Dusty's Trail

Two coachmen and five passengers of a wagon and stagecoach become separated from their wagon train on the way to California in the 1880s. The group includes wagonmaster Mr. Callahan and his shotgun lookout Dusty, Mr. and Mrs. Brookhaven (a wealthy Eastern banker and his wife), a book smart civil engineer named Andy, dance-hall girl Lulu McQueen, and farm girl Betsy. The show follows their adventures while they attempt to return to their wagon train. According to the theme song, "...Dusty's the reason for their plight, thanks to Dusty – nothing's right".

• Bob Denver as Dusty (The Gilligan role)
• Forrest Tucker as Mr Callahan (The Skipper role)
• Ivor Francis as Carson Brookhaven (The Thurston Howell III role)
• Lynn Wood as Daphne Brookhaven (The Mrs Howell role)
• Jeannine Riley as Lulu McQueen (The Ginger role)
• Bill Cort as Andy Boone (The Professor role)
• Lori Saunders as Betsy McGuire (The Mary Ann role)

{{Episode table |total_width=|background=500050 |season= |title= |director= |writer= |airdate= |episodes=

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=1

| Title=The Not So Magnificent Seven

| DirectedBy=Earl Bellamy

| WrittenBy=Sherwood Schwartz,
Elroy Schwartz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|9|11}}

| ShortSummary=The wagoners stumble upon a ghost town. While they try to find out the reason for the abandonment, one of the wagoners believes that it was not a disaster or economic bust like most ghost towns, but that the people were forced to leave. This proves all too correct, as they then encounter three gunmen who hold the town hostage.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=2

| Title=There Is Nothing Like a Dame

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=Howard Ostroff

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|9|18}}

| ShortSummary=Two cattle thieves try to rustle up some women and the others have to lead a cavalry charge to save them.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=3

| Title=Horse of Another Color

| DirectedBy=Oscar Rudolph

| WrittenBy=Brad Radnitz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|9|25}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty catches a wild horse and tries to tame it, but then the horse's owner shows up with a marshal, ready to hang him as a horse thief.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=4

| Title=Treasure of C. Harry Motley

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=David P. Harmon

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|10|2}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty's discovery of a treasure map brings out everyone's greed.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=5

| Title=Duel for Daphne

| DirectedBy=Leslie H. Martinson

| WrittenBy=Larry Rhine,
Al Schwartz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|10|9}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty and an Indian headdress cause a misunderstanding that leads Mr. Brookhaven to challenge Callahan to a duel over Mrs. Brookhaven's affections.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=6

| Title=Love Means Not Having to Say You're Bananas

| DirectedBy=Leslie H. Martinson

| WrittenBy=Ron Friedman

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|10|16}}

| ShortSummary=A gorilla that has escaped from a traveling circus invades the camp and captures Betsy. Dusty, Andy, and Mr. Callahan try to think of some way to get her out of the cave the gorilla has put her in.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=7

| Title=Then There Were Seven

| DirectedBy=Oscar Rudolph

| WrittenBy=Larry Rhine,
Al Schwartz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|10|23}}

| ShortSummary=Andy and Betsy are tricked into giving medical aid to a wounded outlaw, which results in the entire group being held hostage while they try to surgically remove a bullet.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=8

| Title=Tomahawk Territory

| DirectedBy=Jack Arnold

| WrittenBy=Elroy Schwartz,
Sherwood Schwartz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|10|30}}

| ShortSummary=After rescuing a young Indian brave from a bear and finding out he's the Chief's son, the group hopes to trade being Good Samaritans for safe passage through Hackamaw territory, but instead the Hackamaws go on the warpath and kidnap Betsy.

| LineColor=500050}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=9

| Title=Two of a Kind

| DirectedBy=

| WrittenBy=

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|11|6}}

| ShortSummary=Seeing a "Wanted" poster with a bearded outlaw who looks just like Callahan, the travelers wonder if he has been hiding a checkered past.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=10

| Title=Half Moon

| DirectedBy=Earl Bellamy

| WrittenBy=Austin Kalish,
Irma Kalish

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|11|13}}

| ShortSummary=Seeing Dusty's birthmark, an Indian chief thinks Dusty is his long-lost son and kidnaps him to resume life with the Indians.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=11

| Title=Here Come the Brides, There Go the Grooms

| DirectedBy=Russ Mayberry

| WrittenBy=Bill Freedman,
Ben Gershman

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|11|20}}

| ShortSummary=Two hillbillies kidnap Dusty and Callahan to become husbands for their ugly sisters in a double-barreled shotgun wedding.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=12

| Title=Danger Stranger

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=Bruce Howard

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|11|27}}

| ShortSummary=While trying to find a pass through the mountains, the wagoners bump into a murderous outlaw who is on the run.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=13

| Title=The Magician

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=John Fenton Murray

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|12|4}}

| ShortSummary=The group encounters a traveling magician who keeps them amused with his tricks while his assistant steals all their valuables.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=14

| Title=Androcles and the Bear

| DirectedBy=John Florea

| WrittenBy=John Fenton Murray

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|12|11}}

| ShortSummary=A grizzly bear follows Dusty back to camp after he pulls a thorn from its foot, but the others drive it away, right into the path of some hunters.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=15

| Title=My Fair Callahan

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=Bruce Howard

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|12|18}}

| ShortSummary=When they rescue a young woman of high social standing who was lost on the trail, Callahan falls in love with her and tries to transform himself into a gentleman.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=16

| Title=Brookhaven U.S.A.

| DirectedBy=Richard Michaels

| WrittenBy=Bruce Howard,
Marc Mandel,
Elroy Schwartz

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1973|12|25}}

| ShortSummary=When Dusty and the gang stumble upon an apparent ghost town, Mr. Brookhaven decides to rename it and turn it into a real town again.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=17

| Title=How Dry Was My Valley

| DirectedBy=

| WrittenBy=

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|1|1}}

| ShortSummary=When the group's supply of fresh water runs out, they hope a crackpot professor will be able to make it rain.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=18

| Title=The Wizard of Ooze

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=Skip Webster

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|1|8}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty learns that the wagon train is parked on a volcano, but on the way to warn the others he hits his head and gets amnesia.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=19

| Title=Phony Express

| DirectedBy=Robert Jones

| WrittenBy=Howard Ostroff

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|1|15}}

| ShortSummary=A wounded soldier clamps a pouch onto Dusty's wrist, tells him to deliver it to Ford Hood, and to protect it with his life. Bad guy Bates shows up at the camp demanding the pouch, but it's empty. Everyone makes up a story of how they stole the contents to keep Bates from shooting them.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=20

| Title=Nothing to Crow About

| DirectedBy=Russ Mayberry

| WrittenBy=Rick Mittleman

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|1|22}}

| ShortSummary=With a terrible storm approaching, the travelers try to find the map to a hidden canyon where they'll be safe, but it has gone missing, as have several other valuable items around camp. Dusty is suspected of being a kleptomaniac.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=21

| Title=From Here to Maternity

| DirectedBy=Earl Bellamy

| WrittenBy=

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|2|5}}

| ShortSummary=Encountering a pregnant Indian woman, Callahan tries using smoke signals to contact her husband, but he's a member of an enemy tribe, and the smoke signals bring her angry father.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=22

| Title=Witch's Trail

| DirectedBy=Bruce Bilson

| WrittenBy=Gene Thompson

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|2|12}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty and Callahan find a girl on the trail and bring her back to camp, but when strange things start to happen they think she must be a witch.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=23

| Title=The Cavalry Is Coming

| DirectedBy=Richard Michaels

| WrittenBy=Austin Kalish,
Irma Kalish

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|2|19}}

| ShortSummary=A Cavalry officer arrives, claiming that Andy is a deserter who stole an army payroll. After he arrests Andy, Dusty, and Callahan, who is left to save them?

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=24

| Title=John J. Callahan

| DirectedBy=John Florea

| WrittenBy=Rick Mittleman

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|2|26}}

| ShortSummary=Callahan will win $500 in a boxing match if he can last 5 minutes against the Champ. But the Champ has kidnapped Mrs. Brookhaven.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=25

| Title=Day at the Races

| DirectedBy=

| WrittenBy=

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|3|5}}

| ShortSummary=The wagoners are forced into a horse race to win safe passage through Indian territory.

| LineColor=500050

}}

{{Episode list

| EpisodeNumber=26

| Title=Pechango Berries

| DirectedBy=

| WrittenBy=

| OriginalAirDate={{start date|1974|3|12}}

| ShortSummary=Dusty comes back to camp after eating some berries and is suddenly changed from an incompetent bumbler to someone brimming with easy confidence. The trouble is, the berries are also going to kill him.

| LineColor=500050

}}

}}

{{main|The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West}}

Four episodes of the series were edited together into a theatrical film, The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West, and released in movie theaters in August 1976. In order the four episodes are:

• "Tomahawk Territory" (ep. 8)
• "Horse of Another Color" (ep. 3)
• "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" (ep. 2)
• "The Not So Magnificent Seven" (ep. 1)

The show was created for Denver by Sherwood Schwartz, who had also created its progenitor, Gilligan's Island. (At the time, Schwartz had been actively trying to get Gilligan's Island revived for several years; after Dusty's Trail ended, Schwartz conceded to an animated Gilligan adaptation that debuted in fall 1974.{{cite book|last1=Scheimer|first1=Lou|last2=Mangels|first2=Andy|title=Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation|year=2012|publisher=TwoMorrows Publishing|isbn=9781605490441|pages=108–109|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UROrDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA108|accessdate=21 May 2017|language=en}}{{cite book|last1=Schwartz|first1=Sherwood|title=Inside Gilligan's Island: A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making Of A Television Classic|date=15 April 1994|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312104825|pages=209|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yCIlIyBNtzYC&pg=PA209|accessdate=21 May 2017|language=en}}) Jeannine Riley and Lori Saunders were both former cast members of Petticoat Junction, while Forrest Tucker had previously played a crusty Old West character in F Troop. According to U.S. television researchers Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, the reason for the show's failure was that it was too obviously a rewrite of Gilligan's Island, deeming it "a derivative flop".{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w8KztFy6QYwC&dq=%22Dusty's+Trail+Situation+Comedy%22&pg=PA399 |first1=Tim |last1=Brooks |author-link1=Tim Brooks (historian) |first2=Earle |last2=Marsh |year=2007 |edition=9 |title=The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present |page=399|publisher=Random House Publishing |location=New York |isbn=978-0-345-49773-4 |access-date=2024-05-29 }}

Denver professed on several occasions that Dusty's Trail was his favorite show to perform: {{blockquote|"At that time I still had some animus at how CBS threw us in the dumper. Herb Edelman and I'd done The Good Guys – but sour critics said it should have been just called 'Guys'. Gilligan repeats were on the tube more than Cronkite, and its royalties about kaput. I told myself to just enjoy the ride, and if it (Dusty's Trail) hit paydirt, super, if not, then it wasn't in the cards. It was my best year in front of a camera."KDKA radio interview May 12, 1989}}

During its run in the 1973–1974 season, it was reported Dusty's Trail barely made the top 50 shows, a fairly respectable showing for a first-run syndicated program; nonetheless the program was canceled after its lone season, with 26 episodes produced out of an originally planned 30.

Each of the seven main characters is derivative of those of Gilligan's Island, a previous series that had been created by Sherwood Schwartz, who had been trying unsuccessfully to sell a Gilligan's Island revival for several years (and eventually succeeded, in animated form, with The New Adventures of Gilligan in 1974).

• Dusty was based on Bob Denver's Gilligan's Island character, Gilligan.
• Tucker's role as the wagonmaster was based on The Skipper, originally played by Alan Hale Jr.
• The millionaire Brookhavens (Ivor Francis and Lynn Wood) were essentially the same characters as the Howells (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) from Gilligan's Island.
• Music hall singer Lulu (Jeannine Riley) was an adaptation of Ginger Grant, the movie star played by Tina Louise
• Girl-next-door Betsy (Lori Saunders) replaced farm-girl Mary Ann Summers (Dawn Wells)
• Andy (William Cort) filled the role of the savant Professor (Russell Johnson)

Other elements of the series are reproduced/recycled:

• The Gilligan's Island shipwreck, following what was meant to be a "three hour tour," is now replaced with a wagon being lost in the wilderness after being separated from the wagon train.
• The main mission of the plot was to reunite with the main wagon train, mirroring the castaways' attempt at rescue.
• Head hunters are now replaced by American Indians, who bear resemblance to the Hekawi, a fictional tribe from Forrest Tucker's previous series, F Troop.
• Criminals were encountered in both series; with Dusty's Trail being bandits and desperados, and occasionally marooned felons would end up on Gillian's Island.

Several Dusty's Trail episodes, for reasons not entirely clear, were not properly copyrighted; these were among some of the last episodes of a regular TV series (in order of production) to lapse into the public domain, and some of the few to do so that were produced after 1963. Because of this, the show became widely available in reruns and on discount DVDs.

On October 12, 2004, Brentwood Home Video released 17 episodes of the series on Region 1 DVD in the United States.{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/Dustys-Trail-Almost-Complete-Season/dp/B00062IZEK|title=Dusty's Trail - The Almost Complete First (And Only) Season (1973)|website=Amazon |date=12 October 2004 |accessdate=17 March 2011}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0069577|Dusty's Trail}}
• {{epguides|id=DustysTrail}}
• [https://archive.org/search.php?query=dusty%27s%20trail Dusty's Trail episodes at the Internet Archive]

{{Sherwood Schwartz shows}}

Category:1973 American television series debuts

Category:1974 American television series endings

Category:1970s American sitcoms

Category:American English-language television shows

Category:First-run syndicated television programs in the United States

Category:Television series by Metromedia

Category:Television series set in the 1870s

Category:Television shows set in California

Category:1970s Western (genre) television series

Category:Television series created by Sherwood Schwartz