The First Kato

Dungeons and Dayjobs podcast

Transcript of The First Kato, a short biography of Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto:
[Play Flight of the Bumblebee from 1m27s of The Green Hornet radio episode “Citizenship Insurance Racket,” broadcast 5 May 1938.]

January 31st, 1936. When the first episode of The Green Hornet aired on WXYZ radio in Detroit, the voice of Kato was Tokutaro Hayashi1.

[Clip of Reid talking, followed by Kato. Citizenship Insurance Racket 13m40-14m.]

The station’s Dramatic Director James Jewell “renamed him Toyo.” That’s according to Wyxie Wonderland:

An Unauthorized 50-Year Diary of WXYZ Detroit by Dick Osgood. In ads and newspaper articles, the actor was billed as Raymond Hayashi or Raymond Toyo.

Six years later, he was credited as Raymond Muramoto in this item:

“Kato of the fascinating radio program, ‘Green Hornet’ of Station WXYZ is here in person among us colonists. He is none other than Raymond Muramoto, a Seattlelite, formerly of Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Muramoto who portrayed Kato was brought to the limelight by Mr. James Jewel, director of the program, while managing the Parkstons Hotel. After numerous radio tests, he was selected by Mr. George Trendle, president of the station. Mr. Muramoto was the only Japanese besides Hize co-EE-kay (Koike), opera singer, who was under contract to N.B.C. for six years. He also served as assistant sound technician on The Lone Ranger program for the past four years.”

That’s from the May 30th, 1945 edition of Information Bulletin, published by prisoners in the Tulelake, California concentration camp where he was held during World War Two.

The “Coming Marriages” column in Billboard magazine on July 29th, 1939, began with “Raymond Toyo, actor on station WXYZ, Detroit, who plays Kato in The Green Hornet, and Tsuruko Kuranishi, … of Auburn, Washington.” They were married on August 3rd in Seattle.

The 1940 census lists a Ramon Hayashi, born in Japan in 1902, living on Prentiss Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. Others in Household: Tsuru Hayoshi, 27 years old, Female.

What nationality was the character Kato? Why did it change over the years? My guess is that the rich, white men who created and adapted The Green Hornet didn’t invest as much thought in it as later fans might have.

They didn’t make the hero’s servant Japanese out of concern that representation matters. They were filling in blanks on a formula. WXYZ had succeeded with The Lone Ranger, a masked crime fighter in the Wild West. When they were brainstorming a name for his Native American sidekick, one of the brainstormers looked at a map of Arizona and saw the Tonto Basin1. When the same execs decided to write a modern story about a rich playboy who fought crime in a mask, they wanted a Tonto for him.

According to Dick Osgood in Wyxie Wonderland, they settled on a Japanese servant as The Green Hornet’s sidekick. Dramatic director James Jewell wanted a Japanese actor and ignored suggestions that they use a Chinese actor instead. Narration in the first two episodes called Kato “oriental.” In the third episode and for a few years of the series, he was introduced as [clip of narrator saying “Kato, his faithful Japanese valet” from Citizenship Insurance Racket, 2m39s-2m41s].2

The show started describing him as “Oriental” again in January 1938, presumably because Japan had begun attacking China and the US was on the side of China. A broadcast on June 21st, 1941, several months before Pearl Harbor, labeled Kato Filipino. His nationality wasn’t mentioned again until January tenth, 1942:

[Narrator from The Green Hornet episode “Poor Substitutes for a Prison, 40s-47s. “With his faithful Filipino valet Kato, Britt Reid, daring young publisher, matches wits with racketeers and saboteurs…”]2

The timing may have led to the rumor that his Japanese nationality was dropped immediately after Pearl Harbor.

In the 1940 and 1941 film serials, Kato was played by Keye Luke and described as Korean. Bruce Lee starred as Kato in The Green Hornet TV show from 1966-1967, where he was described as Chinese. And in the 2011 feature film, they joke about it, maybe using Britt Reid’s ignorance as a stand-in for the historical confusion over Kato’s nationality. Jay Chou as Kato says he was born in Shanghai. Reid says, “Yeah, I love Japan.”3

What else do we know about Tokutaro Hayashi, or Raymond Toyo, or Tokutaro Raymond Muramoto? He arrived in the US in 19204. He ran a restaurant when he was recruited by the Jam Handy Organization to act in commercial films. But he didn’t switch careers completely. He continued to manage the restaurant. He was good at playing pool. While at WXYZ, he beat the best player in the studio and taught some of his coworkers how to play1.

From Wyxie Wonderland1, quote:

“Raymond had first worked in Detroit for a prominent automotive executive who had given him the financial backing for his Japanese restaurant. By the time he was sent to Jewell he was prosperous. He was having so much fun playing Kato on the radio that he forgot to collect his paychecks. They did not amount to much, of course, but they did pile up. Finally Jewell …. forced him to take the checks.

“Then, without warning, he just didn’t show up. Inquiries at his restaurant revealed that he had gone to Seattle to greet some girls from Japan. One he married; the others he brought back with him to be waitresses in his restaurant.

“Another actor managed to fake Kato until Raymond’s return. Jewell explained firmly to the … man that actors had a responsibility to be present when required. To make amends, Raymond invited the entire cast to his restaurant and served them a Japanese dinner of many courses–with sake.” End quote.

He convinced Al Hodge (the voice actor behind Britt Reid) to have his wife Tsuruko work unpaid as a maid in Hodge’s two-room apartment until she could find another job. Tokutaro asked another WXYZ staffer to join him in buying a car wash. They didn’t go through with it1.

At some point after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tokutaro was informed the government would send him to Japan. He asked his colleague Dick Osgood to intervene. An occasional voice actor and quiz master, Osgood had been broadcasting a series tied in with the war effort called March to Victory. Scripts for the show were supposedly vetted by six departments in Washington. Tokutaro might have thought Osgood had some influence but he couldn’t help. In his book, Osgood says Tokutaro “disappeared, presumably to a concentration camp in the west. No one at WXYZ ever saw Raymond again.”1

Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto is the name on a draft card registered February 15th, 1942. Place of birth is given as Kanazawa, Japan, February 11, 1900. His residence is listed as Seattle, Washington. Muramoto’s father-in-law, Masaichi Kuranishi is listed as next of kin5.

Muramoto arrived at the Tule Lake “War Relocation Center” in California on May 27, 19426. He was involved in theater there and put in charge of a Radio Drama Division at the camp. They presented a mock radio broadcast “to give persons practical experience in the radio field as artists, announcers, commentators and sound effects technicians.”7

Muramoto left the concentration camp on October first, 19456.

Information about his life after that is sparse. Raymond Muramoto lived in Seattle according to city directories from 1951, 1953 and 1982. Airplane passenger manifests show a Raymond Muramoto flying from Honolulu to LA in 1957, and from Tokyo to Seattle in 19588.

A petition for naturalization, October 12, 1955 gives a snapshot of his life at that time. “My full, true and correct name is – Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto. My occupation is – truck driver. … The name of my wife is Tsuruko Muramoto. … One child, Florence Reiko, female, born October 8, 1937.” His petition was approved9.

The main writer of The Lone Ranger, Fran Striker, appeared on the tv game show “To Tell the Truth” in 1960. If Muramoto had appeared on the show, we might know more about his life. Or at least his real name.

After scouring databases of newspaper articles, census records, airplane passenger manifests, marriage records, and other information, the puzzle is still incomplete. The surname “Toyo” was assigned to him by James Jewell out of QUOTE convenience UNQUOTE1. When he arrived in the US at age twenty, he probably picked the common American name “Raymond.” Most official documents call him Tokutaro Muramoto. It’s only the 1940 census and the promotional materials and articles about his radio work that list his last name as “Hayashi.” If his life were an episode of The Green Hornet, Britt Reid might speculate he had changed names in order to hide from the law or gangsters. Maybe he just picked Hayashi as a stage name before the radio station gave him another name.

Raymond T. Muramoto died July 26, 1988 in King County, Washington, at the age of 8810.

[Pause]

You’ve been listening to “The First Kato,” a short biography of Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto, by Robert Thomas Northrup. For credits and a poorly formatted bibliography, visit http://DayjobsPodcast.blogspot.com. And go listen to my pulpy superhero podcast at https://ThisGuninMyHand.blogspot.com based on hours of listening to Raymond Muramoto and his colleagues. Thanks.

References:

1. Osgood, Dick (1981). Wyxie Wonderland: An Unauthorized 50-Year Diary of WXYZ Detroit. Pages 110-184.

2. Mikkelson, David. Snopes.com. “Did ‘The Green Hornet’ Change Kato’s Nationality After Pearl Harbor?” P ublished 16 August 1999. Accessed 11 March 2022.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/green-hornet-change-kato-after-pearl-harbor/

3. Wikipedia. 2022. “Kato (The Green Hornet).” Last modified March 8, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kato_(The_Green_Hornet)

4. Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006. “Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

5. Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. “Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

6. Ancestry.com. U.S., Japanese Americans Relocated During World War II, 1942-1946 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2005. “Raymond T. Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

7. Cooperman, R. R. (1996). Nisei theater: History, context, and perspective. Pages 208-209.

8. Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006. “Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

9. Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Petitions for Naturalization, 1860-1991 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. “Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

10. Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Death Index, 1940-2017 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2002. “Raymond T. Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Bibliography:

Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. “Ramon Hayashi.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation Centers, 1942-1946 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. “Tokutaro Raymond Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Japanese Americans Relocated During World War II, 1942-1946 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2005. “Raymond T. Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. “Raymond Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. “Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006. “Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Death Index, 1940-2017 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2002. “Raymond T. Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Ancestry.com. Washington, U.S., Petitions for Naturalization, 1860-1991 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. “Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto.” Accessed 11 March 2022.

Cooperman, R. R. (1996). Nisei theater: History, context, and perspective. Pages 208-209.

“Green Hornet,” Information Bulletin, No. 3 (30 May 1942), Tulelake Colony. Found on Online Archive of California, Accessed 11 March 2022. https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft600006cv;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e83&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=oac4

Merchandise-Pipes-General Outdoor: Coming Marriages. (1939, Jul 29). The Billboard (Archive: 1894-1960), 51, 71.

Mikkelson, David. Snopes.com. “Did ‘The Green Hornet’ Change Kato’s Nationality After Pearl Harbor?” Published 16 August 1999. Accessed 11 March 2022.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/green-hornet-change-kato-after-pearl-harbor/

Osgood, Dick (1981). Wyxie Wonderland: An Unauthorized 50-Year Diary of WXYZ Detroit. Pages 110-184.

Radio: RICKER PROMOTED. (1936, Jan 29). Variety (Archive: 1905-2000), 121, 38.

The public domain Green Hornet radio episodes excerpted in this piece were broadcast 5 May 1938, titled “Citizenship Insurance Racket” (mentioning “Japanese valet”) and 1 Feb 1949, “Poor Substitutes for a Prison” (mentioning “Filipino valet”).