Wed 20 May 2020
Old Time Radio Review: THE ADVENTURES OF TOM DRAKE “The Invisible Thief.â€
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio , Reviews[3] Comments
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM DRAKE, GUARDIAN OF THE BIG TOP. “The Invisible Thief.†Mutual, Summer replacement show, June 1949. Air date: a Wednesday. Probably the second show of the series. Vince Harding as Tom Drake, and Fred Rains as his sidekick, Eddie Roth.
Kids’ shows on OTR such as this one don’t show up very often, so when one does, I’m always happy to hear about it. Tom Drake was a 1949 summer replacement on Mutual for Superman, airing M-W-F and alternating with Bobby Benson on T-Th. I remember listening to the latter, since it lasted longer, but 1949 was maybe a year or two early for me to have been listening.
The circus that Tom Drake works for is having problems with a thief in this one, an invisible one who sneaks into the performers’ tents and steals things with no one ever seeing him (or her). Since only small things are missing, Drake thinks the thefts are meant to be diversion for something bigger that is being planned.
He’s wrong, though, and I had it figured out within the first three or four minutes. You may, too, if you listen to it here, but if I (or you) were eight or nine, maybe we’d both be fooled a while longer. Interestingly enough, there were no commercials for the show, only promos to get the show’s young listeners to call their friends in to listen too. To me the show seems far too tame to get a lot of kids excited about it. It lasted only for the one summer.
For more information about the show, go here.
May 20th, 2020 at 10:55 pm
More memories of the series and how one persistent collector tracked down the stars of the show:
http://www.mwotrc.com/rr2005_04/drake.htm
May 21st, 2020 at 9:59 pm
One advantage of the Internet is that it is much easier to find and share these rarities from radio’s heyday.
May 21st, 2020 at 10:52 pm
I can certainly agree with that. As well as spending countless hours of duplicating shows I had on reel-to-reel tape to swap with other collectors for shows I didn’t have, I also spent a lot of time “researching” them. I put the word in quotes because in the early 70s, what resources did i I have? Not much. Not only are all the show available to listen to online, at the click of an icon button, but so are detailed descriptions of each the various series.