Pickens appeared in numerous television guest shots, including a 1954 "Stories of the Century" episode in which he played the Sundance Kid to Joe Sawyer's Butch Cassidy, as well as four episodes of the syndicated Western series "Annie Oakley" (1956, with Gail Davis and Brad Johnson), and three episodes of NBC's "The Wide Country" (1962), a rodeo series starring Earl Holliman and Andrew Prine. In 1961, he had a recurring role as Johnson in the 17-episode NBC series "The Americans", the story of how the American Civil War divided families. Thereafter, he was cast in a first-season episode of NBC's espionage series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.".