Next came the signature gun, which this time was a over/under shotgun with a. With shows like Richard Diamond and Peter Gunn drawing good ratings, making your cowboy hero a detective seemed like a good ploy. actually three gimmicks.įirst, instead of being a rancher, or a sheriff, a bounty hunter, or a gambler - Slade was a private detective in the old west. Like many of the other westerns that year, Shotgun Slade had a gimmick.
I MASTER OF MY DOMAIN MOVIE
In 1959, Scott Brady ( brother of actors Lawrence Tierney and Edward Tierney) took on the role of Shotgun Slade, which ran for 2 years and 78 episodes.Īfter starting out in poverty row movies, Brady had managed to carve a respectable career as a leading man in movie westerns and assorted TV dramas, appearing in many anthology series of the 1950s.
It was nicknamed the `mare’s leg’ because of its substantial kick. Perhaps most famous ( and certainly the most coveted by my 6-year-old playmates) was the Mare’s leg sawed off rifle carried by Steve McQueen in Wanted: Dead or Alive. Don Durant as Johnny Ringo, carried French designed LeMat twin barreled revolver, that could fire a single 16 gauge shotgun shell in addition to. In The Rifleman, Chuck Connors carried a modified Winchester Model 1892 rifle, tricked out to rapid fire. With such a large field of similar shows, producers went out of their way to give their production a ` signature’, something to set it apart from the crowd. While still going strong, westerns were beginning to lose out to more modern and `hip’ dramas like Johnny Staccato, 77 Sunset Strip, and Hawaiian Eye. There were a record 26 different westerns playing each week on the tube at the end the 1950s, and that year three of them made the top 10 list ( Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel).Ī pretty good showing, but actually a decline from the previous year, when 7 of the top 10 shows were westerns. I’ve recently had the opportunity to check out a website that offers the entire production run of the CBSRMT series along with plot descriptions of each episode.Ĭlick on the image below to visit this fan supported site:Īlthough you wouldn’t know it by today’s cop – forensic investigation - medical drama cornering of the market in television drama, in 1959 westerns were the number one genre for prime time TV.
Himan Brown, a genuine legend due to his 65 year career in radio, is reputed to have produced more than 30,000 episodes of radio shows, including: Barrie Craig, Bulldog Drummond, The Inner Sanctum, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, along with numerous daytime soap operas. While many performers graced the sound stage over the years, a number of `regulars’ could be heard including Fred Gwynne, Kevin McCarthy, Celeste Holm, Keir Dullea, Mason Adams, Mercedes McCambridge, John Lithgow, and Tony Roberts.
You’ll find murder, horror, science fiction, and even historical dramas in the mix. The series featured original stories along with retellings of classic works.
I MASTER OF MY DOMAIN FULL
Not only did it awaken an interest in old radio for for me, when I began collecting OTR ( old time radio) shows in earnest in the early 1990s, getting the full collection of CBSRMT shows was high on my list. Marshall, starting in 1974 ( and running until 1982) CBSRMT produced 1399 45-minute episodes.įor this child born of the TV age, suddenly having an ongoing source of quality radio drama was an unexpected delight. But in the mid-1970s CBS radio began a highly successful revival of the radio drama, called CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.Ĭreated, directed, and produced by Himan Brown, and hosted by E. Well, not until my early teens when I managed to get my hands on a couple of LPs with old radio shows on them.
I knew who Fibber McGee and Molly were, and The Shadow, and had heard the story from my folks about Orson Welles' War of the Worlds Broadcast, but I hadn’t actually heard them. Although I grew up hearing tales of old-time radio from my parents, for this child born in the mid-1950s, the golden age of radio had already passed by the time I could care.
0 kommentar(er)
