn out to be the murderer deflecting suspicion by looking like a potential target.

2) Rube Goldberg Murder Methods

Murders are generally performed through a variety of very basic methods. However, for a certain type of writer, it’s often occurred to make murder methods as complex as possible, involving elaborate and impractical mechanisms. Many of these elaborate approaches are so complicated a minor mistake can foil them or can kill someone else, leaving the intended victim alive. While I think Raymond Chandler’s critique of some puzzle mystery was a bit broad in his famous essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” he does hit the nail on the head when it comes to such overly complex schemes:

they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. They try to be honest, but honesty is an art. The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn’t know what to be honest about. He thinks a complicated murder scheme which baffles the lazy reader, who won’t be bothered itemizing the details, will also baffle the police, whose business is with details. The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the e murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.

Better Ways to Do It:

There has to be a good, believable reason for why the murder was complex. There should be a reason why the murderer chose an elaborate plot involving the shipping of Russian dolls, a hijacking, sabotaging a Toyota dealership, and the end result being a poisoned postcard sent to the intended victim when they could have just shot them. The TV series Monk usually did a good job justifying its outlandish and complicated plots. The episode Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect is a great example.

Sometimes a character can justify the elaborate murder plot. Many episodes of Columbo featured plots that were elaborate and impractical. However, the series got away with it because the over-the-top methods spoke to an overly confident, arrogant killer who believed he was smarter than anyone.

1) Night Club Photographers Must Die

In these stories, the detective discovers someone was murdered to suppress a picture taken by a night club photographer or the like. Why? To hide someone who was in the background (such as a mob boss.) This was done way too much in older TV, movies, and radio programs.

The criminal is scared of the photo being found and implicating them in a crime. So to avoid being recognized in a random photo, they leave a string of bodies about that will draw the entire police force onto their trail, as well as any heroic private operatives. It’s the silliest idea any criminal could have. In reality, 999 times out of 1000, the nightclub photo will get shoved in a purse or box for decades and looked at rarely. Any of us could have organized crime figures waltzing around in the background of pictures we had randomly taken and we’d be none the wiser.

This applies to vintage mysteries. In the modern era, many individuals (whether employed by law enforcement or freelancing) do a search through photos posted online in hopes of finding clues to crimes. So criminals would have a motive to stop someone who got them in the background, but it’s difficult to suppress digital photos. A desperate criminal might kill a photographer, grab their phone, and run over it with a car within a minute of the photo being taken and still have the incriminating photos already uploaded to the Internet, where they will garner attention from law enforcement all the more after the murder.

Whether it’s the 1940s or the 2020s, it doesn’t make sense for a criminal to kill someone for taking a random photo of them, although for slightly different reasons.

Better Ways to Do It

In stories set in the past, there are many plausible fixes. For example, the photographer might be a crime buff, realize what they have, and blackmail the criminal. Or the nightclub photographer might be a disgraced photojournalist who recognizes the person in the background. And if you substitute a news photographer for a nightclub photographer, this becomes real because a photo with the suspect in the background could be seen by millions of people.

It could also work if the writer gives them a reason for it, such as an extreme phobia or psychological compulsion. Or if the decision is being governed by someone who’s got ulterior motives.

It’s harder to make it work in a modern-day setting. Every idea that came to my mind was still half-baked. My wife’s best suggestion is a revenge killing over a nude photo posted as revenge by an angry ex, which either ditches any criminals being in the background or renders this plot point only a red herring.

What are your thoughts on the silliest mystery tropes? Do you agree? Disagree? Have you seen examples of these tropes done well? Do you have other tropes you think belong in the list. Write about it in the comments.

Golden Age Article

The Top Five Detective Programs from the Declining Years of the Golden Age of Radio

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See the articles on detective programs in the World War II era and the immediate Post-War era.

Television was always going to be trouble for the world of radio drama and comedy. That problem grew larger as more TV sets were sold, more broadcast hours were added, and overall production quality improved.

1951 was the first year when television’s advertising revenue exceeded radio’s advertising revenue. It was a watershed and economic pressure bore down on radio. Everyone involved in scripted performances could make more money on television: writers, actors, directors. They were all drawn to television as radio programs began to cut back on budgets. Popular long-standing programs such as the Lux Radio Theater, Bob Hope, and Jack Benny began leaving the air to focus on the more lucrative opportunities in television. Networks began scaling back budgets for programs.

The decline could be seen in many ways. Great actors rarely starred in radio’s great anthology programs. Suspense had been known for its star-studded guest casts but in the latter 1950s, it featured many lead players who would have been lucky to be cast in two-line walk-on parts in the show’s heyday.

One last boom did occur in radio. Westerns took off with the success of Gunsmoke over radio and this continued until the end of the 1950s. Things didn’t go as well for the detective genre. After the glut of programs during the immediate post-war era, the herd began to thin. In addition, a lot of new programs were gone after six months when they might have lasted years had they aired in the previous decade. NBC, in particular, seemed to cancel one detective program so they could replace it with another they’d cancel six months later.

Despite its challenges, the era did provide opportunities. Character actors known for playing sidekicks now got a chance to star in their own radio detective shows. While writers like Jackson Gillis had moved on to television, there’s still some good scripts written. There’s even a case to be made that some scripts from the later 1950s show more maturity and nuance than the scripts from the height of the golden age.

This era has some solidly written and entertaining programs. However, few new detective programs were produced. In addition, many of the programs produced, such as Indictment and Treasury Agent, only left behind a handful of episodes. This may have been driven by more radio stations beginning to use tape, which had the cost-saving benefit of being able to be recorded over, much to the loss of future generations.

At any rate, here’s my top five detective programs from the declining years of the Golden Age of Radio..

5) The Adventures of the Falcon

Network: NBC

Star: Les Damon

This series has a terrific opening. The Falcon (aka Private Investigator Michael Waring) answered the phone and on the other end was an unnamed woman he had to break a date with and he gave a slight hint of the danger ahead. The story would generally start with a sordid situation developing that the Falcon would need to be brought into to solve.

The mysteries generally had a lot of twists and surprises. The Falcon had a competent police foil and he wasn’t always right. The series utilized some of the best New York radio actors including the distinct Ralph Bell. The characters often heightened characterization but this was toned down compared to something like Boston Blackie. However you cut it, this was a solid listen.

4) Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator

Network: NBC

Star: William Gargan

William Gargan had been a private investigator in real life which brought authenticity to his take on Barrie Craig. The academy-award-nominated Gargan was fun to listen to and provided versatile characterization. Craig could be friendly and easy-going, but also could get tough, or deal with sad or emotional moments. The series didn’t try to maintain a heavy atmosphere but knew how to mix in lighter moments to give its serious moments and ideas real weight.

The stories were well-written and well-directed. The first three seasons of the series were recorded in Hollywood, and the last in New York. However, throughout, the guest cast remained solid, and Gargan worked well with everyone.

3) Broadway’s My Beat

Network: CBS

Star: Larry Thor

“From Times Square to Columbus Circle…the gaudiest, the most violent–the lonesomest mile in the world.” The opening set the stage for Lieutenant Danny Glover’s downbeat adventures in solving homicides. The writing by Morton Fine and David Friedkin is highly stylized with a lyrical quality to it. Larry Thor nails the role of a tough, world-weary cop. Thor wasn’t an obvious choice. Prior to taking on the role of Danny Clover, he was best-known for performing announcer duties on programs such as Rocky Jordan.

While Clover is a cop, he seems to fit more comfortably with the hard-boiled private eyes of the previous era but with a badge that requires a little more cooperation and respect. Even though he’s a Lieutenant, he’s often in the field alone investigating cases. While many police and detective shows were moving toward a procedural feel with more realism and scientific investigation, Broadway’s My Beat went for human drama and poetry and the result is a compelling series.

2) Dragnet

Network: NBC

Star: Jack Webb

Dragnet became less the bold experimental show it was when it started in 1949. Particularly when Dragnet hit TV and Jack Webb was doing thirty-nine episodes of Dragnet on television in addition to more than fifty radio episodes per season, and in the midst of all that, a Dragnet movie was made. I think it’s safe to say that by the time Dragnet left radio in 1955 that Webb wasn’t feeling the same passion for the project he felt in 1949 and was eager to get on to other projects.

Even so, even with less passion, Dragnet was still better than nearly anything else on the radio and managed to tell some of its greatest stories, including the classic Christmas tale, “The Big Little Jesus.” After Barton Yarborough passed away, Ben Alexander became Friday’s new partner Frank Smith and brought a new dynamic, particularly with humor. Most episodes after Alexander joined the cast began to feature a scene with Joe and Frank talking with a fun punchline. Not only was this is an interesting new addition, it strengthened episodes that packed a dramatic punch because the earlier levity makes the big emotional twist hit like a gut punch.

Once Dragnet stopped making new episodes, NBC continued to air reruns network-wide for two more years which was unprecedented and a sign of the show’s popularity and quality.

1) Yours Truly Johnny Dollar

Network: CBS

Star: Bob Bailey

The first fifty-eight weeks with Bob Bailey as Johnny Dollar featured serialized stories that aired Monday-Friday. To me, this run of episodes ranks as the best run of radio drama of all time. While there are some amazing individual episodes and story arcs from different series, for consistent high-quality radio drama over the course of year with high quality, that run of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar was never equaled. Many story arcs were based on scripts of half hour episodes that writers such as E. Jack Neumann and Les Crutchfield had written for previous runs of Johnny Dollar or other programs. The format allowed writers to expand upon ideas or to combine ideas from different stories. The format was also ideal because with two exceptions (a six-parter and a nine-parter) each story was limited to five parts. This avoided the padding and drawing out stories that could become the case on so many other serialized drama.

Bailey was supported by some of the finest radio character actors of all times, including Virginia Gregg, Herb Vigran, and Howard McNear. Bailey and Gregg had some superb scenes together and play off each other very well. The series also began to develop Johnny into a real character. Johnny Dollar had been on the air since 1949 but his backstory had been limited to what served an episode. Still, Johnny got definite back story, friends, and a favorite hobby of fishing. While previous Dollars picked up the phone and reached random insurance agents of the week, Bob Bailey’s dollar reached specific agents with their own unique personalities.

The series reverted to a half-hour form and it’s fair to say that sometime after that, the quality of stories began to drop, particularly from a mystery standpoint . Part of it came from budget cuts that had Jack Johnstone taking over as the series’ sole writer (a role he wasn’t suited to.) Due to less airtime, there are some episodes of Johnny Dollar where half the episode is spent talking about the case and its history.

However, even with its problems, the story also had its strengths, giving Johnny a rich cast of supporting and recurring characters that no detective drama had ever seen. It was years, and maybe decades ahead of its time with the sheer volume of continuity and friends that Bailey’s Dollar was given.

On the strength of the details given to Johnny and the show’s stellar start, the Bob Bailey run on Johnny Dollar is the best highlight for fans of detective radio programs in those last few years of radio.

 

Golden Age Article

The Top Five Post-War Radio Detective Programs

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It was a challenge finding programs to compare when ranking World War II radio detective programs last week. This week, the big challenge is narrowing it down. The immediate post-war era (1946-51) was great for radio detective programs. The Hard-Boiled genre of detective fiction had a huge impact in the post-War era. Once networks saw some success in one hard-boiled radio detective program, the number of tough guys who spoke similes as a second language surged. Many of these got lost in the shuffle, but the best of them found a hook or angle that made them stand out from the crowd.

This is also the era when you have more programs with a high percentage of episodes available, which makes comparison easier. However, choosing is not easy. So many great programs get left off a top five lists. A lot of programs have a really good case for including them.  Still, these are the ones I’d go with.

5) Richard Diamond

Networks: NBC, ABC

Star: Dick Powell

Dick Powell began his career as a light song and dance man who played the lead in a lot of romantic musicals. In the 1940s, he began a new chapter in his career as the tough-guy star of films like Murder, My Sweet, Cornered, and Johnny O’Clock.  In Richard Diamond, these two elements are combined in a beautiful package in Richard Diamond. It’s a mix of usually rough violent stories that often end with him leaning close to his girlfriend, playing the piano, and uncorking a sweet romantic song.

The first season of the show is the best with Ed Begley as Lieutenant Walt Levinson, Wilms Hebert playing a double roll as Sergeant Otis and Diamond’s girlfriend’s butler. If the series had stayed that good throughout, it’d rank higher, but Begley left after the first season and three different actors played Levinson, and Wilms Hebert passed away in 1951. The show also tried to get away from the singing and do more serious tough-guy stuff without as much musical and comedy balance.

4) Sam Spade:

Networks: ABC, CBS, NBC

Star: Howard Duff

Sam Spade had been defined by the writing of Dashiell Hammett and the performance of Humphrey Bogart. That didn’t deter Duff, who took the role and made it his own. The character as Hammett wrote him would not have been someone the audience of the time would like to visit every week. Duff took the character’s toughness and occasional ruthlessness, and added a great deal of humor, with just a smidge of human sympathy and the result is unforgettable. The interaction between Sam and his secretary Effie were imitated by contemporaries but never really equaled.

The villains were bigger than life as if they should’ve been on The Shadow. However, the series seemed to thrive on these over-the-top characters as Spade took them in his stride, tidied things up, and got back to the office to dictate his report. Its music, opening, and “Good night, sweetheart” closing are iconic.

3) Rocky Jordan

Network: CBS

Star: Jack Moyles

Its international setting, replete with research on local customs, made it a stand out in the radio detective genre. Cairo-based café owner Rocky Jordan found himself in the midst of intrigue and mystery each week. Usually, it wasn’t of his own making and didn’t have anything to do with him or his business interests. Inevitably someone else in a jam would invariably draw Rocky into their problem.

What made the show is the relationship between Sam and Cairo Police Captain Sam Sabaaya (Jay Novello.) The two came from different worlds. The show didn’t back away from those differences but leaned in to them and showed how they maintained a respect and fondness for each other despite their disagreements. Captain Sabaaya was a thickheaded police foil, but a good cop who had a different thought process than our hero but often saved the day. One of the show’s best accomplishments is this felt like a believable part of their dynamic.

2) Dragnet

Network: NBC

Star: Jack Webb

Dragnet was a key step in the evolution of the police drama in bringing realism and professionalism to the way police dramas were told. There’s much that could be said about Dragnet over radio. Its characters talked more like real people. Because you felt like you were being shown how things really worked in the police department, Dragnet had a way of making tedious details and portions of investigations seem compelling. Even with the realism, there was a good sense of the dramatic and the show had a way of delivering big revelations and plot twists.

The music is iconic (although it took three episodes for them to settle on it) and the sound design helps make you feel like you’re accompanying Sergeants Friday and Romero. If you listen to Dragnet, particularly in the early episodes, If they walked into the store, you heard the sound of the store. This was different than other investigative shows where it felt like the heroes were always questioning their witnesses in pocket dimensions where nothing else was happening or going on.

They dealt with issues and cases that other shows avoided. It was a groundbreaking program that would set the tone for crime dramas for a decade and influence many programs that have come since.

1) The Adventures of Philip Marlowe

Network: CBS
‘
Star: Gerald Mohr

The Adventures of Philip Marlowe had a lot going for it. It came closest to producing a serious hard-boiled detective series. It rarely indulged in the era’s popular extreme characterization, which gave it a more serious feel. It wasn’t oppressive, but the story had more weight than the detective shows that made it impossible to care that their over-the-top characters are being murdered. They were also less predictable. While some series were downbeat all the time or had a massacre every episode, Marlowe got some wins as well as some losses.

The production also showed willingness to play with different ideas. Sometimes, this would work out well, such as the episode where every character was a woman, including women holding traditionally male jobs. Sometimes, it didn’t work out so well, like the episode where he tried to investigate a murder while bed-ridden. However, there’s creativity behind the stories and they never get into a rut.

Mohr’s performance was superb. He was tough but he wasn’t cartoonish or needing to prove himself all the time. His characterization was often world-weary, but sometimes hopeful in spite of the trouble he’s been through. There’s a definite soft spot that makes you care for him.

The episodes are well-directed and have superb action scenes despite how tough it is to do those over radio. The “Get this and get it straight” opening light is one of my favorites, although it was tweaked much more than it needed to be. Norm MacDonnell, who’d go on to distinguish himself on Gunsmoke, has nearly flawless direction on this series.

This is not only the best post-War radio detective series, it may well be the most consistently good radio detective series ever made.

Golden Age Article

The Top 5 World War II Era Radio Detective Programs

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Over the next three weeks, we’re going to count down the top five radio detective programs of three distinct eras during the Golden Age of Radio. The eras are the World War (1939-45), the Post-War (1945-51), and the Declining Years (1952-62).

From the outset, let’s keep in mind three things.

First, the rankings are based on the surviving programs. Right away, that is limiting. If we had more circulating episodes of some programs (or any episodes of programs that are completely lost), no doubt they would rank higher or might not be in the list all. But we work with what we have.

Second, there were detective programs prior to 1939. However, there’s not enough programs with a meaningful number of surviving episodes to allow for helpful comparison so we won’t be ranking them.

Third, many programs’ runs crossed multiple eras. Programs like Nick Carter, Mister Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, and Mr. and Mrs. North aired during all three eras. For the purposes of our rankings, we’ll only evaluate the program for what we have of its run during the given era. It’s also possible for a series to be ranked in more than one era.

World War II Era Rankings

While there are more recordings of programs during World War II available than pre-War, many recordings are scarce. So many series from that era are lost or have left little evidence of their existence. This is partially due to the materials used for transcription disks being important for the war effort.. Still there are enough shows that have enough information for us to compare them even if we’re only basing that comparison on a few circulating episodes.

That said, let’s get on with ranking the top 5 World War II era detective programs:

5) Mister Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons

Network: CBS

Star Bennett Kilpack

The longest-running radio detective series of all-time was in transition during the War. It was moving from being about what the title implies to solving murder cases each week. While the series has its flaws (over-the-top soap operatic acting, constantly repeating characters names), it has undeniable charm. Mister Keen is mostly true to his reputation as a “kindly investigator.” The series is fun to listen to, with reliable and lovable performances from the leads.

4) Mr. and Mrs. North

Network: NBC

Stars: Joseph Curtain and Alice Frost

When most people think of husband and wife detective teams, they think of The Thin Man. Over radio, during the War, Mr. and Mrs. North was the better series. Curtain and Frost have great performance chemistry. The scripts are witty and light. The mysteries are fun. They also have a different dynamic than other shows, where the wife was the husband’s Watson. Both Norths are capable detectives and either one can end up solving the case. It’s a fun dynamic that makes for an interesting listen.

3) The Man Called X 

Networks: CBS, Blue Network, NBC

Star Herbert Marshall

The Man Called X took its titular hero and threw him into the heart of wartime action. During the war, Ken Thurston got into all sorts of espionage mysteries, even getting into Berlin just ahead of the allies. The mysteries were well-written, with plenty of action and suspense. Comic relief was dispensed by Pegon Zellschmidt (Hans Conreid, later Leon Belasco.)

2) Nick Carter

Network: Mutual

Star: Lon Clark

Nick Carter originated as the lead character in a series of dime novels in the 1880s and had a long life in print and other media, including a three-film series starring Walter Pidgeon from 1939-41. The character’s radio program is perhaps the character’s most memorable form. Nick Carter is a master detective who has put away so many criminals it’s a lengthy task to go through even a portion of his files. The radio series had one of the most memorable openings of any program during the golden age of radio, with frantic knocking on the door. A woman answers, “What’s the matter, what is it?” A man answers, “It’s another case for Nick Carter, Master Detective!”

At a time before the coming of the hard-boiled private eye to radio, Nick Carter’s cases packed a bit more punch with more peril and excitement involved. He’d often pull off improbable escapes. They weren’t quite on the level of a 1940s Batman serial where Batman got away by pulling a full-sized acetylene torch out of his unity belt once, but they were a bit out there. The mysteries had a bit of pulp fiction flavor to them.

Carter did mostly half-hour episodes, but it also broadcast 100 serialized episodes for over twenty weeks. The series rarely touched on the War itself and provided a great diversion for folks at home.

1)The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Networks: Blue Network, Mutual

Star: Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce had starred as Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in two films already when they starred in the first series of New Adventures over the Blue Network in 1939. They did a total of three seasons that averaged twenty-four weeks each. Then came the Universal Sherlock Holmes features that placed Holmes and Watson in the World War II era and a new series over Mutual that would release a new episode every single week for two years. Through both networks runs, the duo performed  both works from Doyle’s original canon and added true new adventures. The tone would vary from week to week: from the comedic to the horrific and the poignant. Through it all, Rathbone and Bruce rolled with the punches and turned out solid performances each week .

Bruce not only played Holmes’ sidekick but an older Watson who had retired to America and would play host to the pitchman for whatever product was sponsoring them in a given season. It adds a nice touch of charm to a well-acted and written series worthy of the world’s greatest consulting detective.

 

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Pat Savage: Six Scarlet Scorpions

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Doc Savage’s cousin Pat travels to Oklahoma along with one of Doc’s lieutenant’s, Monk Mayfair, in order to try her luck in oil speculation. Before she can even get to the field, she has to deal with a ruthless competitor. But that’s nothing compared to the mess she and Monk find themselves in when they stumble into a conspiracy involving a paralyzing poison, an offshot of the Ossage Indian tribes led by the sinister Chief Standing Scorpion, and murder. Pat and Monk find themselves framed for murder, and on the run from the law while pursuing the real culprits. How will they cope with Doc Savage out of the picture at his Fortress of Solitude?

As a bit of pulp fiction potboiler, this a fun read. The adventure itself has a lot of opportunities for derring-do as well as having quite a few mysteries that really keep the reader curious from start to finish, particular the question of who Standing Scorpion is. Admitted a villainous plot that’s essentially, “First Oklahoma…and then the world,” seems a bit unlikely and maybe even silly. But, it definitely works in the context of a pulp adventure set in the 1930s.

While Doc Savage novels tend to have a big cast, often involving many of Doc’s men, Pat and Monk are the sole protagonists of the book, with Monk’s best frenemy Ham being the only other member of Doc’s team to make an appearance. Monk is my favorite character in the Doc Savage world and this book shows how well he can carry the book and he plays very well off of Pat. They make a superb duo. If there’s a downside to this, it’s that Monk plays such a big role in this story that it’s hard to see how an ongoing series with Pat would like, although several sites have labeled this book 1 in the Wild Adventures of Pat Savage. Even though, there’s not  been a second book in five years. Pat does hint towards the end of the book that if she does go on another adventure, she’ll go alone. Six Scarlet Scorpions does enough to make me intrigued to find out what that would like.

The other characters in this story are mostly forgettable, compromising a group of toughs, evil overlords, a damsel and few other supporting characters. However, this is typically true of Doc Savage stories, where the persoanlities of the lead characters really do carry the book.

The book also suffers from the malady that most of the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage tend to. There’s a lot of our heroes being caught and released repeatedly. It’s the biggest source of padding in these books and this novel is no exception.

Still, this is an interesting book that does a great job recreating the world of Doc Savage and giving a couple characters from that world a chance to really shine on their own. It suceeds and if you enjoyed the original Doc Savages books or the other Wild Adventures, this is worth checking out.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Trial of Sherlock Holmes

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The Trial of Sherlock Holmes finds Sherlock Holmes whisked away to a secret courtroom and forced to answer to charges of being a public menace and is forced to relive three little known cases.

This is a more comedic take on Holmes and Watson. Essentially in less than an hour, we’re given three remembered mysteries and the framing story about the trial which is itself a mystery and we’ve got a lot of comedy mixed in.

The acting is broad but decent. The five-member cast play their ensemble roles well and make all of their characters quite distinct. The writing is fine. While I knew from the start, there was something wrong with the judge, I didn’t figure out until 2/3 of the way through what he might be up to. The story explores the idea that Holmes’ rivals (aka detectives who sprang up soon after him) emerged during the time he was presumed dead after “The Final Problem.”

The story and its comedy veers towards the silly, and has its hits and misses. So the stories are mostly off-beat.

That said, doing a Sherlock Holmes comedy is hard. I’ve heard some awful attempts and by comparison, this isn’t half-bad. It’s unremarkable but it’s relatively short, occasionally funny, and a relatively pain-free listen. If you’d like to hear a silly Sherlock Holmes comedy that isn’t truly horrible, this might be worth trying.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5

The story can be downloaded for free from the Wireless Theatre Company

 

 

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple – Movie Collection

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The four 1960s Miss Marple films starred Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. For purist fans of Agatha Christie’s spinster detective, these films don’t offer much. Only one of the four was based on a Miss Marple book while two others were based on Poirot stories and one of the four was an original story. Some have compared these films to Peter Ustinov’s Poirot films in the 1970s and 80s, but to me that misses the mark. Ustinov’s Poirot films were at least nearly recognizable as the same character and stories despite the changes.

The only way to enjoy these four films is on their own merits and by that measure they do work. Miss Marple finds herself in one murder mystery after another. It begins with Murder She Said, when she sees a murder through a window while riding a train and is disbelieved by the local Detective Inspector (Bud Tingwell) and she’s assisted in solving it by her friend, the local librarian Stringer (played by Rutherford’s real-life husband Stringer Davis.) The formula of her getting involved in murder and having the Inspector treat her like she’s a meddling amateur and her being vindicated in the end is the way all three films go that see her investigate murders at stables, at a rooming house, and at sea. And she also generally gets an unexpected marriage proposal.

The series gets a little goofier, though mostly in a good way, as it goes along with a lot of tongue and cheek humor. I might compare it in some days to a somewhat more restrained version of the approach to the 1966 Batman TV series with a bit more of a British pantomime take to its comedy, as there are very broad characters who are well-played.

The writing is decent, although the last film Murder Ahoy (the only original story) was a bit weaker than the rest of the series. However, the weaknesses in the script are made up for by the performance of Lionel Jeffries gives as the ship’s captain as he helps sell the dodgier aspects of this story.

The music is light, with a cheery upbeat tune that wouldn’t fit most productions based on Agatha Christie’s writing, but fits this one like a glove.

This is one of the coziest mystery movie series you’ll find. If you like that sort of film and can tolerate its deviation from its source material, this is a delightful romp that’s worth viewing.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Patrick Scott Smokin’ Mysteries

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To enjoy the Patrick Scott Smokin’ Mysteries, set the right expectations. These are not typical half-hour or hour-long mysteries. Rather, they’re about 4-6 minutes in length and meant to be enjoyed in short bursts, preferably with family. They are more about puzzles, brain teasers, and trivia than whodunits. Think more Encyclopedia Brown than Hercule Poirot.

In one episode, a series of clues were used as two police officers were engaged in trying to find where a suspect was heading and the police officer would intercept with the key being the listener’s ability to guess which street they were heading to. Of course, real police officers have a knowledge of a city’s street set up, so there’s no mystery in real life. The set up reminds me of detective-themed riddle books.

However, once you understand the set up, these are enjoyable diversions. Each episode follows Lieutenant Patrick Scott, Jr. (Scott Brick), his father, retired Captain Patrick Scott, Sr. (Patrick Fraley), or another family member or police officer as they try to solve a puzzle generally involving a crime. The set up will generally be a single scene (or two) where clues are gathered and then the listener is given about a minute of “mystery-solving music” to think about it and/or discuss the case with others who are listening before the solution is revealed.

The mysteries are decent brain teasers. There’s some humor that’s amusing, if not laugh out loud hilarious. The stories  are all fairly clean at a G or PG rating level. The mystery-solving music is pleasant, usually a bit of soft jazz, though they do mix it up a bit, particularly in three episodes that feature an Irish informant who makes the police solve his riddle in order to get clues.

Scott and Fraley are both old pros at the voice acting game and have recorded hundreds of audiobooks. Fraley (who also wrote the production) did a lot of voices for animation, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. From my childhood, he was the voice of Wildcat on Talespin and many characters on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon including Krang the Conquerer and Baxter Stockman. Fraley was a regular fixture as an animation character actor as so many of his credits are for “additional voices.” All that to say, both are top people in the voice acting profession and delivered the performances you’d expect. Brick’s Patrick Scott, Jr. sounds exactly like the ex-Private Eye he’s supposed to be and the narration is flawless. Meanwhile, Fraley’s Senior is endearingly irascible and fun to listen to.

Beyond the leads, this is very much an ensemble production with actors having to switch from one role to another frequently and without making your characters sound all the same and everyone did a good job of that. There was only one character that seemed off, but given the sheer number of mini-mysteries in this set, that’s a good average.

The last twenty minutes or so of the disk feature a Q&A session with Frank Muller, a pioneer in the audiobook world who’d recorded books for many authors including Stephen King. Muller had just recently passed away and this was offered as a tribute to him. To me, it was an interesting insight into how good audiobook narrators ply their trade. If that doesn’t excite you, then you may not get much out of that portion.

Overall, this is an interesting release. It’s well-acted with good sound, although minimalistic, and is good for short diversions. It’s best to listen to one or two mysteries at a time when travelling with kids and looking for something to do in the car. With that approach, the more than two and a half hours of puzzle mysteries will last a good while.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Collected Bowdrie Dramatizations, Volume 3

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The final collection of dramatizations of stories featuring Louie L’Amour’s tough and smart Texas Ranger, Chick Bowdrie (Reathel Bean) offers six more adventures as he hunts down and solves mysteries as he roams the state of Texas serving justice as he goes.

The first four stories in the set have a strong mystery element and he makes a good detective. The mysteries aren’t top tier, but they’re engaging enough.

The last two stories, “Down Sonora Way” and “Strange Pursuit” are different as each is about Bowdrie chasing outlaws. “Down Sonora Way” finds the ranger in a stalemate with an outlaw when they both observe a settler family butting heads with indigenous peoples and they decide to call a truce to rescue the family from harm’s way. In “Strange Pursuit,” Bowdrie is on the trail of a quick-witted outlaw whose exploits included hanging a sheriff who was trying to hang him and riding off with the sheriff’s horse. Bowdrie spent weeks on the man’s trail and spends much of the story making little progress and picking up new tales of his exploits.

Overall, these are at the same level as the previous two collections. While most of L’Amour’s characters aren’t complex, they do have some interesting wrinkles. His level of research and knowledge of the old west is profound. In fact, one of these stories includes a bonus addition of L’Amour talking about sign tracking. The stories are thoroughly entertaining. Bean is superb at Bowdrie and all the other actors are on-point.

The Bowdrie collections would be enjoyed by anyone who loves tales of the Old West, or even if you’re not big into Westerns, if you like well-made audio dramas, this is definitely worth a listen.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Golden Age Article

My Favorite Old Radio Research Resources

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The following are some of my favorite and most powerful research resources for the Golden Age of Radio:

Radio Goldindex: This was created by respected radio researcher and chronicler David Goldin. It recently was hosted at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which has helped ensure it’s always up.

You can search for programs by series title, by performer name, or by date. There are tens of thousands of programs included. Oftentimes entries are based on Goldin’s examination of actual transcription disks, so it’s helpful to settling questions about when programs aired. Unless there’s strong evidence to the contrary, I go with what’s in Goldin’s log. He’s also far better at recognizing a host of old time radio voices than I am. I also use this to help me find programs for extras I do for the app. featuring old time radio detectives in different roles or when I do a themed series on the Amazing World of Radio featuring a specific actor. I also used this when I did a special podcast gift to my mother featuring programs that aired on her birthdate a few years back.

The site does have its problems. The listings aren’t 100 percent accurate and the search by artist and search by programs aren’t perfectly synced. Also, entries have varying degrees of information on dramatic programs. Some will give just cast/crew information. Others will include plot details and even occasionally a mini-review.

Still, it’s incredibly useful and its flaws are due to the fact the Index began as a one-man labor of love.

On the Air is John Dunning’s massive encyclopedia of Old Time Radio. I bought the Kindle edition several years ago, but a listener was moving and sent me their hardback edition and it is nice to have this big physical book filled with Old Time Radio shows.

It’s an incredibly useful book. It’s particularly helpful when I’m researching obscure programs. The length of each entry varies, and the popularity of the program may determine that in part as people are going to be more interested in reading about Fibber McGee and Molly rather than pages about some obscuring singing program. It’s particularly useful in determining how long a series ran.

The book was released in 1998 and there has been additional research since then and there have been some programs discovered that aren’t listed in Dunning’s massive tome. Still, it’s an incredibly useful starting place to get basic information on a series’ stars, how long a series ran, and what networks it was on as well as a lot of little tidbits.

Wikipedia has some information on old time radio programs, but Wikipedia is always best as a starting point for research rather than as an end. Some topics are well-researched and edited, with detailed radio logs. Others have partial logs, no log at all, or has information included that’s wrong or just an urban legend. As a rule of thumb, the more obscure the program, the less likely you are to find a good article on it here.

Google Books has been a lifesaver in helping with obscure topics and programs because it searches and indexes so many different old time radio books and books on various actors that it comes up with information that’s just not available searching the Internet. I’ve gotten on some interesting rabbit trails. And this resource has also led to a few Interlibrary loans and purchases.

Log Sites:

Digitial Deli FTP, is not as updated as often as it used to be but it also has a lot of good information and articles on various radio programs. The site not only includes logs but it tends to show which old newspapers it got information from as well as often reprinting or quoting articles on a particular source. Digital Deli FTP can be a bit uncharitable with the perceived failings and disagreements of others within the Golden Age of Radio community and also can get a little political. However, despite those issues, it’s got a lot of great information on it.

Old Time Radio Program logs is a great listing of Old Time Radio episode logs by Frank Passages, Stewart Wright, and other notable researchers. The logs not only contain information about when episodes aired, but also the show’s overall production. Their log of O’Hara was invaluable in understanding how to best discuss the two circulating episodes recorded five years apart with two different stars. There are a few of them that are a bit older and maybe not as up to date, but the site is still an incredible resource.

Jerry’s Vintage Radio Logs: This is from the site of Old Time Radio pillar Jerry Haendiges. The logs are designed to feature his high-quality old time radio recordings which are available on CD and MP3. He has some program logs here that are just not available anywhere else. While some are quite old, you can tell which ones are more out of date as he always notes the last updated date. His logs for Sherlock Holmes and the Australian run of the Fat Man have been invaluable. He’s also got a lot of other great resources on his site.

Miscellaneous:

Old Time Radio Star Interviews: Years after the golden age of radio ended, many starts continued to talk about their experiences. The OTRR library has full interviews with several radio stars conducted by John Dunning and Chuck Schaeden. If you don’t want to listen to full interviews, the Breaking the Walls podcast does a great job incorporating selected excerpts that highlight interesting tidbits about radio history.

Old Time Radio Newsletters:

The Old Time Radio Researchers puts out the Old Time Radio Times every two months in pdf.

The Metropolitan Old Time Radio offers its Radio Recall newsletter to its members and has samples on its website.

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Nine

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Season Nine of Black Jack Justice sees Jack (Christopher Mott) and Trixie Dixon (Andrea Lyons) back for six more investigations. The ninth season continues the same high standard. It offers everything you come to expect: The opening monologue that introduces a well-worn aphorism as a basis for the case, the clever banter, and the solid mystery stories you come to expect.

Jack’s status as a newly married man has a small impact on the series. Had there been romantic tension between the two lead characters, it would have been much more major. However, unlike in most detective fiction, where statements of contempt hide passionate love, the statements of contempt between Jack and Trixie reflected that they didn’t much like each other personally but had a good working relationship. However, Jack’s mood is less dour than in past seasons as he’s enjoying conjugal bliss. One episode, “Home for the Holidays” saw Jack getting involved in solving a crime in a small town so Jack could get home to his wife.

The series had limited appearances from the recurring guest cast. Jack’s wife is seen and not heard after appearing in the previous two seasons. King the office dog and Freddy the Finger are far less present than in previous seasons.

The episodes are all good. I particularly liked the contrast between the last two episodes of the season. In “The Big Time,” Jack and Trixie get an unexpected opportunity to take on a big case for an insurance company with a big payoff. This is followed by, “The Learner’s Permit” where they agree to help a writer do research for his new detective story, and then bungle their way into a murder investigation where they should be able to tell the police everything needed to solve the case and provide photographic evidence, but instead have bungled it so badly that someone else has to step in and solve the case. Creating a contrast between a high water mark and one of their most embarrassing moments business is a clever take by writer Gregg Taylor.

While I did miss some of the recurring characters, this was still a fun listen. If you enjoyed any of the past Black Jack Justice seasons, Season 9 is well-worth listening to.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

Black Jack Justice Season 9 is available to listen to for free at Decoder Ring Theatre.

Golden Age Article

Four Difference Between the Original and Later Columbos

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Columbo in the 70s
Columbo 90s

Note: A version of this article was published in 2015.

Peter Falks had two runs as Columbo. The first ran from 1971-78 over NBC as part of the network’s Mystery Wheel. Columbo returned in 1989 over ABC in a series of TV movies, with the last airing in 2003.

There were four key differences between the newer Columbo films and the originals:

1) Length

Most of the original Columbo films had a 90 minute time slot on air which made them about 70-75 minutes without commercials. The new Columbo films took up 2 hours and had a running time of approximately 90 minutes. I have to admit, in general, this was a case of “less is more.”

One key example was the second ABC Columbo, “Murder, Smoke, and Shadows” where the film started strong but dragged on too long and at the end of Columbo’s denouement we had (and I kid you not), the police coming out and doing a musical number when they announced the arrest.

The old Columbos worked because of their limitations. They didn’t go on forever, and when there was a longer case thrown in such as with, “A Friend Indeed,” the time was well-spent while the only new film that I think benefited from the longer running time was, “Agenda for Murder.”

2) More Adult Content

Columbo in the 1970s remains a tasteful family-friendly TV show. The latter Columbo had a lot more sex in the plot and a lot more skin on the screen. A few episodes featured lurid plots and disturbing murder scenes. Of course, this isn’t to say that all of the latter Columbos were strictly adult affairs but quite a few pushed the envelope.

With one exception, the added sexual content and violence tended to detract rather than add to Columbo. At its core, the strength of Columbo are great characters and their interactions, and the episodes that had the most adult content such as, “Uneasy Lies the Crown” and “Murder: A Self Portrait” tended to sacrifice quality for titillation. If there was an episode that seemed more “grown up” that did work, it was, “It’s All in the Game” starring Faye Dunaway as a suspect who is trying to seduce Columbo to keep him off her trail but that works because of the character interactions.

3) More Experimentation

Of the forty-four 1970s Columbo films, only one messed with the formula of Columbo being an inverted mystery (Season 5’s “Last Salute to the Commodore.”) Of the twenty-four revived shows, there were half a dozen different attempts to break with the formula. These variations ranged from following the killer up to the point of the murder and finding someone else had already committed the murder, not showing the murder and then planting doubt as to the killer’s guilt, and then there were two adaptations of Ed McBain novels.

“Last Salute to the Commodore” was one of my two least favorite 1970s episodes, but some of these later experiments aren’t too bad. “Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo” begins with the funeral of “Mrs. Columbo” and is told through flashback from the point of view of a woman seeking revenge on the good Lieutenant by murdering his wife. The McBain novel adaptation, “Undercover” is a fine thriller if you can get past the fact Columbo’s behavior is inconsistent with everything we know of the character. “Columbo Cries Wolf” also had some good moments,.

The other three are more problematic, but not for messing with the formula. Still, while some of the revived Columbos that go in other directions can be entertaining, they still can’t beat the best of the “normal” Columbo episodes.

4) Less Star Quality

The original Columbo was known for the amazing casting. Among the actors who played Columbo murderers in the old days were Anne Baxter, Robert Culp, Leonard Nimoy, Roddy McDowell, Martin Landau, Dick Van Dyke, Patrick McGoohan, Ricardo Montalban, Ruth Gordon, and so many more. Peter Falk was a fantastic actor and had great chemistry with so many guest stars and that chemistry made the 1970s episodes so memorable.

The new series had a virtual power outage, particularly in 1989 and 1990. Of the first eleven villains, the only actor in Falk’s league was McGoohan. The second best of the group was Fisher Stevens. That’s a big gap.

The series did get better guest stars between 1991-94 when Columbo cut back from 4-6 films a year to between 2 and 3 films. The results were among the best of the new run as Faye Dunaway was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Glove for her appearance. Dabney Coleman, George Hamilton, and Rip Torn turned in memorable and satisfying performances in their turns against Columbo.

Of course, not even a good guest star could save some films. A mustached William Shatner is miscast in Butterfly in Shades of Grey. Tyne Daley did the best she could with a fairly stereotypical flirty lush role in A Bird in the Hand but deserved far better as a Columbo villainess.

Conclusion

There did seem to be a fair share more stories in the later years that strained credulity in terms of motive or were plain derivative (i.e. “Strange Bedfellows.”)

Yet, the one thing that remained the same was Peter Falk. Some episodes felt like the only thing good in the movie was Columbo but almost always that still made it worth watching. There’s so much in every moment when Falk’s on the screen that he can carry the show by himself which was a good thing because he often had to.

By almost every measure, ABC’s Columbo was an inferior product to its predecessor, but it provided two dozen opportunities to see Peter Falk in action as his greatest character and that makes most of them worth viewing.

You can watch the 1970s episodes of Columbo on IMBD TV and all episodes of the series are available for viewing on Peacock.

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Silent are the Dead

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Silent are the Dead is an original Flash Casey novel by George Herman Coxe. It 1941, it was originally serialized in Black Mask Magazine (where Casey made his debut in 1934) in three parts, and published as a standalone novel in 1942.

In it, ace photographer Flash Casey has to get pictures of a disgraced lawyer after his camera case is stolen and his film exposed. When he goes up to the lawyer’s apartment, he finds the lawyer dead and himself in a case that grows ever more complex.

Flash Casey is an interesting character. He bares little resemblance to the character who’d arrive on radio the next year and less to the hotheaded goofball of the film Here’s Flash Casey. Casey is a decent sort. He’s got a nose for news but he’s neither heartless, nor unethical. He’s got a hard boiled edge to him, but this never goes over the top. He also takes a great deal of pride not just in his own work, but in the profession and its status, which motivates his actions in the final act of the novel.

This is a solidly written mystery novel. The plot is complex and intriguing with twists around every corner. The story is well-plotted, and well-paced. My interest never lagged from start to finish. I appreciated how photography was used in the novel to make this story distinct from the countless tales of private eyes, lawyers, and mystery men that dominated the fiction shelfs of the day. I’ve experienced a few stories from the old Black Mask magazine and compared to them, this book is above average. 

The characterization is not a huge strength. With one exception, the other characters feel mostly functional. They’re not unrealistic, over the top, or badly written, but as individuals, they’re surface level and blend quickly into a sea of newspaper employees, gangsters, damsels/potential femme fatales, and cops without much personality to distinguish them. Still, with Casey being well-written, he’s an anchor that keeps the story interesting.

In terms of quality, I’d consider it similar to the best Michael Shayne books.  It’s not a genre classic by any means, but it is a good example of a pre-War detective novel with hard-boiled flavor. In addition, its photographer hero makes it stand out from most of its mystery peers. It’s also a nice read for those who enjoy the Casey, Crime Photographer radio series and are curious about the hero’s literary origins. 

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Radio Series Review: My Friend Irma

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My Friend, Irma came to radio in 1947 starring Marie Wilson as Irma, a quirky young secretary from Minnesota who came to New York and was befriended by Jane Stacy (Cathy Lewis and later Joan Banks) who took her on as her roommate. The series is all about their misadventures. 

It would be spun off into two films as well as a TV series. The series was created by Cy Howard, who would go on to create Life with Luigi and it’s stylistically similar in many ways as well as both series featuring legendary  voice actors Hans Conried and Alan Reed. 

The series had a lot of running jokes. Conried’s character Professor Kerplotkin would greet Irma and Jane with an analogy to two things with the latter being a back-handed suggestion Irma wasn’t quite all there and would apologize stating it was “a little joke” he’d picked up somewhere. Mrs. O’Reilly, their landlady would show up and also get insulted by Professor Kerplotkin. The Professor would also complain about his room in the most over the top way possible and make a suggestion of something romantic with Mrs. O’Reilly (played by Jane Morgan and later Gloria Gordon) only to pull the rug out from under her with yet another insult.

Irma’s shiftless boyfriend Al (John Brown) would always try to turn any situation to his own benefit through (often poorly thought out) schemes. When he ran into a situation where he didn’t know what to do, he would say, “There’s only one man who knows what to do,” dial a number and then say, “Hello, Joe….Got a problem.” Nothing is inherently funny about this but Brown’s delivery practically wills it into a laugh line.

Probably the biggest running gags in the series center around Irma and could be paraphrased, “You know how weird Irma is?”

Marie Wilson deserves a lot of credit for her performance. It’d be easy for a character like Irma to become annoying, but she rarely does, and it’s the writing that sometimes makes Irma too whiny. Her comic delivery and timing is great and helps to sell the show. She’s particularly adept at having Irma’s mixing up messages other people tell her to deliver to sound completely natural.

The supporting cast is good Again, it’d be easy for them to come off badly and for the most part, they don’t. While they all know Irma’s a little bit off, they’re all supportive. Her boss, Mr. Clyde was mean but most comedy bosses during that era were mean, so that was to be expected.

My biggest problem in the series was Jane Stacy. On one hand, she could be nice to Irma and help her out and she could also be long-suffering with all the problems Irma caused. On the other, she often could lose it. In addition, she was the one who introduced the episodes and talked to the audience. She tended to deliver the meanest and most cutting remarks about Irma not only to other characters, but to the audience.

I came to view Jane as Irma’s “friend” who resents having her around and complaints constantly to other people about Irma. I found Jane insufferable and two-faced. I had negative reactions to other Cathy Lewis characters because I’d think of Jane Stacy when I heard them. Joan Banks’ take on Jane Stacy and Mary Jane Croft’s character of Kay Foster weren’t any better but they didn’t have as much time to wear on my nerves as Lewis did.

Numerous casting changes occurred in the course of the program, and not all of them are well-documented or observable. The bulk of episodes in circulation are from the show’s earliest days from 1947 to the spring of 1949, so many casting or character changes are unexplained within the radio program as any transitions occurred in episodes that were lost. There was a total of three episodes in circulation for the three year period between March 1949 and January 1952, and a smattering of episodes for each year from 1952-54. While I have limited exposure to later casts, the original cast, with both Brown and Conried is probably is the best the show had, though the later actors did fine.

Overall, My Friend Irma is a decent comedy. While it’s far from my favorite, it has some laughs. There’s little continuity, so you don’t suffer that much as a result of the missing seasons.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5