Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire who remembers these old actors

I remember them all. Got to shake hands with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Have a bad memory of Hopalong Cassidy. He was at the Houston Rodeo sometime in the early 50s. He came out in the spotlight in the arena and got off his horse. He was supposed to give his little speach and then get back on and ride off.

Well Sir, he durn near fell out of the saddle and the speach he gave was gibberish and he was so flannel mouth from deamon rum you could not understand him. He was also too drunk to get back up in the saddle and fell on his azz trying. In the spotlight in the middle of the arena.

All we kids though he was just sick or something.

BCR

Right on both counts. This kid knows his Sky King!!!

I don't remember the actors name now but he was a pilot and did most of the flying and in fact I think he owned the plane.

OH WOW, I'm feeling young, thanks folks.

Heck I still remember the Flash Gordon serials at the movies!

I am from a different era. My childhood saw the dissassembling of the western starting with the Clint Eastwood, "Man with No Name" series and pretty much having The Wild Bunch drive the last nail in the coffin.

My boy watches Roy Rogers on DVD every day. He asked me today if Roy Rogers was really dead, like his sister told him...

I believe Sky King flew a UC-78. (IIRC)

Because, as a kid, I sent them a letter asking what kind of plane he flew and the next year in the credits it said that he flew a UC-78. (IIRC)

They must have gotten a lot of letters about it.

Wikipedia says it was a T-50, same as a UC-78 , but the program said UC-78. Later he flew a Cessna 310.

Of late I been watching "Have Gun, Will Travel" on the internet. CBS has them all on line. The internet has some uses after all. Hollywood killed the Western, for some reason Heroic Myth when out of style. Along with just plain Right and Wrong. Its hard to think that John Wayne will be gone thirty years in a few months. Where did the time go?

My memories of the oaters began with Saturday morning TV. I can still vividly recall the sounds of hoofs pounding and guns barking.

Many of the boys (no girls allowed) in the neighborhood gathered at our house to watch, as Mom often had a batch of cookies in the oven. I, and the rest of the "buckaroos" gathered around the old Admiral black and white, thought that Gene Autry was a bit of a panzy....no real cowboy would be signing songs to a girl. Roy made more sense, as he sang to his horse sometimes, a thing more in line with what a "real" cowboy would do.

How about "Range Rider" on Saturday? Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones.

The hippies of the '60s killed the western. They didn't want to hear about values like courage and loyalty while they were setting at home smoking dope and getting laid as their classmates were being killed and coming home with no legs from Vietnam.

Here is a bit of trivia. Which on of the actors was the youngest DI in Marine Corps History (he was 17 at the time)? Scroll down on the link to see it.

Answer

Yep.
Watched all of them as a LITTLE kid and up through high school.

Awesome link. I remember all those folks also, so I guess that puts me in with the rest of the ancient ones on here.

Many thanks for posting this link. With all the political yapping going on these days it's great to see something like this occasionally to remember the good days while growing up and politics were the furthest thing from our minds.

Ethan:

It was the pre-hippy generation that did it. Clint Eastwood, for one, was 38 in 1968, the Summer of Love. Most definitely, not a hippy.

Many of the Hollywood directors and writers active during the 60s were young adults during the 50s and late 40s. Many were older than that.

- Tom

We were out on OP-8A on Fort Bragg, out in the field to throw away some ammo for end of the year, when a roach coach came up and stopped. Naturally, after a week of C rations, we RAN to the roach coach, and the driver told us John Wayne had died.
That sure made the "fine dining" taste pretty sour after that.

That's a pretty wild statement. Western survived into the sixties Westerns.

Tastes change. Suppose we can blame the hippies for the demise of the variety show as well?

When I was a "kid" they came to Pittsburgh when I was there visiting my relatives with my parents.
I still remember the show , free too if I remember right. There was a big bonfire and Jock jumped through the flames as his entrance. Dick Jones, well, umm.. ran around the fire, but actually by then it was really quite a fire. I forgave him.

They came to my grade school, too. It was really special for the kids. Very exciting.

I remember most of them. The big thing of it was that they were hero's and got the bad guy which was a very good thing.

Later cowboy movies got too complicated and they included other issues. Those old movies were the great days.