This is an episode list for the adventure radio drama The Shadow. The series was inspired by an announcer character on the radio adaptation of Detective Story Magazine, an earlier anthology series that ran about 200 episodes and was spun off as a standalone series based on fan interest in the mysterious announcer.
The Shadow premiered on the Mutual Network on September 26, 1937 and ended on December 26, 1954. The 677 episodes aired over 18 seasons, including an additional summer series in the first season.
The seasons were of variable length: Season 1 through Season 8 were of 26-30 episodes, Season 9 through Season 12 were of 38-39 episodes, Season 13 through Season 17 were of 47-52 episodes, and the final Season 18 was of 22 episodes.
There are a number of lost episodes, over 60% of the total: 153 episodes are missing, six episodes are incomplete from seasons one through 12 and seasons 13 through 18 are entirely missing except for three episodes.
Radio scripts are available for the series including the missing episodes, except for the season 1 summer series, which is complete in recordings. Some of the missing episodes are available in preserved recordings of a 1940s Australian adaptation and in recordings of recreated stage readings collected by old-time radio enthusiasts.
List of seasons
Season 1: (1937–1938)
Season 1B: (1938 summer series)
Season 2: (1938–1939)
Season 3: (1939–1940)
Season 4: (1940–1941)
Season 5: (1941–1942)
Season 6: (1942–1943)
Season 7: (1943–1944)
Season 8: (1944–1945)
Season 9: (1945–1946)
Season 10: (1946–1947)
Season 11: (1947–1948)
Season 12: (1948–1949)
Season 13: (1949–1950)
Season 14: (1950–1951)
Season 15: (1951–1952)
Season 16: (1952–1953)
Season 17: (1953–1954)
Season 18: (1954)
Notes Radio Spirits, the company that officially releases episodes of The Shadow on CD, has been releasing their collections with various newly found episodes and titling them as "Lost Shows".
Among these episodes are the complete second summer season starring Orson Welles as The Shadow. Eleven episodes were newly discovered that had not been heard since the original broadcasts: "The Old People" 06-26-38, "The Voice of the Trumpet" 07-03-38, "He Died at Twelve" 07-10-38, "The Reincarnation of Michael" 07-17-38, "The Mark of the Bat" 07-24-38, "Revenge on the Shadow" 07-31-38, "The Mine Hunters" 08-07-38, "The Hospital Murders" 08-14-38, "The Black Buddha" 09-04-38, "The Witch Drums" 09-11-38, "Professor X" 09-18-38
On the latest collection "Crime Does Not Pay", two more lost shows starring Bill Johnstone are included: "Fountain of Death" 11-27-38, "Murder by Rescue" 12-11-38
The list on this page does not include episode "The Case of the River of Eternal Woe", which was scheduled to air 04-15-1945, but was preempted due to news coverage of the death of President Roosevelt. The episode never aired and the recording is lost but a script survives.
References