Quotes from John Dunning

There may not have been a believable story in the entire 25–year run, but The Shadow thrived, claiming at various times audiences of more than 15 million a week. It opened a new era of pulp magazine superheroes, its print format harkening back to the days of the dime novel.

Ellis M. Zacharias had been wartime deputy chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, on whose records his book and the radio show were based. The stories ranged from the home front (ONI agents tracking Japanese activity on the West Coast prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor) to germ warfare (Nazi plans to infect Paris with plague as liberating armies arrived in 1944).

WHISTLER: Dorothy Roberts, who weekly for 13 years whistled the 37 notes (13 at the beginning, 11 leading into the story, 13 at the end); composer Hatch estimated that only one person in 20 could whistle the exact melody.

I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak…

Richard Diamond was also seen on TV (1957–60), but the role as played by David Janssen bore little resemblance to the Powell original. The most notable gimmick of the TV series was the addition of a secretary, Sam, who was seen only as a pair of gorgeous legs (which belonged to Mary Tyler Moore). The radio show was charming, though peppered with moments of genuine silliness. A solid run is available on tape. Powell, though at ease with the microphone, did tend to fluff.

He always leaves us alone." This was true even in controversy. The April 17, 1949 show, Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke, touched off a storm of protest when it depicted a young girl turning to prostitution. "It was bad timing," Marshall conceded: it had been scheduled on Easter Sunday, and thereafter the fare on that day was confined to classics and comedies.

But you can't work for a man you don't trust. Etch that in stone.

Gibson stepped onto a relentless treadmill, writing a full novel for each issue. Working under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant, he became one of the busiest practitioners of the pulp era. By 1932, buoyed by success, the magazine had become bimonthly, and Gibson was writing a novel every two weeks. Ultimately, he would do more than 280 Shadow books.

THE SAINT, detective drama, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris.

Following the Leslie Charteris novels and the film portrayals by suave George Sanders, the radio Saint righted wrongs and aided victims of crime when the law was rendered powerless by restrictive procedure. The Saint simply broke the law, if the result justified it.

Arthur Anderson, one of the players and a steady voice on Let's Pretend for years, recalled it decades later. Chamlee sang two songs per broadcast. He returned to the Met for the 1935–37 seasons. Anderson also remembered a commercial blooper by Ruffner: "Friends, do you wake up in the morning feeling dull, loggy, and lust-less?

bits were "truths" that could be said in a line—"a human is the only animal that can be skinned twice" or "a man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.

This Is Your FBI was inevitably compared to The FBI in Peace and War in the G-Man thriller parade. Radio Life concluded that both were worthy and there was little to distinguish one from the other. This Is was privy to official Bureau files, while Peace and War was mainly fiction. But Peace and War sounded authentic: its author, Frederick L. Collins, had received Bureau cooperation in his research, though the radio version of his subsequent book remained unsanctioned.

It is difficult to overstate the impact that this program had on children of the 1940s. This writer vividly remembers an episode when the Shadow tracked down a murdering scarecrow. When the killer's coat was ripped off, revealing nothing but straw, the implications were so terrifying that the young writer-to-be could not sleep in an unlighted room for weeks. Today it's the highest of all high camp, scaring neither the aging collector nor his jaded children.

but nothing serious happened until July 28, 1942, when Jones went into the studio to record an amusing anti-Nazi war ditty, Der Fuehrer's Face. Originally intended for the Walt Disney cartoon, Donald Duck in Axis Land, this became in Jones's hands a musical riot, rocketing the group to national stardom in less than a month. It demolished Hitler's claims to genetic superiority and established the raspberry as a respectable part of American radio.

We have the knowledge, resources, and capabilities to make global capitalism work in a more inclusive and socially responsible manner while retaining - indeed enhancing - its economic benefits.