Dan Blocker Didn’t Fear ‘Bonanza’s’ 13th Season, But Maybe He Should Have
By the time Bonanza entered its 13th season, it was already a television landmark. In the 1960s and early ’70s, few shows ran that long, and with Season 13 approaching, some wondered if the Cartwrights’ luck might run out. When Dan Blocker, forever remembered as Hoss Cartwright, was asked about it in an interview by talk show host Bobbie Wygant, he made it clear he was not losing any sleep over superstitions … but perhaps he should have been.
“No hon, I have been superstitious about the first year, and the second, the third, and the fourth, and so on,” Blocker joked. “I didn’t dream that the thing would go beyond the first year, and I had pretty much the same feeling every year since. So the 13th year has no particular significance other than it’s just another year.”
For him, the success of the show had always been something of a surprise, and each renewal was no guarantee the show would last.
Everett Collection
Blocker also gave a surprisingly practical take on how long Bonanza might continue. While fans may have hoped it would last indefinitely, he believed economics would eventually outweigh ratings. “I think that it could be, but I think that it’ll eventually become an economic burden for the network and the sponsors to such an extent that they will probably drop it,” he explained. He guessed the show would likely run another couple of years before costs caught up with it, noting that the backlog of filmed episodes already gave the network more than enough to keep airing.
Blocker would not live to see how accurate that prediction was. He died on May 13, 1972 during what would be the show’s 13th season, and Bonanza ended the following year. Watch the full interview below:
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