The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, is the title of a 1972 novel by Charles E. Sellier Jr., a
1974 filmThe year 1974 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 7 - Blazing Saddles is released in USA*May 1 - George Lucas creates the first draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope....
based on the novel, a two-season
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
television series, and a 1982 TV movie. The title character — played by
Dan HaggertyDan Haggerty is an American actor, best known for the title role in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. He was born in Hollywood, growing up amid the Southern California bodybuilding lifestyle. He had early roles in Muscle Beach Party and the Elvis Presley film Girl Happy...
—is loosely based on the actual trapper, J. Capen "Grizzly" Adams.
Grizzly Adams (Haggerty) is a
woodsmanThe word woodsman, meaning man of the woods, can be applied to any person coming from or living in a wooded area. Woodsmen is the plural form....
during the frontier era who flees into the mountains after he is wrongly accused of murder. While struggling to survive, Adams discovers an orphaned
grizzly bearThe grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America....
cub whom he takes in and calls Ben. The bear, despite his huge adult size, becomes Adams's closest companion. Adams proves to have an uncanny link to most of the indigenous wildlife of the region, who have no fear of him. In return, he resolves never to harm another animal whenever possible. In the television series, Adams had two human companions, an old trader named Mad Jack the Mountain Man (
Denver PyleDenver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Pyle was born in Bethune in Kit Carson County in eastern Colorado, to farmers Maude W. and Ben H. Pyle; he was the nephew of journalist Ernie Pyle and had one brother, Willis...
, commonly featured with a mule named "Number Seven") and a
native AmericanThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
named Nakoma (Don Shanks). Together, they helped various visitors while protecting the wildlife.
The series was concluded with a 1982 TV movie called
The Capture of Grizzly Adams where a
bounty hunterA bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include, bail enforcement agent, fugitive recovery agent, and bail fugitive investigator...
used Adams's daughter–-not seen or mentioned since the 1974 film—to draw him back to civilization. In the end, Adams proved his innocence.
Production
Grizzly Adams was the creation of Sunn Classic Pictures, a company based in
Park City, UtahPark City is a town in Summit and Wasatch counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It is one of two major resort towns in Utah, the other being Moab. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back and a part of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area...
which was operated by founder Charles E. Sellier Jr., who had written the book on which first the 1974 movie, and then the series, was based. The studio successfully made up for its lack of experience with lavish marketing and promotional budgets. The 1974 movie was a runaway success, produced on a $140,000 budget but which went on to earn $65 million at theaters. The 43% market share captured by a 1976 airing of this film on
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
caused network executives to greenlight a television series. This series drew a 32% market share, a figure which still remains very significant to this day. The enterprise also came at a time when the
environmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green movements, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
flourished.
In a 1978 interview with
TV GuideTV Guide is a North American weekly magazine about television programming.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews. Some issues have also featured horoscope listings and crossword puzzles.-Annenberg/Triangle era: The...
, Sellier said that the company used extensive market testing to produce the series, which was based on tests showing that audiences liked stories about men and animals in the wilderness; that bears were favorite wilderness animals; and that grizzlies were the favorite type of bear. The actual filming locations for the television series took place in the mountains near
Ruidoso, New MexicoRuidoso is a village in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States, adjacent to the Lincoln National Forest. The population was 7,698 at the 2000 census...
.
The show's theme song, “Maybe,” was written and sung by
Thom PaceThom Pace is a singer-songwriter who is best-known for the song "Maybe," which became the theme of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams....
. The song was released as a single in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, where it reached number one, and won the
Goldene EuropaThe Goldene Europa award is the oldest German Television award for artists and entertainers. It was awarded from 1968 to 2003. In the years 1989 and 2001, there were no ceremonies...
award for best song.
Cast
- Dan Haggerty
Dan Haggerty is an American actor, best known for the title role in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. He was born in Hollywood, growing up amid the Southern California bodybuilding lifestyle. He had early roles in Muscle Beach Party and the Elvis Presley film Girl Happy...
as James Capen 'Grizzly' Adams
- Denver Pyle
Denver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Pyle was born in Bethune in Kit Carson County in eastern Colorado, to farmers Maude W. and Ben H. Pyle; he was the nephew of journalist Ernie Pyle and had one brother, Willis...
as Mad Jack
- Don Shanks
Don Shanks is an American actor and stuntman, known for his roles as Michael Myers in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Nakoma, the Native American friend of the title character in the 1977 television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.-Biography:Shanks, a Cherokee Native...
as Nakoma
- John Bishop
Lionel Albert Jack Bishop was an Australian academic, conductor and patron of the arts. Bishop played a leading role in the development of music education in Australia and was a founder of the Adelaide Festival of Arts.-Biography:Bishop was born in Adelaide and studied piano from the age of 12...
as Robbie Cartman
- Bozo (a grizzly bear) as Ben (named after Benjamin Franklin who Adams viewed as a great man)
In addition to Ben, there were many other named animals in the series, the most prominent being
Number 7, Mad Jack's ornery
muleA mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
.
Episode list
| Prod.# | Episode | Air date |
|---|
|
| The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams |
|
| 701 |
"Unwelcome Neighbor" |
|
| 702 |
"Beaver Dam" |
|
| 703 |
"Blood Brothers" |
|
| 704 |
"Adam's Cub" |
|
| 705 |
"The Fugitive" |
|
| 706 |
"Howdy-Do, I'm Mad Jack" |
|
| 707 |
"The Tenderfoot" |
|
| 708 |
"Home of the Hawk" |
|
| 709 |
"Adam's Ark" |
|
| 710 |
"The Redemption of Ben" |
|
| 711 |
"The Unholy Beast" |
|
| 712 |
"The Rivals" |
|
| 713 |
"The Storm" |
|
| 714 |
"The Trial" |
|
| 715 |
"Survival" |
|
| 716 |
"A Bear's Life" |
|
| 717 |
"The Choice" |
|
| 718 |
"Hot Air Hero" |
|
| 719 |
"Track of the Cougar" |
|
| 720 |
"The Search" |
|
| 721 |
"Marvin the Magnificent" |
|
| 722 |
"Woman in the Wilderness" |
|
| 723 |
"The Orphans" |
|
| 724 |
"Gold Is Where You Find It" |
|
| 725 |
"A Time of Thirsting" |
|
| 726 |
"The Seekers" |
|
| 727 |
"The Spoilers" |
|
| 728 |
"The Stranger" |
|
| 729 |
"The Runaway" |
|
| 730 |
"A Gentleman Tinker" |
|
| 731 |
"The World's Greatest Bounty Hunter" |
|
| 732 |
"The Littlest Greenhorn" |
|
| 733 |
"The Great Burro Race" |
|
| 734 |
"The Quest" |
|
| 735 |
"The Skyrider" |
|
| 736 |
"The Renewal" (two hours) |
|
| 737 |
Once Upon a Starry Night (two hours)
Theatrically released as Legend of the Wild |
November 1981 |
|
| The Capture of Grizzly Adams (two hours) |
|
Referenced in pop-culture
- EHC Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams
The EHC Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams are a member of the German professional ice hockey league DEL. They play their games at Eisarena in Wolfsburg. The professional team is named after the title character of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, while the parent club is known as EHC Wolfsburg.The team...
, a professionalProfessional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are those in which athletes receive payment for their performance. While men have competed as professional athletes throughout much of modern history, only recently has it become common for women to have the opportunity to become professional...
ice hockeyIce Hockey is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a puck into the opposing team's goal. It is a fast-paced and physical sport...
team in the German Deutsche Eishockey Liga, is named after the main chracter.
- In the 1980–1981 season of SCTV
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
, Dave Thomas starred in a sketch as "Grizzly Abrams", a mountain man who discovers an injured turtle, nurses it back to health, and becomes its friend, sharing adventures. When the rubbing together of two sticks to make a fire causes an explosion, wounding Abrams, he sends the turtle to get help, but the turtle cannot run as fast as the bear in "Grizzly Adams," and it takes a while before it can reach town, summon the help of Abrams's friends Doc (Joe FlahertyJoe Flaherty is an American-Canadian comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV, from 1976 to 1984...
), Keith (Rick MoranisFrederick Alan "Rick" Moranis is a retired Canadian comedian, actor and musician. Coming to prominence in the 1980s on Second City Television, before moving on to appearances in several Hollywood films including Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of Horrors; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids;...
), and Pepe (Tony RosatoTony Rosato is an Italian-Canadian animated voice actor who has appeared in television and movies in both Canada and the United States....
), and get them to where Abrams is, by which time Abrams is literally a skeleton. Doc angrily states he wants turtle soup, after which the turtle puts on a burst of speed and gets away.
- Dan Haggerty himself, played Jeremiah—a modern day Grizzly Adams—in the films Grizzly Mountain (1997) and Escape to Grizzly Mountain (2000).
- Grizzly Adams inspired Peter Griffin to grow a beard, in the Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television sitcom, created by Seth MacFarlane, for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family which consists of Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, and their pet dog Brian...
episode "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows"Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows" is the 17th episode of the third season of Family Guy.This episode contains the Emmy Award-winning song "You've Got a Lot to See", with music by Walter Murphy and lyrics by Seth MacFarlane . The song won the award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics at the 2002...
" (2002).
External links
- GrizzlyAdams.net, a detailed site with behind the scenes photos and episode summaries.