A pilot for a reboot of this series, starring Lee Marvin as Dave Blassingame and Keenan Wynn as Burgundy Smith, was later aired on "The Dick Powell Show" in 1963, titled "The Losers."
Sam Peckinpah, the series' creator, insisted that the actors' clothing be convincingly aged and grungy--Blassingame would not be riding into town after crossing 100 miles of desert in a neatly-pressed outfit. The saloons he frequented would not be the generic Hollywood mock-ups of every other TV western; they would be so real that viewers at home could smell the stale beer on the floorboards and the sour stench of tobacco juice in the spittoons.
After the network executives canceled the series, Sam Peckinpah and Brian Keith were both suggested to continue the show but with a softer approach for larger audiences, for kids. Both men told the producers to go to hell, to "shove up their ass with it".
One episode of this series, "Line Camp," was the basis for the feature film Will Penny (1967). The episode and the film were both written and directed by Tom Gries.
The series was developed from a 1959 episode of "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre" written and directed by Sam Peckinpah titled "Trouble at Tres Cruces".
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