RetroFan #31 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

March 2024 No. 31 $10.95

Say, kids, what time is it? IT’S HOWDY DOODY TIME!

Magic Memories of

This… is… the… ALVIN SHOW

ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY By Herbie J Pilato

Saturday morning’s K-9 crusader… RUN, JOE, RUN

Behind the scenes of the classic thriller

A Bewitched 60th Anniversary Celebration!

with NICHOLAS MEYER, MALCOLM McDOWELL & DAVID WARNER

Visit Camp Crystal Lake (if you dare!) • Peter Gunn • Girder and Panel Building Sets & more! Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury

Elizabeth Montgomery photograph courtesy of the Classic TV Preservation Society. The Alvin Show © Ross Bagdasarian. Run, Joe, Run © William P. D’Angelo Productions. Time Af ter Time © Warner Bros. All Rights Reserved.

The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #31 March 2024

Columns and Special Features

Departments

Retrotorial

Retro Television Bewitched’s Elizabeth Montgomery

Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties It’s Howdy Doody Time!

Too Much TV Quiz TV characters’ hairstyles

Retro Fad Hula Hoops

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! The Alvin Show

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Girder and Panel Building Sets

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Peter Gunn

RetroFanmail

ReJECTED

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning D’Angelo Productions

Retro Sci-Fi Time After Time’s Nicholas Meyer, Malcolm McDowell, and David Warner

RetroFan™ issue 31, March/April 2024 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage 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. Elizabeth Montgomery photograph courtesy of the Classic TV Preservation Society. The Alvin Show © Ross Bagdasarian. Run, Joe, Run © William P. D’Angelo Productions. Time After Time © Warner Bros. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2024 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

RETRO TELEVISION

60th Anniversary Celebration PART ONE

What It Was Like to Meet ‘Samantha’

(BACKGROUND) The eternally bewitching Elizabeth Montgomery.

I’ll never forget the day I first heard Elizabeth Montgomery’s voice on my “Big ’80s” answering machine, trailing off and on tape, in bits and pieces, with a chipper, near stuttering rhythm. For months, I was attempting to contact the iconic star of Bewitched, which originally aired on ABC-TV from 1964 to 1972. William Asher, her former husband and the show’s core producer/director, had been playing matchmaker for us, recommending that she speak with me. “You really should talk to Herbie,” Asher told Elizabeth on more than one occasion. “He is sincerely concerned with this entity known as Bewitched.” “He never tells me that I should talk to anyone,” Elizabeth would later tell me upon our first meeting. But she talked with me. Elizabeth welcomed me into her hushed world. I was enamored with the rise, demise, and rebirth of Bewitched, and she was intrigued. She marveled at my appreciation of not only her most famous show, but her

Classic TV Preservation Society (CTVPS).

My Magical Encounters with Bewitched Star Elizabeth Montgomery BY HERBIE J PILATO RETROFAN RETROFAN

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varied accomplishments, talents, and charitable ways. Initially reticent then unrestrained, she, for the first time in 20 years, offered in-depth conversations about her life and career. She explained during the first of what would become four interviews in the spring and summer of 1989: “It’s a strange thing... I loathe to chat away about me. I’ve never liked it. I always hate interviews. I just want to act, and do the best job I can. Hopefully, people will appreciate it. That’s what my job is. It isn’t sitting down and talking about me. If I were a gardener [which she fancied herself as around her home in Beverly Hills], I would be out there trying to make gardens as pretty as I could, and not expect people to come up to me and ask a lot of questions. What it boils down to is this: It’s always easier for me to talk about other things than it is to talk about me.” Elizabeth described our conversations as “cathartic.” She spoke of performing her legendary Bewitched role as Samantha Stephens, the witch-with-a-twitch; her famous father, film and TV idol Robert Montgomery; her childhood; years of education; early motion pictures, stage, and television appearances. She addressed what it meant to be an actress; her friendships with President John F. Kennedy (who was assassinated on November 22, 1963—the day rehearsals began for Bewitched) and Carol Burnett (her co-star in the 1963 movie Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed? and her frequent opponent on games shows like TV’s Password, which Elizabeth loved to play). Elizabeth also discussed her Bewitched co-stars, including Dick York and Dick Sargent (who shared the role of Darrin Stephens, Samantha’s mortal husband), Agnes Moorehead (who played Endora, Samantha’s feisty supernatural mother), and David White (who played Darrin’s selfabsorbed but lovable ad-man boss Larry Tate). She talked about being “Queen of the Witches” on Bewitched, and her post-Bewitched small-screen films (for which she was deemed Queen of the TV Movies, long before Jane Seymour, Jaclyn Smith, Lindsay Wagner, or Valerie Bertinelli). Elizabeth addressed all she did and did not understand about herself and her massive following; all she gave, all she became, all she hoped to be, all she was: a wife, a mother, a friend, a TV legend, a pop-culture icon, a courageously bold endorser of human rights.

THE FIRST TIME

Bewitched’s Samantha Stephens, one of TV’s first independent women, takes a stand. CTVPS.

My initial interview with Elizabeth transpired on April 18, 1989, three days after her 56th birthday, following months of leaving messages with her answering service, and never receiving a response. But then one day, upon noticing the flashing light on my answering machine, I pressed play and heard: “Hi. It’s Lizzie Montgomery. We’ve been missing each other. Well—you’ve been missing me. I’m finally back for a while. I will give you a call again. You call me. I’ll call you. Hopefully, we’ll be in touch. [pause] This is crazy. [pause, with a smile in her voice, then adding] Okay. Bye-bye.” Firstly, it was astonishing to me she referred to herself as “Lizzie” in such a casual, familiar way, as if we had known each other for years—which, in a way, we did. But the crazy reference was a nod to the mere fact that I wanted to write about Bewitched and, that upon phoning me, she

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heard on my machine the Bewitched theme, punctuated by the nose-twitch xylophone sound from the show’s opening credits, pristinely timed with the phone beeper signal instruction to leave a message. Because this transpired in the pre-high-tech, non-smartphone days, it was quite a challenge to coordinate and record that audible welcome. At the time, I was living in Santa Monica, California, in a tiny studio apartment. The moment Elizabeth had phoned, I was doing my laundry in the shared utility room of my apartment building. After folding my clothes, I returned to my apartment, called her back, and simply said, “I’m so very sorry that I missed your call. I was doing my laundry.” To which she replied, “As well you should.” We both chuckled, and from that moment on, we became friends. Elizabeth was simply “terrific,” a word that both she and Samantha frequently used. She was a wonderful person; down to earth, and unaffected by the Hollywood machine. I made that observation from the moment I drove up to her gated mansion in Beverly Hills, reached over to the guestannouncement speaker, rang the bell, and heard her say, “Hello.” “Hi,” I replied. “It’s Herbie J Pilato.” “Oh, yes. Come on,” was her response (which later became, “Oh, goody,” whenever she heard it was I in the driveway). I then continued up the long private road to her front door with four new tires on my 1981 Buick Regal, because I wanted the car to look nice. I passed a large tennis court, and a well-manicured garden, and closed in on a somewhat disheveled garage that housed a new Rolls Royce with a license plate that read, Bent Liz (as in Bentley). “How funny,” I thought. That was so in tune with the amiable personality that I had come to know by then, if only through watching Bewitched and talking with just a few of Elizabeth’s former Bewitched co-stars (some of whom refused to talk with me until she said, but we’ll get to that later). I soon approached her front door, rang the bell, and there she was: Elizabeth Montgomery, the love of my TV life—and of my magical dreams. I was simply stunned upon seeing this simply stunning woman. There’s just no other way to say it. But then she said, “Hi,” forthrightly, and in placing her hand out in kind, added, “…pleased to meet you.”

In reply, I went on to explain my Bewitched obsession. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I’m sure it went something like this: “Well—the show is really much more than just a sitcom about a witch. She’s first and foremost a woman, who happens to be a witch. And she loves this regular guy for who he is, and not for what he could do for her. And together they prove that any marriage can work, despite their differences, or whatever diverse challenges come their way. That’s really what the show is about… prejudice… looking past differences, and concentrating on what makes people the same.” It was Elizabeth who now appeared stunned. She sat back and replied simply with an, “Oh… okay,” and we became friends. My words were earnest, and she knew it. And we went on to have a wonderful two-hour conversation about Bewitched and her early life and career, with three more two-hour sessions to follow.

GIFTED

To ensure that our first encounter was memorable, I had prepared a few gifts for Elizabeth, planning to offer them after our initial discussion had ended. I did not want her to feel overwhelmed. I had heard of her sensitivity to and fear of the press, due to being raised in the public eye as the daughter of famed movie and film star Robert Montgomery. As it turned out, I became the first journalist to whom Elizabeth granted an in-depth interview in over 20 years. So, it was only upon completion of our monumental conference that I turned to Elizabeth and said, simply, “I have something for you.” I proceeded to take out from the black duffel bag I’d brought along a gold-framed inscription of a letter I wrote to her, which I had commissioned a calligrapher to prepare, along with a fine-crystal unicorn (poor William Asher just got brownies) that I had purchased. I knew that Samantha was fond of unicorns. But it wasn’t until speaking with Bewitched writer Richard Baer who

AND THEN IT HAPPENED

Elizabeth welcomed me inside the front door. I followed her into the living room, and then… it happened. I can’t believe it happened. But it happened. I did something really silly. I tripped over her coffee table. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything—the table or my legs. But I at least broke the ice. Elizabeth giggled like a little girl at my gaffe, and we eventually sat down, and the first question she asked me was, “Why are you doing this?” In other words, she was wondering why I had decided to write a book about a TV show that ended its original run some 17 years before; a production that she had long-distanced herself from for as long a time.

Elizabeth’s title set-up cel from Bewitched, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for the show intro. Bewitched © Sony Pictures Television. Courtesy of Heritage. RETROFAN

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(LEFT) Elizabeth as a young teen with parents Robert Montgomery and Elizabeth Allen. (MIDDLE) Elizabeth with her younger brother Robert “Skip” Montgomery, Jr. (RIGHT) Elizabeth at 17. CTVPS. The tension mounted when he divorced her mother, who Elizabeth adored, and married yet another Elizabeth: Elizabeth "Buffy" Grant Harkness, an heiress. Heartbroken for her mother, Elizabeth tried to keep peace in the family by inviting her father to play Samantha’s magical dad on Bewitched. But he declined, which placed a further wedge between father and daughter. She also was less than thrilled as to how the elder Montgomery treated her younger brother, Robert "Skip" Montgonery, Jr., who was also an actor. With a father seemingly impossible to please, Elizabeth became a rebel of sorts, marrying four times. Her first husband was New York socialite Fred Cammann, who her father adored. But the union lasted just one year. Her second spouse was troubled actor Gig Young, who her father abhorred, mostly because Gig was 20 years her senior. However, there were other issues with Young and, amid rumors of physical abuse, Elizabeth wisely divorced him, and none too soon. Years later, Gig committed suicide after killing his fifth wife, Kim Schmidt.

In 1963, Elizabeth met William Asher on the set of the film Johnny Cool, in which she starred and he directed. They fell in love and wed and, during the Bewitched years, had three children: Billy Asher (a luthier), Rebecca Asher (who followed her father in directing), and Robert Asher (a carpenter). In 1974, Elizabeth met actor Robert Foxworth on the set of the TV movie, Mrs. Sundance. The two made two more small screen films (Face to Face, 1990, and With Murder in Mind, 1992) and remained together until her demise, though they married only in the last two years of her life. Beyond Bewitched, Montgomery made more than 200 appearances on stage and screen. She received the Daniel Bloom Theatre Award for Most Promising Personality of the 1953–1954 season for her performance as Janet Colby in Late Love (which opened on Broadway on October 13, 1953).

(LEFT) Elizabeth was an accomplished stage actress before turning to TV and film. (RIGHT) Resting between scenes of The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), her first feature film. CTVPS. RETROFAN

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Y D O O D Y D TIME! W HO

VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

IT’S

re e w l l e arab oneers l C d n ob a e-show pi B o l a f BY MARK VOGER Buf kiddi

When television was just a baby, it was often called a “visual medium.” (Back then, this was a novelty. Nowadays, everything is visual.) But the same could be said about radio, in the sense that we visualize what we hear with our “mind’s eye.” In the late Forties, as young listeners heard a bumpkin character they called Howdy Doody on a children’s radio show titled The Triple B Ranch, they each formed a mental picture of what this Howdy looked like. So when certain lucky children were privileged to witness Triple B Ranch broadcasts in person at the studio, they were in for a letdown. Where was Howdy? “This was radio, so we didn’t have a dummy or a puppet or anything,” said the show’s host, Robert Emil Schmidt (1917–1998), better known as Buffalo Bob Smith. “So the kids would see the show and they’d say, ‘Gee, we’re disappointed. We wanted to see Howdy Doody!’” One day soon, they would. Buffalo Bob and Howdy made the transition from radio to television with The Howdy Doody Show (1947–1960), a Western-themed kiddie program that may seem quaint and old-fashioned to modern audiences, but was immensely popular, and pioneering, in its day. Among the many precedents set by The Howdy Doody Show, it was television’s firstever network children’s program. Smith, Howdy’s straight man and human buddy, earned a place in the hearts of millions of children of the Fifties as host of the show, which aired live on NBC. Howdy was visually realized as a gap-toothed, freckle-faced puppet whose name supplied the answer to the question Smith would ask his “Peanut Gallery” of young fans at the start of more than 2,000 episodes: “Hey, kids, what time is it?” Populating the fictional town of Doodyville were characters both human and puppet: Clarabell the Clown, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, Phineas T. Bluster, Dilly Dally, Chief Thunderthud, Trapper John, Flub-a-Dub, Zippy the Chimp, and many others.

RADIO DAYS

Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody entertained a generation of children. © NBC Television.

Like so many pioneers of early television, Smith launched his career in the medium of radio. “I came to New York, to NBC, in 1946 to do an early morning radio show,” Smith told me in 1993. (I spoke with the entertainer on two occasions that year, once in person and once by telephone.) “I was on every morning, Monday through Saturday, from 6 to 9. In March of ’47, the boss said he wanted to clear the entire Saturday morning radio time—9 AM to 12 noon — for kids. This was radio, now. Frank Weaver did a half-hour. Weaver made a lot of great albums for kids. Ed Herlihy did a show for Horn and Hardart. Paul RETROFAN

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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

Winchell did a half-hour. And I did a half-hour. My half-hour was called The Triple B Ranch, and it was on from 10 to 10:30. The three Bs stood for Big Brother Bob.” Smith described the format of the show as a kind of comedy quiz show. “I would have four kids from one school vying against four kids from another school,” he said. “The school kids would be there to root for their team. The whole show had a Western flavor. The kids got up on wooden horses. One horse would carry four kids from one school, and another horse would carry four kids from another school. If they had the correct answers, they stayed on the horse. If not, they were knocked off like in the rodeo—bucking bronco.” This is where the character Howdy Doody came in, though at first he had a different name. Recalled Smith: “One day my writer said, ‘Gee, we need some more comedy on the show. Do you do any voices?’ So he went into the control room and I did several voices. He liked this Mortimer Snerd-ish, country bumpkin-type character I did. We called him Elmer. So we’d do a little comedy at the beginning of the show. I’d say, ‘Oh, here’s Elmer! Hi, Elmer!’ And Elmer would say [in a cartoony voice], ‘Heh, heh, heh... well, howdy DOO-dy!’” Basically, Elmer was a voice characterization done by Smith. “I just talked as myself,” he explained. “I was not a ventriloquist. Never was. It just developed. We’d do some corny hot dog jokes, and when it was all wound up I’d say, ‘Well, so long, Elmer,’ and he’d say, ‘Well, howdy doody!’” In interacting with young listeners, Smith became aware that children not only wanted to see Elmer, but they didn’t call him Elmer. Rather, they called him by his inadvertent catch phrase: Howdy Doody. “This gave us two ideas,” Smith said. “We won’t call him Elmer anymore; we’ll call him Howdy Doody. It’s a cuter name. And if the kids want to see him, let’s talk with the television people. We were getting good ratings on that morning show.”

SMALL SCREEN DEBUT

It turned out that the folks in NBC’s burgeoning TV division were already thinking along those lines. Smith happened to be in the right place at the right time.

The gang’s all here in artwork from Dell’s comic book Howdy Doody #2 (1950). 14

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“In December [of 1947], we did talk with the television people, and they said they already had it in mind to do a kids’ television show,” Smith recalled. “They had some puppets in mind, but they said they would watch our radio show anyway. Well, when they saw the enthusiasm of these kids watching our radio show, they said, ‘Gee, this fits in with our plans just great. We have a puppeteer already hired. He’s got a lot of puppets. We’ll make another puppet. We’ll call him Howdy Doody. And you, Bob Smith, can host the show.’ “Now, this was on Tuesday, December 23, 1947. And I said, ‘Okay. When do you want to start?’ And they said, ‘Saturday.’ They said, ‘We’ve got some old silent films. We’ll call them “old-time movies.” You can do the narration on those. We’ll have some kids. We’ll have some games and fun with the kids. And you host the whole thing.’ So that following Saturday—December 27, 1947—was our first Howdy Doody Show. It was called Puppet Playhouse in the beginning.” But Howdy Doody, the marionette, was not on the show during those initial broadcasts. “We got a puppeteer to start working on a puppet, and in the interim, we pretended Howdy was in my desk drawer,” Smith said with a chuckle. “The camera would take a picture

(LEFT) Cantankerous puppet Phineas T. Bluster earned his surname on The Howdy Doody Show. (BELOW) A test pattern-style title card for the show. © NBC Television.

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Witch Doctors, Chipmunks, an d Crashcups

BY SCOTT SHAW! By the time I was ten years old, I not only owned a healthy “funnybook” collection, I’d convinced myself that I definitely was going to become a professional cartoonist. I also considered myself to be the Roger Ebert of animated cartoons, with annoyingly specific opinions of the “best” and “worst.” I kept track of the storylines on Rocky and His Friends. I drove everyone I knew crazy by obsessively imitating the “Nyah-hah-hah!” laugh of Beany and Cecil’s “Dishonest John.” I even determined the specific color scheme of The Flintstones (which I’d only watched in B&W!). Due to my father being a Pearl Harbor survivor, I had a rough approximation of the history of animation, thanks to all of the WWII cartoons that were being shown on TV. My first favorite cartoons were classic theatrical Max Fleischer’s Popeye (possibly because my dad was by then a Navy officer) and MGM’s Tom and Jerry. (Every time I watch one of the classic T&J shorts of the Forties and Fifties, I get emotional because I worked for their creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, my boyhood heroes.) But by 1957, I had already memorized almost all of the theatrical shorts on the air, almost all of which were created in the Twenties through the Forties. I was starving for some new cartoons that represented the present, therefore Bill and Joe’s The Ruff and Reddy Show immediately became one of my first TV favorite cartoons, as did Gene Deitch’s Tom Terrific on Captain Kangaroo and Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends. The live-action how-cartoons-are-made

A commissioned illustration of Alvin the Chipmunk by— whaddaya know—Scott Shaw! © Ross Bagdasarian. Alvin Show logo courtesy of Fandom.com.

segments with Walter Lantz on The Woody Woodpecker Show were even better than the “other” Walt’s similar presentations on Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. Then came H-B’s Huckleberry Hound Show, The Flintstones, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, and Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil, and... well, y’know. As a kid, they were my animated textbooks. I loved them all and still do. But after finally becoming an equally irritating cartoonist with extremely hard-to-please standards, there’s one other made-for-television cartoon series that made a mark on me. Unlike most of the cartoons I grew up watching, its characters are still quite familiar with children and generations of adults. In many ways, its characters and their designs, clever voiceovers, scripts, and animation, as well as a somewhat “insider” vibe due to the built-in celebrity of the show’s three stars, made it the hippest and most experimental cartoon series of its time. It was The Alvin Show, which aired on CBS in the early evening from October 4, 1961 to March 28, 1962. I was ten years old. And I’d already realized that this show was special.

COME ON-A ROSS BAGDASARIAN’S HOUSE

Ross Bagdasarian (January 27, 1919–January 16, 1972), full name Rostom Sipan Bagdasarian, was born into an Armenian-American family in Fresno, California. His family owned a vineyard and his first cousin was the prolific novelist, playwright, and short story writer William Saroyan, who received the Pulitzer Prize for “Drama” in 1940 and an Academy Award for “Best Story,” both for early iterations of his book, The Human Comedy (1943). After graduating from Fresno High School in 1937, he visited his cousin William in New York City to seek work as an actor. Ross RETROFAN

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

(CLOCKWISE, LEFT TO RIGHT) The Music of David Seville (1957), David at work singing (or possibly yelling) into his reel-toreel tape recorder, and the 1959 UK issue of The Witch Doctor and Friends. © Ross Bagdasarian.

Donkey and the Schoolboy,” “The Gift,” and “Judy.” In 1957, Liberty Records released an LP album, The Music of David Seville, including many of those tunes and with liner notes by William Saroyan. Other new songs followed, including “Camel Rock,” “Cecilia,” “Pretty Dark Eyes,” “Bagdad Express,” “Starlight, Starbright,” and “Bonjour Tristesse.” By that time, Ross Bagdasarian was also regularly working as an actor in film and television, including The Greatest Show on Earth and Viva Zapata! (1952); The Stars are Singing, Destination Gobi, The Girls of Pleasure Island, and Stalag 17 (1953); Alaska Seas and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954); The Ray Milland Show, The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse, Big Town, and Kismet (1955); Hot Blood, The Proud and Profane, and Three Violent People (1956); Studio 57 and The Devil’s Hairpin (1957); and The Deep Six (1958). These acting roles were bringing more money into the Bagdasarian household than the novelty songs were, but the combined total still wasn’t nearly enough to operate a family of increasing size for long.

‘THE WITCH DOCTOR’

items, pomegranate.” Meanwhile, Ross was writing songs, including “Hey Brother, Pass the Wine” for Dean Martin, “Not Since Nineveh” and “Zubbediya” for Kismet, and “Let’s Have a Merry, Merry Christmas” for Mercury Records, all in 1953. In 1955, Bagdasarian was signed by Liberty Records, originally to record as “Alfi and Henry,” then as himself, then back to “Alfi and Henry.” “Their” most popular song was “The Trouble with Harry” (not coincidentally with the same title as the film by Alfred Hitchcock released earlier that year), which reached No. 44 on the Billboard chart and was a bigger hit in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 15. Then, in 1956, Ross decided to become someone else.

MEET DAVID SEVILLE

In an effort to simplify and Americanize his name, Ross Bagdasarian created an alter ego named “David Seville,” based on the name for a son that he and Armen once fantasized about, “David,” and his service for the Army Air Forces in Seville, Spain. From that point on, “David Seville” would be the name of the man who supposedly wrote, performed, and recorded the songs, characters, and stories that were hatched in Ross Bagdasarian’s fertile and prolific mind. Liberty’s “Armen’s Theme,” an instrumental tune that would eventually become a Muzak elevator standard, was Ross’ first recording to be attached with the name “David Seville.” Novelty songs became David’s go-to gimmick: “Gotta Get to Your House,” “The Bird on My Head,” “Little Brass Band,” “The

In 1958, while living in Van Nuys, California, the Bagdasarians found themselves to be very close to broke. Out of sheer desperation, Ross spent the last of their $200 savings (adjusting for inflation, around $2,000!) on the latest state-ofthe-art reel-to-reel tape recorder he could afford. The idea was in part from the unusual voices created by reel-to-reel tape recorders for the Munchkins in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Attempting to come up with a silly song that could be audibly unique with the help of the tape recorder, he noticed a book on his desk: Duel with the Witch Doctor. Without possessing the ability to read or write music nor play a single musical instrument, he quickly whipped up an unforgettable novelty tune unlike any other, “The Witch Doctor”: ♪♪ “I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you And then the Witch Doctor, he told me what to do He said that OO EE OO AH AH Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang OO EE OO AH AH Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang!!!” ♪♪ After recording the song, Ross experimented with how to use the tape recorder to distort his voice. Using his wife and kids as an ad hoc focus group, he doubled the speed of his singing voice to achieve the wild, weird, and wacky voice of the Witch Doctor. Then he pitched the song to Liberty Records’ president Si Waronker, who loved it but had to convince his label president Alvin Bennett that kids were already eager for new rock ’n’ roll novelty tunes. He was right. “The Witch Doctor” sold close to two million records and immediately attained the No. 1 slot on Billboard’s Top 40 starting on April 1958 and lasting for three weeks. It was the No. 4 song for 1958 RETROFAN

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

The start of something big: The Chipmunk Song 45 (1959) from Liberty Records. “Alvin’s Harmonica” is the B-side. © Ross Bagdasarian. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

reindeer or elephants and he was driving along near the Sequoias and one day a chipmunk actually jumped out on the road and dared he and his 4,000 pound car to drive by and as he picked himself out of the road after laughing hysterically at this little chipmunk, he figured it’s going to be three singing chipmunks.” (That’s a cute run-on story, as were the “official” origins of Mickey Mouse and Woody Woodpecker, but having worked in entertainment for decades, I suggest that we take these corporatized stories with a healthy pinch of salt.) Here’s how Ross explained it: “In September of 1958, I decided to try for a Christmas novelty song. I thought of a melody on my way to work, and I went right to the studio and whistled it into a tape machine, so that it wouldn’t be forgotten. Since I can’t read or write music, I whistle into tape machines.

and was nominated for the year’s Grammy for Best Children’s Recording. Ross performed “The Witch Doctor” live on CBS’ The Ed Sullivan Show on May 4, 1958, the first of six appearances on the variety program. Due to a few tech glitches, the presentation was somewhat flawed but still a lot of fun. Finally, Ross Bagdasarian/David Seville was/were established as a songwriter. Using a similar process to control a voice’s speed, David Seville had a minor hit with Liberty Records’ “The Bird On My Head”; it reached No. 34 in June 1958. Ross appeared on The Dick Clark Beech-Nut Show to perform it and “The Witch Doctor,” with puppets designed and operated by Morey Bunin. David had two more releases from Liberty, “Little Brass Band”/”Take Five” and “The Mountain”/”Mr. Grape,” most of which appeared in David Seville and His Friends’ The Witch Doctor LP record (Liberty, 1958).

‘THEY SOUNDED LIKE CHIPMUNKS’

By that time, David Seville’s material was one of Liberty Records’ top moneymakers. In the summer of 1958, the brass at Liberty contacted Ross to ask him to come up with another novelty song for the upcoming holiday season. But what to do in an industry that was already swollen with Christmas music? Fortunately, his youngest child unintentionally sparked Ross’ imagination. Little Adam was driving his family crazy, constantly asking if it was Christmas yet because he knew that meant a lot of presents were on the way. That was a refreshingly honest theme that even impatient and greedy kids could relate to. ♪♪ “Christmas, Christmas time is near Time for toys and time for cheer We’ve been good, but we can’t last Hurry Christmas, hurry fast.” ♪♪ Now that he had a theme and some lyrics, Ross was scouring his mind for the perfect characters to sing them. According to his son Ross, Jr., “...He wanted to use that sped-up sound for some characters and didn’t know whether they should be singing alligators or 26

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When reader Scott Foltz heard that Alvin and the Chipmunks were going to be a topic of an article this issue, he generously offered to share photos from his biggerthan-a-chipmunk-sized collection. We begin with items from the pre–Alvin Show merchandise, with more neat stuff to follow. Thanks, Scott. © Ross Bagdasarian.

RETROFAD

BY MIC HAE Alvin wasn’t alone. The cartoon character’s “Me, I want a hula hoop” entreaties peppered “The Chipmunk Song” (a.k.a. “Christmas, Don’t Be Late”), to the listener’s amusement and David Seville’s annoyance. But you really can’t blame the bucktoothed li’l fella for his obsession. When manufacturer Wham-O released its first hula hoop—officially branded Hula Hoop®, herewith Hula Hoop, minus the registration mark—in the summer of 1958, 25 million units were sold in just the first four months. That’s a whole lotta (hip) shakin’ goin’ on! For a contemporary toy, the Hula Hoop was actually an updated historical relic. Hoops forged of vines, grasses, bamboo, and other vegetation had for centuries been employed across the globe in ceremonial dances. Metal and wooden hoops from barrels, wagon wheels, and other sources had been used for everything from rolling knickknacks for children to medical aids and muscle-toning devices for adults. It was a recreational fad of 1957 that ultimately whirled into the public eye what we now call the Hula Hoop. That year, the European press took note of a budding trend among Norwegian and Australian girls who were swinging cane rings around their bodies in what was dubbed “rock ring” or “wiggle rock” mania. Once an Australian

(TOP) Wham-O Hula Hoop promotional graphics from the product’s 1958 debut year, with its company mascot, the witch doctor “Whambo.” Hula Hoop® is TM & © Intersport Corp., DBA Wham-O (herewith Wham-O). (CENTER AND BOTTOM) Record players spun along with Hula Hoops as a variety of performers released hoop-inspired songs in 1958.

L E U RY

physical education teacher started using bamboo rings to encourage movement among her students, more than pelvises began rotating. Tim Walsh, author of The Playmakers: Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys (2004, Keys Publishing), writes that an observant Australian department store, Coles, began selling bamboo hoops but couldn’t keep them in stock due to mushrooming demand. Coles tapped Alex Tolmer, founder of the legendary manufacturing company Toltoys, to begin mass production of hoops. Tolmer, says Walsh, found the durable plastic Polyethylene to be the perfect hoop material and rushed these “exercise hoops” into production, selling 400,000 units in Australia that year. Here’s where the Hula Hoop story began to spin faster. An American named Joan Alexander, while on holiday visiting family in Australia, caught wind of this new fancy and shipped one of the exercise rings from the Land from Down Under to her home. Once back in the States she showed the hoop to the folks at Wham-O. Wham-O, as most RetroFans know, is the toy company that introduced a range of perennial playthings, most famously the Frisbee® (which we tossed at you in RetroFan #13), but also the Slip ’n Slide, Super-Ball, Hacky Sack, and Silly String. Co-founders Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin launched the company in 1948, originally operating out of Knerr’s garage before growing into a Carson, California–based business that’s still going strong today. RETROFAN

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

Girder and Panel Building Sets BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

In the Plaything category of Stuff I Really, Really Liked As A Kid, building toys (also known as construction or engineering toys) were the Best (BEST!). I was especially drawn to stuff you could do on your own (Me Time was important when you’re a bookish kid with six siblings). Building toys really fit the bill, and I played with plenty. And LEGO bricks (invented in 1949)… well, who hasn’t encountered them? They kept me busy into adulthood and parenthood. [We’ve got a LEGO history coming up in the next issue of RetroFan, #32—and LEGOmanics are also invited to check out TwoMorrows’ Brick Journal mag!—ed.] While structures could be made with any number of construction toys, there was only one during the RetroYears that attempted to replicate the actual construction process itself and create something that actually looked like a modern structure: Girder and Panel building sets. Girder and Panel building sets came out of Kenner Products (best known as just Kenner). Kenner was a toy company founded in 1946 by three brothers: Albert, Phillip, and Joseph Steiner. Albert was the president of the company, with Kenner being the

name of the Cincinnati, Detail of art from an early Ohio, street on which their Girder and Panel Building offices were located. The Set planning book. Collection of first big hit for the young the author. toy company was 1949’s Captain Space Bub-LRocket. Captain Space is seen on the package blowing into the tip of the Bub-L-Rocket, creating “galaxies of bubbles—without refueling!” Captain Space brags on the back of the package that he himself designed the bubble gun “as a precision toy.” But you can’t rest on any laurels in the toy business, and new concepts are constantly needed. For the company’s 1957 Spring line, Kenner was introducing the Jungle Blow-Gun set, Squirt Beanies, and something called the Squirt Write. Fortunately, Kenner had something even more exciting in the pipeline. Company president Albert Steiner had a lucky epiphany while observing an office tower slowly rising up in the city. He felt that the skeletal girder construction process, finished off with exterior glass and steel, RETROFAN

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

kinds of things as long as they had square corners (in those days). These sets were successful enough that A Brief Origin of Building Toys more were soon added. Children, during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, when The next three were Bridge and Turnpike sets (1958), they weren’t toiling in the fields and factories or selling newspapers which added roadways into the mix. The two motorized on dirty street corners, played outside. Most did not have toys as versions of these sets (1960) were Kenner’s bestsellers we know them; some playthings were literally stuff picked up off in the Girder and Panel line-up. the ground (sticks, twigs, Moving from office buildings etc.) or whatever a clever Thomas Eakins’ “Baby at Play” (1876) shows an upper and roads to something more friend or relative could put class child with toys of the day including two types of educational, Kenner offered together. It was the chilwood blocks, alphabet squares, and architectural pieces. up two Hydro-Dynamic sets dren of the well-to-do that Courtesy Wikimedia. (1961) designed to encourage had professionally made young engineers to understand toys. As manufactured fluid dynamics. Not many toys became cheaper and toys could make that claim. more plentiful following This was followed by three the Civil War, they became Build-A-Home sets (1962) in available to more and more response to the post-war home children. In an effort to construction boom. The largest give toys a greater purpose of these (set #16) created a than just, you know, being multi-home subdivision for all fun, attempts were made to the little urban-sprawl enthusihave playthings stimulate asts in toyland. Accessories for Build-A-Home included the mind. This is where building toys really shined. doghouses and television antennas. Building blocks were alluded to in print as early as 1594. Practical Moving from the then-present to a short jump (one Education (1789) called blocks “rational toys” because they could teach hoped) to the then soon-to-be future, Kenner produced children about gravity and physics. It was written by Richard Lovell two Skyrail sets (1963). The Skyrail was like the famed Edgeworth, a politician and inventor, and his daughter Maria (one Disneyland monorail system first introduced in 1959 of 22 children), an author of romantic novels and children’s literabut without trestles for support. In my memory these ture. My maternal grandparents only had “acceptable toys” (nothing sets were a bit difficult to get put together right, but I related to popular culture) on hand including a big pile of wooden was observing a neighbor’s set-up in (limited) action building blocks, likely my first construction toy. These blocks were and it may have been an operator problem. I wasn’t old when I was young and had a gorgeous patina of age before I allowed to touch the controls. So, who knows? knew what patina meant (I would have guessed “dirty”). For a group Between 1964 and 1965, Kenner made some parts of young, antic children, wooden blocks were stack-and-whack toys changes and upgrades, now calling the Girder and (build it up, knock it down) and that’s mainly what we did with them. Panel sets “Modern-As-Tomorrow” and ones with roadThere was so much learning about gravity and physics. Probably too ways “Freeway USA.” The last major Girder and Panel much. change made by Kenner before a temporary cool-down Plastics became a popular toy material after World War II. But of the line was the motorized Girdbefore and after the war, construction sets were also made of wood, stone, paper, cardboard, masonite, steel, and rubber. There were distinctly engineering creations like wooden Tinker Toys, created in 1914 by a stonemason, and the metal Gilbert Erector Sets, invented by a former magician in 1913. These sets could create outlines of buildings but nothing that looked like an everyday live or work-in structure (though there was briefly an Erector Skyscraper set in 1935 with cardboard facade pieces). Lincoln Logs were the 1918 invention of Frank Lloyd Wright’s son John, also an architect. While children could build more or less actual structures like Abraham Lincoln’s family home, it used building techniques that were firmly rooted in the past, unlike Girder and Panel sets which were definitely of their moment. Lincoln Logs, a classic building toy, featured construction methods used by “our forefathers” as indicated by the box (circa 1920). © Basic Fun! Inc. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

erMatic Building Sets (1965), which added the ability to make amusement park rides like a Ferris wheel and new parts to allow for a greater range of engineering play with less focus on modern structures. Kenner had a pretty solid run as a toymaker. Most RetroFans likely recall the aforementioned Easy-Bake Oven, the Spirograph (1966), Stretch Armstrong (1976), and if you haven’t heard of the Death Star-sized popularity of the original Star Wars action figures (1978), then you probably live in a galaxy far, far away (just not the one with Darth Vader in it). All of these toys have been available to one degree or another decades beyond their introduction, the Girder and Panel Building Set included. But it was a bit of a rocky road. In 1967, General Mills (yeah, the breakfast cereal company) bought Kenner. Rainbow Crafts, home of Play-Doh, was a division of General Mills, having been purchased in 1965. Rainbow Crafts was folded into Kenner, which in 1985 was merged into the Parker Brothers division (bought by General Mills in 1968) 44

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(TOP) Examples of the possibilities when combining multiple Girder and Panel Building Sets from planning book included with each box. Collection of the author. (ABOVE) Girder and Panel Build-A-Home & Subdivision Set. TM & © Bridge Street Toys, LLC. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

GUNN FOR HIRE BY WILL MURRAY I don’t know what NBC executives were expecting when they launched Peter Gunn in the fall of 1958. That was the TV season in which 37 Westerns aired. Peter Gunn was clearly swimming upstream. Yet the show managed to break out of the stampede of cowboy protagonists and not only survive, but is today remembered as an innovative television program. Blake Edwards was the creator. He had written a 1949–1953 radio show called Richard Diamond, Private Detective that was so successful it crossed over into TV for four seasons. Future Fugitive star David Janssen played the role that Dick Powell had made famous on radio. Such success in two media prompted Edwards to think he could reimagine the cliché private eye for a new series, not a radio retread. He called him Peter Gunn.

HAVE GUNN, WILL SLEUTH

According to Edwards, Gunn was “a present-day soldier of fortune who has found himself a gimmick that pays him a very comfortable living. The gimmick was trouble. People who had major trouble will pay handsomely to get rid of it, and Peter Gunn was a man who will not only accept the pay but do something about it. He knows every element of the city, from cops to crooks. He also, of course, has his soft side and will occasionally take on a charity job for free.” Gunn was an update of Have Gun, Will Travel’s Paladin, to which it was compared when the show was announced. However,

the producer had a problem. Peter Gunn star Craig He couldn’t find an actor who Stevens. (BELOW) Peter might embody his concept of an Gunn creator Blake urbane investigator. Edwards, in 1966. Edwards As the man who ultimately photo: G. K. Austin/Wikimedia. Peter Gunn © Spartan Productions. accepted the role recalled it, Edwards phoned him, saying, “Look, for six months I’ve been planning a TV series. We talked about it, remember? Well, I’ve searched high and low. I’ve tested stars, and I’ve tested unknowns. Nothing. This morning, as my wife was walking out the dressing room, she suddenly said, ‘What about Craig Stevens?’” Stevens knew Blake socially. His wife, Alexis Smith, had worked on Edwards’ comedy, This Happy Feeling. “Craig, I didn’t think of you at the time,” pressed Edwards. “I didn’t parallel you with what I had in mind, but all along you were really my model. Will you do it?” Stevens was reluctant, but Edwards pushed him. “No trench coat, no sloppy hat,” Edwards said. “You are not to be a rough type of guy. You should be more of a Madison Avenue type; calm, correct, impeccable, but able to handle a tough situation when it comes up. I don’t want this to be just another whodunit.” Stevens recounted, “Both Alexis and I really admired this guy, so we waited anxiously for the script to arrive. When it finally came, there was a note attached, ‘Hope you dig this thing. Blake.’” Stevens wired back: “Dig it the most. Peter Gunn.” RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

“He knew exactly what he wanted,” Stevens recalled. “When I saw the first script, I was crazy about the show. It was fresh and had good dialogue, with a situation constructed around a basic theme. After all, how novel can you get with a story about a private investigator? But Blake has given it a gloss and color and character. “He didn’t want a detective in rumpled clothes, or a trench coat,” added Stevens. “He wanted a conservative, crewcut type in custom-tailored clothes. The first question he asked me was whether I’d have my hair cut for the pilot film. Not that my hair was so long—it was just an average leading men haircut.” Blake spent $75,000 making the pilot. It was optioned on first showing. “It must have been a terrific pilot,” joked Stevens. “The client even wanted us to keep the same heavy, but we couldn’t do that or we’d have the same story each week.”

GUNN MOVES IN FOR ‘THE KILL’

This was Universal’s first foray into TV. “Edwards has had a reputation as one of the best young directors in Hollywood,” Stevens recounted. “He wanted to do something in television, but not just another show. When he told people what he wanted to do, they told him he was crazy. Live music, or at least originally scored music, on a half–hour show? The kind of camera work you expect in a major movie production? They laughed at him.” Originally, the show was going to be called Gunn for Hire. But there were rights issues with the 1942 Alan Ladd film, This Gun for Hire. So it became Peter Gunn. No matter what it was called, Peter Gunn was bound to be a hit. Those rival Western TV heroes had their six-shooters aimed at each other. All Gunn had to do was stick to the city side of the action and let the Nielsen ratings sort it all out. The first episode was called “The Kill.” It opened with a police prowl car pulling over the limousine of a vice lord who had been riding high since the Twenties. Without apparent reason, the cops shoot the man and his driver dead, then drive off. We meet Peter Gunn at Big Al Fusary’s funeral, where his successor, played by Gavin MacLeod, questions Gunn as to what he’s doing there, departing with a veiled threat. So does police Lieutenant Charles Jacoby, who apparently has known Peter Gunn for some time and has a brittle relationship with him. Matters heat up when Gunn goes to River Street in the unnamed city in which he operates, and takes what will become his habitual table at a waterfront nightclub called Mother’s. As played by Hope Emerson, club owner “Mother” is a crusty old dame who confides in Peter that the new crime boss is after a piece of her action. She asks Peter to go talk to him. During the scene, Lola Albright as Edie Hart steps onto the stage and belts out her first of many signature torch songs. Before Gunn leaves on his errand, they have an intimate conversation out back, and it’s clear that the singer is hopelessly infatuated with the handsome Gunn, an emotion which Craig Stevens’ character returns. Visiting the new gang lord in the middle of a racquetball game, Gunn gets told no for an answer. This friendly overture leads to three sticks of dynamite being planted under the floorboards of Mother’s. Boom! Fortunately, it’s after hours, and while Mother is in the hospital, her life hanging in the balance, Peter Gunn forces one of the gang 52

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Not only was Peter Gunn a stylish updating of star Richard Boone’s TV Western Have Gun, Will Travel, but both series spawned comic books from Dell—with photo covers that are prized by collectors. Have Gun, Will Travel © Warner Bros. Peter Gunn © Spartan Productions.

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Run, Joe, Run’

William P. D’Angelo

BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, your constant guide to the shows that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross-legged leaning against the couch, and dig into Retro Saturday Morning! This issue, you get a double-dip into two live-action Saturday morning shows with some impressive pedigrees… and I’m not talking just about the dog in Run, Joe, Run! It’s our look a two NBC series from DBA Productions!

WHO WAS DOING BUSINESS AS DBA?

Harvey Bullock

Raymond S. Allen

DBA was better known as D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions, and 1974 was D’Angelo’s debut to provide content for Saturday morning television… but not the trio’s debut at enticing kids to watch television! Although the company started as D’Angelo Productions, it eventually morphed into a trio of producers at DBA’s head: William P. D’Angelo, Harvey Bullock, and Raymond S. Allen. • William P. D’Angelo cut his teeth in the Sixties as a writer, director, and producer for such series as No Time for Sergeants; Love, American Style; and Room 222, though his biggest success was as an associate producer for the mammoth hit series, Batman. • Harvey Bullock is the name of one of the Gotham P.D.’s most famous characters in the Batman comics, but it’s also the name of a writer and series creator since 1954, who worked on The Real McCoys, Rango, Gomer Pyle USMC, and many of the same shows that Raymond Allen wrote for. • Raymond S. Allen (born Morris Saffian) had been a writer in Hollywood since 1956, toiling on scripts for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Andy Griffith Show, The Danny Thomas Show, a 1964 Archie TV film based on the comics, The Flintstones, Hogan’s Heroes, and Love, American Style. As D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions, the trio individually or collectively produced six live-action Saturday morning shows RETROFAN

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RETRO SCI-FI

n r u t i e B R nn e m i T n dn

Revisiting Time After Time with Writer-Director Nicholas Meyer and Actors Malcolm McDowell and David Warner

BY ANTHONY TAYLOR

my novel in which Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud, was the number one bestseller in the United States (much to everybody’s surprise, including mine). “Karl contacted me and said that he was writing a novel,” Meyer continues, “which in his words was ‘loosely inspired’ by The SevenThe tagline for Nicholas Meyer’s fantastic film Time After Time Per-Cent Solution. He said, ‘I have 65 pages and an outline, could you barely hints at the humor, action, pathos, romance, and drama read it and tell me what you think?’ In those days I had time to do within. The author of the bestselling Sherlock Homes pastiche, that sort of thing, so I read his 65 pages and I gave him notes and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Meyer had aspired to direct motion told him what I thought, omitting my headline pictures since he was a boy after seeing Michael thought, which was that the idea—which I never Todd’s Around the World in 80 Days. The young would have had in a trillion years, by the way— auteur indeed directed a nearly shot-for-shot was much more a cinematic, a visual idea, than remake of the movie on Super 8mm film over it was a literary one. The idea being two guys a five-year period, with the help of family and in Victorian outfits running around a modern friends. A meeting with a future collaborator world, which I just thought was irresistible. while at the University of Iowa led to the genesis “I told him all the ‘book things’ that he might of the beloved 1979 film about H. G. Wells and want to think about, and then I went on about Jack the Ripper at odds in then-modern day San whatever my business was at the time, except Francisco. that I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. As Meyer recalls, “I was an undergraduate at I say, I would have never thought of it myself, the University of Iowa in the department of but I couldn’t stop thinking about it now that theater and film, and I kind of wandered into the I’d heard it. Sometimes it takes me a while to writers’ workshop via the playwriting program. figure things out. Maybe three months later Karl Alexander was, I think, in the graduate I woke up at four o’clock in the morning and student part of it, and he had a play produced thought, ‘You’re an idiot! Why don’t you simply there that I saw. I didn’t know him at the time option his book, write your own screenplay, and as Karl Alexander, I knew him as Karl Tunberg, Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven- try to get it made?’” which was his actual name. He was named for Per-Cent Solution published Meyer’s realization of the appeal of two his uncle, who was a big mucky-muck in the in 1974 by E. P. Dutton. Unless men from another time experiencing a society Writers’ Guild [of America] in Hollywood. He had otherwise noted, all images accompanying that they lived outside of presented endless written the screenplay for Old Yeller, and received this article are courtesy of Anthony Taylor. opportunities for humor, drama, and social the final screen credit for Ben-Hur, for which he commentary, and informed the collaboration was not the final author… but he got around, Mr. between the two writers. As they developed the story, Meyer Tunberg. One of his requests to his nephew was that he change his contributed ideas that Alexander incorporated into the novel name, so that there would be no chance for being confused for his and vice-versa. At the end of the process, Meyer knew that the uncle in whose honor he had been named. So I knew Karl glancscreenplay was his opportunity to jumpstart his directing career, ingly from the theater department at the University of Iowa, and I hadn’t heard from him in quite a while. I left Iowa in 1968, and I and only made it available for sale to the studios on the basis that heard from him sometime in 1974 when The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, he would direct the film. His gamble paid off. “A brilliant scientist. A criminal genius. A delightful romance. And a daring chase across time — the most exciting, mysterious, and challenging dimension of all!”

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(LEFT) The iconic poster to Time After Time. (RIGHT) David Warner as Jack the Ripper in modern day San Francisco. © Warner Bros. Poster courtesy of Heritage.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!

RETROFAN #31

With the movie green-lighted by Warner Bros., to be produced by Orion Pictures, Meyer turned his attention to pre-production duties and casting. He had several people in mind for the leads. His first task was to find the perfect Herbert Wells. “My original idea was for an actor named Derek Jacobi,” Meyer recalls. “I had seen and loved him in I, Claudius, which I thought was one of the most amazing things ever to air on television. But of course, nobody at Warner Bros. had ever watched anything on public television, so they’d never seen I, Claudius, so Derek Jacobi didn’t count. “I don’t know where the idea for Malcolm [McDowell as H. G. Wells] came from, but I do know that when I suggested him they said, ‘But he always plays the bad guy.’ So I said, ‘Yes… and now he’ll play the good guy. And don’t we call that acting?’ I actually knew Malcolm in another context besides A Clockwork Orange. When I started out in the business in the very early Seventies, I was in the publicity department of Paramount Pictures in New York. We were publicizing a movie that Paramount was releasing called If, starring Malcolm. That was his American film debut, so I saw

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 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_152&products_id=1772

(ABOVE) Time After Time, the novel by Karl Alexander, published by Delacorte Press, preceded the film. (LEFT) Screen capture of Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells. © Warner Bros.

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March 2024