When it comes to classic Western tv, it really is really hard to pinpoint specifically which series was the most influential on the ever-expanding genre. Gunsmoke was the longest-operating, followed shortly by Bonanza, but even these have been predated by The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, which had an impressive six-season run of its personal. But there is a single Western tv classic worth revisiting due to its status as the very first hour-extended Western plan. In truth, lots of contemplate this to be the very first hour-extended drama of any sort to run far more than a single season! That’s appropriate, we’re speaking about ABC’s 1955 series, Cheyenne, which starred Clint Walker in the title function as Cheyenne Bodie, wandering cowboy extraordinaire!

Cheyenne

In the vast and untamed American West, Cheyenne Bodie, a drifter with a sturdy sense of justice, navigates via a series of adventures as he encounters a diverse array of characters and challenges. From battling outlaws to mediating conflicts with Native American tribes, Cheyenne’s journey is marked by his unwavering commitment to performing what’s appropriate. Each episode explores diverse elements of frontier life, blending action and drama to depict the rugged atmosphere and the complicated moral landscape of the Western frontier.

Release Date

September 20, 1955

Cast

Clint Walker , Clyde Howdy , Chuck Hicks , Lane Chandler

Main Genre

Western

Seasons

7

Creator(s)

Roy Huggins

‘Cheyenne’ Is the Definition of a Traditional Television Western

Before Rod Serling attempted his hand at the genre with The Loner in the 1960s or Clint Eastwood became recognized as the Man With No Name, Cheyenne took its top man and set him on a course across the American West. A wandering hero with no location to contact his residence, Cheyenne Bodie was a man’s man. He was a hulking figure with a deep voice and an honorable moral code far more akin to the genre’s classic values prior to it got far more “revisionist” in the ’70s. Though shows like the anthology Death Valley Days existed prior to Cheyenne, this ABC Western was the very first of its sort. Cheyenne, really loosely primarily based on the 1947 Western of the identical name, applied its hour-extended episodes to discover the intricacies of human existence and inform longer, self-contained stories that stuck with you extended afterward.

Nearly each and every genre trope linked with Westerns can be identified in Cheyenne, from fabulous gunfights with the quickest draw in the West to hardcore villains with a chip on their shoulders and even daring romances with ladies who swoon more than the titular character. Cheyenne himself was usually undertaking diverse Western jobs, such as ranch foreman, wagon train scout, and even lawman (a job he frequently identified himself performing even without having a badge). He quickly fell into new vocations with every single new episode. The character was connected to the Cheyenne Indian tribe immediately after whom he was named, although the show is fuzzy on the precise information. The show’s very first episode, “Mountain Fortress,” reveals that Cheyenne’s parents have been murdered when he was just a boy, and immediately after the truth, the Cheyenne took him in. Later that season, “West of the River” notes that he stayed with the tribe from 12 till 18. However, Season 5’s “The Lone Rope” introduces the household who apparently raised the Western hero, and they are absolutely not Cheyenne.

Despite slight continuity errors, Cheyenne worked as a new, extended-type take on a familiar genre and managed to inform some fairly fascinating stories along the way. According to Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh in their book, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present, the show itself was component of the Warner Bros. Presents tv initiative, which was the film studio’s very first foray into tv. It was the most well known of the 3 shows that created up Warner Bros.’ trinity of applications, such as Casablanca and King’s Row (every single primarily based on well known films), and frequently rotated with these and later other shows like Sugarfoot and Conflict. Brooks and Marsh note that Cheyenne was so tough to generate as an hour-extended period drama that the show seldom ran each and every week. Instead, an episode or two would be broadcast every single month for the duration of its very first 5 seasons till it identified its footing close to the finish.

Clint Walker Was the Only Lead Character on ‘Cheyenne’

Of course, the true draw for Cheyenne was Clint Walker himself. A six-foot-a thing burly cowboy with soft functions and a difficult demeanor, Cheyenne Bodie was the form of hero you could quickly root for. In truth, he was the only character who appeared in all but a single episode, which tends to make sense, thinking about the show was named immediately after him. However, a single other character appeared in a smaller handful of episodes for the duration of the very first season as Cheyenne’s sidekick, and that was Smitty. Played by L.Q. Jones, Smitty only showed up in “Boarder Showdown,” “Julesburg,” and the series premiere “Mountain Fortress,” exactly where he worked alongside the titular cowboy hero. For what ever purpose, Jones was dropped from Cheyenne early on and was never ever noticed once again in the show’s seven-season run.

Aside from L.Q. Jones, a bunch of other actors appeared in various episodes of Cheyenne, although, in contrast to Jones, they never ever showed up as the identical characters twice. Clyde Howdy appeared in 49 episodes of the show (frequently going uncredited) as a variety of side characters, and actors like Chuck Hicks, Lane Chandler, Mickey Simpson, and Jack Mower showed up anyplace from nine to fifteen instances. Because of the tough nature of making an virtually function-length tv episode, it really is not surprising that Cheyenne continued to reuse lots of of the identical actors in minor or supporting roles. After all, Cheyenne was bound to meet comparable people across the West as he wandered in and out of each and every new town and county.

As previously described, Clint Walker only appeared in all but a single of Cheyenne‘s 108 episodes. That’s since Cheyenne‘s Season 6 finale, “A Man Named Ragan,” follows, nicely, a man named Marshall Frank Ragan (played by Larry Ward). If that name sounds familiar, it may be since this episode was essentially the pilot for the 1962 Western series The Dakotas, which, for some purpose, was aired as an episode of Cheyenne initially. The Dakotas only ran a single season, and sadly, we never ever got to see Cheyenne Bodie and Frank Ragan perform collectively on the American frontier. Maybe in cowboy heaven, that crossover is a reality.

‘Cheyenne’ Spun-off Into ‘Bronco’ After a Major Pay Dispute

Speaking of crossover, The Dakotas wasn’t the only show that spun off from Cheyenne for the duration of its well known run. The Western series frequently ranked in the Top 20 of all tv broadcasts at the time (in particular for the duration of its middle seasons), and since of its consistency in viewership, Warner Bros. and ABC have been in a position to launch a brand-new series below the Cheyenne banner—though the situations behind mentioned launch weren’t as well wonderful. In 1959, just prior to Cheyenne‘s third season, Clint Walker became disillusioned with his contract (the studio was forcing him to kick back half of his in-particular person look earnings to them) and left Warner Bros. It was a bold move, in particular because this identical contract prevented the Western star from functioning elsewhere, and sooner or later, in 1959, he returned to Cheyenne. “I am like a caged animal,” he told the media. It wasn’t but a couple of far more years prior to Walker was freed, and Cheyenne ended immediately after seven seasons.

But for the duration of Clint Walker’s absence, Warner Bros. was forced to preserve the show going, and they did so by launching Bronco. Ty Hardin starred as the titular Bronco Layne, a former Confederate who wandered about the Old West in the identical way Cheyenne Bodie did. Under the Cheyenne banner, Bronco did nicely for itself, even without having Clint Walker playing the original title function. For a when, Hardin’s Bronco adventures have been technically episodes of Cheyenne, but when Walker returned to his original series, the network and studio retroactively created Bronco its personal entity. It wasn’t extended immediately after that prior to ABC opted to turn Cheyenne into a Western franchise, creating The Cheyenne Show an anthology-ish series that either followed Walker’s Cheyenne Bodie, Hardin’s Bronco Layne, or Will Hutchins‘ Tom “Sugarfoot” Brewster of Sugarfoot fame. Only after did all 3 seem on camera at the identical time, and that was in the Cheyenne episode “Duel at Judas Basin,” exactly where the 3 Western heroes teamed up to cease a trader from promoting firearms to a neighborhood Indian tribe. However, we really should note that Bronco and Sugarfoot reunited for the Bronco episode “Yankee Tornado” a couple of months later, and they had worked collectively twice prior to on Sugarfoot.

Strangely adequate, extended prior to cinematic universes have been a important deal in Hollywood, the Cheyenne brand extended beyond just these 3 shows and The Dakotas. Walker’s Cheyenne, Hardin’s Bronco, and Hutchins’ Sugarfoot all appeared in the 1960 Maverick episode “Hadley’s Hunters,” which also featured characters from Lawman, 77 Sunset Strip, and even referenced shows like Colt .45 and The Rebel. Plus, an episode of Bronco (“Freeze-Out”) ties The Virginian into the canon as nicely. This tends to make a total of ten Western tv productions that technically exist inside the identical historical geography (far more if you count all the productions that tied to The Virginian at some point, such as its spin-off Laredo). If only we could get contemporary Westerns like Longmire, Justified, Joe Pickett, and probably even Yellowstone to do a thing comparable these days…

Clint Walker Returned as Cheyenne Bodie for a Few Occasions

On December 17, 1962, just prior to Christmas, Cheyenne Bodie appeared for the final time in the Cheyenne episode “Showdown at Oxbend.” A typical Cheyenne hour, our hero throws himself in between two sides of a variety war and aids resolve this conflict the only way he knows how. When the episode concludes, Cheyenne rides out of town, waving goodbye to each the people today of the Old West and the audience who watched him for the far better component of a decade. “So long, folks,” he cries as he rides out on his wagon. But somehow, even this wasn’t the finish for very good old Cheyenne Bodie. Nearly thirty years later, Clint Walker returned to the screen as Cheyenne for the Kenny Rogers created-for-TV film The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw.

Other Western TV stars, such as Hugh O’Brain‘s classic take on Wyatt Earp from The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford (playing Lucas and Mark McCain) from The Rifleman, James Drury and Doug McClure (playing the Virginian and Trampas) from The Virginian and even David Carradine‘s Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu all created appearances also. Likewise, Have Gun-Will Travel is referenced in the film, therefore expanding this Western globe even additional. To make factors even weirder, Kung Fu was revived in the 1990s via the sequel series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. While the original Kung Fu took location in the 1800s American West, the sequel series was a modern production. So, how does Cheyenne match into all this? Two words that would match far better in a Weird Western than a classic a single: time travel. In the 1995 Season 3 episode “Gunfighters,” Kwai Chang Caine (nonetheless played by Carradine) functions with an older Cheyenne Bodie to defeat a man terrorizing their town prior to he swaps areas with his future grandson (also named Kwai Chang Caine), who then does the Back to the Future Part III issue in the previous with Cheyenne.

Though Cheyenne Bodie, who is nonetheless as booming and gentle as ever, is not a lot involved with the time travel aspect, it really is enjoyable to see Clint Walker back in the saddle. This would finish up getting Walker’s final on-screen function as an actor prior to retirement (although he voiced Nick Nitro in Small Soldiers), which is a definitely fitting finish to a longstanding profession as a Western icon. While Cheyenne may not be as nicely recognized as lots of other Western TV classics, it is influential. The network and studios’ brave selection to make a standard hour-extended Western drama led to lots of of our favorites currently.

Cheyenne can be bought on DVD by way of Amazon.

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