The original âbutcherâ cover of this record was not well-received, so Capitol Records spent $250,000 recalling the 750,000 copies that had already been shipped to stores. The covers were changed, but as with most recalls, some of the original copies remained out in the world and have been sold for as much as $15,300.
The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1870s and 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series on American television to show a widowed parent raising a child.
The series was set during the 1880s, a wooden plaque next to the McCain home states that the home was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881 after the first one was burnt to the ground. Television Westerns were extremely popular when The Rifleman premiered, and producers tried to find gimmicks to distinguish one show from another.