“I don’t brush!”

One of my more quaint and elderly hobbies is listening to American radio drama from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, when radio was the primary form of entertainment. Dramas consisted of voice actors playing parts in various genres, but the most “entertaining” are what were referred to as “mysteries” — mostly goofy crime dramas ending in unexpected twists. Kind of like the precursor to the Shyamalan-style “surprise ending” stuff you see in movies lately. Just as silly, too.

One series dripping with cheesy goodness is called The Whistler. The genre is the aforementioned mystery drama, but the stories are all book-ended with narration by the mysterious “Whistler”, a man who, at the start of every show, whistles an ominous tune to signal the start of another tale filled with mystery and suspense. Each show’s climax reveals an unexpected twist in a final line of dialogue, capped with a two-note beat of a kettle drum to punctuate the drama (and inform the audience that the drama has ended).

A particular favourite of mine is the show from January 9, 1949, titled The Tell-tale Brand. Starting at 10:43, there’s two and a half minutes of hilarious dialogue in which a jilted woman informs her lover–who’s just suggested that they “call it a day”–that despite his efforts to brush her off, “I don’t brush”. As it’s a crime drama involving cheating lovers and murder, it’s all played very straight, and this in combination with her whiskey voice, her incredulous response to his attempt to end things (“Call it a DAY?!”), and the general silliness of it all, it makes for thirty minutes of time wasted in the best possible way.

I have to hear her surprised reaction to calling it a day, all the time. I just have to. So I made an iPhone ringtone of thirty-odd seconds of the juiciest part of this dialogue, and capped it with those booming kettle drums, and The Whistler’s signature whistle. Please enjoy it as much as I have (though I doubt anyone could).

For good measure, please also enjoy a tidier ringtone featuring Johnny Dollar, another show from the era (showcasing the “fabulous world of insurance investigation” — this is no joke), which is preceded by a fifties-style ringing telephone.