Bonanza

Hoss and Joe travel to Monterey carrying a large amount of cash for the purchase of a prize bull. Along the way they have to deal with bandits, a duel, a boy who runs away with the bull, a love struck young woman who stows away in the Cartwrights wagon, and hungry
Indians.

Now THAT was an episode. Can you imagine Ben Cartwright giving Little Joe and Hoss more cash than they could buy candy with? I was 9 or 10 at the time and even I knew that only bad things would happen when either of those two was given anything important to do. But sending Adam along meant there'd be no shenanigans and the tip-off to a funny episode versus a serious one always revolved around Adam.

When I was a kid I thought every TV western featured Texans. Probably came from one of my favorite shows Tales of Texas Rangers. Five years old at the time and from that point on if a mad rode a horse and carried a gun he was from Texas. Finding out that the Ponderosa wasn't in Texas was and remains a shock to the system.

And this show wasn't a western but was another terrific example of television at it's best. See if you can tell from some of the words to the theme song...

"The soft island breeze brings you strange melodies, and they tell of, the exotic spell of the.."