"The Sky Pirates"
06-08-47 :30:00*
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Tom Everitt
Guest Armchair Detective
West: Marion Bell (actress)
East: Cy Steinhauser (Radio Editor of The Pittsburgh Press.)

Two terrorists hold up a transatlantic airliner, shoot one of the passengers, rob the rest of the passengers and bail out over the ocean. Ellery has plan to trap the "sky-jackers."
It involves everyone becoming  unconscious after being deprived of oxygen for fifteen seconds. 

NBC's "Ellery Q" Vamps Till Ready
NEW YORK, June 7.--Unusual hiatus plan goes into effect after tomorrow for Ellery Queen, which is sponsored by Whitehall Pharmacal Company over National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Sundays at 6:30 p.m. Queen mystery series just started June 1, but after two broadcasts is skidded to take a seven-week layoff.
Filling in between June 15 and July 27 will be Varieties, a musical program featuring Joe Gallicchio's orchestra with vocalists Jack Haskell and Vivian Martin. Agency is Sullivan, Stauffer, Colwell & Bayles.
(06-14-47 The Billboard)

Ed Latimer reprises the role of Sergeant Velie

"The Atomic Murder"
08-03-47 :30:00*
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Tom Everitt
Guest Armchair Detective
West: Fay McKenzie (actress)
East: Eddie Dowling (Broadway producer)

An attempt is made on the life of Mikha Bela, a famous atomic scientist, possibly by the friends of Martin Borman and the Nazis! Dr. Bela's wife is murdered... for an astounding reason!

Ellery performs a delicate mission for the U. S. government. A famous scientist, who helped develop atomic energy during during the war, has, since then, refused to do any research on similar projects. It is Queen's task to make the genius change his mind.

ELLERY QUEEN
With Larry Dobkin, Charlotte Keane, Bill Smith, Ed Latimer, Stefan Schnabel, Jimmy McCallion, Don Hancock, Chet Kingsbury
Writer: Manny Lee
Director: Tom Vietor
30 Mins.; Sun., 6:30 p. m.
WHITEHALL PHARMACAL WNBC-NBC, N. Y. (S., S.C. & B.)

After a short summer layoff, the veteran amateur gumshoe, Ellery Queen, returned to the air Sunday night (3) via WNBC-NBC for Whitehall Pharmacal.
In the near-decade since the series started as a 45-minute sustainer on CBS, the fictional Ellery and his conspiring confreres have grown pretty tired. The show is now just a routine whodunit, with only the somewhat frayed armchair detective gimmick as a bid for distinction. When the "Ellery Queen" series was first launched as a sustainer it was written by the authors of the original books, Fred Dannay and Manny Lee. with producer George Zachary giving an assist on radio technique. At that time the characters had dimension and substance, and there was imagination, ingenuity and slight humor in the plotting. But Danny and Lee subsequently relinquished the week-to-week grind of turning out the radio series, and farmed out the assignment.
However, the show caught is stated to have been written by Lee. In the seasonal opener there was an attempt to capture topical importance by basing the episode on atomic armament research, "and the sign-off tease promised that next week's stanza would deal with tolerance, but that's merely synthetic sugar coating. As a whodunit, the script seemed contrived, talky and relatively slow, and the principal characters lacked' clarity. There was little suspense or surprise, and the armchair detective task (legit actor-producer Eddie Dowling whiffed it) was to explain why the victim was bumped off, not who did it and how did he slipped up. The performances were, in general, as humdrum as the script, but there were effectively hokey German bits played by StefanSchnabel and Jimmy McCallion. Tom Vietor's direction seemed fair enough and Chet Kingsbury's organ bridges were conventional. The commercials included a straight plug for Anacin in the middle spot (in which the "use only as directed" statement was given the customary throwaway), a closing blurb about the alleged anti-halitosis qualities of Kolynos and a hitch-hike about how Anacin has not just one, but a- combination of three ingredients, whatever that's worth. Don Hancock gave them the traditional "sincere" reading.
                          (Variety, Wednesday, August 6, 1947)

"The Foolish Girls" 
08-10-47 :30:00*
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Tom Everitt
Guest Armchair Detective
West: Eddie Dowling (Broadway producer)
East: Marion Bell (vocalist, singing star of Brigadoon)

Ellery campaigns against dangerous juvenile folly in this modern problem play about girls who hang around bars. The master detective shows parents as well as bobby soxers the sort of trouble youngster can get into when they forget decency and disregard common sense advice.

A 17-year-old gets murdered after visiting a bar. Her friends ask Ellery to accompany them for a visit to the same bar.

"Ellery Queen: Santa Claus" 
12-25-47 :30:00*
Repeat of 12-25-46  (Episode 302)
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Tom Everitt
Guest Armchair Detective: Favius Friedman (West coast editor Radio Best magazine)

Ellery visits a man on death row to try to prove his  innocence. A $1000 diamond ring on the finger of a movie theatre box office clerk is the clue he needs to pull this off.  The trail leads to a department store and Santa Claus who is  knifed to death! 

They had your correspondent tapped for a visit to "Ellery Queen" not long ago, as guest armchair detective, and we must confess that it was an intriguing experience. Shepherded by ABC's Jerry Ross, we were deposited in an anteroom outside the studio until Dick Woolen, the program's producer, was ready to unlatch the door and admit this nervous "sleuth."
Despite Jerry's assurances that "it wouldn't hurt a bit," it was a little like going to the dentist. We didn't know exactly what was coming, but we were certain, that whatever occurred, we'd remember it for some time.
As it happened, the whole thing was extremely pleasant. The armchair detective doesn't enter the studio, but is immediately hustled upstairs to a small room equipped with a loud speaker and microphone. He gets no advance view of the script, and doesn't even see the actors. He sits with his back to the broadcast and just listens, honor-bound not to grab a peek over his shoulder.
The point is, as Woolen explained it, the guest most be kept hidden no that he or she will be unable to watch the broadcast. If this weren't done, the armchair detective might become confused watching the actors portraying different roles throughout the show. Or even, perhaps, guess the culprit!
You can believe no when we say that the guest detective is just as much in the dark as the listener sitting at home beside his radio. The clues the armchair sleuth gets sitting up in that tiny room are exactly what you would get and no more. Then, at the critical moment, the shaky guest is confronted by Ellery and his secretary, Nikki Porter, and told to start "guessing."
Well, luckily for us we managed to uphold the honor of RADIO BEST. We stabbed wildly and came up with the right answer. It was quite a bang to see Nikki Porter give us a silent "well- done" sign across the mike, then go downstairs into the studio after the broadcast and meet Ellery himself. As a "guest star" stint it had an entirely different twist and a very novel one. We liked it. Anybody need a good, amateur "private eye ?"

                 (Radio Best, April 1948 WE GO SLEUTHING by Favius Friedman)

PROGRAM PLAYER: An Ellery Queen whodunit is revived for Ford Theater, KGNC-NBC, when "The Adventures of the Bad Boy" is heard at 4 this afternoon. (01-04-48 Amarillo News-Globe)

"The Head Hunter"  
01-08-48 :30:00*
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Anthony Boucher
with William Conrad, Luis Van Rooten, Charles McGraw, Tony Barrett
Guest Armchair Detective: Alyce Canfield (magazine writer). 

A "head-hunter" has committed two murders in the underworld and is after more gamblers. The masked "Head Man" commits another murder and even shoots Sergeant Velie! Who is this guy?

"The Terrified Man"
01-15-48 :30:00*
with John Brown, Kaye Brinker
Guest Armchair Detective: Jerry Devine (radio producer)
Repeat of 01-15-42 "The Invisible Clue"  (Episode 69)

A case that has only one character—and he is murdered!  Mr. Brown has received a "poisoned soap" letter, threatening his death. Brown is going to be killed by "someone he sees every day." After Brown is killed, Ellery takes a look at the contents of Brown's medicine chest.

The last laugh is on radio's Ellery Queen. Ellery had Jerry Devin, director of  This is Your FBI as the armchair detective on his program, and Jerry couldn't solve the Queen Mystery. Now Jerry is casting Ellery on his FBI show as a dumb cop who gets beat up by mobsters.
           (Hollywood, Plattsburgh Press-Republican, N.Y., Friday, February 20, 1948)

"The Armchair Detective" 
03-18-48 :30:00*
Repeat of 3-27-46 (Episode 269)
Written by Manfred B.Lee & Anthony Boucher
with Joan Banks, William Johnstone, Charles Seel, Anne Morrison, Joseph Kearns
Guest Armchair Detective: Sheila Graham (columnist)
Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 05-13-55 (Episode 44)

Radio program presented in the interests of a safer American home, a happier American community, and a more secure United States. Dedicated to the fight against crime - not only against crimes of violence and crimes of dishonesty, but also crimes of intolerance, discrimination and bad citizenship - crimes against America. Doctor MacKing, the Armchair Detective guest, is poisoned during the program.  Concludes: "This is Ellery Queen saying goodnight until next week and enlisting all Americans every night and every day in the fight against bad citizenship, bigotry, and discrimination, the crimes which are weakening America".

The show dealt with the murder of "an armchair detective". Ellery assured audiences at the beginning of the program the adventure happened "a long time ago" to avoid an Orson Welles type of misunderstanding. Sheila Graham at the time quite powerful and feared confessed she was 'rather uneasy' in the chair.