Dial File — Steve Bornfeld: Stomp 3 times if you love horse operas

Friday, Sept. 10, 1999 | 9:24 a.m.

We need that moment back. Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His television column appears Fridays. Reach him at 259-4081 or steveb@vegas.com

Long before "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place," there were Three Guys, a Dad and a Ponderosa.

Long before the punchline -- how did a 45-year-old guy have three 40-year-old sons? -- there was the series.

Long before Vegas became "Vega$," Nevada became "Bonanza."

Long before teens were TV Titans, Westerns towered over them all.

Long ago. Too long ago.

Television history saddled up with a horde of horse operas -- "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Rawhide," "Cheyenne," "The Big Valley," "Wagon Train," "Maverick" and "The Rifleman," among them -- plus "Bonanza," its 14 seasons a mere pony beside that two-decade stallion, "Gunsmoke."

Americans settled the West. The Western settled television.

Its TV legacy today? Beyond rare exceptions -- the brilliant "Lonesome Dove," the gentle "Dr. Quinn," the fleeting "Magnificent Seven" -- it comes down to that pecs-flexing Texan, Chuck Norris, kick-boxing the bandito and riding off into the urban sunset in his motorized horse.

What happened, pardner? Well, the Western, in simple socio-political-pop-cultural terms, no longer applies. On a color-coded scale of behavior, Western values were black and white. Edge-of-millennium America is solid gray. And TV paints from the palette of the times.

Straight-talkin' Matt Dillon and Ben Cartwright knew Right from Wrong. They fought for the former and battled the latter. And Kennedy (Democracy = Right) out-gunned Khrushchev (Communism = Wrong) in a global Dodge City duel.

Us vs. Them.

Flash forward 40 years: Long-winded lawyers on contentious talk shows define Right and Wrong as legalistic concepts with semantical interpretations. Clinton parses the meaning of "is." And TV's hero is "NYPD Blue" cop Andy Sipowicz, an immensely conflicted good guy (Lawman = Right) with a bad streak (Alcoholic = Wrong) whose inner demons threaten to devour his inner angels.

Us vs. Ourselves.

We've shifted from outer-directed heroics in Anything's-Possible-America to inner-directed angst in What-the-Hell-Happened-America. Westerns were morality plays before morality became an interpretive art.

The Cartwrights mirrored the Kennedys -- shining, brave, brimming with promise. Sipowicz mirrors Clinton -- overweight, obviously flawed, but convinced he can do right if given one more chance.

Different times. Different TV. Hero worship ain't what it used to be here in Therapy Nation ( I feel your pain!). And that's probably as it should be, given where we are as a country.

We are no longer the dewy-eyed nation that cheered for Hoss and Little Joe and cooed over Matt and Miss Kitty. We embrace realistic TV heroes who reflect our struggles in the get-real '90s -- and yank heroism down a few notches to a level we can reach -- rather than re-ignite some long-ago, beyond-our-grasp idealism. But buried beneath the cynicism may be a flickering tinge of regret -- and resolve.

Despite our "reality" culture -- and because of it -- we need another "Bonanza," a bracing shot of can-do!-ism to lift us from our lethargy. As Time magazine put it during the genre's heyday, the Western provides "a meaning beyond the moment."