The Unknown Radio Adventures of The Lone Ranger (1933)

Just as "Nitrate won't wait" became the rallying cry for film archivists, "Acetate won't wait" has become the mantra for collectors of old-time radio. Widely used for three decades (1930s through the 1950s), then slowly replaced with magnetic tape and other formats, radio broadcasts featuring comedy, music and drama were preserved for both commercial and historical purposes. Fans of old-time radio programs, and fans of The Lone Ranger in general, are fully aware of the 2,600 radio broadcasts from 1938 to 1954 that were preserved thanks to this format. Over 2,000 of those radio episodes have been released commercially thanks to companies like Radio Spirits, which commercially releases CD sets periodically through the months through licensing agreements.

The Lone Ranger was not recorded on a regular basis until February of 1938. Prior, the program aired live over the Michigan Radio Network, the Don Lee Network, and the Mutual Broadcasting System. Therefore, Lone Ranger radio broadcasts prior to February 1938 should not be considered “lost” because they were never recorded in the first place. Thankfully, almost every radio script exists from the series so we have an opportunity to fill the gaps with plot summaries. 

 

It was not until early 1938 that The Lone Ranger radio program was recorded on a regular basis. Prior, the radio broadcasts originating from WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, were never heard again after the initial broadcast. No sooner did the broadcast conclude, the actors tossed their scripts into a box in the corner of the room and began rehearsals for the next drama (usually The Green Hornet or Warner Lester, Manhunter). As a result, the first five years of the program does not exist in recorded form. Thankfully, we have the radio scripts to consult. Enclosed are plot summaries based on the script pages, "lost" adventures of the masked man and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto.

Episode #47, Broadcast May 18, 1933

Plot: The Sheep Gulch Gang has threatened to kill the cattle owned by Dave Grimm unless he pays fifty cents per head, an old-fashioned protection racket. Ever since the time he was stomped on by an untamed horse, old Dave Grimm’s legs have been useless and his wheelchair kept him confined to his home. In defiance of the gang, Glenn Stoddard, the foreman of the range outside of Cedar Point, plans to take the cattle through the Sherwood Gap, opposition or no opposition. Baldy, one of the ranchmen, is falsely suspected of being in league with the outlaw gang and is locked in a shack. The Lone Ranger rescues Baldy and tells him to cut down trees and built a raft. During the cattle drive of 6,000 head, the men are ambushed by the Sheep Gulch Gang and Baldy grabs his employer, considered one of the best shots in the county, and takes him to the raft on the river, from which The Lone Ranger and Dave get the advantage and vanquish the outlaws. Baldy proved he was not in league with the gang and Dave apologizes, admitting he never had so much fun since he lost the use of his legs.

 

Episode #49, Broadcast May 23, 1933

Plot: Widow Mattie Stevens wants to marry old Zak, who suffers from years-old bullet wounds that slow his arms and prevent him from fast-draw, which the town folk believe is a handicap for the job of sheriff. As a result, Zak does not run for re-election and surrenders his badge to the newly-elected sheriff, former deputy Jim Blake. This does not stop Zak from seeking vengeance against Bump Schottin, the two-gun outlaw who kills for fun and is responsible for putting the bullets in Zak’s arms. Soon after Sheriff Blake posts a $500 reward for Schottin, the outlaw comes to town to face off against the new sheriff and threatens to shoot him in the arms just like he did to the former lawman. Sheriff Blake pleads for the outlaw not to shoot saying he will withdraw the wanted poster and reward. The Lone Ranger intervenes and at the point of a gun orders Blake and Schottin to share duties digging a grave, explaining how in the morning each will have a gun and will draw and shoot at the count of three; the loser will be buried. The Lone Ranger taunts the outlaw and fills him with the terror of decaying in the grave, emphasizing how such digging would have weakened his arms. Jim Blake declares he is a coward, not deserving of the sheriff position, and hands over the badge to Zak. At the count of three, Schottin turns yellow begging to be arrested, proving that unless he has an edge over the competition, he is a coward. Jim returns to the job of deputy sheriff and puts Schottin to work building the new jail.

 

Episode #50, Broadcast May 25, 1933

Plot: Near the town of Osage, Kent Goodman’s Bar X Ranch has developed and prospered. When Kent visits town to propose marriage to Madge, the local schoolteacher, she confesses how is compelled to marry an Easterner, Bill Cooper, soon to arrive by stagecoach. Cooper demands that Madge marry him or he will evict her mother from her house in the East on which he holds the mortgage. Madge knows her late father paid off the mortgage but without the lost receipt she cannot prove her claim. Barney Armstrong also wants the hand of Madge and upon learning of her problem and that Kent plans to stop the stagecoach to steal the mortgage, masquerades as a bandit and robs the stage himself. After stealing the postal mail, Barney shoots the stage driver so his competition, Kent, will be arrested. The Lone Ranger secretly learns of the scheme, apprehends Barney and his assistant Tim Hicks, and the stolen mail, then tricks the schemers will into confessing their crime within the presence of the sheriff. The Lone Ranger takes the mortgage paper from Bill Cooper and burns it. Madge is freed from the obligation as the sheriff releases Kent from jail. The sheriff extols The Lone Ranger’s brand of western justice while holding Bill Cooper in custody until the next stagecoach heading east.

 

Episode #51, Broadcast May 27, 1933

Plot: Two-fisted old Tom King was the oil baron of a Texas region, with vast holdings and a large fortune built by hard work and good luck. Helen, his daughter, wants to marry Dave Webster, against the wishes of her father. Dave purchased a land option and plans to strike oil before a contractual deadline, lest he forfeit the land to her father who wants it by any means. By night, two mysterious figures worked on the shaft that was being drilled, one an Indian and the other a masked man. In spite of the double shift of work, however, Dave finds opposition masterminded by King. The general store will not provide supplies and the cost of a new drill bit exceeds credit allotted to the laborers. When Dave’s assistant, Stebbins, meets The Lone Ranger one evening, he agrees to follow a scheme that will save Dave from further complications. Tom King privately pays Stebbins $500 to sabotage the well by using a faulty drill bit. When this proves almost fatal to the hopes and ambitions of the young man, The Lone Ranger provides a magnet on the end of a rope to retrieve the broken metal and the oil well cracks through in time. Only after striking oil does the scheme unfold: Stebbins took the $500 to buy the necessary supplies and an extra drill bit – his payment from Tom King did not mention failure to fish out the snapped drill… a loophole and lesson that the old fire-eater happily learns the hard way.

 

NOTES: These plot summaries were reprinted from The Lone Ranger: The Early Years, 1933-1937, by Terry Salomonson and Martin Grams, Jr.

 

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (The Ultimate Book)

Christmas is two weeks away but it does not hurt to order your copy of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Rick Goldschmidt, a 216 page hardcover documenting the making of the 1964 television special. This book is chock full of archival documents, reprints of storyboards, the 1963 draft of the script, how the puppet-motion effects were accomplished, behind-the-scenes photographs... literally every aspect of the holiday special is documented. This is the kind of book you read from the first page to the last and then sit back and watch the special to gain a different perspective -- in-jokes, censorship and alterations... a treasure trove of material.

Housed in an old building formerly used by test fighter plane engines, the Tokyo "Animagic" artists took Romeo Muller's script and Antony Peters' storyboards and turned them into a stop-motion animated holiday TV classic. That television special airs annually over CBS, sometimes twice in December, and I don't know a kid at heart that did not memorize every line to the holiday classic. With Johnny Marks title song and several classic tunes for the show, Bernard Cowan directed a talented cast of Canadian vote actors, Burl Ives gave a memorable performance, and Maury Laws oversaw the musical soundtrack. Produced by Rankin and Bass, the television special remains the highest-rated in history.

Special thanks to Rick Goldschmidt who took thousands of hours to assemble the production files, contracts, sheet music, recording sessions, photographs and tons of materials to create this book. If you are a fan of the annual Christmas special, this is the book you want to have. Makes a perfect Christmas gift this holiday for your friends!

You can buy your copy direct here:

http://miserbros.com/shop/books/the-making-of-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-hard-cover/

Free postage and be sure to click the box that asks for something personal -- you'll get your copy autographed at no charge but you need to check that box! 

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.