This Is Your FBI was a radio crime drama which aired in the United States on ABC from April 6, 1945 to January 30, 1953 for a total of 409 shows. The show featured true cases from FBI, and told from an agent's viewpoint. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave it his endorsement, considering it "Our Show" and calling it "the finest dramatic program on the air".
The shows would involve everything from crackdowns on organized crime, or stories of individual lawbreakers. Some were well know crimes being worked on during that time period. The agents handled cases involving fraud, petty crime and professional crooks, as well as clearing those falsely accused. The stories shifted during the half-hour between the criminal's actions and the agent's account of the investigation follow-up.
First appearing February of 1946, a fictitious agent, Jim Taylor played by Stacy Harris; however, he would not become the regular agent on air until the production moved from New York to Hollywood in 1948.
Producer-director Jerry Devine was given access to FBI closed case files by Hoover, who would dramatize the stories. Devine would keep up to date on the latest methods with twice a year trips to the FBI. Narration was handled by Frank Lovejoy, Dean Carleton and William Woodson. Members of the cast along with Harris were Betty White, William Conrad, Herb Ellis, Michael Ann Barrett, Carleton Young, Georgia Ellis, Jay C. Flippen, and many other stars of the time.
There were other shows which would dramatize crime investigations, such as Gangbusters, Mr. District Attorney, and The FBI in Peace and War; however, the Peace and War stories were not always authentic. Later shows which would take the idea of authentic treatment of a true story and tell it well were Dragnet and Tales of The Texas Rangers.
This Is Your FBI was sponsored during its entire run by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.
Information for this synopsis was derived from numerous sources, including John Dunning's Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, and from Wikipedia.
From the Old Time Radio Researchers Group. See "Notes" Section below for more information on the OTRR.
It contains the most complete and accurate version of this series in the best sound possible at the time of creation. An updated version will be issued if more episodes or better sounding ones become available.
This is the Single Episodes Page. The Certified Set includes extras not found here. It is located at OTRR Certified Set. This Single Episodes page is provided in case you want to sample the shows.Note that in many cases, file names have been modified from the original OTRR names to conform to archive.org naming requirements.
If you are interested in preserving Old Time Radio (OTR), you may wish to join the Old Time Radio Researchers Group at Facebook and Groups.io.
Relax, listen, and enjoy!
OTRR Definitions:
OTRR Maintained Set -- This set contains all known episodes in the best available audio condition with the most accurate dates and titles known to be in general circulation and based on current research at the time of release. Replaces OTRR Certified Accurate and OTRR Certified Complete.
OTRR Non-Maintained Set -- A collection of shows that has not gone through the OTRR Maintenance process.
Pre-2019 OTRR Definitions:
OTRR Certified Accurate -- A series that was "Certified Accurate" indicated that all the episodes were properly identified and labeled based on current information but that the series did not contain all known extant episodes.
OTRR Certified Complete -- A series that was "Certified Complete" achieved the highest level of certification available under the OTRR Certified Standards. This certification level implied that all the files in the series were "Certified Accurate" and also indicated that the series was as complete as possible and included all circulating episodes.
OTRR Non-Certified -- A collection of shows that has not gone through the OTRR Certification process.
Also, beginning in 2019, the version numbers of our OTRR releases changed format -- instead of v1.0 or v2.1, we are now using a version number that reflects the year and month the set was released. The format used is a two-digit year followed by a two-digit month. For example, "v1906" indicates a set that was released in June 2019, or "v1910" indicates a set released in October 2019.
NOTE: There are no passwords for any of our ZIP files. If you are prompted for a password, before downloading the file again, try unzipping the file into a shorter full folder path name -- for example, unzip to "C:\" instead of "C:\Documents and Settings\your_Windows_ID\some_other_folder\". Sorry, some of our releases contain long folder and file names, which sometimes manifests itself on the Windows platform as prompting for a password for the ZIP file. Or try renaming the ZIP file itself to a shorter name before unzipping.
