There's a pretty fantastic collection of radio shows from the late thirties onwards in the Old-Time Radio department of the Internet Archive's audio section...

www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

I can't see any reference to the Kraft Mystery Theater as such, but there are several other company's Mystery Theaters, and the adverts in the middle of the Bruce/Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series change from Petri Wines to a clothing firm for a bit, so I guess sponsorship was a little flexible.

Anyway there's oodles there - Dragnet, at least two series of Holmes (American and British), Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, ghost stories, Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the Air, Hercule Poirot's rewritten for America (n which Death on the Nile takes place on one of the Great Lakes), Dr Morelle, a 1942 Paul Temple, and so on.

A lot of them still have the adverts, so you can relive the heady days when you could buy coal dyed blue, and marvel at Dr Watson selling war bonds and reminding the listeners that unconditional German surrender hadn'tstopped the war against Japan.

Just terrific, Rik, thanks!

I'm a teacher in a Gifted program, and our next unit is going to focus on Radio Mysteries. I've found quite a few old favorite radio mysteries for my 3/4 graders and my 5/6 graders, but I can't find appropriate, short (15-25 minutes) radio/audio mysteries for my 1/2 graders.

Does anyone know of any radio mysteries or audio mysteries that are appropriate for 5-7 year olds? I'm trying to avoid murder, blood, etc.

Thanks!

It will probably be difficult. You might just want to read them some Encyclopedia Brown books.

My company Mystery Factory has kids party instructions. 'Fossil Furor at the Mudstone Museum' comes with an audio clip of the crime (stealing a fossil). You can listen to a sample of the clip at the Mystery Factory website but to get the whole clip you have to buy the mystery.

It's a game that works in conjunction with the clip to solve -whodunnit.It runs as a simple crime scene investigation and clue matching game. You can probably tell from the sample if it's too advanced but if they are gifted it might work.

a fond memory of radio-I used to listen to KOMO 1000 (seattle) late at night and when I moved into my doublewide I did not have tv.. the place was a wreck and I stayed up late one night cleaning and fixing things and listening to "The Big Clock." Good story, I forget who wrote it. I think Keenan Wynn was in it.