Overlooked Old Time Radio: The Santa Claus Rustlers (Hopalong Cassidy, April 15, 1952)

Andy Clyde as California Carlson and William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, from one of their movies.

I recently came across a Christmas episode of the HOPALONG CASSIDY radio show, "The Santa Claus Rustlers", which seems like a nice thing to write about today on Christmas Eve. Hoppy is a longtime favorite character of mine, both the original version in books by Clarence E. Mulford and the version played in movies, on TV, and in this radio show by William Boyd.

In "The Santa Claus Rustlers", Hoppy and his sidekick California Carlson (played by the great Andy Clyde) are on their way back to the Bar-20 ranch after selling some cattle, but on the way they encounter a ranching family that's being plagued by rustling. Hoppy and California befriend the young couple and their two children, of course, and decide to stick around for Christmas and find out who's behind all the widelooping. Could it be the somewhat sinister and unfriendly ranch hand, Johnny No-Name?

There are a couple of twists in the plot, but nothing you won't see coming. However, being a Christmas episode, the whole thing is rather gentle and heartwarming, and I enjoyed it. William Boyd and Andy Clyde are top-notch as Hoppy and California, as always. One oddity is that the episode originally aired on April 15, 1952, instead of around Christmas. Why that was, I have no idea.

"The Santa Claus Rustlers" is available numerous places on-line for your listening pleasure. It might be a nice way to spend half an hour on Christmas Eve for some of you.

Overlooked Old Time Radio: Here Comes McBride

I enjoy old time radio programs and have ever since I started listening to syndicated reruns of THE LONE RANGER, THE SHADOW, THE GREEN HORNET and GANGBUSTERS in the early Sixties. There are a lot of shows available on-line, and I wish I had more time to listen to them. I may have to start making some time.

The most recent program I've listened to is HERE COMES McBRIDE, which my friend Brian Ritt told me about. From May of 1949, it stars Frank Lovejoy as private eye Rex McBride, who appeared in pulp stories and novels by Cleve F. Adams. I've read and enjoyed some of them but had no idea there had ever been a radio show based on the character. I don't know how many episodes there were, but only one, the first one, appears to have survived.

McBride is actually an insurance investigator based in Los Angeles in the radio version. But as the episode opens, he's in San Francisco on a case, trying to track down a valuable stolen necklace. Unfortunately, he finds a corpse in his hotel room and winds up having to solve that murder, and another that follows it, while navigating the usual troubled waters of nightclubs, crooked gamblers, suspicious cops, beautiful but maybe not trustworthy dames, etc. It's standard private eye stuff but done pretty well, and Frank Lovejoy, an actor I've always liked, is good as McBride. If they had ever made any Rex McBride movies, he would have played the character quite well, I think.

One nice thing about this program is that Cleve Adams is mentioned in the opening credits "above the title", as it were. I always like to see the guy who created something acknowledged. The episode itself was written by someone named Robert Ryf, who wrote some early cops-and-robbers TV in addition to his radio work.

This single episode of HERE COMES McBRIDE is available in several places on-line. I downloaded it here, and you can also just listen to it there if you don't want to download it. Also, SABOTAGE, the first of Adams' novels about Rex McBride is in print from Altus Press, if you want to check out the original version of the character.