Intro to Enter the Lone Ranger

Today the Lone Ranger and Tonto may seem like musty bits of nostalgia. But one writer has noted their significance in American culture:

The Origin of the Lone Ranger and Tonto

The Lone Ranger and Tonto were once more recognizable than just about any actual human being in America.

By Timothy SextonIn 1930 a man named George W. Trendle made history and created a character who would become one of the most recognized icons in the history of American pop culture.

A brainstorming session eventually got around to the idea of placing a Robin Hood type figure into America's wild west. The centerpiece of the character would be, obviously, a man of deep moral and ethical convictions. The western locale was chosen because the western mythos had been working so well in the movies and in books, and would continue to be a dependable genre for another four decades.

What turned the Lone Ranger into a cemented piece of Americana was that this group of creative individuals could clearly see that the secret to long term success lay in developing a legendary character that could not have existed in this particular type of situation anywhere else in the world. Robin Hood of the old west he may have been, but there was no mistaking that the Lone Ranger would become an American folk hero with a mythic dimension all his own that belongs to both Native Americans and immigrants.As a combination of white knight, pistol-packin' cowboy, and masked avenger, the Lone Ranger is indeed an ideal American hero. He resonates with almost every category of hero described in Why Write About Superheroes?

As a kid, I watched reruns of the TV series. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who learned about Indians from the Ranger's faithful Indian companion. While our parents grew up on old Westerns and our children on Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas, Tonto was about the only Indian we knew.

So Tonto is a seminal (not Seminole) Indian figure. For a generation he influenced how people portrayed and perceived Indians.

He was an important factor in the revisionism that occurred in the 1950s. After Tonto, Indians were less likely to be half-naked, whooping savages with murder on the mind. They became generic fighters in buckskins, headbands, and feathers. They were calm, placid, and stoic--sometimes even wise and humorous.

Anyway, I hadn't seen an episode of The Lone Ranger for 30 or more years. But I just watched the first one--1949's Enter the Lone Ranger--via Netflix. It established the relationship between the Lone Ranger and Tonto, setting the pattern for this show and others that followed. Therefore, it's worth looking at this episode in detail.

For more on the subject, see The Lone Ranger and TV Shows Featuring Indians.