Bonanza 1x1 Cap 01 Una Rosa Para Lotta Saturday 12 September at 1959
The widower Ben Cartwright is running a huge cattle ranch in Nevada called the Ponderosa. He has been married thrice, and has an adult son with each of the three wives. Adam is the oldest of them, Hoss the biggest, and Little Joe the youngest and cutest. In nearby Virginia City three mine owners are in great need of more wood to be able to build tunnels to new bonanzas. Ben Cartwright has much wood on his ranch, but refuses to cut it down.
The mine owners get the idea to hire a famous actress, Lotta Crabtree, who could lure Little Joe to Virginia City, where they can hold him as a hostage. If Ben Cartwright still refuses to sell any wood to them, they will kill his son
Bonanza 1x2 Muerte en La Montaña September 19, 1959
The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.
Cartwright: One place or another, there'll always be a
Mark Burdette, and for every one like him who makes it, a thousand will fail.
But then, what are thousand to one odds for a man who looks up into the sky and
sees... a bonanza!
Bonanza 1x3 Los recien llegados Septiembre 26, 1959
The Cartwrights discover an old enemy killing steers on the Ponderosa. Their camp has a sickly woman who needs to get to the high desert country. When an innocent man is killed, Ben decides to boot them all back to California but he gets resistance from the others in the camp and some local miners who now believe Ben is hiding gold.—DrDOS / edited by Rob
Eric 'Hoss' Cartwright: I reckon that's the way it is sometimes, you... you look at a cactus and you see a rose cause, cause a rose is what you want to see. I don't reckon there's anything wrong when you see something good and pretty. Sometimes I even do that myself. I get sorta lonely-like and I look for good and pretty things.
Bonanza 1x4 La Guerra De Los Paiute October 3, 1959
A trder and his two brothers beat up two Native Americans
and take their wives. When the Indian men ask the Shoshone leader to rescue
their wives from the traders, Adam intervenes to prevent a war against the
Indians. Adam rescues the assaulted women, but the Shoshone still go on a
killing rampage, leaving the trader for dead. The guilty trader decides to
incite the people of Virginia City into believing it is the peaceful Paiute
Indians who instigated the killings, gathering a mob to confront the Paiutes.
An attempt for Adam Cartwright to parley with the Paiute chief turns sour when
the trader disobeys orders and fires the first shot. Adam is captured by the
Paiutes. Ben must race against time to find the Shoshone leader before the
Cavalry reach the Paiutes - and the Paiutes kill Adam.
This episode cost $139,000 to make and featured more than
100 actors and extras portraying Indians and cavalry members.
Bonanza 1x5 Mark Twain Entra En Escena October 10 at 1959
In this episode from the first season of Bonanza the
fictional Cartwrights meet up with a young writer named Samuel Langhorne
Clemens who did in fact spend some time in Virginia City during the Comstock
Lode silver rush. It is here we learn how Clemens who had been using the pen
name of Josh got to find the name that he became immortal with.
Howard Duff guest stars as Clemens and he's writing for the
Territorial Enterprise and decides to also do some investigative reporting.
Edmon Ryan is a ruthless railroad executive who is looking to grab off chunks
of the Ponderosa for the line, something the Cartwrights just won't allow.
Ryan's bought the territorial judge though in the person of John Litel who has
a wife in Dorothy Green, but he's also up for re-election at the time as it
turns out.
The wit of Sam Clemens is brought to bear on the judge and
he proves to the Cartwrights and the rest of us that the pen really can be
mightier than the sword even if it needs some swords or in this case guns to
back it up. In the process he comes up with the name we know him all by today,
Mark Twain.
As you would expect from this subject the episode is
handled with wit and though Howard Duff was quite a bit older than the real Sam
Clemens was when he was in Virginia City, still he carries the part off well.
Bonanza 1x6 Cap 05 El Palacio de Julia October 17, 1959
Little Joe falls in love with an older woman, the owner of
the town's saloon/brothel, much to the chagrin of his family, moralizing town
leaders, and creating a rival for her affection.
A clip from this episode would be used in The Depth of
Beauty (1979)] in which Ms Greer would guest star as an actress ('Dorrie
Larkin') who had once been beautiful, but had been horribly disfigured by a
plastic surgeon.
Bonanza 1x7 Annie O'Toole October 24, 1959
Feisty Annie O'Toole comes to Nevada with her old Da (aka "Himself") to mine silver and winds up feeding the silver miners, shanghaiing Adam Cartwright to be her partner in her tent-kitchen ("The Square Meal") and to be her attorney in Miner's Court when an old enemy challenges her right to her claim.
This episode has a funny way of showing us how hard those "boom" times were - a few made their fortune, many others disappeared into the deepest misery.
Bonanza 1x8 Philip Deideshiemer October 31, 1959
Philip Diedesheimer, a Pied Piper, is refused payment after
he saves Virginia City's silver mines from a cave-in.
This story's events were inspired by the real story of the German-born American immigrant engineer Philip Deidesheimer (1832-1916). Diedesheimer developed his square set timbering system for the Comstock Lode's Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada in 1860. And just as portrayed in the story, Diedesheimer chose not to patent his revolutionary and life-saving innovation in mining.
Bonanza 1x9 Mr Henry Comstock November 7, 1959
The Cartwrights are met by an old man with a gun who claims they're on his land; he even has a deed signed by Henry Comstock to prove it. They start laughing and tell him that the deed is false. The episode flashes back to how Comstock, a con man, accidentally found a huge silver deposit while trying to pull a swindle, and how Virginia City got its name.
A lighter and different episode than usual- no gunplay, just mild shenanigans with Little Joe taking a Paiute gal to a dance and Hoss introducing Adam to a large lady. There's a good performance by Jack Carson as Comstock. There's a nice scenery. It's not a great episode but amusing at times
1x10 Adah la Magnifica November 14, 1959
When an actress named Adah Menken comes into town, Ben considers marrying her, but his sons have other ideas. Meanwhile, trouble arrives when Adah's old lover, washed-up heavyweight boxer John C. Regan, comes along seeking his former glory.
Papa Cartwright wants to get married....
We save on flowers...
When Adam goes to see Adah backstage, they kiss in front of
a floral arrangement of daisies, pink roses, and what might be blue lupines.
Later, Little Joe has that same floral arrangement delivered to Adah in her
hotel room. The daisies and roses first appeared (minus the lupines) as a
floral arrangement in the Cartwrights' dining room when Adah was a guest of
Ben's earlier in the story.
Bonanza 1x11 La Franja de Truckee November 21, 1959
1The curse about falling in love with a Cartwright
Caught in the middle of a longtime family feud over a disputed piece of land, star-crossed lovers Joe Cartwright and Amy Bishop try to convince their stubborn fathers to resolve their differences as tension escalates into violence.
In this episode, it is the second time that the young woman
that Hoss falls in love with dies, and the young woman that Hoss falls in love
with also dies. This shows us in the first year of the series that the young
Cartwrights will follow a path similar to that of their father.lonely
Ben Cartwright and his younger son Joe. When Joe opens his
heart to his father and tells him about his love problems, Ben reveals his
priorities in life: first the happiness of his children, then his shared
property with them: the Ponderosa
Bonanza 1x12 "The Hanging Posse" November 28, 1959
Little Joe and Adam join a posse bent on catching the
murderers of Vannie Johnson. The longer they take to catch them, the more
whipped into a lynching party they become, much to the liking of the grieving
widower.
Little Joe with his sweet and mischievous smile enchants
the new audience of a new series. The Cartwright family seduces the spectators.
Joe giving water to his horse Cochisse
Bonanza 1x13 "Vendetta" (los Morgan) December 5, 1959
When one of the Morgan brothers is shot and killed by Ben during a bank holdup, they vow revenge. The friends he thought he had in town decide to hide away while a wounded Ben lays up waiting for them to
ride into town.
Bonanza 1x14 "The Sisters" December 12, 1959
Adam wants to marry one of the two sisters. His girlfriend is shot in the back while she is in her arms. Adam is accused of her death.
Bonanza 1x15 La Ultima Caceria December 19, 1959
Joe and Hoss shelter a pregnant Indian from a blizzard -- and Shoshones ordered to find her.
This is the first time that an "interracial" character has been in the Series. Here, the newborn baby has blue eyes; the mother is Shoshoni, and the father is Caucasian.
Bonanza 1x16 "Toro Grande" January 2, 1960
After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy
a prized bull for the Ponderosa, Little Joe fends off a pretty senorita and her
jealous fiancé, while Hoss discovers that the bull has been spirited away by a
little boy who is convinced that the Cartwrights plan to kill and eat his big
bovine friend.—shepherd1138 / edited by Rob
