RetroFan #30 by TwoMorrows Publishing

January 2024 No. 30 $10.95

It’s out of the bag!

THE UNKNOWN COMIC—REVEALED!

Here’s the story of a lovely lady…

The indisputable leader of the gang…

TOP CAT

The first lady of fashion…

BARBIE

The Brady Bunch’s

FLORENCE HENDERSON The coolest holiday cartoon… FROSTY THE SNOWMAN Dell Comics’ Monster Super-Heroes • The Brain-Freezing Story of Slushy Drinks & more! 1

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Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury

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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3 The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #30 January 2024

Columns and Special Features

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Cartoon Line-Up Network Ads

Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties The Brady Bunch’s Florence Henderson

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Dell Comics’ Monster Super-Heroes

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Top Cat

Departments

Retrotorial

Retro Toys Barbie

Too Much TV Quiz TV series’ cities

Retro Interview Murray Langston, the Unknown Comic

Super Collector Knight Rider’s KITT

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum The Mystery of Mr. Misty

RetroFanmail

Retro Animation Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman

ReJECTED

63 RetroFan™ issue 30, Janurary 2024 (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 Only. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Top Cat © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Barbie © Mattel. Frosty the Snowman © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2023 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BY MICHAEL EURY

Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Shaun Clancy Michael Eury Rick Goldschmidt Katherine Kerestman Michael Knight Andy Mangels Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Dairy Queen Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions Mattel Paramount Pictures Television Rose Rummel-Eury VERY SPECIAL THANKS Murray Langston

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RETROFAN

My “RetroFad” column is on hiatus this issue. I had every intention of writing it, but got distracted from calling out “Hey, good lookin’!” to groovy chicks with my Mr. Microphone. My wife wasn’t amused and beaned me with a Pet Rock. At least her hurled projectile didn’t muss my Mullet or topple my lava lamp. I love each of our issues, but this one has my Fanboy Sense tingling double-time! Any time we can reference The Brady Bunch in our pages is a joyous occasion for ye ed. You see, my secret fantasy (no longer a secret since I’m blabbing here) is that I’m a long-lost member of the Brady family—Billy Brady, a name probably inspired by Peter Parker or some other super-hero’s alliterative alter ego. So this issue, please welcome my “mom,” Carol Brady—the fabulous Florence Henderson—to our pages. Although she passed away in 2016, Ms. Henderson was previously interviewed by our own Mark Voger, who’s written a wonderful portrait of the beloved Brady Bunch matriarch. We’re unsure if Mr. Voger has Ms. Henderson’s patented “Wessonality,” but his column this issue has earned him a 30 percent discount on pork chops at Sam’s Butcher Shop. (He’ll still have to pay full price for applesauce, though.) Florence Henderson isn’t the only blonde icon in this issue. Love her or hate her, Barbie is the queen of fashion, the toy biz, and the global box office, and writer Katherine Kerestman returns to our pages with a charming history of Mattel’s popular doll. (All you fellas who grew up playing with G.I. Joe and Captain Action can thank Barbie for introducing the doll-with-costumes-sold-separately concept to the toy market.) And then there’s the Unknown Comic, that wild and wacky funnyman whose face was hidden behind a sack on The Gong Show. He’s actually Murray Langston, and he tells his story this issue in a hilarious Q&A conducted by Shaun Clancy. Anyone who flips through this mag’s pages can clearly see how talented our designer, Scott Saavedra, is. But as he proves each ish in his “Secret Sanctum” department, despite his quick wit (really, the guy cracks me up; publisher John Morrow, too) Scott is an ace researcher with a knack for writing tasty articles about junk food. A reader-suggested topic of the slushy drink Mr. Misty inspired Scott to commit himself to an embarrassing orgy of Slurpee sucking that spiked his blood sugar a laser-focused mission of information gathering. We guarantee that you can read his article without suffering brain freeze. (Man, how I loved those days in the Seventies chasing down baseball NEXT ISSUE and super-hero Slurpee trading cups at 7-Eleven… just like so many of you!) Scott Shaw!, overlord of oddball comic books, writes this issue about Dell Comics’ oft-maligned super-hero monsters. If you didn’t know that Frankenstein and Dracula were costumed crimefighters during the era of LBJ’s Great Society, you’ve got the zaniest history lesson you can imagine in store. And it’s columnist Will Murray, not the aforementioned Mr. Shaw!, who writes about HannaBarbera Productions this ish with his history of the prime-time (at least that’s how it started) toon Top Cat. Our other columnist who sometimes writes about Hanna-Barbera, Andy Mangels, shines another spotlight on those fun network ads promoting cartoon shows. Plus, we’ll take a ride in Knight Rider’s KITT. So get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

January 2024

VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

Florence Henderson Here’s the story of a lovely lady

Florence Henderson created the role of Carol Brady. © Paramount Television.

BY MARK VOGER TV moms in the Sixties were a mixed bag: perfect housewives (June Cleaver), nose-twitching witches (Samantha Stevens), neurotics in Capri pants (Laura Petrie), vampires (Lily Munster). Along came Carol Brady in the blonde, lithe person of Florence Henderson. Carol was sexy (she took good care of Hubby #2), talented (she sang in the Christmas recital), and above all, she effortlessly slid into the treacherous role of Understanding Stepmother to three rambunctious adoptive boys. I interviewed Indiana native Henderson (1934–2016) on two occasions, in 1993 and 2000. During our first conversation, I found myself apologizing after the fifth or sixth Carol Brady question. But Henderson put me at ease. “I realize that it’s such a part of our culture, of our television culture,” the actress said. “It seems to mean so much to people.”

Henderson continued to perform live in her post-Brady years.

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January 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

That’s not hyperbole. Despite five seasons of The Brady Bunch— and the myriad reunions and remakes that followed—Brady lovers still can’t get enough of the ultimate extended sitcom family: easygoing dad Mike (Robert Reed); his hit-the-jackpot second wife Carol; and their combined offspring groovy Greg (Barry Williams); popular Marcia (Maureen McCormick); wise guy Peter (Christopher Knight); middle-child-syndrome sufferer Jan (Eve Plumb); little squirt Bobby (Michael Lookinland); and lisping kewpie doll Cindy (Susan Olsen). No “Brady” roster is complete without name-checking plainspoken housekeeper Alice (Ann B. Davis); doggie Tiger (himself, at least for most of Season One); and Alice’s beau Sam the butcher (Allan Melvin) who, to be honest, seemed to view Alice more as a bowling buddy than the object of his desires. “The show keeps coming around,” Henderson said. “It’s never been off television since it began. It’s on in 150 countries around the world. I think it represents what everyone dreams of: a family that works. A family that loves you unconditionally. A family that takes the time to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong.” Born in Dale, Indiana, Henderson studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and appeared in four Broadway productions between 1953 and ’63, including Oklahoma! and in the title role of the musical Fanny. She also toured with the national company of Oklahoma! Henderson was hired as the “Today girl”—then a coveted gig for an aspiring actress, but which nowadays has a whiff of sexism— during the 1959–1960 season of NBC’s morning TV institution Today. In 1969, she landed the role of Carol Tyler Brady (nee Martin) when the show’s creator-producer, Sherwood Schwartz, cast her in the pilot episode. “I had four small children at the time,” Henderson recalled. “I was a parent, and I was struggling with a career and motherhood. But I was just determined that I wanted to be in the business, I wanted to be a good mother and a good citizen.” The look of Carol Brady evolved over the five seasons of the show. Henderson recalled: “When we started, I had just come back from Norway, where I did the movie Song of Norway (1970). My hair was very, very short. I had so little time. I had to catch up on six episodes. So they were saying, ‘Wear this, wear that.’ They put this big wig on me. I called it my ‘Miami bubble ’do.’ I mean, it was just not me. And then they wanted me to wear aprons, and I said, ‘No, I won’t wear aprons.’ And then little by little, I was able to establish more of myself. “Of course, when you look back on the Seventies, you go, ‘My gosh, what were we thinking?’ But, yeah, I created those hair-dos. Some of those clothes, I was not totally responsible for. But certainly, by the last year, I was much more comfortable and able to bring more of myself to what I was doing.” As for her influence on the personality of Carol Brady, Henderson believed she brought her own love for life. 4

RETROFAN

January 2024

(TOP) Henderson in the title role of “Fanny” on Broadway (1954). (ABOVE) Opening credits show Henderson (right) “interacting” with McCormick (from top), Plumb, and Olsen. © Paramount Television.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) Henderson and Robert Reed as Carol and Mike Brady. (BELOW) (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Ann B. Davis, Barry Williams, Robert Reed, Eve Plumb, Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen, and Christopher Knight. At center is Florence Henderson. © Paramount Television.

“I just feel that every day is a great day, and tomorrow is going to be an even better one,” she said. “I’m not a Pollyanna; I’ve had a lot of hard times in my life, a lot of tragedies in my life. But I’ve never really lost that joy. I think that comes across. You can only build on your character from what you are, and Carol Brady was not so dimensional.” Henderson was also able to make Carol a sexy mom, no small feat considering the era. “That was kind of tough,” she said, “because we were restricted by the times and the codes of television. There were many things we couldn’t do and many things we couldn’t say. “But I could infer, for instance, when we would have a scene in bed, that Mike and I were going to go to bed and have sex, and that Carol Brady was really going to enjoy it.”

ON THE ROAD

Among Henderson’s fondest memories of shooting the original series were those episodes filmed on location. “At King’s Island [an amusement park in Cincinnati], we came to realize the popularity of the show,” she said. “Because that park was filled with people, and we simply could not leave our rooms! They had to get security guards when we were in the park performing. They [fans] would find out our hotel rooms and come banging on the doors. We were totally surprised by that, because we were pretty insulated in the studio. “Then we went to the Grand Canyon. I loved that, because I love mountains. It was my first trip there. I couldn’t get over the beauty of it.” Still, there were downsides. “They made us get on those mules,” Henderson said. “Have you ever seen those mules? They’re gigantic! I thought it was going to be this little mule. I had to get on a ladder to get on it. “They put the mule skinner first, then Robert Reed, then Ann B. Davis, then the six kids, and I was last. And when we started down the trail, you look straight down to the bottom of the canyon. My mule kept leaning over and eating, chewing leaves and things. I thought, I can see the headline: ‘Florence Henderson Falls Off Mule to Her Death in Grand Canyon.’ RETROFAN

January 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

“And I kept yelling—the mule skinner’s name was Al— I go, ‘Al! Al! He’s eating!’ Al would say, ‘Jerk his head up. Jerk up his rein. He won’t fall.’ I was scared to death. By the time we got done that scene and I got off the saddle, it was not dry.”

BACKSTAGE DRAMA

In his 1992 memoir Growing Up Brady written with Chris Kreski, Barry Williams revealed that Reed (who died that same year) frequently clashed with Schwartz and his son, producer Lloyd Schwartz, over the quality—and particularly the believability—of the scripts. “Bob was always in conflict,” Henderson admitted. “He loved everybody on the show and he loved it when we all got back together. I think we were Bob’s family. And yet, at times, I think he was frustrated that he wasn’t doing Shakespeare. He never quite accepted the fact that The Brady Bunch was a simple little show, and it was sometimes funny and sometimes touching. He always wanted to make more out of it, which would have been wrong for the show. “But I do believe Bob’s heart was always in the right place. He argued because he thought he was improving the show, improving scenes. And sometimes, he did. But he got carried away from time to time.” 6

RETROFAN

January 2024

(TOP LEFT) King-Seeley Thermos depicted the wedding scene from the pilot episode.. (TOP RIGHT) Carol and Mike Brady share an ice cream soda on card #10 of Topps’ Brady Bunch trading card series. (LEFT) Detail of a splash page from Dell’s Brady Bunch comic book. (RIGHT) Issue #1 of Dell’s Brady Bunch comic book (1970). © Paramount Television; One of those occasions was the final episode of The Brady Bunch, which was filmed in 1974. Following yet another blowout with the Schwartzes, Reed was abruptly written out of the episode, though he stayed on set and observed the shooting from the sidelines. As Henderson told it: “Sherwood came to Ann B. and me and said, ‘I’m going to write Bob out of the show, because he doesn’t

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(ABOVE) Dig those crazy colors! From left: Knight, Williams, McCormick, Henderson, Reed, Olsen, Lookinland, and Geri Reischl in The Brady Bunch Hour. (LEFT) A promotional photo with a big bunch of smiling Bradys. © Paramount Television. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

want to do it. Would you mind learning new lines?’ We said, ‘No, of course not.’ But then, Bob would not leave the set. He stayed and watched! It was so bizarre.” Was Henderson ever the target of Reed’s ire? “He and I were always great friends,” she said. “I could always get Bob to calm down, kind of smooth things over. I don’t think he ever did things with great malice. I just think that was Bob’s way of doing things, and I accepted him that way. He never could stand to be mad at me or have me mad at him for any length of time.” I asked Henderson if she ever had to “play mother” to any of the Brady kids in real life. “We were on television for five years, and we’ve gotten together so many times over the years,” the actress said. “I think one of the things I was always a real stickler for was being on time. You don’t show up late for work and you don’t show up not knowing what you’re doing.

“Barry and I have always been close. We did not date,” Henderson was quick to add. (This was in response to an anecdote in Williams’ memoir about the time he took Henderson—on whom he then had an adolescent crush—out to dinner.) Henderson continued: “I’d always been kind of his mentor. I think he’s such a talented kid and a very nice person, a very sensitive one. And I remember a couple of times with Barry when he was goofing off. I’d pull him aside and say, ‘What the heck do you think you’re doing? Get your act together.’ I wouldn’t hesitate to do things like that over the years.”

VERY BRADY SPIN-OFFS

After The Brady Bunch was cancelled in 1974, the cast thought this was truly the end. “We never dreamed we would be back together as a unit ever again,” Henderson said. But two years later, producers Sid and Marty Krofft (H. R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville) coaxed the Bradys—except for Plumb—to reunite for a Donny and Marie–like variety show, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which was followed by an eight-episode series, The Brady Bunch Hour (1976–1977). In these, Plumb was replaced by Geri Reischl. [Editor’s note: Meet the self-described “Fake Jan” in RetroFan #10!] RETROFAN

January 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

The Bradys appeared in character, wearing matching snug Spandex jumpsuits with sequins. The group did some light (very light) comedy, and sang disco medleys amid water ballerinas swimming in tandem. Yep, it is every bit as painfully garish as it sounds. Recalled Henderson: “To be honest with you, when we did the variety show, some of the kids didn’t know how to move and didn’t know how to sing. It was kind of a struggle for me. My background was musical. We would really work hard to try to make everybody look as good as possible. “I was working, like, 17 and 18 hours a day on those shows. We decided that we would memorize everything. Any scene that we had, we all memorized. Today, they don’t do that [in variety shows].” The sheer gaudiness of the production was not lost on Henderson. “When you think about it,” she said, “with that huge swimming pool and all those things, it was just kind of insane.” In 1981, the entire original cast reunited for the first and only time in the TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married. “At first, it was a little strange,” Henderson said of the shoot. “I remember the first scene that Bob and I had to do was kind of a love scene. It was a little strange, but after a few minutes, we just fell right back into it. “With all of the additions that time brings in one’s life, it changes your character so much. But you do go back to that original char-

RETROFAN

January 2024

(LEFT) “My background was musical,” said Henderson. Shown are her 1959 album Selections From Gypsy and Flower Drum Song and her 1968 appearance on The Dean Martin Show. © RCA Records. © NBC Television.

(BELOW) Why did wide lapels ever go out? From left: Lookinland, Knight, Williams, Henderson, Reed, McCormick, Reischl, and Olsen in The Brady Bunch Hour. © Paramount Television. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) Poster for Song of Norway (1970), starring pre-“Brady” Henderson. (BELOW) Henderson and Toralv Maurstad share a tender moment from the film. © Cinerama Releasing Corp.

acter. It is odd. It’s kind of like your own family. You have a place in that family. If you have a family reunion, somehow—even though you have changed as an individual—when you reunite with that family, you’re kind of back in that same place.” Brady Girls was followed by a seven-episode spin-off series, The Brady Brides (also 1981), in which Henderson, Davis, McCormick, and Plumb reprised their roles. But the world wasn’t finished with Bradyism quite yet. Seven years later, the TV clan was revived again for A Very Brady Christmas, which pulled a whopping 39 share when first broadcast on December 17, 1988. (Jennifer Runyon filled in for Olsen, who was on her honeymoon.) The two-hour TV movie—which is faithfully rebroadcast every Christmas—has several concurrent storylines and resolutions, all topped off with Mike Brady getting trapped in a Christmas Day cave-in. The distraught Bradys flock to the rescue site, where Carol saves the day with an a cappella version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” a schmaltzy bit even by Brady standards. And it was Henderson, of course, who was called upon to pull it off. Recalled the actress: “I said to Sherwood, ‘Now, Sherwood, I mean, I will try to make this believable, but I think you’re really stretching it.’ And he said, ‘No! No! You’ll make it work.’ “The night we filmed that thing—and I just had to start singing out of thin air—by that time it was, like, 10 o’clock at night. It was freezing. But you know, all of the extras and people standing around all got kind of teary-eyed.”

The ratings triumph of A Very Brady Christmas led to another TV series, 1990’s The Bradys, which was nicknamed “Bradysomething” (a play on the then-current dramedy Thirtysomething) for its mix of the serious and the silly. “Originally, it was supposed to be a two-hour movie,” Henderson said. “Then CBS wanted to stretch it into ten episodes and try to make it into a series. We didn’t have any scripts! So what Sherwood tried to do was divide the script up into kind of bastardized episodes. “By the time CBS took that show off the air, we had better ratings then most of the shows that are on today. I mean, we were getting ten shares. Had they given us more time, I think we could have come up with something good. It was so rushed, we didn’t have time to develop stories, and they tried to do too much in each episode. Too many storylines, too many things to follow.”

Henderson (at center in foreground) and fellow Bradys hope for a holiday miracle in the ratings bonanza A Very Brady Christmas (1988). © Parmount Television. RETROFAN

January 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

The hour-long shows aired on Friday nights (just like the original series). Among those competing subplots: Mike ran for the city council; Bobby was paralyzed following a race car crash; Marcia became an alcoholic. Yep, this was a lo-o-ong way from Marcia’s braces or Peter’s squeaky changing voice.

FAKE FLORENCES

Later in the Nineties, there was growing chatter about a planned big-screen adaptation of The Brady Bunch that called for—Heaven forbid!—an all-new cast. “I think people have trouble accepting that,” Henderson said, sounding territorial. “We’ll see.” She needn’t have fretted. The films The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996), with their savvy casting and production design, only strengthened the Brady legacy. Funnier and more clever than you might expect, the new films plopped the very Seventies Bradys (Polyester, Astroturf, and all) into the very grunge-y Nineties. Shelley Long (Cheers) was perfectly cast in the role of Carol Brady. Plus, there were some very Brady cameos from the original series: Davy Jones (joined by fellow Monkees Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork); Williams (as a record producer); Davis (as a trucker); and Henderson (as Carol’s mother). For her cameo, Henderson toted a bottle of Wesson cooking oil, a nod to her real-life stint as a pitchwoman for the product. Lightning struck three times in the 1999–2000 period, when Henderson—not Carol Brady, but Henderson herself—was depicted in a trio of TV movies. When I spoke with the actress, the TV movie Growing Up Brady (2000), produced by Williams based on his memoir, was in post-production and awaiting broadcast. “Barry said he’s finished it and he’s very happy with it,” Henderson reported. “That’s all I know. He thought I would be pleased. But I’ll make that judgment after I see it.” Did Henderson approve of the actress who was portraying her? “I don’t know who’s playing me,” she laughed. “Isn’t that weird?” (For the record, Rebeccah Bush played the role of Florence Henderson.) Henderson also had yet to see Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story (1999), in which she was played by Lisa Long. In a cute bit, the Brady and Partridge casts face off in costume to the strains of Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and a reporter mistakes Henderson for Shirley Jones. Had Henderson even Shelley Long looks the part as Carol heard that she was depicted Brady in the movie The Brady Bunch in the Partridge film? (1995). © Parmount Television. 10

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January 2024

(TOP) Rebeccah Bush as Florence Henderson in the TV movie Growing Up Brady (2000). © Parmount Television. (ABOVE) Lisa Wilcox as Henderson in the TV movie Unauthorized: The Brady Bunch — The Final Episode (2000). © Fox Network. “Probably,” she said matter-of-factly, “but it didn’t stick in my mind.” The actress was portrayed yet again, this time by Lisa Wilcox, in the 2000 TV movie Unauthorized: Brady Bunch—The Final Days.

BEYOND CAROL BRADY

In 1999, Henderson landed a high-profile gig that, in this case, had nothing to do with her Brady past. Later Today was NBC’s news and entertainment hour co-hosted by Henderson with Jodi Applegate and Asha Blake, which ran for two seasons. Later Today had its share of real-deal guests such as Denzel Washington, Jim Carrey, Ralph Fiennes, k. d. lang, Christina Applegate, Christian Bale, and Jewel. CONTINUED ON PAGE 12.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

CAROL BRADY, BAD MAMA This was not your parents’ Brady Bunch. In 1993, MTV invited Brady cast members Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, and Susan Olsen to reprise their respective characters, more or less, in filmed segments dropped into The MTV Movie Awards. In the skits, Henderson lampooned Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men; Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct (yep, in that scene); and Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. Segments were introduced by Eddie Murphy. “Originally, I was not doing Jack Nicholson,” Henderson recalled of the casting. “I said [to the producer], ‘The only way to really make this pay off is to have me be Jack Nicholson.’ And he said, ‘I was just thinking the exact same thing.’” While preparing, Henderson left nothing to chance regarding her Nicholson and Stone impersonations. “I stayed up and watched that tape so many times,” she said. “And then I got up at 5 the next morning and watched it again. So by the time I got to the studio, around 8 [a.m.]— we worked ’til 1:30 the next morning—I really felt that I knew Sharon Stone’s character and Jack’s character. I just had a ball.” In the Basic Instinct skit, Henderson was interrogated by her three one-time TV children. Olsen (wearing ridiculous Cindy-style curls) asked Henderson (impeccably styled as

(TOP) Sharon Stone is all sexy defiance as the femme fatale in Basic Instinct (1992). © Carolco Pictures. (ABOVE) Henderson impersonates Stone, cigarette and all, for the MTV Movie Awards. © MTV Networks.

Stone), “Would you tell us the nature of your relationship with Sam the butcher?” Henderson answered with Stone-esque directness: “I had sex with him for about a year and a half. I liked having sex with him. He gave me a lot of pleasure. And a 30 percent discount on rump roast.” Needless to say, the audience howled. Carol Brady, telling dirty jokes? As Nicholson, Henderson exploded when cross-examined by Williams: “You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a house that has one bathroom, and that bathroom has to be cleaned. Who’s going to do that? … You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Marcia’s grounding, while tragic, was necessary.” Henderson got big laughs because her performances were the polar opposite of sweet, unassuming Carol Brady—and perhaps closer to the real Florence Henderson. “Yeah, I get myself in trouble with my wicked sense of humor,” she admitted. “But it’s always been with me. I think that is what’s so great. When I tell stories—because of the way I look and my background—people don’t expect certain things from me. So when they hear my wicked sense of humor, it makes them laugh twice as hard. Because I don’t really go out of my way to try to be wicked or funny. I try to be spontaneous. And then it becomes funny.” – Mark Voger

(TOP) Jack Nicholson loses his cool on the witness stand in A Few Good Men (1992). (ABOVE) Henderson channels her inner Nicholson in a parody of the iconic scene. © Columbia Pictures. © MTV Networks.

(TOP) Whitney Houston playfully brandishes a sword belonging to offscreen Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard (1992). (ABOVE) Henderson does same with the sword of offscreen Barry Williams. © Warner Bros. © MTV Networks.

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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10.

But after landing Later Today, Henderson found herself fielding reporters’ questions about doing the job at her age, in her (gasp!) middle 60s. I asked her if she felt she had proven her point, that a person of a certain age can meet the demands of this job. “I think I have,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed the show so much. In many respects, sometimes I’m younger than my co-hosts,” Henderson said, laughing again. “Not all the time. Age is really just a number. So much depends on your attitude, how you feel about life, the joy that you get out of what you do.” What Henderson enjoyed most about Later Today is that the shows were broadcast live—no editing, no fixing. “For me, that’s where it’s at,” she said. “I’m never afraid. I feel more comfortable, actually, when the camera goes on than I do off camera. I love spontaneous moments. I love it when something goes wrong. I think people at home do, too. They want to see how you’re going to handle that situation.” Among her favorite Later Today segments were her one-on-one interviews. “Talking to Katie Couric was a real highlight for me,” Henderson said. “She’s had such an enormous impact on colon cancer—helping people to become aware of it and get tested.” Along with Marion Ross, who played Mrs. Cunningham on Happy Days, Henderson sang the introduction to the music video “Child Stars on Your Television” (2003), a “We Are the World” send-up featuring Bradys McCormick, Williams, Knight, Lookinland, and many other former child stars like Tony Dow, Erin Moran, Butch Patrick, Fred Allen Berry, Jay North, and Gary Colman. The video was made for the movie Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star starring David Spade. Sang Henderson: “How can it be / that occasionally / you don’t respect their dignity?” In addition to her Today and Later Today stints, Henderson had another NBC credit that may surprise even the most knowledgeable Bradyphile. “I’ll give you a piece of trivia I’ll bet you didn’t know,” Henderson told me. “I sang on The Johnny Carson Show, at Tiny Tim’s wedding!” Henderson was speaking of the December 17, 1969 Tonight Show broadcast in which campy crooner Tiny Tim (“Tiptoe Through the Tulips”) married a young fan, Vicki Budinger, who was then 17 to his 37. Obviously owing to its “freak show” factor, this broadcast became the highest-rated Tonight Show, with 45 million people tuning in.

Henderson co-hosted Later Today, which aired for two seasons beginning in 1999. © NBC Television.

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January 2024

Henderson and McCormick are all smiles while shooting Dancing with the Stars in 2016, in a photo posted by McCormick on Twitter. “I sang Petula Clark’s big hit, ‘My Love,’” Henderson continued. “I’ll tell you, that was an amazing thing to see. It was so surreal. And one of the highest-rated things in the history of television.” [Editor’s note: Tiptoe back to this mag next summer when RetroFan #34 tells the Tiny Tim story.] I asked Henderson if she was aware that Michael Medved—then a film critic for PBS’ Sneak Previews, now a right-wing pundit—once designated her 1970 film Song of Norway as one of four finalists for Worst Musical Extravaganza in Hollywood History. This happened in Medved’s 1980 book (written with his brother, Harry Medved), The Golden Turkey Awards. The Medveds called Henderson “the female Peter Frampton for the Geritol generation,” a reference I don’t quite

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

Henderson plays against type, wielding a gun in Bad Grandmas (2017). (BELOW) Henderson puffs on a joint in the film. © Lamplight Films.

understand. “Not even the most ardent Florence Henderson fans bothered to get up from their rocking chairs for this one,” the Medveds concluded. “Who is Michael Medved?” Henderson snapped back. “If you love classical music, you’ll like it. If you love beautiful scenery, you’ll like it. Nothing personal, Michael, but you get my Golden Turkey Award.”

FINAL ACTS

Henderson’s final film role was in Srikant Chellappa’s dark comedy Bad Grandmas (2017), in which she starred opposite Pam Grier (Coffy, Jackie Brown). Speaking with a quaint Southern accent as Phoebe, Henderson is seen smoking a joint and brandishing a gun—again getting laughs by playing against type. The film was released posthumously. Henderson’s final public appearance was on Dancing with the Stars alongside her onetime TV daughter McCormick, then a contestant on the highly rated talent competition. For McCormick’s DWTS debut in September 2016, Henderson became Carol Brady one last time, bellowing at McCormick: “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” The following November, Henderson returned to the DWTS studio, this time as an audience member in support of McCormick. Henderson died three days after that taping, on November 24, 2016, of heart failure. She was 82. “There are so many people who never met Florence but feel like she was a best friend or a mother to them,” McCormick told People. “To me, she was both.” Though mystified that The Brady Bunch remained so popular for decades after the Astroturf was rolled up and put into storage, Henderson offered a theory on the enduring appeal of the sitcom the last time we spoke.

“So many people have tough lives out there,” she said. “The show represents a little speck of hope. It is so popular among minorities, which is just amazing to me. This show is really, I think, seen through the eyes of a child. Children have those kind of idealized fantasies. That’s what makes it so gentle and sweet.” MARK VOGER is the author and designer of six books for TwoMorrows Publishing, including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy, Holly Jolly, and Britmania. He didn’t save the Batman mini-comics found inside boxes of Pop Tarts in 1966; now all he has to show for it is a lingering Pop Tart addiction. Please visit him at MarkVoger.com. RETROFAN

January 2024

BRITMANIA

by MARK VOGER

Remember when long-haired British rock ’n’ rollers made teenage girls swoon — and their parents go crazy? BRITMANIA plunges into the period when suddenly, America went wild for All Things British. This profusely illustrated full-color hardback, subtitled “The British Invasion of the Sixties in Pop Culture,” explores the movies (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, HAVING A WILD WEEKEND), TV (THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR), collectibles (TOYS, GAMES, TRADING CARDS, LUNCH BOXES), comics (real-life Brits in the DC and MARVEL UNIVERSES) and, of course, the music! Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, GROOVY, HOLLY JOLLY), BRITMANIA features interviews with members of THE BEATLES, THE ROLLING STONES, THE WHO, THE KINKS, HERMAN’S HERMITS, THE YARDBIRDS, THE ANIMALS, THE HOLLIES & more. It’s a gas, gas, gas! (192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-115-8 • NOW SHIPPING!

GROOVY also by MARK VOGER

From Woodstock, “The Banana Splits,” and “Sgt. Pepper” to “H.R. Pufnstuf,” Altamont, and “The Partridge Family,” GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated hardcover book, in psychedelic color, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like “The Monkees,” “Laugh-In” and “The Brady Bunch.” Revisit the era’s rock festivals, movies, art, comics and cartoons in this color-saturated pop-culture history! (192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9

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WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

The Most Effectual

Top Cat BY WILL MURRAY When I was growing up in the early Sixties, the big name in cartoons was Hanna-Barbera Productions, a partnership headed by William Hanna and Joe Barbera, who transitioned from doing Tom and Jerry movie cartoons to animated shows produced especially for television when the market for theatrical short subjects collapsed in the Fifties. Starting with The Ruff and Reddy Show in 1957, the dedicated duo steadily built an animation empire. Then they got an unusual idea: prime-time TV cartoon shows. Taking Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners as a template, they came up with the prehistoric program they called The Flintstones. It was an unqualified hit and ran six seasons. Naturally, they attempted to duplicate that success. But The Jetsons and Jonny Quest lasted only one season each. Another animated character Hanna-Barbera launched in primetime also flopped in the evening time slot. Strangely, that marked only a prologue to the career of Top Cat. Inspired by Phil Silvers’ Fifties sitcom You’ll Never Get Rich (a.k.a. The Phil Silvers Show), Top Cat took the concept of a conniving but lovable peacetime U.S. Army hustler to the urban streets of New

York City. Tricked out only in a straw boater and purple vest, Top Cat—aka T. C.—hung out in Hoagy’s Alley, near the 13th Precinct Station, with his “Cat Pack” of assorted alleycat moochers, hangers-on, and swindlers, which included Benny the Ball, ChooChoo, Fancy-Fancy, Spook, and Brain. Their perennial nemesis was Officer Charlie Dibble, whose Broadway beat included the trash-can-strewn alley where T. C. and his boys plied their sneaky trade, mooching doorstep milk and free phone calls from Dibble’s police call box. Joe Barbera recalled that the series was launched from the flimsiest of triggers. An ABC executive was visiting the Hanna-Barbara studios and asked to use Barbera’s office to make a phone call. “While he was there,” Barbera related, “I saw this drawing of Top Cat. One drawing, just standing sideways looking, and it said ‘Top Cat’ at the bottom. We never used it. All I remember is this one drawing at the time, in color. And I went in to Ollie [Treyz, TV executive] and I said, ‘Here’s a terrific character.’ He just looked at it and said, ‘Yeah. Looks good. We’ll buy it.’ That’s the end of it. So a prime-time show with one drawing. Then after that, we had to go in and develop all the characters and go to storyboard, but it was sold.” RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

CLOSE FRIENDS GET TO CALL HIM ‘T. C.’ Archie Andrews radio program. As an adult, he started coming to Originally, the show was provisionally titled J. B. and Company, with prominence as a sidekick on both Milton Berle’s and satirist Henry J. B.—as he was originally named—dressed like a stereotypical Morgan’s radio shows, playing nerdy, easily excitable characters for hobo. Willie Ito developed the show with fellow veteran animators whom he coined expressions that captured the public imagination and character designers Iwao Takamoto, Jerry Eisenberg, and and were often repeated. Tony Benedict. Jerry’s father, Harvey Eisenberg, drew the original “One of the biggest yocks I ever got,” Stang recalled, “was from presentation storyboards, which became the second-aired episode, an ad lib on Morgan’s radio show—my first ‘Ikkhh!’ On the Berle “The Maharajah of Pookajee.” show ‘chip-chip-chip’ stopped the show cold, and I had to use Finding the right voice actor to play the yellow-furred tomcat it from then on. I even had fan clubs that called themselves the proved to be more Three Chip Clubs. I used challenging than getting ‘You’re sick!’ with Berle on the show on the air. Some radio, and suddenly ‘sick’ 80 actors auditioned. Talent was all over and Frank ranging from Mickey Rooney Sinatra was taking out ‘Sick, to Jack Oakie were tested, Sick, Sick’ ads.” and Larry Storch and Andy Moving over to television Devine were considered. during its golden age, Stang Hanna-Barbera turned to played Francis the wiseDaws Butler, who was Yogi cracking stagehand Bear and other H-B characon Milton Berle’s ters, but after recording a test Texaco Star Theatre episode with him, they show, frequently decided he wasn’t heckling the star, a good fit for the a characterization new character. he repeated on Butler was Henry Morgan’s Great unable to Talent Hunt, where he make Top Cat played the irascible Gerard. sound distinctly “Hoo-hah!” “What’s to different from like?” “Big man, big deal!” his other voice roles, and “Oh, I’m dying!” were specifically Hokey Wolf, Stang TV catchphrases that the canine conman of The took off. Huckleberry Hound Show, Previously, Stang had which he had done in a faux played, without credit, Phil Silvers voice. Herman the Mouse in the Hanna-Barbera next Herman and Katnip theatrical cast Michael O’Shea, a cartoons. “I’ve gone from a former vaudevillian turned mouse to a cat,” he quipped, Hollywood actor who was “so I guess that’s progress.” near the end of his career, For Top Cat, the actor suggested by ABC. But wanted to experiment with he didn’t work out either. a different voice, and get O’Shea couldn’t read his lines away from the types of roles fast enough, according to he was known for. director Alan Dinehart. “We convey character “Instead of the normal three hours to do a half-hour through our tones,” Hanna-Barbera’s Benny the Ball and episode, it was taking O’Shea six hours, so we had to explained Stang. “For Top Cat were thinly disguised versions drop him.” example, as Top Cat, I have a of TV’s Pvt. Doberman (Maurice Although five episodes were recorded, the produclow, throaty voice, one that Gosfield) and Sgt. Bilko. Photo cover tion was forced to start over, star-wise. suggests a lovable con man. to DC Comics’ Sgt. Bilko #12 (Mar.–Apr. In desperation, they turned to veteran radioBut I’m not using the ‘Stang’ 1959). Top Cat © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Sgt. Bilko © CBS. Courtesy of Heritage. turned-TV actor, Arnold Sidney Stang, who had voice for the Top Cat series. I auditioned for the role several times. Tired of pointless won’t sound like me. When callbacks, Stang told the producers to call his lawyer. we first started making Hanna-Barbera did and finally landed him. them, the question came up as to whether I shouldn’t voice T. C. Stang broke into radio at the age of nine, and soon progressed in my natural manner, but I talked them out of it. I don’t think my to teenage parts, including playing Jughead for a time on the natural tone quite fits the character of T. C. 16

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

“I’ve made up my mind—and with the blessings of Hanna and Barbera—that this is one role that won’t be played into another ‘Arnold Stang character,’” Stang added. “Top Cat will be different. He’ll be my first hero. He will be authoritative—a decision maker, a leader. What I want to do with T. C. is to give him a certain seedy grandeur. Unlike the characters I’ve played in the past—some sympathetic and some not so—T. C. is an expert at making big, big plans; he’s a lovable rogue with an eye for the shortcut to pleasure.” According to the actor, the original Top Cat design was scrapped when he took on the role, although this may have been limited to a change in outfit. “When they decided to use me,” revealed Stang, “they discarded the earlier animation. They felt I brought a new quality to the part, a sort of seedy grandeur, a shabby aristocracy. So they changed and redrew the character. Instead of a torn hat, he wore a straw with an Ivy League band. Instead of old clothes, he was given a colored weskit and an old school tie, so that he achieved a kind of shabby sophistication.”

(TOP) Early sketches of the Top Cat’s feline cast. (BOTTOM) In a later developmental drawing attributed to Ed Benedict, Benny and T. C. begin to take more recognizable shape. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

HE’S THE BOSS, HE’S A VIP, HE’S A CHAMPIONSHIP

T. C. kept his vagrant lifestyle, however. “Top Cat lives in an alley behind the bowling center and next to a policeman’s call box,” explained Joe Barbera. “The policeman is Officer Dibble, who is always admonishing him about using the

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

phone. We see Top Cat as a kind of Sgt. Bilko. He’s always bringing up outlandish schemes for his fellow cats.” “It’s simple,” added Bill Hanna. “Cats have a lot of personality on which we can capitalize. Stray alley cats, in particular, have real living problems with which we feel viewers can easily identify. They’re going to understand the gang’s struggle for survival, and they’re going to enjoy the fun they have with their freedom. But above all, people are going to love Top Cat. He’s a ‘doer’ and somewhat of a conniver, but he’s wonderfully good-hearted.” “You see,” elaborated Stang, “T. C. comes up with the wildest dreams, but he never quite makes the dreams come true. I end up being the most sentimental. I have lots of heart.” Some believe that Hoagy’s Alley is named after Hogan’s Alley, where the Yellow Kid hung out in the vintage comic strip of that name. However, it’s really a callback to “Tin Pan Alley” songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, who just happened to guest-star in the Flintstones second-season opener that aired the week before Top Cat’s debut. Arnold Stang was no stranger to the stage and the big screen. Nor animation. “Incidentally,” the versatile actor told one reporter, “this is not the first time I’ve been associated with an animal. In one show I was the voice of a gorilla, and some years ago, I appeared in 18

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(ABOVE) Dig these cool cats! Top Cat cast model cel. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Top Cat, Fancy-Fancy, Benny the Ball, Choo-Choo, Brain, and Spook. (LEFT AND INSET) Bespectacled everyman Arnold Stang, a standout as Gerard in the Henry Morgan movies, was snagged by Hanna-Barbera Productions to voice the Phil Silvers–inspired Top Cat. (BELOW) Top Cat cel art c. 1960. Top Cat © Hanna-Barbera Productions. So This Is New York! © MGM. Courtesy of Heritage.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Hanna-Barbera publicity photo of Top Cat’s voice cast: (FRONT, LEFT TO RIGHT) Allen Jenkins, Arnold Stang, and Maurice Gosfield. (BACK, LEFT TO RIGHT) Leo de Lyon (Irving Levin), Marvin Kaplan, and John Stephenson. (BELOW) Top Cat storyboard. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of

an NBC color special, Jack and the Beanstalk, in which, believe it or not, I portrayed the giant.” This was ironic, given that the skinny, pop-eyed actor rarely weighed more than 120 pounds. Top Cat was also Stang’s first starring role. “It’s quite a job,” he explained. “But the firm of Hanna and Barbera, who created Top Cat, are geniuses when it comes to producing animated cartoons. You know what they did with The Flintstones and Huckleberry Hound. So they’ve worked out a good system for their live actors. “First of all, there’s a ‘storyboard.’ It’s a sheet of paper containing about 30 frames of pictures. These represent the key incidents of the action. While looking at this, we actors have a script of the dialogue; in this way we can visualize the scene in which our lines are spoken. This takes place in a recording studio. We read the script and our words are taped. So I have an understanding that, when I do a cartoon, I record the voice first and then the picture is drawn to conform to the lines.” This permitted cast members to play with their dialogue, as opposed to being a prisoner of the script, and consequently put more creativity into their acting. “Ordinarily,” continued Stang, “I act with my body, with my face and with my hands. But here I can only use my voice. That’s

Will Murray. Storyboard courtesy of Heritaage.

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

A sampling of Sixties Top Cat merchandise. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage. Little Golden Book from Archive.org.

where the challenge comes in. Just through my words I have to create a three-dimensional cat out of a one-dimensional picture. And believe me, you’ve got to be a good actor to do that. But come to think of it, that’s what performers and soundmen had to do all the time in radio. Nothing on the air was ever as funny as some of those sound effects on the Jack Benny and Fibber McGee and Molly shows.”

HE’S THE CHIEF, HE’S A KING, BUT ABOVE EVERYTHING

Arnold Stang took a decidedly anthropomorphic approach to the role of Top Cat. “Since I’ve been connected with the show,” he observed, “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of Top Cat as really a cat. T. C. is a person— 20

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full of character, likable, and one with whom everyone can identify in any situation. These cats don’t think they’re cats. They think they’re people.” Reporters liked to ask Stang how he felt about felines, and whether he studied them for behavioral tips. The actor was frank in his replies. “I don’t own a cat. I’ve never owned a cat and I doubt if I ever will own a cat. We have a dog, you see. Actually, I don’t think that observing a cat would be of any help to me in this show. The fact that Top Cat is a cat is incidental. He thinks and acts like a human being. Let’s say I’m very fond of this cat character.” There was no doubt about that. “I get a kick out of it,” admitted Stang. “The stories are by some of the best script men on the coast, fellows who write regularly

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Top Cat’s original TV series may have been short-lived, but T. C. and his “Cat Pack” appeared in dozens of comic books in the Sixties and Seventies—and beyond! (ABOVE) Cover to Dell Comics’ Top Cat #1 (Dec. 1961–Feb. 1962). Art attributed to Phil de Lara. (RIGHT) The first issue of the Charlton-published Top Cat comic. (ABOVE RIGHT) Cover art to Top Cat Coloring Book (1971) by Tony Tallarico. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage. for all of the big series. We spend more money on writers alone than many of the big specials on TV. Each show costs about $67,000.” Stang is probably referring to Harvey Bullock, who wrote what was intended as the season opener, “Top Cat Falls in Love.” Newspapers listed this episode as the show’s debut, but it was pulled at the 11th hour and replaced with “The $1,000,000 Derby,” probably because the latter made a better showcase for the antics of the cast. A few years later, Bullock scripted the first episode of The New Phil Silvers Show. Subsequent episodes were scripted by Kin Platt and Sgt. Bilko veteran Barry Blitzer. “The $1,000,000 Derby” sets the stage for the series. Top Cat and his feline followers—who were modeled in part on the old East Side Kids movie series—take jobs working a street

carnival. Benny earns money selling pictures of kids sitting on a dilapidated-looking horse. Then they discover that the horse can run with blinding speed—but only when triggered by the sound of a whistle or a bell. At first, they try to get rid of the nag after it causes one million dollars worth of damages—for which Benny is responsible—on its first sprinting spree. But then T. C. realizes that they can make money off him. RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Top Cat is on the hunt for a delicious breakfast in this production cel for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

A typical episode would begin with T. C. thinking up a new scheme, and summoning his cat clan to Hoagy’s Alley by banging two trashcan lids together. Once he delegated tasks, he would say, “Blur, boys, blur!” and the others would scatter. Each episode was pitched above the kiddie level, but not so high that children couldn’t enjoy it, too.

HE’S THE MOST TIP-TOP, TOP CAT

The show was not always confined to New York neighborhoods. “Hawaii, Here We Come” opens with Benny the Ball having won a free trip to Hawaii via a box-top contest. Top Cat and the others stow away and, in a cartoonishly contrived manner, Officer Dibble finds himself stuck on the passenger ship when it sails, having chased a wanted counterfeiter aboard. The episode focuses on the hunt for the counterfeiter. After jumping overboard to escape Dibble’s wrath, the gang finally arrive in Hawaii on a surfboard. Their experiences on the island are not recounted or in subsequent episodes, alas. Other memorable episodes included “The Unscratchables,” a take-off of the then-popular TV drama, The Untouchables, in which the pack posed as a gang of crooks by that name in order to recover the stolen Hopeless Diamond, and “Naked Town,” a spoof of Naked Posing as an Arab oil sheik, Ali Khat, T. C. finagles the horse’s entry into a derby with a million-dollar prize—leading to the predictable misadventures and their consequences. The third episode, “All That Jazz,” introduced A. T. Jazz, a rival to Top Cat’s dominance. Daws Butler voiced the trench-coat- and beret-wearing tomcat who attempted to oust T. C. from Hoagy’s Alley. Most of the episode chronicles how the two antagonists attempt to outwit and out-trick each other. A. T. was expected to return in future episodes, but he was never seen again. Griswald the bulldog, voiced by Don Messick, appeared in two episodes as a canine antagonist with a distinctive snarky laugh. Messick revived that laugh for a later cartoon dog, Muttley of Wacky Races fame. Most storylines seemed torn from the pages of Damon Runyon’s tales. T. C. led a feline gang which included the fastacting Choo-Choo, the dimwitted Brain, the pseudo-intellectual beatnik called Spook, and the suave and sophisticated FancyFancy. Their hijinks were usually of the larcenous variety. The cats were always looking to score something, usually in a get-rich-fast sort of way. The Cat Pack lived off the neighborhood like typical alleycats, stealing milk back in the days when bottled milk was delivered to your door. T. C. also filched newspapers from people’s stoops. Reading them was where he got many of his wild schemes. T. C.’s “residence” was a trash can. When it rained, they congregated in the basement of a nearby delicatessen. “All his pals admire T.C,” noted Bill Hanna. “His word is law. When he calls a summit meeting, he is the summit. He’s not really a dictatorial leader—his clan is strictly democratic—but a breakdown of the voting would show that Top Cat has 51% of the voting power.” “I am the leader and these cats follow blindly,” added Stang. “They’re not idiots just because they follow blindly, either. I say, ’Let’s get on the ball. Go, go, go. Let’s do it,’ and away the gang goes.” 22

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FAST FACTS TOP CAT f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: 30 f Original run: September 27, 1961–April 18, 1962 f Created by: Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera f Primary voice cast: Arnold Stang, Allen Jenkins, Maurice Gosfield, Marvin Kaplan, John Stephenson, Irving Levin (as Leo de Lyon) f Theme song: “The Most Effectual Top Cat” by Hoyt Curtain f Network: ABC

SPIN-OFFS AND REMAKES: f Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (made-for-TV animated movie reuniting most of the original voice cast, originally airing March 20, 1988 as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series) f Top Cat: The Movie (Mexican-made animated movie co-produced by Anima Estudios and Illusion Studios; originally released in Mexico on September 16, 2011) f Top Cat Begins (Mexican-made 2015 CGI animated film directed by Andrés Couturier) (ABOVE) This 1961 television magazine touted Top Cat’s premiere. Top Cat © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Will Murray.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

City, where they become embroiled in crookedness surrounding a TV show called Naked Town filming in their neighborhood. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #21 for an Untouchables history.] Officer Dibble was forever trying to keep the sly sextet in line. Sometimes, he won, but most often he lost in a long-running battle of wits among the sometimes witless. But their skirmishes were always fun. Allen Jenkins once remarked that Dibble was “the spark-plug of the thing. He takes the bumps.” Arnold Stang might have disagreed with that opinion, but no matter.

Pencil art by Dick Bichenbach for a Hanna-Barbera newspaper and TV Guide advertisement promoting the debut of Top Cat. Eighteen H-B characters welcome the show’s cast; can you name all of them? (Of course you can.) © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

“I find I’m taking the role of Dibble pretty seriously because it’s Dibble’s responsibility to uphold the two-legged end of the battle of wits,” allowed Jenkins. “I look forward to seeing what new schemes T. C. is going to think up next.” But that cat-and-cop formula soon wore thin. As the season progressed, Dibble increasingly became the center of focus. Many of the later episodes revolved around Officer Dibble’s police-duty predicaments, such as being transferred from his beat or retired before his time, with Top Cat and the gang working counterpoint to assist him. “Dibble is no fool, nor is T. C.,” noted Joe Barbera. “It’s easy to see that both of them really love this brain-trust battle.” “It becomes pretty personal at times,” admitted Stang. “Take Top Cat’s running battle with Officer Dibble. People are bound to love this because T. C., in a completely inoffensive way, flouts the authority that Dibble represents. He walks a fine line; T. C. never breaks the law, but he manages to make life pretty hectic for the law enforcer. You can’t help but admire that canny intuition of his. Dibble has many Achilles’ heels, and T. C. has found most of them.” In an effort to emphasize the connection to The Phil Silvers Show—which ended in 1959, but was popular in syndicated reruns—Hanna-Barbera recruited one of its most popular cast members. Maurice Gosfield, who had been Private Duane Doberman, the lovable foil to Silvers’ Sergeant Bilko, voiced Benny the Ball, who was modeled after the goodhearted but naive Doberman, and who was considered to be the breakout character of the Emmy-wining show. “Benny is a combination aidede-camp and conscience to Top Cat,” explained Gosfield. “Sure, he’s somewhat of a dolt, but he always manages to be down-to-earth enough to ask logical questions. Frankly, I prefer Benny to Doberman. Benny is smarter. That chubby little character has become a real person to me. From now on, every time I go to New York I’m going to expect to see those cats in some alley.” Two other Bilko cast members were working for Hanna-Barbera at the time: Harvey Lembeck, who played Corporal Rocco Barbella, and Allan Melvin, who had been Corporal Steve Henshaw. [Editor’s note: Did you catch our Allan Melvin “Too Much TV Quiz” back in RetroFan #28?] Strangely, neither was RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

recruited for Top Cat, perhaps over fears that Nat Hiken, creator of Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko and his khaki crew, might sue over too many voice and character similarities. In the earliest episodes, Stang closely mimicked Phil Silvers’ voice, but when the network complained that they preferred Stang use his own comedic voice, he phased out his Bilko impression. Stang enjoyed Top Cat because the job left him available for other roles. “I’m free to do other TV work or to make a picture or do a stage play,” he noted. “I was playing a Chinese in Wagon Train, and it took me two hours to put my make up on. After playing Chinese all day, I’d rush back to record for Top Cat and we stay until 3 a.m. I did that for a couple of weeks.” The fact that Top Cat was tailored for prime-time made it something more than another voice-acting part. “The dialogue appeals to the adults and the pictures appeal to the children,” noted Stang. “I think it’s a very happy marriage.” Stang went to the trouble of developing a new personality for T. C. to differentiate him from what he called his usual “Arnold Stang–type character,” saying, “I’m trying to develop new Arnold Stang catchphrases for Top Cat.”

(ABOVE) Background for the closing credits of the show. Speaking of which: (BELOW) Nightynight, T. C.! Top Cat promotional cel. © HannaBarbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

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In doing so, Stang started improvising his dialogue, in the course of which he dubbed Officer Dibble “Dribble,” and coined such Top Cat signature expressions as “Oh, that is beautiful, be-auti-ful.” “T. C. is everything to everyone,” Stang once observed. “Really, he’s my idea of a perfect hero. The viewers are bound to think that they know someone just like him and the chances are they do. Maybe it’s the guy down the street or their boss or even their mother-in-law.” Other voice talent included Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo. Fancy-Fancy was John Stephenson. Alan Jenkins played Officer Dibble. Irving Levin doubled as both Spook and the Brain under his appropriately feline stage name

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

of Leo de Lyon. Jean Vander Pyl guest-starred as the only recurring girl cat, Goldie. De Lyon was the third voice cast as the Brain, later picking up the Spook part. Of the Brain, he remarked, “He’s not too bright, but his is an unusual type of stupidity. He knows he’s stupid, but he’s always in there pitching.” Debuting in September 27, 1961, Top Cat lasted 30 episodes. But its true longevity lay on ABC’s Saturday morning line-up, to which it immediately jumped after its initial prime-time run ended. NBC ran it again between 1965–1969, and the Cartoon Network aired it on weekdays for years. Although filmed in color, Top Cat was inexplicably broadcast in black and white during its prime-time first run. Later airings reverted to color. The memorable theme song was the work of Hoyt Curtin. Despite its initial ratings disappointment in prime-time, Top Cat became immensely successful all over the globe. In the United Kingdom, he was renamed Boss Cat because the country had a popular brand of cat food also called Top Cat. In other cultures, T. C.’s name was reinterpreted in different ways, such as Stray Cat Boss and Tip Top Cat. Hanna-Barbera revived Top Cat as a character on their Yogi’s Ark Lark two-parter in 1972. Daws Butler did the voices of both Yogi and T. C. John Stephenson was Benny. Arnold Stang reprised the role for three seasons of Yogi’s Treasure Hunt starting in 1985. The premise called for Top Cat to send Yogi

and his friends on assorted treasure hunts around the world. T. C.’s gang were not involved in this project. In 1988, the surviving cast reunited for a syndicated television film called Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan returned to their roles, but Avery Schreiber became Benny the Ball since Maurice Gosfield had passed away in 1964. Irving Levin, as Leo de Lyon, again played Brain and Spook. Allen Jenkins had also died, so in addition to reprising Fancy-Fancy, John Stephenson took the part of Officer Dibble. Inexplicably, but obviously for plot purposes, Hoagy’s Alley was relocated to Beverly Hills for this Top Cat feature. The most recent revival, Top Cat Begins, told the story of how T. C. came to NYC. A 2015 Mexican production, it starred Raul Anaya as Top Cat, backed up with a supporting cast of Mexican actors. Top Cat comic books were published by Gold Key and Charlton well into the Eighties. The character has continued to pop up in the most unexpected places, including meeting Superman and Batman! 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.

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Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) Hooterville (We’re starting with an easy one!) 2) Phoenix, Arizona 3) Fort Worth, Texas 4) Schooner Bay, Maine 5) San Pueblo, California 6) Los Angeles, California 7) Indianapolis, Indiana 8) Boulder, Colorado 9) Peerskill, New York 10) Chicago, Illinois 26

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If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong. (Father doesn’t always know best.) The U.S. city or town (some real, some fictional) in Column One is the setting for a classic TV series in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan Ratings

Holy Humiliation! Gotham City didn’t make the list!*

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) Flo B) Sanford and Son C) The Facts of Life D) The Partridge Family E) Petticoat Junction, Green Acres F) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir G) Mork & Mindy H) Alice I) One Day At a Time J) Good Times *That’s because it’s too easy a clue, old chum! Batman TM & © DC Comics. Alice, Flo © Warner Bros. Television. The Facts of Life, Good Times, One Day At a Time, The Partridge Family, Sanford and Son © Sony Pictures Television. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir © 20th Century Television. Green Acres © MGM Television. Mork & Mindy, Petticoat Junction © Paramount Pictures Television. All Rights Reserved.

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

TwoMorrows 2023 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS

by JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY Introduction by JOHN MORROW

In 1954, industry legends JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY founded MAINLINE PUBLICATIONS to publish their own comics during that turbulent era in comics history. The four titles—BULLSEYE, FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE—looked to build off their reputation as hit makers in the Western, War, Crime, and Romance genres, but the 1950s backlash against comics killed any chance at success, and Mainline closed its doors just two years later. For the first time, TwoMorrows Publishing is compiling the best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline comics work, including all of the stories with S&K art, as well as key tales with contributions by MORT MESKIN and others. After the company’s dissolution, their partnership ended with Simon leaving comics for advertising, and Kirby taking unused Mainline concepts to both DC and Marvel. This collection bridges the gap between Simon & Kirby’s peak with their 1950s romance comics, and the lows that led to Kirby’s resurgence with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and the early MARVEL UNIVERSE. With loving art restoration by CHRIS FAMA, and an historical overview by JOHN MORROW to put it all into perspective, the BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S MAINLINE COMICS presents some of the final, and finest, work Joe and Jack ever produced. NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION

by JACK KIRBY & STEVE GERBER Introduction by MARK EVANIER

In the 1980s, writer STEVE GERBER was embroiled in a lawsuit against MARVEL COMICS over ownership of his creation HOWARD THE DUCK. To raise funds for legal fees, Gerber asked JACK KIRBY to contribute to a benefit comic titled DESTROYER DUCK. Without hesitation, Kirby (who was in his own dispute with Marvel at the time) donated his services for the first issue, and the duo took aim at their former employer in an outrageous five-issue run. With biting satire and guns blazing, Duke “Destroyer” Duck battled the thinly veiled Godcorp (whose infamous credo was “Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!”), its evil leader Ned Packer and the (literally) spineless Booster Cogburn, Medea (a parody of Daredevil’s Elektra), and more! Now, all five Gerber/Kirby issues are collected—but relettered and reproduced from JACK’S UNBRIDLED, UNINKED PENCIL ART! Also included are select examples of ALFREDO ALCALA’s unique inking style over Kirby on the original issues, Gerber’s script pages, an historical Introduction by MARK EVANIER (co-editor of the original 1980s issues), and an Afterword by BUZZ DIXON (who continued the series after Gerber)! Discover all the hidden jabs you missed when DESTROYER DUCK was first published, and experience page after page of Kirby’s raw pencil art! NOW SHIPPING! (128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS

By overwhelming demand, editor ROY THOMAS has compiled all the material on the founders of the Marvel Bullpen from three SOLD-OUT ALTER EGO ISSUES—plus OVER 30 NEW PAGES OF CONTENT! There’s the STEVE DITKO ISSUE (#160 with a rare ’60s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL, biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO, and Ditko tributes)! The STAN LEE ISSUE (#161 with ROY THOMAS on his 50+ year relationship with Stan, art by KIRBY, DITKO, MANEELY, EVERETT, SEVERIN, ROMITA, plus tributes from pros and fans)! And the JACK KIRBY ISSUE (#170 with WILL MURRAY on Kirby’s contributions to Iron Man’s creation, Jack’s Captain Marvel/Mr. Scarlet Fawcett work, Kirby in 1960s fanzines, plus STAN LEE and ROY THOMAS on Jack)! Whether you missed these issues, or can’t live without the extensive NEW MATERIAL on DITKO, LEE, and KIRBY, it’s sure to be an AMAZING, ASTONISHING, FANTASTIC tribute to the main men who made Marvel! NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

CLIFFHANGER!

CINEMATIC SUPERHEROES OF THE SERIALS: 1941–1952 by CHRISTOPHER IRVING

Hold on tight as historian CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the origins of the first on-screen superheroes and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life. CLIFFHANGER! touches on the early days of the film serial, to its explosion as a juvenile medium of the 1930s and ‘40s. See how the creation of characters like SUPERMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, SPY SMASHER, and CAPTAIN MARVEL dovetailed with the early film adaptations. Along the way, you’ll meet the stuntmen, directors (SPENCER BENNETT, WILLIAM WITNEY, producer SAM KATZMAN), comic book creators (SIEGEL & SHUSTER, SIMON & KIRBY, BOB KANE, C.C. BECK, FRANK FRAZETTA, WILL EISNER), and actors (BUSTER CRABBE, GEORGE REEVES, LORNA GRAY, KANE RICHMOND, KIRK ALYN, DAVE O’BRIEN) who brought them to the silver screen—and how that resonates with today’s cinematic superhero universe. NOW SHIPPING! (160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

RETRO TOYS

Takes America —and the World!

BY KATHERINE KERESTMAN

It was 1959. The war was over. America was prosperous and people felt secure. Making do and doing without were out, and fun was in. Hawaii joined the Union. Nixon engaged in a Kitchen Debate with Khrushchev. The Guggenheim temple to modern art opened in New York City. Twilight Zone and Bonanza were on those new little screens in people’s living rooms, while on the big screen Charlton Heston was Ben Hur and Doris Day and Rock Hudson shared some Pillow Talk. On March 9, at the Toy Fair in New York, the First Lady of Fashion debuted—Barbie, whose career, more than a billion dolls later, is still in the ascendant. At the beginning, Barbie’s career had seemed less than promising, for when Ruth Handler (who died in 2002 at the age of 85) had first presented her idea for a grown-up fashion doll with a wardrobe, she had been informed by the condescending engineers at Mattel that little girls would rather play with baby dolls. Ruth was not easily discouraged, though. She, with her husband, Elliot, owned Mattel, a company which they had created in their garage (Elliot made housewares out of Plexiglas) and which would grow into a multi-billion-dollar corporation. The vision which Ruth had presented to the engineers—a lady doll with a fashionable wardrobe—was born of her observation of her daughter Barbara’s play: little RETROFAN

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Barbara shunned baby dolls, preferring to play role-playing games with her adult paper dolls. Ruth thought that it would be nice for her daughter to have a three-dimensional adult doll, rather than only paper dolls with which to play. And then, in 1956, while vacationing in Switzerland, Ruth happened upon a Bild Lili doll in a shop. Lili was an adult gag gift, a shapely Betty Boop, produced in Germany from 1955–1964. Ruth purchased the doll, brought it back to Mattel, and told the engineers that she wanted them to create a doll the same size (11 1/2″) with a different face and personality. At the next Toy Fair, in 1959, the wholesale buyers—who were looking at Barbie for the very first time—also told a frustrated Ruth that little girls would rather play with baby dolls, and their orders were not what she had hoped for. Ruth knew little girls better than they did, though, and through a massive advertising campaign on television’s The Mickey Mouse Club, Mattel introduced Barbie directly to the little girls of America, rather than to parents and buyers. Up until this time, manufacturers had not marketed directly to children. Little girls went wild—and demanded that their parents buy them Barbie!

MARKETING TO CHILDREN “Barbie, you’re beautiful. You make me feel My Barbie doll’s really real. . . Someday I’m gonna be Exactly like you. ’Til then, I know just what I’ll do, Barbie, beautiful Barbie, I’ll make believe that I am you.”

These lyrics are sung as Barbie’s first devotees catch their first glimpse of a Number One blonde ponytail, wearing “Suburban 30

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(LEFT) Barbie® creator Ruth Handler and friends, in the Mattel office, mid-Sixties. Courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections. (CENTER) Reproductions of the original 1959 Barbie continue to be valued by collectors to this day. © Mattel. (RIGHT) This 1959 newspaper ad promoted Mattel’s new “living doll,” Barbie—retailing for a mere three bucks! Shopper” and holding a bouquet of roses. The camera pans away to reveal a Ziegfeld-esque staircase on which other Barbies pose in “Nighty Negligee,” pink satin “Enchanted Evening,” and sporty ski cabin “Winter Holiday” ensembles. A girl’s hand reaches for—grasps—and lifts the Enchanted Evening doll! The singer continues her serenade, as Barbie is presented dressed in the other outfits in her wardrobe. Barbie sold for $3.00 and her fashions for $1.00–$5.00. As the commercial ends, a brunette Barbie is shown in a full-skirted wedding gown. Ruth Handler’s sales plan was based on the “razor and blade” concept—when a doll was sold, sales of her fashions and accessory play sets would continue indefinitely. In 1962, a commercial introduces “Barbie’s Boyfriend,” Ken (“He’s a Doll!”), the voice-over letting us know that the couple met at a dance, have lunch at school, go to dances, and “just relax together… Think of all the fun you’ll have taking Barbie and Ken on a date.” Ken requires a full wardrobe, too, to complement each of Barbie’s ensembles. A fantasy world has been established for generations of young girls (and their brothers, who often join their sisters in Barbie games). The commercials conclude with the mantra, “You can tell it’s Mattel: it’s swell!” Mattel employed Ernst Dichter, a pioneer of psychology-based marketing, to develop their direct-marketing-to-children campaign. Their target cohort was girls ages 7–12, on the brink of

retro toys

becoming teenagers. In one ad, two little girls playing dress-up go to a posh department store—where they are treated to a fashion show by Barbie! Another commercial announces Barbie Sings, a collection of three 45rpm records, which includes six swing and cha-cha dance tunes sung by Barbie and Ken; they sing about Barbie’s first date and her dreams, accompanied by a 22-piece orchestra. In “The Busy Buzz,” a jealous Ken wonders to whom Barbie is talking—because her phone is always busy when he calls: It turns out that his phone is busy, too, because she is trying to call him at the same time. In 1968, children could talk to Barbie on a pink rotary phone that came with five discs containing 40 minutes of conversation. Barbie, Queen of the Prom (a board game), the Barbie Dream House, the Barbie Fan Club and magazine, as well as a full line of Barbie label children’s clothes followed upon the initial successes. The narrator of the children’s clothing advertisement states, in a confidential tone, “Just between the two of us, don’t you think it’s high time you dressed as well as your doll?” In another early commercial, Barbie and Ken are shown attending the Olympic Games in Japan, wearing costumes from their line of international fashions. Soon, Haute Couture gives way to Carnaby Street in the Sixties—and a new, hipper mod Twist-n-Turn Barbie comes onto the scene. Maureen McCormick (Marcia, on The Brady Bunch) tells little girls that the new doll can be purchased for only $1.50 with a trade-in of their old Barbie. P.J.—a mini-skirted, pigtailed Barbie friend—is introduced in a commercial featuring groovy Yellow Submarine–style graphics. In 1966, younger, mod cousin © Mattel. Francie (and her friends) are

Read all about it—Barbie, that is. In her own magazine! From 1961, issues #1 and 2 of Barbie Magazine. © Mattel. Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

introduced with a slightly smaller body, so they require a complete line of fashions of their own. Little Black girls play Barbie with little White girls in some of these commercials. Yes, just as Ruth Handler was a woman ahead of her time—a corporate officer who rejected the role of stay-at-home mom and who shared management of Mattel with her husband—Barbie was ahead of her time. In 1962, Barbie owned her own house and car; real women, however, needed their fathers’ or husbands’ co-signature to make major purchases at this time. In 1959, when women were discouraged from working outside the home, Barbie was a fashion editor, and in 1965 she was an astronaut! In 1968, she had a Black friend named Christie, even as Civil Rights demonstrations were breaking news on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Barbie wore real, miniature fashions—not “doll clothes.” Hand-sewn seams, fabrics made with prints to scale, buttons and zippers to scale, linings, and labels characterized her clothes. Charlotte Johnson was her first wardrobe designer, an art school design instructor who based Barbie’s original wardrobe on French Haute Couture. The 1965 American Girl Barbie wore a Doris Day Dutch cut hairdo and fashions inspired by Jackie Kennedy, Dior, and Balenciaga. Barbie came with a booklet illustrating additional fashions, a stand, (LEFT) Early Barbie products like this doll case bore colorful and her famous wrist tag. Barbie has always been a artwork imagining a world of fashion possibilities for the progressive gal, a step ahead of the world—but Beauty dress-up favorite. © Mattel. (RIGHT) Charlotte Johnson, Barbie’s is a universal value for which she has never apologized. original clothing designer, on May 13, 1964, with a 1965 Barbie The Sixties saw the Beatles invasion, rock-n-roll, doll. Photo credit: Tiffany Nelson, Los Angeles Times. Courtesy of the UCLA Digital Library/ sit-ins, the Pill, and Twiggy. Barbie now dressed in Wikimedia Commons. RETROFAN

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Mattel’s Barbie merchandise was not limited to poseable dolls and accessories, as this sampling of early Sixties products reveals. © Mattel.

bright colors, short skirts, and boots, with fringe and beads, and she cut or braided her hair or wore it long. But the quality of her fashions continued: Pucci designed Barbie’s Braniff stewardess uniforms. Barbie gained an English friend, Stacey, who spoke with an English accent when her string was pulled. Early fashion names, such as “Benefit Performance” and “Club Meeting,” became “Movie Groovy” and “Mellow Yellow.” Instead of bell-shaped, as the first wedding gown, the newest wedding gown was slim and reminiscent of The Graduate. Barbie obtained a gold lamé dress with a gold foil trench coat, a tribute to James Bond and Emma

Peel. The Seventies saw Barbie in denim, long granny-look dresses, Bicentennial red-white-and-blue, and a Country Camper. The Eighties brought adult collector dolls and Barbie and the Rockers. In the Nineties, Barbie was characterized by Farrah Fawcett hair and Dynasty and Bob Mackie gowns; new on the scene were porcelain Barbies and OOAK (One-of-a-Kind) dolls created by doll artists, who re-rooted Barbie’s hair, re-painted her face, and created unique and costly dolls that would go for five figures at charity auctions. The 21st Century has seen Barbie with multiple body types and an emphasis on inclusiveness and women role models—as if Barbie had not been progressive and inclusive since 1959! In a new, highly anticipated, live-action movie that debuted in July 2023, Barbie (Margot Robbie; see inset) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) leave Barbieland and venture into the Real World—because Barbie has been found to (gasp!) be less-than-perfect. Barbie’s mother, Ruth Handler, a progressive woman herself, said, in Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story (1994), “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that, through the doll, a little girl could be anything she wanted to be.”

A popular gal like Barbie is sure to have no shortage of friends, and Mattel quickly expanded the doll line with additional figures. (LEFT) Ken and Midge are on display with Barbie in this 1964 Sears catalog ad. (RIGHT) By the late Sixties, characters of color like Christie (also available in a Talking edition, shown here) were introduced. © Mattel. 32

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Courtesy of Heritage.

retro toys

CLASSIC BARBIE CHECKLIST Original art by an unidentified artist for a 1987 Barbie and the Rockers frame tray puzzle produced by Golden Books. © Mattel. Courtesy of Heritage.

BARBIE IN PRINT

In addition to World of Barbie, the magazine of the Barbie Fan Club, in the Sixties Mattel launched a series of Barbie Books, in which we learn that Barbie lives in Willows, Wisconsin, with her parents, George and Martha Roberts. In Barbie in Television, by Marianne Duest (Random House, 1964), Barbie works as an intern at a local television station, becomes a feature reporter, and helps the local bully understand his problem and reform. In 1962, Dell Comics started chronicling the further adventures of Barbie and Ken. [Editor’s note: Three decades later, Marvel Comics published Barbie for a few years.] Barbie children’s books have evolved over the years, targeting a younger (TOP) Dreaming of new adventures with your favorite doll couple? Dell Comics did the dreaming for you! Barbie and Ken #1 (May–July 1962). (BOTTOM) This “Barbie Talk” one-page comic story, believed to have been drawn by the Vince Colletta studio, was the back cover to Dell’s fourth issue. © Mattel.

(Lists are incomplete.)

DOLLS: 1959 1962

Barbie (ponytail) Barbie (bubblecut) Ken 1963 Midge (Barbie’s best friend) Barbie Fashion Queen (molded hair and three wigs) 1964 Miss Barbie (open-and-close eyes, porch swing) Skipper (Barbie’s little sister) Alan (Midge’s boyfriend) 1965 American Girl Barbie (Doris Day Dutch cut) Scooter and Rickie (Skipper’s friends) 1966 Twist-n-Turn Barbie (younger looking and more poseable) Color Magic Barbie (solution changes color of hair and clothes) Francie (Barbie’s younger, mod cousin) 1967 Casey (Barbie’s mod friend) 1967–68 Twiggy (Barbie’s friend) 1968 Talking Barbie Christie (Barbie’s African-American friend) Julia (Barbie’s African-American friend, single mother [widow], Registered Nurse) Stacey (Barbie’s English friend) TNT Barbie (gets a Marlo Thomas flip) 1969 P.J. (hippie look, beaded pigtails) 1970s Live Action Barbie (headband, fringe, tie-dye) 1971 Malibu Barbie (California Girl) 1977 Superstar Barbie (Disco queen) 1986 Barbie and the Rockers 2000s Lingerie Barbie Fashion Model Series (return to Haute Couture) Celebrity dolls

VEHICLES: 1962 1963 1964

1970 1984 1987

Austin Healy (orange) Ken’s Hot Rod (blue) Austin Healy (lavender) speed boat (Irwin) sport plane (Irwin) Ken’s Hot Rod (red) Camper Jaguar Ferrari

STRUCTURES:

1962

Dream House Fashion Shop 1964 Barbie Goes to College—sweet shop Dream Kitchen with Dinette Little Theater (with costumes for Barbie and Ken— Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Arabian Nights, Arthur and Guinevere) 1972 Friendship

Courtesy of Heritage.

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January 2024

retro toys

Katherine in Barbieland

A Photo Gallery from the Author’s Collection. 1

3 4

5 6

1) Author as Malibu Barbie at the 2018 Phoenix convention. 2) Author with Titian Bubblecut Barbie wearing Fashion Editor (outfit comes with a camera), purchased at the 2018 Phoenix convention. 3) Midge wearing Swinging Easy and Alan in Country Clubbin’. 4) 2017 detail-perfect reproduction of Barbie’s first Dream House (1962), with a reproduction Barbie. 5) Mod Busy Talking Ken and Talking Barbie. 6) (FOREGROUND) Porcelain Holiday Gift Barbie (1998) holding present; (BACKGROUND) Porcelain Holiday Ball Barbie (1997).

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retro toys

Among the many, many, many specialty Barbies tailored to adult collectors: (LEFT) Tippi Hedren Barbie fights off attacking crows in this Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds limited edition, available in stores. Courtesy of Heritage. (RIGHT) You had to attend the 2012 Barbie Convention to obtain this stylish Passport to Pink doll and accessories. From the collection of Katherine Kerestman.

reader now, but adult books abound—books on the history and evolution of Barbie, books on Barbie fashions, collectors’ guides (how to identify, buy, sell, and trade Barbie), and coffee table books of high-art photography. The first Barbie art book was Barbie: Her Life and Times, by Billy Boy, who invited designers all over the world to create fashions for Barbie.

ADULT COLLECTORS

Barbie Bazaar, a glossy magazine produced from 1988–2006, aided and abetted the adult collector phenomenon, which resulted from the production of the 1988 Holiday Barbie. This doll was the first of hundreds of adult collector dolls, which ranged from department store exclusives (Bloomingdale’s, F.A.O. Schwartz, Spiegel) to designer dolls (Bob Mackie, Kate Spade, Dior), dolls of historical eras, international dolls, pop-culture icons (Gone with the Wind, Coca Cola, Star Trek, Harley Davidson), and porcelains (Faberge dolls). Before the internet, Barbie Bazaar put Barbie enthusiasts in touch with each other, through collectors’ profiles, the scoop on new and upcoming releases and doll shows, classified ads, full-page ads, phone auctions, mail auctions, in-person auctions, and mailing lists. Barbie Bazaar offered special issues of reprints of Mattel and store toy catalogs (1969–1972), which its readers had drooled over Christmas after Christmas, as children. Untold numbers of people began buying, selling, and trading Barbie for profit. Barbie was viewed as an investment. Fan clubs—county, state, regional, and national—sprouted like weeds. In 1989, the national conventions started. I have attended six: Chicago, 2004 (theme: “We Are Family,” Barbie friends and family); Cleveland, 2010 (theme: “Barbie and the Rockers”); 2012, Orange County, CA (theme: “Barbie’s Grand Tour”); 2014, Nashville (theme: “Holidays”); 2016, Jacksonville, FL (theme: “A Pop Art Happening”); and 2018, Phoenix (theme: “On the Avenue”). I was fortunate to meet Carole Spencer and Robert Best, designers of adult-collector Barbies, at the conventions, where I learned Barbie history, attended live-model Barbie fashion shows, and played Barbie through numerous activities with grown women and men. Meet Joe Blitman (www.joeslist.com). He speaks a different language: MINT/OOP (perfect condition, out of package), NRFB

(never removed from the box), and PLAYED WITH (not-so-perfect condition). Joe is a prestigious Barbie dealer, and a great guy, whom I always look forward to seeing at the conventions. He says that the gift of a Barbie doll, which had been intended as a joke, coinciding with the publication of Billy Boy’s book, sparked his collecting hobby. He and his partner Kevin Mulligan, appreciate fashion, pop culture, and miniatures—and Barbie, he says, combines all three. When, to raise some ready cash, he sold the duplicate dolls he had accumulated, Joe discovered that they could make a career out of buying and selling Barbie. Today, he is a respected Barbie historian and dealer. How does he characterize Barbie’s success? “Barbie is a mirror of who we are, where we’ve been, and what we [men and women] are interested in,” he says, and Mattel has “been very careful about reinventing Barbie over the years, so that Barbie continues to be an accurate reflection of our own culture.” Joe says that he and Kevin “make our living making people happy… an enormous gift, and for that we are grateful.” The 2023 convention was held in Orlando, and 2024’s convention will be held in Palm Springs. Barbie continues to maintain a firm hold on our hearts, dreams, and wallets. KATHERINE KERESTMAN (shown with a blow-up of a Reproduction Number One Barbie at the Grand Rapids, MI, Public Museum Historical Toys Exhibit) is the author of Lethal (PsychoToxin Press, 2023) and Creepy Cat’s Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling Castles, and Ghoulish Graveyards (WordCrafts Press, 2020), as well as co-editor (with S. T. Joshi) of The Weird Cat, an anthology of weird cat stories by writers living and dead (WordCrafts Press, 2023). Her Lovecraftian and gothic works have been featured in Black Wings VII, Penumbra, Journ-E, Spectral Realms, and The Little Book of Cursed Dolls (Media Macabre, 2023). Katherine is wild about Dark Shadows and Twin Peaks and has been seen cavorting in the graveyards of Salem on Halloween. You can keep up with her at www. creepycatlair.com RETROFAN

January 2024

RETRO INTERVIEW

The Unknown Comic… Revealed! An interview with Murray Langston BY SHAUN CLANCY

My first introduction to Murray Langston, the Unknown Comic, was from watching his performances on The Gong Show in the mid-to-late Seventies. Back in 1981, my junior high school had a talent show in which anyone from the seventh or eighth grade could participate. A buddy of mine suggested that we do a stand-up comedy act since we were considered the class clowns at the time. There were five of us in the group and we came up with the idea of going as “Unknown Comics.” We tried doing the rehearsals with paper bags over our heads, but due to the heat the bags would make us sweat profusely and make it hard to breathe. When it was closer to the date of the performance, we decided that maybe it was best with only two or three of us doing the act, and so yours truly and one other sat in the audience and watched our three other friends bomb with bad jokes. 36

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Years later, I decided to look up the real Unknown Comic on the internet. I discovered him on Facebook under his real name of Murray Langston. So I reached out to him in early 2022, and to my surprise he was willing to give me an hour on the phone to answer my questions. The below interview, conducted on June 16, 2022 and transcribed by Rose Rummel-Eury, is the result of that chat. As you’ll read, today Murray Langston is still doing stand-up at comedy clubs in his area. Hopefully one day he’ll take it on the road for the rest of us RetroFans. RetroFan: I see that you were born in Canada… Murray Langston: Yes, I was actually born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on the upper coast, but was raised in Montreal and Toronto in my early years. Then I came to the States to see if I could break into show business.

(ABOVE) Reading material in a brown bag is usually the kind of stuff you’d hide from your mother, but not Journey Thru the Unknown…, the memoir of Murray Langston—better known to most RetroFans as the Unknown Comic. © Murray Langston. Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

RF: As a child, were you interested in comedy? ML: As a child, I was very young, as I recall. [laughter] You know, I was heavily influenced by [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis. I was about ten or 11 when they broke out and I was mesmerized. I said, “That’s what I want to do; I want to go to Hollywood.” That was my goal from that point on. I had to figure a way to get there, but that took

me years. You can’t just cross the border, especially at ten years old. Years later, the only way I figured out how to go was to join the military. At first, I joined the Canadian Army for a time, but I got discharged. They found out I was a coward. I literally couldn’t take those 50-mile marches with those 50-pound backpacks, so after nine months in the Canadian Guard, they discharged me. I decided then to cross the border and go to Hollywood. So, first I crossed the border and joined the U.S. Navy. They did the physical and held my arches up. Then I was flown to Chicago for basic training. This was the time when all the Americans were fleeing to Canada during the Vietnam War. They were trying to escape the war, and here’s an idiot crossing the border to join up! Even the recruiter, said, “You should put a bag over your head,” and that sort of stuck. So I spent four years in the military on an aircraft carrier called the U.S.S. Shangri La that was stationed in Philly, but I ended up in Jacksonville. When I went into the military and went on the ship after basic, they asked me, “What do you want to do?” I didn’t have a clue. I wanted to serve my time and then go out to Hollywood and see what was happening there. So when I boarded the ship they stuck me in radar. It was CIC (Combat Information Center), so that’s where they put me. I was a radar guy and after a year, I took the test to be a petty officer. When I came back, they said they had made a mistake putting me in the Combat Information Center because it was all confidential information and they didn’t know I was still a Canadian. They immediately took me out of there, even though I was the only one who passed the petty officer test. They had me cleaning toilets, which pissed me off, and so I jumped ship and went back to Canada. After a month of being AWOL, I thought, “Oh, sh*t; I’ve made a mistake. How am I going to get into Hollywood now?” I crossed the border again and went to the recruiters but my ship was out to sea, so they stuck me in the brig, which was close to the airport. I was there for two weeks waiting for my ship to come back. When it docked, they put me on the ship and had me waiting for the captain. I explained the whole story to him and told him that I’d studied my ass

off, but they had discovered that I was a Canadian and reassigned me to cleaning toilets, which made me very upset. Luckily the captain was understanding of my situation and he offered: “You can do one of three things; you can either stay in the CIC but you’d have to extend another couple of years of military service because they’d have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get you a background clearance, or you can have any job you’d like on the ship, or we can let you go with an honorable discharge.” There was a radio/TV station on the ship, and I asked if I could work there and the captain said, “You got it,” and because of the time spent in the brig, that was more time served, so suddenly I was there. I had my own radio show. You know the movie, Good Morning, Vietnam, with Robin Williams? That was me, way before the movie. For the next couple of years, I worked in Special Services

and ran my own radio show and movies. It was a great introduction into show business, although a different kind of show biz, so I was a mini-celebrity on the ship. Murray’s Musical Murray-Go-Round of Music is what it was called. Then I started a band on the ship and when my time was up in Philly, I formed a band and worked in a band as a drummer for a couple of years. I was still trying to figure out how to get to Hollywood. There was no way I was going to take that option of extending for a couple of years, so I lucked out in that respect. I still couldn’t

(ABOVE) We wonder how many art film roles did Murray Langston snag from this teaser ad for an appearance on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In? Laugh-In © NBCUniversal.

wait to get out. To me, the problem with the military is this: You have to listen to people you know are dumber than you. Because of the longevity of careers in the military, you know there are people who are idiots. That’s one thing I really disliked about the military. My goal was to get out of the military and when I did get out, I found myself playing drums in a band called the Bounty Hunters for a couple of years. RF: Were you a French-speaking Canadian? ML: I don’t speak it well, but my family is fluent—my brothers and sisters. I lost interest early on because I knew I would be doing something else. I can carry on a limited conversation, but I’ve lost so much because I’ve been here [in the United States] so long. My mother was fluent. My mother was French. RF: Growing up so close to the U.S., were you listening to New York radio or TV? ML: I listened to local stations in Montreal. At one time, I wanted to be a disc jockey. I remember Dave Boxer was a disc jockey in Montreal. I ended up calling up and going there. I remember being a 13-year-old or 14-year-old kid and being completely enthralled with that. Who knows where this came from; maybe my genes, because that’s all I could think about from a young age—doing stuff in show business, whether it was acting or being a disc jockey or playing drums. That all came out and progressed. RF: Do you have a dual citizenship? ML: I do now. Interesting enough, when I got out of the military, in those years, in 1962–1966, when I got out, you had to choose between being a Canadian or being an American. What happened, after being here for 50 years, I found out that you can have dual citizenship, so I became a citizen about five or six years ago. It was real easy; they rushed me through because I’m a veteran. Officially, I am both. As soon as I became a citizen, I got jury duty! I got to vote, so that was great. RF: So, you were interested in music, but not in comedy at that time? ML: I was interested in comedy—I just didn’t know in which area. All I knew was RETROFAN

January 2024

retro interview

I wanted to be in the business. I knew I wanted to be like Jerry Lewis—entertain, get in the movies, but when you’re 17 and 18, you have no clue. I remember toward the end of my career in the military, that they were looking for members of a group called the Monkees, and I sent in for it and got an invitation for an audition call. I was already playing the drums, but, of course, they cast Micky Dolenz. I remember getting the invitation: “Come on down,” but I still had a couple weeks left in the military. RF: Was there anyone else on your ship with an interest in show business? ML: No, no. The interesting thing about it, during those years, Bob Hope entertained on our ship, and because I was in Special Services, I had to deal with all that. Tuesday Weld was there, and I had my picture with her. She was a very famous, young, sexy actress. I got to be associated with Bob Hope while getting the stage set. Years later, I was worked with him on a TV show. RF: Was Hope’s personality the same off screen as he was on screen? Was he always kidding around or was he serious? ML: He was always trying to get laid, as I recall, with all these sexy young things around him! Maybe that’s why I wanted to get into show business! It just seemed to be a fun way to spend your life, so that’s the direction I headed in. RF: After being discharged, did you head to L.A.? ML: I was playing in a band. Back then, the most popular band was the Young Rascals. They were huge and I got to see them and hang backstage. Interestingly, I got to work with the lead singer on a cruise ship a couple of years ago. Anyway, I was in the band and had saved up some money but the band was about to break apart. I had saved up a couple thousand dollars and mentioned it to friends in public. Next thing I knew, I had a gun to my back, and had a couple guys rob me of my money because of my own stupidity. I had a TV set and a few things and managed to scrape up a few hundred dollars. Instead of flying to L.A., I had to take a bus for $50. I went from New York to L.A., which took days, and arrived late at night 38

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with less than $100 in my pocket, with no clue what, where, when, to do next—derelicts everywhere, and it was raining. I arrived in Hollywood and went out and bought myself loaves of bread and bologna and lived off that for a week. I got a little room downtown. It was not the way I envisioned Hollywood. It was what it was. I would never have sought it out for me—I was very independent. I ended up getting a job at an insurance company, in the computer section. This was in the early days with data cards, and I got a job for $50 a week working with computer cards. I was there for a year or so, trying to get settled and get into show business. [One day,] three of the computer operators got into a fight with management and left. I had no clue what to do, but I had watched them. Next thing I knew, they put me in computer

Publicity photo of Murray Langston, signed to interviewer Shaun Clancy’s father, Ernest. © Murray Langston. Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

operations, and instead of a card boy, I was a computer operator. I spent the next two months learning, and then saw a job [posting] at Universal Studios, looking for computer operators. I thought, “That’s what I’ll do. I’m a computer operator. At least I’ll get to hang out with celebrities.” That’s what I did for the next two years. It was below the commissary. I met everybody—Elvis Presley, John Wayne. I write about all of it in my book. I have a book called Journey Through the Unknown. I was around all these celebrities, but no clue how to get in. Then Laugh-In came in.

retro interview

Rowan and Martin. It was a huge show back then. I’m in the computer room, and still hadn’t accomplished much financially and didn’t have a TV! Anyway, Tiny Tim, who became huge off Rowan and Martin, as the discovery of the week. Have you ever heard of him? RF: Didn’t he have a ukulele? ML: That’s him. I watched him and thought, “If that guy can become famous off of one show, there’s hope for me. You’re using computers now and you’ve been a disc jockey, but you’re still in computers.” This is the naive Murray Langston. I called up NBC and asked to speak to the producer of Laugh-In. [Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In producer] George Schlatter got on the phone. I didn’t know I needed to go through an agent. Somehow the operator put me through to him anyway. He came on the phone: “Yeah, whatdaya want?” I said, “My name is Murray Langston, and I’d like to get on your show.” “What do you do?” “I do an impression of a fork.” He said to come on down. They put me in front of a bunch of writers and they asked me to do what I was proposing to do on the show. I was a skinny kid back then, about 90 pounds, and just stood there and put my arms up like a fork. They said, “All right… bye!” Next thing I know, I get a call two days later. “Report to NBC, you’ll be on.” That was my first job—quirky and easy. This is the biggest show on television, and I’m going from the computer room to the television. Rowan and Martin do a bunch

of jokes around me, “I found a guy doing impressions of a fork.” “Where did you find him?” “Whatdaya mean, ‘where did I find him?’ I was eating my dinner and he was right there next to my plate.” A bunch of jokes like that. I hadn’t seen it until a couple of years ago on YouTube. I did it, and think I’m going to be the next Tiny Tim, who got married on The Tonight Show. As it was, I was on the show; watched the show at a friend’s house. [Editor’s note: Learn about Tiny Tim’s marriage to Miss Vicki and much more about the uke-strumming falsetto singer soon in RetroFan #34!] Next day, I’m walking down the street with my arms up, hoping someone will recognize me. Nothing. What happens—I get a call from my boss at the Universal Room. He says, “What’s going on here?” They wanted to teach me to be a programmer. I was fairly intelligent for someone who left school at 15. I only went to 9th Grade. I had common sense. I was fully entrenched in this computer business. The bosses call me in, “What are you doing on television? We’re putting a lot of money into training you to be a programmer.” In a nice way, I said, “I don’t think it’s your business what I do in my off hours.” They fired me. I got my job back because I was in a union, but it didn’t last long. Long story, short, they fired me and I was grateful for it, but didn’t realize it then. I needed that income. I had already started hanging around different things. Jerry Lewis had a producer who taught classes and I got his name. He had a class teaching comedy and I went to

his house, although it was kind of obvious he was just making money off a bunch of kids. I knew this wasn’t going to lead to anywhere. I ended up, starting to hustle. I was painting part-time and got a part with Roger Miller called “Sight and Sound” and then because I was infatuated with Martin and Lewis, I got a partner and we started going to comedy clubs. Again, I’m working during the day and going to clubs trying to develop an act: Jack [Starr] and Murray. We worked a club called Knopows, and worked alongside another duo called Cheech and Chong. They worked at the same club. We were working for a hamburger a night. We’d work if there were three and four people a night. Sometimes we would do Cheech and Chong’s act and sometimes they’d do our act, just for fun. This was literally for a hamburger. I just talked to Cheech a while ago. We remained friends. I stayed there working and then got a job selling shoes at JC Penney, because I couldn’t keep up painting. Then the club closed down, Cheech and Chong became huge with their album, and I was still trying to figure it out. Jack and I broke up and I formed a partnership with a Black guy that came to my house to deliver telegrams.

Television’s The Gong Show made household names of its host, Chuck Barris, as well as the Unknown Comic, who’s not shown on this Gong Show trading card box but should’ve been! The Gong Show © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

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retro interview

Freeman King and I started working all the clubs—again, for nothing. We were pretty good. RF: Who was the straight man? ML: Freeman was the straight man and I was the crazy white kid. We’d do jokes like, “Don’t go away, we’ll be right Black.” We were together about six months at the time, and [Sanford and Son star] Redd Foxx had a club. I said, “Let’s go over there.” We opened for Redd Foxx. He was already famous because of his records. We formed a team with two girls— Norma and another one who recently died, and some other guys. We formed the opening act for Redd Foxx. They were very dirty comedy acts! He was very dirty. Flip Wilson hung out there; the Temptations. They were all there to get their drugs. This was the drug culture and it was going full

force. I wasn’t into drugs. I never did drugs or drank. I only got drunk once in my life, and that was in the military and is a whole other story! Anyway, bottom line is, we’re opening for Redd Foxx, doing dirty acts. All of a sudden, Sue Golden, an agent, takes us aside and says, “Sonny and Cher are putting together a summer show and I might be able to get you an audition for it.” We said, “What?? Yeah!” We go down and she sets us up with an audition at CBS. [Freeman’s] still delivering telegrams and I’m selling shoes. I’d been in Hollywood for three or four years now. Working my ass off! Next thing, we go to Chris Bearde and Allan Blye, the producers. One guy looks at me and says, “Are you the guy who did the fork on Laugh-In?” I said, “Yeah!” He said, “I was one of the writers.” They had moved up to the Sonny

and Cher show. Me and Freeman do a few really nasty sketches. They didn’t laugh or anything. They said, “Thank you for coming,” and we left. Two days later, “You got the Sonny and Cher show.” That was all of a sudden and we’re going on one of the hottest shows. I became a regular on that show for four and a half years. I was in heaven going to work at CBS. It turned out to be really great for me. I became a comedy actor—doing sketches with all these guys and Teri Garr. Me, Freeman, Teri, and Peter. They’re all Canadian, except for Freeman and both producers. Purely coincidence. I was living the good life—going to a great job and dating Playmates that came on the show. After that show folded, I became a comedy actor on all kinds of shows. I did a show with Bobby Vinton, I did a series with Wolfman Jack, Lola Falana, and series with a whole lot of comedy acting. I’m not that well known, but have done over 800 TV shows and 18 or 20 movies. I bought a nightclub for some reason. I wanted a place that didn’t just do comedy—it was all kinds of entertainment. I had never done just stand-up. I was terrified. That’s why I liked being part of a team—you could rely on the other person. If you didn’t get laughs—no big deal, you were just doing sketches. The place was called Show Biz and I invested all my money—it wasn’t a lot of money, but it was all of it. Interesting place: David Letterman got his start there; Michael Keaton (who was Michael Douglas back then); Debra Winger was one of my waitresses. A lot of people hung there for two years. After two years, I was broke on my ass. I lost everything because, to be a nightclub/restaurant owner, you have to be a prick. You can’t be nice to people because they will eat you. I lost the club. RF: Oh, no! What happened next? ML: Next thing I knew, I was broke and needed money, and a show called The Gong Show was on the air and had been for about six months or so. I heard from a friend, if you were in the union they had to pay you— like $300 back then. I had done a couple of shows for [Gong Show producer and host]

From the collection of Shaun Clancy, an autographed photo of the Unknown Comic. © Murray Langston. 40

RETROFAN

January 2024

retro interview

Chuck Barris for The Dating Game, so I knew the talent person. I asked her if could get on the show, because I was broke. My idea back then was, because I’d been on a lot of shows, I didn’t want them to see my face. “Why don’t I put a bag over my head and call myself ‘The Unknown Comic’?” My intention was to do one show and get that money. I went on and went up to Chuck Barris and said, “Hey, Chuckie.” He said, “You gotta insult me again.” He insulted acts on the show that he liked because it gave him a certain amount of vulnerability. So, I wound up getting on a lot of [Gong Show episodes]. I did that for a year and a half, and then Chuck asked me to be one of the writers, so I did that. I was making a living doing this character on TV, which was pretty cool, but I needed to move on. I got offered a gig in Las Vegas—$5,000 a week to do a show in the lounge in the Sahara Hotel. I’d never heard of that kind of money. Even on the Sonny and Cher show, we were getting $1200 a show, which is nothing. That was a lot of money back then,

but nowhere near money today. Bottom line, when they offered Las Vegas, I’d never done stand-up—they wanted an hour show. I said, “I don’t know.” I knew I had to do it and put my brain together and said, ‘I’ll take the gig.” I went to the Comedy Store and started doing stand-up to see how it worked. I started with the bag and then I started doing stand-up without the bag. It was scary and troubling. I put together 15, 20 minutes of material at the Comedy Store, because I knew I had the gig coming in three or four months. I put a band together called the Brown Bags, and they all wore bags. I hired two girls called the Bagettes. They started the show, dancing and introducing me. The show ended up being really, really good. I don’t know how. Truth is, the show was costing me six to seven thousand a week and I was making five! But I had a show with great reviews. I did half the show with the bag and the other half without. They offered me a three-year contract. They had Reno, Tahoe, and Vegas, and I now had a three-year contract. Two weeks at each hotel. That was a good living,

When Chuck Barris’ gonzo game show jumped to the big screen with 1980’s The Gong Show Movie, the Unknown Comic made the scene! © NBCUniversal. Lobby card courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

but it wasn’t because I had to pay all these people—hotel, food. I did that for two or three years and it was my learning ground. I spent many nights on the third show with four people, struggling. Great learning experience and I had to adapt. RF: Was there a point where you revealed yourself as the Unknown Comic? ML: Just to the girls I picked up. I’d reveal myself in my hotel room. It was great! [laughter] In the clubs, I would reveal myself right away—20 minutes in, I would take off the bag. I’d have my father come in—with a bag. I’d have a girl in the audience yell, “He’s the father of my child!” I’d say, “Prove it,” and she’d show the baby—with a bag over his head. It was Broadway-esque. It was a RETROFAN

January 2024

retro interview

very crazy show. A lot of musical bits and I was quite crazy. I was very well received. My material sucked, but my energy was over the roof. I did this for three or four years, but was also doing Merv Griffin and other talk shows as the Unknown Comic. I was making my piece of a living off this bag character, which I never expected. Then a show called, I forget what it was [Real People]—a show that was going to reveal me. I was going to reveal myself and take my bag off. I did it, because by that point, after three or four years in Vegas, it was time to move on. I had done that enough. By this time, I knew I was a comedy actor and I knew I could do stand-up. Then, I did the first trio of comedies. All these clubs have trios of comics. I was the first at the Landmark Hotel, I was the headliner. We had Elaine Boozler and Lily Tomlin. I did the first all-comedy show in Las Vegas. I was very proud of that. Then I got bored and wanted to do a movie, so I did Night Patrol. I loved the script. It did pretty well. Then I did Up Your Alley and then did Wishful Thinking. These were all movies I produced or directed. I had fun with them. RF: You said you liked Dean Martin. He hosted lots of celebrity roasts on TV back then. Did you ever do any of those? ML: I never did those. My best friend, Ruth Buzzi, did a whole bunch of those. She and her husband are my best friends. They are godparents for both my girls. Then, I did three or four plays with Pat Paulsen. The thing about me is, I never really cared about being famous or wealthy. It was about having fun and doing something different and enjoying myself. Then, when I became a father, that’s when it all ended, to a degree. I realized my priority was my kids and sort of retired. I watched a lot of show business people whose kids were heavily damaged because of lack of attention. I watched a lot of that. I said my kids will have more attention. I raised my older daughter by myself, and she’s doing really well as a singer/songwriter and is pregnant, and I have another daughter with Down Syndrome. Those girls bring me the most joy. I’m still able to go out and enjoy periods of other artistic fun things to do. I’m going to do a cruise ship in October 42

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January 2024

[2022] with Frankie Avalon, and I’ll do comedy. There will be Dion and the Righteous Brothers. It’s like, eight famous music acts. I’ll do the comedy. RF: Did you write jokes for other comedians besides Chuck Barris? ML: In that period, my buddies were Jay Leno and Robin Williams and that whole group of guys from the Comedy Store. I used to double-date with Robin. We’d watch someone on stage and add to it. For me, since I had a bag over my head, there were some jokes they couldn’t do and would hand them to me. Yeah, we’d help each other. As a professional writer, no, only The Gong Show. I didn’t consider myself much of a writer or a stand-up comic. I consider myself an actor doing a comic routine. I am playing a comic. I still refer to myself like that today. When I do an hour show, with

(ABOVE) Murray Langston produced, co-wrote, and co-starred (with Linda Blair) in the 1989 rom-com, Up Your Alley. © The Unknown Film Company. (LEFT) Langston co-wrote and co-starred (with Linda Blair again) in the comedy, Night Patrol (1984). © RSL/ New World Pictures. (BELOW) The Unknown Comic performing on stage. © Murray Langston.

retro interview

12 or so minutes of general comedy and the rest of the time is me going berserk! It’s just an acting job. RF: I’ve seen your act on YouTube. You have material like Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield. Why aren’t you using those types of stand-up? ML: Because I don’t do stand-up anymore. I did a couple of things because people were talking to me about Netflix. I could work all I wanted to out of the country, but I don’t want to. No interest. In the last 15 years, I’ve worked on stage as a comic about ten times. It’s rare to get me on, and I’m always amazed that my brain still works. When I was thinking about this possible Netflix thing, then I’d be the only one-liner left. That’s my specialty—all one liners.

same material he’s doing lately back in the Comedy Store, he would barely survive, but because he’s so famous, people will laugh. The same goes for me. My energy pushed everything over, even with very bad material. If I had to do a show in front of 200 people who didn’t know me, it just wouldn’t be the same. Cheech and Chong just had that happen on a cruise ship, and the reason was because 25% may have been fans of theirs, but 75% didn’t know them or weren’t that familiar with them,

RF: The bag on your head—are there times when it gets soggy? ML: I only do it a couple of minutes. There’s a lot of tape inside to hold it together. I did an outside in 90 degrees. Within a couple of minutes, it was stuck, soggy, to my head. So I learned from that experience. So, I put a lot of scotch tape inside the bag. RF: We had a talent contest in the 8th grade, and three of us did the Unknown Comic, and that bag didn’t last! ML: Now you know the secret! Put a ton of scotch tape on the inside. RF: I have your book. It was done in 2013. In the last decade, do you have anything to update? I think I saw that you were going back to Vegas to do stand-up? ML: I did a couple gigs to see if I could still do it. The audience has changed and isn’t into one-liner comics. If you put me in front of people who have never heard of the Unknown Comic, it would be difficult, but if at least half the people know me, I’ll do good because they are there to see me. Robin Williams used to bomb all the time at the Comedy Store before he was famous, but he was a risk-taker. Once you become well known, it is different. If you have someone famous like Jerry Seinfeld, you can have mediocre material, but people will still laugh because they are there to see him. If Jerry Seinfeld did some of that

and people were walking out in droves. When they work in the city to 1,000 people who are fans, they are going to kick ass. I heard they had a rough time on the ship and did a lot of raunchy material and people got offended by them. RF: Would you tell Chuck Barris ahead of time what your jokes would be during The Gong Show and what he was supposed to say? ML: I would tell him sometimes and say something along the lines of, “I’m going to do this thing and your answer should be no.” I would just tell him to say no and he would say no. He had no approval. He was really a nice guy and we got along great

(ABOVE) Promotional button for a 1991 comedy show featuring the Unknown Comic. Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

even though he was a bit aloof. With me, he was great all through his life. When I’d go to New York, he would always take me out to lunch years after The Gong Show. RF: He passed away in 2017. Were you at his funeral? ML: No, that was back East, so I didn’t go. I had to be with my family. RF: Wolfman Jack—did he go by the name Wolfman Jack when you knew him? What did you call him? ML: You know, I don’t remember, but he was the coolest dude. He was a heavy pot smoker and would smoke it from the time he got up to the time he went to bed. He was a generous guy. When we would walk down the street, and he’d see a homeless person, he would whip out a ton of money and give it to them. I tried talking to the producer of that show trying to get them to release the video as I did a lot of stuff on that show but apparently because it was a music show, the cost of releasing it with the music rights was cost prohibitive. They’d have about four big name music acts per show with bands and the cost of paying all those people would be so much, and so it’s the reason why you don’t see them re-aired after all these years. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #16 for a Wolfman Jack history.] RF: How about the Smothers Brothers? Did you work with them? ML: No but the guys who produced the Sonny and Cher Show, Chris and Alan, were writers on that show before they moved up to producing Sonny and Cher. I did get to know Tommy Smothers over the years, as my real good buddy Pat Paulsen was friends with them. We never socialized together that much but did go out drinking a few times in Vegas when they were working and so was I. RF: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. We’ll talk again soon, I hope. ML: I had a great time, but I’m bored now, so I got to go! [laughter] 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. RETROFAN

January 2024

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THE

PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION

by STEPHAN FRIEDT & JON B. COOKE

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!

WORKING WITH DITKO by JACK C. HARRIS

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

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

I’m a Retro Investigator. It’s a bit like being a hard-boiled private investigator but with a lot less gunplay. Or sexy clients. Or action. But like a P.I., I’m the kind of gumshoe that pokes his nose into other people’s retro interests, and not everyone likes that kind of scrutiny. But it pays cold, hard cash, and a little scratch keeps the whiskey cabinet stocked. But if I’m being honest (sure), Retro Investigating is thankless, backbreaking work full of long hours staring at Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. The kind of activity that gets you shunned at high society affairs, where the elite meet to laugh at the little guy. But it’s them fancy folk who lose. I got lots of interesting stories. Like this one case that really stumped me. There were too many suspects, not enough facts, and when it all finally came together, the whole thing just left me cold…

FROM THE SECRET SANCTUM CASEBOOK: THE CHILLING CONUNDRUM OF THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MISTY

Love and loss. I know it as well as anyone. I am, of course, talking about the kind of grub that gives us that faraway look—you know, the kind you get when you remember a former flame: the snacks

(ABOVE) Mr. Misty, cornered at last! TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp. (RIGHT) The author attempted to satisfy a nostalgic food craving with some “home-made” Flaky Flix. Results were mixed.

and treats we used to crave when we were younger but aren’t around anymore. Like a sweet and craveable Judge Crater, they just disappear and no one hears from them again. Mother’s Brand Flakey Flix cookies were my snack tragedy. Gone but not forgotten. Do you have a lost treat love? You’re not alone. There are plenty of hollow-eyed Retro Food Fans hoping against hope that one day their yummy delight will return. Searching for lost treats…? Well, that’s just part of my job. The latest SUI (Snack Under Investigation) is Mr. Misty. It was a semi-frozen drink that was part soft-serve ice cream and part flavored slushy (think Slurpee), served up at Dairy Queen, an international chain of cold-treat and fast-food outlets. It was popular, and then… Pow! Gone to the Big Sleep. But I ain’t convinced. The scuttlebutt is that Mr. Misty never went anywhere. The crazy part is that you won’t find it on any menu. Fans act as if it skipped town years ago. So, is Mr. Misty with Elvis (if you take my meaning), or is Mr. Misty still around? Maybe it’s a ghost. The official Dairy Queen timeline makes no mention of Mr. Misty at all. I pop some gum in my mouth. It’s bubblegum flavor and aspartame free. You’re expecting that I booze up while writing? That’s RETROFAN

January 2024

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

a mug’s game—clear eyes are needed in this arena. There’s always some young punk Retro Investigator trying to get a jump on me. I’m ready to work.

SOME BIRDS SING

I hit up the usual places—bars, dives, speakeasies, seedy gyms— and turned up nothing. I was left having to go where angels fear to tread… message boards and blog comment sections, a cesspool of poor grammar and worse punctuation. Luckily, more than one Mr. Misty fan was willing to sing: “I remember Mr. Misty around 1971. They were sweet and tasty and cold. It was in Nova Scotia.” “I knew they made ’em up in New England for years.” “[As of 2007] they still have them in the Southeast. Be wary, they might try to put some whipped cream on top…” “Political correctness killed Mr. Misty.” “I remember getting them from A&W Root Beer.” It’s clear that I needed to move on and shake a few different bushes when one of the messages grabbed me by the collar like an unhinged carbjunkie desperate for a “New Coke.” “The Mt. Misty machine was originally called the DeLush… designed and first used in a Wichita, Kansas, Dairy Queen. One of the inventors was also the first person to put a hot kitchen in a Dairy Queen. I know this because he was my grandfather.” This commenter, who goes by the internet handle “Michael,” doesn’t actually cough up the goods… a name for the (LEFT) Grandpa inventor. Why so shy, “Michael?” McCullough, soft-serve ice You afraid of being a stoolie? cream pioneer. (RIGHT) Maybe you just got something Sherb Noble, ice-cream to hide. Or you respect other retailer willing to take people’s privacy. Either way I’m a chance. Noble photo courtesy flummoxed. For starters, I can’t of International Dairy Queen. find hide nor hair of anything (BELOW) The happy called a DeLush. crowd in front of Sherb’s Ice Cream Shop for FROZEN FACTS all-you-can-eat soft-serve I don’t let a tight-lipped jamoke treats on August 4, 1938 keep me from my search. I and (INSET) advertising dig deeper. I go all the way for the cool event. Both courtesy of Noble Stores LLC. back to the Big Bang of Dairy 46

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Queen. Dairy Queen, or DQ as it’s more commonly known today, is the result of a raw passion for a new take on an old desert and a soda-pop disaster gone right. Those two events eventually collided into Mr. Misty. We know the names of the creators of Dairy Queen. But the inventor of the Mr. Misty has either been rubbed out of the public story or they are hiding in plain sight. Very strange. Very… Misty-rious (it’s my yarn, I’ll tell it like I tell it). The DQ tale is a successful one. Not perfect. A little messy. But chaos creates opportunity. When you talk about the main joes at DQ in its early days, it’s a pretty small group. They’re my suspects.

GRANDPA

1927 was a crazy year. The first armored car robbery happened, actress Mae West spent ten days in the pokey for “corrupting the morals of youth” via her play Sex, and The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson was the first motion picture with synchronized sound. Less celebrated was Grandpa McCullough—all of 56 years old—who started making and wholesale selling ice cream that year. More formally, Grandpa was known as J. F. (John Freemont) McCullough. He was born in Douds, Iowa, in 1871. Grandpa and his son Alex began making their own ice cream in Green River, Illinois, using milk from nearby farms. In order to get the fresh ice cream into their containers for later resale, it had to be soft enough to pour.

From there it would be frozen and sent to retail customers. Over time Grandpa developed a taste for the soft stuff. It wasn’t illegal, so he thought that maybe the general public would also like this soft ice cream. He asked one of his ice cream clients if he would go in with him on a little job. It would be an audacious plan, but if it worked they all could maybe, just maybe, pull in a few banknotes.

SHERB

Sherwood Noble owned an ice cream store in Kankakee, Illinois. He was better known as Sherb and bought his ice cream from Grandpa. He was all in with Grandpa’s plan, which was to see if the locals would give up cold, hard dough for some cold, soft serve.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Because the soft ice cream couldn’t travel far and didn’t keep anywhere near as long as its frozen counterpart, Grandpa and Sherb needed to make big with the ballyhoo to bring in customers all fast-like. The promotion, held on August 4, 1938, was an “all you can eat” ice cream hoo-hah at the bargain price of one thin dime. It was a real attention-getter, especially as it was the Great Depression. The place was chock-a-block with eager beavers Hoovering up soft-serve ice cream. The August heat didn’t hurt as an inducement, either, and the crush of bodies almost busted the windows of the shop. When all the available soft ice cream was gone, the event was over. Some 1,600 servings were served in the span of about two hours. Sherb and Grandpa had a hit on their hands. That was the good news. The bad news was that it couldn’t be replicated at a larger scale. The technology just didn’t exist to provide fresh soft ice cream at the right temperature and at the point of sale. At least, as far as they knew.

ALEX, HARRY, AND HERB

Attempts to get equipment makers interested in building a soft-serve ice cream device failed. Unlikely good fortune smiled in 1939 when Grandpa’s son Alex drove to Chicago. On his trip he spotted a roadside stand selling frozen custard from a dispenser that froze the custard “the second before you eat it,” according to the signage. Alex pulled over and tried to find out the name of the device’s maker. The frozen custard seller kept his yap closed and wasn’t talking. Alex should’ve slapped custard boy around a bit, but he didn’t operate that way. Grandpa decided to spend a few days scanning want ads in the Chicago Tribune, a popular rag, where, eventually, he found an ad for the mysterious ice cream device. Grandpa and the patent owner Harry M. Oltz came to an agreement. Harry got royalties for every gallon Grandpa produced, and Grandpa got an exclusive selling territory that included every state west of the Mississippi, plus Wisconsin and Illinois. Grandpa had acted quickly to lock down rights to the use of Harry’s machine, but in the end it was a bust. Too big. Too hard to use. It required salt, which messed up the metal of the thing. A better soft ice cream dingus was needed. Alex and Herb Klavohn, the McCulloughs’ first ice cream company employee, worked until early in 1940 to improve on Harry Oltz’s machine. Meanwhile, Grandpa experimented with the recipe for the soft ice cream, lowering the butterfat content and finding the optimal

The first Dairy Queen opened June 22, 1940 in Joliet, Illinois, and was owned by Sherb Noble. Currently, other businesses have come and gone at this site with only a plaque to commemorate soft-serve history. TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp. serving and storage temperature. A Wisconsin-based manufacturer of dairy equipment agreed to build the new soft ice cream machines. Not that it was known at the time, but the first bit of the Mr. Misty was in like Flynn. Now all that was needed was a joint where Grandpa’s soft serve could be sold.

DAIRY QUEEN

Joliet, Illinois (home to the Joliet Correctional Center, where Jake Blues and secret agent Maxwell Smart would later be incarcerated), was the town chosen to host the next phase of Grandpa’s plan to introduce his soft-serve ice cream. Working with Sherb, these two opened the first—and if things turned into a busted flush, the only—Dairy Queen in June 1940. Grandpa came up with the name, as the yarn is told, because his soft serve was the “queen of dairy output.” The town folk of Joliet did take to the soft-serve ice cream, and so another Dairy Queen was opened westward across the state in Moline in 1941. Unsure of the long-term viability of the soft-serve business, Grandpa didn’t want to get stuck with a dog, something that could

(ABOVE) Early soft serve machine, one piece of the Mr. Misty puzzle. (RIGHT) Screen capture of an animated ad shown at movie theaters in the Fifties.TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp. RETROFAN

January 2024

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

President Lyndon Johnson (CENTER) stops off for some soft serve for he and his wife at a Dairy Queen in Lewiston, Maine on August 20, 1966. He is joined by (LEFT) Senator Edmund Muskie. Courtesy of the LBJ Library.

end up just being a fad. He sold territorial rights to operate Dairy Queen stores to others. The company’s growth was modest, but this was more due to the war effort during the Big One making important components of the business difficult to get than a lack of interest. Added to these obstacles a stronger plan for growth was not only needed, but Grandpa, now 72, wanted to skip out from the day to day of the biz and take it easy. Another random discovery during a drive would allow Grandpa to retire.

HARRY A.

The war was leaving farm equipment sales manager Harry W. Axene without enough product to move. He was open to other opportunities when he happened across a busy Dairy Queen. Harry liked the product and wanted a piece of the action. After a face-to-face conversation with Grandpa on his porch, Harry (who must have been a heck of a pitchman) walked away with a deal for ownership of half of Dairy Queen’s business and his own Dairy Queen territories. Once the war ended, Harry oversaw huge growth for the company. Soft-serve ice cream was a definite hit. But Dairy Queen was not a franchise in the top-down way for which McDonald’s would eventually become famous. The various store owners were not required to adhere to total menu sameness. This product fluctuation between the different outlets was confusing to customers and owners alike. But I gotta admit, it did allow for some tasty experimentation. And at a Dairy Queen outlet that had seen better days a simple discovery would lead to the second component of the Mr. Misty.

OMAR

Following his discharge from the Army, Omar Knedlik tried a number of businesses before purchasing a previously owned Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kansas. There are two versions of what happened next. The first, spread wide like butter on toast, is that his shop didn’t have a soda dispenser, so he put bottles of soda in his freezer where the beverages only sort of froze. The second is that Omar did have a soda machine but it broke, so he gathered 48

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up bottles of soda and put them in his chest freezer. His widow confirmed the later version in an Associated Press story in 1991. In either scenario, customers really liked the icy drinks. The sodas didn’t freeze solid due to the sugar content and the carbonation remained in the drink. Omar felt he was on to something, but it took five years of work and the eventual help of the John E. Mitchell Company in Dallas, Texas, to develop the proper equipment. With the technical problems solved, a name for the new frozen treat was needed. Early suggestions were “Fizz” (already trademarked) and “Scoldasice” (!). Omar may have lacked a bit as a marketer, but thankfully a friend, artist Ruth Taylor, came up with the “Icee” name and its logo. At first ICEEs were a tough sell. A Coke dispenser in the early Sixties cost less than $800, while the ICEE machine cost a few thousand. But the drink caught the attention of the Southland Corporation, which then owned the 7-Eleven convenience store business. In 1965 they licensed the ICEE dispensers but called their product Slurpees, which were a hit. After that, ICEE’s also began to take off.

(ABOVE) Omar Knedlik, creator of the ICEE®, the precursor to the Slurpee® and another piece of the Mr. Misty puzzle. Knedlik family. (UPPER RIGHT) The ICEE logo. (RIGHT) The ICEE machine as seen on the trademark application. Both © ICEE. All Rights Reserved.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

The main components of a Mr. Misty, the soft-serve ice cream, and the slushies were now in hand. All that was needed was for some goose to get off their keister, use their noodle, and make with the inventin’.

JIM

Selling cold treats was a seasonal business. Some Dairy Queen operators expanded their offerings in order to attract customers all year round, selling hot dogs, chicken, or sandwiches (what is now professionally known as “middle of the plate protein”—ain’t words a hoot?). James “Jim” Cruikshank was up to his honker in Dairy Queens in Georgia. In many tellings of the DQ story Jim is sometimes identified by name, but often as a “Georgia franchisee” or “owner of several Dairy Queens.” He would be very active in the company and had a big impact when he devised the “Braizier” menu. The tale is that Jim was in New York and saw flames blasting out from a restaurant’s open charcoal grill. He wanted to standardize the grub found at Dairy Queens across the U.S. of A. He had the notion that could happen if the idea was good enough. Brazier is French for a thing that holds coal or other heat source for cooking. Jim thought that what soft-serve ice cream shops located mostly in rural and small town America needed was to sell burgers and other cooked food under a French name. It wasn’t a lousy scheme, since a good plan to make some scratch all year long was a cinch, right?

WILD BUNCH

While many Dairy Queens served up the “Brazier” menu, not everyone went along with Jim’s concept. Worse, not all (ABOVE) A newspaper ad from 1970 for Mr. Misty. TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp.

(LEFT) A 1979 Dairy Queen sign in Dodge City, Kansas, highlights the short-lived Queen’s Choice menu. Photo: John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. (RIGHT) The Brazier concept was an attempt to create more commonality to menus across the country. The Brazier has a secret connection to Mr. Misty. This DQ is in Fenwick Island, Delaware. Photo: Lee Cannon/Flickr.

customers knew what a brazier was. And besides, some of the franchisees had their own ideas, coming up with food and treats that were adopted by other franchisees. Robert Litherland of Minnesota introduced the Dilly Bar (round ice cream on a stick) in 1955. In 1962, David Skjerven created the Buster Bar (soft serve with nuts in a cup). The Peanut Buster Parfait from 1969 was thought up by Patsy Franks. And, of course, Jim Cruikshank, in 1957, conceived the Brazier menu, which is now being phased out in favor of “Grill and Chill.” And then there is the great state of Texas. The Lone Star State has more Dairy Queens than any other. They even have their own unique menu items like the “Dude,” a chicken-fried steak sandwich that intrigues my curious but foolish taste buds. This is all easy-to-find information. There has to be a record somewhere somehow of the brains behind Mr. Misty. A thought grabs my noggin… The name “Mr. Misty” was surely trademarked. Who was behind that? A dig RETROFAN

January 2024

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

into government records shows the name was trademarked by a group in Georgia and then transferred to Dairy Queen. It was the break I needed to crack the case. I had the answer. The creator of Mr. Misty was… was…

THE GANG

Anyone with a pair of mitts and peepers probably could have blended the two main components of a Mr. Misty. Fate, for whatever reason, chose not just one guy, but four. Putting their conks together to come up with the Mr. Misty were: Robert Allen “Bob” Cruikshank, the scion of Jim “Brazier” Cruikshank; Howard Beck and his family’s food company, Beck Flavors, which had serviced Dairy Queen from its earliest days and supplied the new flavors for Mr. Misty; Gene Duke of H. C. Duke & Son, who created the slushy machine for Dairy Queen advised on the Mr. Misty development; and Jim Cruikshank, who came up with the Mr. Misty name, and trademarked it and the little star cartoon

SPHENOPALATINE GANGLIONEURALGIA Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia, a.k.a. Brain Freeze, the ache that hits square between the eyes and then radiates outward, is commonly associated with eating cold treats too fast. Ice cream and slushy drinks are common causes. Since Mr. Misty is a combination of both, it’s not unusual to face the painful effects of a Brain Freeze, which is a kind of headache caused by… (shrug). Eh, Medical Science isn’t completely sure. Obviously it involves cold, but it doesn’t only occur during the warm months as many have suspected. This type of headache is generally short-lasting, about 30 seconds, but can last longer (sorry). Amazingly, it only affects about a third of the population, but if you are prone to migraines then you are also prone to Brain Freeze. Is there a cure? No. Only some self-control will spare you. Good luck with that.

(TOP LEFT) A DQ animated commercial cel featuring Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace comic-strip character. Dennis appeared on cups, in print ads, and various other promotions from 1971–2002. (LEFT) One of a series of collectible cups featuring Dennis the Menace. (ABOVE) A metal Mr. Misty sign circa the Sixties. Cel courtesy of Heritage. Cup and sign courtesy of Worthpoint. TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp. Dennis the Menace © Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) This poster for Mr. Misty highlighted the various flavors. (BELOW LEFT) A 1984 DQ ad featuring the Mr. Misty family of treats: Mr. Misty (the original), Mr. Misty Freeze (a straight slushy), and Mr. Misty Float (seen here with the soft serve popping up out of the top). (RIGHT) A poster for the Mr. Misty Kiss, a frozen treat. (BELOW) A treats-only DQ in Rochester, Minnesota, closed for the season. The roof edge still mentions Mr. Misty. Posters courtesy of Worthpoint. TM & © Am. D. Q. Corp. Dairy Queen location © Google.

EPILOGUE

character originally tagged to the product. These trademarks would soon be transferred over to Dairy Queen. While Mr. Misty is fondly recalled, there were those who believed it went away. Didn’t happen. The cold concoction simply got a new name: the Arctic Rush. Later, in an attempt to ride the wave of Nineties nostalgia, DQ dropped Arctic Rush and the old Mr. Misty was renamed the Misty Freeze in 2017. Some believe the new formula isn’t as good (“Not the same,” says one blog commenter). I decided to try my first Misty Freeze (cherry flavor), and it was fine. The Blizzard (created in 1985) remains my go-to DQ treat when I’m brave enough to take in the carbs. The success of the Blizzard, which is so solid that it’s served to you upside-down, is ironic since ol’ Grandpa liked soft serve so much. That there are those who think the treat is kaput is a marketing problem and not a where-did-it-go problem. No matter the name, the DQ stalwart continues to exist (for over 60 years!). That is something.

We Retro snack fans are rarely so fortunate. That’s the downside of food nostalgia, isn’t it? Unlike toys, music, or movies, once a fondly recalled food is gone, it’s not like we can buy 40-year-old uneaten packages of treats to consume (nor should we; don’t be a dope). I recently read about a “Retro Prepper” who bought up all the Mother’s Flaky Flix cookies he could find and stored them in his freezer so that he could slowly dole them out when the itch struck. Apparently, they lasted for years after the cookie hit the Big Sleep. For the most part, the rest of us are just stuck with our memories. As for why DQ keeps it on the down-low about the creators of the Mr. Misty remains unknown. That’s it, ya mugs. Nothing more to see here. Now blow. For the record: tough guy words I would have liked to use but couldn’t in this special Secret Sanctum Casebook are (in no particular order) Heater, Souse, Five Spot, Two Bits, Goon, Hooch, Meat Wagon, and Stiff. 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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RETRO ANIMATION

Happy Birthday! The Real Story of Rankin/ Bass’

BY RICK GOLDSCHMIDT 52

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Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman was “born” on December 7, 1969, on the CBS television network. This year, 2023, marks its 54th annual airing, making it the longest-running annual TV special on the same network (with Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, which premiered in 1970, being second, on ABC-TV). Happy Birthday! Both Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer [which originally premiered in 1964 on NBC; see RetroFan #12—ed.] and Frosty the Snowman get high ratings annually on CBS-TV.

NOT AN ‘ANIMAGIC’ SPECIAL

As the official Rankin/Bass historian/biographer, I am often asked: After the success of the stop-motion (“Animagic”) Rudolph, why did Rankin/Bass Productions choose cel animation for the Frosty special? “I wanted it to look like a Christmas card,” said producer Arthur Rankin, Jr., “and [MAD magazine artist] Paul Coker, Jr. was actually doing art on Christmas cards for Hallmark. Paul’s art was also more animat-able in traditional cel animation than, say, Jack Davis’ art, which was more detailed than Paul’s style.” Another reason for Frosty the Snowman’s cel animation was the that Rankin/Bass’ MOM Animagic studios in Japan was already busy doing an Animagic production, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, after completing The Little Drummer Boy. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #24 for the Little Drummer Boy story… and join us next Christmas for Rick Goldschmidt’s look at Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, in RetroFan #36!] For Frosty, Rankin/Bass Productions hired Mushi Studios in Japan, after doing many projects with Toei Studios (The King Kong Show, Cricket on the Hearth, The Mouse on the Mayflower, etc.). Mushi was far better at capturing the Paul Coker, Jr. art style in animation than Toei. For Frosty, Coker not only designed the characters, he also did the lettering in the credits, on buildings, etc. With this special, Paul’s art became the look with which Rankin/ Bass Productions would be closely linked. It was at this point that the illustrator began doing yearly Variety magazine ads for the studio. “When I told people I worked on Frosty the Snowman, their ears would perk open,” Coker said. “People (OPPOSITE) Merry were so enchanted by the Christmas! Or should we Rankin/Bass TV specials. I say, Happy Birthday? Meet began working with MAD Frosty, Karen, and Hocus magazine in 1962, but it was Pocus from Rankin/Bass the Rankin/Bass work I did Productions’ Frosty the that really caught people’s Snowman! © Miser Bros. Press/Rick attention!” Goldschmidt Archives.

(LEFT) Holiday ratings bragging rights from Rankin/Bass, from a 1969 Variety ad. (RIGHT). Five years later they were at it again! Both ads feature art by MAD’s Paul Coker, Jr. © Miser Bros. Press/ Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

Artist Paul Coker, Jr. chills out with Frosty in this sketch illustrated for Rick Goldschmidt. (INSET) Coker flashes a smile during a promotional appearance. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

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When I think of Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman, I can’t get my late, great friend Paul Coker, Jr. out of my mind. We lost Paul on July 22, 2022 at the age of 93. I had a long friendship with Paul. I am thankful I finished all six of my Rankin/Bass history books for Miser Bros Press with Paul’s involvement, including Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman 50th Anniversary Scrapbook. He had a wonderful, dry sense of humor and we would always end up laughing on phone calls. Whenever I needed art from Paul, he was always there. He designed the cover to my first book, The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass: A Portfolio, at Arthur Rankin’s request. Paul continued to do work for Arthur, until his passing in 2014. Paul had a special way of working on projects for Arthur. “Arthur would call me up and tell me what he needed,” Coker remembered. “We never agreed on a price and I never even sent an invoice. Some months would go by and then a check would show up with an amount I was always very happy with. My steady job was always with MAD magazine, but the Rankin/Bass projects were always a big boost.” I had a deep appreciation for his work, as my degree is in Illustration. Paul and I were both friends with Jack Davis; we both loved his work. Paul Coker, Jr. made a point of appearing with me in 2017 at the North Dallas Comic Book show so that we could spend time together. We even did an Associated Press Christmas interview at that show, and I got to see firsthand fan response to his endearing art.

A PERSONALITY FOR FROSTY

Writing has always been a key to the success of Rankin/Bass’ TV specials and their longevity. Prior to the premiere of Rankin/ Bass’ Frosty the Snowman, the character of Frosty had been a part of Christmas iconography and pop culture but was lacking personality. He appeared first in a song, “Frosty the Snowman,” by Steve Nelson and Walter E. Rollins. The song was recorded by many artists including the Beach Boys, Jimmy Durante, and Bing Crosby. Frosty appeared in comic books, storybooks, decorations, and more. In the Fifties, UPA animated a wonderful Frosty the Snowman short cartoon, but again he did not talk and really did not have a personality. Rankin/Bass Productions writer Romeo Muller took the character of Frosty and brought him to life. Now Frosty would be known to say “Happy Birthday!” as he comes to life. Muller gave Frosty a sidekick in Hocus Pocus the rabbit (who speaks in sign language and symbols) and a best friend in a little girl named Karen. He also introduced Professor Hinkle, Frosty’s foe who wants his magic hat back at any cost. And let’s not forget Santa Claus, who saves the day in the end as he does in all the Rankin/Bass specials! Paul Coker, Jr. was a big fan of Romeo’s scripts. “His writing had a magical quality to it,” said Coker. “They were very simple, yet they would engage young and old alike. It was very easy for me to come up with the character designs based on his writing!”

THE VOICES OF ‘FROSTY’

Romeo Muller’s writing is warm and heartwarming, but studio heads Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass had to choose just the right person to voice Frosty. They found that person in Jackie Vernon. Jackie was a stand-up comedian and was not known for voicing characters in animation. In his comedy routines he played a 54

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(TOP) This rare color version of a Frosty the Snowman promotional still, emphasizing narrator Jimmy Durante, appeared in a regional TV publication. (BOTTOM) Blackand-white CBS Frosty publicity still spotlighting the problematic Professor Hinkle. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

character that was a hapless loser; Vernon was also known as the king of deadpan humor. I am unsure of how Arthur and Jules got the wonderful idea of casting Jackie; it may have been after seeing him on The Ed Sullivan Show, or perhaps in a club. I believe that Arthur visited Jackie in Chicago while he was filming his part in a 1969 movie called The Monitors. (This was also most likely where Arthur lined up Keenan Wynn for Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, and where he met actress Sherry Jackson and took pictures with her.) Jackie Vernon was so good as the voice of Frosty the Snowman that it became the role he would be most remembered for. He went on to voice the character in the Rankin/Bass specials Frosty’s Winter Wonderland (1976) and Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979).

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Vernon (LEFT) and an unidentified party at a Frosty recording session. (ABOVE) Legendary cartoon voice actress June Foray Donovan (billed as June Foray) originally voiced Karen, but several seasons later the part was re-recorded by child actress (LEFT) Suzanne Davidson. (FAR LEFT) Frosty’s narrator, Jimmy Durante, in a cartoon by this article’s author. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

June Foray Donovan was originally selected to voice the character of Karen. June also voiced the schoolteacher and some of the other kids in the special. As many, if not most RetroFans know, June Foray was the pro in the animation business for female and kid voices, and her credits would fill an entire book. Prior to Frosty, she had appeared in Rankin/Bass’ The Mouse on the Mayflower and The Little Drummer Boy, and was best known for the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel in Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show cartoons. June and I became friends after I interviewed her for my Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass: A Portfolio book. She appeared as Karen on the MGM soundtrack LP, but her voice was soon removed from the television special and replaced with an actual child actor’s.

When I asked her why, she replied, “I don’t know. I never got any feedback from Arthur and Jules that they were unhappy with my recording. I guess it was just one of those things, and I am as puzzled by it as you are.” June used to talk me up with her friends around Hollywood and I continued to ask people who worked on the special, but no one could tell me the answer to my question. One day I got a call from Phil Kaye, who was the sound effects engineer on Frosty. He did not know the reason, either. Recently, though, I believe I have figured it out. June’s voice as Karen was great, and I suspect that Arthur and Jules were happy with it. In 1973, CBS aired a TV movie remake of Miracle on 34th Street starring Sebastian Cabot; at one point they were trying to put this film together with Natalie Wood and her daughter. At the time, this remake seemed to have a much bigger budget than most TV films. They ended up getting a young actress named Suzanne Davidson to play the little girl Susan in Miracle. I believe that in 1973 one of the network executives at CBS (there was a big shake-up with CBS programming and executives in the early Seventies) decided to replace June’s voice RETROFAN

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with Suzanne’s voice, since Suzanne was and sounded like a real kid. Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer switched from NBC to CBS on December 8, 1972, so Rankin and Bass would have been very agreeable to any changes CBS might want to make with their TV specials that were still generating revenue. Perhaps this is why no one connected to Frosty’s production could remember what happened. I am still searching for a network print of Frosty the Snowman from 1969–1972 to see it with June’s Karen intact. Popular animation voice actor Paul Frees voiced Santa Claus, the traffic cop, and the train ticketmaster. Paul’s voice work was perfect for Santa, and he followed up 1969’s Frosty the Snowman with what I feel is his most significant contribution to the enchanted world of Rankin/Bass, Burgermeister Meisterburger, the villain of 1970’s Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. “Paul Frees was always our good-luck charm and I would put him in any production that he was available for,” said Arthur Rankin. “There were only two producers I would get on a plane for to record a voice,” Frees admitted. “They were Jay Ward and Arthur Rankin.” Billy De Wolfe as Professor Hinkle was another stroke of genius in the casting department. Like Vernon, De Wolfe was not known for voicing animated characters but was best known for character roles in classic films; most recently had been a cast member in the 56

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Frosty and friends by Rankin/Bass storyboard artist Don Duga. (INSET) Duga in 2014. Photo courtesy of Rick Goldschmidt. Art courtesy of Heritage.

TV series Good Morning World [see RetroFan #12 for an interview with that series’ Ronnie Schell—ed.] and That Girl, and would go on to be in The Doris Day Show. “Billy was flamboyant and way over-the-top with his performance,” remembered Rankin. “We knew he would be the right choice for Hinkle. He had everything that you want in an animated character.” Many fans will quote Professor Hinkle’s line “Busy, Busy, Busy!” to me—another unforgettable Rankin/Bass holiday performance! The voice cast of Frosty the Snowman was rounded out by a legend, Jimmy Durante, as the narrator! By 1969, Durante had seen a very long career that included movies, stage, radio and television. He was no stranger to Frosty the Snowman, having recorded the song years earlier in 1950. It had became a standard practice for Rankin/Bass to get a big star to narrate their Christmas specials, but it also had to be someone that was great for animation with a distinctive voice. Durante fit that bill to a T. It’s unlikely way back in 1969 that Rankin/ Bass or Durante could have predicted that Jimmy’s Frosty the

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Snowman narration would become such a career highlight, but many fans best know the multitalented performer for his Frosty work.

THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF ‘FROSTY’

My late, great friend Don Duga was a continuity designer for Frosty the Snowman. Don became the in-demand storyboard artist for Rankin/Bass Productions. As I worked on my Rankin/ Bass books, I found Don to be one of the most valuable people I interviewed, since he hung onto things that Arthur had thrown away. When Don and Arthur appeared at the School of Visual Arts together for the release of my Enchanted World book on November 20th, 1997, Arthur said, “Don was sweeping the floors of Rankin/ Bass and taking things out of dumpsters.” In 2003, Duga signed books with me at the Museum of Television in New York. Don said, “I loved working on the boards after getting Paul Coker, Jr.’s beautiful designs. My favorite thing to do was to board the song sequences, and I would work closely with Jules Bass on that.” Don Duga was still doing Frosty drawings for fans until he passed away on May 31, 2021. Frosty the Snowman may be the only Rankin/Bass production that features only one song—and it wasn’t written by Jules Bass and Maury Laws, known for their musical scores for Rankin/Bass specials. Frosty only features the song the special was based on. Maury Laws’ musical cues are key to this special’s overall appeal, though! “The style of the music that I used came out of Christmas appliance commercials I scored for General Electric in 1963,” Laws said. “I based the style of those on The Nutcracker. I wasn’t trying to steal the style or copy it exactly, it was just what I was thinking about as I wrote the music for the GE commercials with the three Christmas carolers.” I recently discovered one of the commercials that Maury talked about and absolutely love it! Maury’s style of music was very happy and bouncy, a big part of the appeal of Rankin/Bass holiday specials. MGM records released the soundtrack for the special, which featured the entire soundtrack of the special including dialogue, with June Foray as Karen; some copies have a “Promotional only” sticker on them. Rankin/ Bass Productions issued a very limited red-vinyl pressing of the soundtrack. The cover for this one has a sticker with CBS credits and Paul Coker, Jr. art, and the Romeo Muller script was attached to the front cover on a plastic spiral. In 2002, Warner Bros./Rhino Music

hired me to co-produce a digi-pack CD of both the Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town soundtrack (also issued by MGM in 1970 and also with a red-vinyl R/B release) and Frosty the Snowman from the original masters. Today that CD is out-of-print and commands big bucks!

SNOWY SEQUELS

1976’s Frosty’s Winter Wonderland is a match for the original special, although it is not really a sequel. Hosted by the legendary Andy Griffith, Winter Wonderland tells the story of how Frosty the Snowman meets Crystal (Shelley Winters), and their marriage by

(RIGHT) ABC-TV slide promoting the 1976 special Frosty’s Winter Wonderland. (ABOVE RIGHT) The soundtrack for the sequel. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

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Parson Brown (Dennis Day). Jack Frost (Paul Frees) tries to stop the ceremony, but ends up being best man. Karen, Hocus Pocus, and Professor Hinkle were original Frosty the Snowman characters omitted from the 1976 return. Frosty’s Winter Wonderland was aired on ABC-TV, while CBS was still airing the earlier episode, with those characters intact. (This is also why the look of Rudolph changed in the sequel Rudolph’s Shiny New Year.) Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July, an Animagic feature film released theatrically by AVCO in 1979, includes not only Frosty and Crystal, but they now have children named Milly and Chilly. Frosty is also seen in Animagic for the first time, and Jackie Vernon and Shelley Winters returned! “We made a mistake issuing that picture in the

summer and it did not fair well,” (TOP) Frosty is transformed into an Animagic figure by artist Kyota Kita at Japan’s MOM Rankin said. “We later cut it into Studio. (BOTTOM) Rankin/Bass Productions secretary Barbara Adams holding Frosty on a 90-minute television special the set of Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July 1979. (LEFT) 2021 Frosty the Snowman blow for ABC and it did much better,” mold, a Gemmy Lowe’s exclusive. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. said Arthur Rankin. Many fans ask why the lessloved Frosty Returns follows the beloved original Frosty the Snowman THE LEGACY OF ‘FROSTY THE SNOWMAN’ special when aired on CBS. “They sent me this special to review and I have very early memories of watching Rankin/Bass’ Frosty wanted to know what I thought,” Arthur Rankin told me in 1997. “I the Snowman. I am sure that I saw it in its first or second airing, told them, ‘I am not going to give you a response. It is like taking and every year after that. My interest culminated in my book, the gloves off of Mickey Mouse, it is just something that makes Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman 50th Anniversary Scrapbook (2019, no sense and you just don’t do.’” According to distributor/licensor Miser Bros Press), co-authored by my late business partner, Wes Classic Media, ratings were higher for Frosty Returns than the Garlatz. Paul Coker, Jr. did the cover art for the book and wrote the original Frosty. They said it was due to people switching channels at afterword. I am glad he got to see it and enjoy it before he passed. 7:30 p.m. and winding up on Frosty Returns. I can’t even watch a few I wanted to celebrate Frosty in a very happy way, and I think we minutes of Frosty Returns, it is that bad! achieved that. 58

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(LEFT) Original art by Paul Coker, Jr. for (RIGHT) the cover of Rick Goldschmidt’s book, Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman 50th Anniversary Scrapbook. © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

Aside from the original soundtrack, for the longest time there was no merchandising of the Rankin/Bass Frosty the Snowman. The TV special was originally sponsored by Pillsbury, with no product tie-ins. There was a soundtrack LP from Frosty’s Winter Wonderland issued by Disneyland Records. After my Enchanted World book came out in 1997, Stuffins did a line of Frosty beanbag dolls, and that started the ball rolling. Today at Christmastime you can walk in almost any store and find some kind of Frosty decoration or item based on the special. Hallmark does a Frosty the Snowman ornament every year. There were Frosty figure lines that were based on the sequels some years back, including a rare Jack Frost figure from Frosty’s Winter Wonderland and a full Frosty family figure set from the feature film Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July. Not long ago I helped with a Frosty 50th Anniversary stamp set with the U.S. Post Office, but the stamps were not issued due to licensing concerns. Most recently as of this writing, a very nice Frosty the Snowman blow mold was issued by Gemmy. Although Frosty the Snowman has been issued on Blu-ray, the best quality release of the special was a Golden Books DVD release in 2001, with the CBS logo and Rankin and Bass on the cover. Arthur Rankin, Jr. did an introduction for that packaging of the special, which included a Frosty pencil test. Since then, the U.S. companies behind the Blu-ray and DVD releases have been dropping the ball: the specials have not been properly restored, with the manufac-

turers in some cases issuing edited syndicated versions, and the extra content is of little value. A complete Rankin/Bass Christmas collection was issued like this, combining the early specials with the later special, which are owned by Warner Bros. I recently teamed up with Umbrella Entertainment in Australia to work on a Blu-ray package of Rankin/Bass’ Mad Monster Party? [see RetroFan #17—ed.] with tons of extras and a beautifully restored print; I do the introduction and commentary. Hopefully U.S. video companies will wake up and realize this is what they need to do, or maybe we can do them all through Umbrella Entertainment. Rankin/Bass’ Frosty the Snowman shows no sign of fading away. It is the longest-running special on the same network. Frosty has become as much a part of Yuletide as the Christmas tree and lights have. Frosty has a comforting voice thanks to Jackie Vernon, and the Maury Laws musical score picks up our spirits every Christmas. Frosty will continue to say “Happy Birthday!” for many years to come! RICK GOLDSCHMIDT is the official historian/ biographer for Rankin/Bass Productions and the author of popular books about the company’s animated holiday television specials and films, including The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass: A Portfolio and The Making of the Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Visit miserbros.com for more information. RETROFAN

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SUPER COLLECTOR

Chicks dig the car— and its handsome hotrodder! Super Collector Michael Knight’s KITT replica, plus a standee of Knight Rider’s Michael Knight, actor David Hasselhoff. Knight Rider © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Michael Knight.

Knight Rider’s KITT When Knight Rider debuted on NBC-TV on September 26, 1982, viewers were introduced to Michael “one man can make a difference” Knight (who has the same name as this author!), played by David Hasselhoff. The show’s premise: Hasselhoff’s character was ex-police officer Michael Long, who was presumably killed in the line of duty. He was actually chosen for service by self-made billionaire Wilton Knight, the founder of F.L.A.G. (the Foundation for Law And Government). Michael Long was reborn as Michael Knight, who would use F.L.A.G.’s resources to become that “one (who) can make a difference,” helping others get justice from those who believed they were above the law. After Wilton Knight passes on, Michael’s new boss is Devon Miles, played by the wonderful Edward Mulhare, and Michael Knight is ready for his assignments as Knight Rider begins its run. But before Michael can hit the road and start righting wrongs—he’s going to need a set of wheels. 60

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BY MICHAEL KNIGHT

Enter Knight Industries 2000, better known as KITT, the super-car of the future (well, it was back in 1982!). KITT would be Michael’s trusted partner, in a sense the “Silver” to Hasselhoff’s “Lone Ranger.” Actor William Daniels provided KITT’s voice. Michael did have help with his crusade other than KITT and Devon Miles. For three seasons of Knight Rider, actress Patricia McPherson played technician Bonnie Barstow, who kept KITT running and operational, and for one season, Rebecca Holden stepped in as April Curtis in a similar capacity. And the fourth season saw the addition of Peter Parros to join the fun! But other than handsome Hasselhoff in the lead, it is KITT that most people think of when remembering Knight Rider—or the car is what catches their eye if they stumble across the show for the first time today. It was a brand-new 1982 Pontiac Trans Am that was redesigned into KITT, which has since become one of the most iconic television cars of all time.

When KITT first hit the road in 1982, the car had functions unheard of by most people but are standard features or options on most cars today: GPS, self-parking, even talking (which might not be as wonderful as one would think). The show’s producers said they had to wreck the car at the beginning of each season to add new features to stay ahead of the technological curve, because auto manufacturers were getting close to catching up to producing the tech that made KITT special. Season Four of Knight Rider saw KITT get a massive upgrade to where the car could change its configuration and gain speed, which is now starting to happen in the real world. Funny to see how automotive tech has changed since the days of Knight Rider. Knight Rider lasted four seasons, until ending its original run on April 4, 1986, and inspired much memorabilia: books, cards, toys, bedding, games, and more. Many miniature toy cars were produced due to KITT’s popularity. That still continues in today’s collectables market, with new, retro-marketed Knight Rider merchandise being turned out years after the show ended. Growing up on all these wonderful, now classic, television shows you read about in RetroFan made me car-crazy. I wanted an Adam West–style Batmobile—what kid didn’t, right? [Some of us are still hoping for one!—ed.] But that seemed impossible. However, building my own Knight 2000? This was the next best thing! Was it possible? This took place in the pre-internet days of 1988, when there were no Knight Rider parts to buy, no scanner lights, no custom steering wheel or electronic dash. But then I found a tiny black-and-white ad in Pontiac Magazine from someone who was making and selling KITT parts! Was this for real?? After old-school mailings back and forth, I met the guy at a car show, where he was displaying his own customized KITT. I was blown away! The work he did was amazing, better than the show. I was going to try my hand at this! With no experience, no knowledge, no help, and an almost-non-existent budget, I went into the garage on a Halloween weekend. After many, many—and I do mean many—trials and errors… I got it. I emerged late Sunday with my own KITT (most systems operational—oh, Bonnie, where were ya when I needed ya?). The first KITT I made was using a base ’83 Firebird. I drove that car everywhere until it “died.” Then I removed all KITT parts until I could find another car to transform. Two years later, in 1990, I got an ’89 Formula T/A and did it all over again. I still retain that car today, 33 years later. Last year, 2022, saw the 40th anniversary of that “lone crusader in a dangerous world” and his amazing set of wheels. Knight Rider remains popular with new generations of viewers, so much so that many have recreated their own KITTs to drive around or go on “missions.” One of the things that sets my KITT apart from other replicas is that it has parts from one of the actual screen cars from the actual Knight Rider show, most notably the hood. Knight Rider’s production company, Universal, was junking some of their cars, and word got out that one was KITT. Not long after, the junkyard got calls from people from just about everywhere asking for parts. A few lucky ones like me got parts before someone bought what remained of the car.

From the (LEFT) 1982 Donruss trading card set to the (ABOVE) 1989 Acclaim video game and beyond, make no mistake—it was the cool car KITT that was the “star” of Knight Rider merchandise. Knight Rider © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Michael Knight.

That original, incomplete KITT was purchased by wonderful Knight Rider historians who restored and maintain it to preserve its rich history. Those guys deserve thanks from the fans of the show for keeping the torch lit for KITT. KITT continues to draw crowds at car shows and special events today. Adults who grew up with it on first runs or later reruns now relive their childhoods and introduce the show to their kids. So, apparently the premise of Knight Rider was and is still true, that one man can make a difference. Well… one man and his car. MICHAEL KNIGHT is a TV and movie vehicle guru, novice part-time magazine writer, and the creator/curator of Michigan’s largest Hollywood car collection, Motor City Reel Rides. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #9 for our exclusive interview with actor William Daniels, the voice of Knight Rider’s car KITT!] RETROFAN

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NEW! IT ROSE FROM THE TOMB by PETER NORMANTON

Rising from the depths of history comes an all-new examination of the 20th Century’s best horror comics, written by PETER NORMANTON (editor of From The Tomb, the UK’s preeminent magazine on the genre). From the pulps and seminal horror comics of the 1940s, through ones they tried to ban in the 1950s, this tome explores how the genre survived the introduction of the Comics Code, before making its terrifying return during the 1960s and 1970s. Come face-to-face with the early days of ACG’s alarming line, every horror comic from June 1953, hypodermic horrors, DC’s Gothic romance comics, Marvel’s Giant-Size terrors, Skywald and Warren’s chillers, and Atlas Seaboard’s shocking magazines. The 192-page full-color opus exhumes BERNIE WRIGHTSON’s darkest constructs, plus artwork by FRANK FRAZETTA, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE KALUTA, STEVE DITKO, MATT FOX, WARREN KREMER, LEE ELIAS, BILL EVERETT, RUSS HEATH, THE GURCH, and many more. Don’t turn your back on this once-in-alifetime spine-chiller—it’s so good, it’s frightening! (192-page SOFTCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-123-3 • SHIPS MARCH 2024!

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!

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

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

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

TV Comic Ads BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, and prepare for a visual feast! Saturday morning television was appointment viewing for anyone growing up from the Sixties to the Nineties. From 8 a.m. to noon, while their parents slept in from the workweek, kids could sit in front of the television and enjoy a time just for them. Cartoons—and later, live-action series—were produced by studios like Filmation Associates, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Total Television, Jay Ward Productions, HannaBarbera Productions, Sid and Marty Krofft, D’Angelo Productions, Marvel Productions, Sunbow Productions, Ruby-Spears, DIC, Film Roman, and others. But how could the networks best reach kids to let them know when the new shows would be airing? Enter the television ads that ran in the comics, touting new and exciting Fall seasons! It made sense, since many shows were adapted from comic books! For most kids, those two-page spreads were their first looks at future TV favorites. In the second of a regular annual series, we’re offering you a rare look at every Saturday ad we can find from 1970–1974!

(ABOVE) This rare ad for ABC’s 1970 Saturday morning line-up season—beginning on September 12th—didn’t appear in any comic books; it only appeared in some color newspapers! (BELOW) Since Archie Comics had three TV series on CBS in the Fall 1970 season—debuting September 12th—the network took out double-page ads for the line-up. Archie also did its own one-page ad, challenging readers to be critics of the new shows!

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

ABC was the only company to advertise its line-up for Fall 1971, and only in the pages of TV Guide, with this dull layout.

ABC featured a variety of TV Guide ads for its Fall 1972 season, beginning with this one. The diverse line-up of characters at the bottom were the various stars of upcoming Saturday Superstar Movies.

NBC was back advertising in the comics (Marvel, to be exact) in 1972 for its shows debuting on September 9th, but this bizarre ad with “Adam and Evy” looked like it was designed by a six-year-old. From this ad, would you guess that “me, Jerry Mahoney” was a redheaded, four-fingered monkey? You’d be wrong. He’s a ventriloquist dummy. 64

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(LEFT) The long-running Super Friends—which we just wrote about in the last four issues of RetroFan— debuted in ABC’s 1973 ads in TV Guide, alongside an animated Rick Springfield and a ghost-chasing mystery-solving dog and his teen friends, animated by HannaBarbera. No, not Scooby-Doo… this was Goober.. (RIGHT) NBC’s 1973 season had three hits-to-be in its TV Guide ad: Hanna-Barbera’s The Addams Family, Filmation’s animated Star Trek, and Krofft’s Sigmund and the Sea Monsters!

(BELOW) ABC seemed to know they’d be wasting their money advertising the 1974 line-up in comic books, so they stuck to this uninspired TV Guide ad. Hanna-Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey was fun, and Filmation’s The New Adventures of Gilligan reunited most of the live-action sitcom cast to voice their animated counterparts.

(ABOVE) NBC’s Saturday mornings in 1974 had a significant amount of live-action series, including the soon-to-be-classic Land of the Lost. The paltry TV Guide ad didn’t do them many favors, however. RETROFAN RETROFAN

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

By contrast to ABC, CBS knew they had to showcase their 1974 debuts in comics, so they took out this two-page ad in DC and Archie comics. Filmation’s live-action Shazam! headlined, while dinosaurs, the Partridge Family, the Harlem Globetrotters, and Archie offered verisimilitude! (LEFT) Rounding out 1974, this ad was not meant for the public, but it appeared in Hollywood industry newspapers and magazines, touting the variety of Filmation’s offerings. Speaking of Filmation, have you checked out my book from TwoMorrows, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation? The two printings are sold out, but you can still get it digitally, online! Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He recently 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, from Abdo Books. He is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King, and several graphic novels based on the Planet Xolo game series, 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 66

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Unusually Un-Universal

Dell Comics’ Monster/Super-Hero Mash-Ups BY SCOTT SHAW!

I taught myself how to read by the time I was five by reading comic books. That was in 1956, when there wasn’t a single genre that monopolized the mainstream comics industry like super-heroes would soon do. Not only did comics teach me to read, they were my textbooks when it came to studying how to draw and tell stories with words and pictures. I spent a lot of time reading all sorts of “funnybooks,” financed by the commissions I’d draw for my classmates, charging three cents for a head and a nickel for a fulllength figure. [Editor’s note: Those rates no longer apply to Scott’s commissions!] Of course, those were the days when most comics were a dime. After I noticed the “Still 10 cents” cover boxes, I sharpened up my math—and raised my commission rates—when the default price for the average comic became 12 stinkin’ cents. Even worse, due to a lack of ads and the revenue they generated, some of Dell Comics’ titles jumped up to 15 cents! It was the first major change in my life (clearly evidence of how sheltered, naive, and fortunate I was as a kid). In retrospect, there was never more diversity of genres on the spinner racks than in the mid-Fifties through the mid-Sixties. Other than romance comics and Harvey’s kiddie comics—welldrawn but aimed at very young kids—I liked a bit of every genre from every publisher.

Around the same time as the price switch, in July of 1962 there was a new brand at the newsstands, Gold Key Comics. Mysteriously, Gold Key was publishing a lot of the same characters and series that Dell Comics had been making the month before. Even better, the comics were as good or better than their Dell incarnations, with cool, somewhat experimental covers. Around the same time Dell Comics suddenly changed, with a few old characters and lots of new titles, original, licensed, and adaptations. Edited by L. B. Cole, many of the dramatic series were well written but extremely dark, certainly rare for the Dell that we once knew. And even more unlike the original Dell, the majority of its humorous comics looked amateurish at best. However, Dell did occasionally hire top talent, such as Sam Glanzman, John Stanley, Dave Berg, George Evans, and others. What we didn’t realize was going on behind the scenes is well explained by writer and comics historian Mark Evanier: “Western [Publishing] was a printing company with the editorial capability to create the content of the comic books. Dell was a publishing company that did many kinds of magazines and books. They bought their comic-book line from Western. In 1962, following a dispute about money, Dell and Western parted company. Dell hired editors, writers, and artists. Then they found themselves a new printer and started a comic-book division from scratch. RETROFAN

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Western kept what was essentially the same comic-book line going, financing it themselves, putting a ‘Gold Key Comics’ logo on covers… and making the changes they thought wise, since Dell was no longer telling them what to produce.” Don “D. J.” Arneson, who replaced Dell editor L. B. Cole in the spring of 1962, saw things from the inside: “My recollection is when I joined [the staff], Dell Comics was Dell Comics, plain and simple. Len Cole was the editor and I do not know for how long he had been the editor. I frankly don’t know the circumstances of what the split was about. That was between Len Cole and Dell. I don’t know what the break up was other than what I subsequently learned of the financial and ownership considerations. Dell broke with Western, Dell Comics maintained the Dell Comics logo. Dell created a new line of comics and a lot of what was published was an attempt of

getting a hold of the glory days of comic-book publishing that Dell had during the late [Forties and Fifties].” Suddenly, Dell had a new rival, one that had made the original brand of Dell Comics successful. Both were primarily based on familiar characters from various forms of entertainment, as well as plenty of self-generated series.

MONSTERS UNLEASHED

In 1962, Dell launched a wave of comic books officially licensed from Universal’s legendary monsters, starring Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man (a.k.a. Wolfman), the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The stories themselves were far from canon, and unfortunately Bob Jenny’s art was bland and Jack Sparling’s artwork was muddy.

(LEFT) Dell Comics’ newest superhero busts loose in his “first” issue, Frankenstein #2 (Sept. 1966). Art by Tony Tallarico. (RIGHT) Of course, another man of steel had punched his way through no end of brick walls by the time ol’ Frankie got into the act. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

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The “new” Dell had other series that featured monsters, including Sam Glanzman’s Kona (“The Monarch of Monster Isle”); Monsterville, a one-shot magazine; Ghost Stories, which ran 37 issues (its first issue was written by John Stanley); Tales from the Tomb, a one-shot Dell Giant (more John Stanley); The Outer Limits, based on the ABC science-fiction TV series; John Stanley’s Melvin Monster; Die, Monster, Die, a one-issue adaptation of the 1965 feature film starring Boris Karloff and Nick Adams; and Mad Monster Party?, a one-issue adaptation of the 1967 Rankin/Bass feature film starring the voices of Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #13 for more about The Outer Limits (and other TV sci-fi anthologies) and RetroFan #17 for the story behind Mad Monster Party? (yes, with a question mark).]

Surprisingly, neither Dell nor Gold Key was addressing the increasingly popular genre of super-heroes. That changed in 1966, when the overwhelming influence of “Batmania” became a nationwide fad based on the instant popularity of ABC’s primetime live-action adaptation of DC Comics’ Batman. Therefore, the show’s success made Dell president Helen Meyer eager to add a few super-heroes to her roster. It was decided to create new, unrelated-to-the-Universal-Studios-versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and a Wolf Man (but Universal copyrighted the name “Wolf Man,” so a new lycanthrope was needed), therefore, Dell didn’t need to pay any expensive licensing fees. “Dell attempted to do some super-heroes,” said D. J. Arneson. “You know, it was an attempt. It will be judged by comic-book readers

(LEFT) Dell didn’t waste any time trotting out the time-honored “super-hero fighting himself” trope, as Frankie fought another Frankenstein in issue #3 (Dec. 1966). Original cover art by Tony Tallarico. Courtesy of Heritage. (RIGHT) “Able to leap from thirty to fifty feet… from a standing start!” Witness Frankenstein’s super-powers, as displayed in issue #2. RETROFAN

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and comic-book historians. I understand they have been pretty well panned. I’ll take credit or the blame for the writing.” The original Dell Comics had one super-hero, “The Owl,” a decidedly Batman-ish-looking character in Crackajack Comics and a single one-shot issue in the Forties. He was revived in Gold Key’s The Owl, with one issue in April 1967 and a second one in April 1968. The “new” Dell’s other super-hero titles included: Nukla, written by Joe Gill, penciled by Steve Ditko and Dick Giordano, and inked by Sal Trapani; Mighty Mouse, based on the old Terrytoons shorts; Super-Heroes, penciled by Bill Ely and Bill Molno with inking by Sal Trapani; The Mighty Heroes, based on the Ralph Bakshi-created CBS cartoon series; and Neutro, a giant robot one-shot written by D. J. Arneson and drawn by Jack Sparling. So let’s meet their new neighbors, shall we?

DEAD MAN OF STEEL

Dell’s Frankenstein monster super-hero series was written by D. J. Arneson, with interior and cover art by Tony Tallarico. Dell’s Frankenstein #2 (Sept. 1966) continues the series numbering of the first issue from 1962. Awaking in a deteriorating castle that’s “within sight of a great American metropolis,” a big man sporting a bright red jump suit and a bright green face discovers he’s in an underground laboratory. It’s where he was “born” centuries ago. For two months, he studies the long-gone doctor’s notes about the future and decides to enter society carefully, by wearing a realistic mask and calling himself “Frank Stone.” He sets out for Metropole City—call your lawyers, DC Comics!— but on the way, he saves a old man named Mr. Knickerbocker from an explosive auto accident. He claims he knows Frank Stone from the “ruined castle... just as the legend says.” This disturbs but fascinates Frank Stone, who follows the victim’s ambulance to his “elegant town house.” The old man reveals that his father was a close friend of Frank’s doctor, who left him a fortune made from the doc’s experiments. As he dies, Mr. Knickerbocker conveniently reveals that all the doctor’s money has been willed to Frank Stone, now described as Knickerbocker’s “nephew,” complete with a valet named William. When two shady men show up at his new mansion, Frank gets distracted by the sight of a woman about to be tossed off of the

building next door by a thug. He immediately rips off his mask and wealthy clothes to rescue her. Meanwhile, the gangsters knock out William and rob the place. When Frank returns, he takes a short trip in his sports car back to his creepy castle. There, he vows to use his “extraordinary strength and super-brain to fight crime and justice wherever it appears on the face of the Earth!” For the next few days, Frank perfects his skills and strength in his “specially treated” suit. Suddenly, the story shifts to “a small island in the Caribbean” run by a tiny, bald man with the appropriate name of “Mr. Freek” and his pet Bruto, “the largest gorilla in the world!” (Frankly, this looks like Tallarico never saw a photo of an actual gorilla.) After Mr. Freek validates his name by ordering Bruto to intimidate his brawny assistant Kilo, he climbs up onto Bruto’s shoulders to ride like he’s on a hairy throne with feet. After Mr. Freek’s “sudden reign of terror strikes fear into the entire east,” Frank Stone drives to “the coastal town where the monster was last reported,” bringing along his valet as backup. After Mr. Freek interrupts Frank Stone’s tea time, he removes his mask and street clothes for a brawl with Bruto inside Hotel Blipo. When Bruto kidnaps William, the super-hero who’s yet to refer to himself as “Frankenstein” prepares for another battle. After Bruto drops William to the pavement and Frank shatters a telephone pole that Bruto threatens him with, the bad guy immediately leaves the nameless coastal city in his yacht, vowing to return for vengeance. Returning to Metropole City, Frank and William are met by a reception committee of the local press, including the lady across the street who he rescued earlier. She turns out to be a nosy reporter named (get this!) Miss Ann Thrope, who continues to pester Frank and William with dangerous stunts. Her attitude drives Frank to finally make the standard super-hero vow... and finally admit his identity, too. “I cannot trust anyone. The young lady across the street will just have to be suspicious... our work is too important to risk telling her... I don’t know where I came from… I don’t even know who I am... I don’t even know why I am here. But something way deep inside of me tells me that I have a mission... that I have a purpose. But whoever... WHATEVER I am, one thing is certain! My strength is greater than fifty men and my brain has been endowed with tremendous powers... so until such time that the world is safe from evil... I, FRANKENSTEIN, will utilize my full powers to keep it safe!” Frankenstein #3 (Dec. 1966) doesn’t feature another villain, but Miss Ann Thrope and a computer that can control people—including Frankenstein—to steal provide the action in this 31-page story. In the end, after the computer’s “evil cells” are removed, it’s installed in the Knickerbocker mansion like a Sixties version of Siri.

(LEFT) Cover to Frankenstein #4, the title’s last issue. (RIGHT) Frank Stone reveals himself to be... Frankenstein in the eponymous third issue. 70

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Frankenstein #4 (Mar. 1967) features the return of Mr. Freek and Bruto. Miss Ann Thrope invites Frank Stone and William to a “giant rally” held by “some mysterious secret admirer” to give the mayor a medal at the local stadium... with Frankenstein as the Guest of Honor! Of course, Mr. Freek is behind this, who releases a swarm of giant spiders that capture Frankenstein, William, and Ann with their webbing. Loaded aboard Freek’s ship, they’re taken to his isle in the Caribbean, where they’re tossed into an arena loaded with oversized pumas, alligators, boars, and snakes. When Frankenstein conquers those threats, Mr. Freek supposedly perishes (but since we don’t see it, it’s likely that the writer planned for a third appearance of the li’l pest). In a second story, Frankenstein, William, and Ann return to Metropole City, only to discover that all of its glass has been shattered by an unknown force and its population has been evacuated. Frankenstein investigates and encounters an angry old deaf man named “Cy Lantz,” with a “screamer” that shattered the glass and with which he threatens to use to permanently deafen to Metropole City’s noisy residents as the city made him. A team of audio engineers come up with a “decibel generator” to counter Cy’s “screamer.” Trucks loaded with decibel generator loudspeakers fill the city’s streets, but Frankenstein uses his personal decibel generator to cancel Cy’s “screamer” and ushers him to the authorities. Frank conjectures, “The people are returning to the city... and so have the birds! Perhaps we have learned something, songster. Perhaps Cy Lantz has accomplished what he wanted after all.” Frankenstein artist Tony Tallarico explained why Bill Fraccio, who penciled Dell’s other monster super-hero books, didn’t draw Frankenstein. “I think Bill was doing some comics about the history of stamps and he had no time for Frankenstein,” Tallarico said. “He did the other two but he couldn’t do all three... which was fun, because I never really got to do the whole thing [on a comic] myself except for the stuff I did for Classics Illustrated.”

version, Dracula #2 (Nov. 1966), you’ll note that on its cover, the green aura around Dracula resembles a cape, furthering the possibility that a youngster might mistake him for Batman. Inside the issue, readers discover: “In a little known, middle European country far removed from the fears and worries of a

THE ORIGINAL BAT-MAN

Dell’s Dracula monster super-hero series’ covers were penciled by Bill Fraccio and inked by Tony Tallarico. The interior stories were written by D. J. Arneson, penciled by Fraccio, and inked by Tallarico. As with Frankenstein, Dell’s Dracula continued the numbering of the 1962 horror issue. With the “debut” issue of the super-hero (ABOVE) What, no utility belt? The super-hero Dracula makes the scene, premiering in Dracula #2 (Nov. 1966). Cover art by Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico. (LEFT) Dracula vows to use his macabre abilities for good, at the conclusion of Dracula #2. (RIGHT) A similarly staged scene that took place nearly three decades earlier, as Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to his Batman career. Batman TM & © DC Comics. RETROFAN

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FAMOUS FIRST EDITIONS OF DELL’S MONSTER COMICS 1. Dracula #1 (Oct.–Dec. 1962) Loose adaptation. Cover art: L.B. Cole/Vic Prezio; Interior art: Bob Jenney 2. Frankenstein #1 1st printing (Mar.–May 1963) Loose adaptation. Cover art: Vic Prezio; Interior art: Bob Jenney Frankenstein #1 2nd printing (Aug.–Oct. 1964) 3. Wolfman #1 1st printing (June–Aug. 1963) Loose adaptation. Cover artist: unknown; Interior script: Robert Bernstein; Interior art: Bob Jenney Wolfman #1 2nd printing (Aug.–Oct. 1964) 4. The Mummy #nn (Sept.–Nov. 1962) Loose adaptation. 72

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Cover artist: unknown; Interior script: Don Segall; Interior art: Jack Sparling 5. The Creature #1 1st printing (Dec. 1962–Feb. 1963) Loose adaptation. Cover artist: Vic Prezio; Interior script: unknown; Interior art: Bob Jenney The Creature #1 2nd printing (Aug.–Oct. 1964) 6. Universal Pictures Presents Dracula – the Mummy & Other Stories (Sept.– Nov. 1963) 84-pages of reprints of both adaptations and stories from John Stanley’s Tales from the Tomb and Ghost Stories. Cover art: L. B. Cole; Interior scripts: John Stanley and Don Segall; Interior art: Max Elkin, Jack Sparling, Frank Springer, Gerald McCann

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Twentieth Century world constantly on the brink of nuclear war, a lone scientist, scoffed at by his contemporaries, works diligently in his laboratory for ways to friend world peace.” And that young man is a descendant of Count Dracula, who’s isolating a serum that’s “derived from the supersensory portions of the brains of bats” intended to heal mankind and to reverse the reputation of his family. But when a released bat knocks over a flask of the serum, it drips into the as-yet-unnamed scientist’s glass of mineral water... he drinks it down and is immediately turned into a bat. While young Count Dracula’s dealing with that situation, Boris Eval, a hyper-aggressive military leader from another country invades Dracula’s quaint town with an onslaught of vehicles, rockets, and soldiers. Even worse, Eval decides to turn the Dracula Castle into his own headquarters. His soldiers break down the scientist’s door and hold Count Dracula captive, but while they plan to fire those missiles, he turns into a bat to escape. Then he transforms back to his human form to speak with fellow scientists who are being forced to do Eval’s bidding: to destroy the leaders of the world who are attending a peace conference, and then start WWIII by firing his rockets into space, which each country on Earth will assume are from its own enemy. Count Dracula heads for the peace conference as a bat, but Boris Eval is already there, disguised as the sound checker, installing high explosives in the world leaders’ microphones. Transforming into his human self, Drac attempts to crash the peace conference and convinces the committee to check their aural equipment. Observing this from afar, foiled Eval heads back to Dracula Castle in his helicopter, but Dracula flies there even faster. After the young count refuses to consider Eval’s offer to work together, he flies to the cave where he obtained wild bats for his experiments and leads them to Eval’s rockets where they perch, using their combined weight to topple the delicately positioned weapons. In a panic, Eval flees, grabs the rockets controls,

(TOP) The Fraccio/Tallarico art team dishes out trouble for Dell’s bat-man on their cover art to Dracula #4 (Mar. 1967), the final issue of the series’ original run. Courtesy of Heritage. Holy Homage! Dell’s Drac had (LEFT) his own “bat-girl” in Fleeta and (RIGHT) a secret cave that served as his headquarters. Both, from Dracula #4. RETROFAN

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

steals a truck, and drives it off of a cliff to prevent it from being shut off. Fortunately, the disarming device is thrown free of the explosion. Now that the world is safe(r), back in his castle, Count Dracula accepts his role as a crimefighting super-hero and starts his self-training. Dracula no longer needs the serum to shift back and forth from human to bat, his brain has become supersensitive, and he has built-in radar and the ability to hide in small places, but he’s incredibly vulnerable. Ordering fitness equipment, Drac also builds up some impressive muscles by pole vaulting, punching the bag, and trapeze training, as well as precision-flying as a bat. He also orders some “special clothes,” but as he leaves the tailor, he hears gunshots from a bank robbery, so Drac transforms to bat-mode, flies after their getaway car, beats the soup out the criminals, and turns them over to the local lawmen. Then the bat-man picks up and models his red, blue, and black super-hero suit, including a headpiece that reveals every component of his face but the nose. Later, in mufti, Dracula discovers that his hilltop castle is in flames, set on fire by an angry crowd of superstitious villagers who still believe vampires live there. This is the last straw, tipping Count Dracula to pledge: “What kind of men live on this earth? Men that will take what they want... men that will believe anything they hear about another even though there is no truth to what this world has come to? If that is the way it is, then something must be done to change it... I pledge by the strange powers which have 74

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(LEFT) The not-at-all-hairy Werewolf, Dell’s super-spy, starred in three issues of his own series: Werewolf #1 (Dec. 1966) and (OPPOSITE PAGE) Werewolf #2 (Mar. 1967) and #3 (Apr. 1967). Cover art by Fraccio and Tallarico. (ABOVE) Werewolf’s costume may have lacked detail, but as this page from issue #1 shows, the super-spy’s threads equipped our hero with an amazing arsenal. become mine to fight against the injustice, corruption, evil, and greed which fills the earth in the hopes that somehow my example will be an example to all men.” Oddly, the comic ends with a blackand-white inside-back cover drawing of Dracula in his super-hero costume, which barely appears in the four-color comic itself. Dracula #3 (Feb. 1967): Opening with a one-page article about “Professional Snooping,” the story “Dracula Meets the Master of the Sky” begins when Dracula, a.k.a. “Al U. Card” (ho-ho!), takes a cruise ship back to America despite irritating tourists and storms. But midway into the Atlantic Ocean, Drac senses a fleet of dirigibles heading for them. Hidden by dense clouds, Admiral Maltemps plans to use his nuclear-powered balloons to change the weather across the continent and take over the country. (But aren’t they flying in the wrong direction?) When Dracula sneaks around Maltemps’ dirigible, he’s immediately captured and offered to team up with the fiendish admiral, who reveals his scheme. Of course, Drac saves the day and winds up with a new female friend by the end of their cruise to New York City.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Dracula #4 (Mar. 1967): In “Dracula in America: The Secret Cave,” Dracula, now living in New York City after his encounters with Admiral Maltemps’ sky fleet, learns that the press has noticed his new super-heroic career. B. B. Beebe, the girl he met on the ship, has sought him out, too! She invites him to a party in the mountains, where Drac hopes to build a secret laboratory. While saving B. B. from a skydiving accident, the young count reveals his identity. His new girlfriend promises never to reveal his secret and to show that she can be trusted, takes Dracula to a nearby abandoned radar control site, a perfect place for his lab. That’s where B. B. decides to imbibe in his bat-serum to help Drac to stop a new super-villain, the child-controlling Evil Piper. Now calling herself “Fleeta,” B. B. operates as Dracula’s partner. And in “Dracula Finds His Specialty,” we get a one-panel crossover with Dell’s Frankenstein. Aha, they do share the same world! Now we’ve got a Dell-verse! In 1972, oddly skipping a fifth issue for Dracula, Dell began to reprint all three super-hero Dracula comics. Dracula #6 (July 1972) reprinted issue #2; Dracula #7 (Nov. 1972) reprinted issue #3; and Dracula #8 (July 1973) reprinted issue #4. Dell’s Frankenstein and Werewolf were never revisited.

SUPER-SPY BY NIGHT

Dell’s Werewolf monster super-hero series’ covers and interior stories were penciled by Fraccio and inked by Tallarico, over Arneson scripts.

Werewolf #1 (Dec. 1966): When U.S.A.F. Major Wiley Wolf’s jet crashes in the Arctic Circle, he survives, but with a case of amnesia and a wild wolf that was injured by the hard landing. The memory-less Air Force officer hunkers down in a cave, nursing his lupine friend Thor back to health. Months later, he’s bonded with Thor’s wolf pack and regained his memory when he’s sighted by a flyover Air Force jet and returns to society, accompanied by Thor. Once home, he quits the military... but why? “It was a long time after the crash that I began to get the slightest notion of who or what I was,” Major Wolf reflects. “For a while, I thought I was a wolf... although I KNEW I was different, I started to think like them merely to survive. And I learned something… Wolves know when to stop. When they’ve eaten enough to stay alive... they quit… they don’t kill without reason. Except, every once in awhile… Just like people, one of them will go berserk and try to take all of the power for himself if he’s big enough... and the others are weak enough... they’ll all go kind of crazy and kill for the senseless pleasure of it. “All of a sudden I realized that I was a man and belonged with people. But I knew too that there were a lot of people in the world like insane wolves... and I swore to do something about it.” Wiley Wolf is flown to Washington, D.C., and is met by a blonde lady claiming to be his cousin, but she’s really Judy Bowman of the CIA. She informs him that he’s been chosen as “the man most likely to succeed as an agent.” Agent Bowman takes him to the CIA secret headquarters, where he’s given the code name of “Werewolf” and RETROFAN

January 2024

The oddball world of scott shaw!

grueling training, which includes implanting a psychological process to radically alter his facial appearances. Thor is also fitted with a miniature receiver to understand Werewolf’s unspoken commands. Then Wiley is given “the Werewolf suit, the most complex piece of wearing apparel ever designed.” Wiley is impressed. “I feel like some kind of comic book super hero,” he reflects. Truer words were never spoken. Werewolf #2 (Mar. 1967): In this four-part story, “the world’s mightiest super agent” is sent to Scotland for a secret mission to protect an important American submarine. The porpoises following it turn out to be trained “Chinese Water Devils” tracking the sub for a Chinese submarine that Werewolf discovers, and damages when it tries to escape. Werewolf #3 (Apr. 1967): This issue features three stories: “Jump to Danger,” in which Werewolf rescues an American general from Chinese captivity; “The Day the World Almost Ended,” in which Werewolf stops Arkist from stealing nuclear warheads; and “Werewolf,” the origin of Werewolf and an explanation of his powers.

MEET THE MONSTER MAKERS

Don Jon (D. J.) Arneson was born in Montevideo, Minnesota, on August 15, 1935. The Arneson family moved to Boulder, Colorado, when he was 16. He attended the University of Colorado for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army. After that, D. J. attended Mexico City College, graduating with a degree in Philosophy.

In 1958, after he married Beatrice Franchina, a fellow Mexico City College student, D. J. and his bride returned to the United States living and working in New York City. He was a writer and editor for Dell Comics from 1962 to 1973. He co-created the trailblazing Lobo (1965), a Western series starring a gunslinger and the first comic book headlined by a Black character (it was cancelled after two issues); the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention recognized the achievement with its Legacy Award. Among Arneson’s many comic-writing credits: Dell’s The Beverly Hillbillies, Neutro, The Monkees, Flying Saucers, Gentle Ben, The Outer Limits, and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father; Tower’s Undersea Agent; Charlton’s Go-Go, Ghostly Tales, Billy the Kid, The Phantom, and Abbott & Costello; Gold Key’s Dark Shadows, Road Runner, Tweety and Sylvester, and Grimm’s Ghost Stories; and DC’s The Witching Hour and Young Love. After his time at Dell, Arneson turned to writing books, especially for young adults, publishing more than 100

(ABOVE) A top Oddball contribution to Tallarico’s oddball work. Script by D. J. Arneson. (LEFT) Original Tallarico art for the second issue of Werewolf. Courtesy of Heritage. 76

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

titles. Many featured ghosts, monsters, haunted houses, aliens, and the supernatural and included titles such as The Original Preppy Jokebook, Strange UFO Stories, The Most Famous Ghost of All and Other Ghost Stories, Just Mod Jokes, Toxic Cops, Mother Goose Is Dead, Kids on TV, Black Star Chronicles, Monster Madness, Mork and Mindy Code Puzzles from Ork, and many more. Arneson passed away on February 1, 2018 after a long illness. William “Bill” Fraccio, born on July 9, 1920, was a comic-book artist whose career stretched from the Forties through 1979, when he turned to producing advertising art and teaching. Fraccio attended New York City’s American School of Design, where his classmate Fred Kida introduced him to comic-book art. Fraccio’s first professional debut was inking a Golden Age Hillman Periodicals’ “Iron Ace” story by another fellow student, Bob Fujitani. Fraccio also contributed to DS Publishing’s Exposed and Gangsters Can’t Win, the Fawcett Comics’ “Commando Yank” in America’s

Greatest Comics, and back-up features in Lev Gleason Publications‘ Daredevil Comics. He contributed to EC Comics titles including The Crypt of Terror, Youthful Comics’ Captain Science, and Trojan Comics’ Attack! and Crime Smashers. Fraccio then began his two-decade run with Charlton Comics, starting with Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel‘s Mr. Muscles, about a wrestler who gains super-strength and fights crime. He provided art in a variety of genres for the low-budget Derby, Connecticut–based Charlton Comics through the late Fifties and Sixties and beyond. Fraccio penciled hundreds of often-uncredited stories for Charlton’s Westerns (Black Fury, Cheyenne Kid, Cowboy Western, Gunmaster, Six-Gun Heroes) and hot rod and motorcycle comics (Surf N’ Wheels, World of Wheels), and is probably best known for illustrating the first two professional stories of future Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas: “The Second Trojan War” in Charlton’s Son of Vulcan vol. 2 #50 (Jan. 1966) and “The Eye of Horus” in Charlton’s Blue Beetle vol. 3 #54 (Mar. 1966). Historian/comic-book inker Jim Amash wrote that Fraccio “was never a fan-favorite, but his work sure ended up in a lot of comic-book collections. He knew he was not a great artist.... He did the best he could for the money he was paid, in the time he had to get that work done. That’s all the companies ever asked of him, and he wasn’t the type to rock any boats.” Fraccio died in Mount Vernon, New York, on October 24, 2005. Anthony “Tony” F. Tallarico was born on September 20, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, and attended NYC’s School of Industrial Art, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and the School of Visual Arts. He got his start in comics in 1953, penciling and inking stories for such publishers as Charlton, Trojan, the David C. Cook Publishing Company, and the Gilberton Company’s Classics Illustrated, Classics Illustrated Junior, and The World Around Us series. Often paired in a team with his generally uncredited penciler Bill Fraccio, Tallarico drew primarily for Charlton (Blue Beetle, Bobby Sherman, Captain Atom, Career Girl Romances, Geronimo Jones, Hot Rods and Racing Cars, Jungle Jim, Abbott & Costello, Hee Haw, Secrets of Young Brides, Tales of the Mysterious Traveler, Thunderbolt, and many others) and Dell (Bewitched, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bozo the Clown, Jungle War Stories, The Mouse on the Moon, Tales from the Tomb, Sinbad Jr., and others). He also worked on Harvey Comics’ short-lived super-hero

(TOP LEFT) Don “D. J.” Arneson. Don Arneson/Facebook. (LEFT) Tony Tallarico. The Daily Cartoonist.

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titles Spyman and Jigsaw. Tallarico is best remembered for co-creating the first comic-book series to star an African-American, the aforementioned Western series Lobo. Tallarico and Lobo writer Arneson disputed who originally conceived the character. Tallarico’s last recorded comic work was the story “Double Occupancy” in Charlton’s Ghost Manor vol. 3 #15 (Oct. 1973). After that, he began writing and illustrating children’s books for a variety of publishers. By his own count, he created more than 1,000 children’s books, including the Where Are They? series. Tony Tallarico died on January 6, 2022, at the age of 88. Under the joint pseudonym “Tony Williamson” and later, “Tony Williamsune,” penciler Bill Fraccio and inker Tony Tallarico collaborated on stories for Warren Publishing’s horror/comics magazines Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella in 1969. By the way, these three gentlemen also brought you The Great Society Comic Book (1966) and Bobman and Teddy (1967). The Tallarico-drawn Oddball one-shot The Great Society Comic Book portrayed President Lyndon B. Johnson and other Democrats as super-heroes, fighting against evil conservatives. Super LBJ was involved with the follow-up comic, Bobman and Teddy, starring Robert and Ted Kennedy as a Batman-and-Robin-like dynamic duo. Regarding the trio’s monster super-hero books: frankly, when these three series were available for cover price on the spinner racks, I’ll admit that none of them came home with me. I was kinda repelled by the Fraccio/Tallarico art style, and was relying on allowance and chores money for my purchases. However, years later,

NEW BOOK FROM SCOTT SHAW!

I picked up all nine issues of the monster super-hero funnybooks when I had a job and an appreciation for what I eventually came to refer as “Oddball Comics.” Speaking of which, I’m finishing my Oddball Comics book for TwoMorrows and I guarantee, Frank Stone, Al U. Card, Fleeta, and Wiley Wolf will be there. Thanks to Jim Amash, Jamie Coville, and Michael Eury. – 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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January 2024

I know you’ve probably got the Christmas issue of RetroFan planned, but an article on the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” would work any time of year. It could include the story from Susan Loesser’s book on her father [composer Frank Loesser] that “Baby” began as a song her parents sang at parties. AMY WILSON “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” may be a favorite holiday tune, Amy, but in recent years its lyrics have become controversial. We normally limit RetroFan’s pop music coverage since there are other sources that explore music history. But what do the rest of you think?

Re the “RetroFad” column [in RetroFan #26] about Bra Burning: In 1972, I was a recently discharged (honorably, I might mention) Vietnam vet. I got a job at Radio Shack. A couple of guys from the phone company came in to buy electronic supplies. We talked and they suggested I put in an application at the phone company. I promptly applied for a job as a cable splicer or installation tech. I was called for an interview and was told I would have to start at the bottom, and that was due to Women’s Lib. I said, “No problem” and was hired on as an information (411) operator. I had to work my way through the other phone company jobs before I finally got the job as an installation/repair tech that I originally applied for. Retired in 2010. That’s my Women’s Lib initiation! DANIEL BRAGG It’s rare that a worker or business owner knows a business from the ground floor up, Daniel, so this hiring policy (if it was indeed a policy back in the day) offered you the opportunity to do just that. Right on!

You suggested the common theme this issue [#26] was trailblazers. For me, the unifying element was eclectic TV shows I haven’t seen in half a century, if ever. Only All In the Family and, to a lesser extent, Daktari, seemed

familiar. I couldn’t tell you anything about the latter other than it had a lion, a chimp, and an odd-sounding theme song. But if the various shows under scrutiny weren’t particular favorites, I took this as a learning experience. Surprised at the British Avengers having to recast so often and yet, somehow, still succeeding. Never watched The A-Team but recall Mr. T being high profile in the Eighties. Of course, RetroFan’s photos, with some of the merchandise, contained some gems that cracked me up. I mean, a Chia Pet with Mr. T’s haircut? His cartoon dog with a mohawk? Funniest to me was his cereal shaped like little Ts. Amusing. Didn’t Quaker Oats previously make essentially the same cereal under different names and shapes (Quisp and Quake)? Or was it a more like Cap’n Crunch with a licensing fee? [Editor’s note: Our own Scott Shaw! reported on the secrets behind Quisp and Quake in RetroFan #11—still available at twomorrows.com!] Did appreciate discovering here that Steve Gerber was involved with [the Mr. T] cartoon. News to me. Wasn’t familiar with Mexican monster movies. But why not? Growls and screams don’t need a translator. Plus, so many of the classic monsters weren’t even American anyway. Some briefly visited. King Kong rampaged in New York and the Creature was exhibited in Florida in the ’55 sequel. Otherwise, most others had a European or Egyptian backdrop, at least initially. I’d not previously heard of the Lennon/ Ono Nutopia. I misunderstood the promotional copy. Thought it was pronounced NUT-Opia rather than NEW-Topia. [Full disclosure: so did I, until reading Scott Saavedra’s column!—ed.] Was anticipating a satirical take rather than something peace oriented. Ah, well, half a century too late to join now, anyway. Wasn’t expecting to embrace your Super Friends coverage. Rarely watched the show and wasn’t exactly captivated in the handful of instances I did. However, to my surprise, the article was actually pretty intriguing. First off, the model sheets, especially Plastic Man, were a treat. Alex Toth was

so underrated. These were all terrific. Also, amusing: that he initially proposed a Forties-type Wonder Woman. Ironic that the network wanted super-heroes without violence. Is violence synonymous with action and adventure? It’d be like doing a Beatles cartoon without any gratuitous singing. I guess it was supposed to be watered down, to whatever extent, with comedic teens and their dog. So, clearly aimed at children rather than being true to the supercharacters as introduced. I don’t begrudge them doing that. I just wasn’t going to encourage it by watching. But the absolute biggest laugh, for me, without question, was likely unintentional. It noted the show had an “educational advisor”: child psychologist Dr. Haim Ginott. Haven’t heard that name since I was a kid. My mom read his Between Parent and Child volume. Once she told me, “Don’t hit your brother. Instead, I want you to take pencil and paper and draw a pictorial representation of your anger.” It was so ridiculous, something no one would spontaneously utter, I cracked up and said, “Don’t use that book stuff on me!” Maybe I should watch Super Friends’ first season and see if any of the heroes are, likewise, drawing pictorial representations of the anger towards criminal opponents and world conquerors…! Finally, another gem, though short and not promoted, was the Cleveland road trip, with coverage of their hometown honoring Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. Decorations denoting pride in the accomplishment and not allowing it to fade away. Should I find myself in the vicinity, I’d definitely make the effort to see it. They started not only a character, but an entire genre. JOE FRANK Joe, the “Retro Travel” Cleveland trip was pitched to RetroFan by our pal Bryan Stroud after he visited the city. It was indeed a fun look at the roots of one of pop culture’s greatest characters, and we’re happy Bryan shared it with our readers.

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com. MICHAEL EURY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RETROFAN

January 2024

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. And back in the day, the best time for cartoons was Saturday morning. Kids loved ’em, no matter what. They didn’t even have to be good.

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

Cartoon Meh-mories 5:00 am

KiTT Cat

A goofy lab mistake creates a cyber-cat who solves mysteries with Muttsy, a dog (voiced by David Hasselholf).

5:30 am

Munchkin Movies:

Frosty’s Swingin’ Summer! Sun and fun at the beach turns to confusion and mystery as Frosty the Snowman suddenly disappears. Is it foul play? A wacky race to find Frosty goes coast-to-coast! Will Muttster and his frozen friend reunite?

6:45 am

f o e s u o H y Sp o ok ! s e o r e H e l Horri b Can Mutt-ahmon keep his team of monster superheroes out of trouble? The HOWL-arious answer is no.

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January 2024

6:15 am

Tails of Baggerton

Come visit the town of Baggerton on Baggy Island and the wacky mischief and profound heartache that the unique townfolk (cats and dogs with bags on their heads) live through. Narrated via a series of one-liners by the Unknown Comic.

Hey! Watch These Favorites Too! The Top Cat Mystery Hour · Barbie’s Bad Boy Mysteries Florence Henderson’s Wesson Oil Conundrums

for your HEALTH!

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With a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: interview with LARRY STORCH, The Lone Ranger in Hollywood, The Dick Van Dyke Show, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero playset, and more!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with the ’60s grooviest family band THE COWSILLS, and TV’s coolest mom JUNE LOCKHART! Mars Attacks!, MAD Magazine in the ’70s, Flintstones turn 60, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Honey West, Max Headroom, Popeye Picnic, the Smiley Face fad, & more! With MICHAEL EURY, ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with ’70s’ Captain America REB BROWN, and Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT) WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE BARTLETT! Plus: Coloring Books, Fall Previews for Saturday morning cartoons, The Cyclops movie, actors behind your favorite TV commercial characters, BENNY HILL, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, 8-track tapes, and more!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Celebrating fifty years of SHAFT, interviews with FAMILY AFFAIR’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN” REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH, rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon preview specials, fake presidential candidates, Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s, and more fun, fab features!

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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!

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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) $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

RETROFAN #26

RETROFAN #27

RETROFAN #28

RETROFAN #29

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 story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Magic memories of ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY for the 60th Anniversary of TV’s Bewitched! Plus: The ’70s thriller Time After Time (with NICHOLAS MEYER, MALCOLM McDOWELL, and DAVID WARNER), The Alvin Show, BUFFALO BOB SMITH and Howdy Doody, Peter Gunn, Saturday morning’s Run Joe Run and Big John Little John, a trip to Camp Crystal Lake, and more fun, fab features!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships 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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