I've been watching
 

Bonanza lately and it's the only show that I have watched that has a 50 year old Dad and three 47 year old sons. :D

and the sons don't really look like brothers? :D

...and the robust hairstyles of Dad and two of the three sons had long ago forced me to conclude that at least one general store near the Ponderosa was also a Hair Club for Men franchise...

Three different Mrs. Cartwrights. Adam's mother was Bostonian; Hoss' was a Germanic midwesterner; Little Joe's was from New Orleans.

If you did not Google that answer, you are one wierd dude. :D

You mean everybody doesn't know this? :D Ben C. started out as a sea captain, then came ashore to be a farmer/landowner, then went west and started the lumber business in Nevada. The writers of the show had a great time fitting historical references, like Samuel Clemons, Charles Dickens, who actually did pass through Carson and Virginia City, into the scripts.

i am impressed. though i must admit it's certainly out of the ordinary to know that much about the show. are you a writer? (for the record, i know more about the backstory of "the wire" than any normal person. :D )

As the Late Johnny Carson use to say, "I did not know that". :D