The Storyteller

I remember when I was very young in the early 1960’s, my dad met a stranger who was new to our town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted in our home.

As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. Our family consisted of – My older Brother, younger sister, I, My parents who were our guides in everyday life and the stranger, who was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating stories. Tales of the Old West, Adventures, Mysteries and Funny Stories. He could hold our whole family spell bound for hours each evening.

He seemed to know everything about politics, history, or science. He proclaimed to know all things about the past, understand the present, and seemingly could predict the future. Quite the artist his pictures so life like that I would often laugh or cry at what I saw.

Always the incessant talker he was like a friend to the whole family. All of us were enthralled with his stories of faraway places.




My parents ruled our household with certain moral convictions. The Storyteller seemed to honor all our houses rules at first. But as the years went by into the 1970’s he seemed to feel less obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house. Not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, started using the occasional four letter words and the pictures he started showing became very suggestive at times. I could tell this made my parents squirm. But to my knowledge he was never confronted.

Also many years after the storyteller entered our home sometime in the 1980’s He began to talk very freely about promiscuity. His comments at first were just suggestive, then he became more blatant and sometimes very embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by his stories.

Sometime in the 1990’s he started to feel like we needed exposure to even more things and he decided there was no such thing as immorality so he told us of other life styles we would have never imagined. Now the Storyteller seemed to make it a point to violate our old household moral convictions with every new story he told.

As I look back, I believe it was by the Grace of God that the storyteller did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since I met the storyteller. Now he is known world wide and is always ready for someone to listen to him talk and look at his pictures. Since the early 2000’s he is very free with what he says and the pictures he shows. There seems to be nothing sacred to him these days but the majority of people who know him do not seem to mind.

His name? We always just called him T.V.

Author Unknown

(This his an interesting take on what has happened to television and how the slow change has desensitized society. The younger people of today do not remember a time when T.V. programs had many rules to obey)

Posted in Classic TV, Western TV Shows Full Length and Free to Watch Online | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Top 50 Most Popular Western TV Series on IMDb this week

Did your favorite western series make the top 50 most popular on the Internet Movie Data base survey this week?
According to IMDb, these are the most popular 50 westerns on their site at this time. These results seem to be generated from how many people searched and viewed each western TV series pages.
The Westerns On The Web original series show The Forsaken Westerns has climbed from #60 all the way up to #48. Passing many classic and newer western series shows in popularity.
The rapid ascension of The Forsaken Westerns




in popularity may be a surprise to some, but the extreme interest in a series of never broadcast and long forgotten westerns containing big name classic film stars and hosted by sought-after western film historian Bob Terry is in our opinion a great formula for success. While at least a half dozen of these shows in the top 50 seem not to be true westerns in the sense of what a western film traditionally contains. Nevertheless this is IMDb’s statistics. (The #s below the title are ratings of 1 – 10 by IMDb members, 10 being the best)

1. Westworld (2016– )
9

2. Longmire (2012– )
8.3

3. Deadwood (2004–2006)
8.7

4. Gunsmoke (1955–1975)
8

5. Wynonna Earp (2016– )
7.5

6. Godless (2017– )

7. Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
7.4

8. Hell on Wheels (2011–2016)
8.3

9. Damnation (2017– )

10. Bonanza (1959–1973)
7.3

11. Walker, Texas Ranger (1993–2001)
5.5

12. The Son (2017– )
7.5

13. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993–1998)
6.7

14. Wagon Train (1957–1965)
7.6

15. The Big Valley (1965–1969)
7.7

16. The Virginian (1962–1971)
7.7

17. The Rifleman (1958–1963)
8.3

18. Rawhide (1959–1965)
8.1

19. The Lone Ranger (1949–1957)
7.9

20. Have Gun – Will Travel (1957–1963)
8.5

21. The Wild Wild West (1965–1969)
8.2

22. Laramie (1959–1963)
7.8

23. Death Valley Days (1952–1970)
7.7

24. Kung Fu (1972–1975)
7.8

25. The Young Riders (1989–1992)
7.9

26. Cheyenne (1955–1963)
8.1

27. Maverick (1957–1962)
8.1

28. Tales of Wells Fargo (1957–1962)
7.9

29. The High Chaparral (1967–1971)
7.8

30. Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (1954–1991)
8.6

31. Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–1961)
8.2

32. The Pinkertons (2014– )
7

33. Spirit Riding Free (2017– )
6.4

34. Daniel Boone (1964–1970)
7.6

35. Branded (1965–1966)
7.6

36. F Troop (1965–1967)
7.4

37. Strange Empire (2014– )
6.3

38. Trigun (1998)
8.4

39. The Magnificent Seven (1998–2000)
7.7

40. Zorro (1990–2011)
6.9

41. The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993–1994)
8.4

42. Alias Smith and Jones (1971–1973)
7.7

43. Fury (1955–1960)
7.5

44. How the West Was Won (1976– )
8.3

45. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1977–1978)
7.7

46. The Barbary Coast

47. Here Come the Brides (1968–1970)
7.6

48. The Forsaken Westerns (2017– )
8.4

49. Laredo (1965–1967)
8

50. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955–1961)
7.8

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