Radio Recap: The Strange Dr. Weird

The Strange Dr. Weird was a horror anthology program that ran for 29 episodes from late 1944 until early 1945 on Mutual. It was a 15-format, which is a little unusual for that type of program. It was created by Robert A. Arthur of the Mysterious Traveler and was likewise hosted by Maurice Tarplin, the host of that program, using the same manner of presentation that he did on the earlier show.

Beyond its delightfully goofy name, the Strange Dr. Weird is very much like the Mysterious Traveler in miniature. With commercials, intro and outro removed the shows have only about 10 minutes of actual drama. That doesn't leave a lot of time for suspense - the plots move terribly quickly as situations are introduced, the complications arise, then the surprise ending hits like a freight train.

The plots move at such breakneck speed that I've long assumed that the Strange Dr. Weird recycled and abridged scripts from the Mysterious Traveler, similar to the Sealed Book. Maybe they did, but looking at episode titles of the lost broadcasts of the Mysterious Traveler, I don't see any matches. But Robert A. Arthur was a very prolific author - they might be recycled from somewhere else in his massive bibliography.

So, the Strange Dr. Weird feels a little clipped, but it does mean it's never dull. Sometimes the twist endings work well because you haven't had much time to consider where the plot is going - it simply reaches the climax so quickly. Of course, since there's very little fat in the scripts, it also means that all the details which remain are important, so if you do like to predict where stories are going you'll recognize the foreshadowing very easily.

If you like the supernatural, there's plenty to find in this series in episodes like "The Man Who Talked with Death," "the Knife of Death" and "Murder Will Out." There's also lots of great mad science episodes like "The Man Who Lived Twice" and "Murder, One Million B.C."

Again, I do find the character of Dr. Weird to be far, far too much like the Mysterious Traveler. When he repeats his outro reminding listeners he's in "the house on the other side of the cemetery" I half-expect to hear him say, "I take the same cemetery every week at the same time."

You can listen to the Strange Dr. Weird on the Internet Archive.