Westerns on television in the context of "American Old West"

Rawhide is an American Western television series starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. The show aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights from January 9, 1959, to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965, until December 7, 1965, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes. The series was produced and sometimes directed by Charles Marquis Warren, who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke. The show is remembered by many for its theme song, "Rawhide".

Spanning 7+1⁄2 years, Rawhide was the sixth-longest-running American television Western, exceeded only by Wagon Train, The Virginian, Bonanza, Death Valley Days, and Gunsmoke.

The following is an episode list for ABC's 1957 comedic Western television series Maverick, created by Roy Huggins and starring James Garner, Jack Kelly, Roger Moore, and Robert Colbert as Bret, Bart, Beau, and Brent Maverick respectively. Unusually for an American television program, Maverick's main cast varied episodically between Garner, Kelly, Moore or Colbert. As such, the starring cast for each episode is listed below alongside other details. Most episodes feature only one of the lead characters named Maverick, and never more than two—-and in two-Maverick episodes, one of the Mavericks is always Bart, who appears in all five seasons from 1957 to 1962. James Garner stars as Bret Maverick in the first three seasons, and Roger Moore and Robert Colbert portray Beau and Brent Maverick in the fourth season.

Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins and originally starring James Garner as an adroitly articulate poker player plying his trade on riverboats and in saloons while traveling incessantly through the 19th-century American frontier. The show ran for five seasons from September 22, 1957, to July 8, 1962 on ABC.

Sir Roger George Moore (14 October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray Ian Fleming's fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions/MGM Studios film series, playing the character in seven feature films: Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985). Moore's seven appearances as Bond are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries.

On television, Moore played the lead role of Simon Templar, the title character in the British mystery thriller series The Saint (1962–1969). He played Beau Maverick in the American Western series Maverick (1960–1961), replacing James Garner as the lead, and starred, with Tony Curtis, in the action-comedy The Persuaders! (1971–1972). Continuing to act in the decades after his retirement from the Bond franchise, Moore's final appearance was in a pilot for a new Saint series that became a 2017 television film.

Wagon Train is an American Western television series that aired for eight seasons, first on the NBC television network (1957–1962) and then on ABC (1962–1965). Wagon Train debuted on September 18, 1957, and reached the top of the Nielsen ratings. It is the fictional adventure story of a large westbound wagon train through the American frontier from Missouri to California. Its format attracted famous guest stars for each episode, appearing as travelers or residents of the settlements whom the regular cast encountered.

The show initially starred film actor Ward Bond as the wagon master (replaced after his death in 1960 by John McIntire) and Robert Horton as the scout (eventually replaced by Robert Fuller).

The Virginian (renamed The Men from Shiloh in its final year) is an American Western television series starring James Drury in the title role, along with Doug McClure and Lee J. Cobb, originally broadcast on NBC from 1962 to 1971, for a total of 249 episodes. Drury had played the same role in 1958 in an unsuccessful pilot that became an episode of the NBC summer series Decision. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute Western series (75 minutes excluding commercial breaks). Cobb left the series after four seasons, and was replaced over the years by mature character actors John Dehner, Charles Bickford, John McIntire, and Stewart Granger, all portraying different characters. It was set before Wyoming became a state in 1890, as mentioned several times as Wyoming Territory, although other references set it later, around 1898.

The series was loosely based on The Virginian: Horseman of the Plains, a 1902 Western novel by Owen Wister that Hollywood had previously adapted for movies. Percy Faith composed the show's original theme.

Bonanza is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, Bonanza is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on American network television (behind CBS's Gunsmoke), and one of the longest-running, live-action American series. The show continues to air in syndication. The show is set in the 1860s and centers on the wealthy Cartwright family, who live in the vicinity of Virginia City, Nevada, bordering Lake Tahoe. The series initially starred Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon and later featured (at various times) Guy Williams, David Canary, Mitch Vogel and Tim Matheson. The show is known for presenting pressing moral dilemmas.

The title "Bonanza" is a term used by miners in regard to a large vein or deposit of silver ore, from Spanish bonanza (rich ore body) and commonly refers to the 1859 revelation of the Comstock Lode of rich silver ore mines under the town of Virginia City, not far from the fictional Ponderosa Ranch that the Cartwright family operated. The show's theme song, also titled "Bonanza", became a hit song. Only instrumental renditions, without Ray Evans's lyrics, were used during the series's long run.

Death Valley Days is an American Western anthology television series based on true accounts of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley country of southeastern California. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945. From 1952 to 1970, it became a syndicated television series, with reruns (updated with new narrations) continuing through August 1, 1975. The radio and television versions combined to make the show "one of the longest-running Western programs in broadcast history."

The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, makers of 20 Mule Team Borax and Boraxo, and hosted by Stanley Andrews ("The Old Ranger") (1952–1964), Ronald Reagan (1964–1966), Robert Taylor (1966–1969), and Dale Robertson (1969–1970). Hosting the series was Reagan's final work as an actor; he left the series in 1966 to run for governor of California.

A horse opera, hoss opera, oat opera or oater is a Western film or television series that is clichéd or formulaic, in the manner of a (later) soap opera or space opera.

The term, which was originally coined by silent film-era Western star William S. Hart, is used variously to convey either disparagement or affection. The term "horse opera" is quite loosely defined; it does not specify a distinct sub-genre of the Western (as "space opera" does with regard to the science fiction genre). However, "horse operas" often incorporate aspects of both the soap opera and western genres. While used sparingly, in the 2010s the term "oat opera" has been used to describe films like Duel at Diablo, as well as series such as Yellowstone.