As in "Death Valley Days," with Ronald Reagan
@truth_seeker One of the great crimes in broadcasting is that more of the radio original of
Death Valley Days didn't survive. In fact,
only three complete radio episodes are known to survive, which is a shame. (If you're an old-time radio buff, you'd be half
afraid to ask what happened to much of the rest of the run, especially if you know that---among others---a reported three
thousand transcription disks of the wry humour exercise
Vic & Sade were destroyed by sponsor Procter & Gamble
after the end of World War II, as compared to both S.C. Johnson and then Pet, Inc. saving just about every last recording
of
Fibber McGee & Molly and Jack Benny himself making sure his radio broadcasts were recorded and saved, to name
two.)
It's not easily remembered today, but Ronald Reagan only hosted the television
Death Valley Days for a short time,
1963-65, after the departure of the original television Old Ranger, Stanley Andrews---when the producers decided it was
time to bring in a younger host. Andrews was the Old Ranger from 1952, when the television version premiered, through
1963. He was probably best known previously for playing Daddy Warbucks on the radio version of
Little Orphan Annie.
Reagan left
Death Valley Days to gear up to run for governor of California; after Andrews's departure, the host/narrator
of the television show appeared as himself or herself (Rosemary DeCamp stepped in for a short while after Reagan's
departure), not as the "Old Ranger."
