Dusty's Trail

I admit that I do like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Idiot show that it was, the cast (despite rumors of personality clashes) blended perfectly and the stories, while predictable, were funny. And I suspect that I have the support of most television viewers about this. When I watched the antics of Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, and the others I never expected it was the equivalent of Shakespeare, but I normally felt humored after 30 minutes.

GILLIGAN actually lasted three years on television in terms of new episodes (except for a couple of television movies in the late 1970s), Bob Denver moved on to a now forgotten comedy THE GOOD GUYS with Herb Edelman and Joyce Van Patton (and later Jim Backus, as Edelman's disapproving father-in-law). It lasted two years. Then Denver got offered this show. Regretfully he accepted it.

I have pointed out that there have been only three really good western sit-coms that have popped up on television: MAVERICK, BEST OF THE WEST, and F-TROOP. There were also two others of mediocrity only: PISTOLS 'N PETTICOATS and RANGO. But DUSTY'S TRAIL makes RANGO (whose sole asset was Tim Conway) look like it was written by William Congreve or George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde.

Basically DUSTY'S TRAIL replaced the situation of Gilligan, the Skipper, the Howells, Mary Ann, Ginger, and the Professor being on that deserted island, and put Gilligan and the Skipper, the Howells, and Ginger into a stagecoach going west. Now the central idea of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND was the isolation of the castaways on that island, and how they face weekly threats to their existence. It works, oddly enough (still does on a serious note - the reality show SURVIVOR is identical to it, in that the last one to "survive" has not been voted "dead" and off the island by the others). But this can't be transferred to a stagecoach going through the American West of the 1870s. How can it? You have threats (natural disasters, buffalo stampedes, Indian wars, bandits), but you have plenty of settlements to go to. The writers tried to make it similar by making "Dusty" (Denver) a woefully inept guide. It's not quite the same thing. Moreover, although Forrest Tucker was a good actor (and even a good comedian) he was not as properly fussy as Alan Hale Jr. was in GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.

I saw it twice, and mercifully have forgotten the content of the episodes. Because I like Tucker and Denver I am giving this a "4", but only for them.

From the producer of "Gilligan's Island" (considered in many quarters to be the dumbest T.V. show in history but fondly remembered), Sherwood Schwartz, came this almost plot-by-plot, character-by-character copy, "Dusty's Trail". With not one note of originality, each character was lifted from "Gilligan's Is- land" and placed in the old west. Bob Denver (Gilligan in the original series) played inept assistant wagon master Dusty, For- rest Tucker played Callahan (the Skipper character) the wagon master, and the rest of the characters: Mr. and Mrs. Brookhaven, the stuffy, wealthy Bostonians (Howells). Lulu, the saloon girl (Ginger). Betsy, the wholesome schoolteacher (Mary Ann). Andy, a regular guy type (Professor).

The plot involved Dusty ineptly causing a Conestoga wagon to become separated from the rest of the wagon train and having to bumble their way, lost toward California. Everything was directly ripped-off from Schwartz's successful "Gilligan's Island" which at least had the distinction of being a network series. "Dusty's Trail" was a first-run syndicated show so the budgets were almost non-existent, making the series not only unfunny but also cheap and embarrassing looking.

Television at its' worst!

I love this show, and rank the "Almost Complete Series" box set I found with 17 episodes of the 26 made to be one of the DVD scores of 2006. I grew up in a household led by two intellectuals who forbade their children from watching television lacking substance, and amongst the most often switched off with an admonishment of "SPORTS, PBS OR NOTHING!" comment was Gilligan's Island. Naturally then when leaving the nest one of the first things I did was to get cable TV and catch up on all the decades of crap television I had been denied, and Gilligan's Island earned a special place in the daily schedule. I managed to tape it every day for about three years until my stupid girlfriend said enough was enough, never missed an episode and still managed to get my Master's degree just fine.

But somehow I never encountered Dusty's Trail until bringing home a dollar store DVD of it and was instantly hooked before the first episode was even over. Yes it's Gilligan all over again, with the twist being that it's set in the West with cowboys & injuns instead of island natives and holdout Japanese WW2 soldiers. And yes the creators pillaged their own series right down to the characterizations, but they had the foresight to cast two very interesting supporting player regulars in the ultra-cute Laurie Saunders (who would have given Mary Anne a run for the money on the sexiness scale even if cloaked in twice as much clothing) and one of my all-time favorite actors, the always cadaverous Ivor Francis who's bemused expressions of morbid disbelief made so many television shows so much more interesting than they would have been without his presence. Dusty's Trail might be Ivor Francis' finest hour, and the moment when I became hooked on the show was a scene where he sort of gazes off into the distance and begins relating an idea for a hair-brained scheme to keep Dusty and the Wagonmaster (odd name) from having to marry two redneck DELIVERANCE women shotgun-style.

It's too bad the series was not picked up by a network because it has some genuinely funny moments -- look for the episode where they park their wagon on top of a volcano that is about to erupt for a particularly potent belly-laughing fit -- and had a sort of odd "Hee-Haw on Acid" approach to it's production design, especially the costuming for the wealthy Brookhavens. Like Gilligan's Island, most of the shows were filmed entirely on soundstages: that's inside, and these are Western episodes set out in the middle of nowhere. There are a few forays onto location sets but for the most part the shows have this surreal, phony look to them that reminds me more than anything else of the more cartoonishly arty Spaghetti Westerns like the Sartana movies of Anthony Ascott, which were all the rage at the time the series would have aired. Art imitating life imitating art, if you will.

But I mean look, if you want seriously acted rational television you are wasting your time with stuff like Dusty's Trail, which makes F-Troop look deeply thoughtful by comparison. But it is an interesting cultural artifact, sort of half hip to the times and half wrapped up in the same kind of stupid innocence that made Gilligan so much fun. The depiction of Native Americans is also about as politically sensitive as the Three Stooges, or Gilligan's Island for that matter, and it is strange seeing people smoke on screen the way that they do in this show -- something you never saw on Gilligan's Island even if cigarette ad revenues were an important source of network income.

I like how stupid the show is, and how it doesn't require any kind of active thinking on the part of the viewer to enjoy it. There is nothing to figure out, silly laughs, pretty women and guys dressed up in gorilla suits. After five years of The War on Terror it's kind of relaxing to once again have the 11 year old idiot inside of me catered to with one hair-brained scheme after the other. It may not be original but it's still very funny for those in the right frame of mind, and when you come up with a good idea sometimes it pays to go back and milk it for a second run. I'm glad they made the show and will not rest until I have found the other nine episodes as well as the feature-length film version: The TV on DVD fad does have a few useful purposes after all.

Two career roles kept Bob Denver typecast for the rest of his life, that of the title role from Gilligan's Island and Maynard G. Krebs from Dobie Gillis. He could never get away from that for as long as he lived.

In Dusty's Trail which was Gilligan's Island out west Denver was once again in the title role and he's a scout for a wagon train where Forrest Tucker was the wagon master. He got two of the wagons lost and worse than that Tucker was with them. The first was your basic settler family William Cort and wife Lori Saunders and saloon girl Jeannine Riley who was a hitchhiker. The second wasn't even a wagon it was millionaire Ivor Francis and his high living wife Lynn Wood in a coach equipped like a Rolls Royce. When you got it, flaunt it and Francis and Wood apparently never travel anything less than first class.

These characters were totally ripped off from Gilligan's Island, you would have to have been in solitary confinement not to recognize them. The situations were Gilligan Island like. I will say that the locale of this show did allow for slightly more realistic guest star situations than the castaways had on Gilligan's Island.

But some of it was so dumb. That storm that blew the castaways off their course was something that could realistically happen. But it sure doesn't say much for Tucker as a wagon master to have Denver as a scout. And he got lost with him.

The coach was just plain ridiculous. These two Francis and Wood I don't care how many millions they had would have had that luxury vehicle breakdown real quick. Can't see it handling mountain passes. Just an incredibly dumb premise.

The show had its amusing moments, but the whole thing was ridiculous.

This was probably the perfect example of Hollywood's lack of imagination. Ironically, this show is basically Sherwood Schwartz and Bob Denver ripping-off the show that was so successful for them. In fact, the concept for this show was so lame that none of the networks would pick it up, so it was sold to different stations to be shown in first run syndication. Each character is basically a carbon copy of the classic cast of Gilligan's Island. You had the sweet Mary Ann type, the smart Professor type, the sexy bombshell and the snobbish older couple. At least the cast from Gilligan had a lot of chemistry that this cast doesn't. .The only difference was that it was set in the old west instead of a deserted island and instead of the occasional native causing the castaways trouble you get a wild assortment of desperadoes wreaking havoc on our lost wagon train. No wonder this show isn't in reruns anymore