How to Find and Use a Death Valley Days Episode Guide
The original Death Valley Days ran for 18 seasons on CBS from 1952 to 1963, then moved to syndication until 1970. That is roughly 440 half-hour episodes across multiple decades of television archiving. Finding a solid episode guide that actually works is more annoying than it should be because the data is scattered across incomplete fan sites, outdated TV database entries, and a few archived television guides that have been sitting on the web since 2004. Here is what you need to know before you start hunting. The show had multiple hosts over its run. Stanley Andrews hosted the early years, Barton MacLane took over in the mid-50s, and James Stewart appeared as host in the later syndicated seasons. This matters because some episode listings use different episode numbers depending on which season format they follow. You will see conflicting data if you are not aware of this. My personal frustration with these guides came when I was trying to track down the original air dates for the 1956 season, specifically the "The Case of the Dangerous Rainmaker" episode. Most online guides listed the wrong date because they were pulling from syndication re-air schedules rather than the original CBS broadcast logs. The workaround I used was to cross-reference the Wikipedia episode list with the Internet Archive's actual CBS television archives. Once I found the original broadcast recording, the date was confirmed directly from the kinescope footer. That took about 20 minutes per episode but eliminated the guesswork entirely.
A counter-intuitive thing about compiling a Death Valley Days Episode Guide is that the syndicated reruns created a parallel numbering system. Many episodes were repackaged or split differently in their second run, so you might see the same story referenced under two different episode numbers in different guides. The guides that try to merge both systems tend to have errors in both. Stick to one system per guide or clearly label which run it covers. Another issue most people miss is that several episodes from the early seasons were lost or are only partially preserved. Some episode guides list these as having complete episode summaries when they do not. The Internet Archive currently has roughly 200 complete episodes available for free streaming, and the Library of Congress holds kinescope recordings of additional episodes. If you are building a guide and want to note preservation status, check those sources directly rather than relying on secondary listings. The most reliable free resource I use is the Death Valley Days fan site at deathvalleydays.com which maintains a season-by-season breakdown with guest star lists and original air dates. It is not perfect but it is the closest thing to a working guide I have found. For downloadable PDF versions, some university film preservation programs have archived copies, though those are harder to locate and usually require a library login.
There is no single definitive online episode guide that covers all 440 episodes with consistent accuracy. The best approach is to build your own reference by combining at least two sources and flagging any discrepancies. If you are looking for a complete guide for personal use, the fan community sites are the most practical option even though they require some manual verification of the details.
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