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by Tom Anselm

“From the clear blue of the Western sky comes… Sky King.”

So went the opening line of one of the many shows with Western themes that populated the few channels of black-and-white television in the early days of that medium. Sky King caught criminals and found lost hikers from his twin-engine Cessna ‘The Songbird’ out of his Flying Crown Ranch, along with niece Penny and nephew Clipper. How about that for an adventure-packed weekly plot?

Nevertheless, I watched them all in the early 1950s, sprawled on the floor in front of our 14-inch console set. Hopalong Cassidy was one of my early favorites. I had the whole get-up, with the black Stetson, fringed black shirt, mock boots and pearl-handled six-shooter on my right hip. I even rode a sock-horse, a long gray sweat sock stuffed with cotton, the ears and face sewn on. Stuck on the top of a stick.

Then we had the Lone Ranger, or ‘Long Ranger’, as we kids called him. He and sidekick Tonto rode the plains on Silver and Scout, respectively,in search of troublemakers. A silver bullet was his calling card, as Kemosabe and Tonto rode out of town after depositing the bad guys in the local hoosegow, with a hearty ‘Hi Ho Silver, away,’ leaving the townsfolk to wonder ‘who was that masked man?’

And all this to the tune of ‘The William Tell Overture.’

Classic tales of yesteryear, as one announcer intoned.

These programs included ‘The Cisco Kid’ with Pancho, his sidekick (the hero’s all had one). Today’s P.C. climate would not doubt have kept this one off the air as too ‘ethnic.’ Still, it was just another view of the era.

Arguably one of the best of the genre was Roy Rogers. He was the undisputed King of the Cowboys. With his real name being Leonard Slye, Roy Rogers was a good choice for a stage name. He was one of the most popular Singing Cowboys, Gene Autry being another, and he fronted a group called The Sons of the Pioneers. He had a lovely gal named Dale Evans for his wife and singing partner, and an almost-equally lovely palomino horse, Trigger, constantly by his side, through thick and thin. Sidekick Pat Brady tooled around in the family Jeep, Nelliebelle. And of course, there was their dog Bullet, always there to growl and bite the gun out of the hands of the bad guys.

Quick story here, one that Jill has heard ad nauseum. When I was a wanna-be cowboy, I also had some Roy Rogers gear. One day, I saw my little brother Rick crawling around. I said to him, ‘Hey, Bullet. What are you doing way out here in the West? My mom thought that was just the cutest thing. I was so precious, right? Little Roy, when I wasn’t decked out as Hoppy.

Along about the mid-50s, these happy-go-lucky crime-fighters gave way to a darker version of Western hero. We saw the advent of the good guy who had a quick gun and shot to kill, something Roy, The Masked Man, Hopalong and Cisco almost never had to resort to. “Gunsmoke” hit the small screen, beginning a record 20-year run.

Marshall Matt Dillon pretty much had to send a bad guy to Boot Heel every show. He had a deputy named Chester, a girlfriend Miss Kitty who ran the local, uh, ‘saloon’ and pal good old Doc Adams who patched him up on the odd occasion he let himself get winged. “The Legend of Wyatt Earp” was kind of the same, without the Miss Kitty and goofy partner.

Then a guy named Steve McQueen as Josh Randall hit the scene totin’ a sawed off Winchester in a holster as ‘a bounty hunter with a heart,’ as they said in the press releases. He stalked miscreants who were “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” (Interesting that one of McQueen’s most famous movies was called ‘Bullitt’. Hmmmm.) But the most sinister of these guys was a hired gun named Pallidan, black horse, hat, and mustache. Don’t think I ever saw him smile. Maybe smirked a bit.

In the mix were the Cartwrights of the Ponderosa on ‘Bonanza’, the adventurous settlers of ‘Wagon Train’, ‘The Rifleman’ and ‘The Virginian.’ Oh, yeah, and Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates on ‘Rawhide’, this young by-then pre-teen’s new favorite. At one time, there were some 40 westerns on prime-time television, even before there was such a thing as prime-time.

This entire era of Westerns was well known for starting the merchandising craze, to which my parents and many others bought into, literally. How could I fail to mention ‘The Fanner-50’, a silver six-shooters, faux carved ivory handle in cool leather holster that shot bullets with round ‘caps’ on back of the shell?

I’ll sign off here with one of Roy and Dale’s classics, apparently written by Dale a few minutes before one of their radio shows.

   “Happy Trails to you, til we meet again.”

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