TV series or program
Hopalong Cassidy
|
---|
Title card for
Hopalong Cassidy
, 1949
|
Genre
| Western
|
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Starring
| William Boyd
|
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|
Release
| 1949
(
1949
)
?
1952
(
1952
)
|
---|
Hopalong Cassidy
is an American
Western television series
that ran from 1949 to 1952 on
NBC
, starring
William Boyd
as
Hopalong Cassidy
, a fictional gunslinger who had been created by writer
Clarence E. Mulford
. It was the first
Western television series
. The series began as simply broadcasts of edited versions of previous
Hopalong Cassidy films
, all of which had starred Boyd (66 such films had been produced between 1935 and 1948). Eventually, the series transitioned to original episodes, with a new cast of characters and actors, notably
Edgar Buchanan
as Hopalong's sidekick Red Connors. The show was created and produced by Boyd.
Hopalong Cassidy
was a hit, especially among children, and helped lead to a wave of other Western TV series, including
The Gene Autry Show
and
The Roy Rogers Show
. It also did well in merchandising, including spawning the first TV series-themed
lunchbox
.
Production
[
edit
]
The
Hopalong Cassidy
film series ended in 1948, due to declining revenues, and their star William Boyd, who was now 53 years old, was regarded as a film star of the past. However, Boyd thought Hopalong Cassidy might have a future in television, and spent $350,000 to obtain the rights to his old films;
[1]
he sold or mortgaged almost everything he owned to raise the money.
[2]
Boyd approached the fledgling
NBC
network to broadcast the films. The initial broadcasts were so successful that NBC could not wait for a television series to be produced and edited the feature films to broadcast length.
[3]
Hopalong Cassidy
begain airing on June 24, 1949, and was the first network
Western television series
, predating
The Lone Ranger
by several months.
[4]
Thanks to the earlier series which showed edited versions of his films, Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television;
Edgar Buchanan
was his new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films).
The theme music for the show was written by
Nacio Herb Brown
(music) and
L. Wolfe Gilbert
(lyrics).
Reception
[
edit
]
The show ranked number 7 in the 1949
Nielsen
ratings, number 9 in the 1950?1951 season and number 28 in 1951?1952.
[5]
Influence and legacy
[
edit
]
The series and character were so popular that Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the cover of national magazines such as
Look
,
Life
, and
Time
.
[1]
Boyd earned millions from the series ($800,000 in 1950 alone),
[1]
mostly from merchandise licensing and endorsement deals. In 1950, Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the first
lunchbox
to bear an image, causing sales of Aladdin Industries lunch boxes to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units per year.
[6]
In 1950, more than 100 companies manufactured $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy products,
[1]
including children's dinnerware, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches (made by
Timex
), and jackknives.
[7]
The 1951
Christmas song
"
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
" by
Meredith Willson
mentions "A pair of Hopalong boots" in its list of gifts that children will want.
There was 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 film
projectors; they were sold through 1966. Also, in January 1950
Dan Spiegel
began to draw a syndicated
comic strip
with scripts by Royal King Cole; the strip lasted until 1955.
[8]
[9]
The success of the show and tie-ins inspired juvenile television westerns such as
The Range Rider
,
Tales of the Texas Rangers
,
Annie Oakley
,
The Gene Autry Show
, and
The Roy Rogers Show
.
Home media and syndication
[
edit
]
On June 7, 2011,
Timeless Media Group
released
Hopalong Cassidy: The Complete Television Series
on DVD in Region 1.
[10]
The 6-disc set features all 52 episodes of the series restored and remastered.
In the 2010s, the series aired on
Cozi TV
[11]
and on Encore's western channels.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
"
Kiddies in the Old Corral
"
Time
, November 27, 1950.
- ^
"Tele Topics"
(PDF)
.
Radio Daily
. June 13, 1950. p. 7
. Retrieved
8 February
2015
.
- ^
"TV ACRES: Broadcast Firsts > Western Series"
. Tvacres.com. Archived from
the original
on June 29, 2012
. Retrieved
December 6,
2014
.
- ^
Holland, Ted (February 2020). "Classic TV Western Timeline: Part I ? 1949 to 1959".
Classic Images
(536): 6.
- ^
"ClassicTVguide.com: TV Ratings"
.
classictvguide.com
.
- ^
"Hopalong Cassidy"
.
Archive of American Television
. October 23, 2017
. Retrieved
April 12,
2018
.
- ^
Westerns
Archived
2006-06-15 at the
Wayback Machine
? Museum of Broadcast Communications
- ^
Tom Hoepf.
"Hopalong Cassidy Returns"
. Toycollectormagazine.com. Archived from
the original
on December 7, 2014
. Retrieved
December 6,
2014
.
- ^
"Dan Spiegle"
.
lambiek.net
. Retrieved
December 6,
2014
.
- ^
[1]
Archived
November 2, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Hopalong Cassidy | COZI TV"
. Archived from
the original
on December 27, 2014
. Retrieved
December 27,
2014
.
External links
[
edit
]