The Return of Mike Malloy, Radio Gumshoe – Chapter 5 – The Invisible Terror

1959 All Over Again. Can you stand The Terror??!!

The Return of Mike Malloy, Radio Gumshoe – Chapter 5 – The Invisible Terror broadcast on The Mike Malloy Show May 15, 2012. Listen to Mike exclusively on the non-profit Progressive Voices Radio network LIVE at 9PM ET here: http://www.progressivevoices.com/

Mike Malloy Radio Gumshoe is not Film Noir … It’s Radio Noir. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Richard Diamond, Boston Blackie, and Your Truly Johnny Dollar fought crime and corruption over the radio airwaves.

Years ago I had a 1936 Zenith console radio/phonograph player. It Was Great. I collected programs from The Golden Age of Radio on vinyl. It was my own personal time machine. My favorite album consisted entirely of introductions to radio programs: Themes Like Old Times. It’s out of print now but lives on because some radio aficionado put it up on The Internet. In fact you can find just about every vintage radio show you can think of on The Internet. I stream Crime & Mystery constantly.

I’ve been hooked on film noir my whole life. The stories all seemed to take place at night or in darkened rooms. As Mike said about the genre, “Didn’t any of those people have any light bulbs?”

I like old-time radio. I like film noir. I thought it would be neat to put Mike in that radio crime-fighting pantheon so I wrote a noir-ish sample, sent it to Mike, and he agreed to give it a shot. I sent him a couple of scripts, Kathy produced the episodes, and Mike Malloy Radio Gumshoe was born. It Was Fun.

After a couple of episodes I volunteered to add the music and sound effects because I had more time to waste than Kathy did. I’m just a guy in a room.

After a dozen episodes Real Life intruded and the Radio Gumshoe series went into hibernation. A couple of years later I wrote another series: The Return of Mike Malloy Radio Gumshoe. I’m the first to admit … it got weird. If you put the detective genre and some Twilight Zone episodes into a Cuisinart … you’ll end up with an odd little audio pâté.