Jay Jostyn and the Golden Age "Mr. District Attorney" Series Need to be "Re-discovered"

Sometimes in OTR collecting, the sheer luck of finding programs has an unfortunate downside. One of those is the lack of recognition that the 1940s Mr. District Attorney series receives. This has happened because so few recordings of the show's grandest period have survived. The result is that there is little recognition of Jay Jostyn as a big star of radio's heyday. He was the star of the series for 13 seasons, and less than 7% of the broadcasts have survived.

Mr. District Attorney was extremely popular. This chart shows the series' Hooper ratings compared to Lux Radio Theatre and Suspense. The blue bars are for Mr. DA; red is for Lux; yellow is for Suspense.

But these data do not indicate how strongly the series performed at its day and time. The program aired on Wednesday evenings. Look at how it compared to other series, often being the top-rated of that day's primetime programs. It regularly got better ratings than the same-network show that preceded it and the show that followed. It was a blockbuster.

• In 1940-41 it ranked #4 and was ahead of Lowell Thomas News

• In 1941-42 it ranked #3 and was ahead of Lowell Thomas News

• In 1942-43 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Kay Kyser

• In 1943-44 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Kay Kyser

• In 1944-45 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Eddie Cantor

• In 1945-46 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Eddie Cantor

• In 1946-47 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Bing Crosby

• In 1947-48 it ranked #1 and was ahead of Duffy’s Tavern

• In 1948-49 it ranked #2 and was ahead of The Great Gildersleeve

• In 1949-50 it ranked #4 and was ahead of The Big Story

• In 1950-51 it ranked #3 and was ahead of The Big Story

• In 1951-52 it ranked #3 and was ahead of Beulah

The show went off the air, not for lack of ratings, but to jump to television with the full radio cast. Unfortunately, it seems that no kinescopes of that time have survived. IMDb has information about the 20 bi-weekly episodes of that series https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043218

The 1940s cast returned to radio in Fall 1953 when Mutual attempted to get a foothold in the radio drama market when the other networks were shifting to television. (It was the old "they zig, we'll zag" business strategy). They tried a lineup with Mr. DA and other shows such as John Steele, Adventurer and High Adventure. The return of Mr. DA lasted only a few months.

The program was highly influential, especially in wartime. It alerted listeners to scams and criminal activities that might be in their areas by dramatizing them in their broadcasts. It tackled important social topics, such as racism and juvenile delinquency. The series was highly decorated for its efforts.

Interestingly, the character was never named in the series, but referred to as "your" District Attorney. In the credits, Jostyn is cited as being in "the starring role," but no name. In the dramas he'd be called "chief" or referred to as "the district attorney" or as "Mr. District Attorney." Producer Ed Byron did this on purpose to differentiate the show from crime dramas that had specific or implied cities in the stories. (Casey, Crime Photographer had a mix of Boston and New York City references, for example). Byron wanted each listener to imagine that the actions of this particular DA was about the district attorney in their very own town or nearby city. The movie versions, however, did have names for the character. The later Ziv syndicated radio series with David Brian gave him the name "Paul Garrett."

Sadly, most OTR logs have the Ziv syndicated series with David Brian starting in 1952 or 1953. That is incorrect. Ziv did not get the rights for their radio and TV series until later, and the Ziv radio series did not start until Fall 1954. Yet there are lots of collections of the Ziv series with Brian in the hobby with those incorrect dates. There have even been commercial releases of the Brian shows on CD with incorrect dates.

Unfortunately, many collectors, especially new ones, think that the Brian series is typical of the program, and judge the nature of the full run of the series because those Brian episodes are so easy to find. Jostyn held the role for 13 season, while Brian effectively held it for only one.

And this is where the unfortunate collecting imbalance occurs. There are no good logs of the Jostyn series, but since he had the role from Fall 1939 to Spring 1952, and you guesstimate using 39 shows per season, that's 13 seasons x 39 = 507. There are more, because the show rarely took a summer break. Just with these round numbers, however, Jostyn did over 500 half-hour episodes, meaning we have no more than 7% of all the Mr DA broadcasts (37 at most recent count of those in circulation among active collectors). What do we have of the 52 David Brian syndicated recordings? 100%. David Brian's TV series was already in syndication, and that gave a boost to the radio series. The biggest years of Mr DA and Jay Jostyn faded away, and are unfortunately barely remembered. Jostyn was outnumbered by the plethora of surviving Brian recordings.

This is historically unfair in so many ways. Jay Jostyn was highly respected by his peers and the industry, by leaders in the justice and legal enforcement communities around the nation, and played an important role in support of the war bonds effort during WW2. He was one of the most talented actors in New York City radio productions.

The lack of Jostyn recordings means that there is a lack of context about the series and its place in history. We can understand series like Lux, Gunsmoke, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny and others because the surviving broadcasts cover most of their entire broadcast tenure. And we hear history of their shows and the events of their times play out in their storylines and topics. That's not the case here. The surviving Jostyn Mr. DA recordings give us only occasional and random glimpses into its history and series development. This impairs our ability to fully appreciate the scope of the Mr. DA radio franchise.

A new restoration effort for the Jay Jostyn Mr. District Attorney episodes is underway at the Cobalt Club. Membership is free, and the forum posts are at https://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com/f8-dr-joe-s-workshop

Join fellow collectors at Cobalt as we research the series and Jostyn's career. We will present his available broadcasts in lossless FLAC in much improved sound compared to currently circulating recordings. There are also many recordings that are new to the hobby.

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