Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. the Hello and welcome to down these mean streets and more old-time radio

detectives and crime fighters.

We're changing our format a little bit this week.

Normally I share two or three different stories, but today I've got the same story

told three times in adventures of three different old-time radio

detectives.

It wasn't uncommon for radio writers to contribute scripts to multiple detective shows.

People like Blake Edwards, E. Jack Newman, and Louis Vitties had work that appeared all over the dial.

So it also wasn't uncommon to hear a case worked by Jeff Regan pop up later on Sam Spade and

then again on yours truly Johnny Dollar.

A writer might dust off an old script and submit it for a new series.

But for those writers, the process wasn't as simple as crossing out the name of the main character and writing a new name in the script.

Different shows had different styles, different tones, and different stars.

The nuts and bolts of a mystery could remain the same, but the character beats and the elements of the investigation would need to change depending on where the story was set and whether the protagonist was a cop, a person

person who could use his badge to get witness cooperation or a private eye who had to

resort to other methods. I think it's fascinating to listen to these repeated stories to hear how they

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