JOHNNY RINGO (1959-1960) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

JOHNNY RINGO (1959) – Don Durant starred as the one and only Johnny Ringo, the real-life gunslinger. The fictional setting of this program takes place between Johnny’s original rise to fame during the Mason County War in Texas and his final years in Arizona as part of the Clanton-McLaury Crime Faction led by Curly Bill Brocius. Aaron Spelling was the producer.

Ringo is depicted being weary of his life as a gunfighter, so he tries to turn over a new leaf by becoming the Sheriff of the fictional town of Velardi in Arizona Territory. An odd gimmick of the Johnny Ringo television series was the fact that Johnny wielded a special seven-shot pistol designed by the real-life gunmaker Jean LeMat.

Other regular cast members were Mark Goddard as William Cully aka Kid Adonis, Ringo’s deputy; Karen Sharpe as Laura Thomas and Thomas Mitchell as Laura’s father Case Thomas, town drunk turned sheriff’s deputy. Johnny Ringo ran for one pilot episode followed by 38 regular season half-hour episodes. Star Don Durant wrote and sang the theme song.   

THE EPISODES:

PILOT (March 5th, 1959) – On the anthology series Zane Grey Theater, the episode Man Alone served as the pilot for the Johnny Ringo program. Ringo rides into Velardi where a young punk tries to make a name for himself by killing the notorious gunslinger in a gunfight. Johnny is left with no choice but to shoot down the young man.

Persuaded by the lovely Laura Thomas to try living on the right side of the law, our hero pins on a badge and coaches Laura’s father Case to sober up and serve as his deputy against local outlaws. When the evil saloon keeper (Roy Barcroft) gets his, Case becomes the new bartender as well as Ringo’s deputy.     

THE ARRIVAL (October 1st, 1959) – This first official episode of the series basically reenacted the pilot, but with Terence de Marney replacing Thomas Mitchell as Case Thomas. Case makes Ringo’s special seven-shooter pistol based on a design by Jean LeMat. JAMES COBURN guest stars as Moss Taylor.

CULLY – A sleazy carnival sideshow sets up near Velardi. The carnival’s star attraction is trick shooter Kid Adonis, real name William Cully. The crooked carnival owner tricks Cully into believing Johnny Ringo is the man who gunned down his father.

The Kid believes it and challenges Ringo to a gunfight at which the carnival owner plans to snipe shoot Johnny from hiding. He will then make a fortune displaying Ringo’s corpse in his sideshow as well as hyping Cully as the man who killed Johnny. The truth wins out, so Cully quits the carnival and signs on as Ringo’s deputy.   

THE ACCUSED – A very young RON HOWARD, in his first speaking role, plays Ricky Parrott, whose family member was killed. The accused murderer is found not guilty but the townspeople still treat him as if he was guilty until Ringo clears his name. Also with William Schallert. 

A KILLING FOR CULLY – Cully is forced to kill his first man – a trouble-making rancher. He is so haunted by guilt he doesn’t want to shoot anyone ever again but must change his mind when the rancher’s three evil sons ride into Velardi intent on killing Cully and Ringo. With Joanne Harding.

THE HUNTERS – Ringo and Cully join a posse of armed guards who are on the trail of three escaped convicts. Mysteriously, the guards plan on killing the convicts immediately rather than recapture them.

THE POSSE – Jesse Mead (Richard Devon), a criminal friend from Ringo’s outlaw days after the Mason County War, arrives in town begging Johnny to protect him from a pursuing lynch mob. It turns out the lynch mob members are really members of Mead’s current gang and they are using the lynching drama as a distraction while they rob the bank.

GHOST COACH – Richard Levinson and William Link, the future creators of Columbo, wrote this episode about Ringo and Cully finding a Civil War-era stagecoach with a skeleton in it inside an abandoned mine. They get it into town, then dead bodies start turning up. Ringo investigates the mystery. Insert your own “Just one more thing” joke here.

DEAD WAIT (play on words) – Ringo uses a stagecoach to escort two dangerous criminals to Yuma Prison but along the way the vehicle crashes. Our hero must then get the three of them to Yuma on foot, with heat, thirst and the potential of being overpowered and killed by the prisoners hanging over his head. Elisha Cook and Helen Gibson also star.

THE RAIN MAKER – Another gimmick episode written by Levinson & Link. This one stars THE John Carradine as a con man pretending to be a Rain Maker who claims he can end Velardi’s drought if they pay him in gold. His solution is to build a monorail, I mean form a band. (I’m kidding.)

THE CAT – An eccentric millionaire from back east brings a caged tiger to Velardi. He plans to let it loose in the desert so he can hunt it down and kill it. Ringo tries to stop the man from endangering himself and the community. 

LOVE AFFAIR – GLORIA DEHAVEN guest stars as a saloon singer named Ronna Desmond, who shoots her abusive boyfriend (Gerald Mohr) and flees to Velardi. She and Cully begin a romance, but the boyfriend wasn’t dead and he shows up in town on Ronna’s trail.

KID WITH A GUN – Christmas Eve episode about a feisty little girl who wants a gun so she can shoot the man she claims killed her father even though there is no sign her father is dead. Laura believes the little girl and when she is abducted Ringo sets out to save her. VIC MORROW and Robert F. Simon guest star.

BOUND BOY – Ringo and Cully aren’t having it when a rancher turns out to secretly be using orphans as slave labor. Tim Considine himself plays one of the kids.

EAST IS EAST – A famous female reporter (Debra Paget) from back east shows up in Velardi. She snobbishly shows contempt for the place and its people but must rely on Ringo to save her when the robbers of a stagecoach she was a passenger on learn she is alive and can identify them. With Russ Bender. 

THE POSTER INCIDENT – When the wrong photo is accidentally run on a Wanted poster, the real criminal Silky Carter kills the innocent politician whose photo was used. He then poses as the dead man as part of his plan to escape with theft proceeds.

DIE TWICE – When a presumed dead outlaw is spotted committing additional crimes, Ringo decides to dig up the crook’s grave to see if anyone is in his coffin. 

FOUR CAME QUIETLY – When a smitten Velardi waitress sneaks a pistol to the jailed outlaw Billy Boy Jethro (L.Q. JONES) he escapes and winds up shot to death by Ringo in a gunfight. Billy Boy’s criminal family come to town to kill our hero. 

THE LIARS – A fellow officer of the law (John Larch) gets Ringo to go undercover in prison. Posing as a condemned man himself, Johnny tries to get information from his cellmates regarding a robbery they committed. With Alvy Moore.

MRS. RINGO – A beautiful woman (Mona Freeman) arrives in Velardi claiming to be Johnny’s wife whom he married in a delirium two years earlier. In truth she wants Ringo to kill her ex-husband, whose robbery proceeds she plans to find and keep all to herself. 

THE ASSASSINS – A Russian violinist (Akim Tamaroff) hiding in Velardi needs protection from Tsarist agents who have pursued him to America to extradite him back to Russia. The charge is murder, but it may be false. With Ed Nelson.

THE RENO BROTHERS – Failed attempt at a backdoor pilot for a series that would have featured the Reno Brothers (Ben Cooper and Jim Beck). The boys would have been trying to clear their names after criminal relatives have framed them. Ringo sympathizes with the brothers.

THE RAFFERTYS – A merciless bounty hunter is after reformed outlaw-in-hiding Ben Rafferty (THE Lon Chaney, Jr.) and doesn’t care if he has to also gun down Ben’s innocent wife and son (DICK BAKALYAN). Ringo tries to talk Ben into surrendering himself.

UNCERTAIN VENGEANCE – Johnny is forced to kill an infamous outlaw, whose brother then traps a disarmed Ringo in with a vicious wild bull hoping to kill our hero and make it look like an accident. With STELLA STEVENS.

BORDER TOWN – Levinson & Link were back with the script for this episode. Regular cast member Case – Laura’s father – is killed and Ringo pursues the killer to a life-is-cheap border town run by an evil town boss. Laura leaves town in mourning. (The actress left the series.)  

THE GUNSLINGER – Johnny is shot in the chest by an old enemy. He kills the man but while he recovers from his chest wound Cully must guard him against the vengeance of the dead man’s brothers. Harry Dean Stanton appears.

THE VINDICATOR – An escaped convict takes hostages to try forcing Ringo to turn over to him a young man suspected of killing the convict’s wife.   

BLACK HARVEST – The mysterious disappearance of a stranger in town leads our hero to the homestead of a mute townswoman whose husband has gone insane and is keeping the stranger captive. With Royal Dano and Aneta Corsault.

JUDGMENT DAY – Ringo talks a judge who keeps giving dangerous criminals light sentences into being deputized to see what lawmen deal with. In the end it turns out the judge is corrupt and has been taking bribes from the criminals he lets off with light sentences.

THE KILLING BUG – Participants in a Range War renew their old hostilities on the streets of Velardi. Ringo and Cully are caught in the crossfire. BUDDY EBSEN, WAYNE ROGERS and Lorna Thayer guest star.

SOFT CARGO – During a series of deadly raids by Comancheros, two unsavory white outlaws abduct a quintet of dancing girls (one of whom is DYAN CANNON) in order to sell them to the Comancheros. Ringo and Cully free the ladies, who take up rifles and help our heroes put an end to the raids.

SINGLE DEBT – Johnny clashes with the Scanlon Brothers (one of whom is WARREN OATES). The trio want land owned by a Chinese family and when the family won’t sell to them, they march them all out into the desert at gunpoint and leave them to die. Ringo wants to avenge the dead victims. Also starring JAMES HONG, PETER CHONG and Judy Dan as Lisa Lu Chung. 

THE STRANGER – BURT REYNOLDS guest stars but plays the main villain. The title character is Jeffrey Blake (Charles Aidman), a seeming Dandy who turns out to be a karate master from his years in Japan. He doesn’t need guns to outfight Burt and his gang while protecting dance hall girl Lil Blanchard (Susan Cummings). Sort of like the later series Kung Fu if the star had been a white guy … Hey, wait a minute!

THE DERELICT – Ringo takes action when a farmer (MARTIN LANDAU) shoots a banker (John Anderson) for refusing to give him a loan to help himself and his pregnant wife.   

SHOOT THE MOON – Johnny and Cully try to make peace when a visiting Italian astronomer and his daughter try to photograph an eclipse from a mountaintop sacred to the Yaqui tribe.

KILLER, CHOOSE A CARD – Ringo comes to the aid of an old lady friend – brassy saloon owner Mamie Murphy (Lurene Tuttle) when she is framed for murder. Also starring Dabbs Greer, Whit Bissell and William Schallert.

COFFIN SAM – Notorious gunfighter Coffin Sam Sabine (ALAN HALE) drifts into town. He tells Ringo that arthritis is threatening to leave him unable to shoot properly but it is just a scam to set Johnny up to be shot to death by Sam.

LOBO LAWMAN – No relation to Sheriff Lobo. When Ringo brings in the outlaw Juan Garcia (Rodolfo Hoyos) a U.S. Marshal (Karl Swenson) who killed Johnny’s uncle shows up with a warrant he says gives him a claim to Garcia.

CAVE IN – In this final episode of the series ROBERT CULP plays Clay Horne, an old gunslinging friend of Ringo’s. With four gunmen on his trail, Clay holes up in an unused mine but the villains find him and Johnny there.

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