1 8 2 6 5 8 0 0 4 8 6 6 SUBMARINEYELLOW needyouAllis love! November 2022 No. 23 $10.95 Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Before The X-Files there was… Shadow Chasers • M&Ms • TV’s Zoom at 50 & more! Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Yellow Submarine © Apple Corps. Colorforms © Colorforms Brand LLC. Mickey Mouse © Disney. The Prisoner © ITV Ventures Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The BlackDivegreethereCreature’stoya!intotheLagoon He is not a number! He is a free man!
issue 23, November 2022. (ISSN 2576-7224 ) is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, 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, Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Yellow Submarine © Apple Corps/Subafilms, Ltd. Colorforms © Colorforms Brands, LLC. Mickey Mouse © Disney. Zorro © Zorro Productions, Inc. The Prisoner © ITC Entertainment, Inc. 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. DepartmentsColumns and Special 3Features Scott SecretSaavedra’sSanctum M&M’s 15 Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties ‘Creature’ Feature 25 Retro Toys Colorforms 35 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The Prisoner 45 Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Yellow Submarine 55 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Flash Gordon 66 Retro Kid-Vid Zoom at 50 69 Retro Television Shadow Chasers November 2022Issue # 23 2 Retrotorial 12 RetroFad Fiftiesmania 52 Too Much TV Quiz Top cops 79 RetroFanmail 80 ReJECTED by Scott Saavedra The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With 55 25 35 15 45 69663
M&M’s
LittleTheGiantofCandyFavorites
BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA
RETROFAN November 2022 3 SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM
Photo: Evan-Amos/ Wikipedia. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. was candy. I was willing to eat candy cigarettes (both the chalky hard ones and bubble gum variants), candy buttons on a paper strip, and little wax soda bottles containing a dribble of sweet fluid. Even as a kid I knew that stuff was sub-par, but… candy, it had to be consumed. I haven’t had any of them in decades, but they are still available should you think I’m making this stuff up. M&M’s (which I have been eating while writing this article to, you know, get in the mood) more suits the adult me. I don’t mean to imply that M&M’s are high class or anything of the sort. Though they do present better in a candy dish than, say, a limp pile of Big League Chew shredded bubble gum (of course, if you like “ironic” displays, knock yourself out). M&M’s are a pleasant taste of nostalgia combined with here and now enjoyment. & ME When I think back to my earliest confectionary memories, M&M’s don’t appear very often. The strongest taste sensations I can recall are of Hershey bars (boring), Whoppers malted milk balls (still love ’em), and Planters Peanuts (I eat more peanuts than candy these days). M&M’s usually only turned up during the best time of the year for a candy-loving kid: Halloween. Or, as I saw it, Candy Day (see sidebar). The main problem with being a little kid is that often you end up getting the candy an adult wants you to have instead of your own heart’s desire. Growing up and moving out on my own (with a dozen other people in a beach house during a wet off-season) gave me the opportunity to more fully explore my candy options. For my 19th birthday, my roommate, a guy I had known since high school, was going to take me out to celebrate, but went on a date instead. By way of apology, he left me a note, a six-pack of beer, and a very large bag of Peanut M&M’s. The roommate moved out a few weeks later, and I never saw him again. But a beer and a bunch of M&M’s became my go-to major treat. I thank him for that even though, honestly, I just can’t sit down and munch on a big bag of candy anymore. I don’t feel the need and I have nothing to prove. Peanut M&M’s package, circa 1960. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of CandyWrapperArchive.com
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE
In 1932, Franklin bought out his son’s interest in the company. Forrest moved to England to oversee taking the Milky Way into the European market and to create his own company, Mars, Ltd. There he bought Chappel Brothers, the British arm of an American pet food company, the first to make canned dog food (originally from horse meat, but that is not the formulation that Mars later used and one that Forrest personally tastetested —seriously). In 1934, Franklin Mars died, and notably Forrest did not go to the funeral. THE MUDDLED MYSTERY OF M&M’s The oft-repeated tale is that Forrest Mars got the idea for M&M’s while visiting Spain during the Spanish Civil War, circa 1936–1937, where he noticed soldiers eating chocolate covered in a candy shell to prevent melting. Traveling to a war zone seems a risky way to get ideas for candy, but that is one version of the story. Another is that Forrest copied (stole) the idea from Rowntree’s & Co., a British confectioner. And yet a third version has Forrest and a family rep from Rowntree’s both going to have a look at Spanish Civil War chocolate possibilities and both noting that the candy eaten by the soldiers was worth duplicating. So they proposed a gentleman’s agreement to allow each other to make a version to sell in their respective spheres of operation: America and Europe. Rowntree’s got to market first in 1937 with Smarties Chocolate (ABOVE) 1922 advertisement for Franklin Mars’ first candy bar success, the Mar-O-Bar. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. (BELOW) British Smarties TV ad, circa 1960. © 2022 Nestlé.
The story of M&M’s is one that is a little bit sweet and a little bit sour. It also involves that other great American confectionproducing company, Hershey’s. It is a story of war, betrayal, and relentless work and invention. And, of course, yummy candy.
Moderating input of M&M’s is a bit of a challenge since they are sort of like potato chips, in that they are so snackable (you can’t eat just one). They are designed that way. M&M’s are formulated to be not too sweet, but refreshing so that you crave more. How insidious!
Chocolate is produced from the cocoa bean. The Olmec civilization (about 1500 BCE to around 400 BCE) had the earliest known consumers of chocolate. Chocolate was largely taken in as a drink. It was expensive and usually only enjoyed by royalty and the wealthy. Christopher Columbus introduced cocoa beans to Europe from the New World, but personally did not care for the stuff nor did he ever taste it (depending on the source). George Washington often had a warm chocolate drink for breakfast (his first recorded purchase of chocolate was in 1757).Itwas the invention of milk chocolate by a Swiss chocolatier in 1875 and consequent improvements that led the way for Milton Hershey’s development of the five-cent milk chocolate Hershey bar in 1900, which became an empire-building success. Others would soon follow and try to meet the country’s growing appetite for chocolate. Among those early candy successes would eventually be Franklin C. Mars.
ROUGH START In 1911, Franklin Mars and his second wife Ethel began the Mars Candy Factory. It failed. They followed this up in 1920 with the Mar-O-Bar Company, named after his signature candy bar made of (cheap) chocolate, nuts, and caramel. In those days, Franklin would rise early in the morning to make that day’s batch of his special Victorian butter creams. The bar and butter creams were a regional success, but national sales were elusive for nearly all candy makers except for the Hershey juggernaut.Franklin’s son by his first wife, Forrest, had grown up away from his father with little or no contact (again, depending on the source). They reconnected in 1924 when Franklin bailed his adult son out of jail. It may not have been a crime spree exactly, but the younger Mars oversaw a billboard crew that had gotten too enthusiastic and covered over vital signage with their advertising posters. Once free, so the legend goes, Forrest and his father went to a soda fountain and spent some time catching up. It was here that Forrest suggested his father recreate the flavor of a chocolate malted milk in a candy bar. The result was the Milky Way, a success still popular to this day (I’m not a fan). The two started working together, but it was not a smooth partnership.
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RETROFAN November 20228 with one of the all-time classic promotional taglines: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” (I tested this as a kid. It’s not true. The outer candy gets sticky on a hot day if you hang onto it long enough.)Intheir earliest days, M&M’s candies were known simply as M&M’s and made without the little “m” on each piece (that would come in 1950). The “Plain” designation didn’t happen until 1954 with the release of Peanut M&M’s (Forrest, by the way, was allergic to peanuts). Currently, the non-peanut version is called Milk Chocolate M&M’s. I only just learned this, though the name change happened 22 years ago, and I’ve eaten about an SUV’s worth of these things in thatTheperiod.first television ad to feature anthropomorphic M&M candies, Mr. Plain and Mr. Peanut, appeared during popular programing like The Mickey Mouse Club also in 1954. Sales rose. By 1964, Forrest finally gained control over what is now Mars, Inc. By many accounts he was a difficult boss with high standards. He yelled frequently and prodigiously. On the plus side, employees were well paid. Competition with Hershey’s heated up as well, forcing the venerable company to advertise for the first time in 1970. Forrest retired in 1973, leaving the company completely in the hands of his three children. His two sons were yellers, too. They also had a penchant, inherited from their father, for extreme privacy. This aspect has held great interest for the business press and seems odd to candy-lovers. How can candy-makers be so off-putting?
Consumers, especially kids, didn’t care, so long as affordable and appealing products came out of their factories and landed in sufficient numbers on store shelves.
RED SCARE The colors of M&M’s have changed a bit over time. The longestserving colors are brown, yellow, and green. Red was popular, too, but disappeared for a while due to public-relations reasons. In the Seventies, greater concern emerged over the health effects of sugar and what was termed “junk food.” Nothing wrong with that. It’s important to know what you consume. A 1971 Russian study linked Red Dye No. 2 to cancer. This alarmed consumers and safe-food advocates. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given Red Dye No. 2 its GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status but retested the dye and banned it in 1976. M&M’s did not use Red Dye No. 2, but all of the negative publicity caused them to replace red candies with orange-colored ones. Red M&M’s returned in 1987. And while we’re on the subject of the candies’ colors, green M&M’s won’t make you horny. There is simply no medical or Three examples out of many, many M&M’s television commercials: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Fifties-era M&M’s mascots Mr. Peanut and Mr. Plain, a Silence of the Lambs–type moment from this Sixties-era spot, and the groovy fellow with the two (nude) candies is Mr. Candy Man, a brief M&M’s spokes-cartoon circa 1970. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved.
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MARS In SPACE M&M’s joined the crew of the space shuttle Columbia in 1981. Why? The astronauts requested them. NASA kept things low-key and didn’t promote the brand so much as show the astronauts enjoying life in space with a common hard-candy-covered milk-chocolate treat. Ultimately, M&M’s went on over 130 trips into space.
RETROFAN November 2022 9 science-based proof. However, the current female Green M&M spokes-candy does seem to have a certain something. Just sayin’.
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ROCK ’n’ ROLL ’n’ M&M’s When I first heard, years ago, that Van Halen (a musical group with some danceable song performances) had a group of contractual requests (demands) known as riders that included NO BROWN M&M’s, I could not imagine for the life of me what that was all about. Turns out, it was the result of a pretty smart observation about human nature. In the Eighties, Van Halen had a fairly large and complicated stage set-up. This required that each venue be prepared to host the show safely. When the “no brown” stipulation was not met, the band knew that the potential existed that other more important matters may have been missed as well. To help make their point, Mars was a big believer in advertising: (CLOCKWISE LEFT TO RIGHT) 1960 newspaper ad, 1976 magazine ad, and 1985 comic-book ad. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved.
The Gill-Man in Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.
BY MARK VOGER
Yep, the Creature swam alone among his contemporary monsters in the Fifties. C’mon—don’t try to tell me Old Fish Breath fit in with the typical Fifties roster of radiated insects and bulbous aliens. Still, Universal-International’s three Creature From the Black Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)—are staunchly Fifties films. They have the requi site broad-shouldered hero on a scientific expedition; the independently minded damsel; and the older “authority figure” who
CreatureFeature
poignantHowtheGill-Manswamintoourhearts
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Quick! Which of the following Fifties movie monsters is different from the rest? Is it the giant spider in Metaluna mutant in veiny varmints in Invasion of the Saucer Men… or the Gill-Man in the Black Lagoon? You guessed correctly. The Creature emerged from his lagoon ten or 20 years too late. He could have been a contemporary of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, et al. He was the right height, the right character design. There could have been a movie titled the Creature. (Plot: Larry Talbot lands in Florida in search of a cure for lycanthropy; he belly-flops into a lagoon during a full moon; and comes face-to-face with you-know-what.)
VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES
The Creature movies are a little bit King Kong, a little bit The Mummy, and a harbinger of Jaws. Like Kong, Creature is about a group of scientists from (so-called) civilization who hear tell of a still-living fabled being, and mount an expedition into a far-flung locale to find it, and—as Robert Plant sang—bring it on home. Of course, everyone concerned would have been a lot happier, and the body count lower, if only these learned men had left well enough alone. In his resentment of the surface-men’s intrusion,
The Creature might have stayed back there in the Fifties with the Edsel and the Del-Vikings if not for the so-called “Monster Craze” that built steam at the turn of the decade. When marke teers commenced cranking out monster-themed merchandise to satisfy a sudden demand, they didn’t exclude the Creature merely because he came along later than the other classic monsters. So, by way of this pervasive trend, the Creature finally ascended to his rightful post alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, and the rest of the gnarly gang. The Creature was, and remains, iconic and popular. Guillermo del Toro’s homage The Shape of Water (2017) won the Best Picture Oscar, fer cryin’ out loud. But, despite some promising false starts, there has never been a proper remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon. We have only the trio of Fifties films, plus that muthaload of merch, with which to ponder the question: Who, what, and why is the Creature?
V OGER ’ S VAULT OF VI n TAGE VARIETIES
Artist Milicent Patrick worked on the design of the Creature costume. Patrick was also a model and actress. © Universal Pictures. Julie Adams seems less than thrilled to meet the Gill-Man in Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.
CREATInG THE CREATURE
RETROFAN November 202216 is on hand to explain, in concise pseudo-scientific terms, how the monster came into existence. (To be honest, all those Fifties horror/sci-fi hybrids can be formulaic to the point of tedium. The Creature’s edge? The super cool monster design, of course!)
The professor is like a kid on Christmas with his latest discovery: the fossilized bones of a clawequipped limb found in a limestone deposit “dating back to the Devonian Age.” (Savvy monster fans recognize it as belonging to a relative of the Creature.)
An expedition is organized to find a rumored living example of this genetic anomaly. For the professor, it’s in the interest of science. But for boss man Mark Williams (Richard Denning)—a slippery character whose flirting with Kay is uninvited—it’s in the interest of commerce. Aregrettable trope of old monster movies set in far-away regions dictates that innocent natives are the first to be slaughtered. In the case of Creature, victims #1 and 2 are Luis (Rodd Redwing) and Tomas (Perry Lopez). We get glimpses of the Creature, and are introduced to his earworm musical theme—three notes on shrill trumpets courtesy of composer Herman Stein. Once you hear it, you cannot un-hear it.
V OGER ’ S VAULT OF VI n TAGE VARIETIES RETROFAN November 202218
Pipe-smoking scientist Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell, who had a face made for sci-fi) reckons the bones belonged to “an amphibian that spent a great deal of time in the water.” Hmmm.
When Kay is gently brushed by the Creature, it reminds us of the opening scene in Jaws —the ill-fated young lady’s midnight swim. Steven Spielberg was paying attention. Theexpedition party finally spots the Creature, and just as in Kong, we root for him over the unfeeling, well-armed men who insinuate themselves into his unspoiled habitat. Damn you, human interlopers!
When the Creature finally meets his end, his death is, as any self-respecting monster fan knows, imperma-
Ginger Stanley, who regularly appeared as a mermaid at the Weeki Wachee Springs aquatic attrac tion in Hernando County, Florida, doubled for Adams in the swimming sequence (although Adams swims beautifully in those scenes where her face is visible).
A menacing poster for Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.
As the expedition sails along, Kay takes an illadvised little swim in a clingy white one-piece. (White is apparently her color.) The Creature—who is part man, after all—takes notice of this lovely female. The celebrated sequence in which Kay swims along the surface while the curious Creature does a back-stroke beneath her is a hallmark of romance in classic horror, right up there with Mary Philbin unmasking Lon Chaney, and Fay Wray wriggling in King Kong’s fist.
Biologia Martima The old professor (Antonio Moreno) is professoring. Researcher Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams) is attending to her duties in an enchanting ensemble with crisp white short-shorts (which provide zero protection against Amazonian insects). Kay trades tepid romantic banter with handsome scientist David Reed (Richard Carlson). Only a Velveeta-on-Wonder-Bread sandwich could make this scene any more Fifties.
But Morrow sabotages his own mission by toting along his hotsy-totsy wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden), who fires a rifle at sharks from the deck, to the consternation of the crew. All the while, Marcia emasculates her hubby by flirting openly with any and all susceptible males.
(TOP) Aurora Plastics’ Creature model kit (1963). © Aurora Plastics Corp. (BOTTOM) Marx’s toy Creature figure (1963). © Marx Toy Co. Creature © Universal Pictures. A cutesie Creature design marketed as an iron-on by Captain Company. © Universal Pictures. © Warren Publishing.
The Creature as cover boy: Mad Monsters #4. © Charlton Publications. The May 1954 issue of Mechanix Illustrated. © Fawcett Publications. Monster World #4. © Warren Publishing. is overseen by two pros, Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson) and Clete Ferguson (John Agar, on a downward career trajectory that will lead inexorably to The Mole People). A high-strung publicist (Dave Willock) makes like the mayor in Jaws, brushing aside any threat the Creature may pose. “I’ve got every man, woman, and child in the civilized world waiting to meet the Gill-Man,” he bellows. “The hotels are booked for 50 miles around!”Yetanother Kong reference: The Creature is freaked out by flashbulbs. Tourists pose by a life-size cardboard cutout of the monster. Chained, he swims—more like flails —behind glass as ticket-buyers gawk. This is no life for so majestic a being. When the Creature finally cuts loose and rampages through Marineland, as screaming tourists stampede for the exits, it’s comical and not a little bit meta.
(LEFT) A faithfully sculpted Creature mask and hands marketed by Don Post Studios. © Don Post Studios. (RIGHT) Halloween costume purveyor Ben Cooper was behind this Creature mask. © Ben Cooper. Creature © Universal Pictures.
The anticlimactic third film, directed by John Sherwood, has as much “adult” drama as monstrous goings-on. Wealthy scientist William Barton (Jeff Morrow) funds yet another Creature-finding expedition, in a ship equipped with a tuxedo-clad steward and a piano. Morrow seems bent on speeding up the evolutionary process that spawned his prey. “Gentlemen, the Creature can be changed,” he tells his crew in transparent exposition. “We can make the giant step and bring a new species into existence.”
RETROFAN November 202220 V OGER ’ S VAULT OF VI n TAGE VARIETIES
‘THE CREATURE WALKS AMOnG US’
Patricia and Harry Kislevitz, creators of Colorforms. People of Play. A peek inside the original Colorforms kit, now reissued and available at Amazon and other retailers. © Colorforms Brand LLC.
BATHROOM ART Harry (1927–2009) and Patricia (1929– ) “Pat” Kislevitz were young illustrators who met in New York
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Mid-century kids’ toy boxes were as gender-segregated as their school restrooms: G.I. Joe, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, and Hot Wheels for him; Barbie, Mystery Date, and Easy Bake Oven for her. Few toy manufacturers of the era dared cross the pink-and-blue line to create a product that would attract both sexes. One of the most successful that did debuted in the early Fifties and has, well, stuck around ever since, with over a billion (no, that’s not a typo) sets sold—Colorforms®.WhileColorforms will need no definition for the majority of RetroFan’s readers, just in case you somehow missed out on one of Time magazine’s “All Time 100 Greatest Toys,” Colorforms are boxed playsets of multicolored precut vinyl pieces that stick to an illustrated playboard (or “workboard,” in Colorforms-speak), inviting children to create their own pictures—which can then be peeled off and used again and again. An art project in a box. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the Colorforms concept was conceived by a pair of art students.
We’ll Always Be Stuck on City in the late Forties. At the time Harry was a World War II Navy veteran living on a G.I. Bill shoestring budget, and Patricia, a South Carolina native, had recently gradu ated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in art. While studying at New York City’s Art Students League, they were both smitten by the Mid-Century Modern aesthetic that so influenced postwar design, and decorated their tiny Upper West Side apartment accordingly. Harry took a fancy to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian abstract-expressionist known for using colorful geometric patterns in his paintings. A portraitist, Harry found the cost of tubes of oil paints beyond his reach. Plastics were all the rage during this Atomic Age, and Harry thought they might be employed to fill in colors for his large works of art. An alternate version of the Colorforms origin states that the Kislevitzes were instead searching for an affordable option to wall paint so they might spruce up the drab confines of their narrow, “railroad” apartment.Bothversions intersect with Harry obtaining several large rolls of brightly hued, paper-thin vinyl from a manufacturer to use as an artistic medium. Soon the Kislevitzes’ claustrophobic residence on West 29th Street was crammed with intrusive rolls of vinyl. BY MICHAEL EURY
RETRO TOYS RETROFAN November 2022
RETROFAN November 202226 (TOP) It yam what it yam, and it yam Colorforms’ first licensed “Cartoon Kit,” Popeye, from 1957. (BOTTOM) Popeye Goes Swimming, released in 1963, combined traditional vinyl colorform pieces with figural photography. Note that designer Dick Martin’s credit appears on the box. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage. TV show. Superman TM & © DC Comics. From the collection of Michael Eury. RETRO TOYS “We had this plastic and we didn’t know exactly what to do with it,” Patricia told John C. Ensslin of NewJersey.com. “It sat there. But we found that if we cut a piece and stuck it on anything, a mirror, a glass, a shiny plate, any shiny surface, it would adhere to that.” They also discovered that those plastic pieces could be removed and reapplied in a different spot. So the Kislevitzes snipped geometric and artistic shapes and whipped up an art exhibit in the most unusual of places—their apartment’s bathroom. Patricia painted the bathroom in orange enamel, and the couple decorated the room by adhering hand-cut plastic forms to its walls. For fun they left behind a pair of scissors and additional vivid strips of vinyl so that visitors could join in on theirHarrywork-in-progress.andPatriciaquickly discovered that their cheapo “canvas” was a crowd-pleaser. When entertaining artsy guests, “Our friends would go in and do the most marvelous Matisse
WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON
HE’S A SECRET AGE nT, MAn Television series were done differently in Great Britain than in the U.S. The seasons were shorter. Shows often followed an arc that led to a natural conclusion, and no matter how high the ratings were, (ABOVE) Screen capture from the opening, series logo, and character montage from the cerebral, and some say confounding, one-season series, The Prisoner ITC Entertainment Inc.
. ©
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Those viewers who missed it the first time had a rare opportunity to become enamored with or outraged by it. Being an impres sionable teenager at the time, I was as mesmerized as anyone.
In the half-century-plus since The Prisoner first aired, innumer able articles and multiple books have been written on the subject.
Who Created ?BY WILL MURRAY In the summer of 1968, an amazing British television show was broadcast over American TV: The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. It was an electrifying show, and despite its surreal and unsatisfactory—some say infuriating—conclusion, by popular demand, acclaim or whatever, CBS reran it the following summer.
The meaning of the show and the enigma of its denouement have been endlessly argued about, dissected, and rehashed. Since that cottage industry is still going strong, there’s no reason this column can’t delve into the interminable controversy all over again.
RETROFAN November 202236 that was that. No more episodes were filmed. Typically, a British series ran 13 episodes. In this case, 17 episodes of The Prisoner were produced. CBS declined to show one of them because the network thought it would be too confusing to American viewers. But a few years later, PBS reran the series and finally the U.S. audience got to see the forbidden episode, entitled “Living in Harmony.”
Sir Lew Grade brought back Danger Man as an hourlong show. McGoohan resumed the role, increasingly making it his own. In the second series, the concept was reformulated. Drake now worked for M9, a British Intelligence ministry. The show was syndicated worldwide, making the actor a rising international star. In America, the show was renamed Secret Agent, and Johnny Rivers’ theme song became a huge hit. One line—“They’ve given you a number and taken away your name”— would later prove ironic. Danger Man was rolling along when it went into its fourth season, the first to be a shot in color. Then its star threw a monkey wrench into the production. Even though Patrick McGoohan had made the character his own, investing John Drake with some of his own personality quirks—including his refusal to carry a gun or kiss a girl on-screen, which the actor saw as a response to the excesses of James Bond and his imitators—the actor had had enough of the role. McGoohan was the hottest star in Great Britain at the time. Sir Lew Grade didn’t want to lose him. So he did something unusual. He gave the actor carte blanche to produce his own TV series, making McGoohan executive producer. ‘THE VILLAGE’ PEOPLE
© ITC Entertainment Inc.
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(TOP) Was TV’s John Drake actually Number Six? What do you think? Patrick McGoohan photo cover for Gold Key Comics’ Secret Agent #1 (Nov. 1966). (BOTTOM) Patrick McGoohan as Number Six at the groupthink getaway (or is that “Go Away”?), The Village.
As so often happens, both McGoohan and his script editor, George Markstein, later disagreed about the genesis of the series. For years, the actor had been thinking of a project focusing on the individual versus bureaucracy. No doubt that’s true. He was a guy who nearly became a Jesuit priest before embarking upon his acting career.Markstein was rumored to have had a back ground in Intelligence, which he steadfastly denied. Indisputably, he knew a lot about the subject. He became aware of the existence of a secret spot in Scotland called Inverlair Lodge, a luxury prison where the British government forcibly retired Intelligence opera tors who knew too much to be allowed to remain at liberty. Markstein believed that in the Cold War climate of the Sixties, here was a great springboard for a TV series. McGoohan agreed. The Danger Man pilot had been filmed in a Welsh hotel village called Portmeirion Lodge, which often doubled
Patrick McGoohan was a rising star in British TV in 1960 when he was cast as John Drake in the ITC series, Danger Man. In its original two-season incarnation, Drake was an agent of NATO working out of Washington, D.C. After having run its course, Danger Man left the air. Then the James Bond craze kicked in. McGoohan had been offered the part of Bond, but turned it down. Likewise he declined the role of Simon Templar in the British-produced Saint TV series [see RetroFan #14], which went to Roger Moore, later Sean Connery’s successor as AgentProducer007.
SubmarineOdysseyTheofYellow
The Beatles cartoon was so successful, it ran from September 25, 1965 to September 7, 1969, on Saturday mornings on ABC-TV. Its second season bore traces of the increasingly countercultural flavor of the Beatles, with some of its later episodes foreshadowing Yellow Submarine’s otherworldly vibe, but more scary than trippy.
SCOTT SHAW! THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW! Pushing the Panic Button:
Paul McCartney says he had the inspiration for the 1966 song “Yellow Submarine” while in a “dream-like state” BY
AnD THE BAnD BEGAn TO PLAY Producer Al Brodax—described by one of the film’s voiceover actors as having “…the Hawaiian shirt on and the big fat cigar… a caricature (of an) American”—was the head of King Features’ motion picture/television department. He had previously produced syndicated cartoon shorts starring Beetle Bailey, Popeye the Sailor [see RetroFan #12], and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, all animated adaptations of King Features comic strips. On February 10, 1964, the day after the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, Brodax approached Beatles manager Brian Epstein—who Brodax once referred to as “a very difficult person,” and others described as “the unsung hero of Yellow Submarine ”—for the animation rights to the Beatles. The deal was by no means a bargain —$32,000 to produce each half-hour show, with a big chunk of that going back to Brian—but the American producer was an expert at squeezing blood out of a stonehard deal, so he took production overseas to a studio called TV Cartoons of London, among others. “Eppy” promised Brodax that if his proposed The Beatles cartoon series for ABC proved successful, he’d give Brodax the approval to produce an animated Beatles feature film afterwards.
(RIGHT) Late-Sixties filmgoers took a trip to the movies to see the animated Beatles film, Yellow Submarine. © Subafilms Ltd. Six-sheet movie poster courtesy of Heritage. My first viewing of Yellow Submarine was on November 13, 1968, its American release date. Nothing could have prepared me for what I viewed that night, so blazingly unique that I returned to watch it again a few nights later. And again. And a few more hundred times. And after all of those viewings and all of the years since, I still find new aspects of Yellow Submarine to appreciate and love every time I view it, usually on Blu-ray these days. But little did I realize that this mind-blowing animated movie had an even more mind-blowing production history, one fraught with so many obstacles that it’s a showbiz miracle that the film ever got made at all, let alone made magnificently. Here are some little-known facts regarding Yellow Submarine’s “secret origin” and how we got here from back there.
RETROFAN November 2022 45
AnD OUR FRIE nDS ARE ALL ABOARD
The British animation studio that made many of the Beatles television episodes (there were seven such studios in all) was George Dunning’s aforementioned TV Cartoons of London (TVC). That’s why he and his studio were chosen to direct, develop, and produce Yellow Submarine. Dunning was determined to make a film that would be a work of art as well as entertainment. Unfortunately, he agreed to restrictions of time and money that no other successful animated feature film has ever contended with. Dunning became sick so often that he wound up with the nickname “Uncle Plasma.” It was so exhaustively draining that the experience may have even led to the early death of Mr. Dunning 11 years later, at age 59. Due to the agreed-upon budget—$1,000,000, minus $200,000 for the Beatles—and schedule—12 months and counting—Yellow Submarine remains a shining triumph of art direction, and emphasis of graphic design over traditional animation (not that the animation in this 86-minute epic is all that routine). It had to be as creatively imaginative yet as frugal and cleverly practical as possible. The crew rose to the challenge and succeeded brilliantly. But first, they needed someone to lead the way.
Kids of the mid-Sixties could tune in to The Beatles each Saturday morning. © Apple Corps.
(LEFT) Yellow Submarine director George Dunning. (CENTER) Animation producer Al Brodax. (RIGHT) The artist responsible for Yellow Submarine’s psychedelic look, visionary Heinz Edelmann.
Although Al Brodax insists that a script for Yellow Submarine existed since the deal was struck, the surviving directors dispute that as “a crock of sh*t.” By all descriptions, there was a chaotic amount of wasted creative thrashing about for the first month or so of “development” due to a lack of any script. Everything was at question regarding the film’s story, visual style, and character designs.What they did have was a list of approved Beatles songs to be included in Yellow Submarine. When director George Dunning opened a brown package by the then-auditioning Czechoslovakian-born designer-illustrator Heinz Edelmann from Germany—who had first been recommended to King Features by Charlie Jenkins—his visualizations of John, Paul, George, and Ringo were immediately exactly what they were looking for, although Al Brodax wanted to use the same character models as his TV series… until focus group testing went wild for Edelmann’s appealingly contemporary designs. Edelmann deconstructed his Beatles
T HE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW !
The Beatles’ first two movies were A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965). Both films were made for United Artists in a three-picture deal. Yellow Submarine was reportedly created to fulfill the contract, although the Beatles only appear for a few minutes. Magical Mystery Tour (1967) originally aired on television and Let It Be (1970) was not part of UA’s original deal.
RETROFAN November 202246 just before he fell asleep. From its inception, he intended it to be a song for Ringo Starr to perform. John Lennon added his contribution, as did George Harrison, Ringo, and even non-Beatle Donovan. This sing-along kids’ favorite appeared on the Beatles’ LP Revolver and as a 45 single with “Eleanor Rigby,” a song also in the theatrical Yellow Submarine. Even today, Ringo refers to it as his “official theme song.”
Rival newspaper content providers King Features Syndicate saw the success of Buck Rogers and commissioned a new science-fiction hero in late 1933 from writer-artist Alex Raymond (working with ghost-writer Don Moore). Flash Gordon first appeared in daily U.S. newspapers on January 7, 1934, and the fantastical adventure strip almost immediately became a huge hit, branching out to Sundays, and then expanding to multimedia.Thebase story for Flash Gordon followed the adventures of a handsome blond polo player named “Flash,” who was kidnapped along with the comely Dale Arden by Dr. Hans Zarkov and taken off-planet in Zarkov’s experi mental rocketship. The initial intent was to stop a mysterious planet from colliding with Earth, but the trio soon discovered that the planet Mongo held more danger than a “mere” collision. Mongo and its many lands were ruled by the evil Ming the Merciless, but on the surface of the planet were realms like the forest world of Arboria, the flying city of the Hawkmen, icy Frigia, the jungle-like Tropica, and even undersea kingdoms! Flash had to gain allies—many of whom were at war with
RETROFAN November 2022 55
ORIGInS OF FLASH GORDOn Buck Rogers, created by Philip Francis Nowlan and drawn by Dick Calkins for National Newspaper Service, became the most popular science-fiction adventure hero in newspaper comic strips following his January 1929 debut.
Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, and prepare to leave the safety of Earth to join the savior of the universe as he and his allies combat evil on the planet Mongo, and battle to keep our own planet safe! Or, in the words of the hero himself, from the opening of the 1979 animated series… “Blasting off on a desperate mission to save Earth from the evil plottings of the tyrannical space lord Ming the Merciless, Dr. Hans Zarkov and Dale Arden have joined me, Flash Gordon, on a fantastic journey into worlds where peril and adventure await us!” Taking a trip to both the past and the future, adventure awaits Flash Gordon.
BY A n DY MA n GELS (ABOVE) Flash Gordon comic strip detail by Alex Raymond (Aug. 14, 1938). (LEFT) Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe movie serial poster (1940). © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.
ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING
Rounding out our look at historical heroes on Saturday mornings— following explorations of Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, and Zorro in previous issues of RetroFan —in this issue, Flash Gordon gets the spotlight as we explore his unique animated superstardom!
The next time Flash Gordon appeared in animation, it was far more substantially than the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie offered. But it was not without several false starts…
FILMATIOn’S LOnG TRIP TO MOnGO
Founded in the early Sixties by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, with ex-disc jockey Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates had enormous television success by licensing properties from other media such as film, television, and comics. Their The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure; Journey to the Center of the Earth; The Archie Show; Fantastic Voyage; and The Batman/Superman Hour were warm-ups for series like The Hardy Boys; The Brady Kids; Lassie’s Rescue Rangers; Star Trek: The Animated Series; My Favorite Martians; The New Adventures of Gilligan; Shazam!; Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, and more. Filmation was one of the top content providers for Saturday morning animation. While they practically owned the weekend schedule for CBS, they produced fewer shows for ABC and NBC, at the time, the only other two networks in town. Company head Lou Scheimer had grown up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Thirties, and read newspaper comics he found in recycling piles. Scheimer loved the adventure strips, especially Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant. Four decades later, he made a deal with King Features for the rights to Flash Gordon, both for television and for film. In spring 1977, Filmation announced a deal with NBC to bring Flash Gordon to animated life as a feature-length television movie for fall 1978. In 2012 interviews with me for the TwoMorrows
FLASH’S FIRST AnIMATIOn Flash Gordon made his first animated appearance in a 1972 ABC Saturday Superstar Movie called The Man Who Hated Laughter. He appeared there alongside almost every major King Features comic-strip character, including cast members from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Bringing Up Father, Henry, Hi and Lois, The Katzenjammer Kids, Little Iodine, The Little King, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, Popeye, Prince Valiant, Quincy, Steve Canyon, Tiger, and Tim Tyler’s Luck! Lou Silverstone’s plot for the 60-minute special found Professor Morbid Grimsby planning to eliminate laughter by getting rid of all the Sunday newspaper comedy characters. He lured them all onto his yacht, the SS Hilarious, dispatched Popeye’s stash of spinach, and took them captive. The President of the United States, a comic reader, then sent all of the Sunday comic-strip adventure heroes out to the rescue. Hijinks ensued. Bob McFadden voiced animation’s first Flash Gordon (as well as almost everyone else), while Corrine Orr gave voice to Dale Arden in her animated debut. Animation was listed as “produced by King
RETROFAN November 202256 each other—to help overthrow Ming and save the galaxy! Flash Gordon started to branch out beyond newspapers, first in Whitman Publishing’s Big Little Books series beginning in 1934. A weekly radio serial called The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon began on April 22, 1935, and the following year, Flash hit the real big time. That was the year that Buster Crabbe starred in the first of three movie serials for Universal Pictures, bringing viewers to theaters every weekend for installments of Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). Comic books for the hero also began in 1935, and appeared occasionally from that date to the modern day. Universal Studios controlled the production rights to Flash Gordon in Holly wood for a decade, but allowed them to lapse in 1954. Former Universal executives Edward Gruskin and Matty Fox quickly made a licensing deal with King Features to produce a Flash Gordon series for a new audience: television! The 39-episode series that followed featured Steve Holland in the title role, but changed the plot. Now, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov were agents of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, and they travelled through time from 3203 to help keep Earth safe. The series was filmed largely in Marseille, France, and West Berlin, Germany. It was later syndicated in the United States, mostly on independent television stations. By the Sixties, sci-fi heroes and movies had proliferated, and the Flash Gordon serials (or feature-length compilations from them) and the television series had saturated the airwaves to the extent that adventures on Mongo didn’t have as much gravitational pull for audiences. The Seventies were largely a dormant time for Flash Gordon, but his future would eventually be bright.
(TOP LEFT) Actor and Doc Savage paperback book-cover model Steve Holland starred in 39 episodes of the syndicated Flash Gordon television program (1954–1955). (TOP RIGHT) Lothar, Mandrake the Magician, and Flash Gordon and (LEFT) Dale Arden and Flash in screen grabs from the 1972 The Man Who Hated Laughter. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Features Syndicate,” but the project was truly overseen by Abe Goodman, who had also worked on the 1968 Beatles animated film, Yellow Submarine, along with Hal Seeger. The Man Who Hated Laughter aired on October 7, 1972 on ABC, and was repeated in some markets on February 9, 1974, and in other markets on May 25, 1974.
A n DY MA n GELS ’ RETRO SATURDAY MOR n I n G
To solve the budget problem, Scheimer’s business partner, Norm Prescott, had a unique solution. In August 1977, Prescott presold Flash Gordon’s animated foreign television and theatrical release rights to film producer Dino de Laurentiis for $1,500,000! As Scheimer says, the deal was “essentially a pay-off fee, as de Laurentiis wanted to do his own $12 million live-action Flash Gordon film, but, because we owned those rights, he had to make a deal with us, even if he wasn’t going to do anything with the animated version.”InaJanuary
The inclusion of Adolf Hitler, historical monster, was fine for the Flash Gordon animated movie, but was a no-go for the regular Saturday morning series. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.
The one thing that was a bit difficult was that the film was meant for primetime and an adult audience, whereas the series was for kids. “The telefilm was a far more adult affair than we could do on Saturday morning,” said Scheimer.
1981 Starlog magazine interview, Norm Prescott said that de Laurentiis “originally used some of our production mate rials—our script and a lot of art—as a kick-off point.” In addition to the Flash Gordon deal, Filmation got de Laurentiis to pony up a $4 million budget to produce Filmation’s first full-length live-action theatrical film. The film was to be called Seven Warriors–Seven Worlds, and it was to be scripted by respected science-fiction author Harlan Ellison. And now, with de Laurentiis investing, the animated Flash Gordon had a much more respectable $2.5 million budget. 1978 came and went without Flash Gordon. In early 1979, when ABC planned to have Filmation produce a live-action series called The Dracula Hour —and with Star Wars mania surging across the world, and de Laurentiis working on his big-budget Flash Gordon — NBC decided they had to lock Filmation down. “NBC made an early pre-buy of Flash Gordon for Saturday mornings, even though we had yet to finish the feature-length movie for them,” said Scheimer. “Mike Brockman, who was then the vice president of daytime programming, offered us 24 episodes of the series for a two-year run.” At the time, when networks were buying 13–16 episodes for a first season, and three to eight for a second year, the fact that NBC pre-bought 24 episodes was “precedent-shattering,” as Norm Prescott told reporters. Work had already begun on the feature film, but now the series was set to spin off from it. NBC set September 7th as the film’s debut date, with the Saturday morning series’ debut to follow.
A n DY MA n GELS ’ RETRO SATURDAY MOR n I n G
© King Features Syndicate, Inc. (INSET) Dino de Laurentiis, producer of the Flash Gordon film.
RETROFAN November 2022 57 book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, Scheimer recalled, “Originally, Flash Gordon had been written as a live telefilm by Sam Peeples, who wrote the Star Trek pilots (live and animated). But, when we told NBC the budget for live would be $10 million, they balked and asked us to do it animated. We managed to get a commitment out of them for $1 million, but even that was too low. The film was going to have 22 voices and be done with full animation, and King Features wanted a hefty percentage of the fee.”
In the story, Flash Gordon was a former Olympic athlete who was acting as an American agent in Warsaw in 1939, at the start of World War II. When he discovered that Adolf Hitler and Ming of Mongo were planning to conquer not only Earth but the universe itself, Flash headed for Mongo in a spaceship with Dr. Hans Zarkov and journalist Dale Arden to stop Ming. There, they were forced to join forces with King Vultan, the rotund ruler of the winged Hawkmen; King Thun, the leonine leader of the Lion People; and Prince Barin, the Errol Flynn–esque leader of the tree folk of Arboria. Meanwhile, Ming developed an unhealthy interest in Dale Arden, and Ming’s daughter, Princess Aura, similarly took note Turnaround model sheets for Flash (LEFT) and Dale (RIGHT).
50 Years After Its Debut
These kids Zoomed before you were forced to during the pandemic lockdown! WGBH. (INSET) Zoom’s mailbox was filled with colorful letters from viewers. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. (OPPOSITE PAGE) The Zoom cast: the kids next door. Courtesy of WGBH.
In casting Zoom —the Seventies television show for children whose theme song urged its audience to “come on, give it a try”—the executive producer picked everyday kids over experienced actors. “We didn’t want talented kids,” said Christopher Sarson, the British-born executive who created Zoom. “We wanted kids who were willing to try things and who had a spark of ingenuity about them. That’s what I was after. I was very keen that our kids not be professional. I wanted them to be the kid next door.”
Sarson, who previously oversaw Masterpiece Theatre for WGBH, thought up Zoom after watching how his own young son and daughter interacted with other children. “They’re very amenable to new ideas at that age,” said Sarson, who served as executive producer of Zoom for its first three seasons. “They’re very BY L. WAY n E HICKS
RETRO KID-VID
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For six seasons beginning in January 1972, Zoom entertained rather than educated. While the program shared the same public broadcasting airwaves as Sesame Street and The Electric Company, Zoom eschewed focus groups and surveys and presented to its viewers what they themselves had submitted. The jokes, plays, and activities all came from viewers around the country who were invited (via a catchy song) to send their ideas to “Box 350, Boston, Mass., Oh-2134.” The letters poured in, at first by the hundreds and then by the thousands. “We were just doing like what kids would do when they’re together and play-acting—putting on a skit for their parents or their neighborhood or something,” said Bernadette Yao, who joined Zoom in its second season. “That’s what it kind of felt like.”
Broadcast from WGBH-TV in Boston, Zoom relied on a rotating cast usually made up of seven preteen children who remained for a season. The exception was the fourth season, which featured ten in the multiethnic cast. “We were just a bunch of kids who happened to create something that was incredibly magical at a time in America when it was really needed,” said Dr. Joseph Shrand, today a psychiatrist who was part of the initial cast. “There was a lot of strife and anger and racial discontent and other things like that going on in the early Seventies, and then there was Zoom.”
WHO ARE THE SHADOW CHASERS?
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RETROFAN November 2022 69 BY JEFFREY S. MILLER
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Pop quiz: Can you name the television series that featured a skeptic who questioned the supernatural teaming up with a believer of all things paranormal to investigate mysterious incidents at the behest of a cranky superior? If you answered The X-Files, you’re not wrong, but the description also applies to a littleknown series from the mid-Eighties that aired on the ABC network. The show was called Shadow Chasers, and its combination of horror and comedy was something new for the time. Shadow Chasers premiered on November 14, 1985, with only nine episodes airing on Thursday evenings, the last on January 16, 1986. Bootleg collections of the series do exist and are secretly sold and traded among fans. Almost all of the episodes in varying quality can be found on YouTube, while the two-hour pilot occasionally shows up as a standalone movie on cable networks (including the Mystery Channel and the SyFy Channel).
The Forgotten Eighties Supernatural Show
IF YOU Black Lagoon: BEN CHAPMAN, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHN SON Also: YELLOW SUBMARINE DON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s COLORFORMS Edited by MICHAEL EURY. (84-page FULL-COLOR
The whimsical series starred Trevor Eve as uptight anthropology professor Jonathan MacKensie, who lives in the shadow of his famous scientist father. His boss, Dr. Juliana Moorhouse (played by film veteran Nina Foch), blackmails Jonathan into heading up her newly formed Georgetown Institute Paranormal Research Unit by holding up his research grant unless he complies. Jonathan is a true skeptic and doesn’t believe in anything that is supernatural or paranormal. His first assignment is to investigate a haunted house where weird occurrences center on a teenage boy. On the case he meets author and tabloid reporter Edgar “Benny” Benedek (Dennis Dugan), an irreverent, Before television’s Mulder and Scully, investigative journalist Edgar “Benny” Benedek (Dennis Dugan) and Professor Jonathan MacKensie (Trevor Eve) explored the unexplained—and found laughs along the way—in the short-lived television series Shadow Chasers. ABC publicity photo. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television.
