TV westerns

Because of PC madness many wonderful TV shows and movies of the past would never pass muster in today's world.

 

Tonto and LR would be lovers today!

 

I could see another Gunsmoke, as that was my favorite western.
Setting modern days, on border of california, as he fights back the illegal aliens/drugdealers etc!

 

The bad guys have to be white -- no people of color please.

 

Matt would be Hispanic, and his trusted deputy is black, and all of the bad guys are white.

 

That'll work.

 

You know, about two or three years ago I was going to start a thread on the same theme. After jotting down all the Western TV programs (all that I could manage) --I figured the total number of hours that these shows ran collectively would be more than all the years of the real old West. Maybe not -- some exaggeration there.

 

I sometimes think I must have been born about 20-25 years too late. It would have been great to have a job with much potential in the emerging technical fields in the late 50's, but then come home to unwind and let technology go and be entertained by TV westerns every night. That is to sit in the middle of how we got to where we are, and where we're going. It doesn't matter that the westerns often don't ring true and emphasize the wrong things, because the projections for the time in technology also didn't wring true. Everything isn't automated as Disney and other 'forward-looking' productions projected, we're not traveling by space shuttle (if that's what it was called then) to the other side of the world in less than an hour, let alone having passenger lines to the moon, et al.

 

Exactly. Just look at the "reboot" of the Lone Ranger.

I loved Roy Rogers as a kid and still watch the reruns on TV. But if they made it today, Roy would be an extreme mountain biker with tattoos, Dale would be a wise cracking lesbian, and Pat Brady would be a sniveling Gen X snowflake with living with his girlfriend, Nellybelle, and rather than fighting bad guys, they'd be environmentalists fighting against capitalism.

While not a western, they did try to revive Adam 12 a couple of years ago, and it was terrible.

 

Gerald McRaney was the last guy shot by Matt Dillon. A little Gunsmoke trivia for you.

The show was also notorious for recycling actors in different roles. Eric Braeden (aka Victor Newman from The Young and the Restless) and Victor French (aka Roy Mobey of "Carter Country") played more characters than anybody else.

 

Also has a really young Burt Reynolds, as both him and clint eastwood started out in westerns, think Clint was on Rawhide!

 

Only 2 gunslingers ever shown faster than he was on the draw, Mannon and window maker, and both times same actor in the roles!

 

Ironically, while the character Matt Dillon was a pretty quick draw, the actor James Arness was actually one of the slowest draws in the business.

One of the fastest was Jerry Lewis (who didn't do too many westerns, and the ones he did do were comedies).

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Chuck Connors of The Rifleman fame had to be rather fast.

I loved that show. The tense background music added to the drama. And the program was in black and white I think.

 

On the opening of the b/w series, the man gunning for matt in the street was one of the fastest drawers alive, and he taught many in tv/movies how to shoot!