Rawhide (1 Viewer)

DVDActive.com announced the release of RAWHIDE: THE FIRST SEASON for July 25, 2006.

who's releasing this ?

Paramount Home Video. I'm OK with that in light of the "Have Gun--Will Travel" releases.

Is there a press release for this? I don't see any info on TVSHOWSONDVD.com. I wonder if Paramount will go the multi Volumne route like Perry Mason, or the HGWT route...

One volume apparently--thank goodness for that.

http://tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5410

Dave, you missed the news 'cause we posted it on April 1st, so it was off the front page already

Gord

That poor other guy (you know the Star of the Series) is definately 2nd Banana on that box art.

I Hope they are using DVD9's and slim cases for these, like the last release of Have Gun...

Hmm not sure how I missed that, good news thou, I've only seen a few eps but almost any 50 and 60's western I'm game for

I thought about the very same thing. Eric Fleming was the trail boss and main character while Clint Eastwood, in the first several segments of season one at least, had little on-screen time. But considering the fame Eastwood acquired since Rawhide, the cover is exactly what I imagined it would be--and it's an odd amalgamation of the past blended with the reality of the present.

how many seasons was Rawhide ?

There were 8 seasons of Rawhide, which starting filming late in 1958 but premiered mid-season in January 1959.

Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood were always co-stars. It's just that some stories required a heavy focus on one of their characters, and less on the other. It worked both ways. There were some episodes even in the early years when the plots would be mainly about Rowdy Yates when trail boss Gil Favor went into some town on business. In one show we saw Yates for the entire story, but no sign of Favor until the very end. The reverse was also sometimes the case.

Fleming quit the series after the end of the 7th year in 1965, and in 1965-66 he turned up as a guest star in 3 episodes of BONANZA (one of which was a 2 parter, in which he played a Mormon). At that point Yates was no longer a ramrod and became a trail boss when he started a cattle drive of his own.

Eastwood stayed with the show until it was cancelled, again in mid season (January 1966). During vacations from filming Rawhide, Clint made 2 trips to Italy to make the first 2 of his 3 Fistful of Dollars films for Sergio Leone. CBS got more mileage out of Eastwood in the early 1960s, when he guest starred as himself on programs as diverse as Mr. Ed and as one of the 2 celebrity panelists on Password.

-- The first season of Rawhide had "only" 23 episodes, making it easier to fit in one DVD set, but Paramount could go the two-volume route for the later full seasons. Seasons 2-7 had at least 30 episodes.

-- I notice that Paramount's list of Season 1 episodes posted on TV Shows on DVD contains a picky but long-standing error. The premiere episode is "Incident of the Tumbleweed," not "Incident of the Tumbleweed Wagon." The extra word appeared on the packaging on both the Columbia House video and DVD editions (there's a shock--a typo on C.H. liner notes) and appears on the list at epguides.com but the title that comes up during the opening credits is clearly "Incident of the Tumbleweed." Any way to notify Paramount of this?

-- Fleming, as most fans of the series know, came to a tragic end in 1966 when he drowned while in South America to film a movie. He was engaged to be married at the time.

-- A post-Fleming episode from Season 8, "Escort to Doom," has a hysterical turn by Rip Torn as a Native American. It's all Torn can do to keep from busting out laughing in his scenes with Eastwood, especially as Torn has to recite of all of that cliched "heap big"-type of dialogue. Seems like there's an Eastwood documentary that mentions this episode (or its outtakes!).

Jeff

Thanks for the detailed info about Rawhide.

Cheers

At 217 episodes, I'm a little doubtful that all 8 seasons will be issued. Look what happened to "Wanted: Dead or Alive"--it's a fair bet we won't see S2-3 for that series.

Well Wanted was issued by New Line Studios who has'nt really done much TV On DVD . Paramount has a bit of a better track record.

Well, that's true and Paramount has done a good job of marketing/releasing season sets of HGWT.

-- Whoops--I'd already mentioned that question about "Tumbleweed" in an e-mail to Gord when the announcement first came out.

-- The Rawhide's I've seen on Columbia House seem to be flawless, running 50-51 minutes each with the CBS production fanfare and CBS eye tag at the end of the credits, so I feel confident they'll turn up this way on the Season 1 sets. Michael's comment about the Have Gun DVDs is another reason for hope. Paramount did a spotty job on the Gunsmoke DVD set, but I think mostly the color episodes were affected. A lot of the old CBS b/w shows, especially westerns, seem to be uncut every time they turn up on Columbia House or the occasional sold-in-stores VHS. Rawhide should be no different with this DVD set.

I see that "Rawhide" S1 is doing well on Amazon (#80). Initial impressions of this set? I'm hoping the prints are at least as good, if not better than HGWT. Also, are there any additional features besides the episodes?

I caught a couple episodes on the Hallmark channel when they were doing a 4th of July marathon. I really liked the show, and I'll be getting this.