Old Time Radio Sci-Fi — X Minus One: "A Pail of Air" (1956) | Full Episode

For ten dollars, a numerologist over a barbershop promises to put Fibber McGee in harmony with the universe by giving him a new name: Homer K. Frink, eleven letters, a prime number, guaranteed lucky. Fibber shows off his new vibrations to the Old Timer, Mrs. Uppington, Harlow Wilcox and Wallace Wimple, then jaywalks against a red light and tells the cop his name. Homer K. Frink, it turns out, is wanted in seven states for arson, murder, bank robbery, forgery, swindling, parole violation and bigamy. Under the station-house spotlight Fibber 'confesses' to the big Chicago fur warehouse job, and it takes Doc Gamble and an appendix scar to spring him. Broadcast on NBC May 4, 1943, with Jim and Marian Jordan, Bill Thompson, Isabel Randolph, Arthur Q. Bryan and Harlow Wilcox, plus the King's Men singing 'I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'.'

A package marked FRAGILE, insured for $800, lands at 79 Wistful Vista, and inside is a leather sample case stamped in gold: Fibber McGee, special representative of a fancy watch company. Molly landed him the job at Mrs. Uppington's bridge party, and Fibber has already done the arithmetic: a hundred watches a week, a thousand dollars in commission, and a hotel suite to match. His very first sales call goes wrong in the worst possible way. Halfway through his pitch at the jewelry counter, a gunman walks in and holds up the store, Fibber gives chase, and the cop on the corner collars the man running down the street carrying a case full of gold watches. Then every friend who comes down to vouch for the McGees ends up behind bars beside them: Harlow Wilcox for an unpaid parking ticket, Mrs. Uppington on suspicion of being the fence, and Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve because the judge's wife wears his girdles. Broadcast on NBC February 11, 1941, the week of Lincoln's Birthday, with Jim and Marian Jordan, Harold Peary, Bill Thompson and Isabel Randolph. Listen for the hall closet, a gag barely a year old here and, as Molly says, it "still gets a laugh."

Before Bob Bailey, before Charles Russell, there was Dick Powell. In this December 1948 audition, never broadcast, Powell plays Johnny Dollar, the freelance insurance investigator with the action-packed expense account. East Coast Underwriters needs him to keep Milford Brooks III, a spoiled heir with a $2 million life policy, from killing himself. The beneficiary is a restaurant owner Brooks owes $200,000. Then Brooks vanishes out a window, his coat turns up on a ferry, and a matchbook in the pocket points straight at the man who collects. Dollar has to work out whether he's looking at a suicide, a murder, or a setup. Powell passed on the series to star in Richard Diamond, so this is the only time he played the role.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto have jailed four of the knife-throwing Tarantula gang with help from Texas Jack of the Border City Cafe, and now Jack hands over a dead sheriff's letter naming the last of them: Larkspur, who cheated old Bart Billings out of the Last Chance mine by burying its gold vein under a blast. Billings turns up in an arroyo with a Tarantula knife in his back, a knife fired from a crossbow carries the gang boss's order to kill the masked man, and an ambush at Overhang Rock closes in on two glowing headbands in the dark. The final chapter of the September 1942 Tarantula serial, with Brace Beemer as the Lone Ranger and John Todd as Tonto.

Caleb Saxon and his wife Edith ride the stage to Basin City hoping to leave the whispers back East behind them: a court cleared Caleb, but everyone still believes he stole the trust fund he managed for his late friend's son. Then the stranger riding up top pulls a gun, forces the coach down the lonely Creek Trail, and marches the old couple off into the woods with every dollar they own. The young man who swore to get even with Caleb is camped with the Lone Ranger, and the masked man has a hard lesson in mind for him. A July 1, 1940 broadcast with Earle Graser as the Lone Ranger and John Todd as Tonto.