The Range Rider was a syndicated western from Gene Autry's Flying A Prodictions which aired from 1952 to 1953 for 76 episodes. Famous stuntman turned actor Jock Mahoney starred as The Range Rider -- no other name was given the character -- and the Range Rider's constant companion was Dick West, played by 24-year-old Dick Jones (who had been the voice of Disney's Pinocchio). Because of
Mahoney's height and Jones's slim appearance, many viewers assumed that Dick West was The Range Rider's teenage companion.
The Range Rider did not have a backstory. He and Dick west just kept riding through the old west, somehow getting into trouble, then getting out of it. Throughout the west, The Range Rider's reputation for fairness, fighting ability, and accuracy with a gun were well-known. In this episode, directed by William Berke and scripted by Oliver Drake, The Range Rider and Dick are attacked by masked bandits who want to stop a telegraph line from being built. (The plots don't have to make sense just as long as the action keeps flowing.) Featured in this episode are Pamela Blake, Tom Monroe, Lyle Talbot, and House Peters, Jr.
Jock Mahoney's reputation as a careful and well-prepared stunt man was well-known. If Mahoney decided a stunt was too dangerous, no other stuntman would approach it. As an actor, he was known for doing his owm stunts. He had tried out for the movie role of Tarzan, but lost the part to Lex Barker, eventually replacing Barker as the Ape Man for two films. Mahoney later starred in the telvision program Yancy Derringer, playing an adventurer with a silent Pawnee companion in post-Civil War New Orleans. Mahoney's personal reputation was marred after step-daughter Sally Field revealed that he had sexually abused her until she was fourteen.
Dick (or Dickie) Jones was an accomplished horseman from a very young age. At four, he was billed as The World's Youngest Trick Rider and Roper. At six, he was hired to do riding and roping tricks by Hoot Gibson's rodeo. Gibson convinced Jones's parents that a career awaited him in Hollywood. At thirteen, he was the voice of Pinocchio, and by fifteen, he took over the role of Henry Aldrich in The Aldrich Family. Gene Autry, who had cast Jones in several westerns, tapped him for the role of Dick West in The Range Rider, and later gave him his own television show, Buffalo Bill, Jr., which lasted for 40 episodes in 1955.
Journey back now to the days when men were men, villains were villainous, and horses were horses, Enjoy this episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1xTh-u2i0
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