SUGARFOOT
The terrific Television's New Frontier: The 1960s blog has
numerous detailed and informative posts on many of our favorite westerns. Below
is the opening paragraph of their post on Bronco. For the full post click on
the link at the end...
Though it had hit the top 30 in the Nielsen ratings in
its first two seasons, reaching #24 in its 1957-58 debut and inching up to #21
the next season, Sugarfoot was the first of the three rotating Warner Brothers
westerns to be canceled, with only 5 episodes airing in 1961, the last on April
17. Even though Bronco (hatched a year after Sugarfoot to combat Clint Walker
of Cheyenne in his dispute with the studio's skin-flint practices) never
reached the top 30, it was kept around until 1962, the same year that Cheyenne
bit the dust. But Warners didn't entirely abandon westerns that year because
they also launched a new series, The Dakotas, in the fall of 1962, though it
lasted only a single season. So it's unclear exactly why Sugarfoot got the axe
when it did.
Without evidence to the contrary, it appears that the
decision to cancel the series may have been an impulsive one. Warner Brothers
was still employing their crossover scheme of having Bronco's Ty Hardin guest
star on Sugarfoot in the third-from-last episode "Angel" on March 6,
1961. The following week Will Hutchins' Tom Brewster character was featured in
the Bronco episode "Yankee Tornado." The crossover scheme was
intended to lure fans of one series to watch the other series, so if Sugarfoot
were on the way out, it makes little sense to have Hutchins appear on Bronco a
month before his show was to be canceled. Secondly, the introduction of
sidekick wannabe Toothy Thompson in the January 16, 1961 episode of the same
name hardly seems like a move for a dying series.
For the full post CLICK HERE
