The Charlie Wild, Private Eye Radio Program

Background

Wildroot and its various grooming products over the years had been a sponsor of Radio programming since the earliest days of popular Radio broadcasting:

• 1930 Wildroot Chat
• 1936 The Charioteers Quartet
• 1946 Dark Venture
• 1946 The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective
• 1946 The King Cole Trio
• 1950 Charlie Wild, Private Eye
• 1951 The Shadow
• 1952 Twenty Questions
• 1953 F.B.I. In Peace and War

But it was Wildroot's sponsorship of The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective (1946) that forever associated Wildroot Cream Oil and its other family grooming products with Radio. As equally associated with Fearless Fosdick as Sam Spade, Wildroot's advertising campaigns featured both fearless sleuths in a series of equally entertaining and engaging comic strips over the years of Wildroot's various Radio sponsorships. Reportedly aired live during each episode, The Wildroot Barbershop Quartet's lively performances of "It's Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie" remain one of the campier elements of each commercial broadcast of The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective.

Wildroot Cream Oil's relationship with The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective was all roses and champagne until one of Sam Spade's scripts made a passing reference to a notoriously corrupt, Right-Wing Republican Congressional Representative from New Jersey. J. Parnell Thomas, famous for scanning the newspapers for any perceived slight to him or his committee, undertook an 'investigation' of members of The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective production company. An archetypal conflicted right-wing Conservative, J. Parnell Thomas employed the tried and true right-wing tactic of diverting attention from one's own corruption by pointing to imagined or wholly fabricated misdeeds of others. In this case, his targets were 'Sam' Hammett and by implication, Howard Duff himself. At about the same time, investigative journalists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson were undertaking investigations of their own--into Thomas' own corruption problems.

Dashiell Hammett had already made many very public, deprecatory observations regarding J. Parnell Thomas' right-wing machinations, as well as those of the witch-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The HUAC, one of the Republicans' more shameful and outlandish 'strawman' witch hunts over the years, was comprised of some of Congress' most sexually conflicted, corrupt, and morally compromised politicians, aides and henchmen who ever gained public office. They exercised their growing power through intimidation, fabricating 'evidence' and outright libel and slander. Howard Duff's efforts in support of labor unions were conflated by the HUAC with communism through HUAC Members' influence over "Red Channels", American History's most cowardly, shameful, and opaque 'blacklist'. Once a performer's name made an appearance in Red Channels, no amount of factual rebuttal could erase the taint on his or her career.

Even though the damage to Howard Duff and The Adventures of Sam Spade had already been planted by J. Parnell Thomas, The American Legion [Black Shirt Chapter], and the HUAC, it took Wildroot a year to weigh its 'options'. Apparently feeling that their shiny, slicked-back hair demographic was at risk with further sponsorship of The Adventures of Sam Spade, they ruminated over either cancelling Sam Spade outright or undertaking another detective drama with which to retain the same audience. They decided to do both. Wildroot, to its shame, ultimately canceled Sam Spade, citing Dashiell Hammett's 'creator' credit and Howard Duff's starring role.

Determined to shift their sponsorship to "Charlie Wild, Private Eye", Wildroot abandoned The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective entirely. Citing layer upon layer of nonsensical reasons for the series' abrupt cancellation, NBC was understandably deluged with a reported 45,000 to 250,000 demands for the show's reinstatement. But by that time Howard Duff had wisely moved on to a more fulfilling--and financially predictable--Film career.

In an fitting twist, J. Parnell Thomas was brought down at about the same time that Wildroot was approaching NBC about cancelling Sam Spade, Detective. The House Republican Steering Committee predictably dragged out any sanctions or investigation of Thomas for most of 1949, but a Grand Jury was eventually seated. Thomas was tried and convicted to 18 months in prison for carrying imaginary personnel on his Congressional payroll while depositing their pay in his own accounts, and Thomas resigned from Congress in January of 1950, only days before he was to begin his prison sentence at Danbury. In a further, predictable Right-Wing twist, Thomas had taken the Fifth throughout his trial, much the same as Dashiell Hammett had attempted to when he was brought before Thomas's HUAC. In the case of the HUAC, they simply refused to accept a Fifth Ammendment election from Hammett. But the trial of J. Parnell Thomas correctly accepted his Fifth Amendment election, while ultimately convicting him anyway.

Wildroot Dumps Sam Spade and Launches Charlie Wild

Caving as it did under political pressure, Wildroot launched its own, similar 'Sam Spade' production, Charlie Wild, Private Eye on September 24th 1950. Launched over NBC as Charlie Wild, Private Eye, the series initially starred George Petrie as Charlie Wild. The billings that NBC stood to receive from Wildroot for the Charlie Wild series over Radio were pegged at an estimated $500,000 during the winter of 1950.

By October of 1950 NBC felt it had a real winner on its hands with Charlie Wild, Private Eye. It aired the detective series in prime time along with The Falcon, The Saint, and Dangerous Assignment in direct opposition to Mutual's competing lineup of Hashknife Hartley, Martin Kane: Private Detective, The Shadow and True Detective. George Petrie's portrayal of Charlie Wild was reportedly well received and NBC had every reason to believe that the series would remain a solid member of its Fall Season of night time mystery programs.

But Wildroot had other plans . . .

Wildroot had intended to air the Charlie Wild franchise over Television as well, but apparently the Television negotiations with NBC broke down when NBC couldn't find a prime-time Television slot for Wildroot's proposed Charlie Wild, Private Detective. Wildroot then approached CBS-TV with the Television version of Charlie Wild, Private Detective and CBS made room for it in its prime-time lineup with the proviso that Wildroot bring the Radio version of Charlie Wild along with it. Wildroot agreed. NBC lost both the potential $500,000 in billings for the Radio version as well as the proposed $250,000 billings for the Television version for a total loss of three-quarters of a million dollars to NBC and a commensurate gain of that same amount to CBS. Note that in today's terms, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) alone, that was a net loss to NBC of over $7 Million and a net gain of the same amount to CBS. Not exactly chump change by any measure.

Having aired bi-weekly since December 22nd 1950, the Charlie Wild, Private Detective series over CBS-Television moved to a weekly program beginning April 18th 1951

When the series went to CBS after its first 13 episodes over NBC, CBS gave Stage actor Kevin O'Morrison the lead role as Charlie Wild, and rebranded both the Radio and Television franchises, Charlie Wild, Private Detective. CBS Television began airing the Television version of Charlie Wild, Private Detective on a bi-weekly on alternating Fridays, ultimately airing it weekly, along with the Radio version beginning April 18th 1951.

Kevin O'Morrison remained in the role of Charlie Wild through the 26th Radio episode (the 13th over CBS Radio) and after about as many Television versions of the series. At that point John McQuade took the role of Charlie Wild over both Radio and Television until the last Radio broadcast on July 1st 1951 while remaining in the role over Television for another year. Kevin O'Morrison had cited the difficulty of performing two separate renditions of the series each week--one for Radio and one for Television--as interfering with his other Stage and Television commitments.

While not actually a weekly simulcast in the most literal sense, it's clear that both the Radio and Television Charlie Wild series' were airing weekly a few days apart for at least the last the last twenty episodes of the CBS Radio run.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Not surprisingly--in the hearsay 'OTR World,' anyway--many long-standing Wild tales about the broadcast history of the various Charlie Wild programs hold no water whatsover and are as believable as the much of the rubbish disseminated by the 'credentialed OTR authorities' of that co-opted segment of vintage Radio collecting:

• The series debuted as Charlie Wild, Private Eye and retained that title through Episode No. 13.
• With Wildroot's jump to CBS, the name of the productions over both Radio and Television was changed to Charlie Wild, Private Detective.
• The programs from Episode No. 14, forward, were loosely simulcast over CBS Radio and CBS Television.
• For the first thirteen weeks of the CBS-TV broadcasts of Charlie Wild, Private Detective, the Television programs aired on alternating Fridays, while the corresponding Radio versions continued to air weekly.
• The move to CBS marked the end of George Petrie's involvement with the series, replace by Kevin O'Morrison. Kevin O'Morrison then left both the Radio and Television productions with Episode No. 26, replaced by John McQuade as Charlie Wild.
• The long-standing rubbish that Wildroot discontinued its sponsorship of Charlie Wild after its move to CBS is just that--utterly contrived, history-revisionist rubbish. Wildroot continued sponsoring both the Radio and Television versions of Charlie Wild, Private Detective through the 39th and final 'simulcasts' over both the Radio and Television versions. To underscore the folly of the currently circulating rubbish, Wildroot not only continued sponsoring both the Radio and TV versions but also mounted an elaborate--and expensive--Print ad program comprised of Charlie Wild cartoon strips advertising Wildroot products. The cartoon strip also continued to promote both the Radio and TV versions until the Radio version left the air. Wildroot continued the Charlie Wild comic strips--sans Radio promotional copy--through the end of 1951.

How do all of these 'prominent,' 'credentialed,' and self-important "OTR Authors" get away with perpetuating this history-revising drivel? You have yourselves to thank for that everytime you purchase one of their "official," authoritative books. In the utterly co-opted world of 'OTR,' perpetuating the 'big lie' sells--big.

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[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]