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From 1949 to 1958,
The Lone Ranger (with
Tonto, natch) dominated tv as
the Western show for kids.
It was also ABC-TV's first hit series, winning it's time period consistently.
In 1955, it was decided to film the b/w series in color for it's final (1956-57) season.
Before shooting for the season itself began, both a tv special celebrating the character's anniversary and a feature film were shot using the new color equipment. Then filming began on the final season, which also required reshooting
all the previous outdoor stock footage (which was b/w).
Ironically, ABC began airing the color-filmed episodes (including the anniversary special)
before the movie opened in theatres...but aired them in b/w, so this movie is, chronologically, the character's
first color appearance!
Clayton Moore is
still considered the definitive
Lone Ranger, and Native American actor Jay Silverheels played
Tonto as smarter than most cowboys he encountered, despite the character's problems with adjectives.
Here's the trailer from the first movie...
And here's the opening from the second feature film, Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, which synopsizes his origin in two minutes!
(It takes a whole movie to do it these days, and not as well!)
We're presenting these classic clips to alert you to a related Internet
first...a serialized story carried across
multiple blogs!
We're re-presenting as a
4th of July holiday treat, the 60-page-plus comic adaptation of the 1956
Lone Ranger feature film, illustrated by Tom Gill (with inking by Joe Sinnott), which has
never been reprinted!
The first two parts run today and tomorrow at
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, then parts three and four on July 1st and 2nd at
Hero & Heroine Histories™, with the last two on July 3rd and 4th at
Western Comics Adventures™!
Join us as we make cyber-history! ;-)
