Talk:Have Gun – Will Travel

message: This article should link to Gene Roddenberry as Gene Roddenberry worked on Have Gun, Will Travel as a writer, winning a Writer's Guild Award.
:It now does. Wakedream (talk) 07:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki Links 

message: Wasn't there an earlier radio show that preceeded the television show?  I think I've read that there was one in the late 40s or early 50s.  I'll try to research it.... Hayford Peirce 16:17, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: radio show?

message: The name of the program was "Have Gun — Will Travel" with a dash rather than a comma.  Is there a problem with using a dash in a title?
:Not any more as of a few months ago, when Mediawiki 1.5 was introduced.  I have moved the article title. -- Curps 17:19, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See Talk:Have_Gun_%E2%80%93_Will_Travel#En_dashed below. Wakedream (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: article title

message: Did the series really make a big deal of a six-shooter with a rifled barrel??  All six-shooters had rifled barrels. To find pistols *without* rifled barrels you have to go way back to early single shot muzzle-loaders. Perhaps the writer means that the pistol had a screw-on RIFLE-length barrel (ie, an extra long interchangable barrel) Sbharris 23:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I do not remember any mention of a pistol with a rifled barrel, only of a "hand crafted" pistol. Rick Norwood 12:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sbharris is right.  Nearly all pistols manufactured after the Mexican-American War had rifled barrels, and all handguns manufactured during and after the Civil War were rifled.  The only way to have a non-rifled pistol was to have it custom made, but since rifling made the weapon more accurate, why would anyone want to?  If mention was made of his pistols' rifled barrels (and Rick Norwood doesn't remember any such mention) perhaps it meant to refer to some new form of precision rifling.  That might indicate Paladin's guns were a cut above the norm in terms of accuracy and craftsmanship, but I'm supposing without benefit of facts. 12.22.250.4 20:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In the first episode, Paladin shows his custom revolver to someone or other and says, "Notice the rifled barrel, a rarity in a hand weapon."  (With an unrifled handgun you'd be lucky to hit anything unless at very short range, as I said in my blog upon seeing that episode.)  It's not mentioned in the next twelve episodes.  —Tamfang 00:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Paladin may well have said "rifled barrel" in the first episode.  However, it's also possible he said "rifle barrel."  His pistol did have an unusually long barrel, which I believe would tend to increase its accuracy (I'm not even close to being an expert on firearms).  I'll check it out, unless someone else beats me to the draw. Wakedream (talk) 19:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Well, if he says that, he genuinely screwed up (the writers screwed up). I vaguely remembering my gunsmith father fulminating mercurially ;) about that very Paladin error, in the early 60's. Rifled barrels go back to 1540. I don't know about first rifled pistol, but there were some rifled flintlock pistols, so they must go back to before 1800. In any case, the "Old West" Colt revolvers made famous by the Peacemaker (1873) and even the Smith and Wesson revolvers that go back before the Civil War, all had rifled barrels. The idea that this was "rare in a hand weapon" was pure nonsense. It would have been rare to find a smoothbore, and basically impossible to find a commercial revolver that was smoothbore. SBHarris 08:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

text: It's not news that television writers don't always know what they're talking about. In this case, a writer decided to "wing it" instead of doing research, and thought a rifled handgun sounded unique when it was in fact common.  I recall dialogue from similar genre shows of the period, one in which the hero claims he could tell by the weight difference that the villain had removed the firing pins from his pistols to give him an unfair disadvantage in a fight.  Anyone who knows anything knows that a firing pin is very small, and one would need truly superhuman senses to detect such a weight difference.  It's all in the same category as accurate fan firing and firing 12 shots from a six shooter without reloading: stupid to people who know better, yet Hollywood continues to get paid for it. The HGWT episode did indeed indicate that Paladin's revolver was somehow special because of its rifled barrel, and that should remain in the article despite the obvious error, along with a sourced statement explaining the inaccuracy.  The fact that the rifled barrel was never mentioned after the first episode should be taken as the embarrassed silence of the show's producers. 67.162.236.230 (talk) 21:26, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Rifled barrel in a pistol!? Big Deal

message: The article's header section cites the character both as "known only as Hey Boy" and then also gives his real name. I believe this needs to reconciled. TheHYPO 01:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hey Boy? 

message: what should we do regarding the movie version, starring eminem? hope its named differently and can be a seperate article with a link back? --andrew 22:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As of now, the possible movie starring Eminem has been added, as has the now abandoned proposal to make a movie starring John Travolta. If the Eminem movie is actually made, it will likely need its own article. Wakedream (talk) 07:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

text: What you feel isn't really important. This is an encyclopedia; if the movie exists and is factually related to this show, it should be included. Your opinion of what constitutes a disgrace of the show doesn't form what gets put on wikipedia TheHYPO 03:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore, the article does state that it would be set in contemporary times, allowing for some liberties--within reason one would hope--to be taken with the character. So long as the basic traits remain, that should be the important point. Eventually, as more details surface re: the movie, I imagine it would get its own page. Lenny 20:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  movie version 

message: As it stands, the article unequivocally states that the show was based on the act of the country fair performer referred to here as Paladin, apparently because he eventually won his trademark infringement suit. So far as I know, the producers of the show have never admitted such wrongdoing, nor did the court establish it, and there is reason to doubt it. Whether Mr. Da Costa (the performer's real name) developed the whole Paladin shtick before the show existed or whether he increasingly copied the show's character in his act and decided to sue a few decades later when the chronology was hard to establish, I don't know, but the suit his heirs won, as opposed to the suits he lost during his lifetime, was based on trademarks he quietly took out in the 1970s and CBS carelesssly failed to pre-empt or challenge. Such documentation as I have for this, easily found on Google, is not good enough for Wikipedia; but neither is the current version. We should get the facts.  66.241.73.241 11:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just did a Google search for "victor de costa" and "have gun" and it got me only 45 hits, only 17 of them shown on the first try (the others it called very similar).  From a quick glance, it appeared that most or even all of them were quoting or paraphrasing each other, and were either fan sites, spam, or Wikipedia clones.  When I did a search of English language pages only, I got only five hits. I wonder now if this story is a hoax. Anyone find anything else? Wakedream (talk) 19:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I provided a 1974 Time reference for DaCosta, not De Costa. Pepso2 (talk) 09:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great! There's still very few sources for this, but it happened years before the Internet and is about a 50-year-old TV show, so that's not surprising.  And Time Magazine is one of the most accepted sources on Wikipedia. Cool! Wakedream (talk) 20:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lawsuit 

message: I might be getting trivial here, but the title was written several different ways in this article.  While it appears on Paladin's business card as "Have Gun Will Travel," and some sources for the radio series seem to render it as "Have Gun, Will Travel," neither of these is how I've seen it appear in the TV series itself.  It was often (or always – I don't yet have every season on DVD) rendered as
"HAVE GUN-
WILL TRAVEL."http://www.hgwt.com/myclose.jpg
In Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Em_dashes, it says either an Em dash without a space or an En dash with a space before and after is acceptable in this type of usage (see subsection "Spaced en dashes as an alternative to em dashes.")  It also says that usage should be consistent throughout an article.  Technically, then, the title of this show could be written as "Have Gun—Will Travel" or "Have Gun – Will Travel."  The reason I chose "Have Gun – Will Travel" is that, of the two alternatives acceptable on Wikipedia, it seems to be the closest to how the title appears in the series itself.  Also it's how this article is currently listed on Wikipedia.  Feel free to add your comments to my trivia! Wakedream (talk) 05:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  En dashed 

message: I added a source for the ratings.  However, it doesn't specify how the show was rated in each season.  If someone wants to add a more detailed source, go for it. Wakedream (talk) 21:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratings 

message: I just put a link to the Wikipedia article on Johnny Western, and discovered there isn't one. This is what can happen when you were famous before the Internet. I'll likely start one, but can use help. Wakedream (talk) 20:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I started the article, so feel free to contribute! Wakedream (talk) 07:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  No article on Johnny Western 

message: The whole "have [something], will travel" form of a title isn't necessarily inspired by this show. It's a common kind of trait for older calling cards refering to your job. "Have Spacesuit" and "Have Tux" were just similar titles based on the same concept. I'm not certain they need to be listed in this article. BoosterBronze (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: There is a problem with this article that I can theorize an explanation of as based only within the title. I have Wikipedia:tools/Navigation popups enabled. However, when I place my cursor on this article's "hist" (link to its edit history page) on my watchlist page, the box that appears shows only the title, and when moved away and repositioned there, shows nothing. In most instances, this move causes the box to become larger and show the listings for the most recent edits. I have this problem with this article and this article only. Furthermore, when the title shows, there is a "coder" (or whatever you want to call it) for the dash, rather than an actual dash (it looks like this: â₳ ₳). I have presumed this to be the source of my problem. So my next act was to "move" the article, replacing this coder with an actual dash, but on the attempt, this coder did not show, just a normal dash itself. Obviously, I could not make the change that I desired. Can somebody eliminate this thing, please? Thank you. --Tbrittreid (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: I think the article should say something about the opening sequence.  (I've been watching them on Encore Westerns.)  At first he draws the gun, points it at the camera, and says something that relates to the show.  Then there was at least one show in the first or second season where he didn't say anything.  After that, it opens with his gun already drawn and pointing at the camera, and he doesn't say anything.  I can't add that because I don't have a reference.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 07:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There are also at least two versions of the close: one where he rides off, the other shows a still of his holster.  I don't see any pattern in which was used (perhaps based on running time?)  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 07:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  opening sequence 

message: In the fourth season show "Fandango" it appears that the Sheriff, an old friend from Bull Run, calls Paladin "Bobby." It may be that he was talking to the prisoner but it sure didn't seem like it.
FleetCaptain (talk) 19:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll try to watch for that when Encore Westerns gets to it.  (They are currently in season 2).  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 19:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Well, one of the character's name is bobby: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597515/ Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 19:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

text: There could be many explanations for the discrepancy, the most obvious being that "Bull Run" and "Shiloh" are simply the more widely known names for those battles. 67.162.236.230 (talk) 21:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: In some episodes it is the double-barreled derringer.  In one episode he says "that is one barrel - do you want the other?"  So, if it changes, I agree that it is better to just say "derringer", as you did. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In The Black Hankerchief it is a 2-barrel derringer.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 14:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  In The Road to Wikenburg, "It holds two shots gentlemen. Who wants the other?" Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 06:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  derringer 

message: It looks much more like a list of 'all' guest stars... I don't really see what this section adds to the article and I propose it be dropped altogether. Dlabtot (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Should it be shortened to list only "famous" ones?  They are notable in the sense that they are notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. Each episode had several guest stars. I've added several, but generally only ones with a well-known face. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 22:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you want to keep the list, I don't know what the criteria for  inclusion should be...how 'famous' do they need to be?  I made a similar argument at Kung Fu, but when no one responded, I simply deleted the list.  At any rate, the list as it stands seems far, far too long. Dlabtot (talk) 23:01, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  In some cases, the list of guest stars becomes an entire article, e.g. List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) guest stars.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 23:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that would be a good way to do it; it would preserve the info while keeping the list from overwhelming the article. And I also like how the main article retains a short list of the most notable, while stating the reason for their special notability... that could be done here with or without a separate list article. Dlabtot (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  A difference is that it appears that each Twilight Zone episode has an article and I don't think any HG-WT episodes do.  The TZ data is more complete.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 00:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  What I mean is that "appeared in multiple episodes", "early career performances of actors who later became quite famous", "late career performances by such stars as", and "talented character actors who made successful careers out of guest roles on television programs" all seem like valid inclusion criteria for a shorter list put into prose format, which is preferred anyway.  I don't actually know much about this series, having only seen it occasionally in my youth decades ago. I don't even remember how it ended up on my watchlist. Dlabtot (talk) 00:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Notable' guest stars 

message: There were at least three variations of the opening sequence.  The first one is as described, with the spoken part.  Then the spoken part was dropped.  The third one shows him standing in profile - then the camera zooms in and he draws the gun, much as in the first two variations.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 19:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure enough. This is the original, and lasted at least 2 seasons. Can you describe the later ones well enough for the article? SBHarris 19:56, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I did. --Tbrittreid (talk) 21:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  The spoken part was dropped before the standing silhouette opening.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 21:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

text:  The series is being shown on Encore in order.  According to notes I made on the episode guide, "The Long Hunt", 3-7-59, in the second season, the spoken part was dropped.  "Gold and Brimstone", 6-20-59, the last show of the second season went to the standing silhouette.  Of course, this is wp:OR.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 22:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  We'll have to resolve this. I don't care if it's OR-- it's sort of the same thing as as looking at a photo of a man in a hat and writing "In the photo, he wears a hat." We're not doing OR in support of an original thesis (what is really prohibited in WP:NOR), we're simply describing.  Personally, I suspect they wouldn't have done it as a sillouette UNLESS they were planning to use the overdub line. Why else use a sillouette? So you'll have to make sure it never got done that way. SBHarris 22:32, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've been watching each day's show on Encore.  I noted the lack of the spoken part on the 25th show (counting broadcast shows) of the second season.  And the change to standing was on the 39th (last) show of that season. Encore is getting near the end of the third season, so it will take a while to see if it ever changed again. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 22:45, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

text:  Also, "two-note-repeat" is not correct - the second two notes are different from the first two.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 22:48, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

text: This show says that it is the second show of season 3, starts standing but does have the voice-over.  The ones being shown on Encore stopped with the voice-over before it went to the standing version.  So I am confused.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 00:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

text: This one is the same, i.e. standing and with the voice-over.  So maybe that is the way it was, and it got changed somehow for the ones showing on Encore.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 00:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening sequence section 

message: [IMDB] says 226 episodes instead of 225.   I don't know what is correct. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 18:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  number of episodes 

message: I clocked an episode at 25:14.  Of course, that is wp:OR.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 14:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  running time 

message: This has been put in at least twice: "...except that he is once addressed as "Bobby" by a sheriff he had served with in the army at Shiloh and at Gettysburg"  No, I saw that episode a few months ago and Bobby is the other person in the scene, besides the sheriff and Paladin.  "Bobby" is in the credits too.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 03:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was Paladin's first name Bobby? 

message: The Ballad of Palindrome is by Riders In The Sky. They did have Johnny Western as a guest artist perform the song on one of their albums. But they've done the skit both with and without him. 75.88.104.129 (talk) 05:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ballad of Palindrome 

message: The episode "An International Incident" mentions that if Hawai'i were admitted to the union it would be the 39th state; that places it between the Aug. 1, 1876 admission of Colorado and the Nov. 2, 1889, simultaneous admission of the Dakotas.  On the other hand, this method does ridiculously place one episode between 1894 and 1898 - based on when Pancho Villa was born and the age at which he abandoned his birth name for that pseudonym, the episode "Pancho" must either have taken place between those years or stand an as example of credited writers Shimon Wincelberg, Herb Meadow and Sam Rolfe running with an idea without doing any research.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.50.155.194 (talk) 05:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical setting 

message: Was it a real hotel? The current Hotel Carlton in SF was built in 1927.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.186.247.160 (talk) 13:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hotel Carlton 

message: I just dimly remembered a conversation in a Hec Ramsey episode, with Steve Forrest I think, where the other character makes a reference to something that is obviously HGWT based and Ramsey says something like, "That was a long time ago and I was someone else."  Does anyone else remember it?  Does anyone have access to all the Hec Ramsey episodes and want to watch them?  Am I imagining things?  JimCubb (talk) 01:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hec Ramsey - Paladin? or not? 

message: The article had a mix of spaced em dashes and unspaced en dashes, both of which were wrong.  Per MOS:DASH, they should be consistently spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes.  I elected the former, and moved and edited the article.  If someone wants to argue to go the other way, we could do that instead.  Dicklyon (talk) 03:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I just noticed Tony1 cleaning up dash markup, following up on the big change of Dec. 4 from spaced en dash to unspaced em dash.  Either is OK, but now we've got the text and the title out of sync.  I'll bug Tony... Dicklyon (talk) 03:45, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Dick. Googling shows an unholy mixture of Have Gun WIll Travel, Have Gun, WIll Travel, Have Gun—WIll Travel, Have Gun–WIll Travel, Have Gun – WIll Travel, and Have Gun - WIll Travel. The last one is unacceptable, in my view. Do the authors of this article have any suggestions for making this article internally consistent? Tony (talk)  03:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Before Dec. 4 I think I had it consistent.  I didn't notice the change to em dashes at that time.  We could go back to the spaced en dashes like the title.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

text: I changed it back.  As I said before, I'm equally OK with the unspaced em dash, but we'd have to also move the article in that case.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dashes 

message: There was a comment in the article that two episodes were missing from the Region Two DVD" "Squatter's Rights" and "The Sanctuary".  "Squatter's Rights" was a season five episode and is on the Season Five DVD.  "The Sanctuary" is more problematic.  IMDB lists two Have Gun -- Will Travel episodes titled "The Sanctuary".  One, according to The Have Gun -- Will Trevel Companion is titled "Vernon Good", broadcast Dec 31, 1960 and is about a man seeking sanctuary.  The DVD lists the title as "Sanctuary".  There is no on-screen title.  IMDB agrees on the date, calls the episode "The Sanctuary".  The other is listed on IMBD as Season Six, Episode 33.  But according to other references, there were only 32 episodes in Season Six.  From the cast listing on IMDB, I gather that this is the rerun of "Jonah", originally broadcast May 26, 1962 and rerun on the date given for "The Sanctuary" in IMDB.  Looks to me as if the DVDs are complete (thank goodness!  we waited long enough!) and that IMDB is in error.  Rick Norwood (talk) 19:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Sanctuary 

message: The Paladin character's section is too long and lacks coherence. It should be trimmed down and structured sensibly, now it reads just like a pile of random fan fluff. Would do it myself but I don't know anything of the show. 2001:708:10:10:F2DE:F1FF:FE54:62C4 (talk) 10:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: 100% agree. In addition to being too long, the section also has an unencyclopedic, essay-like tone that seems to reflect the author's personal impressions of the character and interpretations of his characteristics, all without citations, that indicates Original Research. I have cut out all the puffery and condensed it and related sections (that should have been part of the character section) into one reasonably-sized section. Mmyers1976 (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Character section - Too-long, Essay-like, Original Research-laden, assertions that need sources 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Have Gun – Will Travel. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070614043748/http://www.cbc.ca:80/arts/story/2006/06/14/eminem-havegun-remake.html to http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/06/14/eminem-havegun-remake.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The author of the second book is named Loomis, not Lomis.  I'm not interested in fixing the error myself.  SimpsonDG (talk) 00:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  Not enough gnomic traffic here, obviously.  I'll try to address a few other issues, as well.  BTW, there seem to be one or more new Paladin books out.  I don't know much yet.  rags (talk) 21:47, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books 

message: I do not know if the whole section has to go, but Elwood is a real city in Kansas.2600:1700:7F11:6420:7CDC:9011:8DB1:C27C (talk) 19:33, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A real city in Kansas