Bonanza

Bonanza is an American Western television series created by David Dortort that ran on NBC from 1959 to 1973, centered on the wealthy Cartwright family and their Ponderosa ranch near Virginia City, Nevada, in the 1860s, following patriarch Ben Cartwright and his three sons from three different marriages. Rather than the range wars and shootouts typical of the genre, the series focused week to week on the family's internal relationships and moral choices, and it was noted for addressing social issues such as racism, alcoholism and domestic violence at a time when American television rarely did. Running fourteen seasons and 431 episodes, it became NBC's longest running Western, reached number one in the ratings by 1964 and held a top five position for nine consecutive seasons, and it was among the first television series broadcast in color, helping drive early color television set sales.