The public no longer responded warmly to the traditional Western hero, complete with a white hat and a sheriff’s badge.

From The Lone Ranger to Marshal Matt Dillon, we've ranked the greatest heroes and protagonists of classic Western TV shows.

When it comes to the Western genre, it was most prolific in the 1950s and '60s. Horse operas were everywhere at the time, and in the '60s, especially, the genre began to shift and change. There's no ...