matowakita Like the other reviewers, I saw the series at a seminal time, when I'd just graduated from college, and was very influenced by it. However, having just watched the European release of the pilot on DVD, what struck me was the similarity to Easy Rider (SPOILER ALERT!) Remember the early scene in which Fonda and Hopper stop at a rural adobe farm house occupied by an old friend and his poor, but happy Hispanic family? There's an extremely similar family in Bronson. One character in Bronson is also philosophical artist, very similar to a few of the zen hippies encountered in East Rider. Also, the ultimate destination of both traveling teams is New Orleans. That's a minor similarity, but still, I think, shows much of Easy Rider was inspired by Then Came Bronson.I rated the pilot an 8, but I give it a 10 if Bonnie's character had a reunion with Michael Parks' on PARENTHOOD and they rode off together on a Harley. (full-dresser trike at their age, of course)

dbking-2 I must have been in the summer of 1969 when a friend of mine said that he had heard that they were filming an episode of Then Came Bronson near by. We were born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. So the 4 of us jumped in the car, I was to young to drive but my friend wasn't, along with my cousin who was visiting from Utah away we went to find Bronson. In the mountains of Colorado during the summer they film a lot of movies so we had to go from Hotel to Hotel in Canon City to find him, finally some one knew where he was in a rented house in some neighborhood that I couldn't find again if I had to. We pulled up in the driveway and out he came, he was friendly beyond what any of us could imagine. We sat with him and watched the Johnny Cash Show and ate carrot sticks. He was such a great guy to be so kind to a bunch of kids, none of us has ever forgotten the day or the guy. I think that the show was so popular with young men because this guy was free, just going from town to town helping people, meeting people, but it was all so simple then our generation thought we could save the world. You live on Michael, live on brother.

mishippp Then Came Bronson was seminal and what I remember most about it (since I was 12 when I saw it for the first time) was the notion that you could lose yourself in America by simply getting on a motorcycle and disappearing. The imagery was perfect for young guys like myself who were watching people come back from Vietnam, utterly broken by the events of the period. The theme of "no ties" was utterly appealing to many people who felt that any connection to the "establishment" was empty and devoid of the satisfaction one could get from simply getting lost and "being free." The main character was far less hardened than other similar leading dropouts of the same genre (Fonda, Brando, Hopper) and far less psychodelic than guys pushing the "trippy" side of late 60's America. Bronson was more of a workin man's dropout and that's what I loved about him. And the mountain climb was unique. I think a whole generation of dirt-bikers caught the bug after seeing this movie for the first time.Very cool, man.

tightspotkilo In the fall of 1969 I was in the US Navy going to a technical school that had begun several months before, and would go on for a few more months. School was 8 hours a day. At night we huddled in the TV room in our WWII vintage barracks, around an old 21" black and white, 25 guys trying to agree on one station, one show. Football, Star Trek reruns, and the World Series were no-brainers.Bronson had to grow on us, and it quickly did. It was definitely a product of the era. Route 66 for the Vietnam generation. A precursor to Easy Rider. The great wide open. There was something to the show that grabbed you, if you were of a certain age. And 19, which was my age, was the right age. Everybody I knew who was of that age and who watched this show loved it. Not many others did.But the creators of this show were a day late and a dollar short. I can't fault them too much though, because in those days many ideas were hatched on TV in an effort to glom onto the supposed youth market, but failing. It was a demographic that was on the move, and not sitting in front of a TV set night in and night out, week in and week out.Our group finished school in December, 1969, and off we went, most of us to the fleet. Some to Vietnam. Others to other places, anywhere and everywhere around the world. We watched Bronson religiously for the first 2-1/2 months of its run. We never saw it again. At least I know I haven't. But strangely it is nevertheless remembered by those who had the good fortune to catch it while they could.I don't know why it doesn't pop up in reruns, somewhere on cable once in a while.