With a Name Like Smucker's, It Has to Be Murder

Mason Adams is probably best known for his grandfatherly intonation of "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good,"[1] but he also did quite a bit of TV[2] and Old Time Radio, including CBS Radio Mystery Theater. (Mason Adams on IMDb➚ and Wikipedia➚)

Adams was a very gifted voice talent, and it doesn't take too many episodes to hear how easily he can switch from a gentle naif to a calculating cynic.

In fact, he does a marvelous turn in CBSRMT's "Dead for a Dollar" that had to have been inspired by Peter Lorre in "Death is Joker."

I won't give it away, but the plots are very similar and listening to one will likely spoil the other. (In fact, there seems to be a mini-genre around this plot.) But they are both worth your time. Which one first? Peter Lorre is such a pleasure to listen to, you can enjoy "Death is a Joker" just for his presence alone; but IMHO "Death is a Joker" moves faster and for me is far more intense and believable. I would listen to that first to enjoy it the most.

Click Here to Listen to Peter Lorre in "Death Is a Joker" from


THEN...

Click Here to Listen to Mason Adams in "Dead for a Dollar" on CBS Radio Mystery Theater.



[1]
Smucker's TV Ad 1993


Bank One Commercial Montage with Mason Adams (Late 1970's)



[2]
Writer connection: You may remember Mason Adams in Lou Grant. (I never did understand how the character of Lou could go from TV comedy to newspaper drama, but it worked for a number of seasons.) As a writer, I was struck by actor Daryl Anderson as Dennis "Animal" Price, staff photographer; there is a scene where he is in a phone booth, talking to someone on the phone about a note he had scribbled on a piece of paper that was reflecting poorly on someone; the words were "smoke screen." I don't remember the story, only that I was dumbfounded and impressed that two words scribbled on a piece of paper could so clearly implicate the writer or his subject (which I think was a politician that had thrown up a "smoke screen"). I got an memorable lesson without having to learn it first-hand; for a writer that's rare. Nowadays young writers learn that lesson online, where the evidence remains forever.

Don't get me wrong, I've written things I regret, some of it for print; that's painful. Sometimes a lesson needs to be learned twice.