Origins of The Theme Park
The idea for the theme park came about in 1965. Bill and Joyce Anderson owned a small horse ranch, which is located in about the same area as the fictional Ponderosa on the burning map. According to the Andersons, tourists would regularly show up at their gates asking where the Ponderosa was. Smelling opportunity, the Andersons contacted NBC and Bonanza creator-producer David Dortort. They proposed turning their small ranch into a theme park. NBC, Dortort, and the cast saw the tie-in as a "bonanza" for everyone. All parties being of one accord, the cast agreed to promos being shot at the ranch site and the Virginia City set - including the nearby Silver Dollar Saloon - for financial consideration. The ads greatly stimulated revenue for the park.
The park opened to the public in 1967, complete with a scale replica of the Cartwright ranch house and barn similar to the ones seen on television. A replica of Virginia City was later added. The original plan was to open the set to tourists once filming had wrapped. However, shuttling cast and crew up to Incline Village on a weekly basis became cost-prohibitive. Thus, only 15 episodes of Bonanza were shot there. A majority of ranch-specific scenes were shot on a sound stage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Outdoor scenes were filmed on location at nearby Big Bear Lake, Red Rock Canyon, Mojave, or eastern Kern County, California. However, Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, and David Canary often made appearances at the ranch in costume to mingle with fans and sign autographs. Blocker died in 1972, and NBC canceled the series the following year. Canary, dressed in character as Candy, made his last visit there in 2002 for a PAX-TV special. Mitch Vogel (Jamie Cartwright) appeared at the ranch for the Travel Channel's "TV Road Trip" in 2002, in which he pitched a behind-the-scenes look at the Ponderosa Ranch and Incline Village. Copies of the "Ponderosa Map", autographed by three of the Cartwrights, became souvenirs at the ranch for decades afterward, along with tin cups bearing their likenesses. Episodes that were filmed entirely or in part at the ranch bear a title plate at the end of the credits. These episodes are from the tenth season through the end of the series (1968–73).
Read more about this topic: Ponderosa Ranch
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—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
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