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Rating:  -
Love the series. I wish they made shows like this now! Fess Parker is great. So many young actors making their starts.
Rating:  -
The 165 one-hour episodes (45 in B&W, 120 in color) of the frontier western "Daniel Boone" originally aired on NBC from 1964-1970. So this DVD set is the third of six seasons for this extremely popular baby boomer show. The show itself may seem a little odd today due to an uncharacteristic emphasis on racial/ethnic diversity (insert Ed Ames as Mingo and NFL lineman Rosey Grier as Gabe Cooper). But the times were a-changing as the country tried to turn itself into LBJ's "Great Society" and network executives smelled an opportunity to cash in on the baby boomer's budding social awareness.
The series moved between a domestic focus on Boone's family (Patricia Blair as wife Rebecca, Veronica Cartwright as daughter Jemima, and Darby Hinton as his son Israel) to "one-with-the-wilderness"/"the British are evil" themes. The series focused on Boone after he had moved to Kentucky.
Daniel was played by Fess Parker who already had an established coonskin cap franchise from his mid-1950's Disney TV portrayal of Davy Crockett. Boone is played as an even tempered peaceful man who likes to chum around in the woods with Oxford educated Indians and runaway black slaves (see above), your basic 1770's flower child. Other than his confrontations with "the man" (represented by those nasty Redcoats) there is very little messy violence and lots of "Little House on the Prairie" moments.
Cartwright, the most talented of the ensemble, is frustratingly underutilized. Particularly given that the most celebrated event in the real Daniel Boone's life was the rescue of his daughter and her two friends from Indian kidnappers.
Cartwright bailed out after season two and was replaced by budding sausage king Jimmy Dean as Josh Clements, in the tradition Chester and Festus from "Gunsmoke".
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Rating: -
I should have rated this down a couple stars for quality.
I don't recall the previous two seasons having this problem, but this season has many problems where the audio track is off by about 1/4-1/2 second. That is, you see the lips move, and then hear the sound a 1/4-1/2 second later, or vice versa. I doubt this is just my copy, I am pretty sure it would be like this on all of them. If someone can tell me their's does NOT have this problem, I will adjust my review accordingly.
Aside from that, this has some great stories and is fun to watch. This is very good family entertainment, good for kids and adults alike. My wife's family and my own family used to watch this when we were kids, and it's just as good now as it was then.
Fess Parker WAS Daniel Boone.
As to the "historical" apsect of some of the stories, it's only approximately historical. Don't expect to pass any history tests based on what you learn here! First of all, Daniel Boone never wore a coon-skin hat. This idea was stolen from Parker's earlier portrayal of the famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett. They decided he looked good in it, I guess, and so had him wear it. Thus, the 2 characters are entertwined in our memory, although they had nothing to do with each other in real life!
Daniel Boone did however have quite an interesting and complex life - much more than is shown in the series - and I encourage you to read the bio at wikipedia and then perhaps one of the better recent bios available in book form here at amazon.
So what can I say? This series is so good, I am not rating it downward for having some episodes with bad audio tracks!
So far Season 2 and Season 3 have the best stories. I have not seen Season 4 and subsequent seasons in about 40 years, so I can't form an opinion on those yet.
Rating: -
Daniel Boone has for many years been one of my favorite TV shows. The only way it might have been better would have been to let Fess Parker continue as Davy Crockett in the TV series, but then we wouldn't have had the beautiful Patricia Blair appearing as his wife. I have all the seasons released so far and the quality is outstanding.If you like Fess Parker as Davy Crockett,you'll also like him as Daniel Boone.
Rating: -
I bought this DVD set for my husband for Father's Day. He already has season 1 and 2. He really liked this series. I'll be ordering season 4 soon.
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