Die jungen Reiter

This was a favorite show for both my sister and I while I was in junior high. She was older and already married with her own family, but I can still remember calling her every Thursday night to remind her that it was going to be on. I was young and so in love with Ty Miller. Teaspoon was also another favorite character of mine. He was always saying something that made me laugh. I have read all of the other comments that have been posted and am with all the other readers in hoping that they put the three seasons that they did make out on DVD someday. So that I can watch the show as an adult and enjoy all of the historical aspects of it instead of drooling over the fine looking men that appeared as actors on the show.

I was in my late twenties when I first discovered this show on a cable channel. Coming from a family of western lovers, my brother was already familiar with the show and enjoyed it as well. I had to record many of the episodes due to being in night classes but I always looked forward to getting home to view them. I was so excited to see the first season come out on DVD and hope the next will be out soon.As soon as I purchased it I came home to watch every episode without commercials and having pieces lost to TV interruptions and running out of tape. I know I missed some of the episodes and still cry when I watch the last one. This is wonderful TV that teaches some valuable lessons for young kids today. They should watch more westerns! (And those were some nice looking young men on that show that grew into even nicer looking men)

I, and many friends, miss this show. While there were many liberties taken in the writing of the show it was very entertaining. The actors did exceptional jobs of expressing the mood and attitudes of the mid 1800's just prior to the Civil War. The Plight of the Native American people was highlighted in several episodes as was slavery. The writers used and developed characters to portray person's trapped in the non-white world. One character, Buck, played by Gregg Rainwater, developed over the three seasons from a relatively minor character of mixed blood to a highly intelligent, well read person who completely broke the misconception of the ignorant drunk Indian. I feel more could have been done with the Civil War aspect of the show but they chose to end it instead. I'm hoping this show will be released to DVD as I would like my children to see it.

First of all I want to say that I LOVE this show. This was the first new show I watched with my parents as a family on a regular basis, and was second only to The Waltons. The characters are fantastic, it's action-packed, romantic, emotional, and just overall endearing. I believe this show is one of the main reasons that I love American History so much, to this day I search for anything I can find about the Pony Express. And now it has been released on DVD (just season 1 so far), and I have been watching at least one episode a day, reliving the love I felt for this show when I saw it as a young girl who started off simply loving it because it had beautiful horses and a girl that was just as good as the boys.

What do MASH and The Young Riders have in common? It's an interesting answer and you'd guess it immediately if you know your history. Both television series lasted longer than the historical event they were set in. MASH which ran over ten years was longer than the three years of the actual Korean War.

The Young Riders lasted for 3 seasons and in real life The Pony Express was started in 1860 and lasted until the beginning of the Civil War. Technology replaced horses, the telegraph invented almost 20 years earlier finally spanned the continent.

Still for its brief time, The Pony Express which was run under government contract by the famous western freighting firm of Russell, Majors&Waddell certainly earned its colorful place in our history. In doing the television show the producers went back into what used to be done in Hollywood westerns, take some frontier legends and weave plots around the names that had nothing to do with real life.

According to this show Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok and Jesse James all rode for the Pony Express. Of the group only Cody did in real life and he was all of 14 at the time. Stephen Baldwin was a bit older than the real Cody during his Pony Express period. Of course in the film Pony Express the mature Charlton Heston played Cody and Baldwin was certainly closer than him.

In that same film Forrest Tucker played Wild Bill Hickok. Hickok would have been in his early twenties as Josh Brolin was at the time of the series and he did work for Russell,Majors&Waddell at the time. But he was a teamster, he drove their freight wagons. He was too old to be a Young Rider. In fact that was what the Pony Express looked for, young riders, teenage boys looking for a little adventure and a chance to make a decent wage. To those farm and ranch kids trying to make a living off the land, this was a great opportunity.

A third western legend, a child actually at this time also joined The Pony Express. Young Christopher Pettiet played Jesse James who never had any connection at all with the Pony Express joined the cast in the third and final season. He was a fine young player and his death from a drug overdose in 2000 was a tragic end to a promising career.

The rest of the cast reflected some of the issues of the times. There was a southern kid simply called The Kid who was played by Ty Miller. Gregg Rainwater played an American Indian young rider, Travis Fine was a mute young rider, Don Franklin joined the cast as a runaway slave escaped to the free west in the third season as a young rider.

The most interesting gimmick was Yvonne Suhor who was going in incognito drag. I don't think the rules of The Pony Express expressly forbade women in its employ, but they sure didn't provide any separate accommodations in those relay stations. For about half the first season, no one knew she was a women. Then it finally came out, though at first only relay station manager Anthony Zerbe knew.

Zerbe played a colorful western type character who must have felt like he was running a summer camp. But these kids were there to work and their work created a legend that's come down to us today. If the young people of the World War II era are the Greatest Generation of the last century, than those who were in the Pony Express who joined the Union and Confederate Armies of the time in an awful Civil War, were the 19th Century Greatest Generation. The awful tragedy is that this generation was busy killing each other in that the USA be preserved and free for all.

When The Young Riders ended its run, the various cast members left the disbanded Pony Express to whatever destiny their consciences told them where to go. It was a moving finale to the series and something played out across the United States of America and the Confederate States of America in thousands of homes.

Despite some really bad historical inaccuracies, The Young Riders was a fine series and I wish it lasted a bit longer.