RetroFan #19 by TwoMorrows Publishing

March 2022 No. 19 $10.95

Pardon me...?

WATERGATE AT FIFTY

HAMMER... HARRYHAUSEN... BOND... BURROUGHS...

e thes g i D y kook les... ctib colle

CAROLINE MUNRO INTERVIEW

Wacky Packages! Bob Kane’s other dynamic duo...

COURAGEOUS CAT and MINUTE MOUSE!

Will the real Ghostbusters please stand up?

Go-Go Dancing • Pauline Peril • Rare Pro Wrestler Erasers • Red Skelton Museum & more! 1

82658 00462

FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury Caroline Munro photo: Dutch National Archives. Wacky Packages © Topps. Nixon illustration © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

AMERICAN TV (1940sCOMIC BOOKS 1980s) Hot on the heels of Back Issue #128, AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s) takes you from the small screen to the printed page, offering a fascinating and detailed year-by-year history of over 300 television shows and their 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades. Author PETER BOSCH has spent years researching and documenting this amazing area of comics history, tracking down the well-known series (Star Trek, The Munsters) and the lesser-known shows (Captain Gallant, Pinky Lee) to present the finest look ever taken at this unique genre of comic books. Included are hundreds of full-color covers and images, plus profiles of the artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and many more giants of the comic book world. Whether you loved watching The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, and Zorro from the 1950s—The Andy Griffith Show, The Monkees, and The Mod Squad in the 1960s—Adam-12, Battlestar Galactica, and The Bionic Woman in the 1970s—or Alf, Fraggle Rock, and “V” in the 1980s—there’s something here for fans of TV and comics alike! (192-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3 • SHIPS SPRING 2022!

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TWO-FISTED COMIC BOOK ARTIST A spirited biography of the EC COMICS mainstay (working with HARVEY KURTZMAN on MAD and TWO-FISTED TALES) and co-creator of Western strip AMERICAN EAGLE. Covers his 40+ year association with CRACKED magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB TRIMPE on THE HULK and teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on KING KULL, and more! With commentary by NEAL ADAMS, RICHARD CORBEN, JOHN BYRNE, RUSS HEATH, WALTER SIMONSON, and many others. By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE. (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6 • NOW SHIPPING!

OUR ARTISTS AT WAR The first book ever published in the US that solely examines War Comics published in America! It covers the talented writers and artists who supplied the finest, most compelling stories in the War Comics genre, which has long been neglected in the annals of comics history. Through the critical analysis of authors RICHARD J. ARNDT and STEVEN FEARS, this overlooked treasure trove is explored in-depth, finally giving it the respect it deserves! Included are pivotal series from EC COMICS (Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace and the Big Five war books: All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War, and StarSpangled War Stories), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring the work of HARVEY KURTZMAN, JOHN SEVERIN, JACK DAVIS, WALLACE WOOD, JOE KUBERT, SAM GLANZMAN, JACK KIRBY, WILL ELDER, GENE COLAN, RUSS HEATH, ALEX TOTH, MORT DRUCKER, and many others. Introduction by ROY THOMAS, Foreword by WILLI FRANZ. Cover by JOE KUBERT. (160-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-108-0 • NOW SHIPPING!

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #19 March 2022

Columns and Special Features

Departments

Retrotorial

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse

53 33

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria On the Set… Movies in the Sixties

Retro Interview Caroline Munro

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril

44 23

2 30 RetroFad Go-Go Dancing

44 Retro Collectibles Wacky Packages

50 Too Much TV Quiz

71 Retro Toys The Bandai Pro Wrestler Erasers of 1987

74 Celebrity Crushes

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Watergate’s 50th Anniversary

RetroFanmail

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ issue 19, March 2022 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 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, $29 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Caroline Munro 1974 photograph courtesy of Dutch National Archives. Wacky Packages © Topps. Nixon illustration by Murphy Anderson, from From Beyond the Unknown #17 © DC Comics. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse © Trans-Artists Productions. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2022 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

BY MICHAEL EURY

PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Ernest Farino L. Wayne Hicks Mark Kratzner and Doug Carroll Andy Mangels Jeff Moreno Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Anthony Taylor DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS DC Comics Bill Griffith Hake’s Auctions Tami Hamalian Heritage Auctions Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy Rose Rummel-Eury David Saunders Art Spiegelman Topps VERY SPECIAL THANKS Caroline Munro

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RETROFAN

There’s a lot of chatter in this issue’s RetroFanmail about readers’ appreciation for Scott Saavedra’s excellent “Rural Sitcom Purge” column in RetroFan #15. Early this morning I caught a few minutes of Petticoat Junction on MeTV and realized, for the first time, the primary common denominator linking those CBS country sitcoms we grew up with: each had a stable straight man or woman around whom the rest of the show’s crazy characters orbited. In Petticoat Junction it was Kate Bradshaw, the voice of reason amid Uncle Joe’s harebrained schemes, and down the railroad tracks in Hooterville, Oliver Douglas anchored the eccentric cast of Green Acres. On The Beverly Hillbillies, Jed Clampett, despite his lack of erudition, was the smartest guy in the room. On The Andy Griffith Show, it was Sheriff Taylor, although that dynamic evolved in the first season after Andy abandoned his bumpkin shtick from his stand-up days. Does the same hold true here at RetroFan? Is ye ed the only sane soul among a legion of loveable loonies? Truth be told, we’re all a little wacky here, and that’s what makes this magazine so much fun to produce—and judging from your feedback, fun for you to read. If I stand firm amid any insanity, it’s the unpredictability of the world around us that prompts me to hold tight the RetroFan-reins and keep us on a steady path. And on that note, I have an announcement that will disappoint many of you. This is Ernest Farino’s last issue as a regular columnist; his “Retro Fantasmagoria” is being temporarily retired. I say “temporarily” since we have in the pipeline another installment of his “How They Did It” behindthe-scenes looks at Sixties movies (including two of my childhood faves, Planet of the Apes and Fantastic Voyage), giving us something to look forward to. Ernie wanted to personally say goodbye to you… To paraphrase James A. FitzPatrick’s classic closing line from his TravelTalks shorts in the Thirties and Forties, “as the sun slowly sets, I reluctantly say ‘Farewell’ to the colorful pages of RetroFan magazine.” This has been great fun; not only reminiscing on favorite topics, but dusting off collections of long-dormant material. But calls from the Land Beyond to other endeavors have become a collective time vampire, so I must move on. Shakespeare would have titled his play Two Gentlemen of Nostalgia if he had known publisher John Morrow and editor Michael Eury, and their combined enthusiasm, support, and unwavering good cheer has been energizing. Michael’s deft and delicate wielding of his editorial blue pencil polished my writing in ways few editors could. As for the look of the magazine—I have done a fair amount of layout and graphic design myself, but Scott Saavedra’s elegant taste and enormous talent regularly had me slapping my forehead wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that...?” Scott makes us all look good. Stay tuned as RetroFan magazine continues to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear—I know I will! – Ernest Farino Ernie, your deep knowledge of film lore and incredible library of photographs—and most of all, your wit and personality—will be missed. Godspeed, sir! With Mr. Farino’s departure, we welcome a new columnist to our pages: Mark Voger! You may remember Mark from his role as Cousin Oliver during the final season of The Brady Bunch. If you do, you need to adjust your meds dosage. Mark was not Cousin Oliver—that was actor Robbie Rist. But Robbie Rist never wrote a book like Monster Mash, or Groovy, or Holly Jolly. Mark did, all for TwoMorrows (and you can find ordering info elsewhere in this issue). Mr. Voger spent 40 years in the newspaper biz as an entertainment reporter and graphic artist, interviewing tons of celebs along the way. Next issue, we’ll say “hello” to “Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties,” where Mark will say, “Hey, Moe!”… as in Howard, in a look at the final days of the mop-topped leader of the Three Stooges. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here—there’s a ton of fun in this issue. So get ready for another groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

March 2022

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

BY WILL MURRAY I started reading Batman in 1962, during the infamous monsters and aliens phase of the character. It didn’t take long to get the hang of what Batman was all about. As co-creator/artist Bob Kane once put in, “He’s just an average millionaire philanthropist out there fighting master criminals.” I can’t tell if Kane had his tongue in his cheek there. He was usually dead serious in interviews. No matter. I don’t remember when I saw my first Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon. Or whether it was before or after my exposure to Batman and Robin. Sixty years ago is a long time. I do dimly recall that, when I saw the other dynamic duo charging out of their Cat Cave in their Catmobile to the rather adult opening music that was clearly inspired by Peter Gunn’s jazzy theme, I made the connection that this was Batman and Robin for little kids. Since I was young, I had no understanding about how creators developed and sometimes recycled their ideas. I simply accepted that whenever I tuned in to afternoon TV, a Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon would duly appear. And when I went to my local drugstore, there would be Batman and Robin. They were different characters and existed in different worlds, but the parallels were obvious. And suspicious.

(ABOVE) Our heroes are in hot pursuit of the Frog and Harry Gorilla in this Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse pan-production cel, and (BEHIND TITLE) a background painting cel. © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage. (TOP) From the Golden Age of Comics, Batman co-creator Bob Kane poses with a Batman illustration he may or may not have painted. (BOTTOM) Kane later in life. Batman and Robin TM & ©

DC Comics. Photos courtesy of Will Murray.

RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Looking back on it from an adult perspective, there is much to marvel at. For one, why didn’t DC Comics sue Sam Singer, who produced the program? Or at least the show’s creator, Bob Kane. But that would be awkward, since Kane produced Batman and technically licensed it to DC. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse might be safely classified as a parody, much the way Mighty Mouse was seen as a takeoff on Superman. More remarkable still was the fact that original television superhero cartoons did not exist in 1960, when Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse first appeared. Mighty Mouse Playhouse had been running since 1955, but it simply recycled theatrical cartoons. I suspect the TV success of the Mouse of Tomorrow inspired Kane and Singer to pull off the same trick with a cartoon spoof on Batman and Robin. Did I think Batman was an imitation of Courageous Cat? Or vice versa? I wish I could recall. Maybe I just figured it was one of those things, like all those television cowboys who had their own programs and were different, yet somehow all the same.

WHO HE IS AND HOW HE CAME TO BE

The story of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse is a fascinating one. And to my knowledge, it has never been fully told. Long ago, I interviewed Bob Kane. He described the concept in typically unabashed terms: “Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse were a miniature Batman and Robin. I readapted Batman and Robin.” “Readapted” is a peculiar word choice, but that was Kane, an inveterate and shameless copyist. He was nothing if not upfront about it.

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse in a production cel from their series. (INSET) Boy, C.C.’s costume looks a lot like the Golden Age Starman’s, doesn’t it? Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse © Trans-Artists Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage. Starman © DC Comics.

RETROFAN

March 2022

After telling a reporter that Batman was a combination of Zorro, The Shadow, and the Green Hornet, Kane added defensively, “I know it sounds like I’m copying, but everyone saw what I saw. I was re-interpreting. It was my vision, my interpretation.” Back to Courageous Cat’s origin. “I was in Hollywood,” Kane told me, “and I was always interested in animation. I met this animated studio head—his name was Singer—and we were out one night and he said, ‘We’re looking for some new stuff. Do you have anything in mind?’ I said, ‘Why don’t we do a cat and a mouse in the kind of stylized cartoony image of Batman and Robin? We’ll have a Catmobile. And the Frog will be one of the villains, like the Penguin, and speak like Edward G. Robinson.’ It was very simple: I used the same format as Batman and Robin.” Kane had started out as a “big-foot” cartoonist, so it was no great leap for him. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse debuted as a cartoon included on The Tommy Seven Show on New York’s WABC Channel 7. The first episode was broadcast on Wednesday, September 14, 1960. Entitled “Disguise the Limit,” it opened with Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse roaring out of the Cat Cave—its mouth is shaped like a cat’s head—in their fire engine-red Catmobile, which is equipped with supercharger coils 30 years out-of-date at the time the show aired. Like the Batmobile, the Catmobile has a huge stylized head mounted in front. Instead of a bat’s black head, it’s a black cat-head with green feline eyes. The difference is hard to distinguish. They forgot to draw whiskers. Title cards dispensed with, the story unfolds with the canine mayor of Empire City dedicating a statue to Courageous Cat. When

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Courageous Cat merchandise from the early Sixties. © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Hake’s.

word reaches notorious criminal “Flat-Face” Frog in his hideout in an abandoned mine, he decides to ruin the crimefighting cat’s reputation. Donning a Courageous Cat costume, he robs the pooch-faced Mr. Moneybags and succeeds in putting the blame on Courageous Cat. Then he pillages Fort Knox. Implausibly, considering that his green features are not masked, the Frog convinces Empire City to turn against their beloved hero. Courageous Cat saves Mr. Moneybags from a giant rolling boulder by shrinking it with his “reducing ray gun,” and in the climax, miniaturizes the Frog so that he can be jailed in a birdcage. Minute Mouse has very little to do except to comment on the action in an annoyingly squeaky voice. Bob Kane saw Minute as an inept Robin. “Minute Mouse was his clumsy little helper who always bungled the case just when Courageous Cat was about to solve it,” he wrote. The voice talent was uncredited, but versatile Dallas “Dal” McKennon is said to have assayed virtually every voice. He was also the voice of Gumby and Archie Andrews. Some sources insist that music supervisor Johnny Holiday voiced the Frog and others, and he is credited with that role on a Courageous Cat record album, so that’s likely. I can’t help but observe that Empire City is populated by anthropomorphic dogs of all types. In the first episode, Courageous Cat works with a hound-faced police captain. In subsequent episodes, he reports to a different bulldog, known only as the Chief. What a costumed cat is doing protecting a city of canines is never addressed. The third episode introduced Outrageous Cat, who was Courageous’ rural cousin. He was an outlaw hillbilly who looks

like Sylvester the Cat and talks like Yosemite Sam. Outrageous Cat immediately teams up with the Frog after crashing at the Cat Cave. How the miniaturized Frog broke out of his birdcage cell is not explained. But many episodes ended up with the felonious amphibian behind bars, only to return without explanation. Outrageous Cat returned in a later episode, where they mixed it up again, this time in hillbilly country. In his second appearance, the Frog picked up an accomplice, the dimwitted Harry Gorilla. He would be the first, but not the last. Over the course of the series, the Frog would ally himself with any number of bad guys and, on occasion, team up with Courageous Cat to defeat other interlopers attempting to horn in on his action, as he did when rival gangsters took over his mob in “The Case of the Unthinkables.” He was the Joker to Courageous’ Batman. The eponymous heroes were never seen in their civilian identities, whatever they were. Nor was any origin told. The cartoons were too short for that. Although costumed, neither wore a mask. Maybe they didn’t have other identities. Most episodes showed them living in the Cat Cave. It was a split-level layout. Springing into action, they slid down fireman’s poles from the upper floor to the waiting Catmobile—an idea that appears to have inspired later Batman TV producers, as did Johnny Holiday’s Mancini-esque Courageous Cat opening music. Neal Hefti’s Batman 1966 TV theme would be strangely similar. Courageous Cat wasn’t equipped with a utility belt, although he sometimes plucked something useful from his belt buckle. He had something much better. Whenever necessary, he reached behind his back and pulled out his Cat Gun. It was an impossible weapon, and a bit like Green Arrow’s quiver of arrows. You never knew what would pop forth. RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Sixty years later, I have so many questions, and few answers. Where did Courageous’ gun come from and why is it so versatile? Any time Courageous encounters a problem that can’t be solved any other way, he just points it and out spurts a lasso, freezing gas, or something equally convenient. Why does Courageous Cat have a yellow star on his red costume chest? Maybe because he’s a star of the cartoon? Did Kane subconsciously copy DC’s Starman? Struggling to comprehend, I started binge-watching episodes on YouTube. Each five-minute episode was created to be run as a small segment of a local kiddie show, or bundled together to form a half-hour Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse show. Occasionally, they ran as filler when a station broadcast a theatrical movie that didn’t quite fill up the allotted hour. I seem to recall seeing the character in all three venues. A little online research tells me that the characters started running in my hometown as a half-hour block in January 1961, at 5:30 in the afternoon. So there’s a good chance I encountered them months before I saw my first Batman comic book. The show ran two seasons.

A BUNCH OF DIRTY RATS

Early model sheets for Courageous Cat, attributed to Sheldon Moldoff. © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage. 6

RETROFAN

March 2022

As might be expected from creators of their generation who grew up watching Warner Bros. movies, the villains of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse are drawn from that gangster-dominated era. Courageous’ rogues’ gallery grew over the course of the series’ 130 episodes until it was as deep as Batman’s. They included Robber Rabbit, who was often partnered with Screwy Squirrel, Phineas Fox, Rodney Rodent, Professor Shaggy Dog, and numerable others. Many were a twist on familiar Batman villains. The Black Cat is a switch in Catwoman—a cat burglar who looks like Cary Grant. Foxy the Fox in his tuxedo and top hat is visually similar to the Penguin. Robber Rabbit starts off small. He steals some carrots from a pushcart peddler, and Courageous and Minute give chase into a department store where they fling assorted merchandise at one another. Minute is knocked out early on and, once again, Courageous bests the bad guy. Once Minute wakes up, Courageous tells him he knocked out the rascally rabbit. And then he winks at the audience, George Reeves Superman style. Robber Rabbit next steals a shipment of rare cheese worth its weight in gold—and once more the chase is on. Minute’s sensitive nose puts them on the trail, giving the rodent a rare moment of usefulness. Chauncey “Flat-Face” Frog took the role of Courageous’ main opponent. In one episode, “The Case of Crime and Punishment,” he narrates his life story from a jail cell. In another, he’s put on trial for his various crimes. At one point, he assembles a gang called the Unthinkables. While inspired by the Prohibition-era exploits of Eliot Ness, this is not a case of reaching back into the past so much as mirroring the hit TV show, The Untouchables. Here, the Frog teams up with Robber and Screwy and Foxy the Fox to rob armored cars. The Frog’s rivals were Big Shot, a burly bulldog with a James Cagney voice, and his hood, Little Shot. Big Shot’s mob was known as the Unmentionables. The rival gang lords naturally had their turf wars. As the series progressed, it became increasingly clear that every time Courageous Cat reached behind his back, he was not

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

necessarily pulling out the same multi-purpose Cat Gun. Not that the cartoon was consistent in this or any other way. It was a cartoon for a little kids. In the episode “The Case of the Gun Mixup,” Minute takes over when Courageous sprains his trigger finger. It’s clearly shown that both heroes sport multiple pockets in their cape linings. From these pouches, the myriad weapons are miraculously plucked. Minute keeps pulling the wrong pistol, with awkward results. Usually, he carried only a water pistol—which came in handy in rusting up runaway robots, as he did in “The Case of the Robot.” Mystery solved. Except that Bob Kane once described it as “a trick revolver that could be used for a thousand and one purposes.” And in “The Case of the Cat Gun Caper,” Rodney Rodent steals the apparently unique weapon and Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse must recover it. The Chief had his own “Bat-Signal.” When he wanted Courageous, a television

(RIGHT) Batman and Courageous Cat ghost artist Sheldon Modoff. DignityMemorial.com. (BELOW) Circa the Eighties, a full-color commissioned illo by Moldoff. Characters © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

receiver in the Cat Cave would come on, flashing the yellow star symbol. Apparently, this is a sheriff’s star, meant to symbolize that Courageous Cat is an honorary lawman. In other episodes, the screen showed a black domino mask with cat ears. In his comic book, Batman also had a TV set up in the Batcave that displayed the Bat-Signal when he was indoors. While Batman owned a fleet of auxiliary vehicles, Courageous made do with the chameleon-like Catmobile, which converts to an airplane or submarine. In animation, you can make anything work. A typical episode was “The Case of the Movie Rays.” Roaring into Empire City, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse discover the populace is fleeing a tidal wave. Under cover of this confusion, the derby-hatted Frog is busily robbing a bank. When he rushes through the wave without getting wet, Courageous realizes the wave is a projected illusion. More illusions follow, including a flying saucer fleet and a giant alien impervious to Courageous’ versatile ray pistol. When the Frog plunders a jewelry store under cover of this invasion, Courageous Cat is in hot pursuit. Coming to a railroad crossing, the Frog beats the locomotive so easily that Courageous decides the train is an illusion, too. Big mistake. It’s not. The Catmobile is wrecked. No problem, Courageous pulls out his trusty gun and trains

RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse appear to be startled by the image of the Catmobile (INSET) in a setup of cel and layout notes. (INSET BELOW) Drawing of the villainous Chauncey “Flatface” Frog. Characters © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

a restoring ray upon the mangled mass. This puts the car back in running order. Back on the trail, the duo come to Professor Shaggy Dog’s headquarters laboratory on the hill, but that’s an illusion as well. They end up driving off the hill. Again, a trusty trick gun is deployed. It produces a parachute canopy that allows them to land safely… the Catmobile, too. Because the picture is so short, they land next to the real secret lab, barging in to subdue the Frog and Professor Shaggy Dog. Again the ray gun is deployed and this time it disintegrates the illusion projector invented by Professor Shaggy Dog. Although the abbreviated episodes did not allow for character development, the unending merry-go-round of recurring bad guys gave the series a kind of loose consistency and rough charm. Marilyn Mouse appeared in “The Case of the Big Movie Star.” She was unmistakably based upon Marilyn Monroe, who was still alive at that time. Kane claimed that Batman’s one-time girlfriend, Vicki Vale, was also inspired by Monroe, whom Kane claimed to have dated. The cartoon has been called a precursor of the Batman TV show. It wasn’t a spoof so much as it was a cartoony reimagining of the 8

RETROFAN

March 2022

Dynamic Duo. Kane appropriated many Batman series elements, but ran them through a Walt Disney blender first. Most of the characters vaguely resembled prior, more famous animated animals. Minute, for example, reminds one of the very early Mickey Mouse. Both heroes sported white gloves apparently borrowed from Disney animators. Kane once hinted that he created the series after having being ribbed by Walt himself. Like so many Bob Kane stories, it must be taken with a shot of sodium. In his autobiography, Batman and Me, Kane recounted the meeting, writing, “My visit with Walt sparked my imagination and inspired me to create my own animated television series.” No ribbing is mentioned.

HIS FINGERPRINTS ARE EVERYWHERE

As with Batman, Bob Kane did not work alone. He had a collaborator, artist Sheldon Moldoff, who was then ghosting Batman. But his name never appeared in the credits. I also interviewed Moldoff, and got the inside scoop of how, during a marital separation, Kane fled New York for Hollywood. Moldoff’s story is best told by the artist himself:

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(ABOVE) Partial Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse storyboard. (LEFT) Our heroes look defeated in this rare production sketch. Characters © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

“Bob went to California, and he stayed two years. Now, when he came back, he was all excited. He met an animator out there at a studio. And he got the idea of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. “He said, ‘Can you do it? Can you storyboard it and do the stories? I got 65 stories.’ “So I said, ‘Okay, I can do it. What are you going to pay me?’ “‘I’m getting $150 to do it, so I’ll split it with you.’ “All you’re getting is $150! So what are you going to pay me—$75? To write it and draw the story.’ “‘Yes, Shelly, but you got 65 of them. So you take 65 times $75, you know, it adds up to a lot of money.’ “Bob, that’s a lot of work.’ “‘Well, you can do it. I know you can do it.’ “Well, Okay.’ So I did.

“Now, I’m working on the Courageous Cat. When I finished it, he came back and we’re having dinner. And his mother came over. I don’t know how, but Courageous Cat came up.” According to Moldoff, Mrs. Kane complained, “Look at that! Poor Bob worked so hard on the Courageous Cat cartoon and all they paid him was $300 a story.” Moldoff did a double take. “I said, ‘What?’ “So Bob looks at his mother and he said, ‘Oh, you got a big mouth.’ “I said, ‘Bob, you got $300 for the story and you told me that you were only getting $150 and would split it with me. You owe me a lot of money. And you’re going to give it to me before I leave tonight.’ “So he made a kind of excuse and said, ‘Okay, I’ll give it to you.’ “‘But why did you lie? I worked very hard on that show, Bob. That’s not nice.’ But before I left, he gave me a check for $5000.” Moldoff insisted that he, not Kane, designed the characters. “I just designed it. Designing characters came naturally to me. It was no big deal. I did a lot of animation. I did two animated movies. Originally, I wanted to be an animator. That was my goal. But there were no studios in New York.” Ironically, Moldoff had an opportunity to join the Fleischer Studios when they relocated to Miami in 1938, before they started producing their famous Superman theatrical cartoons. But the timing didn’t work out, so he stayed in comics, toiling as Kane’s uncredited ghost artist on and off up to the Sixties. I asked Moldoff what elements Kane actually contributed to Courageous Cat. “Nothing!” he said flatly. “He didn’t do anything. It’s all mine. I storyboarded it. I wrote it. I did 65 episodes of that. And many times during this thing, I would say, ‘Can I put my name on it, Bob? Can’t I put my name on it?’ And he said, ‘No.’ He didn’t want any names on it.” RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse production art: pencil drawing and inked and painted cel. Characters © TransArtists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

NOW, THAT’S NOT COOL

In 1966, Moldoff collaborated with Kane on another cartoon. “He also came up came up with another idea—Cool McCool,” Moldoff recounted. “He asked me to storyboard Cool McCool. So I did and I sent it to him.” Kane described the new concept in typical fashion: “That was like Get Smart, only in animation.” “I did the storyboard for Cool McCool,” Moldoff continued, “and then he said to me, ‘I haven’t been able to sell it.’ Well, I found out later on that he sold it to an English animation studio. But he just sold it outright. He wasn’t going to be connected with it. So he gave it to them. But I was entitled to a commission because I did the storyboards. But I never got it. Bob said he never sold it. Which was a lie. But that was normal for Bob. It didn’t mean anything to him.” It’s good that Sheldon Moldoff got his rightful due on Courageous Cat, but Batman was co-created with writer Bill Finger, who at that time still scripted Batman stories for DC Comics. Many of the ideas

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on which the Batman mythology was built came from his creative imagination. I have to wonder what Finger thought of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse back in the day. The Batman format was equally his. He could not have been pleased. But it’s too late to ask him. Finger passed away back in 1974. Like Sheldon Moldoff, he never got his just due from Bob Kane. Ironically, Batman himself didn’t get his own animated TV series until 1968. Another original superhero cartoon didn’t come along until Underdog in 1964. An Underdog/Courageous Cat team-up has yet to be floated. But it could work. Courageous obviously got along with dogs. Personally, I would prefer a crossover with Mighty Mouse. Probably will never happen. Ten years ago, a live action/CGI Courageous Cat feature film was announced. It never materialized. Just as well. Can you imagine it? Think of Howard the Duck… it just wouldn’t work. One definition of “camp” is something so bad it’s good. I wouldn’t call Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse campy. It was a kiddie cartoon, after all. Yet it was also—if you’ll pardon the expression—cheesy. But in a good way, if not a great way. 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.

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

HOW THEY DID IT! COMPILED AND CAPTIONED BY ERNEST FARINO

Continuing our collection of behind-the-scenes photos, we present a selection from movies of the Sixties. We hope we’ve included one or two of your favorites. (Another installment will appear in a future issue.) Some feel that photos of this nature “spoil the fun,” but, partly because of my own interest in filmmaking and later involvement professionally, I’ve always enjoyed that glimpse behind the curtain that conveys… well, How They Did It! So… Roll camera… mark it… annnnd… Action!

On The Set… Movies in the S ixties

This issue: Bond, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Hammer

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Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

JAMES BOND

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress—the first “official” Bond girl—frolic in the waters of Jamaica.

Author Ian Fleming and star Sean Connery on Ken Adam’s nuclear reactor room set. Fleming was initially unhappy with the casting of Connery, but changed his mind once he saw him on screen.

Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), disguised as a hotel maid, attempts a last-ditch effort to steal the Lektor decoding machine and kill Bond.

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress filming Dr. No in Jamaica.

(BELOW) Director Guy Hamilton gives last-minute instructions to Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore).

Sean Connery and Tania Mallet (Tilly Masterson) enjoy a picnic lunch during the filming of the Mustang-vs.-Aston Martin chase in the Useren Valley, Switzerland, on the Furkasstrasse between Reap and Zumdorf, on Monday, July 6, 1964. 12

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Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Bert Luxford and the model helicopter used in the climax, a sequence directly inspired by the crop-duster sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

(ABOVE) Director Terence Young (in blue shirt) provides some “intimate” direction to Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi in the scene where the Bond first meets Tatiana Romanova. (RIGHT) Director Terence Young stands in briefly to coach Sean Connery on the use of the Armalite AR-7 Sniper Rifle. The exact same prop gun was the weapon of choice of Tilly Masterson (actress Tania Mallet) in the next film, Goldfinger.

(LEFT) Filming the famous golf game in which Bond tempts Goldfinger with a bar of gold.

“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!” Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) prepares to put his “industrial laser” to use in a unique way: bisecting James Bond.

(RIGHT) Beautiful Shirley Eaton, as Jill Masterson, spies on the card game down below in order to help Goldfinger cheat. The hotel balcony was a studio set with rear-projected backgrounds of Miami’s Fountainebleu Hotel.

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JAMES BOND (BELOW) Bond escapes using a Bell Aerosystems Rocketbelt, developed in 1959. “It was very dangerous,” recalled Production Designer Ken Adam. “You could only fly for 20 seconds. Then you ran out of fuel. You had better land before you ran out of fuel.” Shot on February 19, 1965 at Chateau d’Anet, west of Paris. Close-ups of Sean Connery were intercut with long shots of stuntman William P. Suiter piloting the Rocketbelt. (ABOVE) Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter, once married to blonde bombshell Anita Ekberg) pilots a Bell 47J Ranger helicopter as he and Bond search for the submerged Vulcan bomber. The Avro Vulcan B.1A was a delta wing bomber operated by the Royal Air Force until 1984. Two real Vulcans were utilized during filming, one for the ground sequences and another for flying. A large-scale miniature was built for the water landing.

(ABOVE) On-set hairdresser Eileen Warwick gives a last-minute touch-up as Sean Connery prepares to zip up Luciana Paluzzi’s dress. (Zip up? Who wrote this scene…?)

(RIGHT) Sean Connery and Claudine Auger (Dominique “Domino” Derval, re-voiced by Nikki Van der Zyl) in a studio tank await “pick-up” by the Fulton Surface-To-Air-Recovery-System (STARS). Yes, it was a real thing. Developed by Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. for the CIA in the early Fifties, a self-inflating balloon tied to a lift-line was captured by a Boeing B-17 in its V-shaped yoke.

(RIGHT) Ernst Stavro Blofeld makes his first full onscreen appearance in the form of Donald Pleasance. Watch closely during the action-packed finale: Blofeld’s famous white cat wants nothing to do with the commotion, and it’s all Pleasance can do to hold the frantic cat in his arms.

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(CENTER) Mie (pronounced “MEE-uh,” as in Mia Farrow) Hama awaits her next scene. Hama plays Kissy Suzuki; although, oddly, her character name is never mentioned once throughout the entire film.

German actress Karin Dor, as Helga Brandt, prepares to slide down Blofeld’s trapdoor platform to her doom in a pool of flesh-eating piranha fish.

Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

STANLEY KUBRICK (BELOW) This set-up is not in the finished film. Rather, the entire scene with Miss Scott (Tracy Reed) and General “Buck” Turgidson (George C. Scott) is played out in a single, continued shot (a “one-er”) from a different angle.

Slim Pickens (Major T. J. “King” Kong) in the open-front cockpit set of the Boeing B-52. After reading the script, the Pentagon declined to lend support to the film, so Production Designer Ken Adam and Art Director Peter Murton reconstructed the B-52’s cockpit from a single photograph that had appeared in a British aviation magazine. American Air Force personnel visiting the set later said it was a perfect replica. (RIGHT) Slim Pickens straddles one of the nuclear bombs at Shepperton Studios, England. Peter Sellers was originally cast as Major Kong, but he broke his ankle. John Wayne never responded, and Bonanza star Dan Blocker declined because of the script’s political content. Kubrick finally cast Slim Pickens because of his work in One-Eyed Jacks. Pickens was not told that the movie was a comedy so he played it “straight.” James Earl Jones (in his feature film debut) first thought Pickens was staying in character off camera, “method-acting” style, until being told that he always talked that way. “Major Kong” was based on Alvin “Tex” Johnston, the chief test pilot for Boeing in the Fifties who flew wearing cowboy boots and a Stetson. Johnston piloted the first test flight of the B-52.

(ABOVE) Twenty-two-year-old Tracy Reed is the only woman in the film. Major Kong is seen reading the June 1962 issue of Playboy (recognizable by the cover). However, the “centerfold” seen in the film was a specially shot photo of Reed taken on the same bedroom set as her scene in the movie. In that mock-up centerfold her backside is covered by an opened copy of Foreign Affairs magazine. Accordingly, some early advertising billed her as “Miss Foreign Affairs.” Later, in 1968, Tracy Reed was considered to replace Diana Rigg in The Avengers TV series, but ultimately Linda Thorson got the part of Tara King.

A large model of the B-52 is readied for another shot. Visual Effects Supervisor Wally Veevers (standing, lower right) was later one of the four principal effects supervisors on 2001: A Space Odyssey. RETROFAN

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STANLEY KUBRICK © MGM.

(BELOW) Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth (standing, center) discusses the next shot in the centrifuge set of the spaceship Discovery with (LEFT TO RIGHT) astronauts Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood.

The use of large-scale front projection in the “Dawn of Man” sequence was innovative and was the first significant application of 3M’s “Scotchlite” reflective screen material. Backgrounds were shot by LIFE magazine photographer Pierre Boulat and his assistant Catherine Gire in Namibia. On the soundstage back in London, 8x10 color transparencies of those backgrounds were projected onto the screen through a two-way mirror at the camera position.

Stanley Kubrick in his office during production of 2001. (Hmmm… I wonder what scene they’re discussing…)

(RIGHT) In the space station, Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) has an awkward conversation with Russian scientists about the “problem” on the Moon. When Dr. Floyd leaves, the scientists briefly speak in Russian. Tom Hanks, an über 2001 fan, told me that he went to the trouble of having their conversation translated. And sure enough, faithful to the film, the actors’ Russian dialogue is about the problem on the Moon, not random talk or gibberish.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

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(LEFT) Janet Leigh, as the now-murdered Marion Crane, lies on the bathroom floor following the shower scene. The slow pullback from her eye required the removal of one frame, barely perceivable, because the throb of Leigh’s pulse was momentarily visible in the vein of her neck. (RIGHT) Actors often remark on the awkwardness of love scenes, what with the crew standing by watching. And here’s what they mean…

(BELOW) Kubrick (RIGHT) with an elaborate rig for rotating the camera to convey weightlessness in the spaceship scenes.

Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (BELOW) Make-up before make-out—Janet Leigh does her own final touch-ups prior to the opening love scene with John Gavin.

Classic Scream Queens (although the term didn’t come into common usage until the spate of slasher films in the Eighties). It’s interesting to note that Vera Miles (LEFT), who plays Lila Crane, was originally supposed to play Marion, but she and Janet Leigh (RIGHT) agreed that the reverse would be better and convinced Hitchcock to make the switch.

The Psycho house was modeled after the 1925 painting by Edward Hopper, “The House by the Railroad,” the first painting ever acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, in 1930. The house was also seen in the “Masquerade” episode of Thriller (Season Two/Episode 6, 1961) starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Tom Poston, as well as Swamp Thing; Murder, She Wrote; and America’s Top Model.

(RIGHT) Alfred Hitchcock waits for the set-up to be complete—what looks like the high-angle point-of-view shot of Vera Miles cautiously approaching the house towards the end of the film.

Hitchcock offers showering advice to Janet Leigh. Legendary title designer Saul Bass storyboarded the sequence and Hitchcock meticulously planned, the 78 camera set-ups and 52 cuts that made up the three-minute sequence.

(LEFT) A “Birds”-eye view of the Psycho house, revealing that, like most movie sets, the exterior was basically an empty structure. (LEFT) Marli Renfro was a 21-year-old Playboy cover girl (Sept. 1960, INSET) when she landed the job of Janet Leigh’s body double in the shower scene. Renfro had to strip down for Hitchcock and Leigh to make sure she was a good match. In 2017 she recalled that “Hitchcock had a talk with the crew to say: ‘No joking around. I want attitudes very low key.’” She worked for seven days and was paid $500 (about $4,400 today). She thought the result would be boring, but went to see the film and said, “It scared me half to death! I was really surprised.” RETROFAN

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ALFRED HITCHCOCK (BELOW) Director Alfred Hitchcock and his cast of birds. When he proposed the advertising catchline “The Birds is coming,” a young assistant spoke up: “Mr. Hitchcock, shouldn’t that be ‘The birds are coming…?” Hitchcock just shook his head and walked away.

Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor relax between takes. Pleshette became most well known as a deft comedienne on The Bob Newhart Show (142 episodes from 1972 to 1978), but delivers a sensitive, introspective performance in The Birds.

Tippi Hedren, before and after a bird attack. Born Nathalie Kay Hedren, her father nicknamed his new baby “Tippi,” Swedish for “sweetheart.” (RIGHT) Fishing poles and line help prop birds take flight. The man in the red shirt is Marcel Delgado, renowned model maker famous for his work on the original King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. 18

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(BELOW) Hitchcock coaches Paul Newman on the set. The highlight scene for me is when Newman’s character tricks the older scientist into revealing his formula on the blackboard, thus “stealing” the atomic secret (or whatever it was).

(ABOVE) Hitchcock prepares a shot of Julie Andrews. While her remarkable four-octave singing voice sparkles in The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins, Andrews gives excellent, understated performances in Torn Curtain, The Americanization of Emily, and other dramatic films.

LEFT) Hitchcock closely examines Tippi Hedren’s leg (directing is a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it…). (RIGHT) Alfred Hitchcock rehearses with Sean Connery, who jumped at the chance to break away from James Bond to appear in other movies. In later years, Tippi Hedren said of her Marnie co-star Sean Connery, “He was just fabulous, a consummate actor with a great sense of humor. He was practicing his golf swing all the time—a rather profound golfer.”

Peter Cushing whips his (unseen) horses into a frenzy during his closeups against a blue screen in the studio.

HAMMER FILMS

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Assistant make-up artist Reginald Mills affixes fangs to vampire girl Isobel Black.

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HAMMER FILMS © Universal Studios.

(BELOW) Make-up artist Roy Ashton applies two tiny puncture wounds—the vampire version of a hickey—onto Barbara Shelley. A fan-favorite, Shelley delivers a splendid performance in the film, transforming from a brittle, uptight British woman to a sensuous, snarling, female vampire after being bitten by Dracula. Director Terence Fisher coaches Christopher Lee on Dracula’s death scene.

(TOP RIGHT) The lovely Barbara Shelley on the set. Sadly, Ms. Shelley passed away on January 3, 2021, just shy of her 89th birthday, from complications resulting from the COVID-19 virus. Shelley once said, “I adored science fiction. When I was a very little girl my father used to have all these sciencefiction magazines and we used to go through them together… My mind had been opened up to science fiction by my father, so when I got these scripts it wasn’t, ‘What’s this rubbish?,’ it was, ‘That’s interesting…’” (BOTTOM RIGHT) Showing that there are no hard feelings for having driven a stake through her heart in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Barbara Shelley helps Andrew Keir (who many say was the best of those who played Professor Quatermass in various films and TV series) celebrate his birthday in the studio. 20

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(LEFT) Filming the death of Dracula, in this case the rather fresh idea of breaking the ice that covers the castle moat in order to trap the vampire in running water.

Director Terence Fisher instructs former Playboy Playmate of the Year (Apr. 1967) Susan Denberg (née Dietlinde Ortrun Zechner) on the proper handling of a meat cleaver (and you can bet she isn’t going to be slicing lean roast beef…).

Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

(ABOVE) Although the film was primarily shot on real locations in the Canary Islands, scenes of the Shell Tribe, including the attack of the Allosaurus, were filmed on this stage at Elstree Studios, England. Animator Ray Harryhausen told author Mike Hankin in 1990, “We looked for a location for the Allosaurus fight for some time but eventually we decided that because of the amount of people involved in the sequence, we would set it up on the stage at Elstree. I would have preferred a real setting, but in this case it wasn’t feasible.” (LEFT) Hairdresser Olga Angelinetta assists cavegirl Raquel Welch in last-minute touch-ups. This film has often been praised for its forward-looking approach to prehistoric women having shaved legs and salon-styled hair-dos (just kidding).

The crew gets a shot with Ingrid Pitt (née Irene Wassiljewna Petronowitsch), one of Hammer’s favorite leading ladies. Ingrid also had a prominent supporting role opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare.

THE END OF “ON THE SET” BUT RETROFAN MAGAZINE WILL BE BACK ERNEST FARINO has enjoyed a 40-year career as a designer and supervisor of visual effects, working on such films as The Terminator, The Abyss, and the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. He won two consecutive Emmy awards for the visual effects in the SyFy series Dune and Children of Dune. As a director, Farino helmed episodes of the series Monsters, the 1990s reboot of ABC’s Land of the Lost, and more recently an episode of the Netflix series Superstition starring Mario Van Peebles. His feature film Steel and Lace, starring Bruce Davison, Clare Wren, and David Naughton, has been recently re-mastered and rereleased by Vinegar Syndrome, complete with interviews, commentary, and photo gallery. RETROFAN

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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RETRO INTERVIEW

Halt the Flow of Time! STARCRASHING WITH

CAROLINE MUNRO

BY ANTHONY TAYLOR

Starting as a model at the age of 17, Caroline Munro lists parts in several of the most well-known movie franchises in history on her resume. She’s appeared in two James Bond films, two classic Hammer horror films, both of Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes movies, one of Ray Harryhausen’s best-loved Sinbad movies, and hundreds of other memorable roles. Dark-eyed and beautiful, Munro never fails to mesmerize onscreen, but in person she’s a woman of great warmth and humor. Still working whenever she feels the urge, Caroline enjoys spending time with her family and her fans, appearing at conventions, signings, and events worldwide on a regular basis. Most recently she has appeared in 2019’s The House of the Gorgon, and in a live stage reading of the un-produced Hammer Films Vampirella script, which also featured her daughter Georgina Dugdale in the title role. RetroFan: Casino Royale had an amazing cast, but was a bit of a circus from a production standpoint. What do recall about your time working on it? Caroline Munro: Oh, yes, everyone was in that, Deborah Kerr, Ursula Andress, Dahlia

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Caroline Munro in her starring role as Stella Star in Starcrash (1978), as the popular Lamb’s Navy Rum model, and as she is today. All images in this article are courtesy of Anthony Taylor.

working was an amazing experience… it really straightened the learning curve. When I finished my scenes, I would just sit and watch everyone else and it was a great experience. And I loved the fabulous costumes by Paco Rabanne!

Lavi. It had five or six directors. I was an extra! It was a total traffic jam, but an enjoyable one, I’d say. I was a guard girl. They photographed quite a lot of stuff with me in the clothes, God knows why. I did a lot of my learning on the set. I didn’t come up through theater, so I got a lot of my training on the job. Being able to watch Woody Allen and all these incredible actors

RF: When did you start as the Lamb’s Navy Rum girl? You were the face of their ads for a while. CM: I think I started in 1969 or ’70, and I went on to do it for 12 years! And we didn’t have a contract. They used to just phone up and ask, “Would you like to do another one?,” and I said, “Yes, please!” And I got paid peanuts in the beginning, literally. Obviously it went up a bit later. Before me, they’d had sailors—dark, navy rum is associated with sailors—but they weren’t selling as much as they’d like so they thought they’d try using a woman in the ads. On the first shoot, they said, “We’re RETROFAN

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retro interview

going to do something slightly daring. We’re going to paint a little ship on your shoulder.” That seemed to work, so we went on with that until in the end, I just wore wetsuits. Very unzipped! And they were all over London on the billboards and in the underground. RF: How did you get involved with Hammer Films? CM: Sir James Carreras used to travel about on the trains and had seen posters of me modeling for Lamb’s Navy Rum. He got in touch and offered me a screen test, and then a contract for two films, which wound up being Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Dracula A.D. 1972, which was a turning point for me—I decided to pursue acting full time while working on that movie. RF: Kronos was written and directed by Brian Clemens, with whom you had a long association. How did that come about? CM: I met him during casting for the film, and he thought I might be right for Karla. He was an amazing director, writer, and producer. RF: He also wrote the screenplay for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. CM: Yes, about a year later. He did such an incredible job on Kronos… I was really impressed with it when I went in to loop my dialogue after we shot. Maybe it wasn’t recognized at the time. They planned a series of films with Kronos but they never made another. I suppose it didn’t do as well as they’d hoped. I’ve heard that Quentin Tarantino quite likes it, and I think it’s been very popular on DVD. RF: Tell me about filming Captain Kronos. CM: Well, I was in it every day. I thought it was very funny and in character. My first scene in the film was where Karla had danced on a Sunday, and she’s been pilloried. They brought in bunches of eggs and tomatoes for the “villagers” to throw at me, and Brian set the scene up and yelled “Action!”, and the extras pelted me. I had raw eggs in my hair, tomatoes all over me. Luckily, they didn’t throw them too hard—they were very nice about it. And it was great for my hair! RF: And then on to Sinbad. Brian Clemens must have really liked you. CM: I guess so! He told [producer] Charlie Schneer and [director] Gordon Hessler 24

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Munro being dressed for Casino Royal (1967), in a promotional photo [from carolinemunro.org] as Carla from Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, and a poster for the movie where Munro can be seen struggling with a cross in the background. Captain Kronos © Hammer Films.

that he thought they should consider me for the part of Mariana, and they said no! They wanted someone with a big name, someone American, but I think Brian was very keen on me and took them to see some footage from Kronos. And I did get the part, which was wonderful! I love that film, it’s so beautiful. Ted Moore was the cinematographer and

he was so talented. There were sets, but we also went on location and shot in real caves, so what you see are these amazing caverns with this beautiful lighting. I think it was a stunning-looking film. John Philip Law made a very dashing and beautiful Sinbad. And Tom Baker was just brilliant. I think this was a pivotal role that helped him land the part of Doctor

retro interview

Who. I ran into him not very long ago at a record shop in London, and he said, “Hello, kid! How are you doing?” We were both shopping, he was looking at DVDs and I was with my daughter. I just loved working with him, we got along fabulously. RF: Was Ray Harryhausen with you on the set? CM: Ray was there for every shot! And when we shot sequences that he would add animation to later, he would take the helm from Gordon Hessler and direct those scenes himself. He knew exactly how his creatures would be and live and breathe. It was an unusual way to work, but very successful. He had storyboarded everything in advance and he would come and show those to us so that we’d know exactly

how everything would look on screen. He’s such a talented artist, the drawings were wonderful! He’d say, “Now this is it, this is what you’re going to come up against,” and he’d give us the dimensions of how tall the creatures were, and we’d go from there. We’d get childlike and imagine what we were supposed to be seeing. And, of course, I must have done it right because Luigi Cozzi saw that film and loved it and hired me for Starcrash because of it. So via Brian and Ray, I wound up getting Starcrash. RF: And you also played Victoria Regina Phibes in The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again. CM: Yes. I was under contract to Hammer, and they weren’t that keen on me doing the

first film, but I wanted to work with Vincent Price. They let me do it, but I’m not credited in the film at all because of the Hammer contract, which is fine. I just wanted to watch Vincent work. I didn’t have any lines, as I was playing a corpse! It was actually quite hard… I know it seems like you’d just lie there, but you become so conscious of not moving or breathing while the cameras are rolling and it was very difficult. There would be long periods in a shot where I couldn’t breathe, and it was slightly claustrophobic in the coffin. RF: How did you like working with Vincent? CM: He was adorable. One morning I came into the makeup room, and Vincent had

spent the entire evening before making this wonderful Pâté and fresh bread for the makeup girls and all of us. He was just brilliant. I wish I’d had some dialogue with him, had the opportunity to actually act with him. He was such a lovely man… I have his cookbook. He signed it for me! RF: In Dracula A.D. 1972 you got to work with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And you had a role with a bit more substance, Laura Bellows. CM: I did! It was a small part, but very emotionally charged. I worked with Alan Gibson, the director, who was fabulous. I wasn’t sure at first, I was a bit nervous with him because he was quite strong and demanding, but I

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Munro as Margiana in Ray Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), a promotional photo for the movie, and a poster featuring Munro and co-star John Fhillip Law as Sinbad. © Columbia Pictures.

absolutely took that little role and became her. For that time on the set, I was this rather quirky, ditzy young lady, and I loved doing it. And Christopher was astounding. He’s RETROFAN

March 2022

retro interview

very tall and he’d come towards you with the red contact lenses in his eyes and the white face and the black clothes, and he didn’t speak. And you believed him—this is Dracula. He was so believable! You couldn’t help but react naturally to him and the menace that he represented. And I loved working with Stephanie Beecham—it’s hard to play the goodygoody, but she was wonderful in that. And Christopher Neame was just outstanding! And Michael Kitchen, who’s gone on now to do loads of stuff. He was dating Helen Mirren at the time and brought her to the set. She was playing Desdemona at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I thought, “Wow! That’s an actress.” It was such a grand experience working with all these amazing professionals. It helped me open up a bit, as I’m naturally quite shy by nature. RF: Speaking of that, Hammer in the early Seventies was becoming more explicit in their films, including nude scenes. Were you approached to appear nude? CM: I was asked, but I never felt I needed or wanted to do that. In Captain Kronos it appeared as if I was, but I wasn’t. I was always comfortable with it, but I’ve always thought, and it may be misguided, that a little bit of mystery is kind of nice. I just never felt it was necessary. RF: You didn’t have any scenes with Peter Cushing in that film, but you worked with 26

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Poster for The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) starring the beloved Vincent Price, Christopher Lee as Dracula joins Caroline Munro as Laura Bellows for a quick bite in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), and Munro in a swinging scene from Dracula A.D. 1972. Dr. Phibes © Amicus Productions. Dracula A.D. 1972 © Hammer Films.

him again in At the Earth’s Core a couple of years later. What was the difference in working on an Amicus film as opposed to Hammer? CM: Well, it was very similar, really… it felt like a family. We had a really great team on that film as well. The director was Kevin Conner, and he was a lovely fellow as was John Dark,

the producer. He and I got on very well together… we had the same sense of humor. And, of course, my two boys, Doug McClure and Peter Cushing! My stepdaughter Tammy used to come along to the set with me… she had great fun there. It was brilliant, such a fun time. It was all shot at Pinewood in a studio, and it was meant to be the center of the Earth so it

retro interview

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Caroline Munro, Peter Cushing, and Doug McClure examine their scripts for At the Earth’s Core (1976); Cushing, Munro, and McClure as their characters Dr. Abner Perry, Dia, and David Innes in a scene from At the Earth’s Core; Munro as the naughty helicopter pilot Naomi (in non-flying gear) from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). At the Earth’s Core © Amicus Productions/AIP. The Spy Who Loved Me © Eon Productions.

was very dusty in there. The sets were huge and beautiful. With the enormous studio lights it became very hot and dusty even though it was freezing outside, as we shot it in winter. I think we all got ill on that film because we never saw the light of day; we’d go in at 6:00 a.m. and get out after 7:00 at night when it was already dark again. And really, that was quite good because it got you in the mood for being underground! RF: What do you recall about working with Peter Cushing? CM: He was a gentleman and such a gentle man. I heard a fan call him “St. Peter,” and he was! He was funny and he was so clever; he would bring a lot of his own props from home. He had a great part, but the props

made it his own. His duck umbrella, for instance, which he used to frighten off the creatures of Pellucidar; it was something new every day, it seemed. I’d ask him, “What have you got today, Peter?” And he’d show me. I’d say, “What are you going to do with it?” And he’d say, “Ah! Wait and see! I’m not sure, but I’ll deliver!” And so he did. Michael Carreras gave him the nickname “Props Peter.” He started out in comedy, and he was such a funny and gentle man. And so professional; he made it all look very easy. He was fascinating to watch; his mannerisms, his walk and speech would change, and suddenly he’d be in character. One moment he’d be quietly sipping a cup of tea, the next he was this larger than life, rather blustery, eccentric character. It was amazing, the kind of metamorphosis that he made. We all did our own stunts on that film, including Peter. He jumped through fire—and it really was fire, not like a special effect today—and always led the charge. My grandfather passed away during the making of At the Earth’s Core, and I was very close to him. It was very difficult for me. I came into work, and I was upset, and Peter was very caring and sweet to me. He was still mourning the loss of his wife, which he really never got over, and he was very

sympathetic. He said, “It will pass. It will take a while, but it will pass.” He was just a beautiful man. RF: Then you revisited James Bond. You played the naughty helicopter pilot Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me. CM: That was short but very sweet, I only had a few scenes in the film. I’d heard there was more for Naomi in the early drafts of the script, insofar as she was in more scenes with Kurt Jurgens, and he was watching her swim in the aquarium through the glass in his lair, but I never saw anything but the scenes that made it into the movie. I think Kurt wasn’t happy with that, that he might have thought it was voyeuristic, and so the scenes were cut. Roger Moore and Barbara Bach were wonderful to work with; she was so sweet. When it came time to promote the film, she was busy with her young family, so Richard [Jaws] Kiel and I represented the film all over Europe and had a lovely time. We went to all the Scandinavian countries and Germany… they treated us royally! I just adore Richard, we get along so well. He truly is a gentle giant! I was disappointed that they dubbed my voice in that picture, however. The director, Lewis Gilbert, never discussed how he RETROFAN

March 2022

Judd Hamilton as Elle (LEFT) and (RIGHT) Caroline Munro as Stella Star, the star of Starcrash. (BELOW) Poster for Starcrash. © Nat and Patrick Wachsberger Productions.

wanted me to play Naomi. If they had said something like, We want something slightly exotic, that would have been wonderful—I like to do accents. RF: You did an episode of The New Avengers, which reunited you with Brian Clemens. CM: Yes! I loved that because Joanna Lumley and I really had a go at it in our fight scene! She’s just delightful, and she’s doing so well these days. We go back a long way… we started modeling together in the Sixties. And it was great to work with Brian again. RF: And then you made Starcrash. How did director Luigi Cozzi find you for that film? CM: He did find me, literally! It was very strange. I was in New York shooting a commercial for Noxzema men’s aftershave, and he called me there. He told me about the film, and I asked why he thought of me, and he told me how much he liked Ray Harryhausen and my work in Sinbad. That’s how I got the role, simple as that. He sent the script over and it was… different. Star Wars had come out and it was a big space adventure, so I thought, “Okay, maybe it could work.” I liked the character of Stella Star, and Luigi mentioned that Christopher Plummer was going to be in it as well. I wasn’t doing anything else and going to Italy [for filming] appealed to me. 28

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Starcrash] at the time, and he dubbed his own voice, and she must have been there with him when they needed someone to dub Stella. Christopher Plummer was shot with direct sound so his voice was his own, but I think everyone else was dubbed. That was very disappointing to me, to be the star of the film and have someone else’s voice.

RF: How was Starcrash received by critics and fans? CM: At the time it was released, it was perceived as quite jokey, but it’s stood the test of time. It gets screened all around the world constantly, and I think people laugh with it rather than at it. I introduced it at a screening in L.A. not long ago at the Egyptian Theater, and there was a lady who started to laugh. She hooted and howled throughout the film, and afterward I asked her what she thought of it. “I loved it!” she said. “Stella Star rocks!” It was like being in a cartoon, it was all very broadly drawn. I mean, you can’t take the dialogue seriously. Everybody was overacting. Christopher Plummer was so great delivering those lines!

RF: You met Joe Spinell on that film and it led to your next couple of roles, in Maniac and The Last Horror Film. CM: That’s right! I loved Joe, he was such a sweet man. He and I were like chalk and cheese. It shouldn’t have worked, but we got along famously. He was an ex-taxi driver from New York, I was from a little village in England, but we just really hit it off. I miss him!

RF: What was the costume fitting for that movie like? CM: Unusual. That was one of the first things I did. I went over and met Luigi, and I liked him immediately. The costume designer was a very flamboyant guy, and he brought out these two little strips of fabric and said, “Here is costume!” proudly. I said, “Oh, I wear this under the costume?” and he said, “No! This is costume!” Oh, dear. And that was the whole costume for most of the film. We filmed from October through Christmas, and it was not a very warm outfit! I went through a lot of toupee tape to keep it covering all the right bits. I did a lot of running and jumping in that film and got in very good shape!

RF: In the early Nineties, you were attached to a Doctor Who feature film as well. What happened with that?

RF: And again, you were dubbed by someone else, Candy Clark. (I later asked Candy about this and she denied it, but it certainly sounds like her.) CM: Well, that was a money thing. I think we were all dubbed. I was in England, and everybody else was all over the globe. Candy was with Marjoe [Gortner, star of

RF: Tell me about Adam Ant and [the music video] Goody Two Shoes. MC: Adam invited me to appear in that! He was a very big fan of the Hammer films and knew my work. It was such fun, that video! It was all totally adlibbed in the end, and we just went berserk. I saw him in London about three weeks ago, and he’s performing better than ever! He’s got a new band and he looks great. He’s amazing! If he’s playing anywhere near you, go see him!

retro interview

(LEFT) Poster for Maniac (1980). (RIGHT) Screen capture from the Adam Ant music video for “Goody Two Shoes” (1982). Maniac © Magnum Motion Pictures, Inc. “Goody Two Shoes” © Columbia Records.

CM: My husband George Dugdale and his partners had bought the rights to do three Doctor Who films, and had contracted Johnny Byrne [Space: 1999, All Creatures Great and Small] to write the script for the first one. It was a brilliant story and we had thought to have Alan Rickman play the Doctor, which would have been

brilliant. Unfortunately, that was not to be, and it was a big setback, it cost us a lot of money. I’ve had a lot of great parts and a great career, and I feel like a very lucky girl! RF: Back to your beginnings. You started as a visual art student, drawing and painting. That’s a creative art, whereas acting is mostly an interpretive art. You wound up with a career as an interpretive artist, but your passion was for the creative arts. How do you balance the two? CM: Yes, I had thought I might do fabric design or something. I don’t do much of it these days, but I did when my children were young. We would always draw together. And both my daughters are wonderful [artists] and far better than I would ever have been. Jojo is more into costumes and fantasy and fabric design, while Iona paints in oils and is just astoundingly talented; her figure studies are just amazing. So they’ve taken off where I never

could have gone. And I’m very, very proud of them! ANTHONY TAYLOR is the licensing and brand manager for the Bram Stoker Estate, and a writer. He is the author of Arctic Adventure!, an Official Thunderbirds novel based on the iconic British television series by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. He has also written episodes of the animated Paddle Pop Adventures series from Monk Studios. In addition, Anthony wrote Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: The Complete Series – Volume 2, which includes reprints of the classic Gold Key comic-book stories, and The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, chronicling artist Mike Trim’s career designing models and special effects for Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and illustrating the cover for Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds album. He was a monthly columnist for Toy Shop Magazine for 12 years, covering garage kits and genre collectibles. Anthony was a regular contributor and editor for the British magazine Sci-Fi & Fantasy Models International, and contributed a chapter on the Flying Sub miniatures from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea for the book From Sketch to Screen. His articles have appeared in SFX, Video WatcHDog, Fangoria, Screem, HorrorHound, Famous Monsters of Filmland, FilmFax, Amazing Figure Modeler, Effects Special, Modeler’s Resource, and many other magazines. Anthony also designed and co-edited CultTVMan’s Ultimate Modeling Guide to the Jupiter II as well as CultTVMan’s Ultimate Modeling Guide to Classic Sci-Fi Movies. He is the force behind ATLRetro.com’s film and disc review column “Apes on Film.” His website is Taylorcosm.com. RETROFAN

March 2022

RETROFAD

o G o G Our mothers would never let us Sixties kids anywhere near a tawdry tavern that featured go-go dancers. But they couldn’t stop us from watching TV. And there, on the tube during the Sixties, we got an eyeful of the shakin’est, shindiggin’est dance fad of the decade. Unlike other dances, go-go dancing was a spectator sport. In the early Sixties, it was the domain of the French, who crowded the Whisky a Gogo discothèque in Juan-les-Pins to ogle—excuse me, appreciate—the gyrations of short-skirted young women who were hired to dance atop elevated surfaces for the amusement of bar patrons. Soon the club licensed its name to an American venue, and on January 16, 1964, Hollywood opened its legendary Whisky a Go Go club, which became a Sunset Boulevard hotspot that thrives to this day. “The Whisky,” as the club is also known, honored its go-go dancers like goddesses on pedestals, suspending from the ceiling their mini dance platforms, which were festooned with flashing lights. Some might argue, however, that the go-go dance itself had come full circle by this point, as it is believed to have emerged at Manhattan’s popular Peppermint Lounge in the very early Sixties as an evolution of the then-popular dance craze the Twist (see RetroFan #10), with clubgoers twisting atop tables and chairs. If so, it was a fair swap with the Europeans, who in 1964 were importing to the States mop-topped boy bands including The Beatles, in what was called “The British Invasion.” What go-goes around, comes around.

(ABOVE) Excerpted art from the movie poster Speedway. Speedway © MGM. Whisky a Go-Go © Whisky a Go Go. Hullaballoo © NBCUniversal. Go Go Mania © American International Pictures. © Motown. Mary Jane Watson and Millie the Model © Marvel. Batman and DC go-go checks © DC Comics. Monster A Go-Go © B I & L Releasing Corp. Laugh-In © Warner Bros. Television.

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Dictionary.com defines “à go-go” as “as much as you like; to your heart’s content; galore.” What better way to describe the Swinging Sixties, the decade of wild abandon? Chilled by the Cold War, as well as the threat of being drafted into combat in Vietnam and the ugliness of racial inequality, young people reared on duck-and-cover classroom drills loosened their starched shirt collars and trashed their tubes of Brylcreem, and traded in their Catholic-school knee-level plaid skirts for skin-flashing minis. They hit the dance floor, and if they were too timid (or tipsy) to jump onto a table for a “Look at me!” shimmy, they sat back and watched the “professionals” go-go dance the night away. By the mid-Sixties the trend could not be contained within the pulsing, smoke-filled nightspot down the street. Go-go dancing mania hit the mainstream. Primetime television showcased popular singing groups on music-variety series like Shindig! and Hullaballoo, their choreographed go-go dance numbers keeping dads’ eyes trained on the tube instead of barking to one of the kids to change the station to The Beverly Hillbillies or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles made a hit out of “Going to a Go-Go.” The album cover for The Supremes à Go-Go featured go-go dancing pix of Diana Ross and her Motown gal pals. Concert-clip movies like Go-Go Big Beat and Go Go Mania packed the theaters. Go-go dancing even infiltrated the world of “funnybooks,” formerly a safe haven from such shenanigans thanks to the parentsfriendly shield of the Comics Code Authority. Marvel Comics’ “Blonde Bombshell” was shakin’ it as a “discotheque doll” on the cover of Millie the Model #135, and face

g n i c Dan BY MIC HAE

L E U RY

it, tiger, Peter Parker hit the jackpot with his new soon-to-be-girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson, who moonlighted as a go-go dancer in The Amazing Spider-Man. And on January 12, 1966, even the Guardian of Gotham City, Batman himself, who had graduated from comic books to live-action television, was spied at a nightclub, dancing the Batusi with a voluptuous floozy named Molly—the moll of the Prince of Puzzlers himself, the Riddler! Luckily, the Shake-a-Mean-Caped Crusader regained his senses, but alas, the poor, misguided Molly did not; her infiltration of the top-secret Batcave ending in a plunge to her death in its atomic pile. “What a way to go-go,” one might say. Beyond the go-go dancing fad, “go-go” was the hottest word in town, be it adjective, noun, or verb. Teen-oriented comic books with titles like Go-Go (“Join the IN crowd”) and the Archie clone

Go-Go and Animal dotted the spin racks, and for a while DC Comics top-lined all of its covers with black-and-white “go-go checks.” Cartoons featured comedy characters now considered culturally offensive (and probably considered offensive back then, too), Mexican cop Go-Go Gomez (on Dick Tracy) and American Indians Go Go Gophers. Genre-blending, low-budget flicks were cranked out for the drive-in circuit with fare such as Winter-aGo-Go (go-go dancing meets the Lake Tahoe ski set), Monster A Go-Go (go-go dancing meets horror), and schlockmeister Russ Meyer’s B-movie classic, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (go-go dancing meets kick-ass racing chicks). The high-topped, form-fitting footwear popularized on countless dance platforms became known as go-go boots, liberating Nancy Sinatra from daddy Frank’s shadow with her 1966 mega-hit “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” Gregarious, gorgeous Goldie Hawn didn’t need Nancy’s boots—or shoes, for that matter—as she go-go danced in nothing but a wisp of a bikini and a body plastered with painted slogans each week on television’s popular sketch comedy, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. By the Seventies things were calming down, and the next wave of young people was sedated by baby-I’m-a-wanting-you denim-donned heartthrobs—until polyester bell-bottoms and glistening disco balls spread a fever that made everybody get up and boogie. But like many other great fads, go-go dancing didn’t really go-go away. It got seedy, with caged dancers wearing less than Goldie leaving nothing to the imagination in steamy joints your mother would really never want to catch you at. In some countries, go-go dancing has become synonymous with the sex trade, a far cry from the go-go-booted family fare that once dominated the popular culture. Luckily, when unpaired from “dancing,” the word “go-go” has a brighter connotation, evoking the fun and campiness of the Sixties. That’s how I want to go-go on remembering it… and I’ll bet you do, too. RETROFAN

March 2022

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Move Over, Lois Lane, It’s…

The Close Shaves of

PAULINE PERIL! A LOOK AT AN ODDBALL COMIC BY SCOTT SHAW!

If you loved the Swingin’ Sixties, the Sizzlin’ Seventies, and Women’s Lib, but never partook in the more controversial side of the counterculture, this is the funnybook for you... or your grandkids. If you’ve watched Quentin Tarentino’s Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood, you already have a very good idea of what pre-disco Hollywood Boulevard looked like between 1967 and 1973. Although I lived in San Diego, I was often taking car trips north to Los Angeles to shop for vintage comics at Burt Blum’s Cherokee Books (a sleazy shop with lots of Golden Age comics), Malcolm Willits’ and Leonard Brown’s Collector’s Bookstore (the fancy-schmancy equivalent of Cherokee), Bond Street Books (for shopping bags full of dirt-cheap “reader” copies), and Larry Edmunds’ Bookshop, which specialized in entertainment-related material, but no comic books. And only a few blocks to the west was one of the biggest and oldest comicbook publishers in America, Western Publishing—possibly, the biggest and the oldest, at least at the time. By September 1968, I was eager to get my hands on any underground comix I could find. Their outrageous approach to funnybooks made a huge impression on me, the biggest effect since I began reading Marvel Comics in junior high. But mainstream comic books were changing, too, reflecting social issues of those turbulent times in a bid to appear “relevant” while “safe,”

although (like everywhere else) the middle-aged management at the big publishers were now sporting pork-chop sideburns, wearing bell-bottom slacks, and vainly attempting to be hip. Despite the parental editors, writers, and artists always arriving at a corny solution, there was also an influx of young fans-turned-creators who introduced new characters and story themes that addressed issues that were in the news. In 1969, while on my college’s newspaper staff, I even did a full-page article, “Comics Get Relevant!,” citing superhero yarns about overpopulation, Women’s Liberation, racism, the justice system, and Jack Kirby’s The Forever People, a DC Comics series about hippies from Apokolips. (The next year, Len Wein and Herb Trimpe even did “The Underground Gambit,” a horror story for Marvel’s Chamber of Chills about a mainstream cartoonist who, thanks to a wig, has a secret second career drawing underground comix!) However, whenever Western Publishing (Gold Key Comics) ventured into the counterculture, it was with entertainingly, ridiculously lame concepts, like The Modniks, Mod Love, Mod Wheels, and Zody the Mod Rob, which I wrote about in the

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March 2022

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT) Pearl White performing stunts in 1914’s The Perils of Pauline, Pamela Austin starred in this groovy 1967 version, and Betty Hutton had a head for the role in 1947. The Perils of Pauline © 1914 General, 1947 Paramount Pictures, 1967 Universal Pictures. Photos and posters courtesy of Heritage.

first issue of RetroFan. (Someone was convinced that the word “mod” was a sales-getter.) The exceptions to the trend were Dell Comics’ earlier brilliant beatnik titles, Yak Yak by Jack Davis and Kookie by John Stanley and Bill Williams. I kept my eye on anything that involved cartooning, especially comic books and magazines: Marvel, DC, Charlton, ACG, Archie, Harvey, Tower, and Gold Key... or shall we say, Western Publishing Company, Inc. Since 1938, Western Publishing Company, Inc. had supplied funnybook content for Dell, a major publisher of magazines and books. Their business agreement was that Dell would handle the finances and choose the licenses (often based on samples and mock-ups), and Western would handle the creation of each issue, which meant all of the contents, including covers, back-up stories, text features, “filler” features, and advertising. Western was a printing company—its primary business was making playing cards!—so it handled the production, too. Dell’s circulation numbers were huge because their specialty was high-quality comic books for younger kids, and in service of that, they licensed a lot of popular comic strip and animated cartoon characters, cowboys, television series, and feature films. Cartoonists Walt (Pogo) Kelly and Carl (Uncle Scrooge) Barks became Dell’s best-known creators, and it’s hard to find a Dell comic that wasn’t intelligently written and well drawn. Western eventually maintained two offices, one in New York City (where Dell was located) and one in Los Angeles (where the studios were located, facilitating approvals on adaptations of movies, television series, and animated cartoon characters). The licensed properties also appeared from Western under a number of imprints in other print material, including coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, card games, activity books, and paper dolls. If one of the properties that 34

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Western licensed—such as The Flintstones—caught on with the public, the first wave of licensed product was always paper goods. They could design, draw, color, and print those items within a few months, while booking time with overseas manufacturers to make figural toys took more than a year. In 1962, the two outfits split over financial issues, as often happens in the business world. Dell continued to publish comics, and since they’d lost so many licensed characters, Dell hired editor/ artist L. B. Cole to oversee the creation of new concepts. The initial line-up was similar to EC Comics—very copy-heavy, with adult themes—but when sales lagged, Dell brought on a new editor, bought a number of licensed properties, and even added oddball super-heroes to their line-up. But in 1973, Dell finally threw in the towel. Western also did a number of projects that didn’t involve Dell... or Gold Key, for that matter. They included March of Comics (shoe store giveaway mini-comics), Kite Safety (hosted by everyone from Donald Duck to Fonzie), and The Flintstones At the New York World’s Fair (working with Warren Publications). Western already knew how to create comics, and was in a much better position to thrive. It hung on to most of the licenses and determined what it would publish, all under a new imprint, Gold Key, which had a much more “modern” approach to cover designs and top-quality material between their covers. Indeed,

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Two more Pauline Peril forerunners: (RIGHT) Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longarón’s trailblazing comic strip heroine Friday Foster, brought to life on the big screen by Pam Grier in a 1975 movie; and (BELOW AND BOTTOM) Saturday morning’s fast-driving damsel-in-distress Penelope Pitstop, seen amid the weirdo wheelers on the cover of Gold Key Comics’ Wacky Races #1 (Aug. 1969) and the title card for Perils of Pauline Pitstop. Friday Foster © 1975 American International Pictures. Wacky Races & Pauline Pitstop © 1970 HannaBarbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

from June 1962 to 1964, Gold Key had some of the hippest cover designs in the history of comics. The ones that came out of the NYC office also had needless full-color panel borders... but not for long. In fact, within two years, the hip approach was abandoned and replaced with simple gag covers like Dell had always asked for. From that point on, although Gold Key published hundreds of great comics, none of it was anything you might consider hip. So, how does one create a fun and innocent character for kids, but a character that exists in a world teeming with sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll? Snappy dialogue, great character designs, outrageous situations, and innovative layouts seemed to fill the bill.

THE ORIGINS OF PAULINE PERIL

It’s very possible that Gold Key’s The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril, which premiered in 1970, was originally conceived by its creators Del Connell and Jack Manning to be a syndicated comic strip for newspapers. “Women’s Lib” (with “lib” short for “liberty”) was a fairly new concept of feminism that was sweeping the country and all forms of its media. TV shows such as 1966’s That Girl (ABC) and 1970’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS) were both series that softly utilized that underlying theme. Long before Pauline Peril came The Perils of Pauline, originally a silent film in 1914, with new versions in 1933, 1947, and in 1967, a new feature film starring Pamela Austin as “Pauline,” Pat Boone, and Terry-Thomas. It was originally shot as a television series, which co-starred multiple noted character actors of the day, including Edward Everett Horton, Vito Scotti, and even Beaver Cleaver’s principal, Doris Packer. There was also Friday Foster, a 1970–1974 comic strip by Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longarón about the globetrotting adventures of a black female photographer; it spawned a comic book (Dell, Oct. 1972) and a feature film starring Pam Grier (1975). Another syndicated strip, created by cartoonists Mell Lazarus as “Fulton” (Miss Peach, Momma) and Jack Rickard (MAD magazine), was The Adventures of Pauline McPeril, starring another gorgeous blonde lady, this time a secret agent, which a very short run from 1966 to 1967, syndicated by Publishers-Hall Syndicate. Then there was Penelope Pitstop, the “glamour gal of the gas pedal” that drove a racecar called the Compact Pussycat in Hanna-Barbera Productions’ Saturday morning cartoon Wacky Races (1968). According to H-B’s Creative Director Iwao Takamoto, Penelope was an afterthought in the development of Wacky Races. Supposedly, “Mr. B,” a.k.a. Joe Barbera, requested that a female character should be added to the cast of Wacky Races, so Takamoto and cartoonist Jerry Eisenberg designed Penelope and her car in about two hours, meeting the deadline for the “pitch” meeting with CBS. The next year, Penelope starred in her own CBS series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. In a much more direct reference to 1914’s The Perils of Pauline, she portrayed a stereotypical “damsel in distress,” always on the run from Sylvester Sneekly, a.k.a. “the Hooded Claw,” always rescued by the Ant Hill Mob in their car “Chuggaboom.” Penelope was ingenious and athletic, often self-described as a “woman sports champion,” but one who’s incessantly calling out for help. (It’s apparent that no women were involved in the creation of this cartoon show.) RETROFAN

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Not coincidentally, Jack Manning drew the Wacky Races comic book for Del Connell at Western, so it’s not that surprising how many readers (and even vintage comic-book dealers) have assumed that Pauline Peril was based on an unsold Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. (Hey, Western did quite well with Cave Kids and Mr. and Mrs. Evil Scientist Gold Key titles, based on unsold H-B series.) But that just wasn’t the case. Pauline Peril was definitely a Western creation, and one that I believe was most likely influenced by Jack’s work on Wacky Races. Whatever it may have been, in the late Sixties, Western decided that it needed more than licensed comics starring popular cartoon characters and countless television and movie adaptations. From that point on, under their Gold Key imprint, they launched a number of series in a variety of genres, all created by Western’s staff, new intellectual properties that Western itself would own. Pauline Peril’s editor/writer/co-creator Del Connell was born in 1918. He attended Pasadena City College, then went on to

Pauline Peril’s creators: (LEFT) writer Del Connell and artist Jack Manning.

sculpting maquettes for animators’ reference at the Walt Disney Studio in 1939. There, he became a writer and character designer, working on theatrical cartoon shorts starring Donald Duck and on the Disney feature films The Three Caballeros (1944) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). For many years, Del “wrote” the pantomime Ferdinand daily and Sunday syndicated comic strip for the United Features Syndicate. He also wrote the Little Lulu comic strip for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and the Mickey Mouse comic strip for King Features. At Western Publishing Company, Inc., in addition to The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril, Del co-created Space Family Robinson, Cave Kids, Wacky Witch, Super Goof, and Daisy Duck’s nieces April, May, and June, among others. Between 1950 and 1956, he wrote and/or edited about 2,000 comics stories for Western Publishing, for both Dell and Gold Key comics, as well as myriad adaptations of films and TV series and promotional giveaway comics. Pauline Peril’s co-creator, cartoonist John “Jack” Oliver Manning, was born in Los Angeles in 1920 and died in 1986. He first worked at Disney and Warner Bros., and decades later at Hanna-Barbera Productions and Ruby-Spears Productions, as a layout and publicity artist. He was also a sports cartoonist and illustrator for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner/Express. Jack also worked on what he

referred to as the “first cartoon show made for television,” probably a show aired only in the Los Angeles area. He described it to me as “five-days a week, and it was drawn to resemble a comic strip.” The animation was sure to be minimal. He also worked on an unsold comic strip adaptation of Jack Webb’s TV series Dragnet (the original version), as did Alex Toth. Manning was a wheeler-dealer, often bartering his cartooning for whatever his client had, if not cash. When home video was new, he quickly had dozens of bartered movies on tape. Jack also traded his skills at caricaturing with Princess Cruises; he’d work for three voyages in trade for a free voyage for him and his wife. He was always juggling art assignments, even when he was on staff in the layout departments of Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears... both at the same time! Jack drew comic books for Western for decades, including Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge, The Beagle Boys, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Beep Beep the Road Runner, Wacky Races, Scooby-Doo… Where Are You!, The Hair Bear Bunch, and Banana Splits, as well as Marvel Comics’ line of Hanna-Barbera titles.

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THE CAST

f Pauline Peril is a devoted reporter for the Daily Noose, so intrepid that she often doesn’t even realize she’s in danger… and when she does, she’s so sure that her mesomorph boyfriend Chester

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Chesty will show up to save the day that she has a blasé attitude toward such menaces. Pauline often isn’t even aware she is in danger. f Weakheart is Pauline’s pet poochie, a Scottie and her constant companion. If he could talk, he’d be the voice of reason. Unfortunately, the best he can do is whimper with anxiety. f Porterhouse P. Peril is Pauline’s father and the owner of the Daily Noose. f Chester Chesty is Pauline’s boyfriend, and a health nut. f Snodgrass McViper is the editor of the Daily Noose and the villain who’s out to destroy Pauline Peril, unbeknownst to anyone but the readers. The assignments “Snoddy” gives her—dangerous deep-sea dives, deadly mountain climbs, etc.—are designed to eliminate her as Porterhouse’s heir-apparent, in hopes that he’ll bestow his wealth upon his faithful editor instead.

h The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #1 (June 1970) The 25-page story “The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril” begins with our heroine Pauline hanging from the rear axle of a flying bus outfitted with chopper blades as three citizens on the street below react with a variation of the old “Superman” riff: “Look! It’s a whirly bird!” “No… it’s a whirly girly!” No, no… it’s Pauline Peril... girl reporter for The Daily Noose!” Fortunately, the blonde journalist lands on a full luggage cart, only to board a nearby jet plane bound for Africa. Missing the flight, her faithful dog Weakheart dives into the Atlantic Ocean, swimming after her. En route, the comic’s narrator fills in the reader with Pauline’s backstory: Wealthy Porterhouse P. Peril was disgusted with his beautiful young daughter wasting her time languishing around the family swimming pool, surrounded by ardent Lotharios. The

THE COMICS, ISSUE BY ISSUE

All four issues of Western Publishing Co., Inc./Gold Key’s Oddball Comic The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #1 feature edits and scripts by Del Connell and cover art and interior Pauline Peril material designed, penciled, and inked by Jack Manning. Each 32-page issue retailed for 15 cents. As was the norm in Western’s funnybooks during this era, each issue includes kid-friendly “filler” material such as “Gold Key Comics Club News,” “Gold Key Comics Club Reader’s Page,” and “Gold Key Comics Club Joke’s On You.”

(LEFT) Original Jack Manning artwork for the cover of The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #1 (June 1970). Courtesy of Heritage. (RIGHT) Hanging out with Pauline on the first page of her first issue. © 1970 Western Publishing Company, Inc.

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old coot kicks the boys off of his estate, purchases the Daily Noose newspaper, and instructs its City Editor, Snodgrass McViper, to hire his daughter Pauline for “assignments where she’ll get around and meet the right kind of young men!” Anti-feminist McViper resents being the babysitter of the carefree and rather oblivious young lady. He constantly sends out Pauline on the dreaded “right kind” of assignments... potentially fatal ones! While Pauline nears the African coast, her interview assignment subject, Tartar, King of the Chimps, “a jungle jerk” and “fanatical woman-hater supreme” (in McViper’s estimation), attacks the approaching luxury liner, Queen Sherri. Leaping off the jet, Pauline quickly realizes that someone (McViper, of course) has sabotaged her parachute pack and plummets into the thick of Tartar’s lush realm. When the manic male chauvinist attacks her with a club, she assumes he’s just a playful chimpanzee. Mystified, Tartar realizes “he’s never met a woman like Pauline before: other women are either... bossy... crabby... stuck up... or just too cotton-pickin’ smart! Whereas Pauline is simply... simple... sweet... and sort of stupid!” Tartar pursues the cute reporter, instantly falling in love with her. Meanwhile, Pauline’s steadfast poochie rides the crest of a tidal wave, on his way to join her. When the gigantic wave breaks, salt water, fish, and Weakheart pour down on Tartar, Pauline, and a tiger (in Africa, no less!) that is about to pounce on her. Her brave pet immediately attempts to pull his blonde mistress out of a quicksand pit. Rushing to outperform his canine rival, Tartar gets himself trapped in the sucking sand. Unable to help, Weakheart unleashes his unique power: whining! “But Weakheart’s whine is no ordinary whine... it’s one of those penetrating, ear-piercing types that knows no bounds... spanning even the ocean... until finally, back on Yogurt Street in the city of Bigburg, Weakheart’s hearty whine reaches the healthy ears of Chester Chesty, one of Pauline’s admirers...” After wolfing down doses of Vitamin A, iron, rose hip tablets, carrot juice, and a “karate” chop of undisclosed meat, Chester hops on his “super-duper exercising machine,” a nutty flying contraption with a “Shop At Chesty’s” banner attached, to the rescue. But he accidentally flies into the open mouth of a sperm whale that swallows him and dives into the depths of the ocean while Tartar and Pauline continue to sink into the mire. At the last instant, Chester and his gizmo are expelled from the whale’s belly due to the health-nut’s raw eggs and yogurt capsules. Chester’s trajectory swiftly takes him over the jungle, where he tosses down a hooked rope to extract Pauline from the quicksand. Tartar’s not so lucky; he gets pulled out of the goop by his hair. Left behind again, Weakheart “doggedly” starts after his trouble-magnet mistress. Back at the Daily Noose offices, Pauline struts into her editor’s office with her interview with Tartar. Of course, it’s written entirely in jungle gibberish, so it’s completely useless. Frustrated, Snodgrass sulks, skulks, and plots until he hatches a new scheme to eliminate Pauline: an assignment to do a story about the curse of King Kutt’s tomb! Refusing to be foiled again, McViper puts a time bomb in Weakheart’s chew-bone and sleeping pills in all of Chester’s vitamin bottles, and sends Ms. Peril to her doom. Once again, Weakheart misses Pauline’s flight, so he grabs his bone—which he notices is ticking—and heads toward Chester’s health food store. Pauline tries to leap from her plane to the desert floor, but again her parachute has been tampered with, and now contains lunch. That doesn’t stop her from jumping, but on the way down, Pauline 38

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Manning’s excellent art and Connell’s funny scripts started out each issue of The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril with a bang! Title splash pages to issues #2 and 3. © 1970 Western Publishing Company, Inc.

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remembers that she doesn’t have a chute and imitates Weakheart’s whine to gather a flock of fluffy sheep to form a landing pad for her. She traipses across the desert sand in high heels until she reaches the pyramid of King Kutt. Its door is open, but a sign above it warns, “Whoever enters this tomb will meet his doom! BEWARE!” While this is happening, Tartar, Prince of the Chimps, is swimming across the ocean in search of Pauline, Chester is still knocked out, and Weakheart, carrying the ticking bone-bomb in his mouth, finally locates the sleeping health-nut. But when the brave little dog sneezes, he spits out the bone, it explodes, and the noise wakes up Chester Chesty. When he learns that Pauline was sent to King Kutt’s tomb, he takes off on his super-exercise machine across the ocean, with Tartar swimming to beat him to Ms. Peril... who happens to be in extreme peril. A gigantic block of stone suddenly shudders and starts to fall on her... until Chester and Tartar simultaneously arrive to bear the load with their massive arms, saving Pauline from a very flat tragedy. When Pauline returns to the Daily Noose office, the fact that she’s still alive stuns her boss more than her article. Weakheart finally catches up with her, and after telling her father that she had a day full of “the same old stuff,” Pauline—and Weakheart—both tuck in for the night, lulled by a familiar whining... but not from Weakheart! The source of the whining is from inside King Kutt’s tomb. Yes, Tartar and Chester are still holding up that block of granite! This full-length story is followed by “Perils to Beware of by Pauline,” a one-page article about things to avoid, reminiscent of MAD magazine’s “Horrifying Clichés” and “Beastlies” ongoing features by Phil Hahn and Paul Coker, Jr.

When Scareless Harry and Pauline are about to risk a “long-long free-fall sky dive,” little Weakheart delivers a copy of the Daily Noose to Chester. When Chester sees that Pauline’s about to risk her life for a photo, he gulps down “high potency energy pills crammed with anti-peril protein plus” and, with Weakheart, jumps into a sand buggy and heads for her jump until he’s only 500 feet above the ground. Harry’s determined to wait to pull his rip chord but insists that Pauline proceed. He finally pulls it, but parachute-less Pauline beats him to the ground by landing in the arms of Chester Chesty, driving him chest-deep into the dirt. Weakheart arrives on the scene to pull the health-nut free. When McViper learns that Pauline is still alive, “dastardly idea wheels” in his brain go into overdrive. This time, Pauline is assigned to accompany Scareless Harry to “Depth Valley... the lowest spot on the ocean’s floor, where no man has dared to go before.” (Hey, Star Trek was still on the air!) Outfitted with shark repellent hair spray, an underwater pen, a rubber notebook, a sea bag, a sealskin scuba suit, and water moccasins, Pearl suddenly realizes that she forgot to bring “a bottle of air!” When Harry gets his leg gripped by a giant clam, Pauline saves him with her handy clam-opener in her “underwater picnic pouch.” As Harry heads for the surface, Pauline discovers a mammoth pearl inside the huge clam, but it’s so heavy it forces her to the ocean’s “basement floor.” Meanwhile, Weakheart attempts to rescue Pauline, but he’s hardly in the water before a hungry pelican plucks him up by his doggy tail. Weakheart’s whining draws the attention of Chester, but he’s led on a wild goose chase that wastes his strongman efforts, to McViper’s delight. On the ocean floor holding a pearl as big as a basketball, Pauline is attracted to a pair of h The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #2 sparkling eyes, finding herself face-to-face with a (Sept. 1970) goofy-looking trench monster. She rockets up to This issue’s 25-page feature-length Pauline Peril the surface, unaware that she’s dragged along the story is titled “Doing Her Thing-A-Ling.” It opens monstrous creature with one of its feelers wrapped with Pauline snapping a photo of a lady who’s around her ankle. Scareless Harry is so freaked out Scareless Harry about to jump into the arms of a firefighter from by the sea-creature that he swims off “to get away from The Close her top-story apartment. Pauline is now known as from it all!” Shaves of Pauline a “star reporter” who covers every story from an McViper decides to locate Scareless Harry, Peril #2 (Sept. “involved point of view.” Sounds like “gonzo jourwho’s been hiding on a tiny island in the South 1970). © 1970 nalism” to me! (A few years later, in 1977, Hunter Seas. Harry finds it hard to resist the City Editor’s Western Publishing S. Thompson was the theme of an underground latest offer, especially since the offer was Company, Inc. comic I edited, Fear and Laughter, from Kitchen personally delivered by the sexiest “carrier pigeon” Sink Press.) However, Pauline’s intrepid (or is that ever. Soon, both Pauline and Scareless Harry are clueless?) feats and celebrity status drive City Editor Snodgrass dogsledding around at the North Pole. Harry plans to wrestle with McViper to tears of frustration. He’s simmering about this when his the Abominable Snowman, but once he encounters the legendary office’s ceiling collapses, due to a sudden impact on the roof. mountain of hair, his blood runs cold and their husky dogs run It’s the result of world-famous daredevil “Scareless Harry” away. Setting up a wrestling ring, Pauline films the face-off skyscraper-hopping on his pneumatic pogo stick. When he poses between daredevil and the devil-who-dares while she referees and for photog Pauline, Harry is so distracted that he bounces up a offers narration reminiscent of a tough-guy announcer describing tower and winds up inside a huge bell. This inspires McViper to a prizefight. Her account falters when Pauline begins to hear assign Ms. Peril to cover Harry’s stunts, egged on by a mysterious distinctively familiar whining from above—it’s Weakheart! She voice (McViper’s) that suggests even crazier challenges. looks up and grasps a string of Weakheart’s whining sound effects RETROFAN

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as if it was a physical object, pulling herself up to a pelican’s nest that contains Weakheart. Suddenly, everything happens at once! Pauline’s high heels trigger an avalanche as she holds Weakheart while the Abominable Snowman hurls Scareless Harry into space. Suddenly, the hairy monster is covered by Pauline and Weakheart’s avalanche. Then Chester Chesty arrives on his flying rowing machine to take Pauline and Weakheart back to Bigburg. As they near home, the trio passes an observatory with a line of people waiting to see “the first man to orbit Earth without a space suit,” Scareless Harry, enjoying both success and isolation... but not for long. McViper outfits her with a “rocket suit” and sends her into space to cover Scareless Harry’s bizarre accomplishment. Unfortunately, they accidentally collide, sending Harry back to Earth for a water landing, while sending Ms. Peril further into outer space, where she passes through the particle-dust rings of Saturn. Suddenly, Pauline realizes that she’s got a stowaway hidden in her rocket suit’s backpack—Weakheart! The Scottie is allergic to particle-dust. “And so, Pauline lurches Earthward through space’s vacuum by sneeze-propulsion!” As this story winds up, “Scareless Harry, shamed by a mere girl reporter, retires from the daredevil profession to live out his days in obscurity.” Meanwhile, McViper is so outraged and ashamed that he hides his head in his desk’s drawer. And Pauline and Weakheart plummet into the muscular arms of Chester, whining about the possibility that he’ll have fallen arches after this. “Pauline’s Daily Peril” is a one-page gag about Chester Chesty trying to help Pauline Peril across the street to meet an article’s deadline.

McViper silently resolves to prevent that scenario at any cost. He hires a bunch of subservient goons, the Clod Brothers, to pretend they’re working for a film studio. Then he hires sinister-but-sexy Veda Vamp and her dog Pasha Poodle to distract Chester Chesty and Weakheart from rescuing Pauline from the fate he has planned for her. Pretending to be directing a film, McViper approaches Pauline with a movie offer as the film’s star and stuntgirl, and the blonde journalist agrees. Followed by the Clod Brothers—hauling “lotsa lights, cameras and action”—McViper drives his starlet into the wilderness to shoot a scene in an isolated location. Meanwhile, Pauline’s ever-protective pooch sets out to trail them, but is distracted by Pasha, who “leads him on” and “whines and dines him” (and apparently bludgeons him with puns!). Meanwhile (and you’d better get used to that word here), Pauline is wearing a frilly dress and is tied to a railroad track, as “director” McViper and his stooges prepare to allow a steampowered locomotive to run over her voluptuous-for-a-comicfrom-Western-Publications body. (More than the other Pauline Peril stories, this one directly acknowledges the film(s) it was based upon, The Perils of Pauline.) Meanwhile, Veda Vamp has seduced Chester Chesty out of his health-food store and across town, chasing Veda’s “hopping hanky” (a frog is underneath it). Meanwhile, as she’s about to be run over by the oncoming train and screaming, “Help! Oh, help! HELP!,” Pauline realizes that she’s forgotten her next line of dialogue and effortlessly—“with a strength born of injured pride and embarrassment”—snaps the ropes that bind her and retrieves her script. Meanwhile, the locomotive speeds further down the track, demolishing McViper’s h The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #3 (Dec. 1970) hastily parked convertible. This issue’s 26-page feature-length Pauline Peril story is titled “You The evil editor is still determined to eliminate his perceived Can’t Hang a Coat on a Cliff-Hanger.” When an ambulatory mummy rival for the ownership of the Daily Noose by tying Pauline to a roams the streets of Bigburg, Pauline approaches the staggering wooden log and sending her down a chute that leads to a sawmill. creature in hopes of nabbing “a keen ‘human interest’ story!” But The dimwitted Clod Brothers ride a log right behind hers, filming instead of a mummified pharaoh, it turns out to be Danny Danger, all the way down to the sure-to-be-gruesome finale. Meanwhile, a stuntman who “takes all the hard knocks for the star.” Weakheart has passed out from overeating and Chester is mesmerLater, when Pauline checks in with City Editor McViper, she ized by Veda’s formidable perfume. As Pauline’s log approaches interrupts his obsessing about the likeliness of her wealthy father the mill’s huge buzzsaw, the Clod Brothers’ log bumps into hers, will die and will the Daily Noose to Pauline. Even worse, if that were dislodging a zoom lens from their camera. It focuses the sun’s rays to happen, she would be his boss! (inside a sawmill?) onto a power cable, shorting it out mere seconds before Pauline could become half-twins. The Clod Brothers are grateful to her, especially because they’ve just discovered that they have no film in their camera. When McViper learns of her non-demise he’s literally beside himself, but calms down to concoct “a real cliffhanger situation,” by dangling Pauline off of a real cliff! After a few pages of filler we return to find Pauline hanging from a cliff, clinging to a coat-hanger while reading from her script, “Help! Oh, mercy me... HELP!” Pauline’s cry for assistance attracts the attention of a passing air mailman who turns his plane around to lift her from the cliff’s edge. Unfortunately, the young journalista’s hands are so tired of grasping, she lets go. Fortunately, she happens to fall into the outstretched arms of Chester Chesty, who’s busy pursuing Veda Vamp. Meanwhile, as Weakheart regains his purpose to track Pauline and Pasha trails him, our story turns Clever use of lettering was a hallmark of The Close Shaves of Pauline into a complicated rebus! While the dogs stop on a Peril. From issue #3. © 1970 Western Publishing Company, Inc.

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

corner, waiting for the green light, McViper sneaks up and switches their dog tags, then calls the dogcatcher to haul them away. Then McViper tracks Chester and Pauline to a health-food stand where they’re eating vitamin-enriched hot dogs. McViper ties a rope around the stool Chester’s perched on and gives it “a tremendous yank,” spinning him like a top. McViper hurries along Pauline—who assumes her boyfriend is “exercising.” Veda Vamp has her own plans: “And when Chester gets UN-WOUND... I’ll wind him around... my little finger!” Meanwhile (are you getting tired of reading that word as much as I’m tired of writing it?), McViper has made himself Pauline’s co-star and is dressed as an “Injun” while dancing around his star reporter who’s trussed to a burning stake. He whoops, shoots flaming arrows, and beats on a tom-tom, yelping, “Yippy-yah hoo! Ugh and woo-woo, too!” (Yeah, this schtick doesn’t age well, does it?) Weakheart is in the pound, Chester is tangled in Veda Vamp’s Medusa-esque tresses, and the Clod Brothers still think the dangerous situation that they’re filming is make-believe. Fortunately, Pauline digs McViper’s tom-tomming: “What a groovy beat! I can’t help but twitch, twist and turn!” She undulates so much that she slips right out of her bonds, while the evil editor’s performance brings forth a sudden rainfall that extinguishes the stake-fire. McViper’s next scheme “is perilous to the Nth degree,” and with Weakheart and Chester still occupied with other challenges, it’s sure to be fiendishly efficient. Using the Clod Brothers as labor, he fills a string of holes dug in the ground with quick-setting cement disguised as flagstones, then tips a huge boulder in position. Across the valley, he plants a cluster of dynamite near Ridge Top Lake and encages a “hungry and ill-tempered cougar” nearby. The intention is to trap Pauline in cement and incite both an avalanche and a flood to engulf her. Of course, McViper immediately steps into his own trap. Even worse (for him), Pauline calls out for someone to help him... and the word “help” is the cue for the Clod Brothers to tip the boulder, light the dynamite fuse, and release the cougar. Fortunately, Weakheart and Chester embarrass their female captors while escaping to race to aid their favorite female immediately before all hell breaks loose in the valley below. Trying to make a bad situation better, Pauline attempts to interview McViper for the Daily Noose, but since he’s buried in debris and neck-high in water, with a cougar standing on his bald pate, he’s not particularly cooperative. h The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #4 (Mar. 1971) This issue’s 26-page feature-length Pauline Peril story is titled “The Hairy Case of the Bewitched Wigs.” Pauline, her wealthy father Porterhouse P. Peril, her loyal Scottie dog Weakheart, and her evil boss and Daily Noose City Editor Snodgrass McViper are all reintroduced as the bad-news guy is about to drop from his office window a two-ton safe on the good-girl reporter. When the safe misses her, McViper attempts to hang her with the Daily Noose’s neon sign, complete with a rope noose. But before Pauline realizes that she’s about to be lynched, her boyfriend Chester Chesty emerges from a freight elevator, bringing up a supply of vitamins from his health-food store’s underground storage locker, and lifts her free of the hanging rope. McViper is disinterested in Pauline’s article about a “super scientist” named Dr. Zocktor—and he’s irritated that the dangerous road up to his mountaintop laboratory nor her sabotaged brakes killed Pauline while on the assignment—until she mentions that

Zocktor has invented an electra-mutant-ray, “a real hep thing!” (And that’s when readers realized that this Oddball funnybook was written by someone over 30.) McViper immediately hatches a wild new plan to destroy his beautiful blonde rival. First, he purchases an assortment of trendy women’s wigs. Second, he acquires some “electra-mutant-ray trans-muters” from Dr. Zocktor, as well as earphones that he can hide in each of the wigs to transform his journalist-victim. On his way down the winding road toward his office, McViper’s brakes fail and he and his convertible plummet over a cliff. He’s saved by his seatbelt, but is furious that he has to carry the huge crates of wigs and electra-mutant-ray equipment on his back, all the way to the newspaper’s building. By the next morning, the City Editor has everything set up, telling Pauline that he wants her to wear a different wig for every assignment. The first one, which is white with a few yellow highlights, “The Dizzy Blonde Wig,” which literally makes her dizzy. However, that doesn’t deter Pauline from achieving her first gig of the day: an interview with Titus Updike, a famous tightrope-walker who’s crossing the Grand Canyon. To make sure she gets there, McViper takes Pauline and Weakheart to the geologic masterpiece via helicopter, then encourages the lightheaded young lady to RETROFAN

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

do the interview midway across the tightrope! She’s in big trouble and doesn’t even realize it... but Weakheart does. His whining summons the attention of Chester Chesty, who gobbles a handful of vitamins and some instant-protein formula, hops onto his “row-about” flying exercising machine, and heads for the spectacular national monument. Meanwhile, dizzied Pauline is about to drop to her doom. Both Chester and Titus arrive simultaneously to rescue her. An instant before the two would-be heroes crash head-first into each other, Pauline topples off of the tightrope but lands on a pile of inflated rafts for tourist rides down the Colorado River, luckily losing her “Dizzy Blonde” wig in the process. Although Chester and Titus are still clinging to the tightrope far above her head, her health-nut girlfriend offers to give her a ride back to Bigburg. Later, back at the Daily Noose offices, McViper gets Chester alone and gives him a fake mustache that emits knockout gas and effectively puts the mesomorph out of commission. Sneaking outside, McViper trips across Weakheart, but sidelines the canine crusader’s attention with a bone that’s ten sizes bigger than him. Soon, McViper’s got Pauline trying on a new wig, which is bright orange and very fluffy, like an “Orphan Annie Afro.” The story suddenly faces a cliffhanger, shifting to filler pages. On the far side of the fillers, Pauline finds herself floating in midair after McViper uses a table fan to blow her out of the window. Her boss surmises that she’s been mutated into weightlessness and cheerfully watches her at the mercy of powerful wind currents that are sending her straight toward the pointy crags of the Razor-Back Peaks. Meanwhile, while both Weakheart is in a bone-meal coma and doped Chester slumbers on, our airborne heroine evades getting torn to pieces against the super-sharp mountain range and on the way picks up a stranded mountain-climber who’s hitch-hiking a ride home. The next day, McViper does a slow burn as he reads a Daily Noose article proclaiming his most-despised underling as a hero. That doesn’t prevent him from hatching a third wig-whammy. Soon, he’s assigned Pauline the task of interviewing sailor Davy Jones at the bottom of the sea. While the reporter clings to a walking-plank that extends from the bow of McViper’s boat, McViper fits a third wig onto her head, this time a green one that he calls “The Seaweed Special.” It immediately transforms her into a mermaid. Meanwhile, her boss is whipping up a manically Monstro-ous whale’s appetite for mermaids. Unaware that the huge cetacean is on her tail, Pauline heads back to the surface with hopes of spotting King Neptune to get directions to Davy Jones’ locker. When she suddenly swerves, the massive mammal 42

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unintentionally demolishes the boat, sending McViper flying into the drink. Washed up on a tropical island with a thick jungle, McViper, his collection of wigs, and Pauline—who returns to normal after removing the “Seaweed Special”—are immediately attacked by a giant gorilla that emerges from a thick jungle. Meanwhile, Weakheart wakes up. Hearing Pauline’s cries for help, the poochie rushes to arouse the unconscious Chester. Chester’s allergy to dog fur causes him to sneeze off his knockout-moustache. It winds up stuck to Weakheart’s upper lip, sending him back to sleep. Traveling via the flying exercise machine, Chester and his napping canine cohort make their way through a black-and-white maze straight out of a kiddie activity book! As they finally approach the jungle island, overzealous Chester launches himself headfirst off of his exerciser and downward to tackle the aggressive anthropoid. His mission is lofty, but his aim is lousy, and

The oddball world of scott shaw!

he completely misses his hairy foe, drilling his upper body into the ground. Desperate McViper digs through his wig collection and dons one that he thinks might repel his ape attacker. Instead, it has the opposite effect, turning the ape into a lovestruck Lothario even more determined than Pepé Le Pew. In a happy-for-most ending, Pauline, Chester, and Weakheart set out for Bigburg, while McViper’s gorilla suitor chases him around the island.

PAULINE’S FINAL PERIL

The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #4’s story features a final caption that makes a promise that was, unfortunately, broken. “And so ends another hairy episode in the everyday life of Pauline Peril, girl reporter. Let us hope Pauline survives the clutches of that snake-in-the-grass Snodgrass McViper until the next issue comes out. Watch for it!” Unfortunately, this was not to be. Issue #4 was the last in to be published. The exact cause for its cancellation is unknown. However, due to Pauline Peril’s more-or-less-quarterly publication schedule, the management at Western Publications had surely received information regarding the sales of first two issues of the series, which may have not proved to be plentiful. And, let’s face it, it’s certainly possible that the series was killed because some corporate higher-up felt that it was too sexy, too unusual, too difficult for kids to read, or too offensive to women. (After all, Pauline’s “lucky dingy” schtick was not only the opposite of a feminist character, she didn’t have much personality in general.) But those are merely scenarios, not fact.

To date, Pauline Peril only exists in the memories and collections of those avid comic-book fans who refuse to limit their four-color interests to super-heroes. There has been no Pauline Peril merchandise and no usually inevitable relaunch. I think that’s for the best, but I would love to see a nice hardback reprint collection of all four issues of Pauline Peril. And now that you’ve gotten a taste of this forgotten classic, wouldn’t you? 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.

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RETRO COLLECTIBLES

BY L. WAYNE HICKS Throughout most of the Seventies, the sophomoric humor of Wacky Packages appealed to children and outraged corporate attorneys. The parodies of popular products provided a cynical look at what corporate America peddled to consumers, lampooning the likes of Band-Aid (“Band-Ache,” with skin shown being ripped from an arm) and Spam (“Cram,” which depicted a mother shoving the lunch meat into her son’s mouth). “The whole concept of making fun of these iconic products just seemed so incredibly rebellious,” said Greg Grant, who operates the WackyPackages.org website. “But it was a rebelliousness that a 7-year-old could engage in.” Topps Chewing Gum Inc. began peddling gum in the Thirties, and after World War II thought of new ways to entice customers. The Brooklyn-based company wrapped a slab of gum in mini comics featuring the character Bazooka Joe. Topps flattened out the gum to fit inside packages containing cards featuring baseball players. Pop culture entered the picture in the Sixties when Topps expanded its offerings to include cards of Batman, Superman, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. Sports cards remained the company’s mainstay, however, and it was rare for non-sports cards to enjoy staying power beyond a year or two. Until Wacky Packages came along, that is. Wacky Packages— affectionately called Wacky Packs—became one of the biggest fads for children of the Seventies. In fact, decades later, as the new 44

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millennium approached, Entertainment Weekly magazine would rank Wacky Packages the No. 1 craze for kids of the last 1,000 years. Introduced in 1967, Wacky Packages were not an immediate hit. The first set of 44 beautifully illustrated cards were die-cuts where you could punch out the image, wet the back, and stick it onto something. Some gags were simple, often relying on a tweak to a product’s name. The soft drink 7up, which at the time used the phrase “You Like It – It Likes You” on its bottles, became “6up” with the slogan “You Hate It – It Hates You.” Others skewered products with a sharper stick. To the dismay of its parent company, Ritz Crackers was transformed into “Ratz Enjoy These Crackers” and featured a rat on the box chowing down.

In a roundabout way, Wacky Packages owe their existence to popsicles. Woody Gelman and Ben Solomon had created the advertising character Popsicle Pete in the Forties to help push the frozen treat. Their work attracted the attention of Topps, which hired them to create what would become Bazooka Joe. But it was their outside venture, a publishing line called Triple Nickel Books, aimed at boys, that captivated a 12-year-old from Brooklyn named Len Brown. He wrote to Gelman, offering “a whole bunch of different suggestions” for other books. A few days later, a phone call from Gelman inviting Brown to dinner interrupted the boy’s stickball game. “He became like a father to me,” Brown said, and went to work as Gelman’s assistant at Topps in 1959, just before his 18th birthday. “It wasn’t much of an office in those days,” Brown said. “It was in an old warehouse where they actually made the Bazooka bubblegum. We had offices downstairs and the bubblegum was made upstairs until they moved the manufacturing plant to Duryea, Pennsylvania.” Walking from the train station at 36th Street toward the Topps building, “You could actually taste the sugar in the air.” Among the artists who worked for Topps was Jack Davis, a prolific illustrator who also drew for EC Comics and MAD magazine. A massive fan of MAD, future cartoonist Art Spiegelman, had published his own fanzine called Blasé when he was about 15 and managed to swap copies of it with Gelman in exchange for some of

(OPPOSITE PAGE AND ABOVE) Totally mad RetroFad: Topps’ zany Wacky Packages drove kids and corporate attorneys wild!

Davis’ original art. A noted collector, Gelman hung onto © Topps. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions and the fanzine and recruited Wayne Hicks. Spiegelman to work at Topps when he turned 18. Gelman suggested that Spiegelman produce bubblegum cards featuring products—actual products, treated seriously. Andy Warhol had just turned Campbell’s soup cans into pop-art paintings, and Gelman may have been thinking along those lines. Spiegelman, with Brown backing him, managed to convince Gelman that children were more likely to buy cards featuring parodies of products in the same vein that MAD routinely poked fun at ad campaigns. “The message of Wacky Packages is a similar one that came from MAD magazine, which was, everyone’s lying to you,” said Bill Griffith, who wrote some of the parodies published in 1974 before going on to launch the comic strip Zippy. “Your parents are lying to you. The government is lying to you. All the people that make toothpaste and detergent, they’re all lying to you. They’re making up phony claims and they’re selling you things you don’t need. Wacky Packages are a very healthy reaction against consumerism.” “It was creating a kind of cynicism about consumer culture that I think was pretty healthy for kids of all ages,” said Spiegelman, who recruited Griffith, Jay Lynch, and other underground comix artists to write Wacky Packages. A creative consultant for Topps until 1989, RETROFAN

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retro Collectibles

Spiegelman would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his 1991 graphic novel Maus. Interest in Wacky Packages exploded in 1973. Topps had dropped the die-cut format and released most of the 1967 series as stickers that could be peeled from their backing. Suddenly, Wacky Packages were everywhere. Each package sold for a nickel and contained two cards, a stick of bubblegum, and a checklist of which cards in that series you still needed to collect. Topps’ initial series of 30 cards were quickly followed that year by four more releases. The media took note. New York magazine devoted the cover of an October issue to Wacky Packages, although the writer of the article had a difficult time explaining their popularity to adults. To some grown-ups, the magazine noted, Wacky Packages occupied a spot “on the humor map in a murky limbo between banana peels and knock-knock jokes.” Writer Michael Chabon, whose 2000 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, reflected on Wacky Packages in an essay published in his 2009 book Manhood for Amateurs. Nine years old when the Wacky Packages craze hit in 1973, he recalled collecting the cards, trading them with friends, and sticking them on his three-ring binder and school locker. The cards, with their imagery of lice, maggots, and brains, appealed to kids like himself who enjoyed gross humor. “What was so shocking about Wacky Packages,” he wrote, “was that they were a product of the adult world.” The writers behind Wacky Packages were adults, but they tapped into juvenile sensibilities. They sketched out a rough design for the parody. If Topps approved the idea, the sketch would be given to Norman Saunders, a veteran illustrator whose decadeslong career at that point included painting thousands of magazine covers and other series of bubblegum cards. David Saunders, his youngest son, said his father once told him that doing the Wacky Packages were the highlight of his career because he felt part of the creative team. “I think the most incredible thing for Dad was seeing on the newsstand the cover of New York magazine with Wacky Packs on the cover. It was just a real thrill to see that. Many, many millions of them were sold. That was really something for him because he was just a freelance independent artist.” 46

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Future Maus creator Art Spiegelman was a Wacky Packages contributor. Art tells RetroFan that this photo, circa 1973, shows him with “my then-live-in Wacky Packs muse,” Michelle Gross, in their San Francisco apartment’s kitchen, “where a lot of Wacky Pack reference materials were consumed regularly.” Courtesy of Art Spiegelman. Saunders, who painted almost all of the Wacky Packages, occasionally wrote some of the gags as well. At least one wasn’t for the public. “Norm Saunders at some point drew a really nice package of Ivory Snow as a Wacky Pack,” Spiegelman said. “This is the time when Marilyn Chambers was outed as both the Ivory Snow girl and a porn star. He did a package called ‘Ovaries Show.’ That was just for the camaraderie of the Topps office.” The writers of Wacky Packages followed certain guidelines. The parody had to replicate the shape of the original product.

retro Collectibles

(ABOVE) Jay Lynch’s rough sketch for Mr. Mean, and the actual Wacky Packages card. © Topps. Courtesy of Wayne Hicks.

(LEFT) Did you know that Zippy cartoonist Bill Griffith, seen here at his drawing board in a Seventies photo, contributed to Wacky Packages? Courtesy of Bill Griffith.

If elements were added to the parody that were not part of the original—such as a vampire when Tang was mocked as “Fang,” the breakfast drink for vampires—that addition could not be the dominant element. “They had lines that we shouldn’t cross,” Griffith said. “Like if you show somebody whose head is chopped off, you couldn’t have

blood coming out of the guy’s neck. It was okay to have their head chopped off, but it had to be a clean cut.” Griffith said he was paid $35 for each Wacky Package he wrote. By 1974, when he was freelancing for Topps, the market for underground comix had temporarily dried up, and the money he earned from writing the parodies kept him going. He was living in RETROFAN

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retro Collectibles

Photos of original paintings of Wacky Packages by long-time Topps trading card artist Norman Saunders. © Topps. Courtesy of David Saunders. “Spit and Spill” courtesy of Heritage.

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retro Collectibles

Famed artist Norman Saunders, circa 1980, in New York City. Photo courtesy of David Saunders.

San Francisco then, as was Spiegelman, and the two regularly got together to brainstorm. “We were both pretty broke in those days,” Spiegelman said. “Late at night, we’d go to the supermarket to look for products that hadn’t been parodied before with a predisposition toward what we actually like to eat. It was almost as good as food stamps.” Topps reimbursed them for the products they purchased. “We would come back to Art’s place and put the products on his kitchen table and stare at them, and then start sketching,” Griffith said. In coming up with Wacky Packages, the first step was finding a starting point. That meant thinking up a funny name. Take Spiegelman’s tweak of Tide detergent. He ran through the alphabet, rhyming words with Tide. “It could have been Snide detergent,” Spiegelman said, “but I usually preferred using the first letter because it was easier to make the logo look like the logo… so ‘Toad’ was the winner for cleaning your pet frog.” For other Wacky Packages, Kodak became Koduck, Arm & Hammer turned into Harm & Hammer, and Rapid-Shave converted to Rabid Shave. MAD had won a court fight in 1964 providing a legal protection for parodies, and Topps was shielded as well. Even so, Topps found itself at odds with corporate attorneys who failed to find the humor in Wacky Packages. Two Nabisco products—Ritz Crackers and Cracked Animals (a parody of Barnum’s Animal Crackers)—were part of the original die-cut series but were pulled from production, making them among the most rare Wacky Packages. “Occasionally companies did say, ‘Hey, that’s our trademark and don’t parody it’,” said Brown, who became creative director of Topps and remained with the company for 40 years. “Most of them, I think, enjoyed the parody because it made the kids aware of the products.” One company went so far as to sue Topps. The Tetley Tea Company discovered in 1982 that seven years earlier, Topps had

published a card of “Petley” and mocked its “The Tiny Little Tea Leaf Tea” slogan as “Tiny Little Dog Fleas.” Tetley demanded Topps discontinue the parody. Topps responded it would remove the Petley card only after selling out its inventory. Tetley then launched an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit in which the company claimed trademark infringement and asked a court to stop Topps from selling the card. Wacky Packages appealed primarily to boys ages eight through 12. The craze lasted until 1976, although Topps would resurrect the product in 2004. During the Seventies, Topps issued 16 series of Wacky Packages containing hundreds of parodies, including of its own products— “Gadzooka” and “Wormy Packages” among them. In addition to the bubblegum cards, Topps printed Wacky Packages on T-shirts, beach towels, and posters. Those young fans of Wacky Packages are now grown up and opening their wallets to acquire everything from stickers and original artwork to uncut sheets and sealed packages. “The community that collected Wacky Packs through the Eighties and Nineties was so incredibly fringe,” said Grant, whose WackyPackages.org website contains scans of every parody. “I mean, we’re talking just like a dozen people. Obviously, the internet changed everything.” The Internet enabled fans to start, or complete, their collections. Grant, who bought Wacky Packages in the Seventies as a boy, was able to buy a complete set of the first series of cards for a few hundred dollars. He kept on going, buying the subsequent series and branching out to acquire entire boxes of Wacky Packages and uncut sheets. “I started with stickers and then I sold the stickers to buy the packs and I sold the packs to buy the boxes,” Grant said. “I sold the boxes to buy the sheets. I sold the sheets to buy the art. I sold the art to buy the house. And now I don’t have much of a collection left, but I have a house.” Topps opened its vault in 2002 and began offering pieces of original art on eBay. The art for “Cap’n Crud,” the company’s takeoff of Cap’n Crunch, sold for $34,600. The art for “Crust” toothpaste fetched $22,850. When a private collector in 2020 offered for sale a complete unopened set of the first series, still in the display box, the sale price was $49,200. “That box would have sold for $2.40 in 1973,” Grant said. L. WAYNE HICKS is a Denver-based writer who previously worked for newspapers in Florida and Colorado. He has written about such figures in pop culture as Fess Parker, Captain Kangaroo, Encyclopedia Brown, Dick Tracy, and Kiss. He is finishing a book about the Romper Room television program. RETROFAN

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Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) “Miranda” 2) “Let Her In” 3) “Joy in the Morning” 4) “Lock Me Up” 5) “Proud Mary” 6) “Try a Little Tenderness” 7) “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” 8) “My Girl Wants to Party All the Time” 9) “Linda is Lonesome” 10) “City Boy” 50

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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 pop song in Column One corresponds to a singing TV actor in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan Ratings 10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know theme song lyrics too!

“Don't give up on us, baby...”

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) Michael Landon (Bonanza) B) Lawrence Hilton Jacobs (Welcome Back, Kotter) C) Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek) D) William Shatner (Star Trek) E) Adam West (Batman) F) Jeff Conaway (Taxi) G) Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare) H) Eddie Murphy (Saturday Night Live) I) John Travolta (Welcome Back, Kotter) J) Jack Webb (Dragnet) Listening to these songs may induce madness. RetroFan magazine, its editor (who wrote this column), its staff, and TwoMorrows Publishing will not be held liable for any earworms, hatred of music or celebrities, or loss of time incurred from YouTube searches and/or record playing of these “songs” (although the Eddie Murphy one is pretty good, actually).

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

New Magazines!

ALTER EGO #175

ALTER EGO #176

BRICKJOURNAL #72

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27

Spotlighting the artists of ROY THOMAS’ 1980s DC series ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with artists ARVELL JONES, RICHARD HOWELL, and JERRY ORDWAY, conducted by RICHARD ARNDT! Plus, the Squadron’s FINAL SECRETS, including previously unpublished art, & covers for issues that never existed! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and a wraparound cover by ARVELL JONES!

The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!

Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground comix retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #82

KIRBY COLLECTOR #83

BACK ISSUE #133

BACK ISSUE #134

BACK ISSUE #135

“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit Kirby’s work from World War II, the Fourth World, and hidden worlds of Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Microverse, and others! Plus, a 2021 Kirby panel, featuring JONATHAN ROSS, NEIL GAIMAN, & MARK EVANIER, a Kirby pencil art gallery from 1960s CAPTAIN AMERICA, and more!

“Famous Firsts!” How JACK KIRBY was a pioneer in comics: Romance Comics genre, Kid Gangs, double-page spreads, Black heroes, new formats, super-hero satire, and others! With MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, plus a gallery of Jack’s pencil art from CAPTAIN AMERICA, JIMMY OLSEN, CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK, BLACK PANTHER, unseen ANIMATION CONCEPTS, & more!

STARMEN ISSUE, headlined by JAMES ROBINSON and TONY HARRIS’s Jack Knight Starman! Plus: The StarSpangled Kid, Starjammers, the 1980s Starman, and Starstruck! Featuring DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, ROBERT GREENBERGER, ELAINE LEE, TOM LYLE, MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA, ROGER STERN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Jack Knight Starman cover by TONY HARRIS.

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ALTER EGO #174

FCA [FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA] issue—spearheaded by feisty and informative articles by Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. BECK—plus a fabulous feature on vintage cards created in Spain and starring The Marvel Family! In addition: DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III interview (conclusion)—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on the lost art of comicbook greats—the haunting of JOHN BROOME—and more! BECK cover!

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

WATERGATE! The Golden 50th Anniversary of Our Long National Nightmare BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, is the only president to have a writing credit in MAD magazine (#145, Sept. 1971). The two-page spread is called “That Sinking Feeling…” and features the president’s own words as he discusses the Vietnam War with quotes from 1968 to early 1971. A photograph of a triumphant Nixon with arms spread high and palms open to the sky is first shown standing firmly on a small rock protruding out of a body of water. As his pledge “to win the peace” evolves into more and more reasons to remain embroiled in Vietnam, he slowly sinks underwater until, completely submerged, he says the failure to end the conflict is his “deepest disappointment.” Glub blub. He was also the only U.S. president to resign from office. He did this humiliating thing to avoid the humiliation of being impeached by the House of Representatives, then stand trial, possibly be found guilty by the Senate, and removed from office. This would also have been a first. It was the Watergate Scandal (most commonly referred to as just Watergate) that brought down Nixon, and 2022 marks the awesome golden deluxe 50th anniversary. I guess that means it’s time for a jaunt down memory lane!

FIVE GUYS

America’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General John Mitchell, resigned his office effective March 1st, 1972 to become Director of the Committee to Re-elect the President (a.k.a. CRP or “CREEP” to those unfriendly to Nixon). He had signed off on a plan to illegally enter the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices located at the Watergate Complex (the complex contained six buildings; two were offices, three were co-op apartments, and

one was the Watergate Hotel). The goal was to take photos of documents and place listening devices on a couple of phones. This break-in was conducted successfully. Five men in suits once again broke into the DNC’s offices on the evening of June 16, 1972. The men in suits had so much trouble trying get into the offices they ended up just removing the door. After midnight, an attentive security guard noticed that a supposedly locked parking garage door had been taped to allow it to open and close freely. He removed the tape and returned some time later to find the tape replaced. He called the police. There were two lookouts at the Howard Johnson’s across the street keeping an eye on the five burglars to warn them in the event of trouble, but one lookout found the television broadcast of Attack of the Puppet People more interesting than staring at a building (uh, I guess). The cops who arrived were part of the so-called “bum squad” and dressed like hippies (so they could, you know, buy marijuana cigarettes and such like without arousing suspicion). This allowed them to enter the office building without causing alarm for the lookouts. After a brief search, the hippies arrested the men in suits, who gave up without a fight. Bob Woodward, a Navy veteran and reporter who had been with the Washington Post for about a year, was assigned to cover the arraignment of the five men. They were charged with second-degree burglary. Nothing much about the arrested men

(ABOVE) Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United States, was embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of any American leader. Library of Congress. RETROFAN

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was terribly unusual until one of the five, James McCord, was asked what he did for a living. He said that he was a security consultant who, until recently, worked for the CIA (the Central Intelligence Agency, which is charged with keeping an eye on our foreign enemies). This got Woodward’s attention. His story appeared on the front of the next day’s edition of the Post. Since the location of the break-in was the DNC offices, and the 1972 Presidential Election was only months away, it was completely natural to ask if anyone affiliated with Nixon’s re-election campaign or if any of the president’s men were involved with this crime. “There is no place in our campaign or in the electoral process for this type of activity, and we will not permit or condone it,” said John Mitchell, Director of the CRP, who signed off on the original break-in as I said just four paragraphs ago.

MARTHA, MY DEAR

John Mitchell and his wife, Martha, lived in at the Watergate Complex. A few nights after the break-in, Martha Mitchell disappeared. Her phone line had gone dead in the middle of a conversation with journalist Helen Thomas. Thomas could not reconnect, so she contacted Martha’s husband, who was not much worried. Martha was tracked down by a crime reporter for the New York Daily News, who eventually found her at the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. She had been taken to California, was bruised, and wounded badly enough in a struggle with five men (!) to need stitches, and, at least at one point, sedated by a doctor at the instruction of the president’s personal lawyer Herb Kalmbach, Esq. In the aftermath, President Nixon’s people worked to discredit Martha Mitchell, claiming she drank too much (she did like to have a sip now and again) and was—perhaps, we’re not sure, but she could be—clinically unwell in the head. Soon after, her husband resigned as Director of the CRP in order to spend more time with his family. Then John Mitchell moved out of the family home, separating from Martha. They would never reconcile or see each other again. The goal had been to keep Martha from hearing about the break-in because she liked to talk to reporters. It was a plan so suspect that it’s surprising anyone would seriously consider it, but people around the president did and then carried it out. Martha Mitchell’s enforced disappearance was the canary in the Nixon White House coalmine for anyone paying attention.

MAD AT THE PRESIDENT

The U.S. economy and the war in Vietnam were two of the larger issues facing the president as the DNC office break-in (and, to a lesser extent, Martha Mitchell’s abduction) were in the news. America had enjoyed a long period of post-World War II financial growth that came to an end on Nixon’s watch, and the Vietnam 54

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War was creating a country violently angry with itself. Since I was a kid at the time, I was not really following the conflict. But inflation, I sure noticed that. My 15-cent comic books shot up to 25 cents a copy. Yes, they were “Bigger and Better,” but still, ouch. And MAD went from 35 cents to 40 cents (the cover even said “OUCH!”, and it did hurt). I am aware of how petty that sounds. I was a kid. Before Watergate began, MAD magazine was needling Nixon harder than it did previous presidents. A Gilbert-and-Sullivan-style musical parody written by Frank Jacobs and drawn by Mort Drucker, “The White House Follies of 1972” featuring Nixon and notable Washington, D.C. types, appeared in MAD #150 (Apr. 1972). At this point Watergate had barely begun, but then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sings about electronically eavesdropping— bugging—well, just about everyone.

PLUMBER PROBLEMS

At a point when it was still possible to simply admit bad judgment and ride out a storm for a time, President Nixon and his top people went a different way. The five burglars were part of the president’s private intelligence group known as the Plumbers Unit (because part of their job involved plugging leaks of information). They were created following the leak of the Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam War up to about 1967. The report revealed mistakes made by four previous administrations, not affecting Nixon at all. But the White House was worried that its own secret bombing campaign in Cambodia (as part of the Vietnam war effort) would be revealed. Unfortunately, one of the arrested Plumbers had the phone number of a Nixon aide, former CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, who worked in the White House. The Plumbers had also been caught carrying hundred dollar bills in sequential order, which allowed investigators to trace the money back to donors to the CRP. So the cover-up began. Records of political dirty tricks (spreading lies and creating chaos for the opposition) and other information that might embarrass the president were destroyed. Even the new acting director of the FBI (Hoover had died before the break-in) illegally destroyed material while the agency itself was supposed to investigate the crime. Meanwhile, the White House wanted the CIA to keep the FBI from investigating the matter, which is—and I’m just saying this because it’s true—illegal. Nixon claimed at a news conference that his White House counsel, John Dean, had conducted an investigation into the Watergate matter as well (nope).

(INSET) Nixon campaign buttons from 1960 and later, and Nixon jewelry for the ladies. From the collection of the author’s in-laws.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Ultimately, there were indictments against the five men caught plus two others that were involved, the planners, Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent. Liddy was willing to be shot due to the plan’s failure, his offer was declined. (Fun fact: President Nixon didn’t think that Liddy was “screwed in,” so absolutely that’s the kind of guy you want to keep around.) The trial of the burglars didn’t begin until after the presidential election in November 1972. Richard Nixon won a second term by a landslide over his opponent, George McGovern.

HERE COMES THE JUDGE

The burglars were tried and convicted in the courtroom of Judge John J. Sirica of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He commented at the reading of the verdict for Hunt and Liddy that something didn’t smell right. He expressed hope that “not just as a judge, but as a citizen of a great country” that “certain answers” would be found by Congress. As the judge had hoped, by February 1973 Congress unanimously voted to investigate the DNC break-in. The White House indicated that it would cooperate with Congress’ special investigative committee (it did not). Also creating headaches for the president was the confirmation of J. Edgar Hoover’s successor at the FBI. Nixon’s nominee was the acting director, L. Patrick Gray (people in this tale don’t seem to much like their first names). During his confirmation, Gray noted that White House Counsel John Dean had sat in on FBI interviews during its investigation of the DNC office break-in. So the committee wanted to talk to Dean. Nixon refused.

CANCER

Up to this point, the burglars had remained silent about any connection to the president. But one, Howard Hunt, contacted White House Counsel Dean and threatened to talk if he didn’t get more money. The burglars had been given a lot of money already and Dean was worried that they would need more to hold tight. Nixon’s own reaction to the burglars getting restless was, “They knew the risks.” Dean told the president, “We have a cancer within—close to the presidency, that’s growing, growing daily.” One of the burglars, James McCord, another former CIA guy, was not best pleased that he was looking at jail time when others like John Dean were not. “This is not my idea of American justice,” he complained with a straight face (just a guess). McCord was going to talk to Congress. He claimed (correctly) that there were still more Watergate participants to be revealed and that witnesses had been dishonest. Dean now realized that the cover-up was going to sweep him up and he wanted to avoid prison so he made the decision to speak up, too. He was also worried that the White House would make him the

scapegoat (it would try). He wasn’t the only one. John Mitchell and others had similar concerns. Events started to speed up. Patrick Gray had his nomination for FBI director pulled. Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs and former Eagle Scout, John Ehrlichman, and White House Chief of Staff, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, also a former Eagle Scout, resigned. As did Richard Kleindienst, who had replaced John Mitchell as attorney general. The president tried to spin the rapidly evolving series of selfinflicted unfortunate events by proclaiming that it was proof that our system of justice was working. Congress wasn’t impressed and determined that an independent prosecutor was needed. Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox, a man with a reputation for fairness, was chosen to go after any criminal activity related to Watergate. Meanwhile, the Senate Watergate Committee would work to uncover any information it could. The head of the committee, Senator Sam Ervin, said their efforts were necessary as a result of a “mounting loss of confidence of American citizens in the integrity of our electoral process.” The hearings began on May 17, 1973, and for the most part members of both political parties worked well together.

TALK SHOW

The hearings were televised, and the testimony of former White House Counsel John Dean was especially riveting. Dean shared, among other things, that the president and his team were extremely hostile to not just anti-war protestors but all protestors. He also mentioned G. Gordon Liddy’s illegal proposals to use “mugging squads, kidnapping teams, and prostitutes” to deal with the opposition. Liddy actually wanted to drag protest leaders to Mexico. Those ideas were rejected, but his plan for the break-in at the DNC was soon developed and, as events played out, wasn’t such a good idea either. Dean further revealed a White House “enemies list” featuring other politicians (okay, sure), reporters (good grief), professors (hey, now), and actors (wut?). Dean even admitted to writing a memo about how best to use “available federal machinery to screw” these “enemies.” The biggest bombshell of all, however, was the divulgence by another witness of a secret White House recording system. Both the Senate investigation and special prosecutor Cox wanted copies of the tapes. Nixon refused.

Conceptual preliminary sketches by longtime MAD artist Jack Davis sent to TIME’s editors for approval. © TIME USA, LLC. Courtesy of Heritage.

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TAPE DELAY

President Nixon battled furiously to keep his secret tape recordings out of investigators’ hands. Two subpoenas were issued for the tapes. Nixon refused. This was fresh legal territory. After some back and forth, Judge Sirica suggested, as a compromise, to listen to the tapes and only share with prosecutor Cox what was necessary. Nixon refused. The matter moved up to the U.S. Court of Appeals. They agreed with Judge Sirica. The White House had to turn over the tapes. President Nixon had a better idea: He would have someone in the White House listen to the tapes and provide notes to Cox and the Watergate Committee. And, in return, Cox would not ask for anything else from the White House. Cox refused.

There’s your problem. The tape recorder from President Nixon’s Oval Office. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Attorney General Elliot Richardson was ordered by Nixon to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Then Nixon ordered Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus refused. He got fired. Then Nixon ordered the number three guy at the Justice Department, Solicitor Robert H. Bork, to fire Cox. Bork did it. This all happened late on a Saturday and quickly became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. People were shocked. For some reason the president thought that by getting rid of Cox, Nixon’s fellow citizens would rush to embrace him. Instead, his popularity plummeted. This shook the White House, and so the president finally agreed to cooperate with the court order to allow the judge to hear the tapes in private. In other news, an energy crisis was growing with high demand for and lower availability of oil. Also adding to the president’s headaches was the resignation in October 1973 of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, who was under investigation for corruption during his time as governor of Maryland and for tax evasion. Nixon replaced the not-well-liked Agnew (he was sometimes called “Nixon’s Nixon”) with the generally well-liked representative from Michigan, Gerald R. Ford.

PUBLIC INTEREST

Watergate now firmly held the nation’s attention. MAD magazine, which continued to poke at Nixon and his presidency, had finally, in MAD #163 (Dec. 1973), directly mentioned Watergate (for the first and only time, according to the Grand Comics Database) in “Malice in Wonderland or Watergate Through the Looking Glass.” It was written by Lou Silverstone and illustrated by a combination of facial photos and Bob Clarke art (imitating famed Alice in Wonderland artist John Tenniel). The feature compares quotes mostly from those involved with the cover-up to famous lines from Alice, my favorite being the Nixon quote, “I will do everything in my power to insure the guilty are brought to justice” from TIME (May 14, 1973), coupled with “‘Off with their heads!’ shouted the Queen” (Nixon, of course, being the “Queen” in question with Dean, Mitchell, and others running away, afraid of being made scapegoats). National Lampoon #43 (Oct. 1973) took its shots not just at Nixon—again via quotes—in an Edward Sorel-illustrated piece, but also with a Nick Fury comic-book parody, G. Gordon Liddy, Agent 56

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Originally published in National Lampoon #43 (Oct. 1973), the comic parody G. Gordon Liddy Agent of C.R.E.E.P. was reprinted in National Lampoon Comics #7 (1974). © NLI Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

of C.R.E.E.P., with “cover” art by Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos artist Dick Ayers. Marvel Comics’ Crazy magazine also got in on the act. In issue #5 (July 1974), readers could take a trip to “Nixonland” to relive Nixon’s life, until you get to the end and find yourself at “Watergateland” with its crumbling Tower of Integrity and newest haunted-house exhibit, the White House Horrors. It was written by Roy and Jean Thomas, with art by Vance Rodewalt.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) Marvel’s Crazy magazine #7 (Oct. 1974) poked at President Nixon a bit more sharply than did Cracked. (RIGHT) This back cover from Cracked #112 (Oct. 1973) is by Charlie Rodrigues (signing as Rumpelstiltskin). Weirdly, dispite a year’s separation both magazines’ covers feature parodies of the Kung Fu television show. Crazy © Marvel. Cracked © Literally Media Ltd. Cracked scan by Justinman.

THE UNRAVELING

A new special prosecutor was appointed with the promise of independence from the White House. The prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, expected to get the tapes first requested by Cox delivered to Judge Sirica. Nine were requested, only seven arrived. One had an 18-minute gap. The president’s secretary whose job included transcribing the tapes tried to take the blame for the missing minutes, but her explanations made her look foolish. Experts determined that the tape was purposefully erased, with some five or so stops and starts. Judge Sirica listened to the tapes in private, as had been agreed to, and found himself deflated by what he heard: a vulgar president who, it seemed to the judge, was deeply involved with the cover-up. (You know, much has been made of Nixon’s use of profanity as heard in the White House tapes, so I wondered if he was our most foul-mouthed chief executive. A bit of research seems to indicate that Lyndon Baines Johnson, his immediate predecessor, was the winner of that contest.) The president announced that he was officially done with the whole Watergate affair during his January 1974 State of the Union

speech. “One year of Watergate is enough.” The investigators were having struggles as well. No one had ever indicted a sitting president before, even though it was felt that there was enough evidence to do so. Besides, the Constitution had a mechanism for punishing law-breaking presidents: impeachment. Seven of Nixon’s top people were indicted in March. Nixon would be listed as an unindicted co-conspirator, but that information was not made public and instead sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which wanted to determine if impeachment was warranted. No charges would be brought against him in court. The seven indicted men included former Attorney General Mitchell, former Chief of Staff Haldeman, and former White House aide Ehrlichman. More tapes would be needed for the upcoming trial for the president’s men and the ongoing impeachment investigation, but just before May, the White House sent over 1,200 pages of transcribed Watergate-related material from the tapes instead. Nixon publicly allowed that he would be embarrassed by the revelations, but wanted the American people to know that during the time following the illegal activities now known as Watergate, he was trying to “discover what was right and do what was right.” The transcripts revealed to all an ugly and vengeful side of the American President.

THE HUMOR IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE

The sale of quickie paperback books printing the Watergate transcripts sold in the multi-millions. But comedians who, like MAD, had been poking fun at Nixon for years found their Watergate jokes falling flat. “Comedians in Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami RETROFAN

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acknowledge that Watergate jokes are likely to bring icy stares,” reported Roy Reed in the New York Times (Sept. 8, 1973). Nixon-positive jokes did even worse. That didn’t stop the flow of Watergate humor from gushing forth. National Lampoon’s Lemmings, an off-Broadway show, addressed Watergate. And various books and records hit the shelves as well. Comedian David Frye impersonated multiple politicians, but is best known for his spot-on Nixon simulation. He released a Watergate album, Richard Nixon: A Fantasy, in 1973, but had trouble getting ads on the air, and Woolworth’s wouldn’t stock it. Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip ran in about 300 newspapers at the time and was a source of headaches for many editors. His was the most aggressively political strip since Pogo (without the benefit of cute critters or, even, very good art—just saying) and would sometimes end up on Opinion pages when his Watergate jokes got a bit too sharp. Some papers would just remove Doonesbury altogether. It was a rich and fraught time to be a political critic.

A handful of newspapers across the country dropped the May 29, 1973 episode of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury strip wherein the fictional drawn character Mark Slackmeyer proclaims former Attorney General John Mitchell, “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” Ironically, the Washington Post, publisher of important reporting on Watergate by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was one of the papers to not publish the strip, claiming that there cannot be “one standard for the news pages and another for the comics.” (Huh.) The strip has since been reprinted multiple times and both the Washington Post and Trudeau won Pulitzer Prizes for their Watergate work. © Universal Press Syndicate. Courtesy of Archive.org.

On the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the popular late-night host famously did a nightly monologue with many of the jokes drawn from current events, including Watergate. Said Carson, “Just trying to make humor about what has happened… that is considered, when you do that, almost un-American.”

PERFECTLY CLEAR

The special prosecutor and House Judiciary Committee did not trust Nixon’s transcripts and wanted the tapes. Nixon refused. The matter went to the Supreme Court, and they unanimously agreed; the White House had to give up every tape asked for. In late July, the Judiciary Committee approved three articles of Impeachment. Article one: Obstruction of Justice. Article two: Abuse of power. Article three: Defiance of the Committee’s subpoenas.

(LEFT) Watergate will outlive us all. One of the many great bonkers scenes from a disaster-ridden future that were a staple of Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. From DC Comics’ Kamandi #15 (Mar. 1974). TM & © DC Comics. (RIGHT) An unusually political (and heated) moment from the publisher of Archie comic books. Panels from The Mad House Glads #92 (Mar. 1974). © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The writing was on the wall, written in a large, strong hand. Nixon had to go. A majority of Congressional Representatives, including many who had supported Nixon in the past, were ready to vote for impeachment. The Senate, which would then hold a trial and decide whether or not to convict and remove the president from office, expected a large bipartisan majority to vote against Nixon. And that became that. The president basically hit a wall. It now looked like his future was going to be one where he was impeached, tried, convicted, and removed from office. Nixon resigned. Richard Nixon’s Vice President, Gerald R. Ford, became the 38th president of the United States. “Our long National Nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not men. Here, the people rule,” said our new president.

SOCK IT TO ME

Richard Nixon could be a difficult man to like. Former President Harry S. Truman called him “shifty-eyed” and worse (to be fair, he wasn’t a fan of Dwight D. Eisenhower either), and beloved President Eisenhower himself said of Nixon, then his own vice president, that he couldn’t immediately recount any Veep contributions to his administration. “If you give me a week, I might think of one,” he told reporters. But he did have friends, and one was Paul Keyes, a writer for the TV comedy Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. In 1968 Keyes persuaded the then-presidential candidate to come on the show and say its popular “Sock it to me!” line. With just a couple of months left

Comics Allen and Rossi and Marvel Comics’ parent company get into the Watergate-is-funny business. © Marvel.

in the campaign, Nixon went to the studio to say the four simple words. It took six takes. He phrased it as more of a question due to his understandably unprofessional delivery. “Sock it to me?” A week later it aired and caused, as they say, quite a stir. Presidential hopefuls didn’t do such things. Hubert Humphrey, Nixon’s opponent, got the same offer but his people declined. They were concerned that the show would dump water on or do some other dang thing to the candidate (which was a staple of the gag). George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, a show Nixon on that gave us talent like Lily Laugh-In. Tomlin and Goldie Hawn, © NBC. has admitted that the fivesecond long bit may have helped elect the eventually disgraced Nixon. It humanized the man. A quote from Schlatter in WMFU’s Beware of the Blog (Sept. 10, 2010) reveals at least some remorse: “I’ve had to live with that for 35 f-[expletive deleted] years.”

LET ME SAY THIS ABOUT THAT

There were many after effects from Watergate. New phrases were added to our national vocabulary. During John Dean’s testimony, Senator Howard Baker asked, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” Dean himself would use a variation of “at that point in time” instead of “then.” Language was used to take the edge off of bad acts. The White House’s slightly naughty “dirty tricks” phrase masked actions that could cross the line into the illegal. President Nixon was so profane in private, that the citation “expletive deleted” replaced his unseemly language in the White House transcripts because our Puritan roots run deep. His plea that no president should have to make, “I am not a crook,” lives on today. And the suffix “-gate” is frequently added to a word related to a usually controversial or possibly criminal event. There were, fortunately for all of us, heroes and winners in the Watergate affair. Judge Sirica, the independent prosecutors, the Supreme Court, Senator Sam Ervin, and the aforementioned Senator Baker all defended the rule of law and the idea that no man is above that RETROFAN

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(LEFT) The evolution of a national crisis. First it becomes news, then a bestselling book-turned-hit movie, then, eventually, it becomes history and history becomes collectible. Multiple copies of the Baltimore Sun for Aug. 9, 1974 from a Heritage Auctions lot. All the President’s Men © Warner Bros. Poster and newspapers courtesy of Heritage.

rule. Journalists worked hard to track down the details of Watergate. Carl Bernstein was assigned to work with Bob Woodward on the evolving story that became Watergate. Their reporting especially stood out. Their book about that reporting, All the President’s Men, became a bestseller and was turned into a hit movie of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The two young reporters had an advantage that others didn’t: a high-level inside source, then known only as Deep Throat. The identity of Deep Throat was, for decades, one of the great mysteries of Watergate (the other being the contents of the 18 minutes of erased White House tapes). When it was finally revealed in 2005 that the informant was (as Nixon suspected) Mark Felt, at that point in time an associate director of the FBI, the news was met with a rather loud “meh.” Nixon was pardoned by President Ford on September 8, 1974. Ford wanted to put Nixon in the rearview so he could—understandably—concentrate on his job, but Americans were not happy. Few of Nixon’s inner circle spent time (and not much of it) in prison. This was not American justice. Ford’s popularity dropped, and when he ran for president in 1976 he lost to Jimmy Carter. The former president still fascinates. Richard Nixon, as a character, has appeared in movies and books both serious and silly. Dan Aykroyd was my personal favorite fake Nixon, inhabiting a gangly doppelgänger multiple times on Saturday Night Live over the years. But I completely understand if others prefer the Nixon from the animated Futurama; just a noggin in a jar, “I am not a crook’s head!” I guess the main lesson to be learned from Watergate is that lessons aren’t always learned. We the people are only human after all. So… see you in Fifty! Since I was largely too busy going to school and watching cartoons in 1972, I relied on people smarter than me for the facts of this article. I consulted timelines, online biographies, and various websites, most notably the work of Ken Hughes and his team at the Presidential Recordings Project at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (say that five times fast while being secretly recorded in the Oval Office). Extra special thanks to Pamela Killian’s What Was Watergate? (St. Martin’s Press, 1990), which is a solid and clear history intended for younger audiences with one or two words even newspapers of the day wouldn’t touch.

A peaceful transition of power at a difficult time. President Ford and wife Betty see off former President Nixon and wife Pat as they are about to leave the White House for good. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration.

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a Retro Explorer operating from his Southern California-based Secret Sanctum. He is a writer (more or less), artist (occasionally), and graphic designer (you’re soaking in it). Check out his Instagram thing, won’t you, at instagram/scottsaav/

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. It’s 1975, and ghosts, werewolves, and mummies are invading your Saturday mornings, but they aren’t animated, despite the fact that they were from cartoon giants Filmation. But how did the stars of the original The Ghost Busters—Spencer, Tracy, and Kong—slapstick their demented way into the future… and how did they stand in the way of one of the world’s most popular franchises? That’s what we’ll cover this time around as it’s The Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters vs. Ghostbusters vs. The Real Ghostbusters!

BIG SCREEN TO SMALL SCREAM

As first discussed in RetroFan #6’s spotlight on The Ghost Busters (see this issue’s ad to find how to get back issues), the concept of paranormal investigators has been lurking around Hollywood since cinema began, and entertainment versions included the 1909 Broadway play The Ghost Breaker (adapted into 1914 and 1922 silent films), the 1940s Bob Hope-starring The Ghost Breakers, and the 1951 Monogram Pictures release Ghost Chasers. Ironically, it was the true crime radio series Gang Busters (1936–1957) and the sitcom F Troop (1965–1967) that inspired Filmation head Lou Scheimer to commission plans for the animation studio’s next live-action hit for CBS in 1974. Founded in the early Sixties by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, with ex-disc jockey Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates had been riding high in Saturday morning animation since the 1966 debut of their The New Adventures of Superman series. Although the majority of their shows were animated spinoffs based on live-action licensed properties—Fantastic Voyage, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Batman, The Brady Kids, Star Trek, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, and The New Adventures of Gilligan, to name a few—Filmation eventually branched out to live-action original series. Their first such show was Shazam! in 1974 (see cover story in RetroFan #4), and the series was a huge hit. Live-action series were becoming popular on the traditionally animation-dominated Saturday mornings because animation

(TOP) Get ready to rumble! Animated Ghostbusters on the left and the Real Ghostbusters on the right. (LEFT) Lou Scheimer. (ABOVE) The stars of Filmation’s live-action Ghost Busters, (LEFT TO RIGHT) Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Bob Burns as Spencer, Kong, and Tracy, respectively. Ghost Busters and Filmation’s Ghostbusters © Classic Media Distribution. The Real Ghostbusters © Columbia Pictures Television.

budgets were very high; a live-action budget on a show with a small cast and limited sets could be produced for almost the same amount, and with a much faster turnaround time. The Krofft shows such as H .R. Pufnstuf (1969; see RetroFan #16), The Bugaloos (1970), Lidsville (1971), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973–1975), and Land RETROFAN

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of the Lost (1974–1976) were already hits, and primetime comedy actors such as Jim Nabors, Bob Denver, and Ruth Buzzi starred in them. Filmation just had to find the right cast that would appeal to their audience. The Ghost Busters was developed by one of Scheimer’s chief writers and idea men, Marc Richards, who had delivered multiple series for the studio. Richards brought Scheimer back a concept that was a detective agency that doubled as a ghost-hunting operation, crewed by two humans—Spencer and Kong—and their intelligent gorilla, Tracy. Scheimer met with CBS executive Fred Silverman in New York to pitch the show to CBS in February 1975, and walked out with a series order… and orders to find the perfect stars. He met with F Troop co-stars Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker, a pair who already had comic timing and immense camaraderie. Bob Burns, a movie monster fan who worked in the CBS film department—and who happened to own his own gorilla cosplay— was cast as Tracy, and the trio filmed 15 episodes of the Saturday sitcom that summer, two shows per week! The new 1975 TV season debuted on September 6th, 1975, with CBS airing Ghost Busters at 11:30 a.m. “The Ghost Busters was enormously successful,” said Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. “We picked up an audience that was significantly older. We’d find out that kids in college wouldn’t go do their classwork until after Ghost Busters was over!” Despite its success and talk of a primetime evening airing, The Ghost Busters only lasted one season on Saturday mornings. In Fall 1978, CBS brought the series back for reruns on Sunday mornings at 9:00 a.m. The show was offered in syndication markets as of September 1980, and was eventually marketed in 1985 in three VHS volumes by Continental Video under the title The Original Ghost Busters. Why the title change? Well, that’s jumping a bit ahead…

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE… NOT SATURDAY MORNING LIVE

Dan Aykroyd, a Canadian comedian and actor, had been an original member of Saturday Night Live’s “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” from 1975–1979, just before he and castmate John Belushi had a hit movie with 1980’s The Blues Brothers. Aykroyd had been fascinated with parapsychology—including paranormal activity and psychic disruptions—since he was a child, living in a supposedly haunted farmhouse in Ottawa. He decided to write a movie about current-day investigators of the paranormal, who used modern technology in their fights against ghost and monsters. He believed that modern special effects would help the concept be saleable to audiences. Aykroyd was aware of the Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello and other similar comedy film franchises of the past, but—crucially— he was not reportedly aware of Filmation’s The Ghost Busters. Aykroyd showed his idea to John Belushi, and the project called “Ghost Smashers” entered development at Universal Studios. According to a May 15, 1982 article in the L.A. Times, the project was scuttled due to Belushi’s death from a drug overdose on March 5, 1982. 62

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Aykroyd later showed the project’s script to Bill Murray, who was interested in replacing Belushi. In the December 9, 1982 issue of Daily Variety, the project, now titled “Ghost Busters,” was offered to studios for bidding with Murray attached. The first full draft of the script was completed on January 30, 1983. Aykroyd took the script to comedy director Ivan Reitman, but Reitman was not initially sold. He suggested Aykroyd work with comedy writer Harold Ramis. The group pitched Columbia exec Frank Price (and Marvin Antonowsky, Columbia’s head of marketing) on the concept, and Ghostbusters had a sale… contingent that the film would release on June 8, 1984. It was now May 1983, and the group had one year to write, film, and produce the $25-million special-effects-heavy film! Reitman hired Joe Medjuck and Michael C. Gross as associate producers, and Aykroyd, Murray, and Ramis were set to star. Medjuck was mainly responsible for finding the rest of the cast, which grew to include Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, and William Atherton. Aykroyd and Ramis turned out a first draft on June 6, 1983, and a second draft on July 4th. Special effects were being researched, designs were being prepped, and things seemed to be a go until… Lou Scheimer and staffers at Filmation read in the trade papers that a Ghost Busters movie was being produced, and Filmation’s lawyer, Ira Epstein, was the first call that Lou made. “Ira sent a letter out to Columbia, telling them that they were infringing on our title, and if there was any similarity in concept, we would hold them liable,” Scheimer said in my interviews. “Nothing happened right away, but later the general counsel for Columbia called Ira and said, ‘We’ve got this letter here, and we want you to withdraw the letter.’ They tried to tell him that we didn’t have any right to stop them, and he asked, ‘If we have no right to stop you, why should we withdraw the letter?’ So, their guy says, ‘Are you negotiating with me?’ And Ira said, ‘No, I’m not negotiating with you, I just don’t want you to use the name.’”

A NAME BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD NOT SOUND SO SWEET

Filmation didn’t hear any more, but the Ghost Busters film was on notice. When the production went to New York to film in October, preparations had been made. The alternate title of “Ghost Breakers” was the first choice, while “Ghost Smashers” was another alternate. Signs for the iconic firehouse were made with the alternate names. On October 27, 1983, footage was shot for the “commercial-within-the-film” with the trio of Aykroyd, Murray, and Ramis also saying “Ghost Stoppers!,” and “Ghost Blasters!,” as well as the desired “Ghost Busters!” “We had three different signs made up for the carpenter to hang over the firehouse door—each with a different name on it, although the only other serious contender was Ghost Stoppers,” producer Joe Medjuck said in the 1985 book, Making Ghostbusters.

Ghostbuster’s director Ivan Reitman.

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Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis have a service to sell you.

One of three signs made for the firehouse headquarters, each with a different name.

“We loved the title and we just always presumed the movie would be called Ghostbusters,” said Medjuck in a 2008 interview with your author. “Just before we went to shoot, I think I was actually in New York, and Columbia informed us they couldn’t register the title because there had been a TV show done by Filmation—a live-action TV show, called Ghost Busters, done several years before. And they owned the title. Columbia suggested we change it. So we thought about calling it ‘Ghost Breakers.’ They were negotiating with Filmation to use the title at the time. At one point, we had 300 extras on the street all yelling, ‘Ghost Breakers!’ and then we tell them, ‘Now, yell Ghost Busters!’” Medjuck and the cast and crew were not happy with having to film multiple takes for the alternate names. “This is before the days of cell phones, so I got on a nearby pay phone and phoned back to Los Angeles and got the [Columbia] Legal Department and said, ‘You gotta do something about this. We can’t shoot every scene twice, you know? Make a deal. This title is worth something for us.” Medjuck reportedly held the phone up for the Columbia folks to hear the massive street crowd at 55 Central Park West chanting the name “Ghost Busters!” They weren’t the only one who heard the chants. Filmation lawyer Ira Epstein happened to be in New York to see Carroll O’Connor. “I was walking up to Lincoln Center to get some opera tickets,” Epstein said in a 2010 interview, “and there’s this big

commotion up Sixth Avenue, and it turns out they were actually shooting Ghostbusters! So, I got back to the office, shot them out a letter, a cease and desist, and then we got a call from the parent company, Westinghouse, and they said, ‘We got a call from the head of Columbia saying, ‘Epstein’s causing a lot of problems, can you get him to drop the letter?’ And I said, ‘I’m not going to do it,’ and I didn’t, and the next call we got was from the head of Columbia, who wanted a meeting.” Shortly after that, Epstein and Scheimer were in a meeting with the head of Columbia Pictures. Scheimer recalled, “He said, ‘Well you did an animated Saturday morning show, and we’re doing a live-action movie called Ghostbusters that has nothing to do with your animated show.’ I said, ‘Number one, it was a live show,’ and he said, ‘Uh-oh,’ and I said, ‘It was the same concept that you’ve got on film right now. You guys don’t have the right to do that.’” Here’s where things got murky… In a February 24, 2014 Esquire article, “An Oral History of Ghostbusters,” Frank Price—who had, in 1983, jumped ship from Columbia to Universal—incorrectly stated, “As fate would have it, early on in production, Columbia and I were parting ways. And I wound up as head of Universal Pictures, so I was in a position to make the decision for Universal to let Columbia have the title.” In the November 29, 2019 documentary series The Movies That Made Us’ third episode, which was about Ghostbusters, Price repeated the self-aggrandizing claim. “It was serendipitous RETROFAN

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that I happened to go there and I was able to say, ‘Make the deal. Give them the title.’” Wikipedia repeats the information, adding that Universal owned Filmation’s The Ghost Busters and that Price brokered a deal that sold Columbia the title for $500,000 plus 1% of the film’s profits. Trouble is… none of that is true! While today, the company that owns the Filmation library is Dreamworks, partially owned by Universal, in 1983, Universal had absolutely nothing to do with Filmation. Price could not have been involved in negotiations for the name, though given the timing, he definitely was fighting against Filmation while he was at Columbia! So, Price misspoke in both interviews. Additionally, the money amount cited by Wikipedia is wrong. But let’s let the man in charge at Filmation tell the true story… “They went ahead and released the movie on June 8, 1984, and it made a boatload of money,” said Scheimer. “We went to court over the matter, and in mid-June, after appearing at L.A. Superior Court, Columbia settled with us, paying us for the use of the title. Their obstinance really cost them a lot. They gave us $608,000 for the use of the concept and allowing them to utilize the name and the title, plus we had like one percent of the profit. That profit percentage was a mistake on our part. If you know anything about Hollywood, you know that no picture ever makes a profit. No matter what it brings in at the box office, the accountants have ways of making sure that on paper, no picture is ever profitable. So, taking a piece of the deal was a mistake, as we never got another dime. But we did get $608,000, which was okay. The one other mistake we made in the settlement—and it was my fault for not thinking about it—was that Filmation didn’t keep the rights to any animated version of Ghostbusters. That would end up being a much bigger mistake.”

“DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS… IT WOULD BE BAD”

Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the film Ghostbusters, wanted ownership of the title but had to work out a deal with Filmation first.

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Released with a one-word title, Ghostbusters was a huge hit in theaters worldwide, and the second-highest-grossing film of 1984. It got a reissue in 1985, and its final box office take of over $238 million domestically made it the most successful comedy of the Eighties. Ray Parker, Jr.’s theme song for the film topped the music charts for weeks and was nominated for an Academy Award. The heavens opened for the films’ stars. Now, everyone immediately wanted to be a part of the Ghostbusters gravy train. Filmation had broken open the animation gates with their He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series (coming in RetroFan #22!), which produced 65 syndicated episodes on Monday–Friday afternoons, instead of 13 episodes on Saturday mornings. Syndication offered not only more freedom, but a bigger share of profits from advertising. And Filmation happened to be owned by a syndication company! “The guy who was running television at Columbia was Herman Rush, and he used to be an agent for Filmation,” said Scheimer. “After the Ghostbusters film made it big, I went to Westinghouse and said, ‘Why don’t we do 65 half-hours based on our Ghost Busters?’ And we decided to do it. And then I got a call from Herman to tell me they were thinking of doing their movie as a syndicated cartoon as well. So I talked to Ed Vane, the head guy at Westinghouse, about going down to see Herman. I said, ‘We should really make a deal with them to co-produce the show. If we don’t make it with them, they have every right in the world to go out and do it without us. I’m a friend of Herman’s. We can make a deal to

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do the show, and they’ll pay for half of it, we’ll pay for half of it, and everybody will be happy.’ “But Ed said, ‘No, we don’t need them.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s go down and talk to them and offer a deal.’ Ed said, ‘We’ll use your version. It’ll save me all kind of headaches because then I won’t have to deal with the people that did the movie, and we’ll get the money like we do on our other shows.’ I told him that was silly because they had the right to do the screen version—which everybody knew—and our version, even though they stole the concept, didn’t have the same caché. Ed was sure that they would never do their own show because they weren’t an animation company.” The mistake Scheimer had mentioned in Filmation’s deal with Columbia had come back to bedevil them. Forbidden by the company owners from approaching Columbia, Scheimer had to watch as Columbia took their Ghostbusters animation plans to rival company DIC, who, unlike Filmation’s American-based animation, took all their shows overseas to animate. “Now it had come back to bite us,” Scheimer recalled. “Their show was to be based on the feature film, with characters, concepts, logo, and theme song carrying over.” Nevertheless, the second week of August 1985, Filmation announced that 65 episodes of its Ghostbusters (changing the title from two words to one, matching the movie) would be offered to

(ABOVE AND BELOW) Production art for Filmation’s animated sequel to their live-action The Ghost Busters. These new adventures star the sons of the original human leads along with Tracy the gorilla. Many new characters have been added as well. © Classic Media Distribution.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

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(LEFT) Character designs for Filmation’s Ghostbusters and (RIGHT) the animated leads to The Real Ghostbusters, who, incidently, bear little resemblence to their film counterparts (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) Winston Zeddemore, Dr. Ray Stantz, Dr. Peter Venkman, and Dr. Egon Spengler. Filmation’s Ghostbusters © Classic Media Distribution. The Real Ghostbusters © Columbia Pictures Television. televisions stations worldwide, through Group W/Westinghouse. Tribune Broadcasting pre-booked the five-day-a-week syndicated animated show on all of its stations, for a two-year commitment; in turn, Tribune paid half of the $18-million dollar production cost for the 65 half-hours. A line of toys went into development with Schaper Manufacturing. The show would be a sequel to The Ghost Busters, using the sons of Spencer and Kong, and the original Tracy. With the rallying cry of “Let’s go, Ghostbusters!,” Jake Kong, Jr. and Eddie Spenser, Jr. were following in their fathers’ footsteps and have teamed-up with the original gorilla sidekick, Tracy, to become the new Ghostbusters. From their base of operations in Ghost Command, the Ghostbusters were always ready to battle Prime Evil and his never-ending army of bewitching monsters who were out to haunt the Earth. Aboard the flying Ghost Buggy, the gang often took comical adventures through time itself, dematerializing prehistoric ghouls in the past, or zooming thousands of years into the future to zap some phantoms with the help of the bewitching Futura. A week later, Columbia officially announced that they, too, would be bringing a 65-episode DIC-animated Ghostbusters series to syndication for fall 1986, going head-to-head with Filmation’s. A line of toys for that show was also put into pre-production with Kenner. The plot for this one would follow the movie completely, utilizing New York’s paranormal investigator team as they faced ghosts, goblins, trolls, demons, monsters, and other creatures. Voracious green ghost Slimer was a big role. The only real hitch in the show was that the actors’ likeness rights and voices couldn’t be used, so similar-looking designs were created, with different color jumpsuits for each to make identification onscreen easier. The MIPcom television sales market at Cannes ran October 8–12, 1985, and that’s where the gauntlet over Ghostbusters was officially

thrown down. Columbia had now rechristened their show as The Real Ghostbusters, a title that implied that Filmation’s was fake. The two companies worked hard to sell their shows to whatever syndication and foreign markets they could. In January 1986, Filmation held a press conference to show the industry footage from the first episodes of Ghostbusters. It was a preemptive strike toward Columbia, about whom Scheimer said at the conference, “I don’t think it’s likely that they will do a very good job of doing domestic syndication deals. We will, by the time the show airs, probably have over 80% of the country sold. Very frankly, if we have a disaster on our hands, I don’t think any of the stations would buy another Ghostbusters. If we have a hit on our hands, it would be foolhardy for someone else not to buy the real Ghostbusters. I think Columbia has a real problem.” As Scheimer later told me, “The language I used was important, as Columbia was debuting their show to the market buyers at the mid-January upcoming NATPE convention in New Orleans. We had, by now, already cleared 70% of the U.S. markets. And, by using the term

(PREVIOUS PAGE) Promotional ads for (TOP) Filmation’s Ghostbusters and (BOTTOM) The Real Ghostbusters, based on the hit comedy film. (ABOVE) Title card for The Real Ghostbusters. Filmation’s Ghostbusters © Classic Media Distribution. The Real Ghostbusters © Columbia Pictures Television.

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‘real Ghostbusters,’ I was co-opting the very name that Columbia was using.” The clashing companies and their dueling Ghostbusters shows continued their rivalry throughout the start of the year, with both exhibiting at American International Toy Fair, the National Cable Television Association convention, the National Association of Broadcasters conference, and more. Footage was shown, shows were booked, and it soon appeared that every syndicated (nonnetwork) television station in the United States would be showing either Ghostbusters or The Real Ghostbusters. And then, the networks came a-callin’…

HAUNTING THE AIRWAVES

Although Columbia’s The Real Ghostbusters was intended for syndication, ABC wanted it for Saturday mornings. The offer was a “Hail Mary,” as the series was recklessly rushing to meet its syndicated commitments, having started production very late. A deal was struck whereby ABC would get 13 episodes of the series for 1986, and the weekday syndicated version would delay its debut by a year to 1987. Ghostbusters film producers Medjuck and Gross oversaw work on The Real Ghostbusters to make certain that it matched the characters and tone of the movie… and that it didn’t derail a possible film sequel. Filmation’s 65-episode syndicated Ghostbusters debuted on September 22, 1986, on 75 U.S. stations, while ABC ran 13 episodes of Columbia’s The Real Ghostbusters, beginning September 13, 1986. ABC’s The Real Ghostbusters got great ratings, and critical acclaim. Filmation’s Ghostbusters didn’t fare as well, though it also wasn’t a bomb. Ghostbusters had debuted as the number one syndicated show for kids ages 2–11 in 24 of its 75 markets. In other markets, it was generally in the top ten, sharing space with He-Man, She-Ra, and other adventure shows such as Transformers, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, Silverhawks, and Jem. But with competing shows of almost identical names and competing toy lines, viewers were confused. “Doing two Ghostbusters shows eventually turned out to be a huge error,”

FAST FACTS FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: 65 f Original run: September 8, 1986–September 1986 (syndicated, Mondays–Fridays)

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Pat Fraley: Jake Kong, Jr., Ghost Buggy, Jr., Scared Stiff, and more f Peter Cullen: Eddie Spencer, Jr., Brat-A-Rat, the Haunter, and more f Lou Scheimer: Tracy the Gorilla, Ansabone, Sir Trance-A-Lot, and more f Susan Blu: Belfry, Futura, Jessica Wray f Alan Oppenheimer: Prime Evil, Fangster, Captain Long John Scarechrome, and more f Linda Gary: Mysteria, Apparitia, and more

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said Scheimer. “It muddled things in the audience’s minds. Our Ghostbusters was a great show, and I loved it a lot, but people got us confused with Columbia’s show.” Making things a bit more confusing were the shelves of video stores, where Columbia had its massively popular live Ghostbusters film, and Continental Video had released volumes of Filmation’s older live-action TV show under the title, The Original Ghost Busters! One of those elements of confusion led to an angry encounter, as Scheimer recounted. “I got a phone call once, from a very angry African-American man from someplace in middle America. He was furious with us because [he assumed] we had taken the black Ghostbuster and made him into a gorilla, and he thought we were racist! I kept trying to explain to him that ours was the original show, based on the original concept from the 1970s live show, and that we hadn’t taken any black characters—or any characters of any color at all—and turned them into a gorilla! He was really upset, and I wasn’t sure he actually believed me. He finally said, ‘It’s really terrible,’ and hung up! I felt awful after that, but I had done my best to tell him the truth; he just didn’t want to believe it.” After their massive 65-episode season finished a two-year run— mandated by the Tribune deal—Filmation’s Ghostbusters mostly disappeared from syndication after fall 1988, although it was sold to overseas markets and home video. At the time, syndicated action shows were being pumped out like sausages, mostly to sell

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toy lines, and five new shows were ready to jump into the timeslot of any show that was packing up. Columbia launched their syndicated version of The Real Ghostbusters with 65 episodes in September 1987. ABC continued to air the Saturday-morning show with 13 new episodes for its 1987 second season. The series switched to a one-hour format for ABC’s third season in 1988, retitled Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters (a name and format it would keep through fall 1991). This later version added a series of Slimer! cartoon shorts, aimed at a younger audience, but wacky and clever enough to still appeal to older viewers. The Real Ghostbusters eventually garnered a primetime special on October 29, 1989 during ABC’s extended fourth season. By 1991, ABC’s sixth season of airing Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters, only four final new episodes were ordered by the network, but by then a grand total of 134 half-hour episodes had been created, as well as 13 half-hour Slimer! episodes. The Real Ghostbusters was a hit in worldwide syndication, and also led to hugely successful toy lines, multiple comicbook series, fan clubs, and web pages that keep the ghostbusting spirit alive—or undead—today. On the other side of the battlefield, after nearly 36 years of award-winning and popular animation, Filmation was unexpectedly closed down after they were purchased by a new parent company on February 3, 1989. Other than a few scattered worldwide VHS videotape releases, nothing would be heard of their Ghostbusters again for almost two decades. In 1997, Sony released a new syndicated animated series called Extreme Ghostbusters. Although it is a continuation of the Ghostbusters franchise, featuring a team of college kids being led by Egon

FAST FACTS THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS/SLIMER! AND THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS f No. of seasons: Six network, One syndicated f No. of episodes: 134, plus 13 Slimer! f Original run: September 13, 1986–August 30, 1991 (ABC & syndicated, Mondays–Saturdays)

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST Lorenzo Music: Peter Venkman (Seasons One–Two) Dave Coulier: Peter Venkman (Seasons Three–Seven) Maurice LaMarche: Egon Spengler Frank Welker: Ray Stantz, Slimer, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and more Arsenio Hall: Winston Zeddemore (Seasons One–Three) Buster Jones: Winston Zeddemore (Seasons Four–Seven) Laura Summer: Janine Melnitz (Seasons One–Two) Kath Soucie: Janine Melnitz (Seasons Three–Seven)

Slimer (LEFT), the popular ectoplasmic mascot of the animated series, takes top billing in a reconfigured one-hour series for Saturday viewing. © Columbia Pictures Television.

Spengler (returning voice actor Maurice LaMarche), the series had little to do with The Real Ghostbusters. Extreme Ghostbusters aired 40 episodes from September 1997 to December 1997, though the shows were reportedly rerun until 2000, as part of the syndicated Bohbot Kids Network (BKN). The final two episodes saw the other Real Ghostbusters characters return, with the original voice actors. In the world of comic books, First Comics produced a shortlived series for Filmation’s Ghostbusters in 1986, while Now Comics produced both The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer! comics from 1988–1993. Marvel Comics’ U.K. division published a long-running The Real Ghostbusters series that reached 193 issues, plus 30 volumes of Slimer! adventures, and various specials. Today, IDW has the Ghostbusters franchise license for comics, and they have done numerous comics featuring The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters storylines.

BUSTING A LEGACY

On April 17, 2007, following the success of DVD releases of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, BCI Eclipse released The Ghost Busters: The Complete Series DVD Set as part of a series of the Filmation library on DVD. The three-disc set was produced by the author of this very article, Andy Mangels, and included all 15 episodes, plus multiple crew interviews, rare footage, a gallery of photos, and all 15 scripts as PDFs. The animated Filmation’s Ghostbusters was released in two boxed sets (February 27 and July 3, 2007). All three sets are now out of print and demand big dollars in online sales. On November 25, 2008, Time-Life Video released an enormous 25-DVD boxed set of The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection. The episodes were remastered for picture and audio clarity, and over 12 RETROFAN

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More The Real Ghostbusters entertainment than you can shake a Neutrona Wand at (don’t cross the streams!).

hours of bonus materials were created exclusively for this deluxe collection. Special Features included five half-hour documentaries; 21 innovative on-camera Visual Commentary Tracks featuring producers, writers, artists, voice actors, and other personnel; 88 special on-camera episode introductions, image galleries, isolated Music & Effects tracks, scripts, and storyboards! Producing the Special Features for the set was again this article’s author… making him the producer of three versions of television’s Ghostbusters! Mangels would like to give a special shout-out to James Eatock, publisher of Cereal Geek magazine, for his excellent work on the projects, and also to Dan Riba, who literally rescued Mangels from a hospital after he got near-fatal food poisoning during filming! Today, many of the men and women who created both Ghostbusters and The Real Ghostbusters cartoons are award-winning writers and directors or top-flight animators. Both shows have an astonishing legacy of talent and are quality entertainment. And they hold a special place in Hollywood history as the time when two shows with not just the same premise, but the same title, were on the air concurrently. But what do the producers have to say about their legacy? Lou Scheimer was a bit short-winded about the latter project, looking back at the missteps that could have really changed the company had anyone foreseen what the Ghostbusters film would become. Of his series, he said, “It was a great show, I loved it a lot. Didn’t work too well, unfortunately.” Film and animation producer Joe Medjuck was a bit happier. “It’s amazing… it’s very fulfilling to be involved with something that is so beloved by people. I was, you know part of a number of people, starting with Dan Aykroyd who had the idea, and going through everybody who worked on the cartoon show and on both movies. It is great to be part of something that is so much a part of the world’s mythology, really. Right after the movie came out I remember a friend of—certainly after the movie came out—a friend of mine 70

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was in Africa and he said he walked through a village and someone was playing the Ghostbusters song. [laughs] Now that’s really doing something that made an impact. The cartoon show was like that, too, being in countries all over the world. We had a very good time doing it. Even with the kind of stress of doing the 78 shows the first season, I never remember thinking, ‘I wish I wasn’t doing this.’ It was always fun.” If you want to learn more about the making of either Ghostbusters or The Real Ghostbusters in future Halloween-released issues of RetroFan, write in and let the editor know! Till then, we’ll mix it up one more time: Who you gonna call? Let’s go, Ghostbusters! Unless otherwise credited, the quotes from Lou Scheimer are from the autobiography he wrote with Andy Mangels for Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. Mangels’ interviews with Joe Medjuck were conducted in 2008, and with Ira Epstein in 2010. Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. 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 wrote the bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and has written six Fractured Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior High audiences, released by Abdo Books in 2021. He is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King and other projects. 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

RETRO TOYS

The Bandai Pro Wrestler Erasers of 1987 BY JOHN “THE MEGO STRETCH HULK” CIMINO

s an eover come k ta l a r u lt pop cu wrestling’s o r p ere! d n a e z cra rs everywh i* to h c s e e ll k o c ’s s n a scinate Out of Jap e that still fa n li e r u g fi e obscur

*Keshi (Japanese: 消し or ケシ), a.k.a. keshigomu (消しゴム, literally “erase rubber”) is the Japanese word for eraser. In modern usage “keshi” refers to a collectible miniature figure, often of a manga or anime character, made of colored PVC gum rubber. It should be noted that the Pro Wrestler Keshi line (also called the Puroresurā Keshi line) is referred to as the Pro Wrestler Erasers in the U.S.

THE KESHI CRAZE BEGINS

Japan released the first waves of random keshi figures of many popular pop-culture characters such as Ultraman, Godzilla, Inazuman, and even American comic-book characters including Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man (among many others) during the Seventies. As these pocket-sized (usually two inches) gum-rubber figures became increasingly more known, in the late Seventies they were eventually exported outside of Japan as free prizes in random packages of Bonux (a Proctor & Gamble washing powder) in France and the Ukraine. However, it wasn’t until 1983, when Bandai released the Kinkeshi toy line, that the genre got a massive boost in popularity.

The Kinkeshi were based on the anime and manga stories of a wrestling super-hero known as Kinnikuman (King Muscle), created by Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi “Yudetamago” Shimada, and boasted a total of 418 figures. In 1985, it was licensed and produced by Mattel for the American market as M.U.S.C.L.E. (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere), but they made a (ABOVE) A complete set. (TOP ROW) American wrestlers Animal Warrior, Hawk Warrior, Bruiser Brody, Ric Flair, and Hulk Hogan. (BOTTOM ROW) Japanese wrestlers Hiroshi Wajima, Akira Maeda, Riki Choshu, Jumbo Tsuruta, and Tatsumi Fujinami. RETROFAN

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slight change in the product and used a harder rubber than the typical keshi figure. With the release of M.U.S.C.L.E., the keshi craze became a worldwide phenomenon. While Mattel only used a total of 236 official figures for its line, as well as having no real backstory to the product like Bandai had in Japan, Mattel distributed M.U.S.C.L.E. to the American public with a media blitz to capitalize on the prowrestling craze that was currently sweeping the nation. Mattel produced three television commercials, a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game, a championship belt figure holder, a wrestling-ring playset, and a board game. The figures were distributed in clear, blister-packed random four-packs, semi-opaque garbage can ten-packs, and four different team 28-packs (Thug Busters, Cosmic Crunchers, Mighty Maulers, and Cosmic Showdown) featuring non-random assortments. It should be noted that on the back of each four-pack and 28-pack there was an ad to order a mail-away 23x35 checklist poster. For a short time, the M.U.S.C.L.E. figures were also distributed as a free prize inside a Nestlé Quik two-pound tin canister of chocolate milk powder when Mattel and Nestlé did a cross promotion. The first series of M.U.S.C.L.E. figures were all pink (then known as “flesh”) color. The second series was a Pro Wrestler Capsule Machine header card called “the half-and-half mixture of pink and either dark blue, red, or purple Daishi.” ® & © Bandai. figures. The third and final series contained no pink figures, only dark blue, red, purple, magenta, salmon, lime green, neon orange, the board game were exclusive to it, five grape-colored figures and light blue (it should be noted that in all the series released, the and a lime-green #235 Terri-Bull (the other four lime-green same figures were used over and over). characters could still be found as random assortments). And Maybe the reason why kids got so obsessed with M.U.S.C.L.E. lastly, there are about 25 (could there be more?) super-rare figures was because it could tap into their OCD while they were trying that got released randomly that could’ve been meant for another to complete their collections. First, when all the new colors got shipment that possibly never came into fruition—yeah, good luck introduced in the second and third shipments, not all figures with finding those guys. It’s all crazy, I know, but it worked like a came in those colors—so you had to basically find out which charm because it’s estimated figure came in what color all that an incredible six million to on your own and some figures 300 million M.U.S.C.L.E. figures in certain colors were a lot were produced before the line rarer than others! Second, came to its end in 1988. there were three pink figures In Japan, the Kinkeshi line not shown on the mail-away and figures kept on coming out checklist poster: the #234 with different cartoons, games, Muscleman and #235 Terri-Bull products, reprints, colors, sizes, (those two came exclusively and new series that continued with the Hard Knockin’ Rockin’ throughout the Nineties and Ring) and the #236 Satan Cross into the mid-2000s. In 2008, (which had limited distribution they did a massive reprint (29th and was only available during anniversary) of the original line the first shipment in random and added some new figures. four- or ten-packs). Third, six of Japanese Capsule Machines (called Gashapon Machines) We didn’t see much official the ten figures that came with from the Eighties. 72

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product after that until 2017, when the Kinkeshi Premium line started and continues on today.

ALONG CAME THE CAPSULES

With the worldwide success of M.U.S.C.L.E. came other toy companies’ bootlegs and knock-offs that mimicked those figures in order to cash in on their popularity. But when it came to keshi figures, Bandai was still the leader of the pack. As the Kinkeshi wrestlers/characters had more of a cosmic and science-fiction design to them—with a few figures actually being based off of real wrestlers—in 1987 Bandai went full-reality and based their brand-new Pro Wrestler Keshi two-inch figure line on real-life superstar wrestlers from the NJPW (New Japan Pro Wrestling) organization. Bandai would sell and distribute this keshi ten-figure set in “Capsule” Machines or “Gumball” Machines (called Gashapon Machines in Japan). There were five Japanese NJPW wrestler figures: Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu, Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Maeda, and Hiroshi Wajima; and five American “mystery” wrestlers (that were huge stars in Japan), the Road Warriors: Hawk & Animal (the Legion of Doom), Bruiser Brody, Hulk Hogan, and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. All

THE PRO WRESTLER KESHI FIGURE VALUE CHART* Tatsumi Fujinami: $50 ($100 pink) Riki Choshu: $50 ($100 pink) Jumbo Tsuruta: $50 ($100 pink) Akira Maeda: $50 ($100 pink) Hiroshi Wajima: $40 ($80 pink) Ric Flair: $100 ($200 pink) Hulk Hogan: $100 ($200 pink) Bruiser Brody: $150 ($300 pink) Hawk Warrior: $150 ($300 pink) Animal Warrior: $100 ($250 pink)

® & © Bandai.

*All price listings based on MINT condition value. Price will decrease as condition and cleanliness drops or color fades. First price listed indicates the colors of blue, yellow, green, and red. It should be noted that “keshi red” is sometimes mistaken for orange or orange/red, and the more the color fades, the more orange it looks.

ten figures each came with a leaflet and in five different colors: pink (“flesh”), blue, yellow, green, and red. And despite being just capsule machine prizes, the detail on each figure is something to behold as they support highly realistic faces on chibi-like bodies. The Pro Wrestler Keshi line lasted only about a year before disappearing from Capsule Machines, yet it still maintains a cult following (along with Kinkeshi, M.U.S.C.L.E., and a host of other keshi figures and knock-offs) from wrestling and toy collectors who still try and “collect them all.” It should be noted that despite the five different colors of each figure in this set, it’s the pink-colored figures that are the most desirable and command the most value in the secondary market.

IN CONCLUSION…

Professional wrestling has long been a popular commodity in America and Japan. During the “Golden Age” of wrestling (1982–1992), the industry went to another level and became a pop-culture phenomenon. Fans couldn’t get enough, as these reallife super-heroes or monsters (hey, have you’ve seen some of those guys?) came to life and clashed for good and evil inside a wrestling ring. The top tier of wrestling superstars had massive charisma and comic-book-accurate physiques that captured the imaginations of the youth and kept them glued to their television sets on Saturday mornings or begging their parents for tickets to the next event in their area. Combining wrestlers with toys and making them action figures was an easy crossover, even when it came to the two-inch PVC gum rubber of keshi figures. JOHN CIMINO (RIGHT, with Roy Thomas) is a Silver and Bronze Age comic, cartoon, and memorabilia expert that contributes articles to RetroFan, Alter Ego, The Jack Kirby Collector, and BACK ISSUE from TwoMorrows Publishing. He runs the Roy Thomas Appreciation Board on Facebook and likes to drag Roy and wife Dann Thomas away from their daily chores on their farm to comic-cons near you. Currently John’s pink Road Warrior keshi figures are the world tag-team champions of all keshi—it looks like their title reign will never end. Check out his blog at Hero-Envy.blogspot.com, contact him at johnstretch@live. com, or follow him on Instagram at megostretchhulk. RETROFAN

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CELEBRITY CRUSHES

Bewitched by Kim Richards BY JEFF MORENO Everyone can remember their childhood and going to the movies—the thrill of watching a movie in the theater on the big screen with the sound of the audience, eating buttered popcorn, and the joy of having fun was pure childhood. For me, growing up in the Seventies and going to the theater is something that I will always remember. Many movies held my attention and each one lodged a special place on my memory shelf. Movies like Young Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, and seeing a Volkswagon Beetle dressed up as Herbie the Love Bug at the entrance to our theater for Herbie Rides Again are favorite memories of mine. One movie stands out among all of the movies that I watched as a child: Escape to Witch Mountain, in 1974. I spent a lazy Saturday afternoon with my best friend Dennis and watched the movie. I was instantly connected to Tia Malone (Kim Richards), a pretty witch-girl who in my mind reached out through the screen and touched my heart with love and affection. Tia was the love of my life! She was exactly my age, so I couldn’t say that I was in love with an older woman. I watched the movie a second time with my brother Shawn, this time going to the movies not to pass a Saturday afternoon, but to purposefully see Tia once again. After the movie, the feeling of love stayed with me—it was such a wonderful feeling, but sadly I was in love with Tia, someone I would never see again. This was the Seventies, and the home video market was a good ten years away. Once a movie finished its theater engagement, it disappeared. Kim Richards in Los Angeles, 2013. Photo: Jeff Moreno.

As I grew up, I often fondly thought of Escape to Witch Mountain and the feelings I had for Tia. It was one of those childhood memories you replay when thinking about your past. I was always interested in collecting history and pop culture. When I moved to Los Angeles for graduate school, I began attending celebrity autograph shows and started a board game collection. I would have a vintage board game autographed by a celebrity of a TV show. When I didn’t have a board game to get signed, I started making 16x20 posters of a celebrity to get autographed. Before one such convention in Los Angeles in 2013, I was reviewing the list of celebrity attendees, and to my surprise and excitement, Kim Richards was listed to attend. I was thrilled that I would finally get to meet “Tia” and tell her my story. The day arrived for the convention! I was prepared… I had my poster of Kim and my camera ready to go. I moved to her table, and there she was—Kim Richards, Tia Malone, in person. Kim had a beautiful smile and calming voice as she spoke to the fans in line to meet her. When it was my turn, I placed my poster on her table, and she reacted as most celebrities do, “Wow, what is this?” While she signed my poster, I told Kim my story of how in love I was with her in 1974 and she kept saying, “Oh, how sweet.” I took a photograph of her with my poster and of us together to close that chapter of my life. To me, Kim Richards will always be Tia Malone, the witch-girl from Escape to Witch Mountain. JEFF MORENO, owner of American Art Series, lives in Los Angeles, California.

Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/ Eighties Celebrity Crush with RetroFan readers! You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crush column to the editor for consideration at euryman@gmail.com. 74

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RETRO TRAVEL

Remembering Red BY MARK KRATZNER AND DOUG CARROLL One of America’s clowns, Red Skelton, is back home again in Indiana, and he brought along his immortal characters such as Freddie the Freeloader, Clem Kadiddlehopper, Junior the Mean Widdle Kid, Deadeye, George Appleby, and others with him. Well, Skelton did not physically return to the Hoosier State in 2013, but his show-business mementos and memories are back where it all began for the late entertainer. Before he died in 1997 at the age of 84, Skelton confided in his widow, Lothian Skelton, that he wanted his memorabilia and artifacts to go home to Vincennes, Indiana, where life began for the redheaded performer.

Display highlighting Red Skelton’s early years in radio. His vocal creations inspired famed Warner Bros. cartoon characters Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam.

Now the relics of Skelton’s legacy of laughter from more than 70 years of being a comedian, actor, and clown, along with his talents as an accomplished painter, music composer, author, pantomime artist, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and American patriot, are on display daily at the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy in Vincennes. And, just like Skelton’s style of humor, the museum was created to appeal to patrons of all ages. Located on the Wabash River between Terre Haute and Evansville, Vincennes is known as Indiana’s first city plus the site of a Revolutionary War battle, the largest federal memorial outside of Washington, D.C., and the birthplace of Red Skelton. He was a comedian on stage, radio, motion pictures, and television from the Twenties through the Nineties. Skelton is known for his clean humor and patriotism accompanied by silly characters with a natural gift to find humor in everyday life or tell a story without saying a word.

The Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy opened on what would have been the comedian’s 1ooth birthday, July 18, 2013. His family home is near the museum. Photo credits: Mark Kratzner, Curator of the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy. From the museum collection.

He was born Richard Bernard Skelton on July 18, 1913 to a widow with three sons in a house that remains standing less than 1,500 feet from the museum entrance. Red’s father died two months earlier from a stroke, placing his family in abject poverty and making Skelton’s life story all the more remarkable and worthy of a museum. When Red Skelton died in 1997, the president of Vincennes University, Dr. Phillip M. Summers, wanted to honor him with a hometown theater. Dr. Summers contacted Skelton’s widow for permission and plans expanded to include a museum. The 850-seat Red Skelton Performing Arts Center opened in 2006 and the city sponsored annual festivals to raise funds to construct the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy, which opened on his 100th birthday in 2013. The museum embraces Red Skelton’s career, family life, and personal interests, and guests begin their tours with a 14-minute introduction film. Once inside the museum, patrons can relive Red’s early stage career in old-time medicine shows and Vaudeville through his stint as a master of ceremonies for Great Depression-era walkathons. Among the museum highlights is Red’s development of a doughnut-dunking routine that gained him national attention and featured guest appearances on the Rudy Vallee radio program, in addition to performing at President Franklin D.

Visitors embrace Red Skelton’s message of laughter.

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Roosevelt’s birthday parties. MGM movie star Mickey Rooney secured Skelton a screen test, launching his feature film career in 1937, just four years before Red debuted with his own network radio show in 1941 alongside cast members Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Later, Red signed with MGM and performed with such co-stars as Esther Williams, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, and others. The museum has a dedicated exhibit to Skelton’s film work and movie posters adorn several walls. Patrons can listen to a vintage Red Skelton radio broadcast and laugh at his many characters. Skelton’s characters not only entertained, but inspired Warner Bros. cartoon characters such as Tweety Bird, based on Junior the Mean Widdle Kid, and Yosemite Sam, modeled after Deadeye. Red Skelton started a 20-year run on network television in 1951 and won two Emmys for his first season—both on display, along with other awards, in the museum. TV viewers have the chance to see his radio characters on television plus Red performing pantomimes and other routines without words. The museum’s many interactive stations include a studio green

Many of Red’s popular characters are on display.

screen, where guests attempt to imitate Red doing a mime from an original TV show; the patron’s performance is recorded for video playback. Around the facility, monitors show clips from Red’s TV show, next to cases with the actual costumes worn by Skelton during these performances. Also, the museum tells the story of Skelton’s family including his boyhood days in Vincennes; the tragic death of his nineyear-old son, Richard, in 1958; Red’s World War II service; his experiences as a 33rd Degree Mason; and his humanitarian efforts toward children. Skelton worked during the war to build morale for both soldiers and home-front citizens while his radio catchphrase, “I Dood It,” found its way into international headlines following the 1942 Doolittle air raid over Tokyo. Red loved clowns, and clowns continue to love him back. One of Skelton’s most famous characters was Freddie the Freeloader, the hobo clown who liked the simple life and being kind to everyone. Freddie remains a favorite to fans and clowns today. 76

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Chair and easel where America’s beloved clown painted his beloved clowns.

Museum-goers have the opportunity to see the original Freddie the Freeloader costume and props along with Skelton’s personal clown make-up case. Another area where Freddie is popular is in the original oil paintings and pen drawings done by Red Skelton, which are displayed along a gallery wall. Red took up painting in 1943 as a way to relax and satisfy another of his creative curiosities. Skelton’s paintings, some of which sell for $100,000 or more, feature clowns, circus life, landscapes, Japanese culture, still life, and self-portraits, and the museum rotates the artwork during special exhibits and holidays. The museum showcases Red Skelton’s talents as a composer and author as well. Skelton mainly composed marches, waltzes, instrumental music, and songs for his TV show, but one of America’s clowns created complete symphonies too. Four of Skelton’s fictional books, along with a pair of children’s coloring books, are among the museum collection. Red claimed he wrote a short story each week of his professional life, and the archives contain several boxes of unpublished Skelton short stories. Most of the exhibits are permanent, but there is room for temporary exhibitions to display items from the collection. In the past there have been exhibits on the Red Skelton connection to clowns, Christmas, World War II, Japan, and the Pledge

Red’s paintings and prints can be found in the Laura and Jack Boyd Smith Jr. Gallery.

retro travel

Red Skelton gets serious about the Pledge of Allegiance.

of Allegiance. Future exhibits are planned for his autograph collection, 100 years in entertainment, and more. Many museum visitors ask about Red Skelton’s 1969 interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and it is featured in a permanent exhibit. On his January 14, 1969 television broadcast, Red gave his sterling speech on the meaning of the words and phrases in the Pledge of Allegiance. As Red recited it on the air, CBS was flooded with requests for copies. A 45 r.p.m. record was made that immediately sold more than 200,000 copies and peaked at No. 44 on the Billboard charts. His rendition has been read into the Congressional Record numerous times and is a staple on the internet. Each summer the museum celebrates the Red Skelton Festival. There is a parade with clowns, speakers with a Red Skelton connection, showings of his television episodes, and entertainment both outside the facility and in the Red Skelton Theater. Skelton had a fondness for children, and the festival includes kid activities.

THE RED SKELTON MUSEUM OF AMERICAN COMEDY Located in the Red Skelton Performing Arts Center 20 W. Red Skelton Blvd., Vincennes, IN 47591 Open Tuesday–Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Sunday, 12 noon–5:00 p.m. Also open Monday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. in June, July, August 812-888-4184 redskeltonmuseum.org redskelton@vinu.edu Admission: Adult: $8; Senior (60+): $7 Students: $5; Children under 5: free

Past festivals have featured the Smothers Brothers, Crystal Gayle, Debbie Reynolds, and the Brian Hoffman Remembering Red Show. Hoffman is a frequent performer at the festival and the only Red Skelton impersonator approved by Mrs. Red Skelton, who often attends the festivities. Lothian Skelton has donated most of the entertainer’s estate to the museum and is working on adding a gallery to display more of his artwork. The Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy and his birth home are only two of the Vincennes sites associated with the entertainer. The city of 18,000 includes the grave of Red’s father, Joseph Skelton; a downtown mural; Red Skelton Boulevard; Red Skelton Bridge; and the Pantheon Theatre, now a business center where a ten-year-old Skelton got his inspiration to make people laugh. Legend has it Red met a stranger while selling newspapers at a Vincennes Main Street corner. The man asked what the city had to offer in the way of entertainment and the boy gushed about a New York comedian performing that night at the nearby Pantheon. When the man realized Red did not have the money to see the show, he overpaid for the boy’s remaining newspapers and promised him a ticket.

Red took his seat in the theater and soon discovered his benefactor was the New York comedian. The boy heard the laughter then went backstage during intermission and the comic let Red peek through the curtain at the audience. Red declared at that moment he too wanted to make people laugh. “American Comedy” appears in the museum name since it eventually plans to tell the stories of other comic legends such as Vincennes native Alvy Moore from Green Acres TV fame plus Hollywood Hoosiers Carole Lombard, Dick York, Marjorie Main, Scatman Crothers, Phil Harris, Florence Henderson, David Letterman, and others. The museum’s mission is to continue the legacy of Red Skelton through education and inspiration by displaying and telling his many artifacts and stories. The museum hopes to bring awareness to future generations about clean comedy and how Red Skelton’s humor is ageless and universal. The best evidence of both is heard in the laughter of children and adults inside the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy. MARK KRATZNER is Curator of the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy. DOUG CARROLL is a journalist and Red Skelton fan. RETROFAN

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right that it’s a show that failed to click with viewers. One of these days, we’ll get around to revisiting it here in RetroFan.

Liz—who wrote last issue’s hilarious “Celebrity Crushes” column—FYI, RedBubble.com has a couple different Wonder Wart-Hog T-shirts available for sale!

Your magazine RetroFan is amazing: even articles on celebrities and subjects of who or what is disinteresting to me, I find as enjoyable reading! The article “The Great Rural Purge” by Scott Saavedra (July 2021 issue) featured a time that I do recall. Your article, Michael, in the same issue, “Goober and the Truckers’ Paradise,” compelled me to consult the 2013 book Encyclopedia of Television Pilots, 1937–2012, by Vincent Terrance. That source records that “Ray Stevens performs the theme, ‘Goober and the Truckers’ Paradise.’” Then—on your “Celebrity Crushes” page (same issue)—Rena Konar talks about her crush on… Ray Stevens. Did you guys and gals at RetroFan know of the Goober and the Truckers’ Paradise/Ray Stevens connection, or was it a coincidence? DAN PAULUN Thanks for the great letter and the words of praise, for which we are grateful. Ye ed noticed, and was amused by, the dual Ray Stevens references in RetroFan #15, but it was a coincidence. And whenever I see the name Ray Stevens, “Gitarzan” earworms its way into my head 78

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I was planning on being a RetroFan fan for life. But now it will go into eternity! The Wonder Wart-Hog info in #15 was beyond magnificent. My older brother’s girlfriend bought me the Wonder Wart-Hog #1 issue, which elevated her to goddess in my eyes! I still own it and cherish it. Only once have I found any other living creature to “know” the Hog of Steel—a coworker said “Piltdown Pig,” and it stopped me dead in my tracks. She said her “Uncle Fuzzy” had the Wonder Wart-Hog magazine. (“Uncle Fuzzy” sounds interesting…) I wish I could get a T-shirt with the Hog of Steel on it! ELIZABETH ANDERSON

I received my copy of RetroFan today and really enjoyed the Great Rural Purge article, but what I really take issue with is the statement that John F. Kennedy had everything handed to him just because he was born into great wealth and Nixon had to work very hard for everything. That is certainly not true. Just because Kennedy was born into great wealth doesn’t mean he had everything handed to him. I’ve read a great many books about JFK and the Kennedys, and no one handed everything to him on a silver platter. He had to work to get good grades in school and at Harvard to graduate. He had to work to earn his rank in the Navy and, unlike Nixon, he requested to be a PT boat commander in the South Pacific, which was in harm’s way of the enemy. He and his crew were even proclaimed missing in action and even dead before it was revealed that the crew of the PT 109 was rescued singlehandedly by Kennedy when he carved a message in coconut that the crew was alive. Moreover, Kennedy worked hard for his Congress seat, and later his Senate seat, and even later the presidency. Liked the issue, but keep the politics to a minimum and accurate. CHRISTOPHER KRIEG

Enjoyed the write-up on the Rural Sitcom Purge of the Sixties and on. You missed out on Andy Griffith’s first show after Mayberry, Salvage 1, where he played a canny junk dealer with a state rocket and a lot of moxie. I don’t think people were ready to see old Sheriff Andy in such a role and the show lasted only a season. But I remember it fondly. JIM HELD Salvage 1 came along in 1979, Jim, a bit after the Rural Sitcom Purge, but you’re

Another terrific issue of RetroFan! I had to laugh when I saw the words “Rural Sitcom Purge” on the cover and knew exactly what it referred to. No wonder I like this magazine so much; it speaks my language. While all those “shows with trees” were axed, they had the last laugh, at least in one sense. They gave us some of the most enduring and iconic theme songs in television history. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can sing The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction without missing a word. As a kid, I could never figure out how the Clampetts were related to each other. I remember trying to draw a family tree and giving up on it. But now, thanks to the magic of Wikipedia, I know who’s who. All of the articles were great! Keep RetroFan coming! MICHAL JACOT

Just a quick note to tell you how much I enjoyed RetroFan #15—another great coverto-cover read. I especially enjoyed the interview with Daniel Truhitte—talk about an amazing career! My wife, Nanette, and I took a World War II tour of Europe in 2017, and one of the stops was Salzburg, Austria, the current home of the famed gazebo from The Sound of Music. Attached is a photo of Nanette and I reenacting the kissing scene between Rolf and Liesl. DON VAUGHAN

Thanks for sharing this photo! If you don’t recognize his byline, RetroFans, Don Vaughan, who is sixteen going on seventy, wrote last issue’s Monster Times article and will no doubt be back in our pages in the future.

Found quite a bit to enjoy this time [RetroFan #15] where I didn’t think I would. Almost none of the topics listed was a particular favorite, but a number of them did, ultimately, connect. I remember watching earlier seasons of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Never was a big spy fan. I found the flaw in the fantasy of being a suave secret agent to be that your girlfriend may be glamorous, but she’s a double-agent, and all the people you might impress with your cool car and gadgets are trying to kill you. I enjoyed the look at U.N.C.L.E. merchandising, much of which I remembered—especially the model kits. I was laughing at the teen magazines of that era promoting David McCallum, and all the music figures of the day, as absolute heartthrobs. I also enjoyed reading about the origin of the program—when it was sold and the fact that no one, initially, knew what it would be or what direction they’d take, not knowing how much humor to inject. Just because Batman’s a hit doesn’t mean you need to emulate that approach. Better to have a unique style. I liked that they had a potential dark concept available, though not used. With spies, friendship and trust only go so far. Another amusing bit: the fact that Robert Culp was offered—and declined—the Napoleon Solo role. That could make an article on its own: stars that were considered for parts that ultimately went to others. The Great Rural Purge was also interesting. No show lasts forever. It’s either too expensive to do or ratings drop. But to cancel shows just because the network doesn’t like the subject matter or suddenly wants to entice classier, higher-paying advertisers? So, less supportive than the fans at home watching every week. The only one of the shows I was sorry to see go was Green Acres, which I found hilarious. But six years is a good run. (Loved the TV Guide, on the contents page, with Oliver and Lisa on the phone pole.) “How They Did It” was still a welcome format despite my not really

being an aficionado of Sixties war and Western films. Regardless, lots of familiar faces. Worth doing and hopefully on a regular basis. I’d barely heard of and never seen the Super 7. Yet, I found it intriguing. My question is, Why intentionally come so close to already established heroes? They must’ve known Aquaman and Plastic Man were taken. Better to innovate something entirely unrelated. Seven original superheroes. Then, no problem whatsoever. I couldn’t help laughing that they also needed funny walruses and dogs to keep it light and kid-friendly. JOE FRANK Had Super 7 gone with seven original super-heroes, Andy Mangels would have had a lot less to write about, and it wouldn’t have been as juicy as was his column in #15. No matter how obscure or flat-out bizarre a show was, Andy can always make it fascinating!

We’ve been in touch with the very talented Kathryn Leigh Scott about a RetroFan interview. She’s unavailable for the immediate future, but I’m hoping that will change down the road. Dark Shadows expert Rod Labbe, who conducted our Selby and Parker interviews, is poised to speak with Ms. Scott whenever the possibility presents itself.

In your July editorial [#15], you confessed to doubts as to whether or not there was a ready readership for the kind of rag-tagand-bobtail, pick-and-mix-lucky-dip contents you’ve gathered together between the covers of RetroFan. Here’s one reader completely sold on the mix. Who couldn’t warm to a magazine combining writing on The Man from U.N.C.L.E and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, The Muppets and Evel Knievel miniatures, Goober and the Truckers’ Paradise and Ricky Nelson? As Kent Unsworth said the July edition: Keep up the good work! JERRY WHYTE Will do, Jerry. Thanks for the vote of confidence!

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com. MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief © Dan Curtis Productions. Lobby card courtesy of Heritage.

I enjoy RetroFan magazine immensely! I am a big fan of Dark Shadows and enjoyed the David Selby story in issue #11 and am looking forward to the Lara Parker story coming up in issue #17. If I may, I’d like to suggest you do an interview of Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie Evans and Josette DuPres on Dark Shadows. She is a fascinating woman whose resume includes not only “working actress,” but other careers as varied as Playboy Bunny to book publisher. She can be contacted online at her site, www. kathrynleighscott.com. I truly feel fans would enjoy reading a story/interview about Kathryn and hope you’ll consider pursuing my suggestion. GUY HAINES

NEXT ISSUE: May 2022 No. 20 $9.95

Buy this magazine or I’ll moider ya!

THE FINAL DAYS OF MOE HOWARD

Hi-yo, Saturday Morning! The Lone Ranger!

The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of

SERGIO ARAGONÉS!

B. J. THOMAS

Get a kung-fu grip on the history of G.I. Joe!

in one of his final interviews

TV’s Route 66 • George Maharis interview • Contests You Wanted to Win & more! Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury MAD © EC Publications. G.I. Joe © Hasbro. Lone Ranger © The Lone Ranger, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

RETROFAN

March 2022

ReJECTED! Just keep telling yourself, "This isn’t a real cover... this isn’t real a real cover..."

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

I used to have that! r Remembe ou y e that tim e h t missed meet chance to nro Mu Caroline ou e becaus y ? za z i wanted p

sharing Grampa keeps u his how he gave yo copy of Action en Comics #1 wh you were three and you put it in the toilet

Wacky Packages Super Collection

The Nixon Campaign Jewelry You Can’t GIVE Away

Tears

RETROFAN

March 2022

sniff

“I Own Ever ything I’ve Ever Wanted!” New Reader Fiction Section

rations: SMS.

Accidentally Sent to the Goodwill

y. Digital alte

What Crazy, Cool Stuff Did YOUR Mom Throw Away?

Photo: Pixaba

the NEW! From gang at...

RetroFan:

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!

SUBSCRIBE! SIX ISSUES: 68 Economy US (with free digital editions) $91 Premium US $103 International • $29 Digital Only

RETROFAN #13

RETROFAN #14

RETROFAN #18

RETROFAN #20

RETROFAN #21

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, catching up with singer B.J. THOMAS, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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RETROFAN #15

RETROFAN #16

RETROFAN #17

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!

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.

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

RETROFAN #8

RETROFAN #9

RETROFAN #10

RETROFAN #11

RETROFAN #12

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!

HALLOWEEN ISSUE! Interviews with DARK SHADOWS’ 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!

CHRIS MANN goes behind the scenes of TV’s sexy sitcom THREE’S COMPANY— and NANCY MORGAN RITTER, first wife of JOHN RITTER, shares stories about the TV funnyman. Plus: RICK GOLDSCHMIDT’s making of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, RONNIE SCHELL interview, Sheena Queen of the TV Jungle, Dr. Seuss toys, Popeye cartoons, DOCTOR WHO’s 1960s U.S. invasion, and more!

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

HOLLY JOLLY Celebrating Christmas Past In Pop Culture

MONSTER MASH

GROOVY

Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters infiltrated America in monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky 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 monster creators, publishers, and TV stars, with a Foreword by TV horror host Zacherley, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written and designed by MARK VOGER!

From Woodstock, “The Banana Splits,” and “Sgt. Pepper” to “H.R. Pufnstuf,” Altamont, and “The Partridge Family,” 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.” Revisit the era’s rock festivals, movies, art, comics and cartoons in this color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 ISBN: 9781605490649 • (Digital Edition) $11.99 Diamond Order Code: MAR151564

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 ISBN: 9781605490809 • Digital Edition: $13.99 Diamond Order Code: JUL172227

HOLLY JOLLY is a colorful sleigh ride through the history of Christmas, from its religious origins to its emergence as a multimedia phenomenon. It explores movies (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life), music (White Christmas, Little St. Nick), TV (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), books (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), decor (1950s silver aluminum trees), comics (super-heroes meet Santa), and more! Featuring interviews with CHARLES M. SCHULZ (A Charlie Brown Christmas), ANDY WILLIAMS (TV’s “Mr. Christmas”) and others, the story behind DARLENE LOVE’s perrennial hit song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), and more holiday memories! By MARK VOGER, the profusely illustrated HOLLY JOLLY takes readers on a time-trip to Christmases past that you will cherish all year long! Written and designed by MARK VOGER! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • ISBN: 9781605490977 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • Diamond Order Code: AUG201697

Get all three Mark Voger books above for just $99.95! Normally $120, get this specially-priced trio for only $99.95! Save $24!

RETROFAN #6 ➙

RETROFAN #7 ➙

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!

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

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

RETROFAN #1

RETROFAN #2

RETROFAN #3

RETROFAN #4

RETROFAN #5

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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