Radio Drama · Old Time Radio Researchers · Mystery & crime · Drama · Horror & the supernatural
Molle Mystery Theatre
- Heard
- 1943–1948
- Episodes
- 71
MOLLE MYSTERY THEATER
More about it
NBC's Mystery Theatre began airing with much fanfare on September 7, 1943. The series promised stories from the greatest classical and contemporary mystery authors -- and production values to match. And it kept its promise. It was aided from the outset by the addition of an 'annotator'-- as it was described in the 1940s --named Geoffrey Barnes. The annotator served in the role of expositor, filling in on the plot development as necessary and providing a back-story when needed. The apparent distinction made between a narrator and an annotator, was a matter of degree. Mr. Barnes, a distinguished and celebrated amateur criminologist in his own right, was apparently on hand to help the listener analyze and understand the various mysteries and their underlying crimes within each script. The program appears to have aired sustained for its first three months, with three to five sponsors beginning to make an appearance with Program #17, "The Mystery of The Seven Keys" of December 28, 1943. There is a circulating program titled "Homicide for Hannah", that should have been the first Molle Mystery Theatre, but there is no provenance anywhere that the initial program ever actually aired. This is the first circulating program in which we hear the program refer to itself as Molle Mystery Theatre. But throughout its NBC run, we hear sponsorship by Ironized Yeast, Energene, Bayer Aspirin, Sterling Drug, and Molle. To its everlasting credit, NBC clearly went to great…
Episodes, in broadcast order
Where it comes from 1
The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.
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Molle Mystery Theatre - Single Episodes
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
12 more sets hold only episodes played here from a set above.
A set by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group (otrr.org), at the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio collection.
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Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.