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I never considered myself a cowboy, because I wasn`t. But I guess when I got into cowboy gear I looked enough like one to convince people that I was
Clint Eastwood
William Boyd insisted on speaking grammatical English during the Hopalong Cassidy series, because he knew so many children would be watching and wanted to set a good example.
Hopalong Cassidy
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19 September 1952
2 April 1954
Hopalong Cassidy is a cowboy hero, created in 1904 by Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of popular stories and twenty-eight novels. (At the time Mulford invented the character, the name of the historical American outlaw Butch Cassidy had been before readers of newspapers in recent years.)
In his early print appearances, the character appears as a rude, dangerous and rough-talking "galoot". Beginning in 1935, the character, played by William Boyd, was transformed into the clean-cut hero of a series of 66 immensely popular films, only a few of which relied on Mulford's works for more than the character. Mulford actually rewrote his earlier stories to fit the movie conception; these led in turn to a comic book series modeled after the films.
As portrayed on the screen, the white-haired Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy was usually clad strikingly in black (including his hat, an exception to the longstanding western film stereotype that only villains wore black hats). He was reserved and well spoken, with a fine sense of fair play. He was often called upon to intercede when dishonest characters were taking advantage of honest citizens. "Hoppy" and his white horse, Topper, usually traveled through the west with two companions — one young and trouble-prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other comically awkward and outspoken.
The juvenile lead was successively played by James Ellison, Russell Hayden, George Reeves, and Rand Brooks. George Hayes originally played Cassidy's grizzled sidekick, Windy Halliday. After Hayes left the series due to a salary dispute with producer Harry Sherman, he was replaced by comedian Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis, and finally by veteran movie comedian Andy Clyde as California Carlson. Clyde, the most durable of the sidekicks, remained with the series until it ended. A few actors of future prominence appeared in Cassidy films, most notably Robert Mitchum, who appeared in seven of the films at the beginning of his career.
The sixty-six Hopalong Cassidy pictures were filmed not by movie studios, but by independent producers who released the films through the studios. Most of the "Hoppies", as the films were known, were distributed by Paramount Pictures to highly favorable returns, and were noted for their fast action and excellent outdoor photography (usually by Russell Harlan). Harry Sherman was anxious to make more ambitious movies and tried to cancel the Cassidy series, but popular demand forced Sherman to go back into production, this time for United Artists release. Sherman gave up the series once and for all in 1944, but star William Boyd wanted to keep it going. To do this, he gambled his entire future on Hopalong Cassidy, mortgaging virtually everything he owned to buy both the character rights from Mulford and the backlog of movies from Sherman.
In the first film Hopalong Cassidy (then spelled "Hop-along") got his name after being shot in the leg.
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Boyd resumed production himself in 1946, on lower budgets, and continued through 1948, when "B" westerns in general were being phased out. Boyd thought that Hopalong Cassidy might have a future in television, spent $350,000 to obtain the rights to his old films, and approached the fledgling NBC television network. The initial broadcasts were so successful that NBC couldn't wait for a television series to be produced, and simply re-edited the old feature films down to broadcast length. On June 24, 1949, Hopalong Cassidy became the first network Western television series.
The enormous success of the television series made Boyd a star. The Mutual Broadcasting System began broadcasting a radio version of Hopalong Cassidy, with Andy Clyde (later George McMichael on Walter Brennan's ABC sitcom The Real McCoys) as the sidekick, in January 1950; at the end of September, the show moved to CBS Radio, where it ran into 1952. Hopalong Cassidy also appeared on the cover of national magazines, such as Look, Life, and Time. Boyd earned millions as Hopalong ($800,000 in 1950 alone), mostly from merchandise licensing and endorsement deals. In 1950, Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the first lunch box to bear an image, causing sales for Aladdin Industries to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units in just one year. In stores, more than 100 companies in 1950 manufactured $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy products, including children's dinnerware, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches, and jackknives. There was also a new demand for Hopalong Cassidy features in movie theaters, and Boyd licensed reissue distributor Film Classics to make new film prints and advertising accessories. Another 1950 enterprise saw the home-movie company Castle Films manufacturing condensed versions of the Paramount films for 16 mm and 8 mm projectors; they were sold through 1966.
Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television. Edgar Buchanan was the new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films). The theme music for the television show was written by veteran songwriters Nacio Herb Brown (music) and L. Wolfe Gilbert (lyrics). The show ranked number 7 in the 1949 Nielsen ratings. The success of the show and tie-ins inspired several juvenile TV Westerns, including The Gene Autry Show and The Roy Rogers Show.
Boyd's company devoted to Hopalong Cassidy, U.S. Television Office, is still active and has released many of the features to DVD, many of them in sparkling prints prepared by Film Classics.
May 26, 1951 an amusement park named Hoppyland opened in the Venice section of Los Angeles. This was an expansion and re-theming of Venice Lake Park[6] (opened the previous year) as Boyd became an investor. Standing on some 80 acres it included a roller coaster, miniature railroads, pony rides, boat ride, ferris wheel, carousel and other thrill rides plus picnic grounds and recreational facilities. Despite Boyd's regular appearances as Hoppy at the park it wasn't a success and shut down in 1954.
Louis L'Amour wrote four Hopalong Cassidy novels, which are still in print. In 2005, author Susie Coffman published Follow Your Stars, containing new stories starring the character. In three of these stories, Coffman has written the wife of actor William Boyd into the stories.
Beginning in 1950, Capitol Records released a series of Hopalong Cassidy "record readers", featuring William Boyd and produced by Alan W. Livingston.
There have been a number of museum displays of Hopalong Cassidy. The major display is at the Autry National Center at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California. Fifteen miles east of Wichita, Kansas, at the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper was the Hopalong Cassidy Museum. This museum was dedicated to the heroic image of Hopalong Cassidy. The museum and its contents were auctioned on August 24, 2007, owing to the failure of its parent company, Wild West World.
The classic song It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas includes a reference to Hopalong boots as a holiday gift desired by children.
On 11 August 2009 the US Postal Service issued a pane of twenty 44¢ commemorative postage stamps honoring early USA television programs. A booklet with 20 picture postal cards was also issued. The stamp honoring "Hopalong Cassidy" has a picture of its star, William Boyd, in character, with Topper the Horse. Other shows honored in the Early TV Memories issue were: "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" (1952), "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955), "The Dinah Shore Show" (1951), "Dragnet" (1951), "The Ed Sullivan Show" (originally titled "The Ed Sullivan Show" (1948)), "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (1950), "The Honeymooners" (1955)_, "The Howdy Doody Show" (original title: "The Howdy Doody Show" (1947)), "I Love Lucy" (1951), "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" (1947), "Lassie" (1954), "The Lone Ranger" (1949), "Perry Mason" (1957), "The Phil Silvers Show" (1955), "The Red Skelton Hour" (1951), "Texaco Star Theater" (titled "The Buick-Berle Show" (1948), 1954-1956), The Tonight Show (which began as "Tonight!" (1953)), "Twilight Zone" (1959), and "You Bet Your Life" (1950).
From 1949-53, NBC aired 52 theatrical Films of "Hopalong Cassidy" .This new series, (1952-54) , consisted of 40 new episodes made for TV, 1/2 hr in length, plus 12 additional theatrical features that were edited to fit the 30 minute time slot.
Edgar Buchanan, who played sidekick Red Connors, would later have the starring role as "Judge Roy Bean" (1956 TV), a series that was produced by an earlier Hopalong Cassidy sidekick, Russell Hayden (Lucky)(1937- 41).
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