I used to watch re-runs of Daniel Boone when I was a kid. I don't know what I liked so much about it. I tried to watch it again a while back, but I just don't think the real Daniel Boone wore stretch pants.
But I watched a long interview with Fess Parker, who played both Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett before that. He died in 2010. Turns out he was pretty smart. He went to law school, went to USC or UCLA when he moved to LA. He spoke Russian.
He was very tall which may have saved his life. They wouldn't let him be a fighter pilot in the Navy during World War Two. Technically, he was too tall to be in the Navy at all, but they took him.
Daniel Boone was canceled thanks to the hyper-big-budget bomb, Cleopatra, starring Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. The studio poured so much money into it, they needed to sell anything they could. Daniel Boone was a top rated show, but the studio stopped production so they could put it into syndication and make some money that way.
Parker had been ripped off by Disney during his years on Davy Crockett. He was supposed to receive 10% of what they made from merchandising. Parker worked a grueling schedule promoting the show. He met with thousands and thousands of children, did frightening, socially awkward work, speaking before the Texas State Lesgislature, appearing at rodeos, shopping centers, visiting hospital pediatric wards.
But, naturally, Disney ripped him off. He said they didn't protect their trademark. Although, I suppose, it would be hard for a corporation to claim the rights to the name of an actual historical figure.
Daniel Boone was in the '60s, and Parker, as a producer of the show, tried to bring in a lot of black actors. He said he was very briefly considered for the role of James Bond, but that would be madness. He owned a winery in his later years and had Goldie Hawn and Jodie Foster bike out there to see him.
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