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Every script I've written and every series I've produced have expressed the things I most deeply believe.
Michael Landon
Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon sang a lyric version of this famous instrumental theme for the pilot, but it never aired.
Bonanza
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12 September 1959
16 January 1973
The show chronicled the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by the thrice-widowed patriarch Ben Cartwright (played by Lorne Greene). He had three sons, each by a different wife: the eldest was the urbane architect Adam Cartwright (played by Pernell Roberts) who built the ranch house; the second was the warm and lovable giant Eric, better known by his nickname "Hoss" (played by Dan Blocker); and the youngest was the hotheaded and impetuous Joseph or "Little Joe" (played by Michael Landon). The family's cook was the Chinese immigrant Hop Sing (played by Victor Sen Yung). Bonanza was considered an atypical western for its time, as the core of the storylines dealt less about the range but more with Ben and his three dissimilar sons, how they cared for one another, their neighbors and just causes.
"You always saw stories about family on comedies or on an anthology, but Bonanza was the first series that was week-to-week about a family and the troubles it went through. Another thing about Bonanza that is interesting is that it is a period drama, but it attempted to confront contemporary social issues. That was very difficult to do then on television. Most shows that tried to do it failed because the sponsors didn't like it, and the networks were nervous about getting letters," explains Stephen Battaglio, a senior editor for TV Guide magazine (Paulette Cohn, "Bonanza: TV Trailblazer", American Profile Magazine, p. 12, June 5, 2009).
The family lived on a thousand-square-mile ranch called Ponderosa on the shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada. The massive size of the Cartwright's land was quietly revised to "half a million acres" on Lorne Greene's 1964 song, "Saga of the Ponderosa" The ranch name refers to the Ponderosa Pine, common in the West. The nearest town to the Ponderosa was Virginia City, where the Cartwrights would go to converse with Sheriff Roy Coffee (played by veteran actor Ray Teal), or his deputy Clem Foster (Bing Russell). Greene, Roberts, Blocker, and Landon were billed equally. The opening credits would alternate the order among the four stars. As the series advanced, writers began to showcase one or two Cartwrights in each episode, while the others would be seen briefly in the prologue and epilogue. Not only did this provide for more thorough character development, it also gave all four actors more free time.
Originally, the Cartwrights tended to be depicted as put-off by outsiders. Lorne Greene, however, objected to this, pointing out that as the area's largest timber and livestock producer, the family should be less clannish. The producers agreed with this observation and changed the Cartwrights to be more amiable.
The show's title "Bonanza" is a term used by miners in regards to a large vein or deposit of ore, and most likely refers to The Comstock Lode.
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In the show's early episodes, the writers would typically have the Cartwrights being hostile to visitors to their property. Lorne Greene objected to this pointing out that with the Ponderosa being as large as it is, the Cartwrights would be an important business interest in the community. Thus visitors would naturally come for economic and political reasons as well as social ones and the Cartwrights would logically welcome them as such. The producers agreed and altered the premise of the characters accordingly.
During the first season of the show, the guest stars were paid far more than the stars of the show because the producers didn't think that the stars were well-known enough to pull in viewers.
When Dan Blocker died unexpectedly shortly before filming began for the final season, it was decided to have Hoss die too by having him killed in an accident. The opening episode, a two-hour special in which Little Joe marries only to see his bride die, was originally scripted to feature Hoss.
When Pernell Roberts left the show, his character Adam was written off by having him move to Australia.
The three sons are half brothers. Adam's mother was from Boston, Hoss' was from Sweden and Little Joe's was from New Orleans.
The character 'Ben Cartwright' was ranked #2 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" (20 June 2004 issue).
Ben was a major in the United States Army.
Although it got off to a rough start, by 1961 it was the #1 show on TV.
Most viewers have only heard the famous theme song by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans played as an instrumental. The theme song actually had lyrics and there is footage of the lead actors singing those lyrics.
According to the 1973 book "Marilyn Beck's Hollywood", when Pernell Roberts told Lorne Greene he was leaving the series because he wanted to challenge himself as an actor, Greene told him to stick to it as he would be so rich by the end of the run he could hire Tennessee Williams himself to write a play for him. Roberts' career went into a tailspin that lasted over a decade after he left the show. Co-star Michael Landon later said of Roberts' departure that they simply took a leaf out of the dining room table and split the money three rather than four ways. While the post "Bonanza" Roberts struggled (until later catching on with "Trapper John, M.D." (1979), Greene, Landon and Dan Blocker became very wealthy from their income from the show, which all three wisely invested.
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The character Ben Cartwright is a New Englander who had been a seaman. Before setting out West with his young son Adam, the widower Ben had been a ship's chandler, running a shop supplying gear to merchant vessels. (This past is referred to in several episodes, but most significantly, "Elizabeth, My Love" broadcast during the second season on May 27, 1961, when an older Ben is remembering Adam's late mother, his first wife.)
This was the first US Western television show to have all its episodes filmed in color.
During the filming of one episode, Lorne Greene was required to jump off a small ledge into a lake five feet below. Michael Landon later recalled that when Greene did the stunt, he jumped into the water feet first and went completely under, but his hair piece came off and floated on the surface of the lake. Landon and the rest of the crew watched to see what would happen. After a short while, Greene's hand shot up out of the water, grabbed the hairpiece, and pulled it down. Greene emerged from the lake, wearing his hairpiece slightly askew. He walked nonchalantly past the snickering crew, and went into his trailer without saying a word.
The two parts of "Ride the Wind" were released as a movie outside the USA. In Mexico, it was called "Jinetes del Viento".
The last 14 episodes of Season One and the first 17 episodes of Season Two have fallen into the public domain. These 31 episodes have been released by many different companies in many different configurations, usually with the familiar theme music replaced with generic music. Starting with episode 1.19, the 31 episodes in order are: The Gunmen, The Fear Merchants, The Spanish Grant, Blood on the Land, Desert Justice, The Stranger, Escape to Ponderosa, The Avenger, The Last Trophy, San Francisco Holiday (aka San Francisco), Bitter Water, Feet of Clay, Dark Star, Death at Dawn, Showdown, The Mission, Badge Without Honor, The Mill, The Hopefuls, Denver McKee, Day of Reckoning, The Abduction, Breed of Violence, The Last Viking, The Trail Gang, The Savage, Silent Thunder, The Ape, The Blood Line, The Courtship, and The Spitfire.
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Lasting 14 seasons, it is among the longest running Western television series (second behind "Gunsmoke" (1955)) and continues to air in syndication.
For most of its 430 episode run, the main sponsor of Bonanza was Chevrolet and the stars occasionally appeared in commercials endorsing Chevrolet automobiles.
The opening burning map of the Ponderosa Ranch was illustrated with incorrect bearings. David Dortort, choosing not to redo the map, altered the compass points.
A recurring situation (which also occurs in the TV western The Big Valley), was that every time one of the Cartwrights became seriously involved with a woman, she died from a malady, was slain, or left with someone else.
In 1972, Dan Blocker died suddenly from a post-op blood-clot to the lungs.
According to David Dortort, 'Michael Landon' himself grew difficult during the last five seasons the show ran, "Nearly every line, every scene, every set up... everything would halt for endless story conferences on the set... it got increasingly bitter toward the end."
From the third season on, the Cartwrights and nearly every other recurring character on the show wore the same clothing in almost every episode. This was done to cut the cost of re-filming action shots (such as riding clips in-between scenes), as previously-shot stock footage could be reused.
Saturday night ratings were dismal and Bonanza was soon targeted for cancellation. Given one last chance, it was moved to Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. The new time slot caused the series to soar, and it eventually reached number one by the mid-'60s.
In 1968, Dan Blocker began wearing a toupee on the series as he was approaching forty and losing hair. He joined the ranks of his fellow co-stars Pernell Roberts and Lorne Greene, both of whom began the series with hairpieces (Greene wore his modest frontal piece in private life too, whereas Roberts preferred not wearing his, even to rehearsals/blocking). 'Michael Landon' was the only original cast member who was wig-free throughout the series, as even Victor Sen Yung's Hop Sing wore an attached queue (pony tail).
CBS/Paramount announced on June 1, 2009 that the first season of Bonanza would be released to DVD on September 1 of the same year. This will be one of the first pre-1973 NBC shows to be distributed on DVD, by CBS and Paramount. Episodes of the "Bell Telephone Hour", broadcast in color by NBC between 1959 and 1968, have already been released on DVD.
Johnny Cash recorded his own version of the theme song
Dan Blocker owned a chain of restaurants called "Bonanza". They were steakhouses similar to the "Golden Corral" chain. When the ownership later changed, all of the restaurants were later renamed "Ponderosa".
In the real Virginia City, Nevada, the actual ranch used for the Ponderosa on location shoots is now a tourist attraction.
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