The ''Straight Arrow'' radio program was a western adventure series for juveniles which was broadcast, mostly twice weekly in the United States from 1948 or 1949 through 1951.Anderson, Roland. A total of 292 episodes were aired. Although first broadcast only in California, in early 1949 it was broadcast nationally on the

Mutual Broadcasting Network The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. rad ...

. All the programs were written by Sheldon Stark. The protagonist, rancher Steve Adams, became the Comanche Indian, the Straight Arrow, when bad people or other dangers threatened. In fact, Adams was a

Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in ...

orphan who had been adopted by the Adams ranching family and later inherited the ranch. His dual identity was known to only one friend, Packy McCloud, Steve Adams's sidekick. Internal evidence places the ranch in the vicinity of the

Colorado Rockies The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fi ...

in the 1870s.

Howard Culver Howard Culver (June 4, 1918 – August 4, 1984) was an American radio and television actor, best known as hotel clerk Howie Uzzell during the entire run of TV's ''Gunsmoke''. On radio he starred in the title role of the Western adventure series '' ...

played both Adams and Straight Arrow. The program was sponsored by

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco' ...

Shredded Wheat cereal.

Comic book and comic strip

Like many other children's programs, this one soon had cross-over presence. The ''Straight Arrow'' comic book, published by Magazine Enterprises, first came out in February 1950, running 55 issues until 1956. Most of the stories were written by

Gardner Fox Gardner Francis Cooper Fox (May 20, 1911 – December 24, 1986) was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. He is estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC ...

. In addition, there were two ''Straight Arrow'' comic strips. The first, a daily strip, ran from June 19, 1950 to August 4, 1951. Gardner Fox and Ray Krank wrote the strip, with art by Joe Certa (pencils) and John Belfi (inks). The second, a Sunday strip, ran from September 7 to December 7, 1953. Walter B. Gibson wrote the strip, with art by Fred Meagher. There were also ''Straight Arrow'' collectible cards of Indian crafts inserted in the boxes of Nabisco Shredded Wheat cereal. In 2019, the rights of the Straight Arrow character including the trademarks were transferred to Education Is Our Buffalo Community Centre, a Canadian based Indigenous organization. Education Is Our Buffalo has an active Indigenous-perspective Facebook group.

Bibliography

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References

{{reflist American children's radio programs 1948 radio programme debuts 1951 radio programme endings American radio dramas English-language radio programs Mutual Broadcasting System programs American comic strips 1950 comics debuts 1951 comics endings Radio programs adapted into comics Comics based on radio series Western (genre) comics Fictional archers Fictional Native American people