Friday, May 6, 2016

Forgotten TV: The Swamp Fox (1959)

Leslie Nielsen headlined 5 series during his career, none of which were rather successful for any length of time. The last of those series, Police Squad!, led to the "Naked Gun" trilogy, reinventing Nielsen as a comedic actor, after years of character roles.

The first of those TV series was The Swamp Fox, which was a component of Walt Disney Presents during its all-too-brief run, as 8 episodes were produced between 1959-61. Nielsen essayed the title role of Col. Francis Marion, who was the subject of a biography earlier in 1959 by Robert Duncan Bass. Amazingly, Nielsen also performed the title song.

The supporting cast during the course of the series included Disney regular Tim Considine (later to leave Disney for My Three Sons), and future 60's icon Patrick Macnee (later of The Avengers). Walt Disney himself introduces the series opener. Dick Wesson, the first announcer for Quinn Martin, is also the announcer here. I think he might've also been a network announcer for ABC during that time.

Here's the opener:



Rating: A.

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