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| Image Alt: | Cast of Bonanza in 1959 |
| Starring: | |
| Num Episodes: | 32 |
| Network: | NBC |
| Episode List: | List of Bonanza episodes |
The first season of the American Western television series Bonanza premiered on NBC on September 12, 1959, with the final episode airing April 30, 1960. The series was developed and produced by David Dortort, and season one starred Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon. The season consisted of 32 episodes of the series's total 431 hour-long episodes, the entirety of which was produced in color. It aired on Saturdays from 7:30pm8:30pm on NBC and placed at number 45 in the Nielsen ratings.
Bonanza is set around the Ponderosa Ranch near Virginia City, Nevada and chronicles the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, consisting of Ben Cartwright and his three sons (each by a different wife), Adam, Eric ("Hoss"), and Joseph ("Little Joe"). A regular character is their ranch cook, Hop Sing.
See also: List of Bonanza characters.
By 1959, RCA had made progress in producing color television, but American consumers were not adopting the new technology. As the owner of NBC, they sought to produce a pioneer color program. David Dortort created the concept as an hour-long show. It was the first Western to be released in color.
Season one, episode 26, "The Avenger", was the pilot for an unsold spinoff.
The character of Hoss was the first to be cast, then Little Joe, with Michael Landon being chosen to appeal to the teenage audience. Dortort had worked with both of the actors in The Restless Gun. After seeing Lorne Greene on an episode of Wagon Train, Dortort chose him for the role of Ben Cartwright, having felt Greene had the qualities he was seeking for the family patriarch. Originally, Dortort wanted Guy Williams for the role of Adam, but he was already committed to Disney's Zorro at the time, so Pernell Roberts was cast instead.
NBC originally wanted guest stars, but the costs of filming the show in color cut into the budget significantly. Instead, Dortort would select a guest cast of unknowns.
Dortort had input on most of the script writing. He was credited with four of the scripts in the first season.
Sets were designed by Hal Pereira, Earl Hedrick, and David Dortort. Set decoration was handled by Grace Gregory.
Dortort originally planned to shoot on location, but film costs related to color production also cut into the budget for filming, resulting in the compromise of filming annually in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Most of the filming was done at Paramount Studios.
Other filming locations included:
Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote the original theme song. It was originally planned that the leads would sing the lyrics while riding out of Virginia City, but ultimately, the song was used instrumentally. Dortort, not liking the lyrics, agreed to use the song under the provision that it would not be used within the episodes. Dortort selected composer David Rose to write the music for the show, who scored the show's music with a 35 member orchestra.
The show focused more on relationships than gun fights. It also tackled social issues. "The Fear Merchants" addressed bigotry against Chinese immigrants.
Occasionally, scripts would be based on true events, albeit loosely, as often the historical events would not have taken place in the time period of the show. "The Paiute War" was based on the Paiute War that occurred in May and June 1860. "The Julia Bulette Story" was based on the murder of Julia Bulette, which occurred in 1867 in Virginia City. "The Saga of Annie O'Toole" was based on true events. "The Philip Deidesheimer Story" tells the story of Philip Deidesheimer's work developing square-set mining in the Comstock Lode's Ophir Mine in Virginia City in 1860.
See also: List of Bonanza episodes.
The season aired on Saturdays from 7:30pm8:30pm on NBC. The timeslot was deliberate. It was a time when many people were shopping in department stores, and they could see the show displayed on color televisions at period when color television sets had not yet been widely adopted. However, many people watching at home were still tuning in to Perry Mason in that timeslot.
The first season lost the Saturday night ratings to Perry Mason. Released at a time when television was saturated with Westerns, the premier episode garnered the following review from Variety:Poor ratings and high production costs led to NBC considering cancellation early in the process, leading to rumors that the show actually was cancelled; but fans wrote in and NBC realized it did have a viable audience.
The first season of the series failed to break the Nielsen ranking top 30.[1]