Has anyone seen the episode of Bonanza that featured the Cartwrights befriending a Mormon polygamist. I love that show, but they used all the pro-mormon polygamy excuses, such as the men were killed by persecution and polygamy was a necessity. Did they have a Mormon on their writing staff?

As I understand it Dirk Blocker, who played Hoss was a mormon who served as a Bishop. That may well have prompted the episode, plus the fact that the show was in the right time frame. I can't remember where it was set mid west, wasn't it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2013 08:05PM by fluhist.

fluhist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As I understand it Dirk Blocker, who played Hoss
> was a mormon who served as a Bishop. That may
> well have prompted the episode, plus the fact that
> the show was in the right time frame. I can't
> remember where it was set mid west, wasn't it?


Dan (Dirk was his son) Blocker played Hoss. I seriously doubt
he was a Mormon much less a Bishop. I personally ran into Dan
Blocker back in the '60s he swore a blue streak and definitely
was not wearing garments.

Wikipedia lists his religion as Methodist.

has had nothing but guest roles since Black Sheep Squadron, which was my favorite show as a kid. Really a shame.

Robert Conrad was my hero. "Go ahead and knock that battery off my shoulder, Go ahead, I dare you!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr-oLQgvcuk

In the 60's is kind of broad.

What month and day? :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2014 03:29AM by thingsithink.

...but when I was in my early 20s, I worked with a carpenter on a construction job who told me that he had built a bar in Blocker's house. Maybe the idea that he was Mormon began as an urban myth. Blocker had that Utah Mormon man look---overweight and balding. :-)

We watched Bonanza every Sunday night when I was a kid; after all, it came on after Walt Disney. I remember that episode well, and I saw it again in reruns a few years ago. That episode was during the Civil Rights struggle era, and I'd speculate that the plot was a metaphor for anti-bigotry. It definitely portrayed the Mormons as victims of bigotry.

You have your Blockers mixed up, Dan Blocker played "Hoss" on Bonanza. Dirk was his son and had recurring roles on MASH and in Black Sheep Squadron in the 70's.

The show was not set in the Mid-West. It was set and filmed (when not on a Hollywood soundstage) in Virginia City,Nevada.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2013 08:19PM by whiskeytango.

It's pretty heavy duty propaganda, including the "meaningful" violin fills, but who wouldn't to be married to Lois Nettleton?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv_gn5Ht3SM

baura says here he was LDS..http://www.ldsfilm.com/bio/bioB3.html

I think this site is quoting a commom FPR.

This site quotes an article describing Dan Blocker's death and
funeral. A Baptist preacher spoke at his funeral. No mention
of Mormonism at all:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/archive/index.php/t-239052.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2013 04:25AM by baura.

The Ponderosa Ranch movie set is on the shores of Lake Tahoe a few miles from Virginia City. You could visit it and walk around in the house, see the barns etc.
I found this link, but I didn't know it had closed. Too bad, it was a pretty spot. But considering its fans had long since retired to old folks homes it had proably lost its appeal to the baby boomers.
http://www.thelifeofluxury.com/ponderosa-ranch/



My FIL insisted that the family watch every episode of Bonanza.
He loved and idolized Ben Cartwright. A big man, in charge of a ranch that was bigger than the state of New Jersey, and No wife or woman in his life. He had a Chinese cook. Women never lasted in the Bonanza series; they turned out to be scarlett women, or dying of a disease, or got shot and died in their sweethearts arms.

There were no women in the Bonanza series that I can remember. I was amazed to see how hard hearted and unbending Ben was. There were some shepards who wanted to take their herd of about 300 sheep into California. They would only be on a tiny portion of his land on their way through the only pass within hundreds of miles. No way. Ben drove them away and called them trash. He could have charged a small fee and helped them move the flock a little faster over his land and be rid of them. The people of California would have been glad to have sheep, but Ben couldn't see the bigger picture. He had several square miles, hundreds of acres. It was a hard episode to watch.

It's not like he was having several flocks of sheep showing up every year with over 200,000 sheep being driven over "his pass".

Bonanza was a pure fantasy/ecstasy of escape for my TBM FIL who never had leadership roles in the church. I wonder how many other wanna be cattlemen/ranchers who were members felt the same way?

The Cartrights were dicks in the early episodes of Bonanza, but they quickly changed into the nice Cartrights for most of the series run. I started watching the show a few years ago on TV Land. I had never seen it before, and I loved it, but the first episodes I saw were several seasons in. I was shocked when I watched the first couple episodes and Ben and his sons were total pricks. From what I've read, Lorne Green thought his character was too mean to outsiders, and it made no sense for a businessman to isolate himself from the townspeople like that. So they changed him and his sons into kind, benevolent, and just men who stood up for the underdogs and were always on the right side of the 1960s social issues that Virginia City was dealing with in the mid 1800s. He was the Dr. Quinn medicine woman of the 60s.

I'd say that the episode where Ben refused to let the sheepherders cross his land was somewhat true to life for the day. Battles between cattlemen and sheepherders were a major conflict in the old west.

As for Ben's attitude, remember that he had three sons by three different mothers who had all died. He had to raise the three sons while settling and developing his ranch and making it a success. So that gave him a somewhat hard edge.

My TBM uncle loved Bonanza and considered it a definition of heterosexual manliness. His son hanged himself in a tool shed.

Watched Bonanza religiously every Sunday night after sac meeting. We took a lot of pride in the fact Ben Cartwright was played by Canadian icon Lorne Green (Green was the lead news reader on CBC radio during WW2 and his deep baritone became known as "the voice of doom").

Ron Burr

Dan Blocker came from a small town near Lubbock Texas. I lived in Lubbock for many years, and I think if he had been a Mormon, we would have heard all about it.

In the 60s & 70s I read every article I could find about Bonanza and the stars. No mention was ever made about Dan being MOrmon, let alone a bishop. I have noting against any religion, I just don't understand why some people insist that he was Mormon. Every article that mentioned the stars' religions stated that Dan as Free Methodist or Baptist. His obituary listed him as Free Methodist, although a Baptist minister officiated at his funeral.
BTW: Mormons don't smoke, drink coffee or alcohol or swear, and are usually encouraged by the Church to be Conservative Republicans. Dan often was photographed with a cigarette or cigar and there is a video of an interview with him chain smoking through the interview, drank bourbon ( his statement ), and used "impolite" language. ( there is a Bonanza blooper reel with a well-known example ), and he was a liberal Democrat who supported LBJ, but who opposed the Vietnam War. Strange behavior for an everyday Mormon, much less a Bishop, wouldn't you say?

Can't help but point out that Pappa Cartwright went on to greater glory as Adama on uber-TBM Glen A Larson's opus television series as the pursued patriarch leading his harried sheep towards Kolob or Kobol or wherever the f it was.

I loved that show when I was a kid. Mostly because my Mom's maiden name is Cartwright. So, technically, I'm a Cartwright also. For me, a bit of identity crisis.In 1959, I was 14, and had nothing better to do on Saturday night but watch tv with the family. We only had a tv for 5 years by then so it was still the thing to do.

Probably would have killed your TMB FIL to find out that Ben Cartwright (Lorne Green) was a Jewish Canadian!LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLXngS0X8T4

With vocals!