The Adventures of Champion
Encyclopedia
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
directed by William Burch and heard weekday afternoons on the Mutual Broadcasting System
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
in 1949-50.
Radio
The 1940s popularity of Gene AutryGene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
on radio led to this spin-off series about the adventures of his horse, Champion. The Western mystery tales focused on young Ricky West, raised in the wilderness by his adopted Uncle Smoky, and Ricky's German Shepherd, Rebel. The program offered scant explanation of how Champion had become a wild horse who let only Ricky ride him.
Many more listeners tuned in Sunday afternoons to Gene Autry's Melody Ranch, a top CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio network
Radio network
There are two types of radio networks currently in use around the world: the one-to-many broadcast type commonly used for public information and mass media entertainment; and the two-way type used more commonly for public safety and public services such as police, fire, taxicabs, and delivery...
program for the singing cowboy
Singing cowboy
A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films, popularized by many of the B-movies of the 1930s and 1940s...
from 1940 to 1956. The Autry Melody Ranch, a movie ranch
Movie ranch
A movie ranch is a ranch that is at least partially dedicated to being used as a site for the creation and production of motion pictures, and television productions...
, had been named by him after his movie "Melody Ranch
Melody Ranch
Melody Ranch is a 1940 Western film which tells the story of a singing cowboy who returns to his hometown to restore order when his former childhood enemies take over the frontier town.-Movie:...
".
Television
A television version of The Adventures of Champion aired for 26 episodes on CBS during the 1955-1956 season, starring Barry Curtis and Jim BannonJim Bannon
Jim Bannon was an actor in radio and Hollywood western films during the 1940s and 1950s. He is best remembered as the fourth cinema Red Ryder from 1949 - 1950...
.