Murder Is a Merry-Go-Round: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (March 11, 1949)

“Murder Is a Merry-Go-Round” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast March 11, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Free, no sign-up. Or subscribe to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar in any podcast app.

What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar arrives at the Funfair and Weatherly Carnival to investigate a series of suspicious accidents that keep injuring townspeople and draining the insurance company's funds. When Dollar learns that carnival manager Shanty Brennan's nemesis, Carter Lacey, was imprisoned for attempting to kill Brennan's niece Myrtle, he begins to suspect the jailed man may have escaped and be orchestrating the accidents as revenge.

A traveling carnival midway in a small Alabama town, including the carnival grounds, Brennan's trailer, and a hotel coffee shop.

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Shanty Brennan, Louise (Pepper), Myrtle, Carter Lacey, Various carnival workers

Listen for: Dollar's witty observations about carnival life and danger; his expense account tallies; confrontations with evasive carnival workers; the revelation of Carter Lacey's vendetta and suspected escape from prison.

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.