Let George Do It

About Let George Do It

Let George Do It is an old time radio detective show that ran on the West Coast's Mutual-Don Lee network from 1946 to September 27, 1954, and here you can listen to it free online, around the clock, or as a free podcast. Bob Bailey stars as George Valentine, an ex-G.I. who comes home broke from the war and puts an ad in the paper: "Danger's my stock in trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me." Every client finds him through that ad, and every ad ends "Write full details!"

The earliest shows were closer to a sitcom, with a studio audience laughing along, but the series soon became a suspenseful mystery show. George is helped, and doubted, by his secretary Claire "Brooksie" Brooks, played first by Frances Robinson and then by Virginia Gregg. Joseph Kearns, later Mr. Wilson on TV's Dennis the Menace, plays Caleb the elevator man, and Wally Maher plays Lieutenant Riley, George's loudest critic and biggest admirer. Standard Oil of California, now Chevron, sponsored the show, and its commercials often lead straight back into the story.

If you know Bob Bailey as radio's best-loved Johnny Dollar, this is the role that came first, and many of the show's people followed him to Johnny Dollar, Virginia Gregg among them. Many scripts came from the team of David Victor and Jackson Gillis; Gillis went on to write for TV's Perry Mason and Columbo. Bailey played George until 1954, when Olan Soule, later the voice of Batman on Super Friends, took over for the last season. It suits listeners who like a mystery with a little humor and a hero you would want on your side.

What you’ll hear

• Bob Bailey as George Valentine, a problem solver for hire who didn't think of himself as a detective at first.
• The banter between George and Brooksie, and the occasional "Jeepers!" from her kid brother Sonny.
• Eddie Dunstedter's music, first with a full orchestra and from 1949 on the organ alone.
• Chevron commercials woven into the stories by announcer Bud Hiestand.
• Cases that later range far from home, to Bolivia, Panama, Paris and Istanbul.
• Busy West Coast radio actors such as William Conrad, Hans Conried, John Dehner, Lurene Tuttle and Harry Bartell.

Where to start

• Start with "The First Client" (1946), the audition, in which George's very first client is murdered in his office and then the body vanishes.
• "Mayhem By Experts" (1949) has Lieutenant Riley and five mystery writers plan a birthday prank on George that turns deadly.
• For the holidays, "Follow That Train" (1949) brings George a letter signed by Santa Claus, and "Santa Claus in Glass" (1950) ends with Bob Bailey wishing listeners a merry Christmas.
• The podcast releases a new episode every day in broadcast order.

Let George Do It on the radio

Mutual-Don Lee, 1946-1954. With Bob Bailey, Virginia Gregg, Frances Robinson, Joseph Kearns, Olan Soule, Ken Christy.

Where the recordings come from

The Let George Do It recordings here come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' Let George Do It Singles set (280 episodes), hosted by the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers, the volunteers who found, dated and assembled the set, and to the Archive and the collectors whose uploads it rests on. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every Let George Do It episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
• Boston Blackie
• Broadway Is My Beat
• Nick Carter, Master Detective
• The Adventures of Philip Marlowe
• Christmas on old-time radio
• Thanksgiving on old-time radio

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