RetroFan #35

November 2024 No. 35 $10.95

Riddle me this, RetroFans!

TV ICON JOHN ASTIN

su s p a n ni ng r a t s ’s g mornin Saturday

per-hero

E C A A A A P S !

T S O O O O GH ve i 5 n o s k c The Ja ockers al R and other Ren in Animatio

M-m-m-m!

Time for a coffee break!

Isis co-stars Joanna Pang & Brian Cutler • The Name of the Game • Evil Dead II & more!

Featuring Mark Arnold • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Space Ghost © Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Riddler © DC Comics. The Jackson 5ive © Rankin/Bass Productions. 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

Now Shipping!

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

$

23

39

The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #35 November 2024

31 47

Columns and Special Features

Departments

3

Retrotorial

Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Space Ghost

23

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Coffee Advertising

31

Retro Television The Name of the Game

39

61

Retro Animation Real Rockers of Saturday Morning

51

51

Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties TV’s Gomez Addams, John Astin

2

20

Too Much TV Quiz TV Astronauts

47

Retro Travel The Smithsonian’s Entertainment Nation

77

RetroFanmail

80

ReJECTED

61

Retro Interview The Secrets of Isis’ Brian Cutler and Joanna Pang Atkins

67

67

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon On the set of Evil Dead II

3

RetroFan™ issue 35, November 2024 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Ed Catto, Editor, 304 North Hoopes Ave., Auburn, NY 13021. Email: retroed@twomorrows. 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. Space Ghost © Hanna-Barbera. The Riddler © DC Comics. The Jackson 5ive © Rankin/Bass Productions. 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 Michael Eury

BY MICHAEL EURY

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ed Catto PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Mark Arnold Michael Eury Robert Greenberger Dan Johnson Ed Lute Will Murray Ruth Saavedra Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Jim Alexander Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions Cheralyn Lambeth Andy Mangels Steven Thompson VERY SPECIAL THANKS Joanna Pang Atkins Brian Cutler

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 Digital Storefront at

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

2

RETROFAN

Call me “Chief.” Go ahead, I’ll let ya. I’ve no Perry White aversion to the title. Heck, I earned it. Like many of the treasures we mine here for your enjoyment, I’m a bit worn around the edges, having been in the editorial trenches (off and on) since the waning days of the Reagan Administration.

The knee cartilage I possessed in the late Eighties may be long gone, but I’m still steering creative content, polishing manuscripts, and juggling myriad schedules—just what you’d expect an editorin-chief to do.

But how I do it—not just me, but all of us behind the scenes at RetroFan—is not what you might expect.

Normally one pictures a bustling metropolitan office when considering a publication like this one. You know the type: a hive of cubicles buzzing with reporters, editors, and assistants, zipping about at the beck and call of a demanding editor-in-chief.

RetroFan Central is nothing of the type. I am a freelance editor, working from the privacy of my home office (not from a top secret subterranean bunker, as has been rumored). In fact, I’m typing these words on Monday, May 27, 2024, Memorial Day morning, when most American workers are on a paid holiday. The only hustle bustle happening within my earshot is the agitator washing machine down the hall, churning the laundry I’ll be placing in the dryer after I finish typing these words.

Similarly, designer Scott Saavedra works from his home office (not from a van by the river, as has been rumored). He and I mostly communicate via email. Same with our proofreader, our columnists, and our freelance contributors. We’ve never gathered for an editorial meeting, and many of us have never met face-to-face. Instead of barking orders (punctuated by exasperated “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” lamentations) to our staff, I instead collaborate electronically with our contributors (unlike Perry White, I never yell). It’s not a traditional publishing business model, but the creative and personal freedoms provided by our freelance status has been successful in helping this magazine cultivate its verve and eclectic contents. We’re now in our seventh year in print, so we must be doing something right!

There is a secret behind what makes RetroFan such a magical magazine, and taking a cue from that blabbermouth Cindy Brady, I’m gonna tell you what it is. We are fans at heart. If you read the authors’ bios which conclude our columns and articles, you’ll note that many of our writers are seasoned professionals with decades of experience. But despite their thousands of published pages and shelves of awards they are, in their hearts, the little boys and girls who at one stage of their young lives were fascinated by the pop culture that helped raise us. Their articles dazzle us with their informative content but also comfort us with their affection for their subject matter. That’s a fine line to walk, as teetering too far either way can create an article too scholarly or too fannish, but most of the time we collectively produce what is—if I may preen for a sec—the coolest pop culture magazine imaginable.

Please welcome Ed Catto (retroed@twomorrows.com) to the RetroFan family as Associate Editor!

Ed is a marketing and start-up strategist who has worked to rejuvenate brands such as Captain Action. An instructor at Ithaca College’s School of Business, he has written numerous articles for our sister magazine, Back Issue, and is bustling with enthusiasm about RetroFan. Expect big things from Ed in the future in these pages. (He’s currently deciding whether to work from an underground lair office or from a van by the river.)

And you should expect big things in this issue, starting with… Space Ghost. No, make that SPA-A-A-ACE GHO-O-O-OST (guess I do yell sometimes). In the pages that follow you’ll get to know TV Gomez Addams John Astin, walk the set of Evil Dead II, get jacked up on classic coffee ads, meet some friends of the Mighty Isis, explore the innovative TV drama The Name of the Game, groove with the Beatles and Osmonds as cartoon characters, and visit the Smithsonian’s Entertainment Nation.

Quite a lot of fun in store!

Regular readers will note that our Retro Saturday Morning columnist, Andy Mangels, has the issue off, but we anxiously await his return next ish.

November 2024

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Batman… in Space Hanna-Barbera’s

BY SCOTT SHAW! Born in 1951, I was fortunate to have been in the first generation of American kids to grow up watching newly made-for-television cartoons.

The series that impressed me the most were HannaBarbera Productions’ The Ruff and Reddy Show (1957) and Jay Ward Studios’ Rocky and His Friends (1959). Both were hip and clever cartoon shows starring “funny animals” in lengthy adventure stories told in sequential “shorts.”

Producer Jay Ward valued quality over quantity and therefore focused on one series at a time. Producers/directors Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had bigger plans and quickly launched a number of very successful cartoon series that introduced Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw, among dozens of others, as well as the prime-time animated TV series The Flintstones [see RetroFan #8], Top Cat [#30], and The Jetsons [coming in RF #37!]. Hanna-Barbera was the Nickelodeon of its era, creating appealing characters and stories that our generation could relate to. I loved them all, watching while laying on the floor, close to the warmth-emitting screen of our family’s television set, with my drawing pad, pencils, and crayons, teaching myself how to draw all of my favorite H-B characters. The first “comic” I ever drew teamed up Ruff and Reddy with Rocky and Bullwinkle.

But by 1964, it seemed like H-B was running out of ideas, still grinding out more funny animals, which began to remind viewers of earlier characters—still in syndication—who were (ABOVE) 1966 Space much funnier. The Flintstones Ghost title cel, signed continued to be successful by television animation (although aimed at a much pioneers Bill Hanna and younger audience), but H-B’s Joe Barbera. © Hannaother prime-time series became Barbera. Cel courtesy of one-season wonders. ThereHeritage.

fore, Bill and Joe tried something new (which had a lot in common with the earlier Clutch Cargo). Hanna-Barbera’s adventure series Jonny Quest [see RetroFan #7] proved that the studio could produce something other than talking biped animals, cavemen, and a family of the future.

Indeed, it was well executed but tremendously expensive for an animated TV series, so much so that the chiaroscuro shadows on the animated characters in the early episodes were soon dropped. As memorable as it remains, Jonny Quest was yet another one-season wonder. But the show had one positive effect: now Bill and Joe realized that they could do animated cartoons starring more “realistic” characters if they could figure out how to do them less expensively by using “planned animation,” a.k.a. “limited animation.” Disney had tried but he didn’t like the results. Bill and Joe rebuilt the money-saving approach for comedic animation, so they surely could conceive a way to do it with adventure cartoons.

Suddenly, a bat flew through their studio’s window (sorta, kinda) to save the day (sorta, kinda).

There were already a few animated super-hero–ish characters out there: Max Fleischer’s Popeye (1933–1942) and Superman (1941–1943); Terrytoons’ Mighty Mouse (1942–1961) and Tom Terrific (1957–1959); Adventure Cartoon Productions’The Mighty Hercules (1963); and Total Television’s Underdog (1964–1967). Warner Bros.’

Bugs Bunny dressed in Superman drag a few times too. [Editor’s note: Attention, animation fans! See RetroFan #25 for the Fleischer RETROFAN

November 2024

3

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Superman, #32 for Mighty Mouse, #28 for Mighty Hercules, and issue #24 for Underdog.]

But none of us were prepared for Batman, which premiered on Wednesday, January 12, 1966 on ABC-TV, airing at 7:30 PM. The campy parody of comic book super-heroes was amusing for the adults, exciting for the kids, and somewhat irritating to longtime Bat-fans.

When the first season of the televised Batman ended, a theatrical Batman movie was released to theaters on July 30, 1966 (although it was originally planned to be released before Batman first aired on TV). Batmania had officially arrived!

Suddenly, almost every form of entertainment was eager to cash in on this new and genuinely exciting fad.

But one of the first—and arguably the best—offshoots of Batmania was Hanna-Barbera Productions creation of “Space Ghost.”

If you’re asking yourself, “Has Shaw! been ingesting too many ‘wacky’ gummies? What does the Dark Knight have to do with a rather obscure super-hero who wore an image of himself on his own chest?,” please allow me to explain.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUT AND THE MAN FOR THE JOB

At various times, Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937– January 30, 2020) was a top-level TV network executive at CBS, ABC, and NBC. He brought the medium such programs as All in the Family, The Waltons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show [coming in RF #43], Charlie’s Angels [RF #7], and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, as well as the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man; Roots; and Shogun. For his uncanny ability to birth and nourish successful TV series, Time magazine declared him “The Man with the Golden Gut” in 1977. Born in New York City, young Silverman’s masters thesis was an analysis of a decade of ABC’s programming. It led to being hired at WGN-TV in Chicago, WPIX in New York, and CBS. Silverman’s first job at CBS was to oversee the network’s daytime programming... which included Saturday mornings.

Meanwhile, at H-B, Joe Barbera—who oversaw the “pitches” for new cartoon concepts, characters, and plots to networks and sponsors among his other pre-production duties—was cooking up a slew of new ideas that aligned with the current super-hero craze sparked by Batman. (Bill primarily was in charge of the production of the cartoons that Joe sold and oversaw.) H-B was composed of pro cartoonists who’d worked for all of the major animation studios, but the majority had trained for drawing funny talking animals, not super-heroes. Joe required a cartoonist with a style that possessed simplicity and gravitas.

Legendary comic book artist Alex Toth was definitely the right man for the job.

Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928–May 27, 2006) was a cartoonist who drew noteworthy material for comic books and animation.

4

RETROFAN

November 2024

(ABOVE) Early pitch art by Alex Toth and Ton Sgroi for “The Space Ghosts,” featuring radically different versions of the cast. © HannaBarbera. Courtesy of Heritage. (LEFT) Television executive Fred Silverman, in 1979. NBC publicity photo, courtesy of Wikimedia. (BELOW) Space Ghost cartoonist Alex Toth.

Born to immigrants from Hungary, Toth’s talent was noticed early when a junior high school teacher urged him to devote himself to art. After graduating from the School of Industrial Art in 1947, he was hired by National (DC Comics).

While freelancing there, he worked on Green Lantern, the Justice Society of America [in All-Star Comics], Rex the Wonder Dog, All-Star Western, military stories, and eventually, DC’s toy tie-in, Hot Wheels. Alex also drew a number of romance and crime stories for Standard Comics. While serving in the army and stationed in Tokyo, he wrote and drew a comic strip, Jon Fury, for his base’s newspaper. After ending his

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(LEFT) Toth illustration for Cambria Studio Productions’ Space Angel (circa 1963). Courtesy of Heritage.

the visually disturbing “Syncro-Vox” process, which consisted of filmed live-action lips added to mostly un-animated but very appealing inked-and-painted drawings. Toth’s designs for the world of a sci-fi superhero caught Joe Barbera’s interest. (Ironically, Cambria’s owners, cartoonist Clark Haas and cameraman Edwin Gillette, felt that H-B’s Adventures of Jonny Quest was a direct plagiarism of Clutch Cargo, but Cambria couldn’t afford a lawsuit.)

Joe Barbera and his writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears—edging out of their day jobs at Paramount as film editors, a decade or so before they launched their contracted work with DC, Alex moved to Los Angeles in 1956, where he began working for Western Publishing, drawing a Disney-based Zorro comic book and four-color adaptations of other TV shows and movies.

Toth also drew short stories for James Warren’s horror comics magazines, Creepy and Eerie, as well as Pete Millar’s Drag Cartoons [see RF #22] and Big Daddy Roth [RF #10], both automotive humor magazines.

In 1960, Toth began working for Cambria Studio Productions as art director of the show Space Angel. It was the same animation studio that produced Clutch Cargo and Captain Fathom. All three series featured

own studio—worked on characters’ and stories’ descriptions (Jack Mendelsohn may have had some input as well), and Joe and a few artists—including Alex Toth—drew sketches of what a space superhero named “Space Ghost” might look like. Toth’s interpretation of a character who can fly through space, emit power rays, and become invisible, plus his cast of two teenage super-sibings and a monkey and his vehicle, are the designs that were a major element in Fred Silverman’s buying the show. The other reason that happened were three words coming from the mouth of one of animation’s greatest salesmen, Joseph Barbera: “Batman... in Space.”

(ABOVE) The Space Ghost cast we know (and love), with the Toth-designed titular hero, teenagers Jan and Jace, and monkey Blip. (LEFT) Early Space Ghost character design by Toth. © Hanna-Barbera. Both courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

5

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Alex Toth would go on to design hundreds of character designs for Hanna-Barbera—and a lot more on cartoon show pitches that never sold. Some of the H-B shows and characters he designed were The Herculoids, Super Friends, Blue Falcon, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, many of the villains in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Fantastic Four, and Sealab 2020, among many others. He also designed TMS’ Bionic 6 cartoon series. Toth created outstanding storyboards, too, somewhat rare for a comic book artist, because although they seem to be similar, they are extremely different.

Toth was inducted into the comic book industry’s Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990 and died at his drawing table on May 27, 2006, four weeks before his 78th birthday.

Fred Silverman fully realized that super-hero/adventure cartoons were the next big phase of children’s programming.

Therefore he loaded CBS’s 1966 Saturday morning schedule with the theme, with Hanna-Barbera creating most of the new series.

These were the shows on CBS’s 1966 roster that premiered on September 10, 1966: 9:00 AM: 9:30 AM: 10:00 AM: 10:30 AM: 11:00 AM: 11:30 AM: 12:00 PM: 12:30 PM: 1:00 PM:

Mighty Heroes (new/Terrytoons/first creation of Ralph Bakshi) Underdog (reruns/Total Television/previously on NBC) Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles (new/Hanna-Barbera) Space Ghost (new/Hanna-Barbera) The New Adventures of Superman (new/Filmation’s first series) The Lone Ranger (new/Format Films/inspired by 1965’s The Wild, Wild West) Road Runner (reruns/Warner Bros.)

The Beagles (reruns/Total Television) The Tom & Jerry Show (reruns/MGM)

The next year, Silverman added more Hanna-Barbera superhero series to CBS’s Saturday morning schedule: The Herculoids (for which Joe also sparked Silverman’s interest in the series with another three-word/Toth-art pitch, “Tarzan in Space”), Shazzan!, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, and reruns of Jonny Quest. H-B added two more team-up episodes of Space Ghost with their new characters as a very short “second season“ to promote the new shows; the other episodes were rerun. Filmation expanded its first 6

RETROFAN

November 2024

(LEFT) This Space Ghost model sheet by Alex Toth shows the Intergalactic Guardian in a range of flying poses.

(RIGHT) Title cel for the episode “The Sorcerer.” You can almost hear the eerie Space Ghost theme wailing in the background, can’t you? © Hanna-Barbera. Both courtesy of Heritage.

series by adding a second DC super-hero to The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure [see RetroFan #3].

BATMAN IN SPACE

So... let’s talk about Space Ghost, his background and abilities.

In the original Space Ghost series, the title character didn’t have a secret origin or even a secret identity. He was simply Space Ghost and he lived on his world named Ghost Planet along with his pre-teenage friends Jace and Jan and their pet monkey Blip. They spent their time fighting weird alien villains and monsters in sevenminute adventures, and they always won.

That sounds pretty basic, like it’s for little kids, right? It was. And intentionally so.

It’s important to remember that Saturday morning cartoons were aimed at kids. Of course, adults enjoyed them too, but they weren’t who the sponsors were trying to attract. They were aimed at kids... young kids who didn’t even grasp the concept of origins or secret identities. They understood that Space Ghost, Jan, and Jace were heroes and Blip was silly and the villains were scary—but not too scary. The super-hero trend affected the content of all of the television networks, and their “standards” executives were closely examining every scene to catch something that might result in a lawsuit. Therefore, H-B’s creative team settled for simplicity with clarity and appeal.

I had just turned 15 when Space Ghost premiered, but the simple storylines didn’t bother me a bit. I was too enthralled with H-B’s new era to be deterred. By that time I was a fanboy, fanzine publisher, comics collector, and amateur cartoonist, so I already knew Alex Toth’s work and loved his designs for Space Ghost’s characters. The SFX and backgrounds knocked me out, too. But I’ve gotta admit, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles was the show that really knocked me out, the last H-B cartoon that would affect my

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(TOP ROW) Toth-designed model sheets featuring head turns (1966). (BOTTOM ROW) Space Ghost concept art and an explosive spaceship design. Both by Toth. © Hanna-Barbera. All courtesy of Heritage. art style and eventually, my career. There’s a lot of influence by the Impossibles’ Coil-Man, Fluid-Man, and Multi-Man that was passed on to Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew. [Editor’s note: Check out RetroFan #18 for Scott’s examination of The Impossibles and other Sixties H-B super-heroes.]

Ken Spears co-wrote most of the scripts for Space Ghost, and also wrote for the other H-B super-hero shows. He told me that when he and Joe Ruby would turn in their paragraph-long “springboards” for The Herculoids’ 12-minute cartoons, Joe “Mr. B” Barbera would tell them to “make ’em simpler and boil yer plots down to a sentence!”

That sure sounds like Mr. B to me!

Space Ghost, by the way, wasn’t the only hero featured in his show.

In 1966, Hanna-Barbara had been using the same formats for a while; its nighttime shows would be a single 24-minute story; and its daytime shows for kids would consist of three segments with three short stories. Therefore, they needed a second character to be

in the middle of each Space Ghost episode, and to break things up a bit, it wouldn’t be another science fiction concept. Bill and Joe knew that kids loved dinosaurs else their Flintstones wouldn’t have been the huge success it was, so they scrambled the concept. Rather than a modernized family of cavemen who live among domesticated dinosaurs, how about a modern kid trapped in a prehistoric world, hunted by dinosaurs and even freakier creatures, with a caveman as his only friend and protector? Now that they had a solid concept in what they dubbed Dino Boy, H-B needed someone to design its small cast.

Fortunately, that “someone” was already employed on the studio’s staff.

Iwao Takamoto (April 29, 1925–January 8, 2007) was born in Los Angeles and at 15 years of age graduated from the city’s Thomas Jefferson High School. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and signing of Executive Order 9066, Iwao’s family, in the early CONTINUED ON PAGE 10.

RETROFAN

November 2024

7

The oddball world of scott shaw!

The Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Presents: SPACE GHOST

Season One Episode 1 Original airdate: Saturday, September 10, 1966 “The Heat Thing” “Zorak” Episode 2 Original airdate: Saturday, September 17, 1966 “Creature King” “The Lizard Slavers” Episode 3 Original airdate: Saturday, September 24, 1966 “The Web” “Homing Device” Episode 4 Original airdate: Saturday, October 1, 1966 “The Drone” “The Sandman” Episode 5 Original airdate: Saturday, October 8, 1966 “The Robot Master” “The Energy Monster” Episode 6 Original airdate: Saturday, October 15, 1966 “Hi-Jacker” “The Lure” Episode 7 Original airdate: Saturday, October 22, 1966 “The Schemers” “The Evil Collector” 8

RETROFAN

November 2024

Episode 8 Original airdate: Saturday, October 29, 1966 “Lokar – King of the Killer Locusts” “Brago”

Episode 17 Original airdate: Saturday, December 31, 1966 “The Ovens of Moltar” “The Matter Movers”

Episode 9 Original airdate: Saturday, November 5, 1966 “The Cyclopeds” “Space Sargasso”

Episode 18 Original airdate: Saturday, January 7, 1967 “The Gargoyloids” “The Looters”

Episode 10 Original airdate: Saturday, November 12, 1966 “The Iceman” “The Time Machine”

Season Two Episode 19 Original airdate: Monday, September 9, 1968 “The Meeting” (which starts a six-part story that introduces the new H-B characters on CBS) “The Clutches of the Creature King” “The Deadly Trap” (featuring the Mighty Mightor and Moby Dick cast)

Episode 11 Original airdate: Saturday, November 19, 1966 “Space Birds” “Attack of the Saucer Crab” Episode 12 Original airdate: Saturday, November 26, 1966 “The Time Machine” “Nightmare Planet” Episode 13 Original airdate: Saturday, December 3, 1966 “Space Armada” “The Challenge” Episode 14 Original airdate: Saturday, December 10, 1966 “Jungle Planets” “Ruler of the Rock Robots” Episode 15 Original airdate: Saturday, December 17, 1966 “Glasstor” “The Space Ark” Episode 16 Original airdate: Saturday, December 24, 1966 “The Sorcerer” “The Space Piranhas”

Episode 20 Original airdate: Monday, September 16, 1968 “The Molten Monsters of Moltar” (featuring The Herculoids cast) “Two Faces of Doom” “The Final Encounter” (featuring the Shazzan cast)

DINO BOY Episode 1 Original airdate: Saturday, September 10, 1966 “The Worm People” Episode 2 Original airdate: Saturday, September 17, 1966 “The Treeman” Episode 3 Original airdate: Saturday, September 24, 1966 “The Sacrifice” Episode 4 Original airdate: Saturday, October 1, 1966 “The Moss Men”

The oddball world of scott shaw!

A Space Ghost Cartoon Episode Guide Source: IMDB Episode 5 Original airdate: Saturday, October 8, 1966 “Marooned”

Episode 16 Original airdate: Saturday, December 24, 1966 “The Marksmen”

Episode 6 Original airdate: Saturday, October 15, 1966 “Giant Ants”

Episode 17 Original airdate: Saturday, December 31, 1966 “The Spear Warriors”

Episode 7 Original airdate: Saturday, October 22, 1966 “The Rock Pygmys”

Episode 18 Original airdate: Saturday, January 7, 1967 “The Worm People” (rerun)

Episode 8 Original airdate: Saturday, October 29, 1966 “Danger River”

SPACE STARS (Space Ghost episodes)

Episode 9 Original airdate: Saturday, November 5, 1966 “The Fire God” Episode 10 Original airdate: Saturday, November 12, 1966 “The Vampire Men” Episode 11 Original airdate: Saturday, November 19, 1966 “The Wolf People” Episode 12 Original airdate: Saturday, November 26, 1966 “Danger River” (rerun) Episode 13 Original airdate: Saturday, December 3, 1966 “The Vampire Men” (rerun) Episode 14 Original airdate: Saturday, December 10, 1966 “The Terrible Chase” Episode 15 Original airdate: Saturday, December 17, 1966 “The Sacrifice” (rerun)

Episode 9 “City in Space” Episode 10 “Eclipse Woman” Episode 11 “The Haunted Space Station” Episode 12 “The Time Master” Episode 13 “Planet of the Space Monkeys” Episode 14 “The Space Dragons” Episode 15 “Microworld” Episode 16 “The Big Freeze” Episode 17 “The Deadly Comet”

Episode 1 “Attack of the Space Sharks” Episode 2 “The Sorceress” Episode 3 “The Antimatter Man” Episode 4 “The Starfly” Episode 5 “Space Spectre”

Episode 18 “Web of the Wizard” Episode 19 “Nomads” Episode 20 “Time of the Giants” Episode 21 “Devilship” Episode 22 “Spacecube of Doom”

Episode 6 “The Toymaker” Episode 7 “The Shadow People” Episode 8 “Time Chase”

RETROFAN

November 2024

9

The oddball world of scott shaw!

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7.

Forties like many Japanese-Americans, was forced to move to California’s Manzanar internment camp. They spent the rest of World War II there, and it was at the camp that Takamoto—who was already taking his goal to become an artist very seriously— received basic illustration training from two co-internees who were former Hollywood art directors.

Takamoto first entered the animation world after the end of the war. Without the benefit of a formal portfolio of his work, he created a sketchbook of, by his own admission, “everything I saw.”

It was based on this sketchbook that he applied to work at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was hired as an assistant animator

by Disney in 1945 and eventually became an assistant to Milt Kahl.

Takamoto worked as an animator and character designer on such titles as Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).

Takamoto left Disney in 1961 and joined Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he first worked as a layout artist and character designer on The Flintstones and other then-current and upcoming

Dino Boy animator Iwao Takamoto.

Courtesy of Hanna-Barbera Wiki.

H-B shows. He was responsible for the original character design of such characters as The Jetsons’ dog Astro, Scooby-Doo, and Penelope Pitstop, as well as the shows The Addams Family, Hong Kong Phooey, and Jabberjaw. He directed his first and only feature-length animated films with Charlotte’s Web (1973). He also drew character designs and storyboards for the production of Hanna-Barbera’s Jetsons: The Movie (1990). Takamoto was Vice-President of Creative Design at Hanna-Barbera and responsible for overseeing the company’s merchandising lines as well as design work for their Animation Art department. After Time-Warner merged with (thenowner of Hanna-Barbera Studios) Turner Broadcasting in 1996, Takamoto became Vice President of Special Projects for Warner Bros. Animation.

Iwao Takamoto died on January 8, 2007, at the age of 81. He received the Winsor McCay Award, the lifetime achievement award from the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) Hollywood. He also received an honorary citation from the Japanese American National Museum. Takamoto was presented with the Golden Award in 2005 from the Animation Guild, to honor his more than 50 years of service in the animation field.

THE MAN WHO CRIED ‘SPA-A-A-ACE GHO-O-O-OST!!’

Born Gary Bernard Altman, Gary Owens (May 10, 1934–February 12, 2015), who could speak with a tone of campy authority like no other, provided the perfect voice for Space Ghost. In fact, that was Gary’s natural voice just amped up a bit. I once asked his wife Arleta if he always spoke like that. She told me that he sounded the same way when he hit his thumb with a hammer as when he was on the air. After decades of disc jockeying on radio stations all over the country, it became his default voice.

Owens, born in Mitchell, South Dakota, was a kid who suffered Type 1 diabetes, a condition with which he was first diagnosed at the age of eight. Gary began his radio career in 1952 in his home town and spent the next seven years bouncing around from Iowa to Nebraska to Texas to Louisiana to Missouri to Colorado. In 1961, he moved to California, first to Sacramento and Oakland, before landing in Los Angeles and remaining there for the rest of his long

(TOP) Meet the cast of Space Ghost’s companion series: Dino Boy, Bronty, and caveman Ugh. (LEFT) Title cel for the Dino Boy episode “Marooned.” © Hanna-Barbera. Cels courtesy of Heritage.

10

RETROFAN

November 2024

The oddball world of scott shaw!

life. In 1962, he was hired by L.A.’s KMPC, where he was on the air from the 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM, “the rush hour” slot, every Monday through Friday. Gary had a wonderfully weird sense of humor and an lexicon of made-up words and names that he could easily use to entertain and distract frustrated drivers.

Not only were commuters listening and laughing with Gary, so were executives in the entertainment industry.

In 1965, not only did Gary appear on the sitcom McHale’s Navy, the feature film McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force, and TV’s Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre and The Munsters, he became the star voice of Roger Ramjet, a hilarious Jay Ward–ish syndicated cartoon series animated by Fred Crippen’s Pantomime Studios and written

by Shrimpenstein!’s Gene Moss and Jim Thurman.

Having worked with the animation legend for many years, I suspect that a simple utterance of Gary’s voice was all it took to attract Joe Barbera’s attention. Joe’s mental antenna was always attuned to any new cartoon competition lurking out there. Like Alex Toth’s perfect design for Space Ghost, Gary Owens was his perfect voice, with a measured gravitas that could easily intimidate inhuman creatures.

Joe’s instincts were razor-sharp. Around the same time that Gary was recording his lines for Space Ghost, he was appearing on-screen in Batman, Mr. Terrific (another show inspired by Batman), and The Green Hornet (ditto!). His career continued to bloom in every medium after George Schlatter’s Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In put him on the map in 1968.

Gary maintained a long relationship with Hanna-Barbera Productions. He was the announcer/narrator of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop (1969), Dynomutt (1976), Scooby’s Laff-A Lympics (1977), Yogi’s Space Race (1978), Legends of the Superheroes (1979), Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (1977), Space Stars (1981), Yogi’s Treasure Hunt (1985), Tom & Jerry Kids Show (1983), 2 Stupid

(LEFT) The voice of Space Ghost, Gary Owens, as seen on the popular NBC comedy show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. © NBC Television. Photo courtesy of Heritage.

They’re gushing over Gary Owens! (LEFT) Steve Rude, artist of Comico’s 1987 Space Ghost one-shot, drew this 1986 sketch for the voice of H-B’s cosmic crimefighter. Shown with our hero is Rude and writer Mike Baron’s space-faring assassin Nexus, a character inspired in part by Space Ghost.

(RIGHT) Our own Scott Shaw! illustrated this tribute toon dedicated to the golden-throated voice master, featuring Space Ghost alongside other characters voiced by Owens: Roger Ramjet, Blue Falcon, and Powdered Toast Man. Space Ghost and Blue Falcon © Hanna-Barbera. Roger Ramjet © K.S.P. Powdered Toast Man © Spumco. Courtesy of Heritage and Scott Shaw!, respectively.

Dogs (1983), and SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron (1993). I also cast him as “Quarry Owens” and a prehistoric judge for three Post Pebbles cereal commercials in the Nineties that starred H-B’s Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

After an incredibly successful career and a reputation as “Hollywood’s Nicest Guy”—and don’t be surprised if I write a RetroFan column about him sooner or later—Gary Owens died on February 12, 2015, at age 80. Considering that he had Type 1 diabetes, that’s an impressive lifespan, especially since his doctor told his mother that he’d die by the time he was 14.

As for the rest of Space Ghost’s voice cast of characters, Ginny Tyler, born Merrie Virginia Eggers/Erlandason (August 8, 1925–July 13, 2012), portrayed Jan. She had already done voiceover work for RETROFAN

November 2024

11

The oddball world of scott shaw!

H-B on The Huckleberry Hound Show (1959) and The Flintstones (1960), as well as on The Gumby Show (1960), Davey and Goliath (1960), Son of Flubber (1962), The Lucy Show (1962), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The New Casper Show (1963), Mr. Ed (1963), Mary Poppins (1964), and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). Ginny also appeared on The Jack Benny Show (1961). After her role as Jan, she continued her long voiceover career well into the Nineties. In 2006, Ginny was honored to be chosen as an official Disney Legend.

When Tim Matheson (born Timothy Lewis Matthieson) was chosen to be the voice of H-B’s Jonny Quest in 1964 (billed as “Tim Matthieson”), he was already a pro live-action actor. Born on December 31, 1947, prior to Space Ghost he’d already appeared on six different TV shows including Leave It to Beaver and My Three Sons (both in 1962). Tim also did voiceover work as the title characters of Hanna-Barbera’s Sindbad Jr. and His Magic Belt (1965) and Young Samson & Goliath (1967). His live-action acting career has been incredibly prolific, but Tim still occasionally does voiceover acting, even revisiting his first H-B character in 1995’s Jonny Quest Versus the Cyber Insects and 2015’s Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest. He’s also vocally contributed to Warner Animation’s Batman: The Animated Series (1993), The New Batman Adventures (1998), Justice League Unlimited (2004), and Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2009). Tim probably has fans for everything he’s ever done, but when I think of Tim outside of Jonny Quest, my mind immediately go to his roles of Eric “Otter” Stratton in National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and twisted Larry Sizemore in the TV series Burn Notice (2008).

Your faves will certainly vary, but Tim’s recurring role of Vice President John Hoynes in NBC’s The West Wing earned him two prime-time Emmy Award nominations for “Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.”

Not to sound disrespectful, but Space Ghost’s Blip the Monkey was merely one of hundreds, if not thousands, of characters to which Don Messick (September 7, 1926–October 24, 1997) applied his incredible voiceover acting skills. Born Donald Earle Messick, his first assignments were on Tex Avery cartoons for MGM in the late Forties and early Fifties, including performances of the voice of Droopy. He also worked on TV’s The Adventures of Spunky and Tadpole (Beverly Hills Studios, 1958) and Bob Clampett’s Matty’s Funnies with Beany and Cecil (Snowball Inc., 1962). Don’s first gig at Hanna-Barbera was narrating and performing the voice of Reddy in The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957), the studio’s first series.

He would go on to be one of the voice actors who helped create H-B’s best-known and most-loved characters, including Boo Boo, Ranger Smith, and Pixie on The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958), and most importantly, the original voice of Scooby-Doo in 1969.

He provided character voices for Hanna-Barbera Productions for almost four decades. Don also did voiceovers for The Gumby Show (Art Clokey, 1956), The Alvin Show (Format Films, 1962), Plastic Man (Ruby-Spears, 1979) [seen in these pages last issue—ed.], The Mighty Orbots (TMS, 1984), and The Transformers (also 1984).

12

RETROFAN

November 2024

Space Ghost and Blip feature in this Space Ghost end credits cel, circa 1966. © Hanna-Barbera. Courtesy of Heritage.

That same year, Messick played the live-action character Wally Wooster on The Duck Factory, a prime-time comedy series starring Jim Carrey set in a small animation studio, Theodore “Ted” Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932–January 16, 1979) was known for his size, as 1964’s The Addams Family’s butler Lurch was, but his massive body also contributed to his wonderfully deep voice. His first gig as a voiceover actor was as the title sequence narrator of Hanna-Barbera’s The Atom Ant Show in 1965.

The following year, he was cast as the voice of H-B’s Frankenstein Jr. (minus the Impossibles). After portraying Space Ghost’s nemesis Metallus, Ted could be heard in the studio’s Birdman and the Galaxy Trio (1967), Fantastic Four (1967) [see RetroFan #33], as Injun Joe in The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1968), as Lurch in The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972), The Addams Family (1973), Super Friends (1977), Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (1977), Flintstones: Little Big League (1978), Yogi’s Space Race (1978), The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1979), and in Godzilla (1978) as the Big G himself. Ted also was rotoscoped for the animation of “The Mountain” in H-B’s theatrical animated feature musical, Heidi’s Song (1982).

Victor “Vic” Herbert Perrin (April 26, 1916–July 4, 1989) may have been Space Ghost’s Creature King, but he was much more foreboding as the “Control Voice” of ABC’s original sci-fi TV series, The Outer Limits (1963–1965). His relationship with Hanna-Barbera began in 1964 when he was cast as arch-villain Dr. Zin in Jonny Quest, and he was soon heard in H-B’s Fantastic Four and Birdman (both 1967), The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1968), and Help!...

It’s the Hair Bear Bunch! (1971). But it was H-B’s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) that transformed Vic into a Scooby-Doo monster larynx specialist. He also spoke in The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour (1976), The Scooby-Doo Show (1978), and The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show (1983). Earlier in his career, Vic was a prolific live-action actor; some of his odder appearances were The Twonky (1953), TV’S

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Prized among Space Ghost’s rare Sixties merchandise is the Big Little Book The Sorceress of Cyba-3.

Shown are its cover and the original art from an interior page featuring Jan and Jace, with art by Dan Spiegle. © Hanna-Barbera.

Courtesy of Heritage.

Adventures of Superman and Dragnet (both 1954), The Twilight Zone (1960), Ray Harryhausen’s One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Invaders (1967), and Kung Fu (1973).

Alan Reed—born Herbert Theodore Bergman (August 20, 1907–June 14, 1977)—gave voice to Space Ghost bad guys Glasstor and the Sorcerer but remains best known as the original voice of Hanna-Barbera’s Fred Flintstone in all six seasons of The Flintstones, starting in 1960. That led to appearances in 1966’s Alice in Wonderland or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, the feature film The Man Called Flintstone, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971), The Flintstones Comedy Hour (1972), and Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977). His other H-B roles included Touché Turtle’s Dum Dum (1962) and Where’s Huddles’ Mad Dog Mahoney (1970). Before that, he had a long career as a live-action actor in such classics as Nob Hill (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and as Pancho Villa (!) in Viva Zapata! (1952). His first experience doing voiceover acting was as Boris the Russian Wolfhound in Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp (1955). Reed’s final performance as Fred Flintstone was a cameo guest role on an episode of H-B’s Scooby’s All-Star LaffA-Lympics (1977).

Keye Luke (June 18, 1904–January 12, 1991)—a Chinese-American film and television actor, technical advisor, artist, and founding member of the Screen Actors Guild—provided the voice for Space Ghost’s Brak. Famous for playing Lee “Number One Son” Chan in the original Charlie Chan films by RKO Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it’s not surprising that Joe Barbera cast him as the voice of the leading role in H-B’s The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan series (1972), thus becoming the first actor of Chinese descent to play the role. Keye also voice-acted as Zoltar, the Great Spirit, and Colonel Cronus in Sandy Frank Entertainment’s Battle of

the Planets (1978). [Come back next ish for the story behind the sci-fi toon Battle of the Planets!—ed.]

Solomon Hersh “Paul” Frees (June 22, 1920–November 2, 1986) was an actor, comedian, filmmaker, and outstanding voiceover actor known as Boris Badenov in Jay Ward’s Rocky and his Friends (1959) and Professor Ludwig Von Drake in Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color; he also narrated Donald in Mathmagic Land and other

Space Ghost Whitman puzzle tray original art (circa 1967).

Artist unknown. © Hanna-Barbera. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

13

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Western Publishing’s Gold Key Comics imprint was the home in the mid-Sixties to the few Space Ghost comic books published, including (LEFT) the one-shot Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1967; cover art by Dan Spiegle) and (RIGHT) Space Ghost’s appearance in the anthology title Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes #3 (Oct. 1968). © Hanna-Barbera. Courtesy of Heritage and Scott Shaw!, respectively.

educational Disney specials. Frees also voice-acted for Walter Lantz and Rankin/Bass, provided the voices of John Lennon and George Harrison when the real Beatles weren’t available [see this issue’s “Retro Animation” feature—ed.] for King Features Syndicate’s The Beatles cartoon show (1966), and played the title role of DFE’s Super President (1967). He began his long relationship with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera while making MGM’s Tom & Jerry cartoon shorts, narrating Blue Cat Blues, and voicing Jerry’s cousin Muscles and the tribesmen in His Mouse Friday. His list of H-B cartoon characters include Secret Squirrel’s Morocco Mole, Squiddly Diddly, Fantastic Four’s Thing and Uatu the Watcher, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles’ Big D and Fluid Man… and Space Ghost’s Brago.

Lucille Theresa Bliss (March 31, 1916–November 8, 2012)—the voice behind Space Ghost’s Utan—began her long career by hosting the Bay Area’s The Happy Birthday to You Show in the early Fifties.

Promoting herself as the “Girl With a Thousand Voices,” Lucille’s voice credits included Disney’s Cinderella (1951), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).

She also worked on animated shorts, including Warner Bros.’ “A 14

RETROFAN

November 2024

Waggity Tale,” Disney’s “How to Have an Accident at Work,” and MGM’s “Robin Hoodwinked” and “Droopy Leprechaun.” She was the voice of TV’s Crusader Rabbit and a character named Hugo in Hanna-Barbera’s The Flintstones’ “The Good Scout.” There were more Flintstones-related specials ahead, but Lucille’s voice-acting career took a huge leap in 1981 when she was cast as H-B’s The Smurfs’ only female, Smurfette. That led to other H-B voice work, including Space Kidettes, and loads of other animation voice-acting parts in Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings, Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter video game and the Ewoks series, and more. She also appeared in a few live-action roles including Scream (1996).

And let’s not forget the voice actors behind Dino Boy! Born John Franklin Carson in Los Angeles, California, John David Carson (March 6, 1952–October 27, 2009) was chosen to be Todd, the rarely-mentioned-by-name character Dino Boy. John began his career at a young age, acting in television advertisements. He was the voice of Dino Boy/Todd in all 16 Dino Boy episodes, billed as “Johnny Carson.” Upon beginning his

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Hollywood career he was immediately engaged in a dispute with legendary late-night talk-show host Johnny Carson over the use of their shared name; he subsequently went by the name John David Carson. Although Carson never worked in the animation field again, his career as an actor was long and diverse, appearing on such series as Room 222, The Partridge Family, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Charlie’s Angels, Hawaii Five-0, and Taxi. His films included Pretty Maids All in a Row, Love Story, The Day of the Dolphin, Empire of the Ants, and Pretty Woman.

Long before he was the voice actor Mike Road, Milton Brustin (March 18, 1918–April 14, 2013) was originally an actor and Warner Bros. contract player dating back to the Forties. His film roles were mostly uncredited, but some of his televised performances were more evident on Wagon Train, Sea Hunt, Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Patty Duke Show, and Daktari. Road’s first work as a voice actor was on H-B’s Jonny Quest as Race Bannon. During that same time, he guest-starred as Go-Go Ravine on the Flintstones episode “Fred Meets Hercurock.” After playing Dino Boy’s Ugh the Caveman, Mike provided voices for H-B’s Zandor on The Herculoids (1967), John Butler on Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974), as well as guest voices on The Funky Phantom (1971), Speed Buggy (1973), and Godzilla (1978).

Mike also portrayed Reed Richards on DePatie-Freleng’s The New Fantastic Four in 1978. Mike Road retired from voice acting after reprising his role as Zandor in H-B’s Space Stars in 1981.

SPACE GHOST LIVES ON

Space Ghost was certainly unique enough to attract the attention of Los Angeles’ offices of Western Publishing, located on Hollywood Boulevard—which was located only about a half-hour away from Hanna-Barbera Studios on La Cahuenga. They had been licensing Hanna-Barbera characters in funnybooks and other print material since H-B’s first TV series in 1957, The Ruff and Reddy Show, when Western’s stories appeared under the Dell Comics label. Therefore, it was somewhat inevitable that the publisher, with its own line called Gold Key Comics, would continue their relationship with H-B. The results were cautious, but certainly well-executed.

Gold Key published Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1967), a 36-page one-shot, with its cover and interior art by Dan Spiegle. Space Ghost’s funnybook adventures also appeared in three issues (#3, 6, and 7) of the anthology title Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes, which ran seven issues (Apr. 1968–Oct. 1969) and also featured comic stories starring Dino Boy, Birdman, and other H-B heroes.

(ABOVE AND LEFT) Space Ghost made a rare comic book appearance in the hard-to-find Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978), in a story illustrated by Alex Toth (who also drew the cover) and written by editor Mark Evanier, during Marvel Comics’ short-lived H-B line in the late Seventies. © Hanna-Barbera. Interior page scan courtesy of Steven Thompson.

RETROFAN

November 2024

15

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(TOP ) Space Ghost cast model cel, based on Toth’s designs, from 1981’s Space Stars. (CENTER) Color model cel from Space Stars for Space Ghost’s Phantom Cruiser. (BOTTOM) Jack Kirby character design. © Hanna-Barbera. Cels courtesy of Heritage.

In 1978, Mark Evanier, the editor of Marvel Comics’ line of Hanna-Barbera comic books, achieved something that no other editor had attempted: a four-color reunion between Space Ghost and his creator, Alex Toth. The book was Hanna-Barbera’s TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978), with a Toth cover. Inside appeared the tale “Pilgreen’s Progress,” written by Evanier and drawn by Toth, that latter of whom also lettered the story.

In 1980, most of H-B’s Sixties super-heroes suddenly returned.

Syndicated cartoon shows were becoming successful and Bill and Joe wanted to take advantage of the trend. From 1980 to 1984, Hanna-Barbera’s World of Super Adventure featured material from Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Fantastic Four, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, The Herculoids, Shazzan, and Space Ghost.

Ironically, despite the micro-managing Standards & Practices executives, Saturday morning’s super-hero wave of the mid-Sixties was eventually treated like comic books were after Dr. Fredric Wertham published his slanted-and-rigged book, Seduction of the Innocent. Parents’ lobbying groups like Action for Children’s Television began cropping up in the late Sixties, voicing concerns about cartoon violence, stereotypes, and the commercialism and anti-social behaviors associated with hours of sitting in front of the TV. The result were cartoons like H-B’s Super Friends [see RetroFan #25–28], starring DC Comics super-heroes who—and here I’ll quote our son Kirby when he was little—“just stood around and talked to each other.” However, by 1980, Ruby-Spears’ Thundarr the Barbarian [RF #32] seemed to return to the action of the Sixties, now designed by none other than Jack Kirby, who was phasing out his comic book projects to return to his art industry, animation. Ironically, by the next year, Jack was working for Hanna-Barbera on character designs for a new, 90-minute sci-fi program for NBC, Space Stars (1981–1982). It wasn’t a ripoff of Star Wars, but Bill and Joe were definitely riding the tail of George Lucas’ comet.

Each 90-minute episode of Space Stars, narrated by Keene Curtis, broke down to this format: f Space Ghost (2 segments, 6 minutes each) f The Herculoids (1 segment, 10 minutes f Teen Force (1 segment, 7 minutes f Astro and the Space Mutts (1 segment, 7 minutes) f Space Stars Finale (1 segment, 7 minutes)

Western Publishing also produced Space Ghost coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, a Big Little Book, and similar print material for kids.

On television, the original Space Ghost segments were seen again in the 1976 TV series Space Ghost and Frankenstein Jr. (which replaced the Dino Boy segments with those from H-B’s Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles), which aired on NBC from November 27, 1976, to September 4, 1977.

16

RETROFAN

November 2024

The fact that you’ve only heard of Space Ghost, the Herculoids, and the Jetsons’ dog Astro is all you need to know about the other characters in Space Stars. Unlike the original shows, gravitas is completely absent, the production values are mediocre at best, and the stories are as forgettable as the cast. At least Jack Kirby designed some new monsters and bad guys and gals for the show.

The titles of this iteration of Space Ghost (see episode guide) kinda says it all.

Meanwhile, popular comic book artist Steve Rude had been making it no secret that he was a huge fan of Space Ghost. The

The oddball world of scott shaw!

cartoon show inspired him and influenced the design of Steve’s popular indie comics super-hero, Nexus, his co-creation with writer Mike Baron. Eventually, a small publisher, Comico, attained the license to publish an all-new one-shot Space Ghost comic, written by Hanna-Barbera alumnus Mark Evanier and drawn by—yes, Steve Rude. Inking Rude’s pencils was Willie Blyberg, with lush coloring by Ken Steacy, letters by Carrie Spiegle, and editing by Diana Schutz.

Due to its creative team, Space Ghost fans still seem be delighted with the results of Comico’s Space Ghost #1 (Dec. 1987).

[Editor’s note: As an editor at Comico in 1988, I was assigned to edit a Space Ghost/Herculoids one-shot, a sequel to the 1987 hit one-shot. An agreement with H-B was inked and animator Darrell McNeil, who has since passed, replaced Evanier as writer, with Steve Rude returning for the art chores.

Before illustration work on the project began, Rude received and accepted an offer from DC Comics to draw a prestigious World’s Finest project co-starring Superman and Batman and had to table his beloved Space Ghost sequel. Comico soon experienced financial difficulties that shuttered the entire company, and Space Ghost/Herculoids faded into limbo, unproduced.]

No one expected it but Space Ghost would be back soon, although not remotely close to what we were hoping for.

MTV’s Liquid Television (1991–1994) was a trippy, late night show with animated segments that put cleverness and style over establishing likable characters. It was where Aeon Flux (1991) and Beavis and Butthead (1992) were born. Around that time, Cartoon Network was using classic cartoons for its child-aimed programming blocks. On their bosses’ request, CN producer Mike Lazzo, Andy Merril (who would voice Brak and other characters), and Jay Edwards created a relatively low-budget cartoon series that would appeal to adults. After deciding that Space Ghost would be perfect for their concept, the trio added “Coast to Coast” to rhyme words with “Ghost.”

Space Ghost Coast to Coast was a 15-minute-long late-night talk show, with Space Ghost as the animated host, and his former enemies Zorak as the musical director and Moltar as producer, interviewing live-action celebrities of all types, ranging from Björk to Timothy Leary to Ben Stiller. The series proved to be surprisingly popular with audiences, paving the way for the channel to produce similarly strange and original animated series.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast was the first original series on Cartoon Network. It premiered on April 15, 1994, and ran five years before ending on December 17, 1999. It was revived for the newly created Adult Swim block, with new episodes produced until April 12, 2004.

Unfortunately, for budgetary reasons, Gary Owens, the original (and only, in my opinion) voice of Space Ghost didn’t get the late-night talk-show gig. That did not make Gary happy, and interviewing him on Space Ghost Coast to Coast didn’t either. Instead,

Comico’s 1987 prestige format Space Ghost one-shot, written by Mark Evanier, illustrated by Steve Rude, inked

by Willie Blyberg, and colored by Ken Steacy, replicated the lush, colorful visuals of Hanna-Barbara’s original Space Ghost television cartoons. © Hanna-Barbera. Scan courtesy of Scott Shaw!

his job went to the show’s announcer, George Lowe, whose improvisations sometimes make the final cut.

In fact, the show’s budget was so low that almost all of the animation in the show was derived from the footage of the original 20 Space Ghost cartoons made at Hanna-Barbera in 1966.

But when the budget went up to $30,000 per episode, was Gary Owens invited back as Space Ghost’s voice? Or was the animation improved? Of course not.

Spike Feresten, who earned an Emmy nomination for writing the “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld, and Steve O’Donnell, former RETROFAN

November 2024

17

The oddball world of scott shaw!

head writer for Late Night with David Letterman and future head writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, joined up. Other notable scribes included Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast proved so popular that in 1995, only a year after its debut, the show was spun off into a second show called Cartoon Planet. In its original incarnation, Cartoon Planet was an hour-long variety show hosted by Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak. Each episode contained a mixture of classic cartoons from the Turner library and new segments featuring original songs and ad-libbed skits with the three hosts.

A major part of the new segments created for Cartoon Planet were the original songs written for the show and performed by Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak. These comedy songs proved so popular with fans that the creative team released three albums for the show, each of which contained original songs from Cartoon Planet along with dialog skits and background music not used in the show. The first of three records, Modern Music for Swinging SuperHeroes, was a 17-track promotional record released for free in 1996, and as a result, it’s the only one of the three albums to have long since been out of print. The next two albums, Space Ghost’s Musical Bar-B-Que and Space Ghost’s Surf & Turf, were released in 1997 and 1998, respectively on Warner’s own Rhino Records. Both records were nearly twice as long as Modern Music..., with each featuring over 35 tracks performed by the show’s voice cast.

Space Ghost has also appeared in some surprising places, far too many to list in this magazine. But you can find Space Ghost cameos in episodes of Robot Chicken, Perfect Hair Forever, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Fantastic Max, Donny & Marie, The Powerpuff Girls, MAD TV, and elsewhere. Of special note: Space Ghost and his sidekicks appeared in Batman: Brave and the Bold Season 3/ Episode 9–“Bold Beginnings!—with Gary Owens reprising his role of Space Ghost, Jan voiced by Cathy Cavadini, and Jace voiced by James Arnold Taylor. Space Ghost teamed up with Batman to fight Creature King (voiced

by Gregg Berger), who had captured Jan, Jace, and Blip. Space Ghost has also appeared in a number of movies including H-B’s Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon and Warner Bros.’ Space Jam: A New Legacy.

Space Ghost funnybooks have continued to come and go, including the 1997 one-shot Cartoon Network Presents Space Ghost, from Archie Comics; it was written by Bill Metheny, with art by Scott Rosema and Jorge Pacheco.

DC Comics was the next publisher of Space Ghost. Space Ghost Coast to Coast appeared in issues #4, 9, 12, 15, and 18 of the rotating-star book Cartoon Network Starring… (1999–2001). In DC’s Cartoon Cartoons series (2001–2004), Space Ghost Coast to Coast 18

RETROFAN

November 2024

(ABOVE) Purists might hate it, but the irreverent Space Ghost Coast to Coast brought our hero—or an off-kilter talk-show-host version thereof—to a wider audience in the Nineties. Cover to one of DC Comics’ tie-in offerings, Cartoon Network Starring… #4 (Dec. 1999). Cover art by Clay Martin and Robert Pope.

(BELOW) Space Ghost model sketch by Scott Shaw! © Hanna-Barbera. Courtesy of Scott Shaw!

appeared in issues #1, 3, 6, 10, 13, and 15. Then came the 2005 DC miniseries Space Ghost #1–6, with scripts by Joe Kelly, interior artwork by Ariel Olivetti, and cover artwork by Alex Ross. This series established Space Ghost’s name, family, backstory, secret origin, and more—it’s like Marvel’s Punisher... in space. Olivetti returned to Space Ghost to illustrate 2017’s Green Lantern/Space Ghost Special

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(LEFT) Space Ghost #3 (Mar. 2005), of a six-part series from DC. Cover by Alex Ross. (ABOVE) Jan, Blip, Jace, Space Ghost, and Batman share a hearty laugh in “Bold Beginnings,” the Season 3/Episode 9 of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

#1, written by James Tynion IV and Christopher Sebela. Space Ghost and company also appeared in DC’s Future Quest #1–12 (2016–2017).

Written by Jeff Parker, this series blended Jonny Quest, Birdman, Space Ghost, and Hanna-Barbera’s other super-heroes into one storyline.

You can also spot a DC Space Ghost comic book in a DC liveaction television show! Cartoon Network Starring Space Ghost Coast to Coast #4 can be seen at the timestamp of 12 minutes and 6 seconds in the tenth episode of Season One of the CW’s The Flash.

While I was writing this article, I learned that Dynamite Comics has recently published a new Space Ghost series by writer David Pepose and artist Jonathan Lau. Whatever it is, let’s just hope that they “made it simpler and boiled their plots down to a sentence.”

Despite his popularity, there was very little Space Ghost merchandise available when the show was airing on TV. However, in recent years, there have been a number of action figures of Space Ghost, licensed and otherwise. The manufacturers include ToyBiz, Mezco, Jazwares, and Art Asylum. Space Ghost T-shirts and sweatshirts are available. There are Space Ghost Funko Pop! figures. Of course there are.

And if you can find one, some years ago, the Warner Bros. Stores chain sold gorgeous prints of one of Alex Toth’s illos from his Space

Ghost pitch… but his signature had been removed. That’s Warner Bros. for you.

When Joe Barbera first used the magic words “Batman in Space” to sell Space Ghost, he was referencing the Caped Crusader because he was the only super-hero that was suddenly super-popular and super-profitable. Six decades later, Batman still possesses those qualities. Meanwhile, although the hero from the Ghost Planet is no longer a well-known character, he’s still present, with new comic books and airings of his original cartoons on the new MeTV Toons television network.

I’m certain that many of you RetroFan readers would agree that Space Ghost still carries the legitimacy of being, by far, HannaBarbera’s coolest super-hero.

For 50 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW! has written and drawn underground comix, mainstream comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, TV cartoons, toys, advertising, and video games. He has worked on such characters as Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew (which he co-created with Roy Thomas), Sonic the Hedgehog, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the Simpsons, the Futurama gang, the Muppet Babies, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids, and yes, even Annoying Orange. His career has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award, and a Humanities Award. Scott is also known for his “Oddball Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the craziest comic books ever published” and for his regular participation in “Quick Draw!” with Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also one of the teenagers who co-created what is currently known as Comic-Con International: San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan event. He can be reached at shawcartoons.com.

RETROFAN

November 2024

19

Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) Col. Edward McCauley

2) Time-displaced astronauts McKenzie and Canfield 3) Time-displaced astronauts Virdon and Burke 4) Capt./Maj. Roger Healey 5) NASA janitor Junior 6) Col. Steve Austin 7) Space junkman Harry Broderick 8) Nimbus the Greatest 9) Bennu of the Golden Light 10) Cosmonauts Igor and Ivan 20

RETROFAN

November 2024

BY MIC HAE

L E U RY

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 astronaut character (or characters) in Column One corresponds to a classic television show in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

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

One of these days, Alice… to the moon!

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) It’s About Time B) Salvage 1 C) Far Out Space Nuts D) The Phoenix E) I Dream of Jeannie F) Gilligan’s Island G) Men into Space H) The Six Million Dollar Man I) The Jetsons J) Planet of the Apes Far Out Space Nuts © Sid & Marty Krofft Television. Gilligan’s Island © Warner Bros.

Television. The Honeymooners, It’s About Time © CBS Television. I Dream of Jeannie, The Six Million Dollar Man © NBCUniversal.

The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera. Men into Space © Ziv Television. The Phoenix © ABC Television. Planet of the Apes © 20th Century Studios. Salvage 1 © Ziv Television. All Rights Reserved.

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

RETROFAN

November 2024

21

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 #26

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #23

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #25

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features!

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

Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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

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

by MICHAEL EURY.

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

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

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

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

RETROFAN #27

RETROFAN #28

RETROFAN #29

RETROFAN #30

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

Interview with Captain Kangaroo BOB KEESHAN, The ROCKFORD FILES, teen monster movies, the Kung Fu and BRUCE LEE crazes, JACK KIRBY’s comedy comics, DON DRYSDALE’s TV drop-ins, outrageous toys, Challenge of the Super Friends, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

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

The BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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

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

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.

(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 #31

RETROFAN #32

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

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.

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more!

Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

(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

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

Say...

That’s a well-advertised cup of coffee!

COFFEE ADVERTISING

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

“Jim never has a second cup.”

- Jim’s unnamed wife to party hostess, Yuban coffee commercial (1972) An early Seventies television commercial for Yuban coffee features a couple (Jim and Jim’s wife) about to exit a party. The hostess, oblivious to the departing couple’s intentions, offers a “second cup” of coffee to Jim but not specifically his wife. Clearly, the hostess is better at tracking coffee consumption than being a thoughtful party-giver (or maybe Jim’s wife was “over the limit”).

Jim’s wife tries to wave off the hostess speaking the line quoted above. However, Jim is totally into getting another hot cup of the rich, caffeine-laden beverage much to his wife’s mild chagrin. Jim’s wife makes the internal observation, “Jim never has seconds of my coffee.” Even though, per the commercial, Jim’s wife makes a pretty good cup of coffee. She just doesn’t make Yuban branded coffee which has, according to the advertising of the day, “Richness worth a second cup.”

And isn’t that just what we want in life? Coffee, and then more coffee? Okay. Maybe we all don’t want coffee, per se, but a nice hot cup of something can be extremely comforting. To this observer, coffee is best. And in the U.S. coffee is the way-ahead hot drink of

(TOP) A happy husband (the goal of many coffee commercials) in this 1961 Maxwell House promotion. © Maxwell House. (ABOVE) Jim’s wife gets a wake-up call at a party when Jim has a second cup of coffee that changes her worldview as it relates to hot caffeinated beverages (she’ll serve Folgers from now on). TM & © The Folger Coffee Company.

RETROFAN

November 2024

23

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

choice. Internationally, tea is supposed to be second only to water.

So why do we Americans now like coffee so much especially since when we were but a hardy band of British colonies (a very long time ago) we were committed tea drinkers?

Because of advertising and, you know, taxation without representation.

‘AN EPOCHA IN HISTORY’

The American colonists drank more tea than coffee. Tea was more expensive than coffee, but it had more cachet. In 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, intended to support the struggling British East India Company’s monopoly on tea sales in America and increase tax revenues for England. The colonists were not best pleased by this development, and when the tea arrived in ports at Charleston, South Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New York, New York (the colony so nice they named it twice), they prevented the unloading of the tea. But it was the colonists of Boston, Massachusetts, who really pulled out all the stops. Some of the active protestors dressed up as Mohawk natives and tossed millions of dollars (in today’s cash money) of tea overboard. The Mohawk cosplay wasn’t just an attempt to hide the perpetrators’ identities from authorities but to send the message that the colonist’s freedoms were not being respected (as in: no taxation without etc., etc.). You see, the colonists believed that the Mohawk people were a perfect symbol because they represented (sit down for this)… American freedom.

Many upstanding colonial citizens were disappointed yet understanding of the unruly behavior. The British, however,

demanded to be repaid for the lost tea and enacted laws (known as the “Intolerable Acts”) that added to the existing tensions in the colonies. George Washington proclaimed that the tea rebellion and the further loss of freedoms “now is and ever will be considered as the cause of America.” And John Adams had lots (seriously, lots and lots) to say, including, “This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, so intrepid, and so inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an Epocha in History.” Benjamin Franklin was a bit briefer and noted that he was, and I quote, “concern’d.” Essentially, our Founding Fathers were for freedom (and sending a message to British rulers) but not super excited about mob rule.

The net result was the War for Independence and a ten-year stoppage of tea imports to the troublesome and soon-to-be-former American colonies. This was followed by another tea shortage during the War of 1812 (the one where the British burnt out the White House). Coffee took centerstage as the hot beverage of choice for Americans.

HANDBILLS AND ILLS

In 1652 (160 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue), a handbill was put up for the first coffee house in London. It made a number of promises about coffee, nearly none of them were true. The proprietor, one Pasqua Rosée, claimed that (spelling and punctuation from the original): “It much quickens the Spirits, and makes the Heart Lightsome. It is good against sore Eys… and Head-ach, and will very much stop any Defluxion of Rheums… and so prevent and help Consumptions… It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout, and Scurry… the Kings Evil… Hypocondriack Winds. It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for business.”

(LEFT) What we now call the Boston Tea Party was once known as the Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor which is also the name of this 1846 hand-colored lithograph by Nathaniel Currier of Currier and Ives. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. (RIGHT) The first coffee advertisement appeared in London in 1652. All interested parties curious about this hot new drink were encouraged to go to “St. Michael’s Alley in Cornhill... at the Signe [sic] of [Pasqua Rosée’s] own Head.” Courtesy of Wikicommons.

24

RETROFAN

November 2024

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

That’s it! The last one there is the benefit of coffee (and is largely the same as the first stated benefit). The rest is only suitable for bobolynes (a Tudor England–era word for fool) and fopdoodles (period appropriate insult). By the way, the “King’s Evil” is now more commonly known as “mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis” (sadly, not as catchy a phrase) and “Hypocondriack Winds” were believed to be caused by too much reading and produced, as you may suspect, flatulence. Neither are cured by a cup of coffee.

Delusional as this early coffee advertisement was the fact remained: coffee did indeed “make one fit for business.”

ORIGINS OF THE BEAN

Nobody knows for sure just when and how coffee beans were first found and turned into a drink (some say it was an Ethiopian goat-herder sometime in the 9th Century that uncovered the coffee bean’s riches), but the earliest actual record appears to place the discovery in Yemen around the middle of the 15th Century.

Originally, spreading the joys of coffee was purely a word-of-mouth affair (proper advertising not being a thing back then). Locals and travelers lucky enough to taste it told others about the marvelous “black drink.” Getting actual coffee to Europe and the Americas was a long journey that would take a couple of generations. More years would pass before it became America’s hot beverage of choice.

HOME OF THE BREWED

After the Brits were stomped and sent packing, coffee would be considered more American than tea which was then sometimes referred to as the “traitor’s drink” (a bit harsh).

In 1824, Thomas Jefferson received a package from a friend with samples of Columbian coffee. He sent most of the samples to merchants and grocers around Charlottesville, Virginia, to help encourage coffee consumption. Asked for his opinion about the coffee beans he declared in his return letter that “duty to you as (ABOVE) Arbuckles’ Coffee offered convenience up to a point. They sold roasted coffee but the beans still needed to be ground correctly and then boiled into something drinkable. (LEFT) Detail from Arbuckle’s trademark application. The package label is to this day much the same as it was back in 1880. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

well as to myself requires that it should be given with truth and candor. [T]he coffee bean, from it’s mild, and smooth, bitter, it’s essential oil & the aroma that gives it is become the favorite beverage of the civilised [sic.] world.” Punctuation and spelling were weird in our new democracy. Jefferson goes on for a bit on the subject of green (unroasted) coffee beans and is strikingly opinionated on the subject. Fun fact: Jefferson served coffee from an urn of his own design (but of course he did). It was the consumer’s job of the time to roast coffee beans and not everybody was good at it.

This is what is known as a business opportunity.

John Arbuckle developed a way to roast coffee to create a consistent product. It involved the use of sugar, eggs, and moss; a combination that kept the coffee flavor in the bean while roasting.

Arbuckles’ Ariosa Coffee was a hit. This post–Civil War product was so popular with wagon train cooks in the West that coffee was often referred to as simply “arbuckles.” The company was also the first to sell roasted beans in packages and was an early adopter of color advertising on handbills when it was really quite new.

One such handbill from 1872 featured an illustration of two women in a kitchen. One is trying—unsuccessfully—to roast green coffee beans in a skillet (a pillar of smoke emanates from the doomed beans) and she gets frustrated. The other woman, calm and seated, suggests that her friend use Arbuckles Roasted “as I do.” In the realm of coffee advertising this was actually a helpful notice. Roasting beans was frustrating. Making a mistake, even a small one, ruined the flavor.

RETROFAN

November 2024

25

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Arbuckle’s got off to a good start and their advertising (plus an in-demand product) put them on the map, but they weren’t the first coffee roaster. The San Francisco Gold Rush drew in many dreamers, schemers, and, as it happens, a New York coffee roaster who would meet up with a very young man named Folger.

THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP

The Folger boys, James, Henry, and Edward (ages 14, 16, and 20 respectively), departed from their Nantucket home late in 1849 to head to San Francisco in hopes of getting some Gold Rush action.

It would be May 1850 before they arrived. The two oldest went on to try and find themselves some of that there gold up north and, since they were quite broke, young James was charged with staying in San Francisco to find work. He met up with a transplanted 27-year-old New York coffee roaster who founded Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills. James, the company’s carpenter, built the mill, which was powered by sails from ships abandoned by crews looking for gold up north. James was soon selling roasted coffee beans in cans to anyone in gold country looking for an easier way to make coffee and, fortunately, the last thing gold-crazed prospectors wanted to be doing was roasting their own coffee.

James managed to have a modestly successful gold strike, opened a store, sold the store, and by 1872 he completely owned Pioneer and renamed it the James A. Folger Company. For his brothers Henry and Edward, panning for gold lost its luster but they did not join James in the coffee business.

Proctor & Gamble, an international company founded in 1837 by a candlemaker and a soap maker, bought Folger’s in 1963. Two years later the company began its classic “Mrs. Olson” promotions. Mrs. Olson was a kindly and helpful mature lady whose neighborhood was packed with young couples in distress due to coffee issues often involving a whiny husband complaining about coffee and a wife who just doesn’t know how to handle this crisis. Mrs. Olson has the solution to every problem: Folger’s “Mountain Grown” coffee. Problem eradicated.

It’s worth noting, at length actually but I’m not the best expert, that the coffee ads of the middle 20th Century promoted an “acceptable” male/female social structure. The woman made the coffee. The man was served the coffee. His job was to drink it. Her job was not to bug him with bad coffee. Coffee advertising seemed nearly as much about selling coffee as it was about maintaining society’s status quo. Thankfully, there was someone like Mrs. Olson to smooth things over.

Actress Virginia Christine played Mrs. Olson and despite having a long, varied career in 26

RETROFAN

November 2024

(TOP) Folger’s spokesperson Mrs. Olson is friendly enough when chatting with a young housewife (played here by Yvonne “Batgirl” Craig) worried about her husband’s disdain for her coffee. Once Mrs. Olson starts talking up Folgers product (CENTER), things get real. (BOTTOM) Animation cel from Folger’s early Sixties ad. (INSET) More than one husband got way too aggressive about coffee in some commercials; this one from the Sixties was for Folger’s. TM & © The Folger Coffee Company. Cel courtesy of Heritage. (LEFT) Detail from a 1945 instant coffee magazine ad makes the husband look like a moron (rather than a lout, which is something).

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

radio, movies, and television (her last role was on an episode of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo) her Folger’s’ commercials were her entertainment legacy. Very Fun Fact: Her husband was the actor Fritz Feld, whose signature move was slapping his open mouth with his palm making a loud pop sound. Show business!

The Mrs. Olson ad campaign lasted 21 years, ending in 1986.

Folger’s began featuring the jingle “The best part of waking up, is Folger’s in your cup” with its advertising in 1984 and it is still heard to this day, having been sung by such notables as Randy Travis and Aretha Franklin. Less long-lived were the hidden-camera commercials that gave “fancy” restaurant customers instant Folger’s instead of, I guess, real coffee. Each spot is narrated in a quiet tone in the manner of a golf tournament.

The guests are all amazed at just how not different from the establishment’s regular coffee the Folger’s instant was.

I have had Folger’s instant and haven’t been amazed even once. In fact, as a young man I drank a lot of instant coffee, but I just didn’t know any better. Beginning in the Seventies, these ads continued until the Eighties. Amazing.

(RIGHT) Folger’s wanted the ladies to know it has their back by keeping them “brisk” and “bouyant.” You are welcome, ma’am. TM & © The Folger Coffee Company.

GOOD TO THE LAST DROP

Joel Cheek was a wholesale coffee broker when he discovered that some coffee bean suppliers’ product produced better coffee than others. To his surprise, a cheaper brand was actually superior to the more expensive ones. Working with another broker, the two devised a blend that they felt they could sell. A batch was sent to the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville on a trial basis, and when the coffee ran out customers complained when the previous brand was reinstated at the hotel. Months later the coffee was branded with the hotel name and Maxwell House coffee was born.

The coffee’s popular slogan “Good to the last drop” was first attributed to former president Theodore Roosevelt around the Thirties, though the company had been using the phrase since 1915. The story was that Roosevelt had a cup of Maxwell House after visiting the Andrew Jackson estate and declared that the coffee was “Good to the last drop.”

He was misquoted.

According to witnesses in the press, what Theodore Roosevelt said was, “This is the kind of stuff I like to drink, by George, when I hunt bears.”

Close enough.

Vivian Vance, best and forever known as Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy specifically and more generally as Lucille Ball’s (the Lucy we love) prime female comedy partner, played Maxine, a Maxwell House coffee enthusiast, in an office setting during a mid-Seventies series of ads. Vance played the character as slightly crazed and was just happy to not be playing an Etheltype character. Eventually, Maxwell House decided to try a different type of character and went with another actress who had also endured typecasting.

Margaret Hamilton, best and forever known as the Wicked Witch of the West in MGM’s 1939 Wizard of Oz, played Cora, a shopkeeper who only sold Maxwell

(LEFT) I Love Lucy’s Vivian Vance plays a coffee enthusiast with a believably caffeinated demeanor in this mid-Seventies Maxwell House instant coffee. (RIGHT) 1976 promotional photo of a very pleasant Margaret Hamilton (best remembered as the very scary Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz). Hamilton played Cora, a shopkeeper who only sold Maxwell House coffee. Note the photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, who never said what they said he said. © Kraft-Heinz. All Rights Reserved.

RETROFAN

November 2024

27

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

A circa 1960 coffee commercial gets a bit more “dramatic” than most. Wife runs out of Instant Maxwell House coffee and panics. Husband, played by Chuck McCann, freaks the heck out and falls to the ground. Wife puts on coat to rush to the supermarket but is met at the door by a giant (really giant) economy-sized jar of Instant Maxwell House coffee. © Kraft-Heinz. All Rights Reserved.

House coffee. She was perfectly pleasant as Cora, but the shadow of her Wicked Witch role was a long one. An appearance on Sesame Street in 1976 in which she wore a witch hat (but no witch-y makeup) upset so many children and parents that the episode was effectively buried for more than 40 years. Fun Fact: Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets (seen on Sesame Street and elsewhere), produced ten-second ads promoting Wilkins Coffee, a regional company in the Washington, D.C., area. Fun Fact Two: Margaret Hamilton

Circa 1959 television commercial by Jim Henson with a couple of Muppets for Wilkins, a regional coffee producer.

28

RETROFAN

November 2024

was the distant cousin of Neil Hamilton (you know him as Commissioner Gordon on the Sixties-era Batman television program).

Maxwell House eventually moved on from those “characters” but… their slogan endures to this day.

NOT COFFEE

The popularity of coffee continued to rise during the 20th Century, and this success had the effect of bringing out coffee substitutes. I freely admit that coffee isn’t for everyone for a variety of reasons. And there was a market for such beverages.

Postum, for example, is made of wheat bran and molasses.

It contains no caffeine. It was created by C. W. Post (Post Cereal Company’s founder) and was advertised by warning of the “evil effects” of drinking coffee, calling caffeine a “habit forming drug.” According to All about Coffee by William H. Ukers (The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922), the package labels on coffee substitutes were even more

Postum ads like this one from 1960 could no longer call caffeine poison. © Eliza’s Quest Food, L.L.C.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Detail from a pre-war comic strip promotion for Postum, a non-caffeinated hot beverage. It was the creation of two highly respected comic strip artists, Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles. Image via Reddit/mistermajik2000. © Eliza’s Quest Food, L.L.C.

deceptive. This type of thing really bugged the coffee makers, who ultimately got some relief with the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 which, among other things, promoted factual package labels.

For a series of Postum comic strip ads for Sunday comic sections (1936–1938), cartoonists Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles (both top-of-the-line talents), working together as “Paul Arthur,” designed and produced Mr. Coffee Nerves as a well-dressed ghostly trouble-maker encouraging chaos-creating coffee consumption. Mr. Coffee Nerves is said to have influenced the similar Mr. Crime from the infamous post-war Crime Does Not Pay comic book series, a Fifties version of Mr. Coffee Nerves dressed more like a comic book character wearing a rocket pack.

During World War II, the amount of coffee available for civilian use was cut in half to supply the war effort.

Postum sales rose during this period. The war didn’t stop coffee producers from advertising though. Folger’s ran a series of single-panel “gag” cartoons with characters expressing a strong desire for their favorite brand of coffee. Each panel had the same punchline, “When I say Coffee, I mean Folger’s!” Some of the panels could be, let’s say, overly aggressive. The version with the angry elephant or the man with the gun at the breakfast table come immediately to mind.

World War II made many demands of civilians with coffee supplies being cut in half being just one in a long list of home front shortages.

(LEFT) War time propaganda poster to encourage less coffee consumption. (RIGHT) The war didn’t stop coffee makers from advertising with Folgers’ “When I say coffee, I mean FOLGERS” campaign from the Forties being the most alarming attempt to drive sales. Poster courtesy of Worthpoint. Cartoon TM & © The Folger Coffee Company.

Coffee advertising wasn’t limited to TV commercials and magazines ads. Promotions also included this 1962 comic book from the National Coffee Association and a 1961 “Juan Valdez” record album featuring Colombian folk music.

Album © Sony Music Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

GIVE ME A COFFEE BREAK

If you ever wonder just how effective advertising is consider this: without it the concept of a coffee break might not exist. The Pan American Coffee Bureau, a group of Central and South American countries, got together in 1937 to promote their coffee bean production to the U. S. In 1952 the organization agreed to spend two million dollars on an ad campaign with the tagline, “Give Yourself a Coffee Break—and Get What Coffee Gives to You.” Not super exciting, I know, but it sure clicked, and that same year news coverage of the concept of a coffee break really took off. General Dwight Eisenhower’s campaign for president was inspired to create “Operation Coffee Cup” (coffee “parties” to meet potential voters).

Coffee Break became part of the language almost immediately.

In fairness, though, it must be mentioned that Henry Ford initiated the idea of a regular coffee break for his employees in 1910.

The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia turned to advertising to promote their interests. You may not know the organization’s name but you probably recall their fictional spokesperson, Juan Valdez (and his donkey Conchita). Mr. Valdez was intended to personalize the qualities of Colombian coffee. He’s been portrayed by only three actors since 1958. The most recent Juan Valdez, Carlos Castañeda, was actually a fourth-generation coffee farmer. He died in April 2024, and as I write this it’s too soon to say what Juan Valdez’s future is.

RETROFAN

November 2024

29

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Perhaps the saddest attempt to promote general coffee drinking appears in Fifties/Sixties– era drive-in movie snack bar ads showing adults trying to look joyous drinking coffee in a tiny paper cup sitting in a car while children are completely cramming their little faces full of popcorn and candy. Everyone is going to be amped up when they get home.

ABOUT THAT SECOND CUP

(ABOVE) The Pan-American Coffee Bureau coined and promoted the idea of a refreshing coffee break in the work environment, which was immensely popular. But, really, coffee in the dugout? (BELOW) A late Fifties/early Sixties drive-in theater snack bar ad shown between features shows adults sitting in their cars enjoying tiny paper cups full of coffee.

Arbuckles’ Coffee continued past John Arbuckle’s death. It was still run by family until 1929 but was sold in 1935 to Maxwell House and then later absorbed by General Foods. Yuban was part of the sale.

Originally, Yuban was John Arbuckle’s personal blend given out as Christmas gifts during his annual Yuletide Banquet (get it?).

Yuban’s “second cup” ad campaign was successful enough and repeated enough that the phrase wormed its way into our brains much as other television commercial phrases did like, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. (You ate it, Ralph.)” or, “Reach out and touch someone” or, “You sunk my battleship!” The list is long. What gave the second cup comment extra life is that it was used as a (very silly) joke in Airplane!, a 1980 comedy that RetroFans must be familiar with and younger viewers continue to discover. To recap, in this movie about a (comically) unlucky flight. The flight crew and passengers are sometimes normal-seeming but ultimately oddball characters. A co-pilot insists that he’s not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he is), the pilot has a distinct interest in “men’s sweat” movies, ground crew is somewhat unrealiable and so forth. As the situation of the plane begins to get worse, a stewardess offers passengers coffee and, like the Yuban commercial, the wife of one couple is surprised that the husband wants a second cup (“Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home”). That’s the joke. Later, Jim’s wife is equally taken

aback when her husband throws up, “Jim never vomits at home.”

That’s another joke. And the stealth joke is that Jim’s wife is played

by Lee Bryant, the same actress from the classic Yuban commercial.

That’s my favorite joke.

And my favorite drink? Surely, that must be obvious: no beverage delights me more than a nice, hot cup of coffee. And maybe a gladiator movie.

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.

30

RETROFAN

November 2024

RETRO TELEVISION

‘THE NAME OF THE GAME’ The Forgotten but Influential TV Series

BY ROBERT GREENBERGER When I was 13, I was taken to the mall one night after dinner to buy a suit for my bar mitzvah. To my mother’s surprise, I knew exactly what I wanted. I sought out a double-breasted outfit, determined to look like Glenn Howard. In my photo album of the event is a close-up of me, my arms folded, looking serious, my Glenn Howard expression.

Glenn who?

Glenn Howard, scion of the powerful and glitzy Howard Publications, television’s answer to the powerful Time, Inc. As portrayed by actor Gene Barry, he was the titular anchor to the “wheel series” on NBC, The Name of the Game, which ran for 76 episodes across the 1968–1971 seasons. [Editor’s note: A “wheel series,” a.k.a. an “umbrella series,” is a program where two or more different, often thematically compatible, series rotate airings in the same time slot.]

After it left its Friday night 8:30–10 PM berth, the series went into syndication, where I discovered it as WCBS in New York aired an episode every Sunday night at 11:35 PM, following the local news.

I was hooked on the serious approach to journalism, something ingrained into me since George Reeves’ work at the Daily Planet on TV’s Adventures of Superman.

In celebrating our spotlighted series’ 50th anniversary, The Hollywood Reporter said, “In 1968, The Name of the Game was the most prescient show on TV, predicting everything from cable-style dramas to Game of Thrones–size budgets and even a magazine called People.

“In the fall of 1968, the airwaves were full of blandly loopy, family-friendly fare like The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, and Petticoat Junction. But on Friday nights on NBC, slipped between a Bonanza-clone Western called The High Chaparral and the troubled third season of Star Trek, there was an unusual little series that, even more than Gene Roddenberry’s show, seemed to be beamed in from the future.”

Because it is not streaming anywhere, nor can you buy the series on disc, it is overlooked and outright forgotten, except for aficio-

(ABOVE) The name of the guys, you ask, who alternated the lead roles in NBC’s “wheel series” The Name of the Game?

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Tony Franciosa as Jeff Dillon, Gene Barry as Gene Howard, and Robert Stack as Dan Farrell.

The Name of the Game © NBC Universal.

nados who recall it as a platform for rising writers and directors, including Steven Spielberg, Stephen Bochco, and Richard Levinson & William Link (right after that duo created Mannix). The series, a wheel show, also proved influential, spawning numerous imitators, mainly for NBC.

PRE-PRESS

It all began in 1966 with Fame is the Name of the Game, a telefilm starring Tony Franciosa as Jeff Dillon, a high-profile Fame magazine reporter investigating a call girl’s death. His managing editor was Glenn Howard (George Macready), and accompanying him as his RETROFAN

November 2024

31

retro television

newly hired research assistant was Peggy Chan, Susan St. James in her debut role at 20. Also starring in this episode were Jill St. John, Jack Klugman, Jack Weston, and Robert Duvall.

The story was said to be inspired by the 1949 Alan Ladd vehicle Chicago Deadline. It was one of the first made-for-television features, a precursor to series such as the ABC Movie of the Week. The one-off made a believer of NBC, which blitzed people with ads, billing it as the first “world premiere” of a “major motion picture” when, in reality, it was a production from Universal Studios’ television division. No one complained, and the airing on November 26, 1966, resulted in stellar ratings, prompting the peacock network to commission a series. This would be the first show based on the publishing world since 1959’s The Best of Everything, a tale of career girls taking Manhattan that was more akin to The Bold Type than this hard-hitting show. According to Dean Hargrove, producer of the Robert Stack episodes, “Universal had sold NBC on the concept that Name of the Game was not going to be television, it was going to be movies. It was a pretty big sales job. And when it came down to it, it was pretty high-gloss television.”

In a press release, Jennings Lang, senior vice president for Universal TV, said, “The Name of the Game breaks the last barrier separating motion pictures from television programs. His project provides us with every opportunity to use our vast roster of contract stars and players, producers, directors, and writers, many of whom have been working in motion pictures.”

Over the course of the next year, Universal came up with the idea of the wheel, rotating the stories among three leads: Franciosa’s Jeff Dillon; Robert Stack as Daniel “Dan” Farrell, the editor of

Publicity photo of Gene Barry as Gene Howard. © NBCUniversal.

Crime magazine; and Gene Barry as Glenn Howard, publisher of the eponymous firm. St. James was back, this time as Peggy Maxwell, assigned as the research assistant to all three leads, providing connectivity among the shows (and she was very prone to being kidnapped). Each 90-minute series was given its own production team so shooting could be simultaneous, and each boasted an unprecedented $400,000 per episode budget.

Even before the cameras rolled, Franciosa was proving to be a challenge to work with. In fact, an October 30, 1968 article suggested that the producers were ready to replace him with Doug McClure. Leslie Stevens, Franciosa’s producer at the time, went on to cast both for his 1972 cult classic series Search (see RetroFan #21 for the declassified files). It is believed today it was all a ploy by Universal after the actor objected to the script for “Pineapple Rose,” erroneously believing he had script approval.

Despite the three components sharing a core, it’s interesting to note that while Barry made 14 appearances on the other series, all three were never in the same show. Franciosa made two appearances on Barry shows. All told, Barry led 27 of his own stories, with Stack headlining 26, while Franciosa appeared in a mere 15 episodes before being fired during the third season.

Wrapped around each episode was a mod title treatment set to a theme composed by Dave Grusin. The actors’ names would

Robert Stack as Dan Farrell. Shown with him in this NBC The Name of the Game publicity photo is guest actress Celeste Holm, from the episode “Brass Ring,” originally aired on January 9, 1970. © NBCUniversal.

32

RETROFAN

November 2024

retro television

Publicity photo of Tony Franciosa as Fame magazine reporter Jeff Dillon. © NBCUniversal. in 1959. His combative nature dogged him throughout his career, including rumors of drug abuse. He was married four times: to writer Beatrice Bakalyar; actress Shelley Winters; Judith Balaban, daughter of Paramount Pictures CEO Barney Balaban; and Rita Thiel, to whom he was wed until his death. (Their November 27, 1970 wedding was the same day his final Game episode aired.)

Eugene Klass (1919–2009) was a Brooklynite who attended Greenwich Village’s Chatham Square School of Music for two years on a vocal scholarship. When he became an actor, he chose the stage name Gene Barry in honor of John Barrymore and made his Broadway debut as Captain Paul Duval in the 1942 revival of Sigmund Romberg’s The New Moon. By 1950, he found regular work in live television productions coming from New York City, adding films to his resume in 1951. His best-known role for the era is the lead in Byron Haskin’s adaptation of War of the Worlds. In 1955, he was added to Eve Arden’s Our Miss Brooks sitcom as the phys ed teacher, a man with expensive tastes and an eye for the women.

While that show was cancelled in 1956, his on-air persona was set, leading to his work as Bat Masterson (1958–1961), Burke’s Law (1963–1965), earning him a Golden Globe Award, and then Name of the Game. “Gene was very interested in his wardrobe—perhaps more interested in it than he was in the scripts,” Hargrove told The Hollywood Reporter.

Charles Langford Modini Stack (1919–2003) had his first name quickly changed by his father to Robert. He attended school at the University of Southern California, with courses including drama, but he was better known then for his polo and skeet shooting prowess. While studying acting in Boston, he was sent for a screen

appear and form graphic representations of the performers with colorful backgrounds: Franciosa (pale blue), Barry (red), and Stack (green).

All three shows tackled topical issues of the day more soberly than their staid competition, earning them superlatives.

Over time, though, the Barry episodes grew more experimental, and the Stack episodes were closer to traditional prime-time television drama.

While he may have appeared in the fewest episodes, the series’ popularity started with Franciosa’s charismatic appeal.

Born Anthony George Franciosa (1928– 2006), he began acting onstage, gaining attention for his work in A Hatful of Rain, earning him a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. When he reprised his role for the film adaptation, he was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He branched out to film work, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1959’s Career. Franciosa made his way to television, beginning with the sitcom Valentine’s Day (1964–1965).

He had developed a volatile reputation, including a ten-day sentence for hitting TV ad promoting the Gene Barry–starring episode “A Capitol Affair” of The Name a photographer in 1957 and a 30-day of the Game, guest-starring Suzanne Pleshette and originally aired on February imprisonment for marijuana possession 12, 1971. © NBC Universal.

RETROFAN

November 2024

33

retro television

The Name of the Game was cover-featured on several magazine covers during the series’ run, including this 1968 edition of TV Showtime and these 1969 and 1971 issues of TV Guide. The Name of the Game © NBC Universal. TV Guide © TV Guide.

test and was hired at 20 to star in his first film, First Love (1939), opposite Deanna Durbin. He got steady work until he was drafted and served during World War II before returning to Hollywood. His work on Desliu’s The Untouchables (1959–1963) cemented his fame (see the aforementioned RetroFan #21 for an Untouchables history). His work as Eliot Ness earned him a 1960 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

The writers took the stock roles the three actors brought with them and tailored stories to fit them. As a result, Jeff Dillon was tackling the “current affairs” stories for People (renamed from Fame six years before Time launched their version). There were stories featuring industrial espionage, medical fraud, racial tensions, and so on. Dillon was described as charming but had incredible attention to detail, a better-dressed draft version of Columbo. Peter Saphier, a production coordinator on the series, told the Hollywood Reporter, “[His shows] were more entertaining, more fun. There was more of a theatricality about them that played into what we were trying to do with the series.”

As befit the publisher, World War II veteran Glenn Howard’s stories worked on a higher plane, often political and high finance stories. It wasn’t until the third season before the more interesting and dramatic stories emerged, culminating in “L.A. 2017,” the episode best remembered because of Steven Spielberg’s direction.

The most traditional stories featured Dan Farrell, a former FBI investigator, as he uncovered sports corruption, spree killers, and even the use of prisoners as slave labor. Farrell was a driven crusader, using Crime to alert the general public to the dangers of organized crime. (Remember, it wasn’t until the Fifties before the federal government even admitted to organized crime, so this was a novel concept, something the later seasons of Mission: Impossible leaned into.) He also sported the most tragic backstory as his wife was killed during a case, as depicted in the episode” Nightmare.”

You knew his story was over as the final image was turned into a negative and then morphed into the next cover of Crime.

34

RETROFAN

November 2024

Barry made cameos as Glenn Howard in four of Stack’s episodes: “Nightmare,” “Witness,” “The Bobby Currier Story,” and “High on a Rainbow,” and four of Franciosa’s first-season episodes (“Fear of High Places,” “Connie Walker,” “Collector’s Edition” [Stack’s Farrell is name-checked and Maxwell calls him], and “Shine On Jesse Gil.” He also appeared in the Robert Culp fill-in, “Cynthia is Alive…” On the other hand, Franciosa’s Dillon made just one appearance on Barry’s own episode, “The Taker.” Interestingly, Stack never appeared in either series.

Other than Maxwell as the visual glue, other recurring characters were assigned to each series, such as Mark Miller, who played Howard’s executive assistant, Ross Craig, and went on to appear in a few Stack segments. Ben Murphy was Farrell’s assistant, Joseph Sample, and Cliff Potts portrayed Howard’s other executive assistant, Andrew Hill.

PRODUCTIONS

With three different stars and production teams, the vibe from each set was said to be very different. It was said Barry was caught up in the glamour of being a film star and more concerned with his wardrobe than the stories. St. James was told not to speak to him off-camera. Other co-stars observed that Barry had been flattered so often and for so long that he believed he was more than a working actor, an attitude which rubbed some of the cast the wrong way.

Universal’s Black Tower doubled as the façade for Howard Publishing, a convenient way to project power and prestige.

Stack’s set was cut and dried, with the star coming in prepared and ready to hit his marks. The problem for his castmates, though, was that Stack was so one-dimensional in delivery that he gave them nothing to work with, making for frustrated performers. He was unfortunately saddled with arguably the series’ worst episode. After the Nixon Administration insisted every prime-time series devote

retro television

one episode to delivering an anti-drug message, it made sense to hand it to the editor of Crime. It was a cringe-inducing episode written by newcomer Steven Bochco, earning his first on-air credit.

He told one interviewer, “Within the parameters of network drama, it was big stuff. But how to keep up that level of quality?”

Franciosa’s shows differed markedly, with the star accused of micromanaging everything the crew had done. Leslie Stevens, briefly his producer after his success with The Outer Limits, told TV Guide, “Tony likes to be able to change the script. He likes to come in a half-hour late. He comes in knowing the lines but not ‘feeling’ it right. He is dedicated to The Tony Franciosa Performance. It is to his credit, but the physical drain leads to psychosomatic complaints.”

He burned through producers, struggled to learn his lines, and made for a chaotic experience for all concerned. Why would the execs put up with such shenanigans? His segment was consistently the highest rated, and he somehow managed to attract the best scripts.

During the second season, Franciosa told producer Norman Lloyd (best remembered today for his acting work on St. Elsewhere) that he intended to perform a monologue from Henry V since that episode involved a lost Shakespeare manuscript. Lloyd thought he was crazy, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “This guy wants to do Shakespeare, and he can’t speak English properly.” Finally, director Leo Penn (father to actor Sean Penn) capitulated and shot the sequence, later leaving it on the cutting room floor. Lloyd wound up quitting the series, breaking his contract with Universal.

Franciosa also refused to shoot “Goodbye Harry,” so the script went instead to Darren McGavin, who would play three different roles across the seasons.

The third season promised to be more of the same until Franciosa and crew went to Las Vegas, Nevada, for a ten-day shoot for “I Love You, Billy Baker,” his second episode of the season. His erratic behavior during production resulted in chaos and his being fired during production. The story was about a soul singer, portrayed

by Sammy Davis, Jr., who was tortured by his involvement in the death of a woman years before. Being Vegas, the show managed to attract an extraordinary collection of guest stars, including former Rat Packer Peter Lawford, Ray Charles, Redd Foxx, Ike and Tina Turner, Xavier Cugat, and Charo. Franciosa’s erratic behavior, which had previously included chasing producer Dick Irving around the set with a two-by-four, grew worse. During the shoot, he kept interrupting the path of guest star Darren McGavin until the future Night Stalker knocked the star out of the way.

Through no fault of actor Robert Stack, his series was considered to have the weakest scripts. The Name of the Game © NBC Universal.

Writer Richard De Roy recalled, “The two-parter in Vegas with Sammy Davis was one of my least favorite encounters. I was there because [Franciosa] had notes. And I couldn’t stand his manager.

They were just, ‘We’re hot sh*t.’ I don’t think I did all of that script. I’d warned them I was going to Europe, and Steven Bochco replaced me.”

Rita Thiel, who was dating Franciosa at the time, accompanied him to the location and was stunned to hear the crew openly discussing rumors of the star’s drug abuse. In her interpretation of events, it wasn’t drugs but a calculated plan to get himself fired that caused the behavioral problems. He was perfectly fine alone with her, arranging for the German fashion model to meet Elvis Presley. At the same time, he kept everyone waiting, prompting Davis to entertain the crew with performances.

Another time, he locked himself in his trailer, refusing to come out until he spoke with his psychiatrist. The doctor dutifully arrived and spoke with his patient, emerging to announce Franciosa would

The office of Howard Publications, Inc., as seen in this screen capture, was “played” by the Universal building known as the Black Tower. © NBC Universal.

RETROFAN

November 2024

35

retro television

resume work after the lunch break. “His problem?” the psychiatrist reportedly explained to the unit manager, “He’s crazy; that’s what his problem is.”

Director Barry Shear did what he could to work with the mercurial actor, but his behavior did not change and he wound up punching a crew member. Finally, before the shoot was over, he got his wish and was fired. In the end, Shear used body doubles and shifted to solo scenes for St. James in addition to padding things out with extended Vegas club acts. Universal split the extensive footage into two episodes: a three-hour extravaganza and a swan song.

While Franciosa remained in the opening credits, the remainder of the Jeff Dillon scripts were barely revised and assigned to other People reporters, including Paul Tyler (Robert Culp in “Cynthia Is Alive and Living in Avalon” and “Little Bear Died Running”), Lewis Corbett (Peter Falk in “A Sister from Napoli”), and Dave Coery (Robert Wagner in “The Man Who Killed a Ghost”). Series writer Richard DeRoy said Suzanne Pleshette was cast as People gossip columnist Hallie Manville with the idea of using her in a recurring or regular role. Scriptwriter De Roy told an interviewer, “I also did one that Suzanne Pleshette did [“A Capitol Affair”], where they were trying to establish her character as a permanent character, a gossip writer. Joan Crawford was supposed to do it, and she got sick or something, and then they got Mercedes McCambridge to replace her. She was terrific, but it wasn’t exactly Joan Crawford in the sense of luster.” With her “A Capitol Affair” being the 71st of 76 episodes shot, nothing came of the plan.

When it became clear that Franciosa would not be rehired and the show’s cancellation was becoming imminent, producer Hargrove felt free to take chances with the final Barry episodes. One such show used a Greek chorus that sang pop lyrics between scenes, while another sent Barry back to the Old West, dreaming he was a gunslinger on the wrong side of history. Then came “L.A. 2017.”

As legend tells it, Steven Spielberg crept onto the Universal lot and effectively taught himself production by watching the television series then in production. He finally got noticed and won himself a directing gig on Rod Serling’s The Night Gallery with a memorable episode starring Joan Crawford. When Sid Sheinberg, the Universal executive who oversaw the show, wanted Spielberg for this episode, there was pushback from higher up until finally, Crawford called the chairman of Universal, Lew Wasserman, to lobby for the young man.

The script was from veteran science fiction author Philip Wylie, whose Gladiator directly inspired Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman. He had also written the feature film When Worlds Collide. Glenn Howard had a car accident, and as he regained consciousness, he discovered himself in a dystopian future where corporations ran the government. It was moody and atmospheric.

The wunderkind creator recalled it “appealed to me because it was a cautionary tale about a future United States, no longer a country but now a corporation. But I was ambitious with it and got in trouble with the executive producers for going into overtime, incurring many meal penalties.”

MUSIC SCORE

The jazz score sustained the series’ slick look, beginning with Benny Carter’s work in the original telefilm. Carter was carried over to the new series like Franciosa and St. James.

36

RETROFAN

November 2024

Supporting characters included (TOP) Susan Saint James as research assistant Peggy Maxwell across all three shows, (CENTER) Ben Murphy as Farrell’s assistant Joe Sample, and (BOTTOM) Cliff Potts as Howard’s executive assistant Andy Hill. © NBCUniversal.

retro television

Grusin was brought in for the theme, which was described as an “electrifying blast of up-tempo jazz that perfectly suits the animated credits sequence. The melody’s 4-8 motif is introduced via solo horn against lively synth keyboard comping and a funk-laden rhythm section; the theme gains intensity with the third actor’s credit, the melody now taken by unison horns. The music builds to a crescendo of rising brass triplets as the show’s title appears multiple times; the text compares into just a single line and then ‘explodes’ outward as Grusin brings the music to a climactic finish.” An extended version was later released as a Decca single. He went on to score only one episode with others—Carter, Oliver Nelson, Dominic Frontiere, and Billy Goldenberg, among them—picking up the jazz motif.

MARKETING

Given the uneven number of episodes each star produced, they could not be rotated with any sense of even order. In fact, they initially aired in a more haphazard manner, with multiple Stack and Barry episodes, sometimes back-to-back.

“It was flat-out entertaining melodrama,” Sid Sheinberg told the Hollywood Reporter. “I actually looked forward to it every week. I would go home and sit on the floor and watch it every Friday night.”

Influential TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory was dismissive, writing, “It was all evidently supposed to be a kind of TV look at our Lifes and Times, as well as our Playboys and Cosmopolitans. As such, of course, the whole concept left a good deal to be desired—not the least of which was which side the viewer was supposed to be on.”

Notable guest stars from The Name of the Game (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): William Shatner, David Carradine, Boris Karloff, Robert Culp and Barbara Feldon, Jack Klugman, Honor Blackman, and Mel Ferrer. © NBCUniversal. Courtesy of IMdB.

In 1968, The Name of the Game was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best TV Show. St. James was nominated twice for the Best Supporting Actress Emmy (winning once), while the show earned nominations for Best Cinematography. The Directors Guild of America nominated it in 1970 for Best Director (Miniseries TV).

Despite positive reviews and award nominations, the series never cracked the top 30% in the Nielsen ratings, nor was it FAST FACTS a smash syndication success, largely due to its length. It eventually made it to some cable channels such as Encore Mystery Channel in 1998 and Cozi TV in 2013.

Its impact was felt in ways large and small. The wheel concept proved very successful; it was first pioneered in 1955 with Warner Bros. Presents. NBC and Universal were so thrilled with the wheel THE NAME OF THE GAME they followed with five more shows over No. of Seasons: three the next four years, beginning in 1969 with No. of episodes: 76 The Bold Ones. Following was Four-in-One Original run: September 20, 1968– which is where we first met McCloud. That March 19, 1971 spawned The NBC Mystery Movie, where Cast: Gene Barry, Tony Franciosa, Columbo and McMillan and Wife joined Robert Stack, Susan St. James McCloud.

NBC subsequently moved the Theme song: composed by Dave three to Sundays and added NBC Wednesday Grusin Mystery Movie, initially featuring Banacek, Network: NBC Madigan, and Cool Million.

RETROFAN

November 2024

37

retro television

Additionally, with little blowback to the glitzy and glamorous lifestyle Barry’s Howard presented, one could likely trace a line from this series to future extravagant soaps Dallas and Dynasty.

Looking back, David Thorburn at American Radio History wrote, “Even in its less imaginative and intellectually ambitious episodes, The Name of the Game held to consistently high standards of production and acting. Both in its formal excellence and in the intermittent but genuine seriousness of its subject matter, the show brought a new maturity to US television and deserved recognition as an enabling precursor of the strongest prime-time programming of the 1970s and 1980s.”

In many ways, it was the first show to truly have the slick, feature film–like Universal look that would be the hallmark of their series all the way through the Seventies.

Shout Factory ballyhooed the first season company to disc in 2013, but by 2014, they cancelled the plans, and no one has provided a reason.

POSTSCRIPT

(ABOVE) Versatile author Philip Wylie—best known for the novels Gladiator (1930) and When Worlds Collide (1933, with co-writer Edwin Balmer)—penned the Name of the Game episode “Los Angeles: A.D. 2017,” co-starring actress Sharon Farrell. (INSET) Wylie adapted the story into this 1971 The Name of the Game tie-in novel, Los Angeles: A.D. 2017. (BELOW) Stars of The Name of the Game, Stack, Barry, Franciosa, joined by St. James in a promo photo. The Name of the Game © NBC Universal. Above publicity photo courtesy of Jim Alexander.

After leaving The Name of the Game, Franciosa made a handful of films for theaters and television, notably Gene Roddenberry’s Earth II and Across 110th Street. He was reunited with Leslie Stevens in 1972 for Search, another wheel show. He also headed the short-lived Matt Helm series, based on the Donald Hamilton novels.

Barry, for his part, remained in demand as a rich adventurer, next seen in ITC’s The Adventurer, with pre-Space 1999 Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. He later reprised both Masterson and Burke in different 1990 series and won acclaim in the 1983 Broadway version of La Cage aux Folles, earning him a Tony Award nomination.

Stack’s stentorian delivery grew out of fashion, and he found fewer roles during the Seventies, often repeating the Ness persona.

That all changed when Steven Spielberg cast him in 1941, which led to his memorable turn in Airplane. He continued to perform, headlining TV’s popular Unsolved Mysteries, beginning in 1987.

As for the comedic St. James, she was successfully paired with Rock Hudson for McMillan and Wife, part of the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie wheel, successfully moving to the newly created Sunday incarnation until she left after a contract dispute. She later was partnered with Jane Curtin in the CBS sitcom Kate and Allie (1984–1989). Retiring from acting, she has remained active in raising her children and pursuing numerous charitable causes.

Looking back, you can see the cast and crew were filled with pedigreed performers at various stages of their careers, putting the might of the Universal machine behind a trailblazing concept that delivered thought-provoking stories and hours of entertainment.

ROBERT GREENBERGER is a writer and editor of over 100 books and anthologies, many within the DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Star Trek franchises. A lifelong fan of comics and science fiction, Bob co-founded Crazy 8 Press and is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America as well as the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.

38

RETROFAN

November 2024

RETRO ANIMATION

The

Real Rockers of

Animation A Singing Celebrity Toon-In

BY MARK ARNOLD Music and visuals have been a staple ever since movies began. Silent films were never completely silent, as they always had some sort of instrumental accompaniment before proper scores were composed for each film. When silent films transferred to sound films or talkies, music never went away, from either orchestral background scores to today’s trend of having a soundtrack of rock and pop music classics.

Like live-action, music was always an important part of animation. The earliest talking cartoons such as Disney’s Steamboat Willie (1928) had a lengthy musical number of “Turkey in the Straw,” for example, that Mickey Mouse proceeded to play on the various animals aboard the small boat he was sailing.

(ABOVE) We love the animated Beatles, yeah, yeah, yeah! Too bad we can no longer watch them!

Artwork from the box top of the 1966 Colorforms activity set, The Beatles, a highly collectible toy. The Beatles © Apple Corps. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

39

retro animation

Warner Bros. Studios and various others expanded upon this concept and typically used their cartoons to promote the latest hit songs from their full-length feature motion pictures. This gave each song added exposure and later led to sheet music and vinyl record sales. A good example of this is with the film I Love to Singa (1936).

The song “I Love to Singa” was first featured in the 1936 feature film The Singing Kid. On Wikipedia, it says about the cartoon, “As with several early Warners cartoons, it is in a sense a music video designed to push a song from the Warners library.”

This concept of using a song in a film or other form of media for promotion of that song carried over into television, where a weekly TV series could make a music star out of an actor or make a hit song due to the repeated exposure. The first major time that happened was with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Ozzie Nelson was a bandleader and his wife, Harriet, was a singer in that band. They appeared regularly on radio as far back as 1933 on The Baker’s Broadcast and then received their own radio show in 1944.

Their sons, Ricky and David, first appeared in 1944, originally portrayed by professional actors since the Nelsons’ real-life sons were too young. Eventually, the real Ricky and David joined the radio cast in 1949, and eventually the entire show moved to television in 1952. The radio show continued through 1954.

The television version of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet proved to be quite successful, and the series ran for an incredible 14 seasons through 1966, a feat eventually surpassed by shows like Gunsmoke and The Simpsons.

Besides its longevity as a series, Ozzie and Harriet achieved one more remarkable milestone: it made their younger son Ricky into a major music star. Ricky first sang on the show on April 10, 1957.

His repeated exposure on the series led to Ricky having a string of hits including “A Teenager’s Romance,” “I’m Walkin,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Hello, Mary Lou,” “Young World,” “Teen Age Idol,” “For You,” and many others. [Editor’s note: RetroFan went ga-ga over dreamy Ricky Nelson way back in issue #15!]

(LEFT) Television’s first singing heartthrob, Ricky Nelson (see RetroFan #15), was so popular in the Fifties that was also a comic book star! Detail from the back cover of Dell Comics’ Four Color #1192 (1961). (RIGHT) Melodic Mouseketeer and Disney movie darling Annette Funicello had a number of Sixties music hits collected in this 1972 album.

Courtesy of Heritage.

40

RETROFAN

November 2024

Ricky’s success in this area proved that songs were a good venue for promotion on television. Many shows featured the latest pop songs usually in a “Top Ten” format and sometimes performed by the actual artists. Shows like this included American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is, Shindig, and variety shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and Hollywood Palace helped to make many pop songs or singers into major stars.

Besides these, many stars like Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Jerry Lewis, Mac Davis, Captain and Tennille, the Bay City Rollers, Barbara Mandrell, Dolly Parton, Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Cosby, Dick Van Dyke, Shields and Yarnell, Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Brady Bunch, Andy Williams, Danny Kaye, the Smothers Brothers, Jim Nabors, Glen Campbell, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Edie Adams, Flip Wilson, Sonny and Cher, Bobby Goldsboro, the Hudson Brothers, Donny and Marie Osmond, the Jacksons, Julie Andrews, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, and Garry Moore made musical numbers a television mainstay.

After The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was successful at making Ricky Nelson a star, the floodgates were open to do the same with virtually every other TV star in the Sixties. Celebrities such as Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Sebastian Cabot, Jay North, Noel Harrison, David McCallum, David Canary, Lorne Greene, Jack Webb, Andy Griffith, Jim Nabors, Telly Savalas, Chad Everett, Goldie Hawn, Jack Palance, Buddy Ebsen, Merv Griffin, Walter Brennan, and many others all made attempts at showing off their “golden throats” with few achieving any success or lasting success. Some of the more successful ones were Annette Funicello of The Mickey Mouse Club and Paul Petersen and Shelly Fabares of The Donna Reed Show.

With the advent of music videos being shown regularly on MTV and other stations beginning in 1983, it spelled the end of the variety show or at least the end of the necessity for a variety show in order to sell or promote a song or singer or musical group.

retro animation

SINGING A TUNE AS A TOON

But what has all this got to do with “Annie,” or animation? It proved that the repeated “Ann-Margrock,” exposure could work for a fictional and/ performer or animated group or singer. The most Ann-Margret’s successful of these probably would be the animated turn on Archies, a fictional group and animated TV The Flintstones. series led by real-life singer Ron Dante, in © Hanna-Barbara. Cel 1968. This is primarily because the Archies courtesy of Heritage. had a hit based upon the repeated exposure on television of their songs rather than being awarded a cartoon show based upon the fact the cartoon group already had hit songs previously, such as with the Beatles.

Earlier examples mentioned like I Love to Singa directly led to the use of songs and/or music on later theatrical animated shorts as well as the first animated television shows that appeared on television. The earliest examples of animated cartoons made for The Alvin Show. Even though the Chipmunks and The Alvin Show television started a major precedent that was a feature of most were fictional, Bagdasarian continued to release many songs animated cartoons shows produced for television, such as Crusader and albums under his own name or his pen name, David Seville.

Rabbit (1949): a catchy theme song.

Bagdasarian’s son, Ross, Jr., would later take up the reins and record At this writing I am working on a book called TV Cartoons That many more new albums and create a few more animated TV series, Time Forgot, which talks about those smaller animation studios that managed to have one or two major hit series sometime during but none as himself. [Editor’s note: Our own Scott Shaw! covered The Alvin Show in depth in his “Oddball World” column in RetroFan the Fifties through the Eighties. One thing all of these shows had, #31.] My book, Aaaaalllvvviiinnn!!!: The Story of Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., above all else, was a catchy theme song.

Liberty Records, Format Films and The Alvin Show (BearManor, 2019), When The Flintstones, animation’s first prime-time television discusses every aspect of this phenomenon, from Bagdasarian’s series [see RetroFan #8–ed.], started airing in 1960, it became a humble beginnings in Fresno, California, to his wild success with regular habit to feature fake music artists or bands based upon real ones with “rock” names replacing the real ones. Examples from the Chipmunks, plus the history of his primary record label, Liberty Records, as well as the animation company that produced The Alvin the show, which aired through 1966, included Ann-Margrock, the Show, Format Films.

Beau Brummelstones, Jimmy Darrock, and the Four Insects. Real The next big success to have an animated series would arguably people that weren’t into rock like Hoagy Carmichael guested on the be the greatest rock and roll band of all time, the Beatles—but show, and so music and musicians were a regular presence in the first, an episode from another animated Hanna-Barbera TV series prehistoric city of Bedrock. of note: The Jetsons, which originally aired in prime-time during Before The Flintstones, Ross Bagdasarian was a composer, the 1962–1963 season. While not known for its music other than performer, and arranger who released numerous records under its jazzy theme song and incidental music, The Jetsons’ episode various pseudonyms as it was felt that “Bagdasarian” was too “A Date with Jet Screamer” stands out since it features a song long to fit onto a record label. After some success as “Alfi and that could have been a major hit had it been released as a single.

Harry,” Bagdasarian hit pay dirt with the name “David Seville.”

In the episode, fans of futuristic pop star Jet Screamer enter a But it really wasn’t his name that made him a success, it was song-writing contest to win a date with Jet. Major fan Judy Jetson his investment in a variable speed reel-to-reel tape recorder submits her entry, but before it is sent, father George Jetson that secured his fame. By being able to change the speed of the replaces Judy’s contest entry song with son Elroy’s sheet of secret tape and by Bagdasarian speaking or singing slowly into the code words and sentences, and thus, a hit was born with “Eep, Opp, microphone, he was able to come up with his first number one hit Ork, Ah-ah!”—which, despite its meaning in the song as “I love you,” called “The Witch Doctor,” in 1958. actually means “meet me tonight.”

After a few more such experimental records like “The Bird The song was released as “Eep Opp Ork” on the B-side of a on My Head,” Bagdasarian reasoned that if one sped-up voice Jetsons kiddie record featuring the theme song. Had it been was successful, why not try three sped-up voices? And thus, the touted as an A-side and released on a label other than Golden Chipmunks were born. He hit pay dirt once again with the even Records, it’s possible it could have been a hit. It did resonate with more successful number one hit called “The Chipmunk Song,” other bands and the song was eventually covered by the likes of a.k.a. “Christmas, Don’t Be Late.” It graced the airwaves during the Violent Femmes, the Everywheres, and the Dickies. When the 1958 Christmas season, and again in 1959, and in 1960, so The Jetsons Movie came out in 1990, pop star Tiffany was recruited that by 1961, and a couple more hits like “Alvin’s Harmonica” and to voice and sing as Judy Jetson, replacing original voice Janet “Ragtime Cowboy Joe,” the time was right for Bagdasarian to spin Waldo. off his brainchild into a weekly prime-time animated series called RETROFAN

November 2024

41

retro animation

“A Hard Day’s Night,” a 2008 cartoon Beatles sericel released in a limited edition of 500 by DenniLu Co./Apple Corps. © Apple Corps. Courtesy of Heritage. (INSET) Al Brodax.

Mistermasharris.

THE ANIMATED FAB FOUR

The next animated series featuring the real rockers of animation actually featured real rockers, as it was the first animated TV series based upon real life people, The Beatles, produced by King Features. Though not voiced by Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, real Beatles songs were utilized throughout this series, which ran from 1965–1969. Instead, Lance Percival voiced Paul and Ringo, while Paul Frees voiced John and George. No attempt was really made to sound exactly like the Beatles’ speaking voices, but Percival came a lot closer than Frees due to his English pedigree.

The Beatles themselves had existed as a group as far back as 1957, when they were known as the Quarrymen. A 1960 name change to the Silver Beatles and then finally the Beatles, and personnel changes through 1962, and the recruitment of Ringo Starr established them as the pop and rock and roll that would change the face of the world.

Manager Brian Epstein worked feverishly to get the Beatles bookings as well as many merchandising deals. One of these deals was with producer Al Brodax of King Features Syndicate, who 42

RETROFAN

November 2024

previously had success on television with cartoons featuring the comic strips of Beetle Bailey, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and Krazy Kat, as well as the main company behind the Sixties’ version of Popeye [see RetroFan #12—ed.].

The first three seasons had episodes named after the actual Beatles songs, from 1963’s “Please Please Me” all the way through to 1967 episodes featuring “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane.” The fourth season consisted entirely of repeats and possibly would have featured new material had the animators not been given a new assignment in 1967 to create an animated theatrical feature film which eventually saw release as Yellow Submarine, in 1968 [see RetroFan #23—ed.].

Many people ask these days about what happened to these cartoons, which have largely disappeared from public view. Well, the Beatles’ Apple Corps purchased the rights to the cartoons back after they last aired and have kept them under lock and key ever since. Even though the series promotes fond memories from their fans and also is a curiosity among those who may never have seen them, the cartoons probably won’t be rereleased any time soon as the Beatles never really liked them, especially Ringo, who is portrayed as a simpleton throughout, which he is not in real life.

retro animation

Though not animated, some of the show’s physical and visual antics could be construed as coming straight out of a cartoon, The Monkees aired in prime-time from 1966–1968 and on Saturday morning TV reruns from 1969–1973. Similar to The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and Ricky Nelson, the Monkees launched the careers of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith as the Monkees. [Editor’s note: Let’s not forget then-child actor Micky Dolenz’s earlier television series, Circus Boy, which you’ll soon read about in RetroFan #40!]

The creators of the series could have gone the route of previous TV series and released a soundtrack of songs and dialogue from the show, but wisely instead decided to promote the Monkees as a real group that as a result had real hits, and eventually went on a real tour, and as a consequence, actually became a real group, reuniting off and on for many years from 1986–2020. Memorable Monkee

hire and enlisted pro songwriters from the legendary Brill Building to help. These included such talents as Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Howard Greenfield, Barry Mann, Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Andy Kim, Jeff Barry, and many others.

After two albums—The Monkees (1966) and More of the Monkees (1967)—the actual Monkees gave Kirshner the boot so that they could be in more control of their own recording destinies. The results worked, at least for the next three albums, as the Monkees continued to have hits with Headquarters (1967), Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd. (1967), and The Birds, the Bees and the Monkees (1968).

After Kirshner got the boot, he was recruited to secure songs and songwriters for his next big project, the Archies. The Archies was a fictional band, but lead singer Ron Dante was very real and had hits outside of this hit-making machine with other groups such as the Detergents with “Leader of the Laundromat” and the Cuff Links with “Tracy.” He also had a solo album with Ron Dante Takes You Up, which unfortunately went nowhere on the charts.

HOWLING HOOPSTERS AND FUNKY FAMILIES

The Sonny and Cher beat goes on—to Saturday morning, as the popular (then-) husband-and-wife act appeared, in cartoon form, with Shaggy, Scoob, and the gang in The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode, “The Secret of Shark Island.”

Due to the Archies’ major success on Saturday morning TV, coupled with the Monkees’ on prime-time, the next decade was littered with Saturday morning and prime-time TV shows that had bands and also record album deals. Though the initial offerings proved fortuitous, pop chart success and sales diminished over the next decade.

Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! originally ran from 1969–1972, and of course, it’s been brought back countless times.

While cartoon stars Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy didn’t have the makings of a rock band, they certainly did similar romps to what was done on the Monkees to qualify them here, especially on The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972–1974) which featured actual singing stars such as Davy Jones, Sonny and Cher, and Jerry Reed starring as themselves.

The Harlem Globetrotters were a professional basketball team that dated back to 1927. Over time, they became a comedic team known for their on-court antics and flashy names. By the time of Hanna-Barbera’s 1970–1973 Harlem Globetrotters Saturday morning

© Hanna-Barbera. Color model cel courtesy of Heritage.

hits include “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Valleri,” and the sing-a-long theme song, which wasn’t ever originally released as a single, at least in America. For more on the Monkees, I refer you to my book Long Title: Looking for the Good Times; Examining the Monkees’ Songs, One by One (2017, revised 2023), and Headquartered: A Timeline of The Monkees Solo Years (2020).

When the Monkees began, one of the integral people that was hired to help ensure that the group had hits was music producer Don Kirshner. Kirshner had a golden ear and also knew who to

Curly and Meadowlark hit the recording studio, not the basketball court, in Hanna-Barbara’s The Harlem Globetrotters. With them is the series’ requisite H-B dog, Dribbles. © Hanna-Barbera. Cel courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

43

retro animation

cartoon, the most fondly remembered team became animated characters such as Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, and Geese Ausbie, along with their manager Granny and dog named Dribbles.

The Globetrotters came back on Saturday mornings for a liveaction variety show called The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine (1974–1975), and later, back to animation in Super Globetrotters (1979–1980).

Music was always important to the Globetrotters, as they appropriated Brother Bones’ whistling version of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” originally recorded in 1949, as their theme song. The wizard behind the Monkees and the Archies, Don Kirshner, was back to produce a new album of tunes called The Globetrotters that was released on Kirshner’s eponymous label. Kirshner used his same stable of songwriters from the Brill Building, and Meadowlark Lemon was the only actual Globetrotter involved in the project. Lemon went on to record two solo albums, in 1979 and 1998.

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels feature film (1972) features an animated segment that is quite humorous and psychedelic. It was animated by Murakami-Wolf, the principal animation studio behind a number of other projects including singer and composer Harry Nilsson’s The Point animated TV special, as well as many projects with Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan—a.k.a. Flo and Eddie—late of the Turtles music group, which is best known for the

song “Happy Together.” Flo and Eddie contributed music and sometimes voices to the animated Down and Dirty Duck movie (1974) as well as animated TV specials starring Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears. Soundtrack albums featuring the songs from these specials were released during the late Seventies and early Eighties on Kid Stuff Records. For more information on Volman, Kaylan, Flo and Eddie, Frank Zappa, and the Turtles, I’d recommend Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A to Z (AM Radio to Zappa) by Charles F. Rosenay!!! and myself.

Rankin/Bass Productions, best known for their holiday specials of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Frosty the Snowman (1969), and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1970) [the latter of which is featured in our next issue—ed.], got into the Saturday morning arena with a couple of musical groups that were the top performing artists of the era. Based upon the hit-making singing family the Jackson Five, Rankin/Bass’ The Jackson 5ive was first, which ran from 1971–1973, and capitalized on the Jacksons’ major hit “ABC,” from the previous year. The series also aired on ABC, creating a great cross-promotion, but the Jacksons’ albums were alas on Motown, not ABC Records. The voices were provided by the actual members of the Jackson Five. When lead singer Michael Jackson broke out as a major solo star a decade later, the series reran on MTV.

Rankin/Bass’ The Jackson 5ive adapted Motown’s most popular singing family, the Jackson Five, to Saturday mornings. And they showed it on… ABC! © Rankin/Bass Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage.

44

RETROFAN

November 2024

retro animation

This was followed up by The Osmonds, based on the crooning family which was at one time known as the Osmond Brothers, which ran from 1972–1973. The Osmonds’ major hit “One Bad Apple” was sung in a Jackson Five vein, and in fact was originally offered to the Jacksons group. Although the Osmonds existed as a singing act for a decade by the time the cartoon came around and were a regular performing act featured on The Andy Williams Show, by 1970 they switched out their “barber shop quartet” stylings in favor of rock and roll. The family band also recruited younger son Donny to sing, and he became their breakout star similar to Michael Jackson. Like The Jackson 5ive, The Osmonds featured the actual Osmond brothers recording their own voices. Their records were released through MGM. After the Archies ran their course on albums, lead singer Ron Dante switched over to Hanna-Barbera, where he recorded an album’s worth of tunes for The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, which aired from 1972. By this time, album releases were not a guaranteed success so the songs recorded for this series could only be heard on the series’ original soundtrack until Dante himself released many of the recorded tracks as part of his Ron Dante’s Funhouse CD in 2020.

Filmation’s animated series The Brady Kids (1972–1974) spun off from the live-action The Brady Bunch (1969–1974).

(TOP) Filmation Studios adapted the popular live-action sitcom The Brady Bunch to Saturday morning as The Brady Kids, with music bits reminiscent of the studio’s own Archies. (BELOW) Like we said. The Brady Bunch/Kids © Paramount Television.

The Archies © Archie Comics Publications, Inc.

Some might call Rankin/Bass’ The Osmonds “one bad apple,” but it didn’t spoil Donny’s television future, as he soon joined sis Marie for their popular Seventies live-action variety show. © Rankin/Bass Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

45

retro animation

Though the actual Brady Bunch kids recorded four albums—and there was even a fifth album titled after Brady actors Maureen McCormick and Christopher Knight—only one officially tied in with the animated series, called The Kids from The Brady Bunch, from 1972. All of the kids sang on these albums, but when it came to doing their own voices on the cartoon show, only half of the kids carried on voicing themselves during the second season.

The Brady Kids was popular enough to spin off into yet another Filmation show, Mission Magic!, which ran from 1973–1974 and starred popular Australian singing star Rick Springfield, who went on to even greater music chart success in the Eighties when he starred on the popular soap opera, General Hospital (1963– present). Mission: Magic! also became Springfield’s third solo album. Only about 90 seconds of each song appeared on the TV series, but the album contains the full-length performances.

Like The Monkees before it, prime-time’s live-action The Partridge Family had a very successful run from 1970–1974 and even a few hits such as “I Think I Love You,” “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted,” “I’ll Meet You Halfway,” and “I Woke Up in Love This Morning.” Lead singer and star David Cassidy [profiled in RetroFan #32] also had solo hits with “Cherish” and “How Can I Be Sure?”

Just as the Partridge Family’s popularity was winding down, Hanna-Barbera took a proposed Jetsons reboot and retooled it as Partridge Family 2200 A.D., which ran during the 1974–1975 Saturday morning season.

A few years after David Cassidy had his greatest chart success, half-brother Shaun Cassidy topped the charts and then became the star of the 1977–1979 The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, which aired in prime-time and was live-action. The only commonality is that star Shaun Cassidy recorded hit albums in tandem with the series and also performed occasionally on the series.

Finally, Sid and Marty Krofft tried to capture gold with a few of their series, H. R. Pufnstuf (1969–1971), The Bugaloos (1970–1972), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973–1975), and The Krofft Supershow starring Kaptain Kool and the Kongs (1976–1978). H. R. Pufnstuf released a mini-album in 1969 and Pufnstuf and the Bugaloos both released Capitol albums in 1970, and Epic and Peter Pan Records released albums in 1978 of Kaptain Kool. As for Sigmund, an album credited to series star Johnny Whitaker called Friends, was released on Chelsea Records in 1973. All of these shows were live-action Saturday morning shows and are listed here for completeness’ sake.

Krofft recruited hit Scottish band the Bay City Rollers to headline their own eponymous Saturday morning variety series, which also occasionally featured cartoons. It was a replacement for The Krofft Superstar Hour and ran during the 1978–1979 season. The Rollers had U.S. hits with “Saturday Night,” “Money Honey,” “I Only Want to Be With You,” and “You Made Me Believe in Magic.”

46

RETROFAN

November 2024

Sure, the arrived-too-late Partridge Family 2200 AD may have been an altered Jetsons reboot, but you’ve gotta admit, that flying Partridge Bus is pretty darn cool! © HannaBarbera. The Partridge Family © Sony Pictures Television. Cel courtesy of Heritage.

There were other LPs released of animated TV series over the years, and many of those featured the actual dialogue soundtrack and/or brand new stories and no songs, and these fall outside of the scope of this article. It’s possible a few rarities may have been missed, but this should give you a good overview of what was released during Saturday morning TV’s heyday of the Sixties and Seventies.

After the Seventies, there were many more series that dabbled in music and sometimes released albums to coincide with the shows, but none were as successful as the shows done during the Sixties and Seventies. Latter day examples include New Kids on the Block (1990–1991) and The Weird Al Show (1997–1998).

[Editor’s note: Join us in two issues when RetroFan #37 does a deep dive into Saturday morning television’s “Fake Rockers”—the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, Jabberjaw and the Neptunes, and all their Bang-Shang-a-Lang-ing animated buddies!]

MARK ARNOLD is a Pop Culture Historian with over 20 books to his credit, and is a regular contributor to Back Issue magazine.

He also hosts the Fun Ideas Podcast, which covers a lot of the same topics discussed here and in his books. He is currently at work on another Monkees book, the book TV Cartoons That Time Forgot, and a book on Marvel’s Crazy Magazine.

RETRO TRAVEL

The Smithsonian Institute’s Salute to Pop Culture

BY ED LUTE I absolutely love pop culture. So when I found out that the Smithsonian Institute was adding a pop culture exhibit to the National Museum of American History, I knew that I had to make a visit. I also knew that I wanted to share my experience at the museum with RetroFan readers. In early 2023, I took a trek to the newly opened exhibit called Entertainment Nation.

SMITHSONIAN HISTORY

The Smithsonian Institute is a collection of 19 museums, libraries, and even a zoo. Most of the museums are located in Washington, D.C., on the National Mall. The National Museum of American History, which houses the pop culture exhibit, was originally built in 1964 and called the Museum of History and Technology until 1980. Entertainment Nation opened in December 2022.

A POP CULTURE EXTRAVAGANZA

Due to Entertainment Nation being a new exhibit during my visit, there were posters trumpeting it both outside and inside of the building. The posters featured a variety of pop culture icons including Luke Skywalker and Muhammad Ali. These helped not only to direct visitors to the location of the exhibit, but also to get them even more excited for what they would see when they arrived.

Upon reaching the 3rd Floor West side of the complex where the exhibition was located, I found that it was by far the most crowded section of the building during our visit, showing that people love their pop culture.

When people think of pop culture, they may only think of movies and TV shows because they are admittedly some of the most popular forms of entertainment. However, when the Smithsonian developed the idea for this exhibit, they went all out and looked at popular culture as a whole, creating an experience that would attract audiences no matter what aspect of pop culture they loved.

So, whether you are a fan of science fiction, music, sports, TV shows, or children’s entertainment, the exhibit has something for everyone. [Editor’s note: Sounds like your average RetroFan ish!]

While I won’t be discussing every item in the massive collection, I will be highlighting some of the ones that I found fascinating as well as some that stand as examples of just why everyone should visit.

The entrance to the exhibit starts off with a bang or more precisely a blaster bolt. One of the biggest and best (in this author’s humble opinion) pop culture properties is Star Wars. It doesn’t matter if you are a fan of the original trilogy, the toys, comics, cartoons, or even the new movies, there is one part that almost everyone is fan of: the droid duo of R2-D2 and C-3PO. As you first enter, you see these two old friends.

RETROFAN

November 2024

47

retro travel

These particular robotic props were the ones used in the 1983 movie Return of the Jedi. This was a pleasant surprise for me for several reasons. First, this visit took place in 2023, which was the 40th anniversary of the classic film. Second, the movie has a special place in my heart because it was the first Star Wars movie I saw in the theater during its original run—actually on opening day, Wednesday, May 25, 1983. (Thanks, Grandma!)

If science fiction isn’t your thing but classic comedy is, the Smithsonian has you covered as well. From a 1922 Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist puppet to a dress worn by comedian Phyllis Diller during a U.S.O. tour of Vietnam with Bob Hope to the iconic sign post from the set of the Korean War–set sitcom M*A*S*H, you can almost hear the laughter echoing through the area.

Speaking of classic sitcoms, not all of the pieces in the exhibit are new to the museum. In fact a pair of well-worn chairs has been a part of the Smithsonian for years. The chairs that Archie and Edith Bunker used on the groundbreaking television series All in the Family have been a part of the museum’s collection for decades but were moved to this exhibition, where they fit in nicely.

If there was one sports icon that smashed the barrier between sports and pop culture, it was Michael Jordan. You don’t need to have seen him play to know who M.J. is, so of course the museum would have one of his Chicago Bulls jerseys to represent this superstar. The jersey is game-worn from the 1996–1997 season. The glove of Los Angeles Dodgers Pitcher Sandy Koufax and the gloves worn

by Team U.S.A. Hockey Forward Phil Verchota during the Miracle on Ice in 1980 are featured as well. Even fictional sports icons make an appearance in the form of the robe worn by the Italian Stallion Rocky Balboa from the 1976 movie Rocky.

Although music isn’t playing as you make your way through the exhibit, it is all around you. Singer and award-winning actress Diana Ross’ dress from 1967 as well as Cyndi Lauper’s dress from 1983’s She’s So Unusual album cover, help you hear the songs in your head. Fab 5 Freddy’s boombox may make you want to start breakdancing.

Although there aren’t many interactive aspects to Entertainment Nation, there is one extremely cool one. One of the greatest 48

RETROFAN

November 2024

musicians in history was the artist formerly known as Prince.

His guitar is featured in the exhibit but unfortunately its behind glass. However, a replica that you can pretend to play (although probably not as well as Prince) is a photo opportunity just waiting to happen.

Sunny days sweep the clouds away and make it a beautiful day in the neighborhood when you encounter some of the most influential items from your childhood. Oscar the Grouch (trash can included), Elmo, and other Sesame Street Muppets from the classic children’s television program are on display. It feels like I visited an old, trusted friend when I saw Mr. Rogers’ red sweater behind the glass. If recent children’s television is more to your liking then an animation cell from the first season of SpongeBob SquarePants and a lab coat belonging to Bill Nye the Science Guy are there are well.

Entertainment speaks to us to us in so many ways and on so many levels. It can make us forget our problems if only for an hour or so, or it can prompt us to take action to make the world a better place. A hat worn by actor Larry Hagman in his role as J. R. Ewing on the nighttime soap opera Dallas does the former, while manacles worn by Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) in the monumental 1977 TV miniseries Roots does the latter. No matter what you are looking for in entertainment, you can find it here.

Rounding out this tour of Entertainment Nation, here are three of my favorite items. First, although it was Christopher Reeve who made me believe that a man could fly, one exhibit treated me to the next best thing: George Reeves’ costume from the Fifties Adventures of Superman television show. Seeing the iconic super-hero costume was great. Next, If Batman is more your hero of choice than the Big Blue Boy Scout, you don’t want to miss seeing Julie Newmar’s headband, necklace, and gloves that she wore as Catwoman on the beloved 1966–1968 Batman TV show. Last, for all you Marvel Zombies, there is Captain America’s shield from the 2014 movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

retro travel

There are so many other iconic items to discover in the exhibit including those from the final frontier and over the rainbow. While that’s the end of our tour of Entertainment Nation, our visit is far from over.

LUNCH, SNACK TIME, AND GAME NIGHT

While most of the pop culture items are found in Entertainment Nation, the Smithsonian has sprinkled some other items and displays throughout the rest of the museum. Here are three more of my favorites.

Whether you are hungry or not during your visit, you must take a trip to the cafeteria. There, expertly placed, is a display of classic lunch boxes. What better spot to showcase these fun lunchtime favorites than in the cafeteria similar to where most fans used them, although without teachers milling about to watch over you?

The display contains metal lunch boxes from Knight Rider, Batman, The Jetsons, and so many others. Being the massive comic book fan that I am, the Silver Age–inspired Batman one was my favorite, but looking at this display felt like I was looking around my elementary school cafeteria. These lunch boxes were a huge part of my childhood and I’m sure the same can be said for many others, so this is not to be missed.

PLANNING A VISIT? National Museum of American History 1300 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20560 Open every day (except Christmas, December 25th) 10:00 AM–5:30 PM Admission free www.americanhistory.si.edu/

Next up was a display in the Food: Transforming the American Table section of the museum. It contained a selection of 7-Eleven’s Marvel Super-hero Slurpee Cups from the Seventies. The cups depicted some Marvel mainstays including Captain America, Black Panther, and Cyclops amongst others. I had a craving for the cold icy drink as soon as I left the section. Once again, I could see my childhood on display in front of me. Whether you are a fast food aficionado or not, the McDonald’s display showcasing the McDLT box and other foam packaging brought back many memories especially for my wife and I who both served many meals in those environmentally unsafe containers.

Last up on this tour through the other parts of the museum is a visit to the American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibit.

There you can see the everything from President Ulysses S. Grant’s ceremonial carriage to the dresses worn by the First Ladies on Inauguration Day. Right about now you are probably asking yourself, what does this exhibit have to do with popular culture? Well, for all of you pop culture fanatics, there is a section on toys and games featuring the presidents, such as 1961’s The Exciting New Game of the Kennedys, a box of Lincoln Logs, and one of the oddest of all in the display is a jack-in-the-box featuring President George W. Bush!

There are other pop culture artifacts throughout the museum, but these were some of my favorites. How many other pop culture items can you find scattered throughout the building?

I highly recommend a visit to this exhibit; I also implore you to visit the other Smithsonian museums on the National Mall. In addition to the National Museum of American History, we were able to tour the Natural History Museum during this visit, but the Air and Space Museum, the African-American Museum, and the Native-American Museum are also great places to spend your time after your pop culture fix has been sated.

ED LUTE is a full-time teacher and pop culture geek. He enjoys sharing his love of pop culture with others as a frequent contributor to Back Issue magazine and has also been featured in the pages of The Jack Kirby Collector. This is his first article for RetroFan, with hopefully more to follow.

RETROFAN

November 2024

49

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 NOW SHIPPING!

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 NOW SHIPPING!

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!

VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

John Astin & Gomez Addams Actor’s influence on iconic character endures

BY MARK VOGER

The strange, oval-headed man with the jaunty mustache and pin-striped suit sprang from the pen of cartoonist Charles Addams.

But John Astin created Gomez Addams.

The creepy, kooky TV classic The Addams Family (1964–1966)—a black comedy starring Astin, Carolyn Jones, and Jackie Coogan as members of an odd brood of gleeful shut-ins—was based on Addams’ characters. But Astin, the first actor to portray Gomez, instilled in him a joie de vivre not seen in Addams’ droll cartoons in The New Yorker, in which the characters originated in the late Thirties.

Astin’s animated Gomez wore an ebullient smile and piercing eyes ringed in black. He stood on his head, brandished a saber for exercise, and was arguably the most amorously demonstrative husband on television. Gomez practically devoured his “querida” Morticia, played with a beguiling mixture of gloom and allure by Jones.

Born in 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland, Astin was well aware of Addams’ work in The New Yorker prior to being cast as the peculiar patriarch of the sitcom clan.

“I had been a great fan of the cartoons,” Astin once told me. (I interviewed the actor on five occasions between 1993 and 2008.)

“When I was in college, I remember when my roommate first came home with [the 1950 Addams compilation] Monster Rally.

We bought another copy so we could razor out a panel or two and frame it. We didn’t want to do that without buying a second copy of the book, because we wanted one un-defaced copy in its virgin condition.

(ABOVE) John Astin created the role of Gomez on TV’s The Addams Family (1964–1966). The sitcom classic was based on Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. © Filmways TV Productions.

“When I realized that a [TV] series was going to be created based on the cartoons, I went back and studied them, trying to find out what was underneath them. What were they really about?

I personally concluded that Charlie—whom I later got to know— was expressing the joy and wonder of life.”

The Addams Family debuted on Friday, September 18, 1964 on ABC. Coincidentally, another sitcom about a creepster household, The Munsters, debuted six days later on CBS. Both series were cancelled after two seasons, and both have been in reruns ever since, not to mention being adapted in animation, live-action reboots, and movies.

Astin led a cast of seasoned veterans. Jones was one of Vincent Price’s exhibits in House of Wax (1953) and canoodled with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley on screen. Coogan (Uncle Fester) played the title urchin in Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpiece The Kid (1921).

Blossom Rock (Grandmama) was an MGM contract player seen in the Dr. Kildare movies as Sally, the sassy receptionist. Rounding out the cast was 6-foot-9 Ted Cassidy as Frankensteinian butler Lurch; Lisa Loring as stonefaced moppet Wednesday; and Ken Weatherwax as her roly-poly brother Pugsley.

RETROFAN

November 2024

51

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

ACTOR’S JOURNEY

Prior to landing the role of Gomez, Astin was a steadily Astin garnered early rising actor on Broadway, in movies, and on television. notice in a bit part as a It was live theater that began his professional journey youth dance organizer in earnest. in West Side Story (1961).

“You see, unlike movies and television, you can’t © United Artists. ‘rerun’ the theater,” he said. “It becomes something that stays inside of you. I have this memory of Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer in Come Back, Little Sheba. I can still see them on the stage, small figures that they were.

They knocked me out. It stays with you. The ephemeral effect of the theater is a great advantage. It’s like life.”

Astin decided to become an actor after he and a college buddy put on a play. “I tasted it, and it was overwhelming,” he said.

Principal among his mentors in theater was Harold Clurman, who founded the Group Theatre with Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford, “out which came all of our current acting style, really,” said Astin. “The ‘Method’ in America came from their teachings. They learned from [Konstantin] Stanislavsky and brought it here.”

Astin studied with Clurman for five years in New York. “I was first trained in the so-called English system of learning stage movements, stage diction, analyzing poetry to read it properly,” he said. “In my life, I’ve tried to combine that with the teachings that emphasize the inner life of something, too, and hopefully create an (LEFT) Another breakthrough for Astin was in That Touch intelligent combination of those approaches.” of Mink, opposite Doris Day (1962). (RIGHT) Astin’s first TV Astin appeared in several Broadway productions during the series was I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster (1962–1963), in which he Fifties such as Threepenny Opera, Tall Story, and The Power and the Glory. co-starred with Marty Ingels. © Universal Pictures.

After making his film debut in the gritty crime drama The Pusher (1960), Astin garnered early attention with a small bit in a big film. In HOMETOWN INSPIRATION Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story (1961), based on the To this day, there are hints of the macabre, wickedly funny cartoons Broadway musical, Astin appeared as an organizer of a youth dance of Charles Addams (1912–1988) sprinkled throughout his hometown who tries to cajole attendees—all members of two bitterly warring of Westfield, New Jersey. gangs—to take part in a friendly dance circle. (He fails.)

As a youngster, Addams drew inspiration from local classical Another breakthrough for the actor came with a billed role architecture and landmarks. Exact matches for the Rialto Theatre in Delbert Mann’s That Touch of Mink (1962), in which he played a on East Broad Street and Colonial Cemetery on Mountain Avenue villainous romantic rival of… are you sitting?… Cary Grant. show up in two of Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. Addams’ childDuring this period, Astin did a ton of television (Maverick, The hood home still stands at 522 Elm Street.

Twilight Zone, Ben Casey) before landing his first sitcom. He played At Westfield High School, Addams played football, contributed one of two title mishap-prone carpenters opposite Marty Ingels in cartoons to the student literary magazine Weathervane, and was a I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster (1962–1963). member of the Art Club and the Slide Rule Club. He graduated in “It was a slapstick show, and I had to do all the falls,” Astin said the Class of ’29. [with what sounded like lingering annoyance]. “They saw that I (Since 2018, the quaint Union County town has held an event could do a fall, so they wrote me another fall, and then another fall. called AddamsFest during the Halloween season, with special So it was a bit like playing football every week. I just remember screenings, tours, masquerade balls and other attractions. Local nursing bruises.”

52

RETROFAN

November 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

merchants decorate their windows with Addams’ famous characters during the multi-day festival.)

In 1932, Addams made his debut in the pages of The New Yorker.

The first of his cartoons to hint at what eventually became known as the Addams Family was published in the August 6, 1938 edition.

It showed the as-yet-unnamed Morticia and Lurch (in a beard!) regarding a vacuum cleaner salesman, who boasts of his product: “No well-appointed home should be without it.” The rub is that this dilapidated, cobwebby home is not exactly well appointed.

In an early appearance of Gomez, published in the November 14, 1942 edition, he and Morticia sit by an unlit fireplace amid busted floorboards and ever-present cobwebs. “Are you unhappy, darling?” he asks her.

“Oh, yes, yes! Completely,” she replies.

The cartoonist began featuring the characters regularly [though they weren’t formally named until the TV show]. Little by little, they coalesced into something resembling a family. While the TV show was on the air, the characters took a sabbatical from The New Yorker.

Addams eventually drew around 1,300 cartoons—typically black-and-white illustrations rendered in ink and wash—and 65 covers for The New Yorker. Ten compilations of his cartoons were published beginning with Drawn and Quartered in 1946.

“There’s nothing really in bad taste, no real horror in Charlie’s cartoons,” Astin said of the cartoonist’s work. “They’re ultimately a kind of wakeup call for us to look at life from a deeper, broader perspective. And they have great wit and style and taste.

In the wake of the Addams Family TV series, Charles Addams’ compilations gained renewed popularity. Shown: A reissue of Monster Rally. © Simon and Schuster.

ANOTHER SIDE OF CARY GRANT In her memoir, Doris Day wrote that in working with Cary Grant on That Touch of Mink, he was pleasant, professional… and distant. The man who grew up in poverty in England as Archibald Leach created the persona we know as “Cary Grant,” a suave actor on screen who could be something of a control freak off screen.

John Astin, another Touch of Mink cast member, was once at the receiving end of this trait in Grant’s personality, though Astin harbors no regrets.

As Astin told me: “I had a sequence in the film, the end of which got big, big laughs in the theater during the tryouts. But Cary thought what it was doing was a little bit off-color. He wanted a change. It created a bit of a brouhaha. I guess no one else agreed with him. Eventually, however, he prevailed. I re-shot that scene.

“But what was so interesting is that he was so considerate of the fact that I might have thought I had been hurt by it or damaged by it. He made it up to me in so many ways, the best of which was that whenever the occasion called for it, he would communicate with me or send a message of encouragement.”

Case in point: Astin heard from Grant after taking on Grant’s role in the TV adaptation of Operation Petticoat.

“It was a television movie-of-the-week and, ultimately, a series based on the movie he did years If Cary Grant slighted before,” Astin said.

Astin on That Touch of “He sent a message to Mink, he more than made me through [producer] up for it. Studio portrait.

Robert Arthur saying that he couldn’t be more pleased with the fact that I was doing his role, and wished me all kinds of luck in it.

“Whenever we were at the same event, he always made it a point to have a conversation. When you’re Cary Grant, that’s not always easy, because everybody wants your ear.

But Cary would walk right over to where I was and start a conversation. He wouldn’t let anyone else interrupt it.

That’s so classy.

“Cary Grant was, in my opinion, a very modest fellow.

He was very much a gentleman. He was very much who he was, but in my view, he didn’t make a big deal out of it. He just was who he was. Beyond that, obviously, he was a very hard worker and wanted things to be always the very best. On the other hand, he was a very kind person. I know he exhibited that kindness toward me.”

RETROFAN

November 2024

53

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

“I think it’s one reason many of his imitators have never really come close to him. He made us laugh, awakened us to some of our repressed hostilities, which we can sort of carry out through the cartoons without damage. When he implies violence, he never has anything really morbid in his cartoons. Even one as graphic as the woman on the front porch, with the enormous snake that has obviously consumed something, and the wife says something like, ‘George, will you stop mumbling?’ Somehow, there’s no damage done.

“I think I can best illustrate it by mentioning the cartoon in the hospital. The nurse says to one of the characters, ‘Congratulations.

(LEFT) John Astin as Gomez and Carolyn Jones as Morticia waltz with their Charles Addams cartoon counterparts on a 1964 TV Guide cover. © TV Guide. (RIGHT) Perhaps Sixties television’s most affectionate couple, Morticia and Gomez Addams, as played by Jones and Astin. © Filmways TV Productions.

It’s a child.’ There was a rumor for years that the unprinted—or unprintable—Charles Addams cartoon was the nurse saying, ‘Shall I wrap it up, or will you eat it here?’ And later, when Charlie was asked about that cartoon, he said, ‘No, never. I never drew any cartoon like that.’ I think there’s a little distinction there.”

CREATING GOMEZ

Once cast in The Addams Family, Astin did receive some guidance from Addams on how to play the family’s peculiar patriarch—not much, but some.

“Charlie gave us about a paragraph to work with,” Astin recalled. “There wasn’t a heck of a lot except for suggestions of names for that character. He recommended either Repelli or Gomez, and we chose Gomez. “[Writer-producer] David Levy, the creator of the series, named some of the other characters. It’s really to David that we owe the whole concept of The Addams Family. The title, I recall, was David’s idea originally.

Astin projected a manic ebullience as Gomez. © Filmways TV Productions.

54

RETROFAN

November 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) The Addams Family cast, clockwise from left: Astin, Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy, Blossom Rock, Ken Weatherwax, Carolyn Jones, and Lisa Loring. (RIGHT) Gomez with his almost-ever-present cigar. (BELOW) The chemistry of the relationship between Gomez and Morticia set a high bar for the actors who would later inhabit the same roles. © Filmways TV Productions.

“So I embarked upon creating this character. I decided, with David’s approval, that Gomez would be a character who was romantic and passionately in love with his wife. On that, Carolyn and I were able to build a great many things.

“I know some time was spent selecting what to wear. We tried a few things on. In Carolyn’s case, they had to manufacture; they had to tailor it directly on her. But I tried on a few suits and said, ‘Here’s the one I like,’ and we went with it.”

Astin described a typical work week: “We would come in on a Monday and read one or two scripts, and we would come up with a few ideas or make a few comments. All of us. I mean, the door was open, the floor was available to anyone who wanted it. Certainly, a read-through of the script was always an enjoyable experience.

It’s interesting; we didn’t take a whole lot of time to do that. I know that these days, they’re back and forth; they write and rewrite. It goes on all week in a half-hour show. Which is fine, if that’s what’s necessary.

“After this, [writer/producer] Nat Perrin and the other writers would make some notes. The next day, we’d be shooting the show.

Two days after that, we were finished. We worked three days a RETROFAN

November 2024

55

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

week on the show—that is, three days’ shooting. Sometimes we would do two shows in five days. The director helped a lot with that, too.

“It was not a painful operation by any means. We had relatively civil hours. It was a lot easier for me than, say, Carolyn or Ted, because they had to have more make-up put on. So they had to spend perhaps an hour longer in make-up than I had to. But for none of us was it an exhausting experience. We all had a good time and we had great days, which ended reasonably. We never shot late into the night.”

Astin worked most closely with Jones.

Recalled the actor: “As I look back on it—we used to joke about it years later—I remember once saying to her on the phone, ‘You know, Carolyn, I miss nibbling on your arm.’ And she went into one of those wonderful laughs that she had. She was a great laugher.

A sort of lusty, raucous laugh that I can still hear.

“On the series, we were very friendly. We were both very professional, I think, with one another. We both respected each other’s work. As the years went on, we became

56

RETROFAN

November 2024

““

(ABOVE) The Addams Family theme song, created by Vic Mizzy, included the now iconic double finger snap.

(BELOW) “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky. They’re altogether ooky, the Addams family.”

(INSET) Astin’s likeness appeared on much Addams-related merch. Shown: An image from Ideal’s The Addams Family Game. Game piece © Ideal Toy Co. © Filmways TV Productions.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

better and better, closer and closer friends. Although, there was always an attraction there. I certainly felt it, and I know she did. We were able to bring that into the work, and I think it helped the show a great deal. It’s interesting. If we didn’t have anything to do, we could always look at each other.

“She was gorgeous. Also so witty and so intelligent, aside from being beautiful and being a wonderful actress. And she captured just the right style.”

I asked Astin to name some of the unsung heroes of The Addams Family.

“First off, I would have to say we were very lucky with everyone we had—cinematography, set design, and set decoration,” he said.

“I remember some of those wonderful things came from a woman named Ruby Levitt [the set designer]. But I would say, really, I think of principally four people, cast aside. David Levy insisted that it be tasteful. Nat Perrin is hugely important in all this.

Nat Perrin wasn’t with us at the very beginning, but came on board and, although he was not credited, did so much of the writing.

So much of the spirit is captured by Nat in that show. Nat was the producer. Nat was an essential quantity in this show, an essential aspect of this show.

“And then when Nat wasn’t there at the beginning, there were Ed James and Seaman Jacobs, a writing team. They wrote for, oh, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, George Burns. They wrote series, too. Ed and ‘Sy,’ as Seaman Jacobs is known, did this presentation script, which was very well done. They were the first ones to put it on paper. But the biggest hero, as far as I’m concerned, is Nat Perrin.”

AFTER ADDAMS

The final Addams Family episode aired on April 8, 1966. Fresh from his star-making role as Gomez, Astin donned the green tights of the Riddler as a Season 2 fill-in on the action comedy Batman starring Adam West. Astin was substituting for Frank Gorshin, the original Riddler, who sat out the second of three seasons of the hit show. Per the script, Astin played a somewhat more imperious iteration of the villain.

“I had a great time,” he said. “I used to joke that I had always wanted to run around in my underwear, and this was the opportunity. So I put on the Riddler’s outfit and did it.”

Speaking of the Riddler’s green costume festooned with question marks, it was a bit, shall we say, form-fitting.

“To say the least,” Astin came back with a laugh. “And hot, too, I have to say.”

For the actor, playing a guest villain on Batman was an opportunity to stretch. “Oh, Batman was marvelous,” Astin said. “Because you could really expand, do stuff in a grand way, which isn’t always possible on television.”

Addams reprised Gomez on at least three occasions. In The New Scooby Doo Movies (1972, animated), Scooby and the gang met the Addamses, with Astin, Jones, Coogan, and Cassidy voicing their roles. The color TV special Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977) reunited the original cast save for Blossom Rock (who died the following year at 82). On an animated series simply titled The Addams Family (1992–1993), Astin was the sole original cast member,

Astin donned the green tights of the Riddler as a Season 2 replacement on Batman. © Warner Bros. © DC Comics.

RETROFAN

November 2024

57

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

though he was joined by two ringers: Carol Channing as Grandmama and Rip Taylor as Uncle Fester.

Astin starred in Operation Petticoat (1977–1979), a series based on Blake Edwards’ 1959 film (with Astin in the Cary Grant role), and had a recurring part in the hit sitcom Night Court (1984–1990).

Astin was once married to fellow Sixties TV icon Patty Duke (The Patty Duke Show). Duke, of course, won an Oscar as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962), following her Broadway triumph in the role. Astin expressed admiration over Duke’s courage in writing about her struggle with manic depression in her 1988 memoir Call Me Anna.

Later in his career, Astin kept the ghastly coming in portraying Edgar Allan Poe, the tortured poet and author of The Raven who died at 40 in 1849, in an acclaimed one-man show. Astin summed up Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid’s play Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight (1998–2004) like this: “Poe returns to an essentially empty theater as a ghost, and tries to set the record straight. He addresses an audience that he assumes has all the misconceptions which surrounded his life.

“People might look at Poe as someone who was obsessed with trying to discover the secret of life. Much of his work is a reflection of that search. Aside from the fact that he wrote the stories that most people are aware of, he created the detective story. He wrote this exquisite, lyrical, romantic, and very serious poetry. But something that’s generally forgotten is that he was the greatest journalistic critic of his time. And he had a great sense of humor.”

Did Astin see a connection between Poe and Gomez Addams?

At the least, the character shares Poe’s sense of the macabre.

“I think there is a connection,” he said. “I think in a sense, they are two sides of the same coin. There are two keys that join them. One is that they’re both romantics. The other is that they both have a keen desire to seek the meaning and richness of life.”

Astin later taught the craft of acting as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University. His students weren’t the only ones to receive an education.

“I think the experience has changed my view about acting,” he said. “I used to think that acting was a gift and could not be taught; 58

RETROFAN

November 2024

(LEFT) Astin and Jones supplied the voices for Gomez and Morticia in The New Scooby Doo Movies (1972).

(RIGHT) Astin and Jones rekindled their chemistry as Gomez and Morticia in Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977). © NBC. (INSET) Astin reprised Gomez on the 1992–1993 animated series The Addams Family. The New Scooby Doo Movies and The Addams Family © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Astin assumed Cary Grant’s role in the TV adaptation of Operation Petticoat (1977– 1979). © ABC.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

it could be helped by study. But I now believe acting can be taught.

I still shudder a bit when I say that, but I believe it to be true.”

(I once got an inkling of the breadth of Astin’s acting experience. When I was taking in the Poe play, as Astin gave an important speech to a hushed audience, some idiotic teenager a few rows away picked that moment to extract a Twizzler from its plastic casing. Neither of his parents, nor anyone nearby, stopped the lad. The agonizing sound of Twizzler-onplastic seemed to go on for an eternity.

After the show, I asked Astin if he noticed a noise from the audience during that particular speech. “Ah, yes, the candy wrapper,” he said. I couldn’t believe Astin identified the source! I almost asked if he knew which type of candy it was.)

INFLUENCE STILL FELT

The exuberance that Astin bestowed upon Gomez is still felt in the performances of each actor who has taken on the role since the original series. These include Raul Julia in the movies The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993); Tim Curry in the TV movie Addams Family Reunion (1998); Glenn Taranto in the TV series The New Addams Family (1998–1999); Nathan Lane (and others) in the Broadway musical The Addams Family (2010); Oscar Isaac in the animated films The Addams Family (2019) and The Addams Family 2 (2021); and Luis Guzmán in the TV series Wednesday (2022–present).

Said Astin of the 1990s Addams Family films: “I’ve never seen them.

I purposefully avoided seeing the movies, because I knew all kinds of reporters would want to know what I thought of them. It would have been a no-win situation for me. But I was rooting for them.”

He added with a sly grin: “I’ve never received so many great reviews for a movie I wasn’t in.”

Astin deigned to step back into the Addams homestead, if not as Gomez per se, by appearing as Grandpapa Addams in two episodes of The New Addams Family opposite Hackensack, New Jersey, native Glenn Taranto as Gomez.

(INSET) Edgar Allan Poe, author of The Raven. Daguerreotype

by Edwin H. Manchester. (ABOVE) Astin portrayed the tragic author in the acclaimed one-man show, Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight. Courtesy of Windwood Theatricals.

(BOTTOM RIGHT) Astin as Grandpapa Addams and Glenn Taranto as Gomez in The New Addams Family.

“To me, John Astin is the guy,” Taranto told me in 1998. “He’s the one who created the role. Prior to him, there was no Gomez, except what was on the cartoon page.

“I am a fairly good mimic. I decided that as far as I was concerned, I was going to try and do it as close as possible to what John Astin was doing. I wouldn’t want to try and top him. Not that I could. He’s the guy.

“My biggest fear—which, fortunately, has not happened—I was totally prepared for the words ‘pale comparison’ and ‘there’s no comparison.’ And I would have totally agreed. I would have said, ‘As an actor, why would I want to try to be better than John Astin?’ So let me do as best as I can to bring whatever Glenn Taranto can bring to the role.”

By coincidence, Taranto had met Astin four years earlier while working as a ticket-taker at an American Film Institute event. Recalled Taranto: “I said to John, ‘People tell me I look like you.’ He laughed and said, ‘Oh, I should be so lucky.’ ” Taranto said that working with Astin in the Nineties Addams TV series was “beyond a dream come true. It was really surreal.

Getting this part was great. But in my RETROFAN

November 2024

59

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(TOP LEFT) Raul Julia played Gomez in the movie adaptation The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel. © Paramount Pictures. (TOP RIGHT) Tim Curry played Gomez in the TV movie Addams Family Reunion (1998). © Fox Family Films.

(LEFT) Gomez was voiced by Oscar Issac in the animated film The Addams Family (2019) and its sequel. © MGM. (RIGHT) Luis Guzman is the latest Gomez Addams in the ongoing Netflix series Wednesday. © Netflix. heart, I kind of felt, ‘If he doesn’t come on to do a show, it’ll be so bittersweet. He just has to!’ When we found out (that Astin agreed to appear), I was just totally beside myself. He turned out to be one of the most generous, wonderful people.

“Just before he left and we were saying our goodbyes, his wife Valerie did say, ‘The torch has been passed. You guys can feel good.’

I said, ‘Yeah, we feel great.’”

Astin, 93 at this writing, is the last surviving member of the original Addams Family cast. Did the actor have any theories on the enduring appeal of the show?

“The Addams Family were strange on the outside, very healthy on the inside,” he said.

“That was a metaphor for a lot of things. We always knew we had a good show. I would never have thought that it would still be a current item years later. It’s replayed probably more than any show ever, except for the original Honeymooners. It’s literally never been off the air.

“People ask me about residuals. Of course, in those days, we got paid for five reruns, and that was it. People ask me, ‘Aren’t you disappointed?’ You know, one is an actor primarily—at least, 60

RETROFAN

November 2024

I am—because he wants to communicate with people. I want to spread whatever feeling or message or encouragement there is.

Who can ask for more than that it continues? That’s much more important than money.”

What of himself did Astin bring to Gomez?

“Well, Gomez is really me,” he said.

“My brother said that Gomez is the clearest extension of my personality than anything else I’ve done. That’s really who I am.

The love of spontaneity, the appreciation of life, the enjoyment of any aspect of life that I can find. I think that’s probably at the root of it.”

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. As a child, he coveted a classmate’s Uncle Fester puppet; as an adult, he finally snagged one for 80 bucks. (Huzzah!) Please visit him at MarkVoger.com. And don’t miss Mark’s feature on Addams Family & Munsters toys in Cryptology #1, on sale now!

RETRO INTERVIEW

The Secrets of Isis Revealed!

Meet Brian Cutler and Joanna Pang Atkins

BY DAN JOHNSON If you were a child in the Seventies, then no doubt your must-see TV included CBS’ The Secrets of Isis. The Filmation series, which starred Joanna Cameron as the title character (and her alter ego, Andrea Thomas), was created to serve as a female-centric companion show to the studio’s successful Shazam! [which RetroFan’s Andy Mangels examined way back in issue #4!—ed.].

Two seasons of The Secrets of Isis were produced (with 22 episodes filmed), and the show ran on the network from 1975 to 1978. The Secrets of Isis was a landmark in television as it was the first network show to feature a super-heroine in the lead role.

Recently I had the honor of interviewing two of the other stars from the series, Brian Cutler (who played Rick Mason) and Joanna Pang Atkins (who played Cindy Lee), and they graciously shared their memories of working on the show.

RetroFan: How did each of you come to be cast in The Secrets of Isis?

Joanna Pang Atkins: Brian was the first one cast, I think.

Brian Cutler: Yes, I was. They probably brought in 200 guys and I guess Norm [Prescott] and Lou [Scheimer] liked me the best. Then I was there for all the auditions

for all the women [who tried out for Isis].

When Joanna Cameron came in, they just loved the chemistry between the two of us. There was nothing to not like about her. She was in great shape, she was beautiful, and she exemplified what they saw as Isis.

RF: Do you remember any of the other actresses who auditioned for the role of Isis?

BC: I really don’t, but any of the lovely women working in the industry in the early Seventies who were Joanna Cameron’s type were brought in. You could go down a list

(ABOVE) Brian Cutler as Rick Mason and Joanna Pang (now Atkins) as Cindy Lee in a publicity photo from Season One of The Secrets of Isis. (INSET) Brian and Joanna at a 2007 San Diego Comic-Con promotion of Isis’ DVD release. Photos courtesy of Brian Cutler. The Secrets of Isis © 1975 Entertainment Rights plc.

RETROFAN

November 2024

61

retro interview

(LEFT AND RIGHT) Cutler and Pang’s credits from the opening of The Secrets of Isis. The Secrets of Isis © 1975 Entertainment Rights plc. of all the hot actresses working at that time and I probably auditioned with them.

RF: Joanna, how did you come to be on the show?

JPA: I was in New York and I was doing my very first off-Broadway show. After the show, I got a message that there was a director in the audience. He had directed a CBS show called Patchwork Family, and we set up a meeting. [In the meeting,] he told me about Patchwork Family, and he asked if I’d like to be a member of the family. My segment was going to be about music and dance. It was a fun, kind of educational show, hosted by a woman and a puppet, and there were lots of members of the family. I did every other show for about two or three years, and during that show I also did some other work for CBS. One day my agent called and she said, “Alan Duchovny is the head of CBS Children’s Programming in New York, and he’s been watching you. He would like for you to come in and have a meeting with him.

They’re casting a Saturday morning kids show about Isis.” The funny story about that is, I have in my diary book, ‘ICES.’ I thought it was going to be a children’s show about

Joanna Cameron as the Mighty Isis in a Season One promotional image from The Secrets of Isis, which appeared as the inside front cover of the fanzine The Amazing World of DC Comics #12 (Aug. 1976).

(INSET) Cameron as Isis, with Cutler and Pang. The Secrets of Isis © 1975 Entertainment Rights plc. The Amazing World of DC Comics TM & © DC Comics.

62

RETROFAN

November 2024

selling the frozen ices on the streets of New York. [laughter] There was no mention of an Egyptian goddess.

So when I went to the interview, that’s what I expected to hear about, teenagers

selling or stealing the ices, that kind of thing. But he started talking about the Egyptian goddess and having a super-hero for the girls like Captain Marvel and they wanted to tie them together because Shazam! had become number one in the ratings. [Duchovny said,] “We’re very interested in you. We would like to fly you out to California because that’s where they’re doing casting. Would you be interested?”

And I was like, “Of course!” I flew out two days later. I had an agent in Los Angeles, so he picked me up at the airport, took me to the audition and waited for me. I went in and was with a group of three or four men. I don’t recall who I saw, but they were all really, really nice. I did a scene and they thanked me very much for coming. I walked out and I was in the lobby talking to my agent and within five minutes they came out and said they are casting me in the part and how fast can I move out to California.

And that’s how I got the part.

retro interview

RF: What was it like working with Joanna Cameron?

JPA: I always like to say that Joanna Cameron was busier than Brian and me. It was a fast-paced shoot, we did two shows in a week, but there were times Joanna Cameron really didn’t have free time. She was either dressed as Andrea Thomas, or she had to go to hair and make-up [to be made up for Isis]. That’s how Brian and I bonded; he was like a big brother to me.

We had time to hang out while Joanna Cameron was busy making the transition [from one character to the other]. So we didn’t get to know her as well as we got to know each other.

BC: She was sort of an isolationist, I think, too. She was concentrating on what she was doing, but I think Joanna Cameron was a very isolated person. She didn’t want to make a lot of friends. I think Joanna Pang and I really got to know the crew well. After we finished shooting on location, we’d all stop on the way home and have dinner and a couple of drinks and [Joanna Cameron] just didn’t mix as easily. Maybe it was her personality or because she was so much busier than we were, I don’t know. But it was hard to get to know her, she wasn’t real approachable. She was very private.

JPA: I agree with that, because she didn’t make any effort to be outgoing or collaborative. I don’t know if she had any friends within the crew or cast. She did her job, she hit her marks, and she knew her lines.

In that sense, she was very good as the character and very well-liked by the fans.

BC: [She was] very professional. But I don’t think she became part of the family that was built during the filming of that show.

RF: I hope she knew how important this show was to many women who grew up with it. To so many of them, Isis was a role model. Do you know if she was ever aware of the impact she had on so many young girls?

BC: To be honest with you, I don’t think any of us knew at the time the impact the show was having on anybody. We were all working so hard and so fast, we didn’t have time to think about any of that [because we were] memorizing 15 pages of dialogue each day and shooting two episodes a week. So I certainly wasn’t aware of any of it and I doubt Joanna Cameron was.

JPA: [At the time,] I got some nice fan letters from kids who really enjoyed the show, but I didn’t know the impact we had

DC Comics’ Shazam! #25 (Sept.–Oct. 1976) featured a special story, written by Denny O’Neil and drawn by Dick Giordano, that introduced Isis and spun off the super-heroine into her own title! This excerpt shows Andrea Thomas and Rick Mason in the top panel and an imperiled Cindy Lee in the bottom panel. The Secrets of Isis © 1975 Entertainment Rights plc. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

until Andy Mangels contacted us about doing [the special features] for The Secrets of Isis DVD. Actually, I think, a year before that, I had been asked to do an interview and I remember saying, “Are people interested in this?” And [the interviewer] said, “Yes!” But Andy contacted us and it was so amazing to go to San Diego Comic-Con to promote the DVDs and have adults tell us the impact Isis had on them as children. Brian and I still get messages from people who say, “My home life wasn’t great, but your show taught me how to be a better person.” So many people we met said, “I’m buying the DVDs because

I want to share this with my kids.” It was just amazing and wonderful to hear that.

BC: I still get emails and texts from all over the world and people tell me Isis changed their lives. I got a message not too long ago from a very famous financier in New York and he couldn’t thank me enough for what the show had done for him. The area of New York where he’d grown up [was rough], and all his friends were either dead or in prison. It was the impact the show had on him, and the morals at the end of every episode, that changed his life and guided him into finance.

RETROFAN

November 2024

63

retro interview

RF: Are there any episodes that are your favorites or really stand out to either of you?

BC: I get letters and comments from people all the time about the episode with the dog dying, “Lucky.” One young man told me when that episode came out, he had just lost his dog and it saved his life.

JPA: That is a favorite episode of so many people. They also talk about how that was one of the first shows that addressed a dog or a pet dying to help children deal with their grief.

Pang, Cameron, and Cutler in a Secrets of Isis promotional photo.

RF: You mentioned the DVD release at San Diego Comic-Con. Would you say that is where you both became aware of how highly regarded the show was by fans?

JPA: That’s where we started to meet the fans who talked about it and how it influenced them. That was the first time it was one-on-one. I went to an event to be grand marshal for a parade, but it was [when the show was on the air]. So I knew the show was popular, but nobody ever really talked about the impact. They were just excited to hear about the show and to hear about Brian and Joanna Cameron and my part as Cindy Lee. RF: Because of the connection between the two shows, did you have a lot of interaction with the actors from Shazam!?

BC: I have fond memories of working with and doing conventions with Michael [Gray, who played Billy Batson], John [Davey, the second actor to play Captain Marvel on the show], and Jackson [Bostwick, Shazam!’s first Captain Marvel]. I still hear from Jackson on occasion and I text Michael and John all the time.

JPA: I did a con with Jackson a couple of months ago,

(RIGHT) On the Season One Isis set: “Cindy” (Joanna Pang Atkins) and “Dr. Barnes” (Albert Reed, Jr.). Joanna enjoyed her working relationship with the actor who played a school principal on the series. Photo courtesy of Joanna Pang Atkins.

64

RETROFAN

November 2024

and of course they put our tables sideby-side. We had so much fun together, reminiscing about the past. That was fun. And I missed you, Brian. They wouldn’t fly you out.

BC: I was Lois Lane on Isis. No one remembers Lois Lane on Superman either.

JPA: Everyone remembers Lois Lane!

RF: Well, you were the first one cast, Brian. You were the linchpin for the entire series. First person cast always helps set the tone for a television show.

JPA: Absolutely!

BC: I do get messages from all over the place about the impact my role model had

on people all over the country, so that’s reward enough for me.

RF: I did want to ask about Albert Reed, who played Dr. Barnes. What was he like?

BC: Albert was great. He was always prepared and did his job. He wasn’t around very much, so I personally didn’t get to know Albert that well. But he was always a pleasure to have breakfast or lunch with.

JPA: When he was there, he was great and friendly, but he wasn’t in all the episodes. I have a great picture of him on location that I post now and then. He was really nice.

RF: The Secrets of Isis featured some really memorable guests, including Michael Lookinland, Bobby from The Brady Bunch; Colleen Camp, who was outstanding in the recently released 5-25-77; and Victor Sen Young, Hop Sing from Bonanza. Were there any guests on the show that really stood out to either of you?

retro interview

JPA: One who stood out to me was Debra Lee Scott. I think she had already done some other work and I felt like I knew her when she came on the set. The other one who stood out to me was Scott Colomby.

A couple of years ago, we became friends on Facebook. It was so funny, he said, “The day I came on location to shoot the show, I remember thinking how lucky I was to be working with you because you were so pretty.”

BC: Morgan Jones [star of the 1957 movie Not of This Earth] was great to work with.

JPA: I remember Morgan Jones!

BC: Someone who was on the show that has become a very dear friend of mine is Meegan King, whose dad was Wright King, a character actor for many, many years.

Meegan was thrilled because his first role as a SAG actor was on our show. Everybody who guested on the show, we treated them like family. I don’t think there was a rotten apple in the group.

RF: Lets talk about the end of the series.

It seemed by the early Eighties, all the networks were beginning to phase out live-action shows in favor of just cartoons.

It was a pity, because cartoons are great, but the live-action shows of the Seventies were a lot of fun.

BC: The show was so popular, you’d think the network would have kept it running. Far be it for me to figure out what lawyers and bankers do rather than creative people. I [still] don’t know why they dropped Joanna [Pang Atkins] in the second season, or why they didn’t do more seasons and bring her back. I don’t get it. But I wasn’t the producer, so what do I know? [Editor’s note: Season Two replaced Joanna Pang Atkins’ Cindy Lee character with actress Ronalda Davis in the role of student Rennie Carol.]

JPA: Of course, I was disappointed that I didn’t come back for the second season.

I’m asked about that a lot, and somewhere I heard a rumor that I didn’t want to come back for the second season, but that is not true at all. When the first season was over, we knew it was a success, and we had taken over the number one spot [in the ratings]. I stayed in Los Angeles for a little while, but my home base was New York, so I went back there. Around about August or early September of 1976, I called my agent and I said, “Shouldn’t the second season be starting? What have you heard?” He said, “I haven’t heard anything, but I’m going to make some calls.” A few days later he called

Fan Cheralyn Lambeth and Joanna Pang Atkins, in September 2022 at the Mayberry Days festival in Mt. Airy, North Carolina (see RetroFan #1 for info about this event celebrating The Andy Griffith Show). Courtesy of Cheralyn Lambeth. me back and he said, “They’re not really telling me anything, but they’re just going with the standard answer, ‘We’re going in a different direction.’” Many years later, when we’re all at Comic-Con, and Lou Scheimer is there with us, and he brought it up. He said, “We didn’t want to lose you. [The decision] came from CBS that they wanted to go in a different direction. We loved you. We wanted to keep you.”

BC: It broke my heart [when they didn’t bring Joanna back]. But that’s what people who are new to the business don’t seem to realize. [Decisions] are not just up to the director or the casting director or executive producers. It’s up to the people at the Black Tower, as we call it. The network people follow the golden rule: “The man with the gold makes the rule.” So if they thought going from an Asian character to an African-American character would change the dynamic of the show, and maybe increase the audience, they did that.

JPA: I was very disappointed that I didn’t come back, but I grew up in show business.

Even being a child actress/dancer, I knew you didn’t get every job. You go out, you audition and you do your very best and even if you don’t get [the part], you still could have done a great job, but maybe

they wanted blonde hair? Maybe they wanted blue eyes? My mother always said, “Just learn from each one and you move on to the next one. Some you’ll get, some you won’t get.” Just always be happy with the jobs you do get.

RF: Is there anything either of you would like to say to the Isis fans who are reading this interview now?

JPA: There are popular Facebook pages that are for the fans of Isis and Shazam! and I interact with a lot of fans on those pages. I always love hearing from people and I post some pictures from the past there. We’re glad so many fans still enjoy the show and they’re sharing it with their kids. It’s great to be remembered.

BC: I’m just grateful I had the opportunity to do the show and to get to meet and know Joanna Pang Atkins. And I’m grateful we had the impact that 50 years later, it’s still passed on to the children of children of children [who watched the show], because it has a moral and a message that needs to be shared more frequently than it is.

And I’m just grateful that people remember us and that we still have a blessed and warm place in their hearts and minds. We [made a show] that really stood RETROFAN

November 2024

65

retro interview

(ABOVE) Brian hard at work at the Brian Cutler Actors Studio. (LEFT) Cutler and Atkins promote The Secrets of Isis’ DVD release at the 2007 ComicCon. Photos courtesy of Brian Cutler.

for something, and that makes me happy and proud and full of gratitude that I was able to do that. Also, I would like to mention that anyone interested in learning the craft of acting, please feel free to contact me at my studio, Brian Cutler Actors Studio in Magnolia Park, Burbank, California 91505.

You can also reach out to me at www. actorsstudio.com or call 818-424-5470 for 66

RETROFAN

November 2024

additional information. I am proud to say my studio was just rated best in the area and it is one of the only studios in Los Angeles that shoots live with cameras in every class and we send all the footage to the students free of charge.

JPA: I just want to add that it makes me happy and proud to be part of something that meant so much and was rewarding to the people who watched it and learned from it. Some of the fans know, because they see the Facebook posts, that I’ve been teaching world dance residencies for the

last many, many years. Last year, one of the third-grade teachers said, “The students would like to have a Q&A session with you.” Their first questions were about my dance background and what I had done before. I told them, “I was on a very popular show called The Secrets of Isis.” They were so excited to hear about the show, and the teacher knew about Isis. She immediately pulled up an episode on YouTube. So the kids had me there and they were watching the show from the past. It was just so much fun. The memories that Brian and I share are just great because it’s still out there and its still appreciated and still liked, and I too am just honored to be a part of that.

DAN JOHNSON is a co-founder, editor, and writer for Empire Comics Lab (empirecomicslab.com) and Old School Comics. Dan has written for RetroFan, Back Issue, Antarctic Press, Campfire Graphic Novels, Golden Kid Comics, InDELLible Comics, and ACP Comics, and is a gag writer for the Dennis the Menace comic strip.

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Dead by

Dawn On Location of ‘Evil Dead II’

BY WILL MURRAY

Way back in the summer of 1986, after I’d begun writing for the Starlog group of magazines, which included Starlog and briefly Comicscene, at that time, my editor, Dave McDonnell, temporally took over Starlog’s popular horror film magazine, Fangoria.

I had never read “Fango,” but when Dave asked me to go to the now-defunct [Dino] DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, for a press junket to cover three horror films, I was more than happy to oblige.

The previous year, I had visited my first film location, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins [explored in this column last issue—ed.], for Starlog. So I had a little experience under my belt.

This would be my second film junket, and the most complicated.

Once again, I would be working with publicist Paul Sammon.

The three films were Trick or Treat, King Kong Lives, and… Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (a.k.a. Evil Dead 2). I didn’t know it at the time but I was about to cover one of the most significant horror films of the Eighties.

The assignment took me to Wilmington to cover Trick or Treat and King Kong Lives at the DEG Studios. We did this over a couple of fascinating days. I principally remember stepping onto a shooting stage and interviewing the director while a giant King Kong lay supine before us. Kong was awaiting an operation, as I recall. Linda

(ABOVE) Back in 1987, no one could’ve guessed that director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II, the sequel to a gruesome little cult flick that a lot of people missed, would explode into a grindhouse juggernaut, propelling lead Bruce Campbell to stardom.

But a bloodbath of continuations and merchandising spewed forth and continue to do so—including this seven-inch Ash deluxe action figure with groovily gory accessories! Evil Dead II © Renaissance Pictures. Movie poster courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

67

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Evil Dead II director Sam Raimi and star Bruce Campbell (BELOW), at the 2014 San Diego ComicCon. Photos by Gage Skidmore.

Hamilton was the female lead. She had just come off the surprise hit, The Terminator, but I knew her best from a semi-recurring role in Hill Street Blues.

Trick or Treat was a typical horror film of that era, involving the then-notorious concept of backmasking. [Editor’s note: According to Wikipedia, “Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward.”] It starred Marc Price, Skippy from Family Ties, and was directed by Charles Martin Smith, Toad from American Graffiti.

On a side tour we were shown a set built for Peter Parker’s bedroom for Cannon Films’ planned Spider-Man movie. Stuntman Scott Leva was to star. The project was cancelled and the set later struck. But it was a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been.

Once we had interviewed everybody we possibly could, the junket journalists were driven to Wadesboro, North Carolina, where Evil Dead II was filming in the woods.

As far as I was concerned, this was just another horror film. I had never heard of the first entry, 1981’s The Evil Dead, when I got the assignment. Those were the days of videotapes, so I rented the first one to catch up. Being low budget, it didn’t especially impress me.

But an assignment was an assignment.

After reaching Wadesboro, we were first driven to the production office, which was set up in an antebellum style colonial house.

It looked like something out of Gone with the Wind. In fact, it had been utilized during the then-recent production of The Color Purple.

We spent some time on the grounds of this imposing place, waiting for dusk. In the spacious back yard, some of the exterior props built for film were still standing.

68

RETROFAN

November 2024

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

After being drenched with insecticide, we were reminded that we’d been warned to wear boots. Now they told us why. The woods were infested with rattlesnakes. “But don’t worry. The crew have guns.”

It was kind of surreal to go from that sunlit world into the dark realm of Evil Dead II: Dead

by Dawn. Once we got the go ahead, we drove down a back-country road and soon turned off into the thick of some pretty spooky woods.

As we exited the vehicle and trudged the final few yards, past a truck from which a dead rattler hung, the unit publicist pointed out two trees guarding the cabin’s entrance.

They had been fitted with prosthetic demon faces, and were known as the Mean Tree and the Gnarly Tree. They induced in me flashbacks to my childhood watching The Wizard of Oz. The cabin itself sat in a sunken clearing.

Since the original Tennessee cabin had been destroyed by lightning, a new one had been built. Nearby was a patch of scorched earth— the rustic graveyard where the unquiet Evil Dead lay buried.

Bruce Campbell was on location, as was Sam Raimi. Out came our tape recorders and off we went, vacuuming up quotes as fast as we could pepper the director and his star with questions. We conducted those preliminary interviews on the veranda. How cool is that?

Raimi noted that the new cabin was built to match the old one in anticipation of future double bills of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II. “We’ve taken some artistic liberties with it,” he admitted. “We’d given it a little Dr. Caligari tilt to the windows and made the doors a little askew. Sometimes we’ll be tilting the camera in accordance with the lines of the set, when our character falls into askew angles and things start getting real hairy in the cabin, to throw the audience off a little more.“ Asked how it felt to reprise the role of Ash Williams after so long a hiatus, Bruce Campbell sounded bemused.

“It’s seven years later,” he noted. “We shot the first film in 1979.

It’s very interesting now that the cabin’s all built. The interior is very similar. It’s very strange. There’s serious déjà vu happening.”

Since the character of Ash Williams looked as if he didn’t survive the previous film’s closing freezeframe, we asked Raimi how it was possible to sequel The Evil Dead with its star intact.

“He is saved by the breaking of day,” Raimi revealed. “He’s got 12 hours to make it out of this place through the mountains and over this chasm. He tries but he can’t, and he’s trapped here again for another night facing the terrors of the Evil Dead. It’s his battle with the supernatural, alone in this place. Basically it’s one man at war with Hell.”

Had things gone differently, Evil Dead II would have been a much different story.

Read this at your own risk! This “lost” page hand-drawn by artist Tom Sullivan is an actual prop produced for and used in the filming of Evil Dead II. Measuring 5 1/2 inches by 8 inches on parchment paper, the page, according to this image’s source, Heritage Auctions, “has been expertly studio-crumpled and distressed to look ancient.” © Renaissance Pictures.

“I did write another script with Sheldon Lettich,” explained Raimi. “I wrote the story and he wrote the screenplay for what was going to be Evil Dead II. It was too expensive, so we decided to simplify it, and make it take place in the cabin again, with just a few actors. I rewrote another one with Scott Spiegel, which is this one we’re making now.”

That shelved script, Evil Dead 1300 A.D., later became the basis for the third series entry, Army of Darkness (1992).

Production was supposed to have begun the previous January at a Florida location for Embassy Home Entertainment, but negotiations kept dragging on. They might have continued RETROFAN

November 2024

69

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

dragging, but Raimi received a surprise call from studio head Dino DeLaurentiis.

“They said, look, if you let us do it, we’ll make it right now.”

And the rest is horror history.

We were allowed into the cabin. It was astonishingly tiny for an exterior set in which people were supposed to act out their roles. The side rooms were off-limits. But walking through the central hallway, I felt uncomfortably hemmed in to the point of claustrophobia.

Bruised and muddy, Bruce Campbell sported a gel-blood scar on one cheek.

“That’s from going through the windshield of a car,” he explained. “I’m being chased by an evil entity, and I panic and lose control of the car and hit a stump. Had you caught me a few days ago, I was blue and red and black from the scene with the walls leading the cabin. It was very colorful. They don’t bleed normally when they’re possessed in this movie.

“Tonight we’re shooting something where I’m being chased by this evil entity,” Campbell continued. “I just have to remember a week ago, when I shot something else, what was I doing that will match this.”

As night fell, and dusk crept over the location, we got to watch the crew set up for the evening’s shooting, but we weren’t allowed to watch much. There wasn’t much to watch. Ash was manically tearing around the cabin interior, action we could barely make out in the gathering dark.

The next day, we relocated to the G. F. Faison Junior High School, which the production had taken over for interior shooting and special-effects workshops.

After our woodsy sojourn, it was almost anticlimactic. About 90% of the Evil Dead II was filmed in the school gym, where the cabin was built as a two-story structure so that the cellar could be shown. This cabin interior was much more elaborate than the one

in the woods. The cellar stood partially open at floor level, where, lit by cherry-red lights, Raimi and others are preparing to shoot something punching up through the floorboards.

Several FX groups came together for this film. The main crew was headed by Mark Shostrom, which included make-up artists Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger; sculptors Mike Trcic, Shannon Shea, and Aaron Sims; as well as special assistants Greg Nicotero and Brian Tausek. Doug Beswick and his L.A. crew were in charge of all stop-motion animation. Many had previously worked on such horror classics as Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Day of the Dead, From Beyond, and Terminator.

“I’ve never worked with a director as visceral as Sam Raimi,” observed Greg Nicotero. “The camera was always moving, even if it was a dialogue scene. But he would come up with ideas the night before!”

“I don’t know where Sam’s ideas come from,” marveled Mike Trcic. “They’re part Hanna-Barbera cartoon, part Three Stooges.”

“Sam and I sat down and discussed each character’s position,” Mark Shostrom continued, “and the thing Sam came up with was that whenever a character is possessed, the evil force can do anything it wants. So we took a little artistic liberty in designing a different look to each character. Evil Ed has a big mouth and razor teeth, whereas when Linda gets possessed she has doll-like qualities. Four or five characters get possessed. They keep going through changes, so we have to keep changing the looks as we go along.”

Ash’s girlfriend Linda was a casualty of this latest incursion of Deadites.

“Later,” Raimi related, “after she has fallen to the spirit, and he’s sliced off her head in an act of self-defense, Ash buries her headless corpse upon the hillside. She comes back from the grave and the head rolls up the hill and joins her body. She invites Ash to join in this dance as she did in life and we create a nasty version of this dance as a headless rotting corpse. It’s very, very scary.”

Surrounded by malevolence Ash struggles to protect himself. © Renaissance Pictures.

70

RETROFAN

November 2024

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Ash bursts out of the cabin as the possessed head of his girlfriend maintains a vice-like bite on his right hand (don’t you hate it when that happens?) in this screen capture. © Renaissance Pictures.

“The logic here is that the body was buried, but the head wasn’t,” explained Trcic, who sculpted and painted the Linda puppet. “So the head does not decompose.”

“Sam wanted a doll-like look to the face, hence the rosy cheeks and everything,” added Shostrom. “Originally we were going for a pair of really intense blue lenses, but we decided to go with the traditional Evil Dead look.”

Evil Ed is a dry corpse with a withered little brain. He was originally dubbed “Pop–Top Ed” because he loses the top of his head to Ash’s ax. The piece of scalp, along with a moving eyeball, runs around the floor by itself.

The full Evil Ed dismemberment scene was cut from the final print. This wasted a puppet specifically designed to pop its top

by Robert Kurtzman, who was in charge of Evil Ed, handling both make-up and puppeteering. Consequently, the character had to be renamed “Chop-Top Ed.” The biggest monster was the professor’s wife, Dead Henrietta, played by Ted Raimi in a corpulent polyurethane suit filled with lentils to mimic cellulite.

“One day,” Greg Nicotero related, “a bunch of grips lifted Ted Raimi out of the trap door with this big winch. One guy tipped it and Ted fell. He tore the suit all the way across the middle. Mark and I—the only FX people left at that stage—frantically repaired the suit on set!”

Make-up artist Tom Sullivan was the only FX holdover from the first Evil Dead. The Deadites in this film are a huge evolution over the ones he originated.

“There’s a winged Deadite, which is a kind of [Ray] Harryhausen-ish type of critter—which is always fun to do,” Sullivan revealed. “They’re a reworking of a classical Harpy, except for some changes so they don’t look like Jason and the Argonauts. They’re foam puppets over a ball-and-socket armature. Originally, it had legs. I came up with an interesting idea for a tail. I’m going for some facial

expressions, laughter and whatever. They’ll be human-sized and scary and bizarre.”

“We’ve got a bunch of living trees in this picture,” Raimi offered.

“There’s a sequence at the end when our main characters are finally learning the deadly secrets of the Book of the Dead, fighting against the clock before these living trees burst into the cabin to crush them. We got the rod-puppets that Bob Dyke is creating for the walking trees. We’ve got hand-puppet trees—Inky, Dinky, and Moe. And because they smell so bad, we’ve decided to call them Stinky, Dinky, and Moe.” The climactic “Tree Destructo” scene where the forest comes alive and attacks the besieged survivors included a miniature cabin built by Dyke, as well as life-size rod-puppet foam trees, the biggest being the 13-foot tall Baaaah Tree, which was operated by three people concealed within the trunk.

“We’re complimenting its living quality with the anamorphic lens,” revealed Sam Raimi. “We’re secretly spinning it—not so secretly anymore—to give it a ‘warpo’ quality as it’s brought to life.

It’s cheap and very effective.”

Alas, some of those sequences were cut from the final film.

Additional pruning took place in the script stage. As co-producer, Bruce Campbell provided feedback as script pages came in.

“There were some early things that dealt with Ash alone in the cabin that in my mind seemed beside the point,” he noted. “There’s a long section in this movie where I’m the only one there. We’re really aware of bog factors. You want to really keep this going all the time. And if it means cutting down the part, even though from an actor’s point of view it might be a really neat scene, you have to forget that. Because if people are coughing and moving about in the audience, you know you’re losing them.”

“Evil Dead II starts off with a retelling of the Evil Dead 1 story,” Raimi told us. “Then we pick up from the last shot of Evil Dead 1, which is this evil force racing upon our main character, Ash.” RETROFAN

November 2024

71

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Bruce Campbell’s character of Ash grew from (ABOVE LEFT AND RIGHT) a wailing, blood-spattered banshee in 1981’s The Evil Dead, from New Line Pictures, to (LEFT) a beefy Deadite demolisher in the franchise’s third entry, 1992’s Army of Darkness. Shown here is Dark Horse Comics’ Army of Darkness #1, signed by Ash himself, Bruce Campbell! © Renaissance Pictures. All, courtesy of Heritage.

Recap scenes from The Evil Dead had to be reshot for both practical and rights reasons while Campbell’s part had to be beefed up considerably.

“Ash is no longer the whimpering moron he was in the first one,” the actor explained. “Now he starts from being sort of with it to being more of a movie hero. ‘I’ll save you now!’ It’s a whole new character. His characterization shifts. Ash takes his own hand off with a chainsaw because it’s possessed. His hand then gets free. He’s 72

RETROFAN

November 2024

chasing it like a rat. Ash puts the stump to good use because he turns it into a fighting machine. He’s got a shotgun and chainsaw.

He’s a lean, mean fighting machine.”

“We’re going to go into a little more depth with this story,” Raimi revealed. “What really happened with the finding of the Book of the Dead. How it got here and what its true origins are. It was written before mankind existed by spirits, when the oceans ran red with blood. We follow it through the ages. Different civilizations find it and are destroyed by it. The spirits are awakened every century or so, until it comes to the small cabin where the professor brought it so he could study it undisturbed.”

Motivations were fleshed out. The threat to the living was upped considerably, according to Raimi.

“What we’re trying to achieve is to show through the recitation of this ancient book, reciting these burial rites and demon resurrection passages, these ancient spirits that have slept for so many centuries are again awakened. And they’re pissed. So they inhabit the bodies of those who have awakened them, and wreak vengeance until they can again sleep.”

“The whole idea is that they’re punishing these people for awakening them from an ancient slumber,” added Campbell. “They’re groggy, like bears from hibernation. They like hurting people. And they’re going to have fun while they’re doing it.”

“In this picture,” elaborated Raimi, “we’re taking it a bit further.

The goal is not to just wreak chaos, but to test the mettle of Man. To find out whether he is strong or weak, if he is good or bad, so they will know if it is time to walk and rule the earth. So they use Ash as that measuring stick of goodness. How far can they push him mentally until he blows?”

The parallels between The Book of the Dead and H. P. Lovecraft’s similar dark tome, The Necronomicon, prompted a question about Raimi’s influences.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Big mistake or biggest mistake? Ash picks up the The Book of the Dead and opens it. © Renaissance Pictures.

“Since we made The Evil Dead, a lot of people mentioned Lovecraft,” he admitted. “I’ve picked up a number of Lovecraft books and read them. I’m a big fan now, but I hadn’t read him before Evil Dead.” As horror fans know, Necronomicon translates as “Book of the Names of the Dead.” As the Lovecraft fan, I appreciated that touch.

With a bigger budget came big-budget restrictions.

“They were very tough going over our budget and the script,” Raimi admitted. “They demanded some changes, but certainly ones we can live with. I kept having to limit things. I had a water sequence. We couldn’t afford that. So I had to cut that. I had too many optical effects. Had to cut those down.”

The director was strictly ordered not to make another mad gorefest.

“They wanted an R-rated picture,” he confirmed. “We had to cut our blood flow from 500 gallons to five gallons. And the truth is, I’m still not positive—I shouldn’t say that—I’m positive we’ll get an R rating. We will get an R rating.”

“Sam’s very concerned about a lot of things,” confided Mark Shostrom. “Even he doesn’t know whether or not to keep a lot of things in the film because of the rating. The Linda rotted torso scenes he’s afraid of being cut. You can have a horrible animation effect of things rotting, but boy, if you put a couple drops of blood on it, oh! There is a very strong reaction to it.”

Sanguinary substitutes were found.

“I get doused completely with red and green and black bile,” Campbell explained. “Anything that’s not blood is bile. Bile is a good generic name for old monster blood. You don’t see as much spouting from its origin.

But it’s there. Like when the walls of the cabin bleed. You don’t see it oozing from people. There’s a lot of reaction shots when you

splatter it. You see someone get sliced, and you cut away real quick. The main creature at the end spews all over Ash. Everyone spews in this one.”

As the representative for Fangoria, I pressed Raimi on his feelings about cutting back on the things that had made Evil Dead a modest hit.

“I’m not crazy about it,” he said candidly.

“The audience that likes to see Evil Dead, however limited they are, likes the big gore, the blood flood, the recap, the decap. All the blood they can swallow. I understand where Mr. DeLaurentiis is coming from. He needs a picture he can get out into a number of theaters and market on a mass basis. So it’s a compromise that we have to make.

“I hope we can compensate,” continued Raimi. “Everything is directed as taking the audience on a wild roller-coaster ride of suspense and terror, without getting disgusted. Many people were offended by the first Evil Dead. I was not intending to offend anybody, just thrill them and shock them in a fun kind of haunted house way. It’s almost okay that we’re going this way because the goal is not to offend. I read that Stephen King said that the best thing you can do is keep them in suspense. The second best thing you can do is to shock them. Third best is, you gross them out. And I think he’s right. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to keep the audience in suspense, trying to shock them, and we will gross them out.“ “This is much more of a horror monster film than a horror splatter film,” Tom Sullivan pointed out. “I think it’s a worthy sequel.”

In the end, the R rating proved impossible to achieve. To avoid an X rating, DEG released it through a shell company. But Evil Dead II went on to become a break-out hit, which eventually led to an even more insane sequel, Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness, in

Ash’s hand becomes possessed by evil and attacks our battered hero. © Renaissance Pictures.

RETROFAN

November 2024

73

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

which Ash is transported back to the time of King Arthur. More comedic than its processors, Army of Darkness turned Ash into a medieval warrior, complete with what became his signature appendage—a chainsaw which replaced the hand that was amputated in Evil Dead II. Moviegoers—Fangoria readers excluded—did not suspect that the core concept for Army of Darkness was originally intended for Evil Dead II. Budgetary and other considerations necessitated a return to the cabin setting. When Evil Dead III was green-lit after a five-year gap, the idea was revisited.

Army of Darkness failed to achieve the box-office success needed to justify a fourth entry. But over the intervening decades, Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams grew into a cult hero and the Evil Dead franchise became iconic in the splatter genre.

Inevitably, both were resurrected, first with a reboot film featuring Jane Levy as Mia Allen produced by Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell in 2013. All three men had been involved with the original Evil Dead trilogy.

Evil Dead included a post-credits scene of Campbell as Ash brandishing his chainsaw appendage, hinting that the long-rumored Army of Darkness 2 was in development. Alas, the project never went forward.

While disappointing, Evil Dead fans still demanded that Ash return. Starz obliged in 2015 with a television series Ash vs. Evil Dead, which ran for three glorious seasons.

When Sam Raimi could not obtain funding for the Evil Dead IV theatrical film, he salvaged the concepts he had developed for TV. It’s 30 years later, and Ash Williams has been stuck in dead-end

store-clerk jobs, his life seemingly pointless. But the challenge of the Deadites and the Necronomicon brings him back into the fight.

That project appeared to conclude the saga of Ash Williams.

A fifth film was released in 2023. Evil Dead Rise was once again produced by Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell, the latter of whom was replaced this time by a pair of female protagonists in this cabinbound remake. Campbell’s participation included a voice-only cameo meant to suggest a time-displaced Ash. Although Bruce Campbell—now in his 60s—has many times declared that he’s forever retired from the role of Ash, there’s talk that he will voice the character in a forthcoming animated project.

Whether another Evil Dead live-action film can be expected in anyone’s guess. But it’s inevitable. It’s only a matter of when.

The series is now legendary. YouTube videos of horror historians tramping to the locales of both cabins and the now-closed Faison school to narrate stories of the productions exist.

While I enjoyed watching Evil Dead II on the big screen back in 1987, I must confess that after all these years, I’ve never seen Army of Darkness, or any of the other Evil Dead sequels and spin-offs. Maybe it’s time to catch up.

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.

Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation Publication Title: RetroFan Publication Number: 2576-7224 Filing Date: July 4, 2024 Issue Frequency: Bi-monthly Number of Issues Published Annually: 6 Annual Subscription Price: $73 Address of Known Office of Publication and General Business Office of Publisher: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Contact Person: John Morrow Telephone: 919-449-0344 Editor: Michael Eury, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562 Publisher and Managing Editor: John Morrow, TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Owner: John Morrow, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders: None Issue Date for Circulation Data: July 2024 Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 6650 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 2000 Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 373 (2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 0 (3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS®: 1068 (4) Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail®): 76 Total Paid Distribution: 1517 Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies included on PS Form 3541: 64 (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541: 0 (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail): 0 (4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 0 Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution: 64 Total Distribution: 1581 Copies not Distributed: 419 Total: 2000 Percent Paid: 96% I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties).

John Morrow, publisher

BOOK EXCERPT

A Few Christmas TV Memories

BY HERBIE J PILATO [Editor’s note: The following is an edited excerpt from Christmas TV Memories: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen by Herbie J Pilato, published by Applause Books.]

In the fall of 1985, I was working as an NBC page at the network’s studio in Burbank, California. One of my various assignments included The Bob Hope Christmas Show, which that year aired on December 15. A child of the 1960s, I was born and raised in Rochester, New York, during a time when television was a big part of family life. For baby boomers like myself, the TV set was a member of the family, and sitting in front of it became the place to be.

Two decades later I was there, amid NBC’s then-bombastic promotional slogan, “Let’s all be there!” I was ushering and seating audience members of a Bob Hope Christmas TV special featuring such stars as Barbara Eden and Brooke Shields. Along with the rest of the world, my family viewed Hope as a legend, along with Milton Berle, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Danny Thomas, and so many others of their ilk, especially at Christmastime. Hope’s Christmas specials, such as those stationed in Vietnam, in front of the troops, are some of my most poignant December memories of the mid-1960s through early 1970s.

Some ten years after, my contracted eighteen-month tenure with NBC was over by the time The Bob Hope Christmas Show aired on December 15, 1985. I was back in Rochester, home for the holidays, as it were, sitting in front of the TV-set-now-turned-monitor.

As I had for years prior, I was watching a Bob Hope Christmas TV special with my family, this time, ever slightly, as a member of the production team that brought the special to life. A measure of disbelief once more came into play, as did the unforgettable words of my father, a World War II (WWII) veteran: “There’s no one like Bob Hope.” What he said that night resonates today as much as it did on December 15, 1985, or for that matter any year prior.

Many cherish the Christmas TV special. Whether they be music-variety productions hosted

by Bob Hope, animated classics (drawn with traditional methods like A Charlie Brown Christmas or the stop-action-photography of Animagic as with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer), TV-movies (It Happened One Christmas, starring Marlo Thomas), or episodic weekly series (every show from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet to Frasier and beyond has produced Christmas segments).

Who can forget how two music worlds collided with grace during host Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” duet with special guest star David Bowie from Crosby’s famed Christmas special

in 1977? Or when Perry Como, Julie Andrews, and John Denver paid periodic Christmas visits on-location to the Colorado Rockies and other December destinations? Or when Crosby, and Andy Williams taped their holiday specials more Photography. traditionally inside a studio, surrounded by their real-life family members who were incorporated into the show? Or how Lawrence Welk made sure to do the same with annual Christmas segments that showcased his “musical family” moments every December?

All of it and so much more is explored in Christmas TV Memories: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen, which features a Foreword by Marlo Thomas.

(LEFT) Herbie J Pilato’s new book, Christmas TV Memories, covers the full spectrum of, as its subtitle conveys: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen. Dan Holm

RETROFAN

November 2024

75

RetroFan is no longer at Barnes & Noble or in Apps!

But it’s still available through comic book shops, subscription, and print & digital editions at www.twomorrows.com PLUS: Check out our new digital storefront and start your permanent digital collection:

www.comicshistory.org

Advertise With Us! Magazine Ad Rates

RetroFan • BrickJournal • Cryptology Back Issue • Comic Book Creator Alter Ego • Jack Kirby Collector Back cover or inside cover: $900 ($800 for two or more) Full-page interior: $700 ($600 for two or more) Half-page interior: $400 ($350 for two or more) Quarter-page interior: $200 ($175 for two or more) AD SIZES: COVERS & FULL-PAGE: 8.375” wide x 10.875” tall trim size, add 1/8” bleed. (7.625” x 10.125” live area.)

HALF-PAGE: 7.625” x 4.875” live area (no bleeds).

QUARTER-PAGE: 3.6875” x 4.875” live area (no bleeds).

Call or e-mail for frequency discounts!

Run ads across our full magazine line for even greater savings!

Send ad copy and payment (US funds) to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 919-449-0344 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

We accept check, money order, and all major credit cards; include card number and expiration date.

These rates are for digital ads supplied (PDF, JPEG, TIF, EPS, or InDesign files accepted).

No agency discounts apply.

For me, the highlight of the latest issue of RetroFan [#32] was the David Cassidy article.

There is, for some reason, a fascination with celebrities who battle personal demons.

These are just regular people, but we seem to hold them to a higher standard.

Knowing that Mr. Cassidy was so ashamed of his alcoholism that he told people he was suffering from dementia showed that no matter how talented these celebs are, they are just as capable of mistakes, weaknesses, and bad judgment as we all are. It shouldn’t affect anyone’s feelings for his work; I love the Partridge Family songs to this day!

Cool article on LEGO®!

The Planet Patrol article didn’t do it for me, only because I found those puppet shows kind of disturbing as a kid. No offense to article writer Shaqui Le Vesconte; with some people, it’s clowns. With me, it’s Planet Patrol and Thunderbirds marionettes.

The look at Disco was great! I used to know how to dance the Hustle; I think if I tried now, I’d suffer that “slipped disco” MAD magazine told us about!

I was amazed at Paula Finn’s story about Sonny and Cher. It goes to show how much the world has changed; I cannot imagine many celebrities being that accommodating to a fan!

Thanks for the look at Roswell! There, and Metropolis, Illinois, are on my bucket list of places to visit.

Finally, I’d like to second Steve Andrews’ suggestion of a look at Irwin Allen TV, specifically Land of the Giants. I loved that

show and was obsessed with the giant props. Perhaps an in-depth look at the series or interviews with cast members? (I’d also be happy with The Time Tunnel.)

MICHAL JACOT Michal, you probably recall we did an overview of the Sixties sci-fi shows (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants) from the man who later became known as Hollywood’s “Master of Disaster” (thanks to The Poseidon Adventure), Irwin Allen, back in RetroFan #3. But the growing chorus chanting for additional, individual coverage of Allen’s shows is under consideration for future issues.

You’re probably not the only reader creeped out by puppet TV shows. The next writer has a vastly different take on Planet Patrol, however…

I just wanted to say that I bought your latest issue for the story on Space Patrol, and I loved it.

This would not have entered into the article, but for the record, Planet Patrol was distributed in the U.S. by a company called M&A Alexander, run by brothers Max Alexander and Arthur Alexander. They were nephews of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, born in Germany.

Their work together consisted mostly of low-budget movies and, later, television

series. Planet Patrol may have been their biggest success.

(Max Alexander also figures in a footnote in broader film history—it was his wife, the former Shirley Beatrice Kassler, who had an affair with the young Austrian-born director Edgar G. Ulmer in the mid-Thirties; she divorced Alexander and married Ulmer—the result was Ulmer being fired off the Universal lot by Laemmle and then blackballed by the major film companies for the next decade, forcing him to work for small production companies, making movies for the Black theater circuits and Yiddish film circuits as well as, eventually, moving to PRC, where he generated a string of classic low-budget pictures.)

BRUCE EDER

I’m sorry it’s taken this long to write this, but just want to say how much I enjoy RetroFan and all the good memories it brings.

Even if it’s a subject I’m not crazy about (i.e., late Seventies Saturday programs), at least I can find out something.

Back in 2020, I ordered your first ten issues from Creepy Classics to take on vacation and got hooked, especially the article about the Star Trek Original Series set tour in Ticonderoga, New York. My wife loves the original series and we found it an enjoyable experience. So, obviously, I had to subscribe and have the complete run.

Some articles that I enjoyed.....

The Ben Cooper Halloween costumes (my favorite one was Spider-Man in 1969), The Groovie Ghoulies, View-Master reels, Funny Face drink mix, fanzines (my wife and I got to befriend Gary and Susan Svehla,

This promotional banner shows some of Aurora’s legendary collection of monster models. It was a lucky kid who had them all (looking at you, reader Steve Schimming). Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN

November 2024

77

have a healthy collection of Midnight Marquee and we helped them make their second film, Terror in the Pharaoh’s Tomb), the Ray Harryhausen retrospective, Quisp and Quake cereals, Three’s Company, Archie comics, the behind-the-scenes photos from TV and movies, Shadow Chasers (we watched it for its brief run), the Frito Bandito (I always enjoyed those commercials), Stuckey’s (most of my extended family lived in the South, so always saw signs hawking “Clean Restrooms”), My Weekly Reader (enjoyed this in school), the “British Invasion” (such enduring music), the Mexican Monster movies (from 1973–1976, I lived in the Panama Canal Zone and saw a lot of them), Jonny Quest, MAD magazine (how well I remember the “Finger” issue—my mom was not amused), Slushies… and my favorite article has to be on the Aurora Monster models—excellent! For Xmas of 1971, I got six of them and had all of them by the end of 1972.

Thanks also for the overview of favorite performers such as Barbara Eden, Florence Henderson, Moe Howard, B. J. Thomas (lucky enough to have seen him before his passing), Caroline Munro, all the Dark Shadows thespians, Wolfman Jack, and Marta Kristen. And I must also give credit 78

RETROFAN

November 2024

What Irwin Allen–produced shows do you most want to see covered in an upcoming RetroFan? Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel, or...? © Irwin Allen Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

for the interesting take on movies such as Jaws, Friday the 13th (I would like to do the tour), The Haunting, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The Celebrity Crush articles do bring back memories; truly enjoyed the one where Michal Jacot got the autographed and personalized Sally Struthers photo— she was adorable back then. I guess my My Celebrity Crush back in the Seventies would have been Cynthia Myers (she was in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and was a Playboy model). I ordered from her website in the early 2000s; she always sent little notes and eventually I would get the occasional email and Xmas cards for me and my wife. I was lucky enough to meet her at a convention and she was as nice in person as she was in correspondence.

I got issue #32 a couple of weeks ago—great article on David Cassidy. My wife was a huge fan and we got to see him perform in October 2002 and to this day, I have never seen a more out-of-control crowd—those women were losing their minds! And despite not being “hip,” those early Partridge Family albums, especially “Up to Date” sound, as Mark Voger said, “Darned good.”

I’m looking forward to more issues and maybe articles on the following: artist Ken Kelly (best known for his KISS album covers for Destroyer and Love Gun), Warren Publishing (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella), Castle of Frankenstein magazine, 16 magazine, Bob Wilkins (a horror show host in the San Francisco Bay area in the Seventies—he was a hoot!), James At 15 (later 16), Scholastic Books (so exciting to get the order form, then the package delivered to school), and Eerie Publications (those outlandishly gory, garish, and over-the-top magazines like Weird, Tales from the Tomb, etc.).

Thanks for wading through all this (I’m hoping to match some of Joe Frank’s letters). looking forward to future issues.

STEVE SCHIMMING Steve, we’re thrilled that you’ve discovered our wild and crazy magazine.

Welcome! Your look back at your RetroFan faves gave me a chance to recall some of the fun features we’ve featured in our pages over the past six years. Since I’m on the cusp of retirement as I pen this

column, your retro-trip through memory lane warms my heart.

We’re taking your suggestions under consideration—but regarding Eerie Publications, I kindly refer you to the latest issue of our sister publication, TwoMorrows’ Back Issue #155, which goes on sale next week (www.twomorrows.com).

Issue #155 is a “Haunted”-themed edition that looks at horror comic books of the Bronze Age. It includes a remembrance of Eerie’s grotesque mags penned by Rod Labbe, who also wrote the Aurora Monsters models RetroFan article you enjoyed so much. Don’t miss it!

And speaking of RetroFan’s resident Monarch of the Massive Missive, here’s a letter from our pal, Joe Frank…

A mixture of laughs and valued information, new to me, in RetroFan #32.

First, what a riot, in the Roswell article, to see a McDonald’s that resembles a UFO. Works out: They can claim their universal drive-through translator isn’t working when they mess up my order. I don’t believe in extraterrestrials, but it seems all in good fun like a sort of Halloween which lasts all year long.

Secondly, the laugh was on me when I wondered, with the Ultra Ghoul article [in “The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!” department], “Who the heck is Dave Ivey?”

Well, turns out I must’ve seen his work. I watched Jerry Booth’s Funhouse as a kid in Detroit. They broadcast the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons, in Fall 1966, so I only missed them under protest. Therefore, to casually see a mention, 58 years later, in a national magazine, was quite amusing.

Third, when you clarified who I meant by Guy and June, in my letter, you goofed. It was June Lockhart not June Cartwright.

Hope Marta Mumy doesn’t write in to correct you.

[Editor’s note: By the pristine pearls of June Cleaver’s necklace! That’s embarrassing! Thanks for the correction.]

Enjoyed your David Cassidy article.

Though he was on the cover of so many magazines, 50-some years ago, this may be

the first one I purchased. I found it sad that someone who had so many accomplishments and such admiration, ended up with addiction and regrets. As he noted, it was self-inflicted but still a shame.

Their music was fine, but I liked the Partridge Family more for the sitcom elements. During the pandemic, when I watched some episodes, I thought it was more of an ensemble comedy. Yes, no question, when a concert segment was shown, David Cassidy was obviously the star. But, in the rest of the program, it could be any of the others (except for the two young kids) who might be the focus. Many times, it would be Danny, Reuben, Shirley, or Laurie. I also liked that you noted the bus had a Mondrian influence. Looked it up, and sure enough! Never knew that. I mistakenly thought it must just be some mod pattern of the Seventies. I could not have been more wrong or art-ignorant.

But my favorite article, by far, was Andy Mangels’ coverage of Thundarr the Barbarian.

Wonderful! Lengthy, and with much I hadn’t heard before [a Mangels specialty!— ed.]. News to me that not only was Michael Ansara up for the Thundarr role but that he was still a voice (“Vashtarr”) on an aired episode. I thought that had to be a mistake as I would have surely recognized the voice.

Turns out you’re correct. I watched that episode, and, indeed, if you listen, it is him.

But his voice seems to have gone through a synthesizer or something. That’s why I never made the connection. Fun to finally identify it.

Always liked the show, though a dozen years after I gave up Saturday morning viewing. Heard that Jack Kirby was working on it, doing villains, vehicles, and extras, so I tuned in, initially, for that. But the rest of the show, and the three leads, were great fun.

I liked the format of the show, as it was, so the notion of having Thundarr and Ariel’s kids in a proposed third season might have been a jarring relaunch. It’s one thing for adult barbarians to be fighting, but not children with sun swords.

After Destroyer Duck, it’s a shame Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby didn’t do a Thundarr comic together. Still, hopefully, someone will do a book, with large Kirby and Toth art repros, about the show. That’d be great, except, if man’s civilization is cast in ruin, maybe bookstores won’t survive either?

JOE FRANK

P.S. In the letters column, there was a request for more of the Irwin Allen shows.

Sounds good to me. Maybe you can do articles on their upcoming 60th anniversaries? Too late for Voyage. You’re all booked up for 2024. But maybe Lost in Space in 2025, Time Tunnel in 2026 and Land of the Giants in 2028? You could even get “Johnny” Williams, who did themes and episode music for the latter three. There are still a trio of actors, each, from Time Tunnel and Giants. On LIS, the children of Guy Williams and the son of Jonathan Harris.

So, hopefully, you can reach out shortly and have an abundance available in the years to come.

Joe, the idea of a Thundarr comic book by the Steve Gerber/Jack Kirby team is mind-blowing!

There’s a whole lotta love for Irwin Allen out there! We plan RetroFan’s material well in advance and 2025 is booked as well—and truth be told, after two Lost in Space cover features to date it’d be best for some distance before we revisit that one. But maybe we can get a Time Tunnel feature going for its 60th…

MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-chieftransitioning-to-retirement Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing our incoming editor, Ed Catto, at retroed@ twomorrows.com

NEXT ISSUE

RETROFAN

November 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. Poetry is not something you expect to find in this magazine (or any normal mag, actually), but one pop culture love affair inspires...

BY SCOTT & RUTH SAAVEDRA

An Addams Family Haiku

Remember the mamushka?

Two dancing through time

80

RETROFAN

November 2024

“Under the Wave off Kanagawa” by artist Katsushika Hokusai. Public Domain.

Oh, cara mia

ALTER EGO #190

ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

ALTER EGO #193

ALTER EGO #194

MITCH MAGLIO examines vintage jungle 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!

An abridgment of EDDY ZENO’s “Drawn to Greatness” book, showcasing Superman artists who followed JOE SHUSTER: WAYNE BORING, PAUL CASSIDY, FRED RAY, JACK BURNLEY, WIN MORTIMER, and others. With appreciations by ORDWAY, KUPPERBERG, ISABELLA, JURGENS, WAID, MACCHIO, NEARY, NOWLAN, EURY, THOMAS, and more! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

ROY THOMAS celebrates 60 years in comics! Career-spanning interview by ALEX GRAND, e-mails to Roy from STAN LEE, the history of Wolverine’s creation, RT’s 1960s fan-letters to JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and his top dozen stories compiled by JOHN CIMINO! With art by BUSCEMA, KANE, ADAMS, WINDSOR-SMITH, COLAN, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and cover by TONY GRAY!

(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 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 April 2025

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

KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

KIRBY COLLECTOR #94

BRICKJOURNAL #87

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!

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!

SPACE RACES! Jack’s depictions of cosmic gods and life on other planets, including: how Ego, Tana Nile, and the Recorder took Thor to strange new worlds, OMAC’s space age future, time travelers in Kirby’s work, favorite Kirby sci-fi tropes in his stories, plus: a 1967 LEE/KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story, robotic pencil art gallery, cover inked by TERRY AUSTIN!

Take to the air with JESSE GROS and his wondrous airships! KEVIN COPA’s renditions of the ships from International Rescue, a.k.a. the Thunderbirds, are also featured, as well as JACK CARLESON and his airliners! 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 • Now shipping!

(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

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Nov. 2024

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #37 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #38 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #39 AMERICAN COMIC BOOK STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in RICK VEITCH discusses his career from THOMAS YEATES career-spanning interCHRONICLES: 1945-49 view about the Kubert School, Swamp

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!

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!

undergrounds and the Kubert School; the ’80s with 1941, Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal; to Swamp Thing, The One, Brat Pack, and Maximortal! Plus TOM VEITCH’s history of ’70s underground horror comix, part one of a look at cartoonist ERROL McCARTHY, the story behind Studio Zero— the ’70s collective of artists STARLIN, BRUNNER, WEISS, and others, and more!

Thing, Eclipse Comics, and adventure strips Zorro, Tarzan, and Prince Valiant! GREG POTTER discusses his ’70s Warren horror comics and ’80s reboot of Wonder Woman with GEORGE PÉREZ, WARREN KREMER is celebrated by MARK ARNOLD, plus part one of a look at the work of STEVE WILLIS, part two of ERROL McCARTHY, and 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 Winter 2025

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

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

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 FALL 2024

New from TwoMorrows!

RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

RETROFAN #38

RETROFAN #39

BACK ISSUE #155

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.

Tune in to Saturday morning super-heroes Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Mod Squad, Hanna-Barbera cartoonists, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mr. Potato Head, ‘Old Yeller” actress BEVERLY WASHBURN, Flying Nun collectibles, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Can your mind stand the shocking truth of… ED WOOD CAST CONFESSIONS? Plus: Ideal Toys’ Zeroids, television Tarzan RON ELY, Planters® Peanuts’ Mr. Peanut, CHARLES ADDAMS, TV’s The Fugitive, the forgotten 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, ED CATTO, and MARK VOGER.

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.

(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 April 2025

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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.

BACK ISSUE #157

BACK ISSUE #158

BACK ISSUE #159

BACK ISSUE #160

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!

HEY, MISTER ISSUE! The FF’s Mr. Fantastic, STEVE DITKO’s Mr. A, the 40th anniversary of MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s Mr. Monster, Mr. X, the Teen Titans’ Mr. Jupiter, R. CRUMB’s Mr. Natural, Archie’s Mr. Weatherbee, and a Mr. Freeze villain history! Featuring BYRNE, CARDY, CONWAY, DeCARLO, DINI, ENGLEHART, the HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, MOTTER, and more!

Cover by ED McGUINNESS.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 40th ANNIVERSARY! Pre-Crisis tour of DC’s multiple Earths, analysis of Crisis and its crossovers, Crisis Death List, post-Crisis DC retro projects, guest editorial by MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Featuring BARR, ENGLEHART, GREENBERGER, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, ORDWAY, THOMAS, WAID, and more! With GEORGE PÉREZ’S Crisis on Infinite Earths Index #1 cover.

SUMMER FUN ISSUE! Marvel’s Superhero Swimsuit Editions, Betty and Veronica swimsuit gallery, DC’s Strange Sports Stories, the DC/Marvel softball rivalry, San Diego Comic-Con history, Impossible Man Summer Vacation Specials, DC Slurpee cups, DC/Whitman variants, and more!

Featuring BATES, DeCARLO, HUGHES, JIM LEE, LOPRESTI, MAGGIN, ROZAKIS, STELFREEZE, and more! GUICE cover.

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

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

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

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

BACK ISSUE #156

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.