Premium Only Content
Johnny Dollar Radio 1957 (ep536) The Wayward Truck Matter
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar is a radio drama that aired on CBS Radio from February 18, 1949 to September 30, 1962.
Johnny Dollar was played by eight actors over the show's run:
Dick Powell (Audition show in 1948)
Charles Russell (February 1949 – January 1950)
Edmond O'Brien (February 1950 – September 1952)
John Lund (November 1952 – September 1954)
Gerald Mohr (Audition show in 1955)
Bob Bailey (October 1955 – November 1960)
Bob Readick (December 1960 – June 1961)
Mandel Kramer (June 1961 – September 1962)
The first several seasons imagined protagonist Johnny Dollar as a private investigator drama. In 1955 after a yearlong hiatus, the series came back in its best-known incarnation with Bob Bailey starring in "the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account – America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator." There were 809 episodes (plus two not-for-broadcast auditions) in the 12-year run, and more than 710 still exist today. (Jim Cox's book American Radio Networks: A History cites "886 total performances" which includes repeat performances.
Each case usually started with a phone call from an insurance adjuster, calling on Johnny to investigate an unusual claim: a suspicious death, an attempted fraud, a missing person, or other mysterious circumstances. Each story required Johnny to travel to some distant locale, usually within the United States but sometimes abroad, where he was almost always threatened with personal danger in the course of his investigations.
He would compare notes with the police officials who had first investigated each strange occurrence, and followed every clue until he figured out what actually happened. Johnny's file on each case was usually referenced as a "matter," as in "The Silver Blue Matter" or "The Forbes Matter". Later episodes were more fanciful, with titles like "The Wayward Trout Matter" and "The Price of Fame Matter" (the latter featuring a rare guest-star appearance by Vincent Price as himself; here Price and Dollar team up to retrieve a painting stolen by Price’s insurance agent).
Johnny usually stuck to business but would sometimes engage in romantic dalliances with women he encountered in his travels; later episodes gave Johnny a steady girlfriend, Betty Lewis. Johnny's precious recreational time was usually spent fishing, and it was not uncommon for Johnny's clients to exploit this favorite pastime in convincing him to take on a job near good fishing locations. His past was rarely mentioned, but Dollar in “The Bennett Matter” described himself as a four-year US Marine veteran who then worked as a police officer for a decade before changing careers to insurance investigation.
Each story was recounted in flashback, and every few minutes the action would be interrupted by Johnny listing a line item from his expense account, which served as an effective scene transition. Most of the expense account related to transportation, lodging, and meals, but no incidental expense was too small for Johnny to itemize, as in "Item nine, 10 cents. Aspirin. I needed them."
The monetary amounts weren't always literal: the smallest line item Johnny ever recorded was "two cents: what I felt like" after a professional setback; the largest was "one million dollars" (the way he felt after finding a missing woman and her daughter in a snowbound cabin). The episodes generally finished with Johnny tallying up his expense account and traveling back to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was based. Sometimes Johnny would add a sardonic postscript under "Remarks," detailing the aftermath of the case. ("The Todd Matter," which especially disgusted Johnny, ended abruptly with "Remarks – nil!")
In later seasons the program sometimes referred to itself, with other characters recognizing Dollar's voice from the radio.
-
World Nomac
9 hours agoThe side of Las Vegas they don't want you to know about
3.25K -
TheSaf3Hav3n
2 hours ago| CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 6 - NUKETOWN | GET IN HERE!! | #RumbleTakeOver |
9.65K -
LIVE
MissesMaam
6 hours agoMY FAVORITE ARTIST IS FINALLY IN FORTNITE 💚✨
109 watching -
2:02:34
The Quartering
4 hours agoTrump Tariffs Immediately Work, Thanksgiving Cost Insanity, Hollywood Actor In Psych Ward From Trump
75.3K26 -
36:54
Stephen Gardner
3 hours ago🔥I can't believe what Happened To Trump's insider pick!
16.9K32 -
27:59
LumpyPotatoX2
19 hours agoRumble Gaming Talk W/Chris Pavlovski & SilverFox - #RumbleGaming
36.9K7 -
1:50:13
vivafrei
5 hours agoInterview with Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski - Rumble & Bitcoin? Shocking Stats From Florida & MORE!
87K14 -
59:02
Russell Brand
5 hours agoIs Free Speech Under Threat? Australia’s U16 Social Media Ban, & Maddow vs Jay Bhattacharya – SF501
130K268 -
1:15:23
TheMonicaCrowleyPodcast
2 hours agoThe Monica Crowley Podcast: Tears of Clowns
8.22K1 -
1:07:34
The New American
4 hours agoIncoming Border Czar Tom Homan Threatens Dem Leaders With Loss of Federal Money | New American Daily
21K6