Marching against the underworld, proving each week that crime does not pay, the action-filled drama of Gang Busters was based on case files of the FBI and local police and proved so popular that it ran on network radio for 21 years. Descriptions of actual criminals, broadcast at the end of each program, apparently resulted in the capture of hundreds of fugitives.

The program was created by Phillips H. Lord (1902-1975) and originally show premiered on CBS in 1936 sponsored by Palmolive. Succeeding sponsors including Cue magazine (1939-1940), Sloan’s liniment (1940-1945), Waterman pens (1945-1948), Tide soap (1948), Grape-Nuts cereal (1949-1954) and Wrigley’s gum (1954-1955).

In 1940, Colonel (later Major-General) H. Norman Schwarzkopf, former head of the New Jersey State Police, served as the show’s host-narrator (his son, who has the same name, would lead America’s armed forces in Operation: Desert Storm). The radio show was last aired in 1957, but not before spawning comic books, Big Little Books, and more.

Kent Taylor and Robert Armstrong starred in a 1942 movie serial with 13 chapters. Hosted by movie actor Chester Morris, a television series with the same format had a nine-month run on NBC in 1952. The Gang Busters comic books were published from 1938 to 1959.