The Silver Screen Oasis

On another thread " cinemalover ", in reviewing an Eddie Dean Western, rates funny man Roscoe Ates as the worst sidekick in a Western. Does anyone have a favorite or least favorite Western sidekick ? You do not have to limit yourself to " B " Westerns either. John Wayne and Walter Brennan made a good team as did Brennan - Jimmy Stewart, and Stewart with Millard Mitchell were pretty good also.

I always thought John Wayne and Oliver Hardy, in The Fighting Kentuckian were an odd, but not unsuccessful pairing. It was as though the Duke had a valet - Hardy added an air of gentlemanly refinement to the proceedings.

Perhaps this is a little bit off most everyone's radar, but in the late 50s there was a terrific western TV series called YANCY DERRINGER starring Jock Mahoney. In it, he had an Indian friend named Pahoo who would constantly be watching his back. He was played by an actor named X. Brands. Pahoo never spoke, but when it was necessary, he could definitely be counted on to spring into action. Am I the only one here who remembers this show?

I remember YANCY DERRINGER, but I don't remember any of it's episodes.


Bert Wheeler, of Wheeler and Woolsey comedy fame ( or is it infamy ? ) was an Indian medicine man in a fifties TV Western series, BRAVE EAGLE. He was supposed to be a comical character .

"They sing of Yancy Derringer
On every danger trail,
On riverboat, in manor house,
And now and then in jail..."

This series fit into the trend then going about weapons gimmicks. Yancy
carried a derringer (natch) in his hat. Pahoo had, under his blanket, a
single-barrel shotgun, 10 gauge or bigger; one of those meant to reach
really high-flying geese. On the ground, it qualified as personal artillary.
They also had a routine of tossing knives to each other for quick use. It
was usually a matter of the man who had the blade supplying it to the man
who needed it to stab someone, throw at someone, or sharpen a pencil.
My friends and I spent a few weeks tossing open pocket knives back and
forth in imitation of this. We felt especially good when we were able to have A toss it to B who then threw it and stuck it into a tree. We broke a
couple of knife points, but no one got hurt. God watches over idiots.

Yancy was a Confederate veteran whose lands had been lost in the war.
He was an undercover agent for the civil administrator of the City of New
Orleans. According to literature in my possession, the series lasted
from October 1958 to September 1959. Yancy was played by Jock Mahoney, the past Range Rider and a future Tarzan. Pahoo was played by an actor billed as X Brands, and I considered him a very good sidekick.

I hadn't realized it until I looked up the start-and-stop dates, but by the time Yancy was cancelled, I had been accepted at a boarding school and
taken away to a no-TV environment.

Hey cmvgor -- Thanks for filling in the cracks about YANCY DERRINGER. It was one of those shows I remember watching but have always had a hard time recalling very specifically due to the fact that it never fell into syndication and therefore remained very sketchy and shadowy. I must have been about ten when it originally aired and my older brother and I would traipse around the house singing the show's theme song over and over much to the annoyance of our parents. It was also the practice of TV advertising in those days to refer unfavorably to rival products as "Brand X" which would invariably send us into hysterics, screaming "Pahoo! Pahoo!" until we were both hoarse with laughter.

Glad to be of help re Yancy
Concerning Jock Mahoney's earlier incarnation as the Range Rider, his sidekick on that show was a young man named Dick West, whose
sthick was youthful enthusiasm, and who was played by a young actor named Dick Jones. Dick Jones later had a season or so as star of
Buffalo Bill, Jr. (product linkup: a belt buckle with the words "Bill, Jr"
imposed on an American Bison).
Now here's where I need help. It is my very,very firm impression that
this Dick Jones showed up in Support Your Local Gunfighter(1971), still looking very youthful, as a gunfighter wannabe who was taken out of the running when James Garner broke both his trigger fingers with a frying pan. It was at least a dead ringer. If that wasn't Dick Jones, does anyone know who it was?

cmvgor:
iMdb provides a pretty comprehensive cast list for SUPPORT Y0UR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER and Dick Jones' name doesn't appear on it. We may be dealing with a look-a-like.

I would select Walter Brennan first, especially for his turns in Red River, Rio Bravo and The Far Country. Then maybe it would be Andy Devine, in the Ford westerns and also wasn't he in Tyrone Power's Rawhide? And last but not least, Arthur Hunnicutt. Loved that man's voice.

To: Dewey1960;
You're probably right about a lookalike, but I was SO hoping for
"Dick Jones, uncredited"

To: MissGoddess;
Good choices all. I got acquainted with Walter Brennan as Granpa McCoy, and had to learn about his sidekick days by picking it up from Old
Movies reruns. Hunnicutt, of course was one of the strong points in Rio Bravo.

Andy Devine was not in the Henry Hathaway Directed RAWHIDE, but Edgar Buchanan was.

Thanks, Ken---I'll add Eddie Buchanan to my list.

Does anyone even mention Jay Silverheels anymore?

Tim Holt, that non-singing kiddie western star -- remember him? His pal was an Irish-Mexican named Chito Jose' Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty, a
handsome young man, snappy dresser, skirt chaser. The actor was named Richard Martin. To the best of my knowledge, Chito never wandered off to pal around with other heros, as Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnette, et al, had a habit of doing.