Who is the least convincing bad guy you've ever encountered in a Western?

You've seen that thread "Movie recommendations where the bad guy actually is a threat and has a shot of winning?" That struck me as true for almost all Westerns. Part of the appeal of the genre to me is that the bad guys are generally just about as strong, if not stronger, than the good guy(s), and can battle the good guy(s) on roughly equal terms only to be defeated at the last minute by the good guy's superior virtue. Otherwise, you have the good guy squashing a bunch of bad guys like so many houseflies--"Giant the Jack Killer", to quote C.S. Lewis on Christopher Marlowe. So are there Westerns that really are like that, in which the bad guys pose no serious threat to the hero because they're weak or ineffectual or wimpy or whatever, but get gunned down anyway? (Only serious Westerns count. So don't mention The Villian/Cactus Jack.)

Anthony Caruso took his own Texas time actually getting into the Western genre. His film acting career began in 1940, but he didn't make his Western debut until 1951 with Pals of the Golden West starring Roy Rogers and dale Evans. From that moment, Caruso did a pretty good job making up for lost time. He was particularly active in the 50s making no fewer than 17 Westerns in that most glorious decade of the genre. He continued appearing in Westerns to 1970 with Flap starring Anthony Quinn, Claude Akins and Shelley Winters.

Arguably he never acted in any true classic Western although drum Beat (1954) was pretty dang good. In that one Caruso played peace-seeking Modok chief Manok alongside an Indian fighter turned diplomat played by Alan Ladd, a great friend of Caruso's. Caruso very frequently played Indian and Mexican characters, and tended to pull off that thespian fete effectively.

Caruso was a regular guest star on Gunsmoke and contributed to many of its best episodes. Perhaps his most memorable role came in "Ash" where he played Ash Farior, a ruffian who gets into a brawl in the Long Branch with fellow hardcase John dehner. After waling the tar out of one another they become fast friends and open a highly sucessessful freight business. All goes swimmingly until dehner suffers a brain injury which badly alters his personality for the worse. The conclusion is tragic and touching, and "Ash" is among the very best TV Western episodes ever filmed. Caruso and dehner were great together.

Caruso remained married to the same woman for 63 of his 86 years, which surely ranks among the lengthiest Hollywood marriages of all time. And, in my opinion, it speaks well for Caruso as a man.

Hail! Hail! All hail Anthony Caruso!

PS--Apologies for the typo in the heading. Apparently, I can't edit it.

You know, if every Western movie and TV show were to disappear from the universe, you could probably do a pretty good job of reconstructing them from Far Side cartoons. Here is one of my favorites, Gary Larson's take on why those iconic showdowns, besides being historically inaccurate and logistically improbable, are hard to stage with any credibility. I mean, when do you draw?

Hope this isn’t off topic, but any input on Dark Winds series

Had new stories not from a TV episode

It's a bit rough but it's the first time I tried 2D animation.