Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters

 

It's important to start with the fact that most of Tom Mix's radio and film catalog has been lost.  He appeared in 291 films, 282 of which were silent. Reportedly only about 10% of those are known to still exist. Recordings of his radio programs are even more rare. There are only recordings of some 30 random episodes. But we do not know how many were lost. If you have or find Tom Mix recordings please store them properly and try to preserve them.

If you compare it to Lone Ranger as a program of similar popularity and duration there could have been as many as 3,000. Tom Mix radio program aired from September, 1933 thru June of 1950. We know there was a break in 1943. But sources disagree on how many episodes aired per season the book Radio Rides the Range states 2 to 5 times a week. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio is more detailed and it gives the schedule, day(s) of the week and number of episodes. The first season September 1933 thru march of 1934 was 25 weeks long. At three per week that's 75 episodes. It aired for 16 years so an estimate of 1,200 episodes is plausible. Some of this is estimates of course but this is getting complicated, I made a chart and came up with about 1,764 episodes. I was only able to corroborate some dates in RadioGuide, the Variety Radio Directory, Broadcasting and Billboard magazine. It could easily be more.

Start Date	End Date	Weeks/Episodes	Episode count
9/25/33	March 1934	25/3	75
Sept. 1934	March 1935	25/3	75
Sept. 1935	March 1936	25/3	75
9/28/36	3/26/37	26/5	130
9/27/37	March 1938	25/5	125
Sept 1938	March 1939	25/5	125
9/25/39	March 1940	25/5	125
9/25/40	March 1941	26/5	130
9/29/41	3/27/42	25/5	125
6/5/1944	1945	25/5	125
1945	1946	25/5	125
1946	1947	25/5	125
1947	1948	25/5	125
1948	1949	25/5	125
9/26/49	6/23/50	38/3	114
8/6/50	12/31/50	21/1	21
6/11/51	9/7/51	12/3	36
9/10/51	12/16/51	13/1	13

To most people's surprise, Tom Mix's real name was Tom Mix; it's not a stage name. He was born Thomas Hezikiah Mix in 1880. He had a strange career having fought in the Bower war, and the Spanish-American war, went AWOL, was a sheriff in Tennessee and/or a marshal in Oklahoma... at some point you have to decide what parts you want to believe.

But some parts are definitely true. He was actually a cowboy and worked at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch in Oklahoma. The ranch was 101,000 acres (hence the name) and operated it's own touring Wild West show which is how Mix drifted away from real cowboy work into horse tricks, roping contests and competitive shooting. In 1905 the Millers invited members of the National Editorial Association to an exhibition. By the time the show took a hiatus in 1916 for WWI, Tom Mix was already in multiple films. He shot more than 100 films for the Selig Polyscope Company before he even joined the Fox Film Corporation and shot more than 100 more in the 1920s. More here.

You might notice we're getting into the radio era here and there's no mention of radio yet. That's because Tom Mix was never on the radio. I think I buried the lead a bit.

In 1933, Ralston Purina obtained his permission to produce the radio series Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Tom Mix then died in a car accident in 1935 cutting his career short. KDKA signed on in November of 1920 so there remains the possibility of other radio appearances. But as for the Ralston Straight Shooters, that relatively short overlap meant that Tom only had a short window to make a guest appearance on the radio program. In all the old news articles I've read I have found nothing.  I can't prove a negative, but it seems highly unlikely.

I did find two audio interviews, one with film so you can hear his voice at least. Unfortunately neither video cites their origin. Presumably it's for film but it's possible that it was used on the radio. Talk programs were rare in the 1920s so again, odds are slim. More here.

In 1933, Charles Claggett did an informal survey of local kids in St. Louis on their top heroes. Because of his work in film, Tom Mix topped the list. Claggetttook this information to his boss Elmer Marshutz at Gardner advertising. They got Tom's permission and needing a sponsor they pitched the idea to William Danforth the president of Ralston Purina.

The real Tom Mix did not have a voice "suited for radio." His voice, was damaged by a bullet to the throat and/or by repeated broken noses. So he was played by radio actors: Artells Dickson, Jack Holden, Russell Thorsen and Joe "Curley" Bradley. Curley is the most associated with the role but he only took on the role in 1944.

The program actually climbed in popularity over it's run. Per the May 1941 issue of Broadcasting it was ranked 2nd among rural listeners but50th by urban juveniles. In September 1946 Billboard reported "Tom Mix, according to Hooperatings for 17 months, is indisputable king of the kid segs.  In a survey released last week, the Mutual seg copped all nine firsts in nine different categories of Hooper tabulations." That year Tom Mix beat Superman, Dick Tracey, Lone Ranger and Captain Midnight —everyone. In August 1950 the series was radically revamped. The new show, still sponsored by Ralston featured Curley Bradley under his own name as The Singing Marshal. I have no idea why. That continued until the end in 1951

But 30 years later we got an epilogue to this story. George Garabedian produced two "final" episodes in 1982 to complete one of the few partly complete story arcs "The Mystery of the Vanishing Village." In cooperation with Ralston, it was released as an LP on Mark 56 Records with some of the original cast, including Curley Bradley as Tom Mix.