49 Fun Facts About The Lone Ranger

On which Detroit radio station did The Lone Ranger first air in 1933?

WXYZ. Owner George Trendle had cut the station loose from CBS, so it had to fill its schedule with home-made dramas, and a Western was one of his ideas.

Which writer is credited, with station owner George Trendle, with creating the Lone Ranger?

Fran Striker. Working from Buffalo, he was already selling the Detroit station several scripts a week when Trendle asked for a Western, and he later wrote most of the 18 Lone Ranger novels.

Which cereal maker sponsored The Lone Ranger through its last 15 years on radio?

General Mills. Wheaties and Cheerios became the show's cereals, and the company kept sponsoring repeats on the air after the last new episode in 1954.

What made the outlaws believe every ambushed Ranger was dead?

An empty grave. Tonto dug a sixth beside the five dead Rangers, so the survivor could hunt the gang as a man they believed buried.

At which canyon were the Lone Ranger and his fellow Texas Rangers ambushed?

Bryant's Gap. A guide secretly working for the outlaws led the Rangers onto the canyon floor, where riflemen on the cliffs above cut down all but one of them.

Which outlaw led the gang that ambushed the Lone Ranger and his fellow Texas Rangers?

Butch Cavendish. On radio he later broke out of prison and met his end in a cliff-top struggle with the Ranger, back at the scene of the massacre.

Station owner George Trendle wanted the Lone Ranger to have the appeal of which earlier screen swashbuckler?

Zorro. Trendle asked for a mysterious hero with that kind of pull but wholesome enough for children, so the mask stayed and the sword gave way to six-guns.

From what was the Lone Ranger's black mask cut?

His dead brother's vest. Captain Dan Reid had led the Rangers into the ambush, so the surviving Reid carried a piece of his brother with him on the hunt for the killers.

What does Tonto call the Lone Ranger?

Kemo Sabe. On radio Tonto explains it as 'faithful friend', and the show's first director said he lifted it from Ke-Mo-Sah-Bee, a boys' camp his father-in-law had run in Michigan.

The Lone Ranger's announcer invited listeners to return to "those thrilling days of" what?

Yesteryear. "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear" opened the show for years, and Fred Foy, who read it from 1948, was still reciting it for interviewers at 86.

Why was Tonto added to The Lone Ranger soon after its radio debut?

So the hero had someone to talk to. For the first ten or so scripts the Ranger rode alone, which left the writer no way to carry dialogue, as he later told his son.

Why is Tonto renamed Toro for Latin American audiences?

His name means "stupid" in Spanish. The show's makers said it came from a Potawatomi word for "wild one"; either way Spanish dubs call him Toro, the word for bull.

What is the name of the Lone Ranger's horse?

Silver. The white stallion was running wild when the Ranger found him, and on radio he was shod with silver shoes, the metal coming from a mine the Reid brothers owned.

How did the Lone Ranger win his white stallion's loyalty?

He saved it from an enraged buffalo. On TV he and Tonto then nurse the injured stallion back to health, and the horse stays with him instead of returning to the wild.

What is the name of Tonto's horse in the Lone Ranger television series?

Scout. On radio Tonto's new paint horse went unnamed for weeks in 1938, until it helped expose a smuggling ring and was praised as a sure enough good scout.

What was sealed inside the Lone Ranger Atomic Bomb Ring, a Kix cereal premium of 1947?

A speck of radioactive polonium. For 15 cents and a Kix box top, children got a ring that showed flashes from its atoms in a dark room, sold with a guarantee that it was perfectly safe.

The Lone Ranger's theme comes from the finale of which overture?

William Tell. Rossini wrote the finale in 1829 as a march of Swiss soldiers, and the show made it so much its own that the tune now signals a hero galloping to the rescue.

Which composer scored Disney's 2013 film The Lone Ranger after rocker Jack White dropped out?

Hans Zimmer. Disney brought in its Pirates of the Caribbean composer in December 2012, months after announcing the White Stripes frontman, who left over scheduling conflicts.

Why was classical music originally used on the Lone Ranger radio show?

It was in the public domain. The station paid no royalties and hired no composer, yet the old orchestral pieces it picked to save money became the show's signature.

Who voiced the Lone Ranger on radio for some 1,300 episodes until his death in 1941?

Earle Graser. He died in a car crash in April 1941, and for several episodes the scripts had the Ranger able only to whisper while Tonto carried the action and a successor was found.

Which deep-voiced announcer took over as radio's Lone Ranger in April 1941 and kept the role to the end?

Brace Beemer. He already made the hero's public appearances, because the tall horseman looked the part and the man behind the voice did not, and he stayed until the last new episode in 1954.

Which actor played Tonto for almost the whole run of the Lone Ranger radio show?

John Todd. Radio hid the casting: he was a bald veteran of vaudeville and Broadway musicals, working under a stage name, who looked nothing like the warrior listeners pictured.

Which radio network, launched in 1934, was The Lone Ranger's first national home?

Mutual Broadcasting System. Stations in Chicago and New York were already taking the Detroit serial by telephone line when the network formed, and by 1939 some 20 million Americans were listening.

Which rule did the Lone Ranger's creators set for the character?

He never shot to kill. He aimed to wing or disarm, and in two decades on radio the only man to die at his hands was the leader of the gang that had ambushed him.

How did the Lone Ranger typically confirm his identity when suspicions were aroused?

By presenting a silver bullet. The bullets came from a mine he owned with his brother and worked as a calling card: he rarely gave his name and left others to vouch for him.

How did The Lone Ranger usually depict saloons to fit its hero's clean image?

As cafes serving food. The writers' guidelines swapped bartenders and liquor for waiters and meals, because a hero written as a model for young listeners never drank or smoked.

Which Mexican leader did the Lone Ranger help against French troops in 1939 radio episodes?

Benito Juárez. France had installed Maximilian as emperor of Mexico in the 1860s, and a three-part radio story sent the Ranger south to help the republic's president against the emperor's troops.

What did a bystander usually ask as the Lone Ranger rode away?

"Who was that masked man?" The Ranger never waited for thanks or payment, so one of those left behind asked the question as he rode off and another supplied the name.

Which crime-fighting radio hero was written as the Lone Ranger's great-nephew?

The Green Hornet. The same Detroit station launched him in 1936 as Britt Reid, son of the Ranger's nephew Dan, but the two heroes' rights were later sold apart and the family link was dropped.

Which studio released two Lone Ranger serials in 1938 and 1939?

Republic Pictures. Its contract let the studio change the character as it pleased, and an unhappy George Trendle cut ties with it after the second serial.

Which real deputy US marshal has been suggested as an inspiration for the Lone Ranger?

Bass Reeves. Born into slavery, he is said to have made more than 3,000 arrests in Indian Territory, one of them his own son, though his biographer concedes the link to the radio hero can't be proved.

Who played Tonto in both Lone Ranger film serials of the late 1930s?

Chief Thundercloud. His Tonto rode a paint horse in the 1938 serial, and within months the radio Tonto, who had ridden a white one, was given a paint horse too.

Who starred as the Lone Ranger in the 1949–1957 television series?

Clayton Moore. A former trapeze artist, he won the part after the producers saw him play another masked hero in a 1949 serial, then practised scales to match the deep voice of radio's Ranger.

Who played the Lone Ranger on television for the 1952-53 season in place of the usual star?

John Hart. He made 52 episodes behind the mask, and the star he replaced always said nobody told him why he had been dropped or why he was brought back.

Jay Silverheels, TV's Tonto, first came to Hollywood as a touring player of which sport?

Lacrosse. Comedian Joe E. Brown saw him with a touring box lacrosse team in Los Angeles in the late 1930s, urged him to try films and helped him get his actors' union card.

What did TV's Lone Ranger gain for its final season?

Colour film. New owner Jack Wrather shot those last 39 episodes in colour and took the cameras out of the studio for more outdoor action.

What did TV's Lone Ranger wear in public after a 1979 court order banned his mask?

Oversized wraparound sunglasses. Fans rallied to him, and after a five-year fight the company that owned the character backed down in 1984 and the 70-year-old put the real mask back on.

Which 1958 feature film starred TV's Lone Ranger and Tonto?

The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold. Oilman Jack Wrather, who had paid $3 million for the character in 1954, took him off television and into cinemas, but this second feature was the last.

The Lone Ranger Creed opens, "I believe that to have a friend, a man must" do what?

Be one. The show's writer composed the creed as his hero's statement of belief, and TV's Ranger was still telling audiences in 1996 that he believed in it, truly and always.

Which star of the sitcom Taxi played the outlaw leader in 1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger?

Christopher Lloyd. He had grown up loving the radio serial, and later called the studio's move to stop TV's Ranger wearing his mask nasty and unnecessary.

Which 1970s TV detective star voiced the Lone Ranger in early-1980s cartoons under his own surname spelled backwards?

William Conrad. The credits list the voice as J. Darnoc; the star of Cannon had been radio's Marshal Dillon on Gunsmoke long before television made his face known.

In 1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger, what became of star Klinton Spilsbury's lines?

Another actor dubbed them. James Keach, fresh from playing Jesse James, was hired to loop a few lines and ended up re-voicing almost the whole film, uncredited; Spilsbury never made another.

Who played Tonto in the 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger?

Michael Horse. An artist making his film debut, he feared the part would repeat old stereotypes, and went on to play Deputy Hawk in Twin Peaks.

Johnny Depp played Tonto in Disney's 2013 film The Lone Ranger, but who played the title role?

Armie Hammer. He was billed below his co-star, whose elderly Tonto tells the whole story to a boy in San Francisco in 1933.

How did Disney's 2013 Lone Ranger film fare in cinemas?

Lost a fortune. It cost well over $200 million to make and took about $260 million worldwide, and Disney told investors to expect a write-down of up to $190 million.

In Disney's 2013 film The Lone Ranger, what does Johnny Depp's Tonto wear on his head?

A dead crow. Depp took the look from a Kirby Sattler painting, I Am Crow, in which a bird flying behind a warrior seemed to him to be sitting on the man's head.

What did the 1938 Lone Ranger serial hide until its final chapter?

The hero's identity. Any of five Texans could be the Ranger, and only the last chapter reveals him as Allen King.

George Seaton, an early radio voice of the Lone Ranger, later won an Oscar for writing which Christmas film?

Miracle on 34th Street. Billed as George Stenius, he left the radio role after about three months in 1933; fourteen years later he directed the Santa Claus classic and won the Academy Award for its screenplay.

The Blue Network, radio home of The Lone Ranger from 1942, went on to become which broadcaster?

ABC. Regulators forced NBC to sell the second of its two radio networks, and the renamed company later put the Ranger on television, where the series became its first big hit.