by Jason Daniel Baker

Created on: June 07, 2008   Last Updated: January 26, 2010

Bonanza - NBC - 1959-1973

Welcome to the Ponderosa, a sprawling and quite prosperous Lake Tahoe cattle ranch in Nevada south of Carson City circa roughly 1860. Widower Ben Cartwright (Canadian actor Lorne Greene) and his three rugged sons- bookish yet righteous Adam (Pernell Roberts), burly and apparently bipolar Hoss (Dan Blocker) and quick draw gunslinger/vain ladies man Little Joe (Michael Landon) reside there and engage in heroics set against the extremely rugged landscape.

They say Nevada has a dry kind of heat which makes sense since there never seemed to be a drop of perspiration on the characters faces no matter what in the episodes of the show I saw.

The Cartwrights lived together in the kind of bunkhouse/homestead (more like a mansion) one might more readily find in one of those modern high-living magazines with beautiful leather chairs, polished oak tables and desks, immaculate bookshelves and charming knickknacks everywhere.

Cartwright was a different kind of adult single dad in that he was vigorous and young for his middle age (Greene was only 13 years older than Roberts or Blocker) throughout the run of the series.

He also had sons as tough as nails who could cause a great deal of trouble if he hadn't raised them properly. The old man was every bit as potentially lethal as any one of his sons. They were a formidable combination when assembled. They were a family but they could and frequently were seen to hold their own against any gang of miscreants or ruffians of whatever variety they encountered.

These characters were driven not merely to survive in dangerous times but also by personal responsibility, duty, honor and perhaps even compassion. Though brave they also found something even more heroic within themselves to do the extraordinary when the occasion called for it.

The historical exemplar here is not the representation of 19th century Nevada but rather early 1960s America and its heroic mythology. The Cartwrights are good, hardworking, honest people and are of the type that an audience could be led to believe would do right in position of responsibility. The frontier embodied by the Ponderosa and its surrounding area is a representation of America and its place in the global sphere. The Cartwrights are representative of how Americans like to see themselves and would like to be seen.

We see some sense of what the justice system should theoretically be like in the American mindset. Ben Cartwright is defacto chief of police in many episodes

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