Ponderosa Steakhouse and Bonanza Steakhouse under the Metromedia Restaurant Group. The names of the restaurants were derived from the classic TV series "Bonanza", which was set at a place called Ponderosa Ranch. In 1963, Dan Blocker, who played Eric "Hoss" Cartwright on "Bonanza", started the Bonanza Steakhouse chain. The first Bonanza opened in Westport, Connecticut. Sam Wyly and his brother Charles Wyly bought the small Bonanza restaurant chain three years later. The company grew to approximately 600 restaurants by 1989, when the Wylys sold it to Metromedia. In 1965, Dan Lasater, Norm Wiese and Charles Kleptz founded Ponderosa in Kokomo, Indiana, moving the headquarters to
The First Family (TV series) sold to stations in markets covering approximately 85% of the United States. Although the series centers around an African-American president and his family, show creator and executive producer Byron Allen denies that former U.S. president Barack Obama and his family served as the basis for the Johnson family in the series, noting major differences between the show's fictional Johnson family and the real-life Obama family: the William Johnson character is written as being the 45th president (thus, in this fictional universe, Johnson is Obama's successor, as Obama is the 44th president), the Johnsons moved to Washington from Detroit (the Obama