RetroFan #29

November 2023 No. 29 $10.95

BEA

I can turn you into a

L I C E C & Y N

Queen of the West

ob B A

DALE EVANS

t t e p m Cla

MUSCLE-MAKER CHARLES ATLAS

! n o oo o -o o o t r ca Straight from the horse’s mouth

Mr. Ed’s check out these machines, mister!

G N OU Y AN L A

’ THE SIXTIES OTS OB WACKIEST R Miami Vice • Super Powers Team – Galactic Guardians • British TV Annuals & more!

1

82658 00507

8

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Charles Atlas © Charles Atlas LTD. Beany & Cecil © Bob Clampett. The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Metal Men © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

New from TwoMorrows!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #88

KIRBY COLLECTOR #89

ALTER EGO #184

ALTER EGO #185

BRICKJOURNAL #82

KIRBY CONSPIRACIES! Darkseid’s Foourth World palace intrigue, the too-many attempted overthrows of Odin, why Stan Lee hated Diablo, Kang contradictions, Simon & Kirby swipes, a never-reprinted S&K story, MARK EVANIER’s WonderCon 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel (with MARV WOLFMAN, PAUL S. LEVINE, and JOHN MORROW), an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, 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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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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 #147

BACK ISSUE #148

BACK ISSUE #149

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #32 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #33

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!

’80s INDIE HEROES: The American, Aztec Ace, Dynamo Joe, Evangeline, Journey, Megaton Man, Trekker, Whisper, and Zot! Featuring CHUCK DIXON, PHIL FOGLIO, STEVEN GRANT, RICH LARSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS, DOUG MOENCH, RON RANDALL, DON SIMPSON, MARK VERHEIDEN, CHRIS WARNER & more superstar creators. Cover

by NORM BREYFOGLE!

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!

STEVE GERBER biographical essay and collaborator insights, MARY SKRENES on co-creating Omega the Unknown, helping develop Howard the Duck, VAL MAYERIK cover and interview, ROY THOMAS reveals STAN LEE’s unseen EXCELSIOR! COMICS line, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of early hardcover super-hero collections), more with MIKE DEODATO, and the concluding segment on FRANK BORTH!

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #29 November 2023

Columns and Special Features

43

Departments

2

3

Retrotorial

19

Too Much TV Quiz TV character maiden names

Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Beany and Cecil

35

Retro Television Dale Evans, Queen of the West

16

49

26

19

Retro Brit British TV Annuals

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Charles Atlas

53

35

RetroFad The DeLorean

Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots

78

RetroFanmail

43

49

Retro Interview Mister Ed’s Alan Young

80

ReJECTED

55

55

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Miami Vice

65

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Super Powers Team – Galactic Guardians RetroFan™ issue 29, November 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. Charles Atlas © Charles Atlas LTD. Beany & Cecil © Bob Clampett. The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Metal Men © DC Comics. Dale Evans photograph courtesy of Theresa Kaminski. 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 Michael Eury

BY MICHAEL EURY

PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Shaun Clancy Michael Eury Theresa Kaminski Andy Mangels Ian Millsted Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Timothy Campbell Randy Clawson DC Comics Mark Evanier Dale Hale Hanna-Barbera Productions Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions Jim Korkis NBCUniversal Waterman Entertainment VERY SPECIAL THANKS Ruth Clampett

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2

RETROFAN

Around 15 years ago, when my mother was still alive, I was visiting her at home. In her bedroom I spied a former babysitter. Mom’s bedroom closet door was open, and my erstwhile “nanny” was sitting on the top shelf.

It was the box for my Talking Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent doll from Mattel! How I loved that huggable toy when I was small. I don’t recall what Cecil’s phrases were (there were 11 of them!) when I pulled the string and activated his voice box, but I will never forget gleefully snuggling with his green, snaking form.

The box had my name scrawled onto it in pink, from a time when the preschool me used Mom’s fingernail polish as an art supply (I similarly defaced my Jan and Dean Meet Batman LP cover with my painted signature). Cecil’s nostalgic siren’s call beckoned me forth. A grown man may have been inching toward the colorful cardboard package, but in my mind I was the little boy who couldn’t wait for a reunion with his Talking Cecil. Imagine my dashed spirits as I discovered the box’s original contents were nowhere to be found! Mom had repurposed Cecil’s box for storing out-of-season clothes.

Where was Cecil? I still don’t know. Maybe one day on a visit to my homestead he’ll turn up again.

But I share this story to illustrate the power of our childhood caretakers from the make-believe land of television. For my generation of the early Sixties, we had the best TV babysitters a kid could ask for—the Mousketeers, Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis and her puppets, Romper Room, Davey and Goliath, plus a few of this issue’s spotlighted characters: Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil, Queen of the West Dale Evans and her singing cowboy husband Roy Rogers, and television’s talking horse, Mister Ed. If you hailed from a later generation, perhaps your preschool TV mentors were Big Bird, or Mister Rogers, or the Muppets, or Fat Albert, or Barney the purple dinosaur. These friends taught and guided us, offering our parents much-needed back-up support.

It’s the evocation of those memories that makes my editing of RetroFan a joy. With each issue, RetroFan chisels away the burdens of adulthood and whisks us to a safer time when a quarter could buy an 80-page comic book, when color television was a new innovation, and when “The Bump” was a dance and not a skin tag you really need to get the doc to examine.

Judging from the fact that RetroFan is now in its sixth year of publication, I’m not alone in my passions for yesteryear. Each week I receive at least one query from freelance writers interested in contributing to RetroFan—there have been weeks where I received a proposal a day. Which leads me to the topic of real estate.

No, not real estate like Floyd’s Barber Shop, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Stately Wayne Manor, or Manhattan’s East Side (where Weezy and George were movin’ on up to), but RetroFan’s “real estate”—our page count. Most of our pages each issue are written by our five regular columnists (six, if you lump this lump in with ’em). The remaining pages feature work contributed by freelance writers.

This columnist-driven format limits the availability of assignments to freelancers, but for the record, ye ed welcomes freelance writers. If you are a writer with an idea for a potential article for this magazine, don’t hesitate to email me about it at euryman@gmail.com.

A word of warning, however: please be patient. From our commitments to columnists to our healthy backlog of proposed material, there’s a lot in the queue, and it may take me a few weeks to respond. But if you’re a writer with a subject of interest to our readers, I’ll certainly consider it.

And don’t forget, you don’t have to be a professional journalist or pop-culture guru to contribute to RetroFan. There’s our “Celebrity Crushes” column, where you can pen a 600-word-max tribute to the retro star who once turned you on. And there’s “Super Collector” (which premiered in June 2018 with our first issue, before MeTV’s Collector’s Call debuted… just sayin’) department, which encourages readers to write about and share photos of the wild and wonderful memorabilia that clutters their homes but warms their hearts. Want to participate? Email me.

But let’s focus on the pages that follow, which revel in everything from wacky robots to physical fitness programs sold to kids. So get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

November 2023

n!’

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

‘A Bob Clampett (Puppet Show and) Cartoo-oooo

The

Seasick Story of

Beany and

Cecil

BY SCOTT SHAW! I consider myself to have been a very lucky kid for many reasons, most of which are the subjects of my RetroFan columns. One of them was an animated series I grew up with during the birth of made-for-television cartoons. With The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, and a fleet of others that were mostly funny-animal characters, Hanna-Barbera Productions was the powerhouse of the new “limited animation” industry that rapidly replaced all of the cartoons from the Twenties into the Fifties that kids like me had already memorized. Jay Ward Productions’ Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show were very successful as well.

But by the early Sixties, two more studios received significant public attention and licensees for their new series. One was Format Films’ The Alvin Show! Created by singer, songwriter, and ArmenianAmerican actor Ross (Rear Window, Stalag 17) Bagdasarian, Alvin

(ABOVE) Animation legend Bob Clampett’s Cap’n Huffenpuff, propeller-capped Beany, and seasicknessprone Cecil (who’s an excellent crooner, by the way) in a 1962 Beany and Cecil promotional cel. © Bob Clampett Productions.

Courtesy of Heritage.

was based on novelty records and singing chipmunk puppets, with an insider’s look at show biz and a nutty, fourth-wall-breaking inventor named Clyde Crashcup. [Editor’s note: Oddball World will spotlight The Alvin Show! in RetroFan #31.]

The other newcomer was Snowball Studios’ animated revival of a well-received TV puppet show from the previous decade, owned and created by the truly legendary animation director Bob Clampett. It was Beany and Cecil (B&C), presented by its sponsor, Mattel Toys, under the umbrella title Matty’s Funday Funnies (ABC, 1962).

I was ten, the right age to add both The Alvin Show! and Beany and Cecil to my ever-expanding list of cartoon favorites. Their contemporary scheduling is where both shows’ similarities ended.

Alvin was set in the music industry and therefore as hip as kids’ cartoons got in 1962. B&C, crawling with puns, was both hip and corny, with parodies and references to current events. Plus, one of the central cast of Beany and Cecil was a “dirty guy” who dressed all in black, a theatrical fink named Dishonest John. His signature catchphrase was simply a sneering, snarky, self-satisfied laugh that slithered down the tongue: “Nyah-ha-ha!” He became the breakout villain most of the kids I knew liked to imitate. I particularly leaned into the addiction once I realized that “Nyah-ha-ha!” was the perfect reply to deflect any of my parents’ observations, questions, RETROFAN

November 2023

3

The oddball world of scott shaw!

and criticisms. Even better, the more you uttered tongue-tickling “Nyah-ha-ha!,” the more it drove my folks crazy. Hey, I was an only child, who else was I supposed to torture?

By that time, I’d already memorized all of the Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Mighty Mouse, and the occasional Disney animated cartoon shorts at San Diego’s Saturday afternoon theater marathons and on the local TV shows hosted by former actor Johnny (The Mad Monster) Downs and “Uncle” Russ Plummer and his parakeet, Johnny Jet. That meant I also started noticing and memorizing the names of all of the best cartoon directors while building a mental list of my favorites in no particular order: Dave Fleischer, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Bill Hanna/Joe Barbera, and Ward Kimball. Never did I suspect that I would eventually work with or meet every one of them but Mr. Fleischer.

(ABOVE) Baby Bob Clampett (1913). (RIGHT) Bob as seen in his high school yearbook.

MEET BOB CLAMPETT

Ten years after Beany and Cecil premiered, I met the first one on my list—Bob Clampett—at the 1972 San Diego’s West Coast Comic Convention (a.k.a. the San Diego Comic-Con). More on that mind-boggling encounter later, but suffice it to say that Bob behaved like he felt right at home in San Diego.

And why wouldn’t he?

After all, Bob was born in San Diego on May 8, 1913.

His father was Robert Caleb Clampett, born in 1882 in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States with his parents two years later.

His mother was Mildred Joan Merrifield. The family moved to Hollywood in 1916 or 1917. According to Bob’s daughter, Ruth, “Dad was born in San Diego, and I think our grandmother would have loved to stay there, but Dad’s father and his family lived in L.A. and I imagine she wanted him to be part of the family as he was growing up.”

Bob was already demonstrating his ability to draw at the age of five. He also liked to make his own hand puppets. He was fascinated with silent comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, as well as heroic Douglas Fairbanks and horrific Lon Chaney. Once the family relocated north, Bob’s father not only played handball with Lloyd at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, they were next-door neighbors with Charlie Chaplin and his brother Sydney. It’s not surprising that by the time that Bob was 12 years old, he was making his own movies in the garage, including directing and acting in a live-action comedy short titled The Golf Widow while still in school. Bob was also very interested in animation and fooling around with a dinosaur sock puppet (that was the first iteration of what would eventually become Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent.)

While attending Glendale High School, Bob drew a full-page comic strip about a cat’s nightlife; later, it was reprinted—adding colors—in the Los Angeles Times. It caught the attention of the King Features Syndicate, which offered Bob an internship on Saturdays and vacations and a $75-a-week job upon his graduation from high school. He switched to Hoover High but dropped out a few months from graduating. Fortunately, King Features hired him anyway. The syndicate would occasionally print Bob’s cartoons to encourage 4

RETROFAN

November 2023

(ABOVE) Cartoon of Bob Clampett, seen on the right, from his 1931 high school yearbook. Courtesy of Worthpoint. (LEFT) Rare Charlotte Clark Mickey Mouse doll designed by a young Bob Clampett. © Disney.

Courtesy of Heritage.

him. The pay allowed him to attend the Otis Art Institute, where he studied every application of art, including oil painting and sculpture.

In 1930, during the Great Depression, Bob also got a job from his aunt Carolyn “Charlotte” Clark, who had been scraping out a living by selling cookies and novelty items. When he learned that she was considering a “sure-fire” new doll to produce, Bob suggested that she license Mickey Mouse from Walt Disney. After Bob was sent to Glendale’s Alex Theatre to research how to design the doll by studying a Mickey Mouse cartoon short three times—as well as the newsreel, featurette, main feature, and other material!—he and Aunt Charlotte met with Walt and Roy Disney to make a deal, using Charlotte’s prototype Mickey doll to demonstrate her skills and the doll’s potential. After they set up a factory to produce the handmade doll not far from the Disney Studio in Los Feliz, Bob and Walt Disney got to know each other a bit. According to Bob, “Walt Disney himself sometimes came over in an old car to pick up the dolls. He would give them out to visitors to the studio and at sales meetings. I helped him load the dolls in the car. One time, his car, loaded with Mickeys, wouldn’t start and I pushed while Walt steered until it caught and he took off.”

Although Disney knew Bob and appreciated his rabid interest in becoming an animator, at the time, Walt’s still-small studio

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(LEFT) Screen capture from the Clampett-directed Porky in Wackyland (1938). (RIGHT) Warner Bros.-era promotional photo of Bob Clampett with Bugs Bunny.

(BELOW) Horton Hatches the Egg (1942) was the first animated cartoon based on the work of Dr. Seuss. © Warner Bros.

didn’t require any more animators. After getting turned down, Bob turned around and in 1931, was hired as an assistant animator for ten dollars a week by the Harman-Ising Studios when Leon Schlesinger was impressed by one of the young cartoonist’s 16mm films.

Warner Bros. Animation began when producer Leon Schlesinger—distantly related to the Warner brothers who founded their namesake studio—hired a pair of animators, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, veterans of Walt Disney’s Kansas City cartoon studio. Schlesinger put them in charge of creating cartoon shorts for the Warner Bros.’ feature releases. Because Walt Disney Productions had launched its “Silly Symphony” series of sound cartoon shorts the year before, Schlesinger dubbed his sound shorts “Looney Tunes,” since these shorts initially involved music. The following year, Warner Bros. began a second series titled “Merrie Melodies” that still involved music, but featured songs from previous Warner Bros. movies to help sell recordings of those songs.

Officially, Bob began his professional career as an animator on the very first Merrie Melodies animated short made by Harman and Ising in 1931 for Warner Bros., Lady Play Your Mandolin. For a time, he was teamed with Tex Avery on the Looney Tunes animated shorts. Animation historian Jerry Beck once said that Clampett was the one who “put ‘looney’ in Looney Tunes.” Warners’ shabby cartoon studio at the time was dubbed with the nickname “Termite Terrace.”

Indeed, Bob Clampett had a huge impact on Warner Bros.’ cartoons. He created Porky Pig, Daffy Duck (from a suggestion by Tex Avery), Tweety Pie, and Beaky Buzzard, and directed over 80 cartoon shorts for the studio, including Porky in Wacky Land (1938), Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg (1942), Book Revue (1946), Russian Rhapsody (1944), and Baby Bottleneck, Kitty Kornered, and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (all 1946), classics all.

But Bob Clampett left Warner Bros. in May 1945; the cartoons directed by him would continue to be released until late 1946.

Why? Some claim that he was fired by Eddie Selzer, Schlesinger’s replacement, who

(ABOVE) Elmer Fudd endures a Bugs Bunny– fueled nightmare in The Big Snooze (1946). Story and direction by Clampett, who is uncredited.

The film was finished by Art Davis. (LEFT) Signed sketch of Tweety Bird by Clampett, circa the Seventies. © Warner Bros. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2023

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

disliked Bob’s wild material and process.

Others have said that while Friz Freleng’s and Chuck Jones’ animated shorts were becoming more sophisticated, by comparison, Clampett’s humor was too wacky for Selzer.

Whatever the reason for his leaving Warner Bros., Bob first sought similar work at other studios. In 1946, Bob briefly worked for Columbia’s cartoon division, Screen Gems, as a scriptwriter and gagman. Then, in 1947, Republic Pictures launched an animation department and hired Bob to make It’s a Grand Old Nag, a cartoon short that starred Charlie Horse. Unfortunately, due to financial issues, Republic’s management cancelled the series and the cartoon department itself. Bob’s response was to insist that the cartoon’s director would listed only as “Kilroy,” referencing the easy-to-draw WWII character, always seen with his nose hanging over the rim of a foxhole or a fence.

Approved by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bob also worked on animated pitches to MGM for theatrical cartoon shorts that would separately star ERB’s John Carter of Barsoom and later, Tarzan of the Apes, both intended to match the gravitas of Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons. MGM asked for so many ludicrous creative changes in both concepts that Burroughs and Clampett walked away without any further development.

Bob also worked with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen on a pitch for a Charlie McCarthy TV series, but like the majority of Hollywood projects, that never came to fruition, either.

(LEFT) Clampett’s short-lived Charlie Horse cartoon star. © Columbia/Screen Gems. (RIGHT) Sketch of Tarzan for a proposed animated short for MGM. © ERB, Inc. (BELOW) Satirist and voice actor Stan Freberg at work articulating and providing the voice for the Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppet on Time for Beany. © Bob Clampett Productions.

ENTER CECIL AND HIS PALS

So, what was next for Bob Clampett?

Clampett was ready to embrace new methods to entertain the public. He had already endured the frustration of the studio system and he’d already mastered a style of animation that no longer seemed appreciated, so Bob concentrated on one of his other boyhood obsessions: puppetry. More importantly, Bob would own the puppet characters and stories they would appear in.

Bob’s crude dinosaur puppet that he created as a kid was allegedly inspired by viewing the stop-motion brontosaurus swimming out to sea at the end of the 1925 movie The Lost World. Bob was 12 at the time.

Pondering the potential of his reptilian puppet, Bob created a character that had a long neck like that brontosaurus, but didn’t share a scientific species. Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent owed his existence to legends that mariners told.

Of course, Cecil needed a friend to share his conversations and adventures. Considering the audience that Bob hoped to reach, a brave little boy with a face full of freckles and a cap sporting a propeller on top fit the bill. His name was Beany. And to make those adventures happen, how about an uncle for Beany, a lovable but incompetent sea captain with his own boat? Meet Uncle Cap’n Horatio K. Huffenpuff and his vessel, The Leakin’ Lena. The primary cast was set.

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RETROFAN

November 2023

Who did Bob Clampett have in mind to not only perform the voices of Cecil, Beany, and Cap’n Huffenpuff, but also write their scripts and operate their puppets? Did those talents even exist?

Stan Freberg (August 7, 1926–April 7, 2015) was born in Pasadena, California. Fresh out of high school, he was hired as a voice actor for Warner Bros.’ cartoons in 1944, which launched his 70-year career in entertainment and advertising. For Warner Bros., Stan performed the voices of the characters Junyer Bear, Beaky Buzzard, Pete Puma, and many others. He did the voices of all of the characters and sang the title song for Friz Freleng’s Three Little Bops (1957). For Disney, he was the voice of Lady and the Tramp’s Mr. Busy the Beaver, as well as roles in Susie the Little Blue Coupe, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, and Alice in Wonderland. Stan also had two radio shows, a sitcom titled That’s Rich (1954), and The Stan Freberg Show

The oddball world of scott shaw!

on CBS radio, which replaced Jack Benny’s show in 1957. These assignments directly led to on-screen roles in feature films such as Callaway Went Thataway (1951), Geraldine (1954), and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

Stan gained more attention for his comedy 45s and albums for Capitol Records. Some of his most famous 45s were “John and Marsha” (1951), “St. George and the Dragonet” (1953), “The Great Pretender” (1956), “Banana Boat (Day-O)” (1957), and “Green Chri$tma$” (1958). Among Stan’s most popular LPs were Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume One: The Early Years (1961), Freberg Underground (1966), and Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume Two: The Middle Years (1996). Stan was also seen on television, including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Monkees, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Roseanne, and The Weird Al Show. He also had his own special on ABC in 1962: Stan Freberg Presents the Chun King Chow Mein Hour: Salute to the Chinese New Year.

Stan revolutionized the advertising industry by creating ad campaigns for radio and television that caught on with the public due their clever satirical content. After founding the Los Angeles–based ad agency, Freberg Limited, his clients included Butternut coffee, General Motors, Contadina tomato paste, Jeno’s pizza rolls, Sunsweet pitted prunes, Heinz Great American Soups, Encyclopedia Britannica, Kaiser Aluminum, and Chun King Chinese food, among many others.

Charles Dawson, a.k.a. “Daws” Butler (November 16, 1916–May 18, 1988), was born in Toledo, Ohio. As a young man, he had a fascination with imitating his friends, his teachers, and various celebrities. In 1935, he became a professional impressionist, performing in vaudeville theaters.

Daws’ first animation voiceover job was for Screen Gems in 1948, but he was soon working on Tex Avery’s shorts for MGM, beginning with Little Rural Riding Hood (1949). He became a favorite of Tex’s, contributing to MGM’s Out-Foxed, The Cuckoo Clock, The Peachy Cobbler, Droopy’s Double-Trouble, Magical Maestro, One Cab’s Family, Little Johnny Jet, Three Little Pups, Sheep Wrecked, Billy Boy, and Walter Lantz’s The Legend of Rockabye Point.

After Daws Butler began writing and voicing TV commercials, Stan Freberg asked him to collaborate on writing material for Stan’s records for Capitol. The result was “St. George and the Dragonet.” The duo continued to work together on Stan’s songs, especially co-writing dialogue routines. Daws also was part of the Stan Freberg Show on CBS radio.

Daws expanded his list of animation studios that were casting him. For UPA, he provided the voice of Waldo, the nephew of Mr. Magoo. For Walter Lantz Productions’ theatrical shorts, he put words in the mouths of Chilly Willy; his laid-back canine co-star, Smedley; Gabby Gator; and Ali Gator.

But in 1957, the newly formed Hanna-Barbera Productions, run

by MGM’s Tom and Jerry creators/ producers/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, would soon occupy a major percentage of Daws’ career. Starting with the voice of Reddy on The Ruff and Reddy Show, the studio’s first series, Daws quickly became one of H-B’s most relied-upon voice talents. Among many others, here are some of Daws’ most recognizable voices for the studio’s cast of characters: Augie Doggie; Barney Rubble (subbing for Mel Blanc); Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey; The Jetsons’ Elroy,

(ABOVE) Surrounding the Beany doll are (LEFT TO RIGHT): Daws Butler, Stan Freberg, Bob Clampett, and Jack Benny. (LEFT) A TV Guide (Aug. 8, 1954) spread about Time for Beany. © Bob Clampett Productions. TV Guide © TV Guide Magazine, LLC. Courtesy of the Prelinger Archives via the Internet Archive.

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Cogswell, and Henry Orbit; Lippy the Lion; Huckleberry Hound; Dixie Mouse and Mr. Jinx; Bingo; Hokey Wolf; Peter Perfect; Hair Bear; Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse; Yogi Bear; Wally Gator; Snagglepuss; Peter Potamus; the Funky Phantom, and many others. He not only worked on H-B’s TV shows but also the studio’s TV commercials and kids’ records.

Daws was also heard in many of Jay Ward Studios’ TV shows and commercials, such as Aesop’s Son, Cap’n Crunch, and Quisp.

He did voices for all three of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies’ Snap, Crackle, and Pop. The roles of a penguin and a turtle in Mary Poppins were his only work for Walt Disney. In 1975, Daws Butler started to host acting workshops in the guesthouse in his Beverly Hills backyard. It spawned a number of very successful voice-over artists.

Fortunately, both men lived in Los Angeles. Bob Clampett asked Stan to do the voices of Cecil and the bad guy, Dishonest John, and asked Daws to be the voices of Beany and Cap’n Huffenpuff—if the show was bought. They had no idea that their vocal performances would be only one of the tasks that were expected of them.

PUPPET MASTERS

By 1949, the relatively new medium of television was becoming affordable and desirable to the American public. At the end of 1946, only 44,000 homes owned a television set; by the end of 1949, there were 4.2 million sets in homes; and by 1952, 50% of American homes owned a TV set. At the time, no one yet knew how to cheaply produce animated cartoons for television, but a puppet show was an absolutely feasible concept. But it was a concept that none of Bob’s potential clients understood at all. After all, the television industry was still in its infancy.

In an interview with Jim Korkis in 1978, Bob said, “When I first went out to sell my puppet show in the early days of television, people would say, ‘You are known for your cartoons, so give us cartoons. Don’t give us puppets.’ And no matter how I tried to enthuse them about puppets, they kept stressing animation.”

After getting rejected by the networks, Bob decided to pitch his puppet show to local stations. At the time, Los Angeles County had a population of approximately four million people, a healthy amount of potential viewers. All Bob needed was for someone to say “yes.”

Someone finally did. On February 28, 1949, Paramount’s KTLA-TV studio aired the first episode of Bob Clampett’s Time for Beany, which was broadcast live. Bob and his crew did a 15-minute black-and-white show five days a week, 52 weeks a year, for six years.

As Bob planned, the show’s voice actors were Daws Butler as Beany and Cap’n Huffenpuff and Stan Freberg as Cecil and Dishonest John. Fortunately for Bob, both men were also very competent puppeteers. When Stan wasn’t available, Daws would do all the voices and vice versa, with the help of multiple puppeteers.

“We managed to become the number one children’s show, while appealing to adults as well,” claimed Freberg in his autobiography.

“Whole families would gather before their TV sets each evening to watch Time for Beany. A 70 share of the audience was not unusual.

With mikes on our chests and both arms holding various puppets in the air, Butler and I literally had our hands full.”

Indeed, Time for Beany frequently contained topical references, usually of a satirical nature. Children could laugh at the silliness, 8

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and adults could laugh at the political and social satire, something for everyone.

With only Freberg and Butler doing puppets, the scenarios were limited to only four characters at a time (one puppet for each hand), and Clampett had grander designs than that restriction.

Walker Edmiston was doing voices for Walter Lantz cartoons but also designed and built ventriloquist dummies. “I told Clampett my hobby was designing and building puppets,” said Edmiston. “That combined with the voice imitations did the trick. I was hired, and my career was launched as Daws and Stan’s other pair of arms. Now there could be six characters in a scene.” The writers were Charles Shows, Lloyd Turner, Bill Scott, Chris Allen, Adam Bracci, and of course Freberg, and Butler supplied a lot of ad-libbed material. The puppets, created by Maurice Seiderman, were presented against simple sets or crude background drawings.

In 1950, KTLA-TV’s Time for Beany was distributed nationwide via kinescope by the Paramount Television Network. With a much bigger audience, the puppet show attracted a lot of viewers. Time for Beany received three Emmys for Best Children’s Program in 1949, 1950, and 1952. It was nominated for the Emmy in 1954, but it did receive the Peabody Award that year. Stan Freberg was nominated for the Best Actor Emmy in 1950.

After Butler and Freberg quit the show during 1952 or 1953—after all, it was an incredibly grueling job in many ways—Jim

(ABOVE) Beany and friends promote Bell Brand snack products. (INSET) A paper promotional piece for KTLA’s broadcast of Time for Beany. © Bob Clampett Productions

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MacGeorge, Irv Shoemaker, and Walker Edmiston took over the voice work and working the puppets. Scatman Crothers also voiced two characters for the show.

Joan Gardner also contributed to the soundtracks.

As mentioned, the adorable, freckled kid Beany (who sported a beanie hat complete with a propeller), the seasick sea serpent Cecil (made out of green terrycloth for skin with sewn-on eyes and buttons for nostrils, he claimed to be 300 years old and 35 feet-3 inches tall), and lovable, cowardly, and incompetent Uncle Cap’n Horatio K. Huffenpuff were the show’s main characters.

There were a lot of other characters, too.

Dishonest John, a.k.a. “D.J.,” although the bad guy, eventually became as popular as the stars.

Hopalong Wong (the Leakin’ Lena’s Asian cook), a circus clown named Clowny, and Crowy the crow were secondary regulars.

Other characters included Common Dragon, Tear-a-long the Dotted Lion, Smarty Pants the Frog (a.k.a. “The Brain”), Mr. Nobody, Mouth Full of Teeth Keith, Flush Garden, and another baddie, Dudley Nightshade (also the name of the soon-to-come villain of the Crusader Rabbit cartoons). Then there was Ping Pong the giant ape, the Inca Dinka Doo Bird, Dizzy Lou and Dizzy Too (referencing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez’s Desilu Productions), the 3-Headed Threep, Moon Mad Tiger, and a robot named Clank Clank Hank.

Sometimes, real-life celebrities would make appearances on Time for Beany, including Jerry Lewis, Spike Jones, and even Liberace.

(ABOVE AND LEFT) Covers to four issues of Four Color, issues #448, 477, 530, and 635, starring Beany and Cecil. Courtesy of Scott Shaw! (BELOW) Screen capture of a home movie featuring Beany’s Drive-In located in Long Beach, CA (1952). © Bob Clampett Productions. Film courtesy of the Prelinger Archives/ Internet Archive.

In 15-minute segments, the Leakin’ Lena traveled the globe via the seven seas.

Some of the exotic places her crew visited included the Fifth Corner of the World, Shangri-La-Di-Da, Vitamin Pill Hill, Tin Pan Valley, Horrors Heights, Widow’s Peak, Close Shave Cave, Nothing Atoll, and the Schmoon—the Moon’s moon!

To distinguish Time for Beany from Howdy Doody [coming in RetroFan #31—ed.] or Kukla, Fran and Ollie and other televised puppet shows, Bob Clampett’s intention was to give his show “scope.” The sets were built with miniature elements to make Bob’s puppets look like full-size humans or a ten-feet-tall sea serpent. The direction, the wacky adventure stories, the sound effects, and music all contributed to Time for Beany’s vibe, which was more like an animated cartoon. One episode features a “giant” live chicken that looms over the puppets like a Tyrannosaurus rex. Its lack of reaction to Beany and Cecil is both hilarious and kinda scary!

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(LEFT) A behind-thescenes photo of the crew of Time for Beany.

(RIGHT) Cover to the Beany and Cecil 1961 publicity kit which included (BELOW) a sericel featuring the main cast. © Bob Clampett Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

Einstein. On one occasion, Einstein supposedly interrupted a high-level conference by announcing, “You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It’s Time for Beany.”

One of Time for Beany’s sponsors was Los Angeles’ Bell Potato Chips and Peanut Butter. Clampett also licensed Beany, Cecil, and the Time for Beany cast to a Beany’s Drive-In restaurant chain around the Los Angeles area. The burger stands were incredibly ornate, with a rotating statue of Beany, the huge head of Cecil popping out of a jack-in-the-box, and on-model murals of the Cecil and the gang inside and outside of the stand. There were at least two Beany’s Drive-Ins, one at Pacific Coast Highway and Ximeno Avenue in Long Beach, California, in 1952; and one on Washington Boulevard in Culver City. Animation writer and historian Mark Evanier recalls that, at one time, there may have been as many as five locations.

Surprisingly, as popular as Time for Beany was, there wasn’t nearly as much licensed merchandise as one would assume.

Most of it was print material. Dell Publishing Co.’s Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil comic books—not bearing the show’s Time for Beany name—were printed under the umbrella title Four Color. All seven issues were drawn by Jack Bradbury, a top animation and comic-book cartoonist whose work Bob particularly liked. Western Publishing, which produced Dell’s material, had an office in Los Angeles, so it’s likely that Bob asked for Bradbury to draw them.

(Most of the Time for Beany printed promotional material was also executed by Jack.)

In 1952, Bob Clampett created the Thunderbolt the Wondercolt and Buffalo Billy puppet series and the prologue to the 3D feature film Bwana Devil, in which Beany and Cecil explain how 3D works.

In 1954, he directed The Willy the Wolf Show, the first puppet variety program on television.

TRANSITION TO TOONS

After Time for Beany ended, Bob Clampett was pitching new characters and concepts for animation and puppet shows, many of which eventually turned up in Beany and Cecil. Also, in the late Fifties, Bob was hired by Associated Artists Productions to catalog the pre-August 1948 Warner Bros. cartoons the company had just acquired.

To test the waters, in 1959 Bob produced the first animated Beany and Cecil cartoon titled “Beany and Cecil Meet Billy the Squid,” which was released theatrically. He also used it as a 10

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sample for pitching his proposed animated revival of Time for Beany. In a single weekend, Bob and his wife Sody conceived short descriptions of all 78 shorts that would constitute all 26 episodes comprising the one and only season of Beany and Cecil. Almost every short features a new character (or one from Bob’s previous puppet shows) that was intended as a potential breakout character to star in its own series.

Sponsored by Mattel Toys—which conveniently would hold the license for Beany and Cecil merchandise—Matty’s Funday Funnies, named for Matty Mattel, the toy corporation’s 1959–1961 animated spokesperson, aired on ABC on Sundays. It recycled Paramount’s animated shorts from the Forties and Fifties, with new titles starring Matty and Sister Belle frolicking with Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, and Buzzy the Crow. But the show suddenly became Matty’s Funnies with Beany and Cecil on January 6, 1962. Although the show never made more than a single season’s worth of episodes, ABC ran Beany and Cecil on Saturday and Sunday mornings until September 3, 1967. Along with The Jetsons and The Flintstones, it was one of the first color television series by the ABC television network.

Let’s meet the Beany and Cecil cast: f Beany is freckle-faced boy with a propeller-topped beanie cap— the “Beanycopter,” which Mattel produced as a retail item—that allows him to fly. A good-hearted kid, when he’s in trouble he

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(RIGHT) Model sheet cards from the Beany and Cecil publicity kit.

(BELOW) “Nyah-ha-ha!”

Beany and Cecil’s number one bad guy, Dishonest John. You are allowed to hiss and boo. © Bob Clampett

Productions. Cards and cel courtesy of Heritage.

cries, “Help, Cecil! Help!,” to which Cecil replies, “I’m a-comin’, Beany-boy!” as he races to the rescue. Beany was voiced by Jim MacGeorge. f Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent is Beany’s best friend and protector. Cecil is lovable but has judgment issues since he’s more juvenile than Beany. But he’s brave and strong and able to survive all of Bob Clampett’s physical gags. Like with his puppet incarnation, the animation layouts have Cecil’s tail extending offscreen, hidden behind an obstacle or underwater. Cecil also has a super-hero alter ego known as “Super-Cecil.” Cecil also sings “♫A Bob Clam-pett car-tooooooo-OOOOOOOOON!♫” in the opening song of every episode… and it still reverberates. Cecil was voiced

by Irv Shoemaker. f Cap’n (sometimes Captain) Horatio Huffenpuff, also called “Uncle Cap’n,” is Beany’s kindly but incredibly cowardly uncle and the giggling captain of their ship The Leakin’ Lena. Cap’n Huffenpuff was voiced by Jim MacGeorge. f Dishonest John (or “D.J.”) is the show’s villain and co-star, dressed all in black with a wide mustache. His catchphrase is his sinister laugh, “Nyah-hah-hahhh!” Cecil tends to respond to DJ’s scheme with an outraged “What the heck! D.J., you dirty guy!”

Dishonest John carries a business card that reads: “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Special rates for Sundays and holidays,” the inspiration for AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. Dishonest John was voiced by Irv Shoemaker. f Crowy is the navigator of the Leakin’ Lena who spends most of his time in the ship’s crow’s nest. Crowy was voiced by Jim MacGeorge and Don Messick. f This series gave everyone a girlfriend. Cecilia McCoy is a “she-serpent” and Cecil’s girlfriend. Baby Ruthy is Beany’s girlfriend. Bob’s daughter Ruth Clampett has said, “As for Baby

Ruthy, I was too young to do the voices in the cartoon, but [her dad Bob] had me giggle, which is in the cartoon. My mom and brother, Rob, also did voices in the series.” Ida is Huffenpuff’s girlfriend, “as sweet as apple cider.” Bridget the Crow is Crowy’s girlfriend. And U.S. Male is a postal ship and boyfriend of The Leakin’ Lena!

Other memorable Beany and Cecil characters include: f Davey Cricket is a chirping insect wearing a coonskin cap like Disney’s Davey Crockett wore. He lives in the backwoods of Eight-Nine-Tennessee. f Go Man Van Gogh is a cartoon beatnik/wild man who lives in the jungles of Wildsville on the Hungry I-Land. He paints various things with his paintbrush, including backgrounds, objects, and getaways to fool enemies. He also often plays a set of bongo drums. He was originally voiced by Lord Buckley in “The Wildman of Wildsville”—a 1959 short that was later broadcast as part of the television series—and then by Scatman Crothers after Buckley’s death in 1960. f Harecules Hare is a young rabbit that’s a genius. He wears a computerized Thinking Cap to build a “Guided Muscle,” a guided missile with a nosecone in the form of a giant fist. Ben Hare is Harecules’ father. He is a muscular health nut who believes that brawn is more important than brains and wishes that his son felt the same way. f Jacques the Knife is a friendly, jazz-singing sawfish with a heavy French accent, who only speaks in a rendition of “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” f Little Ace from Outer Space is an astronaut-mouse who is used by the people at Cape Banana Peel to discover “whether or RETROFAN

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whether not there’s any weather.” He is sent in a rocket to be the first mouse on the Moon, only to end up in the ocean. He was voiced by Paul Frees. f The Dreaded 3-Headed Threep is a legendary monster that turns out to have the heads of the original Three Stooges. f Tear-a-long the Dotted Lion is a muscle-bound lion that is obsessed with exercise and vitamins. Surprisingly, despite his name he doesn’t have any dots on his pelt. He was one of the original characters on Time for Beany. Tear-a-long was voiced by Daws Butler. f Careless the Mexican Hairless is Cecil’s overenthusiastic pet Chihuahua that accidentally breaks things whenever he dances. f William Shakespeare Wolf is a starving out-of-work wolf and actor that’s a foil for Rin Tin Can, a robot dog, as well as Harecules Hare and a duck named Graham Quacker, both of whom he attempts to eat. f Beepin’ Tom is a diminutive alien who buzzes about in an opentop flying saucer. His high-pitched voice is similar to the Chipmunks’, and the words he sings or speaks appear as a rebus in a word balloon over his head. f Hopalong Catskill is a frog with a Yiddish accent that wears a cowboy hat and walks with a limp similar to Chester Goode’s on TV’s Gunsmoke. His catchphrase is, “Hey, Shmendrick! Would you like a cup of coffee?” He was voiced by Jewish comedy singer Mickey Katz. f So What and the Seven What-Knots, based on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is a Dixieland jazz band in Las Vegas.

The names of the What-Knots are puns of the names of contemporary celebrities: $tash-do (“Satchmo,” Louis Armstrong), Elfis (Elvis Presley), Dizzy R. Nez (Desi Arnaz), Harpsie McChord (Harpo Marx), Fred McFurry (Fred MacMurray), Screw-Loose Lautrec (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), and Loverachi (Liberace). f Gigi is a French poodle that thinks she is summoned by Cecil every time he sings “Rag Mop,” a song originally performed by the Ames Brothers that he sang a lot. “Rag Mop” still causes fans to automatically think of Beany and Cecil. f Edgar Allen Po’s Shadow is a shadowy man who resembles Alfred Hitchcock and sounds like Elmer Fudd that owns the Haunted Retreat Mansion.

(TOP) Cecil and Beany dolls from Mattel (1962). Talking versions were also made. (LEFT) Time for Beany– era table lamp and (RIGHT) signed coloring book production art. © Bob Clampett Productions. Dolls and lamp courtesy of Worthpoint. Coloring book courtesy of Heritage.

In addition to Cecil’s singing of the Ames Brothers’ “Rag Mop,” Other characters include: Dinah Sor, the Singing Dinosaur (a Bob Clampett also used a lot of public-domain classical music in takeoff of entertainer Dinah Shore), that lives on the island of No Beany and Cecil, such as “Dance of Bikini Atoll; Stogie Bear, a smarterthe Sugarplum Fairy” and other than-the-average detective bear selections from The Nutcracker, who arrests gangster bears; “It was a fun show to work on. Bob was the “The William Tell Overture,” “Ride the Fleastone Cops, who assist main reason why.” of the Valkryies,” and “Flight of the Detective Fido Vance when the – Beany and Cecil gagman/storyboard Bumblebee.” The more modern Pincher kidnaps actress Bridgette artist Dale Hale tune “When the Saints Come Bow Wow; Snorky, a tricky snake Marching In” was used in several that is tied to many unbelievable episodes. historical events; Peking Tom, a After 1962, the 26 episodes of Beany and Cecil (including 78 very hungry Siamese alley cat; Cora (a.k.a. Flora) the Clinging Vine, cartoons) were repeated during Saturday mornings for the next a voluptuous plant that literally has a crush on Cecil; Venus the Meanest and Venice the Menace, two space robots from Venus that two years and on Sunday mornings for three more. When the series went into syndication, it was re-named The Beany and Cecil Show. come to Earth for a picnic; the Robot Ants, a group of insect pests Whatever licensed merchandise that Time for Beany garnered sent to Earth for Venus the Meanest’s picnic; and the Boo Birds, a was dwarfed by the amount of merchandise that was licensed from gang of mischievous ghost birds that haunt an abandoned castle; Beany and Cecil. Of course, much of it was from Mattel Toys, the their catchphrase is “Whyyyy not?”

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show’s sponsor, but other companies in the kids’ market were interested in Beany and Cecil too. Dolls, talking puppets, Beanycopters, purses, lunch kits, stuffed figures, coloring books, picture books, puzzles, a record player, a Cecil “disguise kit,” and much more were produced. And Dishonest John was ever bit as marketable as Beany, Cecil, or Uncle Cap’n!

After the aforementioned Four Color comic-book appearances, Dell published a Beany and Cecil comic-book series, with five quarterly issues cover-dated from July–September 1962 to July– September 1963. The first issue was drawn in New York City and is very amateurish and barely resembles the cartoon. (By this time, Dell and Western Publishing—which had provided Dell with the covers and contents—were now competitors.) Fortunately, Willie Ito, who had drawn layouts for Snowball Studio’s B&C production, drew the second through the fifth issue. Clampett’s original “Beanyland” short was adapted for the fourth issue.

THE LEGACY OF BOB CLAMPETT

My friend Leo Sullivan was a co-founder of Vignette Films (the first animation studio owned by Black filmmakers; it created the original opening for TV’s Soul Train) and a recipient of the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame award. Before all of that, in 1961, Leo’s first job in animation was as a cel-wiper—removing the ink and paint so the cel can be re-used—on Snowball Studios’ production of Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil. Of course, Leo hoped to get a job drawing, not wiping, but he was glad to finally work on an actual TV cartoon series by one of the wildest animation directors ever.

One day, Bob Clampett gave Beany and Cecil’s sponsors, Mattel Toys, a tour of Snowball Studios. Bob hired people of all ethnicities and he made a point to introduce the Mattel people to Leo. But when Bob asked him how he liked his job, Leo bluntly responded, “It’s okay... but what I really want to do is animate!” Without much choice—at least it must have further impressed the sponsor reps—Bob immediately promoted Leo to “inbetweener” status on the spot. Of course, Leo was delighted— until he opened his next paycheck envelope. It turned out that wiping had a better salary than inbetweening, but the job launched Leo’s long career as an animator.

Dell produced a series of Beany and Cecil comic books following the debut of the animated program. © Bob Clampett Productions. Courtesy of Scott Shaw!

Eighteen years later, when Leo and his friend and future Disney Legend Floyd Norman (another co-founder of Vignette Films) were asked who they wanted to present their Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame awards, they responded, “Bob Clampett, since he was the one most responsible for giving us the breaks that we needed to succeed.” (Bob was the first white man ever invited to the ceremonies until then.) On February 18, 1979 in Oakland, California, at the Paramount Theater, when Leo and Floyd received the award from Bob, Bob’s notorious Warner Bros. cartoon, 1943’s Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs, was screened to a surprisingly enthusiastic audience.

During the Seventies, there was a kerfuffle between most of the Golden Age Warner Bros. directors responding to the question, “Who created Bugs Bunny?” It seemed that the answer was, “Everyone except Tex Avery, because he didn’t really care” (even though Tex created the prototype rabbit that became Bugs). Bob Clampett got a lot of flack, especially from Chuck Jones, who was sending letters to Tex, trying to get him mad at Bob. The whole thing was irritating, pointless, and to this outsider, sickening.

Frankly, I have a hunch that a lot of those directors were actually jealous of Bob because he was the only one of the Termite Terrace directors ever to have created and owned a successful entertainment property like Beany and Cecil.

According to Bob’s daughter, Ruth Clampett, “Although Dad did in his final years have his own moment in the spotlight, my mom in the mid-Seventies had the idea for him to do a college lecture tour on his history in the world of animation, and she helped Dad develop it. She had the idea because he loved talking to animation fans and had an incredible memory of his long career. At those lectures he would speak to auditoriums full of fans, show slides of art and photos from the period, and also screen many of his best cartoons. Around the same time he was being invited to comic conventions, and in both series of experiences he got to meet countless cartoon fans, and up-and-coming

Production cel detail of the Sea Serpent of Steel, SuperCecil. © Bob Clampett Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

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animators, while often being reunited with (TOP LEFT) Beanyland, a parody coworkers from his past. They even did of Disneyland as depicted in Beany some museum shows in Europe. He loved and Cecil #4 (Apr.–June 1963), and every minute of those experiences and he (CENTER) a Beanyland sketch. (TOP and Mom made friends all over the world.”

RIGHT) Limited edition Beanyland Bob died of a heart attack on May 2, cel. (RIGHT) Bob and his seasick 1984 while in Detroit, Michigan, as a guest puppet pal, Cecil.© Bob Clampett Productions. at a convention for animation fans, touring Sketch and cel courtesy of Heritage.

America to promote the release of Beany and Cecil on Beta and VHS (RCA Columbia Pictures Home Video). It was six days before his 71st birthday. He’s John’s assumption that he could ignore the network’s restrictions, buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. the relaunch was cancelled five weeks into its run, to be replaced by In 1986, Sody Clampett approached Mike Kazaleh to be the the original Beany and Cecil cartoons that had aired on ABC 26 years producer of a new Beany and Cecil show for Snowball Studios to earlier. ABC eventually replaced the series with episodes of The produce. Unfortunately, the networks were leery of working with Flintstone Kids. a long-hibernated animation studio. She ABC’s President of Children’s Programmade the same offer to me when in 1987 ming Jennie Trias told The Hollywood when I was working at Hanna-Barbera Reporter on October 13, 1988, “This was not FAST FACTS but I sadly passed, telling her that H-B’s the show that we bought conceptually Saturday morning production system and and development-wise and was not the budgets would prevent the quality she (and show we wanted,” explaining the sudden BEANY AND CECIL I) would accept. cancellation. At the time, it was the f No. of seasons: One But four years after Bob Clampett’s shortest-lived television series on Saturday f No. of episodes: 26 death, his family’s agent negotiated with morning. Fortunately, it never left a blotch f Original run: January 6, 1962– ABC-TV and DIC Entertainment to produce on the Clampetts’ nor Beany and Cecil’s June 30, 1962 a new series of Beany and Cecil cartoons for reputations. f Created by: Bob Clampett Saturday morning in 1988. John Kricfalusi, In 2000, although many of us already f Primary voice cast: Jim Macstill basking in his notoriety on losing Ren owned the B&C video tapes from 1988 (I’ve George, Irv Shoemaker, Bob and Stimpy, wound up producing The New still got my Betas!), many of us also bought Clampett, Don Messick Adventures of Beany and Cecil for DIC to our first DVDs when Bob Clampett’s Beany f Network: ABC air on ABC in 1988. It was the first series and Cecil: The Special Edition from Image animated by the crew that would soon Entertainment was released. It took Image SPIN-OFFS AND become Spumco. Kricfalusi, who was a Entertainment quite a while, but Bob REMAKES: friend of the Clampett family, was named Clampett’s Beany and Cecil: The Special Edition f The New Adventures of Beany and supervising producer on the series. The Volume 2 was released in 2009, and well Cecil (disastrous, short-lived Clampetts insisted on him being involved worth the wait.

1988 reboot developed by John in order to help his studio get started and Meanwhile, back at the 1972 San Diego’s Kricfalusi; only five episodes in the belief he understood and would West Coast Comic Convention, here’s how I were produced and two aired) maintain Bob Clampett’s legacy. But due to met Bob Clampett.

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(LEFT) Tweety meets Cecil via Sylvester in this signed Clampett drawing. Tweety and Sylvester © Warner Bros. Cecil © Bob Clampett Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

(BELOW) The Bob Clampett panel at San Diego Comic Fest 2019 featured Rob Clampett (Bob Clampett, Jr.), Mark Evanier, Ruth Clampett, and an unidentified fan. Courtesy of Scott Shaw!

I had recently written and drawn a comic story titled “I Discovered the Sinister Invasion of the Smiling Faces!” for Barry Alfonso’s fanzine Mysticogryfil #2. It was a take-off of the then-current fad of those yellow “smiley faces” on buttons, T-shirts, mugs, and toilet seat covers, and I was wearing a handmade T-shirt to promote my latest underground-ish tale. Using fabric paint, I drew a huge yellow face but with a fanged, scowling mouth, with the words “EFF OFF”... except it wasn’t “eff.” While sitting behind my table in the dealers’ room, I was feeling very hip and shockingly outrageous....

And just then, here came Bob Clampett, strolling down the aisle, wearing his light blue jacket that was festooned with patches bearing the images of the pantheon of cartoon characters he worked on at Termite Terrace. He may have looked like Roy Orbison with his dramatically dark glasses and jet-black Moe Howard haircut, but he behaved like an enthusiastic fanboy.

Bob suddenly halted in front of my table, pointed at my chest, and gleefully asked, “How much for that?” I chuckled, pleased that Bob liked my shirt almost as much as I was relieved that he wasn’t offended by it. I explained that I only made the one I was wearing.

But Bob was determined to buy it. I forget how much he offered me but I refused to take his money. I really respected him before we met and I couldn’t believe we were connecting due to my obscene T-shirt!

Despite my man-boobs, I peeled off that shirt like a snake shedding its skin and handed it over to Bob. He thanked me, removed his critter-studded jacket, put the shirt on over the shirt he was already wearing, put the jacket back on... and commenced to strut around the dealer’s room with a rascally grin on his face.

Over the years, I got to better know Bob and his incredible wife Sody and they learned about me, including the craziest stunt I ever attempted. In 1972, a few months after I met Bob, I went to the World Science Fiction Convention near LAX. On a whim, I covered myself with chunk-style peanut butter and entered the con’s costume contest as the star of my first underground comix story, “The Turd.” Bob and Sody were present and quite amused at my ridiculous presentation.

In 1984, I—and most of the animation industry—with sadness attended Bob’s funeral. After the service, Sody and their adult

children Rob and Ruth had a receiving line on the stage. When I came by and gave Sody a hug, she immediately introduced me to her kids as “this is the guy who covered himself with peanut butter!” All of the Clampetts started laughing, but other attendees were wondering why they were laughing, and I was unusually quiet.

Fortunately, despite my eff-shirt and edible costume, Rob and Ruth have never once called for a restraining order against me, and I appreciate that a lot.

I really don’t have anything else to say after that, other than…

“NYAH-HA-HA!!!”

Thanks to Jim Korkis, Ruth Clampett, Mark Evanier, and Dale Hale for their valuable quotes. – SS! 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.

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Too Much TV

If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong. (Father doesn’t always know best.)

The maiden name in Column One corresponds to a married or widowed TV character in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

COLUMN ONE

1) Slaghoople 2) Bronson 3) Douglas 4) McGillicuddy 5) Knight 6) Hanks 7) Wentworth 8) Granietz 9) Renfrew 10) Tyler RETROFAN

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

16

November 2023

RetroFan Ratings

My poor Wilma married such a primitive man...

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

7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan Dy-no-mite! You wasted your childhood with the rest of us!

4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned RetroFan Up your nose with a rubber hose ’til you spend more tube time!

0–3 correct: Tuned-Out RetroFan Ya big dummy! Put down that book and go watch some classic TV!

COLUMN TWO

A) June Cleaver, Leave It to Beaver B) Lovey Howell, Gilligan’s Island C) Emma Peel, The Avengers D) Shirley Partridge, The Partridge Family E) Clair Huxtable, The Cosby Show F) Wilma Flintstone, The Flintstones G) Carol Brady, The Brady Bunch H) Helen Willis, The Jeffersons I) Lisa Douglas, Green Acres J) Lucy Ricardo, I Love Lucy The Avengers © Studiocanal S.A. The Brady Bunch © Paramount Pictures Television. The Cosby Show © Carsey-Werner Productions. The Flintstones © HannaBarbera Productions. Gilligan’s Island © Warner Bros.

Green Acres © MGM Television. I Love Lucy © CBS Television Distribution. The Jeffersons, The Partridge Family © Sony Pictures Television. Leave It to Beaver © NBCUniversal. All Rights Reserved.

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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

CHARLTON COMPANION

TEAM-UP COMPANION OUR ARTISTS AT WAR AMERICAN TV COMICS (1940s-1980s)

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

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!

MICHAEL EURY examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes!

Examines US War comics from EC, DC COMICS, WARREN PUBLISHING, CHARLTON, and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

History of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations, from well-known series (STAR TREK, PARTRIDGE FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows.

GLEN CADIGAN’s bio of the artist who redesigned the Legion of Super-Heroes and introduced X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Logan!

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REED CRANDALL

Illustrator of the Comics

MIKE GRELL

LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER

JOHN SEVERIN

HERO-A-GO-GO!

Documents the life and career of the master Golden Age artist of Captain Marvel Jr. and other classic characters!

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History of Crandall’s life and career, from Golden Age Quality Comics, to Warren war and horror, Flash Gordon, and beyond!

Career-spanning tribute to the Legion of Super-Heroes & Warlord comics art legend!

Biography of the EC, MARVEL and MAD mainstay, co-creator of American Eagle, and 40+ year CRACKED magazine contributor.

Looks at comics' 1960s CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV's Batman shook a mean cape!

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documents each decade of comics history!

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

RETRO TELEVISION

How

Dale Evans,

the Queen of the West, Conquered Television

BY THERESA KAMINSKI In the Sixties, Saturday morning television was for children. That’s how I, a Baby Boom tot, came across reruns of The Roy Rogers Show.

My siblings and I woke up as early as we could on Saturday, careful not to wake our parents so they wouldn’t tell us to turn off the TV and go do something useful. We poured bowls of Cap’n Crunch or Cocoa Krispies, settled onto the family room floor, and tuned in to the cartoons that dominated the era: Beany and Cecil, Tennessee Tuxedo, Mighty Mouse, and Underdog.

But sometimes I convinced my siblings to watch The Roy Rogers Show instead. I was fascinated by the Dale Evans character, owner of the Eureka Café in Mineral City, California. A cook worked for her, a man named Pat Brady, who split his time with the Double R Bar ranch where he served as foreman. There, the boss was Roy Rogers, who spent a lot of his time tracking down the bad guys in pursuit of justice in the entire Paradise Valley. Brady was the “comical sidekick” always doing goofy things. Dale Evans, though, saddled up with Roy Rogers—she on Buttermilk, he on Trigger, often energetically followed by Roy’s “wonder dog,” the German Shepherd, Bullet—to fight crime.

I didn’t give a second thought to the incongruities of life in Paradise Valley. Dale and Roy, along with nearly all the supporting characters, rode horses and/or used horse-drawn wagons, the streets in Mineral City looked unpaved and were bordered by wooden sidewalks, with buildings made of stucco or wood, all imitating life in a mythical Old West. Yet modern technology existed as well: Pat Brady’s jeep called Nellybelle, indoor electricity, telephones, kitchen appliances. Dale’s clothes also gave a nod to the Old West, from the sensible skirt that swished along the tops of the sturdy, well-worn boots to the turned-up brimmed hat

Dale Evans and Roy Rogers in 1951, the year The Roy Rogers Show debuted. IMDb. kept anchored on her head by a leather chin strap. She also wore a holster as casually as a belt.

And there was Dale’s voice—strong and assertive, with a slight Texas twang. Throughout the episodes, she spoke with confidence, often tinged with kindness, but sometimes with sternness if she was talking to someone who’d done something wrong. Then, at the end of each episode, Dale sang. Sitting astride Buttermilk, next to Roy Rogers on Trigger, they warbled the soothing and hopeful “Happy Trails.”

Despite my childhood fascination with Dale Evans and The Roy Rogers Show, I didn’t grow up to be a cowgirl. I went to graduate school and studied American history, became a university professor, and wrote books on women’s history. The more I understood about the changing lives of women through the 20th Century, the more I remembered those Saturday mornings and the café-owning Dale Evans. I wondered about the story behind the real-life Dale Evans. How did she become a television star? To find out, I wrote a biography.

Dale Evans’ involvement with television pre-dated The Roy Rogers Show by about 20 years. In the very early Thirties, before she took the stage name Dale Evans, she was Frances Johns (nee Smith), a native-born Texan trying to establish herself as a singer in Chicago.

The single inroad she made in the Windy City’s entertainment milieu was a brief, part-time job at WIBO, a radio station that RETROFAN

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provided audio for Chicago’s first television station, WCFL. Frances probably sang and/or played the piano to augment the images projected for television.

Frances Johns moved on, changing her name to Dale Evans, finally finding success as a radio and nightclub singer in Memphis, Dallas, and then, to her great satisfaction, in Chicago. After securing a year-long contract at 20th Century-Fox in 1941, she moved to Hollywood. The movie studio gave Dale a few bit parts then declined to renew the agreement, so in 1943 she signed on with Republic Pictures, known for its B-movies. She acted in a string of low-budget musical comedies, starting with Swing Your Partner, but set her sights on starring roles in Republic’s “prestige” feature films.

Republic Pictures was where Dale Evans met the studio’s most bankable singing cowboy, Roy Rogers. In early 1944, they began filming The Cowboy and the Senorita, which became a hit with Roy’s legions of fans and expanded Dale’s burgeoning fan base.

The two became good friends while working on this production and the next three: The Yellow Rose of Texas, Song of Nevada, and San Fernando Valley.

The movies did well at the box office, but Dale worried she’d never become a true movie star by appearing in “horse operas.”

She tried to break away from the studio but couldn’t. Dale, who divorced in 1945, and Roy Rogers, who became a widower (with three young children) the following year, became more than friends. As they spent more time together working on movies, Roy’s radio show, and personal appearances, their feelings for each other deepened into love. They married on New Year’s Eve 1947.

Herbert Yates, head of Republic, claimed that movie-goers wouldn’t accept a real-life husband-and-wife team as movie costars, so he fired Dale. Outraged fans inundated the studio with letters demanding her reinstatement. Yates held firm, and Dale, always hard-working and ambitious, didn’t wait around for him to change his mind.

Understanding her supporters preferred her in Westerns, she concluded a verbal agreement in 1948 with independent producer Louis Lewyn to star in a series of Annie Oakley–style movies, beginning with Two Girls on a Horse. But by early 1949, before the plan went any further, Yates rehired Dale at Republic, putting her opposite Roy in Susanna Pass and Down Dakota Way. An unexpected development then slowed down the 37-year-old cowgirl. As Dale headed into her second year of marriage with Roy, she learned she was pregnant.

She bowed out of filming Westerns near the beginning of 1950 because her obstetrician advised against the strenuous physical activity they required. But studio 20

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November 2023

executives wouldn’t have cast Dale anyway. By the standards of the time, it wasn’t acceptable for a female actor to be on set after she announced a pregnancy.

Television, still in its early years of post–World War II broadcasting, proved more flexible. In April, Dale appeared on Rancho Tela Vista, a new, live Western musical variety show that broadcast weekly at 8:00 on Thursday nights over KECA-TV in Los Angeles.

She intended to continue “almost up to the birth of the baby.” Still, Dale took care not to flaunt her pregnancy. On set, she stood behind a fence that concealed most of her expanding midsection as she sang and chatted with the audience.

Despite Dale’s plan, health issues forced her to quit after about a month. She curtailed her public appearances, increased her bed rest, and spent more time with family until the birth of her daughter, Robin, in August. The baby was frail at birth, diagnosed with a heart murmur and Down syndrome. Dale spent much of her time at home that first month, tending to the baby with the help of a trained baby nurse, then she returned to the radio on The Roy Rogers Show and resumed filming movies.

Dale later claimed that Robin inspired her to write what would become her most popular and enduring song (she was an accomplished songwriter as well as singer): “Happy Trails.” Dale thought about the challenges ahead for her baby, and she

(ABOVE) Dale Evans in 1944, the year she began appearing in Roy Rogers’ movies. Courtesy of Theresa Kaminski.

This hat worn on screen by the Queen of the West netted $836.50 at an April 2007 Heritage auction. Courtesy of Heritage.

retro television

Dale and Roy continued to charm fans as the couple aged from film and radio stars of the Forties to television stars of the Fifties. Blackand-white photo and autographs courtesy of Shaun Clancy. Color photo courtesy of Theresa Kaminski.

thought about the current theme song for Roy’s radio show, “Smiles Are Made Out of Sunshine.” She decided “it wasn’t Western enough, and it didn’t say enough about what it means to be a cowboy— especially when the trails you ride aren’t always sunny ones.” Dale wrote a trail song inspired by “The Grand Canyon Suite,” with its trombone slide that sounded to her like “happy trails” echoing in a deep canyon. From there, it took her three hours to come up with “Happy Trails.” It became the theme song for the radio show and soon, for the television program.

Dale looked again to TV to enhance her career. In October 1950, when Robin was just two months old, she signed with Fred Levy, Jr., vice president of the newly formed Union Television Corporation, to make thirteen half-hour Westerns for a series called Queen of the West. Dale’s show would be one of the station’s first. She filmed a pilot episode that never aired because the new television station never got off the ground.

Roy Rogers faced his own problems with his movie career, which ironically propelled both him and Dale into TV stardom.

Herbert Yates refused to negotiate a new contract clause that would allow for television appearances, something Roy very much wanted. And in the late spring of 1950, Yates decided to edit the singing cowboy’s movies, many costarring Dale Evans, to fit a 60-minute television slot. This would bring in for Republic between $30,000 or $50,000 for each picture aired on a network.

Not a dime would go to Roy or Dale.

Roy filed suit against the studio, arguing that a clause in his contract gave him the rights to the Roy Rogers name, voice, and likenesses for all commercial purposes. He also requested and received a temporary restraining order to prevent Republic from releasing the movies until the case went before a judge. Dale Evans wasn’t included in the lawsuit, but as Roy’s wife and costar, her career and financial well-being depended on its outcome. Now they both knew television represented their best shot at continued celebrity.

Anticipating a favorable court ruling, the couple created Frontier Productions, Inc., through which they produced “television films” to fit a 30-minute time slot. After years of making movies with Republic, Roy and Dale knew the formula, and they had a stable of actors and crew willing to work with them, including Jack English, who signed on as director, and Jack Lacey, formerly an assistant director, now the production manager.

The televised version The Roy Rogers Show drew heavily from the radio program of the same name that aired on Mutual. It took place in the fictional Mineral City, in Paradise Valley, California.

It was set in contemporary times but with an Old West look. Roy played a rancher owner who fights a variety of “bad guys” in pursuit of justice. Café owner Dale portrayed something of a “lady Robin Hood.” Pat Brady, who had appeared in some of Roy’s films and in Dale’s failed pilot, was a new sidekick addition. Unlike the radio show, this action/adventure program contained little music.

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Color transparencies by photographer Roger Davidson taken on the Roy Rogers Show set. (LEFT) Roy, Trigger, and Dale. (RIGHT) Dale’s horse Buttermilk and the Queen of the West. Courtesy of Heritage.

Filming began in July 1951, after Roy received the court-ordered injunction against Republic and shortly before Robin’s first birthday. Production notes from those early days of filming provide a glimpse of what it took to create a Western for television. Dale’s average day stretched more than 12 hours. She arrived at the studio for make-up by 5:00 a.m. to be ready for transport to the site by 6:30. Her scenes started shooting at 8:15 and normally concluded around 6:45 p.m. Each of the four episodes wrapped in about three days.

Dale told reporters that the schedule was long and hectic, “But it’s fun!” Her cheery attitude, very typical in her dealings with the press, masked the incredible pressure she and Roy faced to make this project a success. Their concerns went beyond the professional.

They needed money to properly care for Robin. Dale and Roy never gave up hope of finding a cure for their daughter’s heart problem, and medical expenses quickly piled up. Dale constantly fretted over Robin’s welfare. Work provided a temporary distraction, and an intensely Christian religious faith sustained her and began seeping into her work.

Dale and Roy intended to use the completed episodes to woo General Foods, which had shown the most interest in sponsoring the show. Company executives who arrived in Los Angeles in September 1951 for a screening were suitably impressed with the quality of the four finished “television films” and that an additional eight were ready to go into production. They signed the deal, designating their Post Cereals brand as the show’s official sponsor.

The General Foods contract initially ran for three years. It gave Roy Rogers and Dale Evans a show on NBC radio and television, both called The Roy Rogers Show. The couple also agreed to make guest appearances on other General Foods–sponsored vehicles.

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But the company reserved the right to cancel the television show if Roy lost his suit against Republic Pictures and the studio released his movies for TV. Dale’s future with Roy on the small screen wasn’t secure until a federal court judge handed down his decision on October 18.

Republic Pictures couldn’t commercialize Roy Rogers movies for television. Roy retained the right to control the use of his name with any commercial product or advertising. The deal therefore stood with General Foods to broadcast the TV version of The Roy Rogers Show.

It debuted on Sunday, December 30, 1951, with the episode “Jailbreak.” Dale Evans appears in the first few minutes, as part of an outdoor audience watching Roy show off some trick riding on Trigger down the main street of Mineral City. Dale is all dressed up, clad in a fashionable Western outfit with her name embroidered on the waistband of the fringed-bottomed skirt, a kerchief tied at her neck, and a holster around her waist. Roy’s performance is in aid of a fundraising bazaar for a new hospital, made necessary because of a recent bank robbery.

More unsettling is the murder of Joe Walton, “the one banker everybody liked,” during the commission of the crime. When Roy ambles over to the audience, Dale tells him she doesn’t believe that the man jailed for the crimes, Tom Lee, is guilty because she’s known him all his life. But everyone agrees that since there was enough evidence to justify Tom’s arrest, the legal process must proceed so a court can find him not guilty.

Then Roy, temporarily filling in for a U.S. ranger, chases (on horseback) some men who rode in during the festivities and shot at Tom. Dale, meanwhile, raises money for the hospital at the sharpshooting booth. With a revolver in each hand, she fires at and

retro television

shatters ten glass bottles. As she’s loading a rifle for the next trick, she overhears a couple of men talking about breaking Tom out of jail and hanging him before he is taken to trial.

Convinced that this confirms Tom’s innocence, Dale frees him from his jail cell before he’s killed. They ride to the ranger station to fill Roy in and enlist his help in keeping the young man safe.

(Despite the quick action, Dale found time to change her outfit into something more utilitarian than she wore at the bazaar.) Tom remains at the station while Dale and Roy, with Bullet trailing along, head off to rancher Sal Parker’s place where they find evidence of his involvement in the crimes.

They split up on the way back, with Dale riding to the ranger station to call for the sheriff’s assistance. One of Parker’s henchmen ambushes her along the way, but she calmly sits astride Buttermilk while Bullet attacks. She’s about to shoot the man when the sheriff serendipitously rides up with a posse. They all head toward the Parker ranch, where Roy produces the bank documents he and Dale found in Sal’s desk that prove his guilt. The song “Happy Trails” plays over the closing credits against the backdrop of the entrance to Roy’s Double R Bar ranch. (Later episodes added a scene of Roy and Dale singing the tune while on horseback—the ending I remember watching.)

This premiere demonstrated how well Roy and Dale understood their target juvenile audience. It included a strong message about the value of law and order, the difference between good and bad. It also contained plenty of action. This episode—and the ones that followed—featured tension-filled horseback chases, shootouts (always emphasizing deterrence over death), and fistfights. Dale participated in many of these altercations (except for throwing punches), keeping up with Roy, not as a helper but a

partner. She assumed her ideas and actions mattered as much as Roy’s. Hers was an unusual, unexpected female character for the Fifties.

Yet Dale Evans the actor believed her character needed to undergo a “complete desexing job” to hold the interest of both boys and girls. The owner of the Eureka café didn’t look glamorous. Dale wore practical Western outfits with a touch of flair. Her skirts (she never wore slacks) were wide and long to allow for ease of movement, whether on foot or horseback. Shirts flashed embroidered designs, often in star shapes. Dale’s low-heeled boots, also adorned with stars, looked well-worn and comfortable. The hat, a scaleddown version of a cowboy’s, included a leather strap to keep it from flying off while she rode Buttermilk.

The “desexing job” also meant leaving out romance. “The little girls don’t like you if the cowboy does,” Dale explained to columnist Erskine Johnson. “And the little boys just despise you.”

On screen, Dale was Roy’s companion and close friend, evident in all the time they spent together, their easy conversations, and their ready smiles for each other. But aside from a quick touch on the arm now and then, they made no physical contact. And certainly no kissing.

The show’s action was designed to hold children’s attention while the rest of the plot taught lessons of kindness, fair play, and honesty. “Bad Neighbors,” first aired in November 1954, illustrates both these lessons and Roy and Dale’s TV relationship.

It opens with Roy Rogers and Pat Brady returning from a trip to Kansas City. Pat tells Dale about a “cute trick” Roy picked up there, describing her beautiful skin and eyes. Dale’s “Do tell,” response, unscored with a quick side-eye at Roy, flashes with jealousy.

Before she gets too mad, Pat admits he’s talking about a cow that

After starring in 24 issues of her own 1948–1952 series from DC Comics, Dale Evans’ four-color adventures jumped to Dell Comics. After tryouts in Dell’s Four Color, the Queen of the West next starred in 20 issues of her own Dell title. Photo covers were the norm, but at times illustrated covers were used, including (CENTER) DC’s issue #17 from 1951, where Dale—as drawn by Jay McArdle—rides an elephant! Courtesy of Heritage.

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retro television

Roy bought, and the two men laugh for a few moments before Dale joins in, acknowledging the joke. It’s clear that Pat understands how the two feel about each other and knows exactly how to needle Dale.

Then the adventure begins. Roy and Dale become embroiled in a land conflict between homesteaders and ranchers. Roy promotes a compromise that rejects the use of violence, insisting “there’s always a peaceful way to settle an argument.” Dale adds, “If people would just take the time to find it.” It’s a clear lesson about how to get along.

The March 1955 episode, “The Ginger Horse,” illustrates how the couple incorporated Christian religious beliefs into the show, and it inspired Dale to write one of her most enduring (next to “Happy Trails”) songs. The plot involves young Janie Howard, her stolen horse Ginger, and her father Jim, who’s been arrested for taking money from his former ranch partner, Horace Early.

When Janie tells Dale and Roy how much her father believes in the Bible, particularly the passage that reads, “But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you and pray for them,” they become skeptical of Jim’s guilt. The three sing “The Bible Tells Me So” as Janie is cooking in the kitchen.

Music wasn’t featured in The Roy Rogers Show, but Dale Evans decided this plot required a song. The show didn’t keep a separate songwriter on staff, so it was up to her to write one. As daughter Cheryl Rogers remembered, Dale went into her dressing room “and asked God to give her a song.” Twenty minutes was all it took. Dale returned to the set, seated herself at the piano to play through the song, then filmed the scene that included her original composition of “The Bible Tells Me So.” Over the course of 1955, through two airings of “The Ginger Horse,” the song caught on. The sheet music was published, and two recorded versions, one by Don Cornell and the other by Nick Noble, hit the Billboard charts. Roy and Dale’s rendering, released that summer, failed to chart but remained a reliable seller. The longevity of “The Bible Tells Me So” came down to Sunday schools.

For more than a generation, children in religious classes sang, “Have faith, hope, and charity. That’s the way to live successfully.

How do I know? The Bible tells me so.”

The Roy Rogers Show, which entered millions of homes during its 100-episode original run from 1951–1957, provided Dale and Roy the opportunity to instill good citizen lessons and spread religious faith. (Some critics charged its alleged emphasis on religion and morality was disingenuous because, as a children’s program, it contained too much violence.) They made it a family affair, casting three of their children in bit parts, and some of the commercials that ran during the program featured the whole brood.

Except for Robin. The little girl died from complications from the mumps in 1952, two days before her second birthday. Dale Evans once again leaned on her religious faith to see her through this difficult time. She cemented her reputation as a Christian celebrity with the release the following year of her book, Angel Unaware, about Robin’s brief life. It was a bestseller.

Dale Evans scored a success with her foray into television in the 1950s. Readers of TV-Radio Mirror magazine voted The Roy Rogers Show their favorite Western program in its annual awards poll in 1955. That year, the Radio-TV Women of Southern California bestowed on Dale, in recognition of her successes across the entertainment industry, the organization’s first annual Achievement Award. Thousands of 24

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fans continued to flock to Dale and Roy’s personal appearances, and the couple’s merchandise tie-ins—toys, lunch boxes, wristwatches, Western duds—remained reliable sellers.

Still, the couple knew The Roy Rogers Show couldn’t last forever.

Westerns remained well-liked, but by the mid-Fifties, viewers had many other programs to choose from. In early October 1956, a couple of weeks before the first episode of the sixth season aired, Roy and Dale claimed to be “undecided” about more “telefilms.”

Five months later, General Foods dropped its sponsorship of the show.

retro television

Dale and Roy on The Muppet Show’s May 19, 1979 episode.

Photofest. Courtesy of Theresa Kaminski. The Muppet Show © Disney.

A sampling of Dale Evans merchandise from the Fifties. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions and Hake’s Auctions.

Roy and Dale, still under contract with NBC for another year, talked to executives about other possibilities, including a variety show, but nothing gelled. They guest hosted the network’s musical variety program, The Chevy Show, several times over the next few years. Dale took a rare dramatic turn in a 1958 episode of NBC’s live afternoon Matinee Theater, playing an over-indulgent mother in “Anxious Night.”

Finally, in 1962, Dale Evans received top equal billing with her husband on their own musical variety program on ABC, The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show. The network considered it an “hour-long

secret weapon” to win primetime Saturday night viewing. It lasted for the contracted thirteen episodes, then ABC declined to renew.

The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS proved a tough competitor. Roy and Dale never appeared together again in a regular network show.

(Though they were delightful guests on “The Muppet Cowboy Show” episode of The Muppet Show in 1979.)

Dale Evans never gave up on television. She believed the major networks had given up on her because she was overt about her religious faith, so she searched for an alternative. This proved easier as cable television expanded in the Seventies and Eighties.

After several enjoyable experiences as a guest on talk shows in the early Eighties, Dale decided that format suited her personality and talents. A Date with Dale debuted on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in September 1985, when Dale Evans was in her early seventies, and it ran until her death in 2001. The thirty-minute weekly talk show focused on Christian and spiritual topics, with Dale interviewing entertainers, ministers, athletes, politicians, activists, and with her singing at least one song.

The guest on her premiere, filmed at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California, was, unsurprisingly, Roy Rogers.

Most of the subsequent guests would have been familiar to her Christian audience, but a few, like Ephrem Zimbalist, Jr., Jane Russell, Jessi Colter, and Randy Travis were nationally known. In 1988, Dale welcomed former Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini, long before author Laura Hillenbrand made him a household name in Unbroken.

A Date with Dale, airing on a religious cable network, solidified Dale Evans’s position as a Christian celebrity. It was the program she dreamed of and planned for more than a decade; it allowed her personality and faith to shine through. And it was finally her own show. The Queen of the West had indeed carved out a new realm for herself and conquered television.

THERESA KAMINSKI, a retired university professor, writes about scrappy women in American history. Her most recent book, published in 2022, is Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans.

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

If you read comic books in the Seventies, you likely saw Charles Atlas ads, including the most familiar of the bunch, “The Insult That Made a Man out of Mac.” The centerpiece of the ad was a comic strip that showed a slender 97-pound weakling with a young woman at the beach getting sand kicked in his face by a larger, more muscular bully. Humiliated, he kicks a chair and vows to improve himself. He does so with the help of Charles Atlas’ mail-order course. Atlas would claim that this story was true and happened while on a date to Coney Island when he was 16. The chair being kicked in frustration has never been verified and, sadly, the part of the ad where the now-muscular Mac re-encounters the bully and punches him hard in the face did not happen in real life. This classic Charles Atlas ad appeared in the first comic book to feature all-new material, New Fun #1 (Feb. 1935).

Charles Atlas was too perfect a name to be true, and it wasn’t.

He was born Angelo Siciliano near Acri, Cosenza, Italy, on October 30, 1892. To those who knew him before his fame, he was Angelino or Angie or Charley. Angelo immigrated to America with his mother in 1904.

His father appears to have either returned to or stayed in Italy and was not an active part of Angelo’s life. Young Angelo’s time in Brooklyn, New York, was rough. Among those who beat up on the slight young man (apart from the bully at the beach) was a local street punk and an uncle.

Angelo was determined to improve his physique. Unable to pay for membership to the local YMCA (a.k.a. the Young Men’s Christian Association or more simply “the Y”), he studiously watched exercises in action and then repeated them at home.

He would watch strongmen perform at 26

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Atlas on the cusp of fame, circa 1920. © Charles Atlas, Ltd. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Coney Island and ask questions about their muscle-making methods and diet.

He read an early bodybuilding magazine, Physical Culture. Part of his legend is a trip to the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, New York, where he saw a muscular lion.

How did the lion (which Atlas referred to as “this old gentleman”) develop his body without weights or other gadgets? Angelo surmised, incorrectly it turns out, that the King of Beasts had developed his muscles by pitting one muscle against the other. This false epiphany would form the basis of his personal exercise regime and his later mail-order courses.

Angelo dropped out of school after the eighth grade and learned leatherworking so he could help support his family.

His muscular transformation stunned his friends, who compared him to a statue of Atlas. It wasn’t long before Angelo, now a bodybuilder at a time when that was not only rare but also a distinct oddity, began to call himself Charles Atlas.

So, the question for Atlas now was, What’s a bodybuilder to do?

VAUDEVILLE PERFORMER & ARTIST’S MODEL

It was not uncommon in the days of sideshows and circuses to have muscle men perform feats of strength. Young Atlas spent time bending railroad spikes and tearing phone books in half in sideshows.

Charles Atlas was the model for “The Dawn of Glory” (1924) by sculptor Pietro Montana. It still resides in Highland Park, Brooklyn. Photo by Janine and Jim Eden. Courtesy of Wikimedia.

(RIGHT) Charles Atlas, owner of the World’s Most Perfectly Developed Body, in this advertisement detail circa 1936. (TITLE BACKGROUND) Images from promotional material. © Charles Atlas, Ltd. He earned five dollars a week for his effort but also had to sweep up after himself. A sculptor discovered Atlas after seeing him perform around 1915, and soon other artists used him as a model as well. For one particular statue, “The Dawn of Glory” (1924) by Pietro Montana located in Highland Park, Brooklyn, Atlas’ body is quite identifiable.

Concurrently with his modeling, Atlas was one half of a vaudeville act with another bodybuilder. Back in his YMCA days, Atlas met a fellow physical-culture enthusiast, Earle E. Liederman, who was just a few years older. Like Atlas he was a former scrawny kid, but was a bit ahead of Atlas in body improvement. Liederman was also a physique model for artists and previously was a wrestler and a boxer. Together, Liederman and Atlas traveled to small venues with their vaudeville act for roughly eight years beginning in 1910. They would eventually perform as a Coney Island sideshow act, the very place where Atlas first tasted sand. Very briefly, the two opened a shop selling fitness equipment. The vaudeville act was apparently less than memorable.

So the young men went their separate ways.

The modeling work paid well, the vaudeville act The King of Mail Order Muscle in the didn’t. The Twenties Twenties, Earle E. Liederman as was were a real heyday seen in his many ads (circa 1924).

of mail-order businesses, and many bodybuilders would promote themselves and their body improvement systems though cheap magazine advertising. Liederman and Atlas would both get into the mail-order business. One of these men would become the “King of mail-order muscle” while the other’s business would be on the brink of collapse as the clouds of the Great Depression loomed.

KING OF MAIL ORDER MUSCLE

While the Twenties were a busy time for the muscle-by-mail business, it wasn’t a new concept. The first attempts date to the late 19th Century. Eugen Sandow, a German bodybuilder usually referred to by only his last name, was a major success in promoting physical culture (what we now basically just call fitness) via advertising in the early years of the 20th Century. Liederman admired Sandow, and while Liederman was unable to capture the same amount of fame of his idol, he did establish himself as the “King of Mail Order Muscle.”

Liederman’s success with his business was quite notable given the sheer number of competing hustlers. And it was a hustle. There was virtually zero oversight of the many claims made in these muscular-improvement ads. Photos of successful students along RETROFAN

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with the testaments about the effectiveness of muscle courses were later discovered to be false.

Many of the muscle-building ads of the day attempted to seriously undermine one’s self-confidence. One ad from another bodybuilder asked, “Are You a Real He-Man or Just a Frail, Weak, Shapeless, Unmasculine Human?” (The second one. I’m that, that’s me, thank you.) Another ad from one Lionel Strongfort warned of upcoming Eugenics laws intended to “protect innocent women from a living death with weak, puny, run-down males who have no more principle than to bring offsprings into this life to face the taunts, sneers and ridicule of associates.”

In contrast, Liederman’s ads could be downright mystifying.

“How is Your Bone-Oil?” asked one and another helpfully pointed out, “If a jelly fish could slap a rat in the face, he would do it. But he can’t. He has no arms.” Okay.

Liederman began his advertising empire while still performing in vaudeville with Atlas, some five years before Atlas would himself enter the field. In fact, early on Liederman would point out that Atlas was one of his most successful pupils even though the younger man’s physical success was due to his own effort.

Later, when Atlas began a competing mail-order muscle course, Liederman would scrub all traces of Atlas from his promotional materials. Gone too would be a photo of Atlas dominating Liederman in a nearly naked wrestling photo.

These bodybuilding ads found welcome and fertile ground in the pages of two magazines: Physical Culture (begun in 1899) and Strength (founded in 1914). Adding to the viability of mail-order businesses was the growth of the U.S. Postal Service. The magazines and course publications benefited from improving printing technology and better reproduction of photographs that were vital for motivation and teaching.

Liederman’s passion for bodybuilding appears to have been sincere despite the sketchy accuracy of his advertising, which promised more than he or anyone could deliver. He became, as they say, “comfortably well off.” He and his wife, an early Miss America contestant before that was the official name of the competition, lived at the famed Hotel Theresa in Manhattan for $3,000 a month.

In his heyday Liederman made nearly $1,000,000 annually. His wife proclaimed her admiration for her husband in 1923 and announced that they’d “never get a divorce.”

CRAZY FOR FITNESS

Frederick Tilney, who worked with magazine publisher and physical culture enthusiast Bernarr Macfadden, discovered Atlas and Liederman in a New York department-store window demonstrating cable-resistance exercise devices. It was Tilney who would eventually suggest 28

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(ABOVE) Call for “Most Handsome Man” contestants from Bernarr Macfadden’s Physical Culture magazine (Feb. 1921), which Charles Atlas not only wins handily but gets to tell his personal story later on that year.

(BELOW) President Franklin Roosevelt (in car) meets with publisher and physical culture enthusiast Bernarr Macfadden in Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1931. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

that Atlas produce his own mail-order course and that the two of them should go into business together.

Tilney, born in England in 1895, was a sickly child growing up. His interest in self-improvement began after reading Macfadden’s Physical Culture magazine. Tilney and his wife came to America in 1920. He had a knack for ad writing and soon he was working for Macfadden. Macfadden would run various contests to promote his Physical Culture magazine in particular and physical culture more generally. Charles Atlas saw the announcement of the “Most Handsome Man” contest in the February 1921 issue of Physical Culture and sent in his photo per contest instructions along with his measurements. Atlas handily won the $1,000 prize.

Macfadden was always in motion, constantly promoting both his ideas of living a more perfect life (he was against “prudery” and too much sex) and running his publishing company, which produced Physical Culture magazine. Born Bernard Adolphus McFadden in 1868, he was not only a weak and sickly child but an orphan as well. Working on a farm gave him fresh air and allowed him to build up his body. He was a vegetarian long before it was even close to being a thing. He hated doctors to such a degree that two of his eight children died from a lack of proper medical care. He wrote articles and books on health including The Virile Powers of Superb Manhood (1900), and expanded his publishing empire to include the successful periodicals True Story, Photoplay, and True Detective.

The next year, Atlas also won Macfadden’s “World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man” contest and used his prize money to begin his mail-order muscle business with Tilney.

Macfadden never held another “World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man” contest and was convinced, he claimed, that he would be unable to find another man as perfect as Atlas.

But in his crusade to promote fitness he didn’t give up on contests. He even met his third wife (of four) at a contest he sponsored to find “the most perfect specimen of England womanhood.” She was 19, he was 45.

In 1922, Atlas legally changed his name to Charles Atlas. He also opened a gym. The Macfadden contest had made him famous.

Surely, he could capitalize on his fame with the mail-order business, but he and Tilney struggled. Charles Atlas was not a businessman by nature and the ads never stood out among all the many competitors’. The two men were on the verge of losing everything. Soon, Tilney would be out and the most important person Atlas

ever met professionally was just pushed into his life. And it would happen as the mail-order muscle craze was about to come crashing down, along with the nation’s economy.

THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING

Earl Liederman, the King of Mail Order Muscle, was in serious trouble. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had gone after him since he was the biggest fish in the mail-order muscle pond. The FTC accused him and his business of using false statements to sell his bodybuilding courses. Liederman had guaranteed in his advertising that he could make a man richer, improve his social status, and bring him the attention of women. This was impossible. The FTC ordered he cease and desist. Liederman lost everything, including his wife, who filed for divorce in 1932.

Quite literally, Liederman was out on the street and reduced to stealing milk from doorsteps.

Meanwhile, Atlas’ company was flailing, too. His business was facing bankruptcy and creditors were gathering to take it over. The Benjamin Landsman Advertising Agency, which produced Atlas’ ads, was not enthusiastic about their muscular client and palmed his account off to one of their junior employees, Charles Roman, in 1928.

Charles P. Roman was born in Manhattan around 1907 and, unlike every other principal in this story, did not appear to be a frail weakling as a child. It was Roman who told Atlas that the advertising that Benjamin Landsman was producing wasn’t working. Months later, Frederick Tilney sold his half of the company to Roman.

Atlas’ company, now re-named Charles Atlas, Ltd., debuted in 1929. Roman proceeded to change the thrust of the

This ad for Charles Atlas’ musclebuilding course from 1925 had little to make it stand out from his many competitors in the Twenties. © Charles Atlas, Ltd.

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advertising for Atlas’ mail-order course. Instead of promising big muscles, he focused on how the Atlas course could make you more of a man, someone who could be in charge of his own destiny. It was Roman who gave a proper name to the resistance musclebuilding technique that Atlas developed. He called it Dynamic Tension. That it required no equipment only added to the appeal of the Atlas method, especially during the Great Depression.

And it was Charles Roman who created the comic-strip-style “the Insult that made a man out of Mac” ad campaign.

The success of the new advertising approach was quick. The course, in its entirety, cost $29.95 then (close to $160 today) and remained at that price for decades. Still, it was a lot of money to spend on a quest to become more of a He-Man or, in the words of 30

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(ABOVE AND OPPOSITE) Even though the “Insult That Made a Man out of Mac” was an instant classic, ad writer Charles Roman continued to try variations that might be more effective. (INSET) Atlas was always ready to show his physique. © Charles Atlas, Ltd. Atlas’ most famous ad, “Hero of the Beach!” during such a bad financial downturn. Adding to his success, competitors started to fall away, opening up the field thereby allowing Atlas to dominate.

Strength magazine folded in 1930 (though Physical Culture hung on for years longer), but Atlas found plenty of other magazines directed to boys and men with cheap advertising in which to push his positive message. But it was when comic books emerged in the Thirties that Roman soon saw them as a perfect location for Atlas ads, where they became iconic mainstays.

Charles Atlas, Ltd. was a huge success. So what does a bodybuilder with lots of money do? He gets into a fight.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

A NEW BULLY

In 1936, Bob Hoffman, owner of the York Barbell Company and publisher of Strength & Health magazine, sued Charles Atlas, Ltd., calling Atlas’ training methods “Dynamic-Hooey.” He said that it was impossible to achieve the muscular results claimed in Atlas’ advertising with just the course’s exercises. The FTC investigated and found that Atlas had made no outrageous claims, that Atlas had improved himself with his own techniques, and that Hoffman was to cease and desist from making any further disparaging statements about Atlas or his methods.

To Hoffman, a World War I vet, multi-award-winning athlete, and successful businessman, the lawsuit against a competitor was simply good business. And maybe it would have been had he been successful, but Atlas’ reputation had only been burnished by the episode. John D. Fair, the author of Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell (Penn State University Press, 1999), revealed that Hoffman actually admired Atlas. Atlas was a hard man to not like. He was more than just a pleasing physique.

Atlas did have an open secret, however. He, in fact, enhanced his musculature by occasionally working with weights. No one really seemed to hold this against him. Not even Bob Hoffman.

Atlas was now Hero of the Courtroom.

SUCCESS

Charles Atlas loved his success. He would pull off his shirt without hesitation for anyone who asked. Not because he was a showoff, but because he simply wanted to promote physical development.

The Atlas course cost a whopping $29.95 during the Great Depression. Seen here is the cover to Everlasting Health and Strength by Charles Atlas, an introduction to his Dynamic Tension musclebuilding course. There were many editions, this one has a 1941 copyright. © Charles Atlas, Ltd. Collection of the author.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

That was just good business. And it was a good life for the former scrawny kid. Atlas married in 1918, had a couple of kids, and lived quietly. “Live clean, think clean, and don’t go to burlesque shows,” he would say. Not a phony, he apparently lived by those words (I’m about 33% like Atlas in that I limit my goodness to not going to burlesque shows).

On occasion, Atlas would find himself in a nightclub (usually with Charles Roman). There he would drink milk and, according to Brett and Kate McKay at artofmanliness.com (September 29, 2011), Atlas would try to get the other patrons to drink orange juice. Atlas’ one vice, if you could even call it that, were white double-breasted suits.

At his company’s peak, Atlas had more than two-dozen women opening letters. He would read and sign as many as he could and made time to talk to visitors. He enjoyed a good promotional event. He’d engage in lop-sided tugs-of-war, pull a locomotive, and even tear the occasional phone book in half as he had done scores of times back in his Coney Island sideshow days. A very popular story about a Charles Roman–created stunt had Atlas breaking a bar for the amusement of some 3,000 prison inmates, generating the classic headline “Man Breaks Bar at Sing-Sing—Thousands Cheer, None Escape.” Other business opportunities were attempted including a Sexual Education ten-volume encyclopedia.

His beloved wife died in 1965, and he was so devastated that he considered entering a monastery.

His priest talked him out of it. Atlas sold his half of the business to Roman in 1970. Atlas remained fit all his life and, a religious man, spent his final years reading the Bible. He died in 1972 of a heart attack at the age of 80.

Earle Liederman eventually recovered from his business failure. At first he hosted a radio exercise show for the ladies. Later he worked for another successful bodybuilder, Joe Weider. He was 80 when he died in 1969. I’d love to report here that Bernarr Macfadden lived to be 120 years old, which was his stated intention, but after refusing medical care he died in 1955 at the respectable age of 87 years.

AFTER ATLAS

The famous “Insult” ads continued to run in comic books into the Seventies, although as the decade wore on Atlas ads shrank drastically in

(ABOVE RIGHT) The last major comic book Atlas ad appeared in Marvel comic book in 1997. Note that the bully doesn’t get hit in the face now. © Charles Atlas, Ltd. (RIGHT) Screen capture of an interview with (LEFT) Charles Roman and (CENTER) Charles Atlas by (RIGHT) Jack Mangan aboard the SS Queen Mary in 1950. Courtesy of Jeff Sabu/YouTube.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(ABOVE) Just one example of many Atlas ad parodies is from the first issue of Radioactive Man (1993). © Bongo Comics.

(TOP RIGHT) Arnold Stang (It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) as scrawny fellow who wins in the end. Screen capture of an RKO Pathé, Inc. film short, It’s Only Muscle (1950), a parody of the Atlas “Insult” ads. Courtesy of the Internet Archive. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Panels from the debut of Flex Mentallo, a character obviously based on Atlas. From Doom Patrol #42 (Mar. 1991). Art by Mike Dringenberg and Doug Hazlewood. © DC Comics. size. And then, one day, the ads were gone, a relic of the past. The heyday of Charles Atlas and his “Dynamic Tension” courses had ended in the Sixties. Other ways of attaining one’s personal version of physical perfection had captured the public’s attention.

And yet, there is a romance to the Charles Atlas story, his advertising, and methods. He was an inspiration to many. King George VI, Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, David Prowse (Darth Vader!), and Joe DiMaggio are purported to have had his courses. While there is no evidence that Mahatma Gandhi practiced Dynamic Tension, he did, it’s said, look into it.

Charles Roman sold Charles Atlas, Ltd. to Jeffrey C. Hogue in 1997, and the company is still helping young men (and women) to develop

muscle and confidence via www.charlesatlas.com and, of course, Dynamic Tension. Roman lived the longest of them all, passing in 1999 at the age of 92. While he was never as interested in physical culture as was Atlas, his New York Times obituary noted that Roman used Dynamic Tension to keep from getting a “pot belly.”

In late 1997, the company placed an updated version of “The Insult That Made a Man out of Mac” in various Marvel comic books. Gone is the classic “Insult” headline and the dialog of the comic strip has been slightly altered. Gone too is the satisfying punch in the face to the bully. And yet, Mac still kicks a chair in frustration and is awarded the glowing title of “Hero of the Beach” at the end of the strip. Comforting proof that at least some things never change.

Many believe that Charles Atlas was the first to popularize mail-order muscle, but thanks to “Before Charles Atlas: Earle Liederman, the 1920s King of Mail-Order Muscle” from the Journal of Sport History vol. 44, No. 3 (Fall 2017) by Benjamin Pollack and Janice Todd, I could share the truth of this physical-culture pioneer.

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

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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

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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

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VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

Wacky, Wild, and Weird

Without having heard of the But it illustrates shifting attitudes about term “thought provoking,” robots that were emerging in popular seven-year-old me was culture by the Sixties. Heretofore, when thinkin’ up a storm while robots were presented in a story, watching a rerun of The the fact itself was a Twilight Zone. Rod Serling’s source of marvel.

1959–1964 anthology series A robot?! But by often presented deep-dive the Sixties, their reflections on the human presence was so condition disguised as fantasy and sci-fi. commonplace—in The episode I beheld was the one with Inger movies and televiStevens, the one with the robots. You know sion, I mean—that the one. comedy, irony, “thinky” In 1960’s “The Lateness of the Hour,” stuff and even glamour Jana (Stevens) feels isolated and generally crept in. creeped out while cooped up in a wellRobots infiltrated appointed mansion with her elderly parents, prime-time TV series (My Living Doll, as uniformed servants dish out cocktails and Lost in Space); movies (Creation of the massages. Jana’s mom (Irene Tedrow) really digs Humanoids, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini the massages—her incessant moaning makes this Machine); animation (Rosie in The Jetsons, clear. Jana can’t take another minute of this. She Gigantor); comic books (Metal Men, insists that her father (John Hoyt), a wealthy Magnus: Robot Fighter); and toys inventor, dismiss the staff. She has her reasons.

(Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots). It Though the servants easily pass as regular was kind of a golden age. Or at

BY MARK VOGER humans, they are... robots. least a transistor age.

When Dad orders the servants to “go downstairs Three generations later, and wait for me,” they know exactly what this means: robots are all around us in real dismantlement. They all protest. Says the butler: “But I’ve been an life, here on Earth-Prime. But none of them look like the metallic excellent butler, sir.” Says the maid: “There isn’t a more efficient one from Lost in Space, and especially not the sexy one from My maid in the entire country.”

Living Doll. Alexa and Siri answer trivia questions, give us weather This moment punched me in the stomach. I felt so sorry for reports, and remind us to check the roast. “Autonomous” vacuum the robots! One minute, they’re serving martinis, the next, they’re cleaners patrol our carpets like Bop-a-Bears. headed for the scrap pile.

This Twilight Zone episode went through a twist or two before reaching its climax, none of which I wish to spoil here despite its being more than 60 years old. (That’s what the internet is for.)

Robots of the Sixties

The nuts and bolts of those awesome automatons

(LEFT) A wealthy inventor (John Hoyt) attempts to comfort his daughter Jana (Inger Stevens) in the 1960 Twilight Zone episode “The Lateness of the Hour.” (RIGHT) Hoyt tells his robot staff to report to his workshop—not a good omen. © Cayuga Productions.

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Drones take spectacular vacation videos… and kill people. (Talk about a wide range of usage.) We used to drive cars. Now cars drive us.

REAL (AND REEL) ROBOTS

Real-life phenoms such as the Industrial Revolution in America (beginning in the 1870s) and Henry Ford’s implementation of the “assembly line” (beginning in 1913) found humans using machinery to do the heavy lifting, both actual and metaphorical. Perhaps a few less bodies would be required, but it was all for the greater good, right? Eh, eh, eh...

The classic humanoid robot, as initially envisioned, was popularized in science fiction on the stage, in print, and on film. The word “robot” is said to be a derivative of “robota,” a Slavonic term translated as “forced labor.”

The word was introduced in the 1920 dystopian play R.U.R. by Czech writer Karel Čapek. These earliest ’bots were living beings made with synthetic flesh and blood who could pass as humans.

Robots of every stripe were described in stories published in the sci-fi “pulps”—that is, pulp-fiction digests which sold for a dime in the pre-everything age. (Without sophisticated portable devices with which to entertain themselves, people used to read.) Artists like Earle K. Bergey, Frank R. Paul, and Frank Kelly Freas delineated robots on the covers of such pulp-fiction magazines as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Astonishing Stories, Astounding Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Fantastic Adventures.

One of the earliest robots on film was the shiny, sleek female Maschinemensch in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece of German Expressionism, Metropolis (1927). “She” was played by Brigitte Helm, also seen in human form as Maria. In these prescient dual roles, Helm struck a blow for womankind and machinekind—and did some far-out dancing.

Maschinemensch was an Art Deco marvel of design and execution, but robots in the movies would not always be so exquisitely rendered. Crank-’em-out movie serials depicted robots as plodding, boxy automatons that were destructive but easily outrun. Movie cowboy Gene Autry fought an army of such

(LEFT) Gort demonstrates his tank-melting ray in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). © Twentieth Century Fox. (RIGHT) Anne Francis gets a hug from Robby the Robot—um, OK—in Forbidden Planet (1956). © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

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(ABOVE) Brigitte Helm as the Maschinemensch in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). © Universum Film. (INSET) Exciting art by Earle K. Bergey on the cover of the sci-fi pulp Startling Stories (1950). © Thrilling. machines in the 1935 serial The Phantom Empire. Bela Lugosi was clearly between major film roles as a goateed mad scientist who commanded an eight-foot robot (Ed Wolff) in another serial, The Phantom Creeps (1939).

Robots continued to be refined into the Forties and Fifties. In his sci-fi short story “Runaround” (1942), Isaac Asimov conceived the “Three Laws of Robotics,” a sort of declaration of principles.

It wouldn’t be long before the first such law was disregarded by robots in subsequent fiction: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

When Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerged from his flying saucer to wag his finger at we destructive humans in Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), his traveling companion was Gort, a mysterious giant robot with a tank-melting ray. Robby the Robot in Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956) couldn’t provide meaningful companionship for wild child Altaira Morbius (Anne Francis), which may explain why she canoodled with Earthling interlopers.

Many times over the past century, science fiction has become science fact. During the post–World War II boom, crude robots

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

were being assembled and promoted—we saw the clunky things in newsreels and industrial films—but these seemed more like publicity stunts than valid, sustainable technological advancements.

ENTER THE SIXTIES

As the world entered the Sixties, a kind of ironic whimsy infused the zeitgeist. (What was behind it? The Beatles? Color TV? Miniskirts?) Robots—no longer presented or perceived as futuristic anomalies—were everywhere in movies, television, and other forms of entertainment.

Several TV series presented robots as regular characters. My Living Doll (1964–1965) co-starred Bob Cummings as a psychiatrist and Julie Newmar as his drop-dead-sexy charge, a robot named Rhoda. The results were hot and cold. (Alas, Cummings’ style didn’t quite jibe with an emerging sitcom subgenre spotlighting fanciful characters who were “other,” to say the least, like Bewitched and My Favorite Martian.)

A robot was added to Mel Brooks and Buck Henry’s superspy spoof Get Smart (1965–1970). Dick Gautier, Broadway’s original

Conrad Birdie, played stone-faced Hymie the Robot, a technological asset developed by C.O.N.T.R.O.L., the sitcom’s answer to U.N.C.L.E. It was an open question whether Hymie was more of a help or a hindrance to operatives Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) and Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon). Sample gag: Once when Max asked Hymie to “lend me a hand,” the robot began rotating one of his hands in order to remove it, like a G.I. Joe doll.

Irwin Allen’s sci-fi series Lost in Space (1965–1968) followed the exploits of the Space Family Robinson, an Earthling clan stranded in outer space for three seasons after being sabotaged by the conniving Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris). Their spaceship’s robot— manned by Bob May and voiced by Dick Tufeld—had catchphrases that are legion: “It does not compute” and, as if you didn’t know, “Danger, Will Robinson!”

When the man who sweated it out inside that hot, constricting “costume”—more like a torture chamber on wheels—auditioned for Allen, he was recognized by the producer. As May told me in 2001: “Irwin said, ‘You worked for me on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, didn’t you? Well, Bob, I have a new series called Lost in Space.

There’s the part of a robot. Now, we don’t know what the robot can do or will do, but would you like the part?’ And I said, ‘I’d love it.’

“Coming from Olsen and Johnson, you don’t turn down anything,” added May, whose grandfather was comedian Chic Johnson of the old-timey comedy team Olsen and Johnson. (No one living remembers them.)

“Anyway, Irwin said, ‘There’s one problem.

You have to fit into the suit, which is almost completed.’ He took me down to the mill at 20th Century Fox—the prop shop—and I had to get into the costume. That’s when I met Bob Kinoshita.” (Art director Kinoshita previously designed two famous movie robots: Tobor in 1954’s Tobor the Great and Robby in Forbidden Planet.)

“I got into the suit, and Kinoshita gave Irwin the thumb’s up. Irwin said to me, ‘Well, you’ve got the job, Bob. I just want you to do me one

(LEFT) Bob May and an old friend pose in May’s official autograph photo. © Legend Pictures, LLC. (RIGHT) Dick Gautier wore the deadpan as Hymie the robot in six episodes of Get Smart. © CBS Television Network.

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favor: Make something out of our robot.’ To an actor, when a producer gives you that kind of an opening, you are thrilled, because he has given you the confidence to develop your own characterization. It’s a dream for an actor.”

It did not concern May that the suit was so constricting. “That was my costume,” he said, “so I didn’t look at it in the same manner as somebody saying, ‘Well, you’re going to be encased in this thing.’” But the actor didn’t deny that the costume was terribly hot: “I’m the only actor in Hollywood who had his own Jacuzzi and sauna built into one.” (May died in 2009.)

More than one fellow Lost in Space cast member noted that the rise in the robot’s popularity resulted in a change of focus for the series. As Bill Mumy told me in 2001: “Will, Dr. Smith, and the robot did certainly become the Three Stooges of the show. I personally preferred the more sci-fi episodes that we did, as opposed to the fantasy, campy, comedy ones that we did.”

Another thoughtful sci-fi anthology series, The Outer Limits, aired the episode “I, Robot” (1964), in which a ’bot named Adam Link is tried for murder. The episode was based on stories by Otto Binder that first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939. Speaking of Sixties sci-fi, future Mr. Spock Leonard Nimoy appeared as a reporter.

KIDS’ STUFF

The prime-time cartoon The Jetsons (1962–1963) was Hanna-Barbera’s polar-opposite follow-up to their earlier hit, The Flintstones. Where Fred Flintstone and family were prehistoric suburbanites, the Jetsons occupied a future in which every technological marvel has since come true except, thank gawd, for the flying cars. George and Jane Jetson’s maid was Rosie, a robot with a nasally voice provided by Jean Vander Pyl (who was also the voice of Wilma Flintstone).

“The first show I was called to do was when the Jetsons hired a maid,” Vander Pyl told me in 1994. “That script was very interesting, because I had more voices to do on that first Jetsons script than I’d ever done before on any one show. I did seven different characters. I did all the other robots—the English robot, the French 38

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(LEFT) The robot Adam Link (Read Morgan) is tried for murder in the 1964 Outer Limits episode “I, Robot.” © Daystar Productions. (RIGHT) Young Buzz and his robotic pal in Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. one, and so on—when they (George and Jane) were interviewing maids before hiring Rosie. And then Rosie came out. Very practical.

She was old, so she didn’t think she was going to get the job. But she was very down to Earth about things, so she got it.

“So by the time I got to the end of the show, the character I’d done at the beginning of the show [Rosie] came back. But by then, I couldn’t remember how I voiced Rosie! They had to play it for me.”

As with her Wilma character, Vander Pyl received coaching on how Rosie should sound. Recalled the actress: “They said, ‘Jean, we want you to do kind of a Hazel, like a Shirley Booth.’ So Rosie was modeled after Hazel. It was that sort of New York-ish thing, (as Rosie) ‘Sorry, Mr. J, the Fooderama cycle’s on the blink again, but never feah when Rosie’s heah.’ I loved that part. She’s one of my favorite characters. The way they write her, that matter-offact, down-to-Earth, ‘Okay, Roy boy, here we go, here we go.’ She is so fun to do.” (Vander Pyl died in 1999.)

Hanna-Barbera was also behind the Saturday-morning toon Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles (1966–1967). In the Frankenstein Jr. segments, scientist’s son Buzz Conroy enlisted the titular giant robot (an invention of his father’s) to save mankind from various colorful threats.

Frankie Jr. was voiced by Ted Cassidy, who played the Frankensteinian butler Lurch on The Addams Family.

Japan gave us four—count ’em, four—imports centered around robots. Astro Boy (1963–1965) was a manga hero with 100,000 horsepower created by revered writer-artist Osamu Tezuka. Astro Boy’s origin story has a trace of Pinoc-

Rosie the robot maid from The Jetsons. © HannaBarbera Productions.

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(TOP) The title hero takes flight in the animated Japanese series Astro Boy. © Tesuka Productions Co., Ltd. (LEFT) Gigantor to the rescue in the animated Japanese series bearing his name. © Delphi Associates. (RIGHT) Johnny Sokko (Mitsunobu Kaneko) and friend in the Japanese live-action sci-fi series Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. © TV Tokyo. chio: He was built by a scientist as a replacement for his son who died in a car accident. (It was, ahem, a self-driving car.) Sample theme song lyric from the American dub: “Astro Boy, bombs away / On your mission today…” The title hero of another animated series, 8th Man, resembled a conventional super-hero, but his theme song lyrics made his mechanical origins clear: “Faster than a rocket / quicker than a jet / he’s the mighty robot / he’s the one to get...”.

Two more Japanese imports had a premise similar to Frankenstein Jr.: a little boy controlling a giant flying robot.

In Gigantor, which debuted here in 1966, the title entity was operated via remote control by young Jimmy Sparks. Sample theme song lyric: “Gigantor the Space-Age robot / he’s at / your command / Gigantor the Space-Age robot / his power is in your hand...”.

How to characterize Japan’s live-action series Johhny Sokko and His Flying Robot? If you put Ultraman and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in a blender... nah, that still wouldn’t do justice to the 1967–1968 import about a boy (Mitsunobu Kaneko) who controls a giant machine man via a Dick Tracy–style two-way wristwatch. Despite his tender age, little Johnny is a member of Unicorn,

an espionage organization that fights Gargoyle, an evil espionage organization. Gargoylites wear dark sunglasses and Gestapo-like uniforms, and greet their superiors with the “Heil, Hitler” salute. It’s not weird at all.

Gargoyle is ruled by Emperor Guillotine (Hirohiko Sato), a vaguely amphibious space alien who punctuates his commands with something resembling King Neptune’s trident.

Guillotine subjects the world—or, at least, Tokyo—to a corny-copia of giant monsters of many varieties who share one fighting strategy: flailing arms.

The giant robot, which Johnny cleverly calls “Giant Robot,” looks like the Great Sphinx of Giza and assumes martial-arts positions like those of Elvis Presley in his fat-and-sweaty years. The big guy has no dearth of powers: missile fingers, eye lasers, fire breathing, and his ace-in-the-hole, the Megaton Punch. Giant Robot never speaks, and his facial expression never changes, but somehow, you know he loves Johnny. In other words, Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot is genius in its purest form.

Speaking of kids’ stuff, toy robots from the period include Ideal’s Mr. Machine, Robot Commando, and the Zeroids; Remco’s “Lost in Space” robot; and Marx’s Big Loo. Marx was also behind the iconic Sixties toy Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, two boxing ’bots (one (INSET) 1963’s Big Loo sure looked goofy, but he could lanch darts from his chest. © Louis Marx & Co. (LEFT) The mechanical wonder of 1960, Mister Machine. © Ideal Toy Co. RETROFAN

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red, one blue) that resemble something out of a Twenties Russian propaganda poster. When one of the robots got its “block knocked off” (as the TV spots put it), the head popped up and made a soulpleasing “Zzzzzz!” noise.

COMIC-BOOK ROBOTS

One time in 1966 when I was eight, I had exactly ten seconds to choose a comic book at a terminal newsstand before a Greyhound bus would whisk my grandfather and I from South Jersey to Long Island, to visit my Aunt Peggy. With no time to “comparison shop,” I grabbed a copy of a super-hero comic book I’d never heard of.

As the bus rolled northward, I opened DC Comics’ Metal Men #22 (Oct.–Nov. 1966) and became immersed in the wholesome, accessible artwork of penciler Ross Andru and inker Mike Esposito, and the anything-goes writing of Robert Kanigher, which was at turns preposterous science fiction and sentimental soap opera.

The Metal Men, I learned as the story unfolded, were seven robots with human personalities named after the metals from which they were forged: noble Gold, lovesick Platinum, irascible Mercury, strong Iron, loyal Lead, humble Tin, and a newcomer also made of Tin who they called Nameless. All were “male” except for Platinum and Nameless.

“Tina” (Platinum’s nickname) was crazy about the Metal Men’s inventor, Dr. Will Magnus, who looked like President Kennedy in a lab coat. But that affection was unreciprocated because Tina was, you know, a robot. Plus the fact that hunky “Doc” had no trouble attracting supermodel-level female companionship. One more (weird) thing: Tin built Nameless from a do-it-yourself robot kit, and they became an item. The stuff Kanigher dreamed up!

In this particular issue, Tina is rebuffed by Doc as usual. She looks upward and implores, as if in prayer: “Please, someone... something… make me real… like the beautiful models Doc goes out with!”

As if in answer, the Metal Men encounter the Sizzler, a robot “fashioned from photo-molecular energy siphoned from the Aurora Borealis itself,” according to its inventor, Russian scientist Professor Snakelocks. (Yep, this story has a Cold War angle.) The Sizzler emits a ray that transforms the Metal Men into humans. When Tina realizes she is now flesh and blood, she exclaims, “Ohh, Doc! Doc! At last I’ll be just what you’d want! Someone you can love back!” But, shock of shocks, the Sizzler turned Doc into... a robot!

It was as if Juliet was changed into a Montague, only to learn that Romeo had become a Capulet. I was hooked.

Most of the characters Andru drew over the years—Wonder Woman, the Flash, Spider-Man—were originally designed by other artists. But the artist himself designed the team of shape-shifting robots, which debuted in Showcase #37 (Mar.–Apr. 1962).

“First of all, I decided to come up with a common costume for all of them, and then modify it according to their bodies and temperament,” Andru told me in 1992. “In those days, we always put a symbol on each super-hero’s chest, so I followed through and took the symbols that Bob suggested, which were the actual symbols for the metals. Then I thought about the different charac40

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(LEFT) The unique robot super-team meets the mysterious Sizzler on the cover of Metal Men #22 (Apr.–May 1966).

Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (BELOW) Tina comes as close to praying as a robot can in Metal Men #22. Words

by Robert Kanigher, art

by Andru and Esposito.

(INSET) Robotman of the Doom Patrol in The Brave and the Bold #65 (Apr.– May 1966). Art by Bruno Premiani. All © DC Comics.

teristics of each metal. It was like taking different racial characteristics—and the metals have their racial characteristics, in a sense—and translating them to the character of the metal itself.”

Andru also had to visualize the gadgets, vehicles, and locales that appeared in Metal Men, such as the flying saucer–like Jetaway, the Metal Recovery Room, and Doc Magnus’ sprawling laboratory complex. “I evolved the complex,” Andru said. “It sort of grew from sequence to sequence. It began from the center out, from his laboratory out.” (Andru died in 1993.)

DC also published Star Hawkins, a 21st Century detective—hey, we’re in the 21st Century now—whose secretary was Ilda, a resourceful female robot with an oval head. Hawkins and Ilda debuted in Strange Adventures #114 (Mar. 1960), from writer John Broome and artist Mike Sekowsky.

In 1963, DC’s My Greatest Adventure #80 presented the Doom Patrol, an eclectic superteam dreamed up by writer Arnold Drake. The Doom Patrol included Robotman, a ’bot containing the brain of “daredevil” Cliff Steele, a racecar driver who was killed at the Indianapolis 500, no less. That same year, Gold Key’s Magnus: Robot Fighter debuted, and followed the exploits of Russ Manning’s titular hero, who was raised by a good robot to fight bad robots.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) Dudley Manlove and fellow “clickers” in The Creation of the Humanoids (1962). © Genie Productions. (RIGHT) Torg is no Gort, but what do you expect from a movie titled Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)? © Embassy Pictures.

MOVIE MACHINATIONS

Some Sixties movie robots are still admired by serious aficionados of science fiction. But the goofier ones seemed more representative of the era.

From Mexico came La nave de los monstruos (1960), a.k.a. The Ship of Monsters, the world’s only sci-fi/horror/Western/musical/ romantic comedy. It features a know-it-all robot named Torr who looks like a cousin of the mechanical man in the likewise Mexican Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (1958). La nave ends with a duet between Torr and a jukebox.

The Creation of the Humanoids (1962) is a wacko color cheapie set on Earth following a devastating atomic war. Survivors develop humanoid robots (with bald heads, blue skin, and sparkly red eyes) to assist in the reconstruction. Simple sci-fi so far, right? Here’s where things get a bit cerebral: The robots are categorized by a series of numbers that reflect their proximity to human perfection.

An R100 robot would be a perfect human. But it is illegal to improve a robot above an R70. One rogue scientist begins churning out R96 robots—a mere four points below human!

Meanwhile, the “clickers” (a pejorative for robots) have, of their own accord, been evolving up the “R” ladder. Concerned humans form the Order of Flesh and Blood, an aggressive vigilante organization.

Cragus (Don Megowan), leader of the Order, has an

embarrassing conundrum: His sister is living openly with a robot.

That’s right, they’re an item. (Cragus and his sister are both infertile because as children, they would play in the atomic ruins, which glowed blue.) Then Cragus finds out that he, himself, is a robot, and so is his new girlfriend. But with “a few simple operations,” the robot couple can have babies. Wha? In Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), green-skinned Martians kidnap Santa with the help of their robot Torg, who makes the one in Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy look like the one in Forbidden Planet. (Clearly, the silver spray paint needed more drying time.)

In Norman Taurog’s Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), Vincent Price lampooned himself as an evil mastermind who uses female robots in gold lamé bikinis to rob wealthy geezers. Price returned for the made-in-Italy follow-up, Mario Bava’s Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), now employing exploding female robots to kill military adversaries.

In Ishiro Honda’s King Kong Escapes (1967), MechaniKong is the metallic, 60-foot creation of Dr. Who (Hideyo Amamoto). No, not that Dr. Who. This one’s more like a Bond villain, and whaddaya know, his partner in crime is played by Mie Hama, a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice that same year.

(LEFT) Movie poster for Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), a 007 spoof starring Vincent Price as an evil mastermind who employs bikini-wearing “female” robots. © American International Pictures. (RIGHT) King Kong fights his metallic doppelgänger, Mechani-Kong, in the Japanese sci-fi howler King Kong Escapes (1967). © Toho Co., Ltd..

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Peter Cushing (RIGHT) as the good doctor in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965). © Amicus Productions.

As for those more respectable robots: The Daleks—alien beings encased in colorful cyborg “bodies”—caused a ruckus in England’s first two Dr. Who movies, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Dalek Invasion 2150 A.D. (1966). Both starred horror icon Peter Cushing, who played Dr. Frankenstein in six films, as the time-tripping whitehaired hero.

Then there’s HAL 9000, the passive-aggressive “brain” that controls the big spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), director Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic based on novelist Arthur C. Clarke’s book series. HAL’s name stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer,” an acronym not quite as clear-cut as, say, U.N.C.L.E.

ASIMOV DISOBEYED

I once interviewed Muhammad Ali in his New Jersey home for The Holy Rosary Times, my school newspaper. This was in 1971, when I was in the seventh grade. I will never forget this larger-than-life man’s generosity to a child he’d never before met. I asked Mr. Ali if he had any advice for the children of Holy Rosary School.

“Automation’s takin’ over today,” he said in his raspy Louisville drawl. “Get your brains ready and choose your profession while you’re young, and start workin’ towards it.”

Little did I know how prescient his words were. Here he was, warning that the innovations and ease of “automation” (as it was still called in the Seventies) will result in lost jobs. Twice in my life, I would be laid off from long-held jobs, and automation played a factor. Ali was warning me of this before I even set foot in the workplace.

I remember the moment I realized that robots were really, truly a part of our lives. Ten or so Christmases ago, there was a particularly “hot” toy that every child wanted, and every parent was desperate to purchase. Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, warned consumers that robots were buying these toys in 42

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great numbers, and reselling them at a steep mark-up. It struck me funny how nonchalantly Cuomo used the word “robots.” (He could have said “algorithms” or “digital pirates,” but he said robots.) As I listened to the governor’s warning, I pictured old-school robots like Hymie or Rosie going to the store; buying the toys; putting them up on eBay; toting them to the Post Office; and collecting a tidy profit.

To spend on what? Transistors?

So, yes—counter to Asimov’s rules—robots work against us, too. Russians used algorithms to spread misinformation via social media during American elections. Face recognition surveillance (FRS) technology has inordinately implicated people of color for crimes they were nowhere near. Our private information is snatched, and traded, every day.

And now we have something called ChatGBT, which will write our communications, term papers, even novels and movie scripts.

How do you know this very article wasn’t written by ChatGBT? Rest assured, I’m too old and stupid to figure out how to use it.

I said I don’t want to drop spoilers from that Twilight Zone episode, the one where Inger Stevens demands that her parents rid their household of robot servants, and I won’t. In English. But in Pig Latin, the secret language of the Three Stooges, I will spill the beans. Here goes: Inger-ay Evens-stay is, erself-hay, ot-nay eally-ray uman-hay. E-shay is… an obot-ray!

Oh, Rod Serling, you’ve done it again.

MARK VOGER is the author of six books for TwoMorrows Publishing, including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy, Holly Jolly, and Britmania. At nine, he fell madly in love with Josette du Pres (Kathryn Leigh Scott) from Dark Shadows, and was devastated when she flung herself off of Widow’s Hill. Please visit him at MarkVoger.com

RETRO INTERVIEW

’ ! r u b l l l l l i ‘W

Meet Mister Ed ’s Wilbur Post, Alan Young

BY SHAUN CLANCY

Alan Young (1919–2016) was a man of many talents. Born in England, as a teenager in Canada he began working in radio broadcasting. This led him into a long and successful career as an actor, writer, and voice actor in films and television. His comedy-variety program The Alan Young Show was aired on radio and later on television in the Forties and Fifties, earning him a pair of Emmy Awards in 1951. RetroFans may recall him in films such as George Pal’s The Time Machine, or as the voice of Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge McDuck, but his most famous role was as the straight man to a talking horse in the popular Sixties sitcom Mister Ed. This interview was conducted with Mr. Young on September 26, 2013, roughly three years before his passing. The interview was transcribed by Randy Clawson and has been edited for presentation in RetroFan. RetroFan: Do you mind telling me a little bit about the beginnings of your career?

And how you got into radio?

Look who’s talking now—TV’s favorite talking horse razzes Wilbur Post, played by our interview subject, Alan Young.

Detail from the cover of Gold Key Comics’ Mister Ed #5 (Nov. 1963). © Waterman Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

Alan Young: I entered the business in Vancouver, Canada. I did a little entertainment for some group and in the group was a girl who was a singer on a radio station and she said, “How’d you like to be on radio?” And I said, “Sure!” I was only about 14 or 15, I guess. So they took me to a station called CJOR in Vancouver… and I did my little act. From then on I was in Vancouver and did a few variety shows. Then I became a jack-of-all-trades, answering the phones and things of that nature…. stooge, and so on… and that was the beginning of my career.

RF: Were you a Canadian citizen?

AY: No, I was British. I was born in Northern England.

RF: The radio show you did do in Canada, what was its name?

AY: The Bathhouse Review was the Saturday night show I did.

RF: Was it a comedy show?

AY: Yes, it was a variety show, and I did a lot of imitations of English performers that people liked because many of them [the audience] were probably from England.

I wrote little sketches and it started my writing career.

RF: How did you learn to do imitations so well?

AY: They had a program I’ll never forget called The British Empire Program, and there were recordings of Gracie Fields, and all different British performers, and I began to imitate them. And that’s how I did my dialects.

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RF: Were there other radio shows you were doing at this time?

AY: Well, I got hired as an actor for many of the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Company, shows. One day, my father drove me over to the station to get my money. And he saw me open this envelope and take three dollars out. And he worked in a shipyard, scraping the bottoms of boats. And if he was lucky, he got three dollars for it a day.

And I’ll never forget, he said, “Son, you stick with this talking business because lips don’t sweat.” [laughter] I’ve never forgotten that.

RF: How did you break into the U.S. market?

AY: I got a radio show on the CBC network, and I got a sponsor. And the sponsor took me to Toronto, where I did the show from Toronto, which opened up the eastern seaboard American networks a little bit. So I was heard in the New York area, and an agent wrote me a letter and said I should come down to America and work, and I said, “Yeah!” Anything to further my career.

So I went and became Eddie Cantor’s summer replacement. After the summer replacement program was over, Bristol Meyers was the sponsor, and they gave me my own show.

RF: Weren’t you also on the Jimmy Durante Show for a while?

AY: Yeah, I was a guest on that show every week. I was his stooge, and he had to fire me. He said, “Young, I’ve gotta let you go.

Youse don’t push me around enough.”

I did the same kind of comedy he did, this gentler comedy and so on, and reluctantly, he fired me. I was on the show for about a year.

RF: Was this while you were still doing your own show?

AY: No. This was when [my agent] brought me out to Hollywood.

What happened was, I had writers in New York. And I didn’t understand a thing they were writing. I just did it because they wrote it and it was supposed to be funny.

I understood some of the jokes and they were kinda corny, but there were things in there that I didn’t understand at all: Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers, etc.

One day they gave me a whole bunch of funny names to say and with my slight accent and my naiveté, that put it all over.

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Fans of movie visionary George Pal may recall Alan Young’s roles in Pal’s fantasy films (ABOVE) Tom Thumb (1958) and (OPPOSITE PAGE) The Time Machine (1960). Tom Thumb © 1958 Lowe’s Inc. The Time Machine © MGM. Movie posters courtesy of Heritage.

with me, and I did all these funny names, ending with a name that to me was very funny… let’s see, it was the name of the head of 20th Century Fox, but I didn’t know that. It was just a funny name to me. Well, three days later I got sued by 20th Century Fox for a million dollars! For defamation of character. Darryl F. Zanuck—I thought that was a funny name. So I said to my manager, “I haven’t got ten dollars, let alone a million dollars!” He said, “It’s okay, we’ll just plug his [current movie] on our next program and they’ll forget about it.”

So the next program I plugged their new movie coming out, and they forgot

about the lawsuit. Also, they called me back—would I do a screen test for them?!

So I wrote a screen test and did it, and they brought me out to Hollywood and signed me for three pictures.

RF: Going back to your Alan Young Show, was it live? Were there musicians there?

AY: Oh, everything was live then.

RF: I have your own show as starting around June of 1944, and all the way to July of 1949, so that’s just over five years. But it moved from ABC to NBC.

retro interview

“That’s wonderful!” So he said, “I probably won’t do it until I go back to America.”

After working as long as I could in England, I headed back to America. When I got back, he called me up and said, “We’re going to do The Time Machine here in the States.” I said, “Oh, thank goodness.” Then he said, “But I’m afraid I can’t pay you as much as I paid you for Tom Thumb!” [laughs] Oh, Boy! I didn’t care. He said, “You can do whatever you want with the part.” I said, “Well, okay. If they’re all English then I’d like to do mine as Scottish and do my Dad’s accent.” So he said, “Okay,” and I did the character in The Time Machine as a Scottish actor.

RF: When a movie like The Time Machine is distributed to other countries, usually they hire different actors to do voiceover work.

Did you do any voiceover work for any foreign films coming into America?

AY: No, I didn’t. I’d just been a radio actor, [but] Disney called me up to do some character voices for them, which I did.

RF: Uncle Scrooge, right? In Scrooge McDuck?

AY: Well, I was asked to write a show for Disney—Mickey’s Christmas Carol. I played Mickey and Goofy, and the little character, Scrooge McDuck. I’ve done Scrooge McDuck ever since.

AY: Yes. It was on the Blue Network. NBC was split up into a Blue Network and a Red Network. And the Blue Network was the lesser of the two evils, I guess you’d call it.

And they put me on the Blue Network and I stayed there until, gosh, I forget… until the network folded up. No! The network became ABC. RF: Let’s talk about your show’s storyline: I think you had a wife, Jenny, on the show, right?

AY: Oh, that was just a girlfriend. It was introduced as a radio show, but I happened to have a girlfriend.

RF: Did you have guests on your show?

AY: Yes, I did. When I left New York to come out to Hollywood, the sponsor added $5,000 a week to get some guest stars. So we had some of the biggest stars in Holly-

wood as my guests. Rita Hayworth was on as my guest. We had lovely guest stars for about 15 weeks.

RF: Tell me how you met film director George Pal. AY: I went over to England to do my television show, the one I had done in America, and he was doing a movie. He wanted to get some Americans in the movie, but couldn’t find any—they had all English people, and so one of the casting people said, “Well, you gotta call Alan Young!” And [Pal] said, “Oh, he’s American!” ’Cause George knew that I had done a radio show—or television show, rather—and he called me up and cast me in his Tom Thumb movie that he was making. I did that in London, and it didn’t pay very much. Then he said, “I got a better movie I’m doing, and you’ll get paid properly for it.” And I said,

RF: And you’ve done it very well.

Let’s talk about your Mister Ed role of Wilbur Post. How did that all come about?

AY: Well, George Burns made a pilot of Mister Ed for… I forget who it was. It didn’t sell.

I was called by the producers—George was one of them—and they read it for me, and they said, “Would you do this?” I said, “Oh, that’s funny! I could do that.” It was Arthur Lubin who was the producer.

George’s pilot was turned down by all three networks, and so they said that they’d have to break it in syndication.

So I went on the road with one of the agency men, and we did a slight teaser in a film which George Burns directed. We took the short teaser and went around to the Studebaker dealers. Each town had Studebaker dealers that wanted a show [to sponsor], and we ran this little piece of film for them, with the little leading lady, saying how we would do it. Then after they ran the short film—and also ran the Mister Ed show pilot the way that we would do it—the RETROFAN

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(LEFT) What, you didn’t know that Alan Young voiced Scrooge McDuck?? The Dickens, you say! An Uncle Scrooge cel and a credits cel—listing Young among the writers—from 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol. © Disney. Courtesy of Heritage.

(BELOW) Mister Ed publicity still signed by star Alan Young. Mister Ed © Waterman Entertainment. From the collection of Shaun Clancy.

(INSET BELOW) This Youngstown Award was presented to Alan Young in 1962, commemorating the first season of Mister Ed. Courtesy of Heritage

agency man came out and said, “Now, how many would like to buy this?” And every hand went up! We did this in about three different cities, and every hand went up. We had a big network of syndication people, and as it turned out they all bought the same time on the same night in each town so we had a hell of a network!

RF: How was the reaction to Mister Ed? Was it accepted immediately when it finally aired?

AY: Brilliant! It was marvelously accepted.

RF: The name of your character, Wilbur Post, was that something you came up with, or did the writers?

AY: That was their idea.

FAST FACTS MISTER ED f No. of seasons: Six f No. of episodes: 143 f Original run: January 5, 1961– February 6, 1966 f Created by: Walter R. Brooks f Primary cast: Alan Young, Connie Hines, Bamboo Harvester (horse), Allan “Rocky” Lane (voice of Mister Ed), Larry Keating, Edna Skinner, Leon Ames f Theme song: “Mister Ed” by Jay Livingston f Networks: Syndication (1961), CBS (1961–1966) 46

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RF: Jay Livingston was a member of REPS, our radio enthusiasts club, and he said he was the voice of Mister Ed. Is that correct? I know he did the theme…

AY: He did the theme, [where he sang] “I am Mister Ed.” Yeah, he was the voice for the introduction of the song. The [speaking] voice of Mister Ed in the show was done by an old cowboy fella named Rocky Lane.

RF: Did you receive compensation from all the Mister Ed merchandising that was produced?

AY: No, I didn’t get a piece of that, I just got a salary.

RF: Now, the horse itself, I would imagine, wasn’t the same horse throughout all the seasons, was it?

AY: Yes, it was! He had a better contract than I had! [laughter] RF: Well, he worked for less. [laughs] Was the horse easy to work with, and were there any mishaps?

AY: No. He was so well trained. We had the cleanest sets in the whole of Hollywood.

Everybody said, “This doesn’t smell like a horse set.” Because whenever he had to go, we would see his eyes kinda roll, which meant he had to go, and he was led outside to the bathroom.

RF: What was next door to you at the studio at the same time?

AY: Oh, it was The Beverly Hillbillies… and Petticoat Junction.

RF: Did you do publicity appearances with Mister Ed, the horse?

AY: I did one appearance on the Andy Griffith Show. No, Andy Williams. But it was in front of a live audience, and Ed was so nervous, in front of people like that, that when they applauded, he just went crazy—well, he didn’t go crazy, I mean, his head bobbed up and down. So we had to film the guest spots.

RF: Wasn’t there also a talking mule movie?

AY: Well, Arthur Rubin made a show called Francis, the Talking Mule. That was from the book and done before Mister Ed. Mister Ed was also a book first and called Mister Ed, the Talking Horse, but written long before Francis, the Talking Mule.

RF: Did you participate in the writing of Mister Ed?

retro interview

George Burns was in the rewrites, and that was fun!

RF: How long did it take to film each episode?

AY: We would work about three days shooting them. We had a single camera. We shot it like a movie. You couldn’t shoot it with an audience because with the horse, he would get too nervous with all the people.

After the show went off the air, I used to ride him every morning. He was living with the trainer in back of the trainer’s house. I’d go over every morning and knock on the trainer’s door, and he’d say, “He’s in the back, Alan.” So I’d walk back and say, “Hey, Ed!” And he’d stick his head out of the barn and we’d go for a ride in Griffith Park.

(ABOVE) David Stern’s 1946 novel Francis, the Talking Mule inspired more books, a film franchise of seven movies with Donald O’Connor as Francis’ human co-star, a syndicated comic strip, comic books, and more. © Universal Pictures. (RIGHT) Carol and Wilbur Post— actors Connie Hines and Alan Young—and their stable resident on the cover of Gold Key Comics’ Mister Ed #1 (Nov. 1962). © Waterman Entertainment. All courtesy of Heritage.

AY: Yes. I participated in the rewrites. We would do a preview of some sort. Then we would get together in the office and rewrite it. We’d then do a read-over, and after the read-over I would go in with the writers.

We had a head writer who was so good!

They asked me to go in and do it with them.

RF: Wow! How old was the horse when he died?

AY: He was about nine. Actually, he should have lived longer, but we were all away, and Lester Hinton, who was the trainer of the horse—and he was a wonderful trainer—was away, and they had a horse sitter come in. Ed had a very heavy body and very slender legs. And when he rolled around—rolled himself, you know, like on the grass—he had a little trouble getting up, but he’d get up. The horse sitter saw him fumbling around and thought he was having a fit, so he gave him a pill. Ed had never taken pills or anything.

This was a tranquilizer, and he just slept away, which was a big disappointment to everybody.

RF: Had you ever ridden a horse before the Mister Ed show?

AY: Never.

RF: Did you continue riding after Ed’s passing?

Lassie’s loyal lad Jon Provost, with Alan Young and Mister Ed. Publicity photo from the episode “Jon Provost Meets Mr. Ed,” Season Five/Episode 25, original airdate June 9, 1965. © Waterman Entertainment. Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

AY: I didn’t at all. I had taken dressage lessons, which were the hardest lessons you could take, because they wanted me to learn to ride properly for Ed, but I never was a good rider.

I would never have to use the reins with Ed. I would nudge him, and I’d just say, “Let’s go, Ed!” And he would start in. And I’d say, “Let’s stop here!” And he’d stop. I’d say, “Turn right!” And he would turn, I would lean right and he would turn, and so I never had to use the reins with him at all.

RF: Was Mister Ed the first real Hollywood performance for the horse?

AY: No, no. The trainer was sent up to northern California, where they have a lot of ranches to pick the handsomest horse they could get, and so he came back with Mister Ed. Ed came from a very fine line of horses.

RF: Was the horse owned by the studio?

AY: Yes. RF: What about your wife on the show?

AY: Oh, Connie Hines. A beautiful girl! We were going to audition [actresses] for my wife, and Connie Hines walked in. One RETROFAN

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From a talking Mr. Ed hand puppet to Mr. Ed comic books, television’s mouthy mount kept fans occupied each week between episodes.

Mr. Ed © Waterman Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions and Hake’s Auctions.

person said, “She’s it!” And she was. She was so pretty.

RF: How was Connie around the horse?

AY: Yes, she loved the horse. You couldn’t help but love him. He loved people and liked to meet new people.

RF: What were the horse’s favorite foods?

AY: Oh, he loved apples. He loved anything that was edible. He was great!

RF: Did the horse ever cause any accidents on the set?

AY: No, no. He didn’t have any tricks. He just rehearsed.

The only time I got hurt was on the first show. Ed was trained to come into the office. Now, the phone rang so he went over and picked the phone up, and he came over and nudged me and dropped the phone on the desk. We rehearsed it and rehearsed it. Well, we came to do it, and I forget what happened, something that upset him. So he came in, the phone rang, he tried to pick up my arm and nudge the phone. When

Undated photo of Alan Young signing copies of Dell Comics’ Four Color #1295, a 1962 comic book starring Mister Ed. Photo

by Timothy Campbell, courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

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he picked up my arm, boy, it hurt! I let out a yelp and Ed dropped my arm. He couldn’t work the rest of the day and neither could I, ’cause it hurt. He didn’t mean to do that, of course. That was the only mistake he ever made.

RF: Was the horse in rehearsals with you?

AY: Yes. We rehearsed each scene first.

RF: Did you do any pilots for TV shows that never happened?

AY: Yes. Right after the Ed show, I did a show as a favor for our agents. Mister Wonderful, it was called. Oh, he was a superman. He did all sorts of wonderful things.

RF: Why wasn’t it picked up?

AY: I don’t know what happened to it. I was out of the business by then.

RF: Are there any shows or roles you auditioned for that you didn’t get that you wish you did?

AY: No. I had a bit of a name then, so I didn’t audition. I wanted to do plays, and so I went to Broadway.

I did a play—a very successful play—called The Girl in the Freudian Slip. We did very well breaking it in.

It was a funny show. We got to New York, and the big critic there didn’t like Hollywood people coming out. We did about five

preview shows and it went over very well with great audiences. We played the Palm Springs Theater, and all of the people came to that. They put up the money for our going into Broadway. After that, the review came out from the Broadway critic and he panned us, which was terrible! I’ll never forget. I sat with the wife of the producer— the money man—we were sitting in Sardi’s Restaurant, reading the review and trying to pick out any word that would be able to be used—careful—wonderful, but he had been so careful not to use any of those words. We couldn’t do a thing. Even the Palm Springs people called up and said they would like to finance the show for the whole summer. ’Cause if that show plays all summer, it’ll be a big hit in New York. And the producer turned it down! He said no, because he wanted to get the money for his next show, somehow and so, unfortunately we had to close. But it’s made more money for the writer in summer theater than any of those other shows.

RF: Let’s close with a Mister Ed question: Do you ever catch yourself watching an old episode?

AY: Whenever I can. I just love to see them, ’cause it was quite an experience.

A devotee of old-time radio, SHAUN CLANCY owns a heating and air conditioning business in the Seattle area and interviews many radio, screen, and comic-book personalities.

Join us next issue as Shaun interviews The Gong Show’s Unknown Comic!

RETRO BRIT

The Annuals of Time

BY IAN MILLSTED

Where can you find hardback books dedicated to the favorite television shows of your youth? Where can you find previously unseen adventures of the likes of Starsky and Hutch or Magnum P.I. or, even, Inch High Private Eye? Where are there articles about Max, the Bionic Dog, or puzzles and games about Wagon Train? Or, how about Huckleberry Hound playing cricket? All these, and more, were to be found in the hardcover annuals produced in vast quantities

by British publishers from the Fifties to the Eighties (and beyond, albeit in diminishing numbers). Retro Brit once more steps into the place where British and American pop culture meet to explore this phenomenon.

The annual publication is a long-established tradition and RetroFan readers will probably be aware, for example, that Sherlock Holmes first appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887. The British children’s annuals were a distinct sub-category of this publishing phenomenon. Unlike the annuals produced by U.S. comic publishers, which have typically been in the form of a higher-page-count version of an ongoing comic book, British annuals were made to look like books rather than magazines. They were anywhere from 60 to 160 pages and usually contained a mix of comic-form stories, text stories with

(ABOVE) The Starship Enterprise’s voyagers, as seen on the front and wacky back covers of the 1976 Star Trek Annual. (RIGHT) The Bionic Dog, from the pages of The Bionic Woman Annual #2 from 1978. Star Trek © CBS. Bionic Woman © NBC Universal. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Ian Millsted.

illustrations, features, puzzles, coloring pages, photo features, and anything else the editors thought the readers would like. They were magazine sized in dimensions, rather than comic-book sized and bound between hardcovers rendering an artifact that was made to last. While many of the annuals produced were based on British properties, RetroFan readers may be interested to know how many of these books were based on U.S. TV shows.

Kids cared little about the point of origin of TV shows. They just knew what they liked, and if they liked it, then publishers were only too happy to step in to supply spin-off books, if there was a profit to be made. So, how did this work? The annuals were usually published in August or September each year with a cover date for the following year. So, for example, Star Trek Annual 1977 would be in the shops around September 1976. This gave a long lead time for the Christmas market to which they were marketed. Because they were priced as the hardback books they were, the main purchasers were parents and grandparents who bought them as Christmas gifts. One aspect of this was that the adults buying the books liked to think they were buying something like a “proper book” for the kids so the publishers made sure to include a fair proportion of text stories and features. Enough, at least, that once unwrapped on Christmas morning they would keep the recipient busy for the next few days and buy the adults some peace and quiet. Once the holiday season was done the booksellers quickly remaindered the leftover stock. Kids wise to this tactic could take Christmas gift money and buy themselves another few annuals for less than half price, as often as not. One risk of this business model was that the lead time meant the annuals has to be started RETROFAN

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(TOP LEFT) Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries Annual photo cover featuring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy, and Pamela Sue Martin with (BOTTOM LEFT) interior page illustrated by David Lloyd of V for Vendetta fame. (TOP CENTER) Logan’s Run Annual based on the U.S. television series featuring stars Heather Menzies and Gregory Harrison with (BOTTOM RIGHT) interior art by David Lloyd. (TOP RIGHT) Photo cover to How the West Was Won Annual featuring James Arness. The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries and Logan’s Run © Warner Bros. How the West Was Won © MGM Television.

in production months in advance and some prediction of what would be popular was required. This could sometimes go wrong.

In January 1983, when British TV (the ITV network) started showing Bring ’Em Back Alive, it probably looked good for being a popular hit. The rights to produce an annual were duly signed. As it turned out, the show was cancelled after one series in the U.S. and failed to find a big audience in Britain, but by then the annual was already in production and released in Autumn 1983 long after the TV show had left the screens. Mostly, though, the publishers got it right.

The titles published each year act as an interesting barometer of which U.S. TV shows were popular. For Christmas 1961 readers could take their pick from annuals for Cheyenne, Maverick, Laramie, Rawhide, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Wagon Train. Yep, pardners, British kids of the early Sixties loved a good Western. By the second half 50

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of the decade, the Bonanza annual was fighting for shelf space with the likes of The Green Hornet, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Outer Limits, and even Bewitched. Tele-fantasy and secret agents were taking over. By the late Seventies, the trend was towards annuals based on crime shows, including Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, Charlie’s Angels, and CHiPs [CHiPs stars Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox will be spinning their way into our pages in RetroFan #34—ed.]. More evergreen were annuals based on oft-rerun cartoons such as The Flintstones or Scooby-Doo. There are some surprising omissions. Shows of enduring appeal in the U.S. such as Gilligan’s Island and The Andy Griffith Show were never big hits in Britain. Even more surprising is the absence of representation for The Virginian and Hawaii Five-0, which were both popular here for many years. Some series were far more popular

retro Brit

THE ANNUALS (LEFT) Cover to the 1977 Planet of the Apes Annual. (BELOW) Interior artwork by X-Men/Black Dragon artist John Bolton.

Alias Smith and Jones (2) The A-Team (5) Banana Splits (1) Baretta (1) Battlestar Galactica (2) The Beverly Hillbillies (3) Bewitched (2) The Bionic Woman (2) B.J. and the Bear (2) Bonanza (6) Bring ’Em Back Alive (1) Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (3) Charlie’s Angels (4) Cheyenne (5) CHiPs (2) The Dakotas (1) Daktari (2) Dallas (1) Doctor Kildare (1) The Dukes of Hazzard (6) The Fall Guy (2) Fame (3) The Flintstones (8) Gemini Man (1) The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (3) The Great Grape Ape and Hong Kong Phooey (1, a rare example of a combined title) The Green Hornet (2) Gunsmoke (4) Happy Days (1) The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1) The High Chaparral (5) How the West Was Won (1) Huckleberry Hound (6, plus one combined with Yogi Bear) Inch High Private Eye (1) The Jetsons (2) Jonny Quest (1) Kit Carson (1) Kojak (3)

Kung Fu (1) Lancer (1) Land of the Giants (2) Laramie (4) Laredo (1) Logan’s Run (1)

© NBC Universal.

Planet of the Apes © 20th Century Studios.

This is a list of the series which generated annuals in Britain and, so far as I can ascertain, how many annuals were published for each title. In some cases, there may be more than I’ve been able to verify so far. I’ve kept this to titles published from the Sixties to the Eighties. I have also not included titles based on properties that were based more on original movie versions, such as Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny, although those also generated many U.K. annuals.

Logan’s Run and Planet of the Apes are based on the TV series, not the films. This is a work in progress and updates and additions are welcome. — Ian Millsted

in Britain than they had been in their home territory. The ultimate example of that was the Planet of the Apes TV series, which was a huge hit and audiences were left wanting more after the run of a mere 14 episodes. The spin-off annuals ran for four years, possibly helped by some great art by John Bolton.

For many years the leaders in this field were the publishing company World Distributors, founded by brothers Alfred, John, and Sydney Pemberton and based in Manchester, England. The Pembertons had arrangements in place that allowed them to reprint comics stories from Dell and Gold Key comic books. This reduced the costs considerably as they only needed to add a couple of text stories and maybe a couple of puzzle pages, and presto, they had a nice-looking book with high profit margins. This also means that some of these annuals act as early collected editions

The Lone Ranger (13)

The Magician (1) Magnum P.I. (2) Man from Atlantis (1) The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (3) Manimal (1) Maverick (2, plus one for the Eighties revival) Mickey Mouse Club (3) Mission: Impossible (3) The Monkees (3) Mork and Mindy (2) The Oregon Trail (1) The Outer Limits (2) The Partridge Family (3) The Pink Panther (10) Pixie and Dixie (2) Planet of the Apes (3) The Quest (1) Rawhide (4) Scooby-Doo (2 at least and probably more) Sgt. Bilko (1) The Six Million Dollar Man (4) Star Trek (13-plus) Starsky and Hutch (3) Tales of the Gold Monkey (1) Tales of Wells Fargo (3) T. J. Hooker (1) Top Cat (2) Twilight Zone (1) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (2) Wagon Train (3) Yogi Bear (17)

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(LEFT) More Trek! Title page from the Star Trek Annual 1979. Accuracy in costuming was clearly not a priority.

(BELOW) The cover to the annual. Star Trek © CBS.

of those comics. For example, the first Star Trek annual collects the first three issues of the Gold Key Star Trek comic book, although the stories are, somewhat oddly, presented in reverse order. By publishing annuals based on television series, the annuals were, effectively, pre-advertised. The biggest surprise is that it took others so long to get into the game in competition.

Brown and Watson was a publishing company established by Peter and Brian Babani in 1974. Their product differed from World Distributors by giving a lower page count but with more original material. A notable early title is the Kung Fu annual from 1974, with scripts by Steve Moore and art by Desmond Walduck. Moore was a young writer who had been involved in SF fandom and was a lifelong friend of the unrelated Alan Moore. Walduck was an industry veteran who had worked on many classic British comics characters.

Several years later, the Babanis moved on to found Grandreams, which operated on much the same lines.

Other publishers of note included Dean, who mixed reprint strips with some new material, as in the case of the Laramie annuals, which featured art by another industry veteran, John M. Burns (Judge Dredd and much else besides).

The annuals of the mid- to late Seventies are particularly interesting for anyone looking for early comic art by some of the British creators who “invaded” the U.S. comics industry in the Eighties.

The Gemini Man and Bionic Woman annuals include art by Ian Gibson, who later drew Dr. Fate for DC Comics. V for Vendetta artist David Lloyd drew many stories for annuals based on Logan’s Run, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries and The Fall Guy. Alan Moore, writer of comics’ Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, and more contributed a few illustrations to the B.J. and the Bear annual from 1980. On the downside, the uncredited writer of the How the West Was Won annual should be ashamed of the blatant racism of the title of one story therein.

The Eighties saw a decline in the kinds of U.S. television shows which leaned themselves to this kind of merchandising. The selection from 1984 saw adventure shows represented by just the very popular The A-Team and the less successful Manimal. Personally, I think it’s cool that Manimal got the annual treatment before sinking 52

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without a trace. Cartoon characters continued to be popular, but the concept of the annual itself was also in decline. They are still published but limited to either evergreen domestic properties like The Beano (a weekly comic that has been published from Scotland since 1939) and Doctor Who, or annuals dedicated to football/soccer or personalities. This last year saw annuals devoted to Minecraft, but not to any current U.S. TV shows.

For many years these annuals were in plentiful supply in the second-hand market and could be purchased relatively inexpensively. This was due to the quite high print runs and durable hardback format, which meant they retained decent condition.

More recently, the prices have started going up. The Star Trek annuals are a case in point where the early ones now go for 30-plus dollars, at least. However, there is a lot of fun content out there and they make nice presents for the person who seems to have everything but fondly remembers that show they watched back in the day. Happy hunting.

IAN MILLSTED is a teacher and writer based in Bristol, England.

RETROFAD

The DeLorean

BY MICHAEL EURY

I drove a DeLorean one day in 1982. It was on loan from an auto dealership in my hometown of Concord, North Carolina, where at the time I was writing and hosting a cable-access show that spoofed movies on cable television. I needed a hot rod to drive for a Cannonball Run skit, and the dealership loaned me the trendiest new wheels on the lot: a DeLorean, the angular, stainless steel– plated sports car with gull-wing doors. Behind its wheel, I was the hippest guy in town for a few hours.

As we taped the segment on an unpaved country road, I summoned my inner Earnhardt and floored the loaner. The DeLorean hesitated as it revved, but I was still able to cut a dust-enshrouded figure eight.

When the air cleared, though, the excitement was over. Sort of like the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it history of the car itself.

Auto exec John Z. DeLorean launched his DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) in 1975. In October 1976, DMC manufactured its first prototype of the DeLorean, dubbed the DSV-1 (DeLorean Safety Vehicle), according to John Lamm’s 2003 book, DeLorean Stainless Steel Illusion. Numerous developmental problems stalled the two-passenger sports car’s production until late 1980, at which time the DeLorean (known on the drawing board as DMC-12) was rolled out for a 1981 premiere.

What caught the eye of the car-buying public was the DeLorean’s appearance, styled by Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. Eschewing the traditional paint colors expected of the American automobile market, the DeLorean instead displayed “its raw stainless-steel body panels proudly,” according to Motortrend. com writer Conner Golden. “The dull silver finish gave it a striking look, and was a defining feature—plus, small scratches could be buffed out with sandpaper.”

The DeLorean’s blunt exterior took an aesthetic backseat to its two doors. The doors hinged at the top and opened with great fanfare like wings, affording the vehicle the mystique of looking like an automobile from “tomorrow.” The DeLorean certainly wasn’t the first futuristically styled car to hit the market, nor was it the first gull-winged one (“the mid-century Mercedes-Benz 300SL made gull-wing doors famous,” Golden noted). But the DeLorean’s space-age appearance rocketed its popularity in this era of the original Star Wars trilogy.

Enthusiastic buyers clamored for the car as it zoomed toward its release.

Despite that coolness, nothing seemed to go right for the DeLorean. Its original DMC-12 designation reflected its intended list price of $12,000; by the time the car hit the market in 1981,

(ABOVE) Front view of a 1983 DeLorean.

Kevin Abato (www.grenexmedia.com)/Wikimedia Commons.

(LEFT) Before long, the once-hot DeLoreans were sold at big discounts. it sold for $25,000 (over $75,000 when converted to 2023 currency!). Costs kept escalating, and the DeLorean’s sticker price shot to nearly $30,000 in 1982, even higher in 1983. Although automotive trade publications initially greeted the car with favor, the DeLorean’s lackluster driving performance soon dimmed its appeal. In surveying the DeLorean’s history, Motortrend. com’s Conner Golden reported, “…mechanically, it fell as flat as its side profile,” noting that the 2,700-pound vehicle’s heft limited its acceleration “to 60 m.p.h. in around nine seconds when fitted with the five-speed manual transmission; the deed took around 11 seconds with the three-speed automatic.” Head honcho John DeLorean disregarded these warning signs and actually increased production of the car during its second year, while an economic downturn further dampened the DeLorean’s sales.

Things were spinning out of control for DMC, not only on the assembly line but also for its namesake. In early 1982, the company stumbled into financial distress, filing for bankruptcy on October 26th of that year, on the heels of the arrest of John DeLorean in a highly publicized drug-trafficking sting. Roughly 9,000 DeLoreans had been produced by the time DMC’s creditor mopped up production in late December 1982. The meteoric rise of the DeLorean was tailed by this precipitous crash, and dealerships raced to sell off their stock of the vehicle at discounts.

The DeLorean might have been junk-heaped into the annals of automotive infamy had it not been for 1985’s blockbuster sci-fi comedy Back to the Future, which riffed off the vehicle’s futuristic design by having it double as a time machine. That film’s two sequels also traded on the appeal of the DeLorean, with miniature versions of the car sold to collectors and kids alike. You might actually catch a glimpse of one of the DeLoreans from the Back to the Future franchise at a pop-culture convention or Hollywood car show near you.

There are still some original DeLoreans out there, and a rebootedunder-new-management DeLorean Motor Company has in recent years released the DeLorean Alpha5, an electric car. It doesn’t have gull-wing doors, though. Would I still be the hippest guy in town if I drove an Alpha5?

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Author STEPHAN FRIEDT shares the story of the meteoric rise of the Schanes brothers’ California-based imprint PACIFIC COMICS, which published such legends as JACK KIRBY, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, STEVE DITKO, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE GRELL, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and DAVE STEVENS. From its groundbreaking 1981 arrival in the fledgling direct sales market, to a catastrophic, precipitous fall after only four years, THE PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION reveals the inside saga, as told to Friedt by BILL AND STEVE SCHANES, DAVID SCROGGY, and many of the creators themselves. It also focuses on the titles and the amazing array of characters they introduced to an unsuspecting world, including THE ROCKETEER, CAPTAIN VICTORY, MS. MYSTIC, GROO THE WANDERER, STARSLAYER, and many more. Written with the editorial assist of Eisner Award-winning historian JON B. COOKE, this retrospective is the most comprehensive study of an essential publisher in the development of the creator’s rights movement. Main cover illustration by DAVE STEVENS. NOW SHIPPING!

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WORKING WITH DITKO takes a unique and nostalgic journey through comics’ Bronze Age, as editor and writer JACK C. HARRIS recalls his numerous collaborations with legendary comics master STEVE DITKO! It features never-before-seen preliminary sketches and pencil art from Harris’ tenure working with Ditko on THE CREEPER, SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, THE ODD MAN, THE DEMON, WONDER WOMAN, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, THE FLY, and even Ditko’s unused redesign for BATMAN! Plus, it documents their work on numerous independent properties, and offers glimpses of original characters from Ditko’s drawing board that have never been viewed by even his most avid fans! This illustrated volume is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience the creative comic book process by one of the industry’s most revered creators, as seen through the eyes of one of his most frequent collaborators! NOW SHIPPING!

Star Guider TM & © Jack C. Harris.

Shade TM & © DC Comics.

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THE CHILLINGLY WEIRD ART OF

MATT FOX

by ROGER HILL

MATT FOX (1906–1988) first gained notoriety for his jarring cover paintings on the pulp magazine WEIRD TALES from 1943 to 1951. His almost primitive artistry encompassed ghouls, demons, and grotesqueries of all types, evoking a disquieting horror vibe that no one since has ever matched. Fox suffered with chronic pain throughout his life, and that anguish permeated his classic 1950s cover illustrations and his lone story for CHILLING TALES, putting them at the top of all pre-code horror comic enthusiasts’ want lists. He brought his evocative storytelling skills (and an almost BASIL WOLVERTON-esque ink line over other artists) to ATLAS/MARVEL horror comics of the 1950s and ’60s, but since Fox never gave an interview, this unique creator remained largely unheralded—until now! Comic art historian ROGER HILL finally tells Fox’s life story, through an informative biographical essay, augmented with an insightful introduction by FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER also showcases all of the artist’s WEIRD TALES covers and interior illustrations, and a special Atlas Comics gallery with examples of his inking over GIL KANE, LARRY LIEBER, and others. Plus, there’s a wealth of other delightfully disturbing images by this grand master of horror—many previously unpublished and reproduced from his original paintings and art—sure to make an indelible imprint on a new legion of fans. NOW SHIPPING! (128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-120-2

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

BY WILL MURRAY I clearly recall the first time I saw a promo for an upcoming NBC TV show. I thought to myself, “Who would watch something called Miami Vice?”

As it turned out, I would!

I didn’t tune in right away. In those days, I wasn’t watching much TV. Months later, I caught a teaser for an upcoming episode so compelling I decided to check it out.

It was a nail-biting hostagerescue piece called “The Maze.” I was hooked.

‘GOLD COAST’ ORIGINS

Miami Vice had its origins in a movie script called Gold Coast written by Anthony Yerkovich of Hill Street Blues fame. The title had to be changed for copyright reasons. But it survived as the name of the Organized Crime Bureau’s cover operation, Gold Coast Shipping Company.

About this time, NBC president Brandon Tartikoff penned his now-famous “napkin” memo: “MTV cops.” The video music cable channel MTV was only three years old.

“I do think you have to be cognizant that there is a whole generation of younger viewers who are not only watching these videos, but who may have been spoiled by the production values,” Tartikoff explained. “So we’re trying to incorporate these devices (LEFT) NBC wherever possible, without destroying executive the integrity of the show.”

Brandon Enter producer-director Michael Tartikoff. IMDb. Mann, whose credits ran from Starsky & (RIGHT) Miami Hutch to Thief.

Vice Executive “What they were looking to me to Producer Michael bring to the show was a very contempoMann. Gage Skidmore/ rary, highly stylized look,” he explained.

Wikimedia Commons.

Yerkovich was fascinated by South Florida’s changing face. The Mariel boatlift brought an influx of Cuban refugees and the drug trade was booming.

Promotional photo and logo for NBC’s Miami Vice, starring Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs. Miami Vice © NBCUniversal.

“I read a statistic that said one-third of the illegal revenues in the United States came out of South Florida,” he noted. “I wanted to explore the changes in a city that used to be a middle-class vacationland.

Today Miami is like an American Casablanca, and it’s never really been on television.”

Learning of asset seizure forfeiture, where the police confiscated ill-gotten gains and used them for undercover work, Yerkovich realized that justified his stars driving high-end cars and wearing high-fashion clothes and Rolex watches.

CASTING CROCKETT, TUBBS, AND COMPANY

The show was designed to explore the lives of a small undercover Miami anti-vice unit, but the star would be James “Sonny” Crockett, a detective who lived on a sailboat with a pet alligator in his double life as a hard-partying ocean guide of questionable means. His partner would be Ricardo Tubbs, a black New York cop who comes to Miami on a personal vendetta.

Casting was critical to the show’s success. Scores of potential Crocketts and Tubbses were auditioned. NBC wanted Nick Nolte or Jeff Bridges. For a time, Larry Wilcox of CHiPs was under serious consideration, as was Mickey Rourke. Countless Black actors were auditioned for the part of Tubbs, Denzel Washington among them; Washington’s career had yet to take off.

Surprisingly, Saundra Santiago was the first actor cast for the series, in the role of Gina Calabrese. Originally, she was Sonny’s steady love interest.

“I was given third billing as the leading lady,” Santiago recalled. “It was supposed to be a part like Veronica Hamel’s on Hill Street Blues.”

Casting Crockett and Tubbs proved tough. A roulette wheel of actors was tested until one pair clicked.

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They belong to the city—of Miami, Florida, the location that was heavily promoted alongside the handsome stars of Miami Vice, Thomas and Johnson. NBC promotional photo from the series’ 1984 launch. © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Heritage.

“I didn’t really want to do TV,” he admitted, “but the money they offered for the pilot was too tempting to pass up.”

Mann borrowed their last names from two hometown cops in Chicago, and it was left up to the actors to flesh out their characters.

“John and I chose the first names of the characters,” said Talbot.

“I picked ‘Stanley’ because I figured Switek is Polish. [He] drinks beer, loves bowling, takes care of his mother, and wants to be a good cop.”

Unlike the leads, they dressed down in Lenny and Squiggy polyester.

“We’re basically there for comedy relief and dress accordingly,” Diehl cheerfully acknowledged. “We’re only there as contrasts to Crockett and Tubbs, meaning that we’ll be written out of the show if we get into Italian designer clothes.”

STYLE MATTERS

One was Don Johnson, the veteran of numerous failed pilots. He happened to be fishing off the Florida coast when his agent called about the audition. Johnson had been filming Ceasefire locally.

But he didn’t want to fly all the way to L.A. in order to meet with Brandon Tartikoff. His agent insisted.

Johnson recalled, “So I went out on back of the deck, and I had a fish on the line at the time. And the fish was tail-walking and spitting and trying to throw the hook and everything. And I said, ‘Well, if I boat this fish, maybe I’ll go.’ And I boated the fish, and it was a really nice sailfish. So I got on the plane that night and went to L.A. and met the next day with Brandon Tartikoff.”

“They thought I was a terrific actor,” remembered Philip Michael Thomas, “but I wasn’t right for the part. I was in the last ten of the Tubbs, and Don was in the last ten of the Crocketts. The magic was there and they saw it… And the rest is history.”

Olivia Brown was next cast, as detective Trudy Joplin.

“When I first got the part,” she recalled, “some of my actor friends were saying that I had to be a character, that I should do something the same every week so it catches on. I started noticing that everyone else was doing that with their characters, but I figured people aren’t really like that, especially someone working undercover. So I decided to make Trudy an emotionally complex person. She’s moody, eclectic. Women are always changing and I try to show her different sides.”

Rounding out the cast were a pair whimsical surveillance experts, Stan Switek and Larry Zito, played by Michael Talbot and John Diehl, respectively. Talbot had been in Michael Mann’s Thief.

Diehl was a reluctant recruit.

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In preparation for the pilot, costume designer Jodi Tillen flew to Italy and came back with Versace jackets and Hugo Boss outfits.

Don Johnson took to throwing these over tropical T-shirts, accidentally triggering a new fashion craze.

“Sonny Crockett was based on my personal experiences with seeing these kinds of dudes around, the drug dealers with big watches, and fancy cars, and so on and so forth,” explained Johnson. “And the function of the heat. It was just so… hot that I put a T-shirt on, no belt, no socks, the lightest-weight shoes I could find. And I pushed the sleeves up on the jacket because it was so hot.”

To this was added a perpetual five o’clock shadow.

“The stubble was born out of the character,” Johnson revealed, “because it was intimated that he had been partying with drug dealers for two or three days at a time.”

The two-hour movie introduced Sonny Crockett, undercover vice cop, and his fellow detectives, all of whom worked under Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez, played by Gregory Sierra.

The catalyst for the show was New York detective Ricardo Tubbs, who comes down to Miami to hunt for a druglord named Esteban Calderone, who murdered his brother. After some initial friction, Crockett and Tubbs team up, but Calderone escapes in a floatplane. Tubbs joins the Miami police force as a vice detective.

It’s universally recognized that the first season of Miami Vice was the best season of the series. Subsequent episodes show them investigating everything from drug dealers to pornography distributors. Yerkovich left early, but Mann soldiered on. It took a few episodes, but a new style of storytelling emerged.

As Johnson explained, “We are using MTV-style video images with rock ’n’ roll music and pop tunes to help enhance and to tell our stories, to highlight the dramatic moments and some of the more emotional moments.”

Episodes were budgeted at $1.3 million. The rundown Art Deco streets of South Beach became the backdrop—after repainting.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

“We’re turning out a movie every week,” quipped Johnson. “From the beginning, we’ve treated Miami like a third star.”

“We take like one-tenth of one percent of the objective reality of Miami, and that’s what we render,” observed Mann. “What we capture is the spirit.”

No one had seen anything like it on television—or anywhere.

Brandon Tartikoff asked Michael Mann what he thought made Miami Vice different.

“He said, ‘No earth tones,’” Tartikoff related. “He said the color is different from everything you see on television. With other action-adventure shows, the producer tells me the storyline. Here, Michael Mann says no earth tones.”

“We want to feel electric,” Mann explained, “and whenever we can, we use pastels that vibrate.”

THE NEW BOSS

A serious hitch came early in production when Gregory Sierra decided he didn’t like living in Miami and asked to be released from his contract. His character was killed off in the fourth episode, falling victim to a bullet meant for Sonny.

Learning that Calderone was behind the hit, Crockett and Tubbs take Sonny’s Chris Craft Stinger powerboat to the Bahamas, where they settle the score. This was not the end of the Calderone saga, which would play out over the next two seasons.

Back in Miami, they meet Rodriguez’s replacement, Lieutenant Martin Castillo, an intense, uptight individual with a penetrating stare and a no-nonsense approach to his job.

As played by Edward James Olmos, Castillo immediately developed into a complicated character.

Subsequent episodes reveal that he has a background with the DEA. This comes out over the course of a two-part episode, “The Golden Triangle,” in which he crosses swords with his old nemesis from Cambodia, General Lao Lee, who has relocated to Miami, bringing

with him Castillo’s former wife—whom Castillo thought was deceased—as “insurance” against prosecution.

Olmos ruffled feathers with his insistence that Castillo be a person who was respected.

“Everyone on the show was accepting of what I was doing, but there were a couple of conflicts,” Olmos said. “Little things, but important things. I wanted Crockett to knock on Castillo’s door, to never just walk into the office. Don didn’t want to do it, said that Sonny didn’t work that way.

“I told the guys, ‘You don’t know Castillo. You don’t know where he came from, what he did for the DEA in Southeast Asia, what he is about,’ There has to be distance. Knocking on the door is important in defining Castillo in the relationship. Don came around, finally.”

This story was followed by “Smuggler’s Blues,” which saw Crockett and Tubbs going to Cartagena, Colombia, piloted by singer Glenn Frey as burnout bush pilot Jimmie Cole. Frey’s song “Smuggler’s Blues” made a perfect Greek chorus for the brutal episode. Mann heard the song on the radio and built the episode around its lyrics.

Philip Michael Thomas was injured shooting a comic story built around Switek and Zito, which also played up two informants who had been previously introduced, Noogie Lamont, played by comedian Charlie Burnett, and Izzy Moreno, really actor Martin Ferrero, who stayed with the series to the end. As a result, Thomas was absent from the next episode, “The Home Invaders.”

(LEFT) Thomas as Tubbs and Johnson as Crockett with their original cop boss, actor Gregory Sierra as Lt. Rodriguez, in a publicity still from Miami Vice’s premiere. (ABOVE) Edward James Olmos, shown at right, soon joined the cast as Lt. Castillo. In this publicity pic from “Sons and Lovers” (original airdate: April 18, 1986), Olmos encounters guest-star Lee Iaccoca, at the time the Chairman of Chrysler. In the center is Miami Vice cast member John Diehl. © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Heritage.

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The season ended with “Lombard,” in which former Chicago detective Dennis Farina played the titular mob boss, who had previously appeared. The episode ended with a strong hint that Al Lombard, who was forced to testify against another crime boss, was about to be hit.

A SLOW BURN

Early ratings were lackluster.

But Miami Vice took off during the summer rerun season, which is where I came in.

Nor was I alone. Not only in becoming a fan but also in being slow off the mark. For a show that became a tremendous hit and a landmark cultural icon, Miami Vice didn’t start catching on until the end of its first season.

During that first year, a balance was struck between Crockett and Tubbs, the latter of whom Michael Mann once called “nobody’s Tonto.”

Mann later acknowledged, “The equivalency lasted most of the first season, but for reasons that had to do with the two actors and one thing or the other, that eroded a little bit.”

The Sonny-Gina relationship soon fell by the wayside under the inevitable necessity of propelling the lead into new romantic entanglements.

“I decided to approach Gina in a kind of offbeat way,” Santiago observed. “I mean, here she slept with Crockett and feels kind of guilty about it because they work together. She likes him, she’s attracted to him, but knows she shouldn’t be involved with him.”

By the time Miami Vice returned on September 27, 1985, everyone, it seemed, was watching it.

“By the beginning of the second season,” recalled Don Johnson, “it had become phenomenally successful. But I didn’t really pay much attention to it. I just sort of kept my head down and kept working. I was the last one to know it was a hit.”

Jan Hammer, who composed the synthesized score and incidental music, became hot in his own right, winning a Grammy for his score. The Miami Vice Soundtrack hit #1 on the Billboard Top Pop album chart. It eventually sold four million copies, going quadruple platinum.

“It was very intense,” he reminisced. “The thing that made it work is that I was given complete artistic freedom. I was not locked into a ‘Miami Vice’ sound. There were weeks when the music was Afro-Cuban, jazz, then experimental electronic, even flat-out rocking. There was no need to worry about consistency. Every week 58

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Eagle-eyed RetroFans will recognize rocker Glenn Frey with Detectives Tubbs and Crockett in this promo photo from “Smuggler’s Blues,” Miami Vice’s 16th episode, first seen on February 1, 1985. (INSET) Frey’s “Smuggler’s Blues” record. IMDb. Miami Vice © NBCUniversal.

was different. I could respond to the songs that were placed in the show. When the score came out of the song, sometimes they almost blended together.”

The producers credited Hammer with saving plot-murky episode 13 with his artful use of incidental music.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Season Two opened with another two-hour episode in which Crockett and Tubbs go to New York to hunt the Revillas brothers, a gang of Colombian criminals who have been murdering Federal agents.

Castillo was supposed to accompany them, but Olmos, ever protective of his character, put his foot down.

“They wanted Castillo to go,” he revealed. “I told them, ‘Send anybody, but don’t send Castillo. He has to stay on the job in Miami.

It’s what he would do.’”

In the denouement, the behind-the-scenes villain is revealed, but he is never seen again, owing to the death of the actor playing the part, Poltergeist II’s Julian Beck.

CELEBRITY APPEARANCES

Dropped threads of continuity continued to be an issue with the series. In “Payback,” an imprisoned drug dealer commits suicide and blames Crockett for stealing some missing money. The episode ends with Crockett’s cover as Sonny Burnett exposed, and the money lost, with its owner, Mario Fuentes, still looking to reclaim it. But the sticky issues were never again addressed because singer Frank Zappa declined to reprise his role.

It was one of many episodes where top musicians and sports figures played significant roles. Automaker Lee Iacocca and Watergate’s G. Gordon Liddy also played parts. Some could act, but a few couldn’t. Singer Jimmy Buffet wrote an episode that never went to camera. The role of a madam was written for Tina Turner, but that didn’t work out either.

In addition to their personal sex appeal, Sonny and Ricardo’s fabulous Eighties fashions helped make Miami Vice “must-see TV.” NBC publicity photo from the episode “Hit List,” originally aired on October 19, 1984. © NBCUniversal.

Courtesy of Heritage.

(LEFT) Tubbs’ police badge prop, once used by Thomas on the series. (RIGHT) A jacket—with Sonny’s trademarked rolled-up sleeves—worn by Johnson on Miami Vice. Both, courtesy of Heritage.

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(THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) Once Miami Vice was a hit, its stars became familiar faces on magazine covers.

The supporting cast fretted about languishing personal storylines.

“During the pilot and first season,” complained Saundra Santiago, “there was Gina’s relationship with Crockett. But this season, that’s kind of gone on hold. Well, what’s Gina been doing all this time? Has she gotten involved with any other men? Is she pining away for Crockett? What? It’s frustrating. I feel like I have no control over the situation.”

John Diehl had his own beef. “Last year Zito’s place burned down and he moved in with Switek and his girlfriend, right? Well, what’s happened since? We never heard. He can’t still be living with them.”

Switek and Zito managed to appear in every episode, but never developed beyond supporting roles.

“Our characters don’t usually push the story along, so no one ever says much to us about what we can, or can’t do,” Diehl 60

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observed. “When I grew my hair long and wore a beard, no one said anything about it. Then, when I cut it off, no one said anything, either.”

“Sons and Lovers” was the season finale.

Someone is targeting Tubbs. It comes out that it’s the son of Calderone, and to complicate matters further, Tubbs learns that he’s the father of a baby boy—the result of his brief tryst with Calderone’s daughter, back in the Bahamas. The episode ends with a by-now predictable bloodbath, in which Tubbs becomes the one who vows to exact revenge upon the surviving Orlando Calderone, who gets away.

THE VICES OF ‘VICE’

Miami Vice took a lot of risks, but also produced a great many memorable episodes, But it also fell into strange ruts. For example, it became a Vice cliché for an episode to climax with a surprise suicide or gut-wrenching shooting of one guest-star by another, Sonny shouting “No!” as the frame froze.

“They have gone to the well too many times with things like slow-motion machine guns.” allowed Brandon Tartikoff.

Despite excellent ratings, Miami Vice started coming under criticism for elevating style over substance and for episodes that made no logical sense.

Art Director Jeffrey Howard addressed this frankly: “I’ve often heard the complaint that the show looks great, but it’s irrational, illogical. Yes, our shows sometimes err in story content. But

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

there is also a deliberate obfuscation of conventional reality, conventional logic, in place of a different kind of message that is communicated purely visually. It’s so much more economical. It taps into switches in the mind that are quicker than the rational thought process. I call it a Kabuki cop show. It communicates through stylizations. It’s the new code.”

Michael Mann took full responsibility, saying, “I’m not interested in form. I’m not even interested in content. I’m only interested in affecting the way people think and feel. Frankly, I think that if we’re not going to get into new ways of telling stories and affecting people’s feelings, then we’re not going to have an audience. People get straight narrative six hours a day on TV.” “There has been criticism of the show, a sense that it wasn’t as good as it was the first season, and the people handling the show have to pay attention to that,” Edward Olmos commented at the time. “We were catapulted last season. Everything happened at an incredible pace. What you have to maintain, if you have something good, is consistency. People get tired of style. On a show like this one, you have to stay with the style, but you have to marry it to the content. There have been a lot of Mod Squads.

“Was last year a fluke?” he asked rhetorically. “No. I don’t think so. But everybody has slacked off. That’s a possibility.”

NBC executive Michael Levine chimed in: “What we do is push it to the limit. We stick our noses out all the time. We’ll probably get it hit once in a while, which we do, but if in fact you back it up with the creativity and the style we have with most of the troops, you win more often than not.”

WHEN SONNY GETS BLUE

The future of Miami Vice, which had seemed certain, fell into doubt when Don Johnson unexpectedly walked off, demanding a better contract. NBC threatened to replace him with Mark Harmon or Treat Williams.

At the eleventh hour, a new deal was struck. It was inevitable. Miami Vice wouldn’t be as hot—or as cool—without the Crockett and Tubbs vibe.

“We have an intuitive relationship,” Philip Michael Thomas asserted. “It’s like we understand each other. I can see Don, and we can communicate without words. That’s the beauty of having a partnership like this. That’s chemistry you won’t find anywhere. It’s alchemy. It’s gold. We have pushed the golden age of television to the platinum age of television.”

“We didn’t really reinvent television,” observed Johnson, “we just contemporized it.”

Season Three was supposed to open with an episode in which Willie Nelson plays a retired Texas Ranger who comes to Miami to settle some personal business, but Johnson’s delayed return held up production so much it wasn’t finished by its intended airdate.

The episode was replaced with “When Irish Eyes are Crying,” starring Liam Neeson as a reformed IRA man with whom Gina becomes involved. Predictably, she is forced shoot him in the climax.

In this episode, Crockett’s black Daytona Ferrari Spyder is destroyed. But he is soon driving a white Ferrari Testarossa.

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Because the Willie Nelson episode was delayed, the old car resurThe season wound up with another story focusing on Gina, faced without explanation when “El Viejo” was finally aired. bringing to light her backstory and the circumstances behind her The look of the show changed radically. Mann decreed that the mother’s murder decades ago in Cuba. tropical pastels were out in favor of a darker palette, and darker storylines. Not everyone liked this evolution.

LAW & DISORDER An important episode was “Forgive Us Our Debts,” in which Producer Dick Wolf was brought in as line producer for this season.

Crockett learns that career criminal Frank Hackman, who is about He has since become famous for the Law & Order franchise. And he to be executed for murdering Crockett’s former partner, may be did what he could with Miami Vice. Inevitably, the show lost a great innocent. Crockett succeeds in freeing the man, only to discover to deal of its original tone and force. One of the reasons was that Wolf his horror that Hackman was guilty all along, and there’s nothing was fond of pulling storylines from the headlines. So here we enter he can do about it. the era of topical Miami Vice This was followed by the episodes. pivotal two-part episode, Through it all, James “Down for the Count,” in Edward Olmos remained which Zito, investigating an intense presence—and fixing in the prizefighting a rarity in television: an business, is murdered. authority figure as myste“I just felt it was time rious and compelling as the for me to bow out,” Diehl action stars. explained. “I felt like my “I watch Castillo with character wasn’t going fascination,” he revealed, anywhere. The loss of my “and I always talk about him character would not be in the third person, as an detrimental to the series. entity away from me. He’s a It wasn’t dire that I’d be lonely man, desperately so. there. And it’s always more He may be the loneliest, the dramatic when one of the most isolated character who regular characters gets it has ever been on television.

Castillo is an awkward man anyway.” in some ways; he works Zito’s death took away hard, is very disciplined, Switek’s only foil and caused works all the time.” his character to drift for the Olmos directed remainder of the series.

“Bushido,” a deep dive into The female cast members Castillo’s murky intelligence also lost some of their past. “Have you ever noticed significance. that his desk is always clean, “I’d like to find out more never has anything on it? He about Gina and the psychowould have to have it that logical things about being way.” a female undercover cop in Season Four was a Miami,” Saundra Santiago bizarre roller coaster that noted. “I’d also like to find opened with “Contempt of out if she has a love life.”

Court,” in which a friend Talk of romantic sparks of Crockett’s is murdered by gangster flying between Castillo and Trudy made the Frank Mosca to prevent him from rounds.

Crockett and Tubbs interrogate a testifying in court.

“I’m looking real forward to it,” said shady character on the cover of MAD Several super-weird episodes Olivia Brown. “I said to USA Today months #261 (Mar. 1986). Cover by the MAD followed, including focusing on UFOs ago I’d like to be the first woman to make dream team of artists Will Elder and “missing time” in which R&B singer Castillo smile. It wouldn’t be a normal and Harvey Kurtzman. MAD TM & © EC James Brown played a role. Another relationship because the guy’s been my Publications, Inc. involved a cryogenically preserved boss.” reggae singer. Tubbs grew a beard and But that storyline was abandoned.

Crockett sported a mullet. Plans to film episodes in Paris and Tokyo The Orlando Calderone story arc finally climaxes when Tubbs were scrapped due to dropping ratings and shrinking budgets. receives a free trip to the Bahamas in “The Afternoon Plane,” a In an obvious bit of stunt casting, singer Sheena Easton was tribute to the classic movie Western High Noon. He finds himself introduced in “Like a Hurricane” as pop singer Caitlin Davies, whom being hunted without allies, other than his girlfriend, on an Crockett is assigned to play bodyguard. Although they don’t get isolated island controlled by his nemesis.

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

along at first, they fall for each other, and, in a plot twist that practically derailed the series with its implausibility, Crockett marries her at episode’s end.

Dick Wolf wanted Brenda Vaccaro for the part, but she had to bow out due to illness. It seemed quite a stretch to distort Crockett’s role in the series, thereby distorting the series itself, which had to twist and turn implausibly to accommodate the new gravitational focus.

Both Frank Mosca and Frank Hackman returned in different episodes, Hackman to get revenge on Crockett for having lost his own girlfriend in a previous gun battle. Predictably, a bullet ends Crockett’s ill-starred marriage.

Shattered, Crockett’s trajectory worsens. In the season finale, “Mirror Image,” a boat-explosion concussion produces amnesia, causing him to think he really is his alter ego, Sonny Burnett.

At this point, it was not clear that Miami Vice would be renewed, and the season ended on a stark note: in a storm-lit dark alley, Tubbs confronts Crockett, who guns him down without a second thought to the tune of Big Pig’s “Money God.” This might have been the way the series ended, but Miami Vice received a reprieve. “Mirror Image” was re-edited to show that Tubbs had been wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the shooting. Now the OCB is determined to hunt down the renegade detective.

The first two episodes of Season Five resolved the Sonny Burnett arc. Against all logic, despite having murdered a rogue cop during his a short-lived crime career, Crockett is restored to duty as a Miami police detective.

What followed was an uneven group of episodes, which included a number of callbacks to earlier seasons. Pam Grier

FAST FACTS

MIAMI VICE f No. of seasons: Five f No. of episodes: 113 f Original run: September 16, 1984–January 25, 1990 f Created by: Anthony Yerkovich f Executive Producer: Michael Mann f Primary cast: Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, Olivia Brown, John Diehl, Michael Talbott, Gregory Sierra, Edward James Olmos f Theme song: “Miami Vice Theme” by Jan Hammer f Network: NBC

SPIN-OFFS AND REMAKES: f Miami Vice (2006 movie remake from director Michael Mann, starring Colin Ferrell as Sonny Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Ricardo Tubbs) returned as Tubbs’ old flame, NYC detective Valerie Gordon, as did Lombard in an episode in which he attempts to convince his son not to go into the family crime business. Dennis Farina had starred in Mann’s Crime Story. When that show was cancelled, he came back virtually from the dead for a final appearance.

Castillo’s wife is seen one last time, along with her new husband, although a different actor played each role.

‘VICE’ IN ‘FREEFALL’

There were problems along the way. Several episodes were filmed without the star, and other cast mates teamed up with Tubbs to get through the obligatory 60 minutes. I remember watching “Borrasca” and feeling that it would have been one of the better later episodes if only Don Johnson spoke his lines instead of Michael Talbott.

Dick Wolf had moved on to launch Law & Order. Although an improvement over the last, this final season Michael Mann’s 2006 was as unsatisfying as cocaine that Miami Vice starred Colin had been cut too many times.

Farrell and Jamie Foxx “The show is trying to reinvent as Crockett and Tubbs, itself,” observed Olivia Brown. Sadly, respectively. © NBC Universal. most episodes played like a deconCourtesy of Heritage. struction of vintage Miami Vice.

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The series finale was titled “Freefall.” Over the course of the season, beginning with the death of Caitlin, Sonny Crockett has been increasingly burning out. Now, the issue comes to a head when he and Tubbs are assigned to protect South American dictator Manuel Borbon, who has inside information about major drug cartels.

But the politics of the situation are complicated, and the two detectives end up in a shoot-out that mirrors the one in which they failed to bring down Calderone’s escaping seaplane in the series pilot.

This time they succeed, but at the cost of their thankless jobs.

Crockett and Tubbs quit, and in a farewell scene with a twist, Crockett is about to drive south of the border to seek work when Tubbs shows up and is invited along. The two partners are last seen hitting the road.

In a callback to Anthony Yerkovich’s original vision for the series, the finale was written with three different endings. In one, both Crockett and Tubbs were killed. In another, only Tubbs loses his life. In the end, the producers went with the third option, a happy ending—of sorts.

Johnson had no regrets. “It’s time to move on to other things,” he stated. “To this point, we’ve told all the Vice stories our writers back in Hollywood can come up with.”

One episode, “Too Much, Too Late,” was never aired by NBC over content issues. Another script, “The Edge,” went unfilmed.

In later years, Don Johnson claimed that NBC had begged him to continue playing Sonny Crockett in any format he wished, such as TV movies, but he just couldn’t continue being the character. After

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five years of playing the hottest guy on TV, he was burnt out—just like Sonny himself.

Some 20 years later, Michael Mann directed a Miami Vice theatrical movie, which unfortunately bombed. Like many fans of the TV show, I went to see it but the film left me cold. However, on subsequent revisits, I have warmed up to the 2006 version, which starred Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as Crockett and Tubbs and recycled the classic episode, “Smuggler’s Blues.”

Mann wanted Edward James Olmos back as Lieutenant Castillo to oversee two young new vice detectives. When Olmos declined, the filmmaker elected to do a strict remake, recasting the original characters.

Rumors of TV revivals have abounded in recent years, with Vin Diesel and Don Johnson, separately headlining. All have fizzled out.

As much as I’d like to see a new incarnation of Miami Vice, we’ll have to settle for the original. And that’s not a bad thing at all.

Amazingly, nearly 40 years later, the unshaven look popularized

by Don Johnson is still with us. Even Superman sports it in the person of Tyler Hoechlin on the CW. 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.

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

PART 4

BY ANDY MANGELS From 1973 to 1983 on ABC-TV Saturday mornings, the Super Friends series had gone through numerous title changes, two cancellations, and tonal changes that seemed multiversal—not to mention having an entire season animated but never aired in the United States! DC’s pantheon of Justice League members—Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, aided by the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, with their space monkey, Gleek— seemed as if retirement might be coming for them as they exited the air in Fall 1983.

But DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera Productions weren’t quite ready to let their super-heroic cash cow go, and with the help of a toy company, 1984 looked promising for a fresh new look at the venerable series…

In the previous three issues, we examined the first decade of Super Friends (SuperFriends in some incarnations), ABC’s 13-year Saturday morning hit. And now read on as Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning wraps up your guide to the longest-running animated super-hero series ever!

THEY ALSO HAD ‘THE POWER’

In 1982, toy company Mattel introduced a line of musclebound action heroes that combined barbarian action with sciencefiction and magic. The Masters of the Universe line saw the adventures of He-Man and his fellow heroes fighting against Skeletor and his evil cronies, for control of Eternia. The toy line was a massive hit, jolted into the stratosphere with Filmation’s He-Man and the

Masters of the Universe animated series, which debuted in the fall of 1983 with a five-day-a-week schedule. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #22 for a Masters of the Universe history.]

Suddenly, every toy company was looking for its own franchise that could turn kids into piggy banks, leading to toy lines and syndicated series for Inspector Gadget, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Transformers, and eventually Thundercats, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Jem, and dozens of others.

Kenner Products was still producing the popular Star Wars line of action figures, but with no new movies on the horizon, that line was dying. In 1982, they approached DC with a pitch to get the master toy license. Mego Corporation had been producing DC character eight-inch dolls for most of the Seventies, but they closed their offices and declared bankruptcy in 1982. Kenner competed against Mattel for the DC master license—except for DC’s barbarian figures Warlord, Arak, and Hercules, concurrently being produced by Remco—but Kenner did a massive presentation, utilizing DC Style Guide art by José Luis García-López and pitching at least three years’ of figures, as well as playsets and action vehicles.

Cover to Kenner’s pitch for a DC character master toy license (competing against Mattel) which was ultimately successful. TM & © DC Comics.

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Kenner repainted a Star Wars figure as Captain Marvel (Shazam!) and attached him to a rod device to simulate flying, repainted some of their Glamour Gals dolls to resemble Wonder Woman and Supergirl, and added a wheel in a Mego Pocket Heroes Batman that allowed him to punch. This latter was crucial to Kenner’s presentation as they wanted the emphasis on the line to be that each hero had a “Super Powers Feature” that would enhance kids’ play. A line of girls’ 12-inch fashion dolls was also planned, as well as a line of “Super Jrs.” baby toys and a “Micro Collection” with die-cast features, as Kenner had done with Star Wars.

Kenner was awarded the license, but the new line—titled “Super Powers Collection”—wouldn’t be ready until Spring 1984. This gave DC time to go to Hanna-Barbera with the news, and for the animation company to pitch their old pals at ABC. In quick succession, a new SuperFriends series was ordered to tie in with the toys.

‘SUPERFRIENDS: THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWERS SHOW’

(ABOVE) Title card to Hanna-Barbera’s SuperFriends: The For this season of SuperFriends, a secondary title was added, to Legendary Super Powers Show. (BELOW) The fearsome and tie in to the toy line. Thus was born SuperFriends: The Legendary power-mad Darkseid (LEFT) and his cruel, brutish son Super Powers Show. The opening titles featured new music by Hoyt Kalibak stand before a “Star Gate” encircled by sparkly Curtin, with an announcer only repeating the title at the end. The lights. TM & © DC Comics. sequence featured an animated short of the various DC heroes fighting a giant robot and the evils of Darkseid, Brainiac, Luthor, DeSaad, and Kalibak. The sequence also featured the introduction of new hero character Firestorm (who had appeared in the comics since 1978), as well as showcasing Wonder Woman’s new bodice, emblazoned with a WW symbol (which she had adopted in 1982).

Oddly, although both were featured in the opening, Aquaman and the Flash never appeared in this season at all, and the opening featured old designs for Lex Luthor and Brainiac that didn’t correspond to their new toy looks (based on new comic designs by George Pérez and Ed Hannigan).

SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show debuted on September 8, 1984, with a two-part story called “The Bride of Darkseid.” In it, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World villain and his grotesque son Kalibak used their “Star Gates” (known in comics as Boom Tubes) to teleport from Apokolips to Earth to capture Transmuted from Wonder Woman, upon whom Darkseid the comics page to developed a crush. The Justice Leaguers, television, Firestorm meanwhile, met Firestorm, a young hero could change the who could transmute matter, and who was components of any really a teen boy named Ronnie Raymond, inorganic matter. He fused with the mind of Professor Raymond was secretly student Stein.

Ronnie Raymond, with “Darkseid was a difficult character to the mind of Professor get past Broadcast Standards at that time,” Martin Stein linked in! said writer Alan Burnett. “When they saw TM & © DC Comics.

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Writer Alan Burnett.

Darkseid (LEFT) encounters the more fearsomelooking new style Brainiac. (INSET) Animation model sheet of the old style Brainiac. TM & © DC Comics.

the initial drawings of him they were, ‘Oh, this is much too scary for our audience’... The biggest fight we had was getting his name accepted… Darkseid, with the spelling being S-E-I-D… they thought it was going to offend their German viewers! So they refused to allow us to use the name… I am told that that question about the spelling of his name actually went to the President of ABC to decide!”

Fellow writer John Semper stressed the frustration with Standards. “From the moment you had an idea for a cartoon, the entire process in a way was just a giant beatdown. It was, ‘Let’s see how many ways we can find to take the life out of what it is you’re writing and trying to bring to the screen.’”

Viewers of the season saw changes all throughout: Although the episode title cards still featured Wonder Woman’s eagle bodice, they also now featured writer’s credits; the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna—with Gleek—were in only a trio of stories; and the so-called “ethnic” heroes of color—Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Samurai, and El Dorado—featured far more regularly.

Green Lantern got one cameo appearance, but previous teammates such as Atom,

Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and Rima the Jungle Girl were nowhere to be seen.

Semper talked about the ethnic characters on the DVD set.

“Everything the network did was very ham-fisted. There was nothing subtle about anything they did. So consequently, just as you got ham-fisted plots and kind of ham-fisted handling of super-heroes, you got this sort of brute force injection of ethnic characters into SuperFriends… Are the characters sort of ludicrous and ridiculous? Yes. Are they at a disadvantage because we don’t know their backstory, they don’t have backstories? Of course.

Really all that they were, were cartoon character versions of ethnicities.”

More DC villains did appear, including Flash villain Mirror Master and Superman foe Mr. Mxyzptlk, and clear stand-ins for

(INSET) Writer John Semper.

(RIGHT) (LEFT TO RIGHT) Batman, Superman, and Firestorm with two heroes of color: El Dorado and Black Vulcan.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Superman unhappily becomes Superbaby thanks to the 5th Dimensional imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk.

TM & © DC Comics.

The Flash villain Mirror Master sees himself in a mirror. TM & © DC Comics.

Lex Luthor, wearing his new style armor, surrounded by security guards. TM & © DC Comics.

Lois Lane (LEFT) and (RIGHT) Clark Kent (who is secretly Superman).

TM & © DC Comics.

Writer Glen Leopold.

Toyman (Dollmaker) and Penguin (Robber Baron).

Alter egos Clark Kent and Diana Prince made rare appearances, as did their respective paramours, Lois Lane and Steve Trevor. “The Super Friends are so powerful that you have to find ways to give them Achilles heels,” said writer Glen Leopold about “The Wrath of Brainiac” on a DVD commentary track. “Obviously, having mind control is one way, and in this case, having those evil android duplicates where you really sucker the Super Friends into thinking they’re working with—kinda like Survivor—they think they’re working with their buddies, and then, they’re being played... You really need big, big super-villains when you have an alliance of Super Friends.”

The voice cast remained largely the same, with two major exceptions, courtesy of voice director Gordon Hunt, who had been with the series since 1980. TV’s beloved Adam West took over voicing Batman from Olan Soule, and Shannon Farnon was replaced as the voice of Wonder Woman by Connie Cawlfield.

“Having Adam West was kind of like have George Reeves doing the voice of your Superman cartoon,” said writer Glen Leopold. “He was Batman, for all intents and purposes.”

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Farnon said in an interview with the website Polar Blair’s Den that “A new director came in, auditioned his own people, and his lady friend got the job (she is a terrific voice person by the way). That was difficult for me due to the fact that they also called me in to ‘audition’ for the role I’d already done for [ten] years.” Farnon may have gotten her timeline mixed, as the following season’s Wonder Woman voice actress, B. J. Ward, later married the aforementioned Hunt in 1995. Or, it’s possible that Hunt liked the voiceover ladies…

Cawlfield has a slightly different take on the story, telling Marc Tyler Nobleman that “There were 300 women that auditioned for the part and the network in New York picked my voice as one of five called back. They said that they liked the crinkle in my voice.

So I was chosen.” Either way, Cawlfield recorded most of her lines without the rest of the cast, on Mondays, as she was doing a play in Las Vegas at the time and it was her only day off.

Mark L. Taylor got the part of Firestorm by auditioning. “A very dear friend, Ginny McSwain, who went to college with my wife and me, was the casting director at Hanna-Barbera,” he told the Noblemania website. “Knowing Ginny helped get me in the door, I guess, but I had worked at Hanna-Barbera before.”

Writer John Semper was quite familiar with the DC characters from reading comics as a child. “That was one of the reasons

andy mangels’ retro Saturday morning

While Hanna-Barbera was notorious for cost-cutting and limited animation, their backgrounds could be quite well done, such as here, as the Daily Planet building towers over the Metropolis skyline. (RIGHT) An unexpected line-up of iconic structures from the episode “The Curator.” (BELOW) A bank of “modern” computers. TM & © DC Comics.

why I very much wanted to work on the show,” he said on a DVD commentary track for “No Honor Among Thieves.” The episode’s original title was “The Luthor-Darkseid Conspiracy,” and originally featured Robin instead of El Dorado. “Production concerns dictated that you could only use so many heroes per episodes and they were definitely trying to boost the ethnic characters at that time, because that was kind of a mandate that the network was under.”

As for working on the show, Semper recalled production restrictions that even affected the animated movement. “Interestingly enough, when you would write these things, because it was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, you always thought in terms of moving from side-to-side, left-to-right, right-to-left... We’ve got the traditional Hanna-Barbera panning background that goes all the way back to The Flintstones... You had to think in terms of production, and making it as inexpensive as possible. As I’m looking at this, I’m noticing all the things that make a Hanna-Barbera cartoon look like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, like no shadowing, the effects are very simple little animated sparkles... radiating, wiggling red lines... This is what we have come to think of as a kind of a Hanna-Barbera look; the effects are just very simple, and very crude...”

Each episode of Legendary Super Powers Show featured two 11-minute segments, with two two-part stories and 12 individual tales. Unlike previous seasons, no Safety or Craft Tips were created.

After the initial eight episodes aired, ABC utilized two shows

Samurai and the Wonder Twins flash a “Hanna-Barbera look.” TM & © DC Comics.

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from the previous “lost” season of SuperFriends (not aired in the United States) to give viewers a few more new stories. The aired episodes included: “Mxyzptlk’s Revenge/Rollercoaster/Once Upon A Poltergeist” and “The Krypton Syndrome/Invasion of the Space

Dolls/Terror on the Titanic.” The series continued with reruns until August 31, 1985.

‘THE SUPER POWERS TEAM: GALACTIC GUARDIANS’

By the time that work on the eight half-hours of SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show had concluded, Hanna-Barbera and ABC were already planning what to do with the next season. The Kenner toy line was a hit, and as kids were now comfortable with the Super Powers name, the decision was made to drop the “Friends” part of the title completely. The new season for Fall 1985 would now be called The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.

FAST FACTS

TM & © DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

SUPERFRIENDS: THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWERS SHOW f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: Eight f Original run: September 8, 1984–August 31, 1985 f Studio: Hanna-Barbera f Network: ABC

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Dick Tufeld: Announcer f Bill Woodson: Narrator f Danny Dark: Superman f Adam West: Batman f Casey Kasem: Robin, Mirror Master f Connie Cawlfield: Wonder Woman f B. J. Ward: Jayna f Michael Bell: Zan, Gleek f Michael Rye: Apache Chief, Green Lantern f Jack Angel: Samurai f Buster Jones: Black Vulcan f Fernando Escandon: El Dorado f Mary McDonald-Lewis: Lois Lane f Olan Soule: Professor Martin Stein f Mark Taylor: Ronald Raymond/Firestorm f René Auberjonois: DeSaad f Stanley Ralph Ross: Brainiac f Stan Jones: Lex Luthor f Frank Welker: Darkseid, Kalibak, Mister Mxyzptlk f Also featuring James Avery, Gregg Berger, Arthur Burghardt, Howard Caine, Patrick Fraley, Liz Georges, Mickey McGowan 70

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Super-strangeness: (TOP) Wonder Woman is a dinosaur in “The Island of Dinosaurs.”

(CENTER) Batman is on to something big in “The Case of the Shrinking Superfriends.”

And speaking of shrinkage, (BOTTOM) Superman endures that troublesome imp yet again in “Uncle Mxyzptlk.” TM & © DC Comics.

andy mangels’ retro Saturday morning

There were more changes than just the name. Aquaman, Flash, and El Dorado returned (albeit briefly), as did Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Samurai, but Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Zan, Jayna, and Gleek were all gone, never to be mentioned again. Most noticeably, the Hall of Justice was drastically redesigned, losing its original look, dated computer-wall interiors—and it moved to Metropolis!

A major new character was introduced in Cyborg, an African-American creation of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez for the ultra-popular New Teen Titans comic series. As Kenner was introducing Cyborg to the toy line—and planned to do a Titans wave of the Super Powers figures—he made sense, and he brought more diversity and youth to the series. Hanna-Barbera had already

done development on a potential New Teen Titans series for ABC in late 1983 (see BACK ISSUE #122 from TwoMorrows), and created animation for some New Teen Titans anti-drug commercials, so they decided to bring Cyborg over into the Galactic Guardians series. Even the exact same character design was utilized.

The debut episode, “The Seeds of Doom,” was written by animation and comic scribe Alan Burnett. It was relatively faithful to the Cyborg origin, although all Titans lore was omitted. Victor Stone was a promising decathlon athlete, but when an accident destroyed much of his body, his scientist father repaired him with bionic and cybernetic parts. Introduced in the show while helping a young disabled boy learn to walk with a mechanical leg, Cyborg aided the heroic team to fight Lex Luthor. Offered a spot on the

Promo art for The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians. TM & © DC Comics.

(LEFT) Cover to model sheets for Galactic Guardians.

(RIGHT) The new Hall of Justice replaced (BELOW) the older, iconic version. TM & © DC Comics.

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team, Cyborg refused, but he later helped the heroes fight against a plot by Darkseid. Changing his mind, Cyborg became one of the Super Powers team members.

Voiced by Ernie Hudson (best known for 1984’s Ghostbusters), Cyborg appeared in eight of the ten stories for Galactic Guardians’ eight episodes. In a 2012 interview on tv.avclub.com, Hudson said of his first voiceover job that “Cyborg was a fun character. I love doing voiceover, because it’s a different talent. There are different chops involved if you do it right. It’s acting, but it’s just different.

I loved working on Cyborg, and I did some guest spots on Batman and different things. But after Ghostbusters came out, my wife and I decided to leave the area, and it was hard getting into town.”

Cyborg eventually did have a Kenner toy, although his toy only appeared as the line ended, and is thus difficult to obtain.

Everything about Galactic Guardians looked stronger than previous seasons, as the animators more closely emulated García-López’s DC Style Guide art. “The Alex Toth designs that they had earlier [on previous SuperFriends shows] had the advantage of simplicity,” said series writer Rich Fogel. “They were real easy to draw and almost anybody could draw them, whereas the new designs had a lot more modeling, a lot more musculature, and that’s real hard to draw in motion… They had been doing SuperFriends for a while, and I think DC in particular felt that they’d like to bring it more in line with what was going on in the comic books.” More dynamic art, better animation, and olderskewing stories were supported not only by DC, but by Kenner. “All

The newest member of the team, Cyborg, is ready for action. TM & ©

A beefier (and harder to draw and animate) Superman muscles the skies of Metropolis.

TM & © DC Comics.

Darkseid addresses our heroes in the redesigned Hall of Justice. (INSET) Writer Rich Fogel. TM & © DC Comics.

DC Comics.

(LEFT) His model sheet. (BELOW) His hard-to-get Super Powers figure. TM & © DC Comics. Toy courtesy of Heritage.

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Batman mourns in “The Death of Superman.”

FAST FACTS

TM & © DC Comics.

of these elements came together to make a little bit of a tougher show,” said writer Alan Burnett, “and a show that would sell toys.”

For once, Standards & Practices began to loosen their noose-like grip on the series. This resulted in stories that were more dramatic and grown-up than normal, including an episode called “The Death of Superman” which imagined what would happen if the Man of Steel were killed. This episode featured multiple cameos, including Flash and El Dorado, and it would be the final time that the original core Super Friends team was seen together onscreen.

Speaking of comic books, DC Comics utilized the toy line and animated series to cue up a trio of Super Powers miniseries. The first two Super Powers series—respectively five and six issues each and released in Fall 1984 and Fall 1985—were drawn by none other than comics master Jack Kirby! A third four-part series was released in 1986, but it was clearly a cash-grab.

Some comic-book elements were featured from Justice League of America books and others, including villains such as Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Joker, Royal Flush Gang, Scarecrow, wizard Felix Faust, Penguin, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and Bizarro. Darkseid’s screeching Parademons (called “Para-Drones” so as not to offend parents) made their first appearances. Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was shown—complete with giant yellow key—while Wonder Woman’s boots gained the white stripe that had previously been seen in comics and the live-action TV series. The creators also worked in

THE SUPER POWERS TEAM: GALACTIC GUARDIANS f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: Eight f Original run: September 7, 1985–September 6, 1986 f Studio: Hanna-Barbera f Network: ABC

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Dick Tufeld: Announcer f Bill Woodson: Narrator f Danny Dark: Superman, Bizarro f Adam West: Batman f Casey Kasem: Robin f B. J. Ward: Wonder Woman f William Callaway: Aquaman f Michael Rye: Green Lantern, Joe Chill f Jack Angel: Flash, Hawkman, Samurai f Ernie Hudson: Cyborg f Ken Sansom: Professor Martin Stein f Mark Taylor: Firestorm f Darryl Hickman: Steve Trevor f Paul Kirby: Thomas Wayne f Lucy Lee: Martha Wayne f Andre Stojka: Scarecrow, Alfred Pennyworth f René Auberjonois: DeSaad f Stanley Ralph Ross: Brainiac f Stan Jones: Lex Luthor f Frank Welker: Darkseid, Kalibak, the Joker, Mister Mxyzptlk, Parademons f Peter Cullen: Felix Faust f Robert Morse: The Penguin f Also featuring James Avery, Gregg Berger, Arthur Burghardt, Howard Caine, Patrick Fraley, Liz Georges, Mickey McGowan, Eugene Williams Super Powers comic-book miniseries: (LEFT) Vol. 1 in 1984 ran five issues. Cover by Jack Kirby and Mike Thibodeaux.

(RIGHT) Vol. 2 in 1985 ran six issues. Cover by Kirby and Greg Theakston. TM & © DC Comics.

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andy mangels’ retro Saturday morning

(CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT) The Penguin, Bizarro No. 1, and the Joker.

TM & © DC Comics.

Wonder Women prepares to wield her magic lasso. TM & © DC Comics.

(TOP) A familiar 1984 ad from the back of a DC comic book featuring the core Super Powers line of action figures from Kenner. (ABOVE) 1985 Darkseid figure with Raging Motion action. TM & © DC Comics.

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the TV “Wonder Spin” a few times, and one sequence seemed to be traced from a Lynda Carter credit scene!

Speaking of the Amazing Amazon, she also got another new voice actress, B. J. Ward. “The thing I did like about Wonder Woman is, I liked the costume,’” says Ward. “She was always this very tall, well-built, macho kind of gal, and there weren’t a lot of those kind of female roles… I liked that Wonder Woman had a really nice outfit. [laughs] You know, we’d all be sitting there in our sweatsuits, and our jeans, and funny T-shirts, and be playing these big super-heroes. It’s really a fun lifestyle. You don’t have to dress up or wear make-up.”

But the biggest comic-book element of all was groundbreaking.

In an episode called “The Fear,” written by Alan Burnett, Batman’s origin was shown for the first time ever outside of comics! Through two movie serials, three seasons of the live-action TV series, and two different animated series, viewers had never seen criminal Joe Chill murder Thomas and Martha Wayne in Crime Alley, precipitating the event that would turn orphaned young Bruce Wayne into becoming the Batman. This episode saw Batman face his demons thanks to the Fear Transmitters of the Scarecrow. The episode also featured the first appearances on the series of Commissioner Gordon and butler Alfred Pennyworth, as well as the only time that Batman and Robin appeared as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson!

“That actually began as a pilot for Batman,” said writer Alan Burnett on the DVD set. “A whole separate series.” Burnett adapted his script for Super Powers, but ran into Standards issues. “You cannot show people dying on Saturday morning. You especially can’t

andy mangels’ retro Saturday morning

show parents die on Saturday morning!” Burnett and the animators also couldn’t use a gun, or even reference one, though Joe Chill does tell the Wayne’s “This is a stick-up!” Right before Bruce Wayne is about to say the word “gun,” lightning flashes and thunder rumbles, drowning out his words and the sound of the shots. Unlike later near-fetishistic scenes in live-action Batman films, the broken pearl necklace and the sprawled bodies of the dead Waynes are never seen.

Burnett’s script for “The Fear” was so well regarded that several years later, when Batman: The Animated Series was in development, he was suggested to come aboard the project based on others’ memories of that story. Burnett would go on to write and produce not only for that series, but for Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, The Batman, Justice League Unlimited, Krypto the Superdog, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Justice League Action, and many DC direct-to-DVD projects!

“Super Powers: Galactic Guardians was about as far as you could take super-heroes on Saturday morning television,” said Burnett.

“These shows were the harbinger of super-hero shows later on. So I look on Galactic Guardians as the last part of an era, and something else at that time is starting to open up to what we’re doing today.”

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians debuted on September 7, 1985, with eight half-hour episodes. Six of these were full-length stories, while two shows contained a pair each of shorter tales.

Gone were the old-style orange-red title cards, replaced by a sleek new racing-stripe-and-running heroes motif. The final rerun of Galactic Guardians aired on September 6, 1986, bringing to a close a 13-year legacy of heroism.

THE LEGACY OF ‘SUPER FRIENDS’ AND ‘SUPER POWERS’

(TOP) Title card for “The Fear,” perhaps the best-remembered story of the entire Galactic Guardians run. (ABOVE) Family butler Alfred comforts young Bruce Wayne after his parents have been murdered, a first for a children’s super-hero animated show. TM & © DC Comics.

Both Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers and Super Powers: Galactic Guardians have been collected on DVD.

Fans looking to watch any or all of these incarnations of Super Friends have a few options, and they are (99%) complete! SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show was released in a two-disc DVD set on August 7, 2007. The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on October 23, 2007.

The two 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. Whether these hi-def versions will ever be released on Blu-ray—or in complete form—is unknown at this writing, but for now, fans at least have choices.

In the years since 1986, the SuperFriends and Super Powers shows have rarely left the air, thanks to syndication, eventually airing on USA Network, Cartoon Network, and elsewhere. Elements from the series have popped up regularly in the comics: the Hall of Justice is almost always used as the Earthbound headquarters of the Justice League; Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog and Zan, Jayna, and Gleek have all appeared in various stories; the Wonder Twins recently got their own well-reviewed maxiseries; and even characters such as Samurai, Apache Chief, El Dorado, and Black Vulcan have shown up in comic stories!

The Super Friends got a short new animated story in 2010, to tie in with a new toy line from Fisher Price’s Imaginext line, and dozens of kid’s books and activity books have since been produced using these designs, or other cartoon-based looks. From May 2008 to September 2010, DC published 29 issues of an Imaginext-inspired

TM & © DC Comics.

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andy mangels’ retro Saturday morning

(LEFT) DC Super Friends #1 (May 2008).

Cover art

by J. Bone.

(ABOVE) DC Super Friends: The Joker’s Playhouse Fisher Price imaginext DVD. (RIGHT) Super Powers! comic book (June 2017).

Cover by Art Baltazar. TM & © DC Comics.

Super Friends series. In 2017, a new Super Powers miniseries was launched for six issues.

DC’s later animated projects have included the Hall of Justice and the Legion of Doom, including Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!, The LEGO Batman Movie, and the recent Harley Quinn series. The unreleased Scooby-Doo and Krypto, Too! animated feature—which was leaked online in Spring 2023—not only takes place largely at the Hall of Justice, but artwork from the SuperFriends series is used all throughout the tale.

Even DC’s live-action properties have done homages to the animated legend. The Wonder Twins were guests on an episode of Smallville, while the CW’s Arrowverse shows were rife with references. On Supergirl, the small team of heroes that help the Girl of Steel call themselves “The Super Friends” regularly, and the CW heroes eventually gathered—during multi-show crossover events—in a S.T.A.R. Labs base that looked suspiciously like the Hall of Justice. In one scene, an empty cage was shown labeled “Gleek.” And on the Legends of Tomorrow series, a cadre of villains were called “Legion of Doom.”

For hardcore collectors, not only has DC and its licensors released Super Friends action figures, maquettes, and eight-inch dolls over the last several decades, but in 2022, McFarlane Toys began producing new Super Powers toys and playsets.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this in-depth four-part trip down memory lane with Super Friends and Super Powers. As the longest-running super-hero show ever produced, we here at RetroFan felt it deserved a bit more love, and a few more heaping bowls of Saturday morning cereal!

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We’ll see you in the next issue of RetroFan as we take a second annual look at some fun network advertisements for Saturday morning schedules!

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 For those who want a real deep dive into 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.

They are available on Amazon.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He wrote the bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and has written six Fractured Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior High audiences, released by Abdo Books in 2021. He is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King, 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 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com

THE

CHARLTON COMPANION

by JON B. COOKE

An ALL-NEW definitive history of Connecticut’s notorious all-in-one comic book company! Often disparaged as a second-rate funny-book outfit, Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by DICK GIORDANO in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of STEVE DITKO and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers—and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom. From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including GIORDANO, DENNIS O’NEIL, ALEX TOTH, SANHO KIM, TOM SUTTON, PAT BOYETTE, NICK CUTI, JOHN BYRNE, MIKE ZECK, JOE STATON, SAM GLANZMAN, NEAL ADAMS, JOE GILL, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for ALAN MOORE’s cross-media graphic novel hit, WATCHMEN. By JON B. COOKE with MICHAEL AMBROSE & FRANK MOTLER. NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0

THE

TEAM-UP COMPANION

by RetroFan’s MICHAEL EURY

THE TEAM-UP COMPANION examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics— DC’s THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and DC COMICS PRESENTS, Marvel’s MARVEL TEAM-UP and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, plus other team-up titles, treasuries, and treats—in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes. Go behind the scenes of your favorite team-up comic books with specially curated and all-new creator recollections from NEAL ADAMS, JIM APARO, MIKE W. BARR, ELIOT R. BROWN, NICK CARDY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE GERBER, STEVEN GRANT, BOB HANEY, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, PAUL LEVITZ, RALPH MACCHIO, DENNIS O’NEIL, MARTIN PASKO, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other all-star writers and artists who produced the team-up tales that so captivated readers during the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s. By BACK ISSUE and RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY. (272-page SOFTCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7 • NOW SHIPPING!

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The Future of Pop History.

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Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation Publication Title: RetroFan Publication Number: 2576-7224 Filing Date: June 22, 2023 Issue Frequency: Bi-monthly Number of Issues Published Annually: 6 Annual Subscription Price: $73 Address of Known Office of Publication and General Business Office of Publisher: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Contact Person: John Morrow Telephone: 919-449-0344 Editor: Michael Eury, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562 Publisher and Managing Editor: John Morrow, TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Owner: John Morrow, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders: None Issue Date for Circulation Data: May 2023 Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 6067 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 6900 Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 338 (2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 0

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John Morrow, publisher

is one that immediately comes to mind. Check out the Kawasaki Motorcycle jingle on YouTube, please.

I’m still enjoying each issue of RetroFan magazine.

If you want to have articles about the homegrown hosts, that is fine with me. I am interested in what has happened in the past even if it was not in my lifetime.

Thanks for making it such a great magazine.

SUSAN SMITH

A couple of additions to issue #23: Page 7 mentions Bounty Bars. These were around for decades in the U.K. before their 1989 launch in the U.S. and are still popular and available. Mounds [candy bars] have never been produced in or for the U.K. market.

Page 69. Oddly, as far as I know, Shadow Chasers was never broadcast in the U.K. despite the presence of Trevor Eve, who had previously had a top-ten show in 1979–1980 with the detective drama Shoestring. Shoestring was an excellent series which was cancelled as Eve no longer wanted to do it. After Shadow Chasers, Eve did a lot more U.K. TV and was at one time reputedly the highest paid actor in British TV for Waking the Dead, which ran from 2000 to 2011.

IAN MILLSTED

Thought I’d let you know that I enjoy your magazine. In response to your column question about “homegrown hosts,” I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be particularly interested in that topic (far too narrow interest-wise, I think).

I’m wondering if you’ve ever reached out to any of the following people for interviews?

Mark Slade (High Chaparral) Michael Cole (Mod Squad) Luke Halpin (Flipper) Lee Horsley (Matt Houston) Kent McCord (Adam-12) Jay North (Dennis the Menace and Maya) Gary Conway and Stefan Arngrim (Land of the Giants) Ben Murphy (Alias Smith and Jones) ROSEMARY TARANTINO That’s a great list of potential interview subjects, Rosemary, and no, we haven’t yet contacted any of them for interviews. Hopefully we’ll be able to include them in future features in the magazine.

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I love your magazine! It’s the best out there! Nothing else covers as much as you do in every issue.

I only have a few constructive criticisms [re RetroFan #20]. I felt Andy Mangels’ Lone Ranger article was a little harsh regarding the 1966 cartoon. As the proud owner of 66 of the 72 episodes (via bootleg tapes/DVD), I can say there were no dinosaurs in any episodes as Mr. Mangels alleges. Monsters? Well, in one episode, bad guys wore frog masks. Is this what Mr. Mangels was referring to? Could you name another Sixties network cartoon where, in some instances, human characters died? Again, Mr. Mangels doesn’t mention this…

I love Mission: Impossible [RetroFan #25]. Thanks for the Lynda Day George interview. For the record, the IMF member that Sam Elliot played was called Dr. Doug Lang, not Danny Ryan. Greenberger mentions Leonard Nimoy was approached to direct a Mission: Impossible reunion but declined. The late Starlog magazine reported decades ago that Leonard Nimoy had been signed to reprise his role as Paris for an NBC reunion movie. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

As a 60-year-old Baby Boomer, I never saw the appeal of Leave It to Beaver [RetroFan #24]. “Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver” never sounded realistic. Generally, I loved family sitcoms. Which brings me to a suggestion.

Rather than another Beaver article (not looking forward to the rumored Lumpy Rutherford and his father retrospective), how about forgotten family sitcoms? Ozzie and Harriet, the early years? Nanny and the Professor? The Courtship of Eddie’s Father? How about an article on the mystery of the TV show Please Don’t Eat the Daisies? The show ran for two years and was in syndication for years. Reruns disappeared in the late Seventies in the New York City area. The show never made it to videotape, DVD, or Blu-ray. Some episodes did appear on YouTube but have all been removed. Sounds like a possible article?

I did not remember the possible precursor TV show to The X-Files [Shadow Chasers]. I know it was short-lived. If you ever want to do more short-lived TV shows, how about Cliffhangers from 1979? The Logan’s Run TV show? The curse of Friday night science-fiction TV shows (not counting Incredible Hulk)? Even The X-Files vacated Friday nights.

Thank you so much for the Lost in Space and Dark Shadows multiple-issue articles!

Keep up the great work!

JOHN HOWARTH P.S. Sometimes you present an article that screams for a sequel article. Commercial Jingles

John, Forgotten Family Sitcoms is a great idea for an article! Another one just came to mind: Apple’s Way. They even did a ViewMaster of that. I’ll see if we can match this assignment to the right writer.

I remember Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (although I admit I remember it being on but not much about the show itself). Ditto.

If the earworm-suffering Scott Saavedra is up for a Commercial Jingles sequel, we’ll do it!

Your Lone Ranger comments were shared with Andy Mangels, who offers the following reply: Thanks for reading! While I have been wrong before, and am happy to admit it, the very first episode of The Lone Ranger includes “Crack of Doom,” in which Tonto encounters what appears to be a Tyrannosaurus rex and a pterodactyl. I mean, he doesn’t call them “dinosaurs” (he calls the T-Rex a “monster”), but they certainly appear to be. As for monsters, I didn’t go through all 66 episodes I also have *again* (though I did for the article), but Tonto fights a giant “Lizard God” in “The Sacrifice” and a “Tree Army” in “Forest of Death.” I think those both qualify as monsters (see screen caps below).

Sorry I didn’t mention deaths, but a show that preceded The Lone Ranger was rife with death: 1964–1965’s The Adventures of Jonny Quest!

Lone Ranger weirdness: a Lizard God and a Tree Army. © Universal.

According to a well-researched blog post, the series had a human body count of 145 deaths! http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/2017/01/ jonny-quest-body-count.html ANDY MANGELS

All of the articles in RetroFan #25 were great fun to read. One of the standouts was Mark Voger’s look at DC’s Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis comic books. I always pick them up at comic shops and conventions when I see them, but they are difficult to find. They are densely packed with goofy humor, often with at least one funny line per panel. I’d love to see both of these series repackaged in trade paperbacks, and I know many older fans would agree with that. I don’t know if it’s an issue with licensing agreements with the comedians’ estates, or simply that both entertainers are no longer relevant. I just know they were funny stories and I’d buy reprints.

It brings to mind another question I’ve often wondered about. Suppose DC launched a humor comic today along the same lines as Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. Which current comedian would translate best to that format? How would The Adventures of Jim Gaffigan or Leslie Jones Adventures look? Anybody up for The Adventures of Patton Oswalt?

Scott Shaw! hit a bull’s-eye with his WKRP article. I always loved this show and its quirky characters. I know everyone had his eye on Loni, but I was more a Bailey Quarters kind of guy, and I was always glued to the screen when Jan Smithers was on.

I live in a small town, and our local radio station’s deejays occasionally say something odd just to see if anyone’s listening. One day the sportscaster referred to Chi Chi Rodriguez the way Les Nessman said it: “Chy chy rodrey gwezz.” I called the station and told him to say it right or I’d sic my cha-hooah-hooah on him.

Now there’s an inside joke only diehard WKRP fans will get!

While I enjoyed Scott Saavedra’s column on commercial jingles, one part of it blew my mind. He said that the Almond Joy “sometimes you feel like a nut” jingle first appeared in 1977. My first thought was “Scott must be wrong. I remember singing this with friends in high school, and I graduated in 1975. In fact, I remember singing along to it in the Sixties. He must mean 1967, not 1977.”

So I fact-checked Scott, and found that I apparently have a load of false memories regarding this song. Maybe it’s the bubblegum rock vibe the jingle gives that made me think it was a late Sixties thing. But now I’ll spend my days wondering who I was singing that jingle with. Sorry I doubted you, Mr. Saavedra.

Everything I know is wrong….

Replying to your question in your editorial: While some of these local TV personalities

would be meaningless to many, I think a regular column spotlighting this multitude of offbeat characters would be fun. Personally, my head is filled with memories of guys like Sir Graves Ghastly, Johnny Ginger, and Woodrow the Woodsman (names that, unless you tuned in to that Detroit-based affiliate, would leave you scratching your head). I’d like to hear about other local versions of these guys. You could even use the descriptive phrase you came up with in your editorial, and call the column “Homegrown Hosts,” and invite guest writers to contribute, like you do with the Celebrity Crush column.

Keep up all the good work!

MICHAL JACOT

Enjoyed the look at DC’s take on Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. (Comics about comics?) Of the two, easily, I preferred Bob Hope. So, I was surprised to read he was cancelled first. Plus, from the sound of it, even if he wasn’t, he might have been pushed out of his own title by Super-Hip and the monsters.

Jerry Lewis was a different story. I know he was popular, in his day, but I just didn’t care for his movies. Even as an eight-year-old, they were hard to sit through. I must not be French.

Didn’t find him funny. While he was certainly a positive force with his telethon, I even had one issue with that. On Labor Day, as soon as I’d see him on TV with Ed McMahon and Sammy Davis, Jr., I’d loudly groan because I fully realized, to my horror, that school started tomorrow.

But I applaud inclusion of those comics as they’re rarely noted, much less explored. I was hoping we’d see a little Mort Drucker art, but maybe when you revisit the topic in 20 years?

I was never a Mission: Impossible fan. It seems the agents would do things the most convoluted way. Plus, what lost me is seeing them escaping some stronghold by crawling through the air ducts. I’m claustrophobic, so that’s a sure turn-off. I guess Lynda Day George was after my time. I wondered, “Where’s Martin Landau?”

Turns out, over in the Space: 1999 article.

That was astounding about WKRP moving time slots a dozen instances and still lasting four years. It’s like repeatedly daring the viewers to stop searching for it.

My favorite article, this time, was the look at the 1966 Filmation Superman. The story of how they fooled DC into thinking they were a fully staffed and thriving studio was laugh-aloud hilarious. Funnier still, Ted Knight was involved; a very familiar comedic actor in just a few years.

It seemed to get the studio back in business.

Though, certainly, I must’ve seen it at the time, I don’t remember much about the ’66 cartoon. Didn’t care for how he was handled in his own books, in that era, by DC. I know he was a big seller and quite popular but, regardless, he

Cel art from Filmation’s New Adventures of Superman (1966). © DC Comics.

didn’t connect with me. With toy men and imps, it squandered the great potential he originally had. I read it, occasionally, at the barbershop, to pass the time, and always wondered, “Who’d pay 12 cents for this?!”

Now, the Fleischer Superman cartoons, the few I’ve seen, were superior in approach—a majestic hero—and execution. They poured money into them and it clearly showed. I liked, here, where it was noted that Joe Shuster even stopped in to help.

In reading DC Archive volumes of the early Superman, I was pleasantly surprised how cool of a character he was as originally presented.

Not all-powerful. Plus, highlighting a social conscience. A crusader for justice before he got sidetracked with supposedly comedic villains to cater to a younger crowd. Played as noble and striving to help, rather than a sitcom character or all-powerful.

The best thing is the article reminded me to look for those Forties cartoons on YouTube. As it’s been so long since I’ve seen them, I’ll go do that right now. Thanks.

JOE FRANK

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com.

MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief

NEXT ISSUE

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79

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. Sometimes creative talent can have an off day. A professional can fall back on experience or use tried-and-true tricks of the trade.

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

The Trope that Made a Page Mister Ed?!

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Well, I got sand in my hair little boy!

Ow.

wilber!

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“We put the POP in pop cult

Dear Mr. Saavedra:

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Vern Medford Smythe tent Manager V. P. North American Con Publishing TwoMorrows Worldwide

ATLAS-O-MATIC-TRON 3000 CAN MAKE YOU INTO A NEW ROBOT...

WHILE YOU SLEEP! Read these quotes: “Confidentially, I am a puppet and a cartoon character... why not a robot too? Nyah-ha-ha!”

-Dishonest John

RETROFAN

November 2023

HORROR OF THE BEACH!!

Use my A.I.E.E.* System for permanent results!

Reluctantly Yours,

80

ATLAS-O-MATICTRON 3000

“Is this some kind of joke?” -Cyborg

*Artificial Intelligence Electronically Enhanced “It’s not for me, goodness no! But if you can introduce me to that robot gunslinger from Westworld, I’d be obliged” -Dale Evans

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RETROFAN #9

RETROFAN #10

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

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

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

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

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

(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) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

RETROFAN #12

RETROFAN #13

RETROFAN #14

RETROFAN #15

HALLOWEEN ISSUE! Interviews with DARK SHADOWS’ DAVID SELBY, and the niece of movie Frankenstein GLENN STRANGE, JULIE ANN REAMS. Plus: KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER, ROD SERLING retrospective, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, TV’s Adventures of Superman, Superman’s pal JIMMY OLSEN, QUISP and QUAKE cereals, the DRAK PAK AND THE MONSTER SQUAD, scratch model customs, and more!

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

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!

(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) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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

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

RETROFAN #16

RETROFAN #17

RETROFAN #18

RETROFAN #19

RETROFAN #20

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

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

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

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.

(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) $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

RETROFAN #21

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #23

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #25

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.

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.

(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

RETROFAN #26

RETROFAN #27

RETROFAN #28

RETROFAN #30

RETROFAN #31

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.

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 BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, 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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(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

TwoMorrows.

RETROFAN #32

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

RETROFAN #35

Featuring a profile of The Partridge Family’s heartthrob DAVID CASSIDY, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, LEGO blocks, Who Created Mighty Mouse?, BUCKAROO BANZAI turns forty, Planet Patrol, Big Little Books, Disco Fever, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more!

Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Saturday morning super-hero Space Ghost, plus The Beatles, The Jackson 5ive, and other real rockers in animation! Also: The Addams Family’s JOHN ASTIN, Mighty Isis co-stars JOANNA PANG and BRIAN CUTLER, TV’s The Name of the Game, on the set of Evil Dead II, classic coffee ads, 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 • Ships April 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships June 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Aug. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

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