Western TV Week : Bonanza

Hey cowpokes and welcome back for Day 3 of Western TV Week.  I thought we would check in on a family homestead that touched America’s heart and tickled its fancy.  A family that more fist fights than Ike and Tina yet always knew how to connect. Ranching can be a difficult undertaking, and in the Ponderosa you could be dealing with anything from cattle rustlers to die hard gunfighters.  It is always best to be on the sheriff’s side when that happens, however I am here to tell you it’s alright when you pick a fight.  This is Bonanza.

 

Lorne Greene's duh face.

Ben Cartwright: Look at it, Adam. Feast thine eyes on a spoiler that approacheth Heaven itself.

Unlucky in love but lucky at cards thrice widowed Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene of Sailor of Fortune, The Buccaneer, Griff and Battlestar Galactica) tends to his 600,000 acre ranch in Lake Tahoe.  A fine place to raise your kids and boy howdy if Ben doesn’t have the politest boys around like his eldest Adam (Pernell Roberts of The Silent Gun, Four Rode Out, Mission: Impossible, Vega$ and The Love Boat) the architect that designed the ranch house, His biggin’ beasty of a boy Eric a.k.a. Hoss (Dan Blocker of Cheyenne, Gunsmoke, The Restless Gun, Cimarron City and Lady in Cement) who built the ranch by knocking over trees with his bare hands(my guess) and youngest boy and a bit of a heart throb, Joseph ‘ Little Joe’ (Michael Landon of Crossroads, Telephone Time, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, High School Confidential!, Luke and the Tenderfoot and Little House on the Prairie) and each son in question is from these different mothers.

You touching me Steve.

Apparently in the 50’s the mother was not allowed to live.   From week to week the Cartwrights got in typical western shenanigans consisting of horse thieves, irate Indians, gunfighters with too much rye in their belly and more than a few bank robbers.  The MacGuffin device of this series was they went into town, it got robbed.  They went to a neighborly farm, Apaches attempt to burn it to the ground and ravage the women. 

And now I have just a few points of observation of the show.  

This is one of the few American shows that managed to go to 14 seasons.   While the show was to take place in Lake Tahoe, primarily the show was filmed on both Stage 17 and Stage 18 in Paramount Studios and Chavez Ravine, Elysian Park, Los Angeles.  Amazingly enough this is one of the few Western TV series that was not shot in Vasquez Rocks for their fist and gun fights as well as long drawn horseback chases.   Holcomb Valley was more for the range warfare and drawn out gun battles.  

Hehe, not a thought in her little head.

Apparently any female even remotely interested in the Cartwrights seem to do die around them.  All kidding aside this was a pretty common reoccurrence.   They are just death to all that hold internal sexual organs.  My theory is some family curse that was thrust upon Ben Cartwright and all of his kin.