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- This article is about the television program. For other uses, see Bonanza (disambiguation).
The
Bonanza logo was superimposed upon a map of a
wild west frontier area.
Bonanza was an American western/cowboy television series which aired on NBC from September 12, 1959 until January 16, 1973. Bonanza was the first network television series to film all of its episodes in color. The main sponsor of Bonanza was Chevrolet and the stars appeared endorsing their vehicles. This series also marks the debut of popular actors Michael Landon and Pernell Roberts.
From 1961 to 1972 it aired on Sunday nights. This timeslot was crucial to the success of the show: from 1964 until 1967, the show was #1 in the yearly Nielsen ratings. In terms of longevity, the show was NBC's longest-running western, and the second-most popular western in the history of television, behind Gunsmoke.
[edit] The "Bonanza" name
Bonanza got its name from the Comstock Lode which was "an exceptionally large and rich mineral deposit" of silver. Virginia City was founded directly over the lode and was mined for 19 years. Ponderosa was an alternative title of the series, often used for the broadcast of syndicated reruns in the 1970s and 1980s.
[edit] Premise
The show chronicled the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by wise widowed patriarch Ben Cartwright (played by Lorne Greene). He had three biological sons, each by a different wife: the oldest was the intelligent and moody Adam (Pernell Roberts); the second was the fun and lovable Eric, better known to viewers by his nickname of "Hoss" (Dan Blocker); and the youngest was the hotheaded and impetuous Joseph or "Little Joe" (Michael Landon). The family's cook was the Chinese immigrant Hop Sing (Victor Sen Yung). The family lived on a thousand-square-mile ranch called "The Ponderosa", on the shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada; the name refers to the Ponderosa Pine, common in the West. The nearest town to the Ponderosa was Virginia City, where the Cartwrights would go to converse with Sheriff Roy Coffee (played by veteran actor Ray Teal), or his deputee Clem Foster (Bing Russell). Greene, Roberts, Blocker, and Landon were equal stars. The opening credits rotated among four versions, with each of the four being shown first in one version (in the order above).
An accidental running gag, which also occurs in the TV western The Big Valley, was that every time one of the Cartwright sons became seriously involved with a woman, as soon as he was married, she was killed off or died gruesomely in the same episode. This also occurred in the case of the patriarch, Ben Cartwright, whose sons were each born to a different wife, and when shown in flashback episodes, each wife died in the same episode, except for the wife who gave birth to Hoss who lasted two episodes.
Bonanza's credits were names superimposed over
charcoal drawings. This card was a rendition of creator/producer
David Dortort, portrayed here as an overseer in mines.
[edit] The Cast
The cast was very popular with viewers, and Lorne Greene recorded several record albums in character as Ben Cartwright, scoring a #1 hit with his dramatic spoken word performance of "Ringo".
Pernell Roberts left the series in 1965 after a dispute with the show's writers. Attempts to replace him were made by introducing Ben's stepson, Clay, (played in one episode by Barry Coe) and a nephew Will (played by Zorro star Guy Williams), but neither lasted. In 1967, David Canary joined the cast as "Candy" Canaday, a confident army-brat turned cowboy, who became the Cartwrights' foreman. The character vanished in 1970 after Canary had a contract dispute with the show's creator, David Dortort.
In 1970, 14-year-old Mitch Vogel joined the series as Jamie Hunter, the orphaned son of a rainmaker. Ben adopted Jamie in a 1971 episode.
In 1972, after the sudden death of Dan Blocker from a post-op blood-clot, the show was moved to Tuesday nights against a new CBS sitcom, Maude. Both events signaled the end of the program. Canary returned to his former role of Candy (to make up for Blocker's absence), and a new character named Griff King (played by Tim Matheson) was added. Griff, accused of killing his heavy-handed step-father, was paroled into Ben's custody and got a job as a ranch hand; several episodes were built around his character, one Matheson never had a chance to fully develop before the show's sudden demise in January 1973. Many fans felt that the Hoss character was essential, as he was a nurturing, empathetic soul that brought some balance to the all male cast.
During the later years of the series, Michael Landon began writing and directing episodes of Bonanza.
[edit] After cancellation
For 14 years, the Cartwrights were the premier western family on American television and are still immensely popular on networks such as TV Land, i, and the Hallmark Channel. In the UK the show is aired on the Bonanza channel on skyTV.
Following the program's cancellation, Lorne Greene did three short-lived series Griff, Battlestar Galactica and Code Red, as well as narrating a wild life series and a starring role as the first slave owner of Kunta Kinte in the Mini-Series Roots. Landon became an industry "mover" as actor, writer, director and producer of two successful series, Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven. David Canary, who started in Peyton Place, went back to the soap genre and (to date) has won five emmys for his dual portrayal of twins Adam and Stuart Chandler on All My Children. Pernell Roberts, the lone survivor of the original cast, found renewed fame in the 1970s with Trapper John, M.D., and later narrated FBI: The Untold Stories. Victor Sen Yung died a mysterious death in his home in 1980. The actor's achievements were greatly overlooked. On a "To Tell the Truth" episode in 1975, no one on the panel chose him as the actor who contributed to the "Charlie Chan" films, Rodgers and Hammerstein's, "Flower Drum Song" & to the 14 year run of "Bonanza" . Pernell Roberts, a champion for minority rights, did the eulogy. Lorne Greene fell to prostate cancer in 1987, and Michael Landon died from pancreatic cancer in 1991. Bonanza was brought back as several made-for-television movies featuring Cartwright offspring. These include Bonanza: The Movie (1988), Back to Bonanza (1993), Bonanza: The Return (1993), Bonanza: Under Attack (1995), and Bonanza: The Next Generation (1995).
In 2001, there was an attempt to revive the series' ideas with a prequel, The Ponderosa, with a pilot directed by Kevin James Dobson and filmed in Australia. Covering the time when the Cartwrights first arrived at the Ponderosa, it lasted 20 episodes. The prequel had less gunfire and brawling than the original. Bonanza creator David Dortort approved PAX TV's decision to hire Beth Sullivan, a producer from "Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman", which some believe gave the series a softer edge.
Bonanza also featured a memorable theme song by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans that is often parodied. Lorne Greene and the cast recorded versions of the song with lyrics. Although the Bonanza theme is one of the best known pieces of made-for-television music, it was not used for the entire run of the series. A new theme song was written in 1970 by episode scorer David Rose and replaced the oft-remembered tune for seasons twelve and thirteen. A new arrangement of the original theme returned for the fourteenth and final season. The "Little House on the Prairie" theme (also by Rose), can be heard first in a 1971 episode of "Bonanza".
The program's Nevada set, the Ponderosa Ranch house, was recreated in Incline Village, Nevada, in 1967, and remained a popular attraction world-wide until its sale in September 2004.
Acclaimed director Robert Altman (Nashville) directed several early episodes of the show.
A handful of episodes of the series are in the public domain, and some TV showings of these episodes on low-budget stations and networks (and also on low-budget public domain DVDs and VHS tapes) substitute the familiar theme music for generic music.
In the 1970s, NBC licensed the syndication rights to the series to National Telefilm Associates, which changed its name to Republic Pictures in the 1980s (by then part of the Spelling Entertainment organization). Select episodes ("The Best of Bonanza") were officially released in North America in 2003 on DVD via then-Republic video licensee Artisan Entertainment (which was later purchased by Lionsgate Home Entertainment). Republic still retains the distribution rights to the series, and lately the series is distributed via CBS Paramount Television, which owns the Republic Library.
Bonanza Ventures, Inc. grants merchandising and licensing rights worldwide. One of its licensees is the magazine, Bonanza Gold, which features detailed information about the show, including interviews with actors and other production personnel, articles about historical events and people depicted in the series, fan clubs and fan fiction.
[edit] See also
- Bonanza farms
- Ponderosa Ranch
- 1959 in television
[edit] Character Pages
- Little Joe
- Hoss
- Adam
- Ben
- Hop Sing
[edit] External links
