Mr. District Attorney
½ hour detective show

Mister District Attorney!
Champion of the People!
Guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!

This show was inspired by Thomas E. Dewey, New York's racket busting district attorney in the late 1930s. Dewey later went on to become Governor of New York and infamous in his presidential run for the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline. Dewey had transformed the district attorney from the bumbling incompetent (the kind heard in many of our radio programs) to a hard working, tough as nails defender of justice.

Shortly after airing as a 15 minute serial it went to the full half hour format. Mr. District Attorney started as a replacement show when Bob Hope went on vacation, but when Bob came back, Mr. District Attorney stayed on, and stayed in the top 10 ratings for a few years, in fact it was the number 1 show during the summer (admittedly, it was when the big shows were on break, but still, #1 is #1.)

Ed Byron a down on his luck radio man (largely out of work) created and produced the series with head writer Robert Shaw. Byron and Shaw were known to hang out in bars and mingle with criminals to get good material, as well as interview cops and reporters. The result of their research was a show that was grounded in reality. At one point they wrote a script dealing with Nazi submarines that was so close to a real, and secret, event that the FBI gave Byron a real visit. Another time the show aired a story about a police raid on a sanitarium on the exact same day that a real raid on a sanitarium took place.
As well as crime/detective/police/adventure stories, the series was also not afraid to take on social issues like racism and poverty.

The cast was: Jay Jostyn became the District Attorney in 1940, Vicki Vola as Miss Miller, Len Doyle as Harrington the investigator. This cast went through the entire run to 1950, a revamp of the show occurred in 1951 with David Bryant in the lead role.

“and it shall be my duty as district attorny not only to prosecute to the limit of the law all persons accused of crimes perpetrated within this county, but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens.”