RetroFan #4 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Let’s roll, Kato!

Spring 2019 No. 4 $8.95

The Green Hornet in Hollywood

Thunderbirds Are GO!

Creature Creator RAY HARRYHAUSEN SAM J. JONES Brings The Spirit to Life

82658 00354

Saturday Morning’s

Beam Aboard the Star Trek Set Tour! TM

Martin Pasko • Andy Mangels • Scott Saavedra • and the Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

It’s GROOVY, baby! Follow-up to Mark Voger’s smash hit MONSTER MASH! All characters TM & © their respective owners.

From WOODSTOCK to THE BANANA SPLITS, from SGT. PEPPER to H.R. PUFNSTUF, from ALTAMONT to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN and THE BRADY BUNCH. GROOVY revisits the era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, MOVIES, ART—even COMICS and CARTOONS, from the 1968 ‘mod’ WONDER WOMAN to R. CRUMB. A color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER (author of the acclaimed book MONSTER MASH), GROOVY is one trip that doesn’t require dangerous chemicals! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • Digital Edition: $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490809 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JUL172227

LOU SCHEIMER

CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION Hailed as one of the fathers of Saturday morning television, LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which for over 25 years provided animated excitement for TV and film. Always at the forefront, Scheimer’s company created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmy-winning STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, ZORRO, HE-MAN, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, live-action shows SHAZAM!, THE SECRETS OF ISIS, JASON OF STAR COMMAND and others. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to best-selling author (and RETROFAN columnist) ANDY MANGELS, including how his father decked ADOLF HITLER, memories of the comics of the Golden Age, schooling with ANDY WARHOL, and what it meant to lead the last all-American animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with PHOTOS, MODEL SHEETS, STORYBOARDS, PRESENTATION ART, looks at RARE AND UNPRODUCED SERIES, and more—plus stories from TOP ANIMATION INSIDERS about Scheimer and the story behind Filmation’s stories!

By RetroFan’s ANDY MANGELS!

(288-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95 • ISBN: 9781605490441 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JUL121245

HERO-A-GO-GO!

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. BACK ISSUE magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPER-FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!” CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, Spider-Man), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), & more! (272-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JAN172100

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

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

By M EURY ICHAEL , edito r of

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

The crazy cool culture we

Columns and Special Features

CONTENTS

Martin Pasko’s Pesky Perspective The Green Hornet in Hollywood

Issue #4 | Spring 2019

Retro Interview Jan and Dean’s Dean Torrence

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings Shazam!

Retro Interview The Spirit’s Sam Jones

Retro Television Thunderbirds Are Still Go!

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria Ray Harryhausen: The Man Behind the Monsters

The Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Pacific Ocean Park

grew up with

Departments

Retrotorial

RetroFad King Tut

Retro Collectibles Shazam! Seventies Merchandise

Too Much TV Quiz

Retro Travel Star Trek Set Tour – Ticonderoga, New York

Super Collector The Road to Harveyana, by Jonathan Sternfeld

RetroFanmail

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ #4, Spring 2019. Published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Four-issue subscriptions: $41 Economy US, $65 International, $16 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Shazam!, the original Captain Marvel, and Billy Batson TM & © DC Comics. The Green Hornet © The Green Hornet, Inc. Thunderbirds © ITV Studios. The Spirit © Will Eisner Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2019 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

DC and Marvel Comics have, introduced space-age superhero. for decades, waged a war with This made perfect sense as a their comic universes and, more business move for the so-called recently, film and television House of Ideas, but it mothballed franchises. Their characters have tradition—something that so permeated the popular culture Marvel was apt to do at the time that even the uninitiated nonwith its sassy superhero comics geek recognizes who’s who in rife with soap opera. The Captain their respective universes—just Marvel appellation would get about anyone can tell you that recycled in later Marvel continuity, Superman’s a DC guy and Spiderand very recently Captain Marvel, TM & © DC Comics. Man’s a Marvel guy. starring Brie Larson as space But then there’s Captain warrior Carol Danvers, has become Marvel. Who’s he? Or she? the latest entry in Marvel Studios’ film offerings. For purists, there’s only one Captain Marvel, And what of the original Captain Marvel? the first superhero to bear the name, coverWhile DC Comics is allowed to quietly use spotlighted in live-action form this issue. First the character’s name inside its publications, appearing in late 1939 from Fawcett Publications, the publisher finally gulped this hard pill to Captain Marvel was actually an orphaned boy swallow and sidestepped Cap’s identity crisis by named Billy Batson whose utterance of the magic rechristening their lightning-charged champion word “Shazam!” magically transformed him, as “Shazam.” Warner Bros. appropriated that title in a flash of lightning, into the red-and-yellow/ with its new live-action film starring Zachary Levi, gold-costumed “World’s Mightiest Mortal.” This which will be hitting theaters around the same original Captain Marvel was a smash sensation time as this issue arrives on the stands. during the Forties and Fifties and even outsold But such matters as copyright infringement Superman, leading to copyright infringement lawsuits and franchise rebranding are the stuff of lawsuits from the company we know today as adulthood. Filmation Studios’ live-action Shazam! DC Comics. Courtroom battles ultimately armseries is a product of our childhood, and that’s wrestled publisher Fawcett into retiring Captain where RetroFans choose to hang out. You may Marvel and his extended family of like-powered be a Mentor as an adult, but in these pages you superheroes. By the time the Sixties rolled around, can forever be a Billy Batson (although we can’t the only people who remembered Captain Marvel guarantee you’ll get a customized motor home as were comic historians and TV’s slack-jawed smallyour ride). town mechanic-turned-U.S. Marine Gomer Pyle, Last issue, I teased that a new columnist will who often exclaimed “Shazam!” when amazed. be joining the RetroFan line-up with issue #5. I’m In the early Seventies, DC Comics, which once happy to announce that it’s Will Murray! The regarded Captain Marvel a threat, now considered talented Mr. Murray is no stranger to fans of pulps him an asset as the publisher revived the hero in and adventure fiction, but if you’re unfamiliar with a new comic book, which spawned the live-action his work, Google him… and be prepared to meet Saturday morning TV series that Andy Mangels so Will next issue. He’s got a Tarzan tale to share. thoroughly covers in this edition of RetroFan. But this issue, we’ve also got the return of But it’s here where the World Mightiest columnist Martin Pasko—welcome back, Marty! He Mortal’s identity crisis began, as his new DC joins columnists Ernest Farino, Andy Mangels, Scott title and TV show could not bear his actual Saavedra, Scott Shaw!, and yours truly, plus guest name, instead being branded “Shazam!” During contributors Robert Greenberger, P.C. Hamerlinck, the Sixties, when the original Captain Marvel Dan Johnson, Bill Spangler, and Super Collector lay dormant, Marvel Comics trademarked the Jonathan Sternfeld, for another groovy grab bag of “Captain Marvel” name and used it for a newly the crazy, cool culture we grew up with.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Ernest Farino Robert Greenberger P.C. Hamerlinck Dan Johnson Andy Mangels Martin Pasko Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Bill Spangler Jonathan Sternfeld DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Ron. V. Borst Sam Calvin Mike Hankin Heritage Comics Auctions Arnold Kunert Craig Reardon Rose Rummel-Eury Steven Thompson VERY SPECIAL THANKS John Davey Michael Gray Sam J. Jones Dean O. Torrence

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

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

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

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

Hornet, Where is Thy Sting? (From Trendle to Treacle: Part I) by Martin Pasko “He’s baaaaaaaaack...” And, man, is his face red! My last column, about the early superhero the Phantom, was entitled “The Ghost Who Stumbles.” In retrospect, that title was both ironic and prophetic, as I’ve been a mere “ghost” in these pages for two issues, having stumbled off into a world of circumstances beyond my control. I’ll leave it at that, because my esteemed editor has already accounted for my temporary absence in better language than I myself could craft. Suffice to give a huge and grateful shout-out to the wonderful writers who filled in: Dan Johnson, Mark Vogel, and editor Michael Eury himself. So if you’ve missed RetroFan #2 or 3, check out the backnumber order page elsewhere in this issue, or go to www.twomorrows. com. Otherwise, you’re missing out on a lot of fun—and certainly not just from this column, either, LOL. My previous pesky screed was an (I hope entertainingly snarky) analysis of the Phantom that tracked the character’s development from its debut through recent efforts to reboot it. The evidence begged the conclusion that the first Spandex-ed superhero is an unsalvageable product of its time; a character whose appeal to contemporary audiences is limited by its lack of relevance to the modern world. In this issue, I’ll be returning to that theme, having found that a similar problem besets my current subject, the Green Hornet franchise. But first... I don’t want this column to be just a collation of data you can just as easily Google for yourselves. Why would you need me for that? I’d much rather make these columns ever more personal, and in the course of that, I hope to sneak in some thought-provoking critical analysis. I’ve gone on record that I’m suspicious of nostalgia because I think indulging in it impairs objectivity and helpful analysis. But this magazine is called RetroFan, after all. So, rather than try to swim totally against the tide, I’ll personalize this column by connecting my subjects,

Hang on, Green Hornet! It’s Kato we’re really watching. Van Williams and Bruce Lee as producer William Dozier’s other dynamic duo in a 1966 photo. The Green Hornet and Kato TM & © The Green Hornet, Inc.

Photo by Roger Davidson. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

Martial artist—and superstar in the making—Bruce Lee in a 1966 publicity still. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. wherever possible, with my memories of personal interactions with them, or my personal testament to what they’ve meant to me and, I hope, to the generations who have appreciated them. I’ll introduce my subjects to you as they introduced themselves to me, through the people who opened the doors to these worlds of wonder. The “names”—such as Julius Schwartz, Steve Gerber, or Len Wein, when they show up—will need no introduction. The others will. So, in these and in pages to come, you’ll have to get used to meeting Uncle Lou, Ralph the Barber, and my mother. Everyday people, not unlike Schwartz, Flick, Kissel, and Brunner— the fictionalized childhood friends of the writer and monologist, Jean Shepherd. You might know them from his In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash, among other short-story collections, which became the basis for the film A Christmas Story. These are, in my opinion, two of the greatest and most charming wallows in nostalgia of all time. Which brings me to Cousin Mike… It was Friday, September 9, 1966. I and my cousin Mike, a 12-yearold only child like me and the closest thing I had to a brother, found ourselves at Mike’s house, both of us curious about a TV show debuting that night on ABC: The Green Hornet. The series starred 32-year-old Van Williams as the green-clad crusader, in an unofficial companion piece to the network’s smash hit, Batman, 4

RetroFan

Spring 2019

whose Executive Producer, William Dozier, was also behind this new Hornet. Unlike me, Mike seemed not to be impressed by the Green Hornet’s activities, nor by the Batman-esque gimmicks he employed. Prophetically, Mike’s indifference proved to be typical of the American public’s reaction to the show, which lasted only one season. He seemed to spark to it only when the legendary martial artist/actor, Bruce Lee, cut loose as the Hornet’s partner, Kato—which didn’t happen all that much in that pilot episode, nor, for that matter, in the series that followed. I should’ve expected something like that. Mike wasn’t much into superheroes. He was the only 12-year-old I knew who liked Batman because it was funny. But that’s when I realized that I was already more familiar with the Hornet than most of my contemporaries, thanks to my Uncle Lou. My own father was 30 years old when Superman debuted, hadn’t read comics, and didn’t understand superheroes. But his much-younger brother, Lou, did. Lou saw what I was into, and whenever he’d come to visit, he’d bring me little presents—this comic or that magazine—exposing me to all kinds of new imaginative influences. I ended up writing for almost all of these publications, and in that sense, Lou enabled my later career as much as any editor or publisher who ever hired me. Lou was also the guy who introduced me to what we now call theatrical radio or “OTR,” standing for “Old-Time Radio.” He explained that in the days before TV, actors performed in entertainment programming on radio: TV shows without pictures. In that nostalgia- and superhero-crazed year of 1966, there were dozens of LPs—black plastic disks with grooves that… oh, the hell with it—that offered collections of these shows. Thus I met the Shadow, the pre-TV Lone Ranger, and… the Green Hornet. My fascination with this newly discovered medium led me to my local library, where I discovered reference texts that had me buzzing with Hornetitis. And on that Friday night I no doubt annoyed Mike with an unsolicited crash course in the Hornet, as, on that day long before VCRs and fast-forwarding, he went into the kitchen for popcorn while the ketchup commercial droned on in the background. I told Mike that the radio series had premiered on January 31, 1936, on XYZ in Detroit, from which also originated its companion shows, The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon, later known to “Boomers” as the TV series Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. The shows were produced by George Washington Trendle, a famously pennypinching lawyer and businessman. Like The Lone Ranger before it, this show, originally broadcast locally, was an instant hit, so much so that two years later it was being broadcast nationally over the Mutual Network, beginning a radio run on various networks that continued for the next 16 years, finally ending in 1952. As is the case with the Ranger, any account of who actually created The Green Hornet remains somewhat controversial, and who gets the credit depends on the source cited. All that is clear is that its creation involved a significant contribution from Fran Striker, head of XYZ’s script department, who served as the show’s producer and head writer, as he had on Ranger. Also involved in the show’s development was director James Jewell, whose sister Leonore Jewell Allman was radio’s only “Casey,” the Hornet’s

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

“gal Friday.” As we’ll see, Trendle’s organization seemed to keep a crimefighting costume because their wearer was a martial changing its mind over the years as to whom to credit. Nor, artist (although that would not be established unambiguously apparently, could it decide where and how to credit them. till the Sixties), as well as a scientific genius and, evidently, even Trendle seemed to bask in the admiration of radio reviewers a costume designer (in the first GH serial, he even designs the who applauded him for his use of classical music in what was Hornet’s mask), among many other amazing and implausible largely regarded as a kids’ show, as if he were some sort of things. Because, you see, that “valet” also invented the gas gun musicologist for moppets introducing them to high culture. The and created the Black Beauty and its unique weaponry. show’s use of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee,” with Reid’s most distinctive gimmick, however, was that he the sound effect of a buzzing insect laid over it, was especially allowed the police, press, and public to believe he was not a lauded, not just for being classical but also for being one of the vigilante, but an actual criminal himself. This permitted the most memorable of all radio themes. But this was hardly an Hornet to infiltrate crime rings under false pretenses, learn of innovation: The Shadow had used Omphale’s “Spinning Wheel” their operations, and then—with, of course, little regard for as its theme almost from its inception, and Trendle’s own Ranger due process—arrange to have them arrested when the Hornet famously used Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” Nor were these betrayed their misplaced trust. altruistic acts of cultural outreach; the notoriously frugal Trendle In all versions, Reid relied heavily on the help of his sometime preferred music that was in the public domain and didn’t cost him love interest, Lenore “Casey” Case, who, depending on where the anything. narrative starts, is Reid’s executive assistant who remains unaware I’m sure I bored Cousin Mike, too, with how the property had of Reid’s double identity until he reveals it to her (or she figures it evolved over the years, and appeared in many, slightly differing out). Thereafter, she remains his trusted confidante who is later incarnations. The central conceit, backstory, and “series franchise” promoted to a vaguely defined role as the de facto day-to-day remained basically the same in all versions, but with slight publisher of the Sentinel. variations. Casey, who was sometimes not quite sure the Hornet really In all iterations, the Hornet was Britt Reid, first the heir was a criminal, grudgingly admired how he was cleaning up the apparent to, then the outright owner of the crime-busting scum. And she remained loyal to Britt despite disapproving of newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. Reid, Sr., the founder, disapproved of his sybaritic lifestyle—until, that is, she learned that it was all a his son, whom he considered a wastrel. The younger Reid sought facade. to prove himself as a crusading journalist, but realized that such But how the efforts were probably a losing proposition in a corrupt city. TV Green Hornet Van Williams rest of the cast is So he chose instead to make a bigger mark as a much-needed played depends on and jazz trumpeteer Al Hirt— champion who could do what the city’s law enforcement couldn’t. which iteration of whose frenetic take on Nikolai Like his contemporary, Lamont Cranston, the Shadow, Britt Reid— Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the long before Bruce Wayne, the Bumblebee” served as the show’s Batman—employed the guise of theme—on a 1966 album that’s the indolent playboy as a cover for now a superhero collectible. Green Hornet © The Green Hornet, Inc. his colorful alter ego. His persona, however, would be clad in a green fedora, suit, overcoat, gloves, and a facemask imprinted with the image of a hornet. Like the others, the Hornet had his own unique weapons and gimmicks, including a gas gun that could knock out criminals without permanently harming them. Most exciting to kids in the Thirties was his own predecessor to the Batmobile, called the Black Beauty, often described as “an arsenal on wheels.” And instead of a butler, he had an Asian valet—at first Japanese, then “retconned” into a Filipino or Korean, Green Hornet creator George W. depending on which medium, as American anti-Japanese sentiment Trendle in a portrait autographed to increased before Pearl Harbor. his assistant, Brace Beemer. © Detroit Public Library. DPL Digital Collections. This valet doubled as a liveried chauffeur whose leathers were also RetroFan

Spring 2019

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

the continuity and what medium you get your Hornet sting from. In most media, Casey is one of only two people who share Reid’s secret, but in some versions, there are one or two others, such as Police Commissioner James Higgins on radio in the late Forties and D.A. Scanlon in the 1966 TV show. One of Reid’s inner circle who does not know is an older gentleman named Mike Axford, a close associate of Reid’s father. Reid, Sr., again depending on which interpretation of the property, is either still alive and waiting for Britt to clean up his act before turning the Sentinel over to him, or has died and left the newspaper to what Axford fears is a ne’er-do-well who will run it into the ground. Either way, Axford’s nuisance-some job is to be Reid, Jr.’s bodyguard—read: babysitter—and he is either a bumbler played for comedy relief or a tough-as-nails old Fourth-Estater who brooks no nonsense that interferes with the running of the Sentinel. Axford always tends to be a problem of some kind for the rest of the cast—with only Casey getting away with reprimanding him. In all versions, however, first and foremost among those in Reid’s inner circle, and ultimately the crux of the Hornet franchise’s problems, is: Kato. As with all things Hornet, Kato’s backstory varies as much as his description—valet? sidekick? partner? employee? friend?—and national origin. The basic idea is the same in all iterations except the 2011 Green Hornet feature film: Britt Reid had saved Kato’s life while traveling in the Far East, though, given Kato’s hand-to-hand combat skills, that always seemed specious. And, of course, the details change from version to version. Before the television series, he wasn’t explicitly a martial artist, and the first suggestion of this came, not on radio, but in the first Hornet serial, in 1940, when he delivers a “judo chop” to a villain. Curiously, no reference text on the Hornet tells us today if the radio series, not all episodes of which survive, ever did an origin story per se, or even answered the questions, “Why a hornet? And why green?” That would be lef t to the first of two serials made by Universal Pictures, in 1940. And it comes at answering those questions through the car. By the second commercial break on that Friday night, Cousin Mike was in the bathroom, loudly running water to drown me out as I told him about something else I’d learned. One of the first and biggest producers of serials since the Twenties, Universal released “chapter plays” that, while still low-budget affairs, looked slicker than those of the two other leading serial producers of 1940, Columbia and Republic. This, because Universal was a bigger and more “full-service” studio, meaning that its serials had access to more sophisticated stock footage, wardrobe, and so on.

(TOP) The Green Hornet (1940) movie serial poster. (LEFT) Gordon Jones and Keye Luke as our heroes, from the first serial. (ABOVE) Anne Nagel as Lenore Case and Jones as Britt Reid. © The Green Hornet, Inc./Universal Studios. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

As the studio’s Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials demonstrate, Universal generally was fairly faithful to the source material, and acceded to Trendle’s demand that it treat the Hornet more respectfully than Republic had treated the Ranger. And so they did: on The Green Hornet, though with no creator credit other than “…owned and

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

copyrighted by The Green Hornet, Inc.,” the screenwriters teamed with two of the series’ actual writers. In this case, the studio’s fidelity also finds a strange expression: 39-yearold Gordon Jones, who is billed as playing both Reid and the Hornet, is dubbed by Al Hodge, who played the character on radio, whenever Reid dons the full-face mask. Here, Reid is trying to win his father’s trust that he’s no mere playboy adventurer by developing an experimental car that will eventually become the Black Beauty. As is established in the very first scene of the first chapter, however, it’s actually Kato who has invented it and seems to be doing all the work. He also seems to be overly humble, unwilling to take credit for his accomplishments. This, because of how Reid saved his life in Singapore, rescuing him from a band of racist thugs who were about to kill him for being a Korean. Note that they’re getting rid of the “He’s not a dirty Jap” problem without wasting a moment. Kato demonstrates the new horn that he’s designed, which for no apparent reason sounds like a buzzing insect. Britt remarks, “Why, it sounds just like that giant green hornet we encountered in Africa!” (There is no such thing, by the way. There are 22 known species of Vesta, and none of them is green.) Later, when Casey suggests that the city needs a “modernday Robin Hood” and Reid takes up the challenge, the Hornet is born. It also seems as if Universal realized that Kato was more important to the series than even Trendle did: of all the cast, the actor best known to audiences of the day was Keye Luke, popular as Charlie Chan’s Number One Son. Arguably, Luke, who reprises the role in the sequel, gives one of the serials’ best performances, especially next to Jones, who plays Reid with a goofy charm that makes him seem more like Dagwood Bumstead than a crusading publisher, and 52-year-old Wade Boteler, who plays Axford with a cartoon Irish brogue that makes him sound like the Lucky Charms leprechaun. But the one member of the main cast who doesn’t return for the sequel, 1941’s The Green Hornet Strikes Again!, is Jones, who is replaced by the equally unmemorable, and miscast—as well as, at 38, equally long-in-the-tooth—Warren Hull in the title role. If you’ve seen the first serial, you’ve seen the second, whose most remarkable feature is that the credit now reads, “Based on the radio dramatic adventure serial by Fran Striker … owned and copyrighted,” etc. Strikes Again! was also the last serial; tellingly, the character would not be incarnated onscreen again for another 25 years. In the intervening period, the only medium in which the Hornet appeared, albeit intermittently, as it had since 1940, was in comic books, which are beyond the purview of this column. But I’d dug up a few of those, too, and they had made me all the more eager for the TV show. And so, by the time the closing credits came onscreen that Friday night in 1966, in which the Hornet is now unambiguously “Created by George W. Trendle” with no mention of Fran Striker, I was in heaven. By the time I was tapping my feet to the theme song that became a Top-40 hit—Billy May’s up-tempo version of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” performed by the legendary jazz trumpeter, Al Hirt—I had irritated Cousin Mike by explaining how the TV adaptation differed from the radio show. As on radio, “Casey,” here played by the long-forgotten ingénue, Wende Wagner, is in on Reid’s secret, but the Hornet’s new confidant in the law-enforcement community is now not Commissioner Higgins, but District Attorney Frank P. Scanlon, played with brisk efficiency by Walter Brooke. Allegedly, Dozier wanted to downplay comparisons between the Hornet and Batman, which had Commissioner Gordon.

(TOP) The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940) movie serial poster. (BOTTOM) From the second serial, Warren Hull as Reid and Luke as Kato. © The Green Hornet, Inc./Universal Studios. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

Trading card-sized stickers sold alongside bubble-gum cards in 1966 featured photos from TV’s Green Hornet, including images of Wende Wagner as Lenore Case. © The Green Hornet, Inc./Greenway Productions, Inc./20th Century Fox Television, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

Axford, the bodyguard-turned-reporter of the radio series, is now solely a police reporter for the Sentinel, and in making him eager to the point of mania, Lloyd Gough plays him for comedy. At one point in the pilot, Britt even gives him the gas to keep his investigative reporting from blowing a, well, sting operation. There were also visual differences from the serials, in which the Hornet wore a full-face mask with eyeholes and Kato wore goggles. Here, both men wear masks that cover only the upper portions of their faces. TV also drew upon technological innovations to provide new weapons for the duo: now the Hornet wielded a telescoping device called the Hornet’s Sting, which emitted ultrasonic sound waves. He usually used it to open locked doors, set things on fire (?), and to scare the heavies into confessions. The series also gave Kato his own weapons: green “sleeve darts” that allowed him to engage opponents at a distance and in closer combat. But the main factor that probably best accounts for why the show lasted only a season is because it wasn’t a Batman-esque campfest, as ABC had misled viewers to expect, both in promoting it as such and reinforcing that impression with a Batman/Green Hornet crossover. But apparently, Dozier and the network elected to play it relatively straight. Unlike Batman, whose staff writers,

The other star of TV’s Green Hornet—the Black Beauty, designed and built by car customizer Dean Jeffries—was licensed as a model kit (shown here, from Aurora) as well as a Corgi miniature. © The Green Hornet, Inc./Greenway Productions, Inc./20th Century Fox Television, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

such as Stanley Ralph Ross and Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and directors such as Leslie H. Martinson, were adept at comedy, the Hornet is largely the work of seasoned dramatic action-adventure pros. Though some of the Batman crew contributed, Dozier relied on producer Richard (Police Woman) Bluel, directors like Seymour (Mission: Impossible) Robbie, and writers like Ken (Mission: Impossible) Pettus. Matters probably weren’t helped by the facts that the Hornet had an unusual format, a half-hour action adventure show when most such shows were hours; and that it aired on a Friday when, back in those days before VCRs, most people weren’t watching Friday-night programming because they weren’t home. And so, after that Friday night, I enjoyed the Hornet for the rest of the season, and Cousin Mike and I never spoke of it again, not even after interest in it was briefly renewed in the early Seventies. Bruce Lee had distinguished himself as an international martialarts star with Enter the Dragon, and his untimely death turned him into a cult figure on the order of James Dean. A film compilation of the TV episodes in which Kato had a prominent role was released in 1974, entitled The Green Hornet. Without it, the property would have been forgotten, as it was by 1990. Significantly, once again it was Kato, not the Hornet himself, that was keeping the property alive. In the Nineties, however, there was renewed interest in reviving the Hornet for feature films, after the success of 1989’s Batman. The ardor cooled somewhat after the box-office failure of a film based on another radio show, 1994’s The Shadow starring Alec Baldwin. Over the next 17 years, the property bounced around Hollywood, with speculation at one time attaching Eddie Murphy to the project, and at another point, there was a proposed film with Jet Li as Kato. Somehow, the Hornet fell into Columbia Pictures’ hands, and it got made. By the man who swatted it to death. Which brings us to the last Hornet in filmed media, the theatrical feature finally released by Columbia in 2011, which probably had both Trendle and Striker spinning in their graves. This, thanks to its star, co-executive producer, and co-screenwriter Seth Rogen, who arguably destroyed whatever commercial viability the Hornet franchise may have had, and turned it “radioactive.” Why allow the title role—a supposedly athletic, smart, daring hero in the classic manner—to be played by a dull, awkward, pudgy, and clearly out-of-shape former stand-up comedian? This is mystifying enough, considering that at that time, Rogen’s feature

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

film credits were negligible, never mind the studio allowing him By now it should go without saying that Kato, here played de facto creative control over the project. The film is a mess, the not by an actual martial artist, but the Taiwanese pop singer and product of a reckless abandon that deservedly cost Columbia actor, Jay Chou, does not owe Britt his life. Instead, Kato is brought dearly: a gross of only $227.8 million on a $120 million budget. And into Reid’s life by his father, who dies of anaphylactic shock from either Green Hornet, Inc. was powerless to do anything about it, an allergy to... wait for it... a bee sting. The day after his father’s or, unthinkably, was satisfied with this atrocity. (One of its executive funeral and telling Axford he wants nothing to do with running producers is George W. Trendle, Jr.) the Sentinel, Britt meets Kato after awakening groggily to find that Before we’re even 20 minutes in, after a dead-serious prologue his usual morning bedside Cappuccino is not its usual, ornately explaining that Reid, Sr. was not only disapproving of his son but prepared self and “Tastes like s**t!” As Britt has a tantrum, he’s actively neglectful of, and abusive to, informed by the lone remaining him, we can already see that the film is maid that the day before, he’d fired tonally “all over the map.” The point of the rest of the staff, including Kato, these scenes is to establish a not-bad, who “works on your father’s car and contemporizing twist on the backstory: makes the coffee.” Britt doesn’t quite that Britt really is a frat-boy Party recognize the name, but nevertheless Animal a-hole, and his father made him screamingly demands Kato be that way. And that’s the last we see of summoned. “Now!” anything that doesn’t play like “buddy Kato arrives in full-on Joe Cool comedy” in Spandex. Or leather. Or mode, astride a souped-up motorcycle, whatever that coat is made of. and informs Britt that he was the And now it starts to dawn on mechanic, hired to care for Dad’s the audience that this Hornet will be expensive collection of sports cars. played strictly for laughs. Which must When Britt wants to know why the have been an unpleasant surprise mechanic was making his Cappuccino, for those few moviegoers who may Kato reveals that it was because he have been familiar with the character invented the unique coffeemaker that previously, or who took Columbia at produced it. its word when it marketed the film as This Kato is explicitly Chinese, if it were a conventional “superhero having been born in Shanghai and tent pole.” come to America without a Caucasian The reason for this comedy— saving his life. He was a tough street which I find disarmingly LOL-funny kid who learned how to take care of in places, in spite of myself—might himself the hard way, and his English come from an old saying among is peppered with profanity, which screenwriters: “Make the problem may have come as a shock to any the solution.” And that appears grandparents who were curious to Poor Van Williams was almost an after- see what Hollywood had done to The to be exactly what Rogen and coscreenwriter Evan Goldberg, the thought when the Seventies’ kung-fu Green Hornet. And this Kato is only many producers, and director Michel craze led to this Bruce Lee-centric 1974 slightly more responsible than Reid. Gondry—whose splendid Eternal theatrical release of Sixties high-kicking He’s smarter, more industrious, more Sunshine of the Spotless Mind made him Hornet episodes. Did this poster’s color- creative, and certainly more ambitious, an improbable candidate for directing ist confuse Williams’ character with the but, as their drunken bonding scenes this mindless junk—did. Brown Hornet of Saturday morning TV? demonstrate, not above a flirtation © The Green Hornet, Inc. © 1974 Lawrence Robert Ent., Inc. Obviously, in the increasingly with a DUI. Charming, isn’t it? diverse and multicultural 21st Century, Britt and Kato start to bond on most moviegoers would not have the basis of their mutual loathing for accepted the concept of a white superhero with a subservient Reid, Sr., whom Kato calls “a bit of a d**k.” In short order, the duo Asian valet, let alone one so obsequious and self-effacing, so progresses from the Cappuccino that Britt craves, to beers (which lacking in pride or self-esteem, that he would simply bow and Kato uncaps with a single well-placed karate chop), to hard liquor smile as his achievements were being taken for granted and in the backseat of the future Black Beauty, which eventually has exploited. Britt pointing out to Kato that he’s begun to speak in Cantonese. Moreover, were the writers to give the character its due, what By this time, we’ve learned that this Kato has all the skills of the would become glaringly obvious is that without Kato, the Green traditional version, and will design all the gadgets and weapons Hornet could not possibly exist. This improbable genius has always that helpfully appear, deus ex machinas all, throughout the film. He been the real brains and driving force behind all the crimefighting. also possesses several other new skills and areas of expertise, such He’s the real star of the show. as the ability to illustrate like Jim Lee and a passion for classical RetroFan

Spring 2019

MARTIN PASKO’S PESKY PERSPECTIVE

FAST FACTS The Green Hornet (movie serial) `` Premiere date: January 9, 1940 `` No. of chapters: 13 `` Directors: Ford Beebe, Ray Taylor `` Cast: Gordon Jones, Keye Luke, Anne Nagel, Michael Axford The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (movie serial) `` Premiere date: December 24, 1940 `` No. of chapters: 15 `` Directors: Ford Beebe, John Rawlins `` Cast: Warren Hull, Keye Luke, Anne Nagel, Michael Axford

Cast-spotlighting poster for the uneven Green Hornet movie of 2011. © The Green Hornet, Inc./Columbia Pictures Corp.

The Green Hornet (TV series) `` No. of seasons: one `` No. of episodes: 26 `` Original run: September 9, 1966–March 17, 1967 `` Cast: Van Williams, Bruce Lee, Wende Wagner, Lloyd Gough, Walter Brooke `` Network: ABC

man.” Kato interrupts, saying he’s Britt’s executive associate. Britt has come to insist on more coverage for the mysterious green criminal. Recalling his father’s death, Britt suggests they call him “The Green Bee.” The Board reacts negatively. Kato suggests “Green Hornet” and they all light up: Green Hornet it is! The one-upmanship continues after Casey—here played by Cameron Diaz in her high-strung screamer mode—shows up to apply for the job of Reid’s executive assistant. She takes an instant dislike to Britt, who greets her in terms that would make Harvey Weinstein blush. But she finds herself attracted to Kato, and they start dating. And on and on it goes, through a silly plot involving a ridiculous villain, at the climax of which the “heroes” save themselves with what Kato concedes was Britt’s other good idea: ejection seats in the Black Beauty. By final fade out, with endcredits that reaffirm George W. Trendle as the Hornet’s sole creator, the film has revealed itself to be a deconstruction, not only of the Hornet mythology but of superhero tropes themselves. In so doing, the film probably tried to be too many different things to too many different people, and in the end, pleased no one. What’s so sad is that, as a result of all this, whatever Green Hornet fans may still be left aren’t going to see the character on the big or small screen anytime soon. But if, after this fiasco, any producer does have the temerity to try to tackle a reboot, I would suggest they start with a new title for the property: Kato. I’d bet that would be something even Cousin Mike would pay to see.

music. Britt is in awe, and Kato stonefacedly remarks, “Yes, I am a genius.” An impulsive prank leads the buddies into an encounter with muggers. The exhilaration of accidentally driving the muggers off and saving their victim The Green Hornet (film) becomes a life-changing experience for the pair. Because Britt is wearing a green`` Release date: January 14, 2011 `` Director: Michel Gondry colored disguise and Kato his chauffeur’s `` Cast: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, goggles, they are mistaken for a rival gang Cameron Diaz, Edward in the press, and inspiration strikes. It’s James Olmos, Christoph Britt who comes up with the idea of acting Waltz like criminals while secretly being heroes. It’s one of only two good ideas he has in the film. But the second one is definitely not his decision to reverse himself and become the hands-on Coming soon: I’ll be following up with Part II of “From Trendle publisher of the Sentinel, where Axford, here played with growling, to Treacle,” entitled “Who Was That Masked Man with the Stuffed withering contempt by Edward James Olmos, finds Reid’s sudden, Crow on His Head?” But for RetroFan #6, my next appearance: incompetent meddling infuriating. Next Stop: The Twilight Zone. At this point, Rogen and Goldberg use their impossibly talented Kato as a jumping-off place for pushing the Reid/Kato relationship MARTIN PASKO writes and has, for over 40 to extremes, to the extent that for most of the film they are more years been writing, professionally, comics, rivals than partners. And so the Kato gags come fast and furious. animation, television, prose fiction, and Britt balks when Kato produces a gun to shoot out the Black non-fiction. If you’re into comics—DC’s in Beauty’s tires, by way of demonstrating they’re self-reinflating. particular—and you’ve never heard of him, Kato replies, “Don’t be a p***y.” you’re probably not the kind of reader who Britt and Kato walk into a meeting of the Sentinel editorial will be interested in what he has to say in the board. They ask who Kato is, and Britt splutters, “He’s my… he’s my first place. 10

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO FAD

King Tut TV Tut © DC Comics/20th Century Fox/Greenway Productions. SNL © NBC.

by Michael Eury ’Fess up, RetroFans… your introduction to the heralded Egyptian king was as a Batman villain. Or a Steve Martin novelty song. For kids of the Sixties, King Tut was a recurring rascal on television’s live-action Batman series, in the stout form of character actor Victor Buono, who must have been born with teeth of steel considering his ability to chew scenery. TV’s Tut was actually a college professor who, once bonked on the noggin, fancied himself as the Golden King, a toga-ed troublemaker and perpetrator of crimes that only the Dynamic Duo could derail. In the Seventies, “King Tut” was a comedy song recorded by wild-and-crazy-guy Steve Martin, accompanied by the “Toot Uncommons.” It was a million-selling single that walked (like an Egyptian) up the Billboard charts to the Number 17 slot in 1978. Martin performed “King Tut” before an eager late-night TV audience on the April 22, 1978, episode of Saturday Night Live. Martin’s tune opened, “Now when he was a young man, he never thought he’d see, people stand in line to see the boy king,” referencing the Tutmania that was sweeping the U.S.A. at the time. Tutmania? It seems hard to believe that in 1978, the fastforwarding year that gave us Space Invaders, the first Test Tube Baby, the cell phone, alien close encounters, and John Travolta’s pulsating pelvis, Americans squinted through the dazzle of shimmering disco lights long enough to appreciate the antiquity of an Egyptian crypt. Tut-tut… surely it made more sense to drop $400 on the exciting new Tandy TRS80 Computer from Radio Shack than to waste your time and hard-earned cash standing in sloth-paced lines that snaked around several city blocks to view this musty collection at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art! Yet over eight million people ventured through the museum’s “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibit, which ran from November 17, 1976, through September 30, 1979. Before and after that, during the years of 1972 to 1981, the exhibit wound its way across the globe, also being shown in London, Moscow, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities, attracting everyone from Joe Average to movie Cleopatra Elizabeth Taylor. There was no doubt about it—in the Seventies, Tut was king! Who was this Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty-turnedhot ticket item of the 20th Century? And why, during an era when most Americans regarded Egypt as a faraway land in a region of the world that made headlines for tribal wars and oil production, would anyone even care? Tutankhamun, the son of King Akhenaten, ruled his people from 1332–1323 B.C. in a prosperous period called the New Kingdom. During his brief reign, the monarch erected temples to gods that had fallen out of favor and improved economic and diplomatic dealings with nearby kingdoms. Not bad for a kid.

Yes, Tutankhamun (herewith “Tut,” since that’s easier to type) was a mere nine or ten years of age when he assumed the crown. When you were nine or ten, you were watching King Tut on Batman or singing lyrics like, “Born in Arizona, got a condo made of stone-a.” But the real Tut shouldered the burden of governance at that age… while also being saddled with physical deformities that some believe required him to walk with a cane. The cause of the young king’s death, at age 18, has driven historians batty. Conspiracy theorists once suspected that Tut was assassinated, while most experts have dismissed that, citing instead malaria as the cause of death. Or sickle cell disease. Or a litany of other possible ailments. Or a chariot accident. (It was tough staying healthy in those days. Even if you had the Regal Medical Plan.) One thing that they can agree on is, after his death, Tut received an entombment that was, well, fit for a king. While there has been evidence that his burial wrap was hastily, and perhaps haphazardly, prepared, his sarcophagus was festooned with adjacent rooms of riches, from gold to statues to chariots to weapons. Luckily, as our story’s real-life Indiana Jones, archaeologist Howard Carter, first uncovered in November 1922, Tut’s ossuary had miraculously escaped the plunderers who had robbed the graves of so many other monarchs… although a half-century later, when Tut’s ancient riches and teen mummy were theatrically staged in a re-created tomb and hawked like a sideshow attraction, a commercial plundering exploded, catering to people’s dual fascinations with wealth and youth. As the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” (okay, I typed it again) made its way across the U.S.A., so did King Tut T-shirts and posters, “Boy King” View-Master reels, and Sphinxburgers and Queen Nefertiti Salads—plus the “King Tut” song, which was actually Steve Martin’s satirical lament of the crass commercialization of what should have been regarded as an historical phenomenon. Did you know that President Richard M. Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, played a role in the Seventies’ King Tut fad? In June 1974, when Nixon was squirming from the hot breath of Watergate on his sweat-beaded neck, he inked an accord with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, improving relations between the two nations and paving the way for Tut’s treasures to travel throughout the U.S.A.’s major metropolitan areas. Soon, Nixon would resign in disgrace, but a long-dead Egyptian boy king would ascend to a new throne of popularity. Next issue’s RetroFad: Moon landing mania!

(TOP RIGHT) Tutankhamun’s burial mask, the most popular exhibit in its current, permanent location, Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. Roland Unger/Wikimedia Commons.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Jan and Dean’s Dean Torrence Says,

“Comedy is Not Pretty” by Michael Eury

Dean Torrence and Jan Berry met in high school in Los Angeles and gigged together in doo-wop groups until finding fame as the surf-music duo Jan and Dean. Their mid-Sixties’ hits included “Surf City,” “Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Ride the Wild Surf,” and the comedy concept album, Jan and Dean Meet Batman. Jan and Dean’s popularity led to their co-headlining their own comedy movie, Easy Come, Easy Go, and a weekly comedyvariety television series, Jan and Dean on the Road, both of which were beset by problems and scrapped. The TV series—and Jan and Dean’s partnership—was derailed on April 12, 1966, when an auto accident nearly took Jan’s life. Berry took years to recuperate, during which time Torrence re-established himself as a successful graphic designer, designing Grammy-nominated and Grammywinning album covers for numerous successful acts through his company, Kitty Hawk Graphics.

Then and now: Detail from one of Jan and Dean’s most popular LPs, and Dean Torrence today. LP © Jan and Dean. “I got a Grammy, in the graphic design category,” Torrence told me in 2015. “And I got three nominations… I never got a Grammy or any nominations for any music. So maybe they were telling me something.” Flip through your record collection and you’ll no doubt discover the design handiwork of Dean Torrence on album covers for the Turtles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Chicago Transit Authority, Captain & Tennille, and many other artists. But very little for his own band. “I instinctively kind of knew how to brand somebody,” Torrence says, “[but] I didn’t get to do much of it with Jan and Dean [aside from a couple of compilation albums]. But I was able to then do it full time for other artists, and it seemed to work out.” One of those “other artists” was Steve Martin, whose “King Tut” tune is stuck in your head if you’re reading this on the heels of our accompanying RetroFad

Steve Martin’s first three comedy albums, released between 1977 and 1979, with cover designs by Dean Torrence and Kitty Hawk Graphics. © Warner Bros. Records.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Dean Torrence’s Greatest Hits: a selection of some of Dean’s and Kitty Hawk’s classic LP designs from the Sixties and Seventies. © the respective copyright holders. feature. Torrence designed covers for Martin’s groundbreaking comedy LPs, which were produced by the comedian’s manager, Bill McEuen, and reveals that he was involved with the multitalented wild and crazy guy’s early career. “I worked with Steve from the mid-Sixties to the early Seventies, until he absolutely took off and started making movies instead of records,” Torrence remembers, an era he categorizes as “very frustrating because the powers-that-be were just not interested in him.” What? For those of us watching Seventies TV, the career trajectory of the banjo-strumming musical comedian known for wearing an arrow through his head seemed meteoric. But that’s not the case. “It took years and years and years and years and years,” Torrence recalls of Martin’s beginnings, which included writing for TV comedy stars including the Smothers Brothers, Pat Paulsen, and Sonny and Cher. “Even when he was starting to show up on Johnny Carson! “Steve even showed up at a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band concert, introduced himself to the band, and said that he played the banjo. Of course, those guys were phenomenal musicians and they kinda went, ‘Who’s this goofy guy that wants to sit in and play banjo with us? After all, we’re the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band!’ Then they heard him play and they thought, ‘Oh, my God, this guy’s really very good!’ “So they started doing shows together where Steve was kinda the master of ceremonies and he’d do a little warm-up where he’d do stand-up and play a little banjo, and then introduce the Dirt Band, and he came out toward the end of the show and they would play ‘Dueling Banjos’ or something.” Torrence believed in Martin’s talent. In a big way.

“I borrowed money on my house to make a film of him doing what he did because we couldn’t get record people or television people to go to a show,” Torrence reveals. “He had tried them. He would say, ‘We’ll pick you up. We’ll take you to the show.’ [gruff voice, in response] ‘I’m much too busy. Send me a tape or something.’ “So we made a demo tape, and nobody bought it and I lost— this was the late Sixties—I lost like, $40,000, which was a lot of money. I nearly lost my house, if not for my parents bailing me out. The only saving grace was that eight years later, Steve was the biggest comedian in the business. I went to my parents and said, ‘See! I was right! My instincts were good. My timing was just off!’ I was out of money and I couldn’t stay in it. My friend Bill [McEuen] stayed in it, made the first maybe two or three [Steve Martin] movies, and he’s been living in Hawaii ever since. Good for him.” And good for Dean Torrence, who followed his Sixties surfmusic success with two second acts—first, as an award-winning graphic designer and second, right back to where he started from. In the late Eighties, Jan Berry’s condition had improved enough to allow Jan and Dean to reunite for concerts and new recordings, which they did until Berry’s 2004 passing. “That was really great, and the fans seemed to really appreciate it,” Torrence beams. “And we were happy to do it as long as they were still happy we were there.” This interview was conducted by telephone on October 1, 2015, and transcribed by Steven Thompson. Portions of this article appeared in edited form in the book, Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties, by Michael Eury (2017, TwoMorrows Publishing).

RetroFan

Spring 2019

MONSTER MASH

The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972 Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (SHOCK THEATRE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, and DARK SHADOWS), “MARS ATTACKS” trading cards, EERIE PUBLICATIONS, PLANET OF THE APES, and more! It features interviews with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN (Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters), JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of “The Dark Age”). (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 9781605490649 Diamond Order Code: MAR151564

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

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

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

Advertise With Us! RetroFan & BrickJournal Ad Rates: Back cover or inside cover: $1000 ($900 for two or more) Full-page interior: $800 ($700 for two or more) Half-page interior: $500 ($425 for two or more) Quarter-page interior: $300 ($250 for two or more)

Alter Ego • Back Issue • Comic Book Creator • Draw • Jack Kirby Collector: Back cover or inside cover: $800 ($700 for two or more) Full-page interior: $600 ($500 for two or more) Half-page interior: $300 ($250 for two or more) Quarter-page interior: $150 ($125 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! Send ad copy and payment (US funds) to:

RetroFan #6

Ships Sept. 2019 | Subscribe now • See inside back cover!

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, InDesign, or Quark Xpress files acceptable). No agency discounts apply.

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

by Andy Mangels

TM & © DC Comics.

Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. Since 1989, I have been writing columns for magazines in the U.S. and foreign countries, all examining the intersection of comic books and Hollywood, whether animation or live-action. Andy Mangels Backstage, Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ Hollywood Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind the Camera… nearly three decades of reporting on animation and live-action—in addition to writing many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and I’m still enthusiastic. In this new RetroFan column, I will examine shows that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross-legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday Morning! In the mid-Seventies, live-action superheroes on television were almost non-existent. Common reruns of the Fifties The Adventures of Superman or late Sixties Batman series were the only choices for kids and comic-book fans outside the realm of animation. But on September 7, 1974, all of that changed, when lightning struck… Over an image of swirling clouds, the announcer—ironically, the voice of an uncredited Batman star Adam West—stoically intoned, “Chosen from among all others by the immortal elders—Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury—Billy Batson and his mentor travel the

highways and byways of the land on a never-ending mission: to right wrongs, to develop understanding, and to seek justice for all. In time of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the immortals to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word: Shazam! A word which transforms him in a flash into the mightiest of mortals… Captain Marvel!” Viewers were riveted to the opening visual of Billy Batson—played by Michael Gray—shouting “Shazam!” before lightning struck him and he magically transformed into the red-suited Captain Marvel—played by the strong-jawed Jackson Bostwick. The show would become a hit on Saturday mornings, inspiring a spin-off series, changes to the comic books that had inspired it, and mentoring young viewers with moral lessons. But behind the scenes, ominous thunder rumbled… Now, let’s take a drive down the highways and byways of memory to the days when Shazam! flew high!

The Old Wizard Beckons

In the pulpy newsprint pages of comics, superheroes were still in their toddler days in 1939; Superman had only first appeared in April 1938, followed by Batman, Blue Beetle, Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner. During the summer of that year, Fawcett Comics staff writer Bill Parker was tasked with creating superheroes for the popular company, and he devised six characters RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

(LEFT) Theater poster for the 1941 Adventures of Captain Marvel serial. (BELOW) Cover with Captain Marvel and Billy Batson from Whiz Comics #22 (Oct. 3, 1941). TM & © DC Comics.

who each held powers granted to them by mythological figures. Parker eventually combined the sextet into one character he called “Captain Thunder,” and artist Charles Clarence (“C. C.”) Beck illustrated the first story. Unable to trademark the name of Captain Thunder, the new hero was dubbed first “Captain Marvelous,” then, finally, “Captain Marvel.” In a red bodysuit and white cape, with a yellow lightning bolt insignia splashed across his chest, Captain Marvel made first appearance was in Whiz Comics #2 (cover-dated Feb. 1940). In the hero’s origin, young orphaned Billy Batson is summoned into the bowels of nearby subway station, where he emerges in the presence of an ancient wizard named Shazam. The wizard bequeaths Billy some of his powers, which he must use to keep the world safe from evil. All he must do is shout the wizard’s name, “Shazam!”, and he would be transformed into an adult with superpowers and a flashy costume. His powers originated from six mythological figures who granted him some of their own powers, and his battle cry powers came from the first initials of their names: wisdom from Solomon, strength from Hercules, stamina from Atlas, power from Zeus, courage from Achilles, and speed from Mercury! The adventures of Captain Marvel were immediately popular, partially due to the magic-based adventures in which anything was possible, partially due to the light-hearted humor imbued by the comic creators, and partially because the character was the ultimate in wish fulfillment for young readers, who could only dream of saying a magic word to become bigger, faster, stronger, and able to fly! With the comics’ sales skyrocketing, a second series soon debuted, titled Captain Marvel Adventures (debuting Mar. 1941). Captain Marvel books were often the bestselling titles of what is known as the Golden Age of Comics. Within the first year of publishing, Republic Pictures optioned the character of Captain Marvel from Fawcett for a movie serial. 16

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Serials were told in quarter-hour-plus segments that ended in a dramatic cliffhanger so that audiences would have to return to the movie theater the following week to see how their hero managed to escape death. The Adventures of Captain Marvel debuted on March 28, 1941, and continued weekly thereafter for 12 installments. The cast included leading man Tom Tyler as Captain Marvel, Frank Coghlan, Jr. as his radio announcer alter ego Billy Batson, and Nigel de Brulier as the ancient wizard named Shazam. It’s probable there would have been a sequel to the serial, if Detective Comics (the company known today as DC Comics) hadn’t launched a lawsuit against Fawcett, alleging that Captain Marvel was based on Superman. The protracted lawsuit between the two companies ran from 1941 to 1953, and Captain Marvel made a final appearance in The Marvel Family #89 (Jan. 1954). The character might have faded into obscurity, except for actor Jim Nabors, who exclaimed “Shazam!” throughout many of his appearances as the comic book-reading character Gomer Pyle on the TV series The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Lightning Strikes Twice

In 1972, National Periodical Publications (the latest name of the company yet to become DC Comics) publisher Carmine Infantino licensed the characters of Captain Marvel and his cast of friends and foes from what was left of Fawcett. Because Marvel Comics had been publishing their own character named Captain Marvel since 1967, National was forced to name their new comic Shazam! A new comic series debuted in December 1972, with original artist C. C. Beck back to illustrate the stories. It wasn’t long before Hollywood came looking for Captain Marvel again. Based in Reseda, California, Filmation Associates had been known mostly as an animation company, and they had a history with National. They had produced the popular Superman, Aquaman, and Batman animated series from 1966–1970, and even gave Wonder Woman her first animated appearance, in a 1972 episode of The Brady Kids. Filmation was headed by producers Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott, and they wanted to try something new. “We had our previous relationship with National/DC, but they had now licensed Superman and many of their other superheroes over to Hanna-Barbera for Super Friends,” said Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. “So we licensed the animation rights to Captain Marvel and planned to do it animated. He was the closest thing to Superman that they had available, but for legal reasons we couldn’t call the show Captain Marvel—although we could call the character that—so it had to be titled Shazam!”

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Filmation did a presentation for an animated Shazam! in 1974, which they showed to NBC, ABC, and CBS. At CBS, Fred Silverman liked the concept, but asked Scheimer to do the show in live-action instead. Scheimer agreed, but changes had to be made from the comics, as putting other Shazam! characters such as Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel, Jr., Tawky Tawny, and Mr. Mind would be costprohibitive. “When we developed the show, we had to develop something that we could afford to do on Saturday morning, so we decided to do it all on location. We came up with the idea of Billy Batson and Mentor travelling around in a motor home. It worked because, with them travelling, we didn’t have to use stages for much of anything, and we could shoot it all outdoors.” The Shazam! bible developed by Filmation was only three pages long, but it hewed to established lore to a point. Young Billy Batson was summoned by Mister Mentor to a secret underground lair, because he had been selected in “mystical fashion by the Six Elders.” Mentor had previously been Captain Marvel, but now needed to pass his powers on. According to the bible: “But, in accordance with the directives of The Elders, Billy’s “training” was soon to take on greater challenge: “Life,” itself—its problems; its peculiarities; its ramifications—was to become his “teacher” and his testing ground, supplemented by his regular meetings with The Elders and the constant companionship of Mister Mentor, who was to accompany Billy on his “missions.” Mentor was never to directly interfere, and was to “serve as an intermediate counsel and overseer, but would offer no solutions to the problems facing young Billy.” The show bible also introduced the idea that Billy would receive cryptic wisdom and omniscient parables from the Elders about whatever adventure he was about to encounter. Billy would recite before a blinking brazier a magic couplet: “Oh, Elders, fleet, and strong, and wise, appear before my seeking eyes!” The Elders would be animated—albeit mostly only their mouths moved, with some optical effects on top—with Billy to appear before them in live-action. Producers Scheimer and Prescott eventually provided the voices for the Elders. “I did most of the voices for the Elders,

and Norm did a couple, like Solomon,” said Scheimer. “By the way, if you’re wondering why the characters were called ‘Elders’ instead of ‘Gods’—despite some of them being mythological gods—you can blame the network’s Standards and Practices.” Another element of the show planned from the beginning was a social conscience. According to the show bible, “The themes of the individual episodes will be pertinent, in terms of “contemporary” life, and will reflect the types of “people” problems with which today’s youngster comes face-to-face in his daily life; Billy’s constant resourcefulness and demonstrated ability to “cope” with most of the problems presented to him will testify to the fact that, “there’s something each of us can do.” ” Filmation also made the decision to add tags to the end of each show, with the actors speaking directly to the viewers about the “morals” of the episode; these educational tags were not only due to changed rules about content for children’s television, but also because Scheimer felt it important to teach viewers something while entertaining them. “We wanted them to have super-adventure elements, but we also wanted them to have educational stuff in them. We wanted to have Captain Marvel be the first superhero who would teach young people essentially the same kind of lessons that we were doing in Fat Albert, with a little bit more of interpersonal relationships and real-world issues. They were targeted to a slightly older viewer—junior high and high schoolers. The stories dealt with drug abuse, prejudice, peer pressure, stealing, handicapped people, cheating, lying, and all sorts of moral issues that kids grappled with. And, at the end of the episode, we’d have Captain Marvel or Billy come out and talk directly to the viewer in a ‘morals’ segment that reinforced whatever the message of the episode had been.” At the end of March 1975, CBS announced their Saturday morning schedule, and Shazam! was on it. Warner Bros., who owned international distribution rights, immediately began marketing the series worldwide, without a frame having been shot! Now, Filmation had to start on their first-ever live-action

(LEFT) Color Filmation presentation art for CBS for the Shazam! series, pre-casting. (ABOVE) Shazam! producers Norm Prescott (l) and Lou Scheimer (r). (INSET) Filmation’s 1970s logo. TM & © DC Comics.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

show… and converting 10,000 square feet of their facilities into live-action studio space was only the beginning.

Casting the Series

First to be cast was Michael Gray. A young actor with guest-roles on Marcus Welby, The Flying Nun, and The Brady Bunch, as well as a movie-of-the-week, Run, Simon, Run, with Burt Reynolds, Gray was on the verge of stardom. Even though he was in his mid-20s, his youthful looks and shorter stature allowed him to play younger than he was. His biggest role to date was an NBC series called The Little People, starring Brian Keith. That role had gotten him play in teen magazines of the time—Tiger Beat, Teen Star, and 16 among them. Gray recalls that, “I got a call from CBS and Filmation and they wanted to know if I’d be interested in doing a Saturday morning TV show. I was, so we talked. They called me out into the studios in Reseda, and I talked with the two executive producers, Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott. They had me read a little for them and then they talked to CBS and discussed whether or not I was right for the part.” After the interview, Gray went to visit his parents in Carmel, California, and five days later, got the call. He was the new Billy Batson! The importance of Gray “being” teenaged was important, as the producers and network wanted the show to skew toward a pre-teen and teen audience. “The demographics were very widespread on this show,” says Gray. “Most other Saturday morning shows had an audience of kids 5 to 12, but because of the magazines and because of the popularity of Captain Marvel from the Forties, the demographics went from 5 to the 30s!” Next cast was Les Tremayne, who became Mister Mentor. Tremayne was born in England, but was better known as an American actor, for vaudeville, radio, film, and television. His popular radio show The First Nighter Program ran from 1936–1942, and he became one of the best-known voices in the country. Scheimer noted that Les was “one of those wonderful souls that

(LEFT) The animated Elders “speak” to Billy Batson. (RIGHT) Preliminary art for the animated Solomon. Courtesy of P. C. Hamerlink. TM & © DC Comics.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

you find every once in a while in this industry, who was easy to work with, always on time, and never blew his lines. He was a true professional and a very, very nice human being. Les also had the ability to seem fatherly and godlike in a way and that was why he was a good choice for Mentor.” Last to be cast was Jackson Bostwick, who had been sent out to audition by his commercial agent, Jack Wormser; due to this, Bostwick thought the role was a commercial for some kind of Captain Marvel cereal, and dressed casually for the audition. Despite this, with his height and physical background, Bostwick was a favorite of show producer Robert Chenault. The role of Captain Marvel had been read for by multiple hunks of the day, including the not-yet-a-star Mark Harmon. Scheimer said of Bostwick that “he looked good. I don’t think he’d done anything major on television really, and that was good for us because we didn’t want anybody that anybody could recognize.” The actors were signed for a fairly low wage. Gray recalls an amount around $300 per episode, with declining payments for up to five reruns of the shows. The show was budgeted at a paltry $60,000–$70,000 an episode. “They had budgets so low because the sponsors were paying so little for Saturday mornings,” says Gray.

Filming on Location

The 15 Shazam! episodes for Season One were shot quickly and cheaply near Sepulveda Basin and Paramount Ranch in Southern California, during June and July 1974. Scheimer noted, “We shot two Shazam! episodes a week, with a couple of days rehearsal time, and just barreled through them. Robert Chenault was our first producer, and he tried to have the locations at the end of one episode be in the same spot that the next episode would start; it wasn’t to give the show a bit of continuity, but instead to save on location fees.” Gray says, “We shot that summer, all on location. The only things we shot on a soundstage was Captain Marvel flying or me talking to the Elders. I think everything else was shot on location, all over the city. It was all Southern California, but we did some shows in Long Beach, San Pedro, Woodland Hills, Sun Valley, Hollywood Hills, Vasquez Rocks, Sand Canyon, Sun Valley… we were all over the place. Most of the stuff was shot during the summer and it was all so miserably hot. It was all these wide-open desert-like spaces.” Because Billy and Mentor had to travel in something, Scheimer made a deal with Dodge to get a 1973 Dodge Open Road motor home for the series. “I don’t

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

think we bought it at first,” said Scheimer, “but they got a credit.” Ironically for a superhero show that was supposed to include a character hiding their secret identity, Mentor’s motor home was emblazoned with a red square and yellow lightning bolt symbol on its front… basically screaming to the world that Captain Marvel had something to do with the vehicle! “One time, it was so hot that the windshield in the motor home cracked,” Gray recalls. “We were inside shooting a scene and Les and I were trying to get the point across to the producers how hot and uncomfortable it was out there. Les would ad-lib something in the middle of the scene. As we were supposedly driving and we’d be jumping and bobbing up and down and looking at the scenery, Les would say things like, ‘You know, Billy, it’s so hot in here my eyeballs are about ready to fall out of my head. I can hear them drying up and the powder falling out of my nose.’ It was miserable sometimes.” Although Tremayne recalled that he “sheared off the side lights one time,” Gray says that he caused far worse damage once. “One day, I tore the roof off. After lunch l was asked to drive the motor home back to the location. On the way back, there was a limb I didn’t see. I peeled the top back like a sardine can.” A Honda motorcycle factored into the series early on as well. Gray recalls, “I had a motorcycle the first year, and they took it away from me. The bike was supposedly hooked to the back of the motor home. During lunch I would take it and go off into the hills. Insurance wouldn’t cover it, so they took it away.” Tremayne recalled of the same bike that “Years ago, when I was 16, I was riding a Harley-Davidson and it went right through a brick wall and I went over the top of it. I never got into one of those things again (TOP) Michael Gray was until Shazam! They had to teach me how to start it Billy Batson. (MIDDLE) Les and everything. Then the damn thing fell over and Tremayne was Mr. Mentor. burned my leg, so they kind of weaned us away from (RIGHT) Jackson Bostwick the stunts.” stands tall as Captain Marvel. The vehicle was hot because the producers couldn’t install an air conditioner because it would be too noisy for the dialogue. Tremayne noted that with the lightning bolt,” said Scheimer. “The transformation was lines were never looped, while Gray says that “we had a guy on exciting and well rendered, and would inspire some of our later the floor between the seats in the motor home to hold the mic animated-hero transformations at Filmation.” That included Heunderneath us.” In some shots, the motor home was actually Man and She-Ra in popular mid-Eighties cartoons, who were also driven by Tremayne, but for any close-ups, Gray says that “they’d transformed by lightning. bounce it up and down. A big guy, named ‘Big’ John Carroll. 6' 9". 250 pounds. He’d take a big stick and move it.” Carroll was both Many of the shots of Billy saying “Shazam!” were done live, with some smoke coming in to make it look realistic. Gray recalls, a second grip on the series and one of the stuntmen… when he “In the first season, every time we did a transformation we used wasn’t singlehandedly jostling the enormous motor home. a gunpowder flash. There were a couple of times I came out The Transformation and Superpowers smoking, soot on my nose, my eyebrows smoldering. I’m sitting A stock shot was created of Billy Batson changing into Captain there, smoke coming out of my hair. ‘You used too much dynamite, Marvel via lightning strike for the opening credits. The I think, guys.’ ” Only a handful of episodes showcased Captain transformation sequence was done by Joe Westheimer’s people Marvel shouting “Shazam!” to return to the form of Billy Batson. at the Westheimer Company, for whom Filmation had done The Captain Marvel costume was a direct ringer for its comicmovie titles. “We did the stock material shots of Billy in front of book counterpart. “Everything that wasn’t a red leotard was made a blue screen—it wasn’t a green screen back then—and they of silk, and it cost about $750, including $250 for the yellow boots,” put together the matte and animated opticals of him changing said Scheimer. Billy, meanwhile, always wore the exact same RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

(LEFT) Storyboards for the Captain Marvel transformation sequence. (INSET) Billy transforms into Captain Marvel. Storyboards courtesy of P. C. Hamerlink. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics. of it. But the hero was still Captain Marvel, and he had the powers and the costume and the Elders, and even Billy had his costume and mentioned the radio station once or twice. Later, in DC’s Shazam! #26 (Nov.–Dec. 1976), the comic world’s Uncle Dudley grew a moustache and began wearing turtlenecks and safari jackets like Les Tremayne, and he and Billy embarked on a national tour for WHIZ in a motor home!” Gray remembers, “The only time they ever mentioned where he was from was in one or two episodes where he referred to his radio or television station. Billy was a reporter for WHIZ radio or TV. One time I was in the motor home with Mr. Mentor clothes. “Billy had ten changes, but they and we were arguing. He wanted to watch one were all the same,” says Gray. “Ten red-andthing and I wanted to watch something else. In yellow shirts, ten blue pants, and several the bantering, I finally said ‘My network will never pairs of sneakers.” understand why I’m watching a rival The flying sequences were done in a variety of ways. network.’ ” Sometimes the crew would have Captain Marvel hoisted Serendipity led to one other cool up on ropes or wires, and would shoot around the wires. nod to Captain Marvel’s history. One “Those scenes were done on a stage, with a background,” episode, “The Braggart,” was to be said Scheimer. “We also had him lying on a padded diving filmed at the Los Angeles Zoo. When board attached to the top of a camera car, and we shot him Art Nadel went to the zoo to set up stretched out and from an angle so you couldn’t see the filming, he met the Zoo’s PR person, board. There are some photos of us filming one of those Frank Coghlan, Jr.—the same man sequences on Ventura Boulevard that appeared in a TV who had played Billy Guide article about the show; our first big article in that popular magazine! Batson in the 1941 And the Captain would jump off ladders to land and use a springboard to Adventures of Captain take off. That’s why he did that little hop before he took off; he was hitting Marvel serial! When the springboard.” The producers were careful not to show him leaping Coghlan told him the off anything; “imitatable behavior” that might inspire kids to also leap off coincidence, Nadel had heights was frowns on be television Standards and Practices censors. him written into the “You’ll notice, too, that he never carried anybody or anything show as an actor! when flying unless it was a close-up,” said Scheimer. “The stunts were dictated by our budgets. The writers all knew what we could and couldn’t shoot, so they wrote for the budget. We never had the Earth crash and stuff like that. We did stuff that we could handle either on-set or with the use of Joe Westheimer doing opticals. We shot 35mm film, not 16mm, so it was easier to handle, and we got a better quality. They ended up on 16mm for prints, but the network got 35mm. It’s tough to do special effects on 16mm. You could do them, but it would look like dirt. “We did one stunt with Captain Marvel where he was drilling for water, and they hung Jackson Bostwick upside-down off a piano wire and a crane and then spun him around,” said Scheimer. “Other times he would lift up heavy things or wrestle an animal. Once, he was towed behind a boat to simulate swimming super-fast, and another time he was on the top of the motor home and grabbed the mouth of a tunnel wall to stop it. Another time he hung off of a helicopter runner; back in those days, some actors did their own stunts even if it seemed a bit foolhardy.” The Shazam! team worked as closely as possible with National Periodicals in order to keep the characters on track as much as they could. “Carmine Infantino worked as our advisor from National/ DC, and later Sol Harrison took over,” said Scheimer. “For a TV show, it just didn’t make sense to have all the stuff from the comics with the wizard and the radio station, so we just got rid of most 20

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

A Hero Goes Missing

The first season of Shazam! was a hit—it was the second-highestrated show with an 8.6 rating—and Filmation even discussed combining episodes into a feature film for theatrical release. A companion series was quickly planned, and in 1975, the series became The Shazam!/Isis Hour, and the second half-hour was filled with the adventures of a Filmation-created heroine named Isis. Her character was created by Marc Richards, and like Shazam!, the series was designed to appeal to pre-teens and teens. Richards created a show in which a high school chemistry teacher is on an archeology trip in Egypt when she discovers an amulet that endows her with the magical powers of Isis. Since this was a companion show for Shazam!, Filmation made a deal with National/DC and the network so that the characters could visit one another. Filmation kept the rights to The Secrets of Isis episodes and characters, while National and Warner kept the rights to the Shazam! episodes and characters. The writers, directors, and crew for Shazam! were repurposed for the new series. For the second season, the Shazam! cast was given slight raises, to about $400 to film two episodes per week. Tremayne recalled that “at that time, a lot of things were going animation, which was tough for a lot of actors. When Shazam! came along, it was a chance for actors to start working again, instead of being little voices! I must say, they fed us beautifully. I got fat on that show.” Seven new episodes for Shazam! Season Two were set to be shot between June 16 and July 21, 1975, with July 18 reserved for flying sequences in the studio, and later filming dates for an Isis crossover episode. Unfortunately, something worse than magical lightning was about to strike. Following filming on the third episode, “Debbie,” on July 30th, and with the start of the next filming on July 2nd, the Shazam! hit the fan. “That was the day that Jackson Bostwick—who was playing Captain Marvel—didn’t show up for work,” said Scheimer. “My memory is that we had some very heated conversations—and I don’t remember whether it was with his agent or the actor— about him wanting to double his salary, and so he called in sick with the cast and crew all out waiting for him. I said that if he didn’t show up, we’d get someone else to do it. My feeling was that Michael and his mentor, Les Tremayne, were really the stars of the show as far as the kind of warmth and feeling we wanted to get out of it. Normal call time was 6:00 a.m., but he got a deadline to show up by 1:00 p.m. that day, or else. Supposedly, he had a doctor call in and say he had hurt his eye, and that was why he couldn’t work, but in my recollection we never got that call, and that wasn’t the story we were getting from the agent.” Bostwick declined multiple requests to do an interview with RetroFan, but in a 1996 interview with P. C. Hamerlinck which appeared in the TwoMorrows book The Fawcett Companion said, “The studio producing the show, Filmation, erred in thinking I was holding out for more money and also taking the position that I was to be sent out only by them on personal appearances and not by my agent… I had, in fact, injured myself during a ‘take-off’ shot on the set one morning and was unable to show up for work the next day. I had injured my eye when the stunt boxes collapsed on me during a headfirst landing, resulting in a broken blood vessel under my eye. I went to the doctor the following morning as I had

a tremendous ‘mouse’ under my eye and obviously could not have appeared as Captain Marvel. I had the nurse call the studio to inform them of my whereabouts, but the receptionist at Filmation dropped the ball and this information was not relayed. My failure to show up on the set was apparently interpreted by Filmation as a holdout for more money.” Scheimer continued with his version of the story. “So, I called up Jerry Golod, who had taken over for Allen Ducovny as director of children’s programming at CBS, and told him what was happening. I told him that this was a big problem, and I wasn’t sure we could work with him anymore, and we sure couldn’t change the budget. Golod told me to fire Bostwick and hire somebody new, as we had threatened to do. Bostwick was a nice kid, but his agent or manager was really pulling some bad strings for him.” In a Filmfax interview with Dan Johnson (#112, Oct.–Dec. 2006), Bostwick seemed to concur that others in his circle were perhaps to blame for some of the bad blood. “I was already having problems with [Norm] Prescott and Lou Scheimer, the

Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel in flight.

executive producers of Shazam!, and I later found out that it had a lot to do with my lawyer at the time, but I didn’t know why there was so much pressure and I wasn’t aware of what was going on. I know my agent was able to send me out on personal appearances for a lot more money than Filmation wanted to. It was one of those very bad situations where, fortunately, the actor stays out of it.” Left in a bad spot while filming was halted on the fourth episode to be filmed, “Goodbye Packy,” Scheimer said, “We had a crew sitting there with cameras and audio equipment, and they could film other scenes that day, but I had to find a guy in the next couple of hours to film on July 2nd.”

A New Captain Marvel Arrives

With precious —and expensive time ticking away, and no Captain Marvel, Scheimer and his casting person, Meryl O’Loughlin, called an agent they knew named Ivan Green. “He represented a guy named John Davey, an ex-boxer-turned actor, who was the right RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

size and look to fit the costume,” said Scheimer. “The agent called breath, and said, ‘Jeez! You guys didn’t tell me I was going to do all Davey, and Davey apparently tried to call his wife to consult with this running!’ ” her, but couldn’t reach her, so he asked his eight-year-old son, Of seeing their new hero two hours after the frantic phone Tommy, what he thought of the idea. When his son exploded with calls, Scheimer said, “I think that Norm and I drove out to go look excitement, Davey called back and took the job.” at him in costume to make sure he looked right. He was a good Davey had a few credits to his name, but was originally a guy, and he looked great in the role, though he was a bit rougher Marine and a boxer. “When you’re any kind of athlete in Hollywood looking than Jackson. He had to lose a little bit of weight, too, you get Hollywood types inviting you to be an actor,” Davey says. because the costume didn’t really forgive a belly. But he got along “So I accepted the invitation and hung up the gloves. I’d done stunt with the cast and crew really well, and everybody liked him.” work for a couple of years, then I decided that wasn’t much better Tremayne really appreciated Davey’s friendlier attitude onthan boxing as far as self-preservation! So I started doing theater, set. “It was such a contrast because he was such a willing guy, acting workshops, and stuff, got an agent. Then Shazam! came ready to work with you. I’m sorry to say that we didn’t have that along. I was living in Culver City at the time. The phone rang and with Jackson. He was a nice guy, but you could not get close to it was my agent, Ivan Green. I’d heard of Captain Marvel but I had him. When he started hanging on the runners on the bottom of a not heard of the show. I was a little bit reluctant. Not that I was helicopter and going up a hundred feet and he wouldn’t let them Robert DeNiro, but it was still a little bit scary to think of doing this tape his hands to it… He was a nice guy. He was just not in the costume show. I said, ‘Ivan, let think about it.’ He said, ‘You can’t groove somewhere.” think about it. They’re waiting for you on the set!’ ” Davey admits that he wasn’t terribly keen on doing many of As with Scheimer, Davey credits his son for clinching the job. the dangerous stunts, unlike his predecessor. “They didn’t have “He was eight years old then, and he was excited about Captain that problem with me at all. In fact, they tried to get me to do Marvel! So I called back: I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ His eyes lit up. My son something similar—it was a crane they were going to carry me up. went home and told his mother, ‘My dad is Captain Marvel. The They were going to have me go up like, 20 feet. I said, ‘I was in the real Captain Marvel got fired!’ ” ring with Joe Frazier, so I’ve got nothing to prove!’ I’m not going Scheimer noted that, “I remember that, after I first spoke with to let them tape me onto something and dangle me out in the air the agent and gave him the deal and the address, I called him and have me fall off and get paralyzed so you can have the next back and said, ‘If he’s got a moustache, tell him to shave it before Captain Marvel in here the next day! So I hung onto the balloon he gets there.’ Wouldn’t you know it, Davey had a moustache.” and they lifted me about two feet. The camera guy just had to get Davey concurs, saying, “I had a moustache but had just shaved it down a little lower!” for the show, so I had a tan with a white splash! They had to cover In another episode, Davey was supposed to encounter a shark that. I get into costume, then I’m standing on a ladder with a pad while out in the ocean. “We did an episode in which there was a underneath. The guy says, ‘Jump shark in the water. This was right down from the ladder. What we are about the time that Jaws came out, trying to do is create the effect of you and I’d been deathly afraid of sharks. landing from a flight.’ Then, within One of the directors said, ‘We can’t three minutes I get these two guys use [stuntman John Carroll] on these; [Gray and Tremayne]!” we have to see your face.’ I said, ‘I’m Gray remembers meeting the not going in the water!’ There were new Captain Marvel on location in great white sightings out there, big Topanga Canyon well. “As Captain ones. I wasn’t going in that water Marvel, John had a new hairstyle, he with these yum-yum boots on. They’d had a pot belly, he had a little bit of tested colors on sharks, and the naval cauliflower ears from getting hit in pilots jokingly called these yellow his fighting days, and his nose was a life vests ‘yum-yum yellow.’ It was little smashed. He looked like Captain the same color as these damn boots! Marvel had hit a bus or something! Nobody realized how scared I was! ‘What happened to Captain Marvel?’ These monsters down there, and ‘Oh, he had a rough night.’ The first here I am, bobbing around like a red couple of hours John was on the set, fishing lure.” Carroll donned the suit, they wanted to get stock footage of and performed the stunt. him running. They strapped him to Davey also recalls that filming a slant board in front of the camera the studio insert shots of flying was car to look like he was flying. He was a bit uncomfortable. “They were a little bit out of shape, and his belly doing these flight sequences. They was hanging over the slant board. had me all cinched up, hanging on John Davey as the new Captain Marvel. About two in the afternoon, Les and I wires so that the harness was cutting were talking and John came in, out of in. My gut was… it was very funny 22

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

looking. It was in a studio, on a soundstage. They would leave me hanging there between shots while they set up the next shot. I was this big whale laying out there with these little wires, this little belt, this harness they put on me. Every once in a while I would have to say, ‘Time out! Let me out, let me down!’ I couldn’t wait until they got JoAnna Cameron [Isis] on, because they were going to put her on wires af ter they got through with me. The second year [third season], we did it with the blue-screen processing, which was a snap.”

hitting me with a stick!’ I said, ‘You tell Jimmy to quit hitting you with a stick, and you tell him Captain Marvel said so!’ A few minutes went by and he came beside me. I could see that he didn’t feel like talking. I said, ‘Hey, did you tell him?’ He said, ‘Yeah. I told him. He said to tell you to sit on it!’ ” One incident at a personal appearance, though, stuck with Tremayne for decades. “I had a very poignant thing happen to me that I will never forget. I was sitting at this table with my wife, Joanie, signing pictures to all those kids who are lined up. Fans Say the Darnedest And all of a sudden I looked up, Things and there’s this little black boy The Shazam!/Isis Hour debuted with the Afro haircut and the on September 6th, 1975, to biggest black eyes you ever saw stellar ratings. Amusingly, the in your life, and this innocent first episode aired was a Davey face. He just wasn’t sure if I was episode called “Double Trouble,” Mr. Mentor or not because I in which a crook masqueraded didn’t have the bush jacket on. as Captain Marvel! A Bostwick John Davey is strapped in and wired up to film flight Well, I got him the picture made episode aired the following out, and then tears welled up in sequences. week, followed by a trio of his eyes, and he couldn’t stand Davey episodes, then the final it anymore. I was Mr. Mentor two Bostwick shows to end the new season. Scheimer recalled no matter what I was dressed in. He came over and grabbed me that, “I don’t think we ever got a single letter about why Captain around the hips, and just hugged me for all it was worth. It broke Marvel suddenly looked different. It’s funny that fans tell me now me up. Kids love to have heroes, and we were heroes to them. that they knew there was a different guy—and they pick their It was an unusual show in that respect. Kids don’t have heroes favorites, even though Jackson did 17, and Davey did 14 counting anymore.” the Isis shows—but at the time we didn’t hear from anybody about Davey’s experience with a few young fans was decidedly the change.” different. “I did several personal appearances at auto shows and Davey recalls that on a few public appearances—in costume— things like that as Captain Marvel. I was very nervous for the first he did get some reactions, depending on what episodes had few shows, but gradually I had gotten to know how to handle just aired. “I ran into awkward situations where I’d make an myself around the kids. I didn’t have an act. The kids would just appearance on a Saturday afternoon, and that morning they had a line up. I’d sign pictures and shake their hands. I’d ask their names Shazam! on with Jackson. Little kids would say, ‘You’re not Captain and talk to them, just like Santa Claus would do at a shopping mall. Marvel! What the hell kind of deal is this?’ ” [laughs] In another I was up on the stage this one time. There was a little girl about incident, though, Davey got recognized by a surprising person. ten, and her brother, who was maybe six. He was kind of lurking “There was a larger audience of adults than we’d think. One time back there and looking at me funny. I’d gotten to know by then I was getting off a plane and this stewardess said, ‘You’re Captain that a lot of kids want to meet Captain Marvel, but they’re shy. So Marvel, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Do you watch the show?’ She said, I said, ‘Would you like a picture?,’ and the little girl said, ‘He don’t ‘Well, I don’t watch it, but the Captain mentioned it.’” want no picture. He don’t want to meet you.’ I asked her what was Tremayne recalled incidents with young fans on the set during wrong, and she said, ‘He thinks you’re nuts!’ ” filming. “On location I learned that all kids are sticky. They would Signing with teen heartthrob Michael Gray sometimes tested bring us tin can labels for autographs, or sandwich wrappings or the other actors’ patience. Davey says, “I did this one personal toilet paper—anything they could find that we could write our appearance with Mike. It was a screw-up because Mike and I were name on. And they were always touching you. They were always on the stage at the same time. Of course, Mike was having a great sticky. I guess kids always are.” Davey, in turn, tried to play hero time, making the people who came to see us have a great time, for real once, to mixed results. “We were shooting up at Thousand but really pissing the promoters off. We were trying to make light Oaks one time, and this kid says, ‘Captain Marvel, Jimmy keeps of the fact that the little kids were confused because both Billy RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

JoAnna Cameron as Isis, with John Davey and gueststars, in a crossover episode.

and Captain Marvel were there at the same time. There were a lot of teenybopper cuties that were really interested in Mike’s autograph. I was just counting them as they went by. Finally, I just said that they couldn’t have Billy Batson’s autograph until they got Captain Marvel’s!” Still ruling the ratings, The Shazam!/Isis Hour was renewed for another season in 1976 on CBS. Shazam! got six new segments for its third run, and two more crossovers into Isis episodes. The season debuted on September 11, 1976, four days after CBS had aired a primetime Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s the CBS Saturday Preview Special, hosted by Fat Albert. In the Preview storyline, Fat Albert and friends discovered an old TV set in the junkyard, and got it to work, with the help of Captain Marvel and Isis! The footage for their segment was newly produced, and never run anywhere else! Due to its popularity, Isis was moved to the first half-hour of the combined show, with previous forerunner Shazam! taking the secondary slot! Early Isis episodes included a two-part crossover with Shazam!, which also functioned as a backdoor pilot for a series Filmation wanted to sell, called “The SuperSleuths.” Concurrently with the TV debut, DC Comics licensed Isis from Filmation, to be a comic-book companion to Shazam! She first appeared in the issue #25 of Shazam! (Sept.–Oct. 1976), and then debuted in her own title, The Mighty Isis, the following month.

Not a Red Suit But a Lawsuit

In early November 1975, while the second season of Shazam! was still airing (with the three Bostwick episodes sprinkled among them), Filmation was hit with a lawsuit by their exCaptain Marvel. “Jackson Bostwick filed a $790,000 damage lawsuit against Filmation, TelePrompTer, and Norm Prescott for allegedly interfering with his right to earn a living,” said Scheimer. “Reportedly, we had notified his agent at ICM 24

RetroFan

Spring 2019

[International Creative Management], Mike North, that he could not appear as Captain Marvel in the Evansville, Indiana, Thanksgiving Day Parade, for which he would have gotten a reported $5,000 fee. I don’t remember all the details, but the newspaper clippings I have show that Bostwick and his lawyer, David Kornblum, actually argued that the character of Captain Marvel was in public domain, which was news to National/DC. Oddly, those same newspaper articles put the damage amount sought at $750,000, $790,000, or $1.25 million—and listed Bostwick’s episode count as 15, 17 (correct), and 26 shows—so I guess not everything in the press is correct!” In a 2008 interview with P. C. Hamerlinck which appeared in the TwoMorrows magazine BACK ISSUE (#30, Oct. 2008), Jackson Bostwick said that his agent North “could send me out on appearances for a fee plus a gross percentage of the gate, whereas Filmation wanted to send me out for a sizably less fee and a percentage of the net gate.” Bostwick also blamed Filmation (and not copyright holders National/DC) from producing a planned album of banjo playing called Captain Marvel Sings & Plays,” which was intended to have him in his television costume on the cover sleeve. On December 22nd, 1975, Bostwick failed to get a court injunction (or damages) against Filmation for the alleged harassment because they wouldn’t allow him to appear at public functions as Captain Marvel in the costume they had paid for. “In actuality it was reported in the press that we had threatened legal action against anyone hiring him as Captain Marvel, not against Bostwick himself, but the particulars are dim 35 years later,” Scheimer said. Although L.A. Superior Court Judge Norman Dowds didn’t throw out the whole $790,000 damage suit, he did rule that there was no pressing need for an injunction against Filmation. Scheimer didn’t recall—and Bostwick never mentions in interviews—that the lawsuit proceeded any further. “He did make some personal appearances in his Captain Marvel costume later,” said Scheimer, “including one on February 9th [1976] at the Wadsworth Hospital Center as part of a visit to hospitalized war veterans.” Bostwick also pursued his firing through channels with the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG); filing a complaint that sought an arbitration hearing for what he said was a breach of contract for his firing. The arbitration hearing finally occurred in early February 1976. Bostwick told P. C. Hamerlinck for The Fawcett Companion that, “Unbeknownst to Filmation, I had my own Super-8 camera on the set and I was recording some of my action sequences for college lectures. In fact, on the day of my injury, head cinematographer Bob Sparks was taking shots with my camera. Not only did he film me injuring myself (and in slow motion) but also, a follow up in a few minutes later when my eye was swelling. Filmation did not realize this had been filmed… so their argument that I was not injured sort of flew out the window when we screened the footage at my arbitration hearing. They had even gone so far as to have the nurse on the set change her account as to what happened. She was the one who gave me the icepack for my ‘mouse!’ The Screen Actors Guild arbitrated my case and I won. Filmation had to pay me for all the shows they

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

didn’t use me on plus residuals. This was a precedent-setting case for firing the star of a show.” “All he could seek from that was back pay for the remaining five episodes in his Shazam! contract,” Scheimer recalled. “SAG ruled that we were ‘unreasonable’ in our response to the firing and awarded him the pay for the five episodes [including the Isis crossover and residuals], which amounted to $3,657.” The story of the two legal battles between Filmation and Bostwick is often misrepresented in online and print sources as if they were one suit. Scheimer would say, “The sad part is that Jackson is still apparently so angry about the whole thing. He gives interviews and makes all sorts of nasty comments about Filmation and Norm and I. I’m sure a lot of them had to do with him being friends with Robert Chenault, who had tried to steal the business from us and been fired for it. But Jackson was not a bad guy. He had the right muscles, and he was a very handsome guy. I really blame what happened to him on his agent.”

The Camera is Rolling

Super rare art with Isis and Shazam! that used to hang in the Filmation offices of Lou Scheimer. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

With a small cast and smaller budget, Shazam! was bound to bring many of the principal players close together, and hijinks were bound to occur. “One time I ended up wearing Captain Marvel’s clothes,” says Gray. “We pulled up in the motor home at an airport He had no idea why people were honking at him and waving at out in the valley. The camera was set at a certain mark. All you him. He got back to the station, took his helmet off, and said, ‘I’m could see was my head through the passenger window. The going to kill him.’ ” next scene was a cut to me coming out the side door and yelling Tremayne remembered another time that he was infested ‘Shazam!’ Instead of standing up, I kind of walked on my knees to during filming. “Arthur Nadel was one of the producers and in the back door so they didn’t know what I was wearing. I opened charge of scripting. We were out on location, hot and dirty, and he the door… and all I was wearing was Captain Marvel’s cape, boots, said, ‘Les, in this scene, why don’t we discover you in the crotch of and underwear! When executives looked at the dailies, that sort of that tree.’ I went up the tree and we shot the scene and I started passed by quickly, and one looked at the other and said, ‘What was to itch. When we finished the scene, and I finally got down, I was he wearing in that last scene?’ ” covered in these little black ants! I’m telling you, it was worse than Gray and Tremayne recalled the time when Gray’s wild streak being attacked by a rattlesnake! Oh, did they bite!” got him handcuffed. “I got up at 4:30 in the morning so that I could It wasn’t only teenage girls who found Gray irresistible. “We be on the set at six and start working,” said Gray. “By 4:00 p.m. it did a scene one time with a supposedly tame bear,” Gray says. “I was 100 degrees heat, and I’d become wacky and giddy I had to sit was supposed to roll down a hill and there would be this bear. They down and start drinking cold had a loaf of bread on a string water.” Tremayne continued, to get the bear to go towards FAST FACTS saying, “Mike is programmed them. I was supposed to so that about four o’clock crawl out of camera range, Shazam! every afternoon, he goes and the bear was supposed to `` Titles: Shazam! (Season 1), The Shazam!/Isis Hour berserk! He really does. The go after the bread. Well, the (Seasons 2–3) crew finally got used to it. bear wanted to go after me. I `` No. of seasons: three They’d say, ‘Well, four o’clock, yelled ‘Shazam!’, but nothing `` No. of episodes: 28 (plus 3 crossovers with The Secrets let’s cut for maybe half an happened, so I crawled on top of Isis) hour ’til Mike cools down.’ ” of the motor home as fast as `` Original run: September 7, 1974–October 16, 1976 Gray then noted, “We had I could!” In another episode, `` Reruns: January 5–August 30, 1980 an off-duty L.A.P.D. who filmed at the L.A. Zoo, Gray `` Network: CBS `` Executive Producers: Lou Scheimer, Norm Prescott handcuffed me to the prop notes that, “We were shooting truck. I was too wild. To get outside the rhino exhibit and even, I took his white police this elephant was off to the PRIMARY CAST helmet and wrote ‘Gay Cop’ left. I remember leaning up Michael Gray: Billy Batson on the back of his helmet. He against the fence, and the Les Tremayne: Mentor didn’t know it. He rode the elephant had leaned over the Jackson Bostwick and John Davey: Captain Marvel freeway that night going back moat and put his trunk up to the station with the helmet. against the fence. I looked RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

(ABOVE) Lou Scheimer and Michael Gray were affectionately reunited at the 2012 Comic-Con International. (RIGHT) Michael Gray in front of the new Shazam! and Billy costumes at the 2018 Comic-Con International.

down these two hairy big, nostrils and the damn thing trumpeted in my face. My hair stood straight up. It smelled… the most godawful hideous odor I’ve ever smelled in my life.” The Shazam! crew caused a forest fire at one location. “We were filming an episode in which Wink Shapiro was supposed to shoot a gas flare to call for help, but he wasn’t really supposed to shoot the flare,” says Gray. “He loaded the flare gun and shot it. The flare went up, the wind caught it, and it blew on the hill and caused a forest fire. The government forestry department sent out a crew of prisoners to work, and they sent the bill to Filmation Studios! Thousands of dollars, helicopters, fire engines, and road guys to put out the fire. We had a fire marshal on the set every day after that. I remember that Wink grabbed a shovel and ran up the hill to put the fire out. The hill was really steep, and he got about 45 feet up and realized he couldn’t do it. He stopped, and the shovel went down straight into the ground with the handle sticking up. Wink started going down with his legs spread, and he got the shovel right between his legs! It was terrible.” Another time, Davey discovered that his new car got a bit dirty on-set, thanks to his co-stars. The vehicle “was a brand new, bright little sports car with the most beautiful finish on it,” said Tremayne. “The crew just started to get us loaded on the last day. They wanted to see how wild we’d get. Mike and I put a lot of dirt on the hood.” Davey continues, saying, “I came out of the dressing room, and there’s this beautiful little car with boulders on it, and sage brush and cactus sticking out of it. When l got closer I could see there hadn’t been any damage. It was done very carefully.”

Lightning Strikes Again

The Shazam!/Isis Hour stayed on the air until the fall of 1977. Shazam! was rerun as a solo series again in 1980, and was syndicated 26

RetroFan

Spring 2019

worldwide. The Secrets of Isis: The Complete Series was released on DVD on July 24, 2007 by BCI Eclipse (with special features by this author), while the Shazam! The Complete Live-Action Series DVD set was released by Warner Archives on October 23, 2012. Captain Marvel would appear twice more on television. In January 1979, HannaBarbera produced two hour-long liveaction specials for NBC, under the overall title of Legends of the Superheroes. The live-action shows—which featured many members of the Justice League, except Superman and Wonder Woman—were more comedic than adventurous. Captain Marvel appeared in both, played by Garrett Craig, while Howard Morris played his cackling adversary, Dr. Sivana. Filmation returned to their animated Shazam! concept for an NBC series called Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! The series debuted in September 1981, and 12 half-hour segments of Shazam! were part of a package that included live-action and animated adventures of the super-students of Hero High. This second Shazam! series hewed very closely to the comic-book plots, featuring not only Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel, Jr., Uncle Dudley, and Tawky Tawny, but also veteran comics villains such as Dr. Sivana, Mr. Mind, Black Adam, and Ibac. The character designs looked like C. C. Beck drawings, and both Beck and comic editor/writer E. Nelson Bridwell made animated cameos in one episode! The show unfortunately only lasted a single season, but was, until a few years ago, the only Shazam! available for home viewing; the cartoons were released on VHS videotapes and laserdiscs in the Eighties. Captain Marvel seemed to disappear from media interpretation outside the printed page for decades. In late 2002, though, New Line Cinema announced a Shazam! film project was in development with producer Michael Uslan. Oscar-winning writer William Goldman was selected in early 2003 as the screenwriter, but he was later replaced by Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, Bryan Goluboff, and John August. Director Peter Segal was attached to direct, with wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson planned to appear as the villainous Black Adam. In August 2009, Bill Birch and comic author Geoff Johns became the latest screenplay writers to tackle the Shazam! film. Meanwhile, a rumored animated Shazam! series in 2003 never happened, but Captain Marvel did finally reappear in animated form for an episode of Justice League Unlimited in 2005. He would later appear in seven episodes of Batman–The Brave and the Bold in 2010–2013, episodes of Young Justice in 2011-2013, animated shorts for Cartoon Network’s DC Nation in 2014, and episodes of Justice League Action in 2016. He also showed up in multiple direct-to-DVD Warner projects from 2008–2015, and made a cameo appearance in 2018’s Teen Titans Go! to the Movies.

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

In January 2018, a live-action feature film of Shazam! finally began production in Ontario, Canada. Henry Gayden wrote the screenplay, from an earlier draft by Darren Lenke, with David F. Sandberg directing. Zachary Levi was cast in the title role, with Asher Angel playing Billy Batson, Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard, and Mark Strong as the villainous Dr. Sivana (Johnson’s Black Adam is planned to star in his own later film). Shazam! is scheduled to be released on April 5, 2019, shortly after this article appears. Unfortunately, although multiple attempts were made to reach out to the producers and director of the Shazam! movie, none of the surviving Shazam! television stars—Gray, Bostwick, or Davey—were asked to make a cameo appearance in the film. “Because I was so involved with the show, and it meant so much to me and means so much to me now, I think it would have been great to have been a part of it,” Gray says wistfully. “It really would have been.”

Traveling the Highways and Byways

After Shazam! left the air, all of its stars found it difficult to find work. Gray relates that he “interviewed to play a psychopathic killer for a very popular primetime series. And I gave a reading that was chilling. Everybody sort of sat there at the end of their chairs staring at me, and the executive producers said, ‘Well, Michael, you did a good job, but we can’t cast you in this because you’re too identifiable from that Saturday morning kids show.’ ” Davey went on to do episodic television for a while, but eventually moved away from Hollywood. Tremayne transitioned to mostly doing voiceovers for animation, and radio serial revivals, until his death in December 2003. Bostwick appeared in a handful of projects, including the 1982 Tron film, but also mostly disappeared from Hollywood’s radar. Over 40 years after appearing on Shazam!, Davey is rarely recognized on the street, but Gray is recognized a bit more often. “I was walking down the street with this lady friend of mine,” he relates. “All of a sudden this guy turns around and screams, ‘Shazam!’ Scared the Hell out of me.” Gray and Davey appeared at a Hollywood celebrity autograph convention in Los Angeles in 2017, alongside Brian Cutler from Isis. Gray notes that the show was a change from the car shows and personal appearances of the Seventies. “The car shows are totally different, obviously; they had maybe eight [stars] there, at the most. Everybody that was there had something currently on the air, whether it was Welcome Back, Kotter or Bionic Woman. Conventions and stuff [now] allow people who don’t work much any more; so it was a different crowd.” Gray twice appeared at San Diego Comic-Con. “Once with Warner Bros. when they announced the DVD release, and I did it this past summer, because of Surge of Power with Vince [Roth] to promote the movie. All my fans on my fan pages are constantly requesting, ‘Come to my city, come to my city.’ Well, easy enough said, but you gotta have promoters invite you, basically. It is a

different ballgame. I enjoy it. I love meeting the fans. If it wasn’t for the fans, I wouldn’t be where I am, or where I was, I should say.” With the DVD release of Shazam!, both Davey and Gray found a resurgence of fans. “Most are middle-aged,” says Davey, “and some have related to me that they are passing on the magic that they felt back in their early youth to their kids and encouraging their kids to watch the DVD whenever they get the chance. It’s pretty nice to hear that they are still holding Shazam! in their hearts and wanting to pass that on to their kids.” Gray concurs, saying, “Everyone I’ve talked to or communicated with, they are in their early to mid-50s. They all loved the show; they watched it, and are now getting their kids to watch it. They bought the DVD for that purpose, because of the moral values of it.” Gray recalls that at the 2018 Comic-Con, he was amused to meet a small boy dressed as a familiar hero. “A little tiny Captain Marvel… He was so cute. Because of watching the show with his parents on the DVD, when he found out I was there, he wanted to meet me.” Amusingly, when this author took him over to the DC booth to pose for a photo with mannequins dressed in the Shazam! movie suit and Billy Batson costume, Gray was unrecognized by any DC Comics staffers, though some fans who jostled each other nearby did know exactly what magic they were witnessing. As for the endless online debates for those who compare his work as Captain Marvel to Bostwick’s, Davey jokes that, “I’ve had the slings and arrows, the burn of being on the second team of the Shazam! show, but I just take it with a grain of salt. A lot of people say they like me better, and a lot of people say they like Jackson better. I’m always grateful for the ones that preferred me and just a little resentful about the ones who preferred him. [laughs] I don’t really appreciate their sense of taste, you know!” Gray, meanwhile, was singled out by a producer as his favorite Billy Batson on TV. “I was the only Billy Batson on TV,” he says with a smile. Trying to get back into the acting business, Gray has appeared on a few TV shows in the last few years. On Archer, he appeared as a character named “TV’s Michael’s Gray,” in 2015 and upcoming, in that series’ final season. Gray explains that, “Adam Reed, executive producer of the show, was a Shazam! fan. He asked if I would do some episodes. We remained friendly and he asked me to do another one. I’m now recognized—it’s really weird— as ‘TV’s Michael Gray.’ ” The superfans on AMC’s Comic Book Men

Michael Gray and Andy Mangels recreate a Billy and Mentor pose (INSET) at the 2012 Comic-Con International.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ANDY MANGELS' RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

SHAZAM! REUNION Michael Gray and John Davey will reunite to greet fans at Denver Pop Culture Con from May 31–June 2, 2019 in Denver. While there, they will be part of a Shazam! tribute panel, moderated by this article’s author, Andy Mangels!

Reunited for a group interview in 1991, Les Tremayne, John Davey, and Michael Gray are all smiles. (INSET) The first poster for 2019’s Shazam! feature film.

Gray is reflective and thankful as he looks at the series’ legacy. “I didn’t appreciate then how good of a show it was until I look back at it now. Over the last 15 or 20 years, I realized how good the show was, the quality was, and what the show meant to a lot of people. I’ve talked to a lot of people over the years. They came from abusive families; they were beaten or abused, parents were drunk, and Shazam! made them get through a terrible, terrible life and they ended up good people because of it. People tell me that and I hear it all the time. That makes me feel really good. I am very appreciative of the fans to begin with. If it wasn’t for the fans, the show wouldn’t have been successful. That’s one reason I want to do the personal appearances, is to see the fans and thank them. They’ve told me from the few personal appearances I’ve done, that they don’t usually have actors thank them for showing up.” With that sentiment relayed, Michael Gray and John Davey are startled to find the rounddomed brazier lighting up on the dashboard of a nearby motor home. It’s the Elders calling, and our heroes of yesterday are needed!

brought Gray in for a 2018 episode, regaling him with questions about his role, and wearing matching red sweatshirts with yellow collars to homage his Billy Batson. Another fan of Shazam!, filmmaker Vincent J. Roth, cast Gray in his superhero film Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel, as newscaster “Will E. Bee,” who wears a red shirt and yellow tie. The Billy Batson analogue reappears in a few episodes of the online series Surge of Power: The Big City Chronicles, and in the third Surge film, Surge of Power: Surge of Dawn, due out in 2019. Davey jokes that today, he is retired, but “I could be lured back down to Holly-weird and show TM & © DC Comics/ Warner Bros. up on a set if anybody shows any real interest, but I’m not really pursuing that.” He does want fans to know that he’s Unless otherwise credited, the quotes from Lou Scheimer been working on a novel for a few years, and expects it to be listed are from the autobiography he wrote with Andy Mangels, for Lou on Amazon sometime in 2019. “I hate the term ‘coming of age,’ but Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. Mangels interviewed it’s kind of a coming of age story and set in the background of the Michael Gray for Amazing Heroes #194 (Sept. 1991), and Gray, Les professional boxing world.” Tremayne, and John Davey for Amazing Heroes #203 (July 1992), while Prior to his death in 2013, producer Lou Scheimer said, “The Gray and Davey were reinterviewed for this article in November 2018 fans tell me that Shazam! is one of their favorite of the Filmation [transcription for the latter by Rose Rummel-Eury]. Artwork and photos shows, and I’m glad that memories of it still survive, but, boy, was are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels and P. C. Hamerlinck. it a tough show to get going.” The late Les Tremayne noted, “I had a wonderful time on it. I enjoyed the producers, Norm [Prescott] ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today and Lou and [Art] Nadel. I loved the crew. No matter where we bestselling author and co-author of 20 went they made it as pleasant for us as they could. And as I said books, including the TwoMorrows book before, the producers fed us beautifully!” Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Looking back on Shazam!, Davey says that, “When I started Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Shazam! I thought, ‘This is something I’m going to have to overcome.’ Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the It turns out there wasn’t anything to overcome. It’s something I Armor, and a lot of comic books. He recently can point to with extreme pride today. Personally, I was very proud wrote the bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic having been a part of that, especially with what’s on television Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics. Additionally, he has now. We had a moral lesson every week without preaching. I was scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. He is now working on a book about very proud of it. I have had people come up and relate to me about the stage productions of Stephen King and a second book about how much the show meant and how the show affected their lives Filmation. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com in a good way. Pretty empowering, I guess you could say. It is very and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com gratifying that the show meant so much to people.” 28

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

The Definitive Guide of Seventies Merchandise by P.C. Hamerlinck

SHAZAM! After nearly a 20-year absence from public conscience, the original Captain Marvel returned to a new world just ten days shy of Christmas Day, 1972. DC Comics actively acclimated the World’s Mightiest Mortal into Seventies pop culture with his own comic book (drawn by Cap’s co-creator, artist C. C. Beck)… a Saturday morning live-action television series… and an abundance of licensed products that brought a beloved character that had long ago outsold Superman into prominence once again. Almost two decades before all that transpired, a settlement had finally been reached with the prolonged National Comics (DC Comics) v. Fawcett Publications copyright infringement litigation, on August 14, 1953. The agreement stated that Fawcett discontinue publication of all “Captain Marvel” and related comic magazines and cease all commercial activity associated therewith. It specifically stated that Captain Marvel Adventures #150 and Marvel Family #89 were to be the two last issues published by Fawcett. With no admission of guilt that Captain Marvel had imitated Superman in any way, the ’53 agreement mandated that Fawcett was permanently prohibited from producing anything involving Captain Marvel without DC’s consent… until DC itself brought Cap back in the Seventies! (As explained in this issue’s editorial, the usage of the Captain Marvel name was never on the table, as Marvel had snapped up the rights to it during the Sixties.) However, prior to purchasing the rights to Captain Marvel and family outright in 1991, DC Comics had made an agreement

with Fawcett back on June 16, 1972, where DC would pay a royalty to Cap’s former publisher for each usage of the Captain and related characters in all media, according to the late DC associate editor, E. Nelson Bridwell. It joyously set the stage for copious amounts of Shazam! commodities to be produced during those initial years of Cap’s return.

Books

Books and related items published in the Seventies with Captain Marvel’s participation were integral in heightening the public’s awareness of the World’s Mightiest Mortal by introducing (or reacquainting) the character to the general public beyond the comic-book spin racks and television screens and into malls, bookstores, and local libraries. These tomes helped to quickly establish Captain Marvel, after years lost in superhero limbo, as an important inclusion to DC’s enduring pantheon of heroes. Captain Marvel’s 1940 debut tale reprinted in Harmony Books’ 1976 Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes trade paperback furthered the cause to assimilate the hero with the rest of the DC gang. Edited by E. Nelson Bridwell, the book was made available in both hardback and softcover editions. For many readers it was their first exposure to the original Captain Marvel. Even more impactful was the Bridwell-edited Shazam! From the 40s to the 70s (Harmony Books, 1977), a hardcover compilation of some of the greatest Marvel Family tales from the Fawcett era to the new stories by DC. Most importantly, it firmly situated

(TOP) Detail from official DC merchandising art circa 1975. (INSET) Shazam! From the 40s to the 70s could be an eye-opening introduction or welcome reunion. TM & © DC Comics.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

Captain Marvel on bookshelves right beside similar hardback anthologies of the day for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Besides presenting Captain Marvel with DC’s big guns, another notable aspect of Warner Books’ 1976 and 1977 editions of the Super DC Calendar was Neal Adams’ skillful interpretation of Captain Marvel and Billy Batson (inset), where the artist successfully retained the pragmatic purity of the characters while imbuing his own dynamic, realistic rendering to them. It was the work of magic and, unsurprisingly, the image (drawn in 1975) lent itself well to future merchandising endeavors. The Captain and family were also represented in the 1978 DC Super Heroes Poster Book published by Harmony Books. Between 1974 and 1975, in those pre-DC Archives days, Alan Light’s Dyna-Pubs issued two thick softcover collections of blackand-white reprints from the Golden Age of Comics in his Special Edition Series vol. 1 (Captain Marvel) and vol. 3 (Captain Marvel, Jr.). Two widely distributed items were Whitman’s Shazam! coloring book entitled “Double Trouble” - Giant Comics To Color from 1975 with artwork by Teny Henson and featuring a story co-starring Dr. Sivana and his daughter, Beautia; and the 1977 Little Golden Book: Shazam! A Circus Adventure starring Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel. The latter’s story was written by Bob Ottum and marvelously illustrated by longtime Marvel Family artist Kurt Schaffenberger. The artist’s work radiated on this project, particularly on the double-page layouts. When I met with Schaffenberger I asked him about the book. He merely chuckled and said, “Well, they misspelled my name [as] SchaffenBURGER!”

Figures

The pinnacle of all Shazam! Seventies collectibles is undoubtedly the 8-inch Shazam! action figure from Mego’s highly regarded “World’s Greatest Super-Heroes” line; no respectable Shazam! 30

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Shazam! in print. TM & © DC Comics. display is complete without it. The boxed Shazam! figure first appeared in stores on July 31, 1974, and continued being sold on assorted carded packaging designs up until 1977. The World’s Mightiest Mortal’s head resulted from Mego reusing the sculpt mold of Peter Parker (you know, the amazing Spider-Man) from their previous Montgomery Ward-exclusive “Secret Identity” series and modifying the paint job on it to give our hero a more-pointed, widow’s-peak hairline that he’s known for, as well as blue eyes. The happy accident that resulted from it is that, much more so than the comic-book version, the figure actually ended up resembling TV’s first Captain Marvel, Jackson Bostwick, from the Saturday morning CBS Shazam! series which debuted just five weeks after the release of the Mego Shazam! figure. As with many of the other action figures in this particular line, their presentations were not always entirely accurate when compared to their counterparts from the comics. For example, in Cap’s case, the sometimes-vinyl, sometimes-nylon cape wasn’t even the right color (yellow instead of white)… and Cap’s familiar cuffed boots were now wider and longer, utilized from an preexisting mold. Yet, when all was said and done, none of it mattered because the look Mego had established still flowed together nicely. The company’s mostly minimal, cost-effective alterations didn’t make their high-quality products any less endearing to those of us who bought them when they first appeared in stores… or to the future generations of collectors where the figures continue to withstand the test of time. Previously, Mego had released the rubbery Shazam! Bend ’n Flex 5-inch figure in 1973. It had an amusing, rushed-looking paint job to it and, well, you remember the drill: the more you bend and flexed the arms and legs, its interior wires eventually gave way and all the fun you were having with it came to a screeching halt. It was then handed down to your pet dog as a chew toy.

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

Far less memorable and awe-inspiring was the Shazam! Mego Comic Action Hero, part of a short-lived line introduced in 1975. The 3 3/4-inch, all-plastic and peculiarly posed figure was astonishingly shoddy in all aspects of its appearance, and kids apparently grew bored with it in no time. And what can I tell you about the Shazam! Superbaby Doll? It was a baby doll in a Captain Marvel outfit. The little fella had wavy blond hair and a defiant look on his face. The thing creeped me out. Who cares if it would make the collection incomplete? I got it out of the house ASAP! A more heartwarming item was the Captain Marvel Christmas Ornament Figurine produced in 1979 by David Grossman Designs Incorporated of St. Louis and made for a perfect stocking stuffer. The 3½-inch figure itself was nicely done, but the most interesting aspect about this item is that on the flip side of its box the character is boldly referred to as CAPTAIN MARVEL, with no mention anywhere of the non-infringement word SHAZAM—an absolute rarity for any Seventies-and-beyond item. There were several figure-related products manufactured overseas—some licensed, and some more dubious in nature. I decided to spotlight the exceptionally eccentric and wonderfully weird of these from foreign lands that somehow found their way into the U. S. of A. The Gulliver company from Brazil produced a hard-rubber Captain Marvel figurine on a standing base in 1979. Their 3-inch tall Captain had no cape whatsoever and had an ominous face that had more in common with the Frankenstein monster than that of the amiable Big Red Cheese. (Incidentally, Captain Marvel’s popularity in Brazil actually outmatched his status in America. The character stayed in print and in product there well beyond the years after Fawcett had ceased publishing him in the U.S.) The next item had two variants, and both originated from Hong Kong in the early Sevenites. The first was a Captain Marvel Cake Topper, a “decorative” 2¼-inch, hard-plastic figurine that you stuck on top of a birthday cake candle. Because why would you

Shazam! action figures in inaction. TM & © DC Comics. want to light the candle, right? The second version was marketed as a Captain Marvel Pencil Topper that was slightly smaller (2 inches) and made of rubber. It was not an eraser, as some of us learned when putting it to the test. What both of these items had in common was that they were sorrowfully ugly little novelties that only increased their appeal and fascination to collectors who found significance in something long neglected and forgotten. (I’ve run across other Asian Captain Marvel items—like a card set from Malaysia and a single trading card from Japan where Cap is referred to as Superman!— but they were produced in the Sixties while the character was still officially in a quiescent state back home.) Last, and certainly not least, is the magnificently awesome Ceramic Revolving Musical Shazam! Figurine! “A Price Import” from Japan, the 7-inch figurine of Captain Marvel bears a bit of a resemblance to the King of Rock ’n’ Roll (and Captain Marvel, Jr. fan), Mr. Elvis Presley. Some versions of this product had its revolving base double as a night light. So, what 1970 song plays while Captain Marvel rotates in a circle? “Jesus Christ Superstar,” of course!

Back to School

Between 1974 and 1975, numerous Shazam! school supplies let your fellow classmates know who you thought was the coolest superhero out there. From Prudential Paper’s Pen-Tab imprint— and with a design employing a commonly used C. C. Beck Captain Marvel figure, accompanied by a multi-colored lightning bolt serving as the backdrop—students put to use their Shazam! Notebook, a matching small-sized Shazam! Notepad, a matching Shazam! Folder to tuck away their homework assignments, as well as matching Shazam! Book Covers by Alco of Miami Springs, Florida, to protect their hardback textbooks. A DC Super-Heroes Ruler that included the Captain was also produced. Years later, a RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

4-inch-tall Shazam! Mini-Notepad was produced in Taiwan for very succinct note taking. And where did students keep all their pencils, erasers, crayons, and Elmer’s Glue? In Shazam! Pencil Cases, of course! Also released in 1974, the soft-vinyl case with zipper was available in two colors—green and blue—and featured a Beckillustrated Captain Marvel in a flying pose from the Golden Age. The following year a second pencil case was manufactured in Taiwan—but, unlike its predecessor, it was a clip-closed, hardvinyl case that was long and narrow with a hip layout depicting a skirmish between Cap and Dr. Sivana drawn by an unknown Taiwanese artist. Later on, in 1978, Alco released a chic but curiously designed Shazam! Pencil Sharpener with a bust of Captain Marvel holding a blue lightning bolt. Maybe Cap was clutching a spare for his pal, Zeus.

Clothing

During the Seventies, discerning Captain Marvel enthusiasts had a wide selection of stylish Shazam! wear to choose from. There were several Shazam! T-shirts and sweatshirts—the most popular one being the 1974 white T-shirt adorned with the familiar Beck-drawn heroic pose of Captain Marvel, with the addition of a dynamically tilted, red-white-and blue Shazam! logo positioned right in front of him. The other major shirts produced included the striking aforementioned 1976 Neal Adams illustration of Billy Batson transforming into the good captain… and, in that same year, the Sportswear by Sears imprint manufactured a Shazam! long-sleeve shirt with an oddly redrawn variant of DC’s Shazam! #18 comicbook cover. The official 1979 San Diego Comic Con T-Shirt, sporting a classic image of Captain Marvel, was available to the event’s attendees for a mere $6.00. 32

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Shazam! goes to school. A pair of sneakers shows off Shazam!’s powers and inspirations including Achilles (a bit ironic for footwear). (INSET) Official 1979 San Diego Comic-Con T-shirt. Coneheads headpiece optional. TM & © DC Comics.

Around the same time, a Shazam! Iron-On (with Schaffenberger art) appeared, allowing you to make your own shirt, with Mom’s help, of course. And a 5 x 2-inch Shazam! SewOn Cloth Patch produced in 1975 by Best Company claimed on its package that the patch was “The New Fashion Rage”! There were a few button choices that you could pin to your shirt or jacket: the “Shazam! is Coming” Button was based on DC Comics’ 1972 C. C. Beck-drawn house ad announcing the arrival of the Big Red Cheese to the line of DC superstars. A Shazam! Blue Button with Beck artwork was released in 1973. (Another button, with a self-caricature of Beck from the 1975 Famous Cartoonists Series, deserves an honorable mention.) Shazam! belt buckles were available to waisttightening Cap consumers in 1975. The first type, based on Beck art, had two versions: full color and brass. The second type, based on Schaffenberger art, only came in brass. And yes, there were Shazam! Underoos available in clothing departments in 1978, but by then I had moved on to Fruit of the Looms. The Shazam! Kid Sneakers from 1976 was an impressivelooking item. The beautifully designed shoebox they were packaged in—declaring that inside held “The World’s Mightiest Sneakers!”—would’ve been worth the price alone! The sneakers were equally appealing, listing Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achillies, Mercury, and their accompanying attributes at the base of the shoe. The shoe’s yellow shoelaces could’ve been swapped out with official Shazam! Shoelaces, sold separately. And the

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

ensemble wouldn’t have been complete without your Shazam! Tube Socks, available from Sears in 1975.I had purchased the Shazam! Halloween costume by Ben Cooper (the beloved brand with the inaccurate but cool costumes and masks you could barely see—or breathe—out of, which was explored in RetroFan #2) when it appeared on store shelves in the Seventies, even though my trick-or-treatin’ days were already behind me. I figured I would just hang on to it in case I ever had a son one day who wanted to wear it. And do you know what? That’s exactly what happened! (See photo!) At the end of the day, you could hop into your comfortable yellow Shazam! Pajamas—made from 1974–1976 by the Put On Shop—and go to sleep with DC Comics Bedding (with matching bedroom window curtains) that showcased covers of landmark Golden Age comic books, including Whiz Comics #2, which featured the debut of Captain Marvel.

Toys

The Shazam! View-Master® reels from 1975 by GAF brought us “The Return of Black Adam” and included a 16-page booklet. The 21 stereoscope pictures on the three reels were imperfectly redrawn from the renown Golden Age comic-book story in Marvel Family #1—yet it did not lessen the thrill of gazing into the VM viewer and seeing the tale unfold in its threedimensional glory. But I had wondered back then why didn’t VM release a set of reels of scenes from the Shazam! CBS television series, as they had done with their Isis set the following year? I later learned that VM had fully intended to produce a set of the top-rated Saturday morning TV show, but on the day that the VM photographers showed up on the Shazam! set with their special 35mm stereo cameras, at least one cast member, refusing to be photographed for merchandise featuring his likeness and not being compensated for it, made himself scarce (perhaps waiting it out inside the show’s Open Road motorhome) until the VM folks

A patriotically colored t-shirt joins Shazam!-themed toys. (INSET) The author’s son models a Ben Cooper Shazam! halloween costume . TM & © DC Comics. gave up and left the set. The Shazam! VM reels were later condensed from three to two reels and repackaged with other DC superheroes as part of GAF’s The Good Guys Gift Pak from 1976. There was no Shazam! Hot Wheels, but there was a Shazam! Corgi Car manufactured in Great Britain in 1979 by the Mettoy Co. Ltd., North Hampton, United Kingdom, and distributed throughout the United States. The sporty auto had a slick design and a tiny figure of Captain Marvel behind the wheel. It’s highly doubtful that the toy was inspired by the lightning-powered “Shazamobile” that appeared in the Shazam! #33 comic book the previous year, but it made for a delightful coincidence. It wasn’t just by car that Captain Marvel got around in. Tyco produced a Shazam! Model Train Boxcar in 1977 that could be attached to their other existing railway car sets. You could practice drawing Captain Marvel on Whitman’s flip-erase Shazam! Magic Slate, with its cardboard frame graced with original Kurt Schaffenberger artwork. Pre-schoolers were able to hone their cognitive abilities with the wooden 18-piece Shazam! Playskool Frame Tray Puzzle from 1976. The puzzle’s image was a derivative of the Neal Adams BillyCap transformation art piece. The 1977 Shazam! Color-a-Deck game by Russell Manufacturing Company of Leicester, Massachusetts, came with color pencils and a deck of cards depicting Billy, Cap, Uncle Marvel, Dr. Sivana, Aunt Minerva, et al.—even one card with the Shazam! Open Road RV. Tired of playing indoors? String up the Shazam! Kite—with enlarged Schaffenberger artwork—and watch Captain Marvel fly right above you. RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

Practical Things

I suppose nothing in this article is what most people would consider essential to daily living, but I needed a category to place the following items that had actually been put to good use by many Shazam! fans back in the day. The 1977 Shazam! Wall Mirror came in handy for combing your hair. Or if you needed a friend: with Captain Marvel on its right side, the 8 x 10-inch mirror had the words “Shazam’s Buddy” emblazoned over the top part of it. Who better than Captain Marvel to endorse safety on our roads. The Shazam! Bike Reflector protected young cyclists riding to their destinations. Guaranteed to make your Shazam collection “grow,” the Shazam! Super Plants Ceramic Planter/Flower Pot was three inches in height and made in Japan by Mar-Lyn. It featured the Shazam! logo and a Schaffenberger-drawn Captain Marvel, with his word balloon shouting out “Super Plants!” And here I thought Cap’s catchphrase was “Holy Moley!” Thousands of kids (and adults) could enjoy sugary convenience-store beverages more than ever when consumed in 5-inch plastic cups featuring their favorite Shazam! characters. The 1973 DC Comics 7-Eleven Slurpee Cups set included “Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Boy” (Captain Marvel, Jr.—drawn by Dave Cockrum), “Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Girl!” (Mary Marvel, with Golden Age art by Marc Swayze), “The World’s Mightiest Mortal” (Captain Marvel, of course), and Mr. Tawny, marking a rare licensed product with the talking tiger. The latter two consisted of artwork by Beck. “Have a Pepsi Day!” was the slogan for the popular soft drink in the mid-Seventies. During that era, the company issued the Pepsi Super Series Drinking Glasses which, between 1975–1976, had two types of glasses featuring Captain Marvel—one, with the oftenused heroic pose by Beck, and the other from 1978 with a flying pose drawn by an unknown artist. Further capitalizing on the popularity of superheroes, Pepsi later produced a double-sided, easy-to-clean laminated Shazam! 34

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Shazam! receptacles and stamps. TM & © DC Comics. Placemat in 1978. One side featured beautifully re-colored 1973 Captain Marvel/Billy Batson artwork by C. C. Beck; the flip side showcased a Sunday page-styled strip called “The Shazam! Story”—a retelling of Captain Marvel’s origin done specifically for Pepsi and drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger. A set consisting of a red plastic Shazam! Bowl, Mug, and Stein hit the stores in 1974. They all had similar designs, tying in comicbook elements, but each was unique in its own way, and looked sharp on the kitchen table. I personally drank my fair share of Tang out of the plastic mug. There were two different types of Shazam! Bibs produced for the messy baby: one small, and one large. An oval, 13-inch Super Heroes Metal Trash Can, featuring a collage of DC’s best—including Captain Marvel—arrived in 1974. We used to shoot our Nerf Balls into it. And, for bath night, you could clean up with your very own 1977 Shazam! Sponge Figure and dry yourself off with the big and colorful Shazam! Beach Towel while standing on your Shazam! Bath Mat! The mat, made of compressible spongy material, had redrawn Schaffenberger art based on the cover of the Shazam! #22 comic book that featured club-swinging villain King Kull.

Fun Stuff

Unquestionably, one of the finest Shazam items created during this era was the 22 x 35-inch Shazam! Thought Factory Poster from 1977. The remarkable painting of Captain Marvel (by an unknown artist) made the hero look larger than life. The amalgamation of realism and cartooning was stunning and effective, balanced with anchor art below the main piece that showed the wizard Shazam, Billy, and Cap in their time-honored forms. I had the poster taped to my bedroom door. For me, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the poster was the time I shared a picture of it with C. C. Beck, who was often critical of other artist’s efforts on the character. What was

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

Captain Marvel’s co-creator’s reaction to it? “Beautiful work!” An earlier Shazam! Poster from 1974 reproduced Bob Oksner’s cover of Cap and Billy from the tabloid-sized comic released that same year, Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-27. The weird thing about it is that Oksner signed the piece “C. C. Beck.” The artwork was a new rendition of Beck’s old Whiz Comics #22 cover. Oksner did tell me that he felt he was “impinging” on Beck’s work. And while that doesn’t necessarily explain why he signed it the way he did,it’s still, and always will be, a spectacular drawing. There were two more wall furnishings: a Whiz Comics #2 Wall Plaque with its iconic image laminated on particle board for Studio One’s “Classic American Cover Series” produced in 1974… and a Captain Marvel Club Lithograph—a silk-screened, limited edition mini-poster that enlarged the Forties Captain Marvel Club button. Another high point of Shazam! collectibles from the Seventies was the exceptional Shazam! Stamp Set that was designated to be affixed inside the Official DC Super Hero Stamp Album from 1976. The stamp packet featured 11 different, full-color stamps of iconic Shazam! imagery from both the Golden and Bronze Ages, and a single “Gold Commemorative” stamp. A separate Super-Villains Stamp Set included Captain Marvel foe Dr. Sivana. (Later, that same year, Pepsi offered a replica edition of the Shazam! Stamp Set.) There were other fun Shazam! activities to keep kids occupied. You could create your own action scenes with Letraset’s Shazam! Rub-Ons from 1977. And you could make your own poster art with the Shazam! Sand Coloring Kit. The “sand” was actually different colored felt powders that were sprinkled onto specified adhesive areas. In 1976, Lakeside Toys of Minneapolis, Minnesota, manufactured the Super Heroes Light-Up Drawing Desk, where you could trace all of your favorite DC heroes, including Captain Marvel. A Shazam! Plastic Magnet made its way onto refrigerators across the country, and an Adams-drawn Captain Marvel was included in Our Way Studios’ DC Super-Hero Stand-Ups in 1977 (mini cardboard figures), and Cap was part of the Superhero Puffy Stickers set from 1979.

A Shazam! poster even C.C. Beck liked, a promotional button, a record, and a snippet of a movie serial. TM & © DC Comics.

Power Records’ Shazam! “The Mighty Dr. Illusion,” a 7-inch record from 1977, was a rollicking adventure for kids to listen to. The record sleeve was done by Neal Adams’ Continuity Studio, and the voice work of Billy, Captain Marvel, and Dr. Illusion (a.k.a. Dr. Sivana) were all carried out successfully. There was only one awkward moment in Cap’s characterization when he flippantly told Sivana, “You can bet your bippy!” (a play on a saying that had often been used on the NBC-TV series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In). United Arista released three Captain Marvel Super 8 Film Reels during the Seventies: Return of Captain Marvel, The Death Ship, and Curse of the Scorpion. The 8-minute condensations contained footage of three different chapters from Republic Pictures’ 1941 move serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, allowing many fans to experience glimpses of the classic chapter play for the very first time, myself included. My parents saw how captivated I was with the films. They paused and looked at each other, and then I remember my dad saying to my mom, “It’s not going to stop here, is it?” Will Warner Bros.’/New Line Cinema’s Shazam! movie summon the next surge of Shazam! goods—a grand, diverse assemblage unseen since the plentiful superhero product-producing glory days of the Sevenites? The Wisdom of Solomon tells us the time is right again. And all it’ll take is one magic word. Captain Marvel historian P.C. HAMERLINCK is the editor of FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), appearing in the pages of TwoMorrows Publishing’s Alter Ego magazine.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RetroFan's

Too Much TV

Quiz

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 of the TV extended family members in Column One corresponds to a program in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan

Spring 2019

1) Cousin Oliver 2) Uncle Joe Carson 3) Aunt Esther Anderson 4) Cousin Cathy Lane 5) Uncle Philip Long 6) Cousin Itt 7) Aunt Bee Taylor 8) Uncle Arthur 9) Aunt Harriet Cooper 10) Uncle Bill Davis

The Addams Family and Petticoat Junction © Filmways TV Productions. The Andy Griffith Show © Mayberry Enterprises, Inc. Batman © DC Comics/ Warner Bros. Television/Greenway Productions. Bewitched © Sony Pictures Television. The Brady Bunch and Webster © Paramount Television. Family Affair © Don Fedderson Productions/Family Affair Company. The Patty Duke Show © United Artists Television. Sanford and Son © Tandem Productions. All rights reserved.

RetroFan Ratings 10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know theme song lyrics too! 7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan Dy-no-mite! You wasted your childhood with the rest of us! 4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned RetroFan Up your nose with a rubber hose ’til you spend more tube time! 0–3 correct: Tuned-Out RetroFan Ya big dummy! Put down that book and go watch some classic TV! ANSWERS: 1–F, 2–J, 3–A, 4–D, 5–H, 6–B, 7–G, 8–I, 9–C, 10–E.

A) Sanford and Son B) The Addams Family C) Batman D) The Patty Duke Show E) Family Affair F) The Brady Bunch G) The Andy Griffith Show H) Webster I) Bewitched J) Petticoat Junction

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Getting into

The Spirit by Dan Johnson

I discovered Will Eisner’s The Spirit in 1985. I had just started frequenting my local comicbook shop that year and the two guys who worked there, Jim Amash and John Hitchcock, helped turn me on to Eisner’s work (as well as EC Comics and the terrific artists behind those books, but that is another story for another time). For the record, Eisner’s The Spirit first saw print in 1940 as a comic-book insert that was distributed in Sunday editions of major metropolitan newspapers. As soon as I got into the character, I was hooked. I enjoyed Eisner’s O. Henry-style stories, creative page layouts, and his luscious artwork. And then there were his even more luscious women. For a teenage kid who loved comic books, finding Eisner was a major awakening. For the first time, I knew just how powerful comic books could be as a storytelling medium. As soon as I got into The Spirit, I started hearing rumors that there was a television movie in the works. I thought that was amazing. Then I heard Sam Jones, the star of Flash Gordon, was going to star as Denny Colt, a.k.a. the Spirit, and I knew I had to see this. Sadly, while the film was touted in magazines like Starlog, it never showed up on the television schedule, and trust me, I looked at the entire television schedule of 1986 hoping to see that it would be airing soon. As it turned out, the movie was an intended pilot for a television series for ABC which would have aired during the 1986– 1987 season had it been picked up. Sadly, it wasn’t, and the Spirit pilot might have become a shelved project, forgotten to time like so many other failed pilots. But fandom stepped in, and, thanks to the efforts of other folks eager to see it, a petition to broadcast The Spirit made the rounds at the San Diego Comic-Con. It was signed by convention attendees as well as a number of comic38

RetroFan

Spring 2019

(LEFT) The telefilm starring one-time “Savior of the Universe” Sam Jones as Will Eisner’s seminal masked man is available via Warner Bros.’ Archive Collection. © Warner Bros. The Spirit © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

book industry pros. With so much support, ABC-TV relented and decided to put the movie on the air. Fast-forward to Friday, July 31, 1987. Finally! After all the waiting and hoping, The Spirit was scheduled to air as a movie of the week. I remember we had a huge thunderstorm that came through the night it premiered and the picture would flicker in and out a few times (this is before my family had cable and my television set had long lost its rabbit ears and “graduated” to an old clothes hanger). But, by gosh, I got to see Eisner’s crimebuster in action! And it was great. The pilot was a fun, family-friendly story that set up the Spirit’s origin and established a number of major characters from the comics. Just recently, I got to talk to the star of The Spirit, Sam J. Jones, and he shared some memories of working on this movie, beginning with the story of how he landed the part to begin with. “It was an audition, if I remember correctly,” recalls Jones. “I had a lot of fun doing [that pilot]. [I wasn’t that familiar with the character,] but I studied it and researched it. And, of course, Will Eisner came on the set and he pretty much endorsed it. He was a nice man.” The movie had an impressive crew behind it. The script was written by Steven E. de Souza, whose credits before The Spirit included scripts for television’s The Six Million Dollar Man and V and the film 48 Hours. After The Spirit, de Souza went on to write such blockbusters as Die Hard and Sylvester Stallone’s version of Judge Dredd. The director of the film, Michael Schultz, had previously directed such classics as Car Wash, Greased Lightning, and, a personal favorite of mine, The Last Dragon. In recent years, Schultz

has directed such CW superhero shows as Arrow (including the episode “The Scientist,” that served as the setup for Grant Gustin’s Flash series) and Black Lightning. “Michael was a good guy, absolutely,” says Jones. “I haven’t seen him since we made The Spirit, but he is good and deserves all the success he has achieved since that time.” Besides Jones, the movie also featured Nana Visitor—who was a few years away from gaining fame as Major Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—as Ellen Doyle. Like Jones, Visitor was perfectly cast and played Ellen with a tough, no-nonsense style. “She was a great lady,” recalls Jones. “I had a lot of fun with her and the whole cast. I haven’t seen anyone [since we shot the movie] except for Nana. Seth McFarlane brought her in for Ted 2. He had a big table reading and that was the first time I saw her in many, many years.” One of Eisner’s greatest femme fatales also showed up in this movie, P’Gell, played by Laura Robinson. “She was good and wicked, wasn’t she?” says Jones. “So good.” Bumper Robinson was cast as Eubie, a replacement for the character of Ebony, the Spirit’s African-American sidekick that dated back to 1940; Ebony’s original portrayal was deemed culturally offensive by the Eighties, and his creator, Will Eisner, regretted fomenting that stereotype. Robinson has gone on to voice several superheroes himself, including the Falcon for Marvel and Cyborg for DC, in various projects. Jones admits he hasn’t kept up with the career of his young co-star, but he expressed pride that he has gone on to become an in-demand adult actor. “I haven’t followed his career because I have five kids and getting ready to have my fifth grandchild,” says Jones as he reveals how downto-Earth he really is and how Hollywood, or his past as an actor, aren’t what drives him these days. “Crazy enough, my work these past 41 years, I haven’t even seen half of it. I either take

(ABOVE) The legendary Will Eisner (1917–2005) at the 2004 San Diego Comic-Con, his last Comic-Con appearance, and an example of his tabloid comic book, The Spirit. (RIGHT) As seen on TV: Sam Jones and the Spirit and Nana Visitor as Ellen Dolan. Eisner photo by Patty Mooney, Crystal Pyramid Productions, San Diego, CA. The Spirit © Will Eisner Studios, Inc. © Warner Bros.

Sam J. Jones today, on the convention trail. The Flash Gordon display behind him features the artwork of Alex Ross. Courtesy of Sam J. Jones. Flash Gordon TM & © King Features Syndicate. my daughter to dance or my sons to whatever their sport is. I just decided I was going to take my children to their events. It’s good to hear that Bumper has gone from being a child star and progressed forward into being an in-demand adult actor. I need to check up on him.” The Spirit movie never did lead to the proposed television series. Pity that, as I think it would have made a great Friday or Saturday night television show, perfect for the family hour. It could have found an audience with kids and adults alike. Even though it has been 30 years since it aired, The Spirit still has a huge fan following. The film proved so popular, Warner Bros. even added it to its Archive Collection, which allows fans to own rare and hard-to-find cult favorites on DVD. Plus, there are other fans that still remember it. “[That movie still comes up] at times,” says Jones. “Most times fans want to talk about Flash Gordon, but The Spirit is brought up quite a bit. I think that would be number three [on the list of my work fans love to discuss] after Flash Gordon and The Highwayman.” And even though it has been over 30 years for Jones since he made the TV pilot, the Spirit is still a favorite character of his too. “I just enjoyed working for Michael and the whole crew and to be part of an iconic character was an honor,” says Jones. “I’ve done some iconic characters with Flash Gordon, the Highwayman, and the Spirit. I just feel honored to be representing that character.” DAN JOHNSON is a comics writer whose work can be found in Cemetery Plots from Empire Comics Lab (empirecomicslab.com). His other notable comics work includes Herc and Thor for Antarctic Press and several books for Campfire Graphic Novels. He is also a gag writer for the Dennis the Menace comic strip. RetroFan

Spring 2019

COMICS MAGAZINES FROM TWOMORROWS BACK ISSUE

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, including Pro2Pro interviews (between two top creators), “Greatest Stories Never Told”, retrospective articles, and more. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

BACK ISSUE #113

ALTER EGO

ALTER EGO, the greatest ‘zine of the ‘60s, is all-new, focusing on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art. Each issue includes an FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) section, Mr. Monster & more. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

ALTER EGO #160

COMIC BOOK CREATOR

COMIC BOOK CREATOR is the new voice of the comics medium, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics, focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. Edited by JON B. COOKE.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #19

DRAW!

DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation. Each issue features in-depth interviews and step-by-step demonstrations from top comics professionals. Some issues contain figure-drawing instruction nudity; Mature Readers Only. Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

DRAW #36

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby and his contemporaries, feature articles, and rare & unseen Kirby artwork, showcased in dynamic full-color! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

KIRBY COLLECTOR #75

REMEMBERING STEVE DITKO! Sturdy Steve at Marvel, DC, Warren, Charlton, and elsewhere! A rare late-1960s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL— biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO— tributes by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, PAUL LEVITZ, BERNIE BUBNIS, BARRY PEARL, ROY THOMAS, et al. Plus FCA, JOHN BROOME, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Spider-Man cover by DITKO!

Celebrating the greatest fantasy artist of all time, FRANK FRAZETTA! From THUN’DA and EC COMICS to CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, STEVE RINGGENBERG and CBC’s editor present an historical retrospective, including insights by current creators and associates, and memories of the man himself. PLUS: Frazetta-inspired artists JOE JUSKO, and TOM GRINDBERG, who contributes our Death Dealer cover painting!

MIKE HAWTHORNE (Deadpool, Infinity Countdown) interview, YANICK PAQUETTE (Wonder Woman: Earth One, Batman Inc., Swamp Thing) how-to demo, JERRY ORDWAY’s “Ord-Way” of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY! May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; for Mature Readers Only.

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! The creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and TV interviews, painting a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed. Includes a study of their solo careers after 1970, and recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, & JOHN ROMITA SR.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships June 2019

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Ships August 2019

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Spring 2019

(160-page trade paperback) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95 • Now shipping!

2019 RATES

BATMAN MOVIE 30th ANNIVERSARY! Producer MICHAEL USLAN and screenwriter SAM HAMM interviewed, a chat with BILLY DEE WILLIAMS (who was almost Two-Face), plus DENNY O’NEIL and JERRY ORDWAY’s Batman movie adaptation, MINDY NEWELL’s Catwoman, GRANT MORRISON and DAVE McKEAN’s Arkham Asylum, MAX ALLAN COLLINS’ Batman newspaper strip, and JOEY CAVALIERI & JOE STATON’s Huntress!

SUBSCRIPTIONS ECONOMY US Alter Ego (Six 100-page issues) $67 Back Issue (Eight 80-page issues) $82 BrickJournal (Six 80-page issues) $62 Comic Book Creator (Four 100-page issues) $45 Jack Kirby Collector (Four 100-page issues) $48 RetroFan (Four 80-page issues) $41

EXPEDITED US $79 $95 $74 $55 $58 $48

PREMIUM US $86 $104 $81 $59 $62 $52

INTERNATIONAL $101 $128 $96 $67 $70 $65

DIGITAL ONLY $30 $32 $24 $20 $20 $16

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®

BRICKJOURNAL magazine spotlights all aspects of the LEGO® Community! It showcases events, people, and models every issue, with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Available in FULL-COLOR print and digital editions.

BRICKJOURNAL #56

LIFE-SIZE LEGO and what it takes to build it (besides a ton of LEGO brick)! HELEN SHAM’s sculptures of giant everyday items, MAGNUS LAUGHLO’s GI Joe®-inspired models, military builds by ERIC ONG, plus “Bricks In The Middle” comic by KEVIN HINKLE, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifig Customization by JARED K. BURKS, & more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping!

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE CATALOG OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINES: http://bit.ly/TwoCatalog OR CALL OR WRITE, AND WE'LL MAIL YOU A FREE PRINTED COPY!

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

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: http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/twomorrows

RETRO TELEVISION

Thunderbirds Are Still Go! by Bill Spangler Back in the late Sixites, there was fab, and there was F.A.B. “Fab” was short for fabulous, a common piece of counterculture slang. F.A.B. was slang, too, but it was used by a very different group: the cast of Thunderbirds, an unusual sciencefiction TV show that is still attracting fans more than 50 years after its debut. Thunderbirds, a creation of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (who were, at the time, married), originated in Great Britain. One of the things that made it unusual was that it was produced with a combination of elaborate sets and sophisticated marionettes, a process the Andersons dubbed “Supermarionation.” According to a behind-the-scenes featurette made at the time, the average Supermarionation puppet was roughly one-third lifesize. The head of each puppet contained switches that enabled

the mouth movements to be synchronized with pre-recorded dialogue. The Andersons produced Supermarionation series both before and after Thunderbirds. Some of them—most notably Supercar, Fireball XL-5, and Stingray—received exposure here in America. However, Thunderbirds was probably the most popular of the shows; many consider it the best. It inspired toys, movies, and a

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s enduring Supermarionation sci-fi classic Thunderbirds made its television debut in 1965, followed in 1966 by this theatrical movie, Thunderbirds Are Go. © ITV Studios Limited. Movie poster courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TELEVISION

International Rescue was created and run by retired astronaut Jeff Tracy, who used his family fortune to build the Thunderbirds and a secret base for them on a South Pacific island. The Thunderbirds themselves were created by Tracy’s scientist, a man known only as “Brains.” By the time the show begins, Jeff is a widower, but he has five adult sons who operate the various ships. Scott is the pilot of Thunderbird 1, Virgil commands Thunderbird 2, Alan pilots Thunderbird 3, Gordon is in charge of Thunderbird 4, and John is the primary resident of Thunderbird 5 (although the other Tracys also do take shifts there). Despite what that line-up suggests, International Rescue was not entirely a family business. Two other major characters were Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, and her chauffeur Parker, a reformed safecracker (well… almost reformed). They usually handled security-related issues. Parker took Lady Penelope around in F.A.B. 1, a pink, six-wheeled Rolls Royce, loaded with gadgets and weapons, that became as iconic as the Thunderbirds themselves. Other residents of Tracy Island who appeared regularly were Kyrano, Jeff Tracy’s major domo; his daughter Tin-Tin; and Grandma Tracy, who was apparently Jeff’s mother. Some of the disasters that International Rescue faced were Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet Supermarionation relatively mundane, like cave-ins. Others were more exotic, like puppets by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, on exhibition at rescuing a manned space probe from falling into the sun. Often, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, these missions were complicated by the presence of the Hood, an Evil Oriental Mastermind who wanted to steal the organization’s West Yorkshire, England. Chemical Engineer/Wikimedia Commons. secret technology. Sometimes, the Hood seemed to be working on his own; other times, he was working for some foreign power. It seems that even Evil Masterminds have bills to pay. well-received revival that started in 2015 and as of this writing has If this sounds like a lot for a TV show, that’s because it is. But completed its third season. Moreover, elements of the original the people who made Thunderbirds made it work. show have become part of the British pop-culture vocabulary. One of the attractions of all the Supermarionation shows was Why did this show have such an impact? Glad you asked… simply to see how elaborate the puppets, vehicles, and sets could get. Thunderbirds took this element to new levels, with distinctive Welcome to Tracy Island and detailed vehicles and sets. In addition, the launching bays for Thunderbirds chronicled the adventures of International Rescue, a Thunderbirds 1, 2, and 3 contained ornate, almost Rube Goldbergprivate organization that used advanced vehicles and technology style ways of transporting each pilot to his ship. to… well, rescue people. (Gerry Anderson, who died in 2012, said he The model work for this show, and was inspired by a high-tech mine rescue in Europe.) The original show was set in 2065 A.D., which, when other Supermarionation projects, were it premiered, put it a full 100 years in the future. supervised by Derek Meddings. He told an The title characters were, in fact, the primary interviewer that he liked to keep track of vehicles that International Rescue used. Thunderbird small details, like making sure that a model 1 was a high-speed jet that was usually the first boat was leaving a wake in the water. on the scene of a disaster. Thunderbird 2 was a Viewers knew when a scene was wrong, he huge cargo plane that could carry any one of a said, even when they couldn’t recognize what was bothering them immediately. number of pods containing specialized equipment. Here’s another example of the sort of Thunderbird 3 was a spaceship. Thunderbird 4 was details that Meddings and the others kept a small submersible that was usually brought to track of: video phones were common in the danger zone in one of Thunderbird 2’s pods. this world, but there were still times that Thunderbird 5 was an orbiting space station the plot demanded that an anonymous call monitoring the world’s communications, looking be made. When that happened, the same for possible trouble. graphic, with the same notation, SOUND A manned drilling machine that could burrow 1996 promotional photo of ONLY SELECTED, would appear. beneath the surface was used more than once, Gerry Anderson. Photo © David The Thunderbirds crew also made sure but, for some reason, it never reached Thunderbird Finchett, 1996. status. vehicles that were used regularly looked 42

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TELEVISION

like they were used regularly, with some dirt and some rough edges, an approach that was later popularized with the original Star Wars. Meddings went on to do special effects work for two James Bond films, Moonraker and Goldeneye, and the first Superman film starring Christopher Reeve. It should probably be noted that, in this case, “elaborate” and “distinctive” are not interchangeable with “realistic.” There were certain, basic limitations with using puppets that were never really overcome. Director David Lane, who worked regularly with the Andersons, said once, “As soon as you got into moving them, you got into trouble.” Mary Turner, one of the lead puppeteers, said, “We never could get the walk to look convincing.” This—well, let’s call it “stylized”—look was easy to parody, and it was parodied. One relatively recent, well-known parody is the 2004 movie Team America: World Police. Still, Thunderbirds did things with characterization that had never been seen in a Supermarionation series before. These differences start with the cast’s names. Previous Supermarionation heroes had names like Steve Zodiac and Troy Tempest. The names of the Tracy family sounded like they might actually belong to real people. The fact that the Tracy boys were named after five of the Mercury astronauts was not only plausible—Dad was a former astronaut, after all—it tied into the public interest in the space race, which was, at that time, very high.

(INSET) A British collection of Thunderbirds comics. (BELOW) A fab F.A.B. original art page by the incomparable Frank Bellamy, featuring Brains, Scott, Virgil, and Thunderbird 2. Originally published in 1967’s TV Century 21 #146. © ITV Studios Limited. Courtesy of Bill Spangler and Heritage, respectively.

Double Your Pleasure

Other parts of the character work stemmed from a last-minute change in format. The Andersons’ shows were distributed by ITV, which was led at time by Lew Grade. Thunderbirds, like the previous shows, was scheduled to be a half-hour long. However, when Grade saw the first episode, he decided that the show should be an hour long. That meant that the Andersons had to add new footage to ten episodes that they thought were completed. Many of these new scenes consisted of these characters bantering with each other, not unlike the closing scenes of the original Star Trek. In the process, we learned things like Virgil

played the piano and that many of the characters smoked. Of course, public attitudes toward smoking have changed radically since then, but, at the time, it was an extra detail that connected the characters to the real world. It was also an example of the crew’s dedication to adding little touches. You could actually tell which characters were smoking cigarettes and which ones were smoking cigars. You could also see the smoke occasionally. Three characters that may have stood out before the extra scenes were added were Brains, Lady Penelope, and Parker. RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TELEVISION

Scott Tracy’s looking a bit like a young Ronald Reagan on this original painting by the Jason Comic Art Studio that was produced for a 1968 Whitman coloring book. © ITV Studios Limited. focused on them, with the Tracys taking a back seat. David Graham, who provided the voice for both Parker and Brains, said once that Parker thought that “he was the hub of the entire operation.” Veteran actor Shane Rimmer contributed the voice for Scott Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 1. One credit most American audiences will recognize is that, in the original Star Wars, he’s the technician on Yavin Four who asks Luke if he wants a new droid. About Thunderbirds, Rimmer said, “Visually the characters were a little offkilter. They weren’t a polished image. They had slight weaknesses; they made mistakes sometimes and they could get surprised.”

Beyond the Original Series

Brains was given a stutter, which sounds like a cliché on one level. However, no one in International Rescue made fun of the stutter, and Brains’ competency was never called into question. Lady Penelope arrived in America approximately the same time as Emma Peel, the co-star of another cult-favorite show from Britain, The Avengers. She never exuded the same sort of sexuality as Mrs. Peel, but they always seemed like two facets of the same phenomenon: an increased interest in presenting women in action shows that are competent and independent, not just decorations for the hero. Sylvia Anderson provided the voice for Penny, and supervised the general look of the character, as well as designing all the major cast members in Thunderbirds. In a 1991 interview, she said her goal was to give Penelope “not only the daring and panache of a secret agent, but also the poise of cool and beautiful aristocrat.” Penny’s posh nature played off so well against Parker and his sketchy background that several episodes of the original show 44

RetroFan

Spring 2019

The original release of the show was supported by a successful line of toys and merchandising. There were four novelizations, three featuring the original team and one focusing on Lady Penelope. The books were credited to John Theydon, a pen name for British pulpsmith John W. Jennison, according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. A Thunderbirds comic strip had a healthy run in the weekly TV21 comic, with art by one of Great Britain’s most respected fantasy artists, Frank Bellamy. (Interestingly, a Lady Penelope solo strip—promising “Elegance Charm and Deadly Danger”—had an even longer run. It started in TV21 before the Thunderbirds strip and continued after its departure.) Despite its apparent success, Thunderbirds’ initial run was relatively short: a 26-episode first season and a six-episode second season. Many histories of the show say the second season was cut short when Lew Grade was unable, or unwilling, to make a deal with an American TV network to help finance the series. In any case, the Andersons and their crew moved on with two attempts to bring International Rescue to the movies. Both Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968) have significant story problems. In the first movie, the Tracys are protecting the Zero-X, the first manned spaceship to Mars. The script attempts to acknowledge how long a trip to Mars would realistically take, and limits International Rescue’s involvement to Zero-X’s launch and its return. As a result, there are subplots that prove to be dead ends. The Hood tries to sabotage the Mars

RETRO TELEVISION

rocket’s launch, but this doesn’t lead to a major confrontation. On Mars, the crew of the Zero-X have to battle snake-like creatures, but that doesn’t go anywhere either. In addition, there’s another tangent based around a real-world British singer named Cliff Richards (although, in this movie, he’s referred to as Cliff Richards, Jr., since the original probably wouldn’t be around in the mid-21st Century.) In Thunderbird 6, Penny, Parker, Alan, and Tin-Tin are invited on the maiden voyage of a flying cruise ship, Skyship One. Apparently, they are the only the guests. The cruise is well underway before they discover that the crew members have been replaced by terrorists. The idea of a flying cruise ship is clever, but the story never seems to generate any real momentum. The terrorists are working for someone called the Black Phantom, but there’s no background given on this character. Still, despite these setbacks, the legacy of Thunderbirds lived on. Originally, the exotic Thunderbird vehicles may have struck a chord because they reminded viewers of the spacecraft being introduced in the real world. However, they also bore a similarity to the exotic mecha being introduced in Japanese anime. To pick one example, the assembly of the Zero-X at the beginning of Thunderbirds Are Go resembles the assembly of multi-unit robots like Voltron. The relationship between Supermarionation and anime becomes even clearer when you look at a series from the early Eighties called Science Rescue Team Technoboyager. This show was clearly influenced by Thunderbirds, with high-tech vehicles performing high-risk rescues. This link was strengthened when the show was translated into English and renamed Thunderbirds 2086. In this version, International Rescue has gone public and is now part of the world government. There isn’t a Tracy in sight, but there are still Thunderbirds—lots of them. Thunderbirds 1 through 6 are roughly similar to the original vehicles, the drilling machine is now Thunderbird 5, and the space station has been rechristened Thunderbird 6. However, International Rescue’s assets now go all the way up to Thunderbird 17. The capabilities of the newer vehicles are never clearly established, but Thunderbird 9 is shown to be a human-shaped exo-skeleton. The soundtrack for Thunderbirds 2086 borrows heavily from the scores of the original Thunderbirds, and other Anderson shows. In addition to responding to disasters, the new team fights an Evil Alien Mastermind called General Starcrusher, and his

FAST FACTS Thunderbirds `` No. of seasons: two `` No. of episodes: 32 `` Original run: September 30, 1965–December 25, 1966 `` Cast (voice actors): Peter Dyneley, Sylvia Anderson, Shane Rimmer, David Graham `` Network: ATV Thunderbirds Are Go `` Release date: July 1966 `` Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes `` Cast (voice actors): Peter Dyneley, Sylvia Anderson, Shane Rimmer, David Graham `` Director: David Lane `` Writers: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Thunderbird 6 `` Release date: November 20, 1968 `` Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes `` Cast (voice actors): Peter Dyneley, Sylvia Anderson, Shane Rimmer, David Graham `` Director: David Lane `` Writers: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Thunderbirds 2086 `` No. of seasons: one `` No. of episodes: 22 `` Original run: April 17, 1982–September 11, 1982 `` Writers: Owen Lock and Robert Mandell `` Network: Fuji TV Turbocharged Thunderbirds `` No. of seasons: one `` No. of episodes: 13 `` Original run: December 18, 1994–December 3, 1995 `` Cast (live action): Johna Stewart-Bowden, Travis Wester `` Cast (voice actors): Tim Curry; Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; Malachi Throne `` Network: UPN Thunderbirds `` Release date: July 23, 2004 (U.K.), July 30, 2004 (U.S.) `` Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes `` Cast: Brady Corbet, Vanessa Hudgens, Soren Fulton, Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley, Sofia Myles, Ron Cook `` Directed by: Jonathan Frakes `` Screenplay by: William Osborne, Michael McCullers Thunderbirds Are Go `` No. of seasons: three (to date) `` No. of episodes: 61 (to date) `` Original run: April 4, 2015–present `` Cast (voice actors): Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Rasmus Hardaker, Rosamund Pike, David Graham `` Network: ITV, CITV

(INSET) Poster for Thunderbird 6. © ITV Studios Limited. Courtesy of Heritage.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TELEVISION

(LEFT) In the late Eighties, Titan Books reprinted the original Thunderbirds novelizations by John Theydon. (BELOW) Detail of the inside lid of a Thunderbirds toy set from the mid-Nineties. In-joke alert: The writer of the Gordon Tracy bio is trying to make a connection with another Anderson show, Stingray, although the organization is actually called the World Aquanaut Security Patrol, not Service Patrol. © ITV Studios Limited.

minions, a secret society called the Shadow Axis. This show also features the first woman to fly a Thunderbird. Kallan James is the pilot for Thunderbird 4, which is still a submersible. The English scripts are surprisingly witty, peppered with in-jokes and references to other shows. Most of the English scripts are credited to Owen Lock and Robert Mandell. Another link between Japan and Thunderbirds was formed in 2012, when a Thunderbirds-themed café opened in Tokyo. The establishment features props and models from the series, with episodes running continuously on video screens. Is the food any good? Probably few people who go are going for the food.

Thunderbirds Forever

The original Thunderbirds was shown on BBC in 1991, sparking a new wave of toys and merchandising. A Tracy Island playset was supposedly the impossible-to-get toy that Christmas. References to the show started to appear in unusual places. In 1994, Lady Penelope made a cameo appearance on the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Still voiced by Sylvia Anderson (who died in 2016), Lady P. is part of a drug-induced hallucination that Edina (Jennifer Saunders) has before an operation. An interesting bit of trivia is that the script, also by Saunders, does not refer to Lady P. 46

RetroFan

Spring 2019

by name, or set up the joke in any other way. Saunders seems to assume that the audience will recognize Penelope. In 1995, there’s an elaborate pastiche of a Thunderbirds launch sequence in a Wallace and Gromit short, “A Close Shave.” It includes trees swinging back, as they did on Tracy Island whenever Thunderbird 2 launched. Unfortunately, the news was not all good during this period. In 1994, there was Turbocharged Thunderbirds. This was a half-hour show that grafted model work from the original series with liveaction, allegedly comedic scenes. The scenes were set on board Thunderbird 5, now inexplicably named Hacker Command. The live-action performers were two teenagers, Tripp (Travis Webster) and Roxette (Johna Stewart-Bowden), who relayed messages and offered bad suggestions to International Rescue. Many of the Tracys appeared in these shows, but all of their dialogue was redubbed. The Hood was also a regular. Now, though, he reported to an other-dimensional being called the Artocinator. Yes, you read that correctly. Tim Curry brought his usual panache to the voice of this villain, but it wasn’t enough to make any real difference. Turbocharged Thunderbirds was put out of its misery—and ours— after 13 episodes. Thunderbirds returned to the movie theaters in 2004, with a live-action movie directed by Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation). The cast included Bill Paxton as Jeff Tracy, Ben Kingsley as the Hood, Anthony Edwards as Brains, and Sofia Myles as Lady Penelope. The emphasis, however, was on a teenage Alan (Brady Corbet), a teenage Tin-Tin (Vanessa Hudgens), and—brace yourself—Brains’ son, Fermat (Soren Fulton). Who is Fermat’s mom? Your guess is as good as mine. The movie is set in the present and has a strong opening, with International Rescue evacuating people from a burning off-shore

RETRO TELEVISION

drilling platform. However, it quickly descends into a campy mess. Everything that Lady Penelope owns and wears in pink, when the original show never took it that far. The Hood has two lackeys named Transom and Mullion. And the movie doesn’t seem to miss a chance to refer to the puppet origins of the series, in the dialogue and in the choreography of the fight scenes. For long-term fans of the show, the most interesting thing about the movie is the hint that the Hood may have personal issues with Jeff Tracy. However, these issues are never detailed. Even this lackluster movie wasn’t enough to sink the franchise, however. The Thunderbirds crew was still appearing in British TV commercials. One notable entry is a 2008 commercial for bottled water where Brains dances wildly after drinking the product because “Brains work best when hydrated.” According to the publicity released at the time, Brains was produced by an intricate mixture of puppetry, CGI, and live action. That year also saw the release of the first of a series of new, licensed Thunderbird novels, written by Joan Marie Verba, and published by her company, FTL Publications. In an email interview, Verba said, “I first saw Thunderbirds in the Sixties. However, it was generally shown after a sports event and joined ‘in progress.’ I don’t think I saw an entire episode, but what I saw I enjoyed very much. I did not see the episodes in their entirety until about 2003, when I bought the Thunderbirds DVD box set and saw them all. I was even more impressed with the writing then. “I felt that Thunderbirds deserved even more episodes,” she continued, “and even though there were tie-in novels in the 20th Century, there hadn’t been any recent novels, so I sought a license.” At this writing, Verba has written six novels in this series, and another writer, Anthony Taylor, wrote a seventh. Each novel features a different member of Tracy family, and a subplot with Lady Penelope and Parker. “Each book can be read independently and by readers who have little or no knowledge of Thunderbirds,” she added. Verba said she has received feedback from both men and women, and “it was largely positive.” The novels in this series are available from Amazon. Amazon Video is the home of Thunderbirds Are Go (TAG), a series that premiered in 2015. This show is a hybrid in the best sense of the word, combining CGI, intricate three-dimensional sets, and a seemingly unerring eye on how to update the show while keeping the original spirit. TAG is set in 2060. The Tracy sons are all here, although Jeff vanished under

mysterious circumstances before the story begins. International Rescue has a working relationship with the world government, but it’s an independent organization. Brains is still here, and he still stutters a little, but he also has an Indian accent now. Tin-Tin is still here, but she’s called Kayo now and she’s the head of security on Tracy Island. She has her own craft, Thunderbird-S (for shadow). Lady Penelope and Parker are still part of the cast, and, in a nice gesture, Parker is still voiced by David Graham. The Hood is still the Big Bad, but new villains, with names like the Mechanic and the Chaos Crew, have also been introduced. Grandma Tracy is here, but she’s more active than her predecessor. While the original Grandma Tracy wore a basic housedress and apron, the newer version is usually seen in a sweatsuit. It’s not easy to explain how the special effects on TAG are realized. Basically, though, the ships and the characters are computer-generated, but they move through three-dimensional sets. Thunderbird 1–4 follow the original designs closely, although Thunderbird 5 has received an extensive overhaul. The launch sequences follow the originals surprisingly closely, although they’ve been truncated to fit the half-hour per episode format and modern attention spans. The special effects are produced by WETA, the company best known for its work on Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth films. Although International Rescue was never a military organization, the Tracys did wear uniforms. Each Tracy wore a sash of a different color (probably to help the viewer to identify them). The uniforms also included hats known as garrison caps.

(ABOVE) Bill Paxton as Jeff Tracy anchored 2004’s live-action Thunderbirds movie, directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes. (LEFT) Also that year, the raucous Thunderbirds lampoon Team America: World Police was released. Thunderbirds © ITV Studios Limited. Team America © Paramount Pictures.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TELEVISION

(ABOVE) Thunderbirds novelist Joan Marie Verba. (LEFT) Publicity image from the CGI television series Thunderbirds Are Go, which launched in 2015. © ITV Studios Limited.

The Tracys are still wearing sashes, but now they’re more like utility belts, studded with pouches filled, no doubt, with Useful Things. In one episode, Gordon finds one of the garrison caps but tosses it aside with a rueful “I can’t believe we used to wear these things.” It’s the only time I’ve found so far where TAG pokes any sort of fun at the original show. Thunderbirds Are Go is a solid success, but interest in Supermarionation itself is still high. In the summer of 2017, cable channel Comet TV ran a day’s worth of Supermarionation shows, including Thunderbirds. The streaming service Twitch was scheduled to run a Thunderbirds marathon, along with a project that can only be called a labor of love. A group of filmmakers have been producing new Supermarionation footage in order to dramatize three stories that existed only in audio form: “Introducing Thunderbirds,” “The Stately Home Robberies,” and “The Abominable Snowman.” Each story was directed by a different person. These stories might be called audiobooks now, but when they were originally released they were called mini-albums. They enable the filmmakers to use the original voice performances as the soundtrack, but some new actors have been hired for additional scenes. 48

RetroFan

Spring 2019

THUNDERBIRDS NOVELS FROM FTL PUBLICATIONS By Jean Marie Verba: Countdown to Action! Deadly Danger! Situation Critical! Extreme Hazard! Danger Zone! By Anthony Taylor: Arctic Adventure! Availability: www.amazon.com

One such performer, Sanjeev Bhaskar, summed up the appeal of the series this way: “On the one level, you just have good stories that are engaging and thrilling and exciting. But also they had humor and the heart of it was a family.” Joan Marie Verba said she thought the series was still popular because it had “action, adventure, altruism and a positive view of the future.” At this point, you may be asking, yeah, but, what does F.A.B. mean? It may have been used to acknowledge a message or express approval, but there never was an official explanation for what it meant. Gerry Anderson said he coined the term to play off “fab.” Fans have suggested that it stands for “Fully Advised and Briefed,” but it’s a question that may never be resolved. BILL SPANGLER has been writing science-fiction comics for longer than he’s going to admit here. His credits include licensed properties, like Robotech, Alien Nation, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, along with original creations. His adaptation of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, with art by John Ross, was recently reprinted by Pulp 2.0 press. Bill and his wife Joyce live in Southeastern Pennsylvania, with their two dogs.

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Ray Harryhausen The Man Behind the Monsters

by Ernest Farino Most RetroFan readers know the name Ray Harryhausen (1920– 2013)—the cinema magician and stop-motion animator who gave us such unforgettable fantasy films as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Mysterious Island, First Men “in” the Moon, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and the original 1981 Clash of the Titans. Ray’s fantastic imagery is at once seared into the viewer’s brain—the Cyclops thundering out of the cave at the beginning of

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, an Allosaurus attacking the cave people in One Million Years B.C., and the charge of seven sword-wielding skeletons in Ray’s own personal favorite and arguably his magnum opus, Jason and the Argonauts. It is significant—and highly unusual, in the history of movies—that in the same way we can identify “a Hitchcock film” or a “Sergio Leone Western,” we refer to any of these movies RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

(LEFT) Ray Harryhausen (in white hat, looking through camera) lines up a shot for The Valley of Gwangi in Spain in 1967. (RIGHT) Ray Harryhausen with one of the four identical ape models made by Marcel Delgado for Mighty Joe Young. (INSET) Famous Monsters #20 (Nov. 1962): “The Man Who Saw King Kong 90 Times” was Ray Harryhausen. as “a Harryhausen film,” such was his personal style, structure, tone, and distinct artistry. When filming The Valley of Gwangi in 1967 on location in Spain, director James O’Connolly was apparently unfamiliar with Ray’s previous films and did not understand the nature and degree of Ray’s involvement with the live-action filming. Ray’s longtime producer, Charles Schneer, told author Mike Hankin in 1992 that, “On location, Ray was doing his usual task of getting the actors to go through certain motions for his later animation work, while an increasingly irate James O’Connolly was standing on the sidelines. Eventually, O’Connolly came running up to me and began complaining about this ‘special effects man’ who was trying to take over his job. ‘I want him off of the picture!’ he said. Trying my best to diffuse the moment, I could only reply, ‘But, Jim, Ray is the picture.’ ” But who was this guy, this maker of magic, this alchemist of artificial life? Was he “real” like the rest of us, or imbued with some supernatural power infused by a heavenly bolt of lightning or a pact with the Devil? Ray became interested in movies and animation in the Forties and his experiments with his own stop-motion dinosaurs led to working on his first feature film in 1949, Mighty Joe Young. During those early days of the film industry, special effects were, for the most part, kept secret from the general public; the special-effects artist, whether animator or matte painter or optical wizard, was literally “the man behind the curtain.” Any such artist was the embodiment of the Great and Powerful Oz, and the studios—still in full sway over the industry—made a concentrated and

First Men “in” the Moon (gag photo with Harryhausen and his moonbeast). 50

RetroFan

Spring 2019

coordinated, if unwritten, effort to keep the magic a mystery. The thinking was that “if you know how the trick is done, you won’t be interested any more.” As a result, throughout most of his career, Ray kept a lid on it, politely declining to discuss how he managed to do his cleverest of shots. This reputation for tight-lipped secrecy and evasion caused anyone attempting to pull back the curtain or peek under the hood to be met with a silent “Cheshire Cat grin,” as Famous Monsters magazine editor (and lifelong friend) Forrest Ackerman described Ray’s reaction. As a result, an aura of mystery arose around Ray along with the general impression that he was private, secretive, shy, and reticent to talk about his work. Mind you, this was during the Fifties and Sixties when Ray was still working, so playing his cards close to the vest came partly from professional concerns: let’s not give the competition—scant as it was—a leg up. Also, until he retired in 1981 and started attending sci-fi conventions and film festivals with greater regularity, Ray’s public appearances were very limited, even rare. That he was living in England since 1959 and thus separated by an entire ocean from a majority of his fan base in the U.S. also contributed to an arm’s-length distance from fans and the general public. Not exactly a recluse to the degree of, say, a Howard Hughes, but combined with the celebrity status that gradually built up around Ray by his fans, this glass tower existence only fueled the intrigue about “Ray, the Man.” However, once he retired in 1981 and for over 20 years after that, Ray attended hundreds of conventions, film festivals, and other events, and was honored with many awards and other accolades, not the least of which were the Gordon E. Sawyer Lifetime Achievement Oscar® and a “star” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Ray Harryhausen with his Oscar®, the Gordon E. Sawyer Lifetime Achievement Award. Photo by Arnold Kunert. The Award of Merit statuette, the “Oscar,” is the copyrighted property and registered trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is © Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®.

(one of the first artists on the technical side of film production to be so acknowledged). Undoubtedly, some RetroFan readers had the opportunity to meet Ray on one occasion or another; some were invited into his home, and many more enjoyed Ray’s generosity when it came to autographs on posters and stills. A typical comment from a fan sums it up: “I met Ray Harryhausen a few times. What an experience! He brought some of his models, which were incredible. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, but Ray Harryhausen started it all for me. A unique human being, who inspired generations with his skill and art and humor and humanity.” But let’s do a SLOW DISSOLVE to a FLASHBACK to those earlier days, when meeting Ray was truly an event, an “I-don’t-knowwhat-to-expect” special occasion, in order to get a closer look at Ray Harryhausen himself. Craig Reardon became a highly respected and accomplished makeup artist in the Eighties, working on films such as An American Werewolf in London, Goonies, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and Dreamscape, among many others. But in the Sixties he was like many of us “MonsterKids”—we were readers of Famous Monsters and occupied with our backyard monster movies and 8mm clay-dinosaur films. A turning point for Craig was meeting “The Man” in person, which Craig described in the first issue of the Ray Harryhausen fanzine Sam Calvin and I published, FXRH. A condensed version of that account aptly described Ray himself: “On December 18th, 1968, I achieved a cherished goal and met Ray Harryhausen. My admiration for this man was tremendous, and the experience of meeting him a memorable one indeed. Harryhausen was visiting Forrest Ackerman during a ‘sentimental journey’ back to Los Angeles where he was born. I knew Mr. Ackerman and he called me right out of a clear sky and told me he was getting together some local animation fans on a Wednesday night to meet Ray Harryhausen, and would I like to

come? He might just as well have said, would I like a million dollars? “I remember the night clearly. I had to finish some homework up before I could go, and I worked like a maniac to wrap it up. I was scared to death with anticipation. I didn’t know what I would or even could say to Harryhausen. Not only that, I’d heard he was a sourpuss who keeps to himself and wouldn’t talk about his movies if you put him on a rack. Finally, my mom, who was taxiing me down to Ackerman’s, pulled off Olympic Blvd. (near Hollywood) onto Sherbourne Drive, Forry’s street, and his odd squatty green Spanish style house, famous as the ‘Ackermansion,’ soon came into view. I was a mess of nerves. On numb legs (I’m not exaggerating) I got out of the car and wobbled up to Forry’s door through his small walled-in front yard under a huge, spreading and foreboding tree. My heart pounding prodigiously by now, I banged on the door. This was it… “Finally, word came that Harryhausen had arrived! Excitement spread through the assembly like static electricity. All eyes shuffled out to the living room and focused on the door. Moments passed as hours, and then the door opened, and in walked Forry, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Ray Harryhausen. Those stories I’d heard about Harryhausen were dispelled by the warmth of his surprised grin as he surveyed

(ABOVE) Ray receives his “Star” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Rick Baker, Ray Harryhausen, director Frank Darabont, Stan Winston. (LEFT) Ernest Farino with Ray Harryhausen during the “star” ceremony across the street from Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

the room. Did everyone cheer? Did we race to meet him, cover him up, bury him into the ground with adoration? Nothing like it. They (and I) all looked at him! Like he was a mirage, and might dissolve any moment. There was an extended, uncomfortable silence. Forry broke it by suggesting everybody introduce himself. Things began to roll, and Harryhausen, seemingly very interested in one and all, reached out to shake the hands of both timid and robust fans. He stands (I’ll temporarily move him into present tense) about 6 feet tall, I would say. His complexion is ruddy and his eyes brown, his hair dark brown (what’s left of it). When he speaks, it’s with a slow, measured voice, calm but amused, which nearly belies his friendly and happy manner. And that voice is DEEP, brother (with a hint of a British accent which seems to have rubbed off on him).”

Our fanzine, FXRH, included the full account of Craig’s visit and represented one of the first personal profiles of Ray outside of discussions of his films and the animation itself. A few years later, Sam Calvin and I both attended the University of Dallas. U.D. had an “exchange”-type program in which sophomores could spend a semester on the college’s sister campus in Rome, Italy. Sam was a year older (although, amazingly, we share the same birthday), so he went off first—and, of course, during his spring break made a beeline north to London. In a remarkable case of timing, Ray had just received our first issue of FXRH in the mail, so when Sam called to ask to get together, Ray knew who he was and invited Sam over for a visit. Sam’s college friend Will Porter came along as well. Once back in Rome, Sam wrote me a 36-page handwritten letter describing his experience, and highlights from that letter peel back more layers of Ray himself:

(TOP LEFT) Ray Harryhausen and Craig Reardon. (TOP RIGHT) Ray signs a Mighty Joe Young lobby card for a fan at the Ackermansion in 1968. (MIDDLE LEFT) Ray visits with fans in the Ackermansion in 1968. (BOTTOM LEFT) Fans surround Ray on his visit to the Ackermansion in 1968. Craig Reardon is facing the camera in the tan suit and tie. To Craig’s right (in the light green shirt and glasses) is animator Bill Hedge. At top right (in gray-striped shirt and glasses) is animator Jon Berg. Forry Ackerman leans in from the foreground, left.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Ray with his drawings and scrapbooks at home in London in the late Sixties. Photo by Terry Michitsch. “After I had explained one of my favorite shots to Ray (namely, one of the skeleton shots in Jason), Ray joked to my friend Will, ‘Sounds complicated!!!!’ I’ll never forget the look on his face, Ern! Ray, I think it’s safe to say, really got a kick out of my fanaticism! Here I am, all wrapped up in telling Ray Harryhausen in infinite detail how he did a special effects shot!!!! Ray looked over at Will with this magnificent look of puzzlement and astonishment on his face, as if to say, ‘Good God! This guy’s really nuts about that shot, isn’t he?!’ “After I had explained the Jason shot, Ray, who must have been impressed, said, ‘Well, did you ever manage to figure out how the [7th Voyage of Sinbad] skeleton followed Sinbad up the staircase?’ And a bit later: ‘Did you ever crack how Sinbad runs past a door, then the skeleton, then Parisa?’ Well, not wishing to lecture to the man excessively, I hedged a bit and said that I thought I’d figured them out but wasn’t sure. “Ray also commented that, ‘I recall going to great pains to insert a shadow for the Cyclops in Sinbad.’

“Ernie, our hero is truly unbelievable… we couldn’t have chosen a nicer guy to worship. I was really expecting him to be terrific from what Craig had said, but his complete lack of affectation and unbelievably modest and warm manner simply stunned me. He put me in utter—and I mean utter—ease after 5 minutes in his company. He struck me as a very calm, serious, concerned man—I keep on wanting to say ‘mild-mannered,’ but that phrase has soggy connotations that don’t apply at all. He’s very calm and subdued; you can’t help but unwind and relax yourself in his presence. My friend Will Porter is a very critical person, but even he was impressed. Talk about enthusiastic during our visit! Will really went nuts over the models. Will has seen only one Harryhausen picture, Gwangi, and didn’t think much of it. [Author’s note: After meeting Ray, Will became quite a Harryhausen fan and followed Ray’s career ever since.] He said to me while we were walking back to the hotel after our visit: ‘There was something of dignity about him.’ Well, this part is getting ridiculous. Let me just say this much more, Ernie— there was nothing, absolutely nothing, about this man which I did not love. He is truly a magnificent man.”

(INSET) Skeleton loses its head in Jason and the Argonauts. © 1963 Columbia Pictures. (BELOW) The stop-motion model of the Cyclops from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad casts a shadow on the live-action beach. Can you figure out how he did it…? © 1958 Columbia Pictures.

Sam went into great detail of every moment of the visit, and his enthusiasm tipped over into talking to Ray about the technical aspects of some of Ray’s most interesting shots:

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

(LEFT) Ray, in cap at center, has lunch on the location in Italy during the filming of Jason and the Argonauts. He is flanked by cinematographer Wilkie Cooper and producer Charles Schneer. (ABOVE) Ray’s home in London, now occupied by others.

Will naively asked, ‘Really! How did you do that?’ Upon which Ray’s eyes open wide, light up, and he practically bounds out of his chair with joy and excitement! ‘AHA!’ he cheers! ‘Something you DON’T KNOW! Ahh… now I’ll have to go back and put in all kinds of shadows in my scenes just to confound you!!!’ What an absolute riot! “I perused the Jason [scrapbook] thoroughly. At one moment, I was staring at a shot of Ray and Charles Schneer sitting on the steps of the temple whose pillars are seen on the shots of the skeletons approaching Jason. Well, there’s Ray in this photo, sitting and contentedly munching a sandwich. Will Porter suddenly leans over and mumbles: ‘Hey, Sam. He eats.’ Then Ray leaned over and said: ‘Yes! And sleeps, too… just like a REAL HUMAN BEING!!!!!’ We were all rolling in the aisles after than one!!” That fall of 1972, I had my own opportunity to visit Ray, having signed up for the semester in Rome. We had a two-week break, so I took the train up to London. After figuring out how “the penny drops” in the pay phone, I called up Ray from Leicester Square in London (which I pronounced LIE-kester and which, after a moment of puzzlement, he politely corrected me that it’s pronounced “Lester” Square). He and his wife Diana invited me over for Sunday dinner. Like Craig Reardon, the anticipation was almost unbearable and that night, Saturday, I took the “tube” to his place and found it so I’d have no trouble the next day. But the next day I arrived 30 minutes early anyway. So I walked about Holland Park 54

RetroFan

Spring 2019

next to his home until 11:55, humming the theme to Jason and the Argonauts to myself. I took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. It seemed the longest time before the door opened and I was greeted by Diana Harryhausen. Diana: “Oh, hello, do come in. Very pleased to meet you. Please sit down. Ray will be down in two shakes.” I sat in the living room and waited, quite nervous. Presently, Ray entered. He was dressed casually, and we shook hands. Diana said, “Well, lunch around 1 or 1:15, okay?” Ray said, “Fine.” Diana continued, “I’ll leave you two alone, as I’m sure you have things to talk about,” and she left. Later we went into the living room to watch Laurel and Hardy! I discovered that everything comes to a screeching halt at 2:30 on Sunday afternoons while they watch Laurel and Hardy. So at 2:30 we all got up and Ray turned on the set. Turns out that he’s a big fan of L&H and we had a good talk about comedy teams through the ages. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of this new British comedy team, something with the unlikely name of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Since Monty Python didn’t hit the U.S. until about 1974 (first in Dallas, conveniently, where I lived), I couldn’t comment. After some commercials and other introductory programming, the Laurel and Hardy film for that day started up. Ray and his wife (and I, for that matter) were just in constant hysterics throughout (Ray would exclaim, “I can’t bear it!”). There doesn’t seem to be anything that Ray doesn’t enjoy to the utmost. I found out years later that Ray had taken an active part in several clubs when he attended Manual Arts High School in

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Los Angeles. The Masquers Club was a dramatic acting group that would occasionally present plays in the school and despite excessive opening-night jitters, Ray found himself with a major role in the senior play Shadow of the Rockies. At the end of the play he uncharacteristically performed a song and dance act with the play’s student director, Virginia Weddle, giving his own unique rendition of In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, a song sung by Laurel and Hardy in their film Way Out West. And only recently I found out that Ray was utterly addicted to the Angela Lansbury TV series Murder, She Wrote, and harbored a permanent yearning for a Big Mac hamburger. Anyway, I knew that Ray had things to do at around 4:00 and it was getting to be that time, so I asked him if he’d sign some autographs. He smiled and said, “Of course,” and took a seat at his desk. I pulled out a color still of Talos from Jason and the Argonauts and explained that Sam had forgotten to ask for it. Well, he signed it with the felt-tip pen but the photo had a strange, glossy emulsion because all it did was bead up and wipe off! Ray said, “Uh-oh. That’ll never do…” He tried writing over it, but no results. I suggested wiping it off and using an ink pen, and I pulled out my handkerchief. Ray jumped up and said, “Oh, no. Don’t use your handkerchief. I have some cotton downstairs.” And so he dashed downstairs and soon returned with some cotton. He dipped it in some solution that was over with his art supplies and carefully wiped it off. He then said, “Now, I had a bigger marker somewhere around here that might work…” and he proceeded to scrounge around his desk and tables for it for five minutes (“Oh, good heavens! What did I do with it…?!”), finally producing a red felt marker with a rather thick tip. He tried that but it reacted the same way, so he wiped it off, too, but it did stain a bit (lower right

corner). “Oh, no. Now it has a red spot…” I assured him that I didn’t think you’d mind about the use of a red-colored marker. We finally decided to try an ink pen, so I pulled out mine and, pressing hard, he produced the autograph. I said, “Sam’s going to die with I tell him Ray Harryhausen ran all over his house for ten minutes to get a decent autograph!” Ray laughed and said, “Oh, no, it’s quite all right.” Then I pulled out a still of the Cyclops from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and explained that since we included an actual 8x10 still with every copy of FXRH, the idea of the 8x10 still for issue #3 was to have Ray sign it, “To another reader of FXRH, Best wishes, Ray Harryhausen.” He said, “Fine.” (“FXRH…?”—he seemed a bit puzzled at our acronym, but smiled when I explained that it meant FX— “effects”—and his initials, RH). He then placed the slip of paper on the still using its edge as a guide to keep his writing straight (previously he took his cotton, dipped in the liquid—I think maybe alcohol—and wiped clean the corner he was going to write on), and carefully wrote out the autograph. He then examined it very closely to see if it was dry, and blew on it a number of times. While he was signing, after he had written “Best wishes,” he stopped, looked up at me, smiled, and said, “They’ll think all I do is read my own magazine!” and we both cracked up. Following that meeting, I don’t think my feet touched ground again for days. Like others before and since, meeting Ray was better than one could ever imagine, and that first encounter will always remain a cherished memory. In the years following we met numerous times, exchanged letters and Christmas cards, and spoke on the phone. He was very encouraging about my own burgeoning career, as he was with many other fans that were trying their hands at stop motion. Over the span of several years I

(BOTTOM LEFT) The color still of Talos that Ray signed for Calvin. (INSET) Detail of Ray’s signature. © 1963 Columbia Pictures. (BOTTOM RIGHT) The 8x10 still that Ray autographed “to another reader of FXRH.” An 8x10 negative was made of the original and bulk copies printed to include with each copy of issue #3 of the magazine.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

would ask Ray technical questions, and even though he knew that FXRH had ceased publication years before, he would cautiously ask, “Is this going to be published…?” At the Fanex convention in Baltimore in 1999, several us gathered for breakfast on Sunday morning and were all seated at one of those large, round corner tables in the hotel’s restaurant. Ray happened to be sitting at my left. At one point a question popped into my head and I asked Ray how he had the live-action people run in front of the miniature clock tower for a few frames in It Came from Beneath the Sea. Falling back on his not-so-good Oliver Hardy impersonation, he said with a smile, “I’ll never tell!” I laughed along with everyone else, but I must have rolled my eyes a little. Ray picked up on that and said, “Well, what I did was…”—and proceeded to tell me. I think once he was comfortable with Live-action people run in front of the miniature clock tower and someone, and especially since he had, stop-motion octopus tentacle in It Came from Beneath the Sea. Mystery by then, long retired, he was more solved! © 1955 Columbia Pictures. open about information and details. What?! Your mom threw away your comic books…?! How many times have we heard that story? Ray, on the other hand, seemed to be blessed with parents who were supportive above and beyond the call of duty. His father, Frederick Harryhausen, was a highly skilled blacksmith and machinist who ran his own business at one point and even worked at a couple of film studios. Once, while at RKO, Fred introduced Ray to several people who had worked on King Kong. By coincidence, given Ray’s later enjoyment of Laurel and Hardy, Fred worked on two Laurel and Hardy films for Hal Roach Studios: Hog Wild in 1930, for which he worked on a car that was crushed between two street cars, and Busy Bodies in 1933, for which he had to cut a car in half to look like it had gone through a band saw. Fred machined all of the ball-and-socket armatures for Ray’s animation models up through and including First Men “in” the Moon in 1964. Eventually father and son built what became known as Ray’s “Hobby House” in the backyard of their home in the Baldwin Hills suburb of Los Angeles. This 20’x30’ mini-studio provided a space for Ray to animate the dinosaurs in his Evolution project, other tests, and his series of 16mm Fairy Tales. Keeping it in the family, Ray’s mother, Martha Harryhausen, sewed all of the costumes for the characters in the Fairy Tales. Previously, in 1935, Ray had used Martha’s fur coat (which she no longer wanted) to

RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

(TOP LEFT) The Harryhausen home in Los Angeles. Ray’s “Hobby House” can be seen at the back of the driveway. (LEFT) The armature for the Cyclops in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, machined by Ray’s father, Frederick Harryhausen. (TOP RIGHT) Ray and Diana Harryhausen, along with Hammer Films executive producer Michael Carreras, greet Ray’s “competition,” actress Raquel Welch, at a One Million Years B.C. kickoff party in 1965.

cover his first animation model, a “cave bear.” Ray told author Mike Hankin in 1994, “The photography was rather crude and the action simply spontaneous, but when I saw the bear move jerkily across the screen I found it so exciting that it was at that moment that I finally decided what I wanted to do.” In 1961 Ray was living in an apartment in Ennismore Gardens, Kensington (a suburb of London). During the final months of animation on Mysterious Island he attended his landlady’s birthday party and met Diana Livingstone Bruce, great-granddaughter of the famous explorer and missionary David Livingstone. They hit it off and on October 5, 1962, at St. Saviours, Walton Street, Chelsea, Ray and Diana were married by the Reverend Francis Anderson.

Charles Schneer was the Best Man. Ray and Diana spent the first part of their honeymoon in Venice and later enjoyed a delayed holiday in an area more to Ray’s liking: a trip down the Nile. Their daughter Vanessa was born on January 31, 1964. By the time she was five, Vanessa would carry the solid, non-articulated model of Gwangi around in her baby buggy. She told Mike Hankin in 1996, “Gwangi and the elephant were my favorites. I used to feed them Maltesers [chocolate covered balls of honeycomb]. One time I asked Dad why Gwangi and the elephant had not eaten their sweets. His reply was, ‘I’m sure they will when they get hungry!’ Ah, but the next time I looked, the sweets were gone! I never found out who really ate the sweets, Dad or Gwangi…?” Today, Vanessa is active in the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, which is devoted to preserving the legacy of her father’s work. But 1964 was also a sad time for Ray because his father, Frederick Harryhausen, died at age 79 on April 14, 1964, in California. Ray’s mother continued to live at the house Ray owned in Pacific Palisades, and in 1977, while in the early stages of preparing Clash of the Titans in England, he received word from America that his mother was unwell. He and Diana flew out for an extended stay and in April 1979, Martha Harryhausen died at age 90. I stayed in touch with Ray over the years and called him on his birthday, June 29, in 2009; he had a caregiver by then, but I could hear that when she said my name Ray immediately jumped up and took the call, which was a nice feeling. We spoke about many things, including the death of Michael Jackson four days earlier RetroFan

Spring 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

(LEFT) Ray with a King Kong poster. Photographed at the home of Ron V. Borst, the premier movie poster collector and archivist. (ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT) Diana, Vanessa, and Ray Harryhausen, c. 1990s. (BELOW LEFT) The wreath placed on Ray’s “star” on the Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce on May 7, 2013, the day of Ray’s passing. Photo by Ernest Farino.

and the huge media attention on that event. Unfortunately, that took the conversation to a darker place, and Ray, at age 89, was having thoughts of his own mortality. He said to me, “Michael Jackson was only 50. I’m 89. Why am I still around…?” A few minutes earlier I had joked about one of his unproduced projects, Sinbad Goes to Mars. Desperate to lighten the mood, I played on being “here” and said, “Well, Ray Harryhausen Goes to Mars!” Sounds pretty lame now, but I was happy—and relieved—that Ray burst out laughing, and was back to his jolly self. So it turns out that Ray was not the Ogre Under the Bridge after all, or any kind of standoff-ish, secretive Guardian of the Visual Effects Gate. Everyone has their own personality, life experiences, and temperament, and sometimes “celebrity” can have a bearing on a person’s demeanor and behavior. Those can be 58

RetroFan

Spring 2019

difficult waters to navigate. But I am pleased to say, and I’m sure I am joined by legions of fans worldwide, that Ray Harryhausen the “Magician” was not so much a Sorcerer as he was a Genie… Thanks to Ron V. Borst, Sam Calvin, Mike Hankin, Arnold Kunert, and Craig Reardon. ERNEST FARINO recently directed an episode of the SyFy/Netflix series Superstition created by and starring Mario Van Peebles, as well as serving as Visual Ef fects Consultant. Previously Farino directed Steel and Lace starring Bruce Davison, episodes of Monsters starring Lydia Cornell and Marc McClure, ABC’s Land of the Lost starring Timothy Bottoms, and extensive 2nd Unit for the miniseries Dune starring William Hurt, Noah’s Ark starring Jon Voight, and Supernova starring Luke Perry. A two-time Emmy-winning Visual Ef fects Supervisor for SyFy’s Dune and Children of Dune miniseries, Farino supervised and produced the Emmy-nominated visual ef fects for the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon; James Cameron’s The Terminator, The Abyss, and T2; as well as Starship Troopers, Snow White–A Tale of Terror, Creepshow, and many others. His publishing enterprise, Archive Editions, has published Mike Hankin’s elaborate three-volume hardcover book set Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks, The FXRH Collection, and more.

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

P.O.P. Go the Bubbles

at… Pacific Ocean Park! by Scott Shaw!

Growing up in Southern California is a unique experience. And having done so in the Fifties and Sixties, I can report that it was particularly unique. I was too young to appreciate the fact that SoCal was a national tourist destination. San Diego had the wonders of the former site of a World’s Fair, Balboa Park (which held a number of museums), art galleries, and the world-famous San Diego Zoo. We also had the Wild Animal Park (now known as “Safari Park”), Sea World, Belmont Park, the Scripps Aquarium, and, for a few years, Dinosaur Land (see RetroFan #2). But, as late night infomercial announcers intone, “that’s not all…!” About a fourth of a tank of gas further north in SoCal, there was Orange County. Knotts’ Berry Farm and its neighbor, an alligator farm, were the first tourist attractions. In 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim, and that was enough to qualify Orange County as the amusement capital of America. There were also museums dedicated to waxen depictions of celebrities, cars known for their cinematic appearances, and even “planes of fame.” An hour further north would take you to Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. That’s where Marineland, Universal Studios, the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, the Hollywood Wax Museum, Busch Gardens, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Science and Technology, and the infamous Old Trapper’s Lodge were located. (And then there were a handful

(ABOVE) Move over, Disneyland! These Sixties postcards reveal an aerial view of Pacific Ocean Park and its breathtaking waterfront, and the park’s entrance.

of newly opened retail stores in Hollywood in the mid-Sixties that sold nothing but vintage comic books? Hmmm…) Therefore, if your parents could afford tickets and fuel to any of these attractive destinations, you had your pick of some of the most memorable childhood experiences available in postwar America. Kids, adolescents, and tourists were offered a ridiculously wide range of places to have fun. But none of them were as uniquely and memorably weird as Santa Monica’s Pacific Ocean Park, or as it became known, “P.O.P.”

Worth a Trip to L.A.

You may have even heard a reference to “P.O.P.” on the Beach Boys’ Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!!) LP (1965). In the song “Amusement Parks U.S.A.” there’s a line that goes, “Disneyland and P.O.P. are worth a trip to L.A.” And if you never realized what those letters referred to, I can assure you that it definitely was worth a trek to Los Angeles to experience P.O.P. for yourself. But decades before Pacific Ocean Park was a glimmer in its creators’ eyes, Santa Monica was a very popular destination for Angelenos and tourists to enjoy a day—or night—at the beach. The beachfront area itself had a long history of amusement parks. In 1905, developer Abbot Kinney created “Venice of America,” based on the shoreline exposition of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The innovations included a Spanish galleon, fun zones, a scenic railway ride, two lagoons, ballrooms, canals navigated by authentic Italian gondoliers, and a “pleasure pier.” It became known as “The Coney Island of the Pacific.” Nearby was the “Ocean Park Pier,” a similar but far less spectacular amusement endeavor. Kinney had once co-owned RetroFan

Spring 2019

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

the structure, but when he reached an impasse with his partners, he settled for the land where he built Venice of America. His former partners then went all-out to outdo Kinney, adding a bath house that resembled an Arabian palace, a casino, two roller coasters, a skating rink, dance halls, a vaudeville theater, and spooky “dark rides.” Their success inspired two others to build competing amusement piers alongside of each other, but those were nearly destroyed by fire. After rebuilding, the one in Santa Monica remained the Ocean Park Pier, while the other in Venice became “The Lick Pier.” One of the latter’s biggest attractions was “The Aragon Ballroom,” where Frank Sinatra, the Dorsey Brothers, Harry James, and other big acts had performed. In the Fifties, Lawrence Welk and the Champagne Music Makers was the venue’s house band. This was the single feature of the pier that initially attracted the attention of developer Charles H. “Doc” Strub. Strub, a former dentist, partnered with filmmaker Hal Roach and other Hollywood types to purchase the Santa Anita racetrack. He developed it into a tourist attraction while also promoting it in films such as the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races. In the early Fifties, when Strub got wind that Walt and Roy Disney were investigating the theme park business, he offered to invest fully half of the money that the brothers required to open something called “Disneyland.” But when they differed on the location— the Disney boys felt that Anaheim had more possibilities for expansion—negotiations broke off, so Strub decided to compete with Disney.

An Alternative to Disneyland

The reality of Disneyland survived (despite Strub’s lack of participation) and the theme park opened in July of 1955 (despite the fact that the asphalt that covered its grounds was still sticky). Meanwhile, in 1956, Strub’s “Los Angeles Turf Club”—which owned the Santa Anita racetrack—bought the entire Ocean Park Pier for $3,000,000. Then the television network CBS bought into the deal as well. Pacific Ocean Park was on its way. The intention was to match Disneyland’s high quality, but from an entirely different angle. P.O.P. didn’t have any cartoon characters or films to promote or licensed products to sell. What it 60

RetroFan

Spring 2019

(LEFT) The original Ocean Park pier, long before Pacific Ocean Park was built. Amusement park pioneers (CENTER) Abbot Kinney and (RIGHT) Charles H. “Doc” Strub. Kinney photo: Wikimedia Commons. Strub photo: TkerTimeSeeker/Wikimedia Commons.

did have to sell was the experience that had drawn people to that area for decades—the Southern California coastline. Although Palos Verdes’ Marineland thrived on “Bubbles the Whale” and trained dolphins as well as a full-blown aquarium, the park itself was poorly located and therefore, somewhat inaccessible. P.O.P. fought Bubbles with huge artificial bubbles hanging 75 feet above the ocean—and every other design image they could possibly come up with that evoked the Pacific Ocean, including mermaids, surfers, tikis, ships, fish and exotic undersea life, sea shells, starfish, ocean waves, and water fountains. The Turf Club accomplished this by hiring a number of top Hollywood art directors, designers, and special-effects artists. Once the team was assembled, they worked in the Ocean Park Pier’s long-dormant Casino Gardens Ballroom. With a projected opening date of June 1958, they began to create what would become famous as Pacific Ocean Park. Six of the pier’s original attractions were renewed, revised, and renamed for the new park. P.O.P.’s owners’ business plan was also similar to Disneyland’s, securing the financial sponsorship of outside corporations for six all-new expensive park attractions. (There were also high expectations regarding the Turf Club’s connection to television paying off financially.) As memorable as the final results were, the surviving presentation and development artwork they created is even more stunning. But to meet their deadline, the team needed a leader. Their need was answered in the form of Fred Harpman—a young man with a ton of experience working on effects-heavy Hollywood blockbusters and who even had a hand in designing Disneyland’s “Main Street”—as the project’s Creative Director. Harpman had connections all over town, assembling former creative coworkers into a bigger team, one capable of

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

meeting the deadline breathing down their collective neck. Not only did they have to create dozens of new attractions, they had to rehabilitate old ones. To make matters even more difficult, “Doc” Strub died from a stroke in February 1958. During the final stage of completion, the builders worked feverishly around the clock. Fortunately for them, the opening date had been moved back by a month.

A Bubbly Welk-come

P.O.P. opened on July 28, 1958, on a pier off of Pier Avenue in the “Ocean Park” area of Santa Monica. The event’s celebrity guest was bandleader Lawrence Welk, who once headlined at the Aragon decades earlier. (Welk’s penchant for bubbles in his act was also a theme for the amusement park.) The 28-acre amusement park was jointly owned by the CBS television network and the Santa Anita Park racetrack. Their day-after-opening-day ticket sales bore out the goal to successfully compete with Disneyland: P.O.P. had 32,262 visitors, outperforming Uncle Walt’s happy new kingdom in Anaheim that same day. Here are the attractions that those tickets made available to you: Neptune’s Courtyard was the park’s dramatic entrance, with a 60-foot-tall stylized starfish-dome that would put Starro the Conqueror to shame. It led visitors to view… Neptune’s Kingdom (sponsored by Coca-Cola) was partially an aquarium and partially a full-sized, breathtaking diorama of King Neptune’s Throne Room. Sea Circus featured a number of trained animal acts, including seals, a baby elephant, a diving mule, a chimpanzee named “Dink” and his pals, porpoises, and a 1,500-pound baby sea elephant. After each show—sometimes to an audience of 2,000 people— visitors could buy fish to feed the seals in a nearby pool. The Westinghouse Enchanted Forest and its guardian Elektra the Talking Robot, last seen at the 1939 World’s Fair. (Roy Thomas would have dug seeing him in person.) The Submarine Diving Bells—revised from when they were on the old Ocean Park Pier’s midway—would slowly be pulled by

cables to the bottom of a tank teeming with live fish and turtles (seen through portholes), then released to suddenly pop to the surface in a watery explosion. The Ocean Skyway was P.O.P.’s signature attraction. In stylized metal-glass-and-plastic bubbles, visitors to the park could be transported, hanging from a cable 75 feet above the ocean, out to the offshore “Mystery Island” and back… if you were lucky. (There was an unsubstantiated urban legend that one of the bubbles containing once-living riders fell off of the cable and crashed to the rocks below, a gruesome myth that adolescent boys clung to.) Despite the supposed “danger,” the view of the park and the coast was unmatched. The overall ride was half a mile long. The Ocean Highway, sponsored by Union 76, was an elevated wooden roadway suspended over the Pacific Ocean that the kiddies could traverse in bumper cars. At the time, this made P.O.P. seem wonderfully risky. (In hindsight, this makes P.O.P.’s insurance policy payments seem ridiculously outlandish.) The Starfish was a small, generic Ferris wheel. Flight to Mars, with an impressively modeled flying saucer on the exterior of the ex-roller rink it was housed in, was a walk-through attraction that depended on dramatic landscape paintings of Mars, special effects, and particularly freaky-butappealing-looking Martian creature designs. The overall effect wasn’t as realistic as Disneyland’s “Flight to the Moon” attraction, but it made up for that in spades with its sense of drama and imagination. The Magic Carpet was a ride that took visitors on suspended “flying carpets” traveling over key scenes from famous fairy tales. The highlight—for me, at least—was an attack by giant rocs. The International Promenade was adjacent to the P.O.P. lot, therefore, it not only featured dozens of restaurants and shops with items from around the world, it also included a few bars and taverns. Ports O’Call was the park’s midway, featuring typical carnival games, souvenir stands, and rides. The Sea Serpent was a refurbished and renamed “Hi-Boy” wooden roller coaster that dated back to 1926.

(LEFT) Don’t believe that urban myth—nobody ever fell to their death from these space-age bubbles at the park’s popular Ocean Skyway. (RIGHT) The angry red planet was your destination at Pacific Ocean Park’s Flight to Mars attraction.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

(TOP) A postcard revealing the park’s midway, a.k.a. Ports O’Call. Wikimedia Commons. (BOTTOM) We like Ike, but designer Jim Casey so liked the general-turned-U.S. president (INSET) that he modeled the octopus head of the Sea Tub Adventure’s exterior after him. Political button courtesy of Heritage.

The Sea Tub Adventure was my favorite aspect of Pacific Ocean Park. Its exterior prominently featured a gigantic bas relief cartoon octopus surrounded by transparent plastic bubbles half-sunken into the wall around the looming cephalopod. (The sculptor, Jim Casey, admitted that he based the design of the octopus’ face on that of President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower!) Inside, visitors riding in large wooden tubs would be swept through a watery adventure that included a giant octopuppet that was decidedly less friendly than the one outside. Davy Jones’ Locker was a creepy funhouse that allowed visitors to stroll through the rotting hull of a shipwreck. The Flying Dutchman was a two-story scare-in-the-dark ride dressed as a ghost ship, with rolling treasure chests as vehicles through the wild ride. The Flying Fish was a “wild mouse”-style mini-roller coaster— actually, the first of its type—with the cars painted to resemble silly fish. 62

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Fisherman’s Cove was an area of snack bars, informal restaurants and shops designed to evoke a New England fishing village. The Shell Spin was a reworked Tilt-A-Whirl (a fiendish county fair standard that made my dad blow chunks like a seasoned pro). The Fish Net was a rotating cylinder full of people lifted vertically by a mechanized arm. The Whirlpool was a centrifuge that pinned riders to the walls as the floor slowly lowered beneath them. The Sea Bird was a kiddie ride with baby birds subbing for tiny airplanes. Around the World in 80 Turns was a dark ride with pretzelshaped cars that took visitors on a jerky tour through a world of poorly painted “flats” populated by crudely made locals. The theme was eventually altered to a faux-Dogpatch one, with your car threatening to crash into hillbillies, government revenuers, moonshine-makers, and farm animals, and received a new name, Fun in the Dark. Mystic Isles was a section of the park with a Polynesian theme, including thatched huts, outrigger canoes, and massive sculptured tikis. Mr. Dolphin (later the called The Mahi-Mahi) was a massive tower with rotating arms ending in jet-style cars, each of which held eight passengers. The Dancing Flowers, a.k.a. The Jungle Whip, was a “Scrambler” ride. Mr. Octopus was a standard Eyerly Octopus ride with eight tubs. Mrs. Squid—later renamed The Ahuna Thrill Ride—was an Eyerly Dual Tub Octopus ride with a squid decor in the center. The ride had 16 tubs, each carrying two passengers. The Deepest Deep simulated a voyage via submarine. Unlike Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage, attraction, it took place above water. The high point of the ride featured the massive mollusk prop that starred in the 1957 film The Monster That Challenged the World, starring Tim Holt, Audrey Dalton, and Hans Conried. The Mystery Island Banana Train was considered by many to be Pacific Ocean Park’s best ride. Passengers were treated to a trip aboard a tropical banana plantation train out to Mystery Island and back, complete with a simulated volcano, lava geysers, a pack of audio-animatronic chimpanzees, simulated earthquakes, and giant goony-bird chicks. The U.S.S. Nautilus walk-through exhibit featured a 150-foot replica of the atomic reactor section of a submarine. The House of Tomorrow was a walk-through exhibit displaying innovations for the domestic life that were supposedly looming in the near-future. The Pirate’s Maze was a standard house-of-mirrors attraction. The Safari was an interactive dark ride in which children in miniature Jeeps used electronic rifles to “hunt” artificial animals in an “African jungle.” The Sea Ram featured bumper cars with sculpted rams’ heads attached to their hoods. The Carousel was a vintage leftover “Looff” merry-go-round from the original pier, dating back to 1926.

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

By January 5, 1959, Pacific Ocean Park had attracted 1,190,000 visitors. To incite attendance, the park added four new attractions at a cost of $2,000,000. They were: ZooLand, an exotic animal petting zoo featuring baby polar bears, elephants, kangaroos, penguins, flamingos, and otters. Paratrooper, a parachute-drop ride. Space Wheels was a monstrous Ferris wheel that was composed of four vertically stacked normal-sized Ferris wheels. Fun Forest was an area for the youngest visitors. It featured the Twirly Bird, the Covered Wagon, a boat ride, a monorail ride, and the Haunted Tree Maze.

Wherefore Art Thou, Beanyland?

There were many other plans afoot to refurbish many of the older attractions and to introduce some exciting new ones. One of the best concepts was a “Beanyland” area based on animation director Bob Clampett’s well-known cartoon series, Beany & Cecil, starring a lovable sea-sick sea serpent and his young human pal. Clampett envisioned “Beanyland” broken into smaller sections: Prehistorical Land, Jingle Jangle JungleLand, Dizzyland (the kingdom of Mickey Moose!), Fun Ta See Land, and the Holly Woods, as well as Boo Hoo Bay, Fat Bat, Salty Lake, Ruined Ruins, Isle Cry, and Sea Serpent Sea. The “fit” would have been perfect. But the money just wasn’t there. In fact, Pacific Ocean Park’s profits had begun to wane years earlier. The attendance numbers never even reached the “breakeven” level and the show-biz applications intended for the park—a

Beany & Cecil creator Bob Clampett’s rough for the park’s planned Beanyland attraction. celebrity magnet, a locale for television and films, a major venue for music acts, a location for photo shoots for commercials, print ads, and LP album covers—weren’t yet significant. In 1959, the park was shut down for a few months during the winter while its board of directors huddled on how to survive. The decision was a radical one: “P.O.P.” was pitched as an acrostic for “Pay One Price”—an inexpensive alternative to Disneyland’s ticket books. Entrance was the only ticket necessary; once you were in the park, all of the attractions were free. That encouraged management for a while, so much so that they began to explore opportunities with new theme parks around SoCal. P.O.P. began to turn up in films and television shows. Rock ’n’ roll acts appeared live at the park, which also hosted America’s first annual Teen Age Fair. Things were looking up, despite increasingly frequent shifts in corporate management. “Doc” Strub’s master plan finally seemed to be working. Unfortunately, the community surrounding P.O.P. was the opposite of the quasi-futuristic amusement park; it consisted of businesses and homes that had seen much better days. Therefore, in 1965, the City of Santa Monica began an Ocean Park urban renewal project, in which buildings in the surrounding area were demolished and streets leading to the park were closed. As a result, visitors found the park hard to reach and attendance plummeted to 621,000 in 1965 and even further down to 398,700 in 1966. Even worse, the faltering profits had a disastrous effect on P.O.P. itself. The rides and exhibits began to break down more frequently and the more the tech deteriorated, the more attractions were shut down. The place started to look run down,

(LEFT) It’s no surprise that this eight-armed ride was dubbed Mr. Octopus. (RIGHT) The tropical attraction Mystery Island was a popular feature, including (INSET) its Banana Train ride.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Palisades Ocean Park became a staple in Sixties cinema, from (LEFT) the ratings-smash conclusion of The Fugitive to (RIGHT) the 1966 Herman’s Hermits movie, Hold On! The Fugitive © United Artists Television. Hold On! © MGM. Courtesy of Heritage.

and the food was of such poor quality that it was dangerous to eat. It was no longer attractive to families. There were attempts to reinvent P.O.P. as a mecca for rock ’n’ roll, and “The Cheetah” (the former Aragon Ballroom) managed to lure some major acts such as the Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Byrds, the Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors, James Brown, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Eric Burdon and the Animals, the Standells, Electric Flag, the Chambers Brothers, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Seeds, among many others. But it was a sad case of too little, too late.

P.O.P. Goes Pop!

At the end of the 1967 tourist season, the park’s creditors and the City of Santa Monica filed suit to take control of the property due to back taxes and back rent owed by the park’s new owner since 1965. Pacific Ocean Park closed on October 6, 1967. The park’s assets were auctioned off June 28 through June 30, 1968. The proceeds from the sale of 36 rides and 16 games were used to pay off creditors. The park’s dilapidated buildings and pier structure remained until several suspicious fires occurred, and it was finally demolished in the winter of 1974–1975. So P.O.P.’s gone, and you missed it… unless you watch a lot of vintage television shows and movies. For example, Pacific Ocean Park was significantly featured as the location of the two-part finale of The Fugitive (“The Judgment: Part 2.” A whopping 45.9% of households tuned in to see the climax, which amounted to a 72%—meaning, of all the people watching TV at that time, about two-thirds of them were tuned in to The Fugitive. It would remain the most-watched TV episode until the Eighties). It was also an important location in two episodes of The Twilight Zone— Rod Serling and his family were big fans of the park—“In Praise of Pip” (with Bill Mumy and Jack Klugman) and “Perchance to Dream” (with Richard Conte). P.O.P. also turned up on TV in The Lawrence Welk Show, The New Steve Allen Show, Route 66 (“Between Hello and Goodbye”), 77 Sunset Strip (“Eyewitness”), Where the 64

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Action Is (starring Paul Revere and the Raiders), Nancy Sinatra: Who Will Buy 1967? (a TV special), I Spy (“Little Boy Lost”), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Concrete Overcoat Affair: Part 1”), Get Smart (“The Wax Max”), The Mod Squad (“Bad Man on Campus”), and The Rookies. (There was even a short-lived Los Angeles TV series called The Wink Martindale P.O.P. Dance Party—later hosted by Bob Eubanks—from 1961 through 1963, that was shot at the park.) Although none of them are now considered to be classics, the Santa Monica amusement park was featured in a number of theatrical films as well: Hands of a Stranger (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), Two on a Guillotine (1965), The Money Trap (1965), Hold On! (a Herman’s Hermits vehicle) (1966), The Wild Angels (1966), and The Outside Man (1972). Other than these YouTube treasures, only a few underwater pilings and signs warning of their presence remains of Pacific Ocean Park. Ironically, “Dogtown,” as that area became known—a favorite hangout of the “Z-Boys,” outlaw surfers, and skateboarders—was the site of two films itself. A bit north of the remains of Pacific Ocean Park, the original Santa Monica Pier is now the home of “Pacific Park,” a generic small amusement park with a Ferris wheel and an iconic merry-goround as its most eye-catching aspects. It’s pleasant enough, but unfortunately, it’s about as weird as Wonder Bread. It’s clear why P.O.P. remains so memorable. The park was like a weird nautical caricature of the Magic Kingdom, swapping out the cartoon characters for a distinctly coastal SoCal vibe. The overall art direction of the park seemed sophisticated at the time, late Atomic Age “Googie” architecture and appealingly cheesy design. It was very much like “What if American-International was the studio behind Disneyland?” And whenever my family visited Pacific Ocean Park, I felt as if I was a character in an episode of The Outer Limits… a few years before that classic series even began to air on ABC! After all, how many other theme parks ever had a movie-star giant mechanical tomato worm as the jewel of their scare-ride? Unless otherwise noted, photos are courtesy of Scott Shaw! For 47 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.

RETRO TRAVEL

STAR TREK Set Tour

by Robert Greenberger

Star Trek changed the pop-culture landscape in many ways during the turbulent go-go Sixties. The science-fiction series was the first significant subgenre to split away from science-fiction fandom, producing its own fanzines and conventions. Additionally, more than a few fans turned their basements and backyards into crude recreations of the starship Enterprise, making 8mm films, graduating to Super8 and then early videotape. Among that first generation of fans was James Cawley, a native of Ticonderoga, New York. He was a child of the era, born nine months after the series debuted, growing up in adoration of Adam West’s Batman, William Shatner’s James T. Kirk, and Elvis Presley. “I think I just absorbed all of that stuff growing up,” Cawley, 51, said from the captain’s chair aboard his recreation of the Enterprise Bridge. “That’s your childhood. I had a dad who graduated high school in ’57, so he always played that kind of music in the house. I picked up all that music. And he was an MP [Military Police], so we weren’t allowed to stay up late at night. So, the things that I watched in the reruns from the Sixties on, TV and read books about, were my totem.” Cawley went on to become an award-winning Elvis impersonator, touring the country and making a nice living. He indulged that interest by collecting whatever memorabilia

from Star Trek he could find. When he was 17, Cawley wanted to fabricate his own Kirk uniform so he called Paramount Pictures, asking to speak with William Ware Theiss, who had designed the remarkable costumes for the original show. Delighted to help, Theiss sent a pattern and the two struck up a friendship, resulting in an internship for Cawley on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. “He was very private and sometimes you didn’t know how to take him in. He could be he could be kind of abrasive,” Cawley notes. “I got a package in the mail, probably a month before he died, and the blueprints were one of the things in there and there were badges and some odds and ends of different things from the Star Treks he worked on.” The blueprints to Desilu Sound Stage 9, where the permanent sets for the series were constructed in the Sixties, along with costume patterns were more than a gift—they were a summons. Cawley wanted to make fan films based on Gene Roddenberry’s now-classic science-fiction series. However, he

(ABOVE LEFT) While the overhead displays are computer-generated loops, the remainder of the Bridge is an almost-exact replica of the 1966 set. (INSET) What was once a grocery store is now a portal to the days of Hollywood past. RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TRAVEL

(ABOVE) An emergency exit is decorated to resemble how Stage 9 at the Desilu Studios lot probably looked. (INSET) With gels creating atmospheric lighting, the corridor connecting the various standing sets makes you feel as if you’re on the starship Enterprise.

wanted to get it right, making the sets, costumes, and props as authentic as possible. Reports say that Cawley went on to pour $100,000 into recreating those sets, initially in an abandoned car dealership in nearby Port Henry. With a small army of friends and fellow fans, they constructed those sets in 2003 and then began producing slick-looking fan films dubbed Star Trek: Phase II (also known as The New Voyages). Cawley grew obsessed with getting the details right, studying the episodes countless times, taking notes on lighting, control panels, buttons, and other minutia. He explains that most of the construction required basic tools, not arcane training, making it fairly easy to construct the replicas. When it was time to dress the sets, things got tricky. “You have to have all the buttons, which have to be molded and they have to be the right shapes, so you have to figure it out, like a detective. You’re reaching back in time and you have to kind of figure out how they accomplished certain things. The beautiful thing about Star Trek, and it’s one of the reasons why some people get upset with the new Discovery, Star Trek was unique in that for 66

RetroFan

Spring 2019

40-odd years they respected their own fictional history, their visual history. They had this identity and it’s this whole subset of Star Trek fandom. And people study it and we know you research it and we share information. So, maybe I didn’t have a piece of information—somebody else did to put that stuff together to get where we are today. This whole, rich Star Trek tapestry, and it built this whole cohesive universe, you know, in the course of the series.” Despite his financing the sets, Cawley couldn’t build them entirely on his own and that’s where his loyal band of friends and volunteers came in. “You know, they found me when the Internet was new. We had started doing New Voyages; we were doing these fan film things. There was no Netflix, none of that. But these people were on the message boards and we put up a picture, ‘Hey, you know, we’re making our own Star Trek thing.’ And they would say, ‘Hey, that’s cool, can we help out?’ And a lot of them became like family.” Cawley estimates that about 18 people worked directly on the current incarnation of the sets, which has taken three years and they are still not done. “We have a few more things we want to do. Now you need to finish the bridge. We’re going to put in one panel on the right, but we started to hold off because we have to make sure, not just for legal reasons, but for Star Trek reasons, we want to make sure that it’s all handicapped-accessible. And so, we would have had to relocate the handicapped ramp off the bridge and build a custom door behind one of the panels, so we decided to leave this last section out until we had time to do that do it right.” While there’s a temptation to fabricate materials with a 3D printer, Cawley is about being as authentic as possible. “We will search,” Cawley declares, sounding very much like the captain. “We will find it no matter what it takes.” While far from being the only such endeavor, his gained a following given the professional production quality. As a result, many veterans of the television episodes and feature films came to make appearances behind or before the camera, including Walter Koenig (Chekov), George Takei (Sulu), Grace Lee Whitney (Rand), Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar’s grandmother), Majel BarrettRoddenberry (computer voice), William Windom (Commodore Matt Decker), D. C. Fontana (script supervisor/writer), and David Gerrold (script). The sets and special effects benefitted from the input from Doug Drexler, Dan Curry, Mike Okuda, Andrew Probert, Steve Horch, and Gregory Jein, all of whom worked on the more contemporary films and series. Cawley portrayed Kirk for several episodes before leaving the center seat in favor of producing the series. By 2012, though, Paramount Pictures, owner of Star Trek, was having its patience consistently tested as Cawley’s series and others veered too close to the canonical material. This reached a crescendo in 2014 when rival producer Alec Peters made Prelude to Axanar, a 21-minute film

RETRO TRAVEL

to act as a fundraiser for a feature-length production. That alone had raised $101,000, so it was no surprise that the Kickstarter campaign brought in $638,000. Peters’ ambitions prompted CBS and Paramount to launch a lawsuit in 2015 to stop production. As the case progressed, new guidelines for fan films were released by the studio on June 23, 2016. The restrictions were pretty much the death knell for many fan dreams. Not so for Cawley. He’d already grown tired of now-fractioned camaraderie among fan-film production companies. Instead, since he already had a good working relationship with Paramount, he proposed a licensing deal. He would shut down the fan productions in favor of leading visitors on a tour of the recreation of Stage 9. Cawley relocated the production to a 13,000-square-foot former grocery store/Dollar General in the heart of tiny Ticonderoga (population 5,000). “When I moved into this building,” he says, “and some of the people that worked on the Voyages can tell you that even when we were in the old building, I was very fussy about the sets, how the actors treated them. Because I was treating it like it was a museum. Because I saw the reaction of people coming out, when we moved into this space.” The Star Trek Set Tour opened in August 2016 thanks to hundreds of hours of effort from volunteers and a grant from the New York State Tourism Board. With Fort Ticonderoga, a significant player during the War for Independence, nearby, the town now bills itself as “the only place in the country where people can go from the 18th Century to the 23rd Century in five minutes.” As visitors enter the building, they can see several cases filled with licensed merchandise, authentic props and costumes from the show, and similar visual delights. Signage suggests you’re outside the shooting stage complete with picture of Desilu president Lucille Ball, who courageously agreed to produce the original drama, putting her company at financial risk. A clapperboard rests at the base of a camera set-up, waiting to be wheeled in to the soundstage. A volunteer docent addresses the group, which will max out at 20, and then shows how the starship doors were manually opened. Once inside, you’re instantly aboard the Enterprise because the original production crew wisely connected the sets by building

(INSET) The clapper replica shows the level of detail that went into making it seem as if you were on a working film set. (ABOVE) First stop on the tour is the Transporter Room, a terrific photo op.

JAMES CAWLEY While many know him as Elvis (named Elvis Impersonator #1 by a committee of Elvis fan club presidents), Cawley has also made numerous appearances as Kirk in his fan-film series in addition to portraying Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, created by Peter David for the novel series Star Trek: New Frontier. He played Kirk’s nephew Peter in Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, opposite Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, and Alan Ruck, directed by Tim Russ, of Star Trek: Voyager fame. (His sets were used for the production.) Cawley made it into the real Star Trek playing a background officer aboard J. J. Abrams’ recreation of the Enterprise in the 2009 film. His sets, props, and costumes can be seen on the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly.” Having performed as the King longer than the singer himself performed, Cawley says, “I’m starting to wind down a little bit so when the tour is closed for the season, that’s when I perform the most out of necessity.” Favorite Elvis song: “Suspicious Minds.” Says Cawley, “That’s him at his finest hour. Absolute.” Favorite episode: “Shore Leave” Favorite actor: William Shatner Favorite character: James Kirk Favorite set: Bridge

RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TRAVEL

ship corridors. The lighting mimics that of the ship and you hear the constant thrumming of the warp engines, punctuated by chirps and beeps from the equipment in use. The first stop is the Transporter Room, where you can step onto the platform for pictures or prepare for a Landing Party. It’s also the first example of the attention to detail. Although the auxiliary viewer was only used in one episode, there it is, behind the transport console. From there it’s a stop in the briefing room, where you can marvel at the three-dimension chess set or examine a Vulcan lyre, among other artifacts. Sick Bay is next and there are the bio beds, the display of 20thCentury scalpels (from “Space Seed”), and even the hyperbaric chamber, which made a mere two appearances. McCoy’s office and lab are connected to the main portion and a mannequin displays a uniform with the short-sleeved medical tunic. Here and there, framed photos show you how the set looked on the show so you can appreciate the level of detail. From there, it’s around the corner, past the familiar ladder and Jeffries Tube, to the crew quarters. Dressed to resemble Kirk’s quarters, you see how small it is. His bed required specially commissioned fabric to be made in order to replicate the look. The safety deposit box panel is present and it slides open. Atop the desk, a small box, an actual prop used on the series, is present, something Cawley found on eBay and outbid all comers to make sure it ended up where it belonged. Along one corridor wall is the junction panel that was seen in a few episodes, and you can open it and actually move a few pieces, causing the lighting to readjust, creating the impression you have just saved the ship from imminent destruction. The tour winds its way to Engineering, and you can appreciate the forced perspective Set Designer Matt Jeffries created to give the warp engines a sense of scope. There’s Scotty’s status board and the dilithium chambers themselves, which will slide open, displaying the crystals within. Liability concerns preclude anyone

Sick Bay is deceptively larger than one expects, with a working biobed and medical display. The mannequin shows the medical tunic Dr. Leonard McCoy regularly wore on the series.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

(ABOVE) Although the hyperbaric chamber was seen only twice, James Cawley insisted it be added to the Sick Bay set to be as complete as possible. (RIGHT) Ella Pearson, daughter of novelist Scott Pearson, shows a corridor junction box with working parts.

from climbing up to the second deck, but it’s there and 2019 plans call for additions. Finally, the Engineering room abuts the turblolift, so you walk into the lift and the docent will be on the other side, sliding the door open and presenting you to the Bridge. Regardless of the angle, you step on to the Bridge and you are on the Enterprise. Every control panel and monitoring station is present on the upper deck. Peer into Spock’s viewer and you’ll see a blue light. Nearby is a Feinberger (the earpiece Spock and Uhura both used), along with painted data cards (precursors to the floppy discs of the Nineties). The screens above the stations loop digital recreations of the static data and images so you can see planets being scanned or get data on ship functions. The Red Alert panel is there, usually off, but now and then everyone goes to battle stations, the familiar klaxon sounding. Step down and there’s the helm and navigation station with astrogator and time clock in the middle. This was completely rebuilt in 2018 when it turned out the previous version was off by a few inches. The rising targeting computer at the Helm is also there, upright and ready to fire at invaders. The main screen is also on a loop, sometimes welcoming you to the tour, occasionally orbiting a world, and sometimes just cruising through space. Stay there long enough and the blue visage of Balok will suddenly waver into view, his head swiveling back and forth, threatening trespassers. Finally, there’s the captain’s chair. To avoid breakage, the chair’s ringing the Bridge are absent, and you can’t sit at the Helm, but you can assume command. You ease into the chair, place your hands on the arms, and feel ready to give commands. The buttons

RETRO TRAVEL

(LEFT) The highlight is, of course, the Bridge, with working controls, continuous sound effects, and a changing array of images on the high-definition main viewscreen. (ABOVE) In the lobby there are numerous display cases with genuine props, replicas, and assorted merchandise showing the series’ enduring appeal.

work, lights flare, and they’re labeled so you know not to jettison add Auxiliary Control and the interior of the [shuttlecraft] Galileo the recording pod. This is where visitor photos are taken in copious behind the corridor where we have a space that used to be our amounts. lighting section.” The Bridge is also where there have been proposals, group It’s expensive to run the tour, considering the electric bill alone shots, and more than a few people indulging in wish fulfillment. is four figures a month. Tiny Ticonderoga is a two-hour drive from The whole tour takes between 45–60 minutes, but for that the Albany airport, making the site an out-of-the-way gem. Cawley length of time you don’t feel like you’re touring sets. You’re on the is fortunate that most of the staff are volunteers who love him Enterprise—you’re part of the crew—and it feels fantastic. James and/or Star Trek, believing in his vision and giving of their time and Cawley doesn’t want you feeling any other way. sweat equity. The docents have to be vigilant, as some fans want souvenirs Throughout the year, Cawley has created theme weekends and have pried off control-panel buttons or lifted one of the to entice visitors from around the country. Each August hosts computer disks. Trekonderoga, a weekend-long celebration with celebrities and “This Bridge is probably the third incarnation of the Bridge,” special events. In 2018, Karl Urban and Gates McFadden, better Cawley says, considering the relocations and attention to detail. known respectively as Dr. McCoy and Dr. Crusher, appeared along “We’ll take the step to pull something out. We’ve done it often in with Michael and Denise Okuda. The biggest thrill, though, was the last year since I was here.” the May 2018 “Captain on the Bridge” with William Shatner, which As for rebuilding the Helm, he explains, “Well, the original brought tons of media attention. Shatner himself was genuinely Helm still survives. It’s in Paul Allen’s affected by walking the set, memories collection and some friends got to go out and phantoms of the past filling his vision. FAST FACTS and measure it and document it because Seeing him in the captain’s chair was Star Trek there were no drawings for the Helm. Cawley’s biggest moment. “Meeting Bill—I There’s just been some rough outlines can now call him that, as he told me to— `` No. of seasons: 3 `` Original run: September 6, of the thing. They did a beautiful job was the culmination of my life’s work and 1966–June 3, 1969 documenting that and taking photographs passion for the sets and for Star Trek,” he `` Network: NBC of it and graciously, you know, gave me told the local media. “To walk on `` Creator/Executive Producer: access to all that stuff. So, again, you have them with your hero is, quite Gene Roddenberry the information. What’s the best way to frankly, mind-blowing and `` Emmy Awards won: none share? Build it and include it here.” -numbing at the same time. (nominated 13 times) Similarly, they have found a way to We spoke about Trek, the `` Spin-offs: Star Trek add in a permanent Auxiliary Control set sets, and his grandkids and (animated), Star Trek: The even though it was merely a redressed set he made me eat apple pie Next Generation, Star Trek: during the original production. That should with him.” Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: be built in 2019. “We’re putting the ceiling The actor had such a good time, Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery beams in Engineering and that pretty much he agreed to return in December 2018 for finishes the standing sets. We are going to another event. Twice, a gaggle of Star Trek RetroFan

Spring 2019

RETRO TRAVEL

Engineering is a two-story affair with pulsing lights to suggest the ship is in flight. The forced perspective makes you believe the room is larger than it is. (BELOW) Captain Robert Greenberger.

novelists came for a weekend, the second visit including breakout sessions held down the block in Town Hall. (The community is trusting; the crew was given a key and unfettered access.) The local businesses have embraced the costumed fans with several posting themed special meals or hanging autographed pictures from the various celebrities who appeared at the sets and dined in their establishments. It’s a small town center, a few blocks long with far too many vacant storefronts. “I think originally they didn’t know what to make of it,” Cawley admits. “And

STAR TREK SET TOUR 112 Montcalm Street, Ticonderoga, NY 12883 Open April through mid-December 7 days a week, with the exception of Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day Sunday–Saturday 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. Last tour starts at 5:00 p.m. 518-369-9967 www.startrektour.com/ startrek.tos.tour@gmail.com Admission: Adult: (Ages 14–54) $22.50, Senior: $20.00 (Age 55+), Child: $11.00 (Ages 5–13), Child: Free, Under Age 5: No ticket required

RetroFan

Spring 2019

then we got the license and we opened the door and they see the people coming into town and not just going here but going to restaurants, staying in a motel. Motorcycles come into town and people spend money. So people that love Star Trek are coming into town dancing, [and locals] realize it is just another passion, another hobby.” A newly formed Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance presented Cawley with a 20-year loan of $300,000, allowing him to purchase the building and plan for future expansion. At the Star Trek Experience in 2017, Cawley announced the creation of Star Trek Film Academy and followed up with plans to purchase the adjacent building where he could license and recreate the sets to Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Film Academy will be designed as a weeklong immersive course in teaching budding filmmakers how to prep and shoot a film, using the ready-made sets. “We’re going to give you the basic ropes of how to make a Star Trek film or an episode. You’re going to work with Michael Westmore on makeup, Michael and Denise Okuda, Doug Drexler, and Daren Dochterman on props and effects, and we’re working on celebrity guests to come teach directing and to teach acting,” Cawley says. “Ultimately, you’ll be able to walk out at the end of the week with your own Star Trek film. But with changes to some of the techniques, you can make any film. But specifically, we want to show people how Star Trek was made, because that’s our audience. “Then we’ll intercut it with new special effects, and they get to take it home. All of the exterior visual effects stuff is going to be done ahead of time. The shots will be in the episode and will be premade and ready to drop in. You’ll have a fan as a gaffer here, a lighting guy there. We’re going to have a professional cinematographer shooting it, teaching them how to set up a shot, how to film it so that it looks like Trek. “And then, they obviously must be working from a script that is coming from Trek writers. We’ve actually got a couple of writers working on that right now. We have [Trek novelists] Dave Galanter and Dayton Ward writing for us, and we are reaching out to Dorothy Fontana, who’s an old friend, so we’re hoping that Dorothy will be able to pen the longer thing that we want to do in person. It’s going to be fun, because how many of us wanted to be a part of the show?” Anyone wishing to step into the future merely has to take the journey to upstate New York and bring their imagination. James Cawley and his team will do the rest. Photos accompanying this article are courtesy of Bob Greenberger, David Mack, and Dave Galanter.

Writer/editor/educator ROBERT GREENBERGER blogs at bobgreenberger.com.

SUPER COLLECTOR

The Road to HARVEYANA One Collector’s Journey to Find Purpose by Jonathan Sternfeld I have been a collector for as long as I have been able to grasp things in my hands. My earliest collection that I can remember was bottle caps that I found on the street. They used to be plentiful, and I liked their bright colors. This collection ended abruptly when I tried to pick up a cork from a liquor bottle smashed in the gutter. After that it was business cards. From dry cleaners to restaurants, it used to be much more common for businesses to have a card holder near the cash register, and I would try to get cards everywhere my parents took me. One day, while leaving the supermarket, I noticed the rack of gumball machines. While the stale candy was of no interest to me, the little toys inside some of the machines were absolute wonders, treasures beyond compare to my young mind. This was the first change in my collecting habits, from items that were free to items that cost money. And while I made some efforts to get complete sets of some of the toys, I ended up with duplicates of some items while still missing others. At some point I had a small collection of baseball cards. I do not remember asking for them or going shopping for them, and I was never much of a baseball fan. I do remember trading cards

with a neighbor boy. Since I knew little about the teams or players, I probably gave away good cards while getting junk in return. This was the only time in my collecting life that I traded any part of my collections. As I got a little older, we started going on family vacations. I loved touristy gift shops and souvenirs and started collecting postcards. Going to places like Florida and Hawaii, I also started collecting seashells. Most of the shells were ones I picked up for free on the beach, but I do remember buying one basket of shells wrapped in cellophane because the shells in it were interesting and unbroken. The year 1977 saw the release of the movie Star Wars, and I was hooked. I started asking for both the Star Wars Kenner toys and Topps trading cards. While I tried to get one of each of the vehicles, and one or more of the action figures, I considered them toys, not

(ABOVE) An assortment of games featuring Harvey characters. All photos accompanying this article are courtesy of and from the collection of Jonathan Sternfeld. Characters © Universal Studios/DreamWorks Animation. RetroFan

Spring 2019

SUPER COLLECTOR

collectibles, and I played with them. I was a careful child, but I still ripped boxes and broke and lost pieces. But the trading cards became my first serious collection. My parents would take me to all the local newsstands and stationery stores and buy me wax packs, then we would go home and try to make complete sets. We made checklists of what we had and needed, my first exposure to the concept of cataloging a collection. I wish had been exposed to archival storage methods then as well, because as sets were completed, we would stack them together wrapped inside a rubber band and put them in a shopping bag that served to store the collection. I sold most of my duplicate sets years ago, but the cards I kept still bear the scars from the rubber bands. While shopping for Star Wars cards, I found other non-sports cards. I started collecting several other series, including Wacky Packages, also by Topps. The next big change in my collecting life came the very next summer, in 1978. (LEFT) The comic books that started it all for Jonathan. (RIGHT) Sternfeld We were playing tennis at day camp, and also has a collection of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. (INSET) A even playing doubles on several courts, we Collector is Born! The want list Sternfeld’s grandmother helped him make. could not all play at once. While sitting out on a bench, I found a beat-up comic book and started reading it. I had never had any real interest in comic books until this time; I am not sure why. At the very least, Marvel’s Star Wars comics it, possibly due to its cost, and him warning me, “You know this isn’t would have fed my Star Wars obsession. But the comic I was a comic book, right?” No, it is not a comic book, but that issue was enjoying so much that day pivotal in my collecting and my understanding of was Richie Rich Inventions #1, collecting. I went through the book cover to cover released the previous year. several times, reading the advertisements and After tennis, I took the book articles, and wondering at some of the prices. I with me and asked everyone read about grading, looked up all my books, and in my camp group if it used the “See also” notes to find other titles I did belonged to them. When no not know existed. My grandmother gave me a one claimed it, I took it home small spiral-bound notebook, and we spent a day and showed my parents. The copying one title per page, listing the numbers next thing you know, we’re one to however many issues Overstreet said had going to the local 7-Eleven been published on the page to use as a checklist. each week and buying new Then I had to go through my collection, which comic issues off their spinner by now occupied five long boxes, and cross off rack. Then we started the issues I had. My collection was now properly visiting the local comic-book cataloged! stores to buy back issues. My With the energy and enthusiasm with which father was more interested we pursued back issues, it was only a matter in the books than my mother, and he read them all along with me. of time before we had most of them, and we had exhausted the Somehow, he got his mother (my grandmother) interested in the local comic-book stores. My interest in the collection began to collection as well, and she started helping find and pay for books. wane, and my attention turned elsewhere. I had always enjoyed It was at one of the comic-book stores that I first encountered listening to music and started more actively buying records and the Overstreet [Comic Book] Price Guide and talked my father into cassette tapes. I started building military models and setting up buying the current edition. I remember him being reluctant to buy model train layouts. I also got involved with role-playing games, 72

RetroFan

Spring 2019

SUPER COLLECTOR

and that lead to buying and painting miniatures for gaming. It was around the time I started high school that computers entered my life. I had an Atari 2600, and loved playing games on it, but with high school came a Commodore 64 with 5 ¼” diskette drives, a modem, and a dot-matrix printer. I spent hours typing in example programs from books and magazines, and yes, I played games on it, too. Some of the programs available for the 64 were simple databases, home-inventory programs, and the like. I decided it would be nice to catalog my record collection and modified one of the databases to suit my needs. When I took a programming class in high school, my teacher helped me speed up sorting the database by giving me sample code for “bubble sort.” I was able to translate his code into Commodore’s BASIC and could then print a nice sorted report of what records I owned. I never thought of my books or music as collections, but that is what those libraries were, and the concept of using a database as a checklist for a collection shaped much of my future efforts. After high school came college, and separation from my childhood possessions. The military models and Star Wars toys were sold, and the rest went into storage. While at college, I met my future wife, and learned about her collecting hobby. She was studying geology and had a small collection of rocks and minerals. This is another open-ended collection, in that every specimen is different, and it

is almost impossible to have one of everything. I became especially interesting in Malachite and Azurite and started collecting with her. Soon the collection grew large enough to catalog. College had exposed me to more powerful IBM PC computers and real database programs, Borland’s dBase III at the time. We worked together to decide what data to track, and then set up the tables and did the data entry. I wanted to take photographs of each specimen and include them in the database, but the photography, lighting, and scanning equipment was prohibitively expensive. I later migrated this database to dBase IV, then to Microsoft Access, where it currently stands with about 600 specimens cataloged. We worked in the college library, and there I learned about library catalog software, and the use of barcodes in the books and barcode readers. I started to imagine ways to use barcodes in my collections. Once graduated from college, employed as a computer programmer, settled into an apartment, and married, I decided it was time to retrieve my collections. Looking at the comic-book long boxes kindled a spark of interest, and I started reviewing my old spiralbound notebook. As with the home-inventory programs for the Commodore 64, the rise of the IBM PC brought with it many pre-packaged database programs, designed to catalog book collections, rock and mineral collections, comic-book collections, and more. I reviewed as many as I could and made some enhancements to our rock and mineral database.

(INSET) Sternfeld’s comic-book spinner rack, like the one at 7-Eleven where he used to buy comics. (ABOVE AND RIGHT) Select items from Jonathan’s Harvey collection on display, July 2016, Schenectady County Public Library main branch.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

SUPER COLLECTOR

I was not satisfied with any of the pre-packaged comic-book databases and decided to write my own using Microsoft Access and based on the Overstreet price guides like my old spiral-bound notebook was. I bought the most recent copy of Overstreet, reviewed the titles, and looked at all the advertisements. I started sending letters to several of the dealers, cover pages attached to my updated want list. Soon I was sending checks and receiving back issues by mail. eBay launched in 1995, but I did not join until 2001. eBay opened up a world of possibilities, and over the next few years, I found most of what I needed, then again found myself in the situation of having exhausted what was available. During this time, my wife and I continued to go to gem and mineral shows with our collection printout. I thought it would be nice to have the actual database at the shows to be able to search, but carrying a laptop was impractical at the time, and devices like the PalmPilot did not have enough memory or computational power to run the database. My wife and I fell in love with traveling, and I purchased a film SLR camera to take pictures of our trips. Photography became yet another hobby of mine.

Getting Rich (Richie, that is)

Non-sport card shows became popular in our area, and we started collecting several new sets each. We also started collecting other comic-book titles. These additional collections kept me searching eBay, and one day I found a Richie Rich toy instead of a comic book. It was a die-cast car in a blister pack, and I bought it. Little did I know what an effect this little car would have on my collecting! Since I thought of myself as a thorough and wellconnected collector, and I had not known of any Richie Rich toys before, I figured there could not be that many out there. I thought I would buy these couple of toys and be done. But the more I searched, the more I found. My ability to find new toys quickly outstripped my ability to buy them. I started wondering if anyone knew what had been made, hoping to turn what was becoming an open-ended collection back into a checklist collection. Once again turning to technology, I tried to enlist the aid of the Richie Rich Yahoo Group in building a list of merchandise people knew about or owned. I only got one response, but that one response mentioned my little car, and said there were three variants. Searching eBay, I found two other cars, then found a third I did not have, making four variants, not just three.

(ABOVE RIGHT) Harvey character merchandise spans many decades. (RIGHT) Back to school with Casper and Richie Rich. Characters © Universal Studios/DreamWorks Animation.

RetroFan

Spring 2019

I knew that a definitive, up-to-date list of merchandise was needed, I knew that one did not exist, and I knew that no one else was going to make one, so it was up to me. Thinking about my Overstreet price guides, I considered writing a book about the merchandise. Since pictures were more important to me than values, I also considered a coffee-table book format. I was willing to put in the money and effort, but thought about that fourth variant car and realized that any book I could write would be obsolete before it was printed. I thought about my comic-book database and added a table to track what merchandise I owned. While Microsoft Access databases are easy to update, and reports can be reprinted, they are difficult to share. I wanted some way to interact with my fellow collectors. This is when I started considering creating a website. While the internet was starting to resemble what it is today, it was not quite there yet. Personal websites were mostly limited to pages on sites like Myspace, and design options, bandwidth, and storage were quite limited. I shelved the idea and continued buying whatever merchandise I could afford. Fast-forward a couple of years, and the rise of shared server hosting and the WordPress content management system made

SUPER COLLECTOR

(TOP) Harvey licensed many Richie Rich dolls over the years. (BOTTOM) Harvey Halloween costumes, buckets, and banners. Characters © Universal Studios/DreamWorks Animation.

to me, but there is no way to be the public face of Harveyana collectibles and remain anonymous myself. As for fortune, it costs me money to host the website, and I do not run advertisements to offset the cost. This is on top of the money I still spend adding to the collection, and on photography equipment and computer hardware and software to support the website. personal websites practical. I knew nothing about WordPress, but received help and encouragement from several people, and spent the next couple of years learning how to set up a website. I purchased some more photography equipment and started photographing my toys, using the digital SLR I had upgraded to for my travel photography. Finally, in April of 2014, the Harvey Mercheum website (www. harveymercheum.com) went live. The effect it had on my life was much greater than I expected, but not in the ways I expected. Did it bring me fame and fortune? Hardly. I use what fame I receive to try to promote my mission, not myself. I want people to know about Harvey comics merchandise, and to consider it a serious and viable genre of collecting. I coined the term “Harveyana” to encompass all I have found, and to help rally those who would collect it. I spoke to several collectors of various sorts of items before starting the website, and one thing that surprised me was that some wanted to remain anonymous. Further discussion revealed that the concern was unwanted attention, especially theft, due to having one’s name associated with a collection. I understand that concern, so I allow contributors to the website to remain anonymous if they choose to. I know the same concerns apply

A Whole New World

So, what effects did starting a website have on my life? Other than consuming all my free time and money, two are particularly significant. The first was that it caused me to interact more socially. I have been an introvert my whole life, but suddenly I found myself telling strangers about my hobby. I started corresponding with collectors and dealers from all over the world. I also interacted with WordPress developers, web designers, and technical-support professionals. I started attending more toy and comic-book conventions and talking more in depth with the dealers there. I had business cards printed with the website’s address and handed them out as well. This enthusiasm for attending more conventions spread to our family travel plans as well. I started looking for conventions in other cities or even countries that would be nice to visit, and we started planning some of our vacations around these events. The other big effect was that I had to put myself in a back-toschool mindset and learn a great deal about a variety of topics. I have had to improve my writing, and my photography and photo-editing skills. While I know some computer programming, I had to learn CSS, PHP, and some more HTML. I have had to learn basic graphic design, and web concepts such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). And while I stylize my website as a “virtual RetroFan

Spring 2019

SUPER COLLECTOR

(ABOVE) The Harvey Mercheum permanent collection, packed and waiting for the room to be painted. (ABOVE RIGHT) Malachite, Azurite, and Hematite, the Sternfeld family’s favorite minerals.

museum,” I have taken an interest in real museum policies and activities, such as acquisition, cataloging, signage, and labeling, and especially conservation. I even took a continuing-education course at our local community college about preserving your collection, and it was fascinating! Much like the issue of anonymity, some people keep their collections packed away, while others display them privately or publicly. I wish to share my collection with the world and have had two opportunities to do so to date. The first came back in the summer of 2016. My local public library has two display cases that they use for monthly rotating exhibits. While they usually contain books related to something happening that month, they sometimes allow the public to display their collections. July of 2016 marked the first Electric City Comic Con, a small one-day comicbook convention in the library, and I was allowed to set up part of my collection in the display cases in support of the convention. It was great seeing the items properly displayed, and feedback was very positive. The next opportunity was a couple of months ago, as of this writing. Jonny Harvey, grandson of [Harvey Comics co-founder and editor] Leon Harvey, posted on Facebook that he was working on a documentary about Harvey Comics. I let him know about my collection, and he brought his film crew to my house and shot 76

RetroFan

Spring 2019

footage of several items. I am looking forward to the release of this documentary, Ghost Empire, and am eager to see what footage makes the cut! While the collection has grown in the last couple of years, one item stands out as my favorite. I have a four-sided comic-book spinner rack, with the sign at the top depicting Richie Rich, SpiderMan, Archie, and Superman. I remember when I saw it for sale on eBay, I had to work with my wife to set a maximum bid and to contact the seller to arrange when I would be able to pick it up if I won. As happens sometimes, for some reason the auction got little attention, and I got a very good deal. The following weekend, we got up before dawn and drove about eight hours to the far side of the state. The whole time I was wondering if the rack would actually fit in our car! It did, and then we turned around and made the drive back. A long day, but one of the happiest in my collecting career. The reason this item is my favorite, though, is not its size or cost. It is similar in style to the one I bought Richie Rich comics off of at 7-Eleven. Looking at it reminds me of those simpler times that seem so long ago now. One item that I know will not fit in my car is my Holy Grail item, a Bally S6000 Richie Rich slot machine. Slot machines weigh about 300 pounds, so I will have to rent a truck or pay hefty delivery charges. Bally made both round and flat-top versions, and, of course, the completionist in me wants one of each… So, what are my plans for the future? Of course, I intend to keep expanding my collection, and hope to eventually buy some of the key items that I know I am still missing. I enjoy learning, and will continue my varied studies. I would like to get more visitors to my website, and more guest-exhibit contributions. I may try more social-media channels to help with this. I would also like the collection to do more public appearances. My study of museum practices has taught me that I do not want to try to open my own brick-and-mortar museum, but I would love to be able to put on an exhibition at an existing museum, such as the National Museum of Play. I would also be happy to do a pop-up display at a comicbook convention or toy show. I never forgot my interest in using barcodes in collections and hope to use QR Codes in my signage if I do another exhibition or display. And who knows, maybe some day I will write that cof feetable book! JONATHAN STERNFELD is a lifelong collector, hobbyist, and polymath. He funds his various follies by working as an applications developer in New York’s Capital Region, where he lives with his longsuffering wife and two cats.

Order @ Amazon.com or SUBSCRIBE!

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®

BRICKJOURNAL #53 LOOKS AT CUSTOM VIDEO GAME CREATIONS! SUBSCRIBE NOW!

#53 now shipping!

GET THE NEXT SIX PRINT ISSUES PLUS FREE DIGITAL EDITIONS!

9 201ES! RAT

SUBSCRIBE TO BRICKJOURNAL o $62 Economy US Postpaid o $74 Expedited US (faster delivery) o $99 International o $24 Digital Editions Only Name: Address: City/Province: State: Country (if not USA): E-mail address:

Zip Code:

(for free digital editions)

#56 ships in March 2019, with life-size LEGO® creations!

TwoMorrows Publishing

10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Order at twomorrows.com LEGO® and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. BrickJournal is not associated with The LEGO Group.

MAIL THIS FORM WITH PAYMENT TODAY! TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

For faster service, order online at:

www.twomorrows.com or by phone: 919-449-0344

The article by Tom Stewart about his collection was so cool because I have collected books, toys, and other stuff, but no way as much as he has! I have bought other magazines in the past similar to RetroFan which lasted about two issues and that was it. I hope that RetroFan will be around for a long time, as I am waiting to read issue #2. MARCUS CARTER Well, Marcus, you’re reading this in issue #4, so we’ve lasted twice as long as those other magazines you mentioned. And we’re planning to stick around as long as there are folks like you who are curious about the crazy, cool culture we grew up with. The only thing that could wrestle me away from editing RetroFan would be a sounder of sinister swine that savors human flesh.

The gent [Mark Voger] who did the interview with Elvira [RetroFan #2] had his list of films that were her top ten worst movies picks. He said he thought one of them, Pigs Eat Everyone, was a fake.

Uh-oh.

[Re Scott Shaw!’s look at the long-defunct Dinosaur Land amusement park in issue #2:] Always wanted to stop there but never did. Just drove past it. Some of the trees are still there but it’s been taken over by new housing. Even after it closed, there was one dinosaur that you could see from old [Highway] 80. They should of left it there. You do bring back great memories, Scott! JIM FETTERS

Elvira fan Ken Turner submitted the art at upper right for publication in issue #2 (which cover-featured the horror hostess), but it arrived too late for inclusion. We couldn’t pass it up, though, and are happy to share it here. Nice job, Ken!

RetroFan #2 was another interesting mix. Not everything connected, but that wasn’t my expectation going in. I came to an interesting conclusion after reading the Halloween costume, View-Master, and lunch box articles: all, to whatever extent, represented a way, for kids of the day, to hold onto movies and TV shows in that pre-VCR era. It was something tangible to remind a child of his or her favorite. Otherwise, they had to wait a full week for the character to return to their TV set. That’s why toys, gum cards, and art or photos of the players were so meaningful. It allowed you to have a physical memento while the characters weren’t broadcast. Certainly, now, with most shows and movies quickly issued on DVD or Blu-ray, a lot of that merchandising is less essential. But at the time, I was totally grateful for it. The Halloween costumes even gave us a chance to “be” the character. Thought the Ben Cooper article was very informative. My recollection is I liked the two I

I think Elvira may have meant a little hamfisted slice of baloney called Pigs, also known as Daddy’s Deadly Darlings, from 1973. This used to run A LOT on Movie Macabre and is about a farmer that gets rid of people who make him angry. In time, the bacon develops a taste for human flesh, and then we’re off to market. DAN JOHNSON

RetroFan

Spring 2019

I just finished reading issue #1 of RetroFan and I love it—the articles, photos, interviews. It is a fun magazine! The cover caught my eye but as I was reading it, the memories flowed through me of those fun times and fun stuff.

went as (Magilla Gorilla and Spider-Man), but by age ten thought they were more for little kids. Afterwards, preferred the scarier (and hotter) rubber masks. In the lunch box article, I really enjoyed the musing of boxes that should have been offered (such as Jonny Quest and Space Ghost). Enjoyed the “Monsters in the House” article. I wonder what subtext element the shows connected with? The outsiders as the normal ones? I think it actually started a year earlier with My Favorite Martian. It might have been physical differences or special powers, depending on the show, but all were played for laughs. Especially loved the photo of the Addams Family trading card box and the Munsters model kit. Liked the horror host article as well. Detroit, at the time, had one called Sir Graves Ghastly. Enjoyed it then but now, I’d likely rather just watch the movie, uncut and without interruptions. My favorite article, as I’m more a comicbook fan, was the coverage of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum. Sorry I never made it out there. Would have been cool to linger admiring the displayed covers and artwork. Too late now. My only criticism is the photos were too small to really make out much detail. The same applies to the lunch boxes. Lots of straining to pick out specific examples. Maybe it’s less of an issue in the digital version, where images can be enlarged? Suggestions for future articles: `` TV gum cards and board games. `` TV actors of the day making live appearances to please admiring fans (along with photos).

`` For lead or cover-featured actors: Larry Storch (F Troop), Burt Ward (Batman), and any of the remaining Lost in Space cast. There, too, it’d be great to see composer John Williams interviewed about his Sixties themes and episode music (Gilligan’s Island, Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants) prior to hitting it big with Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, etc. [Editor’s note: Williams composed a Calypso-ish theme for the Gilligan’s Island pilot. Google it. It’s like watching the Gilligan’s Island of Earth-Two.] `` Also would love to see pictures of Sixties newsstands or spinner racks with the comics clearly displayed. Or an article noting all the different places and ways they used to be sold. The worst, that I recall, was short-lived. A machine where copies were sold like cigarette packs in a vending machine (circa ’68–’69)? Apparently saved on mishandled copies, but cut the choices down significantly. The Saturday morning stuff, while well researched and written, didn’t connect with me as I was so turned off by the [Filmation Studios] post-superhero offerings. Things became tame and inoffensive with lots of singing. Most of the costumed adventuring was deemed too violent or potentially harmful to impressionable minds and, consequently, replaced with inoffensive or lighter content. By Fall 1969, there was no urgency in getting up early Saturday mornings. Still, lots of interesting information and artifacts unearthed in the various articles. Another pleaser, making it two issues in a row. JOE FRANK We’re Larry Storch fans here at RetroFan Central, and while we don’t (yet) have an interview scheduled with him (although we’ll try to make it happen), you’ll read about him in both issues #5 and 6. Those are great ideas for subjects, and don’t be surprised if a few of them find their way into our pages in the future. And hopefully this issue’s spotlight of TV’s Shazam! evoked better Saturday morning memories for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Fall 2018 issue of RetroFan. In particular, I loved the article about the Ben Cooper Costume company. As a kid who grew up in the Seventies and Eighties, I have fond memories of that company, and especially my Ben Cooper Darth Vader costume. Halloween during the Seventies and Eighties was very special.

In the Seventies, Halloween was known as Hell’s Night. It was the one night a year you knew you better put your car in the garage. Otherwise, the next morning there was a good chance your car would be covered in shaving cream. I am sure it was all innocent fun from a more innocent time, but looking back at that with an adult set of eyes, I can’t help but think, “Hoodlums.” One last memory I would like to share: Dick Smith’s Monster Makeup Kit by Pressman. This was the one toy my parents took away from me. It was deemed too dangerous. Inside the box was spirit gum, molds for making realistic wounds, and a grease pencil. I remember my father taking a peek in the box and saying, “Oh, Hell no!” Yes, toys in the Seventies did not have the same safety standards of today! Lastly, I have a project that may be of interest to your readers. I am a huge retro fan (Forties, Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties). My affinity for the past was a huge influence on my decade-long project: Curse of the Phantom Shadow. As a kid I loved decoder wheels, pin-up girls, comic-book ads, radio drama, movie serials, Universal Monsters, etc. My passion project features all of these elements. I have dedicated the last decade of my life to doing this. The film features a professional cast and includes actors from AMC’s Mad Men, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Flags of Our Fathers, Falcon Crest, and Hannah Montana. Visual fx were provided by the artists responsible for SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica, Iron Sky, and Sin City. This project was 100% self-funded. It was inspired by the same source materials as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. The film is specifically for fans that like comic books, pulp magazines, superhero films, pin-up girls, and retro culture. It is my sincerest hope and aspiration that you will consider sharing my trailer with your audience. It can be seen at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lBC1P9DBmAs Who am I, and why do I matter? My most recent short film, Enthusiasm Abounds, was selected as a semi-finalist at the Burbank International Film Festival, and won “Best Film” in Nevada at the Sci-On Film Festival. MARK ROSS Mark, considering the fact that your target audience list is, more or less, the demographic of this magazine, I’m happy to share that link about to your trailer—which I watched and enjoyed. Good luck with the project! And before I share your Curse of the Phantom Shadow promo graphic (below), I got a chuckle out of your comment about lax standards for Seventies’ toys. Remember Clacker Balls, which bruised hundreds of kids’ wrists (mine included)? This reminds me of Irwin Mainway, Dan Aykroyd’s sleazy toy manufacturer on Saturday Night Live, maker

`` The Marvel Super Heroes cartoon show with photos of the voice actors and some of the related merchandise.

of such playthings as Doggie Dentist, Johnny Switchblade, and Bag O’ Glass.

LOVED it when witches, monsters, and genies ruled the TV sitcom roots! Jack Mendelsohn got a deserved credit in the Groovie Goolies article. A shout-out to my pal Scott Shaw! and the fun he had at Dinosaur Land. [RetroFan #2 was] better than a bag full of Nestlé Crunch and Kit Kats: all treats, no tricks! BRENDAN SPILLANE

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com. MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief

NEXT ISSUE SHIPS IN JUNE: That’s one small step for man...

Summer 2019 No. 5 | $8.95

MOON LANDING MANIA

Snuﬀy Smith turns 100 The Original Grea test American Hero!

William Katt Interview

Feel the force of our up-closeand-personal

Blast oﬀ with Jaso Star Commandn of

MA JOR MATT

MASON

MARK HAMIL

the spaceman with the bends

INTERVIEW

“The First Time I Met Tarza

n!” • TV Dinners • Celeb

Featuring Andy Mang els • Will Murray • Scott

Features Syndicate.

Major Matt Mason

RetroFan

rity Crushes & more!

Saavedra • Scott Shaw !

Spring 2019

by Scott Saavedra

WHAM-O SUPERBALL TABLE TENNIS: THREAT OR MENACE?

OFF WITH HIS HEAD! RIVETING ROCK ’EM SOCK ’EM SHOCKER

• Upstart Timmy Johnstone Tearfully Laments Demise of Favorite Robot Fighter • Wife Becky Heckmann-Johnstone’s Triumph Cements Champion Status • Major Endorsements Unlikely as All the Noise is Really Starting to Bug Their Kids

WHO IS THE WORLD’S STRONGEST CHESS PLAYER? The Thing or the Hulk?

HOT WHEELS® STRAIGHT TRACK FENCING Latest Scores & Lacerations

BIG WHEEL STREET RACING DANGERS REPORT

Injuries Mount as Illegal Sport Ramps Up Risks for Greater Thrills & Rewards

THE THRILLA IN THE BACKYARD!

G.I. Joe & Big Jim Grudge Match! Kung Fu Grip vs. Karate Chop Action! Who Will Survive?

RetroFan

Spring 2019

Scott S.

Relive The Pop Culture You Grew Up With!

Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? Those were the happy days of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties— our childhood—and that is the era of TwoMorrows’ new magazine RETROFAN!

#5: Interviews with MARK HAMILL and Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Poke fun at a campy BATMAN COMIC BOOK! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, Moon Landing Mania, SNUFFY SMITH at 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS JUNE 2019! #6: Interviews with crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning Ghost Busters, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty Naugas! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIEDOBIE GILLIS connection, the PINBALL Hall of Fame, Super Collector DAVID MANDEL’s comic art collection, Alien action figures, the RUBIK’S CUBE fad, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2019! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazines) $8.95 (Digital Editions) $4.95

Please add $1 per issue for shipping in the US.

RETROFAN #1

RETROFAN #2

RETROFAN #3

RETROFAN #4

THE CRAZY, COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!

HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and an interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!

40th Anniversary interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of Aquaman, horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL (home of the Superman Celebration), SEAMONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, Superman and Batman memorabilia, & more!

Interviews with the SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the wayout Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping!

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Four issues: $41 Economy, $65 International, $16 Digital Only

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

DON’T RISK A SOLD OUT ISSUE AT BARNES & NOBLE!

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

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

DVD & BLU-RAY DISCS

DRACULA AD 1972 (1972) 2

HAMMER HORROR NOW ON BLU-RAY

WB.COM/WARNERARCHIVE

PRINTED IN CHINA