FAINT WAVES

This week, we lost a legendary figure of action cinema, the one and only Chuck Norris. From his humble beginnings in Return Of The Dragon to his long-running stint on TV with Walker, Texas Ranger, Chuck was a well known fixture of martial arts and pop culture for decades. While his star-turns in later years were fewer and farther between, he did a number of commercials, and he would go on to transcend his medium by becoming one of the earliest modern examples of a meme; a phenomenon that made Chuck Norris even more of a household name than he already was.

Chuck rose to cinematic prominence in the 1980’s, eventually signing to Cannon Group and ultimately becoming a cornerstone of their business model. Cannon specialized in low-budget, high-turnover film-making (there are a couple great documentaries on Cannon, I highly recommend them). Norris’s movies generally had a strong return on investment, making him the Cannon Group’s most bankable star, alongside Charles Bronson. That period of various action films segued almost immediately into Walker, Texas Ranger, with an initial production from Cannon in 1993, under their Cannon Television banner. Cannon was bought by MGM shortly thereafter but the show continued, produced by Chuck Norris’s own company, Top Kick Productions (and later Norris Brothers Entertainment) with help from Columbia and CBS. The show would run 9 seasons, spawn a short-lived spin-off, and later get a follow-up TV movie.

My history with Chuck is a strange one. One of my earliest memorable sentences, and I’ve yet to live this down, was “Walker, Texas Wanger”. Verbatim. Naturally, I was referring to the television show, I just had a hard time with all the R’s apparently. He was around for the entirety of my early childhood and a while after too, thanks to the TV movie and countless re-runs. Even recently, I was surprised to see old episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger airing on the locals. While Chuck’s work and personal beliefs may not have appealed to everyone, to say that he was iconic would be an understatement. I didn’t expect him to pass, especially so soon after his birthday just recently. That’s life though, all things must pass, even a figure as gargantuan as Chuck Norris. Watch his work; check out young Chuck fight Bruce Lee in Return Of The Dragon, see Chuck free U.S. POWs from Vietnam in Missing In Action, watch Chuck fight an emissary of the devil in Hellbound, or watch him deliver down-home justice as Cordell Walker in Walker, Texas Ranger.

Rest in peace.