Television Westerns
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Television westerns are a subgenre of the Western, a genre of film, fiction, drama, television programming, etc., in which stories are set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the
American Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
, Western Canada and Mexico during the period from about 1860 to the end of the so-called " Indian Wars". More recent entries in the Western genre have placed events in the modern day but still draw inspiration from the outlaw attitudes prevalent in traditional Western productions. When television became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s, TV westerns quickly became an audience favorite, with 30 such shows airing during prime-time in 1959. Traditional Westerns faded in popularity in the late 1960s, while new shows fused Western elements with other types of shows, such as family drama, mystery thrillers, and crime drama. In the 1990s and 2000s, slickly packaged made-for-TV movie westerns were introduced.


History


Radio and film antecedents

The ''Saturday Afternoon Matinee'' on the radio were a pre-television phenomenon in the US which often featured western series. Film westerns turned
John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
,
Ken Maynard Kenneth Olin Maynard (July 21, 1895 – March 23, 1973) was an American actor and producer. He was mostly active from the 1920s to the 1940s and considered one of the biggest Western stars in Hollywood. Maynard was also an occasional screenwrit ...
, Audie Murphy, Tom Mix, and Johnny Mack Brown into major idols of a young audience, plus "
Singing cowboy A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and d ...
s" such as
Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...
, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Dick Foran, Rex Allen, Tex Ritter, Ken Curtis, and Bob Steele. Each cowboy had a co-starring horse such as Rogers' Golden Palomino,
Trigger Trigger may refer to: Notable animals and people ;Mononym * Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers ;Nickname * Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist * "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster ;Surname * Bru ...
, who became a star in his own right. Other
B-movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...
series were '' Lash LaRue'' and the '' Durango Kid''. Herbert Jeffreys, as Bob Blake with his horse Stardust, appeared in a number of movies made for African American audiences in the days of segregated movie theaters. Bill Pickett, an African-American
rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...
performer, also appeared in early western films for the same audience.


1940s through early 1960s

When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a staple of small-screen entertainment. The first, on June 24, 1949, was the
Hopalong Cassidy Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. He was ...
show, at first edited from the 66 films made by
William Boyd William, Willie, Will or Bill Boyd may refer to: Academics * William Alexander Jenyns Boyd (1842–1928), Australian journalist and schoolmaster * William Boyd (educator) (1874–1962), Scottish educator * William Boyd (pathologist) (1885–1979), ...
. Many B-movie Westerns were aired on TV as time fillers, while a number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right. The earliest TV westerns were written primarily for a children's audience; it was not until the near-concurrent debuts of '' The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' and the TV version of ''
Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character ...
'' in 1955 that adult Westerns appeared on television, and the genre became enormously popular. Notable TV Westerns include '' The Lone Ranger'' with Clayton Moore, '' The Gene Autry Show'' with
Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...
, ''Gunsmoke'' with James Arness, '' Cheyenne'' with Clint Walker, '' Have Gun – Will Travel'' with Richard Boone, '' Sugarfoot'' with
Will Hutchins Will Hutchins (born Marshall Lowell Hutchason; May 5, 1930) is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster, in the Western (genre), Western television series ''Sugarfoot'', which aired on American B ...
, '' Wagon Train'' with
Ward Bond Wardell Edwin Bond (April 9, 1903 – November 5, 1960) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 200 films and starred in the NBC television series ''Wagon Train'' from 1957 to 1960. Among his best-remembered roles are Ber ...
and Robert Horton, '' Maverick'' with James Garner and Jack Kelly, '' Trackdown'' with Robert Culp, ''
Wanted Dead or Alive Wanted Dead or Alive may refer to: Film and television * ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' (1951 film), an American film of 1951 * ''Wanted Dead or Alive'' (TV series), a 1958–1961 TV series starring Steve McQueen * ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' (1987 fil ...
'' with
Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...
, '' Bronco'' with Ty Hardin, '' Bat Masterson'' with
Gene Barry Gene Barry (born Eugene Klass, June 14, 1919 – December 9, 2009) was an American stage, screen, and television actor and singer. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films ''The Atomic City'' (1952) and ''The War of The World ...
, '' The Rifleman'', '' Rawhide'' with Eric Fleming and
Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
, ''
Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 432 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running western, the second-longest-running western series on U ...
'' with Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker, '' Laramie'', '' The Virginian'' with
James Drury James Child Drury Jr. (April 18, 1934 – April 6, 2020) was an American actor. He is best known for having played the title role in the 90-minute weekly Western television series '' The Virginian'', which was broadcast on NBC from 1962 to ...
and Doug McClure, ''
The Big Valley ''The Big Valley'' is an American Western drama television series that originally aired from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969 on ABC. The series is set on the fictional Barkley Ranch in Stockton, California, from 1884 to 1888. The one-hour e ...
'' with
Barbara Stanwyck Barbara Stanwyck (; born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic sc ...
, '' The High Chaparral'', and many others. By 1959, four years after the boom in TV westerns began, thirty such shows were on television during prime time; none had been canceled that season, while 14 new ones had appeared. In one week in March 1959, eight of the top ten shows were westerns, and an estimated $125 million in toys based on TV westerns would be sold that year. Many were "four-wall westerns", filmed indoors in three days or less with scripts of poor quality, and the genre's enormous popularity mystified even its creators; ''TIME'' quoted one of the about 100 writers for TV westerns as wondering "I don't get it. Why do people want to spend so much time staring at the wrong end of a horse?" A horse cost up to $100 a day, compared to $22.05 for an extra; increasing production costs caused most action half-hour series vanishing in the early 1960s to be replaced by hour long television shows, increasingly in color. Two unusual Western series of this era are '' Zorro'', set in early California under Spanish rule, and the British/Australian Western '' Whiplash'' set in 1850/60's Australia with four scripts by
Gene Roddenberry Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series ''Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and ''Sta ...
.


Examples

*'' The Lone Ranger'' was an American long-running early radio and television show created by George W. Trendle and developed by writer Fran Striker. The titular character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic Native American companion named Tonto, and his horse Silver. *'' The Roy Rogers Show'' was a black and white American television series that ran for six seasons from December 30, 1951, to June 9, 1957, on NBC, with a total of 100 episodes. The series starred Roy Rogers, Pat Brady, and Dale Evans. The show started airing in France on March 5, 1962. The series was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1955 for Best Western or Adventure Series *'' Rawhide'' was a television western series which aired on the American network CBS from 1959 to 1966. It starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of
Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
. Its premiere episode reached the top 20 in the
Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
. ''Rawhide'' was the fourth longest-running American TV western, beaten only by nine years of ''The Virginian'' and ''Wagon Train'', 14 years of ''Bonanza'', and 20 years of ''Gunsmoke''. The typical ''Rawhide'' story involved drovers who would meet people on the trail and get drawn into solving whatever problem they presented or were confronting.


Late 1960s through 1980s

Traditional Westerns began to disappear from television in the late 1960s and early 1970s as
color television Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...
became ubiquitous. With the exception of the short-lived '' The Cowboys'' in 1974, 1968 was the last season any new traditional Westerns debuted on television; by 1969, after pressure from parental advocacy groups who claimed Westerns were too violent for television, all three of the major networks ceased airing new Western series. Demographic pressures and overall burnout from the format may have also been a factor as viewers became bored and disinterested with the glut of Westerns on the air at the time. By 1971, production companies had acknowledged that "the Western idea is out."From December 9, 1971 (comments at 7:10 of part 2) The two last traditional Westerns, '' Death Valley Days'' and ''Gunsmoke'', ended their runs in 1975. This may have been the result of an ongoing trend toward more urban-oriented programming that occurred in the early 1970s known as the " rural purge;" the changing culture of the late 1960s was less friendly to the traditional values espoused by most Westerns. Only two Westerns (NBC's '' The Virginian'' and '' The High Chaparral'') were canceled in the peak season of the purge in 1971. ''Bonanza'' ended its run in 1973, largely due to the abrupt death of Dan Blocker. The rise in popularity of science fiction television series in the U.S. also coincided with the decline of the Western. While the traditional Westerns mostly died out in the late 1960s, more modernized Westerns, incorporating story concepts from outside the traditional genre, began appearing on television shortly thereafter. A number of the new shows downplayed the traditional violent elements of Westerns, for example by having the main characters go unarmed and/or seek to avoid conflicts, or by emphasizing fantasy, comedy or family themes. ''
The Wild Wild West ''The Wild Wild West'' is an American Western, espionage, and science fiction television series that ran on the CBS television network for four seasons from September 17, 1965, to April 11, 1969. Two satirical comedy television film sequels w ...
'', which ran from 1965 to 1969, combined Westerns with science fiction (what later would be termed
steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or ...
) and an espionage-thriller format in the spirit of the recently popularized James Bond franchise. '' F Troop'' was a satirical sitcom that made fun of the genre. The limited-run '' McCloud'', which premiered in 1970, was essentially a fusion of the sheriff-oriented western with the modern big-city crime drama. Its companion series ''
Hec Ramsey ''Hec Ramsey'' is an American television series that aired on NBC from 1972 to 1974, starring Richard Boone. The series was created by Jack Webb's production company, Mark VII Limited in association with Universal's television productions. The ...
'' was a lighthearted who-dunnit mystery series set in the late Western era, starring Richard Boone (previously of the traditional Western ''Have Gun, Will Travel''; Boone described the characters in each series as very similar) as a retired gunfighter turned detective. '' Cimarron Strip'', a lavish 90-minute 1967 series starring Stuart Whitman as a U.S. Marshal, was canceled after a single season primarily because of its unprecedented expense. '' Nichols'' featured former ''Maverick'' star James Garner as a motorcycle-riding, unarmed peacemaker in a late-era Western setting. The low-budget sitcom ''
Dusty's Trail ''Dusty's Trail'' is an American Western/comedy series starring Bob Denver and Forrest Tucker that aired in syndication from September 1973 to March 1974. The series is a western-themed reworking of Denver's previous series ''Gilligan's Island''. ...
'' was an Old West adaptation of ''
Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for thr ...
'', complete with the star of the earlier show, Bob Denver. '' Little House on the Prairie'' was set on the frontier in the time period of the western, but was essentially a family drama. '' Kung Fu'' was in the tradition of the itinerant gunfighter westerns, but the main character was a Shaolin monk, the son of an American father and a Chinese mother, who fought only with his formidable martial art skill.
Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that ...
had proposed a series with a similar concept, ''
The Warrior A warrior is a person engaged or experienced in warfare, or a figurative term for a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics. Warrior or Warriors may also refer to: Indigenous groups * ...
'', but studios rejected it; it would eventually be produced over 40 years after Lee's death. '' The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams'' was a family adventure show about a gentle mountain man with an uncanny connection to wildlife who helps others who visit his wilderness refuge. '' Dallas'' took the soap opera genre and put it into a Western setting, with established TV western star Jim Davis as patriarch Jock Ewing.


Examples

*'' Alias Smith and Jones'', which aired on
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
from January 1971 to January 1973, was inspired by the success of the movie ''
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' is a 1969 American Western buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch C ...
.'' The main characters are two wanted bank robbers on the run under false identities, who now wish to reform, and have been secretly promised a pardon by the governor on the condition that they stay out of trouble until some unspecified future time. They must deal with people and situations they encounter while on the run, without giving away their true identities or committing any further criminal acts. Like ''Butch Cassidy'', the series is a Western with
buddy film The buddy film is a subgenre of adventure and comedy film in which two people are put together and are on an adventure, a quest, or a road trip. The two often contrast in personality, which creates a dynamic onscreen different from a pairing of ...
and
comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
elements. *'' Little House on the Prairie'' (retitled ''Little House: A New Beginning'' in 1982) aired on NBC from September 11, 1974, to March 21, 1983, based on the "Little House" series of children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The long-running series told the story of a farm family settling on the frontier in Minnesota during the 1870s and 1880s. *'' The Young Riders'' aired on ABC from September 20, 1989, to July 23, 1992, for three seasons. The show followed a group of riders for the fabled Pony Express which operated 1860–1861.


1990s and 2000s

The 1990s saw the networks filming Western movies on their own. These include Louis L'Amour's '' Conagher'' starring Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross, Tony Hillerman's ''
The Dark Wind ''The Dark Wind'' is the fifth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, published in 1982. It is the second of the novels to feature Officer Jim Chee. Now working from Tuba City, Sgt. Chee ...
'', '' The Last Outlaw'', '' The Jack Bull'', '' The Cisco Kid'', '' The Cherokee Kid'', and the TV series '' Lonesome Dove''. '' Zorro'' was remade with Duncan Regehr for The Family Channel filmed in Madrid, Spain. '' Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman'' was an American western/dramatic television series created by Beth Sullivan. It ran on CBS for six seasons, from January 1, 1993, to May 16, 1998, and won multiple Emmy awards. '' Walker, Texas Ranger'' was a long-running western/crime drama series, set in the modern era, in the United States, that starred and later was produced by Chuck Norris. It ran on CBS for nine seasons, from April 21, 1993, to May 19, 2001. For most of their time on air, ''Dr. Quinn'' and ''Walker'' aired on the same Saturday night lineup. '' Walker'' would receive a reboot in 2021, with a prequel, '' Walker: Independence'', following in 2022. In the 1993–1994 season, the Fox network aired a science fiction western called ''
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. ''The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.'', often referred to as just ''Brisco'' or ''Brisco County'', is an American weird western television series created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse. It ran for 27 episodes on the Fox network starting i ...
'', which lasted for only 27 episodes. In the fall of 1995, the UPN network aired its own science fiction western, '' Legend'', which ended after 12 episodes. Western TV shows from the 2000s included the, Zorro inspired, syndicated ''
Queen of Swords The Queen of Swords is a card in the Suit of Swords, part of the Minor Arcana set of the Tarot. Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play tarot card games. In English-speaking countries, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divin ...
'' starring Tessie Santiago filmed in Almeria Spain, Louis L'Amour's '' Crossfire Trail'' starring Tom Selleck, '' Monte Walsh'', and Hillerman's '' Coyote Waits'', and '' A Thief of Time''. DVDs offer a second life to TV series like '' Peacemakers'', and HBO's ''
Deadwood Deadwood may refer to: Places Canada * Deadwood, Alberta * Deadwood, British Columbia * Deadwood River, a tributary of the Dease River in northern British Columbia United States * Deadwood, California (disambiguation), several communiti ...
''. In 2002, a show called ''
Firefly The Lampyridae are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production ...
'' (created by
Joss Whedon Joseph Hill Whedon (; born June 23, 1964) is an American filmmaker, composer, and comic book writer. He is the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions, co-founder of Bellwether Pictures, and is best known as the creator of several television series: ...
) mixed the Western genre with science fiction. ''
Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited hig ...
'', a Neo-Western about crystal methamphetamine cooks in Albuquerque, NM, debuted in 2008 on AMC.


2010s and 2020s

Series with Western themes that debuted in the 2010s include '' Justified'', about a Western-style vigilante U.S. Marshal based in modern rural Kentucky, which debuted in 2010 on FX; '' Hell on Wheels'', about the construction of the
First transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...
across the United States, which debuted in 2011 on AMC; and '' Longmire'', about a modern-day Wyoming sheriff, which debuted in 2012 on A&E. '' The Mandalorian'' (2019) is a space Western set within the ''
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' franchise and universe, with its lead character, a Mandalorian, roaming the galactic frontier and borrowing character traits from
Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
. With the growth of cable television and direct broadcast satellites, reruns of Westerns have become more common. Upon its launch in 1996, TV Land carried a block of Westerns on Sundays; the network still airs ''Bonanza'' and the color episodes of ''Gunsmoke'' to the present day, which make up several hours of their daytime schedule.
Encore Westerns Starz Encore is an American pay television, premium television television channel, channel owned by Starz Inc. a subsidiary of Lionsgate, Lions Gate Entertainment and headquartered at the Meridian International Business Center complex in Meridia ...
, part of the Encore slate of premium channels, airs blocks of Western series in the morning and in the afternoon, while the channel airs Western films the rest of the day. MeTV, a digital broadcast channel, includes Westerns in its regular schedule as well, as does sister network Heroes & Icons. The family oriented INSP and Grit, another digital broadcast channel, also carry Westerns on its daytime schedules. INSP, previously a televangelism network, had such success with its Westerns that it adopted a nearly all-Western format in 2022. Several Westerns have episodes that have lapsed into the public domain in the United States, allowing networks and stations to carry them without cost. '' Yellowstone'', a Neo-Western that debuted in 2018, jumped in ratings over the course of its third and fourth seasons to become one of cable television's most popular programs. ''Yellowstone'', in turn, inspired a traditionally-set Western prequel, ''
1883 Events January–March * January 4 – ''Life'' magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. * January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. * Ja ...
'', in 2021.


See also

*
List of westerns on television A Western is a genre that takes place in the Old West and involves cowboys, cattle ranchers, miners, farmers, Native Americans, Spaniards, swords, guns and horses. It was among the most popular genres of television in the 1950s and 1960s, when sev ...
* Rural purge * List of genres


References


Further reading

* Magers, Boyd, and Michael G. Fitzgerald. ''Westerns women: interviews with 50 leading ladies of movie and television westerns from the 1930s to the 1960s'' (McFarland, 2004) * Marill, Alvin H. ''Television Westerns: Six Decades of Sagebrush Sheriffs, Scalawags, and Sidewinders'' (Scarecrow Press, 2011) * Rollins, Peter, ed. ''Hollywood's West: the American frontier in film, television, and history'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2005) * Yoggy, Gary A. ''Riding the Video Range: The Rise and Fall of the Western on Television'' (McFarland & Company, 1995) {{DEFAULTSORT:Westerns On Television * Television genres