Griff King
Griff King was a former prison inmate serving out his parole on the Ponderosa. His character was rather hurriedly added in the fourth episode of what would turn out to be the final season - and not even a full season at that. Dan Blocker's death left a gap that the producers tried unsuccessfully to fill with the addition of Griff and the return of David Canary as Candy. What little backstory was given on Griff is mainly in his first two episodes "Riot!" and "New Man" with a few minor additions in "The Witness" "The Sound of Loneliness" and "The Marriage of Theodore Duffy." Had the series continued for another season or two, it's likely Griff would have had long lost relatives, friends and enemies coming out of the woodwork. Although his lack of backstory can be attributed to the speed with which his character was constructed, it was also the practice of television writers not to lock characters into too definite a family history. As shown by the appearance of the occasional Cartwright half-brother, cousin, etc., it's always convenient to give writers the option of writing into an episode a character who has some kind of emotional hold on a featured player.
Tim Matheson
Tall, clean-cut leading man Tim Matheson made a career out of playing well-to-do men on every point of the moral compass in countless features like "Animal House" (1978) and "1941" (1981), and on countless televisions shows like "The West Wing" (NBC, 1999-2006) and "Burn Notice" (USA Network, 2007-13). A former child actor who voiced several memorable cartoon characters in the late 1960s...
Griff King was a former prison inmate serving out his parole on the Ponderosa. His character was rather hurriedly added in the fourth episode of what would turn out to be the final season - and not even a full season at that. Dan Blocker's death left a gap that the producers tried unsuccessfully to fill with the addition of Griff and the return of David Canary as Candy. What little backstory was given on Griff is mainly in his first two episodes "Riot!" and "New Man" with a few minor additions in "The Witness" "The Sound of Loneliness" and "The Marriage of Theodore Duffy." Had the series continued for another season or two, it's likely Griff would have had long lost relatives, friends and enemies coming out of the woodwork. Although his lack of backstory can be attributed to the speed with which his character was constructed, it was also the practice of television writers not to lock characters into too definite a family history. As shown by the appearance of the occasional Cartwright half-brother, cousin, etc., it's always convenient to give writers the option of writing into an episode a character who has some kind of emotional hold on a featured player.
Tim Matheson
Tall, clean-cut leading man Tim Matheson made a career out of playing well-to-do men on every point of the moral compass in countless features like "Animal House" (1978) and "1941" (1981), and on countless televisions shows like "The West Wing" (NBC, 1999-2006) and "Burn Notice" (USA Network, 2007-13). A former child actor who voiced several memorable cartoon characters in the late 1960s...
