Michigan's Vigilantes Ride Again!

Hey everyone! It's been a long while since I posted. Almost a year! I hope everyone saw Disney's "The Lone Ranger" movie. I know the critics hated it and I'm sure the purists will poo-poo it, but I thought it was a fun, if flawed, ride!

In any event, I've had some events recently in my personal life that have led me to believe that I could turn this interest in the history of the Ranger and Tonto from a part time internet fascination and into an actual book! It'll be a while (likely another full year) before that can happen, but in the meantime I'm going to start posting here again with renewed – and in fact redefined – focus. From here on out, the bulk of my research into the Ranger's history will center on his days in Detroit/Michigan and the impact that city had on his creation.

To that end, look what I found today!

This button was for a Green Hornet Fan Club at WCMU – the public radio station located on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Though the look of the character is Striker's classic full-masked version, this button was actually made in the 1960s at the earliest. I'm not sure if it was created before or after the Van Williams/Bruce Lee TV series, but it was made in honor of WCMU's then re-airing of the original WXYZ broadcast episodes.

The most hard data I can find on the Club's origins come from this posting on the Hake's auction site. There, we learn it was made by the Bastian Bros. printing company, which is still around after 115 years of business! Furthermore, the auctioneer thinks it was made in the early 1970s, and I found this PDF of a newsletter for the Old Time Radio Club of Buffalo from January 1977 that lists WCMU as a current broadcaster of old radio shows. That link comes via the amazing Old Time Radio Researchers Group whose site has an amazing wealth of resources on this stuff – including this reprint of a not-so flattering George Trendle profile and this overview of WXYZ.

I'd love to track down anyone associated with the original '60s/'70s club at CMU. I'm betting that that was the perfect time to be researching Detroit's radio history. Maybe the folks on this Vintage Detroit TV and Movie board will have some leads, but first I'll want to read Dick Osgood's now legendary WYXIE Wonderland book or David Carson's Rockin Down The Dial history of Detroit radio.

But all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about where things are at right now!

WXYZ & The Birth Of A Franchise

As I'm sure we're all aware, the Lone Ranger was born on the radio as a program recorded and distributed by George Trendle's WXYZ in Detroit. Above is a cast recording from some time in the 1940s. I don't have the knowledge to name all the participants, but in the middle is long-running Ranger star Brace Beemer (who has so many awesome photos on the internet it will warrant its own post), and this site identifies the man directly to his right as John Todd and the man on his left as Ernie Winstanley.

Anywho, in my research I discovered the following article from February 24th, 1940 from The Miami Herald. Sure, the headline identifies it as a story about G.I.s in France wanting to hear the broadcast, but that's most likely an overzealous editor attempting to drum up interest in a war America would soon be involved in.

As you can see, the article is about the early spread of the Ranger's program thanks to Trendle and company's identification of syndication and original programming (which they continued to own) as the business model with the biggest payoff. Notable too how big a part of the Ranger's success Fran Striker's scripts were and how the station managers gave him credit for it. I'm not really sure what's up with that last paragraph though.

For more info on WXYZ's Golden radio years, check out this great tour of a former Michigan Historical Museum exhibition on radio's history in the state.

The First Step

There are certainly worse places to start this whole journey into the ownership of the Lone Ranger than with this May 1946 article from what was then called The Billboard. For those who don't feel like reading the image above, which was found via Google's amazing (and sadly stifled) Google News Archive, I've typed up the relevant notice:

Detroit, May 4 – Disclosure of the sale of WXYZ to ABC proved a surprise even to staff members here, altho negotiations, closely guarded, had been underway for about six months. Price was set high, and the deal was not expected to go thru for this reason. Expectation here now is that another is that another network, unnamed, may make a big for the station before the deal is finally okayed by the FCC.

 Plans of George W. Trendle, originally head of the present United Detroit Theaters Circuit before he switched 100 per cent to radio, are to operate as a production agency after the deal is finally okayed. He is retaining the rights to Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, Challenge of the Yukon, and Ned Jordan, Secret Agent – the last named not now in production – and would continue to produce these shows, presumably using the facilities of WXYZ for both the direct origination and the Coast rebroadcast.

H. Allen Campbell, general manager of WXYZ, is slated to leave with Trendle, while James G. Riddell, assistant commercial manager, is expected to be upped to the post of general manager. Merritt Schoenfeld, who has been with the local ABC office for some months, is expected to take over in a supervisory. Also slated to go with the new Trendle agency are Earl Moore, formerly station supervisor, who is currently handling television research, together with the entire staff of the Lone Ranger group, including Fran Striker, principal writer.

So much info there, huh? Most important of all is the fact that this was the moment where Trendle officially turned the Ranger from a production asset of a radio station and into what we now call "an intellectual property." Of course, there's also the fact that the company was already looking into TV production a full six years before they got the deal inked. And last but certainly not least is Sriker's mention as an asset to the creation of the characters even then. Me thinks there's a lot for me to discover about the relationship between Trendle and Striker and indeed Trendle and his whole staff.

Also: check the bonus in the left column where we see future Ranger owner Tom McDermott get his own write-up in the very same issue!