Yancy Derringer | |
---|---|
X Brands, Frances Bergen and Jock Mahoney in 1959.
|
|
Genre | Western |
Created by |
Mary Loos Richard Sale |
Written by | Kellam de Forest Marjorie Helper Mary Loos Richard Sale Robert Spielman Coles Trapnell |
Directed by | Richard Sale William F. Claxton |
Starring |
Jock Mahoney X Brands Frances Bergen |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 34 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Warren Lewis Don Sharpe |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company(s) | Sharpe-Lewis Derringer Productions |
Distributor |
Official Films Peter Rodgers Organization |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | October 2, 1958 | – June 4, 1959
Yancy Derringer is an American Western series that ran on CBS from 1958 to 1959, with Jock Mahoney (1919–1989) in the title role. The show was produced by Derringer Productions and filmed in Hollywood by Desilu Productions. Derringer Productions consisted of half interest for Warren Lewis and Don Sharpe as executive producers, a quarter interest to Jock Mahoney for starring in the series, and a quarter interest to Richard Sale and Mary Loos, husband and wife, as creators. Desilu had just completed the 1956 series The Adventures of Jim Bowie, which was also mostly set in New Orleans. The show's sponsor was Johnson Wax, now S. C. Johnson, and Klear floor wax was a regular sponsor.
The Sales based the series on a 1938 short story written by Richard Sale. In the 1930s, Sale was one of the highest paid pulp writers. The story was never mentioned, but it was about a destitute aristocrat and troublemaker who returns to New Orleans three years after the Civil War. In the story, Derringer has no first name; "Yancy" was added for the TV series.
The titular character, Yancy Derringer, is a gentleman adventurer and gambler. He is a former Confederate Army captain who has returned to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War. The state is under Union control and martial law. The atmosphere is similar to Germany after World War II with a strong military presence and oversight. The atmosphere is forbidding, filled with trepidation and mourning — but life goes on. The time period is the southern Reconstruction Era.
Widely respected by all parts of New Orleans society, as a southerner who never surrendered, Derringer is recruited by the Federal City Administrator, John Colton, to work as a secret agent at no pay, and only Colton knows of his special role. Often at the beginning of an episode, Colton, a former Union Army colonel, asks Yancy to help solve New Orleans' present threat and, often at the end of the episode, he arrests Yancy for breaking the law to do it. Yancy agrees to be Colton's "huckleberry," because Yancy felt the United States should be one nation again. Huckleberry was just one of many unique southern slang terms creator Richard Sale brought into use during the show. One slang definition of Huckleberry is man, guy, or fellow, as in "I'm your huckleberry."