Bonanza
 The first colour TV western and one of television's longest-running
shows, Bonanza followed the adventures of the Cartwright clan,
owners of the 1,000 square mile timber ranch, The Ponderosa, near
Virginia City during the 1860s.
The family patriarch of the all-male Cartwright clan was widower Ben
Cartwright (pictured at right).
The show also starred Michael Landon as Little Joe, Dan
Blocker as Hoss and Pernell Roberts as Adam Cartwright.
Each of his sons had been born by a different woman, none of them
still living. Adam, the oldest of the half brothers, was the most
serious and introspective, the likely successor to his father as the
controlling force behind the sprawling Cartwright estate.
Hoss, the middle son, was a mountainous man who was as gentle as he
was huge and 'ornery. At times he could be incredibly naive and was not
particularly bright. Little Joe was the youngest, most impulsive and
most romantic of the three Cartwright brothers.
 Bonanza was more than just another Western in an age that had an
abundance of them - it was a clever marketing idea. First aired in 1959,
the series was especially developed to be filmed and viewed in colour,
and was supposed to make Americans buy colour televisions.
It apparently worked, as the colour TV became rather popular and the
series lasted for fourteen years. Plots generally centred around the
ranch and the folk who visited.
The final episode was both written and
directed by Michael Landon who then went on to torture us throughout the
remainder of the seventies with his tale of Christian cowboy morality, Little
House on the Prairie.
There were several cast changes over the years. Pernell Roberts left
the show at the end of the 1965 season and his role was written out of
the series. At the start of the 1967 season, a wanderer named Candy was
hired as a ranch hand for the Cartwright's and became one of the family.
Three years later two other new cast members arrived to help out on
the Ponderosa. Dusty Rhoades was a friend of Ben's, and Jamie Hunter was
an orphaned teenaged son of a rainmaker who had been killed.
When Dan Blocker died at 43 from surgical complications, many felt
the heart and soul of the show went with him. After Blocker passed away
even the show's leads knew it would be difficult to continue. But the
show also dropped in the ratings after NBC moved it from its long-time
Sunday-night berth to Tuesday night.
Next to Gunsmoke, it was the longest-running Western on TV and
for much of that time it turned in phenomenal ratings.
The Bonanza format was later repeated in shows such as The
Big Valley and The High Chaparral.
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