Theater of the Mind
The Fat Man
10 episodes · 1946–1951 · ABC · Detective
Play The Fat Man on Radio Days
"Weight: 237 pounds. Fortune: danger!" J. Scott Smart played Brad Runyon, the heavyweight private eye, on ABC from January 21, 1946, until 1951. Dashiell Hammett got the creator's credit; producer E. J. Rosenberg developed the show, and Richard Ellington wrote most of the scripts. Ed Begley played Sergeant O'Hara. The show led to a 1951 film, with Smart in the role and the circus clown Emmett Kelly in his first acting part. Australia made its own version in 1954-55.
Sources: The Fat Man, Wikipedia
Episodes
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1946
- The Nineteenth Pearl
The very first show. It starts with a beautiful stranger in Grand Central Terminal. - Twice-told-secret
The Archive copy has no date; Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs lists this title on February 11, 1946, the date used here. - The Black Angel
Brad Runyon gets tangled in a blackmail scheme over $100,000 of stolen bank money. - The Crooked Horse
A woman reports a murder in room 610, but there's no body. She turns out to be a government agent chasing spies, and the killing starts for real.
1947
- A Window for Murder
A killing in a Greenwich Village apartment house, and a strange old lady with a ball of string and a knife.
1948
- Murder Plays Hide and Seek
A body in a taxicab starts a double murder, and both victims had the same initials.
1949
- Murder Wins the Draw
A beautiful woman leads Brad Runyon from Mexico to Guatemala City and a man killed with a machete. - Murder Is the Medium
A knife strikes during a seance, then come poisonings.
1951
- The Nightmare Murder
A mystery writer hires the Fat Man to prove that he killed a woman. - Order for Murder
A retired major everyone hated is shot in the woods outside Washington. Everyone had a motive.