Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, 836 Old Time Radio Detective Shows mp3

Don't be fooled by other collections that claim to contain more episodes.  Many of these shows were aired on multiple dates in reruns, so you have plenty of sellers out there padding their collections with reruns!  We feature all known episodes in existence and do not add "fluff" to our collections to increase our claimed episode count like many others. 

NOTICE: This collection is all in MP3 format supplied on DVD.  You play this in your computer and then can copy all the MP3 files to your MP3 player of choice.  This DVD will NOT play in a regular CD player in your car, or your TV's DVD player, it is intended for your computer only which will allow you to transfer the MP3 files to any device that can play MP3's.  This collection remains the largest most original collection.

Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons:

When Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons first debuted over the Blue Network on October 12, 1937, the show’s title accurately described Keen’s stock-in-trade; the “kindly old investigator” tracked down individuals who had mysteriously vanished, leaving behind their families, homes, jobs and other day-to-day activities. Keen (he never had a first name, unless it was “Peachy”) was assisted in these duties by an Irishman named Mike Clancy. Mike wasn’t much of a brainiac (the quote that comprises the title of this post was a semi-catchphrase that he seemed to use on the show every week) but he could use the necessary brawn when the situation called for it. Bennett Kilpack played kindly ol' Keen throughout most of the program’s run, as well as Philip Clarke and Arthur Hughes, while Jim Kelly took the role of Clancy. The series originally aired as a thrice-weekly fifteen-minute serial from 1937-43 (the show moved to CBS in 1942), providing more than ample time for Keen to solve even the most baffling of disappearances.

Beginning November 11, 1943, the program changed its format to that of a half-hour weekly offering—and though the title and theme song remained, Keen branched out into investigating murders.

If Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons sounds a little soap opera-ish, it’s because it originated from the “radio fiction factory” of Frank and Anne Hummert. (Frank received on-air credit for the writing, but the scripts were actually churned out by scribes like Lawrence Klee, Bob Shaw, Barbara Bates and Stedman Coles.) Mr. Keen“ employed all the stereotypes, heavy dialogue, and trite plotting of its daytime cousins” and “it appealed to a lowest common denominator.” So why is the show so popular with old-time radio fans today? Simple…it’s pretty doggone funny, in an unintentional sort of way.

Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons enjoyed a healthy eighteen-year stint over radio, ending its run not—as previously reported on this blog—on April 19, 1955 but on September 26 of that same year. Over the years, the series had a variety of sponsors: Bisodol, Kolynos toothpaste, Chesterfield cigarettes, American Chicle, etc., and there are nearly sixty broadcasts extant today for modern-day listeners to revel in. It’s ample evidence that not every show during the Golden Age of Radio was “golden”—but I gotta admit, it sure is fun.

High Adventure:

None of the Old Time Radio networks had a hold on romantic adventure like the Columbia Broadcasting System. The other networks certainly made the attempt to get a foot hold in the genre, but it would have been difficult for anyone to compete with The Whistler, Suspense, and Escape.

High Adventure is sometimes billed "The Mutual Network's answer to Escape!" In fact, the Mutual anthology premiered on March 1, 1947. There were audition episodes for Escape at the end of February and the middle of March, 1947, but the program did not begin regular broadcast until July. Some reviewers consider Escape to be Suspense's little brother. In that line of thinking, High Adventure could be thought of as a distant cousin.

Mutual started the show in the Saturday evening, 9:30 time slot, and bounced it around until Jan 21, 1949, when the show moved to Sunday afternoons on NBC (Mutual Network shows were notorious for developing a following and then moving to one of the more established networks). They landed Old Spice Aftershave as a sponsor.

The High Adventure scripts were based on original stories, in contrast to the many adaptations found on Escape. The shows used little subtlety in reaching towards a masculine audience. The stories were written in a realistic, remarkably believable style. High Adventure was the defining moment in the protagonist's life, and the outcome of the story would often hinge on his strength of character as much as his luck or expertise.

The episodes feature the music of the High Adventure orchestra, but the music takes a backseat to the language of the characters and the sound effects in establishing an extraordinarily realistic atmosphere. The realism is the most striking element of High Adventure. A major league baseball catcher and pitcher in one episode play for a fictional team, but the pennant race and locker room interaction are highly believable. In another episode, the hiss of air-compressors and the clanging of brass dive helmets in a deep-sea diving episode take the listener to the deck of the boat in the sunny Caribbean. Listeners hear a cross-country semi-truck going through its upshifts.

NBC dropped High Adventure at the end of the 1950 season. Mutual retooled the show in January, 1953. The new version of the program featured George Sanders as narrator. This collection contains both the US and South African broadcasts.

And more Bonus Radio Shows:

As a sampler of our old time radio library, we are including these classic old time radio shows on this DVD-ROM at no extra charge: