>>>>>>...
>>>>>>>>>You are living in the past, dude <g>.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Just thought I'd shake off some brain cobwebs. I'd even forgotten about Sugarfoot myself, but now I can't get the freakin' tune out of my head :-)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Nor The Lawman, nor Branded ("that's not the way to die ...")
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Jeez I can remember Gunsmoke, Laramie, Cheyenne ...
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Was there owt but westerns came out of US TV in the 60s?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Sure, although the 50s and 60s were without doubt the high water mark of TV westerns. You left out some of the most popular -- "Gunsmoke", "Bonanza", "Rawhide". Rowdy Yates in "Rawhide" was Clint Eastwood's first role of note.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I always liked The Virginian best. No idea why.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Whoops, I forgot that one. I watched it as well. It was my dad's favorite.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I could never figure out WHO WAS the Virginian. I believe it was the old geezer but the guy in the blcak hat was the star.
>>>>>
>>>>>I thought the dark haired man dark hat and shirt was "The Virginian". Wasn't he like the ranch foreman.
>>>>
>>>>No, I think the grey-haired old man was. The black-ganed guy was the foreman or something (didn't he also have like fancy things in his hatband?). I really can't remember too much of teh series.
>>>
>>>http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/virginian.htm
>>>
>>>it was the man in black.
>>>
>>>Its all coming back. Shiloh Trampas tec
>>
>>Thanks for that.
>>
>>Oh yes I remember Trampas now - how Doug McClure ("You may remember me from such films as ..." - Simpsons) came to fame before all those "Island the World Forgot"-type films he made. I always thought that Lee J Cobb was the V, but just didn't happen to have the adventures.
>
>
>James Drury was the Virginian.

Aye, we've established that, esp. after looking at the URL
>
>Trampas was a much less glamorous character in the book the TV series was based on. Now that the cowboys are gone and part of American mythology they have been idealized beyond recognition, but some of them were bad news. Sort of the Hell's Angels of their time. Not all, but some.

One of the myths is that they rode into town shootin' in the air. With bullets at 10c each and the cowboys' pay a pittance, that's very unlikely. As for shoot-outs, they couldn't hit a barn door with those primitive "shootin' irons". Most men involved in shoot-outs ended up being maimed, or dying from septisaemia (spelling?) from their injuries, not with neat holes drilled through their heads.

>
>I know you get at least some of the HBO series over there. Have you seen "Deadwood" by any chance?

Aye we get that on Sky 3. I've only recently been able to tune into that, via Freeview (a DTR giving access to a whole
bunch of dig. channels). I sorta missed the beginnings of the series and don't have that much time for viewing nowadays - and there's far too much choice. I've been weaning myself off the gogglebox gradually, and taking up more rewarding pastimes, like singing in a choir, and a duo.

So, I know of Deadwood and its wart 'n' all portrayal of the wild west. A clip I saw had Ian McShane bending over a table while some wench attended to his rear-end, working on his piles or something - ha ha! He used to be a heart-throb over here, esp. in the 80s with his "lovejoy" series, about a maverick antiques dealer (ever see that?)