The New Lassie was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television series which aired in first-run
syndicationIn broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
for two seasons beginning in 1989, reviving the beloved "
LassieLassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
"
collieThe Rough Collie is a long coated breed of medium to large size dog that in its original form was a type of collie used and bred for herding in Scotland. Originating in the 1800's, it is now well known through the works of author Albert Payson Terhune, and through the Lassie novel, movies, and...
character who debuted in the
1943The year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
filmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Lassie Come HomeLassie Come Home is a 1943 MGM film starring Roddy McDowall and canine actor, Pal, in a story about the profound bond between Yorkshire boy Joe Carraclough and his rough collie, Lassie. The film was directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a screenplay by Hugo Butler based upon the 1940 novel Lassie...
, followed by several more movies and a long-running earlier
LassieLassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973...
television series from 1954 to 1974.
Synopsis
The New Lassie series centered on a suburban family, the "McCulloughs", as the owners of the then-present-day descendent of the famous canine. Real life spouses
Christopher StoneChristopher Stone was an American actor.Stone appeared on film and television from the early 1970s and married actress Dee Wallace in 1980. Together, they appeared in a number of films including the classic horror films The Howling and Cujo...
and Dee Wallace played Chris and Dee McCullough, with
Will EstesWill Estes is an American actor best known for his role as JJ Pryor, on the NBC drama American Dreams. In 2010, he joined the cast of Tom Selleck's new CBS police drama Blue Bloods...
(credited as Will Nipper) and Wendy Cox appearing as, respectively, their young son Will and teenage daughter Megan.
The very young
Leonardo DiCaprioLeonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
appeared occasionally during the series.
Ties with previous Lassie incarnations
Jon ProvostJon Provost is a former child actor of film and television. He is best known for his role as young Timmy Martin in the CBS series, Lassie....
, the former
child actorThe term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...
, who starred as "Timmy Martin" in the 1950s
Lassie series, portrayed Chris' brother Steve. Steve McCullough was revealed in a later episode to be the adult Timmy Martin in an episode guest-starring
June LockhartJune Lockhart is an American actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s television, but with memorable performances on stage and in film too. She is remembered as the mother in two TV series, Lassie and Lost in Space. She also portrayed Dr...
in a reprisal of her role as Timmy's mother.
Other guest stars with a Lassie past included
Roddy McDowallRoderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
, who had starred in the first movie
Lassie Come HomeLassie Come Home is a 1943 MGM film starring Roddy McDowall and canine actor, Pal, in a story about the profound bond between Yorkshire boy Joe Carraclough and his rough collie, Lassie. The film was directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a screenplay by Hugo Butler based upon the 1940 novel Lassie...
(1943) and
Tommy RettigThomas Noel "Tommy" Rettig was an American child actor,computer software engineer, and author. Rettig is best remembered for portraying the character "Jeff Miller" in the first three seasons of CBS's Lassie television series, from 1954–1957, later seen in syndicated re-runs as Jeff's Collie...
, who had played "Jeff Miller" in the early years of the original television series (later syndicated as
Jeff's CollieLassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973...
).
Other ties with the show's predecessors included the dog's trainer, Robert Weatherwax Sr., the son of
Rudd WeatherwaxRuddell Bird "Rudd" Weatherwax was an American actor and animal trainer. He and his brother Frank Weatherwax are best remembered for training dogs for motion pictures and television. Frank's collie, Pal, became the original Lassie, handled by Rudd for the 1943 MGM film Lassie Come Home...
. The latter had trained the original "Lassie",
PalPal was a Rough Collie actor and the first in a line of such dogs to portray the fictional female collie Lassie in film and television. Pal was born in California in 1940 and eventually brought to the notice of Rudd Weatherwax, a Hollywood animal trainer. In 1943, the dog was chosen to play Lassie...
in the 1943 movie. Robert Sr. handled one of Pal's descendants for the 1989 series. Rudd's grandson, Robert Jr., assisted Robert Sr. for the first year of
The New Lassie series and also appeared in the opening scene of one of the episodes ("Snakebit") with Leonardo DiCaprio. Robert Jr. was replaced by Carol Riggins in the show's second season but continued to work for many years as an animal trainer.