Hop Harrigan America's Ace of the Airways

Let me start by stating that Hop Harrigan was my all time favorite radio program while I was growing up. I started during WWII and stayed with it when Hop and Tank moved out of the AAF and to a civilian airport. I even ate a fair amount of dreaded Grape-Nuts Flakes in order to send away for "premiums" like the Hop Harrigan "PARA-PLANE."

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Let me say that this serial is slow, old, disjointed and pretty bad. Its cliffhangers aren't even too exciting.

William Bakewell is too old and slow to play Hop. He seems quite disinterested in what is going on. In fact a lot of the cast seems much older than their parts Sumner Getchell is okay as Tank but at times moves and acts more like Curley Howard (of the Three Stooges) than the two fisted gifted mechanic that he is supposed to be portraying.

Jennifer Holt as Gail Nolan (Hop's girlfriend) does a good job as does Buzz Henry who plays her young brother. In fact Henry is quite convincing along with being good, as well as, interested in what is going on. He went on to a fair career as a stuntman until his life ended on a motorcycle outside of the cemetery where he is buried.

For the most part the rest of the cast seemed much too old and disinterested for their parts. I wondered if Colombia took a group of actors that they had under contract who needed something to do.