Bronco Bob Rides Again

Danny tries to help and old movie hero, Bronco Bob, who is down on his luck and may lose his prize horse to an old on screen enemy.

Meanwhile nothing else happens!!!

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear!  “Bronco Bob” is my least favourite episode of season 5 and a strong contender for worse episode ever as I really don’t enjoy it at all. Cowboys have never really held much interest to me and I don’t think they have much place in “Fame”.  However, after 5 years we suddenly discover that Danny loves cowboys, well Bronco Bob anyway and describes himself as "probably his biggest fan". Strange how we've never heard about this before!  

Bronco Bob is a little down on his luck, struggling to make money by cashing in on his previous success by posing for photos with his horse. However, when he can no longer meet the payments the horse is repossessed by his onscreen nemesis, Black Jack Wells who's real name is Myron Leach. Bronco Bob stole Leach's girl and Leach is bitter that Bronco Bob got better billing and more money for the movies and TV shows they did together, all those years ago and now wants the horse to be killed, stuffed and put in a museum dedicated to the show!

Well to me none of this makes much sense. Firstly we are told that Bronco Bob and Prince the Miracle horse have been partnered for more than 30 years! Wikipedia says the average life span of a horse is 25 to 30 years and that is now in 2015. Like humans horses lifespans have increased with modern medicines. However this episode of Fame is from 1985 so 30 years ago and if Prince is already over 30 he dates back to the early 50s where horses didn't live quite so long. For such an old horse he's looking pretty good on screen.

Then there's the fact that Bronco Bob is still paying for this horse 30 years later. How long does it take to buy a horse? Remember Leach says that Bob always earned more money so how come Bob doesn't own the horse outright? And how come the person who earned less money owns the horse in the first place. It's all complete drivel to me to try and build up some drama.

Also the actors still dress in their on screen clothes, white for good old Bob and black for nasty Jack! I can understand Bob dressing that way to try and make money out of his character but we see Leach in his normal every day job and he still dresses that way!  

Anyway Danny steals the horse back and takes him to the school and the horse goes wandering around the school on it's own, hiding so it won't be recaptured. It's all just so ridiculous! I assume it was deemed to be funny but personally I didn’t find it in the slightest bit funny and it was so unrealistic. Firstly Morloch and Leach hear the horse from behind the stage in the auditorium, so in an attempt to find it they leave the auditorium and go up the stairs to another floor! Why? Shouldn't they just look where the noise came from? 

By this time the horse is in the cafeteria and gets into the lift. Mrs Berg is waiting for the lift, sees the horse and waits for the next one. When it comes, and the doors close the horse immediately comes out of the Auditorium and passes right by the lift! How did he get there! Danny has just gone through the doors to the auditorium but somehow misses seeing the horse. How did the horse open the auditorium doors anyway?

Then we see Leroy and Lydia very briefly. They are dancing, see the horse and decide to pretend they didn't! Well it's nice that they had such a big part in the episode! I too wish we could pretend this horse episode didn't exist! 

The horse manages to get in and out of virtually every room in the school, pretty much unnoticed and is so clever he can open all the doors.  At one point Jesse is opening toilet doors and looking in the shower for the horse. Some of these places are too small for a horse to hide in but that doesn't stop them looking! This rubbish goes on for almost 10 minutes until Bob and Leach have a stand off, only for the horse to save the day and Bob and Danny ride off out of the school to the park and build a camp fire. Just when we think the good guys have won Leach tracks them down by following the horse droppings and steals the horse again, saying he wants $2000 for him!

So naturally the kids put on a black and white cowboy dance show where Danny plays the good guy and Jesse the bad guy, which fills another 5 minutes. The show raises more than $2000. So again it looks like the good guys win but Leach refuses to sell unless Bob gets down on his knees and begs. Bob humiliates himself and begs but Leach lied and still wont give the horse back. Just to show what a nasty piece of work he is!

Bronco Bob is broken and sees himself as a loser. Danny tries to rally his morale by telling him how important Bronco Bob was to a kid who's parents were always arguing. This is actually a good way to explain why the cowboy is so important to Danny. It's a nice nod to the continuity of Danny's family life. We then get Danny singing "The Ballad of Bronco Bob, which I always thought was called "Then There Were None" which is a good song and for me is the best part of the episode. When I originally had this episode on video I decided I didn't want to keep it because I hated it so much but I kept that song.

Anyway as Leach is about to kill Prince, Danny's pep talk has worked on Bob and the two cowboys fight, well two stuntmen in badly fitting wigs fight!  Bob wins and Leach simply gives in so Bob can have his horse back just in time for a happy ending and thankfully it's all over!!

The fact that this is one of those rare episodes where there is no other story line apart from the main story doesn't help this for me. Also the story we get is pretty weak, where good wins over evil. There are no shades of grey here. 

Many of our other regular cast are neglected or simply not in the show, Cynthia, Albert, Carol, Loretta don't even appear and Debbie only gets a brief appearance. Also the song "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" does nothing for me either!

The guest actors pretty much take over, even the horse has more to do than some of our cast! Also the guest characters are so two dimensional. There is no attempt to even make Leach likable. The fact that Bob stole his girl and he feels hard done by is glossed over. Even Morloch, who is usually our bad guy and sees everything differently to our other characters is on the good guys side this time.  As Morloch had his own girl stolen by a friend, which we found out in season 4,  there could have been some nice dialogue where Morloch tries to defend Leach and his actions but they don't even bother with anything like that. Everything here is just so back and white, with the costumes emphasizing the point just in case we missed it! 

There are two things this episode has in it's favour: One is there is a lot of outside location work so visually it does look good for the most part and two the actors playing Bronco Bob and Black Jack Wells are both actors who worked in lots of old Westerns so there is a degree of authenticity in their being cast.

Original  air date in U.S.A 26th October 1985

Original  air date  in U.K. on The Children's Channel  Broadcast early 1993.

Original air date in Italy 12th September 1987

Original  air date in France 16th February 1996