Chuck Norris’ Most Iconic Western Is Streaming For Free
In honor of the much-memed leading man.
Action fans everywhere received a roundhouse kick to the feelings today. Chuck Norris, a longtime actor and martial artist, passed away at the age of 86 after being hospitalized in Hawaii yesterday. Norris was known for many things, including movies like The Way of the Dragon and The Delta Force, cameos in everything from The Goldbergs to Dodgeball, and even his own Saturday morning cartoon.
But his most iconic contribution to pop culture is divided down generational lines. Younger fans know him as the subject of the classic “Chuck Norris Facts” memes, which lauded him as the most powerful man on Earth, like “Chuck Norris can believe it’s not butter,” or “There’s no such thing as evolution, just species Chuck Norris allows to live.”
Chuck Norris delivers one of his signature kicks in a 1998 episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.
But fans of a certain age know him as one thing: Cordell Walker on Walker, Texas Ranger, the no-nonsense action hero who enacted his own brand of justice for over 200 episodes from 1993 to 2001. Walker, Texas Ranger was the classic episodic neo-western, doing what not many series can do today: formulaic but refreshing stories, quick turnaround times, and plenty of guest stars. Over its eight years on CBS, guest stars have included Joan Jett, RuPaul, Gwen Verdon, Danny Trejo, Hulk Hogan, and Selena Gomez.
This series’ legacy is wide-ranging, though there never truly can be — or will be — another Chuck Norris. Its premise of a Western-influenced law enforcement officer is echoed in future series like Justified and Dark Winds, and you can draw a straight line from its worldbuilding and the Yellowstone television universe that would air on CBS decades later.
Walker, Texas Ranger was even revived a few times, first with a TV movie in 2005 that served as a de facto finale, and then again in 2021 with the CW series Walker, starring Supernatural star Jared Padalecki as the title character. That series ran for four seasons, and even sparked a spinoff series, Walker: Independence, a period drama following Cordell Walker’s ancestor, Abby Walker, as she seeks out her fortune in Texas.
Jared Padalecki starred in Walker, a reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger.
But even that isn’t the end of this show’s reputation. When NBC purchased Universal in 2011, late-night host Conan O’Brien realized he could play clips of Walker, Texas Ranger for free. Thus, the “Walker, Texas Ranger Lever” was born, a switch that would play a clip from the series that was hilarious out of context.
But those clips were only funny out of context because of how deathly serious the show treated every fight sequence, ripped-from-the-headlines reveal, or gravitas-filled dialogue exchange. Nowadays, it may seem campy at best and cheesy at worst, but it’s a series that had its own point of view and believed in what it stood for, something that’s increasingly rare nowadays.
Chuck Norris may have represented internet memes and running gags, but in Walker, Texas Ranger, he delivered his ultimate magnum opus: a long-running action series that did what it did incredibly well.
