Secrets Of TV’s The Rifleman: More Than Just Guns And Good Times

The Rifleman was released on DVD from MPI Home Video in several versions. It released a single-disc DVD with five episodes, and from 2002-06 the company released six sets that each contained 20 episodes. The episodes were not released in original broadcast order; instead the sets featured random collections of episodes. The sets are out of print and are no longer available. Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, the original producer, took the rights back from MPI and is now the sole copyright owner. They started releasing all 168 episodes, in sequential order, for the very first time in late 2013.

The Rifleman was reportedly cancelled over low ratings and because actor Johnny Crawford was aging (which kids tend to do). The actor later talked about the end of the series, explaining in an interview on The Rifleman: The Chuck Connors Page, “You know, I never did know exactly why and I wasn’t too concerned at the time, because after having done it for five years, I was anxious to do something else. I felt personally that the show was getting a little stale and that the scripts were not as good as they had been. The first season, I still think, was our best, and that was our best season in the ratings.”

Crawford added, “It just lost its inspiration or something, and perhaps I had lost some appeal to others. But at the same time, that was when I was doing quite well with my recordings, so I don’t know. There had been talk of going on for one more season and trying it in color for an hour, and maybe they thought that would boost the ratings, making it more on the order of Bonanza. It might have, but by then Chuck [Connors] had gotten itchy to do something else and he was offered his series called Arrest and Trial, which offered him a completely different type of character and time period, and he took that.”

Fans of The Rifleman loved the classic western adventure series because of its main characters, Lucas and Mark McCain, as well as Marshal Micah Torrance. But many of the supporting, recurring characters were also beloved by fans. Eddie Quillan played gunsmith Angus Evans. He appeared twice in the fourth season: in “Marks’ Rifle” (episode 150) and “Conflict” (episode 155). He was a staple on Westerns during that time, appearing in shows such as Death Valley Days, Gunsmoke, The Guns of Will Sonnet, Daniel Boone, The Virginian, and The Wild, Wild West. His final TV role was Andy Griffith’s show, Matlock in 1987. He died in 1990.

Johnny Crawford was a young boy when he started working on The Rifleman, but he adjusted very well to working with adults and never felt isolated. He explained in an interview: “I had been wanting to do a series for a long time, especially a western, so I was just in heaven from the beginning, and I thought I was extremely lucky. The only adjusting that was necessary really was getting to learn everybody’s name. I had a great time and really never thought about the fact that I was a kid. In fact, I wasn’t as young as I looked in those days and felt mature because I was working with adults all the time.”