The True Adventures of Junior G-Men Radio Program

Background

The F.B.I., or 'G-Men,' for Government Men, captured the imaginations of boys and girls throughout the 1920s and 1930s especially. The exploits of antihero gangsters of the era such as Bonnie and Clyde, Babyface Nelson and John Dillinger were as popular with America as the heroic law enforcement officers that relentlessly pursued them.

The least camera-shy of the F.B.I.'s G-Men was Melvin Purvis, notorious for tracking down--and gunning down--John Dillinger. Following the notoriety of the Dillinger capture and shootout, Purvis basked in the notoriety for a year, then retired from the Bureau and hung out a shingle as an attorney in San Francisco, while pursuing offers from the entertainment industry of the era.

Beginning in 1935, C.W. Post had attempted to capture the growing fascination with federal law enforcement officers with a promotion based around its Post Toasties cereal brand and its "Inspector Post's Detective Corps." Purvis, realizing the potential of the promotion struck a deal with C.W. Post to rename the 'corps' "The Melvin Purvis Junior G-Man Corps." The 'corps' eventually added an auxiliary 'Division', "The Melvin Purvis Junior G-Man Corps: Girls' Division," in all probability in response to indignation from the young ladies of the nation to the presumptive boys-only designation of 'Junior G-Man.'

Throughout early 1936, Post Toasties featured prominent half-page and full-page ads in the comics sections of the nation's newspapers promoting serialized 'adventures' of Melvin Purvis and 'The Corps,' while understandably promoting the consumption of Post Toasties by America's youth. Boys and girls were urged to send away for their membership kits and official cards and badges.

Mutual Broadcasting System's flagship station WOR, seized upon the growing wave with their "The True Adventures of Junior G-Men" serialized adventure series, produced and directed by Donald Peterson. The series ran from June 1, 1936 through May 27, 1938, in a Monday - Wednesday - Friday, 15-minute format for the entire two years--a total of 312 installments. The program's most often cited sponsor was Fischer's Butter Cup Bread.

The Dead-End Kids also took a run at being Junior G-Men
in this first Universal Serial from 1940

The True Adventures of Junior G-Men premieres

Though the first three installments are currently only privately held, the subsequent two, three-part adventures demonstrate the format of the series. To the blaring of police car sirens and teletype machines, the announcer/narrator would tease the adventure for the night. Most of the adventures were in the form of 'reports' from their 'operators' or 'Junior G-Men' in the field. The operators were named, then allowed to frame their following adventure. Most episodes would announce or tease the following week's adventure. The narrator delivered his introductions and exposition in a Walter Winchell-esque manner.

Most circulating episodes are multi-part installments there were apparently many single-installment adventures throughout the run. The multi-part installments in circulation were either two-part or three-part adventures. There are at least twenty-one single installment adventures in current circulation.

The narrator for most of the circulating episodes employs a kind of George Jessel imitation with the above mentioned Walter Winchell type, staccato delivery. It certainly added to the sense of the gravity and urgency of each adventure--for 9-12 year old boys and girls, anyway. To the adult listener, the delivery often got in the way of both accuracy and audibility.

The adventures themselves were related by the young 'operator' or Junior G-Man assigned to that night's report. The 'Director' would 'summon' another operator at the close of most adventures, either by name or by his or her Junior G-Man number. The operators themselves were, for the most part, presumptively selected from New Jersey, primarily. The names may or may not have been fictitious, since no disclaimers are heard in any of the broadcasts. If they were indeed fictitious, the name "Jerry" came up with statistically impossible frequency. No young female operators are heard in the currently circulating adventures, but, as with the Post Toasties promotion cited above, it would seem reasonably certain that one or several young female Junior G-Persons would have appeared sooner or later during the run.

Radio station WOR was no newcomer to spinning juvenile adventure yarns. The station cranked out literally hundreds of juvenile oriented programming over the years. They were particularly adept at juvenile adventures. WOR had been the originating station for Chandu The Magician, The Shadow, Mysterious Traveler, Vagabond Adventures, and The Witch's Tale since as early as 1931. They were also particularly adept at promoting their juvenile adventures through prizes and giveaways, club memberships, all manner of memorabilia, and membership cards and badges, etc.

The principal sponsor for the circulating episodes was Fischer's Butter Cup Bread, a popular local baker throughout the east coast. We could find no memorabilia promoting the Fischer sponsored programs, but given WOR's canny promotional machine, we're certain there were any number of membership kits, Fischer tie ins and promotional giveaways associated with the run.

The series had to have fired the imagination of its young listeners. One can easily imagine most of the younger members of the audience vicariously identifying with either the assigned 'operator' for each adventure or their home towns--generally throughout New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The ritual recitation of the night's operator and his or her hometown, unquestionably personalized the experience for the program's listeners. The production wisely selected their young operator from virtually every social and ethnic demographic throughout the run. The circulating exemplars represent mostly young operators of Western European ancestry, but we would imagine that this is more a reflection of the only 20 percent of the series in current release, rather than a deliberately disproportionate ethnic mix. The idea, afterall, was to sell Fischer's Bread to any family with the price of a loaf in their budget.

Though no credits other than the director are announced in the circulating exemplars, there were several actors often employed in the WOR programming of the era heard in the episodes. Frankie Darro and Jock MacGregor, in particular can be heard in many of the installments.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

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

OTRisms:

The entire OTRCAT.com description of The True Adventures of Junior G-Men is a complete fabrication. There's not a word in OTRCAT's description that's accurate.

The Hickerson Guide incorrectly cites a five day a week schedule for Junior G-Men. It actually aired on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, weekly. It also mischaracterizes the start date for the series as March 1, 1936. The actual start date of the series was June 1, 1936. Nor did the series end on March 8, 1938. The program's last broadcast was on May 27, 1938. It was replaced in the WOR lineup by "Cowboy Songs." Such inaccuracies only serve to discourage serious collectors from attempting to either log or complete such a mischaracterized series; moreso when the inaccurate citations come from one or more of the 'credentialed experts' of the commercial otr community. Unburdened as we are of 'credentials,' we simply elect to employ the K.I.S.S. method--we simply report the truth.

There was a an attempt at announced continuity through the first 52 installments. After that point most of the announced cues as to the next installment were either generic or incorrectly announced. The announcer would close those episodes with a call for a specific Junior G-Man member, by number, but the following episode would rarely maintain that member number in identifying the next operator or Junior G-Man reporting the night's installment.

There were other continuity gaffs throughout the run. The same 'report numbers' would be cited over and over, or often mischaracterized within multi-part episodes. Report Nos. 906 and 909 were repeatedly recycled throughout the first eighty installments. The scripts often recycled Junior G-Man numbers, assigning them to multiple 'operators.'

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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.]