Calling All Detectives
Calling All Detectives was a combination of a mystery detective show and a quiz show, which aired daily for fifteen minutes on Mutual Network radio. It began with a melodrama of eight minutes then the following five minutes were handed over to syndicated local stations. In those five minutes announcers would ring up contestant listeners who had previously sent in a card and offer them prizes for guessing the correct perpetrator of the crime.
The show would then rejoin the Network for the concluding part of the story and the local station would award prizes to the listeners who had correctly identified the culprit.
When it first began in 1945 it was a 30 minute show with Vincent Pelletier starring as "Robin," the man who gave out the clues and Frank Lovejoy as Neil Fowler and Owen Jordan as Toby.
Later from 1947-1950 Paul Barnes starred as Detective Jerry Browning who would open the page on his casebook and present the crime for you to solve.
Paul Barnes was known as a man of a thousand voices as he played all the character roles and worked only with a sound effects technician.
We have a few of these great little mysteries, which I will add to RUSC on a daily basis. Go on; see how you fair as a master sleuth! Happy listening my friends,