# Have Gun, Will Travel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592 "2004-09-23T01:08:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/1 "2004-09-23T01:08:50Z")
We got the DVD of the entire first season of HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL … 39 episodes. (Seasons have shortened a little in forty years, eh?) Anyhow, we’re watching through them, and they really hold up despite the passage of time. Yeah, the attitude towards Indians is not exactly PC, althought it’s not as bad as many other 50s Westerns. The Indians so far have distinct personalities, but there’s a certain stereotyping of dress, speech, etc. OTOH, the attitude towards women is very “modern” (especially considering the time they were made.) Overall, we’re find them kind of surreal/existential, which was surprising. Anyone else seeing these? (The great, cheesy song doesn’t seem to appear in the first season – at least, not so far, we’re on episode 13 or so.) ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/2 "2004-09-23T02:41:14Z")
**Have Gun, Will Travel** , IIRC, was of the few (only?) shows to premiere on television, then become a radio drama, too. John Dehner played Paladin on the radio. There’s a sample episode [here](http://www.otrcat.com/havegunwilltravel.htm). According to one of the sources I just came across, Gene Roddenberry was one of the writers of the radio series. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/3 "2004-09-23T04:05:51Z")
I liked _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_. Showed how popular that TV show was if a sci-fi book by a major author would use such a similar title. A friend and I were discussing hot rodding one day, years ago, and he was referencing a special type of fuel. I thought he might be talking about a certain grade of aviation fuel, so I asked, “Av gas?” Without a pause at all, he answered, “Will travel.” It was freakin hilarious then. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/4 "2004-09-23T04:55:31Z")
Was that the series that guy in the iron lung (in the movie The Big Lebowski) had supposedly written? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/5 "2004-09-23T05:20:30Z")
It was on just before Gunsmoke on Saturday nights when I was a kid. I remember Richard Boone starting from the hotel, all duded up, and getting a job. I always thought his first name was “Wire.” 🙂 I loved that show. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/6 "2004-09-23T14:07:15Z")
_ **HGWT** _ ran from the time I was six years old until I was twelve, so I saw it as an original series, but most of the show’s sophistication went right over my grammar-school head. I, too, thought the character’s first name was “Wire.” Somehow, I took the title of the show to mean, “As long as I have my gun I will travel around” rather than “I have a gun and I will travel to you.” Interestingly, nearly ten years after the show went off the air, I came across the definition of “paladin” in the dictionary: “1. any of the 12 legendary peers or knightly champions in attendance on Charlemagne. 2. any champion of a noble cause.” Suddenly, I realized why the hero was named “Paladin” and why his trademark was the chess knight. I’m delighted to see it out on dvd! ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/7 "2004-09-23T15:34:40Z")
I don’t remember much about the series besides Richard Boone and his business card, and the name Paladin. (I saw them when I was a kid, like **Labdad** did. \ That was where I learned what “paladin” meant. Somehow I always carried an image of a knight with a six-shooter or something. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/8 "2004-09-23T15:55:59Z")
You think that’s bad? Not knowing about telegrams, I thought Paladin’s first name was Wire. 😛 Hey, I was a kid! ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/9 "2004-09-23T16:01:05Z")
From the “Have Gun, Will Travel” [website](http://www.hgwt.com). Anyone else remember this story? I had to look it up to prove to myself I hadn’t imagined it. I’ve edited this a bit; full story [here](http://www.hgwt.com/hgwt8old.htm). > [@](#): > > In 1974, a Portuguese(!) cowboy from Rhode Island(!) named Victor De Costa won a long-pursued federal court judgment against CBS for trademark infringement, successfully litigating his assertion that he had created the Paladin character and the ideas used in the show-- which were somehow stolen by HGWT’s producers. . . .He claimed he began billing himself as Paladin after an Italian man stood up at a horse show and called him a “paladino.” He claimed he’d adopted the phrase “Have Gun, Will Travel” after someone shouted it at him while he was on a bucking bronco. . . A year later, a court of appeals overturned the lower court, ruling that the plaintiff had failed to prove that the public had been deceived – i.e., there had been no likelihood of confusion in the minds of the public – a necessary requirement for a suit over trademark infringement. However, De Costa kept pursuing the case, and in 1991 a settlement was reached – over 30 years after the lawsuit was originally filed – and he received $3 million. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/10 "2004-09-23T16:18:38Z")
It also sports one of the best theme songs ever. ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/11 "2004-09-23T18:48:50Z")
I don’t mean to brag about how slow I was, but at the time, I thought the guy’s name was “Will Travel.” I was very, very young. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/12 "2004-09-23T21:12:08Z")
Oh, c’mon… the joke about his first name being “Wire” was a MAD magazine joke from the early 60s. And, yes, Gene Roddenberry (later of STAR TREK fame) wrote several of the episodes, including the one in the first season with the camel. Camel? you ask. Yeah, camel, the camels that were rejected by the army as not usable in the American west. Heh. I said, “surreal.” ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/13 "2004-09-23T23:06:59Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > Oh, c’mon… the joke about his first name being “Wire” was a MAD magazine joke from the early 60s. Nope, true story. Maybe MAD got the idea from kids like me. I turned nine shortly after the show premiered 1957 and was either eight or nine at the time I thought Paladin’s first name was “Wire.” This would have been in 1957 or 1958, which preceeds the MAD magazine joke, which I never saw. ---
**Author:** ![Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/14 "2004-09-23T23:48:02Z")
Like an idiot, I bought the first season of HGWT through Columbia House and probably paid five times what the new box set costs. At least they screwed up at every turn and I ended up getting a series of discounts. I love old westerns anyway, but HGWT is surprisingly modern in its sensibility. Paladin is something of an anti-hero considering his morally ambiguous profession, but has an enlightened view toward women and minorities. The show was ahead of its time in that sense, as was Gail Davis’ excellent _Annie Oakley_ series. Throw in Herb Jeffries, “the Bronze Buckaroo,” and you have something of a triumvirate of moderns transported back into Old West times. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/15 "2004-09-23T23:58:58Z")
One other thing, too, **CK**. If you go to the HGWT web site and click on the “Ballad of Paladin” (45 rpm version), you can hear the cheesy song you refer to in its entirety, the singer’s breaking voice and all. Man, it’s bad! 😃 Here’s a link to the page where it’s located: [Have Gun — Will Travel: Themes, Links, etc.](http://www.hgwt.com/hgwt10.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/16 "2004-09-24T00:54:00Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > One other thing, too, **CK**. If you go to the HGWT web site and click on the “Ballad of Paladin” (45 rpm version), you can hear the cheesy song you refer to in its entirety, the singer’s breaking voice and all. Man, it’s bad! 😃 Cheesy? Voice breaking? Bad? 😕 That’s Johnny Western, the man Merle Haggard said sounds the way a cowboy looks. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/17 "2004-09-24T01:42:34Z")
> [@Live Better Electrically!](#): > > Cheesy? Voice breaking? Bad? 😕 That’s Johnny Western, the man Merle Haggard said sounds the way a cowboy looks. Yeah, rough and unrefined. 😃 Keeding, keeding…you know I keed. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/18 "2004-09-24T02:00:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Was that the series that guy in the iron lung (in the movie The Big Lebowski) had supposedly written? No; that was “Branded”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/19 "2004-09-24T12:54:50Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > the camels that were rejected by the army as not usable in the American west. Heh. I said, “surreal.” US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis started that program. There were rumors of escaped camels living in the desert USA. [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/DD/fda42.html](http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/DD/fda42.html) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592/20 "2004-09-24T14:22:53Z")
Sorry if I was unclear. The commentary addition was explicit that this was a real experiment, tried (and bungled) by the army. The use of such a beast by Paladin was … well… surreal. There’s no other word for it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-gun-will-travel/265592.md?page=2)