The Cisco Kid

I enjoyed the Cisco Kid TV series very much when I was a kid.I frankly don't see why anyone could take offense at either of the leads. Unlike most comic reliefs,Pancho was very formidable when the chips were down. As far as O'Henry's original story,it is easily found.There was a set of books published between l900 and l9l0 with his collected stories which was printed in vast numbers which has everything he ever wrote;any large library should have it.However,the character in the story has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and TV character.He was an Anglo,not a Latino. Far more important, the character of the story was a depraved homicidal maniac,as well as an outlaw."It was the Kid's pastime to shoot Mexicans for the pleasure of watching them kick".That is as near as I can get from memory.I was pretty surprised when I first read this. As Kenneth MacGowan said in "Behind the Screen" about the movie character vs O'Henry's original creation "how this degenerate sadist" was turned into the familiar hero is anybody's guess.Some unknown scriptwriter apparently. The movie and TV figure is certainly a "Robin Hood of the Old West",but not O'Henry's. I believe that the story is to be found in the volume "The Heart of the West", but it might be in one of the others.