The Rounders is a 17-episode 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...

-style situation comedy

Situation comedy

A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 about two cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

s on the fictitious J.L. Ranch

Ranch

A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

 in Texas

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...

, starring 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...

 (1929-2005), as Ben Jones and Patrick Wayne

Patrick Wayne

Patrick John Morrison, better known by his stage name Patrick Wayne , is an American actor, the second son of movie star John Wayne and his first wife, Josephine Alicia Saenz. He made over 40 films in his career, including nine with his father...

 (born 1939), a son of John Wayne

John Wayne

Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

, as Howdy Lewis. The M-G-M television series aired 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...

 from September 6, 1966, to January 3, 1967. The program was loosely based on a 1965 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 of the same name, The Rounders

The Rounders (1965 film)

The Rounders is a lighthearted 1965 film starring Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda. The comedy was based on the novel of the same name by Max Evans.-Plot:...

, starring Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...

 and Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

, set near Sedona

Sedona, Arizona

Sedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, rather than Texas.

Chill Wills

Chill Wills

Chill Theodore Wills was an American film actor, and a singer in the Avalon Boys Quartet.-Biography:Wills was born in Seagoville, Texas in 1902. He was a performer from early childhood, forming and leading the Avalon Boys singing group in the 1930s...

 (1903-1978), a native Texan and formerly of CBS's Frontier Circus

Frontier Circus

For the NBC program similarly named, see Frontier .Frontier Circus is a short-lived Western television series about a traveling circus roaming the American West in the 1880s...

, appeared as the shady ranch owner, Jim Ed Love. Janis Hansen (born 1940) co-starred as Ben's girlfriend, Sally, and Bobbi Jordan played Howdy's girlfriend Ada. Jason Wingreen (born 1919) appeared as Shorty Dawes, and Walker Edmiston

Walker Edmiston

-Career:Walker Edmiston was an American character actor and voice-over artist who was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Edmiston appeared on various television programs in character roles during the 1950s – 1970s, such as Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Knots Landing, and The Dukes of Hazzard, all...

 (1926-2007) as Regan. 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...

s Strother Martin

Strother Martin

Strother Martin was an American actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."-Early life:Strother Martin Jr. was born in Kokomo,...

 (1919-1980) and J. Pat O'Malley

J. Pat O'Malley

James Patrick O'Malley was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programs during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley...

 (1904-1985) appeared as "Cousin Fletch" and "Vince", respectively. James Brown, formerly the lieutenant on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin is an American children's television program which originally aired in 166 episodes on ABC from October 1954 until August 1959. It starred child actor Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy orphaned in an Indian raid, who was being raised by the soldiers at a US Cavalry post known...

, played "Luke".

Selected episodes with notable guest stars include: "A Horse on Jim Ed Love", series premiere with Harry Carey, Jr.

Harry Carey, Jr.

Harry Carey, Jr. is an American film actor. He appeared in over 90 films. He is mostly remembered for appearing in Western films — notably those by his friend John Ford — and in television programs.-Early life:...

; "It's a Noble Thing to Do", with John Smith

John Smith (actor)

John Smith was an American actor remembered in particular for two NBC western television series.-Early life and career:He was born Robert Errol Van Orden, in Los Angeles, California...

, formerly Slim Sherman on NBC's Laramie

Laramie (TV series)

Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. Laramie was a Revue Studios production which originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert Crawford, Jr...

; "Don't Buffalo Me", with Jay Silverheels

Jay Silverheels

Jay Silverheels was a Canadian Mohawk First Nations actor. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful American Indian companion of the Lone Ranger in a long-running American television series. -Early life:...

 (1912-1980), formerly Tonto

Tonto (Lone Ranger character)

Tonto is a fictional character, the Native American companion of The Lone Ranger, a popular American Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker...

 of The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....

, as John Tallgrass; "The Moonshine Still Shines"; "It Takes Only One to Suffer"; "The Scavenger Hunt" with Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...

 as Ilona Hobson; "Some Things Are Not for Sale"; "Four Alarm Wing Ding", with Dick Haynes

Dick Haynes

Dick Haynes was an American actor. He had occasional work in minor roles in film and television beginning with an uncredited appearance as a reporter in the 1954 MGM film Tennessee Champ and ending with the role of Grandpa in the 1980 film Getting Wasted shortly before his...

 as a sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

; "Horse of a Different Cutter" with Andy Devine

Andy Devine

Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...

 (1905-1977) as Honest John Denton and Strother Martin as Cousin Fletch; "Polo, Anyone?", with Jay C. Flippen

Jay C. Flippen

Jay C. Flippen is an American character actor who often played police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s/'50s....

 as Kenny Fahrbush; "Efficiency Is for Experts", and "What Elephants?", the series finale, in which Ben and Howdy try to hide an elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

 in plain sight.

The Rounders was broadcast on Tuesday evenings at 8:30 Eastern in the time slot following ABC's long-running military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Combat!, then in its last season, and preceding Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...

's unsuccessful attempt at a weekly sitcom, The Pruitts of Southampton

The Pruitts of Southampton

The Pruitts of Southampton was a situation comedy that aired during the 1966-67 season on the ABC network. The show was based on the novel House Party by Patrick Dennis....

. The Rounders aired opposite The Red Skelton Show

The Red Skelton Show

The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as...

on CBS and the sitcom Occasional Wife

Occasional Wife

Occasional Wife is an American sitcom that aired on NBC on September 13, 1966, and ran until May 9, 1967 . It was originally on NBC's Tuesday night schedule; in the Eastern Time Zone it aired from 8:30-9:00 p.m...

, starring Michael Callan

Michael Callan

Not to be confused with Michael Callen.Michael Callan is an American actor.Born Martin Harris Calinieff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Callan began his career as Mickey Calin, and it was with this name he appeared on Broadway in The Boy Friend , Catch a Star , and West Side Story .Callan's film...

, 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...

. Prior to The Rounders, Ron Hayes had appeared in the starring role of the syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 series The Everglades

The Everglades (TV series)

The Everglades is an American crime-adventure television series that aired in first-run syndication for one season from 1961–62 and in reruns. Ron Hayes starred as Constable Lincoln Vail, a law enforcement officer of the fictional Everglades County Patrol who traveled the Florida Everglades...

.