Customer Reviews

Best of Bonanza

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

The other reviews here are spot-on. The faux theme music sounds like something from a bad spaghetti western. The picture is a bit choppy at times, but that's what you get when you cram eight or nine episodes of an hour-long show onto a SINGLE-SIDED DVD! Yes, these are single-sided, so you can image the compression that was required.

And yet, for the price I would glady endure all that, if the silly discs would actually play. I've tried three separate copies, Discs 1 and 3 won't play properly in any of them. (The ones stored above another disc in the overlapping clamshell box. Coincidence? Maybe, since no scratches are visible.) Shame on Mill Creek for putting out such a poor product.

You can get these same 31 episode for a little more coin in a more reliable set, try: Bonanza 8-DVD Pack

BONANZA, one of the earliest series filmed in color, was a Sunday night tradition for fourteen seasons on the NBC-TV network. Even when being bounced around the weekly schedule (the show aired on Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays over the years), this family-style oater always got good ratings. The stars were Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon and Dan Blocker (although Roberts chose to leave less than halfway through the show's 14 season run).

The BEST OF BONANZA DVD box set is a terrific package of classic TV westerns. You get 25½ hours of programming for one great low price. This MILL CREEK collection consists of four single-sided dual layer DVDs. There's 31 BONANZA episodes here and three WAGON TRAIN shows. The list of prominent actors who appeared in these (primarily) 1960 programs is quite extensive (see below).

The BEST OF BONANZA is most definitely for all fans of early television and especially TV westerns.


The following list includes 1 to 10 poll ratings found a film website, also season/episode/airdate and guest stars for each show,

DISC ONE--
(7.2) The Gunmen (S.1, #19 - 1/23/60) - Ellen Corby/Dorothy Crehan/King Donovan
(7.5) The Fear Merchants (S.1, #20 - 1/30/60) - Philip Ahn/Gregg Barton/Alexander Campbell
(7.7) The Spanish Grant (S.1, #21 - 2/6/60) - Salvador Baguez/Holly Bane/Sebastian Cabot
(6.8) Blood on the Land (S.1, #22 - 2/13/60) - Ray Daly/Glenn Holtzman/Everett Sloane
(7.8) Desert Justice (S.1, #23 - 2/20/60) - Claude Akins/Tom Greenway/Ron Hayes
(???) The Stranger (S.1, #24 - 2/27/60) - Hal Baylor/Lloyd Nolan/Elizabeth York
(6.8) Escape to Ponderosa (S.1, #25 - 3/5/60) - Chris Alcaide/Dayton Lummis/Joe Maross
(8.0) The Avenger (S.1, #26 - 3/12/60) - Jean Allison/James Anderson/Vic Morrow

DISC TWO--
(7.0) San Francisco Holiday (S.1, #28 - 4/2/60) - Kathleen Crowley/Richard Deacon/Tor Johnson
(8.3) Bitter Water (S.1, #29 - 4/9/60) - Clarke Alexander/Merry Anders/Rhys Williams
(7.7) Feet of Clay (S.1, #30 - 4/16/60) - John Eldredge/Logan Field/Tom Greenway
(8.5) Dark Star (S.1, #31 - 4/23/60) - Arthur Batanides/Argentina Brunetti/Hugo Haas
(8.3) Death at Dawn (S.1, #32 - 4/30/60) - Paul Carr/Nancy Deale/Peter Leeds
(8.5) Showdown (S.2, #1 - 9/10/60) - Ben Cooper/Jack Lambert/Norman Leavitt
(???) The Mission (S.2, #2 - 9/17/60) - Robert Adler/Harry Carey Jr./John Dehner
(7.8) Badge Without Honor (S.2, #3 - 9/24/60) - Fred Beir/Dan Duryea/Wendell Holmes
(8.0) The Mill (S.2, #4 - 10/1/60) - Claude Akins/Dianne Foster/Harry Townes

DISC THREE--
(???) The Hopefuls (S.2, #5 - 10/8/60) - Patricia Donahue/Larry Gates/Paul Genge
(8.2) Denver McKee (S.2, #6 - 10/15/60) - Bob Barker/Stephen Cortleigh/Franchot Tone
(7.9) Day of Reckoning (S.2, #7 - 10/22/60) - Gail Bonney/Anthony Caruso/Ricardo Montalban
(8.4) The Abduction (S.2, #8 - 10/29/60) - Bob Hopkins/Barbara Lawrence/Robert 'Big Buck' Maffei
(7.4) Breed of Violence (S.2, #9 - 11/5/80) - Norman Alden/Val Avery/Hal Baylor
(8.4) The Last Viking (S.2, #10 - 11/12/60) - Neville Brand/Herbert Lytton/Ric Marlow
(9.6) The Trail Gang (S.2, #11 - 11/26/60) - Edgar Buchanan/Harry Antrim/Richard Davalos
(7.9) The Savage (S.2, #12 - 12/3/60) - Anna-Lisa/Maurice Jara/Victor Millan

DISC FOUR--
(8.0) The Last Trophy (S.1, #27 - 3/26/60) - Edward Ashley/Jimmy Carter/Hazel Court
(8.1) Silent Thunder (S.2, #13 - 12/10/60) - James Griffith/Albert Salmi/Stella Stevens
(7.7) The Ape (S.2, #14 - 12/17/60) - Leonard Nimoy/Cal Bolder/Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.
(8.7) The Blood Line (S.2, #15 - 12/31/60) - Lee Van Cleef/Thomas Brown Henry/Allan Lane
(7.7) The Courtship (S.2, #16 - 1/7/61) - Julie Adams/Paul Dubov/Lyle Talbot
(8.7) The Spitfire (S.2, #17 - 1/14/61) - Jack Elam/Claude Hall/Don C. Harvey
(???) Alias Bill Hawks (WAGON TRAIN) (S.6, #34 - 5/15/63) - Jeannie Bal/Hal Baylor/Ed Nelson
(???) The Dr. Denker Story (WAGON TRAIN) (S.5, #18 - 1/31/62) - Theodore Bikel
(???) The Malachi Hobart Story (S.5, #17 - 1/24/62) (WAGON TRAIN) - Franchot Tone/Irene Ryan/Wally Brown

The correct title should have been "Uncopy-righted Episodes of Bonanza". Obviously, Mill Creek didn't want to pay any royalties so even the theme song was substituted with a cheesy recording of the company owner's brother strumming a guitar (just my guess). My poor review is not a slight against the Bonanza series. These are actually excellent. I just feel duped because I can pull these epsidoes down off the Internet for free.

I was disappointed in this set. Some of the tracking on the disks is poor and the awful theme music is different than the series. This wonderful series deserves better.

The sound and picture quality is really good on these DVD's but doesn't have original theme song.

While I was thrilled at the prospect of having so many Bonanza episodes at one time, the sound quality is poor on one of the discs despite turning the volume up all the way on the television, and there is much freezing and skipping. This is a poor tribute to a great series. The great Westerns like Bonanza and Big Valley (to name but 2), need to be available in high quality DVDs - by season. Big Valley has made a start in this direction and Bonanza needs to be available as well.

First time I have ever ordered anything off of Amazon and not gotten a quality product. The DVD doesn't even work.

This cd is not as good as I would have like it. I'm able to watch

one of the cd's. The other's does not play at all, I tried cleaning

the cd's, and I'm still unable to enjoy watching Bonanza. If there's

away I could get my money back I would appreciate it. Because the cd's

are not good at all sorry.

I should have been suspicious when I saw how many episodes were contained in this collection on only four discs. I really began to wonder when I opened the plastic case to find first of all that the four ONE-SIDED discs are put into paper envelopes that fit into a square recess and are not secured at all. While this is bad enough, what is even worse is what I found when I began to watch "The Gunman" on Disc 1. First of all, the Bonanza theme is nowhere to be found and is replaced by some crummy irrelevent music. Why I asked myself would they do that? I had a suspicion. As I watched "The Gunmen", especially as I neared the end of the episode, I realized why the original theme wasn't used and why the episode seemed off. The episode had been cut for time! The "Romeo and Juliet" part of the episode where the son or daughter of one family secretly meets with the son or daughter of the other family they are feuding against is gone. The scene where the two fathers go into the saloon to drink to their reconciliation is split into wipes to meld it all together so that it runs shorter. At this point I turned the DVD off before it had a chance to further turn my stomach. What the heck? I have watched another collection of Bonanza episodes that was lent to me in the past and none of this foolishness took place. The theme was there in its glory. All of the episodes were in their entirety. How in the heck do you cut a show that had no nudity, no swearing and only network-approved violence? Easy, you're an idiot! I don't care what anyone else says, if the package advertises a certain tv show or a certain movie, I want the original content in its entirety as I remember it. Period. I will accept nothing less. By the way, I e-mailed the company that produces this garbage and they did not respond to me. What a surprise! Maybe they are too busy dismembering and destroying another cherished piece of classic television. A company that produces and sells this substandard product doesn't love television, only the money that they can make from it.

It would be so nice if they would come out with all 14 seasons of this show either on one big box set or one season at a time. If you ask me I'm getting tired of the same episode being released on different dvd cases. Best of Bonanza (34 episodes)Bonanza - 15 TV episodes