Laramie (TV series)

Last updated

Laramie
Laramie Final Season.jpg
Naramie DVD Cover
Genre Western
Directed by
Starring
Composers
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons4
No. of episodes124 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer John C. Champion
Producer Revue Studios
Running time60 minutes
Production company Revue Studios
Original release
Network NBC
ReleaseSeptember 15, 1959 (1959-09-15) 
May 21, 1963 (1963-05-21)

Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. [1] A Revue Studios production, the program originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, owner of the Sherman Ranch, along with his younger brother Andy, played by Robert L. Crawford Jr.; Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, an immature, hot-headed drifter who shows up at the Sherman Ranch in the premiere episode; and Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy, who keeps the homestead/stage stop running while Slim and Jess usually alternate starring roles during the show. Actress Spring Byington was later added to the cast. [2]

Contents

Synopsis

The two Sherman brothers and a drifter, Jess Harper, come together to run a stagecoach stop for the Great Central Overland Mail Company after the Shermans' father, Matt, was murdered by a greedy land seeker. The Sherman parents are buried on the ranch. Near the end of the series, Matt Sherman was revealed to have been falsely accused during the American Civil War of having aided the Confederates. After Jess Harper finds on Sherman Ranch land the wreckage of a Union Army gold wagon stolen by Confederate raiders, Slim sets forth with the officer accused of helping the Confederates, portrayed by Frank Overton, and an Army major, the real culprit played by John Hoyt, to clear Matt Sherman's name. The gold dust in question had long ago been scattered by the wind.

The series premiere "Stage Stop" (September 15, 1959), which was filmed in color, explains how Slim Sherman and Jess Harper become partners in the Sherman Ranch and Relay Station. Jess arrives in Wyoming from Texas in search of an erstwhile "friend", Pete Morgan, played by John Mitchum, who had robbed Jess. Morgan is part of the gang of Bud Carlin (Dan Duryea). The gang captures Judge Thomas J. Wilkens (Everett Sloane), to keep him from trying Morgan. Though Jess and Slim are at odds with each other in their first encounters, and friendship seems out of the question, Andy Sherman takes an instant liking to Jess. Andy even asks Jess to take him away from the ranch, where he lives with his older brother Slim. Their first housekeeper is Jonesy, the role filled by Carmichael. Slim and Jess must fight together when Carlin shows up at the relay station (Carlin says he likes to watch men fight), and proceeds to humiliate the judge.

In "The General Must Die" (November 17, 1959), Brian Keith appears as Whit Malone, an old friend of Slim Sherman's from the Union Army. Malone and a mentally troubled Colonel Brandon, played by John Hoyt in another appearance on the series, arrive at the relay station with a daring but foiled plan to assassinate General William Tecumseh Sherman, who is scheduled to pass through the station on a stagecoach. Gilman Rankin makes a cameo appearance as General Sherman. This episode reveals that Slim Sherman entered the Army as a private and advanced to second lieutenant and fought under General Sherman (no relation) in the March to the Sea in Georgia.

Subsequent episodes focus on the close friendship that develops between Slim and Jess, as they become like brothers with occasionally strong differences of opinion, but always finding reconciliation and common ground. Generally, Slim, who is taller than Jess and two years older, is depicted as the more level-headed and thoughtful, with Jess as more emotional, with righteous indignation and difficulty controlling his temper.

In the episode "Cactus Lady" (February 21, 1961), it is revealed that Jess Harper had been nearly hanged by mistake in the border city of Laredo, Texas, because of the McCanles gang, played by Arthur Hunnicutt, L. Q. Jones, Harry Dean Stanton, and Anita Sands. The gang arrives suddenly in Laramie.

The German title of Laramie is Am Fuß der blauen Berge (At the Foot of the Blue Mountains), despite them being located some 600 miles north-west from Laramie, Wyoming.

Cast

Guest stars

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
1 31September 15, 1959 (1959-09-15)April 19, 1960 (1960-04-19)
2 33September 20, 1960 (1960-09-20)June 13, 1961 (1961-06-13)
3 28September 26, 1961 (1961-09-26)April 17, 1962 (1962-04-17)
4 32September 25, 1962 (1962-09-25)May 21, 1963 (1963-05-21)

Background and production

Hoagy Carmichael's contract was not renewed after the first season, [3] and his character was eliminated with the explanation that he had accompanied Andy to boarding school in St. Louis. Andy, however, returned to appear in three episodes in the first half of the second season.

To restore the chemistry of the original cast, as the third season began in 1961, Spring Byington, formerly of the sitcom December Bride , and Dennis Holmes joined the series in the roles of Daisy Cooper, a matronly widow, and Mike Williams, a young orphan permitted to live at the Sherman Ranch pending location of any next of kin, which never happened. At the beginning of its third season, Laramie was one of the first television programs that made the transition from black-and-white to color.

Because of declining ratings in its last season, Laramie was cancelled. [3]

The Laramie Peacock

The NBC peacock logo, in use since 1956, was given an update on January 2, 1962, when a new version of the NBC peacock "living color" logo was introduced before the Laramie broadcast that evening. [4] The "Laramie Peacock" featured the bird fanning its plumage against a kaleidoscopic color background (with the eleven melded feathers shrinking and separating into the peacock's form); it used the same "living color" tagline as the first peacock but the music piece that accompanied it was a soft, woodwind-based number. This symbol was used before every color program on the network until it was retired in 1975, but the Laramie version has made special appearances throughout the ensuing years, mostly in a retro-kitsch context or to commemorate a significant broadcast event on NBC. [5]

Release

Broadcast

Laramie ran for four seasons, from September 15, 1959 to September 17, 1963 Tuesday evenings on NBC from 7:30 8:30pm Eastern. [1]

Home media

Timeless Media Group has released all four seasons on DVD in Region 1.

DVD NameEp #Release Date
The Complete First Season31March 15, 2011
The Complete Second Season30February 7, 2012
The Complete Third Season28March 30, 2009
The Complete Final Season32September 15, 2009

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slim Pickens</span> American rodeo performer and actor (1919–1983)

Louis Burton Lindley Jr., better known by his stage name Slim Pickens, was an American actor and rodeo performer. Starting off in the rodeo, Pickens took up acting, and appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. For much of his career, Pickens played cowboy roles. He played comic roles in Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles, 1941, and his villainous turn in One-Eyed Jacks with Marlon Brando.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Devine</span> American actor (1905–1977)

Andrew Vabre Devine was an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers in 10 feature films. He also appeared alongside John Wayne in films such as Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and How the West Was Won. He is also remembered as Jingles on the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok from 1951 to 1958, as Danny McGuire in A Star Is Born (1937), and as the voice of Friar Tuck in the Disney Animation Studio film Robin Hood (1973).

The year 1962 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable events of that year.

<i>Wagon Train</i> Western television series from 1957 to 1965

Wagon Train is an American Western television series that aired for eight seasons, first on the NBC television network (1957–1962) and then on ABC (1962–1965). Wagon Train debuted on September 18, 1957 and reached the top of the Nielsen ratings. It is the fictional adventure story of a large westbound wagon train through the American frontier from Missouri to California. Its format attracted famous guest stars for each episode appearing as travelers or residents of the settlements that the regular cast encountered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Anderson (actor)</span> American actor (1922–1992)

John Robert Anderson was an American character actor who performed in hundreds of stage, film, and television productions during a career that spanned over four decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Duryea</span> American actor (1907–1968)

Dan Duryea was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Durant</span> American actor and businessman (1932–2005)

Don Durant was an American actor and singer, best known for his role as the gunslinger-turned-sheriff in the CBS Western series Johnny Ringo, which ran on Thursdays from October 1, 1959 to June 30, 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Best</span> American actor, musician, artist (1926–2015)

Jewel Franklin Guy, known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, he performed not only in feature films but also in scores of television series, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. Television audiences, however, perhaps most closely associate Best with his role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series The Dukes of Hazzard, which originally aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985. He reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spring Byington</span> American actress (1886–1971)

Spring Dell Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player who appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1960s. Byington received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Penelope Sycamore in You Can't Take It with You (1938).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Fuller (actor)</span> American actor (born 1933)

Robert Fuller is an American horse rancher and retired actor. He began his career on television, guest-starring primarily on Western programs, while appearing in several movies, including: The Brain from Planet Arous, Teenage Thunder, Return of the Seven (1966), Incident at Phantom Hill (1966), and The Hard Ride (1971). In his five decades of television, Fuller was known for his deep, raspy voice and was familiar to television viewers throughout the 1960s from his co-star roles on the popular 1960s Western series Laramie as Jess Harper and Wagon Train as Cooper Smith. He was also well known for his starring role as Dr. Kelly Brackett in the 1970s medical/action drama Emergency!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Bray</span> American film and television actor (1917–1983)

Robert E. Bray was an American film and television actor known for playing the forest ranger Corey Stuart in the CBS series Lassie, He also starred in Stagecoach West and as Mike Hammer in the movie version of Mickey Spillane's novel My Gun Is Quick (1957).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Hull</span> American actor

Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor who played the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London (1935). For most of his career, he was a lead actor on stage and a character actor on screen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rod Cameron (actor)</span> Canadian film, television actor (1910–1983)

Rod Cameron was a Canadian film and television actor whose career extended from the 1930s to the 1970s. He appeared in horror, war, action and science fiction movies, but is best remembered for his many Westerns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Smith (actor)</span> American actor (1931–1995)

John Smith was an American actor whose career primarily focused on westerns. He had his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Roberson</span> American actor and stuntman (1919–1988)

Charles Hugh Roberson was an American actor and stuntman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Woods (actor)</span> American actor

Donald Woods was a Canadian-American film and television actor whose career in Hollywood spanned six decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Simon</span> American actor (1908–1992)

Robert Frank Simon was an American character actor.

<i>The Lloyd Bridges Show</i> 1962 American TV series or program

The Lloyd Bridges Show is an American anthology drama series produced by Aaron Spelling, which aired on CBS from September 11, 1962, to May 28, 1963, starring and hosted by Lloyd Bridges.

Robert Lawrence Crawford Jr. is an American actor who portrayed the character Andy Sherman on the NBC television series Laramie in 1959 and 1960. He was cast as the younger brother of Slim Sherman, portrayed by John Smith, owner of the fictitious Sherman Ranch and Relay Station some twelve miles east of Laramie, Wyoming. Their co-star was Robert Fuller in the role of former gunfighter Jess Harper. Crawford's role on Laramie ended in 1960, when Andy Sherman was shipped off to boarding school. Crawford is sometimes credited as Bobby Crawford Jr., or without the generational suffix as Bobby Crawford or Robert L. Crawford.

References

  1. 1 2 Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F. (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 760. ISBN   978-0-345-49773-4.
  2. Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F. (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 463. ISBN   978-0-345-49773-4.
  3. 1 2 Sudhalter, Richard M. (2003). Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael. Oxford University Press US. p. 303. ISBN   0-19-516898-4.
  4. Ripp, Allan (June 5, 2014). "TV's Real Golden Era: When We Were a Captive Audience". The Atlantic. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  5. "The NBC peacock will soon be extinct". Lewiston Morning Tribune. (Idaho). (Washington Post). August 3, 1975. p. 2A.