From Those Were the Days:

1945 - Those Websters debuted on CBS Radio, a situation comedy continuation of That Brewster Boy (1941-45). ("Webster" is an anagram of "Brewster.") Willard Waterman starred as George Webster. Later, Waterman would have an even more memorable starring role replacing Hal Peary as the lead in The Great Gildersleeve from 1950-57.
11:55:38 AM    comment []  trackback []  

Invited to the VO Cotillion

I feel sorta embarrassed about tooting my own horn, but the Durante piece I did Sunday was selected for this week’s Virtual Occoquan. If you’re not familiar with VO, do yourself a favor and skate on over to read what is essentially the Utne Reader or (depending on your politics) Reader’s Digest of Salon Blogs. Many’s the time I’ve pored over the weekly entries and found something so refreshing that I’ve made it a point to add someone’s blog to my XML feed or to the “Salon Blogs I Read” links.

Many thanks to Mark Hoback (Fried Green al-Qaedas) and Paul Hinrichs (Playing With My Food, and Other Things…) for giving me the tap this week. Both bloggers continue to turn out exceptional articles that demonstrate what great writing is all about.
11:51:28 AM    comment []  trackback []  

“…the gun-toting frontier doctor who roamed the length and breadth of the old Indian territory, friend and physician to white man and Indian alike…”

In several past blog entries, I have written about many of the adult westerns that became a staple of radio programming during the 1950s, shows like The Six Shooter, Frontier Gentleman, and Gunsmoke. Last night at work, I sampled episodes from two additional western programs that were also heard in that same period: Dr. Sixgun and Fort Laramie.

“Dr. Sixgun” was the nickname applied to Dr. Ray Matson (Karl Weber), a physician practicing in the small town of Frenchman’s Fork. This “legendary figure” was referred to in the program’s opening credits as “the symbol of justice and mercy in the lawless west of the 1870s.” The small-town medico not only healed wounds but inflicted them as well, seeing as he was mighty handy with a snub-nosed derringer he carried along with his doctor’s bag. (Perhaps it’s just me, but you would think drumming up your own business would violate the Hippocratic Oath.)

Matson’s faithful sidekick was a wandering gypsy named Pablo (William Griffis), who served as narrator of the doc’s exploits, often through flashback. Pablo, in turn, had a sidekick of his own—a talking raven named Midnight (quoth the Ivan, “You gotta be kiddin’ me…”). Midnight sort of takes center stage in the episode I listened to last night, an undated AFRS rebroadcast titled “Trial For Willie the Mouse” (which sort of sounds like a Gangbusters entry, doesn’t it?). O’Shea (William Keane), the resident bartender at the Bull Run saloon, is experiencing a small rodential problem which is quickly taken care of by Midnight the Wonder Raven. One night, a Texas cowpoke named Brazos Charlie (Tom Holland) is knocking back a few drinks with his friends, and by evening’s end discovers that his pet mouse Willie (which he kept in his pocket—let the punchlines commence!) is dead. Brazos later witnesses Midnight’s amazing mice-killing feat, and becomes convinced that the raven is responsible for Willie being dispatched to that big mousetrap in the sky. The bird is kidnapped and put on trial, which forces Doc Matson to defend the raven with some stirring oratory that melts the heart of Brazos and his fellow cowpokes.

This is the first—and only—episode of Dr. Sixgun that I’ve ever listened to, and though I hesitate to make a judgment on shows after hearing only one example, if this is an indication of what the series was like it’s not surprising that NBC tanked it after one season (September 2, 1954-October 13, 1955). Matson has a line in this episode that goes: “Because this is undoubtedly the most ridiculous thing I ever did in my life.” (My response: “I’ll bet the writer felt the same way.”) This script was written by NBC staffer Ernest Kinoy who—along with fellow scribe George Lefferts—wrote the scripts for Sixgun, Rocky Fortune, Dimension X, and X-Minus One. I guess John Dunning’s observation (in reference to The CBS Radio Workshop) that “to be good an artist must have the freedom to be bad” is in definite play here.
11:39:27 AM    comment []  trackback []  

“The saga of fighting men who rode the rim of empire…”

Fortunately, I was able to rebound from the embarrassment that was Dr. Sixgun by checking out an episode of Fort Laramie, a woefully neglected western that enjoyed an ever-so brief run over CBS from January 22-October 28, 1956. To this day, I remain puzzled as to why this show wasn’t a bigger success; its pedigree contained much of the talent behind Gunsmoke: producer-director Norman Macdonnell; writers John Meston, John Dunkel, and Les Crutchfield; and sound patterns wizards Bill James, Ray Kemper, and Tom Hanley. True, Fort Laramie was far less intense than the better-known Gunsmoke, but in Dunning’s words, “focused as much on atmosphere and mood as on violence and action.” Future Perry Mason star Raymond Burr, as Lee Quince, “captain of cavalry,” headed up an excellent cast that featured Jack Moyles (as Major Daggett), Vic Perrin (Sergeant Ken Goerss), and Harry Bartell (Lieutenant Sieberts).

The label on this CD gives the episode title as “The Galvanized Yankee,” but it’s actually “Still Waters,” an AFRS rebroadcast of a program originally heard October 14, 1956. It’s a light-hearted show, in which complaints about the quality of the fort’s dress parade band seem to be falling on (tone) deaf ears until the Major decides to step in. The explanation for the band’s awfulness is that their instruments aren’t up to snuff, but any chance of obtaining replacements has been temporarily scotched by the arrival of a bluenose named Mrs. Feamster (Jeanette Nolan), who’s embarked on a crusade to remove beer and wine from the canteen run by the fort’s sutler. (The profits from those sales go to the purchase of new instruments, and with no beer and wine, no…well, you get the idea.) The highlight of this episode (written by frequent Gunsmoke scribe Kathleen Hite) is Burr’s painfully off-key rendition of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” The Gunsmoke connection is furthered by the presence of both Sam Edwards and Howard McNear (who appeared in several Laramie episodes as Pliney, the sutler) in the supporting cast.

Fort Laramie is the third component of what I like to call old-time radio’s “Holy Trinity” of Westerns (the other two being Gunsmoke and Frontier Gentleman). Though its run was brief, all forty episodes (forty-one if you include the 7/25/55 audition, which stars John Dehner) are extant today, entertaining a new generation of listeners with “specially transcribed tales of the dark and tragic ground of the wild frontier.”
11:33:09 AM    comment []  trackback []