The Lone Ranger and Tonto
After the enormous success of the Lone Ranger radio series, it was no surprise that a version was developed for television as that medium began to gain popularity. The Lone Ranger premiered on the ABC network on September 15, 1949 and ran until June 6, 1957. Five seasons were produced consisting of 221 episodes. The series starred Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. John Hart replaced Clayton Moore in the title role for the third season, but Moore returned for the fourth and remained through the end of the show. Seasons one through four were filmed in black and white, while the fifth season made the transition to color.
Tropes found in the television series:
- Adaptation Personality Change: The Lone Ranger television series was adapted from the long-running radio series, and there are differences in the way both the Lone Ranger and Tonto are written and portrayed in the television adaptation that go beyond just a different actor playing the character. For example, the Lone Ranger on the radio is described as a very large man who generally dominates any fight he gets into, while Clayton Moore is muscular but average and his version of the character often struggles to win the fistfights he gets into, though he invariably does win. The radio version is more willing to commit illegal actions such as kidnapping in order to effect a just outcome, while the television version is much more careful to stay within the law as much as possible. Sometimes these differences are subtle, sometimes they're fairly obvious to anyone who is familiar with the source material.
- Backstory: the Lone Ranger doesn't really have one, given that his past and identity are left a mystery to the audience. Tonto gets a bit more in a first episode flashback where his family was killed, his village burned and he was left for dead, only to be nursed back to health by the young Reid, an act Tonto reciprocates when he nurses Reid back to health after the ambush that left him badly wounded and his fellow Texas Rangers dead.
- Determinator: The Lone Ranger and Tonto both qualify. They are totally dedicated to the pursuit of justice, and they never give up even after many, many injuries and brushes with death. Riding around the West and capturing criminals is their entire life.
- Dramatic Half-Hour
- Early-Installment Weirdness: These are confined mainly to the three-part story that opens the series. The Lone Ranger wears a necklace made from a ring that Tonto had given him years before when the teenaged Reid had saved Tonto's life after his village was attacked and his family killed. The necklace disappears after that first story. The Lone Ranger also wears only a single gun in that story, while he wears two for the rest of the series. There is also an unexplained mask change. He wears one where part of his nose is visible for around nine episodes, then switches to one that covers his nose, which remains in place until the color episodes begin, when he switches back to the original mask design.
- Episode Title Card: A relic of the early episodes from season 1, which display the episode's title over the Lone Ranger's face. This trend does not last long, and soon episodes are beginning with opening scenes instead.
- The Faceless: The Lone Ranger's face is never seen without his mask or some sort of disguise.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Averted. Characters drink alcohol and sometimes smoke, though depictions of both are minimal in the series, occurring far less frequently than in other contemporary Westerns. The Lone Ranger and Tonto do not indulge in either, with the Ranger explicitly telling a man who offers him a drink in one episode "I never touch spirits."
- Master of Disguise: The Lone Ranger put on fairly good disguises not too infrequently since all he really had to do was remove his mask and add a beard or something - and the beard was more to keep the audience from seeing his true face, since if he were to ever show himself just plain maskless to other characters on the show, only Tonto would ever know who he was.
- Narrator: The show uses narration sometimes, possibly as a result of adapting radio scripts. The early episodes use a narrator to set up the story, then the narration is dispensed with for a long time. It returns in season three for many of the episodes, disappears again, and then makes an occasional return in the final season when the story needs some setup.
- The Plan: Many, many episodes feature the Ranger telling someone "I have a plan", usually with regard to dealing with the episode's crooked actions, with the remainder of the episode spent watching that plan play out. Often he is able to correctly predict what a crook will do and how he will react in order to trap him and bring him to justice.
- Recurring Character:
- Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger's nephew. In contrast with the radio show where he's 14, in the television series he's older, and carries a gun.
- Barnaby Boggs: snake-oil salesman and a bit of a huckster, but he reforms and helps the Lone Ranger and Tonto out form time to time
- Secret-Keeper: Tonto knows that Reid/The Lone Ranger is the sole survivor of the ambush by the Cavendish gang, and is the only person to see him unmasked (something even the audience never sees). There's also Jim Blane, who operates the silver mine that provides the Ranger with the ore for his bullets. Blane even refers to him as "Reid" in the second episode before correcting himself and using the title "Ranger". Blane is never seen after the opening episodes.
- Silver Bullet: The Lone Ranger’s fires these rather than conventional bullets. He chose them as a symbol to represent his brand of justice, and he often uses them to identify himself to someone who is suspicious of him due to his mask.
- Switch to Color: The fifth and final season of the series was filmed in color.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Lone Ranger does not take lives. Tonto asks him about this in the second episode, and he insists that if a man must die, it's up to the law to take his life. He shoots to wound or to disarm, never to kill.
