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Dallas
The tie-in novel chronicles the event of the original 5 episode miniseries (now known as the first season) of the television show Dallas.
- GenresFiction
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 17, 2024
Goddam, you could get chlamydia reading this shit! (You've been warned.) Much of this is almost downright pornographic, but it's softcore, I guess. If this were filmed as written, it would get an NC-17 rating due to rapes, sex with minors, etc., not to mention some rough violence.
This covers the five episodes in the 1978 miniseries that kicked off the TV show, but that doesn't start until chapter 17 which is all the way up at page 162. Before that, we get the history between Jock, Digger, and Miss Ellie that kicked off the Barnes/Ewing feud which is the basis for the show, and it was fantastic. Since this was written at the same time as the miniseries, and Dallas lasted for 13 seasons (14 if you go by the DVD series numeration which fucked up the whole thing by calling the miniseries season one), a lot of changes happened over the next decade or so, and stuff in the book was made inaccurate. E.G. Most of the changes are relatively minor, but this is more like Dallas in a parallel universe. In the book, Bobby went to Vietnam, and he comes back a little fucked up. He can go into a murderous rage when he snaps, and while Bobby could lose his temper in the show, he never broke bad the same way he does in the book. Miss Ellie and Pam are also stronger in this. They have grit in the series, but they're fucking tough as nails in the book, and I confess that I loved it. In fact, I loved how raw and gritty this was. The only thing that keeps it from five stars is that the constant sex got tiresome after a while.
Just about. Anyway, JR is more of a cad in this in some ways, and less likable... Though that's not a great way to phrase it since there's nothing likable about him at all. He was the villain America loved to hate in the 80s, but Larry Hagman deserves almost all the credit for that. He brought a personality and charm to the role that very few actors could've managed. I think it's safe to say the show wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as it did if he hadn't been part of it. Book JR is also a little less formidable than his TV counterpart, so he's not quite as interesting.
I imagine the audience who would appreciate this is rather small. If you like gritty drama filled with sex, this will definitely work for you. I suppose it helps if you're a fan of the show, but it's not a prerequisite; it really is a good book that can stand on its own.
Okay, the book review part is done. The rest of this will involve my infatuation with the show since it was one of my sick obsessions in the not-too-terribly-long-ago-but-long-ago-nonetheless. Why talk about it? I guess because I can, and where else am I going to get a chance to gush over it? But you can feel free to stop reading here, because I reckon I'm probably the only person who'd be interested in the rest of this. You know how we self-centered people will prattle on and on about our interests even after our audience begins to exhibit signs of catalepsy, so escape while you can. I'm serious, this obsession was on par with Star Wars, and Batman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Street Fighter II, and Transformers, and probably some other things.
Still here? Well, it's your funeral.
I may not be Dallas's biggest fan in the entire world, but I'm definitely the biggest one I know. I didn't start out as a fan since I was just a kid when it came out, and it was just a boring-ass grown-up show back then. My parents didn't watch it, but grandma did, and when we were visiting the grandparents, everybody shut up as soon as it came on because you put yourself in mortal peril if you interrupted grandma while she was trying to watch it. Luckily for her, it came on at bedtime for the kids, so we got to listen to the theme song, and then it was off to bed.
And what about that theme? It's one of the greatest in television history, and it changed each season to suit the musical taste of the time. The first couple (late 70s) carried a heavy disco beat. Some in the 80s made use of a synthesizer in the background. My personal favorite is the one from DVD season eight (1984-1985). Ah, listen to that guitar lick just after the intro which is then used as the driving rhythm under the main theme. Then come the horns. Then come the strings. Then come everybody all together, complete with musical stabs for perfect punctuation. Then comes me, at least according to my friends who used to claim this song gave me an orgasm, but they were just being nasty because that's how college kids are, and I would like for the record to show that there was never a wet spot in my pants after I listened to it. Now, if they had included the descending drum beats found in first few seconds in the intro from the season before, I might not be able to make that claim, but they altered that for the season eight opening, and that's that. But so what if I had it on a CD? So what if I would occasionally put it on repeat for half an hour or so when I got drunk? So what if I still repeat it a couple of times when I'm sober? So what if I learned how to play it on the piano? WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME???!!!
My love affair with Dallas started after I stumbled upon it in college. TNN was showing reruns, and it didn't take long for me to get hooked, and I would bore all my poor friends stupid with inane details about it every day. I couldn't wait to see what shenanigans JR was getting up to, and I eventually came to appreciate all the other characters' stories as well. I also always loved to see Jock break bad on people because he was the toughest old cuss. It's a shame Jim Davis passed away after the third season.
I never skipped class to watch it (though I did honor a couple episodes of The Jerry Springer Show with such irresponsibility... Oh, the shame, the shame... But I take solace in the fact that I never did that alone. A group of us would get together if a particularly trashy episode was expected. God, we didn't have a scrap of class.) However, I taped Dallas every day to make sure I never missed an episode. I've seen all 357 episodes of the original series multiple times (though only two or three times for the last three or four seasons), and I didn't miss an episode of the reboot. I have all from both series on DVD, and am currently rewatching them. It's going slowly since I have many other interests, and I don't binge watch episodes (for anything), and I have to share the TV with others, and I don't like to watch it with them in the room because they aren't the type of people who can shut up and let you enjoy a show. (You know how some people are movie/TV watchers, and others like to talk about any old damn thing throughout them, then when they look at the show, they ask you what's going on because they weren't paying attention, but you can't tell them because you couldn't hear due to distractions, but they'd know what was happening if they'd just watch the fucking show? Yeah, it's like that.) Plus, I'm interspersing seasons of Are You Being Served? between seasons of Dallas, so I'm now about three years into the rewatch, but only halfway through DVD season 11 right now. (Sue Ellen is about to hook up with Nicholas Pearce because JR has cheated on her again if you can believe it.) Also, October is dedicated to Halloween/horror shows and movies, and late November and December to Christmas shit, and I don't have the energy to watch hour long shows during tax season, so the Dallas rewatch is mostly relegated to mid-spring to early fall. I reckon I'll finish the original series next year then move on to the three reboot seasons which I thought were fantastic even if the critics weren't big fans. (TNT really dropped the ball on that, didn't advertise it well, and put it in a pretty bad weekly time slot. Then they just canceled the shit on a major cliff hanger and wouldn't give us a final couple of episodes or miniseries for closure. I even wrote to them with that suggestion, but nooo, they couldn't be bothered. Bastards.)
I could recall most of the plotlines of the first ten seasons because they're more interesting, TNN showed them more often before they released the later seasons, and, frankly, the last few seasons go downhill. In fact, Dallas died one of the slowest deaths in television, and it probably should've been put out of its misery a couple of years before it was. Anyway, I'm now into forgotten territory since I haven't seen these later episodes in 25 years. I have no recollection of the Dandy plotline, and I got nothing on Casey Denault who is apparently kind of important in this season, and that's surprising since he's kind of easy on the eyes and I usually remember attractive dudes. All I really remember is some stuff with Nicholas Pearce, and mostly it's his mullet I remember because mullets are so hideously memorable whether you want to remember them or not. It's kind of cool to be watching it fresh, but only kind of since these seasons aren't as good as the earlier ones.
But I'm ahead of myself. Obsession. I'm not sure if that word does it justice. In college, I printed out several pictures of the cast members in the computer lab (black and white was the only option back then), cut them out, and had them tacked up all over my bulletin board behind my computer monitor. My friends thought this looked like a collage of family members and found it rather humorous. When I was bored in class and in danger of czonking out, Dallas references were scribbled in the margins of my notes to keep me awake. I reworked the opening credits in my head all the time to reflect my circle of friends and changed the name of the show to the name of my college, and I had fun imagining which pictures of them I'd use. I scribbled out the season ending cliffhangers to see if I could remember them. (Is it any wonder I was a C student?) I even managed to slip a couple of clips into a presentation in my ethics class, and I still drop some of JR's lines in casual conversation from time to time.
(Stated when asked how he could possibly live with himself, though I apply it to others, usually politicians.)
One time I busted my head wide open after falling into my desk. As I lay there bleeding all over the floor, drunk as a fart and in hysterics because I thought I was going to die or something, and I was reciting genealogical bloodlines or some shit, one of my more ingenious friends got me to chill by asking "Hey, Pierce! What happened on Dallas today?" "Oh, well Bobby did blah, blah, blah, and Pam was all yadda yadda, but JR's got her number, and gonna get Cliff, and etc., so on, and further," and that kept me distracted and babbling until security showed up, and the police (who took pity on this prating nincompoop and didn't bother with any kind of underage drinking charge), and the paramedics who hauled me off to the hospital to get stitched up, though I think they had a hard time changing the subject to find out what happened to me. (Luckily my friends were able to fill in the details.) The party actually just moved to the hospital parking lot and waiting room because there really was nothing to do in Danville. Anyway, it was Dallas which got me calmed down, apparently.
I have (or maybe had since they're currently not where I thought they'd be) two 500 piece puzzles, one with this image:
(This was missing at least one piece.)
This was the other:
(This was missing a few pieces. Such is the danger of buying used puzzles on Ebay.)
I even have a bunch of Dallas bubble gum cards, for Christ's sake!
And if we're using that as a measuring stick, this means that the early cast of Dallas is greater than Beethoven if Lucy Van Pelt is to be believed.
Just to be clear, the cards I got were over 20 years old when I got them, and most of the gum had crumbled to dust, so I didn't get to chew any of it. This could be considered a sad state of affairs, but if memory of my Garbage Pail Kids serves me correctly, the gum with bubblegum cards usually wasn't worth chewing even when it was fresh. It crunched into pieces until you got enough saliva into it to meld it into a wad, and the taste would fade after a couple of minutes, but this was a blessing since it usually tasted like chalk.
I have not one, but two of this Christmas tree ornament:
One for my tree at home, one for the office tree at work. We all had to bring in an ornament for the tree one year, and the game was to guess who brought which ornament. Only my mother got mine because everyone thought I brought the R2-D2 since they all know of my Star Wars obsession. I thanked the person who brought that since it threw everyone off the scent.
A book I started writing (which I'm pretty sure will never be finished) has a main character named JR, though he's nothing like JR Ewing. He was named such because his parents were fans of the show, and his deadbeat dad insisted on his son having those initials.
A picture story I wrote years ago features this opening image:
You can see the font I used. I know it isn't a perfect likeness, but that's the best I could do with the Photoshop version I had.
...Maybe I should seek professional help.
This covers the five episodes in the 1978 miniseries that kicked off the TV show, but that doesn't start until chapter 17 which is all the way up at page 162. Before that, we get the history between Jock, Digger, and Miss Ellie that kicked off the Barnes/Ewing feud which is the basis for the show, and it was fantastic. Since this was written at the same time as the miniseries, and Dallas lasted for 13 seasons (14 if you go by the DVD series numeration which fucked up the whole thing by calling the miniseries season one), a lot of changes happened over the next decade or so, and stuff in the book was made inaccurate. E.G. Most of the changes are relatively minor, but this is more like Dallas in a parallel universe. In the book, Bobby went to Vietnam, and he comes back a little fucked up. He can go into a murderous rage when he snaps, and while Bobby could lose his temper in the show, he never broke bad the same way he does in the book. Miss Ellie and Pam are also stronger in this. They have grit in the series, but they're fucking tough as nails in the book, and I confess that I loved it. In fact, I loved how raw and gritty this was. The only thing that keeps it from five stars is that the constant sex got tiresome after a while.
Just about. Anyway, JR is more of a cad in this in some ways, and less likable... Though that's not a great way to phrase it since there's nothing likable about him at all. He was the villain America loved to hate in the 80s, but Larry Hagman deserves almost all the credit for that. He brought a personality and charm to the role that very few actors could've managed. I think it's safe to say the show wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as it did if he hadn't been part of it. Book JR is also a little less formidable than his TV counterpart, so he's not quite as interesting.
I imagine the audience who would appreciate this is rather small. If you like gritty drama filled with sex, this will definitely work for you. I suppose it helps if you're a fan of the show, but it's not a prerequisite; it really is a good book that can stand on its own.
Okay, the book review part is done. The rest of this will involve my infatuation with the show since it was one of my sick obsessions in the not-too-terribly-long-ago-but-long-ago-nonetheless. Why talk about it? I guess because I can, and where else am I going to get a chance to gush over it? But you can feel free to stop reading here, because I reckon I'm probably the only person who'd be interested in the rest of this. You know how we self-centered people will prattle on and on about our interests even after our audience begins to exhibit signs of catalepsy, so escape while you can. I'm serious, this obsession was on par with Star Wars, and Batman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Street Fighter II, and Transformers, and probably some other things.
Still here? Well, it's your funeral.
I may not be Dallas's biggest fan in the entire world, but I'm definitely the biggest one I know. I didn't start out as a fan since I was just a kid when it came out, and it was just a boring-ass grown-up show back then. My parents didn't watch it, but grandma did, and when we were visiting the grandparents, everybody shut up as soon as it came on because you put yourself in mortal peril if you interrupted grandma while she was trying to watch it. Luckily for her, it came on at bedtime for the kids, so we got to listen to the theme song, and then it was off to bed.
And what about that theme? It's one of the greatest in television history, and it changed each season to suit the musical taste of the time. The first couple (late 70s) carried a heavy disco beat. Some in the 80s made use of a synthesizer in the background. My personal favorite is the one from DVD season eight (1984-1985). Ah, listen to that guitar lick just after the intro which is then used as the driving rhythm under the main theme. Then come the horns. Then come the strings. Then come everybody all together, complete with musical stabs for perfect punctuation. Then comes me, at least according to my friends who used to claim this song gave me an orgasm, but they were just being nasty because that's how college kids are, and I would like for the record to show that there was never a wet spot in my pants after I listened to it. Now, if they had included the descending drum beats found in first few seconds in the intro from the season before, I might not be able to make that claim, but they altered that for the season eight opening, and that's that. But so what if I had it on a CD? So what if I would occasionally put it on repeat for half an hour or so when I got drunk? So what if I still repeat it a couple of times when I'm sober? So what if I learned how to play it on the piano? WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME???!!!
My love affair with Dallas started after I stumbled upon it in college. TNN was showing reruns, and it didn't take long for me to get hooked, and I would bore all my poor friends stupid with inane details about it every day. I couldn't wait to see what shenanigans JR was getting up to, and I eventually came to appreciate all the other characters' stories as well. I also always loved to see Jock break bad on people because he was the toughest old cuss. It's a shame Jim Davis passed away after the third season.
I never skipped class to watch it (though I did honor a couple episodes of The Jerry Springer Show with such irresponsibility... Oh, the shame, the shame... But I take solace in the fact that I never did that alone. A group of us would get together if a particularly trashy episode was expected. God, we didn't have a scrap of class.) However, I taped Dallas every day to make sure I never missed an episode. I've seen all 357 episodes of the original series multiple times (though only two or three times for the last three or four seasons), and I didn't miss an episode of the reboot. I have all from both series on DVD, and am currently rewatching them. It's going slowly since I have many other interests, and I don't binge watch episodes (for anything), and I have to share the TV with others, and I don't like to watch it with them in the room because they aren't the type of people who can shut up and let you enjoy a show. (You know how some people are movie/TV watchers, and others like to talk about any old damn thing throughout them, then when they look at the show, they ask you what's going on because they weren't paying attention, but you can't tell them because you couldn't hear due to distractions, but they'd know what was happening if they'd just watch the fucking show? Yeah, it's like that.) Plus, I'm interspersing seasons of Are You Being Served? between seasons of Dallas, so I'm now about three years into the rewatch, but only halfway through DVD season 11 right now. (Sue Ellen is about to hook up with Nicholas Pearce because JR has cheated on her again if you can believe it.) Also, October is dedicated to Halloween/horror shows and movies, and late November and December to Christmas shit, and I don't have the energy to watch hour long shows during tax season, so the Dallas rewatch is mostly relegated to mid-spring to early fall. I reckon I'll finish the original series next year then move on to the three reboot seasons which I thought were fantastic even if the critics weren't big fans. (TNT really dropped the ball on that, didn't advertise it well, and put it in a pretty bad weekly time slot. Then they just canceled the shit on a major cliff hanger and wouldn't give us a final couple of episodes or miniseries for closure. I even wrote to them with that suggestion, but nooo, they couldn't be bothered. Bastards.)
I could recall most of the plotlines of the first ten seasons because they're more interesting, TNN showed them more often before they released the later seasons, and, frankly, the last few seasons go downhill. In fact, Dallas died one of the slowest deaths in television, and it probably should've been put out of its misery a couple of years before it was. Anyway, I'm now into forgotten territory since I haven't seen these later episodes in 25 years. I have no recollection of the Dandy plotline, and I got nothing on Casey Denault who is apparently kind of important in this season, and that's surprising since he's kind of easy on the eyes and I usually remember attractive dudes. All I really remember is some stuff with Nicholas Pearce, and mostly it's his mullet I remember because mullets are so hideously memorable whether you want to remember them or not. It's kind of cool to be watching it fresh, but only kind of since these seasons aren't as good as the earlier ones.
But I'm ahead of myself. Obsession. I'm not sure if that word does it justice. In college, I printed out several pictures of the cast members in the computer lab (black and white was the only option back then), cut them out, and had them tacked up all over my bulletin board behind my computer monitor. My friends thought this looked like a collage of family members and found it rather humorous. When I was bored in class and in danger of czonking out, Dallas references were scribbled in the margins of my notes to keep me awake. I reworked the opening credits in my head all the time to reflect my circle of friends and changed the name of the show to the name of my college, and I had fun imagining which pictures of them I'd use. I scribbled out the season ending cliffhangers to see if I could remember them. (Is it any wonder I was a C student?) I even managed to slip a couple of clips into a presentation in my ethics class, and I still drop some of JR's lines in casual conversation from time to time.
(Stated when asked how he could possibly live with himself, though I apply it to others, usually politicians.)
One time I busted my head wide open after falling into my desk. As I lay there bleeding all over the floor, drunk as a fart and in hysterics because I thought I was going to die or something, and I was reciting genealogical bloodlines or some shit, one of my more ingenious friends got me to chill by asking "Hey, Pierce! What happened on Dallas today?" "Oh, well Bobby did blah, blah, blah, and Pam was all yadda yadda, but JR's got her number, and gonna get Cliff, and etc., so on, and further," and that kept me distracted and babbling until security showed up, and the police (who took pity on this prating nincompoop and didn't bother with any kind of underage drinking charge), and the paramedics who hauled me off to the hospital to get stitched up, though I think they had a hard time changing the subject to find out what happened to me. (Luckily my friends were able to fill in the details.) The party actually just moved to the hospital parking lot and waiting room because there really was nothing to do in Danville. Anyway, it was Dallas which got me calmed down, apparently.
I have (or maybe had since they're currently not where I thought they'd be) two 500 piece puzzles, one with this image:
(This was missing at least one piece.)
This was the other:
(This was missing a few pieces. Such is the danger of buying used puzzles on Ebay.)
I even have a bunch of Dallas bubble gum cards, for Christ's sake!
And if we're using that as a measuring stick, this means that the early cast of Dallas is greater than Beethoven if Lucy Van Pelt is to be believed.
Just to be clear, the cards I got were over 20 years old when I got them, and most of the gum had crumbled to dust, so I didn't get to chew any of it. This could be considered a sad state of affairs, but if memory of my Garbage Pail Kids serves me correctly, the gum with bubblegum cards usually wasn't worth chewing even when it was fresh. It crunched into pieces until you got enough saliva into it to meld it into a wad, and the taste would fade after a couple of minutes, but this was a blessing since it usually tasted like chalk.
I have not one, but two of this Christmas tree ornament:
One for my tree at home, one for the office tree at work. We all had to bring in an ornament for the tree one year, and the game was to guess who brought which ornament. Only my mother got mine because everyone thought I brought the R2-D2 since they all know of my Star Wars obsession. I thanked the person who brought that since it threw everyone off the scent.
A book I started writing (which I'm pretty sure will never be finished) has a main character named JR, though he's nothing like JR Ewing. He was named such because his parents were fans of the show, and his deadbeat dad insisted on his son having those initials.
A picture story I wrote years ago features this opening image:
You can see the font I used. I know it isn't a perfect likeness, but that's the best I could do with the Photoshop version I had.
...Maybe I should seek professional help.
May 30, 2019
I like many others were caught up in the weekly drama of the Ewing family on Friday nights in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many became fans after the big Who Shot J.R. cliffhanger, but I was a fan right from the mini-series that set it all in motion. So when I found out about this book I had to get it.
I almost loved it much more than the weekly goings on at the ranch. The characters were so different and so real and I couldn't get over all the steamy goings on esp. seeing the beginnings of the Ewing-Barnes feud as Jock and Digger went from friends to enemies because of the one woman -- Ellie Southworth.
Raintree presented it all as a wonderful saga of both families. I would have loved to see how he might have carried on with the series if he had written more books.
Sadly I lost my copy of this somewhere over the years. Wouldn't mind picking it up again sometime.
I almost loved it much more than the weekly goings on at the ranch. The characters were so different and so real and I couldn't get over all the steamy goings on esp. seeing the beginnings of the Ewing-Barnes feud as Jock and Digger went from friends to enemies because of the one woman -- Ellie Southworth.
Raintree presented it all as a wonderful saga of both families. I would have loved to see how he might have carried on with the series if he had written more books.
Sadly I lost my copy of this somewhere over the years. Wouldn't mind picking it up again sometime.
February 29, 2016
If you remember (and liked) the TV series then this is the book for you.
June 10, 2023
Cuando estaba más chavo me gustó mucho la historia.
February 7, 2014
Que pasa cuando te encontras un libro en la calle? lo lees o no lo lees? a mi me gustan los desafíos. Dallas... best seller, copante!
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Entrada en el diario 2 de Faedyl desde City Bell, Buenos Aires Province Argentina en miércoles, 14 de mayo de 2008
10 de 10
Te atrapa, sin dudas!!! los malos bastante malos y los buenos de esos simpáticos, bastante simple??? novela para entretenerse, quién no ha oído hablar de JR???
le doy un 10 en su género, me parece un clásico. No lo leas si no te gustan las cosas claras como el agua ^^ porque no podés esperar mucho más de un libro que habla sobre una familia rica en los EEUU, post estallido petrolero y so on.-
Este libro tiene la particularidad que lo encontró mi amado, tirado en el suelo. Vale la pena che! no deberían haberlo descartado. No era de BC, ahor si lo es ^^
-/-/-/-/-/--/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Entrada en el diario 2 de Faedyl desde City Bell, Buenos Aires Province Argentina en miércoles, 14 de mayo de 2008
10 de 10
Te atrapa, sin dudas!!! los malos bastante malos y los buenos de esos simpáticos, bastante simple??? novela para entretenerse, quién no ha oído hablar de JR???
le doy un 10 en su género, me parece un clásico. No lo leas si no te gustan las cosas claras como el agua ^^ porque no podés esperar mucho más de un libro que habla sobre una familia rica en los EEUU, post estallido petrolero y so on.-
Este libro tiene la particularidad que lo encontró mi amado, tirado en el suelo. Vale la pena che! no deberían haberlo descartado. No era de BC, ahor si lo es ^^
Read
February 5, 2017Don't know why Goodreads list this book as only having 28 pages. It has 376 in total. OMG! Pamela and Miss Ellie were quite different in the book than they ever were in the show!. Interesting to read how the story of Dallas began and how different things in the book are than what I remember from the tv series.
December 17, 2015
Simply a bonkbuster.
March 1, 2016
PB-B @ 1981, 2/82. A novel about the Ewing Family based on the TV series.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews