Favorite TV Episodes: Route 66 & Bonanza "Water" | Syracusefan.com

Favorite TV Episodes: Route 66 & Bonanza "Water"

SWC75

Bored Historian
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,269
Like
62,389
This is a combined review of two similarly themed episodes from favorite series of my youth, but with different conclusions.

Route 66 "Ten Drops of Water", telecast 11/11/60: "Route 66" Ten Drops of Water (TV Episode 1960) - IMDb

Bonanza: "The Gift of Water", telecast 2/11/62 "Bonanza" Gift of Water (TV Episode 1962) - IMDb

Here is my review from my series of reviews on Route 66 episodes:

"Tod and Buz encounter a boy with a pet mule near Zion National Park in Utah. He’s been ordered to get rid of it because his family’s ranch doesn’t have enough water to allow a mule to drink. His family consists of his older brother, (Burt Brinkerhoff, who became a prolific director of episodic TV) and future beach party honey Deborah Walley, (another of the series’ teenage actresses- she turned 19 on 8/12/60- I’m guessing this would have been filmed before that). Tod and Buz do what they can to help the family through the draught, including hooking up the engine of their beloved corvette to try to drill the well deeper. The most remarkable thing about this show is the lack of a conventional happy ending.

The young family realizes that their efforts to keep the ranch, which their family has owned for a century, is destroying them and they have a greater need to be liberated from it than to remain attached to it. A neighbor rancher played by Robert F. Simon, who usually place grouchy, unfeeling types but is here more of a philosopher, has a nice speech about how the land has been ‘owned’ by many people since it was created and that family that’s on it now have actually been tenants on it for a very small period of time when you see it from the full perspective.

This episode reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of Bonanza, “Gift of Water” 2/11/62, where the Cartwrights successfully help out a young family with a similar problem. That one has a happy ending but the theme of the story is that everybody has something to contribute and, as the saying goes, “It’s amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.” The Route 66 episode has a different theme and thus a different ending. "

More on the Bonanza episode: It's written by Borden Chase, a top western writer who wrote "Red River", "Winchester 73", "Bend In the River", Vera Cruz", "the Far Country", 'The Man Without a Star", among many others. But it's a simple story about finding water with each of the Cartwrights encountering the family one at a time and coming up with an idea, which added to the previous thinking, eventually solves their problem. It parallels the scientific history of the human race in solving the problem of water and thus it's many other problems, as well.

Both episodes are free on You-Tube:

Ten Drops of Water:
The Gift of Water: Bonanza S03E21 Gift of Water
 

Similar threads

    • Like
Orangeyes Daily Articles for Thursday for Basketball
Replies
5
Views
1K
    • Like
Orangeyes Daily Articles for Wednesday for Basketball
Replies
6
Views
488
Replies
6
Views
1K
    • Like
Orangeyes Daily Articles for Thursday for Football
Replies
4
Views
4K

Forum statistics

Threads
167,131
Messages
4,681,942
Members
5,900
Latest member
DizzyNY

Online statistics

Members online
310
Guests online
2,347
Total visitors
2,657


Top Bottom