The Private Eye of Radio

The audio-only aspect of radio entertainment resulted in the adaptation of many already established genres, like detective stories, as the medium of radio required a more intensively intellectual content for the basis of its broadcast; consequently, the radio produced detective characters with more conceptual powers than those of a physical nature. In contrast to television, where images would drive the production, radio productions were driven forward through more sophisticated plot twists and dialogues between characters. One early example of this type of a "Private Eye" radio detective was the Honolulu detective Charlie Chan, who was featured as the main character in "The Adventures of Charlie Chan". As previously mentioned, compared to what I imagine the video production of this detective series might have been while listening to the radio broadcast, it was easy to determine why radio needed detective characters of this nature in order to be successful. Ultimately, if the character of Charlie Chan were to have been a detective who depended on brute force in order to solve crimes, the broadcasts would be much less interesting because the consumer would not be able to physically see Charlie pummel the bad guy or chase down a criminal, and the consumer would therefore be less consumed into the plot of the story.

Another "Private Eye" radio broadcast that featured a detective character who used deduction rather than brute force in order to solve crimes was Sherlock Holmes, who was one of the most famous detectives of this genre of all time. Although Holmes' series usually featured very little action, his intellectual deductive powers allowed for the sophisticated plot-twists that kept listeners engaged through out the program. As I was already familiar with the Sherlock Holmes series, I chose to listen to the Ellery Queen broadcast in order to gain a more elaborative perspective on the detective characters of radio entertainment. Ultimately, Queen was extremely similar to Sherlock Holmes in the way that they both solve their crimes by finding clues that no one else noticed and mentally arranging them in order to solve the crime. However, one unique element of this broadcast that I found interesting was the stopping of the action for the purpose of soliciting possible solutions of the crime to the audience. I felt like this was a significant aspect of the broadcast because it was an obvious attempt to further engage the audience in the plot, and the general concept reminds me of the Goosebump series that I read when I was younger, which featured alternate endings based on decisions the reader would make through out the story. Obviously the broadcast did not feature alternative endings, but i found the attempt to convert radio from a passive experience to an interactive experience to be extremely intriguing in terms of its long term effect on multimedia.