A rhythmic clapping of hoofbeats, the stirring trumpets of Rossini’s William Tell Overture, and the narrator intones: “In the early days of the Western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice.” This was how one of the most successful radio programs began. The brainchild of station owner George W. Trendle and main writer Fran Striker, the thrice-weekly live show brought Americans back to the romantic era of early America, when the West was still largely unexplored.
On this day, January 30, in 1933, The Lone Ranger is broadcasted for the first time. It was met with immediate success: adults and children alike flocked to it every night it played. The series ran for nearly 3,000 episodes, spanning more than 20 years, until finally ending in 1951.
The mostly-unnamed Lone Ranger was the model of uprightness of his age: he was pious, would not touch tobacco or alcohol, and was always loyal to his friends and kind to women. His sidekick Tonto, on the other hand, was portrayed as mostly illiterate, uttering absurd pidgin English / Indian catchphrases like “you betchum” and “kemosabe.” That last word, and its racist overtones, endured in popular culture long after the show ended: in 2004, a woman from Nova Scotia, Canada filed a suit, claiming that her co-workers addressing her as “kemosabe” was racist and offensive. Her case went all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court, which declined to hear it.