... by D.V. Days "The $25,000 Wager" (1964)
A Picture of Death (14 Jan. 1960)
TV Episode | 30 min | Western
When Hugh Blaine bets $50,000 that all four hooves of a racehorse are off the ground at once, he agrees to pay Bat 10% of the bet to supply proof. Bat hires a man to take photographs of the trotter in action, but the pictures are stolen.
It's extremely common to recycle plots in Hollywood. It's always been that way, and it still goes on today. I watch Encore Westerns, and during the 50s-60s these shows did it a lot.
For example, Cheyenne, with Clint Walker...The Argonauts (S1, Ep3) was a very similar retelling of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
Also, The Storm Riders (Cheyenne S1, Ep8) was a retelling of "They Drive By Night", with Humphrey Bogart and George Raft...except with wagons instead of trucks.
And, The Brand (Cheyenne, S2, Ep 16) used the ending from Angels With Dirty Faces (with Edd "Kookie" Byrnes in James Cagney's role).
Laramie recycled a plot from Cheyenne *twice*...Cheyenne, Star in the Dust (S1, Ep13) was reused nearly word for word in Laramie, The Star Trail (S1, Ep5) and again in Naked Steel (S4, Ep13).
In the 80s it was still happening. Different Strokes used the plot from an episode of The Brady Bunch, where Bobby pretends to be critically ill in order to meet Joe Namath. In DS, Arnold wanted to meet Muhammad Ali, and he pretends to be critically ill.
And even now it continues. My daughter watches iCarly, and in one episode she gets her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet, which is a rehash of an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, where Mary Tyler Moore gets her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet.
Good thoughtful and detailed post ben-thayer. It was just that this particular recycled episode seemed incredibly blatant. Thanks! :)
The best revenge: Live well, enjoy life and be happy. Drives any haters crazy.
Yep, I've seen both episodes and you are spot-on correct. I've always thought it's pretty cool the way a lot of the old westerns would insert the main character into a actual historical story and have some fun with it.
Cheyenne mentions Custer a good bit, and in the 2-part story Gold, Glory, and Custer they insert Cheyenne as a scout for the 7th Calvary. It's up there as my favorites from the Cheyenne series.
I read that in Bronco (with Ty Hardin), the writers had him meeting up with a lot of historical characters during the run of the series, although I haven't seen any episodes of that show to date.
If memory serves me, I believe there is also a "Have Gun, Will Travel" episode historically overlapping with Custer's Last Stand as well.
shareTV westerns as well as movie westerns often mix the goofiest fiction with historical incidents.
I remember an episode of some old western where someone was seeking paper or gold money from a graveyard, possibly the graves of the 7th cavalry.
The Twilight Zone had an episode "The 7th is Made up of Phantoms" where three modern members of the National Guard travel back to Custer's Last Stand.
The Life And Legend of Wyatt Erp had an episode where Captain Benteen and Mrs. Custer were in Dodge City sometime after the Little Big Horn.
Branded had a three part episode "Call to Glory" with General Custer before the Little Big Horn.
I have seen a Laramie episode where someone plots to kill General Sherman when he passes though ("The General Must Die"). And another one ("The Pass") where the protagonists scout for the army (including General Custer) sometime before the Little Big Horn.
And so on.
The High Cumberland two-parter from Daniel Boone's second season was plainly adapted from Bend of the River.
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One of my favorite tv shows as a child was The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1959) about the adventures of a boy and his dog and the cavalry in the old west.
And I remember an episode of Rin Tin Tin where there was some sort of reenactment of a historic battle between the cavalry and some Indians. I don't remember if the reenactment was being filmed in the episode - movies weren't invented until about 20 to 30 years after the 1870s when the show was set. And some of the Indians in the reenactment plotted to use real bullets instead of blanks and turn the mock battle into a real one.
As it happened I was given a copy of Don Russell's The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill as a child. And one part of Buffalo Bill's life it mentions was his involvement a silent movie titled The Indian Wars Refought (and other titles) (1914). It may have been the most accurate Indian Wars movie ever, though since it is a lost film nobody knows.
And according to Russell's biography of Buffalo Bill, during filming there were rumors that the Indian extras were plotting to substitute real bullets for blanks. So I always assumed that the writer of that episode of Rin Tin Tin read about the making ofThe Indian Wars Refought & got the idea from that rumor.
And of course each of the hundreds of allegedly true Death Valley Days episodes is based on real stories, however accurately or not..
There is an episode where the Sioux Indians are found to be using modern rifles shooting metallic cartridges. A trader is accused of being a traitor and selling he cartridges to the Sioux. In the nick of time it is discovered that the Sioux Indians are reloading used cartridges with gunpowder & home made bullets. And the Sioux did discover a way to reload used cartridges. That much of the episode is true.
In another episode Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is visiting the USA and gets stranded in California. He did visit the USA in 1876 and tried out Mr. Bell's new invention at the Centennial Exposition, but I don't know how much of the episode is true.
In an episode of Maverick "The Ghost Soldiers" (November 8, 1859) characters line up dead soldiers on the walls of a fort to scare off attacking Indians. Where did the writer get that idea from? Beau Geste.
An episode of Have Gun Will Travel "Fogg bound" (3 December 1960) has Paladin meet Phileas Fogg travelling Around the World in 80 Days.