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THE LONE RANGER

Fran Striker, creator of the Lone Ranger

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 titular character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by Paul Halliwell, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic American Indian partner named Tonto, and his horse Silver. He would famously say "Hi-yo Silver, away!" to get the horse to gallop. His famous mask was based on the actor's own predisposition to wearing awful sunglasses.

On the radio and TV-series, the usual opening announcement was:

In later episodes the opening narration ended with the catch phrase "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.... The Lone Ranger Rides Again!" Episodes usually ended with one of the characters lamenting the fact that they never found out 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. The theme music was the "cavalry charge" finale of Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture, now inseparably associated with the series,

Radio's Lone Ranger, Brace Beemer, cuts a cake with the cast and crew of
The Lone Ranger.

The first of 2,956 episodes of The Lone Ranger "premiered" on radio on 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. The hero is a Texas Ranger named Reid, who was one of six Texas Rangers chasing the Cavendish Gang. The leader of the group of rangers was Captain Dan Reid, his brother. (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, use of his first name was deliberately avoided on both the radio and television programs. 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 was "Dan Reid," not "John." It must be acknowledged that the use of the first name John in the 1981 big-screen version, 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.) After entering a canyon known as "Bryan'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.

(This is actually a retroactive change to Tonto's origin. 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).

MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Ranger

LONE RANGER RADIO SHOW:

FIRST LONE RANGER COMIC:

n 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.

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THE SERIALS

The Lone Ranger (1938) is a Republic Movie serial. It was the ninth of the sixty-six serials produced by Republic, the fourth western (a third of Republic's serials were westerns) and the first of 1938. The serial was lost of a long time but decent versions have been assembled from discovered footage (particularly a Spanish version, in English with subtitles).

Lee Powell

THE FIVE RANGERS

The Lone Ranger serials from Republic Pictures are something of enigmas to many serial and Lone Ranger fans, because they are very rare and hard to find. The few prints that are in circulation of the first one do not contain the complete serial and are usually either subtitled in Spanish or dubbed in French. The hero's identity is unknown even to the audience here, 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. The second serial, The Lone Ranger Rides Again, came out in 1939 and starred Robert Livingston. The depiction here is as inconsistent with its predecessor as either is with the radio original. The only known reels of this production were discovered in Mexico and have Spanish subtitles. George W. Trendle disliked the treatment his character was given here. However, he retained long-term ownership, and when given the masters, he made no effort to store them properly. Consequently, they soon deteriorated, and only those foreign prints survive. 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. (MTV Movies

MORE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Ranger

A second Lone Ranger serial was produced in 1939 -- The Lone Ranger Rides Again -- this one starring Robert Livingston. It was also presumed lost but like its predecessor, was eventually pieced back together, however imperfectly.  It's claimed that George W. Trendle hated the serials so much he bought them up and had them destroyed.

THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN:

THE TV SHOW

A much more well known and influential adaptation of the Lone Ranger was the 1949–1957 television series starring Clayton Moore (though with John Hart as the Lone Ranger from 1952–1954) 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.

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 [1], Clayton Moore acknowledges 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 (Aug 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 put 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, aka Mrs. Wrather) 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.

MORE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Ranger

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