TV

DALLAS — He hangs his hat almost 5,000 miles from Southfork, but Colin Hunter has rounded up a huge herd of fans still infatuated with Dallas.

Never mind that the iconic television show has been off the air since 1991. Each day, 23,000 people visit Ultimate Dallas.com, the fan site Hunter produces out of his north London home.

"There are people from everywhere — Romania, Japan, the U.S., Indonesia," Hunter, 36, said by telephone. "We've got this whole new fan base, some people as young as 12 and 13."

Three decades after J.R., Sue Ellen and company began bickering on prime-time TV, Dallas remains an unstoppable force in popular culture.

The show that epitomized American grandeur and greed during the Reagan years is still syndicated in dozens of countries. Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas, draws more than 300,000 visitors a year. Die-hards and new fans devour episodes on DVDs and cable channels.

"Dallas is not a phenomenon of 30 years ago, but actually is continuing to bring in new viewers," said Janet Staiger, curator of "Dallas: Power & Passion on Primetime TV," a new exhibit at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.

The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 14, chronicles how the show's memorable characters, scandalous story lines and TV firsts — most notably the "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger — spawned a global juggernaut that continues to fascinate legions of fans.

Boosters of modern Dallas, meanwhile, often cringe at the show's over-the-top stereotypes and the lingering perception that the city remains a mecca for big hair, 10-gallon hats and cutthroat capitalism.

When the show first aired on CBS in April 1978, Dallas was chiefly known as the site of the Kennedy assassination. The Dallas Cowboys, fresh off their second Super Bowl victory, weren't even America's Team yet.

Then came the TV series, which suddenly recast Dallas as a glitzy universe of shimmering skyscrapers, slick oil barons and gorgeous women in fur coats and showy jewelry.

By the end of the second season in spring 1980, the show gave America its first prime-time cliffhanger when an unknown assailant gunned down J.R. Ewing in his office.

The scheming, sharp-tongued oilman — played by Fort Worth native Larry Hagman — had a long list of enemies. A prolonged actors strike forced fans to wait eight months before finding out the answer to the now-historic marketing slogan: "Who Shot J.R.?"

The show's success surprised actor Steve Kanaly, who played Ray Krebbs, Donna's husband and the Ewings' ranch foreman. Kanaly, who now grows avocados and citrus in Ojai, Calif., said he expected a quick exit after filming the first five episodes.

"I never believed the show had a chance to be successful," he said. "I did five shows with everybody and thought, 'Well, this is great. It's been fun working with you; see you later.'"

In retrospect, Kanaly said, the show may have caught on because it provided an escape from such real-world issues as inflation, unemployment and the Iran hostage crisis.

Efforts to remake Dallas into a movie have sputtered. Janis Burklund, director of the Dallas Film Commission, said studio executives recently told her that the project is still alive but on hold as writers rework the script.