For the last couple of months I’ve been doing a lot more distance driving than had been the case for many years and while I’m on the highway I while away the time by listening to old radio programs on CDs. I think that my spate of distance driving will be coming to end in a couple of weeks. I hope it will.
For the last week or so I’ve been listening to the Have Gun Will Travel radio drama. Many of you are probably familiar at least by reputation with the late 50s-early 60s television program but you may not be aware that HGWT is the only program that originated on television which was adapted for radio.
On the radio HGWT began by adapting the TV scripts for radio but after about nine months began doing original material. On the radio Paladin was portrayed by veteran radio actor John Dehner. You might remember him from the character parts he played on TV, a rather elegant-looking man with a thin mustache.
I think that HGWT is actually better on the radio than on TV, largely driven by Mr. Dehner’s talent. Some of the episodes make extremely engaging, almost poetic short stories. If you’re interested you can listen to the entire two year run of the program here. In this day and age you might find the dialect humor in Paladin’s exchanges with his Chinese valet grating but it sounds harmless to my old ears.
You might have found the television version of HGWT conspicuous by its absence and after I started listening to the radio drama and looked the show up I learned why. Apparently, there was a long-running trademark infringement case about HGWT. For years before the television show a rodeo entertainer, dressed in a black cowboy outfit, had called his character “Paladin”, and distributed cards with “Have Gun Will Travel” and a knight chess piece depicted on them. In the 1990s Viacom was enjoined from distributing the program.
Even without all of the driving I may continue to listen to recorded old time radio programs as I drive, at least for the next several months. It beats blowing my top over what I hear in the news. The next show on my roster is Gunsmoke (it began on radio and starred William Conrad). Or I may go back to my all-time favorite radio program, I Love a Mystery.
