Black Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck that aired 44 half-hour black-and-white episodes from January 10, 1959, to May 6, 1960. The first season of 20 episodes aired on NBC from January 1959 to September 1959. ABC picked up the second season in the 1959-1960 season with 24 new episodes produced. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original backdoor pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, with Chris Alcaide originally portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane, in an episode entitled "A Threat of Violence."