The Cisco Kid was based upon an O.Henry story, “The Caballero’s Way,” published in 1907 in the collection Heart of the West, about a non-hispanic renegade, possibly based on Billy the Kid. In adaptations of the story, The Cisco Kid was portrayed as “O. Henry’s beloved badman”, rather than the thug that O. Henry created. In a previous, short-lived incarnation of the radio program, the Kid was transformed from an outlaw, to a Zorro-like hero. When the show returned in 1946, references to an outlaw past were abandoned, except for Pancho’s standard warning to Cisco that the sheriff was coming, at the beginning of each show.

The Cisco Kid was the ultimate romantic hero, saving senoritas from dire circumstances, his reward a brief chaste kiss fr