Roy Rogers Show, The

Broadcast History: November 1944 to January 1954

The Roy Rogers Show started its life as a thirty-minute western music and variety show in 1944. Roy Rogers was born Leonard Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio on the 5th November 1911 and began his career as a singing cowboy and spent much of the 1930's in the musical groups The Hollywood Hillbillies, Rocky Mountaineers, Texas Outlaws, and his own group, the International Cowboys. In 1934 along with Bob Nolan he formed a group called The Sons of the Pioneers and soon after they were appearing in movies.

His career on radio span eleven years from November 1944 until 1955, first with Mutual (until 1951) and then with NBC. It was very family orientated with music by Perry Botkin, vocalist Pat Friday, The Sons of The Pioneers and of course Roy Rogers himself. Special guest stars would add a little variety to the show or half way in to the episode a dramatic story would be heard with his real life wife Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes as his sidekick, both of whom were co-stars in his films. Eventually these stories became longer so that the show became more of a western adventure program