Bonanza #13

How was the West won? It's a question I once asked my grandpa to which he responded 'You know, that's a very good question.' So good, that he never answered me. Well, if you are to believe this issue of Gold Key's adaptation of the hit Western TV series Bonanza, the West was won thanks to the use of bicycles!

Thieves steal the horses of all 4 Cartwright men: Pa, Hoss, Little Joe and Adam! The only way to get after these varmints is to use this new contraption called a bicycle! But we're not talking about a single bike or even a two-seater. Oh, no! Instead, they all mount up on a 4-person tandem bike!

This has got to be the goofiest Bonanza story of all-time. The family can't use their 2-horse wagon as the animals are too tired. Got to use a bike instead! The Cartwrights at one point rode the bike across an icy pond. One of the sons decides it's faster to use roller skates, but falls through the ice because clearly he's too heavy than a bike with 3 people on it! And for some reason, you have to show how stupid the Indians are and include a scene of the Native people thinking a bicycle is some force of white man magic. 

I'm not making any of this up folks. This all really happened in a title story dated from 1965. 

There are two follow-up stories included in this issue. The middle story doesn't appear to have any characters from the TV show that I recognize. Instead it stars a weary prospector called Bedrock Barnes. Is he like a recurring character? Was he regular filler in the Bonanza books? Not sure. All I know is that Bedrock finds a wrecked ship in the middle of the desert; a ship that contains a valuable lost shipment of gold. Only when he brings help to bring back more gold, it appears that the desert has reclaimed the fabled relic. 

Story #3 does have the Cartwrights in it. It's a very unusual tale about a Mexican grandma who packs heat. It's not as silly as the bicycle story. History has produced some bad ass grannies. I find the story more confusing as the lady is trying to fund a revolution down in Mexico and yet when she reaches her family (which might just be members of her gang), it seems like the Abuela's intentions are a lot more selfish. 

And where do the Cartwrights fit into all this? Adam Cartwright just happens to be on a stagecoach that the old lady robbed. Now she's got him at gun point, forced to carry the gold back to her hideout. Naturally, instead of calling for the Sheriff or US Marshalls, the rest of the Cartwright clan decide to take vigilante justice into their own hands. 

37 issues of Bonanza were released by Gold Key from 1962-1970. While there are some much more attractive covers out there, perhaps filled with less far-fetched stories in them, I found this book in a bargain bin for only a dollar. A sucker for Dell/Gold Key/Whitman comics based on old TV shows, I could not pass this one up. It will stay a part of my collection. This book will also be listed as containing one of the weirdest, wildest, implausible Western tales of all time.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

They Made A Christmas Album?- Advent 2018: Day 12

From playing SongPop2, I know that rugged actor Lorne Greene sang a number of country tunes. However, I had no idea that he got the rest of the Bonanza gang to do a Christmas album! So let's all saddle up our horses and head on down to the Ponderosa to meet today's featured artists- The Cartwrights. 

The long-running Western was known for a variety of holiday themed episodes. There's the one where on Christmas Eve, Adam finds an abandoned baby in the snow. And who can forget the one where Little Joe founded an abandoned waif in the snow on Christmas Eve! Or what about the one where Hoss finds an abandoned child in the snow during Christmas! Or how about when Starbuck crash lands on a planet and finds an abandoned Cylon in the snow--- sorry, wrong Lorne Greene series.

Regardless, Christmas was not a good time for children on the Ponderosa...

This 1963 album, Bonanza: Christmas on the Ponderosa, featured a dozen songs. Some were traditional carols like Dan Blocker's rendition of Deck the Halls. There were other not so old fashioned tunes on this record as well like Michael Landon's rockabilly Santa Got Lost in Texas. All of the original cast sing on the record; even stick-in-the-mud Parnell Roberts (Trapper John M.D.) did a song. But he did it alone and did not participate in any of the Cartwright family offerings. 

Oddly enough, this wasn't the only holiday album done by the cast of Bonanza, nor was it the only record produced by series producers either. No less than 3 other albums featuring Greene, Landon and Blocker were recorded. I just hate that Hop Sing wasn't in on this!

I had a hard time deciding which song to pick. I wanted to go with one that I know has been done on the show, O Come All Ye Faithful. Yet, it was no longer available on Youtube. So, I offer this 10 minute mix of song samples from the record. Be sure to keep a count of the number of unattended children featured on this video! 

For some, this is God awful stuff. The actors on this album weren't the best singers. Yet, I have seen numerous reviews of fans claiming that it just isn't Christmas without listening to this record (and later CD) at least once a year. I think the fondness of this recording has more to do with the time it was released: Christmas, 1963. 

The nation had just suffered through the longest Thanksgiving weekend in history with the death of John Kennedy. I think people turned to records like this innocent fair for solace and it became an annual tradition for American families.

Though not my cup of tea, personally, I would much rather listen to this any day that 5 seconds of that horrid Duck Dynasty 'music' I shared a few days ago...

Enjoy!