John Steele, Adventurer


(4.3 stars; 3 reviews)

John Steele, Adventurer was a Mutual network program broadcast from 1949-1955. Steele would introduce grand stories of danger and adventure but would not always be the focus of the story. Many of the stories are of people the fictional character "met" in his life of gathering such information. It was a good series that probably would have done better on the larger networks. Don Douglas starred as Steele. Most of the production and writing was by radio executive Bob Monroe. He was one of the first users of magnetic tape in radio production. He taped rehearsals and edited them into broadcast-ready programs at a time in the industry when to produce in such a manner was new. He also was among the first to use “canned” prerecorded bridges throughout programs. Blocked by musician union rules, his biography said that Monroe took his audio equipment to Cuba, hired a local orchestra, and recorded the musical pieces for six days. “For much of the time they played to an audience of one – a nephew of Cuba's dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who sat listening to what was going on with a revolver by his side.” Monroe is not well known today as few of his series and limited numbers of their programs survive. For all of the broadcasts of High Adventure , Nightmare , and John Steele , Adventurer that were made, there are essentially only a relative handful that are in collections. Monroe had some intense personal experiences during this time that led him to investigate out-of-body experiences. He left radio a very wealthy man and devoted the rest of his life to these pursuits, creating The Monroe Institute. The Institute has many materials on the Internet Archive . (The biography of Monroe is The Journey of Robert Monroe: From Out-of-Body Explorer to Consciousness Pioneer by Ronald Russell) * * * These recordings are part of the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection. Mr. Hehn (1931-2020) was a pioneering collector of radio recordings when the hobby emerged in the 1960s. Digitizing his collection of reel tapes and discs is the effort of a wide range of North American volunteers, and includes assistance of some international collectors. The groups supporting this effort with their funds, time, technology and skills are the Old Time Radio Researchers and a small group of transcription disc preservationists who refer to themselves as the "The Knights of the Turning Table."

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.