The television shows feature various "damsel in distress" scenarios, whereby Sam abducts Sue and places her in peril, intending to force her to give him the deed to her ranch or face a gruesome death: However, Sue is rescued each time, and Sam's plans foiled, by the hero, a "tall, thin", "slow-walkin'", "slow-talkin'", "long, lean, lanky" fellow named Jones.
In mocking their inescapable presence, the song takes inspiration from the 1945 Gary Cooper film Along Came Jones, a comedy Western.
The idea for the song may also have been based on old movie serials like "The Perils of Pauline", "The Hazards of Helen" and "The Exploits of Elaine".
Historian Ken Emerson notes of the song: "What was original in the humor of 'Along Came Jones' was not its parody of shoot-'em-ups … What was new were black voices mocking an iconic Caucasian genre fifteen years before Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.
Those lines did not pass muster with Jerry Wexler, the executive producer at Atlantic to whom Leiber and Stoller generally reported.