^^ Rifleman was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I was frequently sent to my room for giving my Mother the "Rifleman Eye." Yeah, he was pretty much the opposite of detached. Even in his role as a mercenary, people seldom came to him-- he went to them.
Y'all just reminded me of the "Rifleman" Winchester rifle toy I had as a kid. Fired caps, and had a little cam on the lever that hit the trigger every time you worked it, so you could rapid-fire like on the show. Sigh.
Well if it was anything like the glare that Connors gave the camera in the intro, I can't say I'd blame her! I've never seen one but it sounds great. I used to go through so many roll caps in my Lone Ranger six shooters I'd get a headache from the smoke.
In deference to Gerrold, it's unclear when he said that to Altman and Gross (there are no dates in the book for the interviews). Granted, there's no point when Gerrold could have said that and had it be true, but perhaps that comment came during (a) the heat of anger during Star Trek: The Next Generation and/or (b) before databases like IMDB and Wikipedia where this information could be accessed so quickly and easily. Other comments Gerrold makes in the book contradicts his own account in the book he wrote about the making of "The Trouble with Tribbles," so, in general, I wouldn't cite anything he says in that book without several other sources as confirmation! Roddenberry was a prolific freelance writer for Have Gun, Will Travel. There was no "head writer," and Roddenberry was never on staff. Though, technically, not the most prolific freelancer, as is sometimes claimed. Shimon Wincelberg wrote just as many episodes as Roddenberry (24), so you can call it a tie. -- Speaking of half-hour shows written by Roddenberry, I've recently watched about a dozen episodes of West Point (sometimes erroneously referred to as The West Point Story, probably confusing the syndicated Ziv TV series for the movie of that name). Roddenberry wrote about 12 episodes (that's what IMDB says, anyway; I haven't watched them all yet). It's an interesting series -- basically, an anthology, but with characters that will recur in multiple segments, creating a broader sense of continuity.
The West Point show sounds interesting. Did it have an official DVD release or pop on on one of the nostalgia channels?
When I ordered Have Gun, I saw the complete Rawhide for sale, so now I have that too. I already had enough old TV shows backlogged to last the rest of my life - I'd better retire early!
When I was a kid, my brother and I would do battle nearly every night during summers, with the kids in the neighborhood who had "Rifleman" Winchesters. My brother and I had "Josh Randall" guns, complete with the cool looking holster. We were huge "Wanted: Dead or Alive" fans. Back on topic, We also loved Paladin. I'd never seen a "cowboy" like him before. He actually wore suits until it was time to go to work. Then he put on some damn fine looking work clothes. We used to call the show "halfgunwilltravel'. We had no clue as to what the actual of title of the show was.
Palidin never impresses me as detached. But he could be perceived as something of a man from another time. He impresses as being aware of so much more than the immediate moment. In that vein he often comes across as having an intelligence and awareness on an entirely different level than most of those around him. Paladin reminds me a bit of The Saint in terms of relying mostly on his wits and intelligence to get the better of others as opposed to resorting to guns and fists.
I've watched nearly two seasons of this and I still really like it. As such I've ordered the complete series on DVD. I've begun reading more background on the series given as I was completely unaware of it until I read it referenced in The Making Of Star Trek in 1970 or '71. It was in many ways quite atypical of the Western genre on television of the 1950s and early '60s. It was interesting to learn the original concept for Have Gun Will Travel was as something of a detective/private investigator type show. The network liked the idea, but wanted a western to compete with other popular shows of the time. The producers found a way to translate their Hefner type playboy hero/detective back into the late 19th century and the rest is history. Certain oddities remained, though. Paladin would scour newspapers in search of likely candidates to hire his services, but given the times and the time involved for papers (and mail) from across the country to reach him the news would have been already quite old. His practice of mailing out his calling card and waiting for a reply would also have been a time consuming affair. Those scenes where he decides to abandon his current social plans to send off his card for a potential job make little sense given any reply could be a long time coming. As such he rarely would have had to abandon his immediete plans.
I just started watching this within the past month. So far, I'm not to terribly impressed but I am waiting to BE impressed (I hope it happens).
It might not seem much different now because we've had Westerns since that have delved deeper into the subject matter. But for its time it did challenge some accepted conventions of Westerns. It didn't shy away from showing White Anglo prejudice and intolerance of other races. It depicted many frontier communities and inhabitants as often uneducated and ignorant. Paladin was very much a Hugh Hefner type character in his pursuits, interests and active interest in women (of varying race). As a gunslinger he was unconventionally principled, educated and refined. On the face of it he was a somewhat mercenary gunfighter-for-hire yet he had a strong sense of justice and moral code. He preferred to resolve issues with his intelligence and reason and resorted to violence usually as a last resort. Women were not always depicted as paragons of 1950's virtue, particularly the women Paladin would flirt or get involved with--they appeared to have as much interest in sex and no-strings relationships as him.