NRR Project: ‘Gang
Busters’
Broadcast of July 20,
1935
30 min.
“Gang Busters was the noisiest show on the air,” writes the great old-time radio historian John Dunning in his definitive On the Air. It definitely started out with a bang – a literal bang, followed by breaking glass, machine-gun fire, a police siren, and the marching tread of prisoners. Gang Busters was serious about crime. (Thus the phrase “come on like gangbusters.”)
The show was the creation, and professional rebirth, of its producer Phillips H. Lord. He began his career in radio as Seth Parker in 1929. In it, he portrayed a gentle and wise New Englander dispensing piety and gentle humor, mixing hymn-singing and cracker-barrel philosophy. At first immensely popular, a set of scandals later sabotaged Lord’s career and the show.
Lord planned his comeback. He sought to tell stories of the FBI, and in 1935 started his true-crime series under the title of G-Men. In this, he had the early cooperation of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the organization. Beginning with the story of the killing of John Dillinger, G-Men ran on for a year, until excessive FBI interference led Lord to change the show’s name to Gang Busters, and its focus on true crimes reported from across the nation.
The most important angle of the show was its avowed authenticity. These weren’t made-up stories, they were “authentic police case histories.” The show’s narrator would interview a law officer “by proxy” (meaning an actor portrayed the officer) about the crime, and the show would segue into the tale of the law-breakers.
The criminals were easy to identify – they used slang and contractions. (All law officers portrayed were well-spoken and grammatically correct.) Out of their sleazy minds would hatch a scheme to get rich quick by felonious means, and quickly they would set to work. Soon also would the law get wind of their activities, and move swiftly and decisively to arrest them.
Justice was always served on Gang Busters. Additionally, the show would broadcast special alerts at the end of the show – bulletins identifying criminal suspects, and calling for listeners to keep an eye out for them (several criminal were evidently apprehended due to the efforts of listeners).
Lord was back in business. The show ran for a healthy 22 years, and influenced all the crime shows that followed it.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Nest time: La Chicharronera.