Hello Woodsy
Further to Ed having discovered the TV western 'Trackdown' starring Robert Culp here are scans of my full set of Western Bubble Gum cards from 1958, printed in the UK.
I never saw Trackdown, WANTED: Dead or Alive, Yancy Derringer, The Restless Gun or The Californians as they were not to the best of my memory broadcast in the London Region. A pity about Yancy Derringer as it starred Jock Mahoney an actor that I liked from an earlier western series where he played The Range Rider. Jock Mahoney was a stunt man as well as an actor, as a result he was cast as Tarzan for possibly the worst two Tarzan movies ever.
Boots and Saddles was a fun show, sort of Rin Tin Tin without the dog. For TV cavalry based westerns nothing came close to the best one; F TROOP. A sort of western version of Sgt Bilko from The Phil Silvers Show.
Terranova47
NYC
I have seen F Troop, a very long time ago, so it must've been shown in the UK.
ReplyDeleteAmazing collection of trading cards! I had no idea that Westerns had so much merchandising attached to them, but it makes sense, as they were ubiquitous back then. That’s a very cool archive. SFZ
ReplyDeleteSpectacular Terra!!! I don't recall 'Union Pacific', 'Restless Gun', or Boots & Saddles'. 'Have Gun Will Travel', 'Wanted Dead or Alive', and 'Tales of Wells Fargo' were some that I watched fairly regularly as a kid. As big as 'Wagon Train' was, it ended up being the show I watched when there was nothing else that interested me on TV LOL Would you mind if I shared these in the Western groups on fb (Meta)?
ReplyDeleteThat is a great collection of cards. Most of those are from shows I have never heard of, and certainly never saw. I expect most of the 1950s shows were off the air by the time TV arrived in NZ in 1960. It was not until around the mid-1960s that we got a TV set of our own, so there are a few I might have missed.
ReplyDeleteI only know Restless Gun because of the tie-in with one of the Pyro cowboy kits (the other two were linked to Wagon Train, and Wyatt Earp). F Troop was a great series, with Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch, who would later star in The Real Ghostbusters.
I do not recall Union Pacific, but there was another railway series called Iron Horse.
Beautiful collection Brian. How have you stored them all these years?
ReplyDeleteMy early collection of bubble gum cards and similar have been kept in a retail display box from said cards circa 1958. Photos to follow.
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