Once upon a time, television audiences only had a handful of networks to choose from. Back in the 1950s, NBC and CBS largely dominated the airwaves – but there was one exception: “The Lone Ranger.” Like many popular programs at the time, this Western classic spun out from radio. The drama found new life on the screen in 1949 when Clayton Moore masked up as the titular hero opposite his faithful companion Tonto (Jay Silverheels). Together, they put ABC on the map.
“Hi-yo, Silver!” These famous words were triumphantly yelled at the beginning of each episode of “The Lone Ranger,” which quickly became the network’s biggest hit. “When the A.C. Nielsen Company first began compiling national ratings for network programs in 1950, it was the only ABC program to rank in the top 15,” notes the ninth edition of “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present” by Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh. “Everything else was on NBC or CBS.”
Although “The Lone Ranger” was geared towards younger viewers, the half-hour television Western appealed to adults as well — no wonder it’s still remembered as one of the best shows set in Texas. Spanning five seasons and 221 episodes between 1949 and 1957, the series was so popular that both of the other competing networks ran reruns in the mid-to-late ’50s and into the early 1960s. The Lone Ranger may have started out as a radio hero, but he absolutely thrived on television.
The Lone Ranger lived on
Despite the masked rider’s popularity, “The Lone Ranger” didn’t always run so smoothly. During the third season, for example, Clayton Moore was replaced by John Hart. While some have claimed the recasting was due to a pay dispute, Moore maintained that he had no idea why he was let go. In the fourth season, he was brought back for the remainder of the series.
Moore and Silverheels went on to reprise their respective roles as the Lone Ranger and Tonto in two feature film continuations. The first was a 1956 film simply titled “The Lone Ranger,” followed by “The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold” two years later. That last project would mark their final on-screen partnership, with Moore only playing the Ranger once more in an official capacity in a 1959 episode of “Lassie.” Still, the spirit of the Lone Ranger continued nearly a decade later, with co-creator George W. Trendle’s next series, “The Green Hornet” – a show perfect for fans of Adam West’s “Batman.” What’s the connection? Why, the Lone Ranger himself, John Reid, was said to be the granduncle of ’60s vigilante Britt Reid, a.k.a. the Green Hornet.
Of course, legacy is about more than just blood relations. Decades later, the Ranger returned to the big screen with 1981’s “The Legend of the Lone Ranger,” a Moore-less reboot that tanked at the box office. Another reboot was attempted in 2013, simply titled “The Lone Ranger,” but that didn’t spark a resurgence either. Perhaps unsurprisingly, “The Lone Ranger” always fared better as a genre-defining small-screen Western.
