The Commander clued me into this yesterday. Long story short, the WB had commissioned a series based around a “hip and sexy” updating of “The Lone Ranger”, realized it costs too much money per episode, and cut it back to only a TV movie. But look at what they would have beamed into our homes on a weekly basis:
Wow. Let’s all take a moment, shall we?
Feeling better?
Not yet? OK, walk it off…that’s good.
Alrighty then.
Unless my eyes deceive me, the WB went and made a live action version of “The Ambiguously Gay Duo”. Holy Nathan Lane, Batman.
Lone Ranger: Now that we’ve rounded up the bandits, let’s head to the local bathhouse, Good Friend!
Tonto: Um, Kemosabe, what’s wrong with the saloon?
Later that evening:
Lone Ranger: Can you scrub my back, trusty sidekick?
Tonto: Um, OK, “Rides Horse While Only Wearing Chaps”.
One studio executive is quoted in Entertainment Weekly as saying, “''There's certainly a place for a sexy Western on network TV.” Apparantly "dressing up like The Village People" is sexy at the WB, but it doesn't hold much water where I'm at.
I can just see the scene now though. Flash forward to a Sunday night, in the Bible Belt, and Dad is putting down his copy of “The Economist” and thinking about Jesus. And in the other room, he hears the television, some gunfire. Alarmed, he asks from his recliner, “Son, what are you watching?”
“The Lone Ranger, Dad!”
Excited, remembering the show from his youth, the dad decided to see what his son is doing for the first time in nine years. “Great, Jimmy! I remember watching that show, and SWEET JESUS WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU WATCHING!”
And then holding an emergency baptism.
Posted by Ryan McGee at January 16, 2003 02:37 PM