Yancy Derringer - Overview

Overview

Yancy Derringer is a gentleman adventurer. He is a former Confederate Army captain who has returned to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War. Widely respected by all parts of New Orleans society, he is asked by the Federal city administrator, John Colton, to work as a secret agent at no pay, and only Colton knows of Yancy's special work for his office. Many times at the beginning of the episode, Colton, a former Union Army colonel, asks Yancy to help solve New Orleans' present threat and, many times at the end of the episode, arrests Yancy for breaking the law to do it. Yancy agrees, because United States is one nation again.

Yancy owns a riverboat, the Sultana. His weapons of choice are a four-barrel Sharps Derringer gun carried in his hat and another up his left sleeve and a knife in his belt. He was an expert marksman. He also carried a cane with a hidden sword and was said to have iron fists. One punch, and his opponent was unconscious for a day. NOTE: the belt buckle with a derringer was never one of Yancy's props. Yancy dresses elegantly, most often in a white suit with a long coat, ruffled white shirt, a silk vest, a sash instead of a belt, a black string tie and a white flat-topped straw hat with curled brim.

Yancy's sidekick, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah, is a silent Pawnee American Indian who communicates only by hand gestures. Pa-hoo-Ka-Ta-Wah is Pawnee for "Wolf who stands in water." Although Pahoo was short on talk, he was long on action. Beneath a blanket wrapped about his body, he carried a sawed off double barreled shotgun loaded with split buckshot which he used in emergencies. Most of the time however, he used a throwing knife sheathed on his back.

Yancy and Pahoo live at the family plantation, Waverly. Yancy's recurring love interest is Madame Francine, the strong willed but beautiful owner of a members-only gambling house in New Orleans, her character's real name is Nora and she's really Irish. Miss Mandarin, Mei Ling, was an old love interest of Yancy's and close friend. She is the proprietor of his favorite place to dine, the Sazerac Restaurant. Yancy also sometimes dines, usually al fresco, at the Charter House restaurant whose speciality is French cuisine and gambles at the Blackjack Club. Most of Yancy's out-of-town associates stay at the King Louis Hotel. Yancy had a brother David who was killed in the War between the States and his father Yancy, Sr. had also died during the war.