It's looking quite possible that I may be spending much of this summer in a Wagon Train retrospective. At some expense I just bought the first season on DVD, and so far I've watched the first three episodes (from what I can tell, the episodes are on the discs in broadcast order).
Click this link and it'll list the episode order for you.
http://www.epguides.com/wagontrain/I've been watching
Combat. I just started the third season. Lots of guest stars in that show, too.
(Ricardo Montalban, as a matter of fact.) Perhaps an effort to get some younger viewers, but this show
had young crooners of the time guest starring in it like Frankie Avalon, Tommy Sands and Bobby Rydell.
They also had people like Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, Mickey Rooney, Frank Gorshin, Jeffrey Hunter and
Robert Culp.
There were four gay men in guest starring roles so far, too: Tab Hunter, Sal Mineo, Roddy McDowall and
Ramon Novarro! (I understand Sal Mineo did three episodes and Ramon Novarro did two, though I've only
seen one of each of them so far.)
Being the nature of the show there's few women in it, although they do have some occasionally like
Claudine Longet and an upcoming one has Luise Rainer in it!
There are actors in it who were not famous at the time, but went on to greater fame. Robert Duvall appears
more than once. Ted Knight often appears as a German character. James Caan was in a very good episode.
Interestingly, there's been several episodes involving stories with children, a young girl or boy will be
the focus of the story. Some of those are quite good and others a bit cringeworthy.
As a 10-15+ year old I was never much interested in the World War II series of the sixties at that time, but
thanks to dvd and the retro channels I've really been enjoying Combat and 12 O'Clock High. I'd like to see
more than the handful of episodes I've seen of the 70's series Baa Baa Black Sheep, too, also known as
The Black Sheep Squadron.
Others that I remember were on, but don't know much about were The Rat Patrol and Garrison's Gorilla's.
Or was it "Guerilla's"?
As for the WWII comedies, I try to like McHale's Navy, but it just veers into complete imbecility to me most
of the time. Most of the others, like Operation Petticoat, Mister Roberts and The Wackiest Ship in the Army
(yes "Army"), all of which were based on films by the way, Mister Roberts was also a play, but weren't on
long enough to have a studied opinion.
