Togetherness
TV Guide~June 25, 1960

     Bonanza Is A Family Affair Which May Be Why It's A Hit

     Bonanza, the NBC Western set in the Comstock Lode country, differs from most other TV Westerns in at least one respect.  Its people--tough old Ben Cartwright and his three distinctly different sons--have roots.

     Consider the current crop of Westerns.  Nine out of ten are concerned with rootless men, saddle tramps, drifters with no sense of belonging.  Cheyenne, The Texan, Bronco, and their numerous friends horseback idly through life, picking up a job here and a job there, righting wrongs, occasionally kissing the girl, and riding off into the sunset alone, in the great tradition of moviedom's "Shane", the prototype of most of the Westerns on the television air today.

     "Wagon Train's" people are seeking roots but have not quite found them, because the wagons keep rolling along.  Only in "Laramie" and "The Rifleman" is there any identifcation with "family" and place.

     Bonanza, then, stands somewhat apart.  It not only deals with rooted people but does so on an epic scale.  The Cartwrights are not just a family; they're a dynasty.  Their little spread, "The Ponderosa" covers 600,000 acres, and they glory the fact that they belong to the land and each other.  And if one of the younger Cartwrights presumed to ride off into any sunsets, old Ben Cartwright would probably horsewhip him.

     It's undeniably that this togetherness (a word which nettles certain members of Bonanza ), has a potent appeal in a Nation obsessed with the idea of security.  More than that, it has strengthened the image of the father figure--"Bonanza" is a sort of rugged "Father Knows Best".

     Producer David Dortort, the gentleman who invented the show, put it this way: "Ben Cartwright as played by Lorne Greene is not a congenital idiot.  He is not led around by the nose by anybody.  We do not have our Moms built into our show--or, for that matter, any woman.  We are, as it were, anti-Momism.  We don't have any little brats who talk like Leonard Bernstein.  Nor do we believe in the philosophy that life favors the underdog.  Instead, we deal with a love affair between four strong men and, even more importantly, with the land and with roots".

     Someone once synopsized the standard plot of "The Danny Thomas Show" (and for that matter, a half-dozen other shows before and since) as follows.  "Gruff old Dad takes a rooking.  Mother arrives on the 11th hour to soothe his ruffled ego and save the situation".

     "Bonanza" is the lusty refutation of this female-superiority philosophy and it may have to do with the fact that audiences have closely indentified with it.  One indication of this is the show's high ratings in its first year.  Another is the volume of fan mail--6,000 letters a week, some of it highly revealing.

     One little girl wrote to explain that she and her three sisters were avid admirers of the show, so much that they habitually acted out all the parts.  "I'm Ben", wrote the child.  "The oldest is Adam.  My little sister is Joe.  My other sister is Hoss.  'Course she's not as big as he is, but.."

     Lorne Greene commented, "An audience can't get much more identified than that".

     Yet even these things are not enough to explain the vitality of "Bonanza".  The show has an abundance of more ordinary virtues--the nice variety in character and the carefully nurtured relationships between the four principals: Ben, the patriarch, with his deep concern for his family,; Little Joe, the hot-blooded (played by Michael Landon); Hoss (Dan Blocker), the restraining influence, who blends great physical strength with great gentleness, and Adam (Pernell Roberts), the more stable, thoughtful young man.  Each character is aimed at a special segment of the television audience.

     The sort of appeal-in-depth is not new or unusual in television.  What is unusual is the rough-and-tumble manner in which the actors argue with their producer.

     "We have honest fights", says Pernell Roberts".  We all jump on David (Dortort) together".

     Roberts is frank enough to say that he considers togetherness a fraud, a delusion, and a detriment to the show.  And he takes a dim view of Dortort's tendency to do stories written for all four actors.

     "I feel," says Roberts, "as if I'm playing one-fourth a character.  We need some time to develop individuality in the given situation.  As far as I'm conerned, the only question is: is an actor good or isn't he? After all, it's his face hanging out there".

     Greene, an ex-Canadian news broadcaster, argues that the strong family feeling should be maintained.  "I can't disagree with Pernell", he says.  "But I still feel that in the family kind of story your own individuality should--and does--come through".

     Young Mike Landon is partisan to the Dortort view.  "Aside from the family stuff", Landon says, "when you get right down to it the strongest attachments are between men--fathers, brothers.  It all helps take a Western out of the 'yup' and 'nope' kind of thing."

     At this point Roberts is likely to growl that the men of the Ponderosa spread do not seem to have the company of women often enough.

     Dan Blocker, the 300-pound actor who used to play heavies, gives Dortort the least trouble.  Yet even he can be firm.  "I think the show is popular basically because of the four characters, not because of the stories--which are sometimes terrible", says Blocker.

     To this statement Greene replies that there was a writer named Shakespeare who always used some terrible plots too.  "But he always wrote about big men who made things happen.  The raw emotions stand out against the big backdrop.  Of course", Greene adds, "what we do not have on series television is the fantastically great quality of writing".

     And so the Donnybrook continues--on the set, in the producer's office and at informal gatherings.  Through it all, Dortort smiles happily and listens to what his four insurgents have to say.  Dortort apparently believes that as long as his actors have a burning personal interest in what they're doing before the camera their vitality will reflect itself in the finished product.  Judging by the ratings, it does.