Sidekick 1

Now that Joe Biden has apparently pulled us back from the fiscal cliff perhaps its time to write an appreciation for the Wild West sidekick. You know the comic relief that occasionally bails out the gun toting hero. Here I have to confess my love of old time radio-those stories that filled the airwaves from the 1930s into the 1960s. My favorite genre is the Western where in the days before Brokeback Mountain every hero rode the range with a male sidekick without the hint of a bromance. Interestingly, many of the radio detectives also had sidekicks, but they were often dames. There's a limit to how dumb you can make a dame in a radio show (Gracie Allen excepted), but there is no limit to the stupidity of many western sidekicks.

Now before you send an ambulance to take me to the rest home, I want to let everyone know I'm a child of the dawn of TV, and I first met these "legends of the Old West" on TV not radio. That makes me old enough!

Long days and nights on the trail aside, the radio sidekick existed as a plot device. When Hoppy or Cisco or Marshall Dillon was planning something California, Pancho, or Chester was there to hear his ideas in our stead. The most iconic sidekick was, of course, the Lone Ranger's Tonto. Wikipedia informs us Tonto started working with the Ranger in the twelfth episode of the radio show back in 1933. Two origin stories emerged over the years. In the first the Ranger saved Tonto's life, in the Revised Standard Version (affirmed by TV) Tonto stumbled upon the wounded Ranger after the deadly ambush by Butch Cavendish that wiped out an entire squad of Texas Rangers. Just to keep the questions down it was duly noted that the Ranger had saved Tonto's life when he was a youth or a Ute, I'm not sure-you know about Tonto's difficulty with English.

Actually Tonto was supposed to be a member of the Potawatami tribe from Michigan. It just happens that the station owner where the Lone Ranger first aired was a Michigan native who claimed to have learned a little Potawatami back in the day. Rumor also has it that the show's first director's father-in-law owned a kids camp named Camp Kee Mo Sah Bee. Tonto supposedly meant "wild one" in Potawatami while Kee Mo Sah Bee meant "faithful scout."

After the end of the Ranger's run on TV, political correctness brought a microscope to these two terms. Tonto in Spanish means "dumb" while Kee Mo Sah Bee can be translated as "One who knows." When the Ranger was dubbed into Spanish Tonto became Toro ("bull"). In the TV series I don't remember the Ranger calling Tonto Kee Mo Sah Bee, but it happens in the radio show all the time. So Tonto is the "one who knows."  Finally, it's hard to believe that people running a radio station in Michigan in the 1930's would be cool enough to make jokes in Spanish when there were French Canadians nearby to make fun of.

Now General Phil Sheridan made that unfortunate statement about good dead Indians, but for most Easterners of the '30s good Indians were stoic, laconic people with great pride and a connection to nature. The radio writers couldn't show a laconic sidekick so they invented Tonto speak: "Him, no good, Kee Mo Sah Bee. Me go, now." Since throughout the radio show the character of Tonto was played by an English actor named John Todd, there is a certain irony in Tonto's speaking problems.

As a character Tonto is not the comic relief in the plot like many sidekicks. His role is to be the avatar for the Ranger in situations where that foolish mask might raise suspicions and the writers don't want to bother putting the hero into his old prospector disguise. Tonto goes to town, Tonto carries messages to the sheriff or the ranchers, or the nesters. Often Tonto's skills save the ranger or at least advance the plot. If only Todd had been allowed to speak in an English accent, Tonto would have an honored place as one of the first minority characters to be presented as a positive rather than a negative stereotype. Remember stereotypes have a long history in theater as "stock characters."

By the way, the furry friend at my feet looking for breakfast would like to point out that her favorite sidekick is Sergeant Preston's wonder dog King ("On King, On You Huskies"), and, as a bona fide wonder dog herself, she is deeply offended with King's often insightful barks and growls being dubbed by actors with terrible accents.

More about King, California, Pancho, and Chester in the next post.