How much is real and how much is make-believe? Or make-up? Tough question, but I know, with the Lone Ranger, what’s real.
The Lone Ranger
Black and white TV set, afternoons, especially summer afternoons, maybe three, four in the afternoon, the Lone Ranger rode again. Reruns. On B&W, in black and white, because, because that’s the way it was.
Seeing our next most favorite Gemini, Johnny Depp, sign on for Tonoto, whose words, mostly just one word, “Kemosabe,” became a meme unto itself, for more than one generation. Then, too, who can’t hear the opening bars of the William Tell Overture and not think, “Lone Ranger!”
“Kemosabe,” ever wonder what it’s from? Best guess? “Quien Sabe?” I think that’s Mexican for “Who knows,” pero quien sabe?
The Lone Ranger
The new movie: the good, the bad, the ugly?
It’s a classic American Western, a genre that is less than a hundred years old. Spawned as pulp magazines, then the dime-store westerns, with two great authors that come to mind, Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, the serialized installments of the Lone Ranger franchise graduated, or migrated, from radio to TV.
Black and white, at first, seeing it at the Alamo Drafthouse is best. It’s the twenty or thirty minutes beforehand that encapsulate the depth of the TV magic. Old TV ads, first in grainy b&w, then the later material in color, the Lone Ranger stood for what was morally correct. White man way, but moral over the laws of the land.
At the Alamo, the clips graduated from original TV series, to the later color version to the ubiquitous Saturday morning cartoon. Good stuff because it brought a flood of well-being emotional residue, when the masked Lone Ranger was an outlaw hero.
I wasn’t going to be stickler for detail, but that’s no part of Texas that I know, with a possible exception being the bits and pieces of the West that were called “Texas,” but everyone gets upset if we revert to our old map.
Credits included filming in NM, UT, CO, and AZ — most of the epic scenery? That’s close to “Four Corners,” with the most common scenery being New Mexico.
Stop and examine why the Lone Ranger and his music always has a sense of well-being. I didn’t understand it, and while the coffee was good, as was the pizza, I doubt either of those elements was the key. While even a bad movie is good at the Alamo, this was a better movie because the myths of the franchise preceded the film. Look around, I doubt many of the other people there grew up on a steady diet of the Lone Ranger. To be honest, I didn’t really, but there was that as a thematic backdrop.
Gorgeous scenery, lots of action, plot frame a little too much, but then, a resounding climax, makes it all worth it.
Most critics hate it. Too heavy-handed.
It’s just a Saturday serial, nothing more.
40’s radio: Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, and The Shadow. I grew up on it, sitting next to a wall, on the floor, back against the sofa, feet agains the bookcase, seeing it all in my imagination. Never did see the TV version, since we didn’t have a TV. By the time a TV was part of the household, I was in high school and had other interests.
But early on? Very young? Those programs fired my imagination and are still in my mind’s ear when you write about them. Hi-yo Silver, away!
My first musical exploration was finding the theme music and the music used for the interludes. Long, long, before computers–I listened for it by playing all the 78’s in the house and listening to classical music stations (standard fare) until I was successful. Loved research and detective work right from the start.
Well, my parents did not buy a TV until I was 10 years old, in 1957. Yes, I remember the Lone Ranger, especially the music, but the I Love Lucy show was something my sister and I watched across the street on the neighbor’s TV before my family bought their first TV. Just the novelty of having a TV and sharing it with my whole family was the cultural shock of the late 50’s and on into the sizzling 60’s….the arrival of the Beatles just a few short months after John F. Kennedy was shot on national TV…..what more can I say….I was a part of the culture and times whether I wanted to be or not.
I think that I preferred the Uncle Jay show and American Bandstand on Channel 7 over the Lone Ranger although, I must admit that I enjoyed the emphasis during that timespan on Western movies, cowboys, interesting stories and especially the beautiful costumes on the pretty ladies of the wild, wild West. I was a little girl who wanted Adventure with a capital “A” in her life. I did love the fantasy world of movies and TV shows but my favorite TV adventure character was not the Lone Ranger. My favorite TV adventure character was Walt Disney’s, Zorro, the FOX!