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KIRBY COLLECTOR #88
ALTER EGO #183
ALTER EGO #184
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Golden/Silver/Bronze Age artist IRV NOVICK (Shield, Steel Sterling, Batman, The Flash, and DC war stories) is immortalized by JOHN COATES and DEWEY CASSELL. Interviews with Irv and family members, tributes by DENNY O’NEIL, MARK EVANIER, and PAUL LEVITZ, Irv’s involvement with painter ROY LICHTENSTEIN (who used Novick’s work in his paintings), Mr. Monster, FCA, and more!
Known as one of the finest inkers in comics history, the late TOM PALMER was also an accomplished penciler and painter, as you’ll see in an-depth interview with Palmer by ALEX GRAND and JIM THOMPSON. Learn his approach to, and thoughts on, working with NEAL ADAMS, GENE COLAN, JOHN BUSCEMA, and others who helped define the Marvel Universe. Plus Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!
Presenting MARK CARLSON-GHOST’s stupendous study of the 1940s NOVELTY COMICS GROUP—with heroes like Blue Bolt, Target and the Targeteers, White Streak, Spacehawk, etc., produced by such Golden Age super-stars as JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BASIL WOLVERTON, et al. Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!
Celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary in LEGO! Disney Castles with MARTIN HARRIS and DISNEYBRICK, magical builds by JOHN RUDY and editor JOE MENO, instructions to build characters, plus: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!
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THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!
BACK ISSUE #146
BACK ISSUE #147
BACK ISSUE #148
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #31 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #32
MEN WITHOUT FEAR, featuring Daredevil’s swinging ’70s adventures! Plus: Challengers of the Unknown in the Bronze Age, JEPH LOEB interview about his Challs and DD projects with TIM SALE, Sinestro and Mr. Fear histories, superheroes with disabilities, and... Who Is Hal Jordan? Featuring CONWAY, ENGLEHART, McKENZIE, ROZAKIS, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, & more! GENE COLAN cover!
Great Hera, it’s the 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more! With a stunning Wonder Woman cover by Pérez!
DC SUPER-STARS OF SPACE! Adam Strange in the Bronze Age (with RICHARD BRUNING & ANDY KUBERT), From Beyond the Unknown, the Fabulous World of Krypton, Vartox, a Mongul history, the Omega Men, and more! Featuring CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, DAN JURGENS, CURT SWAN, PETER J. TOMASI, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON!
Career-spanning interview with Bane’s co-creator GRAHAM NOLAN! Plus, STAN LEE’s Carnegie Hall debacle of 1972, the Golden Age Quality Comics’ work of FRANK BORTH (Phantom Lady, Spider Widow), and GREG BIGA talks with ex-DC Comics co-publisher DAN DIDIO on his current career as writer/creator on the FRANK MILLER PRESENTS comics line, as well as that new comics line’s publisher!
WILLIAM STOUT is interviewed about his illustration and comics work, as well as his association with DINOSAURS publisher BYRON PREISS, the visionary packager/ publisher who is also celebrated in this double-header issue. Included is the only comprehensive interview ever conducted with PREISS, plus a huge biographical essay. Also MIKE DEODATO on his early years and FRANK BORTH on Treasure Chest!
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12 51
The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With
Issue #28 September 2023
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43
Columns and Special Features
Departments
3
Retrotorial
Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties The British Invasion of the Sixties
27
17
Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The Mighty Hercules
37
37
17
Retro Interview Diamonds Are Forever’s Trina Parks
43
Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum The Life and Legend of the Frito Bandito
51
Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning World’s Greatest Super Friends
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Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Horror hostess Moona Lisa
2
12
Retro Music Beatles bootleg and knock-off LPs
27
Retro Television TV Guide Fall Previews
34
Too Much TV Quiz Allan Melvin TV roles
63
RetroFad Nehru jackets
73
Super Collector Popeye and Me
76
RetroFanmail
80
ReJECTED
73 RetroFan™ issue 28, September 2023 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid 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: $73 Economy US, $111 International, $29 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Wonder Twins TM & © DC Comics. The Mighty Hercules © Adventure Cartoons for Television, Inc./Classic Media. Trina Parks photograph courtesy of Trina Parks. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2023 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
BY MICHAEL EURY
Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Fred Grandinetti Michal Jacot Bob Koenig Andy Mangels Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Anthony Taylor Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Ernest Farino James M. Fetters Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions King Features Syndicate, Inc. Marvel Comics Randy Milholland Terence Stanford VERY SPECIAL THANKS Trina Parks
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I made Ringo bald. Well, not entirely bald. He looked more like a Beatle whose mop top was cropped. It was late 1964, maybe early 1965, and I was a second grader who—like everyone else with a television set or radio—couldn’t escape the Beatles. I owned a Ringo Starr figurine manufactured by Remco, from the line of four Beatles dolls with “real” hair. Whether this was a gift or something I bugged my parents for has been lost to time. What I do recall is snatching my mom’s pinking shears from her Singer sewing machine and giving the Beatles’ mop-topped drummer the crew cut my flat-topped dad and equally flat-topped uncles insisted those “longhairs” deserve.* Ringo’s shearing earned a lot of belly laughs from my family. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dad had also joked about it to Cecil the barber, another flat-topped guy. It didn’t take long before the Chipmunks Sing the Beatles LP, the Saturday morning Beatles cartoon show, and my Playtape cassette of songs from the Help! soundtrack cured me of my desire to cut long hair (including my own) and tuned me into the Beatlemania that dominated the music Clearly not ye ed’s butchered version, and zeitgeist of the Sixties. As it all came crashing to a halt, but instead a pristine Remco Ringo Starr the Beatles’ 1970 film Let It Be was the first movie my pardoll. Courtesy of Heritage. ents allowed me to see by myself at a theater. I was 12, and this was one of life’s many rites of passage. I grew up with the Beatles. Didn’t we all? you might say. Yeah (yeah, yeah), the Beatles have remained a part of our culture long after their breakup. This issue you’ll read about the Fab Four’s foray into global omnipresence, and how Beatlemania spawned Britmania and changed the world—including the record bins, which were glutted with knock-off records, and the fashion world, including the trendy Nehru jackets, which in part owed their popularity to the lads from Liverpool. You don’t have to be a Beatlemaniac to dig this ish, though. Our contents are as diverse as—well, the Beatles’ music library. In the pages that follow, you’ll meet Trina Parks, the dancer/actress who, as the agile Thumper, threw 007 for a loop. You’ll read about TV Guide’s beloved Fall Previews, the keepsake editions whose annual arrival was second only to the tome of toy dreams, the Sears’ Christmas Wishbook. You’ll learn about the Frito Bandito, an advertising icon that made numerous appearances despite criticisms of cultural insensitivity. You’ll discover the bewitching Moona Lisa, SoCal’s happenin’ horror hostess. Cartoon lovers will appreciate our looks at The Mighty Hercules and World’s Greatest Super Friends. And if you’ve ever noticed a similarity between The Brady Bunch’s Sam the Butcher and Archie Bunker’s Place’s Barney Hefner, then you’ll have a blast with our Too Much TV Quiz. So get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with! *My wife, Rose, is a fellow doll disfigurer! When she and her older sister Robin were children, the girls decided that their Barbie was too fat (!) and shaved some “flesh” off her thighs. Liposuction wasn’t an option, I guess.
& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep producing great publications like this one!
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VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES
The British
IT ’ S
! C I T S FA B T A
Invasion of the Sixties— and the guitars heard ’round the world
BY MARK VOGER Wait. Didn’t our U.S. history textbooks tell us that the British were the bad guys? Let’s see: There was the Stamp Act (“Taxation without representation is tyranny!”)… the “shot heard ’round the world” at Lexington and Concord… the Declaration of Independence. And yet, 200 years after King George did all of his “taxating without representating,” the Brits finally “conquered” us, this time using guitars instead of muskets.
Owing to the musical movement known as the “British Invasion,” we Yanks greeted the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds, et al., with open wallets. It all began early in the heady year 1964, when Americans were still reeling from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the previous November. On February 7, the “four lads from Liverpool”— John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr (as if you needed reminding)— stepped onto the tarmac at JFK Airport in New York City to the screams Paul, smoking? Naughty, naughty. From left: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon—collectively the Beatles—in an iconic publicity photo from 1963. © Apple Corps.
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of 3,000 fans, in advance of their American TV debut two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show. “It’s probably one of the many exciting moments I’ve had in my life,” Starr told me in 2001. “To come to America as a musician from England and get that reception was incredible. And that our records were sellin’ in America by then— because we had two that didn’t sell,” he added with a laugh. “It’s just still one of the incredible memories for me. I even felt New York while I was on the plane flyin’ into it. I felt it even from the plane—the engines.” A makeshift press conference was organized at the airport beneath prominent Pan Am signage. (Product placement out of the box—welcome to America.) But the reporters were antagonistic, with questions fixated on the Beatles’ hair: “Does all that hair help you sing?” “Are you afraid of what the American Barbers Association is going to think of you?” This didn’t throw the boys a whit. The Beatles merely grinned at their sarcastic questions, and volleyed back with better sarcasm.
INITIAL HOSTILITY
Few examples of this initial hostility are clearer than a passage from Newsweek’s February 24, 1964 cover story: “Visually, they are a nightmare; tight, dandified, Edwardian-Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically, they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony, and melody. Their lyrics… are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments.” There was more, lots more. From the cover of the March 21, 1964 Saturday Evening Post: “Exclusive: Original Beatle fiction by John, the married Beatle. If you think their music bugs you, read this.” (Can you think of another instance in which cover type actually warns potential purchasers that something inside is not worth reading?) Conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. found it necessary to weigh in: “The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful.” Still, magazine publishers found that putting John, Paul, George, and Ringo on their covers guaranteed a boost in circulation. And circulation was the golden calf to said publishers. This unprecedented situation put mainstream American magazines in an inconvenient position. They wanted to maintain their position of moral superiority. But more so, 4
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(LEFT) Newsweek derided the Beatles in its Feb. 24, 1964 edition. © Newsweek. they wanted to sell magazines. Thus the Beatles became both the darlings and the demons of the print-media machine. The Saturday Evening Post double-dipped with two covers five months apart. (The Post’s second Beatles cover had a come-on worthy of 16 Magazine: “THE BEATLES—8 Pages in Color.”) When the Beatles made their pilgrimage to India in search of enlightenment in 1967, Life deemed it cover-worthy. Beatle business was so good, low-rung publishers began cranking out one-shots with suggestive come-ons (“A date with George, John, Paul & Ringo”; “The girls they want”; “The love code they follow”; “The Beatles answer your most intimate questions”). Lock up your daughters. The entertainment establishment played ball, if reluctantly. After the Rolling Stones performed on Hollywood Palace, guest host Dean Martin literally rolled his eyes as he said, “Aren’t they great?” Ed Sullivan may not have been a pop fan, but he knew a good formula when he stumbled onto one. After scoring ratings gold with the Beatles—the group’s February 9, 1964 appearance attracted 73 million viewers—Sullivan brought on more British Invasion acts, one after another. And so the British Invasion was officially in full swing. Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits recalled playing Sullivan, The Danny Kaye Show, and a Martin-hosted Hollywood Palace. “It was a fad, remember,” Noone told me in 2005. “All of the old-timers, to this day, think it’s a fad. The music you hear today, people still say, ‘Oh, it’ll never last.’ So we were a fad. We were replaced by the Monkees, who were replaced by the Osmonds. “But I think they had a strange kind of respect for us, because we were more talented than they expected. Dean’s son was a fan of the band. Danny Kaye’s daughter was in the fan club. He showed up in a Herman’s Hermits T-shirt and
TV variety-show host Ed Sullivan presented the Beatles’ U.S. debut on Feb. 9, 1964. © CBS Television.
Voger’s vault of vintage varieties
(LEFT) The Beatles’ U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show was watched by 73 million viewers. © CBS Television. (RIGHT) Humor magazines often depicted the Beatles as baldies. Shown: Harvey Kurtzman’s Help! (Jan. 1964). © General Promotions Co.
shorts. We showed up in suits, and he was in a T-shirt. Ed Sullivan took me to church! He said, ‘It’s Sunday, church day. Meet me at Delmonico’s on Park Avenue.’ That’s where he lived. So we went to church.”
IT’S TO LAUGH
It was a symptom of the times: The editors of American humor magazines in the Sixties were usually older gents who viewed British pop bands as a flash in the pan. And yet, the Beatles were catnip to the guys at MAD, Cracked, Sick, etc. The magazines frequently riffed on two things about the band: their “long” hair and Starr’s big honker. (A recurring device had doctored photos depicting the Beatles with, gasp, bald heads.) But said magazines fulfilled their important function—not to mention, enhanced their circulation—by the sheer act of chronicling the fad. If nothing else, the eye-candy artwork by masters like Frank Frazetta, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Jack Rickard, John Severin, and Norman Mingo was well worth the cover price. Frazetta memorably created a portrait of Starr as the face of Blecch, MAD’s parody of Breck shampoo’s then-current advertising campaign. (“Make your hair Blecch! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”) Frazetta’s unblinking depiction neither flattered nor ridiculed its subject. MAD opted not to parody the Beatles’ film debut, A Hard Day’s Night, upon its release in 1964. Then again, who ever thought a Beatles movie would be a hit? The oversight was corrected in MAD #93 (Mar. 1965). The fivepager “The Flying Ace,” illustrated by Drucker, was a parody of World War II epics “starring” the Beatles (INSET) Ben Grimm rocks a Beatle wig in Jack Kirby art from the cover of Strange Tales #130 (Mar. 1965). © Marvel.
and “co-starring” Natalie Wood, with “cameos” by James Stewart, Barry Goldwater, and Sullivan. Drucker and Frazetta nailed the Beatles’ likenesses, but not every artist could be bothered—again, likely owing to the old guard’s expectation that the boys’ popularity would expire. The cover of the June 1964 issue of Sick featured a Davis illustration of a Beatle-esque quartet, but not recognizably “the” Beatles. In the same issue, Angelo Torres’ illustrations of the Beatles have the same problem: Except for Starr, the “Beatles” don’t look like the Beatles. (Given Davis’ and Torres’ well-earned reputations as caricaturists par excellence, this just seems wrong.) As for those bald jokes: The Beatles were hairless in Al Jaffee’s foldout for MAD #88 (“Premature loss of the Beatles’ hair ends this wild madness”) in 1964. The boys are likewise shorn inside the June 1964 Sick (“Unwanted hair painlessly removed”), and on the January 1965 Help! cover. It might have been funny, were it not so—yawn—predictable.
COMIC-BOOK HEROES
Liverpudlians. Rock ’n’ rollers. Comic-book heroes. It’s little wonder that the creators of comics used the Beatles as characters in their work. After all, these four living, breathing human beings were always perceived as “characters” anyway. A Hard Day’s Night is often akin to a live-action cartoon. Readers in the Sixties saw the Fab Four enter the four-color realm and rub elbows with comic-book characters—typically love-struck teenage girls and costumed heroes. One of the Beatles’ earliest appearances in the comics happened in Betty and Veronica #104 (Aug. 1964), in an essay titled “Here Come the Beatles.” An uncredited writer notes of the boys: “As a RETROFAN
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(TOP LEFT) Another freaky moment from one of the freakiest comic books of the Sixties: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. Wearing an orange Beatle wig, Jimmy frugs to the Beatles on TV in issue #79 (Sept. 1964), in art by George Papp. © DC Comics. (TOP RIGHT) Artist Joe Sinnott captured the look of the Beatles in an “official” Dell Giant. © Apple Corps. (LEFT) Dorrie and Alicia — the girlfriends of Fantastic Four members Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, respectively — meet the Beatles in Strange Tales #130. Art by Bob Powell and Chic Stone. © Marvel. (RIGHT) An Ann-Margret lookalike obsesses over the Beatles on the cover of Girls’ Romance #109 (June 1965), in art by Gene Colan. © DC Comics.
group they are very talented, haven’t changed with their terrific popularity and acclaim, have an impish philosophy, and are very articulate.” Before long, the Beatles became part of the illustrated stories—“cast members,” if you like. Charlton shamelessly played the Beatles card in its romance titles. In stories like “The Beatles Were My Downfall” (from Summer Love #46, Oct. 1965) and “The Beatles Saved My Romance” (from Summer Love #47, Oct. 1966), the heroines learn not to put their unattainable idols ahead of the actual flesh-and-blood fellows who are right in front of them. Ain’t that sweet? In the Archie Comics line, Betty and Veronica went gaga over the quartet. In Betty and Veronica #105 (Sept. 1964), they attend a Beatle wig sale. Meanwhile, in another Archie Comics title, Josie #28 (Aug. 1967), Josie’s well-decorated bedroom is a tribute to Herman’s Hermits, equipped with a bust of Noone. Even odder than the romance comic-book appearances were the Beatles’ crossovers and tie-ins with superheroes. In DC Comics’ Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #79 (Sept. 1964), Jimmy is hijacked to the distant past, where he manufactures and sells Beatle wigs to peasants. When Superman sees Jimmy in his red wig playing a ram’s horn and drum, he exclaims, “You’ve really started a ‘Beatle’ fad here, Jimmy! You seem to be as popular as Ringo, the 6
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Beatle drummer!” (You could always count on Superman editor Mort Weisinger to spell it out for you.) Jimmy’s second Beatles-related—or, at least, Beatles-adjacent—adventure happened in Jimmy Olsen #88 (Oct. 1965). Despite the promise of a Beatles connection on the cover, there are no Beatles—just Rick Rock and His Rolling Romeos, which Olsen challenges with his own combo, Jimmy Olsen and His Carrot-Top Cut-Ups. Jimmy arranges a front-page story about his group in The Daily Planet. So journalistic ethics did not exist in Sixties Metropolis. In Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales #130 (Mar. 1965), the girlfriends of Johnny (the Human Torch) and Ben (the Thing)—Dorrie and Alicia, respectively—have a chance encounter with the Beatles. Characteristically gruff Ben professes to be a fan of the quartet; dons a Beatle wig; and gushes, “It’s them! My ever-lovin’ idols! Be still, my patterin’ heart!” The Torch and the Thing then pursue a trio of thieves who abscond to Coney Island with the Beatles’ payroll—wearing Beatle wigs. The truest depiction was found in Dell’s “official” 35-cent giant comic book The Beatles (1964). Dell—and Beatles fans—hit the jackpot with artist Joe Sinnott (1926–2020), a prolific inker for Marvel Comics who delineated more than 200 issues of Fantastic Four, and who irrefutably captured the likenesses of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr.
Voger’s vault of vintage varieties
KID FRIENDLY
Beatles manager Brian Epstein (1934–1967) was said to have been, shall we say, overly liberal in approving licensing deals on behalf of his young charges. In America, where the dollar is king, manufacturers seemed willing to plaster the Beatles’ names and faces on just about anything. There were Authentic Beatle Wigs from Lowell; Beatles Shampoo (“for all the family”) and Beatles Hair Spray (“brushes out instantly”) from Bronson; Beatles magnetic toys from Merit; and Beatles stockings, pens, lariat ties, tie pins, and (note careful spelling) “Beetle” boots.
Also sold were Milton Bradley’s “The Beatles Flip Your Wig” board game, Aladdin’s Beatles lunchbox, and World Candies’ Beatles candy sticks. Remco’s darling, wiry-haired Beatle dolls were hot sellers, but their likenesses ran hot and cold. John and Ringo were spot-on. But George had King Charles teeth, and Paul resembled a Zanti Misfit. When Ben Cooper—purveyors of chintzy (but enchanting) Halloween costumes—did the Beatles, they did ’em right. The boys were represented in good likenesses on BC’s crackly, rigid, nostrilblocking, sweat-trapping masks. [Editor’s note: Check out RetroFan #2 for our look at Ben Cooper Halloween masks and costumes.] CONTINUED ON PAGE 10.
(LEFT) Ben Cooper’s crinkly, sweat-trapping mask of John Lennon (1964). © Ben Cooper; courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
(BELOW) Elmer Lehnhardt’s artwork graced Aladdin’s Beatles lunch box (1965). © Apple Corps.; © Aladdin Industries Inc.
(ABOVE) The playing board for Milton Bradley’s “The Beatles Flip Your Wig Game” (1964). (BELOW) Remco’s wiry-haired figures of John, Paul, George, and Ringo (1964). © Apple Corps.; Board game © Milton Bradley. Figures © Remco.
A Ringo Starr (TOP) and a Paul McCartney (BOTTOM) Soaky bubble-bath toy from Colgate (1964). © Apple Corps.; © Colgate.
(LEFT) Candy with packaging art based on the animated Beatles series. © World Candies Inc., © Apple Corps. (CENTER) Wrapper for Topps’ Beatles bubble-gum trading cards (1964). © Apple Corps.; © The Topps Company. (RIGHT) Hasbro’s “Show Biz Babies” figure of Peter Noone (1967). © Hasbro. RETROFAN
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BANDS OF THE BRITISH INVASION
The Rolling Stones: The quintet’s founding line-up is a rock Mount Rushmore: singer Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multiinstrumentalist Brian Jones (who died in 1969), bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts (who died in 2021). Wyman’s memory of first meeting Jagger, Richards, and Jones wasn’t exactly wistful. “Brian and Keith were practically a couple of what we would term ‘beatniks’ in those days,” Wyman told me in 1999. “They didn’t do any work. They stayed in bed all day. They smelled. It was disgusting, actually.” The Dave Clark Five: Many pop stars use their music to break into the movies. Dave Clark did it the other way around. Prior to pop fame, he worked as an extra and stuntman in 40-plus films, and © Capitol Records. used the proceeds to fund a DC5 demo. “If you sneezed, you’d miss me,” Clark once told a TV interviewer of his movie days. “[It’s] the equivalent of being a tea boy in a television studio.” Gerry and the Pacemakers: When manager Brian Epstein told singer Gerry Marsden he was planning a Pacemakers movie, Marsden replied: “Don’t be daft.” The singer was on a dinner date when the © Columbia Records. melody for the title song, “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” popped into his head. Marsden called his mother and asked her to hold his tape recorder up to the phone while he sang the tune. The dinner date was cut short. (Marsden died in 2021.)
1998, “where someone sits down and plays a piano, and someone else picks up a banjo. We were used to that. There were a lot of musicians in the family. So [the Kinks] was just an extension of that.” The Who: The first time manic drummer Keith Moon met singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, and bassist John Entwistle, Moon told Daltrey: “I hear you’re looking for a drummer, and I’m much better than the one you’ve got.” “He did kind of blow us away,” Entwistle said of the Who’s first gig with Moon. “Because he actually tied his drums to this pillar on the side of the stage, so he wouldn’t fall over when he played the solo! And the drums were, like, heaving out, sort of, at about 45 degrees, held together by this big reel of rope.” (Moon died in 1978, Entwistle in 2002.) The Yardbirds: Three of rock’s greatest guitarists—Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page—cut their teeth in the Yardbirds, though not at the same time. Clapton famously quit at the time of © Epic Records. the band’s first hit “For Your Love,” paving the way for Beck. “Everything happened; they had a hit record (‘Heart Full of Soul’) just after I joined,” Beck told me in 2011. “And then the tours of America came. We did two big tours. I say ‘big’ tours; to us they were big, because we’d never been outside South London.” (Beck died in 2023.)
The Kinks: Musical collaboration was in the DNA of the battling Davies brothers, singer Ray and guitarist Dave. “We came from a family that’s very musical,” Davies told me in © United Artists.
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The Spencer Davis Group: The band’s namesake, singer-guitarist Spencer Davis, once got a lesson in how Americans were uninformed about their own music. “I was playing ‘Good Night Irene’ on the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris,” Davis
Voger’s vault of vintage varieties
told me in 2007. “An American tourist said to me, ‘Oh, you’re playing a song by the Weavers.’ I said, ‘No, this song was actually composed by (bluesman) Huddie Ledbetter.’” (Davis died in 2020.) The Zombies: During their first rehearsal in 1961, future Zombies singer Colin Blunstone and keyboardist Rod Argent pulled a spur-of-the-moment switcheroo. As Blunstone told me in 2004: © Decca Records. “We took a break. Rod went over to a broken down old piano in the corner and he started playing ‘Nut Rocker’ by B. Bumble and the Stingers. I was just amazed. I said, ‘You have to play keyboards in the band!’ He remembers me just singing a Ricky Nelson song and thinking, ‘That was really great. You should be the singer.’ It was exactly as casual as that.” The Animals: The group behind “House of the Rising Sun” and “It’s My Life” never set out to become pop stars. “We were deadly serious blues guys,” singer Eric Burdon told me in 2004. “We wanted to © ABKCO Records. be taken seriously. We wanted to change the world, and turn the world onto this new religion that we’d found called the blues.” The Hollies: Though Hollies founder Graham Nash went on to more serious work in Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young, he did not denigrate the Hollies’ sunny hits like “Bus Stop” and “On © EMI Records Ltd. a Carousel.” “When the Hollies found music and went down to London and started to record and be on TV and radio and do live shows and just be appreciated, it was an unbelievably happy time in my life,” Nash told me in 2002. “I’m glad people feel happy when they put that music on. So do I.” The Small Faces: The group scored hits with “Sha-La-La-La-Lee” and “Itchycoo Park.” “The success was overwhelming,” drummer Kenney Jones told me in 2005. “In the Sixties, don’t forget, I was a kid. I © Decca Records. was the youngest drummer in the music business. I had a hit record in the charts when I was 15. I had enough money to buy a car, but I wasn’t old enough to get a driving license.” The Moody Blues: From pop stars to art rockers, the group had two distinct incarnations. Guitarist Denny Laine sang the swoony hit “Go Now!” “That’s, obviously, the most important period of my life musically,” Laine told me in
© Decca Records.
2007. “Because everybody wants to have a hit record.” After Laine quit in 1966, his replacement Justin Hayward composed “Nights in White Satin.” “It’s a young boy of 19 speaking,” Hayward told me of writing the lyrics.
Herman’s Hermits: “The idea of Herman’s Hermits was that we were different,” singer Peter Noone told me in 2005. “We can’t write songs as good as the Beatles. We can’t play rhythm-and-blues as © Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. good as the Stones. We don’t have as good a drummer as the Dave Clark Five. We didn’t have this sort of sexy, pop-star, lead singer. We had a guy called Herman who was not sexy at all.” Petula Clark: The singer of “Downtown” made her American TV debut on Ed Sullivan in a hastily booked appearance. She recalled: “I flew in from Paris. I got to the studio in New York. I was absolutely © Warner Bros. Records. jet-lagged out of my brain. I mean, I’d had a show the night before in Paris! I walked straight into the studio, into a dress rehearsal, which was done before a live audience. I had not rehearsed with the band. They suddenly started playing my music—a bit too fast, I might add. And the place went crazy! It was remarkable.” Chad and Jeremy: The duo Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde scored seven Top 40 U.S. hits in 1964 and ’65. Stuart (who died in 2020) reminisced about the duo’s early days when we spoke in 2011. “We © World Artists. played at this Italian restaurant near [Clyde’s] apartment,” Stuart said. “They’d give us a free dinner and 10 shillings, which is half a pound, which is not much. We ate a lot of spaghetti in those days.” Peter and Gordon: Peter Asher was into jazz and folk. Gordon Waller (who died in 2009) dug rock ’n’ roll. “So we did a mixture of music that we both liked, though our voices were quite different,” Asher told me © Capitol Records. in 2011. “Gordon had this big sort of Elvis-y, rock ’n’ roll voice; I had this choir-ish voice. But to our surprise, they worked together. They did seem to form some kind of an entity.”
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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7.
Colgate only rolled the dice on two Beatles in its Soaky line of bubble-bath toys. The two Beatles depicted by Colgate will hardly be a surprise: the Cute One, and the One with the Big Nose. (Pity those who wanted to take a bath with John or George.) The Beatles aside, there were fan club buttons for the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, and others. Remco put out Dave Clark Five figures, Hasbro released a Peter Noone doll, and Play Pal released (unconvincing) Rolling Stones dolls. This kid-friendly vibe spilled into the realm of TV animation. Try as you might, you cannot hate the Saturday-morning animated series titled, simply, The Beatles (1965–1967). Yeah, it’s lame. Yeah, sometimes the wrong Beatle “sings” a given tune. Yeah, John and George are inappropriately voiced. John has the posh “I say” accent, George sounds like an Irish farmer—nothing against Irish farmers. Paul and Ringo’s approximated Liverpudlian accents are, eh, passable. But once the cartoon Beatles plug in and play, it’s… it’s… charming. The series was produced by Al Brodax, the animator behind the TV cartoon versions of Beetle Bailey and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith—not exactly Disney-level stuff. (Though the Beatles initially disliked the series, they later OK’ed Brodax to produce their 1968 movie, Yellow Submarine.) Inveterate TV watcher Lennon later called the shows “a blast.” Mused Harrison: “They were so bad or silly that they were good, if you know what I mean.” [Editor’s note: RetroFan columnist Scott Shaw! went deep-diving into Yellow Submarine’s history in issue #23. And Andy Mangels will explore the animated The Beatles—as well as The Jackson 5ive and other toons based on real-life rockers—coming up in RetroFan #35!]
(ABOVE) The animated series The Beatles (1965–1967) aired on Saturday mornings. © King Features Syndicate. (BELOW) Barney, Betty, Wilma, and Fred don Beatle wigs on The Flintstones (1965). © Hanna-Barbera Productions.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
The final entertainment frontier for the Beatles was the moving picture. Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night is much more than a mere showcase for a pop band. In depicting the global entertainment phenomenon that was the Beatles, the movie makes wry commentary on the media machine that cynically enabled their rise. In two “typical” days in the lives of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, we see the boys mock reporters at a press reception; let off steam at a dance club; elude their hapless “minders” Norm (Norman Rossington) and Shake (John Junkin); and perform a set to a sweaty, teary, packed house for a television broadcast. More Invasion bands tried their luck in the movies, such as Gerry and the Pacemakers in Ferry Cross the Mersey (1964), the Dave Clark
(LEFT) A “flicker” button of the Beatles. (CENTER) This button was an early Rolling Stones collectible. (RIGHT) The wearer of this button proclaims to the world: “I love Herman’s Hermits.” 10
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Five in Having a Wild Weekend (1965), the Spencer Davis Group in The Ghost Goes Gear (1966), and two starring Herman’s Hermits, Hold On! (1966) and Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter (1968). Hold On! was directed by Arthur Lubin, who earlier helmed Abbott and Costello movies. “Arthur Lubin was really talented,” Noone told me. “He made us better than we actually were, which is
Voger’s vault of vintage varieties
(LEFT) A movie poster for the Beatles’ film debut, Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night (1964). © United Artists. (BELOW) An advertisement for Arthur Lubin’s Hold On! starring Herman’s Hermits (1966). © MetroGoldwyn-Mayer.
what a good director does. I mean, this band was not exactly ready for Stanislavski.” In 1971, Dick Cavett commented to Lennon that many people think of A Hard Day’s Night as a true reflection of the Beatles. Lennon was having none of it. “It wasn’t that carefree, ever,” he said. “It was a lot more pressure. That was a sort of comic-strip version of what actually was goin’ on. The pressure was far heavier than that. “That was written after the author [Alun Owen] spendin’ about three days with us when we played in London, and then in Dublin, and then back in London again. He wrote the whole of the film based on our characters—you know, clod-hopping Ringo, sharp John, whimsical Paul, and stern George. All those Beatle character myths were formed from three days watchin’ us. Which was a lot of junk, really.” It’s not hyperbole to state that A Hard Day’s Night is as important to the Beatles’ legacy as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Significantly, the film represented a turning of the tide, a crossroads, regarding criticism of the Beatles in the United States. Reviews of A Hard Day’s Night were generally glowing. The honeymoon, following a delay, had finally begun, and it hasn’t let up since. Lennon was shot dead by a mentally ill fan in 1980. Harrison died from cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr, who are in their eighties, both undertook concert tours in 2022, as did the Stones, the Who, the Zombies, Eric Clapton, and Noone. Peter Jackson’s HBO docuseries The Beatles: Get Back reignited interest in a band that hardly needed reigniting. Sounds like the opposite of a flash in the pan. To learn more about the British Invasion, read Britmania (TwoMorrows Publishing), Mark Voger’s eye-popping book about All Things British in the Sixties. MARK VOGER is the author and designer of six books for TwoMorrows Publishing, including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy, and Holly Jolly. Barbara Harris of the Toys once sang “A Lover’s Concerto” to him. Please visit him at MarkVoger.com.
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RETRO MUSIC
Beatles-Ploitation! BY BOB KOENIG
The time is January 1964. United States businessmen are on the lookout for a new fad—something they can manipulate to hawk product in any way they possibly can. Little did they know that their dollarsniffing noses would point in the direction of Liverpool, England! The Beatles were little known when their first record was released in the U.S. in January 1964, but by the end of the year, well over 30 record albums were being peddled with their name on them, with both earnest and suspicious intent.
NOT NECESSARILY THE BEATLES
EMI Parlophone had released Please Please Me in England in March of 1963. EMI then attempted to get its U.S. counterpart, Capitol Records, to issue a Beatles record. Although Capitol of Canada issued Beatlemania! With the Beatles in 1963, plans for Capitol to release in the U.S. ran aground. EMI then located a small label, VeeJay Records, which agreed to take on the task. Introducing the Beatles (VJLP 1062) became the first Beatles album to be issued in the States, and consisted primarily of 1963’s Please Please Me release. This move by EMI caused Capitol Records to change their minds and rush out their own album, Meet the Beatles (Capitol T 2047). Funny enough, both albums included the song “I Saw Her Standing There” in their music line-up. The initial pressings of Meet didn’t even take the time to post BMI or ASCAP licenses 12
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(ABOVE LEFT) For many RetroFans, The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles was their first Beatles album! (Coming in RetroFan #31: a look at Ross Bagdasarian’s The Alvin Show!) (ABOVE RIGHT) Consumers looking for Alvin, Simon, and Theodore may have been confused by these Chipmunks on this knock-off album. It certainly wasn’t the only peculiar Beatles-ploitating LP of its day! (INSET) The real Beatles! The Alvin Show © Ross Bagdasarian.
on the record label! The cover, copying its English counterpart With the Beatles, the second album released by EMI Parlophone, featured the boys’ shadowy visages rather than a bright, cheery photograph. This image would often be the inspiration for copycats later on. While the VeeJay album featured a rather quiet cover from a rather stiff-looking photo session, Meet was noisy with articles as if it was its own press kit. The cover also stated extravagantly that it was the first album by England’s Phenomenal Pop Combo. Thus begun the Beatle Battle of 1964. What album (or record company) would sell the most albums of the Fab Four? Come February 1964, all hell broke loose! The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show [see Mark Voger’s column for more info— ed.], making viewer history in the amount of people tuning in that night. If you didn’t own a Beatles album yet, the next day surely the
record departments became swamped with buyers! This caught the eye of many a record company. Issue anything with the name “Beatles” on it, and someone will want it! MGM Records acquired the rights to the Beatles’ 1961 recordings, made when Pete Best was the drummer. Most of the tracks also featured Tony Sheridan as the lead singer, a fact that the album The Beatles with Tony Sheridan and Guests (MGM E 4215) mentioned in small, dark print on a dark green cover, while putting the name “BEATLES” in huge, white print letters. While only having four tracks that the Beatles actually played on, the rest of the album was filled with tracks by an unknown group, “The Titans.” This record could arguably be seen as the first of the exploitation of the Beatles’ music, particularly notable for being released by a major label. Note that later in the year, ATCO tried the same stunt with Ain’t She Sweet: The Beatles and Other Great Group Sounds from England (Atco 33-169), displaying a black cover with “Beatles” in bold letters, but the rest quite abbreviated. Filling out the record was recordings by “The Swallows,” who covered many of the Beatles’ own songs! This album also tried to embellish the old recordings by having drummer Bernard Purdie record his drums over the originals of Pete Best! While this was going on, Swan Records issued a single of “She Loves You” (infamous with the “Don’t Drop Out” slogan on the label). Thankfully, Swan didn’t get ahold of enough tracks to create their own album! During this time period, the fight over who owned what in the VeeJay-Capitol Records war continued to brew. Veejay lost the rights to two tracks, and quickly substituted two other songs for their Introducing album.
Capitol issued The Beatles’ Second Album (Capitol T2080) in April 1964. This must have confused the public, since by this time many people had likely bought more than one previous “Beatles” LP. It must have been confusing also to find “She Loves You” as one of the tracks. Didn’t I just buy that record on the Swan label? Meanwhile, the hurting VeeJay label wanted to procure as many sales as it possibly could. Their lease of the songs was running out; but thankfully, their promotional angles were not. Since ATCO and MGM could make their own compilations and promote their Beatles scraps, why not VeeJay? Out comes Jolly What! England’s Greatest Recording Stars THE BEATLES and FRANK IFIELD on Stage (VeeJay VJLP 1085). This, like the other labels’ LPs, featured only four Beatles tracks, the rest by Ifield. On stage? Did they record together or do a show? Nope. All tracks are the familiar initial cuts. If that didn’t hold the public’s interest (it didn’t!), let’s make something the girls would love to have! Songs, Pictures, and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles (VJ 1092) is actually a well-planned cover. The front cover opens halfway to reveal Beatle bios and pictures; the back cover has close-ups of the Fabs and a spot to put your picture under theirs, putting you with your favorite Beatle! (“And for you fellows—‘tough luck!’” claims the bottom of the cover). The problem? The record inside is the same record as Introducing, so you were just buying the same thing all over again. Try and try again was VeeJay’s opportunist motto. As they also issued albums by the Four Seasons at the time, how about combining that with the Beatles? Thus, The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons (VJ DX 30) was born. Another fun idea of an album cover, the back was a scorecard so you could decide which Beatles or Four
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Seasons song you liked best, and pick a winner. The problem was, once again, that the Beatles record was yet another reissue of Introducing. If you had it already, you sure weren’t about to plunk down more money for two records in this set! Was VeeJay finished? Almost. While they had lost their rights to the music and couldn’t put it out anymore, they rushed an interview LP, Hear the Beatles Tell All (VJ Pro202). Their final vinyl release was true exploitation with The 15 Greatest Songs of the Beatles (VJ 1101). Although George, Paul, and John are pictured on the cover, this is not by the Beatles, but rather sung by “The Merseyboys.” The saddest part of this release is the rushed record label. The label states: “Saluting their return to Amercia.” I don’t know where “Amercia” is, but I hope they had a good time touring there! [Editor’s note: Now I don’t feel so bad about the bloody typos that creep into RetroFan!] In the meantime, Capitol Records was still having fun with their record releases. It seems, commercial-wise, the Capitol albums liked to mess with the song order of the British counterparts, also putting fewer songs on each album and saving the remainder for future compilations. When the film A Hard Day’s Night came out, the soundtrack of the film was given to the film distributor, United Artists. Thus, a soundtrack album was issued—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack The BEATLES A Hard Day’s Night (United Artists UAL3366)— in a bright red cover with four mop-top heads featured; this would also come in handy for future copycat records [and this issue’s RetroFan cover!—ed.]. While the album featured eight songs by the lads, it was filled out with instrumental versions of music from the film. Capitol meanwhile rushed out the LP Something New (Capitol T 2018), which included five songs already issued on the aforementioned soundtrack! Something new, indeed! Rounding off the year 1964 for Capitol was a two-record set entitled The Beatles Story (Capitol TBO 2222), and, just in time for Christmas, Beatles ’65 (Capitol T2228). Story, an obvious cash-in to the radio buzz of the time, could have easily fit on one record, while ’65 did feature a good selection of new sounds and singles that came out at the time. So far, we’ve uncovered over ten record albums with Beatles music, during one year! You can see how easily the buying public would be confused over what to buy, what had been bought prior, and, if a cover caught the eye of an easily duped teenager or parent, who the performing artists actually were. In these short few months, other record companies sat in wonder of what they could do to get that almighty Beatles buck. 14
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BUDGET-BIN BEATLES
We’ve already explored what Capitol, VeeJay, ATCO, and MGM were doing. What else was going on in the record bins of 1964? It was common practice back then with many a “budget” record label to issue albums featuring music that was trending and popular at the time, recorded by an unknown artist or artists, to sell at supermarkets, department stores, even drug and hardware stores. These albums attracted unwary buyers into purchasing something at a good, cheap price. Some didn’t care, others felt cheated, but at that price, likely headed for the junk heap after the first listen. Trends in music pre-Beatles that were treated in this fashion were the Beach Boys (The Surfsiders Sing the Beach Boys Songbook features a young Lou Reed on vocals!), the Kingston Trio
retro Music
(by copycat band the Princeton Trio), and even Mitch Miller (Sing Along with Art Mooney)! Thus, it was only natural for these labels to try to sell their “Bug Music” to the unsuspecting public. One of the most popular records of this genre and frequently found in thrift stores is The Beetle Beat (Coronet Records CXS-212), by the Buggs. The front cover features a photo of the “band,” not unlike Capitol’s Meet; the album features a shaded back cover photo as well. While the album does plainly state it is by the Buggs, as does the liner notes, it features two of the Beatles’ big hits at the time, along with a bunch of unknown tracks. Diplomat Records went to town with the Beatle mop-tops on their album covers: Beatlerama (Diplomat D2307), Beatlerama Vol. 2 (Diplomat 2310), A Hard Days (instead of Day’s) Night (Diplomat D 2335). All feature the identifiable hairstyle and list the Beatles hit
songs, and note “with the Manchesters” in small print. Diplomat’s fourth effort, Ringo’s Theme (This Boy) and And I Love Her (Diplomat DS 2336) is an instrumental album by Al Goodman & His Orchestra. The red cover and Beatle wig make it look quite like the United Artist LP. A similar touch was featured on Wyncote Records’ Beatlemania! In the USA (Wyncote W9001) by the Liverpools, again with Beatle wigs on the cover, and only four Beatles hits mentioned. The hair became the main motif on albums like The Beatle Beat (AA 133) and Dance and Sing Mother Goose with a Beatle Beat (Golden LP127). These albums follow the trend, yet truly have nothing to do with the Beatles’ style of music at all! Many of these records were issued combining old trends with new. The Bearcuts Swing in Beatlemania (Somerset p-20800) includes five Beatles hits, yet takes some old surf instrumentals and gives them new titles like “Your Barber Is a Beatle, Too.” B. Brock and the Sultans’ Do the Beetle (Crown CLP 5399) features instrumentals, each containing the word “Beetle” in the title. Some of these companies went to absurd lengths to release a record, yet fail in the packaging. The Schoolboys’ Beatle Mania (Palace 778) was packaged in two different covers featuring a quintet on the cover; the label says the album is by the Moptops. Add to the confusion an album titled Beattle (yes, it is spelled that way) Mash (Palace 208) by the Liverpool Kids, which not only sports an out-of-focus photo on the cover of three older men in Beatles wigs, but the record Label says the album is by “The Schoolboys”! Bargain-bin absurdities continue with The Beatle Buddies (Diplomat D 2313). Never mind the Bangles—this all-female group look like middle-aged housewives in a shaded Meet-style photo. Like their label-mates the Manchesters, the Beatle Buddies copy some of the same songs for their record, only with a girl-group sound on the vocals. The Beagle and the Four Liverpool Whigs (Sutton ssu 329) displays a Beatle-wigged foursome with their doggie! Unknown musicians also trying to get into the act: The Beatles Song (Globe G-6006), a full Beatles cover album by Gene and the Notes; and the You Know Who Group (International 420), depicting four masked men with that “great new English sound.”
BEATLES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
Children weren’t left out of the fold, either. The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits (Sunset LST7388) was just that—Alvin and his friends singing in their high-pitched voices. (This was actually my very first Beatles-ish recording as a child [you’re not alone!—ed.]; I remember we used to play it slow to try RETROFAN
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and get the real voices.) Our favorite cheapo labels chimed in in this vein also with The Grasshoppers Sing the Beatles Hits (Diplomat D2337) and A Hard Days Night and Others (Wyncote SW 9037). The Wyncote cover features four Chipmunks, but the record does not give them any title at all! I’d also add a dishonorable mention to the major labels cashing in with their own titles. United Artists issued instrumental albums by the Beatles’ record producer, George Martin, using Beatles photos for the cover. Capitol Records shamelessly promoted The Beatles Songbook by the Hollyridge Strings (Capitol ST 2116) on the back cover of their Beatles albums. In response, Somerset quickly produced The Beatles Songbook by the Mustang (Somerset P-23000). This album’s cover looks exactly like the Capitol version, only in a different color shade. A big boo to the major record labels that exploit anything to the extreme. It’s a Beatle World by Al Fisher and Lou Marks (Swan LP 514) clearly was a comedic album vying for the trend, but when Santo and Johnny issued The Beatles Greatest Hits (Canadian American CALP 1017) with the title in colorful bold print, even including the Fabs’ photos on the back, the dirty trick went way too far! Sing a Song with the Beatles (Tower SKAO 5000) and Sing and Play Along Beatles Kit (London LL 3403) further deceived those who might have thought the Beatles had something to do with the records. One record which has the distinction of being the first Beatles pirated record is The Original Greatest Hits (Greatest Records GRC 1001). Adorned with Beatle wigs down the left side of the cover, this album actually features the true recordings of the Beatles, and was briefly found in record bins before Capitol sued for libel. It is amazing they didn’t go to court over some of the others, although none were quite as blatant as this. Discount records that hit the bins to cash in like Beat-A-Mania (Spectrum SDLP 172), The Liverpool Beats (Rondo R-2026), and The Liverpool Beat by the Weasels (Mercury Wing MGW 12282) get a mention for adding to the Beatle clutter, if not trying to deceive 100%. While some of these records can be quite awful, some can be quite good. I can easily see the Buggs, the Manchesters, and even the Liverpools making a home in your Beatle collection. Collectors may keep those strictly for the novelty. Marketing-wise, these records were more than likely purchased by parents or grandparents of kids wanting the real thing. Picture a mom waiting in line at a grocery checkout, observing mop-tops on the LP cover and “She Loves You” in the title. She buys it and takes it home, tossing it to her daughter, Here you go! After being 16
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bombarded by her daughter’s complaints, she tells her she should be glad she has the record at all! My first copy of the B. Brock and the Sultans album had real Beatle pictures pasted over it, likely by a disappointed youngster. She must have kept it in the hopes that it might magically become the album that she wanted. What teen would buy The Beatle Buddies? It seems likely obvious it was marketed to a father instead. In an overview, the hastily recorded versions of the Beatles hits were laughable carbon copies. Picture a group of older musicians assembled in the studio, trying to sound like a Beatles record but not understanding the beat, rhythm, and harmony of the Beatles’ true sound. While the purchaser (or listener) remained disgusted, the record company’s job was done. You bought the bogus product! Today, these albums stand the test of time as souvenirs of the Beatlemania of 1964. The mania surrounding the Fabs at the time was unprecedented and incredible, to say the least. (A side note: Bands like the Rolling Stones never received a budget “tribute,” but by the late Sixties, the Monkees had two!) The year 1964 brought about an enormous wave of records, official or not, of Merseybeat music [so named after publisher Bill Harry’s Liverpool-based music newspaper Mersey Beat—ed.]. Between the battle over rights between Capitol and VeeJay Records and the small labels fighting for space in the bins by appropriating familiar songs and titles, a huge body of Merseybeat-ish music was released in one incredible year, highlighting the popularity of the Beatles… which continues today. BOB KOENIG has a BA in Pop Culture Studies, and has presented lectures in libraries and historical societies on topics from suburban history to cereal boxes, and drive-in theaters to Howard Johnson’s restaurants. His research on religions led to a chapter in a book on the Greek goddess Hera. A ChromeOrange Music artist, Bob has appeared with his band on both national television and in a comic book! Find Bob on Facebook.
WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON
The Mighty, Mighty
HERCULES BY WILL MURRAY
Although I later became a film journalist covering sci-fi and horror movies for Starlog and Fangoria, as a kid I rarely went to the movie theater. Partly because the long-demolished Rialto was so far away, but also because I preferred to spend my allowance on comic books. However, I do remember going with friends to see the odd film, beginning with Gorgo in 1961 and various other Saturday matinee fare, including some of the beach blanket movies [see RetroFan #22—ed.]. I distinctly remember seeing The Three Stooges Meet Hercules in 1962, and I think I saw one of Steve Reeves’ Hercules epics on the big screen as well. I certainly saw them on TV when they came around to the small screen.
FLEXING HIS BOXOFFICE MUSCLE
(ABOVE) Behold, RetroFans, as the Mighty Hercules defends Newton and Tewt from a sea serpent (Cecil’s disagreeable cousin, perhaps?). Detail from the cover of Gold Key Comics’ The Mighty Hercules #1 (July 1963). Artist unknown. The Mighty Hercules © Classic Media.
Hercules was a big deal back in those days. He was as popular as monster movies, which were also huge, in all senses of the word. But Hollywood monsters did not have the box-office success of the first Hercules films, which launched a new film genre that was sometimes called “peplum films” because its muscle-bound heroes wore the Greek toga known as a peplos. “Sword-and-sandal movies” is the term by which they are remembered today. The sword-and-sandal craze had its genesis in a script written in the mid-Fifties by Italian director Pietro Francisci. Francisci had filmed Attila, Scourge of God and was becoming known as the Cecil B. DeMille of Italy, specializing in historical epics. RETROFAN
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Plucking Hercules out of Greco-Roman mythology, Francisci penned a script with that storied Roman demigod as the protagonist of the classic story, The Argonauts. But he couldn’t find a suitable Italian actor to play the lead role. The tall ones lacked the necessary imposing physique, and the strong ones were too short. Yet, he persisted for five years until his teenaged daughter saw Steve Reeves in a 1954 film called Athena. Reeves was a bodybuilder from Montana who had won the Mr. America contest in 1947 and went on to become Mr. World the following year and Mr. Universe in 1950. Drifting into acting, Reeves got bit parts on television and was cast but then lost the lead in Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah. “DeMille thought I was too inconsistent a performer,” Reeves related, “so he paid me off for my contract and I went on my way.” Five years later, the bodybuilder landed a supporting role in the physical-culture musical, Athena, where most of the characters had names borrowed from Greek mythology. Francisci’s daughter told the director that she had found the perfect Hercules. After watching the film, he agreed. He telegrammed Reeves in the U.S., but Reeves didn’t take the offer seriously. The telegram was followed by a letter that included a $5,000 advance and plane tickets to Rome. Deciding to take a 18
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(LEFT) The chiseled pecs of movie Hercules Steve Reeves (who’ll appear in these pages in RetroFan #35) made the sandaled superman a Sixties media sensation. © Warner Bros. (RIGHT) The aptly named Samson Burke played the hero in 1962’s The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. © Columbia Pictures. Both, courtesy of Heritage.
chance, Reeves started growing a full beard, which along with his hair had to be dyed black for the role, and flew to Rome. The production cast Sylva Koscina as Hercules’ love interest, Princess Iole, and Gabriele Antonini as his young companion, Ulysses, of Homer’s Odyssey and Trojan War fame. The three spearheaded the quest for the Golden Fleece, along with Jason and the other Argonauts of the original tale—which originally had nothing to do with Hercules. More authentic elements taken from the Hercules myths are sprinkled in, although watered down. To a student of classic Greek literature, it would be like having General George Washington leading the charge at Gettysburg. After working in Hollywood, Reeves experienced culture shock filming in Italy. “Filmmaking in Europe was a little different from working in the United States,” he related. “There’s a scene
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in Hercules where I am in chains—they looked like steel, but they were actually made of wood—and I had to swing these chains at my supposed enemies who were advancing towards me. Well, I didn’t want to really strike someone, so I kind of held back with my motions. The director yelled, ‘Swing those chains! Swing them hard!’ I said, ‘I don’t want to hurt someone.’ And the director yelled back, ‘If they don’t get hurt, they don’t get paid!’” Hercules was a smash hit throughout Europe and the world, playing several times a day, but not in the U.S. That would soon change, thanks to a promoter named Joseph E. Levine, who had earlier brought Godzilla to America. “Joe Levine owned a theater in Boston,” explained Reeves. “Through a friend of his, he used to buy films from Europe. I think the biggest one he bought before Hercules was Attila the Hun with Anthony Quinn. They were making pretty good money over here compared to what he paid for them. So his friend told him that Hercules was outselling every other picture, and that the people who made it had sold it to every country in the world except America, and that in Bombay it had played four times a day for two years. Knowing it was a winner in other countries, he bought it for the States, then put money behind it and did a great job promoting it.” “When I was told about Hercules, which was made in Italy,” reminisced Levine, “I flew over to look at it. The picture broke down
when we were showing it, the titles were bad, it was in Italian, and I couldn’t understand it, but there was something about it that made me realize there was a potential fortune tied up in it.” Levine spent a ton of money rehabbing and redubbing the film. Explaining the real reason behind his investment, he stated, “I saw in Steve Reeves, who plays Hercules, a man whose physical attributes, ability, and enormous strength appealed to the women.” Shot in Eastmancolor and dubbed into English by radio actors hired for the job, Hercules was released in the United States in the summer of 1959 and electrified American audiences, grossing $5,000,000. And so began the great beefcake gold rush of muscleman movies. Francisci set to work on a sequel. Hercules Unchained came out the following year. Now married and accompanied by new wife Iole and Ulysses— both played by their original actors—Hercules becomes embroiled with a power struggle between two brothers over who will ultimately rule the city of Thebes. During this adventure, Hercules drinks from a magic spring and loses his memory, becoming the slave of Queen Omphale of Lydia. Ulysses helps Hercules regain his memory by getting him to demonstrate his superhuman strength, just in time to save Iole from three tigers set upon devouring her in the Theban king’s arena. This sequel is widely considered superior to the first film. Francisci abstracted the storyline from two classical Greek works, Seven Against Thebes and Oedipus at Colonus. The Queen Omphale interlude is another borrowing from Hercules’ mythic story cycle.
Two 1961 promos from television trade journals promoting the then-forthcoming Mighty Hercules cartoon. The Mighty Hercules © Classic Media. Both, courtesy of Will Murray. RETROFAN
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Hercules Unchained also broke box-office records. Wasting no time, Francisci put together another sequel, but Steve Reeves had already committed to a different film. So Francisci went ahead with Italian bodybuilder Kirk Morris as the lead. The parts of Ulysses and Iole were also recast, undercutting continuity with the previous outings.
Released in 1965, Hercules, Ulysses and Samson follows the comrades’ voyage to hunt down a sea monster, during which they are shipwrecked in the Holy Land, where Hercules is mistaken for wanted strongman, Samson. Serious complications follow. As with the previous films, historical reality is completely ignored. These personalities all lived in different eras, B.C. Of course, none are believed to have been real people. Although Francisci abandoned Hercules after this ad-hoc trilogy, other filmmakers picked up and ran with the character, which was, after all, in the public domain, having preexisted all copyright and trademark laws. Consequently, the early Sixties saw such cinematic concoctions as Hercules Against the Moon Men, Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis, The Loves of Hercules, and the aforementioned Three Stooges Meet Hercules, in which the Sixties Stooges go back in time to meet the demigod, here played by Canadian Samson Burke.
(LEFT) 1963 trade journal clipping touting the premiere of The Mighty Hercules. (BELOW) During the super-hero craze of the mid-Sixties, Hercules shared this 1967 trade ad with the wielder of the bag of tricks, Felix the Cat. Felix the Cat © Dreamworks Animation LLC. The Mighty Hercules © Classic Media. Courtesy of Will Murray.
FAST FACTS
THE MIGHTY HERCULES f No. of seasons: Three f No. of episodes: 130 (five minutes each episode) f Original run: September 1, 1963–May 1, 1966 f Director: Joe Oriolo f Studio: Adventure Cartoons for Television, Inc. f Theme song: “The Mighty Hercules” performed by Johnny Nash
PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f David Hartman: Hercules f Jimmy Tapp: Hercules f Jack Mercer: Daedalus, Newton f Gerry Bascombe: Daedalus, Newton f Helene Nickerson: Helena, Wilhelmine 20
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But none of them enjoyed the global success of the first two Hercules epics. The absence of Steve Reeves was the chief reason. Although his classic physique was the result of exercise and weight training, he seemed born to play the legendary son of Zeus. “Some persons are made for a certain role,” Reeves once mused. “Clint Eastwood was made for [The Man with No Name], Stallone was perfect for Rocky. I was perfect for Hercules.” When asked why, the Herculean actor could only speculate. “I don’t really know,” he demurred. “Maybe it was because I had a very symmetrical physique, accompanied by a noble face. Maybe that was a good combination. Maybe it’s a certain aura you give off, a certain look you have in the eye. We don’t know what these things are.” Whatever the magic was, Reeves’ success was an inspiration to bodybuilders around the globe and set the stage for later generations of huge-muscled leads, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno [see RetroFan #1—ed.], and others down to this day. Somehow, they always got cast as Hercules. For more than 60 years, a revolving door of actors has assumed the iconic role. As for Reeves, he went on to play other European strongman roles, such as Goliath in Goliath and the Barbarians and Aeneas of Troy in two other films. For a time, he was the highest-paid actor in Europe. “Muscles didn’t sell before I came along,” Reeves once quipped. No one—including Reeves himself—attributed his international success to his acting abilities. “It’s difficult to act with your shirt off,” he said half in jest. Not to mention all the times the director had Reeves wrestle tigers or other wild animals on camera. “I’ll admit I wasn’t a Shakespearean actor,” Reeves told a Newsday reporter in 1997. “I didn’t win any Oscars, but I did the best I could. Even if a tiger is tranquilized, when his paws are on your shoulder and he’s breathing in your ear, it’s pretty scary.”
Steve Reeves’ meteoric career barely survived the Sixties. His downfall commenced early on, while shooting The Last Days of Pompeii in 1959. “I hurt my shoulder when my chariot crashed into a tree,” he revealed. “I don’t duel or fight anymore.” [Editor’s note: Want to learn more about this hunky movie Herc? A vintage Steve Reeves interview is scheduled to appear in these pages next summer in RetroFan #35!] Some claimed that the rise of the Beatles and other longhaired rock groups [explored elsewhere in this very issue!—ed.] led to a redefining of the global masculine look in the latter Sixties, making Reeves look passé. But I think it was that the Hollywood swordand-sandal cycle had run simply its course. As future adaptations proved, beardless and longhaired interpretations of Hercules worked just as well.
THE CARTOON TRIALS OF HERCULES
The immense success of the Hercules films unquestionably led to The Mighty Hercules, an Oriolo Studios/Adventure Cartoons for Television syndicated series that debuted in September 1963. I remember watching episodes on Rex Trailer’s Boomtown, a WBZ kiddie variety show back then, but some stations ran the series in its own half-hour afternoon slot. Set in the Kingdom of Calydon in mythical Lernaean Valley in ancient Greece, The Mighty Hercules pitted the super-strong demigod of Greco-Roman myth against a number of perennial foes, chiefly the hooded wizard Daedalus. This cartoon interpretation was sans beard and wore what looked suspiciously like a Mr. America champion belt, pointing to the already-obvious Steve Reeves influence. The first episode begins with Hercules involved in a series of contests with his best friend, Theseus, high up on Mount Olympus.
Separated at birth? Fleischer Studios’ barrel-chested Superman and Trans-Lux TV Corp.’s barrel-chested Hercules, with their respective insignias. Superman TM & © DC Comics. The Mighty Hercules © Classic Media. Animation cels courtesy of Heritage.
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When he defeats Theseus in wrestling, Hercules stands before Zeus, who asks his son what he wishes for a reward. The demigod replies that he wants to go to Earth and help those who are in need. Zeus warns Hercules that he will lose his godly powers on Earth. Seeing his son’s disappointment, he creates a magic ring that will enable Hercules to activate his mighty strength when needed. Normally as strong as an ox, Hercules only has to raise his magic ring to the sky and it appears to attract revivifying lightning bolts called the “thunder of Zeus,” which increases his more-than-mortal strength whenever needed. Armed with a bow-and-arrow and crude war club, Hercules descends to Earth. The first person he encounters is the beautiful blonde Helena, whom he finds crying because a giant named Cacus has stolen the family sheep. This conflict is straight out of Roman myth. Hercules goes in search of the giant, who he finds carrying a couple of bulls, not sheep, but never mind. When challenged, the giant summons a firebreathing dragon. After plucking his ring from his wide belt and donning it, Hercules clobbers them both, saving the day for the first time. But not the last. With the second episode, Hercules’ face is redesigned to give him a bigger jaw. Although he retains his blue peplos, his belt and wristbands turn black. The “H” emblem on his belt becomes red against a yellow field. Deliberately or not, this ensemble mirrors the color scheme of Superman’s outfit, right down to the chest insignia. This is not a coincidence. Artist and animator Joe Oriolo, who produced and directed the series, is credited with having done some prop drawing on the Fleischer Studios Superman theatrical cartoons of the Forties [covered by this very columnist back in RetroFan #25—ed.]. Oriolo claimed that The Mighty Hercules was the first TV cartoon to show realistic characters, but in that assertion he was in error. Clutch Cargo and Space Angel predated the show. Although The Mighty Hercules was recorded in Montreal, many of the creative people were based in New York City. All 130 five-minute episodes were scripted by a team of DC Comics writers, George Kashdan and Jack E. Miller. “The Mighty Hercules we wrote for a producer named Joe Oriolo,” recalled Kashdan. “He had drawn Casper the Friendly Ghost and Felix the Cat. He was a 22
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“Hero of ancient glory”—and star of Sixties merchandising! Are any of these Mighty Hercules items in your collection today? The Mighty Hercules © Classic Media. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, Hake’s Auctions, and Will Murray.
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very excitable man, and quick to threaten the use of his fists. He was lucky he didn’t get his teeth knocked down his throat with all those threats. He couldn’t express himself in correct English. He would get angry, and when he complained about a story that he didn’t like, it didn’t come out in civil language. Poor Joe is dead now. We remained friends after the series.” George C. Peed, who had worked on Fantasia in the Forties, was credited with character design. DC artist Dick Dillin executed the storyboards. Dillin was moonlighting from drawing Blackhawk, and later drew Justice League of America for a record-setting period of time.
he also has a shield emblazoned with the red H emblem, which he employs when necessary. One episode shows Hercules’ stone house in Mount Olympus. Along the walls are his various weapons, including the shield, a sword, his bow-and-arrow set, and a special whistle that summons the winged Pegasus. Pegasus was sometimes seen hitched to a flying chariot with the big red H on the front. Daedalus, king of the winds, was introduced in the fifth episode and became Hercules’ chief recurring foe. When Daedalus uses the wind to beach a galley on which Helene is traveling, the oracle of Olympus, Dodonas, shows HERCULES’ FRIENDS Hercules images of her plight on AND FOES his crystal rock, and the son of In The Mighty Hercules, Hercules Zeus descends to Earth to take is often accompanied by the on Daedalus for the first time. beautiful Helena of Calydon— In later episodes, Daedalus’ whom he often rescues from mastery over the wind is not danger—a young centaur called emphasized, and he seems more like an evil magician than Newton, and Tewt, an idealized anything else. Daedalus does juvenile satyr with green hair. possess the power of flight, but The innocent charm and classic he usually prefers to fly around simplicity of this series holds inside of a sinister black cloud up well in contrast with later from which he would emerge, animated action adventures. and usually steal something Most of Hercules’ foes and trials valuable before retreating into were extracted from Greek its cloudy concealment. mythological sources, although In one episode, Daedalus they were often recycled and reinterpreted for modern visits the underground chamber audiences, not as part of the of an inventor named Midas, ancient saga’s continuity, but who gives him a ring he forged as separate challenges in indithat duplicates Hercules’ own vidual episodes. These included ring. After Daedalus challenges the Cretan Bull and the Nemean Hercules to a physical battle, it Lion. The cartoon series played proves difficult for our mighty fast and loose with the Hercules hero because Daedalus’ duplimyths much in the way the cate ring has other properties, Italian films had. including hurling fiery lightning In the second episode, bolts against which Hercules is Newton the centaur is powerless, even after he puts on introduced as Hercules’ his own ring. perpetual sidekick. He has Turning to Newt, Hercules an annoying habit of saying asks for his shield. The centaur “Suffering Psyche!” in echo of Marvel Comics’ version of Hercules—seen here slugging it pulls it out of a hollow tree that Wonder Woman’s “Suffering just happens to be near the out with the Mighty Thor on the Jack Kirby–drawn cover Sappho!” and also of voicing battleground, and Hercules of Journey into Mystery Annual #1 (1965)—is probably better his lines twice, in an excited uses it to protect himself known among more RetroFan readers than the Sixties juvenile voice. There’s no formal from the ring’s barrage of cartoon Mighty Hercules. But then again, Marvel’s Herc meeting—Newton is just bolts—after which he makes doesn’t have his own theme song performed by Johnny present when Hercules takes short work of Daedalus, then Nash. The Mighty Thor and Hercules TM & © Marvel. possession of a formidable pulverizes the ring in one hand. sword forged to defeat the It seemed that no matter where Lernaean Hydra. However, the sword is broken before he can he was, Hercules had only to request a weapon like his shield and bring it to bear. Hercules must then defeat the creature with a Newton produced it, often out of thin air. combination of his formidable strength and agile wits. In later episodes, Newton wears a belt whose buckle device The club seen in the first episode seems to have become conceals the Moonstone. When he flips it open, a moonbeam is forgotten in the episodes that follow. Hercules usually battles his projected up to Mount Olympus, thus summoning Hercules back to foes using only his strength and occasionally his arrows. However, Earth. It was his equivalent to the Bat-signal. RETROFAN
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At one point, Hercules gives similar belts to a group of boys, led allies must devise increasingly ingenious methods of getting the by a youth named Timon, turning them into the Greek equivalents Mask of Vulcan off the blacksmith’s head so they can subdue him. of Jimmy Olsen, who summoned Superman with an ultra-sonic For one story, Daedalus and the Mask of Vulcan join forces signal watch in those days. to steal the throne of King Dorian. Daedalus hurls fireballs upon One story has Timon guarding Hercules’ sword and shield. But the kingdom, and only the Mask can withstand them. Once Daedalus tricks him and manages to make off with both. With more, Hercules’ shield is brought to bear as he again brings the a swipe of the sword, he deprives the son of Zeus of his belt and devilish duo to book. In this episode, they end up in what looks ring. But Timon redeems like a modern jail, a himself in the end. development that was Other recurring long overdue. In previous characters are young encounters, the Mask King Dorian of Calydon seems to have been and the Owl-Man of allowed to return to his Parnassus, a seer whom ordinary life, although Hercules consults when the helmet seems always he is stuck on a problem. available for his misuse Wilhelmine the Sea and exploitation. (Logic Witch debuted in an was not a strong point early episode, I suspect when you had only five because Daedalus was minutes in which to tell a already being overused. narrative.) She isn’t much more than a female Daedalus. In one HERO OF SONG memorable episode, she AND STORY sneaks into Zeus’ Olympic Broadway and television stables and steals the actor David Hartman, winged horse, Pegasus. later known for Good Hercules is sent to Morning America, origrecover the horse, which inally voiced Hercules. of course he does before Jimmy Tapp took over the five minutes are up. after nine episodes. This was the episode Popeye voice actor Jack Mercer played both that introduced Newton’s Newton and Tewt, as well diminutive sidekick, as the evil Daedelus, but Tewt, a juvenile pan-like was replaced by Gerry figure who never speaks Bascombe around the but communicates same time, after the through his panpipes, voice recording shifted whose notes only to Canada. Helene Newton understand. Nickerson was Helena, He didn’t have anything who, in emulation of Lois particular to do in this Lane’s unrequited crush episode except to give on Superman, forever Newton someone to talk pined for the love of to. He appeared in most handsome Hercules. episodes thereafter, Hercules’ battle cry rarely contributing much was a drawn-out trailing more than some side Hercules in New York introduced a new actor to the pantheon of stars “Olympia!” It was usually business as a counterportraying the famed demigod: Arnold Strong (you may know him heard after he had done point to Newt’s endless better by his actual name Arnold Schwarzenegger). © RAF Industries, Inc. his good deed for the vocal repetitions, which episode and went leaping were toned down after a back to Mount Olympus. while. Singer Johnny Nash—not Another recurring villain is a nameless blacksmith who looks exactly like an earlier foe to be confused with Johnny Cash—sung the stirring Hercules theme song, titled “The Mighty Hercules,” which many Baby Boomers can named Murtis. He forges an iron helmet that he calls the Mask of Vulcan. When he puts it on his head, he becomes invulnerable. The still recite from memory. The series ran three seasons. The influence of Superman had a postscript: When artist Bruce helmeted villain, up to his usual mischief, returns in the following episode and periodically over several installments. Hercules and his Timm was developing designs for Superman: The Animated Series, 24
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he struggled to produce a look that he thought would carry the show. Then one day a director brought into the office a videotape of The Mighty Hercules. Timm realized that here was the perfect look for the Man of Steel. Even if he didn’t necessarily realize that that chesty physique went back to Mr. Universe, Steve Reeves.… The Mighty Hercules ceased production in 1965 as the sword-andsandal cycle started winding down in films. But Hercules was not one to be retired. That summer, Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did something even more audacious than Pietro Francisci ever imagined. In Journey into Mystery (Thor) Annual #1, they had the Norse thunder god, Thor, encounter the Greco-Roman Hercules, whom Kirby gave a stylized mace to stand against Thor’s hammer. As it was a Marvel comic, they naturally battled it out before coming to terms. Hercules must have struck a chord with Marvel readers, because five months later he returned in the pages of The Mighty Thor for a thundering seven-issue epic, in which Thor became entangled with the other gods of Mount Olympus and had to rescue Hercules from the clutches of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. Marvel’s Thor has appeared frequently in the decades that followed, including membership in the Avengers. Hercules, played by Brett Goldstein, appeared in a post-credits scene in the 2022 film Thor: Love and Thunder and will no doubt be seen in future Marvel Cinematic Universe outings. The Marvel Hercules’ resemblance to Steve Reeves’ personification of the character is so marked that coincidence appears improbable. Other versions of Hercules have been seen from time to time. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno both played the
legendary strongman on the big screen. Kevin Sorbo starred in the Nineties television series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. There was a 1997 Disney animated Hercules movie and more recently Dwayne Johnson, better known as the Rock, played the role. During the time of Disney’s animated Hercules, Steve Reeves stated, “A friend of a friend of mine works at Disney, and he said that while they were doing the animation they had a big picture of me on the wall as Hercules. Not that they tried to make Hercules look exactly like me, but at least I gave them an inspiration.” For the record, Disney’s Hercules was smooth-chinned. In subsequent cinematic incarnations, Hercules has been at times bearded, but as often as not is clean-shaven. His hair color and outfit change with every new reimagining, but it seems certain that, like Tarzan of the Apes, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and very few others, as long as films and TV shows are being made, the next Hercules has already been born. As for the first Hercules of film—who many maintain was the greatest of them all—Steve Reeves died in 2000 at the age of 74. His ashes were scattered over Montana’s Big Snowy Mountains—it wasn’t Mount Olympus, but it was close enough. 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.
A must-read for classic TV fans and nostalgia buffs! Sitcom Writers Talk Shop: Behind the Scenes with Carl Reiner, Norman Lear, and Other Geniuses of TV Comedy takes you behind the scenes of your favorite classic TV sitcoms.
Features in-depth interviews with the legendary writers and/or creators of such shows as The Honeymooners, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Taxi, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Seinfeld… Forewords by Ed Asner and Carol Kane. Endorsed by Jay Leno, Paula Poundstone, Valerie Harper, Richard Lewis, Fred Willard, Georgia Engel, and Mike Farrell. Published by Rowman & Littlefield.
As the daughter of Honeymooners writer Herbert Finn, author Paula Finn grew up in the culture, surrounded by the brilliance and wit of her father and his colleagues.
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TwoMorrows 2023 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com
THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S
MAINLINE COMICS
by JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY Introduction by JOHN MORROW
In 1954, industry legends JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY founded MAINLINE PUBLICATIONS to publish their own comics during that turbulent era in comics history. The four titles—BULLSEYE, FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE—looked to build off their reputation as hit makers in the Western, War, Crime, and Romance genres, but the 1950s backlash against comics killed any chance at success, and Mainline closed its doors just two years later. For the first time, TwoMorrows Publishing is compiling the best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline comics work, including all of the stories with S&K art, as well as key tales with contributions by MORT MESKIN and others. After the company’s dissolution, their partnership ended with Simon leaving comics for advertising, and Kirby taking unused Mainline concepts to both DC and Marvel. This collection bridges the gap between Simon & Kirby’s peak with their 1950s romance comics, and the lows that led to Kirby’s resurgence with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and the early MARVEL UNIVERSE. With loving art restoration by CHRIS FAMA, and an historical overview by JOHN MORROW to put it all into perspective, the BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S MAINLINE COMICS presents some of the final, and finest, work Joe and Jack ever produced. NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9
All characters TM & © their respective owners.
DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION
by JACK KIRBY & STEVE GERBER Introduction by MARK EVANIER
In the 1980s, writer STEVE GERBER was embroiled in a lawsuit against MARVEL COMICS over ownership of his creation HOWARD THE DUCK. To raise funds for legal fees, Gerber asked JACK KIRBY to contribute to a benefit comic titled DESTROYER DUCK. Without hesitation, Kirby (who was in his own dispute with Marvel at the time) donated his services for the first issue, and the duo took aim at their former employer in an outrageous five-issue run. With biting satire and guns blazing, Duke “Destroyer” Duck battled the thinly veiled Godcorp (whose infamous credo was “Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!”), its evil leader Ned Packer and the (literally) spineless Booster Cogburn, Medea (a parody of Daredevil’s Elektra), and more! Now, all five Gerber/Kirby issues are collected—but relettered and reproduced from JACK’S UNBRIDLED, UNINKED PENCIL ART! Also included are select examples of ALFREDO ALCALA’s unique inking style over Kirby on the original issues, Gerber’s script pages, an historical Introduction by MARK EVANIER (co-editor of the original 1980s issues), and an Afterword by BUZZ DIXON (who continued the series after Gerber)! Discover all the hidden jabs you missed when DESTROYER DUCK was first published, and experience page after page of Kirby’s raw pencil art! NOW SHIPPING! (128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2
ALTER EGO COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS
By overwhelming demand, editor ROY THOMAS has compiled all the material on the founders of the Marvel Bullpen from three SOLD-OUT ALTER EGO ISSUES—plus OVER 30 NEW PAGES OF CONTENT! There’s the STEVE DITKO ISSUE (#160 with a rare ’60s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL, biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO, and Ditko tributes)! The STAN LEE ISSUE (#161 with ROY THOMAS on his 50+ year relationship with Stan, art by KIRBY, DITKO, MANEELY, EVERETT, SEVERIN, ROMITA, plus tributes from pros and fans)! And the JACK KIRBY ISSUE (#170 with WILL MURRAY on Kirby’s contributions to Iron Man’s creation, Jack’s Captain Marvel/Mr. Scarlet Fawcett work, Kirby in 1960s fanzines, plus STAN LEE and ROY THOMAS on Jack)! Whether you missed these issues, or can’t live without the extensive NEW MATERIAL on DITKO, LEE, and KIRBY, it’s sure to be an AMAZING, ASTONISHING, FANTASTIC tribute to the main men who made Marvel! NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5
CLIFFHANGER!
CINEMATIC SUPERHEROES OF THE SERIALS: 1941–1952 by CHRISTOPHER IRVING
Hold on tight as historian CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the origins of the first on-screen superheroes and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life. CLIFFHANGER! touches on the early days of the film serial, to its explosion as a juvenile medium of the 1930s and ‘40s. See how the creation of characters like SUPERMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, SPY SMASHER, and CAPTAIN MARVEL dovetailed with the early film adaptations. Along the way, you’ll meet the stuntmen, directors (SPENCER BENNETT, WILLIAM WITNEY, producer SAM KATZMAN), comic book creators (SIEGEL & SHUSTER, SIMON & KIRBY, BOB KANE, C.C. BECK, FRANK FRAZETTA, WILL EISNER), and actors (BUSTER CRABBE, GEORGE REEVES, LORNA GRAY, KANE RICHMOND, KIRK ALYN, DAVE O’BRIEN) who brought them to the silver screen—and how that resonates with today’s cinematic superhero universe. NOW SHIPPING! (160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6
RETRO TELEVISION
The
Fall Guy A Retro-Spective on TV Guide’s Fall Previews BY MICHAL JACOT
AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS
Television was a huge part of my childhood. I watched its programs as well as its history. I watched as genres peaked, faded, and sometimes returned. I watched the gimmick sitcoms, comedies with a twist: a family of Universal monsters, a man married to a witch, a beautiful genie in a bottle (who I had/still have a tremendous crush on). Yes, I even watched a couple of episodes of a guy whose mother was reincarnated as an automobile. I watched Westerns dominate the airwaves. I watched the saga of the Cartwright family and thrilled to Marshall Dillon’s escapades. And boy-oh-boy, did I watch those Irwin Allen sci-fi dramas! Hapless people adrift in space, tossed through time, stranded among giants… I didn’t watch that stuff, I absorbed it. These shows captured my imagination and held it hostage. I kept track of it all because my parents subscribed to TV Guide. This digest-sized booklet had great articles on my favorite shows. And, as a kid, there was an added bonus. When the week ended, I got to confiscate the magazine, where I would gleefully blacken out teeth and add stitches and devil horns to the photos of those glamorous television stars. (Ha! How about that, Marlo Thomas? Not so cute with crossed eyes and an Alfred E. Neuman smile, are you?) But there was always one issue I never defaced. That was the one that arrived around the first week of September. The TV Guide Fall Preview. As a TV addict, I was obsessed with the Fall Preview. It was a peek into the future, what to expect in the next few weeks. The spotlight on each new show detailed the plot, the characters, the stars, and a cool photograph of the cast. The fun of Fall Previews is seeing the progression of television history. Keeping RetroFan in mind, this article will mainly focus on those issues from the beginning to the early Eighties. You know—those years with all the good TV.
WHO LOVES YA, BABY?
The first Fall Preview (1953) was a huge hit with fans, and it didn’t take TV Guide long to plan this as an annual affair. That inaugural edition clocked in at a mere 32 pages. Stations generally began broadcasting at around 7:00 a.m.; some didn’t begin their day until 9:00. Most closed up shop around midnight or 1:00 a.m. Because of the sparse schedules, that first Fall Preview looked a lot different (LEFT) A TV Guide Fall Preview sampler. All scans accompanying this article are courtesy of Michal Jacot. © TV Guide. RETROFAN
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than current offerings; new shows were briefly mentioned in short articles that covered several similar programs.
WELL, ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
Now that television was established, it branched out to more creative programming. Specials lured viewers in, but there was one mother lode yet to be mined. Showing movies on television was unexplored territory. Some studios refused to sell their film broadcasting rights to this upstart medium, thinking it would cheapen the movie experience. And there were some TV executives who didn’t think movies belonged on the small screen and, in fact, considered them a step down from their own television programming. Said one exec, “Surprisingly, many people consider old movies to be on a par with the best entertainment on the air.” Who knew movies would become a staple of TV programming? In those early days, TV Guide could have benefitted from a crystal ball to get a glimpse of how television would morph into something they could never have imagined. In the 1954 Fall Preview, they talked about the perils of confusing programming schedules: “The season will be a confusing one for viewers. [Milton] Berle will still be a Tuesday attraction. But not every Tuesday. There will
be boxing on Wednesday nights. But not every Wednesday. Berle will appear every other week. The fights will be absent every fourth week.” At a time when there were only three networks, this must have been “confusing.” Today, with hundreds of channels broadcasting 24/7, seasons that take months-long breaks in the middle, and shows that bounce from network to network… I don’t think they had any idea back then of how confusing it could all get.
IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING…
The 1964–1965 Fall Preview predicted a programming format that would become a standard of television: the serial. Producer Herbert Brodkin belittled the 30-, 60-, and 90-minute time limits imposed on televised dramas, calling them “artificial barriers blocking the creation of good drama.” His solution was a program called The Quest, an hour-long series where episodes “won’t necessarily end when the hour is up. It will be carried over from week to week until it reaches its natural conclusion.” This concept was nothing new—serialized radio dramas and soap operas had been around for years. But it was radical thinking back then; these concepts represented state of the art, innovative broadcasting.
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET
Vintage Fall Previews are a great place to chart the progress of television technology. The biggest advancement of the era was the development of color programming. 1956’s edition happily announced that “color TV sets dip below the $500 mark.” That was
(LEFT) The first Fall Preview was a rather skimpy affair at only 32 pages; there simply wasn’t much happening on the airwaves. (ABOVE) Since there weren’t enough new shows to highlight individually, Fall Previews just covered the programming by genre, as they did with this section on kiddie shows. © TV Guide. 28
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a lot to pay just to see what shade of red Lucy’s hair was; adjusting for inflation, $500 in 1956 equates to $5,314 in today’s world. Still, 100,000 U.S. homes had a color TV that year. In its infancy, programming relied heavily on stage plays, operas, and ballet. The arts were a good source of material for this nascent medium. The 1957–1958 season listed a plethora of fairy-tale based spectaculars such as Pinocchio, Hans Brinker, and Beauty and the Beast, but barely a mention of The Wizard of Oz. Oddly enough, the perennial favorite made its TV debut the year before, and the 1956 Fall Preview didn’t say a word about it!
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Trends in programming peaked and dipped through TV history, reflecting American tastes and culture. From cops to country cornpone, from defective detectives to weird families, just about every genre has had its moment (some more briefly than others). Westerns were the next big thing in 1957, and cowboys ruled the airwaves for years. The 1959–1960 Fall Preview showcased 29 oaters that season, with ten of them premiering that season (with Bonanza being the most notable)—and eight of them ran an hour in length. Those are staggering numbers considering the limited broadcasting time.
HEH-HEH-HEH
My TV viewing kicked into high gear in the Sixties with the advent of oddball comedies, overshadowing the cowpokes that ruled the video roost. And the Fall Preview was there to foresee it all. In the 1964–1965 season, comedy was king. 22 of the 35 new shows were comedies. Classics like Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, Bewitched (whose beautiful witch was named Cassandra instead of Samantha in the first draft of the pilot script), The Addams
(ABOVE) By 1959, the Fall Previews included group shots of new casts. If you liked Westerns, you were a happy viewer. (BELOW) You can occasionally get a glimpse into history beyond television. The week’s listings in the 1960–1961 edition featured the televised Nixon-Kennedy debate. © TV Guide. Family, and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. all debuted in that single season. [Editor’s note: Just in time for Bewitched’s 60th anniversary, its star, Elizabeth Montgomery, will be profiled in our pages in RetroFan #31!] This was when I was young enough to laugh at the antics on these shows but old enough to be a smart-alecky kid and get curious about details. Like everyone else, I wondered how a group of castaways could create a radio from coconut shells but couldn’t wrap their heads around fixing a hole in their boat. In an interview on The Rosie O’Donnell Show decades later, Gilligan himself, Bob Denver, answered that burning question: “There weren’t any nails on the island.”
WE’RE MOVIN’ ON UP
A fun aspect of Fall Previews is seeing the rise of your favorite stars. The 1962–1963 issue previewed a sitcom called I’m Dickens… He’s Fenster, featuring John Astin, before he grew a mustache and became crazy-eyed Gomez Addams two years later. [Editor’s note: Join us for a John Astin profile in RetroFan #35.] 1965’s “As We See It” editorial column was less than amused about the trend to light comedies (including I Dream of Jeannie, Green Acres, Hogan’s Heroes), and hoped that high end programming such as documentaries and plays might offset the overload of sitcoms. The editors dismissed Get Smart by saying “some of the plots… are preposterous.” Well, yeah, but wasn’t that the point? In spite of TV Guide’s brush-off of these shows, they are iconic today and still entertain in reruns. RETROFAN
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CHEERS AND JEERS:
TV GUIDE FALL PREVIEW PREDICTIONS THAT HIT (AND MISSED) THE MARK Fall Previews told us what was new, what to watch, and what to avoid. Most of the time they were right on target… but not always. CHEERS: “The sanctity of the law is upheld by such shows as Dragnet.” (1954) “Finally, color television is here.” (1955) “A big gunfight follows as Pa and boys come to the rescue. If it survives this melee, Bonanza should prosper.” (1959) (Of Bugs Bunny cartoons) “They’re well-written, tastefully done, and pretty darn funny.” (1960) (Of The Flintstones) “Something new in the trade—an adult cartoon.” (1960) (Of the new host of The Tonight Show) “[Johnny] Carson is more incisive, sharper, quicker than [former host Jack] Paar. But will the ladies love him?” (1962) “This is the year of the chuckle.” (1964, the year that brought us Gilligan’s Island, Mr. Magoo, The Munsters, Bewitched, The Addams Family, and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.)
(TOP) Schedule grids became a welcome feature. Of course, it was a lot easier when there were only three networks! (BOTTOM) 1961’s Fall Preview introduced us to The Dick Van Dyke Show [see RetroFan #7—ed.]. Rob and Laurie Petrie lived at 448 Bonnie Meadow Road in New Rochelle, New York. Creator Carl Reiner changed one number of his New Rochelle home residence for the Petries’ address. The Dick Van Dyke Show © CBS.
One new show of the 1966 season featured a “startling character” with “pointy ears, slant eyebrows and Beatle bangs.” TV Guide didn’t think this show was boldly going anywhere: “The sky’s not the limit on this Trek.” Whatever that means.
WE’VE GOT A REALLY BIG SHOW
The 1967–1968 book ballooned to 68 pages; spending half a page detailing how a nun could fly might explain the need for expansion. By 1969, the Fall Preview was up to 80 pages. 30
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JEERS: (On the new concept of Theater TV, where movie theaters would broadcast special-event TV programming simultaneously onto their big screen) “Some 100 theaters in 60 cities currently are equipped for big-screen TV shows… linked for each of the big TV events coming up this fall.” (1954) Hey, how’d that investment work out for you? (On the quality of new programming fare) “The day of the we’ll buy-anything attitude at the networks is about over.” (1955) Wellllllll… “The new Western hero… is a man no one but his agent had ever heard of. His name is James Garner.” (1956) Give him a chance; he might make a name for himself. From the letters column: “Dick Clark’s only crime is the promotion of a casual stupidity.” (1960) That laughing you heard for the next 52 years was Dick Clark walking to the bank. (On the new TV show The Aquanauts) “You’d be surprised how exciting it is.” (1960) Yes, it was exciting. All one season of it.
retro television
(LEFT) By 1965, Fall Previews eschewed group shots for separate photos of new shows and their stars. © TV Guide. (BELOW) Gilligan’s Island and its earworm theme song premiered in 1964. Tina Louise’s contract stated that she would be billed fifth in the roll call of castaways, and that nobody would be billed after her (perhaps so her name, being the last one heard, would be remembered). Russell “Professor” Johnson and Dawn “Mary Ann” Wells arrived late to negotiations to find their characters couldn’t be named before or after Louise’s, so they became “… and the rest.” Fortunately, the song was corrected by the next season and the duo got their well-deserved name-check. (Source: televisionacademy.com.) Gilligan’s Island © Warner Bros. format; with more TV to cover, Fall Previews got thicker and thicker. Since their switch to standard magazine size, we no longer see these chunky annuals. Personally, I miss the digest-sized issues.
HOW SWEET IT IS
“As We See It” made a rather dramatic prediction: “This season could mark either the beginning of TV’s second Golden Age or the end of serious efforts to upgrade the medium with special programming.” While it wasn’t exactly a serious effort, there was one show that debuted in the Summer of Love that changed television habits in a roundabout way. By 1969, everything was groovy and TV was just starting to reflect real-life issues in their situation comedies. Producer Sherwood Schwartz read that 29% of all marriages included a child or children from a previous marriage. With that in mind, The Brady Bunch was announced in the 1969 Fall Preview. While it was still the same fluff that had always been on TV, it was an attempt to depict trending family dynamics and a subtle step in a direction that would lead to meatier fare like All in the Family and Maude in just a few short years. An interesting missive in that issue’s letters column showed that viewers were taking their TV seriously. William Cook wrote, “Why can’t more TV shows follow the fine example set by The Fugitive? Instead of just ending the season with another rerun, why couldn’t shows like The Time Tunnel film a special episode and save it for the end of the season? … There are, have been, and will be many more shows that could end with a real ending.” Mr. Cook echoed my sentiments. I still think of those people still stranded on Gilligan’s Island, the Robinson family still Lost in Space, and the crew of the Spindrift still getting trampled in a faraway Land of the Giants. The 1980–1981 issue was a bulging 84 pages, and the last one to be spine-stapled. The next year, it would change to a squarebound
I reached adulthood (maturity came later) and struck out on my own. I got an apartment slightly larger than my car, and as a newly minted Responsible Adult, I started my own subscription to TV Guide. There was my weekly dose of TV info, delivered right to my door. But it wasn’t Mom and Dad’s magazine any more. Now I was getting those Fall Previews, and they were mine, all mine. I kept that first Preview issue from my subscription, from 1977. Then I kept the next year. And the next. And just like that, a collection started. Soon I was married, and my wife knew my special TV Guide would arrive every September, and that I would add it to my burgeoning collection. I regretted not saving all of those great issues when I was growing up. My dream was to have every Fall Preview, starting with their first one in 1953. I searched comic-cons, antique stores, and flea markets, with very few “hits.” And then eBay came along. Ah, yes… online auctions and my disposable income. What a combination.
WOULD YOU BELIEVE…?
By the late Seventies, the Fall Previews edition was easily the figure of authority when it came to television viewing. 1977’s annual offering told readers that “in place of violence, you’ll find more comedy, more fantasy, more family drama—and more sex. Onscreen advisories about ‘adult’ content will be very much in evidence.” While my parents bemoaned this trend toward “Jiggle TV,” my 20-year-old raging hormones just said, “Bring it on!” RETROFAN
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Fall Previews employ distinctive cover art with various graphic designs. Collectors should be wary of the 1973–1974 issue, which uses the same design as the previous year’s edition. © TV
Guide.
OUTSTANDING, NOTABLE, AND NOTORIOUS TV SHOW PREMIERES Some of these shows bring up fond memories, whether it was the characters, the plots, their place in TV history, or even a theme song you can’t get out of your head. Which ones did you grow up with? f 1953–1954: Danny Thomas’ latest fare, Life with Danny; Crusader Rabbit f 1954–1955: The Mickey Rooney Show; Father Knows Best; Disneyland f 1955–1956: The Mickey Mouse Club; Sheena; Captain Kangaroo; The Honeymooners f 1956–1957: Playhouse 90; Tic Tac Dough; Circus Boy f 1957–1958: Bachelor Father; Pat Boone; Have Gun Will Travel; Leave It to Beaver; Perry Mason; Zorro f 1958–1959: Milton Berle returns to TV; The Donna Reed Show; The Rif leman; 77 Sunset Strip; Concentration f 1959–1960: Bonanza; Dennis the Menace; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; Rocky and His Friends; The Twilight Zone; Quick Draw McGraw; The Untouchables f 1960–1961: The Andy Griffith Show; Bugs Bunny; My Three Sons; The Flintstones f 1961–1962: The Bullwinkle Show; Car 54 Where Are You?; Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color; The Dick Van Dyke Show; The Alvin Show; Password f 1962–1963: The Jetsons; McHale’s Navy; The Virginian f 1963–1964: My Favorite Martian; The Outer Limits; The Fugitive; Petticoat Junction; The Patty Duke Show f 1964–1965: Flipper; The Adventures of Mr. Magoo; Gilligan’s Island; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; The Man from 32
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U.N.C.L.E.; The Munsters; Bewitched; Jonny Quest; The Addams Family; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. f 1965–1966: I Dream of Jeannie; Get Smart; The FBI; F Troop; My Mother, the Car; Lost in Space; Green Acres; I Spy; The Wild, Wild West; Hogan’s Heroes f 1966–1967: Mission: Impossible; The Monkees; Family Affair; Star Trek; That Girl; The Green Hornet; The Time Tunnel; Tarzan f 1967–1968: Mannix; The Carol Burnett Show; The Flying Nun; Ironside f 1968–1969: Adam-12; The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; Land of the Giants; The Mod Squad; Hawaii Five-0 f 1969–1970: Love, American Style; The Courtship of Eddie’s Father; The Brady Bunch; Marcus Welby, M.D.; Sesame Street f 1970–1971: The Mary Tyler Moore Show; The Odd Couple; The Flip Wilson Show; The Partridge Family f 1971–1972: Cannon; NBC Mystery Movie; The New Dick Van Dyke Show 1972–1973: Kung Fu; The Bob Newhart Show; M*A*S*H; Maude; The Waltons f 1973–1974: The Six Million Dollar Man; Kojak; Police Story; Star Trek: The Animated Series; Super Friends f 1974–1975: Rhoda; Get Christie Love!; Little House on the Prairie; Planet of the Apes; Police Woman; Shazam!; Chico and the Man; The Rockford Files f 1975–1976: Welcome Back, Kotter; Starsky and Hutch; Space: 1999 f 1976–1977: Charlie’s Angels; Alice; Baa Baa Black Sheep; The Muppet Show f 1977–1978: Sha Na Na; The Love Boat; Soap; Lou Grant; The Man from Atlantis
retro television
“The season ahead clearly promises more than a few surprises,” TV Guide’s editor said of the upcoming 1979–1980 offerings. The season gave us forgettable programming like: f Working Stiffs, an early Michael Keaton vehicle that aired four episodes before vanishing into limbo; f A New Kind of Family, which was yanked off the airwaves and quickly re-tooled halfway through its first season (always a bad sign) but still lasted only ten episodes; f California Fever, starring Marc McClure, a.k.a. Jimmy Olsen in the Christopher Reeve Superman films, that limped along through ten episodes; f Struck By Lightning, a comedy about Frankenstein’s monster that aired three of its 11 episodes. Bulgy-eyed, grizzled Jack Elam played the part of the monster, without the need for make-up! f Eischeid, a cop show. Inexplicably, NBC reran all 13 episodes in its original Friday night time slot during the summer of 1983, almost four years after it had been cancelled; and f Big Shamus Little Shamus, a turkey that CBS cancelled after broadcasting only two episodes. This “season of surprises” was the equivalent of getting underwear for Christmas instead of those Star Wars action figures you wanted. Still, this season brought us Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, so it wasn’t all bad. An actor’s strike delayed the debut of many new shows and threw a monkey wrench into the 1980 Fall Preview’s reputation for accuracy. Debut dates couldn’t be listed simply because networks had no idea when (or if) a show would begin. “It’s possible that some of the new season’s shows will be postponed—or even canceled— because of the strike.” In spite of the shaky start, we eventually got solid shows from that season, such as Hill Street Blues, Too Close for Comfort, Bosom Buddies, and Magnum P.I. The 1982 Fall Preview debuted a new feature, “Editor’s Choice,” where the editor predicted the winners among the new batch of shows. Most of the time the selections were on target, as with this year when they selected Cheers, Newhart, Family Ties, and St. Elsewhere. The following year they chose For Love and Honor and AfterMASH (two notorious duds) as breakout hits. But overall, their prediction rate was pretty solid.
I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER
I’d bet that at least 95% of RetroFan readers know the rush of completing a collection, that satisfied flash of pleasure that comes when you find that Holy Grail you needed for the final piece of a set you’ve been working on. So, after filling in the holes for years, imagine the sense of fulfillment that came over me when I found a copy of the 1955–1956 Fall Preview, the last one I needed to complete my set of over 60 Fall Previews. TV Guide has been a mainstay in my home for my whole life, and I still eagerly look forward to the Fall Preview every September. In addition to the rich, colorful history of television, I
(ABOVE) From 1976: Look at these stars! (LEFT) In these days of grids crammed with information, it’s hard to believe a time when TV Guide gave up this much copy space for one show. Sometimes the “capsule descriptions” took up nearly one-quarter of the entire page! © TV Guide.
can look back and see my beloved stars as their careers took them from show to show. Whenever I saw a favorite actor starring in a new show, I played a fun game in my head: imagining them as the same character from their old show, continuing their adventures somewhere else. In my mind, I was saddened to know that Rob and Laura Petrie eventually divorced, but knowing that Laura moved to Minneapolis to begin life anew as an associate producer at WJM warmed my heart. And it was obvious to me that mental patient Buddy (“I’m feeling much better now”) from Night Court was simply Gomez Addams in his later years. Sure, the characters’ names changed, but we TV fanatics… we knew. We knew. Although their original purpose was to give us a sneak peek into the future, TV Guide Fall Previews are a terrific time capsule of television’s past. I look through them often… that is, when I’m not watching retro TV. MICHAL JACOT is a writer and illustrator living in Michigan. He believes Paul Lynde on The Hollywood Squares is the funniest man in history. RETROFAN
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Too Much TV COLUMN ONE
1) Sgt. Charley Hacker 2) Recruiting sergeant 3) Fred Plummer 4) Sam Franklin 5) Sam Pomerantz 6) Clyde Plaunt 7) Barney Hefner 8) voice of Drooper 9) Hotel detective Bardoli 10) Arthur “Art” Miller The Andy Griffith Show; Archie Bunker’s Place; The Dick Van Dyke Show; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.; The Joey Bishop Show © CBS Television Distribution. The Banana Splits © Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Brady Bunch © Paramount Pictures Television. All Rights Reserved.
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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.) The TV character played by actor Allan Melvin in Column One corresponds to a TV show/episode 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!
I think my boyfriend suffers from multiple personalities...
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) The Brady Bunch B) The Banana Splits Adventure Hour C) The Joey Bishop Show D) The Dick Van Dyke Show E) “Andy and Barney in the Big City,” The Andy Griffith Show F) “Barney’s Uniform,” The Andy Griffith Show G) Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. H) “Howard’s Main Event,” The Andy Griffith Show I) Archie Bunker’s Place J) “Ernest T. Bass Joins the Army,” The Andy Griffith Show
ANSWERS: 1–G, 2–J, 3–F, 4–A, 5–D, 6–H, 7–I, 8–B, 9–E, 10–C
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Shade TM & © DC Comics.
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RETRO INTERVIEW
Getting the Best of Bond
s k r a P a n i Tr ! r e v Fore
BY ANTHONY TAYLOR
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) marked a return to form and the end of an era for the James Bond franchise; after producers refused to meet leading man Sean Connery’s salary demands following You Only Live Twice, he was replaced by Australian model George Lazenby for 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While the 1969 film is one of the best in the series, audiences just didn’t take to the new guy onscreen. When Lazenby went rogue and announced he wouldn’t return to the part of the world’s most famous secret agent, producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman found themselves over a barrel; they needed a Bond, and quickly—a Bond who could right the franchise’s sinking prospects as the Sixties spy craze waned and drew its final breaths. The duo lured a visibly aging Connery back for one last hurrah as MI6 agent 007, and sent him stateside to get to the bottom of a diamond smuggling ring that smacked of old nemeses SPECTRE [Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion; herewith Spectre—ed.]. Along the way, Bond gets pulled into their bid to use the assets and influence of reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte to hold the world hostage with a killer laser weapon satellite made with the diamonds. Kidnapped by Spectre commander Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who has been impersonating him), Whyte has been imprisoned in a fabulous modern home in the Nevada desert, watched over by a pair of lovely but deadly jailers, Bambi and Thumper. The pair are ultimately subdued after throwing Bond into the pool, but before that they savagely—and stylishly—beat him to within an inch of his life. Gymnast Lola Larson acquits herself well as Bambi, but the real standout in the scene is Thumper, as portrayed by dancer and actress Trina Parks, who became the first Bond girl of color in this movie.
Watch out, 007, here comes Thumper! Signed Trina Parks publicity photo from the 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. © Eon Productions. Unless otherwise noted, all images accompanying this article are courtesy of Anthony Taylor and/or Trina Parks.
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retro interview
DANCING QUEEN
Trina Parks was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 26th, 1947. The daughter of renowned Jazz saxophonist Charles Henry “Charlie” Frazier, it was inevitable that she would eventually pursue a career in the arts. Frazier was a Cotton Club regular, and played for and with such luminaries as Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and many more. From a very young age, Trina loved to dance. “My father started taking me to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to start ballet classes when I was about six,” she says. “He was out of town a lot [performing], but when he was home, he always made sure to take me there himself. I’ve been dancing ever since.” Continuing with her studies, she moved into Jazz and African dance classes, eventually auditioning for the High School for the Performing Arts (of Fame fame), to which she was admitted enthusiastically. As she matriculated there, she also began taking classes several afternoons a week at the Katherine Dunham school a few blocks away, where her talents bloomed. Dunham was one of the most popular dancers, choreographers, and dance teachers of the time. She originated the role of Georgia Brown in the Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky. She and her dance troupe performed in many theatrical shows and reviews both in New York and across the country, and in motion pictures such as Star Spangled Rhythm, Pardon My Sarong (with Abbott and Costello), and Stormy Weather. Dunham became Trina’s mentor. “You always wish to be younger, but if I had been younger I would never have had the opportunity to study with Ms. Dunham,” she muses. “I feel so lucky that I was able to learn from her.” After graduating high school, Trina joined the final iteration of the Dunham dance troupe, performing all across the country and eventually spending a year in Paris. Parks has been engaged as choreographer for the upcoming film Eartha Kitt C’est Si Bon, a biopic of Kitt who was another of Dunham’s protégés. Ashlee Olivia Jones will portray Kitt, with Robert Beltran set to play Orson Welles. As a dance instructor herself, Trina has taught the Dunham technique since 1970, honoring the legacy of Katherine Dunham who passed away in 2006. A part as a dancer in Martin Ritt’s film The Great White Hope brought Parks to California in 1970, under the supervision of choreograParks (RIGHT) with David Carradine and David McCallum in a screen capture from “The Phantom Farmhouse,” Season 2, Episode 5 of television’s Night Gallery. Original airdate: October 20, 1971. © Universal. 38
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pher Donald McKayle, in whose company she had danced following the return of the Dunham troupe from Europe. “That was the first time I’d gone to Los Angeles, and I loved it!,” she says. “I loved the weather, never liked the cold, so I stayed and created my own act at the Ulysses Club in Beverly Hills, and that’s how I got an agent in Hollywood.” First up for Trina was a background part dancing in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Soon, she landed a co-starring part alongside David Carradine and David McCallum, in an episode of Night Gallery called “The Phantom Farmhouse,” directed by Jeannot Szwarc. “I didn’t have too much interaction with David Carradine except for the scene of all of us in the trees, but I really enjoyed working with both of them,” Parks reveals. Then came Bond. Trina got a call from her agent, Marty Klein, saying the producers of Diamonds Are Forever were casting the character of Thumper, and he felt she might be right for it. “He knew I had dance experience but he didn’t know if I knew karate,” she recalls. “So I said, ‘Yeah! I know Haitian karate,’ which I had learned from Ms. Dunham.” Klein forwarded her bio, and she was interviewed, screentested, and producers Broccoli and Salesman were sold. They offered her the role that would be her signature performance. “I had so much fun doing that part. And it was the first time I had been on a set where there was more than just a few people—there were a lot of people on this set!” Trina has high praise for producer Cubby Broccoli, director Guy Hamilton, and especially stunt coordinator Bob Simmons. “[Simmons] said, ‘I’m not a dancer, so show me what you have, show me what you can do’, and that was for the shots where I was on the floor stalking Sir Sean,” she remembers. The pair tried several
retro interview
Parks poses in character as Thumper. © Eon Productions.
Bond gains the upper hand. © Eon Productions.
(COLUMN ABOVE) Sean Connery’s reluctant turn at Bond, 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, pitted the superspy against the fancy footwork of Trina Parks as Thumper and Lola Larson as Bambi. © Eon Productions. Poster courtesy of Heritage.
different combinations of moves and actions, and Broccoli and Hamilton picked what they liked for the scene. The company then took the better part of two days to block all the movement and camera coverage and shoot the bulk of the scene before breaking for the weekend, to return Monday for the final day of shooting in the swimming pool. “Lola did all of her own stunts because she was a gymnast, my stunt lady had to do the dive into the pool because I was SAG (Screen Actors Guild, the actors union) and Lola wasn’t at the time, so she was performing ‘Taft-Hartley’ (a SAG permit that producers file for non-union performers with special skills) and she was just wonderful. Richard E. Butler was Sir Sean’s stunt
double and he really looked like him on camera!” Butler took all the punishment dished out by the ladies, including several wicked kicks and judo tosses. The Elrod House in Palm Springs, California, was used for the location, and the modernist masterpiece home kept cast and crew entranced… and on their toes. “Those were all real rocks in the scene, the house was built on them. If anyone took a tumble the wrong way, it could have been really dangerous,” Trina recalls. The circular, vault-like living space is as unforgettable as the action that takes place within it in the film. The house was designed in 1968 by John Lautner, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, and commissioned RETROFAN
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become called “Blaxploitation”—a term coined by Junius Griffin, president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch of the NAACP at the time—ushered a new era of films into theaters which catered to audiences predominantly of color. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #27 for a look at the Seventies Kung Fu craze and issue #10 for a history of Shaft and Blaxploitaion.] Though Griffin meant the term to be pejorative, many of the films were among the first to show African-American characters as the protagonists rather than villains, or worse—tertiary characters inserted for comic relief. The great majority of Blaxploitation films were action films centered around street life and crime, or horror movies. The proliferation of available roles for people of color—and especially strong, dynamic women—offered Trina new opportunities in the film business; especially since she had just made history as the first black woman in a James Bond film. And oh, by the way—she kicked Bond’s ass to boot. Doors that would have never opened for her before Diamonds Are Forever were suddenly opened… a bit. Calls to her agent for her services became more frequent, and she found she no longer had to audition for parts. She appeared as both an actor and dancer on television, on shows such as The Hollywood Palace and To Tell the Truth (as herself, the first African-American Bond girl), and on variety specials for Dick Shawn, film composer Michel LeGrand, and Telly Savalas (himself a Bond alumni, from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), as well as
(LEFT) Parks commanded the screen as the sultry siren Syreena in the 1975 Blaxploitation movie, Darktown Strutters. © New World Pictures. (RIGHT) The women-in-prison action movie The Muthers, from Roger Corman contemporary Cirio H. Santiago, featured Parks as a high-kicking convict on the run. © Dimension Pictures. Posters courtesy of Heritage. by Arthur Elrod, a prominent interior designer at the time. Elrod was killed in an automobile accident in 1974. Sir Ken Adam, the late production designer whose work is synonymous with the James Bond franchise, told journalist Ben Williams that the home was “absolutely right for the film. It was a reinforced concrete structure, very modern and fabulous,” he explained. “I said, ‘This is as though I designed it. I don’t have to do anything.’” (The amazing house was listed for sale recently, with a $10.495 million dollar asking price.) Later, Trina would return to Palm Springs, where she lived for eight years, performing in the Palm Springs Follies.
THE BLAXPLOITATION CRAZE
Around 1972, America became inundated by films depicting heroes and heroines from other cultures. The Kung Fu movie craze began with the influx of martial arts films from China, and what would 40
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(TOP) Trina and (LEFT) Jayne Kennedy in The Muthers. © Dimension Pictures.
(CENTER) Trina’s last movie role as of this writing was in the 2012 vampire flick Immortal Kiss: Queen of the Night, alongside Jerrell Pippens and Jonathan Davis. © Rapid Heart Pictures. Courtesy of Anthony Taylor.
Dionne Warwick, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. She also made appearances in the pilot for the series McCoy with Tony Curtis. In 1975, Trina starred as Syreena, the leader of a gang of tri-wheeled biker girls investigating the disappearance of her mother in Darktown Strutters. The film might look like a typical action picture of the time based on its poster, but because of writer George Armitage and director William Whitney (a veteran of many Westerns and Republic serials like Zorro’s Fighting Legion, Mysterious Doctor Satan, The Adventures of Captain Marvel, and The Crimson Ghost), Darktown Strutters became something more—a cross between a Blaxploitation movie and a Keystone cops comedy of the Thirties. Many modern reviews of the film posit a direct link between it and Keenen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka some 13 years later. “Over the top” hardly begins to describe it. “It was fun to do. I got to play a few different characters, and the crazy melodramatics,” Trina laughs. “I mean ,we got captured, we’re in jail, and there are glitter curtains behind us!” She also
(BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT) A dynamite double dose of Seventies-vintage publicity photos of Trina Parks, actress and dancer. Courtesy of Trina Parks. RETROFAN
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enjoyed working with the cast, which included Magnum P.I.’s Roger Mosley, Stan Shaw, Dwayne Jesse (Otis Day from Animal House), and the great Dick Miller. Produced by Gene Corman and released through his brother Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, the film was a box office disappointment despite being ahead of its time in its treatment of adult subject matter including reproductive rights and race relations. The following year, Trina set sail for the Philippines to co-star with Jayne Kennedy, Jeannie Bell, and Rosanne Katon in The Muthers from prolific Filipino exploitation filmmaker Cirio H. Santiago, a regular Roger Corman collaborator on films such as The Hot Box, Savage!, and Ebony, Ivory & Jade. Once again the actress found herself behind bars, being exploited as a worker and inmate on a female prison farm. Caught up in a breakout, Trina’s character Marcie sees a lot of action. “Cirio was fabulous!” she recalls. “And he was very well known in his country. We shot mostly on location in Manila and Batangas, and it was so hot there! I did all the stunts and fight scenes myself. They were not as difficult as Diamonds—no diving over rocks.” The foursome of ladies all became good friends and comrades in arms during shooting, and the film opened to decent reviews and did well at the box office. In 2019, director Quentin Tarantino called it one of his favorite movies. He arranged a special screening of it at his Los Angeles theater, the New Beverly, and had Trina, Jeannie Bell, and Jayne Kennedy in attendance for a question-and-answer session with the audience. “That was the first time either of us had seen it on a big screen,” remembers Trina.
The Muthers was Trina’s last film until 2012’s Immortal Kiss: Queen of the Night, in which she played Amina, the queen of the vampires. In between, she stayed busy on television, Broadway, and stages all around the world. These days she spends time with her grandchildren, she works when she feels like it, and enjoys meeting fans at conventions and events. Though dance is her first love, her connection with the James Bond franchise will always be what she is known for most. It continues to resonate and have impact on her life 50 years later. “It has been so amazing to my life, my experience! I had no idea what kind of impact we made at the time. I had no idea who Sean Connery was… I had never seen a James Bond film before. I didn’t know what an iconic movie series it was,” she says. “I had no idea I was the first black Bond girl until a friend called and told me when the film opened. All ages and cultures and creeds come to me at events and tell me how much they loved Thumper. It’s so humbling and I love meeting all of them.” Trina Parks was dynamite with James Bond… and beyond! ANTHONY TAYLOR is a writer and film historian. His retro film on high-definition media-review column “Apes on Film” appears at ATLRetro.com and NerdaltertNews.net. He is the author of Arctic Adventure!, an Official Thunderbirds novel based on the iconic television series by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson; The Future Was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim; and articles and features for a host of television and film magazines and publications.
SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM
The Life and Legend of the Frito Bandito
Corn chip background: Mx. Granger/Wikimedia.
BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA The story of the Frito Bandito (a one-time cartoon mascot for Fritos corn chips), my father’s short stint as a Keystone Cop, and me meeting the widow of Pancho Villa all happened within the space of a few years. The events, disconnected though they may seem, are related by forces beyond my control. Actor Ricardo “Khaaaaaan!” Montalbán makes an appearance, as do a couple of extremely honked–off bulls and Mae West’s apartment (but not all at the same time, I mean, be real). Also, there is a hairbreadth escape from jail and a futile hunt for a bandit. I will not be making any of this up. Here at the Secret Sanctum, a lot of time is spent thinking about the past. Most memories make me smile or make me shake my head, dumbfounded. The Frito Bandito story manages both. Smiles because the Frito Bandito’s commercials had a catchy jingle [see RetroFan #25 for more catchy commercial jingles—ed.], and I shake my head because, boy, the minds behind this cartoon mascot really weren’t reading the room (the room being the Sixties). The fact that his appearance made the pages of A Short Course in International Marketing Blunders: Learn from the Mistakes of Others by Charles
Mitchell (World Trade Press, 2001) should give you a hint of the Frito Bandito’s final fate. He may not have been an active mascot for long, but he refused to leave the party for longer than anyone expected.
THE COMING OF THE BANDITO
The Frito-Lay company, makers of yummy Fritos corn chips and other salty snacks, had hit a bad patch of publicity in the Sixties that they wanted to put in the memory hole. There were claims against the company for overcharging smaller business partners, indictments for extortion, and a grubby little episode involving peanut oil (it was an attempt to corner Frito-Lay’s Frito Bandito quickly the market—what became a large headache for the were you thinking popular snack company. Production of?). Management cel from an animated commercial, felt that the compacirca 1969. © Frito-Lay North America, Inc., a ny’s reputation Division of PespiCo (herewith Frito-Lay). Courtesy of needed a spit-shine, Heritage. RETROFAN
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and Fritos corn chips became a part of that effort. Frito-Lay both retired its first mascot, the Frito Kid, and introduced the Frito Bandito in 1967. The Bandito was dressed in a simple white outfit and armed with a couple of pistols. He had two bandoliers wrapped across and around his chest. His smile was menacing, highlighted by a gold tooth, and adorned with a long, pencil-thin mustache. He was unshaven and wore a large sombrero. He spoke with a very exaggerated South of the Border accent. And—at gunpoint—the Bandito wanted to take your Fritos, which he liked because they were “croonchy.” And now, the jingle: Ay, ay, ay, ay! I am dee Frito Bandito. I like Frito’s corn chips. I love them, I do. I want Frito’s corn chips, I’ll take them from you. The jingle is sung to the tune of the traditional Mexican song “Cielito Lindo” (also know as the “Ay-ay-ay-ay” song), and it or variations were heard in various Frito Bandito commercials. The target audience was kids. The jingle was just a happy, easily repeatable song that was supposed to pop into our heads when we saw a bag of Fritos corn chips. And it did. The reaction was strong enough that Frito-Lay expanded the advertising campaign beyond commercials on children’s programs toward a general audience. The Frito Bandito was not particularly unique in the advertising world. Other companies used exaggerated Mexican or other Latino characters selling their products, too. Bill Dana, in the guise of his popular Bolivian “José Jiménez” character, shilled for the Yellow Pages. Mexican-style bandits appeared in commercials for products like cigarettes and underarm deodorants (“If it works for them, it’ll work for you”). Responding to growing concerns about his dimwitted Latino character, Dana, who was of Hungarian Jewish “extraction” (as we used to say), announced the end of “José Jiménez” at a Mexican-American pride festival in 1970, performing as his career-defining creation only one more time after that. Dana also wrote the “Sammy’s Visit” episode of All In the Family (you know, the one where Sammy Davis, Jr. kisses bigot Archie Bunker—television’s other big biracial kiss of my youth). American Motors was another company knocked for its use of bad cultural stereotypes in its ads, but denied the claim. Advertising and Sales
(RIGHT) Pancho Villa in popular culture: Publisher Avon’s Pancho Villa one-shot comic book (Nov. 1950), with cover art by painter of presidents Everett Raymond Kinstler; and the poster for the Wallace Beery picture Viva Villa! (1934), the second time the actor portrayed the bandit, having previously done so in the silent film Patria (1917). Viva Villa! © MGM. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
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Screen capture of an early Frito Bandito commercial for kids. The “Ai Yi” is spelled phonically. © Frito-Lay. Promotion, a trade publication, reported in its September 1969 edition that American Motors pronounced with a straight face that its offensive characters were not Mexicans, but rather Turks or maybe Hungarians. But here’s the key thing about cartoon mascots and selling product: You want an appealing character that makes consumers think positively about your product. If we learned anything during the Sixties is that voices for better, fairer representation were growing and getting louder. The Frito Bandito was designed, first and foremost, to provide a positive association to corn chips. It’s true that all cartoon characters are exaggerations or simplifications of one sort or another. But the Bandito (more properly “bandido” in Spanish) was a “cute” rendition of a Mexican revolutionary, circa 1910–1920 of which Pancho Villa was the most famous. Villa was beloved by
scott saavedra’s secret sanctum
some as a hero who helped remove a dictator from power… but he was also a thief, a kidnapper, and a killer (just sayin’). Villa’s violent reputation was such that my wife Ruth’s paternal grandfather was released from a Mexican jail along with another American national (there is a story here, but no one in the family knows it) because it was rumored that Villa and his men were heading to town. The jailer was afraid that the Americans would be killed, so he let them go. Villa actually attacked America. In March 1916, his forces hit Columbus, New Mexico, a border town. Some two-dozen American military and civilians were killed or wounded. Villa lost about one hundred of his men. Within the week of the attack, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent Brigadier General John J. Pershing on what was originally called the “Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army.” Included in the expedition were Pershing’s aide, Lt. George S. Patton (yeah, that guy from World War II) and Capt. Nolan W. Ferguson, later to become my
companies acted more swiftly in removing unwelcome depictions of Mexican-Americans and Latinos. Frito-Lay was a very successful company. It was a combination of two snack producers, the Frito Company (makers of Fritos corn chips) and H. W. Lay & Company (makers of Lays potato chips), that merged in 1961. Four years later, Frito-Lay became a subsidiary of the Pepsi-Cola Company, which then became PepsiCo. Like many success stories, the rise of the Frito-Lay company is a tale of pluck and luck. And that tale begins with a desire to go home to Mexico. San Antonio, Texas, resident Gustavo Olguin wanted to return to Oaxaca, a Mexican state. Not much is known about Olguin, a cantina or restaurant owner (accounts vary) who may have had a business partner, name unknown. For his customers he created a fried corn chip made from masa, the same type of dough used for tamales (hmmm, tamales). Along with the recipe he had a list of clients and a customized potato ricer for making the chips. Olguin placed an ad in the July 10, 1932 edition of the San Antonio Express: “Corn chips business for sale, a new food product, making good money. Must sacrifice.” Nearby, Charles Elmer Doolin, whose family owned a confectionary shop, wanted to diversify his family’s offerings and saw the ad. Doolin had tasted Olguin’s chips before, either while eating a sandwich or as part of another dish (again, accounts vary). Doolin paid Olguin the $100 (about $2,200 in today’s dollars) asking price, using money loaned to him from his mother after she sold her wedding ring. Doolin made improvements to Olguin’s recipe and equipment. Originally, the chips were produced in his parents’ home, with family members providing labor. They were marketed as something to add to recipes but really took off when sold as a separate snack. The Frito Company’s success led it to buy compa(LEFT) Fritos magazine advertisement, circa 1970. nies with food-canning (RIGHT) A Fritos magazine ad from 1949, aimed at families and minus mascots. expertise. This, in turn, led © Frito-Lay. Via Archive.org. to Doolin wanting to see if wife Ruth’s great-grandfather. The Expeditionary Force spent six “Mexican-Style” food in a can would sell, and it did. months chasing Villa through Mexico but he evaded capture, which Doolin was always interested in new ways to promote his only added to his legend at home. products. Fritos’ first mascot, the Frito Kid, appeared to be a child The Villa-adjacent Frito Bandito quickly pushed enough buttons cowboy with blond hair that shot out dramatically from under his that advocacy groups wanted the cartoon mascot withdrawn. cowboy hat and a tongue that was perpetually licking his lips. Kid Frito-Lay was not willing to end the campaign even while other first appeared in 1952 and was designed to appeal to children, their RETROFAN
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The slightly unnerving Frito Kid, the mascot that preceded the Frito Bandito. © Frito-Lay. Courtesy Spacemountainmike/wikimedia.
target market. The Fritos Company was an early investor in Disneyland, and opened the Casa de Fritos restaurant only a month after the park itself opened in 1955. The Casa served “Mexican-style” food: Charles Elmer Doolin’s canned Mexican-style food. And, no surprise, Fritos corn chips. There you could buy the corn chips from a Frito Kid audio-animatronic figure standing at a small mining operation. If you put a nickel in the appropriate slot, the Kid moved its eyes back and forth and licked its lips, which I’m very certain had to look weird as heck. Then the Kid would call out to a miner named Klondike who, we are to believe, was busy mining “golden” corn chips deep in the earth. From these depths he shot a bag down a ramp to the delighted purchaser (imagine having a fun experience at Disneyland for only a nickel). The Casa de Fritos was next door to Aunt Jemima’s Pancake House. Where were we? Oh, yeah, stereotypes. The Frito Kid was retired and headed off into the sunset (or down into the mines with Klondike). Enter the Frito Bandito.
THE BANDITO ARRIVES
The pedigree of the minds behind the Frito Bandito was top-notch. The advertising campaign was the creation of advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB); other FCB clients during this era included Coors Brewing Company, AT&T, and Mattel. The Bandito was visualized by Tex Avery, an influential animation director who was the king of high-energy Warner Bros. and MGM theatrical cartoon shorts where old-timey car horn “arroogah” sounds can be heard. At the time he was working on commercials for Cascade Studios, which animated the ads. Voice actor Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Barney of The Flintstones, etc. to infinity) spoke for the Bandito, sounding much like the Warner Bros. cartoon character Speedy Gonzales, whom he also vocalized. More about good ol’ Speedy in a bit. In an early move in the campaign to introduce the kids to their new mascot, a Frito Bandito Club was created. Members were known as “Little Banditos.” The membership kit came with a cardboard mustache. The groups with concerns about the Frito Bandito, like Involvement of MexicanAmericans in Gainful Endeavors (IMAGE) 46
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and National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee (NMAADC), wanted better and more varied media representation because they found it demeaning to be seen as only sleepy peasants, bandits, and sexy señoritas. Frito-Lay did not directly engage the groups or admit that they had done anything wrong. However… Frito-Lay gave the Frito Bandito a bit of a low-key remodel. Gone was the gold tooth. He became friendlier, clean-shaven, his accent less extreme. His guns disappeared. It’s been claimed that the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 was responsible for that adjustment. And the Bandito straight-up stopped trying to steal Fritos corn chips. He would now use guile and trickery. A 1969 commercial featured the kinder, gentler Bandito as a “parking attendant” on the Moon (you heard me), requesting that the Apollo astronauts pay him with corn chips. At the time it was considered risky to use the upcoming Moon landing in ads in case something went wrong. Another commercial had the Bandito as a magician, using stage magic to turn the audience’s Fritos into his Fritos (that’s still stealing, right?). We RetroFans may not have noticed it at the time, but parts of our childhood were quietly being put away. Buck-toothed Joe Jitsu and sombrero-wearing Go Go Gomez—both with exaggerated accents—from The Dick Tracy Show (1961–1962) vanished as the cartoon was slowly pulled from syndication beginning in the mid-Seventies for reasons similar to Disney keeping the movie Song of the South out of active circulation. Looney Tunes’ Speedy Gonzalez
Promotional items: (RIGHT) Frito Bandito pencil topper. Similar promotional toppers exist for W. C. Fritos and the Muncha Bunch. (BELOW) A seed packet from 1969, featuring the Bandito. © Frito-Lay. Topper and seed packet ourtesy of Worthpoint.
scott saavedra’s secret sanctum
cartoon character was also seen as potentially offensive and his appearances were scaled back. As it happens, there are many Mexican-Americans who love Speedy Gonzales. I love Speedy Gonzales. Do you? (Yeah, c’mon, you know you do.) In theatrical cartoons—his last was in 1968—this small village mouse (albeit a hyper-fast one) always bested the larger, stronger cat, Sylvester. Sure, Speedy appears in a cliché Mexican village outfit complete with sombrero, but it works because he’s portrayed as a capable hero. It’s not that nobody notices his stereotypical appearance or his accent, but mainly he’s a positive, winning character. He’s not that dissimilar from Bugs Bunny, who, I believe, is from Brooklyn. And not everybody from Brooklyn talks like the rabbit (they want us to believe). But Bugs, while being a rascally rabbit, is still the good guy and a little stinker simultaneously. Wit and brains and some cartoon magic makes for a fantastic character. Speedy may not be a primary Warner Bros. cartoon property, but he’s still around. As the Frito Bandito continued to not go away, the groups pushing for more positive and fairer representation like IMAGE and NMAADC tried to keep up the pressure. A member of Congress weighed in on the issue. Here’s a quote from the June 17, 1969 Congressional Record, part of a (really long!) statement by U.S. Senator Joseph M. Montoya of New Mexico: “This past year we have seen the Spanish-speaking American thrust upon us in nationally televised advertising as a ‘mañanatype’ revolutionary advertising L&M cigarettes; again as a Frito-bandito [sic]; and as an ignorant peon who calls the Yellow Pages ‘Jello Pages.’ The Spanish-speaking American appears in commercials, true, but never with dignity.” So now the Frito Bandito as a bad character was forever part of America’s Permanent Record.
My father noticed the demands for change as he and a partner attempted to start a magazine about this Mexican-American community, his community even if he had previously not paid much attention to it. The publication was called New Chicano magazine, “Chicano” being a term that was once derogatory to Mexican-Americans but later reclaimed. My dad was born in America of Mexican parents. Spanish wasn’t spoken in our home when I was growing up except by my California-born mom whose Irish-Scottish parents came from the Midwest. The less said about her Spanish, the better (love you, Mother). But the Sixties… boy, that shook things up. And I’m not exactly sure what changed for my dad—I was too busy watching television—but something stirred within him that allowed him to see that the country of his birth and the country of his parents had a joined value. The process of starting a magazine, what little I saw of it, enthralled me. I was able to see paste-ups of spreads in progress back when preparing a magazine for print was a very hands-on experience. What investors there were bailed and that was that for New Chicano. But there was real value in the effort. The magazine doesn’t exist today beyond some photographs and inter(ABOVE) Speedy Gonzales is alive and well in this Mexican comic book from 1987. (LEFT) A Speedy Gonzales model sheet from 1960. (BELOW) Speedy Gonzales stars in Dell’s Four Color #1084 (Mar.–May 1960). © Warner Bros.
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views my dad and his partner conducted with various MexicanAmerican performers, including Ricardo Montalbán. RetroFans most likely know Montalbán from car ads touting “Corinthian leather” interiors, as Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island, and as a vengeful Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (If you want a real treat, watch “The Night of the Lord of Limbo,” Episode 15, Season Two of The Wild, Wild West. Montalbán, who was born in Mexico, plays a magician and former Confederate (!) Col. Noel Bartley Vautrain, a man with the ability to send people and things to another dimension. His magic gestures are intense. I say this respectfully. It’s certainly not the typical “Latin lover” type role he wanted to avoid, so good on him.) The Montalbán interview was recorded and then transcribed longhand in pencil by my mother. The actor had founded a group called Nosotros (meaning “us” in Spanish), along with Harry Darrow (from The High Chaparral) and others who were vocal in the industry about needing better roles for Latino actors. In the interview he spoke of his group’s goals to lift Mexican-Americans and other Latin minority populations up in the greater society, and, in doing so, he mentioned my father’s magazine. About New Chicano, Montalbán said to my father, “The opportunity is very clear. You and your magazine can do a great deal of explaining and appealing to the pride of Mexican-Americans, anyone with Mexican blood in them, and any Latin-American—we have pride, thank God. We are not servile. We have a sense of humility, but we are not servile.” My dad was certainly disappointed to not have gotten New Chicano out, but I’m pleased to get even this tiniest sliver of his unfinished effort into print for the first time.
THE LAST ROUND-UP
More and more, Frito-Lay was feeling the heat. The company conducted a survey that showed a super-majority of MexicanAmericans thought the Frito Bandito was just fine. Why, some of their best employees were Mexican-Americans (sadly, I am not kidding).
(ABOVE) Having run out of monsters to encounter, Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (Universal, 1955). © Universal Pictures. Courtesy of Heritage. (LEFT) The author’s father dressed as a Keystone Cop in preperation for a parade appearance sometime in the early Seventies. He is surrounded by most of his children. Courtesy of the author’s mother. Activist groups began demanding equal time wherever the Fritos commercials were shown, pressing their “Fairness Doctrine.” Since there were only three major networks as gatekeepers for national conversation, the doctrine grew out of concern from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to provide for opposing viewpoints to have access to the public airwaves on matters of public importance. Not long after, Frito-Lay caved. It was announced that the Frito Bandito was no more. And yet, believe it or not, we are still not finished with the Frito Bandito. Nor, as it would turn out, with Pancho Villa, either. In gathering interview subjects for his New Chicano magazine, my dad had heard about a Mexican-American who had followed Pancho Villa around as a cameraman’s assistant and translator to Villa during the Mexican Revolution and had worked in the silent film industry. His name was Edward LeVeque, an American of
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French and Mexican heritage. Everyone called him Eddie, but he was more commonly known as “The Last Keystone Cop.” The Keystone Cops (sometimes spelled “Kops”) comedic film shorts were a product of the Mack Sennett Keystone studio. Most often the Keystone Cops were background characters played by various actors, including LeVeque. After Sennett died in 1960, LeVeque acquired the rights to the Keystone Cops name. Was this a great business move? I can’t really say, but by the time my dad met the man, the Keystone Cops were very old, old news. Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955) was pretty much the last “major” screen appearance of the silent movie icons—and they truly are—but they were played by stunt men and not comics. The original name of the movie was going to be Abbott and Costello Meet the Stuntmen. My dad, a lifelong film fan, was intrigued by LeVeque and wanted to tell his story. LeVeque wanted to tell his story, too. One way LeVeque kept the Keystone Cops alive was by having them appear as part of public events like parades. My dad ended up as an honorary Cop for a couple of parades, one was the famous Rose Bowl parade held on New Year’s Day in the early Seventies, which we all excitedly watched from home trying to see our dad. We didn’t. And the other parade somehow involved George Putnam, a Los Angeles local news anchor and a well-known lover of Dalmatians, in some fashion (the details escape me). For reasons unknown I got to be in the parade and had to sit in a slowmoving car with my sister, waving at people along the parade route, while my father assayed the role of a Keystone Cop, pretending to bop people on the head with a limp police baton. Two more things about George Putnam: Nationally he is better known for hosting a notorious propaganda film Perversion for Profit in 1963 and was part of the inspiration for Ted Knight when creating his newscaster character Ted Baxter for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (nailed it—if you grew up watching TV in the Greater Los Angeles area, the impression is hilarious). A year after Frito-Lay claimed to abandon the Frito Bandito, he was still selling corn chips. A $610 million lawsuit for the “defamation of character” of all of the Mexican-Americans in the country was threatened by NMAADC and other groups. The individual awards would amount to $100 per each Mexican-American in the country. The lawsuit never happened, and I didn’t get my 100 bucks (that would have been 666 comic books in 1970). A painful loss to me personally, for sure. More condemnation in the press: Newsweek noted pointedly that Frito-Lay seemed to be okay with offending a group as long as profits weren’t being affected, and industry sources like Advertising Age denounced the company’s “lack of good faith.” In 1969, Frito-Lay brought out an alternate mascot based on W. C. Fields, who, as it happens, is one of my all-time favorite old-timey film comedians. His comedies with Mae West are legendary. He had a drinking problem and a reputation for hating children (probably an act, but still)… so who better to be the model for a cartoon mascot aimed at kids? His name was W. C. Fritos, and he was the cousin or
Perversion for Profit was a documentary from Citizens for Decent Literature narrated by Los Angeles area newscaster George Putnam. The author and Putnam were technically in a parade together. something of the Frito Bandito. Another attempt at replacing the Bandito was the Muncha Bunch, a group of Western cowboys with boundary issues. Speaking of Mae West, and we were, Eddie LeVeque showed me how he could see her apartment from his backyard during a visit. Kind of neat in retrospect, I guess, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the information at the time. I was at his home with my parents to record an interview for the proposed book about his life. We got a short tour of where the Sennett studio was (some of it still exists as a production studio next to a Jack in the Box and a Public Storage facility). The most striking memory that I carry from that visit is of the stacks of hand-painted title and dialogue cards from silent movies stacked on end around the living
W. C. Fritos, replacement for the Frito Bandito, in a 1973 commercial screen capture. © Frito-Lay. RETROFAN
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and dining area. LeVeque’s wife Florence painted them. So cool. The LeVeque book never came out, and the notes from the interview were passed on to another writer who wrote a chapter about LeVeque for a book about old Hollywood, possibly You Must Remember This by Walter Wagner (Putnam, 1975). One of my brothers thinks he has the original interview tapes, so maybe someday the Secret Sanctum will be able to share more about the story of the Last Keystone Cop.
RIDING OFF INTO THE SUNSET
in Beverly Hills), whose career began in 1923. “He’s so big on screen and so small in person!” was my mom’s observation. And I got to meet Doña Luz Corral de Villa, the last surviving Pancho Villa wife (he had four and wasn’t fussy about exclusivity) at a fundraiser. The least explicable fundraising event that my dad was involved in was an attempt to bring Spanishstyle bullfighting to America. In a regular bullfight, the bull usually doesn’t go home at the end of the exhibition (if you take my meaning). That’s illegal in America. So, the notion was to have a bloodless bullfight. In a bloodless bullfight, the bulls get angrier and angrier over the course of the event until it looks like the bullfighters won’t be going home at the end of the exhibition. Basically, the day went from interesting to completely terrifying, and I still live with the sound and sight of a large bull slamming a medium-sized bullfighter into a wall (he survived, and the bull got a stern talking-to). So was the whole Frito Bandito hoo-hah worth it for Frito-Lay? As one company executive put it to Advertising and Sales Promotion magazine in 1969 as criticism was growing, sales were not what “Frito has hoped.” The Frito Bandito has not been forgotten. Essentially an abandoned trademark, he appears in reproductions on buttons and T-shirts, and vintage Frito-Lay promotional merchandise can be found on eBay and the like. You might even be able to uncover a mint Frito Bandito Club kit and get yourself a cardboard mustache. My dad passed in 2001. At his funeral, a mariachi band played traditional music under a tree on a hill.
The reign of the Frito Bandito was formally, if quietly, ended in early 1971 after stations in Washington, Oregon, and California banned the commercials and the NMAADC lawsuit was announced. The most generous defense of the Frito Bandito was that it was a misreading of shifting cultural currents. I don’t believe that anybody was being evil. In his autobiography That’s Not All Folks (Warner Books, 1988), Mel Blanc explained why he chose the accent he used for the Bandito. Long ago he was enchanted by the accent of a man, part of the crew building his home, who spoke with a broad accent. And sure, that’s fine. But he used that basic voice each time he needed a Mexican character. There is no one Mexican voice any more than there is only one American voice. (TOP) Cover to Accidental Ambassador Gordo by Blanc said he was hurt by the R. C. Harvey and Gus Arriola (University Press of reaction to the Frito Bandito, and Mississippi, 2000). Arriola’s long-running comic that “had it been another time” strip Gordo celebrated Mexico and its culture as few there’d be less “extreme sensitivity” other cartoons have. © EW Scripps. (ABOVE) In Season to the character. Well, yeah. I guess Two, Episode 4 of Arrested Development, the family’s people didn’t complain about Aunt patriarch, George Bluth, created the Cornballer, Jemima in “another time,” either. a device so dangerous it was banned in America. That said, he was literally the “voice” But George kept selling the Cornballer in Mexico, of my generation growing up. My where he earned the nickname “Frito Bandito.” fondness for his cartoon work is © 20th Century Netflix. undiminished. I got to meet interesting Latinos SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a Retro Explorer operand Mexican-American creatives during the Seventies. We went to ating from his Southern California–based Monterey, California, to meet Gus Arriola, who created the comic Secret Sanctum. He is a writer (more or less), strip Gordo (it’s the Spanish word for fat), a positive look at Mexican artist (occasionally), and graphic designer culture, very rare during most of its run (1941–1985). We went (you’re soaking in it). Check out his Instagram to Hollywood to see Bill Melendez at his eponymous animation thing, won’t you, at instagram/scottsaav/ production studio that worked on the Peanuts animated specials of our youth. I met film star Gilbert Roland (born in Mexico and died 50
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ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING
PART 3
BY ANDY MANGELS Having debuted in 1973 on ABC Saturday mornings, the Super Friends series had already gone through four iterations of the show—and one brief cancellation—by 1979. And although DC’s pantheon of Justice League members were well represented by Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman— and aided by the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, with their space monkey, Gleek—every new Fall season seemed to bring another title change and another tonal switch for the heroes. From 1979 to 1983, though, the SuperFriends series—now with a single-word name—would not only undergo four different titles, but also saw syndication expand their market, the network cancel them again, and an animation studio committed to not let the ending be “the end.” In the last two issues, we examined the first two versions of Super Friends, ABC’s 13-year Saturday morning hit, and now we’ll look at the middle seasons. And watch for the next issue of RetroFan as Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning wraps up your guide to the longest-running animated super-hero series ever!
THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERFRIENDS
The blaring orchestra and William Woodson’s narration opened the new series on September 22, 1979: “It’s The World’s Greatest SuperFriends! Batman and Robin… Superman… Wonder Woman and Aquaman… the Wonder Twins… banded together to protect the universe from the forces of evil. The SuperFriends! Dedicated to Truth, Justice, and Peace for all mankind! The World’s Greatest SuperFriends!” The World’s Greatest SuperFriends series was one hour long, with the first half consisting of reruns from previous seasons (mostly the half-hour episodes from the 1977–1979 seasons), and the second half of it being a new 22-minute show. Scheduled early in the morning, World’s Greatest SuperFriends led into another show based
Second revised title card for The World’s Greatest SuperFriends. (TOP LEFT TO RIGHT) Apache Chief, the Atom, El Dorado, Black Vulcan, Samurai, and (BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT) Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Aquaman. © DC Comics. RETROFAN
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Hall of Justice interior background painting. (BELOW) Superman in his flying Supermobile. © DC Comics.
on a DC Comics property, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. That series starred the stretchable hero who first appeared in 1941 adventures for Quality Comics, before being purchased by DC and reintroduced in the pages of 1966 comics. He had also had a guest appearance in the first season of Super Friends. For reasons lost to time, Hanna-Barbera decided to produce only eight new episodes for the World’s Greatest SuperFriends season, about half of what a normal order would be. The choice was made to do full-length stories that followed the core Super Friends, as they had mostly done in the second half of the Challenge of the SuperFriends stories. Interspersed between each story were short interactive segments with the characters often speaking directly to viewers: Safety, Health, and Crafts reels. Sadly, these shorts were cut from the DVD later release, and are not commercially available. Writer Jeffrey Scott wrote the scripts for the World’s Greatest SuperFriends episodes, though he took story direction from comic-book creators Rick Hoberg and Will Meugniot, as well as Don Sheppard, Emilie Kong, and Larry Latham. Comic artists Jack Kirby and Mike Sekowsky also contributed character designs; although Kirby wasn’t known at the time for the mainstream DC characters, Sekowsky was a longtime penciller of the Justice League of (LEFT) Jayna encounters the shrunken Bottle City of Kandor. (RIGHT) The fifthAmerica series! dimensional imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk. © DC Comics. 52
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Taking a page from Challenge, more lore from DC Comics was incorporated in the storytelling, including the return of Superman’s flying Supermobile (for when he was depowered); his Fortress of Solitude; and the Bottle City of Kandor (both making their first appearance), a city of Kryptonians shrunken to ant-size. Superman villains Lex Luthor and fifth-dimensional magical imp Mr. Mxyzptlk also bedeviled the heroes, and in a nod to the smash 1978 theatrical Superman film, not only did Lois Lane (redesigned to more closely resemble Margot Kidder) and Jimmy Olsen make an appearance (his only one), but so too did Luthor’s dimwitted henchman Orville Gump, who looked and acted suspiciously exactly like Ned Beatty’s bumbling live-action Otis. Even Luthor’s underground lair from the film was used, including a familiar hanging missile, and at one point, Superman flew his Super-
FAST FACTS
mobile multiple times around the Earth (a nod to the time-reversing end of the film). The stories for the season were mostly literary-based with the heroes facing an Aladdin-like evil genie on the planet Zaghdad, battling the space knights of Camelon—with Batman showing his proficiency in fighting with a lightsaber… er, “laser lance”—and helping the trolls of Middle Earth capture a special ring to help defeat an evil sorcerer and his dragon. A quartet of tiny superpowered Kandorians helped some of the SuperFriends face the evil Captain Nimoy and his watery plans for dominion, and when a descendant of Dr. Frankenstein created a rampaging Super-Monster—imbued with the powers of Superman and Wonder Woman, and the costume of Superman and Batman—Robin helped to save the day.
Lex Luthor in his then-current comic-book look is up to no good with his henchman Orville Gump.
© DC Comics.
© DC Comics.
HANNA-BARBERA’S THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERFRIENDS f No. of seasons: One f Original run: September 22, 1979–September 27, 1980 f No. of episodes: Eight f Studio: Hanna-Barbera Productions f Network: ABC
PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Bill Woodson: Narrator f Danny Dark: Superman f Olan Soule: Batman f Casey Kasem: Robin f Bill Callaway: Aquaman, Orville Gump f Shannon Farnon: Wonder Woman, Lois Lane f Louise Williams: Jayna f Michael Bell: Zan, Gleek f Stanley Jones: Lex Luthor f Frank Welker: Mr. Mxyzptlk f Also featuring Marlene Aragon, Pat Fraley, Bob Holt, James Reynolds, Stanley Ralph Ross, Michael Rye, and Vernee Watson.
(ABOVE) Middle Earth versions of Batman and Wonder Woman. Gleek remains Gleek. (RIGHT) Sometimes, being a man of steel really blows. © DC Comics.
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(LEFT) The Wonder Twins, Jayna and Zan, with Gleek are aghast. (RIGHT) Gleek dresses for Drag Monkey Story Time. © DC Comics.
(ABOVE) Super Enemies Wonder Woman and Aquaman in “Universe of Evil.” (BELOW) SuperFriends in the land of Oz: Superman is the Tin Man, Wonder Woman is the Cowardly Lion, and Aquaman is the Scarecrow. © DC Comics.
In a season in which nearly every episode had duplicates of the heroes or transformations into trolls or monsters, two stories took the plot to the extreme. In “Universe of Evil,” Superman accidentally switches to a parallel universe in which the SuperFriends are the rotten-to-the-core “Super Enemies!” You can tell they’re evil because Aquaman has an eye-patch, Robin has a moustache, Wonder Woman has wrinkles, and all the costumes are dingy colors. The final show for the season, “The Planet of Oz,” found Mr. Mxyzptlk casting three heroes into the otherworldly realm of L. Frank Baum’s fictional creation, and turning Wonder Woman into the Lion, Superman into the Tin Man, and Aquaman into the Scarecrow! In addition to the other Justice League members being missing—and the Hanna-Barbera diverse super-heroes out—one peculiarity for this season was that almost every show had a reason for characters to be absent. The Wonder Twins went on a visit to their home planet of Exxor, Superman and Wonder Woman went on a space mission for one show, and Aquaman visited Atlantis in another. The World’s Greatest SuperFriends ran through September 27, 1980, when it was transitioned into the next version of the show. One key element of the series did make a later appearance though: Hoyt Curtin’s main title theme was repurposed when Fisher-Price’s Imaginext toy line wanted an animated short film to go on a DVD with one of their toys. The result was 2010’s direct-to-video animated short titled DC Super Friends: The Joker’s Playhouse.
THE SUPERFRIENDS HOUR
For Fall 1980, the ABC series’ title was switched to The SuperFriends Hour, although it was mostly referred to that only internally, occasionally in the press, or by the show’s announcer in episode previews. On the television screens though, fans only saw the title of SuperFriends. The new narration, over a brighter-and shorter 30-second version of 1977’s The All-New Super Friends Hour, showed that the diverse heroes were back in the game: “Superman… Wonder Woman… Batman and Robin… Aquaman… 54
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(ABOVE) Yet another weird transformation for Wonder Woman and Superman. (LEFT) Madam, you are attired in naught but your patriotic corset! General Washington meets Wonder Woman. © DC Comics.
FAST FACTS
© DC Comics.
Black Vulcan… Samurai… Apache Chief! Together they form the world’s greatest force of good ever assembled, dedicated to truth, peace, and justice for all mankind! These are… the SuperFriends!” Eight new half-hour shows were produced by Hanna-Barbera; each was split into a trio of seven-minute short stories, similar to The All-New Super Friends Hour. Each of the stories generally featured only three to four heroes, generally someone from the core group and guest heroes from the Justice League. In addition to the return of Hanna-Barbera–created Black Vulcan, Samurai, and Apache Chief, viewers also saw the return of Flash, Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Rima (the Jungle Girl), and Green Lantern. A few episodes featured a first for any DC media adaptation: Batman without Robin! Familiar villains included Riddler, Bizarro, and Mr. Mxyzptlk, while other elements from DC lore appeared, including Wonder Woman’s mother, Queen Hippolyta; the Batcave (complete with Bat-Computer and giant dinosaur); and the returning Supermobile and Fortress of Solitude. Other menaces included an alien tribe of Bigfoots, motorcycle gang Highway Angels, trance-inducing Rock and Roll Space Bandits, Vampiress the Voodoo Vampire, the Termites from Venus, the Incredible Crude Oil Monster, and the IBN-created evil super-computer named Romac. One story guest-starred both General George Washington and Blackbeard the pirate! With its first half full of reruns—the new shows aired in the second half-hour—The SuperFriends Hour a.k.a. SuperFriends ran from October 4, 1980 to September 19, 1981. At that point, ABC would have ordered another eight new episodes for another season, except the real world intruded. A 13-week strike of the Writers Guild of America—from April 11 to July 12, 1981—disrupted all scripted
HANNA-BARBERA’S THE SUPERFRIENDS HOUR f No. of seasons: Three f Original run: October 4, 1980–September 3, 1983 f No. of episodes: 14 f Studio: Hanna-Barbera Productions f Network: ABC
PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Bill Woodson: Narrator f Danny Dark: Superman f Olan Soule: Batman f Casey Kasem: Robin f Bill Callaway: Aquaman, Bizarro f Shannon Farnon: Wonder Woman, Lois Lane f Louise Williams: Jayna f Michael Bell: Zan, Gleek, Riddler f Stanley Jones: Lex Luthor f Frank Welker: Mr. Mxyzptlk f Janet Waldo: Hawkgirl f Mike Rye: Apache Chief, Green Lantern f Jack Angel: Flash, Samurai, Hawkman f Buster Jones: Black Vulcan f Fernando Escandon: El Dorado f Wally Burr: The Atom f Also featuring Michael Ambrosini, Norman Alden, Marlene Aragon, Lewis Bailey, Jared Barclay, Greg Burson, Kathy Carver, Ted Cassidy, Melanie Chartoff, Henry Corden, Regis Cordic, Peter Cullen, Takayo Doran, Patty Dworkin, Richard Erdman, Al Fann, Aileen Fitzpatrick, Ruth Forman, Pat Fraley, Peggy Frees, Phil Hartman, Bob Hastings, Bob Holt, Jane James, Joyce Jameson, Morgan Lofting, Allan Lurie, Joyce Mancini, Larry D. Mann, Ken Mars, Ross Martin, Amanda McBroom, Chuck McCann, Chuck McClennan, Julie McWhirter, Don Messick, Richard Paul, Vic Perrin, Barney Phillips, James Reynolds, Andy Rivas, Mike Road, Renny Roker, Paul Ross, Stanley Ralph Ross, Dick Ryal, Rick Segall, Michael Sheeham, Andre Stojka, Lee Thomas, Vernee Watson, Jimmy Weldon, Lynnanne Zager, and Marian Zajac. RETROFAN
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shows, including animation. Thus, Hanna-Barbera was only able to go into production on the six shows they had completed at the time of the strike. Even that was threatened because the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Local 839—the animator’s union—was threatening to strike the studios over “runaway animation” being sent to companies outside the United States. ABC didn’t officially change the title, but what had been The SuperFriends Hour was now, generally, called only SuperFriends. Another change was perhaps a contractual one given the new union rules for writers; the writers were credited on almost every episode! Another Hanna-Barbera hero was introduced in these shows, though he only appeared in a few stories, and always alongside Wonder Woman: El Dorado was a Mexican hero, meant to provide even more cultural diversity. The hero didn’t make his first appearance until the second produced episode, in a seven-minute segment titled “Alien Mummy.” He had strength, some kind of growth power, telepathy, “hologram vision” with which he could cast realistic illusions, and his cape gave him the ability to teleport. Interestingly enough, El Dorado was added to the title card as of the second episode, as well as receiving his own quick name-check and scene in the opening 56
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The SuperFriends gather in the Hall of Justice in an epic pan shot. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman. Flash, Apache Chief, El Dorado, Atom, Aquaman, Black Vulcan, Robin, Batman, Samurai, and Hawkman. © DC Comics.
(ABOVE) Apache Chief can grow to unbelievable heights because... because he can. (LEFT) Black Vulcan blasts his way toward danger. © DC Comics.
andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
Samurai wields his energy sword. © DC Comics.
El Dorado rescues Superman and Wonder Woman. © DC Comics.
credits (replacing some of Apache Chief’s time). The first episode had the same opening as the previous season, though the end credits for all six were new. Writer David Villaire was the creator of El Dorado. In an interview with Marc Tyler Nobleman, Villaire wrote, “One of the producers said we’re thinking about adding a Latino character— can you come up with ideas? I said sure. I thought of the name right away. I put together his super-powers. I threw some premises together. They bought the whole thing… They were getting a growing Latino audience and there was no Latino Super Friend…
I created a character that went deep into the history of Spain and Mexico, the mythology of the past. He wasn’t the stereotypical Mexican. It was kind of the combination of a lot of Spanish cultures. I remember giving this character a lot of power and he was admired by the others.” El Dorado was not the only powerful hero, as Samurai, Apache Chief, and Black Vulcan were all “powered up,” saving the regular DC heroes multiple times, and even the entire Earth once or twice. Samurai got a glowing green energy sword and could become fire, Apache Chief could grow almost 1/3 the size of the Earth, and RETROFAN
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Black Vulcan could survive in space with only a face-mask and his bare-legged costume. Still, the heroes were important. It was a plus for young viewers of color to finally see themselves represented as heroes in anything other than a Filmation show (that company had been featuring multiple ethnicities in its show casts for over a decade). As with the first season of this incarnation, each entry began with a trailer for the three episodes to follow, and ended with one of eight new Health, Safety, and Craft tips. Sadly, these too are missing from later home-media releases… made more frustrating because several of them were hosted by Samurai, Apache Chief, or Black Vulcan. A few elements of note happened this season: Apache Chief is revealed as only one of other super-powered Native Americans, as Walking Eagle can transform into an eagle; Casey Kasem breaks out his Shaggy voice from Scooby-Doo for one scene where the Riddler turns Robin stupid; and the villain Zycree from the Phantom Zone not only looks and dresses like General Zod from the Superman films, but he’s named after writer Marc Scott Zicree, who wrote one of the episodes this season (the Phantom Zone
(ABOVE LEFT) Superman battles a General Zod look-a-like named Zycree (named after SuperFriends writer Marc Scott Zicree). (ABOVE RIGHT) The sign on the truck (“Gacy’s Boy’s Wear”) is an unusually dark reference for a kids’ show as John Wayne Gacy was a convicted serial killer of young boys. (RIGHT) Batman and Robin are the prisoners of the Legion of Doom. (BACK LEFT TO RIGHT) Toyman, Gorilla Grodd, Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Lex Luthor, and (FRONT LEFT TO RIGHT) Giganta, Captain Cold, Brainiac, Black Manta, Riddler, and Cheetah. © DC Comics.
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episode’s writer, Michael Reaves, would admit to recycling the exact same plot for an issue of the Superman Adventures comic book years later). Weirdly, one episode “The Iron Cyclops,” makes a dreadful dark joke that flew past the censors. Superman stops a truck labelled “Gacy’s Boy Wear”; serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who had preyed on young males, had been sentenced to death shortly before this episode was created. Repeating from 1977, the half-hour animated series, The New Adventures of Batman, was also on the air on Saturdays from Filmation, giving fans the chance to watch the Dynamic Duo twice those days; it was a segment on NBC’s Batman and the Super 7 anthology series, which ran from September 12, 1980 to September 18, 1981. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #15 for Andy Mangels’ Super 7 history.] Although it is possible that six new half-hour SuperFriends debuted on September 12, 1981, this is based on other shows starting their runs then, and not on any evidence (internet sources are notoriously wrong with animated airdates). What is clear is that SuperFriends remained an hour-long series (including reruns) until October 18, 1981, after which it was preempted regularly by
andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
NCAA Football until December 13, then continued to May 29, 1982. Beginning June 5th, the show was cut to a half-hour, and the writing was on the wall. Hanna-Barbera made the decision not to order any new episodes of SuperFriends for the 1982–1983 season, instead choosing to air half-hour reruns from the 1977–1979 catalogue under the title The Best of the SuperFriends, although nobody ever used that name except internally. The shows aired were only the 22-minute episodes; none of the seven-minute shorts were used. The series limped along until September 3, 1983 when the last ABC airing of SuperFriends as fans knew it, was shown.
MEANWHILE… IN THE PAGES OF THE COMICS
Before we get to “what came next?” we would be remiss not to mention the other major incarnation of Super Friends: the comicbook series! Under an imprint called “DC TV”—which also featured Shazam!, Isis, and Welcome Back, Kotter—DC Comics published Super Friends beginning in November 1976. Super-fan-turned pro writer/ editor E. Nelson Bridwell wrote the series, which followed both the animated continuity (loosely) and DC comic-book continuity (more firmly). Bridwell was a natural choice; he had functioned as DC’s story advisor to Hanna-Barbera for the animated series. Longtime DC artist Ramona Fradon was tapped as the series regular artist (although Ric Estrada penciled the first two issues). Though it was supposedly aimed at younger readers, throughout its four-year run Super Friends led readers throughout the DC universe, and introduced its own set of multicultural heroes. A one-shot treasury edition of Super Friends was produced by DC in late 1975 [published as Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41—ed.]. A framing story by E. Nelson Bridwell featured art by Alex Toth (who had, of course, designed the animated series), and it showed the introduction of Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog to the Super Friends… known more specifically as the Justice League here. The comic itself was more cleanly drawn than other DC books at the time. Ramona Fradon said that, “I think they figured it was aimed at a younger audience and my style is pretty open and simple and I think they felt it was good for a younger audience. They wanted something that would vaguely approximate TV, you know, the simplicity of animated drawing so I think that’s why they picked me.” The series had a key element from Bridwell: a letters page, here titled “Super Fans.” In it, he obsessively detailed how he made sense of Wendy and Marvin’s historical relevance to the DC Universe, and recapped the origins of the heroes and villains of the series for new readers. Super Friends #7 (Oct. 1977) was a continuity-shaking issue, as it introduced the Exorrian Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna and their space monkey, Gleek. Although some sources claim that Bridwell created the Wonder Twins, he credits Norm Maurer and his team at Hanna-Barbera for the duo in the text page in Super Friends #9. However, Bridwell was excited to have costumed, super-powered teenagers to use in his series. “Here was just what the mag needed,” he wrote. “A change of direction to bring it into line with the other DC books. I saw many possibilities. The kids would be new to Earth; they’d have to learn about it gradually—as the TV show could never depict.”
Adventures of comic-book characters turned into animated cartoons and then returned to comic books. Cover artists (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Alex Toth, Ramona Fradon and Bob Smith, and Ernie Chua. © DC Comics. Original cover art courtesy of Heritage.
Issue #7 also debuted four new multicultural heroes: the Seraph (Israel), Godiva (England), Impala (South Africa), and Owlwoman (Oklahoma). As if that wasn’t enough, it also guest-starred JLA members Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, RETROFAN
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SYNDICATION AND CANCELLATION
Back to TV… Part of the reason that ABC quit the SuperFriends gig was due to the staggering amount of material that had been produced to that date: 58 hours of the show had been produced! “SuperFriends not only saw a number of iterations, but it also experienced some ups and downs with ABC, the network that broadcast the show,” says Michael Swanigan, a Hanna-Barbera artist and animation historian. “The show was first cancelled after one season but was saved by strong ratings for its reruns. It was then cancelled again after the 1982–1983 season (which had already only been consisting of repeats, as The Best of The SuperFriends), which had never really aired any new episodes. Hanna-Barbera put together a syndicated package of the series’ earlier episodes, but ABC decided not to finish with them.” The syndication package was assembled by Lexington Broadcasting Services Company, Inc., also known as LBS. The company had been founded in 1976, and often bartered for time with smaller syndicated television stations which were not network affiliates. The syndicated stations could—and did—usually air animated fare either every weekday morning, before kids were going to school, or in the afternoons, after the kids got home. LBS contracted with Hanna-Barbera to syndicate the Super Friends/SuperFriends series from 1982–1985, with guaranteed ads, contests, and cereal-box prizes from General Mills cereal company. The company edited all of the episodes, cutting some 60
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FAST FACTS
© DC Comics.
Elongated Man, and Flash! The following issue introduced more foreign heroes: Rising Sun (Japan), Jack O’Lantern (Ireland), Tuatara (New Zealand), Bushmaster (Venezuela), and Thunderlord (Taiwan). Issue #9 concluded the three-part story, and introduced Tasmanian Devil (Australia), Little Mermaid (Denmark), the Olympian (Greece), and Ice Maiden (Norway). This story also saw the exit from the series of Wendy and Marvin as they went off to college, while Zan and Jayna became super-hero trainees. Bridwell refused to write in the Hanna-Barberacreated multicultural heroes from the TV realm. In #20’s letters column, he wrote, “Black Vulcan seems little more than a hyped-up version of our own Black Lightning, Apache Chief an Indian version of Colossal Boy, and Samurai? His power seems rather vague, though last season he was turning into anything he said in Japanese. Must make it hard to carry on a conversation in his native language—or to order in a Japanese restaurant.” It was one of the many jabs he took at the animated series; if fans watched his comments carefully, they could tell that he didn’t actually like working with Hanna-Barbera very much, and preferred to write his own ideas. The Super Friends series continued through issue #47 (Aug. 1981), during which time the heroes had met heroes from many other countries. Many of those characters were later brought into a group at DC called “Global Guardians,” and a few of them are in use today. The Wonder Twins also were used throughout the next decades at DC, and recently appeared in their own excellent maxi-series. (For much more about the Super Friends comic, check out the TwoMorrows magazine Back Issue #30, where I take a deep dive into that series.)
HANNA-BARBERA’S SUPERFRIENDS f No. of seasons: One f Original run (Australia): September 1983–September 1984 f Original run (U.S.): 1995–? (USA Network) f No. of episodes: Eight f Studio: Hanna-Barbera Productions f Network: ABC
PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Bill Woodson: Narrator f Danny Dark: Superman f Olan Soule: Batman f Casey Kasem: Robin f Bill Callaway: Aquaman, Bizarro f Shannon Farnon: Wonder Woman, Lois Lane f Louise Williams: Jayna f Michael Bell: Zan, Gleek f Stanley Jones: Lex Luthor, Jor-El f Frank Welker: Mr. Mxyzptlk f Janet Waldo: Hawkgirl f Michael Rye: Apache Chief, Green Lantern f Jack Angel: Flash, Samurai, Hawkman f Buster Jones: Black Vulcan f Fernando Escandon: El Dorado f Wally Burr: The Atom f Jerry Dexter: Superboy f Victor Perrin: Sinestro f Stanley Ralph Ross: Gorilla Grodd, Brainiac f Jimmy Weldon: Solomon Grundy f Joanie Gerber: Giganta f Also featuring Marlene Aragon, Jared Barclay, Philip Lewis Clark, Peter Cullen, Jeff Doucette, Fernando Escandon, Brian Fuld, Nicholas Guest, John Hostetter, Erv Immerman, David Joliffe, Zale Kessler, Bill Martin, Pat Parris, Patrick Pinney, Tony Pope, William Ratner, Andre Stojka, Robert Strom, Matthew Tobin, Janis Ward, Jeff Winkless, and Marian Zajac.
andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
of them completely, removing most of the short tips and trailers, and chopping the hour-long first-season episodes down into half-hour stories. In total, what LBS offered was 110 halfhour shows, to start in fourth quarter 1982 in certain markets (Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia among them), then expanding to nationwide coverage in April 1983. The early stations did well with the series, as confirmed by the November 1982 Nielsen Report on Syndicated Programs; SuperFriends was the #2 syndicated show in the nation, beating out The Flintstones, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, The Pink Panther, Tom & Jerry, The Brady Bunch, The Muppet Show, and Happy Days Again. The only show to beat it? That would be another Hanna-Barbera series, Scooby-Doo! In the major markets from Fall 1982 on, SuperFriends had gone from only airing on Saturday mornings on ABC to a six-days-aweek audience on ABC and syndicated stations. As ABC saw it, their own reruns were essentially rendered worthless by the syndicated programming, and thus, the network made the decision to drop the series from the 1983–1984 Saturday morning line-up as of September 3, 1983. SuperFriends was officially cancelled for the second time… …except, it wasn’t.
THE (LOST) SUPER FRIENDS
An industry trade ad usually unseen by regular viewers announcing the syndication of half-hour SuperFriends episodes. © DC Comics.
All of the episodes were written by Jeffrey Scott. Scott reunited the Legion of Doom for one amazing episode, as well as featuring individual villains such as Grodd, Giganta, Bizarro, and Brainiac from the Legion of Doom. Other DC comic-book elements included Mr. Mxyzptlk coming back again, the return of the Supermobile, Superman encountering his parents Jor-El and Lara, and Superman teaming up with his younger self, Superboy! The opening credits for this season are identical to those of the previous SuperFriends series, but the end credits have a new backdrop of the Hall of Justice building. One short, “Bulgor the Behemoth” is based on an in-joke. At Maurer Animation Studio (named after animation producer/writer Norman Maurer), writer “Jeff” (Maurer’s son, writer Jeffrey Scott) is asked by his boss Ray (probably supervising director Ray Patterson) when he’s going to go home. Shortly after, while writing an episode of his cartoon, a strike of lightning turns him into a raging monster. It is unknown if Scott and Patterson voiced themselves. Although the eight episodes of this season were not broadcast in the United States, if you were a fan in Australia—and some other countries—there was no gap in airing. The shows aired in Fall 1983, just as they would have if the series had not been cancelled in America! “The 1983 episodes weren’t even broadcast in America until a select few of them were included in the 1984 season of Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show,” says Michael Swanigan. “Until the USA Network aired a collection of DC Comics cartoons
“Hanna-Barbera kept putting out fresh episodes, either in the hopes of getting another renewal or perhaps in the hope that they would entice a future syndication contract,” says Michael Swanigan of one of the most unprecedented events in animation history. Hanna-Barbera moved forward on eight new half-hour episodes of SuperFriends, even though they didn’t know where, or when, they were going to air. Although there have been television episodes produced before that didn’t air, in television history, it’s hard to find an entire season that was produced with no promise of airing! Although some sources claim that Hanna-Barbera did this alone, in a Back Issue interview Swanigan’s occasional co-writer and animator, the late Darrell McNeil, said that “Hanna-Barbera did nothing about the Super Friends without ABC’s approval… or money, since they financed the show. The network ended up not using them? Why? Don’t know… and we didn’t care… we got paid!” Each of the eight new half-hours was similar to the final season of SuperFriends, with three seven-minute segments. The middle section always saw the Wonder Twins teaming up with other characters. In addition to the core five members, Justice Leaguers Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl appeared, though that latter heroine was saddled with a hideous “Bulgor the Behemoth” featured a character based on new costume. Hanna-Barbera heroes Apache Chief, SuperFriends writer Jeffrey Scott, who turns into a monster Black Vulcan, Samurai, and El Dorado reappeared as following a lightning strike. © DC Comics. well. RETROFAN
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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
A selection of SuperFriends episodes collected for your viewing enjoyment. © DC Comics.
(including Filmation ones) in a series titled The Superman/Batman Adventures in 1995, the totality of the 1983 episodes had never been televised.” The Superman/Batman Adventures was a catchall anthology that mixed together animated adventures from throughout DC’s animated history, whether from Filmation or Hanna-Barbera. Included in the mix were stories from the 1983 “lost” series. Fans who weren’t aware of those shows’ existence were shocked to see “new” stories! The Superman/Batman Adventures aired on USA from 1995 to at least 1999, and was also aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.
ARCHIVED AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE
Fans looking to watch any or all of these incarnations of SuperFriends have a few options, although, sadly, they are not complete (they are missing their Safety, Health, and Crafts shorts). SuperFriends: The Lost Episodes was released on DVD on August 11, 2009. The World’s Greatest SuperFriends was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on April 23, 2013 as a Target exclusive, and on November 12, 2013 at all retail outlets; both releases are titled SuperFriends: And Justice for All on the covers. The SuperFriends Hour was released on DVD as Super Friends: A Dangerous Fate on July 23, 2013. The 1981–1982 season of SuperFriends was released as SuperFriends Legacy of Super Powers on DVD on October 8, 2013, completing the entire series. No explanation was ever given as to how or why Warner released Super Friends in such a haphazard way, but fans were delighted to finally have the shows in their original mostly unedited form. The four DVD sets are still available through retailers, but in June 2021, Warner released high-definition versions for HBO Max, digitally restored and looking better than they had when they were broadcast. Curiously, in addition to the missing Safety, Health, and Crafts tips, many of these were also missing “Coming up on SuperFriends” intros. Whether these hi-def versions will ever be released on Blu-ray—or in complete form—is unknown, but for now, fans at least have choices. 62
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So, with SuperFriends dead and cancelled by the end of 1983—and only airing in syndication—what would come next for Hanna-Barbera and DC’s favorite band of super-heroes? Be sure to tune in to the next issue of RetroFan as we complete our look at the legendary animated shows and their tie-ins to the Super Powers toy line! We’ll see you next issue as we dive into the final seasons of Super Powers shows! For those who want a real examination of the minutia of each Super Friends episode, I highly recommend the thick, two-volume The Ultimate Super Friends Companion by Will Rogers with Billie Rae Bates, available on Amazon. Unless otherwise credited, artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. Marc Tyler Nobleman’s website quoted with permission above is at www.noblemania.com 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 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, as well as Bookazine projects (available at any grocery store checkout) on Ant-Man, Iron Man, The Little Mermaid, Chadwick Boseman, and others. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over forty DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www. AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com
RETROFAD
Nehru Jackets
Dr. Evil © Captain Action Enterprises. The Monkees © Rhino Records. Courtesy of Heritage.
BY MICHAEL EURY
The Fab Four and the Rat Pack were both cool in their own way. But other than fame, these Sixties celebs had very little in common. Except for their closets. Each of the Beatles and the Rat Pack’s Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank Sinatra wore Nehru jackets. So did James Bond, the Monkees, Riverdale’s Archie and Reggie, late-night TV host Johnny Carson, and several super-villains. Previously, the fashion norm for men in the Western world had been the traditional suit and tie. If you don’t believe me, ask Ward Cleaver. But by the mid-Sixties, Ward’s monochromatic, button-down “Pleasantville” was being shoved aside by a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod world. Color television was becoming commonplace and offering viewers a window into faraway places. Western audiences became fascinated by Eastern culture, from martial arts (the subject of last issue’s “RetroFad”) to fashion. Enter the Nehru jacket, the hip, hip-length tailored men’s coat (sometimes with matching slacks) with no lapels and a high, squared-off “Mandarin” collar. Topping off the look for many wearers was a men’s necklace with a medallion, or beads. Even square ol’ Ward Cleaver would’ve looked with-it in this groovy getup! According to Encyclopedia.com, the style’s origin stitches back to a collarless jacket offered by clothing designer Pierre Cardin in his 1964 “Space Age” collection. The look caught the eye of Britmania music artists including the Beatles, who began wearing tailored collarless suit jackets with ties. Soon other fashion designers began modifying the look with different fabrics including velour, and the traditional men’s suit ensemble began to morph into a trendy shirt-centered look. “Formal dressing in tunics à la Yves Saint Laurent and others provided nonsuit alternatives for formal male attire,” reported Encyclopedia.com. You can thank the Beatles for propelling the Nehru jacket into the forefront of fashion after their 1966 sojourn to India influenced the group’s music and clothing. The in crowd stood up and noticed the stand-up collar of the Nehru jacket. Sixties swingers from the Fab Four to college professors to Hollywood icons donned Nehru jackets, some in silky solids, some in professional plaids, some in psychedelic paisleys. Often the look was complemented by neck-draped jewelry, including beads (which
were derived from Indian meditation beads), as well as sandals. Indian music and philosophy accompanied the trend. While briefly popular for the adventurous American dresser (including women), with Simplicity and other companies producing Nehru jacket sewing patterns, the style was more popular in Jawaharlal the United Kingdom and of Nehru. course in India than the U.S.A. Courtesy of By the early Seventies, Nehru Heritage. jackets’ popularity had peaked and the style was passé. The wrinkle in this story is, the inspiration for the Nehru jacket technically never wore one. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, helmed the newly independent nation from 1947 to 1964. As reported on Utsavpedia.com, “The eponymous upper-body garments worn by Nehru during his public life are three in number: a kurta (tunic), and worn over it a bundi (vest) in summer or an achkan in winter, variously also called jama in Indian languages, and in Colonial English, Pharsi-fashion coat, or long coat.” This tunic-topped look dated back to the 10th Century India. It became more visible to global audiences during the mid-20th Century when Prime Minister Nehru interacted with other world leaders before the bright lights of newspaper and television cameras. Helping pave the way for the inspiration of the Nehru jacket was a 1962 meeting between the prime minister and the United States’ resident fashion icon, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. What Prime Minister Nehru did by wearing what became his signature style was to wrestle from the Western world its stranglehold on the suit and tie as the business standard. While there’s an argument to be made that the pendulum has swung too far (come on, people—do you really think you’re properly dressed when wearing your pajamas to the grocery store?), he set a new standard. Like so many of the crazes we chronicle in this column, the Nehru jacket has refused to allow itself to be tossed onto the clothes pile of yesterday’s styles. It has become a classic, a retro fashion across the globe. Time magazine included it in its 2012 listing of “The Top 10 Political Fashion Statements.” And its brief popularity opened the door in America to an embrace of Indian culture, which has only intensified in recent years. Not a bad pedigree for a flash-in-the-pan fashion! RETROFAN
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BRITMANIA
by MARK VOGER
Remember when long-haired British rock ’n’ rollers made teenage girls swoon — and their parents go crazy? BRITMANIA plunges into the period when suddenly, America went wild for All Things British. This profusely illustrated full-color hardback, subtitled “The British Invasion of the Sixties in Pop Culture,” explores the movies (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, HAVING A WILD WEEKEND), TV (THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR), collectibles (TOYS, GAMES, TRADING CARDS, LUNCH BOXES), comics (real-life Brits in the DC and MARVEL UNIVERSES) and, of course, the music! Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, GROOVY, HOLLY JOLLY), BRITMANIA features interviews with members of THE BEATLES, THE ROLLING STONES, THE WHO, THE KINKS, HERMAN’S HERMITS, THE YARDBIRDS, THE ANIMALS, THE HOLLIES & more. It’s a gas, gas, gas! (192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-115-8 • NOW SHIPPING!
GROOVY also 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! (192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9
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JON B. COOKE’s all-new history of the notorious all-in-one comics company, from the 1940s to the ’70s, with GIORDANO, DITKO, STATON, BYRNE and more!
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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!
H a l l y u p cinations... Honeys!’ p a ‘H
Moona Lisa , SoCa l ’s
s s e t s o H r o r r o H BY SCOTT SHAW!
Lisa Clark as Moona Lisa. Digitally enhanced image. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Scott Shaw!
When I was a kid, I wanted to have one of four professions when I grew up: a paleontologist, a cartoonist, a kids’ show host who aired cartoons on TV, or a weirdo who would introduce and make fun of monster movies on TV as a horror host. Of course, I never grew up. Ask my family! At least one of those goals worked out for me. So, what was it like to be a 12-year-old monster-boy when an attractive horror hostess from the Moon provided the finest cheese of low-budget sci-fi entertainment every Saturday afternoon? I should know. It was the same year that I read my first issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland (specifically, the 22nd issue, coverdated Apr. 1963) when, in March 1963, Science Fiction Theater premiered on Saturday afternoons at 4:00 P.M. on KOGO-TV, Channel 10 in San Diego, California. The show ran Fifties-vintage monster/horror/sci-fi RETROFAN RETROFAN
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The oddball world of scott shaw!
movies. Moona Lisa was its female horror hostess. And if you ever watched her host Science Fiction Theater, it’s very likely that you never forgot her. In case you missed RetroFan #2 (cover-featuring Elvira) and #6 (with Svengoolie), here’s a bit of history that should explain what horror hosts are and how they were spawned. The first TV horror host was actually a horror hostess, Los Angeles’ Vampira, portrayed by Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi, a.k.a. Maila Nurmi. Vampira hosted The Vampira Show (KABC-TV, 1954–1955), in which she introduced scary, suspenseful movies and appeared in commercial breaks. She also was seen in the films The Beat Generation and Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. Her make-up and costume were closely based on cartoonist Charles Addams’ gaunt beauty Morticia, a decade before the 1964 debut of ABC’s The Addams Family. In October 1957, Universal Studios released 52 pre-1948 monster/horror/ suspense films through Screen Gems for syndication on television. Local stations that bought the package aired the movies in two-hour slots (with commercials) on weekends, usually late at night, under the blanket title Shock Theatre. In 1958, 20 more films from those genres were released to television as Son of Shock. Teenage monsters, atomic mutants, and sky-high kaiju had been the stars of a popular wave of new and profitable low-budget movies since the early Fifties [see last issue’s Teenage Monsters article for more info—ed.]. There was one problem. Most of the movies in both releases were far less than two hours in length, and a few were barely an hour long. Even after the time consumed by multiple TV commercials, there was still a significant amount of time to fill. And that’s when someone thought that a having a spooky “host” to introduce and joke about whatever movie was scheduled. A New York City actor named John Zacherle was hired to be Roland, the horror host of WCAU’s Shock Theater, which first aired on October 7, 1957. Dressed like an unhealthy undertaker, Roland lived in a 66
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crypt with his departed wife “My Dear” and his lab assistant Igor. In 1958, thanks to his college pal and American Bandstand creator Dick Clark—who christened Zacherle (also spelled “Zacherley”) as “The Cool Ghoul”—with the assistance and backing of Clark in 1958, he recorded a 45rpm record, “Dinner With Drak,” which broke the Top Ten nationally. The monster craze began to accelerate. Before long, most of America’s major cities had at least one local horror host to call their very own. But the lucrative (ha!) horror-host industry was occupied almost entirely by men, even though a woman created the concept. Horror hosts were primarily men who already worked for a local television station—announcers, weathermen, and kids’ show hosts were often approached—who were offered the job because they were naturally funny guys who were open to putting on a costume and telling corny monster jokes on Saturday nights in exchange for a few more bucks—very few!—added to their pay envelope. Some horror hosts, like Ernie Anderson and Gene Moss, went on to very legitimate careers doing voiceover announcing for major TV networks. But that was many years ago. Now, for the Moona Lisa with Famous most part, local stations Monsters of Filmland editor barely have the funds for Forest J Ackerman. competent news shows, let alone horror hosts. Fortunately, we still have MeTV’s Svengoolie, a beloved Chicago horror host portrayed by Rich Koz, who’s enjoyed fame and rubber-chicken pelting after over 40 years of playing Svengoolie. There are a lot of other new horror hosts out there, all on the Internet.
WHO WAS THE MYSTERIOUS COSMOSINA?
The horror-host craze included the San Diego television market, with a lovely lady named Moona Lisa who lived on the Moon. She had long, straight, black hair with bangs and wore stiletto heels and a mod, black catsuit that showed a bit of cleavage, accessorized with a live python wrapped around her lithe body. Moona Lisa hosted her program from her Moon Base, with the Earth seen in
The oddball world of scott shaw!
the lunar sky through a circular window. With a soft, seductive voice, she introduced and commented on sci-fi, horror, and monster movies while sitting on a set resembling the crater-pocked surface of the Moon, with dry ice “smoke” curling around her feet. That’s why she preferred to be described as a “heavenly host.” There is no recorded information regarding when or where the actress who played Moona Lisa—Jeanne Romer, later known as Lisa Clark—was born, or anything about her youth. Thanks to Terence Stanford, who interviewed Lisa Clark in 1993, we do have her own words that describe her experiences in entertainment. “My twin sister, Laura Elliot, and I were always in drama school, acting, or dance class,” she told Stanford. “Our encouragement to go Moona Lisa into films, stage, and on her set at TV was precisely the KOGO-TV in San opposite. A heady dose Diego. (INSET of discouragement BELOW) The from older members sisters (no, we of the family. All in the don’t know professions— ‘respectwho’s who in able.’ Show business? this photo; do ‘Never heard of it.’ you?) in the “Besides, what could 1942 shocker two skinny twins have Saboteur. Saboteur to offer anyway? Well, a © Universal Pictures. meaty part as Siamese twins in a Hitchcock film, Saboteur (1942), for their introduction into show business. And all of this from a chance meeting in Del Mar at the races with a major Hollywood agent, Lou Irwin, who was sure we were absolutely right for the part. Fortunately, Alfred Hitchcock agreed.” Hitchcock’s Saboteur is about a man (played by Robert Cummings) who’s been framed for setting fire to a Los Angeles munitions factory and killing his best friend in the process. He’s on the run to escape police custody and at one point in the story, winds up hiding with a traveling circus. Among others he meets there are conjoined twins in the circus’ freak show; one twin wants to help the guy, but her sister wants to expose him. I’m sure that playing a conjoined twin for Alfred Hitchcock was good training to become a horror host! Fortunately, it led to more roles for Jeanne in motion pictures, including Swing Out the Blues (1943), Easter Parade (1948), The Great Gatsby (1949), The Big Heat (1953), and The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954). Ironically, in 1947, Jeanne and Laura Romer and Maila “Vampira” Nurmi were all showgirls in “Ken Murray’s Blackouts” live stage show. Later on, Jeanne and Laura had a
stint performing as the Doublemint Twins to promote the sale of chewing gum. Oh, the glamour of entertainment! In 1953, Jeanne Romer and her sister Laura also appeared in the “One Plus One” episode of Fireside Theater anthology TV series. Laura also appeared in a number of films and TV shows without Jeanne. By 1958, Jeanne/Lisa came down to San Diego along with her announcer-husband Jeff Clark to work at KOGO-TV, Channel 10. The two did an afternoon show together called News and Previews, along with a Sunday talk show and various commercials. Science Fiction Theater aired on Saturday afternoons at 4:00 on Channel 10 from March 2 to May 1963... but Moona Lisa was nowhere to be seen. The show’s first horror hostess was a lady named Cosmosina. And here’s another Moona-mystery: No one seems to know who portrayed Cosmosina! The promotional photo for the show definitely wasn’t Lisa Clark, but the shtick was the same: a body-hugging space costume, references that she was living in outer space, appearances in all of the commercial breaks, an opening that synched with the end segment, and an announcement of Science Fiction Theater’s next week’s movie. Whoever it was who portrayed Cosmosina, Lisa Clark’s husband Jeff recalled that Cosmosina, a young and beautiful lady, had worked at a resort spa in Tecate, California, and was spotted by a KOGO executive. He asked her if she would like to be on TV, but when the show quickly became a hit, she asked for a substantial raise and was denied. Moona Lisa was immediately brought in to replace Cosmosina, although the character occasionally appeared on further episodes of Science Fiction Theater. Now she was Moona Lisa’s cousin, portrayed by Lisa Clark’s twin sister Laura Elliot.
MOONA LISA, MEN ADORE YOU
But let’s get back to Jeanne Romer, who by this time had a new name, Lisa Clark, and a new job offer that came with a rather shocking surprise. As she told Terence Stanford, “In 1963, the station bought a package of science fiction and horror movies. RETROFAN RETROFAN
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They asked me if I would be interested in hosting these movies. cinations… honeys!” She had been using that psychedelic sign-off I said that appealed to me strongly since part of my background from Moona’s first appearance, but by the time the series ended in was as an actress.” June 1971, it had finally gained relevance to some of our lives! The show, Science Fiction Theater—no relation to the Fifties Ziv Lisa Clark as Moona Lisa had a wit and style that predated Elvira television series of the same name— began its Saturday afterand post-dated Vampira. Moona Lisa was definitely sexy—espenoon run in September 1963. “Frankly, I expected that I would be cially her voice!—but airing during a daytime slot with a viewership handed a script when I first started, and I discovered that there of pre-adolescent boys, she never flaunted her exceedingly healthy was none,” Lisa revealed. “It was up to me to provide the material. body. Moona Lisa’s vibe was to be genuinely cool, clever, and I discovered that many times in a two-hour time slot the movie unique. She quickly became a local cult icon and the main attracwould only be 70 minutes long. What did this mean to Lisa Clark? tion that led to Science Fiction Theater’s high ratings. She proved that It meant that she had to write all the copy to fill in that amount of it wasn’t necessary for every horror host to be a monster, misfit, time. After the first few shows I found it to be quite challenging count, or mad scientist. and rewarding, because James M. Fetters, author I didn’t know if I could of Creatures of the Night write this type of show.” That We Loved So Well: TV Moona Lisa with (LEFT) writer Elsewhere, Lisa said that Horror Hosts Of Southern Robert Bloch and (RIGHT) Forry when KOGO Channel 10 California, wrote, “Moona Ackerman. asked her if she wanted Lisa was San Diego’s only to host a sci-fi movie ‘real’ horror host and that show, she jumped at the made her special to San chance, thinking, “My God, Diegans! She was our that’s my kind of show!” answer to all the hosts from Another source quoted Lisa, Los Angeles. As long as she regarding her script writing, aired on KOGO-10 there “When I finally got the were no other hosts, in words all going, it was like San Diego, challenging her travel through space.” reign. She was fun to watch So, why did she pick the and had her own unique name “Moona Lisa”? hosting premise. Moona “There was all the talk was the first, in Southern about going to the Moon, California, to take horror and that absolutely caught hosts out of their dungeon, my imagination,” Lisa told attic, haunted studios and Terence Stanford. “I came become more of a sci-fi host up with the name Moona than horror… a host that Lisa—obviously a steal from was alien and lived on the Mona Lisa. One of the lines I moon!” had written was, ‘I’m Moona FLY ME TO and she’s Mona; she’s that THE MOONA young upstart who hangs “The show turned out to be out at the Louvre.’ I really felt the highest-rated program I lived there and built a life we ever had in San Diego, for myself on the Moon.” and that record holds Moona Lisa was still true today,” the Moona appearing as Lisa Clark Lisa actress told Stanford. on various KOGO shows, “Channel 6 put football on to challenge me for ratings, but they often with her husband Jeff. I also remember watching her as didn’t make a dent in Moona Lisa. The show was both a challenge newscaster on Sundays. Looking back, her situation seems like the and an enormous effort because I had to screen the movie, had real-life version of SCTV’s newscaster Floyd Robertson (created them put in the stop-downs where I felt they should go, and looked and portrayed by Joe Flaherty), who’s paid so poorly that he’s also at the commercials so I could find something to lead into after I the host of the fictitious Monster Chiller Horror Theater, Count Floyd did my shtick. So it was bits and pieces I put together to go in and (also Joe Flaherty). Years later, Count Floyd, like Shrimpenstein! [see perform live.” RetroFan #24—ed.], wound up as the host of a kiddies’ show on Lisa also wrote continuity between the films and the commerHanna-Barbera Productions’ The Completely Mental Misadventures cials. During one break, she read a poem about vampires. Then, a of Ed Grimley. [Editor’s note: I must say, Ed Grimley and other SCTV (fake) bat flapped over and kissed Lisa on the neck. Now exhibiting characters will be explored by Scott Shaw! in the forthcoming fangs, Lisa turned to the camera and said, “If he kissed you once, RetroFan #36!] will he kiss you again?” This led into a Certs breath mints commerMoona Lisa started every show saying, “Hello, Earthlings,” and cial, which had the exact same motto. as I mentioned earlier, ended by wishing everyone, “Happy hallu68
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In 1965, Moona Lisa presented her own rock group on the show, intended to rival the Beatles. “The Roaches,” four guys dressed in multi-arm catsuits and oversized sunglasses, would sing (usually slow ballads) to Moona Lisa during the breaks. Unfortunately, their time on the show was short-lived. Moona Lisa loved to write alliterations into her scripts. Here’s a sample of her writing style, from her introduction to Science Fiction Theater’s airing of 1959’s The Giant Behemoth: “Well, I was about to throw an extraterrestrial tantrum, but now that you’re back, I’ll save it. For the next time you threaten with going to Venus instead of the Moon—extraterrestrial traitors, we do not abide! But enough of this Moon-mash mish-mash! Join me now in a stupendous salutation as we greet and meet that superlative of all beasts, the superior and very substantial Giant Behemoth!” During many of the commercial breaks on Science Fiction Theater, Moona Lisa would comment on the atrocious films while dealing with a large snake wrapped around her body. It’s not unusual to see cold-blooded reptiles in entertainment—after all, Hollywood is full of ’em—but where did Lisa find that? According to Lisa, “Whenever there was a show that had to do with snakes, reptiles, or creatures that roamed the night, I would borrow Baby Clarence [the snake] from the San Diego Zoo. I would go to the zoo early Saturday and then to Channel 10 and return him after the show. The Moona Lisa as drawn by late Chuck Shaw, curator of Reptiles, was married to a girl who was a producer at Channel 10. He was very gracious about letting me borrow Baby Clarence. Later they gave him to me because they were tired of getting him ready for me to take him. He lived with me for quite a few years. He was a nine-foot-long hybrid gopher/bull snake. I did return him to the zoo, and unfortunately he lived only a few months after that. They said he missed me terribly; I like to think that’s true.” Considering its low budget and an absence of Hollywood professionals, as years passed, Science Fiction Theater began to look better and better. “The show was black and white when we started,” according to Lisa. “When we went to color, we also got some of the more advanced electronic goodies such as the ability to chroma key.” As Lisa explained, the Channel 10 “floor men were graduates of San Diego State University (SDSU), and this was their only creative outlet. Other than the fact that I wanted a mysterious setting, they
designed everything. … It was a wonderful time in television to do this kind of show because people came with ideas.” Of course, with any show that had the longevity of Science Fiction Theater and a star who was willing to do whatever it took to be entertaining, it’s not surprising that Lisa Clark remembered a number of unexpectedly funny experiences while horror hosting. “Someone took a skeleton from one of the science departments at SDSU,” she recalled. “In the control room were some floorboards that could be lifted up to repair wires and there was enough room to put a full-length skeleton. They knew someone would open the floorboards early in the morning to do some work, and there was the skeleton! I had nothing to do with it, but I was blamed. I believe the skeleton found its way back to SDSU.” An iguana borrowed from the San Diego Zoo sparked another memory. “When I was driving from Channel 10 to the zoo, the iguana got out of its bag and grabbed my right ankle. I had to get it back to the zoo quickly. I was pulled over by a policeman who asked me why I was speeding. I told him to look at my feet. He looked and not only saw those claws on my ankle but this huge tail behind the driver’s seat. He then said, ‘You’re Moona Lisa, GO! GO! GO!’ He wanted out of there fast.” A borrowed prop head of Macbeth with which Moona Lisa conversed on a few episodes was the source of another of the actress’ remembrances: “I was taking the head up to L.A., to use in a show, when I was pulled over at the San Onofre immigration stop. The officer was very polite and asked me to open the car trunk. I said, ‘I’d be glad to.’ I opened the trunk with great flourish and there was this head there all by itself. The officer actually turned white. He recovered and said, ‘You’re Moona Lisa.’”
OVER THE MOONA FOR LISA CLARK
Here’s how KOGO described Lisa Clark’s duel jobs in a publicity bio from February 1966: “Lisa Clark has made a great success out of being two-faced! A KOGO-TV personality for nine years, she plays both her charming self and Moona Lisa, the only yet revealed ‘Inhabitant of the Moon!’ As hostess of Channel 10’s Saturday ‘Science Fiction Theatre’ [sic], she both performs and writes her ‘far-out’ antics that have made her one of San Diego’s favorite personalities! “Lisa is a top commercial spokeswoman, having represented a multitude of national and local television commercial accounts. RETROFAN RETROFAN
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“Lisa, and her husband Jeff, co-host the award-winning public whenever I wanted to ‘sparkle.’ I was gobsmacked—I couldn’t affairs show, ‘KOGO’s Corner,’ broadcast each Sunday. This is the believe that this very cool lady would take the time to write to an show, with guest stars, that announces San Diego’s community awkward little girl. Thank you, Moona Lisa!” activities. In 1970, I was on the founding committee for the first San “Miss Clark, a native of San Francisco, began her professional Diego Comic-Con—or, as it was called then, San Diego’s Golden career in Hollywood. Later she moved to New York and studied State Comic Mini-Con. We planned to do this one-day try-out at the Neighborhood Playhouse while continuing her theatrical, show on March 21, 1970, at the U.S. Grant Hotel to test the motion pictures, and television work. She has appeared on almost waters regarding local fans’ interest and at the same time, teach all the national dramatic shows. ourselves how to put on a con. I was the publicist and left flyers all “Lisa is an identical twin of Laura Mason (now working in over town. Seeking free publicity, a small group of us —consisting Hollywood as an actress). At one time the twins worked in pictures of teenage boys and slightly older hippie-types like me—made an and in ‘Ken Murray’s Blackouts’ in New York for five years.” appointment to visit KOGO-TV’s studio. When we arrived at the “She has appeared in local San Diego theatre productions, place, which was right next to Highway 94, we were greeted in the perhaps the most outstanding being her appearance at Old Globe lobby by… Lisa Clark! I had seen her on some of the other KOGO in ‘The Gazebo,’ opposite Victor Buono. shows she and Jeff did, and of course I was a huge fan of Moona “Lisa and Jeff are the parents of David Lucien Clark, 6 years old.” Lisa! Prior to meeting with someone to discuss getting a bit of That reference televised publicity, to Lisa and Jeff’s Lisa gave our son reminds me motley crew a tour that David Clark of KOGO’s studios. attended Clairmont During it, I quietly Christian School told Lisa how and his mom, in much I enjoyed her full Moona Lisa on Science Fiction costume, visited Theater. She coolly the school! She also responded, ‘That’s appeared in person not me.’ I pushed at the 1968 Boy further. ‘Uhhh, Scout Fair in San Moona Lisa doesn’t Diego’s Del Mar. wear a mask, Other San and believe me, Diegans of a certain it’s impossible to age well remember forget your face!’ I the experience of assumed that she meeting Lisa Clark. thought that this “A friend and I 18-year-old hippie drove to the local was attempting to KOGO TV station flirt with her, so I (LEFT) Promotional photo of Victor Buono and Lisa Clark in The Gazebo. in San Diego, just gave up trying to (RIGHT) Newspaper clipping about the play and its stars. off the 94 freeway, have a conversation walked in and told about her selfthe receptionist we were fans of Moona and asked if we could meet written scripts for Moona Lisa. Even more disappointing, I didn’t her,” said John L. “The next thing you know, a very pleasant and realize that Science Fiction Theater was only a few months away gracious Lisa Clark (in character) greeted us, gave us a tour of the from cancellation. studio and her Moon Base set, gave us an autograph and posed for DARK SIDE OF THE MOONA pictures.” Science Fiction Theater ended in June 1971, but a year later a new Joanne Marshall was another San Diego kid from the Sixties opportunity for Lisa dropped by, with an offer that seemed to who anxiously awaited each Saturday afternoon’s Science Fiction be doable, despite having to commute to another city to replace Theater. “I don’t believe there was ever an ‘official’ explanation of another popular SoCal horror host. Although Larry Vincent, a.k.a. who [Moona Lisa] was or where she came from, but really, who horror host Seymour, left KHJ-TV to work at KTLA-TV Channel 5, he cared? She was both sultry and funny with her sexy voice and did a promo that introduced Moona Lisa as his replacement at the double entendre sense of humor. She was articulate and ladylike. end of his last show for the station. The little boys loved her. Little girls wanted to look like her. According to Lisa, “When I was hired and signed the contract, it Especially me. I wrote her a fan letter expressing my admiration was only supposed to be one movie every Saturday night. Instead, and asked how she got her hair to sparkle like it did. I really wasn’t it turned out to be two or three movies every Friday night, which expecting a response but within a week the mailman delivered a meant I had to write copy for everything which wasn’t exactly what big envelope with a letter from Moona Lisa, an 8x10 glossy photo I had been hired to do.” Fright Night aired late on Saturday nights and a bag of silver glitter. The letter was kind and encouraging. on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (now KCAL) in Los Angeles, and was hosted She ended it by telling me to put a little bit of the glitter in my hair 70
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by Moona Lisa from January 29, 1972 to October 1973. That’s how very aware of the seriousness of his illness and this undoubtedly she met Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine editor Forrest J colored his whole response to whatever was happening. I’m glad Ackerman and author Robert (Psycho) Bloch. I worked with him, it was fun to do, and it would be nice if he was The aforementioned promo wasn’t the only time that Larry still with us.” Vincent and Lisa Clark worked together. Their next new project, Sadly, Larry “Seymour” Vincent died on March 8, 1975. later that year, was a live performance titled The Seymour/Moona Lisa’s next series was Moona Lisa’s Creature Features, which aired Lisa Show (it was not broadcast). As Douglas McEwan, line on Saturday afternoons on KFMB-TV Channel 8 in San Diego producer and writer for Seymour Productions, explains, “It was from 1975 to 1976. The series didn’t last long, but Lisa was soon Knott’s Berry Farm’s idea to offered a new gig… one that hire Moona Lisa to augment involved interstate travel Larry’s 1974 Halloween to St. Louis, Missouri. She show. She was no longer on starred in Moona’s Midnight the air in Los Angeles, but Madness, which aired on she’d been on the air here Friday nights at 12:30 a.m. recently enough that she on KMOX, Channel 4 in St. was still remembered. And Louis, from 1975 to 1976. she was very well known in “I was asked to host San Diego, and it was hoped movies at CBS station her being in the show would [KMOX] Channel 4 by draw people up from San General Manager Tom Diego to see the show.” Baptista, who had worked Seymour’s feathers were at Channel 10 in San Diego apparently ruffled by Moona and remembered Moona Lisa. “Larry wasn’t actually Lisa,” the actress recalled. pleased to have a competing “His hope was to syndicate horror hostess in ‘his’ show. Moona Lisa on at least ‘Why do we need her?’ he five other stations. But complained. But he only general managers are very complained privately. He protective of their turf. This was completely professional did not work out. I lived and welcoming to her.” in San Diego but flew to But Lisa’s inclusion St. Louis to tape the show, helped McEwan in his which ran for about a year. writing of the live producIt was really tough and tion. “On the TV show, we not at all that rewarding had Banjo Billy to be a because I never got to see nemesis and annoyance the show, do many personal for Seymour, but since appearances, or meet many Larry played in both roles, people. we couldn’t use Billy in “All in all, Moona Lisa the stage show. Moona lived for 15 years, and anyone Lisa worked perfectly for who worked in television a nemesis/foil for him. when you were your own And everyone at Knott’s everything can appreciate Promotional photo of Moona Lisa—in color! assured him that he was the what the sense of accomstar. I kept her part small. plishment and stresses are.” Basically, she popped up now and then, as though trying to crash Since Lisa Clark ultimately wrote and performed the role of the show like Lucy trying to get into Ricky show on I Love Lucy, Moona Lisa in three different SoCal cities with four different while Seymour squawked every time she showed up, climaxing series for three different audiences, which location was her with her being the stage assistant for magician Chuck Jones, with favorite? the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster doing the old sawing-a“I have a great warmth and fondness for San Diego, because woman-in-half bit using Moona Lisa as the woman sawed in half. it was the most creative,” she said. “It was a live show and I did it But then, once she was separated, out strides Seymour, smug and for eight years. The people at Channel 10 loved it, because they triumphant.” warmed to it. It gave them an outlet for what they were doing Lisa Clark recalled that she and Vincent had good chemistry. which in turn enhanced what I was doing, and I had a terrific “He came out of the hospital to do the show and we had a audience. marvelous time. He was obviously a sick man at the time. I really “The first thing I had to overcome at Channel 9 in L.A. was the don’t know too much what he was like. We didn’t get that close fact that there was a lot of, ‘What could little San Diego show us?’ or that friendly. I was willing to be his admirer, but I think he was Well, as a matter of fact, the production values we had in San Diego RETROFAN RETROFAN
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so overwhelmed anything they had in L.A. … The people at Channel 9 were bored and disinterested until we got Jaime Shandera, who directed the show in San Diego. Then all of a sudden it was, ‘Look at what little San Diego can do!’”
In her later years, Lisa once said, “It was a wonderful experience, and in some ways I would enjoy still doing it. I gave my best to it. I feel I had class. I’m ready to go any time they call me back.” She still owned her original Moona Lisa wig and dress, too.
DANCING IN THE MOONALIGHT
Many thanks to Terence Sanford and James M. Fetters for their essential quotes and information.
Although she was no longer performing as Moona Lisa, Lisa Clark remained working for KOGO-TV for 15 more years. “I left the station in 1985 and still occasionally work with a company every now and then in L.A., but then just as producer, writer and also voiceovers. But my career as Moonling, although it’s in my heart and soul, ended there.” At some point after 1985, Lisa and Jeff Clark moved to Northern California to raise horses. She had a son and two grandchildren. She and her husband enjoyed travel and tennis at the Kona Kai Club. She was constantly recognized and was happy to share the memories with her adoring fans. Lisa Clark died on December 13, 2012. Looking back on her days as Moona Lisa, Lisa described what was behind the appeal of horror hosts. “I think people liked to be scared. Not deadly scared with guns and killing. I think people like mystery. I loved Nancy Drew mysteries as a child. The mystery of walking into a haunted house. I think there’s an element of loving to be scared by lightning or thunder. We respond to it. We know it’s an innocent horror, people are compelled to follow it. “The host brings an immediacy to it and takes us on our tour to something wonderful. It can be funny, it can be spooky. It’s the child in all of us that still loves Halloween.”
For 50 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.
SUPER COLLECTOR
Popeye and Me Popeye preservationist Fred Grandinetti and his spinach-powered hero, in a 2022 illustration by Randy Milholland, current artist of the Sunday Popeye newspaper strip. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Fred Grandinetti.
BY FRED GRANDINETTI I can recall in 1964 sitting with my father when we lived in Newton, Massachusetts. I was trying to draw Popeye’s face by making circular shapes. My father suggested I put the circles together, adding a sailor’s cap and pipe. This was one of my earliest attempts at doodling Popeye. I was the first one to grab the Record Advertiser newspaper in the evening, looking for the comic strips. I avidly followed Popeye’s newspaper adventures by Bud Sagendorf. Relatives always kept my passion for Popeye alive. My Aunt Rose Rizzo worked for Red Cross Pharmacy, located in Waltham, Massachusetts. She would bring me home Popeye toys usually sold on the spin racks. When I was three years old, I needed my tonsils taken out, and my Aunt Kaye DeMeo bought me an Olive Oyl doll while I was recovering. I recall some of my earliest Popeye items being Popeye’s Playbook by Whitman (1961) and the colorful Popeye Trace and Erase Slate Book by Mego (1966). When we moved to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1966, our new home was closer to nearby big department stores. My parents let me roam the toy departments, and I yelled “Popeye!” whenever I saw him on the shelf. Zayres, located in Waltham, and Child World, in Natick, were big suppliers of Popeye merchandise. I fondly remember my father bringing me home the Talking Popeye hand puppet by Mattel in 1967. Unintentionally, he proved to me who was the real Santa Claus. In 1968, while in bed on Christmas Eve, I heard my father huffing and puffing. The next morning my brother and
Fred Grandinetti in 1967, holding the Mattel Talking Popeye doll given to him by his father, Dominic.
I headed for our gifts and I walked right past a Popeye bop bag by Coleco. I had to explain to my bewildered father that I heard him blow it up the night before. On Saturday mornings, my brother Dominic (Dom) and I always watched Rex Trailer’s [kids’ television show] Boomtown, which aired several different cartoons. When I was a Cub Scout, our troop was on an episode of the long-running series. The director told the scouts to watch the children playing a game. My back was turned around watching the cartoon “Popeye and the Pirates” on a small black-and-white television set. Oddly enough, the morning this episode was broadcast, Boomtown aired all-color Popeye theatricals from Famous Studios. My mother said they did it because I was on the show.
MY HERO!
Going through the Watertown public school system was difficult. I was brutally bullied for being involved in art and theater. I was tossed against lockers, tripped in the halls, pushed down flights of stairs, and had gum thrown in my hair. I would come home very depressed, but thankfully a Popeye theatrical cartoon was always waiting for me to watch on WMUR-TV’s The Uncle Gus Show. I would put a sketchpad on my lap and attempt to draw what I was watching. At an early age I recognized what the word “animator” meant, and it was this person, or persons, who decided what Popeye looked like in a particular film. When I discovered the book Popeye the Sailor by Nostalgia Press (1971) and the work of the sailor’s creator E. C. Segar, a new Popeye universe had opened up for me. From Segar I read the works of Bela Zaboly, Tom Sims, and Ralph Stein. Each of these talented individuals put their own spin on Popeye’s comic strip adventures. Near the holidays in 1984, I came across a publication that listed the names of people RETROFAN
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2 3 1 selling old toys. One had several Popeye coloring books published by LOWE. That began my tradition, which continues to this day, of buying old Popeye items, wrapping each up, and opening them Christmas morning. Unique items from my collection include:
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1. A series of small books published by Euro Kids from 2012. The images were pulled from the cartoons produced by King Features Syndicate during 1960 and 1961. The titles are County Fair, Strange Happenings, Gem Jam, Aladdin’s Lamp, Voo-Doo to You Too, and Track Meet Cheat. 2. Popeye #7, a comic book published in 1959 by L. Miller & Sons from the United Kingdom. The issue featured a storyline beginning in December of 1954 through early 1955 written by Ralph Stein with artwork from Bill Zaboly. This team’s run of the comic strip has yet to be reprinted in the United States. 3. A Popeye merchandise catalog from 1962, which was produced by King Features Syndicate. It featured 70 different products that were available to retailers. 4. A series of small Popeye paperback books from Japan’s 21st Century Publishing House. These books printed in English Bud Sagendorf’s Sunday pages, beginning from the early Sixties, in black and white. The series, printed in 2009, concluded with the first year of Sunday pages by Sagendorf’s successor, Hy Eisman. Eisman’s artwork was featured on each cover. 5. Toys For All Seasons produced a rack toy called Brutus Construction Company, where the bearded brute was the star! 6. H-G Toys’ Popeye’s Pop Gun, from the Sixties, consisting of a red plastic gun and cork which could shoot up to 20 feet. 7. Also from the Sixties: M. Schimmel Son’s Popeye Stuff and Lace Dolls, depicting the swab in a blue sailor’s uniform. 8. The same toy company produced a Popeye Printing Set in 1957. The stamps were images of Popeye, Rough House, J. Wellington Wimpy, Swee’pea, Olive Oyl, and the “Mean Man”! This item was produced during the time the name Bluto could no longer be used. The moniker Brutus had not yet been decided upon. 9. In 2015 my brother Dom visited Popeye’s Emporium in Anchorage, Alaska. He brought back a Popeye doll constructed entirely of colored wires.
HE YAM POPEYE’S HISTORIAN
My writing career began after reading Popeye was featured in 454 animated cartoons. This was an amazing achievement not mentioned in the mainstream press. I began writing about 74
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Popeye’s film career, emphasizing this historic achievement. Eventually I had articles published in Animato!, Hollywood Then & Now, and Filmfax magazines. Soon my articles on the sailor man were appearing in different periodicals and newspapers. In 1993, when the sailor celebrated his 60th anniversary in film, the Associated Press interviewed me and took photographs of my memorabilia. A photo of myself surrounded by Popeye merchandise was published in hundreds of newspapers. While researching Popeye’s animated career I wrote to Jackson Beck, who was the voice of both Bluto and Brutus. I asked him the reason for the change in name. The information he provided led to solving this often-asked question. It was due to Paramount Pictures believing that the character of Bluto was created for the Fleischer cartoons, when actually he first appeared in the comic strip by King Features Syndicate. When King Features began producing Popeye cartoons for television, to be safe, they renamed the character Brutus. My first publication on the sailor man was called Popeye: The Collectible (1950 to 1990), from Krause Publications. This was followed by Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History (McFarland, 1993); Popeye Le Marin (Dreamland, 1996); an updated version of Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, also by McFarland, in 2004; He Am What He Am: Jack Mercer, the Voice of Popeye (BearManor Media, 2007); and Popeye the 1960s TV Cartoons (BearManor Media, 2022). Over the years, my articles on Popeye and his crew have been seen on numerous websites including Boomer Magazine, The Film Detective, Animation Scoop, Skwigly Animation Magazine, i-Italy, Cartoon Research, Bleeding Cool, Entertainment Magazine, CBR.com, and Searchmytrash. In 1992, I began hosting and producing a cable-access series called Drawing With Fred. The award-winning program features
Super Collector
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drawing lessons, original water safety and fitness tips, and then-president animated cartoons. of King Features For several years I dressed up as Popeye for Watertown’s discovered I was the Memorial Day Parade. I often doodle the sailor and his crew to raise one asking people money for veterans and animal shelters. My Popeye activism began to help, I was hardly when animation historian and author Jerry Beck informed me that his best friend. the Cartoon Network was planning on airing restored versions of Eventually, in 2007, the Fleischer Popeye theatricals were the sailor’s black-and-white films. However, the network was not released on DVD, followed by the films produced by Famous going to provide the funding needed for this project. I was asked to Studios. A press release announcing the first DVD release stated: do so, and the series went into production. The Popeye Show not only “Popeye is the only major theatrical franchise in film history that featured classic cartoons but provided background information never received a legitimate home video release. For years Warner on each film aired. Unfortunately, because the network made no Bros. had been inundated by consumer letters demanding the licensing revenue from Popeye, they began airing the program release of Popeye, an underdog, a hero, a character who always Monday mornings at 1:30 a.m. I quickly took out advertisements represents good, and WHV is proud to bring this illustrious collecin several film-related magazines asking viewers to contact the tion to DVD.” The current personnel at King Features Syndicate Cartoon Network’s public relations department, asking for an have worked with Warner Bros. and released future editions. earlier time period. Cartoon Network received hundreds of emails, My most gratifying experience with Popeye happened by acciand the series moved to 9:30 p.m. and later 7:30 p.m. on Sunday dent. I donated a Popeye doll that was a duplicate in my collection evenings. What the network originally planned as a 13-week series to a local children’s hospice. The woman who received it called me led to a three-year run airing 135 cartoons. and said the terminally ill children hug the doll for strength. That Unfortunately, the black-and-white Popeye cartoons produced remark gave me pause, but then I remembered in the comic strips by the Fleischer Studios never received an official home video and animated cartoons the sailor was always doing things without release. Although Warner Bros. owned the films, the studio expecting a reward. Since then, I have donated a number of Popeye believed they had to strike a deal with King Features Syndicate, items to children’s hospitals and hospices. I cannot picture Bugs copyright holder of the Bunny or Mickey Mouse Popeye characters. For having the same effect. unknown reasons King Because of the was dragging their feet, intense bullying I while more and more received growing up cartoon characters were and into my early adult having their library of years, I was not a happy films released to the young man. However, home viewer. Leonard whether it was reading Maltin wrote in Animato! the sailor in the funnies magazine that it was or watching his antics King Features Syndicate on television, Popeye who was blocking the brought me much release of these classic needed comfort. I owe the (LEFT) One of several ads paid for by the cartoons. I was getting one-eyed sailor man a lot! author to have The Popeye Show moved early-morning phone When asked why I to an earlier time period on the Cartoon calls from fans wanting spend so much time, Network. (RIGHT) Article spotlighting to know what the holdup was. As with my work on The money, and effort on Grandinetti’s efforts to have the Fleischer Popeye Show, I wrote articles on this subject and asked keeping Popeye out there, Popeye cartoons released on DVD. From the people to contact the public relations departments my response is, “I Am Star Gazette’s January 13, 2006 edition. Popeye at both Warner Bros. and King Features. When the What I Am.” © King Features Syndicate, Inc. RETROFAN
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The January 2023 issue of RetroFan (#24) featured an article on the TV series Land of the Lost (1974–1977). This brought back a lot of memories; at that time I had just started to get involved in doing stop-motion animation myself, so a weekly dose of animated dinosaurs was must-see-TV. As it happened, my interest in Land of the Lost came full circle years later when, in 1991, I was hired to direct episodes of the “reboot” version. I ended up directing a total of seven episodes, including the pilot episodes for both seasons. Having done a fair amount of animation by then, I was able work closely with the Chiodo Brothers in establishing and staging the stop-motion dinosaur effects.
In any case, referring to the 2009 Will Farrell feature film version, original TV series star Wesley Eure said, “Like the Nineties version, Land of the Lost had lost its magic.” Naturally, Mr. Eure has an understandable bias for his own series, and likewise, I do for ours. I think both versions co-exist on their own terms, and each series can be enjoyed for various reasons. The Seventies series obviously carries a genuine feeling of nostalgia as we look back on it now, and it was certainly unique among Saturday morning family fare at the time. But I do think that our Nineties series was equally enjoyable, and we consciously strove to achieve the “magic” inherent in the very concept of the show.
Aside from considerations of content and tone, I think we did improve on one aspect of the production. In the original series, the live action was matted into miniature settings. In the Nineties version, we did just the opposite: the dinosaurs were matted into real locations and settings (our treehouse set located in the “jungle” of the Descanso Gardens, a 150-acre botanical garden in La Cañada Flintridge, California, in the hills above Los Angeles). I felt this approach made for a more “naturalistic” look, but I suppose it could be argued that the opposite configuration contributed to the “storybook” magic of the original series. ERNEST FARINO How nice to hear from one of RetroFan’s former columnists! Thank you for this information, Ernie, and for the photographs and captions that follow.
(LEFT) Spencer Milligan (as Rick Marshall), Wesley Eure (as Will Marshall), and Kathy Coleman (as Holly Marshall) ride a raft on blue-screened rapids in Gene Warren, Sr.’s Excelsior! visual effects studio on LaBrea Avenue in Hollywood. (BELOW) Ernest Farino directs Ed Gale inside the baby dinosaur suit (“Tasha”) while Jenny Drugan (as Annie Porter) looks on.
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Timothy Bottoms (as Tom Porter) dangles precariously from the treehouse as a T-rex snaps at his heels. Opposite to the Seventies version, the stop-motion dinosaurs were added to the live action as filmed on real locations.
Your “RetroFad” article about Cabbage Patch Kids (issue #24) was enjoyed. Each Cabbage Patch doll came with its own birth certificate. You may wish to know that the Cabbage Patch dolls were not the first dolls that came with “birth certificates.” There was once in Barberton, Ohio, a company named the Sun Rubber Company, which began business on April 4, 1923. At first they manufactured toy hot water bottles, then progressed to produce rubber dolls and squeak toys. (During World War II, the Sun Rubber Company produced about 1,000 Mickey Mouse gas masks.) The Sun Rubber Company was of the first manufacturers to produce a baby doll that was Black. The Amos ’n’ Andy radio episode “The Birth of Amos and Ruby’s Third Child,” originally aired on February 20, 1949, inspired the Sun Rubber Company to produce a doll based on Amos and Ruby’s baby daughter, named Amosandra. The 1949 Amosandra doll was approximately ten inches tall, with a soft rubber, jointed body, molded and painted hair, painted or glassine eyes, an open-mouth, drink-wet doll. Its head was marked with a Columbia Broadcasting System copyright. Its box states, “The doll is an Amos ’n’ Andy article conceived by T. W. Smith, Jr., designed by Ruth E. Newton, and manufactured under a design copyright by Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.” Amosandra came with accessories such as a baby bottle and gold-embossed birth certificate, over 35 years before Cabbage Patch Kids were marketed with birth certificates. I’m not stating that the Amosandra doll was the first doll to have a “birth certificate,” but that it had one before the Cabbage Patch Kids did. DAN PAULUN
P.S. I remember the first time I saw a Cabbage Patch doll in a store window, before the craze began. I thought, “Who would buy such an ugly doll?” Apparently, many little girls mimicking motherhood! As the writer of that “RetroFad” article, your postscript prompts a confession. My first draft of the column described Cabbage Patch Kids as “butt ugly.” I deleted that in a concession to the dolls’ mass appeal and to avoid re-triggering the decades-dormant hysteria that fueled this craze in the first place. Thanks for the informative toy history, Dan.
Another delightful issue of RetroFan! I enjoy all things Lost in Space, so the Angela Cartwright/Bill Mumy interview was a highlight. I have a minor quibble, though. Mr. Mumy says the expanded version of Lost (and Found) in Space is “more than twice as long as the first.” Which makes me wonder, why didn’t they simply release a second book? The expanded edition is great fun for fans, but for guys like me who bought the original version, it means paying for the first book again to see the new material. I would have gladly bought a second all-new book. Leave It to Beaver was slightly before my time, but I was familiar enough with the show to get a kick out of Mark Voger’s look at the classic. I remember seeing a rerun when I was a kid, and the vivid image of Beaver stuck in the giant coffee cup has stayed with me; it looks like I remembered a classic episode! “Christmas Gifts You Didn’t Want” was hilarious. It’s a hoot to see what people would
spend their money on! It reminded me of one of my favorite books, Mail Order Mysteries by Kirk Demarais, which I cannot recommend enough. If you liked Scott Saavedra’s column this issue, you’ll love this book. I’d like to see an article on my secondfavorite Irwin Allen show, Land of the Giants. Interviews, behind-the-scenes stories, and how did they make all those giant props (and what became of them)? Keep up the great work! MICHAL JACOT Michal, I echo your endorsement of Mail Order Mysteries. Hopefully we’ll be able to provide a look back at Land of the Giants in an upcoming issue. Readers familiar with Mr. Jacot’s name from RetroFan’s letters column (and his “Celebrity Crushes” guest column in issue #22) should take note that he is the writer of this issue’s excellent retrospective of TV Guide Fall Preview editions!
Since I have so many magazines that go back to 1973, I thought it was time to stop and only get the ones with rare photos and subjects. There was something missing from all those mags, though, and I decided to make a scrapbook for material I thought should be covered. I made five large scrapbooks with 50 pages each. It was a lot of hard work and also very expensive. Then one day I saw a new mag called RetroFan! Why did it take so long for somebody to do a mag like this one? I now have all the RetroFan issues. I went back to see my scrapbooks, and to my surprise
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I decided to remove what was now printed in more complete form in this mag. Hope you will still be there for a long time, since it’s the only American magazine I buy. (The other two are from the U.K. are Cinema Retro and Infinity.) PIERRE POULIOT P.S. It would be very fun to see my letter in “RetroFanmail.” We’re hoping you’re happy, Pierre, since your letter has now appeared in print! Thank you for sharing these photos from your scrapbooks…
I enjoyed the article on [Rankin/Bass Productions’] The Little Drummer Boy [in RetroFan #24]. I was surprised to learn that the reason it is rarely shown is due to religious programming. I heard that it was due to the fact that all the Arabs were portrayed as villains. Some of these programs start to show their age when compared with modern thinking. ROBERT BECKER There may be several reasons for the rare replays of The Little Drummer Boy, Robert. Nonetheless, you can bank on Rankin/Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt gracing our pages once a year with a look back at a holiday classic (next up: Frosty the Snowman, in issue #30). You bring up a valid point: The mores of past generations often don’t jibe with contemporary attitudes. Since RetroFan views pop culture through the rearview mirror, we will occasionally show character depictions that might not be regarded as acceptable in today’s culture. However, we will endeavor to do so with sensitivity, as has Scott Saavedra with this issue’s history of the Frito Bandito.
Waited a whole year, since I saw the cover [of issue #24] in preview form, and it was worth it. A really strong issue that exceeded expectations! Remembered Underdog from when I was young, but haven’t watched since. All I recalled
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was the melody of the theme song (though not all the words) and Simon Bar Sinister malevolently announcing, “Simon Says: Go Snow!” The creators noted that, after a point, it all came together and was relatively easy. That’s fine. No one says creativity necessarily has to be aggravating or brutal. If it worked out well, without crises or headaches, so much the better. Then everyone—creators and viewers—had a good time. It was fun to learn they based the character Underdog on Wally Cox, who gladly accepted the role, rather than a more generic approach where anyone could have stepped in. As a kid I’d watched Leave It to Beaver in syndication, and remembered enjoying it. More recently, thanks to the pandemic, I got to watch every episode of all six seasons again. What I particularly liked about the show was no one side—the parents’ or the kids’ —had a monopoly on being correct. Both sides could, and did, learn from the other. The main thing is that—thoughtful, moral and compassionate— they all tried to do right by each other. They frequently made mistakes, but then strived to correct them. It was nice to see the various players, aside from Eddie Haskell, so polite and supportive. If only real life were as warm, right? Enjoyed the commentary from Jerry Mathers and the late Tony Dow. That the situations and dialogue were all planned out but seemed so real or spontaneous that viewers might have believed otherwise. Cool that they kept in touch and remained friends as adults. Also got a kick
Thanks for the coverage of Angela Cartwright in issue #24 of RetroFan. I must confess that I had a big crush on Angela when Lost in Space was first airing and I was about ten years old. Several years ago, as a coworker and I were reminiscing about our younger days, he posed the question to me as to which celebrities I had found desirable as a kid. My first response was “Angela Cartwright.” He was perplexed by my
reply. “But Angela Cartwright was just a young girl,” he responded. (“What, no Raquel Welch?” he was likely thinking.) To which I said, “Hey, I was just a young boy, too.” And a most perceptive young boy, as well. I would still pick Angela Cartwright over some glamour girl like Raquel Welch. By the way, I also added Lucie Arnaz to my reply that day. (I can still remember feeling so sad in 1971 when she got married.) Others who I had fallen in love with during my youthful days living in TV fantasy land were Kathy Cody (Hallie/Carrie on Dark Shadows) and Candy Moore (Lucy’s TV daughter on The Lucy Show, then being rerun weekday mornings The Brady Bunch © Paramount Television.
out of the Leave It to Beaver comic-book covers. A nice memento and the one thing you couldn’t see on television: the Cleavers in color. My favorite coverage, naturally, was the spotlight on Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright from Lost in Space. Not only did I love them both in that, but roles before and after. Plus, they made themselves available to interact with fans at conventions. Meeting them and other cast members, after so long, was the biggest kick. Great memories I carry with me. Appreciated the October ’65 studio school photo of them in civilian Earth clothes. That always throws me and elicits a smile. I’m so used to them in velour or silver. Even in the episode “Visit to a Hostile Planet,” to see them here on Earth, as opposed to in caves or a futuristic backdrop, always seemed jarring and highly unusual. Funny to see Angela on the Make Room for Daddy comic cover and Guy Williams, smiling, on the Zorro comic. Even though I’d seen Lost in Space on Wednesday nights during the original airings, I still raced home from the school bus, years later, when LIS was on in syndication. Didn’t want to miss a minute! Thankfully, in 1983, I bought a Beta VCR. The idea that I could record and watch such a favorite, at my convenience— finally—was so astounding… and welcome. With their books and Blu-ray release, it’s nice to know that even after so long, LIS fans weren’t forgotten. Just as fans still regard them fondly, it’s reciprocated. And you had a nice surprise in your Too Much TV Quiz: all Bill Mumy roles. I didn’t recognize the names—except for Darrin and Googie—but chose to match the shows to the photos. As there’s not a cash prize, that’s not cheating. What shocked me is how Bill could have been on I Dream of Jeannie. I didn’t know that. Figured it had to be in a later episode, after LIS concluded. No, it’s from the same era. Could it have been filmed much earlier in 1965? During a break? Not unprecedented, I suppose. Werner Klemperer made an appearance on Lost in Space concurrently with doing Hogan’s Heroes. A sudden window of opportunity? Thank you for pointing that out, along with a few other roles I haven’t seen. I’ll be hunting them on YouTube shortly. JOE FRANK
Hey, Michael! Just finished RetroFan #24, and had to congratulate you on another great issue. Your editorial and Mark Voger’s wonderful feature about “Beaver Fever” brought back a very fond memory of interviewing Tony Dow for Filmfax in 2016. What many fans may not know is that Tony was a very accomplished sculptor whose work was exhibited at several prestigious galleries, including the Carrousel du Louvre—a shopping center and exhibition space that’s near the main museum in Paris. Tony was understandably very proud of his art, and told me that in many ways he found it much more satisfying than acting. I also tremendously enjoyed Mike Clark’s article about Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright. Bill was another lengthy interview for Filmfax (a very long time ago) and what sticks with me today is his absolute hatred of Alfred Hitchcock. While filming the “Bang, You’re Dead” episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bill—then just seven years old—was fidgeting on his mark while they set up the lighting for some close-ups. Hitchcock approached Bill and whispered in his ear, “If you don’t stop moving, I’m going to nail your foot to the floor and the blood will flow like milk. So stop moving!” Terrified, Bill did as he was told. But he never forgave Hitchcock, who could have easily made things right with a smile and a quick “Just kidding, Bill!” A lot of F-bombs were dropped during our conversation about the esteemed British director. DON VAUGHAN
on CBS) as well as plenty of other young guys’ fave, Maureen McCormick (Marcia on The Brady Bunch). So, anyway, thanks for jogging those pleasant memories. JOHN N. FISHEL
Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com. MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief
And thank you, John, for your letter, which serves as this issue’s unofficial “Celebrity Crushes” column! (A reminder to readers: “Celebrity Crushes” is our reader-written column featuring your 600-word-maximum personal recollections of the famous folks your heart beat for back in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties. If you remember pining over, say, that cute Linc Hayes from The Mod Squad or the fabulous and aforementioned Raquel Welch— whom we lost on February 15, 2023—or any other retro celeb, contact ye ed at the email address below.) Another bonus from your letter, John: You mentioned Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Count me among the many boys of the RetroFan era who were absolutely ga-ga over the eldest of the girls “with hair of gold (like their mother).” Which reminds me: Our own Mark Voger will be profiling Brady matriarch Florence Henderson in RetroFan #30!
NEXT ISSUE
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ReJECTED! Not every great idea is successful, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the also-rans, the nearly-made-its, and the ReJECTED. With almost 14 hours of broadcasting time to fill, the need for quality programming is great even when the shows aren’t...
BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA
Your Local Guide for TV Monday
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Order online, or by mail include $4 US postage for the first magazine, and $2 for each additional magazine on the same order. See inside front cover for subscription rates.
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LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s STAR TREK CARTOON, “How I Met LON CHANEY, JR.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare ELASTIC HULK toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and MR. MICROPHONE!
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!
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With a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: interview with LARRY STORCH, The Lone Ranger in Hollywood, The Dick Van Dyke Show, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero playset, and more!
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with the ’60s grooviest family band THE COWSILLS, and TV’s coolest mom JUNE LOCKHART! Mars Attacks!, MAD Magazine in the ’70s, Flintstones turn 60, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Honey West, Max Headroom, Popeye Picnic, the Smiley Face fad, & more! With MICHAEL EURY, ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW!
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with ’70s’ Captain America REB BROWN, and Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT) WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE BARTLETT! Plus: Coloring Books, Fall Previews for Saturday morning cartoons, The Cyclops movie, actors behind your favorite TV commercial characters, BENNY HILL, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, 8-track tapes, and more!
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Celebrating fifty years of SHAFT, interviews with FAMILY AFFAIR’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN” REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH, rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon preview specials, fake presidential candidates, Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s, and more fun, fab features!
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!
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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!
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!
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RETROFAN #17
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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.
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.
Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!
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, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! 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.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
RETROFAN #22
RETROFAN #23
RETROFAN #24
RETROFAN #25
RETROFAN #26
Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features! Like, totally! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview! Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The saga of Saturday morning’s Super Friends, Part One! Plus: A history of MR. T, TV’s AVENGERS (Steed and Mrs. Peel), Daktari’s CHERYL MILLER, Mexican movie monsters, John and Yoko’s nation of Nutopia, ELIZABETH SHEPHERD (the actress who almost played Emma Peel), and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, & MICHAEL EURY.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
TwoMorrows. RETROFAN #27
RETROFAN #29
RETROFAN #30
RETROFAN #31
Interview with Captain Kangaroo BOB KEESHAN, The ROCKFORD FILES, teen monster movies, the Kung Fu and BRUCE LEE crazes, JACK KIRBY’s comedy comics, DON DRYSDALE’s TV drop-ins, outrageous toys, Challenge of the Super Friends, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The Brady Bunch’s FLORENCE HENDERSON, the UNKNOWN COMIC revealed, Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat, a Barbie history, RANKIN/BASS’ Frosty the Snowman, Dell Comics’ Monster Super-Heroes, Slushy Drinks, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Magic memories of ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY for the 60th Anniversary of TV’s Bewitched! Plus: The ’70s thriller Time After Time (with NICHOLAS MEYER, MALCOLM McDOWELL, and DAVID WARNER), The Alvin Show, BUFFALO BOB SMITH and Howdy Doody, Peter Gunn, Saturday morning’s Run Joe Run and Big John Little John, a trip to Camp Crystal Lake, and more fun, fab features!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2023
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2023
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2024
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The Future of Pop History.