[Previous entry: ""] [Main Index] [Next entry: "extremepumkins"]

10/21/2006 Entry: "Johnny Dollar"

-Mail that tax thing (check)
-Clean flat (sort of check)
-Pack for camp (working on it)
-Pay OTR tribute (here goes)

Old Time Radio Tribute: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar

Thanks to the magic of internet radio and broadband to make it possible, OTR is something I like to put on while I'm up and pottering around. And today I'd like to shine a spotlight on one of my favorite series: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar. Listen to episodes online here.

Dollar is a classic hardboiled investigator with a bit of a twist: he's got an expense account and travels around busting bogus insurance claimants. The expense account makes him akin to our favorite hero 007. Still, while Bond tries hard to conceal this fact by spouting trivialities about fancy stuff that would make pre-revolutionary French aristocrats seem like phillistines, Dollar gives the lowdown of expenses (e.g. coffee, taxi rides, bribes to slimy informants). It's something that strikes a chord in a listener, particularly one who, when the hero walks into a swank pad wonders, "how much would the rent be?" This show is planted firmly in both glamour and a very down-to-earth sort of materialism. I guess that combination is what makes it distinctly American. Folks must have liked it; it ran for a whopping 14 years and starred several different Dollars. More info here.