pensman The Roy Rogers show along with other 50's Westerns is currently running on COZI TV and I am chuckling at some of my childhood heroes. Don't know if Roy could get a passel of little Buckaroos to engage today as kids now seem to be churned into mini teenagers by age seven. What struck me were the not infrequent references to the Bible or God in the show. Indeed one episode was about a search for treasure and the treasure turned out to be the Bible itself. The show had a pretty clear cut demarcation between good and bad with good clearly winning; but bad characters could find redemption. One thing for sure, we received clear messages from Roy as to what behaviors were expected and which should be eschewed. Personally, I don't think the 50's were the simple times people like to claim they were. Children still had to learn how to grow up navigating a world of Korea, McCarthyism, and Atomic bombs. Maybe it wasn't so bad getting "raised" in part by Roy, Cisco, Hopalong, and the Lone Ranger.

Fred Salter You say that Roy Rogers went as Roy Rogers just like Dale Evans. Roy's real name was Leonard Franklin Slye. Roy Rogers is just a roll he played. I know it's not in the credits as him being Leonard, but neither does John Wayne list himself as Marion Robert Morrison in the credits of his shows. As far as "King of the Cowboys", what about Daniel Boone being "King of the Wild Frontier"? Check out the "Legendary Cowboy Kings DVD" that has a whole passel of singers listed as "Kings". What I'm saying is that John Wayne can be a "King of the Cowboys" as well as all of the other giants we all know and love. They are all great in my book. Heroes every one. I've just got ten DVDs that I picked up from www.oldies.com of the Roy Rogers Show. I enjoy them all just like I do Gene Autry, another great "King" in my book. Don't forget Dale Evans, "Queen of the West". We'll see them all in Hillbilly Heaven. Fred Salter

Carycomic This show was already in Saturday morning re-runs when I first watched it. And, I loved it! The "good vs. evil" plots might seem corny, by today's standards. But, we have to remember that this was produced during comparatively simpler times. When morality was just as black-and-white as the film stock the studios used.Furthermore, the hero and heroine practiced what they preached! Nor did they preach using four-letter words. Unlike, say, Dennis Franz on NYPD BLUES.Last, but not least? This was not a "steampunk" Western.The fictional city in which Roy and Dale made their home was contemporaneous with the shows' audience. It's just that the locals maintained a 19th-century ambiance for the tourist trade, similar to Virginia City, Nevada. So, the mixture of "old and new," especially modes of transportation, was most definitely _not_ anachronistic!In short, I am unalterably convinced that this show should be praised, rather than condemned, for the beneficial values it tried to instill in its mostly young viewers. That some of us might not have grown up to live by those values is--to paraphrase Shakespeare--not the fault of this show's stars. But, of ourselves.

semi-buff Oh how I wish THIS would show up in reruns! This and "Lassie" (with Tommy Rettig) were my favorite shows as a kid, in an era of great kiddie shows. In my little-girl eyes, Dale really had the perfect life--she got the horse AND Roy! It didn't matter what the plots were; they were basically all the same anyway. But there was something about Roy and Dale that was very appealing, and Pat and Nellybelle were fun too. One nice thing about it was Dale was not a damsel in distress; she was Roy's partner, and although secondary, she did her part to help him get the bad guys. ["Annie Oakley" had a female lead without a male costar, except for her kid brother. I think these two shows helped contribute to the rise of femininism in the 60's.] Every kid knew "Happy Trails" by heart, and Roy and Dale sang it right to us at the end of every show. Wonderful memories!