Bonanza (TV Series) Joe Cartwright, Detective (1967) User Reviews

Right out of Foot's Mouth

[Scififan54 · 10/10 · 21 May 2021]

This is an extremely funny episode in which Joe becomes convinced a bank robbery is about to be committed.

Joe has taken to reading detective books, in particular "How Crimes are Solved" by Foot of Scotland Yard. He meets two shady characters in town and becomes convinced they are criminals. As usual he drags his trusting brother, Hoss, into it.

There are some hilarious one-liners, comedy fight scenes and funny situations as Joe and Hoss get to the bottom of the situation.

U 2 can be a detective

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 21 December 2015]

This Bonanza episode is another of the comic ones that occasionally was done, usually two or three per year. However in this case it's Michael Landon who's gotten into the habit of reading these detective novels and starting to think he can be a detective. Living out in the west and knowing what the real west was like and how hard he and his family worked to build and maintain the Ponderosa it wouldn't be likely that he'd read Ned Buntline type work. But silly detective stories might get his attention.

Watching this I can't help thinking that this was before Arthur Conan Doyle started writing Sherlock Holmes. Now THAT would have been a great role model detective. Let alone what the 20th century would bring with Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, etc. Too bad Landon wasn't reading those works which hadn't been written yet.

This story was slightly off kilter because it's usually Hoss that has these flights of fancy and it's Little Joe that sort of tags along trying to reign him in. It doesn't quite work as well in reverse.

Two strangers played by Ken Lynch and Mort Mills come to town and Landon gets the idea they're bank robbers. The rest of the episode is his obsession with the idea.

To see how it works out, watch the story.