Trackdown

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Trackdown
Format	Action/Western
Starring	Robert Culp
Opening theme	Harry King
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	70 (plus pilot)
Production
Running time	30 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	October 4, 1957 – September 23, 1959
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Trackdown was a 1957-1959 CBS Western television series starring Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, a gunslinger hunting down criminals throughout the Old West. Trackdown was a spin-off of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.

Steve McQueen first appeared as bounty hunter Josh Randall in an episode which served as the pilot of his own subsequent series, Wanted: Dead or Alive, a spin-off of Trackdown launched the following year. Both series were brilliantly acted half-hour adult programs filmed in black and white with interesting directors; Sam Peckinpah directed some of Trackdown, while Richard Donner directed three installments of McQueen's series. Series star Robert Culp also wrote and directed several Trackdown episodes, and many installments were based on actual case files of the Texas Rangers, adding to the series' realism. Series regulars included Ellen Corby (who later went on to star in "the Waltons") , Norman Leavitt, James Griffith, Gail Kobe, and Peter Leeds. Trackdown was produced by Four Star Productions and was filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. Culp's character, Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman,was based in the real- life town of Porter , Texas, an unincorporated community near Houston , where he served as de facto sheriff. Occasionally, his duties as a Texas Ranger took him out of town,using his fast gun to apprehend wanted criminals throughout the Lone Star State. His friends included Henrietta Porter (Corby} , widow of the town's founder,and owner of The Porter Enterprise, the local newspaper , and Tenner Smith (Leeds}, owner of the local saloon, a former gambler and gunslinger who's past was shrouded in mystery.

Culp went on to greater fame in the TV series I Spy and the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, among dozens of other roles. Actors appearing on the show in single episodes included Vic Morrow, Strother Martin, DeForest Kelley, James Coburn, Beverly Garland, Michael Landon, and Lee Van Cleef. The series ran over 70 episodes from 1957 to 1959, was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and was itself a spin-off of Powell's earlier series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.

Decades later, another CBS series about the Texas Rangers, Walker, Texas Ranger, featured an episode called "Trackdown," possibly to pay tribute to the earlier Robert Culp series. Unlike it's spinoff series,"Wanted Dead Or Alive", "Trackdown" so far, has not been released on DVD . However, reruns of this series have been broadcast in the early 2000s on Cable's T.V. Land Network.