Wichita Town is a 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 starring Joel McCrea

Joel McCrea

Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...

, Jody McCrea

Jody McCrea

Joel Dee "Jody" McCrea was an American film and television actor; son of veteran film actors Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, who were married from 1933 until Joel McCrea's death in 1990. The eldest of three, his brothers are David McCrea and Peter McCrea.-Career:Jody McCrea served in the United...

, Carlos Romero, and George Neise 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...

 from September 30, 1959, until April 6, 1960.

Joel McCrea played Marshal

Marshal

Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...

 Mike Dunbar, in charge of keeping the peace the booming cowtown of Wichita

Wichita, Kansas

Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

. His deputies were Ben Matheson, played by McCrea's real life son, Jody, and Rico Rodriquez, portrayed by Carlos Romero. Making occasional appearances were the town doctor, Nat Wyndham (played by George Neise), the blacksmith, Aeneas MacLinahan (played by Robert Anderson), and the bartender in the local saloon, Joe Kingston (played by Robert Foulk).

The model for shows such as these had already been laid out by other Western television shows such as Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

, Lawman

Lawman (tv series)

Lawman is an American Western television series originally telecast from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay on the ABC Television Network. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during the mid to late 1870s. Warner Bros....

, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a Western television series loosely based on the adventures of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black and white series ran on ABC-TV from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian as Earp. An off-camera barbershop quartet sang the theme song and hummed...

, so Wichita Town may not have been unique in its plotting and structure. The two most unusual features about the series were the presence of Joel McCrea, a favorite of Western movie audiences for his performance in such films as Union Pacific

Union Pacific (film)

Union Pacific is a 1939 American dramatic western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Based on the novel Trouble Shooter by Western fiction author Ernest Haycox, the film is about the building of the railroad across the American West.-Plot:The 1862...

, Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill (film)

Buffalo Bill Technicolor is a biographical Western about the life of the legendary frontiersman, starring Joel McCrea and Maureen O'Hara with Linda Darnell and Anthony Quinn in supporting roles.-Cast:*Joel McCrea as Buffalo Bill Cody...

, and Ramrod

Ramrod (film)

Ramrod is a 1947 Western film directed by André De Toth.This cowboy drama from Hungarian director De Toth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. De Toth's first Western is often compared to films noir movies released around the same time...

, and the fact that his real life son was in Wichita Town, but not playing his son. Wichita Town was produced by Mirisch

Mirisch

Mirisch is a Jewish family name:* Harold Mirisch * Marvin Mirisch * Walter Mortimer Mirisch , American film producer of Polish Jewish descent* Irving Mirisch* Lawrence Mirisch- See also :...

-McCrea Productions and Four Star Television

Four Star Television

Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...

 and aired for only a single season.

Guest stars

The actor and television producer

Television producer

The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

 Jock Gaynor

Jock Gaynor

Jock Gaynor was an American actor, producer, and writer, whose work was confined primarily to television...

's first appearance was as Joe Malone in Wichita Town. Later that year he landed a supporting role on another NBC western, Outlaws.

Keith Larsen

Keith Larsen

Keith Larsen was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer who starred in three short-lived television series between 1955 and 1961.-Background:...

, star of NBC's Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage (TV series)

Northwest Passage is a 26-episode half-hour adventure television series produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer about Major Robert Rogers during the time of the French and Indian War . The show derived its title and the main characters Rogers, Towne, and Marriner from the 1937 novel of the same name by...

, appeared on Wichita Town in the role of the Indian, Blue Raven, in the 1960 episode entitled "Seed of Hate".

Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper is a retired American actor of film and television, who won a Golden Boot award in 2005 for his work in westerns.-Early films:...

 appeared as Tom Warren in the episode "Passage to the Enemy".

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...

 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...

 appeared as Walt McCloud in the episode entitled "Second Chance".

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 Scotty in the episode "Sidekicks".

I. Stanford Jolley

I. Stanford Jolley

Isaac Stanford Jolley, Sr., known as I. Stanford Jolley was a prolific American character actor of film and television, primarily in western roles as cowboys, law-enforcement officers, or villains...

, as Smokey, and John McIntire

John McIntire

John McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...

, as Frank Matheson prior to his Chris Hale starring role in Wagon Train

Wagon Train

Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...

, appeared together in the episode "Paid in Full".

Dennis Cross

Dennis Cross

Dennis Cross was an American actor who was the lead star of the syndicated television series The Blue Angels, fictional stories of daredevil United States Navy pilots which aired from 1960-1961...

 appeared as Fred Keever in the 1960 episode "Second Chance".

Ron Hagerthy

Ron Hagerthy

Ronald F. "Ron" Hagerthy is a former American actor known primarily for his guest-starring and supporting roles on television westerns. In 1952, he portrayed Clipper King in the modern western series, Sky King, with Kirby Grant in the title role of Clipper's uncle, Schuyler "Sky" King, pilot of...

, formerly of Sky King

Sky King

Sky King is a 1940s and 1950s American radio and television adventure series. The title character is Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler "Sky" King...

, appeared as Tod in the 1959 episode "Biggest Man in Town".

John M. Pickard

John Pickard (American actor)

John M. Pickard was an American actor who appeared primarily in television Westerns.-Early life and career:...

, formerly of Boots and Saddles

Boots and Saddles (TV series)

Boots and Saddles is an American Western television series that aired in syndication from 1957 to 1958. The series was created by Robert A. Cinader.-Synopsis:...

, appeared twice in episodes "Wyndham's Way" and as a character named Bain in the episode "Second Chance".