Dusty's Trail

1973

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1

EP2 There Is Nothing Like a Dame Sep 18, 1973

EP25 How Not To Be A Good Samaritan Mar 05, 1974

5.2| 0h30m| NR| en
Synopsis

Dusty's Trail is an American Western/comedy series that aired in syndication from September 1973 to March 1974 starring Bob Denver and Forrest Tucker. The series is a western-themed reworking of Gilligan's Island. The series, set in the latter 19th century, is about a small, diverse cluster of lost travelers, who become separated from their wagon train.

Director

Producted By

Redwood Productions

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Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
LastingAware The greatest movie ever!
Ploydsge just watch it!
Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.
H Lime-2 As others have noted, this is a cheap rip-off of Gilligan's Island. Now, ripping off Gilligan's Island isn't such a bad idea given the popularity of that show but you would think that the creators of Dusty would have used at least a little creativity. Maybe replace the bickering rich couple with a pair of bickering trapeze artists! Or replace the innocent Iowa farm girl with an innocent Bulgarian farm girl who doesn't speak English! But no, this is a paint-by-numbers re-run of Gilligan which is shot through with cheap opportunism & cheaper production values.The one thing the show had going for it was that it aired at an odd time, just before the networks prime time began. So if you wanted a sitcom at 7:30 on (I think) Friday night Dusty was your only choice. It's indicative of how bad the show was that it failed almost immediately in spite of that. I saw every episode when it first ran & that's the main reason I did so.I have an especial animus for this show because the theme song has been imprinted on my memory ever since the show aired:"Dusty's the reason for their plight; Thanks to Dusty, nothing's right! Only the Wagonmaster's hand; Can keep them a-rollin' to the promised land!", etc.Maybe electro-shock therapy can get rid of it.
Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) I love this show, and rank the "Almost Complete Series" box set I found with 17 episodes of the 26 made to be one of the DVD scores of 2006. I grew up in a household led by two intellectuals who forbade their children from watching television lacking substance, and amongst the most often switched off with an admonishment of "SPORTS, PBS OR NOTHING!" comment was Gilligan's Island. Naturally then when leaving the nest one of the first things I did was to get cable TV and catch up on all the decades of crap television I had been denied, and Gilligan's Island earned a special place in the daily schedule. I managed to tape it every day for about three years until my stupid girlfriend said enough was enough, never missed an episode and still managed to get my Master's degree just fine.But somehow I never encountered Dusty's Trail until bringing home a dollar store DVD of it and was instantly hooked before the first episode was even over. Yes it's Gilligan all over again, with the twist being that it's set in the West with cowboys & injuns instead of island natives and holdout Japanese WW2 soldiers. And yes the creators pillaged their own series right down to the characterizations, but they had the foresight to cast two very interesting supporting player regulars in the ultra-cute Laurie Saunders (who would have given Mary Anne a run for the money on the sexiness scale even if cloaked in twice as much clothing) and one of my all-time favorite actors, the always cadaverous Ivor Francis who's bemused expressions of morbid disbelief made so many television shows so much more interesting than they would have been without his presence. Dusty's Trail might be Ivor Francis' finest hour, and the moment when I became hooked on the show was a scene where he sort of gazes off into the distance and begins relating an idea for a hair-brained scheme to keep Dusty and the Wagonmaster (odd name) from having to marry two redneck DELIVERANCE women shotgun-style.It's too bad the series was not picked up by a network because it has some genuinely funny moments -- look for the episode where they park their wagon on top of a volcano that is about to erupt for a particularly potent belly-laughing fit -- and had a sort of odd "Hee-Haw on Acid" approach to it's production design, especially the costuming for the wealthy Brookhavens. Like Gilligan's Island, most of the shows were filmed entirely on soundstages: that's inside, and these are Western episodes set out in the middle of nowhere. There are a few forays onto location sets but for the most part the shows have this surreal, phony look to them that reminds me more than anything else of the more cartoonishly arty Spaghetti Westerns like the Sartana movies of Anthony Ascott, which were all the rage at the time the series would have aired. Art imitating life imitating art, if you will.But I mean look, if you want seriously acted rational television you are wasting your time with stuff like Dusty's Trail, which makes F-Troop look deeply thoughtful by comparison. But it is an interesting cultural artifact, sort of half hip to the times and half wrapped up in the same kind of stupid innocence that made Gilligan so much fun. The depiction of Native Americans is also about as politically sensitive as the Three Stooges, or Gilligan's Island for that matter, and it is strange seeing people smoke on screen the way that they do in this show -- something you never saw on Gilligan's Island even if cigarette ad revenues were an important source of network income. I like how stupid the show is, and how it doesn't require any kind of active thinking on the part of the viewer to enjoy it. There is nothing to figure out, silly laughs, pretty women and guys dressed up in gorilla suits. After five years of The War on Terror it's kind of relaxing to once again have the 11 year old idiot inside of me catered to with one hair-brained scheme after the other. It may not be original but it's still very funny for those in the right frame of mind, and when you come up with a good idea sometimes it pays to go back and milk it for a second run. I'm glad they made the show and will not rest until I have found the other nine episodes as well as the feature-length film version: The TV on DVD fad does have a few useful purposes after all.
RichN36 OK maybe this was not the Hight if Original TV back in the early 70's but I can remember this being on at a strange time like 7:30 on Saturday nights. I use to watch it and for a 9 year old this wasn't all that bad. But yet I did know that this was a Rip off of Gilligan's Island with the Writers just lifting Storys from Gilligan's Island and Putting them into the Old West.I found this again while walking around a Discount store a few days ago and I picked up The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West just because I had Fond Memories of the show. Now I know why It didn't last but still Its better then some of the Garbage on TV now.Maybe I am just looking for a show you can sit down and watch with your Kids and don't have to Worry about them asking you any Questions about Sex and why are those Two Guys Sleeping Togeather. This show came from a Better time; at lest in my View.Take a chance and watch it with the Kids its not that Bad actually and its kind of Fun watching Bob Denver and Forrest Tucker Ham it up for the Screen. Try it you might like it.
BrianG This is the absolute pits. "Gilligan's Island" was never, to say the least, noted for its originality, but it was "Citizen Kane" compared to this thing. Sherwood Schwartz picked up the characters from the island and plunked them down in a wagon heading west, and didn't bother to change anything but the actors (except in Denver's case). Forrest Tucker tries hard, but he and Denver just don't click (Tucker had much better luck with Larry Storch in "F Troop," which had the advantage of at least being funny). Jeanine Riley tries to ape Tina Louise's sultriness as the sexpot of the group and fails miserably, Lori Saunders is cute but is like a mayonnaise sandwich compared to Dawn Wells, Ivor Francis and Lynn Wood can't hold a candle to Jim Backus and Natalie Schaefer. The "scripts" were so horrendously unfunny it made you embarrassed for the actors who were forced to speak them. The show had the production values of "Plan 9 From Outer Space"--but didn't look as good. All in all, quite possibly the worst show ever to appear on television. I understand why it was yanked after the first season; what I don't understand is why it wasn't yanked five minutes into the first episode.