A few questions about 'Bonanza', please...

Agreed. It was an excellent show which had a rougher, more realisitc edge than Bonanza, along with excellent actors (Leif Erickson, Victoria Principal, Cameron Mitchel, Henry Darrow) and good writing. It deserved to last longer than it did.

 

The Bear Family Bonanza box is a must have for any fan and the same with its companion disc and/or the MGM LP or Harkit CD of the Bonanza TV soundtrack with incidental music from the show. The boxed set has very dynamic sound while there are tracks on the companion disc that are heavily compressed in the mastering, the music is great anyway.

 

Ms. Principal, from what I could tell, was not amongst the cast of The High Chaparral; however, there was a character named Victoria who was played by Linda Cristal, in what was her most famous acting role.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, I scratched my head at that one. Victoria Principal would have been about 15 years old if she had truly starred in "High Chaparral".

And Linda Cristal was a babe.

 

All of the shows were mastered by AME Video in Burbank for Paramount back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, so digital standard-def transfers of every Bonanza episode do exist. It's very funny to see them with crystal-clarity today; the bad lighting, especially on the studio "exteriors" that Steve refers to, is really pathetic. I love it when they go outside the house and walk over to the barn, at 11:00 at night, and there's five shadows on the ground. That's one helluva moon...

Sunday night was a big family programming night for NBC, and I think their hope was to have a full-color lineup to help promote RCA TV sets (since RCA owned both the TV manufacturing plant in Indianapolis and NBC). World of Color and Bonanza were a big one-two punch, both in ratings as well as starting the trend towards color TV in studio production.

The three shows I always wanted to see were the flashback episodes where Lorne Greene met and married three different wives (one at a time), only to have them get pregnant, give birth, and then die shortly afterwards. This is their explanation on how he had three sons with three different mothers, and why each character looks completely different from each other.

 

Somewhere in my parents' house is a Bonanza 3D viewmaster disc from the early '60s. Loved that smokin' gun pointing at me right between the eyes!

 

Bet that's worth some money these days!

 

Same here except Sullivan was on CBS and Bonanza was NBC.

No one has mentioned the NBC peacock. "This show is presented in living color".

This was true at least in our humble 60's house.
I don;t know about where you guys grew up but in those days there were certain things that defined your family.
Brand of car GM, Ford, or Chrysler.
Miracle Whip or Best Foods mayonnaise.
Huntley-Brinkley or Cronkite.
Sunday night was Walt Disney, Ed Sullivan and Bonanza.
Ben Cartwright and the boys did 2 things for us, it made my frugal Dad splurge on a Zenith color TV with the Space Command remote control!
A couple years later forced him to buy a 2nd TV as we 3 complained bitterly about Bonanza vs. The Smothers Brothers Show.
In our house, Dad controlled the TV.
Thank God Star Trek was not a weekend show or I would never have seen it.
Westerns ruled the roost, Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel(my favorite), Bonanza, The RifleMan(#2 fav) etc.
Actually my favorite by far(and every other 10 year old) was Wild, Wild West but that's not really a western IMO.
We didn't have an ABC affiliate until the 70's so I never saw Maverick until much, much later.
Thanks for your great, intact memories guys.

 

I think those would be poor quality, and perhaps even illegal to boot, at least in the US.

I'd go with the official releases in the US.

I Ioved that peacock and the living color bit, but as we had black and white until 1978 it was always shades of gray for us until then. I had to make up the colors in my mind.

 

I don't know why, I suppose it was the last episode I watched shortly before it was canceled, but in reviewing the episode schedule in the link above, the episode I thought was last was actually episode 416. It made a good closer for the series IMHO.

 

I think I remember. Was it a two parter with Joe building a house and having a problem caused by somebody's brother? That doesn't give away too much.

 

That's the one. Very effective 3D. It was indeed the story of Hoss (A Pink Cloud).

 

Hmmm... are you saying the gun photo's not part of the Bonanza set? If not, we must have have the sample reel you mention as well as Bonanza.

Sorry... getting off topic...

 

Although Bonanza was originally owned by NBC, it's now owned by Viacom (Paramount/CBS/etc.) worldwide. When they digitally mastered the show in the 1990s, they did PAL and NTSC versions, so that's what you'll be seeing. As far as I know, there's no HD (yet). All from original mag tracks, picture from interpositives, very clean and colorful.

Close! "The following program is brought to you living color... on NBC!"



Here's a link to the 1959 Peacock logo I color corrected for a friend of mine:

http://www.big13.net/NBC Peacock/NBCPeacock4.htm

Most of the green had faded, since the yellow and cyan dye layers had faded, so it took an hour work just to get it to look this bad. Those 35mm network air prints do not hold up well over time. But the lab masters (negatives and interpositives) are much more stable.

 

Woops! Apologies to Ms. Cristal. Ms. Cristal's characheter was Victoria Montoya Cannon. I should do my homework instead of relying on the slushier outer fringes of my memory.

 

The peacock was quite cool, but I doubt many people were motivated to shell out hundreds of dollars (very serious money for most families back then) for a new color TV just to see it. Color TV was such a rarity in my circle that I didn't even get to SEE one until 1967, when my grandfather bought a 23 inch Magnavox console TV. With all those vacuum tubes it doubled as an effective space heater.

 

I liked them both.

 

Vidiot: Wow. Thanks so much for restoring and sharing that NBC peacock. Wonderful stuff. Brings back memories. I've never seen it looking so beautiful.

And how was it that NBC sold the ownership of Bonanza. Seems like that was not a bright move.

In regards to HD, I wonder if it'll ever happen. As you say, even on DVD you can probably see flaws that people watching the original probably couldn't see because of the limitations in resolution in terms of the broadcast and even the best TVs at the time.

Watching The Virginian on DVD most of the time I appreciate the work they put into the costumes, the sets, the acting, everything, but sometimes you see poorly matched stunt doubles that were good enough back in the day...