How many of y’all can say that you’ve met Dale Evans, the wife of Roy Rogers?! I can. She was in Perryville, Arkansas to watch one of my fellow high school students play basketball. I don’t remember if he was her grandson, nephew or what exactly the relationship was, but she was there, and I went and introduced myself to her. This would have been in the early 90’s and she was around 80 years old or so. She was so sweet to me, and I’ve always appreciated that I got to meet her.
Today I decided to watch the episode of “The Roy Rogers Show, Season 2, Episode 8, THE KNOCKOUT,” where Charles Bronson is the special guest star. In the episode, Roy notices strangers digging on an isolated section of his land. When he investigates, he discovers that the handlers for prizefighter Willie “Killer” Conley (Bronson) have set up a training camp for the champ. However, Roy begins to suspect that quite a bit more than training is going on there. Before long the fists and bullets are flying as Roy and Dale take down the bad guys. Bronson’s character may be called Killer Conley, but he is a decent guy who’s gotten himself in too deep with the bad guys, and he ends up joining the good guys when the rubber meets the road at the end. That made me happy. With that said, Bronson and Rogers punched it out multiple times before everything worked out well in the end!
This was my first ever viewing of The Roy Rogers Show. From what I understand, it’s a pretty standard entry in a series that consistently displays a simple story with clear morals and a dependable resolution. However, when you consider that this episode was one of the early TV appearances of Charles Bronson, billed as Charles Buchinsky at the time, it emerges as a piece of cinematic history. A couple of decades later Bronson would be the biggest male movie star in the world. At this point for me, it’s nostalgia at its finest!
The Roy Rogers Show is currently streaming on Tubi.
Through the Shattered Lens 