”Here’s adventure! Here’s romance! Here’s the famous Robin Hood of the old West…”

Because I practically vegetated in front of a television set while growing up, I have very fond memories of the TV western The Cisco Kid. To this day, however, I can’t for the life of me figured out why I watched the darn thing. I mean, it was a pleasant way to kill a half-hour, but there really wasn’t anything special about it—unless the fact that the series was in color had something to do with it. (Even at an early age, I associated black-and-white with television before my time, which was not in any way a bad thing.) I later found out that the good people at Ziv—who distributed The Cisco Kid in syndication—had the foresight to film the series this way, which paid off handsomely once color television took hold. Looking back, I think the fact that my mother also watched the show when she was a little gaffer might be why I sat through so many of those reruns. Then again, I could have just been waiting for something else to come on. Who can say?

The Cisco Kid was the creation of one William Sydney Porter—better known in literary circles as O. Henry, one of the masters of the short story (“The Gift of the Magi,” “The Ransom of Red Chief”). His Cisco was a hard-drinking, hard-loving Latino outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, much in the manner of that English fellow from Sherwood Forest. The character made a particularly large splash on the silver screen in 1929 with In Old Arizona, a film that won its star, Warner Baxter, an Oscar for his portrayal of Cisco. A slew of B-Westerns followed, with Cisco also being played by Cesar Romero, Gilbert Roland, and Duncan Renaldo. Renaldo, with Leo Carrillo as Pancho, later played the famous bandit on the television version from 1950-56.

Cisco’s radio debut began October 2, 1942 on the Mutual network as a program originating from New York, and he was played by Jackson Beck, a well-known announcer and voice man (among his achievements: the voice of Bluto in many of the Popeye cartoons, and the pitchman for Little Caesar’s Pizza) who graduated to leading man status. Louis Sorin (Groucho Marx’s foil in Animal Crackers) added support as Pancho, the Kid’s sidekick. The radio show sort of toned down some of the more unsavory aspects of the character, casting him and Pancho in a sort of Lone-Ranger-and-Tonto-but-they're-always-mistaken-for-outlaws mode. The romantic qualities of the character were still in full bloom, however—many an episode would wrap up with Cisco stealing a kiss from the senorita he had just rescued. Pancho (“Chico” to his pal Cisco) served as comic relief, and in a show I listened to last night (“Condemned,” from 5/28/53) I was subjected (that’s about the kindest way I can put it) to his rapier-like wit:

PANCHO: Cisco…?

CISCO: Si, Pancho?

PANCHO: Cisco…do you remember Pancho’s Uncle Jose?

CISCO: Mmm…oh si, amigo…I remember your Uncle Jose very well, si…

PANCHO: …and Pancho’s Uncle Jose…now got the big herd of cows…

CISCO: Big herd of cows?

PANCHO: Si…

CISCO: Is that so?

PANCHO: Oh, si, si…and my Uncle Jose sells lots and lots of cream now, Cisco…

CISCO: He sells lots and lots of cream?

PANCHO: Oh, lots of cream…

CISCO: Well…does he not also sell lots and lots of milk?

PANCHO: Oh, no…Uncle Jose not bother with the milk, Cisco…

CISCO: No???

PANCHO: Just the cream…

CISCO: Well…that is very strange, Pancho…

PANCHO: That’s what the cows think, too, Cisco…

CISCO: Yeah?

PANCHO: Before Pancho’s Uncle Jose milk the cows, he turns them upside down…

CISCO: Wait a minute…he turns the cows upside down?

PANCHO: That’s what I say…he turns them upside down…

CISCO: Oh, that is hard to understand…why does he turn them upside down, Pancho?

PANCHO: So all the cream come to the top!

CISCO (in disgust) Oh, Pancho!

PANCHO (laughing) Oh, Cisco!

Oh brother. I’m beginning to see why these guys were wanted by the law—for impersonating Abbott & Costello. (Just imagine a Latino version of Lou screeching “¡Soy un maaaaaaaal muchacho!”*) Pancho may have mined his humor from discarded Bazooka Joe wrappers but he was loyal to Cisco, and (at least on television) was pretty handy with a bullwhip despite his bulk.

The Cisco Kid left Mutual on February 14, 1945 and moved west—literally—to the Pacific Coast in 1946, where it was heard three days a week regionally on Mutual-Don Lee. Cisco and Pancho were recast with Jack Mather and Harry Lang, respectively, and the show that following year became a transcribed syndicated series by Ziv, lasting until 1956. (I don’t have the precise dates handy, but apparently Mel Blanc briefly played the part of Pancho at one time, recycling his Pedro voice from The Judy Canova Show.) The two programs I previewed last night are from the syndicated run, the first being “The Cattleman’s War,” originally broadcast on Mutual May 26, 1953. In this episode, an autocratic rancher named Ed Domingo (the actor goes unbilled, but I’m pretty sure it’s Ken Christy) hires a gunman named—you’ll love this one—Billy Madison to kill his rival, Syd Baker. Sheriff Dobbs, the long arm of the law in those neck of the woods, deputizes Cisco and Pancho in order to head off an impending cattleman’s war—things get even stickier when the maladjusted Madison kills the sheriff, putting Cisco and Pancho in charge. The second show, “Condemned,” finds our two heroes falsely accused of murdering a prospector pal of theirs but they soon hunt down the real killers, two unsavory types who are operating an illegal goods-smuggling ring.

My opinion of the radio series is pretty much the same as the TV version—nothing to write home about, but it’s a painless listen at best. I was amused by the fact that both episodes (and apparently this was common on the show) contain a nice knock-down, drag-out donnybrook, the kind one is usually exposed to in your typical Republic Pictures serial chapter. Though the show is done to formula, it’s a successful one at that—and part of the audio magic created during the Golden Age of Radio.

*Translation: "I'm a baaaaaad boy!"