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Date Posted: 14:24:22 05/03/12 Thu
Author: SWC
Subject: Another way of looking at it
In reply to: SWC 's message, "The Glory Era of the TV Western" on 14:21:03 05/03/12 Thu

“The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows”, (you could call it the “CDPTNCTVS” but it wouldn’t help), has a listing in the appendix of the top 25 shows in the Nielsen ratings, which began in 1955. I figured if we use a point system, (25 points for 1st, 24 for second, etc.), we could determine in which year the TV Western reached its height of popularity, regardless of the year of each shows premiere, which was measured in my previous post.

The early 50’s were the era of the kiddie western. They are well remembered but didn’t make that much of a dent in the ratings, which tended to be dominated by variety shows.

1950-51: The Lone Ranger ranked 7th and got 19 “points” under my system. Hopalong Cassidy ranked 9th and got 17 points. Total points: 36

1951-52: The Lone Ranger 18th ranking, 8 points.

1952-53 and 1953-54: Westerns were shut out of the top 25

1954-55: The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin ranked 23 and got 3 points.

1955-56: Believe it or not, in the year that Gunsmoke, Wyatt Earp and Cheyenne debuted, not a single western made the top 25. But that was about to change-in a big way.

1956-57: Gunsmoke 7-19; Wyatt Earp 18-8. Total Points: 27

1957-58: Gunsmoke 1-25; Tales of Wells Fargo 3-23; Have Gun Will Travel 4-22; Wyatt Earp 6-20; The Restless Gun 8-18; Cheyenne 12-14; Zane Grey Theater 21-5; Wagon Train 23-3; Sugarfoot 23-3. Total Points: 133.

1958-59: Gunsmoke 1-25; Wagon Train 2-24; Have Gun Will Travel 3-23; The Rifleman 4-22; Maverick 6-20; Tales of Wells Fargo 7-19; Wyatt Earp 10-16; Zane Grey Theater 13-13; The Texan 15-11; Wanted Dead or Alive 16-10; Cheyenne 18-8; Sugarfoot 21-5. Total Points: 196.

1959-60: Gunsmoke 1-25; Wagon Train 2-24; Have Gun Will Travel 3-23; Wanted: Dead or Alive 9-17; The Rifleman 13-13; Lawman 15-11; Cheyenne 17-9; Rawhide 18-8; Maverick 19-7; Wyatt Earp 20-6; Zane Grey Theater 21-5. Total Points: 148.

1960-61: Gunsmoke 1-25; Wagon Train 2-24; Have Gun Will Travel 3-23, Rawhide 6-20; Bonanza shows up for the first time at 17-9. Total Points: 101. By now, we are into the hardy perennials as the great wave of popularity begins to recede.

1961-62: Wagon Train 1-25; Bonanza 2-24; Gunsmoke 3-23; Rawhide 13-13. Total Points: 85.

1962-63: Bonanza 4-22; Gunsmoke 10-16; Rawhide 22-4; Wagon Train 25-1. Total Points: 43.

1963-64: Bonanza 2-24; The Virginian 17-9; Gunsmoke 20-6. Total Points: 39.

1964-65: Bonanza 1-25; Branded 14-12; The Virginian 22-4. Total Points: 41. Gunsmoke’s decline here is interesting. It began when they switched from a half-hour show to an hour. My theory is that Saturday night is the most “mobile” night of the week- people are going in and out, doing things, having a good time. Gunsmoke was often on when they got back. A half hour show with a simple plot may have been more what people were looking for at that point. It would return to the rankings when it switched to Monday nights and found a different audience.

1965-66: Bonanza 1-25; The Wild Wild West 23-3; The Virginian 23-3 (they were tied). Total Points: 31.

1966-67: Bonanza 1-25; The Virginian 10-16. Total Points: 41.

1967-68: Gunsmoke 4-22; Bonanza 4-22, (the one year the two great shows were tied); The Virginian 14-12. Total Points: 56. It’s interesting that the most consistently successful westerns of the sixties were the ones with large casts. In the fifties so many of them were about lone drifters. I guess people like familiar faces. More regulars also give you more stories you can tell in more ways. Shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke could be different shows depending on which character the script focused on.

1968-69: Bonanza 3-23; Gunsmoke 6-10; The Virginian 17-9; Daniel Boone 21-5. Total Points: 57

1969-70: Gunsmoke 2-24; Bonanza 3-23. Total Points: 47.

1970-71: Gunsmoke 5-21; Bonanza 9-17; The Men From Shiloh, (aka The Virginian) 18-8. Total Points: 46.

1971-72: Gunsmoke 4-22; Bonanza 20-6. Total Points: 28.

1972-73: Gunsmoke 7-19. That’s it.

1973-74: Gunsmoke 15-11.

1974-75: Little House on the Prairie 13-13.

1975-76: The first year in two decades without a western in the top 25.

1976-77: Little House 15-11.

1977-78: Little House 7-19; How the West Was Won 11-15. Total Points: 34.

1978-79: Little House 14-12.

1979-80: Little House 16-10.

1980-81: Little House 10-16. Little House kind of had the genre to itself at this time. It was successful enough that one wonders why it didn’t spawn some imitators, or at least some competition. Its real competition was “The Waltons”, which wasn’t a western.

1981-82: Little House was down to #24 and got 2 points. No other Western appeared in the top 25 until Dr. Quinn showed up at #23 in 1992-93. They were #25 the next year. They were not in the top 25 in 1994-95, the last year before the edition of the book that I have was published.

Clearly the golden era for the TV western was 1957-60, when 15 different shows made the top 25 a total of 32 times, scoring a total of 477 points in my system. Of the 15 shows, three debuted in 1955: Gunsmoke, Wyatt Earp and Cheyenne. One, Zane Grey Theater, started in 1956. Six began in 1957:The Restless Gun, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick, Tales of Wells Fargo and Sugarfoot. The Rifleman and The Texan were from 1958 and Lawman and Rawhide started in 1959. But the great survivors were Gunsmoke and Bonanza, which were still on when the rest of them were just a memory.

I added up the "ratings points" for the top individual shows, (I was looking for which years were the best years)
Gunsmoke was 293, Bonanza 245 and Wagon Train was 3rd with 101.

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Replies:

[> Wanderers and Ranchers -- SWC, 14:27:45 05/03/12 Thu [1]

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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