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The Shadow
had two different types of shows. First there was two different radio
shows and then the television shows.
The first
radio show to star The Shadow was called Detective Story Hour
and it began on July 31, 1930. In this radio show series The Shadow
was just the narrartor. Then due to fan response The Shadow starred
in his own radio show called The Shadow which started on September 26,
1937 and ended in 1954. The Shadow radio show was the most succesful
radio show ever! Voice actors were replaced many times over all those
seasons for all different reasons. Most went seeking another career.
In 1955,
a television pilot was written by Peter Barry and produced by former
Shadow director Wilson Tuttle called Case
of the Cotton Kimono.
Two years later another Shadow television series was attempted, which
the pilot episodes was called The Invisible Avenger. In this series director James
Wong Howe created intersting special effects as Cranston's invisible
altar-ego became a real "Living Shadow."
Recently
(1990's to be specific), The Shadow had come very close to seeing the
light of day in his own animated TV series! Nothing is known as to what
company tried to make this series, but these two clips below have given
us a glimse as to what the series could have been like...Clip
1, Clip 2. This series was supposed
to be a computer generated project with a comic book look, very moody
and noir, and not for kids, for adults...with all the violence. This
series may also still be in the works....
If you
would like to listen to The Shadow radio show you can buy buying them
here.
You can
also see the list of the entire radio show series here.
As
well as The Shadow being on two different types of shows, scenes from
other TV series sometimes had shadow slogans used in them as seen below:
Earthworm
Jim
Episode
Title: The Upholstered Peril Season #: 1, Episode
#: 6 Aired:
October
14, 1995 Synopsis: The phrase "The
weed of crime bears bitter fruit" was uttered by Jim.
Pinky
and the Brain
Episode
Title: Pinky and The Fog Season #: 1, Episode #: 4 Aired: ?
Synopsis: Attempting to take over the world by "fogging"
everyone's minds, Pinky tries to take control of the fictional
radio show, The Mist, featuring the Shadow-like character, The
Fog (complete with slouch hat and cloak).
Muppet
Babies
Episode
Title: The Muppet Broadcasting Company Season #: 3, Episode #: 31 Aired: ? Synopsis: "The younger
versions of the most popular muppets are in the playroom and
the lights go out. Nanny brings down from the attic several
old tapes of radio plays, and an episode of The Shadow is among
them. Gonzo actually dons the cape and hat in one of their "pretends".
That show bowed it's head to a lot of cultural icons, almost
ignoring the fact that it's characters were icons in their own
right."
The
Family Guy
Episode
Title: Death Lives Season #: 3, Episode #: 6 Aired: August 15, 2001 View Clip:Right
Click here and hit Save Target as to save this clip onto your
harddrive Synopsis: One of the characters, Peter Griffin, quotes
a line from the radio show. In this episode, Peter ditches his
wife, Lois, on their Anniversary to go play golf. At the golf
course, Peter is struck by lighting and "dies" and
is visited by Death himself, who informs Peter that he is in
Limbo.
Death takes Peter on an out-of-body journey through his life
and his courtship with his wife. In one scene, journeying across
some clouds, Death informs Peter that he can't go back to living
until he has a revelation. In one flash of a "revelation"
Peter quotes,"The Shadow is, in reality, Lamont Cranston,
wealthy young man-about-town".
Darkwing
Duck
Episode
Title: Dances with Bigfoot Season #: ?, Episode #: ? Aired: ? Synopsis: An animated T.V. series from Disney that premiered
in the fall of 1991 and ran for a few years. It is interesting
to note that the title character fought crime and wore a slouch
hat and cape just like The Shadow (view the picture here). Some
of Darkwing's dialogue seems to be a parody of Orson Welles's
dialogue in some of the Shadow radio shows. In an episode entitled
"Dances with Bigfoot" (episode date and season unknown),
we find yet another similarity between Darkwing and The Shadow:
Darkwing mentions that he was trained by Tibetian monks. But
in Darkwing's case, they taught him his mantra "a-e-i-o-u-and-sometimes-y".
Here's more information about Darkwing. Read the episode synopsis.
The
Cosby Show
Episode
Title: ? Season #: ?, Episode #: ? Aired: ? Synopsis: Theo was sitting alone in the dark because
he was depressed or something; Cliff (played by Bill Cosby)
walked in, took a look around, looked at Theo and said, "Lamont
Cranston."
M*A*S*H
Episode
Title: ? Season #: ?, Episode #: ? Aired: ? Synopsis 1: Radar is in the chow line to get lunch and
asks Klinger "What's under that brown gravy?" Klinger's
response is a pretty good evil laugh and he says "Only
The Shadow knows!"
Episode Title: ? Season #: ?, Episode
#: ?
Aired: ? Synopsis 2: Another time the characters had been remeniscing
about old radio shows like Tom Mix and Klinger again brings
up The Shadow. Radar tries to hum some of the old radio theme
song also.
Episode Title: ? Season #: ?, Episode #: ? Aired: ? Synopsis 3: In an episode called "Adam's Ribs",
Hawkeye is fixated on ordering spareribs from a restaurant in
Chicago. He finally puts a call in to the States, and tries
to get the operator in Chicago to help connect him to the restaurant.
Trying to convince her into helping, he identifies himself as
"Cranston Lamont", a newspaper reporter doing a human
interest story about a soldier from Chicago.
Sanford
& Son
Episode
Title: A Little Extra Security Season #: ?, Episode #: 065 Aired: ? Synopsis: Grady accidentally receives duplicate Social
Security checks and despite Lamont's advice, refuses to report
the error. Later, Grady and Otis return from Las Vegas after
spending all the money. When the social security worker calls,
Grady goes into a panic, but ends up getting another check.
Unluckily for Grady, Lamont is too honest in the end.
(Lamont
Sanford picked up the phone)
"Hello Social Security Department? Mr. Winford please!
It's Lamont San..."
(the
operator)
"one moment please"
(grady
fawns over his checks)
"You know Lamont if I keep getting two check every month
think of all the extra money it will bring in... thats's about
$6,000 a year. $3,000 for me and $3,000 for you.. just think
about it."
(Mr.
Winford gets on the phone)
"Hello. Lamont who?"
(Lamont
Sanfrd eyes glaze over with though of all that free money)
"Ah.. It's Lamont... Lamont Cranston.. the shadow know...
(Click) (Lamont hangs up abruptly)
Carnivale
Episode
Title: Milfay Season #: 1, Episode #: 001 Aired: 09/14/03 View Clip:Right
Click here and hit Save Target as to save this clip onto your
harddrive Synopsis: The episode of The Shadow OTR show that they
played was Silent Avenger. They actually got the episode to
go along with the pilot episode of Carnivale which I thought
was pretty cool. The part that they played was during minutes
7:40-8:18. In Carnivale the clip was played when Brother Justin
(the priest) had just woken up from some freaky dream. His sister
was there listening to their radio in the room that he was sleeping
in. He then gets up and walks away and the next scenes comes
about, with the episode ending.
Now
according to my source who had first contacted me about where
to find the rights to The Shadow so that HBO could use this
clip, she says that voiceover was reacted and is not from the
original radio program. Now this could be seems true, as the
clip played was very clean and had no streaking sounds in it.
NFL
Football
Episode
Title: Pittsburgh vs. Arizona Aired: November 9, 2003 Synopsis: On November 9, 2003 at the Pittsburgh vs. Arizona
game an announcer said "Who knows? The Shadow knows."
Now
this is just a guess as the guy who told me this bit of information
wasn't sure as to why the announcer said this because he really
wasn't paying attention to the game, but I think the announcer
said this because Pittsburgh finally knows what it is like to
win a game as they haven't won in 7 weeks and Pittsburgh won
this game .If anyone watched this game and knows who the
announcers are please do tell me. (Get it now, The Shadow knows
what it is like to win a football game...I think that's what
the announcer meant by his statement).
X-Play
Episode
Title: "The Suffering"; "Naval Ops Commander". Season #: 1 (I believe), Episode #: Unknown Aired:5/1/04 (Re-run airdate) View Clip:Right
Click here and hit Save Target as to save this clip onto your
harddrive Synopsis: At the end of most X-Play shows they have a
segment dedicated to viewer mail. In this episode a viewer asks
if A The Punisher video game will be made based off the movie.
Well the hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb got into a discussion
as to what other heroes should be made into a video. Adam suggests
The Shadow and does his own rendition of "The Shadow knows"
saying "The Adam knows!".
Star Trek Enterprise
Episode Title: Storm Front - Part 1. Season #: 4, Episode #:
1 [production code 077] Aired: 10/08/04 Synopsis: To put things into perspective, at the end of the last season Cpt. Archer and the Enterprise we're flung back in time to 1944. In the beginning of the episode Hoshi Sato [linguistics & communications officer] has been detailing the numerous odd military transmissions about from Earth [with out going into details, the world is not as it should be, the war has taken a turn for the worse] The only non-war/military radio broadcast to get a mention is the The Shadow.
The
Shadow also was talked about on talkshows as well as in biographies:
Entertainment
Tonight
Synopsis:
This T.V. news show focusing on the movie, T.V. and music
industries, did a behind-the-scenes profile on the 1994 Shadow
movie in the same year.
Synopsis:
This series on the A&E Channel about people who collect
anything and everything featured Robert Lesser, the author of
"Pulp Art". In this episode, Robert showed off his
collection of canvas paintings of pulp covers, including The
Shadow. More information about this series.
Biography
Synopsis:
This series on the A&E Channel, about the lives of the famous
and infamous, featured actor/writer/director Orson Welles. There
is a brief mention of his role as The Shadow on the radio, complete
with famous tagline ("The Shadow Knows!") and laugh.
The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Synopsis:
Featured interviews with Penelope Ann Miller and Jonathan Winters
during the opening week of the 1994 movie.
News
Special: Super Heroes The Blessing. The Curse.
Synopsis:
This series on the E! Channel, about any major news in the entertainment
industry, featured a clip about The Shadow. This episode was
created to discuss the success and failures of super heroes.
Based around the recent success of Spider-Man 2, the show included
a segment of how Alec Baldwin and his role in The Shadow failed
to make audiences floak to see it. Aired:
Early July 2004
The
Shadow has also been starred on the radio in recent years as well:
Listerine®
Pocket Packs® (2001)
In
the radio commerical for Listerine® Pocket Packs® (2001),
there is a spoof of Orson Welles's version of the radio Shadow.
WKYS
93.9 FM radio
Around
6:45am the DJs on the WKYS 93.9 FM radio morning show in Potomac,
Maryland, were discussing hilarious fictional horoscopes when
The Master of Darkness popped up (2003).
They
got into this conversation which I forgot what it was even about,
but one of the hosts actually said "Who knows what evil
lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" and that
just made my day already! Then the other host says "What
you talkin' about!?" and he replies "Good times good
times."
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