Hood was a character with a multi-faceted personality. One website devoted to
old-time radio wrote about him as follows:Gregory Hood was also an accomplished pianist and composer, a self-taught forensics expert, spoke several languages fluently, was an expert in ancient and modern armament, had a military intelligence background, was a wine expert with an extensive rare wine cellar, and was an acknowledged expert in oriental tapestry. He lived in a penthouse on San Francisco's
Nob Hill and employed a Chinese valet, Fong. On June 3, 1946,
The Casebook of Gregory Hood began on the
Mutual Broadcasting System, replacing
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for the summer. Although intended to be just a summer replacement, it continued in the fall, sponsored by
Petri Wine. The program had another full-season run on
ABC in 1949-50 and also "resurfaced periodically in summer slots." Book reviewer Bertil Falk noted that the technique Boucher and Green used had deep roots in storytelling. He wrote: "The structure was of a very ancient kind, a frame story where Gregory Hood and his friend tell
Harry Bartell a story from the casebook of Gregory Hood. It is a literary method well known from
The Arabian Nights and much older than that, since it was used in the
Sanskrit work
Panchatantra more than two thousand years ago.
Gale Gordon played Gregory Hood in the initial version of the program. Others who had the leading role later were
Elliott Lewis,
Jackson Beck,
Paul McGrath,
Martin Gabel and
George Petrie. Sidekick Sanderson Taylor was portrayed at various times by
Art Gilmore,
Carl Harbord,
William Bakewell and
Howard McNear. Changes in stars, time slots and networks undoubtedly hindered the show's success. Marks wrote: "The show suffered from a constantly rotating cast. ... Boucher grew increasingly annoyed with the lack of support for the series." Boucher indicated his dissatisfaction in some personal correspondence: "As to myself and the contest -- the excellent idea you proposed of entering a Gregory Hood short story no longer appeals to me. My relations with the agency controlling the Hood program have become so unsatisfactory that I have no desire to build up their property for them, nor to associate myself too closely with it." ==References==