Familiar Names

I’ve written on a number of occasions about how one of the pleasures Grace and I derived from watching classic TV shows was recognizing actors we knew from Star Trek or other classic shows such as The Twilight Zone; back in February I wrote (of The Fugitive): “in this show I’m also recognizing musical cues in every episode, because the show drew on the CBS music library and featured many of the pieces Bernard Herrmann and others wrote for The Twilight Zone.” But in one of my current shows I’ve gone even beyond that to recognizing various names in various roles in nearly every episode. The show is Have Gun – Will Travel, a highly character-driven show about a gentlemanly mercenary in the 1870s who rejects jobs he finds morally objectionable, very much like a modern knight-errant (a symbolism clearly broadcast by the character’s nom de guerre, “Paladin”). Since the show aired on CBS from 1957-1963 I was not surprised to discover that the show’s opening title and most of its incidental…