I used to love this show. It's the reason the Seattle song exists, as this was the theme song. It was covered most notably by Perry Como and by HCTB's own Bobby Sherman.



Personal tie-in: Bridget Hanley (lower left in pic above, who played Candy Pruitt, was from my hometown, and in the 90's led a campaign to raise money to save our Chamber of Commerce building, which was an old settler's cabin from the 1880s. Her family purchased the cabin on its original site in 1946. She was successful in saving it.

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The Wikipedia entry explains Here Come the Brides better than I can:

Here Come the Brides
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here Come the Brides was a television series aired on the ABC television network from 1968 to 1970. It was loosely based upon the Mercer Girls, Asa Mercer's efforts to bring civilization to old Seattle by importing marriageable women from the east coast of the United States in the 1860s, where the ravages of the American Civil War left towns there short of men.

As a television western, it was a bit of an oddity in that it rarely featured any form of gunplay, and violence was generally limited to comical fistfights. This was in keeping with the progressive attitudes that were starting to prevail in popular culture in the late 1960s. Stories highlighted the importance of cooperation, racial harmony, and peaceful resolution of conflict. Plots were usually a mix of drama and humor. Being one of the first shows targeted at young women, most of the humor was at the expense of the men, but not particularly biting.

The show was extremely popular when it first aired, even netting Perry Como a hit single with his version of the theme song, Seattle. However, by 1970, production ceased, and the sets for the series were destroyed by a major forest fire in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.


Plot summary

In the pilot episode, fast-talking logging company boss Jason Bolt (Robert Brown) is faced with a shutdown of his operation, as lonely lumberjacks are ready to leave Seattle due to the lack of female companionship. He promises to find one hundred marriageable ladies willing to come to the frontier town (population 152) and stay for a full year. Sawmill owner Aaron Stempel (Mark Lenard) puts up much of the expense money as a wager that Bolt won't succeed, with the three Bolt brothers betting their mountain (home to their logging company).

The Bolts travel to New Bedford, Massachusetts, recruit the women, then charter a mule-ship to take them to Seattle. The local saloon owner, Lottie (Joan Blondell) takes the women under her wing, while Bolt desperately works to keep the women from leaving at the next high tide. Eventually, the women decide to give Seattle and the loggers a chance. The ship's captain, Clancy (Henry Beckman), develops a relationship with Lottie, and becomes a regular character in the series.

Much of the dramatic and comic tension in the first season revolved around Stempel's efforts to sabotage the deal and take over the Bolts' holdings. Stempel became more friendly in the second and final season, which focused more on the development of individual characters and the conflicts associated with newcomers and with people just passing through.

Bobby Sherman and David Soul were propelled to pop stardom as Jason's brothers, Jeremy and Joshua respectively. Jeremy took a prominent role, not only as the boyfriend of the beautiful leader of the brides (Bridget Hanley), but also as a young man struggling with a conversation-stopping stammer. In one episode, he is temporarily cured of his impediment, following coaching by a traveler who has come to Seattle. Upon discovering that his benefactor is actually a con artist, his faith is shaken so deeply that the stammer returns.


Music

The theme song Seattle was written by Hugo Montenegro, Jack Keller and Ernie Sheldon. In the first half of the first season, the theme was sung by The New Establishment with backing conducted by Montenegro. The vocal track was eventually removed. When the series went into syndication, the episodes with the vocal theme had it replaced with the instrumental version for uniformity. The DVD release also uses the instrumental version exclusively.


French version

The French version of the show and of the theme song (performed by a chorus of male singers) was a smash hit in French Canada, under the title Cent filles à marier (A Hundred Girls to Marry Off).


Notable guest stars

A young Bruce Lee appeared as a Chinese immigrant named Lin in a 1969 episode titled "Marriage Chinese Style". This was the only dramatic non-martial arts role that Lee played in his acting career.


Star Trek crossover

Barbara Hambly's Star Trek novel Ishmael (yes, I have it -Scout) has Spock traveling back to the time and place of Here Come the Brides after discovering a Klingon plot to destroy the Federation by killing Aaron Stempel (spelled Stemple in the book) before he could thwart an attempted 19th-century alien invasion of Earth. During most of the story, Spock has lost his memory and is cared for by Stempel, who passes him off as his nephew "Ishmael" and helps him hide his alien origins. At the end of the story, Spock discovers that Stempel is one of his mother's ancestors, which ties in nicely, since Mark Lenard also played Spock's father Sarek in episodes of the original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as several of the Star Trek movies.