Why Couldn't Western's Adapt in the 70s?

[Oscar Madison]

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.

Of course, his writing was never as good after HGWT - especially including the crazy space travel show. And he was a terrible show-runner. ST:TOS and ST:TNG both improved when he was pushed away from direct involvement. So did the movies. Been watching episodes of some even crazier space travel shows on You Tube: Space Patrol, Tom Corbett Space Cadet, Captain Video, Captain Z-Ro. Terrible writing.

Some of the best writing was "The Adventures of Robin Hood." No surprise. Those were outstanding movie writers who had been blacklisted and were writing under pseudonyms. And Rodenberry gets credit for dealing with controversial issues by setting them in the future. Robin Hood dealt with extremely controversial and even dangerous issues by setting them in the middle ages.

 

[LKellerIII]

James Garner and RIchard Boone, respectively, also had a lot to do with their popularity.

Good point. Maybe it was just my personal prejudice rearing its ugly head - but I always thought the Bret Maverick (Jack Kelly) episodes were inferior to the Bart Maverick (James Garner) episodes - as if the writers were different. Most likely, it was the same writers.

 

[Ultimajock]

When the TV Gunsmoke ended, the real Matt Dillon was starring in "Cannon." The only Western was "Little House on the Prairie."

...not quite -- Kung Fu ended only a few weeks before Gunsmoke...

 

[KeithE4]

Good point. Maybe it was just my personal prejudice rearing its ugly head - but I always thought the Bret Maverick (Jack Kelly) episodes were inferior to the Bart Maverick (James Garner) episodes - as if the writers were different. Most likely, it was the same writers.

James Garner was Bret Maverick. Jack Kelly was Bart. Then, there were Roger Moore as Beau and Robert Colbert as Brent, after Garner's departure.

 

[landtuna]

Good point. Maybe it was just my personal prejudice rearing its ugly head - but I always thought the Bret Maverick (Jack Kelly) episodes were inferior to the Bart Maverick (James Garner) episodes - as if the writers were different. Most likely, it was the same writers.

Bret was Garner. Bart was Kelly. Roger Moore was Beau.

Oops! Didn't see the correction in time.

 

[Oscar Madison]

Roy Higgins was ousted as Maverick's producer after Season 2. The quality of the scripts declined at that point. Roger Moore left part-way through season 4 complaining that he wasn't getting scripts as good as James Garner had. I have to feel for ol' Rog. His whole career is about not measuring up. First to James Garner. Then to Sean Connery.

 

[BD Sullivan]

Part of Bonanza lore is that every girlfriend/fiance would eventually die by the end of an episode, since you simply can't add a wife to the mix. They were planning for Pernell Roberts' exit after the fifth season, but he decided to stay around--though only for another year. Guy Williams was supposed to replace him, with Adam leaving to marry Kathie Browne's character, so instead Williams went away with Browne.

Supposedly, Michael Landon resented Williams' presence (because of his loyalty to Roberts), although it's kind of hard to blame Williams for accepting the role. Had he stayed, I wonder who Irwin Allen would have gotten for Lost in Space?

 

[LKellerIII]

Whoops - sorry, landtuna. The intervening 50+ years have sullied the accuracy of my TV memory. I should have IMDB'd before posting. I do remember one Maverick related thing, though. In the early 70s, my girlfriend lived in West Covina - east of Los Angeles. I remember driving down the street and seeing a large ranch house with a large front yard display of the suits from a deck of cards...a heart, a club, a spade, and a diamond. It was rather tacky, actually. My GF told me that Jack Kelly lived there, so apparently, he was still basking in the glory of Maverick. IIRC, he didn't do much of note after that.

 

[KeithE4]

Roy Higgins was ousted as Maverick's producer after Season 2. The quality of the scripts declined at that point. Roger Moore left part-way through season 4 complaining that he wasn't getting scripts as good as James Garner had. I have to feel for ol' Rog. His whole career is about not measuring up. First to James Garner. Then to Sean Connery.

Twice to Connery. Connery had turned down the Beau Maverick role as well; then it was offered to Moore. I'm sure being compared to Sean Connery made him so upset, he cried all the way to the bank.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Post-Vietnam the culture changed. Stories that were basically morality plays where the good guy always won and the evil were punished were seen as passe. Enter the shades of gray anti-hero. Westerns had a particularly tough time adapting to that (especially since the Television Code was still in effect for at least part of the 70's)

Also it was fallout from the "Barnyard Massacre" on CBS. All of the marketing data was showing that women 18-49 made the bulk of the purchasing decisions, and you had to program for them. Westerns skewed heavily male.

And land in Southern California was at a premium as real estate development was in high gear. A lot of the backlots where westerns could be produced conveniently began to disappear.

 

[Oscar Madison]

Mentioning Viet Nam reminds me: When TV Westerns were at their peak, the scripts often contained obvious parallels between then and now. In the Westerns, it was the post Civil War era and people had gone West to try to get their lives going after the war. The president was the former commanding general. And people in the late 50s and early 60s, were going through much the same thing.