Have Gun, Will Travel

About Have Gun, Will Travel

Have Gun, Will Travel is the radio version of the famous TV western, and here you can listen free online to the original CBS Radio show that ran from November 23, 1958, to November 27, 1960. John Dehner plays Paladin, the educated gunfighter who lives at the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco and hires out his gun, and his wits, to anyone who can pay. Ben Wright plays Hey Boy, the Carlton's bellhop. The channel plays the old time radio episodes around the clock in the order they first aired, with a free podcast besides.

It is a rare case of a show that went from television to radio instead of the other way around. Richard Boone had already made Paladin a TV hit when Gunsmoke's producer-director Norman Macdonnell brought him to radio with most of his Gunsmoke crew. Dehner won the part over Harry Bartell and Vic Perrin, and made a point of not copying Boone. The first scripts were adapted from TV episodes, some by Gene Roddenberry, but the team soon found them a poor fit and began writing originals for radio.

The radio and TV versions were made by completely separate crews, and the radio show has its own habits. Most episodes open and close at the Carlton, the opening tells you the year, and Hey Boy has a much larger part than on TV, along with a girlfriend, Miss Wong, played by Virginia Gregg, who never appeared on television. The whole run survives because collectors copied the CBS master tapes in the 1970s. If you love the TV series, this is a whole new set of Paladin stories.

What you’ll hear

• John Dehner, whom Radio Life magazine said had the "best radio voice" in show business, as Paladin.
• Paladin's calling card, "Have Gun Will Travel, Wire Paladin, San Francisco," with a white chess knight.
• Hey Boy (Ben Wright) and Miss Wong (Virginia Gregg), whose own troubles sometimes drive the story.
• Jobs all over the West: a Wild West show star to turn into a lady, a steamboat race, a pair of peafowl to deliver across the country.
• Gunsmoke's repertory company in guest roles: Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell, Joseph Kearns, Barney Phillips and Parley Baer.
• The original commercials, for Kent cigarettes, Lysol, Ex-Lax and more.

Where to start

• Begin with the premiere, "Strange Vendetta" (1958), in which a dying man hires Paladin to take his body home to Mexico.
• "The Gunsmith" (1959) was the first script written for radio rather than borrowed from TV. "Shanghai Is a Verb" (1960) has Paladin rescuing a kidnapped Hey Boy.
• "Dusty" (1960), in which a boy hires Paladin for $1.61, and the finale, "From Here to Boston" (1960), are favorites.
• Listen live any time, or follow the podcast, which adds a new episode every week in broadcast order.

Have Gun, Will Travel on the radio

CBS Radio, 1958-1960. With John Dehner, Ben Wright, Virginia Gregg.

Where the recordings come from

The Have Gun, Will Travel recordings here come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' Have Gun Singles set (105 episodes), hosted by the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers, the volunteers who found, dated and assembled the set, and to the Archive and the collectors whose uploads it rests on. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every Have Gun, Will Travel episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• Gunsmoke
• Frontier Gentleman
• Tales of the Texas Rangers
• The Six Shooter
• Fort Laramie

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