Episode 556 - The Bunco Bunch (Bunco Squad, Dragnet, & The Line-Up)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Mystery, Detectives, Old, Radio, Time, Tv & Film, Oldtimeradio

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2023

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hold on to your wallets when you're around the smooth-talking con artists and swindlers in this week's show. Fortunately, some dogged radio detectives are also on hand to stop these scammers in their tracks. We'll hear "The Case of the Bookworm" from Bunco Squad (originally aired on CBS on April 20, 1952). Then, Sgt. Joe Friday tracks down a phony investment guru in "The Big Bunco" from Dragnet (originally aired on NBC on April 17, 1952), and on The Line-Up, Lt. Ben Guthrie pursues a crook preying on families of deceased soldiers in "The Buggered Bunco Boys" (originally aired on CBS on November 12, 1952).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get this and get it straight.
0:02.0	Crime is a sucker's road,
0:04.0	and those who travel it'd wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.
0:07.0	The story you're about to hear is true. The
0:12.5	The story you were about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
0:18.5	The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.
0:21.5	The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize.
0:25.0	Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account.
0:30.0	America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator
0:33.2	yours truly Johnny Deller The Hello and welcome to down these mean streets with more old-time radio crimes and crime solvers.
1:07.0	Today we're entering the world of the Bunco artist, the ancestor of the Nigerian prince who keeps getting caught in your email spam filter. Conmen and swindlers earned the name Bunko Artists after the game Bunkco, a cousin of three-card Monte that originated in England
1:27.1	in the 19th century and eventually made its way to the United States.
1:32.4	The name of the game became associated with any sort of
1:35.8	con or scam and police officers who were assigned to raid gambling parlors and
1:42.0	pursue the crooks behind them became known as Bunco Squad's, which gives us the title of the first show we'll hear today.
1:51.0	It's Bunco Squad, which no surprise, is about con men and
1:56.7	swindlers and the dogged detectives who expose their lying cheating ways.
2:02.1	We'll hear the case of the book their lying cheating ways.
2:03.0	We'll hear the case of the Bookworm,
2:06.0	which originally aired on CBS on April 20, 1950.
2:10.5	Betty Lou Gerson and Larry Dobkin, a pair of actors we've heard a ton on this podcast, play a pair of swindlers who target a retired couple.
2:21.0	The crooks try to rope in the Marx with an offer to publish an in-demand science
	...

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