Klondike (TV series)

Klondike
Joi Lansing and Ralph Taeger in Klondike
Genre	Western
Written by	Richard Donovan Jack Gariss Robert Hamner Lou Huston Sam Peckinpah
Directed by	William Conrad Elliott Lewis Sam Peckinpah
Starring	Ralph Taeger James Coburn
Theme music composer	Mann Curtis
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	17
Production
Running time	30 mins.
Production company(s)	Ziv-United Artists Television
Distributor	MGM Television Peter Rodgers Organization
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	Black-and-white
Original release	October 10, 1960 – February 13, 1961

Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour American Western/Northern television series starring Ralph Taeger and James Coburn that aired on NBC. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961, facing 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.^[1]

Synopsis

Klondike was set during the early days of the Klondike Gold Rush 1897 in the town of Skagway in the Alaskan Klondike region with, in addition to Taeger and Coburn, supporting roles in seven episodes for Joi Lansing as Goldie and Mari Blanchard in fourteen episodes 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 is related to the hour-long 1959-1960 ABC series The Alaskans starring Roger Moore, Jeff York, Ray Danton, and Dorothy Provine, also set in the port city of Skagway and during the 1890s.^[2]

In the debut episode, the characters rush to Alaska to search for gold. Other episodes included "The Golden Burro" with Edgar Buchanan and Robert F. Simon 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" (with Tyler McVey as Emil Watkins) 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, "The Hostages", featuring Chris Alcaide, some townspeople 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. Lawrence Dobkin, Emory Parnell, and Olan Soule appeared in "The Man Who Owned Skagway." Ron Hayes appeared as Harold Enright, along with Lane Bradford and Phil Chambers, in the episode "Sitka Madonna". Judson Pratt guest starred as Dan Sheean in the episode "The Unexpected Candidate". Lon Chaney, Jr., appeared as Macfin in the series finale, "The Hostages", along with Clegg Hoyt, Michael Raffetto, and again Chris Alcaide.

Various episodes of Klondike were directed by Sam Peckinpah and William Conrad. Supporting roles were played by Western tough guy L.Q. Jones as Joe Teel^[3] and Karl Swenson in two different roles.^[4]

Episodes

References

External links

• Klondike at the Internet Movie Database
• Klondike at TV.com