CHEYENNE (TV WESTERN)

'''Cheyenne''' is a western television series broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1962. Like its titular character, it is a pioneer in American television. It was the first hour-long western. It was the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties.Trivia about ''Cheyenne'' at IMDB And it is the first of a long chain of William T. Orr-produced Warner Brothers original series.
''Cheyenne'' was a co-winner of the 1957 Golden Globe Award for Television Achievement.^[2]

Contents

Series history

Bodie in other shows and media

External links

References

Series history

The series began as a part of ''Warner Brothers Presents'', a program that alternated three different series in rotation. In this first year, ''Cheyenne'' traded broadcast weeks with ''Casablanca'' and ''King's Row''. Thereafter, ''Cheyenne'' was overhauled by outgoing producer Roy Huggins and left the umbrella of ''WBP''. It featured Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie, a physically huge cowboy wandering the Old West. The show ran from 1955 to 1963, except for the time Walker struck for higher pay and the series was temporarily replaced by a similar show called ''Bronco'' that featured Ty Hardin as Bronco Lane, a virtual clone of Bodie.
After Walker's pay dispute was settled, the two series alternated in the same time slot from 1958 to 1962, with ''Bronco'' as the junior partner (only a snippet of his theme song was heard in the opening credits, as a kind of aural footnote to Cheyenne's). Occasionally both Cheyenne and Bronco appeared together in the same episode, both deadly serious as they worked together. Diane Brewster first appeared as Samantha Crawford, the swindler with a fake southern accent, in an episode of ''Cheyenne'' called "Dark Rider" before the character memorably migrated to ''Maverick'' to become the Maverick brothers' most celebrated nemesis.
At the conclusion of the sixth season, a special episode was aired. Called "A Man Named Ragan", it was a pilot for a program called ''The Dakotas'' that would replace ''Cheyenne'' in the middle of the next season. However, because Cheyenne Bodie never appeared in "Ragan", the two programs are only tenuously linked.

Bodie in other shows and media

Walker revived the Cheyenne Bodie character in 1991 for the TV-movie '', which presented a host of TV cowboys from the 1950s, including Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, Hugh O'Brien as Wyatt Earp, Chuck Connors as The Rifleman, and Jack Kelly in his final appearance as Bart Maverick, a year before his death. Walker also played Cheyenne in an episode of '' in 1995.
Dell Comics produced a comic book based on the series. After 3 issues in their ''Four Color Comics'' series, it got its own title for issues #4-25 from (1957-1962). All issues had photo covers.

External links

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References

1. http://www.classicthemes.com/50sTVThemes/themePages/cheyenne.html Season 1 featured the ''Warner Brothers Presents'' opening theme and a closing theme by Jerry Livingston and Mack David. However, once the show came out of the ''WBP'' "umbrella", the Lava/Jones theme, "Bodie", was exclusively employed.
2. ''Cheyenne'' at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association