by Paul Green
Tom and Jerry
[Animated theatrical short]
Created by director John Foster and developed by artists George Stallings and George Rufel in 1931, Tom and Jerry were Mutt and Jeff types, one tall and lanky, the other short and round. Their animated adventures were often surreal and bizarre in content, including this Weird Western.
“REDSKIN BLUES” (1932) [WW]
Premiere: July 23, 1932; Producer: Amadee J. Van Beuren; Directors: John Foster, George Stallings; 7 min; Van Beuren Studios, RKO Radio Pictures; b/w.
Tom and Jerry flee from hostile American Indians after their stagecoach is attacked. The pursuing Indians use their feathered headdresses to fly in formation as they attempt to capture Tom and Jerry on a cliff. Overweight Indians transform into sexy dancing girls and the captured Tom and Jerry are rescued by the U.S. cavalry, navy, air force and armored tanks.
Tom Arvis' Wayout West
[Comic book; SFW]
First publication: 1995; Story-Art: Tom Arvis; Sureshot Comics.
In 1888, the dying gold town of Saddlestone, Nevada, is invaded by reptilian aliens.
Tom Edison, Jr.
[Dime novel character]
Created by Philip Reade, a pseudonym for all house writers at dime novel publisher Street and Smith, Tom Edison Jr., the son of inventor Thomas Edison, is pursued by the Blue Mask alias Edison Jr.'s cousin Louis Gubrious. Attempting to recreate the success of Frank Reade Jr., Street and Smith had limited fortune with the character; Edison Jr.'s adventures only lasted for two years. Edison Jr.'s dime novel adventures took him into Weird Western situations on occasion.
Tom Edison, Jr.'s Electric Mule; or, the Snorting Wonder of the Plains
[Dime novel; SPW]
Author: “Philip Reade”; (1892).
A parody of the popular Frank Reade series.
Tom Edison, Jr.'s Prairie-Skimmer Team; A Sequel to Tom Edison, Jr.'s Sky-Scraping Trip
[Dime novel; SPW]
Nugget Library #110 (1891); Part two of a four-part novel.
Tom Edison, Jr.'s Sky-Scraping Trip; or Over the Wild West Like a Flying Squirrel
[Dime novel; SPW]
Nugget Library #102 (1891); Part one of a four-part novel
Thomas Edison Jr.'s latest invention, a gas-propelled flying squirrel suit, has its uses as he confronts Indians and his evil cousin Louis Gubrious posing as the Blue Mask.
Tom Terrific
(1957) [Animated TV series]
Youngster Tom Terrific lives in a treehouse and wears a magical funnel-shaped hat that enables him to transform into anything he wishes.
Tom Terrific was broadcast each weekday morning as part of the Captain Kangaroo show with each adventure consisting of five chapters.
“GO WEST YOUNG MANFRED” [5 CHAPTERS] [WW]
Air Date: 1958; Executive Producer: Bill Weiss; Creator-Director: Gene Deitch; 26 × 5 chapters × 5 min; Terrytoons, CBS; b/w.
Chapter One: Tom Terrific decides to head West with Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog by transforming himself into a stagecoach. But when all they encounter is modern-day traffic, Tom becomes a clock and turns back time to the Old West.
Chapter Two: When Tom and Manfred see a wagon train being attacked by Indians, Tom changes his body into a cavalry bugle to scare the Indians away. Manfred pulls the remaining wagon to California.
Chapter Three: Tom turns into an eagle and searches for the gold that will allow them to enter the “Gateway to the West.”
Chapter Four: Tom makes his return journey to the wagon by turning into the Pony Express, but Manfred is captured by Indians. Manfred impresses the Indians who make him their honorary Big Chief Sleeping Brother.
Chapter Five: Manfred says goodbye to his “Redskin brothers” and heads to California with Tom.
Tomahawk
[Comic book; WW]
First appearance: Star-Spangled Comics #69 (June 1947); Creators: Joe Samachson, Edmund Good; Publisher: National Periodical Publications-DC Comics, Vertigo.
Indian-raised white man Tom Hawk works as a frontier scout in the American Revolutionary War with young sidekick Dan Hunter.
The stories took on a weird quality in the late 1950s with stories involving dinosaurs, cavemen, giant gorillas, giant robots, giant spiders, aliens and a journey to the moon.
The comic book did eventually move its locale to the Old West beginning with issue #131 featuring tales of Tomahawk's son Hawk and a change of title to Son of Tomahawk.
Tomazooma
[Comic book character; SFW]
First appearance: Fantastic Four #80 (November 1968); Creators: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; Publisher: Marvel Comics.
A giant robot, "Totem Who Walks,” built by the Red Star Oil Company, poses as the Keewazi Indian Tribe's spirit-god, Tomazooma, in an attempt to control their oil-rich tribal land. Keewazi chief Silent Fox, grandfather of Wyatt Wingfoot, is fooled at first before he asks for the help of Wingfoot and the Fantastic Four.
El Topo
(1970) [Film; Mexico; WW]
Premiere: December 18, 1970; Main Cast: Alejandro Jodorowsky as El Topo, Brontis Jodorowsky as Young Son of El Topo, Mara Lorenzio as Mara, Paula Romo as Woman in Black; Executive Producer: Roberto Viskin; Story-Director: Alexandro Jodorowsky; 125 min.; Producciones Panicas; Spanish; Color.
After rescuing Mara from a Mexican village strewn with mutilated corpses and livestock, gunfighter El Topo begins his quest to defeat the four master gunfighters of the desert. But his journey ends in betrayal and leads to near death and rescue by a group of deformed cave dwellers who seek to escape from their enforced exile. Digging a tunnel to release them, he discovers the neighboring town is full of sadistic religious fanatics. The freedom of the exiled misfits has come at a price.
Bizarre, violent, sexual, unsettling, mystical and ultimately incoherent Western that has been described as resembling “a home movie on acid.” The film crosses multiple genres and borrows freely from Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns and Tod Browning's Freaks. Director called the character of El Topo “a man searching for spirituality and peace.”
The film was introduced to American audiences by Beatles manager Allen Klein after John Lennon and Yoko Ono saw it at a midnight screening at the Elgin Theater and convinced Klein to secure El Topo for U.S. release. The film remained out of circulation for thirty years due to hostilities between Jodorowsky and Klein but a reconciliation led to its 2007 re-release.
Touche pas à la Femme Blanche
(1974) [Film; France-Italy; WW]
Premiere: January 23, 1974; Main Cast: Catherine Deneuve as Marie-Hélène de Boismonfrais, Marcello Mastroianni as George A. Custer, Michel Piccoli as Buffalo Bill, Alain Cuny as Sitting Bull; Producers: Jean-Pierre Rassam, Jean Yanne; Story: Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri; Director: Marco Ferreri; 108 min.; Films 66, Mara Films; Color.
A political satire as contemporary Western set in 1970s Paris, France, featuring General George Armstrong Custer, Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull.
See: Don't Touch the White Woman
“Trail of Painted Rocks”
[Pulp fiction; WW]
Author: Lon Williams; Character: Lee Winters; Real Western Stories (February 1956).
Moonlight cutting into Tallyho Canyon through an eastward notch fell here with spotlight brightness. That which had caught his attention was an arrow painted in scarlet at a height level with his face. Its sharp end pointed west. Winters stared at it in damp terror, for its paint was not dry. A breeze blew against it, and it quivered as clinging blood.
But that which paralyzed him was the appearance of a hand—a hand without a body. Like that of Belshazzar's palace Winters had heard of from Scripture it traced its message upon a wall. Winters observed with cold fascination. It wrote: Go back, Winters. You are heading for worse than death. Speckled Bill.
Tre croci per non morire
(1968) [Film; Italy; WW]
Premiere: November 23, 1968; Main Cast: Craig Hill as Gerry, Ken Wood [Giovanni Cianfriglia] as Reno, Evelyn Stewart [I
da Galli] as Dolores, Peter White [Pietro Tordi] as Paco; Story: Franco Cobianchi; Director: Willy S. Regan [Sergio Garrone]; 98 min.; G.V. Cinematografica; Color.
Three gunfighters are offered prison pardons if they can find the evidence to clear a landowner's son convicted rape and murder charges.
A conventional story receives a Weird Western twist when the ghosts of two dead partners make a final-reel appearance.
Tre pistole contro Cesare
(1966) [Film; Italy-Algeria; WW]
Main Cast: Thomas Hunter as Whity Selby, James Shigeta as Lester Kato, Nadir Moretti as Etienne Devereaux, Enrico Maria Salerno as Julius Cesar Fuller, Femi Benussi as Tula; Producer: Carmine Bologna; Story: Carmine Bologna, Piero Regnoli, Enzo Peri; Director: Enzo Peri; 95 min.; Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, Casbah Film; Color.
Whity Selby learns of a gold mine in Laredo left to him by his late, estranged father. But two other Nadir Moretti men also claim mine ownership: Etienne Devereaux who claims to possess magical powers of magnetism and hypnotism, and the kung fu master Lester Kato.
When the three men discover they are half-brothers, they join forces to defeat town landlord Julius Cesar Fuller who claims their father's land and gold mine and from his castle residence imagines himself to be the incarnation of the famous Roman emperor.
“The Tree of Life”
[Pulp fiction; SW]
Author: C. L. Moore; First publication: Weird Tales (October 1936).
In the Martian ruins of Illar, Northwest Smith meets a mysterious priestess who tells him of the being named Tharg whom she serves. Smith learns from the Tree People that Tharg is a hungry god who wants Smith as his next meal.
Tremors 4: The Legend Begins
(2004) [Film; SFW]
Premiere: January 2, 2004; Main Cast: Michael Gross as Hiram Gummer, Sara Botsford as Christine Lord, Lydia Look as Lu Wan Chang; Executive Producers: Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson; Story: Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, Nancy Roberts; Teleplay: Scott Buck; Director: S.S. Wilson; 101 min.; Stampede Entertainment; Color.
Rejection, Nevada, townsfolk defend their town against the graboid worm monsters in 1889.
Tremors 4: The Legend Begins : Dirt Dragons
(2004) [Computer Game; SFW]
1. Special effects featurette included with the DVD release.
2. Flash computer shootout game based on the film Tremors 4: The Legend Begins. Concept and development by Allan Krahl for Stampede Entertainment.
Tribal Force
[Comic book; WW]
First appearance: Summer 1996; Story: John Proudstar; Art: Ryan Huna Smith; Publisher: Mystic Comics.
A group of Native American superheroes, including Little Big Horn alias “Gabriel Medicine God” and Navajo law student Basho Yazza (who creates warriors from rock), oppose the U.S. government's plans to claim their reservation land.
This one-shot comic book has been described as a Native American X-Men by co-creator Ryan Huna Smith.
Trigun
[Manga; Anime; Japan; SFW]
1. First appearance: 1995; Story: Yasuhiro Nightow; Art: Nightow; 21 chapters; Publisher: Tokuma Shoten.
On a distant barren planet, Vash the Stampede destroys cities. Insurance claim inspectors Meryl Strife and Milly Thompson must track him down and stop his rampage. Meanwhile, bounty hunters seek the $60 billion reward for his capture.
Originally appeared in Shonen Captain. Continued as Trigun Maximum in Young King Ours magazine in 1998. The story concluded in 2007 in Japan.
2. Animated TV series.
Premiere: April 4, 1998; Creator: Yasuhiro Nightow; Story: Yasuhiro Nightow, Yosuke Kuroda; Animation: Mad House; Director: Satoshi Nishimura; Tokuma Shoten, JVC; 26 × 30 min.; Color.
Season One
The $$60,000,000,000 Man (1:01); Truth of Mistake (1:02); Peace Maker (1:03); Love and Peace (1:04); Hard Puncher (1:05); Lost July (1:06); B.D.N. (1:07); And Between the Wasteland and Sky (1:08); Murder Machine (1:09); Quick Draw (1:10); Escape from Pain (1:11); Diablo (1:12); Vash the Stampede (1:13); Little Arcadia (1:14); Demon's Eye (1:15); Fifth Moon (1:16); Rem Saverem (1:17); Goodbye for Now (1:18); Hang Fire (1:19); Flying Ship (1:20); Out of Time (1:21); Alternative (1:22); Paradise (1:23); Sin (1:24); Live Through (1:25); Under the Sky So Blue (1:26)
“The Trophy Hunters”
[Pulp fiction; WW]
Author: Lon Williams; Character: Lee Winters; Real Western Stories (February 1955).
Lee Winter's, pursuit of Red Wolf is connected to a collection of human heads.
With his robe, black hair, pointed beard and leering eyes, this stranger resembled Winters' boyhood concept of Satan. His speech suggested both cruelty and cunning. “You have an odd look about you, Officer Whoever-you-be, as if you doubted my reality.”
“Yeah?” said Winters. “If it concerns you, I'm Deputy Marshal Lee Winters of Forlorn Gap.”
“Ah! From that haunted, empty town, are you?...”
Tunnel in the Sky
[Juvenile novel; SW]
Author: Robert A. Heinlein; First publication: New York: Scribner, 1955.
The class in “Advanced Survival” are stranded on an alien planet when the “gate” for their return to Earth is disrupted by a supernova. The young men and women are forced to form a pioneer colony to survive.
Originally titled Schoolhouse in the Sky, the book was completed in under two months in late 1954. Western themes are explicit in the new frontier storyline and the transformation of Rod Walker into Captain Walker, leading a wagon train on a strange planet.
Turok
[Comic book character; Comic book; SFW]
1. First appearance: Four Color Comics #596, December 1954; Creator: Gaylord DuBois; Publisher: Dell Publishing Co, Inc.
Originally conceived as a pre-Columbian Native American, Turok and his companion (a.k.a. brother) Andar are trapped in a Lost Valley populated by dinosaurs which they refer to as “honkers.”
Turok Son of Stone was published by Dell, Gold Key and finally Whitman until its final issue #130 in April 1982.
2. First appearance: Magnus Robot Fighter #12, 1992; Story: Faye Perozich, Jim Shooter; Art: Gonzalo Mayo; Publisher: Valiant.
Valiant revamped the character in 1992, placing the comic book in the American West of the 1860s and retitling him Turok Dinosaur Hunter. Exploring a cavern in the sagebrush desert near the Rio Grande, Kiowa Indian hunter Turok and his friend Andar discover the other-dimensional Lost Land populated by menacing bionic dinosaurs, including Mon-Ark who possesses near-human intelligence.
3. Acclaim Comics further revamped the character when they purchased Valiant and obtained the license to Turok. Acclaim expanded into a series of Turok video games that proved to be very popular.
Turok: Evolution
[Video game; SFW]
Release date: August 2002; Developer: Acclaim Studios; Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment; Platform (original release): Xbox.
An origin story in which Tal'Set becomes Turok beginning in Texas in 1866. Tal'Set is fighting his enemy Captain Tobias Bruckner when they both fall into a rift located between Texas and the Lost Land.
The Twilight Zone
(1959) [TV Series]
1. Science fiction-fantasy anthology series hosted by Rod Serling.
“MR. DENTON ON DOOMSDAY” (1:03) [WW]
Premiere: October 16, 1959; Main Cast: Dan Duryea as Al Denton, Martin Landau as Dan Hotaling, Malcolm Atterbury as Henry J. Fate, Doug McClure as Pete Grant; Executive Producer-Story: Rod Serling; Producer: Buck Houghton; Director: Allen Reisner; 25 min.; Cayuga Productions, CBS Television; b/w.
Henry J. Fate's magic elixir restores alcoholic gunslinger Denton's skill for ten seconds at a time.
“EXECUTION” (1:26) [SFW]
Premiere: April 1, 1960; Main Cast: Albert Salmi as Joseph Caswell, Russell Johnson as Professor Manion, Than Wyenn as Paul Johnson; Producer: Buck Houghton; Story: George Clayton Johnson; Teleplay: Rod Sterling; Director: David Orrick McDearmon; 25 min.; Cayuga Pr
oductions, CBS Television; b/w.
In 1880 Montana, cowboy Joseph Caswell has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to die by hanging. Just as he is about to meet his fate, Caswell awakes in New York City, 1960, face-to-face with Professor Mannion in his laboratory. History repeats itself as a confused and distraught Caswell murders again. But there is another twist in the tale.
“DUST” (2:12) [WW]
Premiere: January 6, 1961; Main Cast: Thomas Gomez as Sykes, Vladimir Sokoloff as Gallegos, John Alonso as Luis Gallegos, John Larch as Sherriff Koch; Producer: Buck Houghton; Story: Rod Serling; Director: Douglas Heyes; 25 min.; Cayuga Productions, CBS Television; b/w.
A desperate father (Sokoloff), clinging to any hope for his condemned son (Alonso), is approached by a peddler (Gomez) who tells him he has magic dust that will make the townsfolk release his son.
“A HUNDRED YEARS OVER THE RIM” (2:23) [SFW]
Premiere: April 7, 1961; Main Cast: Cliff Robertson as Christian Horn, Miranda Jones as Martha Horn, John Astin as Charlie; Producer: Buck Houghton; Story: Rod Serling; Director: Buzz Kulik; 25 min.; Cayuga Productions, CBS Television; b/w.
A pioneer (Robertson), headed toward California from Ohio in 1847, searches for food and water for his family and fellow travelers. Walking over the edge of a rim in the desert heat, he is time-transported to September 1961.