The Wonderful World of Disney
Disney presented several different versions of anthology programs beginning in the 1950s with Walt Disney’s Disneyland. It was this program which first aired three one hour programs which were later edited into the film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, and started the Davy Crockett craze of the 1950s. Disney’s Crockett contained elements of truth and fiction (as did Crockett’s autobiography) and for the most part remained true to history, although some elements were altered for dramatic reasons. Crockett preferred to be called David rather than Davy, and like fellow frontiersman Daniel Boone he did not favor a coonskin cap.
The huge success of the Crockett film led to another being produced, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. This second Crockett project was wholly fictional, combining the Crockett legend with that of riverboat legend Mike Fink. There is no record of Crockett and Fink ever meeting and substantial evidence that Mike Fink is a legendary combination of more than one individual. The film does introduce real life river pirates and serial killers the Harpe brothers, as well as the murderer and kidnaper Sam Mason, but they are presented as far less deadly than their real-life counterparts.
The taste of success from historical films for his young audience was pleasant for Disney, and in 1959 another obscure American hero (Crockett had been all but forgotten before the Disney films) was presented on television. This time it was Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, and the full Crockett treatment was applied including a catchy ballad to introduce the show, a distinctive cap on the head of the hero, and several episodes covering historical events which took place in the Carolina swamps of the Revolutionary War. Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen was cast as Marion.
The Swamp Fox was aired in eight episodes, and it followed the activities of Marion’s band of guerrillas harassing the British Army. Many of the incidents related in the program were based on real events and were repeated in the film The Patriot years later. In real life, Francis Marion wore the uniform of an officer in the Continental Army when in battle, in part to protect him from accusations of spying in the event of his capture. In the film the Swamp Fox did not wear a uniform. Nielsen’s Swamp Fox was not as brooding nor as violent in battle as Francis Marion. Their frequent enemy, Banastre Tarleton, was a far more competent officer than is depicted in the program.
The Swamp Fox was not as big a success as the Crockett series, and marketing deals for hats, lunchboxes, and other items were considerably less lucrative. By the time the series ended it was nearly all fiction, presented in the same manner as the cowboys and Indians westerns popular in the late fifties and early sixties. It has been a common practice of television to rewrite history when it doesn’t sell on its own merits, a practice evident as recently as 2017 in TURN: Washington’s Spies. Even in programs purported to be about history and airing on channels dedicated to history all too often what airs on television is continuation of myth, to the denigration of truth.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Combat! A Viewers Companion to the Classic WWII TV Series”, by J. Davidsmeyer, 2008
“Bob Crane: The definitive biography”, by C. M. Ford, 2015
“Boone: A Biography”, by Robert Morgan, 2007
“The General Died at Dusk”, by Jerry D. Lewis, TV Guide, May 1965
“Black Sheep One”, by Bruce Gamble, 2003
“The Medics War”, by Albert E. Cowdrey, Center of Military History, US Army, 1987