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1000 Horse Operas Republic has long been the lead¬ ing producer of westerns. It has made movies with Gene Autry, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Elliott, Red Ryder, Don Barry, the Three Mesqui- teers. Sunset Carson and Bob Living¬ ston. In all, there are about 1000 horse operas available for television. The old Hopalong Cassidy series is still making runs at stations around the country, though it no longer is shown in the older TV cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. Made approximately be¬ tween the years 1935 and 1942, they still bring from $1000 to $1250 per showing. And that ain’t hay? • Watch out men! Al (Fuzzy) St. John, left, ^and Buster Crabbe are in trouble again. boy movies, no matter how ancient, invariably built a regular audience. A psychiatrist once accounted for the popularity of westerns by saying that the hero represents a “father image,” the incorruptible leader with whom all viewers want to identify themselves. Station WATV in Newark, New Jersey, was probably the first station in the U. S. to operate on the theory that old horse operas never die. It started a series of westerns in May, 1948, seven nights of the week, and it’s still going strong. Bob Pascow, who buys the film for WATV, estimates that horse opera audiences are in the eight-to-15 age bracket, with an astonishingly large number of older people tuned in. The average western is bought from a distributor as part of a packaged series. These series sell for varying amounts, depending on the size of the market. The cost for an individual film can run from $25 to $500—for a single showing. Except for the later cowboy films made especially for TV, such as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Kit Carson and Wild Bill Hickok epics, the average TV horse opera is four to 12 years old. Dawn Of An Era Then there are some westerns that were made shortly after talkies came in. Such old timers as Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard are making TV comebacks in the certified Hopalong Cassidy manner. The film quality of the Gibson movies is so bad that, ex¬ cept for TV, they long ago would have been sliced up into mandolin picks. Bill German, who handles the TV distribution of films for Republic Pic¬ tures (Hollywood TV Pictures), claims that all cowboy films have a “residual value.” They are aimed at the kids’ market; therefore they have an audience turnover every two years. 21