Category: Radioplay Day

Radioplay Day – Blue Beetle – Episode 1 “Drug Ring”

Stitch

blue-beetle-coverDownload Link: HERE

Airdate: May 15, 1940

Main Characters/Actors: Dan Garrett (Frank Lovejoy)

Is Dan Garrett anyone’s favorite Blue Beetle?

Granted, that’s a little bit unfair seeing as he was the only Blue Beetle for several decades, but you’ve got to wonder… Are there people (who weren’t you know… alive during the 40s) who hold Dan Garrett up as their favorite Blue Beetle when Jaime Reyes and Ted Kord exist?

That being said, Dan Garrett was popular enough to get his own radio series between May and September of 1940.  For an anti-drug, anti-gang morality tale that seriously misrepresents the effects of smoking marijuana (or “dope”) on human behavior, well… It was a thing.

(Look, all of these old-timey radioshows can’t be The Shadow or the KKK-busting Adventures of Superman. Some of them had to be the superhero version of public service announcements and in many ways, that’s what Blue Beetle was.)Read More »

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Radioplay Day: The Shadow – “The Creeper”

Stitch2 Comments

Shadow_CD_(Vol_II)Download Link: The Creeper

Airdate: May 29, 1938

Main Characters/Actors: The Shadow/Lamont Cranston (Orson Wells), Margot Lane (Margot Stevenson)

In “The Creeper”, Orson Welles is only in his early twenties as he voices the Shadow/Lamont. Before the end of the year, he’ll leave the role for bigger things. I think though, that without him taking up the Shadow before anyone else could step into his shows, he set the stage for the rest of the series and made it possible for the character to take the world by storm.

“The Creeper” is one of those episodes of The Shadow radioplay that I have always liked even as it stressed me out. Orson Welles has a lot to do with this.Read More »

Radioplay Day: The Shadow – The Curse of the Cat

Stitch

Curse of the CatDownload Link: The Curse of the Cat

Airdate: January 20, 1946

Main Characters/Actors: The Shadow/Lamont Cranston (Bret Morrison), Margot Lane (Lesley Woods)

The Shadow is one of my favorite heroes from the Golden Age of pulps. I talk about him literally all the time because I love how he’s a clear predecessor to Batman but so different at the same time.

Okay, I have always had a thing about Orson Welles’ work on the franchise but once I started listening to Bret Morrison’s run on the show, he’s the one who made the Shadow click for me.

These radioplays? Yeah, I listen to them as I fall asleep (which certainly explains the ridiculous nightmares that I keep having, but whatever). When Comixology Unlimited was announced? I got it specifically so that I could read Masks from Dynamite Entertainment and catch the pulp hero team-up of my literal dreams.

Now that you’ve got a bit of backstory for my intense love of the Shadow, let’s actually talk a bit about “The Curse of the Cat”.Read More »