A Western, but a family entertainment Western, maybe more of a Western soap. Bonanza went down so well in the 1960s that it ran throughout the decade and then into the 1970s making it one of the longest running Westerns.
Set in the Wild(ish) West in America, it concerns itself with the Cartwright family, headed by stalwart Ben Cartwright, played to perfection by Lorne Greene, and his three sons, Adam, Eric (Hoss) and Little Joe.
The format was simple: each week there was a baddie that had to be brought to task or a wrong that had to be righted. Good must always win in the end of course, and the weekly adventures always had their fair share of goodness which, these days, can seem almost sickly sweet. But people liked a firm moral backbone and the show was popular then and seen as good family entertainment.
Why it was so popular
The characters are good, strong and righteous people, the sort of family you would want on your side when the going gets tough but with a softer side, too, the way they look out for each other and for other law abiding citizens. This, of course, combined with their personalities, makes them interesting and likeable people who draw us into their world.
Unlike today’s Eastenders and Coronation Street, Bonanza was much more moral, the line between good and evil well drawn. In that sense it was less like real life but that did not in any way detract from it’s popularity.
Another popularity boost is that it was a Western. Although not popular now, Westerns were the staple diet of most 50s and 60s children and, to an extent, adults.
The Ponderosa
Named after the Ponderosa pine, a popular conifer of North America, the ranch on which they lived is, we are told, 1000 square miles in size.
I never realised until I wrote this just how big that is. If it were a square then that each side is over 30 miles in length! So the perimeter is more than 120 miles long. Now that’s a big ranch. Think about it, it’s bigger than the Cotswolds, nearly the size of Staffordshire. As they say in the Wild West, one helluva ranch! But seriously, it would be more than a day’s journey to ride the perimeter fence!
Bonanza meaning
A ‘bonanza’ is a term used in mining when a rich seam of precious metal is found and obviously has a place in the prospecting world in the Wild West. Originally the term probably came from the Spanish word meaning fair weather, calm sea and hence a good thing to find.
Series
I can’t be certain when the show was shown on British TV (if you know please tell me) but it was shown in the US between 1959 and 1973 with some 430 episodes. Each episode was just under an hour in length to allow for adverts. This makes it a massive series, almost 400 hours worth: that’s around 16 days of continuous viewing!
Definitely one of the longest running Westerns, it was at its most popular during the mid-sixties which is about when I would have watched it.
It was one of the first programs of its type to be filmed in colour and was shot near beautiful Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada. That, in fact, is the approximate area that the series is set.
Watch Bonanza now
If you would like to see an episode (or two) again then have a look on YouTube. Just search for ‘Bonanza’ and you will find that several are present and they make good nostalgia viewing, so long as you can sit back and enjoy them. In the preparation of this article, I felt it was my duty to watch several again and I have to say I enjoyed the experience!
Amazon UK have some on offer and, at the time I write this, they have an offer on an eight DVD box set featuring 31 one hour episodes, from the first and second series. It includes the Spanish Grant that I enjoyed watching on YouTube while researching this article. A link to the set is below.
This is a major Western series of programs which are still worth watching although, perhaps, beginning to show their age. Against this, the acting, the scenery and the characters have not aged and continue to make the show very watchable.
Photo Luke Gordon
Lots of good stuff in this posting. I don’t watch much tv, but my kids like to watch shows they find on the web, but I have found that some of the sites that stream shows have innapropriate shows for children!
Thanks for your input, yes, you are right, you have to so careful if you have children these days.