Featured Essay: Holiday with the Cartwrights: Bonanza Christmas On The Ponderosa

by Joseph Corey

What was my favorite Christmas album from my youth? I could act cool and claim a holiday song collection by Elvis, Dean Martin or even the Beach Boys. That would be a massive lie. My parents didn’t own any of those albums in the small record collection that we lugged across the Atlantic Ocean. During the early ‘70s my dad was stationed in West Germany. I enjoyed my childhood as an army brat abroad. We received the American experience thanks to the military bases having libraries with American books, theaters with Hollywood titles, a commissary with sugary cereals from back home and filling stations that sold gas by the gallon (a sanctuary from the metric system). The big problem of growing up near the Iron Curtain was having only one English language TV channel. 

The Armed Forces Network ran the best of PBS, ABC, CBS and NBC along with movies and a few older shows. Pretty much everything we watched on that single channel was already a rerun. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was always a few weeks old. Right before we returned to America in the summer of 1975, AFN ran the original Six Million Dollar Man TV movie. I thought I was on the cutting edge of entertainment except when we arrived in Boston, my cousin Bill let me know that the show had been on TV for years. The pilot aired in the Spring of 1973. I had a lot of primetime catching up to do. 

Which brings things back to that one special holiday record. I have such fond memories playing my parents copy of Bonanza - Christmas On The Ponderosa. The legendary TV western celebrated the holiday season on vinyl. Bonanza was the show about a father who had three sons with three different wives who all mysteriously died. My dad religiously watched the show that aired on Thursday nights at 5:40 about the time he got home. The odd start time was because AFN didn’t run commercials. Bonanza started in The Fall of 1959 and was still on the air until the start of 1973. Because of the delay in episodes, we didn’t know it was canceled. Thanks to the record album, we didn’t have to wait until Thursday to enjoy the Cartwrights. Although mom only allowed me and my brother to play the album during the Christmas season. That didn’t start until December in the early ‘70s. So for the rest of the year I stared at the festive album cover waiting for the day when mom let us put the needle in the groove.

Bonanza - Christmas On The Ponderosa starts out like an episode of the show. Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) and his sons Hoss (Dan Blocker) and Little Joe (Michael Landon) hear what sounds like an Indian attack outside their house. But it turns out to be settlers coming over to sing Christmas carols including “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” The Cartwrights invite the guests inside and Abby Morgan flirts with Ben. She seems eager to be his fourth departed wife. Hoss breaks into “Deck the Halls” with a voice that sounds like a bull eager to mate. Hoss and Little Joe tease dad about Abby Morgan’s intentions before breaking out the apple jack. For some reason nobody mentions Hop Sing cooking for the guests. It must have been his night off. Abby asks about his oldest son Adam (Pernell Robers) not being around. She’s told he’s off in St. Joe. She recalls Adam singing “The New Born King” and we hear Pernell Roberts’ beautiful voice. 

Adam was a bit of a mystery to me since AFN only showed the “recent episodes.” Roberts left the show in 1965. He was kind of like that relative that stopped appearing in family photos before you were old enough to remember them. His lack of participation might have something to do with his solo album keeping him busy. Pernell Roberts’ Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies also came out in 1963 from RCA records.

After Ben pours Abby some cider, he makes a toast to the room about friendship and Christmas. Hoss then recites “The First Christmas Trees” for the children of the recently deceased Henry Gruber. Little Joe kicks in with “Oh Fir Tree Dear.” Guess that makes up for their fictional dad biting it. Perhaps one of Gruber’s future relatives would appear in the ultimate Christmas movie: Die Hard? Abby can’t find the Christmas candles in the house. Ben ducks out of helping her by singing, “Christmas Is A-Comin’ (May God Bless You).” Somehow he’s rehearsed this new song with the musicians that came with the carolers. It made better sense as a kid. Little Suzy puts an angel ornament on the tree and this gets everyone to sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” except Ben and Joe talk over the chorus about one of the dead wives. Things get goofy when Joe belts out “Santa got Lost in Texas.” This didn’t become a major Christmas novelty song like “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” Ben tries his knack at a joke jingle with “Stuck in the Chimney” about Santa overeating the smorgasbord at a Swedish house. Abby isn’t thrilled at Ben’s sense of humor. Scene stealing Suzy demands to know why they light candles on the tree. Ben gives “Why We Light Candles on the Christmas Tree” with the chorus humming “O Come All Ye Faithful” in the background. The answer involves an unconscious half-frozen boy and people wanting to help those lost in the dark. This is supposed to be the origin story of St. Christopher although my minimal research makes no connection to the patron saint of travelers and lights on the Christmas tree. But in 1974, we didn’t have Wikipedia to call B.S. on Ben Cartwright. Things are getting late and the party breaks up with Abby making sure that Ben will be at church in the morning. Ben ushers everyone out the front door by singing “Merry Christmas Neighbor” joined by Hoss and Little Joe. After a night of flirting with Ben, Abby goes gaga when a male caroler asks to walk her home. I guess she didn’t want to join the Ben Cartwright Deceased Spouse Club. Ben and the boys are pleased how things went. Ben sits on the porch looking at the stars and delivering the monologue “Merry Christmas and Goodnight” while the departing carolers softly sing “Silent Night.” Then the needle comes off the record.

Because the album felt like an actual episode of the show, we didn’t overplay it like records that were just songs. You had to have time to listen to the entire piece and not just drop the needle on a favorite song. It wasn’t like my single of The Royal Guardsmen’s “Snoopy vs. The Red Baron” that was in heavy rotation. Back in West Germany, I thought Christmas On The Ponderosa had a connection with the show. Thanks to modern online searches, I discovered Abby doesn’t appear to be a character on the series. She was just an audio creation. I still have no idea who played the voices of Abby Morgan, Little Suzy or the guy at the end. Every non-Cartwright voice is only credited as being part of the Ken Darby singers. Do you know who they are? I hope they know they were appreciated. I do know that Ken Darby arranged, conducted and wrote the original Christmas songs. Darby was a three time Oscar winner for his work on the scores to The King and I, Porgy and Bess and Camelot. Getting him to work with the Cartwrights shows that this was a prestige project for RCA.

The album is only 29 minutes long which was shorter than an actual episode. I enjoy how this is a narrative with songs instead of just Hoss singing “Little Drummer Boy.”  Christmas On The Ponderosa made me feel like I was part of the caroling fun. This is a concept record before The Beatles had conceived of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The songs work off the action so there’s a perfect flow. Ultimately this is the Christmas party I wanted to attend as a kid.

RCA wanted more music from the cast. Lorne Greene became a pioneer of White Guys Rapping with the number one hit “Ringo.” He paved the way for Vanilla Ice, The Young Black Teenagers, Snow and Eminem. Lorne would cash in on Christmas without having to be Ben Cartwright with his Have a Happy Holiday album in 1965. The highlights include Lorne reading “Twas The Night Before Christmas" and “The Gift Of The Magi.” Mom didn’t have this one. Although this record and Lorne’s 45 of  “Must Be Santa” & “One Solitary Life” have been put together with Christmas On The Ponderosa for the compact disc that’s out now. 

While looking for information on the album, I discovered this album was a sequel. The year before people ran to their local record stores to snatch Bonanza: Ponderosa Party Time! This features a different festive hoedown that could be enjoyed outside of December. Adam is part of the fun with his brothers and dad. 

I talked to my parents about Christmas On The Ponderosa while writing this. Dad said mom bought the album. Mom told me she had no idea where the record was in the house and had zero plans to go hunting for it. She seemed relieved that I’d found a copy online. Mom wasn’t sure when she bought the album. Christmas records were her favorite gifts to hand out during the mid-60s. Luckily for us, mom hung onto a copy of Christmas On The Ponderosa that made our winter holiday seasons in West Germany feel a little more American. Time to get more apple jack.

Joseph Corey III is the mastermind of the Casino Audiophiles whose Darmstadt ‘74 album is about his youth in West Germany in the early ’70s. He is wrapping up ’80s Teen Flick Festival Guidebook: Deep Cuts that’s evolved into an autobiography that seeps out of a fictional film festival. He is the primary home video reviewer at the InsidePulse website.