More The Whistler Research

Hi.  I originally made this as a Google Doc, but I thought I'd post it here as well.

This post lists titles/airdates where a source suggests an episode title/airdate is different from those appearing in the updated log.  That updated log is mentioned in THIS post

Articles confirming dates/titles are not noted (there are not that many other sources, but I can post them if they are of interest).

These notes only pertain to the ‘Main Series’.  I have not researched other series yet.

Most of these titles seem to be working titles / alternate titles, but there are some head-scratchers.

There are many omissions of articles (the, a, an) in titles; those were not included.

Hopefully this document isn’t too confusing.

[ImageN]
Refers to a newspaper clipping that is viewable on imgur HERE.

[Berard-Englund]
Refers to ‘Radio Series Scripts, 1930-2001’, compiled by Jeanette M. Berard and Klaudia Englund.  There is a portion of the book dedicated to three collections of ‘The Whistler’ scripts housed at Thousand Oaks Library in California.  It is somewhat available on Google Books, but I uploaded only the relevant pages here: HERE.

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Episodes:

Date - ‘Title’ [Source]
Notes

1942-06-06 - ‘The Nemesis’ [Image1]
‘Whistler 43-05-08 (051) Death Has a Thirst.mp3’, The Whistler states: “And so I tell you again, tonight, one of the favorites tales of ‘Death Has a Thirst’.”  This suggests a repeat performance.  ‘Whistler 43-01-10 (035) The Nemesis.mp3’ does not have this type of title introduction.

1942-06-20 - ‘The Bridge’ [Image2]

1946-06-24 - ‘The Blind Eye’’ [Berard-Englund]

1948-01-28 - ‘Night Final (A Woman Scorned)’ [Image3] [Berard-Englund]

1948-02-11 - ‘Rosalind’ [Image4] [Berard-Englund]
‘Rosalind’ aired on this same date in the HFC series.  Was this title/synopsis sent to the wrong newspaper?

1948-03-17 - ‘The Catalyst’ [Image5] [Berard-Englund]

1948-05-19 - ? [Image6]
I don’t know which episode this article is referring to.  ‘Murder on Margin’, which aired on that 1948-05-19, was written by Frank Lovejoy.

1948-10-03 - ‘The Big Gamble (The Horse Said Yes)’ [Berard-Englund]

1948-11-28 - ‘Murder in Paradise (Have Tux)’ [Berard-Englund]

1948-12-05 - ‘Hired Alibi (Man Trap)’ [Berard-Englund]

1948-12-26 - ‘Delayed Christmas Gift’ [Berard-Englund]

1949-01-23 - ‘Impulse (Second Honeymoon)’ [Image7] [Berard-Englund]

1949-02-13 - ‘Last Curtain (The Marionettes)’ [Berard-Englund]

1949-03-13 - ‘Search for Maxine (Four Hours to Kill)’ [Image8] [Berard-Englund]

1949-05-01 - ‘The Good Citizen’ [Image9]

1949-07-31 - ‘Death on July 31st (Brotherly Hate)’ [Image10]  [Berard-Englund]

1949-08-28 - ‘The Pidgeon’ [Image11]

1949-10-30 - ‘One Way Ticket’ [Image12]

1949-11-13 - ‘An Incident at Pebble Beach’ [Image13]

1950-01-01 - ‘Evening Song’ [Image14]

1950-02-19 - ‘Murder Witness’ [Image15]
Matches plot with ‘Five Cent Call’

1950-03-05 - ‘The Ebony Elephant’ [Berard-Englund]

1950-03-05 - ? [Image16]
This is the plot for ‘Strange Meeting’, which supposedly aired a week later on 1950-03-12.

1950-04-02 - ‘Room 711’ [Image17]
Matches plot with ‘Lady With a Key’

1950-05-28 - ‘Death Trap’ [Image18]

1953-02-15 - ‘The Eager Pigeon’ [Berard-Englund]

1953-09-06 - ‘Breakout’ [Image19]

1953-01-25 - ? [Image20]
Although not much, it could be a possible plot for ‘Search for an Unknown’.

1953-05-16 - ‘Lady With a Key’ [Image21]
San Mateo Times listing a title a week late
Maybe it did actually air a week later on KCBS? And Everywhere?

1953-07-12 - ? [Image22]

1953-08-22 - ‘Curtain’ [Image23]
San Mateo Times again listing a title a week late
Maybe it did actually air a week later on KCBS? And Everywhere?

1953-08-29 - ‘Red, Hot and Cold’ [Image24]
San Mateo Times again  listing a title a week late
Maybe it did actually air a week later on KCBS? And Everywhere?

1954-05-23 - ‘The Doll’s Name Was Susie’ [Berard-Englund]

1954-08-14 - ‘Perilous Return’ [Image25]

1954-10-17 - ‘Last Request (Confession)’ [Image26] [Berard-Englund]

1954-10-24 - ‘Man in the Storm’ [Image27] [Berard-Englund]

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I have brought up this last section before.  As the series winds down in 1955, newspaper radio logs still list ‘The Whistler’ for Sundays.  All internet radio logs for this series have a day switch to Thursdays on 1955-02-24.
A reasonable explanation would be that newspapers were apathetic or ignorant to this day change.  However, that seems improbable, as at least one newspaper bothered to state the episode titles for the Sunday episodes.
The generic images of those dates/titles are viewable HERE.

1955-02-27 - 'Bright Boy' [Image28] [Image29]

1955-03-06 - 'Alibi' [Image30]

1955-03-13 - '7 Steps to Murder' [Image31]

1955-03-20 - 'A Matter of Odds' [Image32] [Image33]

1955-03-27 - 'Backfire' [Image34] [Image36]

1955-04-03- ‘The Ambassador’ [Image35] [Image37]

1955-04-10 - 'Search for an Unknown' [Image38] [Image39]

1955-04-17 - ?

1955-04-24 - 'Incident at Chalk Point' [Image40]

1955-05-01 - 'Letters from Aaron Burr' [Image41]

1955-05-08 - 'The Lovely Look' [Image42]

1955-05-15 - 'Night Melody' [Image43]

1955-05-22 - 'A Case for Mr. Carrington' [Image44]

1955-05-29 - 'Maid of Honor' [Image45]

1955-06-05 - 'The First Year' [Image46]

1955-06-12 - 'A Woman’s Privilege' [Image47]

1955-06-19 - 'The Two Lives of Colby Fletcher' [Image48]

1955-06-26 - 'The Cliffs of Weyrum' [Image49]

1955-07-03 - 'Lady in Waiting' [Image50]

1955-07-10 - 'The Big Prison' [Image51]

1955-07-17 - 'Murder on Roark Island' [Image52]

1955-07-24 - 'Trademark' [Image53]

1955-07-31 - 'The Black Wall' [Image54]

1955-08-07 - 'The Havana Lee' [Image55]

1955-08-14 - 'The Marked Man' [Image56]

1955-08-21 - 'A Present for Rickey' [Image57]

1955-08-28 - 'The Little Red Book' [Image58]

1955-09-04 - 'Design for Murder' [Image59]

1955-09-11 - 'Two Smart People' [Image60]

1955-09-18 - ?

1955-09-25 - 'Element X' [Image61]

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Hopefully this is formatted well enough.

These are notes I posted on the OTRR FB page -- posted here for continuity purposes:

You've run into a bunch of things that I've been grappling with, too. The main one is that the episode title released to the press a couple of weeks before is changed by the time the show airs. "A Woman Scorned" becomes "Night Final" when it is broadcast, etc. The other general issue is the 1955 run when it is broadcast on two separate days, once on eastern networks on a sustained basis, and on the Pacific Network it is sponsored by Lever Bros (Rinso). As far as references by the Whistler to earlier adventures and him saying "one of my favorites", the early Whistler was quite a different character before Allen took over. The basic idea is that the Whistler always existed as some manipulator of fate prior to becoming known to the audience. The same kind of technique was used later in Diary of Fate and Sealed Book, where these stories existed before we heard them. As far as the other titles go, some of the script files in the KNX collection have notes on scripts or slipped in the files that show episode names handwritten on the scripts with some of the titles that were in the newspapers crossed out with the names that we know them as. Let's just say the situation was fluid before airtimes and no decisions were final! This makes it all the more curious and all the more fascinating and one of the reasons why researching the programs make us enjoy them more.

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More details not in the FB post

Internal documentation of The Whistler after the Signal era is haphazard and sloppy in terms of what has been left for us to sort through. So many internal records that would help us are gone. One of the reasons is that it was never really a national program -- even when it technically was! -- so there is no complete central place where you have a fighting chance for complete authoritative comprehensive series information. Instead, we have quite the puzzle.

The information that was found recently (it was there all along, just that no researchers had really noted it) about how different the Signal and HFC productions were is a good example. Sometimes you have 75% congruence on the plotlines but different characters, staff, etc.

Even when you have the scripts, you don't have the scripts, which is something I've been seeing of late. A lot of the Whistler scripts at Thousand Oaks are not the broadcast scripts. They are pre-production scripts, with no casting, no production assignments, and often have titles that don't correspond with the ones used at broadcast. But when you listen to the existing recordings (and that's another issue -- we're still missing 200+ episodes) they match up. So even the scripts in the files are not always authoritative. The scripts we want are the marked up final production scripts -- those handwritten notes on them are often gold mines of information -- and for the most part, that's not what's there. It's often raw scripts of storyline only, and the Whistler show open and close wrappers have not been added in yet.

Some of the folders have records of the sontracts with the writers. Those have been interesting because they sometimes have a different title than the broadcast title.

At some point I will find my way out to Thousand Oaks again and just do an intensive Whistler day. I have no clue when that will be; I hope I get a chance next year.

After all these years of collecting, it's amazing how this hobby is still new for me every day. That's why I still enjoy it so much.

A few more title mentions in newspapers for the other series:

Images are HERE.

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WBBM

1946-06-02 - 'The Broken Chain' [Image1]

1946-07-07 - 'A Stray Dream' [Image2]

1946-08-18 - 'Bulletproof' [Image3]

1946-10-27 - 'Delivery Guaranteed' [Image 4]


HFC

1948-04-07 - 'Hard Bargain' [Image5]

Thanks very much Stewart -- I did look at some of these in their data base lists and did have them pull a few. The ones from the George Allen collection are bound and hard for them to handle (they take pictures with their phones).

Yes, much appreciated that you sent this.

jamesdecker wrote:A few more title mentions in newspapers for the other series:
Images are HERE.

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WBBM
1946-06-02 - 'The Broken Chain' [Image1]
1946-07-07 - 'A Stray Dream' [Image2]
1946-08-18 - 'Bulletproof' [Image3]
1946-10-27 - 'Delivery Guaranteed' [Image 4]

HFC
1948-04-07 - 'Hard Bargain' [Image5]

THANKS very much. Broken Chain has been a real problem, undated for years, and the other day Karl S had documentation of it on 5/19/46. The 6/2 date makes more sense based on the newspaper descriptions that did not have episode titles. All the others fit.

MUCH MUCH appreciated. Will keep you posted!

I just heard from Karl Schadow and he has confirmed the 1946 Summer series as follows:

46-07-03 SUM46-1 The Affair at Stoney Ridge (verified by a review of the episode that appeared in Variety; some newspapers indicated that Solid Citizen was to be the first episode; that was obviously incorrect since the Variety reviewer listened to the episode as broadcast)
46-07-10 SUM46-2 Quiet Sunday
46-07-17 SUM46-3 Triggerman
46-07-24 SUM46-4 My Love Comes Home
46-07-31 SUM46-5 Panic
46-08-07 SUM46-6 Lucky Night
46-08-14 SUM46-7 Death Wears A White Robe
46-08-21 SUM46-8 The Broken Chain
46-08-28 SUM46-9 TITLE UNKNOWN
46-09-04 SUM46-10 Where The Lines Cross
46-09-11 SUM46-11 Brief Pause For Murder
46-09-18 SUM46-12 Three Times a Sinner
46-09-25 SUM46-13 The Stranger in the House

The online workbook has been updated.

Karl is in process of re-verifying the WBBM log.

WBBM Series:

imgur link

1946-05-19 - Sounds a lot like "Bright Horizon"

1946-09-22 - Sounds a lot like "Coincidence"

1946-12-22 - "Blind Impulse"

THANKS very much for those three
I'll see if I can verify some other way so we can be certain

I made a spreadsheet of The Whistler airdates appearing in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin [Honolulu, Hawaii] and Hawaii Tribune-Herald [Hilo, Hawaii]:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13TlrTOoDU_U8EutN8L_tECjCUPY5ZfjnLLx8C2S8Ujo/edit?usp=sharing

Some images: https://imgur.com/a/QenbNNW

Before debuting on the island, in order to hear The Whistler, listeners would have to tune into KNX 1070 in Los Angeles.  I don't know how difficult that would have been.

The debut was 1949-10-04, evidently with the sponsor Wieland's (Beer).  It looks like that sponsorship went away on 1950-04-25.  Both KHBC and KGMB had similar airdates while under sponsorship, and then bounce around times/dates independently afterward.

It'd be interesting to know the style of these episodes.  Were these like AFRS shows with commercials cut out?  Were there Wieland's live-reads?  We'll probably never know.

More questions than answers, but interesting nonetheless.

Anyone know the name of the male quartet or the members of the group who emoted the Signal Oil identification tag in episodes of The Whistler that were broadcast between June 1949 and April 1950? This was the period in which during the middle commercial, Marvin Miller read limericks submitted by listeners.