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[1970-71; U.S. TV series; 15 episodes]

Lawrence Dane as Major Tarleton

This sighting is pretty far off in the weeds and may not count as a Banastre appearance at all. The villainous British major who appears in The Young Rebels' pilot episode is introduced as "Fletcher Tarleton", but I'm sure our Ban provided his last name. As for why he got a name-change for his given name, well, we know from several examples -- such as Jason Isaacs' delightful mispronunciation of it in interviews -- that film people simply cannot pronounce "Banastre."¹ The Patriot, Sweet Liberty and Swamp Fox all avoided the challenge in one way or another, so why shouldn't these folks?

This Tarleton is a fairly generic villain, nattily attired in a standard red uniform taken from some film company's props room. (One characteristic of the show is that if you see six lobsterbacks marching in a row, they will be wearing the uniform of at least five different regiments.) Why, exactly, the scriptwriter chose to name him "Tarleton" is an open question, since he shows no particular resemblance to either the "Blood Ban" of myth or the historical Banastre Tarleton. He is more-or-less in the right place to be doing Ban's job at the time, though -- harassing the rebels along the demilitarized zone between their lines and British-occupied Philadelphia. So it's a questionable sighting, but a fun one for its very obscurity.

[The Young Rebels was a short-lived TV series which was really an allegory for what was happening in the American culture of 1970. By analogy, the British represent the U.S. government, and the rebels represent the hippy/anti-establishment youth movement of the times. The show was, in a word, odd.]

Notes:

¹ "Banastre" is pronounced "Banister." See the trivia page for comments on the origin of the name and its archaic spelling. [ back ]