I’m sneaking around, but dressed like Bozo the Clown.

I’m watching another episode of “the Lone Ranger,” and he’s sneaking around, but he is as distinctive as Bozo the Clown. “The Masked Man” often goes “incognito,” because I’ve already seen him impersonating an old man (a different episode).

I was looking at “Silver,” the Lone Ranger’s horse, and I was thinking it would be almost impossible for the Lone Ranger to be incognito, wherever he goes. His mask hides his face, but nothing about the rest of him is understated. Tonto even cleaned the Ranger’s hat and left it out in the sun so that it would be brighter. *I heard him say so.

And, here comes this guy into town, wearing a mask, with a bright white hat (so that we know he’s a good guy), on a shiny white horse, that’s unmistakable from any other horse.

I thought that if the Lone Ranger really wanted to go incognito, he would have to have a backup horse. A horse that looked like most of the other horses in the Old West. Maybe a drab brown, and he would have to name him “Fred.” No one is going to forget, as he’s riding away on Fred, and say, “Hi Yo Fred, Away!” No, he’s going to be in character and say, “Giddy Up, Fred.” And Fred is going to mosey out of town with the maskless Lone Ranger on his back, with only the little boy playing with a stick, noticing.

I just noticed that the Lone Ranger is wearing a much darker outfit as he is riding along, during the opening credits, and firing his gun right next to Silver’s ear. And Silver, “what a trooper,” he doesn’t even flinch each time the gun goes off.

Yeah, the incognito Lone Ranger is going to have to lose that scarf he’s wearing around his neck. Nothing is going to attract more attention than that faggy looking scarf. You think Gregory Peck’s character, in “the Big Country,” got harassed because of the Eastern fedora he was wearing (a Bowler I believe), heck no, just look at the dude that just walked into the saloon wearing a scarf around his neck. Only women wear that kind of garb. And, he’s going to have to lose those Spandex pants that highlights his delicious rump. Get some weathered Jeans, and beat them on a rock to make them a little more weathered.

Look at those pearl handled shiny six shooters the Ranger is wearing. This seems to be a theme with Western “good guys.” Think about it. Would you know the good guy from these other distinctive weapons?

The Lone Ranger has to “sleep with one eye open,” because that gun belt of his has got to be worth thousands of dollars in silver bullets.

I knew of Bozo, but there was a local version on WITN TV7 out of Washington, North Carolina. This was an NBC Affiliate. The children’s clown was called WITNEY the HOBO, with the emphasis on WITNey.

I didn’t get to watch Howdy Doody & Buffalo Bob because their show was televised on WNCT TV9 (CBS) out of Greenville, North Carolina, and our TV reception for Greenville was horrible.

Rick Tash wasn’t a clown and didn’t dress up in makeup, other than what a normal TV personality might use. Apparently he had a children’s show on WECT TV6 (or WWAY TV 3) from Wilmington, North Carolina. One Saturday he came up from Wilmington and did a “meet with the kids” at the Jacksonville Colonial Store in New River Shopping Center, and gave away balsa wood gliders. I got one.

The New Bern TV station changed from WNBE to WCTI about 1970. This was an ABC affiliate.

As a child, after school and on Saturdays & Sundays, I would have watched shows like “Yogi Bear,” “Huckleberry Hound,” “Space Angel,” “Dark Shadows,” “The Wonderful World of Disney,” “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” “Johnny Quest,” “Captain Kangaroo,” “Bugs Bunny,” “Rocky & Bullwinkle,” “Sunrise Theater,” “The Three Stooges,”

“The Twilight Zone,”

“The Outer Limits,”

“Peter Gunn,” “Andy Griffith,” “Dragnet,” “The FBI,” “Get Smart,” “The Invaders,” “Daniel Boone,” “Star Trek,” and on special occasions, just once a year, “The Wizard of Oz,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “A Christmas Carol,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” & movies like, “Ivanhoe,” “Frankenstein,” “Dracula,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Time Machine,” and “The Birds.”