Show 7190

Alias Smith and Jones

First Aired January 1971
Last Aired January 1973
Running Time 60 min
Country United States
Network ABC - Western

Cast
Ben Murphy Role: Thaddeus Jones/Jed "Kid" Curry
Pete Duel Role: Hannibal Heyes/Joshua Smith
Roger Davis Role: Narrator/Hannibal Heyes (ep 33---)

Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, two successful and popular outlaw cousins in the old West, decide it´s time to go straight.

The problem is that the governor just can´t give them amnesty right away, they have to prove that they deserve it. And in the meantime they will still be wanted.

Hunting them is everybody, from sheriffs to bounty hunters, to posses and ordinary people.

Hannibal Heyes/Joshua Smith is the thinker, the poker player and the optimist, while Kid Curry/Thaddeus Jones is the quick-drawing worrier who sometimes is a bit slow. Together they are Smith and Jones...

Other regular characters include "Big Mac" McCreedy, a wealthy ranch owner, who´s feuding with his next door neighbour, senor Armendariz.

Harry Briscoe is an agent with Bannerman detective agency, who´s perhaps not the brightest man around.

Clementine Hale is a woman with an enormous zest for life. She owns the only picture of Heyes and the Kid and often uses it to get them to get her out of trouble.

This show contained both humour and drama, as well as gunplay, poker games, and chases. It is said to be in part inspired by the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), but it owes equally to TV series Maverick. Peter Duel's appearance in most of the first season's episodes, with the black hat and his hair combed back, looks very similar to James Garner as Maverick. On New Year's Eve, 1971, Peter Duel died from a gunshot wound to the head. The death was officially ruled suicide though there are lingering questions both pro and con. In the pro column, Duel was fighting an alcohol addiction (he had been convicted of DWI), had been drinking that night, and was depressed over his legal problems and the state of his career, feeling that Alias Smith and Jones was hardly his best work. The runaway success of Alias Smith and Jones led to a grueling schedule for the actors, as cast and crew worked overtime to produce more episodes to keep up with public demand, and this may also have played a part. Whatever the reasons behind Duel's death, the series essentially died with him. He was replaced by Roger Davis, who had done the voice-overs in the opening credits, and the show struggled on for another half season, but it suffered from the loss of the charismatic Duel. Davis was unpopular with fans and the series was canceled in January 1973, to no one's surprise.