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Rawhide (TV series)

American Western television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rawhide (TV series)
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This article is about the TV show. For other uses, see Rawhide (disambiguation).

Rawhide is an American Western television series starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. The show aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights from January 9, 1959,[1] to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965, until December 7, 1965, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes. The series was produced and sometimes directed by Charles Marquis Warren, who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke. The show is remembered by many for its theme song, "Rawhide".

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Spanning 7+1⁄2 years, Rawhide was the sixth-longest-running American television Western, exceeded only by Wagon Train, The Virginian, Bonanza, Death Valley Days, and Gunsmoke.

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Synopsis

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Set in the 1860s, Rawhide portrays the challenges faced by the drovers of a cattle drive. Most episodes are introduced with a monologue by Gil Favor, trail boss. In a typical Rawhide story, the drovers come upon people on the trail and involve themselves in other people's affairs, usually encountering various corrupt individuals. Many times, one or more of the crew venture into a nearby town and encounter some trouble from crooked townspeople or lawless politicians from whom they need to be rescued. Rowdy Yates was young and at times impetuous in the earliest episodes, and Favor had to keep a tight rein on him.

Story lines ranged from parched plains to anthrax, ghostly riders to wolves, cattle raiding, bandits, murderers, and others. A frequent story line was the constant need to find water for the cattle. The scout spent much of his time looking for water, sometimes finding that water holes and even rivers had dried up.

Rawhide frequently dealt with controversial topics. Robert Culp played an ex-soldier on the drive who had become dangerously addicted to morphine. Mexican drover Hey Soos faced racism at times from outside of the crew. Some American Indians demanded cattle as payment for going through their land and several episodes deal with the aftermath of the American Civil War, which ended four years earlier.

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Cast members

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Eric Fleming postcard
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Eric Fleming as Gil Favor
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Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates

Regular cast members included:

Notable guest stars

Rawhide cast
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Episodes

Main article: List of Rawhide episodes
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Background and production

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Clint Eastwood with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Paul Brinegar and Rocky Shahan in background
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Eastwood and Don Hight (1962)

Series producer Charles Marquis Warren based Rawhide on three sources:

  • Cattle Empire is the movie that he directed in 1958 and for which Endre Bohem was a screenwriter and Paul Brinegar, Steve Raines, Rocky Shahan, and Charles H. Gray were actors; all also worked in Rawhide.
  • Chisholm Trail is the classic novel by Borden Chase that inspired the epic motion picture Red River starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.
  • The diary of trail boss George C. Duffield was written during a cattle drive from San Antonio to Sedalia in 1866. The narrations with which Gil Favor begins each episode are similar in style and breadth to the entries in Duffield's journal, lending the show an extra measure of authenticity.[2]

Filming for the first season of Rawhide took place at Universal-International Studios in Hollywood. The extensive railroad scenes in the third season were filmed in one month on the Sierra Railroad in Tuolumne County, California.[3]

The premiere episode of Rawhide reached the top 20 in the Nielsen ratings.

The show had a grueling production schedule, being mostly weekly with a three- to four-month break between seasons. After the first season of 22 episodes, seasons two to seven were each 30 episodes. Often, the only way the lead actors could get a break was if they were said to be off on business. On rare occasions, the show featured a small number of the actors and some misfortune, maybe in a town, which would give the others time off.

Theme song

Main article: Rawhide (song)

The theme song's lyrics were written by Ned Washington in 1958. It was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and sung by pop singer Frankie Laine, with the orchestra and chorus conducted by John Williams (credited as Johnny Williams).[4] The theme song became very popular, and was covered several times and featured in movies such as The Blues Brothers and Shrek 2.

Title sequence

The eighth and final season's title sequence was animated by Ken Mundie of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.[5]

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Release

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Home media

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Sheb Wooley and Walter Pidgeon

CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) has released all eight seasons of Rawhide on DVD in Region 1.[6]

On May 12, 2015, CBS DVD released Rawhide- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[7]

In Region 2, Rawhide has been released in Scandinavia: Season 1, by Noble Entertainment, two boxes, 2009–2010, season one re-releasing in January 2014 by Soulmedia, seasons 2 and 3, by Soulmedia (season 2 in two boxes, and season 3 in four boxes). No more seasons will be released in Scandinavia.

Revelation Films has released the first three seasons on DVD in the UK.[8][9][10] Season 4 will be released on March 23, 2015,[11] followed by season 5 on June 22, 2015.[12] They are released as complete season sets rather than two volumes.

In Region 4, Madman Entertainment has released all eight seasons on DVD in Australia, with each season in one box.[13] Season 8, the Final Season, was released on October 5, 2011.[14] DVD releases play heavily on Clint Eastwood's later fame, depicting him in the foreground as the chief character and crediting: "Clint Eastwood in...", but the original show credits for seasons one to seven actually depict the late Eric Fleming (as Gil Favor) being the lead cast member, with Eastwood as co-star (excepting a few later episodes where Eastwood is the sole star).

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On the Region 1 DVD sets, the episode "Incident of the Roman Candles" is included on both the Season One DVD set and the Season Two Volume One DVD set. Similarly, the episode "Abilene" is included on both the Season Four Volume Two DVD set and the Season Five Volume Two DVD set.

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Response

Nielsen Ratings

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Adaptations

Books

In 1961, Signet Books published a paperback original novel called Rawhide by Frank C. Robertson based upon the television show. Eric Fleming as Gil Favor and Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates are both on the front cover of the book. The book follows Favor, Yates, Wishbone, and others as they try to get their herd to Sedalia ahead of a rival's herd. The book was published multiple times with the last run printed in 1986.[16]

Comics

The TV show was also adapted into a comic book by Dan Spiegle, distributed by Dell Comics.[17]

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References

External links

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