I found the perfect cure for a hangover. The wife and I had a wonderful time playing karaoke and drinking cheap alcohol at a little neighborhood dive bar on Saturday night and we knew we were in trouble come Sunday morning when even the easiest task seemed like the end of the world. We got our requisite stuff done and both zoned out on the couch in front of the tube.

One of our cable stations rewarded us by showing a 48 hour marathon of old "Daniel Boone" episodes. Now I was a big Boone fan in my younger days. That show was one of the must-see ones along with Disney, Flipper, and Bonanza. My wife, strangely enough, had been sheltered somehow from this tv era and had never heard of the series so I told her she was in for a treat. We settled down to the strains of "Daniel Boone was a man....Yes a big man. What a Boone. What a doer. What a dream-comer-truer was he."

Some observations about this little glimpse back into my childhood.

The high point of the show is Ed Ames as Mingo, the articulate Oxford-educated Indian sidekick to Boone. That silly wig he had to wear was priceless and what better skill to equip him with but a mean whip. I wonder if he used it with the leading ladies? By the way, you could clearly see that Ames and Parker were friends as well as coworkers.

In spite of the setting being Kentucky and the East Coast, the actual outdoor shots were clearly done in the area around Los Angeles with it's denuded mountains and occassional yucca plant. One scene lingered forever at men climbing over a hill with a clear jet contrail in the sky. I yearn for the days when details like that didn't really matter to us. We watched a show for the story, not the realism.

It appeared most of the actors did their own stuntwork as evidenced by the occassional clearly missed punches that still knocked their opponents reeling. Fess Parker was clearly a competent physical actor that brought real charm to the role. I'm sure he didn't win any Emmys for his depth of character or acting methodology but somehow you were convinced at the end of each episode that old Fess was a true American good guy and hero.

I looked up some history about the real Daniel Boone and found that the show did its research and tried to tie episodes to actual historical events. Of course they took artistic license and added some flair and outrageous situations but I applaud them for at least getting the basics right. I was amazed to find that the real DB lived into his 80's, practically unheard of for those times.

I forgot how entertaining Jimmy Dean was before he became a sausage king. He played in one episode as a wandering singing cowboy being accused of murder.

The show did a balanced job of showing the good and bad on both sides of the Revolutionary War and the tough choices the citizens had to make in choosing allegiances or trying to stay out of it.

I was shocked to find out that Fess Parker is alive and well running a winery near Santa Barbara. Pictures of him today show he's aged well. Still the same warmth to his smile. Just lots of very white hair. It appears he's got a very nice family around him as well. Nice to see good endings for competent, non-outrageous artists. Maybe he truly was Daniel Boone reincarnated.

Art