Classic TV Westerns (Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, etc)

[Jonbaker]

After the wonderful complete series releases of Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide, and Maverick on DVD, I'm wondering where some of the other classic TV westerns stand. I'm mainly interested in Wagon Train. The series has been released season by season on DVD, although seasons 5 and 6 are OOP and very hard to come by. The show is streaming on Amazon Prime and I noticed how good the series looks as far as a/v quaity. Much better than the Timeless Media DVD sets. Do you think there is a chance the show will ever get a complete series release of the re-mastered episodes like the Gunsmoke and Bonanza sets? The Gunsmoke complete series set is probably the best thing to come out and I'd love to see a release of the lesser known westerns.

What are some of your favorite classic TV westerns?

[Dunemoon]

Gunsmoke

[hagios]

Tales of Wells Fargo, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Laramie, The Texan, Bonanza, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Daniel Boone, The High Chaparral, The Lone Ranger, The Virginian, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Zorro, 26 Men, The Rifleman, The Deputy, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Cimarron Strip, Yancy Derringer, Death Valley Days, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, Davy Crockett, Cowboy G-Men, Annie Oakley, Stories of the Century, Overland Trail, Frontier, Judge Roy Bean, Shotgun Slade, Tales of the Texas Rangers, The Rebel, Wanted Dead or Alive to name a few!

[Doomhunter]

My favorite would be The Rifleman. Also the Festus years of Gunsmoke. Have Gun Will Travel, Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Davy Crockett. I’m sure there’s plenty series I haven’t seen yet as well.

[LT.Schaffer]

Rawhide
Gunsmoke
The Virginian
Bonanza
Big Valley
Wanted Dead Or Alive
Maverick

[Lee A Stewart]

[atver]

I'd buy the Rifleman on Blu Ray even if it cost 300 bucks.

[harry o]

I was rather fond of the short lived tv series of "hondo" which I used to watch with my dad, was on bbc2 back in the day here in the uk.

[LokiMok]

I had no interest in westerns as a kid (except maybe The Lone Ranger), but I've been slowly coming around to them. The first to grab me were The Big Valley & The Rifleman. Then I got into Have Gun Will Travel & Cheyenne. My latest discovery is Wagon Train. INSP has been playing the heck out of it & METV plays it once a day.

I'll watch the occasional Rawhide if it's got a good guest star. I watch Wild, Wild West most Saturdays (which has been fun mostly to see Robert Conrad do his own stunts).

I used to listen to Gunsmoke on the radio with William Conrad so I've yet to accept James Arness as Matt Dillon. I love the silly theme song to Lawman, but haven't gotten into the show itself yet.

[Batmon77]

Team Big Valley

My pops used to watch How The West Was Won.

[Jonbaker]

Does anyone have any of The Rifleman DVDs purchased from the "official webpage?" I'm considering purchasing but wondering how the a/v quality is. There don't seem to be any reviews online.

[Edo]

nothing like a good western

[smithb]

Originally Posted by Jonbaker

Does anyone have any of The Rifleman DVDs purchased from the "official webpage?" I'm considering purchasing but wondering how the a/v quality is. There don't seem to be any reviews online.

They're decent enough, not on par with CBS releases of Bonanza and Gunsmoke.

Season 1 is the weakest when it comes to video quality because whomever authored the disks took a strange approach to the addition of subtitles. Instead of following the traditional method of subtitles being add as small text file that the player uses to display the subtitles, they chose to duplicate the episodes, one without subtitles and one with subtitles burned into the image. What at first appeared as a good thing of having less episodes per disk (I think 6) really wasn't because there were actually twice as many, which added more compression. The later seasons were done the traditional method.

As for Westerns, I have most of what has been referenced by others. I'll have to say, right now I am really enjoying "Wagon Train". I've always liked Ward Bond. The DVDs were atrocious, especially the early seasons, which why I stayed away from it for so long. However, you can now find it streaming in HD (except for most of the first season) and it looks fantastic.

Others streaming in HD are "Tales of Wells Fargo", "Laramie", and "The Virginian". I don't believe Tales of Wells Fargo was completed on DVD, the DVDs may have looked okay, but the streaming HD looks fantastic. Laramie's first couple of seasons on DVD should be avoided, the color seasons were fine. Again, the HD streams blow away the DVDs. The DVDs of "The Virginian" were decent, but the HD streams are better.

[Jonbaker]

Originally Posted by smithb

They're decent enough, not on par with CBS releases of Bonanza and Gunsmoke.

Season 1 is the weakest when it comes to video quality because whomever authored the disks took a strange approach to the addition of subtitles. Instead of following the traditional method of subtitles being add as small text file that the player uses to display the subtitles, they chose to duplicate the episodes, one without subtitles and one with subtitles burned into the image. What at first appeared as a good thing of having less episodes per disk (I think 6) really wasn't because there were actually twice as many, which added more compression. The later seasons were done the traditional method.

As for Westerns, I have most of what has been referenced by others. I'll have to say, right now I am really enjoying "Wagon Train". I've always liked Ward Bond. The DVDs were atrocious, especially the early seasons, which why I stayed away from it for so long. However, you can now find it streaming in HD (except for most of the first season) and it looks fantastic.

Others streaming in HD are "Tales of Wells Fargo", "Laramie", and "The Virginian". I don't believe Tales of Wells Fargo was completed on DVD, the DVDs may have looked okay, but the streaming HD looks fantastic. Laramie's first couple of seasons on DVD should be avoided, the color seasons were fine. Again, the HD streams blow away the DVDs. The DVDs of "The Virginian" were decent, but the HD streams are better.

Thanks for the info. Especially on the Rifleman set.

I agree about the quality of Wagon Train on streaming as compared to the Timeless Media DVDs though I do hope a complete series set gets released at some point with the upgrade.

[Cruel Angel]

Wild Wild West and Have Gun, Will Travel for me.

[BluGalaxy]

All of these were a bit before my time, so I never experienced them. And I have to be honest I thought Westerns were boring when I was a kid in the early 80's.

But the only show they aired was Bonanza and that Intro is burned into my brain

Bonanza - Intro [HQ] - YouTube

Always watched the intro then turned over to watch some cartoon on another channel

[Jonbaker]

Originally Posted by smithb

As for Westerns, I have most of what has been referenced by others. I'll have to say, right now I am really enjoying "Wagon Train". I've always liked Ward Bond. The DVDs were atrocious, especially the early seasons, which why I stayed away from it for so long. However, you can now find it streaming in HD (except for most of the first season) and it looks fantastic.

Others streaming in HD are "Tales of Wells Fargo", "Laramie", and "The Virginian". I don't believe Tales of Wells Fargo was completed on DVD, the DVDs may have looked okay, but the streaming HD looks fantastic. Laramie's first couple of seasons on DVD should be avoided, the color seasons were fine. Again, the HD streams blow away the DVDs. The DVDs of "The Virginian" were decent, but the HD streams are better.

It's a shame the DVDs are not up to par. I would think that because the streaming looks good is because they've been remastered. With that I wonder if there is any possibility these will eventually get physical media releases.

It looks like Laramie is streaming on Starz anyhow but will have to subscribe for that.

[fred25_Ca]

So where do you guys stream all of these shows? I'm in Canada, mind you but i'd love to watch them.

[InLikeFlynn]

There were so many of these shows that it would probably be easier to vote on the best production company instead. I'd say CBS Productions (Gunsmoke, Have Gun -Will Travel, Rawhide) and Four Star Productions (The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Westerner) were the undisputed best.

[CinemaScope]

The Ward Bond Wagon Trains, I have the DVD sets somewhere, & Cimarron Strip, happy memories of that one.

...Oh, & Laredo, a very amusing western series featuring the great Neville Brand. There's just so many