"Hi-Yo, Silver!" — was the famous opening sequence to the TV show "The Lone Ranger" colorized?

Shot from the opening sequence to "The Lone Ranger" — this color version is from 1956

EDITOR'S NOTE: Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken a different approach with this post. The good news is I've since done a fully updated and much more thoroughly researched post about the evolution of the opening sequence for "The Lone Ranger," and you can go to it by clicking here. Meanwhile, I'm leaving up this older post with a few minor tweaks, as it still tells a part of the story and has some historical merit. Note that this post is all about the 1956 reshoot of the opening. For details on the original 1949 opening, click on the link in this paragraph.

Here are some shots of the well-known "Lone Ranger" opening sequence, usually seen in black and white. The color version of the opening ran with the later color episodes of the TV show, Season 5, which aired from 1956-57. I originally posted that my hunch was that they just colorized the original opening sequence, which dates back to 1949. If so, it would have been a pretty nice job of colorization and a fairly early example. They did have the technology as far back as the 1920s, and I know they colorized some cartoons in the 1950s. But that's different, and this color version of the Lone Ranger opening looks pretty good. So it was a bit of a mystery to me, until a reader named Richard explained that the original opening was replaced by a new color opening for the color season, and that color opening was then "de-colorized" back to black-and-white for DVDs of the black-and-white episodes. Mystery solved.

"The Lone Ranger" title shot — in color

Conventional wisdom held for years that the first part of the opening wasn't shot on the Iverson Movie Ranch but at the neighboring Brandeis Ranch, also in Chatsworth, Calif. However, as is often the case, conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong. That's Pyramid Peak (aka Rocky Peak) in the background, a familiar background feature also seen in plenty of Iverson scenes. Brandeis and Iverson were right next to each other, so it can be hard to distinguish them on screen. One useful clue — albeit not a scientific one — is that Iverson was used a lot more than Brandeis, so when you're seeing this scenery, there's a better chance that it's Iverson. However, the Line of Trees seen in the background here — they look like pines, but I'm no expert — represented the boundary between Iverson and Brandeis, which would place the action shown here on the eastern side of the Line of Trees — the Iverson side.

Here's the "de-colorized" black-and-white title shot. The fact that it's crooked has to do with my camera work; it didn't run that way on TV.


The action shifts from the Upper Iverson to the Lower Iverson for this part of the opening. This shot shows the approach to Lone Ranger Rock on the Lower Iverson, and the rocks in the distant background are a familiar grouping just above the Upper Iverson Gorge: Sticky Bun (partially visible near the top, sticking out from the tree on the left), along with Cracked Meringue (directly above the Lone Ranger's head) and Stegosaurus (above Silver's nose). In the foreground, at the right, is the elusive Sea Leopard. You can find more information about most of these rocks elsewhere in the blog — try the massive alphabetical index along the right side of the page.

Here's a look at the rock cluster consisting mainly of Sticky Bun, Cracked Meringue and Stegosaurus today, hidden behind the condos. Sticky Bun is the one shaped like a sticky bun, kind of obviously. To its right, looking nondescript here, is Cracked Meringue, which angles downward from left to right. Below the two of them, largely hidden behind the condo building, is the larger Stegosaurus, which also looks nondescript here due to the presence of the condos. All three of these rocks are also visible in the Lone Ranger approach shot, above. Also in this recent shot is Lone Ranger Rock itself, almost directly in the center of the photo.


Here's the familiar shot of the Lone Ranger on Silver, rearing up next to Lone Ranger Rock. The rock can still easily be found at the site of the former Iverson Movie Ranch, just off Redmesa Road in Chatsworth.

This is what the rearing-up scene looks like in its familiar black-and-white version. I posted a brief video of the "Lone Ranger" opening in an early blog entry that can still be found here, but what I would now recommend is that you go to a much more thoroughly researched post about the "Lone Ranger" opening sequence, with video clips of five or six different versions of the opening and a full explanation of how it evolved, which you can find by clicking here.

Check out a cool "Lone Ranger" DVD set on Amazon by clicking the link below:

Here's a Roy Rogers video filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch

This is a video someone posted on YouTube of Roy Rogers singing "It's Home Sweet Home to Me." Sorry, the picture quality isn't very good. But the background for the shot is the Upper Iverson in Chatsworth, Calif.

Flipping the shot in "Adventures of Kit Carson"

One of the tricks used to save money in the old movies and TV shows was flipping shots, apparently to get what looked like different footage but was in fact just the same footage mounted in reverse. In other words, left is right and right is left, like a mirror image. Here's an example from the TV show "Adventures of Kit Carson."

This shot is from about five minutes into the episode "Border Corsairs," which premiered Jan. 12, 1952. Kit, played by Bill Williams, is on the left and his sidekick El Toro, played by Don Diamond, is on the right. But this shot is in fact flipped.

Around the 10-minute mark of the same episode, this shot appears. The riders are now on opposite sides of each other. But if you look closely, you'll see that it's not just the riders who have switched sides — everything is reversed from the earlier shot. In the second shot, everything is correctly oriented. One of the better giveaways is that the curved white marking along the nose of Kit Carson's horse curves to the left in the first shot and to the right in the second.

The main feature in the background is Oat Mountain, the light-colored series of hills along the top of the shot. Another way to tell the shots are reversed is by looking at the dark triangle shape just above the riders — the Triangle Brand, as I call it, stamped on Oat Mountain. We know from seeing the orientation of the Triangle Brand in modern times — it's formed by a grove of trees on the side of the hill, and can still be easily spotted today — that this is the correct orientation for the shot.

Click here for another example of flipping the shot, from "The Roy Rogers Show."

Featured Iverson Movie Ranch "classic rock": GTR

Viewed from its most commonly seen front side (above), GTR is a subtle creature. Even so, it found its way into hundreds of movies simply because of its prominent perch atop a rock wall known as Hole in the Wall, in the Lone Ranger Rock/Nyoka Cliff area, or the the Upper Gorge. Here's one example:

The screen shot above is from the 1944 Roy Rogers/Dale Evans movie "The Yellow Rose of Texas." GTR can be seen in the top right corner.

For a look at GTR's charismatic alter ego (its back side), see the Jaunty Sailor.

Classic Rocks: Jaws — get a load of the choppers on this thing — and GTR

"Jaws": One of the many weird rocks in the Land of Weird Rocks
that is the former Iverson Movie Ranch

Here's something to sink your teeth into: Jaws, also known as Laughing Boy (not seriously — that's just sort of a pet name I have for it), is a cool rock — and it's one that is seen all too rarely in the movies, at least up close.

"Beauty and the Bandit" (Monogram, 1946) 

Above is a rare medium shot of Jaws in a movie, in the Cisco Kid Western "Beauty and the Bandit." Jaws is almost always seen from long range, and is usually unrecognizable in those distant appearances.

I know it's a little hard to spot — here's another version of the shot with Jaws outlined, more or less.

Jaws, from the "T-Rex" angle

I have also referred to the rock as "T-Rex," a designation that's based on its appearance from the angle seen here. I know it doesn't even look like the same rock. But it is. You may or may not see the Tyrannosaurus rex resemblance, which may depend on whether you had a certain toy T-Rex in your dinosaur collection as a kid.

Jaws, on the left, and Jaunty Sailor, on the right, as they appear today

Jaws is a close neighbor of GTR, which, like Jaws, has at least two distinct personalities. GTR is also known as Jaunty Sailor when viewed from its back side, as in the above photo.

The heavily filmed movie rock GTR/Jaunty Sailor, as it appears in recent times

Here's a look at the two main personas of GTR/Jaunty Sailor: as seen from the front, as GTR, on the right; and from the back, as Jaunty Sailor, on the left.

"The Saga of the Viking Women" (1957)

The above shot shows what might be considered a traditional angle on the area known as Hole in the Wall, which includes the features GTR, Jaws and the actual Hole in the Wall — all visible in the background near the top of the shot, as seen from the Upper Gorge. I'll identify these features below.

Here's the same shot with some of the key features pointed out. The shot comes from Roger Corman's great 1957 Iverson showpiece with the full title "The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent." I can strongly recommend the movie if you want to see some terrific Iverson location shots — and it's a cool movie besides. Corman spent a lot of time at Iverson early in his career, honing his skills before going on to become one of the great cult movie directors and producers of all time.  

This post is part of a series on "Classic Rocks" — sandstone giants located on the former Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., that became a part of not only America's physical landscape but also its cultural heritage, through featured roles in old movies, cliffhanger serials and early TV shows. Other entries in the series can be seen by clicking here.

Check out these Amazon links to find movies featured in this post: