Things I Have Learnt From Westerns...

[Scissorjack]

Indians always wait until after the wagon has passed before attacking.

A decade of alcoholism can be cured in three days by black coffee and buckets of cold water: the cure is complete when the patient starts to shave again.

[outlierrn]

The term sixshooter is more of a guideline

[want2know]

Ooh, sounds like fun! I wanna play!

Every woman in the Old Westtm was either a prostitute or a schoolteacher.

[Zeldar]

Even if all you have to haul stuff in is a saddlebag you can still have enough pots and pans and foodstuffs to make biscuits and coffee and still get a raincoat and heavy coat in there, too. Not to mention several nice shirts with lots of fringe and doodads on them.

If you're on a cattle drive you can have steaks every night and not have to bother with cow guts and all those extra meat products littering up your campsite.

It's best to sleep on your blanket and cover yourself with your hat. And there are no critters like spiders and snakes and ants and other things to crawl around on you as you sleep under the stars and don't even get moist from dew.

[RealityChuck]

Indians always wait until after the wagon has passed before attacking.It predates westerns: Mark Twain noted the trope in James Fenimore Cooper's (http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html) "Pathfinder" books.

When you turn on any TV in a 50s-60s TV show, it will always be a western, and always a scene where the Indians are attacking. You won't see them, but you can hear theme.

[silenus]

In times of great peril, a frontier female settler can, when firing a rifle into the air with her eyes closed, kill an Indian on a fast horse 500 yards away.

[Dr. Rieux]

When you turn on any TV in a 50s-60s TV show, it will always be a western, and always a scene where the Indians are attacking. You won't see them, but you can hear theme.
That was a running joke on Green Acres--Arnold the Pig was always watching (what sounded like) the same indian attack.

[AuntiePam]

Indian agents and scouts spoke fluent Apache (or Lakota, etc.) but the Indians managed only broken English.

Nobody ever had to go to the bathroom while on a cattle drive. They held it until they got to Wichita.

Playing the guitar around a campfire always brings an Indian attack, and the guitar player is always the first to get an arrow in the chest.

[Evil Captor]

An amazing number of Indians were Jewish, by the look of them.

[Evil Captor]

The Old West consisted mostly of Monument Valley and environs.

[Zeldar]

An amazing number of Indians were Jewish, by the look of them.

And a fair percentage of them had been vaccinated against small pox.

[lissener]

Your thread title is wrong: should be, "Things I have learnt from bad westerns."

Just like everything else, 99% of westerns are crap, which makes that 1% of masterpieces that have nothing to do with the generaliztions in thes thread that much greater.

[Scissorjack]

Furniture, particularly in saloons, was invariably made of balsa, and a chair would fragment as soon as anyone was hit by one - usually from behind. As a result, being hit from over the head from behind by a chair never resulted in brain injury or death, but merely served as notice that the fight was heating up.

[Labtrash]

That when bullets strike anything from stone to wood, they make the same peeeyowww ricochet noise.

That handrails (especially those on 2nd floors or above) were so weakly constructed that any pressure would cause them to break, sending many a hapless gunman to his demise. Of course, this pressure was almost always caused by said gunmen falling onto them after being shot, but hey, that was just the way of the west.

[Zeldar]

Even if a town doesn't have a grocery store, it will have a saloon. The saloon will have a piano and a large painting of a woman lying on a bearskin rug.

Nobody actually lives in town but at least 20 miles out on a ranch. But if you need to visit someone on the ranch you can get there on horseback in just a few minutes. But it rarely requires visiting anyone on their ranch, since everybody is in town at the saloon, usually playing cards and drinking. Nobody works.

Every doctor is a veterinarian and a dentist and is at least 60 years old and carries all his instruments in a little black bag, along with every medicine know to science of the day. Oh, and lots of bandages.

[Lumpy]

Even if a town doesn't have a grocery store, it will have a saloonActually, that was pretty much the priority in a lot of western towns :)

My entry: a gang of four or five gunmen could terrorize an entire town, and only a single brave lawman could stand up to them.

[Omniscient]

Every saloon and hotel had a spunky prostitute with a heart of gold. Her entire business consisted of rejecting the advances of lawmen, rustlers and newcomers.

[silenus]

All fatal bullet wounds are bloodless. All non-fatal shoulder wounds bleed, but there is never any loss of shoulder function.

[Scissorjack]

The 19th Century had superior soap technology to our own: a tin bath which had to be hand filled from a kettle nevertheless always had enough foam to cover a cowboy's modesty, and a "soiled dove" surprised in her room was always in suds up to her neck.

Drunks come in several varieties. If a drunk is whiskery, he's funny; if he's merely unshaven, he's either tragic {and in line for redemption, probably through the good offices of a soapy bar girl with a heart of gold. Or an unsoapy schoolteacher} or a cattle baron's henchman looking for trouble.

The Santa Fe Trail is apparently somewhere near Harper's Ferry.

[Evil Captor]

If an Indian shoots you with an arrow, if you break its shaft off close to the skin you can pretty much recover from its effect until you have time to dig the arrowhead out. (Kinda makes you wonder how bullets are so deadly without a shaft.)

[Zeldar]

If you want to go out on the porch for a nice smoke in the evening air just make sure there's nobody within 100 yards of the house. Otherwise somebody's liable to throw a knife and stick it in the post next to your head or else an arrow will do pretty much the same thing. It won't do any good to go out to chase them because they're already gone -- like the wind.

[Spoons]

Horses were pretty tough in the old west. Our Hero could tie his trusty mount to the hitchin' post, go into the saloon for a few hours, and when he came out, his horse not only hadn't needed to answer a call of nature, but even without water, was fresh and ready to go off on a 20-mile ride at full gallop.

No saloon card game was ever honest. Either that or standard card decks at that time had at least five aces.

[zamboniracer]

Piano players and "noble Indians" had the life expectancy of Spinal Tap drummers.

[magellan01]

It is impossible for anyone important to die in a massive gunfight. So if I get a time machiine and travel back to the old west I'm ge3tting a bunch opf guys and just having massive gunfights. Because I will be the star.*glimmer* :D

[TV time]

Most doctors were drunks and all were better at their jobs than modern practioners by any measurement.

[Terrifel]

In the Old West, serious profanity had not yet been invented.

Pretty much any problem can be sorted out by a single U.S. Marshal.

The gayest-acting man is always the villain; the gayest-dressed man is always the hero.

[Harmonious Discord]

The way to exit the bordello is through the window and leap onto your horse’s saddle.

Whores never stink and are always clean and pristine.

Lawmen and gunfighters, never are redheads.

[outlierrn]

Every saloon and hotel had a spunky prostitute with a heart of gold. Her entire business consisted of rejecting the advances of lawmen, rustlers and newcomers.



I believe the Hooker with a Heart of Gold can be found in many places besides the ole west

[Labtrash]

In the Old West, serious profanity had not yet been invented.

Apparently you've never seen Deadwood.

[glee]

If you eat beans, you will fart. :eek:

However, even if everyone round a campfire farts :D , the campfire flame will not change colour. :confused:

[Harmonious Discord]

Preacher is the most common name of a conman, followed by doctor.

[silenus]

All Native Americans wear the ceremonial headdresses of medicine men into battle.

All stagecoaches have modern truck tires (as evidenced by the tracks visible in a "from the coach viewpoint" of any bad guy/Indian chase.

[Harmonious Discord]

People like to chase trains on horses that achieve the speed of a cheatahs, all for the purpose of getting the mail.

All indians lived in a teepee.

[AuntiePam]

Apparently you've never seen Deadwood.

Everything that bad westerns got wrong, Deadwood got right, didn't it?

[Harmonious Discord]

Whites stay white even going on a dusty trail all day.

[Evil Captor]

People from "back East" are rare: apparently, the West was settled mostly by people who already lived there.

[Dangerosa]

Even Clint Eastwood can break out in song.

[silenus]

Better phrased as "Even Clint Eastwood can break out in something that in no way resembles singing, no sir." :D

[Spoke]

In the Old West via the 1960s, everyone wore vests. The vest merchant was the richest man in town.

In the Old West, no one ever got shot in the head.

[Captain Carrot]

It's best to sleep on your blanket and cover yourself with your hat.
I dunno about the hat thing, but the ground definitely has a much greater heat capacity than the air does; thus, shielding yourself from the cold ground is actually better than insulation from air that's even colder.

[Omniscient]

I believe the Hooker with a Heart of Gold can be found in many places besides the ole west

Yes, but in other places they, you know, actually have sex for money on occasion.

[don Jaime]

Indians generally come in three varieties: chiefs, princesses, and braves. Friendly Indians have one comical fat squaw who does all the cooking. Hostile Indians have one vindictive medicine man who hates whites more than anybody.

Indians always dance before going "on the warpath." (They never go to war, or declare war, or just fight. They go on the warpath.) If anyone or anything interrupts the dance, the Indians are virtually helpless and easily manageable. If not, the next morning they will shoot arrows, one at a time, to pick off unimportant members of the white party before making an all out assault. For this, they will ditch the bow -- you never actually see Indians with bows, though they all shoot as well as Robin Hood -- for rifles. They will materialize out of thin air pouring over a hilltop in a screaming horde firing indiscrimately, because none of them can aim. If the Indians are engaged in a pitched battle and their chief is killed, all the braves will immediately drop everything and wander off. The chief's princess daughter will be scooped by the white lead at her father's funeral.

All Indians hunt buffalo. Much of their conversation revolves around how many days away the buffalo are, and how they're disappearing. While scarce, buffalo are easy to catch with an unending supply of bullets. Buffalo is tastiest when boiled in a small iron cauldron over a large fire. The tribe has a single wooden spoon to eat the buffalo with. Corn farming is for sissies.

[Tikki]

When you go into a saloon, the piano player will most likely be playing Camptown Ladies. When the dancin' girls come onstage, they will most likely be dancin' the Can-Can. By the way, have you noticed that while the piano player is often featured prominently, the band that plays the Can-Can always seems to be hidden from sight? And why does that music always seem to coincide with so many barroom riots breaking out?

Speaking of barroom riots, the reason for them invariably is that someone cheated at cards. Once someone discovers they're being cheated, everyone in the entire room is morally bound to punch the guy nearest them. Except for the bartender, who must duck behind his bar, and the dancin' girls, who must continue to dance as long as possible, no matter what kind of projectiles are headed their way.

Whenever the hero or heroine winds up in a river or falls in a water trough, they merely have to wait two minutes for their clothes and hair to dry. They will look just just as good after their dunking as before it. Unless the heroine is the excitable type who thinks she hates the hero but eventually realizes she loves him. Then she has to stomp around and yell at the hero and wait for the next scene before she looks like her old self again.

[Ellis Aponte Jr.]

If you see a fistfight break out in the saloon, your proper response is to take a swing at the guy standing next to you.

Custom-tailored clothing is always available and affordable to any itinerant horseman.

[Ellis Aponte Jr.]

Oops I got scooped just then on the brawl etiquette.

[silenus]

Then it is your duty to punch out the guy next to you!

[Queen Bruin]

When a beer bottle is forcefully applied to the head of your nearest neighbor in a barfight, it will shatter upon impact.

[Dr. Rieux]

Apparently you've never seen Deadwood.
The creator of Deadwood has said that they use modern-day profanity on the show because actual 1870s profanity would sound either too mild or just strange to modern audience members.

[Tikki]

Oh, and the only two drinks available in a saloon are whiskey and the occasional sarsparilla.

[kaylasdad99]

When a beer bottle is forcefully applied to the head of your nearest neighbor in a barfight, it will shatter upon impact."Beer" bottles in the Old West, eh? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

I learned that the reason a good guy always wins a gunfight is because he never draws first. And he only shoots people in the hand.

[Scissorjack]

Indians, sporting chaps that they are, hate the element of surprise: if they are to mount an attack, they will first line up on horseback on the crest of a ridge, silhouetted menacingly against the sky. On no account will they charge before declaring themselves by ululating loudly.

This will give the settlers a chance to circle the wagons, whereupon the Indians' tactics will consist of riding around the wagons in a clockwise circle, firing occasionally from the back of a galloping horse {when not merely brandishing their rifles in the air} this will negate any advantage they have in numbers and firepower by allowing the stout pioneers to pick them off from cover.

The same tactics also apply to besieging a fort, except that the Indians will employ flaming arrows, and 19th Century stout timber fortifications were apparently kept permanently soaked in petrol: only one burning arrow will actually land, but this will be on the thatched roof of a small outbuilding, which will promptly explode into flames that will spread rapidly throughout the fort.

[Aquila Be]

No one in the wild west owned a toothbrush.

Everyone in the wild west had sparkling white teeth.

[UntouchedTakeaway]

An amazing number of Indians were Jewish, by the look of them.

And sometimes the Indian was Dick Miller in the afternoon, and sometimes the cowboy was Dick Miller in the morning!

(possibly apocryphal Roger Corman movie making experience relayed by Dick Miller) :p


VCNJ~

[Annie-Xmas]

Marrying a Cartwright was sure death.

Pregnant women never looked pregnant, and gave birth with no warning.

[Zeldar]

In their earlier days all major Western US cities had one street with raised wooden sidewalks, hitching posts, a livery stable, a saloon, a general store, a rival saloon or gambling hall, a hotel, a jail, a barber shop, a blacksmith shop, a church, a schoolhouse, a doctor's office and maybe a law office. All on one street. This was true of Tombstone, Dallas, Denver, Dodge City, Abilene, Cheyenne, Tucson, Wichita, Tulsa, El Paso and any other town of note. The same planner worked every town and designed every town alike. Either that or Sears provided town plans in their catalog.

[Spoke]

No one ever misses when shooting at the head of a rattlesnake, with a pistol, from the back of a skittish horse.

The only two types of wounds are flesh wounds and (near-instantly) fatal wounds. No one ever has a limb amputated from a gunshot wound or suffers a long, lingering death. However, a dying hero is allowed to suffer just long enough to make a heartfelt speech about his sweetheart or his brother.

[Zeldar]

No one ever misses when shooting at the head of a rattlesnake, with a pistol, from the back of a skittish horse.

The only two types of wounds are flesh wounds and (near-instantly) fatal wounds. No one ever has a limb amputated from a gunshot wound or suffers a long, lingering death. However, a dying hero is allowed to suffer just long enough to make a heartfelt speech about his sweetheart or his brother.

A notable corollary to this is that no bad guy or gal can die until he or she his explained every dangling plot thread left to that point or revealed the location of whatever was hidden or stolen before. This may take quite some time, during which the wounded villain will be lucid and in near total control of speech, breathing, gesturing and other modes of communication. However, on completion of this deathbed narrative/confession/treasure map, the bad guy will politely slump off and close his or her eyes.

The notable exception to this is Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender who must have worn out several pairs of pants wiggling and squirming around in the process of dying. BTW, it's true that Elvis (and Steven Seagal -- with a nod to David Letterman) never won a Best Actor Oscar.

[Little Nemo]

Two myths you'll learn from watching westerns:

Cowboying was a major occupation, employing a substantial portion of the workforce. (In reality, there were very few cowboys. Most westerners were farmers.)

Most people in the west were white. (In reality, the old west had a substantial black and Spanish population.)

[Annie-Xmas]

Two myths you'll learn from watching westerns:

Cowboying was a major occupation, employing a substantial portion of the workforce. (In reality, there were very few cowboys. Most westerners were farmers.)

Most people in the west were white. (In reality, the old west had a substantial black and Spanish population.)

The hombres were always the bad guys.

[Tenar]

Most people in the west were white. (In reality, the old west had a substantial black and Spanish population.)

The Gunsmoke tv show had Mexicans sometimes. Of course, they were always either terrorized villagers or "white slavers," but still.

[Paul in Qatar]

No gays, no blacks, no Irish. Just like the better neighborhoods back East.

When one works as a prostitute, a nice comfortable corset is the clothing of choice.

[BMalion]

If you see a fistfight break out in the saloon, your proper response is to take a swing at the guy standing next to you...


[Larry Storch]

"Now 'kin I get me some fightin' room!?"

[/Larry Storch]

[Harmonious Discord]

Every town has a chinaman that does laundry.

[DiggitCamara]

No one in the wild west owned a toothbrush.

Everyone in the wild west had sparkling white teeth.
Must have been something in the water.

[Scissorjack]

Pregnant women never looked pregnant, and gave birth with no warning.

Usually at the most inconvenient of times - when Indians were attacking, for example. On the upside, labour only took about 20 minutes, and all babies were born three months old.

[chappachula]

all guns are equal: a pistol, held loosely in the fingers and fired without looking through the sights, is just as accurate as a carefully aimed rifle.
Unless the rifle is being used by a bad guy--then the pistol is more accurate.

A broken arm heals within a half hour, by tying a bandanna around it.

[Scissorjack]

Four or five rowdies acting tough in a bar are enough to terrorise an entire town from the sheriff downwards, however a small army will not be able to persuade the crippled rancher's daughter to sell up.

Most "cowboys" never encounter an actual cow in their lives, but spend their time aimlessly drifting from one place to another, apparently in search of this terrified community and feisty daughter.

All Cattle Barons Are Bad.

[Evil Captor]

All Cattle Barons Are Bad.

And the corollary, all sheepherders are good, though smelly.

[Annie-Xmas]

It took about two hours to construct a house that stood up to all kinds of weahjer and the Indians.

[Zeldar]

It took about two hours to construct a house that stood up to all kinds of weahjer and the Indians.

Side note: it's always interesting to see a log cabin out in the middle of this barren plain with no trees in sight, or even better in the middle of some desert. Pre-fab houses must have been all the rage and easily transported on conestoga wagons or horseback. Maybe mail-order houses.

[Scissorjack]

Never move to a town with an ominously Biblical name like Repentance, Perdition or Golgotha: it has a Dark Secret, and it won't be long before a grim unshaven stranger arrives muttering quotes from the Book of Revelations, and it's all downhill from there. Never mind what the real estate agent said, it was cheap for a reason. Oddly enough, though, Indian burial grounds have yet to trouble the homeowner, particularly if he himself killed the Indians.

[longhair75]

All cap and ball style revolvers can be reloaded with brass cartridges from the loops on the gunbelts.

[silenus]

Side note: it's always interesting to see a log cabin out in the middle of this barren plain with no trees in sight, or even better in the middle of some desert. Pre-fab houses must have been all the rage and easily transported on conestoga wagons or horseback. Maybe mail-order houses.

Side note to side note: Forts are also constructed of the only trees for miles around, as there are never any to be seen from the fort.

[ianzin]

Drinking more or less endless slugs of whisky is (a) casually affordable and (b) has no adverse effects on noble and heroic types, and only comical effects on others.

Early shotguns and rifles were astonishingly accurate over a great distance, particularly when a Good Man was aiming at a Bad Man across a cactus-filled plain or the rooftops of a deserted town.

Women in frontier towns myseriously had access to cosmetics and hair styling products that you might have thought weren't invented until the latter part of the twentieth century.

At night time, every single location is infested with cicadas and crickets and any other insects that make a distinctive noise at night-time.

The keys to a jail cell were always pretty big and easily identified, and were kept on a large circular iron 'key ring' that was hung on a wall so as to be clearly visible from inside the jail cell itself.

People meeting for a duel to the death tended to observe all manner of polite rituals, often exchanging lengthy philosophical soliloquies before getting round to the actual shooting.

Everyone knows how to play poker, and everyone knows how to spot someone cheating at poker.

[betenoir]

When you go into a saloon, the piano player will most likely be playing Camptown Ladies. When the dancin' girls come onstage, they will most likely be dancin' the Can-Can. By the way, have you noticed that while the piano player is often featured prominently, the band that plays the Can-Can always seems to be hidden from sight? And why does that music always seem to coincide with so many barroom riots breaking out?


Well, if you were listening to Camptown Ladies for the 20th time that night while looking at whores who won't have sex with you, you'd riot too.

[Scissorjack]

By Federal regulation, every locomotive had to have among its complement of passengers a minister, a card sharp, an English nobleman and his valet, a beauty of dubious repute, a marshal escorting a prisoner to be hanged, and a stern old woman chaperoning an innocent young girl on her first trip Out West. The boxcars were always empty, but the baggage car always contained one large iron safe which carried the miners' payroll: this was invariably minded by a single shotgun-toting guard who never suspected that a man in a dogcollar could be anything other than a bona fide preacher, or that a pistol could be concealed in a bible.

Every town had a Temperance League of a dozen or so strident women {and one hen-pecked husband} who wore sashes and continually paraded around playing trombones and tubas and hectoring against the Evils Of Drink, to no apparent effect.

[El Cid Viscoso]

Even if you play the harmonica you can still be a total badass.

[Lumpy]

Oddly enough, though, Indian burial grounds have yet to trouble the homeowner, particularly if he himself killed the Indians.It's only ancient indian burial grounds that are a problem; they take about 150 years to mature.The only two types of wounds are flesh wounds and (near-instantly) fatal wounds. No one ever has a limb amputated from a gunshot wound or suffers a long, lingering death. Early shotguns and rifles were astonishingly accurate over a great distance, particularly when a Good Man was aiming at a Bad Man across a cactus-filled plain or the rooftops of a deserted town.See Lonesome Dove for a realistic treatment of this: former Ranger Captain Gus McCrae is in pursuit of the renegade Blue Duck and his gang. At one point McCrae and the gang each take cover several hundred yards apart. The gang think they're safe because they're out of direct-shot range from McCrae, and one stands out in the open taunting McCrae. In response, McCrae carefully adjusts the sights on his rifle for a high-elevation maximum range shot, and hits the man in the stomach. The man spends several hours dying in agony from being gutshot.

[Larry Mudd]

The only important thing I ever learned from a western:

"There's something about the number twenty-three (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=408845) that haunts me." --Support You Local Sheriff

[Morbo]

The odds of escaping jail are exceptional.

All bar patrons stop talking immediately when a new person walks in.

"Whiskey" is all that is needed when ordering - nobody cares which kind. Oh, and leave the bottle.

It's pretty likely that someone in the saloon shot somebody else's Pa.

Nobody wins at poker unless they have four of a kind that is one value higher than the other guy's four of a kind.

[Full Metal Lotus]

"Wanted" posters almost always had a few bullet holes in them.

Town pop= 300, Number of prostitutes = 1, yet no evidence of syphilus, gonereah, or other extremely common Venerial diseases

The slow talking quiet gentleman is gonna kick some ass (eventually).

Currency was almost always dollars, US Dollars (not common until near the end of cowboy "era"

No one sleeping/living on second floor of a saloon was ever shot by bullets fired upwards by mirthful merry makers celebrating on the main floor.

Horses were accustomed to riders suddenly leaping onto them from above or behind, and wouldn't become skittish or scared by such actions.

Horses weren't bothered by Guns being discharged just behind their ears.

Horses never releived themselves publically.

Everybody owned a horse, but unless it was important to the plot, nobody ever took care of them.

Everyone who died got a head stone, or a basic woodedn cross, neatly lettered with their full name, date of birth and death, and often a pithy epitaph.

Everyone was buried in a coffin.

The Pony express was a huge concern, judging by the number of people who rode for it (actually, something less than 10 riders in 7 short months)

Guns required little or no maintenence, and were made of a lost alloy that never required cleaning, polishing or repair.

Player Pianos would often speed up when shot, or by some magical sensing device, during a bar fight.

Night time means either a full moon or no moon, depending on what best suits the plot.

A Kerosine Lantern would provide ebnough light for a large room, bright enough so that small details on maps could be read at a distance.

At night, Coyotes howl, but politely pause between lines of dialogue.

Everyone wore cowboy boots, unless they were a prissy eastern type (who probably owned the bank) - he wore white top Oxfords

Children were very rare, and if they were present, used oddly stilted dialogue, to inform the hero that "Black Bart poisoned the well!"

Badguys were very dumb, they would invariably try and escape by "the pass", yet everyone got "head(ed) Off" there..

Regards
FML

[Spoons]

A couple of these reminded me...

Currency was almost always dollars, US Dollars (not common until near the end of cowboy "era"And when beer cost a nickel, or whiskey a dime, no cowboy (even when he had been drinking for a while and likely had a supply of nickels and dimes from his change) ever had anything smaller than a silver dollar. Still, unless the bartender was running tabs for everybody in his head, most drinks seemed to be on the house.

Children were very rare, and if they were present, used oddly stilted dialogue, to inform the hero that "Black Bart poisoned the well!"Children also had the annoying habit of appearing just in time for the gunfight on Main Street, so the Pretty Young Schoolmarm could appear out of nowhere and usher them to safety.

[Scissorjack]

There is nothing homoerotic about two men sweatily wrestling a stump out of the ground together. No sirree bob. All perfectly normal and natural. Nothing to see here.

[Martini Enfield]

There were only two types of gun in the Old West: Colt Peacemaker revolvers and Winchester Lever-Action rifles.

Ammunition for said guns was both cheap and plentiful, as well as never being prone to misfires.

Everything vaguely exotic or foreign came from "Paree, France"

There was a regular stagecoach service to every tiny farming outpost, regardless of unfriendly Indians, outlaws, or sheer inaccessibility.

The telegraph system worked flawlessly, and with better coverage than modern satellite phones.

Horses could ride fast enough to catch up with a steam train running at full speed.

Women would faint in the town hall if anyone said "Darn" or "Gosh" during a town meeting.

Dynamite was readily available, and all cowboys were fully versed in the appropriate techniques for the handling and use of explosives.

Dynamiting the railway tracks merely caused the train to stop, instead of derailing it.

Hats never blew off in the wind or when riding a horse/climbing on the roof of a railway carriage.

The chief of every Indian tribe spoke fluent English.

[Surbey]

the laws of physics didn't apply to the old west. When you were shot with a gun, regardless of caliber or range, you immediately flew back a minimum of 5 feet. Screw Newton. Equal and opposite reactions have no place on the cattle drive, partner ;) .

[Annie-Xmas]

Outhouses had yet to be invented, probably because nobody ever had to use them.

[Surbey]

Oh and how could I forget, all fatal shots cause the person to die instantly. Regardless of the fact that being shot in the stomach will leave you alive for several hours /days, you would be instantly put out by one of those shots. Unless you were someone important in town. Then you'd probably survive despite the complete lack of proper medical tools and antibiotics.

[Evil Captor]

Actually, Sears DID sell mail order houses at one time, I'm just not sure if it was in the late 1800s or early 1900s that they started it up. Basically, you could send your money to Sears, wait by a rail siding, and have all the parts necessary for a house delivered.

[iPost]

Blue was a name.


Burial Ground (http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/smamurai/207175)

[YPOD]

All bad guys would know how to run a locomotive.

And people always wore one set of clothes - even the rich kids at the Ponderosa.

[Annie-Xmas]

Every town has one embittered woman (usually a widow, sometimes single) who would fall for and change the bad guy.

Every town had a woman who was "one of the guys"--wore men's clothing, smoked cigars, and drank. She either ran a saloon or was the town sheriff.

[Zeldar]

If a dark cloud appears in the sky (not a contrail) it will develop into the worst flood of the decade or a snowstorm to dwarf the recent Upstate New York blizzard. If the former, the entire cast will have to rush to save the herd, the town , the heroine, or the wagon train. If the latter, the hero must go up into the mountains to bring back the family who went ahead despite numerous warnings that the pass is dangerous this time of year.

If you're in the desert on foot and have used up all the cactus you can cut and all the holes you can dig down three or four feet and find a trickle of water and have passed up several alkali pools and then pass out from sheer exhaustion, it well rain cats and dogs for the first time this decade and you will be saved. But it's more reliable to carry an extra canteen.

[Harmonious Discord]

People could shoot from a moving horse or train and hit somebody suprisingly often.

Off topic the West had trees and streams before all the settlers. Many places lost the water and plant life after a settlement showed up and dropped the water table.

[UncleRojelio]

How to send smoke signals.

[BMalion]

The town sherrif was occasionally a British ex-patriate.

[AuntiePam]

There is nothing homoerotic about two men sweatily wrestling a stump out of the ground together. No sirree bob. All perfectly normal and natural. Nothing to see here.

Yeah, Marian was watching those guys pretty closely, wasn't she?

[Quercus]

See Lonesome Dove for a realistic treatment of this: former Ranger Captain Gus McCrae is in pursuit of the renegade Blue Duck and his gang. At one point McCrae and the gang each take cover several hundred yards apart. The gang think they're safe because they're out of direct-shot range from McCrae, and one stands out in the open taunting McCrae. In response, McCrae carefully adjusts the sights on his rifle for a high-elevation maximum range shot, and hits the man in the stomach. The man spends several hours dying in agony from being gutshot. So how realistic was it to make a several-hundred-yard high-elevation shot using period guns and ammunition?
(The several hours dying in agony I know can't be true, because I know not only from cowboy movies but also from war movies that wounded men are never in agony. Either they die instantly, or they are in only enough pain to cause some gasping and facial contortions, but never enough agony to scream out loud.)

[Evil Captor]

Mexicans come in only a few varieties. Mexican men are either innocent, harmless farmers wearing white, greasy, dangerous banditos wearing dark clothes and carrying weapons, or proud hidalgos immaculately dressed in quasi-military suits. Mexican women were either nuns, whores or housewives.

[Scissorjack]

Yeah, Marian was watching those guys pretty closely, wasn't she?

It's that fruity look they give each other at the end that clinches it: jeez, get a room, guys.

Prospectors spend little or no time actually prospecting, being content to look for the big strike in the nearest saloon, usually while bewhiskered, clad in a red undershirt, three parts drunk and four parts unintelligible, and all the while leering and cackling at the saloon dancers.

They are nonetheless the salt of the Earth, whilst actual mine owners are rat bastards to a man. The Old West was seemingly steeped in Marx, in that controlling the means of production as opposed to honest toil - see Cowboys vs. Cattle Barons, or owners of a small spread vs. foreclosing bankers - was an evil greatly to be deplored. This may go a long way to explaining the red undershirts.

[Scissorjack]

So how realistic was it to make a several-hundred-yard high-elevation shot using period guns and ammunition?

Reasonably good, for a marksman with a rifle: riflemen in the Peninsular war, a good sixty years earlier, could count on an effective range of 300-400 yards, and shots of 700 yards weren't unknown. With a more powerful breech loader and a skilled user, a shot of a few hundred yards would be quite realistic.

[Scissorjack]

There were only two types of gun in the Old West: Colt Peacemaker revolvers and Winchester Lever-Action rifles.

Evil henchman Number One in Joe Kidd packed a Broomhandle Mauser. For all the good it did him.

[ivylass]

Watch the piano player in the saloon. He can hear, above the roar of the crowd, when two poker players across the room are exchanging words. He will then close the keyboard lid and skedaddle. That is the cue for someone to throw a glass and miss the person he's aiming at and break the whiskey bottles behind the bar.

And that is the cue for everyone to get in the act...the Western equivalent of FOOD FIGHT in Animal House.


Upon preview...I'm sorry, I didn't realize how long this thread was or how old. I just hopped to it from the war movies thread. :o

[BMalion]

Well, if you were listening to Camptown Ladies for the 20th time that night ...



De Camptown Ladies? ...Nope, don't know dat one.

[BrainGlutton]

The creator of Deadwood has said that they use modern-day profanity on the show because actual 1870s profanity would sound either too mild or just strange to modern audience members.

Interesting. Know of any examples?

[BrainGlutton]

Side note: it's always interesting to see a log cabin out in the middle of this barren plain with no trees in sight, or even better in the middle of some desert. Pre-fab houses must have been all the rage and easily transported on conestoga wagons or horseback. Maybe mail-order houses.

Not far from the truth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28construction%29#Balloon_framing)