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- Feed Preview Golden Age Article – The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio
Audio Drama Review: CBS Radio Mystery Theatre: Your Move, Mr. Ellers
“Your Move, Mr. Ellers” aired over the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre on December 30, 1976. In the episode, an insurance investigator (Bob Readick) is investigating a series of thefts that have oc...
Book Review: The “Lost” Sam Spade Radio Scripts
Sam Spade, “The Greatest Private Detective of Them All”, thrilled listeners for the five years he was on the air. Most of that time, the character was played by Howard Duff. However, around...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 8
The eighth volume of The Great GIldersleeve from Radio Archives collects the twelve circulating episodes between episodes seventy-seven to ninety-one and all starring Harold Peary in the titula...
DVD Review: I Wake Up Screaming
In 1941’s I Wake Up Screaming (also known by the title Hot Spot), a waitress-turned-rising star (Carole Landis) is murdered just before she was set to travel from New York to Hollywood to begi...
Telefilm Review: Dante: Opening Night
In last week’s article, I highlighted TV programs that were not easily accessible due to copyright. Among them was Dante, the series starring Howard Duff as night club operator Willie Dante. ...
Dante and Other TV Shows in Copyright Limbo (UPDATED)
(See Update Below) After Howard Duff hung up his fedora as radio’s Sam Spade, he took on the role of Willie Dante in the 1960-61 NBC series Dante. He plays the operator of an illegal gambling ...
A Look at the Hardy Family
A big Hollywood studio grabs at a recently popular film franchise from the past, turns it into a series, and uses it as a centerpiece of a new package of programs. Sounds like the story of the la...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 7
The seventh volume of The Great Gildersleeve from Radio Archives features twelve episodes that aired between November 29, 1942 and April 4, 1943. This stretch of episodes continues along the sa...
Film Review: Who Done It?
Who Done It? is a 1942 Abbott and Costello film in which Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play two soda jerks who aspire to become radio mystery writers. However, their efforts to pitch a mystery get...
Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season One
A version of this article was posted in 2017. The Red Panda Adventures by Decoder Ring Theater was one of the earliest of the new podcast audio dramas to be released in recent years. It launched ...
Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice Season One
A version of this article was posted in 2017. Black Jack Justice was produced by Decoder Ring Theatre in Canada. Like The Red Panda, it’s a period series. Black Jack Justice is set after World ...
YouTube’s Content ID System Can’t Handle the Growing Public Domain
At the start of a recent episode of The Old Time Radio Snack Wagon, I featured a clip from Nora Bayes’ performance of, “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Par...
A Look at the Radio Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett
Even when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet had a certain reputation, as a somewhat bland brand of entertainment. Even though I watched a lot of rerun...
Audio Drama Review: Paul Temple: The Complete Radio Collection, Volume 2
The second volume of Paul Temple Radio Adventures collects all of the surviving BBC’s Paul Temple radio serials from the mid-to-late 1950s. These all star Peter Coke as mystery writer Paul Temp...
Book Review: The Labours of Hercules
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Audio Drama Review: Jimmy and the Star Angel
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Old Time Radio 101: Popular Horror and Science Fiction Anthology Programs
Previous Articles: Popular Sitcom/Variety Programs Popular Sitcoms and Game Shows
Old Time Radio 101: Popular Dramatic Anthology Programs
Previous Article: Popular Sitcom/Variety Programs Popular Sitcoms and Game Shows
Old Time Radio 101: Popular Crime and Detective Programs
Previous Article: Popular Sitcom/Variety Programs Popular Sitcoms and Game Shows
Old Time Radio 101: Popular Western and Adventure Programs
Previous Article: Popular Sitcom/Variety Programs Popular Sitcoms and Game Shows
Old Time Radio 101: Popular Sitcoms and Game Shows
Previous Article: Popular Sitcom/Variety Programs Amos and Andy: There are few shows from the Read more ...
Old Time Radio 101: Popular Comedy/Variety Shows
This is an article series that’s really written for people who have little to no background in the Golden Age of Radio. You might wonder what old-time radio programs are out there, and what are...
Streaming Review: The House on 92nd Street
While books, films, movies, and radio programs told all sorts of high-flying adventure and espionage stories during World War II, these were almost entirely fiction. Yet, as the war came to an en...
The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume Seven
Big Finish continues to put out new episodes in the world of that classic TV Spy/Mystery series The Avengers. As is the case with every volume of Avengers from Big Finish, Julian Wadham stars a...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume Six
Volume 6 of Radio Archive’s Great Gildersleeve features the final two episodes of the 1941-42 season and the start of the 1942-43 season, with Harold Peary as the Great Gildersleeve, Earle Ross...
The Oscar-Winning Short Films of John Nesbitt, Part Five: Goodbye, Miss Turlock
Previous Films: That Mothers Might Live, Of Pups Read more ...
The Oscar Winning Short-Films of John Nesbitt, Part Four: Stairway to Light
Previous Films: That Mothers Might Live, Of Pups a Read more ...
The Oscar-Winning Short Films of John Nesbitt, Part Three: Main Street on the March
Previous Films: That Mothers Might Live and Of P Read more ...
The Oscar-Winning Short-Films of John Nesbitt, Part Two: Of Pups and Puzzles
Previous Film: That Mothers Might Live Of Pups and Puzzles (1941) This short film is about a revolution in American industrial hiring practices. The one-reel film talks about the old way, Read mo...
The Oscar-Winning Short-Films of John Nesbitt, Part One: That Mothers Might Live
John Nesbitt was a mainstay of the Golden Age of Radio as one of radio’s great storytellers. Nesbitt was known for his Passing Parade, which aired for more than a decade, both as a stand-alone ...
Father Brown’s Not Buying It: A Review of the Incredulity of Father Brown
A version of this article was posted in 2011. Twelve years after his second Father Brown book, G.K. Chesterton brought readers a new collection in 1926 entitled, The Incredulity of Father Brown. ...
DVD Review: Father Dowling, Season Three
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DVD Review: The Father Dowling Mysteries, Season 2
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DVD Review: The Father Dowling Mysteries, Season One
A version of this article was originatlly published in 2014.
Audio Drama Review: Space 1999: Dragon’s Domain
Dragon’s Domain is the Third Box set in British Audio Drama producer Big Finish’s re-imagining of the Gerry Anderson classic series, Space 1999. It stars Mark Bonnar as Commander John Koen...
Streaming Review: Tales of Wells Fargo: New Orleans Trackdown
Synopsis Tales of Wells Fargo is set in the 1870s and 1880s. This episode came from a sixth and final season where the show expanded its format to an hour and went from black-and-white to color....
Streaming Review: No Escape
Note: Having done a lot of research for more recent Bob Bailey series, I decided it’d be worthwhile to review a couple of things I viewed starring Bob Bailey as part of the research. No Escape�...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 5
Volume 5 of the Radio Archives Great Gildersleeve (the third featuring Harold Peary) collection brings us near to the conclusion of the first season of The Great Gildersleeve. While it might ha...
The Bob Bailey Matter, Part Five
Continued from Part Four Her father was dead. Roberta Goodwin had come to accept this It’d been nine years since she’d seen him. She’d tried to find her dad, Bob Bailey. She’d contacted a...
The Bob Bailey Matter, Part Four
Continued from Part Three “You’re not Johnny Dollar.” The words had to sting. According to Bailey’s daughter, Roberta, Bob Bailey was given this message by CBS Television producers who ha...
The Bob Bailey Matter, Part Three
Continued from Part Two A Career Change A November 30, 1953 item in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen announced that fellow Chicago radio alum Olan Soule had succeeded Bailey as George Va Read more...
The Bob Bailey Matter, Part Two
Continued from Part One The Accidental Detective Bob Bailey’s big break came in a most unexpected way. He recorded multiple auditions for the Don Lee Mutual Network and station Lost Angeles rad...
The Bob Bailey Matter, Part One
Bob Bailey is a bit of an outlier among old-time radio stars. He led not one but two long-running detective programs for a total of twelve years (seven on Let George Go It and five on Yours Truly...
Imaginining A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Season Three
Last week, I wrote about the awful cancellation of A Nero Wolfe Mystery twenty-one years ago. This week, I want to continue the theme in a much more fun way. I’m going to imagine what Season ...
A Very Unsatisfactory Cancellation
In 2002, owing to a shift in television in general and A&E specifically towards cheap (in many senses of the word) reality television, A&E canceled A Nero Wolfe Mystery. The program chronicled t...
Streaming Review: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
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Fun Facts to Help Understand the World of Old Time Radio
I remember reading a few years back in a book that there’s such a thing as “the curse of knowledge.” The curse of knowledge is that when you know something, it’s very hard to imagine what...
Book Review: The Shadow: The Chinese Disks and Malmordo
While TV, film, and comic adaptations generally reign over their radio counterparts, The Shadow is one character who is (pardon the pun) overshadowed by the radio interpretation of the character,...
TV Series Review: Banacek
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What Makes Death on the Nile a Masterpiece
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My Top Six Most Wanted Missing Old Time Radio Episodes
A version of this article was posted in 2018. In podcasting, few things make me happier than getting word more detective radio programs have come into circulation. Over the last few seasons, we�...
DVD Review: A Night to Remember
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DVD Review: Sorry, Wrong Number
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How Radio Dramas Get Abandoned And How They Can Get a New Lease on Life
In my last article, I looked at five audio dramas that, while copyrighted, have been effectively abandoned by the rights holders. Why does this happen? The first reason is that audio dramas are v...
Five Copyrighted Radio Dramas That Appear to Have Been Abandonned
I’m going to be talking about actual copyrighted radio drama series which are: 1) under copyright, and 2) appear to have been abandoned by their possible rights-holders. Before writing about th...
Six Old-Time Radio Stars Who Appeared in Classic Disney Animated Films
Listening to old-time radio can often offer the benefit of letting you see or hear stars of other classic entertainment in a new light. For example, I grew up watching Lionel Barrymore play Mis...
Four Treasures for Fans of Golden Age Entertainment on YouTube
YouTube hosts a massive number of videos (800 million). On that massive site, there’s a lot that’s bad and a lot that’s good. Yet, if you’re a fan of the Golden Age of Entertainment, ther...
Book Review: The Golden Box
In the Golden Box (1942) by Frances Crane, Jean Holly returns to her small town to care for an ailing relative.The town matriarch dies, and then it appears that a servant has hanged herself, alt...
The Top Eleven Big Finish Stories of 2022, Part Two
Continued from Part One. We continue the countdown with my top five Big Finish stories of 2022: 5) Wulf by Aaron Lamont, starring Lisa Bowerman, from
The Top Eleven Big Finish Audio Releases of 2022, Part One
The last few years, I’ve completed rankings of the top ten individual stories from the British audio drama producer, Big Finish. This year, I’m doing a top eleven list due to a special circum...
Streaming Review: The Glass Onion
A multi-billionaire (Edward Norton) throws a murder mystery party for his closest associates (played by an all-star cast of Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, and Leslie Odom,Jr.). Everyon...
My Top 10 Old Time Radio Podcast Episodes of 2022
In 2022, we played 312 regular daily episodes of the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, plus several specials and also twenty-nine episodes of the Amazing World of Radio. From these, I’ve chos...
Telefilm Review: A Nero Wolfe Mystery: Christmas Party
“Christmas Party,” is set in the 1950s. Archie Goodwin (Timothy Hutton) agrees to create a fake marriage license to allow an enchanting dancing partner to press her boss and hot and cold roma...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 4
Radio Archives’ The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 4 collects twelve episodes of The Great Gildersleeve from late November 1941 to late February 1942. Two episodes are missing from the collectio...
Telefilm Review: Matlock: The Hunting Party
In honor of the recently departed Clarence Gilyard, I decided to check out his first appearance on Matlock as Conrad McMasters. “The Hunting Party” was a two-part episode that originally ai...
The Four Worst Old Time Radio Detective Police Characters
While certain characters such as LIeutenant Riley on Let George Do It and Captain Sam Sabbaya are exemplary agents of the law, others are far less so. After looking at the best police foils in ...
Telefilm Review: The Rockford FIles: White on White and Nearly Perfect
In this Season Five episode of The Rockford Files, Jim Rocko (James Garner) is hired by an industrialist to find his kidnapped daughter. However, Rocco runs into an obstacle in the form of fello...
Audio Drama Review: Murder from the Bridge and Six More
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Book Review: The Corpse Came Calling
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Top Ten Police Foils in Old TIme Radio, Part Two
Continued from Part One 5) Detective Sidney Brooks (Larry Haines) from The Amazing Mr. Malone In the late 1940s and early 1950s, radio began to mo Read more ...
The Top Ten Police Foils In Old Time Radio, Part One
For many radio detective programs featuring private detectives or amateur sleuths, the friendly or not-so-friendly recurring police officers become a key part of the series. Sometimes they lay do...
Telefilm Review: Walker, Texas Ranger: One Riot, One Ranger
In the feature-length series premiere of Walker, Texas Ranger, Ranger Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris) hunts down a dangerous criminal who is planning a big job by Read more ...
Audio Drama Review: The Great Gildersleeve, Volume 3
The Great Gildersleeve was one of radio’s landmark comedies, which really brought along the development of the sitcom. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Harold Perry) was a character introduced on...
Radio Detective Story Recommendations
Recently, I saw a Tweet asking podcasters when was the last time that they recommended another episode of their podcast that listeners might enjoy based on the episode they were listening to. Thi...
Film Review: Cosmo Jones in the Crime Smasher
Frank Graham created the character of Cosmo Jones for his radio series Nightcap Yarns, where he voiced all the characters in a Monday-Friday program. O Read more ...
Audio Drama Review: The Fiends of New York
The Fiends of New York City is Big Finish’s latest three-hour Sherlock Holmes release, starring Nicholas Briggs as Holmes and Richard Earl as Watson. It’s set after Watson’s latest marriage...
Book Review: Crimson Lady/Sidewalk Empire
Larry Kent began his career in the I Hate Crime radio series, and a series of short pulpy tie-in novels were launched. The tie-in novels continued until the end of the radio show and were then ...
Ranking the Seasons of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar
Most “debates” over Yours Truly Johnny Dollar come down to the question of who was the “best” Johnny Dollar actor, with the consensus being that Bob Bailey is the answer (although Edmond ...
Telefilm Review: Garfield’s Babes and Bullets
Garfield’s Babes and Bullets is a 1989 Emmy-Award-winning Television special based on Jim Davis’ book Garfield: His Nine Lives, a book which was based on the premise that cats literally have...
Audio Drama Review: The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley was a radio sitcom that aired from 1944-1951 and starred William Bendix as Chester A. Riley, an aircraft riveter from Brooklyn who moves to California and eventually settles in...
Book Review: A Man Called Spade And Other Stories
The vintage Dell Paperback edition of A Man Called Spade begins with an introduction by Ellery Queen (pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee) praising Hammett as a myste...
Streaming Review: Runaway (1984)
In the film Runaway, it’s the near future, and people rely on robots for a lot of things, but sometimes robots go haywire and run away. It’s the job of Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) to fix it. ...
Audio Drama Review: Raymond Chandler: A BBC Radio Collection
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Book Review: The Radio Adventures of Sam Spade
Martin Grams’ The Radio Adventures of Sam Spade is the definitive guide to the Sam Spade radio series which became a post-War phenomenon that captured the public imagination and became the mo...
The Top Ten Perry Mason TV Movies, Part Three
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The Top Ten Perry Mason TV Movies, Part Two
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The Top Ten Perry Mason TV Movies, Part One
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Film Review: Death on the Nile (2022)
In Death on the Nile, a wealthy woman (Gal Gadot) is murdered on a honeymoon cruise down the Nile, surrounded by people who have reasons to want her dead, including the school friend she stole he...
Audio Drama Review: Sherlock Holmes: The Voice of Treason
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Book Review: Dead Man’s Diary and a Taste for Cognac
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Top Five Forgotten OId Time Radio Detective Programs
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Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations Volume 06: Steed & Mrs Peel
Big Finish’s latest release of the Avengers features three different comic strips from the Steed and Peel era of the 1960s television series starring Julian Wadham as Steed and Olivia Poulet as...
Book Review: Deadly Image
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Blu-ray Review: 4-film Collection
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Audio Drama Review: George Edwards’ Les Miserables, Volumes 1 and 2
Radio Archives often comes up with unique offerings that separate it from other old time radio sellers. Such is the case with its two-volume release of the Australian serial adaptation of Les Mis...
Book Review: The Glass Key
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Audio Drama Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles
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Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles
A version of this review was posted in 2012. The Hound of the Baskervilles marked Sherlock Holmes return to literature after he was killed off by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Final Problem”...
DVD Review: The Saint Double Feature
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Audio Drama Review: Death on the Nile
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Book Review: Back on Murder
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Streaming Review: The Hardy Boys, Season One
The latest Hardy Boys series was released in December 2020 by Hulu and in the Spring of 2021 on YTV in Canada. The series itself was filmed in Canada. The Plot The Hardy brothers: Sixteen-yea...
Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season Eleven
With the end of Season Ten of The Red Panda Adventures, The Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel retired and are thought dead by the general public. Toronto has a new protector, so what exactly is...
Book Review: The Mountains Bow Down
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DVD Review: The Philo Vance Murder Case Collection
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Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Eleven
Black Jack Justice ended its run as an audio drama with a six-episode eleventh season, once again featuring Christopher Mott as Black Jack Justice and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon, Girl Detectiv...
Book Review: DC Comics Greatest Detective Stories Ever Told
DC is known as one of the two big Superhero comic book companies in the United States. However, it’s easy to forget “DC” actually stands for “Detective Comics,” which is also the title ...
DVD Review: Quincy, M.E. Seasons 1 and 2
Before there was CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, there was Quincy, M.E. CSI owed its existence to Quincy. Quincy owed its first DVD release to the success of CSI. The box hailed Quincy as the ...
Audio Drama Review: The Junebug Mystery Plus Six More
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My Top 10 Big Finish Stories of 2021, Part Two
Having counted down to number five in the previous post, in this post, I’m going to reveal the top four best Big Finish releases of 2021 that I listened to. 4) “The Curse of Lady Macbeth” ...
My Top 10 Big Finish Stories of 2021, Part One
Big Finish puts out a lot of Audio Dramas and I’m a huge fan. I listen primarily to their officially licensed Doctor Who audio dramas and multitudinous spin-off but also a few of their non-Doct...
Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Four
This is the final part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the third week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review. ...
Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Three
This is the third part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the third week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review. ...
Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Two
This is the second part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the second week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review. ...
Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1: Week 1
During my recent series on the American Audio Drama Tradition, I was intrigued enough to check out Radio Archives Mutural Radio Theater, Volume 1 set through the Hoopla App. Read more ...
DVD/Streaming Review: The Last Detective, Series Four
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Audio Drama Review: The Seamstress of Peckham Rye
This story is set several months after Big Finish’s previous Holmes release, The Master of Blackstone Grange (review: here). Watson (Richard Earl) has moved into a gender-segregated rooming hou...
Book Review: The Fortress of Solitude/The Devil Genghis
I’m reviewing a (sadly out of print) copy of Nostalgia Ventures’ /Sanctum Doc Savage novel reprint featuring two Doc Savage Novels, “The Fortress of Solitude” and “The Devil Genghis.”...
Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season Ten
The War is over and young Harry Kelly is back, although his absence during his time in the military is still unexplained. The Red Panda and Flying Squirrel are now parents. With the Red Panda wel...
DVD Review: Cannon: The Complete Collection
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Book Review: The Kennel Murder Case
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Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Ten
The Tenth Season of Black Jack Justice saw Jack Justice (Christopher Mott) and Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective (Andrea Lyons) engage in six more episodes set in the 1950s and featuring the regular c...
Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume 5
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Telefilm Review: The Magician
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Book Review: The Benson Murder Case
The Benson Murder Case (1926) is the first Philo Vance novel written by S.S. Van Dine. The series was popular and spawned multiple film and radio versions into the 1950s. In this novel, a wealthy...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Thirteen: Conclusion and the Future
Continued from Part Twelve Conclusion The Golden Age of American Radio at its peak held Americans in thrall day by day and week by week. It set a standard for high quality in both writin Read mor...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Twelve: The Twenty-First Century
Continued from Part Twelve The Twenty-first Century has been a boon for audio drama. The software and equipment required to record audio dramas has become far less expensive and easier to use. In...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Eleven: The Nineties, Part Two
Continued from Part Ten Colonial Radio Theater: Colonial Radio Theater began operating out of Boston in 1995. Of all American radio producers, they may have the greatest range of offerings. I Rea...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Ten: The Nineties, Part One
Continued from Part Nine Jim French Returns The change in format on KVI radio that had brought French’s first run (see
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Nine: The Eighties
Continued from Part Eight The 1980s would begin with the biggest radio breakthrough of the 1970s coming to an end. Earplay left on its weekly radio play and its team turned to producing seriali...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Eight: The Seventies, Part Three
Continued from Part Seven The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater By 1977, radio drama in the United States was beginning to see the dust settle. While local radio dramas like Jim French& Read ...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Seven: The Seventies, Part Two
Continued from part six. CBS Radio Mystery Theater The third time proved to be the charm for network radio revivals. Himan Brown, who’d created the Inner Sanctum Mysteries during the Golden Ag...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Six: 1970s, Part One
One could be forgiven for thinking audio drama was well and truly dead in the 1960s, given the obscurity of most of the offerings. However, the 1970s would include numerous attempts to revive rad...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Five: The 1960s
Continued from Part Four In the years after the golden age of radio, there would be many attempts to make new audio dramas, either by paying homage to the golden age of radio or trying to do some...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Four: The Legacy of the Golden Age of Radio
Continued from Part Three On September 30, 1962, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar and Suspense aired their last episodes. This marked the end of the Golden Age of Radio. But what exactly had ended? Ma...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Three: The Decline of Network Radio Drama
Continued from Part Two As television rose, radio drama declined. The year 1951 saw the first time television advertising revenues surpassed those of radio. This led to rising budgets for televis...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part Two: The Rise of Television
Continued from Part One It’s impossible to talk about the final years of the golden age of radio without talking about what brought about its decline. In the years immediately after the War, te...
The American Audio Drama Tradition, Part One: The Rise of the Golden Age
Caroline Crompton, host of the Shedunnit podcast, was the guest on BBC Radio 4 Extra’s Podcast Radio Hour on an episode where the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio was recommended. She noted t...
Audio Drama Review: Red Panda Adventures, Season Nine
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 Four Silliest Tropes in Detective Fiction
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 stori...
The Top Five Detective Programs from the Declining Years of the Golden Age of Radio
See the articles on detective programs in the World War II era and the immediate Post-War era. Television was always going to Read more ...
The Top Five Post-War Radio Detective Programs
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...
The Top 5 World War II Era Radio Detective Programs
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-...
Book Review: Pat Savage: Six Scarlet Scorpions
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Audio Drama Review: The Trial of Sherlock Holmes
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. T...
DVD Review: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple – Movie Collection
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Audio Drama Review: The Patrick Scott Smokin’ Mysteries
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Audio Drama Review: The Collected Bowdrie Dramatizations, Volume 3
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My Favorite Old Radio Research Resources
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...
Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Nine
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 every...
Four Difference Between the Original and Later Columbos
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 ...
Book Review: Silent are the Dead
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Radio Series Review: My Friend Irma
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 Bank...
Telefilm Review: Casebusters
In Casebusters, an elderly ex-cop turned security company owner (Pat Hingle) who sometimes acts like he’s a cop sometimes has his two grandkids come to spend the Summer and they get involved in...
Remembering Mathnet
A version of this article appeared in 2012. “The story you are about to see is a fib, but it’s short. The names are made up, but the problems are real.” With these words began one of my ear...
Who’s Listening to Our Podcast?
Who’s listen to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio? Tens of thousands of people all over the world interact with the content we create one way or another. I know that there are hundreds of ...
TV Series Review: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
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Audio Drama Review: The Crogan Adventures
In 2013, Decoder Ring Theatre, best known for producing Black Jack Justice and the Red Panda Adventures released the Crogan Adventures, an audio drama based on Chris Schweitzer’s graphic nov...
DVD Review: Fast Company/Fast and Loose/ Fast and Furious Triple Feature
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Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda, Season Eight
The Eight Season of the Red Panda Adventures is its third World War II season and sees another shift in the series’ dynamics. The Red Panda (Gregg Taylor) is back in Canada after his wife Kit ...
The Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2020, Part Two
Continued from Part One 5) Conflict Theory by Nev Fountain (From the Sixth Doctor and Peri box set) The Doctor Read more ...
Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2020, Part One
We’re going to countdown my top ten favorite Big Finish stories of 2020. Big Finish is a British producer of audio dramas, best known for producing licensed Doctor Who Audio Dramas in spin-offs...
Radio Review: Voyage of the Scarlet Queen
A version of this review appeared in 2012. I’ve written before about the rarity of having a half-hour show with multiple-part episodes in the Golden Age of radio. How Read more ...
Audio Drama Review: Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 11
This set collects six more Twilight Zone radio dramas recreating classic Twilight Zone stories. “Five Characters in Search of An Exit” finds a man (Jason Alexander) in a major’s uniform dro...
TV Episode Review: The Hardy Boys: Welcome to Your Life
The new series of the Hardy Boys kicks off with the episode, “Welcome to Your Life.” The series makes a lot of changes to the Hardy Boys formula and characters. For those who have never read ...
Streaming Review: The Inner Circle
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TV Episode Review: Tenspeed and Brownshoe: The Robin Tucker’s Roseland Roof And Ballroom Murder
Tenspeed and Brownshoe is a 1980 TV series created by Steven Cannell of Rockford Files fame and starring Ben Vereen and a young Jeff Goldblum as conman E.L. “Tenspeed” Tucker and accountant L...
Audio Drama Review: Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 9
The ninth volume of Twilight Zone radio dramas features six more audio recreations of tales from the Classic TV series. The set kicks off with “Time Enough at Last” where a bank teller who wa...
DVD Review: Pie in the Sky, Series Three
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A Look at the First Two Episodes of T and T
T and T was a 1988-91 syndicated television series starring Mr. T as T.S. Turner, a former boxer who was wrongfully convicted of a crime until attorney Amanda Taylor (Alexandra Amini) clears him....
Audio Drama Review: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BBC)
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App/Service Review: Hoopla Digital
Hoopla is a service offered in hundreds of libraries across the United States and in Canada. Its coverage map is mostly in the East, Midwest, and on the West Coast. My local library offered it an...
DVD Review: The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset
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Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season 8
Black Jack Justice eighth season was released monthly between September 2012 and March 2013, once again featuring Christopher as Jack and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective. The series ...
Book Review: The Court of Last Resort
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DVD Review: Forgotten Noir and Crime, Volume 12
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Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 8
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Book Review: The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe
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Streaming Review: T-Men
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Graphic Novel Review: Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive
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Audio Drama Review: Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 6
The Sixth Volume of Twilight Zone radio dramas features six radio dramas that recreate classic episodes. The Dummy: Bruno Kirby plays a ventriloquist who believes his dummy is alive. Trouble sta...
DVD Review: Forgotten Noir, Volume Seven
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Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume 4: Steed and Mrs. Peel
The 1960s Avengers return in a series of four 50+ minute audio dramas. The dramas are based on comic strips written in the 1960s about the adventures of John Steed (Julian Wadham) and Emma Peel (...
DVD Review: Dick Tracy (1990)
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Book Review: Before Midnight
Editor’s Note: A version of this review originally appeared 9 years ago. How annoying can a client or set of clients get? Nero Wolfe finds out in Before Midnight. After the death of a hotshot a...
Streaming Review: Knives Out
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Book Review: Dick Tracy: Dailies and Sundays: 1931-33
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DVD Review: The Complete PRC Michael Shayne Mystery Collection
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Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 7
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Book Review: Deathgame
In the Hardy Boys casefile Deathgame, the Hardy’s friend Biff Hooper is big into survival games and decides to go to an exciting survival camp. Biff tells Joe the truth, but tells his parents h...
Telefilm Review: Cannon/Barnaby Jones: The Deadly Conspiracy
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Graphic Novel Review: Superman Smashes the Klan
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Audio Drama Review: Sherlock Holmes Theatre
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Book Review: Tekwar
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Film Review: The Body Vanished
The Body Vanished is a 1939 British film where a vacationing Scotland Yard detective inspector and his reporter chum stumble across a mystery at a country house where the butler discovers a body...
Telefilm Review: Cannon: Nightmare
The Season 5 premiere of Cannon from 1975 opens with a hitman being gunned down while trying to escape from prison. His wounds are fatal and he summons Cannon (William Conrad) to his bedside to c...
Audio Drama Review: Martin and Lewis
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were the last of the great legendary comedy teams. They’d been a success in night clubs prior to landing their own radio show over NBC in 1949. There were two Martin...
Is a New Golden Age of Audio Dramas Coming
As we hunker down during the global pandemic, those with more leisure time have binged a whole lot of television and been able to find distraction in new episodes of their favorite programs. Many...
Streaming Review: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye: Season 2
In the 1980s, Powers Boothe starred in the HBO series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, a series based on Raymond Chandler’s short stories featuring Marlowe (or other detective characters Chandler c...
Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Seven
Season Seven of Black Jack Justice finds the show very well settled in to its successful formula as Jack and Trixie continue to solve crimes in a post-War unnamed American city. The season avoids...
Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Audio Dramas, Volume 5 Review
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A Look Back at the First 100 Episodes of the Amazing World of Radio
With Wednesday’s episode of the Whistler, we marked our 100th Episode of the Amazing World of Radio. The series launched in June 2016 to feature our first Summer Series of Patreon-chosen progra...
Book Review: Corpses are Where You Find Them
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Audio Drama Review: The Diary of River Song, Series 7
River Song (Alex Kington) was married to the Doctor in Doctor Who, making her last appearance opposite Peter Capaldi. This spin-off series continues her adventures. One thing that was established...
Audiobook Review: Chase Darkness With Me
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Radio Show Review: The Danny Kaye Show
The Danny Kaye show starred singer/comedian Danny Kaye and premiered in January 1945. It remained on the air until 1946 and was sponsored by Past Blue Ribbon Beer. Kaye was a talented performer, ...
Audio Drama Review: The Prisoner, Volume 3
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Audio Drama Review: Slick Bracer, P.I.
Slick Bracer, P.I. was a 2011 Summer series for Decoder Ring Theatre. Unlike the ongoing Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice, the series was written by Eric Decker. It starts Peter Nichol...
Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 4
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Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season 6
The Red Panda Adventures’ sixth season brings the Red Panda (Gregg Taylor) and the Flying Squirrel (Clarissa Der Nederlanden Taylor) into the World War II properly after several episodes in the...
Book Review: Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie was the lead character in fourteen movies and two separate radio series’ in the 1940s and a TV series in the 1950s. Before that he was a character in a series of short stories by...
The Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2019, Part Two
Continued from Part One 5) Lies in Ruin by James Goss starring Paul McGann, Alex Kingston, Lisa Bowerman, and Alexandra Riley from the Legacy of Time This is the first story in Big Finish Read mo...
The Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2019, Part One
I’m a huge fan of Big Finish Audio Dramas. Mostly the ones I listen to feature stories with the past stars of Doctor Who reprising their original roles in new science fiction adventures as well...
Book Review: The Innocence of Father Brown
Note: A version of this review appeared in 2009 This is the first Father Brown short story collection by G.k. Chesterton. Father Brown was in many ways a continuation of what Chesterton wrote in ...