Mr. Wong

It was the 30s - the 1930s, that is. You are Monogram Movie Studios and Fox Studios is eating your lunch with their wildly successful Charlie Chan mysteries starring that well-known Chinese actor Sidney Toler. (Note to non-fans: Sidney was Missouri born and bred.)

So you decide to cash in on their success by creating your own series of Chinese detective movies starring another well-known Chinese actor, Boris Karloff. Yes, they were hoping to cash in on the fact that he was already a household name given his turn as Frankenstein's monster.

So a Chinese detective he became. Hollywood at its finest.