Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Hayday of the Old TV Westerns.

For another baseball player in westerns, look up Kurt Russell’s father Bing Russell. He was in a buttload of TV westerns and movies. Saw him in Cheyenne Autumn last night.

I knew his dad was a ball player before he went into acting - used to see him in a lot of shows way back when.
Kurt was a very good ballplayer himself - played Triple A ball for a long time, but never quite made the cut for the big leagues.

Yancy Derringer, Broken Arrow, Wyatt Earp, Bronco Lane, Fury, Circus Boy, Bat Masterson, Jim Bowie, Wild Bill Hickok, Sgt Preston of the Yukon, Tales of Wells Fargo, Roy Rodgers.

Never have been a fan of Western's.

Thank you kindly for the input, Manlicker.

Rifleman was a given, but really enjoyed Have Gun Will Travel (Richard Boone as Paladin) and Bat Masterson (Gene Barry). Both had cool revolvers and holsters. When I was a kid the parents got me a set of Mattel Fanner 50 cap guns. The match duel holster set now sells for around $600. Those were the days and I am truly blessed to have been born in the 50s.

I read that the Rifleman was set in the 1880's. However, the rifle was a Winchester 1892 which wasn't invented yet. It also was a 44-40 cal using smokeless powder which also hadn't been invented yet. Supposedly the rifle had been altered to fire every time he jacked the lever. However, before every fight he'd cock it and it wouldn't fire. Now Hollywood wouldn't have made mistakes like that, would they?

Back in the 50's, my family all watched the westerns night after night. A favorite was Cheyenne. My mother always got a kick out of Walker because in every show he managed to take his shirt off to show off his muscles. I stood near him one time when he was in Nampa, ID performing at a rodeo. He wasn't a midget.

He was staying at the Townhouse Motel on Harry Hines Blvd. in Dallas when he suffered a fatal heart attack, about 1961, I think.

It's only recently that Hollywood even attempted to get any accuracy in westerns. One of the worst offenders was John Wayne's The Comancheros, which featured SAA's that began production in 1873 and Winchester 92's that came out in 1892 in a setting ostensibly in the 1830's or 1840's.

I remember as a kid seeing him at the Snake River Stampede in Nampa.

Gunsmoke, Tales of Wells Fargo, Rawhide.....I like em all. Lawman has the worst actors but I'll set through an episode of it before I'll watch one of today's homo shows....

I'm a fan of Laramie and Maverick

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There were so many good ones I can't even begin to remember them. My grandfather lived with us, and he always had to watch Gunsmoke, so I probably saw it more than anything else.

Others I really liked were..................Cheyenne, Paladin, The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, Maverick, Zorro, Rawhide, Death Valley Days, and Roy Rogers. Sgt. Preston Of The Yukon and Shy King were a couple of other shows that might not qualify as a real western, but I liked them too. I have watched a lot of Bonanza shows over the years, mostly the reruns. It was okay sometimes, but had some really silly and stupid episodes.

We've recently been watching reruns of the Virginian on Dish. It is amazing all the stars that appeared on that series. Of course it had quite a long run. Only a few of them are still alive. Pretty much all the old western series were good. Although they weren't that concerned with period correct language and firearms they all had a good message. I'm not a big fan of all the gore that is common in current movie productions.

Why is it that those high on the cast live long enough to deliver last words while those lower on the list die instantly? Alan Rickman was always good with last words. His dying expressions said a lot more than his lips

Yeah, I'm somewhat of a stickler for details, and I always hated to see a Western that was supposed to take place in 1868, and everybody was armed with Colt Peacemaker's and Winchester 92's. I suppose the audience they were aimed at was more interested in other things.

But, the good guys always won, and crime didn't pay, so the message was a good one.

Lots of the old ones can be streamed through various services, and pretty cheaply too. Not all of them "travel" well though, as our dramatic standards have changed.

Yancey Derringer was a favorite, and right in the middle of my revisit on Prime, I read that he was a serial molester of his stepdaughter, Sally Fields, until her mother finally divorced the creepy bastard.

One thing I like about the old shows is picking out actors that were just starting out or on their way down after careers in films or radio. A good many like John Dehner and William Conrad did pretty well and even became stars on the new medium.

Love the old Westerns! wish they would come out with some, but they be all jacked up, with the Crap they push down our throats now days!