Early cinema and television were all about the cliffhanger. A car going over a cliff, the hero getting pushed out of a plane, the heroine being tied to the train tracks with the Chattanooga choo-choo barreling down on her. These serials were very popular with adults and children, providing little daily or weekly thrills that were nevertheless guaranteed to end happily.

Happily for the hero and heroine, that is; if you were the black-clad, mustachioed bad guy, you were always out of luck.

A children's show out of Los Angeles took the cliffhanger formula and applied it to puppets, adapting The Perils of Pauline genre for kids TV. The Western-themed puppet show featured the title character, Cyclone Malone, a brave cowboy who spent most of his time rescuing his lady friend, Cosy, from the clutches of the villainous Lizard, the black-clad and mustachioed.

The black-and-white program (this was 1949, after all) aired in 15 or 30 minute segments, It was created by Dorothy Novis and Ann Davis, who imbued their puppets with all the life and sass of real adventure stars.