Thread: TV Western Reruns Making A Strong Comeback

You just have to add Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in "Rawhide". : )

Aloha!

So true!

These I remember watching as a child;
Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Big Valley, The Cisco Kid

These I remember (vaguely) from childhood but do I certainly can't recall any episode although I know I sat for a few with my father or grandfather;
Rawhide, Wagon Train, Death Valley Days, High Chaparral, Have Gun Will Travel

These I am enjoying because I do not remember them at all.... OR... I remember them being on TV but have no recollection of ever watching them;
Wanted Dead or Alive, The Rebel, Johnny Ringo, Trackdown

I'm sure I'm missing quite a few.

-Zip

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Yea most of the great ones started on radio and moved to T.V. Really, in the 60s westerns were the most popular shows and they were almost all 30 minute shows. I can recall;Tales of Wells Fargo, Cheyenne, lawman, Texas Rangers, Sugarfoot, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, RawHide, Wagon Train, Branded, Yancy Derringer, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Hawkeye, Rin Tin Tin,.

How many more can you all add.

Death Valley Days....Sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax...Intro by Ronald Reagan?

Law of the Plainsman and Cochise....starring Michael Ansara

Originally Posted by PaulKidd

Law of the Plainsman and Cochise....starring Michael Ansara

I don't recall Plainsman and barely remember Cochise. But I will add that IMO Michael Ansara was one of the luckiest men in Hollywood back then.... married to Barbara Eden.

Just remembered another one: The Virginian.

I guess I watched too much TV back in the day.

Here it is, folks: a website with the definitive listing of all TV Westerns, 1950-1980,
even if they only ran 1 season.

TV Westerns from 1950-1954| FiftiesWeb

"If I drank 10 cups of black cowboy coffee and a half bottle of wiskey, I'd probably start shooting too. "

Now that's funny LOL-Yeah, I think they harken back to a simpler time and a mythologized Old West. I've done quite a bit of reading on that era (starting as a kid with the famous Time-Life series), and the general consensus of historians is that, yes, that kind of shoot-em up frontier mentality existed in some frontier boom towns (Dodge City, Tombstone, and other infamous locales), especially before reliable, uncorruptible law enforcement gradually settled things down, but supposedly it wasn't so ubiquitous that it happened on a daily basis everywhere, or every time the town bad guys confronted the cool, calm gunman in the saloon after multiple shots of whiskey slid down the bar, as seems to happen in every one of these.

Myth or no, I've always found it fascinating, and REALLY got into it bordering on obsession after the family and I visited the Museum of the West in Cody, Wyoming about 10 years ago. I'll never forget having a shot and a beer at the hotel saloon right there in the Irma Hotel he owned just before watching the nightly "shootout" with my wife and boys right beside the bar. Buffalo Bill Cody especially promoted the myth for years with his traveling show, and in the late 19th century was the most famous person on Earth. Queen Victoria was so taken by him that she gave him the cherry-wood bar in the hotel, and his wing of the museum is a shrine to that whole era.

Anyway, all who are interested should check out that incredible museum, and just Cody in general. In fact, I walked into several saloons in Wyoming and Montana that could have doubled as movie sets, with actual cowboys, only with iron horses or pickups instead of 4-legged ones.

Oh, and my wife even loves the old Westerns, even though she hates and in fact is terrified of actual guns. Aaron

A friend turned me on to old Bat Masterson shows a few years ago.
Those are great! Sort of like 'Have Gun, Will Travel', trouble seems to find these guys!

I'm not sure their making a comeback as they have always been there with the western channel and turner classic movies,, I got directv as soon as it was available and I watch the westerns all the time,, some older than dirt and some not that old ,, the Virginian was one of my favorites and also the guns of Will Sonnet, Branded was cool but it didn't last long. so maybe more people are getting the channels now but they have always been there. heck my Saturday ritual is pretty consistent,, the rifleman and a real breakfast, , bacon eggs toast and hashbrowns! and coffee, the men out here know to leave me alone from 6-7 on Saturday morning Tc