Howdy Partners!
I just found a couple of interesting videos on YouTube.
The first is a 1979 promo for the ABC-TV film The New Maverick, which originally aired in 1978. It introduced yet another member of the Maverick clan--Cousin Beau's boy, Ben. Jack Kelly appears:
But, I'm not thrilled that they gave him third billing at the end, after that upstart new Maverick. I mean, the announcer could have said, "Starring James Garner, Jack Kelly, and introducing Charles Frank as Ben Maverick". (Just sayin'.)
The second video is the intro for the short-lived 1979 TV series Young Maverick, which starred the aforementioned Mr. Frank as the aforementioned Ben Maverick, only he'd moseyed over to a different network (CBS). Neither JK nor JG appear here, but I do like the way the original Maverick theme and the gambling motif is used:
New Maverick? Young Maverick? No thanks--I'll just stick with the best: classic Maverick. :-)
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The timeline continuity between the three series always makes my head spin a little. Surely we're not meant to believe that only four years passed between "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick" (tombstone reads 1876) and "The New Maverick" (tombstone reads 1880). What's Cousin Beau been feeding that boy, Miracle-Gro? I guess legends of the West are allowed to play a little fast and loose with time and space. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHi Melissa! Yes, it was either Miracle-Gro, or Beau sent Ben to the same boarding school attended by all those kids on soap operas. They go off to school at age four and when they return home a year later they're twenty-four! :->
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I understand that when they came up with "Bret Mavererick," Garner's series in 1981, they actually set the show chronologically BEFORE the original 1957 series, assuming that no one would notice and apparently nobody did.
ReplyDeleteIt was frustrating to see how little time Bart had on "The New Maverick" but one can't say it wasn't true to the original series. Kelly did cameos on a number of Garner's shows but, aside from introducing Kelly's episodes in the first season, Garner only did that once in a Kelly episode, the fan favorite "The Jeweled Gun," for which Bret's and Bart's parts were switched at the last minute.
I think the Maverick theme on "Young Maverick sounded almost kind of funereal (appropriately, considering the series) as opposed to the jaunty original versions, kind of like the way they handled "The Rockford Files" theme in the '90s TV-movies although not nearly as extreme: they made the Rockford theme sound like "Taps" in the first one!
The youtube screenshot clip over the original Maverick theme in the third video always surprised me since the shots are from "Pappy" but there's not a single one of Garner and Kelly together! There's a great scene of Bart pointing his pistol at Bret (with them both in profile--they really look like brothers) that would've been ideal for that reel, for example.
Of course "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" is in that last video, too. I guess my own favorite episodes are "According to Hoyle," "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," "Stampede," "The Jail at Junction Flats" and, probably best of all, "The Saga of Waco Williams."
ReplyDeleteI know, Kelly's only in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" from that list. Maybe I'd also throw in "Two Beggars on Horseback," Kelly's own favorite episode. And the only one written with Kelly in mind instead of Garner during Huggins' stewardship, "Passage to Fort Doom," is nothing to sneeze at, either. That one really sticks in my mind whenever I'm in a dangerous situation ("...he didn't have anybody to be brave for").