The cast included the buxom beauty, Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty..now lets fess up Parker, she was a goddamn madam of a second floor bordello of a saloon serving up watered down whiskey along with syphillis from the soiled doves in the upstairs loft..no wonder Doc hung out at the bar a lot..I thought he was the town drunk at first but then realized..he was there to administer shots for the venereal disease that ran rampant in the ramparts. I always wondered if Marshall Dillon ever dropped his gunbelt once to have a go at Miss Kitty or was he just firing blanks? Miss Kitty was also known as Kitty Galore the great grandmother of Pussy Galore and it was proven that she was a real readhead and was wild and wooly where it counted.
One of my favorites was "The Lone Ranger" with Clayton Moore as the Ranger, and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. Hi Yo Silver Away made that white horse fuel injected and ready to gallop all the way to Gallipoli or Dodge City, which ever came first. A former Texas Ranger, he now wore a black mask and form fitting ass hugging pants that must have driven Tonto delerious and delightful. Kimo Sabe was hot to trot and Tonto had a condo teepee in Toronto and wanted to get into the Rangers wigwam. Pretty sure anyway. Get 'em up Scout!!! The Ranger only fired silver bullets too..making a fashion statement on the one hand and ready to bring down Lawrence Talbot in his Wolfman guise after Dancing With the Stars at the Cowboy Masked Ball. While most prefered the buckskin and fringe ensemble, whereas, the Ranger loved to affect the Liberace of the old west look, and quite frankly, pulled it off better than a female impersonator doing Liza at the Birdcage Saloon in Tombstone.
There was Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson along with Judge Roy Bean and Hopalong Cassidy...or Hoppy as he was called. He was actually an opium addict called Hop Head but the network didnt' think it would sell...there was also Buffalo Bill, Jr with Dick JOnes and The Range Rider also with Dick Jones and Jock Mahoney. Dick was a trick rider from the age of four and was riding pro rodeo by the age of six. Hoot Gibson was impressed and got him to Hollywood where he starred in a series of Gene Autry produced tv westerns where he did his own stunts and always got the girl...his youthful looks made him the Michael J. Fox of his day.
Then there were the singing cowboys or what I call the Chorusline Boys of the Wild West. Leonard Slye and the Family Stone..ok, that is pushing it...Leonard Slye from Ohio is actually Roy Rogers who as a contract player for the film studios made less then his new co-star in films, Dale Evans who by the way wrote..Happy Trails to You...later when his contract let up he purchased his own films from the studio who felt westerns wouldn't work on the new medium of television. Slye was sly, Eh?
Singing cowboys never shot the bad guy to kill..only wound and somehow blood never spilled. Plus the singing cowboy always serenaded the girl..but never took her to bed! I dunno, you spend all that time plunking a guitar and singing your plaintive heart out you should get something in return..something wild and wooly from south of her border when you drop your holster and load your chamber with live ammo! What was that all about...The Gay Cowboy? Waiting to go shopping with another singing cowboy before preparing dinner for two and a romatic evening playing strip faro with fully packed holsters?
Ah but what about the wild west women? Annie Oakley played by Gail Davis sported that I'm 30 something and look ridiculous in pigtail look but her white cowboy go go boots and fringe skirt gave her a Mary Quant quaint quality that made you want to romp around the hay in the barn with her and score your own bullseye on and in her target area.
Steve McQueen and Nick Adams added a male sexuality to the cowboy that had not been seen at the time. They didn't always win, were not always right, and in effect may have fucked up every week on the show, but managed to get their man and get laid by the mayors daughter on the same show!
I also never could grasp the sex on these shows nor in the old west itself...riding on a cattle drive for weeks...no bath, stinking like a sidewinder dead for three days..no change of underwear then they waltz into town Matilda and have beautiful bar girls sitting on their lap...let alone going to the upstairs rooms later now masking the scent of the cows and dung with the over powering staggering smell of rot gut whiskey and cigars. Of course the doves were probably no better off in the hygiene department so was probably like two pigs wallowing in a mud hole...
The TV western which had replaced the movie westerns of the 30's and 40's faded into obscurity itself replaced by the movies once again with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and others in new westerns..Young Guns, Silverado, Good Bad and Ugly...but I still have a special fondness for the romance of the tv western...ah..the romantic west..thank god for Opium dens and Asian prosititutes...now we're talking my kind of wild, wild west...fill that pipe, fire it up and away we go...bang bang my little Lotus Blossom!!!