The Swamp Fox | |
---|---|
Production | |
Production company | Walt Disney Studios |
Original release | |
Release | October 23, 1959 – January 16, 1961 |
The Swamp Fox is a television miniseries produced by Walt Disney Studios and starring Leslie Nielsen as American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. [1] [2] The show was based on the 1959 book Swamp Fox: The Life and Campaigns of General Francis Marion by Robert D. Bass. [3]
The theme song ("Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat..." [4] ) was sung by Nielsen as well. [5] Myron Healey played Marion's top aide, Maj./Col. Peter Horry. One of the Swamp Fox's adversaries was Colonel Banastre Tarleton, played by John Sutton. Patrick Macnee played a British captain, Tim Considine played Marion's nephew Gabe Marion and Slim Pickens played Plunkett, one of the Swamp Fox's men. Hal Stalmaster appeared in three of the eight episodes as "Gwynn." J. Pat O'Malley played a British guard in the 1st episode and co-starred as Sgt O'Reilly in subsequent episodes. The Swamp Fox did not bring to Disney the commercial success that had been achieved by Davy Crockett .
The series encompassed eight intermittent episodes running from 1959 to 1961 as part of Walt Disney Presents . [6] Episodes were presented on Sundays on ABC from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and were also broadcast by CBC Television.
The Disney Channel reran Swamp Fox episodes in the 1980s and 1990s, [7] while Nielsen was at the height of a second career as a white-haired comedy movie star. The first three episodes of the series were also released in 2005 on DVD (in a set including three episodes of The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca ).
Episode # | Title | Original airdate |
---|---|---|
1 | "The Birth of the Swamp Fox" | October 23, 1959 [1] |
2 | "Brother Against Brother" | October 30, 1959 |
3 | "Tory Vengeance" | January 1, 1960 |
4 | "Day of Reckoning" | January 8, 1960 |
5 | "Redcoat Strategy" | January 15, 1960 |
6 | "A Case of Treason" | January 22, 1960 |
7 | "A Woman's Courage" | January 8, 1961 |
8 | "Horses for Greene" | January 15, 1961 |
Leslie William Nielsen was a Canadian actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters.
Brigadier General Francis Marion, also known as the "Swamp Fox", was an American military officer, planter, and politician who served during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. During the American Revolution, Marion supported the Patriot cause and enlisted in the Continental Army, fighting against British forces in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War from 1780 to 1781.
Buddy Ebsen, also known as Frank "Buddy" Ebsen, was an American actor and dancer. One of his most famous roles was as Jed Clampett in the CBS television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971); afterwards he starred as the title character in the television detective drama Barnaby Jones (1973–1980).
A miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. "Limited series" is a more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. As of 2021, the popularity of miniseries format has increased in both streaming services and broadcast television.
The Walt Disney Company has produced an anthology television series since 1954 under several titles and formats. The program's current title, The Wonderful World of Disney, was used from 1969 to 1979 and again from 1991 onward. The program moved among the Big Three television networks in its first four decades, but has aired on ABC since 1997 and Disney+ from 2020 to 2023.
Robert Alba Keith, known professionally as Brian Keith, was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his six-decade career gained recognition for his work in films such as the Disney family film The Parent Trap (1961); Johnny Shiloh (1963); the comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966); and the adventure saga The Wind and the Lion (1975), in which he portrayed President Theodore Roosevelt.
James Rudolph O'Malley was an English character actor and singer who appeared in many American films and television programmes from the 1940s to 1982, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley. He also appeared on the Broadway stage in Ten Little Indians (1944) and Dial M for Murder (1954).
Swamp Fox may refer to:
The following is the 1961–62 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1961 through April 1962. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1960–61 season.
Zorro is an American action-adventure Spanish Western television series produced by Walt Disney Productions and starring Guy Williams. Based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley in his 1919 novella, the series premiered on October 10, 1957, on ABC. The final network broadcast was July 2, 1959. Seventy-eight episodes were produced, and four hour-long specials were aired on the Walt Disney anthology series between October 30, 1960, and April 2, 1961.
Daniel Boone is an American action-adventure television series, starring Fess Parker as the frontiersman Daniel Boone, that aired from September 24, 1964, to May 7, 1970, on NBC for 165 episodes, and was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, Arcola Enterprises, and Fespar Corp. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Cherokee friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi portrayed Boone's companion Yadkin in season one only. Country Western singer-actor Jimmy Dean was a featured actor as Josh Clements during the 1968–1970 seasons. Actor and former NFL football player Rosey Grier made regular appearances as Gabe Cooper in the 1969 to 1970 season. The show was broadcast "in living color" beginning in fall 1965, the second season, and was shot entirely in California and Kanab, Utah. The show was highly fictionalized with very little historical accuracy.
Timothy Daniel Considine was an American actor, writer, photographer, and automotive historian. He was best known for his acting roles in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
John Nicholas "Dick" Foran was an American actor and singer, known for his performances in Western musicals and for playing supporting roles in dramatic pictures. He appeared in dozens of movies of every type during his lengthy career, often with top stars leading the cast.
Kevin Anthony "Moochie" Corcoran was an American child actor, director and producer. He appeared in numerous Disney projects between 1957 and 1963, leading him to be honored as a Disney Legend in 2006. His nickname, Moochie, established him as an irrepressible character in film.
Oscar Marion was an American militiaman during the American Revolutionary War enslaved by Francis Marion. In December 2006, Oscar Marion was recognized as an "African American Patriot" in a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. A proclamation signed by President George W. Bush expressed the appreciation of a "grateful nation" for Oscar Marion's "devoted and selfless consecration to the service of our country in the Armed Forces of the United States."
Myron Daniel Healey was an American actor. He began his career in Hollywood, California during the early 1940s and eventually made hundreds of appearances in movies and on television during a career spanning more than half a century.
Davy Crockett was a five-part serial which aired on ABC from 1954–1955 in one-hour episodes, on the Disneyland series. The series starred Fess Parker as real-life frontiersman Davy Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his friend, George Russell. The first three and last two episodes were respectively edited into the theatrical films Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956). This series and film are known for the catchy theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett".
John Bramwell Alderson was an English actor noted for playing the lead in the 1957–58 syndicated western television series, Boots and Saddles, which ran for thirty-eight episodes in a single season, and many supporting roles in films in a career spanning almost forty years, from 1951 to 1990.
Smoki Whitfield was an African American actor, comedian, and musician.