Bonanza; Ponderosa Party Time
Pop culture historians and psychologists will study the television series Bonanza from their reseach station on Mars one of these days, I know it.
What I've noticed by watching a few reruns, whenever one of the Cartwright boys gets involved with a women, it ends in heartbreak or tragedy...
"Hoss" is the biggest sucker of the family, usually played for a chump by a saloon whore or conniving gold digger.
"Little Joe" always goes for the older woman/mother image who turns out to be a gold digger or saloon whore, usually winds up getting his ass kicked bad in a fight with her gigolo or pimp.
Adam Cartwright on the other hand is smart enough to see through the ones on the make and finds someone nice, decent and sincere, she usually dies tragically of some disease or gets kicked in the head by a horse and lingers on a deathbed for the last half hour.
Old man Cartwright is as pathetic as his sons when it comes to women and always realizes in the end that it just wasn't meant to be.
The Chinese housekeeper, Hop Sing is a total idiot, as far as I've noticed doesn't have any interest in women and may possibly be queer. He keeps the boys in line and seems to be somewhat of a peculiar mother figure around the Ponderosa.
