Guy Noir

Guy Noir is a fictional private detective regularly featured on the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Voiced by Garrison Keillor, the character parodies the conventions of hardboiled fiction and the film noir genre. Guy Noir works on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building in a city that "knows how to keep its secrets", St. Paul, Minnesota.

The first Guy Noir segments aired in 1995 and were heavy on tongue-twisters, alliteration and other wordplay. In early episodes of the series, Guy and his "friend" Pete (Walter Bobbie) would often get into fights and end up shooting each other. Both died many times. However, following Bobbie's departure as a show regular, Pete appears to have died off for good.

In later episodes, Noir is a down-on-his-luck detective, who ends up taking odd jobs to get by, such as finding missing poodles. Thrown in with these plots tend to be references to current events. For example, in November 2006, while waiting for a case, Noir contents himself by listening to parts of George W. Bush's post-mid-term election speech. Occasionally, political agents use him for hatchet work.

For the portion of A Prairie Home Companion's season that is performed outside of St. Paul, the setting of Noir's case usually involves the city that the program is visiting that week. In the same skit as the George W. Bush reference, Noir is flown to Hawaii to look for a missing Minnesotan. That week, the show was broadcast from Hawaii.

Recurring characters in the skits include: Sugar (Sue Scott), a romantic interest; Jimmy (Tim Russell), a bartender; and Wendell (Tom Keith), the boy who works at the deli around the corner. Wendell's nasally pubescent voice and BLT sandwiches are always there for Noir, though his character is minor.

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