Shadow Radio Programs

The Shadow was on the radio for many years. At first, the character was a narrator for other stories; later, the Shadow was the only focus of the show. Unfortunately, many of the shows appear to have been lost. Sometimes not even the title of the individual show seems to be known. I will post a synopsis of each episode that I can find, but a very large number will be missing.

Also, various sources will disagree from time to time on titles, dates, etc, and the original listings contain much more information that I will have here.

----------Narrator-type shows----------

Detective Story Hour, July 31,1930 through July 23, 1931. There were 52 episodes, with Street and Smith as the sponsors. I have never found any of these shows. The stories supposedly had nothing to do with the Shadow himself, as the Shadow was merely the narrator.

Blue Coal Radio Revue, September 6, 1931 through June 5, 1932. Blue Coal was the sponsor of these 40 episodes. Again, as far as I know there are no surviving copies of any of these shows.

Love Story Drama/Love Story Hour, October 31, 1931 through September 22, 1932. 52 episodes, sponsored by Street and Smith. I have not even been able to find any titles for these shows, and the original shows, as far as I can determine, no longer exist.

----------The Shadow shows----------

Season 1

These ran from January 5, 1932 through February 2, 1932, fora a total of 5 episodes, with Hachmeister Lind Co. (Perfect-o-Lite) as the sponsor. I did find a source which had the titles of the first four episodes, the titles being The Dynamite Moll, Wee Willie's Ghost, Turn of the Tide, and Friday the 13th. The title of the fifth episode was not listed, and as far as I know none of the shows exist today.

Season 2

These shows ran from October 12, 1932 through AApril 26, 1933, for a total of 28 episodes, with Blue Coal as the sponsor. I have not been able to find the title of any of these episodes, and, again, as far as I know none of these episodes exist any more.

Season 3

These shows ran from October 1, 1934 through March 27, 1935 for a total of 52 episodes, with Blue Coal as the sponsor. Again, no titles are available, and as far as I know no copies of any of the shows exist.

Season 4

This series was from September 26, 1937 through March 20, 1938 for a total of 26 episodes. The titles of all of these shows, from this season on, are known, but many of the shows no longer exist. I will only list shows that I am reviewing.

Death House Rescue , Sept. 26th, 1937
Murder by the Dead October 17, 1937
Temple Bells of Neban Oct. 24, 1937
The Three Ghosts Oct. 31, 1937
Circle of Death, Nov. 28, 1937
The Death Triangle, Dec. 12, 1937
The Voice of Death, Dec. 26, 1937
The League of Terror, Jan. 9, 1938
Sabotage, Jan. 16, 1938
The Society of the Living Dead, Jan. 23, 1938
The Poison Death, Jan. 30, 1938
The Phantom Voice, Feb. 6, 1938
The House of Horror, Feb. 13, 1938
Hounds in the Hills, Feb. 20, 1938
The Plot Murder, Feb, 27, 1938
The Bride of Death, March 6, 1938
The Silent Avenger, March 13, 1938
The White Legion, March 20, 1938

Summer Series

There were 15 episodes in this 1938 series, sponsored by Goodrich Safety Silvertown tires.

The Blind Beggar Dies, April 17, 1938
Power of the Mind, April 24, 1938
Firebug, May 14, 1938
Murder on Approval, May 21, 1938
The Hypnotized Audience, June 5, 1938
Death from the Deep, June 12, 1938
The White God, July 10,1938
Aboard the Steamship Amazon, July 17,1938
Murders in Wax, July 24, 1938
The Message From The Hills, July 31, 1938
The Creeper, Aug. 7, 1938
The Tenor with the Broken Voice; 8-14-1938
The Tomb of Terror, 8-28-1938
Death Under the Chapel, 9-4-1938
Caverns of Death; 9-11-1938

Season 5

This series ran from September 25, 1938 through March 19, 1939, for a total of 26 episodes. It was sponsored by Blue Coal, and had Agnes Moorehead playing the part of Margo Lane. Only three of these are missing, fortunately.

Traffic in Death, 9-25-1938
The Black Abbot, 10-2-1938
Death Stalks the Shadow, 10-9-1938
Night Without End, 10-16-1938
Gun Island, 10-23-1938
The Isle of Fear 10-30-1938
Shyster Payoff 11-6-1938
Black Rock 11-13,1938
Death is Blind Nov. 20, 1938
Murder in E Flat Dec. 4, 1938
Guest of Death Dec. 18, 1938
The Man Who Murdered Time Jan. 1, 1939
Island of the Devil Jan. 8, 1939
Ghosts Can Kill Jan. 15, 1939
The Cat that Killed: Dec.31, 1939
Valley of the Living Dead, 1-22-1939

Season 6

This season had 29 episodes, running from September 24, 1939 through April 7, 1940, with Blue Coal as the sponsor.

Season 7

This season ran from September 29, 1040 through April 20, 1941, consisting of 30 episodes with Blue Coal again as the sponsor.

Season 8

This series ran from September 28, 1941 through March 22, 1942, and consisted of 26 episodes with Blue Coal still the sponsor.

Season 9

This series ran from September 27, 1942 through March 21, 1943, for a total of 26 episodes, with Blue Coal still the sponsor.

Season 10

This season ran from September 26, 1943 through April 16, 1944, for a total of 30 episodes, with Blue Coal the sponsor.

Season 11

This season ran from September 24, 1944 through April 8, 1945, covering 29 episodes, with Blue Coal the sponsor.

Season 12

This season ran from September 9, 1945 through June 2, 1946, consisting of 39 episodes and sponsored by Blue Coal.

Season 13

This set ran from September 8, 1946 through June 1, 1947, for a total of 38 episodes, with Blue Coal still the sponsor.

Makeup for Murder, Dec. 1, 1946

Season 14

This season lasted from September 7, 1947 through May 30, 1948 and consisted of 38 episodes sponsored by Blue Coal.

Season 15

This season ran from September 12, 1948 through June 5, 1949, and consisted of 39 episodes sponsored by Blue Coal.

Season 16

This seaosn ran from September 11, 1949 through September 3, 1950, and consisted of 51 episodes sponsored by Grove Laboratories.

Season 17

This season ran from September 10, 1950 through September 2, 1951, for a total of 51 episodes. Grove Laboratories sponsored the series through December 30th, 1950, and the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy sponsored the episodes after January 21st.

Season 18

This season ran from September 9, 1951 through August 31, 1952, for a total of 52 episodes, sponsored by Wildroot Company.

Season 19

This season ran from September 7, 1952 through August 30, 1953, and was also sponsored by Wsildroot Company.

Season 20

This season ran from September 6, 1953 through July 25, 1954, for a total of 47 episodes, and was sponsored by Camel cigarettes, Tide, and No-Doz Awakeners. The reviews I have from this set come from scripts I found in a book.

Struggle with Death, April 11, 1954
The Bells of St. Peter's, April 18, 1954
The Horror in the Night, April 25,1954
The Master of Torture, May 30,1954
The Vision of Death, June 6, 1954
Death by Chapter, July 4, 1954
The Case of the Dead Men's Shoes, July 25, 1954

Season 21

This season ran from August 1, 1954 through December 26, 1954, for 22 episodes. Again, the reviews are based on scripts.

Murder in the Sun, Aug. 1, 1954
The Case of the Vanishing Killer; Aug. 8, 1954
The Blackball Murder, Aug.29,1954
Heartbeat of Death, Sept. 5, 1954
The Nightmare Combination, Sept.19, 1954
Murder Before the Storm, Oct. 10, 1954
The Hands of Death, Oct.17,1954
Tunnel of Terror, Oct 24,1954
The Final Hour, Oct. 31, 1954

Other Shows

There were at least 7 Australian episodes. There were also three seasons of something called Quick as a Flash, running from 1944 through 1947, but I haven't found out much about this set.

Missing Shows

From the sources I've found, this is a breakdown of missing episodes. Not all sources agree perfectly on how many are missing for each particular season, though.

Season Number of Episodes Number Missing Percent Missing
Detective Story Hour 52 52 100%
Blue Coal Radio Revue 40 40 100%
Love Story Drama 52 52 100%
1 5 5 100%
2 28 28 100%
3 52 52 100%
4 26 8 31%
Summer Season 15 0 0%
5 26 3 12%
6 29 8 28%
7 30 1 3%
8 26 18 69%
9 26 20 77%
10 30 22 73%
11 29 25 86%
12 39 20 51%
13 38 23 61%
14 38 6 16%
15 39 21 54%
16 51 51 100%
17 51 51 100%
18 52 52 100%
19 51 51 100%
20 47 47 100%
21 22 22 100%
Australian Episodes 7 (?) 5 71%

This list does bring up some questions, though:

Why are so many episodes missing from the (relatively) newest series, but not as many from some older series?

Why did the number of episodes for each season vary so much, from around 26 to over 50?

Where are the scripts for the episodes? I have found one book that had some scripts in it, but are all the other scripts lost?

Has anyone tried to answer any of these questions?


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