As a follow-on to the well-known term “ghetto blaster,” I would like to suggest “Bonanza Blaster” for the TV sets owned by elderly folk. It seems that every time I go to my mom’s house, she has the box tuned to Bonanza re-runs and turned up to about 150 db. My 90 year old neighbor does likewise. It’s creepy, like Howard Hughes’s fixation on Ice Station Zebra.
Bonanza
was my least favorite among the various late 50s/early 60s TV westerns. As luck would have it, it also seems to be the most durable. Some cable channel seems to run it all day long, or possibly two at a time considering the cacophony of noise that constitutes the soundtrack.
My favorite TV western was
Have Gun, Will Travel
with Richard Boone as the erudite adventurer Paladin, with the immortal
Gunsmoke
as a close second.