"The Cisco Kid" aired pretty much along side another favorite TV Western during the early to Mid Fifties. With one hundred fifty six episodes spanning six seasons from September, 1950 to March, 1956, it was only outdone by "The Lone Ranger", which wound up with two hundred twenty one programs. Though I caught that show as a kid during Saturday afternoon reruns, I never did come across "The Cisco Kid" until fairly recently, and probably like a lot of viewers, I was both shocked and surprised to see that the series was recorded in color at a time when less than one percent of the TV owning population had a color TV, and that was in 1956 at the end of it's run!
O.Henry's famous Robin Hood of the Old West was portrayed by Duncan Renaldo, a veteran Romanian! actor who already had a prestigious career by the time he played Cisco near the end of his career. He was forty three years old at the start of the series, while his English mangling sidekick, Leo Carillo was already hitting his Seventies! Technically, The Cisco Kid and Pancho were outlaws wanted for unspecified crimes, but if you've only watched a handful of episodes, you would never get that impression. As they traveled from town to town in the Old West, they would battle injustice and attempt to right wrongs in the same vein as the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Cisco rode a stalwart Pinto with bold markings named Diablo, while Pancho sat atop a beautiful golden Palomino he called Loco. One of the funnier shows I recently came across from the second season was titled 'Stolen Bonds', in which Pancho secretly talks to his horse and to himself in a mirror. Occasionally the actors would lapse into Spanish, and were once upbraided by a sheriff who demanded they speak in English!
More so than most series that came later, the stories had a recurring cast of regular actors that would show up as both good guys and villains. Notable among these were folks like Ray Hatton, Robert Livingston and Fred Kohler, Jr. Future TV Annie Oakley, Gail Davis also appeared a few times, while both actresses that portrayed Lois Lane in "The Adventures Of Superman" had roles in a handful of programs. Phyllis Coates for example, appeared in the story 'Wedding Blackmail', while Noel Neill showed up in 'Chain Lightning'. Both of those were first season episodes.
It's not surprising that many of these shows had illogical elements, like gunfights that occurred at the drop of a hat, as Cisco or some bad guy would start shooting just because they saw an adversary at some distance. But this is what it took to keep a childhood audience entertained, the demographic that these shows were primarily written for. It helped that Pancho spoke like a Mexican Leo Gorcey, complete with malapropisms and odd observations that made sense only to him and his partner. It's a testament to the enduring nature and popularity of the show that Pancho received a similarly convoluted compliment in the 1998 movie "The Big Lebowski". In that film, John Goodman's character Walter Slobchak, in speaking of departed dear friend Donny Kerabatsos, makes the observation - "He was a man who loved the outdoors...' from La Jolla to Leo Carillo...". I can't think of a better way to put it.
O.Henry's famous Robin Hood of the Old West was portrayed by Duncan Renaldo, a veteran Romanian! actor who already had a prestigious career by the time he played Cisco near the end of his career. He was forty three years old at the start of the series, while his English mangling sidekick, Leo Carillo was already hitting his Seventies! Technically, The Cisco Kid and Pancho were outlaws wanted for unspecified crimes, but if you've only watched a handful of episodes, you would never get that impression. As they traveled from town to town in the Old West, they would battle injustice and attempt to right wrongs in the same vein as the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Cisco rode a stalwart Pinto with bold markings named Diablo, while Pancho sat atop a beautiful golden Palomino he called Loco. One of the funnier shows I recently came across from the second season was titled 'Stolen Bonds', in which Pancho secretly talks to his horse and to himself in a mirror. Occasionally the actors would lapse into Spanish, and were once upbraided by a sheriff who demanded they speak in English!
More so than most series that came later, the stories had a recurring cast of regular actors that would show up as both good guys and villains. Notable among these were folks like Ray Hatton, Robert Livingston and Fred Kohler, Jr. Future TV Annie Oakley, Gail Davis also appeared a few times, while both actresses that portrayed Lois Lane in "The Adventures Of Superman" had roles in a handful of programs. Phyllis Coates for example, appeared in the story 'Wedding Blackmail', while Noel Neill showed up in 'Chain Lightning'. Both of those were first season episodes.
It's not surprising that many of these shows had illogical elements, like gunfights that occurred at the drop of a hat, as Cisco or some bad guy would start shooting just because they saw an adversary at some distance. But this is what it took to keep a childhood audience entertained, the demographic that these shows were primarily written for. It helped that Pancho spoke like a Mexican Leo Gorcey, complete with malapropisms and odd observations that made sense only to him and his partner. It's a testament to the enduring nature and popularity of the show that Pancho received a similarly convoluted compliment in the 1998 movie "The Big Lebowski". In that film, John Goodman's character Walter Slobchak, in speaking of departed dear friend Donny Kerabatsos, makes the observation - "He was a man who loved the outdoors...' from La Jolla to Leo Carillo...". I can't think of a better way to put it.