The Mysterious Traveler
Encyclopedia
The Mysterious Traveler was an anthology
radio series, a magazine
and a comic book
. All three featured stories which ran the gamut from fantasy
and science fiction
to straight crime dramas of mystery
and suspense
.
, December 5, 1943, continuing in many different timeslots until September 16, 1952. The lonely sound of a distant locomotive
heralded the arrival of the malevolent narrator (portrayed by Maurice Tarplin
), who introduced himself each week in the following manner:
Cast members included Jackson Beck
, Lon Clark
, Roger DeKoven, Elspeth Eric, Wendell Holmes, Bill Johnstone, Joseph Julian, Jan Miner, Santos Ortega
, Bryna Raeburn, Frank Readick, Luis van Rooten
, Ann Shepherd, Lawson Zerbe and Bill Zuckert. Sound effects were by Jack Amrhein, Jim Goode, Ron Harper, Walt McDonough and Al Schaffer.
"Behind the Locked Door," a popular, much-requested episode which took place in total darkness, was repeated several times during the years. Two archaeologists discover a century-old wagon train
that had been sealed in a cave following a landslide. When their Native American
guide is mysteriously and brutally attacked, the two, now lost in the darkness, conclude that the descendants of the wagon train are still living in the cave.
Only 75 of the original 370 Mysterious Traveler episodes still exist. The popularity of the series spawned other supernatural shows, such as The Sealed Book
. With scripts by a Mysterious Traveler writer and Tarplin as host-narrator, The Strange Dr. Weird
was a nearly identical program.
magazine ran for five issues with cover paintings by famed pulp
illustrator Norman Saunders
. The publisher was David Kogan, and managing editor Robert Arthur also contributed many stories. The first issue (November 1951) carried a welcome from the Mysterious Traveler himself:
Charlton Comics
published a separate Tales of the Mysterious Traveler comic book for 13 issues from 1956 to 1959, followed by two more issues in 1985 (shortly before the company went under). Steve Ditko
illustrated many stories in this title. Stories intended for future issues saw print in Renegade Press
's Murder. In 1990, Eclipse Comics
published a large-format paperback collecting 19 Ditko stories from the Charlton title. Some of those stories were reprinted in Pure Imagination
's Steve Ditko Reader.
's 1950 detective story anthology, Four-and-Twenty-Bloodhounds, paired each story with a brief biography of the detective. In the case of "The Big Money" by Robert Arthur, Boucher apologized to the reader:
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
radio series, a magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
and a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
. All three featured stories which ran the gamut from fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
to straight crime dramas of mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
and suspense
Suspense
Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic...
.
Radio
Written and directed by Robert Arthur and David Kogan, the radio series was sponsored by Adams Hats. It began on the Mutual Broadcasting SystemMutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
, December 5, 1943, continuing in many different timeslots until September 16, 1952. The lonely sound of a distant locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
heralded the arrival of the malevolent narrator (portrayed by Maurice Tarplin
Maurice Tarplin
Maurice Tarplin was a novelist and a radio actor best known as the narrator of The Mysterious Traveler, employing a voice once described as "eerily sardonic."-Biography:...
), who introduced himself each week in the following manner:
- This is the Mysterious Traveler, inviting you to join me on another journey into the strange and terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable—if you can!
Cast members included Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck was an American actor best known as the announcer on radio's The Adventures of Superman and the voice of Bluto in the Famous era Popeye theatrical shorts.-Career:...
, Lon Clark
Lon Clark
Lon Clark was a New York actor of stage and radio.As a youth in Minnesota, Clark studied at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. He began as a musician and actor in traveling tent shows, followed by a season with the Cincinnati Summer Opera...
, Roger DeKoven, Elspeth Eric, Wendell Holmes, Bill Johnstone, Joseph Julian, Jan Miner, Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega was an American actor.-Radio:Ortega was active in radio, starring in The Adventures of Nero Wolfe and narrating a popular radio show called Gangbusters as well as Stroke of Fate. Perhaps his most famous and notable radio role was Commissioner Weston on The Shadow...
, Bryna Raeburn, Frank Readick, Luis van Rooten
Luis van Rooten
Luis van Rooten, was an American film actor. He was christened Luis d'Antin van Rooten.Van Rooten earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood during World War II...
, Ann Shepherd, Lawson Zerbe and Bill Zuckert. Sound effects were by Jack Amrhein, Jim Goode, Ron Harper, Walt McDonough and Al Schaffer.
"Behind the Locked Door," a popular, much-requested episode which took place in total darkness, was repeated several times during the years. Two archaeologists discover a century-old wagon train
Wagon train
A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. In the American West, individuals traveling across the plains in covered wagons banded together for mutual assistance, as is reflected in numerous films and television programs about the region, such as Audie Murphy's Tumbleweed and Ward Bond...
that had been sealed in a cave following a landslide. When their Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
guide is mysteriously and brutally attacked, the two, now lost in the darkness, conclude that the descendants of the wagon train are still living in the cave.
Only 75 of the original 370 Mysterious Traveler episodes still exist. The popularity of the series spawned other supernatural shows, such as The Sealed Book
The Sealed Book
The Sealed Book was a radio series of mystery and terror tales, produced and directed by Jock MacGregor for the Mutual network. Between March 18 and September 9, 1945, the melodramatic anthology series was broadcast on Sundays from 10:30pm to 11:00pm....
. With scripts by a Mysterious Traveler writer and Tarplin as host-narrator, The Strange Dr. Weird
The Strange Dr. Weird
The Strange Dr. Weird is a radio program broadcast on Mutual from 1944 to 1945.Sponsored by Adam Hats, the drama is notable in part because it was a sister series to The Mysterious Traveler, both in theme and its narrator. Maurice Tarplin, who was also the creepy voice of The Mysterious Traveler...
was a nearly identical program.
Magazine
Grace Publishing's 1951-52 Mysterious Traveler digest-sizedDigest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
magazine ran for five issues with cover paintings by famed pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
illustrator Norman Saunders
Norman Saunders
Norman Blaine Saunders was a prolific commercial artist who produced paintings for pulp magazines, paperbacks, men's adventure magazines, comic books and trading cards...
. The publisher was David Kogan, and managing editor Robert Arthur also contributed many stories. The first issue (November 1951) carried a welcome from the Mysterious Traveler himself:
- This is the Mysterious Traveler, inviting you to join me on another journey into the realm of mystery and suspense. This time the trip is to be made in the pages of a magazine, rather than on the air. Thousands of letters have come to me from the many listeners who enjoy my weekly radio program on the Mutual Broadcasting System, urging me to put some of my stories into printed form.
- This magazine is the answer. Some of the stories in it will be my own, retold for your enjoyment in fiction form by the finest writers of today. But many of the other stories will be favorites of mine, both new and old, written by the world's greatest craftsmen of the mystery—such men and women as John Dickson CarrJohn Dickson CarrJohn Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
, Dorothy L. SayersDorothy L. SayersDorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
, Brett HallidayBrett HallidayBrett Halliday , primary pen name of Davis Dresser, was an American mystery writer, best known for the long-lived series of Michael Shayne novels he wrote, and later commissioned others to write...
, Ray BradburyRay BradburyRay Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, Craig RiceCraig RiceCraig Rice may refer to:* Craig Rice , pseudonym of Georgiana Ann Randolph Walker Craig, American author of mystery novels and short stories* Craig L. Rice , American politician...
, Lawrence BlochmanLawrence BlochmanLawrence Goldtree Blochman was an American detective story writer and translator.Lawrence Blochman was born in San Diego, California to Lucien A. Blochman, a banker, and his wife Haidee Goldtree. He began writing early...
, all of whom you will find in this issue, and dozens of others who will appear in the issues to come.
- These stories, both new and old, will be the finest I can collect for your enjoyment. They will have mystery, suspense, inventiveness, color—and above all they will be good reading, just as I try to make The Mysterious Traveler on the air good listening.
- I hope you will enjoy this magazine, now in your hands for the first time. I hope also that you will let me know if it satisfies you, what kind of stories you would prefer to see in future issues, the titles of any favorite stories you would like me to bring back into print again, or any other comments you wish to make. Write me at: Studio 4, 105 East 15th St., New York 3, New York. And now I invite you to begin our first trip together in print with one of John Dickson Carr's most unusual and least known short stories, "The Other Hangman," which begins on the opposite page. Good reading!
- Yours sincerely,
- The Mysterious Traveler
Comic books
Trans-World Publications' one-shot Mysterious Traveler Comics #1 (Nov. 1948) had a direct tie-in with the radio series, including the story "Five Miles Down," taken directly from an episode scripted for the radio program. Only a single issue was published.Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...
published a separate Tales of the Mysterious Traveler comic book for 13 issues from 1956 to 1959, followed by two more issues in 1985 (shortly before the company went under). Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....
illustrated many stories in this title. Stories intended for future issues saw print in Renegade Press
Renegade Press
Renegade Press was an American comic book company, founded by Canadian Deni Loubert, that operated from 1984 to 1988. Notable titles published by Renegade include Flaming Carrot, Ms...
's Murder. In 1990, Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...
published a large-format paperback collecting 19 Ditko stories from the Charlton title. Some of those stories were reprinted in Pure Imagination
Pure Imagination (comics)
Pure Imagination is a comic book, magazine, and comics-related book publisher run by Greg Theakston since 1975.While briefly doing some original comics in the 1990s, as well a publishing a few "girlie" magazines, its main focus has been in publishing books to preserve the great works of several...
's Steve Ditko Reader.
Short story and biography
Anthony BoucherAnthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
's 1950 detective story anthology, Four-and-Twenty-Bloodhounds, paired each story with a brief biography of the detective. In the case of "The Big Money" by Robert Arthur, Boucher apologized to the reader:
- The most disquieting moment in editing this anthology came when I received the biographical questionnaire filled in by the Mysterious Traveler. In answer to the first blank, born __, he had simply inserted: ?. And the succeeding answers were equally disconcerting and not in all cases publishable—though I have forwarded a copy to Miskatonic UniversityMiskatonic UniversityMiskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham; a fictitious town which is said to exist in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River . After first appearing in the H. P...
for its files. Suffice it that no one--not even his nominal creators, Robert Arthur and David Kogan—knows whether the Traveler is detective, criminal or neither. He is only a sly, insinuating, knowing voice heard weekly over MBSMutual Broadcasting SystemThe Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
, and here makes his first appearance anywhere in print.
Listen to
- OTR Network Library: The Mysterious Traveler (65 1938-52 episodes) Real Player required. The first of the 66 episodes available is actually from The Mercury Theatre on the AirMercury TheatreThe Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
, not the Mysterious Traveler - The Mysterious Traveler radio shows (seven 1944-1951 episodes)
- The Mysterious Traveler (two episodes on the Internet Archive)