Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod

The Wireless Set (Aired September 21, 1952) This series was very similar to the Black Museum that was hosted by Orson Welles. Both the Black Museum and Whitehall 1212 drew their material from the files of Scotland Yard. The stories were true in every respect except that the names were changed to protect the innocent, as they say. The Whitehall 1212 series boasted that for the first time Scotland Yard opened its files and the producers promised to bring to the public authentic true stories...

Duration:00:29:31

The New Adventures Of Michael Shayne - The Case Of The Left Handed Fan (10-16-48)

The Case Of The Left-Handed Fan (Aired October 16, 1948) Michael Shayne was a fictional sleuth created by Brett Halliday (a pen name for author Davis Dresser) who was first initiated into the fraternity for detectives in the 1939 novel "Dividend of Death". Dresser based the character on a “tall and rangy” brawler who once saved his life during a braw in a Mexican cantina. The Shayne character would go on to appear in 69 novels, plus a long-running mystery magazine—and in 1941, was brought...

Duration:00:26:12

The Milton Berle Show - A Salute To Football (11-04-47)

A Salute To Football (Aired November 4, 1947) The Milton Berle Show brought Berle together with Arnold Stang, later a familiar face as Berle's TV sidekick. Others in the cast were Pert Kelton, Mary Schipp, Jack Albertson, Arthur Q. Bryan, Ed Begley, vocalist Dick Forney and announcer Frank Gallop. The Ray Bloch Orchestra provided the music for the series. Sponsored by Philip Morris, it aired on NBC from March 11, 1947, until April 13, 1948. His last radio series was The Texaco Star Theater,...

Duration:00:26:27

Dimension X - The Last Objective (06-03-51)

The Last Objective (Aired June 03, 1951) Dimension X was first heard on NBC April 8, 1950, and ran until September 29, 1951. Strange that so little good science fiction came out of radio; they seem ideally compatible, both relying heavily on imagination. Some fine isolated science fiction stories were developed on the great anthology shows, Suspense and Escape. But until the premiere of Dimension X -- a full two decades after network radio was established -- there were no major science...

Duration:00:24:04

Dangerous Assignment - Recovering A Civil War Map (12-16-50)

Recovering A Civil War Map (Aired December 16, 1950) Dangerous Assignment stands as one of the most durable programs of its genre and era in the waning days of The Golden Age of Radio. Espionage or foreign intrigue dramas weren't particularly groundbreaking undertakings by the 1950s. Bulldog Drummond was the first of the more successful exemplars of Radio espionage and intrigue, running from 1941 to 1954, most often under the lead of the gifted character actor, George Coulouris. The...

Duration:00:28:31

Danger With Granger - Marriage Minded Girl (1956)

Marriage Minded Girl (1956) *The Exact Date Is Unknown. Danger With Granger arrived too late in the Golden Age of Radio to have any real impact on the listening public. Mutual aired this show, starting in 1956, on Monday nights at 8:30 pm. It was a half hour show that featured a private eye in New York City, STEVE GRANGER. His two primary companions were Cal Hendrix, a reporter who served as an all-purpose source of criminal info, and Jake Rankin, a police detective with whom he had a...

Duration:00:25:14

The Adventures Of The Falcon - The Case Of The Gorgeous Greek (08-14-52)

The Case Of The Gorgeous Greek (Aired August 14, 1952) This hard boiled detective drama began as an RKO Radio Pictures theatrical serial in the 1940s, went on radio in 1945, and then came to TV ten years later in this Syndicated series produced for distribution by NBC Films; Charles McGraw had been in many motion pictures before and after including "The Killers", "Spartacus" and "Cimarron"; in this series he played the title role of a man whose real name was supposedly Mike Waring, an...

Duration:00:29:35

Family Doctor - 2 Episodes From 1932

Family Doctor - "New York" & "Out Of Control" 1932 Over the years, many television series, books, and movies have taken a longing look at the past in programs such as Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons which served as a reminder of old fashioned values and a time when a sense of community was a reality. The quest for this sort of world continues in the 21st Century with the rise of Amish fiction stories. Family Doctor is not taking a look back, but is set in the then-present which...

Duration:00:25:22

Let George Do It - Every Shot Counts (10-31-49)

Every Shot Counts (Aired October 31, 1949) Let George Do It was a radio drama series produced by Owen and Pauline Vinson from 1946 to 1954. It starred Bob Bailey as detective-for-hire George Valentine (with Olan Soule stepping into the role in 1954). Clients came to Valentine's office after reading a newspaper carrying his classified ad: "Personal notice: Danger's my stock in trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me. George Valentine. "The few earliest...

Duration:00:27:21

John Steele Adventurer - The Cape Or The Shroud (1950)

The Cape Or The Shroud (1950) *The Exact Date Is Unknown. From 1949-1956 the Mutual Broadcasting System ran a series entitled John Steele, Adventurer. This was an anthology series, introduced by the title character, who has apparently had trouble keeping a job: he served at various times as ship's captain, baseball league president, county sheriff, State Department special agent in Turkey, etc. Each story is told from the point of view of the main character, a friend of Steele's. Steele...

Duration:00:25:16

Jeff Regan Investigator - No Sad Clowns For Me (06-25-50)

No Sad Clowns For Me (Aired June 25, 1950) Jeff Regan, Investigator was one of the three detective shows Jack Webb did before Dragnet (see also Pat Novak For Hire and Johnny Modero: Pier 23). It debuted on CBS in July 1948. Webb played JEFF REGAN, a tough private eye working in a Los Angeles investigation firm run by Anthony J. Lyon. Regan introduced himself on each show "I get ten a day and expenses...they call me the Lyon's Eye." The show was fairly well-plotted, Webb's voice was great,...

Duration:00:30:28

The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny - Goodbye 1938 (01-01-39)

Goodbye 1938 (Aired January 1, 1939) Benny had been only a minor vaudeville performer, but he became a national figure with The Jack Benny Program, a weekly radio show which ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS, and was consistently among the most highly rated programs during most of that run. With Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program, beginning May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing there for six months until...

Duration:00:29:08

The Damon Runyon Theater - Earthquake (04-10-49)

Earthquake (Aired April 10, 1949) The Damon Runyon Theater was a show series that was syndicated across the USA beginning in early 1949. Damon Runyon was a gifted sports writer in New York City as well as being a great journalist and great short story writer. His stories were humorous ones, written in the "dem" and "dose" vernacular of the city's loveable and not so loveable characters of Broadway, the prize ring and the underworld. His most famous collection of short stories, Guys and...

Duration:00:27:05

Crime Does Not Pay - All-American Fake (10-17-49)

All-American Fake (Aired October 17, 1949) Crime Does Not Pay was an anthology radio crime drama series based on MGM's short film series. The films began in 1935 with Crime Does Not Pay: Buried Loot. For the most part, actors who appeared in B-films were featured, but occasionally, one of MGM's major stars would make an appearance. The radio series aired in New York on WMGM (October 10, 1949-October 10, 1951) and then moved to the Mutual network (January 7-December 22, 1952). Actors...

Duration:00:26:35

The Crime Club - The Topaz Flower (04-24-47)

The Topaz Flower (Aired April 24, 1947) Crime club literary selections were all the rage during the first half of the 20th century. Doubleday was the first to form a literary Crime Club in 1928. Doubleday's distinctive 'Crime man' (left sidebar) was strategically imprinted on their Doubleday Crime Club selections. The Collins Publishing House in England had their Collins Crime Club launched in 1930, issuing Agatha Christie's first novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, as one of their first...

Duration:00:29:27

This Is Your FBI - The Case Of The Escaped Nazi Prisoners Of War (04-27-45)

The Case Of The Escaped Nazi Prisoners Of War (Aired April 27, 1945) This Is Your FBI was a radio crime drama which aired in the United States on ABC from April 6, 1945 to January 30, 1953. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave it his endorsement, calling it "the finest dramatic program on the air." Producer-director Jerry Devine was given access to FBI files by Hoover, and the resulting dramatizations of FBI cases were narrated by Frank Lovejoy (1945), Dean Carleton (1946-47) and William Woodson...

Duration:00:29:28

Our Miss Brooks - Surprise Party AKA: Putting The Bite On Miss Brooks (10-24-48)

Surprise Party AKA: Putting The Bite On Miss Brooks. (Aired October 24, 1948) Our Miss Brooks, an American situation comedy, began as a radio hit in 1948 and migrated to television in 1952, becoming one of the earlier hits of the so-called Golden Age of Television, and making a star out of Eve Arden (1908-1990) as comely, wisecracking, but humane high school English teacher Connie Brooks. The show hooked around Connie's daily relationships with Madison High School students, colleagues, and...

Duration:00:29:24

Boxcars711 Overnight Western "The Six Shooter" - More Than Kin (12-13-53)