Radio Recap: Johnny Madero, Pier 23

Up 'til now I've written a couple of blog posts about Jack Webb's early radio career at ABC while he lived in San Francisco. His biggest hit from that tenure was Pat Novak, for Hire, part of Webb's long partnership with his writer friend (and former roommate) Richard L. Breen. Breen wrote comedy scripts for the Jack Webb Show, much of the quippy dialogue heard on Pat Novak, for Hire and later on he wrote for Webb on Dragnet and Pete Kelly's Blues.

But when Webb left San Francisco for Los Angeles, ABC kept producing Pat Novak, for Hire without he or Breen. So it was that Webb and Breen signed on with Mutual to produce a new show that was basically identical to Pat Novak, for Hire; that show was Johnny Madero, Pier 23. The two shows were set in San Francisco, featured Webb as a odd job guy who kept being involved in murders, sought council from a somewhat laconic ally, menaced by the local police inspector, and contained a terrific amount of quippy dialogue.

Apparently they were so much alike that after the 1st episode, ABC sued Mutual! It seems in the debut week, Johnny's ally was a drunk almost identical to Jocko Madigan from Pat Novak, for Hire. To placate ABC, the drunk was dropped and replaced with Father Leahy, portrayed by Gale Gordon. Despite being a man of the cloth, Father Leahy seemed to be basically identical to Jocko Madigan - prone to lengthy philosophical thoughts that would carry on, ignoring Johnny's protestations. But he didn't seem to be a drunk (although he did mention how much he enjoyed wine) so I suppose ABC were placated.

The hard-nosed police inspector of Johnny Madero was called Inspector Warchek and portrayed by William Conrad, who was definitely well-cast in that part. Webb and Conrad's angry wisecracks at each other form probably the best parts of the series.

Johnny Madero, Pier 23 only lasted 5 months, from April-September, 1947. Sadly, we only have 2 episodes currently known to exist. Happily, when the show ended, Webb and Breen patched things up with ABC and both returned to Pat Novak, for Hire. In fact, most of what we have now from that series is from Webb's 2nd tenure on the series.

You can hear the two surviving episodes of Johnny Madero, Pier 23 at the Internet Archive. It's a pity we have so little remaining; Mutual made a lot of detective programs but the writing and performances on this series were well above their average.

I'll probably write some more about Jack Webb's early career next week!