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 Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series) The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series) The Swiss Family Robinson is an American action and adventure series that was broadcast during the 1975–76 TV season. The two-hour pilot for the series was first shown on April 15, 1975. Based upon the novel "The Swiss Family Robinson", the pilot and its 20 subsequent episodes of the series were produced by Irwin Allen, who had earlier produced a futuristic adaptation of the same novel in the TV series "Lost in Space". The series starred Martin Milner as Karl Robinson, the survivor of a shipwreck who found himself, his wife, and two