Here comes #HistoryMonday, blare the trumpets, bang the drums, here it comes. Quite a bit of fanfare for today’s entry, but this fanfare is borrowed from the lines of pioneering television show for today’s entry.
Many recognize the lyrics to the Western show, Hopalong Cassidy included in today’s introduction. The television show began airing on NBC on this day in 1949. This marked the first Western television series to be aired in the United States.
While B-movie Westerns aired on television, Hopalong Cassidy paved the way for television series in the genre. Originally a B-movie and Western novel, Hopalong Cassidy became a television entry in its own right.
Hopalong Cassidy used the straight-man and comic relief partnership of William Boyd as the titular character, along with Edgar Buchanan as his sidekick Red Connors to add humor to the Western genre. The original film and radio versions of the show had included two companions for Hoppy, a typical funny man and a younger traveler. The television version phased out the younger traveling companion. Hoppy’s horse that was in all versions a white stallion named Topper.
Thanks to the success of Hopalong Cassidy, other radio Western contemporaries of the show began to move to the small screen. Among these shows were: The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show, and The Lone Ranger. Additionally, shows like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Wild, Wild West, High Valley, The Rifleman, and Maverick would dominate the next two decades.
Westerns experienced a second life during the 1990s with shows including: Lonesome Dove, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Deadwood, and Walker, Texas Ranger. More recently, Justified, Longmire, and Yellowstone have appeared in the last decade.
The West has been romanticized and celebrated since the turn of the 20th Century with dime novels detailing heroes like Kit Carson, Bat Masterson, and Wyatt Earp. Once radio was able to dramatize these larger-than-life characters, kids were able to have a connection to the West of a century earlier. It was only natural as Film studios were able to expand the influence from radio series on the West. Television found with Hopalong Cassidy that re-editing the films into broadcast television episodes it made it easier to expand the influence of the Westerns.
Many television Westerns gave early television and film stars their start in the business. James Best and Slim Pickens rose to fame as they began their careers on television Westerns as well as the B-movie Western film productions before expanding to other film and television offerings.
While much of the Westerns on television featured usage of gunfights, the depiction of bloodiness and the actual violence they would naturally have produced were ignored in the production of the shows. This allowed children watching the shows of course to emulate their favorite Western hero during their outdoor play at home or during recess. Television companies realized early that the whole family could and would watch their offerings. Men enjoyed the masculinity embodied by the cowboys, children enjoyed the face-paced action, and the women could admire the ruggedly handsome men cast as the gunslingers and cowhands.
Modern television networks have capitalized on the nostalgia of Western television shows and feature them on their airwaves. TBN & TV Land feature Westerns during their late morning and early afternoon programming. Specialty networks like GRIT feature Western television shows and movies as their primary programming, save for select late-night infomercials.
Did you watch Hopalong Cassidy? What’s your favorite Western?
On the Radar 