Boone (TV series)

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Boone is a forgotten dramatic television series which was broadcast on NBC from 1983 to 1984. It starred Tom Byrd (born 1960) and Barry Corbin (born 1940). At the age of twenty-three, Byrd played teenager Boone Sawyer, who aspires to a career in rock and roll music, despite the advice of his stern father, Merit Sawyer, played by Corbin, who wants Boone instead to join him in the automobile repair business. The setting of the series is Tennessee in the early 1950s, when great changes began to occur in popular music, with the rise of Elvis Presley.^[1] Ten weekly episodes began airing on September 26, 1983, and three remaining segments were broadcast in the summer of 1984, the last on August 11. The series was created by Earl Hamner, Jr.^[2]

Boone was the unsuccessful replacement series for Michael Landon's nine-year series, Little House on the Prairie.

Ronnie Claire Edwards (1933-2016), an Oklahoma City native who played Corabeth Godsey, the bossy wife of storekeeper Ike Godsey (Joe Conley) in The Waltons, was cast in Boone as Aunt Dolly Sawyer. William Edward Phipps (1922-2018) played her husband Link Sawyer, the owner of Link's Orchid Lounge, where Boone and his friend, Rome Hawley (played by Greg Webb), sometimes performed.^[3]

Other stars included Elizabeth Huddle Nyberg (born 1940) as Boone's mother, Faye, who wanted her son to commit to the ministry, as his older brother, Dwight, had done prior to Dwight's death in World War II. Julie Anne Haddock was cast as Amanda; Robyn Lively, Banjo; and Amanda Peterson, Boone's young sister, Squirt Sawyer.^[4]

Because Boone had such a large cast, there were few guest stars, seven of which were James Hampton, Chris Hebert, Marlyn Mason, Andrew Prine, Janine Turner, Gary Vinson, and the "Blue Velvet" singer Bobby Vinton.

A critic described Boone as "an excellent show that didn't get a chance" in the fierce competition of network television, though in retrospect, That's Incredible with singer John Davidson on ABC and Scarecrow and Mrs. King with Bruce Boxleitner and Kate Jackson on CBS, may not have seemed such formidable rivals in the Monday 8 p.m. Eastern time slot.^[2] The series was replaced by TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes. In 1987, reruns of Boone were shown late nights on The Disney Channel]

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