Line #104 Series/FrontierCircus


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frontier_circus.jpg]]
2
3	Set in the Southwest during the late 1800s, ''Frontier Circus'' was a cross between a circus drama and a traditional Western, and starred Creator/ChillWills, John Derek and Richard Jaeckel. The T & T Circus, operated by Colonel Casey Thompson (Wills), traveled from town to town in a wagon train. Ben Travis (Derek) was the straw boss who supervised the workmen, and Tony Gentry (Jaeckel) was the advance man, who scouted likely stopping places for the circus.
4
5	''Frontier Circus'' ran for a single season on CBS from October 5, 1961, until September 6, 1962.
6
7	!!''Frontier Circus'' contains examples of:
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9	* ActualPacifist: In "The Good Fight", the circus comes to the aid of a pacifistic sect being harassed by a local CattleBaron who wants their land. The leader refuses to fight back even when armed riders burn down his barn.
10	* AdventureTowns: The T & T Circus travelled from town to town in the American southwest; finding a new adventure in every town they stopped in.
11	* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: In "The Courtship", the SouthernBelle who runs the town attempts to force Casey to marry her by impounding all of the circus' equipment and animals.
12	* AnimalAssassin: In "The Depths of Fear", the lion tamer locks his wife and his rival inside a cage and unleashes a lion upon them.
13	* ArrogantKungFuGuy: In "The Inheritance", an arrogant Japanese acrobat and judo expert joins the troupe. He is constantly getting into fights with anyone who does not follow his Japanese customs, and quickly alienates the rest of the circus. Ben eventually brings him down a peg or two.
14	* AsianRudeness: In "The Inheritance", a Japanese acrobat and judo expert joins the circus, and quickly alienates the rest of the circus with his arrogance.
15	* BaddieFlattery: {{Bandito}} leader Don Diego says that he admires Naomi's spirit after she slaps him in the face during his IHaveYouNowMyPretty scene in "Naomi Champagne".
16	* {{Bandito}}: Ben and a group of stagecoach passengers are captured by a gang of banditos in "Naomi Champagne".
17	* BatmanInMyBasement: In "Karina", Casey and Tony hide the runaway Karina in Casey's wagon, initially keeping her presence secret from Ben.
18	* BattleInTheRain: "Coals of Fire" features a fist fight between Tony and Cato during a raging thunderstorm, as Tony attempts to stop Cato carrying out his mission of vengeance.
19	* TheBet: In "The Race", a visiting nobleman bets $1,000 that his professional soldiers can beat the locals and the circus folk in a cross-country horse race. Tony becomes obsessed with winning the bet.
20	* TheBlackDeath: In "Incident at Pawnee Gun", Casey finds himself in a QuarantineWithExtremePrejudice situation when peace officers believe his chimpanzee has the bubonic plague.
21	* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: Ben does this in "The Good Fight", disarming the villainous foreman leading a lynch mob by shooting him in the gun hand.
22	* BrokenBridge: In "The Smallest Target", the T & T Circus is stranded in town after a bridge is washed out.
23	* BullyingADragon: In "The Inheritance", a group of cowhands decide to pick a fight with a judo master. Who had already wiped the floor with them earlier in the episode.
24	* CampCook: The circus' cook was called Cookie. He plays a major role in "The Shaggy Kings" when the circus' food supply is poisoned.
25	* CaptiveDate: Don Diego does this to Naomi in "Naomi Champagne": staging a romantic dinner for her that she has no choice but to attend.
26	* CattleBaron: One attempts to drive a peaceful religious settlement off their land in "The Good Fight". After he gets cold feet, his foreman murders him and uses his widow to keep the scheme going.
27	* TheCavalry: Casey and a gang of roustabouts come charging to Ben and Tony's rescue when they are pinned down by enemy gunfire while attempting to escape from the mine in "Patriarch of Purgatory".
28	* CircuitJudge: Ben is hauled before a circuit judge, who is a HangingJudge, when he is accused of murder in "Quick Shuffle".
29	* CircusBrat: Of the regulars, Ben was born into the circus and has been with circuses all his life. It is mentioned that several of the other performers come from multiple generations of circus folk.
30	* ClearTheirName: In "Quick Shuffle", Ben is accused of murder and arrested. Casey and Tony have to find some way to prove that Ben acted in self-defence before the local HangingJudge sentences him to swing.
31	* TheCollector: A mild example is Duke Felix Otway in "The Race". He specialises in finding people whose talents he admires, and the manipulating them into joining his entourage, and making it effectively impossible for them to ever leave his service. He decides he wants Tony as part of his entourage.
32	* CompressedVice: In "Dr. Sam", Casey displays levels of chauvinism he never showed before or after, simply to drive the plot about a female doctor wanting to join the circus.
33	* ConMan: In "Mr. Grady Regrets", Casey attempts to reform an old con man named Will Grady.
34	* CoolHorse: "Lippizan" centres around Ben's quest to find a replacement cool horse for the circus's blind equestrian after he accidentally causes the death of her horse. At the the end of the episode, the horse - King - single-handedly fights off a wolf pack.
35	* CorporalPunishment: In "The Daring Durandos", Ben spanks the youngest member of the Durandos flying trope for being a spoilt brat and attempting to break up the act.
36	* TheCorpseStopsHere: In "Mr. Grady Regrets", Grady enters his ex-wife's house to find her lying dead on the floor. In shock, he is sitting there talking to the body when the neighbour arrives and sees him.
37	* CrazyJealousGuy: Paco Durando in "The Daring Durandos". He threatens to cut the hands off anyone who touches his wife. His wife happens to be a NewOldFlame of Ben's.
38	* CulturePolice: In "The Courtship", the circus arrives in New Atlanta, a town with laws against public performances like circuses.
39	* CurtainCamouflage: In "The Smallest Target", Bobby hides behind a rack of hanging dresses in Bonnie's caravan.
40	* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: A rare female example in "The Smallest Target". When the T & T Circus stops in a small town, sharpshooter Bonnie Stevens encounters the husband and son she abandoned years before, and she is forced to explain why she did so. She was feeling stifled and slowly going insane on the isolated ranch, so she left the child with the ranch foreman's wife (who had no children and who she knew would dote on the boy) because she knew life on the road was no life for a small child.
41	* DiscoDan: In "The Courtship", the T & T Circus arrives in the town of New Atlanta, which is controlled by a pair of sisters who are attempting to live as if they are still in the antebellum south.
42	* DivorceIsTemporary: At the end of "The Smallest Target", Bonnie, the circus sharpshooter, leaves the circus to return to the husband and son she abandoned years before.
43	* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: In "The Race", Ben stops to help an injured rider, slowing himself down, much to Tony's disgust. Later Ben stages a fall, forcing Tony to choose between winning the race or helping his friend. ThePowerOfFriendship wins out.
44	* EccentricMillionaire: Duke Felix Otway in "The Race". An EgomaniacHunter and [[TheCollector collector of men]], he makes a $1,000 bet that his men can beat all comers in a cross-country horse race.
45	* EgomaniacHunter: Duke Felix Otway in "The Race". He travels the world trophy hunting. He also regards himself as a '[[TheCollector hunter of men]]', which is what sets the plot in motion.
46	* ElCidPloy: In "Naomi Champagne", Ben hoists the the dead body of {{Bandito}} leader Don Diego over his shoulders and holds a gun to his head. He threatens to 'kill' him in an attempt to bluff his way past Don Diego's men.
47	* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: In "The Clan [=MacDuff=]", the patriarch of the eponymous clan arrives at the circus playing his bagpipes, which spooks the animals. Ben and Tony get in a fight with his sons-in-law in an attempt to get him to stop.
48	* EvilMatriarch: In "Mighty Like Rogues", a family of thieves joins the T & T Circus and attempts to pick it clean. The main instigator is the mother, who urges her less willing children into crime.
49	* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: The Jukes, a family of thieves and con artists, attempts to take the T & T Circus for everything they can in "Mighty Like Rogues".
50	* AFatherToHisMen: In a non-military example, Colonel Thomson took a very paternal interest in all of his performers, and they often came to him to settle problems. Casey even describes them as his family, and says that he doesn't have time for two families, in "The Courtship".
51	* FemininityFailure: In "Stopover in Paradise", Ben romances the tomboyish owner of a local ranch. She attempts to become more feminine for him, but has trouble, especially with her high heeled shoes. Ben eventually tells her to take them off so he can teach her to dance properly.
52	* FeudingFamilies: The circus gets caught in the middle of a centuries old feud between two families, the [=MacDuffs=] and the [=MacNeils=], in "The Clan [=MacDuff=]". Ben and Tony have to work out how to get the couples together (while avoiding getting hitched themselves).
53	* FleetingPassionateHobbies: In "Calamity Circus", Tony is shown with a overwhelming desire to master other skills of clowning, and spends much of the episode learning how to be a clown. This is at odds with his personality in other episodes where he is happy being the advance man and shows no interest in actually performing.
54	* FrontierDoctor: Frontier doctors feature in two successive episodes. In "Dr. Sam", a female doctor from back east temporarily joins the circus as circus doctor, hoping that the circus will grant her more freedom than the straitlaced world back east. In "The Hunter and the Hunted", Tony has to fetch a doctor after Casey is badly injured in an accident, only to find that the doctor is being hunted by a gang of outlaws.
55	* GamblingBrawl: In "Quick Shuffle", Ben catches a crooked dealer cheating him at poker. The dealer pulls a derringer and Ben is forced to shoot him in self-defence.
56	* GenreMashup: Circus Drama + TheWestern.
57	* GhostExtras: The nameless extras who made the majority of the performers and crew of the T & T Circus, who generally milled around spectating while the regulars and guest stars dealt with that week's plot.
58	* GilliganCut: In "Journey From Hannibal", Casey tells Bertha that there is no way the conductor is going to throw him, her and the elephant off the train. The next shot is off Casey, Bertha and the elephant standing beside the tracks as the train pulls away.
59	* GoGoEnslavement: "Naomi Champagne", the {{bandito}} Don Diego dresses the showgirl Naomi in a very feminine gown when he forces her to have dinner with him.
60	* GoodOldFisticuffs: Both Ben and Tony are shown to be masters of bare knuckle brawling. This trope comes into play in "The Inheritance" where Ben is able to beat a judo master with nothing but his natural pugilistic talent.
61	* HandOfDeath: This technique is used in "Calamity Circus" to conceal the identity of the saboteur.
62	* HangingByTheFingers: At the climax of "Calamity Circus", the saboteur is left dangling by one hand from the trapeze, before slowly losing their grip and falling to their death.
63	* HangingJudge: In "Quick Shuffle", Ben is accused of murder, Judge Salem, the CircuitJudge, has reputation as a hanging judge. Casey and Tony have to find some way to prove his innocence before Ben swings.
64	* HighDiveHijinks: In "Never Won Fair Lady", a major part of the plot is driven by Casey trying to find someone who is willing to undertake his new high-diving act. Eventually, a milksop [[IWantToBeARealMan attempting to prove his bravery]] to win the heart of the female lion tamer takes up the challenge.
65	* HighHeelHurt: In "Stopover in Paradise", Ben romances the tomboyish owner of a local ranch. She attempts to become more feminine for him, [[FeminityFailure but has trouble]], especially with her high heeled shoes. Ben eventually tells her to take them off so he can teach her to dance properly.
66	* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The town of Purgatory in "Patriarch of Purgatory".
67	* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: {{Bandito}} leader Don Diego plans to have his way with the pretty showgirl Naomi when he captures the stagecoach in "Naomi Champagne".
68	* InconvenientlyVanishingExoneratingEvidence: In "Quick Shuffle", Ben catches a crooked dealer cheating him in a poker game. The dealer pulls a derringer and Ben shoots him. Another gambler kicks the derringer under a cupboard to get Ben arrested so he can use a doctored IOU to claim ownership of the circus.
69	* InjunCountry: Being about a travelling circus on the American frontier, episodes often take place in Indian country. The Indians are often painted as a vague background threat, with the encounters with the tribes being hostile or friendly as the plot demands.
70	* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In "The Balloon Girl", Katie points her rifle at Ben when he catches up with her to try and return her to the circus, only to discover that he had taken the precaution of removing the shells from it the night before.
71	* IWantToBeARealMan: In "Never Won Fair Lady", Red Buttons plays the milksop son of a famous general sent to the circus to toughen him up. After falling in love with the female lion tamer, he decides he wants to become brave.
72	* JabbaTableManners: In "The Courtship", Casey deliberately puts these on in an attempt to dissuade a woman who is attempting to trap him into marriage.
73	* JustFollowingOrders: The former union officer who is the target of Cato's obsession in "Coals of Fire" gives this justification for his actions (murdering Cato's master and burning the plantation to the ground during Sherman's March to the Sea) during his VillainousBreakdown.
74	* KneelPushTrip: Done by Ben and Tony when they get in argument with a mine owner in "Winter Quarters".
75	* KnifeThrowingAct: In "Karina", a woman, on the run after shooting her vicious husband, stows away in Casey's wagon. Casey agrees to let her join his circus as the target in a knife-throwing act, but local lawmen and her vengeful spouse soon arrive to exact vengeance.
76	* LittleStowaway: In "The Smallest Target", Bobby stows away in one of the circus wagons to follow his mother.
77	* MedicineShow: Casey used to work in a travelling medicine show before he founded the circus.
78	* MountainMan: In "The Shaggy Kings", Ben and Tony team up with a group of buffalo hunters. This includes an old mountain man named Tiber who laments how the West has changed since he first arrived.
79	* TheMountainsOfIllinois: "Journey From Hannibal" is set partially in Hannibal, Missouri. When Casey steps off the train, mountains are visible in the background. And the Mississippi River is curiously absent.
80	* NewNeoCity: In "The Courtship", the T & T Circus visits New Atlanta, a town founded by refugees from Atlanta who are striving to keep the spirit of the antebellum South alive.
81	* NewOldFlame:
82	** Ben encounters one in "The Good Fight". She is now the widow of a CattleBaron who is attempting to drive out a peaceful religious community so she can take their land.
83	** Happens to Ben again in "The Daring Durandos". The lead female flyer of the circus's new aerialist act is an old sweetheart of his from his days in Europe.
84	* NoMoreForMe: In "Journey From Hannibal", Casey leads an elephant into the small frontier town of Medicine Pole. The town drunk staggers out of the saloon holding a bottle, looks at the elephant, and immediately smashes the bottle before staggering away.
85	* NotMyDriver: In "Quick Shuffle", Tony takes the place a stagecoach driver in order to hijack the only witness who can prove Ben innocent of murder and drag him back to town and testify.
86	* OffTheWagon: In "The Depths of Fear", Casey hires a washed-up drunk lion tamer as a wagon driver on the understanding that her sobers up. After he is humiliated by the circus's current lion tamer, he finds a bottle in Casey's wagon and gets drunk.
87	* OneOfTheBoys: Amy in "Stopover in Paradise". The only child of a rancher, her mother dies when she was few months old and her father raised her like he would a son.
88	* OutdoorBathPeeping: In "The Inheritance", Hideko comes up on Casey and Duffy while they are bathing in a lake, offering to scrub Casey's back. Casey has to keep telling her to turn around.
89	* ParentalSubstitute: In "The Inheritance", Casey 'inherits' custody of a pair of almost adult children.
90	* PlayingSick: In "Mighty Like Rogues", ConMan Georgie Jukes claims to have a bad back that prevents him doing any heavy work.
91	* PowderTrail: Used by Ben and Tony as part of their plan to break out of the mine in "Patriarch of Purgatory".
92	* PretextForWar: In "The Shaggy Kings", the renegade Indian Michael Smith tricks Ben and Tony into hunting buffalo on Cherokee lands, and then uses this an excuse to goad the Cherokee into going on the warpath.
93	* ProfessionalGambler: Ben was a professional gambler at some time in his past. In "Quick Shuffle", he runs into another professional gambler he knew from the old days who uses a doctored IOU to try and claim half of the circus.
94	* QuarantineWithExtremePrejudice: In "Incident at Pawnee Gun", Casey is travelling with a chimpanzee believed to have TheBlackDeath. Lawmen quarantine Casey and the other patrons to the saloon, and shoot at anyone who tries to leave. Later, panicked townsfolk attempt to burn down the saloon with Casey and the others still inside.
95	* RecruitingTheCriminal: At the end of "Mighty Like Rogues", Casey hires Mrs Jukes to use her criminal skills to protect the circus from other thieves.
96	* TheRemnant: Jess Evans and his Confederate renegades in "The Hunter and the Hunted". Refused a pardon after the Civil War, they moved west and have been living as outlaws. Several are StillWearingTheOldColors.
97	* RetiredGunfighter: Tom Jace in "The Shaggy Kings".
98	* RevengeBeforeReason: Cato in "Coals of Fire". Obsessed with finding the Union officer who killed his master, Cato joined the Confederate army in hopes of running across him. After the war ended, he devoted his life to searching for him. When he eventually learns the officer's name and hometown, he joins the T & T Circus because it will be traveling there. Tony makes multiple attempts to make him see how empty his quest is, and how a man of his talents could do so much more with his life. But it isn't until Cato confronts his target and sees how pathetic he has become that he comes to his senses and leaves without killing him.
99	* RoadSignReversal: In "Winter Quarters", horse thieves move one of Tony's trail markers to send the circus up the wrong trail and strand them on top of a mountain.
100	* RoadTripPlot: In "Journey From Hannibal", Casey has to pick up an elephant from Hannibal, Missouri and deliver it to the circus in Bismarck, Dakota Territory.
101	* SandNecktie: In "Mr. Grady Regrets", Ben and Tony bury a pair of outlaws they've captured up to their necks (and threaten to keep burying) in order to extract a confession from them.
102	* ScarpiaUltimatum: In "Naomi Champagne", {{Bandito}} leader Don Diego tells Naomi he will release Ben and the other prisoners if Naomi agrees to marry him. He goes so far as to have Ben [[WhatADrag dragged behind a horse]] in order to force her hand.
103	* SheCleansUpNicely: In "Stopover in Paradise", Ben romances a tomboyish ranch owner. She eventually decides to start wearing feminine clothing, evoking this trope (although she does suffer a FemininityFailure when it comes to walking in high heels).
104	* SmallTownTyrant: "Patriarch of Purgatory" features a religious fanatic who is the mayor of the eponymous town and who runs a mine that uses slave labour. He imprisons Ben and Tony in the mine after they get too close to the truth.
105	* SobbinWomen: In a rare male example, Ben and Tony are kidnapped by a clan patriarch who drags them away to marry two of his daughters in "The Clan [=MacDuff=]". It is implied that this is not the first time he has done this.
106	* TheSoCalledCoward: In "Never Won Fair Lady", Red Buttons plays a milksop sent to the circus by his father in order to toughen him up. Although the idea of physical violence makes him ill and he allows himself to be bullied by one of the performers, he eventually performs a stunt that no one else in the circus will perform (and decks his tormentor with a single punch).
107	* SouthernBelle: In "The Courtship", the T & T Circus arrives in New Atlanta, a town run by a pair of southern belle sisters, one of whom attempts to inveigle Casey into marriage.
108	* StarCrossedLovers: Two pairs of star-crossed lovers feature in the FeudingFamilies plot of "The Clan [=MacDuff=]". Ben and Tony have to work out how to get the couples together (while avoiding getting hitched themselves).
109	* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: In "The Shaggy Kings", a renegade Indian poisons the circus' meat supply in order to force them to divert to Adobe Walls.
110	* ThatManIsDead: In "The Shaggy Kings", RetiredGunfighter Tom Jace is living under the name Jeb Randall. Every time someone accuses him of being Jace, he replies that "Tom Jace is dead".
111	* ThereWillBeToiletPaper: Happens to Casey when he attempts to shave while hungover in "Patriarch of Purgatory".
112	* TomboyishName: In "Dr. Sam", Casey is shocked to discover that the doctor he has hired for the circus is actually a woman: with Sam being short for Samantha.
113	* TragicKeepsake: In "Coals of Fire", Cato is an ex-slave hunting his former master's killer. He carries his master's old sabre, which was the only item he was able to retrieve when the Union officer burned down the plantation.
114	* VehicularSabotage: In "The Balloon Girl", Ben rigs Katie's hot air balloon so that the air valve will open when she reaches a thousand feet in case she tries to flee. She does and the balloon deflates while in the air, forcing her back to the ground.
115	* WhatADrag: In "Naomi Champagne", Don Diego has Ben dragged behind a horse in order to force Naomi to acquiesce to his ScarpiaUltimatum.
116	* WhiteStallion: In "Lippizan", Ben sets out to acquire a CoolHorse for the circus's blind equestrian after he accidentally causes the death of her Lippizan stallion. He eventually acquires, breaks and trains a white stallion named King that is half-Lippizan, half-Arabian wild stallion. At the end of the episode, King single-handedly fights off a wolf pack.
117	%%* TheWildWest
118	* WilliamTelling: In "The Smallest Target", Bonnie shoots out the flame on a candle being held by Casey.
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Context Series / FrontierCircus