“Daniel Boone”
Attempting to recapture the magic of Davy Crockett, Walt Disney introduced Dewey Martin as “Daniel Boone” in the 7th season of “Walt Disney Presents”, but due to lackluster response, only four episodes aired from 12/4/60 to 3/19/61.
The late Mala Powers was Boone’s wife Rebecca. Writing in Neil Summers’
OFFICIAL TV WESTERN BOOK VOL. 4 she recalled, “Dewey and I worked hard to
develop an interesting relationship but after the initial episode the scripts didn’t give us much help. I always felt the reason the show was not more successful was we basically made the same script four times.”
For their children Kevin Corcoran was young James Boone and real life brother Brian Corcoran was Israel Boone. Sister Kerry Corcoran portrayed Jemima Boone.
Although all these Walt Disney Westerns were filmed in color, ABC broadcast them in b/w. This angered Walt, so in ‘61 he moved to NBC with “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” and, in an agreement with the new network, made the decision to abandon all of the Western heroes to give the show a totally new look and feel.
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