Bronco

Ty Hardin suffers a whipping in this episode. He shoots and kills a man in self-defense during a barroom gunfight but is then found guilty of "attempting to steal another man's woman." His sentence is 40 lashes and he's seen, stripped to the waist, tied to the town's whipping post on main street while a man lashes his bare back. After just a few blows, however, the woman who sparked the barroom fight rushes forward, proclaiming Ty's innocence, and the whipping comes to an end. Heroes of TV westerns during this era were often tied up, de-shirted, and whipped because (1) it provided an opportunity to show off the hero's physique; (2) it won him audience sympathy; (3) it injected "action" into the plot without resorting to killing; and (4) it played on viewers' sado-masochistic emotions. As such whippings go, this ranks above average because it puts the hero on good display, but it does have its weaknesses. The whip used looks too much like a rope, the whipping post seems too short for Ty's height, and the whipping itself comes to too abrupt an end. However, seeing Ty's bare torso is always a treat and here, at about age 29, he's in his physical prime.