April 5, 2023 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, a fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-Yo Silver'... it's the story of the Lone Ranger! Stephen G. Eoannou, author of Yesteryear, tells the story of how a tenacious scriptwriter out of Buffalo and a shrewd businessman out of Detroit managed to create one of America's most endearing cultural figures.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habibe, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the Star and the American people,
silver Bullets, the William tell overture, and the phrase kimusabe
all were thrust into the cultural mainstream at the height
of the Great Depression in nineteen thirty one with The
Lone Ranger. Here to tell the story of the Lone
(00:31):
Ranger is Stephen Iuanu, author of the book Yesteryear, which
is about the creators of the Lone Ranger. Take it Away. Stephen,
(00:58):
with his faithful Indian companion tont Hole, the daring, unresourceful,
masked writer of the Planes, led the fight for law
and order in the early Western United States. No aware
in the pages of history can one find a greater
champion of justice. In response to hundreds of requests from
interested listeners, this Lone Ranger program will retell the story
(01:18):
of the origin of the Lone Ranger. George W. Trundall
was born in Ohio in eighteen eighty four. He graduated
from law school in nineteen oh eight and his specialty
was contract law and negotiation, and he was very good
(01:39):
at his job. He had a shrewd mind, a keen
sense of business acumen and really a good business instinct
knowing went to get in and went to get out
of various endeavors. One of his first investments, even before
he had graduated law school, was in Nickelodeon. These were
(02:01):
the forerunners of the movie theaters and palaces that would
come later. They were storefronts, they were dark, they were
kind of smoky and cramped uncomfortable wooden chairs, and they
had a reputation for attracting unsavory characters, either owners or
people just hanging out. Local government officials didn't really like
(02:25):
them too much. They thought it was trouble. But Trenda
was drawn to them because he thought he could make
money from them. He saw this as something that people
were drawn to. But the film industry was changing and
they began to produce longer and longer films. Trendle he
(02:47):
thought that the days of the Nickelodeons were numbered because
people would want to go and watch these longer feature
films and something more comfortable, and so he put together
a group of investors and they built the Columbia Theater,
which was the first large movie house in Detroit, and
(03:08):
it was literally an instant success. People would line up
to go watch the movies in a comfortable setting, totally
different than what the Nickelodeons were. By the end of
nineteen twenty eight, Trendall owned twenty movie theaters throughout the
Detroit area, and again he had that keen sense of time.
(03:29):
He went to get in, went to get out. He
sold all twenty of those theaters right before the stock
market crash of nineteen twenty nine, and he insisted on cash.
He didn't want stocks, he didn't want promissory notes. It
had to be cash. But the depression didn't skip over Trendall.
(03:52):
He saw his net worth drop from three million dollars
to about a quarter of a million dollars. I'm still
very well off, but his finances were going in the
wrong direction, and he was looking for something to invest in,
to make cash, to make money quickly, and radio was growing.
(04:16):
Radio was quite different than it is today. Radio was
the fastest growing medium in the United States in the
late twenties and early thirties. Having a radio in the
home was a big deal because now you were connected
from outside your community and you could hear programs from
(04:38):
New York, Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, even in your little hometown.
The radio stations had full in house orchestras that would
play between shows, to introduce shows, to set the mood
during radio dramas. Radio stations had their own theatrical truth,
you know, their own performing artists, their own radio actors
(05:01):
that would perform locally produced talent. And he knew that.
He thought that was the next big opportunity in entertainment.
Even during the depression, he thought people and he was right,
would finance radios to have in their home. You know,
no longer could they go out. They didn't have the
cash to go out. So now the entertainment had to
(05:23):
come into their house. And so he bought radio station
WGHP and changed the call letters to w x y
Z and their tagline was w x y Z, the
last word in Radio. And he had a vision of
growing it into a network of stations. But he was
a tough customer. He was losing money, and he would
(05:48):
keep two sets of books and he would show the
fake set to his employees and say, you're gonna have
to take a pay cut. I mean, look how bad
the radio stations doing. You don't take a pay cut.
I'm going to have to fire him to let you go,
and of course there are no jobs during the depression,
so his employees had no alternative but to take the
(06:08):
pay cut. Same thing when he was hiring people, he
would say, oh, you know, I look at my books.
I can't afford to pay you much. I can't afford
to pay you for the first month that you're going
to work for me, which of course he could, and
so a lot of times he had people working gratis
for him on the promise that better days were coming.
So he was very frugal and it was during this
(06:30):
time that he earned the nickname the Miser of Motown.
One of the biggest moves that he made as a
radio station owner was to sever ties with Columbia Broadcasting.
So this meant that w x y Z would no
longer have access to the syndicated shows that CBS was producing,
and Trendall's thought process was, will produce it locally, We'll
(06:53):
use local and freelance talent, and it will be cheaper
than paying CBS. And so it was a business decision
that made him pivot away from that nationally syndicated broadcasting
to locally produce broadcasting. And that's when his life in
France Striker's life intersected. When we come back more of
(07:16):
the remarkable story of how the Lone Ranger came to
be here on our American Stories. Folks, if you love
the stories we tell about this great country, and especially
the stories of America's rich past, know that all of
(07:37):
our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture
and faith are brought to us by the great folks
at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the
things that are beautiful in life and all the things
that are good in life. And if you can't cut
to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free
and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to
(07:57):
learn more. And we continue with our American Stories and
our story on the Lone Ranger with Stephen Iuanu. When
we last left off, Stephen was telling us about the
(08:19):
miser of Motown, George W. Trendall, who led a cost
saving crusade at his flagship radio station in Detroit w
x y Z during the Great Depression. It was because
of this that he'd become acquainted with a little known
station manager and scriptwriter out of New York named Franz Striker.
(08:41):
Let's return to the story. It's funny. I have no
idea how I heard about Franz Striker. I think someone
had mentioned in passing that, oh, the guy that wrote
the Lone Ranger lived in Buffalo, which is my hometown.
And I thought, well, that can't be right. I'm a
(09:02):
Buffalo writer. I would know if the man who invented
created the Lone Ranger was from here. And I looked
it up. I googled it, and sure enough, he was
a Buffalo guy. I was surprised, then mad at myself,
and I found out not only was he a Buffalo guy,
he was a neighborhood guy. He went to high school
(09:23):
about two blocks where I was living in a part
of Buffalo called the Elmwood Village, and he lived over
on Granger Place, which is just a few blocks north
of me. And then I dug some more and I thought,
not only did he create the Lone Ranger, he also
created the Green Hornets, the biggest of all game public
enemies that even the tea men cannot read, and Sergeant
(09:46):
President of the Yukon the Challenge of the Yukon. And
I had never heard of him, So now I was
really curious how someone could have such an impact on
twentieth century American pop culture and the common person doesn't
(10:06):
know his name. The Ranger was the first real hero
that was extensively marketed. Think of fan clubs and spinoff toys,
giveaway items eighteen Lone Ranger novels in hardback. The Lone
Ranger has been an enduring character for the last ninety years.
(10:28):
And then I did some more research, and depending on
how you look at it, he was part of the
best deal in entertainment history or the worst business deal
in entertainment history. A lot of times you hear about
these authors and you know they had terrible traumatic childhoods.
(10:49):
Striker was just the opposite. Striker was born in Buffalo
on August nineteenth, nineteen o three, to Frank and Eddie Striker,
and by all accounts, he had a very healthy and
wholesome family life. In upbringing fishing, hunting, gardening, he had
(11:10):
developed a love for the outdoors. He was a very smart,
very precocious child. He was always very curious. He was
always inquisitive, drawn to new things, and he was a joiner.
He loved to join clubs, science clubs, and church clubs.
In youth groups. He ran track, he was in the band.
(11:31):
He played the saxophone. He was on the student newspaper,
and he sold his first short story and his first
non fiction article to a local Buffalo paper when he
was only twelve years old. He was on the drama club,
He was in the chemistry club, and when he went
to the University of Buffalo after he graduated high school,
he couldn't decide on a fraternity. He knew he wanted
(11:53):
to be in one, but he couldn't decide, so he
pledged multiple fraternities, and he got in trouble for it.
He was called all in front of the I think
the dean of academic affairs or student affairs and said, hey,
you can only pledge one fraternity, and Franz said, how
can I pick one? They're all such interesting, great guys.
While he was in college, he was a chemistry major,
(12:15):
but what happened was his interest in theater outgrew his
interest in chemistry, even though he was fascinated by it.
He had up in his writing studio an old chemistry set,
but it was all covered in dust because he was
always pounding away on his Remington's sixteen typewriter. It was
about nineteen twenty seven when he decided to leave Buffalo
(12:36):
and go to New York City and he got a
job with the Harry Miller Production Company, which produced live
stage shows in New York City. This was a key
moment in Stryker's life because even though he was only
with the company and in New York City for a year,
this is where he was exposed to professional theater, professional directing,
(12:59):
professional act and more importantly, professional scriptwriting. So when Striker
came back from New York City in nineteen twenty eight,
his plan was to break into the theater. He found
that kind of difficult, not difficult to be involved, but
difficult to be paid. So he was drawn to the
next big thing, what he thought was the next big
(13:20):
thing in entertainment, and that was radio. He took a
job with w EBR. He would do announcing, he would
do news reporting. He occasionally would step in and act
on the radio, even though he was never really comfortable
or talented in that regard. He even played his saxophone
with the w EBR orchestra on occasion. Striker was promoted
(13:51):
to w EBR station manager, so now he was much
more focused instead of wearing all those different hats. He
was really in charge of radio dramas, directing them in
writing them, and this is course where he flourished. He
always had that affinity for writing, going back twenty was
twelve years old, and now he was able to do
(14:13):
it professionally, and here his scripts performed live on the air.
So nineteen twenty nine it was probably one of the
most exciting times of Striker's life. We are told by
the opposition that we must have a change, that we
must have a new deal. The stock market crash of
(14:34):
nineteen twenty nine sent the nation and the world reeling
into a economic depression. Unemployment rate in the United States
was twenty four percent, twelve million Americans were out of work,
and over a quarter of a million families had lost
their homes. And the Striker's family was not immune. Striker
(14:55):
became their financial supporter, they became his dependent So by
nineteen thirty two he was supporting a dozen family members,
his parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They were all dependent
on Striker to survive the depression. So Striker was extremely
(15:16):
prolific writing radio dramas because he had to be, and
it transformed into kind of a side business. He loved
the idea of taking scripts that he had already written,
had already aired, he owned all the rights, and selling
them into other markets. Think of the early days of
(15:40):
streaming services now where everyone was scrambling to get content.
Same thing in nineteen thirty two, all these radio stations
needed content to be performed live, and Striker was mailing
out these scripts kind of cold call, mail him out
cold to the stations. Now this is nineteen thirty two,
so there's no copy machines, there's no printers. It was
(16:02):
a typewriter and a carbon paper, and he would try
to hit the key, strike the keys as hard as
he could to get two or three copies out of
one typing session, because everything had to be retyped, and
so he would literally wore out the Remingtons sixteen typewriters,
(16:22):
which was his favorite typewriter. And sometimes they would be
live on the air and Striker was in the other
room still typing up the script to how the show
would end, and so he'd had one eye on the
keyboard and one eye on the clock, knowing he had
to finish the next page of the script, or next
two pages of the script before there was dead air.
(16:43):
You know, these early days of radio, there was a
lot of excitement about creating these radio scripts for live radio.
And then of course there was that financial necessity of
branching outward and reselling them to support his family. Now,
one of the radio stations that bought his scripts was
(17:04):
w x y Z out of Detroit, and the first
script that George W. Trendall, the owner of w x
y Z and Detroit Blot, was an old series called
Warner Lester. Trendall was impressed with that script, and he
requested more and more scripts from Striker. So by the
end of nineteen thirty two, strike was applying w x
(17:24):
y Z with six half hour scripts per week. When
we come back, more of this remarkable creative story, also
a remarkable business story. How these things happen, How these
ideas happened, How these characters happen, These characters that live
(17:45):
in the American fabric long after the authors and creators die.
The story of how the Lone Ranger came to be
continues here on our American Stories. And we returned to
(18:09):
our American stories and our story on the Lone Ranger
and how it came to be with author Stephen Ijuanu,
author of the book Yesteryear. When we last left off,
Stephen was telling us about how Franz Striker had become
the primary breadwinner for his entire family during the Great Depression,
(18:31):
making a lot of money on the side by selling
repurposed radio drama scripts to George W. Trendall, the owner
of the Powerhouse Signal in Detroit WXYZ. Little did both
of them know one of those scripts was about to
become a gold mine. Let's return to the story. So
(18:55):
by thirty nineteen thirty two, w x y Z and
George W. Trendall had been counting on Striker for a
lot of their radio content, and December of that year,
Striker received a letter from the creative director from w
x y Z saying, you know, we thought about it,
and we think we wanted to do a Western series.
(19:21):
Put all the hokem in it. That was the word
they used, hokem. You know, the masked rider, the rustler,
the girl tied to the railroad tracks, two gun bank robber.
Can you write something like that? And so Striker thought, well,
of course I can. So he dug out a series
that had aired two years earlier on w EBR called
(19:45):
cover Wagon Days, and for whatever reason, he chose episode
ten of that series to rewrite this new Western, and
he came up with a new hero, the Lone Ranger.
It's a debate where the Ranger came from. I mean,
certainly in that letter from w x y Z they
(20:06):
mentioned a masked rider, but that's as far as it went,
and a lot of people think it's still being debated
that maybe he was influenced by a real life figure,
a man named Bass Reeves. Bass was a runaway slave,
and he stole a Confederate horse, according to legend, and
(20:28):
rode it out to the Oklahoma Territory. Oklahoma Territory during
the Civil War years was kind of a refuge for deserters, outlaws,
runaway slaves, a real interesting mix. And according to legend,
when Bass Reeves got out there, you know, he lived
with the Creek and the Seminole tribes and that's when
(20:49):
he learned how to shoot. And again this is tall tales,
but they said that he was good with either hand
with rifle or pistol and shoot the hind leg off
of a fly from one hundred yards away. But once
the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Bass Reeves was made a
US Marshal, and he took his jobs seriously. Let's just
(21:14):
say that he arrested over three thousand outlaws. He brought
in twenty of them Dad saying that he killed them
in self defense. And he had the reputation of being
someone who was for the common people, the everyday folks,
and he thought it was a sacred duty to protect
him from these outlaws. And he would occasionally wear a
(21:36):
mask disguising himself as an outlaw to infiltrate their gangs.
And remember that he had lived with the Indian tribes,
and so he had a friend who was a Native
American who would sometimes travel with him. And he also
had this interesting calling card. He would throw silver dollars.
(21:58):
So if you brushed down his white stallion, do you
like to ride a pal horse? A dark figure on
a pale horse. If you brushed down his horse and
fed him oats, he'd tossed you a silver dollar. If
you pointed out or gave him information about an outlaw
he was looking for, he would throw a silver dollar.
And sometimes when he would ride out of town, he
would just throw the silver dollar to whoever would find it.
(22:21):
He was buying goodwill, certainly, but that became his calling card.
Pop culture historians look at bass Reeves figure and say,
here's a mask rider on a big white horse throwing silver.
He had to be the inspiration for The Lone Ranger.
Mount France, as I said, at an early age, was
(22:42):
a keen reader and writer, and he had a vast library,
especially of Western books, because he took his job of
writing The Lone Ranger seriously. So would Striker have known
of bass Reeves, I think certainly, but there were many
others whose criminal plans were to be challenged The Lone Ranger,
his faceful Indian companion Total and his great horse Toover.
(23:08):
The Ranger actually premiered in Buffalo on w EBR, not
on w x y Z. They wanted to do a
test run and that was unusual. So I think from
the very beginning everybody thought that this Lone Ranger character
that Striker came up with, who was a little different,
had a lot of potential. And then they took it
(23:29):
to Detroit. Striker was continuing to write the Lone Ranger
scripts in Buffalo, and he was getting paid four dollars
a script, so it was the start, and it wasn't
until November of twenty three, so almost you know, eleven
months of broadcasting before they were able to attract a sponsor,
which was Gordon Bakery. Once the Bakery came on board,
(23:51):
there was an infuse of cash. They're able to market
the Lone Ranger more, advertise it more and offer it
to other radio stations. Is to tie in as part
of a limited syndication. And when that happened, that's when
the Lone Ranger really took off. Part of the appeal
(24:13):
of the Lone Ranger was because he was born, if
you will, during the depression. A lot of people felt
that this and rightfully so, this depression was no fault
of their own. Their homes were taken, their jobs were taken,
and there was no real justification for that. And here
comes a fictional character on the radio who was always
(24:36):
helping the little guy, going after the people that were
trying to take something from them that they didn't deserve,
and here was a figure that was protecting them getting
back what was stolen. They wanted someone that to ride
into their lives, you know, restore their jobs, restore their homes,
bring back the repossessed furniture and on radio. The Lone
(24:59):
Range was doing that. The very first episode that covered
wagon Day's repurposed script dealt with an assayer who was
trying to steal the rights of a mind. This prospector
had been searching for gold and silver all his life
and you had nothing to show afford. And the assayer
knew that there was, you know, a lot of money
(25:21):
to be had in that mind. And it was the
Lone Ranger who ended and silver, actually who kicked over
an old chimney and found the hidden documents that proved
that the prospector was the one who was the rightful
owner to the mind that was trying to be stolen
by big wigs. And that really resonated with the people
(25:42):
in nineteen thirty three, in nineteen thirty four, there was
just a ground swell of people interested, especially the children,
especially the kids, and Stryker always went out of his
way to make sure that the Lone Ranger always rep
presented goodness, always conducted himself in a moral way. He
(26:04):
made the decision early on that unlike Bass Reeves, he
would never kill anybody. He would only shoot to wound
and shoot in self defense. And he actually wrote out
the criteria for the Lone Ranger's behavior once that got
so big that he had staff writers working for The
(26:24):
Lone Rangers never shown without his mask or some sort
of disguise at all times. The Lone Ranger uses perfect
grammar and precise speech, completely devoid of slang. The Lone
Ranger never wins against hopeless odds ie. He's never seen
escaping from a barrage of bullets merely by riding into
the horizon. Names of unsympathetic characters are carefully chosen, avoiding
(26:47):
the use of two names as much as possible, to
even avoid further by karious association, more often than not,
a single nickname is selected. Criminals are never shown in
unenviable positions of power and wealth, and they never appear
as either successful or glamorous. The Lone Ranger does not
drink or smoke, and saloon scenes are usually interpreted as
(27:09):
cafes with waiters and food instead of bartenders and liquor.
The story of how The Lone Ranger came to be
continues here on our American stories, and we return to
(27:39):
our American stories and the final portion of our story
on the Lone Ranger and how it came to be
with author Stephen Iowanu, author of the book Yesteryear Again.
Go to Amazon or the usual suspects and buy this book.
As you can tell by now, Stephen knows how to
tell a gripping story. When we last left off, George W.
(28:02):
Trendall and Franz Striker had struck gold with Franz's repurposed
script of a lesser known radio drama called Covered Wagon Days,
and within a year of initial broadcast, the Lone Ranger
had swept across the nation. The things were about to
get a bit money for Franz Striker, in particular, with
(28:22):
a peculiar and enticing offer from George Trendall. Let's return
to the story. And this has been described by Stryker's
son as either the best deal in entertainment history or
the worst deal in entertainment history, depending on how you
look at this. Trendall knew of Striker's personal situation. He
(28:49):
knew how much he was getting paid, you know, four
dollars a script. He knew that he had over a
dozen family members that he was supporting, not counting his
wife and now two children. And so he offered Striker
a contract to write exclusively for WXYZ and it was
(29:10):
more money than Striker had ever made. It was enough
to take care of his extended family that he was
supporting still and live comfortably, to be honest with you,
and it also did something else, a guaranteed job security
through the depression. There was a stipulation, however, the stipulation
(29:33):
to get this contract, this exclusive writing deal with WXYZ,
the nice salary, Striker had to sell Trendle all rights
to the Lone Ranger for ten dollars. So Striker was torn.
He knew at this point that the Ranger was going
in a direction that he had never experienced. I don't
(29:55):
think anyone knew it was going to become as big
and as enduring as it did, but they knew, and
certainly Trendall knew that this is a potential moneymaker. On
the other hand, Striker had all these models he had
to feed. He couldn't turn down the offer. It was
just too much for him to pass on. And I
(30:19):
think perhaps the best explanation of why Striker did this
is in the Lone Ranger creed that he wrote. And
by all accounts from family and friends, this creed was
an extension of Striker's own beliefs almost like a like
the Ten Commandments of Behavior. For the Lone Ranger, I
(30:40):
believe that to have a friend, a man must be one,
that all men are created equal, and that everyone has
within himself the power to make this a better world.
God gives you firewood, but you need to gather it.
That this government of the people, by the people, and
for the people, shall live always believing and taking care
(31:00):
of nature, which goes right back to Striker's childhood. In
My Creator, My Country, My Fellow Man, one of those
tenants states that man should live by the rule of
what is best for the greatest number, And I think
that explains why Striker took that worst possible deal long
term for his family, and he signed the rights away
(31:25):
for ten dollars. One of the tenants of the creed
is that truth alone lives on forever. And I think
as it became unclear and muddy who was the actual
creator of the Lone Ranger, I think that tenant gave
(31:46):
him some comfort. So Striker signs the contract. The Lone
Ranger becomes this national phenomenon, and Strikers on the payroll
of WXYC, And to Trendall's credit, he honored the contract
throughout the entire depression. Once the depression was over, Striker
(32:10):
asked for a raise, he hadn't gotten one since thirty four,
and the miser of Motown promptly fired Striker. Because by
that point, The Lone Ranger had been on the air
for you know, six seven years. They had the blueprint,
they had the kind of story arc to follow, They
had Striker's notes on how the Ranger you should kentuckt
(32:33):
themselves at all time. They had the creed. But what
happened was that the quality of writing dropped off so
much after Striker's brief absence that the sponsors for the
various shows that he was writing pressured Trendall and Hiring
to hire him back with the Rays, and Trendall didn't
(32:55):
want to lose his sponsors, so he reluctantly hired Striker
back at the higher salary. About this time in the
nineteen forties, Trendall started claiming in interviews and in articles
that he was the creator, not just the owner of
the rights, but he was the creator, was his idea
(33:16):
of The Lone Ranger, not Strikers, And like anything else,
if you repeat a line long enough, people believe it,
and so it gained strength. More people thought that George W.
Trendall was the creator of The Lone Ranger, and in fact,
even in his authorized biography on the front cover, it
(33:39):
says George W. Trendall the creator producer of The Lone Ranger,
Green Hornet, Sergeant Press in the Yukon, etc. And even
the last movie with Johnny Depp. If you stay until
the credits roll at the end, you'll see based on
the characters created by George W. Trendall. There was even
a story circulating that Striker wasn't brought in to work
(34:04):
on The Lone Ranger's script until after it had aired.
Striker handled all this with grace, and you should think
about it. He could see how much money, how much
revenue The Ranger was producing for Trendle now that Trendall
had the rights, all the toys, all the spinoff products,
(34:26):
all the giveaways, the movies, the books, the comic books,
and it could have been him, but he handled it
with grace. When he was asked in private by his
friends or family, he would say that, well, the people
in the radio industry, they know the truth and leave
it at that. If he was interviewed, he would say
only God creates. Striker never brought up the controversy. He
(34:52):
never confronted Trendle with the lie, and he continued to
work for Trendle up until the Lone Ranger lights were
sold for three million dollars, which was a record sale
at that time, and of course, you know, the money
all went to Trendle. I think it did bother Striker
(35:16):
had had to. Striker really did give his all and
cared about the Ranger and felt a responsibility to the
Rangers fans, especially the kids, to make sure that he
was an example, a true hero to those kids growing up.
It had to hurt. Unfortunately, Striker was killed in a
car crash in nineteen sixty two, still a young man.
(35:39):
If he was only fifty eight years old, and he
didn't live long enough to write his memoirs and tell
his side of the story. And I think that premature
death and is not writing his autobiography gave life to
the lie because it could it continued really to this day.
(36:02):
I think the Lone Ranger is an iconic American hero
and figure. I think he is recognized by everybody worldwide.
He is an enduring, bankable media star striker. You know,
he used to say that the people in the radio
business know and that's true. He's in the National Broadcasters
(36:25):
Hall of Fame, but he doesn't have the notoriety. He's
not acknowledged. People don't know who he is. The average
person doesn't know who he is. But he is, in fact,
just on the Lone Ranger in the Green Hornet if
that was the only two scripts he ever wrote, just
on those two creations, he has and deserves a place
(36:48):
as one of the most influential and successful radio drama scriptwriters.
His accomplishments they were huge. You'll be hard pressed to
find someone who had such an impact and whose character
were able to move from radio to television to film,
(37:10):
to books to comic books. You'd be hard pressed to
find a character that generated that much revenue for such
a long period of time. And a terrific job on
the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery.
And a special thanks to author Stephen Iowanu in his
(37:32):
book Yesteryear is available at Amazon or at the Usual Suspects.
And what a story he told. And by the way,
was it the best or worst deal of all time?
It was the worst deal of all time. I mean,
clearly Striker had to take care of his family and
may not have been a risk taker. But boy, if
you want to do the wrong thing, do what Trendle
(37:53):
did and become the greatest schmuck in history. He could
have just tied the guy in for a nice piece
of the profits still made a heck of a lot
of money himself. The story of how the Lone Ranger
came to be here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habibe, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the Star and the American people,
silver Bullets, the William tell overture, and the phrase kimusabe
all were thrust into the cultural mainstream at the height
of the Great Depression in nineteen thirty one with The
Lone Ranger. Here to tell the story of the Lone
(00:31):
Ranger is Stephen Iuanu, author of the book Yesteryear, which
is about the creators of the Lone Ranger. Take it Away. Stephen,
(00:58):
with his faithful Indian companion tont Hole, the daring, unresourceful,
masked writer of the Planes, led the fight for law
and order in the early Western United States. No aware
in the pages of history can one find a greater
champion of justice. In response to hundreds of requests from
interested listeners, this Lone Ranger program will retell the story
(01:18):
of the origin of the Lone Ranger. George W. Trundall
was born in Ohio in eighteen eighty four. He graduated
from law school in nineteen oh eight and his specialty
was contract law and negotiation, and he was very good
(01:39):
at his job. He had a shrewd mind, a keen
sense of business acumen and really a good business instinct
knowing went to get in and went to get out
of various endeavors. One of his first investments, even before
he had graduated law school, was in Nickelodeon. These were
(02:01):
the forerunners of the movie theaters and palaces that would
come later. They were storefronts, they were dark, they were
kind of smoky and cramped uncomfortable wooden chairs, and they
had a reputation for attracting unsavory characters, either owners or
people just hanging out. Local government officials didn't really like
(02:25):
them too much. They thought it was trouble. But Trenda
was drawn to them because he thought he could make
money from them. He saw this as something that people
were drawn to. But the film industry was changing and
they began to produce longer and longer films. Trendle he
(02:47):
thought that the days of the Nickelodeons were numbered because
people would want to go and watch these longer feature
films and something more comfortable, and so he put together
a group of investors and they built the Columbia Theater,
which was the first large movie house in Detroit, and
(03:08):
it was literally an instant success. People would line up
to go watch the movies in a comfortable setting, totally
different than what the Nickelodeons were. By the end of
nineteen twenty eight, Trendall owned twenty movie theaters throughout the
Detroit area, and again he had that keen sense of time.
(03:29):
He went to get in, went to get out. He
sold all twenty of those theaters right before the stock
market crash of nineteen twenty nine, and he insisted on cash.
He didn't want stocks, he didn't want promissory notes. It
had to be cash. But the depression didn't skip over Trendall.
(03:52):
He saw his net worth drop from three million dollars
to about a quarter of a million dollars. I'm still
very well off, but his finances were going in the
wrong direction, and he was looking for something to invest in,
to make cash, to make money quickly, and radio was growing.
(04:16):
Radio was quite different than it is today. Radio was
the fastest growing medium in the United States in the
late twenties and early thirties. Having a radio in the
home was a big deal because now you were connected
from outside your community and you could hear programs from
(04:38):
New York, Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, even in your little hometown.
The radio stations had full in house orchestras that would
play between shows, to introduce shows, to set the mood
during radio dramas. Radio stations had their own theatrical truth,
you know, their own performing artists, their own radio actors
(05:01):
that would perform locally produced talent. And he knew that.
He thought that was the next big opportunity in entertainment.
Even during the depression, he thought people and he was right,
would finance radios to have in their home. You know,
no longer could they go out. They didn't have the
cash to go out. So now the entertainment had to
(05:23):
come into their house. And so he bought radio station
WGHP and changed the call letters to w x y
Z and their tagline was w x y Z, the
last word in Radio. And he had a vision of
growing it into a network of stations. But he was
a tough customer. He was losing money, and he would
(05:48):
keep two sets of books and he would show the
fake set to his employees and say, you're gonna have
to take a pay cut. I mean, look how bad
the radio stations doing. You don't take a pay cut.
I'm going to have to fire him to let you go,
and of course there are no jobs during the depression,
so his employees had no alternative but to take the
(06:08):
pay cut. Same thing when he was hiring people, he
would say, oh, you know, I look at my books.
I can't afford to pay you much. I can't afford
to pay you for the first month that you're going
to work for me, which of course he could, and
so a lot of times he had people working gratis
for him on the promise that better days were coming.
So he was very frugal and it was during this
(06:30):
time that he earned the nickname the Miser of Motown.
One of the biggest moves that he made as a
radio station owner was to sever ties with Columbia Broadcasting.
So this meant that w x y Z would no
longer have access to the syndicated shows that CBS was producing,
and Trendall's thought process was, will produce it locally, We'll
(06:53):
use local and freelance talent, and it will be cheaper
than paying CBS. And so it was a business decision
that made him pivot away from that nationally syndicated broadcasting
to locally produce broadcasting. And that's when his life in
France Striker's life intersected. When we come back more of
(07:16):
the remarkable story of how the Lone Ranger came to
be here on our American Stories. Folks, if you love
the stories we tell about this great country, and especially
the stories of America's rich past, know that all of
(07:37):
our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture
and faith are brought to us by the great folks
at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the
things that are beautiful in life and all the things
that are good in life. And if you can't cut
to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free
and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to
(07:57):
learn more. And we continue with our American Stories and
our story on the Lone Ranger with Stephen Iuanu. When
we last left off, Stephen was telling us about the
(08:19):
miser of Motown, George W. Trendall, who led a cost
saving crusade at his flagship radio station in Detroit w
x y Z during the Great Depression. It was because
of this that he'd become acquainted with a little known
station manager and scriptwriter out of New York named Franz Striker.
(08:41):
Let's return to the story. It's funny. I have no
idea how I heard about Franz Striker. I think someone
had mentioned in passing that, oh, the guy that wrote
the Lone Ranger lived in Buffalo, which is my hometown.
And I thought, well, that can't be right. I'm a
(09:02):
Buffalo writer. I would know if the man who invented
created the Lone Ranger was from here. And I looked
it up. I googled it, and sure enough, he was
a Buffalo guy. I was surprised, then mad at myself,
and I found out not only was he a Buffalo guy,
he was a neighborhood guy. He went to high school
(09:23):
about two blocks where I was living in a part
of Buffalo called the Elmwood Village, and he lived over
on Granger Place, which is just a few blocks north
of me. And then I dug some more and I thought,
not only did he create the Lone Ranger, he also
created the Green Hornets, the biggest of all game public
enemies that even the tea men cannot read, and Sergeant
(09:46):
President of the Yukon the Challenge of the Yukon. And
I had never heard of him, So now I was
really curious how someone could have such an impact on
twentieth century American pop culture and the common person doesn't
(10:06):
know his name. The Ranger was the first real hero
that was extensively marketed. Think of fan clubs and spinoff toys,
giveaway items eighteen Lone Ranger novels in hardback. The Lone
Ranger has been an enduring character for the last ninety years.
(10:28):
And then I did some more research, and depending on
how you look at it, he was part of the
best deal in entertainment history or the worst business deal
in entertainment history. A lot of times you hear about
these authors and you know they had terrible traumatic childhoods.
(10:49):
Striker was just the opposite. Striker was born in Buffalo
on August nineteenth, nineteen o three, to Frank and Eddie Striker,
and by all accounts, he had a very healthy and
wholesome family life. In upbringing fishing, hunting, gardening, he had
(11:10):
developed a love for the outdoors. He was a very smart,
very precocious child. He was always very curious. He was
always inquisitive, drawn to new things, and he was a joiner.
He loved to join clubs, science clubs, and church clubs.
In youth groups. He ran track, he was in the band.
(11:31):
He played the saxophone. He was on the student newspaper,
and he sold his first short story and his first
non fiction article to a local Buffalo paper when he
was only twelve years old. He was on the drama club,
He was in the chemistry club, and when he went
to the University of Buffalo after he graduated high school,
he couldn't decide on a fraternity. He knew he wanted
(11:53):
to be in one, but he couldn't decide, so he
pledged multiple fraternities, and he got in trouble for it.
He was called all in front of the I think
the dean of academic affairs or student affairs and said, hey,
you can only pledge one fraternity, and Franz said, how
can I pick one? They're all such interesting, great guys.
While he was in college, he was a chemistry major,
(12:15):
but what happened was his interest in theater outgrew his
interest in chemistry, even though he was fascinated by it.
He had up in his writing studio an old chemistry set,
but it was all covered in dust because he was
always pounding away on his Remington's sixteen typewriter. It was
about nineteen twenty seven when he decided to leave Buffalo
(12:36):
and go to New York City and he got a
job with the Harry Miller Production Company, which produced live
stage shows in New York City. This was a key
moment in Stryker's life because even though he was only
with the company and in New York City for a year,
this is where he was exposed to professional theater, professional directing,
(12:59):
professional act and more importantly, professional scriptwriting. So when Striker
came back from New York City in nineteen twenty eight,
his plan was to break into the theater. He found
that kind of difficult, not difficult to be involved, but
difficult to be paid. So he was drawn to the
next big thing, what he thought was the next big
(13:20):
thing in entertainment, and that was radio. He took a
job with w EBR. He would do announcing, he would
do news reporting. He occasionally would step in and act
on the radio, even though he was never really comfortable
or talented in that regard. He even played his saxophone
with the w EBR orchestra on occasion. Striker was promoted
(13:51):
to w EBR station manager, so now he was much
more focused instead of wearing all those different hats. He
was really in charge of radio dramas, directing them in
writing them, and this is course where he flourished. He
always had that affinity for writing, going back twenty was
twelve years old, and now he was able to do
(14:13):
it professionally, and here his scripts performed live on the air.
So nineteen twenty nine it was probably one of the
most exciting times of Striker's life. We are told by
the opposition that we must have a change, that we
must have a new deal. The stock market crash of
(14:34):
nineteen twenty nine sent the nation and the world reeling
into a economic depression. Unemployment rate in the United States
was twenty four percent, twelve million Americans were out of work,
and over a quarter of a million families had lost
their homes. And the Striker's family was not immune. Striker
(14:55):
became their financial supporter, they became his dependent So by
nineteen thirty two he was supporting a dozen family members,
his parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They were all dependent
on Striker to survive the depression. So Striker was extremely
(15:16):
prolific writing radio dramas because he had to be, and
it transformed into kind of a side business. He loved
the idea of taking scripts that he had already written,
had already aired, he owned all the rights, and selling
them into other markets. Think of the early days of
(15:40):
streaming services now where everyone was scrambling to get content.
Same thing in nineteen thirty two, all these radio stations
needed content to be performed live, and Striker was mailing
out these scripts kind of cold call, mail him out
cold to the stations. Now this is nineteen thirty two,
so there's no copy machines, there's no printers. It was
(16:02):
a typewriter and a carbon paper, and he would try
to hit the key, strike the keys as hard as
he could to get two or three copies out of
one typing session, because everything had to be retyped, and
so he would literally wore out the Remingtons sixteen typewriters,
(16:22):
which was his favorite typewriter. And sometimes they would be
live on the air and Striker was in the other
room still typing up the script to how the show
would end, and so he'd had one eye on the
keyboard and one eye on the clock, knowing he had
to finish the next page of the script, or next
two pages of the script before there was dead air.
(16:43):
You know, these early days of radio, there was a
lot of excitement about creating these radio scripts for live radio.
And then of course there was that financial necessity of
branching outward and reselling them to support his family. Now,
one of the radio stations that bought his scripts was
(17:04):
w x y Z out of Detroit, and the first
script that George W. Trendall, the owner of w x
y Z and Detroit Blot, was an old series called
Warner Lester. Trendall was impressed with that script, and he
requested more and more scripts from Striker. So by the
end of nineteen thirty two, strike was applying w x
(17:24):
y Z with six half hour scripts per week. When
we come back, more of this remarkable creative story, also
a remarkable business story. How these things happen, How these
ideas happened, How these characters happen, These characters that live
(17:45):
in the American fabric long after the authors and creators die.
The story of how the Lone Ranger came to be
continues here on our American Stories. And we returned to
(18:09):
our American stories and our story on the Lone Ranger
and how it came to be with author Stephen Ijuanu,
author of the book Yesteryear. When we last left off,
Stephen was telling us about how Franz Striker had become
the primary breadwinner for his entire family during the Great Depression,
(18:31):
making a lot of money on the side by selling
repurposed radio drama scripts to George W. Trendall, the owner
of the Powerhouse Signal in Detroit WXYZ. Little did both
of them know one of those scripts was about to
become a gold mine. Let's return to the story. So
(18:55):
by thirty nineteen thirty two, w x y Z and
George W. Trendall had been counting on Striker for a
lot of their radio content, and December of that year,
Striker received a letter from the creative director from w
x y Z saying, you know, we thought about it,
and we think we wanted to do a Western series.
(19:21):
Put all the hokem in it. That was the word
they used, hokem. You know, the masked rider, the rustler,
the girl tied to the railroad tracks, two gun bank robber.
Can you write something like that? And so Striker thought, well,
of course I can. So he dug out a series
that had aired two years earlier on w EBR called
(19:45):
cover Wagon Days, and for whatever reason, he chose episode
ten of that series to rewrite this new Western, and
he came up with a new hero, the Lone Ranger.
It's a debate where the Ranger came from. I mean,
certainly in that letter from w x y Z they
(20:06):
mentioned a masked rider, but that's as far as it went,
and a lot of people think it's still being debated
that maybe he was influenced by a real life figure,
a man named Bass Reeves. Bass was a runaway slave,
and he stole a Confederate horse, according to legend, and
(20:28):
rode it out to the Oklahoma Territory. Oklahoma Territory during
the Civil War years was kind of a refuge for deserters, outlaws,
runaway slaves, a real interesting mix. And according to legend,
when Bass Reeves got out there, you know, he lived
with the Creek and the Seminole tribes and that's when
(20:49):
he learned how to shoot. And again this is tall tales,
but they said that he was good with either hand
with rifle or pistol and shoot the hind leg off
of a fly from one hundred yards away. But once
the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Bass Reeves was made a
US Marshal, and he took his jobs seriously. Let's just
(21:14):
say that he arrested over three thousand outlaws. He brought
in twenty of them Dad saying that he killed them
in self defense. And he had the reputation of being
someone who was for the common people, the everyday folks,
and he thought it was a sacred duty to protect
him from these outlaws. And he would occasionally wear a
(21:36):
mask disguising himself as an outlaw to infiltrate their gangs.
And remember that he had lived with the Indian tribes,
and so he had a friend who was a Native
American who would sometimes travel with him. And he also
had this interesting calling card. He would throw silver dollars.
(21:58):
So if you brushed down his white stallion, do you
like to ride a pal horse? A dark figure on
a pale horse. If you brushed down his horse and
fed him oats, he'd tossed you a silver dollar. If
you pointed out or gave him information about an outlaw
he was looking for, he would throw a silver dollar.
And sometimes when he would ride out of town, he
would just throw the silver dollar to whoever would find it.
(22:21):
He was buying goodwill, certainly, but that became his calling card.
Pop culture historians look at bass Reeves figure and say,
here's a mask rider on a big white horse throwing silver.
He had to be the inspiration for The Lone Ranger.
Mount France, as I said, at an early age, was
(22:42):
a keen reader and writer, and he had a vast library,
especially of Western books, because he took his job of
writing The Lone Ranger seriously. So would Striker have known
of bass Reeves, I think certainly, but there were many
others whose criminal plans were to be challenged The Lone Ranger,
his faceful Indian companion Total and his great horse Toover.
(23:08):
The Ranger actually premiered in Buffalo on w EBR, not
on w x y Z. They wanted to do a
test run and that was unusual. So I think from
the very beginning everybody thought that this Lone Ranger character
that Striker came up with, who was a little different,
had a lot of potential. And then they took it
(23:29):
to Detroit. Striker was continuing to write the Lone Ranger
scripts in Buffalo, and he was getting paid four dollars
a script, so it was the start, and it wasn't
until November of twenty three, so almost you know, eleven
months of broadcasting before they were able to attract a sponsor,
which was Gordon Bakery. Once the Bakery came on board,
(23:51):
there was an infuse of cash. They're able to market
the Lone Ranger more, advertise it more and offer it
to other radio stations. Is to tie in as part
of a limited syndication. And when that happened, that's when
the Lone Ranger really took off. Part of the appeal
(24:13):
of the Lone Ranger was because he was born, if
you will, during the depression. A lot of people felt
that this and rightfully so, this depression was no fault
of their own. Their homes were taken, their jobs were taken,
and there was no real justification for that. And here
comes a fictional character on the radio who was always
(24:36):
helping the little guy, going after the people that were
trying to take something from them that they didn't deserve,
and here was a figure that was protecting them getting
back what was stolen. They wanted someone that to ride
into their lives, you know, restore their jobs, restore their homes,
bring back the repossessed furniture and on radio. The Lone
(24:59):
Range was doing that. The very first episode that covered
wagon Day's repurposed script dealt with an assayer who was
trying to steal the rights of a mind. This prospector
had been searching for gold and silver all his life
and you had nothing to show afford. And the assayer
knew that there was, you know, a lot of money
(25:21):
to be had in that mind. And it was the
Lone Ranger who ended and silver, actually who kicked over
an old chimney and found the hidden documents that proved
that the prospector was the one who was the rightful
owner to the mind that was trying to be stolen
by big wigs. And that really resonated with the people
(25:42):
in nineteen thirty three, in nineteen thirty four, there was
just a ground swell of people interested, especially the children,
especially the kids, and Stryker always went out of his
way to make sure that the Lone Ranger always rep
presented goodness, always conducted himself in a moral way. He
(26:04):
made the decision early on that unlike Bass Reeves, he
would never kill anybody. He would only shoot to wound
and shoot in self defense. And he actually wrote out
the criteria for the Lone Ranger's behavior once that got
so big that he had staff writers working for The
(26:24):
Lone Rangers never shown without his mask or some sort
of disguise at all times. The Lone Ranger uses perfect
grammar and precise speech, completely devoid of slang. The Lone
Ranger never wins against hopeless odds ie. He's never seen
escaping from a barrage of bullets merely by riding into
the horizon. Names of unsympathetic characters are carefully chosen, avoiding
(26:47):
the use of two names as much as possible, to
even avoid further by karious association, more often than not,
a single nickname is selected. Criminals are never shown in
unenviable positions of power and wealth, and they never appear
as either successful or glamorous. The Lone Ranger does not
drink or smoke, and saloon scenes are usually interpreted as
(27:09):
cafes with waiters and food instead of bartenders and liquor.
The story of how The Lone Ranger came to be
continues here on our American stories, and we return to
(27:39):
our American stories and the final portion of our story
on the Lone Ranger and how it came to be
with author Stephen Iowanu, author of the book Yesteryear Again.
Go to Amazon or the usual suspects and buy this book.
As you can tell by now, Stephen knows how to
tell a gripping story. When we last left off, George W.
(28:02):
Trendall and Franz Striker had struck gold with Franz's repurposed
script of a lesser known radio drama called Covered Wagon Days,
and within a year of initial broadcast, the Lone Ranger
had swept across the nation. The things were about to
get a bit money for Franz Striker, in particular, with
(28:22):
a peculiar and enticing offer from George Trendall. Let's return
to the story. And this has been described by Stryker's
son as either the best deal in entertainment history or
the worst deal in entertainment history, depending on how you
look at this. Trendall knew of Striker's personal situation. He
(28:49):
knew how much he was getting paid, you know, four
dollars a script. He knew that he had over a
dozen family members that he was supporting, not counting his
wife and now two children. And so he offered Striker
a contract to write exclusively for WXYZ and it was
(29:10):
more money than Striker had ever made. It was enough
to take care of his extended family that he was
supporting still and live comfortably, to be honest with you,
and it also did something else, a guaranteed job security
through the depression. There was a stipulation, however, the stipulation
(29:33):
to get this contract, this exclusive writing deal with WXYZ,
the nice salary, Striker had to sell Trendle all rights
to the Lone Ranger for ten dollars. So Striker was torn.
He knew at this point that the Ranger was going
in a direction that he had never experienced. I don't
(29:55):
think anyone knew it was going to become as big
and as enduring as it did, but they knew, and
certainly Trendall knew that this is a potential moneymaker. On
the other hand, Striker had all these models he had
to feed. He couldn't turn down the offer. It was
just too much for him to pass on. And I
(30:19):
think perhaps the best explanation of why Striker did this
is in the Lone Ranger creed that he wrote. And
by all accounts from family and friends, this creed was
an extension of Striker's own beliefs almost like a like
the Ten Commandments of Behavior. For the Lone Ranger, I
(30:40):
believe that to have a friend, a man must be one,
that all men are created equal, and that everyone has
within himself the power to make this a better world.
God gives you firewood, but you need to gather it.
That this government of the people, by the people, and
for the people, shall live always believing and taking care
(31:00):
of nature, which goes right back to Striker's childhood. In
My Creator, My Country, My Fellow Man, one of those
tenants states that man should live by the rule of
what is best for the greatest number, And I think
that explains why Striker took that worst possible deal long
term for his family, and he signed the rights away
(31:25):
for ten dollars. One of the tenants of the creed
is that truth alone lives on forever. And I think
as it became unclear and muddy who was the actual
creator of the Lone Ranger, I think that tenant gave
(31:46):
him some comfort. So Striker signs the contract. The Lone
Ranger becomes this national phenomenon, and Strikers on the payroll
of WXYC, And to Trendall's credit, he honored the contract
throughout the entire depression. Once the depression was over, Striker
(32:10):
asked for a raise, he hadn't gotten one since thirty four,
and the miser of Motown promptly fired Striker. Because by
that point, The Lone Ranger had been on the air
for you know, six seven years. They had the blueprint,
they had the kind of story arc to follow, They
had Striker's notes on how the Ranger you should kentuckt
(32:33):
themselves at all time. They had the creed. But what
happened was that the quality of writing dropped off so
much after Striker's brief absence that the sponsors for the
various shows that he was writing pressured Trendall and Hiring
to hire him back with the Rays, and Trendall didn't
(32:55):
want to lose his sponsors, so he reluctantly hired Striker
back at the higher salary. About this time in the
nineteen forties, Trendall started claiming in interviews and in articles
that he was the creator, not just the owner of
the rights, but he was the creator, was his idea
(33:16):
of The Lone Ranger, not Strikers, And like anything else,
if you repeat a line long enough, people believe it,
and so it gained strength. More people thought that George W.
Trendall was the creator of The Lone Ranger, and in fact,
even in his authorized biography on the front cover, it
(33:39):
says George W. Trendall the creator producer of The Lone Ranger,
Green Hornet, Sergeant Press in the Yukon, etc. And even
the last movie with Johnny Depp. If you stay until
the credits roll at the end, you'll see based on
the characters created by George W. Trendall. There was even
a story circulating that Striker wasn't brought in to work
(34:04):
on The Lone Ranger's script until after it had aired.
Striker handled all this with grace, and you should think
about it. He could see how much money, how much
revenue The Ranger was producing for Trendle now that Trendall
had the rights, all the toys, all the spinoff products,
(34:26):
all the giveaways, the movies, the books, the comic books,
and it could have been him, but he handled it
with grace. When he was asked in private by his
friends or family, he would say that, well, the people
in the radio industry, they know the truth and leave
it at that. If he was interviewed, he would say
only God creates. Striker never brought up the controversy. He
(34:52):
never confronted Trendle with the lie, and he continued to
work for Trendle up until the Lone Ranger lights were
sold for three million dollars, which was a record sale
at that time, and of course, you know, the money
all went to Trendle. I think it did bother Striker
(35:16):
had had to. Striker really did give his all and
cared about the Ranger and felt a responsibility to the
Rangers fans, especially the kids, to make sure that he
was an example, a true hero to those kids growing up.
It had to hurt. Unfortunately, Striker was killed in a
car crash in nineteen sixty two, still a young man.
(35:39):
If he was only fifty eight years old, and he
didn't live long enough to write his memoirs and tell
his side of the story. And I think that premature
death and is not writing his autobiography gave life to
the lie because it could it continued really to this day.
(36:02):
I think the Lone Ranger is an iconic American hero
and figure. I think he is recognized by everybody worldwide.
He is an enduring, bankable media star striker. You know,
he used to say that the people in the radio
business know and that's true. He's in the National Broadcasters
(36:25):
Hall of Fame, but he doesn't have the notoriety. He's
not acknowledged. People don't know who he is. The average
person doesn't know who he is. But he is, in fact,
just on the Lone Ranger in the Green Hornet if
that was the only two scripts he ever wrote, just
on those two creations, he has and deserves a place
(36:48):
as one of the most influential and successful radio drama scriptwriters.
His accomplishments they were huge. You'll be hard pressed to
find someone who had such an impact and whose character
were able to move from radio to television to film,
(37:10):
to books to comic books. You'd be hard pressed to
find a character that generated that much revenue for such
a long period of time. And a terrific job on
the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery.
And a special thanks to author Stephen Iowanu in his
(37:32):
book Yesteryear is available at Amazon or at the Usual Suspects.
And what a story he told. And by the way,
was it the best or worst deal of all time?
It was the worst deal of all time. I mean,
clearly Striker had to take care of his family and
may not have been a risk taker. But boy, if
you want to do the wrong thing, do what Trendle
(37:53):
did and become the greatest schmuck in history. He could
have just tied the guy in for a nice piece
of the profits still made a heck of a lot
of money himself. The story of how the Lone Ranger
came to be here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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