This fictional account has Ringo putting aside his gunfighting ways to become the 27-year-old sheriff of fictitious Velardi in the Arizona Territory. Ringo has two deputies: William Charles Jr., or Cully, played by Mark Goddard and Case Thomas, portrayed by Terence De Marney, who is also a storekeeper and formerly the town drunk. Case is killed in a robbery in the episode "Border Town", which aired on March 17, 1960. Case's daughter, Laura Thomas, played by Karen Sharpe, is Ringo's girlfriend in the series. Michael Hinn appeared in nine episodes as George Haig.
In the episode entitled "The Posse", Richard Devon plays Jessie Mead, a former Ringo friend who storms into town asking that he be jailed for protection from a pursuing posse, which Mead claims is really a lynch mob. Mead breaks a storefront glass to compel Ringo to arrest him. Actually, Mead has conspired with three others to rob the bank while the townspeople are diverted from their regular activities to pressure Ringo into turning Mead over to "the posse", the members of which are the other criminals. Ringo urges caution, but the irate townspeople want to take the matter into their own hands.
Johnny Ringo appeared at a time in the history of the television Western when creators strove to make characters interesting by equipping them with "gimmick guns", the three most famous having been Josh Randall's "mare's laig" used by Steve McQueen in CBS's Wanted: Dead or Alive, Lucas McCain's trick rifle from ABC's The Rifleman, and the shotgun with the upper and lower barrel, intended to enforce accuracy both up close and at a distance, used by Scott Brady in Shotgun Slade.
The gimmick gun introduced in the second pilot was a custom-built revolver called the LeMat, based on its historically authentic counterpart. The LeMat featured an auxiliary shotgun barrel under its primary barrel. Many episodes found Ringo getting into scrapes where that final round in the shotgun barrel was the deciding factor. Aesthetically, Ringo's LeMat most resembles the historical percussion model LeMat but features a top break cartridge-fed design.
Johnny Ringo scored good ratings, but was dropped at the request of a sponsor, Johnson Wax Company. After the cancellation of Johnny Ringo, Mark Goddard went on to co-star as Det. Sgt. Chris Ballard in still another Four Star Productions TV series, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor on ABC, replacing Lee Farr. He later went on to the CBS-TV series, Lost in Space.
