Premium Only Content

Johnny Dollar Radio 1957 (ep530) The Ming Toy Murphy 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.
-
LIVE
Barry Cunningham
1 hour agoBREAKING NEWS: PRESIDENT TRUMP THIS INSANITY MUST END NOW!
10,844 watching -
LIVE
Armadillofather
2 hours agoEspionage Action in the Den! | Metal Gear Solid Delta | You being here means so much!
198 watching -
25:12
Jasmin Laine
6 hours agoDanielle Smith’s EPIC Mic Drop Fact Check Leaves Crowd FROZEN—Poilievre FINISHES the Job
57111 -
11:14
China Uncensored
6 hours agoThis Is NOT What China Wanted To Happen
1.19K5 -
LIVE
ABD
1 hour agoCyberpunk 2077 | EP 2 - The Opening Act Pt.2 | 4K UHD
27 watching -
11:11
Michael Button
9 hours ago $0.25 earnedMy Joe Rogan Experience: Behind the Scenes
3.59K2 -
LIVE
Charlotte Winslow
6 hours agoplaying GTA 5 for the First Time Ever in 2025 | OPEN WORLD WEDNESDAY
161 watching -
LIVE
Badlands Media
19 hours agoAltered State S3 Ep. 43
137 watching -
UPCOMING
FomoTV
5 hours agoAmerica First or Finessed? 🇺🇸 0% Inflation & $9.62 a Week Math | Catholic School Shooting Update | Fomocast 08.27.25
55 -
LIVE
Dragoon_B
3 hours agoDragoon - Counter Strike - Noob to Pro Grind
109 watching