Product Details

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a radio drama about a freelance insurance investigator "with the action-packed expense account." The show aired on CBS Radio from February 11, 1949 to September 30, 1962. Johnny Dollar was a smart, tough, wisecracking detective who tossed silver-dollar tips to waiters and bellhops.

Each story started with a phone call from an insurance agent, calling on Johnny to investigate an unusual claim. Each story required Johnny to travel to some distant locale, usually within the United States but sometimes abroad, where he was almost always threatened with personal danger in the course of his investigations. Johnny's file on each case was usually referenced as a "matter," as in "The Silver Blue Matter" or "The Forbes Matter." Later episodes were more fanciful, with titles like "The Wayward Trout Matter" and "The Price of Fame Matter" (the latter featuring a rare guest-star appearance: Vincent Price).

Each story was recounted in flashback, as Johnny listed each line item from his expense account. Most of the items related to transportation and lodging, but no incidental expense was too small for Johnny to itemize, as in "Item nine, 10 cents. Aspirin. I needed them." Johnny usually stuck to business, but would engage in romantic dalliances with women he encountered in his travels; later episodes gave Johnny a steady girlfriend, Betty Lewis. Johnny's precious recreational time was usually spent fishing, and it was not uncommon for Johnny's clients to exploit this favorite pastime in convincing him to take on a job. The episodes generally finished with Johnny tallying up his account, making final remarks on the report, and traveling back to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was based.

This collection of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar Greats includes 610 different shows and appearances for a total of 224+ hours of listening enjoyment.

This product is a DVD collection of Old Time Radio mp3s. It is designed to be played on your computer DVD drive with standard mp3 software - like Windows media player or its equivalent on Macintosh computers. The mp3 files on the DVDs can be copied onto CDs for play in your car stereo, home entertainment center, etc so you can take your favorite shows with you anywhere you go.