The Mysterious Traveler
Season 12, Episode 01
January 15, 2024
Doubly Strange and Terrifying
Re-Imagined Radio samples two episodes of The Mysterious Traveler, "The Man the Insects Hated" and "Behind the Locked Door." A double feature. Double the fun. Double the action and suspense. Doubly strange and terrifying.
Access the episode script
Background
Quick Info
The Mysterious Traveler is an eclectic anthology radio drama series, featuring stories from a wide range of genres. Fantasy, science fiction, crime, stories of mystery and suspense, and horror.
December 5, 1943 to September 16, 1952
30-minute episodes
Total episodes: 370
Surviving episodes: ~69 to 80
Episode Inventory
Cast
The Mysterious Traveler never used "stars," preferring instead unsung radio professional musicians, announcers, and actors like Jackson Beck, Lon Clark, Roger DeKoven, Elspeth Eric, Wendell Holmes, Bill Johnstone, Joseph Julian, Jan Miner, Santos Ortega, Bryna Raeburn, Frank Readick, Luis van Rooten, Ann Shepherd, Lawson Zerbe, and Bill Zuckert.
Sustaining
The series, throughout its nine-year broadcast run, was "sustaining," meaning there was no sponsor. Mutual paid the production expenses, and used The Mysterious Traveler to fulfill its obligations to provide programming content to affiliate network stations. Writer, producer, director David Kogan said the mystery genre was popular for sustaining programs because "they didn't require high-priced comedy or musical talent" (Tollin 1998 20).
Awards, then cancellation
In April 1952, the Mystery Writers of America awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Award for "Best Mystery Radio Show" to The Mysterious Traveler (Hand 143). Ironically, later that same year, in September, the radio series was abruptly cancelled for alleged Communist connections. More about that soon.
Exemplary Episodes
"Zero Hour"
June 22, 1948, Episode #159
Professor Dana Freidberg and Keith Roberts, a writer engaged to write Friedberg's biography, explore a
meteor crash site in Montana, suspecting that it may really have been made by a spacecraft landing. They
find evidence, but before they can report to Washington they are waylaid at a farm compound where they
learn of a Martian invasion already in progress! The odds are stacked against humanity, but there is a
chance the young biographer may escape to warn the military about the invasion, happening the same day
as the broadcast!
Credits
Starring Lawson Zerbe, Cameron Prudhome, and Bill Smith
Written, produced, and directed by Robert A. Arthur and David P. Kogan
Music by Paul Talpin
Sounds by George Cooney
Announcer Carl Caruso
Cast
Maurice Tarplin as The Mysterious Traveler
"The Last Survivor"
Episode 225, 11 October 1949
"S.O.S."
Episode 253, 2 May 1950
Three criminals attempt to steal diamonds aboard an ocean liner but encounter more trouble than they
imagined.
"The Most Famous Man in the World"
Episode 331, 20 November 1951
Two time travelers return to the 20th Century to prevent a man from becoming the first Dictator of
America.
Credits
Robert A. Arthur, Jr., writer
David P. Kogan, writer, producer, director
Jack Amrhein, Jim Goode, Ron Harper, Walt McDonough and Al Schaffer, sound effects
Written by Robert A. Arthur, Jr. and David Kogan
Directed by Jacque MacGregor
Original music by Doc Webel
Cast
Maurice Tarplin as Dr. Smith
Don Randolph as Roger Martenson
with Philip Clark
The Narrator
Each episode of The Mysterious Traveler begins with sound effects of an approaching
railroad train. Then the sardonic Mysterious Traveler welcomes listeners . . .
"This is the Mysterious Traveler, inviting you to join me on another journey into the strange and the
terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little.
So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable—if you can."
The Mysterious Traveler, the narrator, was Maurice Tarplin (1911-1975), novelist and radio actor. Tarplin was a familiar radio voice as Dr. Weird on The Strange Dr. Weird and Inspector Faraday on Boston Blackie. He was heard on numerous other shows, including Valiant Lady, The Shadow, Theater Five, The March of Time (as Winston Churchill), Gangbusters and various soap operas. He played Los Angeles District Attorney Richard Hanley on The Guiding Light, Barnie Belzer on Myrt and Marge, and he was heard in several episodes of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
Beyond his role as narrator, Tarplin appeared in two episodes of The Mysterious Traveler.
The first was "The Good Die Young" (February 27, 1944, Episode #13). In this episode a beautiful and
clever child, Saundra, rebels against her new stepmother. Saundra pretends to be a sweet innocent cherub
in front of her dad, but behind his back contrives ways to get the stepmother out of the house,
including attempted murder. In the end . . . there will be blood! Tarplin plays a general practitioner
named Doctor Smith. He appears twice in this episode. Here we sample his second appearance, and his most
important contribution to the narrative arc of the story.
Tarplin's second appearance was in "The Accusing Corpse" (April 16, 1944, Episode #20; Repeated January
13, 1949, Episode #186, not available). This episode follows Roger and Vivien, a brother and sister who
trick Vivien's husband, Philip, into believing he killed his wife in a fit of rage. Then the blackmail
begins. When Philip pieces together the situation, he demands to be shown the corpse. So Riger shows him
the body buried in the woods! Tarplin plays Dr. Smith, the County Coroner. He appears twice. Here we
sample his second appearance where he unravels the crime.
The Writers
Throughout the nine-year run of The Mysterious Traveler, episodes were written by Robert A. Arthur, Jr. (1909-1969) and David P. Kogan (1916-2009), who also produced and directed. Kogan and Arthur met in 1940, as students in Erik Barnouw's radio writing class at Columbia University, New York (Arthur; Hand 131-132). Hand says Kogan, 24, persuaded Arthur, 31, to collaborate on radio drama.
And collaborate they did, for the next decade, following this system described by Kogan. "We developed the plots together and then one of the other of us would go off and write it. Bob Arthur didn't really care for directing so he usually left that for me" (Tollin 2001 35). Each partner was interested in particular story genres. Again, Kogan, "I've always loved science fiction so I tended to write the scripts in that genre. . . . Bob Arthur was a former Weird Tales pulp writer so he generally handled the horror scripts" (Tollin 2001 20).
Together, they wrote and produced Dark Destiny (1942-1943). Some early episodes were reused for The Mysterious Traveler which they began in December 1943. Episodes were recycled for The Strange Dr. Weird (1944-1945). Arthur and Kogan also wrote the 1944 summer episodes of Nick Carter, Master Detective (1943-1955), for which Kogan had previously written. They wrote and produced The Sealed Book (1945), Adventure Into Fear (1945), The Teller of Tales (1950), and Mystery Time (1952). And, from 1949-1951 they wrote and produced Murder by Experts, a series that featured well-known mystery writers as hosts (Hand 132; Ellett 117-118).
Arthur and Kogan were nominated twice (1949 and 1951) and awarded twice The Edgar Allen Poe Awards (1950, "Best Radio Drama" for Murder by Experts, and 1953, "Best Radio Drama" for The Mysterious Traveler) by the Mystery Writers of America organization (Mystery Writers of America).
Cancellation
Their collaboration ended in 1952 with the abrupt cancellation of The Mysterious Traveler. According to Arthur's daughter, Elizabeth, both her father, Robert Arthur, and Donald Kogan were members of the Radio Writer's Guild (Arthur), an organization suspected of sympathizing with the Communist Party by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee for Un-American Activities. An anticommunist faction of The Guild published a blacklist detailing Communist activites of their colleagues (Blue 360; Caute 529; Berkeley 55-59). Arthur and Kogan were named. Advertisers and affiliates pressured both the Mutual Broadcasting System and radio station WOR to drop The Mysterious Traveler series. The last episode was broadcast September 2, 1952.
No direct involvement was ever proved of Arthur and Kogan, and they eventually cleared their names. But, their careers as radio writers were effectively ended. Arthur never wrote for radio again and ended his career ghost editing many Alfred Hitchcock anthologies for both adults and children, as well as creating the very popular The Three Investigators series of detective novels for children. Kogan, with an equally impressive radio career, scriptwriting for Bulldog Drummond, and then working for The Shadow and The Adventures of the Thin Man, became a portfolio manager and wrote articles for financial publications (Hand 144).
NOTE: Richard J. Hand, writing in Terror on the Air: Horror Radio in America, 1931-1952 notes publication by American Business Consultants of Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, June 22, 1950, in the right-wing journal Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism, which accused 151 radio and television writers, actors, musicians, broadcast journalists, and others as involved in the manipulation of the entertainment industry by the Communist Party. Neither Arthur nor Kogan were included in this report. The full text is availble here.
Spin Offs
In addition to a radio series, The Mysterious Traveler was also a magazine and a comic book. The single issue comic book, The Mysterious Traveler Comic #1 (Trans-World Publications November 1948) was directly tied to the radio series, including the story "Five Miles Down," adapted from Episode 090, 9 February 1947. Charlton Comics published a separate Tales of the Mysterious Traveler comic book for thirteen issues from 1956 to 1959, followed by two more issues in 1985. Steve Ditko illustrated many stories in the series.
A magazine spin-off, Mysterious Traveler (Grace Publishing), ran for five issues, November 1951-1952. Each issue featured a pulp cover illustration by Norman Saunders. David Kogen was the publisher; Robert A. Arthur the managing editor.
The Strange Dr. Weird was a weekly radio spin-off series on the Mutual Broadcasting System featuring fifteen-minute versions of The Mysterious Traveler episode. Each was written by David Kogan and Robert A. Arthur, and narrated by Maurice Tarplin, who lived "on the other side of the cemetery." Each week he invited listeners to enjoy a different horror story, and invited them back the following week for more. Twenty-eight episodes, 7 November 1944-15 May 1945.
Resources
Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs: The
Mysterious Traveler
Old-Time Radio Researchers
OTR Plot Spot: Mysterious Traveler
The Mysterious Traveler at the Internet
Archive website offers 77 episodes
The Radio Programs of
Robert Arthur and David Kogan
Works Cited
Arthur, Elizabeth. Biography, Robert Arthur,
Jr.→ http://www.elizabetharthur.org/bio/rarthur.html
Berkeley, Martin. "Reds in Your Living Room." American Mercury, Aug. 1953, vol.77, pp.
56-59.
Blue, Howard. Words at War: World War II Era Radio Drama and Postwar Broadcasting
Blacklist. Scarecrow Press, 2002.
Bulletin of "We, the Undersigned," Radio Writers Guild, Oct. 1952, Matusow Papers.
Caute, David. The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge under Truman and Eisenhower. Simon
& Schuster, 1978, p. 529.
Ellett, Ryan. Radio
Drama and Comedy Writers→. McFarland, 2017.
Hand, Richard J. Terror on the Air: Horror Radio in America, 1931-1952. McFarland, 2006.
Tollin, Anthony. Old Time Radio Thrilling Mysteries: The Smithsonian Collection. Radio
Spirits, 2001.
Tollin, Anthony. Old-Time Radio Greatest Mysteries. Radio Spirits, 1998.
Mystery Writers of America. https://edgarawards.com/all-winners/
Production
Contents
"The Man the Insects Hated" and "Behind the Locked Door"
Credits
Written, Produced, and Hosted by John F. Barber
Sound Design, Music, and Post Production by Marc Rose
Graphic Design by Holly Slocum with Sydney Nguyen
Significance
***
Producer's Notes
***
Promotion
Press
Television Interview
LIVE: Re-Imagined Radio Recreates 1940s
Radio Play 'Mysterious Traveler→ KPTV, Beaverton, OR, January 4, 2024.
Interview streamed live as part of FOX 12 NOW program, hosted by Greg Nibler
John Barber Interviewed on KPTV / Fox About Re-imagined Radio→
Graphics
