History Main / PonyExpressRider

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' Hoagie has to send a letter via Pony Express so that Bernard can finish his part of the quest. They ignores the fact that Hoagie was in the late 18th century and the Pony Express only existed in the mid 19th century.

* In the "Kamp Krusty" episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa bribes a Pony Express Rider with a bottle of liquor to deliver her letter to Marge and Homer.

* ''Cody of the Pony Express'', a 1950 serial from Columbia Pictures. It's loosely based on claims by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody to have been a PonyExpressRider.

* ''Film/{{Gunslinger}}'' featured a Pony Express rider as a bearer of important news.
** When this film was featured on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', the 'bots were inspired to set up their own knockoff, with Crow as the rider and Gypsy as the horse. Tom Servo then uses the Gypsy Express to send completely unimportant messages to Joel, who's only standing a few feet away from him anyway.

* The protagonist of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' was a motorcycle courier who got struck down during a delivery, hence why he was [[SleptThroughTheApocalypse in a coma during the outbreak]] of the [[HatePlague Rage Virus]].

* ''Literature/DaveBarrySleptHere'' claims that Pony Express riders traveled on telegraph wires, and their horses "would often get as far as thirty feet before they would fall off the wires and splat courageously onto the ground."

* The series ''Series/TheYoungRiders'' revolved around a group of pony express riders that included a girl pretending to be a boy, along with a young Wild Bill Hickock, Bill Cody, and Jesse James. (The series actually lasted longer than the real thing)
* In the ''Kit Carson'' episode "Baron of Black Springs", criminals ambush a Pony Express rider to steal evidence he's carrying enroute to the War Department.

* The Pony Express survives much longer in the world of ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' than it did in the real world as the weirdness unleashed by the Reckoning makes the telegraph far less reliable.
* In the world of ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'', the local equivalent are the Riders of Beilunk, notable for delivering "anywhere on the continent, no matter where." There are instances where it is mentioned that 'the rider just brushed off the arrows stuck in his black leather clothes, and rode off again' when delivering to people travelling through the Orcland - they find the addressees even though they are on the move!

* In the WideOpenSandbox Western ''VideoGame/{{Gun}}'' the player can take side missions with The Pony Express. Bizarrely, many of the missions are more about running errands for shop keepers than delivering mail. The final mission involves delivering parts to complete the railroad, which makes the Pony Express obsolete.

* In the "Kamp Krusty" episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa bribes a Pony Express Rider with a bottle of liquor to deliver her letter to Marge and Homer.

* ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' The guys have to help Buffalo Bill create the Pony Express. Problem is that Bill is completely crazy and wants to spend his time writing conspiracy theories. Otto then tricks him into thinking that the whole nation should know the truth he speaks and that he should get on his horse and send his newspapers and along with a satchel of Kansas City mail to the recipients.

In order to reduce mail delivery time to ten days, from the twenty-five days achieved by the fastest stagecoach, the founders of the Pony Express built stations every ten miles stocked with fresh horses. The riders recruited were little more than boys, usually weighing less than 125 pounds, and the hazards of the job were such that their employers declared "Orphans Preferred". They rode at a gallop from one station to the next, switching to fresh horses, and galloping on to the next station. Everything was designed to reduce weight and increase speed, and when carrying the text of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural speech in March 1861, the service achieved a best time of seven days and seventeen hours.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ponyexad_1466.jpg]]

* Shows up in Literature/{{Discworld}}'s ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', where the protagonist wagers he can get a letter to a city on the other side of the continent faster than a telegram equivalent. Of course, he's an ex-con artist, so the whole thing is full of psychological warfare, underhanded tactics and unfair demands, all the while making his opposition look like a whining child.

* ''Film/TheGunslingers'' featured a Pony Express rider as a bearer of important news.

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* In the WideOpenSandbox Western ''VideoGame/{{Gun}}'' the player can take side missions with The Pony Express. Bizarrely, many of the missions are more about running errands for shop keepers than delivering mail.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' tried to use the Pony Express as the logo of the Imperial Intersteller Scout Service, which operates the similar Express Boat network. But the (in-universe) designers of the logo didn't realize a pony was a small horse, instead thinking it was a similarly-named creature from another world. Thus, the logo features a horseback rider on an eight-legged dinosaur.

* Focus of the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' book "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Pony Express]]", the twist being that Luke ends up having to ride all the way himself, as a competitor tries to sabotage the mail delivery. At the end of the book, we get a glimpse of the future, how the telegram replaces the pony express. In "The Singing Wire", the telegraph connection construction is approved and one of the responsible engineers hires Luke to help them build it.

* In ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' Hoagie has to send a letter via Pony Express so that Bernard can finish his part of the quest. This ignores the fact that Hoagie was in the late 18th century and the Pony Express only existed in the mid 19th century. Not so much ignorance as artistic license, as the game has several other deliberate historical inaccuracies.

* A Pony Express rider makes a very brief appearance in MarkTwain's ''Roughing It,'' flashing past the author's stagecoach.

* Referred to in ''HowTheWestWasWon''.
* Mentioned anachronistically in ''SheWoreAYellowRibbon''.
* ''TheGunslingers'' featured a Pony Express rider as a bearer of important news.

** When this film was featured on ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'', the 'bots were inspired to set up their own knockoff, with Crow as the rider and Gypsy as the horse. Tom Servo then uses the Gypsy Express to send completely unimportant messages to Joel, who's only standing a few feet away from him anyway.

* One of George [=MacDonald=] Fraser's notes to ''{{Flashman}} and the Redskins'' talks about the true story of "old Bronco Charlie Miller driving past filling-stations and movie theatres where once he had ridden for the Pony Express" to emphasize just how ephemeral the frontier was.

* in the ''Kit Carson'' episode "Baron of Black Springs", criminals ambush a Pony Express rider to steal evidence he's carrying enroute to the War Department.

* The science fiction RolePlayingGame ''{{Traveller}}'' tried to use the Pony Express as the logo of the Imperial Intersteller Scout Service, which operates the similar Express Boat network. But the (in-universe) designers of the logo didn't realize a pony was a small horse, instead thinking it was a similarly-named creature from another world. Thus, the logo features a horseback rider on an eight-legged dinosaur.
* The Pony Express survives much longer in the world of ''{{Deadlands}}'' than it did in the real world as the weirdness unleashed by the Reckoning makes the telgraph far less reliable.

A rider for the Pony Express, a fast mail-delivery service between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. The service only operated from April 1860 to October 1861, when the first transcontinental telegraph line made it obsolete, and never received the U.S. mail contract that would have made the service profitable. Yet it became legendary [[BrieferThanTheyThink out of all proportion to its duration]], as an example of American individuality, ruggedness and "can-do" spirit. The idea of fast mounted couriers riding in relays between staging posts is OlderThanFeudalism, going back at least to the Persian Empire (ca. 550–330 BC). But the previous versions had been exclusively for government communications, rather than anyone who could pay the fees, and of the courage and toughness of the couriers and station-men there is no doubt.

A rider for the Pony Express, a fast mail-delivery service between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. The service only operated from April 1860 to October 1861, when the first transcontinental telegraph line made it obsolete, but it became legendary [[BrieferThanTheyThink out of all proportion to its duration]], as an example of American individuality, ruggedness and "can-do" spirit. The idea of fast mounted couriers riding in relays between staging posts is OlderThanFeudalism, going back at least to the Persian Empire (ca. 550–330 BC). But the previous versions had been exclusively for government communications, rather than anyone who could pay the fees, and of the courage and toughness of the couriers and station-men there is no doubt.

* Focus of the ''LuckyLuke'' book "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Pony Express]]", the twist being that Luke ends up having to ride all the way himself, as a competitor tries to sabotage the mail delivery. At the end of the book, we get a glimpse of the future, how the telegram replaces the pony express. In "The Singing Wire", the telegraph connection construction is approved and one of the responsible engineers hires Luke to help them build it.