Cheyenne

When it comes to vintage American television shows from the glorious 1950s - It's the Westerns, in particular, that appeal to my preference for overall viewing.

And, with that said - It's definitely "Cheyenne" that gets my enthusiastic vote as being right up there in the top 5 of the all-time best.

And, of course, it goes without saying that actor, Clint Walker (1927-2018) was the absolute epitome of the big, burly, no-nonsense cowboy who could always be counted on to bring about fair-minded justice and put all of those mean and ornery sidewinders and saddle-tramps in their proper place.

I always watched Cheyenne when I was real young never missed the show. It was one of my favorite shows of all times. Clint Walker was very nice looking. And a great body for back then. His shows were always exciting, never dull. He seem to have a heart of gold, very well mannered. I would always get my chores done just to go and watch Cheyenne. And then all of my brothers and sisters would join in and watch too. I just can't figure out why Cheyenne is not rerunning like the other shows such as Bonanza, Raw Hide, Gunsmoke. Cheyenne was just as classy or in some cases more classy than these shows. But I liked them all. Thank You Angelmom53

Lots of TV westerns had a wanderer as the protagonist hero. You could write a limitless variety of stories that way. Cheyenne with its laconic hero Cheyenne Bodie was the first of many westerns that Warner Brothers produced for television. Clint Walker, all 6'7" inches of him was an ideal cowboy hero. Unlikely he'd ever be cast with John Wayne because the Duke liked looking up to nobody.

Walker was in fact more suggestive of Gary Cooper than Wayne. If he had been born 20 years earlier he would have been a great B picture cowboy hero. In fact it was Warner Brothers who realized that the B western did not die, but moved to television. Cheyenne was the first of a dozen or so westerns that Warner Brothers did for television. The most successful of which was Maverick because it's star James Garner had the biggest career undoubtedly.

When Cheyenne ended its run Walker found that westerns on the big screen were in eclipse. Possibly he should have looked for another television series. His best known big screen movie role was one of The Dirty Dozen.

Too bad Cheyenne was not done in color. It would get a lot of run on the TV nostalgia channels. As for Walker his Cheyenne Bodie was a jack of all western trades and did them all in Cheyenne's run.

Clint Walker was a model cowboy hero and deserves to be remembered as such.

Running 107 episodes, from 1955 through 1963, "Cheyenne" was one of the first "television" productions from the Warner Brothers film studio. Clint Walker plays the title character, an ex-frontier scout who was raised by Cheyenne Indians after his parents were killed.

Cheyenne Bodie roams the West in the days after the Civil War, having adventures and helping folks out. The tall laconic hero would eventually become television's quintessential loner but actually started out with a sidekick named Smitty (L.Q. Jones) who was a mapmaker. Cheyenne and Smitty do mapping work for the Army and in this occupation stumble across the people who make up each episode's story.

The current DVD set covers the 15 episodes from Season One and includes a recent interview with Clint Walker called "The Lonely Gunfighter: The Legacy of Cheyenne". The reason there are only 15 episodes is because "Cheyenne" was only broadcast every third week, being part of an anthology series called "Warner Brothers Presents" which also included "Casablanca" (with Marcel Dalio) and "King's Row" (with Robert Horton and Jack Kelly). In subsequent seasons the anthology would feature shows like "Conflict", "Sugarfoot", and "Bronco Lane".

Contrary to popular belief, the episodes on the 1st season DVD have not been abbreviated. Although they run less that the normal 50 minutes (60 minutes minus commercials) it is because the original broadcasts took some additional minutes for Warner Brothers to use in promoting their coming attractions; with a behind the scenes look at one of their soon to be released features.

Also unique to the first season was an attempt to add scale to the stories by inserting a lot of stock footage of cattle drives, Indian attacks, and huge wagon trains. In general they did a better job than most "B" westerns of matching this footage to the back lot and sound stage stuff featuring the actual cast of each episode. But this technique and the busy schedule was a nightmare for the editors. The first episode "Mountain Fortress" includes a particularly amusing continuity issue. Watch how the sergeant and the trooper are killed early in an Indian attack, then magically reappear in a subsequent group shot. Most likely the editors noticed the problem but there was not time to re-shoot the scene with the correct cast.

At least two episodes take actual movie plots and retell them in a Western setting. "Fury at Rio Hondo" is a retelling of "To Have and to Have Not" with Peggy Castle outstanding in the Lauren Bacall role. "The Argonaunts" is a retelling of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and features Rod Taylor.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

At 6' 6" and a strapping 235 lb. of solid muscle, Clint Walker has got to be the ultimate, most impressive-looking cowboy ever to set foot in a 1950's TV Western that I've ever seen.

All rugged brawn and chiseled good looks, the 29 year-old Walker certainly cut a mighty impressive image playing the title character in this superbly produced Wild West cowboy show from yesteryear.

From 1955 to 1962 the ultra-masculine Walker starred in this phenomenally popular western program that (on a weekly basis) aired its 50-minute, action-packed episodes through the courtesy of Warner Bros. Studios.

A loner, a drifter, and a jack-of-all-trades, Cheyenne Bodie was not a man of many words, but he was known to be fair-minded and just - And, as an added bonus, this husky dude was certainly quite capable of settling scores with his fists as well as with a gun.

Always towering over everyone else in the cast, Clint Walker easily ranks right up there as one of my favorite TV cowboys of all time.

To a total cowboy-junkie, like myself, Clint Walker, as Cheyenne Bodie, was "the right stuff" - A man that Western legends are made of.