King Of The Wild Frontier

[filkertom]

Actor Fess Parker, best known for playing Davy Crockett on TV and later for his winemaking and resort hotel, has passed away at the age of 85.

Davy's theme song was pretty darn popular. Here's a recording of it sung by Parker himself:

Comments

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

The funniest thing I ever saw Fess Parker do was on Johnny Carson's show. Johnny wanted to know if Parker could throw an axe like Davy Crockett, and to test it out they pulled out a piece of board with a man's outline drawn onto it. Parker reared back, let the axe fly, and it hit the board . . . right between the legs in a spot, as my SCA friends would say, "covered neither by his armor nor by his insurance policy."

Both men lost it completely on stage, the audience roaring, Parker trying to get offstage and Johnny bringing him back each time he tried. Johnny, with his impeccable timing, waited for the audience to settle down and for him and Parker to catch their breaths, then looked at Parker and said, still trying to hold it together and not being very successful, "I didn't know you were Jewish."

[pbrim.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was Ed Ames, who played the character Mingo on Daniel Boone (another Fess Parker show). Mingo was an English educated Cherokee whose threw a tomahawk often on the show, so he was called upon to give a how-to when he appeared on the Tonight show. I remember seeing that -- Mom let me stay up late to watch the Tonight show because I had such a crush on him.

[dek9.livejournal.com]

Fess Parker was my first movie actor crush. I think I was 8 or 9 at the time and they showed Davy Crockett to us at school (this was in the '70s mind you).

Nowadays, my kids are addicted to the "Davy Crockett in Outer Space" song that They Might Be Giants does.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Here 'tis:

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

Crap, I should have looked it up first. You know how it is, when you get old the memory is the second thing to go.

I always get those two mixed up -- similar shows at similar times of my life. Thanks for setting me straight.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I never watched Davy Crocket, but I vividly recall the other coonskin cap-wearing Fess Parker TV show, and its equally memorable theme song, Daniel Boone.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Awwww...damn. =( I loved watching Davy Crockett growing up. My dad had watched it as a kid, and he introduced my little brother and me to it one summer when he was trying to figure out how to occupy us at the beach house on a rainy day.

And I still remember my very first trip to Yellowstone, sitting down in Mammoth Dining Room and just looking at the wine list because I wasn't comfortable enough with my then-future-in-laws to strike up much of a conversation. And in amongst all these fancy-sounding wines was "Fess Parker Chardonnay," and I started giggling and couldn't stop.

EDIT: I forgot, that was the summer we watched "Old Yeller" eighty bajillion times, too. I loved him in that.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Let me second the nod for Fess' turn as Travis' father in "Old Yeller," which I liked even more than his turn as either Boone or Crockett. The scene that makes me cry is not the actual shooting moment, but the one set the following day when Travis and his father have an adult talk about loss, family, and what it means to be a man while they bury the dog.

Disney should lower the flag on Fort Wilderness (Tom Sawyer Island, Disneyland) to half-staff for a day.

[laurel-potter.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that surprised me most was that he hadn't already died. I haven't thought about him in -- well, I can't remember -- but I really enjoyed him on TV back in "the olden days".

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free,
Raised in the woods so he knew every tree,
Killed him a baar when he was only three,

Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

Sung from memory. Yes, oldness, I has it. RIP Fess Parker, thanks for the memories.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

The first few times I heard that song, I thought the lyric was "Killed in a bar when he was only three." I wondered how a dead three-year-old could accomplish so much.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

That would be a great mondegreen for that wonderful website KissThisGuy.com :)