TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY - DANIEL HALLORAN ("WILD, WILD BONANZA")

There be speculation ahead, me hearties!

Daniel Halloran was the representative from the consortium of stock-holders who had invested in the mast-ship "The Wanderer" which had been captained by Abel Morgan Stoddard from New Bedford, Massachusetts.

It was Halloran who came to Captain Stoddard to tell him that the board of investors had decided to divest Stoddard of his captaincy and transfer it to his First Mate, Benjamin Cartwright.  This put Cartwright in a precarious position because he was hoping to marry Captain Stoddard's daughter, Elizabeth.

Captain Stoddard may have continued sailing the sea had it not been for the fact that his enforced retirement was part of the plan by Halloran to take control of the consortium.

What Halloran didn't count on was Ben Cartwright's love for Elizabeth Stoddard.  Ben turned down the position of Captain for "The Wanderer" to instead open a Ship's Chandlery on the New Bedford waterfront, with Captain Stoddard as his partner.

SPECULATION!

The fortunes of "The Wanderer" quickly sank with a less experienced captain at its helm, and the board of stock-holders held Daniel Halloran accountable.  Fired from his position and with a bad reputation that quickly spread all along the East Coast, Halloran eventually made his way to San Francisco.

SPECULATION ENDS.....

Only there, he soon gained a new reputation - as a crazed waterfront preacher known only by his first name of Daniel, warning the Portuguese fishermen away from working the sea.  He drummed up a lot of publicity for the threat of the undersea menace of a kraken which killed several dozen fishermen and finally even a Naval officer.

But it was all just a ruse.  Daniel acquainted himself with Admiral Charles Hammond, who had a vision for an underwater fortress.  Halloran recognized its potential - he planned to take control of it (with the help of Hammond's wife Dolores) and sell it to a foreign power.  (The kraken was an oversized puppet that Disney would have loved for his theme park.)

But first Halloran had to demonstrate its capabilities, and so he planned to destroy Admiral Farragut's frigate from the base.  Unfortunately for him and the sea devils who worked for him, Secret Service agents James West and Artemus Gordon scotched his plans.  Halloran and his men perished in an explosion down in the underwater base.

O'BSERVATIONS: Not all characters played by one actor must be somehow connected to each other.  Ted Knight also portrayed another character on 'Bonanza' (set in the "present" of the Cartwright's Ponderosa) but was not connected to his character of Halloran.

And of course, the same goes for his most famous character of Ted Baxter and to a lesser extent, Henry Rush.  They are not descended from the combination of Daniel and Halloran.  It was implied that Daniel was getting it on with Mrs. Hammond, but I'm not going to imply that she got away and later gave birth to his child in jail.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Bonanza' - "Elizabeth, My Love" [Halloran]
• 'The Wild Wild West' - "The Night Of The Kraken" [Daniel]
• 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
• 'Too Close For Comfort'

BCnU!