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Daniel Boone (1964 TV series)

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Daniel Boone
Title card
GenreAction-adventure
StarringFess Parker
Patricia Blair
Albert Salmi (season 1)
Ed Ames (seasons 1–4)
Rosey Grier (season 6)
Jimmy Dean (seasons 3–6)
Darby Hinton
Veronica Cartwright (seasons 1–2)
Robert Logan (season 2)
Theme music composerLionel Newman
Ken Darby
ComposersLionel Newman
Alexander Courage
Herman Stein
Joseph Mullendore
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons6
No. of episodes165 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producerAaron Rosenberg
ProducersBarney Rosenzweig
Ted Schilz
George Sherman
Joseph Silver
Running time60 minutes
Production companies20th Century-Fox Television
Arcola Pictures Corp.
Fespar Enterprises, Inc.,
in association with NBC-TV
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 24, 1964 (1964-09-24) –
May 7, 1970 (1970-05-07)

Daniel Boone is an American action-adventure television series, starring Fess Parker as the frontiersman Daniel Boone, that aired from September 24, 1964, to May 7, 1970, on NBC for 165 episodes, and was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, Arcola Enterprises, and Fespar Corp.[1] Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Cherokee friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi portrayed Boone's companion Yadkin in season one only. Country Western singer-actor Jimmy Dean was a featured actor as Josh Clements during the 1968–1970 seasons. Actor and former NFL football player Rosey Grier made regular appearances as Gabe Cooper in the 1969 to 1970 season.[2] The show was broadcast "in living color" beginning in fall 1965, the second season, and was shot entirely in California and Kanab, Utah.[citation needed][3] The show was highly fictionalized with very little historical accuracy.

An earlier television series based on Daniel Boone appeared on the Walt Disney Presents anthology in 1960, with Dewey Martin as Boone.[4]

Characters

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Main characters

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Recurring characters

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  • Cincinnatus – The store-keeper and a fixture of Boonsborough village life, played by Dallas McKennon.

Episodes

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Main article: List of Daniel Boone episodes
SeasonEpisodesOriginally airedColorDVD release date
First airedLast aired
129September 24, 1964 (1964-09-24)April 29, 1965 (1965-04-29)Black & WhiteSeptember 26, 2006
230September 16, 1965 (1965-09-16)April 21, 1966 (1966-04-21)ColorSeptember 26, 2006
328September 15, 1966 (1966-09-15)April 13, 1967 (1967-04-13)ColorMay 8, 2007
426September 14, 1967 (1967-09-14)April 4, 1968 (1968-04-04)ColorJune 19, 2007
526September 19, 1968 (1968-09-19)May 1, 1969 (1969-05-01)ColorAugust 7, 2007
626September 18, 1969 (1969-09-18)May 7, 1970 (1970-05-07)ColorNovember 18, 2008

Background

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Daniel Boone was one of two significant historical figures played by Fess Parker. He previously appeared as Davy Crockett in a series of episodes of the Walt Disney anthology television series, to considerable acclaim amid the launch of a national craze. For his role as Boone, which lasted much longer, but had far less impact, Parker again wore a coonskin cap, which had been popularized years earlier by the Crockett shows. Daniel Boone's headgear was even mentioned in the show's theme song: "From the coonskin cap on the top of ol' Dan....".[5] Efforts had been made to secure the rights to Crockett from Walt Disney, but Disney refused to sell, so the series wound up being about Boone instead.

Parker as Daniel Boone
Parker with guest star George Sanders, 1966

In contrast, Parker's Boone was less of an explorer and more a family man than Parker's Crockett. Parker as Crockett also generally wore a light beard, whereas his Boone was predominantly clean-shaven. Boone's wife Rebecca (played by Patricia Blair) and son Israel (Darby Hinton) were often featured in the stories. In reality, Boone had 10 children. During the first two seasons, his daughter Jemima was shown (played by Veronica Cartwright), but she disappeared with no explanation toward the end of the second season. Western actor Chris Alcaide appeared twice on the series, once as an Indian, Flathead Joseph. Walter Coy made his last major television appearance in 1970 on Daniel Boone in the role of Chief Blackfish.[6] Rico Alaniz played the Indian Crooked Hand in the 1969 episode "The Allies".[7] Med Flory was cast in seven episodes, the last three in the role of the drifter Bingen.

The series is set in the 1770s and 1780s, just before, during, and after the American Revolution, and mostly centered on fictional adventures in and about Boonesborough, Kentucky. Nearly all of the aspects of the show were less than historically faithful and completely fictional, which at one point led the Kentucky legislature to condemn the inaccuracies. The series' story line does not follow historical events; instead, story lines run back and forth concerning historical events. Inconsistencies include episodes such as "The Aaron Burr Story," a second-season episode in which the former Vice President of the United States visits Boonesborough. The episode was based on Burr's raising an armed group, allegedly to commit treason, in 1806. Meanwhile, another episode in the second season hinged on allegations that the Boonesborough settlers were planning insurrection against the British Crown, prior to the American Revolution. Still other episodes took place during the Revolutionary War. No explanation was made for the 30-year discrepancy.[8]

The character Caramingo, shortened to Mingo, was half-Cherokee, but highly educated somewhat in the Tonto mold, but with updated sensibilities and English descent through his father, the fourth Earl of Dunmore. (The 12th Earl now lives in Tasmania, Australia.). (A graduate of Oxford University, Mingo passed as a British officer in at least two episodes, and sang opera in another.) In reality, the Mingo were a small group of natives (and not one man) who were related to the Iroquois.[9] (However, from the native perspective, mingo is a word for "chief" in the Choctaw native language; in Chickasaw, minko is the word for "chief"). Ames also portrayed Mingo's evil twin brother, Taramingo, in "My Brother's Keeper". His role as Mingo led to a famous tomahawk-throwing demonstration on The Tonight Show, that was rerun on anniversary clip shows for decades afterward, in which Ames threw a tomahawk at a target of a man and the hatchet landed between the cutout's legs, much to host Johnny Carson's amusement;[10] this incident was later spoofed in a 1980 episode of SCTV.

Mingo's character resembles Joseph Brant; Brant was a Mohawk Indian, who became a captain in the British Army. His sister, Molly, was the consort of Sir William Johnson, of Johnstown, Montgomery County, New York. Johnson took an interest in Molly's younger brother, acting as a surrogate father, and sent him to Moore's Indian Charity School, the precursor to Dartmouth College. Brant was, therefore, well educated for men of his time, and exceptionally well educated for a Mohawk. A project in later years was to work on a Mohawk translation of the Bible. Brant's parents were both American Indians, unlike Mingo. Brant, despite his role in the American Revolution, is largely unknown outside Central New York, although he is a national hero in Canada. In Ontario, along Lake Ontario's shores, between Toronto and Niagara Falls, a town and hospital are named after him. A replica of his Canadian home is located next to Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital.

Any similarities possibly are coincidental. Boone's character needed an American Indian companion, and as the show was produced in the United States, the character needed to support the rebelling colonists to be believable as Boone's friend. Giving Mingo an education, a better one, incidentally, than Fess Parker's Boone, distanced Mingo from the traditional Western violent, uneducated savage stereotype. If creators were unaware of Moore's Indian Charity School, a British father would have been the easiest way to explain Mingo's background. Status in some Indian tribes is through women. An Indian mother and a British officer father provided status in both worlds. Nothing indicates that Brant was the basis for Mingo, and differences are notable, starting with Brant's stance as a Loyalist, but Mingo closely resembles Brant. (In many ways, having an educated background and a European father was more similar to another Iroquois diplomat, John "Cornplanter" Abeel, the son of a Seneca mother and a Dutch-American father, descended from colonial politician Johannes Abeel.)

One oddity to the show was that Parker's Boone rarely used a horse for transportation. He instead walked to his destinations, sometimes incurring interstate travel.

Production

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Parts of the series were filmed in Kane County, Utah.[11]

Music

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The show's main title featured three versions of the theme song written by Vera Matson and Lionel Newman (although the lyrics were written by Ken Darby, credited under the name of his wife Matson).[12] The third "groovy version" was sung by The Imperials.[13][14]

Release

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Home media

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Liberation Entertainment (distributed by Goldhil Home Media) released all six seasons on DVD in Region 1 for the first time between 2006 and 2008.[15][16][17][18][19]

On September 23, 2014, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Daniel Boone- The Complete Series: 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition on DVD in Region 1 via amazon.com's CreateSpace program. This is a manufacture-on-demand release, available exclusively through amazon.com.[20]

On January 8, 2016, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1. They have subsequently released new collector's editions of the first five seasons on DVD.[21][22][23][24] The sixth and final season was re-released on December 19, 2017.[25]

dvd name Ep # Release date
Season One 13 September 26, 2006
April 19, 2016 (re-release)
Season Two 22 September 26, 2006
July 19, 2016 (re-release)
Season Three 20 May 8, 2007
January 24, 2017 (re-release)
Season Four 26 June 19, 2007
March 14, 2017 (re-release)
Season Five 23 August 7, 2007
May 2, 2017 (re-release)
Season Six 23 November 18, 2008
December 19, 2017 (re-release)
The Complete Series 103 September 23, 2014

Syndication

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As of August 2022, Daniel Boone airs on INSP. The series is also occasionally aired on over-the-air broadcast channel Heroes & Icons in weekend binge blocks and FETV.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Woolery, George W. (1985). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946–1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series. The Scarecrow Press. pp. 136–138. ISBN 0-8108-1651-2.
  2. ^ Roosevelt Grier at IMDb
  3. ^ Magers, Boyd. "Daniel Boone". Western Clippings. Retrieved May 9, 2018.
  4. ^ Magers, Boyd. "Daniel Boone (Disney)". Western Clippings. Retrieved May 9, 2018.
  5. ^ "Daniel Boone" Theme Song Archived June 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "How to Become a Goddess". IMDb. April 30, 1970.
  7. ^ ""The Allies", Daniel Boone, March 27, 1969". Internet Movie Database. March 27, 1969. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  8. ^ "A brief history of the United States". original-ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu. Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  9. ^ Mingo Indians
  10. ^ Ed Ames on Johnny Carson Show
  11. ^ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.
  12. ^ Jon Burlingame, p. 76, TV's Biggest Hits: The Story Of Television Themes From "Dragnet" To "Friends", Schirmer Books, 1995, ISBN 0-02-870324-3
  13. ^ "Daniel Boone Theme Song". Archived from the original on March 5, 2010. Retrieved March 20, 2010.
  14. ^ "Mingo". June 28, 2008. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved March 20, 2010.
  15. ^ Large artwork for seasons 1 and 2 Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Goldhil announces Season 3 Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ Cover Art Distributed For Daniel Boone – Season 4 Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ 5th Season Announced (Date, Details, Box Art); 6th Season Street Date Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Box Art & Extras for Fess Parker's Daniel Boone – Season 6! Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ 'The Complete Series: 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition' on DVD Soon! Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ TMG/Shout! Announce 'Season One: Collector's Edition' DVDs! Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ Late January Release for 'Season 3: Collector's Edition' Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  23. ^ 'Season 4: Collector's Edition' DVDs...Possible Canadian Date Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  24. ^ USA and Canadian Dates for 'Season 5: Collector's Edition' Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  25. ^ Release for 'Season 6: The Final Season Collector's Edition' Archived September 8, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
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