Shark Bytes

I loved this show when I was a kid. Along with Combat. I always wondered however, how many men Lucas killed or wounded. Same with Little Joe, the Balclays, etc. The average cop shoots zero people in their careers. These men must have shot 100 or more each. Billy the Kid shot just a few and look at his reputation. If you added up all the guys they've shot, and added, McGarret, Cannon, Mannix, Kojak, Matt Dillon, Sgt Saunders, they would be like a gang of mass murderers lol

I agree... never jumped the shark...
Other classic guest stars that i've seen recently:
Adam West
Lee Van Cleef (The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Russell Johnson (The Professor - Gilligan's Island)

I imagine the main "industry" in the town near where Lucas McCain lived would have been coffin manufacturing and that half the town was employed as either grave diggers or rifle shell distributors. As an earlier poster noted, the size of the local boot hill must have rivaled Forest Lawn.

Yes, Lucas always gave Mark good morality lectures and training just before (of after) he killed his weeks quota of bad guys.

To me this show trails only Gunsmoke as the greatest western ever.It would have been interesting if this shows episodes would have been 1 hour long.I watch these half hour shows and when they are over,I hunger to see more.Sometimes the story lines are overly simple and you feel more psychology could have been used but that's the beautiness of the half hour episodes and that era.When Gunsmoke went to the hour long episodes it became such a complete show IMO and that's the only reason I rate it above The Rifleman.I have discovered this show these last few months watching Encore Westerns.I'd always heard of it but just never really paid attention to it when I was growing up and it was being run in syndication.Therefore just about every episode I've seen so far is a new one I've never watched before.It's wonderful.

One of the only westerns from tv,when tv was filled with them that is still watchable today. Later gunsmokes' just had matt dillon at the beginning and the end. And bonanza never deemed to leave the soundstage.
the rifle man was tough and gritty, many early shows were written and or directed by sam peckinpah.
I met chuck conners some 20 years ago at an appearance he was doing and was just great. down to eath and would listen to what i was saying. plus signed and posed for pictures at no charge. just the best.

I'm a huge fan of "The Rifleman".Jeff Connors the real son of Chuck Connors told me that they did one take on the opening scene.It was Lucas and Marks father and son relationship that inspired me.I always looked at Lucas as a father figure as I grew up watching the originals.
I have a website at fourstarproductions.com....I would like all of you Rifleman fans to sign my guestbook.Also chesk out riflemanconnors.com....It's an amazing site.This is the 50th aniversary of "The Rifleman"so lets keep the legacy of Chuck Connors alive....Thanks,RiflemanRay

This show never jumped the shark. It was a good western to watch. Someone would get into trouble and Lucas would tell Mark a moral about how things should be if you're nice and not to pick on anyway because they're different than you. People are people no matter what race, creed, religion, etc. they are.

For the idiots who comment who've never watched the SERIES (not " a show"). The body count (from the rifleman site) is about 2.5 per episode average according to Connors. However, WATCH the thing - many episodes have morality tales where a gun won't solve the problem - as easy as it would be for The Rifleman to take the easy way. Also, McCain never fired first - he was always being drawn on (or an innocent was about to be killed.)
Let's all not make up myths about a show we haven't seen, shall we? Watch the show, then make comments.

I loved the show back then..and love the reruns today. I would love to see Johnny Crawford do a modern version..only as the son of the Rifleman.

Srry that last url is http://retrovision.tv and you must have dsl/cable/t1 or higher

The Rifleman is da bomb, Kevin is da bomb. I watch every weekday it is awesome asked my mom if she watched when she was a kid she said' " i wanted to date johnny............. eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww anyway didnt bts awesome. Watch FREE episodes athttp://retrovision.comwoot!

The Rifleman never jumped. True, Lucas killed a lot less in the later episodes... but that's only because bad guys became an endangered species in the territory where Northfork was located. The "boot hill" on the edge of town must have been bigger than Forest Lawn! Micah had some good kills under his belt, just not the number that Lucas-Boy had. Had the show lasted longer, Mark would have wasted some low-lifes too.

Sorry to correct you about the number of shots fired in the intro. It wasn't eleven as you said. It was thirteen. Watching Rifleman is my favorite evening pasttime from 7 PM until 8 PM on the Western Channel. I have counted those shots hundreds of times (even in slow motion on my VCR)

Well-scrubbed bit of romanticism that it was, it still brings back fond memories.

There is a truthful element about it. Despite what the average western made during those years would have you believe, not everyone carried handguns around with them.

The shotgun, do to is multiple uses, was supposed to have been the weapon of choice for farmers, for example.

A clarification:
In the two-parter with the Mexicans who seemingly missed a lifetime of dental checkups, it was Micah who was buried alive up to his head. Lucas and Mark attempted the rescue.

Johnny Crawford's bubblegum music career was short-lived, but he still performs as the leader of an orchestra in the L.A. area.

There were soooo many future stars who we saw very early in their careers as guests on the Rifleman. Several of the "Combat!" guys were on the show: Vic Morrow, Jack Hogan (Kirby), and Conlan Carter (Doc). Don Grady(Rob Douglas from My Three Sons) was also a guest. Then you had Robert Culp, Sammy Davis, Jr., and James Coburn, among others. As someone mentioned previously, a VERY young Dennis Hopper was a guest as well.

Veteran actors included Royal Dano, Edgar Buchanan, and Jack Elam. The list seemed endless.

Encore Westerns has been carrying two episodes a night, starting at 7:00 Eastern Time.

It was hokey, and on some levels flawed when we look back at it. However, you have to imagine this show at the time it aired. It was a whole different ballgame then. If you put it in that perspective, it was one of the great weekly shows of the 60s Western genre.