RetroFan #16 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

Good morning, students!

September 2021 No. 16 $9.95

LEAVE IT TO BEAVER’S MISS LANDERS, SUE RANDALL

MARVEL SUPER HEROES TV CARTOONS OF 1966

AN INTERVIEW

Who’s your friend when things get rough?

H. R. Pufnstuf

IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND

LOGAN’S RUN’S MICHAEL YORK

Wolfman Jack • My Weekly Reader • Drive-in Theaters • Collecting Comic Art & more! 1

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FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

CONTENTS Columns and Special Features

Retro Sci-Fi Interviews with Logan’s Run’s Michael York, Dean Jeffries, and William F. Nolan

Retrotorial

Too Much TV Quiz Game show hosts

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The Marvel Super Heroes

RetroFad The Mullet

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Retro Hollywood Drive-in Theaters by Jim Trautman

Super Collector Collecting Comic Art by David Mandel

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum My Weekly Reader

Departments

Retro Remembrance My Friend, Tanya Roberts by Mike Pingel

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria Sue “Miss Landers” Randall

Issue #16 September 2021

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Wolfman Jack

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning H. R. Pufnstuf

RetroFanmail

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ #16, September 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: $68 Economy US, $103 International, $27 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Marvel Super Heroes © Marvel. H. R. Pufnstuf © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions. Michael York photo courtesy of Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com/Wikimedia Commons. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2021 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

RETRO SCI-FI

RRRUUUNNNNNNIIINNNGGG Revisiting A Counterculture Icon

with

Logan by Anthony Taylor There is nothing run-of-the-mill about Logan’s Run; from its origins through the grandiose spectacle of the 1976 feature film, the story of the future cop running from his own mortality has always stood apart from the crowd. Spawned in a Malibu hotel in August of 1965 by two no-name (at the time) short fiction and television writers, Logan has gone on to inspire a big budget movie, a television series, several sequel books, and no less than three comic-book adaptations, not to mention hundreds of fanzines, amateur films, and other derivative works. Plans for a film remake have been in place for no less than 24 years as of 2021, and two additional sequel novels are ready to publish. My own involvement with Logan began as a 12-year-old, when the movie came to my town. I was blown away by the art direction, costumes, special effects, and sheer other-worldliness of the environments I saw onscreen. It first resonated with me on a visual level, but it also sank deeper as I began to understand the implications of the plot and situations and relationships I was shown. I recall seeing it five or six times in the theater—I was enthralled. As rumors of a remake began to take shape around 2006, I had the idea that a book on all things Logan—The Complete Logan’s Run was my working title—might be a decent seller if it could be released at the same time as the new film, or even better, in conjunction with it. I was surprised to hear that Bryan Singer was attached to direct it, and that I had some connection to him through a mutual friend. I contacted my friend and asked if he could see if Bryan could put me in touch with the correct people at Warner Bros. to whom I could pitch my idea.

(ABOVE) Your time is running out, Logan! Logan (Michael York) and Jessica As luck would have (Jenny Agutter), from the 1976 sci-fi it, I then bumped classic, Logan’s Run. © Warner Bros. Courtesy into Bryan on the of Ernest Farino. floor of San Diego Comic-Con and discussed it with him in person briefly. At that point, it was so early in the process that there wasn’t anyone yet assigned to merchandising a film that was still on the drawing board, but I got some positive feedback and felt the project was worth pursuing. I began gathering information and scheduling interviews. Luck continued on my side as I made a connection to Michael York and found an email from him in my inbox soon after. He was very happy to speak to me about the film and even invited me to come to his home for an afternoon. We spent almost two hours talking about Logan, his other films, art collecting, and so many other subjects. He is a fascinating fellow and one of the smartest people I’ve met. On that same trip to Los Angeles, I was also able to interview custom car king Dean Jeffries), who created the futuristic vehicles for the Logan’s Run television series that ran on CBS in 1977. Dean was a legend; he had created the Black Beauty for The Green Hornet, the Monkeemobile for The Monkees, the Moonmobile for Diamonds Are Forever, the cars for Death Race 2000, the Landmaster for Damnation Alley, and countless other show cars and hot rods. He had a long career as a stuntman and vehicle rigger for hundreds of films and TV series, and I was able to hang out with him at his shop situated at the bottom of Cahuenga Boulevard and the 101 Freeway in Hollywood and talk about cars.

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retro SCI-fi

As I began scheduling other interviews, Bryan Singer dropped out of the project to direct Superman Returns, and the remake floundered. At the same time, I had another book project take off, The Future Was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, which chronicled the career of the model-maker, storyboard artist, and vehicle designer of such classics television series as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and the illustrations for Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds album. I put The Complete Logan’s Run aside to work on this and a few other projects and by the time I got back around to it, the remake plans were up in the air yet again. I decided to hold on to what I had and if opportunities to expand my materials presented themselves, take advantage of them. If the remake picked up steam again, I would be ready. Such an opportunity came my way in 2015 when Logan co-creator William F. Nolan was a guest at the World Horror

MICHAEL YORK Michael York first gained note playing Tybalt in Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet and quickly became a bankable face in films like Cabaret, The Three Musketeers, and its controversial sequel, The Four Musketeers. Since then, he has gone on to star in hundreds of films and television episodes, been nominated for several Emmy Awards, and won many other accolades, including a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. While appearing in a play at home in Los Angeles in 1974, he received the script for Logan’s Run, a film in which he initially decided not to appear. RetroFan: Logan’s Run… Michael York: I remember it as a very happy time.

“You’ve gotta do this. Maybe you don’t get it, but I do. This is tapping into a lot of things that excite my generation. You should reconsider it.” So I did. I think I’d worked with [director] Michael Anderson before in England. RF: This was not the same Michael Anderson who had been your theatrical agent for a time? MY: No, different Michael Anderson. Both fellows of a different generation of doing business, both gentlemen. Both incredibly efficient. RF: So this would have been around late 1974 when you first got the script? MY: Yes. I was right in certain aspects of my first impression, there were things that didn’t make sense. There things we worked on quite a bit, and of course Peter [Ustinov] created a much higher role for himself than was in the script. The character he came up with was principally his own invention. He was wonderful at improvising, and you know, Michael Anderson was smart enough to give him his head, so to speak. And what he got was fantastic.

RF: You said that you got the script and didn’t like it very much. MY: Well, yes, I was doing a play at the time in downtown L.A., and I was on the freeway when someone hit me from behind. They hit me so hard the gas tank in my Rolls Royce ruptured and it blew up! So the producers gave me a young man to drive me back and forth to the theater. So we used to chat and I mentioned this movie and York as Logan in a publicity he said, “Could I take a look photo from Logan’s Run. at it?” I gave him the script © Warner Bros. Courtesy of Ernest and when he came to pick Farino. me up the next day, he was wagging a finger and said, 4

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Convention in Atlanta. I was able to sit with him for an hour or so and divine the origins of the novel, the journey to making the film, and what the future holds in store for the character. As a fan of his many other works as well, it was a wonderful thing to hear him discuss with enthusiasm—at the age of 88—all this wondrous things still ahead of him in his career. All three of these interviews are collected here because it seems there may never come a time when a book like the one I envisioned will be marketable to a larger audience, and I felt that they should be seen and enjoyed. My journey with Logan has been memorable and cathartic and I’m happy to finally be able to share it. Whatever else the future may hold, I’m sure of one thing: Logan will continue to run and gain new fans worldwide. RF: Having worked with Michael before, was it easier to slip into or find the character, or fit into the production? MY: I think very much so, because we had each other’s confidence, you know. Because we’d been through this very intense shoot… made with a clock ticking away the whole time, so we liked each other a lot. So I think when he mentioned me to the production head at MGM, Dan Melnick, they thought I might be a good fit. Also, I had been around making movies that were doing okay. What I found out afterwards, and I don’t know if this is true or not, is that if I hadn’t accepted, they were going to shelve the film. So I accepted, and then we did film tests, and I actually tested with Lindsay Wagner.

retro SCI-fi

RF: What about the props? MY: Those guns were constantly misfiring, they were an absolute pain. And you know, they looked good but they ran on gas cylinders and they just weren’t very hightech, you could see all the wires running down the sides of them. But they worked. I’m sure that any remake would have to be very high-tech indeed and be driven by special effects, because that’s what people expect. You can’t deny them. Ah, you know, we were lucky in that everything was kept in a balance between the narrative, the acting, and the effects. RF: Do you think Logan’s story still has relevance? It’s a very different time than in the Seventies. MY: Yes, but there are still those people who want to see something worthwhile, something special, something you know, over and above the materialistic things. You know, that spiritual quest, which is in a long line from grail legends to King Arthur… all of that it’s again, tapping into. It’s a sort of modern equivalent. And even using the ankh, the ancient Egyptian thing, sort of plugged that in as well as a sort of visual shorthand. RF: After an early screening, there were around 23 minutes cut from the film before it was released. Have you ever seen the original edit? MY: No, but I’ve been approached about it at these conventions. They’ve asked my why something from the trailer wasn’t in the film, and I say I have no idea. That’s the whole point of a test screening; to see what works and what doesn’t. Maybe, who knows, it will reappear as a director’s cut again, I don’t know. RF: You and the rest of the cast gave performances that really transcended the material, in my opinion. What remembrances do you have of working with Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, and Peter Ustinov? MY: We were very much a team. I remember that everyone was more or less on the same page. I do think there’s a sort of discipline with British actors; you tend more to just get on with it. If you have problems, you don’t agonize about them in public, you tend to take that off the set. So you had three of us, me and Jenny and Peter and you know, Michael 6

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(ABOVE) York (Logan), Farrah Fawcett-Majors as Holly, and Agutter (Jessica), in a scene from the film. Courtesy of Ernest Farino.

(RIGHT) Her bestselling swimsuit pin-up wasn’t the only Farrah poster hanging on walls in the Seventies. Courtesy of Heritage. © Warner Bros.

Anderson, too, there were so many of us. So we weren’t bedeviled with “Diva-dom.” And I think that’s again, a very British thing. That they’re going to take it very seriously, and behave seriously, and maybe they’re not going to show you who they are but what they can do. You have to take the material seriously and really give it your best shot and 100 percent concentration, and if it works—fabulous. If it doesn’t, at least you tried and you can walk away from it honorably. And also, in the knowledge that what works in the moment many not survive the ages. So I think that’s the nature of movies. RF: You said Peter Ustinov improvised many of his lines—how was that to deal with as someone who is a little more structured in your approach to the script

and story? How do you respond when take two is nothing at all like take one? MY: I loved it! Because you knew it wasn’t to throw you, it was all in a creative interest because he’d found his muse and he was just going with it. And it was very enjoyable, too, being around him. Peter was the most delightful person, he was a very civilized man. He had a wealth of the most incredible stories to

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Marvel Super Heroes by Will Murray In the 21st Century, the Marvel Universe is a cultural juggernaut. But it wasn’t always so. Back in the Sixties, Marvel Comics was an upstart publisher staffed by a tiny team of artists and writers whose titles were printed so poorly that news dealers often stuck them behind the better-looking DCs and Dells. Yet by the decade’s end, Marvel was the industry leader. I know. I was there, buying every title as it hit the racks of assorted variety stores and smoke shops, a proud part of that generation whose dimes sustained Marvel as it crawled up from the ghetto of infamy to which it had been consigned during the dark decade of the Fifties. By 1966, I was a total Marvelite, having given up on my earlier favorite titles, the Superman-DC line. They were for kids. I was a teenager now. Stan Lee was the new king of the four-color jungle.

animation work; programs and commercials as well. And the comic books intrigued me. I’m not a comic book reader per se, but the artwork to me was absolutely alluring. We decided to see if we could animate a book. Now, if you recall, at that particular period, the business was in a slump, and the Goodmans, papa and son [Marvel publisher Martin Goodman and son Chip], were fighting to stay alive. And fortuitously, I was able to make contact with them.” Not so fast. Producer-distributor Steve Krantz of Krantz Films credited his young sons, Nicholas and Anthony, whose Marvel collection was overwhelming the Krantz home. “In desperation,” Krantz explained, “I picked one of the comics up and started to read it, and I realized that no one on television at that time was doing any of the comic books. My sons picked out a number of their favorite characters for me, and I went out and got the rights to them, and that’s how Super Heroes began.” Coming Your Way on TV! Stan Lee settled the question when he Imagine my thrill when Stan announced said, “As far as I know, the deal was made that some of their top super-heroes between Martin Goodman and Grantraywere coming to TV. Grantray-Lawrence Lawrence. I’m sure it was Bob who decided Animation acquired the rights to Captain Kids lost their minds when they which characters to use.” America, Iron Man, Prince Namor the spotted this house ad in Marvel Comics “Originally, my concept was to use Sub-Mariner, the Mighty Thor, and the titles in 1966, announcing the forththe original art and try to utilize that as Incredible Hulk for release as a syndicated coming Marvel Super Heroes cartoon the basis for the production,” recalled anthology show, The Marvel Super Heroes. I and some of the stations broadcasting Lawrence, “but it proved to be too costly could hardly wait. the program. TM & © Marvel. and too complicated. We learned that Grantray-Lawrence’s Bob Lawrence Disney had acquired a machine where you explained the show’s genesis. can copy cels, and if we’d all been smart, we “I was associated with a fascinating would’ve bought stock in that company––that was the beginning group of amateurs in Hollywood,” he said. “Some of the best of Xerox. They had it locked up in a room, in Disney’s facility. ones were Ray Patterson and Grant Simmons, and we were doing RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

But Hollywood is like a sieve––so we got one. And we locked ours up in a room. And it made all the difference in the world. It was really a lifesaver.” Here, Lawrence and Krantz were on the same page. “It was set up as a ‘living comic book,’” Krantz said at the time. “We used the original comic book art, and animated only limited portions of it. It worked quite well, because you get very dramatic poses in comic books. Nothing is static. And we use the Pow! and Smash! words right on the screen.” Batmania was in full swing, so the parties were hoping to cash in on the Sixties super-hero craze. Having the foundation of Jack Kirby’s dynamic artwork, as well as those of Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Don Heck, Gene Colan, and others to work from, gave the team confidence that the episodes would work for television. “One of the secrets of Marvel’s success is its ability to draw action right into its panels,” Lawrence observed. “Marvel’s art is like no other penciling in comics, because its artists and production people understand the principle of arrested motion. Iron Man doesn’t just stand there. He tenses, or relaxes, or jumps, or recoils. The characters don’t actually move, and yet their actions seem to flow, catching the reader up in a current of activity. Since we wanted to retain this flow for our film, we decided to let their artists carry the ball— and the viewer—just as they do their own readers.” “We were fortunate to have such fantastic art to work with,” added GrantrayLawrence President Ray Patterson. “In blowing up these drawings to 18x14, in order to do touch-ups on them, we found very little that our artists had to tinker with. Let’s face it, the comic book created the illusion of action very successfully. We merely helped it along a little.” Lawrence recruited Stan Lee to assist with the inevitable challenges arising from adapting serialized comic stories into three-part cartoons. “Stan Lee lived out in Hewlett Harbor on Long Island,” recalled Lawrence. “I rented a penthouse apartment for him in New York City to keep him near us so that we could work with him on a daily basis. You have no idea. This man could work 24 hours a day. Absolutely writes dialogue that makes all kinds of sense. So we had that ability.” At the time, Lee was thrilled. “They’ve been an absolute joy to work with. They check with us on everything and they’re tremendously anxious to keep with the spirit of our strips and stories. The original stories have been hanged to some degree because some of them aren’t complete in themselves. And the animation studio has to change the ending so it seems like it’s a complete episode.” Early in the development phase, Stan Lee recorded a video pitch/pilot for the show. “And that is what really sold the concept,” revealed Lawrence. 16

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Marvel Comics artwork by Jack “King” Kirby and Gene “The Dean” Colan was used in these Grantray-Lawrence promos produced to syndicate The Marvel Super Heroes. TM & © Marvel.

Producing the Series

Steve Krantz farmed out the production work to five separate animation outfits, beginning with a fading Paramount Cartoon Studios, then headed by animator Shamus Culhane. Paramount selected Captain America’s origin for its shakedown episode. “Krantz was using Xeroxed illustrations from the comic books, only animating the eyes and mouths of the characters,” Culhane explained. “By adding special effects like death rays, explosions beefed up by camera moves, he had put together a sample film of a Captain America story which had been accepted by the networks.” Accepted––after a near-disaster of a first attempt, Culhane later admitted. “It was very easy work; the comic-book illustrations were Xeroxed directly onto cels and painted like normal animation drawings, so the animators had nothing complicated to do except for the special effects. The rest of the animation, the eye movements and mouth action, were so simple that even a novice animator could have finished a whole picture in three weeks.” Simple, but not foolproof. “Because the action was so simple nobody bothered to examine the drawings of the first two pictures,” Culhane recounted in his 1998 autobiography, Talking Animals and Other People. “Animators took the stock scenes as soon as they were animated, noted the drawing numbers of the characters, mouth actions, and special effects, and returned them to the inking department as quickly as possible because as long as they were in reuse the first two pictures were being delayed.

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Yes, Miss Landers…

How Sue Randall Became Every Boy’s Teacher-Crush

Sue Randall as “Miss Landers” poses with Jerry Mathews “as the Beaver.” Leave It to Beaver © NBCUniversal Television.

And Starring as—Kitty, Ruthie, Hope, Kathy Taylor Johnson, Kathy O’Hara, Lucy, Susan, Elaine, Anna, Phyllis, Lois, Elizabeth, Mimi, Chick, Kay, Evelyn, Peggy, Ellen, Effie, Bianca, Hardi, Sabina, Jen, Ann, Louise, Sarah, Virginia, Carrie, Diane Emerson Soames, and Mary Ann, to say nothing of Miss Turner, Miss McNulty, Miss Franklin, Mrs. Wilson, Nurse Thompson, Sgt. Addie Malone, an FBI Clerk, the Union Boss’ Daughter, the Bride’s Friend, a College Girl Holding a Newspaper, and— Wait a minute! What actress could possibly play all those divergent roles? Barbara Stanwyck? Meryl Streep? Sally Field? Nope. It’s our favorite elementary school teacher, “Miss Alice Landers”— Sue Randall. Like Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver, I, along with an uncountable number of schoolboys in the late Fifties and early Sixties, had a deep-seated crush on “Miss Landers,” experiencing on a weekly basis numbness too far down to be heartburn. It didn’t matter that when Miss Landers made her first appearance in 1958 Sue Randall was 23 and I was six. A kid that age lives in blissful ignorance of age and time, and I was confident we’d be married one day soon. The only bubble-bursting downside was the splash of reality I confronted on a daily basis at school: none of my teachers looked like Miss Landers! Or possessed her calming, pleasant manner. (Astrologically, Sue was a Libra, a personality that fits hand-in-glove to Miss Landers: “A considerate and thoughtful nature with understanding and sensitivity who puts the needs of others above her own, always available to offer a non-judgmental ear or supportive words, and likely described as the ‘perfect friend.’”). I would later reconcile this disparity between reality and art by chalking it up to the old adage, Life Isn’t Fair. And if you think it was just me borne away on the wings of schoolboy naiveté, here are comments posted on the IMDb: “Sue Randall, with those big, beautiful eyes and girl-next-door

Written and captioned by Ernest Farino presence…” and, in reply, “I agree absolutely about Sue Randall— it’s easy to see WHY Beaver had a crush on her; if you didn’t you weren’t normal,” as well as “Sue Randall is forever etched in my memory as Beaver’s crush-worthy schoolteacher, Miss Landers.” Years later, along with many other interests, I casually collected photos of Sue, helped by the advent of the internet and eBay. I always wanted to find out more about her, so an article for RetroFan seemed like the perfect excuse to knuckle down. Sue Randall was born Marion Burnside Randall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 8, 1935. Her father was Roland Rodrock Randall, a well-known real estate consultant. The Randall family was one of the prominent families of Philadelphia at that time and Sue’s parents supported her ambitions to pursue theater arts. At the age of ten Sue began acting on stage in a production of Dear Ruth by the Alden Park Players in the Germantown area of Philadelphia, and in 1953 finished her early education at the Lankenau School for Girls. Then it was on to New York, where she graduated with honors from the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts. By then, though, she was so busy with theater work she was unable to attend her own graduation and receive the “Best Actress” award. In an article in the May 19, 1956 issue of TV Guide (vol. 4, #20, issue #164), Sue recalled that she had “read in the paper that [producer Richard Aldrich] was looking for apprentices for his summer theater in Falmouth, Massachusetts.” So she simply arrived, unannounced, at his office. There was no one else there except Aldrich. “We began talking and he said I could have a job.” Sue painted scenery and read for the director. She met Helen Hayes, who was to star in What Every Woman Knows, and was given a part. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/producer Howard Lindsay (who, with frequent collaborator Russel Crouse, would write the book for the Tony Award-winning musical The Sound of Music) saw Sue in the role and hired her for a production of RETROFAN

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

his Life with Father. Sue also appeared at Falmouth with Gloria Vanderbilt in The Swan. At the time Sue was often described as “another Grace Kelly,” and, by coincidence, it was Kelly who starred in the film version of The Swan in 1956. Ironically, Sue’s brother and Grace grew up together. “They’re older, about 26,” Sue said. Grace did give Sue some advice: Don’t take a stock Hollywood contract. “Benefit from my experience,” Grace told her, describing how she had been signed to a sevenyear contract at $750 a week while her films made millions. Of producer Aldrich Sue said, “I guess he just liked me. He sent me out to read Sue Randall for parts I couldn’t possibly fill, just so the also worked as right people would see me.” So Sue started a fashion model making the rounds of producers’ offices and between her in January 1954, 20-year-old Sue Randall early theater played “Sabina” in an American Academy and television production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer appearances. Prize-winning drama The Skin of Our Teeth, a three-part allegory about the life of

mankind. Sabina was the family’s maid in the first and third acts, and as a beauty-queen temptress in the second act. Sue honorably followed in the footsteps of notable actresses who had played Sabina on Broadway: Tallulah Bankhead (who won the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Actress of the Year as Sabina), Miriam Hopkins, Gladys George, Lizabeth Scott, and Mary Martin (in a TV production). Sue did so well in The Skin of Our Teeth that she later won roles in network TV dramas. Her first credited TV appearance came in the 1955 episode “Golden Victory” of the series Star Tonight, an anthology series on ABC (February 1955 to August 1956) that aired on Thursdays at 9pm opposite Shower of Stars (CBS), Capitol Wrestling from Las Vegas (Dumont), and Dragnet (NBC). Each of its 80 episodes consisted of a self-contained story, usually adapted from plays, short stories, or novels by contemporary authors, and provided a opportunity for young up-and-coming New York actors to star opposite established players such as Buster Crabbe, Neva Patterson, Theodore Bikel, and June Lockhart. In addition to Sue, other “newbies” who appeared in the series included Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Jason Robards, Jr., and Robert Culp (with whom Sue would appear ten years later in an episode of I Spy). Sue then took the role of “Diane Emerson Soames” in the television soap opera Valiant Lady (which enjoyed a remarkable run of 1,027

(ABOVE) Sue plays a scene with Martin Balsam in Valiant Lady. © CBS. (LEFT) You can watch Sue’s commercial for Newport cigarettes on YouTube: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QGeTmaMyM6U.

Sue studies her lines for the ABC production of “Golden Victory” for the series Star Tonight. Sadly, only four of the 80 episodes of Star Tonight have survived, not including this one. So this photo is also a rare record of part of television’s lost “Golden Age.” The original network caption said, “Until a month ago, Miss Randall’s career had consisted almost entirely of summer stock, including the Helen Hayes Festival in New England last season, and an ingénue role on one of daytime TV’s top soap operas. Sue is a fashion model between TV commitments.” © ABC.

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episodes from 1953–1957). © R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Helen Emerson was the “valiant lady,” a 40ish widow whose daughter Diane runs off with a married man. Because of its long run, “Diane” was essayed by four actresses: Anne Pearson (#1, 1953–1954, original cast), Dolores Sutton (#2, 1954–1955), Sue Randall (#3, 1955–1956), and Lelia Martin (#4, 1956–1957). (And, in a bit of crossover trivia, Lelia Martin later starred as “Momar” in that bona fide 1964 classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. See RetroFan #12.) At the time that they needed a “Diane #3,” Sue read for producer Leonard Blair who, after having auditioned 60 other actresses, hired her on the spot.

SCOTT SAAVEDRA'S SECRET SANCTUM

Weekly Reader

12+

By Scott Saavedra

d do such a thing? Let's find out!

A newspaper for school children? Who woul

Special Introduction

boys get their very own copy of Our week has seven days. That is a and Weekly Reader. My Weekly Readlot. We need so many days because My full of stories about important we are all so very busy. On Monday er is nts just like your father’s newsthe school days of the week begin. eve er but without extra words that All week long we study and learn pap ld make you sad. RetroFan is a and have lunch and milk. The last wou azine that is almost the same day of the school week is Friday. It mag My Weekly Reader. RetroFan has is the best school day. Is it because as ies about important old televithe next day is Saturday and that is stor shows and good toys and best not a school day so you can watch sion there are no words that will television cartoons and eat sugar of all, e you sad. Well, except for the cereal until your head feels funny? mak t of this story where My Weekly No! Friday is the best day because par der dies… that is the school day all the girls Rea

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Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum

In the interest of full disclosure: I do MWR referred to itself as “The Children’s Newspaper,” but not recall getting My Weekly Reader in they managed to leave out important details and even stay elementary school. I remember getting a away from upsetting topics, so wanting “to know more” competitor’s magazine, Junior Scholastic, in was entirely understandable. Weekly Reader: 60 Years of middle school. I liked Junior Scholastic a lot News for Kids, 1928–1988 (World Almanac, 1988), a book and even kept several copies for decades prepared by the then-current staff of Weekly Reader (the until finally returning them to the earth. But word My having been dropped by then), admitted as much, RetroFan didn’t get requests from readers indicating their policy was designed to “avoid difficult or for an article about Junior Scholastic… they controversial discussions in the classroom.” wanted to read about My Weekly Reader, so It’s true that there would be stories the newspaper felt here we are. could be safely overlooked (Did an eight-year-old in 1929 My Weekly Reader was a slim magazineabsolutely need to hear about the stock market crash?— sized newspaper for elementary school probably not), while others couldn’t passed over. The children. It was between four and eight pages long. The writing shattering assassination of President John F. Kennedy was too and design were clear and basic. There were eventually editions big a story to ignore, and yet their four-page “Special Memorial geared for all elementary school grades featuring news stories Section” (Dec. 1963) was mostly photos and a transcript of his and other information of interest. There was often a comic strip inaugural speech. It doesn’t mention the assassination at all. or some other cartoon, and a study guide on the last page. Special Kennedy was simply not alive anymore. Even as news for kids, it’s sections were sometimes included for the areas of science, health, a very elemental fact to not address. etc. Twenty-five issues were published during the school year and Despite such weak spots in its news coverage over the years, a Summer edition was available during, you know, the Summer. the desire to drive young minds to an interest in current events Judging from comments online, getting the latest My Weekly was a solid one. That goal, and My Weekly Reader’s story, began Reader (MWR) was also a nice break from the classroom routine nearly 120 years ago with a publication called, quite sensibly, for many students. If you were Current Events. lucky, the teacher would pass out copies and let everyone read Twin Births in class and then answer the Separated by Years study guide questions at their Current Events was the creation own speed. A quiet time for all of Charles Palmer Davis, a (especially the teacher). That former journalist and school method of distribution may have board member. When visiting been common. But RetroFan reader classrooms he noted that the school children were largely Doug Abramson wrote to share that unaware of the greater world during his elementary school years around them, not even able (1977–1984) Weekly Reader appeared to identify the then-serving in with the Sunday comics section of president of the United States his local newspaper. Unfortunately, (the sadly doomed William as we shall see, there are some McKinley). Davis was unsettled areas of MWR history that remain and felt that an education that somewhat murky. didn’t “prepare young people In whatever way they got their for better citizenship” needed copies, former children recalled to be fixed. His proposed the satisfaction of having their own solution was to create a news source like mom and dad newspaper for public school did. Some just enjoyed reading the kids. news, while others would sit with The first issue of Current friends later to discuss the stories Events was published May 20, from the latest issue. Early in 2020, 1902. Only a few hundred were author Rick Houser wrote in The printed, but the newspaper, Clermot Sun that “the Weekly Reader designed for middle and was the foundation of moving me This special section of My Weekly Reader (Dec. 1963) was high school students, grew towards growing into a thirst to intended for second grade students (note the number 2 in in popularity. That first issue want to know more.” He wasn’t the masthead). Nothing inside even alludes to President put down a marker that would alone. Kennedy’s assassination. Unless otherwise mentioned, all also apply later to MWR. Each However, not to be too snarky images are from the collection of the author. Junior Scholastic & issue would provide “prompt, about it since we are talking about My Weekly Reader TM ® & © 2021 Scholastic Inc. All Rights Reserved. reliable, fresh, clean” news news for children here, MWR could without “harmful features come up short as a news source. 38

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September 2021

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

“Bitten by the Curse of Radio, It’s WOLFMAN JACK, Baby!” “If someone was to nominate me for the Supreme Court it would be a shame, because with my two-tone wolfish goatee and all I’d probably look great in those dignified robes. But I would never get past the preliminary phase, where they check your closet for skeletons. ’Cause I’ve got enough bones kicking around in there to build my own dinosaur.” – Robert Weston Smith, a.k.a. “Wolfman Jack”

Wolfman Jack through the years: at KUXL, in the movie American Grafitti, a publicity shot (with fangs!), on TV’s Midnight Special, and as the subject of a 1995 memoir, Have Mercy!, co-written by Byron Laursen. Photos courtesy of Scott Shaw! American Grafitti © Universal Pictures. Midnight Special © NBC. Have Mercy! © Grand Central Pub.

by Scott Shaw!

As a kid, I liked beatniks, outlaws, eccentrics, and weirdos. I still do. Many of them inspired what eventually became part of my oddball personality. Growing up in San Diego, California, a border city, in the mid-Sixties, I raptly listened to a raspy, outrageous, and hilarious fellow who went by the “air name” of “Wolfman Jack” on XERB, a megawatt “border blaster” radio station in nearby Mexico that broadcast prerecorded shows. While in 11th grade, I spoke like Wolfman Jack for a week just to see if I could get away with it. I drove my parents crazy, especially when my Spanish teacher, a guy from Germany, met with my parents on PTA Night and informed them that I “spoke like a colored person.” (My parents were much more upset with that racist comment than my entire week of Wolfmanning.) In 1966, during a family weekend vacation in Los Angeles, after Wolfman Jack was doing his radio show live from Hollywood, I had a five-minute conversation with him from a phone booth outside our motel one Saturday night. (I’ve been told that our session was included on one of his many LP-record-album collections of his on-air phone calls.) He was a complete mystery to me, my friends, and most of the teenagers in San Diego. Who was this Wolfman Jack? What did he look like? Where did he come from? Was he a put-on? Why was his voice so raspy? Was he black or was he white? RETROFAN

September 2021

The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

I bought November 1967 issue of Cheetah magazine (the first publication from The National Lampoon’s Matty Simmons) because it featured the first-ever-in-print photo of Wolfman Jack. I also ordered a poster that he constantly mentioned on his radio show, the “Wolfman Jack Psychedelic Drug Calendar,” a cartoon image of a werewolf inside of a clear gel capsule. When it arrived, I immediately taped it to my bedroom’s closet door. I was so innocent then that I never noticed the implication… and fortunately, neither did my parents.

Kid Wolfman

Since his health situation dictated that radio would be his main source of entertainment for a while, he embraced it all. Bobby loved to listen to Abbott and Costello, The Shadow, Jack Benny, and The Green Hornet, with particular attention to the power of words and how they can inspire the imagination. And a career, as Bobby went on to prove. As time passed, the Smith family moved to Brooklyn and Bobby fell in with a rough block gang. The Wolfman freely admitted that he was reluctant to get into fights with rival gangs, but once he did, he wailed on his opponents. He was involved in other juvie crimes, such as stealing cars for joyriding and shaking down guys who propositioned them in the bus station’s bathroom. Eventually, he formed his own gang of actual friends, which included black kids. One of his pals, a guy nicknamed “Klepto,” deftly stole dozens of 45 RPM records for Bobby. He built a primo collection of songs—mostly rhythm and blues but tons of other hip material like Afro-Cuban jazz— and put together his own faux “radio shows,” spinning discs and laying spiels on his pals. One Christmas, his father gave him a fancy radio, a transoceanic model that received broadcasts from all over the world. Bobby and his buddies found tuning in to listen to all of the frantic, fast-talking disc jockeys lurking in the ether to be irresistible. They considered the deejays to be the coolest guys around, learning to imitate the patter, the voices, and the timing. But none of them were into it as much as Bobby Smith was. He was unaware of it, but he was training himself for a career in radio—in his eyes, the coolest possible job on the planet.

Robert Smith was born in Brooklyn on January 21, 1938. His father, Weston Smith, was a successful, intelligent, and talented man, an Episcopal Sunday school teacher, writer, editor, and stage magician. The Wolfman has described his mother, Rosamond Small, as “being a little too open-hearted, sympathetic, and trusting.” Bobby (as everyone called him) was especially close to his older sister, Joan, as well as the family’s African-American maid, Frances, a.k.a. “Tantan” (that was toddler Joan’s name for Frances). He grew up in a posh apartment in Manhattan, until his father experienced a financial reversal. Weston suddenly had to work as a shoe salesman, but he was an ambitious man and became the vice-president of Financial World, a magazine that “created” the Golden Globes Awards. Meanwhile, Joan (who was ten years older than Bobby) began a modeling Buttons promoting the Wolfman’s early radio career. Things were looking good stints and events have become prized collectibles again until, bizarrely, their parents among Baby Boomers. Courtesy of Hake’s Auctions. divorced, only to wed their alsorecently-divorced best friends! Poor Bobby was having a very hard time digesting the situation. So did Tantan, who eventually quit over XERFin’ Safari the uncomfortable “flip.” This was especially upsetting for Bobby, Soon, Bobby Smith became an avid fan of R&B music and the disc jockeys who played it. His favorite deejays included Douglas who loved his black friend like a second mother. Even worse, his “Jocko” Henderson of Philadelphia and New York’s “Dr. Jive,” space was invaded by a stepbrother the Wolfman described as a.k.a. Tommy Smalls. Then he got a second opportunity to “a creepy kid.” His stepmother, Marge, a mean alcoholic, treated escape, this time a physical one, spending a stress-free summer Bobby horribly, even poisoning his dog Rags. Despite a summer at his newlywed sister’s place. When he returned to Brooklyn, spent with his real mother, he felt trapped, with no chance of he started listening to “the weirdest station of all,” XERF. During escape from his his once-happy-now-hellish-household. When he was eight and laid low with a case of mononucleosis, daytime, it broadcast a bizarre combination of hillbilly music, fiery evangelism, and sales pitches for oddball quasi-religious Bobby found his way out, at least psychologically speaking. 44

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RETROFAD

Patrick Swayze rocked it. Superman… not so much. It’s easy to wince when confronted with your hairstyles of yesteryear, especially when your kid or grandkid is mocking your yearbook photo or wedding portrait. While absolution for past transgressions of beehives or high-top fades can be obtained with a shoulder-shrugging “It was the times” apology, one disreputable ’do has earned a spot on almost everyone’s Bad Hair Day lists: the mullet. Yes, the mullet, the hairstyle that defied boundaries of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and decorum. It has inspired costumers (mullet Halloween wigs), musicians (The Beastie Boys’ “Mullet Head”), documentarians (American Mullet), Hollywood comedies (Joe Dirt and Joe Dirt 2, Mulletville), and authors (two books: Barney Hoskyns and Mark Larson’s 2000 The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods, and Alan Henderson’s 2013 Mullet Madness!: The Haircut That’s Business Up Front and a Party in the Back). It’s like the horrific auto accident we pass that we don’t want to

Business (front) Party (back)

The Brady Bunch © Paramount Television. Captain Planet © Captain Planet Foundation. Joe Dirt © Columbia Pictures. Lethal Weapon © Warner Bros. Pictures. The Mullets © Warner Bros. Television. Superman © DC Comics.

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see but still observe in rubbernecking awe. You might want to wag a finger at the late David Bowie for planting (or dyeing) the root of this craze. During his Ziggy by Stardust phase beginning Michael in 1972, Bowie shocked Eury the meek (and probably his grandmother) with his androgynous, carrot-orange hairstyle that was spiky short on top and long in the back. Glam rock artists and punk rock musicians aped the look, and it took wing in a big way when former “cute Beatle” Paul McCartney not only let it be but let it all hang out (in the back, but not the front). Lest you think this brazen hairstyle was the exclusive domain of Seventies rockand-rollers like McCartney and fellow mullet head Rod Stewart, one of television’s most beloved matriarchs sanctioned the mullet. Florence Henderson, who, as Carol Brady, sported more wig and hairstyle changes throughout The Brady Bunch’s five seasons than you’ll find in an average episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, is best remembered with her “flip” look, a proto-mullet. (While daughters Marcia, Jan, and Cindy all had hair of gold, like their mother, they did not go the mullet route.) If you crack the dust layer off your old history and world cultures textbooks, you’ll discover that while David Bowie may have been a trailblazer both in fashion and music, the mullet was not his invention. There’s historical conjecture that primitive man might have worn the mullet, chopping off hair on top to keep it out of their eyes but allowing a mane to grow for neck warmth. Short-topped, long-backed hairstyles definitely go back to Ancient Greek statues. Some Native Americans wore the style, often with a Mohawk on top. According to History.com, one of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin—arguably the smartest guy in the room during his day—eschewed the customary powdered wigs worn in French courts when, in the late 18th Century, he petitioned France for increased financial support for the nascent America by dressing down for

RETRO HOLLYWOOD

FROM FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT TO TEENAGE PASSION PIT AND BACK AGAIN by Jim Trautman Each day the American flag flies over the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., it is to recognize an important event, person, or organization. On June 6, 2008, it was flown to recognize the 75th anniversary of the first drive-in movie theater, opened by Richard Hollingshead in Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933. The admission charge was 25 cents per person and car. The first night at Hollingshead’s Drive-in movie drive-in featured the long-forgotten Adolphe speaker being Menjou movie Wives Beware (1932), which hooked onto car ran a mere 61 minutes and was so short window. Photo by that the movie was shown three times that Bob Matti. first night. After each showing the parking lot was cleared and new customers were admitted. The coming and going to this new novelty brought in 600 customers on that opening night. Sounds like doubleheader baseball games of today. The sound system was actually behind the movie screen, since what we remember as the speaker in the car was not invented by RCA until the mid-Forties. The screen measured 40 feet by 50 feet. In the Fifties, actress Natalie Wood would appear in print advertising for in-car, silver-aluminum speakers, two to a pole, a new innovation for the drive-in. You’d roll down your window and clip the speaker onto the door to bring the movie’s audio into your car.

Much of life is based on events that become part of the “myth culture” of society. It is said that Hollingshead founded the drive-in for a simple reason: his mother was too fat to fit in a traditional theater seat. Fact or not? In addition, it is believed that a version of a drive-in existed in the Twenties, and since the movies were all silent at that time it would seem that could be a fact. No matter the real story of the drive-in’s beginnings, a social culture was created around the venue that has taken us through various phases of life: young families and their children, then the “teenage passion pit,” to (TOP) Ad from the Leamington, Ontario, Drive-In. Movies at the drive-in changed quickly to keep the customers coming in. (BOTTOM) This ad for the Skyway in Malvern, Ohio, promoted not only its feature but also the facility’s concession stand and playground. Courtesy of Hake’s Auctions.

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September 2021

retro hollywood

The Grove City Drive-In Theatre, Springdale, Arkansas. John Margolies Roadside America Collection, The Library of Congress.

adult movie houses, and finally back to the family business. I have lived through all these phases and have personally been involved in the drive-in theater culture, a culture rooted with the Baby Boom generation and the automobile. It is the story of our lives, which in many ways is like a drive-in movie we watched. Prior to the start of World War II, several other driveins opened across the United States, including one at Shankweiler’s Auto Park in Orefield, Pennsylvania, which is still in operation.

The Car Culture

Drive-ins did not do very well during World War II for a simple reason: gasoline was being rationed as part of the war effort, and moviegoers had to depend on walking or taking a bus to the local movie house. That changed once the war ended and the Baby Boom began, which created mass migration to the suburbs. America’s love of the automobile was born. New highways were built, jobs flowed, and disposable income soared. Cookie-cutter housing developments that are now often mocked (think Levittown, New York) were being built across the country, affordable for most, and the “American Dream” was born. My parents moved into a little house that cost $10,000. Like the Roaring Twenties—the good times had arrived! Drive-in theaters exploded across the United States and Canada. By the early Fifties there were over 4,000, including a canoe-in drive-in and a fly-in model in Asbury Park on the New Jersey seashore. It actually could accommodate 25 small planes and 500 cars. Wonder if a car ever became lost and ended up on the runway? 58

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The car culture of the mid-Twentieth Century created not just the drive-in theater, but a new wave of drive-in or drive-to eateries. Prior to World War II only ten Dairy Queen restaurants existed. By 1950, there were 1,446. A&W Root Beer stands joined that explosion, although they weren’t constructed in the big cities, but in the outlying suburbs; same with McDonald’s. When the UFO craze was upon us, with flying-saucer sightings in our daily newspapers and Earth-invasion flicks showing in movie houses, we rushed to Carvel Ice Cream drive-ins to get the new “flying saucer” ice cream sandwich filled with either vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Drive-in theater owners had to purchase movies from distributors, and since customers appeared to like the movies to change often, profits were tight for the theater operators. Savvy owners hit upon the answer to increasing profitability: making the drive-in a family experience that started long before the onset of darkness that would allow the movies to be shown. Patrons were enticed by advertising to arrive early. Many drive-ins had a playground for the kids, and several had swimming pools and bottle-warming stations for babies. Some even allowed you to bring your laundry and pick it up on the way out. In the early days, some cars (including my parents’) had a searchlight next to the driver’s window, allowing patrons to play “light games” on the blank movie screen prior to the show while the kids amused themselves in the theater’s playground. An ad for a drive-in theater promoted, “Smoke, talk, relax in the wide seats of your car, and hey, how about having a tasty meal?” Approximately 60% or more of the drive-ins’ profits come from the concession stand. The concession booth usually had many employees and was better organized than a military operation!

SUPER COLLECTOR

Collecting

Comic

Art by David Mandel I was in third grade, about eight years old, and drawing a picture of the human heart for a school report on the floor of my parents’ bedroom when my stomach started hurting. It was not exactly my stomach but rather my side that hurt. I had a mild fever and I vomited once, and before I knew what was happening, they were taking out my appendix at Mt. Sinai Hospital. This was before laparoscopic surgery, which meant they made a large incision to get the appendix out, and the recovery was painful, especially at first, and I stayed in the hospital for over a week. It was kind of scary, the food was terrible, and I hated when they woke me up early in the morning to take blood. But what I remember most about my stay in the hospital was X-Men Annual #4. To cheer me up, my parents had picked up a whole bunch of comic books for me, and on top of the pile was a new issue of the X-Men, and it was a double-sized one at that. Written by Chris Claremont © Marvel.

(TOP LEFT) Star Wars Marvel Treasury Edition and (BOTTOM LEFT) the original art by Rick Hoberg and Dave Cockrum. © LucasFilm Ltd.

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super collector

with cover and art by John Romita, Jr. and Bob McLeod, “Nightcrawler’s Inferno” had the X-Men, with help from Dr. Strange, journeying through Dante’s Inferno to save Nightcrawler’s soul from his… mother! There were other comics in that pile, but that was the one I read over and over and over. That was the comic book that got me through my surgery. And it took me just a little less than 25 years to track down and buy the original art to the cover. I would have paid anything to get it. I had to have it. In case it was not clear, I collect original comic art. If you do not know what original comic art is, it is the original, hand-drawn pages that are used to make comic books. Often one artist pencils them, and then a second artist inks them, and they are black and white—the color is added later before the comic book is printed. I used to joke that I collect original art because regular comic book collecting was not nerdy enough for me, but it is really so much more than that. So, what is original comic-art collecting?

Original Comic Art is Nostalgia

All collecting is nostalgia, of course, but comic art for me is doubly so. Not every piece of comic art in my collection is connected to a hospital stay, but for most of my pieces, I can remember where and when I read the original issue. Some comics, I bought with 66

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my friends first on the upper west side of New York City at West Side Comics and then later at Big Apple Comics on 92nd Street, across from where my grandmother lived. Some are from comics my parents sent me as a “Care Package” at sailing camp, which I hated because everyone seemed to know how to sail already. I own the original art to the cover of the Star Wars Treasury Edition. And that cover not only reminds of seeing Star Wars—twice in a row—when it came out, but more importantly, I specifically remember reading the treasury with my dad on the beach in Cape Cod during a summer vacation. We had seen the movie together and now we were reading the treasury edition together. And later that same day, we went out in the ocean and got the crap knocked out of us by a big wave that stole my father’s sunglasses. Pure nostalgia. But it is more that, too.

Original Comic Art is Ego

Comic art also does something that seems to stoke what I like to call my “collector’s ego.” You see, anyone can have a copy of X-Men Annual #4. X-Men was among Marvel’s bestselling comic books

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

by Andy Mangels

(BACKGROUND) H. R. Pufnstuf title card. (INSET) Promotional image for Sid and Marty Krofft's Kaleidoscope. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

Television of the late Sixties and early Seventies was not without its far-out candy-colored mod/hippie-influenced shows, but rarely did the world of the counterculture creep into children’s television. Such was not the case with one series… a series that has stayed in the public eye as a psychedelic cornucopia of oddity… a series that despite everyone in the world claiming it is chock full of drug references, the creators claim it is not… That series was H. R. Pufnstuf, and its producers, Sid and Marty Krofft, built a legacy on its bizarre tales. With only one full season of shows—and a lesser-known feature film—how has H. R. Pufnstuf’s influence lasted for over 50 years?

The Krofft Kaleidoscope

In the world of Sixties/Seventies Saturday morning television, only a few companies ruled the roosts on the three networks: Hanna-Barbera Productions, Filmation Associates, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, and Sid and Marty Krofft. Though Filmation had been dabbling with live-action among its H. R. Pufnstuf and Jack Wild as Jimmy. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

animated offerings, the Kroffts would almost singlehandedly keep live-action alive on Saturday mornings, first designing The Banana Splits for Hanna-Barbera in 1968, then debuting their hallucinatory (some would say hallucinogenic) hit H. R. Pufnstuf in 1969. The Montreal-born brothers Sid and Marty Krofft were the sons of a watchmaker, and Sid worked in vaudeville as a puppeteer, eventually being featured in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus shows. His one-man puppet show, “The Unusual Artistry of Sid Krofft,” toured the world in 1940, where he worked with his father. Younger brother Marty eventually learned the puppet trade on stage, and began working with Sid. In 1957, they even produced a touring risqué puppet production called Les Poupées de Paris. The Kroffts created the costumes and world of The Banana Splits for Hanna-Barbera in 1968, working for the first time with a respectable budget and national audience. They decided to break off on their own the following year, and the show they created, H. R. Pufnstuf, was their first opportunity to let their fertile imaginations run wild with oversize puppets interacting with humans, kaleidoscopic colors and production design, and even crude special effects. The H. R. Pufnstuf character actually began his “life” as a character named Luther, a mascot for the 1968 World’s Fair, also known as HemisFair ’68. Held in San Antonio, Texas, from April 6–October 6, 1968, the fair included a Coca-Cola-sponsored RETROFAN

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AnDY MAngElS’ rETro SATurDAY MornIng

pavilion called Kaleidoscope, which was created by the Kroffts. The mascot for the pavilion was Luther, an anthropomorphic dragon with an oversized blue head and friendly smile. He also had a cowboy hat, wore cowboy boots, and talked with a bit of a Southern drawl… apropos for a Texas location. The plot of Kaleidoscope was described on the back of a souvenir puppet book, which allowed viewers to recreate the show using punch-out cardboard puppets on strings: “Kaleidoscope takes you into a magical world of illusion and surprise… where comedy, music and dance are spectacular, and anything is possible. It boasts a cast of over 120, and features the talents of many Hollywood stars. There have never been so many elaborate effects in one production, where the entire audience becomes involved in the spectacle. You are taken back to the beginning of time where a Super Hero is changed into a monster by a terrible witch and the only way the monster can be changed back is to be kissed by someone. For thousands of years he can get no help until he meets a famous young girl, and the two travel thousands of feet through space searching for the wicked witch who might help. They are entertained by manyTHIS well-known characters along IF YOU ENJOYED PREVIEW, the way and alsoCLICK go through a fewTO horrifying Finally THE LINK ORDER moments. THIS ISSUE IN PRINT ORand DIGITAL FORMAT! the show swings to happy times you find out who the Super Hero is…” In the story above, the characters included Luther the Enchanted Dragon, Wicked Ol’ Witch (who “flew” over the audience), Senor Ole’, Bull, Ape, and Dog. It is unknown who the “famous girl” was, or which celebrities were involved in the production (although puppets of Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, Marlene Dietrich, and John Wayne were used). Somehow cowboys and giant spiders were also involved, and 16-foot-tall puppets of historical figures like Davy Crockett. Nor do we know who the Super Hero was… According to a souvenir postcard from Coca-Cola, though, at some point in its story, Kaleidoscope explained “man’s interest in, and need for, refreshment.” RETROFAN #16 auditorium, with the Kaleidoscope was presented in a 500-seat An exclusive interview with Logan’s Run star MICHAEL YORK, building surrounded lagoon. plus Logan’sby Runanovelist WILLIAM F. NOLAN and vehicle JEFFRIES. Plus: the Marvel Super Heroes carThe Krofftscustomizer had aDEAN second show—this one adults-only due to its toons of 1966, H. R. Pufnstuf, Leave It to Beaver’s SUE “Miss Landers” RANDALL, WOLFMAN JACK, drive-in theaters, My risqué puppets—Les Poupées de Paris, at the nearby Lido Theatre Weekly Reader, DAVID MANDEL’s super collection of comic book art, andwas more!devoid of Coca-Cola branding (though pavilion, but this one (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 it did have pre-recorded material from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, (Digital Edition) $4.99 and Dean Martin). The only fly in the ointment for the enchanted dragon star was his name; two days before the World’s Fair opened, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. With racially motivated https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=1607

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(TOP LEFT) Exterior of the Coca-Cola-sponsored Kaleidoscope show. (TOP RIGHT) Marty Kroft with Kaleidoscope's star, Luther. (ABOVE) Production art for the show. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

riots occurring in many cities, the “Luther” name might have struck the wrong chords in audiences. Perhaps this is why the puppet program only references “Enchanted Dragon” as his name?

Creating a Television Trip

NBC daytime executive Larry White and his “people” visited the sets of The Banana Splits while the show was in production, and marveled at the craft that went into the life-size creature suits and puppets working together. NBC suggested to the Kroffts that they try to sell them their own show, but White was leaving Hollywood by train at the end of the week. Sid pulled together and repurposed elements from Kaleidoscope, and three days later (a Friday) the Kroffts delivered the “Luther Land” proposal to White. The exec studied it on a train cross-country, and the following Monday, informed the Kroffts that they had a sale. NBC would debut their Saturday morning live-action life-sized-puppet series in Fall 1969! NBC quibbled though about the name, feeling “Luther Land” would sound too much like “Lutheran Land.” Marty asked a friend, screenwriter Michael Blodgett, for ideas. Blodgett considered that the most famous dragon in the world was “Puff the Magic Dragon,” made popular from the 1963 song by Peter, Paul and Mary. By playing around with the concept “Puff and all his stuff,” Blodgett suggested to the Kroffts that they call the show