Cheyenne (TV series)

Did You Know?

• L. Q. Jones appeared as "Smitty" Smith in episodes 1, 2, and 4.
• Clyde Howdy appeared as a variety of characters in 49 episodes.
• James Garner had briefly been considered for the role of Cheyenne but could not be located until after Clint Walker had already been cast.

Synopsis

Clint Walker portrayed Cheyenne Bodie, a physically large cowboy with a gentle spirit who wanders the American West after the Civil War in search of frontier justice. During the series, Cheyenne worked as an Army scout, deputy U.S. marshal, county sheriff, prospector, cattleman, hunter, and city marshal. The first episode, "Mountain Fortress", involves robbers posing as Good Samaritans and features James Garner as a guest star, though Ann Robinson received higher billing as Garner's intended bride.

The episode establishes that Bodie's parents were killed by Indians of an unspecified tribe. He was taken by Cheyenne Indians as an infant and left with a white family at age 12. Bodie maintains a positive attitude toward Native Americans despite his parents' death. Continuity errors provide contradictory details: "West of the River" states he was taken at age 10 and left the Cheyenne by choice at 18.

In season five's "The Long Rope", Cheyenne returns to the town where he was raised by the Pierce family, whose head, Jeff, was lynched when Cheyenne was young.

Background and production

The series began as part of Warner Bros. Presents, a wheel program rotating three series. In its first year, Cheyenne alternated weeks with Casablanca and Kings Row. New producer Roy Huggins then overhauled the show and removed it from that wheel. Cheyenne ran from 1955 to 1962, with a hiatus when Walker went on strike for better terms (1958–1959).

He demanded increased residuals, a reduction of the 50% cut of personal appearance payments turned over to Warner Bros., and release from the restriction of recording music only for the company's label. During his absence, a virtual Bodie-clone named Bronco Layne, played by Ty Hardin, was introduced as the quasi-main character. When Walker returned in 1959 after renegotiation, Bronco was spun off. Walker, prohibited from seeking other work during the long negotiation, was unhappy to continue the role and told reporters he felt like "a caged animal."

Release

Cheyenne aired on ABC from 1955 to 1962: September 1955–September 1959 on Tuesday at 7:30–8:30 pm; September 1959–December 1962 on Monday at 7:30–8:30 pm. The series finished at number 13 in the Nielsen ratings for 1957–1958, number 18 for 1958–1959, number 17 for 1959–1960, and number 28 for 1960–1961. Warner Home Video released a "Best of..." single disc on September 27, 2005, featuring three episodes. The first season was released on DVD in Region 1; seasons 2–7 were released via the Warner Archive Collection as manufacture-on-demand DVD-R discs, with the seventh season released on November 12, 2013.

Spin-offs and crossovers

At the end of the sixth season, a special episode "A Man Named Ragan" aired as a pilot for a program called The Dakotas, starring Larry Ward, Chad Everett, Jack Elam, and Michael Greene, which was to replace Cheyenne mid-season. Because Cheyenne Bodie never appeared in that episode, the two programs are only tenuously linked. Walker reprised the Cheyenne Bodie character in 1991 for the TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, which featured numerous actors from earlier television series playing their original roles. He also portrayed Cheyenne in a time-travel episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues called "Gunfighters" in 1995.