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In Iran, the old-time US radio detective 'Johnny Dollar' returns to the airwaves

“Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” a radio program created by CBS in 1949 that found a devoted listenership in Farsi, has returned to Iranian radio.

And the newly produced episodes introduce younger generations to a character that many older Iranians still have a decades-old fondness for, their ears perking up with show’s signature start with three gunshots and Johnny Dollar answering a ringing phone with its title. His son, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, took over in 1941, and for several decades radio remained the key media consumed in his growing country, with the number of stations few and all state-controlled. Despite that, Johnny Dollar seems to have passed the test, though the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcast hasn’t explained its reasoning for allowing it on air on its Radio Namayesh channel.

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