The Rifleman

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OK, I'm not an old foggie yet. I remember watching American Westerns in Germany in the late '60's - my pre-teen years.

Rifleman was among my favourites as well as all the others.

There was one show. It had a grandpa with a Confderate hat, his daughter (I think it was Ann Francis), her daughter a cute blond and this goofy town sheriff whom they always seemed to bailout.

All I remember that at then end of the show, whenever the Sheriff and Blond young daughter tried to kiss, grandpa or Mom shot to break up the near kiss,

What was the name of that show? Saw it in Germany all the time too.


It was really weird for me to see them in the U.S. speaking english wilth very different voices - especially the indian and african-american characters.
 
Here's a blast from the past. Johny Crawford, who played the Rifleman's son, was in the Army in the 60's and appeared in a series of training movies. In the films I remember, he was always the Pvt. Doofus type that needed help learning things like saluting.

The craziest thing about the Rifleman was that no matter how many times he'd let daylight thru some bad guy, the very next week another owlhoot would show up to call him "sodbuster" & start the ball all over again.

IIRC, Sam Peckinpah directed some episodes of Rifleman and some of Gunsmoke back when it was a 30 minute B&W show.
 
Eratta

 

Ledbetter isn't even close when he suggests that Laramie was the third in the "ABC western trilogy" which Warner Brothers came up with as "replacements" for its Tuesday evening biggie, Cheyenne, when the studio started having contract troubles with its star Clint Walker.
  1. Laramie ran on NBC for four years ('59-'63) in the 7:30-8:30 p.m. time slot.
  2. Cheyenne ran on ABC from '55-to-'63, the first four years in that 7:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday time slot. In '59 it switched to Mondays.
  3. Bronco, with Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, ran on ABC from '58-'til-'62 in the 7:30-8:30 p.m. time slot, for the first two years on Tuesdays, and the final two seasons on Mondays, always alternating with Cheyenne, with Sugarfoot sometimes in the mix.
  4. Sugarfoot, Will Hutchins in the title role, ran in rotation with Cheyenne and sometimes Bronco, on Tuesdays, and then Mondays between '57 and '61.
Laramie had nothing to do with anything except itself on another network.

 
 
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Did you ever notice how Micah is always out of town or something else when there's serious trouble?

I'm right now watching the Rifleman episode with Sammy Davis Jr. as a gunfighter. Micah is out of town......... again!

Don
 
Micah retired from the Chicago police department

He must have since he never did anything except sit around the General Store's pot belly stove (Dunkin Donuts hadn't been invented yet) and make the citizens fend for themselves every week.

That's not toally true I guess. After Lucas shot up the bad guys he would pick up their guns and walk the survivors over to jail.

Don P.
 
 
He wore a cane and derby hat, they called him "Bat," Bat Masterson!
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Sure, Gene Barry played the role of William Bartley Masterson in an NBC half-hour show on Wednesdays (then Thursdays) for three seasons between '58 and '61… on the show he had a strange little gun which he rarely used, preferring to knock those who required it, on the head with his gold-topped walking stick.

In real life, he was very particular about his handguns, and letters exist today between him and Colt's. He was a newspaper editor in NYC.

 
 
Thanks Backwoods. Got my Ann's mixed up. It was Ann Sheridan in that Pistols & Petticoats show. Interesting that such a short lived American western show was shown in Germany. But, American western's were huge in Germany in the 60's. I saw them all in German, before I saw them again in English. F-Troop is the only western type show I do not seem to recall seeing in Germany.
 
I've seen this old series on TV! I really like it!
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Old? :scrutiny:

I'm surprised there aren't more Wagon Train fans here. It was a tossup whether Wagon Train or Rawhide was my favorite until Star Trek came along. Of course Star Trek was more of the same.

Never really liked Bat Masterson much, though I though Have Gun, Will Travel and Gunsmoke were cool.

Liked the music too.
 
Chuck Connors was also something of a diplomat. When Breshnev was Premier of the USSR, in the early days of detente, he toured the US and was a fan of Westerns. When he met Chuck Connors, Connors gave him a brace of Colt SAAs which had custom grip frames for Connor's large hands. Colt replaced the guns for Connors, and Breshnev sent Connors a silver samovar set. Breshnev was also presented with a .338 rifle by one of the US diplomats.

Anyone recall the character Johnny Ringo? I think that was a short lived series. Perhaps Dean can enlighten us.
 
BTW, these can be found on Hallmark or TVLand

Yow, Dean. I was only 4 at the time. Cut me a little slack.:scrutiny:

and what about "The Bounty Hunter" with Steve McQueen and the Mare's Leg.
 
Aw,"Wanted Dead or Alive", I don't much care what he was like in real life, but Steve McQueen was the coolest human being on the planet on TV or in movies.

A few years ago in a gun rag I saw that somebody was taking Winchest 92's and making replicas of the Mare's Leg. That was the good news, the bad news was that they were kinda pricey.

Does anybody remember "Stoney Burke" or "Empire"?

So far I would rate this thread as GP (Geezer Pleaser).:D
 
Don't remember the source; gunzine or some such; but some 30 or 40 years back Jerry Lewis was the fastest actor to draw and hit with a single-action revolver. Sorta early daze CAS. Yeah. The scrawny little guy who stooged for Dean Martin.

:), Art
 
The Rifleman was one of my favorite shows. I think it used to be on right after Soupy Sales (White Fang and Black Tooth...man, what entertainment! :p ) I probably shouldn't say this, but I think that if Black Tooth would meet up with Barney today, he would be one hurtin' dinosaur. That purple tub of goo would be no match for the powerful balled up fist laying in wait inside that black sock puppet.

I'm glad I got that out, and I won't apologize. :neener: geegee
 
 

About the only "Johnny Ringo" on TV back then was played by Britt Lomond from time to time on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp… but then that series was peopled with all manner of "historical characters" including Curley Bill Brocius, Bat Masterson (played by Alan Dinehart III, not Gene Barry), Ben Thompson, Ned Buntline, Dr. John "Doc" Holliday, etc., as well as two of the Earp brothers and sundry Clantons.

So I don't know of a series built around any Johnny Ringo; but I wonder if you might be thinking of a really terrific western series entitled Hotel de Paree, with Earl Holliman as The Sundance Kid (with a great hat!) and Strother Martin as a regular cast member.

Yes, bobs1066, I well remember both Stoney Burke and Empire, starring, respectively, Jack Lord and Richard Egan. Didn't much care for the latter (also named Redigo later on in its run), but Stoney Burke had as his sidekicks Bruce Dern and the always terrific Warren Oates as Ves Painter.

I remember that Jerry Lewis "story" as well, Art… it was probably a press agent's work product, just as was his purported skin allergy to dry cleaning fluids which caused him to donate all his expensive (alpaca?) sweaters after only one wearing! But I also recall that Sammy Davis Jr. was pretty good in that discipline, too, and that they shot wax bullets out of primed cases. I think the genuine fast draw champions of that era were Rod Redwing and Arvo Ojala. (Met him, and his soap actress daughter, at SHOT '90 in Las Vegas… just look at his credits!)

 
 
For those of tender years, "Stoney Burke" and "Empire" were modern-day Westerns. Stoney was a rodeo cowboy and Empire was about a very large ranch.

"Empire" was an hour long at first, then they did away with most of the cast & renamed the series "Redigo", which was Richard Egan's character name.

I'd forgotten that Stoney had such later-distinguished sidekicks. :)

Okay, now it's trivia time, in what show did "Old Fooler" appear?
 
Dean, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!!!:)

I've heard stories that Don Knotts, AKA "Barney Fife" was also quite the pistolero. Any truth to that.

I'll also give this thread a GP:D

Anybody remember "Tale of Wells Fargo"?
 
I saw a show on cable recently that included clips of Martin and Lewis doing some fancy gun handling. It was from one of their westerns - Pardners maybe. The claim was made that they were the best at drawing and twirling and all that Harlem Globetrotter stuff. I don't recall anything being said about shooting. Anyhow, what I saw them do was simply amazing.
________

Anyone remember the 1958-59 series with Jock Mahoney as Yancy Derringer? How about his co-star X. Brands as Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah? (I cheated and looked up Pahoo's full name)

I was a kid and this is the show that taught me that Pahoo's sawed-off shotgun would blow a man clear across the room and up against the wall.

John
 
Oh my God Guys and Gals….I feel the time warp…Let’s do the time warp dance..LOL

Lone Ranger,
Annie Oakley
Rin Tin Tin
Colt 45
Laramie
Suger Foot
Maverick
Cheyenne
Have Gun Will Travel
Gun Smoke
Wanted Dead Or Alive
Wyatt Earp
Bat. Materson
Lash Laroo
Sargent Preston of the Yukon
Wagon Train
Roy Rogers
The Tin Star (TV)
Bonanza
Law Man
Cimarron Strip
Johnny Ringo
Alias Smith & Jones
Cisco Kid
Tails of Well Fargo
Tombstone Territory

Here’s a fun sight

http://www.peterbrown.tv/links.html[/URL]


:cool: :cool:
 
I also remember some of those shows.....sort of vaguely, but do remember.

How about the series that was placed in Tombstone, AZ? The show had an opener that was something along the line of "The Tombstone Epitaph (sp?) The newspaper and history of a town to tough to die..."

Death Valley Days, narrated by former President Ron Reagan, anyone ? ?

I liked the way Gunsmoke demo'd safe rifle storage. All the rifles were in a wall-mount vertical rack, with a heavy padlocked chain going through each lever. Marshall Dillon always got the bad guys, with some help from Festus & Newly. Don't recall actually seeing Chester (Dennis Weaver) shoot anyone.

"...Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man.
A Knight without armor in a savage land......."
 
Sammy Davis jr. did have quite a reputation as a fast-draw artist; so did Johnny Cash. Kirk Douglas is supposed to have been pretty fast too, as well as able to do some rather fancy gun-twirling.
 
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