Lightning Hits a Shakedown: The Green Hornet (August 10, 1939)

The Green Hornet, old-time radio on Stupid Potato

“Lightning Hits a Shakedown” is an episode of The Green Hornet, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 10, 1939. Listen free on Stupid Potato: no sign-up, no app.

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What happens

The Daily Sentinel publisher Britt Reid, known to criminals as the Green Hornet, looks into Lawrence Reed's claims that Fargo, a city-politics agitator, is spreading false statements against the Light and Power Company. After a lightning strike cuts power downtown, Fargo blames the company's obsolete equipment, and Porter, the company president, is quietly threatened by an anonymous note bearing the Green Hornet's seal. Reid, with Lawrence's help, tracks down a power station worker named Curtis who may know something about the failure, and sets a trap at the plant.

The city of a daily newspaper, the Daily Sentinel, with its offices and the Light and Power Company's downtown power station

Characters: Britt Reid, Lawrence, Casey, Reed, Fargo, Porter, Scadron, Curtis

Listen for: Reid's attempts to link Fargo to the power failure, and the threat letter bearing the Green Hornet's seal

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.