Klondike (TV series)

Infobox Television
show_name = Klondike


caption =
genre = Western
writer = Richard Donovan
Jack Gariss
Robert Hamner
Lou Huston
Sam Peckinpah
director = William Conrad
Elliott Lewis
Sam Peckinpah
starring = Ralph Taeger
James Coburn
theme_music_composer = Mann Curtis
country = USA
language = English
num_seasons = 1
num_episodes = 17
runtime = 30 mins.
channel = NBC
first_aired = October 10, 1960
last_aired = February 13, 1961

"Klondike" is a 17-episode half-hour Western television series that aired on NBC. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from "The Danny Thomas Show" on CBS and the second half of the first-season detective series "Surfside 6" starring Troy Donahue on ABC. "Klondike" followed Dale Robertson's "Tales of Wells Fargo" on the NBC schedule. [1960-1961 United States Network Television Schedule]

ynopsis

"Klondike" was set during 1897 in the gold rush town of Skagway in the Alaskan Klondike region, starring Ralph Taeger and James Coburn, with supporting roles for Joi Lansing as Goldie and Mari Blanchard as Kathy O'Hara.

Taeger played the "good guy" Mike Halliday, described by one observer as "Clint Walker without the charisma", and Coburn portrayed the con man Jeff Durain. When "Klondike" did not attract a large audience, NBC cancelled the show but shifted Taeger and Coburn to play detectives in Mexico in the short-lived "Acapulco" series. "Klondike" was related to the hour-long 1959-1960 ABC series "The Alaskans" starring Roger Moore, Jeff York, and Dorothy Provine, also set in the port city of Skagway and during the 1890s. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053516/#comment "Klondike" (1960) ] ] In the debut episode, the characters rush to Alaska to search for gold. Other episodes included "The Golden Burro" with Edgar Buchanan about a burro who could find and dig for gold; "Bathhouse Justice", in which a bathhouse serves as a courtroom in a murder case; "Sure Thing, Men" in which the group seeks a mining site only to run afoul of an old sourdough; "88 Keys to Trouble", in which someone releases all the inmates from the jail; "Saints and Stickups" in which a person of apparent moral bearing robs a stagecoach, and "Swing Your Partner", in which a group comes to town and dances the night away. In the series finale, some members of the town are held hostage for their gold. The others work to free them, and to salvage the treasure for which they had all labored so diligently.

Various episodes of Klondike were directed by Sam Peckinpah and William Conrad, later Frank Cannon on CBS's detective series "Cannon". Supporting roles were played by Western tough guy L.Q. Jones, a native Texan as Joe Teel, [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428618/ L.Q. Jones ] ] and by Karl Swenson, a recognized character actor of Swedish descent in two different roles. [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0842425/ Karl Swenson ] ]

Episodes

References

External links

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