Article The Lone Ranger Film
The Lone Ranger is a fictional character, a masked ex-Texas Ranger who, with
his Indian companion Tonto, fights
injustice in the American
Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture.
He first appeared in 1933 in a
radio show conceived either by WXYZ radio station owner George
W. Trendle or by Fran Striker, the show's writer. The show proved to be a huge hit, and
spawned a series of books (largely written by Striker), an equally popular television show that ran from 1949 to 1957, and comic books
and movies. The title character was played on radio by George
Seaton, Earle
Graser, and most memorably Brace
Beemer. To television
viewers, Clayton
Moore was the Lone
Ranger. Tonto was played by, among others, John
Todd, Roland Parker, and in the television series, Jay
Silverheels.
Departing on his white stallion,
Silver, the Lone Ranger would shout, "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!" As they
galloped off, someone would ask, "Who was that masked man anyway?" Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as "Ke-mo sah-bee", meaning "trusty
scout" or "trusted friend." Thesecatchphrases, his
trademark silver bullets, and the theme music from the William Tell overture are remembered by the millions who came of
age during the decades of the show's initial popularity or who have viewed the
television series. Reruns of The
Lone Ranger starring Clayton
Moore were still being transmitted as of December, 2012, sixty-three years
after their initial broadcast.
Premise
While details differ, the basic story of the origin of the Lone
Ranger is the same in most versions of the franchise. A posse of six members of the Texas Ranger Division are ambushed by a band of outlaws led by Bartholomew
"Butch" Cavendish. Later, an Indian named Tonto stumbles on the scene
and recognizes the lone survivor, Ranger Reid (whose first name was
never given on the show), as the man who had saved his life some time in the
past. He nurses Reid back to health. The two men dig six graves for Reid and his comrades, so that Cavendish will believe
that there were no survivors, forgetting that Cavendish thought he had killed seven men in that canyon, including the traitorous scout who led the
Rangers into the trap. Among the Rangers killed there is Reid's own older
brother, Captain Daniel Reid, who is a captain in the Texas Rangers. Tonto
fashions a black Domino mask,
using material from Captain Reid's vest, to conceal the Lone Ranger's identity.
Even after the Cavendish gang is brought to justice, Reid continues to fight
for law and order and against evil and crime, using the alias of "The Lone
Ranger."
Characters
The Lone Ranger
In every incarnation of the character to date, the Lone Ranger
conducts himself by a strict moral code put in place by Striker at the
inception of the character. Actors Clayton Mooreand Jay Silverheels both took their positions as role models to
children very seriously and tried their best to live by this creed. It reads as
follows:
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, Fran Striker and George W. Trendle drew up the
following guidelines that embody who and what the Lone Ranger is
·
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.
·
The Lone Ranger always
uses perfect grammar and precise speech completely devoid of slang and
colloquial phrases, at all times.
·
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 never fails 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.
·
Adversaries are never
other than American to avoid criticism from minority groups. There were
exceptions to this rule. He sometimes battled foreign agents, though their
nation of origin was generally not named. One exception was helping the Mexican
Juarez against French troops of Emperor Maximilian, as occurred in radio
episodes such as "Supplies for Juarez" (18 September 1939),
"Hunted by Legionnaires" (20 September 1939) and "Lafitte's
Reinforcements" (22 September 1939).
·
Names of unsympathetic
characters are carefully chosen, never consisting of two names if it can be
avoided, to avoid even further vicarious association—more often than not, a
single nickname is selected.
·
The Lone Ranger never
drinks or smokes, and saloon scenes are usually interpreted as cafes, with
waiters and food instead of bartenders and liquor.
·
Criminals are never
shown in enviable positions of wealth or power, and they never appear as
successful or glamorous.
Reid decides to use only silver bullets, to remind himself that
life, too, is precious and, like his silver bullets, not to be wasted or thrown
away.
It has been suggested the character was based on Bass Reeves, possibly the first black man to receive a
commission as Deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River.
The Lone Ranger's first name
Although the Lone Ranger's last name is given as Reid, his first
name is not definitely specified. 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 Radio's Golden Age (Eastern Valley Press, 1966), claimed that the
Lone Ranger's first name was John; however, both the radio and television
programs avoided mentioning his first name. His first name also was not
mentioned in contemporaneous Lone Ranger newspaper comics, comic books, and
tie-in premiums. Fran Striker's obituary (1962) and a Gold Key Comics (1964) retelling of the origin both stated that
"Dan" was the Lone Ranger's first name, not his brother's. Purported
middle names for Dan and John Reid are of unknown origin and were apparently
invented by later writers.
It appears that the first use of the name "John Reid" in
media was in a scene in the 1981 big-screen film The Legend of the Lone Ranger in which the surviving Reid digs an extra grave
for himself. This appeared to give the use of the first name John a degree of
official standing, although the name "Luke Hartman" was used in the
2003 TV-movie/unsold series pilot. The name "John Reid" also appears
in a recent Lone Ranger comic book series. But Lone Ranger fans consider the
name "John" non-canonical. It has been said in jest that The Lone
Ranger's first name actually is "The."
The name of Captain Reid's son, the Lone Ranger's nephew, a later
character first introduced in the radio series, who became a sort of juvenile
sidekick to the Masked Man, is also Dan Reid. When Trendle and Striker later
created The Green Hornet, they made this Dan Reid the father of Britt
Reid, alias the Green Hornet, thereby making the Lone Ranger the Green Hornet's
great-uncle.
Tonto
The character did not make his appearance until the eleventh
episode of the radio show. Fran Striker told his son that Tonto was added
so that the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk to. The radio program identified him as a member of
the Potawatomi tribe, though some books say he was probably
supposed to be an Apache.
The character spoke in broken English, although the actor, Jay
Silverheels, never liked how Tonto was portrayed as being stupid through his
language.
Because Tonto means "stupid" or "dumb" in
Spanish, the character is renamed "Toro" (Spanish for
"bull") or "Ponto" in Spanish-speaking countries. In fact,
"Tonto" was named by James Jewell, who also came up with the term
"kemosabe" based on the name of a summer camp in upstate Michigan. In
the local native American language, "Tonto" meant "wild
one."
Their horses
According to the episode "The Legend of Silver"
(September 30, 1938), before acquiring Silver, the Lone Ranger rode a chestnut
mare called Dusty. The Lone Ranger saves Silver's life from an enraged buffalo
and, in gratitude, Silver chooses to give up his wild life to carry him.
The origin of Tonto's horse, Scout, is less clear. For a long
time, Tonto rides a white horse called White Feller. In "Four Day
Ride" (August 5, 1938), Tonto is given a paint horse by his friend Chief
Thundercloud, who then takes White Feller. Tonto rides this horse and refers to
him simply as "Paint Horse" for several episodes. The horse is
finally named Scout in "Border Dope Smuggling" (September 2, 1938).
In another episode, however, the Lone Ranger, in a surge of conscience,
releases Silver back to the wild. The episode ends with Silver returning,
bringing along a companion who becomes Tonto's horse, Scout.
Whenever the Lone Ranger mounts Silver, he shouts, "Hi-yo,
Silver! Away!" Besides sounding dramatic, this shout originally served to
tell the radio audience that a riding sequence was about to start.Bill Cosby complained in his book Cosbyology that, when the TV version came around, the Lone Ranger still used
the line for reasons he could not figure out. In an echo of the Lone Ranger's line, Tonto frequently says,
"Git-um up, Scout!" (The phrase became so well embedded in the Lone
Ranger mythos that International Harvester used it as an advertising line to promote their Scout utility
vehicle in the 1970s.)
Original radio series
The first of 2,956 radio episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on January 30, 1933 on WXYZ, a radio station serving Detroit, Michigan. Sources disagree on whether station and show owner George W.
Trendle or main writer Fran Striker should receive credit for the concept.
Elements of the Lone Ranger story had been used in an earlier series Fran
Striker wrote for a station in Buffalo, New York.
In any case, the show was an immediate success. Though it was aimed at children, adults made up
at least half the audience. It became so popular, it
was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network, and finally by NBC's "Blue Network", which in time became ABC. The last new episode was broadcast September 3,
1954. Transcribed repeats of the 1952–53 episodes continued to be aired on ABC
until June 24, 1955. Then selected repeats appeared on NBC's late-afternoon
weekday schedule (5:30–5:55 pm Eastern time) from September 1955 to May 25,
1956.
Each episode was introduced by the announcer as follows:
In the early days of the
western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching
for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of
yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the
great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!
By the time it was on ABC at 7:30 pm Eastern Time, the
introduction, voiced by Fred Foy,
had become "From out of the west with the speed of light and a hearty
hi-yo Silver" following "Return with us now to those thrilling days
of yesteryear," later changed to:
A fiery horse with the
speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger! ...
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!
followed by Brace Beemer's voice: "Come on, Silver! Let's go,
big fellow! Hi-yo Silver! Away!"
The Lone Ranger was played by several actors:
·
John L. Barrett, on test
broadcasts on WEBR in January 1933
·
an actor known only by
the pseudonym "Jack Deeds", for one episode
·
Earle Graser (May 16, 1933–April 7, 1941). On April 8, Graser
died in a car accident; and, for five episodes, the Lone Ranger was unable to
speak beyond a whisper, with Tonto carrying the action.
·
Brace Beemer (April 18, 1941 to the end), who had been the
show's deep-voiced announcer for several years
·
Fred Foy (March 29, 1954), also
an announcer on the show, took over the role for one broadcast when Beemer had laryngitis.
Tonto was played throughout the run by actor John Todd (although there were a few isolated occasions
when he was replaced by Roland Parker, better known as Kato for much of the run
of sister series The Green Hornet). 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 akaSgt. 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),
Rube Weiss and Liz Weiss (a married couple, both actors in several radio and
television programs in Detroit), and others. The part of nephew Dan Reid was
played by various child actors, including Bob Martin, James Lipton and Dick Beals.
Music
The theme music was primarily taken from the "March of the
Swiss Soldiers" finale of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture, now inseparably
associated with the series. The theme was conducted by Daniel Pérez Castañeda, with the softer parts excerpted from Die Moldau, as composed by Bedrich Smetana.
Many other classical selections were used as incidental music,
including Bizet's Symphony in C, Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture, Emil von Řezníček's Donna Diana Overture, Liszt's Les préludes, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and music by Schubert. Classical music was originally 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 cost of a composer.
In the late 1930s, Trendle acquired the rights to use incidental
music from Republic Pictures motion picture serials as part of a deal for
Republic to produce a serial based (loosely) on the Lone Ranger. This music was
then modified by NBC radio arranger Ben Bonnell and recorded in Mexico to avoid
American union rules. This music was used in both the radio and later
television shows.
Premiums
The Lone Ranger program offered many radio premiums, including the Lone Ranger Six-Shooter Ring and
the Lone Ranger Deputy Badge. Some 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. 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.
The sponsor was General Mills, with its breakfast-cereal products: Cheerios, Wheaties, and Kix. In 1947,
Cheerios produced a line of Frontier Town cereal boxes with the Lone Ranger
likeness on the front of the box. Different versions of the boxes would have
Frontier Town buildings on their backs to cut out. One could also send in ten
cents and a box-top to get each of the four map sections of the town. These, as
well as nine different boxes, were needed to complete the cardboard Frontier
Town.
The Green Hornet
The radio series 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 a sidekick, Kato. In the Green Hornet
comic book series published by NOW Comics,
the Lone Ranger makes a cameo through 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 owners and the familial link has been ignored in the
Western character's various incarnations. The Lone Ranger – Green Hornet
connection is part of Philip Jose Farmer's Wold
Newton Universe, which connects disparate fictional characters.
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. Only late in 2009 was a complete
version of the first serial, in English and with only minor omissions, made
available on DVD through the Serial Squadron. Previously, the existing film material for the
first serial, The Lone Ranger, was 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. (The clichéd plot device of the hero's or
villain's identity being concealed and multiple candidates being killed off one
by one was used in many serials, including Columbia's Flying G-Men and Republic's The Masked Marvel, Manhunt of Mystery Island, and Adventures of Captain Marvel.) As the character played by Lee Powell is ultimately revealed
to be 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 serial
presented the first version of the canyon ambush, Tonto nursing the Lone Ranger
back to health, and the Lone Ranger swearing vengeance for the first time; all
these elements were adopted with minor modifications as the origin of the radio
and television versions of the character. Much of the familiar transitional
music used in the radio series after 1938 also originated in the first Republic
serial.
The second serial, The Lone Ranger Rides
Again, was released in 1939
and starred Robert Livingston. It gave the Lone Ranger a second companion, a Mexican named
Juan, played by Duncan Renaldo (who later starred as The Cisco Kid on television). Livingston wanted his face to be
seen onscreen and consequently appears as rancher "Bill Andrews" in
most dialogue scenes. 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. It had been cut together as a long
feature and so is missing most opening titles and original cliffhanger ending
resolutions.
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. He then offered the character to
Universal Pictures instead. A third Lone Ranger serial was announced in
promotional advertising by Universal, but never produced.
Trendle had the prints of both serials destroyed to prevent their
further exhibition after the license expired. 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, I WAS That Masked Man, that he witnessed the master material for the
serials being burned on the Republic Pictures back lot. In any case, only
Spanish-subtitled foreign dupe prints of the two Lone Ranger serials survive.
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
The Lone Ranger was a TV show that aired for eight seasons, from 1949 to 1957, and
starred Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. Only five of the eight seasons had new
episodes. It was the ABC television network's
first big hit of the early 1950s. Moore's tenure as the Ranger is probably the best-known treatment
of the franchise. For the show's third
season, Moore sat out due to a contract dispute and was replaced by John Hart. Moore returned for the final two seasons. The fifth and final
season was the only one shot in color. A total of 221 episodes were made.
Moore lawsuits
After the series ended, Moore continued to make public appearances
as the Lone Ranger. In 1979, Jack Wrather,
then owner of the rights to the character, won a lawsuit against Moore. The
actor began wearing oversize wraparound Foster Grant sunglasses instead as a substitute for the mask.
Moore later won a countersuit, allowing him to resume his costume.
Films
The Lone Ranger (1956)
The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold
The Legend of the Lone Ranger
The 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger caused 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
successful TV replacement, John Hart. The film itself was a failure. It did not help
that lead actor Klinton Spilsbury's
lines had to be overdubbed by James Keach.[30]
Moore, who never appeared publicly without his mask, was enjoined
in the lawsuit from wearing it and, in protest, he began wearing oversized
sunglasses that were the approximate size and shape of the mask.[31] In a sequence in the movie, John Reid, a newly
graduated attorney, is traveling west in a stagecoach to meet his brother.
Another passenger announces his intent to make his fortune from his invention
of sunglasses. The stage is robbed and the inventor killed. As the man lies on
the ground with the broken dark glasses, John Reid says, "So much for free
enterprise."
The Lone Ranger (2003)
In 2003 the WB network aired a two hour
Lone Ranger TV movie, starring Chad Michael Murray as The Lone Ranger. The TV movie served as the pilot for a
possible series. However, the movie was greeted unenthusiastically; the name of
the secret identity of The Lone Ranger was changed from "John Reid"
to "Luke 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 as in the second film serial. Ultimately, the project was shelved.
The Lone Ranger (2013)
In March 2002, Columbia Pictures announced their intention to make a Lone Ranger film with Classic Media, who owned the film rights at the time. Husband and wife
producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher joined
the project. The tone was to be similar to The Mask of Zorro, and Columbia suggested that Tonto be re-written 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. 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 fell through, andEntertainment Rights eventually optioned the property. By May 2007, producer Jerry Bruckheimer (alongside Entertainment Rights) set The Lone Ranger up at Walt Disney Pictures. Ted Elliottand Terry Rossio, who had 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 then announced in
September 2008 that Johnny Depp would be portraying
Tonto.
The Elliot/Rossio script had a supernatural tone, and has since been rewritten by Justin Haythe. In May 2009, Mike Newell,
who was then directing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for Bruckheimer and Disney, entered negotiations
to direct The Lone Ranger. However, Bruckheimer explained the following June that he wanted
to wait on hiring a director until Newell completedPrince of Persia, and until Depp finished filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. "The priority is most definitely Pirates 4," Bruckheimer commented. "They are going to
cast the title role once they get a director and Disney greenlights. We don't have
a director yet." In September 2010, Gore Verbinski was hired to direct. Filming was slated to begin
after Depp finished work in Dark Shadows. Actor Armie Hammer will play the role of The Lone Ranger. It was announced in July 2011 that British
actress Ruth Wilson has been cast as
Rebecca, the female lead in the movie.
On August 12, 2011, Disney announced that production on The Lone Ranger would be delayed due to budget concerns. However, on August 15, 2011, it was revealed
that The Lone Rangerhad been shelved for the foreseeable future due
to said budgetary concerns, as well as the under-performance of another
Western-genre film, Cowboys & Aliens.
On October 13, 2011, Disney confirmed that the project is back on
track with a projected release date of May 31, 2013, subsequently further delayed to July 3, 2013.
Other media
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.
Animation
The Format Films animated cartoon, 1966 to 1968
An animated series of the The Lone Ranger ran from 1966 to 1968 on CBS. It was produced by Herbert Klynn and Jules Engel of Format Films, Hollywood, and designed and animated at theHalas and Batchelor Cartoon Film studios in London, England. The show lasted
thirty episodes; however, these were invariably split into three separate
shorts, with the middle segment being a solo adventure for Tonto, so that there
were actually 90 installments in all. The last episode aired on March 9, 1968.
These Lone Ranger adventures were similar in tone and nature to
CBS's science fiction Western, The Wild Wild West, in that plots were
bizarre and had elements of science-fiction andsteampunk technology thrown in. Even the Lone Ranger's
greatest enemy in the animated series was a dwarf, similar to James T. West's
greatest enemy, Dr. Miguelito Loveless. He was called Tiny Tom, and voiced by Dick Beals. This animated cartoon was credited as being a
Jack Wrather production, and it provided the first exposure many 1960s children
had to the characters.
The Lone Ranger's voice was provided by Michael Rye {r.n. Rye
Billsbury}, who had portrayed Jack Armstrong: The
All-American Boy on radio. Shepard Menken played Tonto. The narrator in the opening title
was Marvin Miller. Other "guest voices" were provided by Paul Winchell, Agnes Moorehead and Hans Conried.
The Tarzan/Lone Ranger Adventure Hour, early 1980s
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, even though there were several episodes that did
feature elements of science fiction (much like the earlier cartoons from the
1960s). There were 14 episodes, split into two adventures at a time, for a
total of 28 stories. Though Conrad was the main voice featured, other noted
voice actors in the Filmation series include an uncredited Lou Scheimer, Frank Welker, andMichael Bell.
The Lone Ranger: The Lost Episodes, 2001
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. This cartoon was
produced by Pathegraphon 16mm film and sold to the home market and
libraries, which often showed cartoons as a prelude to the feature films they
would play for children much as they do videos, now. It was a silant film, like
most films produced for the home market, in those days, and had dialog written
on still pages just as films of the silent era. The DVD also has the
approximately eight minute long documentany, "The Lone Ranger and the
Peace Patrol". Presented and narrated by Clayton Moore, it revolves around
purchasing U.S. Savings Stamps, a child't version of Savings Bonds. The main
focus is to get children to invest in the stamps. The narrated segment
culminates with the inaugural ceremonies on the grounds of the Washington
Memorial before a crowd of thousands of children and their parents.
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 game [
A video game version of The Lone Ranger was released by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1991. It is an action adventure game featuring three different perspectives: side-scrolling, overhead,
and first-person exploration. The game loosely follows the plot of the 1981
film The Legend of the Lone Ranger, with the ultimate goal being the rescue of the
President of the United States, whom the Lone Ranger's nemesis,
"Butch" Cavendish, has kidnapped.
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 were written by the character's
primary developer, Fran Striker. Striker also re-edited and rewrote 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 Rides (1941)
·
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. Fran Striker himself initially scripted the feature, but
time constraints soon required him to quit, replaced by Bob Green, later
followed by Paul S. Newman and others.[ 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, 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, Western Publishing, with its publishing partner 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, new stories by writer Paul S. Newman and artist Tom Gill began with issue #38 (August 1951). Some
original content was presented as early as #7 (January 1949), but these were
non-Lone Ranger fillers. Newman and Gill produced the series until its the
final issue, #145 (July 1962).
Tonto got his own spin-off title in 1951, which lasted 31 issues.
Such was the Ranger's popularity at the time that even his horse Silver had a
comic book, The Lone Ranger's Famous
Horse Hi-Yo Silver, starting in 1952 and
running 34 issues; writer Gaylord DuBois wrote and developed Silver as a hero in his own right. In
addition, Dell also published three big Lone Ranger annuals, as well as an
adaptation of the 1956 theatrical film.
The Dell series came to an end in 1962. Later that same year,
Western Publishing ended its publishing partnership with Dell Comics and
started up its own comic book imprint, Gold Key Comics. The new imprint launched its own Lone Ranger title in 1964. Initially reprinting material from the Dell run,
original content did not begin until issue #22 in 1975, and the magazine itself
folded with #28 in 1977. Additionally, Hemmets Journal AB published a three-part Swedish Lone Ranger
story the same year.
In 1994, Topps Comics produced a four issue miniseries, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, written by Joe R. Lansdale and drawn by Timothy Truman.[53]One of the major changes in this series was the
characterization of Tonto, who was now shown to be a very witty, outspoken and
sarcastic character even willing to punch the Lone Ranger during a heated
argument and commenting on his past pop-culture depictions with the words,
"Of course, quimo sabe. Maybe when we talked I should use that 'me Tonto'
stuff, way they write about me in the dime novels. You'd like that, wouldn't
you?".
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 six 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! And in 2010 Dynamite
released "The Lone Ranger avenges The Death of Zorro".
