Bonanza
The Cartwrights' one-thousand-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch is located near Virginia City, Nevada, site of the Comstock Silver Lode, during and after the Civil War. Each of the three sons was born to a different wife of Ben's; none of the mothers are still alive. Adventures are typical Western ones, with lots of personal relationships/problems thrown in as well.
- 1959-1973
- 14 seasons
- NBC
- Action & Adventure
- TV-PG
The Cartwrights' one-thousand-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch is located near Virginia City, Nevada, site of the Comstock Silver Lode, during and after the Civil War. Each of the three sons was born to a different wife of Ben's; none of the mothers are still alive. Adventures are typical Western ones, with lots of personal relationships/problems thrown in as well.
Season 1 Episode Guide
32 Episodes 1959 - 1960
Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta
Sat, Sep 12, 1959 49 mins
The widower Ben Cartwright is running a huge cattle ranch in Nevada called the Ponderosa. He has been married thrice, and has an adult son with each of the three wives. Adam is the oldest of them, Hoss the biggest, and Little Joe the youngest and cutest. In nearby Virginia City three mine owners are in great need of more wood to be able to build tunnels to new bonanzas. Ben Cartwright has much wood on his ranch, but refuses to cut it down. The mine owners get the idea to hire a famous actress, Lotta Crabtree, who could lure Little Joe to Virginia City, where they can hold him as a hostage. If Ben Cartwright still refuses to sell any wood to them, they will kill his son.
Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain
Sat, Sep 19, 1959 60 mins
The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.
Episode 3
The Newcomers
Sat, Sep 26, 1959 60 mins
The Cartwrights discover an old enemy killing steers on the Ponderosa. Their camp has a sickly woman who needs to get to the high desert country. When an innocent man is killed, Ben decides to boot them all back to California but he gets resistance from the others in the camp and some local miners who now believe Ben is hiding gold.
Episode 4
The Paiute War
Sat, Oct 3, 1959 60 mins
A trader and his two brothers beat up two Native Americans and take their wives. When the Indian men ask the Shoshone leader to rescue their wives from the traders, Adam intervenes to prevent a war against the Indians. Adam rescues the assaulted women, but the Shoshone still go on a killing rampage, leaving the trader for dead. The guilty trader decides to incite the people of Virginia City into believing it is the peaceful Paiute Indians who instigated the killings, gathering a mob to confront the Paiutes. An attempt for Adam Cartwright to parley with the Paiute chief turns sour when the trader disobeys orders and fires the first shot. Adam is captured by the Paiutes. Ben must race against time to find the Shoshone leader before the Cavalry reach the Paiutes - and the Paiutes kill Adam.
Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain
Sat, Oct 10, 1959 60 mins
The Cartwrights help Virginia City reporter Samuel Langhorne Clemens investigate suspected shady goings-on between a railroad company and a local judge.
Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story
Sat, Oct 17, 1959 60 mins
Little Joe falls in love with an older woman, the owner of the town's saloon/brothel, much to the chagrin of his family, moralizing town leaders, and creating a rival for her affection.
Episode 7
The Saga of Annie O'Toole
Sat, Oct 24, 1959 60 mins
Feisty Annie O'Toole comes to Nevada with her old Da (aka "Himself") to mine silver and winds up feeding the silver miners, shanghaiing Adam Cartwright to be her partner in her tent-kitchen ("The Square Meal") and to be her attorney in Miner's Court when an old enemy challenges her right to her claim.
Episode 8
The Philip Diedesheimer Story
Sat, Oct 31, 1959 60 mins
Philip Diedesheimer, a Pied Piper, is refused payment after he saves Virginia City's silver mines from a cave-in.
Episode 9
Mr. Henry Comstock
Sat, Nov 7, 1959 60 mins
When threatened by a man fraudulently sold a part of the Ponderosa by a Henry T.P. Comstock, the Cartwrights remember when they first met the silver-tongued claim-jumper and his scheme that laid the foundation of Virginia City.
Episode 10
The Magnificent Adah
Sat, Nov 14, 1959 60 mins
When an actress named Adah Menken comes into town, Ben considers marrying her, but his sons have other ideas. Meanwhile, trouble arrives when Adah's old lover, washed-up heavyweight boxer John C. Regan, comes along seeking his former glory.
Episode 11
The Truckee Strip
Sat, Nov 21, 1959 60 mins
Caught in the middle of a longtime family feud over a disputed piece of land, star-crossed lovers Joe Cartwright and Amy Bishop try to convince their stubborn fathers to resolve their differences as tension escalates into violence.
Episode 12
The Hanging Posse
Sat, Nov 28, 1959 60 mins
Little Joe and Adam join a posse bent on catching the murderers of Vannie Johnson. The longer they take to catch them, the more whipped into a lynching party they become, much to the liking of the grieving widower.
Episode 13
Vendetta
Sat, Dec 5, 1959 60 mins
When one of the Morgan brothers is shot and killed by Ben during a bank holdup, they vow revenge. The friends he thought he had in town decide to hide away while a wounded Ben lays up waiting for them to ride into town.
Episode 14
The Sisters
Sat, Dec 12, 1959 60 mins
A beautiful sister causes trouble around town.
Episode 15
The Last Hunt
Tue, Dec 29, 1959 60 mins
Joe and Hoss shelter a pregnant Indian from a blizzard -- and Shoshones ordered to find her.
Episode 16
El Toro Grande
Sat, Jan 2, 1960 60 mins
After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy a prized bull for the Ponderosa, Little Joe fends off a pretty senorita and her jealous fiancé, while Hoss discovers that the bull has been spirited away by a little boy who is convinced that the Cartwrights plan to kill and eat his big bovine friend.
Episode 17
The Outcast
Sat, Jan 9, 1960 60 mins
The Cartwrights come to the aid of Leta Malvet when she is ostracized by the community after her father and brother are hanged by a lynch mob for killing two men while trying to rob the stagecoach that they thought carried the Ponderosa's payroll. But Adam is sure that the gang will try again when they find out that the Malvets came up empty-handed and suspects that it's no coincidence when Leta's beau, bad boy Clay Renton, comes back to town.
Episode 18
A House Divided
Sat, Jan 16, 1960 60 mins
Ben tries to uncover the reason gold and silver exporter, Frederick Kyle, has befriended Little Joe before the shadowy businessman's hidden Civil War agenda tears Virginia City, and the Cartwright family, apart.
Episode 19
The Gunmen
Sat, Jan 23, 1960 49 mins
Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for bloodthirsty hired killers in a small Texas town dominated by two feuding families.
Episode 20
The Fear Merchants
Sat, Jan 30, 1960 49 mins
An unscrupulous prosecuting attorney hopes to become Virginia City's mayor on a nativist platform. His first step is to run all Chinese immigrants out of town and he falsely accuses a young Chinese man of murdering a girl who died after being accidentally shot by her father.
Episode 21
The Spanish Grant
Sat, Feb 6, 1960 60 mins
The Cartwrights try to disprove the validity of a Spanish land grant to stop the De La Cuesta family from seizing part of the Ponderosa and all of the Carson Valley settlers' homestead lands.
Episode 22
Blood on the Land
Sat, Feb 13, 1960 60 mins
When a cold-blooded, murdering sheep-herder and his men try to cross the Ponderosa with their large herd of sheep, Ben Cartwright orders them off his property. The owner of the sheep then plots to kidnap one of the Cartwrights and force Ben to sign over 50,000 acres of his land to him.
Episode 23
Desert Justice
Sat, Feb 20, 1960 49 mins
When a brutal U.S. Marshal arrests one of the Ponderosa's workers for murder to transport him to Los Angeles for trial, and a doubtful Hoss and Adam come along in the stagecoach, along with a Dr. and his beautiful daughter, to make sure the Marshal doesn't kill him before they get there. The question also arises later of whether the ranch worker is really guilty and dangerous after all.
Episode 24
The Stranger
Sat, Feb 27, 1960 60 mins
Inspector Leduque comes from New Orleans to Virginia City to take Ben Cartwright back for a 20-year-old murder. When Ben declares publicly that he is withdrawing from the Governor's race, the townsfolk are upset not just about this but Little Joe has also been accused of gunning down Leduque's deputy in cold blood.
Episode 25
Escape to Ponderosa
Sat, Mar 5, 1960 49 mins
Three deserters escaped from an Army stockade to the Ponderosa. When a Captain comes looking for them, Ben realizes what they've had to deal with and promises to let his good friend in charge of that fort know the real truth.
Episode 26
The Avenger
Sat, Mar 19, 1960 49 mins
Ben and Adam are locked in jail, about to hung for a crime they didn't commit. Joe and Hoss must find out why the witnesses to the alleged crime have perjured themselves before the execution takes place. They receive help from an unexpected source, a drifter called Lassiter who is searching for the men who committed a lynching in Kansas years ago.
Episode 27
The Last Trophy
Sat, Mar 26, 1960 49 mins
An English couple comes to Ponderosa on vacation, but the wife slowly makes it clear that she is disappointed that her husband, a great hunter and "action man" is becoming more peaceful, and not the man she married, though things may change for her after they are kidnapped for ransom along with Adam Cartwright.
Episode 28
San Francisco
Sat, Apr 2, 1960 60 mins
The Cartwrights, with Hop Sing, finish a cattle drive in San Francisco. Ben warns the other men of the dangers of the big city. Nevertheless, some of the men are careless and naive. Two of the hired hands disappear, and Ben suspects that the men were "shanghaied." With invaluable assistance from several of Hop Sing's cousins, the Cartwrights locate the missing men and break up the racket.
Episode 29
Bitter Water
Sat, Apr 9, 1960 60 mins
A neighboring rancher, Andy, is good friends with Ben, but his son (Todd) wants to sell their land for mining operations which will spoil the water rights agreement that Andy and Ben made years ago.
Episode 30
Feet of Clay
Sat, Apr 16, 1960 49 mins
A woman dies. Her husband is in prison, and the sheriff needs someone to look after the boy until the boy's uncle can come to claim him. The Cartwrights begin to take care of the boy at the Ponderosa. When the boy arrives at the ranch, he does not know that his father is in prison. The boy learns the truth about his dad, and news reaches the Ponderosa that the convict has escaped from prison. The Cartwrights deal with the possibility that the boy's father may be coming their way.
Episode 31
Dark Star
Sat, Apr 23, 1960 60 mins
Little Joe comes upon a gypsy girl. Frightened, she runs and falls becoming unconscious. When she wakes, they discover that she believes she is bewitched and so do her people who banished her. Her birth under a dark star has fostered this belief. Little Joe, smitten, must rescue her from this belief, her people and someone posing as a wolf.
Episode 32
Death at Dawn
Sat, Apr 30, 1960 60 mins
It's a sad day in Virginia City when Farmer Perkins shoots a store clerk down in cold blood right in front of his wife, then is allowed to walk after his trial. But if the Cartwrights have anything to do with it, he'll be rearrested, tried, and hung.