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Mystery, Crime & Detective · Mutual

The Strange Dr. Weird

November 7, 1944 – May 22, 1945 · 29 broadcasts

A cemetery, a crumbling mansion, and a host who is delighted you dropped by. The Strange Dr. Weird ran on Mutual for a single season -- 29 quarter-hour broadcasts from November 1944 to May 1945 -- with Maurice Tarplin purring his way through a fresh tale of murder, greed and the uncanny each Tuesday at 7:15. It was a spin-off, and never pretended otherwise. Tarplin was already the voice of The Mysterious Traveler, and the writers of that show, Robert Arthur and David Kogan, simply condensed their own half-hour scripts to fifteen minutes and gave them new titles. Adam Hats paid for it after their agency asked WOR for something with "the MacGregor touch" -- producer-director Jock MacGregor, the station's resident supplier of chills. Asked on the air why he only got fifteen minutes, the doctor replied that if you can scare people to death in fifteen, why take twice as long. The format leaves no room for anything but the trap: greedy heirs, a scientist who goes too far, two killers who deserve each other, and an ironic reversal at the end. Variety liked it. It drew a Hooper of 6.1 and some 225,000 homes a week, and about thirty stations carried it on transcription. All 29 broadcasts survive -- which matters, because most of the Mysterious Traveler episodes they were cut down from do not.

Collection status: 29 of 29 held (100% complete)
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Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1944

November 7, 1944 The House Where Death Lived Listen (MP3)
An old man baits a trap with a quarter of a million in jewels and hires two detectives to help him catch the seven men who murdered his daughter ten years ago.
November 14, 1944 The Summoning of Chandor Listen (MP3)
Two men hold a prisoner in a lighthouse room and call on an ancient mystic to summon the wife he refuses to give up.
November 21, 1944 Journey into the Unknown Listen (MP3)
A young scientist injects himself with a serum that drags him back down the evolutionary ladder -- and the thing he turns into begins to kill.
November 28, 1944 Death in the Everglades Listen (MP3)
A husband and wife take their rich uncle deep into the Florida swamp and come back without him. The swamp is not finished with them.
December 5, 1944 Murder Comes Home Listen (MP3)
A mother waits in a rotting house for the boy she is certain will walk back through the door. He is serving a life sentence.
December 12, 1944 The Man Who Talked with Death Listen (MP3)
A newspaperman sets out to expose the morgue attendant who says the dead speak to him, and gets his proof.
December 19, 1944 The White Pearls of Freedom Listen (MP3)
Two men murder for a fortune in giant pearls, then find themselves marooned on a tropical island with nothing else.
December 26, 1944 Stand-In for Death Listen (MP3)
An escaped convict hides from the police in a coffin at an undertaking parlour, which goes about as well as it sounds.

1945

January 2, 1945 The Tiger Cat Listen (MP3)
A young professor's growth serum works beautifully on a caged rabbit, so he tries it on something with claws.
January 9, 1945 Murder Ship Listen (MP3)
Two passengers plotting a robbery aboard a fogbound coastal liner end up sealed in an air pocket inside the sunken hull.
January 16, 1945 Beauty and the Beast Listen (MP3)
A beautiful young wife, her ugly old husband in a manor on the cliffs, and a man waiting outside in the dark -- one of them is a murderer.
January 23, 1945 Survival of the Fittest Listen (MP3)
Four men are lost in the Alaskan snow with the food gone, and they begin to work out which of them intends to last longest.
January 30, 1945 The Man Who Lived Twice Listen (MP3)
A man is executed for a murder he did not commit, and then handed a second life by way of a brain transplant.
February 6, 1945 The Dark Wings of Death Listen (MP3)
A couple decide to kill a rich uncle for his money. The old man's pet raven has been listening, and it can talk.
February 13, 1945 The Secret Room Listen (MP3)
Two Nazis at large in the Hudson Valley take refuge in a hidden room in a cellar when the police come to the door.
February 20, 1945 The Knife of Death Listen (MP3)
Jack the Ripper's knife surfaces in London during the Blitz, and whatever guided it is still attached.
February 27, 1945 Murder Will Out Listen (MP3)
A man with murder already in mind is warned by a teller of fortunes that he has one killing left in him.
March 6, 1945 The Voice of Death Listen (MP3)
In the Canadian snow country, a woman kills twice to move herself further up her family's will.
March 13, 1945 The Two Faces of Death Listen (MP3)
A swindler on the run passes his look-alike butler off as his own corpse, then discovers who the butler really was.
March 20, 1945 The Man Who Knew Everything Listen (MP3)
Narcotic cough drops leave a man knowing everything there is to know, and knowing everything turns out to be a sentence.
March 27, 1945 He Woke Up Dead Listen (MP3)
Two brothers pace a cliff above the Pacific, in a story of ghosts and what waits on the other side of dying.
April 3, 1945 The Devil's Caverns Listen (MP3)
Two nephews take their uncle caving in the New Mexico mountains meaning to leave him there. The caverns keep all three.
April 10, 1945 When Killers Meet Listen (MP3)
Two fugitives, each the most dangerous man he has ever met, take shelter in the same midwestern town.
April 17, 1945 Dead Man's Paradise Listen (MP3)
Two killers run for the swamplands below New Orleans and find the quicksand rather less forgiving than the law.
April 24, 1945 The Ghost Ship Listen (MP3)
Sailors stranded aboard a derelict vanish one at a time, without a sound and without a trace.
May 1, 1945 The Man Who Played Dead Listen (MP3)
An escaped killer hides among the figures in an amusement-park waxworks -- the worst possible place he could have chosen.
May 8, 1945 Murder, One Million B.C. Listen (MP3)
A scientist carries his wife and his financial adviser back into prehistory in a time machine of his own building. Broadcast on V-E Day.
May 15, 1945 Picture of a Killer Listen (MP3)
A bank robber sent to prison by a street photographer's snapshot comes out swearing revenge on the man who took it.
May 22, 1945 Revenge from the Grave Listen (MP3)
Renaldo the Great rises from his grave at every full moon to kill the men who sent him to his execution.
The Story

A cemetery, a crumbling mansion, and a host who is delighted you dropped by. The Strange Dr. Weird ran on Mutual for a single season -- 29 quarter-hour broadcasts from November 1944 to May 1945 -- with Maurice Tarplin purring his way through a fresh tale of murder, greed and the uncanny each Tuesday at 7:15. It was a spin-off, and never pretended otherwise. Tarplin was already the voice of The Mysterious Traveler, and the writers of that show, Robert Arthur and David Kogan, simply condensed their own half-hour scripts to fifteen minutes and gave them new titles. Adam Hats paid for it after their agency asked WOR for something with "the MacGregor touch" -- producer-director Jock MacGregor, the station's resident supplier of chills. Asked on the air why he only got fifteen minutes, the doctor replied that if you can scare people to death in fifteen, why take twice as long. The format leaves no room for anything but the trap: greedy heirs, a scientist who goes too far, two killers who deserve each other, and an ironic reversal at the end. Variety liked it. It drew a Hooper of 6.1 and some 225,000 homes a week, and about thirty stations carried it on transcription. All 29 broadcasts survive -- which matters, because most of the Mysterious Traveler episodes they were cut down from do not.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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