The Lone Ranger

^{(1949 – 1957)}

TV-G

Western

September 15th, 1949

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The Lone Ranger Trivia

Trivia

After the series ended, Clayton Moore began appearing publicly as The Lone Ranger. Jack Wrather sued Moore, claiming he owned the character. Wrather won the suit in 1979, leading Moore to wear wraparound Foster-Grant sunglasses instead of the mask. Moore later prevailed in a countersuit and was allowed to wear his costume again.
Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger’s young nephew who appeared on the show occasionally, was the father of Britt Reid, The Green Hornet. George W. Trendle created both characters for radio.
The “Hi-Yo Silver!” cry heard at the start of every episode is a recording of Earle W. Graser, who played The Lone Ranger on radio from 1933-41.
At one point, people speculated that The Lone Ranger drew inspiration from Bass Reeves, a U.S. Marshal who served in the Oklahoma Territory. Because much of the territory consisted of sovereign Indian reservations, Marshals had to travel with a Native American; some suggested this was the source for Tonto’s character. Reeves had an outstanding reputation for upholding law and order, even arresting his own son, but Jim Crow laws eventually forced him from office. Unlike the television character, the real Bass Reeves was black. This theory, along with other speculative accounts of the character’s origins, was later disproved by revisiting the records of the Detroit radio station where The Lone Ranger radio show began.
The show was so popular in the early 1950s that ABC briefly aired a repeat late on Friday nights for viewers who had missed the Thursday broadcast.
“Kemo Sabe” means “trusted friend.” Episode One explains it as “trusted scout.” Other sources say it is a corruption of the Spanish phrase “Quien sabe,” meaning “Who knows?”
Series creator Fran Striker introduced Tonto so the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk to.
The fifth season was filmed in color.
In Spanish, Tonto means “fool,” “stupid,” or “dumb.” The character was called “Toro,” meaning “bull,” in the dubbed version distributed in Spanish-speaking countries.
The series premiered on ABC on September 15, 1949 (Thursdays 7:30-8:00), and its last telecast was September 12, 1957. It was the only ABC program to place in the top fifteen when the A.C. Neilsen Co. began compiling national network ratings. In 1950, it stood at number seven, with a 41.2 percent share. The show aired on ABC for its entire run. CBS began showing reruns on Saturday mornings in 1953; they continued through September 1960, followed by four more years on NBC. ABC also aired reruns in the late afternoons from 1958 to 1961. No network reruns featured John Hart as “The Lone Ranger,” the other “Lone Ranger” from 1952-53.
Broadcast on ABC, the show ran four seasons in which a new episode aired weekly for at least a year before repeats began. The first 78 episodes aired from 1949-51, then were rerun in the same sequence. In later seasons starting in September 1952, September 1954, and September 1956, 52 new episodes aired consecutively and were repeated over the next twelve-month period. Young viewers had to wait “until the same time next year”—often around the start of a school year or summer vacation—to watch a favorite episode again or catch one they had missed.
Tonto rides a horse named Scout.
The Lone Ranger neither drinks nor smokes.
The Lone Ranger is never held captive by lawmen or outlaws for long, so there is little risk of his being unmasked.
In the early 1950s, young viewers enjoyed bubble gum trading cards showing color scenes from several installments of the series.
John Hart took Clayton Moore’s place for 52 episodes and appeared opposite Moore’s Ranger in two episodes before wearing the mask himself during Moore’s absence.
The radio program and television series used incidental music from Republic Pictures serials, arranged anew for the many action sequences. Program creator George W. Trendle acquired the rights to Republic’s music package as part of the agreement for Republic to make a second Lone Ranger serial. Early radio episodes featured German recordings of classical works. The only classical selections later kept for the radio show and television were the theme, Gioachino Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”, and Franz Liszt’s “The Preludes”, which served on radio as the transition into and out of the middle commercial. In 1956-57, the final season of new episodes, the regular action music was replaced with an incidental music package commonly heard in early filmed television series, low-budget pictures, and theatrical serials. This was at least one factor contributing to the series’ sudden loss of popularity.
Clayton Moore said that he and Jay Silverheels had to perform most of their own stunts and do their own makeup.
The first 16 episodes of season one and one episode of season five are in the public domain: Enter the Lone Ranger (1949), The Lone Ranger Fights On (1949), The Lone Ranger's Triumph (1949), The Legion of Old Timers (1949), Rustlers' Hideout (1949), War Horse (1949), Pete and Pedro (1949), The Renegades (1949), The Tenderfeet (1949), High Heels (1949), Six Gun's Legacy (1949), Return of the Convict (1949), Finders Keepers (1949), The Masked Rider (1949), Old Joe's Sister (1949), Cannonball McKay (1949), and Message from Abe (1957).
Though the program aired for eight seasons, only five included new episodes: 1949-1950, 1950-51, 1952-53, 1954-55, 1956-57.
In 1955, when the show was at the height of its popularity and just before The Lone Ranger (1956) was released, ABC and CBS aired The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1955). This one-hour condensed presentation covered the first three episodes of the series, which tell The Lone Ranger’s origin.
The series cost $12,000 per episode from 1949-1954. The budget then rose to $18,000 per episode from 1954 until new-episode production ended in 1957, although the series continued airing weekly on network television (CBS, NBC) until 1963.
On August 11, 2009, the U.S. Postal Service issued a pane of twenty 44-cent commemorative stamps honoring early U.S. television programs. It also released a booklet containing 20 picture postcards. The stamp for The Lone Ranger depicts Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger with his horse, Silver . Other programs honored in the Early TV Memories issue were: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Dinah Shore Show (1951), Dragnet (1951), The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), Hopalong Cassidy (1952), The Honeymooners (1955), The Howdy Doody Show (1947), I Love Lucy (1951), Kukla, Fran and Ollie (1947), Lassie (1954), Perry Mason (1957), The Phil Silvers Show (1955), The Red Skelton Hour (1951), Texaco Star Theatre (1948) (titled The Milton Berle Show (1948) from 1954-1956), The Tonight Show (1953), The Twilight Zone (1959), and You Bet Your Life (1950).
The Lone Ranger (1938), starring Lee Powell, and The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939), starring Robert Livingston, have not been released to television, though both have been issued on home video.
Silver was played by three horses: White Cloud, Hi-Yo Silver, and Traveler, the stunt horse used as a stand-in.
The show's first sponsor was General Mills.
When Clayton Moore began supplementing his income with autograph-signing appearances at rodeos and circuses, the Lone Ranger’s copyright owners obtained a court order barring him from wearing his trademark black mask. Moore then wore sunglasses instead.
According to the Smithsonian's official website, the iconic black mask has been placed in the Smithsonian.
"Gunsmoke" star James Arness had one of his earliest bit parts on the show, playing a deputy in the 1950 episode "A Matter of Courage" for the minimum salary of $35.
The series was among the first TV shows nominated for an Emmy. It lost to the original “The Life of Riley” (1949), starring Jackie Gleason in the title role.
During the 1920s and 30s, Buck Jones starred in a series of westerns as a Texas Ranger who rode a white horse called Silver. He also claimed to have originated the yell "Hi-Yo Silver!" Among the titles were The Lone Rider (1930) and The Texas Ranger (1931). Jones sued Republic Pictures in an effort to halt production of their Lone Ranger movies. He lost the case, and the rest is history.
Rossini's "William Tell Overture" is so closely linked with the series that several people have said, "An Intellectual is one who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger".
In the third season, which starred John Hart, Clayton Moore is shown in the opening credits.
Mad Magazine spoofed the character twice: first as "The Lone Stranger!" and later as "The Lone Stranger Rides Again!".
Star Clayton Moore said that each half-hour show had a budget of approximately $10,000 per episode.
In 1954, Jack Wrather acquired The Lone Ranger (and Lassie), believing that a masked man (and a collie dog) could be replaced as needed, even though the audience had been unwilling to accept a new actor as the masked man the year before.
"The Lone Ranger" was the first filmed series broadcast on the ABC television network.
Because 'The Lone Ranger' premiered in 1949, when TV was basically a new medium, there were no guidelines for how many new episodes made up a 'season'. Across the show's 5 seasons, it produced an incredible 217 new episodes, averaging more than 44 per season, including 2 seasons with more than 50 episodes.
Clayton Moore had completed 78 episodes before John Hart replaced him. Hart's first episode was the Outlaw's son, the first of season three. His last was the The Red Mark the 52 episode of season three. Moore returned for the remainder of the series' run.
Contrary to popular belief, the show's catchphrase (from the radio program) is: "Hi YO, Silver". It is often mistaken for "Hi HO, Silver" and is spoken that way in various incarnations or 'mock-ups'.
Television was still in its infancy, and some markets had only one station, usually CBS or NBC. Since "The Lone Ranger" aired on ABC, many markets did not carry it in its first two (2) or three (3) seasons. Also, the markets that did air it did not all show it at the same time or on the dates listed on this site.

For Example, Atlanta was three episodes behind, so the premiere episode was shown on October, 6 1949.
John Hart and Jay Silverheels had both appeared in the 1952 film The Pathfinder.

Spoilers

The Lone Ranger was meant never to be captured or detained, preventing anyone from removing his mask. However, in season 5, episode #25, “Clover in the dark,” he was knocked unconscious, captured, bound to his horse, and sent off on Silver. Even the Ranger therefore would not have known if anyone peeked beneath his mask.