Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional
cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...
hero created in 1904 by the author
Clarence E. Mulford
Clarence Edward Mulford (3 February 1883 – 10 May 1956) was an American writer, best known as the creator of the character Hopalong Cassidy.
Biography
Mulford was born in Streator, Illinois. He created Hopalong Cassidy
Hopalon ...
, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. He was shot in the leg during a gun fight which caused him to walk with a little "hop", hence the nickname.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, the character became indelibly associated with actor
William Boyd, who portrayed Cassidy first in a
series of sixty-six films from 1935 to 1948, then in children-oriented
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
and
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
, both of which lasted until 1952. Boyd's portrayal of Cassidy had little in common with the literary character, being instead a clean-cut,
sarsaparilla Sarsaparilla often refers to the sarsaparilla soft drink, made from Smilax plants.
Sarsaparilla may also refer to:
Biology
*Several species of plants, of the genus ''Smilax'', including:
**''Smilax ornata'', also known as Honduran or Jamaican sar ...
-drinking hero who never shot first. The plots of the film, radio and TV series were generally not taken from Mulford's writings.
At the peak of the character's popularity in the early 1950s, he spawned enormous amounts of merchandise, as well as a comic strip, additional novels by
Louis L'Amour
Louis Dearborn L'Amour (; né LaMoore; March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988) was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels (though he called his work "frontier stories"); however, he also wrote hi ...
(writing as Tex Burns), and even a short-lived amusement park, "Hoppyland", in
Venice, Los Angeles
Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California.
Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...
.
In literature
Clarence E. Mulford
Clarence Edward Mulford (3 February 1883 – 10 May 1956) was an American writer, best known as the creator of the character Hopalong Cassidy.
Biography
Mulford was born in Streator, Illinois. He created Hopalong Cassidy
Hopalon ...
wrote the first Hopalong Cassidy short story in 1904 while living in
Fryeburg, Maine
Fryeburg is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,369 at the 2020 census. Fryeburg is home to Fryeburg Academy, a semi-private preparatory school, and the International Musical Arts Institute. The town is also s ...
. He wrote the first novel, ''Bar-20'' (named after Cassidy's ranch) in 1906. He wrote 28 Hopalong Cassidy novels in all, with the last one, ''Hopalong Cassidy Serves a Writ'', being published in 1941. Not all of these novels focused on the Cassidy character: some focused on other characters in and around Bar-20.
In 1950, while the character was undergoing a surge in popularity, then-aspiring author
Louis L'Amour
Louis Dearborn L'Amour (; né LaMoore; March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988) was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels (though he called his work "frontier stories"); however, he also wrote hi ...
was commissioned to write four additional Hopalong Cassidy novels, this time with a characterization matching William Boyd's portrayal, rather than Mulford's writings. L'Amour wrote the novels under the pseudonym Tex Burns. Though they were his first published novels, he was unhappy with the assignment, since he preferred the original character, and publicly denied authorship of the novels for the rest of his life.
In 2005, author Susie Coffman published ''Follow Your Stars'', new stories starring the character. In three of these stories, Coffman wrote the wife of actor William Boyd into the stories.
Film history
![Poster - Eagle's Brood, The 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Poster_-_Eagle%27s_Brood%2C_The_01.jpg)
As portrayed on the screen, white-haired Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy was usually clad strikingly in black (including his hat, an exception to the
Western film stereotype that only villains wore black hats). He was reserved and well spoken, with a sense of fair play. He was often called upon to intercede when dishonest characters took advantage of honest citizens. "Hoppy" and his white horse, Topper, usually traveled through the West with two companions: one young and trouble-prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other older, comically awkward and outspoken.
The juvenile lead was successively played by
James Ellison James Ellison may refer to:
* James O. Ellison (1929–2014), U.S. federal judge
* James T. Ellison (1862–1920s), New York gangster
*James Ellison (actor) (1910–1993), American film actor
*James Ellison (footballer, born 1901) (1901–1958), En ...
,
Russell Hayden
Russell "Lucky" Hayden (born Hayden Michael "Pate" Lucid; June 12, 1912 – June 9, 1981) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his portrayal as Lucky Jenkins in Paramount's popular Hopalong Cassidy film series.
Ear ...
,
George Reeves
George Reeves (born George Keefer Brewer; January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor. He is best known for portraying Superman in the television series '' Adventures of Superman'' (1952–1958).
His death at age 45 from a g ...
,
Rand Brooks
Arlington Rand Brooks Jr. (September 21, 1918 – September 1, 2003) was an American film and television actor.
Early life
Brooks was born in Wright City, Missouri. He was the son of Arlington Rand Brooks, a farmer. His mother and he moved ...
, and Jimmy Rogers.
George Hayes (later to become known as "Gabby" Hayes) originally played Cassidy's grizzled sidekick, Windy Halliday. After Hayes left the series because of a salary dispute with producer
Harry Sherman
Harry "Pop" Sherman was an American film producer known for his work in the Western genre during the 1930s and 1940s. He introduced the character Hopalong Cassidy to the silver screen, and is the father of screenwriter Teddi Sherman.
Biograph ...
, he was replaced by the comedian Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis and finally by the veteran movie comedian
Andy Clyde as California Carlson. Clyde, the most durable of the sidekicks, remained with the series until it ended. A few actors of future prominence appeared in Cassidy films, notably
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...
, who appeared in seven films at the beginning of his career.
The 66 Hopalong Cassidy pictures were filmed by independent producers who released the films through the studios. The first "Hoppies", as the films were known, were distributed by
Paramount Pictures to favorable returns, and United Artists was the distributor after Paramount. They were noted for fast action and outdoor photography (usually by
Russell Harlan
Russell B. Harlan, A.S.C. (September 16, 1903 – February 28, 1974) was an American cinematographer.
Biography
Born in Los Angeles, California, Russell Harlan witnessed the city's development from the construction of its first film studi ...
).
Harry Sherman
Harry "Pop" Sherman was an American film producer known for his work in the Western genre during the 1930s and 1940s. He introduced the character Hopalong Cassidy to the silver screen, and is the father of screenwriter Teddi Sherman.
Biograph ...
wanted to make more ambitious films and tried to cancel the Cassidy series, but popular demand forced Sherman back into production, this time for
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...
. Sherman gave up the series in 1944, but Boyd wanted to keep it going, and ended up co-producing 12 more films himself, from 1946 to 1948, now with lower budgets.
The film series finally ended as "B" westerns were being phased out.
In the first film, Hopalong Cassidy (then spelled "Hop-along") got his name after being shot in the leg. Hopalong's "drink of choice" was the nonalcoholic
sarsaparilla Sarsaparilla often refers to the sarsaparilla soft drink, made from Smilax plants.
Sarsaparilla may also refer to:
Biology
*Several species of plants, of the genus ''Smilax'', including:
**''Smilax ornata'', also known as Honduran or Jamaican sar ...
.
Television
Boyd thought Hopalong Cassidy might have a future in television, so he sold or mortgaged most of what he owned to buy the character rights from Mulford and the backlog of movies from Sherman, spending $350,000 to obtain the rights to his old films.
He then approached the fledgling
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
network to air the films. The initial broadcasts were so successful that NBC could not wait for a television series to be produced and edited the feature films to broadcast length. On June 24, 1949, ''Hopalong Cassidy'' became the first network
Western television series.
The series and character were so popular that Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the cover of national magazines such as ''
Look,
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'', and ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''.
Boyd earned millions as Hopalong ($800,000 in 1950 alone),
mostly from merchandise licensing and endorsement deals. In 1950, Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the first
lunchbox
A lunch box (alt. spelling lunchbox) refers to a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying.
In the United ...
to bear an image, causing sales of Aladdin Industries lunch boxes to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units per year. In 1950, more than 100 companies manufactured $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy products,
[Kiddies in the Old Corral]
''Time'', November 27, 1950. including children's dinnerware, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches (made by Timex), and jackknives.
There was a new demand for Hopalong Cassidy features in movie theaters, and Boyd licensed reissue distributor Film Classics to make new film prints and advertising accessories. Another 1950 enterprise saw the home-movie company
Castle Films
Castle Films was a film company founded in California by former newsreel cameraman Eugene W. Castle (1897–1960) in 1924. Originally, Castle Films produced industrial and advertising films. Then in 1937, the company pioneered the production and d ...
manufacturing condensed versions of the Paramount films for
16 mm
16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...
and
8 mm film
8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the film strip is wide. It exists in two main versions – the original standard 8 mm film, also known as regular 8 mm, and Super 8. Although both standard 8 mm and S ...
projectors; they were sold through 1966.
Thanks to the earlier series which showed edited versions of his films, Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television;
Edgar Buchanan
William Edgar Buchanan II (March 20, 1903 – April 4, 1979) was an American actor with a long career in both film and television. He is most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the ''Petticoat Junction'', ''Green Acres'', and ''The ...
was his new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films). The theme music for the television show was written by
Nacio Herb Brown
Ignacio Herbert "Nacio Herb" Brown (February 22, 1896 – September 28, 1964) was an American writer of popular songs, movie scores and Broadway theatre music in the 1920s through the early 1950s. Amongst his most enduring work is the scor ...
(music) and
L. Wolfe Gilbert
Louis Wolfe Gilbert (August 31, 1886 – July 12, 1970) was a Russian Empire–born American songwriter of Tin Pan Alley. He is best remembered as the lyricist for "Ramona" (1928), the first movie theme song ever written.
Biography
Born i ...
(lyrics). The show ranked number 7 in the 1949
Nielsen ratings, number 9 in the 1950–1951 season and number 28 in 1951–1952. The success of the show and tie-ins inspired juvenile television westerns such as ''
The Range Rider
''The Range Rider'' is an American Western television series that was first broadcast in syndication from 1951 to 1953. A single lost episode surfaced and was broadcast in 1959. ''The Range Rider'' was also broadcast on British television durin ...
'', ''
Tales of the Texas Rangers
''Tales of the Texas Rangers'' is a 20th century Western old-time radio and television police procedural drama which originally aired on NBC Radio from 1950 to 1952 and later on CBS Television from 1955 to 1958. Film star Joel McCrea voiced the ...
'', ''
Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.
Oakley developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western ...
'', ''
The Gene Autry Show
''The Gene Autry Show'' is an American western/cowboy television series which aired for 91 episodes on CBS from July 23, 1950 until August 7, 1956, originally sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint chewing gum.
Overview
Series star Gene Autry had a ...
'', and ''
The Roy Rogers Show
''The Roy Rogers Show'' is an American western television series starring Roy Rogers. 100 episodes were broadcast on NBC for six seasons between December 30, 1951 and June 9, 1957. The episodes were set in the prevailing times (1950s) in the st ...
''.
Radio
The success of the television series made Boyd a star.
The
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...
began broadcasting
a radio version, with
Andy Clyde as the sidekick (except for episodes 28 to 53 of the 105 episode series, when, for reasons unknown, he was replaced by several different radio actors). The show was syndicated from 1948 to 1950, then began broadcast on Mutual on January 1, 1950. At the end of September, the show moved to
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
, where it ran until 1952.
In other media
Comic books/comics strips
Fawcett Comics
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Captain Marvel, the alter ego of ...
published a Hopalong Cassidy
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
one-shot in 1943, followed by an ongoing series from 1946–1953 (numbered #1 through 85), when the company ceased publishing.
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
took over the title in 1954 with issue #86, publishing it until issue #135, in 1959.
Mirror Enterprises Syndicate
The ''Los Angeles Times'' Syndicate was a print syndication service that operated from 1949 to 2000. Owned by the Times Mirror Company, it also operated the ''Los Angeles Times'' Syndicate International; together the two divisions sold more than ...
distributed a Hopalong Cassidy
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
starting in 1949; it was bought out by
King Features
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial ...
in 1951, running until 1955. The strip was drawn by
Dan Spiegle
Dan Spiegle (December 10, 1920 – January 28, 2017) was an American comics artist and cartoonist best known for comics based on movie and television characters across a variety of companies, including Dell Comics, DC Comics, and Marvel Com ...
, with scripts by Royal King Cole.
Record readers
Beginning in 1950,
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
released a series of Hopalong Cassidy "record readers" featuring William Boyd and music by
Billy May, produced by
Alan W. Livingston
Alan Wendell Livingston (born Alan Wendell Levison; October 15, 1917 – March 13, 2009) was an American businessman best known for his tenures at Capitol Records, first as a writer/producer best known for creating Bozo the Clown for a series ...
.
Hoppyland
On May 26, 1951, an
amusement park
An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...
named Hoppyland opened in the
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
section of Los Angeles. This was an expansion and retheming of Venice Lake Park
["Bill Boyd Will Appear at Hoppyland Opening"]
'' Billboard'' March 31, 1951, p.52 (opened the previous year) as Boyd became an investor. Standing on it included a
roller coaster,
miniature railroads, pony rides, boat ride,
Ferris wheel
A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsule ...
,
carousel, and other thrill rides along with picnic grounds and recreational facilities. Despite Boyd's regular appearances as Hoppy at the park, it was not a success and shut down in 1954.
Museums
There have been museum displays of Hopalong Cassidy. The major display is at the
Autry National Center
The Autry Museum of the American West is a museum in Los Angeles, California, dedicated to exploring an inclusive history of the American West. Founded in 1988, the museum presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs, including le ...
at
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park includes popular attractions such as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the Ameri ...
in Los Angeles, California. Fifteen miles east of
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...
, at the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper was the Hopalong Cassidy Museum. The museum and its contents were auctioned on August 24, 2007, owing to the failure of its parent company, Wild West World.
A "Hoppy Museum" consisting of a collection of products endorsed by William Boyd is located at Scott's 10th Street Antique Mall in
Cambridge, Ohio
Cambridge is a city in and the county seat of Guernsey County, Ohio, United States. It lies in southeastern Ohio, in the Appalachian Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains 74 miles east of Columbus. The population was 10,635 at the 2010 census. ...
.
Topper's saddle is on display at Twin Cities South Trailers, a horse trailer dealership in Pilot Point Texas.
Cultural references
In the closing chapter of
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
's 1925 novel ''
The Great Gatsby
''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby ...
'', the title character's father, Henry C. Gatz, explaining his son's early character, is described "...pull
ngfrom his pocket a ragged old copy of a book called ''Hopalong Cassidy''. 'Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It just shows you.'"
The 1951 song "
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" is a Christmas song written in 1951 by Meredith Willson. The song was originally titled "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas". The song has been recorded by many artists, but was a hit for Perry Co ...
" includes a reference to "Hopalong boots" as a holiday gift desired by children. Hopalong Cassidy is also referred to in
Buddy Alan
Alan Edgar "Buddy" Owens (born May 23, 1948 in Mesa, Arizona), known professionally as Buddy Alan, is an American country music artist. The son of Buck Owens and Bonnie Owens and stepson of Merle Haggard, Alan recorded four albums for Capitol Rec ...
and
Don Rich
Donald Eugene Ulrich (August 15, 1941 – July 17, 1974), best known by the stage name Don Rich, was an American country musician who helped develop the Bakersfield sound in the early 1960s. He was a noted guitarist and fiddler, and a ...
's 1970 top twenty hit, "Cowboy Convention". In 1973, fellow film cowboy
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and television host. Following early work under his given name, first as co-founder of the Sons of the Pioneers and then acting, the rebra ...
released a nostalgic ballad called "Hoppy,
Gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
and Me".
The 1951 comedy film ''
Callaway Went Thataway
''Callaway Went Thataway'' is a 1951 American comedy western film starring Fred MacMurray, Dorothy McGuire, and Howard Keel. It was written, directed, and produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. Also known as ''The Star Said No'', it is a ...
'' is a spoof of the then-ongoing Hopalong Cassidy craze.
In 2009, the US Postal Service selected Cassidy as one of the characters featured on a series of stamps depicting early TV characters.
[1001 TV Series You Must Watch Before You Die, Paul Condon, ]
References
Further reading
*Caro, Joseph, ''Collector's Guide to Hopalong Cassidy Memorabilia'' (1991, out of print)
*Caro, Joseph, ''Hopalong Cassidy Collectibles''. CCN Publishing (1998) – 1,300 color photos and item conditions
*Hall, Roger, ''Following the Stars: Music and Memories of Hopalong Cassidy''. Stoughton: PineTree Press (2005)
*Perham, Joseph A., ''Reflections on Hopalong Cassidy: A Study of Clarence E. Mulford'', unplublished M.A. thesis, University of Maine (1966)
*Spiegle, Dan and Royal King Cole, ''Paragon Publications Presents Clarence E. Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy and the Five Men of Evil''. A.C. Comics (Jan. 1993) (comic strip reprint collection)
External links
*
Hopalong Cassidy Music
{{Authority control
Western (genre) novels
Western (genre) comics
Western (genre) short stories
1904 American novels
American novels adapted into films
American novels adapted into television shows
DC Comics titles
Fawcett Comics titles
Cassidy, Hopalong
Fictional gunfighters
Cassidy, Hopalong
Novels adapted into comics
Novels adapted into radio programs
Western (genre) heroes and heroines