Originally Posted by Tonchi (Post 194662)

Just for the trivia buffs, "Rin Tin Tin's boy", Rusty, was played by Robert Blake. Later, he also played "Little Beaver" to another Western hero, Red Ryder.

BTW: Tonto got his name by virtue of the Tonto Indian tribe. I'm not sure where they were located, but the Tonto tribe was part of the Apache Nation. I think there is even a Tonto National Forest in Arizona. Since the Lone Ranger story was supposed to start in Texas, it would be interesting to find out why the author of the original book chose a Native American who wouldn't normally have been anywhere near there, but the white man had a knack for messing up facts when these "Sage Brush Romances" became popular around the turn of the 19th Century. More BTW: Apaches never wore the kind of buckskin outfit that Tonto traditionally wears in the movies, that garb was more like what Kit Carson and the Fremont Scouts wore in the 1840's. Jay Silverheels is also using a hairstyle which is distinctly Navajo; Apaches wore their hair straight and long.

As to why the tribe ended up with the name "tonto" in the first place, we can only imagine that some administrator for New Spain or a mission padre who was exasperated with trying to get more work out of the Indians they essentially enslaved remarked "Mirad a esos tontos!" when some of the people shuffled by, and the derogatory comment stuck.