''The Roy Rogers Show'' is an American

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

television series starring

Roy Rogers Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and television host. Following early work under his given name, first as co-founder of the Sons of the Pioneers and then acting, the rebra ...

. 100 episodes were broadcast on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

for six seasons between December 30, 1951 and June 9, 1957. The episodes were set in the prevailing times (1950s) in the style of a

neo-Western The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referre ...

, rather than the

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 ...

. Various episodes are known to be in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

today, being featured in low-budget cable television channels and home video.

Overview

The show starred Roy Rogers as a ranch owner,

Dale Evans Dale Evans Rogers (born Frances Octavia Smith; October 31, 1912 – February 7, 2001) was an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Early life Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith on ...

as the proprietress of the Eureka Café and Hotel in fictional Mineral City, and Pat Brady as Roy’s sidekick and Dale's cook. Brady's

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Motors ...

Nellybelle at times had a mind of her own and sped away driverless with Brady in frantic pursuit on foot. Animal stars were Roy's

Palomino Palomino is a genetic color in horses, consisting of a gold coat and white mane and tail; the degree of whiteness can vary from bright white to yellow. Genetically, the palomino color is created by a single allele of a dilution gene called t ...

horse Trigger and his

German Shepherd The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899. It was originally bred as a herding dog, for ...

Bullet, the "Wonder Dog". As with many Western films of the 1930s–1950s, the ''Roy Rogers Show'' featured cowboys and cowgirls riding horses and carrying six-shooters, but unlike traditional westerns, the series had a contemporary setting with automobiles, telephones, and electric lighting. No attempt was made in the scripts to explain or justify this strange amalgamation of 19th-century characters with 20th-century technology. Typical episodes followed the stars as they rescued the weak and helpless from the clutches of dishonest lawmen,

con artists A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have de ...

, bank robbers, claim jumpers, rustlers, and other "bad guys". In addition to traditional Western plot themes such as

cattle rustling Cattle raiding is the act of stealing cattle. In Australia, such stealing is often referred to as duffing, and the perpetrator as a duffer.Baker, Sidney John (1945) ''The Australian language : an examination of the English language and English ...

and bank robberies, the program featured more contemporary topics, including gun safety and conservation of natural resources. "Many of the shows expressed a moral, and several preached a Christian message."

Episodes

Production

Interior shots for the show were filmed at the

Samuel Goldwyn Studio Samuel Goldwyn Studio was the name that Samuel Goldwyn used to refer to the lot located on the corner of Formosa Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, as well as the offices and stages that his company, Samuel Goldwyn ...

, with much of the outdoor action footage filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch in

Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California Chatsworth is a suburban neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles, California, in the San Fernando Valley. The area was home to Native Americans, some of whom left caves containing rock art. Chatsworth was explored and colonized by the Spanish b ...

The program was originally sponsored by

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, after several corporate ...

(

Post Cereals Post Consumer Brands (previously Post Cereals and Postum Cereals; also known as simply "Post") is an American breakfast cereal manufacturer headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota. The company, founded in 1895 by C. W. Post, owns a large portfoli ...

and

Jell-O Jell-O is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert (fruit-flavored gels/jellies), pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert ( genericized as jello) is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is ...

). The show's theme song, “ Happy Trails”, was written by Dale Evans and sung by her and Rogers over the end credits of each episode. The show received an Emmy nomination in 1955 for Best Western or Adventure Series, but it lost out to the syndicated '' Stories of the Century'', an

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...

starring and narrated by Jim Davis. The series finished #27 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 ...

for the 1951-1952 season and #30 for 1954-1955."Classic TV Hits"
seasonal top-30 television ratings, 1950-1999. Retrieved November 4, 2017.

Related merchandise

The show was merchandised for the youth market with

comic books A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are oft ...

playset Playsets, or play sets, are themed collections of similar toys designed to work together to enact some action or event. The most common toy playsets involve plastic figures, accessories, and possibly buildings or scenery, purchased together in a co ...

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaqu ...

and

cowgirl A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

costumes, toy pistols, longbows, and many other items. In 1957, 2 million copies of each comic book were sold. A related comic strip was syndicated to 186 newspapers.

Reruns

From January 1961 until September 1964, CBS broadcast reruns of ''The Roy Rogers Show'' on Saturday mornings. As of 2019, episodes are seen on Retro Television Network, World Harvest Television and The Cowboy Channel.

References

External links

* *
''The Roy Rogers Show'' at the Iverson Movie Ranch

Iverson Movie Ranch: History, vintage photos.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy Rogers Show, The 1951 American television series debuts 1957 American television series endings Television series set in the 1950s Black-and-white American television shows NBC original programming 1950s Western (genre) television series Television series by Universal Television Roy Rogers Television shows filmed in Los Angeles