Wild West buffs looking for a respite from snowboarding and speed skating have two good docudramas tonight.
A new episode of American Experience airs at 8 p.m. on PBS and AETN. An oldie, but goodie, airs just before at 7. Both deal with legendary outlaws.
At 8 we have Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. The outlaw duo were immortalized in the 1969 film of the same name starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Butch and Sundance (in that order), and Katharine Ross as the mysterious and lovely Etta Place, Sundance’s girlfriend.
The real Butch and Sundance died in their early 40s in a shootout in Bolivia. Place, who went with them to South America, but didn’t go on to Bolivia, just sort of vanished.
How Butch and Sundance ended up in South America after a life of robbing banks and trains and hiding out (sometimes in plain sight) makes for a fascinating hour of TV.
American Experience helps the viewer separate fact from fiction concerning Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (Butch and Sundance’s real names), how they came together to form the Wild Bunch gang, and how they managed to pull off the longest string of successful holdups in Western history.
Butch and Sundance accomplished all that while eluding a small army of Pinkerton agents, the nation’s most feared detective force.
The keys to their success: Unlike most outlaws, Butch and Sundance were smart and methodical. They planned.
The special tells us, “In an era in which cold-blooded killers like Jesse James and the Younger Brothers terrorized the West, Butch and Sundance and their Wild Bunch were a new breed of outlaw.”
Parker’s life of crime began on June, 24, 1889, when he and two partners hit the local bank in Telluride, Colo. That was far more lucrative than his previous work toiling in the mines.
Knowing his crime would break his devout Mormon mother’s heart, Parker changed his name to Butch Cassidy.
Meanwhile, across the country in the grimy mill town of Phoenixville, Pa., young Longabaugh dreamed of a life of adventure out West.
At age 14, he landed a job on his cousin’s ranch in Cortez, Colo., and quickly honed his cowboy skills. When times got tough, Harry turned to horse stealing, was caught and spent a year in jail.
He emerged The Sundance Kid and soon hooked up with Butch and the Wild Bunch. They embarked on a daring spree of bank and train robberies across the West and quickly drew the attention of bank and railroad magnates and their Pinkerton hirelings.
The Pinkertons and their thousands of paid informants were seemingly everywhere. Eventually, the only way for Butch and Sundance to escape their dragnet was to flee to Argentina and then Bolivia.
Many refused to believe the movie ending that showed a wounded Butch and Sundance, cornered by soldiers, going out with guns blazing in one final sprint for freedom.
Freeze frame. Roll credits.
Says historian Paul Hutton, “We don’t want the outlaws to die. We certainly don’t want them to die the way Butch and Sundance died. As wild as they were, and bad as they were, they still represented something that Americans embrace - that wild freedom. And when they’re gone, the Wild West is gone.”
The new special will be preceded by an encore presentation of Billy the Kid. This American Experience offering also deconstructs the mythology surrounding the infamous desperado.
Bottom line: New York native William Henry McCarty Jr. was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M., on April 28, 1881. McCarty was only 21 years old.
Billy the Kid (who had adopted the name William Bonney around 1877) was soon mythologized by a never-ending stream of dime store novels that led to bigscreen dramas.
How young Henry got to New Mexico, became an orphan, fell in with a rough crowd, killed a bunch of men and ended up dead on the floor, is told in the American Experience tale.
Seth moves on. In case you missed his farewell, Seth Meyers’ last “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live was Feb. 1.
He’ll take over NBC’s Late Night on Feb. 24, replacing Jimmy Fallon, who moves up to The Tonight Show on Feb. 17.
SNL head writer Colin Jost replaces Meyers on the “Weekend Update” segment alongside Cecily Strong, starting March 1.
Another try. NBC has ordered another gay-focused sitcom pilot hoping to have more success than the recently cancelled Sean Saves the World.
The new show is produced by Ellen DeGeneres. One Big Happy will follow a lesbian who gets pregnant by her straight male best friend. He then meets the love of his life and gets married. Hilarity ensues. Hopefully.
Arkansas represented. Contrary to earlier reports, Arkansas does have a dog in tonight’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. According to her owner, Beverly Seielstad of Bella Vista, she’s a 4-year old, award-winning Doberman named Silver Grand Champion Blue Max Pretty Woman V Encore. She answers to Rainy.
Rainy will represent in the working group competition at 7 p.m. today on USA.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email: mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style, Pages 26 on 02/11/2014