Johnathan Southworth Ritter was an American actor. Ritter was a son of the singing cowboy star Tex Ritter and the father of actors Jason and Tyler Ritter. He is known for playing Jack Tripper on the ABC sitcom Three's Company (1977–1984), and received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the role in 1984. Ritter briefly reprised the role on the spin-off Three's a Crowd, which aired for one season, producing 22 episodes before its cancellation in 1985.

A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. This continues with modern vaquero traditions and within the genre of Western music, and its related New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country music styles. A number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and Riders in the Sky and individual performers such as Marty Robbins, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker and other "singing cowboys". Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero.