#OTD in 1993, Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris premiered on CBS. The show consisted of 9 seasons, with Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker, a DFW-based Texas Ranger.
The series was inspired by the 1983 film, Lone Wolf McQuade, directed by Steve Carver, also starring Chuck Norris.
J. J. McQuade (Norris) portrays a former Marine, and now Texas Ranger who prefers to go it alone. The film consists of McQuade solving crimes using his .44 magnum revolver and his pet wolf.
The film was originally rated “R” but Chuck Norris appealed to the MPAA and they changed the rating to “PG.”
Both the film and the TV show exemplify the 1980s and 1990s hero-worship of the Texas Ranger force and the nostalgic longing for the past that the United States had for the Wild West.
In 2010, the 47th Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, named the Norris brothers honorary Texas Ranger Captains for their work on the shows and “together, they helped elevate our Texas Rangers to truly mythical status.”
The series was rebooted in 2022 starring Jared Padalecki in the shortened name, Walker, developed for television on the CW by Anna Fricke.
Padalecki stars as Cordell Walker, a man finding his way back to his family while investigating crime as a Texas Ranger.
The continued interest and renewal of these shows, despite lacking any root in reality or history, proves America’s fixation with a past that never existed, and a desire for violence, that though surrogated, is still present.
