The Oregon Trail (TV series)

The Oregon Trail
Created by	Samuel A. Peeples Michael Gleason
Written by	E. Jack Neuman Nicholas Corea
Directed by	Bill Bixby
Starring	Rod Taylor Andrew Stevens Darlene Carr Charles Napier Tony Becker Gina Marie Smika
Theme music composer	Danny Darst Rod Taylor Charles Napier
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	One-half
No. of episodes	14 (6 not aired)
Production
Producer(s)	Carl Vitale Michael Gleason Richard Collins
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Universal Television
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	Color
Original release	September 21, 1977 – November 30, 1977

The Oregon Trail is a 14-episode NBC western television series that aired in 1977, starring Rod Taylor as the widower Evan Thorpe, who leaves his Illinois farm in 1842 to take the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest. The show also starsAndrew Stevens, Tony Becker, and Gina Marie Smika as Thorpe's children. Darleen Carr stars as Margaret Devlin, one of the passengers on the wagon train, and Charles Napier portrays Luther Sprague, a frontier scout recruited by Thorpe. The series was filmed in the Flagstaff, Arizona area.^[1]

Episodes

The following episodes aired in the US, on NBC:

1. "Hard Ride Home and the Last Game", September 21, 1977 (Wilford Brimley)
2. "The Waterhole", September 28, 1977 (Lonny Chapman and Kim Hunter)
3. "Trapper's Rendezvous", October 12, 1977 (Claude Akins)
4. "The Army Deserter", October 19, 1977 (Clu Gulager and Kevin McCarthy)
5. "Hannah's Girl", October 26, 1977 (Stella Stevens, mother of Andrew Stevens, as Hannah Morgan)
6. "The Scarlet Ribbon", November 30, 1977 (Richard Jaeckel, Donna Mills, Bill Bixby, and William Shatner)

NBC cancelled the show after six episodes, but the remaining seven episodes were later aired on BBC 2 in the UK,^[2] and the entire series was shown in the UK on BBC1, from November 1977 to January 1978.

1. "The Race" (Mariette Hartley and Robert Pine)
2. "The Gold Dust Queen" (Susan Howard, later on the CBS drama Dallas)
3. "The Man Who Wouldn't Die"
4. "Return of the Baby" (again Mills, Shatner, and Bixby)
5. "Evan's Vendetta" (William Smith, previously of the NBC western series Laredo)
6. "Suffer the Children" (Robert Fuller, previously of Laramie, Wagon Train, and Emergency!)
7. "Wagon Race".

Production

The series followed another western-themed program, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams on the NBC Wednesday schedule. The Oregon Trail aired at 9 p.m. Eastern opposite the CBS Wednesday Night Movie and ABC's detective series, Charlie's Angels. Michael Gleason was the executive producer; Richard Collins, the supervising producer; and Carl Vitale, the producer for NBC Universal Television. Bill Bixby directed two episodes. The series pilot aired on January 10, 1976.^[1] Terry Wilson (Bill Hawks in Wagon Train) served as production supervisor on the series, and series stars Rod Taylor and Charles Napier co-wrote the theme song, "Oregon Bound", with singer Danny Darst.

The budget for the series was a reported $380,000 an episode.^[3]

DVD release

On April 13, 2010, Timeless Media Group (TMG) released the show on six DVDs, running 750 minutes. The set includes 14 original episodes, including the feature-length pilot and the six episodes that did not air on NBC.^[4]

References

1. Alex McNeil, Total Television, New York: Penguin Books, 1996, 4th ed., p. 629
2. "The Oregon Trail". CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
3. Stephen Vagg, Rod Taylor: An Aussie in Hollywood (Bear Manor Media, 2010) p198
4. Lambert, David (March 12, 2010). "The Oregon Trail - The '70s NBC Show Starring Rod Taylor Comes to DVD with Unaired Episodes". TV Shows on DVD. TV Guide Online. Retrieved April 20, 2015.

External links

• The Oregon Trail at the Internet Movie Database