25 FORGOTTEN Radio Detectives Every American Followed

He worked out of a one room office with a bottle in the drawer and a secretary who was smarter than he was. Somebody always came through the door with a story that did not add up, and by the end of the half hour he had been beaten up at least once and lied to by everybody. For about ten years after the war they were everywhere on the American dial. Frank Sinatra played one when his career was finished and he needed the work. Jack Webb played one before Dragnet, and he was the most overwritten man in America. And the most successful of all of them was not killed by television, or by a bored audience. It was killed by a list. In this documentary, we count down twenty-five American radio detectives who filled the airwaves between the end of the war and the middle of the fifties. Which show stopped every week and asked celebrities in the studio to name the murderer live on air? Which detective solved his cases by getting hit on the head hard enough to argue with his own subconscious? And why does the longest running detective program in radio history barely exist anymore? In this video, we cover: Cloud Eight: A private eye who got knocked out every week and liked it. The Employment Agency: Frank Sinatra took this job the year before he won an Oscar. Sixty Out of Sixteen Hundred: The most durable detective on radio is almost entirely lost. Before Dragnet: Jack Webb, a boat shop on the pier, and dialogue nobody could say out loud now. Red Channels: How a booklet ended the greatest hard-boiled show on the air. Chapters: 0:00 - The Man Who Got Hit on the Head for a Living 1:08 - The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 2:14 - Perry Mason 3:52 - Charlie Chan 4:56 - Ellery Queen 5:53 - The Adventures of the Thin Man 6:56 - Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons 8:10 - Nick Carter, Master Detective 8:52 - Mr. and Mrs. North 9:48 - Philo Vance 10:42 - Casey, Crime Photographer 11:36 - The Falcon 12:15 - Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator 12:59 - Broadway Is My Beat 14:08 - The Adventures of Nero Wolfe 15:10 - Boston Blackie 16:11 - Let George Do It 17:04 - The Saint 17:48 - Candy Matson 18:39 - The Fat Man 19:38 - Rogue's Gallery 21:02 - Rocky Fortune 22:23 - Richard Diamond, Private Detective 23:13 - The Adventures of Philip Marlowe 24:09 - Pat Novak, for Hire 25:25 - The Adventures of Sam Spade If you enjoyed this look back at the detectives who filled American living rooms after the war, subscribe for more forgotten radio history. Old Time Radio, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Film Noir, Detective Radio, Jack Webb, Dragnet, Frank Sinatra, 1940s, Hardboiled