Favorite western TV show?

[Pilgrim]

F Troop! We hosted a dinner party last month where the menfolk remember the theme song lyrics.  And we have friends whose "Fugawi Racing Team" is a take-off on "where the Hekawi?"

Other faves: Rifleman, Maverick, Bat Masterson, and Wild Wild West (granted it was more eclectic than a classic western). Does anyone remember Sky King?

Of course!  Sky King flew the Songbird, and Penny was his niece, if I remember correctly.

I can still sing the Bat Masterson theme...and the Wyatt Earp theme.  (And many others)

[Dave W]

Another one, the very first I remember, was The Range Rider starring Jock Mahoney. Great fight scenes, which I found out years later was because Mahoney was one of the premier Hollywood western stuntmen. Looking back at some clips on YouTube, the scripts were corny but the fights were still good.

[uwe]

The Rifleman

Kung Fu

But how can anybody not have mentioned Branded?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSHxb-rYEw&feature=PlayList&p=C767499DBBD14A84&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=16

Similarly unforgiveable is your ignorance of Bronco:

[nofi]

"what do you do if you're branded and you know you're a man".

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

When we were kids it was fun to change the words for laffs:

"What do you do when you're PREGNANT & you know you're a man"

[uwe]

I love(d) that tune. Together with the German lyrics

 "Geächtet - ist er für alle Zeit,
 Es kãmpft ein Mann der geächtet - um Gerechtigkeit,
 Geächtet, entehrt und verachtet im Land, jagt ihn fort ...
 ... Jason McCord!!!"

it will forever be an imprint in my mind.

Beats the original, wenn Ihr mich fragt.

[Highlander]

At school, some of the more "challenged" types had a more "alternate" set of lyrics for boys with alternate leanings than girls...  

Gotta go... the shed beckons and I've pushed my luck too far... oops, hello dear, back from the shopping so soon...     

[uwe]

Must you ruin and soil all my childhood memories and now out even Chuck Connors as yet another   gay icon  ?!!!  

Speaking of which, I saw (Harvey) Milk on DVD a few nights ago. Now I know that Sean Penn's political convictions might push all the wrong buttons with some of you, but his acting in that movie ... Academy Award amply deserved I'd say. I was amazed how little I knew about the culture clash in the US regarding gay rights in the late seventies, somehow that conflict never swapped over to Europe in a public way. That is not that Europe was any less anti-gay in the seventies than some parts of the US, it was just more hushed up about it and - as often - the US was leading the sociological path by having an open and often painful discussion about it. We've come a long way since then (I hope) and that is a good thing. Who'd have thought that "Branded" played a role in it!  

(Uwe deplores and distances himself from the racial stereotyping in this clip "Ey, we haffa good time on de grrringo now ...".)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAeNmUjj_18&feature=related

[nofi]

the ironic part about the rifleman show was that lucas was forever lecturing mark on being a tolerant , god fearing good man. then he would mosey into town and gun down half a dozen men. i guess that was being righteous  in the old west.

[uwe]

Well, that was how Kung Fu worked as well. Without any contribution whatsoever of his own "Grasshopper" would always end up in situations where he simply had to break a few necks with his karate chops to restore the good in humanity. Pacifism implemented in practice.  

Speaking of "right-hand karate chops for righteous reasons", I also recall this here (at 2:35):






A brave movie (Wikipedia says it's a mix of a Western and a Film Noir, quite right) about anti-Japanese racism in the US at the time of Pearl Harbor, a crippled war veteran returns to a town to give the father of a Japamerican who has saved his life in the Pacific the Medal of Honor his son received posthumously, he uncovers that the father has been lynched by a white mob. Given that it stems from 1955 probably also a covert statement on McCarthyism.

[gweimer]

F Troop! We hosted a dinner party last month where the menfolk remember the theme song lyrics.  And we have friends whose "Fugawi Racing Team" is a take-off on "where the Hekawi?"

Other faves: Rifleman, Maverick, Bat Masterson, and Wild Wild West (granted it was more eclectic than a classic western). Does anyone remember Sky King?

We used to go canoeing when I was in high school.  We called ourselves the Fugawis.  I still have a button somewhere that we had made.

Yeah, I remember Sky King?  What about Sgt. Preston?

Favorite westerns?  I liked Have Gun, Will Travel best.  The other one I liked wasn't the most enduring - The Rebel, with Nick Adams.  Oh...and F Troop!   

[Dave W]

Branded was so bad that SCTV's parody (John Candy as "Yellowbelly") was actually more believable.

[uwe]

  Thanks, how empathetic you are with my childhood memories.  

I'm not revealing then that I liked this here too:

[Dave W]

If Tammy qualifies as a Western, then so does Green Acres. At least it had Pat Buttram.

[uwe]

I don't even know which US State that was (supposed to be) where Tammy took place. But let's settle for "rural America" and that - to us Europeans - indicates that men in stetsons and cowboy boots, Bar-B-Qs, rattle snakes, wild mustangs and the howl of the coyote are never far off. Now don't ruin my clichée perception, how I hate that.  

Thinking about it, the other clichée of rural America I have is Maine as described in Stephen King books. No stetsons there, granted, but all kinds of weird things happen anyway.