Summary:  It couldn’t beat the original, but sure was good for a REALLY Lost Episode.

Rating:  T  (1,110 words)

Author’s Note:  The REALLY Losts are satires of the series written with much affection, eye rolling,  and winks.  And can be somewhat risque’.

 

Watching Ponderosa
A REALLY Lost Episode

Introduction: PAX television showed a highly publicized and greatly anticipated prequel of Bonanza in 2001-02 television season. It was a huge disappointment to many loyal Bonanza fans and was cancelled after one season. Years later, it is still analyzed, debated and discussed with passion by Bonanza fans. Some loved it, others didn’t. Many found fault with parts that were distortions of the Bonanza canon or historically warped or politically correct or badly written. Whatever the viewpoint of the individual fans, all agree it was a missed opportunity for fine show.

 

Few know the entire truth…it was shown in this REALLY Lost Episode: Watching “The Ponderosa”.

 

 

The Cartwrights were watching the tapes of “Ponderosa” on the not-yet-invented TV and criticizing all the bad points… It wasn’t an easy job, but they had been approached by the Powers-That-Be and a person known only as G. Reedy.

 

“Hoss was never that mouthy, Pa,” Adam was aghast at the implications of the “Ponderosa” tape they had just viewed. It was bad enough that the Ponderosa Adam had blue eyes and hadn’t gone to back East U and was supposed to be 21. He was kind of sissy too.

“No sir!” Hoss gasped. “Never ever never!”

“Not even Little Joe would have talked back to you that much!” Adam added.

“And we all know how much rascally trouble Little Joe got into when he was a kid.”

“Lots and lots!” Joe exclaimed proudly.

 

“Well there was the one time he pulled a gun on me in The Truckee Strip,” Ben recalled.

 

“Heck, that was different. sort of…and I really didn’t mean it, Pa. You know, I just have a hot temper like my dead Ma…REAL Marie. And I was 16 and all 16 year olds wore guns in those days. And I was a mighty hormonal teenaged rebel in those days!”

“I know you didn’t mean it.” Pa smiled BENevolently at his wild son. The boy was a handful but when the chips were down and the fists were flying, he always did the right thing like all of his boys.

 

“You always were mouthy and getting into trouble!” Adam added thinking of the shy, quiet Ponderosa Little Joe (or Petite Joe-SEF as the whiney French EXPLODED mother insisted on calling that whiney kid).

 

“And after all…every man over 10 knew how to use a firearm and anyone over 15 wore a sidearm,” Ben explained patiently. Who the heck was this woman G. Reedy to tinker with history?

 

“No 21-year-old would be arguing with his father to have a gun! ” Adam shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was getting a migraine from watching that stupid Ponderosa show and watching those strange belligerent man-hating women and that pervo Frenchie luring little boys with candy. Whoever heard of a female on the town counsel? Women couldn’t even vote until the twentieth century. And that back-talking Tess with her boobies hanging out! Joe noticed that first thing.

“I sure never, never, never would pull a gun on you Pa or speak back,” gentle Hoss sighed. “NEVER!”

“Just that one time,” Adam smiled and elbowed Joe.

 

Joe giggled as he always did and raked his left hand through his shaggy curls as he was left handed and had manly curly hair and was drop-dead handsome, as were all the Cartwrights.

“That one time?” The deranged G. REEDY Producer’s greedy deranged eyes lit up and her contact lenses spun on her eyeballs.

 

“Yes, Ma’am. I once said ‘Shut Up and Darn!’ to Pa and he got mighty angry. I threw a pillow at his head from the settee.”

 

“It was just a very small feather pillow from IKEA… Inger’s favorite store… they have Swedish things,” Ben explained further. “And we NEVER lived in New Orleans as a family. Never!”

 

“Though I always longed to go there and enjoy the wild gals at Mardi Gras!” Joe winked.

“No, Ma’am… not as a family,” Hoss agreed as he was very agreeable when it came to agreeing with Pa.

 

“So Hoss back talked to you Ben?” the G.REEDY stupid writer asked.

“But it was all a set up, Ma’am,” Joe smiled at G.REEDY. “It was Hoss’ birthday and we all figured it was a mighty good present for him to for once really let loose on Pa. You should have seen him hurl that little fluffy pillow!”

 

“Poof!” Adam smiled, flashing a very manly and handsome dimple. He wanted to pull out his gun and shoot G.REEDY but he would just bide his time and maybe she would ride off a cliff.

 

“This stupid show makes me want to hurl,” said Hoss nauseously.

 

“Me too,” agreed Adam agreeably.

 

“Me three!” said Joe.

 

“Me four!” said Pa.

 

“Don’t do me any favors!” Hop Sing said knowing that he would have to mop up the mess.

 

“And that stupid hat the wimpy father wears? Where the hell did they get that hat? Hellfire and damnation!” Ben pounded his massive fist on the table shaking the Jell-O mold Hop Sing had made.

“Australia?” Hop Sing said. “The fashion capital of western wear?“ All the Cartwrights manfully punched each others arms and drank down a second and third beer as cowboys in the old west did.

 

Hoppy wasn’t going to comment on the idiotic portrayal of the Ponderosa Hop Sing. Hell, had he been a doctor in China, there was no way he would have come to Nevada where he hadn’t had a date in a decade. He would have gone to work as a doctor in San Francisco General Hospital with Trapper John MD. Then he could have given Doc Martin a run for his money. And all that mumbo jumbo new agey feng shui vegetarian crap!

 

Knowing that they had to take this matter in hand and deal with it appropriately, the Cartwrights knew there was only one thing to be done.

 

“Ma’am?” they all said in unison. “We have a question to ask you.”

 

“Yes?” said G.REEDY, demonstrating her total lack of knowledge of Bonanza. “Anything, anything at all. Ask away!”

All four Cartwrights immediately knelt down on bended knees and simultaneously said “Will you marry me?”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzap. Just like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz being smacked by a bucket of water by Dorothy, G.REEDY immediately died.

 

“Dinnah Ready!” Hop Sing smiled as he brought out huge platters of manly roast beef and cholesterol laden mashed potatoes.

 

“Go wash up boys!” Ben smiled. “We can dig the grave after we eat… or by then the body will just disappear like always!”

*****End*****

 

Tags: Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Hop Sing, Hoss Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright