In 1967, Taeger was cast in the title role of "Hondo", as Hondo Lane, a cavalry scout in the Arizona Territory of the 1870s, based on the 1953 3D theatrical film starring John Wayne and Geraldine Page. Noah Beery Jr. portrayed Hondo's sidekick in the television series. In a 1967 interview Taeger told "TV Guide": "For a long time I couldn't get any work because people had hung a label on me as uncooperative. But I'm not; it's just that I say what I think, and sometimes that rubs folks the wrong way." After "Hondo", Taeger made only five television appearances, the last in 1983 as Brimmer in "The Rockets' Red Glare" of the Merlin Olsen NBC western series, "Father Murphy".