History Radio / TheShadow

* GenreShift: Well, more like sub-genre shift. The radio series always held fast to its DetectiveDrama roots and a degree of supernatural styling in the form of the Shadow's powers, the genre of the cases he would explore each episode tended to change with what was popular at the time. Early episodes focused on standard crime drama adversaries like mobsters, arsonists, murderers, and thieves. Then there was a shift to more ScienceFiction inspired cases with robots, fantastic inventions, and even actual aliens. This gave way to more horror themed enemies and cases with zombies and werewolves, and eventually Lovecraftian horror. Finally as the series came to a close in the 50s it wrapped all the way back around to standard big city crime again, but now as detective stories where you wouldn't learn what really happened until the very end, with most of the supernatural elements (the Shadow's powers aside) having fallen out of favor.

* CityWithNoName: The city The Shadow has his adventures in is never named.

* TheDriver: Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz, Shreevy for short, a cab driver in both the novels and the radio show. In the pulps he was one of The Shadow's paid operatives, the official cab driver for The Shadow who operated as part of the gang. On the radio program he was not one of The Shadow's operatives, but was an occasional comic relief character.

The radio series was a hit, lasting for decades with several changes of lead actor. The Shadow has also had several ComicBook series, ranging in quality from excellent to terrible, including one from Creator/DynamiteComics, a movie serial, [[Film/InvisibleAvenger a low-budget 1950s feature]],and [[Film/TheShadow a 1994 feature film]]. He has even crossed over with Franchise/{{Batman}} a few times, with the Caped Crusader idolizing him! In 2021 Creator/JamesPatterson (and coauthor Brian Sits) released a new Shadow novel that brings Lamont Cranston from the 1930s to the modern day, the first in what is meant to be a rebooted franchise for the character.

It’s an adaptation of the wildly popular pulp fiction series, ''Literature/TheShadow'', which premiered in 1931. This popularity led to a radio series in 1937, initially starring young up-and-comer Creator/OrsonWelles. While the general format of the magazine series--an avenging, do-gooding ProtoSuperhero went about by night, fighting crime, while posing during the day as a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob--was retained, the stories were greatly altered to fit the format of a half-hour radio drama. Lamont Cranston, one of the Shadow's many aliases, was made his SecretIdentity. The army of agents was replaced with "constant companion" Margo Lane (originally played by Creator/AgnesMoorehead), who became The Shadow's loyal sidekick, GirlFriday, and ''possibly'' girlfriend, although this was left deliberately ambiguous. Most famously, the Shadow was not merely a MasterOfDisguise who was good at hiding in the dark, but could actually become [[PerceptionFilter invisible]] by clouding people's minds!

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Lamont Cranston, amateur criminologist, "wealthy man-about-town". He doesn't do anything for a living, but he hangs out in fancy clubs and is well-connected. The amateur criminologist bit is his excuse for hanging out around the police and asking them questions, although Commissioner Weston and the others think he's a dilettante and never dream he's The Shadow.
* SecretIdentity: Lamont Cranston, in the RadioDrama. (This was a change from the original pulp novels, where The Shadow was Kent Allard, but sometimes impersonated Lamont Cranston, who was a second, separate character.)

* PerceptionFilter: In the radio series. Notably, the Shadow achieved the power of {{Invisibility}} this by "clouding men's minds," and so did not have to worry about many of the usual problems with this power. Although he did have to avoid cameras, and sometimes more exotic methods of exposing him were used. (In "Hounds in the Hills", The Shadow is tracked by guard dogs, who can smell him. Taken to an extreme in "Out of This World", where [[spoiler:''alien technology'' was used to detect and nearly identify him.]])

* {{Ventriloquism}}: From time to time The Shadow would combine this with his power of invisibility, to make the villain think that The Shadow was someplace different from where he really was. Used in the radio episode "The Creeper" to trick the villain into thinking The Shadow had gone down a tunnel.

* GroundhogDayLoop: The radio episode "[[Recap/TheShadowRadioS02E08 The Man Who Murdered Time]]" features this. The villain has created a time loop of New Year's Eve, and only Margo and Lamont Cranston notice (and Margo stops noticing once Lamont moves away from her). This episode may be the TropeMaker.

* GroundhogDayLoop: The radio episode ''[[https://youtu.be/sDTquiIB3vU The Man Who Murdered Time]]'' features this. The villain has created a time loop of New Year's Eve, and only Margo and Lamont Cranston notice (and Margo stops noticing once Lamont moves away from her).

* PerceptionFilter: In the radio series. Notably, the Shadow achieved the power of {{Invisibility}} this by "clouding men's minds," and so did not have to worry about many of the usual problems with this power. Although he did have to avoid cameras, and sometimes more exotic methods of exposing him were used. (In "Hounds in the Hills", The Shadow is tracked by guard dogs, who can smell him. Taken to an extreme in "Out of This World", where [[spoiler:''alien technology'' was used to detect and even identify him.]])

* AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle: The show sometimes offered in-character advice on how to properly operate and maintain a coal-burning furnace after an episode was over. This rather shamelessly combined this with ProductPlacement, as the program's sponsor was a coal company. He would do the same for Goodrich Silvertown Tyres, sternly lecturing the listeners on the dangers of wet and slippery roads in the dark.

* BadassInDistress: A lot of early episodes of the radio show, too, most dramatically in "[[Recap/TheShadowRadioS01E18 The Society of the Living Dead]]", where he was trapped in a mausoleum quickly filling up with water, with only a dead man and a nearly-dead man for company. Only the timely arrival of the police saved him. Happens again in The Phantom Voice, as he gets caught in a room narrow enough that two gangsters can stretch their arms out and walk forwards to corner him even without seeing him, and then being put in a chokehold - he ambushes the leader later with a brief explanation that he'd 'picked up one little hold in the Orient' that had let him get out of it.

* ColdSniper: Danny Bricker in "The Silent Avenger" radio episode.

* TheDriver: Shreevy, a cab driver in both the novels and the radio show. In the pulps he was one of The Shadow's paid operatives, the official cab driver for The Shadow who operated as part of the gang. On the radio program he was not one of The Shadow's operatives, but was an occasional comic relief character.

* GenreShift: Well, more like sub-genre shift. The radio series always held fast to its DetectiveDrama roots and a degree of supernatural styling in the form of the Shadow's powers, the genre of the cases he would explore each episode tended to change with what was popular at the time. Early episodes focused on standard crime drama adversaries like mobsters, arsonists, murderers, and thieves. Then there was a shift to more ScienceFiction inspired cases with robots and fantastic inventions. This gave way to more horror themed enemies and cases with zombies and werewolves, and eventually Lovecraftian horror. Finally as the series came to a close in the 50s it wrapped all the way back around to standard big city crime again, with most of the supernatural elements (the Shadow's powers aside) having fallen out of favor.

* GroundhogDayLoop: The radio episode ''[[https://youtu.be/sDTquiIB3vU The Man Who Murdered Time]]'' features this. The villain has created a time loop of New Year's Eve, and only Margo and Lamont Cranston notice.

* HollywoodSilencer: In "The Silent Avenger" Danny Bricker uses a silencer on his sniper rifle that gives a very quiet pfft sound.

* {{Invisibility}}: The Shadow's primary superpower, as invented for the radio show, because radio listeners obviously could not see the iconic CoatHatMask disguise from the novels. Nominally, it was just a side effect of his great skill at hypnotism- he was just "clouding men's minds" so they wouldn't notice him, and he could use hypnosis for other things, too. But some adaptations (particularly the later seasons of the radio series) prefer to have him only use the invisibility. In the pulps, he had no powers at all, merely very high skill at stealth and disguise.

* PerceptionFilter: In the radio series. Notably, the Shadow achieved the power of {{Invisibility}} this by "clouding men's minds," and so did not have to worry about many of the usual problems with this power. Although he did have to avoid cameras, and sometimes more exotic methods of exposing him were used. (In "Hounds in the Hills", The Shadow is tracked by guard dogs, who can smell him.)

* TheShangriLa: Where the Shadow learned his powers.

* VillainOpeningScene: Many episodes opened with the villain of the week up to no good, and getting the story rolling. Then after the nature of the threat was established The Shadow would find out about the case.

** ''The Black Buddha'' has a strangely inverted example - the episode's killer, Soong-Tai, has ''no'' mystical powers or ancient wisdom whatsoever, and was sceptical that The Shadow even existed after talking to him, claiming Margo was simply throwing her voice. His motivation is to reclaim the titular statue and kill any unbelievers that touched it, making him a standard religious extremist that could come from any background.

It is an adaptation of the wildly popular pulp fiction series, ''Literature/TheShadow'', which premiered in 1931. This popularity led to a radio series in 1937, initially starring young up-and-comer Creator/OrsonWelles. While the general format of the magazine series--an avenging, do-gooding ProtoSuperhero went about by night, fighting crime, while posing during the day as a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob--was retained, the stories were greatly altered to fit the format of a half-hour radio drama. Lamont Cranston, one of the Shadow's many aliases, was made his SecretIdentity. The army of agents was replaced with "constant companion" Margo Lane (originally played by Creator/AgnesMoorehead), who became The Shadow's loyal sidekick, GirlFriday, and ''possibly'' girlfriend, although this was left deliberately ambiguous. Most famously, the Shadow was not merely a MasterOfDisguise who was good at hiding in the dark, but could actually become [[PerceptionFilter invisible]] by clouding people's minds!

* IconicSequelCharacter: Margot Lane, who in the modern day it's absolutely impossible to countenance a Shadow story without, did not exist at all in the pulps. Her creation handily fulfilled several major necessities for adapting the world of the Shadow to the radio; she would serve as TheWatson to allow him to explain his deductions and ask pertinent questions, she'd provide a sonic contrast to The Shadow and all the gruff gangster types he dealt with, and she'd help sell the show to a wider audience with her feminine presence and teasing of a romantic connection to him.

* ElectronicTelepathy: In the radio show, Lamont frequently instructs Margo to keep "the shortwave radio" tuned to a specific frequency--presumably this is his telepathic "distress beacon." With that said, the villain of The Society of the Living Dead was able to overhear the Shadow using it to call Margot for help, suggesting the Shadow may simply carry a radio, albeit one of unusually small size for the time.

It is an adaptation of the wildly popular pulp fiction series, ''Literature/TheShadow'', which premiered in 1931. This popularity led to a radio series in 1937, initially starring young up-and-comer Creator/OrsonWelles. While the general format of the magazine series--a do-goofing ProtoSuperhero went about by night, fighting crime, while posing during the day as a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob--was retained, the stories were greatly altered to fit the format of a half-hour radio drama. Lamont Cranston, one of the Shadow's many aliases, was made his SecretIdentity. The army of agents was replaced with "constant companion" Margo Lane (originally played by Creator/AgnesMoorehead), who became The Shadow's loyal sidekick, GirlFriday, and ''possibly'' girlfriend, although this was left deliberately ambiguous. Most famously, the Shadow was not merely a MasterOfDisguise who was good at hiding in the dark, but could actually become [[PerceptionFilter invisible]] by clouding people's minds!

* BreakThemByTalking: A speciality of The Shadow, who isn't allowed to directly kill anyone in the radio serial. In ''He Died At Twelve'', he describes being arrested, tried, and hanged in such visceral detail that the crime boss he's got cornered is DrivenToSuicide.
* CaptainObvious: In '' The Old People'', The Shadow pays a visit to Superintendent [=McWade=], to get him to authorise a flight into South America to investigate a string of aircraft disappearances. When [=McWade=] asks where his voice is coming from, he's given a laconic answer:

* BreakThemByTalking: A speciality of The Shadow, who isn't allowed to directly kill anyone in the radio serial. In ''He Died At Twelve'', he describes being arrested, tried, and hanged in such visceral detail that the crime boss he's got cornered is DrivenToSuicide.

* CaptainObvious: In '' The Old People'', The Shadow pays a visit to Superintendent McWade, to get him to authorise a flight into South America to investigate a string of aircraft disappearances. When McWade asks where his voice is coming from, he's given a laconic answer:
-->'''The Shadow:''' As my name implies, Mr. McWade, I'm in the shadows.

* {{Ventriloquism}}: Used in the radio episode "The Creeper" to trick the villain into thinking The Shadow had gone down a tunnel.

* VigilanteMilitia: The Shadow from the original pulps had an army of agents who assisted him in his war on crime. This may be the TropeCodifier.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The earliest episodes of the radio show do not have the full "Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?" {{Catchphrase}}. Instead the intro is just the EvilLaugh and "The Shadow knows."

* ExtraExtraReadAllAboutIt: The radio show did its OnTheNext announcements this way, with a voice going "Extra, extra...next week..." and then the episode title.

* PerceptionFilter: In the radio series. Notably, the Shadow achieved the power of {{Invisibility}} this by "clouding men's minds," and so did not have to worry about many of the usual problems with this power. Although he did have to avoid cameras, and sometimes more exotic methods of exposing him were used.
* PetTheDog: Despite relying primarily on stealth and terrorising his opposition, The Shadow takes the time to comfort a young kidnapped boy and provide a handkerchief in Hounds in the Hills.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Lamont Cranston, amateur criminologist, "wealthy man-about-town". He doesn't do anything for a living, but he hangs out in fancy clubs and is well-connected.
* SecretIdentity: Lamont Cranston, in the RadioDrama.

->''The weed of crime...bares bitter fruit''.

* RaceAgainstTheClock: Radio episode "The Death House Rescue" involves The Shadow having to expose the real crooks behind a bank robbery that turned deadly, before their patsy is unjustly executed for shooting a cop.
* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob:
** On the radio show, Lamont Cranston, amateur criminologist, "wealthy man-about-town". He doesn't do anything for a living, but he hangs out in fancy clubs and is well-connected.
** Creator/HowardChaykin's 80s revamp had its own real Lamont Cranston, quadriplegic billionaire Preston Mayrock, who was decidedly more sinister and active than the original.

%%* ShellShockedVeteran: Danny Brecker in "The Silent Avenger."