The Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto started out on Radio in 1933, and ran about 40 shy of 3,000 episodes, ending in 1954, a mighty impressive run. The program had a spin-off in 1938, in which the Lone Ranger’s nephew Dan’s son, Britt Reid, became The Green Hornet with his faithful sidekick, Kato. Except, as we all know, Kato ended up becoming the hero in that one, and the Hornet the sidekick. There were several movie serial series in the late 30s and early 40s, in one of which he had a second sidekick named Juan who went on to become the Cisco Kid. I first ran into him with the TV Series When I was 4 years old, coming in about half way through its run, which lasted from 1949 to 1957. I can still remember the Lone Ranger movie in 1956, the first time I ever saw the show in color, TV being only black and white in those days. I can not wait to see what Johnny Depp does with the part of Tonto in the new Lone Ranger movie; even if they hose the whole rest of the film (not something I would expect from the crew which created the Pirates of the Caribbean series), that performance alone should be worth the price of admission, as this trailer tends to indicate.
