This month we are taking a look at some of the biggest shows and personalities from the 1950s. We are beginning with Dinah Shore, a household name in the fifties.
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Frances Rose Shore was born in 1916 in Tennessee. Her parents were Russian-Jewish shopkeepers. At eighteen months old, she was diagnosed with polio. The only treatment at the time was bed rest. She recovered under her motherâs nursing but retained a deformed foot and a limp. She loved to sing and often performed for customers at her parentsâ store. Despite her limp, Dinah became active in athletics and was a cheerleader in high school.
She enrolled at Vanderbilt University, graduating in 1938 with a degree in sociology. Singing was still her passion, and she visited the Grand Ole Opry, making her radio debut on WSM, a Nashville station. She moved to New York, auditioning for many roles. She often sang the song âDinah,â and when DJ Martin Block couldnât remember her name, he asked for the Dinah girl and Dinah became her stage name. She sang with Frank Sinatra at WNEW in New York and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra in 1940. That year she also became a regular on âTime to Smile,â Eddie Cantorâs radio show. He taught her to develop comedic timing and how to connect with an audience.
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In 1948 she was offered her own radio show, âCall for Music.â She also performed for the troops during WWII.
Shore married actor Robert Montgomery in 1943, and they were married almost twenty years. Sinatraâs valet claimed Shore and Sinatra had a long-term affair throughout the 1950s but I could never verify that.
During the fifties, Shore signed on with RCA Victor to record her music. âLove and Marriageâ and âWhatever Lola Wantsâ were top 20 hits in 1955. In 1959 she went to Capitol Records for three years.
During the sixties, Shore was romantically involved with Dick Martin, Eddie Fisher, and Rod Taylor and had a short marriage with Maurice Smith, a tennis player. She and Burt Reynolds had a well-known relationship for four years during the early seventies.
From 1989-1992 she hosted one additional show, A Conversation with Dinah on cable TNN.
In later years she was also able to spend more time on her hobbies of painting and cooking.
Shore was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1993 and passed away in 1994 from the disease. Her Palm Springs mid-century modern home was purchased by Leonard DeCaprio in 2014.
While Shore was seen on television more in the seventies, in the fifties she was beloved for her singing career and thatâs when she became a household name.
As we wind up our Eerie Shows blog series, we are ending with a show I remember being both fascinated by and totally creeped out by â The Twilight Zone. In 1958 CBS purchased a teleplay written by Rod Serling called âThe Time Element.â It was introduced by Desi Arnaz. It became an anthology series called The Twilight Zone and was on the air from 1959-1964.
This show had more lives than The Brady Bunch. A second version debuted in 1985 and was on four years on CBS. From 2002-2003, it appeared again on UPN hosted by Forest Whitaker. But that still was not the end. In 2019, a fourth reboot was on for a season. In addition to the reboots, Steven Spielberg produced Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983 starring Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, and John Lithgow. Leonardo DeCaprio was rumored to be putting together a current film and Aron Eli Coleite was hired to write the screenplay. Four years later, Christine Lavaf was brought on to write a script. I could not find any information whether this movie was still in the works or not.
In this blog, I am focusing on the original series. While the show could be described as fantasy or science fiction, the episodes covered a lot of genres including absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, and psychological thrillers.
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The opening is one many of us remember: âThere is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of manâs fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.â The âTwilight Zoneâ was a term used by US Air Force pilots when crossing the day and night sides above the world.
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The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., owned by Serling. There were a lot of other famous writers who penned episodes on this show. Of the 156 episodes, Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson wrote 127 of them. Other famous writers included Ray Bradbury, Earl Hamner Jr., George Clayton Johnson, and Jerry Sohl. Many of the episodes were social commentaries about nuclear war, McCarthyism, racial inequality, and the greed of capitalism.
One of the earliest shows, âThe Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,â is a great example of the Cold War and McCarthy subthemes. It aired in 1960, and the themes are still relevant today. The residents of Maple Street are alarmed when they hear rumors of monsters from outer space in their neighborhood. After a shadow passes by and a loud roar is heard, the citizens start accusing each other of being aliens. One man dies, another is physically attacked, and rioting occurs. We watch the residents destroy each other without seeing aliens involved. The twist is that there are aliens. They cut the power, but they let the humans destroy themselves. The message was if we think communists are in our midst, weâll invent evidence to prove it and attack each other while Russia simply sits back and watches us destroy each other.
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All the shows were filmed in black and white. Seasons one, two, three and five were half-hour shows, while season four was an hour long. The Twilight Zone was never very high in the ratings, and the show struggled to find sponsors during its run. To save some money in season two, the network decided to shoot episodes on videotape instead of film. Iâve heard of this happening with several television shows in the sixties, but I wasnât sure what the difference was. Apparently, videotape was very primitive at that time. Using videotape meant that the show was âcamera-cutâ which means using four cameras on a sound stage. Location shooting was not possible, and editing the tape was almost impossible. These disadvantages, along with the poor visual quality, made it hard to work with, and the technology was abandoned after a brief trial period.
The original theme for season one was composed by Bernard Herrmann. Season two switched to a theme by Marius Constant which is the most-remembered theme song. (The Grateful Dead performed the theme in 1985 for the reboot, Johnathan Davis of Korn composed the 2002 version, and Marco Beltrami was on board for the 2019 revival. The 1983 movie used composer Jerry Goldsmith.)
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Several actors were in more than one episode and are noted for their appearances in the show: Jack Klugman, Burgess Meredith, Warren Oates, William Shatner, Jack Warden, Fritz Weaver, and William Windom.
Everyone has their favorite scary episode. âThe Dummyâ from 1962 is about ventriloquist Jerry Etherson who thinks his dummy Willie is alive and evil. He locks Willie in a trunk, deciding to write a new act with another dummy, but Willie doesnât like the plan.
In âThe After Hours,â a woman is locked in a department store after hours and it seems as though the mannequins have come to life. Even though no one is left in the store, she is treated badly by several âsalespeople.â
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My most-remembered episode was âEye of the Beholder.â Donna Douglas stars in this one about a young woman lying in a hospital bed with her head wrapped in bandages. She is waiting to see the outcome of a surgical procedure that was supposed to make her look ânormal.â We see the bandages come off, we see the beautiful face of Donna Douglas, we see her look into a mirror, and then we hear her scream. When the scene pans out, everyone else has the face of a distorted pig and Douglas is devastated by her âugliness.â
Also, like The Brady Bunch, the show has never been off the air since it debuted thanks to syndication. The episodes, despite being in black and white, have stood up to the test of time very well. Many things have changed in society since 1959, but people really have not changed much, and the stories are still applicable today. Newton Minnow who headed the FCC in 1961 is the person who called television a âvast wasteland.â The only series he praised was The Twilight Zone. (The US Minnow on Gilliganâs Island was named for Newton.)
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There are some shows that are classics for their writing, some are classics for the quality of actors on the show, some are classics for their ability to transcend time and stay relevant for decades, and some are classics for the novelty they bring to the television schedule. The Twilight Zone is a classic because it does all these things and is as enjoyable to watch today as it was more than 60 years ago.
Itâs Eerie Shows month. Last week we learned about Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a thriller anthology show. Today we have another anthology series of science fiction themes â The Outer Limits. The show examined the nature of man every week and included many classic science fiction themes such as life in outer space, time travel, and human evolution.
The original title of the show was Please Stand By. It was on ABC from 1963-65. Joseph Stefano was the producer for season one and the creative guiding force, writing more episodes than anyone else. He was the writer of Hitchcockâs film, Psycho. Harlan Ellison, a prolific writer, wrote two episodes for season two. Robert Towne wrote a script for the show and later received an Oscar for his writing for Chinatown.
The show also employed a well-known cinematographer in Conrad Hall. He worked on a variety of television shows and in film, winning Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to Perdition; he was nominated for another seven movies.
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The shows began with a Control Voice saying:
âThere is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits.â
Seasons one and two were a bit different with season two focusing more on hard science. Sometimes we forget that special effects were not something these crew members had much experience with on television. Often, the cast was experimenting, just trying to find solutions to creating these new effects. Robert Justman, who was one of the assistant directors on the show, talked about how they created monsters on the show in his Television Academy interview. He said for one of the first monsters, they had planned to use a negative image instead of a positive one, but that was not enough. He got the idea to rub the image with Vaseline and it created these iridescent spots on it which gave them their monster.
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The music for season one was by Dominic Frontiere and season two was supplied by Harry Lubin. Frontiere was credited with 59 shows and films, including Matt Houston and Vega$. Lubin was best known for his music on The Loretta Young Show and One Step Beyond.
Season one garnered good ratings and their fans were very loyal. However, the ratings dipped in season two after changing focus and moving from Monday to Saturday night. Stefano knew that competing with The Jackie GleasonShow on Saturday night meant the show was over, and he left before season two started.
The episodes of The Outer Limits were often confused with The Twilight Zone, not only by viewers but by actors appearing in them. Weâll learn more about The Twilight Zone next week.
Another fan of the show was Gene Roddenberry. He was often on set, and the show would become a big influence on Star Trek later in the decade. A lot of the crew, cast, costumes, and props on The Outer Limits made their way into StarTrek episodes.
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Like so many shows, this one was revived in 1995, and it ran for seven seasons.
Iâm not sure why but I donât remember watching this show in reruns the way I did The Twilight Zone. Maybe it was not shown as often or maybe it was on when our family was watching other shows, but it was interesting to learn what made it different from The Twilight Zone. Iâm not sure how many of the âmonsterâ episodes would compete with the special effects of today, but itâs worth taking a look at a few of them and the science they not only developed but the technology that was invented.
In October, we are tackling a blog series on Eerie Shows. It would be almost impossible to not include Alfred Hitchcock Presents which was on television for a decade.
The show premiered in 1955. Hitchcock had been directing films for more than three decades at that time. The series experienced several changes. It began as Alfred Hitchcock Presents on CBS but would switch both nights and networks during its run. In 1962 it became an hour-long show and was called The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Many fans recall the opening. There is a line-drawing of Hitchcockâs profile with the âFuneral March of a Marionetteâ playing in the background. Hitchcock appears at the edge of the screen and walks to the center where he fades into the caricature line drawing. Then he said, âGood evening.â The silhouette was one that Alfred drew. He began his entertainment career illustrating title cards for silent movies.
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Hitchcock himself directed 17 of the episodes of the series. Two of those were nominated for Emmy awards: âThe Case of Mr. Pelhamâ in 1955 with Tom Ewell and âLamb to the Slaughterâ in 1958 with Barbara Bel Geddes.
Hitchcockâs job during this series was to introduce the story and then to wrap it up at the end. Both the openings and closings were written by James B. Allardice. Allardice wrote for 38 different shows, many of them very popular series in the fifties and sixties. Norman Lloyd, who produced the show and appeared in five episodes, said Hitchcock respected Allardice so much that he never even changed a comma that he wrote.
The network demanded that if a character got away with murder during the show, then Hitchcock would let them know during the closing that he was eventually brought to justice; in the TV Guide, Hitch described this as âa necessary gesture to morality.â Lloyd gave an example of this in a Television Academy interview. In one episode, a woman kills her husband with a frozen lambâs leg and gets away with it. At the end of the show, Alfred explains that she later remarried and tried the same trick again but when she took out the leg and hit her husband with it, it was not frozen enough, so he caught her in the act and turned her in.
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The episodes were not your average thriller shows. They included drama, suspense, and humor. Audiences never knew just âwho done itâ till the end.
The show debuted on CBS on Sunday nights for five years, up against drama anthologies for two years and then competing with The Dinah Shore Show for three years. For the next two seasons it moved to NBC on Tuesday nights. It aired against The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on CBS those years and against Wyatt Earp on ABC. For three months it went back to CBS on Thursdays before moving to Fridays on CBS the next season with The Price is Right and 77 Sunset Strip. The ninth year found it on CBS on Fridays with little competition and the final year it showed up on NBCâs schedule on Mondays against Ben Casey. I could never find the reason for cancelling the show. Iâm assuming ratings began to decline but if anyone knows, Iâd love to hear it.
NBC chose not to air a 1962 episode called âThe Sorcererâs Apprenticeâ because the sponsor felt the ending was too gruesome. In the episode, a magicianâs helper is supposed to help in a trick where he âsawedâ a woman in half, but he doesnât realize he truly saws her in half.
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As you might guess, with a new story every week, many celebrities appeared on the show including Charles Bronson, Bette Davis, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Peter Falk, Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre, Walter Matthau, Steve McQueen, Vera Miles, Claude Rains, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, George Segal, and Jessica Tandy.
In addition to the Hitchcock-directed episodes, the show received Emmy nominations for Best Series four times. In 1956 it was up for Best Action or Adventure Series, but it lost to Disneyland. The following year found the show in the Best Series â Half Hour or Less category, but it lost to The Phil Silvers Show. 1958 found it in the category of Best Dramatic Anthology Series. You would think that would be a no-brainer win for this show, but it lost to Playhouse 90. It had its fourth category nomination in 1959 as Best Dramatic Series â Less Than One Hour and lost to Alcoa Theatre. I guess the Emmy committee had a hard time determining categories for a few years.
In a different twist, NBC tried to air the show again in 1985. Hitchcock had passed away five years earlier from renal failure. A made-for-TV-movie combined new stories with colorized segments from the original show. It lasted a year before NBC canceled it. USA picked it up for three more seasons.
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The original show can still be seen on a few different networks including MeTV.
With Hitchcockâs popularity in 1955, itâs no wonder that this show was a successful series for a decade. The episodes were well written, and they had a wonderful cast of actors. Many people probably tuned in just to see Hitchcock, and his personality was larger than life, even if his behavior was a bit despicable at times. One of Alfredâs quotes about the show was that âtelevision has brought murder back into the home â where it belongs.â
It just doesnât seem right to do a blog series on Eerie Shows and not include Eerie, Indiana. This series ran on NBC for two seasons but only produced 19 episodes. It was later shown on both The Disney Channel and Fox Kids Network. A version of the show, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, lasted one season on Fox Kids in 1998.
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The show was created by Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer. Joe Dante, who directed Gremlins and Gremlins 2, served as creative consultant.
Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) is a teen who moves to the small town of Eerie, Indiana with this family. There are not a lot of normal people in Eerie, but Simon Holmes (Justin Shenkarow) is one of them. Marshall and Simon become friends, and they are faced with a variety of bizarre situations that they investigate, including intelligent dogs taking over the world; a tornado hunter; Bigfoot; and of course, Elvis Presley, whom we all knew was alive somewhere in the world–we just didnât know he was in Eerie, Indiana. Marshall and Simon learn something about themselves, or their town, every time they solve a mystery. Every piece of evidence accumulated was stored in a locker and noted in a diary.
Marshallâs parents are Edgar (Francis Guinan) and Marilyn (Mary-Margaret Humes) and his sister is Syndi Marie Priscilla (Julie Condra). There were also a variety of recurring community characters.
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Pop culture references are a big part of the writing, especially horror films. The first episode was titled âForeverware.â Betty Wilson and her twin sons come to welcome the family to the neighborhood. Betty and the boys look like they came from a 1960s sitcom. And thereâs a reason for that. Betty sells a Tupperware type of product that her husband invented before he passed away. It supposedly preserves food for a decade. However, one of the twins passes a note to Marshall that Betty uses the containers to keep herself and her children preserved from what they looked like in 1964. The boys are tired of middle school and want to move forward in their lives.
The critics liked the show. Entertainment Weeklyâs Ken Tucker noted that âyou watch Eerie for the small-screen spectacle of it allâto see the way . . . feature-film directors . . . oversaw episodes that summoned up an atmosphere of absurdist suburban dread.â Ray Richmond of the Orange County Register said, âitâs the kind of knowingly hip series with equally strong appeal for both kids and adults, the kind that preteens will watch and discuss.â USA Today described it as âStephen King by way of The Simpsons.â
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So, with all this positive press, why did it only last for 19 episodes? It was at the cusp of time when shows for tweens would become very popular. When the show aired, the 9-12-year-old audience was not catered to. It was also more expensive to produce because the directors wanted it on film rather than video.
The DVD was released in 2004, and it can be streamed on Amazon. In 1997, a series of books came out with seventeen volumes. The series has held up very well and was considered ahead of its time. It paved the way for similar shows that would do much better in the ratings in the mid-nineties. If it had debuted half a decade later, it probably would have been a huge hit. It was such a unique concept for a showâsomething that we need a bit more of in television now thirty years later.
As we wind up our Riding the Range blog series, we end with another show set in the 1880s: The Rifleman.
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The series was set in the New Mexico Territory and starred Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark. The show was on ABC from 1958 through April 1963. Lucas McCain was one of the first single parents on television.
The show was created by Arnold Laven and developed by Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah would go on to direct many famous westerns. The pilot episode was written by Peckinpah and Dennis Hopper starred in it. It was aired on Dick Powellâs Zane Grey Theatre. Some famous people worked behind the scenes. Connors would write several of the episodes and Robert Culp, who would become the co-star of I Spy, wrote a two-part episode. Ida Lupino directed âThe Assaultâ in 1961.
McCain was a Union soldier in the American Civil War. His wife died from smallpox when their son was six, and McCain and Mark move from Oklahoma to New Mexico where Lucas buys a ranch outside North Fork. McCain is not a perfect father; he is often stubborn and opinionated. Sometimes he seems overprotective of his son. He tries to teach Mark life lessons. In one episode, he tells him âA man doesnât run from a fight, Mark, but that doesnât mean you go looking to run to one.â
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Chuck Connors was offered the role of McCain but turned it down because he thought the salary was too low. Several other actors were tested but no one had the same chemistry with the young boy that Connors did, so they made him another offer with a higher salary.
There are some North Fork folk who show up on many of the shows including bartender Marshal Micha Torrance (Paul Fix), Frank (Bill Quinn), hotel owner Lou (Patricia Blair), blacksmith Nels (Joe Higgins), banker John (Harlan Warde), general store owners Milly (Joan Taylor) and Hattie (Hope Summers), and hotel clerk Eddie (John Harmon). Bill Quinn was Bob Newhartâs father-in-law. Patricia Blair left in 1963 to star in Daniel Boone. Hope Summers moved to Mayberry after the show ended and became Aunt Beeâs best friend. Joan Taylor only did a few shows after The Rifleman, but she came into the show with quite a few television appearances. Higgins, Warde, and Harmon were prolific actors who had very successful careers.
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Quite a few well-known stars make their appearance during the run of the show. Some of them include Harry Carey Jr., John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Ellen Corby, Robert Culp, Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Elam, Dabbs Greer, Buddy Hackett, Michael Landon, Agnes Moorehead, Denver Pyle, Pernell Roberts, Robert Vaughn, and Adam West.
There were so many westerns on the air during the fifties and sixties that most of them needed a hook to set them apart. McCain was called The Rifleman because he used a modified Winchester Model 1892 rifle with a large ring lever. The lever design allowed him to cock the rifle by spinning it in his hand and it was rigged to rapid fire which we saw demonstrated in the opening of every show. I guess no one was bothered by the fact that McCain used a rifle that would not be invented until ten years later than the time the show was set in.
The show was on Tuesday nights for the first three seasons. For season four, it moved to Mondays. After the fifth season, the show was canceled due to low ratings. However, Connors and Crawford remained life-long friends. Connors admired Crawfordâs work on the set and said he always respected the cast and crew.
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Crawford began his career as a Mouseketeer, one of the original 24. After the show ended, he became a pop singer with five hits. âCindyâs Birthdayâ was his most famous and it was No. 8 on the Billboard 100 in 1962. Crawford came into the show with thirty acting credits, and he would go on to have thirty more after the show ended, but he never starred in another series.
Fun fact, The Rifleman was one of the few American shows that was allowed to be shown on Russian television. Apparently Breshnev loved the show. Later he met Chuck Connors when he came to the US. The actor made several trips to Russia.
I have seen this show on MeTV, and it is okay. Iâm guessing that the reason it was on five seasons, and the reason it was canceled after five seasons, is because it was another western. Almost every western seemed to be successful in the fifties and sixties, but five years seems to be about the length of most of them with the exception of Gunsmoke, Bonanza and a handful of others. I have to admit that I am not drawn to McCain as a character, although I didnât dislike him either. If you like westerns and have not seen it, it might be worth checking out.
This month we are Riding the Range, exploring some of the westerns from the fifties and sixties. One of those shows that was on the air from 1957-1962 was Tales of Wells Fargo.
The show was produced by Revue Productions and set in the 1870s and 1880s. Gene Reynolds was one of the creators of the show, along with Frank Gruber and James Brooks. Reynolds would go on to great success as a director, producer and writer, and my favorite of his was M*A*S*H. Although this show was set in the same time as Daniel Boone, it was better at getting history correct. The show featured special agent Jim Hardie (Dale Robertson) with his horse Jubilee. It was loosely based on the life of real detective Fred J. Dodge. Sometimes Hardie ran into characters from history including Jesse James and Belle Starr.
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Fred Dodge was born in California in 1854. He went to work as an undercover agent for Wells Fargo, working in California, Nevada, and Arizona. In 1979 he was in Tombstone and recommended hiring Wyatt Earp as guard for the stage line. He became great friends with Earp. Later Dodge became constable of Tombstone while working undercover. In 1890 he left his undercover work and became a known employee of Wells Fargo in Texas. He purchased a 2,000-acre ranch near Boerne, Texas and when he retired in 1917, he lived there with his family. Dodge was described as an intelligent and successful investigator. He wrote 27 journals during his career, noting his activities and travels in them. Some of these were used for Tales of West Fargo.
I had always assumed this show was about stagecoach travel, but it was not, although stage coaches played a part. In the mid-1800s, the Wells Fargo stage line was the primary connection between the East and West coasts. Wells Fargo did not operate a stage coach line, but they did use that form of transportation for money, gold and other valuables to be delivered. Trains are involved in many of the plots. One of the trains used in the show would eventually travel to Hooterville and be renamed the Cannonball.
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The first five seasons were black and white half-hour shows, while the final season switched to a color, hour-long show. During the last season, Hardie settles on a ranch near San Francisco and several recurring characters (Jack Ging, William Demarest, Virginia Christine, Lory Patrick, and Mary Jayne Saunders) were added to the series. Earle Lyon replaced Nat Holt as producer in 1960.
The theme song was written by Stanley Wilson and Mort Greene. Wilson was a prolific composer, amassing 147 credits for composing and 278 for music department credit on television and in movies. Mort Greene was best known as a writer for The Red Skelton Show and for his musical role for Leave it to Beaver.
The number of well-known actors who appeared on the show was surprising. Here are just a few of the huge number: Claude Akins, Eddie Albert, Hugh Beaumont, Dan Blocker, Charles Bronson, Edgar Buchanan, Harry Carey Jr., Chuck Connors, Buddy Ebsen, Beverly Garland, George Kennedy, Tina Louise, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Leonard Nimoy, Denver Pyle, Jason Robards, Vito Scotti, Dawn Wells, and Adam West.
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It was an NBC show. The pilot premiered on Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. Its biggest competition was Father Knows Best in seasons two and three. It was very popular with the viewers. The show was in the top ten during seasons one through four. For the sixth season, with an entire new cast, new theme song, and color, it was almost like a new show. NBC moved it to Saturday nights against Perry Mason and ratings declined drastically, costs went up significantly, and it was canceled.
Robertson thought the key to the popularity of the show was because it was not geared specifically to adults or kids. It was a family show. When Robertson first read the script, it was terrible, but he owed Nat Holt a favor, so he accepted the role, assuming that it would never make it. Robertson received a 50% ownership in the show, so he said of course it made him want the show to be better and he convinced them to replace most of the original script. He said that he enjoyed his time on the show a lot and that the crew was close and professional. They never went over schedule or over budget during the entire run.
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The first two seasons were released on DVD in 2011 if you want to check them out. It sounds like this was a solid show. The network supported them, the cast was close, the production team was on top of things, and they all enjoyed their time with the show. That is a rare thing to hear in the television business. They took a gamble in the last season, and it didnât work out, but perhaps it was for the best. It sounds like the actual show ended the season before because the last season things changed so much it was a completely new production. I would like to read more about Fred Dodge. His life sounds fascinating.
We are Riding the Range today with Roy Rogers and Trigger. This western moved from radio (1944-1955) to television for six years from 1951 through 1957. While I have heard a lot about The Roy Rogers Show, I was surprised to learn that this show had a contemporary setting. Rather than being set in the Old West, it was set in the fifties with automobiles, modern appliances, and telephones.
Sheriff Tom was played by Harry Harvey Sr. and Reed Howes, depending on the episode.
In many of the episodes, Rogers and Evans took in abandoned children and became surrogate parents to them. This mirrored real life. The couple adopted five children from a variety of ethnicities and received many awards for their humanitarian work with children.
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Despite the 1950s setting, cowboys and cowgirls were hanging about the town. Just like the westerns set in the 1800s, the town folk were busy with bank robberies, cattle rustling, con artists trying to steal land, and an assortment of other bad guys.
In an article on reddit.com (https://www.reddit.com/r/Westerns/comments/vw8i9ca_tv_western_each_year_1951_the_roy_rogers_show/), the show was described as surreal with everyone looking like they stepped out of the 1800s but using electric lights and modern technology. Some of the plots were described: corrupt ranchers stealing each otherâs land aplenty, crooked lawmen, a mayor trying to steal money from an Indian burial ground, weak-willed sheriffs, thieving professors, con men, and more.
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Even if you donât know a lot about Roy Rogers, you probably know the theme song from this series, âHappy Trails.â It was written by Dale Evans, and she and Roy sang the song. Another thing you probably know from this show is the expression, âWhoa Nelly.â Pat Brady had a jeep, a 1946 Willys CJ-2A, that often didnât behave very well. Sometimes the jeep began moving without a driver. Even with a driver, it might get a bit out of control. When it did, Brady would yell âWhoa Nellyâ because the jeepâs name was Nellybelle.
The show was in the top thirty for most of its existence. Iâm not sure what the competition was because it was on from 6-7 pm, so it doesnât show up on most television schedules. One hundred episodes were made, ensuring that it would be around for syndication.
Critics also liked the show, and it was nominated for an Emmy for Best Western or Adventure Series in 1955. Other nominees included Annie Oakley, Death Valley Days, and the Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok. It lost to a show most of us probably arenât familiar with at all, Stories of the Century. It looks like it might have been an interesting show. According to imdb.com, it was about a railroad detective, Matt Clark, who roamed the west, tracking down outlaws and bandits who are preying on the railroad. It was only on the air for one season.
Merchandising was a big industry during this decade. The show spun out comic books, playsets, costumes, pistols, lunch boxes, and board games, just to name a few.
In 1961, the show was rerun on Saturday mornings. The show can still be found on several networks in 2024.
I remember my mom had fond memories of Roy Rogers growing up. She would have been ten when this show first aired. Generations of kids have tuned in, taking the opportunity to visit the Old West, well sort ofâmore like the Old West with benefits, like phones and cars.
Welcome to the Riding the Range blog series. We are looking at some of the best-loved westerns from the fifties and sixties. Today Maverick is up.
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James Garner plays poker-playing Bret Maverick on this show that featured a bit more humor than some westerns. Set on riverboats and in old west saloons, the show ran from fall of 1957 through July of 1962.
The show, created by James Huggins, debuted on NBC on Sunday nights. It was up against some tough competition with Jack Benny which alternated weeks with BachelorFather. The show remained on Sunday nights for its entire run.
While Garner was the star, during the first season, Bretâs brother Bart (Jack Kelly) shows up. The brothers appear in alternate episodes, sometimes teaming up for a game or two. The brothers were drawn to adventure and to dangerous situations. They often found trouble in finances or love. However, they were true gentlemen and always did the right thing. Unfortunately, they were both slow with the gun, but fast with the fist. In one episode, Bart mentioned that âmy brother Bret can outdraw me any day of the week, and heâs known as the Second-Slowest Gun in the West.â
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After season three, Garner left due to contract disputes. Garner sued Warner Brothers for breach of contract. They had suspended him without pay during a writersâ strike. The studio claimed they had no scripts with the writers on strike, but court testimony revealed that they had about 100 scripts on hand and could have been filming, so Garner was released from his contract.
After Garnerâs departure, Roger Moore made his appearance as Beau Maverick, cousin. The first choice to fill the role was given to Sean Connery who turned it down. Later Connery would play James Bond and his replacement when he left was Roger Moore. Â However, it wasnât long before Moore chose to leave and was replaced by Robert Colbert as brother Brent.
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During the last season, Colbert was just not called back or notified that he was no longer part of the show. However, they had a season to fill so Garner reruns were alternated with Kelly original episodes for the fifth season. I guess all the other Maverick brothers and cousins had moved out west. Are you confused yet because I am.
The announcer for the show was Ed Reimers. Reimers was the âVoice of Allstateâ from 1957-1979, reminding people that they were âin good hands with Allstate.â
The theme song was written by David Buttolph and Paul Francis Webster.
There were some fun episodes on the show. âShady Deal at Sunny Acresâ featured Garner in a rocking chair, whittling and seeming to âponderâ a way to get $15,000 back which was stolen while brother Bart is running a complicated sting operation to do just that.
âDuel at Sundownâ is fun for the cast. Clint Eastwood shows up as one of the bad guys. Edgar Buchanan and Abby Dalton are also featured in the show.
Despite the short time he was on the show, Garner got a statue in honor of his character. Norman, Oklahoma has a ten-foot-tall statue of Garner as Bret Maverick, which was dedicated in 2006.
Itâs too bad that neither the network nor Warner Brothers could not get its act together with this show. It had a bit of everything: drama, comedy, romance, adventure. However, you are already starting off alternating the brothers, and with the constant replacements, itâs no wonder fans just walked away, and the ratings dropped drastically. Some of the episodes were so unusual and creative for their time that the show could have been a huge hit and a long-running show. Iâm amazed the show managed to stick around for five seasons. Garner, Kelly, Moore, and Colbert all went on to prolific and successful careers in film and television.
This month we are Riding the Range. Up first is Daniel Boone. I remember watching this series with my son when he was in second and third grade and loved everything western. He bought vintage western board games and read western stories. He wore a cowboy hat around the house with a pair of boots. Email was somewhat new then, but he was able to contact Fess Parker and Clayton Moore. They both sent him back nice emails, and Clayton Moore sent him an autographed biography.
When I decided to do a series about westerns and include Daniel Boone, I was surprised to learn that it was on the air from 1964-1970. That means it went off the air when I was in fourth gradeâI always assumed it was produced in the fifties.
The series was on NBC during those years. It starred Fess Parker as Daniel Boone and Ed Ames as Mingo, his Cherokee friend. Booneâs wife Rebecca was portrayed by Patricia Blair and his son Israel was played by Darby Hinton. Dallas McKennon played store owner Cincinnatus. For the first two seasons before just vanishing, his daughter Jemima (Veronica Cartwright) was on and for the final two seasons, Rosy Grier, former NFL player, was Gabe Cooper.
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From Cartwrightâs complaints, it seems that Blair complained about having an older daughter and felt it made her seem older than she wanted to appear, so the show just got rid of a kid. If you have read my former blogs about disappearing characters, you realize that this is just one of many shows that insult viewersâ intelligence enough to just remove a character without an explanation, assuming everyone will just accept it.
Unfortunately for kids who tuned in to learn about their hero, the show did not contain a lot of historical accuracy. The show is set in the 1770s and 1780s in the town of Boonesborough, Kentucky. Daniel Boone had ten children, but only two in this show. In real life, Boone was an explorer, but on the series, he was much more of a family man. One episode was centered around Aaron Burr, but it was about an event that happened in 1806?!?!
The inconsistencies were so bad that at one point, the Kentucky legislature condemned the show. A coalition of activists asked the local television station to not air 37 different episodes in reruns because they were offensive to the local Native Americans.
Oddly, one area they did try to stay true to was the construction of the fort. They used authentic wooden pegs to build it like it would have been at the time, and it collapsed, having to be replaced by modern construction. Why the fort was the only authentic fact they worried about is beyond me.
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Ed Ames did not love playing Mingo on the show. He admitted that he signed on for a regular paycheck, assuming the show would not last long. In 1968, he told TV Guide âWork is tight and if you get a decent part on Broadway every three years, youâre lucky. Whereas you can just keep hackinâ âem out week after week on TV. And then, of course, you have to eat.â He ended up getting more fan mail than Parker, and it caused some bad blood between them.
There were three versions of the theme song used during the showâs run. It was written by Vera Matson and Lionel Newman. Fess Parker originally sang the song for the show, but later seasons used a version by the Imperials. The song played up Boone as a larger-than-life hero:
âDaniel Boone was a man. Yes, a big man.
With an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he.
Daniel Boone was a man. Yes, a big man.
He was brave, he was fearless, and as tough as a mighty oak tree.
From the coonskin cap on the top of olâ Dan to the heel of his rawhide shoe,
The rippinâest, roarinâest, fightinâest man the frontier ever knew.â
Parker not only sang for the show, but he directed five of the episodes.
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Although the history was embarrassing on the show, the series is often celebrated for the attitude Daniel Boone displayed that every man was to be treated with respect and as an equal. That is not to say that it was ever politically correct, as we think of that term today, but for the era it debuted, it was a refreshing, perspective. One episode that demonstrates this is season 2, episode 4. Rafer Johnson (an Olympian and civil rights activist) plays a former enslaved person who is stealing trappersâ furs to sell to earn money to return to Africa. Boone tells him he canât condone the stealing and âarrestsâ him for that crime. However, he takes him into his custody to protect him and raises enough money for him to travel to Africa, refusing to return him to the former slave owner.
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Before the show ended, Parker wanted to open a Daniel Boone amusement park in Kentucky. He bought some land near the junction of I-71 and I-75, but before he could build Frontier World, another park opened nearby in Ohio and Booneâs never happened. He did later buy a ranch in California and started the Fess Parker Winery.
I guess Fess Parker enjoyed making people dizzy whether it was riding a roller coaster, drinking wine, or trying to figure out if the television Boone was a good or bad influence on the fans who watched the show.
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