Old Time Radio Researchers CD label

Wild Bill Hickok, the fictional version, sold plenty of breakfast cereal (“flaked, popped, shredded, ready-sweetened, every one’s a favorite…”) to 1950s kids on television and radio at the same time, with Guy Madison and Andy Devine as Bill and his sidekick Jingles, but even they had a few run-ins with working journalists.

A while ago I summarized an episode about a woman editor, “Press for Justice.” This time we have a macho Chicago reporter, Pug Donovan, an old hunting pal of Wild Bill’s who thinks nothing of playing a quickdraw game in which they shoot off each other’s hats. This is not taught at journalism schools.

But even the West’s badmen apparently were newspaper fans.  In this episode, a desperado called “The Rock” kidnaps Donovan so that he will write about his exploits. (The story begins, “For one night of terror, I rode with a scourge of the West…”)

The villain also threatens the local newspaper editor to get him to print the story, but the editor agrees to cooperate with Marshal Wild Bill Hickok and …

OK, so the story is as light as a bowl of Rice Krispies, without as much snap, crackle and pop. But it does make it clear that even while TV was encroaching on the radio advertising market, a children’s dramatic series in both of those “new media” was reminding young listeners of the importance of newspapers — and making a newspaper career sound as exciting as the Wild West. (Spoiler alert: Donovan does meet his deadline.)

If you want to explore a few more episodes, see the rest of the Old Time Radio Researchers collection of Wild Bill Hickok at the Internet Archive. Wild Bill didn’t limit himself to newspapers, there’s another episode where he fights some outlaws who want to interfere with that new-fangled telegraph.

For a slightly more “adult western” approach to Wild Bill Hickok, see the 1958 radio series “Frontier Gentleman,” tales of a fictional London Times reporter exploring the American West, including close encounters with historical figures.