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Date Posted: 14:27:45 05/03/12 Thu
Author: SWC
Subject: Wanderers and Ranchers
In reply to: SWC 's message, "The Glory Era of the TV Western" on 14:21:03 05/03/12 Thu

Most of the early westerns were about people on the move, (which makes sense if you think about it). Some were about organizations that moved- a Wagon Train or the drovers on Rawhide, (Wagon Train started out in St. Joseph's, not St. Louis and wound up in Sacramento while Rawhide started out in Texas and went to Sedalia Missouri- and later to points north). But most of them were about wanderers like Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Paladin, Maverick and even the Lone Ranger.

Early shows that had a particular local include:

Gunsmoke- Kansas

Wyatt Earp- Kansas and Arizona

The Rifleman- New Mexico

Laramie and Lawman- Wyoming

Bonanza- Nevada

The Virginian- Wyoming

The Dakotas - What is now North and South Dakota

The Big Valley and Lancer- California

The High Chaparral - Arizona

David Dortort, after producing "The Restless Gun", felt that the life of a wanderer was not all that romantic and that people were happier when they had roots and created Bonanza in that mold. He even has Ben lecture someone- I think it was Little Joe's half brother in “The First Born”- on that subject in one of the episodes.

Dortort is quoted in the David Greenland book:

"The more I thought about the show, the more things fell into place. As an avid student of American history since my college days, I wanted to do something besides the gunfighter myth, which was only a small portion of western history. What about the real people who settled the west, who struggled with all the hardships? What about the women who had to give birth without a doctor? I was interested in telling the whole pioneer story, with the story of people who sank their roots, who built their homes, who built their churches, who built their schools. What about them?"

Greenland continues: "In addition to avoiding the traditional 'gunfighter myth', perpetuated by most western series and films, Dortort wanted to bypass the typical dusty cow towns as often as possible concentrating instead on what he called 'the glories of the west'- the lakes, the mountains, the breathtaking vistas, the cool, clear air'. He envisioned his brainstorm as 'a great living pageant which would be shot on location at Lake Tahoe. And, unlike any other network series, it would be filmed in color."

As this site makes clear, it was shot at a lot more places than Lake Tahoe. But I think the locale and those color shots of it were two big reasons for the series success opposite those "dusty cow towns" the other shows had.

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Replies:

[> Re: The Glory Era of the TV Western -- Leah, 20:28:33 05/03/12 Thu [1]

Hey, where is Davy, Davy Crockett? My adoptive father (sort of, it wasn't a legal adoption) used to sing it to me, and said he always loved it. :)
Leah


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[> [> 1954 -- SWC, 09:15:16 05/04/12 Fri [1]

I began with 1955 because It's considered the beginning of the adult western era.


In the section about the ratings, Davy never made the Top 25 but "Disneyland", (later "The Wonderful World of Color", the show on which it was broadcast, was #6 that year.


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