Blue Beetle Radio Shows

As much as I love Golden Age comics, pulp magazines, and old movie serials, that's how much I also love old time radio shows. The Shadow, Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, all playing out their adventures in the theater of the mind! Is there anything better?

However, I recently found out about a crossover of two of my favs I'd never heard of before. Did you guys know the Blue Beetle apparently had a radio show? There are actually 21 episodes available online:

http://www.radiolovers.com/pages/bluebeetle.htm

If I ever come across any others, I'll let you know. In the meantime, happy listening!

I've known about the radio series for a while. I'm sure I remember seeing in some of the early Fox Features books several advertisements for it. www.archive.org has 24 stories (each are two parts), available as free downloads. Botar's Old Time Radio also has the shows for free, along with the dates that the shows apparently aired in 1940 from May through September.

There was also a syndicated comic strip featuring BB, but info on that seems rather scarce.

bchat wrote:

I'm sure I remember seeing in some of the early Fox Features books several advertisements for it.

You know, bchat, now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. I guess I just assumed that the shows were all hopelessly lost and promptly forgot all about it.

That's what I love most about the internet: If someone has a copy of "it", it'll make its way online. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be too many radio or tv shows that are completely lost. The Blue Beetle comic strip, on the other hand, appears to be a tougher find, as I've only found four of the daily strips so far.

Just thought I’d follow up on this, in case anyone is interested. I recently got the chance to start listening to these. The first few are really enjoyable, and they seem to be keeping pretty close to the comic. They did change Dan Garrett’s love interest, for some reason: investigative reporter Joan Mason is out and Police Commissioner’s daughter Mary Donnelly is in. And they guy they have doing the Blue Beetle’s voice isn’t bad, but doesn’t sound super-heroic to me; I think he’s a touch too nasally. Still, I’m looking forward to hearing the rest!

Oh, and I also came across this site: http://www.radioechoes.com/

It has The Blue Beetle, a episodes of The Green Lama, and what is apparently the only remaining episode of the The Black Hood.