Riding the Video Range

Book excerpt: In June 1949, Hopalong Cassidy. Then Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Davy Crockett, the Cisco Kid, Matt Dillon, Bat Masterson, the Cartwrights, Hec Ramsey, Paladin ("Have Gun Will Travel")--no television genre has generated as many enduring characters as the Western. Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, Bonanza, Maverick, and Wagon Train are just a few of the small-screen oaters that became instant classics. Then shows such as Lonesome Dove and The Young Riders updated and redefined the genre. The shows tended to fall into categories, such as "juvenile" Westerns, marshals and sheriffs, wagon trains and cattle drives, ranchers, antiheroes (bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns), memorable pairs, Indians, single parent families (e.g., The Big Valley, The Rifleman and Bonanza), women, blacks, Asians and even spoofs. There are 85 television Westerns analyzed here--the characters, the stories and why the shows succeeded or failed. Many photographs, a bibliography and index complete the book.