The Fat Man
ABC
ABC · 1946–1951
Broadcasts
40
Cadence
Seasonal
Rated
PG
Since
1946
The run
- Network
- ABC
- Years active
- 1946–1951
- Surviving broadcasts
- 40
- Genre
- mystery
The Fat Man ran on ABC from 1946 to 1951, built by Dashiell Hammett around private investigator Brad Runyon and opening each week by weighing its hero on a penny scale. These recordings stream from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
10 dated broadcasts across 81 years on the air, with 79 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2025, in original transmission order.
- 1. Sign Off · 4 Nov 2025
- 2. Dead Air · 11 Nov 2025
- 3. The Long Silence · 18 Nov 2025
- 01
The Case of the Missing Hour
4 Aug 2026 · 46 min
- 02
Night Broadcast
28 Jul 2026 · 1h 1m
- 03
The Last Train Out
21 Jul 2026 · 24 min
- 04
Signal at Midnight
14 Jul 2026 · 39 min
- 05
A Room Above the Street
7 Jul 2026 · 54 min
- 06
The Long Silence
30 Jun 2026 · 17 min
- 07
Dead Air
23 Jun 2026 · 32 min
- 08
Sign Off
16 Jun 2026 · 47 min
Also on ABC
ABC in 1946–1951
Other series the network carried while The Fat Man was on the air.
Same seasons
mystery on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
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