Radio
Legends:
Mystery Is My Hobby
Liner notes written by Harlan Zinck
For long-time radio fans, it is no surprise that the rise of radio in the late
1920s and 1930s roughly corresponded to the rise in the number of popular
weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly magazines available to the public. Both outlets
were a godsend for writers, particularly during the Great Depression, in that
both demanded an endless supply of short fiction of all types, written to
quickly grab the attention of readers and listeners. By the 1940s, there were
literally hundreds of local, national, and institutional magazines regularly
buying the fictional short stories of writers, as well as any number of radio
series constantly in search of new material in the most popular genres.
The qualities required for a good magazine short story were roughly similar to
those required for radio: familiar (or, at least, identifiable) character types;
a setting that was either recognizable to most listeners or easily defined with
a few descriptive words, distinctive music, or provocative sound effects;
get-to-the-point plots that were intriguing but not overly complex; an opening
sequence that, either through action, dialogue, or situation, quickly grabbed
interest; and a reading/running time that wouldn't exceed thirty or sixty
minutes. Stories from all of the major genres were needed - romances, westerns,
high adventure, humor - but the most popular and most enduring genre was the
mystery story, as regularly featured in periodicals such as "Mammoth Detective,"
"True Detective," and "Dime Detective Magazine."
On radio, aside from series based on specific characters like Sherlock Holmes
and Ellery Queen, the bulk of the mystery stories adapted for the medium were
first aired on the popular anthology shows of the time: "Suspense," "The Molle
Mystery Theater," and "Murder at Midnight," to name just a few. A long-time
staple of radio entertainment, mystery shows always attracted large numbers of
listeners - particularly when aired in time slots between 10:00 PM and midnight
- with a combination of action, suspense, and the unexplained. Some programs,
such as "The Radio Reader's Digest" and "Front Page Drama," which took its
stories from "The American Weekly Magazine", readily credited the original
source of their stories; others simply offered author credit. But it was clear
that a good story was a good story, whether in print or on the air, and many a
scribe receiving two checks rather than one appreciated the chance to profit
twice from their labors.
All of the major networks aired mysteries, but the diverse Mutual Radio Network
led the way in terms of sheer numbers of mystery shows created and aired. There
were three primary motivations for this: popularity, expense, and
redistribution. Mystery shows were always popular, so even the simplest series
would usually attract some sort of audience. In terms of cost, mysteries were
relatively inexpensive to produce, in that they featured small casts, few if any
stars, a skilled organist to provide spooky music, and one or two on-staff sound
effects technicians to get the plot across.
For Mutual, redistribution via post-network syndication was a major financial
consideration. Unlike CBS, ABC, or NBC, which offered their live programs via
telephone lines to affiliated stations, Mutual was a network of primarily small
stations in small markets - some of which were out of range of radio-quality
phone lines. For these affiliates, Mutual would often record their New York or
Los Angeles based series, edit out commercials and time-specific references, and
then send them in syndication packages to their stations on 16" vinyl discs.
This not only provided the stations with network quality programming, but also
allowed them to pay a flat fee for the shows and sell the commercial time to a
local advertiser at a profit. For Mutual, a two-season live series that would
have otherwise been broadcast and forgotten could continue to generate revenue
for years to come -- which is exactly the case with the shows in this Radio
Legends collection: "Mystery Is My Hobby."
First aired between 1945 and 1947, "Mystery is My Hobby" (which Mutual
originally broadcast as "Murder Is My Hobby") is a good example of a typical
mystery series from radio’s "golden age". Glenn Langan stars as mystery writer
Barton Drake, author of both short stories and a series of best-selling
anthology books. Drake is a well-spoken sophisticate, fascinated by the ways of
the criminal mind, and is intrigued by mysteries the same way that other
hobbyists (ornithologists, for instance) are intrigued with birds. His stories
and books have given him a comfortable income, allowing him to freely pursue the
details of whatever new case or crime may come his way - and come they do, on a
weekly basis, with a seemingly endless array of robberies, shootings, suspicious
deaths, damsels in distress, and unsolved murders to occupy his time and
fascinate his interests. (One can't help but wonder if, after 39 weeks in which
every knock at the door, phone call, or chance encounter led to some form of
mayhem or bloodshed, the poor fellow wasn't tempted to lock the door, turn off
the phone, and hide under his bed -- if only to get some relief!)
An urbane mixture of Ellery Queen and Philo Vance (with a surfeit of Boston
Blackie thrown in for good measure), Barton Drake is a pleasant, friendly, and
knowledgeable fellow who is always willing to assist both perfect strangers and
the police in solving some mystery or other, if only to fill his need for
serviceable story plots. Some of his cases deal with the solutions to impossible
crimes - dead men committing murder, for instance - but the majority are
bread-and-butter for a radio detective: basically, who's dead, whodunit, and
how’d they do it? In the programs, lead Glenn Langan is assisted by many of the
"usual suspects" - the top character actors of Radio Row - including such
talents as Norman Field, Ken Christy, Betty Lou Gerson, Willard Waterman, Junius
Matthews, and Jack Edwards Jr.
For modern audiences, used to watching graphic and bloody violence while dining
off a TV tray in front of the plasma screen, "Mystery Is My Hobby" may seem a
bit tame in comparison. But for those who enjoy hearing the details of an
intriguing crime full of twists, turns, and drama, the series remains a pleasant
and captivating way to spend a half-hour or so in your personal "theater of the
mind". This brand new Radio Legends collection offers twenty programs from the
series - all original Mutual Radio Network broadcasts later reedited for
syndication. You'll find no commercials in these shows, but you’ll find plenty
of blackmail, suicide, theft, deception, poisoning, mystery, mayhem, and murder.
Truly, who could ask for a more wholesome package of radio entertainment?
Here is the complete content of this 10-CD set:
Snowbound (#3)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Dude Ranch (#4)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Murder in the Ring (#5)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Who Killed David Austin? (#6)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Murder Bound (#7)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
A Short Distance to Murder (#8)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Blackmail (#9)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
The Walking Corpse (#10)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Death in Mark Adrian's Studio (#11)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Engaged to Death (#12)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Shots at Curtis' Window (#13)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
The Eternal Triangle (#14)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
The Waiting Game (#15)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Clearing Peter Wade (#16)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Fatherly Advice (#17)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
The Mystery of the Burning Light (#18)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Arthur Gideon's Memoirs (#19)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
The Phony Husband (#20)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
Cinderella for a Day (#21)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
A Mink Coat (#22)
30:00 - Mutual/WOR Syndication
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