My favorite episodes were always those where they were outwitting the evil British. 
Those set after the Revolution, not so much.
Mark Twain on James Fennimore Cooper. 
I liked the episode where these British people capture Israel Boone, and Daniel must find where he is. He must also recover the stolen box they took.
Wow. I thought someone had said Darby Hinton was captured and tortured! i was right in spite of myself.
Israel died young in his early 20s though.
Sorry to hear about James, but that’s the pioneer business. I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy now and I am low on sympathy for that side of the story right at the moment.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes! One of the most elegant hatchet jobs in English letters – and every single word is true!
(The movie, “The Last of the Mohicans,” was vastly better than the book, not least because the movie left out the “Jar Jar Binks” preacher, who was a ceaseless annoyance, all through the damn book. He was the guy who’d step on a twig and give away the life-preserving silence. Irritating as sand in a bikini!)
And, yes, Cooper did describe a boat that was longer and wider than the bends in the river it was navigating. Astonishing!
You know what surprises me the most about this show, besides the fact that during the hectic 1960’s
it ran for six years, no, what’s always surprised me about this show was that it takes place in the 1700’s. Think about it. In the history of American television, dramas and comedies, there weren’t many shows that took place in the 18th Century.
Besides Daniel Boone the only other American TV show that I can remember that took place in the 18th Century was a very short lived show from 1970-71 called The Young Rebels.
Like some other 60’s shows, the better episodes were in its B&W era.
Ed Ames really WAS Jewish (that wasn’t just a joke from Johnny Carson), but he got cast as American Indians often, because of his dark complexion.
In fact, he played the Chief in the early Sixties Broadway production of ***One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ***(opposite Kirk Douglas as McMurphy and Gene WIlder as Billy Bibbitt).
I preferred the color episodes better.
It was close enough to a Western that it was able to ride the coattails of that genre, which remained popular into the early '70s. When it comes down to it, I doubt most Americans had trouble reconciling the presence of the evil British with the Western mentality. I know from working at a historic site that when it comes to American history, they tend lump everything from Washington to Lincoln into one giant heap.
Actually, when you think about it, the territory from the Appalachians to the Mississippi was indeed considered “the West” back in Boone’s time. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc., really were the “wild frontier.”
I remember that show. I liked it when I was 15, but I suspect it would be all but unbearable if I watched it today.
Except for the chick in the Yankee Doodle Society. She was hot! :o
Is this really the words that you grew up hearing? Because I grew up hearing a racist version that contains a word that can’t even be uttered.
I don’t recall that. Please to PM me your word that cannot be spoken.
It is “Voldemort”, isn’t it?
A friend of mine taught me the racist version a couple years ago. She learned it while growing up; somehow, I missed it.
…But the bear was bigger, so he ran like a … up a tree.
Warning: like many images that cannot be unseen again, this may create an earworm that cannot be unheard again. It did for me.
That is silly. Bears ran from Daniel Boone, not the other way around. :dubious:
I am SOOOO glad I didn’t have to be the one to bring that version up. I owe you.
Is “Nigger” so very worse than “Spic”, “Yid” or “Mic”?
Not sure about the spelling of the last one.
I never heard of those alternate lyrics…and I’m kinda glad. I think we can all agree that Boone was a doer and a dream come-a-truer.
You bet those bears kept clear of Fess Parker–they didn’t want to be grinned to death.
I was going to comment on the “Daniel Boone” theme, but I realised I’d already made the same comment in Nov 2014: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17891714&postcount=6
That’s one of the alternate lyrics I heard. I wasn’t going to bring up the racist lyrics. I didn’t want to be “that guy”.