Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour
WesternThe Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska The Western...
television series that aired 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...
. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from
The Danny Thomas ShowThe Danny Thomas Show is a sitcom which ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS...
on
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
and the second half of the first-season
detectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators...
series
Surfside 6Surfside 6 is an ABC television series about a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat, featuring Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II, Van Williams as Kenny Madison , and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...
starring
Troy DonahueTroy Donahue was an American actor and teen idol of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Life and career :...
on
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
.
Klondike followed
Dale RobertsonDale Robertson is an American actor best known for his starring roles on television.-Biography:Dayle Lamoine Robertson was born in Harrah near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He began his acting career by chance during World War II, when he was in the United States Army...
's
Tales of Wells FargoTales of Wells Fargo is an American Western television series that ran from March 18, 1957 to June 2, 1962 on NBC. Produced by Revue Productions, the series aired in a half-hour format until its final season when it expanded to an hour.-Synopsis:...
on the NBC schedule.
Klondike was set during 1897 in the
gold rushA gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold.Gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States....
town of
SkagwaySkagway is a first-class borough in Alaska, on the Alaska Panhandle. It was formerly a city first incorporated in 1900 that was re-incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862...
in the
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
n
KlondikeThe Klondike or Clondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon River from the east at Dawson....
region, starring
Ralph TaegerRalph Taeger is an American actor who starred in three television series during the 1960s.-Biography:Born on in Richmond Hill, New York, Taeger's first career choice was professional baseball, and he did play briefly on a farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers...
and
James CoburnJames Harrison Coburn, Jr. was an American film and television actor who appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances in his 45-year career...
, with supporting roles for
Joi LansingJoi Lansing was a model, a film and television actress, and a nightclub singer.-Early life:Lansing was born Joyce Rae Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah to Jack Glenn Brown, a shoe salesman, and Virginia Grace Shupe Brown, a housewife. She would later be known as Joyce Wassmansdorff, which was the...
as Goldie and
Mari BlanchardMari Blanchard was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in 1950s and early 1960s Hollywood.-Career:...
as Kathy O'Hara.
Taeger played the "good guy" Mike Halliday, described by one observer as "
Clint WalkerNorman Eugene "Clint" Walker is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne....
without the
charismaThe word charisma refers to a trait found in persons whose personalities are characterized by a personal charm and magnetism , along with innate and powerfully sophisticated abilities of interpersonal communication and persuasion...
", and Coburn portrayed the con man Jeff Durain.
Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour
WesternThe Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska The Western...
television series that aired 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...
. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from
The Danny Thomas ShowThe Danny Thomas Show is a sitcom which ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS...
on
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
and the second half of the first-season
detectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators...
series
Surfside 6Surfside 6 is an ABC television series about a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat, featuring Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II, Van Williams as Kenny Madison , and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...
starring
Troy DonahueTroy Donahue was an American actor and teen idol of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Life and career :...
on
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
.
Klondike followed
Dale RobertsonDale Robertson is an American actor best known for his starring roles on television.-Biography:Dayle Lamoine Robertson was born in Harrah near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He began his acting career by chance during World War II, when he was in the United States Army...
's
Tales of Wells FargoTales of Wells Fargo is an American Western television series that ran from March 18, 1957 to June 2, 1962 on NBC. Produced by Revue Productions, the series aired in a half-hour format until its final season when it expanded to an hour.-Synopsis:...
on the NBC schedule.
Synopsis
Klondike was set during 1897 in the
gold rushA gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold.Gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States....
town of
SkagwaySkagway is a first-class borough in Alaska, on the Alaska Panhandle. It was formerly a city first incorporated in 1900 that was re-incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862...
in the
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
n
KlondikeThe Klondike or Clondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon River from the east at Dawson....
region, starring
Ralph TaegerRalph Taeger is an American actor who starred in three television series during the 1960s.-Biography:Born on in Richmond Hill, New York, Taeger's first career choice was professional baseball, and he did play briefly on a farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers...
and
James CoburnJames Harrison Coburn, Jr. was an American film and television actor who appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances in his 45-year career...
, with supporting roles for
Joi LansingJoi Lansing was a model, a film and television actress, and a nightclub singer.-Early life:Lansing was born Joyce Rae Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah to Jack Glenn Brown, a shoe salesman, and Virginia Grace Shupe Brown, a housewife. She would later be known as Joyce Wassmansdorff, which was the...
as Goldie and
Mari BlanchardMari Blanchard was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in 1950s and early 1960s Hollywood.-Career:...
as Kathy O'Hara.
Taeger played the "good guy" Mike Halliday, described by one observer as "
Clint WalkerNorman Eugene "Clint" Walker is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne....
without the
charismaThe word charisma refers to a trait found in persons whose personalities are characterized by a personal charm and magnetism , along with innate and powerfully sophisticated abilities of interpersonal communication and persuasion...
", 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
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
in the short-lived
AcapulcoAcapulco is an American half-hour adventure series that aired on NBC from February 27, 1961 to April 24, 1961. It is notable for providing Telly Savalas with his first regularly recurring role in a television series....
series.
Klondike was related to the hour-long 1959-1960 ABC series
The AlaskansThe Alaskans is a 1959 television series set in the port of Skagway, Alaska during the 1890s. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold...
starring
Roger MooreSir Roger George Moore KBE is a English actor and film producer. He is perhaps best known for portraying two British action heroes, Simon Templar in the television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969, and James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
,
Jeff YorkJeff York was an American film and television actor who began his career in the late 1930s using the stage name Granville Owen...
, and
Dorothy ProvineDorothy Provine is an American singer, dancer, actress and comedienne.Provine was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, USA. She appeared in many professional and amateur stage productions while attending the University of Washington...
, also set in the port city of Skagway and during the 1890s.
In the debut episode, the characters rush to Alaska to search for gold. Other episodes included "The Golden Burro" with
Edgar BuchananEdgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...
and
Robert F. SimonRobert F. Simon was an American character actor, often portraying military or authority figure roles. Though his face was recognized by audiences, he was mostly unknown by name...
about a
burroThe donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family, and an odd-toed ungulate. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. Traditionally, the scientific name for the donkey is Equus asinus asinus based on the principle of...
who could find and dig for gold; "Bathhouse Justice", in which a bathhouse serves as a courtroom in a
murderMurder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
case; "Sure Thing, Men" (with
Tyler McVeyNot to be confused with an actor of similar age: see Patrick McVey.Tyler McVey was an American actor of stage, radio, film, and television...
as Emil Watkins) in which the group seeks a mining site only to run afoul of an old
sourdoughSourdough is a dough containing a lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast does not...
; "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
stagecoachA stagecoach is a type of four-wheeled closed coach for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for 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 AlcaideChristopher "Chris" Alcaide was an American actor particularly known for his role in television westerns. He surfaced to national attention as Deputy Joshua Tate in the 1956 film Gunslinger, co-starring Beverly Garland as a woman marshal.In 2003, Alcaide was among recipients, including the Sons of...
, 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.
Ron HayesRonald G. Hayes was an American television actor who as an activist in the environmental movement, worked for the establishment of the first Earth Day, observed on April 22, 1970. He was a member of the Sierra Club and a founder of the ecological interest group Wilderness World...
appeared as Harold Enright in the episode "Sitka Madonna".
Judson PrattJudson Pratt was an American actor whose longest continuing work was in thirteen episodes of ABC's Walt Disney Presents and NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. A native of Hingham in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Pratt appeared in numerous television westerns and drama series from...
guest starred as Dan Sheean in the episode "The Unexpected Candidate".
Various episodes of Klondike were directed by
Sam PeckinpahDavid Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved his status following the release of his 1969 Western epic The Wild Bunch...
and
William ConradWilliam Conrad was an American film and television director and an actor and narrator in radio, film, and television known for his baritone voice, as well as his sizable girth.-Early life:...
, later Frank Cannon on
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
's detective series
CannonCannon is a detective series which ran on CBS from 1971 to 1976. The series was a Quinn Martin production, and featured many of the company's well-known stylistic quirks...
. Supporting roles were played by Western tough guy
L.Q. JonesL.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.Jones was born Justus Ellis McQueen in Beaumont, Texas, the son of Jessie Paralee and Justice Ellis McQueen, who was a railroad worker. He made his film debut in 1955's Battle Cry, with...
, a native
TexanTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
as Joe Teel, and by
Karl SwensonKarl Swenson was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Swenson made several appearances on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who Had All the Luck...
, a recognized
character actorA character actor is one who predominantly plays a particular type of role rather than leading ones. Character actor roles can range from bit parts to secondary leads...
of
SwedishSwedes are a Scandinavian people, mostly inhabiting Sweden and the other Nordic countries, with descendants living in a number of countries....
descent in two different roles.
Episodes
| Episode # |
Production Code |
Episode Title |
Airdate |
| 1 |
PA59-250 |
"Klondike Fever" |
October 10, 1960 |
| 2 |
PA59-248 |
"River Of Gold" |
October 24, 1960 |
| 3 |
PA59-247 |
"Saints and Stickups" |
October 31, 1960 |
| 4 |
PA59-246 |
"The Unexpected Candidate" |
November 7, 1960 |
| 5 |
PA59-245 |
"88 Keys To Trouble" |
November 14, 1960 |
| 6 |
PA59-244 |
"Swoger's Mule" |
November 21, 1960 |
| 7 |
PA59-243 |
"Sure Thing, Men" |
November 28, 1960 |
| 8 |
PA59-242 |
"Taste Of Danger" |
December 5, 1960 |
| 9 |
PA59-241 |
"Bare Knuckles" |
December 12, 1960 |
| 10 |
PA59-240 |
"Halliday's Club" |
December 19, 1960 |
| 11 |
PA59-239 |
"Bathhouse Justice" |
December 26, 1960 |
| 12 |
PA59-237 |
"Swing Your Partner" |
January 9, 1961 |
| 13 |
PA59-236 |
"The Golden Burro" |
January 16, 1961 |
| 14 |
PA59-238 |
"Queen Of The Klondike" |
January 23, 1961 |
| 15 |
PA59-235 |
"The Man Who Owned Skagway" |
January 30, 1961 |
| 16 |
PA59-234 |
"Sitka Madonna" |
February 6, 1961 |
| 17 |
PA59-233 |
"The Hostages" |
February 13, 1961 |