WIKIPEDIA: Dusty's Trail was a 1973-1974 syndicated television series set in the 1800s about a small group of travelers separated from their wagon train who become lost. Dusty's Trail stars Bob Denver as Dusty, the assistant to the leader of a wagon train, and Forrest Tucker as Mr. Callahan, his irascible boss. Twenty-six episodes of the series were produced.
The series portrays passengers of a wagon and a stagecoach that have become separated from the main wagontrain on its way to California in the 1800s. The people in this group are the drivers of the wagon (Mr. Callahan) and the stagecoach (Dusty), a wealthy Eastern banker and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Brookhaven), a dance-hall woman (Lulu), an educated man (Andy), and a farmer's daughter (Betsy). The show follows the adventures of this group attempting to find the main wagontrain.
The program was created for Denver by Sherwood Schwartz, who had previously created its progenitor, Gilligan's Island. According to U.S. television researchers Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, the reason for the program's failure was that it was too derivative of Gilligan's Island. Normally, retreading an old format shouldn't mean the early demise of a series, unless the show being emulated is a rerun icon like Gilligan's Island. Despite its exceptionally short run, it has found new life in weekly reruns on the America One network. In 1976, three episodes of the series were tied together and released as "The Wackiest Wagon Train In The West.
Denver professed on several occasions, including a May 1989 interview on KDKA radio, that Dusty's Trail was his favorite show to perform. The series also starred two Petticoat Junction alumni, Jeannine Riley (Lulu) and Lori Saunders (Betsy).
