I'm watching "Bonanza," and I can't help but wonder if all of the cowboys in the 1860's had hairpieces as good as Adam Cartwright's?

Seriously, though, does anyone have any favorites? Because when I was growing up there were westerns on all the time.

I guess "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza" ran the longest, but my personal favorite was "The Rifleman." Chuck Connors road a good horse for an Irish guy from Brooklyn. And Johnny Crawford? Man, could that kid ride!

Pb, I guess you had on the episode with the orthodox Jewish peddler (MeTV is king!)?

I'm pretty surprised at how often those shows took on tolerance issues. I know the Rifleman had situations where Asians and Mexicans came in and were bullied, and ended up being accepted and beating the hell out of the bullies, to boot.

Mark McCain is my prime candidate for TV-PTSD. Saw his old man kill someone every week, and got kidnapped himself several times a season.

We don't get METV in the Bronx. My brother gets it upstate, though. Great channel!!!!

Love them collect them mostly from the 50s early 60s.

Rifemen, zorro, Jim Bowie, branded, cheyanne, bat mastersinger, lawman, Cisco kid, 26 men, colt 45, the one with nick Adam the rebel,Yancy derringer I could go on and on.

But my favorite even though it only lasted a season was The dokotas. It was cancelled because they had a shooting in a church believe it or not.

Not too many people know this but the fastest draw of all the actors was Jack Elam

He was a gunmen who some how became one of the Marshall's deputies. He was the fastest of all of them. If the law did not work he just killed the bad guy. He really did not give a shit about the law.

Buy that box set if you can find it. I don't even remember who I bought it from

Almost forgot one wild bill Hickok , and Wyatt Earp

God, did Elam do a lot of westerns!

Sometimes he'd be in three or four straight episodes of "Gunsmoke," playing a different character each time.

Same goes for Victor French (the "Highway to Heaven" guy). He was CONSTANTLY on those shows.

If you can get good copies of The Dokatas get it. It's real good definately an adult western

I'll look for it.

Jack Elam and Victor French are both in Wayne's "Rio Lobo." Worlds are colliding!

Victor French was in one of the dokotas episodes

Like I said, Pete. At least one of those guys was in every other episode of "Gunsmoke" .

I'd recommend the mini-series Lonesome Dove. One of the best made-for-TV westerns ever.

Never watched any old western shows that have been mentioned here, but i might try a few of them out because i love some old western movies. One i'd suggest to you PB if you haven't seen it already is, Deadwood . It actually got cancelled after three seasons, but that's not a testament to it's quality, it's clearly one of those shouldn't have been cancelled shows that noone watched when it was on.

The writing and acting are superb. Especially Ian Mcshane and whoever plays Calamity Jane imo. It even has Timothy Olyvant in practically the same role he plays in Justified .

Tho westerns have never been my favorite type of film, I grew up watching them. Gunsmoke was a regular family viewing night. I guess if I had to pick a favorite, it'd be Bonanza because I thought Little Joe (Michael Landon) was so cute.

I remember my great-uncle loved Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger and we all would watch too.

Oh, if Zorro is considered a western, I really liked that show for some reason.


TIS

I remember a show when i was a kid called THE HIGH CHAPARRAL. I used to enjoy it.

Is "Walker, Texas Ranger" a western?

It's on TV Land now twice a day. I'd forgotten just how ridiculous it was .

No.

Hey was sky king a western?

I watched it. But it did not interest me enough to buy the bx set if they even sell the box set.

Hey was Spenser for Hire a western? I dug Hawk and his shot gun and the big gun of his. Spppppppenserrrrr that is how he said spensers name.

What was Spenser's first name.

Even though it was not a western.mi have been looking to buy the complete box set for years. No one is selling the complete set as yet.

No. And when I asked about Walker, I was being sarcastic because it was set in Texas. Plus, Walker was so bad, that it was almost good .

I'm watching the old "Lone Ranger" right now. And I have to say, Clayton Moore was a TERRIBLE actor. And I mean TERRIBLE .

What you mean, "We", kimosabe?

... in place of The Andy Griffith Show which ticks me off to no end!

I never liked the Western t.v. shows but I did like the movies. My old man watched them all the damn time and still does, some are just so horrible I can't watch.

My favorite Westerns:

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Lee Van Cleef was a great actor in all Westerns, Eli Wallach was great in this too)

Hang Em High

Fistful Of Dollars

For A Few Dollars More

The Comancheros

El Dorado

Big Jake

so on and so on.

Those are movies not western tv shows.

But I will tell you some of mine.

Red River John Wayne.
Searchers John Wayne
Gun fight at the ok corral with Burt and kirk
Unforgiven Clint Eastwood
Alamo with John Wayne
Valdez is comming with Burt

Stuff like that

I know they were movies, I even mentioned that......lol

It took place in the west but I wouldn't classify it as a western. Same for "Fury" (with Peter Graves).

I used to love "Wanted - Dead or Alive". How could anyone not love a tv show with Steve McQueen?

Back in the late 1950's, my wife liked an obscure series called Tombstone Territory. A number of years ago, I was able to track down a couple of episodes on eBay. I don't think that series ever gets rerun these days.

As far as pb's OP, I always thought Bonanza was a masterpiece of hairstyling: can you imagine Ben and Adam Cartwright throwing their toupees into the air and having a little target practice? And let's not forget Hoss - in a lot of the early episodes they would paint his scalp brown to make his thinning hair look thicker.


Signor V.

Fury I think too place in modern times if I recal.

In westerns a lot of the shows had gimmicks. What was mcQueens gimmick?