Like Variety Shows, Westerns were one of the most often seen types of TV show in the 50s and 60s. Then they disappeared. And like Variety Shows, there have been occasional attempts to bring them back with, at most, marginal success. Now there are none. Why did Westerns go from such great popularity to disinterest?
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Why Couldn't Western's Adapt in the 70s?
- Thread starter Oscar Madison
- Start date
Gunsmoke ended in 1975. Bonanza ended in 1973, although had Dan Blocker lived, it might have gone on for another couple of years.
When the TV Gunsmoke ended, the real Matt Dillon was starring in "Cannon." The only Western was "Little House on the Prairie."
Maverick became Rockford. Basically the same character, just living in a trailer in Malibu. The westerns became urbans.
When Gunsmoke was at or near its peak, the "real Matt Dillon" was screaming his lungs out as the narrator of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons.
Grizzly Adams?
Can't agree that Rockford was Maverick in a trailer. However, yes, many Westerns were 19th Century cop shows or procedurals.
In 1959 there were 26 Westerns on the three networks in prime time. Compared to one or two - or none - on four terrestrial networks and a bunch of cable networks in recent decades. Westerns were also popular in the movies, too, and while a few get made now there are no where near as many as in Hollywood's Golden Age.
Even with similarities to other genres (cop shows, war movies, whodunits, scifi....) why no Westerns?
In 1959 there were 26 Westerns on the three networks in prime time. Compared to one or two - or none - on four terrestrial networks and a bunch of cable networks in recent decades. Westerns were also popular in the movies, too, and while a few get made now there are no where near as many as in Hollywood's Golden Age.
Even with similarities to other genres (cop shows, war movies, whodunits, scifi....) why no Westerns?
I'd say that demographics did them in. They tend to skew rural and older.
Do they? Some of the stars of TV Westerns immediately started selling movie tickets (which skew urban and younger)...
Clint Eastwood
James Garner
Steve McQueen
And TV Westerns were fading out long before Nielsen reported demographics and while Fred Silverman still running kids' shows at WGN-TV.
Ultimately it takes someone who wants to make a western, like Kevin Costner who made Dances With Wolves or Clint Eastwood who made Unforgiven. And when they make them, if they're made well, they're successful. But Kevin & Clint grew up with westerns, and longed for the format. How many kids are growing up with westerns (other than Woody of Toy Story) today?
I was a kid at the time, but it seems like the TV western genre just ran out of gas. In the late 50s and early 60s, westerns made up a majority of the prime-time dramas. With a few notable exceptions (Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza), most of them were awful.
Why they never made a comeback like some of the other TV genres - medical shows, for example; we can only speculate.
Some of it might have been plain old burnout (34 westerns in prime time at one point in the late 50s), but one direction TV westerns could have gone in the 70s just wasn't going to happen, and that would have been to become more violent. This was not long after Sam Peckinpah made "The Wild Bunch", so feature film westerns were getting more into blood and gore, but at the same time, TV was cracking down on violence to some degree in the wake of the Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations. The best-remembered example in a western was "Gunsmoke" dropping its "shootout" opening in favor of a shot of Matt Dillon and his horse galloping across the prairie. TV didn't get a really violent western until "Deadwood" over 30 years later.
Unfortunately Gunsmoke doesn't hold up very well. We are supposed to believe that the marshal - a cop for all practical purposes - will allow a bad guy - the Western equivalent of the perp - to engage him in a duel in order to make an arrest. Besides, why is a federal marshal (Matt would actually be a deputy) doing breaking up bar fights or investigating murders? Almost nothing Matt dealt with was federal jurisdiction. And the TV show got PC when they made Kitty the owner of the saloon. On radio it was clear what Kitty did at the saloon and why Matt visited her from time to time.
Wagon Train also doesn't hold up. Half-hour scripts padded to fill an hour. And during the period in which the series was set, the transcontinental railroad was operating along the same route the wagon train used. Wagon trains were obsolete at that point.
Bonanza is ridiculous. Really rich family with this huge ranch to run. Hardly ever any ranch hands around. And the Cartwrights spend all their time going off to stick their noses in other people's business. The most unbelievable part is everybody else doesn't hate them.
Have Gun Will Travel holds up. So does Maverick. Why? Good writing by writers who did their homework. And a workable premise.
Here's something we've learned: Good writing is hard to do. Expecting good writing every week, week in and week out for at least five years is hard to expect. The good writers know that they'll make more money for doing less work by writing movies. TV is a grind. It will burn you out. It costs a ton. That's why TV has moved more to reality, scriptless programming, rather than longform expensive drama that might not attract a big enough audience. So that's why TV is what it is.
Wrong. There is good writing on TV. Some but not enough. Very little good writing on terrestrial TV, however. Good writing can only happen with good show runners who serve as good editors and who keep the network out.
Not to defend westerns - I agree that they were ridiculously un-realistic. But that lack of reality has always been true about TV and film dramas. Look at all the fake forensic "science" they rely on to advance the plots on modern police procedurals. Or in the past, how many "Sheriffs" in cop shows never did anything more than police a town - rarely a county.
In the mid 60s, a lot of TV dramas expanded from 30 minutes to an hour - not just westerns, and it was usually a mistake. Ever see one of the 60 minute Twilight Zones? Awful - that's why we've rarely seen them in syndication.
Maverick and Have Gun Will Travel held up better than other westerns not because they were more realistic - they weren't. They held up better because the writing and clever dialogue made up for their other faults
James Garner and RIchard Boone, respectively, also had a lot to do with their popularity.
Gene Roddenberry wrote several HGWT episodes. I hear he did rather well for himself when he did some crazy space travel show later in the '60s.
Still though you've placed a number of qualifications on your original topic, which is to say that it needs to be a western that's also well written. The more qualifications you put on something, the harder it is to achieve. My point is that if someone is going to try to do a well written western, the platform they'll look to is a long form movie rather than a weekly TV show.
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