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From the Golden Age of Ellery Queen to Madison
The Absolute Fun of Armchair Detectives
Full disclosure, I had never listened to “The Adventures of Ellery Queen” before it was recommended to me from a listener. It still stuns me how huge some of these shows were, existing in other media as well as even into modern day, and NOPE! Slipped right past me. (so this is another reminder that you can email me your show suggestions at MadisonOnTheAir@gmail.com!) This show could’ve blended in with all the other detective noir shows of the era. Noir was a very popular genre, so there are a lot of them. Perhaps you’re familiar with the mid-2000’s craze with the premise of a cop working with some form of non-cop as an “Odd Couple” pairing who go on to be brilliant together at solving crimes. “Bones,” “Castle,” “The Mentalist,” “Lucifer,” “White Collar,” etc., etc. Well, think of detective noir as the Golden Age of Radio’s version of that. It’s popular, so let’s see how many versions of it we can churn out! Some worked, some not so much. But what made Ellery Queen unique? The Armchair Detectives.
It’s interesting, especially with the huge popularity of true crime podcasts, how much the term “Armchair Detectives” gets thrown around. But no one gives credit to the Ellery Queen radio drama for the creation of the concept. Defined loosely as, “Someone who listens along and thinks they can figure out the mystery.” If you like a puzzle, it’s a fun game to play. And “The Adventures of Ellery Queen” certainly was a hit with at-home sleuths. Each week they’d have a different guest tasked with trying to guess the answer live on the air before Ellery revealed it. I’ve listened to a number of the episodes and observed:
The celebrity actors on the show certainly had the most pizzazz. They are actors. So they’re comfortable being in front of an audience. Many would come on in order to promote a current project. And if you go back and listen to them… *spoiler alert* the actor armchair detectives are working from a script. Perhaps you’ve listened to the original episode we adapted, “Nikki Porter, Suspect.” The guest was Gypsy Rose and they create a whole interaction with Ellery’s dad shamelessly flirting. And I don’t really know much of Gypsy Roses’ work (aside from what they tell us in the musical!) but… her performance was pretty flat.
Sports figures were also included in the armchair detectives slot. They were lead through easy questions by Ellery and given a chance to talk about themselves. Likewise, unknown but predominant figures were also brought on the show. Top specialists in fields that could be related to the subject of the episode. In those cases, they often included up to three guests so all the weight of conversation wouldn’t be on the person who probably was nervous about being in front of an audience.
It all comes down to absolutely wanting to emulate this unique part of Ellery Queen for our presentation. I chose Shannon Perry because she has been one of my earliest connections in the audio drama world thanks to meeting at the Podcast Movement Convention in LA back in 2022. Through Shannon I had met Sarah Golding. True to her name, she is a gold-mine of resources and expertise in the world of audio drama. Drew Frohmann and I became creator-buddies online when he put out his first show, “Human B-Gon.” We were able to meet in person at the LA Podcast Movement convention in 2024. While Sarah and Drew had never “met” formally, (Shannon being the kingpin to all of our relationships) I knew that each one of them was funny, engaging, talented and would absolutely create a lively discussion as our Armchair Detectives.
The tricky part was I had to have all but the final scene of Ellery Queen completely done early enough to get to the Armchair Detectives in time for them to listen and for all four of us (Shannon and me on the U.S. West Coast, Drew in Toronto and Sarah outside London). I broke out of my usual production schedule to edit as quickly as I could so Jeremy would be able to jump on the EQ/music portion. They got a slightly raw version of the episode, but it still was what the final audience would hear.
We found a suitable time and recorded through Discord, with everyone recording locally as well for better sound quality (although Drew’s didn’t work out so we used his Discord audio). As Madison, I tried not to guide the conversation. I didn’t want to drop any clues. I wanted their ideas on their own. And the chat could not have come out funnier. I mean, with these people, how could it not? My favorite moments were how much Drew loved Frank and absolutely could not imagine him as the killer. That was nice because I’d pumped up Frank from the originally written character to make him more fun. Shannon, admitting she’d taken notes, picking Rita and her reasoning of Rita hiding in the luggage rack was gold. Then both Drew and Sarah honing in on Jupe, but for much different reasons. Sarah 100% wins the day by nailing exactly the logic Ellery came up with to find Jupe guilty. While Drew assumed by Jupe’s voice he must be tall. Hilarious. And bonus fun– everyone thinking the kid on crutches is the killer. He was mentioned in Ellery’s replay of Madison’s actions after she left the train. That she yelled at the child for nearly tripping over him. That was purely a throw away joke, imagining Madison being so rude as to actually yell at a kid on crutches. And the Armchair Detectives took it and ran with ideas of how he could’ve been the killer! It was really hard not to laugh through the entire exchange.
In the end I did have to trim down our chat. I didn’t want it to be as long as the episode itself! But I really just cut out the fat. You are getting the talk as is. But now I know why Ellery Queen was so popular. Why celebrities of the era clamored to get one of the coveted Armchair Detective spots, with the show boasting approximately 750 guests throughout the run of the series. It’s just plain fun.
