Sunday, November 2, 2008

Retro TV : "Grizzly Adams"

Grizzly Adams is the main character from The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, a 1974 film. The movie spawned a two-season NBC television series of the same name in 1977 with 39 episodes. The title character was loosely based on an actual trapper, James/John Capen "Grizzly" Adams.

Grizzly Adams (Dan Haggerty) is a woodsman who fled into the mountains when he was wrongly accused of murder. While struggling to survive, Adams discovers an orphaned grizzly bear cub whom he takes in and calls Ben. The bear, despite his huge adult size, becomes Adams' closest companion. Adams has an uncanny link to most of the indigenous wildlife of the region, who have no fear of him. In return, he resolves never to harm another animal whenever possible. In the television series, Adams had two human companions, an old trader named Mad Jack the Mountain Man (Denver Pyle, commonly featured with a mule named "Number Seven") and an American Indian named Nakoma (Don Shanks). Together, they helped various visitors while protecting the wildlife.

The series was concluded with a 1982 TV movie called The Capture of Grizzly Adams where a bounty hunter used Adams' daughter–not seen or mentioned since the 1974 film—to draw him back to civilization. In the end, Adams proved his innocence.



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