The Cisco Kid

I enjoyed the Cisco Kid TV series very much when I was a kid.I frankly don't see why anyone could take offense at either of the leads. Unlike most comic reliefs,Pancho was very formidable when the chips were down. As far as O'Henry's original story,it is easily found.There was a set of books published between l900 and l9l0 with his collected stories which was printed in vast numbers which has everything he ever wrote;any large library should have it.However,the character in the story has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and TV character.He was an Anglo,not a Latino. Far more important, the character of the story was a depraved homicidal maniac,as well as an outlaw."It was the Kid's pastime to shoot Mexicans for the pleasure of watching them kick".That is as near as I can get from memory.I was pretty surprised when I first read this. As Kenneth MacGowan said in "Behind the Screen" about the movie character vs O'Henry's original creation "how this degenerate sadist" was turned into the familiar hero is anybody's guess.Some unknown scriptwriter apparently. The movie and TV figure is certainly a "Robin Hood of the Old West",but not O'Henry's. I believe that the story is to be found in the volume "The Heart of the West", but it might be in one of the others.

Fell in love with the show when I was four years old, and never stopped loving it. I always felt that Cisco and Pancho were the ideal men--caring, brave, and gallant, protecting defenseless victims, sending their rewards to mission orphans, etc.

The early shows mentioned O. Henry, as in "O. Henry's Cisco Kid"--I have always wanted to know the name of the book or short story that contained the Cisco Kid. The story is not in any of my O. Henry collections, so maybe it went out of print. Also, it would be nice to know who wrote the lovely theme music, and if it's currently available.

The show was also notable, to me, for not using women characters only as victims--often, women were just as devious, villainous, and able as the men with whom they were associated.

Before the revolution brought about by the "adult" Westerns or 1955+ (Gunsmoke, Maverick, etc, the one's as a young boy I liked best) there were the kiddie Westerns: Wild Bill Hickock, The Range Rider, Buffalo Bill Jnr, The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. Based (supposedly) on an O. Henry story, there was probably more kinship with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza - and formulaic B-Westerns of the '30s and '40s. One thing set this apart from others of their ilk: I met Duncan Reynaldo! I was a very young boy but I still treasure the memory of this friendly kind gentleman.

Who can forget these two cavalier Mexican heroes, The Cisco Kid, played by the dashingly handsome Duncan Renaldo and Pancho, his loyal sidekick, played wonderfully by Leo Carillo. When I was a boy, the "Cisco Kid" was a weekly series and I never missed it. Both of these actors are long buried and mostly forgotten. The message they delivered to their young audiences each week was the same message delivered by so many other oater serials of the day; always stand up for the rights of the underdog. If your friends and neighbors need help, it's up to you and other good people to come to their assistance. After all, it's the honorable thing to do. Although Renaldo and Carillo faded into relative obscurity in the years following their T.V. series, I'm sure they went to their final rewards feeling a large measure of satisfaction for the positive affect that their little t.v. program had on the lives of so many youngsters during their formative years.

I remember the TV series fondly. One of the Connecticut TV stations ran reruns in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I enjoyed it as a child. I just picked up a bargain DVD with several episodes. Nothing is the same as an adult as when you first saw something as a child or teenager but these hold up well.

Some may see some ethnic stereotyping. Isn't that true for too many things coming out of an earlier era. I would be interested in reading the O. Henry story. Remember the dime novels of the late 1800s/early 1900s led into the shorts and westerns of the early decades of American films.