Alias Smith and Jones

This is a look back at a non-sports related television show that likely very few of you have heard of.
It only lasted three years, survived a huge change in the cast and went off the air 37 years ago when I was at the experienced age of five, but Alias Smith and Jones has been a favorite of mine since my childhood.
ABC televised the show starring the late Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as one of the final shows of the Western genre' as the Western was beginning to give huge ground in the battle for television space to police style programs.

AS&J was somewhat based on the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the character "bible" based many of the characteristics of the main players as well as the guest appearances of others on the real-life activities of the Cassidy gang.
The series was set around the premise of the top bank robbers attempting to give up a life of crime in return for an amnesty that would allow them to stay out of jail.
The "governor " agrees to the terms but requires them to live a normal life to "prove they deserve it" and will not make the agreement public until the requirements are met.
The main characters of Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry become known as "Joshua Smith" and "Thaddeus Jones" and begin the process of avoiding their true identities being known and staying out of trouble at the same time.
Pete Duel as "Heyes" was the brains of the pair, the slick talker that often was able to use the power of the spoken word, while Ben Murphy was "Curry", the fastest gunslinger around.
Curry often was shown "outdrawing" outlaws without actually drawing as the show would use the trick of showing the other person drawing and then cutting to Curry standing with a gun in place and the battle won.

The show was up against difficult opposition from the beginning as the first season put it up against NBC's rating powerhouse "The Flip Wilson Show".
The program struggled in the ratings and through arguing with the network about receiving a different time slot were able to get a new night against new competition.
ABC must have had an odd sense of humor as the change sent them against the top show on television in All in the Family.
Nice reward, huh?
The show's ratings weren't strong but had enough of a following to keep the show on the air until the New Years' eve suicide of Duel in 1971 in the middle of filming season two.
Honestly, that should have been the show's end right there, but the decision was made the next day to keep the show alive with Roger Davis in the role of Hannibal Heyes and no mention made of Duel's passing or the cast change.
Davis was never accepted in the role, which had little to do with anything he did as he was placed in a no-win situation, but I liked his run too in a different way from Duel.
A better move might have been to write Duel out of the show and Davis in under a new character.
That would have been more accepted and could have meant a longer run on the show.
Another issue for Davis was that he appeared earlier in the show as "Danny Bilson" a gunfighter that nagged Kid Curry for a shot at Curry's top gunfighter title.
The inevitable end to that episode saw the only person that the title pair ever killed during the run of the program.
Perhaps that role was why Davis had issues being accepted by fans.
The show finished the season and then added a half-season in 1973 before being canceled.

I hope you enjoyed a look back at Alias Smith and Jones, my second favorite western of all time.
What's number one?
Down the road sometime...
If this wasn't your topic, it had to beat reading about Johnny Cueto's one-hitter of the Pirates now, doesn't it?!