Monday, December 7, 2015

25 More Days of Old Time Radio Christmas: Day 7 - Dr. Sixgun's A Pony for Christmas

Here is a series I have not written about before.  It was a relatively short run series called Dr. Sixgun.  And now - an Old Time Radio Quiz:

Q: Dr. Sixgun was a radio series that...
  1. ...was a spun-off from Dr. Two-Packs-a-Day.
  2. ...featured a renegade Dr. who generates his own patients.
  3. ...a Coen Brothers kids show.
  4. ...a situation comedy featuring the misadventures of the Sixgun family.
  5. ...a NBC feature from 1954 to 1955 to capture the growing adult western-themed market created by Gunsmoke.

I hope you guessed #5...and if you did, treat yourself to something nice!  And this is where I am going to take my next day in my review of Christmas episodes from old time radio.  (Here is a link to all the 2014 OTR Christmas entries).  If you have Sirius/XM, you can listen to Greg Bell's Old time radio channel (#148).  He does a great job of showcasing great holiday themed episodes, especially as we get closer to Christmas and the end of December.

Dressage at Woodbine Schooling Show (September 20, 2015 - Chelsea, Michigan)
My Niece on a somewhat white pony (hey - it's the best I can do) - September 2015
Dr. Sixgun was a NBC program that was broadcast from September 1954 through October 1955. And it was definitely a program aimed at adults interested in westerns with characters that were not so black and white - good and bad - as the westerns aimed at younger audiences.  NBC did a great job with The Six-shooter starring Jimmy Stewart in 1953-1954, just before Dr. Sixgun  came out (I highlighted the Christmas Carol adaptation from that series last year).

I have heard Dr. Sixgun a few times on Greg Bell's Radio Classics and they have good stories and production values as would anything produced by NBC at the time.  I am happy that this is the first time I am writing about it.  The show stared Karl Weber as Grey Matson.  Who is Grey Matson...wait - that is Dr. Grey Matson.  Still need help???  This is how the episodes started:
"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." (opening transcribed from the Digital Deli site).
On December 19, 1954, the show featured its only Christmas episode.  Called A Pony for Christmas, the episode told the story of the troubles for the Munoz family.  Poor little Tomasito Munoz was very sick and was struggling to regain his health.  The Munoz family were sheep herders and they were financially strapped with the holidays and winter fast approaching.  They had little more than $20 in all their savings.  With food and medicine that would be needed over the winter, there were little prospects for a happy Christmas.

Tomasito asked his grandfather for a pony - a white pony.  The grandfather thought it would be the thing that would make him well and took all their savings into town to try to buy that horse for his sick grandson.  All is well when he finds someone who will sell him a pony for the money that he had.  Sadly, the grandfather unknowingly purchased a stolen pony and it was pulled from the family.  On Christmas Eve, they had no money and no pony.

Dr. Matson did everything he could, but when the sheep herders and the cattlemen realized what had happened, they decided that they needed to do something for that poor family.  So just like in the musical Oklahoma, this is a case where the farmer and the cowmen can get along!  Definitely a sweet story of family, helping your fellow man, and the dangers of holiday scams (which sadly are not a recent invention).  I hope you enjoy this episode of Dr. Sixgun!

A Pony for Christmas (December 19, 1954)




Here are additional links to Dr. Sixgun items on the web.

      25 Days of Old Time Radio Christmas (from 2015) & Other Links

      25 Days of Old Time Radio Christmas (from 2014)
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