The Missing Salesman (Aired May 3, 1951) Father Knows Best, a family comedy of the 1950s, is perhaps more important for what it has come to represent than for what it actually was. In essence, the series was one of a slew of middle-class family sitcoms in which moms were moms, kids were kids, and fathers knew best. Today, many critics view it, at best, as high camp fun, and, at worst, as part of what critic David Marc once labeled the "Aryan melodramas" of the 1950s and 1960s. The brainchild...

The Case Of The Strange Bondfire (Aired June 8, 1952) There is actually a Black Museum. This area is located on the lower ground floor of Scotland Yard and it does indeed contain articles that are closely associated with the solving of a crime. And "Whitehall 1212" was the actual emergency phone number for the yard at the time. The research for the shows was done by Percy Hoskins, chief crime reporter for the London Daily Express. For the benefit of American audiences, Wyllis Cooper of Quiet...

Immortal Gentleman (Aired June 17, 1939) Arch Oboler's Plays was a radio drama series written, produced and directed by Arch Oboler. Minus a sponsor, it ran for one year, airing Saturday evenings on NBC from March 25, 1939 to March 23, 1940 and revived five years later on Mutual for a sustaining summer run from April 5, 1945 to October 11, 1945. Leading film actors were heard on this series, including Gloria Blondell, Eddie Cantor, James Cagney, Ronald Colman, Joan Crawford, Greer Garson,...

Doctor's Daughter Missing (Aired April 20, 1955) 21st Precinct was one of the realistic police drama series of the early- to mid-1950's that were aired in the wake of Dragnet. In 1953 CBS decided to use New York City as the backdrop for their own half-hour police series and focus on the day-to-day operation of a single police precinct. Actual cases were used as the basis for stories. The Precinct Captain acted as the narrator for the series.The official title of the series according to the...

Raiders On A Rubber Plantation (Aired February 3, 1951) The Man Called X had already aired--to great popular and critical acclaim--for almost five years prior to 1949. Indeed, within a year of airing Dangerous Assignment's Summer 1949 season, The Man Called X returned to the air for another two years. For one of those years, Dangerous Assignment and The Man Called X ran back to back in the NBC line-up. Of the two foreign intrigue anthologies, NBC seemed to continue to favor the Herbert...

The Big Dance (Aired September 4, 1948) Archie Andrews, created in 1941 by Bob Montana, is a fictional character in an American comic book series published by Archie Comics, a long-run radio series, a syndicated comic strip and animation -- The Archie Show, a Saturday morning cartoon television series by Filmation, plus Archie's Weird Mysteries. Archie Andrews began on the Blue Network on May 31, 1943, switched to Mutual in 1944, and then continued on NBC from 1945 until September 5 1953....

Once A Thief (Aired June 5, 2974) Rod Serling is known to most people as the TV host (and some times writer) for The Twilight Zone. A decade later, he returned to TV to host the spooky Night Gallery series. The series was sold to the networks on Serling's name and reputation, but in reality, he had signed away creative control. A few of his scripts were produced, but others were rejected for being "too thoughtful." (We can't have any of that on television, can we?) He was banned from the...

The Esther Phillips Case (Aired August 2, 1953) NBC 30 minutes Sunday at 9:30PM.Cast Paul Frees, James Edwards, Jester Hairston, Jay Loughlin, Jonathan Hole, Mady Norman, Don Brinkley (writer), Michael Samoge (? music), Warren Lewis (script supervisor), Homer Canfield (director), John Wald (announcer). Had a texture and sound not unlike Dragnet, indeed the influence was realized throughout the show. These were true stories of Crime and Punishment, the obvious difference that Dragnet began...

The Track Of The Cat (Aired February 5, 1950) Launched as an experiment in July, 1948, The following is a quote taken from the Peabody Award web site: The response to the first five performances, which included "A Farewell To Arms," by Ernest Hemingway, "Noon Wine," by Katherine Anne Porter, and "Main Street," by Sinclair Lewis, was so vociferous that the network pocketed any misgivings it may have had, moved the show to a more desirable hour, and found the actors and the funds to sustain a...

The Twenty Minute Alibi (Aired February 20, 1947) Two months into the Television run, CBS re-cast Casey and Ethelbert, substituting young Darren McGavin as Jack Casey. The most distinguishing element of the short-lived Television Casey was its direction, with the famed future Film Director Sidney Lumet helming the series. CBS and Coxe took another run at Crime Photographer over Radio in 1954, reprising Staats Cotsworth, John Gibson and Jan Miner in their previous Radio roles. The 1954 run...

Liability For Minors (Aired March 27, 1954) Thus with the pounding of the gavel, the fate of men and women have been decided by the judge. This is the story of our legal rights, the battle to preserve and protect them, and how easily they can be lost. The program shows us just how fragile liberty and justice can be. These stories of everyday events are still interesting, even after 50 years. Stories of criminal liability, legal wills, buying on installment, and leasing an apartment. Each...

Welcome Home (Aired May 20, 1945) As with The Mysterious Traveler that preceded it, The Sealed Book was an anthology of supernatural drama, produced and directed by Jock MacGregor for the Mutual network, and written by the extraordinary team of Robert Arthur and David Kogan. Indeed this same entire team of network, director, and writers were responsible for the entire run of The Mysterious Traveler. Going even further, The Sealed Book reprised 26 of the Arthur/Kogan scripts written for The...

The Ice Pick Murder (Aired September 16, 1950) A 30-minute crime drama starring Dan Duryea as Lou Dana, a tough police lieutenant with a tendency to beat information out of suspects. Dana's catch phrase was, "I don't like killers." Bill Bouchey was Inspector Sherman and music was by Basic Adams. His sniveling, deliberately taunting demeanor and snarling flat, nasal tones set Dan Duryea apart from other slimeball villains of the 1940s and 1950s. From his very first picture--the highly...

The Merchant Marines (Aired January 25, 1945) The Abbott and Costello Show mixed comedy with musical interludes (usually, by singers such as Connie Haines, Marilyn Maxwell, the Delta Rhythm Boys, Skinnay Ennis, and the Les Baxter Singers). Regulars and semi-regulars on the show included Artie Auerbrook, Elvia Allman, Iris Adrian, Mel Blanc, Wally Brown, Sharon Douglas, Verna Felton, Sidney Fields, Frank Nelson, Martha Wentworth, and Benay Venuta. Ken Niles was the show's longtime announcer,...

Boxcars711 Overnight Western "Gunsmoke" - The Killer (Aired February 13, 1954) The radio show first aired on April 26, 1952 and ran until June 18, 1961 on the CBS radio network. The series starred William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, and Parley Baer as Deputy Chester Proudfoot. Doc's first name and Chester's last name were changed for the television program. Gunsmoke was notable for its critically acclaimed cast and...

On Borrowed Time (Aired June 15, 1952) Best Plays presents theatrical paramounts of excellence. It's hosted by the drama critic of New York’s Daily News, John Chapman. Dramatic and comedic performances outshine other theater radio shows, greatly performed by such greats as Boris Karloff and Alfred Drake. In This Episode, On Borrowed Time a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how we cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway play, which was a smash...

Shanghaied (Aired September 1, 1955) X MINUS ONE was an NBC science fiction series that was an extension, or revival, of NBC's earlier science fiction series, Dimension X. which ran from Apr. 8, 1950 through Sept. 29, 1951. Both are remembered for bringing really first rate science fiction to the air. The first X Minus One shows used scripts from Dimension X, but soon created new shows from storied from the pages of Galaxy Magazine. A total of 125 programs were broadcast, some repeats or...

Murderous Poet (Aired October 4, 1951) Throughout the 1930s and '40s, Ann Sothern and Lucille Ball, like many performers in Hollywood, had not one but two careers - one in motion pictures and one on radio. MGM Studios had created the series of ten motion pictures based on a brash blonde with a heart "of spun gold." Maisie, the first in 1939, was from the book "Dark Dame" by the writer Wilson Collison, who did decades of scripting for the silver screen along with Broadway plays and magazine...

Appendicitis Operation At Sea (Aired August 17, 1950) The character was invented by the author Frederick Schiller Faust (aka Max Brand). The character began in the film series as a medical intern; after becoming a doctor he was mentored by an older physician, Dr. Leonard Gillespie. After the first ten films, the series eliminated the character of Kildare and focused instead on Gillespie. In the summer of 1949, MGM reunited Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore to record the radio series, The Story...

Gildy Turns Off The Water (Aired September 18, 1946) The Great Gildersleeve (1941-1957) was the arguable founding father of the spin-off program, as well as one of the first true situation comedies (as opposed to sketch programs) in broadcast history. Hooked around a character who had been a staple on the classic radio hit Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest period in the 1940s, when Harold Peary graduated the character from the earlier show into the sitcom...

Death Deals A Diamond (Aired July 17, 1947) Crime Club's premiere presentation was adapted from a Doubleday Crime Club selection from 1935 titled, Death Blew Out the Match, by Kathleen Moore Knight, from her Elisha Macomber series. The second selection of the series was For The Hangman, by John Stephen Strange, first published as a 1934 Doubleday Crime Club selection. Mr. Smith's Hat, Crime Club's 9th episode was a Doubleday Crime Club selection from 1936, by Helen Kiernan Reilly, part of...

Criss Cross (Starring Burt Lancaster) Aired October 10, 1949 The radio version ran for 122 episodes and aired on NBC from January 9, 1949 to September 28, 1951 under several different titles: NBC Theater, Screen Director's Guild Assignment, Screen Director's Assignment and, as of July 1, 1949, Screen Director's Playhouse. Actors on the radio series included Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert, Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich,...

Death Paints A Picture (Aired October 20, 1946) Danger, Dr Danfield was first broadcast on August 18, 1946 and consisted of 26 episodes with the last one being April 13, 1947. All episodes are available. It starred Michael Dunn as Dr. Danfield, with JoAnne Johnson as Rusty Fairfax, his secretary. The series was written by Ralph Wilkinson and produced by Wally Ramsey. The show had a formula with the crime usually being committed in the first third of the program, the good doctor solving it in...

The Jackson Hospital Plan (Aired November 30, 1948) Life with Luigi was a radio comedy-drama series which began September 21, 1948 on CBS. The story concerned Italian immigrant Luigi Basco, and his experiences as an immigrant in Chicago. Many of the shows take place at the US citizenship classes that Luigi attends with other immigrants from different countries, as well as trying to fend off the repeated advances of the morbidly-obese daughter of his landlord/sponsor. Luigi was played by J....

Death & The Compass (Aired October 26, 1984) The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) began airing a fascinating range of classic, mystery, comedy, documentary, and supernatural drama throughout the 1970s to 1990s to a steadily expanding audience--both in Canada and throughout the northern portions of the U.S. The CBC's extensive Radio offerings were a fairly even mix of organic dramas and comedies showcasing Canada's own great actors, writers and production talent, as well as several...