While we’re on the subject of horses, I have to confess to a deep affection for “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.,” a short-lived (one season) TV series from the early 1990s. It is a strange and charming combination of western, comedy, action and sci-fi starring Bruce Campbell.
His horse Comet was a character in his own right: independent yet always there to help Brisco out of a jam and smarter than most of the humans, judging by Brisco’s on-screen conversations with him.
The DVD collection comes with a disc of extras, and one chapter is about horses. In it, Campbell explains that there were actually four or five horses for the one “hero” horse. I figured there had to be more than one Comet, but I didn’t realize how much TV horses specialize.
One horse had all the colorings associated with Comet, but Campbell went on to say that you’d never use a “trick” horse for a scene involving a lot of dialogue because the horse would be on alert, looking for its cue, asking, “What’s my trick? Should I do it now? Should I do it now?”
Copper was the horse for those scenes. He would just stand there no matter what was going on around him, so Campbell called him Lead Belly.
Then there was Ace, the horse that reared whenever that was called for — and in a TV western, it was often called for. But rearing is all Ace did on camera.
Before the show started filming, Campbell was sent off to train with a horse wrangler out west. Riding was a dying skill among actors, he said:
If you made a TV show in the ’60s, like ‘Bonanza,’ all your guest stars would know how to ride. Well, we’re in 1994, nobody knows how to ride. Took me a month to learn how to ride. You get these guest stars from New York City playing bad guys — these guys couldn’t ride a horse to save their life.
The writers often worked that awkwardness into the script, and Christian Clemenson, who played Socrates Poole in the show, admitted to never being comfortable around horses. But he went with it because it fit his character as a nervous, city-dwelling lawyer.
Julius Carry, who played a rival bounty hunter and eventually Brisco’s friend and partner Lord Bowler, said he’d been riding since he was little more than a toddler. He and Campbell spent 12 hours on horseback filming chase scenes for the final episode, and Carry didn’t want to go home that day:
We were playing cowboys and Indians with real toys. It was great.
Except Brisco and Bowler were on the run from the U.S. cavalry.
Head writer Carlton Cuse told his writers to keep things “just under ‘over the top.’” The result is sometimes silly, but it’s good clean fun.
Terri J. Huck 
Wold love to have that series on tv again, Really enjoyed it!!
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I miss it, too, Sandra!
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You can watch it on The IMDb tv App.
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Thanks for the tip, John! I had the series on DVD but loaned it to someone and haven’t gotten it back 😦
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I noticed in the opening credits it looks like comet’s foot coloring switched hooves. Did they flip the negative or was that a different horse?
pauldbrown264@gmail.com.
I also enjoy the show and suggest it to anyone who wants to see how the x-files could have been in the steampunk era.
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Paul — You must have a good eye! I watched the intro a few times on YouTube but couldn’t see the difference you talked about. It’s possible that the rearing horse is a different one. I don’t know how similar the various horses were in appearance. It’s awesome that people are still talking about this show nearly 30 years later
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I noticed in the opening credits it looks like comet’s foot coloring switched hooves. Did they flip the negative or was that a different horse?
I also enjoy the show and suggest it to anyone who wants to see how the x-files could have been in the steampunk era.
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I love this show. Everything about it, but especially Comet. He’s in all the best gags, he gets the best scenes and steals them. I was so sad this only lasted a season. Second best, Dixie Cousins , filing her claim all over the southwest. I often think of Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.
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I love Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles! I also love Dixie Cousins. I never made the connection between those two characters, but there are some interesting similarities.
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Been watching the series again over Netflix dvd.
Really enjoyed it when it first came out but missed most episodes.
It was aired at a really inconvenient time for working families back then.
Loved the simplicity of it and tongue & cheek joking…..nice clean fun.
Oh and the scenery was beautiful too.
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I absolutely agree! It was good, clean fun with gorgeous scenery.
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I bought the DVD set, great show, very entertaining. Great cast how they interacted together especially the young, handsome Brisco County, Jr. and how he always managed to get out of the unfortunate scrapes he found himself in. Loved the way he and Comet worked as a team. Thank you for offering this to us who grew up watching western shows. I enjoy watching my DVD set even now in 2024. It seems so realistic, great job!
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