The Shadow first hit the airwaves in 1930, but not as the crime fighter who could "cloud men's minds so that they cannot see him." Rather, he was the narrator of a Detective Stories program that was sponsored by Blue Coal. For years the show bounced back and forth between CBS and NBC, never quite satisfying the promoters until, in 1937, with Orson Welles in the lead role, they hit upon the invisible-man formula that would last for many years.

Many other actors later assumed the role of Lamont Cranston, the Mutual network got into the act, and other sponsors came in when the coal industry declined around 1949. The final original broadcast was in 1954, but the show did go into syndication in the Sixties and Seventies.

Reference: John Dunning, Tune In Yesterday, Prentice-Hall, 1976.