Lion king
In the famous painting of Jock that hangs at Southfork (and later, Ewing Oil) after the character’s death, he wears his signature gold medallion. The lion’s head, which dangles on a chain around Jock’s neck, reminds the world of his role as father of the Ewing pride.
When Jock was alive, sometimes his own family needed the reminder.
Jim Davis is first shown wearing the lion’s head in the fourth-season episode “The Venezuelan Connection,” when an enraged Jock chases down Bobby in the Southfork driveway after discovering his youngest son has bought a refinery.
“Why in the hell didn’t you check with me first?” Jock demands.
“There wasn’t time, Daddy. I had to move fast,” Bobby responds.
“Move fast? So fast you didn’t have time to talk to me?”
Similar scenes unfold in other fourth-season episodes. In “The Prodigal Mother,” Jock is wearing the medallion when he makes a dismissive remark about Mitch and Lucy stands up to him, and in “Executive Wife,” the lion’s head is hanging around Jock’s neck when Ray suggests he should check with Bobby before taking millions of dollars out of the company to invest in a land deal.
In that instance, Jock lets Ray know he’s still top dog (er, cat) at Ewing Oil.
“Let me tell you something, Ray,” he says. “Ewing Oil is mine. I started it. I worked it. I made it what it is today. And if Bobby or anybody else don’t like the way I do things, they know what they can do.”
As Jock speaks, the medallion around his neck catches the Texas sunlight, drawing the viewer’s attention and helping to illuminate the Ewing patriarch’s message. There’s no doubt: Jock may be a lion in winter, but he’s still a lion.
Dallas Decoder 
This is a great post. One day you should take all these critiques and observations and create a Dallas book! Now I will keep my eye on the lion medallion as I watch. 😀
Thank you! I have always dreamed of writing a “Dallas” book. Maybe I should stop dreaming and actually do it.
I think with the popularity of ebooks and self-publishing, it’s definitely something to give a whirl. You already have tons of pre-written material to work with. 🙂 And ‘Dallas Decoder’ would be a great title. I’m an aspiring writer, but I tend to dream more than write, but I definitely encourage something cool like this.
Thanks for your encouragement. I appreciate it. You should write too! You express yourself well and you have good observations. I appreciate your comments.
Thanks again.
Chris
Thanks very much. And thanks for following my Brooklyn blog. I am actually working on something similar for a short-lived TV show I loved called Voyagers! I run a huge website for it called voyagersguidebook.net. I blogged a lot about it and wrote commentary here and there on the site, and now I’m finally putting all my notes and articles and extra research into something cohesive. I don’t expect anything mainstream, but I am working on it for the fans and hope to self-publish copies on demand later in the year. 🙂 It’s still a work in progress. I do write a lot of Fan-fiction. It’s simple fun and great practice for me. And hey, I love Man From Atlantis, 😉 I wrote a story for that and am currently in the middle of another one now. 😀
Getting close to the end of Season 2 with Dallas! So far it’s terrific.
I remember “Voyagers!” well. When I was in elementary school, it was one of the few shows that my best friend Emily was permitted to watch. I didn’t watch it myself, but I love the concept and appreciate the era of television “Voyagers!” represents, when the broadcast networks tried to produce programming that was educational and entertaining.
Good luck with your project and your other fanfic! You should consider some “Dallas” fanfic sometime. As always, thanks for reading and commenting on Dallas Decoder.
CB
Thank you! And that’s very true about the era, it’s amazing by today’s standards but Voyagers! was branded as too violent for television way back. But it was all in a historical context. Hey, you never know, I may be inspired to have Mark Harris wander onto Southfork. I find that concept pretty hilarious, and everyone but perceptive Lucy and Ray mistaking him for Bobby. 😀 And J.R. trying to exploit him somehow. And Bobby all confused, “Hey, maybe that’s why I love the pool so much!” LOL
You know, during the original show’s final season, Patrick Duffy’s son Padraic appeared in a few episodes as a teenager who helped Bobby in his efforts to rescue his kidnapped wife April. The teenager’s name: Mark Harris.
I heard of that! So cute!
Yeah, I thought that was a nice touch. Maybe we’ll get a character named “Frank Lambert” on the new show.
LOL. That would be funny. He could be a contractor, just like the sitcom.