Pat Novak: For Hire (1946-47) written by Dick Breen who also wrote the scripts for the Jack Webb Show. It was Jack Webb's first significant radio crime drama. It was also the vanguard of radio hard-edge, hard-boiled as to be high camp in its own time. The show was rich with hilarious pessimism, rippling with ridiculous metaphors. "The street was as deserted as a warm bottle of beer," Novak would say. "The car started up down the street and the old man couldn't have made it with a pocketful of aces. I caught a glimpse of the license plate in a dull, surprised way, the way you grab a feather out of an angel's wing." **Note: After spring 1949, Ben Morris took over the roll of "Pat Novak".