Or even heard of it?
An unsold sitcom pilot from 1970.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455585/
The Kowboys (1970) (TV)
Director:
Ernest Pintoff
Writers:
Don Kirshner (creator)
Ernest Pintoff (creator)
Release Date:
13 July 1970 (USA) more
Genre:
Comedy | Music | Western more
Plot:
The Kowboys, a singing group roaming the West West in the late 19th
Century, try to save a town from the evil rancher bent on destroying
it. The pilot was made by the same production team that created "The
Monkees"
Cast
(Credited cast)
Owens Boomer Castleman ... Matthew (as Boomer Castleman)
Michael Martin Murphey ... Zak (as Michael Martin Murphy)
Jamie Carr ... Sweetwater
Joy Bang ... Smitty
Edward Andrews ... Captain Walker
Frank Welker ... Clem
---------------------------
Castleman was in the Lewis & Clarke Expedition ("I Feel Good, I Feel
Bad") and also did the fake country songs for the movie IN THE HEAT OF
THE NIGHT ("Fowl Owl On The Prowl"). Murphy did soft-rcok in the 70s
and soft country later.
Here's the one review on IMDb:
The Kowboys' was the unsold pilot for what was meant to be a weekly
half-hour series. After the American networks failed to buy this
pilot, I saw it at a screening in London, where the pilot's producers
were hoping to cut their losses by getting 'The Kowboys' transmitted
on British television.
The Kowboys are four young guys and a young gal, all of them musically
inclined and all of them 'hip', which was part of the problem. This
series was apparently meant to take place in the nineteenth century,
apparently a few years after the American Civil War, but not for an
instant could I accept these hippie-dippie flower children as 19th-
century sourdoughs. Also, as usual for bad productions with period
settings, everything is too clean and all the actors have modern
dentistry and orthodontia.
In the pilot episode, they amble into a town called Walker, named for
the local land baron who owns all the acreage. (Guest villain Captain
Walker is played by Edward Andrews, who specialised in ****traying
cowardly villains.) Now get this: Walker (the town) is somewhere out
west within the continental U.S.A., but it's in territory which hasn't
yet formally acquired statehood ... a fact which raises serious
questions about precisely when 'The Kowboys' takes place. Captain
Walker has reason to believe that he'll be able to dictate the terms
under which his town is absorbed into the Union. At one point, he
stares off into space while he recites a list of the United States as
he'd like them to be. The list ends: 'West Virginia, ...
Wisconsin, ... Wyoming, ... Walker!' I guess he can't alphabetise.
The female Kowboy (Kowgirl?) is Smitty, played by an incredibly
gorgeous young blonde with the improbable name Joy Bang. If this pilot
episode indicates the producers' intentions, they don't seem to have
made up their minds as to how to present this character. For most of
the episode, Smitty is in tomboy mode, with her gorgeous long tresses
tucked under her stetson, and her lissome figure concealed within
mannish jeans. Then, after the Kowboys arrive in Walker and check into
the local hotel, Smitty gets all glammed up and comes downstairs in a
very fetching frock ... although this too didn't quite look right for
the 19th century. She isn't wearing a corset, either, but Joy Bang's
hourglass figure certainly doesn't need one.
The four male Kowboys weren't very well differentiated in this pilot
episode, except for Frank Welker as Clem being nominally the comedy
relief. I think the producers wanted to imply that Smitty had
something going with each of her four male trail buddies, but that
none of the relation****ps were especially serious.
There were attempts at musical interludes performed by the Kowboys, or
(more likely) studio musicians dubbing for them. A couple of times in
this pilot episode, we see one or another Kowboy whanging a guitar.
However, the most elaborate number occurs when Smitty comes downstairs
in her glam mode. We hear the male Kowboys performing a very weak
ballad cried 'Smitty', but this has clearly been post-dubbed: the on-
screen Kowboys aren't singing nor playing instruments. At the end,
there's a weakly staged 'action' climax, and then it's time for the
Kowboys to be moseyin' on to their next adventure.
Oh, aye: that dumb spelling. (No, not Aaron.) It turns out that 'The
Kowboys' was created by the same production company that manufactured
'The Monkees', so they decided to continue the motif of a one-letter
misspelling: no doubt in imitation of the Beatles, whose name actually
referred to the Beat Generation (not beats of music).
Based solely on this pilot, 'The Kowboys' would have been no worse
(and no stupider) than a lot of other series that did get on the air
and which did run for a couple of years. I wish the pilot had been
picked up, if only so that we'd have more footage of Joy Bang. Still,
the fact that this series never got made is no great loss. I'll rate
the pilot 6 out of 10.
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