New Adventures of the Lone Ranger

The New Adventures of the Lone Ranger (1980)

 

With the passing of famed producer Lou Scheimer, I felt it right to look back on one of Filmation’s lesser known properties. The Lone Ranger, also known as the New Adventures of the Lone Ranger, began properly with the Tarzan/Long Ranger Adventure Hour on CBS in 1980. With reruns of the animated Tarzan series, viewers would see the animated adventures of the masked rider of the plains.

With William Conrad as the Lone Ranger and Ivan Naranjo as Tonto, viewers could tune in and see the Western duo fight bushwhackers, mad scientists, and encounter such historical figures such as Nelly Bly. The animation was slick, although since this was a Filmation production it also meant we would endlessly see the same close-up of Tonto’s face and the same shot of the heroes mounting their horses. With the concerns of various parents groups and before the loosening of rules regarding advertisements, the focus was mostly on education. There was plenty of action, but every so often it would stop so our heroes or someone else could lecture on new-fangled things like refrigerators or hot air balloons. There would also be a short public service announcement after every episode.

None of the episodes were interconnected and the plots only lasted as long twenty minutes long. The music, consisting mostly of the famed William Tell Overture, was used to great effect. 

A DVD was released last year, but it only contains most of the series. A possible second volume would solve this, but with underperforming Long Ranger reboot it appears that would be very unlikely.