Doc Savage, 1934
EFFECT: (TRILLING SOUND)
ANNOUNCER: Hear that?
EFFECT: (TRILLING SOUND)
ANNOUNCER: That was a strange sound, wasn't it? It is
the sound of Doc Savage, and it means that
Cystex is on the air with another fifteen
minutes of smashing action and mystery
with Doc Savage...
So opens another 15-minute adventure of the Man of Bronze, first heard Sundays at 9pm, over the Don Lee California network, starting in February 1934, and syndicated nationally starting in October 1934.
Little remains from the 1934 Doc Savage radio show: no known cast, no
recordings, just Lester Dent's own carbon copies of the scripts of the 26
episodes. These were written by Lester Dent himself in the early days of
Doc's career! Half of these "lost" Doc adventures were resurrected,
along with unbroadcast scripts in Odyssey Publications' "The Incredible
Radio Exploits of Doc Savage" Volume 1 (c.1982). A second volume, covering
the last half of the series was advertised, but never saw print. One of
these unpublished exploits was finally printed in issue 20 of the Bronze
Gazette. Hopefully others will follow.
Lester Dent, given the rights to sell Doc Savage to other media, landed
this one-year radio deal when the Knox Company of St. Louis couldn't pick
up The Shadow. Historically, these were written between December 1933 and
May 1934, and caused Lester Dent to contract his first ghost writer -- Harold
Davis for The King Maker.
With only 15 minutes, the supporting cast had to be limited to Monk only (with Ham making occasional appearances), and with each story only one of Doc Savage's amazing faculties or gagets gets showcased. What's left? Brisk pacing and terse, hard-boiled characterization that gives 30-minute programs a run for their money!
Speaking of characterization, Doc's personality was still being ironed-out in Dent's pulps, and the Doc Savage we're all familiar with doesn't emerge until the later scripts. And there's a lot more of Doc's trilling sound than usual, since radio couldn't rely on a bronze countenance to set Doc apart.
Source: the introduction to The Incredible Radio Exploits of Doc Savage Volume 1, by Will Murray
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