Radio show The
Have Gun – Will Travel radio show broadcast 106 episodes on the
CBS Radio Network between November 23, 1958, and November 27, 1960.
Books Three novels were based on the television show, all with the title of the show. The first was a hardback written for children, published by
Whitman in 1959 in a series of novelizations of television shows. It was written by Barlow Meyers and illustrated by Nichols S. Firfires. The second was a 1960 paperback original, written for adults by Noel Loomis. The last book,
A Man Called Paladin, written by
Frank C. Robertson and published in 1963 by Collier-Macmillan in hardback and paperback, is based on the television episode "Genesis" by Frank Rolfe. This novel is the only source wherein a name is given to the Paladin character, Clay Alexander, but fans of the series do not consider this name canonical.
Dell Comics published a number of comic books with original stories based on the television series. In 2000,
Martin Grams, Jr. and Les Rayburn self-published the 500-page trade paperback,
The Have Gun – Will Travel Companion, documenting the history of the radio and television series.
Film In February 1993, it was reported that
Savoy Pictures had obtained the rights to
Have Gun – Will Travel from
CBS Entertainment to be developed as a feature film to be produced by
Ray Stark's Rastar Productions and
Jerry Leider. By April of that year, it was reported that the screenplay was being written by Bill Kirby and
Alec Baldwin was attached to star. By August 1996, it was reported that the feature film version of
Have Gun – Will Travel was no longer at Savoy and was now in development at
Warner Bros. with the studio announcing its intention of formally greenlighting the film that same month. In March 1997, it was reported that
Andrew Davis was in negotiations to direct the film with
John Travolta in the lead. By May of that year, Davis had been confirmed as director and
Larry Ferguson was writing the script. By March 1998, it was reported that Davis and Travolta iteration of the project had collapsed and the film had re-entered development as part of a pact between Warner Bros. and
Steven Reuther's Bel Air Entertainment. In 2006, a
Have Gun – Will Travel film starring rapper
Eminem was announced to be in production, but the film does not hold an official confirmed release date.
Paramount Pictures extended an 18-month option on the television series and planned to transform the character of Paladin into a modern-day bounty hunter. Eminem was expected to work on the soundtrack.
Television reboot In August 2012, several venues announced that
David Mamet was developing a reboot of the television series for CBS.
In other television series In the television series
Maverick, season two, episode 16, "
Gun Shy", a send-up of the television series
Gunsmoke, Marshal Mort Dooley, the marshal of Elwood, Kansas, comments that several strange people have been passing through his town lately, specifically referring to "that gunslinger who handed out business cards". A subsequent comedic
Maverick episode titled "The Cats of Paradise" features a black-clad character obviously based on Paladin, albeit without using the name. Both episodes star
James Garner. In the 1962
Tom and Jerry cartoon "
Tall in the Trap", Tom rolls into town on spurs with a card reading "Tall in the Trap" showing a mousetrap on a knight chess piece. In the third episode of the seventh season of
Archer ("Deadly Prep," April 14, 2016) the titular character is seen cleaning his weapon as he sings the theme song from
Have Gun - Will Travel. ==Cultural influences== • The
US Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 105 (
VFA-105), nicknamed "Gunslingers", wears a unit insignia featuring a western-style revolver in a holster emblazoned with a gold knight chess piece (although unlike Paladin's holster, the horse faces forward). •
Boon, a hit British Drama series, was heavily influenced by
Have Gun – Will Travel. The series followed the adventures an ex-fireman who was invalided out of the service and became a modern-day hero. Of
Have Gun – Will Travel's influence, co-creator Jim Hill said: "
Boon had been derived from an American TV series from the 1950s that Bill Stair and I both watched and liked. It was called
Have Gun – Will Travel – a troubleshooting cowboy answered distress calls. He was called Paladin and was played by the actor
Richard Boone. We dropped the E and we had BOON – a modern-day trouble shooter on a motorbike instead of a steed."
Boon ran from 1986 to 1992, with a special one-off episode in 1995. • The "Have...Will..." theme was used in the titles of several record albums, such as
Have Trumpet, Will Excite! by jazz musician
Dizzy Gillespie,
Have Organ Will Swing by pianist/organist
Buddy Cole,
Have Organ Will Travel by organist
George Wright, multiple albums named
Have Guitar Will Travel, and others. • In a scene in
Stand by Me, the main characters sing the show's closing theme song as a way of evoking that film's era (it is set in late 1959); songwriter Johnny Western successfully sued the producers for not securing his permission beforehand. This scene is spoofed in the "Stand by Me" segment of the
Family Guy episode "
Three Kings". • The
Tom and Jerry cartoon "
Tall in the Trap" (1962, directed by
Gene Deitch) was a parody of
Have Gun – Will Travel. • A feature of
Frank Zappa's 1970 tour's performances was the "Paladin Routine", a brief
improvised comedy sketch based on the
Have Gun – Will Travel characters, culminating in a vocalization of the music from the series' opening-credit sequence. One such performance is documented on the
bootleg album Freaks & Motherfu*#@%! (later released as part of
Beat the Boots). • In the third season, episode three of
Downton Abbey, aired January 6, 2013, in what appears to be an anachronism, the character Lady Cora tells her husband, "I'm American: have gun, will travel", but the general phrase
"Have X will travel" does date back to the show's time period. • In the 1972–74 series
Hec Ramsey, set in New Prospect, Oklahoma, in 1901, Boone is an older former gunfighter turned forensic criminologist. At one point, Ramsey denies that in his younger days as a gunfighter, he worked under the name Paladin. The origin of this myth is Boone's remark in an interview, "Hec Ramsey is Paladin – only fatter." Naturally, he merely meant the characters had certain similarities: Ramsey, for his part, was practically buffoonish, imparting a measure of humor to
Hec Ramsey missing from the sterner, more erudite Paladin. • In the two-part 1991 TV miniseries
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, a poker game is played by the rules of "the late Mr. Paladin" in the Carlton Hotel where the recently deceased Paladin usually stayed; the film featured numerous cowboy actors from 1950s television series playing their earlier roles in
cameo appearances three decades later, along with
Claude Akins as President
Theodore Roosevelt turning up at the game to assist in memorializing Paladin. • In the 1985
Star Trek novel
Ishmael by
Barbara Hambly, in which the
Enterprise travels back in time, Spock plays chess against Paladin during a visit to San Francisco. • In the 2013 fan-created series
Star Trek Continues episode "
Pilgrim of Eternity", visual effects artist
Doug Drexler played the part of Paladin in a Holodeck creation. Drexler cited the special specifications of Paladin's revolver to an impressed Captain Kirk (
Vic Mignogna). • Paying homage to Boone's character, in the
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the
Paladin features an archetype named "Holy Gun", whose abilities are succinctly described as "Have Gun". •
Desmond Bagley's 1968 novel
The Vivero Letter has a moment when the protagonist/narrator, thinking about what he is getting into, ironically describes himself as an "adventurer at large – 'have gun, will travel'." Then he notes that he does not have a gun and said, "I doubted whether I could use one effectively, anyway." •
Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a 1958 science fiction novel for young readers by American writer
Robert A. Heinlein. ==Τrademark infringement litigation==