Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 television series that aired on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from The Danny Thomas Show

The Danny Thomas Show

The Danny Thomas Show is an American sitcom which ran from 1953-1957 on ABC and from 1957-1964 on CBS...

on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 and the second half of the first-season detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 series Surfside 6

Surfside 6

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered around a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison ; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...

starring Troy Donahue

Troy Donahue

Troy Donahue was an American actor, who was active between the late 1950s and late 1990s.-Life and career:...

 on ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. Klondike followed Dale Robertson

Dale Robertson

Dayle Lymoine "Dale" Robertson is an American actor best known for his starring roles on television. He played the role of Jim Hardie in the TV series, Tales of Wells Fargo, and the owner of an incomplete railroad line in ABC's The Iron Horse, often appearing as the deceptively thoughtful but...

's Tales of Wells Fargo

Tales of Wells Fargo

Tales of Wells Fargo is an American Western television series that ran from March 18, 1957 to June 2, 1962 on NBC. Produced by Revue Productions, the series aired in a half-hour format until its final season when it expanded to an hour.-Synopsis:...

on the NBC schedule.

Synopsis

Klondike was set during 1897 in the gold rush

Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

 town of Skagway

Skagway, Alaska

Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska, on the Alaska Panhandle. It was formerly a city first incorporated in 1900 that was re-incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862...

 in the Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

n Klondike

Klondike, Yukon

The Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....

 region, starring Ralph Taeger

Ralph Taeger

Ralph Taeger is an American actor who starred in three television series during the 1960s.-Biography:Born in Queens, New York, USA,from German speaking parents Fredrich and Olga Siefert. Taeger's first career choice was professional baseball, and he did play briefly on a farm team for the Los...

 and James Coburn

James Coburn

James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...

, with supporting roles for Joi Lansing

Joi Lansing

Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, as well as a nightclub singer. She was most noted for her pin-up photos, and for her minor roles in B-movies...

 as Goldie and Mari Blanchard

Mari Blanchard

Mari Blanchard was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in American films of the 1950s and early 1960s.-Career:In the late 1940s, Blanchard was a successful print model and film extra...

 as Kathy O'Hara.

Taeger played the "good guy" Mike Halliday, described by one observer as "Clint Walker

Clint Walker

Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...

 without the charisma

Charisma

The term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent. For some theological usages the term is rendered charism, with a meaning the same as sense 2...

", and Coburn portrayed the con man Jeff Durain. When Klondike did not attract a large audience, NBC cancelled the show but shifted Taeger and Coburn to play detectives in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 in the short-lived Acapulco

Acapulco (TV series)

Acapulco is an American half-hour adventure series that aired on NBC in 1961. It is notable for providing Telly Savalas with his first regularly recurring role in a television series.-Plot:...

series. Klondike was related to the hour-long 1959-1960 ABC series The Alaskans

The Alaskans

The Alaskans is a 1959 television series set in the port of Skagway, Alaska during the 1890s. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold...

starring Roger Moore

Roger Moore

Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...

, Jeff York

Jeff York

Jeff York was an American film and television actor who began his career in the late 1930s using his given name Granville Owen Schofield...

, and Dorothy Provine

Dorothy Provine

Dorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer, actress, and comedienne.-Career:Provine was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, to Virgil and Kathleen Provine. She attended the University of Washington, where she majored in drama. In Washington she handed out prizes for a local television...

, also set in the port city of Skagway and during the 1890s.

In the debut episode, the characters rush to Alaska to search for gold. Other episodes included "The Golden Burro" with Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...

 and Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon was an American character actor, often portraying military or authority figure roles. Though his face was recognized by audiences, he was mostly unknown by name...

 about a burro

Donkey

The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

 who could find and dig for gold; "Bathhouse Justice", in which a bathhouse serves as a courtroom in a murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 case; "Sure Thing, Men" (with Tyler McVey

Tyler McVey

Tyler McVey was an American character actor.-Early life and career:McVey was born in Bay City on Saginaw Bay in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. His first screen role, uncredited, came at the age of 39 in 1951, when he portrayed Brady in the The Day the Earth Stood Still...

 as Emil Watkins) in which the group seeks a mining site only to run afoul of an old sourdough

Sourdough

Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...

; "88 Keys to Trouble", in which someone releases all the inmates from the jail; "Saints and Stickups" in which a person of apparent moral bearing robs a stagecoach

Stagecoach

A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...

, and "Swing Your Partner", in which a group comes to town and dances the night away. In the series finale, "The Hostages", featuring Chris Alcaide

Chris Alcaide

Christopher "Chris" Alcaide was an American actor particularly known for his role in television westerns. He surfaced to national attention as Deputy Joshua Tate in the 1956 film Gunslinger, co-starring Beverly Garland as a woman marshal.In 2003, Alcaide was among recipients, including the Sons of...

, some townspeople are held hostage for their gold. The others work to free them, and to salvage the treasure for which they had all labored so diligently. Ron Hayes

Ron Hayes

Ronald G. Hayes was an American television actor who, as an activist in the environmental movement, worked for the establishment of the first Earth Day, observed on April 22, 1970. He was a member of the Sierra Club and a founder of the ecological interest group Wilderness World...

 appeared as Harold Enright in the episode "Sitka Madonna". Judson Pratt

Judson Pratt

Judson Pratt was an American actor whose longest continuing work was in thirteen episodes of ABC's Walt Disney Presents and NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. A native of Hingham in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Pratt appeared in numerous television westerns and drama series from...

 guest starred as Dan Sheean in the episode "The Unexpected Candidate".

Various episodes of Klondike were directed by Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...

 and William Conrad

William Conrad

William Conrad was an American actor, producer and director whose career spanned five decades in radio, film and television....

, later Frank Cannon on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

's detective series Cannon

Cannon (TV series)

Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976.The primary protagonist was the title character, Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad....

. Supporting roles were played by Western tough guy L.Q. Jones

L. Q. Jones

L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...

, a native Texan

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 as Joe Teel, and by Karl Swenson

Karl Swenson

Karl Swenson was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.-Biography:Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, Swenson made several appearances with Pierre-Luc Michaud on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who...

, a recognized character actor

Character actor

A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 of Swedish descent in two different roles.

Episodes

Episode #	Production Code	Episode Title	Airdate
1	PA59-250	"Klondike Fever"	October 10, 1960
2	PA59-248	"River Of Gold"	October 24, 1960
3	PA59-247	"Saints and Stickups"	October 31, 1960
4	PA59-246	"The Unexpected Candidate"	November 7, 1960
5	PA59-245	"88 Keys To Trouble"	November 14, 1960
6	PA59-244	"Swoger's Mule"	November 21, 1960
7	PA59-243	"Sure Thing, Men"	November 28, 1960
8	PA59-242	"Taste Of Danger"	December 5, 1960
9	PA59-241	"Bare Knuckles"	December 12, 1960
10	PA59-240	"Halliday's Club"	December 19, 1960
11	PA59-239	"Bathhouse Justice"	December 26, 1960
12	PA59-237	"Swing Your Partner"	January 9, 1961
13	PA59-236	"The Golden Burro"	January 16, 1961
14	PA59-238	"Queen Of The Klondike"	January 23, 1961
15	PA59-235	"The Man Who Owned Skagway"	January 30, 1961
16	PA59-234	"Sitka Madonna"	February 6, 1961
17	PA59-233	"The Hostages"	February 13, 1961