gO 0" TRADITION, PARODY, AND ADAPTATION 3 0 John Shelton Lawrence Sherman, Samuel. Legendary Singing Cowboys. New York: FriedmanlFairfax, 1995. Stanfield, Peter. Horse Opera: The Strange History of the 1930s Singing Cowboy. Chicago: University ofIllinois Press, 2002. Tuska,]on. TheAmerican West in Film: Critical Approaches to the Western. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1988. Wright, Will. Six Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Westem. Berkeley: THE LONE RANGER University of California Press, 1975. Adult Legacies ofaJuvenile Western LONE RANGER: Tonto, from this day on I'm going to devote my life to establishing law and order, to make the West a decent place to live. TONTO: That good. -"Enter the Lone Ranger,"TV genesis episode of1949 ,Born at Detroit radio station WXYZ in 1933, the Lone Ranger became a great twentieth-century mythmaking franchise. His trajectory ascended out .ofradio, pulp novels, advertising endorsements, licensed merchandise, ': and fan clubs into the sphere of serialized television and the B Western. As " the Ranger's commercial flare dimmed, he plummeted toward ITClWrather's widely scorned feature The Legend ofthe Lone Ranger (1981) and the much­ "deridedWarner Bros. television pilot "The Lone Ranger" (February26,2003). iIn that failed two-hour resurrection, the Ranger is "Luke Hartman," a brown­ hatted Harvard lawstudentwith NewAge tendencies and hot springs fantasies about Tonto's sexy sister. Even the silver bullets go missing. Yet these latter-day signs ofdecline should not mask the Ranger-imprinted perhero personae that still excite American screen audiences. Nor should e ignore the Lone Ranger-based metaphors that survive as terms for !Danagerial style or the U.S. approach in foreign policy. To understand the world's cultural and political vocabulary, one must review the Ranger's calling ~to make the West a decent place to live." This chapter will "return to those ,thrilling days ofyesteryear"-the phrase so often intoned by the radio programs ~nnouncers-to sketch the Ranger's complex mythic legacy. In clarifYing this tural transmission, a pair of episodes from the radio and television series JOHN SHELTON LAWRENCE 0< 83 82 0< THE LONE RANGER polarized moral world were appealing.2 Each thirty-minute radio episode was bookended by Rossini's overture to William Td4 musical bridges from other classics, and verbal incantations that children loved to memorize, transform, and playfully toss at one another: "Come on, Kemo Sabe," "That good, Kemo Sabe," "Hi-yo Cheerios" (a witty reference to the breakfast cereal sponsorship). Each program ended with a formulaic "thanks to the Lone Ranger" or a rustically spoken question: "Who was that masked man, anyway?" each time answered by a sage voice saying, "Why, don't you know? That was the Lone Ranger!" Then the Ranger's farewell cry could be heard: "Hi-yo, Silver-­ aawaaay!"--with a husky intonation and an elegant stretching of the final word. These radio episodes, which ran thrice weekly for twenty-two years until 1954 (Holland 146), have achieved an immortality transcending the marketplace. First available on records, then on tape, they n<?W circulate in noncommercial DVD sets that contain hundreds ofMP3 format files. Some episodes can be downloaded from radio nostalgia sites. Along with other collectibles-cap guns, action figures, comic books, Kix Cereal's Atom Bomb Ring, the cardboard buildings of the frontier town offered as Cheerios premiums-these disks are perpetually available to bidders on eBay. In addition to the intrinsicallyengaging dramas ofcrime and apprehension in the Old West, a significant factor in the Lone Ranger's.commercial success with children was parental approval. Adults were enthusiastic about the moral content ofthe Ranger tales; they were happy to allow the broadcast in their . homes or to place licensed Ranger merchandise in their children's hands. Radio success parlayed into novels, then feature films and television. Dust jacket from 1937 edition, Illustrating just one of many commendations earned by the franchise are Grossett and Dunlap. Senator Homer Ferguson's words of celebration for the Ranger's twentieth­ anniversary radio broadcast: prove central in condensing the narratives, icons, and metaphors from this franchise. Every program came to a successful conclusion with the moral message to be learned from the Ranger's adventures.... George Trendle built in characteristics that would endear the Lone THE RANGER'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE Ranger to the young and at the same time teach them the principles of good citizenship. In every program the Ranger illustrated the basic tenets In the beginning, radio station owner George W.Trendle, writer Fran Striker, ofhonesty, patriotism, fair play, tolerance, and a sympathetic:understanding and WXYZ drama director James JewelF aimed the Lone Ranger toward a ofpeople and their rights and privileges. juvenile audience. The series, which eventually drew in many voices, hands, , The Lone Ranger himself is a model ofAmerican manhood....The and faces, never wavered from its youthful focus during its greatest commercial,N' Ranger neither smokes, drinks intoxicating beverages, nor uses profanity. 'success-estrom-r9J3tcjI95I.ForchUdren,therepetitive-struGtureand.simply~~ .'..jqyoted in Yoggy 14) ',$; 84 0 Tm: LONE RA:-<GER JOHN SHELTON LAWRENCE 0< 85 On this occasion, the script of the program itself was inserted into the the TV Western's most awaited moments. This pair became the most loved of Congressional Record. all the performers who ever played the roles for the screen. Their popularity Reflecting the spirit ofidealism extolled by Senator Ferguson, the franchise and enthusiastic identification with their roles doubtless impaired the ability strove to be a good national citizen. It founded the Lone Ranger Safety Club, of the franchise to survive their departure. No one ever looked or sounded in which the "Safety Scout Pledge" included commitments to "always tell the quite right after they were gone. truth....To be kind to birds and animals....To keep myself neat and clean, The successful Moore-Silverheels performances allowed the franchise to To obey my father and mother."There were other ventures, such as the Lone create three full-length films that permanently encapsulate the mythic legacy: Ranger Peace Patrol, which targeted the purchase ofUS. savings bonds (Yoggy the television compilation Legend qfthe Lone Ranger (1952), Warner Bros.' 13-14). Few programs of the era could compete with such a patriotic aura. Lone Ranger (1956), and United Artists' Lone Ranger and the Lost City 0/" Gold (1958). Even though Legend strung together three television episodes, it contained "Enter the Lone Ranger" from the serial's first broadcast on THE FIRST FILMS AND TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS September 15, 1949. "Enter" successfully visualized the origins story for the .Lone Ranger that had matured through years of accretion, only receiving its Visual programming capitalized on this radio success. Serialized films from radio broadcast as "The Origin ofthe Lone Ranger" in the prioryear onJune Republic studios came with The Lone Ranger (1938),3 which was quickly 1948.4 As "Enter"worked synergisticallywith the often rebroadcast "Origin" followed by another fifteen-part compilation called The Lone Ranger Rides on the radio, the Lone Ranger themes became succincdy and artfully established Again (1939). Exploiting George Trendle's open-ended license for the serials, for several generations ofAmericans. C RepUblic played loose with the character. In The Lone Ranger five aCtors acted as if they might be the Ranger, each wearing identical clothes, hats, and alternately the distinctive mask-taking it on and off. Feeling the mythic THE HEROIC MYfHOLOGY OF THE GENESIS essence was diluted with this sort ofguessing game and naked faces, George Trend1e reasserted control of the screen franchise, stipulating that such At the Lone Ranger's birth on the radio avoice announces: "This is the legend unmasking would end (Holland 243). ofa man who buried his identity to dedicate his life to the service ofhumanity Waiting a decade, Trend1e authorized a Warner Bros. Lone Ranger and country.... Early settlers in the West had to be brave men and women. television series that began in 1949. Overlapping the radio series for five years, ... There was danger on every side, wild beasts, savage Indians, and the it had a 221-episode run lasting through 1957 (Lentz 282-93). These Cavendish gang" ("Origin"). Butch Cavendish is an outlaw whose rogues visualizations of the Ranger's way of justice straightforwardly expressed the terrorize the whole Southwest. Pursuing Cavendish, a group of six Texas character values and vision conveyed on the radio. Yet, being budget Westerns, Rangers led by Dan Reid, the Lone Rangers brother, are led into an ambush, the television programs looked gaunt. What was cheap to convey through where they are trapped by rifle fire on the canyon floor at Bryant's Gap. All studio sound effects-herds of frightened animals, tribes ofyelling Indians, die except the man who becomes the Lone Ranger. The surviving Reid wakes wagon trains, and so forth-was far too expensive for weekly {11m shoots with up days later in a cave, where he has been carried by an Indian, who introduces budgets ranging from $12,500 in 1949 to 518,000 in 1954 (Holland 296). himself as a man rescued years before when Tonto's village was attacked by The Lone Ranger and Tonto's humble camp for the night, always set by the renegades. Reid had even continued to wear a friendship ring given to him same boulder in the brushy hills, revealed the financial limits. Tonto when they parted as teenagers. Qy.eried about the fate of the other Yet Clayton Moore andJay Silverheels gave excitement to the series.Their Rangers, Tonto replies, "Other Texas Rangers-all dead. You only Ranger juvenile-credible acting and physical grace engaged viewers. To see them swing left. You lone Ranger now" ("Enter"). Thus Tonto's pidgin English creates one onto their horses in unison to exit from an admiring community was one of ofthe most distinctive names in American mythological history.