Shark Bytes

Wow, nearly a year since the last comment on this show. Oh well, guess I'm dating myself a little.

I remember watching this in the early 60's as kid. I remember the thing that struck me. ..even then. . .was that the Lone Ranger chased every bad guy past the same rock and terrain week after week. No variation.

Also, I'm still curious why a guy who wears a mask out in broad daylight for all to see and literally blocks away from the bank, is always assumed to be a crook. Maybe he was under Dr's orders to protect his eyes or something?

When I was 5, I planned to marry Jay Silverheels. This show was awful. Clayton couldn't act. Nobody could. But we loved it, watched it religiously, and played it in the backyard. I still love it. And Jay too.

Nothing but good memories of this show. I caught in reruns as a kid in the late 70s-early 80s and even met Clayton Moore once at a personal appearance; which was kind of weird because it was around the time of the movie, and the studio wouldn't let him wear the mask, so he wore his lone ranger getup with dark sunglasses.

Let me get this straight: Tonto saves the Lone Ranger's life, and after that the masked man tells him what to do, like he's his boy ("Tonto do this, Tonto do that.") Don't get me wrong -- I loved this show, but it was horribly racist. Tonto was like Charlie Chan in that neither one of them used conjunctions when they spoke, which made me wonder if Tonto was Chinese or Charlie Chan was an Indian. I think the Lone Ranger used that mask he wore as an exuse to stay out of harm's way ("I'd really love to go into town, Tonto, but I've got this mask on, you see -- "). No, Tonto didn't get beat up every time he went into town, but someone always made a racist remark ("Get outta here, you dumb Injun', before I stick you in jail.") Plus, the poor guy never got any credit for putting his life on the line. At the end of each episode, you never hear "Who was that Indian?" It's always "Who was that masked man?"

Almost 50 years old and still watch it when I can, although on the dish it is on a religious channel and I have to put up with the salvation commercials. It almost jumped the shark when Hart replaced Moore for awhile, but then Clayton rode back and Hart rode off into the sunset. It's not that Hart was bad, he was just in a no-win situation trying to replace an actor who was so ingrained in our minds as the character. The stories were simple, the acting wasn't the best, and the budget seemed like it must have been miniscule, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable show. I always liked to watch to see some veteran western character actors. Just the other night saw an episode with Dwayne Hickman, who played Dobie Gillis. Jay Silverheels was actually a dignified, refined gentleman who did much to help Native American actors. I read a little of Clayton Moore's biography and he wrote how he and Jay would joke about the "Me Do" scripts. Never watched the 1980 movie with the completely forgettable Klinton Spilsbury (where did they find that guy anyway?????) All in all, a fine show.

The show jumped when Trendle sold the show to Wrather. They filmed in color and in different locations so production values improved, but they got rid of the music and stopped working from radio scripts. The shows became insipid. Some little kid in trouble runs away from home (we were supposed to identify).

The Lone Ranger never jumped. It was good entertainment for kids and is still a good show now, even for us old farts who watched it as kids. The only problem with the show is that poor old Tonto was always being sent ahead into town and either getting arrested, getting captured or getting the shit beat out of him (sometimes all 3!). Tonto should have told Kemosabe to take off that damn mask and go into town himself!

The Lone Ranger never JTS, not even when Clayton Moore was replaced for a while. I loved this show as a kid and still watch it today on video tape. I was fortunate enough to meet Clayton Moore about 20 years ago and he was a wonderful man and a real nice guy. To me, he will always be The Lone Ranger.

I loved this show, and it never jumped. Even though I was not around during its initial run, I watched it in reruns every Saturday during the 1960s. Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels were outstanding, and years after the show went off the air, they were even able to laugh at their on-screen personas. Does anyone remember the series of TV commercials they made in the mid-1960s in their Lone Ranger and Tonto characters advertising Aqua-Velva after shave lotion ? They were a riot. One of the commercials focused solely on the Lone Ranger's mask, which hung on a peg outside the shower and all you heard were their voices discussing the merits of Aqua Velva!

As the child of civil rights activists, I'd cringe at Tonto's dialogue, and how he was treated in general. As a fan of westerns (even the corny ones) this ranks right up there. Wooden and two-dimensional, yes, but I was thrilled to re-discover it on The Family Channel a few years ago. Later, I came to appreciate Jay Silverheels--he did a lot in the industry to improve things for Native American actors. Still can't bring myself to watch the movie, after all the negative comments I heard at the time (many echoed here).

Clayton Moore personified the character of the Lone Ranger and will forever be thought of as THE Lone Ranger. He lived the part and remained an upstanding example for the youth of this nation. He can never be replaced, but will be long remembered

The Lone Ranger was such a sweet, silly show, that it never jumped so long as Clayton Moore was in the lead role. Hart was not a bad performer, he was merely miscast--and anyone would seem miscast in the part after Moore's definitive performance. In the movie serial Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy, for instance, Hart was fine--even though he was considerably older than a teenage "boy" by then. One problem with his performance as The Lone Ranger is that he seemed to have trouble keeping a straight face; Moore flashed a smile a lot, but it was because he was being friendly. When Hart smiled you got the impression he was suppressing a laugh. Something else that was interesting about the relationship with Tonto and The Lone Ranger--when he wasn't getting the crap kicked out of him in town, Tonto was invariably wrong, no matter what he said: Tonto: "Me go with you, Kemosabe." "No Tonto, you go back to the old abandoned mine..." Just once you'd think The Lone Ranger could have said "Yeah, what the heck; we'll try it your way." It was Klinton Spilsbury who starred in the movie. Not ony could he not act, he couldn't ride a horse worth a darn, and it would be on one only very briefly during public appearances. Even then it was apparent that he was about to slide off of the saddle. Know the definition of an intellectual? A person who can listen to The William Tell Overture and not once think about The Lone Ranger. By the way, the passage in the Overture that is played at the start of the show is the passage where William Tell is riding to the rescue on horseback, just like The Lone Ranger.

Never--even though it got dragged underwater for a couple of years while John Hart wooden-acted his way through it (in the baggiest Lone Ranger costumer you can imagine). But it improved when Moore returned. 51 years old here and I still watch TLR every night. They've cut out most of the opening narration--orignally to make room for more commercials when it went into endless syndication but the Western Channel shows it without commercials. By the way, John Hart did not play TLR in the movie, Quentin Spillsbury (sp?) did, but he was so bad they brought in James Keach to overdub all his dialogue . . . Hart played the newspaper publisher who was killed early on. The area of the San Fernando Valley where a lot of outdoor scenes were shot is now tract homes, but the rock he rears up in front of at the start of each show is still there . . . I stop and visit "Lone Ranger Rock" every now and then.

In the Bronx the definition of an intellectual, was one who knew that, the Lone Ranger theme song was the William Tell Overture

The Lone Ranger never really "Jumped the Shark" rather I think I did - I grew up. I loved the programme as a child but watching it as an adult I was disappointed with it. The theme was still great - a quick point please only state a love for the theme if you cannot get the name correct since it was the "William Tell Overture" and not the "1812 Overture" as stated above - but the programme itself could not match my memories of it. Still, watching the programme on a Saturday morning as a child is a happy memory for me.