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The Lone Ranger
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The Lone Ranger is an American, long-running, old-time radio and early television show created by George W. Trendle (with considerable input from station staff members), and developed by writer Fran Striker.
The eponymous character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by Paul Halliwell, who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his clever, laconic Potawatomi Native American assistant, Tonto. Departing on his white horse Silver, the Ranger would famously say "Hi-yo, Silver, away!" as the horse galloped toward the setting sun.
On the radio and TV-series, the usual opening announcement was:
There existed another title sequence, one more common to syndication, briefly telling the Ranger's origin and how he first met Tonto.
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Encyclopedia
The Lone Ranger is an American, long-running, old-time radio and early television show created by George W. Trendle (with considerable input from station staff members), and developed by writer Fran Striker.
The eponymous character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by Paul Halliwell, who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his clever, laconic Potawatomi Native American assistant, Tonto. Departing on his white horse Silver, the Ranger would famously say "Hi-yo, Silver, away!" as the horse galloped toward the setting sun.
On the radio and TV-series, the usual opening announcement was:
There existed another title sequence, one more common to syndication, briefly telling the Ranger's origin and how he first met Tonto. The theme was sung by a male chorus, and the lyrics are as follows:
This version of the opening credits was first seen in the episode "Lost City of Gold."
In later episodes the opening narration ended with: "With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!" Episodes usually concluded with one of the characters lamenting the fact that they never learned the hero's name ("Who was that masked man?"), only to be told, "Why, he's the Lone Ranger!" as he and Tonto ride away.
Music
The theme music was the "cavalry charge" finale of Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture, now inseparably associated with the series, which also featured many other classical selections as incidental music including Wagner, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky. The theme was conducted by Daniel Perez Castaneda.
Classical music was used because it was in the public domain -- thus allowing production costs to be kept down while providing a wide range of music as needed without the costs of a composer. While this practice was started during the radio show, it was retained after the move to television in the budget-strapped early days of the ABC network.
Characters
Inspiration for the name may have come from The Lone Star Ranger, a novel by Zane Grey. Karl May's tales of Old Shatterhand and Chief Winnetou may have influenced the creation of the concept; they in turn were influenced by the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. The legends of Robin Hood and the popular character Zorro were likely inspirations also.
Birth of the radio series
The first of 2,956 episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on radio January 30, 1933 on WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan and later on the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network and then on NBC's Blue Network (which became ABC, which broadcast the show's last new episode on September 3, 1954). Elements of the Lone Ranger story were first used in an earlier series Fran Striker wrote for a station in Buffalo, New York.
Originally, the character's true identity was not revealed, though it was hinted that behind the mask he might be a historical Western hero (such as Wild Bill Hickok). Then, after a preliminary version of the character's now-standard origin appeared in the Republic movie serial of 1938 and elements of that story were worked into the radio series, the hero was revealed to be a Texas Ranger named Reid, who was one of six Texas Rangers chasing the Cavendish Gang. After entering a canyon known as "Bryant's Gap," the party finds itself in a murderous ambush arranged by Butch Cavendish, leader of the "Hole in the Wall Gang" and a man named Collins, who has infiltrated the Rangers for the gang as a scout, that seemingly leaves every ranger dead. Then Cavendish shoots Collins in the back, reasoning that someone who would betray the Rangers could also betray his gang.
Reid's childhood friend, a Native American known as Tonto (his tribe was seldom specified, but some books say he was probably supposed to be an Apache, while the radio programs identified him as a Potawatomi), comes upon the massacre and discovers Reid is still alive. Tonto takes him to safety and nurses him back to health. Tonto reminds Reid of when they were young, and Reid had rescued Tonto after renegade Indians had murdered his mother and sister and left him for dead. Reid gave him a horse, and Tonto insisted that Reid accept a ring. It is by this ring that Tonto recognizes Reid.
(As originally presented, in the Dec. 7, 1938, radio broadcast, Reid had already been well-established as the Lone Ranger when he met Tonto. In that episode, "Cactus Pete," a friend of the Lone Ranger tells the story of how the masked man and Tonto first met. According to that tale, Tonto had been caught in the explosion when two men dynamited a gold mine they were working. One of the men wanted to kill the wounded Tonto, but the Lone Ranger arrived on the scene, and made him administer first aid. The man subsequently decided to keep Tonto around, intending to make him the fall guy when he would later murder his partner. The Lone Ranger foiled both the attempted murder and the attempted framing of Tonto. No reason was given in the episode as to why Tonto chose to travel with the Lone Ranger rather than continue about his business. A reasonable assumption would be that he felt a sense of gratitude to the man.)
While Reid recovers, Tonto buries the dead rangers. Reid vows to bring the killers and others like them to justice. So he asks Tonto to make a sixth grave to make people think that he had died as well. But Collins is also still alive, and tries to kill the pair so he can take Tonto's horse, Scout. But he falls to his death while trying to drop a rock on Reid. Thus perished the only other man who knew that Reid survived.
By happenstance, the pair discovers a magnificent white stallion, wounded by a buffalo. Reid and Tonto nurse the stallion back to health, which is then adopted by Reid as his mount, Silver. Whenever the Ranger mounts Silver he shouts, "Hi-yo Silver, away!" which besides sounding dramatic, originally served to tell the radio audience that a riding sequence was about to start. (Bill Cosby explained, in Cosbyology, that when the TV version came around, The Lone Ranger still used the line "Hi-yo Silver, away!" for reasons he could not figure out.)
They also find an old mentor of Reid's, who has discovered a lost silver mine some time back. Reid's mentor is the only one other than Tonto who knows the identity of the Lone Ranger, and he is willing to work it and supply Reid and Tonto with as much silver as they want. Using material from his brother's Texas Ranger vest, Reid fashions the mask that will mark him as the Lone Ranger. In addition, the Lone Ranger decides to use only silver bullets--the precious and valuable metal serves to remind the masked man that life, too, is extremely precious and valuable, and, like his silver bullets, not to be wasted or thrown away. Vowing to fight for justice and never to shoot to kill, together, the Lone Ranger and Tonto wander the Old American West helping people and fighting injustice where they find it. During these adventures, Tonto often referred to the Ranger as "ke-mo sah-bee", a word he said meant "faithful friend" or "trusty scout" in his tribe's language.
The Lone Ranger displayed in the adventures that he was also a master of disguise. At times, he would infiltrate an area using the identity of "Old Prospector", an old-time miner with a full beard, so that he can go places where a young masked man would never fit in, usually to gather intelligence about criminal activities.
According to "The Legend of Silver", a radio episode broadcast September 30, 1938, before acquiring Silver the Lone Ranger rode a chestnut mare called Dusty. After Dusty was killed by a criminal that Reid and Tonto were tracking, Reid saved Silver's life from an enraged buffalo, and in gratitude Silver chose to give up his wild life to carry him. Silver's sire was called Sylvan, and his dam was Musa.
The origin of Tonto's horse, Scout, is less clear. For a long time, Tonto rode a white horse called White Feller. In the episode titled "Four Day Ride," which aired August 5, 1938, Tonto is given a paint horse by his friend, Chief Thundercloud, who then takes and cares for White Feller. Tonto rides this horse, and simply refers to him as "Paint Horse," for several episodes. The horse is finally named Scout in the episode "Border Dope Smuggling," which was broadcast on September 2, 1938. In another episode, the lingering question of Tonto's mode of transport was resolved when the pair found a secluded valley and the Lone Ranger, in an urge of conscience, released Silver back to the wild. The episode ends with Silver returning to the Ranger bringing along a companion who becomes Tonto's horse, Scout.
The Lone Ranger's name
Although the Lone Ranger's last name was given as Reid, his first name was not revealed. According to the story told in the radio series, the group of six ambushed rangers was headed by Reid's brother, Captain Dan Reid. Some later radio reference books, beginning with The Big Broadcast in the 1970s, erroneously claimed that the Lone Ranger's first name was John; however, both the radio and television programs avoided use of his first name. Some say that Captain Reid's first name was also avoided, but the name Dan did appear in a phonograph record story of the Lone Ranger's origin, featuring the radio cast, issued in the early 1950s and in a miniature comic book issued in connection with the TV show. At least one newspaper obituary upon Fran Striker's 1961 death and a 1964 Gold Key Comics retelling of the origin both stated that the Lone Ranger's given name, rather than his brother's, was "Dan Reid," not "John." It appears that the first use of the name "John Reid" was in a scene in which the surviving Reid creates an extra grave for himself among those of his fallen Ranger companions. It must be acknowledged that the use of the first name John in the 1981 big-screen film, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, gave it a degree of official standing, although the completely different names found in the 2003 TV-movie/unsold series pilot undercuts that. The name of Captain Reid's son, and the Ranger's nephew, a later character who became a sort of juvenile sidekick to the Masked Man, was also Dan Reid.
Premiums from the radio series
The Lone Ranger program offered many radio premiums, including the Lone Ranger Six-Shooter Ring and the Lone Ranger Deputy Badge. Some of the premiums used a silver bullet motif. One ring had a miniature of one of his six-guns atop it, with a flint and striking wheel, as used in cigarette lighters, so that "fanning" the miniature pistol would produce a shower of sparks.
During World War II the premiums adapted to the times. For example, in 1942 the program offered the Kix Blackout Kit.
Some premiums were rather anachronistic for a 19th-century hero. In 1947 the program offered the Kix Atomic Bomb Ring, also known to collectors as the Lone Ranger Atom Bomb Ring. This ring was a miniature spinthariscope that actually had a small amount of radioisotope in it to produce the scintillations caused by nuclear reactions. With its tailfin piece removed, though, the "bomb" body looked like a silver bullet.
Actors who played the Lone Ranger
On radio, the Lone Ranger was played by several actors, including John L. Barrett who played the role on the test broadcasts on WEBR during early January, 1933; George Seaton (under the name George Stenius) from January 31 to May 9 of 1933; series director James Jewell and an actor known only by the pseudonym "Jack Deeds" (for one episode each), and then by Earle Graser from May 16, 1933 until April 7, 1941. On April 8, Graser died in a car accident, and for five episodes, as the result of being critically wounded, the Lone Ranger was unable to speak beyond a whisper, with Tonto carrying the action. Finally, on the broadcast of April 18, 1941, deep-voiced performer Brace Beemer, who had been the show's announcer for several years, took over the role and played the part until the end. Fred Foy, also an announcer on the show, took over the role on one broadcast on March 29, 1954, when Brace Beemer had a brief case of laryngitis. Tonto was played throughout the run by actor John Todd (although there were a few isolated occasions when he was substituted with Roland Parker, better known as Kato for much of the run of sister series The Green Hornet), and other supporting players were selected from Detroit area actors and studio staff. These included Jay Michael (who also played the lead on Challenge of the Yukon aka Sgt. Preston of the Yukon), Bill Saunders (as various villains, including Butch Cavendish), Paul Hughes (as the Ranger's friend Thunder Martin and as various army colonels and badmen), future movie star John Hodiak, Janka Fasciszewska (under the name Jane Fae), and others. The part of nephew Dan Reid was played by various child actors, including Bob Martin, James Lipton, and Dick Beals.
The last new radio episode of the Lone Ranger was aired on September 3, 1954.
The Green Hornet
The radio series also inspired a spin-off called The Green Hornet which depicts the son of the Lone Ranger's nephew Dan, Britt Reid, originally played by Al Hodge, who in contemporary times fights crime with a similar secret identity and sidekick, Kato. In the Green Hornet comic book series published by NOW Comics, the Lone Ranger makes a cameo via a portrait in the Reid home. Contrary to most visual media depictions, and acknowledged by developer/original scripter Ron Fortier to be the result of legal complications, his mask covers all of his face, as it did in the two serials from Republic Pictures (see below). However, the properties have been acquired by separate interests and the familial link has been ignored in the Western character's various incarnations. Not surprisingly, the Lone Ranger-Green Hornet connection is part of Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, which connects disparate fictional characters.
Other media
The series also inspired numerous comic books, two movie serials, books, gramophone records, and a live action television series (1949-1957) starring Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger; Moore's tenure as the Ranger is probably the best known treatment of the franchise.
Film serials
The Lone Ranger serials from Republic Pictures are enigmas to many serial and Lone Ranger fans, because they are very rare and hard to find. The existing film material for the first one is incomplete and either subtitled in Spanish or dubbed in French. The hero's identity is unknown even to the audience in the original 1938 serial, with six men suspected of being behind the mask. As the chapters unreel, they are killed off one by one, but each actually appears in the costume in various scenes. As the character played by Lee Powell is ultimately revealed to be the true identity of the Masked Man, that actor is often given sole credit for the part. Two other suspects were played by Bruce Bennett and George Montgomery, then still billed under their respective birth names of Herman Brix and George Letz. Prior to the serial's release in 1938, the radio Lone Ranger's origin had been unknown and hints had been dropped that he might be a historical figure in disguise. An alternate origin for Tonto, with him being rescued in a mine accident, had also been provided on radio. The 1938 Lone Ranger serial is notable for presenting first version of the canyon-ambush and subsequent scenes of Tonto nursing the Ranger back to health and the Ranger swearing vengeance for the first time, which were adapted with minor modifications to become the standard origin of the radio and television versions of the character. Much of the familiar transitional music used in the radio series after 1938 originated in the first Republic serial. The plot device of multiple candidates for the mystery hero being killed off one by one was used again in the Columbia serial Flying G-Men and Republic's The Masked Marvel.
The second Lone Ranger serial, The Lone Ranger Rides Again, was released in 1939 and starred Robert Livingston. It gave the Lone Ranger a second companion, Juan, a Mexican played by Duncan Renaldo, and its standard Western plot concerned a battle over land between outlaws and ranchers. The only known copy of this serial was discovered in South America and was Spanish-subtitled and cut together as a long feature and so missing most opening titles and original cliffhanger ending resolutions. Robert Livingston wanted his face to be seen onscreen and consequently appears plain-faced, pretending to be rancher "Bill Andrews" in most dialogue scenes. Owner George W. Trendle disliked the fact that the Lone Ranger appeared without his mask throughout the serial and consequently decided to terminate Republic's license to use the character, see that both serials should be destroyed to prevent their further exhibition after the license expired, and offer the character to Universal Pictures instead. A third Lone Ranger serial was announced in promotional advertising by Universal but never produced. Some have suggested that Trendle retained prints of the Lone Ranger serials but made no effort to store them properly, and they deteriorated, however, Clayton Moore notes in his autobiography that he witnessed the master material for the Lone Ranger serials being burned on the Republic Pictures back lot. Either way, only Spanish-subtitled foreign dupe prints of the two Lone Ranger serials survive on film today. The Serial Squadron, an organization which restores classic movie serials, painstakingly reconstructed a subtitle-free English digital video version of the serial in 2007, re-creating the original opening titles and restoring the original cliffhangers.
Given all the differences between the two serials, it is perhaps surprising that Tonto was played in both by Victor Daniels, one of two actors known as Chief Thundercloud.
Television series
A much more well known and influential adaptation of the Lone Ranger was the 19491957 television series starring Clayton Moore (though with John Hart as the Lone Ranger from 19521954) and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. The live-action TV series initially featured Gerald Mohr as the episode narrator. He was also narrator for seven episodes of the radio series in 1949, 1950 and 1952. Fred Foy served as both narrator and announcer of the radio series from 1948 to its finish, and became announcer of the TV version when story narration was dropped there.
Although George W. Trendle retained the title of Producer, he recognized that his experience in radio would not be adequate for producing the television series. For this, he hired veteran MGM film producer Jack Chertok. Chertok served as the producer for the first 182 episodes, as well as a rarely seen 1955 color special, retelling the origin.
The first 78 episodes were produced and broadcast for 78 consecutive weeks without any breaks or reruns. Then the entire 78 episodes were shown again, before any new episodes were produced. It was shot in Utah and California.
When it came time to produce another batch of 52 episodes, there was a wage dispute with Clayton Moore (until his death, the actor insisted the problem was creative differences), and John Hart was hired to play the role of the Lone Ranger. Once again, the 52 new episodes were aired in sequence, followed by 52 weeks rerunning them. Despite expectations that the mask would make the switch workable, Hart was not accepted in the role, and his episodes were not seen again until the 1980s.
In a radio interview, posted at , Clayton Moore acknowledged that he had a dispute with the producers over money and wanted better treatment. That was the reason he was replaced by John Hart.
At the end of the fifth year of the television series, Trendle sold the Lone Ranger rights to Jack Wrather, who bought them on August 3, 1954. Wrather immediately rehired Clayton Moore to play the Lone Ranger and another 52 episodes were produced. Once again, they were broadcast as a full year of new episodes followed by a full year of reruns.
The final season saw a number of changes, the most obvious at the time being an episode count of the by-then industry standard 39. Wrather invested money out of his own pocket to film in color then-perennial third place finisher ABC telecasting only in black and white and to go back outdoors for more than just second-unit style action footage, the series having been otherwise restricted to studio sound stages after the first filming block. Another big change, not readily detectable by the viewers, was replacing Jack Chertok with producer Sherman A. Harris. By this time, Chertok had established his own television production company and was busy producing other shows.
Wrather decided not to negotiate further with the network and took the property to the big screen, canceling TV production. The last new episode of the color series was broadcast June 6, 1957 and the series ended September 12, 1957, although ABC reaped the benefits of daytime reruns for several more years. Wrather's company produced two modestly budgeted theatrical features, The Lone Ranger (1956) (the cast included former child actress Bonita Granville, who had, by then, married Wrather, after his divorce from a daughter of former Governor of Texas W. Lee O'Daniel) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). Exactly what happened remains unclear, but Wrather changed distributors between films, indicating some problem.
See also: List of Lone Ranger Television Episodes.
The Return of the Lone Ranger
An attempt by CBS to revive the series in 1961, Return of the Lone Ranger, did not get past the pilot stage. The Lone Ranger was played by Tex Hill in this production.
The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)
So far, none of the modern remakes of The Lone Ranger have proven popular, with 1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger causing much upset among fans when the movie studio filed a lawsuit and obtained a court injunction to prevent Clayton Moore from appearing as the Lone Ranger anywhere else, and then gave a cameo to his unsuccessful TV replacement, John Hart; the film was a spectacular failure. It did not help that lead actor Klinton Spilsbury's lines had to be overdubbed by James Keach, who never even received screen credit.
Many fans were also quite upset at the way in which the film depicted the events in the life and career of the Lone Ranger, blatantly disregarding much of the existing background material, which is considered by many to be canon, and changing it. Several important events in the background of the Lone Ranger were completely contrary to the well-established and accepted background material. These included events such as Tonto teaching the Lone Ranger how to shoot guns. In the original concept, Reid was already an established ranger and considerable marksmen. In the film, however, the Lone Ranger has little or no experience with guns and proves to be a terrible shot. When Tonto witnesses what a bad shot Reid is, he suddenly introduces him to a silver bullet, telling him that using silver bullets would allow him to hit his target because silver is pure. Of course, he then becomes a perfect marksman. In this treatment, the Lone Ranger seems like an ineffectual idiot without Tonto.
The event in which the Lone Ranger and Silver meet is not only portrayed completely differently than in the radio and TV shows, but it is almost insulting to the fans. Again, Tonto is responsible for Silver and the Lone Ranger teaming up, and the Lone Ranger's initial attempts to ride and train the great white horse are nothing less than lame attempts at buffoonery. Perhaps, the most blatant example of the film's disregard for well-established canonical background information is obvious when John Reid is introduced in the film's beginning, not as an established Texas Ranger as he was in all other versions of the Lone Ranger saga, but, instead, he is a young attorney from the East, who is visiting his brother, the captain of the Texas Rangers. It is only after his brother and the other Texas Rangers are killed in the Cavandish ambush (except John Reid, who accompanied them, not as a fellow Texas Ranger, but only as the brother of Dan Reid) that Reid wants justice and to avenge his brother's death by becoming the Lone Ranger - which is ironic, considering that in the film, he was not an authentic Texas Ranger. In the film, Reid has no clue how to go about achieving his new goal, and, therefore, it is up to Tonto to teach him and show him the way.
Clayton Moore controversy
In an attempt to distance the new film from the original classic series, Clayton Moore was asked to stop referring to himself as "The Lone Ranger" and refrain from wearing the signature costume (particularly the mask) at personal appearances. This request caused a storm of negative publicity. Moore, wearing large sunglasses instead of the mask, was interviewed on news shows across the country about the injunction, and he gained more notoriety than the film did. After the film failed in the theaters, bridges were mended, and Moore was allowed to use the trappings and name of the character, which he did until his death.
The Lone Ranger (2003)
In 2003 the WB network aired a two hour Lone Ranger TV movie, the pilot for a possible series. However, the movie was greeted unenthusiastically; the Reid family name became Hartman, and while there was still an empty grave alongside those of the five dead Rangers, its supposed occupant was unidentified, and the hero maintained his unmasked identity as well, becoming a cowboy version of Zorro. Consequently the project was shelved.
Future Lone Ranger film
In March 2002, Columbia Pictures announced their intention to make a Lone Ranger film with Classic Media, who owned the film rights. Husband and wife producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher joined the project. Columbia studio executives compared the tone to The Mask of Zorro, and considered to rewrite Tonto as a female love interest. The projected budget was set at $70 million. In May 2003, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. They previously wrote the western-themed Unforgiven (1992). By January 2005, the Peoples script was rewritten by Laeta Kalogridis, with Jonathan Mostow to direct.
The Lone Ranger languished in development hell. In January 2007, The Weinstein Company was interested in purchasing the film rights from Classic Media. However, the deal with The Weinstein Company fell through, and Classic Media's later parent Entertainment Rights optioned the property. By May 2007, producer Jerry Bruckheimer (alongside Entertainment Rights) set The Lone Ranger up at Walt Disney Pictures. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who worked with Bruckheimer and Disney on the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, were being considered to write the script. In late March 2008, Elliott and Rossio were in final negotiations. Disney announced in September 2008 that Johnny Depp is portraying Tonto.
Animation
In 2001, GoodTimes Home Video released a videotape called "The Lone Ranger: The Lost Episodes." Along with clips from the first serial, trailers for the two post-TV series features, commercials with Moore and sometimes Silverheels in character, and two complete television episodes, there was a cartoon short, said to date from the late 1930s. However, with on-screen dialog balloons instead of recorded voices, it seems to come from the silent era. It remains a mystery.
An animated series of the Lone Ranger ran from 1966 to 1968 on CBS; the show lasted thirty episodes (invariably split into three separate shorts, with the middle segment being a solo adventure for Tonto, so that there were 90 installments in total), and the last episode aired on the 9th of March 1968. These Lone Ranger adventures were similar in tone and nature to CBS' science fiction Western, The Wild Wild West in that plots were bizarre and had elements of science-fiction and steampunk technology thrown in. Even the Lone Ranger's arch villain in the animated series was a dwarf, similar to James T. West's nemesis, Dr. Loveless.
The Lone Ranger was featured, along with Zorro and Tarzan, in Adventure Hour cartoon shorts in the early 1980s, produced by Filmation. These episodes featured William Conrad as the voice of the Masked Man, though he was listed in the credits as "J. Darnoc" (Conrad spelled backwards). This series took a more realistic tone with a heavily historical context to include an educational element to the stories. Conrad starred in the original radio version of Gunsmoke as Marshal Matt Dillon and was the announcer/narrator for the cartoon escapades of Rocky & Bullwinkle. This time he had 14 episodes, split into two adventures at a time, for a total of 28 stories.
Toys
Besides the premiums offered in connection with the radio series, there have been many Lone Ranger commercial toys released over the years. One of the most successful was a line of 10-inch action figures and accessories released by Gabriel Toys in 1973.
Video games
The "Lone Ranger" series also inspired a NES video game, simply titled The Lone Ranger, produced by Konami in 1990.
Novels
The first Lone Ranger novel appeared in 1936, and eventually 18 volumes were published, as listed below. The first book was written by Gaylord Dubois, but the others by Fran (Francis Hamilton) Striker. Striker also re-edited, and re-wrote parts of later editions of the first novel. First published between 1936 and 1956 in hardback by Grosset and Dunlap, these stories were reprinted in 1978 by Pinnacle Books.
The Lone Ranger (1936)
The Lone Ranger and the Mystery Ranch (1938)
The Lone Ranger and the Gold Robbery (1939)
The Lone Ranger and the Outlaw Stronghold (1939)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto (1940)
The Lone Ranger at the Haunted Gulch (1941)
The Lone Ranger Traps the Smugglers (1941)
The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1943)
The Lone Ranger Rides North (1943)
The Lone Ranger and the Silver Bullet (1948)
The Lone Ranger on Powderhorn Trail (1949)
The Lone Ranger in Wild Horse Canyon (1950)
The Lone Ranger West of Maverick Pass (1951)
The Lone Ranger on Gunsight Mesa (1952)
The Lone Ranger and the Bitter Spring Feud (1953)
The Lone Ranger and the Code of the West (1954)
The Lone Ranger and Trouble on the Santa Fe (1955)
The Lone Ranger on Red Butte Trail (1956)
Comic strip
King Features Syndicate distributed a newspaper strip of the Lone Ranger from September 1938 to December 1971. The original artist was Ed Kressy, but he was replaced in 1939 by Charles Flanders who drew the strip until its conclusion.
In 1981 the New York Times Syndicate launched a second Lone Ranger strip. The strip was written by Cary Bates with art by Russ Heath. It ran until 1984. Two of the storylines were collected in a comic book by Pure Imagination Publishing in 1993.
Comic books
In 1948 Dell Comics launched a comic book series which lasted 145 issues. This originally consisted of reprints from the newspaper strips (as had all previous comic book appearances of the character, in various titles from David McKay Publications and from Dell); however, original content began with #7. Tonto got his own spin-off title in 1951, which lasted 31 issues, followed by Silver the horse in 1952, which ran to 34 issues. In addition Dell published three big Lone Ranger Annuals, and an adaptation of the 1956 film.
The Dell series ended in 1962, but Gold Key Comics launched its own Lone Ranger title, initially reprinting material from the Dell comics, in 1964. Original content did not begin until issue #21, in 1975, but the magazine itself folded with issue #28 in 1977. Additionally, Hemmets Journal AB published a three-part Swedish Lone Ranger the same year. Gaylord DuBois wrote many of the Lone Ranger, Tonto and Silver comic books for both Dell and Gold Key. He developed Silver, in the Hi Yo Silver comics, as a hero in his own right.
In 1994, Topps Comics produced a four issue mini-series, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, written by Joe R. Lansdale and drawn by Timothy Truman.
The first issue of a new Lone Ranger series from Dynamite Entertainment by Brett Matthews and Sergio Cariello shipped September 6, 2006. It has started as a 6 issue miniseries but due to its success it has become an ongoing series by the same team. On September 15, 2006 Dynamite Entertainment announced that The Lone Ranger #1 had sold out of its first printing. A second printing of the first issue was announced, a first for the company. While overall considered a critical success, the new series has received some backlash from classic Lone Ranger fans for its graphic depictions of violence. The series has received an Eisner Awards nomination for best new series in 2007. True West magazine awarded the publication the "Best Western Comic Book of the Year" in their 2009 Best of The West Source Book!
The Lone Ranger Creed
In every incarnation of the character to date, the Lone Ranger has conducted himself by a strict moral code. This code was put in place by Fran Striker at the inception of the character. Actors Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, taking their positions as role models to children very seriously, also tried their best to live by this creed.
"I believe.....
That to have a friend, a man must be one.
That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.
In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
That 'this government of the people, by the people, and for the people' shall live always.
That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
That sooner or later...somewhere...somehow...we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.
In my Creator, my country, my fellow man."
In addition, in order to ensure that their character remain constant and true to their theory, Fran Striker and George W. Trendle drew up these guidelines and list of rules which embody who and what the Lone Ranger is and why he has remained a hero and a legend:
- The Lone Ranger is never seen without his mask or a disguise.
- With emphasis on logic, The Lone Ranger is never captured or held for any length of time by lawmen, avoiding his being unmasked.
- At all times, The Lone Ranger uses perfect grammar and precise speech completely devoid of slang and colloquial phrases.
- When he has to use guns, The Lone Ranger never shoots to kill, but rather only to disarm his opponent as painlessly as possible.
- Logically, too, The Lone Ranger never wins against hopeless odds; i.e., he is never seen escaping from a barrage of bullets merely by riding into the horizon.
- Even though The Lone Ranger offers his aid to individuals or small groups, the ultimate objective of his story is to imply that their benefit is only a by-product of a greater achievement -- the development of the West or our Country. His adversaries are usually groups whose power is such that large areas are at stake.
- All adversaries are American to avoid criticism from minority groups.
- Names of unsympathetic characters are carefully chosen, avoiding the use of two names as much as possible to avoid even further vicarious association. More often than not, a single nickname is selected.
- The Lone Ranger does not drink or smoke, and saloon scenes are usually interpreted as cafes with waiters and food instead of bartenders and liquor.
Popular culture
- Throughout the run of the situation comedy Happy Days, the Fonz (Henry Winkler) references the Lone Ranger as his hero. In one episode, the Cunninghams arrange a meeting between the Fonz and the Lone Ranger (portrayed on this occasion by John Hart) as a birthday surprise. The Fonz is left speechless until he utters the oft-cited and -parodied line, "I didn't even get a chance to thank him", after the Lone Ranger leaves him with a silver bullet and presumably "rides off into the sunset".
- The widespread popularity and admiration of the radio and TV series lent itself to inevitable parodies and takeoffs in cartoons and other popular media. Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels were not above joining in the fun, playing their own characters in TV ads from time to time, for modern products such as "Aqua-Velva" after shave lotion and Amoco "Silver" gasoline and Jeno's Pizza Rolls (who were using his theme).
- The Lone Ranger appeared in a chocolate advert, in which he was put into a difficult situation as to with whom he should share his last Rolo, his beloved horse Silver or best friend Tonto. Hence the chocolates slogan Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?. (He gave the last Rolo to Silver, for which Tonto ended up punishing him).
- Clayton Moore also appeared in a commercial for wrap-around sunglasses that darkened upon exposure to bright sunlight. Because Moore had made it a point never to appear in the media without his mask, the viewers saw an unfamiliar face whose familiar voice was hawking the product. When the sunglasses had completely darkened, replicating the Lone Ranger's mask, it was clear who he was.
- Famous Seventies singer-songwriter Jim Croce references the Lone Ranger in his song "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" with the admonition that "You don't tug on Superman's cape / You don't spit into the wind / You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger / And you don't mess around with Jim." In addition, American singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett references Tonto and the Lone Ranger in his song "If I Had a Boat", from the album Pontiac. The lyrics include the following lines: "The mystery masked man was smart/He got himself a Tonto/'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free/But Tonto he was smarter/And one day he said, 'Kemo Sabe/Kiss my ass, I bought a boat/I'm going out to sea!'"
- Lenny Bruce had a stand-up routine later developed into an animated short by Jeffrey Hale; that parodied The Lone Ranger.
- The Lone Ranger is also parodied in a The Far Side cartoon, in which the now-retired Ranger looks up "Kemosabe" in an "Indian-English" dictionary and discovers that the word actually means "horse's rear end."
- Bill Cosby must have been enough of a Lone Ranger fan to do a comedy monologue all about him on his '60's record, "I Started out as a Child". In addition, Cos has also portrayed either the Lone Ranger or Tonto in sketches of many of his 1970's TV appearances, notably an Electric Company sketch with Fargo North, Decoder. And most recently, he devoted the entire last chapter of his 2001 book, Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy, to the Lone Ranger.
- In the BBC series Torchwood lead character Captain Jack Harkness references a homosexual relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto with the sarcastically delivered line "Yeah, and the Lone Ranger didn't have a thing with Tonto."
- An episode of Night Court directly referenced the controversy over the Lone Ranger movie, with the actor playing the "Red Ranger" in court after refusing to take off the mask, and trying to ruin the new movie because of its immorality. The case against him was dropped after the movie bombed.
- A short Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon about a group of sugar ants parodied The Lone Ranger as "The Lone Ant", a masked, mute ant who, unlike the rest of the ant colony, cannot eat sugar or any sweet junkfood; he brings home healthy grains such as soybeans and corn and is thus ostracized, until the rest of the ant colony gets into trouble with a chocolatier who looks like Peter Lorre and sounds like Elmer Fudd, and only The Lone Ant can save them.
- The British music group Quantum Jump achieved a UK hit single in 1979 with their song "The Lone Ranger". The song suggests a homoerotic context for the relationship between the Lone Ranger and Tonto ("Maybe Ranger he a poofter/Try it on with surly Tonto/Let me say to mister lawman/Tonto doesn't mind") but is better remembered for its distinctive chant of "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu", the name of a mountain in New Zealand.
- In the movie Airheads, the protagonists' band is called "The Lone Rangers", prompting a running gag "You can't pluralize The Lone Ranger!"
- Boot Hill, the TSR role-playing system, includes a character definition for The Lone Ranger. This character has an assortment of special powers, such as always drawing first, never missing, only shooting the gun out his opponents hands, and unable to be knocked out in a fist fight.
- In the DC Comics Elseworlds title, Superman: A Nation Divided, Superman, after serving the Union through the Civil War and beyond, finds a message from Jor-El that says he is meant to lead the people of the west. He then fashions his ship into a silver horse and dons the traditional garb of the Lone Ranger, minus the mask, preparing to become the hero of the West. The last panel shows "Atticus Kent" atop his silver horse in the classic Lone Ranger pose.
- In another Elseworlds title, Batman: The Blue, the Grey, and the Bat, a Civil War-Era Batman goes around the West stopping Confederate gold thieves and bandits, with civilians uttering the classic phrase "Who was that masked man" after every encounter.
- In a DC comic showcasing various lapsed titles, the origin of a character named John 'Johnny Thunder' Tane (who indeed also used disguises from time to time) is speculated upon by characters in the comic; one such possible origin is actually the origin of the Lone Ranger.
- DC Comics' multi-generational Impact Comics version of the comic book character The Black Hood had a story in which he allegedly inspired the creation of the Lone Ranger radio series. A young man dons the hood in the Old West to save a group of men from being lynched. Decades later, a member of the Mutual writing staff recalls the adventures his grandmother told him of a mysterious man in a mask who helped the underprivileged in the West. However this is erroneous since, while debuting on the Mutual network, the show initially was strictly the work of staffers at Detroit radio station WXYZ.
- In the film Chicken Run, Rocky the Rhode Island Red (Mel Gibson) refers to himself as "the Lone Free-Ranger," a double pun on The Lone Ranger and "free range" chicken.
- A novelty record entitled "Tonto and the Fat Opera Singer" featured the faithful Indian companion in a brief radio-style adventure with the titluar performer. The record features a number of sound effects and "cut-in" style musical cues.
- In the television adaptation of Band of Brothers, during the events of "Currahee" Captain Herbert Sobel uses "Hi-ho silver!" as his battlecry to rally his men during a training run.
- In the comic book series Jack of Fables, the Lone Ranger is never seen, but his presence and heroics are implied, as Jack discovers silver bullets he custom ordered were purchased by a masked man with a native friend. When Jack decides to track down this individual he comes across some ranchers who claim they were saved by this mysterious man who left behind a silver bullet.
The Lone Ranger "theme"
Rossini's finale to the William Tell Overture, which was supposed to represent a cavalry charge, was the perfect music for the Ranger as he and Silver sped along. The very recognizable theme and its meter led to the following joke:
- Question: Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage?
- Answer: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump-dump-dump!
Since the theme song was so closely associated with the Lone Ranger, "An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger." There are stories of conductors who, while conducting the Overture, have had to stop when children in the audience shout, "Hi-yo Silver, away!"
Cartoonist Dave Berg did a four-panel cartoon along similar lines for his "The Lighter Side Of..." feature in Mad Magazine during the years Leonard Bernstein broadcast the "Young People's Concerts" on CBS. In the first panel, Bernstein says, "A grown-up is someone who can listen to The William Tell Overture without once thinking of the Lone Ranger." Two children sit in front of the television, concentrating, grimly determined not to think of the Lone Ranger until Daddy gallops though the room, shouting, "Hi-yo, Silver, AWAY!!"
In the song, "Pony Express" by Danny & The Juniors, are the lines "...Tonto, Silver and my old vest...we ain't missing the Pony Express...Giddy Up Giddy Up Giddy Up Giddy Hi Ho Silver...."
During the 1960s, a series of television commercials for Lark cigarettes featured the famous Lone Ranger theme, as a sign, mounted in the bed of a white pickup truck, urged people on the street to "Show us your Lark pack". In a spoof of these spots, an ad for Jeno's Pizza Rolls (posted on YouTube: ) asks party goers to "Show us your pizza roll pack". The Jeno's spokesman is interrupted by an executive-type man, lighting up a cigarette from a red pack (the color of a pack of Larks), who says "You know, I've been meaning to talk to you people about that music you're using." Suddenly a hand slaps the cigarette smoker on the shoulder and the camera pulls back to reveal that the hand belongs to The Lone Ranger (played by Clayton Moore), along with Tonto (played by Jay Silverheels) standing beside him, as the Ranger says to the cigarette smoker, "You know, I've been meaning to speak to you people about the same thing." Jay Silverheels then offers his "kemo-sabe" a Pizza Roll from a tray offered by a waiter, but the Ranger cooly and without even looking at him or the pizza rolls declines with a simple hand gesture, although Tonto fills his saddle bag with them anyway. It ends, predictably, with an elderly woman coming up to the spokesman asking "Who was that masked man, anyhow?" As the spokesman replies, "I don't know...but I wanted to thank him!" the cry is heard of "Hi-yo, Pizza Rolls! And away!" over the sound of galloping hooves.
Written by Stan Freberg, it was regarded as one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed TV ads of the period -- after one showing on The Tonight Show Johnny Carson remarked that it was the first commercial he had ever seen to receive spontaneous applause from the studio audience.
Trivia
- In Brazil the Lone Ranger is known as "Zorro." Zorro himself is also known by that name there, leading to a degree of ambiguity and confusion.
- "Tonto" (the name of the character's sidekick), in Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, means "fool" or "idiot" (although this appears to have been a coincidence, given the character's intelligent personality). In the Potawatami language (Potawatami being the tribe he was identified as belonging to in the radio dramas), the name translates as "Wild One". For Spanish speaking audiences, the name was changed to "Toro", the Spanish word for "bull". Another suggestion has been that Tonto responded by calling the Lone Ranger "quien no sabe" which roughly translates from Spanish as "he who knows nothing" or "clueless." (In Cosbyology, after Bill Cosby discovers this and tells his wife, she apparently said that The Lone Ranger and Tonto sound like a married couple.)
- Clayton Moore's unmasked face can be seen in the first episode of The Lone Ranger, in a scene where the rangers are riding towards the ambush. He is in a group of Rangers riding horses during a short closeup.
- In Mexico, when someone says something like "we are in trouble", it's common to answer "ΏEstamos, Kimosabi?," which means, "Are we, Kemo Sabe?" (This is probably an echo of a joke dating back at least to the early '70s: The Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding the range when they hear a swarm of hostile Indians behind them. They urge their horses to a gallop, only to find more Indians ahead. They are trapped. Lone Ranger: "What do we do now, Tonto?" Tonto: "What do you mean we, paleface?")
See also
- The term Sloane Ranger referred originally to the young, upper class and upper-middle-class men and women living in West London. The word play term combines "Sloane Square", the fashionable and wealthy London area associated most in the public imagination with "Sloanes", and the television cowboy character "The Lone Ranger".
Further reading
- Bisco, Jim, "Buffalo's Lone Ranger: The Prolific Fran Striker Wrote the Book on Early Radio," Western New York Heritage, Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2005.
- Jones, Reginald, The Mystery of the Masked Man's Music (ISBN 0-8108-3974-1).
External links
- The Lone Ranger on
- at Snopes
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