It doesn't look anything like what you see in Bonanza. I got a real taste of how America took the Cartwrights to heart when I visited the real Virginia City. So the Cartwrights of the Ponderosa have passed into history. His sudden demise after surgery left too big a hole in that family. But big, loyal, but a little thick Hoss was easily the most lovable of the Cartwrights. Other characters had been added on by that time, David Canary, Tim Matheson, and Ben Cartwright adopted young Mitch Vogel. the show kept going with the two younger sons, but when big Dan Blocker left, the heart went out of Bonanza. Little Joe was the youngest, most hot headed, but the most romantic of the Cartwrights. Landon also has Highway to Heaven and Little House On the Prarie where he had creative control. This was just the beginning for Michael Landon, how many people get three hit TV shows to their credit. Perhaps if it were done now, he'd have liked it better in the way I describe. Rumor has it he didn't care for the noble Cartwright characters which he felt bordered on sanctimonious. Pernell Roberts as oldest son Adam was written out of the show. Just the popularity that Bonanza has in syndication testifies to that. I daresay more people cared about this family than the Kennedys. The Cartwrights became and still are an American institution. The kids were all different in personality, but all came together in a pinch. His whole life was spent in the hard work of building that immense Ponderosa spread for his three children. Ben Cartwright was THE ideal TV Dad in any genre you want to name. But we were still expecting a lot from our western heroes and Bonanza though it took a while to take hold and a change of viewing time from NBC certainly helped, the secret of Bonanza's success was the noble patriarch Ben Cartwright and his stalwart sons. And we're less demanding of our heroes today so if a relationship with one of them goes south we don't have to kill the character off to keep the survivor's nobility intact. People have relationships, some go good, some not so good, it's just life. Perhaps if Bonanza were being done today the writers would have had revolving women characters who came in and out of the lives of the Cartwrights. And any woman who got involved with Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe were going to end up dying because we couldn't get rid of the formula of the widower and the three sons that started this classic TV western. After all Ben Cartwright was three times a widower with a son by each marriage. It got to be a running joke around Bonanza about how fatal it was for any women to get involved with any Cartwright men.
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