77 Sunset Strip: A Bit Kookie

July 21, 2025June 9, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we continue with our “Favorite Crime Solvers of the Past,” we turn to 77 Sunset Strip. Even if you never watched the show, you might be familiar with the theme song where they snapped and kept repeating “77 Sunset Strip.”

Created by Roy Huggins, the show debuted on ABC in 1958 and ran until spring of 1964. This was the third appearance by Detective Stuart Bailey. In 1946, Huggins’ novel, The Double Take, was published. In 1948, Bailey stepped into the big screen, starring in I Love Trouble played by Franchot Tone. A decade later he showed up on television played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Bailey, a former WWII secret agent and foreign languages professor, works with former government agent Jeff Spencer (Roger Smith). Their office is at 77 Sunset Strip, Suites 101 and 102. Suite 103 is occupied by Suzanne Fabry (Jacqueline Beer), a French switchboard operator who handles phones for several clients including Bailey and Spencer. Occasionally she helps them solve a crime.

Other characters come and go from the offices including Roscoe (Louis Quinn), who gives out horse-racing tips when he’s not at the track; he often is an operative for the duo.

Gerald “Kookie” Kookson (Ed Byrnes) is a bit of a kook. He loves rock and roll, is witty, appreciates looking good, and works as a valet at the club next door. But he wants to be a private detective and makes full partner during the show. Kookie provides some comedy with his slang like “ginchiest” for coolest or “piling up Zs” for sleeping. During season 2, Byrnes asked for more money with his character expanding his role, but the answer was a firm no, so he left the show. Warner Brothers eventually settled with him, and he returned in May of that year.

Other occasional visitors include Lt. Roy Gilmore (Byron Keith) and the Frank Ortega Trio (played by themselves), a jazz band, who perform next door. They recorded for Warner Brothers who was also behind the television show.

The show had a fun, witty edge to it making it interesting to watch the interactions of the characters in addition to the crime solving. Bailey and Spencer were updated versions of forties’ noir detectives. Some of the shows had very different plots, something like the shows Moonlighting would feature a few decades later. “The Silent Caper” had no dialogue and, in another one, Bailey finds himself in a ghost town and he’s the only main character in the episode. During the last season in “The Target,” roles were played by crew members who were usually behind the camera including director William Conrad, associate producer James Lydon, and writer Tony Barrett.

Guest stars were plentiful and included Robert Conrad, Dyan Cannon, Cloris Leachman, Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Montgomery, Mary Tyler Moore, Roger Moore, William Shatner, Marlo Thomas, Robert Vaughn, and Adam West.

Mack David and Jerry Livingston wrote the famous theme which became a top 10 hit on the Billboard chart. The duo worked on several other Warner Brothers crime shows including Surfside Six, Bourbon Street Beat, and Hawaiian Eye, all based on the 77 Sunset Strip formula and exotic location.

By 1963, ratings were declining and the show revamped. If you read my blog often, you realize this is one of my pet peeves. If they want to change the casts, I understand that. However, in this one, like so often, Bailey is suddenly working alone and there is no mention made of any of the other characters, just as if they never existed. They did this on Happy Days, The Doris Day Show, and several other popular series.

In addition to booting the cast, Jack Webb was brought in as executive producer and William Conrad as director. And if the name William Conrad sounds familiar, yes, it is the same person as the man who starred on Cannon. During the fifties and sixties, Conrad racked up 32 directing credits.

Bailey is now a solo investigator. The title didn’t change, but the old office is no longer there nor the club nor the theme song. A new one written by Bob Thompson was used, and the show took on a darker, more serious nature. Bailey gets a secretary named Hannah who we rarely see.

The show was on Fridays for its entire run, just switching time slots now and then. By season two it was in the top ten. In seasons three through five, it got its biggest competition from Route 66, which it beat in the ratings. The final season, the show got moved to a later slot, going up against The Alfred Hitchcock Hour but, neither of them were in the top thirty.

Big surprise, viewers weren’t fans of the changes or the more serious tone of the show, and they drifted away. The show was cancelled in February. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. moved over to the FBI. Roy Huggins had a hugely successful career. He would write for and create more top shows including Run for Your Life, Maverick, Alias Smith and Jones, The Rockford Files, and The Fugitive. Viewers at least got the satisfaction of knowing that making such drastic changes to the show caused the end of that story. Stream a few of the early seasons on Philo, Roku, or Pluto TV and let me know what you think.

What Do I Spy with my Hawaiian Eye?

July 14, 2025September 4, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Welcome to this month’s blog series, “Crime Solvers of the Past.” Before there was Hawaii Five-0 or Magnum PI, there was Hawaiian Eye.

Warner Brothers was looking for possible television series to create. They sent one of their story editors, Jack Emanuel, to Hawaii to get some inspiration for a crime series, and Hawaiian Eye was born.

The show debuted on ABC in the fall of 1959 and continued until April 1963. Like the above-mentioned shows, this one also features a partnership. Tom Lopaka (Robert Conrad) and Tracy Steele (Anthony Eisley) own a detective agency that also provides security services, and it’s called Hawaiian Eye. The Hawaiian Village Hotel is one of their biggest clients and they provide an office/living space for the firm. Rounding out the cast was Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens), a local photographer and singer who helps the guys out; Kim Quisado (Poncie Ponce), a cab driver who plays the ukelele; Greg McKenzie (Grant Williams), a former engineer who helps out and later joins the firm, and Philip Barton (Troy Donahue), the hotel social director. Lt. Danny Quon (Mel Prestidge) also shows up off and on when the boys need help from the local police force.

Sprinkled among the 134 episodes, you’ll find lots of great character actors and guest stars popping up.

Robert Wagner was originally chosen for Lopaka, but he turned it down to continue his movie work. Warner Brothers produced this one, so there was a bit more feel of a movie set.

Ponce was the only cast member actually born in Hawaii, and when the show aired, his entire hometown shut down in order to watch their local boy. Ponce only ended up with 8 acting credits, one in Speedway with Elvis Presley. Most of his career was spent in the music side of the entertainment business singing and playing. While he played a uke on the show, in his personal life this talented guy also played piano, trumpet, sax, and harmonica. In fact, he was seen by William Orr, head of Warner Brothers as a singing waiter. Orr was so impressed he signed him for the show. However, he was not as impressed with his waiting abilities, so he became a cab driver!

Connie Stevens also started and ended her career in the music business. She was part of a cast for three television shows but garnered 72 acting credits during her career.

The opening of the show was a voiced over with a narrator introducing the cast who is frolicking around in the water and on the beach. In the background a chorus sings “Hawaiian Eye” repeatedly.

The plots seem fun for the time. The duo helped a woman who thinks her husband is trying to kill her, chased down a former spy, investigated hotel crime, and there is a bit of a Love Boat feel to the show where one of the partners falls in love, and lots of women are strolling around the island.

It was not shot in Hawaii but in Burbank, in black and white film; the fact that it often takes place at the hotel, it’s not noticeable we’re not on the Island. It’s just missing the lush scenery the later series feature.

The show aired Wednesday nights with its primary competition The Perry Como Show and I’ve Got a Secret which were top thirty shows the first season but had fallen out of the top thirty by season two, so maybe Hawaiian Eye gained some of their viewers. Season three, in addition to Perry Como, the show was up against The Dick Van Dyke Show. For its final season, it moved to Tuesday nights and was on at the same time as The Red Skelton Show and The Jack Benny Show which were in the top twenty and ten respectively. That seemed to end any hopes the show had to continue, and it was cancelled.

Unfortunately, I can’t find anywhere the DVD set was released but there are streaming services with it and a few private sellers with sketchy quality. If you enjoyed Hawaii Five-0 or Magnum, check out some of the episodes on YouTube. From everything I could find, the show had a great cast with a lot of chemistry, some interesting music performances, comic relief from Ponce, and good writing, everything you want to see in a popular series.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective: Living His Best Life

July 7, 2025June 3, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are discovering some of our favorite “Crime Solvers of the Past.” Up today is a show I listen to on old-time radio quite often: Richard Diamond, Private Detective.

Dick Powell stared on the radio series which began in 1949, and the show ended its run four years later in 1953.

The television show went on the air in the summer of 1957. CBS aired the show through fall of 1959 when it moved to NBC for its final season. It was much more common in the fifties and sixties for shows to shift networks.

David Janssen starred as Diamond, a former cop in the New York Police Department. The television show kept the film noir atmosphere. It also kept the New York City location and showcased Diamond’s wit and charm with the ladies. Rounding out the cast was Diamond’s former superior Lt. Dennis McGough (Regis Toomey).

The third season moved Diamond to Los Angeles, and everything took on a new look. His life became more glamorous, and he lived in the Hollywood Hills and had a swimming pool. Apparently, private eyes earned a much bigger fee in Los Angeles. After taxis in New York, Diamond drove a new convertible which included a car phone, a high-tech feature for that time period. Lt. McGough remained in New York, and the LA police weren’t so fond of Diamond and his interference with their cases.

Diamond’s phone calls are collected by Sam. Often she passes the messages on to Diamond on his phone car. Car phones were pretty cool in this era. We don’t see her face, but we do see her legs on a regular basis. I’ll take their word for it that Sam was played by Mary Tyler Moore for part of season three and Roxane Brooks filled out the rest of year three and season four. No one knew who Sam was until Mary Tyler Moore modeled hosiery in the TV Guide and let the cat out of the bag. She was immediately fired and replaced with Brooks. I also read a version that Moore asked for a raise and was denied it and fired, which prompted her to talk about her identity as Sam on the show.

The theme also took on a contemporary jazz score that was now used for the theme song.

Apparently, NBC demoted Diamond because for the final season, he lost his ranch house with the fireplace and sunken living room. He lived in an apartment and worked from a typical, small office. The show lost a lot of its elegance, and fans probably missed Diamond’s former life after getting used to him in year three. Lt. Pete Kile (Russ Conway) has now found mutual respect with Diamond and the two of them work together on many of his cases. He also has an understanding with Karen (Barbara Bain), his new girlfriend.

Guest stars were plentiful on the show. Some of the appearances included Claude Akins, Ed Begley, Joey Bishop, Whitney Blake, Charles Bronson, Jack Cassidy, Jack Elam, Charles Lane, and Ruta Lee.

ABC aired the show on Thursday nights up against Zorro and You Bet Your Life, both shows in the top thirty. The next season it moved to Sunday nights and took on The Loretta Young Show. NBC moved the show to an earlier time slot on Mondays against The Kate Smith Show and the popular western Cheyenne. I’m guessing most families tuned in to one of its competitor’s series that early in the evening.

Maxwell House sponsored season one and Kent Cigarettes took over for season two. It seems that in the fifties coffee and cigarettes are what kept most detectives going.

From what I’ve concluded, the show didn’t age as well as the radio show. It lost some of its comedy and playful dialogue and became more somber and serious. The fact that Richard’s living conditions changed three times, along with the spot on the tv schedule where the show lived, probably didn’t help viewers stay tuned.

Let me qualify that I read many people’s views of the show who thought some of the seasons as high quality as you could get. However, I am just going to keep listening to the radio show and take a pass on watching Diamond’s more stressed-out, serious side on television.

Cimarron Strip: Steak, Anyone?

June 30, 2025May 7, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we wind up our “Go West Young Man” blog series, we turn our attention to Cimarron Strip for the last blog of the series. This show was only on the air for one season, from 1967-68. It was produced by the creators of Gunsmoke, America’s most beloved western. Like The Virginian, it was a 90-minute show.

Set in the Oklahoma in 1890, the series occurred in a geographical region called No Man’s Land, an ungoverned area for several decades. Marshal Jim Crown (Stuart Whitman) tries to bring law and order there. Crown arrives only to learn that the sheriff has resigned, and it’s up to him to bring peace to the area with no Army support. We get to know Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend) who comes to live with her father, but upon her arrival, she discovers he is dead. Her father’s partner MacGregor (Percy Herbert) has let their Wayfarer’s Inn become a bit dilapidated, but Dulcey is determined to bring it back. Marshal Crown stayed there when he was in Cimarron City. Francis Wilde (Randy Boone) often served as Crown’s deputy.

Rounding out the cast is the bartender at the Inn, Fabrizio (Jack Braddock); Major Covington at a nearby Army fort (Andrew Duggan); a Dr. Kihlgren (Karl Swenson); and Hardy Miller (Robert J. Wilke).

The show was on Thursday nights, up against Batman, The Flying Nun, and Bewitched on ABC. It faced Daniel Boone and Ironside on NBC. Definitely some tough competition.

The theme song was composed by Maurice Jarre, who was the scorer for the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago for which he won two Oscars.

The show never attained the ratings numbers it needed to keep its place on the schedule. From what I have been able to find out, it was well written and well cast. Guest stars kept it interesting, and the scenery was beautifully filmed.

I’m guessing the main reason the show didn’t make it was just viewer fatigue with the western genre. There were already shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke which were hugely popular. One more western might just have been one too many, no matter how good it was. In addition to the western series, some of the shows that were on the air when Cimarron Strip debuted included That Girl, Hogan’s Heroes, Mannix, Batman, Lost in Space, Get Smart, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In—very different choices than westerns. I do remember Arnold the pig on Green Acres always wanting to watch westerns on television. We still fall prey to this on the major three networks. After ER became popular, the next season featured ten new medical shows. And then most of them get cancelled, not necessarily because they’re bad but because it’s just an overload of medical shows.

Most people don’t want the same supper every night even if it’s steak or lasagna. That said, this seemed to be a steak kind of show, so just because it couldn’t survive the mass onslaught of westerns in the sixties doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching. If you check it out, let me know what you think.

The Virginian: Where Nobody Knows Your Name

June 23, 2025June 1, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we get ready to “Go West Young Man,” today our blog series is getting to know the The Virginian (which is sometimes confusing because it was renamed The Men from Shiloh later for part of the series). This series debuted on NBC in 1962. It produced 249 episodes, running until 1971, making it the third longest-running western (Gunsmoke and Bonanza were the top two).

Lew Wasserman was involved with Universal, and they produced Wagon Train which was on NBC. Universal sold the series to ABC in 1962 after it had been on the air for three years, and NBC was not happy, but Wasserman told them that he had a new show for them, The Virginian.

It was also the first 90-minute western. Like Stagecoach West, it was set in the Wyoming Territory. While the pilot was black and white, the rest of the series was filmed in color.

The series was based on an Owen Wister novel, The Virginian: Horseman of the Plains which was published in 1902.

The series featured a foreman at the Shiloh Ranch near Medicine Bow played by James Drury. The foreman was never referred to by his name. Drury once said, “Nobody knows the name of my character, not even me.” His sidekick was Trampas (Doug McClure). Sheriff Abbott (Ross Elliott) also shows up on and off throughout the nine seasons. For the first four seasons, the ranch owner, Judge Henry Garth (Lee J. Cobb) and his daughter Betsy (Roberta Shore) also live there. The cast changed fairly often throughout the series, but Drury and McClure were along for the entire ride.

The plots of the show often revolve around themes of prejudice, injustice, being a responsible and hard worker, and standing up for the right thing.

During the final season, the show changed its title, and the series changed quite a bit. There was a new theme song, and it took on more of the character of the popular spaghetti westerns. Stewart Granger and Lee Majors joined the cast. While the ratings increased, the network was intent on cancelling the show, along with the rural purge that happened at that time.

Later when the show was no longer on the air, Drury discussed two of his castmates, one he admired and considered a friend and one he did not! About Grainger who joined the show for the last year, Drury said, “He was a disaster, and I couldn’t stand him. He wanted everything changed to make him the star of the show. . . . He also fired the whole camera crew and hired a new crew for his episodes.” However, on reflecting about his co-star Doug McClure, Drury recalled “off-screen Doug was quite like his character, and you couldn’t help but smile when he walked into a room because he was full of good humor and good spirits all the time. He could cheer anybody up. He became my best friend, and I still miss him terribly—you couldn’t ask for a better co-star.”

As you can imagine, being on the air for nine years meant a lot of guest stars showed up on the series, including Eddie Albert, Charles Bronson, Robert Culp, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Patty Duke, Robert Duvall, Harrison Ford, Jack Lord, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles, Leonard Nimoy, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, George C. Scott, William Shatner and Franchot Tone.

The Virginian was on Wednesday nights for its entire run. When it began, it was up against Wagon Train on ABC while CBS ran CBS Reports and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Both The Virginian and Wagon Train managed to hit the top thirty that year. The next year, its biggest competition was The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet followed by The Patty Duke Show. The Nelsons hit the top thirty and The Virginian and The Patty Duke Show were in the top twenty. The show continued to be in the top twenty or top thirty for the rest of its run, hitting the top ten in 1966, despite being on at the same time as many popular sitcoms during those years, including Batman, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Gomer Pyle USMC, Lost in Space, Mister Ed, and My Living Doll. It was still in the top twenty when it was canceled.

This show is fondly remembered by viewers who tuned it at the time. It’s been in syndication for decades, racking up new generations of fans. In one of his later interviews, Drury talked about the appeal of the show. He said, “People now tell me about their grandkids who discover the show on cable and start watching it. It’s a wonderful feeling to know the show is still viable after all these years.” That alone is reason to be proud of working on this show.

Stagecoach West: Experiencing Life in Outpost

June 16, 2025May 7, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we celebrate westerns this month in our blog series “Go West Young Man,” we are tuning in to Stagecoach West which traveled across the air waves from 1960-1961. The show debuted in October of 1960 with the final episode airing in June of 1961. For the summer, reruns of the show continued. The thirty-eight episodes were on Tuesday nights.

The show features two Civil War veterans, Luke Perry (Wayne Rogers) and Simon Kane (Robert Bray), who own a stagecoach line and share driving duties in the Wyoming territory. It was fun to see a young Rogers decades before he showed up in Korea bantering with Alan Alda. During their trips they run into murders, robberies, range wars, renegade soldiers, and passengers who have their own drama. Simon’s son Davey (Richard Eyer) often travels with the men.

They are based in Outpost, a small frontier town. We get to know several townspeople including Dan Murchison (John Litel) who runs the general store and bank; Zeke Bonner (James Burke) who rents rooms at The Halfway House; Hugh Strickland (Robert J. Stevenson), the Marshal in Timberline; and Doc Apperson (played by J. Pat O’Malley and Sydney Smith).

Vincent M. Fennelly was the producer and there were several directors, with Thomas Carr taking the helm most often. There was also a long list of writers, but D.D. Beauchamp and Mary Beauchamp penned many of the scripts. From what I could learn about the Beauchamps, they didn’t work together but wrote their own episodes. Mary was known for her work on Bat Masterson and Tales of West Fargo in addition to this show. D.D. (Daniel Deronda) is best remembered as a writer for Daniel Boone. His third wife was Mary Mitchell, so I am guessing that Mary Mitchell and Mary Beauchamp are the same person. Sounds like she and her husband were cremated, so there is no findagrave site for her.

The theme song was composed by Skip Martin and Terry Gilkyson. This was the only time I could find where this duo worked together. They had very different careers. Gilkyson was part of The Weavers and The Easy Riders. In 1960 he went to work for Walt Disney and was nominated for an Oscar for “The Bare Necessities” in Jungle Book. Martin worked with jazz and swing bands in the 1930s and 40s including Count Basie and Glenn Miller. With Les Brown, he was given credit for writing “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” In the 1950s he moved to Hollywood where he worked on Singin’ in the Rain and A Star is Born.

Richard Eyer in an interview said the show “kept me busy and was usually fun. It was a very positive experience. When they hired me, it was sort of a transitional point . . when we did the pilot I was 13 and quite young . . . we started production eight months [later] . . . I was into puberty and adolescence.”

Tuesday nights’ competition in 1960 was Thriller on NBC and The Tom Ewell Show and The Red Skelton Show on CBS. Thriller was an interesting show hosted by Boris Karloff. It began as an anthology focusing on crime but later transitioned to gothic horror stories. The Tom Ewell Show also began and ended in 1960. Ewell plays a real estate agent who lives with a lot of women, namely his wife, daughters, and mother-in-law. ABC aired The Rifleman and The Legend of Wyatt Earp before Stagecoach West.

The show never gained viewers, so it was cancelled in June. If you follow me, you know I don’t have the most positive feelings about Red Skelton and how he treated the people who worked for him, but it was a very popular show and some of the episodes were in color, so a lot of people were tuning into to watch him. I wonder if because two westerns were on earlier in the evening, people were ready to watch another genre. In addition to this night of programming, there were another 15 westerns on during the evenings on the other days of the week. The other factor that comes into play is that both The Rifleman and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on CBS were in the top thirty. I wonder how many viewers watched The Rifleman on ABC and then switched networks to Dobie Gillis on NBC and then never returned to ABC for the rest of the evening.

It would be a fun and easy binge watch if you want to tune in even to see the guest stars and learn some of the issues that were dealt with during this era of travel.

Wagon Train: Heading West

June 9, 2025June 1, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are celebrating, “Go West Young Man” by taking a look at some of the westerns from the fifties and sixties. Up today is Wagon Train. This series debuted on NBC in 1957; in 1962 it moseyed over to ABC for its final three seasons. Lew Wasserman was involved with Universal which produced Wagon Train. When they sold the series to ABC, NBC was not happy, but Wasserman told them that he had a new show for them, The Virginian, which we’ll learn about in two weeks.

The series was very popular, jumping to number one immediately. The plot is that a large wagon train is traveling through the west from Missouri to California. Ward Bond starred as the wagon master Seth Adams (when he died in 1960, John McIntire took over). Robert Horton played scout Flint McCullough; eventually he opted to leave and was replaced by Robert Fuller. Oddly, Horton and Fuller shared a birthday and were six years apart in age.

If I listed all the guest stars during the eight seasons, you would still be reading this next Monday. Just know, there were a lot.

The show was adapted from a 1950 John Ford film titled Wagon Master. In a 1960 episode, John Ford stepped in to direct an episode, “The Colter Craven Story.” One guest star I have to mention in this one was John Wayne. He speaks from the shadows as General Sherman (Wayne’s real name was Marion Michael Morrison, so for this credit, he went by Michael Morris) in this episode.

The original theme song was written by Henri Rene and Bob Russell and conducted by Stanley Wilson. A more contemporary theme accompanied season two, and it changed a few more times during the run of the show.

The show had a huge budget for the time: $100,000 (about a million in today’s world of television). It was about 40% more expensive than most westerns at the time, and that is part of why it was able to feature so many guest stars.

When Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to the networks, he described it as “a Wagon Train traveling across the universe.” He also hired writer Gene L. Coon who wrote 23 episodes of Wagon Train.

While wagon trains are considered an icon from our history, so was the product of the series’ first sponsor, the Edsel Division of the Ford Motor Co.

The show was an hour long and shot in black and white for the first six seasons. For season seven, the network filmed the show in color and increased the length to 90 minutes. The ratings were still high but didn’t increase, so the network could not justify the changes, and the television show went back to an hour in black and white.

The show was placed on Wednesday nights up against Leave it to Beaver and Disneyland. Even with that competition, it was in the top thirty and by its second season, had jumped to the top ten where it stayed until it was sold to ABC. ABC kept the show on Wednesday nights, and it ran against The Virginian, both being in the top thirty in 1962.

So many people have fond memories of this show. It was on six seasons, but I think it was finally cancelled even though it was in the top thirty because of the western overload, ushering in the shows like Get Smart, The Man From UNCLE, Lost in Space, and The Smothers Brothers Show. Check out your favorite guest stars who were on the show and watch those episodes to see what it was like.

Cheyenne: Introducing Jim Baumgartner

June 2, 2025June 1, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

In June, we are advising “Go West Young Man” as we peek back at a few of our favorite westerns. First up is Cheyenne. Cheyenne debuted in 1955; it was the first hour-long Western. It would remain on the air for eight years, producing 108 episodes.

Clint Walker starred as Cheyenne Bodie, a cowboy who explores the wild west after the Civil War. Early in the show, we learn that Bodie’s parents were killed by an unknown Native American tribe. A Cheyenne tribe found him and raised him till he was 12 when they sent him to live with a White family.

Because Cheyenne is traveling, guest stars change from week to week. The series was part of Warner Brothers Presents which alternated a weekly show with Cheyenne, Casablanca, and Kings Row.

For the first four seasons, the show was on Tuesday nights; then it moved to Mondays for the final four years. It was in the top thirty, and often the top twenty, for most of its television life, despite being up against The Phil Silvers Show; Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Dragnet; and the game shows To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret. Because Warner Brothers was used to making movies, the television show was produced with a movie feel to it.

In 1958, Walker went on strike. His contract stipulated that he had to give Warner Brothers 50% of his personal appearance fees, and he could only record music with the Warner Brothers label. He wanted 100% of his fees and to be able to record wherever he chose. I never learned what they settled on, but Walker returned to the show.

During his travels, Cheyenne often advocates for justice in the places he visits, sometimes working as a sheriff or deputy. Another theme of the show is the distrust of Native Americans. Cheyenne is sympathetic to their plight and is loyal to the Cheyenne tribe that raised him. Many of the plots were taken directly from Warner Brothers movies of the past and reworked a bit.

The theme song was composed by William Lava and Stanley Davis Jones. They both worked on The Mickey Mouse Club with Jones composing for the Spin and Marty shorts. Lava also provided music for Zorro, The Twilight Zone, and 77 Sunset Strip.

During Clint Walker’s interview with the Television Academy, he talked about his time on the show. He said he became aware of how many people liked the show when they sent him out to functions, and he started to realize how many fans he had in each town and then thinking of all the towns in the United States. He received a lot of fan mail from people who liked the values of the show. Some young men told him they no longer had fathers or uncles, and he was their role model.

I also heard a fun story about casting during this show. Richard Bare explained during his interview that he was in a bar one night and a friend introduced him to an actor. The next day a meeting was called where Jack Warner informed them that he wanted some new faces introduced during the show. Bare remembered the young actor he met at the bar the night before but couldn’t remember his name. He called the bar and was told that the actor’s name was Jim Baumgartner, so he asked them to tell him to come to the studio when he showed up again. Finally, Baumgartner called Bare the day before they began shooting. He came in and did an audition. The crew was going on location the next day, so they had to decide immediately if he was part of the show. When Jack Warner saw the clips, he said to give that kid a seven-year contract, and that’s how James Garner started working in westerns.

There is no doubt Cheyenne was a popular show. It was interesting enough to keep viewers’ attention for an hour. The episodes seem to be well written. In an era when there were tons of westerns to watch, this one was in the top section of that list. The show still can be streamed on several places. If you want to live in the Old West for a bit, why not join Cheyenne and see what it was like.

Camp Runamuck: Campers Loved It More than Viewers

May 26, 2025April 27, 2025 / thewritelife61 / Leave a comment

This month we are checking out a few sitcoms that are rarely remembered anymore. Today we are exploring the show Camp Runamuck. It debuted on NBC in 1965 and featured campers for 26 weeks before being cancelled.

Dave Madden was counselor Pruett; Commander Wivenhoe was played by Arch Johnson, and senior counselor Spiffy was played by David Ketchum. In the pilot, one of my favorites, Frank DeVol, played Doc Joslyn but illness forced him to hand over the part to Leonard Stone. Bobby Darrin sang the theme song.

If you are a fan of The Partridge Family, you will appreciate that this show was the introduction of actor Dave Madden, later Rueben who would manage the Partridges. Johnson began on television in the fifties, but this was his first cast role. Ketchum started his career a decade after Johnson and this was his second starring role after being in I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster in 1962. One camper who is featured in two of the 26 episodes is Maureen McCormick. This was the year she started her acting career, also appearing in Bewitched, The Farmer’s Daughter, and Honey West. Before becoming Marcia Brady, she would also show up in My Three Sons and I Dream of Jeannie.

Wivenhoe was an interesting camp leader. He didn’t like kids, didn’t like to part with his money, and didn’t appreciate the 6am morning wake-up song sung by the girls across the lake accompanied by a bugle. He did like playing golf and enjoying a quince for breakfast.

Across the lake was Camp Divine owned by Eulalia (Hermione Baddeley) who was helped by counselors Mahalia May (Alice Nunn) and Caprice Yeudleman (Nina Wayne).

The opening featured a peppy tune with fifes and you see the lake and hear the music before you see the camp counselors leading the campers (all in white; the poor laundry crew) marching down the road.

Most of the plots featured the counselors as opposed to the campers. Typical plots were the female campers being ordered to steal Wivenhoe’s bathtub so they could take a real bath and the boys getting it back. In another episode, the campers learn a civics lesson. They are given the task of electing a camp commander. However, the candidate who gets in becomes a dictator and tries to put everyone who had been in charge, namely the adults, in jail. This sounds vaguely familiar from the recent news.

In the credits I learned Cal Howard was in charge of visual gags. I never had seen that designation before in a sitcom. Howard, who was born in 1911 and passed away in 1993, had a long career as an actor and writer. He received 178 writing credits, mostly in animation. He worked for Walter Lanz and Walt Disney and wrote a few Bugs Bunny and Alvin and the Chipmunks episodes.

Just to add a sense of weirdness and whimsy to the series, two bears named Irving and Virginia would share their opinions of what was going on around the camp.

The series was up against The Wild Wild West and The Flintstones, pretty tough competition for the time. First of all it was on Friday nights when many viewers might be starting their weekend celebrations. The Flintstones was originally written for adults, but by 1965 families were watching the show together. The Wild Wild West was new, but immediately hit the top 30, and it was followed by another new CBS show, Hogan’s Heroes, and then Gomer Pyle, USMC, so most television fans were glued to that network Friday nights. Other new NBC shows included Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, and I Spy so competition was tough to retain a schedule spot. ABC didn’t have a lot of hits that year but they did debut three shows that I liked but all faded away within two seasons: Batman, Honey West, and Gidget.

Camp Runamuck might have gotten a second season if it didn’t have so much competition to deal with. If you loved camp as a kid, or hated camp as a kid, it might be worthwhile to watch a few shows and see what you think.

Occasional Wife: Occasionally Watched by Viewers

May 19, 2025June 1, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are in the midst of a month of blogs that feature sitcoms we don’t hear much about anymore. Today’s series is Occasional Wife.

In September 1966, the show debuted on Tuesday nights on NBC.

The show was about Peter, a junior New York business executive (Michael Callahan). When he realized married men are more likely to be promoted at his company, Brahms Baby Food, he asks hat check girl Greta (Patricia Harty) to pose as his wife for company functions. When he offers to pay for her rent and art lessons, she agrees, thinking it will be an occasional performance, but every time someone from the office drops by, Peter runs upstairs to bring her down to his apartment until they leave. One of the funniest parts of the show was the tenant played by Bryan O’Byrne who watches Peter and Greta running up and down the fire escape.

If you wondered if the name Patricia Harty sounds familiar, yes it does. She was Blondie and we talked about her in the first blog of this series.

The opening is reminiscent of Dragnet with its introduction “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. Some are violent, some sad, but one of them is just plain cuckoo. This is a modern fable about two young people who make a bargain only to find out they were going to get a lot more than they bargained for. We call our fable Occasional Wife and it stars Michael Callan and Patricia Harty.”

The series was created by Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman. Vin Scully, legendary sportscaster, provided the narration for the show. It started off ranked 18^th but by the end of the season, it had dropped to 64^th and was cancelled.

The show was up against The Red Skelton Hour and The Rounders. If you have been reading my blog any amount of time, you probably have heard me complaining about Red Skelton. I honestly could not stand watching the show and did not find it at all funny, but I also have read way too many accounts of what a jerk he was to his writers, cast members, and anyone else who he worked with. However, at this time, his show was in the top ten. The Rounders on the other hand, probably didn’t take many viewers away from this sitcom. The premise of the show, according to imdb.com, was that Howdy Lewis and Ben Jones are in debt to Jim Ed Love, second richest man in the state. They find some happiness with girlfriends Ada and Sally at the Longhorn Cafe.

It sounds like Peter and Greta were flat characters and the comedy only relied on the situation of the fake marriage. Viewers would probably have liked to see some chemistry between the two and allow them to struggle with getting closer instead of both being happily single. There must have been some chemistry there because the actors married after the show ended. Just like their sitcom, their marriage failed to last two years.

This sitcom was one of the first series to eliminate the use of a laugh track. Now canned laughter is an industry standard, but they decided to can the canned laughter and not invite a live audience. I wonder if this might have affected viewers whether they knew it or not.

Bob Claver discussed his time producing this show in a Television Academy interview. Claver thought the show was funny and peppy, but he said they couldn’t make it a hit, even with Harry Ackerman as executive producer.

As with the other two series we discussed this month, Blondie and My Sister Eileen, you might be better off to run up or down your own fire escape and skip watching the show to get in a few extra steps.

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