Adventures of Red Ryder

Hello Posse, Today, I want to introduce you to another Republic serial movie that comes from the 1940s. As you know my book serial is based on this movie concept so you can well imagine I love these movie shorts.Today's pick is special. You might actually be familiar with this serial in a way and not even realize it. This western short serial is Adventures of Red Ryder. It is based on a comicstrip of the same name by Fred Harman. It was the first of two 12 episode comicstrip based serials that Republic produced in 1940. The second was King of the Royal Mounted.This serial was given a budget of $144,852 (which I found to be a very odd number to come up with) and was filmed between March 27th and April 25th, 1940 , that is 29 day to film 12 episodes that run about 25 minutes each. In the end, filming ran over budget to the tune of $1.109. Now that may not sound like much but keep in mind this was 1940. In today's terms that would equal $19,901.24 not a huge sum by movie standards but still significant for that time period. Now, if this serial sounds familiar to you but you just can't figure out why, let me ask you this, have you ever seen the holiday movie A Christmas Story? In case you are one of the few that haven't, in this movie we follow little Ralphie and he tries to find someone who will agree to get him an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas. At every turn his request is rejected as he is told, "You'll shoot your eye out."Just like in the Christmas movie, Red Ryder spawned many popular merchandise items including a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun. This Friday I will share more with you about the Red Ryder comic strip in the Friday Funnies blog. Happy trails!StephenSources:Adventures of Red Ryder on Wikipedia.Red Ryder Comicstrip Denver PostiCollector - Red Ryder BB Gun