Pick the Western by the youngest kid on the couch

Quick answer: Start with The Rifleman. It's half an hour, it's about a father raising a son, and nobody on the couch will be lost. If your youngest is under six, go to The Roy Rogers Show instead. If your oldest is a teenager, add Gunsmoke and Have Gun – Will Travel once you've previewed them.

The mistake most dads make is picking the Western they loved at fourteen. Then they find out the one they remember is the one with the saloon, the hanging, or the villain who doesn't get what's coming until the last minute. Pick for the smallest viewer in the room and let the older kids stretch up to it.

1. The Rifleman (1958–63)

Lucas McCain is a widower with a ranch, a son named Mark and a modified Winchester. That's the whole setup, and it works. The best episodes are about a father teaching a boy to tell the truth, finish a job, and stand up when it costs something. Many end with the two of them on the porch, talking quietly.

Content concerns: Gunfights happen and people die, but it's 1950s television. No gore. Some episodes have tense stretches where a younger child may want to sit closer. Black and white, half-hour episodes. Good for ages seven and up, and fine for younger kids who can handle a villain.

It's also an easy opening to talk about real gun handling, which looks nothing like TV. Ask your kids where the muzzle is pointed in a scene. Then answer the question yourself, at the range.

2. Bonanza (1959–73)

Fourteen seasons, in color, one hour each. Ben Cartwright is a widower with three grown sons and a ranch called the Ponderosa. Hoss is the heart, Adam the thinker, Little Joe the hothead. Ben is the father you'd want, firm and fair, and he'll wait up for you.

Content concerns: Gunfights, some fatalities, a few episodes that deal with prejudice, grief or a hanging posse. Nothing you'd need to mute. Quality varies across fourteen years, so preview before you commit a whole evening. An hour is longer than some younger kids can sit still. Ages eight and up.

It ranks second only because it asks more of the audience. For a mixed group of ten-year-olds and teenagers, it may be the better pick.

3. Zorro (1957–59)

Disney's Zorro, with Guy Williams, is a masked swordsman protecting the people of old California from a corrupt commandant. It's closer to adventure than a true cowboy show, but the kids won't care. Mostly it's swordplay, secret passages and a hero who humiliates bad men instead of killing them.

Content concerns: Sword fights and villains who are properly menacing. Black and white. Good from about age five.

4. The Lone Ranger (1949–57)

A masked Texas Ranger and his friend Tonto. The Ranger shoots the gun out of the outlaw's hand and doesn't kill. The code is simple, and kids pick it up fast: tell the truth, keep your word, help people who can't help themselves.

Content concerns: The acting is stiff and the pacing is slow by modern standards. Tonto's dialogue reflects its era, and it's worth a conversation with older kids about how television of that period wrote Native characters. Mild gunplay and fistfights. Ages six and up, and it's a fine first Western.

5. Maverick (1957–62)

James Garner plays Bret Maverick, a gambler who'd rather talk his way out of a fight than shoot his way out. It's the funniest show on this list, and the only one a grown-up will quote the next morning. Jack Kelly joins as his brother Bart.

Content concerns: The premise is cardplaying and con games, and there's drinking in the saloon scenes. That's a good conversation with older kids: the show treats cheating as a character flaw even when the hero is charming about it. Ages eight and up.

6. The Roy Rogers Show (1951–57)

Roy, Dale Evans, Trigger and a dog named Bullet. The lessons are as plain as a Sunday school felt board. It's slow, a little corny, and it's the right pick when your youngest is four.

Content concerns: Essentially none beyond mild gunplay and fistfights. Thin for teenagers, but they'll sit through one with a younger brother if you ask.

7. Gunsmoke (1955–75)

Twenty seasons. The series that taught the country what a Western could be: grown-up, hard, and honest about what violence costs. Marshal Matt Dillon is a lawman who does the job because somebody has to.

Content concerns: The early black-and-white seasons are grim. Murderers, hard endings, and adult situations that are handled by implication but still aren't kid material. Later seasons in color are a bit lighter, though it varies by episode. Preview every episode for anyone under twelve, and treat it as a show for teenagers and parents together.

For the teenagers

Have Gun – Will Travel (1957–63) follows Paladin, a hired gunman with a code who quotes poetry and reads people better than he shoots them. Some episodes turn on whether a man should kill for pay. Worth discussing after. Preview first, as with Gunsmoke.

Little House on the Prairie isn't a Western in the saloon-and-showdown sense, but it's frontier family life, and many families already love it. Several episodes deal with illness, death and cruelty, and some are hard on young children. Preview those too.

What to skip

Yellowstone and Deadwood carry adult ratings, and they earn them. Plenty of good men watch them. That's fine. It's not family night, and it's not a show to ease a twelve-year-old into. Watch it after the kids are asleep, or don't.

Running the night

Preview one episode alone. Eight minutes with the remote is enough to catch what a title doesn't tell you. Here's a quick method.

Check where it streams. Availability changes by the month, and many of these run on free ad-supported channels or sit in DVD sets at the public library. Before you add another subscription, look at what your streaming bill is actually buying you.

Pause once. One good question beats ten. "What would you have done?" works every time.

Reset the room. Whoever picked the episode picks up the popcorn bowls. Leave the living room better than you found it.

Opinion: These shows are worth your time for a reason modern television mostly forgot. The hero doesn't need a tortured past to be good. He tells the truth, keeps his word and protects the people who can't protect themselves, and nobody in the story treats that as naive. A boy who watches that for an hour a week learns what a man looks like. He'll still need you to show him, but it helps to have the picture.

If you've finished the television and want the movies, start here.

Run one episode of The Rifleman on a Friday night. Then see who asks for a second.