The Toucan makes an appearance in "The Cisco Kid" — and brings along its pal Freddie Frog

"The Cisco Kid" TV show episode "Montezuma's Treasure," which first aired Feb. 24, 1955;
I. Stanford Jolley appears as crooked Professor Danforth.

I love shots like this one showing the juxtaposition of a bunch of great old movie rocks. The shot is set in the North Cluster, just above Garden of the Gods, and Iverson Movie Ranch aficionados may recognize the rock known as the Saddle, or Saddle Rock, at the right edge of the frame, just above halfway up. Near the center of the shot, above perennial B-Western bad guy I. Stanford Jolley's head, is a rock I call the Toucan — not that it looks like a toucan here, but it did in "The Lone Ranger," where I first saw it. I've blogged about it before, and you can click here to read a post that reveals how the mystery of the Toucan was solved.

It's worth noting that, for the most part, the rocks in the above shot have survived — although many of them have seen better days, and in the case of one of them — the one the bad guy is leaning on, in the bottom right corner — the word "survived" might be a stretch. I'll get into that in detail below.

The Toucan is the rock inside the blue rectangle.

"The Lone Ranger" — shot in 1949

This is the shot that gave the Toucan its name — my first sighting of the rock, in the "Lone Ranger" movie. The movie was released in 1952, but the footage was shot in 1949 during the early days of production of the "Lone Ranger" TV show. The movie is essentially a re-edited version of the first three episodes of the television program, so the above screen shot can be found in both the movie and the TV show. As it appears here, the rock behind the horses reminded me of a toucan's beak, even though the effect turned out to be an optical illusion. It may be hard to tell that the rock in this shot and the one in the blue rectangle in the shot above this one are the same rock, but they are.

For comparison, here's an actual toucan. I know — the beak is curved, and the rock really doesn't look much like the bird. Still, that's what came to me at the time, and I'm pretty much stuck with it now.

Here's the Toucan — the rock — as it appears today. It's hard to get a decent shot of it because these days it's hidden under a tree. It even has a coating of moss on it from being in the shade all the time.

Back to "The Cisco Kid" and that shot with all the great North Cluster rocks, I want to call your attention to one I call Freddie Frog — again, the blue rectangle highlights the rock. Freddie doesn't look at all like a frog here, but I think it does in the next shot — kind of a cartoonish frog.

"Range Beyond the Blue" (1947)

That's the same rock, Freddie Frog, at the bottom center of the frame, showing a little more personality than in the "Cisco Kid" shot. You may also notice the Toucan again making an appearance, in the center of the shot, directly above Freddie Frog.

"Freddie the Frog" — the plush toy

Here's an example of a "Freddie Frog" in the real world, if toys are the real world. It's a plush toy called "Freddie the Frog" that you can buy anywhere as part of the NoJo Jungle Babies line. I get that not everyone will see the resemblance, but I have to say it works for me.

"The Living Bible" (1952)

Freddie Frog pops up again in the 1952 production "The Living Bible," which was marketed under a variety of titles including "Jesus, the Christ" and "The Life of Christ." That's Freddie at the left in the above shot, and once again, the Toucan shares the screen with him. The Toucan is harder to make out here, but that's it just above the two guys at the right.

A "meaningless" pile of rocks containing clues to movie history

It took me a few years to figure out what happened to Freddie Frog — the rock — but I finally unlocked the mystery on a visit to Iverson earlier this month. As it turns out, the Freddie story is a bit more convoluted — and definitely more interesting — than I ever suspected. I discovered the secrets to Freddie, and his fate, in the pile of rocks seen above, which I photographed on that recent visit to the site.

First, to put that pile of rocks in its place in the universe, here's a slightly wider view of the spot. The pile of rocks appears at the right, but pay attention to the larger rock at the left of the shot. That same rock, which is unnamed, can also be seen in the "Cisco Kid" shot, as noted below.

In the "Cisco Kid" shot, I've highlighted the "unnamed larger rock" as it appeared in the TV show. I've also highlighted Freddie Frog again to point out how close these two rocks were to each other.

Now let's take a closer look at that "meaningless" pile of rocks ...

These two large rocks have splotches of cement and concrete all over them, revealing that they were used to hold another rock in place during the filming era. That other rock, of course, was Freddie Frog, and these rocks formed its base. The large crack between the two rocks can be seen in the "Cisco Kid" shot, highlighted below.

The crack is one of the key identifiers revealing that the two rocks at the site today — seen in the photo above this one — formed the original base for Freddie.

Here's a closer look at some of the cement that once held Freddie's head in place. This is the same patch that's near the top of the frame in the "traces of cement and concrete" photo a couple of shots up, and it apparently secured the "north leg" of Freddie's head, if that makes any sense. It looks just like sand in person — as cement tends to do — but it's hard as a rock.

And the mystery is solved: These two unrecognizable rocks are the former Freddie Frog, having been toppled off his carefully cemented perch for unknown reasons and apparently splitting in half in the process. The two rocks that were once Freddie's head now fill the spot where the bad guy stood in the "Cisco Kid" shot. It remains unclear whether Freddie got his block knocked off by vandals, an earthquake — maybe even as part of preservation efforts. Regardless, Freddie Frog has survived, in a way — even if he's not quite ready for his closeup anymore.

I will continue to examine that "Cisco Kid" shot, and the episode "Montezuma's Treasure," in an upcoming post, which will again use the shot of Toucan, Freddie and the others as the starting point — it's a great shot, and a great episode ... and we've only scratched the surface. Please check back for that one — it should be up soon.

In the meantime, you may want to take a look at the "Cisco Kid" TV show DVD sets being sold on Amazon, as they're highly recommended if you're into the Iverson Movie Ranch, location research in general or just old TV Westerns. The picture quality is generally really good — I'm not sure how well it comes across in the screen shots you see here, but this is by far the best "Cisco Kid" TV show stuff I've seen. I'll include some links below to the same sets I'm using for these posts. One minor note of caution: I don't think Collection 1 has as much Iverson content as Collections 2, 3 and 4.

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Ditulis Itsuyasuzukige — Selasa, 18 Februari 2014 — Add Comment — Cisco Kid, Freddie Frog, North Cluster, Saddle, stacked rocks, Toucan