Daniel Boone (TV series)

Daniel Boone
Title card
Genre	Action/Adventure
Starring	Fess Parker Patricia Blair Albert Salmi Ed Ames Dallas McKennon Rosey Grier
Composer(s)	Alexander Courage Ken Darby Irving Getz Leigh Harline Joseph Mullendore Lyn Murray Lionel Newman Herman Stein Fred Steiner Leith Stevens Harry Sukman
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	165
Production
Executive producer(s)	Aaron Rosenberg
Producer(s)	Barney Rosenzweig Ted Schilz George Sherman Joseph Silver
Running time	60 mins.
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	September 24, 1964 – September 10, 1970

Daniel Boone is an American action/adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Native American friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi portrayed Boone's companion Yadkin in season one only. Dallas McKennon portrayed innkeeper Cincinnatus. 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. The show was broadcast "in living color" beginning in fall, 1965, the second season and was shot entirely in California and Kanab, Utah.

Background

Daniel Boone was one of two iconic 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 amidst the launch of a national craze. For his role as Boone, which lasted much longer but had far less impact, Parker again wore a raccoon-hide 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...." although the real life Daniel Boone did not actually wear a coonskin cap. Efforts had been made to secure the rights to Crockett from Walt Disney but he refused to sell, so the series wound up being about Boone instead.^{[citation needed]}

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 ten 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.^{[citation needed]}

The series was set in the 1770s, just before and during the American Revolution, and mostly centered on adventures in and around Boonesborough, Kentucky. Some aspects of the show were less than historically faithful, which at one point led the Kentucky legislature to condemn the inaccuracies.^{[citation needed]}

Inconsistencies included 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, while 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 Revolution. No explanation was made for the 30-year discrepancy.^{[citation needed]}

The character Mingo was half-Cherokee and highly educated, somewhat in the Tonto mold but with updated sensibilities and without the broken English. (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. Ames also portrayed Mingo's evil twin brother, Taramingo, in two episodes of the show's first season. His role as Mingo led to an 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.^{[citation needed]}

The show's main title featured three versions of the theme song written by Vera Matson and Lionel Newman. The third "groovy version" was sung by The Imperials.

Another television treatment of the life of Daniel Boone appeared on the Disney anthology series in 1960, with Dewey Martin starring as Boone. This four part series did not have remotely the same impact as the Crockett shows. Unsurprisingly, Fess Parker's Daniel Boone is much better remembered today than Martin's.^{[citation needed]}

DVD information

Two boxed season sets of Daniel Boone starring Fess Parker were released on DVD on September 26, 2006 a full 186 years to the day of the American pioneer/hunter's death. A third season boxed set was released on May 8, 2007 followed by a fourth season boxed set on June 19, 2007. A fifth season boxed set followed in August. Season six was on DVD on November 18, 2008.

See also

• Cumberland Gap
• Dragging Canoe
• Elizabethton, Tennessee
• Fort Watauga
• Richard Henderson
• Sycamore Shoals
• Transylvania Purchase
• Watauga River
• The Wilderness Road
• Young Dan'l Boone

External links

• Daniel Boone at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel Boone at TV.com
• Daniel Boone TV Series
• Daniel Boone (1960 miniseries) at the Internet Movie Database