Ricardo Montalban as an Indian on "Bonanza"

[Fenris]

Yet the accent is still there. It's kind of funny.

http://bonanzaworld.net/bwgallery/gallery/displayimage.php?album=22&pos=83

[wtmusic]

1. Very funny

I guess he just looked ethnic or something. :D

[Gothic Sponge]

2. Ricardo Montalban to me will always be

http://www.khaaan.com/

[Fenris]

3. "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

[hlthe2b]

4. THose really early Bonanzas are really, really kitschy .

Especially their depiction of Indians.....I can't remember all the bizarre choices for Indians, but "Mr Corinthian Leather", was not the only one...Dawn Wells (Mary Anne on Gilligan's Island) was cast as a squaw once, I know!

So incredibly hokey! That really early dialogue between the "boys" is also hilarious.... That did get a bit better with time, but the outdoor sets were so humorously fake during nearly the entire run of the show...

Nonetheless, Bonanza is a guilty pleasure--- nostalgia time...

[Fenris]

6. Oh, the show is horribly inaccurate

But nonetheless entertaining.

[Khephra]

5. Well, he is Mexican

That's in the category of native Americans by some people's accounts. At least it's not as bad as John Wayne playing Genghis Khan (speaking of Khans ;-) )

[Fenris]

7. Oh, I realize than, it's just funny that he has the accent.

[olddem43]

8. The stereotype character I always found hokey was Hop Sing

[Fenris]

9. Remarkable how ignorant the country was back then.

[hlthe2b]

10. I think there was one (and only one) episode in the entire run where

Hop Sing actually had a major story line. He goes off on a vacation and decides to pan gold. He falls for some Caucasian woman that had been hiding out and procedes to want to marry her, but upon returning to the ranch finds out it is illegal for him to marry a white woman.... I don't remember all the details, but it is the only time he was portrayed as more than a caricature...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Until the mid 1960s, it was routine for Native Americans and Asians

and sometimes Latinos to be played by white actors.

Witness Russian-American Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican in West Side Story.

Or Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich as Mexicans in Touch of Evil.

Or Warner Oland in countless Charlie Chan movies.

Or Donna Reed as Sacajawea in a movie about Lewis and Clark.

There's supposedly an obscure movie in which Katherine Hepburn plays a Chinese woman, but I haven't had the "privilege" of seeing it. (The mind boggles.)

[olddem43]

15. Native Americans were often played by Italian Americans

because they frequently have straight, dark hair and prominent noses.
The only real native American who actually played one in those days was Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on The Lone Ranger.

[arwalden]

12. Thanks For The Link... I'm A BIG Fan Of (Not-So) Little Joe...

Some of my other favorite Bonanza fan sites have disappeared... I had not see this one yet.

-- Allen

[finecraft]

13. Bonanza on TV Land now..Leonard Nimoy as a Pimp!

A very, very, very young Leonard Nimoy playing the part of "The Protector" of one of the ladies of the evening in the Virginia City saloon!

[EstimatedProphet]

14. Well, he played a Japanese businessman on Hawaii 5-0 once

with the same accent! Hysterical!