Red Ryder lived in Painted Valley with his aunt the “Duchess”, his partner Buckskin, his Indian ward Little Beaver and his horse Thunder. The hero was first seen in a series of short stories by writer-cartoonist Fred Harman, who adapted it as a comic strip for the Los Angeles Times in 1938 before it finally became a series of thirty-minute radio shows.
Old time radio drama exists because of hobbyists and radio personnel, who rescued episodes of shows on transcription tapes and on glass or vinyl records. Some radio programs are presumed lost, primarily those from the 1930s – few programs from the 1920s were recorded