Lone Ranger Radio Show Download

He first appeared in 1933 in a radio show on WXYZ (Detroit), conceived either by station owner George W. Trendle[3][4][5] or by Fran Striker,[8] the show's writer.[9][10] Test episodes aired earlier on radio station WEBR in Buffalo. The radio series proved to be a hit, and spawned a series of books (largely written by Striker), an equally popular television show that ran from 1949 to 1957, comic books, and several films. The title character was played on the radio show by Earle Graser for some 1,300 episodes, but two others preceded him, according to The New York Times: "a man named Deeds, who lasted only a few weeks; a George Stenius [actually George Seaton according to the Los Angeles Times]. After Graser's death in 1941, Brace Beemer assumed the role after serving as the narrator of the program.[11][8]

While details differ, the basic story of the Lone Ranger's origin is consistent in most versions of the franchise.[8] The Lone Ranger is the sole survivor of a group of six ambushed Texas Rangers.[12] A posse of six members of the Texas Ranger Division, led by Captain Dan Reid, pursued a band of outlaws led by Bartholomew "Butch" Cavendish, but are betrayed by a civilian guide named Collins, who was secretly working with Cavendish, and led the unsuspecting rangers into an ambush at a canyon known as Bryant's Gap.[13] Later, a Native American named Tonto stumbles onto the grisly scene. He discovers one of the rangers, Captain Reid's younger brother, John, barely alive, and he nurses the man to health. In some versions, Tonto recognizes the lone survivor as the man who had saved his life when they both were children. According to the television series, Tonto gave John a ring and the name Kemo Sabe, which he said means "trusty scout".[14] John Reid then tells Tonto that he intends to hunt down Cavendish and his men and to bring them to justice. To conceal his identity and honor his fallen brother, John fashions a black domino mask using cloth from his late brother's vest. To aid in the deception, Tonto digs a sixth grave and places at its head a cross bearing John Reid's name so that Cavendish and his gang will believe that all the Rangers had been killed.

DOWNLOAD

Although the Lone Ranger's last name in the radio shows was given as Reid, his first name was never specified in any of the radio or television shows. Various radio reference books, beginning with Radio's Golden Age (Eastern Valley Press, 1966), give the Lone Ranger's first name as John.[17] Some cite the 20th-anniversary radio program in 1953 as the source of the name, but the Lone Ranger's first name is never mentioned in that episode.[18]

The character made his initial appearance in the 11th episode of the radio show. Fran Striker told his son that Tonto was added so the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk to.[15] He was named by James Jewell, who also came up with the term "Kemosabe" based on the name of a summer camp owned by his father-in-law in upstate Michigan. In the local Native American language, "Tonto" meant "wild one".[19]

There may have been a few late-night on-air shakedown shows prior to the official January 31, 1933, premiere date. Lacking concrete evidence, [Lone Ranger authority Terry] Salomonson is inclined to doubt it. "There is nothing in any of the Detroit papers to indicate this, but that in itself doesn't mean much. The papers didn't even list the show in their radio logs at first."[23]

Tonto was played throughout the run by actor John Todd (although in a few isolated occasions, he was replaced by Roland Parker, better known as Kato for much of the run of sister series The Green Hornet). Other supporting players were selected from Detroit area actors and studio staff. These included Jay Michael (who also played the lead on Challenge of the Yukon, or Sgt. Preston of the Yukon), Bill Saunders (as various villains, including Butch Cavendish), Paul Hughes (as the Ranger's friend Thunder Martin and as various army colonels and badmen), future movie star John Hodiak, Janka Fasciszewska (under the name Jane Fae), and Rube Weiss and Liz Weiss (later a married couple, both actors in several radio and television programs in Detroit, Rube usually taking on villain roles on the "Ranger", and Liz playing damsels in distress). The part of nephew Dan Reid was played by various child actors, including Bob Martin, James Lipton, and Dick Beals.

In the late 1930s, Trendle acquired the rights to use incidental music from Republic Pictures motion picture serials as part of a deal for Republic to produce a serial based (loosely) on the Lone Ranger. This music was then modified by NBC radio arranger Ben Bonnell and recorded in Mexico to avoid American union rules. This music was used in both the radio and later television shows.[29]

The Lone Ranger program offered many radio premiums, including the Lone Ranger Six-Shooter Ring and the Lone Ranger Deputy Badge. Some used a silver bullet motif. One ring had a miniature of one of his six-guns atop it, with a flint and striking wheel, as used in cigarette lighters, so that "fanning" the miniature pistol would produce a shower of sparks. During World War II, the premiums adapted to the times. In 1942, the program offered the Kix Blackout Kit.

In "Wild West Rangers", a two-part episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Pink Ranger Kimberly Hart (Amy Jo Johnson) falls backwards through time to the Old West, where she meets look-alike ancestors of her fellow Power Rangers and other characters in the show. A hero called the White Stranger, a mask-less duplicate of Kimberly's boyfriend Tommy Oliver, the White Ranger (played by Jason David Frank) rides to the rescue on more than one occasion when danger threatens.

Today on Stateside, we talked to Rachel Clark, of the Michigan History Center, and Lu Smela, child actor on the iconic radio show. They joined Stateside to discuss the show's Detroit roots, and its rapid rise to national popularity.

Smela says that without television, radio was the medium where people got their entertainment. For actors, shows like "The Lone Ranger" provided steady job opportunities. Smela auditioned for the show with her brother at 10 years old. She says it was amazing to see the actors who brought the radio show to life in action.

The theme music was the "cavalry charge" finale of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture, now inseparably associated with the series, which also featured many other classical selections as incidental music including Wagner, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky. The theme was conducted by Daniel Perez Castaneda.

Classical music was used because it was in the public domain; thus allowing production costs to be kept down while providing a wide range of music as needed without the costs of a composer. While this practice was started during the radio show, it was retained after the move to television in the budget-strapped early days of the ABC network.

The first of 2,956 episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on radio January 30, 1933 on WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan and later on the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network and then on NBC's Blue Network (which became ABC, which broadcast the show's last new episode on September 3, 1954). Elements of the Lone Ranger story were first used in an earlier series Fran Striker wrote for a station in Buffalo, New York.

On radio, the Lone Ranger was played by several actors, including John L. Barrett who played the role on the test broadcasts on WEBR during early January, 1933; George Seaton (under the name George Stenius) from January 31 to May 9 of 1933; series director James Jewell and an actor known only by the pseudonym "Jack Deeds" (for one episode each), and then by Earle Graser from May 16, 1933 until April 7, 1941. On April 8, Graser died in a car accident, and for five episodes, as the result of being critically wounded, the Lone Ranger was unable to speak beyond a whisper, with Tonto carrying the action. Finally, on the broadcast of April 18, 1941, deep-voiced performer Brace Beemer, who had been the show's announcer for several years, took over the role and played the part until the end. Fred Foy, also an announcer on the show, took over the role on one broadcast on March 29, 1954, when Brace Beemer had a brief case of laryngitis. Tonto was played throughout the run by actor John Todd (although there were a few isolated occasions when he was substituted with Roland Parker, better known as Kato for much of the run of sister series The Green Hornet), and other supporting players were selected from Detroit area actors and studio staff. These included Jay Michael (who also played the lead on Challenge of the Yukon aka Sgt. Preston of the Yukon), Bill Saunders (as various villains, including Butch Cavendish), Paul Hughes (as the Ranger's friend Thunder Martin and as various army colonels and badmen), future movie star John Hodiak, Janka Fasciszewska (under the name Jane Fae), and others. The part of nephew Dan Reid was played by various child actors, including Bob Martin, James Lipton, and Dick Beals.

As I mentioned on David's blog, the Dynamite Comics update on the Lone Ranger is very well done. It's made me remember how much I enjoyed TLR. My parents had cassettes of TLR radio shows and that's how I primarily know him.

The Lone Ranger was the creation of George W. Trendle, a theater manager and a former lawyer, who, in partnership with John H. King, purchased radio station WXYZ, Detroit, in 1930. When CBS balked at some of Trendle's attempts to include innovative programming in the schedule, he decided to sever his affiliation with CBS and transform XYZ into an independent station with its own acting company and its own productions. One of Trendle's ideas, developed with studio manager Harold True and producer James Jewell, was a new show about a western hero, a larger-than-life Robin Hood of the West, whose personal code of ethics and morals would set him apart from ordinary heroes. In collaboration with Fran Striker, a writer who had earlier produced a Western program with a similar theme on a radio station in Buffalo, New York, Trendle's group transformed the idea into the most familiar and enduring fictional legend in American popular folklore.

de7ca951e2