The Original Lyrics To Bonanza...

[Lord Jim]

The past couple of days, I've burned an inordinate amount of free time on the topic of TV show theme songs, (thanks to a post of mine and a PM exchange with another poster) and I came across this one...

After you see it, it will be easy to understand why the show producers decided that a visual of a burning map and an instrumental version playing in the background was the better way to go...

And kudos to Pernell Roberts for having had the good judgement to not participate in this (beyond tipping his hat and riding his horse)

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado...

Bonanza!



I particularly like the bit where Hoss barks...

[Joe Guy]

I once started writing lyrics to the Bonanza theme but never finished it. It went like this...

Here's to the men who live on the Ponderosa
Little Joe, Hoss, Ben-Cartright, Adam, Hop-Sing too

Bad guys lose - good guys win - Hop Sing cooks all day

Here's to the men who live on the Ponderosa
They never change their clothes and so they smell like horse's poo....

[Lord Jim]

There seems to be some question about whether or not that actually aired in the original pilot...(It's been cut out of the re-runs of the pilot)

A few years later Lorne Greene recorded an album with lyrics for a Bonanza theme that were a little less ridiculous, but it was never a part of the show:

We chased lady luck, 'til we finally struck
Bonanza!
With a gun and a rope and a hat full of hope,
we planted our family tree.
We got a hold of a pot full of gold,
Bonanza !

With a horse and a saddle,
and a ring full of cattle,
How rich can a fellow be?

On this land we put our brand,
Cartwright is the name,
Fortune smiled,
the day we filed,
the Ponderosa claim.

Here in the west,
we're livin' in the best
Bonanza!

If anyone fights any one of us,
he's got a fight with me!


Hoss and Joe and Adam know
every rock and pine,
No one works fights, or eats,
like those boys of mine

Here we stand in the middle of a grand
Bonanza!

With a gun and a rope and a hatful of hope,
we planted our family tree,

We got a hold of a potful of gold,
Bonanza!

With a houseful of friends where the rainbow ends,
How rich can a fellow be?

On this land we put our brand Cartwright is the name,
Fortune smiled,
the day we filed,
the Ponderosa claim[the Cartwrights were the original Koch Brothers]

Here in the west we're living in the best
Bonanza!

With the friendliest, fightingist, lovingist band,
That ever set foot in the promised land,

And we're happier than them all.
That's why we call it...
Bonanza...Bonanza.. Bonanza!..

[Rick]

See I that the lyrics were:

Dum da dee dum da dee dum da dee dum da dee dum dum

[Lord Jim]

Bonanza also played a very important role in the development of television as a social medium...

It was the first show that was produced in color, (and very high quality color; there's a reason that there's still a color called "Ponderosa blue" )

The popularity of Bonanza was single handedly responsible for the sale of millions of color television sets in the early to mid-sixties despite the fact that most programming of the period was in black and white...

It was worth having a color television set just to be able to watch Bonanza in "living color" on Sunday nights...(that's why my father bought one...)

[Rick]

Jimbob I think you need to expound a little cause my history interweb says that ain't so vis a vis The Marriage 1st episode July 1, 1954. Bonanza did not air until September 12, 1959.

[Lord Jim]

Jimbob I think you need to expound a little cause my history interweb says that ain't so vis a vis The Marriage 1st episode July 1, 1954. Bonanza did not air until September 12, 1959.

No, you may have me there Rick...

I've never heard of "The Marriage" (though now I'm going to start digging about it; because I am a student of mid to late 20th Century American Cultural History, and I would like to learn about it)

But I stand by the point I made about Bonanza...

[Lord Jim]

Technically you're right:

The Marriage is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from July to August 1954. The series is noted as the first prime-time network television series to be broadcast regularly in color.[1] Broadcast live by NBC for seven episodes in the summer of 1954, the series stars real-life couple Hume Cronyn (who also produced the show) and Jessica Tandy as a New York lawyer and his wife with two children, played by Susan Strasberg and Malcolm Brodrick.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marria ... _series%29

I can't find any clips from it on YouTube... (Though I'm certainly familiar with Jessica Tandy...)

While I concede that you have a detailed knowledge of the early history of color television greater then I do, (A seven episode show in 1954...wow...that's a great catch... ) I stand by my initial point that Bonanza was pivitol in initiating broad public demand for color television...

There's a lot of evidence to support that...

[Rick]

No no I can't take credit for "knowing" this I search the interwebs, they knew. As for Your assertion about Bonanza I defer.

I will say this my father rarely watched television. Bonanza aired a 2 parter (I think it had to do with leprechauns) he made sure he saw the second part, how he happened to stick around for the 1st is beyond me.

[Lord Jim]

BTW, the fetching young lady who appears in the Bonanza pilot is none other than Moses' wife... (and also Lilly Munster) the late great, (and sultry) Yvonne De Carlo...

Yvonne De Carlo (born Margaret Yvonne Middleton; September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, and singer of film, television, and musical theatre, best known for starring as Sephora in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956),[1] after having appeared in many B movie westerns. Her best remembered role in television is as Lily Munster in the CBS television series The Munsters (1964-1966).[2]

(Geezus, another damn Canadian...is it so tough to earn a living in The Great White North as an actor or an actress, or as a news anchor, or even as a weatherman, that you have to keep shipping them down here? Just sayin'...)

[TPFKA@W]

Way. Too. Much. Time. On. Your. Hands. Jimbo.

[dgs49]

My family was also one that tuned in to Bonanza every Sunday night, and if my memory is correct it was preceded by the Disney program - also in color.

But on our television it was all shades of gray. Not 50 shades, but close.

[Big RR]

Yep, Disney ran from 7:30-8:30, and Bonanza from 9:00-10:00, I don't really recall what was on 8:30-9:00 as we usually turned to the second part of Ed Sullivan on CBS (although I have a vague memory of a Bill Cosby sitcom running for a little while), and then back to NBC for Bonanza. We stopped watching Bonanza when the Smothers Brothers started in the latter 60s. And like you, Dave, it was watched in living black and white.

[oldr_n_wsr]

My family was also one that tuned in to Bonanza every Sunday night, and if my memory is correct it was preceded by the Disney program - also in color.

But on our television it was all shades of gray. Not 50 shades, but close.

That's my recollection too. We were usually at my grandparents house and it was dinner, then Disney, then Bonanza, then the trip home. Middle Village to Mineola. And my grandparents were the first I recall to have a color TV set.

ETA
Was Mannix on after Bonanza? I remember my grandfather watching that show.

[Big RR]

Oldr--my recollection is that Mannix aired on CBS in the late (10:00 PM) slot on Saturday; Mission Impossible aired in that slot on Sunday (and after Bonanza)--not sure what NBC had then as we always watched Mission Impossible. It's all part of a very misspent youth to remember that.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Oldr--my recollection is that Mannix aired on CBS in the late (10:00 PM) slot on Saturday; Mission Impossible aired in that slot on Sunday (and after Bonanza)--not sure what NBC had then as we always watched Mission Impossible. It's all part of a very misspent youth to remember that.

Sounds good. We were at grandparents many a saturday too. Usually there so the grandparents could babysit us while my parents went out.

Remember the NBC peacock opening it's feathers when color first came out? That was a cool peacock.

[liberty]

I liked Bonanza as kid and didn’t think much about Adam not being around. But now that I am old, I think Mr. Robert’s suggestions could have made the show better. For example if the producer had allowed him to work part-time so that he could have also done his stage roles.
Adam could have periodically visited the family with his own family in tow. This could have lead to interesting situations such as conflicts with his father over who disciples and instructs Adams children. When Ben would try to take on the role of father to his grand children naturally Adam would resent it. In those days TV was not big on family conflict. It was the time of “Father Knows Best”. But there were ways that it could have been portrayed to the audience that Adam loved respected his father in spite of their disagreement.

[Big RR]

Jim--I'm pretty impressed with the cast of The Marriage; Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronin were pretty big stars on Broadway (and in film) and Susan Strasberg has made a name of herself with movies (Picinc and I think a couple of other movies, but I'm not sure of the years). Not sure of Malcolm Broderick, but I wonder if he has any relation to James and Matthew Broderick.

[MajGenl.Meade]

We never watched Bonanza at our home. Maybe that's because we didn't have a TV until er.... anyway, before we had one, this kid only saw TV at the neighbour kids' houses. And, was it just our street?, families tended to watch either ITV or BBC. As it happened, my friends families watched BBC mostly. What did that mean?

AFAIR:
Bonanza - ITV
Cheyenne- ITV
Champion the Wonder Horse - BBC
Fury - ITV
Tenderfoot - BBC (known as 'Sugarfoot' in the USA)
Rawhide - ITV
Lone Ranger - BBC
Overland Stage - BBC
The Rifleman - ITV
Rin Tin Tin - BBC

and so on

I never watched the ITV westerns more than on rare occasions, even when we finally got our own TV which broadcast both stations

Odd that. I do remember seeing the episode of Bonanza when Wayne Newton got his big TV break as a singing zygote.
Meade

[dgs49]

The theme song from "Have Gun - Will Travel" keeps running through my head, but I can't recall what time it was on.

I thought the gunman's first name was "Wire." As in, "Have gun - will travel. Wire Palladin, San Francisco."