Summing up Bonanza

I was off of work the other day and surfing around the TV channels .
METV had Bonanza and the Rifleman on back to back.
I hadn't seen either show since I was a kid. I was amazed how cheesy the ..( I guess you'd call it ) staging was .

Both shows had scenes supposedly outside their respective houses . The painted backdrops were so incredibly bad that they looked like something used in a high school stage play.

Add the complete lack of any wind and
obvious studio lighting as opposed to actual sunlight (no clouds passing ,etc.) and phony trees, it just became more interesting to me than the stories themselves .

Now , I know this kind of thing wasn't specific to westerns only .
I watch the Andy Griffith show and when they open the court house door it's obviously a painted street scene .

I guess I can forgive that in comedies but in supposed dramas it takes me right out of the stories and it becomes a hoot looking at the low rent sets.

I assume the audiences were more forgiving in the 60's than they would be now.

 

My dad served with him. He said when Dan Blocker talked everyone listened. He always had a crowd of folks around him to listen to him talk and tell stories. Well loved by those he served with.

 

I don't share your opinions. While Bonanza wasn't a great show, it was family entertainment for a Sunday night back in the 1960's. And High Chaparral was, in my opinion, a much better show than Bonanza. Grittier, more realistic. Heck, the guys got dirty and some got killed. I always laughed at how on Bonanza their clothes were always spotless and dust free when they came in from a long day's ride. On Chaparral, their hats all had sweat stains on them.

I do agree that Gunsmoke was a better show than either of the above two shows.

 

Lorne Green recorded a version with different lyrics on his 1964 album (!) that had his hit Ringo on it. As I recall, Bonanza was the b-side to the single.

 

The influence of Leone/the spaghetti westerns

I've recently been rewatching the half-hour Gunsmokes. One of the very best TV westerns..

 

Well, back then, almost all of us were watching on 19 inch or smaller black and white sets. Really couldn't tell the difference. No freeze frame back then. Plus, we were not far removed from all of the live shows, which were all study bound on cheesy sets. As an adult though, decades later, I find myself enjoying the shows shot on location so much more than the cheap looking studio shows. I loved Man From UNCLE as a kid and was luke warm on I Spy. Looking at them decades later, MFU looks so chintzy with its MGM backlot shooting while I Spy was filmed all over the world and looks great. Likewise, compare Streets of San Francisco to Ironside. Both take place in San Francisco but while SOSF has gorgeous location scenery, Ironside is your typical cheapo Universal series.

 

That's a good point about the smaller TV screens.

 

Gunsmoke is the best western series ever[Wagon Train is right behind them]I love Bonanza and The High Chaparral,but for realism[Gunsmoke]is the one.

 

I was born in 88 so I didnt witness Bonanza when it was on live

My dad use to constantly talk about how Sunday Night him, his parents and his sisters would watch Bonanza every Sunday night. He always got a kick out of it when Bonzanza would be on TvLand or whatever other channels. It genuinely put a smile on his face.

I actually enjoy the show, well certain episodes

. When Little Joe finds out he has a half brother, Adam being held hostage by the crazy miner, The Rescue, one where The Cartwrights are sentenced to hang but little Joe escapes (Season 1 or 2), Bitter Water, and there's a lot more I cant think of


My favorite episode after Adam left

 

I love the Joe putting Hoss in a pancake eating contest (secret ingredient is Vinegar! yes i have tried it!)

 

The Leperchaun one (Hoss and Little Joe doing "whoooohoooo im over hereeeeeee" is amazing) 22:30

 

This is the one that left the biggest impression on me when I was a kid.

 

sorry i meant 24:00

 

They regularly re-run it over here, but it's getting near the end, because the classic theme tune is gone, and when the actors name appears, the image turns blue. This must've been almost the last season by the looks of it?

 

Not to mention, the occasional static and/or issues with the horizontal hold/vertical hold, and you'd be hard pressed to be worried about painted sets.

 

As a couple others on here have mentioned, "Gunsmoke" is a better series, but I like "Bonanza" quite a bit too... I like Westerns (TV or film) in general anyway...

 

Sunday nights always got the school homework done early (never did it on Friday night or Saturday) so I could watch Walt Disney, Ed Sullivan and Bonanza.
I think that show was why we got a color tv.

 

My old man detested Lorne Greene for some reason. Could never figure it out. Did he come out against the war in Vietnam?

 

Slightly NSFW clip from the movie Tin Men about Bonanza.



Chad

 

Was your dad of Canadian descent? As a war correspondent, he was known as "The Voice Of Doom" to Canadian radio listeners.. He always delivered the bad news in the early days of WWII...

 

nope. Interesting stuff tho

 

Bonanza was also heavily subsidized early on by RCA Victor, as it was shot in color. Helped to sell color TV before the show caught on in the ratings sweeps. RCA Sustained Bonanza, when it was about to be axed, because of those facts. Westerns were big, and a "Killer App" to help sell RCA Big Color Television. So, RCA stepped in and saved Bonanza, until it became highly rated.

 

When I was younger my dad would watch Bonanza reruns, and my grandma would watch Little house on the Prairie reuns

Took me awhile to realize Michael Landon played both Little Joe and Charles Ingalls lol