RetroFan #12 by TwoMorrows Publishing

January 2021 No. 12 $9.95

WHAT IS… The GREATEST Christmas movie of all time??

The answer will blow-ho-ho your mind!

SHEENA

Come and knock on their door…

Three’s Company

Pin-up Queen of the TV Jungle

The Making of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Popeye’s Long, Strange TV History Behind the scenes of the sexy Seventies sitcom Did you own these

retro Dr. Seuss toys?

Good Morning World with Ronnie Schell • Doctor Who • CB Radios & more! 1

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FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Rick Goldschmidt

Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Sheena © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Rudolph © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With! If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, editor MICHAEL EURY’s latest magazine is just for you!

RETROFAN #11 (Now Bi-Monthly!)

Just in time for Halloween, RETROFAN #11 features interviews with Dark Shadows’ Quentin Collins, DAVID SELBY, and the niece of movie Frankenstein Glenn Strange, JULIE ANN REAMS. Plus: KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER, ROD SERLING retrospective, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, TV’s Adventures of Superman, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, QUISP and QUAKE cereals, the Drak Pak and the Monster Squad, scratch model customs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 • (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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Interviews with MeTV’s crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning GHOST BUSTERS, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty NAUGAS! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIE-DOBIE GILLIS connection, Pinball Hall of Fame, Alien action figures, Rubik’s Cube & more!

With a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: interview with LARRY STORCH, The Lone Ranger in Hollywood, The Dick Van Dyke Show, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero playset, and more!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with the ’60s grooviest family band THE COWSILLS, and TV’s coolest mom JUNE LOCKHART! Mars Attacks!, MAD Magazine in the ’70s, Flintstones turn 60, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Honey West, Max Headroom, Popeye Picnic, the Smiley Face fad, & more! With MICHAEL EURY, ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with ’70s’ Captain America REB BROWN, and Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT) WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE BARTLETT! Plus: Coloring Books, Fall Previews for Saturday morning cartoons, The Cyclops movie, actors behind your favorite TV commercial characters, BENNY HILL, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, 8-track tapes, and more!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Celebrating fifty years of SHAFT, interviews with FAMILY AFFAIR’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN” REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH, rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon preview specials, fake presidential candidates, Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s, and more fun, fab features!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s STAR TREK CARTOON, “How I Met LON CHANEY, JR.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare ELASTIC HULK toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and MR. MICROPHONE!

Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and an interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!

Interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of Aquaman, horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL (home of the Superman Celebration), SEAMONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, Superman/Batman memorabilia, & more!

Interviews with SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the way-out Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!

Interviews with MARK HAMILL & Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, MOON LANDING MANIA, SNUFFY SMITH AT 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

CONTENTS Issue #12 January 2021 Columns and Special Features

Retro Television Three’s Company

Retro Interview Nancy Morgan Ritter

Retro Cartoons The Weird, Wonderful History of Popeye Cartoons on Television

57 3

Retro Animation Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings Christmas cards from animation companies

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria What is the Greatest Christmas Movie (with Martians) of All Time?

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Sheena, Pin-up Queen of the TV Jungle

Retro Interview Good Morning World star Ronnie Schell

Departments

Retrotorial

RetroFad CB Radios

Too Much TV Quiz

Retro Brit Doctor Who’s Sixties U.S. Invasion

RetroFanmail

19 RetroFan™ #12, January 2021. Published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $67 Economy US, $101 International, $27 Digital.

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! The Fantastic, Plastic Zoo of Dr. Seuss

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Sheena © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Rudolph © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2020 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

by Michael Eury

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Ernest Farino Rick Goldschmidt Jason Hofius Andy Mangels Chris Mann Will Murray Scott Saavedra Tom Speelman DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jerry Beck Ivan Briggs Martin Grams, Jr. Fred Grandenetti Hake Auctions Heritage Auctions VERY SPECIAL THANKS Nancy Morgan Ritter Ronnie Schell

Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions! C’mon citizen, DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom & Pop publisher like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! Buy affordable, legal downloads only at

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RETROFAN

How COVID-19 Stole Christmas. That was my editorial fear when the pandemic slammed us back in March and shuttered or slowed many businesses, including TwoMorrows’ editorial and distribution networks. I was apprehensive that this issue might be delayed to where its special Christmasrelated content—our look at TV’s time-honored Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Ernest Farino’s tongue-in-cheek Santa Claus Conquers the Martians flashback, and Andy Mangels’ sharing of holiday cards from animation studios—might be delayed to early 2021, making its yuletide material seem as stale as fruitcake in February. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, and as I pen these words in late July 2020 RetroFan #12 is slated to go on sale the first week of December. I hope that the Grinch doesn’t slow your copy from reaching you in time for the holidays. Despite the Christmas-themed features, RetroFan’s eclectic content mix is still on display this issue. A “parent” should never play favorites with his “children,” but if forced to pick a feature from this issue that touched me the most, it’s Chris Mann’s interview with the charming and talented Nancy Morgan Ritter, the first wife of the late John Ritter. Even if you weren’t a fan of Three’s Company, the sexy sitcom that Chris also writes about this issue, you couldn’t help but like its handsome and hilarious Emmy-winning co-star, John Ritter. His comedic timing and flair for slapstick made Jack Tripper one of television’s most memorable characters. John Ritter’s diverse range of roles, from The Waltons to my personal favorite, an earnest would-be superman in the delightful 1980 film Hero At Large, proved his versatile range. He left us much too soon, passing away unexpectedly on September 11, 2003, but Nancy’s interview this issue brings us closer to the unforgettable funnyman. For those of you concerned about your health during the pandemic (and who isn’t?), this issue we have two doctors in the house: Doctors Seuss (from columnist Scott Shaw!) and Who (from RetroBrit columnist Ian Millsted). Also, columnist Will Murray goes ape over Irish McCalla as Sheena, guest contributors Jason Hofius and Tom Speelman tune in to Good Morning World’s Ronnie Schell and Popeye TV cartoons, respectively, and ye ed’s spotlighted RetroFad is CB radios, good buddy. Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum column is on break this issue, but he delivers a wacky fantasy cover and his always-amazing layouts, per usual. All that and more is waiting for you, making RetroFan #12 yet another NEXT ISSUE groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with. We close on a sad note: We’re heartbroken to report that one of this magazine’s original columnists, Martin Pasko, died on May 10, 2020. Marty was the prolific writer of numerous comic books on properties as diverse as Superman, Swamp Thing, and Star Trek, and boasted credits in other media, including television animation (winning a Daytime Emmy for Batman: The Animated Series), animated film (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm), newspaper strips (The World’s Greatest Superheroes), and live-action television (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the Twilight Zone revival, Roseanne). We will feature a tribute to the late, great “Pesky” Pasko in a future issue of RetroFan. In the meantime, we extend our deepest condolences to Marty’s family, friends, and family.

January 2021

RETRO TELEVISION

Come and Knock on Our Door — An Author’s Journey

by Chris Mann And we continued to invite the show’s cast, led by John, Joyce DeWitt, and Suzanne Somers (and later Jenilee Harrison and Priscilla Barnes), into our homes long af ter Suzanne was fired during a historic and friendship-ending contract dispute in 1980–81 and Joyce lef t Hollywood for more than a

“Come and knock on our door,” their iconic sitcom theme song enchantingly calls. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Since March 15, 1977, the melodious Three’s Company opening tune has invited us to join TV’s most beloved, breeziest, and—cue the controversy—

once bawdiest mixedsex, cohabitating trio, who helped us escape reality with their zany hers-and-hers-andhis misunderstandings, titillating (and then-taboo) sexual double entendres, giggly and (for one) jiggly antics, and falloff-your-couch-funny pratfalls. All of which could elicit from the ABC hit’s top star, the late, legendary John Ritter, as the aptly named Jack Tripper, a hilariously quick and cheeky “Hurt me!” Hurt me, indeed—with from-the-gut guffaws. Critics scoffed at the silly series and its risqué premise: Two girls live with a girl-crazy guy who pretends to be gay to convince their prudish landlord to permit what otherwise couldn’t possibly be

Publicity photo of the original Three’s Company cast, (LEFT TO RIGHT) Joyce DeWitt (Janet Wood), John Ritter (Jack Tripper), and Suzanne Somers (Chrissy Snow). Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Courtesy of Ernest Farino.

anything but a tawdry ménage à trois. À la French farce, wild innuendos and wacky hijinks ensue. Most U.S. critics didn’t get it. But audiences gladly welcomed funloving—and platonic—roommates Jack, Janet, and Chrissy (and then Cindy, then Terri) into our families and our hearts, just as these caring friends did with each other.

decade when John moved on alone in a secretly devised spin-of f in 1984. For these once-close actors, these hurts were unmistakably, profoundly real. And this sitcom-loving, eager-to-escape Oklahoma misfit—who since age five faithfully tuned in to tune out serious family strife (when he wasn’t mediating it) and oppressive school drama (when he wasn’t making light of it as a Jack Tripperinspired class cut-up) and to boisterously laugh away the pain—got that to his core. (My dear mom forbade me from watching ABC’s racy 1977–1981 sitcom Soap—which she saw as too adult—but sweetly allowed Company’s family fun. Love ya, Mom.) Jack, Janet, and company’s “loveable space that needs your face” became my RETROFAN

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retro television

happy place where, for a half hour a week (or day, thank you, Eighties syndication), my spirit and outlook expanded well beyond life’s oft-dismal confines. Their silliness became my soothing balm, their sunniness my California-dreaming optimism. In this social media age, I know I’m not alone. This extended TV family gave me—gave us—something to look forward to. For many in these socially isolating times, it still does. Little did I know how potent looking forward could be when, as a University of Tulsa journalism and mass media studies freshman in 1990, I set my 18-year-old mind and heart on meeting and interviewing my comic-relief idols, celebrating their merrymaking magic, and breaking my favorite comedy’s untold, of ten dramatic, thoroughly human—and, as fate would one day have it, E! True Hollywood—story. Come and Knock on Our Door was my future tell-all book, and it was waiting for me.

The Door Knocking Begins

Forever seeking the real story, I read and watched anything Company I could get my hands on. I’d perused media-savvy and Hollywood-comeback-minded Suzanne Somers’ 1986 TV Guide cover article “The Rise and Fall of a TV Sex Symbol,” in which she said she was “mortally wounded” by an angry letter that John Ritter wrote her during her contract fight. (In response, at age 14 I submitted to TV Guide’s letters section an impassioned note calling for Company peace and its return to ABC. Not shockingly, it didn’t make the cut.) And I’d recorded a rare 1987 Evening Magazine TV interview in which media-shy and retreat-from-Hollywood-minded Joyce DeWitt revealed how Three’s Company’s conversion to Three’s a Crowd—or rather, the disrespectful way her producers handled it—launched her on a life-changing spiritual quest. These pieces deeply resonated, but so much more was lef t unsaid, especially by Joyce and John, who maintained their silence about falling out with Suzanne and each other. Hey, I thought, if anyone can get these three on the same page, if not the same stage, why not this roommate-lovin’ communication major? I asked, and the Three’s Company universe began to answer. In November 1990, I got the chance to meet and interview Suzanne for my college newspaper. A year away from her decade-in-the-works network primetime return, she was in town to discuss her bestselling 1988 memoir Keeping Secrets and in-development ABC movie based on this truly relatable story of growing up the child of an emotionally abusive and violent father (in her case, a raging alcoholic) and the resulting life of self-created chaos she led virtually into Secrets’ 1974 ending. She was also writing her next tome. “Will this book,” I asked, af ter finessing a question about Company’s familial themes, “pick up where Keeping Secrets lef t of f?” “I’m not ready to write that book yet,” she replied. 4

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Early ad for TV’s hottest new comedy. Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Courtesy of Ernest Farino.

Days later I saw John Ritter, fresh from his big-screen comedy hits Skin Deep and Problem Child, promote his lead role in ABC’s upcoming miniseries spooker Stephen King’s IT on Joan Rivers’ daytime talk show. When Joan asked about “scary things happening in dark places,” John quipped if she was inquiring “about the breakup of Three’s Company.” Like so many, I cracked up yet again at his masterful comic timing. But few knew how much he wasn’t joking. My book, I instinctively knew, was increasingly ready for me to write it. In summer 1991, while interning in Burbank, California, and intent on manifesting my dreams, I spent my off hours at Kinko’s repackaging my Suzanne interview with updates on the entire gang (from John’s Problem Child sequel to Joyce’s self-imposed Hollywood exile and return to theater to Suzanne’s sitcom comeback in ABC’s Step by Step), a Three’s retrospective, cheeky ThighMaster jokes, and a potpourri of other tenant tales in the first issue of my Company fanzine/newsletter, The Roomie Report. “Sharing is healing,” Suzanne said in her now-republished interview, noting that Three’s Company’s on-screen family gave her a chance to live out her childhood. But the one-time behindthe-scenes family still needed resolution. So, I thought, let’s see if sharing this little tribute can start a dialogue on the long road to roomie healing. I sent copies to all ten cast members, with letters stating my desire to one day write a book about their show. Only one initially responded—but it was a huge one.

Opportunity Knocks Back

After a note from his assistant requesting my phone number, John Ritter himself called me (!), saying, “I really dig the newsletter.” A Beatles fan who totally got how entertainment and art could transform hearts and minds, he was “touched and flattered” by my appreciation, and would gladly give me an interview, first for The Roomie Report. I couldn’t believe it— this internationally loved, Emmy-winning actor known for making each of the many sets he worked on a happy place was taking the time to respond so personally to my dream project. How lucky was I! (Clearly, the Heartland values instilled by his late father, legendary country singer and actor Tex Ritter, were not lost on John.) He was out of town at the time, so his assistant arranged for a phone interview when I met her at his production An example of Topps’ Three’s Company stickers, distributed with a stick of gum in a wax pack, retailing for 20 cents in 1978. Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

retro television

company office at 20th Century Fox, where she dubbed for me members of my family to live with me (hello, theme song) down some VHS rarities. “John never really talks to the press about at my rendezvous. Suzanne Somers,” she advised. He had, though, just given People a But real life, it turned out, didn’t always wrap itself up like quote wishing her and her Step co-star Patrick Duffy well in their an episode of Three’s Company. The Roomie Report gave way to new series. studies, a student editorship, and everyday life challenges But my interview went much deeper. During call #2, John after issue #4, with—despite my best efforts—no additional was finally ready to discuss Company’s “dark places” and its good interviews. Getting that gang on the same page would be a fairly times—and he gave me the exclusive. monumental feat. “I really did love working with her,” he told me about As all humans can attest, we of ten have to go through the Suzanne. “[But] there was a time when I thought I could never dark to get to the light. John’s willingness to continue on this forgive her. I had just had a baby, my life was totally upside journey with me got me through my final years in Oklahoma down, John Lennon was killed. And I just couldn’t believe that and gave me the courage to keep knocking on his former Suzanne could literally walk of f the show and hold it up for costars’ doors in hopes of illuminating and “lightening up” any money, fame, and power, when remaining dark places. the show had opened up the doors for all of us. I felt that all of Pilot/Part 1: Getting us were getting attacked by her Real—and Real Funny— in the press. And she threatened with Jack Tripper and the us with lawsuits. I never went Ropers up against her in the press; I Funnily enough, the book’s just kept my mouth shut. I just unfolding mirrored the show’s refused to work with her.” up-and-down-and-up-again And the show’s ending? “It development. Though it was was all tense at the end,” he said. now 1995 in real time, in Company “Three’s a Crowd wasn’t handled flashback land it was the 1975–76 very well by the producers. All of TV season. Enter John Ritter, a sudden it was announced that Norman Fell, and Audra Lindley. I’m leaving the show and they’re John met with me at Café all out. There were hard feelings. Figaro on Melrose during my first Hurt feelings.” week in Los Angeles in July 1995. He shared lots of fun I’d just landed my first entrymemories, too. So how about level job at a trade magazine (as an editor and designer—I was Three’s Company reunion? It that determined to make it) and “would start out,” he said, “at he’d just wrapped filming what Chrissy’s grave, with all of us very, would be one of his most critically very sad.” Ouch! acclaimed performances of his Oh, yes. I had a book to write. career, playing a gay store owner And TV’s best pratfaller was in Billy Bob Thornton’s Oscarabout to open the door for me winning drama Sling Blade. As to take this once-in-a-lifetime a versatile artist he had again trip. But would I be able to get Autographed photo of the Seventies’ coolest roommates. transformed himself—and yet the ever-private Joyce to open Three’s Company © DLT Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage. here he was, taking time to meet up? And would Suzanne do an with me and open up about a interview if she was writing her critically dismissed show many of his acting contemporaries own book? And what about the rest of the cast, including Norman might have advised him to keep locked away in his distant past. Fell and Audra Lindley (the oh-so-salty landlords, the Ropers), I’d met him the year prior during one of my summer L.A. getaways Don Knotts (their replacement, the hilarious Mr. Furley), and at a taping of Hearts Afire—his 1992–1995 CBS sitcom co-starring Company co-tenants Richard Kline (Larry) and Ann Wedgeworth Thortnon and Markie Post—and he welcomed me this time with (Lana)? I had to get the whole family, including the producers, one of his famous bear hugs. Like so many others would say about writers, and director. John, he put me at ease with his kindness and humor. Bringing my sitcom “extended family” back together was John’s easy-going demeanor and quick wit were part of his symbolically quite important to me, as my own family was charm and talent repertoire that made him a hot small-screen breaking down. My mom and my sister—my longtime beloved commodity when two U.S. TV execs, Donald Taffner, Sr. and Ted “live-ins”—were going through bitter, if ultimately liberating, Bergmann, sought in 1975 to “Americanize” the saucy 1973–1976 divorces, and my niece and nephews (my godchildren) were likewise suffering. If I could make three (or ten) company again, at British sitcom Man About the House, about (sound familiar?) an aspiring male cooking student masquerading as gay to share least that part of my childhood could be “fixed.” And, I dreamed, a flat with two women. All three U.S. broadcast networks’ after establishing myself in sunny L.A., I could bring all five RETROFAN

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standards-and-practices departments—alias ABC, CBS, and NBC censors—rejected this idea. “They said, ‘You can’t have a boy living with two girls in the same apartment! Not on our network!’” Bergmann would soon tell me. Weeks later, TV programming wizard Fred Silverman, then ABC Entertainment’s new president, took Bergmann up on his pitch to develop this concept for U.S. audiences. Also on Silverman’s radar, the legendary network chief would tell me, was John Ritter, who’d starred in the Silvermanordered, Grant Tinker-produced CBS comedy pilot Bachelor at Law in 1973. CBS didn’t order that pilot to series, but Silverman kept his eye on a starring vehicle for John, who since 1972 recurred as Rev. Fordwick on CBS’ The Waltons and since 1970 had proven his dramatic and comedic chops in primetime hits, including Dan August, Hawaii 5-0, Kojak, Mannix, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, The Rookies, and Tinker’s MTM sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Phyllis, and Doc. His films included Disney’s The Barefoot Executive and Peter Bogdanovich’s Nickelodeon. When Bergmann hired M*A*S*H writer-producer Larry Gelbart to pen Man’s first California-based U.S. pilot, the future Tootsie and Broadway writer had likewise noticed something special in John, who also appeared in a 1973 episode of M*A*S*H. “I love John,” Gelbart told me. “I saw something in John that was really fresh, young, and modern, yet he had a knack for old-style, vaudevillian pratfalls.” Once ABC greenlit Gelbart’s script—cowritten with his stepson, Gary Markowitz, who came up with the series title Three’s Company—Gelbart saw John as perfect for the part of David Bell, the aspiring film writer who shared an apartment with a witty brunette, Jenny (played by Valerie Curtin, who later starred in the TV version of 9 to 5), and a dippy blonde, Samantha (played by future Days of Our Lives costar Susanne Zenor). Clinching John’s casting as the future Jack Tripper: Former CBS head of casting Ethel Winant called him “the next Jack Lemmon” when Bergmann mentioned his name. John’s boyish charm and wholesome appeal helped make Company’s “man about the house” essentially a non-threat—so much so that Jack became more like a brother to his female roomies. Behind the scenes, a family of friends would form with his eventual co-stars. During our July meeting, he especially kept opening up about Suzanne—the good, the bad, and the season-five ugly. “I really did love her,” he said. “I loved them all. That’s why it hurt so much when she started going nuts. It was like breaking up with a girlfriend. I’d never thought she’d ever do that; it kinda surprised me. And I missed her, too.” “Missed,” as in past tense. He ducked out of an ABC event she attended in 1985 (while promoting her attempted 6

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comeback in the miniseries Hollywood Wives) and declined her invitation to appear in 1994 on her short-lived daytime talk series The Suzanne Somers Show. The wounds remained. Only love remained in his relationship with his TV landlords, though. “Oh, you talked to John?” Audra Lindley, the forever muumuu-clad Helen Roper, asked me when her agent connected me with her via phone in August 1995. “I’m happy to meet with you.” Was I in for a treat. The prolific actress—whose film and television career spanned from the Forties and included diverse roles in live Kraft Television Theatre performances, features (from Cannery Row to Troop Beverly Hills to 1995’s Sudden Death), soaps, and sitcoms (including her final role, as Cybill Shephard’s mom in Cybill)—couldn’t have been kinder. We met at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where I interviewed her and then joined her for a screening of Dangerous Minds. (Holy cow, I was watching a movie with Mrs. Roper!) Given her artistry and cachet, it didn’t surprise me that ABC paid $8,000 to buy out a playhouse where she was performing a Sunday matinee to secure her involvement in Gelbart’s pilot. “I mean, gee whiz, they’re buying out a theatre for me?” she said. She fondly recalled her Three’s Company days. “We became intimate, we became a family who shared everything with each other,” she added. Audra decided early on that she saw her sex-starved TV landlady not as the tough-talking, pantsuit-clad harpy depicted in Gelbart’s edgy and more sophisticated pilot. “I believe Helen Roper was a very warm, loving woman. She had a maternal instinct with the kids,” said Audra, who also appeared as Phoebe’s grandma on Friends. TV’s Mrs. Roper reminded me of my own grandma—at once warm and super cool. A year later, Audra and Norman Fell reunited at an autograph show. As I walked the old pals to her car after Somers’ Chrissy was lunch, they bantered like the Ropers. merchandised in He comically circled his wheeled posters, dolls, puzzles, luggage, joking, “Hurry up, Audra. I and other items. Three’s have to be on set in three years.” She Company © DLT Entertainhilariously retorted, “Norman, take ment. Poster courtesy of the damn thing and put it in the damn Ernest Farino. Doll courtesy trunk.” Pure gold. of Hake's. I first met Norman in fall 1995 at Jerry’s Deli in Marina Del Rey, California. He cracked wise throughout his interview, but was also most forthcoming. The 40-year veteran of stage, screen, and television had plenty of dramatic credits behind him (Ocean’s Eleven, Inherit the Wind, Catch-22, and playing Dustin Hoffman’s landlord in The Graduate among them). He was thrilled to play the henpecked husband and finger-wagging, comically suspicious landlord Stanley Roper in Gelbart’s pilot. “It seemed like a good character for me to play at that point because I was doing a lot

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of serious stuff, but not really funny, goofy, nutsy parts,” he said. His willingness to play the buffoon fit well with the fact that Mr. Roper’s homophobia around the supposedly-gay Jack was one of Stanley’s shortcomings—the joke, of course, was on the sexually insecure landlord, who also often “had a headache” when it came to his wife’s desire for romance. Norman hailed Mr. Roper’s and Company’s “innocence.” Fell got a raw deal, though, when ABC cajoled him to join a willing Audra to do their own spin-off to premiere in March 1979. His “guarantee” to return to Three’s Company if The Ropers didn’t last more than a season proved hollow when the spin-off was cancelled in May 1980—after one full season and one six-episode season. Was he angry about this? “I put it behind me,” he claimed, adding how much he missed working with John while doing The Ropers. “I was upset about it. Yeah, I could have gone on in Three’s Company for another five or six years, but…” From the original pilot on, John and “the Ropers” jelled. The cast’s chemistry would be complete, though, only after two more pilots added Joyce and then Suzanne to the ensemble. “Everyone was the right person for the right part,” Norman said, pausing with Roper-esque timing. “Even Suzanne behaved herself.”

I’m anything but a natural-born salesman, but deep down I felt that “no” might eventually become a “yes.” So I summoned my inner Larry Dallas—the used car dealer who gave Jack, Janet, and Chrissy a puppy in the show’s fourth episode and stayed on as Jack’s best friend till the end—and kept on keeping on. Fortunately, the guy who brought Larry to life, stage and screen actor Richard Kline, not only said “yes” to an initial interview (at a Regal Beaglesque eaterie next to his gym—so very Larry!), he hosted a second interview at his Hollywood Hills home so I’d also have the chance to meet another of his comic partners in crime, TV’s leisure suit-clad landlord/ladies man Ralph Furley, played by the iconic and inimitable Don Knotts. While the antsy and often hyperventilating Mr. Furley came wrapped in, to quote Richard, “a psychedelic, bad-acid-trip wardrobe,” Don Knotts presented as Ralph’s laid-back, totally

Story Behind the Story Twist(s): A Sudden Reunion, a “No,” and More Co-stars

unassuming antithesis. In fact, the five-time Emmy-winning Andy Griffith Show legend and Disney film star’s humble and quiet nature begged someone to ask him, “Don’t you realize you’re Don Knotts?!?” He would chuckle at such a question, just as he gently laughed in recalling some of Furley’s wild facial contortions, impressive pratfalls, and hysterical karate chops—all of which he pulled off masterfully during the show’s fast-paced live tapings. Don’s more subtle humor completely caught Three’s Company director Dave Powers (himself a four-time Emmy winner for directing The Carol Burnett Show) off guard in summer 1979. “I went up to Dave on the first rehearsal and said, ‘Dave, by the way, they told you, didn’t they, about me using cue cards?’” Replied an amused Powers, who admitted he was at first dumbfounded by the comedy stalwart’s comment, “Don’s such a funny man. He gave the show an entirely new lift.” While Richard and Don’s lengthy Company time was altogether happy, co-star Ann Wedgeworth’s brief tenure left an emotional wound that remained with her 16 years later. The Tony awardwinning actress and Steel Magnolias co-star had recently wrapped a successful four-season run on the CBS sitcom Evening Shade. But she was still most recognized for her half-season turn as sexy divorcée Lana Shields, an older woman with the hots for Jack Tripper. And did she ever still look the part when I met her at the late, great Chez Nous restaurant in Toluca Lake, California. At once delicate and resilient, the real-life steel magnolia—whose

Flash forward to October 1995. Three months after his in-person book interview, John finally allowed his path to cross with Suzanne’s. Both attended a gala event for the Broadway premiere of Victor, Victoria. “I heard someone singing ‘I Won’t Dance, Don’t Ask Me’ at this big banquet,” John later told me. “And I said, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Suzanne.'” Emotions running high, he approached her for the first time in 15 years, exclaiming, “Chrissy come home. All is forgiven.” But was the feeling mutual? Would this open the door to Suzanne talking? “Your name came up during their talk,” John’s assistant told me. Triple holy cow: Jack and Chrissy finally reunite and mention me? My publisher at the trade magazine quipped, “It’s like you’re reuniting The Beatles!” Just as it seemed that peace was finally being given a chance in Company land, I received what every author seeking an interview with a key subject hates to hear: a “no.” It wasn’t from Suzanne, whose rep said in late 1995 (and again throughout 1996), “She’s not interested at this time.” Instead, it was from Joyce’s rep: “She appreciates your interest, but she is not interested.” Wait. No Janet Wood, the ever-reliable heart of Apartment 201 that held Jack and company together for eight seasons? Total bummer. I respected that she wasn’t ready to break her silence, but her participation was crucial. To quote Mr. Tripper, “Lordy, lordy, lordy …”

(LEFT) Landlords Stanley and Helen Roper (Norman Fell, Audra Lindley) quickly spun off into their own series, The Ropers. (TOP) Former Barney Fife Don Knotts signed on as the new Three’s Company landlord, Ralph Furley. Three’s Company and The Ropers © DLT Entertainment.

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movie credits included 1973’s Scarecrow (opposite Al Pacino) and Bang the Drum Slowly (opposite Robert De Niro)—revealed to me that, despite reports, she was not fired from Three’s Company. Instead, she said, she asked to be let go after her part, originally presented to her as a replacement of sorts for Audra Lindley’s Mrs. Roper, was written down following an on-set “pow-wow” she overheard during which publicly unnamed co-stars complained about the size of her role in the classic episode “A-Camping We Will Go.” The producers apparently responded after this episode (which featured Jack repeatedly rebuffing sultry Lana’s advances while Janet and Chrissy put up a tent) by trimming her role—and then cutting it altogether following Ann’s request. Ann did not elaborate on record as to which castmates she overheard, but when asked about her sudden, final day of taping, she spoke favorably of John, Don, and Richard—whom she approached to say goodbye—and offered no comment on Suzanne and Joyce (the latter of whom, Ann told People, called after this taping “to say something to me about it”). “No one said a word to me. None of the producers, the director, nobody,” Ann said about her last episode, prior to approaching her male co-stars. “It was like I’d never been there before. It was weird. I felt hurt. And I felt angry. I did get an invitation to the Christmas party, but I didn’t feel welcome.” John and later Joyce would later hail Ann’s contributions, emphasizing that Lana—not Ann per se—was written out because the character (and actress) was too gorgeous for Jack Tripper to resist, regardless of age. (And Joyce, who was saddened to learn that Ann [mis?]heard anything less-than-supportive of her presence on set, would later amply illustrate that she had little to no power to sway any significant creative/executive workplace decisions.) But Ann’s on-set experiences gave her a different impression. And her chilly departure set the stage for other unceremonious exits and complaints of on-set disrespect by female castmates.

Pilot/Part 2: Getting Joyce DeWitt—and Getting to the Heart of the Trio

“His heart is in the right place,” Company casting director David Graham told Joyce via phone when I interviewed him in late 1995. “I think you should talk to him.” This impromptu call on my behalf to the Santa Fe, New Mexico-dwelling Three’s star known as the “shy one” was one of numerous efforts that her former sitcom pals voluntarily (and kindly) made for me after I mentioned that Joyce wasn’t talking. John Ritter also put in a good word for me—and, thank you, sitcom gods, I finally got a “yes” from her in summer 1996, just as I secured a publishing contract for Come and Knock on Our Door with St. Martin’s Press. (!) (My new agent sealed the deal.) Nervously excited but professionally composed (a post-paperbag-breathing Mr. Furley would be proud), I interviewed Joyce over an emotional lunch at the historic Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Blvd. Surprisingly, I wasn’t the emotional one. Joyce revealed that she had declined my invitations to interview going back to my 1991 Roomie Report launch for good reason—and none of it was personal. In fact, the media had often misrepresented her and/or her words, her chauvinist producers almost always devalued or categorically dismissed her input, ABC or her producers “conveniently” told Suzanne in 1980–81 that Joyce would not work with her (“which was not true,” Joyce added during our second 8

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in-person interview two weeks later), and, after eight seasons of Joyce navigating these rocky and oft-painful waters, her Three’s Company experience—which she stressed was otherwise mostly full of love, joy, and blissfully fun live-audience tapings—ended with deep disappointment and heartbreak. Given her ongoing, and deeply enriching, spiritual path post-Hollywood, her ABC roomie sitcom ups and downs were, she emphasized, “ancient history.” But here she was nonetheless, finally agreeing to talk to me with an open heart and exposed soul. The way the producers ended the show—by furtively using most of its still often creatively brilliant but (thanks in large part to NBC’s The A-Team) ratings-challenged final season as a springboard for John’s secretly conceived spin-off Three’s a Crowd—dominated Joyce’s first interview. Our waiter at the Mondrian eventually brought her a box of Kleenex when, after not publicly disclosing virtually any of this for 12-plus years, she began to break down. “It is my feeling that the rest of the cast deserved to know this was going to be their last season,” she said tearfully. “But we weren’t told because the producers were trying to make America think that their new show was the natural evolution of Three’s Company.” She described her acting work with John as strengthened by “what might be described as a telepathic connection,” especially when it came to their physical comedy scenes. Which only made their spin-off-dictated parting that much more crushing. “That he participated in the deception was the hardest part for me,” she said. “He was my friend.” (Replied John, whom the producers told to keep mum about the spin-off before they announced it in late 1983, “I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her what the producers had said. It would have done nothing but hurt her feelings. This is a really, really tough thing. I think they were trepidatious about her being volatile. There were certain conflicts they had from time to time; they butted heads a lot. I think they felt there were land mines. It was a very, very heavy transition.”) The heart of Three’s Company‘s longest-running on- and offcamera arc—the at-times complicated relationship between friends and comedy-of-errors partners Jack Tripper and Janet Wood and their true-life portrayers—had finally emerged in all of its imperfect humanness. This seemingly simple show’s twisting and turning behind-the-scenes story was, at long last, fully, if distressingly, unfolding. Joyce was cast as the level-headed brunette roomie Janet Wood (a florist by day and farcicist by night) without a screen test in fall 1976, months after All in the Family writers and The Jeffersons creators and showrunners Don Nicholl, Michael “Mickey” Ross, and Bernie West—alias The NRW Company—took over as Three’s Company’s executive producers. ABC put the classically trained actress and recent UCLA Master of Fine Arts recipient under contract in 1975 after she auditioned to play Fonzie’s girlfriend, Pinky Tuscadero, in Happy Days. She was wrong for that role, but network honchos at the audition loved her, recalling how she held her own next to an ad-libbing Robert Blake in a recent two-part Baretta. Joyce read for the character of the brunette female roommate in Larry Gelbart’s more sophisticated Three’s Company pilot in early 1976, but lost that part because she looked too young. When NRW, at ABC’s urging, handed her a copy of the British Man About the House pilot script—for an as-yet-unpenned U.S. version tentatively titled Mixed Singles—she thought back to

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in knee-high silver boots and a low-cut silver dress giddily share Gelbart’s “terrifically well-written” Three’s pilot. With high hopes an eyewitness account that helped ABC’s Starsky and Hutch nab a for a Gelbart-like redo, Joyce chose NRW’s project (which would bad guy. The jiggly gal was Suzanne Somers—a not-so-/so-noteventually also be known as Three’s Company) over another ABC sitcom whose producers wanted her so much they were willing to dumb blonde whom Silverman also recalled from one of three dozen Tonight Show appearances she’d made since 1973, when the give ABC some of their contract points. struggling single mom turned model turned weather girl reject Joyce joined actress Susan Lanier—best known as the turned mostly bit-part actress—known only as the Thunderbirdkittenish and spacy Bambi in ABC’s Welcome Back, Kotter—as John’s two new female costars in NRW’s first Company pilot, which driving babe who mouthed “I love you” to Richard Dreyfuss in 1973’s American Graffiti—first slinked onto Johnny Carson’s was a more sexualized take on Man About the House’s second stage to read double entendre-laden passages from her book of episode, “And Mother Makes Four.” (Lanier replaced future soap contemplative poetry titled Touch Me. Silverman sent the Starsky actress Denise Galik as the at-times scantily clad Chrissy Snow footage to NRW. Referring to Suzanne’s appearance in the clips as two days before this pilot’s November 5, 1976 taping. Galik was “zonked-out druggie who looked terrible,” Bernie West said they essentially fired over the loudspeaker while on set.) had little choice than to have her read with Joyce. “When the top That Joyce created such a strong straight-man character that echelon say, ‘This girl is good and will work, and otherwise it’s a helped hold Chrissy and Jack in place, while also becoming an no-go,’ you say, ‘OK, we’ll see.’” increasingly zany reactor in the physical comedy-rich Furley In the 11th hour of the years, is testament writing of my book—just to Joyce’s talents and weeks before my initial confidence as an actor manuscript deadline of to move through artistic January 1, 1997—and changes and challenges. in response to a letter And the challenges she from my publisher faced seeking creative again seeking her expression within sexist participation, Suzanne power structures were agreed to an hour-long ample in NRW’s Three’s phone interview. That world. Referring to chat stretched to two Gelbart’s scrapped pilot, hours and resulted in Joyce said, “Imagine two follow-up phone a more sophisticated, interviews. To say that very grown version of these conversations and Three’s Company. Two of the resulting extensive the players happen to be follow-up interviews female, and one happens with John, Joyce, Mickey, to be a guy—and this Bernie, Ted Bergmann, creates a lot of clash and Dave Powers, et al. (Don chaos. There was no T&A. Nicholl died in 1980) There was no blondealtered the already-rich and-brunette, clichéd, emotional depth and American old-movie Farrah-thee-well, Chrissy! Stepping in to Three’s Company after Suzanne texture of my book, stuff. So I had no idea. Somers’ departure were (LEFT) Jenilee Harrison, who played Cindy along with the stress Now, all of a sudden, Snow, and (RIGHT) Priscilla Barnes, who played Terri Alden. Courtesy of and excitement level in here I am playing Jane Ernest Farino. completing it, is a vast Russell talking to Marilyn understatement. But Monroe, and it’s like, this was my dream come it’s been done. I have a true: interviewing virtually the entire key Three’s Company family, hard time being involved in a cliché ever. And I’ve always been getting their never-heard memories and perspectives, facilitating supportive of women being dealt with as human beings, not a long-needed dialogue, and finally uncovering this show’s objects—of any kind. So I had some adjusting to do.” story—the good, the bad, and the ugly. At times this process was Pilot/Part 3: Getting Suzanne Somers—an 11th Hour painstaking for me and the show’s original trio. “You’re not their Game-Changer counselor,” I was occasionally reminded. NRW and Company continued to adjust when ABC, unhappy with (The only castmate I did not “get” was Priscilla Barnes, Lanier as the blonde roomie, failed to green light the series yet Suzanne’s final replacement in 1981–1984. Priscilla was a favorite again. Fred Silverman ordered a third pilot around Thanksgiving, of mine, and—after chatting her up at an autograph show and the hunt was on for a new Chrissy. Feeling the heat, the in spring 1996—TV’s nurse Terri Alden kindly helped me get scrambling producers had already seen nearly 250 young women Joyce for the book. Vouching for Joyce’s complaints about their for that part. And then Silverman saw a bouncy blonde dancing producers, the versatile film actress ultimately decided not to RETROFAN

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talk for my book; she later told E! that her Company years were— the inexperienced and pliable Suzanne—with whom he formed despite being mostly big hits in the Nielsen ratings—“the three a “father-daughter bond”—while trying to force Joyce (an worst years” of her life, due in large part to Mickey Ross’ treatment actor/director since her teenage years in community theater) of her. On a happier note, I did get a great interview from Jenilee to give line readings, exerted what he and Don Nicholl called Harrison, Suzanne’s temporary fill-in who played Chrissy’s cousin, “a benevolent dictatorship” to showrunning. Knowing how to Cindy Snow, from 1980–1982. “That first year, I was the most read and lighten up a room, the joy-bringing John (the show’s scrutinized, recognized top star of the year because I replaced star, in NRW’s eyes) went for laughs, even falling over the back Suzanne Somers,” the former L.A. Rams of the couch during rehearsals if tensions cheerleader and future Dallas costar said. flared, associate producer Mimi Seawell “Because John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt were told me. Suzanne grew deeply fond of him. not speaking to the press, I had to go and “I defended Suzanne for a long time,” John speak around the country that ‘everything’s said, “until it really became clear… uh-oh.” He fine, keep watching.’ So I was the PR gal. added, “Celebritydom can kill you; being an It was extremely exciting and extremely actor or an artist can feed you.” tiring.” Stepping into Suzanne’s shoes at age Flash forward to Fall 1980, when Suzanne 21, Jenilee added, “was a tough gig.” She did and her new manager, husband Alan Hamel, great physical comedy bits with John.) requested—many say demanded—a salary Suzanne secured the role of Christmas increase from $30,000 a week to $150,000 “Chrissy” Snow around Christmas 1976, and plus ten percent of the show’s profits. NRW on January 28, 1977, the winning series pilot and executives in charge of production Ted taped. The new trio found instant success— Bergmann and Donald Taffner, Sr. balked. especially when episode two catapulted the Alan and Mickey Ross blew up at each other six-episode midseason replacement to the in an attempted re-negotiation meeting, Nielsen ratings’ Top Ten, where it stayed and soon Suzanne started missing work on (usually in the top three spots) virtually every multiple tape and rehearsal dates, blaming week for the next four seasons. Suzanne an alleged rib injury for which X-rays were immediately used her six-week, $2,500-pernever produced as evidence. NRW then episode earnings to pay Farrah Fawcett’s reduced Suzanne to insignificant tag scenes manager-publicist, legendary “starmaker” Jay taped separately from the rest of the cast, Bernstein, to, well, make her a star. Swimsuit who reportedly refused to work with her. A posters, Chrissy dolls, and other merchandise vicious and lengthy media battle ensued in bearing Suzanne’s likeness followed, as did which NRW (Mickey in particular) blasted more than 50 magazine covers featuring Suzanne as a greedy show-wrecker and cast her face in the show’s first year alone. One her husband as the villain, while Suzanne of those, a February 1978 Newsweek cover called Joyce jealous and threatened to sue about “Sex and TV,” splintered the new the producers for restraint of trade and sue Three’s Company family when a lingerie-clad John and Joyce for collusion. By April 1981, Suzanne, seemingly in the know about the after six months of humiliating, brief scenes magazine’s plans to push her front and in which Suzanne phoned in her part, her center, was superimposed over an awkward producers, with ABC’s blessing, fired her. shot of the trio. “They kept trying to get us The moment-by-moment details—buoyed to pose in ways that felt demeaning,” Joyce by my extensive interviews and exclusive said, “and John and I kept refusing. We were access to fact-heavy arbitration documents both innocent about the angle of the story.” that I uncovered—are laid out carefully and Suzanne said she, too, was innocent, and completely in Come and Knock on Our Door. blamed the late Don Nicholl for the secret Despite the magic they created—and agenda. “What screwed up Three’s Company the fun all three had together behind the was our producers,” Suzanne told me. “They scenes—the original Three’s Company trio Three’s Company’s various casts created it and they f****d it up. They f****d perhaps was doomed from the get-go. appeared on numerous TV Guide it up with the constant secrets and the other Was it more of a family, or was it more of covers, including (TOP) the May agendas. And it turned us [stars] against each a business—and, given the stars’ vastly 20–26, 1978 edition, cover art by other. Because from that shoot on, nothing different takes on celebrity and showbiz, Richard Amsel, and (BOTTOM) was ever really the same between the three could these realities co-exist with these three the November 20–26, 1982 edition, of us.” personalities? The answer, sadly, would be cover art by Joseph Cellini. Three’s Suzanne’s focus on becoming a celebrity no. “[T]hey were teachers, they were friends,” Company © DLT Entertainment. TV Guide clashed with Joyce’s focus on bringing a Suzanne told me of John and Joyce in 1997. © TV Guide. Courtesy of Ernest Farino. theater actress’ sensibilities to a hit network “We loved each other. We laughed. We cried. cash cow. NRW’s Mickey Ross, who trained We hugged… I think the tragedy is because 10

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it ended so poorly we’ve really had very little to do with one another.” Suzanne, who’d finally achieved her career comeback, then mentioned that her husband/manager, Alan Hamel, had approached Don Taffner, Sr. with a business proposal. “Maybe the resolution can be when we all get together to do the feature.”

was coming from my truth,” Suzanne had told me for my book, “and they were coming from theirs.” I was surprised that After the Fall did not see Suzanne take the same accountability for her actions that she took in Keeping Secrets, in which she shared that she constantly created chaos as a teenager and twentysomething because, in essence, that was the life she knew so well as the child of an alcoholic. But that disconnect was not for me to Showtime!: Publication, Publicity, and Living the dissect then. I had a book to promote whose subtitle was A Hers True Hollywood Story and Hers and His Guide to Three’s Company. Her accounts, which I I’d often wondered if I would feel a sense of “what next?” when was incredibly grateful to have, often conflicted with those of I completed my manuscript in April 1997—after all, this show the other “hers” and the “his,” but I left it up to readers to decide had been deeply close to my “feels” for 20 of my 25 years at that where the truth lies. point—but the truth is my story with Three’s Company was far A producer for Extra was the first to see that my book had from its final act. By early 1998, word leaked that Suzanne was the goods. Joyce was asked to interview about both books— also writing a memoir about her jiggle TV years and beyond. After and to my surprise, she held, carried, and promoted my book the Fall: How I Picked Myself Up, Dusted Myself Off, and Started All throughout her interview while Suzanne pitched her own. Over Again was indeed that book I’d asked These July 4 fireworks between these two her about in 1990. After talking to me for former friends were just the beginning. my book, she was finally ready to write it. Inside Edition took the story from there, this A magazine quoted her lit agent as saying, time also interviewing John Ritter. Though “John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt aren’t going John’s displaying of my book was left on the to like” her book. I surmised that the feature cutting room floor, Inside Edition featured film hadn’t panned out. footage of me posing with Joyce, Richard, I often believed—and when writing my Don, Norman, and Priscilla at my first book book, absolutely knew—that the story I signing. (Yes, even Priscilla showed up to spent so long unearthing and crafting would show support!) From there, Joyce again also make for great television. During my promoted my literary efforts in a “Back of brief breaks while on deadline, I’d watch the the Book” segment on the then-reputable new cable documentary series The E! True The O’Reilly Factor, and John held my book up Hollywood Story. Entire one- and two-hour and lauded me during an interview on the episodes focused on one celebrity. But what daytime talk show Donny and Marie. I was about a two-hour installment about a TV over the moon, never dreaming that two of series? My book lent itself as a two-hour E! the three chief Company stars would endorse THS, even if this “TV-ography” approach was my book (repeatedly) on national television. outside of the box. St. Martin’s held my book Again, how lucky was I? Having the male for release weeks after Suzanne’s—a smart version of the name “Chrissy” wasn’t a strike move, but much of the PR work still fell to against me after all. Tripped out! John Ritter as Jack me. I recalled Suzanne telling me to “blitz” At the outset of this media blitz, I put Tripper in the short-lived Three’s the media with my book when it came out my writing and design skills to work and Company continuation, Three’s a during its original release date of October constructed a press kit for my book primarily Crowd. Promo from the Fall Preview 1997. So, in June 1998, I did just that—with a to pitch a video version of Come and Knock on of TV Guide, September 8, 1984. Three’s key focus on getting E! Our Door to E! (I even wrote a couple of press a Crowd © DLT Entertainment. TV Guide © Much was at stake for me personally: I releases that St. Martin’s printed on their TV Guide. wanted to make a splash not only for the letterhead.) By July, the E! True Hollywood sake of the project itself, I wanted to use Story came knocking. They loved my book this success to help reunite two families: the and agreed with my vision that Three’s Company one—a huge feat, given that Joyce and Suzanne would Company should be their first E! THS episode exclusively about the not talk to each other for 31 years, when they finally reunited and life behind-the-scenes at a TV series. My interview, filmed at a made peace on Suzanne’s internet series Breaking Through—and, Hollywood club in August, was used throughout their two-hour more importantly, my own. I’d promised myself that as soon production, which also featured interviews with all nine surviving as I “hit it big” in La-La Land, I’d move my beloved mom, sister, Company castmates. (Sadly, Audra Lindley passed in October 1997. and godchildren out to live with me. Another estranged family This E! show would be Norman Fell’s final bow, premiering two member remained a bona fide threat to them back in Tulsa, so I weeks after his death in December 1998.) couldn’t fumble this chance. (In farce, life and death are the stuff Many of the Three’s gang said I was now an honorary member of hysterical misunderstandings; in reality, not so much.) of their family. And folks recognized me in restaurants, on the Suzanne’s book presented her own reality—which, when it street, and even during a trip to Mexico. “Aren’t you that guy came to fame and the details around her firing, varied greatly on that Three’s Company documentary?” A friend of mine said from her colleagues’ reality—and it especially tore into Joyce. “I she was on a plane trip to Hawaii and saw me on her cabin’s TV RETROFAN

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FA ST FAC TS

screen. “Is that Chris?!” she later related. adapting my book for their TV movie Indeed, the E! show aired ad nauseam about the show. (A surprising Hollywood for years, transforming the THS brand Reporter item breaking news of the and spawning competing shows on project in January curiously failed Three’s Company ET Weekend, A&E Biography, and via a to mention its producers or source ` No. of seasons: Eight series of FOX/TV Guide Secrets Behind material, despite the fact the same ` No. of episodes: 172 the Sitcom Scandals specials. The whole publication revealed a year prior that ` Original run: March 15, 1977– experience was so trippy. I continued to a certain producer was shopping my September 18, 1984 pinch myself for years—including after book to networks.) While this is a ` Primary cast: John Ritter, Joyce John, again holding my book up and “true Hollywood story” for another DeWitt, Suzanne Somers, Norman mentioning my name, joined Joyce on time, suffice it to say that one of the Fell, Audra Lindley, Don Knotts, TV for the first time in 17 years during a executive producers of that movie was Richard Kline, Ann Wedgeworth, healing “retro reunion” on CBS’ The Early at the time attempting to circumvent Jenilee Harrison, Priscilla Barnes Show in March 2001. (My book’s dialogue exercising the “purchase” part of his/ ` Network: ABC helped bring them closer!) Indeed, my the option-purchase agreement ` Theme song: “Come and Knock on Three’s Company true Hollywood story pertaining to these film adaptation Our Door,” performed by Ray Charles was far from over. A year later I was rights to my book. John’s EW interview (of the Ray Charles Singers) and Julia approached to write a 25th anniversary and my own interview with the same Rinker feature about the again-hot sitcom for EW reporter in fall 2002 helped remedy Spin-offs and remakes: TV Guide. (No mention about the bookthat protracted and oh-so-Hollywood length letter I wrote them in 1986.) situation, and I received credit as ` The Ropers (1979–1980 spin-off series, Also in February 2002, a series Consulting Producer for that high-rated 2 seasons 28 episodes, starring of events serendipitously led me to March 2003 telefilm—the first in NBC’s Norman Fell, Audra Lindley, Jeffrey move from Hollywood to a beachside successful Behind the Camera franchise Tambor) apartment on Ocean Front Walk in (hello, Charlie’s Angels, Dif f’rent Strokes, ` Three’s a Crowd (1984–1985 spin-off Venice Beach—mere feet away from Mork & Mindy, et al.). I was proud of the series, starring John Ritter, Mary where Jack Tripper fell off his bike impact my no-holds-barred book had Cadorette, Robert Mandan) during this show’s original iconic on the TV storytelling medium. Perhaps ` Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized opening credits. Once again, the Three’s one day my next long-in-the-works Story of Three’s Company (NBC Company universe was moving me to book, details of which I’m keeping close telemovie airing May 12, 2003, a better place. Only this time it also to the vest, will have a similar impact. hosted by Joyce DeWitt, starring helped move my mom with me. Thanks With the completion of the DVD Bret Anthony as John Ritter, Melanie to my successful career as a full-time tributes to John in early 2005, my Paxson as Joyce DeWitt, Jud Tylor as magazine art director, and with a nice focus turned fully to what mattered Suzanne Somers) assist from my book sales and the most—my real family. My teenage ` Three’s Company Live (stage show in optioning of my book for an NBC movie nephews needed a normal life away various cities) of the week, I was able to help my mom from Venice High School, so we all relocate to California to live with me. By moved to a charming, family-friendly October 2002, I moved my sister and godkids out, too—who lived area in northern Santa Barbara county, where I began freelance in an apartment below us. (Six was company, too!) Finally, my writing and art directing health and wellness stories, including family was again intact, and happily and safely so. cover features on Joyce and Suzanne. Fifteen years later we still Tragically, the Three’s Company family would never fully call the California Central Coast our home. And while it’s a couple reunite. John Ritter died suddenly from an aortic dissection on hours away from that famous beach that Three’s Company helped September 11, 2003, af ter falling sick on the set of his final hit make as-seen-on-TV famous in 1977, that silly sitcom’s on-screen ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter—a year and behind-the-scenes family lives in millions of hearts—and af ter he attempted to reunite Joyce and Suzanne in a Three’s certainly (my thanks again eternally, Mr. Ritter and company) in dream scene (Suzanne, wanting instead to do a Chrissy and Jack my own. feature with just John, declined). His death devastated me on CHRIS MANN is the author of the 1998 a deeply personal level—and I simply could not imagine the book Come and Knock on Our Door profound loss felt by his actual family. I was honored to help and was consulting producer on the 2003 produce a series of tributes to him for the series DVD release of NBC telefilm Behind the Camera: The Three’s Company in the coming year-plus. Those salutes included Unauthorized Story of Three’s Company. one of Don Knotts’ final on-screen appearances (he passed in The health and wellness writer and pop 2006), Ann Wedgeworth’s final interview (she died in 2017), and culture storyteller (chrismann.tv) has an insightful, exclusive interview with John’s first wife, Nancy interviewed and profiled actors, authors, athletes, and other big Morgan Ritter, whom I again interview in this issue of RetroFan. names for decades. His chief inspiration, though, remains his One of John’s final kind acts on my behalf occurred in March beloved mom, Herbie. 2002, when he revealed to Entertainment Weekly that NBC was 12

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Nancy Morgan Ritter by Chris Mann

Nancy Morgan Ritter and John Ritter in 1979. Courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter.

Ten years after his network television debut as a 19-year-old comical bachelor on a 1967 episode of The Dating Game, actor John Ritter achieved superstardom with his starring role in the ABC hit sitcom Three’s Company. But his true brass ring was actress Nancy Morgan (star of the 1977 film Fraternity Row and “Julie” on the 1977 series The San Pedro Beach Bums), whom he wed on October 16, 1977. “If ABC said ‘Goodbye’ and everybody else said ‘Hello, hasbeen,’ it would be totally fine with me as long as we had each other,” John said of his new wife in a 1978 People magazine cover story about their marriage. Happy Days star Ron Howard—with whom Nancy starred in the 1977 comedy film Grand Theft Auto—called her “a rock” who had a “steady cut-through-nonsense attitude without being super-serious.” This strength helped build the foundation of John and Nancy’s 19-year marriage, which saw the births of their three children: actor Jason Ritter in 1980, country and folk singer-songwriter Carly Ritter in 1982, and actor Tyler Ritter in 1985. The couple also worked together in numerous projects, including the 1979 feature Americathon, the 1990 telefilm Dreamer of Oz, and an episode of John’s 1987–1989 ABC dramedy Hooperman. And their solid friendship, buoyed in part by their dedicated roles as co-parents, continued until John’s untimely passing on September 11, 2003. Even in the 17 years that have followed, the Lucky Luke actress—who has returned to acting in recent years in indie films, the acclaimed web series Break a Hip, and the 2020 comedy film Life’s a Bit—continues to feel connected to John in large part through their children and, in the last few years, their grandchildren. In this exclusive interview, Nancy Morgan Ritter, 71, shares some of her personal insights into John’s comic talents, his joyous and not-so-joyous Three’s Company years, his connection to Robin Williams, and his deep-rooted need to bring laughter.

TM & © Meredith Corporation. Courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter.

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RetroFan: You met John in March 1975 while he was recurring on The Waltons and proving his comedy chops on the MTM sitcoms. What drew you two together? RETROFAN

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Nancy Morgan Ritter: We met in a crowded theater audience. Our agents pointed us out to each other across the room. We smiled at each other from afar, and I think we both felt kind of lit up. Afterwards we went to Joe Allen’s [restaurant] with the cast, agents, and friends. We talked for hours after the play. We discussed our families and our lives. His father had died the year before, my beloved grandmother had died the month before. We first connected on deeper levels about life. But when we weren’t talking to each other, he was making everybody laugh, including me. It was just a hit of a night. He got my number, called me, and we were together from that point on.

creativity, and his willingness to be utterly sadness in both of them. I do believe that goofy physically. It may not look like it Robin was a genius for the ages, so I’m not takes amazing skill, but it does. On the trying to compare them on work or career, other hand, he had an ability to land a joke just as human beings. They both had a history of making their so perfectly that it would make a writer weep. He really had both the skill and the families laugh, and at the start of their careers, they coincidentally ended up in the freedom. And I think he liked Jack. He liked same Harvey Lembeck comedy workshop that Jack loved the girls. Looking back, class. Robin was the new guy in town with I imagine that it probably wasn’t too his suspenders and his, just, wildness. It was a fun meeting of those two. I saw Robin difficult for John to be around lots of when he was a brand new arrival in L.A., and beautiful actresses. Pretending that he was gay to Mr. Roper was always sweet and never pejorative. I think it was just light and funny and not judgmental.

RF: John continued to hone his physical comedy skills via improv classes with Robin Williams. Talk about the masters! How were John and Robin alike? NMR: I’m not an expert on Robin Williams [but] I knew Robin. We spent time together, John and Robin and I. That said, it’s hard to know someone unless you have them in your life for years. So I will say what I do know. They were each unique, so you can’t say they were like each other. Yet each had speed, wit, and intelligence in their thoughts and comedic connections. They were both drawn to extreme John Ritter and Nancy Morgan, during the filming of Peter highs—and however you Bogdanovich’s 1976 film, Nickelodeon, a comedy set during got there, you got there. It could be from making people 1911 which featured John as Franklin Frank. As Nancy tells RetroFan, “I was just visiting John and Bogdanovich stuck laugh, it could be from a couple of drinks, or anything me in one quick scene doing a stunt.” Nickelodeon © 1976 Columbia Pictures. Photo courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter. else. I think both of them tried as hard as they could to keep laughing one knew from the moment one saw him and stay far away from what was hurting that he was going to fly. inside, until they couldn’t. Both of them eventually hit a wall where the darker RF: What emotional and artistic qualities or the deeper or the sadder part came did John give Jack Tripper that in turn gave forward. You saw Robin’s roles in movies Three’s Company much of its heart and soul? deepen; John’s as well. So I would say NMR: When you are watching him play there was a tremendous amount of joy in Jack in Three’s Company, you are seeing both of them, and there was also a lot of John’s inner sense of play, his joy, quickness, 14

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RF: John said in 1978, “I think all my life I wanted to make people laugh doing my ‘slapschtick’ thing.” Why was bringing laughter vital to him from an early age? NMR: I do know for a fact that as a little boy he felt alone. He felt that there was something wrong with him for not having something that would get people to pay attention. Within the family he was the golden boy but he felt guilty that there was nothing to overcome. He found his purpose within the family to bring laughter. I remember him telling me he had to learn how to make girls laugh at school because otherwise they did not pay attention to him. His humor was a huge part of his charm, and what made him special and sexy. RF: John grew up as his family’s goofball—though it seemed he had to work hardest to get his famous dad, Tex Ritter, to laugh. How did his childhood family dynamic influence the role he took on in the Three’s Company family? NMR: His father set a high bar to get him to laugh. He would say, “Jonathan, that isn’t funny.” And of course John remembered that more than the innumerable times his father laughed. Before Tex died, he had seen and appreciated that John had talent. And he told him, “You’re good.”

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(ABOVE) Not only was John’s famous father “Filmdom’s Fightingest Cowboy,” but he also starred in his own comic book from Fawcett Publications. Tex Ritter Western #1 (Oct. 1950). Courtesy of Heritage.

I recently heard a long and wonderful interview of Tex Ritter that I found among my memorabilia. [John’s] dad had a great sense of humor, more than I realized. I’d heard most of his recordings, seen him in movies, and long appreciated his talent, charm, and sweetness. I hadn’t heard him interviewed. And I was laughing. He was really smart and funny himself. I can see that in both his Three’s Company family and his real family, that [John] was the goofball. His dad was definitely the boss, so I could imagine that Mickey Ross and Dave Powers might have earned John’s respect on the level of father figures that he could turn to and trust, at least artistically. On the other hand, I don’t think that the girls were like sisters. He didn’t have sisters. I don’t think he would’ve thought of them like sisters unless as stepsisters that you could kind of love and kind of roll your eyes at. [laughs] But definitely not your own blood. Neither one of them were like a member of John’s immediate family. RF: You were at every Three’s Company taping. Describe the energy. NMR: For the audience, it was always totally fun, all the time. Most of the time, the audience was on. They were up and

energetic. Part of that had to do with [executive producer] Bernie West, who did the warm-up for two shows every week. I heard his same jokes literally hundreds of times, and I swear to God I laughed at them to the end. And I was often laughing from a different place. Sometimes I’d be laughing because I couldn’t believe I was hearing it again. Other times I’d be laughing because it just tickled me to hear it eight billion times and for him to be putting it out there again like it was the first time he’d done it. The audience would always clap when Bernie would introduce John’s mother and me. People would crane their necks to look at us. And yet when it came to audience questions, someone would nearly always ask, “Is John Ritter really gay?” I always shook my head at that one. [laughs] But the energy was good, and they would laugh. I think part of what made that true is because the actors were such pros that they would basically tape the show from beginning to end with very few retakes after the first or second season. They would just go through it, and every once in a while they would pick up a little piece of this scene or that scene. You were watching it live somewhat like what you would see on TV. And people enjoyed that. They knocked it out. And they knew their parts and they knew their jobs. And they all wanted the laughter and they got it.

they taped. But he was able to turn off the rest. He was very professional at that. He was always able to be there, whether it was in a Broadway play, whether it was Three’s Company, or whether it was on the set of a film like Sling Blade. He was always ready, always professional, always there. And with Jack Tripper, you’ve got to come with a sense of silliness. And he did. Professional silliness. RF: John was sometimes called “Jack”— and John certainly did his share of tripping for laughs. What was it like being “Mrs. Jack Tripper” when John went into Jack mode on the red carpet, at award shows, etc.? NMR: In all honesty, I was known well enough at that point, somewhat from my television and B-film roles, but mainly because John was so famous at that point, that I was known as his wife. So I never had a question addressed to me as Mrs. Jack Tripper. But, just for the record, tripping for laughs was something he did as John Ritter. And he did that from the day I met him until the very end. Even when he left my home to go back to his other house, he would trip on his way down

RF: And you sensed John always brought the joy with the other actors? NMR: He did. He always was a pro that way. He always showed up ready to play. And it did not mean that every aspect of his life was totally happy every night Nancy co-starred with Ron Howard in 1977’s Grand Theft Auto, which was also directed by Howard and co-written by Ron and his dad, Rance. Poster art by John Solie. © 1977 New World Pictures. Poster courtesy of Heritage.

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my sidewalk to the car—this was years after Three’s Company—to make us laugh as he was leaving, because leaving was always hard. And not just tripping. It was bits of all kinds. He would trip, he would hump trees. Anything to make us laugh. That was just John. That wasn’t all he was, obviously. But that was certainly what he did when he wanted a quick and easy laugh. RF: John and Suzanne [Somers] appeared on posters, T-shirts, mirrors, and other show merchandise, and plenty of magazine covers. And Suzanne merchandised her own image from the outset. How did the marketing and media—or “celebrity”—side of the show affect the dynamic on set? NMR: I think while Suzanne was merchandising and marketing and going for it, I think everybody was happy that she was bringing attention to the show and

they marveled at watching the merry-goround of activity. None of the rest of them, certainly not John, had thought about independently marketing themselves. So I think they thought it was fine. Until later, when Suzanne tried to renegotiate her contract midseason, I think everyone was happy. The eventual negativity began then. RF: Any thoughts on the 1978 Newsweek cover that featured a scantily clad Suzanne with John and Joyce peeking in? John commented about he was sort of taken aback by that shoot, and Joyce has said she felt “used, lied to.” NMR: I remember that the image on the cover of Newsweek had apparently been set up ahead of time to have Suzanne at the top of the picture with Joyce and John as sidekicks. That’s pretty much all I remember. And that kind of stuff I think is more like a mosquito—maybe it was more Publicity still of Nancy Morgan as Lucy Beth and John Ritter as President Chet Roosevelt in director Neal Israel’s 1979 political satire, Americathon. (TOP RIGHT) The comedy’s poster. Americathon © 1979 Lorimar Productions. Photo courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter. Poster courtesy of Heritage.

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than that for Joyce, but I think for John it was at most annoying, and maybe one of the first indications that Suzanne saw herself as different from everyone else. I think perhaps she was. But I don’t think she was the reason for Three’s Company’s success. But she was good for covers of magazines. And she certainly made Chrissy memorable. RF: Suzanne continues to justify her salary requests or demands in 1980 and self-identify as Three’s Company’s “breakout star.” But John was the show’s top-billed star and creative center and was paid accordingly. Why did her contract dispute become such a personal matter for him? NMR: For Suzanne to separate herself out and say she is the reason for the show’s success was something that John would never have done because he never would want to hold himself higher, or make other people feel that they were lesser. He was the one who came in with the years of experience, the credits as a rising comedian, and the salary to prove it. He was, however, above all a team player. I don’t think her contract dispute would’ve remained a personal matter [for John]. Had she had just taken her best shot and accepted the negotiated higher salary that they offered her, she might have changed the outcome. But she and [her husband/manager] Alan [Hamel] started playing hardball and having her not show

retro interview

up for work. This did not turn out well for them. Ultimately, Suzanne was more about business and John was more about family. RF: Suzanne has publicly stated since John’s passing that he made “10 times” what she made. But published reports in 1980–1981 stated she made $30,000 to John’s $50,000 per episode—and was offered a bump to $35,000 weekly. NMR: I think she was inaccurate about the salary differences between her and John. He may have been making ten times as much as she was making the day they signed their contracts, but after a couple of years she and Joyce had negotiated themselves up quite a bit. As had John. But, at the end of the day, what are you gonna do? Honestly, it’s just sad. It’s sad. It didn’t have to be that way. Suzanne could’ve been extremely wealthy had she just stayed in the show and renegotiated each year. I think it was sort of boneheaded, personally, because Suzanne loved the show, loved John, and was having so much fun! That was worth a lot, in my estimation. RF: John was a Beatlemaniac. How did John Lennon’s tragic death in December 1980 change him? NMR: I think it just made him deeply sad and shocked. It made him sad in the same way when John Kennedy was assassinated. John Lennon was one of John’s heroes from the get-go of The Beatles. So the vulnerability that he felt, the sadness for John’s little boy—it was a permanent wound—and he felt it. We both felt as though an immediate family member had died. And John Lennon was one of those towering figures in John’s life. I think it unglued him for a while. He had real trouble recovering. RF: I know there was a lot of heartache around the Suzanne contract drama— NMR: I wouldn’t say heartache [for John]. I would say more like fury. But not heartache. He didn’t have a heart for Suzanne at that point. RF: —So given the emotional rollercoaster of 1980–81, what drove John to deliver some of the best comic performances of his career—alone (Season Six’s outstanding “Up in the

The Ritters dressed to the nines for a gala, c. 1983. Courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter.

Air”) and in unison especially with Joyce DeWitt and Don Knotts— during Company’s final three seasons? NMR: He had a lot of ambition artistically and many comedic heroes. In something like Three’s Company it might have been someone like Jerry Lewis. He would always be striving to ask a little more of himself. I know that in the “Up in the Air” episode, where he did a lot of choreographed dancing, that was all brand new to him. And John worked hard. He rehearsed diligently. His personal desire was for excellence—even in a show that was considered by many people in the era to be fluf f and not important. Still, it was his show and he did the best with Jack Tripper that you could do. Or at least he tried to do the best with Jack Tripper that you could do.

RF: Many people fell in love with the show during those last three seasons, alias “the Priscilla Barnes years.” So much great ensemble work, led by John. NMR: I just love Priscilla. I think she’s fabulous. And I think Priscilla and Joyce had a great time together. They were not altogether happy being on the show back then, which has been well documented. They felt underappreciated by the producers. And I think it felt unfair that John got treated so well and was so well respected. But I’m not sure they held it against John so much as they held it against the producers. But on the show, Priscilla and Joyce together were a delight. They made a great trio. And I think Priscilla is a tremendous actress. She’s truly original, creative, fearless. I’ve seen a lot of her work and RETROFAN

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retro interview The Ritter family Christmas card photo, c. 1989. The children are: (TOP ROW) Jason Ritter; (BOTTOM ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT) Tyler Ritter and Carly Ritter. Courtesy of Nancy Morgan Ritter.

she’s hilarious, quirky, and brilliant at making creative decisions for a character. I just think she’s wonderful. RF: Why didn’t John tell Joyce and Priscilla when he learned well before they did that Three’s Company would end and he would spin off alone in Three’s a Crowd? NMR: In a nutshell, the notification about the decision to cancel the show was not his job. In fact, he had been told not to discuss that with anyone. He was not to make trouble on the set by confiding, “Girls, you’re about to be cut out and I’m about to stay in.” I can understand totally how hurt they eventually must have been. As I understood it at the time, the writers felt their story lines were getting thin, and they wanted to start with something fresh. But I have to wonder if in retrospect they didn’t regret it enormously, because Three’s a Crowd was not great. 18

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RF: Why didn’t Three’s a Crowd, which costarred TV newcomer Mary Cadorette and Soap vet Robert Mandan, work the way Three’s Company did? NMR: Well, Mary Cadorette wasn’t funny. She seemed focused on the wrong thing— and not on the show. Period. I have not gone back and ever watched a Three’s a Crowd episode, so I don’t really have a more compelling answer than that. It just wasn’t good. RF: Though your marriage ended in 1996, you and John remained good friends until his passing. What aspects of him do you continue to hold dearest? NMR: I connect with John through my eyes. And I mean that utterly sincerely. How of ten I am watching our amazing children and the spouses that each of them love and are loved by. And they have all given birth to more little souls. And John would’ve been an adoring

grandfather to those little ones. So there are more than a few times that I bring John into my journey with our children— it’s quite like a spiritual thing, my own personal way, where I just bring him in to what I’m seeing. It’s hard to really describe but I watch our family hoping that from some universe he’s able to see what I’m seeing through my eyes. Other than that, I have 28 years of his notes and letters and cards to me and to all of the kids that I’m still organizing and collecting for everybody. But it’s been a while now since he’s been gone, and the place where I feel I connected to him the most is just through the beauty of our children and grandchildren and what good people they are. I just wish he could be here for this. I’m so proud of all my kids, and I’m so thrilled that they have people in their lives who love them and who they love. It’s the best it could be. And I wish John could’ve been here for it.

RETRO CARTOONS

The

Weird, Wonderful History of

Popeye

Cartoons on Television by Tom Speelman What can be said about Popeye the Sailor at this point? Having turned 90 this past year, the ol’ mononymous sailor is now as indisputable a titan in cartoons as Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse (who Popeye famously became more popular than in the Thirties). King Features Syndicates’ Popeye and Friends official YouTube channel has been running the manic webseries Popeye’s Island Adventures since 2018. And, of course, Popeye-brand spinach is still sold all over the world, and there’s the Wimpy restaurant chain. But there’s one—or, rather, three—parts of Popeye history that tend to get downplayed, if not ignored. From the Sixties to the Eighties, besides the legendary Popeye theatrical cartoons being on TV, there were actually original Popeye cartoons made for TV! And if you grew up in those decades, you probably saw them! Let’s dig into how these came about, who made them and why, and whether they hold up. But first, where can you watch them? Well, that’s easy: As mentioned, King Features Syndicate—who’ve owned Popeye since E. C. Segar launched Thimble Theatre in 1919—maintain an official Popeye and Friends YouTube channel that regularly uploads every episode (complete with ad breaks and PSAs). It’s not surprising, of course, given the whole reason King Features made original Popeye cartoons for TV in the first place wasn’t so much to bring the character to new generations but to get some sweet cartoon money for themselves. How so? Well, the answer stretches back to the dawn of TV itself.

A Full Half-Hour of Cartoons

See, when television began in earnest again in the late Forties and early Fifties (we’re sticking with America here for simplicity’s sake), original programming was in short supply. So broadcast syndicators (like print ones before them) would buy up the broadcasting rights to old movies or shorts and sell them to TV stations for a tidy sum. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, was Associated Artist Productions. Founded in 1954 by film executive Eliot Hyman, the company initially syndicated programs like the original Candid Camera and the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films. But in 1956, they hit a one-two punch of acquisitions. In February of that year, a.a.p. (as the company’s logo was styled) purchased every Warner Bros. film made before 1950 as well as every Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon. Then, five

months later, they acquired from Popeye (the scrawny fella, at Paramount every Popeye cartoon left) and Brutus (no, not Bluto) made by Fleischer Studios and its are chummy in this 1961 cel for successor, Famous Studios, for a a made-for-TV Popeye ’toon… total of 234 cartoons. Per the June but don’t worry, the one-eyed 11, 1956 issue of the industry journal sailor would be squarin’ off Broadcasting * Telecasting, “the cost against the big galoot before of the library is estimated at $1.5 the episode’s end. © King million.” Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of As they’d been in theatres, the Heritage. new-to-TV Paramount Popeyes were a big hit for all the same reasons: the expressive animation, the energetic violence, and the great gags. But King Features didn’t see a dime from it; they’d licensed the character to Paramount, after all, and it was Paramount and a.a.p who reaped the financial windfall. RETROFAN

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retro Cartoons

So a plan was hatched. King Features, through their TV division and in association with Paramount Cartoon Studios (as Famous Studios was now called), would make original Popeye the Sailor cartoons themselves. To produce as many shorts as possible—220 were made from 1960–1963—Paramount Cartoon made some themselves, overseen by legendary Fleischer/Famous animator Seymour Kneitel (who’d been animating Popeye since the beginning), but also farmed them out to Jack Kinney Productions—helmed by the legendary Disney animator and director—Larry Harmon Pictures and director Paul Fennell, and British-Hungarian animation form Halas and Batchelor and famed director Gene Deitch (who at this writing recently passed away at 95). For some shorts, animation was farmed out to the Italian studio Corona Cinematografica. “In many markets,” notes animation historian and former Nickelodeon executive Jerry Beck, “a Popeye cartoon show might be on two competing channels every afternoon. Popeye on TV in the early Sixties was a pop-culture phenomenon!”

To watch these cartoons today, whether on their own or in the half-hour chunks on the Popeye and Friends YouTube channel, is to remember just how limited Sixties TV animation was. While Hanna-Barbera was already top of the heap at this point with The Flintstones and so on, not everybody could pull off the “maximum effect for minimum investment” ethos like them. So it is with Sixties Popeye. While there’s an admirable sense of continuity with the Famous Studios shorts—Popeye still has his fully visible eye and Navy uniform from that era and the main voice cast of Jack Mercer (Popeye, Wimpy), Mae Questel (Olive Oyl), and Jackson Beck (Brutus, many others) came back—the limited animation sinks all the effort. Some directors rise to the challenge, of course; Gene Deitch (no stranger to lowered budgets and time constraints) makes “Seeing Double,” where Popeye fights a robot döppelganger of himself, a goofy exercise in mistaken identity hijinks. But some can’t hack it; Kinney Productions’ Eddie Rehberg, despite some fun gags, can’t enliven “Popeye’s Corn-Certo,” a music competition gagfest, beyond the occasional chuckle.

Samples from King Feature Syndicate’s publicity kit promoting the 1960 Popeye television cartoon. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

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retro Cartoons

Popeye animation cell. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

(ABOVE) The new Popeye cartoon was big business, as promoted in the April 4, 1960 edition of Broadcasting magazine. (LEFT) Two years into its run, TV’s syndicated Popeye was a ratings smash, as this 1962 ad shows. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Tom Speelman.

As Popeye historian and author of Popeye: A Cultural History Fred Grandinetti puts it, “As a child, I can recall watching the episodes with terrible animation. However, I didn’t notice these goofs at age five. It was only as a teenager when I began to discover how poorly some were done as opposed to others. Jack Kinney’s unit had only one week to get a cartoon finished. The quality of the cartoons under Kinney’s direction depended on the experience his animation directors had working with limited animation.” Still, none of the shorts are outright bad and have a certain ramshackle charm. But today, these shorts are better known for perhaps the strangest addition to the Popeye canon: instead of the barrel-chested Bluto, Popeye fights the slovenly Brutus instead. Why did this happen? Well, it comes down to a case of sloppy research.

A Bad Guy By Any Other Name

King Features staff were under the misapprehension that Bluto was created by Paramount/Fleischer back in the day (in reality, Segar had made him for one story in 1932 and he’d leapt to

cartoons the next year), so they created Brutus as a substitute. Per the website The Straight Dope, “The first King cartoons, in fact... had the character referred to only as ‘neighbor.’ Hastily, they issued a press release, claiming they were ‘going back to the original … in the first newspaper comics[,] the villain was Brutus.’ False, as we’ve seen. In any case, it was soon decided that Brutus was actually a whole new character, and his appearance and demeanor were altered.” Made obese and less bearded, Brutus appeared in all these Sixties shorts but has never been seen in animation since (he was brought back to the Popeye comic strip, where in 2008, Hy Eisman formally established him and Bluto as twin brothers). Moving into the Seventies, the next Popeye TV cartoon was a bit more lively and noticeably a lot weirder. Hanna-Barbera themselves took the reins for The All-New Popeye Hour, which aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1976–1981, when it was shortened to a half hour and renamed The Popeye and Olive Comedy Show, running till 1983. Hanna-Barbera were old hands by this point and they knew how to put some spring in the sailor’s step again. The animation was more fluid and better paced and the jokes were funnier. RETROFAN

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Hanna-Barbera brought back Popeye, Bluto, Olive, and pals in The All-New Popeye Hour to Saturday morning television beginning in 1976. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Animation cel courtesy of Tom Speelman.

The voice cast underwent some significant shake-ups, though: while Mercer still played Popeye (and also wrote scripts, as he’d done for the Sixties show), Questel and Beck were replaced by Marilyn Schreffler and Allan Melvin (Sam the Butcher, himself!), respectively. When the show switched formats, new segments were added outside of more traditional Popeye shorts. “Prehistoric Popeye” put Popeye, Olive, and Bluto in the Stone Age to odd results, while the even weirder “Private Olive Oyl” saw Olive and Alice the Goon getting up to Beetle Bailey-esque shenanigans while in the Army. Goofy, yeah, but these and the more traditional Popeye shorts had the spirit of the classic shorts. Although admittedly, they didn’t have the violence. Content restrictions prevalent at the time meant Popeye couldn’t punch Bluto but more often just tossed him aside. You miss the punching but the comedy and zippy pacing make up for its absence, as Grandinetti explains. “Hanna-Barbera made up for the lost violence with high-quality scripts. Certainly this was demonstrated in the ‘Popeye’s Treasure Hunt’ cartoons where Popeye and Olive were hired as treasure-seekers. Bluto still managed to get what was coming to him, despite not getting a fist to his chin. People may complain about the lack of violence but forget The All New Popeye Hour/Popeye and Olive Comedy Show was one of CBS’ highest-rated Saturday morning children’s series for most of its five-year run.” 22

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Sadly, this would be the last time Mercer played Popeye in his 50-plus-year tenure in the role. A year after the show was cancelled, he passed away from stomach cancer. But the Sailor Man sailed on…

Popeye Went and Put a Ring On It

The Eighties and Nineties famously saw the trend of “famouscharacters-as-kids” explode after the massive success of Muppet Babies, with everybody from The Flintstones to Tom and Jerry making shows featuring beloved characters as kids. King Features went about it a little differently. 1987 saw the first attempt at moving Popeye’s story forward in time with Popeye and Son. Set in Sweethaven, the show depicted a world where Popeye (now voiced by Maurice LaMarche) and Olive (Schreffler) had gotten married and had a son, Popeye Jr. (Josh Rodine), who differed from his dad in two ways: he had blond hair somehow and hated spinach. Bluto (Melvin) had become a businessman, married the good-natured Lizzie (Scheffler), and had a son of his own, Tank (David Markus), who bullied Popeye Jr. in the spirit of his dad. While a pretty intriguing set-up, the show is fatally flawed in three ways: 1. Content restrictions again meant no one could punch each other (although there’s an amusing bit in the first episode where Popeye and Bluto verbally square off for an entire day); 2. The animation is competent but doesn’t enliven

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the sluggish pacing of the show; and 3. It’s never not weird to see normal-looking kids, like Junior’s irritating surfer bro/best friend Woody (Nancy Cartwright), alongside Segar’s classic designs. It’s not bad, exactly; just kind of dull. No wonder Junior, Tank, and the rest have never come back in any fashion. “Popeye and Son... had quality scripts and animation,” says Grandietti, “but the concept was wrong. I don’t think fans of the sailor really want to see him married to Olive Oyl or dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. Audiences were also wondering what happened to Swee’pea. To see him replaced by this blond-haired surfer dude who hated spinach was a bit too much to swallow. In 1957 Swee’pea actually grew up in the Thimble Theatre comic strip produced by Toms Sims (writer/Sunday), Ralph Stein (writer/daily), and Bela (Bill) Zaboly (artist). He stood on two feet and wore a sailor’s uniform. That’s what Popeye and Son should have been about: this version of Swee’pea going on adventures with Popeye.” Beck, who at one point consulted on The Popeye Show for Cartoon Network, points out another reason Junior has never returned. “Popeye is so iconic,” he says, “that really no supporting character lasts very long. There were original supporting characters in the old Paramount cartoons that have also fallen by the wayside—his sidekick Shorty; his nephews Poopeye, Pipeye, Peepeye, and Pupeye; his hillbilly love interest Possum Pearl—they all bowed to Popeye, who remains a champion for 90 years strong.”

Outside of 2004’s CG Christmas special Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy, the Sailor Man has only been seen on TV in reruns ever since. And honestly, that’s a bit of a bummer. If the Looney Tunes can make a snappy comeback in 2020, why not their roughand-tumble cousin? Still, revisiting (or, if you’re my age, visiting) these older cartoons is an interesting reminder of how TV animation evolved back in the day and is a fascinating bit of history now. Check them out on YouTube. Who knows? You just might prefer Brutus to Bluto. Arf arf arf!

TOM SPEELMAN is a contributor to Funimation, Polygon, Comic Book Resources, Comics Alliance, and numerous other websites, and also co-hosts the Pokémon podcast, Gotta Recap ‘Em All! with Tyler Gorman. A fan of cartoons and comics since childhood, he’s also worked on over 100 manga and novels for Seven Seas Entertainment and other clients, including adapting Magical Girl SpecOps Asuka by Makoto Fukami and Seigo Tokiya. He lives in Indiana and can be found on Twitter @tomtificate where, more than likely, he’s yelling about comics or cartoons.

All in the family: Popeye’s nephews line up in a safety segment from The All-New Popeye Hour. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Cel courtesy of Tom Speelman.

Blow me down! Popeye got a makeover—and a kid—in 1987 in CBS’ Popeye and Son. Model sheet from that show. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Tom Speelman.

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RETROFAD

CB Radios By the time rocker Sammy Hagar released his 1984 high-octane single “I Can’t Drive 55,” the CB radio craze of the Seventies and early Eighties was pretty much over and out. But the fad itself was rooted in Sammy’s subject: a need for speed. The citizens band (or CB) radio is a limited-range (usually just a few miles), two-way system that links individuals via different shortwave radio bands, a more sophisticated version of the walkie talkies that kids would play with after watching episodes of Combat and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. While the CB radio first emerged in the mid-Forties, it became more common in the Sixties. Then, cell phones were still far in the future and Batman was one of the few drivers you knew with a car phone. So the dashmounted CB radio was the perfect device for your friendly neighborhood electrician or plumber to communicate with the office about his next job. Radio enthusiasts took to the device, with CB clubs forming. The game changer was the oil embargo of 1973, when the U.S. was crippled by gasoline shortages. Conservation was forced upon the populace in the form of gas rationing, where drivers would idle (a stupid gas-wasting measure, when you think about it) in long lines on specially designated days for the privilege of a fill up. There was also a national cap on highways’ speed limits to the Hagar-hated 55 m.p.h. Americans don’t like being told what to do, and in a Boston Tea Party-worthy act of rebellion turned to the CB radio as their channel to avoid a speeding ticket. Truckers most depended upon the CB, signing in with a “Breaker, breaker!” to radio their fellow “good 24

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by Michael Eury

buddies” with their “ears on” about “Smokey” (state patrol) or “black ’n’ white” (police) speed traps ahead, or about wrecks or gasoline availability. A fleet of trucks would occasionally unite in a high-speed “convoy” when they knew the coast was clear. As gas prices escalated, many an average mom and dad added a CB radio to the family’s fauxwood-paneled station wagon, learning the lingo of the road to make them privy to those same highway secrets shared by commercial haulers. CB radio users would identify themselves with a usually playful “handle,” a precursor to a user name in social media chat rooms. Handles like “Red Baron,” “Treefrog,” “Sugar Bear,” “Smilin’ Jack,” “Large Marge,” “Night Crawler,” and “Hot Pants” abounded… and if I’m not mistaken, some of those names were later recycled as X-Men characters. (If I had a CB radio back then, my handle would’ve been “Slick Mick.” Not that you asked.) These roadway dialogues might seem primitive in today’s world of virtual meetings and parties, but the CB radio was one of the first electronic devices that allowed people a chance to zoom (literally). By the mid-Seventies, the entire nation was going CB crazy. Perhaps it was a cultural backlash to television’s purging of long-running rural sitcoms like Green Acres and Mayberry R.F.D. (formerly The Andy Griffith Show) to make room for urban-based comedies like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and All in the Family, but a redneck revolution took place. Scruffy truckers in barreling semis and sexy scoundrels in souped-up hot rods became Hollywood action heroes, brandishing the CB as a sword to strike down not the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham but instead the hapless roadside cop, who became stereotyped as a tobacco-chawing, bloated-belly dimwit (character actor

Images © their respective copyright holders. CB base station photo by Junglecat.

Clifton James made a career out of these roles—even in James Bond and Superman movies!). Television gave us Movin’ On (just two truckers), The Dukes of Hazzard (just two good ol’ boys), and B. J. and the Bear (just a trucker and a chimp). And let’s not forget The CB Bears (no, not that kind of bear, big guy!), a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon about a trio of bruin detectives being dispatched by their offcamera boss via citizens band radio (cribbing from both Charlie’s Angels and the CB fad). Toy stores offered batteryoperated play versions of CB radios based upon both Movin’ On and Dukes of Hazzard. Newsstands and bookstores saw CB

magazines and how-to manuals crowd their shelves. MAD magazine spoofed the trend, as did Benny Hill and other television comedies. Country-Western crooners found CBchatting truckers great fodder for hits. Climbing the charts in the midSeventies were “Teddy Bear” by Red Sovine, “The White Knight” (a novelty tune) by Cledus Maggard & the Citizen’s Band (actually Jay Huguely), and the anthem for the whole craze, “Convoy” by C. W. McCall. A convoy of CBinspired movies slammed into theaters in beginning in 1977. Director Jonathan Demme’s Citizens Band was a quirky comedy about small-town lives that became entwined via CB hookups. You could watch Chuck Norris put his pedal to the metal in Breaker! Breaker!, whose

title was also billed “The battle cry of The Great Truckers War.” Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw teamed for Convoy, and according to its hype, “Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in their way!” Even the X-rated movie biz got CB fever, with executive producer Roy Stud’s Breaker Beauties, which promised “a big 10-4 for sure” (sadly, I’m not making that up). But no CB-inspired movie could outpace Smokey and the Bandit, which anointed star Burt Reynolds as the king of the road, CB-ing with his trucker good buddy Jerry Reed. Smokey and the Bandit spawned a franchise and gave Sally Field something to do while she was waiting for Norma Rae. It also carjacked the career of Jackie Gleason away from Honeymooners reruns and numbers with the June Taylor Dancers and into hot pursuits and car crashes as Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Sheriff Justice’s most famous line could also serve as a metaphor for the entire CB radio/fast-driving craze: “What we have here is a total lack of respect for the law.” You would think that the President of the United States might step in to slow down the nation during this time of rubber-burnin’ anarchy. Think again. Instead, First Lady Betty Ford picked up a CB radio and took the handle “First Mama.” Then the redneck revolution continued as we elected a Georgia peanut farmer to the White House, whose sibling became the first-ever First Brother after whom a brand of cheap beer was named. Eventually, we all came to our senses. Well, not really. They just jacked up the highway speed limits and put smartphone caddies on our dashes. And gave us the Fast & Furious franchise, which has nine films and counting as I write this. So here’s to the CB radio, the RetroFad that refused to pull the hammer back.

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MONSTER MASH

The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972 Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (SHOCK THEATRE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, and DARK SHADOWS), “MARS ATTACKS” trading cards, EERIE PUBLICATIONS, PLANET OF THE APES, and more! It features interviews with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN (Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters), JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of “The Dark Age”). (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-064-9 • Diamond Order Code: MAR151564

GROOVY

When Flower Power Bloomed In Pop Culture

GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN and THE BRADY BUNCH. By MARK VOGER. (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9 Digital Edition: $13.99 • Diamond Order Code: JUL172227

LOU SCHEIMER CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION

Final copies, with bookplate autographed by Lou Scheimer & Andy Mangels! Hailed as one of the fathers of Saturday morning television, LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which for over 25 years provided animated excitement for TV and film. Always at the forefront, Scheimer’s company created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmy-winning STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, ZORRO, HE-MAN, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, live-action shows SHAZAM!, THE SECRETS OF ISIS, JASON OF STAR COMMAND and others. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to best-selling author (and RETROFAN columnist) ANDY MANGELS, including how his father decked ADOLF HITLER, memories of the comics of the Golden Age, schooling with ANDY WARHOL, and what it meant to lead the last all-American animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with PHOTOS, MODEL SHEETS, STORYBOARDS, PRESENTATION ART, looks at RARE AND UNPRODUCED SERIES, and more—plus stories from TOP ANIMATION INSIDERS about Scheimer and the story behind Filmation’s stories! STANDARD EDITION IS SOLD OUT! THESE FINAL COPIES CONTAIN A BOOKPLATE AUTOGRAPHED BY LOU SCHEIMER & RETROFAN'S ANDY MANGELS! (288-page trade paperback, AUTOGRAPHED BY LOU SCHEIMER & ANDY MANGELS) $49.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

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RETRO ANIMATION

Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass’

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV Special

On December 6th, 1964, Arthur Rankin, Jr. (1924–2014) and Jules Bass (b. 1935) launched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the longest-running, highest-rated television special of all time, on NBC-TV during The General Electric Fantasy Hour. In 2001, I wrote a book entitled The Making of the Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with participation from Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass, and the entire Rankin/Bass staff. Since that time I have learned more and gathered lots more in the way of materials. I will present some of this information here in RetroFan magazine and set straight much of the misinformation that has been circulating in recent years both on the internet and some very substandard Bluray and DVD releases.

The Voice Actors

In my book I covered Bill Giles, who was the engineer at the RCA Victor Studios in Canada on all of the Rudolph voice-actor sessions. Now retired, Bill today splits his time between Canada and spending winters in Florida. Bill and I have had some long recent conversations and I learned some things that I find very interesting. First of all, I learned that Bill worked at RCA in the States during his career with some of my favorite recording artists such as Elvis Presley, Perry Como, and even The Beatles, for whom he prepared their music for U.S. releases. One of his best stories had to do with Janis Orenstein, the voice

by Rick Goldschmidt

of Rudolph’s Clarice, who later became an operatic singer in Europe. “She came into the studio with her mother after school,” Giles said. “I believe it was just me and Bernard Cowan there. We gave her the song ‘There’s Always Tomorrow,’ and she absolutely nailed it on the first take! We recorded a second take, but we ended up using the first take in the TV special. I worked with many singers, and this was a rare occurrence for sure!” Larry Roemer was given credit as the director on Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the RedNosed Reindeer, but he did not direct the special. Arthur gave him that honorary credit because Roemer got the special on the air at NBC. My book, The Arthur Rankin, Jr. Scrapbook: The Birth of Animagic, covers this and includes a picture of Roemer. It took me years to locate a photo of him, because after leaving Rankin/Bass Productions, he went to Magno Productions, the facility that was run by Ralph Friedman, who was given credit for sound on Rudolph. All of the Rankin/Bass films were housed at Magno for many years. The late Antony Peters, who was the designer of the Rudolph TV’s holliest, jolliest hero and his red-nosed guide, from Rankin/Bass’ beloved 1964 special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/ Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

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retro Animation Arthur Rankin, Jr. (CENTER) reviews the Rudolph script as he directs the voice actor cast in Canada. The recording/vocal supervisor, Bernard Cowan, is in the foreground. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

TV special, explained to me, “Roemer’s relationship really soured with Arthur and Jules. His picture on the wall was turned around and they didn’t speak of him. I ran into Larry in New York years later and he didn’t say much.” Engineer Bill Giles has an interesting story on Roemer and his participation in the sessions. “Roemer wasn’t at the RCA recording sessions in Canada,” according to Giles. “Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass, and Bernard Cowan were, as pictured in the photos in your books. Bernard Cowan rounded up this great group of actors and actresses and was given credit as vocal supervisor, but it was Arthur Rankin who called the shots and made some very smart decisions. Jules sort of stayed in the background and didn’t say

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WHO’S WHO IN RUDOLPH

1. Janis Orenstein (Clarice). 2. Stan Francis (Santa Claus, King Moonracer). 3. Corinne Conley (Doll). 4. Alfie Scopp (Charlie-in-the-Box). 5. Peg Dixon (Mrs. Claus, Mrs. Donner). 6. Paul Kligman (Donner, Clarice’s father, Comet the Coach). 7. Larry Mann (Yukon Cornelius). 8. Carl Banas (Head Elf, Spotted Elephant). 9. Billie Mae (Billy) Richards (Rudolph). 10. Bernard Cowan (recording supervisor). 11. Paul Soles (Hermey). © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

1964 publicity photo of the Rudolph voice cast, at Toronto’s RCA Victor Studios. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Bernard Cowan, Arthur Rankin, Jr., Paul Kligman, Paul Soles, Corinne Conley, Alfie Scopp, Larry D. Mann, Billie Mae Richards. See sidebar for additional actors and their roles. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. 28

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much at all. Arthur was in control, and everything sounded great and we had some wonderful takes. “At this time, Larry D. Mann was the voice of Sam the Snowman in addition to Yukon Cornelius,” Giles continued. “I didn’t record Burl Ives [the actual voice of Sam the Snowman] and was surprised to hear him in the final cut. After the sessions, I actually drove Arthur and Jules to the airport and as I dropped them off, Arthur handed me an envelope with several thousand dollars in it, which I really appreciated. I later used the money to buy a boat. A short time had passed, and I get a call from Arthur

to come to New York for some problems with the soundtrack. I hopped on a train and arrived at the offices of Videocraft International [later Rankin/Bass Productions] in New York, and there was a very hot Larry Roemer, Arthur Rankin, Jr., and Jules Bass. Roemer was screaming that everything was wrong and things needed to be redone. He was making many irrational comments and arguing with Arthur and Jules. At some point they

Elf Hermey and our favorite red-nosed Reindeer. Hermey was voiced by Paul Soles, one of Rudolph’s few surviving cast members. Soles has continued to act and voice-act in recent years. RetroFans also remember him as the voice of Marvel’s Web-Slinger in (INSET) GrantRay Lawrence’s Spider-Man cartoon. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel.

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all went to lunch and when they returned, Arthur and Jules were without Larry Roemer. Arthur said, ‘Everything is great,’ and we didn’t re-record anything.”

The Magic of Rudolph

It was always obvious to Arthur that they had captured magic in a bottle, and 56 years later, fans are still watching the special both on CBS and Freeform TV. I have done many Rudolph panels at conventions like Dragon Con, the MidAtlantic Nostalgia Convention, McHenry County Historical Society, Chicago Pop Culture Con, etc., and people always ask, “Why has the special lasted this long?” While the answer is somewhat complex and I wrote a whole book about the special, at the core of the longevity is the writing of Romeo Muller, Jr. When Arthur persuaded his New York neighbor Johnny Marks, the writer of the song Arthur Rankin, Jr., Masaki Iizuka, and Jules Bass. Iizuka, who passed away in February 2020, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and Mark’s brother-in-law Robert L. May, who was the producer in Japan that worked with Rankin through the end of his career at PAC (Pacific Animation Co.). © 1997 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. (INSET) The early days wrote the short Rudolph storybook and created Rudolph, the only two characters of the Rankin/Bass partnership, in a clipping from Rick Goldschmidt’s Arthur Rankin, Jr. Scrapbook. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. they had were Rudolph and Santa Claus. Romeo Muller had just written the teleplay for Rankin/Bass’ first TV special, Return to Oz, and Arthur the estates of the two creators not seeing royalties for any of the and Jules loved what he did. They asked him to write the script merchandise and other use of their characters in modern times? for Rudolph, and he and designer Antony Peters created all of the More on that later. other characters that we know and love from the TV special: Sam “Romeo was a real Santa Claus,” said Romeo’s brother the Snowman, King Moonracer, Hermey the Dentist, the Island Gene, now deceased. “He was such a creative guy and on a few of Misfit Toys, Clarice, Fireball, Yukon Cornelius, etc. Why aren’t occasions, he [dictated] the scripts over the phone to Arthur Rankin, as was the case with The Little Drummer Boy. He was the heart and soul of Rankin/Bass and is dearly missed.” An early draft of his script appears in my book The Making of Rankin/Bass’ Holiday Classic: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When I wrote it in 2001, I was the same age that Robert L. May was when he wrote his original Rudolph book. We both lived in Illinois, too, he in Evanston and I in Oak Lawn. As the Rankin/Bass historian and biographer and by studying Rudolph for well over 30 years with six books under my belt, I have grown to appreciate the quality of Muller’s writing. Heart and warmth immediately come to mind, and it was very special. There is nothing like this in today’s entertainment. I can see why Rankin/Bass hired Romeo and used him for years on all of their best stuff. His Hobbit [animated film, 1977] won a Peabody and a Christopher Award.

Rankin/Bass’ Characters and Merchandise

Gene Muller told me, “Romeo was a member of the Writers Guild, and the Rankin/Bass were very simple contracts that made no mention of merchandise because there was none produced [at the time]. This was also long before DVDs, Blu-rays, streaming, Arthur Rankin, Jr. in the animation studios in Japan. © 1997 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. (INSET) Rudolph screenwriter Romeo Muller, Jr. 30

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etc. My brother did not sign his life away or the use of his characters.” In 1997, my first Rankin/Bass book came out, The Enchanted World of Rankin/ Bass: A Portfolio (in its newest edition it’s now 412 pages). To this point, no Rudolph merchandise was originally produced except for a Decca Soundtrack LP that was released in 1965 and ties into a promotion and ad campaign with the General Electric Houseware Products. In 1997, I got a call from a company named Stuffins, which was producing a beanbag series of Rudolph characters for the CVS Pharmacy drug store chain. [Stuffins’ rep] wanted my input and sent me advance sets of the dolls. He told me he got the idea to merchandise Rudolph toys after reading my book on a flight to Japan for a toy fair. This is where the Rankin/Bass merchandising began, and Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Mad Monster Party, and The Little Drummer Boy merchandise lines followed.

Enesco Corp., in Itasca, Illinois, saw me on WGN Morning News and called me up at a book signing in 1999 and asked me to come into their showroom to see their Rudolph line, and for the next several years I helped them design some of their figurines and spoke to their personnel. Just as this merchandising began, Arthur Rankin, Jr. told Golden Books, who owned the Rankin/Bass specials in 2001, “You are allowing the wrong parties to merchandise Rudolph, and the real creators of most of the characters are not seeing any of the money.” The Rankin/ Bass Universe was created primarily by writer Romeo Muller and designer Antony Peters, and post-1968, by Muller and Paul Coker, Jr. Comparitively, the Marvel

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retro Animation

Universe was primarily created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and both were eventually rewarded with huge sums of money. I believe this will be true too with the Muller and Peters estates. I was friends with composer Earle Hagen, who wrote the theme songs to The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and others. At this writing, a story just broke that his estate is suing Viacom. The contract he signed in the Seventies did not include all of the uses of his music going on today, including streaming. Similarly, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been turned into a musical, puppet show, and more, and they are using Muller’s script and Peters’ designs and not even crediting them. The characters they created are also appearing in theme parks like SeaWorld, Dollywood, etc., and Romeo and Antony are not receiving any compensation at all. Hopefully that will all change. Paul Coker, Jr. says, “It was very easy for me to design the characters from the wonderful writing of Romeo. They were so well written and there was a magical quality to them.” In the case of the late designer Antony Peters, he and I became very good friends, as I have with Paul Coker. Peters started with Videocraft International in the mid-Fifties. He worked on tons of commercials and came up with the early lettering style that was eventually used in Rudolph. He wrote and designed much of the series The New Adventures of Pinocchio and The Tales of the Wizard of Oz. He even went to Canada on behalf of Arthur Rankin, Jr. to oversee the production of Oz at Crawley Studios, after the earliest episodes were produced in New York. Antony also came up with Rick Goldschmidt works with Arthur Rankin, Jr. on his Scrapbook. © 2012 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

(BELOW) Goldscmidt’s late business partner and co-author Wes Garlatz, who died April 2, 2020. This article is dedicated to his memory.

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the concept of the Rankin/Bass feature film Willy McBean and His Magic Machine (1965) and designed its characters. His last Rankin/ Bass project was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and he was called back as a freelancer after he left the company. Eventually he would work for Grantray-Lawrence on the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes cartoons, and he also created Rocket Robin Hood for them. Because he started at such a young age with Rankin/Bass, he always felt underappreciated. “Arthur thought of me as the kid in the back room,” Peters admitted to me. “My wife Adrian was also friends with Arthur and Jules and would often play cards with them. I was always thankful for my start with them, but I wanted to branch out and do other things. Arthur’s residence doubled as the studios in the early days, and it really took years for them to become a big success. That success came after I left and Rudolph aired. I was glad to be a part of that one and design all of the characters and look of that special.”

Rudolph’s Animagic

Now that I have written about the actual creators of the show, I should discuss the wizards behind the stop motion called Animagic, which was created at the MOM Studios in Japan. The man in charge of the stop-motion animation was Tadahito “Tad” Mochinaga. My friend Masaki Iizuka, an associate producer of the later Rankin/Bass films, recently passed away. He stayed in touch with the surviving Rudolph animators and explained to me at Arthur Rankin’s memorial in Bermuda in 2014, “All of the animators looked up to Tad and saw the work he did on Rudolph as

A Portfolio is that even though Ralph Friedman (owner of the Magno Sound Facilities, which Rudolph used in New York) and Allan Mirchin were given full credit for the sound work in the Rudolph TV special, Peter W. Page did most of the actual work. Peter also went on to do the sound in the Rankin/Bass feature films including The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party.

The Legacy of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

the high-water mark of the entire Rankin/Bass catalog. They felt inferior to the work Tad did on that.” Hiroshi Tabata was sort of Tad’s apprentice, and can be seen working on Charlie-in-the-Box in my Rudolph book. He shared similar feelings. “Tad was the master! I did my best to achieve the same effects, but Rudolph we felt could not be surpassed.” Tad Mochinaga was seen as the father of stop motion in Japan. Arthur Rankin spent a lot of time in Japan working with Tad. It is not well known, but Jules Bass never visited Japan. Arthur loved the culture and loved overseeing the work there. A few years ago, there was a Tad Mochinaga exhibit in Japan. My last two books feature photos and information from the exhibit. The exhibit featured several Rankin/Bass Animagic figures including a Santa Claus, reindeer, and Mrs. Claus from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; all of the heads from Willy McBean and His Magic Machine; early Mad Monster Party storyboards and designs, when it was known as Mad Monster Rally; and several photographs from the Rudolph sets, where you could see the edge of the sets and Arthur on the scene. Most of production work on the Animagic figures stayed in Japan. Tad hung on to things like IT (King Kong) from Mad Monster Party, who starred in his own Japanese TV Show. The animators and puppet makers kept some of the things they worked on. Masaki brought some to Bermuda for Arthur’s Galaxy at Masterworks museum, which I helped open in 2014. Many articles in the U.S. have wrong information in them stemming from when we restored one of the Rudolphs and Santa Claus in 2005 and then did appearances with them. There are more than one Santa and Rudolph. The press liked the fact that Barbara Adams, the Rankin/Bass secretary in the Seventies, took the Rudolph cast home from the NBC building display and out of that bunch, only Rudolph and Santa survived, but there are others and I appear with them around the country. You can see photos of all of the surviving puppets in all of my books. Most of the puppets were made by Kyota Kita and Pinchan, and I love them all as works of art, too, so I like to document every time we locate one. Something else I learned years later and covered in my 20th anniversary edition of The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass:

As the Rankin/Bass historian, I am often asked which are the best DVD and Blu-ray releases of their specials, in particular, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. (The answer might surprise you—as technology gets better, releases seem to get worse.) Hands down, it is the 2001 Golden Books release of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with Rankin/Bass and CBS on the cover. That DVD had an Arthur Rankin introduction, complete with behindthe-scenes photos provided by me, and it also includes a 1964 NBC around 1998 promo and the Fame and Fortune segment. I helped restore all of the missing scenes and Arthur did the introduction as a favor to me as he looked at my book at the opening. There have been so many bad releases since that time. In 2018 I got a call to work on the Universal Blu-rays and was told they were finally going to do them right. I started calling all of the remaining people who worked on the specials to do interviews. A friend of mine owns the original 1964 Rudolph end credits in color. I was excited that they would do these right. Then all the wrong people got involved, many whom knew nothing more than what they read in my books about the specials, and those releases rank as the worst to date. In fact, many of the specials were issued in syndicated, edited versions and fade to black in the middle of scenes. None were restored properly, and the extra content is the worst. The only Rankin/Bass Blu-rays I am happy with are The Year Without a Santa Claus and Mad Monster Party. Despite poor DVD and Blu-ray issues and a badly edited version airing on CBS TV every year, Rudolph’s nose will shine bright for many years to come! Romeo Muller laid a foundation that has stood the test of time, and orchestrator Maury Laws helped the Johnny Marks songs stand out in a fun and bouncy way! Producer Arthur Rankin, Jr. had an unrealized quest to make a live-action feature filmed on the epic level of Gone With the Wind, but said, “If Rudolph is what we are remembered for, I am happy with that!” Miser Bros. Press co-founder RICK GOLDSCMIDT is the historian/biographer for Rankin/Bass Productions and the author of several books on the revered holiday television specials produced by the company. www.miserbros.com and www. enchantedworldofrankinbass.blogspot.com RETROFAN

January 2021

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNINGS

SATURDAY MORNING by Andy Mangels

The 1965 Christmas card from Hanna-Barbera Productions featured almost every character they were animating for television, except the primetime Jonny Quest and The Jetsons. Shows represented included The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show, The Atom Ant/ Secret Squirrel Show, The Magilla Gorilla Show, Top Cat, The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, and The Huckleberry Hound Show. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. Since 1989, I have been writing columns for magazines in the U.S. and foreign countries, all examining the intersection of comic books and Hollywood, whether animation or live-action. Andy Mangels Backstage, Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ Hollywood Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind the Camera… three decades of reporting on animation and live-action—in addition to writing many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and I’m still enthusiastic. In this RetroFan column, I will examine shows that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross34

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legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday Morning! Saturday morning television was appointment viewing for anyone growing up from the Sixties to the Nineties. From 8am to noon, while their parents slept in from the workweek, kids could sit in front of the television and enjoy a time just for them. Cartoons—and later, live-action series—were produced by studios like Filmation Associates, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Total Television, Jay Ward Productions, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Sid and Marty Krofft, D’Angelo Productions, Marvel

HOLIDAY CARDS (RIGHT) With 1971, Hanna-Barbera began a recurring theme for their Christmas cards and ads: all of their characters interacted with a Christmas tree. Here, stars of Cattanooga Cats; Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!; Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines; The Banana Splits Adventure Hour; and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop cavorted with Yogi Bear and the Flintstones. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The 1972 Hanna-Barbera Christmas/New Year’s card featured cast members of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, The Banana Splits, The Flintstone Comedy Hour, the short-lived The Roman Holidays, and Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. According to Heritage Auctions, from which this card image came, the art is by Hanna-Barbera animator Alex Ignatiev. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

Productions, Sunbow Productions, Ruby-Spears, DIC, Film Roman, and others. Mirroring Saturday mornings for primetime were Rankin-Bass, who became famous for their stop-motion holiday-themed specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, covered elsewhere in this issue. Unlike most television studios and networks, the professional world of Saturday mornings was relatively close-knit. Animators, writers, voice actors, and other crew would migrate from show to show, one season working on a comedy, the next season a superhero series. Sometimes they would work for multiple companies, though that was largely frowned upon.

But the producers of content for Saturday mornings were more of a “family” than those who worked on primetime content. In December, many of the studios would produce Christmas and/or non-denominational holiday cards, calendars, or advertisements, often featuring a wide range of projects and characters from their output. For this edition of Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, I’m sharing a look at some of those studios’ holiday wishes… with a wish that you have a great year to come, and that the cancelled year of 2020 will not be repeated in our future! RETROFAN

January 2021

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings

Space Ghost, Dynomutt, and Captain Caveman finally make a Hanna-Barbera Holiday greeting, in this 1981 ad. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

(TOP RIGHT) Filmation Associates’ internal Holiday card for 1968 was a celebration of the success of The Archie Show and the gold record “Sugar Sugar,” with caricatures of company founders (LEFT TO RIGHT) Hal Sutherland, Lou Scheimer, and Norm Prescott, drawn by animator Eddie Friedman. © Filmation. (RIGHT) Filmation’s public ad in trade papers of 1968 spotlit their lineup with Fantastic Voyage, The Batman/Superman Hour, and The Archie Show characters all mingling. © Filmation. Batman and Superman TM & © DC Comics. Archie TM & © Archie Comic Publications.

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings

Filmation’s ad on December 19, 1973 in trade papers showcased their “greatest year” and projects. Another version, printed in all red ink, was sent out as a card and poster to their mailing list. © Filmation.

Filmation’s 1986 Holiday card spotlit the characters of Bravestarr, the first Native-American hero to headline an animated TV series. Inside, the message was inclusive of 13 different languages. © Filmation.

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings

“Crossover” was the name of the game in this 1971 Holiday card and poster from Filmation, printed in brown on a cream paper. Sharing the celebration were the cast of Archie’s TV Funnies— with its newspaper strip characters from The Captain and the Kids, Nancy, Broom Hilda, Dick Tracy, The Dropouts, Emmy Lou, and Moon Mullins—plus Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Groovie Goolies. Captain and the Kids © King Features Syndicate. Broom Hilda, Dick Tracy, Moon Mullins © Tribune Content Agency. Nancy, Dropouts, Emmy Lou © United Feature Syndicate. Sabrina © Archie Comics Publications. Groovie Goolies © Filmation.

This whimsical Holiday card showcased Wolfie, Frankie, and Drac from the hit Groovie Goolies, using the Filmation producers as marionettes… thus functioning as a Halloween card as well! © Filmation. 38

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings

(TOP) This early Holiday card (c. 1969–1970) from Sid and Marty Krofft showcases a behind-thescenes staged moment with (LEFT TO RIGHT) Sid Krofft, teen actor Jack Wild, and Marty Krofft, on the set of H. R. Pufnstuf. © Sid & Marty Krofft Productions. (BELOW) The 1976 Holiday card from the Kroffts was really more a “hire us for anything” message, but it featured characters from H. R. Pufnstuf (1969–1972), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973–1975), Land of the Lost (1974–1976), and others. © Sid & Marty Krofft Productions. (TOP RIGHT) The latest Holiday e-card from the World of Sid and Marty Krofft showcases characters from nearly every television show that the pair produced in the Seventies. It was sent out to friends and fans in 2011. © Sid & Marty Krofft Productions.

In 1981, Ruby-Spears Productions used this image for their Holiday greetings. It included stars from their series The Plastic Man/Baby Plas Super Comedy, Mighty Man and Yukk, Fangface and Fangpuss, Rickety Rocket, Thundarr the Barbarian, Heathcliff, and Marmaduke. © Ruby-Spears Productions, except Plastic Man TM & © DC Comics, Heathcliff © Creators Syndicate, and Marmaduke © United Feature Syndicate.

Next issue: We’ll take a super-heroic look at the adventures of Hanna-Barbera’s Dynomutt, Dog Wonder and the Blue Falcon! Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels, unless otherwise credited. ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He recently

wrote the Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King and a series of graphic novels for Junior High audiences, Fractured Fairy Tales from Abdo Books. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www. WonderWomanMuseum.com RETROFAN

January 2021

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

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KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID

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THE MLJ COMPANION

Documents the complete history of ARCHIE COMICS’ super-heroes known as the “Mighty Crusaders”, with in-depth examinations of each era of the characters’ history: The GOLDEN AGE (beginning with the Shield, the first patriotic super-hero), the SILVER AGE (spotlighting the campy Mighty Comics issues, and The Fly and Jaguar), the BRONZE AGE (the Red Circle line, and the !mpact imprint published by DC Comics), up to the MODERN AGE, with its Dark Circle imprint! (288-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION

In 1978, DC Comics implemented its “DC Explosion” with many creative new titles, but just weeks after its launch, they pulled the plug, leaving stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished. This book marks the 40th Anniversary of “The DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics, with an exhaustive oral history from the creators involved (JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others), plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics forever!

ER EISN RD AWAINEE! NOM

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IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB (the UK’s preeminent horror comics history magazine): Atomic comics lost to the Cold War, censored British horror comics, the early art of RICHARD CORBEN, Good Girls of a bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH, BRUCE JONES’ ALIEN WORLDS, HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL, and more!

EXPANDED SECOND EDITION—16 EXTRA PAGES! Looks back at the creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s complicated relationship! Includes recollections from STEVE DITKO, ROY THOMAS, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and other Marvel Bullpenners! (176-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99

HERO-A-GO-GO!

MICHAEL EURY looks at comics’ CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV’s Batman shook a mean cape!

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ER EISN RD AWAINEE! NOM

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time, in cooperation with DC Comics! Two unused 1970s DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE and SOUL LOVE magazines! (176-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

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THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

Celebrate our 25th anniversary with this retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW and Comic Book Creator magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors! Introduction by MARK EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS, Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new cover by TOM McWEENEY! (224-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $37.95 (240-page ULTRA-LIMITED HARDCOVER) $75 (Digital Edition) $15.99

8 Volumes Covering The 1940s-1990s

MAC RABOY

Master of the Comics

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MAC RABOY perfected his art style on such 1940s comic book creations as DR. VOODOO, BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR., before moving on to illustrate the FLASH GORDON Sunday newspaper strip. Author ROGER HILL documents the life and career of the master artist in a full-color hardcover with never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics! (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

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ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

What is the Greatest Christmas Movie (with Martians)

of All Time?*(*You get only one guess...) by Ernest Farino

Regular readers of RetroFan will know that My Favorite Year (to pinch the title of a great movie) was 1964. Kellogg’s came out with Pop-Tarts. The “British Invasion” had us Meet the Beatles; Ford introduced the brand-new, revolutionary, moderately priced sports car the Mustang (also featured for the first time on screen in the James Bond film Goldfinger that same year); and New York was the site of the spectacular 1964 World’s Fair. The slogan of the 1964 World’s Fair was “Peace Through Understanding”—as relevant today as it was then. I patiently built my Aurora monster models and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth hot-rod show-car models and studied every issue of Famous Monsters magazine with laser-like intensity (who needs fractions homework when you can have Frankenstein, for cryin’ out loud...?). In addition to must-see-TV favorites The Munsters, The Outer Limits, Bewitched, and The Twilight Zone, Sunday nights (the last gasp before—blecch—school the next day) enthralled us with Wagon Train, My Favorite Martian, My Living Doll (Julie Newmar!), Candid Camera, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, and Bonanza. And no shoebox multiplex theaters for us, thank you very much. What was playing in those grand movie palaces of yore? Fuggedaboutit—on the big 60-foot screen we had no less than Seven Days in May, Becket, The Fall of the Roman Empire, From Russia With Love, A Shot in the Dark, Mary Poppins, A Hard Day’s Night, Topkapi, and My Fair Lady. Okay, some of those were “above my pay grade” as a 12-year-old, and no self-respecting kid would be caught dead singing along with Eliza Doolittle, but you get the idea. In those films and others in 1964 we caught our first glimpse of future stars: Jenny Agutter, Ellen Burstyn, David Carradine, Dom DeLuise, Judi Dench, Olympia Dukakis, Morgan Freeman, Elliott Gould, James Earl Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Roy Scheider, and Raquel Welch.

Yet for all of that—an embarrassment of riches, a veritable cornucopia of culture, pop and otherwise—1964 stands alone for inflicting upon an unsuspecting public deluded into complacency by the otherwise high-octane menu of entertainment and diversion, a film that single-handedly possessed the power to turn anyone’s unsuspecting brain into watery oatmeal. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

TV News Announcer: “Here’s another UFO Bulletin: The Defense Department has just announced that the unidentified flying object suddenly disappeared from our radar screen. They believe the object has either disintegrated in space, or it may be a spaceship from another planet which has the ability to nullify all radar beams.” RETROFAN

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

In 1897, when Francis Pharcellus Church, an editor of New York’s The Sun newspaper, replied to eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question by writing, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” he almost certainly did not have this in mind… RetroFan editor Michael Eury’s assignment to write about this movie here hit me so hard that a Batman-like description of the POW! BIFF! BANG! impact popped up in mid-air in a word balloon. So, okay, I’m going to have fun with it. Because—will wonders never cease—a lot of people actually like this movie. But even fortified by a sufficient number of vodka martinis, some films still leave you shaken, not stirred. When my own instinctive go-to films range from Double Indemnity to Casablanca to 2001: A Space Odyssey, I can only take solace in the fact that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is included in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved, Michael Medved, and Randy Lowell (Popular Library, 1978). And it’s in good company: From the decade of the Sixties alone it proudly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with an unprecedented gaggle of gag-inducing bottom-feeders that include The Beast of Yucca Flats, Eegah, The Creeping Terror, The Horror of Party Beach, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, Monster a Go-Go!, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and They Saved Hitler’s Brain. (Okay, take a breath, splash some cold water on your face, and take a walk. Just reading that list of film titles is enough to trigger a mini-stroke.) Santa Claus…? Martians…? But how could—? All right, you asked. So here we go. “srm12@ksu.edu” has gone above and beyond the call of duty for us on the IMDb by watching the film and providing the following synopsis (I have it on good authority that he’s been successfully revived by electroshock therapy). “Martians, upset that their children have become obsessed with TV shows from Earth which extol the virtues of Santa Claus, start an expedition to Earth to kidnap the one and only Santa. While on Earth, they kidnap two lively children that lead the group of Martians to the North Pole and Santa. The Martians then take Santa and the two children back to Mars with them. Voldar, a particularly grumpy

Martian, attempts to do away with the children and Santa before they get to Mars, but their leader, Lomas, stops him. When they arrive on Mars, Santa, with the help of the two Earth children and a rather

simple-minded Martian lackey, overcomes the Martians by bringing fun, happiness and Christmas cheer to the children of Mars.” Not since Citizen Kane has a film… (just kidding). In 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention (www. midatlanticnostalgiaconvention.com) screened an archival 35mm print of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Yes, “archived.” No doubt right alongside a first edition hand-illustrated Gutenberg Bible and fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Convention organizer Martin Grams wrote an excellent production history of the film for his program booklet. He has kindly given RetroFan permission to quote from that essay: “In July, 1964, news first broke that Jalor Productions was about to film a low-budget science-fiction film titled—we kid you not—Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Despite warnings from producers and others along New York’s film row that ‘it couldn’t be done,’ Paul L. Jacobson (president of Jalor) pulled off a minor miracle by completing a ten-day lensing schedule, requiring 14 sets and 100% union crews under a budget of S200,000 [approximately $1.6 million today]. What developed was a holiday movie for the kiddies that has since built a cult following. “Filmed at Michael Myerberg’s Long Island Studios (an abandoned aircraft hangar from WWII where such productions as A Thousand Clowns and A Carol for Another Christmas were also produced) with Nicholas Webster as director. Embassy Pictures quickly picked up the distribution rights, premiering the movie in an estimated 100 theaters in Chicago and Milwaukee, beginning November 21 and 22. As part of a national promo push, a music campaign tied to RCA Victor’s new Al Hirt record, Hooray for Santa Claus, was sent out across the country throughout

continued on pg. 44

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

MYERBERG'S MAGIC

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was filmed at Michael Myerberg Studios at 216 East 2nd Street, between Avenue B and Avenue C, a former church. A two-story structure, the ground floor had a fully equipped kitchen and rooms for offices and the second floor had a high ceiling and a balcony running around it. Michael Myerberg was a prolific producer who owned the Brooks Atkinson Theater for many years. From 1925 to 1930 he produced vaudeville band acts, in 1933 produced Candide on Broadway, and in 1942 produced Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize drama The Skin of Our Teeth Michael Meyerberg starring Fredric March, Florence (1907–1974), producer, Eldridge, and Tallulah Bankhead. entrepreneur, theater His subsequent shows included Dear impresario. Judas, The Cradle Will Rock, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and Compulsion. In the mid-Thirties he hit on the idea of a symphonic musical film and helped produce the soundtrack for 100 Men and a Girl with Deanna Durbin and the conductor Leopold Stokowski. He became Stokowski’s manager and with the conductor organized the All American Youth Orchestra. His subsequent screen productions included Patterns, starring Van Heflin and Ed Begley.

Don Sahlin (LEFT) and Joe Horstman animate the “kinemins” for Myerberg’s Hansel and Gretel. Sahlin was one of the original designers and puppeteers who created the original Muppets with Jim Hensen, and, as an animator, worked on other feature films including Jack the Giant Killer (1962) and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963).

But probably of more interest to RetroFan readers is his unique feature film of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel as portrayed entirely by stop-motion puppets. It was the first American feature-length animated film not made by Disney since 1941’s Mr. Bug Goes to Town and the first American feature-length animated film not made with traditional animation. The puppets used in the film, the “kinemins,”

were sculpted in clay by James Summers and cast in foam latex by George Butler. The puppets were onethird life-size and cost $2,500 apiece to build [about $24,000 today]. The armatures for the puppets had a number of little switches. Pressing on the switch for the leg, for example, would release the leg so it could be moved. By releasing the COUNTERCLOCKWISE: Danny Diamond, switch, the leg Kermit Love, Joe Horstman, Sky Highchief, would lock in Teddy Shepard, and (outside of the circle position. And with arms crossed) Roger Caras animate unlike the Ray Harryhausen-style the descent of the angels from their fairy stop-motion puppet kingdom on the detailed, gingerbread set which was securely for Hansel and Gretel. fastened to the stage floor with threaded bolts extending up from beneath the set through pre-drilled holes in the stage, the kinemins had metal footplates that were “affixed” to the metal stage floors by electro-magnets underneath. One story has the stopmotion crew, leaving for the night with a complicated scene in progress, switching off the studio lights but accidentally switching off the power to the electro-magnets holding the puppets in place. From the darkness of the studio they heard “plop… plop… plop…” as the puppets fell over one-by-one. The mother and father figures were sculpted to resemble Mildred Dunnock and Frank Rogier, who supplied their Myerberg briefly continued to use the voices, and the stop-motion kinemins for TV commercials, evil witch, Rosina notably early incarnations of the Jolly Green Rubylips, was Giant for Chicago’s Leo Burnett advertising voiced by opera star agency. Anna Russell. RETROFAN

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the same month. That song, complete with bouncing ball, was featured prominently during the film’s closing credits. In Chicago and Milwaukee alone the film grossed $135,700 on opening weekend [about $1.1 million today]. The movie opened in New York City the weekend of December 16. “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians continued to run in theaters across the country through February. The movie ran mostly during matinees (rarely evening hours), but that did not stop the movie from receiving additional box office revenue the next year courtesy of limited distribution during the re-release, then made available for television beginning in 1970. Regardless of his attempts to produce second, third, and fourth pictures, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ultimately became the only movie written and/or produced by Paul L. Jacobson, who died in Port Washington, New York, in 2015.” Nicholas Webster had previously directed a feature film, Gone Are the Days! (a.k.a. Purlie Victorious, 1963), but that had been stage-bound and, by all accounts, a non-cinematic record of the Ossie Davis/Ruby Dee play of the same name. Webster did go on to helm a bigger-budget sciencefiction film, Mission Mars (1968), shot in Florida and starring Darren McGavin and Nick Adams. Most of his subsequent work would be for television, on such series as Bracken’s World (1969), Mannix (1970), and The F.B.I. (1971).

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Recalling Webster’s second “Mars” film, Mission Mars (1968), his son Lance Webster, then 24 years old, recounted the true story about the open space helmets on Mars in a post on the IMDb (slightly condensed here): “When Darren McGavin first donned his helmet, it was a bad fit and mashed his nose. He angrily ripped it off, threw it against the sound stage wall (it shattered), and stomped off the Mars set. The film’s designer rushed out and bought and painted some motorcycle helmets. I, as a gopher and the only person on the crew who could type, was ordered to quickly write a few lines of dialogue indicating that the mission crew back on [E]arth had just discovered that there was sufficient oxygen in the Mars atmosphere to permit simplified helmets that only needed to augment the oxygen supply. Thus, Darren was back on the set later the same day.” Back on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, future singer/actress Pia Zadora made her film debut as a Martian child. The movie also features the first documented appearance of “Mrs. Claus” (predating the animated Rankin/Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television special by three weeks). (LEFT) Eleven-year-old Chris Month as Bomar (LEFT) and eight-year-old Pia Zadora as Girmar, no doubt smiling for their Martian Christmas card photo. (RIGHT) Pia Zadora, now all grown up and looking quite fetching in her leather outfit, looks startled at having been reminded that she once starred in a film called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. There’s an old saying in Hollywood: “You cannot choose what you’re remembered for…”

ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria (FAR LEFT) The one-sheet movie poster for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Befitting the low-budget nature of the film, the poster was printed in only two colors, Christmasy red and green. (LEFT) From Holland Releasing in 2011, Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival, available on DCP, Blu-ray, and DVD as a two-hour program, is described as a “delightful two-hour show chock-full of happy Christmas memories: Vintage ‘Greetings from the Theater Management’ ads from the 1950s and 1960s, two classic Max Fleischer Technicolor cartoons (Christmas Comes But Once a Year and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), wacky 1950s shorts like Howdy Doody’s Christmas, and a terrific bouncing ball animated sing-a-long to Jingle Bells, all culminating with the restored version of the hilarious 1964 retro-favorite Santa Claus Conquers the Martians – ‘In Space Blazing Color!’”

The other notable credit was the music by Milton de Lugg, later the bandleader on The Gong Show (“Milton de Lugg and His Band with a Thug”). In his exhaustive critical overview of the entire sub-genre of “Mars” movies, Mars in the Movies: A History (McFarland, 2016), author Thomas Kent Miller commented on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: “Not one of the reviews/commentaries that I’ve so far encountered brings up the one thing that is legitimately interesting about this movie: Joseph E. Levine. The literature says he was the uncredited executive producer of this movie. By 1964, Godzilla, Hercules, and Zulu were in the past, and The Lion in Winter, The Graduate, and A Bridge Too Far were in the future. A perfectly good question would be, then: What on earth did Levine see in this film? Why did he distribute it? Well, I suppose when this film came across his desk, he probably saw dollar signs. After all, he did work wonders with Godzilla and Hercules. “Otherwise, as far as I can tell, there isn’t much redeeming about this effort. Seeing green Martian children with antennae, you know there is something wrong. Adult Martians decide that the better part of valor is to kidnap Santa and bring him to Mars… [but]… Santa turns the tables on the Martians by spreading Christmas spirit.” But think about these titles filling out your résumé: The Lion in Winter, The Graduate, and—Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” But Joseph E. Levine was no dummy. In “Levine: Huckster With Heart" (Dick Griffin, Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1966), Levine said he had made 15 “family type pictures” in 18 months, adding, “but don’t let it get around. I don’t want anybody to know because families don’t go to see them—they just talk about them. But I make them anyway because I have the protection of television. Money in the bank, television.” Mike Nichols, of course, directed the innovative and groundbreaking film The Graduate in 1967. In their excellent book, Life Isn’t Everything–Mike Nichols as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2019), authors Ash Carter and Sam Kashner quoted Graduate producer Larry Turman:

One of the U.S. 11x14 lobby cards for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

“Joe Levine was an enormously successful schlockmeister. He would buy junk films, have an imaginative aggressive ad campaign, and plaster his own name all over it. He flogged his pictures; he got them out there and made a lot of money for himself in the bargain. I don’t even know if he ‘got’ the book [The Graduate], but he climbed aboard.” Actress Candice Bergen, later to star in Mike Nichols’ film Carnal Knowledge, added, “Mike had a cat named Joe Levine, whom he hated. I remember once going to Mike’s house in Connecticut. He kicked the cat aside. ‘Get out of here, Levine, you bastard!’” John M. Miller, writing for Turner Classic Movies (TCM), compiled some of the almost uniformly negative reviews of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians from 1964— Boxoffice: “…overly saccharine and nonsensical… A lobby sign with ‘No One Admitted OVER 16 Years of Age’ might be appropriate…” RETROFAN

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Film Daily’s Mandel Herbstman: “…yields little in the way of substance.” Motion Picture Herald’s Ronald Gold: “Youngsters who are old hands at science fiction may notice the limited use of special effects… [and] it could have benefitted from the interjection of a little more humor.” The New York Times’ Howard Thompson was more charitable: “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is aimed straight at the very small fry, who probably will eat it up… Using a small cast of unfamiliar faces, good color, a workable handful of sets (rather deftly integrated with documentary background footage), Paul Jacobson, the producer, has put together a Christmasy little movie, with science-fiction trimmings for fledgling astronauts. Adults may find it obvious and as square-cut as cheese… Mr. Jacobson’s economical production and Nicholas Webster’s direction, not to mention the very broad acting, make the picture seem like a children’s television show enlarged on movie house screens.” And more recently (December 2000), Nick Cramp of BBC Home (online) wrote: “Some films are merely bad (The Avengers). Others are enjoyably bad (Showgirls). And some films are so bad that watching them is physically painful. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is one such special case. Scripting, acting, production values, and plot are universally risible. Sets are cardboard and Martian costumes have been improvised from kitchen implements. Amusingly, the film features a youthful Pia Zadora in her first role. Most amazing is the seriousness pervading the entire affair. The makers obviously believed they had a winner on their hands. The wonder is that director Nick Webster ever worked again. In fact, he went on to make gems such as Mission Mars (1968) and Manbeast! Myth or Monster (1978). To sum up, this is

(TOP LEFT) A Mexican lobby card. (ABOVE AND LEFT) Dell’s movie tie-in comic book (writer unknown, art attributed to Bob Jenney) was released in October 1965 (cover-dated March 1966). In some markets a recording on Golden Records accompanied the comic and was narrated by Don Ocko, featuring the voices of Ralph Bell, Ann Delugg, and Betty & Billy, with music by Milton Delugg along with the film’s theme song, “Hooray for Santa Claus.” The Dell comic sells today for up to $200, depending on condition.

quite possibly the worst film ever made. Throughout, one felt an urge to hurl buckets of fetid offal at the screen. Avoid, unless you collect bad films or have a strong stomach.” But in case you missed all those reviews, reminders abound: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians often appears on lists of the worst films ever made, is regularly featured in the “Bottom 100” list on the IMDb, was featured in an episode of the syndicated series The Canned Film Festival in 1986, was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, has been riffed by Cinematic

MARTIAN WEAPONRY REVEALED

Although there is a credit on the film for “Special Toys by Louis Marx & Co.,” the weapon used by the Martians to “freeze” people is actually a custom-painted “Air Blaster” made by Marx’s major competitor, Wham-O. Wham-O began in a Southern California garage in 1948 and, in addition to the Air Blaster, created a string of hit toys: the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip ’n’ Slide, the Super Ball, and Silly String. [Editor’s note: Come back next issue for a history of the Frisbee.]

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria The Post-Meridian Radio Players of Somerville, Massachusetts, located in the Unity Somerville Church, offers “A beloved annual tradition! An original adaptation of that 1964 Christmas classic film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in which Martians kidnap Santa Claus (and a couple of unlucky Earth children). Can Santa get back to Earth in time for Christmas? Are the children of Mars doomed to a joyless life of food pills and machine-implanted learning? Is that terrifying, huge polar bear going to eat our young heroes? Find out for yourself at PMRP’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!”

From film to comic book to radio play to the legitimate stage, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians itself could not be conquered. The Maverick Theater of Fullerton, California, presents its own live theater adaptation of everyone’s favorite Santa Claus movie.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Embassy Pictures/Jalor Productions. USA. 81 minutes. Crew: Director: Nicholas Webster. Script: Glenville Mareth. Story: Paul L. Jacobson. Producer: Paul L. Jacobson. Associate Producer/ Production Manager: Arnold Leeds. Executive Producer: Joseph E. Levine. Music Score: Milton Delugg. Director of Photography: David L. Quaid. Editor: Bill Henry. Production Comptroller: Robert J. Rosenthal. Script Supervisor: Marguerite James. Assistant Director: Gerry Rich. Art Director: Maurice Gordon. Set Decorator: Jack Wright III. Scenic Artist: Frank Hoch. Head Carpenter: Edward Swanson. Property Master: Jack Wright, Jr. Martian Furniture: Fritz Hansen. Costume Design: Ramsey Mostoller. Wardrobe Mistress: Virginia Schreiber. Makeup: George Fiala. Sound Mixer: Dennis Maitland. Special Lighting Effects: Duke Brady. Gaffer: Richard Falk. Key Grip: Martin Nallan. Camera Operator: Michael Zingale. Editorial Supervisor: Anthony Termini. Music Conductor: Milton Delugg. Music Coordinator: Nick Tagg. Technical Advisor: Cynthia Webster. Cast: Santa Claus: John Call. Billy: Victor Stiles. Betty Foster: Donna Conforti. Mrs. Claus: Doris Rich. Kimar: Leonard Hicks. Voldar: Vincent Beck. Dropo: Bill McCutcheon. Billy Foster: Victor Stiles. Bomar: Chris Month. Girmar: Pia Zadora. Momar: Lelia Martin. Hargo: Charles Renn. Rigna. James Cahill. Andy Henderson: Ned Wertimer. Chochem /Von Green: Carl Don. Winky: Ivor Bodin. Stobo: Al Nesor. Shim: Joe Elic. Lomas: Jim Bishop. Children TV Announcer: Lin Thurmond. TV News Announcer: Don Blair. Polar Bear: Gene Lindsey. Santa’s Helpers: Tony Ross, Scott Aronesty, Ronnie Rotholz, Glenn Schaffer.

Titanic and RiffTrax, was featured on Elvira’s Movie Macabre, and is listed among “The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made” in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book The Official Razzie® Movie Guide (Hachette Book Group, 2005). So there you have it. Viewers seem to enjoy it as a so-badit’s-good type movie, or just for its cheesiness or innocent charm. Others, intrigued by what appears to be an amusing premise, come away from watching the film for the first time with a deer-in-the-headlights look on their face as if they’d asked for the newest Schwinn Deluxe Paramount 10-Speed Road Model bicycle for Christmas, but got underwear. You’ll have to judge for yourself. Remember: There is a Santa Claus. Maybe not this one, but… Voldar: All this trouble over a fat little man in a red suit!

ERNEST FARINO recently directed an episode of the SyFy/Netflix series Superstition starring Mario Van Peebles, as well as serving as Visual Effects Consultant. Previously Farino directed Steel and Lace starring Bruce Davison, episodes of Monsters starring Lydia Cornell and Marc McClure, ABC’s Land of the Lost starring Timothy Bottoms, and extensive 2nd Unit for the miniseries Dune starring William Hurt, Noah’s Ark starring Jon Voight, and Supernova starring Luke Perry. A two-time Emmy®-winning Visual Effects Supervisor for SyFy’s Dune and Children of Dune miniseries, Farino supervised the Emmy-nominated visual effects for the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon; James Cameron’s The Terminator, The Abyss, and T2; as well as Starship Troopers, Snow White–A Tale of Terror, Creepshow, and many others. His publishing enterprise, Archive Editions, has published Mike Hankin’s elaborate three-volume book set Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks, The FXRH Collection, and more. RETROFAN

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The

Like fads, popular children’s books come Hears a Who! (1954), On Beyond Zebra (1955), One of Geisel’s friends, Alexander Liang, and go... except for those written and drawn and If I Ran the Circus (1956). I’d read ’em even wrote this little poem about how by the cartoonist known as “Dr. Seuss”... in school, I’d check them out of the public people pronounced “Seuss”: except that Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. “Dr. Seuss” library, and I’d beg my parents and relatives (correctly pronounced “soice”—see sidebar), to gift me with copies. Since I was already “You’re wrong as the deuce did not consider himself to be a cartoonist... a dinosaur nut, I was especially drawn to And you shouldn’t rejoice except this young-but-budding cartoonist the good doctor’s endless excess of weird certainly did. and wonderful creatures, everything from If you’re calling him Seuss. I seemed to know that I wanted to fish to birds to beasts of non-specific, nonHe pronounces it Soice (or be a cartoonist at a very early age. I was existent phylum. I even taught myself how Zoice).” fascinated by comic books, the funnies in to draw crude Seuss-ish creatures using the newspaper, and the animated cartoons certain of his signature shapes and visual on television and in theaters. But other than tropes I’d identified, copied, and practiced: animated educational films, my public elementary school was the crescent pupils, stacked feather-clusters, arms without elbows, one place that none of the other forms of cartoons were allowed. legs without knees, wispy fingers, extra limbs, etc. Like many fans, I taught myself how to read by examining In 1957, Random House introduced the first of Dr. Seuss’ the relationships and configurations of letters and images in “Beginner Books,” The Cat in the Hat. It was a big hit with everyone funny animal and kiddie comic books long before I attended but me. I thought that the Cat was irritating and that the limited kindergarten. Therefore, when I was finally a fledgling student vocabulary was for babies. (I was a geezer all of six years old.) No I hit the ground running when it came to books. I remember my wonder I avoided 2003’s live-action feature film adaptation of first favorite books were Curious George by Margret and H. A. Rey, The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers like it was ooblick. The year The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams... 1957 was also when Dr. Seuss was creating his first-ever and stilland anything by Random House’s children’s author known as “Dr. memorable line of toys and model kits. Seuss.” By that time, his oeuvre consisted of: And to Think That I Saw But I’m getting ahead of myself. It on Mulberry Street (1937), The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins Let’s take a quick look at the career and legacy of the man (1938), The King’s Stilts (1939 whose nom de plume rhymes and still my favorite), with “choice,” not “Zeus.” Horton Hatches the Egg (1940, adapted as a tenWho Was Dr. Seuss? minute animated cartoon Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. “Dr. short in 1942, directed Seuss,” was born March by Beany and Cecil creator 2, 1904 in Springfield, Bob Clampett for Warner Missouri. While in college, he began signing his Bros.), McElligot’s Pool (1947), drawings as “Dr. Seuss” Thidwick the Big-Hearted for the school’s magazine. Moose (1948), Bartholomew Dropping out of Oxford and the Ooblick (1949), If I and returning to America Ran the Zoo (1950), Scrambled in 1927, “Ted” immediately Eggs Super! (1953), Horton 48

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Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. © Exxon Mobile Corporation.

by Scott Shaw!

Fantastic, Plastic Zoo of Dr. Seuss!

Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) at his desk in 1957, the year The Cat in the Hat was published. (INSET) Seuss later in life. 1957 photo by Al Ravenna. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The May 1934 issue of Life magazine (then a humor publication). Its Dr. Suess cover makes this one quite collectible.

control her husband’s vast realm of intellectual properties, for better, but often, for worse. Although he claimed to have little chemistry with children, he continued to create books and animated TV cartoons for kids until his death in his La Jolla home on September 24, 1991.

pursued a career as a humorous writer and illustrator for national magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, Life, Liberty, and Vanity Fair. That led to work in advertising, including the famous “Quick, Henry – the FLIT!” ad campaign for an insecticide spray from Standard Oil (opposite page) and ads for Holly Sugar featuring a “proto-Grinch.” He also had the Ford Motor Company, NBC Radio, and Narragansett Lager & Ale for clients. Dr. Seuss Toys of 1959 He also illustrated a series of popular joke books. This It’s been rumored that Geisel was against merchandising his eventually led to creating storybooks for children, his first one stories and characters, and that only entertainment such as published in 1937. Three more followed, but as World War II The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and animated cartoon adaptations for began Geisel turned his attention to editorial cartooning, and television were his only acceptable exceptions to that... but that in 1942 began creating artwork for projects benefiting the war isn’t true. Geisel had worked in advertising, a business that’s not effort, especially informational posters. In 1943, he joined the artistically sensitive in the slightest, and he was not averse to U.S. Army as a Captain and was commander of the Animation increasing his income flow in honest and creative ways. What Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States upset him was the fact that many manufacturers in the past— Army Air Forces, where he wrote propaganda in the form of liveagain, using images that he’d mostly created for corporate action films and animated cartoons. In addition to WB’s Horton clients—were far from the high quality he desired (although short, George Pal produced and directed stopthere were a few good-looking results, too). To motion short theatrical film adaptations of The achieve that quality he sought, Seuss was more 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) and And to than willing to get involved with the production of Think That I Saw It Happen on Mulberry Street (1944). his books for Random House. In 1950, UPA produced the Oscar-winning cartoon In 1954, it became known to the public that short Gerald McBoing-Boing, based on a story when he wasn’t writing or drawing, Geisel also written by Ted. After the war, he and his first wife enjoyed painting and sculpting. He created Helen moved to La Jolla, California, just north up dozens of three-dimensional creature-characters the coast from San Diego, where he resumed his quite similar to the denizens of his kids’ books, career as a creator of children’s picture books. He and many of them were designed be hung on also wrote the film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) walls. Decades later, many have been reproduced and are available for sale to collectors with deep and in 1966, Chuck Jones directed an animated pockets, but in the mid-Fifties, there was no Dr. half-hour special for CBS adapting How the Grinch Seuss merchandise for sale. However, thanks to Stole Christmas! a manufacturer called the Kreiss Company, there Unfortunately, in 1967, after dealing with soon appeared products that were, shall we say, cancer and Ted’s affair with Audrey Stone “Seuss-y.” Diamond, Helen Geisel committed suicide. In a Moon Beings ceramic figure. Basing designs directly from based on sordid chain of events, Seuss married Diamond, Courtesy of Hake's. characters from what were then his most recent the woman who would eventually own and RETROFAN

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(RIGHT & BELOW RIGHT) Individual packages for Tingo and Gowdy, each made up of pieces that rearrange in "thousands" of ways. © Dr. Seuss. Courtesy of Hake's.

Dr. Seuss Zoo print ad from the October 19, 1959 edition of Life magazine. © Dr. Seuss. Box for the intial Dr. Seuss Zoo collection. © Dr. Seuss. Courtesy of Hake's.

books—five from If I Ran The Zoo (1950), five from Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953), and one from On Beyond Zebra! (1955)—at least 11 unauthorized-by-neither-Random-House-nor-Geisel Kreiss Company “Moon Beings” ceramic figures released in 1956. Ironically, it was in that same year that the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery held an exhibition of his creature sculptures. Ironically, Geisel and Dr. Seuss Enterprises were completely unaware of the existence of Kreiss’ “Moon Beings” until 2002. (Good job, Random House lawyers.) Fortunately, the real thing wasn’t lagging far behind. The public began wondering why there weren’t any toys based on the characters in Dr. Seuss books. According to one of Geisel’s interviewers in 1959, “Over the years… many companies… besought Geisel to let them manufacture Dr. Seuss products of one kind or another. He has… steered clear of by-products that he cannot personally create. Two years ago, though, he was persuaded by Revell Inc…. to authorize, and help design a series of Dr. Seuss toys and games.” Since Geisel was now creating “Beginner Books” stories for first-time “I Can Read It All By Myself” readers, why not Dr. Seuss plastic model kits for first-time model builders? And better yet, how about a second line of Dr. Seuss model kits with interchangeable parts, making model glue unnecessary? In 1957, Ted Geisel was approached by Lew and Royle Glaser, the men who ran Revell, Inc., a Venice, California, manufacturer of plastic model kits of cars, planes, and ships. They asked him to develop two lines of variations on traditional model products— 50

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“Dr. Seuss Zoo” and “Dr. Seuss Beginner’s Hobby Kits”—and he closely oversaw their production, working with two sculptors for many months to capture that wacky vibe that only Dr. Seuss can “prodeuss.” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) One of the boss’ wives declared herself “Vice-President in Charge of Geisel” and kept a notebook full of reminders such as “Test shots of eye decorations to T. G. for approval.” For Dr. Seuss Zoo, Geisel created four fantastical animal characters with interchangeable body parts. The various combinations seemed almost limitless; according to Revell’s publicity department, there were around 14,000,000 different combinations! The parts were cast in polyethylene, a slightly pliable plastic that allowed a snug fit no matter how many times the animals’ configurations were altered. In the pages of Life magazine in 1959, Geisel said, “I’ve designed an articulated four-in-one animal I call the multi-beast, which is made up of Norval the Bashful Blinket, Gowdy the Dowdy Grackle, Chingo the Noodle-topped Stroodle, and Roscoe the Many Footed Lion.” Chingo’s name was changed to “Tingo” and the first wave of Dr.

The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Seuss Zoo hit the stores in the fall of 1959. The toys were heavily promoted. Surrounded by his plastic creations, Ted Geisel actually appeared in full-page color Dr. Seuss Zoo print ads running in all of the country’s top “slick” magazines. With a neck as long as a giraffe’s, cute-faced Tingo was a friendly beastie with a happy circus vibe. Sad-faced Norval always made me think: “What if Eeyore the donkey was an antelope?” Gowdy, a cheerful-looking quadruped with a bird’s head, looked like a wingless gryphon. Confident Roscoe was a one-cat parade... or maybe just a huge, furry caterpillar. Simultaneously, hobby shops around America were seeking the allowances of a much young audience than ever before in the form of Dr. Seuss Beginner’s Hobby Kits... or in this case, kit, depicting the star of the flagship title of Random House’s first and best-known “Beginner Book,” the Cat in the Hat. A Revell print advertisement claimed, “Even a six-year-old can easily cement together the 25 big, colorful styrene pieces and create a whimsical figure almost a foot tall.” More Beginner’s Hobby Kits would follow the next year.

Revell’s THE CAT IN THE HAT Beginner’s Hobby Kit

According to Revell, the sales of the individual Dr. Seuss Zoo kits from September through December totaled $1.5 million... and those kits originally sold for only $1.98 each! What made Dr. Seuss Zoo so memorable in the minds of people my age was twofold: the wonderfully appealing creature designs and the insanely diverse varieties of swapping the Zoo residents’ parts back and forth. But there was more to them than that. Each animal was multi-colored and consisted of yellow, orange, blue, and yellow. Most of the modular body parts were made of two polyethylene pieces each. Snapping them together

(LEFT) Cat in the Hat model promotional piece and (RIGHT) a competed model. © Dr. Seuss. Courtesy of Hake's.

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was somehow very satisfying, with a noise not unlike that of “pop beads” made of the same plastic. The “face” half of each head even had the eyes thoughtfully printed, with black crescent pupils and surrounded by white. Most of all, due to Geisel’s creative participation and goal of quality above all, Dr. Seuss fans and collectors appreciate the fact that the Revell model kits still are the very best examples of the Dr. Seuss style (and mindset) translated to three solid dimensions. They truly have that usually untouchable and unnameable “something” that makes Dr. Seuss’ art so welcome and beloved by so many people who grew up reading his picture books. Ted Geisel once admitted his biggest secret: “None of my animals have joints and none of them balance. ...None of them are animals. They’re all people, sort of.”

Dr. Seuss Toys of 1960

The following year, Revell released a second wave of Geisel IP: two more Dr. Seuss Zoo—Grickily the Gractus and Busby the Tasselated Afghan Spaniel Yak, as well as a second Dr. Seuss Zoo (BELOW) Box top to the second set of Revell's Dr. Seuss Zoo. (RIGHT) Assembly instructions. © Dr. Seuss. Courtesy of Hake's.

Set including them both as well as Roscoe the Many-Footed Lion. And although none of these characters had appeared in any of the Dr. Seuss books, their expressions gave each of them a definite personality: Tingo was innocent, Norvel was a pessimist, Gowdy was kinda wacky, and Rosco was confident. Frankly, Grickily and Busby were disappointments. Their parts were cast in drab colors (orange, brown, and beige) and their designs were overcomplicated. Grickily was badly balanced and many of his parts were incompatible with the other figures. You got the sense that Geisel wasn’t as involved with these. Either that, or Revell was cutting costs on their colored plastic. On the other hand, the three new Beginner’s Hobby Kits were a notch up from the first one, which was re-issued with additional figures of Thing One and Thing Two. The two all-new concepts were the then-recently published The Birthday Bird (cleverly designed to also serve as a cake decoration) and Horton the Elephant, complete with nest, egg, and tiny baby flying elephant. Revell, Inc. also added a new Seuss product, the Game of Yertle, a balancing game that resembled a component of Ideal’s thenrecent Mouse Trap! game. Developed-but-never-produced Dr. Seuss toys from Revell, Inc. include a Beginner’s Hobby Kit of the Grinch and a Horton hand puppet with a sculpted plastic head. I don’t know if the toys dropped off in sales or if the license had run out or gotten prohibitively expensive, but that was the end of Revell’s relationship with the Seussiverse. The next toy based on a Dr. Seuss property would be in 1961, with two differently designed stuffed cloth dolls of the Cat in the Hat from Impulse Items, Inc. Strangely, there were no additional licensings of Ted’s intellectual properties until 1970. 52

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The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Two more Revell models based on Dr. Seuss book and (ABOVE) an ad for The Game of Yertle, also book-based. © Dr. Seuss. Courtesy of Hake's.

Of course, after Theodor Geisel’s death in 1991, the world has been “treated” to an onslaught of Dr. Seuss-related merchandise, much of it connected to licensed animated and live-action adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ stories. In my opinion, the less said about Geisel’s widow’s judgment and its results, the better. What’s truly sad to this Seussophile is that the overwhelming majority of Theodor Geisel’s post-mortem licensed product output bears little of the quality he always strived to achieve. But who knows? If Captain Action, He-Man, and Space Ghost can make comebacks, why not Dr. Seuss Zoo? The vintage toys, now tough to locate and tougher to afford, are highly sought by Dr. Seuss collectors. Sooner or later, it’s possible that one of these could wind up in the hands of a canny toy executive. Now, if we could just revive the concept of toy stores. Y’know, I think I just saw one on Mulberry Street! For 48 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW! has written and drawn underground comix, mainstream comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, TV cartoons, toys, advertising, and video games. He has worked on such characters as Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew (which he co-created with Roy Thomas), Sonic the Hedgehog, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the Simpsons, the Futurama gang, the Muppet Babies, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids, and yes, even Annoying Orange. His career has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award, and a Humanities Award. Scott is

also known for his “Oddball Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the craziest comic books ever published” and for his regular participation in “Quick Draw!” with Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also one of the teenagers who co-created what is currently known as Comic-Con International: San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan event. He can be reached at shawcartoons.com. RETROFAN

January 2021

Too Much TV If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong. (Father doesn’t always know best.) Each of the harried homebodies in Column One corresponds to the nuisance neighbor in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate. COLUMN ONE

1) George Wilson 2) Ann Romano 3) Dr. Robert Hartley 4) Carl Winslow 5) Roy Hinkley 6) Margaret Drysdale 7) Shirley Feeney 8) James Evans 9) Samantha Stevens 10) George Jefferson 54

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RetroFan Ratings

10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know theme song lyrics too! 7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan Dy-no-mite! You wasted your childhood with the rest of us! 4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned RetroFan Up your nose with a rubber hose ’til you spend more tube time! 0–3 correct: Tuned-Out RetroFan Ya big dummy! Put down that book and go watch some classic TV!

COLUMN TWO

A) Dwayne Schneider B) Willona Woods C) Kupaki headhunters D) Leonard Kosnowski and Andrew Squiggman E) Steve Urkel F) Gladys Kravitz G) Dennis Mitchell H) Harry Bentley I) Any of those dreadful hillbillies J) Howard Borden The Beverly Hillbillies © CBS Television. Bewitched, Dennis the Menace, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and One Day at a Time © Sony Pictures Television. The Bob Newhart Show © 20th Century Fox Television. Family Matters and Gilligan’s Island © Warner Bros. Television. Laverne & Shirley © Paramount Television. All rights reserved.

RETROFAN

January 2021

ANSWERS: 1–G, 2–A, 3–J, 4–E, 5–C, 6–I, 7–D, 8–B, 9–F, 10–H

ALTER EGO #167

ALTER EGO #168

ALTER EGO #169

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #24 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #25

Salute to Golden & Silver Age artist SYD SHORES as he’s remembered by daughter NANCY SHORES KARLEBACH, fellow artist ALLEN BELLMAN, DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, and interviewer RICHARD ARNDT. Plus: mid-1940s “Green Turtle” artist/creator CHU HING profiled by ALEX JAY, JOHN BROOME, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster on MORT WEISINGER Part Two, and more!

Two RICHARD ARNDT interviews revealing the wartime life of Aquaman artist/ co-creator PAUL NORRIS (with a Golden/ Silver Age art gallery)—plus the story of WILLIE ITO, who endured the WWII Japanese-American relocation centers to become a Disney & Warner Bros. animator and comics artist. Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, and more, behind a NORRIS cover!

Spotlight on Groovy GARY FRIEDRICH— co-creator of Marvel’s Ghost Rider! ROY THOMAS on their six-decade friendship, wife JEAN FRIEDRICH and nephew ROBERT HIGGERSOM on his later years, PETER NORMANTON on GF’s horror/ mystery comics, art by PLOOG, TRIMPE, ROMITA, THE SEVERINS, AYERS, et al.! FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster, and more! MIKE PLOOG cover!

TIMOTHY TRUMAN discusses his start at the Kubert School, Grimjack with writer JOHN OSTRANDER, and current collaborations with son Benjamin. SCOTT SHAW! talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot, and Flintstones work! Also PATRICK McDONNELL’s favorite MUTTS comic book pastiches, letterer JANICE CHIANG profiled, HEMBECK, and more! TIM TRUMAN cover.

BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH discusses his new graphic novel MONSTERS, its origin as a 1980s Hulk story, and its evolution into his 300-page magnum opus (includes a gallery of outtakes). Plus part two of our SCOTT SHAW! interview about HannaBarbera licensing material and work with ROY THOMAS on Captain Carrot, KEN MEYER, JR. looks at the great fanzines of 40 years ago, HEMBECK, and more!

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WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

BACK ISSUE #124

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HORRIFIC HEROES! With Bronze Age histories of Man-Thing, the Demon, and the Creeper, Atlas/Seaboard’s horrifying heroes, and Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch) rides again! Featuring the work of CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, ERNIE COLON, MICHAEL GOLDEN, JACK KIRBY, MIKE PLOOG, JAVIER SALTARES, MARK TEXIERA, and more. Man-Thing cover by RUDY NEBRES.

CREATOR-OWNED COMICS! Featuring in-depth histories of MATT WAGNER’s Mage and Grendel. Plus other indie sensations of the Bronze Age, including COLLEEN DORAN’s A Distant Soil, STAN SAKAI’s Usagi Yojimbo, STEVE PURCELL’s Sam & Max, JAMES DEAN SMITH’s Boris the Bear, and LARRY WELZ’s Cherry Poptart! With a fabulous Grendel cover by MATT WAGNER.

“Legacy” issue! Wally West Flash, BRANDON ROUTH Superman interview, Harry Osborn/Green Goblin, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Infinity Inc., Reign of the Supermen, JOHN ROMITA SR. and JR. “Rough Stuff,” plus CONWAY, FRACTION, JURGENS, MESSNER-LOEBS, MICHELINIE, ORDWAY, SLOTT, ROY THOMAS, MARK WAID, and more. WIERINGO/MARZAN JR. cover!

“Soldiers” issue! Sgt. Rock revivals, General Thunderbolt Ross, Beetle Bailey in comics, DC’s Blitzkrieg, War is Hell’s John Kowalski, Atlas’ savage soldiers, The ’Nam, Nth the Ultimate Ninja, and CONWAY and GARCIA-LOPEZ’s Cinder and Ashe. Featuring CLAREMONT, DAVID, DIXON, GOLDEN, HAMA, KUBERT, LOEB, DON LOMAX, DOUG MURRAY, TUCCI, and more. BRIAN BOLLAND cover!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #79

See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits into the grand scheme of things! His creations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, inconsistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK, editorial changes in his comics, big concepts in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS, MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel, PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover based on OMAC #1! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

OLD GODS & NEW: A FOURTH WORLD COMPANION (TJKC #80)

Looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to show how Kirby’s epic came about, where it was going, and how he would’ve ended it before it was cancelled by DC Comics! (160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • Ships Feb. 2021 ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4

KIRBY COLLECTOR #81

BRICKJOURNAL #66

“Kirby: Beta!” Jack’s experimental ideas, characters, and series (Fighting American, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby interview, inspirations for his many “secret societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda), non-superhero genres he explored, 2019 Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER, MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more!

YUANSHENG HE’s breathtaking LEGO® brick art photography (and how he creates it), the many models of TOM FROST, and the intricate Star Wars builds of Bantha Brick’s STEVEN SMYTH! Plus: “Bricks in the Middle” by KEVIN HINKLE and MATTHEW KAY, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

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WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Sheena Pin-up Queen of the TV Jungle

by Will Murray During my long association with Starlog magazine, I accepted hundreds of assignments. Some brought me to shooting locations around the world to interview the cast and crew of Hollywood films. I remember declining an assignment only once—a telephone interview with an actress playing Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Looking back, I wondered if my subconscious was talking to me. Because when I think of jungle queens, there’s only one Sheena. And her name was Irish Elizabeth McCalla. The star of the oneseason wonder that ran back in 1955–1956, she was the first actor to bring the popular comicbook character to life on TV.

Leopard skin image by skeeze/Pixabay.

I Am Sheena, Hear Me Roar

Sheena was the creation of packager Jerry Iger and artist Will Eisner of The Spirit fame. She debuted in Great Britain in 1937, and was soon appearing in Jumbo Comics, and then her own title in the U.S. Orphaned when her father was poisoned by a witch doctor, young Sheena was left to fend for herself in the Congo. Growing up to be a blonde Amazon, she was befriended by Chim the chimpanzee and a conventional great white hunter named Bob. Attired in an abbreviated leopard-skin outfit that left little to the imagination, Sheena became a comics vehicle for Cheesecake—today called Good Girl Art. Sheena sold like crazy. It was just a matter of time before Hollywood came calling. The search for a female Tarzan commenced in August 1952. TV producer Edward Nassour announced that he sought an

(ABOVE) Irish McCalla as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Courtesy of Ernest Farino.

The jungle queen originated in Golden Age comic books. Sheena #1 (Spring 1942) cover art by Dan Zolnerowich. © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

Amazonian actress who could “move like a leopard, swim like a fish, hug like a bear, and have an eyepopping figure. It’ll help if she could act, too.” It was a tougher search than anticipated. Two years passed. In the meantime, the Sheena comic book was cancelled under pressure from reformers for being too sexy. Finally, pin-up queen and showgirl Irish McCalla was announced for the role in August 1954, thanks to glamour photographer Tom Kelly, who told McCalla about a producer casting for Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. “I know you used to read these comic books,” Kelly told her. “He asked me if I knew any girls that were perfect for Sheena. I said, ‘There’s only one! That’s Irish McCalla!’” Asked how she got the part, McCalla demurred, “Why, I tried out just like everyone else did when I heard the part was open.” RETROFAN

January 2021

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Actress Anita Ekberg’s (LEFT) inability to swim cost her the Sheena gig. But when the curvaceous Irish McCalla (RIGHT) showed up, producers knew they had their jungle queen. Ekberg photo courtesy of Heritage. McCalla photo courtesy of Ernest Farino.

But the backstory was more complicated, as she later admitted. “I was the first and last person of 200 tested for the part. They almost signed Anita Ekberg—but she couldn’t swim.” The truth was more complicated, as McCalla later revealed to Scarlet Street. “Anita got a better job with Batjac Productions and didn’t show up for work, so they called me in a panic and I got the job. I told Anita later, ‘You’d hated it!’” McCalla was no stranger to the character, having doodled her as a child and play-acted as Sheena opposite her brother, who pretended to be Tarzan. “I wish I still had my Sheena comics,” she lamented to Starlog, “but my mother burned them all. When I told her I got the part, she couldn’t believe it. She said: ‘You used to play Sheena all the time when you were a kid. Now somebody’s going to pay you to do it? That’s ridiculous!’” At 24, McCalla was an expert swimmer and diver. “I physically looked like the Sheena comic book, more than anyone else,” she boasted. And who better to play a busty jungle queen than a pinup queen? There was only one problem. 58

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McCalla explained, “When the producers called, I said, ‘Are you kidding? I don’t act.’ They said it didn’t matter much—I only had to be athletic enough to chase a chimp through a jungle.” Cast in the role of hunter Bob Reynolds was Christian Drake, a Marine who had fought at Guadalcanal as one of Carlson’s Raiders. Drake’s rugged good looks convinced Hollywood that he was good box office. “Irish was absolutely perfect for the role,” he told Filmfax. “She was stunningly beautiful, and she epitomized Sheena from the start.” Drake’s account of the project’s beginnings differed from McCalla’s understanding. “Sheena was originally going to be a feature film,” he said. “When I was first cast, I was told that Anita Ekberg was going to play Sheena. They also told me they had another actress in mind—Irish McCalla—who could step in.” Perhaps McCalla was first envisioned as Ekberg’s stand-in stunt double. Both screen-tested on the same day. McCalla got busy preparing for the strenuous role. Since Sheena carried a hunting spear, she practiced throwing a javelin

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

in her North Hollywood backyard and learned how to fight on camera. “I practiced swinging from a ladder and soon got the hang of it,” she said at the time. “But the worst thing isn’t the swinging— it’s the fighting. If you just haul off and hit somebody it looks real phony, but if you calculate your punches just right it looks great in front of the camera.” Her ex-Marine costar helped her learn the rough-and-tumble art of brawling with heavies. Also necessary was learning to work with the three-year-old chimpanzee named Neil, who was cast as Chim. “Three times a week for two months I’d visit him and just play with him,” McCalla said during production. “Then his trainer began teaching me how to put him through some tricks and we’re best Publicity photo of friends now.”

Luck of the Irish

McCalla as Sheena.

It took a year to sell the series, during which time McCalla tested for the part of Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke, opposite Richard Boone. Once Irish showed up in her Sheena outfit, the deal was quickly done. Although the color pilot and first two episodes were shot in California, the Nassau Brothers decided to relocate filming to Cuernavaca, Mexico, a popular spot to shoot jungle movies. “At one time four companies were shooting pictures in that one jungle,” McCalla reminisced. “One day the Richard Widmark company, Run for the Sun, came over and borrowed our swamp. The Bob Mitchum, Gilbert Roland, and Tarzan companies came over and borrowed our trees and lakes. We were very generous with our jungle.” The latter film was Sol Lesser’s Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957), starring Gordon Scott. Lesser had been involved in the initial search for Sheena, but mysteriously dropped out—probably to launch his new Tarzan [film] series. “Television was just getting started and we had no idea how popular it would be,” McCalla recalled. “Jungle shows were in. There was Ramar of the Jungle, starring Jon Hall, and Johnny Weissmuller was doing Jungle Jim. But I was the only woman.” Despite her lack of experience, McCalla was confident that she could handle the role. “I couldn’t act, but I could swing through the trees,” she quipped. “Of course, it’s hard to screw up lines like, ‘Come, Chim,’ and ‘Sheena go now.’ But that was the hardest work I ever did. Every mistake I learned was on the screen. On the first three shows I wondered who the guy was who was yelling at me. I finally found out he was the director.” Initially, McCalla remembered, acting wasn’t difficult. “My main instructions with something like, “You run through here, and you jump over there. But don’t jump on that plant. Then

you go over here, but watch out for that flower. Then, in that fight, you have to throw yourself this way, because you don’t want to hit that tree over there.’” “If you note the episodes,” Drake explained. “I handled about 90% of the dialogue, and Irish handled about 90% of the action. I tried to be of help to her when I could. I certainly wasn’t a teacher, but Irish improved all the time. She did quite well, under some difficult circumstances. We had some rough days, down in Mexico.” There was some advantage to being a novice, McCalla remembered later. “But it was probably good that I didn’t have acting training when I did Sheena, because people said I was so believable as someone who lived in the jungle. One of the requirements they asked was for was that you could run on uneven ground, and jump. I’ve always been athletic, climbing trees and playing football. “Most of the people they used weren’t really actors,” she admitted. “They just picked up anybody who could speak English and remember some lines, and then threw them in front of the camera. That didn’t help much when the jungle queen herself wasn’t too great.” A trio of 20 Haitian wrestlers played the stock natives. “They were phenomenally tough guys whose idea of a joke was to jump out of a tree and land on a sleeping buddy’s stomach,” McCalla recalled.

Jungle Fever

The pilot episode, “The Renegades,” opened with Sheena taking a shower in a primitive stall, and Chim stealing

FA ST FAC TS Sheena, Queen of the Jungle ` No. of seasons: One ` No. of episodes: 26 ` Original run: 1955–1956 ` Primary cast: Irish McCalla, Christian Drake, Neil the chimp ` Network: first-run syndication

Spin-offs and remakes: ` Sheena (1984 movie, starring Tanya Roberts) ` Sheena (2000–2002 TV series, starring Gena Lee Nolin) RETROFAN

January 2021

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

from then on, the chimp was my best friend! Nobody could her leopard-skin frock, seemingly setting the stage for a jungle peep show. That Cheesecake slant was swiftly abandoned. touch me.” “We have to avoid all the pin-up stuff,” McCalla told a set This meant rewriting scripts where the villain struck Sheena, visitor. “Sheena is supposed to appeal to the children. If the otherwise Neil would attack them. cleavage ever gets too much in a scene, I throw my hair forward One scary situation arose due to working conditions now over my shoulders.” forbidden. Nevertheless, after the first airings, the producers were “The grips liked to put live ammunition in the guns we used on astounded to learn that adults watched Sheena, Queen of the Jungle the show so they could shoot iguanas for target practice,” McCalla in greater numbers than kids! recalled. “They would give the animals to the local Indians who ate If the producers were truly surprised, they shouldn’t have the meat and made wallets out of the skins. I got a bit touchy about been. Before the Comics Code put the Sheena comic book out using live bullets and would always pester people to check out the of business, an anonymous newsdealer surveyed about buying rifles before they were used in a scene. I also told them to aim a habits observed in 1948, “Older people go for adventure, Western little bit off to one side of a person rather than right at them. and the sexy-type like Princess Pantha and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” The studio called for a three-month shoot, but the production schedule soon fell victim to heat, humidity, and other vicissitudes of the rainforest. “I was in that Mexican jungle seven and a half months,” McCalla later complained. “The weather was so hot and the food was not very appetizing and I lost [12] pounds. You know, gaining weight is harder than losing it. I had an awfully hard time getting this back.” Snakes and scorpions were also an issue. Drake explained, “We did some work at a location where three rivers have their origin, and this was most impressive. Water would spring up from underground. There was a spot where these huge bubbles would continuously emerge from the earth. They were about 20-feet in diameter, and maybe [four] feet high. One time, I saw a huge snake while we McCalla and her Sheena were there. We were filming nearby. I never told Irish co-stars Chim (Neil the about it. She didn’t like snakes.” chimp) and Bob Reynolds “The country surrounding the set is inhabited (Christian Drake), plus a by rather primitive people,” the actress told one Tarzan vs. Sheena publicinterviewer, “but they never cause any trouble. Those ity pic featuring screen people of course thought I was positively fantastic. Apeman Gordon Scott. I mean, they’ve never seen a blonde. For weeks they Sheena © Galaxy Publishing and called me their golden goddess. The children love to Valdoro Entertainment. Tarzan play with my pet chimp and he seems to enjoy it too, © ERB. but he’s always trying to drag them up into the trees.”

Monkey Business

Neil the chimp was a troublemaker, constantly tripping McCalla. “Most of the time we got along fine, but the director just didn’t realize you can only work a chimp so long in intense heat before they become fussy and cranky, like children. Just one more take on a very hot day snapped Chim’s patience. He looked like a gorilla when he came after me, luckily sinking his teeth in my leather armband—leaving a big hole!” Once, Neil got into a beef with McCalla’s young son, Kim. The actress’ maternal instincts were roused. “So I took out after the chimp chased him through the jungle. I was so mad I couldn’t see. Everybody—the chimp trainer and everybody—they were chasing after me, yelling, ‘No! No! No!’ I chased the chimp with the spear and was ready to run him through, I guess, but they grabbed the spear away for me. Well, 60

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“A good thing! One day an actor, thinking he had blanks in the chamber, pulled the trigger and a bullet whistled past my ear and hit the tree next to me. I was shaking like a leaf, and so was he.” By June 1955, only four episodes had been filmed and Irish had yet to ask for a stunt double, proclaiming, “I only fell out of one tree up till now. At school I made the basketball and softball teams. And I also went in for swimming. I love skin diving. So when I was tested for Sheena, I was told the fact that I didn’t need a double, and could do most of my own swinging from trees, helped me get the part.” “You know,” Christian Drake pointed out, “Irish was quite athletic. She did most of her own stunts. She was quite good at tossing a spear. Then, at one point, Irish got hurt.”

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

With the unlucky 13th episode, her luck ran out during what McCalla called “your average vine-swinging scene.” Drake recalled that day vividly. “I saw it happen. She was swinging across a river; the vine she was swinging on got twisted, and she crashed into a tree.” McCalla recounted, “I was very ill and I had to swing from a high platform on the river to a tree and knock a guy out of the tree. I was too sick to hold my own weight on the rope, and I smashed into the tree.” Then she remembered advice stuntman and future Tarzan Jock Mahoney had given her. “He taught me how to protect myself when I was landing, to relax and to bring my legs up—and that’s what kept me from

getting smashed right across the face. But I injured my arm and broke my leg and I looked like I’d been through a meat grinder.” McCalla was flown home to convalesce. “That laid her up for a couple of weeks,” Drake explained. “It was a draining experience, but she really persevered. Irish had a lot of spirit, and she was a real trouper.” Nursing her knee, McCalla joked, “That was the kickoff for that episode. I guess they will have to use my stand-in—the little Mexican boy wears a blonde wig and falsies!” A story was floated claiming that when Gordon Scott broke his foot filming Tarzan, worried Sheena producers brought in a stunt girl. Actually, it was a blond trapeze artist named Raul Gaona. McCalla remembered, “Poor Raul, he didn’t speak any English and may still be cussing me in Spanish. He was hired because we couldn’t find an athletic woman tall enough for the job. The whole cast and crew would tease him mercilessly by screwing up the wig and rearranging his falsies.” That very month, another crisis arose when ex-Heavyweight Champion Max Baer, Sr. was hired to play the recurring (TOP) Entry form role of a whip-wielding heavy. Like for a Sheena “Jungle Anita Ekberg, he received a better film Safari” contest. offer, and begged out of his contract. (BOTTOM) The His brother Buddy took over the part of Queen graces the hulking Bull Kendall. cover of a 1957 “He was huge!” said McCalla of Buddy Portland, Oregon, Baer. “He was on one of the shows and television listings he lost a bet that he could hold the guide. Sheena © chimp when he didn’t want to be held. Galaxy Publishing and We let him get a good grip on Neil, and Valdoro Entertainment. I yelled, ‘C’mon, Neil! Chocolate milk! Contest form courtesy Chocolate milk!’ And Neil just pushed of Ernest Farino. TV his hands and feet against Buddy’s chest Prevue courtesy of Will and was out and running over to me for Murray. chocolate milk!”

Hit and Miss

Filming finally wrapped in January 1956. Irish McCalla had no inkling how well Sheena, Queen of the Jungle had been doing in her absence. “We were so busy turning out the film that I had time to think of little else. Meantime, the first Sheena films were of course being seen in various key cities. Nassour Brothers executives told me the ratings were good, but I didn’t understand much about ratings. Then I came back home. When I’d go to the market or store people would stare at me. At first I thought something was wrong. Maybe a rip in my toreador pants or something. But when that cute first little girl asked me for my autograph I began to catch on—and realize that Sheena, Queen of the Jungle was a hit.” But not with everyone. Some critics derided it as cheap and hokey, criticizing it mercilessly. “Me Sheena and me happy,” Irish cracked in response. “Besides, the show isn’t for grown-ups—why do they keep RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

watching it? I think the chimp is much more intelligent than people knocking the show. I’ve taught him not to say bad things.” No one would call Sheena, Queen of the Jungle good drama, or even top television, as McCalla herself readily admitted. “The show was very basic in terms of good and bad. Good always triumphs over evil. Sheena was good.” “There was something for everyone,” echoed Christian Drake. “It was an action show for kids with ‘good versus evil.’ Adults could enjoy it as a Tarzan parody. And, naturally, the guys would enjoy watching Irish.” It was also formula jungle melodrama, and grew repetitive. “In a number of plots,” Drake noted, “I would serve as a guide, and lead some nasty characters into the region. Of course, if I didn’t bring them, there wouldn’t be any story.” Yet, no one could be fooled into thinking the show’s appeal was anything other than statuesque Irish McCalla, whose height was variously described as five-foot-nine or six-footone-inch tall. In those days, a glamour girl’s measurements were invariably cited in press releases. Officially, McCalla’s was 39-24-37. Some publicists inflated her bust size to a nice, round 40. Even during filming, McCalla would have none of it. “All my life I’ve been a tomboy. Just because I’m built in a certain way, people think I’m sexy. But when I was a model and the photographer would tell me to look sexy, I’d just start to laugh.”

(TOP) McCalla’s sultry jungle queen made the cover Sounds of a Thousand Strings’ 1960 LP, Music for Big Dame Hunters. (TOP RIGHT) Seventeen years later, she was immortalized in song in the Ramones’ hit, “Sheena is a Punk Rocker,” which spawned an unofficial fan-made music video (RIGHT) featuring an animated Sheena. Sheena © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Ramones Sheena © WB Music Corp.

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Sheena, Queen of the Jungle was so hot—in all senses of the term—that plans were announced for a Sheena color film to begin filming in February 1956. But nothing happened. No movie, and no further episodes. Why? “That’s the mystery of all time,” McCalla confessed in later years. “I knew from my personal appearances how hot the show was, so I even tried to buy the rights to make more episodes myself—but the Nassau Brothers wouldn’t sell. I had backers on several occasions, but it wasn’t a matter of money. They simply weren’t interested. I think Sheena was really a big tax write-off for the Nassour Brothers. To them, Sheena was a ‘fun’ thing to do.” Back in 1952, the studio had envisioned a seven-year run. In the years immediately following, Irish McCalla did well making personal appearances around the world. “We did only 26 episodes of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, but they were very popular. They played over and over again, giving me worldwide fame.”

Typecasting

Unfortunately, this did not lead to Hollywood success. McCalla did a few small parts in movies and some TV appearances. She

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

After the series’ production, McCalla made personal appearances as Sheena as the show remained in syndicated reruns. Snapshot from a March 1958 event. From the collection of Ivan Briggs.

(BELOW) Post-Sheena, the statuesque beauty found it difficult to find good roles, often being relegated to schlock like 1958’s chiller She Demons. She Demons © 1958 Astor Pictures Corp. Lobby cards courtesy of Heritage.

turned down the lead role in The Beat Generation (1959) because it involved a rape scene. She Demons (1958) and Hands of a Stranger (1962) were horror films. Five Bold Women (1960) called for her to play a Wild West outlaw. In Five Gates to Hell (1959), she was all but unrecognizable as a nun. These disappointments were not for lack of trying. McCalla explained, “When I came home after doing Sheena, I saw the episodes and said, ‘I’ve got to learn to act.’ That’s when I went to acting classes. But it’s tough now trying to convince people I’m not eight feet tall—they always gave me five-foot leading men—and proving that I’m no longer just a muscle actress.” But the retired jungle goddess was so typecast it was almost impossible to land decent parts. “Nobody wanted to hire a jungle queen,” she lamented. “No one saw me as a sex symbol. No one could take me seriously. I was a freak in a miniskirt. No one even noticed my legs.” During this difficult period, Irish McCalla began to talk disparagingly about the very role that had propelled her fame. “When my mother learned I was in acting,” the ex-jungle queen groused, “she thought in terms of Bette Davis. It was quite a shock when she saw me as ‘Sheena, Queen of the Underbrush.’

“I was sort of a female Tarzan,” she said dismissively in 1960. “Practically all I did was walk around the jungle with this spear in one hand and a chimpanzee on my back. But let’s not talk about that.” But when she did, it was to dispel the fantasy image of the leopard-skin clad Amazon she helped create. “Actually, it was a fake ocelot-skin costume. I still have the costume.” Her trusty spear and knife? “I called them my do-it-yourself suicide kit,” she joked. No one was spared. “A monkey wrote the scripts,” she also complained. But these criticisms were well founded in the harsh reality of early TV. “We didn’t have much in the way of production values,” McCalla told interviewer Joe Franklin. “That show was really done very, very cheaply. They always laugh when you say, ‘the golden years of television.’ I say, those were the copper years. They pinched all their pennies.” Before long, Irish McCalla abandoned the industry, dropping out of sight to concentrate on her true passion— painting. She did well. More importantly, she felt fulfilled. RETROFAN

January 2021

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

But McCalla did not return to the screen, except to visit the lot. Seeing the sign for Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, she confessed, “I got chills.” She eventually came to terms with her sexy alter ego. “One thing men like about me is that I’m sexy-looking and yet I look like the girl next door. If I’d been a sex queen, women would have hated me. But I was the girl their children liked, so it was a wholesome thing. I was their jungle Santa Claus.”

“I left acting at the same time it left me—I never felt like continuing,” she said in 1981. “All I wanted do was paint, and I’m happy.” Years passed. When the lure of nostalgia conventions brought McCalla out to meet her fans, and her attitude softened. “There were a lot of Tarzans, but I was the only Sheena,” she liked to point out. “It was a great period of my life. I’ve always been an independent person and if I felt that I didn’t need it anymore, I could just walk away. Which is just what I did. I never believed that was going to be any great actress or anything. Painting has always been more important to me, but acting was supporting me at the time.” In later life, Irish McCalla submitted to an interview with Starlog. Regrettably, I was not the interviewer. But she opened up about her life and career in ways she could not in the Fifties. “I really didn’t know what I was doing,” she confessed. “But I was unhappy in my marriage. I wanted a divorce. I needed a way to support myself and my two children. They offered me real money to play Sheena, so I jumped at the chance.”

Before her death in 2002, McCalla had fully reconciled to her sultry jungle past. “People never say bad things to me about Sheena. They have good memories, and they automatically feel good towards me, because I was part of a good time in their lives. I am a friend from childhood, and they’re glad to see me again. And that makes me feel wonderful.” Yes, there have been Sheenas since 1956. But only one true original. Her name was Irish McCalla. And she looked hotter in black-and-white than her successors did in full color.

When a Sheena movie was announced in 1984, with Tanya Roberts in the lead, the spotlight once again fell on the role’s originator. “They are still casting for Sheena, but they were interested in me for a small role,” McCalla revealed. “Perhaps as her mother. But what would they call my character? The queen mother? The deposed queen? No, it would have to be the queen mother.”

WILL MURRAY is the writer of the Wild Adventures (www.adventuresinbronze.com) series of novels, which stars Doc Savage, The Shadow, King Kong, The Spider, and Tarzan of the Apes. He also created the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with legendary artist Steve Ditko.

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RETROFAN

January 2021

RETRO INTERVIEW

Good Morning World

Ronnie Schell’s Custom-Made Shot in the Spotlight by Jason Hofius

Dubbed “America’s slowest-rising comedian” by radio DJ Don Sherwood in the mid-Sixties, Ronnie Schell began his show-business career in a rather roundabout manner. His first love was baseball, but despite his ambitions to become a player, he was simply never any good at it. However, his on-field antics kept his teammates laughing and the crowds coming back for more. It was that energy and excitement he felt from the public that eventually led to his second love—stand-up comedy. Schell was born in 1931 in Richmond, California, just to the northeast of San Francisco. After graduating high school he joined the United States Air Force, where he did his first performances in various skits and shows. After his return to civilian life, Schell took a dare from a college classmate to audition as a comic at the Purple Onion nightclub in San Francisco. He was accepted, much to his surprise, and stayed on for months honing his comedic skills. After some disastrous starts, Schell kept at it and landed a job as the opener for the Kingston Trio music act around 1958. Then he never looked back. His stand-up act earned him early slots on televised variety programs and his first national television appearance as a contestant on You Bet Your Life in 1959. The show, which was hosted by the lightningfast Groucho Marx, gave Schell a chance to trade quips with one of entertainment’s best. The debut helped jump-start Schell’s six-decade career. Schell’s easygoing yet earnest attitude toward his work contributed to his career’s longevity just as much as his talent and technique. When anyone hired Ronnie

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retro interview

Larry Clarke (Ronnie Schell) and David Lewis (Joby Baker) on the air. (BELOW) S’More Entertainment’s complete Good Morning World series DVD set, released in 2007. © CBS.

Schell, they knew they’d be getting a professional who could lead a production as easily as he could keep pace with anyone else. His incredible history in entertainment includes stage, feature films, and

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extensive commercial work. But he found a home on television starting in the Sixties, where he appeared on just about every major network series one can conceive of. From his most recognizable role of Private First Class Gilbert “Duke” Slater on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1964–1969), to appearances in series like The Patty Duke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Emergency!, Happy Days, Battle of the Planets, Down to Earth, Mr. Belvedere, The Wayans Bros., and countless others, Schell’s appearances were always a guarantee for fun. His early feature film roles include the Disney outings Gus (1976), The Shaggy D.A. (1976), and The Cat from Outer Space (1978). But he also performed roles in comedies like Love at First Bite (1979), The Devil & Mr. Devlin (1981), and animated theatrical features like Jetsons: The Movie (1990) and Rover Dangerfield (1991). In 1967, creators and producers Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, Bill Persky, and Sam Denoff, the team behind The Dick Van Dyke Show [see RetroFan #7—ed.], brought Good Morning World to the screen. It premiered on CBS on September 5, at 9:30 p.m. A prototype to shows like WKRP in Cincinnati and NewsRadio, Good Morning

World focused on the morning radio DJ team of Lewis and Clarke, played by Joby Baker and Schell. The pair’s experiences were loosely based on Persky and Denoff’s own radio careers, and the lead character of Larry Clarke was written specifically for Ronnie Schell. After the premature cancellation of Good Morning World, Schell immediately transitioned back into his role of “Duke” Slater through Gomer Pyle’s final season (1969). His busiest period followed, with decades of television guest-starring roles, commercials, and variety shows. No matter how busy he was, Schell always made time to return to his roots entertaining audiences in person at comedy clubs all over North America. Having recently turned 88, the “slowest-rising comedian” (a nickname he still wears proudly) finally decided to retire from his favorite annual standup gigs in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. He continues to work in radio and television whenever he gets the chance. He also does numerous public appearances each year, where he promotes his work and spends as much time as he can with adoring fans. I caught up with Schell a couple days

retro interview

after he returned from one of his latest appearances, Mayberry Days, a four-day celebration of The Andy Griffith Show [see RetroFan #1 for details about Mayberry Days—ed.]. RetroFan: It’s great to talk with you again. How was the “Mayberry Days” weekend in Mount Airy, North Carolina? Ronnie Schell: Great! Great. There were 36,000 people last week in a little, tiny town. I rode in the parade and I was introduced at one of the festivities. It was a fun time, my sixth year. Those celebrations are 20 years old. RF: When did you first become interested in entertainment? RS: I was always an extrovert in school. Everybody encouraged me to make money out of it. So when I went in the Air Force, to get out of KP [Kitchen Patrol], I started doing shows in the military. I did them for four years. Then I got out, went back to college, got my degree, and my senior year, I started working at the Purple Onion in San Francisco. From then on, it just ballooned for me. RF: Did you ever have interest in doing anything else? Going on with the military as a career? RS: No. I wanted to be a professional baseball player, but it never came to pass. I guess I wasn’t good enough. [laughs] RF: Your stand-up led to being on You Bet Your Life... RS: That’s right, with Groucho Marx.

“Disc Jockeys” Larry Clarke (Ronnie Schell) and David Lewis (Joby Baker). (BELOW) Contestants Phyllis Warren and Ronnie Schell guess the secret word, on You Bet your Life, with Groucho Marx (May 28, 1959). © CBS.

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January 2021

retro interview

RF: Was that your first television appearance? RS: Nationwide, it was. But I was on another show when I was in the Air Force, called Talent Patrol. That was a show with military talent and I made one appearance there in New York. It was a variety show. It was a regional television show. Later on, I did all the talk shows. I did [Johnny] Carson five times and Merv Griffin 55 times. RF: What did you do on them, your standup routines? Panel discussions? RS: Well, I remember doing the first Bob Newhart Show (1962), the variety show, early on. I did a sketch on there. I was one of many comics doing sketches. I did The Pat Boone Show, and I can’t remember all of them. But I did all the variety shows. RF: How did you go from You Bet Your Life to more television? RS: I’d always done a lot of television locally in San Francisco, where I’m from. Then I met a guy named Dick Linke [Richard O. Linke]; he was the manager of Andy Griffith, Jim Nabors, a few other

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January 2021

guys. Jerry Van Dyke. He liked me and said, “Would you like to tour some with Andy Griffith as an opening act?” I said, “Sure!” So I started touring with him, off and on for two years, and then, of course, Andy went on to do The Andy Griffith Show and I went on to do Gomer Pyle. Aaron Ruben was the producer, Dick Linke was associate producer, and Sheldon Leonard was a producer there for some time, too. I did two guest shots on Andy Griffith, it just sort of worked out for me. I never worked hard at it! [laughs] RF: Sheldon Leonard had worked on The Danny Thomas Show? RS: Yeah, Make Room for Daddy. He had quite a history as an actor before he started producing. But he had been in New York for years before he came out to L.A. and started doing that. So it all worked

out. And I did guest shots on Andy Griffith, as you know and after that when Jim Nabors’ show [Gomer Pyle] was cancelled, they started doing a variety show called The Jim Nabors Hour, and I was appointed the sketch comic for all the comedy bits they did. That worked out well… that was two years on CBS. Then a producer by the name of Freddie [Fred] Silverman was over at CBS as Vice President and he hated all those type of shows: Andy Griffith, Petticoat Junction, Jim Nabors [Hour], and he cancelled them all, even though The Jim Nabors Hour was number one in the variety category and was ahead of Carol Burnett. RF: Yes, I remember he wasn’t happy with the direction CBS was headed. RS: “Hicks,” he called us “hicks.” He cut out Mayberry R.F.D.... So then I started doing Disney films, I did six of them and

Roland B. Hutton, Jr. (Billy De Wolfe), David Lewis (Joby Baker), Linda Lewis (Julie Parrish), and Larry Clarke (Ronnie Schell). © CBS.

retro interview

Linda Lewis (Julie Parrish), David Lewis (Joby Baker), Larry Clarke (Ronnie Schell), and Sandy Kramer (Goldie Hawn). © CBS.

then a couple independent films. I was still working Vegas. I worked Vegas for 50 years. I just quit Vegas after 50 years in January. I got tired of going there and working with acrobats and magicians. That’s all you see there now. We had a comedian and then a singer. I opened for Tony Bennett and Wayne Newton and Carol Burnett. I was the comic who worked with Carol Burnett in her only Vegas show at Caeser’s Palace. RF: I’d like to talk about your time on your own sitcom, Good Morning World. RS: Oh, yeah, I could talk about that for hours. I could talk about that longer than the show lasted, I’m telling you! [laughs] RF: What led up to Good Morning World? Was the part of Larry Clarke written for you from the start? RS: Yeah. Sheldon Leonard and Carl Reiner, who produced the show, liked me for Good Morning World and picked me out to co-star in it with Goldie Hawn and Joby Baker. It was on the same lot as Gomer, so I wasn’t going anywhere. [laughs]

RF: And you’d known most of the producers for what… five, six years at that point? RS: Yes. You’re absolutely right. To be picked was a thrill, to star in your own television series. But again, I just enjoyed working. The show was cancelled after about 26 episodes. Because we had a bad time slot. I think it was a little bit ahead of its time. That was the same year (1967) that He & She went on, remember He & She with Dick Benjamin? And his wife [Paula Prentiss], and Jack Cassidy. That show was doing well, but our show was a little ahead of its time. Even though Carl Reiner did a lot of the directing, on most of the episodes.

I would do that on a week during Gomer Pyle that I didn’t have any role. So it was nice for me, I just went in and started doing it. Sammy and Billy were nice enough to pick me out of Gomer Pyle to do that. That was fun.

RF: There was definitely top talent involved with it. RS: Yes, absolutely right. Sam Denoff and Bill Persky, who created The Dick Van Dyke Show and what was the other show...?

RF: Had you worked with any of the cast from Good Morning World before? Like Joby Baker or Julie Parrish, or Billy De Wolfe? RS: No, but Billy De Wolfe and I became very close because I admired his work from Paramount [Pictures]. He’d been at Paramount for years and we became good friends. Joby I loved. Joby had a problem remembering lines. [laughs] That was his major problem. They sometimes put his lines on my chest, via a sign because I’d be off-camera and he’d be on-camera. But he admitted it, he said, “I can do a play, but I can’t do where you repeat, repeat, repeat.” [laughs]

RF: That Girl? RS: That Girl, yeah! I was in it. I did a reoccurring role as her agent, Harvey Peck.

RF: How was Julie Parrish to work with? RS: Great. She was different. More acting... She had to feel the part and all that stuff. RETROFAN

January 2021

retro interview

She was with us the whole year and died not too long ago. She was always a little ill, physically. But we all had a good time and Goldie [Hawn] and I hit it off really great. I never worked with Goldie again, but we became good friends. Billy De Wolfe, I talked with every night. RF: Every night? RS: Every single night. He would call me up and say [puts on snooty voice], “Mr. Schell. Mr. De Wolfe here. I’m watching Red Skelton. Not good, because he sticks his tongue out too much!” [laughs] Stuff like that, I remember that criticism he had of the variety shows. RF: He always seemed like what you saw on screen was what you got in real life. RS: Yes. “Mr. De Wolfe.” You never called him “Billy.” He said [puts on snooty voice], “I am not Billy De Wolfe, but I am MISTER De Wolfe!” He had a bad toupee, I thought. But he said [puts on snooty voice again], “We never discuss it!” [laughs] I said, “How you doing?” And he said, “Well, I think I’m going to take it over to get a haircut. I don’t know whether I’ll go with it or send it over!” [laughs] It was a joy. RF: You mentioned Goldie Hawn played your girlfriend, Sandy Kramer, on Good Morning World. Was this her first big role? RS: Yeah. What happened was she was a go-go dancer out of Baltimore. One of the guys out here discovered her and put her in an Andy Griffith special in which she was dancing. Then we got her and she did Good Morning World. Then George Schlatter found her, picked her up and put her in [Rowan & Martin’s] Laugh-In. Which I never forgave George for, because I could have played Laugh-In. [laughs] That was how she went from there to movies. One funny story is, her only credits were a go-go dancer and the Andy Griffith special. Af ter about three weeks of rehearsing at my apartment, she didn’t like to rehearse too much. She thought it would over-do it. I said to her, “Goldie, listen to me. I’m a pro, I’ve been in the business five years. You’re just starting. But you’re not disciplined enough. You’re not going to make it if you complain about rehearsing too much.” And she said, “Yeah, you may be right.” Well, the next year she won the Academy Award for Cactus Flower (1969) and I found out 70

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(ABOVE) Sandy (Goldie Hawn) won’t let Larry (Ronnie Schell) get away with anything! (RIGHT) Larry and Sandy share a kiss. © CBS.

while working some toilet in Omaha! [laughs] She never lets me forget it. Whenever I see her, she never lets me forget it. [laughs] Kurt [Russell], her hubby, was the nicest guy in the world. And a good actor, I might add. The first movie I ever did was with Kurt Russell. RF: One of the Disney ones? RS: Yeah, it was a Disney movie. It was called The Strongest Man in the World (1975). I played the referee in the final half hour of the show. That was to show how strong he was. That had a great cast: Joe Flynn, Phil Silvers, and Eve Arden and Cesar Romero.

So I got to work with some of the giants. I guess the biggest guy I ever worked with was Bob Mitchum, who was very nice to me and had a great sense of humor. I worked with a lot of great players. RF: Do you remember how the public received Good Morning World? RS: The ones that saw it, loved it. But we didn’t get enough viewers. We were always like 24th or 25th, even further down. 31, 32 in the ratings. RF: You mentioned having a bad time slot. What were you up against?

retro interview

RS: No, it was in color. The first two seasons were in black and white, but then the third season, [for] which I was still there, was in color. “On CBS!” [laughs] I think the first color show I ever did was The Andy Griffith Show. I guest-starred two episodes. It didn’t bother me, I didn’t care if it was black and white or green and yellow. I just liked to work! [laughs]

RF: Was there ever talk of doing a second season for Good Morning World? Was it close? RS: Yes, yes. What happened was, when the show was cancelled, CBS said, “Maybe we’ll keep Ronnie, Joby Baker will go somewhere, and we’ll use Bill Bixby [to replace Baker].” Remember Bill Bixby? RF: I certainly do. RS: It got to where they were going to do it, then Bill Bixby decided to do some other show. He would have played my partner, he would have played the Joby Baker part. RF: That would have been interesting. He would have been coming off My Favorite Martian. RS: He was very good at it. He’s passed away. I would have enjoyed working with him. We’re both from San Francisco. RF: Did you work with him in anything else? RS: No, that was the only thing. We had the same business manager, if that meant anything. He had a whole different career. RS: I’ll tell you what we were up against. We were up against NBC’s Tuesday Night at the Movies. That’s when first-run movies were just starting on television. So I often said, “Tuesday night America would look up in their TV Guide and say, ‘Who should we watch tonight? Ronnie Schell or Cary Grant?’” Guess who won? [laughs] So we didn’t compete with them long, we were cancelled after the first year. I was lucky enough to go back to Gomer. RF: Did you shoot Good Morning World in front of a live audience? RS: Yes, and that was part of Joby’s problems. He couldn’t work in front of an audience, couldn’t remember his lines. They’d be on my chest. [laughs]

RF: Interesting that he was all right to do plays, but couldn’t work on the sitcom. RS: Yeah, that’s right. He was a great actor. He did one great movie with Paul Muni called The Last Angry Man (1959). That was before he did Good Morning World. I don’t know, something happened in between. Of course, The Last Angry Man didn’t have an audience. But he did that and he was a good guy. He later married Andre Previn’s first wife. She was a singer and she passed away. I haven’t heard from Joby, although I know where he is. He’s back in Connecticut. He came from a well-to-do family, so he didn’t have to worry. RF: Good Morning World was in color. When you left Gomer Pyle, was that in color or was it still in black and white?

FA ST FAC TS Good Morning World ` No. of seasons: One ` No. of episodes: 26 ` Original run: September 5, 1967–March 19, 1968 ` Primary cast: Ronnie Schell, Joby Baker, Julie Parish, Goldie Hawn, Billy De Wolfe ` Created by: Bill Persky and Sam Denoff ` Executive Producers: Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard ` Network: CBS

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RF: Both Dick and Jerry Van Dyke did guest shots on Good Morning World, right? RS: Yes. Jerry Van Dyke was best man at my wedding. See, we all came out of nightclubs. So we knew each other. When I got married, he was my best man. Good guy.

(BELOW) The author and Ronnie Schell at a joint appearance at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention (March 12, 2017). © CBS.

RF: And Carl Reiner was there? RS: Oh, yeah, because he was producing it. RF: You shot at Desilu Studios? RS: Yeah, Desilu. It’s still there, but I think it’s called Ren-Mar Studios now. But it’s at Cahuenga, and the next street over from Vine [Lillian Way]. We did a lot of shows there. We did The Dick Van Dyke Show. I did two of those, by the way. Later on. [Dick Van Dyke’s] dad used to come on the show and say, “I just drove over to Desliu ‘ka-hoo-en-ga!’” He called it ‘ka-hoo-en-ga’ and we always kidded him for that. RF: Desilu Studios must have been really busy at that point. RS: It was. We did The Dick Van Dyke Show, the Marlo Thomas show [That Girl], Good Morning World, Gomer Pyle—they continued to do it there, even without me, and what else? Oh, what’s that [one] about the prisoners and the Nazis? [It was a] comedy, believe it or not... RF: Right, Hogan’s Heroes. Did you ever run into Lucille Ball at the studios? Was she still working there at the time? RS: No. I met her once, but that was when we were doing a variety show. She was over at CBS one day and they were working on The Carol Burnett Show, which was right next door to ours. She came in, she was very nice. I got to meet a lot of stars, ’cause Harvey Korman was a very close friend of mine and I used to go next door and trade quips with him. Oh, he was crazy. But Bing Crosby would come over and I met Bing. I remember I had a nice conversation with him and at the end I said, “Well, nice to meet you Mr. Crosby,” and he said, “Hang in there, Ronnie!” That was a thrill. It wasn’t big, but it was a thrill for me. RF: Good Morning World was 26 episodes, and most full seasons around that time ran to around 30, so it was right in there. RS: Yes, it was. We weren’t that bad. It was because of the competition and we were ahead of our time. 72

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RF: How did you find out Good Morning World was going to be cancelled? RS: During the last five episodes, we had hints of it. Because if you’re not big in the ratings in those days, you’re out. And our ratings were sub... not really that great. So we knew we were going to get cancelled four weeks left in it. RF: Any final words about Good Morning World? RS: I haven’t seen it recently, but I have watched it, because it plays reruns on MeTV occasionally and Antenna TV. When I look at myself in those days, it’s like looking at a dif ferent person. I guess that’s the way with everybody. I hear me talking and I say, “Gee, that sounds like me. That looks like me, it IS me!” Except

I was much younger, and I don’t know, objectively speaking I think I’m better now than I was then. I have no regrets. My disappointments were only temporary. If something was cancelled, I’d go right into a dif ferent thing, a dif ferent show. So I was never out of work for more than three weeks. I enjoyed doing it. I’m just sorry it didn’t work out. Unless otherwise noted, photos accompanying this article are courtesy of Jason Hofius. JASON HOFIUS has renounced his shady pasts in both advertising and entertainment. He now writes for the common good from his home in sunny Southern California.

RETRO BRIT

Doctor Who and the

Failed Invasion by Ian Millsted

The Retro Brit column continues its investigation of the nexus points where British and American pop culture have met, merged, or clashed. After our look at the example of Benny Hill finding success in America (in RetroFan #9), this issue we explore the tentative, and largely unsuccessful, attempts to launch Doctor Who, that great British institution of television science fiction, in the U.S.A. Ian Millsted brings his expert eye to the times the good Doctor failed to win the day. When I was working in Illinois in 1996, I visited a great science-fiction and comic-book store in Rockford (Yesterday is Tomorrow—get in touch if you read this, guys). They had a petition on the counter for people to sign to ask Fox TV to commission a series follow-up to the recently aired Doctor Who TV movie. Although I was due to return to England in a few weeks, I signed the petition. One of their customers had asked if they could have it there for folks to sign. I doubt the Fox TV people gave it more than a cursory glance, as the ratings for that movie had been quite poor. Another false start for Doctor Who in America, but far from the first.

You’ve probably heard of Doctor Who, although you may not have seen it. Something of a cult success in syndication from the late Seventies onwards, the Pinnacle paperbacks from the same era and Marvel comics on the newsstands in the early Eighties may all have passed before your eye at some point. More recently, the more iteration shown on BBC America has raised the profile of the show higher yet. Less well known are the attempts to sell the character in America in the Sixties. Doctor Who was launched on the BBC in November 1963 as a new science-fiction/adventure series of 25-minute episodes. The original brief was to mix in doses of scientific and historical education to the storytelling, but it soon became clear that the audience wanted excitement. The first episode started ten minutes late due to an extended news broadcast following the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy the day before. The series started with two London schoolteachers who, curious about the odd behavior of one of their students, follow her home to find she lives with Screenwriter Terry Nation. Photo courtesy of Ian Millsted.

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January 2021

retro brit

her grandfather in a junkyard. The grandfather, known as The Doctor, and his granddaughter, Susan, turn out to be aliens who whisk the two teachers off in their spaceship, which is disguised as a London police phone box [booth]. In the following months, the series follows a format of the group of four arriving randomly somewhere in time and space for an adventure which usually lasts four to six episodes, before flying off somewhere new. The first story was a reasonable success, but the show really took off with the second adventure, wherein they encounter the Daleks, of which more below. The format of the show was brilliantly flexible. With a machine that can travel in time and space, any story can be told. When the producers came up with the wheeze that the residents of The Doctor’s planet can regenerate, to change their appearance, allowing the main role to be recast every few years, there was little stopping the possibility of this thing running forever. The series was successful enough for the BBC to produce every season until early 1985. After a one-season hiatus it continued for another four seasons before being cancelled. There was an unsuccessful attempt to relaunch it with a TV movie in 1996 and a far more successful return in 2005, which continues to this day. The 253 episodes of the series shown on the BBC in the Sixties were all black and white, which may have hindered interest from potential buyers in the U.S. at that time. However, it was sold and

Kids in the U.K. went Dalek krazy over these and other merchandised items. Courtesy of Hake's Auctions.

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January 2021

shown in countries and cities as diverse as Canada (from 1965), Zambia, Barbados, Singapore, Aden—in fact, at least 24 nations were showing the program in the Sixties—but not America. British television series that enjoy success in America tend to fall into two main categories. Either they are made to be indistinguishable from American shows (for example, The Muppet Show) or they are archetypally British (Benny Hill, Downton Abbey, Monty Python’s Flying Circus). Doctor Who is very much the latter. As well as being in black and white, the episodes from the Sixties also tended to be quite slow paced and showed their low budget. Viewed now, it is easy to see why TV stations might choose to show reruns of Sgt. Bilko instead. A few early stories were set in the U.S., with one episode supposedly taking place at the top of the Empire State Building, but very much filmed in a BBC studio. Another charming curiosity was the six-part serial, “The Gunfighters,” in which The Doctor and his companions arrive in Tombstone in time for the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. This one was also filmed in a studio but actually looks quite impressive for what it is. At least some of the cast were drawn from the small colony of American actors then resident in London. Many aficionados of Doctor Who dislike the story, but I found it a fun watch. It was, though, two American film producers who first achieved the first sighting of Doctor Who in the U.S. Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky had achieved some success with

retro brit

rock-and-roll movies (Rock Rock Rock with Tuesday Weld) and horror films and were looking to branch out. Another producer, Joe Vegoda, brought the British SF series to their attention. It became clear that the obvious hook was the series’ occasional, recurring enemies, the Daleks. In the second-ever Doctor Who story, written by Terry Nation, the Daleks had made a splash with viewers. Brilliantly simple in design, they looked like robots (but weren’t) with a casing that went down to the floor. Devoid of any facial features and with electronic voices, their schemes for racial superiority made (TOP LEFT) One-sheet them villains to remember. Within days of their first appearance, children poster for the Doctor in schools across Britain were playing at “Daleks.” Who and the Daleks theatrical movie of 1965. © BBC. A whole deluge of merchandise soon followed. Poster courtesy of Heritage Dalekmania hit the country. Fortunately for Auctions. creator Terry Nation, his agent, Beryl Vertue, amended the part of his contract with the BBC (TOP RIGHT & RIGHT) that would have given the broadcaster rights Photo cover (with Peter to the Daleks. That retention of rights allowed Cushing) and interior page Nation to become a wealthy man. from Dell’s Movie Classic Seeing all this, Rosenberg and Subotsky Doctor (Dr.) Who and the Daleks. realized they needed to make not just a Doctor Interior art by Dick Giordano Who film but a Doctor Who and Daleks movie. and Sal Trapani. © BBC. Cover The result, the film Doctor Who and the Daleks courtesy of Heritage. (a.k.a. Dr. Who and the Daleks), was released in RETROFAN

January 2021

retro brit

August 1965 while children interested. Such a model had were still on summer been tried before with the TV vacation. version of The Third Man. Significant changes were However, despite the made for the big-screen project getting as far as version. The Doctor was studio space being booked changed from being an for filming to start, the whole alien to an all-too-human, thing stalled as negotiations eccentric inventor. It starred over rights and merchandising Peter Cushing in the title issues reached an impasse. role, replacing William The blame game started. Hartnell, who played the “The BBC weren’t a very good part on television. Although business organization and the Hartnell had been a top whole thing sort of crumbled character actor in movies in to dust,” was the conclusion of the Forties and Fifties, by Terry Nation. At the BBC end, 1965 Cushing, courtesy of the claim was made that “it his many Hammer movies, became apparent that Terry was undoubtedly the Nation did not want the BBC bigger name. The film also to participate in his venture represented people’s first at all.” chance to see the Daleks Nation had already been in color. In the U.K. it was a selling scripts to the BBC’s rival success, and a further wave network, ITV, for series such as of Dalek merchandise was The Saint [coming in RetroFan released. Daleks were taken #14—ed.] and continued to the Cannes film festival. to work on similar action In the U.S. it wasn’t released adventure series The Avengers, until July 1966, distributed The Baron, The Persuaders, and Dalek display at the Icons of Science Fiction exhibit, Experience by Crown International. It others, all of which achieved a Music Project/Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Seattle, Washington. mostly vanished without measure of success in the U.S. Photo by Theresa Arzadon-Labajo/Wikimedia Commons. trace. A sequel, Daleks Indeed, such was his vision for Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., the American market that he despite being a better film with a bigger budget, had no theatrical moved to Los Angeles in 1980 and worked on McGyver and other release in America. series and TV movies. One by-product of Doctor Who and the Daleks was a comic-book Beryl Vertue was, arguably, even more successful. She took adaptation from Dell Comics, which is cover-dated December two successful British sitcoms and sold the formats to U.S. 1966, which means it was probably on sale shortly after the film’s networks, where the BBC series Steptoe and Son and Till Death Do release. [Editor’s note: According to mikesamazingworld.com, the Us Part became, respectively, Sanford and Son (NBC) and All in the Dell issue went on sale August 1, 1966.] The art was provided Family (CBS). Her son-in-law is Steven Moffat, the producer and by Dick Giordano, inked by Sal Trapani. The uncredited writer writer of Sherlock and several series of Doctor Who. adapted the original film script by Milton Subotsky and Terry Nation. Despite the talent involved, the comic-book version The BBC finally started making Doctor Who in color in 1970, ignited no more enthusiasm than the movie had. and within a couple of years was selling it to stations around the Meanwhile, the creator of the Daleks had other plans for them. U.S., although it took until the early Eighties to really take off, but Scriptwriter Terry Nation, together with his wife, Kate, and agent, that is a story for another column. For now, I’ll give credit to the Beryl Vertue, formed their own production company, with a view glorious failures. The two Cushing films are entertaining movies to making a Daleks TV series specifically for U.S. television. The for a young audience and any adults they happen to be looking series would be set in the future, with a crack team of human after at the time, and I really wish at least one season of The Daleks agents, led by a woman (something of a pioneering move in 1966) had been made. called Sara Kingdom battling the Daleks, who would in turn be IAN MILLSTED is a writer and teacher based fighting other alien antagonists. The plan was for a fast-paced in Bristol, U.K. He has written a book about adventure series that might also have the fringe benefit of acting Doctor Who, Black Orchid, which was as a platform for developing a toy range of Daleks and other published by Obverse Press. He was born in creatures. the Sixties but didn’t watch Doctor Who Fred Alper was the toy business link working with Nation until 1971. at this point. Nation’s first proposal was for a co-production between the BBC and whichever U.S. network might be 76

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Good afternoon, Michael! You mentioned yesterday that you were planning new ideas for RetroFan. After our conversation, I remembered we talked about Richard Nixon last week and the 50th anniversary of Watergate. I’ve got another idea. What about a retrospective/remembrance of Robert Conrad? He died a few months ago [February 8, 2020], and Wild Wild West was one of my all-time favorite shows. He was also in Hawaiian Eye and Baa Baa Blacksheep/ Blacksheep Squadron. And the Everready Battery commercials. Someone you and one of your writers may want to search out is Susan Keasler, who wrote a book on The Wild Wild West and produced the DVD compilations. Another idea: Have you done anything about The Twilight Zone? That sounds vaguely familiar, and I’m a couple of issues behind. But there’s a renaissance in interest about that with the new version, the Twilight Man graphic novel (which is excellent and worth seeking out). And I see that Arlen Schumer is doing a webinar on it. Speaking of rebooted TV shows, what about something on Perry Mason? Some toy stuff: G.I. Joe! And Marx toys, too! They did a lot of playsets on TV shows and cartoons, as you know. One last idea: an interview with Leonard Maltin. He started writing about movies, cartoons, theatrical shorts, and TV shows as a teenager and would be a treasure trove of information and reminisces. That’s enough brainstorming for now! JOHN S. EURY Those are some great suggestions, John— and I’d say that even if you weren’t my little brother! Re Nixon and Watergate: Let me make one thing perfectly clear—we’ll definitely cover that topic in 2022, for the scandal’s 50th. All of the other ideas are duly noted, and we’ll see if we can make them happen one day. Re The Twilight Zone: We did a Rod Serling feature last ish, and next issue Ernest Farino tunes into TZ and other spooky anthologies like The Outer Limits. And there’s more Zone to come.

Just read RetroFan #8. Gotta say, if someone had told me a few days ago that I’d be totally riveted to an article about the Cowsills, I wouldn’t have believed it. Now I want to delve a bit more into their catalog. GLENN GREENBERG

Thank you for including an interview of actress June Lockhart in RetroFan #8. Along with Florence Henderson and Barbara Billingsly, June Lockhart is one of my favorite television

mothers. I’m a big Lost in Space fan and a lot of people forget, or what has been lost to time, is that June Lockhart was the first to play a female astronaut with a doctorate in Biochemistry on a science-fiction TV series, [a plot point] which was “lost” later on (no pun intended). I was really impressed with her performance in Irwin Allen’s first TV series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the episode “The Ghost of Moby Dick,” which also probably impressed Irwin Allen as well. Some years ago, I was deployed to Kuwait, where I was working as the assistant Public Affairs petty officer with U.S. Navy Customs

Battalion, and I couldn’t make a convention where Lockhart and co-star Bob May (who played the Robot) were appearing. They both sent autographed photos to me in Kuwait. CHRIS KRIEG Thanks for sharing that autographed photo of June Lockhart, Chris.

Particularly enjoyed Terry Haney’s Bionic interview with Ken Johnson in RetroFan #8. I think the opening scene of Johnson’s Incredible

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January 2021

RETRO FANMAIL

I just picked up my first copy of RetroFan [#8]! Thank you for putting one of my first TV crushes, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, in your magazine! Here are some ideas for future issues: ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

The Muppets (Eighties) Mr. and Mrs. Evil J. Scientist Milton the Monster Monster Squad CARtoons (MAD magazine for hot rodders) Dark Shadows Wonder Woman Lynda Carter The Secrets of Isis Sarah Purcell (Eighties) Erin Gray from Buck Rogers Daisy Duke Scooby-Doo and its spin-offs The Funky Phantom, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Clue Club, etc. Kaptain Kool and the Kongs G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, Eighties) The Hudson Brothers Show Local kids shows and horror hosts Castle of Frankenstein Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers Far Out Space Nuts Spider-Man Seventies TV show Pirates of the Caribbean model kits The Banana Splits, Danger Island, Tom Sawyer Marine Boy Emergency! The Perils of Penelope Pitstop SST car toys Rocky and Bullwinkle Secret Squirrel WKRP in Cincinnati Logan’s Run The Invisible Man Seventies TV show The Man from Atlantis with Patrick Duffy Ideal Toys I hope this helps!

MIKE FARRELL

Welcome to our funky flashback fiefdom, Mike. Glad you found us. First order of business: You need to visit www.retrofan.org and order our back issues, as several of those topics have previously appeared in our pages. And make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on what’s to come. That’s an impressive list of suggestions! Don’t be surprised if a couple of them appear in the next year or so. And hopefully we’ll be in print for years to come, so we can check off your other ideas, one by one!

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January 2021

I just had to tell you I enjoyed RetroFan #8. Great interview with June Lockhart. I also enjoyed the articles about Popeye and everything else in the issue. Great work! I’m looking forward to future issues. Thanks for such a great magazine. JOEL BOWERS

Watched The Flintstones as a kid, but somehow that fondness didn’t translate into adulthood. Likely because every few years since then, they’ve introduced a different rendition. I did enjoy Scott Shaw’s look at them. He eagerly wanted to draw them and obviously managed quite well. The three Flintstones items I recall fondly—though not to the point of buying them back today—were the record album, the Welch’s grape jelly drinking glasses, and the comic book where they visited the World’s Fair. Very entertained by the look back at the Smiley face. I recall it, around 1972, being so astoundingly pervasive you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing it. Up till then, I never thought anyone could go more overboard than on Batmania some years prior. Boy, was I proven wrong. The notion that the Mars Attacks! cards made parents uneasy probably added to the charm for young buyers. Amusing, with issue #8’s coverage of Honey West, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, and The Bionic Woman, that the concept of super-leading women isn’t quite as recent as some might believe. The lengthy Cowsills interviews greatly surprised me. Frankly, I didn’t know any details of their history—just the songs—so it was quite an eye-opener. The unpleasant conditions they endured, along with their rise and fall, make for a surprisingly sad story. What redeems it as something positive is twofold: they appreciated and treated their kids with kindness and the surviving members are still loved for their music, as well as continuing to perform it. The Cowsills’ songs, especially “Love American Style,” remain terrific. But what a terrible thing to go through for all of them. That’s the downside to past decades. The thought is, everything was better then. Well, in this instance, no. Abusive parenting still exists but at least today, people are speaking up and striving to protect kids. One graphic touch in the Cowsills article cracked me up: the inclusion of 16 Magazine covers. Forgot all about that! So much type, naming teen idols of the day, and displaying their disembodied heads. For me, the clear highlight of the issue was the June Lockhart interview. Loved Lost in Space, so this was a definite connection for me. You even had some information and photos I hadn’t previously seen. Her first season snapshot with both daughters was a treat. Life would have been so much better had VCRs been commonplace in 1965. I never wanted to miss an episode of Lost in Space, so it was a weekly struggle not to go to dinner on Wednesday nights. Or, in 1966, having to miss the Wednesday Batman episode. Thankfully,

now, all three seasons of LIS are on Blu-ray. Had I known I could watch it, at my leisure, as an adult, I’d not have had to race home, right after school, to catch it in syndication. This covered her entire career, but if you should do a second interview, focused strictly on Lost in Space, I promise not to complain. Also, as a suggestion, love to hear what composer John Williams thinks about his brilliant early work on the show (plus, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants). A very interesting issue, even with, for once, sad reminiscences. JOE FRANK While we can’t promise another June Lockhart interview in our pages, the good news is, next issue we have interviews with Lost in Space’s Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen! An interview with John Williams, composer of some of cinema’s best scores ever (including ye ed’s beloved Superman: The Movie)??? I am not worthy! But if there’s any way possible we can make it happen, chatting with him about his earlier TV work, we’ll do so. And since you dug those groovy 16 covers, Joe, here’s another, with Barry and John Cowsill amid some of your fave stars (of late 1969)…

Hulk TV pilot is one of the most elegantly efficient character introductions I’ve ever seen. You learn everything you need to know about David Banner in mere minutes, without a word being spoken. DAN HAGEN

I really enjoy reading your magazines, BACK ISSUE and especially RetroFan. And I really liked your Hero-A-Go-Go book, which I purchased from your wife at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention last September. You can increase the frequency of RetroFan to monthly and I’ll be happy (although the workload on your part would probably be prohibitively overwhelming). One minor correction that I wanted to pass along from the April issue (#8) is a misidentification of one of the Petticoat Junction case in the photo on page 40. The gentleman standing at the far left in the back row is actually Byron Foulger, who played the role of Hooterville Cannonball train engineer Wendell Gibbs during the last couple of seasons, not

Rufe Davis (as Floyd Smoot). Foulger replaced Davis in the cast. In early episodes, Davis had been joined by former Western movie comedyrelief sidekick Smiley Burnette as engineer Charlie Pratt as well. Davis had also been in Western movies in the Forties. I used to enjoy watching Petticoat Junction when it was on CBS and was sorry to see it go. CBS cancelled it in 1970 and the next year cancelled the rest of its rural-oriented programming (Green Acres, Hee Haw, Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, The Jim Nabors Hour). A few years later, CBS fell out of first place in the ratings for the first time in two decades. Only fitting, I felt. JOHN FISHEL John, your letter is the third time this issue that CBS’ rural sitcom purge was mentioned. Hmmm… maybe this might make a good article in itself. Thank you for the kind words about my work, and for being a loyal reader. And thanks for the Petticoat Junction corrections. By the way, Charlton Comics’ Hee Haw funnybook is part of the line-up of next May’s BACK ISSUE #128, a “Bronze Age TV Tie-ins” issue. I’m pickin’, and you’re grinnin’!

I just had to write you on my discovery of your super magazine, RetroFan. I have been a fan all the TwoMorrows books, but this one has me over the moon. Serendipitous that I had just, a few weeks before, started streaming ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. RetroFan’s article is a welcome companion to my enjoyment of the series! Ernest Farino’s article on the Mars Attacks! cards really struck me because my brother Gilbert and I obtained our set the hard way in, through a vending machine! At our local store where we bought all our comics early on (Fantastic Four #1 and many more off the spin rack!), at the entry stood a card-dispensing machine that shot out cards for two cents apiece, along with an ancient dry gumball. On the right, displayed in the little window, was a set of baseball cards (snore), but on the left, a giant caterpillar was humping the Eiffel Tower. It was luck of the draw: sometimes you got baseball, sometimes you got Martians. (In those days, even two cents was hard to come by!) The following has a disclaimer, “Don’t try this ever, kids!”: We discovered a way of using a slightly modified nail file to scoop out the cards we wanted. We ended up with an almostcomplete set. The only one we couldn’t get? The “humping caterpillar.” Then, one day, the machine was gone. Our mother was a lover of all things comics, but not so much with cards. We had complete sets of all these: Batman, Addams Family, Green Hornet, James Bond, Beatles, Universal Monsters, misc. Monster cards, and more. You can see where this is going… one day, you come home from school, and every card is missing… gone… disappeared! I was in awe of my mom’s

ability to make things gone. I searched the alleys for days, no luck. So any magazine with Honey West and Popeye in the same issue is tops! MARIO HERNANDEZ Mario, decades ago in the primitive pre-eBay days, when I was building a collection of vintage toys by shopping from ads in Krause Publications’ Toy Shop newspaper, I remember that publication included ads from a collectibles shop (in New Jersey, I think) that was named: Stuff Mom Threw Away.

RetroFan #8 had it all! That fantastic, detailed interview with the Cowsills—I never knew about the Cowsills, and the trivia that The Partridge Family was based on the Cowsills, or that the Cowsills were offered their own TV series. Great interview, inspiring to know the story about their journey as a family band. Also enjoyed reading the story about the Honey West TV series!! Another highlight wass Andy Mangels’ terrific and colorful retrospective about ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, with interviews with the stars of that amazing Saturday morning Krofft series. DAVID DUNSTON More Kroff t super-stars will appear in future issues of RetroFan, David (personally, I’m jonesing to do an H. R. Pufnstuf cover one day).

I also direct you to the aforementioned and forthcoming BACK ISSUE #128, which will examine the comic-book adaptations of Kroff t Saturday morning series. Speaking of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, we’re Electra-Ecstatic to share with you this photo from earlier this year of DynaGirl herself, actress Judy Strangis, and the wonderful Mark Evanier, whose Saturday morning preview special work was detailed in recent issues of the above the above magazine. In this photo, Mark is presenting Judy with a copy of RetroFan #8. (Special thanks to Mark Evanier and Andy Mangels for sharing that photo.)

I am 55 years old. I purchase RetroFan and Alter Ego from my comic shop here in Australia. A big THANK YOU! I love your mags! I am taken back to Saturday mornings, and the feel-good factor is amazing. I devour your books from start to finish. They take me back to a happy time in my life of wonder and adventure. Many thanks! DAMIEN ANDERSON

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com. MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief

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January 2021

REJECTED! Just keep telling yourself, "This isn't real... this isn't real..."

by Scott Saavedra

THIS ISSUE: Edited by SHEENA, Queen of the Jungle! Sheena, in her jungle home office, shares her thoughts on this issue’s contents!

Popeye is sailor man. Strong to finish. Make good mate. Red-nose reindeer make good meal. Hide make hat for Bob.

Sheena show how track good deal on Dr.Seuss toy. Also show how jungle vine make good collectible show case. Impress whole village!

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January 2021

RetroFan: 2021 Issues!

RETROFAN #13

RETROFAN #14

RETROFAN #15

RETROFAN #16

RETROFAN #17

Holy backstage pass! See rare, behind-thescenes photos of many of your favorite Sixties TV shows! Plus: an unpublished interview with Green Hornet VAN WILLIAMS, Bigfoot on Saturday morning television, TV’s Zoorama and the San Diego Zoo, The Saint, the lean years of Star Trek fandom, the WrestleFest video game, TV tie-in toys no kid would want, and more fun, fab features!

Sixties teen idol RICKY NELSON remembered by his son MATTHEW NELSON, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rural sitcom purge, EVEL KNIEVEL toys, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Saturday morning’s Super 7, The Muppet Show, behind-the-scenes photos of Sixties movies, an interview with The Sound of Music’s heartthrob-turnedbad guy DANIEL “Rolf” TRUHITTE, and more fun, fab features!

An exclusive interview with Logan’s Run star MICHAEL YORK, plus Logan’s Run novelist WILLIAM F. NOLAN and vehicle customizer DEAN JEFFRIES. Plus: the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons of 1966, H. R. Pufnstuf, Leave It to Beaver’s SUE “Miss Landers” RANDALL, WOLFMAN JACK, drive-in theaters, My Weekly Reader, DAVID MANDEL’s super collection of comic book art, and more!

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview. Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

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2021

Exclusive interviews with Lost in Space’s MARK GODDARD and MARTA KRISTEN, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Hogan’s Heroes’ BOB CRANE, a history of WhamO’s Frisbee, Twilight Zone and other TV sci-fi anthologies, Who Created Archie Andrews?, oddities from the San Diego Zoo, lava lamps, and more with FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY!

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