Dime novel Old Detective’s Pupil in the year of 1886 was the first time when Nick Carter was introduced. The author of this novel was John R Coryell based on the story written by Ormond G. smith. In later years, many stories based on Nick Carter became a part of detective story magazine.
As many of the detective stories were becoming popular, a radio show was also commenced to introduce Nick Carter as a fictional character to the people. He was brought up as a master detective on the Mutual Broadcasting system network. The radio shows of Nick Carter were based on the crime drama stories from pulp magazine.
Radio Show
The shows of Nick Carter were first aired with the title as “The return of Nick Carter” and it was referring to the character of pulp origin. Later, as the show started gaining more popularity and fame, the character was given a new name as, Nick Carter, Master Detective. Ferrin Fraser, popular and veteran radio dramatics started writing many scripts for the radio show. The radio show of master detective was aired every Sunday afternoon and became quite popular among the people.
The leading role of Nick was played by Lon Clark and the character of his girlfriend or secretary, Patsy Bowen was played by Helen Choate, but later it was played by Charlotte Manson. Nick solved many mystery cases in the similar manner as Sherlock Homes, relying more on reasons of deduction rather than concentrating more on the physical action. The long time sponsor for this show was Old Dutch Cleanser.
The program was first aired in the year 1943 and then it was aired for more than a decade on different time slots. Jock Macgregor produced and directed many air shows of Nick Carter and the back ground music was provided by organists George White and his group. Walter B Gibson became the lead writer of this radio series in the year 1946.
Introduction
Bowen and Carter had a reporter friend named Scubby Wilson and their contacts in police department were also good with well known Sergeant Mathison. There were several supporting characters in this program, as well and some of them included Bill Johnstone and Raymond Edward to name a few.
The announcer of the program is known to be Fitzmaurice. There was another character, Chick Carter who was actually adopted by Nick as his child. Firstly, this character was played by Bill Lipton and then later Leon Janney started performing for this character which was aired from 1943 to 1945.
Dorothy Langley was providing the sound effects for this series and she was also responsible for providing sound effect for many other serials. Dorothy Langley became popular with the name Dorothy Sweeney.
The series of Nick Carter, Master detective was aired for more than a decade and it comprised of many detective stories like Persistant Beggers, Nick Carters Christmas Adventure, Body On The Slab, Death After Dark, Unwilling Accomplice, Death in the Pines, Records Of Death, Missing Harold Ascort, Drug Ring Murder, The Double Disguise, Dead Witnesses, Substitute Bride and Corpse in the Cab to name a few. The series ended in the year 1955, but left it impressions on the viewer’s mind.
