Seventy Years of the TV Show Lassie

It was on September 12 1954 that the television series Lassie debuted on CBS. The show followed the adventures of a female rough collie named Lassie. Over the years Lassie's humans would change, but the heroic dog was a constant on the show.

The character of Lassie originated in a short story by Eric Knight first published in 1938 in The Saturday Evening Post, which Eric Knight expanded into the novel Lassie Come Home, published in in 1940. The novel centred on a female rough collie in Depression Era England who journeys back to her family after they have been forced to sell her. Lassie Come Home was adapted as the motion picture Lassie Come Home, starring Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor, in 1943. The movie proved to be a success and was followed by five more movies before the television even debuted.

Even though Lassie was a female dog, in the movie Lassie Come Home, she was played by a male collie named Pal.  Some sources claim that initially a female collie was to star as Lassie, but she was replaced by Pal because she shed too much or for some other reason. Regardless, Pal would star in the next five "Lassie" movies, as well as a few first season episodes of the TV series. For the remainder of the TV series, Lassie was played by Pal's various descendents. Pal's trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, later acquired the name "Lassie" from MGM, paving the way for the television show.

The TV series Lassie was created by Robert Maxwell and Rudd Weatherwax. As mentioned above, Rudd Weatherwax was Pal's trainer, who later obtained the rights to the name "Lassie." Robert Maxwell was a writer and producer who had worked on the radio show The Adventures of Superman, as well as the first two seasons of the TV series. The show was produced by Robert Maxwell's company, Robert Maxwell Associates for its first several seasons.

For the first few seasons, Lassie belonged to the boy Jeff Miller (Tommy Rettig), who lived with his family on a farm. Jeff's family consisted of his mother Ellen (Jan Clayton), his grandfather George or "Gramps" (George Cleveland). It was the fourth season that would see the first of many cast changes on the show. George Cleveland died on June 15 1957. Gramps then died unexpectedly on the show. The Millers took in a young orphan named Timmy (Jon Provost), and then moved off the farm. They left Timmy and Lassie with his new foster parents on the farm, the Martins. The Martins were Paul Martin (Jon Sheppodd), Ruth Martin (Cloris Leachman), and Uncle Petrie (George Chandler). The old episodes of Lassie with Jeff would be rerun under the title Jeff's Collie.

Cloris Leachman was unhappy with the role of Ruth Martin, who felt it was not particularly challenging. With the fifth season June Lockhart then replaced Miss Leachman in the role. Cloris Leachman having left the show, the producers then decided to replace Jon Sheppodd as they thought children might have difficulty understand why he had a "new wife." Hugh Reilly then took over the role of Paul Martin.

Not only would the cast change, but the producers of Lassie would change was well. It was in 1956 Robert Maxwell sold the show to Jack Wrather for a reported $3.5 million. If the name Jack Wrather sounds familiar, it is because he was the producer behind such shows as The Lone Ranger and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Jack Wrather Productions would produce Lassie until the show ended its run, and even co-produced the Saturday morning cartoon Lassie's Rescue Rangers with Filmation.

Over the next few years perhaps the only major change in the show came when George Chandler, who played Uncle Petrie, left the show in 1959. It was the eleventh season that would see not only a big change in its cast, but a big change in the show's format. Paul Martin got a teaching job in Australia and so the Martins moved there. They left Lassie with Forest Ranger Corey Stuart (Robert Bray) of the United States Forestry Service. Assistant Forest Ranger Hank Whitfield was played by Clyde Howdy from 1964 to 1966. After ten years of living on a farm, Lassie then found herself having adventures in such places as Monument Valley and Sequoia National Park. It was in 1965 that the show changed from black-and-white to colour. As to the old episodes with Timmy, they would be rerun under the title Lassie and Timmy.

The cast would change again in 1968. Robert Bray, who played Ranger Corey Stuart, left the show. Corey Stuart was then written off the series as having been injured in a forest fire and then sent to recover in a hospital. Lassie was placed in the care of two new forest rangers, Bob Erickson (Jack De Mave) and Scott Turner (Jed Allan). During this period the producers worked with the United States Forest Service and many of the episodes during the era dealt with such topics as wildlife management, wilderness management, and other topics that dealt with conservation.

It would be the show's seventeenth season, and the final one to air on CBS, that would see the most dramatic change in the case of Lassie. Quite simply, the only regular cast member on the show during the 1970-1971 season was Lassie himself. Lassie was portrayed as travelling from place to place and having different adventures each week, not unlike the earlier Canadian series The Littlest Hobo (which centred on a German Shepherd). Curiously, while previous seasons had explained Lassie's change in humans, there was never any explanation as to why Lassie was no longer with the U.S. Forestry Service.

It was during the 1970-1971 season that CBS cancelled Lassie as part of the Rural Purge. The Rural Purge was a mass cancellation of shows that appealed to older viewers, rural viewers, or both. The Rural Purge took place largely because of two facts. The first was a new FCC regulation known as the Prime Time Access Rule, which cut several hours from network schedules in the hope of creating more diverse programming on local stations. Because the Prime Time Access Rule went to effect with the 1971-1972 season, the networks had to cancel many more shows than usual. The second factor was a change in CBS's programming strategy. For years both ABC and NBC had been pursuing what is known as the key demographic, people aged 18-34 living in urban areas. On the other hand, CBS simply went by the overall ratings of its shows, regardless of who was watching. It was in the late Sixties that CBS decided that they too would pursue the key demographic and cancelled any shows that did not appeal to that demographic. In the case of Lassie, CBS may have cancelled the show because its audience was too young. Like older people, children are not part of the key demo. The cancellation of Lassie was recognized by Pat Butram, (who played Mr. Haney as Green Acres), who said, "It was the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it, even Lassie."

While Lassie had been cancelled by CBS, the show as far from dead. Lassie entered first run syndication at the start of the 1971-1972 season. This season also saw another change in format on the show. Lassie was taken in by Garth Holden (Ron Hayes), the operator of the Holden Ranch, a home for troubled children. Other members of the Holden family were part of the cast, including Grath's son Ron (Skip Burton), Garth's brother Keith (Larry Purcell), and Ron's friend Dale Mitchell (Larry Wilcox).

Lassie would last two seasons in syndication, ending its run of original episodes on March 23 1973. Having been on the air for 19 seasons, it remains the sixth longest running American live action, scripted TV series. Following its original run, the show would then go onto a very successful syndication run, and was still airing on various channels as late as the Teens. While there have been no official releases of the complete series, over the years that have been several releases of select episodes on DVD. Unfortunately, the show currently seems unavailable on streaming in the United States besides unofficial videos uploaded to YouTube.

There have been multiple shows starring Lassie since the original television series, including three animated shows. At least one of these shows was a sequel to the original. The New Lassie aired in syndication from 1989 to 1992. It centred on the McCullough family, Lassie's current humans. The father of the family, Steve McCullough, was played by Jon Provost, and was later to be revealed as Timmy Martin. The Martins had never adopted Timmy, and so they could not take him with them when they moved to Australia. He as adopted by the McCullough family and began using his middle name "Steve." Other Lassie TV series have included Lassie's Rescue Rangers (1972-1973), Famous Dog Lassie (Japanese, 1996), Lassie (Canadian 1997-1998), and The New Adventures of Lassie (2014-2020).

For much of its run, Lassie performed well in the ratings. It spent ten of its seventeen seasons on CBS in the top thirty TV shows in the Nielsen ratings for the year, and four of those in the top twenty. Over the years it also received its share of awards. Lassie won the Emmy Award for Best Children's Program in 1955 and 1956. In 1956 it also won a Peabody Award. In 1967 it was awarded the U.S. Department of Agriculture Conservation Award for its promotion of conservation. Lassie was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award in 1957 and Emmy Awards in 1957, 1958 1959, and 1960, including Best Dramatic Series with Continuing Characters.

The success of Lassie would result in merchandising during its run. Dell Comics had published a Lassie title since 1950, but in 1958 the comic book began featuring stories based on the television show. Gold Key took over the Lassie comic book in 1962 and continued publishing it until 1969. When Lassie went to work for the Forest Service, the comic book shifted from adventures on the farm to adventures with ranger Corey Stuart. In addition to comic books, there were also Lassie lunch boxes, colouring books, games, Little Golden Books, and so on.

While Lassie has appeared in other television shows and movies since the 1954-1973 series Lassie went off the air, aside from the movie Lassie Come Home (1943),  it remains the best known variation on the adventures of the famous Collie. References to the show persist in popular culture even fifty one years since its original run ended. There were movies before the 1954-1973 series Lassie and there have been movies and TV shows since, but it seems likely it will remain the most famous version of Lassie of them all.