TONTO! DON'T GO TO TOWN!

Sunday, October 23, 2005 8:30:22 AM

If you're a fan of Bill Cosby you got that blog title. For those who missed it, let me sum up. On one of his comedy albums, "I Started Out As A Child" I think, Cosby talked about the old Lone Ranger radio shows and how Tonto would ALWAYS go to town and he would ALWAYS get beat up. It got to the point that Cosby found himself yelling at the radio, "Tonto! Don't go to town!"

Now whenever I see a character who has to get injured to prove that the situation is serious I always think of Tonto. Although Harry Kim (on Voyager) was the absurd but logical conclusion of that approach - it seemed like he died every other show to prove that the situation was serious - I find that my favorite Tonto of all (other than Tonto) is Simon Tam.

I mean, everyone on Serenity gets the crud beaten out of them from time to time. But Simon has more of the Tonto thing going on somehow. I had noticed it pretty early into my Serenity/Firefly obsession so you can imagine what I did the first time I saw "Safe." Yep, yelled at the tv, "Simon! Don't go to town!" Now all I want is for Simon to be able to go to town again. Certainly he'll take a few on the chin so that we can have Serenity back on the big or little screen. Heck, I'd take a radio show. Would the actors like to get together for some podcasting fun? I'm sure it would sell pretty well on iTunes. I bet Fox and Universal don't own the rights for that. Although I'll look pretty funny going down the street with an iPod yelling, "Simon! Don't go to town!!"