It might interest you to know that cavalry - actual horse-cavalry - was still being used in combat in WW2.
…and no, the Polish Cavalry did not commit suicide by lance-charging Panzers.
ETA - point being that if you think horses were not still in common use as transport in the 1940s, you’re very wrong.
The Texas Hill Country town of Bandera is famous for dude ranches…
Even in Big Houston, 13 trail rides converge every year for the start of the Livestock Show & Rodeo; even if they’re just visiting, horses, mules & covered wagons may be seen. Of course, HPD has a Mounted Patrol.
Roy’s musical past? Sophisticates know there are *two *kinds of music–Country and Western!
May I make the first Firefy reference?
I live 10 minutes walk from a tube station, so this isn’t Texas. I’ve just been to the news agents around the corner to grab some milk and there were two horses tied up outside. That happens quite often around here.
I just took it for granted that this was a magic world where anachronisms were normal. Roy rode Trigger because - well, because Trigger is Roy’s horse. And Nellybelle was the Jeep because that’s what Pat drove.
It was like Barsoom - ray guns and thoats and swords, all at the same time. Because that was how that universe operated.
Happy Trails to You Until We Meet Again,
Shodan
And now, SHODAN, may I please speak to you from the bottom of my heart, and in the name of the entire Straight Dope membership?
Please, please, please be more careful about how you sign off your posts.
Sure, "happy trails " was a great song, appropriate for this thread, and our hero Roy Rogers himself would be proud of you…
But …well, you’ve got me a little worried. Are you feeling okay? Do you need some kind of help?
Because there’s a word missing from your sig line.
It’s only one, small word.
But it’s apparently a word that is very,very,very,very very,very important–to you, and therefor to all of us concerned Dopers, too.
This place just ain’t the same without it.
So I hope you’ll forgive me as I wish you a speedy recovery.
And just this once, I am speaking not just for myself, but for our entire community, for all the mods, and yes , even for Cecil himself.
Rega…*,
-chappachula
*No…Must.Restrain.Myself. Do.Not.Finish.Typing.It…
The balance of the universe might be upset forever…
…Do you mean Rufus T. Firefly? It shoud be S. Quentin Quayle.
Also, trivia: replaced (one time) by Festus.
Pat Brady was comic relief character for Roy Rogers.
a comic relief character is needed for rough and tumble shooting cowboy characters.
there was Pancho, Jingles, Festus and dozens more. often an oaf and often overly concerned with food. some actors played multiple oafs to multiple cowboys (in radio, film, tv careers)
the other famous singing cowboy Gene Autry had Pat Buttram as his comic relief.
i’m thinking cowboys didn’t think the name tough enough.
I have an old 45 of Sons Of The Pioneers and The Three Suns singing “The Hokey Pokey” in western swing style, with Ken Curtis’s unmistakable voice calling out the “Left Foot” body part for each verse.
K.C. also sang in Tommy Dorsey’s band.
ETA: son of a gun- someone put in on YouTube
he replaced Frank Sinatra in Tommy Dorsey band.
For the exact same reason my mom gave my original first three year red line Hot Wheels to my cousin while I was off at college… “well, you weren’t playing with them anymore.”
No one nitpicked anachronisms in the 50s. It’s an amusing game that became serious once the Internet caught on.
Of course, when spotting anachronisms, you really need to know whether it really is one or not. Just your impressions of how things were in the 50s is not enough.
In any case, Roy Rogers was hardly the only modern western. In addition to Gene Autrey, there was the radio drama Tales of the Texas Rangers, which was a police procedural set in contemporary Texas. The Rangers would use cars to get around, but it wasn’t unusual for them to bring horses with them for going into rough country. Since it was reflecting the actual forensic science of the time, the use of horses was not an anachronism.
As mentioned, Sky King (my favorite) flew an airplane, but used a horse to go into bad country. Even in the 50s, ranchers still kept horses and would use them to go into town, so there’s nothing particularly anachronistic about Roy Rogers.
On the subject of Roy Rogers, I think it’s a shame that his once-great collection/museum in Victorville got shut down, exported to Branson, and finally auctioned off piece by piece.
Agreed.
Being curious, I actually watched an episode just this morning. I hate to report that you are wrong, unless the restaurant literally served excrement on a bun.
I recall my grandparents saying that travel by mule or horses was preferable in rural areas. Rural roads were rare in the 20’s and even 30’s. The roads that did exist were meant for wagons and not cars.
So, yes there was a time when cars and horses were both still used. It depended on where you lived and traveled.
the radio show was good having contermporary forensics and Sherlock Holmes sleuthing.
there was a tv version, that i haven’t seen. it had episodes set in modern times as well as old. same actors and characters were used.
You could think of it as one of those alternate history things like Steampunk where a mix of things get thrown together that don’t happen in our Universe.
OTOH, during that era we lived “in town” but on a large chunk of land. We didn’t keep horses (but others nearby did). I remember the town’s Rodeo Princess would bring her horse into town to practice for the rodeo. She’d ride around one of fields, beating a path down that’d last until next year’s Princess.
So having people riding horses around in town was something I thought was perfectly normal, just not everyday. There were hitching posts and a trough on main street. Why wouldn’t a TV show be like that?
And then there were the Basque sheep herders that would move their flocks thru town on occasion. Thousands of sheep everywhere. Dogs moving them along. Just a few herders, some on horseback other with trucks and trailers. Every single sheep somehow managed to get moved on despite the seeming chaos.
That makes a big impression on a kid.
In 1971, a good 15 years after Roy and Dale rode off into the sunset, there was Cade’s County, starring Glenn Ford as a modern day sheriff somewhere in the Southwest. Take a look at this episode and you’ll see he uses both a jeep and a horse.
I think it’s a shame that a very good fast food place (roast beef far better than Arby’s, pretty decent hamburgers and chicken, with a fixings bar where you could add lettuce, tomato, etc. to taste) was destroyed when they were bought by Hardee’s.
For a gritty reboot of The Roy Rogers Show, maybe sit down and watch The Wild Bunch. Horses, cars, six shooters, and machine guns all in one movie. Seriously, as noted above, the idea was to give kids the idea they could be a cowboy just like Roy today.
On a somewhat related note, does anybody remember a short-lived Western series starring James Garner as a very early 20th century lawman who rode one of the crude, early motorcycles? Nickles, maybe?