Sunday, December 14, 2014

25 Days of Old Time Radio Christmas: Day 14 - Tales Of The Texas Rangers (not those Rangers)

Working on sending out one blog entry each day in December to showcase great Old Time Radio for the Christmas season.  Here is a link to all the entries.  Here is day #14 - the two Christmas episodes from the great crime series, Tales of the Texas Ranger.  No...not those Rangers.

If you have Sirius/XM, you can listen to Greg Bell's Old time radio channel (#82). He has a number of great programs available throughout the month of December on his great show.  You can also get a large number of these programs at a variety or resources on the web. One place to find these shows is the 500 OTR Christmas Shows from the Internet Archive. This is a great resources for many of these wonderful radio shows!

Scenes from John Wayne Airport (Orange County, California) - Sunday July 15, 2012

Old Radios on Display at John Wayne Airport (Orange County, California), July 2012

Tales of the Texas Rangers is a great crime series that ran on NBC from July 8, 1950 through September 14, 1952.  While many might classify this as a western, it really is a straight up crime series.  The show stars Joel McCrea as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson.  All of the cases were reenactments of real Texas Ranger cases.  The series was directed by Stacy Keach, Sr. and is one of the best crime series on old time radio.  It has the feel of the series This is Your FBI, the long running series that recreated true FBI cases.  Maybe I will try to get their Christmas episodes on one of these links.

In these two episodes, Ranger Jayce Pearson solves the impossible with these two horrible Christmas time crimes.  In Christmas Present (December 24, 1950), two very unlikely men rob a bank in the middle of the day, right before Christmas.  Typically, Santas are not armed and do not try to rob a bank.  Not only did these two Santas think they were getting away with a massive haul, an innocent man was jailed while the Rangers worked to solve the case.  But some lucky breaks and a dab of paint helped Jayce Pearson solve the crime and set everything straight.

Christmas Present (December 24, 1950)


In Christmas Payoff (December 23, 1951), misguided revenge does in a respected town doctor on Christmas Day.  Being a small town doctor means working when people are sick, be it on their birthday, the 4th of July or Christmas.  When wrapping up a patient who needed the doctor's help on Christmas, a nurse notices a man stalking the Doctor's office.  The stalking man had a bandaged hand that had a surprise for the doctor.  Sadly, he would not see the 26th.  Ranger Jayce Pearson is called in and starts working on the crime right on Christmas.  He connects to dots and ends up with a tremendous Christmas Payoff.

Christmas Payoff (December 23, 1951)




Here are some links to programs relating to Tales Of The Texas Rangers:
25 Days of Old Time Radio Christmas:

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