Check Our Profile Page For More Cool Items. Hopalong Cassidy is  a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. He was shot in the leg during a gun fight which caused him to walk with a little "hop", hence the nickname. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the character became indelibly associated with actor William Boyd, who portrayed Cassidy first in a series of sixty-six films from 1935 to 1948, then in children-orientedradio and TV series, both of which lasted until 1952. Boyd's portrayal of Cassidy had little in common with the literary character, being instead a clean-cut,sarsaparilla-drinking hero who never shot first. The plots of the film, radio and TV series were generally not taken from Mulford's writings. At the peak of the character's popularity in the early 1950s, he spawned enormous amounts of merchandise, as well as a comic strip, additional novels by Louis L'Amour(writing as Tex Burns), and even a short-lived amusement park, "Hoppyland", in Venice, Los Angeles. Hopalong Cassidy is an American Western television series that ran from 1949 to 1952 on NBC, starring William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, a fictional gunslinger who had been created by writer Clarence E. Mulford. It was the first Western television series. The series began as simply broadcasts of edited versions of previousvHopalong Cassidy films, all of which had starred Boyd (66 such films had been produced between 1935 and 1948). Eventually, the series transitioned to original episodes, with a new cast of characters and actors, notably Edgar

chananas Hopalong's sidekick Red Connors. The show was created and produced by Boyd. The Hopalong Cassidy film series ended in 1948, due to declining revenues, and their star William Boyd, who was now 53 years old, was regarded as a film star of the past. However, Boyd thought Hopalong Cassidy might have a future in television, and spent $350,000 to obtain the rights to his old films; he sold or mortgaged almost everything he owned to raise the money.  Boyd approached the fledgling NBC network to broadcast the films. The initial broadcasts were so successful that NBC could not wait for a television series to be produced and edited the feature films to broadcast length. Hopalong Cassidy begun  airing on June 24, 1949, and was the first network Western television series, predating The Lone Ranger by several months.  Thanks to the earlier series which showed edited versions of his films, Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television;Edgar Buchanan was his new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films). The theme music for the show was written by Nacio Herb Brown(music) and L. Wolfe Gilbert (lyrics)

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