Tales of the Texas Rangers, a western adventure old-time radio

Old-time radio

Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...

 drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952. Movie star Joel McCrea

Joel McCrea

Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...

 starred as Texas Ranger

Texas Ranger Division

The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...

 Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify the criminals and his faithful horse, Charcoal (or "Charky," as Jayce would sometimes refer to him), to track them down. The shows were reenactments of actual Texas Ranger cases.

The series was produced and directed by Stacy Keach, Sr.

Stacy Keach, Sr.

Stacy Keach, Sr. was the stage name of Walter Stacy Keach , an American actor whose screen career spanned six decades. He and his wife, Mary Cain , were members of the Peninsula Players summer theater program during the 1930s. He may be best known for his role as Carlson in the television show Get...

, and was sponsored for part of its run by Wheaties

Wheaties

Wheaties is a brand of General Mills breakfast cereal. It is well known for featuring prominent athletes on the exterior of the package, and has become a major cultural icon...

.

Captain Manuel T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas

Manuel T. Gonzaullas

Manuel Trazazas "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas was a Texas Rangers captain and a staff member of the Texas government....

, a Ranger for 30 years and who was said to have killed 31 men during his career, served as consultant for the series.

The series was adapted for television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 from 1955 to 1957 and produced by Screen Gems

Screen Gems

Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....

. For the TV version, Willard Parker

Willard Parker

Willard Parker was an American film actor.He was born in New York City on 5 February 1912. He was earlier a tennis pro. Although he had some stage experience, he mainly appeared as a second lead in films from 1938. He was tall and had wavy hair...

 took over the role of Jace Pearson. On radio, Pearson often worked by request with a local sheriff's office or police department but on the TV show, he had a regular partner, Ranger Clay Morgan (who had been an occasional character on the radio show), played by Harry Lauter

Harry Lauter

Herman Arthur "Harry" Lauter was an American character actor originally from White Plains, New York....

. During the opening and closing credits

Closing credits

Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...

 of the TV show, the actors would march toward the camera and an off-screen men's chorus sing the theme song, "These Are Tales of Texas Rangers", to the tune of "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You", which is also the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". The radio series used contemporary cases and modern detective methods to solve crimes; it was a procedural

Police procedural

The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...

 drama, in many ways Dragnet

Dragnet (series)

Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...

with a Western flavor. The TV show was aimed at children (and aired on Saturday mornings) and was more of a traditional Western (with chases and shoot-outs). The TV series did both modern cases and cases set in the "Old West." With new cases using a car with horse float to get the rangers to their destinations it always made sure that the use of horses was only a step away. With older themes they would always ride into town on the horses to mete out their justice, they wore differing ranger attire for new and old scenes, also their weaponry was totally different.

Irving J. Moore

Irving J. Moore

Irving Joseph Moore was an American television director originally from Chicago, Illinois. He was known primarily for work in two night-time soap operas, Dallas and Dynasty as well as segments of such other series as Gunsmoke and Eight Is Enough.Moore launched his Hollywood career as a messenger...

 began his career as a director on Tales of the Texas Rangers.

Guest stars

• Ed Hinton
  Ed Hinton (actor)
  Edgar Latimer Hinton, Jr., known as Ed Hinton and sometimes as Edward Hinton , was an American actor known particularly for guest-starring roles on television westerns...
  
   as Matt Carter in "Blazing Across the Pecos
  Pecos River
  The headwaters of the Pecos River are located north of Pecos, New Mexico, United States, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County. The river flows for through the eastern portion of that state and neighboring Texas before it...
  
  " and as Walker in "The Rough, Tough West" (both 1955)
• I. Stanford Jolley
  I. Stanford Jolley
  Isaac Stanford Jolley, Sr., known as I. Stanford Jolley was a prolific American character actor of film and television, primarily in western roles as cowboys, law-enforcement officers, or villains...
  
  as Sheriff Clinton in "West of Sonora" and as Parker (uncredited) in "The Devil's Deputy" (1956)

Episode Log

Number	Title	Airdate	Notes
AUD	Just A Number	04-13-50 :27:40
1	Title Unknown	07-08-50 :29:40
2	The White Elephant	07-15-50 :29:40
3	Apache Peak	07-22-50 :29:40
4	The Trigger Man	07-29-50 :29:40
5	Quick Silver	08-05-50 :29:30
6	The Broken Spur	08-12-50 :29:10
7	Fool's Gold	08-19-50 :29:40
8	The Open Range	08-26-50 :29:40
9	Play For Keeps	09-02-50 :29:50
10	Dead Or Alive	09-09-50 :29:30
11	Candy Man	09-16-50 :29:40
12	Open And Shut	09-23-50 :29:20	This is the broadcast of 11-11-51 of the same title.
13	Clean Up	09-30-50 :29:40
14	Living Death	10-08-50 :29:40	Show moves to Sundays at this point
15	Dead Give-Away	10-15-50 :29:40
16	Title Unknown	10-22-50 :30:00
17	Soft Touch	10-29-50 :29:50
18	The White Suit	11-05-50 :30:00
19	Blood Relative	11-12-50 :30:00
20	Hanging By A Thread	11-26-50 :30:00	show of 11-19 Pre-Empted for Hedda Hopper Program
21	Room 114	12-03-50 :30:00
22	The Lucky Dollar	12-10-50 :30:00
23	The Cactus Pear	12-17-50 :30:00
24	Christmas Present	12-24-50 :30:00	Christmas Program
25	The Devil's Share	12-31-50 :30:00
26	Deadhead Freight	01-07-51 :30:00
27	Death In The Cards	01-14-51 :30:00
28	Blood Harvest	01-21-51 :30:00
29	Title Unknown	01-28-51 :30:00
30	Logger's Larceny	02-04-51 :30:00
31	The Hatchet	02-11-51 :30:00
32	Sweet Revenge	02-18-51 :30:00
33	The Trap	02-25-51 :30:00
34	Blind Justice	03-11-51 :30:00	Show of 3/4 Pre-empted for "Theatre Guild's" HAMLET
35	Death By Adoption	03-18-51 :30:00
36	Breakdown	03-25-51 :30:00
37	Pressure	04-01-51 :30:00
38	Bad Blood	04-08-51 :30:00
39	Conspiracy	04-15-51 :30:00
40	Canned Death	04-22-51 :30:00
41	Title Unknown	04-29-51 :30:00
42	No Living Witnesses	05-06-51 :30:00
43	Paid In Full	05-13-51 :30:00
44	Squaredance	05-20-51 :30:00
45	Joy Ride	05-27-51 :30:00
46	Death Shaft	09-30-51 :30:00
47	The Wheelchair Killer	10-07-51 :30:00
48	Play For Keeps	10-14-51 :30:00
49	Fugitive Trail	10-21-51 :30:00
50	The White Elephant	10-28-51 :30:00
51	Helping Hand	11-04-51 :30:00
52	Open And Shut	11-11-51 :30:00
53	Wild Crop	11-18-51 :30:00
54	The Blow Off	11-25-51 :30:00
55	The Dead Give-Away	12-02-51 :30:00
56	Death Plant	12-09-51 :30:00
57	Pick-Up	12-16-51 :30:00
58	Christmas Payoff	12-23-51 :30:00	Christmas Program
59	Killer's Crop	12-30-51 :30:00
60	Birds Of A Feather	01-06-52 :30:00
61	Clip Job	01-13-52 :30:00
62	Blood Trail	01-20-52 :30:00
63	Night Chase	01-27-52 :30:00
64	The Rub Out	02-03-52 :30:00
65	Hitchhiker	02-10-52 :30:00
66	Cold Blood	02-17-52 :27:20
67	Bright Boy	02-24-52 :30:00
68	The Ice Man	03-02-52 :30:00
69	Dream Farm	03-09-52 :30:00
70	Prelude To Felony	03-16-52 :30:00
71	Nighthawk	03-30-52 :30:00	Program of 3-23 Preempted
72	Troop Train	04-06-52 :30:00
73	Uncertain Death	04-13-52 :30:00
74	Illusion	04-20-52 :30:00
75	Address Unknown	04-27-52 :30:00
76	Little Sister	05-04-52 :30:00
77	Unleashed Fury	05-11-52 :30:00
78	Smart Kill	05-18-52 :30:00
79	Jailbird	05-25-52 :30:00
80	Sell-Out	06-01-52 :30:00
81	Illegal Entry	06-08-52 :30:00
82	Travesty	06-15-52 :30:00
83	Knockout	06-22-52 :30:00
84	Ex-Con	06-29-52 :30:00
85	The Boomerang	07-06-52 :30:00
86	Finger Man	07-13-52 :30:00
87	Round Trip	07-20-52 :30:00
88	Stick-Up	07-27-52 :30:00
89	Double Edge	08-03-52 :30:00
90	Last Stop	08-10-52 :30:00
91	Cover-Up	08-17-52 :30:00
92	Three Victims	08-24-52 :30:00
93	Misplaced Person	08-31-52 :30:00
94	Alibi	09-07-52 :30:00
95	Drive-In	09-14-52 :30:00