A Sunday night it was. Sunday, April 2, 1978, to be exact. One of the three giant American TV networks, CBS, was finally giving one of its new series ideas a chance to make good. Five episodes only had been ordered - planned, cast, shot and made ready for the usual tussle with the all important ratings. And, well, if it was any good, created a big enough stir, became important enough to sell soap / cars / toys / fridges / fruit juices, better still if it became really so hot that the network could increase their usual advertising rates, chances were it could go to a series. . . a full season, say, of 24 shows later in the year.

Then, they'd take another look at it before considering ordering anymore from Lorimar Productions, the home of The Waltons.

Variety, the big entertainment's trade paper, known as the Bible of Showbiz for the last 76 years, took a look at the new show. Its critic didn't think very much of it. 'A limited series,' he wrote, 'with a limited future.'

Well, you can't win them all. You can't airways spot a potential winner in the great tele-sweepstakes, not from the first episode only.

'You never know with a television series,' said Larry Hagman. 'Either it catches on or it doesn't. It goes through a cycle.' And he knew what he was talking about. He's headlined three series in all: one hit, two flops.

'I never thought this show would go,' he adds. 'But now . . . well, it's gotten kinda hysterical!'

Back in 1978, DALLAS was described quite simply - and as about as quietly as it began on the box - as a series 'of dramatic feuds in the land of the big rich.'

The Dallas team insist the show has nothing to do with capitalism, big oil, rich v. poor, the abuse of power or any social issues at all., (They may be right; there's very (little sign, for instance, of the large Vietnamese population of Dallas in the show). It's just about emotions, say the production team. And as everything in Texas is always said to be larger, 'bigger, huger, than life, so is Texas emotion.

Pretty downright miserable too when you come right down to it J.R is about the only member of the cast to be found smiling . . . and then usually because he's metaphorically stabbed yet another partner, lover, brother, or wife in the back.

'Dallas makes no demands on the system,' says its creator, David Jacobs. He's definitely right there!

We don't.get to hear that much about J.R.'s D:J., in the million column inches the papers have devoted to the series stars, but this David Jacobs is the fellow who dreamed up the Ewings and all that they've done to each other - and to themselves.

Abrasive folk, aren't they? Nothing'cosy and comfy about them. Jock and Miss Ellie, JR and Sue Ellen are far removed from Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham in Happy Days.

The Dallasers are rather more true to life, over dramatic certainly, but almost human and believable.

They're also just about the most despicable American family since Mario Puzo invented the Coreleones in The Godfather. They at least had no option. They were bom into the Mafia. The Ewings chose their path in life.

Jacobs was well-suited to his job as story editor of Family, he had a thing about investigating familial life. He was, for instance, most impressed by Ingmar Bergman's Swedish ' mini-series, Scenes From A Marriage - a mite too strong and true for American audiences. Jacobs wanted to do something similar and was working out some ideas when a CBS telexecutive suggested he move up country a bit; up the social ladder.

'Try something rich,' was the key expression.

Rich meant oil. And so, without ever going to Texas to research the place (a fact which most real~ Dallas citizens moan about, saying he's twisting the truth), Jacobs created the Ewings.

In fact, what he actuality did first was create Pamela Bames, 'this terribly good-looking, semi-trashy lady,' marrying into such a family, J.R. hardly got a smile in, at first. None of the Ewings did. Jacob's first idea was to follow young Pam's faltering steps into a rich, well-healed family nest, being greatly looked down upon and slowly, surely, winning their love and respect.

It was only when filling in the pieces - the background, the people owning and working the ranch - that things got out of hand - sensationally so. 'Then, I had to write a family,' said Jacobs. 'Before I had even got to a script, we had complicated things too much. We had created a ranch hand who brought her to the barbecue where she met Bobby. . .. . We had . decided that the family's father was once partners with her father . . and so on. There were soon just too many people in it to concentrate solely on her:'.

And so it came to pass - and there is something distinctly Biblical . . as well! as Shakespearean in this Ewing brood :Cain and Abel vs Romeo and Juliet - that Bobby . took his new young bride home on April 2 1978 The Ewings hit the roof of Southfork . ...... and let battle commence

Dallas. is was filmed both at Hollywood's MGM studios and on Texas locations in Dallas itself.

Southfork Ranch is really there right enough and owned by a Joe Rand Duncan , its now open for tourists and he sells a turf of land for $25.00.

"I don't know Texas" Admits Jacobs "i was working off the connections and Dallas sounded like pure Texas. I wrote the first draft off the top of my head. I was writing for the image and not really about the place"

What he can`t explain is why the Ewings, one of the richest families in all Dallas still live under the same roof.

Having aired in over 130 countries and people all across the world still tuning into the reruns with a whole new generation of viewers Dallas still goes on as the phenomena is was back in 1978.

 

Written by Tony Crawly. Edited and updated by Christina Gioberti