Musings
The Cowboy Creed
~ by Mark Blackwell
Unpleasant weather drives me to check out what is on TV. On one of those recent damp, cold evenings, I took to the remote, and scanned what was available. Cops— that was what was on TV! Cops and detectives. Every channel and streaming service had a glut of cop shows. I wondered whether the screenwriters were in a big rut or if there is a big law enforcement propaganda lobby that took over television?
It’ s not that I don’ t find cop shows entertaining; I do, but there is something missing in those stories. I probably should own up to being an O-F— that stands for Old Fellow. I grew up at a time when it was hard to find anything but cowboy shows on all three channels.
In many respects TV cowboys weren’ t much different from TV cops— they are both sworn to right wrongs, they both carry guns, they are both somewhat obsessive. And even though I couldn’ t put my finger right on it, I felt that there is a fundamental difference between the two.
I fired up my mental“ way back machine” and went back in time to a random Saturday morning in the 1950s. Depending on the particular TV station you were tuned to, you could see Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, or a half dozen other“ straight shooters.”
In the evenings“ adult” westerns ruled the airwaves. They were programs like“ Gunsmoke”,“ Wanted: Dead or Alive,”
“ Bonanza,” and the only one I really liked,“ Have Gun Will Travel.” While all the cowboy shows featured generous quantities of gunplay, I think the major differences in the two types of westerns were the ones made for a younger audience had some humor in the story, and the heroes were better marksmen.
The evening western heroes tended to be fairly grim and they had to rely on tricked-out weaponry, such as the Rifleman’ s loop-levered 1892 Winchester carbine or the cut-down double barrel shotgun carried by Steve McQueen’ s character, Josh Randall. Whereas, the Saturday morning boys were much better shots with standard Colts, Winchesters, and even lassos.
Hopalong Cassidy could shoot the gun out of a villain’ s hand at thirty yards. Roy Rogers could do the same while riding Trigger at a full gallup. But I think the biggest difference in TV cowboys is that the the Saturday morning heroes had a code or a creed that a kid could live by. Both the kid’ s programs and the more mature westerns were morality plays, but I don’ t
32 Our Brown County March / April 2023