Super-Special Halloween Extravaganza: Crybaby Bridge

Creepy Corben Kid welcomes you to a special production of the Frazier's Brain Theater of the Ear. Tonight's tale of madness: Crybaby Bridge.

Many, many huge mega-thanks to sargon and naamah for agreeing to do voices (and following through even after reading the script). The story is an homge to the great radio horror shows of the past, Lights Out and Quiet Please. Lights Out took particular delight in having characters die in gruesome and graphic ways, while Quiet Please featured "the man who spoke to you" telling tales bookended by a mournful piano.

This story does both. Not particularly well, but...

It's not the best story I've written, but writing something like this as a radio script is difficult to master. I will say this: I put a hell of a lot of work into this, so I hope you enjoy it.

Runtime is approximately 18:30. File size is almost 18 Megs. Music is by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/”

"Crybaby Bridge" copyright 2010 Tony Frazier. Recording can be distributed under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/”

Now turn out your lights and enjoy the show. Dean Stockwell certainly plans to.

Shout-Out-Cast

Although I have written on many occasions about the old-time radio show that airs Sunday nights on KFAQ, I must confess that I have stopped listening to it in the past month or so. There were several reasons. They had cut the show from three hours to two. They had started inserting frequent commercials into the live webcast of the show that were not present on air, meaning that the show you were listening to would cut off suddenly in the middle for three minutes or more, then be rejoined in progress later on (meaning you just missed whatever happened during those three minutes).

And the mix of shows was becoming less interesting. There were more newscasts and nostalgic sports shows, fewer dramas and comedies. And of course, host Joe Riddle is a huge fan of Lum and Abner, going so far as to sometimes air two episodes a night. And since I've never much liked the boys from Pine Ridge, Arkansas, that would add up to a fourth of the show that I couldn't stand.

Luckily, the awesome Eilis O'Neal (who also happens to be one of our Atlantis Irregulars) brought me a flyer from local bookstore Gardner's Used Books, who have started up an on-line old-time radio station at gbsradionetwork.com. They actually have several stations, broken out by genre. I've been listening to the horror station, of course, because it's October.

In general, I like the mix of shows. They play the usual suspects: Lights Out, The Hermit's Cave, Quiet Please. However, one odd feature is that they don't seem to play any Inner Sanctum, the American show which was introduced by the famous "creaking door." However, they play the hell out of a British take-off titled The Creaking Door. One caveat: the audio quality is really variable (a frequent danger with old radio transcription disks). Some programs can barely be understood.

But I like the idea a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop the concept further.

In other news, I still haven't gotten things rolling on my big Halloween Secret Project, but I've been rolling ideas around and work should start in earnest next week.

Blast From the Past-Big Audio Special

No Movie Monday today due to disruptions in work schedule, so for one week only, enjoy this Big Audio Special.

In 1946, Standard Oil sponsored a splashy new radio show titled Let George Do It. It was a wacky comedy starring Bob Bailey as George Valentine, a veteran returned from the war who placed a classified ad in the paper advertising his availability as a troubleshooter.

Do you have a crime that needs solving? Do you have a dog that needs walking? Do you have a wife that needs spanking? Let George Do It.

He was aided in his adventures by his teenaged assistant Sonny Brooks and Sonny's gorgeous older sister, Claire. The production values were first-rate, including a full orchestra, though the writing was less so. There are only a few of the first season's adventures on Internet Archive, but they include mysteries and other capers like finding a wife for George's pig farmer cousin and helping a western movie star overcome his fear of horses.

By the second year, Sonny was gone, and Claire had evolved from Sonny's ingenue sister to "Brooksie," George's sexy secretary/girlfriend (played for mucht of the series by Virginia Gregg who, among a host of other roles, played the voice of Norman Bates's mother in "Psycho" and did the voice of Tara on The Herculoids). George was less wacky troubleshooter and more straight-up private eye and there was no more mention of dog-walking or wife-spanking. Instead, there was simply a terse statement along these lines (there were several different variations)

Personal Notice: Danger is my stock in trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, then you've got a job for me, George Valentine. Write full details.

This would be followed by an excerpt from the letter from that week's desperate individual in need of help. Murder and fraud followed George everywhere he went. The show also featured several well-known radio voices as guest players, like Howard McNear and William Conrad.

In January 1949, the orchestra was replaced by an organ as the budget dropped. The show continued to run until 1954, with Olan Soule replacing Bailey for that last season and Pream Coffee Creamer replacing Standard Oil as the sponsor. Bailey moved on to star as my personal favorite radio detective, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

You can find episodes here.

Moment of Truth

Well, it looks as if my Box.net account is coming up for renewal. So now I'm stuck wondering if it's worth scraping together eighty bucks to maintain Big Audio Wednesday for another year, or just let it fade into oblivion. I really enjoy Big Audio Wednesdays, but being unemployed makes it hard to justify keeping the feature going.

Big Audio Wednesday - Rocky Fortune

So last week I posted the Jack Benny episode that prompted me to start talking about old radio shows on here, and I mentioned that this week would continue the Sinatra theme. Thus this week's two-episodes-for-the-price-of-one special: Rocky Fortune.

Sinatra was well known as a pop music star/heartthrob, but by 1953, his acting career was starting to take off as well, so NBC gave him his own starring vehicle. Sinatra played Rocco Fortunato, aka Rocky Fortune, a small-timer fromn New York who takes odd jobs from an employment agency and always seems to get involved in murder and mystery along the way.

The shows are breezy and fun, and Sinatra's casual approach to Fortune stands as a stark contrast to the more straitlaced heroes of the usual detective and mystery shows.

Two episodes here, presented for your enjoyment. In the first, "Companion to a Chimp," Fortune is hired to take care of a simian TV star, a take-off on J. Fred Muggs, the chimp who was a regular mascot on the Today Show at the time this episode aired (Muggs later got too old to do TV, so NBC replaced him with Katie Couric).

The second episode actually has a sci-fi connection. It's "Rocket Racket," in which an eccentric Texan millionaire hires Fortune to test-fly his prototype spaceship. The episode was written by show creator George Lefferts, who had previously worked on the science fiction anthology shows X Minus One and Dimension X.

Click the widget and enjoy.

Big Audio Wednesday - The Benny That Started It All

The first time I really posted about old radio, more than 2 years ago, I mentioned an old Jack Benny episode that I'd heard on local radio. Frank Sinatra was the guest, still early in his career, his Vegas years with the Rat Pack still ahead of him, so all the jokes about him were either about his sex symbol status or about how he was so skinny.

So I was searching around for something cool to post, and found some stuff with Frank Sinatra, but figured I'd post this first. So click the widget and enjoy this episode of Jack Benny. It's good on its own, but it also serves as a good teaser for next week's Sinatra two-for-one.

Big Audio Wednesday - Theater Five

According to the notes on its Internet Archive page, Theater Five was an attempt by ABC in the 60's to revive radio drama. CBS would make another attempt in the late 70's with CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

Theater Five episodes open with a snippet of dialogue from the show, setting up a moment of tension, followed by the jazzy theme song. The theme song sounds like something from a TV show of the time, bombastic horns over bongos with an announcer giving the episode title as in a Quinn Martin show. "Tonight's episode: Incident at Apogee."

"Incident at Apogee," broadcast in 1964, isn't actually science fiction. It's a domestic drama that takes place during man's first walk in space (which occurred in real life on June 3, 1965 during the Gemini 4 mission). So it's more "ripped from the headlines" than speculative. But the actual sci-fi episodes of Theater Five were pretty awful, cliched stuff, so this episode stands out in that respect.

It was written by William N. Robson, an old veteran who in previous decades had worked on Escape, one of the best dramas on radio. In the early 60's, Robson had been making documentaries for Voice of America.

The early episodes of the series (of which this is one) feature fairly strong stories. Later episodes were weaker (not surprising when you consider how many scripts the show burned through at 5 days a week), and the series was dropped in less than a year after 260 episodes.

So take a deep breath, click the widget and enjoy "Incident at Apogee." There's no air in space, you know.

Big Audio Wednesday - Chick Carter, Boy Detective

I was hoping to track down some episodes of Blackhawk, but couldn't find any. So instead enjoy a quick episode of Chick Carter, Boy Detective.

When I was a kid, my mom had a record called "Themes Like Old Times," which featured the opening minute or so of about 60 old radio shows. Some of them were generic, but some were very distinctive, like the creaking door of Inner Sanctum or the dramatic narration followed by a snippet of "Night on Bald Mountain" that opens Escape.

One of the other most distinctive openings was Chick Carter, Boy Detective.

Chick Carter was a show about the adopted son of fictional detective Nick Carter, featured in pulp magazines and on his own radio show, Nick Carter, Master Detective. It was a kid's show, but it was no Encyclopedia Brown. In the episode posted below, Chick works with the police to solve a murder. This episode is nothing special, part of an ongoing storyline. I include it mainly because of the nostalgia of the opening.

The opening features a ham radio-sounding broadcast from callsign Mutual to callsign Y-O-U, immediately making the audience part of the story.

Click the widget to listen.

Big Audio Wednesday - Too Many Blue Beetles

Just one episode today, or perhaps I should say two. Like the previous Blue Beetle episodes I've posted, there are two episodes in one file.

Like the 60's Batman TV show, Blue Beetle was broadcast twice a week, with one storyline spanning both episodes.

In this week's story, the Blue Beetle battles a new syndicate that has a sinister plan to discredit him by hiring thugs to commit crimes while wearing copies of his costume. So that plot was probably getting old by 1940, when this show was first broadcast. Audio quality is pretty poor on this one, and there are no technological breakthroughs like the previous episode I posted in which Dr. Franz sends the Blue Beetle extra "vitality" via cell phone (or as a gamer friend likes to say, "let me text you some hit points"), but the savage ending makes up for it, I think. Take my word for it, you don't want to impersonate the Blue Beetle.

Click the widget to listen and enjoy.

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, the Final Chapter

So here they are, the final six episodes of the Atom Man storyline from 1945.

One thing that struck me when listening to the story the first time was how bloodthirsty the story was for what was ostensibly a children's show. Multiple characters die off in gruesome ways and the death trap Sidney sets up for Superman is one of the most sadistic I've ever heard of. But kid's entertainment was different back then, nine years before Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent.

The other thing that strikes me, which I've already remarked on a few times, but which bears repeating, is how sophisticated the storytelling is. Although most children's entertainment was based around kids' short attention spans, this long form story includes twists and turns to rival any mother's soap opera or modern serial drama. All in brisk fifteen-minute chunks that have no problem holding a kid's attention.

But radio serials weren't unique in that regard. Many comic strips employed the same tricks, telling longer stories over the course of weeks and months in tiny chunks. Dick Tracy's epic battle against Flattop lasted over a year, I think.

The story so far:

Nazi scientist Der Teufel injected young Henry Miller with a solution of dissolved Kryptonite to transform him into an Atom Man, with the ability to shoot rays of radioactive death from his hands. Miller, having killed both his first mentor Der Teufel and his second mentor, the criminal genius known only as Sidney, has set off on a destructive rampage to destroy Metropolis in retaliation for the defeat of Germany.

Meanwhile, a powerless Superman lies buried alive in a bunker underneath the murdered Sidney's garage. Even if he can get himself free, he is powerless in the Atom Man's presence and has already been defeated by him twice. How can he possibly prevail?

Click the widget to listen. Files will autoplay in order.

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, wk. 6

Five years after this serial aired on radio, Columbia produced its second movie serial starring Kirk Alyn as Superman, titled "Atom Man vs. Superman."

However, the storyline had nothing to do with the radio storyline. The plot involved Lex Luthor inventing a synthetic form of Kryptonite and using it to menace Superman. The serial, with its ultra-low budget and limited special effects, couldn't have mimicked the plotline of the radio serial. The massive destruction the Atom Man causes, to the house in Germany and to the beach cabin, as well as later events in the storyline, could not be recreated on a 50's movie serial budget.

Oh, and another thing: when I posted the Superman/Batman team-up back in December, I mentioned that I found Batman's vulnerability refreshing. The same thing is in evidence here. Superman in 1945 was not the impossibly noble icon he would become in the 50's and beyond. Instead, he is by turns devious, stupid, and in his encounters with Kryptonite and Atom Man, fearful. Fearful in a way and to a degree you would never imagine the modern-day iteration of the character acting. The helpless desperation in Bud Collyer's voice when Atom Man has him cornered is something completely unfamiliar, but not entirely unpleasant. Superman on radio is a real guy.

The story so far:

Nazi scientist Der Teufel injected chemist's son Henry Miller with a solution of dissolved Kryptonite to create an Atom Man who, with the help of a converter box and metallic gloves, can project rays of atomic destruction from his hands. In their first encounter, Atom Man blasted a helpless Superman into a coma, then attempted to destroy Metropolis for the glory of the Fatherland. He failed, having exhausted the energy of the Kryptonite in his blood in his battle with Superman.

With the help of a mysterious criminal mastermind named Sidney, Miller obtained more Kryptonite and renewed his powers. Meanwhile, Superman had a device built to warn of Kryptonite radiation nearby; the device was built into a belt that Clark Kent now wears.

Miller, having learned Superman's secret identity while posing as a reporter for the Daily Planet, helps Sidney set a trap for Superman. Sidney lures Kent to his house on the pretense of exposing Superman's secret identity, while the Atom Man hides in a closet with leaded mirror doors and thick lead paint that is opaque to Superman's X-ray vision.

What will happen next? Click the widget to listen (files will auotplay in order).

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, wk. 5

It may not seem very remarkable today, but the continuity in these radio serials was completely unknown to comics readers of the time. I have no hard evidence to support this, but I suspect that The Adventures of Superman radio series transformed comics writing.

Not right away, understand. But Golden Age comics were horribly written, with stories churned out in great quantities at high speed with little care given to craft. Character development, continuity, building suspense, complex plotting: none of these existed in comics which consisted mainly of 6- and 8-page stories. The comics were all about action, action, action, every page bursting with color and speed lines.

But there are no colors or speed lines on radio. So the writers of the Superman serial had to take this character, stripped of his visual appeal, and somehow write compelling stories about him. And what they did changed the character, and the face of comics, forever.

They introduced a supporting cast, including editor Perry White and cub reporter Jimmy Olsen. They introduced a weakness for Superman: Kryptonite. They concentrated on mystery stories that forced Superman to use his wits rather than his fists.

And with Henry Miller, the Atom Man, they introduced perhaps the first authentic supervillain.

Villains in the comics were usually gangsters or petty crooks with a clever gimmick. The closest they got to honest-to-goodness supervillians were the evil geniuses, mad scientists who used their knowledge to create horrible menaces like death rays or fire apes. Superman had by this time met villains like Lex Luthor and the Ultra-Humanite (who was a disembodied genius brain who possessed other bodies, but was otherwise a Luthor clone). He had also met that merry prankster, Mr. Mxyzptlk, whose magical powers caused Superman great headaches.

But Atom Man was something different: a deadly serious bad guy who could stand toe-to-toe with Superman and and beat him in a fight. That just didn't happen. The whole point of Superman, the whole appeal, was that he could beat anybody with one punch, as long as he knew whom to punch.

In that sense, Atom Man could be the precursor to the whole range of supervillains populating comics today. Even if he's not the first, the sheer popularity of the radio program would make him probably the most influential.

Before we jump into the program, though, one other observation: is it just me, or does the announcer, when he's doing the commercials hyping those ubiquitous comic buttons, sound like he's saying "commie buttons?" Was this some sinister cereal-fueled plot to turn our kids into Commies?

'Collect all your favorites--Stalin, Lenin, and of course, there's lovable old Trotsky with his little beard. Wear 'em on your jacket or trade with your friends. Just make sure not to ask any questions if your friend shows up with a button missing...'

Anyway, enjoy the next weeks' worth of programs.

The story so far:

In their first battle, Atom Man zapped Superman into a near-death coma, killed his mentor Der Teufel, then left to attack Metropolis. However, his battle with Superman had exhausted the Kryptonite energy in his blood. So he contacted the mysterious fat man, Sidney, to obtain more Kryptonite from the Scarlet Widow.

Meanwhile, Superman's comatose body was discovered by hunters and taken to the hospital, where doctors were unable to help him due to his impenetrable skin. He finally revived enough to escape the hospital and made his way back to the Daily Planet as Clark Kent, still dazed and incoherent. Perry White decided to take him to Florida to recuperate.

Enjoy.

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, wk 4

Extra-bonus week in the continuing Superman vs. Atom Man saga. I've added two extra episodes this week, so that we end on a Friday.

It's hard to understand nowadays just how fresh everything in this storyline was to the listeners of that time. The war in Europe had ended less than six months before, so Nazis were still a real menace. Hiroshima had been bombed less than three months previously, so that was even fresher in people's minds. The general public had no idea how atomic power could change the world; they only knew it would (and arguably already had).

The storyline so far:

Nazi mad scientist Der Teufel has used a fragment of kryptonite to transform Heinrich Milch into the Atom Man. With the use of metallic gloves and a throat converter that focuses his power (and also changes his voice), the Atom Man can shoot green rays that destroy anything in their path.

Posing as reporter Henry Miller, Atom Man lured first Jimmy Olsen, and then Clark Kent (whom Miller knows is Superman) to a remote cabin in the woods. Weakened by the radiation of the kryptonite in Miller's blood, Superman could only look on helplessly as the Atom Man prepared to destroy him.

And now, enjoy The Adventures of Superman from November 1945...

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, wk 3

Continuing the epic story of Superman's confrontation with the Atom Man from October 1945.

If the Atom Man's voice sounds familiar, just imagine him saying, "With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good."

That's right, it's this guy.

Mason Adams. I remember him mainly as editor Charlie Hume on Lou Grant, the dramedy spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. But he's played so many different supporting roles in so many shows and movies that you might recognize the voice and be able to picture the face without knowing exactly where you remember him from. He's one of those guys.

The story so far:

Nazi scientist Der Teufel has injected Heinrich Milch, son of renowned chemist Dr. Milch, with a solution of dissolved kryptonite. With the use of metallic gloves and a convertor box attached to his throat, Milch can focus the kryptonite radiation into a beam of terrible destructive power.

Der Teufel has told Heinrich that his father was murdered by Allied soldiers and sent Milch to Metropolis to take revenge by killing Superman and then taking over the world (in fact, it was Der Teufel himself who murdered the scientist). Milch, who studied in America and speaks fluent English, has adopted the identity Henry Miller and gotten a job at the Daily Planet in an attempt to track down Superman. When Miller met Clark Kent, the kryptonite in his bloodstream caused Kent to become dazed and weak, leading Lois to call a "rest farm" to have him committed.

What will happen next on The Adventures of Superman?

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman vs. Atom Man, wk 2

Continuing the long "Superman vs. Atom Man" storyline. I should probably adjust the number of episodes so that I can present an actual chronological week at a time. Right now, I'm doing Thursday through Wednesday. But if I adjust to Monday through Friday, we would end with even bigger cliffhangers.

The story so far: ex-Nazi scientist Der Teufel has obtained a (very rare at the time) sample of Kryptonite, a radioactive mineral fragment of Superman's homeworld. While Superman and Allied occupation forces search for Der Teufel in Germany, the scientist is moving forward with his plan to create an Atom Man, who will bring first Superman, then the world, to their knees. In this, he has enlisted the aid of a chemist named Milch and his son.



I should probably make some kind of graphic for Big Audio Wednesdays.

(ETA--Oops--I accidentally put Big Audio Thursday instead of Wednesday in the title - corrected now)

Big Audio Wednesday - Superman Returns

As a daily serial, The Adventures of Superman often played out like a soap opera, spinning out extended stories undreamed of in the comics where Superman was born. And one of the longest and most elaborate was "Superman vs. Atom Man," running from early October to early December of 1945.

The storyline had its earliest beginnings right after the end of "Dr. Blythe's Confidence Gang," the Superman/Batman storyline I posted back in January. Superman learned that the (at the time) only Kryptonite meteor on earth had been stolen from the Metropolis Museum, and was desperate to get it back. Turns out the meteor was stolen by a woman named the Scarlet Widow, who broke the meteor into four pieces and put them up for sale to four of the most notorious criminals in the world, including an ex-Nazi scientist named Der Teufel (The Devil). The price: one million dollars each.

After the Widow has demonstrated the Kryptonite's effectiveness to her potential customers by taking Superman prisoner, Der Teufel steals his piece at gunpoint and flees. The Scarlet Widow vows revenge against Der Teufel and tries to use the Kryptonite to destroy Superman once and for all. She fails, of course, but by the time Superman recovers, both the Widow and the Kryptonite have disappeared.

In the meantime, Der Teufel has hatched a plan to use his Kryptonite fragment to create a super-warrior powerful enough to destroy Superman--an Atom Man.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha....

And now...

Big Audio Wednesday - Gunsmoke

Figured I'd have to get around to Gunsmoke eventually. It was a radio phenomenon that became a television phenomenon, the longest-running primetime show ever (at least until The Simpsons).

But if you've never been exposed to Gunsmoke, or if your only exposure (like mine) was the later seasons of the TV show, then you're in for a surprise. Gunsmoke was a relatively dark and edgy show on radio, with a surprisingly bitter main character in William Conrad's Matt Dillon.

I had a long hard time trying to pick an episode to post here, though. There's lots of good stuff in several of them, but few episodes seem to resolve well. And of course, there's no sci-fi or fantasy in any of them, except for one comic episode where a con man fools a few townspeople into thinking he's invented a "silver extender," a machine that can clone money.

I ultimately chose this episode, "Bum's Rush," just because it has so many of the elements of a classic Gunsmoke. Matt as the U.S. Marshall doing his job to the letter even as he seems to hate every moment of it, Doc rubbing his hands with glee over the prospect of violence in town because it means work for him, Matt facing off against his own neighbors as he also has to try to stop the bad guys, a conclusion that brings justice but not happiness.

Oh, and because it guest-stars John Dehner, a frequent player who also became a fixture of television. Always a guest-star, never a star, Dehner appeared in three episodes of the original Twilight Zone, as well as lesser science-fiction "classics" like Land of the Giants and "Day of the Dolphin."

So enjoy this episode of Gunsmoke from April 18, 1953.

Big Audio Wednesday - Dragnet

Not much of an entry today. The program is the radio version of Dragnet, starring Jack Webb. Like Gunsmoke, the radio version feels grittier than the TV version did, but at heart, they're the same show, from the opening theme, to Webb's opening narration, to the clipped dialogue and Webb's unfunny final punch line, to the announcer telling us that the story is true and what sentence the perps received.

Included here not because I have a special love of Dragnet, although I watched a lot of it when I was a kid. But in this episode, :Big Genius," not one, but two characters have the same names as Heroes villains. Having one character with the same name is not so big a deal, but when two characters are named in the same sentence, it gives you a weird twinge of recognition.

So here's Dragnet from July 12, 1955. Enjoy. Click the widget to listen.

Big Audio Wednesday - Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

A mystery this week, one of my favorite storylines from my favorite radio mystery series. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar features the adventures of "the man with the action-packed expense account."

Yeah, as a catch phrase, it sucks, but as a hook to draw you into the mysteries, it isn't bad. Basically, every episode is narrated by insurance investigator Dollar as he accounts the expenses he rang up while investigating that week's mystery. The show started out as a series of self-contained episodes, with the title role played by various actors.

In 1955, the show became serialized--each week's story was split into five fifteen-minute chapters that would run Monday through Friday-- and Bob Bailey took over the title role, giving Dollar a heart and a personality that the previous actors couldn't match. The mysteries, written by Jack Johnstone, were engrossing, and the production values, including the lush score, were top-notch.

Here are the five chapters from the week of June 4, 1956, "The Indestructible Mike Matter." Although there are none of the usual hooks for this blog--no superheroes, no sci-fi, no fantasy--Mike does seem to have at least one superpower. And there are a couple of other tie-ins, as well. Guest-starring in this week's shows is Howard McNear (I believe he's playing Mike) who was the star of last week's "Speed Gibson" shows. Another player is Herb Vigran, a longtime character actor who made six appearances on the George Reeves Adventures of Superman TV series.

So click the widget, sit back and enjoy the adventures of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar as he tries to save the life of a lovable lush (drunk people are funny) in "The Indestructible Mike Matter."

Big Audio Thursday - Speed Gibson

This one's pitched at younger audiences, but it's a darned addictive show.

Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police debuted in January 1937, and concerned the adventures of Clint Barlow, top "operator" for the International Secret Police, and his 15-year-old nephew, Speed Gibson. Barlow and Gibson, along with Barlow's partner, Barney Dunlap, go on global adventures in pursuit of the crime lord, The Octopus. Clint Barlow was played by Howard McNear (Doc on radio's Gunsmoke, and later Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show).

Speed's adventures are fast-moving cliffhangers, full of travel and international intrigue. In the first long storyline, Speed is inducted into the Secret Police, then the trio go on a trip to China to battle the Octopus's trade in slaves and drugs. Part action story, part travelogue, Speed Gibson took listeners to the far corners of the world and plunged them into exciting adventures.

These shows are fascinating to listen to. The early episodes involve a trip on the China Clipper across the Pacific, to places like Guam and Midway and Wake Island, before they were indelibly associated with the major battles of WWII. It's impossible to listen to later episodes without feeling a twinge at the outrageous Chinese accents the actors use, and much later episodes set in Africa have all kinds of problems, but Speed Gibson tried hard to avoid stereotypes and devoted a lot of time to conveying the wonders of other cultures.

I'm including the first five episodes here. They're only fifteen minutes apiece, so they move pretty quickly. So travel back to a time when one could refer to heroes as being members of the International Secret Police without irony and enjoy the adventures of Speed Gibson (click the widget to listen).