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Tvcrazy.net TV trivia and facts sections Fun Facts Home
The Lone Ranger  Western Trivia Facts
The Grand nephew of the Lone Ranger the Green Hornet

TV classics Lone Ranger   Lone Ranger Wallpaper

Trivia: Although the program was broadcast for 8 seasons, there were only 5 seasons with new episodes: 1949-1950, 1950-51, 1952-53, 1954-55, 1956-57 221 episodes The first masked man Clayton Moore portrayed Zorro in 1949 " The Ghost of Zorro". Clayton Moore lived by the Ranger Creed with  moral lessons such as: "That God put the firewood there, but every man must gather and light it himself." Clayton Moore is the only person to have a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame with his name and the character he was renowned for playing. His star says - CLAYTON MOORE, THE LONE RANGER.

"The Lone Ranger" premiered on WXYZ-AM Detroit Michigan in 1933. The show was created because WXYZ could not afford Network Programs. In order to get the part of the Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore had to train his voice so it would match the voice of the radio Lone Ranger. Clayton Moore's favorite character was "The Ol' Prospector". The Lone Ranger would dress up in disguise and infiltrate places to gather information. Moore Used the character on his home answering machine in Calabass and would greet callers with it.

cast: 
Clayton Moore .... The Lone Ranger (1949-51, 1954-57) 
John Hart (I) .... The Lone Ranger (1952-1953) 
Jay Silverheels .... Tonto 
rest of cast listed alphabetically 
Chuck Courtney .... Dan Reid (Lone Ranger's nephew) 

Clayton Moore
Birth name Jack Carlton Moore 
Date of birth (location):14 September 1914, Chicago, Illinois, USA. (some sources say 1908) 
Date of death: 28 December 1999, Los Angeles, California, USA. (heart attack) 

Other TV appearances as the Lone Ranger for Clayton Moore

1. "Lassie"  playing The Lone Ranger,  in episode: "Peace Patrol" 5/10/1959
2. several TV commercials including: toy commercials, Aqua Velva, General Mills cereal, Dodge, and Pizza Rolls
3. Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger was the leader of the President's Peace Patrol in an effort to sale government bonds. for more info and Lone Ranger pics

Jay Silver Heels ( Tonto)

Birth name: Harold J. Smith 
Date of birth (location) 26 May 1912, Six Nations Reservation, Brantford, Ontario,Canada 
Date of death: 5 March 1980, Woodland Hills, California, USA. (stroke) 
Mini biography :Jay was born on a reservation in Canada to a Mohawk Chief. 
Sometimes Credited As: 
Harry Smith , Silverheels Smith 

TV appearances

Cannon" (1971) playing "Jimmy One Eye" in episode: "Valley of the Damned" (episode # 3.13) 12/5/1973 
"Cade's County" (1971) in episode: "Gray Wolf" (episode # 1.6) 10/31/1971 
"Brady Bunch, The" (1969) playing "Chief Eagle Cloud" in episode: "Brady Braves, The" (episode # 3.3) 10/1/1971 
"Virginian, The" (1962) in episode: "Heritage, The" (episode # 7.7) 10/30/1968 
"Daniel Boone" (1964) in episode: "Christmas Story, The" (episode # 2.14) 12/23/1965 
"Daniel Boone" (1964) in episode: "Quietists, The" (episode # 1.20) 2/25/1965 
"Branded" (1965) in episode: "Test, The" (episode # 1.3) 2/7/1965 
"Laramie" (1959) in episode: "Day of the Savage, The" (episode # 3.23) 3/13/1962 
"Rawhide" (1959) playing "Pawnee Joe" in episode: "Gentleman's Gentleman, The" (episode # 4.11) 12/15/1961 
"Gunslinger" (1961) in episode: "Recruit, The" (episode # 1.6) 3/23/1961 
"Wagon Train" (1957) in episode: "Path of the Serpent" (episode # 4.20) 2/8/1961 
"Texas John Slaughter" (1958) in episode: "Geronimo's Revenge" (episode # 1.13) 4/4/1960 
"Texas John Slaughter" (1958) in episode: "Apache Friendship" (episode # 1.11) 2/19/1960 
"Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958) playing "Charley Red Cloud" in episode: "Man on Horseback" (episode # 2.14) 12/5/1959 

John Hart (second Lone Ranger)

Date of birth (location) 13 December 1917, Los Angeles, California, USA

John Hart took over for Clayton Moore for 52 episodes of the Lone Ranger during a salary dispute.

TV guest Appearances as the Lone Ranger

• Happy Days playing "Lone Ranger" in episode: "Hi Yo, Fonzie Away" (episode # 9.17) 2/9/1982 - Fonzie's hero was always the Lone Ranger.
• Greatest American Hero, The playing "Lone Ranger" in episode: "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" (episode # 1.6) 4/29/1981

Check out Steven Jensen's John Hart Photo Album with pics of John Hart as  the Lone
Ranger on Happy Days and the Greatest American Hero

More on the Lone Ranger including pics

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Lone Ranger Intro

On the radio and TV-series, the usual opening announcement was:
“ A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty "Hi-yo, Silver!", The Lone Ranger! ”

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:
“ Six Texas Rangers (Hi-ho, hi-ho) rode in the sun (Hi-ho, hi-ho); Six men of justice rode into an ambush, and dead were all but one.

One lone survivor (Hi-yo, hi-yo) lay on the trail (Hi-yo, hi-yo); Found there by Tonto, the brave Injun Tonto, he lived to tell the tale.

(Hi-yo Silver, Hi-yo Silver away! Hi-yo Silver, Hi-yo Silver away!)

His wounds quickly mended (Hi-yo, hi-yo) and then in the night (Hi-yo, hi-yo), Six graves were put there to hide from the outlaws that one had lived to fight.

He chose silver bullets (Hi-yo, hi-yo) the sign of his name (Hi-yo, hi-yo); A mask to disguise him, a great silver stallion, and thus began his fame.

(Hi-yo Silver, Hi-yo Silver away! Hi-yo Silver, Hi-yo Silver away! THE LONE RANGER IS HIS NAME!)
”

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.

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.

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 . 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.

Television series

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. 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.


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.

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.
See the Lone Ranger Zorro Volume one Lone Ranger Zorro DVD v2 set

Lone Ranger Comics

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."