Episode 12 - Scale-Tipping Sleuth (The Fat Man)
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2013
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
J. Scott Smart stars as Brad Runyon, aka The Fat Man - "a fast-moving criminologist who tips the scales at 237 pounds!" This original radio creation of Dashiell Hammett was one of radio's most popular shows, and Runyon is a detective who combines Nero Wolfe's brains and size with Sam Spade's fists. We'll hear "The Black Angel," first broadcast on ABC on July 8, 1946.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best detective adventure from the Golden Age of radio. |
| 0:34.0 | This week, we've got one of radio's biggest detectives in size, if not reputation. |
| 0:40.0 | He's Brad Runyon, aka the Fat Man, a 237 pound criminologist who never lets his size slow him down when he's on the trail of a murderer. |
| 0:51.0 | The Fat Man was built on radio as a dashel hamet character and he was in that |
| 0:58.1 | radio producers approached hamet for an idea for a series and he suggested a corpulent detective. |
| 1:04.0 | The fat man shared characteristics of Hammett's tough, brutal continental op |
| 1:09.0 | who appeared in novels and short stories and he shared a nickname with the villainous Casper Gutman of the Maltese Falcon. |
| 1:17.0 | Hamet wasn't involved in the series beyond that initial brainstorming. |
| 1:21.0 | Just like with the Sam Spade radio series he was content to collect the checks for the use of his characters without ever venturing into the writer's room. |
| 1:30.0 | Besides Hammett's pedigree, the show's strongest asset was its star, Jay Scott Smart, a |
| 1:37.0 | radio actor, painter, and dancer. |
| 1:40.0 | Smart famously commented that it takes a fat man to sound like a fat man. |
| 1:45.0 | He outweighed Runyon by several dozen pounds and he brought a rich baritone delivery to the scripts. |
| 1:51.0 | Smart also had a say in the words he spoke as well as how he delivered |
| 1:55.9 | the lines. His contract gave him script approval and he would receive scripts for the |
| 2:00.8 | Fat Man two weeks before a broadcast at his main home where he would make edits and tweak dialogue. |
| 2:07.0 | He was especially fond of using his friends and neighbors' names as characters. |
| 2:12.0 | They might tune in and hear themselves as killer or victim. |
| 2:16.0 | Smart would commute to New York by plane for the rehearsals and recordings before returning home to Maine. The Fat Man premiered in 1946 and after initially struggling in the ratings opposite |
| 2:29.3 | Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, its ratings and its popularity exploded. |
| 2:35.0 | It picked up Peptobismal as a sponsor and it averaged 6 million listeners a week. |
| 2:40.8 | Universal sought to cash in and produced a Fat Man film starring smart. |
... |
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