"Death Valley Days" is by far the most successful syndicated television western series, the most successful television western ever in the half-hour format, and one of the longest-running and most successful of all scripted syndicated series. The end of the series, coupled with the end of "Bonanza" in 1973 and "Gunsmoke" in 1975, marked the demise of the traditional Western era in American television; by the middle 1970s, although western elements were still fairly common in modern series, such as "Little House on the Prairie," pure western series were a thing of the past.