Summing up Bonanza

Was too young when later episodes were new, but it lives on in syndication. A few maintenance guys at work have it on during afternoon break.

1.) Adam always keeps company with extremely fine women.
2.) Hoss will rough somebody up.
3.) Pa always delivers words of wisdom.
4.) Little Joe didn't really come I to his own until "Little House on the Prairie."

 

Don't forget "The Cartwright Curse". As a female cousin of mine summed it up back in the day: "Those Cartwrights sure are hell on women!"

 

Somebody told, hopefully jokingly, that Pa really killed the wives.

 

Hoss was portrayed as an extremely gentle soul.

I'm a huge fan and have all of the DVD sets and the Bear Family CD box set.

I loved the outtake from the first episode (which guest starred Lily Munster -- Yvonne DeCarlo) where they sang the theme song's lyrics a-cappella.... By the way, this clip was available in perfect quality on the recently remastered Season 1 DVD's.

 

There's this 50 year old father with his three 40 year old sons.

 

I believe that Michael Landon was 24 when the show started in 1959. Interestingly, although he played a dolt (Hoss) on the show, Dan Blocker had a Masters degree and was quite decorated during his Korean war army service.

 

A gentle soul, who could deliver a beatdown.

 

I'm sorry.. I didn't notice that this was a "summing up" thread about Bonanza. Here's mine...

"Hoss dies.... Show turns to sh#@$...."

 

In 2014, LA County designed a strip of beach in Malibu as Dan Blocker Beach in honor of the actor who played Hoss. The only reason I know this is because I saw the sign on a road trip up Highway 1, and I'm sharing it here because where else would I share it!

 

My childhood memories of Lorne Greene in Alpo commercials are much more vivid.

 

Perhaps so but the Cartwright family were, in some ways, ahead of their time. For example, in "Shanklin" (episode #409), HOP SING is repeatedly referred to by a Confederate doctor as "yellow", to which a Cartwright states, "He's not a yellow, he's Chinese". Oh well, this was the Sixties. The 1860s.

I liked Hop Sing! One of my favorite scenes was feeding time in the Ponderosa kitchen. I don’t know what kind of delicious grub Hop Song whipped up, but I remember when I was a kid, I’d always get hungry watching the family having their meal at the table.

 

It's got Dan Blocker in a really big hat, what more could you ask for?

 

It's the thread title!

 

Sorry... I am little dense....

 

Umm,now what more can be said about Pa Cartwright and his boys..Micheal Landon was Bonanza in the later years[writing-directing]I grew up watching and loving the series,but I found it strange that when[Guy Williams-Will Cartwright]came to the show to replace[Pernell Roberts]who was supposed to leave,he was given the cold shoulder because Landon didn't want a fourth cast member,but shortly after[David Canary-Candy]was added..Guy Williams made a lot more sense to me.

 

They should have had a shootout with the gang from Room 222, or an obstacle course contest competing against the family from Hazel. That would have been far more realistic than a typical episode.

 

This reminds me of a classic if ambiguous moment from Michael Landon on the Tonight Show in the '80s. Somehow the subject of homosexuality and Bonanza came up, and Landon said, "None of the Cartwrights were gay", then a pregnant pause... "But Thank God Hop Sing was!"

 

and every show is the same show as last week.

 

Didn’t someone do a bit about how every time Hop Sing appeared on screen they would play ‘Chinese’ Music?

 

Not unless it was comedic.

 

I didn't like it as a kid--thought it was an incredibly boring show. My view of it hasn't changed in the passing 50 years.

 

He was, but Lorne Greene was only 13 years older than Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker. Of course, that doesn't beat John Amos, who was only 8 years older than Jimmy Walker.

 

No, no gay subtext there at all.

 

I think that I saw one of the best episodes today, Dead And Gone, that featured Hoyt Axton as a singeing robber and murderer. I don't watch Bonanza much. I nearly overdosed on it as a kid when the only TV station we picked up well enough to watch was NBC. Even back then, we were making jokes about the Cartwright family along the lines of the above post.

 

Bonanza is the ideal example of a terrible show which flourished because of its time slot and how people just got used to watching something every year at the same time. Once it was moved to Tuesday nights, it was done in a half season. A few years ago I was on a Jet Blue flight and TV Land had Bonanza back to back with Gunsmoke. I couldn't get through ten minutes of Bonanza, it was so bad but Gunsmoke, even though it was a 19th season episode, was great. One other notable thing about Bonanza, it was the show that caused the networks to have to divest of their syndication divisions because NBC was blackmailing stations into having to buy an even worse show, High Chaparral, in order to get Bonanza.