STEVE CANYON'S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL by Ray Bradbury

Have you ever spent years trying to get the opportunity to see a film, only to discover the film itself was a dud? Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I recently watched what was the Christmas episode of television’s Steve Canyon, scripted by the great Ray Bradbury, only to discover this adage rang true.  

Steve Canyon was Milton Caniff’s major success, following Terry and the Pirates, an adventure comic strip in serial format, which ran from 1947 to 1988. Steve Canyon was an easygoing adventurer with a soft heart. Originally a veteran running his own air-transport business, the character returned to the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and stayed in the military for the remainder of the strip’s run. In later years, Canyon was involved in Air Force intelligence and operations.

 

The comic strip was so successful that at one time producer David O. Selznick considered producing a series of Steve Canyon films, starring Guy Madison, but Madison’s agent talked Selznick out of it. (Madison would later go on to play the title role of Wild Bill Hickok for television.)

 

The strip would hit the silver screen through a half-hour television series on NBC from 1958 to 1959, and reruns on ABC in 1960. A total number of 34 episodes were produced, slightly on the cheap, but with the talent of actor Dean Fredericks, formerly known as the Hindu manservant of Johnny Weissmuller’s Jungle Jim series, the character of Steve Canyon was cemented as a no-nonsense troubleshooter for the U.S. Air Force. For the first half of the series, Steve Canyon traveled from base to base before becoming the commanding officer stationed at the strip's fictitious Big Thunder Air Force Base in California (a move solely to assist with the weekly budget for production). 

 

Many years ago, the entire series underwent a restoration project, ultimately released to DVD in three separate volumes. Of particular interest was the Christmas episode titled “The Gift,” which was written by Ray Bradbury. I bought the first volume, only to discover the episode I really wanted to see would be on the forthcoming second volume. A year later, the second volume was released, and then my schedule got busy. Eventually I was able to purchase all three volumes, the complete series – but it took me more than a decade to find time to watch the series.

 

Over the past two months, I would occasionally pop a DVD into the player and watch a couple episodes. The series is “average” at best, but typical of the 1950s television production. Just this week I treated myself to the episode I so longed to see… “The Gift.”

 

Regrettably, the Bradbury holiday offering was what science-fiction scribes refer to as a concept episode – the concept was the main fare. The rest was padding to get to the point. All of which is a long-winded way of saying the series is worth watching if you love the newspaper strip. But the one episode I longed to see for more than a decade turned out to be the worst Christmas film I have ever seen. It has been said by many that Bradbury could not write for television and based on what I saw of this episode, he was better suited to the printed page.

 

Oh well, at least my viewing pleasure (or displeasure) comes with a story.

THE "LOST" LONE RANGER CHRISTMAS SPECIAL (1938)

On the evening of December 26, 1938, the radio cast at station WXYZ played roles in not one, but two episodes off The Lone Ranger. Although the program premiered in 1933, it was not until February of 1938 that the radio program was recorded on a regular basis. For the holiday offering of 1938, it was decided not to record the episode because the series was then being syndicated across the country and it would have been weird to hear a Christmas episode in April, July or September. So the logical solution was to dramatize two different episodes on that evening. One as a traditional holiday adventure and the other as a normal western. 

For the West Coast broadcast and for the transcription, the script used for the broadcast of September 9, 1937. In that episode, Missouri Mike and his friend Steve Sanders are among the shrewdest outlaws The Lone Ranger and Tonto ever tried to track down. Wanted for murder, robbery and rustling, the only clue to their identity is a tattoo on the right forearm. The Lone Ranger and Tonto ride out to the ranch of Widow Spragg, 15 miles from Parkersville, unaware that the men they are trying to track down are trailing from behind. Hours after the masked man and Indian leave the ranch of Sam Spragg and his mother, the thieves break into the house and commit another robbery. Days later, finding no sign of Missouri Mike, The Lone Ranger and Tonto leave to hunt the outlaw in the open plains. Outside town, an Indian named White Fox participates in a race with Sam, with prize money for the winner, and then exchange death blows over money that was stolen by Missouri Mike who never left town. In desperation, The Lone Ranger talked with men from Parkersville, and the tribe of White Fox, to outline a plan for locating the outlaws. With Indians as expert trackers and vengeance in their hearts, The Lone Ranger has the advantage and together they hunt under the guide of moonlight. Finding the outlaws’ camp, they take Missouri Mike’s shirt off to verify the tattoo.  

For the East Coast and Mutual Broadcast System, a holiday adventure was dramatized. In that episode, poverty was common in the town where Bob Hamill lived, and little could be done about it, while Eric Flint thrived. The latter was rich, owned practically all of the town, and was hated and despised. When he learns a masked man is looking for him, he hires two bodyguards, Butch and Cooper, but a desperate clerk named Bob Hammil decides to rob him to buy Christmas presents for his son. Bob is going to lose his homestead to Flint, unable to pay the mortgage, so he figured what harm would it be to give his son a holiday to remember? Catching the outlaws in play for The Lone Ranger, Bob draws his gun and forces the men – including Eric Flint – into an old shack, tied and bound. The Lone Ranger, meanwhile, learns from Tonto about Eric Flint. There was a log of men here in the West who came to escape unhappiness in the East, the masked man rationalizes. Flint was one of them but his faith in his fellow-men was destroyed before he came here, did something to him. He lost his sense of values, his sense of fair play. The Lone Ranger breaks in to kidnap Flint, leaving Bob with the two gunmen. Throughout Christmas Eve, The Lone Ranger forced Flint to call on a few of his customers, people he loaned money to, and people who will not be able to pay off their debts. The first person they call on is Dan Dickerman.

 

RANGER: He’s not going to take your house. Those papers he signed with you were illegal. I want you to sign this paper telling just what sort of an agreement he made with you. 

 

JANE: Illegal?

 

RANGER: Then I want you to come with me to the sheriff’s office and lodge a complaint against him. He’s on his way to jail.

 

FLINT: No, no! Yuh can’t put me in jail. Them papers is legal!

 

RANGER: You be quiet! How about it, Dan?

 

DAN: But we can’t do it now…

 

RANGER: There’s no time like the present. The sooner he gets to jail, the better the community will be. We may have a long ride to the county seat in this kind of weather, and I’ve got to get him there before the first of the year if I’m going to save your property. All I need is one complaint against him.

 

DAN: Well, can’t you get somebody else?

 

RANGER: What for? He made an agreement with you, didn’t he?

 

DAN: But… well, I don’t know. Look, stranger, it’s Christmas Eve. I can’t send a man tuh jail on Christmas Eve.

 

RANGER: Not even Eric Flint?

 

JANE: He oughta be in jail… if he’s dishonest, Dan…

 

RANGER: It might save your house. Don’t you realize that?

 

DAN: I won’t do it. That’s all. Taint the spirit of the day. You get somebody else to send him to jail. If it was day after tomorrow or next day, any other day but Christmas…

 

RANGER: We’ll find someone else. Come on, Flint.

 

The Lone Ranger took Flint to another house, and then another, and each place Flint noted with increasing amazement, that the spirit of Christmas, the thought of peace on earth, and good will, so imbued  the men, that not one could be found who would agree to assume the responsibility for jailing a man on Christmas day. 

 

Eric’s backstory was not so cheerful. Eric Flint came out to the West 20 years ago, intending to send word to his wife when she could come out and join him after he got a foothold. He sent that word and waited, but she never answered his letter. When next he heard, he read her name in a paper ten years later, saying that she was on the stage. It soured him. He was mad. Mighty mad, to think she wouldn’t join him after all the promises he made. But he did not know his letter never was delivered. He did not know she waited years to hear from him. She did not know where to reach him. The Lone Ranger found the letter Eric Flint wrote. It never was delivered. He found it with a pack of other mail that had fallen into the hands of Indians when a stagecoach was wrecked. Then The Lone Ranger located her. She finally came out West in an effort to try and find him. She was singing on the stage to get the money for the trip. She was singing on the stage to get the money for the trip. She hunted years and finally settled down. The Lone Ranger knew of this and was determined to show Eric Flint that there were things far better than cheating customers out of their land. 

 

As the night wore on, Mary Hammil sat by the window where a small candle gleamed out into the night. She couldn’t sleep. She worried, worried about her husband, worried where he went, and remembering the expression of grim determination on his face when he left, was fearful of what might happen before he came back. But when Bob returned, he had a smile on his face. He told his wife all about Eric Flint being taken away and justice served against the vile banker. 

 

The next day, early Christmas morning, Eric Flint arrives at the Hammil homestead to surprise young Donny, Bob and Mary’s little boy, with a Christmas tree. Over the night, while everyone was sleeping, Butch and Cooper cut down Christmas trees and followed orders from Flint to deliver them to everyone’s house. Mary was shocked to discover the old Scrooge has a change of heart. He plans to visit everyone in town and deliver them a generous Christmas morning. Then he has to leave town. Mary asks for how long.

 

FLINT: How long? Sakes alive, I don’t know. I’m goin’ to meet my wife. I ain’t seen her in 20 years. She’s still waitin’ for me. I won’t be back next month. Mebbe not until spring. Mebbe I won’t come back! And who cares? A merry Christmas everybody!

 

Notes

While the Christmas adventure was never recorded, it should be noted that this script would later be recycled for the episode titled “The Christmas Tree,” broadcast of Christmas 25, 1950, with slight revisions. (For the 1938 rendition, the element involving Donny wanting a Christmas tree and the delivery of a huge tree on Christmas morning was borrowed from the broadcast of December 24, 1934.) A recording of the 1950 rendition does exist if you want to listen to it, now knowing the novelty of that episode is that Fran Striker was recycling a 1938 Christmas story that does not exist in recorded form.

 

BATMAN: THE AUDIO ADVENTURES (Review)

HBO Max, a streaming service, has released the first 20 half-hour episodes of Batman: The Audio Adventures, which borrows the flavor and format of the great Batman: The Animated Adventures and converts these adventures into the format of an old-time radio program. (Since radio drama is not technically a thing these days, the studio aptly described this as “The Audio Adventures.”)

After years of crime fighting, the long-rumored Batman (a masked vigilante) has been verified as existent and prepares to become an official member of the Gotham City Police Department. But while the caped crusader is combating crime and facing off against Two Face, The Joker, The Riddler, and others, a rift deepens between himself and Catwoman, who has been using Gotham criminals for financial gain.

 

Like any audio adventure, the magic is not letting the audience peak behind the curtain. Actress Melissa Villasenor voices Robin and you would not know if you were not told who voiced the boy wonder. Jeffrey Wright, who I loved in the HBO series Westworld, voices Bruce Wayne/Batman and his voice fits perfectly for the character.

Seth Myers, John Leguizamo, Rosario Dawson, Brent Spiner Jason Sudeikis, Bradley Whitford and Brooke Shields play recurring roles on this series, adding to the long list of talent.

 

The character of Two Face more of the contemporary version: the idea that the two sides of his face are arguing with each other. In the comic books, this is not how Two-Face behaves. Among the earliest rendition of this interpretation was in Batman Forever when Tommy Lee Jones played the role. In the comic books, Two-Face was obsessed with the dual nature of certain things but in this rendition he is schizophrenic.

 

The interconnecting plotlines features all the classic criminals, with tongue-in-cheek humor, witty one-liners, easter eggs for those who know their Batman lore, and enough fun to warrant listening to these while driving to see family this holiday season. 

 

Tom Dougall’s RINGSIDE (1938)

From March of 1935 to March of 1938, Tom Dougall wrote all the radio scripts for the soap opera, Ann Worth, Housewife, for radio station WXYZ in Detroit. While playing supporting roles on radio programs such as The Green Hornet and The Lone Ranger, Dougall devoted time creating a number of new radio properties, hoping Trendle would sell one to a sponsor. By the end of the year, and inspired by the Northwoods stories of Jack London, Dougall would create Challenge of the Yukon, a Canadian Mountie adventure series later re-titled Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Between Ann Worth and Challenge, however, Dougall wrote a number of radio scripts for a proposed daily serial known as Ringside.

 

As the title suggests, this series was inspired by the newspaper strip, Joe Palooka, a fictional heavyweight boxing champion created by cartoonist Ham Fisher. Like the newspaper strip, the radio proposal centered on the adventures of Jimmy Ross who, guided by his manager, attempted to win the championship. Along the way, Jimmy made enemies with crooks and fell in love with the beautiful Ann Mason. (Joe Palooka’s fiancé was named Ann Howe.)

 

Written from June through August of 1938, Dougall’s proposal exists today through three radio scripts, episodes #one, three and five, with announcer summaries for episodes two and four. The first script was dated July 2, the second dated August 16, and the third dated August 22. 

The following are summaries of the five adventures.

In the first episode, Al Kirby, late of New York, is looking for someone to fight the champ on Friday night, after discovering his contract player suffered a number of broken ribs from a fight the other night. He promised the newspaper men a name for the sports column but does not know what heavyweight in town could stand up against the champ. After all, the spectators need to get their money’s worth. When Jimmy Ross of River City, winner of the Golden Gloves, asks Kirby for a chance to go a few rounds against the champ on Friday night, Kirby scoffs. Mike Dolan, a friend of Al Kirby, recognizes Jimmy from prior bouts and insists Jim give the stranger a chance. Jimmy has potential. Al agrees since they have a trainer named Tony who can give him the works for a round or two. Al reluctantly agrees and asks Jim to show up at the gym ay 12:30 later in the day. 

 

In private, Jim explains to Mike that he needs the money for his mother and his kid sister. His family is from Springville, about 20 miles away. Having spent three days in town and unable to get a job, Jim is willing to enter the ring once again – in desperation. Mary, his sister, cannot walk straight and the doctors will not operate to ensure she can walk again without a financial advance. During a bout in the ring that afternoon, to see what Jim was capable of, Al and Mike watches as Jimmy Ross knocks Tony down. An impressive feat indeed considering Jim had not eaten in 24 hours and still had enough strength to win a bout!

 

In the second episode, Al gives Jim a hundred dollars and promises him a bout on the Friday night card. The boy leave the city and returns to Springville to tell his mother and sister the good news. Meanwhile, the crooked Jake Winters, the manager for Tony, decides that Jim would be a good investment and determines to get him under contract. He drives out to Springville with the champ and, after persuading Jim that he wants to be friendly, offers to drive him back to town. On the way back they stop for dinner. Jake slips some knockout drops in the kid’s coffee and once unconscious, they take him to their hotel and put him to bed. They rouse him just long enough to get his signature to a contract – the boy being told it is a hotel register.

 

In the third episode, Jim wakes to discover his signature on the contract, and Jake insisting he is now legally Jim’s manager. Al Kirby has been removed from the equation. When Jim defies the suggestion that they will travel to New York for business, he attempts to muscle his way out of the scenario. Still tipsy from the drugged coffee, Jim attempts to take a swing and is knocked out by Tony with a swift uppercut. Mike, meanwhile, phones Al Kirby and insists something has happened. Jim’s mother insists her son left her house as scheduled. Playing the role of a detective and following the trail, Mike manages to find Jim at the hotel and wake him up. 

 

“Al figures you’ve double-crossed him,” Mike explains. “He figures you’ve made off with that hundred dollars.” Mike insists Jim tag along with him back to the Coliseum, after hearing Jim’s story, and reveals a surprising  bit of trivia: the contract is not valid. Jim is 19 years old, and you have to be 21 for a contract to be legit. With this understood, Jimmy agrees to return to town with Mike.

 

Back at the Coliseum, Jim goes up against Bat Martin of Toledo. Jake shows up and attempts to create a stir, waving a contract in the air, but Mike Dolan orders him to back off, threatening to phone the cops and report the incident as a kidnapping. In the ring, young Jimmy Ross came out from his corner cautiously, but after the first light exchange, threw caution to the winds. He gave Bat an opening and Bat cashed in with a right to the jaw.

 

In the fourth episode, Jimmy Ross gets up before the count of ten and rallies to win his first professional fight by a knockout. Jake, the champ’s manager, threatened to make trouble over the contract he held, but Al Kirby threatened to expose the methods he used to obtain the contract and Jake and Tony reluctantly leave for New York without Jimmy on a leash. 

 

Ann Mason, the daughter of the financier, saw Jim fight. She comes to Al Kirby with the proposal that Jimmy fight at a charity bazaar that she was sponsoring. Al was finally persuaded, but the girl’s fiancé, Lance, a lawyer, afraid of her interest in Jim, hopes to discourage her by arranging for the young fighter to be beaten. Through Jake, he hires a tough opponent. 

 

In the fifth episode, Al warns Jimmy that “woman and fighting don’t mix… This Mason dame is an eyeful and you ain’t blind.” Jimmy understands the advice and instead stays focused on the fighter hired by Lance, to whom he must battle as one of the highlights of the charity function. But Ann is a tomboy who devours the sporting page. Al later confesses that he did something he rarely ever does – agreed to a bout without knowing who the opponent was. At the Mason estate that resembled a palace, Al meets the Masons, Ann and her father, and through conversation with Lance learns that Jimmy will be going up against Nugget Carney, a man who was disbarred by a couple of commissions because of his reputation for fighting dirty. 

 

Because the bout will not be held for a few hours, Lance proposes they ride horses across the estate and Jimmy, who grew up on a farm, unwillingly finds himself mounting Diablo. Ann warns the prize-fighter that all of her father’s horses are bad tempered. Diablo was the worst of the lot. During the ride, however, Ann discovers her horse panics, running down a blind path toward a cliff. Jimmy takes off to rescue her, in full command of Diablo, to whom he was able to master. Two horses plunging along a narrow path, a sheer drop of hundreds of feet ahead… and the radio audience would have to wait until the next thrilling chapter to learn what was to become of Ann and her peril.

 

No historical documents have been found to verify why this radio proposal never met fruition. George W. Trendle insisted on copyrighting radio scripts to ensure complete ownership and avoid paying royalties. Tom Dougall submitted the three radio scripts to the Library of Congress, probably to maneuver a checkmate to ensure he would be paid a royalty if the program was to sell to a sponsor. Some speculate that Dougall’s proposal mirrored too closely with Joe Palooka to be aired on the network. Others speculate Trendle would never have accepted a radio program if Dougall had copyrighted the proposal first. Reasons aside, it has been universally agree through historical hindsight that had Ringside become a weekly or daily program over WXYZ, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon may never had occurred.