The Lone Ranger and Tonto go camping...

When I was a young kid growing up in England, I used to love the black-and-white American TV program called The Lone Ranger.

Eeeek! I just checked the Wikipedia and found that this series ran from 1949 to 1957, which means they stopped filming the year I was born! I guess I must have been watching reruns, or maybe it just took a decade or so for this program to make its way "across the pond" to England...

I don’t know if this TV series was shown around the world, so on the off-chance you didn’t get to see it, the Lone Ranger is a fictional character, a masked ex-Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as "Ke-mo sah-bee," meaning something like "trusty scout" or "trusted friend."

This program spawned loads of catchphrases. For example, my cousin Gillian and I always anticipated the bit right at the end of each episode when, departing on his white stallion, Silver, the Lone Ranger would shout, "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!" As they galloped off, someone would always ask, "Who was that masked man anyway?"

The reason I mention this here is that someone just emailed me a really dreadful joke, which reads as follows:



Some hours later, Tonto wakes the Lone Ranger and says, "Kemo Sabe. Look towards the sky. What you see?"

The Lone Ranger replies "I see millions of stars."


"And what does that tell you?" asks Tonto.

The Lone Ranger ponders this for a minute and then says "Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically speaking, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why, what does it tell you, Tonto?"

Tonto fixes the Lone Ranger with a steely glare and replies "It tells that you are dumber than buffalo crap. It means that someone's stolen our tent!"


You have to laugh. The old jokes are the best ones as they always say. Of course, this reminded me that the Lone Ranger is being made into an upcoming action Western film directed by Gore Verbinski and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Scheduled to come out sometime in 2013, the film will star Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as Tonto.


Now, generally speaking I wouldn’t be tremendously interested in a film like this – I prefer the way I remember the Lone Ranger as a kid. Having said this, I have to say that I really like the unique slant that Johnny Depp has brought to so many of his roles, so I think I will probably end up going to see this movie, just to see Depp's interpretation of Tonto.

And while we're waiting, Johnny Depp also stars in the new film Dark Shadows, which is set to open on 11 May 2012, which is just a few days away as I pen these words. Based on a somewhat campy 1966–1971 TV soap opera of the same name, the new film is going to be a gothic comedy with Johnny Depp playing the role of Barnabas Collins, a 200-year-old vampire who is awakened in our time with some very strange results.


But I'm wandering off into the weeds again. Seeing the Lone Ranger joke above reminded me of a classic cartoon, in which an old Lone Ranger is sitting reading an Indian dictionary. Isn’t the Internet an amazing thing? I just went to Google Images and did a search for "Lone Ranger Dictionary" and immediately tracked down the cartoon in question:


So only one question remains... Why is the Lone Ranger called "Lone" if he always has his friend Tonto with him?

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