Roberts, having largely been "a stage actor, accustomed as he was to a rigorous diet of the classics" and to freely move about from part to part, found the "transition to a television series", playing the same character, "without costume changes", a difficult one. "It was perhaps not surprising that, despite enormous success, he left Bonanza after the 1964–65 season, criticizing the show's simple-minded content and lack of minority actors...". It particularly distressed him that his character, a man in his 30s, had to defer continually to the wishes of his widowed father, and he reportedly disliked the series itself, calling it "junk" television and accusing NBC of "perpetuating banality and contributing to the dehumanization of the industry." The equally self-critical Roberts ("I guess I'll never be satisfied with my own work"), "had long disdained the medium's commercialization of his craft and its mass-production, assembly-line mindset." Frustrated with Bonanza and angry, he told a reporter in 1965, "I feel I'm an aristocrat in my field of endeavor. My being part of Bonanza was like Isaac Stern sitting in with Lawrence Welk". In much later interviews, Roberts denied statements about Bonanza attributed to him. "I did not enjoy Bonanza anymore...but I never said those things people said I said." He was, however, "too wise not to recognize its weaknesses." In a 1963 interview, he asked a reporter, "Isn't it a bit silly for three adult males to have to ask father's permission for everything they do?" "They told me the four characters (Lorne Greene, patriarch Ben, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon as his brothers) would be carefully defined and the scripts carefully prepared; none of it ever happened," he complained to the Associated Press in 1964. He objected to how Bonanza portrayed the relationship between the "father" and adult "sons", describing it as "adolescent". Roberts acknowledged reasons for Bonanzas appeal, but pointed to his personal need for story lines with greater social relevance, adult themes, and dialogue. He wanted Bonanza to be "a little more grown up" (Mike Douglas Show, 1966). He also noted that he was not suited to the "procedural" and "confining aspect" of series television, another reason for his dissatisfaction, while on the show.(Mike Douglas Show, 1966) Roberts had high hopes for what he could contribute to Bonanza and was disappointed with the direction of the show, and the limitations imposed on his Bonanza character and on his