The run
- Network
- ABC
- Years active
- 1940–1955
- Surviving broadcasts
- 88
- Genre
- detective
This upload contains 88 episodes of the Old Time Radio program, Gang Busters. The show, a police-based dramatic crime anthology, ran from 1935-1957 and focused on dramatizing crimes from police files. The show also broadcast alerts, known as Gang Buster Clues, of suspects wanted by police around the country.
Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
28 dated broadcasts across 16 years on the air, with 9 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1948, in original transmission order.
- 1. Gang Busters The Case of the Craig And Motes · 19 Jun 1948
- 2. Gang Busters The Case of the Mysterious Rooming House · 24 Jul 1948
- 3. Gang Busters The Case of the Carnival Caper · 31 Jul 1948
Gang Busters The Case of the Torture Trio
28 Dec 1955 · 28 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 28 December 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Tapped Telephone
14 May 1955 · 29 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 14 May 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Missing Detective
30 Apr 1955 · 25 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 30 April 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Punchdrunk Soldier
16 Apr 1955 · 26 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 16 April 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Mistreated Lady
2 Apr 1955 · 29 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 2 April 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Lost Gun
5 Feb 1955 · 27 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 5 February 1955. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Amateur Horseplayer
27 Nov 1954 · 23 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 27 November 1954. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Gang Busters The Case of the Half Lemon
9 Aug 1954 · 24 min
Originally broadcast on ABC, 9 August 1954. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Also on ABC
ABC in 1940–1955
Other series the network carried while Gang Busters was on the air.
Same seasons
detective on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The private eye at the microphone
First-person narration, a case that walks in the door, and a city that talks back. Marlowe, Sam Spade and Johnny Dollar turned detection into a listening form.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Gang Busters
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
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