Tonto has appeared in radio and television series and other presentations of the characters' adventures righting wrongs in 19th-century western United States.

As originally presented, in the December 7, 1938, radio broadcast,[citation needed] Reid had already been well established as the Lone Ranger when he met Tonto.

In that episode Cactus Pete, a friend of the Lone Ranger's, tells the story of how the masked man and Tonto first met.

One of the men wanted to kill the wounded Tonto, but the Lone Ranger arrived on the scene and made him administer first aid.

In the 2013 theatrical feature film of The Lone Ranger, Tonto is depicted as a disgraced Comanche tribesman and the last of the wendigo hunters.

It's revealed that Tonto is actually suffering severe mental illness and survivor's guilt for inadvertently causing the massacre of his tribe by the film's villains.

To rationalize what he had done, he convinced himself that the cannibalistic Butch Cavendish was a wendigo, a non-existent monster used in Native American ghost stories to frighten children.

[9] Later depictions beginning in the 1980s have taken efforts to show Tonto as an articulate and proud warrior whom the Ranger treats as an equal partner.

"[10] In the Timeless episode "Murder of Jesse James", Wyatt Logan, one of the main characters, mentions that Native American deputy U.S. marshal Grant Johnson was the inspiration for Tonto.

Jon Lovitz played a comic version of Tonto, in a group of other characters who speak little or broken English, on Saturday Night Live.

[11] Tonto was originally depicted as not fluent in English and spoke in a pidgin, saying things like, "That right, Kemo Sabe", or "Him say man ride over ridge on horse".

Michael Horse who played Tonto in the 1981 Lone Ranger film had mixed feelings about the role, and worried it was perpetuating stereotypes.

[12] Later adaptations of the character, such as The Legend of the Lone Ranger and the Filmation animated series,[citation needed] depict him as being articulate in English and speaking it carefully.