The Dr. Sixgun Radio Program

Background

The adult western was a distinctly post-World War II phenomenon. Ground-breaking adult westerns had begun appearing over both Radio and Television throughout the 1950s. The adult western was the thinking man's western, replete with the psychological motivations of both the genre's protagonists and villains and the often agonizing journeys either experienced enroute to the still mostly predictable showdown and inevitable shootout. The genre was also generally more accurate as to the history of the eras and locations in which they were set. Duel in the Sun (1948), The Gunfighter (1950), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), and Giant (1955) for example, were some of the popular adult western "A" films that preceded most of the adult western genre over either Radio or Television.

In contrast to the predominately white hat/black hat shoot-'em-up western genre, adult westerns also featured dramatic, previously unseen, new camera angles for the inevitable quick-drawing face-offs that dominated the genre. The proliferation of these new and different shooting angles had become so ubiquitous--and often overreaching--that throughout the 1950s the adult western genre in Film was liberally lampooned and parodied by Ernie Kovacs on Television and Mad Magazine in Print, among many others. In several respects the adult western in Film was an analog of the film noir crime, detective and mystery films of the same erea.

That ground been having been broken, the genre soon became the western of choice for even the juvenile audiences of the era that had so popularized the white hat/black hat shoot-'em-up morality tales of the preceding twenty years over Radio. Gunsmoke, the adult western analog of the adult crime drama Dragnet, first aired in 1952 (Dragnet aired three years prior.) The popular precedents and precursors to adult westerns of the era over Radio follow:

• 1941 Saunders of the Circle X
• 1944 Death Valley Sheriff [The Sheriff]
• 1946 Hawk Durango
• 1946 Hawk Larabee
• 1947 Zane Grey Theater
• 1949 Frontier Town
• 1950 Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens
• 1950 Hopalong Cassidy
• 1950 Tales of the Texas Rangers
• 1951 Roy Rogers
• 1951 Wild Bill Hickok
• 1952 Gunsmoke
• 1953 The Six Shooter
• 1954 Dr. Sixgun
• 1956 Fort Laramie
• 1958 Frontier Gentleman
• 1958 Have Gun, Will Travel
• 1958 Luke Slaughter of Tombstone

There were glimpses of adult western themes throughout 1940s Radio but they didn't always catch on with War-weary America. Saunders of the Circle X (1941) tended to take a more serious approach to its scripts while still exemplifying the action-adventure flavor of the mostly juvenile adventure fare that preceded it. Death Valley Sheriff [or The Sheriff] (1944) was an extension of the long-running Death Valley Days series dating to 1930. Often written to both educate and entertain, the more historically authentic elements of Death Valley Sheriff leaned toward some of the early adult westerns of the mid-1940s.

We included Hashknife Hartley (1950), Hopalong Cassidy (1950), Tales of the Texas Rangers (1950), the later Roy Rogers (1951) programs of that series, and Wild Bill Hickok (1951) as other westerns in the vein of Saunders of the Circle X. While admittedly still targeted to a juvenile audience--and sponsored by juvenile-targeted products--they began leaning toward more mature themes while still featuring all the guns-ablaze, white hat-black hat action of the other juvenile adventures of the Golden Age of Radio.

NBC debuts Dr. Sixgun as a transcribed syndicated program

NBC had learned from the many successful independent transcribed programming firms that cost-effective, prepackaged programming could address a growing market demand for low-cost Radio features. Dr. Sixgun was one of several programs that NBC produced specifically for wide, independent distribution over either the NBC Network or any unaffiliated outlet seeking low-cost programming; NBC's Haunting Hour was another example distributed at about the same time.

"Across the rugged Indian Territory, rides a tall young man on a mission of mercy; his medical bag strapped on one hip and his six-shooter on the other. This is Dr. Sixgun. Grey Matson, M.D. was 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, the symbol of justice and mercy in the lawless west of the 1870s."

Dr. Sixgun first appeared over NBC on July 1st 1956 throughout America. Given its adult western genre, Dr. Sixgun appeared during the late evening in most markets. Versatile character actor Karl Weber was featured as Dr. Grey Matson, M.D., better known as 'Dr. Sixgun.' The series was set in the Montana Territory of the post Civil War 1870s, and centered around the frontier town of Frenchman's Ford. Upon arriving and settling in Frenchman's Ford, Dr. Matson acquired the town's muse, Pablo, a "wandering Gypsy peddler" [William Griffis] as Dr. Matson's chronicler, much in the vein of Sherlock Holmes' Dr. Watson.

Pablo's own sidekick was 'Midnight,' a raven with a penchant for mimicry. William Griffis, as Pablo, narrated the Dr. Sixgun adventures providing all the exposition and background necessary to keep each script moving. Legendary script writers Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts alternated with the writing credits for the series. Fred Weihe, Harry Frazee, and Daniel Sutter directed the productions. As with Gunsmoke (1952-1961), arguably Radio and Television's most iconic adult western of the era, Dr. Sixgun's adventures often centered around the local saloons. In the case of Dr. Sixgun that was O'Shea's Bull Run Saloon, Frenchman's Ford's only watering hole. The Bull Run was owned and bartended by O'Shea, as portrayed by William Keene.

Performed and transcribed in New York, the series featured many of Radio's finest East Coast supporting talent, among them: Luis van Rooten, Jim Boles, Joe de Santis, Kermit Murdock, Santos Ortega, Lon Clark, Betty Garde, Vicki Vola, Edgar Stehli, Roger de Koven, Denise Alexander, Bob Hastings, Leon Janney, Nelson Olmsted, William Johnstone, John Astin, Les Damon, Ralph Bell, Virginia Payne, Wendell Holmes, Ralph Camargo, and Jock MacGregor. Note the number of these actors that went on to distinguished Television careers as well. Although the composer/conductor wasn't credited in the AFRTS-denatured recordings, famous Jazz guitarist Art Ryerson provided the guitar music for the episode anecdotally titled, "Willie Wyman and the Land Grant."

Dr. Grey Matson was a Cambridge, Boston-trained physician who'd settled in Frenchman's Ford, Montana Territory after the end of The Civil War. Both sensitively and authentically portrayed by Karl Weber, Dr. Matson displays a wide range of basic humanity, good humour, professional resolve, and simple human frailty. Even more remarkable, writers Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts managed to maintain a marvelous balance of continuity in Dr. Matson's range of emotions and reactions irrespective of who wrote a particular script. It's clear that the two great scripters collaborated closely throughout the series.

The premiere episode found Dr. Matson presented with the gravely ill son of Chiricahua Indian Chief 'Tall Horse' whose tribe had been afflicted with a deadly outbreak of measles. 'Dr. Sixgun' found himself caught between a racially prejudiced Chiricahua Medicine Man--Grey Fox--and Aaron Gault, an equally prejudiced leader of a wagon train of Pennsylvania German settlers. Dr. Sixgun was away advising Chief Tall Horse, while back in Frenchman's Ford Aaron Gault had poisoned the chief's gravely ill son with what Gault believed was Prussic Acid. The George Lefferts-written script set the tone for all of the Dr. Sixgun episodes to follow. Both Lefferts and Ernest Kinoy were two of Radio's finest writers and their combined talents were arguably the principal contributing factor to the consistent quality of Dr. Sixgun throughout its run.

One of the era's most inexpensive series' for subscribing affiliates, Dr. Sixgun broadcasters got a disproportionate amount of bang for their pocket change. At about the same time Ernest Kinoy's scripts were being showcased in Dr. Sixgun, Kinoy's scripts were being heard on popular programs as diverse as the award-winning situation comedy, The Marriage (1953-1954), the Frank Sinatra mystery-adventure series, Rocky Fortune (1953-1954), and the award-winning science-fiction drama anthology X Minus One (1955-1958). For his part, George Lefferts had just completed writing the Rocky Fortune series with Kinoy and would go on to write for X Minus One with Ernest Kinoy.

One of the most representative of the adult western genre, Dr. Sixgun's scripts explored sociological, political, and cultural topics well ahead of their time: gun ownership, racial prejudice, religious prejudice, capital punishment, small town gossip-mongers, ethnic prejudice, investment scams, territorial politics, sexism, and medical ethics among several other thought-provoking themes. Even more emblematic of the adult western genre, Dr. Grey Matson was by no means idealized in Dr. Sixgun. He was consistently portrayed with equal measures of human fallibility, human strength, and all too human emotions.

Unfortunately overshadowed by the more popular Gunsmoke series of the era, Dr. Sixgun was one the Golden Age of Radio's most well-written series' and a genuine overlooked gem from the era. Ernest Kinoy's scripts were marvelously poignant, moving, and authentic, and George Lefferts' scripts were equally authentic, visceral, and historically accurate. The number of directors employed throughout the production were a testament to the seamless quality of Dr. Sixgun's scripts.

It's apparent that neither NBC--nor the era's major sponsors--ever truly understood the potential of Dr. Sixgun and its enduring impact. Their loss, posterity's gain.

Last but by no means least, we're--yet again--deeply indebted to the selfless, dedicated technicians of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) for preserving this remarkable Golden Age Radio gem.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

As best as we've been able to determine, all of the currently circulating exemplars of Dr. Sixgun are actually from the AFRTS-denatured canon, END-511. As such, we've devoted most of our effort logging Dr. Sixgun to the AFRTS run as documented in the Pacific Stars and Stripes. There are also several circulating episodes from the AFRTS run that are as yet undated or unsequenced. We don't generally put great store in the episode sequencing of a canon unless that sequencing is integral to the series' continuity.

With only a handful of exceptions, the plots of the original broadcasts of Dr. Sixgun over either NBC or the numerous unaffiliated stations of the era weren't announced in newspaper listings of the era. It's possible that either the NBC Collection or J. David Goldin Collection at the Library of Congress provide more clues to identify the entire canon. We simply haven't as yet explored those resources.

As a consequence of the above, we've attempted to log as much as we could of both the initial commercially broadcast run and the AFRTS run of 1956-1957. We've presented those episodes we can't as yet identify in the first log below.

OTRisms:

As we've grown to expect from the world of OTR, Dr. Sixgun's documentation and 'facts' have been rubbish since the 'invention' of 'Old Time Radio' post-1976 to commercially exploit American Radio Broadcasting History and its treasure once the overwhelming majority of Golden Age Radio copyrights expired. "Garbage in, Garbage out" is an old adage from database programmers, and it exemplifies the situation quite succinctly. The situation wouldn't be so blatant if it wasn't for the hundreds of 'credentialed' or 'authoritative' OTR wags, 'experts,' and authors who've continued to assert and publish this rubbish without disclaimer--with the single exception of J. David Goldin and his remarkable radioGOLDINdex database. It's bad enough to assert that one has compiled or published the "be all, do all, end all" log of a given canon. It's when that schoolyard braggadocio is based on a tissue of lies that it becomes intellectual fraud.

Had that exploitation shown even a modicum of respect for vintage Radio's rich history, the ensuing reckless plundering of this national treasure wouldn't have been quite so egregious. But as those of us with even a nodding acquaintance with integrity know by now, there's been precious little in the way of either historical accuracy or respect accorded this treasure by the highly influential and recklessly commercial OTR faction.

A few of the more glaring mistatements regarding the widely circulating history and details of Dr. Sixgun are immediately obvious in the face of honest historical research:

• The protagonist of Dr. Sixgun is 'Dr. Grey Matson,' a physician in 1870s Montana Territory, not 'Ray Matson.' By way of demonstrating how widely disseminated this most obvious of all errors truly is, simply perform the following [quoted] Google search . . .
  
  "Dr. Sixgun" "Ray Matson"
  
  . . . and no, you don't have to tell us. They're all commercial OTR sites of one type or another, aren't they. That's precisely how widely this absurd rubbish has become plagiarized throughout the OTR sector. Kinda pathetic, isn't it? The only thing more pathetic are those who consistently patronize any of those listed sites.
• Dr. Sixgun first aired as a NBC-transcribed, syndicated, sustaining production beginning on July 1st 1954, not the widely alleged September 2nd 1954.
• The AFRTS-denatured, transcribed broadcasts of 'Doctor Sixgun' first began airing over the Far East Network in the Pacific--from Okinawa to Korea--on June 12th 1956; and December 22nd 1958 over AFN in Europe. But certainly not the widely reported 1957.
• While indeed airing in the U.S. on both Thursdays and Sundays, several outlets aired the entire Dr. Sixgun series on Thursday nights from beginning to end with only one discernible break.
• Doctor Sixgun aired on Tuesday nights throughout its Far East Network run from beginning to end, replaced by Ft. Laramie.

The overwhelming amount of Dr. Sixgun misinformation in circulation seems to have emanated from wildly inaccurate The Vintage Radio Place commercial cassette catalog of Dr. Sixgun. The details of that catalog were of course 'borrowed' by the OTRR, its OTTER log, and its OTRRPedia--with additional inaccurate embellishments of their own. But even the radioGOLDINdex appears to be mostly inaccurate as to names, episode order and dates. We don't usually see this level of inaccuracy in the radioGOLDINdex, which--for us anyway--brings into doubt its entire page of alleged transcription entries for the series. To radioGOLDINdex's continuing credit, the database cautions its visitors that the actual broadcast dates are in question. Sadly, the overwhelming majority of the OTR hobbyist visitors to radioGOLDINdex read only what they choose to read in the database's qualifying notes--and periodic updates. That may help to explain why the Radio Spirits entries for Dr. Sixgun are also inaccurate since apparently their transcriptions originated from the Radio Yesteryear Collection of J. David Goldin.

It should be self-evident why such baldly obvious inaccuracies about Dr. Sixgun persist with such tenacity throughout the OTR Community, arguably the most incurious, wishful-thinking hobbyist collectors in American culture--its been commercially profitable to do so. Even more disturbing, most of the inaccuracies among the circulating details of Dr. Sixgun are so easily debunked by simply listening to the canon. We continue to be gobsmacked by the absurdity of an aural collectible being so intentionally misrepresented for thirty-six years simply because its collectors or purveyors continue to refuse to actually listen to anything they sell, catalog, or trade.

. . . and yes, of course we realize that all attempts to shame the shameless commercial OTR industry into mending its ways remains a fool's errand. So call us unrepentant fools.

OTR Fraud Alert:

As serious collectors have come to expect from the OTRR, Calfkiller, OTRCat, Times Past, et al, the majority of their circulating Dr. Sixgun exemplars are adulterated in one form or the other:

• Clipping the close to disguise their AFRTS source.
• Pegging out the amplitude resulting in clipping off as much as half of the source recording's original fidelity.
  
  
  Amplitude Pegged (above)
  
  Resulting Amplitude and restored fidelity after we corrected it (above).
  Note especially the shaded area showing how much of the original fidelity had been clipped from the original AFRTS source recording. That's simply technical malpractice, pure and simple. What defies all human logic is . . . to what end?
  
  
• Stereoizing their recordings to give them the appearance of being better (and larger) encodes than they actually are. [Both channels are actually identical monaural channels of inferior fidelity.]
  
  
  'True' Stereo waveform (above)
  
  Fake 'Stereoized' Dr. Sixgun waveform (above)
  
  Restored monaural Dr. Sixgun waveform after we corrected it (above)
  
  
• Intentionally misdating the entire collection to prop up the sales of their commercial OTR donors and 'authors' by further disseminating--and perpetuating--all of those inaccurate NBC-broadcast dates. The OTRR knows full well that the overwhelming majority [if not all] of the circulating Dr. Sixgun exemplars are actually sourced from AFRTS-denatured recordings. Does any of this make all those commercial OTR sellers liars and frauds? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . .
  Conversely, if they're simply too ignorant to know what they're selling is there any rational reason to patronize any of them?

This is by no means a moral dilemma for vintage Radio hobbyists. When you patronize--or support--cheaters you promote cheating. It's precisely that simple. It's a binary choice. If you can't understand that distinction, you're either pursuing the wrong hobby or you're a cheater yourself. Suggestion: try jigsaw puzzles and a sharp pair of toenail clippers as a pastime instead. At least that way you'll only be cheating yourself and you won't perpetuate the further destruction of this national treasure.

We continue to remain bewildered regarding the OTR community's long-standing, pathological disdain for AFRS or AFRTS denatured recordings. It's a long-established fact that well over half of the most popular circulating vintage Radio canons are comprised of significant numbers of AFRS or AFRTS denatured recordings. And yet those same OTR vendors and groups simply lump the AFRS and AFRTS exemplars into their commercially broadcast exemplars by either deliberately ignoring the source altogether or sloppily attempting to remove aural references to their true AFRS or AFRTS source. Apparently they continue to believe that simply removing the proof of a recording's orgin erases its AFRTS or AFRS history. This hypocritical aversion to AFRS or AFRTS recordings is not only disingenuous and fraudulent, it's unpatriotic.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2011 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]