Another illusion shattered

[Hawkmoon]

Confession: I'm old enough to have grown up when The Lone Ranger was running on the television -- for the first time. I'm sure my brother and I watched every episode, and -- of course -- with the gullibility of youth we saw him as a heroic figure.

I recently discovered that most of the original episodes are on Youtube and I've been watching groups of them when I feel a need to decompress. It's surprising to my adult eyes how much I missed when I was a kid. Such as:

• The series ran for five years -- I think they only had two town sets, that were used in all the episodes.
• They only had three or so of the famous "Hi Yo. Silver, Away" closing scenes, that they recycled from one episode to another.
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto supposedly roamed all over the west, but many of the horseback scenes cover familiar routes. In fact, it looks like many of them are canned footage. The scenes where things really happen are all on sound stage sets that are obviously fake. I'm astonished I never noticed the transitions from outdoors to stage set when I was a kid.
• The worst shock is the Lone Ranger's gun handling. Actually, pretty much everyone. When someone draws a six-gun, they hold it all choked up with a fist wrapped around the back of the hammer. Nobody could possibly shoot a single action revolver the way they hold them.

Watching them now, the shows are amusingly naive in their filming and acting, but despite the now-obvious repetition of sets and locations, they're still fun to watch.

And it's not just the filming that's naive. I've already lost count of how many people get the drop on the masked man. He just smiles and says, "My name doesn't matter -- I'm not an outlaw." And, sure enough, the other person just holsters his (or her) gun and says something idiotic like, "Well, okay -- I guess I can trust you."

SHEESH!

[HankB]

Uh oh . . . just don't tell me that Combat! wasn't filmed in Europe, and McHale's Navy wasn't filmed on Taratupa or (later) New Caledonia.   

[TommyGunn]

Uh oh . . . just don't tell me that Combat! wasn't filmed in Europe, and McHale's Navy wasn't filmed on Taratupa or (later) New Caledonia.   

Interestingly, a small amount of filming for the COMBAT! series was done in europe, involving extras and actor doubles around a French castle.  Much of COMBAT!  was filmed on Metro Goldwyn Meyer lots....a French Village   built ten  years earlier  for a  musical was "taken"  by Saunders & Co.  very many times over its five year run.

I don't recall THE LONE RANGER very well, but it was a  cheaply produced series and a great many stock scenes were no doubt used.
How many shots do you think they had of George Reeves' Superman  flying?   Very few I'D say.

[Hawkmoon]

Uh oh . . . just don't tell me that Combat! wasn't filmed in Europe, and McHale's Navy wasn't filmed on Taratupa or (later) New Caledonia.   

Most of my comments about The Lone Ranger also apply to pretty much every show on television at the time. The show began in 1949, IIRC, and the television industry was in its infancy. I think the part I'm finding the most disillusioning is watching the Lone Ranger's (and Tonto's, and most of the supporting actors') gun handling. I can't imagine where they came up with that choked-up grip -- it's not even a way I would find natural to draw or hold a six-gun.

[freakazoid]

Maybe it was some sort of safety thing they was required to do?

[BlueStarLizzard]

Maybe it was some sort of safety thing they was required to do?

Most of what is done for camera that isn't the right way is done for looks.

Most likely someone said "hey, do it like this because it looks impressive/cool/better light"

[Perd Hapley]

If you mean this, it looks like he has the joint of his thumb on the hammer, not just the tip. I would guess that has him choking up on the gun more than most shooters would. (I have very limited experience with SAAs, so I don't really know.)

[just Warren]

I loved this show called The Thunderbirds. Just had to watch it whenever it was on. The actors were awesome and the stories were fantastic.

Watched an episode recently and did you know the actors were puppets! Puppets!  I was heartbroken. 

[Scout26]

I loved this show called The Thunderbirds. Just had to watch it whenever it was on. The actors were awesome and the stories were fantastic.

Watched an episode recently and did you know the actors were puppets! Puppets!  I was heartbroken. 

Dad refused to get the TV fixed, huh?

[roo_ster]

I loved this show called The Thunderbirds. Just had to watch it whenever it was on. The actors were awesome and the stories were fantastic.

Watched an episode recently and did you know the actors were puppets! Puppets!  I was heartbroken. 

Be careful re-watching the shows of your youth, as you may realize that the young you had zero discernment.

[vaskidmark]

I loved this show called The Thunderbirds. Just had to watch it whenever it was on. The actors were awesome and the stories were fantastic.

Watched an episode recently and did you know the actors were puppets! Puppets!  I was heartbroken. 

You moved like that https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=thunderbirds+tv+show&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-004 as a kid?  So glad to hear that physical rehab has worked so well for you.

Yes, the willing suspension of disbelief was so much easier when we were younger and knew squat.

stay safe.

[MechAg94]

Be careful re-watching the shows of your youth, as you may realize that the young you had zero discernment.

I have tried to go back and watch re-runs of The Rifleman.  The naive plots and such sort of put a stop to that. 

[brimic]

Maybe the LR was using some sort of proto-tactical/IPSC grip on his heater

[charby]

Be careful re-watching the shows of your youth, as you may realize that the young you had zero discernment.

No kidding, I have rewatched some of the TV shows I loved as a youngster to realize how much they sucked.

[Ben]

The Three Stooges Still Rock for me, as do the 30s-50s Tom and Jerry.

Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, you want to rewatch as an adult to catch all the jokes that went over your head as a kid.

[230RN]

The Lone Ranger and Tonto supposedly roamed all over the west, but many of the horseback scenes cover familiar routes. In fact, it looks like many of them are canned footage. The scenes where things really happen are all on sound stage sets that are obviously fake. I'm astonished I never noticed the transitions from outdoors to stage set when I was a kid.

Most of the Westerns and some of the other movies were shot on "The Iverson Movie Ranch," a large privately owned parcel of land which the producers would rent out for their sets.

Many parts of the "ranch" were shot again and again in various movies and actually were familiar enough to the movie people to have their own names.  The same road and rocks and turns would have both cars and stagecoaches filmed along it in various movies.

There is even a "Lone Ranger Rock," where the Lone Ranger made  Silver rear up.  In other movies, you can see folks like Ronald Reagan shooting from other obvious places.  It's kind of funny to catch a particular location, identifiable even by the cracks in the rocks, in movies spanning decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw5LAyUjvY8&feature=player_embedded

^That one gives the probable source of the term "cliffhanger."

There's a lot of interesting lore about the Iverson Movie Ranch in other related videos.

(And yes, I am appalled at some of the gun handling.  McHale's Navy is a particular culprit, as someone mentioned.)

Terry, 230RN

[makattak]

No kidding, I have rewatched some of the TV shows I loved as a youngster to realize how much they sucked.

I'm sure there's a lot of terrible shows from my childhood, but I've started re-watching Wings and Night Court and haven't been disappointed.

I still have tears of laughter from the "Murder She Roast" episode.

Also, Bugs Bunny cartoons seem to have only gotten better as I have aged. (The comedic timing is impressive in those shows. An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTDpkW5VhQE&t=2m27s)

[Perd Hapley]

Not exactly childhood viewing, but I just watched Last Man Standing for the first time in quite a while. Thanks to internet, I now notice the bad guys flying backward when they get 1911ed. Which doesn't exactly ruin the movie, but I never thought about it before.

[charby]

I'm sure there's a lot of terrible shows from my childhood, but I've started re-watching Wings and Night Court and haven't been disappointed.

I still have tears of laughter from the "Murder She Roast" episode.

Also, Bugs Bunny cartoons seem to have only gotten better as I have aged. (The comedic timing is impressive in those shows. An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTDpkW5VhQE&t=2m27s)

A-Team is one I can think of off hand.

[K Frame]

I hated A-Team when it was on the air. Caught a few minutes of one some months ago and just about shot my TV.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Depends on your age and what you were watching, thanks to Nickelodeon's habit of making shows that worked for adults, too, some stuff from my childhood is not that disappointing.

Pete and Pete, Salute Your Shorts and Rocko's Modern Life are still awesome. And Clarissa Explains It all isn't half bad.

[TommyGunn]

I loved this show called The Thunderbirds. Just had to watch it whenever it was on. The actors were awesome and the stories were fantastic.

Watched an episode recently and did you know the actors were puppets! Puppets!  I was heartbroken. 

Ha ha.    I loved that show back  in the '60s.  But I knew it was puppetry & special effects.   
I still enjoy the show but more for admiring how it was all done.... took some real artists to pull all that off, especially before CGI. 

[AJ Dual]

I must have been kind of OCD as a kid when it came to Sci-Fi.

I always could tell when the same shots of space ships or fighters were strung together in Buck Rogers or Battlestar Galactica, and sometimes flipped for variety, and when set pieces looked like well... set pieces. Feeling pained, at how inevitable it was, when both series had their "disco with light-rope" moment. Even though I was only about 7 years old.

And even the early ST-TNG sets looked awful, and no better than some of the 60's TOS ones.

I think seeing Star Wars in the theater when I was 4 just ruined me for TV Sci-Fi until the 90's or so, when CGI, and production values caught up.

[MechAg94]

The Three Stooges Still Rock for me, as do the 30s-50s Tom and Jerry.

Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, you want to rewatch as an adult to catch all the jokes that went over your head as a kid.

A lot of the old cartoons and comedies are actually still very good.  If anything, the attempts to remake those cartoons later are the ones that are not very good.

[RocketMan]

I remember really enjoying The Rifleman as a kid.  Tried watching a couple of episodes recently and couldn't get past the heavy morality play aspect.

The Three Stooges will always be classic.  Bugs Bunny cartoons, too.  I remember watching a long ago interview with Mel Blanc (or was it Chuck Jones?) that indicated most of the BB humor was aimed at an adult audience.

I binge-watched most of the Twilight Zone last month.  Despite the cheesy SFX, I enjoyed most of the shows.  It was fun seeing folks that later became big name stars in the early episodes.  Heck, there were even some actors in the show that were big names at that time.

I need to watch more of the original Outer Limits if I can find them.

In regards to movies, it's still impressive how well the SFX in 2001: A Space Odyssey has held up over the years.  I saw that the first time when it was still in first run in theaters.  Anyone besides us old phartes remember 70mm Cinerama?