RetroFan #5

That’s one small step for man...

MOON LANDING MANIA

Summer 2019 No. 5 | $8.95

Snuffy Smith turns 100 The Original Greatest American Hero!

William Katt Interview

Feel the force es o l c p u r u o f o and-personal

Blast off with Jason of Star Command

the spaceman with the bends

MARK HAMILL INTERVIEW

“The First Time I Met Tarzan!” • TV Dinners • Celebrity Crushes & more!

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw!

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MAJOR MATT MASON

Snuffy Smith © King Features Syndicate. Major Matt Mason © Mattel. Jason of Star Command © Filmation. All Rights Reserved.

51 The crazy cool culture we

grew up with

CONTENTS Issue #5 | Summer 2019

47 Columns and Special Features

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Retro Interview Mark Hamill

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The First Time I Met Tarzan

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Retro Interview Snuffy Smith Cartoonist John Rose

Departments

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings Jason of Star Command

Retrotorial

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RetroFad Moon Landing Mania

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Retro Toys Major Matt Mason

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Celebrity Crushes

Retro Television The Greatest American Hero

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Retro Comic Strips Barney Google and Snuffy Smith at 100

Retro Interview William Katt

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Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Museum of Pop Culture – Seattle, Washington

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Too Much TV Quiz

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Retro Food & Drink TV Dinners

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RetroFanmail

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ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

Cover image of Mark Hamill at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Japan Premiere Red Carpet on December 6, 2017.

Photo by Dick Thomas Johnson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)].

RetroFan™ #5, Summer 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 to TwoMorrows, NOT the editorial office. Snuffy Smith © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Major Matt Mason © Mattel. Jason of Star Command © Filmation. 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

by Michael Eury What goes around, comes around, they say, and that old adage apparently applies to RetroFan’s columnists and contributors. Regular readers recall that right after our first issue, circumstances led two of our columnists, Martin Pasko and Ernest Farino, to leave our pages. Ye ed not being one to EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

procrastinate, I immediately brought in some talented ringers plus two new columnists, Scott Saavedra (who’s also our designer) and Will Murray (who debuts this issue). Then—fortunately—Pasko and Farino

PUBLISHER John Morrow

(sounds like a Sixties folk duo, doesn’t it?) were able to return to the magazine… and the success of our

CONTRIBUTORS Joseph Baneth Allen Michael Eury Glenn Greenberg Dan Hagen Rod Labbe Andy Mangels Will Murray Rose Rummel-Eury Scott Saavedra

first few issues attracted a virtual plethora of submission queries from some of pop culture’s most prized purveyors of prose. From famine to feast, I now have a smorgasbord of subjects and writers from which to choose—which is a blessing, believe you me! But as an 80-page quarterly, RetroFan lacks the space to feature every columnist and department in each issue. So you’ll notice the absence of columnists Farino, Pasko, and Scott Shaw! this issue (they’ll be back with #6), and the Super Collector feature is taking an issue off as well (but returns with a vengeance next issue, with the comic-book-art collection of David

DESIGNER Scott Saavedra

Mandel, Emmy®-winning showrunner of the hit comedy Veep). Also, our Retro Travel department is on

PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

break this issue… sort of, as Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum’s visit to Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture

SPECIAL THANKS Jim Aupperle John Berwick John Carl Buechler Diane Ciampaglia Chuck Comisky Peter Dibenedetto James Gillam Marty Grosser Sid Haig Heritage Comics Auctions King Features Syndicate, Inc. Joe King Craig Littler John Morrow Michelle Parnett-Dwyer TIME Magazine for Kids John Wells

assured we will always deliver the wildest, most interesting, and eclectic selection of goodies you can find between the pages of any periodical, print or digital!

Glenn Greenberg is getting a well-deserved rep for his interviewing talents. If you think his chat with Superman director Richard Donner in issue #3 made you feel like a fly on the wall, wait’ll you read Glenn’s conversation with the remarkable Mark Hamill that leads off this issue. This is no mere by-the-book Q&A—instead, Mark is so candid, approachable, and downright cool, it reads like you’ve taken a seat on the couch next to him as he takes us behind the scenes of Star Wars and his stellar career.

Since we lead off with Luke Skywalker, this issue we’re retro-rocketing into a subtheme of space as we provide a tip of our bubble-helmets to the legendary crew of Apollo 11, Mattel’s memorable Major to ground control, there’s lots of other stuff to enjoy, from The Greatest American Hero and a William Katt interview to Retro Food & Drink history that pulls back the foil from TV dinners to our anniversary salute

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!

RetroFan

columnists and departments will rotate off for an issue, but they’ll be back in the next one… and rest

Matt Mason, and Saturday morning’s Jason of Star Command. But for those who want to remain anchored

VERY SPECIAL THANKS Mark Hamill William Katt John R. Rose

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is a great fill-in for those readers with retro wanderlust. The end game is, from time to time our regular

to one of the funnypapers’ scruffiest stars, Snuffy Smith.

Lastly, my wife, Rose Rummel-Eury, wrote a guest column about her youthful crushes on TV stars and musicians that I liked so much, as of this issue Celebrity Crushes is a regular feature—to be written by you, the RetroFan reader! Yes, you can contribute a tear-stained love letter to the teen heartthrob or sexy celeb that turned you on in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties. You’ll become famous, see your story in print, and earn lunch money! See page 26 for details.

Joining guest-writers Greenberg and Rummel-Eury this issue are columnists Andy Mangels, Will Murray, Scott Saavedra, and yours truly, plus guest contributors Joseph Baneth Allen, Dan Hagen, and Rod Labbe, for another groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with.

Summer 2019

Mark Hamill The Jedi Looks Back

Mark Hamill at the 2017 Disney Legends Awards luncheon.

PHOTO: Steve Sherman

by Glenn Greenberg

Meet Luke Skywalker! One of four 1977 Star Wars promotional posters illustrated by Del Nichols and produced as a Coca-Cola premium.

Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

He may not really be a Jedi Knight, but make no mistake—Mark Hamill is a Force to be reckoned with. All an interviewer has to do is ask him a question and then just get out of his way. Because, in delivering an answer, Hamill will go into great depth, providing rich backstory and texture, and he will often go down paths that are both unexpected and thoroughly delightful.

He’s a natural storyteller, which should come as no surprise to people who have followed his career closely and are aware of his writing work—he created the comic-book miniseries The Black Pearl, published by Dark Horse in 1996, which he has hoped to adapt into a film—and his turn behind the RetroFan

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

(LEFT) Howard Chaykin artwork graces this rare promotional poster distributed at the San Diego Comic-Con and Kansas City WorldCon in the summer of 1976, roughly a year before the film opened. (ABOVE) Compare Chaykin’s poster art to his iconic cover for the Marvel Comics’ first issue of Star Wars (July 1977).

Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

camera, as the director of the 2004 mockumentary Comic Book: The Movie (in which he also starred).

But, of course, on top of his highly acclaimed voice work as the Joker in the now-classic Batman: The Animated Series and its various spin-offs, Hamill is best known for playing Luke Skywalker in five Star Wars movies—and he will take on that role again, for the sixth and presumably last time, in Episode IX, due for release in December 2019.

I had the opportunity to interview Mark Hamill on April 6, 2017, in my capacity as a senior editor and journalist at TIME Magazine for Kids, for which I was writing a feature story about the 40th anniversary of Star Wars and its impact on our culture.

The release of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was eight months away, and, naturally, there was very little that Hamill could say about it, so the conversation was primarily about the past, rather than the future.

I had expected and prepared for our conversation to run only about 15 to 20 minutes, but he and I ended up 4

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talking for nearly an hour. Unfortunately, due to the main focus of the article, and the fact that other people involved in the franchise—specifically animator Dave Filoni and production designer Doug Chiang—were also interviewed and quoted extensively, most of Hamill’s comments ended up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. It seemed like the full interview would never see the light of day.

But thanks to RetroFan editor-inchief Michael Eury, who expressed great interest in publishing the complete text, the interview is finally getting a home.

Much gratitude to TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow, for his efforts to secure Mr. Hamill’s blessing for this piece to run, to Dante Ciampaglia, my original editor, for his support and encouragement, and, above all, to Mark Hamill himself, for his time and his ongoing generosity.

RetroFan: As a comic-book fan, and as someone who grew up loving science fiction and genre stuff, can you remember what your initial reaction was when you read the script for the original movie?

Mark Hamill: I can. I’ll never forget it, as a matter of fact. Mind you, I didn’t read the entire script until I’d gotten the part. I met George [Lucas] and there was just a general interview. He didn’t speak at all. Brian DePalma was also looking at actors for Carrie, so George stayed silent. It was a little “tell us about yourself” kind of thing—there was no talk of a movie or anything, they just want to get a feel of who you are.

Then, based on that, I got a screen test, and it might have been a seven-, eight-, nine-page scene, in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo— Harrison [Ford] did it with me—and then, I heard I got the part and they sent the script to my house.

And I was by myself and it was a little one-bedroom apartment on the beach in Malibu. And I sat in my living room and—well, I say living room, but you walk in and it’s one big room and one bedroom [chuckles]—and in any case, I read this thing and I was just astonished. I mean, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was a Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine kid, I idolized the

RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

black-and-white King Kong and all the old Universal horror classics—I was so into this stuff. Ray Harryhausen was an idol of mine, Willis O’Brien, Marcel Delgado, all those old, cool, stop-frame animation people.

But anyway, I’m reading this thing and I just can’t—like I say, the script itself, even without John Williams’ fantastic score and all the brilliant special effects and the art direction and all that—just the core story as it’s written down, is thrilling. I mean, you have that same sense of swashbuckling adventure, and that whole “swept away”—I remember thinking specifically, this really smacks of Wizard of Oz, with a gender switch. Instead of a young girl from a farm in the Midwest, here you have this boy or young man, someone who’s like—I was guessing Luke was in his senior year of high school, otherwise why wouldn’t he have just left home? And he’s swept away on this incredible adventure where he meets this fantastic array of characters, from a swaggering pirate and smuggler and rogue and an impudent, imperious princess who’s beautiful and he falls in love with, and he meets a wizard.

Like I say, Han Solo’s a space pirate— there’s pirates and wizards and princesses! And, of course, the deep, dark, scary Darth Vader—I read that part and I said, “This is a wonderful role!” I mean, he’s not in it that much, but it’s so filled with mystery, it’s like Phantom of the Opera—masks are always very compelling dramatic devices because the audiences’ imaginations are so much greater than anything we can create. That’s why it’s inherently disappointing when anyone is unmasked, because they can’t meet those expectations.

I thought that the robots specifically were written to be more human in many ways than the actual human characters, because they had all these frailties. [breaks into a C-3PO impression] “Oh, I’ve forgotten how much I abhor space travel! This is all your fault!” [laughs] I mean, what robot argues over whose fault it is? It just tickled me no end.

The one thing that really occurred to me was—because when I’d heard

about this project, people said, “Oh, it’s like Flash Gordon or something.” And yes, it is. But I thought it much more strongly favored a traditional fairy tale.

And had we been traveling around in horse-drawn carriages, it would have become very clear. And that’s why I thought it had a much broader appeal than traditional science fiction, which is usually dry and sort of scientific and lacking in humor. I mean, 2001 is obviously a masterpiece, but a barrel of laughs it ain’t.

RF: Right, right.

MH: And this one, I thought, was hilarious. And I also admired how they used concepts like the Force, which was sort of a way to talk about spirituality and religion, which makes everyone—well, I’m speaking in very broad strokes here—but makes people uncomfortable, you know? It was a way to be able to acknowledge that aspect of our beings without too much… resistance, I say, from the audience.

This could all be inherently corny— now, I had done children’s theater, I mean, I understand that kind of storytelling and I love it because it’s primal, it’s black and white, it’s good versus evil. The Big Bad

2004’s Comic Book: The Movie was Mark Hamill’s directorial debut. Courtesy of

Heritage.

No joke, you can’t look at this specialty retail cel from Batman: The Animated Series without hearing Mark’s voice, making him the definitive Joker for many fans. TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of

Heritage.

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Wolf is the bad guy and that’s it. It’s really economical storytelling.

I had to look at it like, Am I going to do three movies? Because the contract was, they said, “Look, if this goes and is successful, then there’s a Part Two and a Part Three.” And so from that standpoint, I was trying to assess, will this thing be successful?

Because there hadn’t been that kind of—well, in many ways, it takes so many elements from so many different movies, whether it’s pirate movies, World War II movies, fairy tales, etcetera, it just combines them. We’ve seen these things before, but they’re sort of reassembled. Everything old is new again.

I had a friend who worked at the L.A. Art Museum, and he had access to the grosses of all these films. And I said, “Look up every film since sound came out and let’s assess.” Because I let him

read the script—no one told me not to show it to anybody—and he was my best friend and we decided between us that this would be as popular as Planet of the Apes. And we’re talking about the Charlton Heston original in the late Sixties, not the remake. I said, “That’s the benchmark.”

And at that time, [the budget] was supposed to be between $7 and 9 million, and I said, “If we make $25 million, we’re home free.”

So, of course, to anticipate your question, I had no idea that it would become what it became.

And to circle around—there was a thread I planted that I didn’t finish— one of the things when I said about the breakdown of all these characters. The bad guys, so mirroring that sort of stark imagery of the Third Reich. There were Western elements—the beat-up, used kind of towns. Mos Eisley and these dives, the bar. It had that saloon feel, like a John

Ford film. But one of the crucial things that I think gave us an advantage was the fact that the Han Solo character acted as a surrogate for the more cynical members of the audience who would be resistant to this kind of storytelling. So if he’s mocking the Force and rolling his eyes and being sarcastic, it makes it okay for the older teenager who is starting to question the world around him and the perfect world that was Mom and Dad and his brothers and sisters.

It was really smart, it was smart storytelling.

Now, having said all this, I finished it and I thought, “You know who’s my least favorite character in this movie?

Luke!”

RF: [laughs] MH: Because he is so…

(TOP LEFT) Marvel Comics’ diabolical Doctor Doom, as realized in a 1969 Marvelmania poster by the “King” himself, Jack Kirby, no doubt imprinted (TOP RIGHT) Star Wars’ deadly Darth Vader, shown here in a 1977 poster. Doctor Doom TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Darth

Vader TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

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RF: Earnest.

MH: Yes! Just painfully earnest. And callow, and naive, all of these things.

Now, I get it, I totally get it. Even when I was a kid when I watched Wizard of Oz, I liked the Tin Man and the Lion and the witch and all the other characters more than Dorothy—although I do agree that you need a Dorothy or you need a Luke as the character in the piece that the youngest members of the audience can look at and relate to. Because of all those characters in Star Wars, I think the kids would be most comfortable hanging around me, because I’m most like them. And the other characters, you know, you can get intimidated being around royalty or a space pirate or a wizard. So anyway, that’s my longwinded answer to, “Do you remember how you felt about seeing the movie for the first time?”

RF: [laughs] Well, just to sort of piggyback onto that—again, you were a comic-book fan.

MH: Yes. RF: Did you recognize in that script, or make any connections to, the comicbook influences?

MH: Are you kidding? Yes! Darth Vader—I said, “It’s Doctor Doom!”

RF: [laughs] MH: I mean, clearly, it’s all that stuf f. It reminded me of so many comic books, and even comics you wouldn’t expect. Like, the swept-away adventure was very Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge, where they go of f to Peru and whatever, and you just get lost in the adventure. It reminded me of a million other movies, too.

The feeling I was trying to convey to you was that it presses all these buttons that are ingrained in our psyche anyway, and there’s so many dif ferent

Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker share a quiet moment in this promotional photograph signed by actors Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. (BELOW) Kenner “Early Bird” Luke Skywalker figure with double telescoping lightsaber. TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy

of Heritage.

references in it, and I guess the timing was right for us.

I also looked at it and thought… first of all, I was thrilled to have concepts like a light sword or a floating car or owning robots that were appliances like a lawnmower—I mean, you didn’t stare in wonder at them, they were just like another thing that you’d have in your house, like a blender or [laughs] an electric toothbrush or something.

And I really think the two of them [R2-D2 and C-3P0]—when I read the script, and mind you, this was without all of Artoo’s beeps and boops or even really knowing how he’s going to look other than how he’s described in the script, I said, “This relationship is very Laurel and Hardy,” with a superior who thinks he knows best and a partner that will push back like Laurel used to do.

I mean, I just loved it, I adored it.

RF: So, the first film comes out— instant phenomenon. I imagine you saw it at the time as a fun acting gig you’d shot a year or so earlier, and hopefully it would lead to many other opportunities. But when it explodes the way it does, and it becomes a global sensation, you’re at the eye of the hurricane.

What was that like for you? How did you feel about it? How did it affect you, your family? For us, it was just this thing that we latched onto and just loved and went back to see seven million times in the theater. What was it like for you, being part of it?

MH: Mind you, I’m single [at the time].

I have four sisters and two brothers and I’m smack-dab in the middle, but they’re sort of sprinkled around the United States at this point. I also started working very quickly on another film [1978’s Corvette Summer], so I was off on location and isolated.

You know, that’s a perfect metaphor—the eye of the hurricane.

Because what it was reminiscent of was—and I’m not comparing myself in any way, shape, or form, I should put RetroFan

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

out this disclaimer—but it was like a pop band. It was like, I had seen A Hard Day’s Night, and I had seen that side of unexplainable mania.

One of the vivid memories I have is, Carrie [Fisher] and Harrison and I went out to promote the film about a week before it opened. And we were flying from, I think—I mean, my memory of this is from 40 years ago—my memory is that we were coming from Vancouver to Chicago, and in the interim, the movie opened, and when we got to Chicago, there was a crowd— not a massive crowd, but there were maybe 50 to 100 people.

Enough for me to recognize it as a crowd. And I turned to the guys and said, “Hey, you guys, I think there might be somebody famous on this plane!” We were looking around to see if there was somebody, a star or something, or a politician—in Chicago, it would have been the mayor. And then as we got closer and closer, I said, “Harrison, there’s a guy with a Han Solo—oh, my God, Carrie! There’s a girl with buns, with stretch-your-hair buns!”

Somebody had a makeshift Luke tunic that they made out of a pillowcase. It was amazing.

We were kind of like, “Wow, what was all that about?”

But I thought this thing would take a while. I thought it would take word of mouth to say, “Hey, you know what?

I went to see this thing and I thought it was going to be X, Y, or Z, but it’s really funny and this is for the family, you should go.” I thought once people realized we were more comparable to a Disney animated comedy than, like, Silent Running—most science fiction is really serious and believe me, I’m not putting it down. I love that stuff, too, all of it. Star Trek, the whole thing.

Here’s the thing that surprised me: how quickly it all happened. Did you know the very day it opened, they picked me up because I was going to dub the 35-millimeter prints because they had [already] put the 8

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70-millimeter prints out, and I think it was only in 35 theaters [at the time], it was not like it is now. But in any case, I said to the driver, “Can you go by Grauman’s Chinese [Theatre]?” because I wanted to see—they couldn’t decide on a poster.

There was no poster, I knew that going in, that the marketing people had had this big row about how to promote it. So the poster would be issued in the following weeks or something. And they just did up photographs—lobby cards and so forth.

But that’s not why I wanted to go by, I just

trailer in the movies, but I never saw a TV commercial, not one. I don’t think there was one.

So what I’m saying is, this is going on, and people are getting so excited.

It was a party atmosphere. It was really, really wonderful because the movies are fun and they’re optimistic and all of that and it makes people feel good, which is a wonderful thing to be associated with, as opposed to something that is harrowing or depressing. I mean, I would hate to be famous for playing Adolf Hitler or something, or Charles Manson. It’s nice—at least I represent a character that people relate to and like.

RF: Just jumping ahead a little bit now—there’s that video of you from 1983, you can see it on YouTube, where you mention that George had spoken to you about coming back around 2011, to play an older Luke. After Return of the Jedi, he moved on to other things, so did you. You went on to become what many people, myself included, feel is the definitive Joker in Batman: The Animated Series— MH: Oh, thank you!

Hamill followed Star Wars with the high-octane adventure comedy Corvette Summer (1978). Poster art by Roger Huyssen. © 1978 MGM. Courtesy

of Heritage.

wanted to see it on the marquee of such an iconic theater. And he drives by the theater and to my astonishment—and this was, I don’t know, 11, 12, midday—lines around the block. Day one! For the first show!

[And] I never saw a Star Wars commercial leading up to the [release]. There was a

RF: Sure! But when George Lucas finally does more Star Wars movies, they’re prequels, so you’re not involved. So after a certain amount of time, did you reach the point where you figured, “Well, that’s it, I’m not going to be coming back, I’m not going to revisiting this character”?

MH: Oh, no, you have to understand— when he said that, it was idle talk. He later said, “I was just kidding, Mark.”

Because we were standing out on the desert in the first couple of weeks of shooting, it was just me, [Alec] Guinness, and the robots, and Carrie and Harrison hadn’t even come over— we were doing all the Tatooine stuff.

And [George] made that comment about, “Would you come back in 2011?”

And he was just kind of joking.

RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

RF: Ah, I see.

MH: Now as you go along, we do our trilogy, and I knew he was going to go back and do I, II, and III—that I knew, and then obviously I wouldn’t be involved, unless they have a child playing me as a little boy. I guess in the third one, you see the infant.

But I thought quite the contrary—I thought if they go back and do VII, VIII, and IX, it’ll be set so far in the future that we won’t be involved and the whole idea would be to start a new generation of characters. That was my understanding. And it wasn’t like I was living my life waiting to come back. Not at all. And that’s fortunate, because I had a beginning, middle, and end, and that was fine. I really thought it was an all-encompassing experience.

And then at some point George said to me later on, this would have been— I’m trying to remember the timing of this—it would have been somewhere during the prequels when I spoke to him. He said, “This is it. I don’t want to be doing these things in my seventies.”

Flash back to us standing on the desert. I said to him, “Why are we starting in the middle? I don’t get this.

Why not do it from the beginning?”

He said [slipping into his George Lucas impression], “Oh, well, this trilogy is much more commercial. The early ones are more cerebral and depressing and mumble-mumble.” That was George, a minimalist in communication.

RF: [chuckles] MH: But listen, before we leave that thought, do you know he told me that day that it was originally four trilogies? Twelve films!

And this is the only background he ever gave me, because we never revisited this [slips back into his George Lucas impression]: “Yeah, it was originally four and then I cut it down to three.” So by the time he got to the prequels, he said what I told you, that they weren’t coming back.

RF: I think a lot of people, myself included, took that clip of you literally.

MH: Yes, exactly. And again, George could be playing with us even still. But I think he was trying to say he wasn’t

being literal about it, but—you know what he was doing? He was probably thinking along those lines of what his original scope for this thing was, and that were I to return, when would he need me. Well, he’d need me in my fifties or something like that, of course.

Let me tell you something, when you stand there, and this would have been

Mark Hamill was top-billed along with Lee Marvin in Samuel Fuller’s critically praised The Big Red One (1980).

Courtesy of Heritage.

’76—anybody that adds 30 years to their age is shocked. I don’t care what age you do it, if you mentally go, “How old am I, plus 30?”—Oh, my gosh! So that’s the way I thought of it, and that’s why I had such

mixed feelings about coming back. I thought it was great they were coming back, but I thought, “You know, you can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice.

I don’t think we should be involved, the three of us—Carrie, me, and Harrison.

It should be all about the new people.”

And plus, I was terrified.

I’m always like that. I made that [laughs]—it was so dramatic—well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but it was when I said I was going to retire from [doing] the Joker voice. And it was because after that first video game [2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum] did so well, and people who are gamers—I’m not really a gamer, but people like my sons, who are gamers, said, “Dad, it’s really a great game. Aside from the characters and this and that, it’s a great game to play!”

And I felt, you know, it’s like that Seinfeld episode where Costanza goes, “That’s it! I’m gonna figure out—,” you know, he wants to know when to…

RF: When to leave, right?

MH: Exactly! You leave on a high note and then you walk away!

So I said, “Anything I would do after this would be diluted, it won’t be as good.” So I made the foolish mistake— and really, at the time, I meant it. I said, “You know what, I’ve been doing this since 1992. It’s time.” And I thought, “That is the perfect high.” And, of course, since then, we did two more— one of them won me a BAFTA [award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts], can you believe that?

I never got nominated for an Emmy for the Joker, and I got an Emmy nomination playing Darth Bane—a cameo on the Star Wars animated series [The Clone Wars]. [laughs] Can you believe it? I mean, I was only in there for like half an hour! I did one speech, and that was it, and I kind of went, “Huh?” I didn’t win, I didn’t expect to win, of course, it was just a one-off. But oh, it’s a funny old world, this show biz.

RF: Well, there was a point, as I recall, where you seemed to really want to sort of distance yourself from the whole Star Wars thing. I remember reading a piece, I think it was when RetroFan

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

Various 1977 Topps Star Wars trading cards featuring Hamill and a 5th series box. TM & ©

Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

you were appearing on Broadway in Harrigan ’n Hart, where you didn’t even want to refer to it by name. You called it “George’s space movies.”

MH: Yeah, yeah. But here’s the thing— it sucks all the oxygen out of the room, you know? It’s too big. That’s why I’m saying to you, Glenn, coming back to these movies—I’m perfectly happy being a character actor. That’s all I ever wanted to be. When I went to Broadway, it was because that’s the only place I could find character parts.

They’re not going to let me play the Elephant Man on television or film, or in [the movie version of] Amadeus to play Mozart. Tony Hart was a character/ comedian, that’s still my favorite part I think I’ve ever played.

But all those parts I did—Room Service [the 1986 off-Broadway production directed by Alan Arkin]!

All the critics thought I was playing the Midwestern playwright, the naive playwright. Instead, I’m that sleazy Gordon Miller. And that’s probably the best reviews I ever got because 10

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it had the element of surprise—people didn’t know. I mean, I loved when [then-New York Times theater critic] Frank Rich said, “Like all great Jewish comedians, he allows others to shine.” He was talking about me blending into an ensemble so well. And Marilou, my wife, said, “Well, you’ve always been good, always favored ensembles with good people around you.” I said, “No, no, no—he thinks I’m Jewish!” [laughs] RF: Oh, that’s great.

MH: That to me was like a compliment embedded in another statement.

RF: Absolutely.

MH: The thing is, it’s a matter of message control. In other words, I didn’t dislike Star Wars, I was just trying to make sure that whatever it was that was in the present—I mean, you acknowledge the past, but you have to live in the present and aim for the future, so when I was in whatever play I was in, that was it.

At one point, I put in my billing, in the Playbill, something like that, but it was always facetious. It was always meant in good fun and so forth. [Hamill’s entry in the Playbill for the 1987 Broadway production of The Nerd describes him

as having appeared in “George Lucas’ so-called Strategic Defense Initiative trilogy.”] I’m playful. People who follow me on Twitter know now. It’s interesting, it’s taken all these years, but on Twitter, you can actually get some personality across, which is fun.

RF: I also think a lot of the perception of you wanting to distance yourself from Star Wars came from you not doing the Return of the Jedi radio show for National Public Radio in 1996.

You had played Luke in the radio adaptations of the first two movies, but you didn’t come back for the third one. [Note: The NPR radio adaptations of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were produced in, respectively, 1981 and 1983.]

MH: That was for a specific reason.

And I don’t mention it often, but if you bring it up, I will answer it honestly.

Lucasfilm, or Lucas Arts, who produced [the radio shows], told me it was for— and it was—for public radio. We got [paid] scale, and I donated my salary back to public radio, because it was every actor’s dream to try to rekindle interest in radio drama, it was still very popular in England, and it is to this day.

But here in the States, it’s gone—it was gone when I was a little boy. The first

RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

two [radio adaptations] were done that way.

And then I walked into a bookstore and I saw a display with [them] on sale.

And I was not happy. Part of the reason I did [the radio show]—you notice Carrie’s not in it, Harrison’s not in it—I did it because I wanted to become a real advocate for acting plays on the radio. Kids would love it on the way to school! I mean, it’s really too bad that they don’t do it anymore, and it’s a great training ground for actors. People need a place to act and that would be so fantastic.

But in any case, [not doing the Return of the Jedi radio drama] was my protest. They apologized, they gave me money—I said, “I don’t want money, that’s the whole point!” If it were an endeavor, like, if you were going to put this out and sell it like a book or whatever, yeah, then you negotiate with my agent. But anyway, that’s all I’ve got [on that topic].

RF: Okay. Mystery solved!

MH: It’s like the [Star Wars] Holiday Special—they don’t like me talking about that!

RF: Oh, boy!

MH: And look, I just talked about it.

RF: So, we’ll move on! The release of Episode VIII is months away, and I promised I wouldn’t be delving into that here… that’s not what this article is about. It’s going to be about— MH: Go ahead and try, Glenn! You won’t get very far!

RF: [laughs] I’m sure!

MH: Seriously, I feel like I’m, in a way, running for perpetual office. Because you employ all these politician skills when you’re out in the public.

Sometimes my boys will go, “God, you’re such a phony,” and I say [to them], “That’s the only 90 seconds they’re going to remember of me the rest of their lives.” Because [my sons would be] talking about how I was cranky and mean and all of a sudden I light up when I meet the public, and then go back to being just Mark, and they busted me on it. And I said, “You

(ABOVE) Signed promotional still. (LEFT) Image from the Empire Strikes Back photo card set (Topps, 1980). TM & © Lucas-

film Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

know, that’s the story they’re going to be telling people.”

I’m not thinking that I’m so important that they’re going to be talking about me for ten years. My point is that’s their little—like, my friend Jonathan, he told me a story that he was at the Forum, this huge stadium for sporting events, and he went into the men’s room and Paul Newman was in there. And he was a huge fan, so he waited until the proper time, [Newman] washed his hands and started to leave, and he says, “Mister Newman, may I have your autograph?”

Only two of them in the men’s room, okay? And Newman says to him, “Kid, if I did it for you, I’d have to do it for everybody,” and walked out. [laughs] Jonathan was mad at him for, like, over a decade! He eventually, you know, because Paul Newman is so great, it’s hard to hate somebody that good. But that story illustrates what my point is.

You have a public persona. Now, with selfies, it’s—oh, my God, I do nothing

but selfies! And that’s fun.

RF: I just listened to an interview with Paul McCartney, where he talks about this very thing. And he said that so many people come up to him and he says, “You know what? Instead of a selfie, let’s talk for a few minutes, you’ll remember it better.”

MH: Yeah, I’m totally down with that.

He’s absolutely right. I would much rather—in fact, when I met celebrities as a kid, I never asked for autographs. I mean, when I met Angela Lansbury, all I could talk about was The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaslight and stuff.

And I have to tell you, selfies I like better than the dealers that meet you at the airport. My life has been turned into a real ordeal with these people, because since you’re part of this huge merchandising phenomenon, it’s a business, like the paparazzi.

But with the paparazzi, it’s a symbiotic relationship. We need publicity, they need to sell their photographs. With the dealers,

boy, it’s icky, because they’re really demanding and they’re everywhere— they’re at the airport, they know where you’re going to be, if you go out to the theater, I’m telling you, I can’t go to those premieres unless I’m going to run the gauntlet of the dealers. And I know they hate me because there are so many people that I just recognize and they have shopping carts filled with ten posters, 50 photographs, ten lightsabers, and all that. It’s just a business, and it’s really tough. So, gosh, it must be much harder for Paul McCartney because he’s, you know, he’s Paul McCartney.

RF: Exactly! What I was going to say before is that I wouldn’t even want to put you on the spot in terms of Episode VIII, but in terms of coming back, because it’s so many years later, I want to talk to you a little bit about your craft. Presumably, Luke has been through a hell of a lot during this time, it’s decades later. So as the

(LEFT) Orginal art for the cover of Superman #411 (Sept. 1985) celebrating long-time editor Julius Schwartz festooned with signatures from prominent comic-book talent and fans including science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury and Mark Hamill.

(INSET) Note that Hamill’s signature helpfully points out that he is also known as “L. Skywalker.” TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of

Heritage.

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

Detail of original art by sci-fi comic book icon Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon, and Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens produced for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi #3 (Marvel, 1983). (BELOW) A 12-inch Luke Skywalker action figure . TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Courtesy of Heritage.

man playing him, do you approach him as being almost an entirely new character? Or do you try to rediscover and sort of revive the character as you played him before, and then try to extrapolate on where you think he’d be today?

MH: Well, there’s only one thing you do, and that is, you treat the script that you read as its own entity. Now, obviously, down the road, in the process, you’re going to draw on many, many things.

But my job, as an actor, is to try and understand the script as best I can, and then do my best to realize that vision, regardless of my opinion of that script.

So that’s the basic answer to that question, because each script is its own standalone story. Even though this is part of a trilogy, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And to answer the rest of your question, because you said that he’s been through a lot—has he? Maybe he’s been in hypersleep, like in Alien. Nobody knows! That’s what was so intriguing about VII. I knew I wasn’t going to be a major component of it, but I thought my part would be the equivalent of

when Harrison comes back in the first Star Wars [to help the Rebels blow up the Death Star]. You know, they’re talking about me all through the movie and at the last moment, I don’t save the day, but the protagonists of the current film are up against the wall and about to perish, and I allow them, like Obi-Wan did for us, to break through and then have the new cast triumph, you see. I thought I’d come in in the last ten minutes. I had no idea it would be the way it was.

Quite extraordinary, because the very first words in the script are, “Luke Skywalker!” And then you read this thing and everybody’s talking about you.

Everybody’s talking about my sword and “he must be stopped,” and this and that.

So it’s a driving part of the narrative, which is very, very intriguing. And after I got over the sort of initial shock of how it was going to be, I really sort of began to enjoy the mystery of it all—including not being on the poster and not having to go on The Tonight Show. I mean, nothing against—I’m not trying to single out a show, I’m just saying the fact that I was so absent from publicity was really intriguing. In fact, I liked it so much I’m trying to pitch Disney

on the same idea for this one, but they’re not going for it so much.

RF: That’s an interesting take. I asked because I remember an essay that William Shatner had written, about when Star Trek was coming back for RetroFan

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RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

the first movie, and he was thinking about how to get back into the role of Captain Kirk and all that, and the way he felt that the character could have evolved since the last time he played him. So I was wondering if maybe you had gone through the same sort of process. But what you’re saying makes a whole lot of sense.

MH: It’s every actor’s job—and I’m not talking about just Star Wars, whatever it is, whether it’s Sushi Girl or The Big Red One—you read this and really try to realize the vision of the writer and the director. That’s it. You have to figure out what’s required of your character in the overall scope of the story.

I got spoiled on VII because everybody did the heavy lifting for me, and I think I’m in it less than a minute. The only thing I was worried about, to tell you the truth, is that if it smacked of a gimmick, like too obvious a cliffhanger—I said, “What worries me is if I turn around at that point, seconds before it cuts to ‘Directed by J. J. Abrams,’ the audience might just groan.” [laughs] And I said, “And if they do, I’m the one with egg on my face— not [co-screenwriter Lawrence] Kasdan and Abrams and [Lucasfilm president] Kathy Kennedy!”

I was just nervous it wouldn’t work. But I should have known, with John Williams’ music, the build-up, the editing, the trek up the mountain—I was just relieved it worked.

RF: Well, also, after losing Han, having you alive and well at the end was sort of like an uplift.

MH: Thanks. I said to them, “Why don’t you just print ‘To Be Continued’ on my forehead?”

RF: [laughs] As someone who was involved with Star Wars at the very beginning, and is now involved with it again, you have a very unique perspective here. What do you think it is about this series, and this fictional universe, that has resonated with so many people for 40 years now?

MH: Wow… First of all, the need for escapism in a world as harrowing and as brutal and as scary as the real world. People need the 14

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The so-called “circus” style Star Wars 1978 theatrical re-release poster is said to be George Lucas’ favorite. The art, by Charles White lll and then soon-to-be movie poster art favorite Drew Struzan, highlights Luke and Leia. TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

therapeutic value of going away to some happy place, whether it’s Oz or Narnia or Middle Earth or Hogwarts. It’s just a place where you can go and be immersed in things that stimulate your pleasure centers. “I’m comfortable here, I like this Wookiee.” [laughs] Whatever it is. If we all had a formula, we’d all make up our own.

I was just reading the other day about the extensive Oz books beyond The Wizard of Oz, and the way it develops and you get a sense of what the audiences are responding to and you introduce new characters and new situations and all that. I just thought, it’s such a broad canvas to have.

RETRO INTERVIEW: MARK HAMILL

Even back when I was making [the first movie], when they were talking about the Clone Wars and all of these things that are in the history of it all, I just thought, “Wow, I would be a fan of this, for sure, even if I weren’t involved.”

I finally saw the screen test. I never—I was home, we were doing, I think, Episode VII, the whole family went out and I was just at the house alone, and I was on the Internet and I saw that you can [watch], on YouTube, the auditions for Star Wars. “Oh, do I have the nerve to watch myself?” And the only reason I bring it up—I did, I finally watched. And who knew they were going to release it back then? I had no idea it would be seen by the world. I watched the auditions of Robby Benson and William Katt and Kurt Russell and myself—I don’t think I’m leaving anybody out. And the takeaway from that was how good and legitimate each one of those other actors were.

RF: Right.

MH: Everyone was really a good Luke!

Anyone could have done that. As it turns out, Marcia Lucas, George’s wife [at the time] and the Oscar-winning editor of Star Wars, told me later, she said, “There were two sets [for] Luke, Han, and Leia, and it was you, Carrie, and Harrison, and it was such-andsuch, such-and-such, and such-and-

such.” But they were never mixed and matched. In other words, I didn’t get moved over with the such-and-suches and [no one from the] other group came over and replaced, say, Carrie. It was either or.

And [Marcia] sort of said that George was packing to go to London, to stay and do the film, and he still couldn’t decide. And she took credit for pushing him in the direction that he took.

Fate’s a funny thing, you know? I was reading about the Monkees, and I think it was Micky Dolenz talking about how he’d been in several pilots that season, he was guest starring on this and that and the other, and so for him, when he went out for the pilot of The Monkees, it was just another gig. It was just another job. And he was remarking how that one fateful audition changed his life forever. Now, who can relate to that? [laughs] It can be frustrating at times when you want to do other things, but for the most part, I have seen it as nothing but a real positive in my life. Even when I thought it was gone forever, it was something that young people continued to discover. The timelessness was appealing because since we’re not specific about the cars we’re driving or what kind of clothes we wear, young people would look at it and think that we made it, like, last year.

In a way, it was good that I was able to come back to show the way I look now, because it’s important for children to

understand the natural aging process.

Because on the other end of it, let’s say in the Nineties or something like that, or the 2000s, before I came back, these parents who were kids when [the original movie] came out are parents themselves now and they have young children—the parents are excited and they’re pushing their six-year-old towards me in the airport saying, “Look! Look who it is! It’s Luke Skywalker!” And, of course, the children have this ghastly look on their face, like, “Oh, my God, what happened to this guy? He really let himself go!” Because they think we made it two years ago! It was sort of, I think, traumatic for some of them because it’s been so long. But now it’s much more enjoyable.

And I have to say, the whole experience is much more enjoyable now than it was then, because I have a perspective on it now that makes me take it in a way that I couldn’t have appreciated at the time. Like I say, that was my first film, and so when everybody went cuckoo for a while, it just seemed—well, I remember them asking George Harrison, “What was it like to be a Beatle?” and he said [slips into a Liverpool accent], “What was it like not to be a Beatle?” Because that’s all he knew, you know? [laughs] Right out of school, he goes into this band, and there you are, so… like I said, what a crazy business.

But it’s been great, and like I said, I especially love the fact that it appeals to young people, and I think it’s a good thing that it does. Like all the great ones. Because I love Harry Potter, too.

The kind of life lessons that they can get from it, I think, are healthy.

RF: Do you regret that you didn’t get to do adventures of Luke once he got his Jedi license, so to speak?

Hamill has voiced multiple characters for both animation and video games such as Gargoyle (The Incredible Hulk, 1996) and Megatronus (Transformers: Titans Return, 2018). Gargoyle TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Megatronus TM & © Hasbro, Inc.

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Mark Hamill joins the second season cast of the History Channel’s Knightfall (2019) series. (RIGHT) Luke Skywalker looms ominously over the other characters in this poster for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Knightfall TM & © A&E

Television Networks. Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd.

MH: Yeah. I thought that was funny; it would be like telling the trilogy of how James Bond got his license to kill, and once he becomes a spy, that’s the end of the series.

RF: [laughs] Right!

MH: So yeah, I think you have a real point there. But probably the way they were able to fulfill that was in the novels and the comic books and the games and so forth. Just nothing that I was ever involved in, because they made a decision early on that they would use alternate casts for the ancillary materials. So I never did any of the books on tape or the games or whatever.

RF: In that regard, as someone who grew up with this stuff, I felt like I missed out. Sure, I could read that stuff, but I really wanted to see you back, to see you as Luke at the peak of his powers, doing his thing.

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To wrap this up, what would you say, on a personal level, is the most fundamental thing that you’ve learned or observed as a result of your 40-year association with this series?

MH: Well, I would say that it showed me how similar human beings are, regardless of their nationality or country of origin.

There’s just sort of a universal—it’s the same all over the world. In Japan, in Australia… there’s a unifying element about us as a people that’s shared around the world. Because I’d always thought, “Well, maybe this is a peculiar kind of American thing.”

When we were making the [original] movie, by the way, the crew was nice and very respectful, but when I got to know them, they confessed to me that they thought the movie they were making was complete rubbish, as they put it—like subDoctor Who, made just for children, and there would never be an adult audience whatsoever.

And so maybe that’s another thing— they talk about children of all ages. That’s

something I think it appeals to. Because it doesn’t matter whether you’re six or 60, it appeals to the optimistic, young, idealism that I think every person has, however buried it might be.

GLENN GREENBERG is an awardwinning editor and writer whose work has appeared in publications and on websites including Entertainment Weekly, People, SYFY Wire, Media Village, Salute, ProSound News, Back Issue, TIME Edge, TIME for Kids, and Scholastic News. He has also written nonfiction and fiction for books, magazines, and comic books published by Simon and Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Marvel Entertainment, and IDW. And having done this interview, he can cross another item off his bucket list.

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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by Michael Eury “That’s one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.”

Really, just typing those words is giving me goosebumps.

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On July 20, 1969, I was 11 years old, plopped onto the floor of our den. My parents and I gawked at our boxy Motorola, back when televisions were considered furniture, their wide wooden cases and mesh-covered speakers engulfing a wall. We were utterly mesmerized by flickering black-and-white images of Armstrong’s courageous first steps. It was pushing 11 o’clock at night, and even though school was on summer hiatus I was staying up well past my bedtime to watch history unfold. Who could sleep on such a momentous evening? (Well, my little brother could, but he was only three at the time…)

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And what did Neil and Buzz do for an encore? They took a late-night 18

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Summer 2019

stroll on the dusty lunar surface, broadcasting it back to the largest television audience ever at that time, a half-billion viewers worldwide!

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(BACKGROUND) Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the moon’s surface.

Newspaper © The Washington Post.

Courtesy of Heritage. Lunar photo: NASA

the Sixties, we needed someone to look up to… and in their cases, we looked way up. Our heads were filled with dreams of jet packs, flying cars, robot maids, and interplanetary colonization.

The Earth orbits and spacewalks of NASA’s Mercury and Gemini space programs inched us closer to JFK’s lofty challenge, with the Apollo missions, their tiny, conical command modules perched atop their ginormous Saturn V rockets, grabbing the baton and going the distance to Earth’s natural satellite… although, sadly, Kennedy didn’t live to see the realization of his ambitious proposal.

Television kept us tuned in to the exploits of our astronauts, and were that not enough, the tube offered no end of fictional space travelers, from creepy anthologies (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits) to sitcoms (I Dream of Jeannie, It’s About Time) to adventure shows (Lost in Space, Star Trek). Cartoonist Chester Gould hurtled his square-jawed detective Dick Tracy to the Moon throughout the Sixties, with trashcan-shaped hovercraft and sultry Moon Maids supplanting the squad cars and gun molls of the comic strip’s previous era. Comic books similarly shot Marvel Comics’ first family, the Fantastic Four, into space, where cosmic rays imbued them with superpowers, and DC Comics’ Green Lantern may not have worn a space helmet like our NASA astronauts, but his otherworldly power ring allowed this intergalactic cop to boldly go where no other superhero had gone before. Sixties’ science-fiction movies evolved from Fifties’ Red Scare paranoia parables to everything from space-age sex romps (an adaptation of the comic strip Barbarella) to thrillers (Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey). Toys like Major Matt Mason (covered elsewhere in this issue), G.I. Joe, and Billy Blastoff allowed imaginative boys to romp about the Moon—and equal rights were afforded to girls, as Mattel introduced Barbie, Miss Astronaut in 1965. Time anointed Apollo 8’s Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell—the first NASA astronauts to orbit the Moon—as the newsmagazine’s “Men of Year” in late 1968. And as the calendar marched closer to Apollo 11’s landmark mission, in May 1969, the Moon-orbiting Apollo 10 co-opted Charles Schulz’s beloved Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy in a successful promotional campaign to ensure that Americans of all ages were vested in this so-called “dress rehearsal” for Apollo 11’s upcoming lunar landing. By the time Armstrong and Aldrin jaunted about on what Buzz deemed the (ABOVE) From Dick Tracy to Snoopy, Moon landing mania was inescapable in the Sixties.

(RIGHT) President Nixon makes one thing perfectly clear to the quarantined Apollo 11 boys: We love you! Dick Tracy © Tribune Content Agency. Snoopy © Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. Courtesy of Heritage.

Moon’s “magnificent desolation,” the nation— no, the world—was in orbit with them.

Upon the astronauts’ return to terra firma (actually, the ocean, where we loved to dump our astronauts) on July 24, 1969, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins had the red carpet rolled out for them… as they were quarantined inside a silver Airstream trailer on the battleship U.S.S. Hornet. (We wouldn’t want those boys bringing back any pesky moon viruses!) At least President Richard M. Nixon, the third man in the Oval Office since JFK’s audacious mission statement, was there to yammer through protective glass to tell the Apollo 11 crew what we already knew—that they were heroes.

Once they were liberated from confinement, Neil, Buzz, and Mike became NASA’s rock stars. We couldn’t get enough of them… and thanks to eager entrepreneurs poised to sell you Apollo 11 commemorative books, photographs, T-shirts, model kits, View-Master reels, beverage glasses, pinback buttons, license plates, art prints, and medallions, you could relive their mission for years to come.

The Apollo 11 Moon landing was an extraordinary scientific achievement. But after that, it was never quite as good as the first time. The build-up to Apollo 11’s Moon landing was like the buoyant Christmas season, but after Neil and Buzz (and Mike, sort of the “Fifth Beatle” to our high-profile moonwalkers) came home, the thrill was gone—We’ve ripped the Christmas presents open, it’s time to take down the tree. With the exception of unlucky 13, whose malfunctioning ship nearly stranded its astronauts orbiting the dark side of the Moon, the subsequent Apollo missions failed to capture our imagination like 11’s did. In later decades, when Space Shuttles mothballed the towering Saturn Vs and their orbits fell off the radar of those who instead were glued to Atari and Magnum P.I., the once-mighty NASA began its slow, lamented slide into insignificance.

A handful of contemporary scientists, industrialists, and politicians have dared set their eyes toward the cosmos for future space exploration, with Mars being the next probable target. And China has, as of this writing, just landed a probe on the dark side of the Moon. Yet few Americans seem interested—which would no doubt sadden the Apollo 11 astronauts who believed, as Neil Armstrong once said, that their mission was “the beginning of a new age.”

But who knows? Maybe this next generation has the right stuff. Can one small step onto the Red Planet unite our divided nation and world? I’m hoping that by the time this happens, I won’t be too old to stay up and watch!

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RETRO TOYS

Major Matt Mason

Major Matt Mason and his space buddy Doug Davis stand with a Gamma Ray-Gard and Mobile Launch-Pad. (INSET) Moon Mission, the Major Matt Mason Big Little Book. Major Matt Mason © Mattel. Photo courtesy of Peter Dibenedetto. Book courtesy of Heritage.

by Joseph Baneth Allen Do you remember the daring exploits of American astronaut Major Matt Mason, who lived on a lunar space station with three other fellow astronauts and explored the unknown worlds of the Solar System?

Major Matt Mason—or Triple M, if you prefer— was created by Mattel Toys in 1967 to cash in on the popularity of the American Space Program. Along with his fellow astronauts Lt. Jeff Long—an AfricanAmerican astronaut—Sgt. Storm, and civilian astronaut Don Davis, Mason and America’s brave astronaut team were often assisted by the alien frenemy Captain Lazer when they traveled beyond the Moon. Also helping Major Matt Mason and his crew was their good friend Calisto, a mysterious alien with advanced mental powers, who hailed from Jupiter.

Not all aliens in the Major Matt Mason Universe were friendly, though. Attempting to thwart Major Mason and his space buddies was Scorpio, a truly bizarre insectoid alien who was forever hurdling search globes from his gigantic vest on his chest.

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Mattel’s Men in Space

Mattel marketed Major Matt Mason as “Mattel’s Man in Space.” Mason and his crew were also known as the “Men in Space.”

Even at the height of Major Mason’s popularity, toy astronauts were mostly a “Boys’ Only Club”—although female astronauts were introduced in the Major Matt Mason Big Little Book published by Whitman back in 1968. In Moon Mission, Major Mason and his team confront giant rabbits and huge burrowing worms on the Moon. What makes Moon Mission unique is that it was the first and only Big Little Book published that chronicled the adventures of a popular toy.

Another unique aspect of Major Mason and his crew is in their backstories: They were engineers who lived on the Moon, and who dealt with the unforeseen obstacles of space exploration and mysterious all-powerful aliens. Major Mason and his crew were the first action figures/dolls to have “advanced degrees” stressing the importance of science and math.

“Mattel’s Men in Space were the first toys to actually have advanced, albeit fictional, engineering degrees from universities,” says Michelle Parnett-Dywer, curator at the Strong National Museum of Play located at Rochester, New York.

Yet apart from the passing mention of the Men in Space having engineering degrees, there was no further backstory for each of the toy astronauts. “There was no backstory [for the Men in Space],” recalls cartoonist Joe King, a former art director for the Licensing Division of Mattel Toys. King started working for Mattel Toys back in the late Seventies and left roughly a decade later.

During the toy line’s near-decade-long run, Major Mason and his fellow astronauts were never as popular or as imaginationflexible as G.I. Joes, who weren’t bound to one play environment.

Marty Grosser, a fan of Mattel’s Men in Space and the editor of Diamond’s Previews catalog since 1988, concurs.

“Well, I was a kid back in the mid-to-late Sixties, so I definitely had my imagination expanded by the Space Program at NASA,” Grosser recalls. “I watched the Moon landing on TV, and all I wanted to be was an astronaut—that, of course didn’t last. But

landings, and Major Matt Mason allowed us to participate in our imaginations. The Men in Space and their various accessories— which included satellite launchers, re-entry shuttles, and space stations—were one of the top ten toys in the Sixties.”

Following in Joe’s Boots

Yet without Hasbro, Inc. taking the—then for its time—highstakes gamble on its line of G.I. Joe figures for boys, Mattel’s Men in Space never would have been launched off the conceptual drawing table.

When Hasbro proved the popularity of boy-oriented play dolls—pointedly called action figures, not dolls, by their

still, I filled in my dreams of space travel by playing with Matt Mason, Calisto, Captain Lazer, Scorpio, and the rest, [filling] in the missing pieces from the Colorforms Outer Space Men—Colossus Rex ruled! —and the Zeroids.

“The only thing that would eventually drag me away from the Space Race was the Kung-Fu Grip of G.I. Joe’s Adventure Team— another great set of toy memories there!”

“We all were Apollo Kids,” says vintage action-figure collector Peter J. Dibenedetto. “We were all excited about the Moon The Major Matt Mason line featured a “universe” of imaginative products. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Captain Lazer is Mason’s towering ally in this promo graphic. © Mattel.

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marketing department—many other toy manufacturers, including Mattel, immediately began rushing their own adventure figures to market.

Ironically, the race between Mattel and Hasbro to capture shares of the action-figure market for boys in the late Sixties mirrored the Cold War between the United States and the nowdefunct Soviet Union to garner wins in an escalating Space Race that President John F. Kennedy sought to win by giving NASA a mandate to send men to the moon and safely return them home before the decade of the Seventies began [as cited in this issue’s RetroFad article—ed.].

Mattel, Inc. competed with Hasbro in the action-figure market-share wars by offering Major Matt Mason, an American astronaut who lived on the Moon with his crew of three fellow American astronauts.

“Yet Mattel took an entirely different approach to making its Major Mason action-figure line,” Ms. Parnett-Dywer notes.

“Instead of following the lead Hasbro had already established with 12-inch, hard-plastic action figures that could be easily

A groovy gathering of Major Matt Mason items photographed

by Peter Dibenedetto. Note the licensed Halloween costume by Collegeville at the top center. Ready to blast off to eBay to go toy shopping? © Mattel.

MAJOR MATT MASON IN TELEVISION AND MOVIES by Joseph Baneth Allen Back in September 2018, Mattel, Inc. decided to follow Hasbro’s lead once again and announced the creation of Mattel Films, a new division of the company that will focus on the production of motion pictures based on Mattel’s iconic and globally recognized properties. “Mattel is home to one of the world’s greatest portfolios of beloved franchises, and the creation of Mattel Films will allow us to unlock significant value across our IP,” according to Ynon Kreiz, Mattel’s Chairman and CEO.

Kreiz appointed Academy Award-nominated producer Robbie Brenner to lead Mattel Films as Executive Producer.

“Generations of children around the world have grown up with deep emotional connections to Mattel’s brands and characters,” Ms. Brenner said. “There are so many stories to be told and so many imaginations to be captured by these iconic brands.”

Mattel Films has remained mum if it has plans for a live-action Men in Space movie.

Yet while the future of a live-action Major Matt Mason movie is highly speculative, the beloved classic action

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figure has made cameo appearances on television and in movies: `` Perhaps Major Mason’s first appearance outside of the pre-recorded commercials that Mattel ran for its action figure was on the daily gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

David Collins, a young boy on the show, had the Major Matt Mason Space Station in his room. `` Major Matt Mason and a ton of his accessories, including the Space Station, also makes a major appearance in the British children’s show, Here Come the Double-Deckers. The Major Matt Mason-heavy episode was called “The Case of the Missing Doughnut.” `` In Stargate SG-1, the character of Samantha Carter revealed that she played with Major Matt Mason and the Men in Space as a young girl. `` Major Matt Mason also makes a cameo in the opening scene in the 2001 movie The Wedding Planner by dangling on his flight backpack in order to deliver a toy wedding cake to Barbie and Ken dolls.

While fans remain hopeful for a possible full-length big-budget Major Matt Mason movie in the immediate future, Peter Dibenedetto has created over 200 minimovies of Major Matt Mason and the Men in Space on his You Tube channel that are available to watch at www. youtube.com/playlist?list=PL26F46BE7CD3819DB. “I still enjoy playing with all of my Major Matt Mason collection, and the mini-movies are probably the closest we’re going to get to an actual live-action movie for a while,” Dibenedetto says.

(INSET) Major Matt Mason’s crew is ready for their closeup. © Mattel

RETRO TOYS

repaired if an arm and/or a leg popped out of place, Mattel’s Men in Space were only six inches tall and were molded from a bendy, plastic material called Plastizol.

“Plastizol was originally used in fishing lures,” she notes.

Keeping the production costs down on Major Matt Mason and his fellow astronauts was the primary motivating factor as to why Mattel choose go the bendy, rubber-clad armature idea for the main body of the its action-figure astronauts.

“Mattel was ahead of the curve in creating what was the world’s first replaceable toy,” says Dibenedetto. “Prior to Major Matt Mason, toys were built for endurance and longevity.

Televisions are a good example of a replaceable item. Back in the Sixties right on up to the start of the 21st Century, you paid someone to repair your broken television set. Now, you just buy a new television set and place the broken set on the curb to be hauled off. With the Men in Space, Mattel had created a toy that could be disposed of, and replaced by going to the store.”

The playsets and accessories were built with an eye for endurance, but the Men in Space action figures didn’t always survive for long in the normal wear and tear of playful activities.

While the bendy Plastizol allowed the Men in Space to have more flexibility than a 12-inch hard-plastic action figure, Major Mason and his fellow astronauts often ended up losing arms and legs that couldn’t be repaired by frugal parents. The wire frame body had limits on its bendability.

A NASA Connection?

Mason and his companions flew cool spaceships and lunar vehicles, and lived in a fantastic space station and a lunar base.

Mattel fashioned some details of Matt Mason’s spacesuit and equipment from gear that NASA was developing at that period in time before the space agency’s Apollo program ferried astronauts to the lunar surface and back to terra firma.

Yet there is some ambiguity about whether or not Mattel actually worked with NASA in creating its Men in Space line of toys.

“It was always assumed that there was collaboration between Mattel and NASA,” says James Gillam, author of the book Space Toys of the 60s. “Whether this was calculated with a clear outline or whether this was ‘on the side’ is somewhat questionable.

“It’s obvious that there were similarities, most definitely, and I have some literature that indicated collaboration at some level, drawings and such between some of the Mattel items and early NASA concepts,” Gillam says.

Joe King concurs, noting that the original Matt Mason toys were only credited as: “OFFICIAL NASA DESIGNS.” A catalog that Mattel published to promote and sell the Major Matt Mason toy line states that: “All of Major Matt Mason’s equipment is based on official space program designs.

This equipment must help him deal with violent temperature extremes, radiation, meteorites, and strange, rough terrain.”

Michelle Parnett-Dywer says, “The [bell-shaped] space suit accessory worn by Major Matt Mason and his team on their deep space missions closely mirrors a spacesuit concept proposed by Stunning MMM photos by Peter Dibenedetto: (TOP) Mason in the Moon Station. (CENTER) Admit it... you wanted a kid-sized Moon Suit like Major Matt Mason’s, didn’t you? (BOTTOM) The impressive Moon Lander accessory. © Mattel.

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(TOP) A licensed Press-Out book, and a Moon exploration display photographed by Peter Dibenedetto. (BOTTOM) Dibenedetto-created images from a fantasy product brochure, and Mason in his Space Shuttle. (OPPOSITE) A reproduction of the Major Matt Mason logo

by Joe King. © Mattel.

the Space General Corporation which was first revealed on the cover of Life Magazine [on the April 27, 1962 issue].”

“The different-colored spacesuits worn by Major Mason and his Moonbase team appear to be closely modeled after conceptual spacesuits that NASA had commissioned designs on,” Gillam adds, “including the bell-type spacesuit made by Mattel for the Men in Space.”

Also, a number of Major Mason’s accessories, including the re-entry shuttle glider that actually glided, are based on NASA’s designs—including the individual spacesuit/tug. The bell-type spacesuit made by Mattel is very similar to the NASA outline.

Mattel’s extensive data-mining of NASA’s designs was for turning envisioned equipment into toy accessories and playsets.

Modeling an action figure after real-life astronauts was shied away from by the toy company.

“Major Matt Mason and the Men in Space were not molded after NASA astronauts,” Gillam says.

Just how many Major Matt Mason accessories and side products were there? There were Major Matt Mason lunch boxes, 24

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picture puzzles, and sticker books, alongside the specially written Big Little Book that Whitman Publishing licensed.

“I don’t think any of us really know [how many licensed Major Matt Mason] products were produced for so long and for so much time,” Gillam says. “I have a full-color poster from Dairy Queen, for example, showing an MMM astronaut floating over a Ice Cream product for sample, a great example of cross marketing from the late Sixties.”

“Mattel enjoyed solid sales figures with the Major Matt Mason toy line that had begun in 1967 when the Men In Space astronauts began appearing on shelves,” says Peter Dibenedetto. “Then, in 1972, Mattel suddenly pulled the plug on Major Matt Mason, and have maintained a decades -long silence about the Space Age action figure ever since.

The Future of Major Matt Mason?

Mattel’s stance on not talking about its once popular Men in Space action-figure line has long puzzled fans, collectors, and even journalists.

RETRO TOYS

that they were ‘just showing them off.’ Another [booth attendant] said that Mattel was just possibly gauging interest.”

“Collectors are very nostalgic, so I’m surprised that Mattel hasn’t relaunched the Men in Space line,” says Parnett-Dywer.

Despite Mattel’s curious silence about all things Major Matt Mason, nostalgia for the toy line has remained strong over the passing decades. There was talk back in 2012 that Tom Hanks would be starring in the role of Major Matt Mason in a feature-length movie.

Even though actor Hanks’ Major Matt Mason movie never got beyond the talking stage, did Major Mason have an impact on Hollywood? A case can be made that the exo-skeleton used

by Ripley in the Aliens movie is James Cameron’s wink and a nod to the exo-skeleton used by Major Matt Mason to explore alien worlds.

“I can’t imagine that it did not [influence Hollywood],” Gillam says. “What we know is the likes of Hanks, Cameron, and many others I have met over the years are science-fiction fans. Many of us, the same ages, grew up with MMM items, and certainly this has definitely influenced and carried into other things as adult writers, filmmakers and actors.

by Michael Eury “It is these early influences that create the basis for our imaginations. I think that is very far to assume,” Gillam Ideal’s Captain Action, the original superhero action figure that was sold alongside compatible costumes of licensed superheroes including Batman believes. “Major Matt Mason, Space: and Spider-Man, ran from 1966 through the end of the Sixties and spawned 1999, 2001, Star Trek … have all had DC Comics’ second toy tie-in (G.I. Joe was the first), a Captain Action comic impact and influences.” book that launched in late 1968—unfortunately, when the toy’s popularity was declining. DC’s Captain Action ran for only five issues despite impressive contributions by Jim Shooter, Wally Wood, and Gil Kane.

JOSEPH BANETH ALLEN grew up in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He is one of the few military brats who never got to travel around the world because his father was permanently stationed at the Marine Corps Base. An avid reader and writer, his fiction has appeared in “Blood Sacraments,” “Wings,” “Riding the Rails,” “Sweat,” and At this time, DC also licensed Major Matt Mason from Mattel, with a first other anthologies. In addition to issue being produced by writer Denny O’Neil and artist Murphy Anderson.

RetroFan, his non-fiction has appeared The project was quickly pulled for reasons unknown (although there are fan in Popular Science, OMNI, Astronomy, theories), but the story eventually saw print!

Earth, Boys’ Life, Girls’ Life, eBay Editor Julius Schwartz repurposed the Matt Mason tale, rebranding Magazine, USA Today, Grit, and many Mason as “Commander Glenn Merritt” and Sgt. Storm as brash crew member others. He and his family live amongst an “Sgt. Kevin Tempest,” and ran it as a two-part adventure published in late ever-growing collection of Big Little 1970 in issues #7 and 8 of From Beyond the Unknown, an anthology series that Books, G.I. Joes, Gold Key Comics, and Electric Tiki statues. usually reprinted tales from DC’s deep sci-fi inventory. The tale also includes an appearance by an alien named “Quasar,” who probably was intended to be Scorpio in the original story.

Over a month-long period that began on November 10, 2018 and ended on December 31, 2018, Kelly Powers and Marissa Beck— the designated points of contact for all media inquiries on Mattel’s website—did not return this writer’s multiple requests made through email and voicemail for information and interview requests about Major Matt Mason.

An attempt to reach out to Mattel via their Facebook page did receive a response from the page’s administrator, who replied back that Mattel doesn’t wish to talk about Major Matt Mason, the once-popular space action figure.

“I have no clue at all to why Mattel refuses to talk about Major Matt Mason,” says Marty Grosser. “It’s really frustrating, because the display [of vintage Matt Mason items that Mattel] set up at the 2012 [San Diego] Comic-Con was ridiculously good! Like a damn dummy, I didn’t take any pictures, but it looked like they had brought all the pieces out of some vault at Mattel.

“Some booth attendant—who wouldn’t be born for decades after the [Men in Space] line was originally released—said

TM & © DC Comics.

MAJOR MATT MASON… THE COMIC BOOK??

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CELEBRITY CRUSHES

by Rose Rummel-Eury When my family moved from California to North Carolina in 1966, we began a new chapter in our lives—one that finally included a television. I was late to the game because I was already eight years old. Today when my husband asks me what shows I liked as a little kid, I really don’t know what to say. While I occasionally saw The Mickey Mouse Club or reruns of Kukla, Fran and Ollie on a neighbor’s TV, my family did not gather around a set in the evenings so there was no chance of becoming emotionally invested in any program.

I quickly became invested when I spotted a handsome and funny star of a show my daddy and I laughed through every week, called F Troop. When most people refer to the “handsome and funny star” of F Troop, they are thinking about Ken Berry. No, I am not referring to Mr. Berry! My first TV crush happens to be… Larry Storch! Lawrence Samuel Storch, born January 8, 1923 (96 and going strong as of this writing), captured my attention from the first time I saw Corporal Randolph Agarn make a goofy face and take a pratfall. I wanted to kiss him on the mouth. I didn’t know it at the time, but this little, obviously heterosexual girl was being imprinted.

Years later, I discovered that Mr. Storch could imitate numerous stars and he also provided character voices for Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/Eighties Celebrity Crushes with RetroFan readers! (Celebrity stalkers, please do not apply.) You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crushes column to the editor for consideration at euryman@gmail.com.

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animation. Larry is a voice genius! Did you know that in the late Sixties, he was the first actor to be the voice of the Joker in The Adventures of Batman produced by Filmation?

Currently, I keep up with his antics on Facebook. There, I have the pleasure of seeing him learn how to paint, write on-thefly poetry about wine, and wish other celebrities like Julie Newmar a “Happy Birthday.” You’ve still got the charm and the humor, Larry!

Television again provided me with another crush: the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz. At the time, I was holding “slap fights” with my sister over our one black-and-white TV. One of us would get up and change the channel and the other would change it back. I don’t even remember what she wanted to watch—all I know is, it wasn’t The Monkees! While she was aging out of enjoying their exploding silliness, I was definitely a member of their targeted demographic. George Michael Dolenz, Jr., born March 8, 1945, had a mop of hair and lopsided grin that stole my heart. I wanted to kiss him on the mouth, too. He was cute, funny, and he could sing. Another imprint?

There would be other crushes: Peter from The Brady Bunch in 1969, Michael Jackson with “ABC” from 1970, and the smooth stylings of Perry Como (don’t ask).

My last television crush before moving into puberty was Robert Conrad. Now, he wasn’t funny—he was just purty. I really wanted to kiss him on the mouth! Once puberty hit, the early crushes were all discarded in favor of John Denver, James Taylor, and David Gates from Bread. As I spent hours spent crying through “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” and “Baby I’m-a Want You,” my earlier fascination with Larry Storch melted away. I was entering the dark age of unrequited love and loneliness—the teen age. However, years later, the early imprinting of comedy and song led me to my husband—funny, handsome, and a good singer. I did kiss him on the mouth.

ROSE RUMMEL-EURY has worked in the corporate textbook and self-publishing fields for almost 30 years, and has been married to RetroFan editor Michael Eury even longer.

F Troop © Warner Bros. The Monkees © Rhino Entertainment Company.

My TV Crushes

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

The

Tarzan

PHOTO: Pixabay-bere69.

First Time I Met

by Will Murray

If the name Will Murray rings a bell, I’ve gotten around in the last 40-odd years of freelancing. For some 25 years, I was Boston correspondent for Starlog and her sister magazines, Fangoria and Comics Scene. I traveled to movie locations around the world and interviewed tons of talent. Comic books, pulp magazines, oldtime radio, film, TV, and other expressions of American popular culture have been my meat, man and boy, fan and professional writer. I bought some of the earliest Marvel Comics off the

newsstands before the days of comic shops. I belong to the Baby Boom generation whose dimes helped build the present Marvel Entertainment empire.

As a fiction writer, I’ve stepped into the literary shoes of some of my favorite writers. My first brush with pulp fiction was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. I’ve since gone on to revive his greatest creation in Tarzan: Return to Pal-ul-don and the acclaimed King Kong vs. Tarzan. I contributed

Will Murray’s lifelong jungle fever probably dates back to this 1959 theatrical release starring Gordon Scott, Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure. Note this movie poster’s still of the film’s aftermath of a plane crash. Tarzan TM & © ERB, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

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WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

40—yes, 40!—novels in Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy’s hilarious Destroyer paperback series, as well as scripting the character for Marvel Comics. The first film I covered for Starlog was a based on the series. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins was the film. I’ve been privileged posthumously collaborate with one of my favorite authors, writing Doc Savage novels under the house name of Kenneth Robeson from series originator Lester Dent’s notes and unfinished manuscripts. Along the way, I penned individual novels featuring Mack Bolan: The Executioner, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Mars Attacks franchise.

Currently, I’m launching the Wild Adventures of the Spider for Altus Press, based on the Thirties pulp and movie serial hero. My crossover novels have pitted Doc Savage against King Kong and Doc against the Shadow—twice!

As a contributor to numerous prose anthologies, let me just list some of the classic characters and cultural icons I’ve brought to life: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, the Hulk, the Spider, the Avenger, the Green Hornet, Honey West, Sherlock Holmes, Cthulhu, Planet of the Apes, Dr. Herbert West, and Lee Falk’s immortal Ghost Who Walks, the Phantom. I’ve contributed to several encyclopedias focusing on the mystery, horror, sciencefiction, and comic-book fields.

For National Public Radio I adapted the Doc Savage novel, The Thousand-Headed Man, as a six-part serial.

Never mind all the pulp, comics, and H. P. Lovecraft fanzines to which I contributed back when I started writing in the Seventies. It amazes me that many of these modest but pioneering articles are footnoted in Wikipedia.

I’ve been so prolific for so long that sometimes Facebook and Twitter followers are stunned to realize that the same Will Murray who writes Doc Savage is also the creator of Marvel’s Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. But I am. Honest. And other, seemingly unrelated, Will Murrays as well.

As consumer and creator, I’ve been immersed in popular culture for so long I was slower than most to wake up and realize that the stuff I have loved for so long has risen to the point that it’s become the dominant shared culture (outside of sports) for the entire world. That fact that I live in a time when Ant-Man and its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, are major motion pictures is so far removed from the reality of the early Sixties when I was buying Tales to Astonish that I might as well have been teleported to another planet!

For this column, I’m going to delve into all of it. I’ll take you behind the scenes of the typical movie shoot, introduce you to creators I’ve interviewed, and shine a penetrating spotlight on the darkest, most mysterious corners of the cool stuff we all love.

I’m calling this column Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon. A panopticon is a building or prison constructed so that only one observer can keep an eye on all inmates, who can’t tell when they are being watched, and so must always be in their best behavior lest their secret activities be uncovered.

I am that observer and I have been watching for almost 60 years. I have secrets to tell….

One of the things I most enjoy doing is solving mysteries.

Recently, long after I thought I’d never in a million years figure it out, I learned the name of the first film I ever saw on the big screen.

And it turned out to be eerily meaningful as far as my later career developed.

I don’t consciously remember the year. I just know that I was very young. This would have been in the mid-to-late Fifties.

Something was going on in my immediate family. I think my mother was visiting a relative out of town. My father had me.

My younger siblings were not part of this adventure. They were probably still in diapers. But I was walking. I found myself in an unfamiliar neighborhood, accompanying my father. I remember noticing a billboard for a brand of bread I did not recognize. I’m not sure I was reading at that point. If I was, I just learned to recognize simple words. So I was very young. Since I was born in 1953, this incident probably took place no later than 1960.

It was night and my father took me to a movie theater. This may have been my first such visit. Certainly I don’t recall ever having been in a movie theater before this.

I no longer recall anything about the film except this: early in the first reel there was a scene of a small airplane descending into a jungle and ultimately crash landing. That’s all my fading memory will give up.

For decades, that brief scene stuck in my mind—the first one I beheld on the big screen. When I got older, I began wondering what the movie was. Obviously, it was a jungle picture. They made a lot of them back then. But I hadn’t a clue what it was or what it was about. Since I was more or less preliterate, the film’s title had escaped me. By the time it occurred to me to ask my father, it was too late to do so.

Gold Key’s Tarzan #135 (May 1963). Cover painting by George Wilson. TM & © ERB, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

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WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

(LEFT) Olympic swimmer Johnny Weismuller, shown in a 1933 Tarzan publicity pic, was the definitive Ape-Man for generations. (BELOW) In films including Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, producer Sy Weintraub jettisoned the childlike, monosyllabic Tarzan of the Weismuller era for the erudite Jungle Lord seen in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels. Tarzan TM & © ERB, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

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WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

I know that in 1961 I went to a movie theater with a friend, the first time I did so unaccompanied by a parent. It was a double feature of Mr. Roberts and Gorgo. I had to sit through Mr. Roberts in order to meet my first big-screen monster. Years later, I looked up on microfilm when that particular bill ran at my neighborhood theater, the Rialto. It was August 1961. So the mystery movie had to be a few years before that.

For a long time, I stayed alert for any clues that would lead me to this elusive movie. Opening high over a jungle helped narrow the possibilities considerably. But the Fifties was an era of outdoors onlocation films. Over the years, I imagined that it was some South American lost-city epic, the kind of a film Victor Mature or somebody like that would star in.

Once, I happened upon the Charlton Heston vehicle, Secret of the Incas, a 1954 film that obviously inspired Raiders of the Lost Ark. It had all the ingredients––jungle, airplane, Technicolor. It took place in Peru. Alas, the plane showed up later in the movie and did not crash. I was crushed. But I did not give up.

Recently, I happened to read a description of the 1959 Tarzan film, Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, starring Gordon Scott. I was intrigued by the fact that the film involved a plane crash early in the action. Could it be…?

Now, I watched a lot of Tarzan films on TV in the Sixties and beyond. By no means did I see them all. The Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series was my introduction to the storied Ape-Man. I’m sure I saw all of those. I saw smatterings of others starring Lex Barker and others, but for whatever reason they didn’t stick in my consciousness for very long.

Thanks to YouTube, I was able to watch the first portion of Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure. While I can’t exactly match the Technicolor airplane-crash scene with my hazy memory, I’m reasonably sure that the film my father took me to see so long ago was this Gordon Scott vehicle.

If you had asked me before this recent realization, I would have said my first encounter with Tarzan was either a Johnny Weissmuller film or one of the early Dell or Gold Key comics. I know I didn’t read a lot of Tarzan in the comics. In fact, when I look at the covers Gold Key published during my formative comic-book reading years, which were late 1961 through 1965, I’m surprised that I recognize only one cover. That was issue #135, dated May 1963. I don’t recall the stories it contained, but a little online research shows that one of them took place in Pal-ul-don!

So that’s when I first heard of that fabled land I would decades 30

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John Guillermin directed both Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and (INSET) King Kong Lives—plus other RetroFan-era faves such as Shaft in Africa, The Towering Inferno, and the 1976 King Kong remake. King Kong Lives © De Laurentis Entertainment Group. Poster courtesy

of Heritage.

later bring back to life in my novel, Tarzan: Return to Pal-ul-don.

I know that I read copies of a friend’s Jesse Marsh-drawn Tarzan comics because they didn’t especially appeal to me art-wise, and his style stuck in my mind for that reason. I much preferred the Russ Manning-drawn Tarzan, which I know I encountered somewhere along the line.

It’s even money whether my first clear memory of Tarzan comes from a comic book or a Johnny Weissmuller film. But I am amused to now realize that I encountered him before that––even if I was too young to understand who he was.

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure was a milestone, a significant installment in the long procession of Tarzan films. Gordon had taken over the role from Lex Barker in 1955, and was obliged to portray the Ape-Man in the traditional Hollywood “Me Tarzan, You Jane” Johnny Weissmuller mode. But with the fifth outing, new producer Sy Weintraub decided to go to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ source novels and for the first time show an intelligent, articulate, and noble Tarzan––thereby giving subsequent cinematic Tarzans permission to do the same.

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure was a hit, as was a sequel, Tarzan the Magnificent. For these productions, Jane and all other cast members were jettisoned. Tarzan was recast as a loner, the grim guardian and defender of the jungle––which is exactly how Burroughs handled the character in his later novels. Scott soon moved on, to be replaced by actors Mike Henry, Jock Mahoney, and TV Tarzan Ron Ely—all produced by Weintraub, and all depicting a more sophisticated Ape-Man. The culmination of this trend may have been 1966’s Tarzan and the City of Gold, wherein Lord Greystoke was a jet-setting adventurer one layer of clothing away from being a rough version of James Bond.

No doubt I watched most or all of these films on TV back in the day, but for whatever reason the Weissmuller movies are what have lingered in my memory.

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

(LEFT) Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure poster, signed by movie jungle man Gordon Scott. (ABOVE) Poster for its sequel, Tarzan the Magnificent. TM & © ERB, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

Another unexpected discovery came to light while researching Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure. I recognized the name of the director, John Guillermin. It rang a bell, but I couldn’t immediately place him. When I looked up Guillermin’s filmography, I came to a surprising realization.

I had interviewed him for Starlog magazine! It was back around 1986, when Guillermin was directing King Kong Lives. Not the greatest King Kong movie ever filmed, I know. But since I subsequently wrote King Kong vs. Tarzan, it amuses me to think that I once interviewed a filmmaker who directed both great jungle characters.

I started reading Tarzan in 1971, after exhausting John Carter of Mars and other Edgar Rice Burroughs series that first fascinated me. Like many Baby Boomers who first encountered the mighty Ape-Man in other media—chiefly film––I was reluctant to dive into the Tarzan series, mistakenly believing that the movie versions reflected their novel inspirations. Once I read Tarzan of the Apes, I became a fan of the true Tarzan. And never looked back…

One of these days I will get around to watching (or, should I say, re-watching) Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure. But I’m in no rush… no matter how mature and faithful it might be, I know I’m better off rereading Tarzan of the Apes. Aside from that, it will be a virtually virgin experience––after all, 1959 was a heckuva long time ago….

WILL MURRAY is the writer of the Wild Adventures (www.adventuressinbronze. com) series of novels, which stars Doc Savage, the Shadow, King Kong, the Spider, and Tarzan of the Apes. He also created Marvel’s Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with legendary artist Steve Ditko.

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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 maids, butlers, or valets in Column One corresponds to a program in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!!

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1) Alice Nelson 2) Mr. French 3) Benson DuBois 4) Kato 5) Lurch 6) Malcolm Merriweather 7) Rosie the Robot Maid 8) Florence Johnston 9) Mrs. Livingston 10) Tony Micelli

A) The Jeffersons B) Family Affair C) The Addams Family

The Addams Family © Filmways TV Productions.

The Andy Griffith Show © Mayberry Enterprises, Inc. The Brady Bunch © Paramount Television.

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father © Warner Bros.

Television. Family Affair © Don Fedderson Productions/Family Affair Company. The Green Hornet © The Green Hornet, Inc. The Jeffersons, Soap, and Who’s the Boss? © Sony Pictures Television. The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera 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–I, 2–B, 3–J, 4–D, 5–C, 6–E, 7–H, 8–A, 9–F, 10–G.

D) The Green Hornet E) The Andy Griffith Show F) The Courtship of Eddie’s Father G) Who’s the Boss?

H) The Jetsons I) The Brady Bunch J) Soap

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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 #77

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.

MONSTERS & BUGS! Jack’s monster-movie influences in The Demon, Forever People, Black Magic, Fantastic Four, Jimmy Olsen, and Atlas monster stories; Kirby’s work with “B” horror film producer CHARLES BAND; interview with “The Goon” creator ERIC POWELL; Kirby’s use of insect characters (especially as villains); MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, Golden Age Kirby story, and a Kirby pencil art gallery!

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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

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

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

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®

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STAR WARSTM THEMED BUILDERS! Travel to a galaxy far, far away with JACOB NEIL CARPENTER’S DEATH STAR, the work of MIRI DUDAS, and the LEGO® photography of JAMES PHILIPPART! Plus “AFOLs”

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ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Craig Littler strikes a heroic pose as Jason, with the logo of his series and the anthology series which featured it. Jason of Star Command

© 1978 Filmation Associates. Space Academy © 1977 Filmation Associates.

by Andy Mangels 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 crosslegged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday Morning!

“Danger hides in the stars! This is the world of Jason of Star Command… A spaceage soldier of fortune determined to stop the most sinister force in the universe…

The creator and director of Jason of Star Command, Arthur Nadel, stands behind Peepo the robot in the cockpit of the Starfire, with producer Lou Scheimer. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

Dragos, Master of the Cosmos! Aiding Jason in his battle against evil is a talented team of experts, all working together in a secret section of Space Academy. Jason of Star Command!”

The announcer’s voice was Filmation co-creator Lou Scheimer, but the intonation and visuals promised pure science-fiction space-adventure serial, translated to Saturday mornings. With a hero that could have been Han Solo’s brother, a one-eyed villain that was television’s scariest-looking bad guy, and special effects unrivalled on television, Jason of Star Command pushed viewers into hyperspace!

Graduating from Space Academy

Founded in the early Sixties by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, with ex-disc jockey Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates had been riding high on Saturday morning animation since the 1966 debut of their The New Adventures of Superman series. Although the majority of their shows were animated spin-offs based on live-action licensed properties—Fantastic Voyage, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Batman, The Brady Kids, Star Trek, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, and The New Adventures of Gilligan, to name a few—Filmation eventually branched out to live-action original series. Beginning with Shazam!

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Cast members of the first season of Jason included (L to R) James Doohan as Commander Canarvin, Craig Littler as Jason (holding robot W1K1), Susan O’Hanlon as Captain Nicole Davidoff, Charlie Dell as Professor E. J. Parsafoot, and Sid Haig as the villainous Dragos! Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filma-

tion Associates.

in 1974 [see cover story in RetroFan #4], the studio produced their first live-action superheroine series with The Secrets of Isis, the original comedy The Ghost Busters [coming next issue!], the bizarre anthology Uncle Croc’s Block in 1975, and the postapocalyptic sci-fi series Ark II in 1976.

Filmation began development on a new science-fiction series in 1976, which was announced to the press in April 1977; part of the fall CBS Saturday morning line-up would be a new live-action space series called Space Academy. The series was set in the year 3732, where young cadets were attending the interstellar school known as Space Academy. There, they mixed futuristic school lessons with visits to other planets, encounters with alien creatures, and hijinks with their school robot, the waist-high Peepo. The man who had written the original Star Trek’s second pilot, Sam Peeples, helped develop the series.

The timing was fortuitous for the series; an upcoming science-fiction film had brought together many special effects designers, and Lou Scheimer hired a group of them to create the asteroid-based home of Space Academy, as well as the various spaceships and aliens. That upcoming space film?

None other than Star Wars, which debuted May 25, 1977, and soon became a huge phenomenon!

In a post-Star Wars entertainment world, every television network was scrambling to have its own interstellar action series. CBS beat their competitors to the punch with Space Academy, which debuted on September 10, 1977, and garnered 36

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high ratings. Between those ratings and Star Wars’ success, CBS quickly agreed to Filmation’s plans for a Space Academy spin-off. A series called Star Command was announced in March 1978 for fall airing; the series would be presented as a serial during a new 90-minute anthology series to be title The Super Seven.

Working under show creator Arthur Nadel, Samuel Peeples was again brought in to further develop the new series, and he wrote the first six episodes in June 1978. Each of 16 contracted episodes for the show—now titled Jason of Star Command—would be only 11 minutes in length, with each tale ending in a cliffhanger, not unlike movie serials of the Forties and Fifties. Viewers would then have to tune in the following week the get the next chapter of the story. Contrasting Space Academy’s mostly teen and preteen cast, Jason of Star Command’s plot found a group of heroic adults working within a secretive section of Space Academy to combat sinister forces that conspired to dominate the stars. Leading them were a dashing Commander, whose team included a daring soldier of fortune named Jason, computer expert Captain Nicole Davidoff, eccentric scientist Dr. E. J. Parsafoot, and the miniature robot W 1K1. Together they often faced the evil machinations of Dragos—the self-proclaimed “Master of the Cosmos”—and his alien minions aboard the Dragonship.

“Jason of Star Command was really a breakthrough show,” said Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. “It was a sequel to Space Academy, and even used some of the same sets, spaceships, and characters, but it showed the adventures of the grown-ups rather than the kids.

And it was really done as if it were a serial, with a season-long continued storyline, a cliffhanger ending each week, evil villains, and alien creatures. It was also probably the most expensive Saturday morning show ever filmed, costing about $200,000 per quarter-hour episode!”

In June, casting notices went out across Hollywood for the shows’ leads: Jason, 20s, athletic, young Errol Flynn type, lead, regular; Nicole, mid-20s, pretty, athletic, lead, regular; Parsafoot, 40s, scientific character, Jason’s sidekick, mentor, and friend, regular; Vanessa, 30s, femme fatale, sultry, seductive, bewitching, hard, regular; Dragos, any age, play half-human and half-robot villain type, will be costumed, regular; available guest stars with recognizable names to play cameos.

Initially, Scheimer had planned to have actor Jonathan Harris cross over his role of Commander Gampu from Space Academy, but the studio and the aging Lost in Space star had a falling out over fee negotiations. “We brought in Jimmy Doohan to play the role of the Star Command leader, Commander Canarvin,” Scheimer said. “He was the perfect guy to do a Saturday morning live-action sci-fi show.” Doohan had already worked for Filmation previously on the animated Star Trek series, wherein he had shown himself quite versatile in the voiceover department, playing many different aliens and guest characters.

Scheimer recalled that for the lead role of Jason, they wanted to find a guy who was a lot like Han Solo from

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Star Wars, but not as roguish. “Jason needed to be tall and charming and look like a hero. We found Craig Littler, who was just perfect. He auditioned for Art Nadel and I, and we offered him the role before he had even left the building!”

Because Littler was tall and imposing, the villain had to be equally so. Filmation soon hired Sid Haig, an actor who often played bikers and TV villains. “He was a perfect villain, and very big,” said Scheimer. “He was also a gentle guy, but a frightening-looking guy when he wanted to be. And he had quite a deep and sinister laugh.”

Charlie Dell was cast as the comic interest, Professor E. J. Parsafoot. “He was very funny and quite animated, and it was one of the first television jobs he had done. He really made the most out of that role,” said Scheimer. Susan O’Hanlon was cast in the role of Captain Nicole Davidof f, the female sidekick for the show. “She was a tiny woman, but was very sweet.”

The miniature robot in the cast was named W 1K1 (pronounced “Wickie” like the later online encyclopedia), and it resembled a palm-sized camera with wind-up legs and blinking lights. “That little thing was a pain in the ass because it never wanted to work,” said Scheimer, laughing. “It had all sorts of electronics in it so it would light up and beep, except it never did what it was supposed to do… at least when the cameras were rolling. It would walk along on little wind-up feet, and sometimes it flew on wires.” Some episodes also guest-starred the waist-high robot Peepo, appearing over from Space Academy.

A Dashing Hero… in Tight Clothes

Although he had been a working actor since the early Sixties, Craig Littler had mostly appeared in guest parts or small film roles prior to booking Jason of Star Command. The actor recalls that he was actually the second actor cast as Jason. “They had cast another person, I came to find out later. They had cast somebody they weren’t real pleased with for some reason; it didn’t work out. I got a call from my agent, who sent me to the casting director, and the casting director asked me to come out to the stage we ended up shooting Jason on. It was a warehouse with a bunch of different sets. I went out, and auditioned for Lou Scheimer and Art Nadel, who was the director. Susan O’Hanlon, who ended up playing with me in the show, was there. She and I did some scenes, and that was it. I walked out of the audition room, and Lou came out, and Art Nadel, and said, ‘Craig, we want to offer you the part,’ before they even talked to my agent!”

Littler recalls the comparison he would get to Han Solo actor Harrison Ford, who was a contemporary of his. “Harrison and I are about the same sort of age range. We were doing a lot of the same things. We were very close in that type, except I think I’m a little taller than he is. I was doing that kind of outdoorsy, the rugged guy type, hero type of stuff, that’s what I did a lot of… it was a good fit for me.”

Littler was costumed in an outfit not unlike Han Solo’s, except that years before Serenity’s “Captain Tightpants,” Littler

was poured into the outfit Jason wore. “I had a really tight costume, that’s true,” Littler admits, laughing. “It was that outer-space hero thing, they wanted everything tight. I was always in really good shape, you know, and they wanted the guy to have a good body and everything, so everything was tight. In fact, when I had to do that open sequence, when I crashed through the door at the opening of every show, they wanted to put pads on me, so when I hit the floor, I didn’t get bruised or banged up… I couldn’t put pads under the outfit, because it was so tight! We must’ve done it a dozen times, and I got really banged up, but it looked good! You know, I had the high boots, and the blouse pants, I had the cool belt, and I could hang all the little gizmos on it.”

Working with a television and science-fiction legend like James Doohan was a treat for Littler. “James Doohan was just a classy guy to work with. He was friendly, he was helpful, he listened to you, and he was good actor. Jimmy never had an ego about Star Trek and all that. He was a super professional, and always had a great attitude.” The femme star on the show, Susan O’Hanlon, was also a treat to work with for the actor. “Susan was great, she was small, just darling, really sweet. Good little actress. When we were of f-camera, we were always goofing around, having a great time.” Of co-star Charlie Dell, Littler recalls that his Parsafoot was a “really bizarre sort of otherworldly sort of character. He was a very animated, real creative guy. He took that little character and made a lot out of it.”

On the flip side, Littler didn’t always enjoy working with W 1K 1. “The most difficult cast member was that little W 1K 1. W 1K 1 was a problem. W 1K 1 had a life of his own. He was just a little box that they hooked up with these electronics, and he would beep these little beeps to answer us. The thing wouldn’t work. We’d be shooting, they’d be

(ABOVE) Craig Littler bursts through a door in the opening sequence, without stunt pads! (INSET) Craig Littler in an interview for the Jason DVD set. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

going, ‘Cut! Cut! Cut!’ because they couldn’t get it to beep, they couldn’t get it to walk; they had him on wires, and they had to walk along parts of the set, and along the floor. That little thing had a mind of its own. It’s like it was alive; it just decided not to work. Then, of course, they’d shut the camera of f, and it’d start working. They’d go, ‘Roll them, roll them, quick!’ And so, of course, it would stop again…”

Jason’s arch-nemesis on the series was the evil Dragos, played by Sid Haig. “Sid and I were probably the closest, because we went on all those personal appearances, and we did things above and beyond the show together. He’s this big, huge guy—I’m six-four, I think he’s about my same size—I think he was six-three, he was about 200, 220 pounds, big, with this bald head, and this mustache and goatee, and he had that laugh of his that’s a classic in the show. And he was just the antithesis of what you saw there, he’s the sweetest guy in the world. Just a real, real pleasant man who played a real good heavy.”

Filming on Star Command was done quickly. “I think we had a couple days of prep, and a couple days of shoot, so I think it was about every four days,” says Littler. “I think we did six days a week, it was Monday through Saturday, and we would get about one-and-a-half show done in that time, and then just go on to the next Monday.” The fact that the shows were cliffhangers meant that “we didn’t have to have a beginning, middle, and end, you know, we sort of did it in our own way, and… the cliffhanger was great. We would leave us out in a lurch, you know, up in outer space, and ready for Dragos to come take us away, do whatever harm he was going to do to us.”

Show creator Art Nadel was also the producer and main director of the series. “Just the sweetest guy, really good with the actors,” says Littler. “He’d go to dailies, and he’d come back and say, ‘Craig, we want to change this and change that’ and he was always considerate and thoughtful, always trying to make the show better and better.”

Besides the problems with W 1K1, Littler recalls that doing science fiction on a Saturday morning budget was sometimes a challenge. “The sets were interesting for this quality of show, which was obviously a low-budget children’s show. It wasn’t primetime, and they weren’t spending millions of dollars

an episode, or hundreds of thousands. The sets were really good, we had a very good set designer. He had redone a lot of the sets, I think, from one of their other shows, and recycled them, so to speak, but added to them. This was all in one big warehouse, we would just go from one little cubicle area to the next, and they’d have it all set up. When I’m in the spaceship and looking out the stars, and the whole consoles, the way they had them working electrically and everything, and the lights… it was fun! You were pushing things, and things were lighting up, and it really helps you get into the feeling of the character and the outer space sort of feeling.”

Villainy Has a Name… Dragos!

Having begun his Hollywood career in 1960, Sid Haig was both a regular player in exploitation and low-budget films for Jack Hill and Roger Corman, as well as a familiar face playing “heavies” on television series including Batman, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, Gunsmoke, and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. He was also in 55 episodes of the satirically morbid soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. “I of ten thought that I would never be asked to be in children’s programming,” Haig says. “One day I got the call to go in for an interview for Jason of Star Command.

And, you know, stranger things have happened, I guess, but not for me. And I went in, it was a very easy process, one interview, and then it was a done deal. And I had a great time doing it.”

The costume for Dragos was an imposing affair, constructed in crisp black and red with gold accents and a regal red cape. “I think the costume did more acting than I did,” Haig says, laughing. Dragos wore a distinctive gold helmet that included a laser eyepiece over one eye, and Haig sported a thick black beard (TV shorthand for “bad guy”). Because Haig and Littler were about the same height, the decision was made to make Dragos taller. “Dragos had to be more imposing, bigger and more menacing. So, I wore six-inch platforms for my boots, which took me to six-ten.”

To create the helmet, the effects crew used a foam compound to conform directly to Haig’s head. “They laid me down on a table, and put a paper towel tube in my mouth, and wrapped my head in Saran Wrap, and then poured this stuff over my head. There I was with this big kind of blob on my head, which they cut away enough so they could get it off me.”

The technicians then “sculpted the helmet from there down to something that was maybe a quarter of an inch thick, very light, easy to work with.” The detailing was done by adding tiny pieces from toy car models, plane models, and ship models, stuck onto the helmet and painted gold.

The eyepiece for Dragos lit up, but Haig didn’t find it too difficult to work with. “They were fuses that were in the eyepiece, pointed away from my eye, and I was protected enough so that when that thing went on, it was actually no different than someone taking your picture with a camera Sid Haig as the villainous Dragos, Master of the Cosmos. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

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with a flash. To operate the light, the laser beam that went on in the eye, I had a wire going down the back of the helmet, down the costume, and I triggered it in my hand.”

Space villains at the time were all compared to Darth Vader, ignoring the king space villain of all time: Ming the Merciless (later a character in Filmation’s animated Flash Gordon series for NBC). “I approached playing Dragos as doing classical theater, and I used Iago from Othello as a basis for the character, that kind of quiet evilness that is actually much more deadly than someone who is physically violent,” says Haig. “As a matter of fact, at one point in time, someone from Standards and Practices with the network showed up on the set, just to make sure we weren’t violating any rules, and I was shooting this scene in which Jason was thwarting me from doing whatever evil thing it was I was trying to perpetrate. I slammed my fist on the table and said, ‘Jason!’ and he said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, that’s way too violent!’ And so I said, “‘Oh, okay,’ and so we did it again, and I looked uh, right into the camera, and very quietly said, ‘Jasonnnnnnn…’ And you tell me, which is scarier?”

Haig remembers that many of his scenes in the first season were shot in a different manner than other shows he had worked on. “Our script consisted of all 16 episodes; they were all written before we started shooting. So, if we were doing a scene in the control room, we did the scenes in the control room for all 16 episodes all at the same time. If it was in the gangway, it was from all 16 episodes at the same time. No matter what set we were on, we were doing scenes from all 16 episodes, so that we could make that deadline to get all 16 episodes in the can! That was an amazing way to work, but you really had to be sharp to remember which episode it was that you were doing at any given time!”

Of his co-stars, Haig worked the most with Littler. “Craig Littler was an amazing guy. I mean, he was Jason. He just personified the good guy, you know. And he had a strength to him which made for a very good adversary, and we had a great time together.” Haig found director Arthur Nadel a pleasure to work with as well. “He had a clear vision for what it was he wanted to do, he was able to impart that to you, and then he just kind of got out of the way and let you do your work. He would listen to any suggestions that you might have, and weigh them carefully before he said yes or no to any idea that you might have. Working with a director like that on a series where you’re there together every day for weeks was an absolute pleasure.”

Haig remembers producer Scheimer fondly. “I met up with Lou Scheimer at the San Diego Comic-Con in July of 2006, and I had to tell him at that point that he didn’t know it at the time, but he not only saved me career-wise in terms of, of feeling good about what I was doing, who I was, but he literally saved my family, financially, by giving me that role. He joked, and he said, ‘God, I could’ve gotten you cheaper!’ ”

Sid Haig in an interview for the Jason DVD set. (INSET) Dragos wears elevator boots, because 6'4" wasn't tall enough! Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

Jason of Star Command was filmed at a secondary studio known as Filmation West (in Canoga Park, California, instead of the main offices in nearby Reseda), which basically appeared to be a warehouse in an industrial park with a lot of commercial/manufacturing businesses. “We were always being plagued by salesmen coming through the door, wanting to sell stuff,” says Haig.

“And one guy was particularly insistent, he came in, and he wanted to see Arthur Nadel, and the receptionist said, ‘He’s extremely busy, I’m sorry, he can’t be…’ and he said, ‘That’s all right, I’ll wait,’ and he just sat down in the chair to wait for Arthur. At that point in time, I came through the office [in costume] to get a cup of coffee, got my coffee, and went back to the sound stage. He asked the receptionist who I was, and she, very fast on her feet, said, ‘That was Arthur Nadel.’ The guy got up and left, and we never saw him again!”

Haig didn’t just scare the salesmen, as he relates about one scene. Aboard Dragos’ ship, he had a large aquarium “easily 110 gallons with really colorful fish. They set up this shot through the fish tank at me, and for some stupid reason, because that’s what I do, I reached forward, and I went to touch the glass in front of one of the fish. As I did, it turned and looked at me and shot of f in the other direction, and I said, ‘Well, see, the fish gets it!’ ” As for the special-effects crew and alien creatures he got to interact with as Dragos, Haig is complimentary. “The special effects and make-up people on this show were consummate professionals. I mean, they did things with machinery and electronics and make-up that to that point I had never seen.

We were extremely fortunate to be able to work with a team like this. We had some great creature makers on the show, and the aliens were really bizarre-looking. Some looked like they had tentacles coming out from all over their entire body, others were crusty-looking, and it was really wild working with those guys. They really didn’t have a lot of dialogue, so there wasn’t a lot of interacting, but I remember a scene in which I was trying to explain my evil plan, which I was going to involve them in, and I just put my arm around one of the aliens and then pulled back and said, ‘It’s easier if you take a shower, pal.’ ” RetroFan

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Effects shot of Jason's Starfire in space, and Dragos' first Dragonship. (INSET) Chuck Comisky in an interview for the Jason DVD set. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

Hiding in the Stars—Special Effects and Stop Motion

Production Coordinator and Visual Effects Supervisor Chuck Comisky had been an extra wrangler and occasional actor on Ark II and The Secrets of Isis before apprenticing in effects work under Space Academy’s Rob Maine. On that series, the biggest challenges came in shooting models against star fields in a time-and-cost-sensitive way. Initially, the ship models were shot with front projection onto glass plates, which meant that the shots often looked soft, or there were matte lines around the ships as they got closer to the camera.

On Comisky’s suggestion, production rigged a flat black wall with white Christmas lights that had been painted black.

They then scraped bits of paint off of the lights to create different-sized “stars” in the background.

Working with some Star Wars model-effects veterans, they found a way to effectively light and shoot models against their background within the television budget.

For Jason, “I was hired again to come back in and supervise visual effects, only things were a bit different this time,” Comisky says. “During the winter, the show decided to go union, which was fine, I had no problem with that, but in that I was management and visual-effects supervisor and so forth, I could no longer do the hands-on job that I had done during Space Academy. My work responsibilities were much more administrative. The thing that was good was they had hired a couple of directors of photography, and we had some new technologies in the form of micro-computers, so that we could do repeat moves on spaceships, we could generate in-camera mattes so the spaceships could move and the star fields could move, which was something we very seldom did on the first show.”

Comisky’s crew included Star Wars veteran Paul Huston, plus John Grusd, Ease Owyeung, Jim Veilleux, Diane Wooten, and Michael J. McAlister, among others, working with miniatures, lasers, and outer-space battles. Because so few 40

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projects used these types of effects—it had been a long visual-effects drought between 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars, though the primetime Battlestar: Galactica was shooting at the same time as Jason—much of the work was done through trial and error. “I think the favorite effects were the computerization of the tracks, and being able to do swooping, Star Wars-inspired camera moves and miniature moves, so the spaceships would fly though space, the stars would all move, we’d get planets, we’d do in-camera composting of various different elements using camera bypass system… that was a very big achievement, and led to me meeting Roger Corman and winding up doing Battle Beyond the Stars!” On that 1980 film, Comisky would give a young unknown named James Cameron his first job in Hollywood.

Comisky remains pleased with the work his crew produced on the two Filmation space series. “Over the years that I’ve been working in the industry, special effects, visual effects especially, have changed with the advent of digital animation, computerized images, and all of the things, really sophisticated motion capture and performance capture… however, in reviewing some of the images on the show, I have to say I’m pretty proud of what we generated for Space Academy and Jason of Star Command.”

Instead of reusing the Seeker shuttlecraft models from Space Academy, the effects team created a new ship for Jason and the others to fly—the Starfire—and then Dragos had a big Dragonship, which was a three-foot, very heavy model. The minions of Dragos also had a lot of little fighter drones called “Red Dragon Interceptors,” and Lou Scheimer recalled that “we made sure to mention constantly that they were unmanned drones so that, if Jason blew one up, he wasn’t killing a living being.” While a lot of the space sequences were done with models, the ship interiors— including those in Dragos’ ship—were all full-size sets, like those on Space Academy.

On the flipside of the outer-space effects were the stop-motion effects done to create some of the memorable monsters on Jason of Star Command. These were the work of Jim Aupperle and Jim Czerkas, who had produced stop-motion dinosaurs for a low-budget film called Planet of the Dinosaurs (1977). Aupperle recalls that they heard that Filmation was

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“looking for somebody to do stop motion. We took one of our prints of Planet of Dinosaurs, cut it down to about 20 minutes that was all stop-motion, sent it to Filmation, and Lou Scheimer and the appropriate people looked at it, and pretty quickly, we were offered a job. We would do the stop-motion critters, like the insect creature in two episodes of the first season. In the second season, we got broader responsibilities, I think we did four or five stop-motion creatures, and then we also did various compositing effects using our front and rear-projection units. We composited the giant creature that John Buechler created in the second season, and also added spaceships to scenes where they actually wanted to show the live-action people in the same scene with them.”

After the creatures were designed, either by a Filmation artist or Czerkas, “Steven, being the sculptor, would start with the design,” says Aupperle. “He would build the armature, the stop-motion metal skeleton that goes inside the creature. He’d then sculpt the creature in clay over this metal skeleton, make the appropriate molds, inject foam rubber into the molds, paint it up, and that was Steven’s responsibility. My main responsibility was lighting and photographic work, so I’d set up the front projection, the camera, and the lighting, to make it look like it was blending into the background, and when it came to the actual hands-on animation of the stop-motion, Steven and I split that pretty much 50-50 through the show.

“We would use front and rear projection to composite the live-action with the stop-motion, which was the old standby system that Willis O’Brien used on King Kong (1933) and Ray Harryhausen used on 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). We’d shoot the live action on the stage, on the 35mm film, the lab would make background plates, and we would then put these into special projectors. In fact, one of my projectors that I used had originally been used for Citizen Kane (1941), so it shows how old these things are; the technology did not change, it was very standard over the years, and very high quality. And we used front projection, because I think the image quality was much better. You’d project from the front onto a Scotch light screen and create split screens in much the same way Ray Harryhausen did, what they called Dynamation; take out the supports so the creature would be standing back into the live action, to come out behind a real rock, and peer around it.

That was all done with miniature front projection and stopmotion, right on the miniature stage.” [Editor’s note: If you missed last issue’s look at the personal life of monster-maker Ray Harryhausen, you can still order a copy of RetroFan #4 at www.twomorrows.com.]

Once Jason reached its second season, John Buechler came onto the effects team to produce make-up and prosthetics and masks for the show. “Usually, his creatures were human actors, and they were interacting with the other actors,” says Aupperle. “In one show, they wanted one of John’s creatures to be 20 feet tall, so I got to collaborate. John, of course, did the suit, and I was out there on the set helping them photograph it so we could later combine it with split screens and mattes

Jim Aupperle’s stop-motion creatures often interacted with the live actors through camera-effects trickery. (INSET) Jim Aupperle in an interview for the Jason DVD set. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

to make it look like it was 15, 20 feet tall, coming out from behind a rock, and then looking in through a cave at them.

That was all composite, rather than optical printing; we were still using our front and rear projection composite systems, where the foreground element of the people would be on a front screen, the creature I would put on a rear screen, so I’d actually had two different projectors working at the same time, and shooting them with one camera through the beam splitter, so all of these elements would be combined in the camera, and using various forms of process projection. That way, I could even do camera moves on them, but we weren’t really locked off. You can see, there’s a shot where the creature comes over the cliff, or up behind the rock, we do a tilt-up on it, so that was sort of a little cool plus to have.”

After Jason of Star Command, Aupperle continued to do stop motion by hand for years, working on Dreamscape (1984) and John Buechler’s debut directorial effort Troll (1986) among many genre classics.

“Once the computers came in, I had to learn that and change over,” says Aupperle. “But I will say that the things I learned on Jason, the disciplines and many of the other concepts, carried over to what I do on the computer now, so… nothing is ever lost. We’re using different approaches, but the process of analyzing and coming up with creative solutions is still very much the same.”

Creating Creatures

Although he is now known as a horror and science-fiction director and one of the top creature-effects make-up guys in Hollywood, John Carl Buechler had to get his start somewhere, and like so many others in the business, Filmation was his training ground. “I had just hit Hollywood, and I was hungry to work,” Buechler says. “I actually had some jobs doing props, building Pillsbury Doughboys and that sort of thing, but that’s not really what I wanted to do. I wanted to do the make-up RetroFan

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effects and creatures. So one day, I packed up my portfolio, and I walked down the streets of Hollywood, and down the streets of the valley, wherever there was a studio, and I just knocked on doors. And Filmation Studios was one of the doors that actually opened for me.” The receptionist showed Buechler’s work to Art Nadel and Lou Scheimer. “I had no idea they were doing anything like Jason of Star Command or what have you, but I got lucky. I walked into the right place at the right time with what they wanted at the moment.”

Buechler was hired to do the live-action creature ef fects on Jason, whether that was a make-up ef fect, a mask, or a full-body creature. “They wanted, I guess, sort of a Star Wars-y kind of feel to it, where there were guys with blue faces and green faces and the scales and stuf f walking down the corridors. I actually worked in the model kit area before I graduated to doing character make-up ef fects, because they hadn’t written any scripts yet, so they didn’t know what they wanted me to build. Af ter they wrote some scripts, ‘Okay, this one shoots Monday, go for it.’ The first episode, I think, I had five creatures in it. Full body, hands, faces, bodies, breastplates, everything. Ta-da!

“Basically, I was given scripts and they said, ‘We need these creatures,’ and they were sort of called beast creatures without any kind of description. I had kind of carte blanche to make them look like whatever I wanted them to. The only real problem was the time and the money. There was no time, and there was no money, I was like an army of one, doing all the creatures. And there were a lot of creatures! They had a boardroom filled with these things.”

Buechler would create color renderings of the creature ideas, based on the screenplay given to him, and show them to Nadel, who would pick his favorites. “The process would then be for me to throw some clay on a life mask and start sculpting very quickly, make a mold, and start pumping out foam applications of the mask. Meanwhile, I’d begin to build the musculature understructure. I’d start with a Spandex body stocking, I’d use foam, like upholstery foam, build muscle groups on it, glue it to the body stocking. Then I’d spatulate foam latex over the muscles, and I’d put aluminum foil over it, bake it with a hair dryer, because I didn’t have a walk-in oven at the time. Then I’d paint it, stick hair on it if it needed it, and it was done!”

On Dragos’ Dragonship, there was a scrum of aliens gathered around a meeting table, and the menagerie became a favorite grouping for Buechler. “I’d say that there’s a soft spot in my heart for the boardroom of monsters at Dragos’ table. None of them were really terrific works of art, but 42

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The aliens of Dragos' boardroom often changed. This shot, from the opening credits of Season Two, included one seated front right who is conspicuously wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes! (INSET) John Carl Buechler in an interview for the Jason DVD set. (BELOW) Buechler’s aliens and monsters were impressive for Saturday mornings! Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

I think in context, with the color and the lighting, and with Dragos there… the monsters didn’t have any dialogue, they were, ‘Ruhr ruhr ruhr ruhr ruhr,’ it was just fine! You have to look at one of these shows in the context of what it is: It’s a kids TV show that goes on Saturday mornings, and given the limited resources, I think it turned out just fine! A little funky, but fun.”

Having had a successful career after Jason of Star Command, Buechler carries a fondness for the show in his heart.

“Regarding restrictions on an artists work when you’re doing a TV series, whether it’s wardrobe, make-up effects, actors, directors, whether you are working for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, or Roger Corman, it’s always the same worry: not enough time, not enough money. And that was certainly true of Jason of Star Command. Essentially, they tried doing a really, really top-drawer show with a very minimal budget, and I think it succeeded on many levels for the time.”

Guest Starring in the Cosmos

Two femme fatales familiar to genre fans bedeviled Jason and his friends on the series: Julie Newmar as the first season’s Space Queen Vanessa, and Francine York as Season Two’s Queen Medusa.

Of Newmar, Littler says that she was a “very stately woman, sort of bigger than life. She had a very caricature sort of quality about her, very tall, and very sort of elegant. She was in this ridiculous outfit, as I recall, this whole body suit… sort of overpowering.” Sid Haig agrees with the assessment. “Julie Newmar is an amazing, amazing woman. I don’t know why her career didn’t send her straight to the

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moon, because she was not only a good actress, but she is just… she’s elegant. She wanted to meet the person she was going to be working with before she signed to do the show, because she didn’t want to work with somebody shorter than she was; she was very relieved that she and I were the same height. As it turned out, we only interacted through monitors, because we never were physically in a scene together.” Shortly after, Haig and Newmar did work together again, on an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Glamorous Francine York had a career arc similar to that of Newmar’s, and she took on the role of a second scheming space queen in Jason’s second season. “She was always prepared, she always gave a huge commitment to whatever she was doing at any given time,” says Haig. “She was a great foil for me, even though we were kind of on the same side. In various scenes, she would bring me to task for what it was that I was doing, and then I would have to almost defend myself to someone who was, story wise, inferior in terms of the pecking order. She was able to pull that off really well.”

Only two characters actually crossed over from Space Academy: Peepo the robot, and Matt Prentiss. Both were played by John Berwick… sort of. Peepo was a radio-controlled

Julie Newmar as Space Queen Vanessa and Francine York as Queen Medusa are glad they never walked the intergalactic red carpet together, since they both clearly used the same clothing designer! Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

robot with arms and a swiveling head with a glowing faceplate. During filming, Berwick would read Peepo’s lines, but the dialogue would be replaced later by the voice of Lou Scheimer’s daughter, Erika. Berwick also read the lines of W 1K1 on set, which were replaced with the sped-up vocal tracks of Larry Storch doing a Chinese-like gibberish for the Ping and Pong characters on the animated The Brady Kids.

A few years prior, Berwick had waited on Arthur Nadel at an Italian restaurant, and Nadel asked him to audition for Space Academy. Although he didn’t get that role, Berwick did become an assistant to Nadel, supervising the scripts, being a stand-in for actors, occasionally rewriting scripted scenes on set, casting extras, and eventually playing a guest role on Space Academy as cocky Lieutenant Matt Prentiss. “That episode went

really well, and the year after, when Jason of Star Command started up, they approached me again to play Matt Prentiss in that series. For some reason, I’d been captured by Dragos, and put into some type of time warp, where I was moving so fast, people couldn’t see me, and my metabolic system was sped up to the point where I was aging very rapidly. And that, of course, presented a problem because the question then became, ‘If he’s aging rapidly, what did he look like? In the last episode, he was very… he was young.’” After an old-age make-up test failed to impress Nadel, Berwick was given a bit of gray hair and a receding hairline to portray the “aging” Prentiss.

Berwick also played various creatures on the series, including a second-season Tantalutian ghost, from the same race as Commander Stone, and Tehor, the leader of an angry band of cyclopean ape-like creatures. “I can’t even remember the amount of monsters I was in Jason,” Berwick says, laughing.

“The ghost was a great character to play. There was a very elaborate scene, where we first got on the planet, and first met the ghost; we had to fill the entire large soundstage at Filmation West with fog, and it took forever to do this, and the fog drove up against the mountainscape, and got up to a certain perfect level for the shoot. Just as I was cued as the ghost to make my entrance from behind the rock, I stepped on my ghost outfit, and I was trying to raise up from the rock, but couldn’t quite get out. I realized my foot was standing on my costume, and couldn’t see it, because it was hidden by all the smoke. I released my outfit from beneath my shoe, and all of a sudden, the ghost could stand.”

Berwick would go on to have a long career at Filmation, including a starring stint as the bullying teen hero Rex Ruthless—in live-action and animation—on the Hero High segments of The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! But it was his time on Jason that really changed his life. At the wrap party for Jason of Star Command, he met Art Nadel’s daughter, J. C., and asked her out. “I think within a month or two we moved in together, we lived together for 15 years, and then we got married in 1995, and we’ve been together ever since.”

The Continuing Adventures

CBS debuted Tarzan and the Super 7 at 10:30 a.m. on September 7, 1978, predating primetime’s bigger-budget Battlestar: Galactica by ten days. The 90-minute episodes of the anthology featured rotating segments in the first hour: Slot 1 was either Web Woman or Superstretch and Microwoman; Slot 2 was always Tarzan; Slot 3 was always Jason of Star Command; Slot 4 was either Freedom Force or Manta and Moray. The last half-hour was reruns of the previous season’s The New Adventures of Batman.

Sixteen Jason of Star Command segments were produced, as well as introductions by Littler’s Jason for CBS inter-show segments called “In the News.”

Even though it was part of an anthology, ratings for individual segments still were trackable. Never dipping below a hef ty 47 share, Jason of Star Command was enough of a hit that CBS renewed the series in early 1979 for a second season. The schedule was shuffled, though, and Jason was broken of f into its own half-hour show; the serialized storylines were mostly jettisoned for shorter plots: twoRetroFan

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to four-part arcs, to keep people watching week to week.

Twelve new episodes were produced, with the second season debuting on September 15, 1978.

Two new regular characters were added to the series as well, replacing the departing Susan O’Hanlon and James Doohan (the latter lef t due to filming conflicts with the first Star Trek feature film). In late April, Filmation put out casting notices for: “Samantha, mid-20s, black, superhero, adventuress, very physical, Lindsay Wagner type, major continuing role.” That role went to Tamara Dobson, a beautiful actress that was also over six feet tall. Scheimer recalled that the actress was superb. “If I had ever had another part for her, I would have hired her all over again.

The only problem we had was that she had been in several ‘Blaxploitation’ movies as Cleopatra Jones, which were a bit more adult than your average Filmation fan could handle, and she had even been in Playboy’s ‘Sex Stars of 1973’ article in December 1973. It wasn’t that we objected per se—JoAnna Cameron had been topless in B.S. I Love You prior to being Isis—it was just that we didn’t want the public to necessarily associate our kids’ shows with sexy movies.”

Littler recalls of Dobson that “I didn’t really get too close to Tamara. She was a little more aloof. She was very nice, very professional, and did her job and took care of business. She was a total swing away from the Susan O’Hanlon type of look. She was much stronger.” Haig says of the actress that she was “a striking woman.

She was well over six feet tall, so we were almost eye-to-eye. She was a clown, she would cut up, she would have a great time, she would pull little tricks and stuff, and it was always a pleasure to be around her.”

Doohan was replaced by actor John Russell, who had done a lot of Westerns on TV and in the movies. Russell played Commander Stone, a blue-skinned alien from Alpha Centauri. “We decided to make his skin blue, which meant that he had to sit in make-up a lot, but he didn’t complain much,” said Scheimer. “His character had a bit more of a combative relationship with Jason, which gave the scripts some spark, and with him being six-four and Craig, Sid, and Tamara all over six feet tall, we had one of the tallest regular casts on Hollywood!”

Being blue had, perhaps, more of an ef fect on Russell than Scheimer realized. Littler recalls of working with the new Commander that “he was the antithesis of James Doohan; he was much more rigid, stif f, as his personality.

The part he was playing was a very rigid sort of guy, so it was perfect for him. Here’s this great old actor—he’d been around a long time, he was not a kid—I think he felt a little degraded somehow. He’s walking around on this children’s set with blue make-up all over him, and he just never responded really well to that. But he was very good to work with, professionally.”

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(ABOVE) For Season Two of Jason of Star Command, John Russell took on the role of perpetually annoyed blue-skinned Commander Stone, and Tamara Dobson became the mysterious Samantha. (LEFT) John Berwick worked behind the scenes on Space Academy and Jason of Star Command, reading the lines for Peepo and W1K1, assisting the producers, and occasionally acting. Jason of Star Command © 1978 Filmation Associates.

and Orange County, California. Both recall an important set of appearances at the 46th Annual Hadi Shrine Circus in Evansville, Indiana, November 22–25, 1979. “We did an amazing appearance at the Hadi Shrine Circus, which is one of the big circuses in the country,” says Haig. “This circus committee with the Shriners spent all year going around to all the various circuses and then picked the prime acts to be in their circus, which is at the end of the circus season. While everybody else is going off to winter quarters, these remaining acts go to the Hadi Shrine Circus. And they called and wanted Craig and I to make a public appearance there. We said, ‘Well, yeah, what would you like to have us do?’ And they said, ‘Well, just step out and wave to the people and thank them for coming, just something like that.’ And I said, ‘No. That’s not gonna work.’ I got together with Art Nadel and Lou Scheimer, and I said, Write us a seven-minute scene we can do,’ and they took to the idea immediately. Art wrote the scene, I sent the scene to the people at the circus, along with some specialeffects ideas and sound ideas, lighting, design, and they were amazed that somebody would want to put that amount of time into this little appearance.”

Littler continues the story: “They set up this whole platform for us there with some lighting. They had some pyrotechnics and everything, little puffs of smoke coming

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

out. We came out, and the lights were all dark, and they pinspotted us, and Sid and I had this good guy/evil guy/good guy thing going on, and the audience was just applauding, all these kids, they just loved it.”

Haig takes over: “On Saturday mornings, they do a benefit performance at the circus for underprivileged kids, orphans, deaf children, blind children… this was arena seating, so there was that wide space between the two levels, you know, and they even had hospital beds and wheelchairs in that area. It was ten-thousand kids in this arena on Saturday morning, and the scene started in darkness with little mirror ball effect going around, so that you got the star business working, and then this pin spot hit my face, and I said, ‘I am Dragos.’ And they started booing. And they kept booing for about five minutes. And I said my next line, and they booed. And I said my next line, and they booed. And then the spotlight hit Craig Littler, and he said his first line, and they cheered, and he said his second line, and they cheered! And so the seven-minute thing took about 25 minutes to get through. That was the most rewarding thing, to me, to be able to somehow affect those kids in such a way that they would react like that. It was totally amazing.”

After the act, Littler and Haig signed autographs for hundreds of youngsters who lined up. “It was absolutely classic,” says Littler. “About 20 feet away to my right were the back ends of elephants. It was just so bizarre! We weren’t 20 feet away from all the animals and we’re sitting there signing autographic for all these kids who are going, ‘Oooooo!’” Haig agrees. “A totally amazing experience. It was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in front of an audience.”

Blasting into History

Although Jason was still popular enough to be on the air, networks seldom ordered more than two seasons of new episodes for a series at the time, so for the Fall 1980 season, CBS moved reruns of Jason to Sunday mornings beginning in September 1980. A few months later, CBS reshuffled their schedule, returning Jason to Saturdays for the remainder of the 1980–1981

season. Shortly thereafter, Filmation began syndicating Jason of Star Command worldwide, and it would pop up on television throughout the globe (in England, broadcaster S4C dubbed it into Welsh as “Garan, Gwarchodwr Y Gofod”). Although no toys or comics were ever produced, one tie-in novel, Mission to the Stars by Ken Sobol, was released in 1980, and Australian company Sundowner released one videotape in 1978 on both Betamax and VHS. On May 8, 2007, BCI Eclipse released Jason of Star Command: The Complete Series DVD Set as part of a series of Filmation releases on DVD. The three-disc set was produced by the author of this very article, Andy Mangels, and included all 28 episodes, plus a making-of documentary, commentary tracks, a special-effects demo reel, a gallery of photos, and a selection of PDF scripts. In October 2008, BCI included the set included in the “Sci Fi Box Set,” along with the sets for Ark II and Space Academy. Both sets are now out of print and demand big dollars in online sales.

Littler and Haig were included in some DVD promotions at Comic-Con International in San Diego in July 2007, alongside other Filmation actors, but the poor booth layout for their signings meant that most fans never even knew they were present. Haig later appeared on a panel that was a tribute to Lou Scheimer at the producer’s final convention appearance at Comic-Con International 2012; there, Scheimer received the prestigious Inkpot Award for “Achievement in Animation Arts.”

Today, Craig Littler is probably better known to audiences as the bearded, yellow-slicker-wearing Gorton Fisherman from Gorton’s seafood commercials, but he recalls that for years, he was recognized on the street for his outer-space hero, and that he got a lot of fan mail. “They’re sending these letters to Jason of Star Command—not Craig Littler. They were always going to Jason, you know. I got recognized quite a bit with the families with their kids, and I always enjoyed that. Years later, I was on a date one night in Westwood, going to the movies.

The ticket taker was this young guy, probably, I don’t know, 22 or 23, and probably a college student, and I handed him my ticket, and the girl and I walked away, and we’re starting to walk up the stairs, and all of a sudden, I hear, ‘Jason!

Jason!’ And I turned around, and… and he said, ‘Jason!’ I said, ‘No, (LEFT) Lou Scheimer in 2010 in his no, I’m Craig Littler.’ He said, ‘No, home office, wearing a Space Academy Jason of Star Command! You were jumpsuit. He holds the remnants of W1K1 Jason!’ This must’ve been 15 years in his hand, and behind him, you can see later. I looked, I assumed, totally the massive second season Dragonship (a.k.a. “Dragonstar”) and a fan-made different. He didn’t think so at all; Seeker model from Space Academy. he thought I looked exactly the (ABOVE) A rare shot from a Filmation same. This girl I was with is sitting party for Season Two of Jason, with star there looking at me and looking Craig Littler in a fancy glitter shirt, and at him and going, ‘What is going Filmation matriarch Jay Scheimer (wife of Lou). on here?’ She had no clue. I had to RetroFan

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are going to be watching me… it’s just finally explain that I starred in Jason of FAST FACTS Star Command, and this kid was an adult amazing! I hope they enjoy watching Jason of Star Command at this point!” them as much as we enjoyed making Sid Haig has continued working them.” `` No. of seasons: Three (two original, one rerun) in Hollywood steadily, still often “I do a lot of horror film `` No. of episodes: 28 playing the bad guy. “Villains are fun conventions, and people definitely, `` Original run: September 9, to play because, at the end of the day, that were growing up in the late 1978–September 5, 1981 you don’t get arrested,” he says with Seventies, remember the Dragos `` Network: CBS a laugh. In 2001, heavy-metal horror character,” says Haig. “They come to `` Creator: Arthur H. Nadel rocker Rob Zombie featured him in a me, they talk about it, and remember music video for “Feel So Numb,” and it fondly. And it’s great to be able Primary Cast shortly afterwards, cast him as the to interact with them. And just be `` Craig Littler: Jason creepy Captain Spaulding in 2003’s there and get their take on what the `` Charlie Dell: Professor E. J. House of 1000 Corpses (which has show was about, and what it meant Parsafoot `` Sid Haig: Dragos spawned multiple sequels). But it was to them. For the time, Jason of Star `` Susan O’Hanlon: Captain at Zombie’s 2002 wedding to Sheri Command was probably one of the Nicole Davidoff (Season One) Moon that Haig learned exactly why he most expensive shows, certainly `` James Doohan: Commander had been chosen. “I was talking with for Saturday morning TV. We had Canarvin (Season One) his brother, and he said, ‘You know, this all these great special ef fects, all `` Tamara Dobson: Samantha is really weird.’ And I said, ‘What, the these gewgaws that flew around (Season Two) wedding?’ And he said, ‘No, standing and did things. It captured more `` John Russell: Commander here talking to you.’ I said, ‘What do of the imagination, as opposed to Stone (Season Two) you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, when Rob the early days, the Fif ties, of space`` Larry Storch: Voice of W1K1 and I were kids, we used to get up every related programs, where you saw the in Season One, uncredited Saturday morning and watch you on little sparkler hanging out the back `` Erika Scheimer: Voice of Peepo (uncredited) Jason of Star Command.’ And that stuck end of the spaceship, just kind of `` Lou Scheimer: Various voices with [Rob] all those years, and when he fluttering away on the strings. It broke of Academy and Dragos’ had an opportunity to give me the goa lot of ground in terms of children’s underlings (uncredited) ahead on this role, he took it!” television.”

From Filmation’s closing in 1989, With its action-oriented serialized Lou Scheimer showcased keepsakes plots, cutting-edge special ef fects, of his company all throughout his home atop a hill in Tarzana, and memorable space-age heroes and villains, Jason of Star California. There were gold records from The Archies, toys from Command will be remembered by audiences for as long as…

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and a five-foot cutout danger hides in the stars. of Fat Albert’s head. Behind the bar were his Emmy Award for Unless otherwise credited, the quotes from Lou Scheimer are from Star Trek and his Annie Award and Inkpot Award. In his guest the autobiography he wrote with Andy Mangels, Lou Scheimer: room was the actual Peepo, Creating the Filmation Generation. Mangels’ interviews with standing sentry in the corner, Craig Littler, Sid Haig, John Berwick, Chuck Comisky, Jim Aupperle, while part of W 1K1 sat on the table next to a couch. And on and John Carl Buechler were conducted in 2006–2007. Artwork and his dining room table—later photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. moved to his office window— was the three-foot model of Dragos’ Dragonship.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today Littler remembers working bestselling author and co-author of 20 on the show fondly. “A lot of books, including the TwoMorrows book hard work was put into them, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation a lot of dedicated actors and Generation, as well as Star Trek and producers and directors and set Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath designer and a lot of effort was the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He put into that show to entertain recently wrote the bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the kids.” With fans now having Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics. Additionally, watched Jason on DVD, he notes he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and The cover to the 1980 Jason that, “You talk about the whole documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. He is now working on a of Star Command novel. cycle coming around to [those] book about the stage productions of Stephen King and a second Jason of Star Command © 1978 kids watching me are now in book about Filmation. His moustache is infamous. www.

Filmation Associates. their 30s and 40s, and their kids AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com 46

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RETRO FOOD & DRINK

TV Dinners

Dial D for Dinner! TV set-styled packaging for Swanson’s original 1954 Turkey Dinner.

(BACKGROUND) Swanson’s TV Dinner ad circa 1970. © Pinnacle Foods Corporation.

by Rod Labbe Picture this: 1957, a sunny summer weekday afternoon. I’m four, and my “big sister,” Sue, is 11. We’re sitting comfortably in front of the television, watching Sky King, and waiting for Mom to bring us dinner (or “supper,” as she called it).

Everything’s ready: the TV trays have been set up, utensils and napkins are where they should be, I have a big tumbler of Orange Crush with a bendy straw and plenty of ice, and Sue’s drinking frosty cold Coca-Cola.

We share salt, pepper, and ketchup. Only Heinz Ketchup, please. It’s still our condiment of choice.

“Who gets the turkey?” Mom yells.

“Me!” I yell back, excitedly sitting up. “Turkey’s yummy!”

“And Sue, yours is fried chicken?”

“Yup!” “Okay, here they come, piping hot!”

Mom swoops out dramatically from the kitchen, two plaid oven mitts protecting her hands. In each, she’s holding a gleaming, steaming aluminum serving dish.

Like an expert waitress, she slides the dishes onto our trays, and we’re immediately overwhelmed by enticing smells, textures, and a cacophony of color. Potatoes and vegetables are mouthwatering. Battered chicken is crisp; my turkey rests atop a bed of seasoned gravy and stuffing. Ah, middle class nirvana, American-style!

Now, before you think my mother was some culinary whiz, à la Julia Child, think again. Rather than possessing multiple limbs and a varied, restaurant-quality menu, Ma had plugged into one of the newest crazes then sweeping America—the ultraeconomical Swanson Frozen TV Dinner.

Cost: 98 cents, U.S. Preparation: simple, easy, and quick. Just open an end flap, slip out the neatly wrapped aluminum “capsule,” pop into any oven, and heat according to instructions. Voila! Twenty-five minutes later, remove the foil covering, and a lip-smacking entree is revealed.

I fancied turkey most because it tasted exactly like what we had at Thanksgiving. Even the peas were wonderful: bright green, fresh, and “just right.” And I usually hated peas!

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RETRO food & drink

Other favorites included roast beef, meatloaf, fried chicken (Sue’s preference), and chopped sirloin beef, a.k.a. “Salisbury Steak,” a kind of hamburger patty slathered in gravy and mushrooms. Supplement with fluffy buttered rolls, beverage, a small side salad, and you’re good to go!

The origin of today’s TV dinner can be traced back to airline use. In 1941, a company named Maxson Food Systems, Incorporated created the first frozen meal for consumption on civilian and military airplanes. Plastic plates were divided into three sections, to accommodate vegetable, potato, and a meat/ protein serving.

Though successful, these products never reached beyond the runway to grocery shelves. American housewives of the Forties cooked rib-sticking homemade repasts fit for kings; pre-packaged concoctions were just too outrageous. Perhaps (gasp!) a tad subversive!

Before television and its sundry hypnotic enticements, families ate at the kitchen or dining room table. Mothers spent tiresome hours shopping, preparing, cooking, and serving, rarely

finding a free moment to sit down, relax, and join her brood (for a good example, watch Ralphie’s mom in A Christmas Story).

That is, until the dawning of the Fifties—the fast-paced era of Sputnik, Saran Wrap, Kool-Aid, and Tang.

1950: A small Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, firm called Frozen Dinners, Inc. begins regionally marketing reheatable meals in compartmentalized aluminum trays. Sales are brisk, given such a daring concept! C. A. Swanson and Sons Foods observes, takes it one step further, and aggressively enters the national arena… very smartly capitalizing on a little technological advancement known as television.

Swanson put together a Thanksgiving tray (turkey, cornbread stuffing, gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes) and spun it out for America to devour. Inventive packaging instantly caught the eye; Swanson’s colorful boxes looked like TV screens, an ingenious public-relations ploy.

Pow! Young Baby Boomers felt the earth quake beneath their collective feet. Television and food, the perfect combo!

Fifties women, too, were undergoing a slow but steady metamorphosis, exploring career horizons and moving into the workplace. Anything that helped streamline home responsibilities was welcomed. Not having to cook every day meant kitchens stayed tidy, and those glitzy aluminum trays could be washed and reused! What’s not to like?

Kids, especially, loved the selections available, and menus expanded as sales figures soared. 1954—Swanson’s first full production year—saw them selling well over 25 million units, an amount far exceeding corporate expectations.

In 1960, Swanson’s chefs spiced things up by adding delicious desserts (brownies, cinnamon apples, muffins, and fruit cobblers) to the growing bill of fare. Hungry for a snack of fried shrimp, cocktail sauce, and crinkle-cut fries? No problem! How about beans and franks? Well, pull up a chair! Interested in international cookery?

Try a German, Chinese, Italian, and Mexican recipe, guaranteed to please the fussiest palate!

Upstart competitors, like Banquet, Morton, and Dining In jumped on the bandwagon, but Swanson’s copyrighted tag, “TV Brand Frozen Dinner,” kept them at bay.

This revolution belonged to Swanson and Sons alone. Challengers beware!

1965 continued an amazing winning streak: they unveiled magnificent “threeBy the Sixties, when this ad was produced, Swanson TV Dinners now included “international” cuisine. (OPPOSITE PAGE) Swanson TV Dinner ad from 1963. © Pinnacle Foods Corporation.

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RETRO food & drink

course TV meals” and notched another triumph! Three courses were just that: Campbell’s soup (appetizer), meat, vegetable and potato (main course), and dessert. Since Campbell’s bought Swanson in 1955, the inclusion of soup went without saying.

My personal love affair with Swanson raged on, unrestrained. I vividly recall scarfing down a three-course “roasted turkey and stuffing” feast as Special Agent James West karate-chopped bad guys in The Wild, Wild West. Mom, meanwhile, hadn’t stopped cooking, far from it. She multi-tasked like a dynamo, utilizing whatever Madison Avenue touted as “innovative.”

One delightful innovation I absolutely adored (and yes, I realize how silly it sounds) was Chef Boyardee Pizza mix, consisting of dry bread dough, canned sauce, and a smaller can of “sprinkle cheese.” Somehow, my mother made magic with those barely there ingredients. Sigh. Her talents knew no boundaries.

Sadly, nothing truly lasts. The Seventies ushered in polyester-blend leisure suits, hot pants, disco, The Brady Bunch, and microwave ovens. American kitchens became less an eating/cooking area and more a meeting place for family, relatives, and friends.

Convenience ruled. Nobody wanted to slave over a hot stove. Instead of wasting half an hour heating up an old-fashioned TV dinner, why not program the microwave and eat in five minutes? Sounds like a plan!

The drawbacks? Microwaves were huge, expensive, and many people actually feared them. “Don’t stand too close,” Mom warned the first time she used her Amana Radarange. “You might get sterilized.”

Swanson could battle their opponents, but not progress.

Either they conformed to these newfangled contraptions or risked being tossed onto History’s scrapheap.

Paperboard and plastic replaced familiar aluminum trays.

With TV no longer a novelty, the frozen dinner playing field exploded. Gourmet dishes, like Marie Callender’s Creamy Chicken and Shrimp Parmesan, and Stouffer’s Lasagna with Meat Sauce, shoved Swanson’s unsophisticated offerings aside.

Stouffer’s made its big move in 1986. Smelling victory, they not only produced items of restaurant quality, the company branched out with Lean Cuisine, aimed at dieters and low-calorie aficionados. Swanson, knocked for a loop, stumbled and fell.

By 1990, Stouffer’s was number one and has remained the undisputed industry leader. Nobody can touch them. Whenever sales dip, “limited edition” entrees (like “Southwest Style Potato Bake” or “Chicken Tikka Masala”) flood store refrigerator units, squeezing out usurpers. Stouffer’s means business!

Deposed but not completely vanquished, Swanson nowadays concentrates on Hungry Man microwaveable “pub food,”

generous portions at affordable prices. A far cry from those golden glory days, so long ago.

Still, it’s the appeal of their earlier TV dinners that fuel the nostalgic dreams of aging Boomers (like myself). Ma and Dad are gone, I’m no longer four years old, but I do enjoy turkey, green peas (with butter), mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. Pass the ketchup, Sue, and let’s eat!

ROD LABBE is a New England-based writer specializing in Baby Boomer pop culture and all it entails. From 1986 through 2014, he regularly contributed to Fangoria magazine, covering such films as Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1989), Graveyard Shift (1990), and Thinner (1996), and Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows (2012). Other magazine credits include Famous Monsters of Filmland, FilmFax, Scary Monsters, Gorezone, and The Fantastic Fifties, to name but a few. Thus far, Rod’s received seven prestigious Rondo Hatton Award nominations for “Best Interview,” mostly for his work profiling the stars of ABC’s supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows.

TV Dinners is his first RetroFan piece, and yes, he still enjoys a turkey and stuffing Swanson meal, now and again!

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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.

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RETRO TELEVISION

The Greatest American Hero

by Dan Hagen Stephen J. Cannell didn’t like superheroes. He thought they were stupid.

Cannell, one of American TV’s most successful writerproducers, never read superhero comic books and didn’t watch superhero TV shows. The superhero was, as he put it, “a BS genre.”

But superhero shows had provided ABC-TV with some of its biggest hits, including Batman and The Six Million Dollar Man, and the network wanted another one.

What ABC also wanted, undoubtedly, was to replicate the success of Richard Donner’s recent Superman film (1978)—a tall order for a small screen. Network television was a quotidian, kitchen-sink medium, generally uncomfortable with superheroes or anything else so spectacular that it might be out of place in Mary Tyler Moore’s modest living room.

Some superhero TV shows, like the Sixties’ Mr. Terrific or the Seventies’ Spider-Man, had been dismal failures that nobody involved seemed to believe in—pre-sold packages produced by cynics, as author Jon Abbott described them in his book Stephen J. Cannell Television Productions: A History of All Series and Pilots. Audiences are likely to reject a show if they sense that its producers have contempt for them.

But Kenneth Johnson’s successful series The Incredible Hulk, still airing on CBS at the time,

had shown that a superhero show might tackle serious social problems like child abuse, and need not be camp.

Nevertheless, navigating such a primetime series around the pitfalls of absurdity and cheesiness remained a tall order.

ABC thought Cannell could do it. He wasn’t so sure.

“By that time in my career, I had learned not to say no in the room, but to always bring the piece of meat back to the den and kind of sniff it for a while before I kick it out in the sand,” Cannell recalled in an interview for the Archive of American Television.

“So I said, ‘Let me think about it. Maybe, something.’ I was sort of thinking, ‘I’m never going to do this.’ ” All right, so superheroes were BS. Where to go from there?

Wait a minute, Cannell thought. The private detective genre was also BS, and yet he had created one of the most successful private-eye series in TV history, The Rockford Files.

How had he done that? By pretending he was Jim Rockford.

“What would I do if I was Rockford?”

Cannell said. “If I had a guy pull a gun on me, I’d give him my watch. So I always knew what Rockford would do, because it was exactly what I would do.”

Okay, then. What if he, television writer Steve Cannell, were given a caped, Cannell’s series were examined in this 2009 book published by McFarland. © 2009 Jon Abbott.

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Early publicity photo for the series spotlighting its cast, (LEFT TO RIGHT) Robert Culp, William Katt, and Connie Sellecca. The Greatest American Hero © Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

superpowered suit by aliens and told that while wearing it, he could accomplish great good for the globe?

Cannell mused about that.

“I’ve got TV shows on the air, I’ve got networks calling me up wanting me to do pilots, and I’m going to put on this spandex outfit with a cape and run around in the street? What would I do?

And what happens when I get arrested the first time, and my wife comes down and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ And I’m, ‘Oh, this is for Bud and Joan’s costume party.’ The second time I get caught, what am I going to say? All of a sudden, that starts to be funny to me.”

“That’s right!” Lee said. “And here’s a guy who’d be considered totally square. He believes in liberty and freedom and the flag. It was the Vietnam War, and nobody was interested in war anymore. People were turned of f. So I figured, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ So that was the reason for the man out of time, out of sync.

“One thing I always tried to do was take things that are disadvantages, and try to make a plus out of them,” Lee recalled.

Cannell, too, was well practiced at turning genre weaknesses into strengths.

“In many ways, Stephen Cannell is to TV what Stan Lee was to the comic-book industry—both present us with heroes who are vigilantes, Robin Hoods, and anti-heroes, flawed, vulnerable, tongue-in-cheek pastiches of harder, straighter fare,” Abbott wrote. “Like Lee’s Sixties Marvel superheroes, Cannell’s TV heroes—particularly those of the early Eighties (Greatest American Hero, Hardcastle and McCormick, The A-Team, Riptide, Hunter)—are living in a halfway world too real to be as phony as the fantasy environments of more straight-faced entries in their chosen genres, too fake to be confused with grim reality. Stan Lee took superheroes out of impossibly pure characterizations and makebelieve locales, and dropped them squarely in an equally fictional environment that more closely resembled reality… Cannell played the same trick with the TV hero.”

Clothes Make the (Super)Man

The Cannell shows were a matter of deftly navigating between dramatic poles. They winked at the inherent absurdity of fictional genres like private eyes and superheroes, even as they provided moments of heartfelt heroics.

In the Mighty Marvel Manner The reluctant hero, the superhero, and superhuman high In a way, Cannell did for TV what Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee jinks—Cannell’s recipe successfully mixed ingredients from had done for comic books a decade before. Like Cannell, Lee took The Rockford Files, The Adventures of Superman, and Bewitched into pride in the dramatic jiu-jitsu of turning plot pitfalls into peaks— something fresh. repurposing something that might be regarded as a liability and Co-star Robert Culp said this approach was typical making it a storytelling advantage. of Cannell’s creativity. “What Steve is good at is taking a Take Captain America, for example. Lee wanted to revive the lighthearted approach to a genre, if you will, and kind of Forties character in 1964, but was worried that Sixties readers putting a twist on it that no one else would think of but Steve wouldn’t accept a cornball character dressed in red, white, and Cannell,” Culp told David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview blue tights. magazine.

“Over the years we had tried to resurrect him, and he never Perhaps Cannell’s cleverest idea was to build the worked,” Lee recalled. “After World War II ended, he was just a superpowers right into the alien superhero suit. That required guy in a dumb costume running around. I mean, that’s the way a Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) to wear the embarrassing costume, lot of people perceived him. something no one would ordinarily do, and thereby provided a “So I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to convincing explanation for an otherwise say he had been frozen in the ice for these inexplicable comic-book convention.

FAST FACTS two decades or whatever it was, and now The 1981 pilot film, written by Cannell and directed by Rod Holcomb, plays he’s back?’ I’m always trying to give them The Greatest American Hero both up and against such comic-book a personality hook or a character trait that ` ` No. of seasons: three superhero conventions, spotlighting would make them unique. And I thought, ` ` No. of episodes: 45 (four them in witty ways.

‘Wouldn’t it be great? Here’s a guy who’s unaired) While Ralph’s trying on the suit been out of it for 20 years, and suddenly `` Original run: March 18, everything is changed.’ He never knew for the first time, his young son Kevin 1981–February 3, 1983 what a hippie was. There are hippies, there (Brandon Williams) is in the next room `` Cast: William Katt, Robert are guys smoking marijuana, all those watching TV. So Ralph’s costume change Culp, Connie Sellecca, things…”. is conducted to the accompaniment of Michael Paré, Faye Grant, So against the public’s disintegrating the absurd stentorian tones of Ted Knight Jesse D. Goins belief in America, Marvel Comics would `` Network: ABC narrating the Seventies Justice League juxtapose Captain America himself. cartoon Super Friends.

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So Ralph, already weirded out, hears Batman say, “What we need is one more Super Friend who can fly!”

By contrast, Cannell’s villains had a distinctly real-world vibe.

In the pilot, written by Cannell, Ralph and Bill are pitted against fascist religious fanatics. The aliens play the sound of Hitler rallies on Bill’s car radio to underline the point of their mission.

In the opening scenes, white skinheads chase and capture a black government agent while telling him “Jesus loves you” and singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” They’re plotting a national military takeover by staging urban riots while assassinating the president.

Clearly, America needs help, and the aliens’ idea—Cannell’s idea—of who ought to help it makes sense.

Who would have the kind of character you could entrust with vast superhuman powers? A compassionate caretaker, a protector, someone with the best interests of others at heart.

Ralph Hinkley is a dedicated high school special-ed teacher undaunted even by the hostile, violent students in his class.

Ralph’s liberalism was balanced by his partner’s no-nonsense conservatism. Ralph’s tough-guy student Tony Villicana (Michael Paré) picks a fight with a stranger at a lunch counter, remarking that he doesn’t like the man’s “Eliot Ness” wardrobe.

“If you’re looking for trouble, you’ve just come across the West Coast distributor,” replies FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Culp), whose instantly produced revolver trumps Villicana’s switchblade.

Mysterious events bring these unlikeliest of companions together in the desert night near Palmdale, California, as an alien spaceship descends. They find themselves locked in Bill’s stalled car as the car radio, moving instantly from station to station, telegraphs a message. “You… will… not... be… harmed… You… will… listen… you… will… decide.”

The voice of Bill’s partner comes on the radio to explain that the aliens want Ralph to accept a suit that offers unearthly powers and will work only for him, and for the two of them to function as a team.

Bill’s partner teleports down to give them the super-suit, and some advice. “You’ve got to take this on,” he says. “You can change things. Save this planet from destruction.”

“Are you all right?” Bill asks.

“I’m dead,” the partner replies. “Ain’t that a laugh? Been dead for six hours. The ship picked me up out there afterwards. I’m leaving with them.”

The scene, which ought to be camp, isn’t. It’s deliciously eerie, and sets the audience up to accept the absurdities to follow.

Sooner or later, Ralph would discover he possessed superstrength, super-speed, invulnerability to gunfire, invisibility, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, psychometry, precognition, clairvoyance, super-hearing, the power to shrink, and the ability to sense supernatural forces.

Of course, Ralph could also fly—sort of. Flight is standard operating procedure for comic-book supermen, but because he’d lost the instructions, Ralph was lousy at it.

The novelty of Ralph’s terrified, shaky flights quickly wore off for the audience, Culp recalled.

“The very hook that made the series sell—and it made it work for the first year but became a detriment the second year—was that he couldn’t work the suit,” Culp said. “I mean, you have no idea of the mail and the talk on the streets; ‘When is somebody gonna teach that a--hole to fly that suit?’ We all knew that it was going to come to a swift end, and it did.

“And pretty soon, what we did in the second year was start to accelerate his ability to find uses for the suit and make it work.

And by the time we go to the third year, we didn’t expect too many crashes and too many screamings and falling out of the sky.

Only a few.”

Ralph’s first flight—undertaken because he’s late for Kevin’s custody hearing—only gets off the ground because Ralph gets advice from a small boy who has presumably watched Superman on TV. “You’re not doing it right,” the boy says. “You’ve got to run like three steps, and jump with your hands out in front of you.”

Bill, on the other hand, knows what’s he’s doing in tight spots.

Captured by the traitors, Bill remains defiant. “You make me sick,” he tells them. “Buncha chicken hotshot political terrorists hidin’

Winging It

Understandably freaked out, Bill drives away, leaving Ralph in the desert, where he promptly loses the suit’s instruction book.

That mishap sets up two ongoing dramatic effects in the series. One is comedic: Ralph’s awkwardness with his powers can be played for laughs in a dozen ways. The other is ingenious: Because Ralph doesn’t know exactly what his powers are, new crowd-pleasing abilities can be introduced as needed.

MAD Magazine spoofed The Greatest American Hero in issue #232 (July 1982). Cover by Jack Rickard. MAD TM & ©

E.C. Publications, Inc.

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out, trying to fake some kinda religion while you’re stashing away the goodies.”

Threatened with an electric prod, Bill says, “Go ahead, take your best shot. I’ve been here, with better switch hitters than you.” Throughout the series, Bill will take a remarkable amount of physical punishment with little complaint— one of the traits that made Culp’s character charming.

Luckily, Ralph is ready to break through the brick wall to Bill’s rescue—but only makes it halfway. Effortlessly smashing through brick walls turns out to take practice. Ralph bursts through on the second try, tosses the torturers aside like action figures, and twists off Bill’s handcuffs.

Ralph covers his face in terror when the heavies open up on him with a half-dozen assault rifles, then looks up with a dawning sense of steely determination as he sees the shells drop harmlessly at his feet.

The pilot also introduced the third member of the team, Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca), Ralph’s fiancée and a level-headed lawyer. From the first, she provides balance whenever Ralph or Bill threatens to go off the deep end.

“Look at it this way,” Ralph kids her. “You’re one step ahead of Lois Lane. She never found out who Clark Kent really was.”

The deadpan look of loathing Pam shoots him is priceless.

Able to Leap Billboard in a Single Bound

At the end of the pilot, Ralph shakes Bill’s hand, which breaks with a crack. Raising his eyebrows, Bill grimaces stoically and says, “No sweat.”

Having saved the day, Ralph soars away to the tune of the series’ theme, heard for the first time with lyrics sung by Joey Scarbury.

“The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” debuted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 on June 13, 1981, peaked at number two during the weeks ending August 15–22, 1981, and spent a total of 18 weeks in the Top 40.

Composer Mike Post said he suggested to lyricist Stephen Geyer that he “…maybe make an analogy between love and flying in the suit [chuckles]. And that’s what we did.

Number one record.”

The show’s theme song does its job perfectly, echoing and amplifying the dramatic theme of the story: an ordinary

person’s wonder at his discovery of extraordinary powers. Everyman as superman.

“Flying away on a wing and a prayer.

“Who could it be?

“Believe it or not, it’s just me.”

Catchy and cheerful, the tune keeps popping up in movies and TV shows—it was George Costanza’s answeringmachine greeting on Seinfeld, for example.

Ski bum-turned-writer Patrick Hasburgh found himself watching dailies for that pilot the day he walked into his first job in television.

“I was driving a truck in L.A., fresh from the ski slopes and totally naive to the biz, which worked in my favor, I had realized later,” Hasburgh recalled. Hasburgh sent Cannell two M*A*S*H spec scripts he’d written, cold, and if only because the producer had mislaid the book he was reading, Cannell opened the package, read the scripts, and ultimately hired the neophyte writer.

At his first meeting with Cannell, Hasburgh had intended to pitch an idea for Cannell’s ABC comedy/detective series Tenspeed and Brownshoe, but Cannell told him it was cancelled.

“Then he proceed to ‘pitch me’ the Greatest America Hero pilot, beat for beat,” Hasburgh recalled. “He was the best pitcher in the biz. It was my first introduction to hearing a real pitch; invaluable.

“I was a young man, 30 years old, fresh off the ski slopes, and broke, broke, broke,” Hasburgh said. “I need to remember how much Steve changed my life. When I needed someone to bet on me, he put his money down without blinking. That matters.

Mattered. Still does.”

Hasburgh—who went on to create the TV series that introduced Johnny Depp to the world, 21 Jump Street—found himself a newbie among seasoned pros like writer and coexecutive producer Juanita Bartlett.

Katt was a natural to play an American hero, being the son of frontier adventurer Kit Carson (Bill Williams) and Perry Mason’s confidential secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale). The world had first seen him as Carrie’s ill-fated prom date in the 1976 film version of Stephen King’s novel.

Sellecca, a former fashion model who had starred in the CBS sitcom Flying High, had already played a superhero’s girlfriend in the 1979 TV movie Captain America II: Death Too Soon.

(TOP) Sellecca and Katt as Pam and Ralph. (INSET) Joey Scarbury’s catchy theme from the show was a hit—and is probably stuck in your head now. The Greatest American Hero © Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

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And Culp had a hefty laundry list of credits, having starred in, among other things, Sheldon Leonard’s groundbreaking 1965 TV series I Spy and Paul Mazursky’s 1969 hit film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Off-Camera Drama

The drama wasn’t to be confined to the set of The Greatest American Hero, which would be touched by some strange and tragic events—the worst of them being the bizarre death of Cannell’s 15-year-old son, Derek, who was suffocated when a giant sandcastle collapsed on him. Derek had worked as an intern in Cannell’s production company.

In March 1981, just after the series premiered, a guy named John Hinckley, Jr. shot and wounded U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Somebody panicked and instantly changed Katt’s character’s name to “Ralph Hanley.” After a couple of episodes, cooler heads prevailed and he became “Ralph Hinkley” again.

And then Superman sued.

Warner Bros., the owners of DC Comics, called Ralph a copyright infringement of Superman and took the network and Cannell to court. “It was a heavyweight suit and lasted a year and a half,” Culp recalled. “We won the suit.”

The Second Circuit ruling in the case made interesting distinctions between Ralph and Superman, noting: “Superman looks and acts like a brave, proud hero who has dedicated his life to combating the forces of evil. Hinkley looks and acts like a timid, reluctant hero, who accepts his missions grudgingly and prefers to get on with his normal life. Superman performs his superhuman feats with skill, verve and dash, clearly the master of his own destiny. Hinkley is perplexed by the superhuman powers his costume confers and uses them in a bumbling, comical fashion. In the genre of superheroes, Hinkley follows Superman as, in the genre of detectives, Inspector Clouseau follows Sherlock Holmes.”

The Greatest American Episodes Notable episodes included:

Ep. 7, “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” written by Cannell.

A story about the courage it takes to try to do the right thing, even when you’re uncertain. Ralph is badly shaken when, while stopping a getaway car, he nearly forces a bus full of Japanese tourists off a cliff. He’s ready to give up the suit until he gets advice from his childhood hero the Lone Ranger (John Hart), who’s making a personal appearance nearby.

“I don’t think it’s corny, I think it’s important,” Hart tells Ralph.

“Like it or not, our society needs its heroes.”

“If anybody tried dealing out justice in a mask today, they’d probably lock him up,” Ralph says.

“Well, maybe,” Hart replies. “But I don’t think that would stop the Lone Ranger, do you?”

Katt said he enjoyed that episode in part because it reminded him of his cowboy-hero father, Bill Williams, who’d starred in 105 episodes of The Adventures of Kit Carson. The teenaged Williams had even played a theater usher in the 1933 King Kong.

Ep. 11, “Operation Spoilsport,” written by Frank Lupo.

The aliens warn Ralph and Bill that they must stop World War III, which will be triggered by a compromised nuclear failsafe system. And so they do, to the tune of the Barry McGuire song “Eve of Destruction.”

Ep. 12, “Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” written by Cannell.

Ralph and Bill are blackmailed into a mission by a mysterious Howard Hughes-like tycoon who knows all their secrets. It turns out the aliens had given him a super-suit in the Thirties, but he misused it to acquire wealth and power.

Ralph quotes him the line about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

“Lord Acton sure knew what he was sayin’,” the tycoon replies with a chuckle. “I wonder if he had a suit too?”

The role is played with sinister silkiness by Joseph Wiseman, Dr. No himself.

I always wished Cannell would have included a throwaway line in which the tycoon remarks that he was once spotted in action by two Cleveland teenagers, whom he inspired to create a comic strip.

Ep. 15, “The Beast in the Black,” written

by Bartlett.

While exploring an abandoned mansion as part of a class charity project, Ralph is subjected to poltergeist-like activity. Ralph sees a fire in the mahogany fireplace, but Bill finds it “as cold as an IRS audit.” And where Bill sees only a brick wall, Ralph sees a room in which a sinister woman (Christine Belford) awaits him.

Stepping through into the darkness of another dimension, Ralph barely escapes alive when he’s bitten and slashed by some vicious, largely unseen supernatural creature. And Bill, seemingly killed by a falling chandelier, is possessed by a malevolent female entity.

To save Bill, Ralph must face both a vengeful ghost and the monster in the darkness again, alone and unprotected by his superpowers.

Katt told me this was his favorite episode, and recalled that Cannell received a significant numbers of letters from mothers who complained that the story had been too frightening for their children.

(CENTER) William Katt contributed to the stories of Arcana’s 2008 Greatest American Hero comic-book miniseries. The Greatest American

Hero © Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

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Ep. 19, “Now You See It,” written by Hasburgh.

Stumbling upon the suit’s precognitive powers, Ralph sees a hijacked private jet crash two hours in the future. What he doesn’t know is that the U.S. Air Force will shoot it down, and that Pam will be on board.

Ep. 45, “The Greatest American Heroine,” written by Cannell and Babs Greyhosky.

Ralph managed to maintain a secret identity in probably the only way it could realistically be done—by never letting the world know that a superhero existed. The terrorists, thieves, and Screen capture from the 1986 Greatest American Heroine pilot, starring Mary Ellen enemy agents he and Maxwell rounded Stuart, with Robert Culp. © Stephen J. Cannell Productions. up were routinely reminded that they’d be regarded as lunatics if they described what they’d actually seen, or thought they’d seen. And Ralph went from secret superhero to regular guest on the Tonight Cannell engineered it so that the exposure of that “secret identity” Show.” Ralph goes Hollywood, and the irritated “little green guys” ended Ralph’s superhero career. return.

“Mr. Hinkley,” the aliens tell him dryly. “We saw you on The Hanging Up His Cape Dick Cavett Show.”

ABC pulled the plug on the show in February 1983, leaving four Another American ruined by celebrity. episodes unaired.

The aliens order Ralph to give the suit to another worthy “You see, we were really on our way,” Culp told me in 1984. “If candidate even as they make humanity forget his existence. Much the network had left us alone for another 30 days, we would still to Bill’s chagrin, and to the strains of Whitney Houston’s song be on the air. But they got trigger-happy and they cut us off just “The Greatest Love of All,” Ralph selects idealistic, compassionate ahead of when we would have owned the time slot.” young teacher Holly Hathaway to continue his mission.

Cannell and company went on to give the interrupted story an “You picked a skirt!” Bill howls. “You’ve got me paired up with actual ending in the form of a pilot for a new series, The Greatest Nancy Drew?” And they’re off and flying.

American Heroine.

So with this pilot, Cannell proved to be again ahead of the In 1986, a grayer Maxwell recounts how Ralph was exposed as American popular culture curve, which would eventually throw its a superhero, adding acerbically, “Before you knew it, my old pal spotlight on just this sort of superwoman.

“The essential thing that made the show work was, underneath it all, a kind of sweetness,” Culp said. “A core of sweetness in Ralph that his fiancée, and later his wife, could identify. And there was also a core of that in Maxwell that Maxwell would deny ’till his dying breath.”

As they part, Ralph reminisces. “Bill, do you remember the time that I broke your hand when I went to shake it?”

“Which time?” Bill replies dryly.

HANNAH SIMONE PHOTO: Genevieve719 (Creative Commons 2.0).

THE GREATEST AMERICAN REBOOT… BOOTED

In September 2017, ABC-TV okayed the production of a pilot for a reboot of The Greatest American Hero, intended for the Fall 2018 line-up. Hannah Simone, fresh from a seven-season run on the sitcom New Girl, starred as Meera, an aimless, Indian-American 30-year-old whose life finds meaning once she discovers a certain scarlet super-suit (instruction manual not included).

In the spring of 2018 ABC passed on taking the pilot to series, followed by Simone’s brief social-media outcry lamenting the loss of what would have been “the first brown female superhero on TV.” 56

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DAN HAGEN, a writer who’s a former central Illinois newspaper editor and university journalism instructor, has won numerous awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Southern Illinois Editorial Association, and the Illinois Press Association, as well as the Golden Dozen Award for Editorial Writing from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. He’s written articles for several magazines in the U.S. and Great Britain, as well as for Marvel Comics and NPR.

INSTRUCTIONS NOT INCLUDED

William Katt An Interview with

by Dan Hagen RetroFan: You sort of grew up on the set of Perry Mason, right? Most of us see your profession as quite glamorous, but, with two actors for parents, did you regard the life of a performer as pretty ordinary?

William Katt: At a young age, there wasn’t any way to gauge the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. It was just what was!

Famous faces, I knew from television.

Photographers taking photos of our family, days playing hooky from school to go to set with my parents—that was normal!

Of course, at the same time, there was joy, there was a lot of darkness and drama

around our house growing up. Mom and dad both actors, careers going in different directions… it was conflicted, to say the least!

But that’s pretty normal too, isn’t it?

Just watch TMZ and see the ups and downs of entertainment marriages and family life. It’s always best of times, worst of times! No different now than 50 years ago!

That’s the business, as they say. Still, I feel lucky to have grown up in it and, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.

RF: The son of Kit Carson and Della Street—no wonder you grew up to be the Greatest American Hero. What were your mother and father like?

WK: My mother and father were complicated people! They both had their

own distinct devils and angels, but that’s what made them attractive to each other and to their fans. That’s what also made them interesting parents!

Dad was the son of German immigrants… [he was] born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in a rough neighborhood. He was street-smart, tough, a savvy businessman—but incredibly kind and, above all, a man of his word. I learned the true meaning of integrity being raised by him. Although we didn’t get along all the time when I was growing up, I still live by the lessons I learned from him to this day.

I should add he was an incredible raconteur, and I wish I had acquired his storytelling abilities. Sadly, I didn’t! I confess I actually bore myself sometimes!

Katt in costume in his iconic role. The Greatest American Hero TM & © Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

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RETRO INTERVIEW: WILLIAM KATT

Katt’s famous parents, TV Kit Carson Bill Williams and Perry Mason’s Della Street, Barbara Hale. The Adventures of Kit Carson © MCA Television. Perry Mason © CBS Television.

Autographed Williams photo courtesy of Heritage.

My mom was of Scotch-Irish descent.

Physically beautiful and endowed with charm and social graces, she was also shrewd in life and business. Barbara was no one to trifle with.

That being said, she could be silly and wickedly funny! She loved to laugh, and was a great prankster (as Raymond Burr would learn), but she also knew how to listen, be a friend, and always, always put her children and grandchildren first.

She was very supportive and encouraging of anything me or my sisters wanted to do growing up—sports, music, acting—and we couldn’t have asked for a better mother, friend, and mentor. I miss her every day!

RF: My first memory of you is vivid and sad—as Carrie’s poor, doomed prom date.

How did you get cast in that iconic movie, and what springs to mind when you think back on it?

WK: At the time I was your typical struggling actor, doing the occasional theatrical production and living on unemployment. Thank God for Gordon Hunt (Helen Hunt’s father), who, before he became a respected director, was at the time the head of casting at the Mark Taper 58

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Forum. He liked me for some reason and put me in a number of productions.

I’d do the odd television episode now and again (most notably the pilot episode of Police Woman with Angie Dickinson), but the auditions for Brian De Palma [Carrie] and George Lucas [Star Wars] changed everything for me.

I think they were interviewing every up-and-coming actor in Hollywood at the time, male and female. I don’t know how exactly—I must have fooled them—but I got lucky and got to screen test for both Mr. Lucas and Mr. De Palma.

I didn’t score the Luke Skywalker role (Mark Hamill was perfectly cast, by the way), but I was blessed with the Tommy Ross [Carrie] role and happy to have six or seven weeks of consistent work, a rarity at the time.

People have said they saw me as one of the bad guys in Carrie, but I never saw it like that. In fact, leading up to and during the first part of the prom, you can see real chemistry between the characters and witness the beginning of what should have been a wonderful new romance. Alas… wasn’t to be!

But setting story aside, on the set as an actor I was in awe most of the time. I

was living the Hollywood dream! Getting paid and chasing girls. What a great life! [laughter] Once the movie came out, my life got crazy! I was in Newsweek and Time magazines the same week. It was mostly about Brian De Palma and Sissy Spacek, but there I was, in my gray prom tux with enormous big hair.

Thinking back, I’m not sure what became more famous—me or my hair? It may have actually cost me more roles than it’s won for me. [laughter] No, seriously!!

Carrie opened doors and gave me a career. Agents and managers called… everyone wanted interviews. My head got even bigger than it was! I was so full of myself! An obnoxious jerk! Fortunately, my mom and dad were always there to set me straight and bring me back down to earth. They had both been through it.

In the years after Carrie, my star kind of lost its luster because of any number of reasons—bad decisions, big hair, pay-orplay films that never ended up getting made. But thank God for the theater, where I was still able to find good roles and take solace.

RETRO INTERVIEW: WILLIAM KATT

William Katt today. Photo courtesy of Mr. Katt. (BELOW) Katt as the kind-hearted but ill-fated prom date of Sissy Spacek’s Carrie in a lobby card from the horror classic. Carrie © 1977 United Artists. Courtesy of Heritage.

Time passed and, after a couple welltouted but unsuccessful film ventures, I found myself in New York doing a play offBroadway called Bonjour La Bonjour, with the wonderful Dianne Wiest.

It was during that time I got a call from my agent Michael Black that Stephen J. Cannell was inquiring about a script he had written, and could he send it to me to read? Little did I know at the time my life was about to change again, in a way I couldn’t have imagined!

RF: Did you have any hesitation about doing a superhero show? And what was your impression of Cannell?

WK: Did I have any hesitation about doing the show? Yes! At the time I had a nice apartment on the West Side in Manhattan, and I liked working in the theater. Moving back to Los Angeles and doing TV wasn’t an exciting prospect for me.

But more than that, you have to remember back then doing a superhero show was at the time considered the “kiss of death” for an actor wanting to be taken seriously as an actor. Remember, this is way before it was de rigueur and actors like Robert Downey, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Ed Norton, Chadwick Boseman, Gal Gadot, etc., all sought out those high-paying Marvel and DC

superhero films we run to see these days.

Doing Greatest American Hero in 1979 was going to be risky for me.

What it had in its favor, and ultimately turned the tide for me, was meeting Stephen J. Cannell. He flew to New York and took me to dinner. Not only did he come with tremendous pedigree in the television industry, but he was a gem of guy! Charismatic, warm, funny, smart, and he knew how to tell some pretty darn funny stories—the pilot script for Hero being one of those!

That night at dinner I committed to doing it, and right after the last matinee of Bonjour La Bonjour, I flew to L.A. to start work the very next day.

Up until then, when the subject of the super-suit came up (Maxwell called them the “Red Jammies”), Stephen would laugh and tell me how ridiculous I was going to look in it and his laughter made me laugh along with him, so I knew it was all going to be fine. I did look ridiculous, yes, but not only did it make him and me laugh, it ended up making a whole lot of other people laugh and all these years later still does.

I’m so blessed that Stephen came into my life and convinced me to do the show and, all these years later, I get a chance to meet fans and share a laugh and some good memories!

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

I like popular culture and I like museums. I also like eggs, but that’s a story for another time. My interest in the former was mostly a product of me growing up in the U.S.of A. My interest in the latter was largely due to an uncle and some elephants.

I was, maybe, six years old when my father’s oldest brother had taken me to what is now known as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. We were in the African Mammal Hall, at the end of which stood a massive display of elephants. It was mesmerizing. As we got closer, the display seemed to engulf me. It felt as if we were entering another world. I was in love.

My affection for that museum (or any museum, actually) was so powerful that after that first trip I lied to my very dear grandmother, Mama Angela, as we walked home from church one day. Mama Angela, momentarily confused about how to get back to her apartment (it was across the street from the church), asked me which way we needed to go.

I pointed in the direction of the elephants, miles away. I figured if I could just get us to the museum I might be able to convince her to let me go in. A few moments later she regained her wits and my cunning plan fell apart. Mama Angela—her back permanently hunched, a result of not receiving adequate medical attention after being struck by a car years earlier—and I walked slowly and silently back to her apartment. I was ashamed of myself for about four or five decades and, yes, post-life I expect to ride the express bus to the Bad Place. That 60

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The Crazy, Cool Stuff We Love On Display (and Why My Mom Liking the Marvel Exhibit Was So Great)

by Scott Saavedra

shame, however, didn’t keep me from thinking about museums, which I did… a lot. Eventually, it occurred to me that it would be great to have a museum devoted to the things I loved most in popular culture (you know, the crazy, cool stuf f).

And if I couldn’t make such a museum (I couldn’t), then I hoped that someone else would.

A few years ago, I’d heard about a museum devoted to science fiction with a Star Trek exhibit that sounded promising. Unfortunately for this California lad, it was in Seattle, Washington, and I had been asked while visiting years ago to not remain in the city. It was a tour-bus driver doing the asking. He either didn’t like my looks or was tired of migration to the area. I’m sure it was my looks.

Staying away wasn’t too difficult, until a recent opportunity presented itself thanks to my daughter.

She was graduating with honors and two majors from Seattle University (TMI but indulge me, Mom and Dad are proud parents). The ceremony was to be held on Father’s Day at the KeyArena, mere steps away from where that science-fiction museum— recently reconstituted as the Museum of Pop Culture (modern acronym: MoPOP)—was located.

The trip to MoPOP was my daughter’s gift to me for Father’s Day (those who wish to say, “Aaaaah” may do so now).

To Music and Beyond

MoPOP was founded by Paul Allen, who, while alive (he died October 15, 2018), was so often referred to as “Microsoft Billionaire Paul Allen” that I half suspected that’s what was on his driver’s

license. The MoPOP designation came in 2016 and is only the most recent name for an institution that began life in 2000 as the Experience Music Project (EMP), with a music focus reflecting Mr. Allen’s lifelong interests. The next incarnation went by the not especially catchy Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (modern acronym: RuNUTS?). The current manifestation retains elements of its earlier forms while adding a new goal to, as they say with their mission statement, “make creative expression a lifechanging force by offering experiences that inspire and connect our communities” (insert eye roll here).

MoPOP is situated at the Seattle Center, location of the 1962 World’s Fair. Close by is the most noted artifact of the fair, the 605-foot Space Needle, about as cool a civic icon as exists in this world.

Running through a corner of MoPOP is the Seattle Center Monorail, also a 1962 fair survivor. The MoPop structure was designed by architect Frank Gehry, and its crumpled appearance has not been embraced by everyone. One social media wag called it “the hemorrhoids.” Our group’s reaction to the structure was more prosaic: “How do we get in?”

Our small family fellowship—we were but seven souls—managed to find an entrance near a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream stand silently commanding, “You shall not pass… until you eat our delicious treats!” This almost completely derailed us as it was a hot day, but we needed some real food first. Lunch was at the Culture Kitchen inside the museum (it was fine, but I will say that whoever thought that grilling lettuce

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Much of the display design in the museum is beautiful and striking if not occasionally confusing like this image of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) seen in the eye of a giant hanging dragonfly. Photos—such as they are­ —are by the author usless otherwise mentioned.

(ABOVE) Seattle’s Space Needle. (LEFT) The Museum of Popular Culture. Photo by Brady Harvey. MoPOP

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

was a good idea is not my friend—also: a head of romaine lettuce is not a salad, it’s just produce— I’m drif ting, sorry). My goal was to find all of the stuf f reflective of RetroFan’s own secret, neverstated mission statement to “boldly talk about stuf f we liked when we were a lot younger because that’s what we want to do.” I was especially looking forward to finally seeing the Star Trek exhibit and the newer installation devoted to Marvel Comics.

Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic

(TOP) Winkie guard uniform and Cowardly Lion costume from The Wizard of Oz. The 1939 film classic was a mostly annual event on broadcast television from 1956 until the Nineties. (ABOVE) An example of some of the excellent design work on display at MoPOP.

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It was either the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien or The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis that first introduced me to literary fantasy while in high school. I was so taken by the books at the time that I wanted to write a comparative analysis of the ten novels for an English class assignment. I think the essay needed to be eight handwritten pages long on lined paper. My teacher talked me out of it. I may have written an exhaustive biography of Little Nemo in Slumberland’s Winsor McCay instead. I did manage to produce an awful painting of Frodo and Aragorn that same year for an art class, clearly showing how little I absorbed from the actual text of Lord of the Rings.

The unauthorized 1966 Ace Books edition of The Lord of the Rings is on view at the museum as is a letter from J.R.R. Tolkien discussing the inspiration for the term “hobbit.” There are a few props from the wonderful Peter Jackson-directed, Tolkien-derived movies also.

Some of the oldest artifacts in the museum are costumes and props from The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Many, if not most, homes with kids and televisions during my kid heyday of the Sixties were tuned into the much-anticipated annual showing of the rarefor-its-time Technicolor MGM film. Dorothy’s dress, the Wicked Witch’s hat, a Winkie’s guard uniform, and the Cowardly Lion costume on display certainly bring warm memories of sitting too close to our giant color television set in my pajamas (and how the TV got into my pajamas…).

Another perennial film favorite, The Princess Bride (1987), is nicely recalled by costumes and props. And by props, I mean swords. There are a fair number of swords in the Fantasy section: an Arnold Schwarzenegger-used (fiberglass) sword from Conan the Destroyer (1985) and the sword used

by Sean Connery as the very wonderfully nonSpanish-accented Spaniard in Highlander (1986), to name just two. In fact, weapons of all kinds are well represented in the museum. Make of that what you will.

Much of the material on display is from very serious sources, so the inclusion of the Taunting French Guard’s helmet worn by John Cleese in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is a welcome sight, not because it’s an awesome example of protective cranial excellence but because the

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

induced memory of Cleese’s silly performance brought a smile to my face.

The 1974 debut edition of Dungeons and Dragons sits near the Tolkien display. I played D&D for the first time in 1978 and nearly killed four other players while driving to a game when my Datsun’s brakes briefly went out and we careened down a steep section of Sapra Street. Much screaming was heard.

Fun fact: comic-book legend and an honoree of MoPOP’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame Jack Kirby lived on Sapra Street at the time. Mr. Kirby was not a member of our party.

Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds

This exhibit closed exactly three weeks before my visit. So… yeah.

Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film

In pre-VHS days, coming across an old horror film classic was a crapshoot. I didn’t manage a complete viewing of Frankenstein (1931) or many other Universal monster pictures until the Eighties.

In fact, I was 25 when I finally saw The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) all the way through via a 16mm print at a Halloween party held by writers Bruce Jones (his comic-book horror classic, “Jenifer,” inspired an episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror) and April Campbell. It was a thrilling way to see that film, still one of my favorites. MoPOP has one of Kenneth Strickfaden’s lab equipment props (used in Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and many others) and the full head mask of the creature from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

Weaponry factors into the horror exhibit, of course. The machete and costume of Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies can be found not far from the ax used by Jack Nicholson in The Shining (1980). Freddy Krueger’s be-clawed glove and chewed-up sweater (signed by actor Robert Englund) from the Nightmare on Elm Street films are featured as well.

A version of the xenomorph from Alien (1979) is on display here rather than in the science-fiction exhibit. Since Alien is a “scary movie in space,” as screenwriter Dan O’Bannon once described it, this makes a certain amount of sense. Another genrebending creation, the horror-movie superhero Blade, played by Wesley Snipes, has his costume in this area as well.

Critters of various sorts lurk about: the temporarily dead cat from Pet Sematary (1989), Gizmo, the nice Mogwai from Gremlins (1984), and, well, a Critter from Critters 2: The Main Course (1988).

Twenty-first-Century horror is also represented.

If you enjoy The Walking Dead television program (as I do), you’ll be happy to see lots of severed zombie heads in fish tanks and a walk-through exhibit that allows you to experience zombies staring at you through a window. There is also a blood-splashed

(LEFT TO RIGHT, CLOCKWISE) The alien from Alien (1979). The White Witch’s crown worn

by Tilda Swinton in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005). MoPOP’s Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds exhibit. It looks nice. Photo by Suzi Pratt. MoPOP

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installation consisting of “dead bodies” in canvas sacks hanging by chains. You are free to walk among the fake corpses and… feel repulsed, I guess.

Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction

(TOP) An apparently dead cute gremlin from Gremlins (1984) was surprisingly one of the more disturbing displays at the museum, particularly given the number of severed heads and dead bodies on exhibit. (ABOVE) A tired looking Imperial Dalek from a 1988 episode of Doctor Who (“Rememberance of the Daleks”).

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This is all very anti-science-fiction, but back in the Olden Times, televisions had tubes inside them and two sets of channels on two different frequency ranges: Very High (VHF) and Ultra High (UHF). The channel-selector dial for VHF broadcasts clicked nicely from station to station.

That’s where the network shows and reruns of Star Trek and Twilight Zone could be found. Using the UHF dial was more like trying to tune to a radio station. Sometimes you got the signal, sometimes you didn’t. On UHF we watched Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, and once—but only once—I tried to watch Doctor Who. Since then, I’ve warmed to the Doctor considerably as have lots of other people around the world. MoPOP has some props from the original run of Doctor Who including a Cyberman suit and a Dalek with bits peeling off, causing the poor dear to seem less than threatening.

There are plenty of aliens about, as you would rightly expect. Mork from Ork (Mork & Mindy, 1978–1982) is represented by a spacesuit and gloves worn by series star Robin Williams.

Other aliens include an Arkellian Sand Beetle prop from one of the craziest, over-the-top sci-fi movies of all time, Starship Troopers (1997), a facehugger from Aliens (1986), and Greedo’s head (Han shot first) and a Jawa costume from Star Wars (1977). Yes. I continue to refer to the first Star Wars movie as Star Wars. It must be a generational thing but this “Episode IV: A New Hope” business never caught on with me so, I guess, get off my lawn, nerf herder.

There were some paintings about but all were overshadowed, I felt, by an H. R. Giger concept piece for Alien (1979). It’s gorgeous in a, you know, H. R. Giger sort of way. You admire the talent and the imagination, but it makes you feel things you don’t understand.

Are there any weapons? Affirmative! Lots and lots of ray guns, disruptors, and what-have-you (both props and playthings), including Ripley’s pulse rifle from Aliens (1986), Buck Rogers’ Atomic Disintegrator toy, a Reverberating Carbonizer from Men in Black (1997), and many more I couldn’t identify. Zap. Sci-fi craft appear courtesy models from our pre-CGI past: An Atreides ship miniature from Dune (1984), a Narcissus Shuttlecraft miniature from Aliens (1986), and the six-foot Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Science-fiction artifacts are not limited to the Infinite Worlds exhibit. The same is true for the

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Fantasy and Horror section. For more of all of this fun stuff, there is yet another area to visit, and I get the feeling lots of attendees miss it.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame

Begun in 1996 as the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, the current incarnation is across from the Culture Kitchen (and its burnt lettuce). As we walked past, a museum person popped up and cheerfully suggested we visit the SFFHoF (this place sure loves acronyms). I’m glad she did because there are some fun objects inside.

Around the room are displays of items associated with noted creative individuals as well as brief biographical sketches. The big guns are represented, of course: George Lucas (Luke’s severed hand and lightsaber) and Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones’ jacket, hat, and headpiece to the staff of Ra). Also here: Leonard Nimoy (Spock’s Star Trek original series science officer shirt) and Rod Serling, best remembered for The Twilight Zone, but he was also a screenwriter for the 1968 Planet of the Apes (Dr. Zaius’ outfit). Writers are honored as well: Ursula K. Le Guin is represented by a manuscript notebook for A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), and Issac Asimov (I recall reading his Foundation books back when they were still just a trilogy) is remembered, as a writer or editor of over 500 books, by his poor, overworked typewriter.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, exhibit-wise.

Many others are honored. The hall really should be larger and have more of a central presence. After all, there wouldn’t be any of this imaginative wealth without all of these creative people. One such person, a 2016 Hall of Fame honoree, Jack Kirby, pops up again elsewhere, looming a bit larger in the museum’s current special exhibit.

(ABOVE) Writer Ursula K. Le Guin is just one of many creative individuals honored in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

(LEFT) A very low-tech costume from Tron (1982). (BELOW) Quotes from various Marvel Comics creators lined the entry to the special exhibit.

Marvel: Universe of Superheroes

It’s almost a chicken-or-the-egg-type question: Would there be a MoPOP Marvel Comics special exhibit if Marvel Comics never begat Marvel Comics movies? And, more importantly, would there even be a Marvel Comics without the style and promotional gifts of Stan Lee merged with Jack Kirby’s epic imagination and the singular talents of artists like Steve Ditko?

The Marvel exhibit doesn’t get into all of that, but Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko manage to receive some of their due. And Stan Lee, as one would expect, is not forgotten. The whole production manages to put Marvel in particular and comics in general into the timestream of culture and history.

It’s the kind of thing a good museum does. And there is plenty to attract the eyeballs of both casual fans as well as the seen-it-all types.

Just outside the exhibit entrance sits a life-size newsstand display that is fun to see even if I only bought my comics at 7-Eleven when I was a kid.

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(TOP LEFT & RIGHT) Readers of Tales to Astonish #13 (November 1960) had little reason to expect that Groot, just one of a seemingly endless stream of threatening Marvel monsters with grunted names, would one day become a movie star. Art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. (ABOVE) An animated Dr. Strange display utilizing co-creator Steve Ditko’s art.

(RIGHT) The one that started it all: Marvel Comics #1 (1939). Groot, Dr. Strange, and Human Torch TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Inside the special exhibit there is original comicbook art throughout, most of it featuring Marvel’s movie stars: Thor and Loki, Spider-Man, and Captain America fighting Black Panther (art by Kirby, Ditko, and Kirby respectively). A few comic books are also on view. The one that started it all, Marvel Comics #1 (1939), featuring Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch; wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it in the flesh, but it never gets old. Like any other ancient object, its aura is powerful. Unless you don’t like comic books, in which case it’s just stinky old paper. I get that.

Unsurprisingly, much of the material on hand relates to the movie and television incarnations of Marvel’s superheroes. I have to say, the quality of the design and manufacture of the movie costumes is pretty impressive even if the common complaints, too much sameness and a limited color palette, are essentially true. You only have to compare the modern Captain America movie suit to the spandex version displayed from Captain America II: Death Too Soon, a 1979 TV movie starring Reb Brown as Cap and the legendary Christopher Lee as Miguel, whoever that is.

There are a number of photo opportunities with life-size figures of the Thing, Spider-Man (the classic version), and Black Panther being the most popular while I was there. When I say popular, I mean that folks seemed extremely excited to have their photo taken with T’Challa. They were all just beaming. More so than when I was a kid, museums like to have interactive features, so posing with your favorite superhero makes a lot of sense. But what would really impress me would be an interactive comic-artist studio display where you actually get to play a character. Let’s say this character’s name is “Jack.” And “Jack” sits at a drawing table for 14 hours a day making $15 a page while creating all of this wonderment that makes somebody else billions of dollars a year. Just a thought.

My mom was part of our fellowship, though she isn’t really a pop-culture enthusiast. At least as far as the kinds of things I like are concerned. Sure, she’ll watch a superhero movie if Hugh Jackman is in it. Or Chris Pratt. Or any random cute guy, I think.

But she never really understood what I was into.

She accepted that it was a part of me, but it was still a weird interest on my part. The Marvel exhibit went a long way toward fixing that. I don’t recall her exact words, but she was really, really pleased that so many people liked this stuff that I spent an entire life enjoying. It was almost as if she saw me for the first time. And it’s not like we didn’t get along before; I’m clearly her favorite out of seven kids (hence my nickname: Number One). I know it’s not fair to my siblings, but, well, dissapointments are part of the human experience. So that was nice.

Also, she really wanted me to take a picture of her with Chris Evans’ Captain America suit. Seriously, she was very insistent.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

We Are Not Experienced

There were some sections of the museum our fellowship did not visit for reasons of time, fatigue, and a strong desire to have some Ben & Jerry’s or a nap. I raced through the Indie Games section and totally missed anything related to music like Wild Blue Angel: Hendrix Abroad. But the popculture fun didn’t end there. We went to a restaurant later and I had a mixed drink called the Kessel Run (I drank it in under 12 parsecs). My mom wanted a group picture, so an amused patron obliged using my mom’s years-old film camera. The helpful picture taker now had a crazy story to tell his young friends: “I used a camera with film in it!” The part where you advance the film forward for the next shot was the real crowdpleaser. (My mom does have a digital camera, but its pixels are all used up or something—she’s not super into tech.)

Overall, it was an entertaining experience. True, sometimes MoPOP felt more like a tourist attraction than a curated exhibition. Perhaps that’s just the direction museums have to take these days to remain viable. I guess I would distill MoPOP down to this: an extremely well-designed set of exhibitions and neat objects related to things I love that I am grateful to have on view in a public space.

I’m only a little bit jealous of what Microsof t billions can buy. I’m happy with the little home my wife and I have festooned with odd items, cheap crap, comics, books (and books), photos, art, and other artifacts here, there, and everywhere. Our guest bath has an especially fun display of stuf f including patent medicine and weird images.

But, honestly, no one would pay to come here.

However… once, following our not-that-longago house warming party, my siblings and other relations filed out the door saying their goodbyes.

As my sister was leaving she turned and said, “Thanks for inviting me to your museum.” They were the nicest words she’s ever said.

SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a graphic designer who writes and draws as needed. He is perhaps best known as the creator of the long-ago comic-book series, It’s Science with Dr. Radium (SLG), and he wrote for the short-lived Disney Comics line, where he scripted stories featuring Chip ’n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and others. His fanzine, Comic Book Heaven, about crazy, vintage comics, had a devoted but, sadly, tiny following. Check out his Instagram thing, won’t you? (instagram.com/ scottsaav/)

(TOP INSET) The Kessel Run. (TOP RIGHT) Page from Fantastic Four #98 (May 1970) includes Neil Armstrong’s intended quote upon stepping on the moon’s surface (he said “man” instead of “a man” in the moment). Art by the powerhouse team of Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. (For more Moon Landing Mania, see elsewhere this issue.) (ABOVE) The author’s mother gets her wish, a photo with Captain America (minus, sadly, Mr. Chris Evans). Fantastic Four and Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

MUSEUM OF POP CULTURE 325 5th Avenue N, Seattle, WA 98109 OPEN DAILY: 10:00AM-5:00PM 206-770-2700 www.mopop.org

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RETRO COMICS

at 100 defiance of his overbearing wife (who was written out of the strip). Originally a lanky figure, Barney’s appearance was soon modified by DeBeck into the familiar, cigar-puffing pee-wee whose zany eyes were usually trained toward racing forms and card games.

In the July 17, 1922 strip, Barney Google gained a funnyanimal sidekick—a joke of a racehorse named Spark Plug, a.k.a. “Sparky”—whose presence quickly helped the feature, soon retitled Barney Google and Spark Plug, gallop to stardom. Barney Google and Spark Plug were among the first comic-strip characters to become multimedia sensations: merchandise featuring the pair flooded the market throughout the Twenties; lyricist Billy Rose’s 1923 hit novelty song, “Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes),” was a hit; and silent comedy shorts, animated theatrical cartoons,

by Michael Eury Google is 100! No, not the internet giant, but one of the funnies’ most successful characters—the dapper, diminutive idler with the zany “goo-goo-googly eyes,” Barney Google.

Cartoonist and sports aficionado Billy DeBeck (1890–1942) created Barney Google in a daily comic strip originally titled Take Barney Google, F’rinstance, which premiered on June 17, 1919 on the sports page of a Chicago newspaper. It soon gained wider distribution through King Features Syndicate. The strip’s placement on the sports section was not random, as its unscrupulous protagonist was a rabid fan of boxing, horse racing, and poker, and routinely bet on competitions, in direct (LEFT) Snuffy Smith, the bodacious breakout star of the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith strip, in a 1937 colored pencil-and-ink illustration by the comic’s creator, Billy DeBeck, produced for King Features Syndicate executive Brad Kelly. (RIGHT) The loveable—and merchandisable—Spark Plug was introduced into Barney Google on July 17, 1922. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Snuffy Smith drawing courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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Early Barney Google and Spark Plug products included these dolls of the cartoon stars, produced by Schoenhut in 1922. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Hakes Auctions.

World War II-era comedy films, and comic books kept them in the public eye outside of the funny papers, all making creator DeBeck a very wealthy man. It seemed like nothing could topple the juggernaut that was Barney Google… …except for another bodacious, pint-sized lazybones, this one with a taste for chicken-thieving and moonshine.

In the Thirties, as the Great Depression gripped America, many “hillbillies”—impoverished people of the U.S. Appalachians—fled the mountains for other ports of call, in search of employment. A hillbilly craze of sorts emerged in the popular culture, its poster child being cartoonist Al Capp’s celebrated, long-running Li’l Abner comic strip, which premiered in 1934. Li’l Abner would continue for decades to come and its rustic setting and cornpone humor would influence such later media properties as Ma and Pa Kettle, The Real McCoys, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hee Haw.

In the November 17, 1934 installment of Barney Google and Spark Plug, Barney, on the lam from the law, ducked into the Appalachian community of Hootin’ Holler, where readers were introduced to a cantankerous, scruffy mountain man named Snuffy Smith—or “Smif,” for y’all flatlanders who don’t speak hillbilly. The checkers-cheatin’ Snuffy, quick to draw shotgun bead on any potential “revenoor” who might be sniffin’ around for his moonshine still, was so shiftless and conniving by comparison, he almost made Barney seem worthy of Rotary Club membership.

Barney and Snuffy feuded at first, but once it became clear that readers were fascinated by the backwoods antics of sawed-off Snuffy and his plump wife Loweezy (a.k.a. “Weezy,” although her name was spelled “Lowizie” in her earliest appearances), the fellas got along just fine. Before long, Snuffy took up residence in Barney’s comic strip as its co-star, its title being changed to Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, with Barney often up to no good in the

(also hotsie-totsie) (from Sweet Mama, a character added to Barney Google) 70

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© King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

creation and popularization of these slang words and phrases GOOGLE SHAPED OUR LINGO! The is attributed to the comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith:

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hills instead of the city. (This wasn’t the first time this type of takeover happened at King Features. In January of 1929, E. C. Segar’s comic strip Thimble Theatre, then a decade old, introduced a scrappy sailorman named Popeye who quickly muscled his way into being the feature’s lead player.)

Credit for Snuffy Smith’s breakout popularity can be partially attributed to reader fatigue from the familiarity of Barney Google’s urban setting and gambling antics. The broader burlesque of Hootin’ Holler, with its rickety shacks and drawlin’ mountaineers, was great for laughs and sight gags—which harried Depression-era readers sorely needed.

Snuffy starred in two live-action wartime comedy films, including 1942’s Hillbilly Blitzkrieg. He also appeared in television animation in (BELOW, TOP) a 1962 syndicated series and (BELOW, BOTTOM) the 1972 telefilm Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Poster courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Original artwork from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’s first two cartoonists show the difference in their art styles.

(TOP) Feature creator Billy DeBeck’s Snuffy was a bodacious force to be reckoned with, as shown in this 1939 Sunday strip. (BOTTOM) Successor Fred Lasswell simplified the art style, making its stars more accessible to a wider audience. This 1954 strip was one of Barney’s last regular appearances before being removed as a regular. ©

King Features Syndicate, Inc. Art scans courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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But it was the emergence of cartoonist Fred Lasswell that was the true game-changer for the strip. Lasswell (1916–2001) was a mere teenager when DeBeck hired him as an assistant, and played a major role in the development of the Hootin’ Holler cast once Snuffy and company joined the feature beginning in 1934. Lasswell was contracted by King Features to write and draw Barney Google and Snuffy Smith after DeBeck’s unexpected death from cancer in 1942, and a transformation began.

Visually, Lasswell inched the illustrations away from DeBeck’s sketchy rendering style that was popular in funnies of the Twenties, toward a simpler, gag-friendly style, all the while keeping DeBeck’s exaggerated “big foot” characters recognizable.

Lasswell took the main cast of Snuffy, Weezy, their slingshotwieldin’ nephew Jughaid, and the lazy hound dog

Ol’ Bullet, and fleshed it out with new players such as poor ol’ Parson Tuttle, a man of the cloth sworn to keep the faith among a community of backslidin’ feuders, and Elviney, Weezy’s partner-in-gossip. The rough edges of the characters were polished, making the feature more family-friendly.

Without veering off course from Snuffy’s slothful roots, Lasswell showed the moonshiner’s kinder side, especially in Easter Seals and Christmas Seals PSAs appealing to the reader’s generosity. And in an audience-embracing move that’s just a rock skip short of breaking the fourth wall, the Snuffy Smith cast snickered, cackled, and knee-slapped at the day’s gag along with the reader, a tradition ably continued by the strip’s current cartoonist John R. Rose, who is interviewed in the pages following.

In 1954 Lasswell booted out the strip’s googly-eyed original star, save for occasional drop-ins where Barney Google and Spark Plug rode in to Hootin’ Holler for a visit, a tradition that John Rose maintains today as well.

Also continuing is the comic strip’s official title, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, a wink to its rich history (and the reason for this centennial article), although, as established

by Lasswell decades ago, the “Barney Google and” is largely a prefix to a logo that very clearly acknowledges its hillbilly main attraction.

(TOP LEFT) Fifties board game from Jaymar. (BOTTOM LEFT) Sixties sliding Lasswell made another puzzle from Roalex. (MIDDLE) Issue #1 (and only) of Gold Key Comics’ Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, from 1964. Cover by Fred Lasswell and Ray Orsin. (RIGHT) Charlton Comics significant change to the cast— took over the property to produce six issues from 1970 through 1971. Issue #1 cover by this time, a major addition—in Lasswell. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Toy scans courtesy of Hakes. Comic scans courtesy of Hertiage.

Live-in nephew Jughaid has long shacked up in Uncle Snuffy and Aunt Loweezy’s lean-to, but in 1963 King Features and Fred Lasswell added another young face to the hillbilly family: no, not Tater (he was born in 1967, as detailed elsewhere), but the Smiths’ blink-and-you’ll-miss-her niece Bizzy, a.k.a. Bizzy Bee Smif and Bizzy Buzz Buzz.

Bizzy, a country Hazel the maid in a kerchief-topped, pint-sized package, was introduced as “Bizzy Bee Smif” by Aunt Loweezy to her cousin Jughaid in the May 12, 1963 Sunday strip by Fred Lasswell. When “Unk Snuffy” shuffles into the house to meet Bizzy, she admonishes him to “March yoreself right back out yonder an’ wife off them boots good—I jest swept th’ floor.”

The fastidious Bizzy appeared in a handful of strips and on episodes of the Snuffy Smith and Barney Google TV cartoon produced during that same period. A Bizzy doll was also produced by the Gund Company; today it’s one of the rarest King Features collectibles.

Despite her ambitious rollout, this homespun housecleaner apparently didn’t click with readers and she quickly disappeared.

Current Snuffy Smith cartoonist John Rose reintroduced Bizzy, as Bizzy Buzz Buzz, into the strip in 2014.

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BACKGROUND PHOTO: Pixabay/blickpixel

MEET THE OTHER SMIF YOUNG-UN

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VOTE GOOGLE! As part of the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith centennial celebration, in late 2019 IDW will be publishing a collection of early Barney Google comic strips by Billy DeBeck in its Library of American Comics Essentials Series. Titled Barney Google for President, the collected edition will include a Foreword and specialty illustration by John Rose.

Baby Tater arrived in the feature in a November 1967 serial from Fred Lasswell, including this installment. © King Features

Syndicate, Inc.

toys and products bore the likenesses of Hootin’ Holler’s shabby citizens, occasionally with cameos or co-billings from Barney Google. No licensed item was more audacious than the series of Snuf fy Smith ceramic banks in the shape of moonshine jugs (with corks) produced by the Hull Pottery Company in the Fif ties! And on two occasions Snuf fy Smith—with Barney Google along for googly-eyed fun—was featured in animation: first, in 18 syndicated episodes of Snuf fy Smith and Barney Google, produced by Famous Studios in 1963, with toon great Paul Frees voicing the hillbilly; and second, as one of the King Features pantheon appearing in the animated 1972 telefilm Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter, which aired on The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. Bob McFadden voiced Snuf fy and the lion’s share of the King Features characters in that video rarity.

Lasswell, a beloved cut-up known as “Uncle Fred” to his fellow cartoonists, brought in Rose, a political cartoonist, to help ink Barney Google and Snuf fy Smith beginning in mid-1998.

Rose took over as the feature’s writer/artist af ter Lasswell’s passing in 2001.

Rose maintains the strip’s traditional mountain setting, rife with the one-room schools and pot-belly stoves that longtime readers are accustomed to. But instead of allowing it to become anachronistic, he deftly peppers it with occasional contemporary references, from Duck Dynasty to cell phones, as a wink to the reader that the slow-paced Hootin’ Holler still exists today despite the accelerated speed of the culture outside of the

The three Barney Google and Snuffy Smith cartoonists: (LEFT) Billy DeBeck with boxer Jack Dempsey, 1919. (CENTER) A self portrait by “Uncle Fred” Lasswell. (RIGHT) John Rose with Snuffy’s dog, Ol’ Bullet, in Toon Lagoon, Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, Orlando, Florida. DeBeck photo and Lasswell cartoon courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Rose photo courtesy of John Rose.

November 1967. Snuffy was a “narvous” wreck when calling Ol’ Doc Pritchart to the house in anticipation of Miz Stork and her delivery of a “good-lookin’ leetle varmint,” baby Tater, the spittin’ image of his paw (except for Snuffy’s mustache). Tater has remained a part of the cast (and a baby) ever since.

Snuf fy Smith rode Barney Google’s coattails not only into the funnypapers, but also into the mass media. Snuf fy—who served a hitch in the military in the comic strip during World War II—headlined two wartime film comedies, both released in 1942: Private Snuf fy Smith and Hillbilly Blitzkrieg, both starring Bud Duncan as Snuf fy; Barney Google also appeared in live action in the latter film, courtesy of actor Clif f Nazarro. Barney and Snuf fy co-starred in comic books from several dif ferent publishers, and for decades board games, puzzles, hand puppets, dolls, figurines, salt-and-pepper shakers, and other

hills. Rose has also afforded more of a spotlight to the feature’s original star. “Due to readers asking me ‘Whatever happened to Barney Google?’ in Q&A sessions after Snuffy Smith Chalk Talk Presentations, I started bringing Barney Google back more than just a day here and there,” the cartoonist tells RetroFan. “He now appears at least two to three full weeks a year. So he’s a bit more of a semi-regular character now.”

As Barney Google and Snuffy Smith achieves the remarkable milestone of 100 years in continued publication, it’s equally astounding to consider that during that century only three cartoonists have been responsible for its production.

Here’s a hootin’ and hollerin’ RetroFan salute to Barney Google and Snuf fy Smith and its beloved bevy of backwoods wisecrackers!

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An Interview with Snuffy Smith Cartoonist

John Rose

Conducted by Michael Eury Cartoonist John Rose, a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, was born, educated, and resides in the mountains of Virginia. He began cartooning professionally in the late Eighties as a political cartoonist and children’s-feature illustrator.

Rose took up residence in Hootin’ Holler in 1998, assisting gag-master Fred Lasswell on King Features’ Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. Upon Lasswell’s death in 2001, Rose was hired to produce the feature. He has deftly maintained the spirit of his predecessor on the strip while subtly earmarking it as his own through contemporary references and through 74

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personal appearances where John meets Snuffy’s fans face to face.

Several books have been published collecting Rose’s political, children’s, and Snuffy Smith cartoons. His work has been honored with national and regional awards, the most recent, as of this writing, being 2018’s First Place Award in the Tennessee Press Association’s “Best Use of Humor in an Ad” PSA campaign for his creation of Snuffy Smith-starring “Snuff Out Wildfires Before They Start” toons.

I was drawn to Rose’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith cartoons for two reasons: his accessible, likeable cartooning style and his name. Regarding the latter, I have an uncle named John Rose, my mother’s

maiden name being Rose, and my brother and I often joked that “Uncle Johnny” was drawing Snuffy Smith. But of the cartoonist John Rose I quietly wondered, Could we be related? I finally met John in October 2017 when we were both guests at a convention in the gorgeous hills of Virginia, and we hit it off—and while we’re not related (at least closely), we’re now unofficial “cousins.”

RetroFan was in the developmental stages at that time and over dinner I blabbed Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’s third and current cartoonist, John Rose, working on a Snuffy strip in his studio.

Courtesy of John Rose.

to John about the magazine. When he mentioned the then-upcoming centennial of the Snuffy Smith strip, the proverbial lightbulb went off over my head—or maybe John drew it there—and the result is this interview and its lead-in article. John Rose graciously answered these questions in late November 2018… and delivered them to me several days before deadline, a real pro!

(LEFT) The Rose family’s 2012 Christmas card, and (BELOW) John’s original artwork for same. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RetroFan: I read in your bio that some of your earliest drawings were on your parents’ living room walls. Did that get you into trouble?

John Rose: That’s a true story. And no, I didn’t get into trouble. My parents just wallpapered right over them!

RF: Who were some of the cartoonists that inspired you during your development as an artist?

JR: In addition to Fred Lasswell and Billy DeBeck, there have been many other cartoonists that influenced me. Some of those others include Mort Walker, Mike Peters, Jeff MacNelly, Dik Browne, Charles Schulz, Walt Disney, Jim Henson, and Dr. Seuss. Mike Peters spoke at my college, James Madison University, when I was a student cartoonist working for the student newspaper. This was right around the time when he launched his incredible Mother Goose and Grimm comic strip. One of my art history professors was on the committee that brought him to our school. She knew that I was an aspiring cartoonist, so she invited me to go to dinner with Mike and the committee members before he

spoke! I was so excited! I also attended his wonderful chalk talk, and after Mike’s program, I talked with him and showed him samples of my work. He is a great speaker and gave such a humorous and inspirational presentation. Mike was extremely kind to spend so much of his evening with me! He has the kind of personality that just makes you smile.

When I look back on that night, I see it as a real turning point for me in my deciding to be a professional cartoonist.

RF: In the late ’80s, you started drawing

professionally as an editorial cartoonist.

What were some of your favorite political targets for your cartoons?

JR: I have always enjoyed doing a good mix of national and local editorial cartoons, so anyone from the president of the United States to local politicians.

RF: In today’s divisive political landscape, what challenges do political cartoonists face?

JR: Once I was given the amazing opportunity by King Features in 2001 to be the cartoonist for Barney Google and

It’s a Hootin’ Holler Who’s Who in this scan of original art by John Rose, from A Collection of Great Cartoonists and Illustrators. © King

Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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RETRO INTERVIEW: JOHN ROSE

The Hootin’ Hollerites take a shine to TV’s scruffiest stars in this daily from 6-17-13. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of John Rose.

Snuffy Smith, I decided that I wanted the comic strip to be my primary focus as a cartoonist. It is such an honor to carry on this comic strip’s legacy. So in 2001, I began drawing editorial cartoons only on a parttime basis.

But whether full-time or part-time, I have always viewed my editorial cartoons as visual social commentary. I also try to inject humor in my editorial cartoons so whether the reader agrees with me or not, he or she may get a chuckle out of it.

There are a lot of challenges for political cartoonists today, but there are many out there who are doing their very best work.

RF: When did you first discover Snuffy Smith?

JR: Most of my early childhood was spent growing up in and around the small town of Covington, Virginia. Our newspaper was the Covington Virginian, now named the Virginian-Review.

When I was in elementary school, I distinctly remember lying on the floor in my grandmother’s house with the afternoon newspaper spread wide open to the comics page. That’s when I read Snuffy Smith, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Hi and Lois, Peanuts, and others for the very first time. And I have been hooked on comics ever since!

Incidentally, my grandmother’s house was a block from the corner newsstand and two blocks from the public library. So it was a quick walk to read the latest comic books at the newsstand and the “How to Draw Cartoons” books at the library, as well!

RF: And the character of Barney Google?

JR: I came to learn more about Barney Google when I was of high school and 76

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college age. I wondered who Barney Google was, since his name was in the title of the comic strip, but he was rarely ever seen. Once I read more about him, I really began to enjoy him as a character.

I especially love his character design.

There’s something about those big eyes and that small stature that always makes me smile!

RF: You, like Snuffy, hail from the Appalachians. What are some of the merits of being raised in a mountain community?

JR: Yes, I grew up in the mountains of Virginia and currently live in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. My family has almost always lived in small cities and towns near mountains.

We don’t truly live on a mountain, but my parents have had a small cinder-block cabin that my dad built in the mountains of Alleghany County, near Covington, most all of my life. Even when I grew older and we moved to other areas of Virginia, we always came back to visit their cabin and farm. And we still do!

I can’t think of a better place to grow up… freshwater fishing, skipping rocks in the creek, hiking, catching grasshoppers, frogs, salamanders and crawdads, etc.

Here’s a fun memory for the bicentennial on July 4th, 1976: I remember a bunch of us kids catching box turtles, painting their shells red, white, and blue and having an old-fashioned turtle race!

I reflect on a lot of those memories when creating comics that center around Jughaid, especially when I was asked to write and draw a ten-page comic book story for Charlton Spotlight #9. The story I created was called “Hopalong Jughaid,” and it was about Jughaid and his pet frog.

It was a joy to step out of the two or three panels I work within every day and create a ten-page comic-book story.

RF: You started assisting Fred Lasswell on Snuffy Smith in 1998. How did you get the gig?

JR: In the late 1990s, I was talking with a friend of mine who was an editorial cartoonist, and he told me that he was also working as an assistant on a syndicated comic strip. I never thought of that option before, and it occurred to me that maybe this might be a way I could bring in extra money for our family.

So when I decided to try to pursue such a position, the first comic strip I thought of was Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. I had never met Fred Lasswell

Rose not only brought back the strip’s original star, Barney Google, as a semi-regular, but in 2014 he even resurrected one of Hootin’ Holler’s most obscure characters, Bizzy Buzz Buzz (a.k.a. Bizzy Bee Smif). © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

RETRO INTERVIEW: JOHN ROSE

before, but because I was in the National Cartoonists Society, I had his contact information. I worked up sample Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strips and mailed them, along with copies of some of my other cartoon work, to Fred. As a cartoonist, you receive a lot of rejection.

I could wallpaper my studio with all the rejection letters I’ve gotten over the years!

And Fred Lasswell, or “Uncle Fred,” as many cartoonists know him, was a true legend in our business. He was amazingly talented and very fun-loving.

So, when I mailed that package, I fully expected to get a “Thanks, but no thanks” letter back. A few weeks passed and then one day as I was eating a nutritious lunch of Cocoa Puffs, the phone rang. I answered the phone, and the voice on the other end of the line said: “John, this is Fred Lasswell.

I got the packet of samples you sent me, and I really like the way you draw big noses!” I probably choked on my Cocoa Puffs!

To make a long story short, he ended up hiring me as his inking assistant in 1998. He was very into technology, so he did not mind that I lived in Virginia and he lived in Florida. He faxed me the penciled strips and I inked them, scanned them into the computer, and emailed them back to him for his approval. I worked my

newspaper job all day, came home and hung out with my wife and young kids until about 8:30 p.m. when the kids went to bed, and then worked on the comic strip until very late. I also worked on the weekends.

We [Fred and I] talked by phone, fax, or email almost every day, and I also met with him in his studio a few times. He was a very kind man. I worked for him for three and a half years. It was a tough schedule, but it was such a wonderful opportunity to learn from a master cartoonist.

When Fred passed away in 2001, King Features offered me an audition and they liked my work, so they hired me to be the cartoonist for Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and I have been drawing it ever since.

RF: Fred Lasswell’s prodigious body of work speaks volumes about his talent… but what can you tell me about Fred Lasswell, the person? You said he was “fun-loving”…

JR: He had a personality that could light up a room!

He was an older man when I started working for him, but he was very much into technology. He was very inventive, as well. To my knowledge, he created one of the first computerized type fonts to be

Card-cheatin’ and chicken-thievin’, Snuffy’s up to his old tricks on Rose’s original cover art to the collected edition The Bodacious Best of Snuffy Smith. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

used in a comic strip. He also created a series of “Draw and Color with Uncle Fred” videos that were just wonderful!

At one point, around the year 2000 or so, he had one of those videos converted over to DVD and sent it to me. I ran out and purchased a DVD player to view it! I was one of the first of my friends to own a DVD player, the envy of the neighborhood!

Ha-ha!

When it came to the comic strip, if you did something he liked, he often would say something funny, like, “It’s as fine as frog’s hair” or something funny like that!

Or, if I was late getting something to him, he’d say, “Stop looking out the window and get to work, ha-ha!”

He was a truly a great man, a legendary cartoonist, and a wonderful mentor and friend to me.

RF: What are some of the things you learned from Lasswell?

JR: Many, many things! But there is definitely one thing that I try to remember every day: Fred said that a reader only spends a few seconds each day looking at your comic strip when reading all the other comic strips on the page. So it is very important to keep it simple. The strip needs to be funny and well-drawn, but it needs to be simple. If something is out of place, or isn’t drawn right or doesn’t read right, it creates a distraction and the reader will skip right over it and read the next strip.

The funny thing is, when I mentioned this to my very good friend, Marcus Hamilton, who draws the Dennis the Menace daily panel and worked for Hank Ketcham, he said Hank used to say the exact same thing! Fred and Hank, two cartooning legends that thought alike!

RF: You took over Snuffy Smith from Lasswell upon his death in 2001. What steps have you since taken to earmark the strip as “yours”?

JR: I have made a few subtle changes.

For one thing, the characters can all read now. I have also created a few secondary characters over the years. And brought back characters that had not been seen in a very long time, like Snuffy’s Maw, Snuffy’s Paw, and Granny Creeps.

Another thing that may be more noticeable is that I have made Barney Google and Spark Plug semi-regular characters. I do a lot of Snuffy Smith RetroFan

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RETRO INTERVIEW: JOHN ROSE

Move over, Smokey Bear! John Rose’s award-winning wildfire-safety awareness cartoon. Courtesy of the artist. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Chalk Talk presentations to groups. And at the end of each presentation, I have a question-and-answer portion. The most frequent question I get asked is, “Whatever happened to Barney Google?”

So I mentioned this to my editor at King Features about seven years ago and asked if I could bring Barney and Spark Plug back for a weeklong visit. He thought it was a great idea! That week was so popular that now we bring Barney and Spark Plug back for at least two to three weeklong visits per year.

I try to stay as true to Fred’s drawing style as I can, but I am sure some of my style has crept in over the years. It’s only natural.

RF: Do you still produce all your art by hand, or are you using digital tools and software?

JR: Like many cartoonists, I am somewhere in the middle of the two. I draw everything by hand, which I truly love doing. I create a tight pencil drawing of each strip and copy it on my copier. Then I put that copy on my light table, put a piece of bristol board on top of it, and ink it with micron archival India ink pens in a variety of point sizes, brushes, and India ink… and lots of White-out!

Like Fred, I created a computerized font to mimic my lettering style, so I use that most of the time for my lettering.

Then I scan the art into Photoshop, clean it up a bit, and email it to King Features. I do not color the daily comic 78

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strip, but I do color the Sunday strip.

RF: One thing I’ve long wondered is, Who are Jughaid’s maw and paw, and how did he end up with Snuffy and Loweezy?

JR: On March 8, 1937, Jughaid Smith is introduced into the comic strip. The first panel of the comic strip shows him in his coonskin cap and overalls walking beside a dog. The wording above him reads: “In case you don’t recognize this little chunk of a feller, it’s Jughaid Smif.” It goes on to say he’s been searching for his Uncle Snuffy to warn him about “revenooers.”

That’s as much as I know about his introduction into the strip. To my knowledge, his parents aren’t mentioned.

I really love creating comic strips around him. He is a great character.

RF: Are all the daily and Sunday gags yours, or do you occasionally use freelance gag writers, as do many other ongoing strips?

JR: I have had two talented cartoonists, who have also worked on other projects for King Features, contribute gags to me over the years that I have been creating the comic strip. They are Mike Marland and Margaret Shulock (now retired).

RF: How do you keep Snuffy Smith fresh?

JR: I view the comic strip characters as living in a simpler time but existing in our current time, if that makes sense.

Occasionally, I will have the characters comment on something current while

reading the newspaper, but only in the most general sense. For example, they may comment on a recession or something like that, but never anything too specific.

Lukey even has been known to get mad at an article in the paper and write a letter or two to the editor!

The Parson is the only one in the holler with a television set, even though it still has rabbit ears! He has it because he needs to stay current with all his favorite soaps!

One of the most popular comics strips I have ever done was one where I had Snuffy, Lukey, and some of the other bearded guys from Hootin’ Holler watching the popular Duck Dynasty television show on the Parson’s TV. You can see [Duck Dynasty’s] Willie, Jase, Phil, and Si Robertson on the screen and Lukey says, “It’s nice to finally see some normallookin’ guys on TV!” The Robertson family actually saw that strip, loved it, and wrote me and said how they felt like they were a part of history being featured in a comic strip they had read all their lives! I was very touched and sent them the original art and they sent me one of their books signed by the whole family along with a sweet letter.

They even wrote a back-cover quote for my second Snuffy Smith book collection!

RF: Hootin’ Holler represents a simpler time that seems out of step with our tech-savvy, fast-paced culture. Yet Barney Google and Snuffy Smith is celebrating its 100th birthday. What factors make the characters and the strip perennially popular?

JR: Truthfully, I think the wonderful cast of characters and how they interact with each other is the key to the strip’s longevity.

And I can’t really take too much credit for that. Almost all of the characters were created before I started on the strip. To many readers, Snuffy, Loweezy, Barney, and the entire gang from Hootin’ Holler are like old friends. They are characters that readers enjoy visiting with each and every day.

I feel that I am so bodaciously blessed to get to work with these great characters every day! I am so very thankful to King Features for entrusting me to carry on the incredible legacy of Billy DeBeck and Fred Lasswell for generations to come through the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strip. Balls O’ Fire! Here’s to another 100 bodacious years!

Just wanted to let you know how much I truly enjoy RetroFan Magazine! Three issues in and it looks like another winner for TwoMorrows! I am reliving my childhood again!

Your team of writers is top notch and they ALL know their stuff!

I particularly enjoyed the interview with Ira Cooper [issue #2], especially the question about the smell of the masks, which immediately came to my mind at the START of the article!

Hopefully you will bring to these pages articles on the Six Million Dollar Man, the 1968–1969 Matchbox line, and Marx playsets!

You have me hooked for the duration! A very BIG THANK YOU! MIKE FALCONE Thanks, Mike! We DO have some talented writers, don’t we?

Six Million Dollar Man (and Bionic Woman) collectibles will be featured in issue #8’s Super Collector department, and I’m sure the bionic duo of Steve and Jaime will return to our pages. Matchbox (as well as Hot Wheels) and Marx playsets are just the kind of subjects we love to spotlight here. Keep reading!

Tsk. Tsk. Doctor Who debuted on November 23, 1963. Almost three years before The Time Tunnel did. Thus, The Time Tunnel did not “pave the way” for Doctor Who. In fact, Amicus Productions (Hammer Films’ poorer competition) produced and released two theatrical “Dr. Who” films, starting Peter Cushing, between Doctor Who’s TV debut and The Time Tunnel’s. Admittedly, the way filmed entertainment was distributed back then, UK and American audiences didn’t discover either show at the same time, but the powers-that-be sure did. Tsk. Tsk. DOUGLASS ABRAMSON My article about Irwin Allen’s TV shows was written from the perspective of American television, so we appreciate your tuning us in to a global picture, Douglass.

Just wanted to let you know I love your new magazine. I’ve picked up the first three issues and look forward to the next one. The articles aren’t just fluff but are well researched, as I learned some new things about the Sixties and Seventies pop culture that I love so much. I wish you much success and hope it becomes a monthly one day.

ROBIN WILLIAMS

Robin, our goal is to mix nostalgia with intellectual curiosity about this crazy, cool stuff we grew up with. And re our frequency, who knows, but I’d want to transition from quarterly to bimonthly first.

Another interesting and eclectic issue.

Oddly enough, rating exceedingly high on my list was the Funny Face drink mix article.

Hadn’t thought about those characters since I was chugging the stuff back in the mid-Sixties, but your article brought them all back… even aspects I didn’t know, such as the additional merchandise and the duration of the run the product had. I’d have mistakenly guessed far less. Brilliant marketing. Colorful, fun characters to give the product a personality enticing to kids. Plus, a catchy theme song. So, a treat to revisit.

As anticipated, enjoyed the Irwin Allen material (aside from the dismissive title). Of course, Lost in Space, especially the first season, is and was my favorite. Had I known it’d be available on Blue-ray, 50 years later, it wouldn’t have been so traumatic missing an episode during the original airings.

Loved the LIS trading card and Robot toy boxes shown. Remember those. More interesting than that Robot toy, when I saw it in a store, was the color image of the actors in their first-season costumes. So cool.

Super-impressed with the Land of the Giants caricature you found. Never saw that before.

Land of the Giants seemed like Lost in Space without the monsters.

It’s fun watching DVDs of Voyage [to the Bottom of the Sea], Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants to see props, costumes, and especially actors that appeared on LIS. The Aquaman article interested me on an ironic tangent, one I’d not heard of prior. That is, DC sued Filmation over Manta and Moray.

Like Aquaman himself wasn’t indebted to the earlier Sub-Mariner?

That happened in various articles throughout the issue. I’d see a side tangent that generated more interest than the overall topic.

Example: In the middle of the SeaMonkeys article, you hit on X-ray Spex. Got a laugh out of seeing them in the package. A first. Knew they had to be a fake. But kids learn the hard way. Like when I bought a “skeleton” through a mail-order offer. I discovered “lifelike” and “life-size” were two different things.

Example: The [Spider-Man and Hulk] toilet paper article wasn’t to my interest, but I sure enjoyed the unseen Marie Severin Not Brand Echh-like rendition of the Marvel heroes.

I realize you have to include material that ties in with current interest (Aquaman) or anniversaries (Superman movie). No problem.

It’s just I seem to better enjoy the timeless or

more period-specific material (more often than not, the Sixties). I don’t begrudge later fans their Atari nostalgia. I just don’t share it.

Still, it’s a mix. If I don’t care for one article, maybe the next one will be of greater interest. I know, going in, not every topic will connect.

I would like to see some old TV stars given coverage. Even if there’s no tie-in value, maybe a interview would still be possible. Names? The surviving LIS cast, Larry Storch, Barbara Feldon, Smothers Brothers, Burt Ward, etc.

How about an article on the Sixties Hanna-Barbera Fantastic Four cartoon? Always wondered who did the voices of the various villains.

Anyway, it’s all a balancing act and you’re three for three.

JOE FRANK Having a mix of subjects allows us to stick our toe into a lot of waters, Joe. I doubt there’s a mainstream, non-genre magazine where every article is read by or strikes a chord with every reader. But with RetroFan, as you’re discovering, even if a topic might not interest you at first, upon reading it you’ll learn something you didn’t know.

We will continue to feature interviews with celebrities, at least one per issue. There’s a lot of Larry Storch love in RetroFan Land: the Celebrity Crushes and Jason of Star Command articles this issue, the original Ghost Busters feature next issue, and in RetroFan #7, a new, exclusive Q&A with Mr. Storch. Also coming: interviews with Butch Patrick (#6), Jaclyn Smith (#7), the Cowsills and June Lockhart (#8), and Captain Nice himself, William Daniels (#9). And there will be many more to come!

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: Are you too square to solve me?

THE RUBIK’S CUBE CRAZE

Fall 2019 No. 6 $8.95

Tune in to

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The ORIGINAL

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“I Was a Teenage James Bond!” • “My Life in the Twilight Zone!” • Pinball Wizardry & more!

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Svengoolie © Weigel Broadcasting Co. Ghost Busters © Filmation. Naugas © Uniroyal Engineered Products, LLC.

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by Scott Saavedra

Have you seen me?

StAR WARBBLes

ALL THIS PLUS: LATEST FAD! TV Dinner Musical Theater

TARZAN SWINGS! Lord Greystoke’s Big Band Debut

rics to THX 1138 Ly st Lo s ng Si s ca Lu ge or Ge E: IV EXCLUS

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Soundtrack!

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!

#6 interviews 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! #7 features a JACLYN SMITH interview, reopens the CHARLIE’S ANGELS CASEBOOK, and visits the Guinness World Records’ largest CHARLIE’S ANGELS collection. Plus: an exclusive interview with funnyman LARRY STORCH, THE LONE RANGER in Hollywood, The DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the LAND OF OZ, the ultra-rare MARVEL WORLD superhero playset, and more!

SHIPS DECEMBER 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!

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