70th Anniversary of the 5-part YTJD series

VIEW the presentation slides and hear the commentary

The direct YouTube link is at https://youtu.be/lOdptMHne9o

Separate audio and video files, as well as PDF of the slides are available at the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/MANC-YTJD-2025

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION SLIDES (PDF)

The file is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and is 1.6GB. Download from...

Many thanks to the streaming stations that offered their listeners SPECIAL COMMEMORATION of the 70th ANNIVERSARY

Yesterday USA held a TEN HOUR streaming MARATHON of 5-part YTJD Productions, now permanently archived for easy access

A 10 hours Marathon was streamed on YesterdayUSA Red on Friday, October 3, 2025, and repeated on Monday October 6, 2025. It included special introductions by YTJD expert John C. Abbott and hosted by Dr. Joe Webb.
It is now permanently available at The Internet Archive -- listen and enjoy! https://archive.org/details/70thAnniversaryYTJD5part

Thank you to ConyersOTR which offered a TEN DAY 5-part series STREAMING EVENT

ConyersOTR ran YTJD 5-part episodes 24 hours a day from October 3 to October 12, 2025! The programs ran on their special holiday channel.

For more information on their regular offerings, go to https://conyersradio.net/

Gerald Mohr, the first choice for the 5-part series

Gerald Mohr had a winning audition for the Johnny Dollar role. Variety and Broadcasting magazine reported it as part of larger articles about how CBS was restructuring its radio drama schedule. Listen to the two-episode audition, The Trans-Pacific Matter, that was recorded on August 29, 1955. The audition script was based on the script used for the August 24, 1950 broadcast with Edmond O'Brien, The Trans-Pacific Import Export Company, South China Branch. When John Lund auditioned in 1952 to replace O'Brien, he used this story's script. The Mohr audition, however, was adjusted to the new 15-minute format.

And now, a special treat: Keith Scott is an international voice artist and stage performer. He's also one of classic radio's most devoted researchers. Through his work with Jay Ward Productions (Rocky and Bullwinkle and many others) he got to meet and work with many of the radio performers who were part of those voice casts. He prepared a lampoon of the Mohr audition where Gerald accidentally slips into his Adventures of Philip Marlowe character over a challenge to a padded Johnny Dollar expense report item. (Thanks for playing along, Keith!)

The Mohr auditions and Keith Scott's amusing recording can be found at https://archive.org/details/YTJDGMohr1955

"Re-used" scripts in the YTJD 5-part series

As is discussed in the presentation, there are not really "re-used" scripts, but longer productions that build on the foundation of prior scripts. The 5-part episodes have additional characters and sub-plots that allow for greater character development with more doubt and diversion about the eventual solution to the mystery. (And most important for Johnny... more expenses!) Below are links to the episodes for which the scripts would later become 5-part serials.

from previous YTJD episodes

Broderick Matter The Thelma Ibsen Matter 1/9/1953
Callicles Matter The Brisbane Fraud Matter 5/26/1953
Chesapeake Fraud Matter The Walter Patterson Matter 12/26/1952
Clinton Matter The Story of the Big Red Schoolhouse 4/4/1950
Confidential Matter The Ben Bryson Matter 12/29/1953
Duke Red Matter The Oklahoma Red Matter 6/9/1953
Forbes Matter The Lester James Matter 3/31/1953
Henderson Matter The Underwood Matter 2/27/1953
Kranesburg Matter The Beauregard Matter 1/26/1954
Open Town Matter The Dan Frank Matter 5/4/1954
Shady Lane Matter The Piney Corners Matter 3/23/1954
Shepherd Matter The James Clayton Matter 12/5/1952
Todd Matter The Baltimore Matter 1/2/1953

Audio files are available at https://transfer.it/t/wBggbQ8nFL6Q

from Richard Diamond, Private Detective

Macormack Matter Richard Diamond, Private Detective The Carpenter Case 5/30/1952 (download the hard copy Richard Diamond script and compare it to the YTJD serialized version at https://transfer.it/t/ZDFiDwpxULJC )

first used on Jeff Regan, Private Investigator; many had additional uses on other series

Bennet Matter The Man Who Came Back 8/21/1948, The Adventures of Sam Spade The Champion Caper 8/7/49 and YTJD The Elliot Champion Matter 12/12/1952
Lansing Fraud Matter The Lonesome Lady 7/24/1948 and YTJD The Chicago Fraud Matter 2/6/1953
McClain Matter The Story of the Lost Lady 10/16/1948, The Lady from Brazil 10/19/1949, They've Got More Than Coffee in Brazil 6/18/1950 and YTJD The Madison Matter 4/14/1953
Pearling Matter The Story of the Prodigal Daughter 7/17/1948
Plantagent Matter The Lady with No Name 9/25/1948, Richard Diamond, Private Detective The Lady in Distress 2/23/1951 (download the hard copy script at https://transfer.it/t/9u9HOZkBRBSC ) and YTJD The New Cambridge Matter 12/19/1952 (not in circulation)
Salt City Matter The Story of the Man Who Liked Mountains 8/7/1948 and Rocky Jordan The Fall Guy 5/1/1949
Tears of Night Matter The Story of the Diamond Quartet 8/14/1948 and The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective Tears of Night Caper 7/24/49
Valentine Matter Man in the Church 10/12/1949 and Night Beat John McMasters 3/4/1951 and YTJD The San Antonio Matter 4/28/1953

Audio files of re-used scripts from Richard Diamond and Jeff Regan (and those that re-used them!) are at https://transfer.it/t/Qae1HMsF3JgD

It is possible that future research may reveal even more re-used script incidences; they remain to be discovered.

Bob Bailey in film and television after the 5-part YTJD series

Bailey's radio appearances, television, and film appearances

The list of known appearances and photos is maintained by John Abbott at https://www.humealumni.org/ytjd/rbb.html

Bob Bailey in the 1958 film The Line-Up

Bailey plays a character named "Staples" and appears in a lengthy segment at about the 30:00 mark

Details about the film can be found at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051866/

Bob Bailey as "Judge Paul Ionic" in the 1962-1963 ABC legal series Sam Benedict

There are three episodes with Bailey and they are available at YouTube. He appears in the twelfth episode, Everybody's Playing Polo, at the 38:00 mark. He is 50 years old at this time. The series starred Edmond O'Brien, yes, the second of the actors to portray Johnny Dollar. The series was created and produced by legendary radio scripter E. Jack Neuman, who wrote many of the 5-part YTJD. Many radio actors appear in supporting roles throughout the series. It is not known if Neuman's influence helped get Bailey this role, but there is a good chance he did. (The series is available in a DVD set released by Warner Brothers at Amazon.com)

The other episodes are

Too Many Strangers https://youtu.be/AAgExIqI60E?si=i6ONlqdZZFjPVWC1 after the 38:30 mark (episode 13)
Seventeen Gypsies and a Sinner Named Charlie https://youtu.be/bPnFFRDwkck?si=Z4lR1VbbdUP4i16l after the 39:00 mark (episode 24)

John Dunning's Fascinating Interview with Roberta Bailey Goodwin

This 1982 interview of Bob Bailey's daughter provided great insight into Bailey's difficulties in Hollywood after his radio career ended. Click here to listen to the interview as archived at the Old Time Radio Researchers (OTRR) library. Roberta was born in 1941 and passed away in 2022.

3 NEW YTJD episodes!

Three MISSING YTJD were found in the "Florida reels" that Old Time Radio Researchers (OTRR) have been transferring. They are not in prime sound, but are very listenable. The recordings can be found as FLAC and MP3 files at the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/YTJD3missing2025

At the same Internet Archive page, there are also Adobe Acrobat PDF documents of episode summaries and background prepared by John Abbott as they will appear in the third edition of his The Who is Johnny Dollar Matter? (No publication date has been announced). Below are links to John's summaries at his website from which the PDF files were created if you would prefer to read them online:

Bob Bailey 1957-05-12 The Glacier Ghost Matter AFRTS LQ https://www.humealumni.org/ytjd/safeathome.html
Mandel Kramer 1961-09-24 The Safe at Home Matter LQ https://www.humealumni.org/ytjd/GlacierGhostMatter.html
Mandel Kramer 1961-12-03 The Coin of the Realm Matter https://www.humealumni.org/ytjd/coinoftherealm.html

To order the second edition of John's book go to Bear Manor Media's website https://www.bearmanormedia.com/search?q=%22john+c.+abbott%22 The book is available in harcover, softcover, and Amazon Kindle editions. It is also available at Amazon.

The still missing 5-part single episodes

These episodes have never been available because the production and broadcast tapes were missing from the Pacific Pioneers archives from CBS or too damaged to play. Luckily, John Abbott was able to summarize these episodes from the original scripts. Thankfully, none of the concluding part 5 episodes were missing.

1956-02-08 The McClain Matter - Ep 3
1956-04-03 The Salt City Matter - Ep 2
1956-04-26 The Lonely Hearts Matter - Ep 4
1956-09-18 The Imperfect Alibi Matter - Ep 2

These serials with missing episodes are almost never played on satellite radio or issued as part of CD sets because of the missing segments. It is hoped that AFRS discs might be found one day to complete these stories. The stories can be followed because of the "story re-cap through dialogue" design that was part of the 5-part series scriptwriting.

Reports about the 1982 SPERDVAC visits to Bob Bailey

Go to this page to read about the organization's two visits to Bob Bailey https://sites.google.com/view/mancytjd2025/home/bob-bailey-and-sperdvac

President Bobb Lynes wrote:

EXPENSE ACCOUNT TOTAL: $28.00.... BUT WE WOULDN'T TAKE A MILLION FOR THIS EXPERIENCE.

Thank you to SPERDVAC members Bobb Lynes, Barbara Watkins, archivist Jerry Williams, John Gassman, Larry Gassman, and Walden Hughes for their remembrances and images of their publication Radiogram about Bob Bailey. Many thanks to current president Corey Harker for the organization's permission to include them here.

AFRS 5-part episodes in the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection, and Hehn's correspondence with Jack Johnstone

The Armed Forces Radio Service did release many of the 5-part serials to their network of stations. One of them proved to be a challenge: the 6-part Kranesburg Matter. AFRS released it as a 5-part story. YTJD expert John Abbott detailed the changes they made in the note at this Internet Archive page https://archive.org/details/YTJD5partAFRSJHMC

Hehn was attempting to write a book about radio's juvenile adventure series and had some extensive correspondence with Johnstone. He was involved in some of the early serials, such as Buck Rogers. Johnstone was among those Hehn contacted who was the most gracious and open with him. There are no mentions of YTJD in the letters between them. Some of the letters suffered water damage in storage. Most are typed, but some are in Johnstone's own hand. https://archive.org/details/HehnCorrespondenceJHMC/Johnstone%2C%20Jack%201965-1966/

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