RetroFan #33

July 2024 No. 33 $10.95

You get a big delight in every bite!

THE HEYDAY OF HOSTESS

The

Bionic Duo!

LINDSAY WAGNER & LEE MAJORS

By Herbie J Pilato

You’ll flip over

MODESTY BLAISE

FANTASTIC FOUR on Saturday mornings

: S TL s O E Year H E rly H Ea e W Th TV Westerns • Movie Icons vs. Axis Powers • San Diego Chicken & more!

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Lee Majors/Lindsay Wagner photograph courtesy of the Classic TV Preservation Society. Spider-Man and Fantastic Four © Marvel. Modesty Blaise © Modesty Blaise Ltd. Hot Wheels © Mattel.

Hostess Twinkies © Hostess Brands, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

#1 ships October 2024!

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics Horror History.

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

CRYPTOLOGY #2

CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships January 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships April 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships July 2025

Order at twomorrows.com

Four-issue subscriptions: $53 in the US

$

78 International 19 Digital Only

$

15

The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

25 Issue #33 June 2024

Columns and Special Features

63 32

3

Retro Television The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman – Fiftieth Anniversary

15

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum The Heyday of Hostess

25

47

33

Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties Movie Icons vs. Axis Powers

33

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning The Fantastic Four and The Thing

47

72

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon TV Westerns Ride into the Sunset

58

Retro Toys Hot Wheels: The Early Years

3

63 Retro Comic Strips Modesty Blaise

72 Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

The San Diego Chicken

Departments

2 Retrotorial

22 Too Much TV Quiz Sign-off phrases

32 Celebrity Crushes Jerry Lewis

79 RetroFanmail

80 ReJECTED

58

RetroFan™ issue 33, June 2024 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. 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. Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner photograph credit: Classic TV Preservation Society. The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman © NBCUniversal.

Hostess brands © J.M. Smucker Company. Hot Wheels® © Mattel. Hot Wheels cover photograph credit: Mike Pigott. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four © Marvel. Modesty Blaise © Modesty Blaise Ltd. 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.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BY MICHAEL EURY

Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Peter Bosch Michael Eury Brad Farb Andy Mangels Will Murray Mike Pigott Herbie J Pilato Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER John Morrow SPECIAL THANKS Classic TV Preservation Society Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions San Diego Padres VERY SPECIAL THANKS Ted Giannoulas Brian Narelle Kenneth Johnson Lindsay Wagner

Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions!

C’mon citizen, DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom & Pop publisher like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! Buy affordable, legal downloads only at

www.twomorrows.com or through our Apple and Google Apps!

& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep producing great publications like this one!

2

RETROFAN

June 2024

The sound effects. That’s what most of us first remember when recalling Seventies’ television’s handsomest super-heroes, the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman—those “beeps” and “doots” and “clangs” that told us that Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers were using their make-them-better-than-before artificial limbs and body parts on missions for the OSI’s Oscar Goldman. I suspect I’m not the only RetroFan who mimicked those sound effects when running in pretend-slow motion, replicating Col. Austin’s “60 mph” top speed, which we almost always saw on screen in slo-mo.

There’s so much to love about The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and we’re leading off this ish with a 50th anniversary salute to creator Martin Caidin’s Col. Steve Austin, everyone’s favorite bionic man. In his footsteps have followed many other cybernetic heroes— including Marvel Comics’ Deathlok the Demolisher and DC Comics’ Cyborg, the latter of whom shares the same name with Caidin’s 1974 novel which introduced Steve Austin to us. Hollywood historian Herbie J Pilato, fresh off RetroFan #31’s crowd-pleasing profile of the beloved star of television’s Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, returns this ish with his retrospective of the Bionic Duo—and with the concept’s enduring popularity, you can bet on more remakes and reimaginings in the future.

But there’s much more than bionics in this issue, into which we’ve jammed enough content to keep you holed up in a warm, fuzzy pop culture coma for hours to come.

How many of you played with Hot Wheels? I was a First Generation Hot Wheels buyer (the Beatnik Bandit blew my young mind!) and to this day still own my Hot Wheels Fan Club Membership Card issued in 1969. Diecast toy journalist Mike Pigott drops in for a look at the early years of Mattel’s perennially popular mini racing car line. Another guest author, Peter Bosch, offers a mesmerizing look at the celebrated comic strip, Modesty Blaise. This was a feature I’d heard a lot about—my former boss at DC Comics, Dick Giordano, used to gush over Modesty Blaise, and as you’ll read, even got a shot at drawing the globetrotting heroine in a DC graphic novel—but I knew very little about it… until Peter’s superb piece. That’s one of the many joys I have editing RetroFan—no matter how much I think I may know about pop culture, there’s always so much to learn. We’re lucky to have experts like Peter, Mike, and Herbie share their passions with NEXT ISSUE us.

Hey, in case you regular readers think ye ed’s ignoring our regular columnists, think again! The mega-talented Misters Mangels, Murray, Saavedra, Shaw!, and Voger are firing on all cylinders (as usual), bringing with them the animated Fantastic Four, TV Westerns, Hostess treats, the San Diego Chicken, and Axis-fighting cinema stars in fun, fact-filled features that’ll broaden your smile and your mind.

I’m taking a breather from my “RetroFad” column for a while, but the feature will return in a future issue. In the meantime, with the aforementioned material and a few other joys awaiting in this issue, you certainly have no shortage of reading material awaiting.

So get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

RETRO TELEVISION

Happy 50th Bionic Anniversary to

Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers

A Golden Cybernetic Celebration of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman The Vietnam War had ended, as had the Korean War, World War II, and World War I long before. Man had not yet conquered space, but he at least landed on the Moon. The Women’s Liberation Movement was in full swing decades after those like Susan B. Anthony laid the groundwork for female empowerment. The trials and tribulations of the Sixties were replaced by the slightly more tranquil, but still tumultuous Seventies. The time was prime for a new set of super-heroes, and what better place to introduce them than prime-time television?

Astronaut Col. Steve Austin, as played by Lee Majors, became The Six Million Dollar Man — the character and the sci-fi TV series of the same name which originally aired on ABC from 1973 to 1978.

Former tennis champion Jaime Sommers, as portrayed by Lindsay Wagner, became The Bionic Woman — the character and the spin-off show of the same name that was first screened on ABC and then NBC from 1975 to 1978. In each case, became is the operative word,

[Editor’s note: This material is edited and expanded material from Herbie J Pilato’s “Special Commemorative Edition” of The Bionic Book: The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman Reconstructed.]

BY HERBIE J PILATO while operative itself is an applicable term. Steve and Jaime, born human, became, as in transformed into, operatives, as in special government agents.

Steve and Jaime’s core employment force? The OSO, the Office of Strategic Operations, later known as the OSI, the Office of Strategic Investigations. In the original 90-minute Six Million Dollar pilot film, which premiered March 7, 1973, Darren McGavin gave voice to Oliver Spencer, the OSO’s supervising official. When both The Six Million Dollar Man [SM] and The Bionic Woman [BW] went to series, Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman became Steve and Jaime’s ultimate government go-to-guy.

(ABOVE) Fifty years ago, Lee Majors first electrified audiences as Col. Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man… and before long he was joined by Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman! The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman © NBCUniversal. Photos courtesy of the Classic TV Preservation Society (CTVPS).

RETROFAN

June 2024

3

retro television

With his calm, cool, and tactical expertise, Oscar oversees and Kildozer, based on the 1944 novel of the same name); Alex, the 2001: assigns the adventures of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers. But A Space Odyssey/HAL-like supercomputer with a yet another A.I. Oscar is not Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, nor Jor-El, as Col. Austin and mind of its own created by Dr. Elijah Cooper (played film legend Ms. Sommers are not Superman or Wonder Woman. Like the rest of Lew Ayres, the big screen’s second Dr. Kildare); Monte Markham as us from birth, Steve and Jaime are not endowed with the naturally Barney Miller-later-Hiller, the Seven Million Dollar Man, a rouge born anatomical advantages of a Captain Marvel bionic man gone wild. or Supergirl. Unlike the rest of us, their acquired Those on the Bionic good side to help Steve abilities, supplied by Dr. Rudy Wells (played by and Jaime along the way include Steve’s mother Martin Balsam in the SM pilot; Alan Oppenheimer Helen (who twice played Charlton Heston’s and Martin E. Brooks, respectively, in the big-screen mother, first in The Ten Commandments subsequent SM and BW shows), are superior to and then Ben-Hur); Steve’s adopted father Jim those they were given, biologically — though not Elgin (Ford Rainey); Andy Sheffield, the Bionic as flexible.

Boy (Vince Van Patten, son of Dick Van Patten, Steve and Jaime are the equal sums of diverse the TV father on Eight is Enough, both of whom parts, literally. Their legs are bionic, as are their were good friends with Lee Majors and then-wife right arms; he has super-sight in his left eye; she, Farrah Charlie’s Angels Fawcett, who made three super-hearing in her right ear. Composed of a guest-appearances on SM); Max, the Bionic kind of accelerated science and human nature, Dog, which Jaime adopts in the third season of they are still flawed but improved. Perfect BW; Peggy Callahan, Oscar Goldman’s sharp, for each other, but imperfect, recognizable charming, and loyal executive assistant (who, characters; separated through the years, yet however, in one episode, is Fembot-cloned to finally ending up together — once and forever kill him); trusted OSI agent Russ (Sam Chew, Jr.), (per a series of later-day TV reunion movies).

Dr. Michael Marchetti (Richard Lenz) and Chris Neither run-of-the-mill super-heroes, nor comic Williams (Christopher Stone, married to Dee E.T. book caricatures, and not just partially synthetic, Wallace) as two of Jaime’s post-Steve boyfriends; they are fully authentic. With accessible and Darwin Jones, the spiritual-biological master likable personalities, and a residue of angst due portrayed by the acclaimed actor Granville Van to their bionic conversion, Steve Austin and Jaime Dusen, among others.

Sommers are above-average individuals before An impressive galaxy of guest-stars in various and after their metamorphosis: heroes first; super, roles, good and evil, added an additional sheen second; human always. In various incarnations to the Bionic shows. On SM, those include David over the decades, by way of multiple media McCallum (The Man from U.N.C.L.E, and later The platforms (syndicated reruns, comic books, video Invisible Man TV series produced by SM’s Harve release, DVD, streaming, and Blu-ray), this atomBennett), Don Porter (Gidget), William Shatner ic-powered, romantically entangled dynamic and George Takei (both from Star Trek: The twosome continues to save the day.

Original Series), Robert F. Simon, David White, Nothing can stop the popularity of The Six and Maurice Evans (all from Bewitched); Elizabeth Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, just Ashley, France Nuyen, George Montgomery, the as any force of evil never prevails against the Oscar-winning, once-blacklisted Ann Revere (who very the characters of Steve Austin and Jaime played Elizabeth Taylor’s mother in 1944’s National Sommers. Even in the worst of circumstances, Velvet), Lara Parker (Dark Shadows), Joan Darling Steve and Jaime are victorious, despite a formi(no relation to Jennifer, but the future director (TOP) First edition of dable profusion of villains. and former co-star to Lee Majors on Owen Martin Caidin’s novel, For starters, those being the detonated Marshall, Counselor at Law), Sonny Bono, George Cyborg. © Martin Caidin. android replica of Major Frederick Sloan, Steve’s Foreman, classic movie legend Donald O’Connor (BOTTOM) Original friend and colleague (played by John Saxon, (Singing in the Rain), Tippi Hedren (Alfred Hitchpainted artwork by Boris movie martial artist, and star of Genesis II, the cock’s favorite actress, and Lindsay Wagner’s Vallejo for Ballantine failed but noble Gene Roddenberry pilot film); favorite aunt), Andy Griffith, Forrest Tucker, Evel Books’ 1978 paperback the diabolical Dr. Dolenz (Henry Jones from the Knievel, and countless more. reprinting of Cyborg. classic 1956 Bad Seed feature film, and TV’s Phyllis), The elite power production team included Courtesy of Heritage. who created the fake Sloan; the Fembot Army, producer/writers Arthur Rowe, Lionel Siegel, created by the equally dastardly Dr. Franklin Craig Schiller, Arthur Rowe, DC Fontana and (actor/scholar John Houseman, who starred with Lindsay Wagner Larry (Star Trek), Terrence McDonnell, Mark Frost, William T. in 1973’s The Paper Chase); the cybernetic alien Bigfoot/Sasquatch (a Zacha, Steven de Souza, Harold Livingston, Del Reisman, the role shared by Ted Cassidy of TV’s The Addams Family and Andre the legendary Stephen Bochco (Hill Street Blues), the aforementioned Giant); the Bigfoot-controlling humanoid alien Nedlick (a return/ Harve Bennett (who went on to save the Star Trek feature film new performance by John Saxon), the Soviet Death Probe (a mindfranchise after Star Trek: The Motion Picture was initially perceived as of-its-own-machine reminiscent of vehicles presented in Steven lackluster), and Kenneth Johnson (pre-TV’s The Incredible Hulk and Spielberg’s iconic 1971 TV-movie, Duel, and the 1974 TV-movie, Alien Nation), who also directed.

4

RETROFAN

June 2024

retro television

Those who also helmed the camera behind the scenes include (though not limited to) distinguished directors like Reza Badiyi, Jerry Jameson, Russ Mayberry, Ray Austin (former stunt man and director of TV’s The Avengers), Cliff Bole, Alan Crossland, Jr., Jerry London, Richard Moder, Christian I. Nyby and Christian I. Nyby II, Phil Bondelli, and Barry Crane, among others.

Each and all worked together to make The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman superior science fiction television.

the time that the term [cyborg] was first used, it was still kept from the general public. Questions were raised among Congressional leaders from the very beginning of the program, and the more I looked into it, the more likely it seemed that it was real. Could a cyborg be built? Could a cyborg be trained to act as a weapon? The answer on both counts was a loud and distinct ‘yes!’”

As with Caidin’s prized publication, The Six Million Dollar Man pilot was first titled Cyborg, but it was changed days before the film first aired in March 1973. “They may have simply felt it was a better THE BIONIC CONCEPTION title,” the author proposed, “in terms of dramatics.”

The birth of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman was Though Caidin did also say that the Six Million Dollar title‘s indeed a joint effort. Steve and Jaime were creatively engineered by “sum” was created with some assistance from the Air Force. It was the prolific sci-fi scribe minds of Martin Caidin (who died on March estimated that bionic modifications would total that amount, as 24, 1997) and Kenneth Johnson, respectively. Each complex as they every aspect of producing The Six Million Dollar Man was carefully are superior, Col. Austin and Ms. Sommers became the world’s first considered. humans to be fitted with unique physical components, bionic and Such facts included the scientific goal of bionics: to procure cybernetic by design. particular biological inforIn keeping with the real-to-reel theme, mation, then attenuate that Caidin was, well, a realist. His Cyborg knowledge to mathematical novel, first published in 1972, was the concessions that would prove substantial to an engineer, who would then generate perfunctory devices that could execute a biological service.

As to the name Steve Austin, Caidin invented it in piecemeal fashion. He said he always liked the first name because it’s “basically a strong, healthy name. But I couldn’t figure out his last name to save my ass, until, one day, I flew the missus and me across the country, back from California. I landed Before Bionics: (LEFT) Rugged Lee Majors was to refuel at an airport in Austin, a familiar face to television audiences thanks Texas, and the name was born. to his role in the family Western drama, The It was just one of those great, Big Valley. Big Valley #5 (Oct. 1967) comic book wonderful coincidences,” he photo cover, also featuring Lee’s costar, Linda relayed.

Evans. (Make sure you read this issue’s “TV Whereas Caidin was deterWesterns” feature by Will Murray!) (RIGHT) mined to convert his novel into Lovely Lindsay Wagner captured moviegoers’ a television movie-of-the-week attention in 1974’s theatrical drama, The Paper and followed the accepted Chase. The Big Valley © Four-Star Television. The Paper springboard for The Six Million Dollar Man, Hollywood rules of thumb Chase © 20th Century Productions. Both, courtesy of a tale of one man’s triumph over spiritual (readied an outline, sample Heritage. ruin and Caidin’s prognostication on bionic script, and so forth), he left his home (appropriately located erudition. near Cape Kennedy) and headed for the West Coast. He had Now logged in the dictionary, bionic, Caidin once reported, “…is earlier recycled one book, Marooned, into a successful Hollywood biology applied to electronic engineering systems.” The word was production (the 1969 theatrical film starring Gregory Peck), and had constructed from the Greek term, bios, meaning life, and the suffix, ics, translated as resembling. He did some prudent investigation and incentive to conclude that Hollywood would be enthusiastic about discovered its roots and the term’s inventor: Major Jack E. Steele, a another of his far-out ideas. research psychiatrist at the Aerospace Research Library in Ohio.

The author marketed his wares to Warner Bros., who failed to garner the interest of the only three big webs in town at the time: Caidin defined cyborg as “one organism… a marriage between ABC, CBS, or NBC. Along came Universal Studios, who convinced bionics and cybernetics,” the latter of which deals with the shared ABC to produce Cyborg as a one-shot television film. “Richard constituents amid computers and the human nervous system. It’s an expression that was around years before the gifted dramatist Irving, who was vice-president of Universal, flipped over it,” Caidin recalled. “But no one [at the time] was expecting to make a series penned the novel. “Most people are not aware that the U.S. Air out of it.” Howard Rodman was hired to write the teleplay, which Force maintained a huge, but secret, bionics program,” he said. “At RETROFAN

June 2024

5

retro television

was ghost-written by a then-unknown Steven Bochco, who went on to create and produce Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and the controversial hit, NYPD Blue (Emmy winners, all).

The manned space shuttle program was diminished. Col. Steve Austin, the youngest astronaut to have moonwalked, was demoted in rank to an experimental flier with the U.S. Air Force. Highly educated, Col. Austin was considered a genius by his fellow astronauts. He maintained five academic degrees in all, including a Masters in aerodynamics, astronautical engineering, and, surprisingly enough, history.

Physically fit, Austin enjoyed wrestling, boxing, and fencing, while achieving a black belt in judo and Aikido. He speaks conversational Russian and fluent Spanish. Before joining the Air Force, Steve had a tour of duty with the Army in Vietnam, where he was a chopper pilot.

(LEFT) Lee Majors as In 1973, at six-foot-one and Steve Austin and Richard 32 years old, Austin’s trial-run Anderson as Oscar aircraft, the M3F5 (the HL-10 in Goldman in a 1974 ABC-TV the series; the M2-F2 in reality) publicity photo promoting was annihilated in a horrific The Six Million Dollar mishap, and Steve was nearly Man. Courtesy of Heritage. killed. Left a multiple amputee, (RIGHT) Majors and his left arm, both legs and his Lindsay Wagner in their left eye were gone (in the series, signature roles. Courtesy of his right arm was severed). CritCTVPS. ically injured, he was remade as The Six Million Dollar Man. Now bionic, Steve has superhuman strength in both legs, his right arm, and his left eye offers him super-sight. He can also run 60 miles an hour. Yet, he’s human.

“What happened to Steve in that crash, is what happens to pilots all the time,” professed Martin Caidin. In fact, the footage used in SM’s opening credit sequence is that of an authentic aircraft accident.

On May 10, 1967, NASA lifting body pilot Bruce Peterson, 33, crashed his M2-F2 while attempting to land at Edwards Air Force Base [California], then commanded by Dave Edwards. Distracted by a rescue helicopter and blown off course by crosswinds, his flying machine hit the ground at 250 MPH and rolled over six times, bouncing along from wing tip to wing tip before coming to rest on its flat back, minus its canopy, main gear, and right vertical fin. The crash wreaked terrible facial injuries on the pilot, whose skull was fractured and whose torso was battered by fragmenting sections of the aircraft’s nose. Each time the vehicle rolled, a stream of high-velocity lakebed clay assaulted Peterson’s face. Apparently, if he had just had a second more, he would have landed the aircraft safely.

“About what is seen on the TV screens every week is what I remember,” said Peterson, in a 1975 Associated Press interview.

“That partial footage was taken by the cockpit cameras. I blacked out about the same time the cameras stopped working. I was landing, fighting a crosswind that had sprung up, when I saw a 6

RETROFAN

June 2024

helicopter in my way. I tried to avoid it, and the landing gear caught in the dry lakebed — and right there I thought that was it. The next thing I vaguely remember is being trapped in the vehicle upside-down.”

Though Peterson and other real-life navigators were never fortunate enough to undergo cybernetic reconstruction, the Bionic scribe set out to explore the emotional impact of their experiences, against a backboard of science fiction.

But who would Peterson’s essential TV alter ego? At first, Caidin envisioned actor Monte Markham in the role of Steve Austin. Markham, then best known for the short-lived high-concept

sitcom, The Second Hundred Years, had recently played Perry Mason in a failed 1974 TV reboot of the original Raymond Burr series. But according to Caidin, studio executives believed Markham’s eyes were too “steely” to play a hero.

While Markham would later surface in the Bionic Universe as the villainous Seven Million Dollar Man in two SM episodes, there was clearly only one man for the job to play Steve Austin: Lee Majors.

Already a TV staple, Majors had supporting roles in the mid-Sixties through the early Seventies in TV Westerns like The Big Valley, The Men from Shiloh, and later, the courtroom drama Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law. In Law, he played Jess Brandon, young legal sidekick to Arthur Hiller, just as James Brolin had been the young Dr. Steve Kiley associate to Robert Young’s lead on Marcus Welby, M.D. And while the Marshall and Welby shows were produced

by David Victor (with Lindsay Wagner guest-starring in both, pre-Jaime Sommers), The Six Million Dollar Man presented Lee with the opportunity to shine with his first starring role.

“I’ve advanced one banana at a time,” Majors once observed. “On The Big Valley, I was fourth banana behind Barbara Stanwyck. On The Men from Shiloh, I was third banana to James Drury and Doug McClure. On Owen Marshall, I was second banana. And now, finally, I’ve made it to the top.”

Additionally, acting in Owen Marshall was not a pleasant experience for Majors. He was literally not suited to the business-like

retro television

role of Jess Brandon. “One thing that bothered me about the show,” he said, “…is that I’m a country boy from Kentucky. I never really learned how to tie a necktie.” He liked the action and staying in shape. But on the Marshall law show, “all the exercise I ever got,” he said, “…was walking from the counsel table to the judge’s bench in the courtroom on Sound Stage 27 [on the Universal Studios lot where both SM and BW would film].”

“It was basically Arthur Hill’s show,” Majors observed. “I had so little to do — and so much time off — that the series made a great golfer out of me.”

The relaxed screen-time on Marshall also allowed Majors to appear on two shows at the same time. As Richard Anderson would play Oscar Goldman on both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman (even when the latter show switched networks from ABC to NBC in its final season), Majors acted in Marshall, while filming the second two monthly pilot episodes of SM. Then finally, when Steve Austin began filming weekly adventures in mid-season 1974, Majors became a full-time bionic man. And whereas the Jess Brandon part on Law was mis-tailored for Lee, the Austin role on Six Mill fit him like a bionic glove, as did the props for the character’s mechanical parts. As the actor once recalled, Steve’s bionic arm was composed of “plastic skin that looks and feels like real skin.

It’s battery-operated. When they hooked it to my shoulder, I could raise and lower it, and even turn the wrist.”

In effect, The Six Million Dollar Man was the role Lee Majors was born to play. As “a man, barely alive,” Steve Austin was rebuilt after a horrific accident. He was half-man/half-machine, re-made stronger… faster… better..., just as the opening narration (shared by Harve Bennett and Richard Anderson) would relay. The Austin story was a science fiction story, but told in a credible scientific way with a sensitive human touch. The role is an actor’s dream; to play a super-hero with texture; a history; layers of emotion; a developed physique with a developed soul who rose above what could have continued to be a bitter assessment of a traumatic physical transformation. Steve’s desire to live outweighed self-pity or any extensive emotion of being or feeling different.

For Steve Austin, his accident was real. Disabled, emotionally as well as physically, he was alone. Jaime was not there for him like he would be for her during her traumatic human-to-cyborg

transformation. The central support system of having a mutual half-human/half-machine counterpart was missing. Steve would help Jaime through the emotional anguish, the physical pain, and the countless hours of therapy for the mind and body.

But who would help him? Austin was without the cybernetic kindred spirit to literally keep him from falling apart. (At least, for now.) Steve awakened in the hospital, where he found himself following his nightmarish accident, and would attempt suicide.

The cybernetic physicians were given few options: they were forced to keep him anesthetized. While Steve was comatose (and incapable of judgment), the OSI decided for him that he would become the first to test the newest methods in artificial limb connection.

Steve gave his blessing to the OSI to move forward with the experimental operation. But afterward, he was still somewhat surprised with the results.

Cognizant, and highly restrained, he was told of his new capabilities. He soon felt intensely isolated and very different. He became unaffected, disagreeable, and entirely unresponsive, even to the allure of his very attractive nurse. Though physically capable, he may have believed his sexual ability to be less than perfect. Or maybe he was thinking of Jaime? (No, she was not yet in the picture; not for the viewer, anyway.)

Eventually, Steve pulled up his space boots and left the self-pity party. With his superior engineer’s acumen in full stride, he offered assistance to the surrounding bionic medical community, formulating cybernetic limb procedures that had never before been fathomed. In due time, Steve responded to the nurse’s sincere affection. They became sexually involved. To his employers, albeit, those responsible for saving his life, he evolved into the super government operative recognized as Steve Austin.

In the big picture scheme of things, as an aesthetic and workable consequence, the mechanical metamorphosis of both Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers allowed The Six Million Dollar Man and eventually The Bionic Woman to explore prejudice as one of several core themes.

For the moment, however, the ratings for the initial Six Million Dollar Man movie were significant to warrant not yet a weekly series, but two additional pilot movies: Wine, Women and War (original air date: October 20, 1973) and The Solid Gold Kidnapping (November 17, 1973).

ABC scheduled the follow-up films as alternate choices for its new ABC Suspense Movie franchise on Saturday nights, airing opposite the CBS Seventies powerhouse line-up including All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Wine and Gold did respectably in the ratings, while from a creative standpoint, they were different than the original pilot and the weekly series that was yet to come. Somehow, Steve had gained a James Bond 007 mystique (helped along by guest star and former Bond girl Britt Elkland in Wine). His good-ol’-boy image and

Just look at all this stuff you could buy featuring Steve and Jaime! And this barely scratches the surface of SM and BW collectibles from the Seventies (and beyond)—see our “Super Collector” article in RetroFan #8 for more info! Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

June 2024

7

retro television

charm so evident in the original pilot were replaced with gimmickry, gadgetry, and tuxedos. The essence and humanity so resplendent in Martin Caiden’s novel and the original 90-minute film, written by Howard Rodman (a.k.a. Henri Simoun, his pseudonym on SM) and Steven Bochco, were missing with action in the double dose of films (the first written by Lee Majors’ future Fall Guy series creator Glen A. Larson; the second by Larry Alexander, with a story

by Alexander, Allan Caillou, and Michael Gleason).

But that all changed in mid-season, January of 1974, to be specific, when the Six Million Dollar showrunner changed bionic hands from Glen A. Larson to Harve Bennett. At which time, Steve’s humanity was restored and the ratings improved slightly, if, in the process, contributing in Our Bionic Duo biographer Herbie J Pilato runs with a super-powerful crowd! the long run to the eradication of ABC’s Herbie with (LEFT) Lee Majors, (RIGHT) Richard Anderson, and (OPPOSITE once-super-popular Friday night line-up of PAGE LEFT) Lindsay Wagner. (OPPOSITE PAGE RIGHT) For a deeper dive into The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, order a copy of Herbie’s book at 222, The Odd Couple, and Love, American Style. information TK. Courtesy of Herbie J Pilato.

By the fall of 1974, all of those shows were gone, while ABC was getting ready to reassign The Six Million Dollar Man to Sunday nights at 8 PM selected were based on actual experiences, as the writer firmly in January 1975. The network was content with The Six Million believed in “going with what’s real.”

Dollar Man’s performance in the Friday night ratings. That is, until With that said, toward the end of SM’s second season, the web the 1974–1975 season kicked off. NBC’s Chico and the Man was (ABC) wanted more flies (appealing characters) for the spider (the hammering SM in the Nielsen’s. For the first time in TV history, ABC audience). Six, now airing on Sunday nights, was okay for kids to suspended its Friday night line-up and substituted old movies until watch, but the network and the studio wanted more adults to tune the schedule could be reworked. in. As Lee Majors recalled, “I was tired of only looking at hardware “We were close to being cancelled,” said SM/BW producer Lionel on the show. It was time for Steve to fall in love, and I was the one Siegel. “But the power of Universal and ABC’s lack of enthusiasm who suggested to have him find the love of his life.” for their new pilots granted us a reprieve. New story editors were In steps a very young Kenneth Johnson. hired, more promotion in the markets was scheduled, and bigger THE BIONIC BRIDE budgets were allotted for guest-stars.”

Kenneth Johnson was known in Hollywood as a producer and In the process, SM began to hit its stride to find its bionic director of the extremely popular TV talk show hosted by Mike footing, with a very special something-else up its sleeve. The initial Douglas (not to be confused with the Oscar-winning Michael pilot film gave birth to two more try-out movies that became a monthly, then weekly series. And now, Steve Austin would rekindle Douglas known today from Marvel’s Ant-Man movies, and who initially found fame on TV’s heralded detective series, The Streets of a romance with a once-lost love: Jaime Sommers, who became a San Francisco). powerful entity unto herself.

A prolific writer, director, and actor as well, Johnson in time In a two-part SM episode that would alter the Bionic franchise became responsible for a wealth of sci-fi TV and screen product, forever, Steve and Jaime planned to wed. She, too, was injured in including The Incredible Hulk (creator/executive producer) and V (the a serious accident. Steve pleaded with his superiors to rebuild her, original four-hour mini-series and subsequent six-hour mini-series). just like him. She, too, was given a hit series.

He also directed the last four Alien Nation TV-films: Millennium As with The Six Million Dollar Man, Jaime’s transformation (1996; which he wrote and executive produced), Body and Soul (1995; resulted from an accident in the air. But whereas Steve was executive produced), Dark Horizon (1994), and Alien Nation (1989; test-piloting a special aircraft, Jaime went skydiving, with Steve also wrote). by her side. But her parachute failed. Severe damage to her form Johnson’s inspiration for going into the entertainment was the result of an uncontrollable descent into a patch of trees. industry, specifically sci-fi entertainment, was the famous radio Upon violent contact with the surface, Jaime lost the use of both broadcast of War of the Worlds, which he heard while he was in legs, a right arm, and hearing in her right ear. (When Caidin was younger, he used to skydive, and the exact same injuries were likely junior high school. Playing the lead (as Scrooge) in A Christmas Carol in tenth grade also led him to pursue a career in the enterto prevail.) tainment industry. Upon entering Bionic-time, he was encouraged “We just didn’t pick these ideas out of thin air,” recalled Caidin, by producer Steven Bochco to try his hand at writing. Soon after, who had been writing about bionics since 1957. The notions 8

RETROFAN

June 2024

retro television

Bochco introduced him to their mutual friend Harve Bennett, who was searching for a way to give Six Million a bionic boost. “The Six Million Dollar Man was sort of flagging,” Johnson said. “They were desperate for new scripts.” From there, “Harve and I hit it off,” he noted, “…and I suggested we do The Bride of Frankenstein.”

Come again?

“You have this male cyborg,” Johnson told those in power.

“Shouldn’t the logical extension of that concept be a female counterpart?”

Bennett was quite taken with the idea, as was Frank Price, and Johnson was assigned to write the script, which he completed within one week’s time. The plot had Steve relinking with Jaime Sommers, his hometown love, and we came to understand more about Steve’s background and his relationships, previous to his joining the Air Force and eventual bionic reconstruction. Johnson delivered the script and was told, “This is a good story, but it’s too dense. It has too much story. Go home, take another week, and make it a two-parter.”

Though the revised, divided version took a trifle longer than an additional seven days, Johnson completed the new script in advance of schedule. He found that considerably more detail was required for more intricacies: Jaime had not been a part of Steve’s life during the first two seasons of the show. They had to have known each before that period. The two had been high school sweethearts long before Steve’s career in the Air Force, his accident, and climb back to physical and mental health. His life was now somewhat together.

The time was right for love. The time was right for Jaime to come back into his world.

Her name, meanwhile, was plucked from the real-life experiences of Ken Johnson. “A year or so before I wrote The Bionic Woman script,” he explained, “I was involved in staging the killer whale shows for Sea World in their San Diego and Ohio parks, and I also put together a water ski extravaganza called The Roaring Twenties Water Frolics. One of the skiers was named Jaime Sommers, and I thought, Wow. What a great name. So, when I was sitting down to write The Bionic Woman, it popped into my head and I said, Oh yeah, perfect name. Nice soft feel. Summery. Kind of a warmth to it. So that’s where it came from.”

Once a vital pair, Steve and Jaime gingerly reunited. By the end of the first segment, they were intensely in love once more, and a mechanical marriage was in the making. Perspicacious watchers may have surmised an approaching calamity.

Certainly, Steve, the ex-astronaut-turned-special agent for the OSI, Jaime, the small-town girl whose athletic prowess catapulted her to fame, could never find time to have children. The two would have to break apart. Their union was too complete.

Too picturesque. Too unreal.

Consequently, the continental duo ventured out on an inevitable, life-changing, skydiving excursion near the end of “The Bionic Woman, Part I.” Jaime plunged downward. Steve discovered her crushed frame. She was still alive. He frantically did what no one else would have been in a position to do. He implicitly bribed Oscar Goldman into remaking her. He refused to lose forever the love of which he was once deprived. Jaime must be rebuilt, he demanded.

Whatever the price. (Although no exact figure was ever given, when Jaime later asks Oscar if she cost as much as Steve in the SM segment, “Welcome Home, Jaime, Part I,” Oscar grins and says, “Oh, not quite six million. After all, your parts are smaller.”)

“The Bionic Woman, Part II,” was a grave tale of Jaime’s various surgeries on the chancy, new portions of her body. Previously concocted as a positive move to save her life, her bionic reconstruction was only beginning to prolong the nightmare. Her physical form was rejecting her automated additions. She was losing command of her body, and she wasn’t telling Steve or Rudy Wells.

At first, everything seemed okay. Jaime ran at regular Bionic incredible speeds, just like Steve, and her new arm was nuclear by nature. The hearing she had lost in her right ear had been significantly expanded.

Also, like Steve, she experienced moments of intense self-doubt.

She was at once alarmed at — and fascinated by — her newly acquired skills. With a wedding looming on the horizon, she coyly kept her malfunctions a secret. In the end, Jaime was forced to reveal the truth. Incredibly, the situation got worse. A blood clot was developing in her brain. Nothing could save her.

Any kind of peace she would find with her new life, however, would not transpire until after Jaime experienced much emotional and physical trauma, due to her accident, subsequent reconstruction, and death. Steve lost her again, after finding her years after they first fell in love. When she died, as far as he was concerned, his life had ended as well.

Meanwhile, the viewers were ready to kill.

THE BIONIC OUTRAGE

The audience rebuttal to Jaime’s death, more specifically, Lindsay Wagner’s absence, was overpowering. Universal and ABC received thousands of letters commending Jaime’s episodes but declaring fury at her demise.

As Ken Johnson recalled, “Everyone loved Jaime. Harve [Bennett] even received a letter of outrage from the department head of psychology at Boston University,” which read, in part, “How RETROFAN

June 2024

9

retro television

dare you create such a brilliant archetype for women to admire and restoration, with a return to what he reports was his original idea of pattern themselves after and then so brutally kill her!” cryogenics.

“The public reacted to Lindsay and took her to their bosom, In 1986, Martin Caidin gave Starlog magazine this detailed period,” affirmed Martin Caidin. “The emotional link between her account of Jaime’s resurrection: “For two years, these guys and the viewers was astounding. Even I was getting hell for her [Universal] paid me $1,000.00 a week as a consultant, and for death. People were taking it personally, as though Jaime was a two years, no one asked me a single question. Then, they ran a real person. They wanted her back. They weren’t willing to settle two-part episode with the Bionic Woman and killed her off at the for anyone else in the role. They wanted Jaime and Lindsay. As far end. Universal got more than 200,000 letters and phone calls as the viewers were concerned, Lindsay Wagner became a part of demanding they bring her back. My phone rang at 2 a.m., and their family.” they said, You’re on a speaker phone. We’re taping this call. There are six “Daughter” Wagner, however, was estranged from her parent writers listening. We’re starting production in a few hours on The Return company. Universal contacted their acting offspring for more of the Bionic Woman. How do we revive her? We need an absolutely Woman adventures and found she no longer was under contract. justifiable, acceptable, scientific-medical method. I worked out a way to Yet there was clearly a remunerative trade out there for more Jaime keep her alive through cryogenics — putting her on ice.”

Sommers tales. A family reunion (the first of many to follow) not Johnson’s response? “Never in my life have I had a conversation only had to be planned, but it also became a necessity. ABC ordered with Mr. Caidin. Since I was executive producer of Six at the time, Universal to bring back their super-female. The studio wanted and the one who wrote it, I should know. It all came out of my little to conciliate the network’s desire, but they were at a standstill. pea brain. Nobody else gave me the idea. It was my idea from the Atomic-powered or not, Jaime Sommers was no more. She was not beginning.” merely departed. She ceased to exist. She was no longer around.

One-time SM/BW writer/producer Jim Parriott is a tad less She was out of there. Dead. What was next? The Bionic Angel? A diplomatic. “I think Caidin’s full of crap,” he said. “Not from personal second coming? knowledge of the incident, but from him saying that the writers A resurrection of sorts did occur. were a few hours away from shooting The first two-part Woman segment was the episode. These things are written rerun on August 31 and September 7, 1975. and planned weeks ahead of production.

FAST FACTS The second episode ended. An announcer Maybe Harve was flattering Caidin with a said that she would appear again the courtesy call, looking for confirmation of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR following week. The Six Million Dollar Man’s the idea — but I’m sure the cryogenics angle MAN third season began with another two-part was already in the script.” f No. of seasons: 5 episode, “The Return of the Bionic Woman.”

By the time of Woman’s re-liberation, f No. of episodes: 99 (plus six TV Jaime was indeed back, along with Ken Universal retained Caidin as a consultant, movies) Johnson, who “always thought it was kind and Harve Bennett requested Johnson’s f Original run: March 7, 1973-June of strange that Jaime died of a cerebral presence as producer of The Six Million Dollar 6, 1978 brain hemorrhage in the midst of the most Man, something he “really didn’t want to f Primary cast: Lee Majors, Richadvanced medical facility in the United do.”

“Producing was a pain in the ass,” he ard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks States.” told Bennett.

“Just let me write and direct f Network: ABC Yet when Johnson initially completed episodes, and I’ll be a much happier guy.” f Based on: Cyborg by Martin the first Woman two-parter, that’s not what Bennett convinced Johnson that it was Caidin happened. He very carefully kept Jaime the producer who ultimately shaped the f Producer: Kenneth Johnson alive but in a cryogenic coma or deep freeze. medium of television, the one who controls A select group of network executives told a project from beginning to end, and hires SPIN-OFFS AND REMAKES him to “kill her off.” “We don’t want a lot the writer and the director; all of which f The Return of the Six Million Dolof bionic people lying around,” they said. meant Johnson could have hired himself lar Man and the Bionic Woman They sought to do an allegory like Love in the capacity of his choosing. He did just (TV movie originally aired May Story (1970), in which the central character that and, as he noted, “They had their man.”

17, 1987) (played by Ryan O’Neal) loses the one true After all the commotion, Jaime was no f Bionic Showdown (TV movie love of his life (Ali McGraw). longer done-in. Miraculously, she was back, originally aired April 30, 1989) “Guys,” he replied, “this is a big mistake. breathing again, played by Lindsay Wagner, f Bionic Ever After? (TV movie Jaime is a great character. You may want to and a hit once more with the watchers. originally aired November 29, bring her back. So, I don’t think you should In SM’s “The Return of the Bionic 1994) kill her off.”

Woman,” Rudy’s aide, the youthful Dr. No matter. The writer was repeatedly Michael Marchetti (played by Richard instructed otherwise. “No, no, no,” said the Lenz) had, on circumspection, positioned suits. “We want her dead, dead, dead.”

Jaime in cryogenic freeze just prior to her When Jaime became a hit, they of allegedly final heartbeat. course sang a different tune. Johnson heard In a suspended state, Jaime’s form did things like, “Hey, whose idea was it to kill not decompose. Apparently, she was dead, her off, anyway?” Bemused, it took Johnson but her biological functions had not yet less than two weeks to actualize Jaime’s failed entirely. During which time, Rudy © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Heritage.

10

RETROFAN

June 2024

retro television

and his team labored non-stop to create enhanced cybernetic THE BIONIC LOOP IN TIME components; to concoct a procedure of brain surgery that would be The chore of baiting Lindsay Wagner into returning for two more accomplished the moment that Jaime began to de-congeal. follow-up episodes on The Six Million Dollar Man was assigned The vivisection maneuvers were seemingly triumphant. Jaime’s to Monique James, the studio vice president who had been heart was reinitiated with electrical currents, as when cardiac Lindsay’s supporter during her previous tenure with Universal. She confinement takes place during real-life surgeries. She stayed connected with Lindsay’s new manager, Ron Samuels, an eclectic unconscious for a lengthy interval, while the picture was somewhat negotiator who, ironically, was married to TV’s other super female, more focused on Steve, who was initially not told the whole truth of Wonder Woman’s Lynda Carter.

Jaime’s death and subsequent second chance.

James relayed to Samuels that Universal needed Wagner for Austin’s heart and emotional stability needed protection, and an additional two episodes. They offered a hefty dollar sum, and Oscar and Rudy knew it. For even though Jaime was indeed not the agreement would cover the one performance they required. gone, her memory of cybernetic love was dead and buried. She Samuels conferred with Lindsay, who declined. Universal came could not recall the time well spent with her bionic soul mate. back with a stronger offer. He agreed, granting his client an What’s more, she was falling hard for Dr. Marchetti, the man who exuberant salary for a mere 21 days of work. literally gave her a new life.

As Samuels told TV Guide in 1976, “I felt the studio had treated All the while, Steve still loved Jaime.

[Lindsay] shabbily, and I quoted an impossible figure to turn them Yet any minor recollection of Steve would cause her pain. He had off. As far as I was concerned, Lindsay had put television behind her to stand back and watch her love for Michael Marchetti grow. Her and I was concentrating on movie deals.” He was “shocked” when very life depended on Steve’s absence. Through it all, Michael was Monique tracked him down a few days later, and told him, via the torn as well. He was the interloper, and he knew it. He also knew telephone: “Okay. Lindsay gets her $25,000 for the two segments.” the intensity level of love that Jaime and Steve had once shared.

For most of her career, TV Guide noted, that was more than Lindsay Where there’s a spark, there’s fire. She may not have recalled her had made in two years. The fee was too tempting to resist. life with Steve, but Jaime took to him immediately, the second time After filming Second Wind in Canada, Lindsay returned to around. Her heart belonged to Michael, but it also understood how, Universal to make the second Million Dollar Man double-header. at one time, she was in love with Steve. She let him help her regain “The Return of the Bionic Woman, Parts I and II” became a reality. bionic agility. With his assistance and new familiarity, she asserted Upon completing her finite treaty that included only those two herself, and sanctioned this current, though episodes, Lindsay left the studio a second different, proposal. time and went on to hold a conversation On the other side of the camera, in order FAST FACTS with Samuels regarding potential theatrical for Lindsay Wagner to reprise her Bionic role film roles. September 14, 1975, arrived.

THE BIONIC WOMAN in this second two-part segment, she had to The Six Million Dollar Man, with the first of reestablish her relationship with Universal. another two-part Bionic Woman segment, f No. of seasons: 3 The studio had unknowingly not renewed was pitted against The Cher Show on CBS, f No. of episodes: 58 their option after Jaime’s debut, the season and NBC’s The Family Holvak, a Waltons-like f Original run: January 14, 1976before. The frenzy of her reacquisition family drama starring Glenn Ford.

May 13, 1978 became a melodrama. Studio heads traded That climactic evening, the Lindsay/ f Primary cast: Lindsay Wagner, empty glances. Lindsay Wagner was now Jaime return that the fans demanded Richard Anderson, Martin E. gone. toppled the competition. That segment, Brooks “What about Stefanie Powers [The Girl coupled with its second part the subsef Network: ABC (1976-1977), NBC from U.N.C.L.E.] or maybe Sally Field [The quent Sunday, propelled The Six Million (1977-1978) Girl with Something Extra]?” someone stamDollar Man into the dynamic Top Ten. f Created by: Kenneth Johnson mered. ABC, then ruled with a vengeance The Bionic Woman, in a series of her SPIN-OFFS AND REMAKES by a brilliant young programmer named own, was a sure thing to come. It was Fred Fred Silverman, said “No way. It’s Lindsay Silverman who suggested to Harve Bennett f Bionic Woman (television reboot Wagner or nothing.” the concept of a regular Jaime Sommers series. starring Michelle Ryan as Jaime Martin Caidin agreed. “I’m sure Stefanie Years free of Bronchial Pneumonia, et al., Sommers; only eight episodes Powers, Sally Field, or whomever else the Bennett was delighted. aired, September 28-November studio had in mind for the role would have Once again, however, there were obsta28, 2007) done a very acceptable job as The Bionic cles. First, Lindsay Wagner was receiving Woman,” he said. “They just would never rave reviews for her work in big-screen have brought to the role what Lindsay did. movies like Two People and The Paper Chase And everyone inherently knew that. All (both released in 1973). She wanted to the wheeling and dealing that was going continue her film work. Secondly, Universal on to get her back after she left the studio had not picked up her option. [twice], was just wasted energy. All anyone Again. had to do, whoever saw Lindsay act in During a very negative experience of anything, was sign her up immediately for deja vu, the team in Bennett’s office began whatever part they had in mind. And never to clatter off their list of different accessible © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of Heritage. let her go.” thespians. Once more, “Get me Lindsay RETROFAN

June 2024

11

retro television

Wagner!” was the battle cry for ratings. Lindsay surmised that Universal would merely duplicate her previous agreement. She did not yet know what “Wonder Manager“ (a.k.a. Ron Samuels) had in mind. He demanded a multi-thousand-dollar annual salary, over a five-year period, that would include a yearly TV movie option and a percentage of all Bionic Woman memorabilia.

There was an additional issue: Universal had requested ABC to star Lindsay in a pre-Bionic series when she was somewhat more financially obtainable. The network, in their infinite non-wisdom, decided that she was not adequately established with the TV audience.

The offer was declined, which didn’t matter to Lindsay. “The Bionic Woman came into my life strictly as a business decision,” she explained. “I didn’t see any real value in it, admittedly, in the beginning. When I left the studio, the character kind of took on a life of her own. The public responded and wanted her so. All I wanted to do was act in films.”

Lindsay said she initially began to act “as a form of therapy,” when she was very young. “It began to help me understand how important it is to express one’s true feelings to another human being,” she said. “I couldn’t do that as Lindsay, but I could do it as a fictional character.”

She never envisioned acting as her professional career, especially on television. “I hardly even watched it, for one thing,” she revealed. “And I certainly wasn’t interested in science fiction. I was more interested in reality-based material. I did the first [Six Million] episodes only out of a business obligation to the studio.”

The actress had no concept of The Bionic Woman as a separate series, and the decision to play Jaime on a regular basis became “the most difficult time” in her entire career. “First of all,” she explained, “…it was tough work. And secondly, I was young. I didn’t know how to deal with the tough part. So, it became this relentless three-year vigil, but I didn’t have the kind of stamina then, that I do now.”

While filming The Bionic Woman, Lindsay was engaged in various efforts of self-healing, including her involvement with the Church of Religious Science and her work with underprivileged schools, which were incapable of providing extracurricular activities. She was volunteering her time with children, doing drama exercises, and, as she noted, “kind of passing along the knowledge that was given to me.” She felt torn as an actress, and that the entertainment industry was self-serving.

In her prayers, every day, she would ask for a way to work with children, to do something that she would enjoy, that would be worthwhile to her fellow human beings. All of which eventually equaled her original objective, which was to act. Not for the money.

Not for the applause, but because it presented a way for her to communicate.

“That began to work for me,” she said. “I had the ability to make choices as an actress and other people had noticed that, which was a real source of joy.”

When Lindsay was continually approached to play The Bionic Woman, she was bewildered. “Don’t you get it?” she would tell the big wigs. “I just don’t want to do the show. It’s not the type of thing with which I want to be associated.”

A close friend of hers wondered why, and thought Lindsay was “missing the point.” Jaime Sommers was the exact answer to her prayers. “If you play her,” the friend told Lindsay, “…you’ll be able to communicate with the children of the world, make a living, and act.”

12

RETROFAN

June 2024

Lee Majors. Courtesy of CTVPS. “Yes, I know,” Lindsay mused, “but running 60-miles an hour and jumping off buildings is not what I had in mind.”

“I know your feelings about science fiction,” the friend pressed, “…that it’s usually presented in a way that doesn’t mean anything.

But so is a lot of drama. But now, you can make this mean something, because of the way you think.”

Lindsay analyzed her chum’s perceptive words. “This would be perfect for me,” she remembered telling herself. “First of all, it isn’t totally science fiction. Jaime is, in fact, a human being, who ends up with super-human powers.” Like Jaime, Lindsay was struggling to maintain her identity. Jaime’s experiences were very much metaphors for Lindsay’s personal and professional life.

THE BIONIC LOVE FEST

In the end, both Lindsay Wagner and Universal conceded, and The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man became separate weekly items on ABC. And she and Lee Majors would make crossover guest appearances on one another’s shows (as was done with Stefanie Powers and Robert Vaughn via The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and later with shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and with Hercules and Xena).

Why didn’t Jaime appear, simultaneously, with Steve on SM, as maybe Batgirl (played by Yvonne Craig) did on Adam West’s classic Batman series? It came down to realism and character development, and as noted earlier, “Steve Austin was a different hero than Batman,” noted Bennett, who worked on the Sixties TV version of the Caped Crusader (before Bruce Wayne’s big-screen Dark Knight persona, with Tim Burton directing Michael Keaton in 1989’s Batman).

It was also extremely profitable for both ABC and Universal to have two different bionic shows. Bennett said that “the American

retro television

Cowboy” (Steve Austin) could not have a steady girl (Jaime Sommers), and then “plop into bed with some other love every week, like Captain Kirk did on Star Trek.”

There had to be a compromise. Steve and Jaime’s mutual love had to remain only slightly ignited, just enough to keep them involved with each other, just enough not to become too much involved with other people. “If not,” Bennett said, “we would have lost our audience.”

Ken Johnson believed it was important that Jaime had suffered just enough brain damage that there would be no romantic link to Steve. Otherwise, there would be the big question of why she did not play a more prominent role on SM, and then later, vice versa.

“When I created Jaime, I wanted to connect her to Steve as much as possible,” he said, “…so that it wouldn’t be a whirlwind romance where they saw each other for the first time, but rather a revisitation of an old relationship. So, it seemed natural to couch it in terms of home and family. It also gave her an ongoing connection to Steve when we spun off the show into a separate series. It kept Steve alive in her life even when he wasn’t appearing in the BW episodes.”

With particular regard to Six, he said Jaime’s memory loss allowed Lee to play with a wider range of emotions because, even though Jaime forgot, Steve did not. “I loved that pathos,” Johnson relayed. “Bringing her back to life actually worked to my advantage.

In the process of being revived, she had lost her memory of her love for Steve. You felt sympathy for Steve ever after because of his unrequited love for her. It also gave the characters an opportunity to strike sparks and start over again.”

FINAL ASSESSMENT

Millions of pop culture followers, fans, general observers, and those new or novice to science fiction storytelling continue to perceive The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman beyond the contretemps of the fantastic. Viewers the world over recognize and respect the unique covenant imparted by and between Steve

Lindsay Wagner.

Courtesy of CTVPS.

and Jaime. Be it in France, Germany, Australia, or any number of disparate destinations, the devotion international fans have for this dynamic couple is evident. They hit a chord in the Seventies that still resounds today.

Original young fans of the Bionic shows ran in slow motion like Steve and Jaime and mimicked sound effects which accompanied his long-distanced-angled left eye and her sonar-powered right ear.

Today, viewers of all ages continue the bionic legacy; they keep on liking and believing in bionic people because the Austin/Sommers powers of persuasion continue to make bionic people likable and believable.

All these decades later, one core aspect of their appeal continues to ring true: the Bionic shows remain fun. It assuredly was painful, physically, emotionally, and psychologically for Steve and Jaime to experience their physical rebirths. But in the end, for the audience, watching them became just plain fun, minus the camp effect.

Waiting for the next episode of either series to air in the Seventies was often sheer agony for younger viewers, who would eagerly break down the previous night’s broadcast at school the next day. Far-out plots and premises were played straight, and original audiences loved every minute of it. Rarities among the science fiction super-hero hall of fame, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman prevail as real. Mighty residents of the Marvel or DC Comics Universes need never fear a rivalry, because, in the fabricated world of composed-creditability, those kinds of super-heroes don’t really exist.

Steve and Jaime, however, are tangible. We came to care about them because they cared so much about each other. Their pre-cybernetic history, subsequent bionic transformation, and distinct, yet combined, destinies were revealed with authenticity.

In viewing The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, the TV watcher of yesterday or today is encouraged (subconsciously or not) to seek sincerity at every turn; to stretch their reality, as well as their imagination; to see past contrarieties, and to focus on the common thread of humanity. Audiences have sensed all along that Steve and Jaime, at their core, are fundamentally human. Home observers continue to watch these programs not to laugh at camp, but to be entertained and moved.

As fictional government agents, the Bionic duo is sent on special assignments, but for the viewing public, Steve and Jaime’s most important mission is of a much larger scale. They introduce to the mainstream viewer the bona fide possibility of workable prosthetics.

In this way, a bionic bond is forged between fantasy and fact: between a far-fetched TV concept and the medical visionaries who made good on the promise and potential of cybernetics, between the TV viewer and the TV shows. With each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, sci-fi adventures couple with solid storytelling to capture the imagination and captivate the audience.

With The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, the extraordinary communicative device known as television has been efficiently engaged. Through the years, Steve and Jaime have proven to be emphatic role models from whom we may ascertain as strength. The real kind. The kind that lives inside us. The kind that allows us compassion and discretion; forgiveness and endurance.

The human kind, motivated by the human spirit, if cloaked in a more-than-humor form.

Through TV’s majestic mechanics, and by observing the lives of a uniquely created pair, struggling for personal identity while acclimating to their new physiology, the pressure to learn is off.

RETROFAN

June 2024

13

retro television

We’re charmed and walk away with an inspirational thought and positive reinforcement in the process. In this way, the Bionic shows explore certain various strengths. The strength in appeal of two of television’s top classic shows and their stars. The strength in stamina that was summoned by the cast and crew getting the programs on the air. The made-for-TV bionic strength that became legendary due to the twin series.

As Lee Majors assessed early on when The Six Million Dollar Man first aired, “We’ll only stay on as long as we can keep up the fancy footwork. We must stay on the side of the line where people say, ‘There could be a Steve Austin with the technology developed by space medicine, and he could do those miraculous things!’ It’s a thin line.”

But that has become stronger through the decades. The appeal for both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman is unending. Whereas both shows completed their original runs in the spring of 1978, they continued on into syndicated reruns.

Steve and Jaime remained disengaged with any new adventures until a trilogy of Bionic TV reunion movies, which became appropriate as the Bionic multiverse optimally began with three TV pilot movies (all of which were shepherded by Richard Anderson).

The initial reunion, Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, premiered on NBC on May 17, 1987. Written

by Michael Sloan and Bruce Lansbury (brother to Angela, who produced her unstoppable Murder, She Wrote series), and directed

by SM veteran Ray Austin, this first film introduced the world to Michael Austin, Steve Austin’s son, played by Tom Schanley. In this story, Michael is bionically transformed (bionic limbs and laser-power eye), while Lee Major’s real-life son Lee Majors II makes a guest appearance (not as Steve’s son). Other guest stars include the Oscar-winning Martin Landau (from TV’s original Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999), Gary Lockwood (from the second pilot of the original Star Trek series), and future Seinfeld/Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston.

Then came Bionic Showdown, which also aired on NBC, this time on April 30, 1989, with a script by Michael Sloan and Brock Choy. Directed

by Bionic veteran Alan Levi, this second reunion introduces future movie superstar Sandra Bullock as Kate Mason, The Bionic Girl, and features other notable actors like Jeff Yagher, Geraint Wyn Davies (Airwolf, Dracula: The Series), and Robert Lansing (“Gary Seven” from “Assignment Earth” episode of the original Star Trek series). But most importantly, this time out Steve proposes to Jaime.

A few years later, CBS steps up to the plate and airs Bionic Ever After? on November 29, 1994. In this outing, Steve Stafford, former assistant to Lee Majors during the original SM series, takes over as director of another script by Michael Sloan. Some notable guest stars here include Anne Lockhart, daughter of June Lockhart (from TV’s Lost in Space), and from the original Battlestar: Galactica franchise, while Dave Thomas, of Wendy’s restaurant fame, makes a cameo. And to the content of Bionic fans everywhere, Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers finally get cybernetically hitched, as in married, sealing the eternal bionic spring of their appeal.

After the reunion films, a short-lived, noble, if failed effort to resurrect The Bionic Woman in a new weekly series (without a “The” 14

RETROFAN

June 2024

Jawsmania—the subject of RetroFan #17’s “RetroFad” column—had such a grip on the public that the Six Million Dollar Man Season Five opener, “Sharks,” a two-parter, was combined into a theatrical movie. How many of you RetroFans saw Sharks in the theater? © Universal Pictures. Courtesy of Heritage.

in the title), starring Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers aired on NBC late Fall/Winter in 2007.

Like Sandra Bullock’s Kate Mason, Ryan’s new Jaime had more integrated bionics (as well as both super-sight as well as super-hearing). But the essence of what made the original Bionic Woman so remarkable (e.g. Lindsay Wagner) was sorely missing.

In the time since that unsuccessful Bionic Woman reboot, there has been inconsistent talk, rumors, and development for years of an intended Six BILLION Dollar Man motion picture. First, there was a potential parody starring Jim Carrey, which didn’t happen (thank heavens), and then another planned attempt with Mark Wahlberg, which also never transpired.

Assuredly, the multi-million-dollar Bionic universe will one day somehow expand either on the small or big screen or maybe somehow in some other media method that had yet to be invented in what would be the ultimate A.I. experiment, to say the least.

Until then, the original Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman television adventures will continue to have a place in the loyal legion of hearts of billions of Bionic fans around the cybernetic world.

Born in Rochester, New York, writer, producer, actor/performer, and TV personality HERBIE J PILATO graduated from Nazareth University in the spring of 1983, with a trimester in Television and Film at UCLA. One year later, began his career as an NBC Page at the network’s facility in Burbank, CA, and was cast in bit roles on General Hospital, The Bold and the Beautiful, Highway to Heaven, and The Golden Girls. In 1992, Pilato published his first book, The Bewitched Book, followed by other classic TV companions. He then began producing and appearing on retro media documentaries for Bravo, A&E, TLC, and the Reelz Channel, while he’s also done the same for several DVD and Blu-ray retro releases for Sony, Warner Bros., and Universal (including the award-winning Blu-rays for The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman).

Pilato is also the Founder of the Classic TV Preservation Society (CTVPS), a nonprofit that advocates for the positive social effects of classic TV, and has hosted, co-created, and co-executive-produced his own TV talk show, Then Again with Herbie J Pilato (which is still streaming on Shout! TV and Amazon Prime).

In addition to the “Special Commemorative Edition” of The Bionic Book, Pilato has authored Retro Active Television (which the Los Angeles Book Festival named 2023’s “Book of the Year,” and subsequently, Pilato, “Author of the Year”), Connery, Sean Connery, Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Story, and more. His upcoming books include One Tough Dame: The Life and Career of Diana Rigg and Christmas TV Memories: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen. For more information, visit www.HerbieJPilato.com.

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

The Heyday of

Hostess

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA The heyday of Hostess® is when you were a kid. A time when you were most open to new taste treat sensations and didn’t give a fig about empty calories. For many of us, that could be during the Sixties, Seventies, or Eighties. Except for me, I didn’t get Hostess treats as a little kid (that I recall). But the days of you ending your junk food innocence and getting a tasty introduction to a Twinkie® or a Ding Dong® or a Ho Ho® is your Hostess Heyday. You lucky, lucky you.

I guess that’s that. Enjoy the rest of the magazine RetroPals!

Easiest article to write ever. Of course, you know that there has to be more. Actually, if you were the right age in that junk food sweet spot during the Fifties to the Eighties, you were a witness to the Heyday of Hostess (originally a brand and now a company name).

The success of the Twinkie snack cakes were the most important driver of the Hostess heyday. But the story of Hostess is about more than just Twinkies. It’s the story of sweet snacks remaining popular over generations. It’s a story of junk food becoming popular culture icons. It is a mighty chronicle of loss, loyalty, and obsession (yes indeed). A saga packed with advertising (some of it making questionable promises). A uniquely American narrative (thesaurus. com folks, I utterly, wholly recommend it) of how our tastes and lives have changed over more than a century.

But mainly…

It’s the sometimes weird, wild, but never ribald account of some of our favorite Hostess snacks that moms (not mine) would put into school lunchboxes.

FAMILY BUSINESSES

James Ward and his son Hugh came to America from Ireland and began a modest bakery in New York City in 1849. At press time, that’s 175 years ago. The route from there to the Hostess of today

(LEFT) Mom goes a bit nuts grabbing up all of the snack cakes in this screen capture from a 1970-era Hostess® commercial (who shops like this?). (INSERT) Howdy Doody shills for Hostess in a more subdued manner in this 1950-ish screen capture from the Howdy Doody Show [say howdy to Howdy in RetroFan #31]. Hostess © Hostess Brands, LLC. Howdy

involves a fair amount of business activity that’s not as interesting as snacks. It is important to note that the Ward Doody Show © NBC Television. family did get the ball of dough rolling. Hugh Ward’s son Robert moved to New York in the early 20th Century to found the Ward Bread Company. By 1911, two new Ward baking factories were opened; one in Brooklyn and the other in the Bronx. According to a large ad in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Nov. 7, 1911), the factories were the “brightest, whitest, cleanest places in all New York.” Food safety was on the public’s mind in those days and they were invited to visit the factories to see just how clean they were.

DON’T EAT THAT! PART ONE

Upton Sinclair was a writer and activist who wrote the novel The Jungle dealing with, among other issues, unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry. First published in 1906, the book kicked up such a ruckus that it led President Theodore Roosevelt to press for the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and the Federal Meat Inspection Act (1907). This was beneficial to the general public, but Sinclair was not universally beloved. Time magazine once claimed that Upton Sinclair had “every gift except humor and silence.” Ouch.

FAMILY CONSUMPTION

Ward’s Bread Company advertised its product as 100% pure, and that was thanks to their amazing bread-making machinery which didn’t require a single human hand to touch the bread loaves along RETROFAN

June 2024

15

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

the way. The company would continue to stress purity and cleanliness in the its advertising.

Salesmen wore white outfits and gloves and drove electric trucks (circa 1911) to make deliveries in a move away from unsanitary horsedrawn vehicles.

Ward’s Bread was soon purchased by James Ward’s great-grandson, who had started his own company, United Bakeries (there are other versions of this story; bread history is inconsistent).

United had purchased some smaller bakeries as well, and then renamed the whole group the Continental Baking Company. One of the purchases was the Taggart Baking Company. Taggart’s signature product was Wonder Bread®, and it would have a big impact on the success of the company (once shoppers became more comfortable buying factory-made bread; it wasn’t an immediate hit). Continental quickly became America’s largest commercial bakery (though its reach then only extended to the Midwest).

Continental Baking would be composed of two brands: Wonder for bread products and Hostess for baked goods.

There would be more changes ahead for Continental Baking, but at this stage of the company’s life the Hostess side had already produced what would lead to that brand’s first signature hit.

CUPCAKES: FROM ELEGANT DESERT TO LUNCH BOX TREAT

The first Hostess baked success is, strictly speaking, not still with us, but it and the Hostess brand name arrived in 1919. Originally called the Hostess Chocolate Cup Cake, it did not have all of the features we now associate with the modern Hostess CupCake®.

There were two basic types: devil’s food cake with chocolate frosting and devil’s food cake with vanilla frosting. Early advertising for the cupcakes was more elegant in design and salesmanship than the more playful type of advertising seen by later generations.

However, the “5¢ for two” price was an important part of the sales pitch, and that certainly appealed to shoppers of all types.

In the early days, these cupcakes were hand-frosted, a departure from the “no human hands” of the Wonder Bread side of the business. There were other hands on jobs, too. That of the “cake dumper” is fairly self-explanatory: you take baked cakes and dump them out of pans onto a table. You don’t have to be clever to do it.

Fortunately for Continental, cake dumper D. R. “Doc” Rice was a competent young fellow when he joined the company in 1923. Rice worked his way up through the ranks and by the late Forties he was working in the experimental bakery at Continental’s headquarters in New York. It was there that Doc Rice would alter the company’s rather basic cupcake into the easily recognizable Hostess CupCake that we know today.

Partly, this was thanks to the Twinkie. The cream filling of Twinkies was originally inserted by hand with a special foot-

(RIGHT) Hostess magazine ad, circa the Twenties. Note the fancy Hostess boxes in the lower left of the grocery store counter. © Hostess Brands, LLC. 16

RETROFAN

June 2024

A Ward’s Bread ad detail from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Nov. 7, 1911) promoting food cleanlines, something of a new concern for the new century. Ward’s Bread was eventually bought up by United Bakeries, which became the Continental Baking Company, home of the Wonder Bread and Hostess brands. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library. activated device that was easy to over-fill (and become a snack for the operator). Given a directive to improve cupcake sales, Doc Rice put Twinkie cream filling inside the cupcakes which, in 1947, had to be a “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” type moment. Long time coming or not, the addition was well received. A white line of frosting on top was the finishing touch. A straight white line of frosting. This quickly changed to the loopy line we know today.

According to Doc Rice in a late-in-life interview (United Press International, May 10, 1989), sales for Hostess CupCakes with the

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

filling and loopy line shot up 25% past sales for the standard Hostess CupCakes. It wasn’t long before the standard cupcakes were phased out.

TWINKIES: BLAME THE STRAWBERRIES

Hostess’ original tube-like shortcakes were called either Hostess Little Short Cake Fingers or Hostess Little Shortbread Fingers (depending on source). They were created as a convenient component of the popular strawberry shortcake desert (you bring the strawberries). The season for fresh strawberries lasted around six weeks. That left the Finger pans empty for the remaining 46 weeks of the year.

With Hostess sales weakened during the early days of the Great Depression, James Dewar, a manager at a Continental Baking factory, added banana cream filling to the shortcakes. While considering names for the new treat, Dewar and a friend noticed a sign for Twinkle Toe Shoes. The friend suggested “Twinkles” or “Twinkle Fingers” (you know the drill) as a name for the snack, but Dewar felt that “Twinkies” would be more appealing to kids who were the intended market.

And so Twinkies it was. The “two for a nickel” snack was a hit that would go on to become an iconic American snack product… just not with its original banana cream filling. World War II needs hampered access to bananas and the vanilla cream filling replacement became the standard.

James Dewar had to be very happy with his concoction because he is reported to have eaten at least one Twinkie every day.

SNO BALLS, DINGS DONGS, AND ALL THE REST

Hostess Donuts first appeared in the Thirties. They were followed up by the Hostess Donettes® (1940), which were simply smaller donuts. Donuts have their roots in fried olykoeck, a doughy Dutch recipe brought to the New World around 1622. It was Hanson Gregory, a sea captain, who in 1847 put the hole in donuts so that they may be digested more easily. This was genius because a hole is empty and therefore very much more digestible than a hole with donut in it. He got a plaque for his effort.

The Hostess Sno Ball® first appeared in 1947, the handy work of one Ellis Baum. The Sno Ball was originally a chocolate cake covered by a white marshmallow topped with shredded coconut.

Cream filling was added in 1950. By 2007 the good people of St. Louis, Illinois, ate more Sno Balls than any other city in America.

High Five, Gateway City!

Introduced in 1960, the Suzy Q® was a slab of devil’s food cake interrupted in the center by a creamy filling (the center goo getting everywhere is apparently a feature, not a bug). The name Suzy Q was inspired by the name of the daughter of a company vice president.

Both the perfect and delicious Ho Ho® and Ding Dong® snack cakes arrived to enchant the snack–cake eating public in 1967. Back then the Ding Dongs were wrapped in thin foil and it was a bit of a

(TOP LEFT) Hostess CupCake. (TOP RIGHT) Twinkie in the raw.

(ABOVE) Twinkies in the box. (LEFT) Ding Dongs. (BELOW) The Suzy Q. Packages courtesy of Worthpoint. Snack food photos by Evan-Amos/ Wikipedia. © Hostess Brands, LLC.

challenge to secure the round treat without cracking and losing any of the chocolate cover. These were a very rare treat when I was a lad, and I wasn’t going to waste a bit of it.

A number of years later…

One Christmas day my four-year-old daughter was having “the best Christmas ever.” A few hours later my wife and I were at the RETROFAN

June 2024

17

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) A screen capture from an animated television commercial for Hostess Ho Hos. Date unknown. (BELOW) Hostess was eventually called out by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive nutrition claims. © Hostess Brands, LLC.

hospital watching our tiny daughter being and Ralston Purina (1984), the dog food wheeled away to get an appendectomy. people. That wasn’t the end of business She would later downgrade her earlier maneuverings. More importantly, an observation and note that the day was existential problem was growing during “the worst Christmas ever.” However, the the Seventies that threatened not just waiting area vending machine had Ding Hostess but other makers of junk food.

Dongs and I stress-eat, so that was how I survived my time at the hospital. My wife DON’T EAT THAT! PART TWO couldn’t eat anything (she stress—uh, not During the Seventies, concerns about eats), and so I wanted to have the Ding the environment, the safety of toys, Dong that I bought for her (I know, Booo! and the ingredients of junk food were I’m a lout). But I couldn’t bring myself to eat generating loud voices demanding that (LEFT) Drake’s Ring Ding predated the her Ding Dong. I’m not a monster, after all. lawmakers do something to help fix “invention” of the Hostess Ding Dong.

Daughter survived. these issues. Growing up in the Greater Ring Ding © McKee Foods. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

Hostess Ding Dongs did have some Los Angeles area, to me smog and air marketing issues due to another company’s quality alerts were very real. You could similar product, the Ring Ding® from Drake Bakeries Inc. Since Ring see the poison in the air. Making toys safer annoyed me, and I’d Dings, created in 1958, predated the Ding Dong, Hostess needed to been burnt multiple time on hot but very cool toys. But junk food? avoid confusion in the marketplace. As a result, Ding Dongs were That was just The Good Stuff. Hostess (and other bakeries) liked sold for a short time as Big Wheels and then as King Dons in the to claim that their product was good for you, but let’s be honest, Northeast. Drake Bakeries likes to brag that the Ring Ding is “Often we know what healthy food is and what it isn’t. I like carrots, but imitated. Never duplicated.” What Drake fails to mention is that carrots don’t come with a chocolate coating. For me, the best their Yodels® and the Hostess Ho Hos are based on the concept junk food did. And, by gosh, junk food was simply packed with of a rolled cake, dating back to 1852, and more commonly referred ingredients: too much fat, too much sugar, bleached flour, and to as a Swiss Roll. Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls® is just a bit more whatever else food-science wizards concocted to make junk food obvious about its inspiration. cheaper, decay slower, and more compelling to the palette. Even In fact, Drake Bakeries has a few other products that predated the phrase “junk food” (which I’m sure Hostess and other snack the better-known Hostess snack cakes. Like f’instance, Yodels® makers hate) carries a promise: you shouldn’t have too much of this arrived to market about five years earlier than did the Ho Hos. The thing but you will like it and you will want more. The Hostess slogan Devil Dogs®, introduced in 1926, look like the much-later Suzy Q. that always stuck with me was, “You’ll get a big delight in every The main benefit of all these “similarities” is that when Hostess bite.” There is no better way to describe our junk food favorites. stopped production on the Suzy Q (at least twice, possibly four Still, concern about the nutritional value and type of ingredients we times, and it’s not currently available), you could buy Little Debbie’s were all putting into our mouths has only grown over the years.

By the way, National Junk Food Day is July 21. And National Devil Cremes® if you really needed to.

Nutrition Day is January 29. Just throwing that out there.

Meanwhile, Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and all the rest would find There is an enormous amount of literature about the health themselves bouncing along as ownership continued to change issues associated with junk food and I promise to read some of it hands (with the Ward family basically now out of the picture) and when I have the time. But the snack food bakeries have kept aware owned by the likes of International Telephone & Telegraph (1968) 18

RETROFAN

June 2024

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

of public attitudes about their product’s contents and attempted to mitigate the matter. Both Wonder Bread and Hostess inserted vitamins into their baked goods. Hostess claimed that their snacks had “the good taste kids love and the good nutrition they need.”

Even the beloved Captain Kangaroo told kids that Wonder Bread would help boys and girls “grow big and strong.” In 1973 the Federal Trade Commission determined that these claims were deceptive and unfair advertising, and had to stop. Hostess claimed that there was little decline in business after that decision. I believe it—some folks simply ignore warnings about what’s bad for you. Especially kids and certain adults. That’s right, Lewis Gilbert Browning, I’m talking about you.

Lewis Browning, born in 1916, was an independent milk hauler operating out of the Shelbyville, Indiana, area. He was better known as the Twinkie King, a title bestowed on Browning by Hostess. Mr. Browning’s achievement was that he had eaten at least one Twinkie a day for over 60 years. Mr. Browning survived to a very respectable 90 years of age.

The Twinkie’s popularity continued to climb into the junk food stratosphere shifting from mere snack to pop culture icon. But the debate about nutritional value would continue as well as concerns about its rumored unnaturally long shelf life. I’m happy to report that it’s not 1,000 years or even a single year. The modern Twinkie has a 45-day shelf life, which is more than the 26-day shelf life of earlier versions. And that is an unnaturally long life for fresh baked goods, but consider this: competitor Little Debbie has snack cakes with a 60-day shelf life.

Writer Steve Ettlinger did a deep dive into processed foods in the book Twinkie, Deconstructed (Penguin Publishing Group, 2008) and discovered what ingredients Hostess puts in their snack cakes versus ingredients that you might put in a cake. Dairy products have mostly been removed from recipes since they spoil rapidly.

Eggs, for example, are essentially replaced by polysorbate 60.

Polysorbate 60 is made from palm tree oil, corn syrup, and ethylene oxide. All completely natural. Ethylene oxide may not be familiar,

(ABOVE) A 1978 Hostess ad detail promoting cut-out “Wacky TV Show” cards. (RIGHT) Steve Garvey is just one of the baseball players featured in this classic Hostess comic book ad from 1976. Fun fact: Steve Garvey is currently running for the U.S. Senate! © Hostess Brands, LLC.

but it comes out of the ground just like a carrot if, by carrot, you mean petroleum. Ethylene oxide is useful and interesting. At room temperature, it’s flammable. Also, it’s used to create antifreeze.

And, not to pick on just Hostess, many processed foods have these ingredients. Weirdly, Ettlinger reports that each Twinkie contains about 1/500th of an egg.

The concerns about the useless calories and lack of nutritional value in the various Hostess baked products didn’t put an end to their snack food output. Hostess defended their snack cakes in a 1986 issue of Advertising Age saying that they were made with ingredients found in the home (apparently forgetting all about Polysorbate 60). In a bid to create a more healthful treat, Hostess put out Twinkies Light (94% fat free!) in 1991. It was not a hit.

HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS

Meanwhile, Hostess treats continued to be put in plenty of school lunches (not mine), or as part of someone’s breakfast, or as an afternoon snack. Advertising was an important key to the company’s continued health. Kids really wanted the treats they saw in newspapers, magazines, comic books, and television. In the Fifties, Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies appeared in ads on Howdy Doody [Hey, kids, see RetroFan #31 for the Howdy Doody story—ed.].

Other creators of kid treats and toys took notice. Mr. Potato Head (literally then a food and a toy) was the first plaything to advertise on television in 1952. Others would follow.

By 1970 Hostess introduced their own mascots. Kids love mascots. Kids love mascots more than they care about vitamins in their snacks. The Hostess mascots were: Twinkie the Kid (a cowboy Twinkie), King Ding Dong (a.k.a. King Don in the Northeast), Captain Cupcake, Happy Ho Ho (a Robin Hood type), Fruit Pie the Magician, Chief Big Wheel (the Big Wheel was basically a Ding Dong for the Northwest, but trademark conflict with Mattel may have led to his short run), Chauncy the Choc-o-dile (for Chocodile Twinkies, hard-to-find as they were mainly sold on the West Coast, they appear to be gone now but were briefly known as Fudge Covered Twinkies: The Choc-o-dile), Chipper Brownie (the most recent mascot, for Brownies that appear to be unavailable now), and Suzy Q (a cheerleader).

Running from 1975 to 1982 were the much-beloved Hostess comic book ads. Each ad featured noted comic book characters like Superman, Spider-Man, Bugs Bunny, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and others in mini adventures that led to the pure enjoyment of Hostess snack cakes and pies. Much of the RETROFAN

June 2024

19

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

art was drawn by actual comic book artists like Dan DeCarlo, Curt Swan, Sal Buscema, Joe Sinnott, and even Neal Adams. If you know comic books of the day, this was pretty much top talent. Sometimes the adventures featured silly, previously unknown bad guys like Vacuum Vulture (he literally sucks) and sometimes an existing foe like the nose-less and terrifying Red Skull (and a former Nazi, right?).

[Editor’s note: Take a tasty detour into the history of Hostess’ comic book ads in our sister magazine, Back Issue #130.]

Also of interest to young junk-food eaters was a series of baseball cards printed on select Hostess boxes which ran from 1975 to 1979. Hostess also produced another series of box-based trading cards called Wacky TV Shows in 1978. An example: Two fish (one sloppy, the other neat) are “The Cod Couple.”

REALITY INTRUDES

While Hostess weathered the concerns about nutrition, discovering in the process that short of selling actually radioactive snacks, plenty thought that their creamy, cake-y, colorful output was just fine. But, a truly evil act changed, as they say, the narrative.

In 1979 a San Francisco City Supervisor killed the city’s mayor, George Moscone, and another city supervisor, Harvey Milk. The defense reportedly used what was dubbed “the Twinkie Defense” by satirist Paul Krassner (who also published and designed the notorious Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster illustrated by actual comic book legend Wally Wood). The term was picked up by the press as shorthand to describe how the over-consumption of sugary, carbohydrate-heavy snack food and soft drinks combined with a manic depressive state was supposed to have contributed to the assassination of the victims. The killer was convicted of manslaughter and served five years of a seven-year sentence. He would later kill himself.

Nothing outweighs the destruction caused by these or any killings (and that is the main thing), but the casual use of the term “Twinkie Defense” was more of a nod to the Twinkie’s popularity and iconic status as junk food and not, in fact, a significant part of the actual trial defense. In a 2003 interview on SFGate (a San Francisco Bay Area news website), the chief defense attorney stated that Twinkies didn’t even come up during the trial except briefly and that high sugar snacks did not cause the murders. Yet the “Twinkie Defense” still pops up as a legitimate trigger for crazy behavior even as the killer has been largely forgotten.

Negative press didn’t end Hostess Twinkies (or Ho Hos or Ding Dongs), but nearly a decade later another event did—and it launched a Twinkie-fan meltdown.

NUMBER ONE AND GONE

The heyday of Hostess essentially was done by the Nineties.

Advertising wasn’t connecting and tastes were changing. Still, there was a lot of affection for Hostess’ output, and not just from junk food fans. The Seattle Times ran a story in the August 18, 2009 paper about an employee, Joe Traxler, at the Seattle Hostess Bakery.

Traxler had been with the company for 50 years and was retiring.

He operated a mixer, doing his part to make Twinkies for so long that he was known as “The Twinkie King” by his fellow Twinkie makers (there is no known comment from the other Twinkie King, Lewis Browning). When talking about working at the Hostess bakery, Joe got emotional. Working there was like working with family, he said. The company, now known as Hostess Brands, had 20

RETROFAN

June 2024

Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny star in this villain-free Hostess comic book ad. It is just one of over 300 such ads produced during the Seventies and Eighties. Artist and writer unknown. © Warner Bros. just gotten out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy too, so things were looking up. Traxler predicted that the Hostess Bakery would “be around long after I am.” Joe Traxler passed in 2018, living long enough to see his prediction sadly proved wrong.

In 2012 Time magazine (now in its 101st year!) issued a ranking of the top ten junk foods. Twinkies had the number one spot. But of course. It’s been a go-to treat for millions. The irony is that earlier that same week, Hostess declared bankruptcy and shut down production. There would be no more Twinkies or any other Hostess product hitting store shelves. A national meltdown ensued.

Press reports of the time told of hoarding and “black market” pricing. The real action seemed to be on eBay. There were breathless reports of packages of Twinkies going for thousands, even millions (with free shipping!), of dollars at auction by people seemingly unable to tell the difference between an asking price and actually getting that price.

The cliché about not realizing what you’ve had until it’s gone was true. There was a collective acknowledgement that, sure, Twinkies aren’t exactly good for us, but we like them. Archie Bunker in an episode of All in the Family called Twinkies “white soul food.”

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

HOSTESS: MODERN BRAND BUILDING Hostess, in the last few years, has really been—innovating really isn’t the word I’m looking for—let’s say, busy. They’ve been expanding their brand with all kinds of things like Hostess Twinkies Artificially Flavored Iced Latte Ready-toDrink Coffee, Twinkies Scented Candles, Dreyer’s Hostess Twinkies Ice Cream (also in CupCakes and Sno Balls flavors), and Hostess CupCakes Pudding (you have my attention) and a Twinkies version as well (enough already). Wait, one more: Chocolate Mocha Boost Caffeinated Donut Jumbo Donettes (Hostess Donette—small donuts— debuted in 1940, so that means that a jumbo Donette is a regular-size donut?) Each serving equals the caffeine in one cup of coffee. Caffeine is good for your brain!

You may have had the Twinkies with caviar or deep-fried Twinkies but those are the inventions of restaurants. My entire family of four shared a single deep-fried Twinkie at a fair. Too much fun, I think. Haven’t had one since. Hostess did try to cash in with their own Deep Fried Twinkies.

During its heyday, Hostess made snack food that stood the test of time. But not everything was a hit. There was Choco-Bliss (1987), which seems pretty appealing as it’s a cake full of chocolate, but it didn’t really take. A Choco-Bliss

commercial showed a young man and woman enjoying their treat a bit too much, if you get my drift. Pudding Pies (1986) were popular. I liked them.

Newsday ran a story on the new pies and one high schooler admitted to eating 13 at one time, saying, “Oh, I felt good.” He had to be misquoted, right? The green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pudding Pies are the nastiest things I’ve ever seen. But, if you grew up with them, well, nostalgia works in strange and mysterious ways. Most notably, over the years Hostess has brought out Twinkies with banana-flavored filling in a callback to the original version of the giant of the junk food world.

(ABOVE) An actress shows more excitement in this 1986 commercial for Hostess Choco-Bliss than consumers ultimately did. © Hostess Brands, LLC.

to the J. M. Smucker Company for $5.6 billion (that’s a lot of Ho Hos). There would come many changes to the company and its product (new variants and new snacks) since 2013. Dolly Madison (makers of Zingers) was absorbed by the new owners. The plus side is that the Zingers are still sold, just now under the Hostess brand (they are delicious, by the way). Wonder Bread, once a sister brand to Hostess and a former sales powerhouse, was sold to Flowers Foods, Inc. (itself founded in 1919, the year Hostess was born). Currently, Hostess employs about 3,000 people who, the company proudly notes, “put their hearts in everything they do.”

Nothing lasts forever, not even a package of Twinkies.

But for now, our junk food is safe.

Classic Hostess snacks today. Eat responsibly and with style. © Hostess Brands, LLC. They’ve been served at the White House and were the official cake for Superman’s 50th birthday celebration. Losing Twinkies (and Ho Hos and Ding Dongs, etc.) was a bracing slap in the face to junk food lovers everywhere. 18,500 Hostess employees were now out of work and several factories would eventually be shuttered and sold. The Seattle Hostess Bakery was one of those shut down and demolished. A very nice apartment structure now sits on the site.

Investors bought Hostess Brands in 2013 for $400+ million. Our national nightmare had to be endured for about eight months. But Twinkies, etc. came back. Last September, investors sold Hostess

For this excursion into food facts, I bought $25 worth of classic Hostess snack products at Walmart. The new stuff doesn’t really scratch the Retro itch (the Ding Dongs and Twinkies mashups are, honestly, a fake innovation since they are simply a chocolate-covered Twinkie in the shape of a Ding Dong. Clever marketing but not much else). I couldn’t find a basket to shop with so I simply clutched the pile of Hostess product in my arms. I must have looked like a divorced dad shopping ahead of a rare weekend with his kids (or a crazy person in an old Hostess commericial) but I moved around completely unnoticed.

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). You can find him on Instagram as scottsaav, where he updates infrequently.

RETROFAN

June 2024

21

Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) “Say goodnight, Gracie.”

(Kick yourself if you miss this one. Then ask someone else to kick you. Really.)

2) “We will see you again next time on (show’s title).”

3) “And that’s the way it is.”

4) “Good night, and good luck.”

5) “Good night, and good news.”

6) “Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.”

7) “We’re in touch, so you be in touch.”

8) “Bless your little pea-pickin’ hearts!”

9) “Mmm-wah!” (kiss) 10) “Happy Trails!”

22

RETROFAN

June 2024

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.)

Each sign-off phrase in Column One corresponds to the announcer or performer who said it in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan Ratings

Y’all come back now, ya hear?!

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) Edward R. Murrow, CBS Evening News B) Barbara Walters, 20/20 C) Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, The Roy Rogers Show D) George Burns, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show E) Dinah Shore, The Dinah Shore Show F) Ted Baxter, WJM-TV, The Mary Tyler Moore Show G) Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Ford Show H) Kermit the Frog, The Muppet Show I) Chevy Chase, “Weekend Update,” Saturday Night Live J) Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News 20/20 © 20th Century Television. The Beverly Hillbillies, The CBS Evening News © CBS Television.

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show © Sony Pictures Television. The Ford Show, Saturday Night Live © NBCUniversal Television. The Mary Tyler Moore Show © MTM Productions. The Muppet Show © Walt Disney Productions. The Dinah Shore Show © Melissa Montgomery. All Rights Reserved.

RETROFAN

June 2024

23

ANSWERS: 1–D, 2–H, 3–J, 4–A, 5–F, 6–I, 7–B, 8–G, 9–E, 10–C8–D, 9–B, 10–G

Get RetroFan back issues!

Many early issues are close to selling out!

Order online, or by mail include $4 US postage for the first magazine, and $2 for each additional magazine on the same order.

SUBSCRIBE: $73 US $ 111 International $ 29 Digital

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #20

RETROFAN #21

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #23

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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.

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

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

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

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

RETROFAN #25

RETROFAN #26

RETROFAN #27

RETROFAN #28

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview!

Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

The saga of Saturday morning’s Super Friends, Part One! Plus: A history of MR. T, TV’s AVENGERS (Steed and Mrs. Peel), Daktari’s CHERYL MILLER, Mexican movie monsters, John and Yoko’s nation of Nutopia, ELIZABETH SHEPHERD (the actress who almost played Emma Peel), and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, & MICHAEL EURY.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Pop History.

RETROFAN #29

RETROFAN #30

RETROFAN #31

RETROFAN #32

The story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The Brady Bunch’s FLORENCE HENDERSON, the UNKNOWN COMIC revealed, Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat, a Barbie history, RANKIN/BASS’ Frosty the Snowman, Dell Comics’ Monster Super-Heroes, Slushy Drinks, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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

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, an encounter with SONNY AND CHER, Disco Fever, 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) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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

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

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

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at

www.twomorrows.com

VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

s i ! x A e m o S k Let’s Kic movie characters ic n o ic en h W r? le The Stooges vs. Hit joined the fight

BY MARK VOGER I’m a freak over the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone. Don’t get me started! But the first one I ever saw—I must’a been in sixth grade—confused me a mite. It was called Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943). In it, Holmes and Watson (Nigel Bruce) get on a plane and fly to the U.S. in search of a top secret microfilm stolen by German spies.

I was young, and more inclined toward comic books than classic literature. (Still am, actually.) I had yet to read my first Arthur Conan Doyle story. My vague picture of Sherlock Holmes was from London of long ago—horses and buggies, gas streetlights, men in top hats, women in bustles, fog.

So what was Sherlock Holmes doing hopping planes and fighting Nazis?

There’s a fascinating subgenre in the history of cinema: World War II Propaganda Disguised as Entertainment. Sherlock Holmes in Washington fell into that subgenre, if not a sub subgenre: Movies About Familiar Pop-Culture Characters Fighting the Axis Powers While the War was Ongoing.

In pursuing that microfilm, Holmes and Watson joined other iconic (and heretofore politically neutral) characters who heard the call such as Superman, Batman and Robin, Laurel and Hardy, the Invisible Man, the Three Stooges, the East Side Kids, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye.

It sounds weird today, but there’s a practical explanation. Not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government established the Bureau of Motion Pictures (a division of the Office of War

Holmes and Watson travel to America in search of a top secret microfilm in Sherlock Holmes in Washington. © Universal Pictures.

Information), which worked directly with film studios to encourage movies with powerful anti-Axis content.

Two important notes before we dive in. I will concentrate on films released during World War II, which lasted from 1939 until 1945, with America entering in 1941. (So the Marvel movie Captain America, which was set during World War II but released in 2012, doesn’t qualify. Nor do “peacetime draft”-era movies like 1941’s “Buck Privates” starring Abbott and Costello, which depict training but not war per se.)

There’s something about the fact that these films were produced in the midst of this historic global conflict that stirs the emotions in a more immediate way. Imagine: When Rathbone and Bruce walk past sandbags piled six feet high on a Universal backlot doubling for London, it was a Hollywood reenactment of something that was going on in real time.

Important Note #2: Keep in mind that on a good day, old-timey Hollywood movies reflect systemic racism (a subject for another column). But during the war, all bets were off. Anti-Japanese slurs were a fact of daily life. (A movie like Let’s Get Tough starring the East Side Kids was a twofer on the Racism-O-Meter. Pejoratives were thrown around disparaging Black as well as Japanese people.)

I will only quote such dialogue when pertinent, but if you later track down and watch these films, well, caveat emptor.

OK? And now... on to victory!

COMIC BOOK HEROES

The first depiction of Superman on film happened in cartoons.

Five of the eight animated Superman shorts released by Famous Studios (following its takeover of Fleisher Studios) were war-themed. In the non-PC-compliantly titled Japoteurs (1942), Clark and Lois hop a plane in an animated short with a title that could only have happened during World War II: Japoteurs (1942). © DC Comics.

RETROFAN

June 2024

25

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) This caricature of a Japanese spy from the Superman short Japoteurs (1942) is mild compared to many of the offensive stereotypes that appeared in mainstream animation during the war years. (RIGHT) Robin (Douglas Croft) and Batman (Lewis Wilson) flank Dr. Daka (J. Carroll Naish, wearing prosthetic eyelids), ringleader of a Japanese spy ring, in the 1943 serial Batman. Colorized photo © Columbia Pictures. Superman, Batman, and Robin © DC Comics. enemy agents commandeer an American invention, the “world’s largest bomber plane,” during its maiden voyage. In The Eleventh Hour (1942), Superman is in Japan (!) committing acts of sabotage. Lois Lane is abducted by the Japanese military, who hang posters putting Superman on notice: “Warning! One more act of sabotage and the American girl reporter will be executed at once!”

In Destruction Inc. (1942), Lois works undercover at a munitions plant suspected of enemy infiltration. In Jungle Drums (1943), Superman sinks a fleet of German submarines, while an extremely unhappy Adolf Hitler receives the news via radio. Secret Agent (1943) follows a beautiful undercover operative as she delivers an intelligence-rich dossier to Washington. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #25 for columnist Will Murray’s deep dive into the Fleisher Superman cartoons.]

The serial Spy Superman’s BFF Batman got in on Smasher (1942) is the act too, this time in live-action. based on the Fawcett In Episode 1 of Batman and Robin’s Publications comic first-ever depiction on film, Lambert book hero. © Republic Hillyer’s 15-chapter serial Batman Pictures (1943), the viewer is told: “They (Batman and Robin) represent American youth who love their country and are glad to fight for it.”

In the plot, Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Douglas Croft) pursue Dr. Daka (J. Carroll Naish), a Japanese spy based in 26

RETROFAN

June 2024

America. Twice-Oscar-nominated Naish was considered Hollywood’s chameleon who could play any “foreign” type.

Of course, Naish is wearing those dreadful fake eyelids as Daka, and playing him as a broad caricature. It’s what the times demanded.

Daka’s headquarters is hidden in a section of Gotham City called Little Tokyo, which is now all but desolate.

Quoth the narrator, “Since a wise government rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs”—don’t shoot the messenger—“it has become virtually a ghost street where only one business survives, eking out a precarious existence on the dimes of curiosity seekers.” That business is the Japanese Cave of Horrors, which is something like the Tunnel of Love but with tableaus of Japanese tyranny rather than ghosts and skeletons.

“I am Dr. Daka, humble servant of His Majesty Hirohito, heavenly ruler and prince of the Rising Sun,” Daka declares in his first line of dialogue. He can turn men into zombies, though plenty of American traitors work for him without the need for brain-snatching.

William Witney’s 12-chapter serial Spy Smasher (1942), based on Fawcett Publications’ comic book hero, stars Kane Richmond as the titular hero who matches wits with a Nazi saboteur (Hans Schumm). [Editor’s note: To read more about comic book-inspired movie serials, we enthusiastically recommend Christopher Irving’s book, Cliffhanger! (TwoMorrows, 2023).]

HORROR MOVIES AND WAR

One of America’s earliest World War II-themed movies was a low-budget horror film starring the screen’s Dracula, Bela Lugosi. In William Nigh’s Black Dragons (1942), Lugosi plays a plastic surgeon who alters the faces of Japanese spies to resemble American industrialists.

In Edwin L. Marin’s Invisible Agent (1942), Frank Griffin, Jr. (Jon Hall) is the grandson of the original Invisible Man. Two Axis oper-

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

atives, Stauffer (Cedric Hardwicke) and Ikito (Peter Lorre), overpower Griffin and demand he turn over his grandfather’s invisibility formula. Griffin refuses to allow the formula to be used as a weapon, leading to the following exchange...

Stauffer: “Weapons are created to be used.

There’s no place for weakness on this Earth.”

Griffin: “Typical German thinking.”

Stauffer: “Precisely. German thinking is the clearest in the world. As a graduate of Oxford, I can attest to that.”

Griffin somehow wriggles free from his captors.

He offers the invisibility serum to the U.S. military under one condition: that he alone can use it. Next thing you know, Griffin is injecting himself with the serum moments before being parachuted into Germany, where he rendezvous with Maria (Ilona Massey), a gorgeous German who is working undercover for our side.

Invisible Agent then lapses into slapstick for a (LEFT) In Black Dragons (1942), Dracula star Bela Lugosi plays a plastic spell. Pudgy German officer Heiser (J. Edward surgeon who alters the appearances of Japanese spies to resemble Bromberg) brings Maria some choice items from his American industrialists. © Monogram Pictures. (RIGHT) Even the Invisible “meager rations” for a (hopefully) romantic dinner: Man joined the fight in Invisible Agent (1942). © Universal Pictures. cheese from Holland, champagne from occupied France, fowl from Denmark, lobster from Norway, and caviar from Russia. “Every country we conquer feeds us,” he In Landers’ atmospheric The Return of the Vampire (1943), German brays in the hopes of impressing Maria. bombers bring about the resurrection of the title bloodsucker. In Meanwhile, Griffin is hovering around unseen—he’s invisible, London following a blitz, two civilian rescue volunteers (Billy Bevan remember?—pinching food, gulping champagne, and slathering and Harold De Becker) search through rubble for victims dead or Heiser’s uniform with his own dinner. Despite the funny bits, alive. They discover a corpse with a spike through his heart, not Invisible Agent builds to a no-nonsense climax with lots of firepower, realizing he is a vampire (Lugosi) who was killed a quarter century earlier. Mistaking the spike for debris caused by the bombing, the not to mention grisly deaths for Stauffer and Ikito. men remove it. This, according to the strict tenets of the horror Frankenstein star Boris Karloff joined the fight as a mad movie, brings the vampire back to life to stalk victims anew—one doctor—a patriotic mad doctor, but a mad doctor nonetheless. more thing to blame on those “Jerries.”

In Lew Landers’ horror comedy The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942), Karloff plays an eccentric professor who keeps a laboratory in the DELINQUENTS AHOY cellar, where he lures “volunteers” to get zapped in an electronic Wallace Fox’s Let’s Get Tough (1942), the ninth film in Monogram’s contraption that he hopes will transform them into supermen to hardscrabble East Side Kids series starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, help fight the Axis powers.

Bobby Jordan, and “Sunshine” Sammy Morrison, opens with a But so far, there have been no survivors of his experiment. parade of soldiers marching to the strains of patriotic music. (I’d bet Laments Karloff of one such failed attempt: “He would destroy anything the parade footage is from World War I.) Pumped up with Berlin! He would throttle Tokyo! But for a monkey wrench in his pocket, that man would be winning the war for America right now!” patriotism, the East Side Kids race to the nearest recruitment office

(LEFT) Two civilian volunteers (Harold De Becker and Billy Bevan) discover a vampire’s corpse amid the rubble following a destructive blitz in The Return of the Vampire (1943).

(RIGHT) The vampire (Bela Lugosi) writhes in pain as he faces the dawn while stumbling in rubble caused by German bombs in The Return of the Vampire (1943). © Columbia Pictures.

RETROFAN

June 2024

27

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

to enlist. “We wanna knock over about a million Japs,” says the group’s leader, Muggs (Gorcey). Alas, the boys are rejected for being underage.

Their antics are monitored by beat cop “Pop” Stevens (Robert Armstrong of King Kong fame). Pop’s sister Nora (Florence Rice) is the sweetheart of Phil (Tom Brown), who is on leave from the Navy—or so he claims.

Frustrated that they can’t serve their country, the boys throw fruit at an antique store whose proprietor they believe to be Japanese. After dark, they break into the store and start smashing antiques, when they discover the proprietor’s corpse with a knife in its back.

Pop tells the boys they shouldn’t have taken the law into their own hands. “But he was a Jap!” counters Muggs. No, Pop tells them, he was Chinese, not Japanese, and therefore undeserving of their attacks. (The implication, of course, is that any Japanese person is fair game for unprovoked harassment.) The Kids sheepishly bring gifts of money and flowers to the distraught widow of the murdered man.

As Phil arrives to take Nora on a date, Pop is there brandishing The Daily Standard with the headline: “Naval Officer Found Guilty; Philip Connors Dishonorably Discharged for Subversive Activity.”

Nora, a uniformed homefront volunteer, promptly dumps her suitor. Phil doesn’t deny the charge, and storms off unapologetically. Following clues—some that implicate Phil—the Kids stumble onto a Japanese spy ring. After the closing credits comes a title card that reads: “The more bonds you buy, the more planes will fly.”

Hall and fellow Dead End Kids members Billy Hallop, Gabriel Dell, and Bernard Punsly reunited in Universal’s serial Junior G-Men of the Air (1942), foiling a saboteur known as the Baron (Lionel Atwill wearing a jet-black toupee and speaking with a patently awful Japanese accent).

NAME THAT TOON

Considering their intrinsic family-friendliness, cartoon characters were surprisingly willing participants in wartime propaganda.

The film industry rewarded such participation. An Oscar winner for Best Animated Short Film was Jack Kinney’s Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943), in which Donald Duck awakes in Germany and starts his morning by saluting portraits of Hitler, Emperor Hirohito, and Benito Mussolini.

After reading a few pages of Mein Kampf, Donald is marched into a munitions factory where he must work “48 hours a day.”

But it was all a nightmare; Donald awakes again, this time in America, wearing U.S. flagprint pajamas. He smooches 28

RETROFAN

June 2024

(LEFT) The East Side Kids bust up a Japanese spy ring in the pejorative-rich Let’s Get Tough (1942). © Monogram Pictures.

(BELOW) The gang fights a Japanese ringleader (Lionel Atwill) in Junior G-Men of the Air (1942). © Universal Pictures.

a replica of the Statue of Liberty, proclaiming (in his quacky duck voice), “Am I glad to be a citizen of the United States of America!”

Donald also did his bit in Jack King’s Donald Gets Drafted and Sky Trooper (both 1942).

Over at Warners, the Looney Tunes gang (including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig) appeared in many WWII-themed shorts between 1943 and ’45, among them Chuck Jones’ The Weakly Reporter and Spies; Frank Tashlin’s Plane Daffy and Scrap Happy Daffy; Bob Clampett’s Russian Rhapsody; Norman McCabe’s Confusions of a Nutzy Spy and Tokio Jokio; and Friz Freleng’s Daffy the Commando and Herr Meets Hare. Hitler was depicted in 16 such shorts through 1945, once taking a noggin hit from Daffy.

Popeye fought the Japanese military in Dan Gordon’s You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap and Seymour Kneitel’s Scrap the Japs (both 1942). He made a rush delivery to our allies across the pond in Spinach Fer Britain (1943). Popeye and his erstwhile nemesis Bluto put aside their differences to team up against Hitler and Hirohito in Gordon’s Seein’ Red, White ’N’ Blue (1943). Popeye even feeds Bluto spinach!

Meanwhile, Woody Woodpecker joined the Army Air Corps in Alex Lovey’s Ace in the Hole (1942).

(LEFT) In an alternate reality, Donald Duck reads Mein Kampf in Der Fuhrer’s Face (1943). © Walt Disney Productions. (RIGHT) Daffy Duck lets Hitler have it in Daffy the Commando (1943). © Warner Bros.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) Bugs Bunny impersonates Hitler in Herr Meets Hare (1945). © Warner Bros. (BELOW) The World War II-themed Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror was the first of 12 films in Universal’s series starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. © Universal Pictures. extreme closeup by cinematographer Elwood Bredell, is the most stirring of all the jingoistic, we’re-in-thistogether dialogue scenes filmed during this period...

IT’S ELEMENTARY

20th Century Fox teamed Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson in two “period” films set in the 19th Century, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (both 1939). When Universal took over the series, the detectives were dropped into the present day. How was this achieved? Youth serum?

Lookalike descendants? Time travel?

A title card for the first such film, John Rawlins’ Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), addressed the conundrum without actually explaining it: “Sherlock Holmes, the immortal character of fiction created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is ageless, invincible and unchanging. In solving significant problems of the present day, he remains—as ever—the supreme master of deductive reasoning.” So there.

The film later serves up a winking acknowledgment of this time warp. As the duo is about to exit 221B Baker Street in pursuit of a clue, Holmes reaches for his trademark deerstalker cap and begins to put it on.

“Holmes? You promised,” admonishes Watson. Holmes begrudgingly returns the cap, which is never again seen in Universal’s 12-film series.

Voice of Terror hits the ground running with a gripping setup about mysterious radio broadcasts originating from Germany that interrupt regular programming in England to announce devastating acts of sabotage as they occur. Sample patter: “Germany broadcasting. People of Britain, greetings from the Third Reich.

This is the voice you have learned to fear. This is the voice of terror.

Again, we bring you disaster—crushing, humiliating disaster. It is folly to stand against the mighty wrath of the Führer!”

Among acts described by the German-accented voice are the bombings of oil fields, an aircraft factory, and a dam, and the destruction of a train carrying a diplomat. During a meeting of England’s Intelligence Inner Council, Sir Evan (Reginald Denny) informs the group that he is calling in Holmes to investigate. Balks another member (Henry Daniell): “Sherlock Holmes? This isn’t a case for a private detective. It’s a matter of state!” Counters Sir Evan: “In this emergency, we should take advantage of everyone’s peculiar gifts.”

Holmes and Watson brave the dark, seedy dives of Limehouse to meet with Kitty (Evelyn Ankers), wife of an informant named Gavin (Robert Barron) who is murdered while working for Holmes.

For my money, the scene between Rathbone and Ankers, shot in

Kitty: “Go away!”

Holmes: “I’m not asking this for myself. Our country, England, is at stake. Gavin was killed, not by his own enemies, not even mine, but by the enemies of England.

The Nazis killed him!”

Holmes then asks Kitty to organize the downtrodden denizens of Limehouse to scour the streets and back alleys for information to expose Gavin’s murderers.

It all ends with a tense face-off between the Nazis and the good guys in a bombed out church. When the Nazis rejoice at the buzz of approaching planes, Holmes utters a line that could never have been written by Conan Doyle: “Those are not Messerschmitts! They’re Spitfires and Hurricanes, returning from blasting your invasion forces!”

In the wrap, Watson says of his compatriot (in dialogue reinforcing that opening title card): “Good old Holmes. The one fixed point in a changing age.” But screenwriters Lynn Riggs and John Wright weren’t done yet. As the music stirs, Holmes warns of an Eastern wind, “Such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson. And a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind nonetheless, and a greener, better, stronger land that will lie in the sunshine when the storm is cleared.”

The next two films in Universal’s series, which were hereafter directed by mystery master Roy William Neill, maintained the war theme. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) reaches back to Conan Doyle by reintroducing Holmes’ arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Atwill), and interpolating aspects from the 1903 story “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.” Moriarty aims to steal a revolutionary new bombsight and sell it to—who else?— the Nazis. Holmes wastes his breath in appealing to Moriarty’s humanity ...

RETROFAN

June 2024

29

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) informs Limehouse barmaid Kitty (Evelyn Ankers) that her husband was murdered by Nazis in a stirring moment from Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942). © Universal Pictures

Holmes: “Moriarty, this is no simple crime that you contemplate.

It’s a staggering blow against your own county.”

Moriarty: “That doesn’t concern me overly. I shall make greater profit from this affair than all my other adventures put together.”

In Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), Homes and Watson seek the aforementioned elusive microfilm after the British agent who carried it (Gerald Hamer) is found dismembered in a trunk.

In the nine remaining Rathbone/Bruce films through 1946, the war theme faded by degrees. But one sequence is worth singling out. In The Spider Woman (1943), co-starring haunting beauty Gale Sondergaard as the title femme fatale, a bound-and-gagged Holmes is trapped behind a carnival shooting gallery, while Watson—oh, irony of ironies!—fires real bullets at the target of Hitler placed directly in front of his Baker Street roommate.

STOOGES TO THE RESCUE

Moe Howard of the Three Stooges [see RetroFan #20–ed.] is often cited as the first actor to impersonate Hitler onscreen. (Howard beat Charlie Chaplin to the honor one year prior to the release of Chaplin’s 1941 masterpiece of political satire, The Great Dictator.)

In fact, Howard did his Hitler impression in four of the war-era Stooges shorts directed by Jules White.

The first, You Nazty Spy! (1940), opens with a meeting of munitions manufacturers in the fictional country of Moronika. “There’s no money in peace,” laments one. “We must start a war.” The men decide to overthrow Moronika’s king and install a puppet dictator.

They need look no further than the three idiots who are wallpapering an adjoining room: Hailstone (Moe Howard), Gallstone (Curly Howard), and Pebble (Larry Fine). The coup plotters offer Moe the job of dictator …

book in Moronika to be burned. When Moe decides to initiate a “blintzkrieg,” Curly responds, “Oh, goody! I love blintzes! Especially with sour cream!”

I’ll Never Heil Again (1941) is a sequel to You Nazty Spy!, a rare occurrence in the 190 Stooges shorts. Round 2 is less clever than its predecessor—mostly quips and slapstick—but there’s another presage to Chaplin. During a meeting of the Axis powers, Moe proclaims, “The world belongs to me!” and grabs a large inflated globe (as Chaplin does in The Great Dictator). A comic football game with the globe ensues, which devolves into a conga line.

The short’s parting shot is grim for Stooges fare, but no doubt elicited cheers wherever it played. We’re shown the lifeless heads of Hailstone, Gallstone, and Pebble mounted on a wall, trophy style.

In Back From the Front (1943), the Stooges board the S.S. Shickelgruber and pose as German sailors. When a German officer says “Heil Hitler!” the Stooges respond “Hang Hitler!” When the Stooges render many of the ship’s crew unconscious, the captain (Stanley Blystone) frets: “What would the Führer say if he heard about this? Three Americans making fools of a shipload of Germans?” At that instant, the Stooges march in wearing full Nazi regalia, with Moe—again—dressed as Hitler.

When Moe/Hitler threatens to blow the officers’ brains out, one pleads, “But mein Führer! We are Nazis! We have no brains!” But the jig is up once Moe sneezes off his mustache.

Moe: “What does a dictator do?”

Plotter: “A dictator? Why, he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life, and never works. He makes speeches to the people, promising them plenty, gives them nothing, then takes everything.”

Curly: “Hmm! A parasite! That’s for me!”

Don’t let the Stooges’ inherent silliness fool you: You Nazty Spy! brims with brilliant satire. During a speech, Moe promises to “make our country safe for hypocrisy.” He tells Curly: “What do you mean, reading a book? You might learn somethin’!” He then orders every 30

RETROFAN

June 2024

Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Curly Howard harass Mary Ainslee in I’ll Never Heil Again (1941). © Columbia Pictures

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

In Gents Without Cents (1944), the boys audition for a patriotic revue. Larry does a Japanese gag; Curly does a Mussolini take; and Moe holds a black comb to his nose for yet another imitation of You Know Who. In No Dough, Boys (1944), the Stooges are costumed as Japanese soldiers—wearing false buck teeth and eye makeup—while posing for a Latherneck Shaving Cream ad. Their boss ill-advisedly instructs them not to change into civvies when they go out on a lunch break. Wouldn’t you know it? Today’s headline reads: “Jap Sub Blown Up Off Shore; 3 Japanese Soldiers Escape; Citizens Warned to Keep a Sharp Lookout.” Do you see where this is going?

After being attacked by a patriotic hash-slinger at a nearby eatery, the Stooges blunder into the HQ of a German spy ring, where they are initially mistaken for the three surviving Japanese soldiers Naki, Saki, and Wacki. A portrait of Hitler hangs on a wall.

(German spy rings must have traveled with these things, to make their American digs comfy.)

SILENT NO MORE

Screen comedians who dated back to the silent era—Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Chaplin—vocalized their opposition to the Axis powers.

We think of Laurel and Hardy as gentle souls who would be far too inept against a threat as formidable as the Nazis. But there they are, striking a blow in Edward Sedgwick’s Air Raid Wardens (1943).

In the small American everytown of Huxton, Stan and Ollie hang a sign in their bicycle shop: “Store closed, gone to fight the Japs.” Like the East Side Kids before them, the boys attempt to enlist but are rejected. Back at their shop, they meet a seemingly trustworthy man (Donald Meek) who wishes to operate a radio shop, and proposes to share store space. We intelligent viewers immediately recognize him as a German spy seeking to establish a front.

Stan and Ollie join Huxton’s civilian defense team, which leads to some hilarious slapstick as the boys fumble through training exercises. They practically drown the town’s bank president (Howard Freeman) in wet cement, and then send him careening down curvy streets while bound in a stretcher. It’s laugh-out-loud stuff.

But Air Raid Wardens gets real when Stan and Ollie stumble onto a German magnesium ring (Stanley calls it “magnesia”) in an abandoned house on the outskirts. The tipoff? Yet another framed portrait of Der Führer.

In a sense, Chaplin’s silent-era “Little Tramp” character took on Hitler in The Great Dictator (though Chaplin insisted he was not intentionally playing the Tramp). Chaplin starred in dual roles: an unnamed Jewish barber and his doppelganger, mad despot Adenoid Hynkel. But with his bowler and cane, the barber reminds

(ABOVE) Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy flank Jacqueline White in Air Raid Wardens (1943). © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

(BELOW) Charlie Chaplin performs a thinly veiled parody of Adolf Hitler in his masterpiece of political satire, The Great Dictator (1941). © United Artists. us of the Little Tramp who, it always seemed bizarre in retrospect, wore a Hitler mustache before Hitler.

Film historians, critics and buffs are divided over Chaplin’s climactic speech in character as the barber. Disguised as Hynkel, the barber addresses the camera with an unblinking gaze. Was it garbled, self-aggrandizing jingoism? Or a passionate ode to brotherhood and democracy?

But no one can deny how affecting it is to see the painted face of Chaplin —who avoided speaking on film well into the sound era—looking the viewer directly in the eye at a time when Hitler threatened the peace and security of the world, and say: “I don’t want to be an emperor. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible. Jew, Gentile, Black man, White. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.”

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.

His father, Charles Voglesong, was a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima but rarely spoke about the war. Please visit Mark at MarkVoger.com.

RETROFAN

June 2024

31

CELEBRITY CRUSHES

Jerry Lewis, My Favorite Star

BY BRAD FARB

This is not so much a celebrity crush as just a reporting of lifetime examples of how far one goes in admiring a favorite star.

I discovered Jerry Lewis in the late Sixties from viewing his TV variety show and such cinematic efforts then as Hook, Line and Sinker at an indoor movie theater and Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River at a drive-in, all in Louisville, Kentucky. And I tried to see as many showings of his comeback feature, Hardly Working, before moving to another state in 1982.

Once his annual Labor Day telethon to fight muscular dystrophy began airing in Louisville in 1971, I faithfully viewed it, enduring sleep deprivation until his last one in 2010. I volunteered at call centers in Louisville and Harlingen, Texas (a friend taped the first and last eight hours of the program on videocassette—before I owned a VCR—and acquired for me a life-size standee, though it became beheaded!). A Sunday school classmate’s bar mitzvah interrupted that first time, but I timed watching in that later locale to my quitting a newspaper job. And because of the host, the Muscular Dystrophy Association became the single cause to which I contributed. Related accumulated items included a carnival kit, buttons, posters, T-shirts, and skate-athon patches.

(ABOVE) Future Nutty Professor Eddie Murphy was only two years old when Jerry Lewis—at his manic best—originated the role in Paramount’s classic 1963 comedy. The Nutty Professor © 1963 Paramount Pictures. Poster courtesy of Heritage.

Collectibles grew from audiocassettes, LPs and singles (I bought a record of his son’s group, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, for his picture on the album’s back), and videos to DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs. I likewise bought a never-played board game for his photo on the box cover.

Clippings (including autographs and magazine articles) and books (autobiographies, biographies) led to ongoing online alerts of his name. I collected his The Adventures of Jerry Lewis comic books [see RetroFan #25 for the scoop behind Lewis’ and Bob Hope’s days as stars of their own DC Comics series—ed.], movie posters, and lobby cards. My car sports a photo-linked air freshener, no longer effective, on the rearview mirror and a faded rear license plate frame that originally read “I’d Rather Be Watching…”

In person, I saw Lewis in Las Vegas shortly before a telethon (turning that into an article for the newspaper where I then worked) at Sea World in San Antonio, Texas; both shows in McAllen, Texas; and at a Louisville leadership conference appearance.

Of course, eyeglass frames helped in my vocal impression of his Nutty Professor character. I named a diving board dive at swimming pools as my “Jerry Lewis cannonball.”

And I was recognized with a high grade for a Sunday school graduation year report at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue on his interfaith marriage.

BRAD FARB of Louisville, Kentucky, is a former entertainment journalist and haunted attraction performer and works as a longtime movie theater usher.

Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/ Eighties Celebrity Crush with RetroFan readers! You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crush column to the editor for consideration at euryman@gmail.com.

32

RETROFAN

June 2024

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

FANTASTIC FOUR

and THE THING

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 in to Retro Saturday Morning! This issue, we’re taking you Fabulous Fans on a dive into three Saturday morning shows that starred members of Marvel’s most Famous Family… The Fantastic Four!

Marvel Comics’ premiere super-team is the Fantastic Four, a cosmic ray–powered quartet who’ve thrilled fans since their debut in 1961.

The “FF” (as fans know them) was created by Stan Lee, the head of Marvel, and Jack Kirby, one of the preeminent and most creative artists in the comics industry. Little did the pair know just how far their creations would take them. The Fantastic Four have spent a lot of time on the animated front, as well as in their own radio show, and in several feature films!

But not every member of the FF was treated the same on the air, with one member being snuffed out for a season, and another getting his own very weird spin-off series. Read on for the history of foursomes, robots, and other things…

MARVEL HEROES COME TO TELEVISION

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961), they were the world’s greatest dysfunctional—and most powerful—family. While traveling in scientist Reed Richards’ experimental rocketship, pilot Ben Grimm, Reed’s girlfriend Sue Storm, and her brother, Johnny Storm, were exposed to radioactive gamma rays which changed their molecular make-up and gave them remarkable powers. The now-stretchable Reed called himself Mr. Fantastic; the shy Sue became the disappearing Invisible Girl; the hot-headed Johnny shouted “Flame on!” to become the ball of fire named the Human Torch; and the bulky Ben got the raw end of the deal, becoming a super-strong orange rock-covered creature known as the Thing. Using their powers to aid mankind, the quartet known as the Fantastic Four would soon protect the planet from such cosmic threats as world-devouring Galactus, Latvertian armored dictator Doctor Doom, angry Atlantean monarch Sub-Mariner, and shape-changing alien invaders known as Skrulls. Along the way, the foursome become (ABOVE) Cel set-up from Hanna-Barbera’s The Fantastic Four (1967). © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

June 2024

33

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) A colored cel featuring the Fantastic Four as rendered by Alex Toth. Toth was tasked with simplifying the more detailed comic book art of Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby. (BELOW) Galactus character sheet by Toth. © Marvel.

Courtesy of Heritage.

known by fans for their squabbling relationships as much as for their heroics.

Super-heroes were going through a revival in the early Sixties, but their popularity wasn’t noticed by networks until 1966. That same year, as the new Batman series became a campy live-action hit, a new cartoon studio called Filmation premiered The New Adventures of Superman on Saturday mornings [see RetroFan #25].

Also on deck weekday afternoons on syndicated stations was Grantray-Lawrence’s group of untried “tyro” heroes: the Marvel Super-Heroes series [see RetroFan #16].

Grantray-Lawrence was founded in 1954 by businessman Robert Lawrence and animators Grant Simmons and Ray Patterson. Lawrence bought the rights to most of the Marvel properties in the early Sixties: Captain America, Thor, Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, Hulk, X-Men, and Spider-Man. According to Lawrence, The Fantastic Four was one property on which he didn’t have the option.

Animation “old-timers” Hanna-Barbera were looking for something new to dip their cels into, and super-heroes looked to be just the solution. Eyeing the high ratings of the Superman cartoon and the relative success of Marvel Super-Heroes, plus their own successes with Space Ghost and Dino Boy, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbara wanted their own Marvel series. And what they wanted was The Fantastic Four.

In the crossover world of the Marvel Universe, Grantray-Lawrence was in a bind when they prepared to animate a Sub-Mariner story that strongly featured the 34

RETROFAN

June 2024

Fantastic Four. Because they couldn’t use the quartet, they substituted the comparatively new X-Men characters in their stead. They didn’t bother to change the designs for the Baxter Building, long the established FF headquarters, and Doctor Doom remained the villain. Bits and pieces of the stories from Fantastic Four issues now became X-Men adventures.

Hanna-Barbera had already started developing the Fantastic Four series by the time the Sub-Mariner episodes aired. Charles Nichols, a Disney director, was given the job of directing the episodes, while writers Jack Hanrahan and Phil Hahn all went directly to the comic book source material for their stories. “They were easy to write,” said Hanrahan. “We just went and took the stories directly from the comics. I would tear the comics in half and write up to the midpoint, and give the second half to Phil to write. Having worked in radio, I was used to the timing, and we could do a script in a day-and-a-half. After a while, I used the Dictaphone, because it was faster than typing.” He chuckled, adding, “Stan Lee thought we did a terrible job on the scripts. Compared to the later Fantastic Four cartoons, though, I guess we did okay.”

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Hanrahan and Hahn were a team of writers for Hallmark and American Greetings cards who were also part of the early MAD magazine stable, where they wrote the first Captain Klutz book.

After a New York job on The Jackie Gleason Show, they moved to Los Angeles to get into screenwriting, and picked up their first job on Hanna-Barbera’s Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles show [see RetroFan #18]. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Fantastic Four. Later, they were to become one of the hottest comedy writing team of the Seventies, doing sketches for Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, The Sonny & Cher Show, and Get Smart, among others.

According to Hanrahan, “When we went to Hanna-Barbera, they did cartoons the old theatrical way. They preferred writers who could also do their storyboards. I had been an artist, and Mike Maltese taught me how to do rough storyboards over one weekend. I was one of the last writers to work this way, and I did about half of my shows over the time I worked for Hanna-Barbera.”

Hanrahan didn’t lay out many of the FF shows; that work went to Bob Singer and his crew.

Singer, a long-time Hanna-Barbera employee, did the original presentation boards that sold the show. He then worked with master comic artist Alex Toth (whom he had talked into staying with H-B after a fight Toth had with producers over Space Ghost in late 1965) on redesigning the characters, simplifying Jack Kirby’’s original forms for the limited animation style affordable to H-B. Singer put together crews of four to six animators so that one episode a week could be produced.

“We tried an experiment on the show,” said Singer. “We used a New York operation to lay out some episodes, as we only had about 65 people in layout to produce all of Hanna-Barbera’s shows. I flew into New York to give these six layout guys lessons in how to do the Fantastic Four, but most of them were freelancers and they didn’t work well together. They finished their episodes, and we paid them, but didn’t use them again.”

Singer also recalled that some H-B work was sub-contracted to Grantray-Lawrence and other small studios, although Fantastic Four (ironically) never was.

“The Fantastic Four was possible only because we had done Adventures of Jonny Quest in ’64,” Singer said, “and we were probably the first studio to cut our teeth on a realistic adventure-style show. We learned a lot of valuable lessons doing Jonny Quest, and the next year we did Space Ghost and Dino Boy. Jonny Quest was too expensive, and we had to figure out how to reduce costs on layouts and models. By the time Fantastic Four came about, we had solved the problems. We made all our deadlines on the series.”

(ABOVE LEFT) Dr. Doom character sheet. (LEFT) Various Skrulls including the Super-Skrull. © Marvel.

(INSET) Artist Alex Toth.

RETROFAN

June 2024

35

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

But one of the guys didn’t always get it quite right, according to Hanrahan. “One storyboard guy kept doing the scenes with Johnny Storm, and whenever he’s burst into flame, he’d write ‘Torch On!’ in big letters. I’d always have to send it back to be changed to ‘Flame on!’ One day, Stan Lee saw the unchanged boards and hit the ceiling.

It didn’t happen again.”

Interviewed in Fantastic Films magazine in December 1978, Marvel’s “Jazzy” John Romita, Sr. claimed to be an art director for the series, making sure the designs stayed consistent with Marvel’s own. Romita said, “Animation has so many limitations and problems that I think they were breaking new ground in trying to translate our kind of human interest stories into an animated form.” However, Singer didn’t recall ever having worked with Romita in any way on the series, and Romita’s name is not in the credits, meaning he probably only looked after the series from Marvel’s offices.

Romita may have had something to do with a promotional oddity for the show, though. In association with ABC, Marvel published the one-shot America’s Best TV Comics in 1967. It had stories with Spider-Man, Harvey’s Casper, Rankin-Bass’ King Kong, Jay Ward’s George of the Jungle, Filmation’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Fantastic Four. The FF story was a heavily edited reprint of Fantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963), “Prisoners of the Pharaoh.” The ABC comic remains an odd anthology about which few collectors know.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR TOUCH DOWN

September 9, 1967 was a Saturday that had every comic fan up and flipping channels. The Fantastic Four premiered on ABC at 9:30 a.m., followed by the all-new Grantray-Lawrence Spider-Man series on ABC at 10:00 a.m., and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure on CBS [see RetroFan #3] at 11:30 am! The half-hour FF series was a hit with the fans, who found their favorite comics virtually translated onto the screen.

The voice actors who portrayed the quartet were as varied in talent as their on-screen counterparts; radio and serial actor Gerald Mohr was Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (he played the voice of the Scorpion in the Adventures of Captain Marvel serial), Sixties actress JoAnn Pflug (who later starred in the M.A.S.H. movie, and married Chuck Woolery) was Sue Storm/Invisible Girl, actor Jac Flounders was Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and cartoon voice Paul Frees was the Thing, Doctor Doom, the Watcher, Galactus, and many of the villains. Frees was also the voice of Boris Badenov on The Bullwinkle Show, the narrator of The Dudley Do-Right Show, and it’s his dulcet tones you hear every time you take a scary trip through Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion!

Hanrahan remembered the voice actors fondly.

“I was enamored of Gerald Mohr when I met him, since I was familiar with his work from the old studio pictures. He was very classy, and used to show up for (TOP) Cel set-up features Johnny Storm lunging at a robot guard of the the recording sessions in a smoking jacket with an Terrible Tribunal. (CENTER LEFT) Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four. ascot and an F.D.R.-style cigarette holder. JoAnn was (CENTER RIGHT) America’s Best TV Comics one-shot featured an edited very friendly. This was one of her first jobs, and she Fantastic Four story from 1963. (ABOVE) Storyboard for an episode of The later got us bit acting parts on Get Smart.”

Fantastic Four. © Marvel. Cels and storyboard courtesy of Heritage.

36

RETROFAN

June 2024

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Who was the mysterious Jac Flounders? “He used to play poker (LEFT AND RIGHT) Vehicle and other element designs with me and the guys,” says Hanrahan. “He heard they were looking

by Alex Toth for the Fantastic Four episode “The Terrible for a youthful voice and went and auditioned for the role.” The Tribunal.” © Marvel. odd spelling of “Jac” was, Hanrahan thinks, an affectation, and he believes he used the last name “Flanders” in his live-action work. Then there was Paul HEROES ON THE RADIO Frees, “who was the king of voice-overs in The Fantastic Four next appeared in a FAST FACTS those days. He used to get driven up to the nationally syndicated radio show, The recording sessions in a chauffeured Rolls Marvel Comics Radio Series, in late 1975. Each THE FANTASTIC FOUR Royce. Mel Blanc was the only other person adventure ran in five parts, in five-minute f No. of episodes: 20 who ever got that treatment.” increments on weekdays. There were 13 f Original run: September 9, The first season was 13 half-hours, adventures, all taken directly from the 1967-March 15, 1970 adapting stories from Fantastic Four issues early Fantastic Four comics. Guest-stars f Studio: Hanna-Barbera #1, 2, 7, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 30, 31, 33, 37, 56, and abounded, from the Sub-Mariner and f Network: ABC Annual #2, plus one original story. The series the Hulk to Ant-Man, Nick Fury, and the was popular enough to warrant a short Watcher.

PRIMARY VOICE PERsecond season. A reorder came in February Stan Lee narrated The Fantastic Four FORMER CAST 1968 for six more half-hours. In the 20 total radio series, in his ever bombastic tones. f Gerald Mohr: Reed Richards episodes, the FF battled Doctor Doom, Radio announcer Bob Maxwell played Reed f JoAnn Pf lug: Sue Richards Klaw, the Red Ghost, Galactus, the Mole Richards and guest-star Rick Jones; cartoon f Jac Flounders: Johnny Storm Man, Diablo, and many other well-known voice actress Cynthia Adler was Sue Storm, f Paul Frees: The Thing/Dr. villains. They met such fellow Marvel Alicia Masters, and Ant Man; newcomer Jim Doom/Watcher/Galactus characters as the Silver Surfer and Uatu, the Pappus was the Thing; and Jerry Terheyden Watcher. And they also met an uncannily played Bruce Banner/The Hulk, and Nick familiar “new” villain: Prince Triton.

Fury, plus all the series’ villains.

In a reversal of fortunes, since Perhaps the most famous FF cast Grantray-Lawrence owned the rights to member was a young Bill Murray, who Sub-Mariner, Hanna-Barbera couldn’t played Johnny Storm before heading off use the sea king in one of their FF stories! to fame and fortune on Saturday Night Thus, Prince Namor of Atlantis became the Live, Animal House, and Ghostbusters! [Don’t blue-skinned Prince Triton of Pacifica, and forget Caddyshack!—ed.] Murray’s friend Namor’s girlfriend, Lady Dorma, became Jim Belushi wanted to do the voice of the Lady Dorna. And, in retrospect, what may Thing, but producer Peter B. Lewis was look like a nod to Grantray-Lawrence’s afraid that would make the series sound use of Doctor Doom in their series, was too much like The National Lampoon Radio probably just a legal oversight; the Namor Hour, a radio show Murray and Belushi villain, Attuma, stayed Attuma in Fantastic Four! appeared on prior to Saturday Night Live.

In the third year the series ran, 1969-1970, Hanna-Barbera Despite plans to produce other radio dramas, including The produced no new Fantastic Four episodes. Combined with a move Silver Surfer; Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; and The Incredible Hulk, to Sunday morning, the foursome’s last outing was inevitable. The the syndicated Marvel Comics Radio Series was a financial failure. series’ last broadcast was March 15, 1970, though it would later be A second season of radio shows was announced, but never revived for syndication. produced.

RETROFAN

June 2024

37

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

THE FANTASTIC THREE… PLUS HERBIE?

Meanwhile, NBC’s Margaret Loesch was interested in bringing the quantum quartet back to the small screen on Saturday mornings, and it seemed that Hanna-Barbera thought the time was right for the series as well. They approached Jack Kirby, who was having problems with Marvel Comics management; he was excited at the chance to work in animation, and created large-scale presentation arts boards for the network.

The fly in Hanna-Barbera’s ointment was to come from Marvel itself. The company had formed a relationship with DePatieFreleng Enterprises, and wanted the FF show done by them (In 1980, DePatie-Freleng became Marvel Productions). Luckily, another compromise could be made. DePatie-Freleng had been developing an animated Godzilla cartoon with Jonny Quest creator Doug Wildey.

Hanna-Barbera wanted Godzilla, and a swap was made with The Fantastic Four.

DePatie-Freleng brought on board Stan Lee and later FF comic writer Roy Thomas to develop the series, working with Kirby. Then they hit another snag in production. Johnny Storm was unavailable for the series, as Universal had optioned him for a one-hour live-action Human Torch show, in which he was to star as a race-car driver (the pilot was never shot, though a script was written). It’s also rumored that network executives were nervous that children might set themselves on fire if they saw the Torch flame on.

Who would take the Torch’s place on the team? The answer is revealed in the original introduction voice-over for the series: “It was the world’s strangest accident. While testing a new rocketship, our heroes were bombarded by mysterious cosmic rays from outer

38

RETROFAN

June 2024

(ABOVE) Jack Kirby makes a cameo appearance on The Incredible Hulk TV show in 1978. (BELOW) Early Herbie the Robot design sketch by Kirby. Herbie was then known as “Z-Z-1-2-3.” Courtesy of Heritage. space. Though they crash-landed safely, the strange and powerful rays had changed each one of them, transforming their leader, Reed Richards, into the plastic-skinned Mr. Fantastic, Sue Richards into the now-you-see-her/now-you-don’t Invisible Girl, and Ben Grimm into a mighty muscled powerhouse called the Thing. Now, together with ‘Herbie’ the robot, the newest member of the group,

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) The out-of-print U. K. The New Fantastic Four DVD collection, featuring Herbie the Robot. © Marvel.

they have become the greatest team of super-heroes the world has ever known...

The New Fantastic Four!”

With the popularity of cute smartmouthed robots in Star Wars and its science fiction knock-offs, Kirby was asked to design a robotic FF member. Kirby’s original designs called him “Z-Z-1-2-3,” or “Zee-Zee.” The Zs stood for Zero-Zero, the droid’s model number, while 1, 2, and 3 were commands that brought out his robotic limbs and extensions. Eventually, the name was changed, to “CHX RL-3,” or “Charlie the Computer,” a name that went out in pre-show publicity. Before its premiere, the name was changed yet again, to the much cuter “Herbie,” which stood for “Humanoid Experimental Robot B-type.” When he later appeared—for a short time—in Marvel’s Fantastic Four comic book series, they added “Integrated Electronics.”

Lee and Thomas worked on the New Fantastic Four scripts in an unusual manner that in the comic industry has become known as “Marvel style.” This means that the writer plots the stories, the artist draws them, and then the writer comes

back and dialogues the finished artwork. This method had never been used in animation, and Thomas found it freeing. “My work on The New Fantastic Four stands out as some of my favorite cartoon work,” according to Thomas. “I liked writing the show because we tried to get it as close to the comic as possible, and with storyboards

by Jack Kirby, we got it close. This was almost the only time I ever got to work with Kirby.

“There were no restrictions on the plots,” Thomas continued. “We could do stories straight from the comics, or develop new ones.”

Even on the stories plotted by Lee, Thomas didn’t work directly with the boisterous Marvel man, dealing instead with producer David DePatie, or Kirby’s storyboards. Prolific animation writer Christie Marks came in for one script on the series, while Lewis Marshall, who had produced the 1967 FF series, aided Kirby on the storyboards and designs.

The New Fantastic Four premiered on NBC on September 9, 1978, 11 years to the day after the first series began. In an unusual move, DePatie-Freleng had gone after several of the top and most popular voice actors in the business. Mike Road voiced Reed, following roles such as Zandor of The Herculoids, Ugh in Space Ghost and Dino-Boy, and the Seventies Race Bannon in Jonny Quest; Ginny Tyler was Sue Richards, having already played Jan in Space Ghost, and Casper on the 1963-1970 series; Ted Cassidy was the Thing, a role wordier than his famous portrayal of The Addams Family’s Lurch, uglier than his Frankenstein Jr., and more heroic than his Brainiac and Black Manta on Challenge of the Super-Friends. Interestingly enough, Cassidy was also over at Hanna-Barbera, where he was the throat-clenching roar of Godzilla! Villains and guest-stars were played by some of the bigger names in the business: John Stephenson, Don Messick, FAST FACTS Hal Smith, and Joan Gerber, among others.

That left Herbie, and the producers cast THE NEW FANTASTIC Frank Welker in the part. One of the busiest FOUR voice actors in the business, it’s hard to f No. of seasons: One find a cartoon that Welker has not been in, f No. of episodes: 13 including Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (Fred), f Original run: September 9, The Real Ghostbusters (Slimer), and various 1978-September 1, 1979 seasons of Super Friends (Marvin and Wonder f Studio: DePatie-Freleng EntDog, and later Toyman, Darkseid, and erprises Kalibak!). f Network: NBC To get the unearthly robotic sound that Herbie had on the series, the sound techniPRIMARY VOICE PERcians initially sped up Welker’s tape. When FORMER CAST they asked him to slow down in a recording f Mike Road: Reed Richards session, he found out they were tampering f Ginny Tyler: Sue Richards with his sounds. He asked them to play the f Ted Cassidy: The Thing revised tape back to him, and flawlessly f Frank Welker: Herbie imitated the doctored sound for the rest of f Dick Tufeld: Narrator the New FF series recording jobs. f Additional Voices: Hal Given the talent involved, the show should Smith, John Stephenson, have lasted longer than it did, although Don Messick, Gene Moss, some fans still cringe at the mere mention Nancy Wible, Joan Gerber, of “Herbie the robot,” and at the memory of Vic Perrin Sue’s wine-colored “invisible” force fields.

However, viewing the episodes now, one can RETROFAN

June 2024

39

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) Pencil art derived from Jack Kirby’s storyboards (RIGHT) were inked to create the finished art (BELOW) for Fantastic Four #236. © Marvel.

Courtesy of Heritage.

see that although the animation was very basic, the characterization matched the comics fairly closely. Stories for the first season were a mixture of original tales with Magneto and Skrulls, and adapted stories from Fantastic Four comics #1, 5, 11, 24, 35-36, 38, 41-43, 46-47, 62-63, and Annual #2. New characters and opponents included Medusa and the Inhumans, the Frightful Four, Dragon Man, the Impossible Man, and Blastaar. A full season of 13 half-hour episodes were aired to decent ratings, and the show received a second season pick-up.

Meanwhile, with work on the first season finished, Marvel Comics, excited about the upcoming 20th anniversary issue of Fantastic Four, asked Jack Kirby to work on a new FF story. Still smarting over their treatment towards him, he refused, but Marvel found a way to get something from him anyhow. Storyboards from the cartoon episode “Meet Doctor Doom” were traced, and given to various past Kirby inkers to ink.

The inkers weren’t told that the work wasn’t new; several have since said they wouldn’t have participated had they known. Stan Lee wrote dialogue for the story, and it appeared in Fantastic Four #236. That’s also the issue with everyone on the cover including Stan Lee, but if you’ll note the white space next to him, you’ll see where the artist originally drew in Jack Kirby. Marvel staffers were told to delete him.

40

RETROFAN

June 2024

Perhaps it was karma then that interceded; The New Fantastic Four didn’t make its second season, ending on September 1, 1979. NBC had gotten a new president named Fred Silverman, and he had some odd ideas about children’s programming. He didn’t like the way the Fantastic Four was working and cancelled the series. He did, however, like the character of the Thing.

THE THING ABOUT THE THING IS…

Silverman was big on bringing concepts together to form one-hour shows. According to animator Scott Shaw!, one show being developed at HannaBarbera was “The Blob.” It featured a teenager who turned into a monster. Silverman, who initially thought it could be paired with a new Thing series, decided instead to combine them (more on that in a moment). But now he needed something to pair with The Thing to make a one-hour show.

So, he chose the… “obvious”: The Flintstones?

September 22, 1979, a mere two weeks after The New Fantastic Four was cancelled, NBC premiered the new Hanna-Barbera show,

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Fred and Barney Meet the Thing. Fans everywhere were stunned. The hour-long show had a half-hour Fred and Barney episode (rerun from the previous season) and two 12-minute Thing episodes.

Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble really only met the Thing during the opening credits, and during 30-second “joke bumpers” between episodes. Running two per show, these bumpers were generally vaudeville-style jokes, sometimes quite literally. “I remember doing some that had Fred, Barney, and the Thing in suits with hats and canes, shuffling on stage,” said animator and RetroFan columnist Scott Shaw! Teaming up with artist Tom Yakutis, Shaw! wrote and storyboarded many of the 26 bumpers.

The Thing stories found Ben Grimm as a teenager named Benjy Grimm (voiced by Wayne Morton), a student at Centerville High School. In times of trouble or danger, he would smash two “Thing rings” together and chant “Thing ring, do your thing.” Miraculously, orange boulders flew from nowhere, attaching themselves to Benjy’s body, leaving him standing as the Thing!

A story called “To Thing or Not to Thing” told some of Benjy’s origin, but here is the full origin of Benjy Grimm, as seen in Hanna-Barbera production files (most of which were lost in a massive fire): “When Ben Grimm, handsome young test pilot, accidentally received an overdose of cosmic radiation and was turned into The Thing, a monstrous clay being with phenomenal strength, it seemed that he was doomed to live out his life as this awesomely ugly creature. The Thing gained new hope when Doctor Harkness, a high school science teacher, said he could use negative radiation to restore The Thing to the form of a normal human being.

Using a bizarre device, The Thing was willing to give up his strength of ten men to look normal. The experiment worked. However, the negative radiation regressed Ben to an earlier stage in life… as Benjy Grimm, a

Singin’-and-Dancin’ Time? A revoltin’ development for sure! © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

A painted cel featuring the Yancy Street Gang from The Thing. © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage. slightly built, insecure but bright teenage boy. Benjy retained the power to turn himself back into The Thing to fight super villains for a limited time period. And so Benjy, now an awkward teenage for a second time. finds himself with the dual difficulty of growing up all over again with other comical teens, besides being a super hero protecting the world.”

Those other “comical teens” were Benjy’s schoolmates: the snobbish danger-prone Betty Harkness (voiced by Marilyn Schreffler) liked the Thing because he’s famous, but ignored wimpy Benjy Grimm; Betty’s freckle-faced 14-year-old sister, Kelly Harkness (Noelle North), had a slight crush on Benjy, and since she knew his secret, she sometimes helped cover for him in times of trouble; the wealthy spoilsport Ronald Radford (John Erwin) was Betty’s boyfriend, who put Benjy down and boasted that he could do anything Thing could.

Riding in from the wrong side of the tracks were the Yancy Street Gang, a group which had a running comic rivalry with the Thing in the Fantastic Four comics, where they were never actually seen. Here they were a semi-harmless trio of motorcycle thugs, led by Spike Hanaran (Art Metrano). The dumb Turkey (Michael Sheehan) and Stretch (John Stephenson, from New Fantastic Four) followed Spike’s orders, even when it meant they came in conflict with the Thing.

The “down-to-earth adult figures” (as Hanna-Barbera called them) were brilliant high school science teacher, Doctor Harkness (John Stephenson on double duty), and the understanding stereotype teacher, Miss Twilly (Marilyn Schreffler again). The villains of the series were all “original,” matching the Thing against Bigfoot, Jo-Jo the circus ape, demolition man Manfred von Wreckerstein, and Danton Blackwood’s evil Thing robot!

Newcomer Wayne Morton played the voice of Benjy Grimm, but the Thing part was to go to someone else. Unfortunately, Ted Cassidy had died between production on The New Fantastic Four and The Thing, so he was unable to play the character again. Instead, Joe Baker, a chunky British man who resembled Lou Costello, gave RETROFAN

June 2024

41

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

FAST FACTS FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE THING f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: 26 (each Thing episode runs 12 minutes, two per show) (There were also 26 joke “bumpers/ interstitials” where the Thing met Fred and Barney, 30 seconds each) f Original run: September 22, 1979-December 1, 1979 f Title Change to: FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE SHMOO f Original run: December 8, 1979-November 15, 1980 f Studio: Hanna-Barbera f Network: NBC

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Wayne Morton: Benjy Grimm f Joe Baker: The Thing f Noelle North: Kelly Harkness f John Erwin: Ronald Radford f Art Metrano: Spike Hanaran f Michael Sheehan: Turkey f John Stephenson: Dr. Harkness/Stretch f Marilyn Schreff ler: Betty Harkness/Miss Twilly f Henry Corden: Fred Flintstone f Mel Blanc: Barney Rubble the Thing a gravelly Jimmy Durante–style voice. Baker later played Hula Hula on The Plastic Man Comedy-Adventure Show.

Some famous—and infamous—people worked on The Thing, but few were likely to put the series on their resumé. Director Ray Patterson was the “Ray” in Grantray-Lawrence when they were putting out Marvel Super-Heroes and Spider-Man. Cartoon master Tex Avery had a hand in writing many of the episodes, as did story editor Ray Parker. Later X-Men producer Will Meugniot was a story director, while longtime DC Comics artist Mike Sekowsky did his first cartoon design work on the series, working alongside Jack Kirby. Some of the Hanna-Barbera animators who had worked on the 1967 Fantastic Four series found work on The Thing as well, including Bob Bemiller, Oliver Callahan, Ken Southworth, and Ann Guenther.

For pure entertainment value, The Thing was a grim show (pun intended). It represented some of the worst work Hanna-Barbera ever produced; the animation wasn’t awful, but the stories were some of the most puerile drivel on screen to that date. A laugh track which cued viewers in to supposedly funny moments didn’t help matters.

Not surprisingly, Fred and Barney Meet the Thing only lasted until December 1st, 1979. But all was not well at Fred Silverman’s playhouse. He wasn’t killing the show; rather, he was adding yet another element to the mess. Thus, on December 8th, the now-90minute show became Fred and Barney Meet the Schmoo, teaming the 42

RETROFAN

June 2024

Title card from an episode of The Thing. © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

previous Fred and Barney and Thing series with an animated series based on an Al Capp L’il Abner character. The Schmoo (voiced by the ever-present Frank Welker) was a white pear-shaped creature who could assume any shape. In his adventures, he helped the intrepid staff of Mighty Mysteries Comics as they solved paranormal occurrences.

Fred and Barney Meet the Schmoo finally went to its well-deserved grave on November 15th, 1980, taking The Thing with it. The 13 weeks of Thing episodes were offered as a syndication package, but few TV stations picked it up. It remained a barely remembered oddity, hazy even in the minds of those who worked on it, until the internet made the past ever-present in some form.

FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM? OR FIFTH? SIXTH?

The Fantastic Four had been licensed for a feature film throughout much of the Eighties by Neue Constantin Productions. Three days before they would have lost the rights to the film, NCP hired low-budget producer Roger Corman to create a $2 million live-action production, written by Craig J. Nevius and Kevin Rock and directed by Oley Sassone. The film featured the origin of the

Cel set-up for the Fantastic Four segment of Saban’s 1994 The Marvel Action Hour. © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) Publicity photo of the unreleashed 1994 movie, The Fantastic Four. © Marvel. plus Michael Dorn (Gorgon), Kathy Ireland (Crystal), Mark Hamill (Maximus), Ron Perlman (Wizard, Hulk), Richard Greico (Ghost Rider), and John Rhys-Davies (Thor).

The Marvel Action Hour was cancelled in fall 1996, but some of the FF characters reappeared in animated form. The Thing showed up in a 1996 first-season episode of UPN’s The Incredible Hulk. In 1997’s fifth season of Fox’s animated Spider-Man series, the Fantastic Four guest-starred in two episodes. And in 1998, Fox aired one season of quartet, with Mr. Fantastic (Alex-Hyde White), the Invisible Woman (Rebecca Staab), the Human Torch (Jay Underwood) and the Thing (Carl Ciarfalio, voiced by Michael Bailey Smith) facing off against Doctor Doom (Joseph Culp) and the Jeweler (Ian Trigger). Although a charity premiere was announced for January 19, 1994, The Fantastic Four was scuttled before it could be released. It remains unreleased to this day, although bootleg recordings of it are easy to find, and a documentary about its making, Doomed, is available.

The Marvel Action Hour debuted in syndication in September 1994, courtesy of Marvel Films and New World Entertainment. The animated series consisted of a half-hour Fantastic Four segment combined with a half-hour Iron Man series. The first season of 13 episodes saw multi-part stories inspired by the comics, including the origin of the FF, and the introduction of the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Doctor Doom.

The second season featured drastically improved character designs and animation, as well as guest appearances by the Inhumans, Daredevil, Thor, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, the Hulk, and the Impossible Man. The series used lots of stunt voice-casting, including the voices of Dick Clark as himself,

The Marvel Action Hour featured Dr. Doom (ABOVE) and other well-known villians. (BELOW) The Fantasti-Car in action. (INSET) The Silver Surfer. © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

The Silver Surfer, which featured the title character and Galactus, and would have also featured the Fantastic Four if the in-production second season had not been cancelled.

Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes, a new half-hour series, debuted on Cartoon Network on September 2, 2006. This series was produced by the French animation company Moonscoop Group, and unlike previous shows, almost all of its stories were original. It featured the main quartet, as well as H.E.R.B.I.E. The show had 26 episodes, filmed in 16:9 widescreen, but Cartoon Network cropped it for broadcast. It seemed sabotaged from the start, as the network aired only RETROFAN

June 2024

43

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

eight episodes in 2006, then another nine episodes in summer 2007. Nine episodes were not aired until 2009, when the show moved to Nicktoons.

Meanwhile, Fantastic Four members would have cameos or guest appearances in other Marvel cartoons, including episodes of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the kid-oriented Super Hero Squad Show, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Constantin Films licensed Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox in 2004, allowing that studio to create a new big-budget Fantastic Four film in 2005, and a sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, in 2007.

Both starred Starring Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards), Jessica Alba (Sue Storm), Chris Evans (Johnny Storm), Michael Chiklis (Thing), and Julian McMahon (Doctor Doom), while the second film also saw Doug Jones joining as the Silver Surfer. Because the films didn’t hit big at the box office, Fox cancelled plans for a third FF film and a Silver Surfer film.

A reboot of the Fantastic Four was brought to the big screen again in 2015, adapting an alternate reality quartet from the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics. It starred Miles Teller (Reed Richards), Kate Mara (Sue Storm), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm), and Toby Kebbell (Doctor Doom). The film tanked at the box office, losing Fox over $80 million, and gaining the reputation as one of the worst super-hero films ever made.

(TOP) Painted cel featuring the entire Fantastic Four as seen in The Marvel Action Hour.

(CENTER) Dr. Doom, one of the Fantastic Four’s most dreaded foes, and (BOTTOM) one of their hungriest, the world-eating Galactus. © Marvel.

When Fox was acquired by Disney in March 2019, the rights to Fantastic Four reverted to Marvel. The first hint of the characters was in the 2022 film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, wherein an alternate universe Reed Richards was played by actor John Krasinski.

On Valentine’s Day 2024, Marvel finally announced a new Fantastic Four film cast for 2025: Pedro Pascal (Reed), Vanessa Kirby (Sue), Joseph Quinn (Johnny), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Thing). The promotional image included another surprise… Hanna-Barbera’s Herbie the robot!

44

RETROFAN

June 2024

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) The Inhumans appear in this cel from The Marvel Action Hour. (RIGHT) The Thing faces off against the powerful leader of the Inhumans, Black Bolt. (INSET) Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes DVD collection. © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.

THE LEGACY OF THE SHOWS

With the amount of Fantastic Four material produced over the years, a surprisingly small amount of it is available on home media.

Through some odd legalities, Warner Bros.–owned Hanna-Barbera retained partial rights to both the 1967 Fantastic Four series and The Thing episodes. Although they allowed the show to be rerun on the Cartoon Network in the Nineties—the Fantastic Four was a Saturday staple, and The Thing popped up regularly on Hanna-Barbera’s Super Adventures—it has not been aired since on television, the internet, or home media.

The New Fantastic Four series is currently owned by Disney/ Marvel, and has been available in a few formats. In the early Eighties, Marvel licensed Prism Video to release the “Marvel Library,” containing the best of what they owned. Five total episodes of the series were released on these compilation video tapes. In 1991, Best Film & Video began releasing a new series of videotapes, releasing three total episodes of the series. In 2010, U.K. company Clear Vision released a two-disc DVD set titled The Fantastic Four: The Complete Series on March 1st.

Perhaps the oddest use of The New Fantastic Four came in July 2012, when scenes from the series were re-edited and re-dubbed to be comedic shorts for segments of Disney XD’s comedic Marvel Mash-Up series for their programming block titled “Marvel Universe on Disney XD.”

As anticipation builds for the new Fantastic Four film, it is likely that fans will see some kind of new animated show on their TV screens, and that Disney and Warner will work out an ownership plan for the older material. After all, with a pedigree of talent like these shows have, it would be great to bring the quantum quartet back to those days of yesteryear, when a scientist could take his girlfriend, her kid brother, and a test pilot into space… and return to find adventures beyond merely grand. Those adventures were…

Fantastic!

We’ll see you in the next issue of RetroFan as we take a marvelous look at the animated adventures of Plastic Man! Unless otherwise credited, artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. Some text and interviews are used from an earlier article by Mangels that ran in Wild Cartoon Kingdom magazine #3 in early 1994.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 30 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, released by Abdo Books, , as well as Bookazine projects (available at any grocery store checkout) on Ant-Man, Iron Man, and The Little Mermaid. He is currently working on a series of graphic novels for the online game Planet Xolo, Kickstarter graphic novels for The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Born With the Devil In Me: The Life and Deaths of H.H. Holmes, and a book about the stage productions of Stephen King. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. Follow him on multiple sites at https:// linktr.ee/andymangels RETROFAN

June 2024

45

TwoMorrows Books Now Shipping!

IT ROSE FROM THE TOMB

WORKING WITH DITKO

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS

CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the superhero serials (1941-1952) of Superman, Captain America, Spy Smasher, Captain Marvel, and others, and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life!

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

CLIFFHANGER!

An all-new examination of the 20th Century’s best horror comics, from the 1940s to the ’70s, by PETER NORMANTON!

JACK C. HARRIS recalls collaborating with STEVE DITKO on The Creeper, Shade, Demon, Wonder Woman, The Fly, & more, plus Ditko’s unused Batman design!

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence: Two unused 1970s DC DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE & SOUL LOVE mags!

Collects JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY’s 1954-56 series BULLSEYE (the complete run), plus all the Kirby FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE stories, fully restored!

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $31.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-123-3

(128-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-122-6

(176-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

(262-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

TEAM-UP COMPANION

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID

AMERICAN TV COMICS

Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB (the UK’s preeminent horror comics history magazine), with early RICHARD CORBEN art, HP LOVECRAFT, and more!

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

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $10.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7

REED CRANDALL

Illustrator of the Comics

HERO-A-GO-GO!

Presents JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s own words to examine the complicated relationship of the creators of the Marvel Universe!

(176-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6

JOHN SEVERIN

TWO-FISTED COMIC ARTIST

(1940s-1980s)

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

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

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

(192-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 HC: $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS

Master of the Comics

MAC RABOY

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

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

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

Compiles the sold-out DITKO, KIRBY, and LEE issues, plus new material on each!

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

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-102-8

(272-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $36.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES

FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SERIES

documents each decade of comics history!

8 Volumes covering the 1940s-1990s

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

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

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

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Too Many Westerns

BY WILL MURRAY

For the first 25 years of television broadcasting, one genre stood strong. The Western. After a slow start, Horse operas took over. Yet by the Eighties, they were all but extinct.

The pioneer TV Westerns were kiddie shows. The Lone Ranger drifted over from radio in 1949. The Cisco Kid and Hopalong Cassidy were among the first TV hits. Hopalong Cassidy started as recycled William Boyd movies cut into half-hour segments, then new episodes were shot. Gene Autry and Roy Rogers likewise transitioned from the silver to the small screen in 1951. [Editor’s note: Roy’s wife and screen partner, Dale Evans, was the subject of an article in RetroFan #29—still available at twomorrows.com.]

For years, television aimed its Westerns at small-fry Baby Boomers. Annie Oakley and Kit Carson were torn from history. Sky King was about a modern-day rancher who piloted his personal plane, the Songbird. All were syndicated. During TV’s formative Golden Age, networks didn’t take the genre seriously.

When Walt Disney televised Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier in 1954-1955, it triggered a national merchandising craze.

That year, 20th Century Fox entered television production with My Friend Flicka, a literal horse opera which was set on a Montana ranch. It replaced another drama built around Gene Autry’s horse,

(ABOVE) Welcome to the ABC-TV Corral in this 1959 publicity photograph teaming the network’s stars from their respective Warner Bros. Westerns. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Will Hutchins (Sugarfoot Brewster, Sugarfoot), Peter Brown (Johnny McKay, Lawman), Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick, Maverick), Ty Hardin (Bronco Laine, Bronco), James Garner (Bret Maverick, Maverick), Wayde Preston (Christopher Colt, Colt .45), and John Russell (Dan Troop, Lawman). ABC promotional photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Bronco, Cheyenne, Colt .45, Lawman, Maverick, Sugarfoot © Warner Bros. Television. Bat Masterson, Bonanza, Branded, The Virginian, Wagon Train © NBCUniversal. Gunsmoke, Have Gun—Will Travel © CBS Television Distribution. The Big Valley © ABC Television. Daniel Boone © 20th Century Productions. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp © Wyatt Earp Enterprises. Cowboy in Africa © Ivan Tors Productions.

The Adventures of Champion. My Friend Flicka, however, couldn’t compete against ABC’s The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, a Western about a dog. Although based on a 1940 film, My Friend Flicka debuted four months after the similar Fury, which outlasted it by three years. All were aimed at moppets.

The sole exception was Death Valley Days, an anthology series hosted by “The Old Ranger.” After 15 years on radio, it switched to video in 1952 and ran 18 more.

Early on, the film industry looked down at television—until audiences switched to watching their home sets. Hollywood Westerns started maturing. Broken Arrow. High Noon. Shane. Television executives noticed.

WARNERS GOES WEST

ABC lit the fuse on the prime-time Western craze in 1955 when the network hired Warner Bros. to produce an hour-long “wheel” series called Warner Brothers Presents. It was an anthology show consisting of three rotating features based on previous Warner Bros. films.

Only one broke out into its own series: Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker. Walker had been a Las Vegas deputy sheriff until actor Van Johnson discovered him.

Cheyenne was TV’s first hour-long Western. Cheyenne Bodie was a giant of a man raised by the Cheyenne tribe after a different tribe murdered his parents. Warner Bros. wanted part-Cherokee James Garner in the role, but the actor could not be located in time.

Garner’s time would soon come.

In an unusual move, ABC slotted The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp starring Hugh O’Brian in the half hour after Cheyenne. Ratings jumped.

That same year, Gunsmoke, a pioneer realistic Western program on radio, migrated to TV. It would run for two decades, expanding to an hour and eventually going to color. After dismissing actor Richard Boone as “too ugly” for the part of Marshal Matt Dillon, the producers went with James Arness. Boone’s time in the saddle was also fast approaching.

RETROFAN

June 2024

47

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) Human grizzly Clint Walker—who would’ve made a meaty Man of Steel had there been a Superman TV series in the Sixties—in a 1955 Warner Bros. publicity photo promoting his cowboy series, Cheyenne. Courtesy of Heritage.

Gunsmoke tried to avoid the genre’s cliches.

“We never do action for action’s sake,” insisted producer Norman Macdonnell. “For instance, we’ve never had a chase on Gunsmoke. We made a list of things that annoyed us in the regular Westerns. For instance, the devotion of the cowboy to his horse. That’s a lot of nonsense. The two things a cowboy loves best are his saddle and his hat. And cowboy speech isn’t full of things like ‘shucks’ and ‘side-winding varmint.’ What’s more, the frontier marshals made mistakes sometimes, and they weren’t always pure. The other week’s show is a typical example. Matt Dillon kills four guys and then is ashamed of himself.”

The era of the mature TV Western had arrived.

NBC seemed reluctant to program oaters, but Tales of Wells Fargo started that year. Dale Robertson played Jim Hardie. It was a hit.

More followed.

The hammer struck the cartridge primer in 1957. NBC launched Wagon Train, The Restless Gun, and The Californians. The network remained so gun-shy about Westerns that even though The Californians was set in the 1850s, they insisted it was not a Western. It was.

Wagon Train was inspired by John Ford’s Wagon Master, which had starred Ward Bond on the title role. It was a vehicle to introduce name guest-stars and their stories every week, and it worked so well that even after Bond died in 1960, the show kept rolling along with replacement John McIntire. Through numerous cast changes, it lasted eight seasons.

CBS’s Rawhide was based on the same source as Howard Hawks’ classic film, Red River—Borden Chase’s novel, Chisholm Trail. The show tracked a cattle drive headed by trail boss Gil Favor. It ran successfully for eight years. For the final season, star Eric Fleming was let go and his sidekick, Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates, was promoted to lead.

When Warner Bros. executive producer William T. Orr asked Roy Huggins to come up with a fresh Western series for ABC, the writer spent several days watching TV Westerns. He came away thinking that the only way he could do it was to produce a “good-natured assault on the whole Western formula.”

The hero Huggins envisioned was, “a lace-shirted overly cautious poker player dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, and the exploitation of the other guy’s ignorance of the laws of probability.”

TV’S FIRST MAJOR TREND

In 1956, ABC added Broken Arrow, based on the 1950 movie, as well as The Adventures of Jim Bowie. CBS introduced an anthology which would air backdoor pilots for potential Western programs, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre.

Hitch a ride on the Wagon Train! (LEFT) Director John Ford’s 1950 theatrical oater Wagon Master was an inspiration for (INSET) TV’s Wagon Train, whose opening title art is shown. (RIGHT) Star Ward Bond, who played Major Seth Adams, on the Wagon Train set with visiting Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan and actor Mickey Rooney in a publicity photo, circa 1959. All, courtesy of Heritage.

48

RETROFAN

June 2024

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Warner Bros. gambled on popular star James Garner to anchor its 1957-1962 Western, Maverick. Also featured in protagonists’ roles throughout the series’ run were Jack Kelly as Bret Maverick, Roger Moore as Beau Maverick, and Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick. Courtesy of Heritage.

Bret Maverick was a professional gambler who wore a black hat, and once remarked that “Work is a shaky way to make a living.” He was a different kind of Western hero. An anti-hero cowboy. His exploits often spoofed rival shoot-’em-ups.

Maverick started a half hour before two competing hour variety shows, which were considered invincible. That clever 30-minute jumpstart was enough to win the time slot.

“This proved a big point,” claimed William T. Orr. “It proved the vast slice of the viewing audience was ready and eager to accept a full hour of pure dramatic entertainment. The fact that it was a Western drama made it even better, for never in history has the Western field enjoyed such peak popularity.”

That autumn, TV Western Roundup reported, “This year there’ll be the adult Western, the dude Western, the eastern Western, the northern Western, the southern Western, the flying Western, the girlie Western, the Indian Western, the animal Western, the old film Western, the rootin’-tootin’ Western…”

This was the first major trend in television’s initial decade.

“Trend?” scoffed one network programming executive. “It’s an avalanche.”

Soon, an outcry arose: “There’s too many Westerns on TV!” “Westerns?” sniffed actor/producer Dick Powell. “We’re just making what the public wants.”

“Westerns on television are definitely here to stay,” insisted The Cisco Kid’s Duncan Renaldo. “They’ve been the favorite stories of kids for the last 40 years.”

NOT SO WILD ABOUT THE WEST

Not everyone looked at these resurrected heroes of history with unalloyed admiration. “The Wyatt Earps and the Bat Mastersons of television are nothing but exploded myths!” snorted 78-year-old

novelist Harry Sinclair Drago. “I think it is a crying shame that kids have to watch this stuff.”

“These men were really ‘townies’—gamblers or town marshals who knew how to use a gun and hung around saloons and houses of prostitution,” explained novelist Gordon D. Shirreffs. “Some called them fighting pimps.”

Wyatt Earp producer Robert Sisk admitted: “We’ve got to slice the truth pretty close to make it last, but we stick closely to the biographical details.”

TV viewers didn’t care about actual history. They wanted gunslinging.

The 1958 broadcast season was gutted by the wholesale cancellation of quiz programs due to a major cheating scandal. Western producers rushed in to fill the vacuum. Enter Bat Masterson, Lawman, and many others. For the first time in television history, the top four TV series were all Westerns: Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel, Wagon Train, and The Rifleman. All became TV classics. Milton Berle cracked that NBC stood for “Nothing But Cowboys.”

But even the top-hand cowboy actors were worried.

“The Western appeal is elemental,” explained Gunsmoke’s James Arness. “Escapist stuff, all of us wishing our own lives were as simple. But there are too many Westerns on the air now. The Western seems indestructible, but I can’t decide whether we will hold up. The next year or two could destroy us all. Nothing has ever been exposed to such a barrage in the entertainment business.”

Confident that his Wyatt Earp would endure for a decade, Hugh O’Brian agreed that the TV landscape was overrun by cowboys, but predicted that “…the junk will begin to disappear during the 1959-60 season and the good ones will continue to be around.” He was half-correct.

RETROFAN

June 2024

49

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Western shows proliferated in 1959. An astonishing 32 Westerns saturated the airwaves. Of the top ten shows that year, eight were horse operas. No cowboys were axed during the previous TV season.

ABC’s Sunday night programming from 7 to 10:30 was a solid block of Westerns, beginning with Colt .45 and ending with The Alaskans. Set in the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, The Alaskans was only technically a Western. Roger Moore starred in the Warner Bros. production. In later years, he complained that many scripts were recycled Warners Western stories.

“Quite often I realized we were filming Maverick scripts, with the names changed,” Moore quipped.

The Western TV scene in that era was a relentless merry-goround in which the horses were alive and kicking. When The Restless Gun was over with after two seasons, producer David Dortort decided to move away from the traditional format of lead chuckers in dusty trail towns, and created a series set on a sprawling Nevada ranch. Bonanza would be a family show about a father and his three strikingly different sons. It was the first color Western in primetime, and went on to be one of the longest-running Westerns of the Sixties—14 seasons.

It was a crazy time. Countless actors cycled through endless episodes of numerous Westerns. From playing incidental characters and Black Hats, many went on to star in their own series.

Bonanza star Lorne Greene was plucked from an episode of Wagon Train, Dan Blocker from Cimarron City. James Drury once played the brother of Marshal Dan Troop in Lawman before becoming the lead in The Virginian. Future Batman Adam West guest starred as Doc Holliday in three different Warner Bros. Westerns in 1959. A Doc Holliday pilot with West was shot, but failed to sell. Western stars whose shows were dry-gulched and whose careers were falling off simply went back to being character actors on rival programs.

To be a working Hollywood actor in those dusty days, you had to know how to ride a horse. A rented horse cost 100 bucks a day.

An extra about $22. No one who could stick in a moving saddle ever lacked for work. A bucking horse once broke Ward Bond’s hip. He was back on the set of Wagon Train the next day.

Low-budget TV Westerns were derided as “four-wall Westerns—as big as all indoors.”

Warner Bros. became a factory for television programs. After one season, Cheyenne’s Clint Walker walked away in a salary dispute. The company created a replacement series, Sugarfoot, starring tenderfoot Will Hutchins. The show continued as The Cheyenne Show—without Cheyenne.

Sugarfoot became a hit. As did another replacement, Ty Hardin’s Bronco Layne.

Walker returned and Cheyenne kept rolling along as a “wheel” program with three cowpokes in weekly rotation. But the original star was seeing the writing on the saloon wall.

“TV Westerns aren’t gonna last,” predicted Walker, “and the time to get out for me is now, while I’m still pretty hot, not three years from now, when they can’t stand lookin’ at me. But this TV Western thing, there’s too many of us. You wanna know how I feel about 50

RETROFAN

June 2024

(TOP) Gene Barry as the gentleman of the Old West, Bat Masterson, on the cover of Dell Comics’ Four Color #1013 (1959). (BOTTOM) Bat Masterson’s signature jacket and vest costume worn by Barry on the series. Courtesy of Heritage. havin’ so much competition? That’s how I feel exactly; there’s so much competition.”

A similar dispute erupted with Maverick, with James Garner storming off, leaving Jack Kelly as brother Bart Maverick to carry on alone. In came a third Maverick, Roger Moore, who was dragooned into being Bret’s replacement, Beau Maverick. Moore was soon replaced by Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick.

The same ruckus troubled another Warner Bros. show, Colt .45. After star Wayde Preston quit, he was replaced by Donald May, playing his character’s cousin. Eventually, Preston returned—demoted to co-star of his own show.

THIS TOWN IS BIG ENOUGH FER TH’ BOTH’A US

Since all Warner Bros.’ programs were produced on the same lot, their cast of cowboys frequently crossed over into other series. Christopher Colt of Colt .45 popped up in episodes of Sugarfoot.

Will Hutchins guested in Cheyenne, Maverick, and Bronco. Bronco Layne and Bret and Bart Maverick

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

That’s a whole lotta gun-slingin’ goin’ on! A selection of 1958 trading cards spotlighting some of the boob tube’s range riders. Courtesy of Heritage. also rode through other shows. This made it seem as if they were all inhabiting the same wild Western reality.

Audiences loved these programs. Actors, not so much. “We were called ‘the cattle,’” recalled actress Connie Stevens, “because they herded us from one set to another and because, except for the brands on our hides, they couldn’t tell the names of any of us.”

The definition of a TV Western was so elastic that it ranged from The Alaskans to Zorro. Even Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, which was set in New York’s Hudson Valley in the 1750s, and Swamp Fox, set in Revolutionary times, were lumped in with the genre.

Western TV heroes tended to adopt a type of uniform, which they wore from episode to episode. This kind of branding was carried over from Hollywood “B” Westerns, which TV oaters put out of business. It was handy for audience identification and reusing stock footage.

Viewers didn’t seem to mind that Paladin always wore a black outfit when on the trail. It seemed to fit him. Wyatt Earp always sported his gold vest and string tie. Lucas McCain wore the same buckskin rig in the first season, and then changed clothes every other season. No one seemed perturbed by the fact that their RETROFAN

June 2024

51

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain in an autographed ABC-TV publicity photo promoting The Rifleman. (If only the horse had also signed this…) (RIGHT) Connors’ custommade corduroy tunic, his primary Rifleman costume. Both, courtesy of Heritage. favorite TV horseman only owned one suit of clothes. It was just accepted.

Another one-suit hero was Daniel Boone, who wore buckskins and a coonskin cap. His series came into being when a TV producer wanted Fess Parker to revive his Davy Crockett portrayal for a weekly series. Walt Disney refused to release the rights, so Parker once again donned his familiar regalia—but as Daniel Boone, for six successful seasons.

The demand for new Wild West heroes meant shooting expensive pilots which might not ever air. A shortcut was discovered: Introduce a new character in an existing series as a way of testing his audience appeal.

Writer/director Sam Peckinpah recounted, “I did this one script for Gunsmoke that Charles Marquis Warren turned down— said it was a piece of crap! I knew it was one of the best things I’d written, so I took it back, and reworked it, and Dick Powell at Four Star bought it as the pilot for The Rifleman. I went along with the property as part of the bargain.”

Johnny Ringo, The Westerner, Black Saddle, and Trackdown also debuted on Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre. Wanted: Dead or Alive, starring Steve McQueen, got its start on an episode of Robert Culp’s Trackdown. Laredo spun off from The Virginian. And the short-lived Dakotas began as a episode of Cheyenne.

Michael Ansara, who previously starred as Cochise on Broken Arrow, played a different Apache in two episodes of The Rifleman, Marshal Sam Buckhart, the hero of Law of the Plainsman.

52

RETROFAN

June 2024

Western programs so dominated the airwaves it was tough to sell anything else. Writers Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadows concocted a modern adventure series about a soldier of fortune who would fly to any trouble spot on earth for a price. They pitched the idea to CBS’s Hunt Stromberg.

Recalled Rolfe, “So, Hunt immediately said, ‘Make this a Western and you’ve got a deal.’ We, of course, said, ‘Sure.’ Then, we walked out in the corridor, looked at each other and said, ‘How the hell do we turn this into a Western?’”

The result was Have Gun – Will Travel, starring Richard Boone as the sophisticated gunman-for-hire, Paladin.

Actor Nick Adams asked Andrew J. Fenady to create a TV show for him. “We didn’t want a Western,” remembered Adams, “but sponsors won’t buy anything good until you put a horse on it.”

He found himself astride one as an ex-Confederate soldier in The Rebel.

Every type and time period of the Old West was represented on TV, from Riverboat—a “Midwestern”—to Hotel De Paree, whose gun-hero wore a gimmick hat that blinded opponents.

TOO MANY WESTERNS?

In 1959, audiences rebelled. This was the turning point. Variety reported: “The Western fever has subsided. For the first time since 1956, the new entries failed to take off like a house on fire.”

Only one new Western was renewed: NBC’s Laramie, which ran to 1963, the year Cheyenne was unhorsed.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Lawman’s John Russell defended the genre.

“At one time there may have been too many Westerns on the air, but that does not mean that all of them will go. Millions of Americans find this the most satisfactory kind of story and drama, so there will always be Westerns on the air to fill this insatiable demand.”

Famous last words…

By 1964, the TV Western was thought to be dying. Yet in the Fall of 1965, seven new saddle-soap operas debuted, for a total of 11 video oaters.

One, Bonanza, spawned a fresh trend in Westerns—family dramas set on scenic ranches in Western states. The Big Valley substituted the Nevada patriarch for a California matriarch in the person of Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley. Two years later, producer David Dortort left Bonanza to launch The High Chaparral, set in Arizona. Lancer was yet another attempt to cash in on the Cartwright family’s appeal.

After Pernell Roberts quit the show, Bonanza kept on rolling along. The death of Dan Blocker finally killed the program in 1973.

One of the most astounding developments of the Western boom of the early Sixties was The Virginian. While other Westerns were a mix of half-hour and hour shows, The Virginian was shot in Technicolor as a 90-minute TV movie every week. This was NBC’s response to losing Wagon Train to ABC. James Drury’s character was never explicitly given a name.

This was in keeping with the source material, Owen Wister’s seminal 1902 novel, The Virginian.

Not to be outdone, Wagon Train also went to 90 minutes. Cimarron Strip debuted at 90.

Horses and actors soon wore out.

During this frenetic time, the industry needed script writers who knew the Old West.

Many were recruited from the dying pulp magazine industry. One was Frank Gruber,

Dell Comics’ long-running anthology series Four Color featured comic book adventures of many of the TV Westerns in our RetroFan rodeo, including: (TOP) Hugh O’Brian in Wyatt Earp (Four Color #890, 1958) and Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford in The Rifleman (#1009, 1958); (CENTER) Robert Horton and Ward Bond in Wagon Train (#1019, 1959) and Wayde Preston in Colt .45 (#1058, 1959); and (BOTTOM) Will Hutchins in Sugarfoot (#1098, 1960) and Clint Eastwood and Eric Fleming in Rawhide.

A sharp-shootin’ sextet of photo covers!

RETROFAN

June 2024

53

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

who created Tales of Wells Fargo, Shotgun Slade, and The Texan. He had sold his book Peace Marshal to Hollywood in 1942 and stayed. The TV Western craze absolutely baffled him.

“I don’t get it,” wondered Gruber. “Why do people want to spend so much time staring at the wrong end of a horse?”

While working on Tales of Wells Fargo, he told TV Guide, “When I first began writing Westerns in 1934, I learned a discouraging fact.

There were only seven basic Western plots. I tried for months to invent an eighth and met with failure. Now, 24 years later, I am still writing those seven basic Western plots.”

This trenchant observation would ultimately lead to the TV Western’s eventual downfall.

When producer Jules Schermer sat down with his stars at the beginning of Warner Bros.’ Lawman, he insisted they focus on quality to avoid the new show from becoming “just another Western.” Out of that determination emerged one of the best Westerns of the black-and-white era. Schermer may have thought he coined the expression, but it was more than 25 years old. Frank Gruber knew it well. His Western magazine editors would include that exact phrase in their rejection letters.

Another fugitive from the Western pulps was Dwight B. Newton. His 1940 thesis at the University of Kansas, where he majored in Western history, was called “Techniques of Overland Trading in the Trans-Mississippi.” After Frank Gruber brought him to Hollywood for the Wells Fargo series, this became the bible for the long-running Wagon Train.

Shortly after Newton started on Wells Fargo, NBC president Robert Kintner had an idea: “Bobby Sarnoff and I wanted an adult Western with stars in it. One Saturday morning at 10 a.m. we went to MCA at Republic and said we wanted a guest-star every week, two continuing stars, and a story that would move from place to place. We had the deal settled by noon.”

Newton was yanked off Wells Fargo duty with nothing to work with except his old thesis and one cast member: Ward Bond.

When Westerns rode high in the Nielsen’s, merchandising followed, including a range of figurines from Hartland and numerous children’s and young adult books. All, courtesy of Heritage.

54

RETROFAN

June 2024

“Ward was our rock to build on,” Newton remembered. “From his character, everything else developed. With Robert Horton we created a young fellow made out of whole buckskin cloth.”

PSYCHOLOGICAL WESTERNS

Attempts to tell mature stories set in the Golden West of legend rubbed seasoned Western scripters the wrong way.

“But one thing puzzles me,” grumbled Frank Gruber. “The psychological Westerns. I think they’re nuts. The other day they had one on television with a schizophrenic Indian. Ridiculous. I’m against mixing Westerns and psychoanalysis.”

Hugh O’Brian agreed. “The trouble is that today too many characters have odd complexes,” he stated. “These modern psychiatric touches can go too far.”

But TV audiences wanted maturity. Look magazine observed: “Each week, indecisive heroes and troubled villains work out tales laden with enough psychological conflict to last Tennessee Williams a lifetime. In addition to rape, miscegenation, and a variety of subjects generally eschewed on TV now turn up. Troubling doubts arise everywhere.”

Dale Robertson sniffed, “The adult Westerns are dishonest. All that conversation is just a cheap, underhanded way of makin’ up fer the lack of a good story.”

Then there was the realism factor. In the Old West, gunfights were not all that common. Referencing Sheriff of Cochise in 1958, ex-sheriff of Cochise County. I. V. Pruitt said flatly, “If our sheriffs had killed as many men as the TV show does, there’d have been nobody left in Cochise County.”

One species of Western show revolved around a unique gun. The first was Wyatt Earp’s long-barreled Buntline Special, a semi-mythical weapon based on the Colt Single Action Army revolver which was put into production because of the show.

“TV has given the weapon business the biggest bang binge in history,” claimed a spokesman for a gun manufacturer. “Each new Western hero must come up with a new weapon. Look at Chuck Connors as the Rifleman, plus the traveling guns, the restless guns, sawed-off guns—and this dude who pops people on the head with a cane.” He was referring to Gene Barry’s Bat Masterson.

The Rifleman’s Winchester was fitted with an adjustable screw so the repeating rifle could be fired like a machine gun.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

On Wanted: Dead or Alive, Josh Randall wore his sawed-off shotgun in a pistol holster. Shotgun Slade’s toted a combined shotgun-rifle. Johnny Ringo’s revolver had an auxiliary shotgun barrel. When his six-shooter ran empty, he unloaded a buckshot surprise.

RIDING OFF INTO THE SUNSET

Back in 1960, novelist Luke Short partnered with producer Charles Wallace to launch a new TV series titled Hardcase, a spin-off from his Zane Grey Theatre episode, “The Sunday Man.” Short complained that oater, A Man Called Shenandoah. Laramie’s (LEFT) The original cast of too many TV Westerns were driven by Robert Fuller replaced lookalike Horton on Bonanza, the long-running gold gimmicks. He was determined to take Wagon Train. standard of television Westerns, as a different trail. “Honesty without a Attempts to create innovative Western immortalized on the photo cover for gimmick,” was his motto. programs sometimes resulted in quirky Gold Key Comics’ Bonanza #1 (1962).

Asked if he believed the cycle of confections like Cowboy G-Men, Frontier (RIGHT) Pernell Roberts, who played Westerns was nearing its end, he replied, Circus, Cowboy in Africa, and Whiplash—set Adam, the eldest Cartwright son, “It will never end, as long as some of them in Australia. had left the series by the time this are good.”

Probably the most extreme Western of extraordinary Bonanza promotional Short was wrong. Hardcase never went that era was The Wild, Wild West, which was poster was created in 1966. Its to series, either. Viewers couldn’t give a fig conceived as “James Bond on horseback.” It illustrator, acclaimed Doc Savage about honesty. was over-the-top.

Thanks to Robert Conrad paperback cover artist James Bama, After five successful seasons as The and Ross Martin in the lead roles, it worked was spotlighted in an exclusive Rifleman, Chuck Connors traded his for four seasons. interview in our pages back in Winchester for a coat and tie on Arrest Impending genre exhaustion prompted RetroFan #17. Courtesy of Heritage. and Trial. Viewers switched channels. So the networks to resort to comedy Westerns Connors returned to the genre in Branded. like Tim Conway’s Rango, Bob Denver’s “In a good Western,” he observed, “you’ll find the last vestige of Dusty’s Trail, and F Troop. None flourished. the symbol of male virility. It’s the lone man overcoming obstacles They said it couldn’t last. And it didn’t. Cowboy fever started and it’s always got a lot of people identifying with the hero. That’s breaking on every network. what makes the half-hour Western a good thing—the audience In 1967, CBS killed off Gunsmoke. When network President follows the hero and can identify with him because he is the one William Paley returned from vacation, he exploded. It was who is having the adventures.” his favorite show. Paley ordered the decision reversed. CBS Similarly tired of sagebrush, Robert Horton left Wagon Train executives moved the show to Monday nights, further wounding its ratings. after five seasons, only to limp back to play the lead in another RETROFAN

June 2024

55

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) You’d better hope that Paladin ain’t on your tail… Signed publicity photo of Have Gun - Will Travel star Richard Boone. (RIGHT) Towering Fess Parker—who’d previously plodded through the wilderness in a coonskin cap in Disney’s Davy Crockett series—returned to episodic TV as the “King of the Wild Frontier” in Daniel Boone. The theme song proclaimed that “Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man. (INSET) Multiple Toymakers’ 1964 Daniel Boone Indian War Canoe set was one of several items merchandised from the Boone series. All, courtesy of Heritage.

Producer John Mantley took over Gunsmoke, which was finally switching to color. He recalled, “I think the reason was that Norman Macdonnell—who had produced the show for ten years—got into the same kind of problem that all producers do with this kind of show. Gunsmoke in the early days was almost a no-drama show.”

No-drama, explained Mantley, meant the emphasis was on violent action, not gripping human drama. “There was a short-hand: ‘I’m going to kill you, because you killed my brother’; ‘We’ve got to cut them off at the pass’; and there was a necessary shoot-out at the end of each show. To the end of Norman’s reign, he became so frustrated with this sort of format, they began experimenting with somewhat unusual forms of the show.”

Even after a decade of main street showdowns, Gunsmoke viewers didn’t want the cliche-ridden formula to change.

The inevitable cowboy massacre commenced in 1969. For the first time since 1955, no network offered a Western for the Fall season. Cancelled were The Big Valley, The Wild, Wild West, The Outcasts, and The Guns of Will Sonnett. Five survived: Gunsmoke, Lancer, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, and The Virginian.

Before long, only one survivor stood tall in the saddle: Gunsmoke.

Ultimately, Gunsmoke was retired in 1975, after 20 years—at that time a television record. CBS considered the audience too old and too “rural.” Within days of the cancellation, James Arness was recruited by MGM to star in a television miniseries, The 56

RETROFAN

June 2024

Macahans. It was so successful, it became a weekly series, How the West Was Won—the only successful TV Western of that decade. But it was the sole exception.

What killed the video cowboy? Changing times and demographics. Pressure to reduce violence on television also played a strong role.

Don Balluck, whose atypical Western series, Little House on the Prairie—starring Bonanza’s Michael Landon—bucked the Seventies trend reversal for nine seasons, offered an explanation completely at odds with the no-drama view of Gunsmoke’s John Mantley.

“Though the history of the Western has a rich and abundant variety of stories to tell,” Balluck observed, “television Westerns, particularly series television Westerns, have generally concerned themselves with the law-and-order genre where the stock characters were lawmen, bounty hunters, or ranchers facing off the threats of a diversification of lawless forces in the forms of killer bandits, vengeful Indians, rustlers, or land-grabbing robber barons. They all wore six-guns and rode horseback. Each story had at least one armed confrontation (LEFT) One-time “Thing from Another World” James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon on CBS-TV’s venerable Gunsmoke. After the show was cancelled in 1975, Arness got another chance at stardom in the television drama How the West Was Won. Courtesy of Heritage.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

As the era of the television Western began its decline, out-of-the-ordinary entries reached the airwaves like this Chuck Connors– starring curiosity, Cowboy in Africa, from late 1967.

where, in the end, the good guys always won.

That was the look of the typical television Western and it seemed like there was no limit to the format’s success season after season.”

But that rigid formula ultimately proved a fatal flaw.

“The typical Western seems to have reached the saturation point where every look, every approach, every situation seems ruinously familiar, as if it’s all been reduced to a jumble of cliches through sheer numbers of variations which have crowded our television screens through the years,” continued Balluck.

“It came as some surprise, then, when the late [Sixties] and early [Seventies] suddenly saw the market for television Westerns all but disappear. Gone were such staples as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, High

Chaparral, and Big Valley. Promising hopefuls like Cimarron Strip and Dundee and the Cuhane never really got off the ground. The viewing public, according to the networks, had had it with the Western, and that was that.”

But the classic Western didn’t go completely extinct. It transformed.

“What is Star Wars?” opined Andrew J. Fenady. “It was a Western, only instead of a stagecoach and horses, you had rockets and spaceships. But the plot was the same. Two guys that were pals break up, one guy goes into danger, and the other guy says the hell with you. And just when you think one guy’s gonna get it, the other guy changes his mind and comes in and saves the other lead. Borden Chase used that in practically every story he ever did. Red River and Bend of the River and Vera Cruz.”

The TV Western never completely died off. But the sun continues to set on an American genre once considered unvanquishable.

[Editor’s note: For RetroFan’s previous coverage of TV Westerns, see issues #20 (Lone Ranger cartoons) and 22 (The Wild, Wild West; Zorro cartoons).]

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.

RETROFAN

June 2024

57

RETRO TOYS

Hot Wheels The Early Years

BY MIKE PIGOTT

The Mattel company was founded in 1945 by husband-and-wife team Elliot and Ruth Handler and their partner Harold “Matt” Matson, the brand name formed from a combination of “Matt” and part of “Elliot.” The partners originally produced wooden picture frames out of a garage in Los Angeles, but found that making doll’s house furniture from wooden offcuts was more profitable. Moving into the toy industry, Mattel had great success producing miniature musical instruments. In 1959, Ruth Handler introduced the Barbie doll [if you missed our Barbie history a few issues back in RetroFan #30, you can still order a copy at twomorrows.com!—ed.], the first teenage fashion doll, which was copied from a German “den toy” based on a popular racy comic strip.

During the Sixties, Mattel had great success with dolls, but less luck with boys’ toys. The company made a wide range of realistic toy guns, but these were becoming less popular due to concerns over violence. As toy guns used diecast components, Elliot Handler suggested that the machinery used for these could be repurposed to manufacture miniature cars. Diecast cars had become very popular in the post-war years, with the U.K. being the biggest producer. Brands such as Dinky, Corgi, and Lone Star sold well in both Europe and America, but the market leader was the Matchbox series of affordable, pocket-sized vehicles made

by Lesney of London. The Matchbox range had won the American Boys’ Toy of the Year Award twice in the Sixties, and Handler was frustrated to see his grandchildren playing

Early Hot Wheels International catalog from 1967. Hot Wheels © Mattel. Unless otherwise noted, all product images shown with this article are courtesy of Mike Pigott.

58

RETROFAN

June 2024

with these imported toys when his firm was one of the largest toy companies in the U.S.A. Colleagues at Mattel were against entering the diecast market, believing there was too much competition and that it would be too difficult to break the stranglehold Matchbox had on the market.

However, Handler believed that a new diecast line could be successful if Mattel offered something different. His team looked at all the diecast cars on the market and found three problems: most cars had thick axles and didn’t roll freely; there were few American cars produced, with many being unfamiliar foreign marques; and that few featured much in the way of play value, being more like collectibles than toys—this was certainly the case for ranges like Matchbox Models of Yesteryear and Corgi Classics, which were clearly aimed at adult collectors.

ENTER: HOT WHEELS

In 1966, Handler assembled a team to develop his model car range.

The design team tackled the problem of rolling wheels; instead of

A Hot Wheels catalog page reveals all of the new toys’ features.

The series was given a name: Hot Wheels, because they were HOT cars with fast WHEELS. They were packaged on die-cut blister cards and included a collector button.

TRACKS

using metal rods for axles, fine wire intended for toy guitar strings was used. The thick, two-piece wheels were made from a lowfriction polymer plastic that allowed them to roll very fast. Initially the axles were U-shaped to provide torsion-bar suspension, but when these proved unreliable, straight axles were used, with a plastic strip riveted on top. The wheels were imitation mags with chrome hubs and the fashionable red-stripe tires.

Mattel advertised for auto industry stylists to design the range of cars. Harry Bradley, who had worked for General Motors and Chrysler, became the first Hot Wheels designer. Accustomed to developing real cars, he struggled to design toys until Handler suggested that Bradley’s own car was what he was looking for. This vehicle—a souped-up Chevy El Camino with an exposed engine, side exhausts, and mag wheels—became the basis for Custom Fleetside. Bradley then designed most of the other early Hot Wheels cars, which were “California styled,” mildly customized American sports cars, plus some custom-built show cars. To give extra play value, several had opening hoods or other working parts.

In contrast with the model cars produced by other companies, which were often in dull, unimaginative colors, Mattel chose to give its cars a shiny, eye-catching finish like the candy colors used on custom cars. Called “Spectraflame,” it wasn’t actually metallic paint; instead the car bodies were given a shiny zinc plating, which was then sprayed with a tinted clear lacquer, giving a metallic look.

After the cars, the most important element was the track system and accessories.

Initially one of the design team bought some extruded plastic strips intended for building insulation, and used this to test how far the cars could run.

The others thought this was a great idea, and began developing the Hot Wheels track. Inspired by daredevil stunt-driving shows, features like loops and jump-ramps were designed, with manual and battery-powered boosters added later.

THE MODELS

Sixteen models were released in 1968. Nine of these were based on customstyle American muscle cars: Custom Mustang, Custom Corvette, Custom Barracuda, Custom Cougar, Custom Firebird, Custom Fleetside, Custom Eldorado, Custom Camaro, and Custom T-Bird. In addition there was one European car, Custom Volkswagen; plus Hot Heap, a Model T–based hot rod, and Ford J-Car, a GT racing car. The other four items were custom show rods, including the bubble-topped Beatnik Bandit, based on a car designed by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth [see RetroFan #10 for Big Daddy’s story, you dig?—ed.]. Python and Silhouette were show cars created by Bill Cushenberry, and Deora was a heavily customized Dodge pick-up built by the Alexander Brothers—the Hot Wheels model had a pair of surfboards clipped on the back.

(ABOVE) The Beatnik Bandit, an iconic Hot Wheels from the original 16 models. (RIGHT) Tracks set Hot Wheels apart from other metal cars, as seen in this 1968 promotional material.

RETROFAN

June 2024

59

retro toys

one of the rarest and most sought-after Hot Wheels models. The first version was a standard VW Kombi with a pair of surfboards sticking out the back. However, it was discovered that the model was too narrow for the track set boosters, and the model was redesigned with wide panniers on each side to hold the boards.

Even more new items were released in 1970, with 33 new castings. The main range consisted of several more original in-house designs, plus concept cars, show rods, and American

Initially it was (ABOVE) More announced that each speed! Hot vehicle would be Wheels Rod available in a choice Runner set of two Spectraflame from a 1970 colors, although this Italian catalog. plan seems to have (INSET) Custom fallen by the wayside, Eldorado. with all models (RIGHT) Catalog produced in multiple illustration of shades—some as the Red Baron, many as 18 different designed by finishes. Some models Tom Daniel. were also painted in enamel colors such as white, to match the color of the real vehicles.

Hot Wheels cars and sets were advertised heavily on TV and in comic books.

There was even an animated TV show based on the franchise, which spawned a six-issue comic book spin-off from DC Comics.

Following on from the success of the first models, 24 new items were (ABOVE) The Custom Beetle, introduced for 1969. the first Hot Wheels based on a This included four hot European car. (RIGHT) In 1970, rod Fords, three more DC Comics published six issues of American Customs, a licensed Hot Wheels title based and the first service upon the Saturday morning vehicle, a police cruiser. animated series of the same In addition, there were name. Hot Wheels #1 (Mar.-Apr. four original designs, 1970) cover art by Alex Toth and including the popular Dick Giordano. Courtesy of Heritage.

Twin Mill, a wild custom car with twin engines and a set-back cockpit. There were even two subsets: the Grand Prix Series, with eight different racing cars, and the European Series, consisting of a Maserati, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen minibus. Called Volkswagen Beach Bomb, this is 60

RETROFAN

June 2024

customs. Around this time Mattel acquired the Monogram company, and five popular construction kits designed by Tom Daniel were recreated as diecast miniatures. These included Red Baron, complete with German helmet canopy; Paddy Wagon, the hot rod Model T Ford police van; S’cool bus, the funny-car dragster with the school bus body; Ice-T, a custom ice delivery van; and Sand Crab, the groovy beach buggy. In addition there were two new sub-sets: the Spoilers, which consisted of older castings with exposed engines and racing decals; and the Heavyweights, a line of futuristic trucks.

There were three types of truck—short wheelbase, long wheelbase, and articulated— and each had different rear bodywork, such as a cement mixer, tanker, furniture van, or ambulance.

As it turned out, 1971 would be the last big year for Hot Wheels for some time. There were 35 new items, including seven Heavyweights and two Spoilers.

The main range were mostly fictitious vehicles and bizarre customs. Some of the more interesting items were Classic

retro toys

THE RIVALS OF HOT WHEELS The major competitor for Hot Wheels was, of course, the lead- at first, particularly in the U.S.A., but were not able to sustain ing manufacturer of diecast models—Lesney Toys of London, the initial lead when Matchbox developed the lower-priced Superfast range. which produced the Matchbox series. Hot Wheels took a big Corgi toys, based in Wales, produced its own line of miniabite out of Lesney’s profit margins, with sales dropping by ture vehicles called Husky Models, which were sold exclusively 60% in the U.S.A., the largest export market for Matchbox at Woolworth stores. However, to take on Hot Wheels, Corgi toys. It could have been even more severe had Mattel been introduced an all-new range called Corgi Rockets. Rockets able to keep up with demand, as it was not able to produce were fitted with a metal base which had a removable nylon Hot Wheels cars fast enough to satisfy export demands. As chassis that could be detached using a golden key. With this Matchbox cars had thick axles and grooved tires, they were “tune up” feature, Rockets outperformed Hot Wheels cars, unable to run on Hot Wheels track, causing a huge drop in and Corgi had an incredible demand from kids who owned range of track sets that were track sets. Lesney was unsure actually better than Mattel’s. whether Hot Wheels was a Unfortunately, unauthorized passing fad, and was slow to copying of some of Mattel’s develop its own low-friction patents in the track system “Superfast” range. Initially only led Mattel to take legal action three cars from the 1-75 Series against Corgi, and the track were fitted with Superfast products had to be discontinwheels, although by 1970 more ued. Without tracks to run new models based on racing on, Rockets didn’t sell; the cars and concept vehicles were Husky and Rockets ranges introduced. Only the sporty were later merged to form the cars in the range were intended basis of the rather less-excitto be fitted with mag wheels, ing Corgi Juniors, fitted with but after Hot Wheels released “Whizzwheels.” the Heavyweights range of In the U.S.A., long-estabtrucks, almost all Matchbox The 1968 Matchbook catalog. Courtesy of Internet lished company Topper Toys models were modified, with Archive. entered the diecast market in the company going to great 1969 with its range of Johnny expense retooling many older Lightning cars. Early Johnny Lightning models were clearly models to accept Superfast Wheels. Lesney also developed its own range of tracks and sets. In addition, the larger King Size inspired by Hot Wheels, with many cars being American muscle cars, and several had the word “Custom” in the title. truck range was converted to Superfast wheels and renamed Topper also produced track sets, and produced several modSuper Kings, while a new line of large-scale cars called Speed Kings was developed; these ran on low-friction wheels despite els based on Indy 500 racing cars, which the company also sponsored. For 1971, a sub-series called “Custom Cars” was not having a compatible track system. After these initial problems, Matchbox bounced back and became market leader introduced, which had plastic parts that could be attached to again, as the models were generally of better quality than Hot customize the models. The Johnny Lightning range was quite successful, but proved short-lived due to financial mismanWheels. agement at Topper Toys which sent the firm bankrupt. The Surprisingly, the first company to seriously challenge Hot brand was revived by a different company in the Nineties.

Wheels was the British “second division” manufacturer Lone Aurora Plastic Corporation of New York produced the Star. Despite the Texan-sounding name, Lone Star was from Cigar Box range of model cars in 1968 to compete with MatchLondon; the name came from the company’s main product box. These were actually plastic slot cars bodies fitted with range of cap guns and cowboy pistols. In 1966, Lone Star had diecast bases and free-rolling wheels. They were only prointroduced its Matchbox-sized “Impy” line of diecast vehiduced for a small time before being rebranded to Speedline, cles, which were fitted with jeweled headlights and multiple with low-friction wheels and shiny vacuum-plated bodies. opening parts. During 1969, Lone Star was able to quickly Despite some interesting models, these were not successful re-launch the Impy range as “Flyers,” with low-friction wheels and were discontinued in 1972. and a range of “Flyway” track sets. Flyers did great business Cord, a souped-up 1937 Cord; Cockney Cab, a hot rod London taxi; and Jet Threat, a jet-powered record car.

In 1972, the bottom started to fall out of the diecast market and sales of Hot Wheels cars began to slide. Possibly Mattel had been releasing too many different diecast lines and the market was becoming saturated (see sidebar). In addition, rival

companies like Matchbox were producing better models. There were only five new items this year, including the Ferrari 512S and Mercedes C-111 concept cars. The other new items were Funny Money, an armored car with a pop-up dragster body; Side Kick, an asymmetrical car with a slide-out door; and Open Fire, a six-wheeled AMC Gremlin.

RETROFAN

June 2024

61

retro toys

HOT WHEELS COMPANION LINES Hot Wheels cars proved such a hit that the designers at Mattel created similar series in the hope that these would prove equally successful. Probably the best known of these lines was Sizzlers, introduced in 1970. Sizzlers were plasticbodied Hot Wheels cars with electric motors powered by rechargeable Ni-Cad batteries. They worked well and could run at incredibly high speeds along Hot Wheels track. Sizzlers were discontinued in 1973, but were later revived in a slightly different format.

To avoid creating internal competition, many of Mattel’s other lines also ran on Hot Wheels track, meaning a child could buy products from other ranges that would be compatible with his existing track. In 1971, Mattel released RRRumblers, a range of motorcycles in 1/32 scale. Each motorbike came with a clip-on stand with low-friction wheels that allowed them to race on Hot Wheels track. Early releases were fairly realistic road and racing bikes, but by 1973 had become increasingly bizarre, with choppers shaped like skeletons, lions, and eagles!

Introduced the following year were Chopcycles, similar to RRRumblers but powered like Sizzlers. These were even more weird, but being plastic were quite fragile and are hard to find today.

Produced only in 1971, HotLine was a futuristic train set which was powered like Sizzlers and ran on Hot Wheels–compatible track. Released

around the same time was the Earthshakers range, consisting of a bulldozer with various trailers and accessories. These also used the rechargeable battery system, but geared to run at a realistic low speed. This line was mostly diecast, but did not run on track sets.

Available only in 1972 were Farbs, a set of four crazy cartoon characters fitted with wheels and engines.

HotShots were ripcord-powered dragsters that shot out a shower of sparks when activated. While neither of these ranges were marketed as Hot Wheels, both were intended for use with Hot Wheels track.

Mattel even produced a track product aimed at girls!

Small Shots were little dolls fitted with diecast roller skates which could run on standard track.

Two ranges that were related to Hot Wheels, but didn’t run on track, were Zowees and Hot Birds. Zowees were tiny little vehicles with diecast bases and plastic bodies that were shaped in myriad weird designs such as a shark, a skull, and a bed. Hot Birds were futuristic diecast aircraft finished in Spectraflame paint. They had clip-on hooks that allowed them to “fly” along a length of string.

All of these ranges were discontinued by 1973. The only new gimmick range introduced in 1973 was the rubber band-powered Revvers, which were painted in enamel colors.

Hot Birds.

Farbs.

END OF THE SPECTRAFLAME ERA

Zowees.

range. In 1974, the Hot Wheels range was relaunched as Flying Colors, and all cars were now in bright enamel colors with vivid, permanent designs printed on them. Several new models were introduced, and there was a move away from fantasy designs to more realistic items such as emergency vehicles, trucks, and even military vehicles. The red-stripe wheels were phased out in 1977.

Unfortunately, 1972 was the last year that Spectraflame paint would be used. It was an expensive process, and reports that the clear varnish may be toxic put the final nail in the coffin. The 1973 models were painted in much less appealing enamel paints. Only three new items were introduced, and the remainder of the range consisted of recolored existing castings, many having been “dumbed down” with plastic parts deleted, and opening features Paddy Wagon. sealed shut, in order to cut costs. At this time Mattel was seriously considering pulling the plug on Hot Wheels, as it had done with RRRumblers, Sizzlers, and other related lines. However, the powers-that-be at Mattel reconsidered when given a demonstration of pad-printing, which was ideal for brightening up the Hot Wheels 62

RETROFAN

June 2024

MIKE PIGOTT is an Australian writer based in London who specializes in diecast models and pop culture. His work appears in every issue of Diecast Collector Magazine, and he has also been featured in Collector’s Gazette, Diecast Model World, and Back Issue. And check out RetroFan #15 for Mike’s article about Evel Knievel Diecast Miniatures!

RETRO COMIC STRIPS

BY PETER BOSCH How to describe my infatuation with Modesty Blaise? Well, let’s start with the basics. I’m a writer and I thrill to great writing from others.

And Modesty Blaise is either the best-written comic strip you’ve never heard of or the best-written strip you know about and love. There is no in-between. Of all the comic strips that have ever been, none to me equals the sheer storytelling skill by Peter O’Donnell in Modesty Blaise. (His other fans have included Neil Gaiman, Walter Simonson, Dick Giordano, and Quentin Tarantino.) And then there are the novels! Fans of the novels are quite easy to tell. Their copies of the paperbacks are ones that any author would be proud to see…multiple creases in the spines from being read attentively, and well-worn covers from carrying the book in their pocket wherever they went.

In total, there were 95 newspaper strip adventures (over 10,000 strips), 11 novels (plus two short story collections), a separate comic-illustrated story, a screenplay, and a DC Comics graphic novel.

And every one was written by Peter O’Donnell. Modesty Blaise was his creation and he wrote every strip and book of those 38 years.

BUT WHO WAS MODESTY BLAISE?

Book reviewers called her an adventuress, the female answer to James Bond (though that is the most incorrect way to think of her, and something O’Donnell took umbrage with). Modesty Blaise was probably the most capable woman in action fiction. Cathy Gale, Emma Peel, Pussy Galore, and Honey West could come at her en masse and Modesty would put them down easily.

She started out life as a young child in a Nazi prison camp in Greece, not knowing her name or even how old she was. When the woman whose hand had held hers ceased to breathe, the child escaped and wandered alone through Turkey and Persia, begging or

(ABOVE) First Modesty Blaise novel by Peter O’Donnell, with Jim Holdaway dust jacket (Doubleday, 1965). (LEFT) The first two Modesty Blaise strips, May 13 and May 14, 1963, in the Evening Standard.

Introduction of Sir Gerald Tarrant, his assistant Jack Fraser, and the woman herself, Modesty Blaise. Art by Jim Holdaway. All images, scripts, and novel writings of Modesty Blaise and other characters from the Modesty Blaise comic strip and books are © Modesty Blaise Ltd. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of the author.

RETROFAN

June 2024

63

retro Comic strips

working or stealing in order to survive. She also grew tougher during her journeys. In a displaced persons camp, she saw an old man being robbed of his small amount of allotted food. She sent the thief running, bloodied from the girl’s vicious fighting. Though she was only about 12 years old, she took the old man,

Lob, under her protection and they travelled together across the Middle East.

He named her “Modesty” with humorous intent because of the girl’s lack of clothes and no shame at being nude in front of others. The old man had been a professor and he taught her many things, including the story of King Arthur and his knights. She gave herself the surname of “Blaise” from that of Merlin, the magician’s tutor.

When Lob passed away on their trip to Tangier, it was the first time that she recalled feeling sorrow. By this time, she was a teenage girl and she made her way to the city, where she got work in the casino of the Louche group, and then leading them after Louche was murdered by a rival gang. Over the next five years, she expanded the group into an international crime syndicate called “the Network.” Though the Network dealt in smuggling, currency and gold rackets, espionage services, as well as art and jewelry theft, she would never allow any member to deal in vice, drugs, or other human degradation. Punishment was quick and severe if they did.

WILLIE GARVIN ENTERS THE PICTURE

On a trip to Saigon, she saw Willie Garvin, a Thai-style fighter, someone filled with incredible personal rage. (He was also a master with throwing knives.)

However, she detected something in him that could be saved. When he was arrested, she paid his way out of jail and never asked for anything in return. She was a princess in his eyes—he joined her, becoming a new man and her righthand lieutenant in the Network, as well as her closest friend. Before she was in her mid-twenties, she and Willie had amassed personal fortunes and decided to retire to England after she split up the Network branches among her lieutenants.

Modesty purchased a penthouse apartment for herself and Willie bought a pub (“the Treadmill”).

However, both soon grew bored with their new tame lifestyles. And Sir Gerald Tarrant, a high-ranking official of the British Secret Service, saw the possibility that she had found—at age 26—her luxurious retirement very tedious… and she could be of help to him with smashing La Machine, an organization that hired itself out for murder. And that is where the Modesty Blaise comic strip began on May 13, 1963.

But, just to interrupt a moment, there was another Modesty Blaise, a real one…

PETER O’DONNELL

(ABOVE AND OPPOSITE PAGE) In 1966, Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway created this two-week introductory strip sequence called “In the Beginning” for newspapers adding Modesty Blaise to their comics page.

64

RETROFAN

June 2024

Peter O’Donnell was born April 11, 1920 in Lewisham, a borough of London. Writing was in the O’Donnells’ blood. His father was a crime reporter and his brother also worked on a newspaper.

Peter sold his first story, “The Lucky Break,” at age 16 to a British weekly. He left school at 17 to work for Amalgamated Press, the U.K.’s largest magazine publishing house, with approximately two dozen comic weeklies in their line, and O’Donnell wrote for most of them.

He enlisted in the Territorial Army in 1938 and served on British bases in Italy, Egypt, Cyprus, the Middle

retro Comic strips

(ABOVE) From the text accompanying this photo, “Peter O’Donnell examining a Colt .32 revolver—one of the two guns Modesty Blaise favors for business.” Photo by Fiona Adams.

East, and the western desert. One of his assignments was in northern Persia (now Iran), camped out there with fellow soldiers, watching for any advance of the German army. They saw a constant line of refugees pass by, and then one day she appeared. A little girl, no more than 12 years old, by herself, a bundle on her head that likely contained her only belongings. O’Donnell suggested offering some of their rations and tea to her.

However, when they approached her with a mess tin of food, she backed away. They moved back a comfortable distance. She ate the meal, then used sand to wash away the grease and cleaned the plate. She bowed to them in thanks. They then gave her several tins of stew, which she accepted, bowed, and went away. O’Donnell recalled she walked like a princess, without fear.

That memory stayed with Peter O’Donnell and it served as the inspiration for Modesty Blaise’s background two decades later.

Willie sums up perfectly his feelings about Modesty. Original art by Jim Holdaway, from the collection of the author.

After getting out of the Service in 1946, he went back to writing for various publications. His first writing of an actual newspaper strip was doing a fill-in on the Daily Mirror’s Belinda when the regular writer was ill. The Mirror liked his work and asked him to take over Garth, an adventure strip about a time traveler. He also created Tug Transom in 1954 for the Daily Sketch. And, in 1956, he was asked to take over the writing of Romeo Brown, a strip about a goofy private detective, when its creator received a better offer to work for a rival newspaper. Jim RETROFAN

June 2024

65

retro Comic strips

Holdaway, who would later draw Modesty Blaise, was assigned to do the art on the latter strip. In addition, in 1961, O’Donnell adapted the Ian Fleming novel Dr. No for the James Bond comic strip.

In 1962, Bill Aitken, the Daily Express’ cartoon editor, asked O’Donnell to create a new strip for the paper, and it could be whatever he wanted. It took O’Donnell several months to fully develop it, but out of this came Modesty Blaise. However, he ran into a snag when the artist Aitken wanted, Frank Hampson (of Dan Dare fame), provided sample strips

that were completely unsatisfactory Jim Holdaway at his to O’Donnell. O’Donnell had initially drawing board. asked for Jim Holdaway, and now he got him. The strip was ready to go, but then hit another problem—the publisher of the Express decided to not run it because he viewed Modesty as a fallen woman, the opposite of the image of the newspaper he wanted to project.

Aitken quickly offered the strip to the Evening Standard which, like the Express, was also part of the Beaverbrook newspaper empire, and they grabbed it.

Holdaway could indeed draw beautiful women, as shown in this Romeo Brown 1959 newspaper strip written by O’Donnell. © The respective copyright holder. for their publication Gallant Detective. He also drew for various other U.K. publications, including Mickey Mouse Weekly, in which he illustrated Davy Crockett. And then, in 1956, an offer came for the British daily newspaper strip Romeo Brown. That was the break of his career, but Holdaway almost turned it down because they wanted him to draw as many skimpily dressed females as possible.

Holdaway had deep concerns, doubting he could draw women (he had been drawing Western comics)—but it turned out he could and they were some of the sexiest to ever be seen on a newspaper daily page!

O’Donnell and Holdaway became good friends over the course of the Romeo Brown run through 1962. When O’Donnell was in the process of creating Modesty Blaise, as previously related, he asked for Holdaway and got him. Their collaboration was a very productive one. (O’Donnell dedicated the fourth novel in the Modesty Blaise series, I, Lucifer [1967], to Holdaway, and his artwork can be seen on the covers and/or in spot illustrations for four of the novels, including the last one, Cobra Trap.)

THE MOVIE

The comic strip caught on early and O’Donnell fielded offers from various production companies for a movie version. However, one cannot always foretell what a studio or a director will do to

JIM HOLDAWAY

James Holdaway was born May 28, 1927 in Barnes Common, London. He showed a talent for drawing from an early age and won a scholarship when he was 14 to the Kingston School of Art, but in 1945 he was required to join the National Service and he became part of the East Surrey Regiment.

After being discharged, he looked for freelance work as an artist, but only got a job as a rubber engraver (a person who produced dies for ads on cardboard boxes). In 1952, Scion Books hired him to draw stories 66

RETROFAN

June 2024

The first panel of strip #110 (ABOVE) was a pasteover, covering this drawing underneath. Clearly, this original version lacked the clarity and emotional feeling O’Donnell hoped for, and Holdaway redrew a much more satisfying panel. From the collection of the author.

retro Comic strips

(LEFT) 1966 movie poster for Modesty Blaise. Art by Bob Peak. (RIGHT) Miscasting all around—Dirk Bogarde as Gabriel, Monica Vitti as Modesty Blaise, and Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin. © 20th Century Productions.

a project once they have the rights. The original screenplay was written by O’Donnell but then was rewritten by five other writers.

There was only a line or two of O’Donnell’s left when it went before the cameras.

Some movie adaptations of famous fictional characters are done earnestly, trying to be faithful to the source. In the case of Modesty Blaise, however, 20th Century Fox took O’Donnell’s serious strip and turned it into a farce. They even described it in the film’s pressbook as an “‘op-pop-bop’ color production,” “comedy thriller entertainment,” “directed by one of the world’s most avant garde film makers,” “satirically caricatured arch villain Gabriel,” and “way out comedy of the absurd style.”

While I am loathe to even discuss the movie, it is so easy to spend more space than I have available here to vent on just how appalling it is. From the opening shot of Modesty (Monica Vitti) lying on a giant flat bed in her apartment in London, with a bank of computers as the only other furniture, you know the great comic strip is in trouble. Plus brunette Vitti insisting on playing Modesty for most of the film as a blonde was a crime in itself, but not the least of all the hair offenses perpetrated. Willie Garvin, a blond, was

played by Terence Stamp with the actor’s normal dark hair (however, nothing was more upsetting than Stamp’s high-pitched giggling like a ventriloquist’s dummy throughout the movie). (When originally conceiving the strip, O’Donnell saw a young, fairly unknown actor and thought he was an ideal model for Willie. And he would have been. The actor’s name was Michael Caine.) The other top star in the film was Dirk Bogarde, playing the villainous Gabriel with a silver wig—which, even more strangely, Gabriel rips off near an end scene, revealing Bogarde’s own dark hair.

One nauseating scene follows another, including a climax where she and Willie sing to each other how they should have had sex before but decide to do it now, something the comic strip Blaise and Garvin would never even think about. (Modesty and Willie’s relationship was based on friendship, willing to die for each other if need be, but never sex.)

O’Donnell said in later years that even the thought of the movie made his nose bleed.

However, there was one good thing to come out of this mess—it led to a series of Modesty Blaise novels.

THE NOVELS

Publishers wanted to have a Modesty Blaise novel adapting the film prior to its release, a common practice for many years. O’Donnell decided upon Souvenir Press, which went on to publish all the others in the series, a relationship lasting 31 years.

The novels by Peter O’Donnell were exceptional, each a very intricately plotted adventure.

Trade paperback edition, with painting incorporating Monica Vitti as Modesty (Fawcett, 1966).

RETROFAN

June 2024

67

retro Comic strips

While the comic strip tales were always superb, the novels allowed him the chance to tell his stories at length and provide more character development. The first book was easier for him to write than all that followed because he was adapting his original screenplay (before others had mutilated it beyond all recognition).

(While Souvenir Press published the books with dust jackets that were usually in line with the stories, some of the other publishers did not seem to know how to package them and resorted to cover photos of female models in black leather outfits and stilettos, with a whip usually present. Oh, dear Modesty, what happened to you?)

One only needs to look below at the special edition print by Romero to see the rich tapestry of Modesty and Willie’s friends. Most of these were met during their new adventures (post-Network), and each with their own specialness. All were cherished and esteemed by Modesty and Willie. In the strip, it is said about Modesty that “she is profoundly loyal—if she gives her friendship, it is total.”

MODESTY BLAISE VS. JAMES BOND

One of the problems with publishers’ publicity departments was their desire to have review s on the covers that were quick one-liners, which usually ended up amounting to “The female James Bond.” This was disconcerting to O’Donnell: “That’s the last thing she is. Bond is one of the great fictional characters of the 20th Century, but he only exists for the period of the mission he’s on­—he doesn’t have a home, interests, friends. Modesty Blaise has them all: she’s got three homes, she’s got a small circle of friends, she’s got interests, and she’s got a life that goes on in the background and is interspersed with, not missions, but events that she falls into for one reason or other. So it’s ridiculous to call her a female Bond.” (From an interview conducted by Nick Jones, published in Modesty Blaise: Top Traitor, Titan Books, 2004.)

Of all the criminals that Modesty Blaise loathed, those who dealt in drugs topped her list. From the story “Mister Sun,” drawing by Jim Holdaway.

As to bad guys, the stories had plenty of them. But Modesty and Willie did not go out seeking trouble. They were retired and tried to stay uninvolved. However, when the villains harmed a friend of theirs or someone innocent, Modesty and Willie responded forcefully. And never were criminals comfortable knowing Blaise and Garvin were on their trail.

Modesty and friends. Standing (LEFT TO RIGHT): Moulay, Sheik Abu-Tahir, Dr. Giles Pennyfeather, Dinah Pilgrim Collier, Professor Stephen Collier, Inspector Brook, Jack Fraser, Sir Gerald Tarrant, Maude Tiller, and Weng. On couch (LEFT TO RIGHT): Lady Janet Gillam, Willie Garvin, Modesty Blaise, and John Dall. Sitting on floor: Samantha Brown. Drawn by Enrique Romero. Courtesy of BookPalace.com.

68

RETROFAN

June 2024

retro Comic strips

A WORLDWIDE SUCCESS—BUT NOT IN AMERICA

The comic strip’s popularity grew until it was syndicated in more than 40 countries. Out of all of them, though, the United States seemed to have less continuing interest, going from 21 different newspapers at the time of the release of the 1966 movie down to just one, the Detroit Free Press. This may have happened for a number of reasons. Many dramatic American newspaper strips told their stories in about a month or two. However, O’Donnell wrote the strips the way he would a novel, sometimes taking five to six months to tell a story. Newspaper comic strip editors definitely liked shorter. Also, they were the ones complained to by some readers objecting to the strip’s occasional nudity. (One of Modesty Blaise’s weapons was “the Nailer,” in which she would strip down topless and enter a room of armed enemies, who would then be momentarily stunned, allowing her and/or Willie a few seconds to attack and defeat them.)

THE DEATH OF JIM HOLDAWAY

In 1970, Jim Holdaway was on his way to meet with O’Donnell for their weekly session of looking at the strips he drew; then they would usually drop them off at the newspaper office, followed by a lunch together. On this particular morning, while heading to see O’Donnell, the artist suddenly felt ill and tried to hail a taxi without success. He collapsed on the curb from a heart attack. He died February 18, 1970, at the age of 42, leaving a hole in the heart of his friend, as well as many others who knew him.

Romero’s run on the Modesty Blaise strip lasted from 1970 to 1978, at which time he left to work on his own newspaper strip, Axa. John M. Burns was the next artist hired, and one who had prior experience with the character, having drawn spot illustrations for a magazine-size printing of Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise novel. His art In 1974, Spanish publisher Buru style on the strip itself Lan reprinted a number of Modesty was good, but his run Blaise stories in color, with this only lasted two-and-aone from the “Mister Sun” story. half stories before he The covers for these Modesty was discharged by an Blaise collections included photos editor (for unknown from the 1966 movie, as well as reasons). However, he non-related movies such as The would go on to work New Centurions and Dirty Harry. for 2000AD and drew “Judge Dredd” there for many years to come. Even with the discharge, Burns would still do special promo art assignments involving Modesty Blaise.

Patrick Wright: Patrick Wright was brought in quickly to replace Burns, but Wright’s art was at complete odds with the smooth storytelling of previous artists. His characters were stiff, as if drawn from photos, and not at all right for the flowing action of the strip.

Wright was dismissed after one-and-a-half stories.

Neville Colvin: The last new artist in the rotation was Neville Colvin. His art was a 180-degree turn from the style of Jim Holdaway, and really not all that good. However, O’Donnell supported him and he remained on the strip for eight years, from 1980 to 1986, until Colvin decided to retire.

Two prints from a limited edition Modesty Blaise portfolio

by Romero.

OTHER ARTISTS

Enrique Romero: With Holdaway’s tragic passing, an artist was needed to continue the Modesty Blaise strip. Several artists were considered before Enrique Badía Romero was chosen. O’Donnell and others involved in the decision process felt Romero was a reliable artist… but he was located in Barcelona and spoke no English (and O’Donnell spoke no Spanish). However, an exceptional interpreter who acted for the firm employing Romero helped make the process an easy one. Romero took over “The War-Lords of Phoenix” storyline midway from where Holdaway left off, and his art style was adaptive to Holdaway’s before a change to his own.

Romero again: In 1986, Romero’s Axa was cancelled and, with the retirement of Neville Colvin, Romero returned to Modesty Blaise and

John M. Burns’ cover to Titan Books’ first attempt to reprint Modesty Blaise. © Solo Syndication.

RETROFAN

June 2024

69

retro Comic strips

continued on through the end of the strip in 2001, adding more than 3,500 strips to his total, making him the most prolific of the series of artists.

PETER O’DONNELL’S OTHER “M.B.” CREATION— MADELEINE BRENT

In 1969, O’Donnell was asked by Ernest Hecht, the head of Souvenir Books, to write a gothic romance novel.

O’Donnell was hesitant but gave it a try. Between 1971 and 1986, he had written nine novels as “Madeleine Brent” (plus a tenth that was re-edited from a previous book under a new title), but it was a closely guarded secret that she was a he. Peter O’Donnell decided on the pseudonym of Madeleine Brent because the initials were the same as Modesty Blaise.

The novels were popular, but it turned out distressing for O’Donnell when one of the books, “Merlin’s Keep,” won the Romantic The first Novelist Association’s Novelist of the “Madeleine Year award for Most Romantic Novel Brent” novel, and they were expecting they would secretly written be giving the prize to a woman. It was

by Peter announced that Brent would not be able O’Donnell. to attend the ceremony because she was © Souvenir Press. vacationing in Mexico.

SEPARATE MODESTY BLAISE COMIC STORIES

Comics Revue #200: Peter O’Donnell created a new Modesty Blaise comic story, “The Dark Angels,” drawn by Romero and based on a short story from his book Cobra Trap, for the Swedish Agent X9 magazine as a special gift for their years of publishing the strip. However, they were obligated to not print it in English. Luckily, for fans here, O’Donnell allowed Comics Revue to print the comic story in English in their 200th issue also as thanks for their longtime reprinting of the adventures.

(LEFT) DC Comics’ Modesty Blaise (1994). Cover by Dick Giordano. (RIGHT) Original art page by Giordano and a non-credited Dan Spiegle for DC’s graphic novel adapting the first Modesty Blaise novel. © DC Comics.

Modesty Blaise (DC Graphic Novel): In 1994, DC published a graphic novel of Modesty Blaise, with Peter O’Donnell adapting his first novel into comic form. The art was by Dick Giordano (with the best rendering of Modesty since Jim Holdaway) and a non-credited Dan Spiegle.

MODESTY BLAISE’S LAST NEWSPAPER APPEARANCE

It had to happen. Peter O’Donnell decided it was time to retire and in the process end the strip. The last new Modesty Blaise comic strip was published on April 11, 2001, which coincided with his 81st birthday. The final fate of Modesty and Willie was already known from O’Donnell’s last book, Cobra Trap, published in 1996, when they were years older in that final story. However, O’Donnell had kept them young in the newspaper strip for the last five years of its existence. With the 10,183rd strip, Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin finished up another adventure together, and they decided they were done with fighting crooks for the time being and needed a little break. That “break” was, in reality, a happy farewell to the readers.

REPRINTS

Modesty Blaise’s newspaper run came to an end with strip #10183, which appeared on April 11, 2001, Peter O’Donnell’s 81st birthday. Art was by Romero, the longest-running illustrator of the feature.

70

RETROFAN

June 2024

A number of publications around the world have published reprints of the comic strip series and in many languages.

In the United States, Cartoonist Showcase, a small press periodical from 1967 to 1972, reprinted the first several Modesty Blaise strip stories. (Plus the fourth issue

retro Comic strips

O’Donnell’s final Modesty Blaise book, Cobra Trap (1996), featured a painting created by Jim Holdaway when he and O’Donnell were doing the strip together. It was a nice tribute by Holdaway as the book series came to an end. had cover artwork that featured samples Al Williamson did as part of an unsuccessful pitch for a possible Sunday page of Modesty Blaise.) (In all fairness to Peter O’Donnell, he wanted a Sunday but was never shown the samples at the time.) One of the longest-running U.S. publications to carry the Modesty Blaise strip was the Menomonee Falls Gazette, on a weekly basis for several years. Manuscript Press was also ambitious and published reprints in both their Comics Revue and Modesty Blaise Quarterly magazines.

However, no publishing attempt to reprint the comic strip series matched that of the U.K.’s Titan Books, which successfully produced 30 Modesty Blaise volumes featuring the entire 38-year run of the strip, with O’Donnell writing new introductions for the first 16 volumes.

MORE MOVIES

origin sequence of “In the Beginning” that O’Donnell wrote and Holdaway drew in 1966 for newspapers adding the strip. The one thing missing from the movie is Willie Garvin because, storywise, he would not be introduced until later. Alexandra Staden played Modesty as a teenager working in a casino, just before she created the Network. Staden did well with the part, including some great kick-action moves in a to-the-death fight between Modesty and the villain of the piece. The extras on the DVD include a 53-minute video interview with Peter O’Donnell.

THE MODESTY BLAISE COMPANION

Four years after the final comic strip, Lawrence Blackmore created an ultimate encyclopedia of the Modesty Blaise comic strip and the novels. To call The Modesty Blaise Companion (2005, Book Palace Books Publishing House, U.K.) a “monumental reference” would be an incredible understatement. All the characters, no matter how minor, in both formats were detailed in over 2,000 entries. And, for every one of the comic strip stories, there was a panel picturing the characters discussed (over 1,800 drawings by Holdaway, Romero, Colvin, Burns, Wright, and Giordano).

Plus, the book contained strip and novel story synopses. It was a work of love and done with the complete approval of Peter O’Donnell. In 2018, Blackmore updated the book and released as The Modesty Blaise Companion – Expanded Edition (Book Palace Books).

(In addition to the newer Companion, Book Palace has also published two special editions of Illustrators magazine, one highlighting all five of the artists who drew (ABOVE) The back cover of Cartoonist Showcase #4 (Sept. the comic strip, and 1968) featured pitch samples by Al Williamson for a Sunday page of Modesty Blaise. (BELOW) The third of the the other specifically about the art of Jim live-action films, My Name is Modesty (2004), starred AlHoldaway. And, for exandra Staden as a young Modesty, and it was the most collectors who are faithful to the early history of Ms. Blaise. © Mirimax. interested, they sell original art of the Modesty Blaise comic strips.)

Peter O’Donnell died May 3, 2010 from a stroke apparently related to Parkinson’s disease. There would be no more Modesty Blaise stories. However, what he left us with was a legacy of two people, two heroes who had emerged from the ranks of criminals.

In the 38-year history of Modesty Blaise, there were no toys, no plastic throwing knives, no action figures, no game boards, no penthouse or Treadmill model kits with miniature figures of Modesty and Willie. There was just Peter O’Donnell’s writing, and that was all that was needed.

Hope still flourished at bringing the characters to the screen, but sometimes it happened in odd ways.

Modesty Blaise was a 1982 ABC TV-movie which acted as the pilot for a television series that did not sell. American actors Ann Turkel was Modesty, Lewis Van Bergen was Willie, and Keene Curtis was Gerald Tarrant, with the setting changed from England to California.

Pulp Fiction (1994): Startling many fans, the Doubleday edition of the first Modesty Blaise book (with a cover

by Jim Holdaway) shows up when Vincent (John Travolta) is reading it while on the john.

My Name is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure (2004): Quentin Tarantino was the executive producer of this small film that went straight to home video and, of the three live-action features, it was the most faithful to the canon. The story takes place before the regular comic strip series, but it does incorporate the two-week

PETER BOSCH is the author of American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s, an illustrated reference book published by TwoMorrows. He lives in Hollywood and has just completed a sequel book about motion pictures adapted to comics.

RETROFAN

June 2024

71

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

How the

SAN DIEGO

CHICKEN Became America’s Tastiest Mascot

BY SCOTT SHAW! “A pet chicken for a radio station? How bizarre.”

–The KGB Chicken Growing up in San Diego, I was introduced to radio by my parents, who constantly listened to one of the local stations, KCBQ—which played the Top Forty hits—in the mid-Fifties on their cars and in our kitchen in the morning.

One day, when I was five, I discovered an inflated balloon in our backyard. At first, I thought it had drifted over from our neighbors, who were always having birthdays because they had six kids. But as I examined it, there was a tag attached to the balloon... from KCBQ! It was a promotional gimmick for a free .45 RPM record to anyone who found any of the hundreds of balloons that KCBQ’s helicopter dropped over San Diego. My choice was the Cadets’ outrageously funny classic, “Stranded in the Jungle” (1957), a tune I’d still love to adapt into an animated short. As a pre-teen, I’d follow different deejays on different San Diego AM rock stations. My favorite was Lee “Baby” Simms, one of the outrageous influences on the creation of WKRP in Cincinnati’s “John Caravella,” a.k.a. “Dr. Johnny Fever.”

While in college, I’d hang out at the local radio stations to draw cartoons outside the booth to entertain the nighttime deejays.

That’s when I realized how similar cartoonists are to disc jockeys: we both work alone in a room trying to be funny to a faceless audience.

By 1972, I was living in Orange County, north of San Diego, but its theme parks, car and wax museums, and alligator farms weren’t for me. I still commuted to San Diego on weekends to see friends and work in plans for San Diego Comic-Con, but finally dropped out of college—I’ve never been asked if I had a degree for a single job as a cartoonist until the digital age—and 72

RETROFAN

June 2024

(ABOVE) Radio station KGB’s San Diego Chicken energizing the crowd at a sport event. (INSET) Model billboard of KGB’s “chicken” ads. Unless otherwise noted, all images accompanying this article are courtesy of Scott Shaw!

moved back home to start drawing underground comix while day-working at book stores and libraries. There, I first saw a wide billboard that introduced a new character that would eventually wind up as San Diego’s unofficial ambassador as well as a nationally recognized comedic performer. It was a giant chicken, who looked like it had just smoked a joint or two with Sid and Marty Krofft. Suitably, it was the new mascot for San Diego’s AM/ FM station KGB. With my background, how could I not have been drawn to “the KGB Chicken”?

BRIAN NARELLE

The character was created by Brian Narelle, a creative fellow with a fascinating career that includes a major role in the live-action sci-fi comedy Dark Star (1974), an animation character designer for Sesame Street, and the supervising animator on George Lucas’ feature film Twice Upon a Time (1983). Now living in the Wine Country of Sonoma County, Brian is currently a cartooning teacher at the Charles Schulz Museum.

Here’s how Brian Narelle recalled his essential role in the hatching of the chicken…

“I graduated from USC Cinema in the early [Seventies] and about New York. I now had to stay in San Diego and animate and immediately began writing animation for Sesame Street. I moved direct the commercial, which I did. Eventually I got to New York. down to San Diego from L.A. to write and animate a promotional “When I returned a week later, I was backing out of a parking film for a new, small animation studio called Odyssey Productions. spot on the street in La Mesa. When I looked out my back window, a I was working on the promo film when I overheard my producer bus had stopped behind me. A huge ad on the side of the bus filled discussing the need to submit a proposal for an animated TV my windows with my chicken!” commercial for a local radio station, KGB, that had both an AM and Of course, a well-designed cartoon character usually makes for an FM presence. a good mascot, but in local markets, animated mascots are simply “There was some mention of a chicken involved, though I too expensive. But it’s possible with a talented individual who, couldn’t understand why. After all, I was just eavesdropping with pantomime only, doesn’t require a big budget to convey a at the time. Soon humorous and likable persona to kids and adults. after I approached my According to Brian, “I have never understood what a producer with the idea of chicken had to do with a radio station. I still don’t know. animating a short bit of I don’t know who made the first costume. It was buttfootage with a chicken in ugly. It was featured on billboards, having appeared it in order to include with to have sprayed the graffiti message ‘Rock Around the the next day’s proposal.

Cluck,’ that I had penned for the second round of adverHe agreed. So I stopped tising. The first chicken ad appeared in 1974. Dark Star what I was doing and had been in production for about three years prior to its created 45 seconds of premiere in ’74. I drove up from San Diego to attend the animation in pencil of a Filmex opening with John Carpenter. The radio station chicken hitting ridiculous found Ted Giannoulas and acrobatic poses. This tiny studio being situated in stuck him in that suit to hand (TOP) Neon an office building in Mission Valley, the footage was out promos. They had no sign for developed in a sink in the men’s room and hung up to idea who they were dealing KGB radio dry by its sprockets in a closet using paper clips. The with. Ted is responsible for station. next morning the producer rolled it onto a spool and everything that evolved (RIGHT) went to pitch the project. I prepared to take a break afterwards. That is a long Original and fly to New York City, where my college sweetie story. Early on Ted urged me version of was in medical school. I was soon informed I couldn’t to create a comic strip with the KGB leave because I was now responsible for scoring the the Chicken, which I did.

Chicken. contract.”

Because it was an adverAs Brian recalled, “I whipped up some storyboard tising ploy at the time for ideas for the TV spot and hoped I could depart the next day.

KGB Radio—no one paper would touch the strip. Understandable.

Several animators submitted chicken designs. When the client I had been offered to take over the whole ad account by the third and ad agency folks surveyed it all, they chose one of my spots and go-round with KGB but I elected to move north by then. I was no declared the chicken they wanted was the one in the storyboards longer involved. I merely observed from afar.” (that I had whipped up 45 minutes before they got there). Forget

TED GIANNOULAS

British poster for the 1974 sci-fi film Dark Star, featuring Brian Narelle. Dark Star © 1974 Columbia Pictures. Poster courtesy of Heritage.

So, who is this Ted Giannoulas?

Ted Giannoulas is a five-foot-four man who has had a five-decade career entertaining spectators around the globe while wearing a head-to-toe chicken costume, of course!

Ted was born on August 17, 1953 in Canada’s London, Ontario.

His parents, John and Helen, emigrated from Greece to Canada in the early Fifties with just $17 to their name. “My godparents moved to San Diego in the late 1950s, and when my dad visited them in the mid-1960s, he loved the coastal city, saying it reminded him of the climate in Athens,” said Ted. The Giannoulas family applied for residency and their application was accepted in 1969. They left Canada in the family station wagon during the Woodstock Music Festival. Ted vividly recalled that cross-country trek while he was 16 years old. “I enjoyed all the stops along the way, and was especially fascinated by all the big-league stadiums we passed en route.” As his family settled in San Diego, Ted enrolled at Herbert Hoover High School, where he took journalism classes in hopes of one day becoming a sportswriter. He immediately began winning California state awards for high school journalism and was soon named editor of the school paper. “I actually declined becoming RETROFAN

June 2024

73

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Ted Giannoulas as the San Diego Chicken. Courtesy of The San Diego Reader.

editor-in-chief because I just wanted to focus on sports,” Ted said.

His favorite memories at Hoover High include drama classes, where his teacher encouraged him to be expressively creative in his body language while on stage. Although Ted was never in any of the school’s major stage productions, his teacher felt he might have had a career as an actor. There was also an open tryout for Hoover’s mascot and a lot of his friends wanted him to try out. “I thought I was too hip to be doing anything like that,” said Ted. “They really thought I was that stupid to do anything

74

RETROFAN

June 2024

that goofy.” After Ted graduated high school in 1972, he majored in journalism at San Diego State University and graduated with honors in 1976.

On the day before spring break in March 1974, the campus was deserted of students who had taken off early. “I decided to hang out for a few minutes at the small, student-run radio station, KCR,” said Ted, “to shoot the breeze with anyone still left that was hanging out. There were four other kids casually lounging about as I joined them, settling in toward the back corner of the cramped lobby area. Within minutes, a representative from KGB radio appeared at the doorway to address us. He himself was an alum of KCR a few years back. He was in search of quick intern help on a short promotion the station was planning.

“All five of us volunteered on the spot, no questions asked— anything to get a foot in the door of an honest-to-goodness real rock ’n’ roll station! He immediately cautioned that KGB was only willing to pay two dollars an hour. ‘No problem,’ we all said! Then he cautioned that this wasn’t going to be a conventional assignment.

Again—‘No problem,’ we all repeated. ‘We’ll clean bathrooms, empty trash, or shine records!’ When the rep mentioned next that one of us would have to wear a chicken suit at the San Diego Zoo as a promotional stunt, there was a brief pause in our enthusiasm… but then—‘No problem,’ we restated, with all our hands raised.

‘Bring it on!’

“The rep was taken aback, I think, by our continued spirit for the job as he still stood in the doorway. He glanced about the room quickly, looking for a polite reason for one of us to be selected before having to disappoint the other four. When he saw me towards the back corner, he immediately had his answer: ‘You… the short guy. You’ll fit the chicken suit the best of all!’ This hiring episode took two minutes—no audition, no job application to fill, and no interview to process. He said, ‘You start tomorrow.’ And it began.”

After Ted’s ten-day stint at the San Diego Zoo ended, Giannoulas suggested to KGB’s management that they extend their publicity awareness by sending him to the home opener of the San Diego Padres.

“Personally, I was just hoping to get in free anyway!” Ted said. The team had recently been purchased by McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc and had been thwarted by loss after loss, but this night was a memorable calamity for the Padres.

The inept, error-filled performance of the Padres in a 9-5 loss to the Houston Astros, became the setting for a pair of infamous incidents that (LEFT) The KGB will never be forgotten by the 39,000 Chicken in the spectators in attendance.

KGB van. (ABOVE) During the seventh-inning stretch, Then-Presidential Kroc entered the public address candidate Ronald announcer’s booth and took the Reagan happily microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, meets the Chicken.

I’ve got good news and some bad news. The good news is, we outdrew the Los Angeles Dodgers in attendance today. The bad news is, this is the stupidest ball playing I’ve seen in my life.” And at that moment, while Kroc was speaking, a naked man dashed onto the

The oddball world of scott shaw!

field during the brief-but-popular fad known as Streaking. “Kroc was yelling, ‘Get that man, get that man,’” Giannoulas recalled.

[Editor’s note: RetroFan peeked at the Streaking craze in our RetroFad column way back in issue #7!]

Fortunately, it was a life-changing-for-the-better night in the life of Ted, or, should we say, “The KGB Chicken.”

“My first big chance came on the Padres’ opening night in 1974,” Ted recalled. “I was handed a ticket and told to do my best for the glory of KGB. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. ‘Just be a fan.

Buy a beer and a hot dog, cheer on the Padres,’ I was told.” Ray Kroc’s aforementioned loudspeaker tirade/apology led Ted to comment, “That first Padres game was a memorable one.”

Up, up, and away at a 1975 ballooning event in Del Mar.

PLAYING CHICKEN

Courtesy of Vintage San Diego.

Unfortunately for Ted, whoever built the head-to-toe chicken suit that would engulf him was no Jim Henson.

As the KGB Chicken, himself said, “I was suffering from an inferiority complex when I made my debut in April 1974. Some insensitive types even jeered that I looked like a papier mache reject from an elementary school art class. That really hurt. Actually, I never felt that bad, but I do shudder when I look at old photos. There are other things that stick with me from that first night. When I stepped inside the stadium for the first time, there was a slight buzz in the crowd. A pet chicken for a radio station? How bizarre. I even got a mention in the paper the next evening. Although I was referred to as a ‘red, rag-tag chicken,’ I was pretty excited. It was better than no mention at all, and I knew I could do better. So I decided to scratch around, shake hands, wave, kiss babies (those who were brave enough to let me near them). Anything.”

When the press expressed how quirky it was to see the radio station’s funny, feathery, flightless new mascot at the game, KGB’s brass were thrilled by the attention. “They kept me on as a result and allowed me to continue attending Padres games,” said Ted. But as Brian Narelle and the KGB Chicken have noted, the original KGB Chicken suit was shoddy

(LEFT) Some raw chicken on the back cover of From Scratch (1978), the autobiography of the KGB Chicken. (INSET) Baseball signed by Ray Kroc, owner of McDonald’s and one-time owner of the San Diego Padres.

at best. (I dug it because it looked like an underground comix character come to life.) After a year of patching together the first suit, Ted’s popularity convinced KBG to splurge on a new, improved version of the Chicken.

“My coming-out party was in July of 1975 at the stadium. When I sauntered into the stadium, I could feel the eyes of the crowd on me, and I loved it. It might have been a coincidence, but in the year I changed my image, KGB won Billboard magazine’s national award as Progressive Station of the Year.”

It was not unusual for the KGB Chicken to appear at six to eight events a day, including those at malls, music stores, and public schools, with the station’s “Chickenmobile” van visible in their parking lots. At the ballpark, he would traipse up and down the aisles handing out plastic eggs to the fans. Eventually, he’d find his way onto the field, where his dancing and comedic schticks would entertain both teams and their fans. Attendance nearly doubled over his first year. At one point, the KGB Chicken appeared at 520 consecutive Padres home games. Ted’s character became so popular that the station sold a G-rated photo poster of the KGB Chicken posing in a parody of Burt Reynolds’ notoriously nude foldout in Cosmopolitan magazine.

Ted’s process isn’t unusual for a comedian.

“When I first began, I asked myself what would make me laugh if I was sitting in the stands? I took my fascination of comedy and merged it with my love of sports to produce a one-of-a-kind comedy act. Inspiration comes from anywhere: a TV sketch, a song, a news item, movie, cartoon, or even what a child may say. I’ve never hired professional writers.

Still, ideas have been offered by players, coaches, front office executives, fans, and even the umpires and referees! It’s gratifying to know that so many people enjoy the show enough to engage their own humor for it.” His escapades on the field included all baseball personnel—the players, the umpires, the grounds crew. They all became tools in his act. Employing an eye chart for the umpires has always been one of his best pranks. “The umpires have been the most overlooked and under-appreciated part of the game,” Ted said. “Yet, through the magic of humor, I engaged them in comedic bits on the field.”

Ted’s Chicken is also an innovator. Before he came on the scene, the only music played at ballparks was organ music. He changed all that by introducing prerecorded popular music at games—the RETROFAN

June 2024

75

The oddball world of scott shaw!

original “Stadium Rock.” Ted was also the first to use a game’s time-out breaks, including between innings, to perform his comedy gags on the field. The audiences were thrilled that there were no more boring interludes.

CRYING FOWL

Giannoulas began branching out into other sports and other venues in San Diego. One of these new appearances led to a volatile misunderstanding when, in 1977, the KGB Chicken almost caused an international incident!

(ABOVE) Gabba gabba hey!

The San Diego Mariners The KGB Chicken meets up hockey club scheduled an exhiwith the Ramones in 1977. bition game with the champion (RIGHT) The San Diego Russian hockey team in San Chicken makes his all-new Diego. They were not amused debut at a San Diego about a red chicken sporting the Padres game in 1979. letters KGB mocking their goalie behind the glass and hexing all their skaters and even mooning them. When it was time to begin the game, the Russians refused to come out of their dressing room.

They sent word that they would only take the ice when “that fowl” was removed from the premises. They had had enough of that insulting Chicken, who they believed was hired for the evening to ridicule them with his “KGB” logo on his vest. The game was delayed 20 minutes. A sudden meeting under the grandstands to straighten things out was convened among the coaches, ambassadors, executives, and interpreters. The Russians came to finally understand that it would make bigger news if the Chicken was evicted from the arena and that his KGB insignia had nothing to do with their spy agency. Grudgingly, they relented and the Chicken was allowed to stay. Flustered as they were, the Russians fell behind early in the game before coming back to win it handily.

Ted’s one-week gig in a shoddy chicken suit turned into a fiveyear run with the radio station as the KGB Chicken. But eventually, as the years progressed, and the KGB Chicken’s popularity increased, Ted was often spotted at other sporting events: NHL games and NBA games in his Chicken outfit. He was also invited to make spontaneous appearances at concerts with a number of popular rock acts as well as at trade shows, conventions, parades, and banquets. Giannoulas’ growing career ambitions conflicted with the station management’s policies.

An impasse ensued. With major news attention focused on the situation, KGB unceremoniously fired the fowl in May 1979 and went to court to block Giannoulas’ right to work in a chicken costume. But Ted decided to contest the lawsuit accusing him of appropriating the station’s “intellectual property.” He said, “How can you sue a guy for intellectual property wearing a chicken suit?” The California Supreme Court went on to rule in Ted’s favor and declare him to be as free as a bird of any ex-employer obligations.

Ted explained, “KGB Radio sued in 1979 to bar me from ever working again in any chicken suit, but instead, the courts ruled in my favor. To this day and forever, I’ll be known as the San Diego Chicken. Yet at times, for marketing purposes, in other major league towns where San Diego may be a rival, I’m referred to as 76

RETROFAN

June 2024

the Famous Chicken. The thinking is fans’ rooting interests in Oakland, San Francisco, Kansas City, Seattle, and such won’t be conflicted by a guest from a competing league town. The way I look at it, I’m a Chicken for all people, kind of like the new National Bird (okay, so what’s the bald eagle done lately?). Think of my dual names in the same way as Chevrolet and Chevy, Coca Cola and Coke, or New York City and Gotham.”

Brian Narelle reflected, “Once Ted won his lawsuit and became an independent chicken, all bets were off. His popularity soared beyond the boundaries of San Diego with all sorts of teams, politicians, and rock stars.”

THE GREAT HATCHING

Now that Ted Giannoulas finally owned his creation, it was time for his chicken, now “the San Diego Chicken,” to return home in high style. “I designed my own new caricature, which I still wear to this day,” Ted said, “and I had my mom, a professional seamstress, sew it together. I then approached the San Diego Padres about appearing in their games for a fee. They were all for it!” The new outfit proved to be the catalyst for the character. It

(LEFT) A Super7 San Diego Chicken ReAction figure from their line of Baseball Mascots. (RIGHT) An adorable plush San Diego Chicken.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

was lighter and brighter, enabling George Thorogood, the Ramones, Ted to become nimble and animated the Doobie Brothers, Cheap Trick, among the crowds like never before.

Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Now the Chicken seemed more like a dozens more. He co-starred with cartoon come to life.

Johnny Bench and Pete Rose on The “Great Hatching” event, held the Emmy-winning children’s show at San Diego Stadium on June 29, The Baseball Bunch for five seasons 1979, celebrated a new beginning as well as hundreds of televised for Ted and the Chicken. “Without sports events and the cult classic a doubt, the Great Hatching was film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes a genuine thrill, everything it was (1978). The Chicken’s vast selection of cracked up to be. Very few people merchandise includes T-shirts, hats, on this planet have ever experienced posters, trading cards, plush dolls, such joy, warmth, and affection from action figures, and more, including a 47,000 people as I was lucky to have 96-page book, From Scratch, written on one summer night. I vividly recall by the KGB Chicken (Joyce Press, bursting out in cold sweats. This cere1978). The Sporting News named him mony was to debut my new Chicken one of the 100 most powerful people feathers to San Diego fans after being in sports for the 20th Century. The fired from mascot work at KGB Radio.

New York Times has characterized Our divorce was actually front-page him as “perhaps the most influential news, but no one thought it would sports mascot in history.” seize the town as it did. Consider, I The San Diego Chicken’s wings are was to smash out of a hand-carved getting tired after his long-flapping ten-foot styrofoam egg, brought career. As Ted Giannoulas has said, “It’s onto the field by an armored truck, not the end, but I can see it from here.”

The San Diego Chicken can be found on the escorted by a California Highway “Looking back over all these years, 2nd floor of the Los Angeles Central Library Patrol motorcade. In front of the in which Ted G has done nothing today. This used costume is part of the Baseball biggest crowd of the year, it all played other than be a chicken for his entire Reliquary Collection. out to the musical backdrop from career,” said Brian Narelle. “I am the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The grateful I was eavesdropping that national media was on hand en masse. Moreover, local TV stations day. The Chicken has brought more laughter into the world than interrupted programming to cover the event live. (The Merv Griffin anything else I’ve ever done. That is Ted Giannoulas’ doing. The odd Show was in the midst of an interview with Zsa Zsa Gabor when thing is that my crazy acrobatic chicken was never seen outside the KGTV cut away to reporter Jack White on the field!) As I huddled confines of the ad agency in 1974, yet that crazy energy was picked inside that hot egg, the roaring din of the audience brought up on by Ted and bounced all over the country. Never underestishivers and chills to my spine. When I broke out of my shell, the mate the power of a cartoon.” fans’ ten-minute standing ovation was an avalanche of childlike glee. The adulation carried on throughout the whole evening’s Most Ted Giannoulas quotes in this column come from the book From performance. To this day, baseball experts call it one of the greatest Scratch (Joyce Press, 1978). Brian Narelle’s interview quotes are exclusive promotions of all time. Now you know why I always say the San to RetroFan. Diego fans literally put me on the map.”

However, Ted requested an attendance-based bonus if the For 50 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW! event drew more than the Padres’ average crowd of 18,000. The has written and drawn underground front office essentially laughed off such a notion and agreed to comix, mainstream comic books, comic an arrangement in order to humor Ted, he thought. Ted would be strips, graphic novels, TV cartoons, toys, paid $1.50 per person above the average crowd. “The next day, the advertising, and video games. He has worked Padres cut me a check for more than $43,000—more than eight on such characters as Captain Carrot and his times what the highest major-league player was paid per game,” Amazing Zoo Crew (which he co-created with Ted said. “The entire amount was gobbled up by attorney fees as I Roy Thomas), Sonic the Hedgehog, the Flintdefended myself from KGB’s litigation. Still, the fans’ turnout that stones, the Jetsons, the Simpsons, the Futurama gang, the Muppet night saved my bacon to continue onward in my career. I was the Babies, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids, and yes, even Annoying highest paid athlete in America for one night.”

Orange. His career has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Over the last four decades, the San Diego Chicken—now also Award, and a Humanities Award. Scott is also known for his “Oddball known as the Famous Chicken—has become popular all over the Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the craziest comic books ever world. Four U.S. presidents—Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George published” and for his regular participation in “Quick Draw!” with W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush—requested his presence at events. Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also one of the teenagers The Chicken has performed in eight countries, on four continents, who co-created what is currently known as Comic-Con International: and in all 50 states. He’s jammed in the spotlight with Elvis Presley, San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan event. He can be reached Jimmy Buffett, Paul McCartney, Sammy Hagar, the J. Geils Band, at shawcartoons.com.

77 RETROFAN June 2024

19942024 UPDATE #2

TwoMorrows 3

www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE

by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others.

Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 SHIPS JULY 2024!

MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

by PIERRE COMTOIS This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement!

(224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4 SHIPS AUGUST 2024!

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS

NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

TwoMorrows’ newest mag ships in October 2024.

Subscribe... IF YOU DARE!

Probably the article l liked best in #30 was the slush drinks: Mr. Misty and the rest. And the part of that I preferred was the coverage of the brain-freeze phenomenon. Cracked me up!

What national magazine would give coverage to that? You did, and it was great! I had a bad one, once, from a milkshake I downed too quickly.

Hurt so bad but, thankfully, didn’t last long.

After that, didn’t need my parents to scold me to slow down. Even the DQ coverage was welcome.

Never had a slush drink there but love their soft serve. In fact, I still stop in, particularly during the summer, to cool down with one. Hilarious, to me, your shot of LBJ doing the same almost 60 years back.

Liked the Top Cat article, as well. I know I saw it as a young kid, probably in reruns, but remembered nearly nothing of it. Loved the pencil drawing of them interacting with the better-known Hanna-Barbara characters. What I really liked about the article is that it reinforced/confirmed that something might have been a quiet policy rather than a one-time fluke.

That is, several of the H-B cartoons were initially based on other existing successes. Top Cat was said to be emulating Sgt. Bilko. The Flintstones?

The Honeymooers. Scooby-Doo? Dobie Gillis. Space Ghost? Batman. Granted, just a starting point before they found their own unique direction.

Even some of the articles, not in my nostalgia range, had interesting aspects. Barbie, for example. There I appreciated that the originator determinedly believed in her concept (a contemporary teen doll as opposed to a traditional baby doll) so much she didn’t give in to ongoing negative assessments. The resounding success proved her right. She could have gloated and built a pink Barbie Dream Bank Vault.

The Florence Henderson article was intriguing in one respect: Even if a show isn’t a big hit personally, others may hold great love for it. The Brady Bunch probably indulged in some of what made Sherwood Schwartz’s Gilligan’s Island so popular: a large group having to get along. So, it had no end of revivals in different formats. It never really ended. It kept returning with worse outfits. Amusingly, it was even a cartoon while the original show was on. That’s a success!

The 1970-1974 TV Comic Ads happily reinforced my decision to sleep in on Saturday mornings. Nothing, at this late date, I feel I missed or would need to track down on disc or YouTube. Certainly not the Brady Kids with a monkey and two pandas. Was that done to make the live-action version seem more dramatic and intellectual?

Dell’s super-heroic monsters, likewise, serves as a warning. It used familiar names but in such a way as to conflict with reasonable expecta-

tions and the characters as established. I found many things amusing about it. First, that they were able to get monsters on the stands without squawking from the Comics Code. Secondly, that they had art-in-a box covers years before Marvel. Third, a werewolf without hair? Fourth, on the cover to Werewolf #2, scuba divers with a sharp knife and pointy harpoon. Good thing it wasn’t submitted to the Code. They’d have had a tizzy or fainting spell. Fifth, Frankenstein with more colors on his body than Metamorpho.

Liked and remembered The Great Society [comic book one-shot of 1966]. Saw it but never read it.

Looks like Super LBJ is returning from a space mission, on his way to an earthly DQ. JOE FRANK Hanna-Barbera’s reworking of live-action sitcoms as animated cartoons is certainly no secret. Our own Will Murray discussed the The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis/Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? parallel in his column in RetroFan #6.

The highlight of RF #30 was Mark Voger’s interview with Florence Henderson. For years I considered all things Brady to be a guilty pleasure, and I finally came to openly embrace my love for the show and the characters. Ms. Henderson’s positivity and self-proclaimed “wicked sense of humor” made this article a delight to read.

Top Cat, like The Jetsons, always mystified me.

Both shows were on the air an amazingly short time, with only a handful of episodes produced.

And yet they are Saturday morning cultural landmarks for RetroFans of a certain age. We all look back and remember these shows like they were on forever. I wonder if writer Will Murray can elaborate on the last sentence in his article, though: when did Top Cat meet Superman and Batman??

I scored a perfect ten on the Too Much TV Quiz. I’m just putting that out there for the world to see.

I also enjoyed Katherine Kerestman’s Barbie article. It’s inspiring to see how Ruth Handler refused to let naysayers shoot down her idea, and it’s nice to see she lived long enough to see what a phenomenon she created.

My mother and I watched The Gong Show religiously. Between the Unknown Comic and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, we had all the wild entertainment we needed. The interview with Murray Langston was a fun look at a funny man.

As a big fan of “What were they thinking?” comic books, I got a kick out of Scott Shaw!’s

look at Dell’s genre-blending monster superheroes. I had these in my comics collection at one time, and they are as head-scratchingly weird as you would expect (although they score points for the character name “Miss Ann Thrope”). Another fun retrospective, Mr. Shaw!

Finally, with a cover like that, how can I possibly wait for RF #31 and its article on the bewitching Elizabeth Montgomery? That hair, those eyes, that smile… my heart beats a little faster anticipating that issue!

MICHAL JACOT In 2016-2018 DC Comics published modernized versions of several Hanna-Barbera characters, even crossing over into the DC Universe with one-shots and back-up stories. Batman and Top Cat met in the back-up of 2017’s Adam Strange/Future Quest Special #1, followed by 2018’s Superman/Top Cat one-shot.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, where has RetroFan been my entire life?!? I’m sure I’m embarrassing my neighbors when I do my Snoopy Dance of Joy when the latest issue arrives in my mailbox. The Dell Monster Super-Heroes! The History of Slushy Drinks (with my second-favorite ad icon, Icee Bear)! The annual comic book Saturday Morning preview ads! How in the wide wide world of sports can Time EVER compete for my attention?

I’m really looking forward to your upcoming issues (Time After Time, The Alvin Show, and Elizabeth Montgomery up next—yes, please!).

And there are two story ideas I’d love to see RetroFan tackle at some point: (1) the Shogun Warriors toy line from the Seventies, and (2) Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators (the one book series that interrupted my strict comic book reading habits during Fifth Grade and still hold up today, IMHO).

Did I say how much I love RetroFan? JEFF WOOTEN You’re gonna give us a big head, Jeff! While we’ve got no immediate plans for Shogun Warriors or the Hitchcock book series, they’re the kind of topics RetroFans love to read about, so hopefully we’ll get around to them one day.

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

June 2024

79

ReJECTED! Not every great idea is successful, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the also-rans, the nearly-made-its, and the ReJECTED. Were there too many Western shows in the late Fifties? You don’t know the half of it.

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

TV Westerns You Missed 1959

Photo: viarami / Pixabay

is m i ng h for Team m y a t r i g s c o li ed pr ’s g ive a pu r Pub m u e O h : t t e n To ester ers. L est W owd of oat w! b r u cr of o -ha Some lost i n the i ngs!” Yee g u n. g h t u ys a b getti n ew “su rew a n men h these i l l He W l l i s d ay n the Gu n W erma spends h i e h S v a 1) H a nd rder eephe is a sheep h S y t he e Nut e ve s 2) Th erder bel i sel f. he d id h m ri me c a sheep to herd h i f o la i n s g cused vels the p blems. c A tr y i n o ra er Grif t R icha rd t eople’s pr p ains l y r t P e r i h h t D g ts 3) Hi t, con ma n tu re a nd o m i sf i r i p e i a m t c n m co void of fro the g to a a m i ly ead; Ben, F tr y i n t h s the te Quar y, the hot o stretche i me. y k r i , wh e Qu e to t oh n n 4) Th trouble: J ctor; Reed s from ti m r pe ct hot attra sti n’ pros o d issapea best s e h t u h b ’s at ,w rock- W ho t-out? Gre d Sue e n m a a ; o tr uth ight G d sho Gun F ld-fash ione n r e t at h , o e Wes 5) Th l i fe-a nd-de . Lega l. n s i n th i Fa m i ly-f u ! s e priz

80

RETROFAN

June 2024

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK ALTER EGO #190 CHRONICLES: 1945-49 MITCH MAGLIO examines vintage jungle

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

(288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

SHIPS SUMMER 2024

BACK ISSUE #155

ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

BRICKJOURNAL #86

comics heroes (Kaänga, Ka-Zar, Sheena, Rulah, Jo-Jo/Congo King, Thun’da, Tarzan) with art by LOU FINE, WILL EISNER, FRANK FRAZETTA, MATT BAKER, BOB POWELL, ALEX SCHOMBURG, and others! Plus: the comicbook career of reallife jungle explorers MARTIN AND OSA JOHNSON, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

LEGO LANDSCAPING! A detailed look at how to create realistic stone and foliage from bricks: ANU PEHRSON’s White Wall from Game of Thrones, and JOEL and JONATHAN NEUBER’s (working!) Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

BACK ISSUE #156

BACK ISSUE #157

KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

THIS ISSUE IS HAUNTED! House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Unexpected, Marvel’s failed horror anthologies, Haunted Tank, Eerie Publications, House II adaptation, Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more wth NEAL ADAMS, MIKE W. BARR, DICK GIORDANO, SAM GLANZMAN, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOE ORLANDO, STERANKO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and others. Unused cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ & WRIGHTSON.

BRONZE AGE GRAPHIC NOVELS! 1980s GNs from Marvel, DC, and First Comics, Conan GNs, and DC’s Sci-Fi GN series!

With BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, JACK KIRBY, DON MCGREGOR, BOB McLEOD, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. WRIGHTSON cover.

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others!

With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!

IN THE NEWS! Rare newspaper interviews with Jack, 1973 San Diego panel with Jack and NEAL ADAMS discussing DC’s coloring, strips Kirby ghosted for others, unused strip concepts, collages, a never-reprinted Headline Comics tale, Jimmy Olsen pencil art gallery, 2024 WonderCon Kirby panel (featuring DAVID SCHWARTZ, GLEN GOLD, and RAY WYMAN), and more!

Cover inked by DAVID REDDICK!

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage!

Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Jan. 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Winter 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Spring 2025

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #37

RETROFAN #35

RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assisting on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp!

The start of a multi-part look at the life and career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service comics produced by students at the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in a career-spanning interview, former DC Comics’ romance editor BARBARA FRIEDLANDER redeems the late DC editor JACK MILLER, DAN DIDIO discusses going from DC exec to co-publisher, we conclude our 100th birthday celebration for ARNOLD DRAKE, take a look at the 1970s underground comix oddity THE FUNNY PAGES, and more, including HEMBECK!

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.

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, 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) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Winter 2025

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2025

New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #188

ALTER EGO #189

BACK ISSUE #152

BACK ISSUE #153

BACK ISSUE #154

JOHN ROMITA tribute issue! Podcast recollections recorded shortly after the Jazzy One’s passing by JOHN ROMITA JR., JIM STARLIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, BRIAN PULIDO, ROY THOMAS, JAIMIE JAMESON, JOHN CIMINO, STEVE HOUSTON, & NILE SCALA; DAVID ARMSTRONG’s mini-interview with Romita; John Romita’s ten greatest hits; plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, & more!

MARVELMANIA ISSUE! SAL BUSCEMA’s Avengers, FABIAN NICIEZA’s Captain America, and KURT BUSIEK and ALEX ROSS’s Marvels turns 30! Plus: Marvelmania International, Marvel Age, Marvel Classics, PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Marvel Novels, and Marvel Value Stamps.

Featuring JACK KIRBY, KEVIN MAGUIRE, ROY THOMAS, and more! SAL BUSCEMA cover.

BIG BABY ISSUE! X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, FF’s Franklin Richards, Superbaby vs. Luthor, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel and Harvey kid humor comics, & more! With ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, SCOTT LOBDELL, SHELDON MAYER, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and other grownup creators. Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS.

BRONZE AGE NOT-READY-FORPRIMETIME DC HEROES! Black Canary, Elongated Man, Lilith, Metamorpho, Nubia, Odd Man, Ultraa of Earth-Prime, Vartox, and Jimmy Olsen as Mr. Action! Plus: Jason’s Quest! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE DITKO, BOB HANEY, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MARK WAID, and more ready-for-primetime talent. Retro cover by NICK CARDY.

(160-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $9.99 • Now shipping!

(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 June 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships July 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Aug. 2023

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DOUBLE-SIZE ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! The Marvel side includes mini-interviews with JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, JIM MOONEY, and GEORGE TUSKA—plus “STAN LEE’S Dinner with ALAIN RESNAIS” annotated by SEAN HOWE! On the DC side: talks with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOHN BROOME, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JOE KUBERT, & MURPHY ANDERSON—plus a GARDNER FOX photo-feature, and more!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

RETROFAN #34

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #34 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #35

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!

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.

DAN JURGENS talks about Superman, Sun Devils, creating Booster Gold, developing the “Doomsday scenario” with the demise of the Man of Steel, and more! Traverse DON GLUT’s “Glutverse” continuity across Gold Key, Marvel, and DC! Plus RICK ALTERGOTT, we conclude our profiles of MIKE DEODATO, JR. and FRANK BORTH, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of DC/Marvel hardcover super-hero collections), & more!

An in-depth look at the life and career of writer/editor DENNY O’NEIL, and part one of a career-spanning interview with ARNOLD DRAKE, co-creator of The Doom Patrol and Deadman! Plus the story behind Studio Zero, the ’70s collective of JIM STARLIN, FRANK BRUNNER, ALAN WEISS, and others! Warren horror mag writer/ historian JACK BUTTERWORTH, alternative cartoonist TIM HENSLEY, & more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Sept. 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 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Aug. 2024

SUBSCRIPTION RATES

2024

Print subscribers get the digital edition free!

ECONOMY US

Poly mailer, backing board

Alter Ego (Six print issues) Back Issue (Eight print issues) BrickJournal (Six print issues) Comic Book Creator (Four print issues) NEW! Cryptology (Four print issues, starts in Oct.) Jack Kirby Collector (Four print issues) RetroFan (Six print issues)

$73 $97 $73 $53 $53 $53 $73

Faster delivery, rigid mailer

PREMIUM US

Non-US orders, rigid mailer

INTERNATIONAL

DIGITAL ONLY

$100 $130 $100 $70 $70 $70 $100

$111 $147 $111 $78 $78 $78 $111

$29 $39 $29 $19 $19 $19 $29

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

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

No print issue

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com Don’t miss exclusive sales, limited editions, and new releases! Sign up for our mailing list:

https://groups.io/g/twomorrows

Download our Free Catalog of all our available books and back issues! https://www.twomorrows.com/media/TwoMorrowsCatalog.pdf

PRINTED IN CHINA

KIRBY COLLECTOR #90

WHAT IF KIRBY... hadn’t been stopped by his rejected Spider-Man presentation?

DC’s abandonment of the Fourth World?

The ill-fated Speak-Out Series? FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics crusade? The CIA’s involvement with the Lord of Light?

Plus a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other columnists, a classic Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, & more!

Cover inks by DAMIAN PICKADOR ZAJKO!