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

...my favorite episode was when Jonathan Harris played Charles Dickens in "A passion For Justice" 1963..

 

Thread back from the dead!

Here's a long promotional video for the new RCA color TV for 1961, the kind they were making Bonanza in color for:

 

They are continuing to release the DVD sets of Bonanza. Here's a strong review of the fifth season, which right now is available from Amazon for $35, which is only about a dollar an episode. I haven't gotten any of the other seasons, but decided on a whim to get this one. I only rarely watched the show in reruns since I was more of a fan of shows like Star Trek and the Six Million Dollar Man, and so it'll probably be all new to me.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/59060/bonanza-the-official-complete-fifth-season/

"Bonanza: The Official Fifth Season
Review by Paul Mavis

One of the 1960s' best television dramas--which also just happened to be an oater--confidently rides on. CBS DVD and Paramount continue their terrific, extras-filled releases of the 1960's most successful TV series withBonanza: The Official Fifth Season, Volume 1, a five-disc, 18-episode collection of the legendary, iconic TV Western, starring Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, Michael Landon, and a host of superlative guest stars in this their 1963-1964 season. CBS and Paramount, not stinting on the bonuses for these beautifully restored transfers, comes up with another load of extras for the fans, including an episode commentary track, a brief snippet of Blocker and Greene performing on The Andy Williams Show, and cool behind-the-scenes stills of the series in action....

It's well-known among loyal fans of Bonanza that anytime a woman is introduced into the Cartwright boys' mix, she won't be around for long, and that's certainly true here. The season opener, She Walks in Beauty, sees Hoss smitten with Frisco bad girl Gena Rowlands (looking sensational, as always). Written by William Stuart, She Walks in Beauty does a fine job of drawing an intriguing parallel between naive, optimistic Hoss and his brother Adam's more cynical, cultured view of women (Adam "knew of" Rowlands from one of his Frisco jaunts), set against the complicated dynamic between Rowlands, who's unable to reform, and her prim, determined sister (the always excellent Jeanne Cooper)....

Despite that emphasis on peaceful resolution being critical to the settling of the West, Bonanza-style, certainly there are episodes this season with dark, even obsessive tones. In Alias Joe Cartwright, from Robert Vincent Wright, an almost noir feeling of fatalistic dread is summoned up when Little Joe is caught up in a scheme that sees him facing a firing squad....

The Video:
Excellent. The full-screen, 1.33:1 color transfers for Bonanza: The Official Five Season, Volume 1 look amazing, with rich, deep color, minimal grain and picture noise, and a sharp, sharp image. I know these look better than they ever did back when they were first broadcast....

Final Thoughts:
It just keeps getting better and better: confident, assured dramatic/comedic anthology television at its best...masquerading as an oater. I'm giving Bonanza: The Official Fifth Season, Volume 1 our highest ranking here at DVDTalk: the DVD Talk Collector Series award.

 

Here's an interesting page with the production costs per episode for each season. One thing that continues to amaze is the number of episodes they made each season. Until the late 1960s, the standard season for Bonanza was a full 34 episodes! That changed to 30 episodes in 1968-69, 28 episodes the following year, and down to 26 in its last full year. Today a full season of a network show is often 18-24 episodes. And Cable shows are usually 10-13 episodes.

I wonder why this has happened? What about the production costs and the nature of TV viewing has shifted a season of a show from 34 episodes to 13?

Anyway, here's the link to the production budget of Bonanza, which according to this site started out costing only $110,000 an episode back in 1959. Adjusting for inflation that would still be slightly less than a million an episode today, compared to about $3 million for an hour of prime time TV today. As Vidiot has said elsewhere, salaries for cast and crew were low in the 50s-80s compared to today.

And $110,000 was actually a healthy budget for a TV Western in the late 1950s. The 30-minute Lone Ranger episodes in the mid-1950s had a tiny production budget of about $18,000 an episode. When Gunsmoke got going as the first "adult" Western in 1955 it was about $50,000 an episode. Wagon Train, launched in 1957, was one of the first hour long Westerns, and had cost as much as $100,000 per episode in the late 1950s. Gene Roddenberry famously called Star Trek in a memo "Wagon Train to the stars," and Star Trek had a production budget averaging $200,000 an episode for the first season in 1966-67 (although it was lowered for seasons 2 and 3). According to this page, Bonanza didn't get an average production budget over $200,000 until 1969. Televisions most lavish Western was the 90-minute show The Virginian, which had a lavish average production budget for the time of about $300,000 an episode starting in 1962. It was a half hour longer than Bonanza, but the budget was three times as large because of the extensive location photography, the fact that they paid higher for guest stars, and always got top talent behind the camera in terms of directors, cinematographers, editors, writers, etc. The Virginian is still my favorite Western, but I'm interested in comparing it to this season of Bonanza from 1963-64....

http://ponderosascenery.homestead.com/costs.html

Season One
Airdate: September 1959 to September 1960
Day/Time: Saturday, 7:30-8:30 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $110,052 (excluding pilot)


Season Two
Airdate: September 1960 to September 1961
Day/Time: Saturday, 7:30-8:30 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $107,151

Season Three
Airdate: September 1961 to September 1962
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $109,400

Season Four
Airdate: September 1962 to September 1963
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $119,800

Season Five
Airdate: September 1963 to September 1964
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $128,300

Season Six
Airdate: September 1964 to September 1965
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $133,500

Season Seven
Airdate: September 1965 to September 1966
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $149,500

Season Eight
Airdate: September 1966 to September 1967
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $163,000

Season Nine
Airdate: September 1967 to September 1968
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $181,600

Season Ten
Airdate: September 1968 to September 1969
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $188,900

Season Eleven
Airdate: September 1969 to September 1970
Day/Time: Sunday, 9:00-10:00 PM
Production Cost Per Episode: $211,500

 

Indiana had RCA plants in a number of cities (Indianapolis, Bloomington, Marion, Monticello). Although Indianapolis produced a lot of product for RCA (records, tvs, video disc players), RCA's color sets, starting with the legendary CT-100, rolled off the line in Bloomington, Indiana ("The color tv capital of the world," at least until GE came along and worked their magic); http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/19/b.../Reference/Times Topics/Subjects/T/Television

 

I ran thru this thread, didn't see this posted, apologies if it has been...

 

Interesting link about cast salaries on Bonanza. In 1959, the main cast only made about $500-$1200 a week. by the fifth season in 1963-64, that had gone up to $7000-$8000 a week (probably 8k for Lorne Greene and 7k each for his sons). 8k x 34 episodes=$272,000 in 1964, which would be about $2 million dollars today. Still not that high compared to today's salaries, but pretty good. It its fifth year, I think each of the main cast members of Friends each made c. 100k per episode, and since they made 25 episodes that was $2.5m a year. By the last two years the cast of Friends made a million for each episode, but that's really an extreme case and not at all representative of a "normal" salary even for a TV star.

http://ponderosascenery.homestead.com/files/royalties.html

Cast Salary

Season One - 1959-60
$500-$1,200 a week.

Season Two - 1960-61
$2,000- $3,000 a week.

Season Three - 1961-62
$3,000-$4,000 a week.

Season Four - 1962-63
$5,000-$6,000 a week.

Season Five - 1963-64
$7,000-$8,000 a week.

Season Six - 1964-65
$9,000-$10,000 a week.

Season Seven - 1965-66
$10,000-$11,000 a week.

Season Eight - 1966-67
$12,000 a week.

Season Nine - 1967-68
$13,000 a week.

Season Ten - 1968-69
$14,000 a week.

Season Eleven - 1969-70
$15,000 a week.

 

I just watched an episode with Dawn Wells (Maryann from Gilligan) playing a native american.

 

From Lorne Greene's album Welcome To the Ponderosa here is the finale. I still quote it whenever someone asks about the three brothers and the back story of Bonanza. Here's the story in a nutshell.


Behind me lay the stormy sea that I would sail no more,
The love that was so dear to me lay buried on the shore,
And my arms were holding my newborn son,
Reminding me that the past was done,
And the wind I heard, carried a strange-sounding word,
Ponderosa, Ponderosa !

The dusty road ahead of me was callin’ like a friend,
My hungry boots were itchin’ made to reach the other end,
Where the land was free and the years turned slow
With room for me and my son to grow
And the west winds came, bearing that strange-sounding name,
Ponderosa, Ponderosa !

My Adam was a yearling when we reached the Ole Missouri,
And I labored day and night to buy a wagon and a team,
‘Cause my hopes were in a hurry,
But suddenly my heart stopped me flat in my tracks…Like that !
‘Twas a woman, gay and pretty, sparkling with joy,
And I wanted her to share my dreams…

Our wedding cake was as light as down,
With a Valentine bride in a frosting gown,
And she was all things beautiful, and a mother to my boy
We started off together, on that February morn,
Through Nebraska down to Kansas,
Through the Spring and Autumn weather
To the edge of Colorado, where my second son was born
Husky, and jolly, and hardly ever cried,
My wife named him Eric…but I called him Hoss

My life was full of happiness, too wonderful to tell,
When, down upon our wagon train, there swarmed a savage hell,
Made of Cheyenne arrows and dying men,
And all my sorrows returned again,
And the wind wept through the sky,
Telling my dead Love goodbye,
Ponderosa, Ponderosa !

I took my sons and mothered them, but fear had left its shadow,
It seems they grew the farther on we went in Colorado,
For the land rose up, and it stood on end,
With a crown on top, cold and white,
And the days were made of ridin,’ and a-slippin,’ and a slidin,’
And my boys wouldn’t hide their fright,
I would wake up in the night and hear them crying in their sleep,
And I’d weep…
But they never knew, and somehow,
We got through

From Utah to Nevada, it was easy all the way,
We left behind that shadow, and it faded day by day,
For the sweet winds heralded a laughing tune,
The wagon wheels rumbled, “We’ll get there soon,”
And the ground all around, thundered that strange, rolling sound,
Ponderosa, Ponderosa !

Virginia City ! Boomtown ! Brash, Bold town,
Wild, Silver and Gold town,
Where I worked, and I jumbled, and I watched my fortune grow,
Till disaster dealt a hand I couldn’t play
Big Joe Collins was a friend, and my life woulda’ ended,
But he saved it at a cost of his own,
And his wife was alone, far away from the West,
And I couldn’t refuse his last request,

I made the sad and weary trip, and told her how he died,
And from the day I saw her tears, I couldn’t leave her side,
And the months flew by, like so many startled birds,
We both seemed to know without uttering the words,
And my friend would have wanted it so,
And I brought her west, and she became lovely as a mother,
So she gave my boys a brother, and we called him Little Joe

Well, it was time to find my land, and to build a dream I’d planned,
So I started off alone, and the wind led on me to a valley rich as Eden,
Where the trees were like a pillar for a temple,
With a wide, blue dome, and, all at once, I knew…
This place was home.

I asked an old trapper what kind of trees they were,
But he went right on draggin’ in his line,
Then he raised his ancient head, and I shivered when he said,
We call ‘em Ponderosa Pine
And on half a million acres of that strange-sounding name,
I staked my claim

My sons have grown to manhood, as the years have drifted on,
And each of them reminds me of a love that’s passed and gone,
But the strength that flows from the earth and the pine,
Warms my heart like a vintage wine,
With a love rich and strong,
For this is where we belong
On the Ponderosa,

 

Of course that doesn't include the red headed adopted son Jamie(heh heh)

 

By any chance do you remember the title? I'd like to see that one....

 

As I recall the back story was told a couple of times in the early years on the show done with Ben telling the story in flashback. (I remember that Hoss's mother was Ingrid hence the name Eric). Can anyone point to what season(s) these were in?

 

Amazing! That has to be heard to be believed. What year was that made? Thanks for posting that.

 

Welcome to the Ponderosa
An Evening of Songs and Stories with
LORNE GREENE

from 1964:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1615865

 

http://tviv.org/Nielsen_Ratings/Historic/Network_Television_by_Season/1960s

1963–1964 Season
Top 20 shows (ranked by total viewers)

1. The Beverly Hillbillies
2. Bonanza
3. The Dick Van Dyke Show
4. Petticoat Junction
5. The Andy Griffith Show
6. The Lucy Show
7. Candid Camera
8. The Ed Sullivan Show
9. The Danny Thomas Show
10. My Favorite Martian
11. The Red Skelton Show
12. I've Got a Secret
13. Lassie
14. The Jack Benny Program
15. The Jackie Gleason Show
16. The Donna Reed Show
17. The Virginian
18. The Patty Duke Show
19. Dr. Kildare
20. Gunsmoke

 

Great TV Ad from 1960 that says you can watch Bonanza and several other programs in color on your 1960 RCA Victor color TV. "The Most Trusted Name in Television."

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1960-RCA-Ad2.JPG

 

In 1963, my parents won a color TV in a church raffle. I grew up in a town of about 200 people, so it turned out, we had the first color set in town.
My parents would invite people over on Sunday nights, to watch Bonanza. My dad went to Sul Ross University and did summer stock with Dan Blocker.
The first famous person I ever met, was Michael Landon, when I was six.
Bonanza looms large in my childhood and I have wonderful memories of it.

 

loved the show, but they lost me in the greed of splitting seasons...I'll wait for them to come down to earth!

 

They actually do box the sets as one now. And $35 for a season doesn't seem that bad....

http://www.amazon.com/Bonanza-Offic...UTF8&qid=1376446988&sr=8-1&keywords=bonanza+5

 

What a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Landon was my favorite, I think.

 

well I haven't check in a long time...that's pretty good..thanks.

 

nice story! nice small town memories...I like that.

 

He could not have been nicer. Complimented me on my sweater. It turned my 1st grade picture was taken in the same sweater, so I'll never forget it.

 

My fav was Vera Miles in "A Time To Die." She gets rabies from a wolf.