Patricia Abbott (pattinase): My Favorite TV Western

Monday, January 16, 2012

My Favorite TV Western

Although some on the list came and went in a flash or might not be true westerns, Wikipedia lists 180 since the fifties.

20 comments:

Naomi Johnson said...: Yep, Maverick would be at the top of my list, too. But I loved almost all of the western shows with the notable exception of - gasp! - Gunsmoke.; 7:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Have Gun, Will Travel
Maverick
Wanted - Dead or Alive
Lawman

Jeff M.; 7:23 PM
James Reasoner said...: Have Gun, Will Travel
Gunsmoke
Cheyenne; 7:29 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: SUGARFOOT was another favorite. And CHEYENNE.; 7:30 PM
Jerry House said...: First off, from a slightly earlier era, Hoppy and Roy and the Lone Ranger.

MAVERICK
HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL
WANTED -- DEAD OR ALIVE
THE REBEL
WAGON TRAIN

There were just too many good, bad, and indifferent Westerns for me to keep up with. My wife is partial to YANCY DERRINGER; so much so she named her German Shepherd after him.; 7:48 PM
Todd Mason said...: Westerns never died altogether. My favorite westerns of the last decade or so:

DEADWOOD
PEACEMAKERS
LEGACY (a UPN series that started poorly and improved considerably before its quick demise)
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (CBS's simultaneous offer)
BROKEN TRAIL (if a two-parter gets to be a series...LONESOME DOVE being a bit too old, and its sequel series Not Quite good enough)
MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS (Australian contemporary "western")
FIREFLY (by special pleading); 7:51 PM
Jerry House said...: Oh. How could I forget THE CISCO KID? I caught those on reruns because I was so impressed with Duncan Renaldo after reading a piece about him in one of Jim Harmon's books. Great stuff!

And GUNSMOKE provided me with an off-color joke I used in high school.; 7:56 PM
le0pard13 said...: It's MAVERICK and James Garner, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and the underrated Richard Boone would be my second pick.; 8:06 PM
Graham Powell said...: I have a soft spot in my heart for THE RIFLEMAN, which was in reruns every day right after school when I was growing up.; 9:04 PM
Michelle said...: Even though I'm not old enough to watch the first runs, I love watching The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, and Daniel Boone; 9:40 PM
Michelle said...: Oh and Davey Crockett.; 9:42 PM
Randy Johnson said...: WILD WILD WEST
MAVERICK
GUNSMOKE
TRACKDOWN
WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
The Early BONANZA before the slapstick of the later years; 9:57 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: We have friends that watch THE RIFLEMAN every day on some channel.
TRACKDOWN is new to me. WWW was fun, wasn't it? Remember Roger Moore on Maverick. Beau Maverick, I think. He has blonde hair on a clip on you tube. GUNSMOKE was on too late at the time I watched these shows. Ten on a Saturday night, I think.; 10:31 PM
Cap'n Bob said...: Rawhide, Laredo, Gunsmoke (the Chester years), Lawman, Wyatt Earp, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Riverboat, Cisco Kid, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Hopalong Cassidy, Annie Oakley, Jim Bowie, Yancy Derringer, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rifleman, The Rebel, Colt .45, Tales of the Texas Rangers (The Early Years), 26 Men, Death Valley Days, and no doubt man more.
If I may, it's Davy Crockett, no "e" in Davy.; 11:15 PM
Cap'n Bob said...: Did I forget Have Gun, Will Travel? Shame on me. Also Wagon Train, Branded, and Shotgun Slade.; 11:17 PM
Prashant C. Trikannad said...: I'd always wanted to see the television series LUCKY LUKE (1992) starring Terence Hill, based on Lucky Luke, the Belgian western comic-book series, by Maurice De Bevere (Morris). I could never my hands on it. I don't think it did too well.; 2:43 AM
Ron Scheer said...: Patti, you might ask sometime if anyone was around to remember radio westerns: GUNSMOKE, CISCO KID, GENE AUTRY.; 1:02 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: At a conference once in Albuquerque, I met the world's greatest expert on GUNSMOKE on the radio. He had fascinating stories to tell about it. I don't remember anything on the radio other than music though. I will ask though.; 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...: William Conrad, who went on to later success as CANNON on television, played Matt Dillon on the radio but apparently did not fit the image they wanted for television. (He was too fat, to be frank.)

I watched it occasionally but it was usually on opposite something I preferred.

Jeff M.; 2:57 PM
Todd Mason said...: Well, Conrad was fat and short, but that didn't stop him from being scary as hell in THE KILLERS (first version). GUNSMOKE ran on CBS radio on Sundays at 6pm ET, iirc, by the end, in 1960 (CBS kept SUSPENSE and YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR on Sunday evenings till 1962...it was only a decade later they started up the weeknightly CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER, not long after Rod Serling's syndicated ZERO HOUR radio M-F strip began). As I've mentioned elsewhere, FT. LARAMIE (from the same producers) and THE SIX-SHOOTER were my other favorite radio westerns among the ones I've heard.; 3:20 PM