The Lone Ranger

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by James R. Belpedio

In 1937 and 1939, Republic Pictures released fifteen part Lone Ranger serials, but they varied somewhat from the radio formats. In 1956, Warner Brothers released The Lone Ranger, starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. They also appeared in The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, a 1958 United Artists feature. In 1980, the ITC/Wrather Corporation released The Legend of the Lone Ranger, a big budget film starring Klinton Spilsbury and Michael Horse in the lead roles, with Jason Robards as President U.S. Grant. It was a pretentious and overblown film, which quickly dropped from circulation. Spilsbury, whose entire spoken dialogue had to be dubbed by another actor, won two Golden Raspberry Awards, one for Worst Actor and the other for Worst New Star. The film won an additional award for Worst Musical Score. A controversy arose when the Wrather Corporation, which by then owned the rights to the Lone Ranger, sought an injunction against Clayton Moore, ordering him to cease presenting himself as the Lone Ranger because he was too old and too fat, even though he weighed fifteen pounds less than he did when he was in the TV series. Shortly before Jack Wrather's death in 1985, the court order was suspended. Clayton Moore, wearing wrap-around sunglasses instead of a mask, continued to tour during the injunction period and, after the suspension in 1985, he donned the mask again for personal appearances.

Another Trendle creation, which began on WXYZ on January 31, 1936, was the Green Hornet. Britt Reid, son of the Lone Ranger's nephew Dan Reid, was a big city newspaper publisher by day. By night he was a masked, caped crusader who fought urban corruption in his super-fast car, "The Black Beauty," which was driven by his Japanese valet Kato. (According to some sources, after December 7, 1941 Kato became a Filipino.) The Green Hornet went off the air in 1952. The same production team also created The Challenge of the Yukon (1939-1955), WXYZ's other long running adventure series. It consisted of little more than Lone Ranger plots set in the snow of the Yukon, just as the Green Hornet contained the same familiar plots in a modern urban setting. The same troupe of actors played various roles on all three programs.