Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar. But first I do want to encourage you
as you're making your travel plans. Remember Johnny Dollar Air
dot com. Johnny Dollar air dot Com is a Priceline
affiliate link, so part of your purchase prize benefits the
great Detectives of Old Time Radio at no additional cost
to you. So remember when making your travel plans, think
Johnnydollar Air dot Com.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: Well, now we've got something really special for you, and
it is a recently unearthed Johnny Dollar episode. This was
discovered by the Old Time Radio researchers as part of
their Florida reels, and this was uncovered in the collection
of collectors who were active between the nineteen sixties and
the nineteen nineties. This is one of three Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar episodes that were uncovered. The other two were
gonna hear much later since they feature Mandel. I've known
about these episodes for a few months, but I decided
to wait until after the run of episodes without any gap.
So we're going to go back now to May the twelfth,
nineteen fifty seven. Here now is the Glacier Ghost Matter
from Hollywood.
Speaker 2: That's time now for Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 3: This is Walter Bascom. Mister Dollar. Ask him try Western
Life and Casualty.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, Hawrey, it's.
Speaker 3: Fine, it's fine, But I have a problem with one
hundred thousand dollars claim.
Speaker 2: The big one. Huh, who's the villain this time?
Speaker 3: Let's just dip. This is a claim I want to pay, but.
Speaker 2: Can Oh that's a switch. But how can I help Dollar?
Speaker 3: I hope that you can find the body.
Speaker 4: Oh Bob Bailey and the Exciting Adventures of a Man
with the action packed expense a Car America's fabulous freelance
insurance investigator. It's truly Johnny Dollar. Now act one of
your truly Johnny Dollars expense accounts. Spressional investigator Johnny Dollars
to the trial Western Wife and Pasual the insurance company
locked Angela's office following as an account of expenses incurred
during my investigation of the Glacier Ghost Matter. Expense account
out of one one hundred dollars twenty five cents air
transportation Hartford to Los Angeles, California. It was late when
the big orangine plane circled slowly the land. In the
clear night air. The myriad multicolored lights of the city
of Angels made it sparkle like some tremendous field of
precious stones. IDEM two for any taxi into the Ambassador Hotel,
which is just a stone for all from Western's offices
on Wilshire Boulevards. I immediately hit the sack IDEM three
two dollars even for breakfast the following morning, after which
I walked over the water, asking, as you got here
a lot sooner than I expected.
Speaker 2: Thanks all.
Speaker 4: Now, whose body am I supposed to dig up? Where
I'll give it to you?
Speaker 2: In a nutshell? The policy is straight light one hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: No double indemnity or special closet. And the insurance Raymond R. Sheldon,
partner in RYE. Coff Sheldon Plastics Company here in La
beneficiary his wife's glory. That's the section of town just
out beyond Beverly Hills. Can I've had every bit of
Sheldon's insurance for some fifteen years, and his planned as
well as household personal property, automobile and everything. It's been
a very profitable account I've handled myself.
Speaker 2: So what's happened?
Speaker 4: Both Sheldon and his business partner out at Rykoff were
in better at hunters and fishing in real normal follow
spent all the time they could poking around up in
the high Sierras. Great shout company, I hear, yes. A
two weeks ago one Friday afternoon, they took off to
do some exploring to locate if they could, a little
lake somewhere north of the Palisade Glacier, California.
Speaker 2: The Pallisade is the southernmost glacier in the country. So
what happened? Or so, they packed in from the station
near the town of Big Pine.
Speaker 4: That's a couple of hundred miles north of here, in
the Mount Whitney area Whitney highest mountain in the United States.
You know, there are a lot of high peaks in
that area, and I wanted it. You know, something never
melts at any rate. They found their lake only with
a big one just below another glacier the other side
of Pallisade. The glacier they had to skirt in order
to get back to the pack station. Well, that's where
it happened. Lone horse glacier blizzard came up. They had
trouble finding their route and foolishly drifted apart big ice
ledge broke off and plunged Sheldon down into a tremendous
deep crevass.
Speaker 2: What about his partner, Ranco?
Speaker 4: Two days later, half starved and barely alive, he crawled
into the backstation. You say both of them knew that
country pretty well. Now, what was this crank on the
phone about finding a body? Sheldons to establish legal proof
of this death. It's still somewhere up in that glacier ice.
Or did the search parties go on for as soon
as the storm cleared and they found where the break
in the ice shell procurred, we could see no sign of.
Speaker 2: The body at the bottom. Well, that easily understandable.
Speaker 4: But if a bunch of natives to that part of
the country couldn't find anything, how do you expect me
to I don't know, but I hope you'll try. Otherwise
the provision for a fifty two week wait have to apply.
I got it was seven years when no, I'm talking
about the standard disappearance following accidents in our policies. Why
are you so anxious to pay off this claim in
such a hurry? We know what happened to Ray Sheldon,
and according to his partner, right, yes, even if Sheldon
had survived the avalanche or whatever you want to call it,
he couldn't have lived more than a few hours up
in that cold and much less ever, get back alone, soul.
Why drag the whole thing out? His wife need the money, yes, yes,
very badly, and I take it to you know, Yes,
it's very well done her. You see, I'm in love
with her. I let that one pass, although I was
sure we'll know exactly what I must be taking. I
M four a couple of bucks for a taxi out
of the Ry Cough Sheldon Plastics company on Washington Boulevard.
Amurry Cough turned out to be a tall, good looking,
well built fellow in his late ferry, and, except for
going into a bit more detail, gave me virtually.
Speaker 2: The same story walk past. I wondered out loud just
how much the loss of his partner meant to him?
Are you kidding? Dollar?
Speaker 4: Ray was like a brother to me, but we were
closer than brothers, with a perfect partnership.
Speaker 2: But hadn't been for Ray Sheldon, I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Get the of this business, you mean because of his
death dollar before I came in here with him five
years ago. He built this plant up single handed.
Speaker 2: He was the one who struggled through all of its.
Speaker 4: Growing pains, financing, developing, the dying, and casting machines that
have finally got us the fat government contracts. That No,
wait a minute, yeah, you said I'm on top now
because of his death that if you are thinking what
I think you want, what's play our cards on the table?
Speaker 2: To whom does this business go at? That Sheldon has been.
Speaker 4: To me on the basis of our partnership agreement.
Speaker 2: Now look here, Dollard, make it easy, right yess. But
if you're trying to.
Speaker 4: Apply, trying to imply anything, I'm just trying to get
the whole picture, that's all. I've been sent out here
to see if I can find Sheldon's body so that
the life.
Speaker 2: Insurance claim to be paid.
Speaker 4: I came to see you and I hope you might
be able to help me find this body.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I guess this whole thing has me. I'm sorry.
I'll help you anyway I can. Do you intend going
up to the years, Yes, and i'd like you to
come along with me.
Speaker 4: I will gladly all right, but I don't see how
I can possibly get away from here for a couple
of days at least. If you can wait, we can
fly up there in my own plane. Well, no, I
don't want to just sit around here doing nothing for
two days. So I'll go ahead. You meet me up
there as soon as you can get away.
Speaker 2: Do you know where to go?
Speaker 4: Give me directions and I'll leave now. I am five
a dollar seventy text me at the home of Ray
Sheldon's widow on Pandora Avenue out in Westwood. It was
a small but attracted place, and I was middling a
good neighborhood. Mister Sheldon barely turned forty. I'd say, we're
also small and attractor.
Speaker 6: I didn't realize it would be necessary for an investigator
to come all.
Speaker 7: The way out from the well.
Speaker 2: It's only because of water. Bad's going a request to
set on your insurance claim so quickly.
Speaker 7: Well, in no time. If I move the money journey,
please call me, Gloria.
Speaker 2: Why sure?
Speaker 6: If you see Ray kept putting all his money back
in the bin. There was something about having to expand
the plant to handle some important government work.
Speaker 4: Yes, I understand the contracts for it have come through.
Speaker 7: Only a month or so ago.
Speaker 6: Now raise you here to see his labors their fruit,
sixteen long, depriving himself, working so hard.
Speaker 7: No want me to end up burying the snow. And
if the country he up so much, I'm sorry, Tully.
Speaker 4: Well, he seems to have provided pretty well for you.
It's nice home.
Speaker 6: Insurance kind of kind of a reward, I guess you
can reward during the different times. You see, we were
never really.
Speaker 7: Very close together. Ten in life. Ray was thirteen years
older than me. I guess I married him because I.
Speaker 6: Expected and admired him the way he studied and worked
his way up from nothing, no family, no formal education.
And you see, it was my social contact that enabled
him to finance the plastic business.
Speaker 7: Even Albert didn't.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, Gloria, Well, we were.
Speaker 7: Perfectly honest about it as.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 7: Was in love with you.
Speaker 6: I've met him in Florida, where Ray sent me run winter,
and I've done wonderfully together. I was almost becoming wonder
of defend Is he still in love with him?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 7: I don't know. Well, he's too nice to show it.
If he is, well, of course I am.
Speaker 6: You seem to forget that he and Ray were very close.
What kind of a person would he feed him in
love to his best friend's wife.
Speaker 4: I don't think what you're going Are you in love
with al right Cot?
Speaker 2: After all, he's in love with you as.
Speaker 6: Me, mister Dallas, Well, yes, because you couldn't see what
it really is. I don't think I like it, not
a bit. It's almost as though you suspected somebody of
murdering race and is.
Speaker 4: The possibility isn't of course not who? Several people might
finish it like you for him? This is the fifty
years of a half faked marriage and struggling along. How
you can call wondering in Florida's struggle, I don't know.
I told you he tried to make at right call.
Speaker 2: Who now owns the business?
Speaker 4: Now that it's suddenly begin to process fact that any
might still care for you can look pretty suspicious.
Speaker 7: Good, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: How about Walfascom.
Speaker 4: It's pretty unusual when an insurance man it's so anxious
to spend the company's money. But then if he has
intentions towards the beneficiary of the policy.
Speaker 6: Also, this is terrible. You're saying I won't let you,
I won't send for this.
Speaker 2: Well, oh, now come on, put that thing down right cough.
Speaker 4: I thought you'd come here instead of going up to
the mountain. You know, everything you said was possible, dollar possible,
but not through. And I won't stand for you or
anyone else tormenting this this way. She's been through more
than she deserves as it is, and I'm not gonna
stand still while some stupid insurance dick makes her tear
her heart on right cough and put that thing away
and you get out of here. Just put yourself at
my foot.
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 4: That's why I said, all those wild theories of yours
are possible, all of them, All three of us have
plenty again with Ray Sheldon out of the way, especially me,
because in the long run, I stand the benefit most
and I'd be number one suspect, wouldn't I because I
was the last one to see Ray, the only one
who was with him when he died, the only one
who could have murdered him. But and this is the
big butt dollar, I had killed Ray Sheldon, either you
nor anybody else would ever be able to prove it.
Remember that get out. He took some fast thinking and
a lot of careful deliverate talking to calm down Al
Raikoff partner Raymond Sheldon, who had allegedly died in a
mountain climbing accident. If Sheldon had been murdered, rykof was
a natural suspect, one of three, that is. But unless
I could find Sheldon's body buried somewhere in the age
of this ice and snows of a glacier high in
the Sierra Country, Al was right, they couldn't possibly be
proof that Sheldon's death was an accidental. Al finally became
convinced that an attack on me would only add to
any suspicions that he might have murdered Sheldon, that his
only defense would be to help me all he could.
He freely admitted still being in love with Gloria Sheldon,
and he repeated that his reason for bursting in on
us was to protect her from further heartache over all
that had happened, And who knows, maybe he was telling
the truth And any event, we took off about an
hour later, and his two engine plane headed almost to
north and by three pm we're cruising along through the
high thin air over the tall peaks of the Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 2: Over there to the right a little town.
Speaker 4: You see his big climb at your base of operation
when you and Sheldon came up here looking for the
mountain lake. Now that's Forest Lewis's backstation directly ahead there
where you see that long clear space.
Speaker 3: That's where we'll spend the night.
Speaker 2: It's like he has the landing field. The guy has
some of the lakes up here.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 4: Of them have to be blown into unless you want
to pack in on horseback for several days. There's Palisite
glacier over there you left. That's not the one where
Shelldon was trapped. No, it was lone horse glacier other
side of that next peak. A small plane labor in
the high altitude, but managed to carry us clear of
the twelve down to foote and then below us we
saw the lake horse clear and blue, and all the
surrounded by snow coming rocks. Al It took a lot
of guts to pack up here. No, we were just
crazy to do it so early. Like other fishy pools.
We were determined to have a place all to ourselves.
I look ahead, they're do north on the far rim
of the lake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Loan Horse Glacier.
Speaker 4: That's the big crevass just above the ice of the lake.
Speaker 2: But well that's where the ice lids broke off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I can see how the bottom of that
crevass would be impossible to get to. Yeah, yeah, take
these glasses while to make it turn. She got warm
up ter rain up here one day last week wash
away some of.
Speaker 3: The fresh snow at the spot where he.
Speaker 4: Fell right came up and flew over it like we're
doing now. So so look down directly down.
Speaker 2: You see it's a party. But it's a party down there.
It's a raised body.
Speaker 4: What positive identification from up here is impossible. That's as
impossible as ever recovery. Yeah, I can see that. And
you too, were absolutely alone. I doubt if anyone else
has ever been crazy enough to climb this buck.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I'll what I see is proven up from me,
so a dollar.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry if I acted like a fool there, glorious house. Look,
I swear all I was trying to do was I
think I understand. Now let's go back to the packstation. Yeah,
and thanks dollar. There was nothing fancy about Boris Lewis's packstation,
and he was full up with early season fishermen. Someone
who chose to go up into their favorite spots buck factrain,
others who could afford to be thrown into their pact
camping spots over a plane, but high the evening on
the log building the forest called his lodge, and idea
slowly began to form in the back of my head.
One of my flyboys spotted Sheldon's body there too, right
after that.
Speaker 2: Rain we had last week, that song.
Speaker 4: Before that, we'd hunted around on the trails up there
for day. We couldn't find nothing. Were you think there's
any chance of recovering, It's not a chance. Impossible even
with a helio copper. That chasm where he fell in
is too deep rugged the helicop would ever make that
attitude Johnny much. Let's fight the air pocket to get
close enough. Yeah. I reached it by train either because
of that chasm just north of it, chasm that opened
up when the ice ledge busted off, swatch even deeper
than the one Sheldon's body's in. You try climbing around
on the narrow ridge it's left and ewing the ridge
and everything else is go cracking down in the Lone
Horse Lake.
Speaker 2: Oh that's that. Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 4: Body is just half laid there at the end of time,
observed with the cold and the ice and it soon
surround it. And yet it's a fitting tomb for a
man who loved this country so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mighty nice man too.
Speaker 4: Well, as long as you fellows are up here, why
don't you stay.
Speaker 2: A couple of extra days?
Speaker 4: Do some facing a lot of mighty fine goldens being
took out of some of the small high lakes up there,
how about of its right? Oh? I'd like to for you,
but I'm afraid i'd better get back to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: You turned out a chance to fee, so I can't
believe it.
Speaker 4: I tell you the truth. I'm afraid I've kind of
lost my desire to fish up here after well. Oh yeah,
sure son, I'm sorry I should have realed. Sure, well,
I'm going to take you up on that offer. Forrest
my cracks. A golden trailer too few and far between,
what's more, come to think of it, I'm on an
expense account, so why not. But I had an entirely
different kind of fishing in line and the following morning
immediately after, al Raikoff hopped into his plane and took
off for Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I got going from forty Lewis.
Speaker 4: I got hold of a couple of six of dynamite,
and with his help and a handful of thirty thirty cartridges,
I divined a couple of impact qs, a trick I'd
learned a long time ago pal on the New York
Arsen squad. Just to make sure, Fory and I rigged
up one of them with a small charge and dropped
it into a deep rock stream crevice near the edge
of his property. Thet's see if it works, great? Oh so, fire,
Johnny Holstand works now even with a drop of only
forty or fifty feet. What are you going to do now?
You still haven't told me what is it all about? Well,
didn't I notice a set of pontoons on one of
the planes tied down on your landing strips we use
and pontoons that Joe Gracie's plane and Joe's he can
drop the customers down on the lake where they want
a camp on the edge of Then Joe's my boy
walked to fifty dollars a trip. That'll be okay, man,
If you're going after Golden's you'll know where to take
you fory how much dynam might have you got there.
Speaker 2: In your worship? Oh?
Speaker 4: A couple of cases or two? You know, case I
eitherside to put up another building needs some more rock us. Hey,
wait a minute. Your idea of fishing ain't the dynamite
the lake? Oh hardly, But I'll need about a case
of the stuff. Come on, let's get at it. I
him six twenty four to fifty dynamites, and I threatened
forty Lewis with mayhem if he told the pilot that's
end of seven, with away fifty dollars eating Joe Gracie
didn't even ask about the boxing what it was his playing,
probably thought it was a city dude's idea of a
tackle bun. Joe could fly all right. He seemed to
know every up and down draft and every mountain pass
in the area and be ready for us. And none
of them are pretty wicked, mister Donald, Oh brother, I
can see that all right. None of these jagged peaks
around he look pretty wicked too. I don't think there
with them, I hope. So okay, Now that's lone horse
glacier on the left, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Jack and the.
Speaker 4: First crevass that from the edge of the lake is
the one with Sheldon's body. That's right. I was the
first one to spot it last week. All right, I
want you to fly as close as possible down toward
that second crevass, the DP one, the one back of
the one with the body. That's right, Jack, Now, what
be prepared for the surplies of your life? Well, i'll
uh look for you paying the chatter and give them
the orders and all. I didn't want to say anything,
but if you want to like it as a lot
of gold outdoors, your lord, just as close to that
second hands them as your tare ye the boss. Easy,
Now lower still and parallel it. That's what we're doing, right, Redder,
just the hare Uh look over the left and a
couple of seconds and you'll see Jellen's body and at
other rests you'll look at it here now, hey, cut
that door. What are you doing? Dollar gain all to
your fan?
Speaker 8: What you grow out? What are you up to?
Speaker 1: Dinah?
Speaker 8: I too, riches clear in the lake, Nolla, hang on.
Speaker 4: Great shock wave rock that tiny plane, and below we
can see tall plumes of shattered ice snow reach upward
into the thin, cold air. Or a light glistening cloud,
and finally slowly settled down toward the mountains the light.
Two high ridges of ice had been pushed over into
the lake there's though, by some giant hand, and they
were floating. Then when the lake settled down, we landed
on it. By this time I'd given Joe some idea
of my purpose, or you might have thrown me out,
and I tailed back to the pack station along a word,
mister Della. I see it floating there straight ahead. That's
it all right, heldon's body. Yeah, I'll take it easy, Joe.
I'm gonna climb down on the pond tooon and try.
Speaker 2: To pick it up.
Speaker 8: And you gotta be money, can't.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'll worry, brother, I will bull him.
Speaker 8: An ice water.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't last half a minute, A little bit to
the right, just as slow as you can now, heck.
Speaker 2: Not that easy?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: Easy? Does it?
Speaker 9: Easy?
Speaker 8: Here?
Speaker 7: You?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, cut your engine and help me get him aboard.
Speaker 9: He had a boy, You guys, buddies deserved perfect by
the cold.
Speaker 2: Help me use sure you can.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, I guess it's just about what I expected
to find. This Law and al Raikoff were a Loan
up there. So they had happened, and before Sheldon fell
into that creviss, he was carefully repeatedly shut in.
Speaker 2: The back good Law.
Speaker 4: At eleven thousand feet him with the extra load. To
take off from Loan Horse Lake wasn't easy, but we
finally made it and started back toward the packstation. Sure
is an awful thing what some people will do. Sometimes
this is all, yeah, Joe, but sooner or later they
get caught up with I think Sheldon's body full of
poat of holes is enough to end it on this guy,
right Coff. By his own admission, he was the only
one up there when Sheldon died. And I bet if
he'd known what you were up to here, he'd never
have gone home. That surprises me too, now that we
know he was the killer.
Speaker 2: Joe.
Speaker 7: Huh.
Speaker 2: How one are your planes coming toward us?
Speaker 4: Yeah? The same When I seen when we were landing
on the lake, the sun was against it. Those I
couldn't be waiting. That's right, cost plane, what I'm sure
of it.
Speaker 2: He must have seen what we've been up to him.
Look out for him.
Speaker 4: Look out for him.
Speaker 3: He's coming at his.
Speaker 4: Head on, crazy fool, look out stop going out. It's
down at the window and I run him this old
single engine. Never what y'all he's coming around again to
get on our tail, like he's.
Speaker 3: Gonna try to rabbits.
Speaker 8: Trial ends up tight. I'm gonna tad, we can't get Yes,
yes we can. Anko pasts, Anchor pasts back to long
Han wain't no peak? Well, Megan, he won? What do
you mean now? Drying a bad down draft? Let you know, man,
your dad?
Speaker 9: Are you sure we can make it? Mean that we've
got to make it? Hold John amow he's coming up
on his bad Here we go. Huh yeah, we're okay.
Speaker 2: I was della yeah, oh brother, good flying show, good boy, but.
Speaker 3: Not right, Hugh.
Speaker 2: Look back.
Speaker 4: He crashed within a couple of hundred yards of where
he thought he'd buried his path. I guess maybe you'd
call that justice, Yeah, Joe, Yeah, yes, it's Stuart said
justice was done and one of its own strange boys.
Speaker 2: And I suspect Walt Baskin.
Speaker 4: Will hesitate the next time he gets a request for
such fast action on acquaint. However, I see no reason
why this one should be paid in for expense account
total including incidentals and transportation back to Harfrid Oh and
a couple of days fishing for golden trout there at
Forrest Lewis's place.
Speaker 2: I needed it.
Speaker 4: Expense account total four hundred and thirty dollars sixty cents.
Yours truly, Johnny doll now here is our star to
tell you about next week's story. Next week all woil
of a story about at whale and if you ever
started hunting for a missing whale, well join us, won't you?
Speaker 2: Yours truly, Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 4: Yours truly, Johnny Dollars, starring Bob Bailey, originates in Hollywood.
It is produced and directed by Jack Johnstone, who also
wrote tonight story. Heard in our cast were Virginia Craig Herbellus,
Boris Lewis, James Mcallian, and John Dayer.
Speaker 2: Musical supervision is by A. Marigo Marino.
Speaker 4: Be sure to join us next week, same time and
station for another exciting story of yours truly, Johnny Dollars.
Speaker 2: This is Dan coverly speaking.
Speaker 4: Johnny Dollar has come to you through the worldwide facilities
of the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. As I mentioned, this episode has been a
little heard for the last fifty eight years, and I'm
so glad this is back, because this is one of
the most glorious, unhinged bits of daring dow during Johnny
Doller's entire run, and I would venture to say most
any other hero. With a few exceptions I've heard during
the Golden As Radio, I have to admire Johnny Shuspa
to call Al Roykoff a crazy fool after jury rigging
homemade impacts uses loading up downa mite and dropping explosives
on a glacier from a moving plane in hopes of
blowing apart two ridges. I've mentioned on other episodes that
writer Jack john Stone's career in radio really began back
in his work on Buck Rogers and Soon, and it
shows here in those sort of worlds you can get
away with being as outlandish and improbable as possible. It's
not really something you'd expect on a detective program for
adults in the late nineteen fifties. I still enjoyed it
because they fully committed to the bit, and also, as
a child of the nineteen eighties, I appreciate it because
it cold in my mind the sort of outrageous jury
rigged solutions that you saw in Macgiver. Now, of course
Macgiver wouldn't have used a gun, and he probably would
have stayed away from something as loud and obvious as explosives.
He'd probably have gotten the body out using a pocket mirror,
a piece of twine, and used chewing gum. Nevertheless, this
story is probably as close to a Golden Age of
radio ancestor of Macgiver as you will find. In a way,
I feel like Johnny's solution practically blunts any other criticism
you could make of the episodes, Like I would typically
criticize Ryckoff hanging around just in case, like it's stealth mode,
just in case Johnny decides to do something other than fishy.
But it's hard to complain about much when you have
dynamite used on a glacier. Well, now we do turn
to listener comments and feedback now, and we start out
with Dawn, who writes regarding the two face matter, Bob
Bailey really doesn't have the same expense count game of
his predecessors. They would throw in a raincoat or lavish
meal just because mechanic sixty six points out true, But
he got a lot of benefits from some of the
people he helped, including bonuses as large as ten thousand dollars,
and I think that's true. And to be fair, I
think that the whole gimmick of Johnny, you know, going
over the top in patting his expense account really was
something that was a Charles Russell thing, a little bit
of Edmint O'Brien era, but mostly Charles Russell. And it
really did get died back. That doesn't mean that it
never happens. Indeed, you'll hear Bob Bailey say things like
and all of the incidentals I could manage, but it's
just not quite as flagrant and pronounced. And I think
Mechanics sixty six does hit on a key reason for that.
When you can collect big fees and big tips for
you know, putting out an exceptional job, you know, trying
to done the company on the expense account, that's just
not a really effective approach. A Mechanic sixty six comments
a little bit further, the insurance companies would never even
bother and investigating, let alone paying off without a police report.
Insurance companies must have either directly or indirectly sponsored this show.
And I can get kind of where he's coming from
because most of us. When we deal with insurance companies,
we are dealing with these sort of large major companies
out there, you know, you know the names All State
and Goico and Nationwide, these sort of national chains with
big headquarters and big organizations. That's not really who Johnny
served for the most part. For the most part, Johnny
is called in by regional companies. Even someone like Universal
Adjustments is effectively a reinsure of a lot of smaller companies,
and so there would be some flexibility. And with many
of these companies, a key portion of their business isn't
just enforcing the rules. It is relationship building, not just
necessarily with the people who are insured, but through the
broader network. And you know, you think about in this
small town ensuring this one factory, Well, that's a key
opportunity because most likely you didn't just sell them insurance
on the business. You sold them other insurance. Now, obviously,
because of the nature of the employees, you didn't sell
them auto insurance, but you sold them homeowners insurance and
life insurance, and you sold them annuities. Because more people
tended to turn to insurance companies for investments, and as
this sort of region company trying to maintain a presence
in a small town. That sort of contract would be
a big deal for you. So could you turn around
and insist on a strictly business way of handling this? Yes,
would it be good business, particularly if it ended up
costing you all those other policies you got it from
the plan? Probably not.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this thing happened all the time or
all insurance companies were like that, but I do think
that the business model of the type of insurance companies
that tended to hire Johnny really did lean in that direction. Well,
now it's time to think our Patreon supporter of the day,
and I want to thank old time radio man Patreon
supporter since September twenty twenty three, currently supporting the podcast
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support and that will actually do it for today. If
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join us back here tomorrow for the Great Adventures of
Old Time Radio and the final episode of Cloak and Dagger, where.
Speaker 2: So you're up here blowing a million francs Aslan.
Speaker 10: No, not exactly. Didn't last long enough to blow. Week
after I wanted the Germans march into Paris and my
money wasn't worth a thin dinon, I got away and
landed up here at Wamma, and I'm waiting ever since,
waiting for what I for someone to win this war?
Of course, someone anyone you mean? Oh, I'm not too particular,
mister hay Wooden. Like I say, I don't play sides.
I'm what they call a neutral, I guess.
Speaker 2: A neutral American.
Speaker 10: Well, it's been a long time since I was in America.
I just want them to get the war over with somehow,
so Jen and I can get out of here. Jen,
my girl iNTS to hey when she's one of the
skiing instructors here at the lodge. When I go, she's
promised to.
Speaker 4: Go with me. I actually I'll go see if I
rules ready.
Speaker 10: Oh wait a minute, how about another drink? O?
Speaker 3: Thanks?
Speaker 10: Well, look, if you're not doing anything tonight and you're
like a little game of study, thanks, just got away
as any to pass the evening up here.
Speaker 4: Maybe, but I'm rather particular about the kind of men
I gamble with, Slade, especially the kind of Americans.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll be with us then. In the meantime,
send your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot knit,
follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectors, and check us
out on Instagram, Instagram dot com, slash Great Detectives from
Boise Altohol. This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.