RetroFan #8 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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April 2020 No. 8 $9.95

The

COWSILLS JUNE LOCKHART interview

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ER EISN RD AWAINEE! M NO

43 The crazy cool culture we

grew up with

CONTENTS Issue #8 April 2020

Columns and Special Features

Departments

Retro Music Meet the Cowsills

Retrotorial

Too Much TV Quiz

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Honey West, the Private Eyeful

Celebrity Crushes

Retro Television June Lockhart interview

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! The Bedrock Chronicles

Super Collector Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman Collectibles by Terry Haney

Retro Travel The Popeye Picnic – Chester, Illinois

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria Mars Attacks

RetroFad The Smiley Face

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Getting MAD in the Seventies

RetroFanmail

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings ElectraWoman and DynaGirl

Bonus Interview Bionic Woman writer Kenneth Johnson

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ #8, April 2020. Published bimonthly 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. Six-issue subscriptions: $67 Economy US, $101 International, $27 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cowsills “now” photograph by Charles Bush. Six Million Dollar Man © Universal Television. ElectraWoman and DynaGirl © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions. Mars Attacks ® & © The Topps Company, Inc. MAD magazine © EC Publications. The Flintstones © Hanna-Barbera Productions. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2020 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Shaun Clancy Michael Eury Ernest Farino Terry Haney Rod Labbe Andy Mangels Brian K. Morris Will Murray Scott Saavedra Jerry Smith Scott Shaw! DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Debbie Brooks Charles Bush EC Publications, Inc. DC Comics Mark Evanier Hake’s Auctions Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. Heritage Auctions Mark Thomas McGee Bill Mumy Matthew Rettenmund Rose Rummel-Eury Squire Rushnell The Topps Company, Inc. Pete Von Sholly VERY SPECIAL THANKS Sergio Aragonés Bob Cowsill Paul Cowsill Susan Cowsill Kenneth Johnson June Lockhart Judy Strangis

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RetroFan

April 2020

I never met a flower girl, much less love one, but man, did I love the Cowsills’ music when I was a kid! I still do! The Sixties’ most outasite family band, the Cowsills, from Newport, Rhode Island, became a sensation with their 1967 single, “The Rain, the Park and Other Things.” They were clean cut and wholesome, looking like the family next door—why, their first album’s jacket even opened up to reveal a super-sized photo of the Cowsill brood at the kitchen table! For the next few years, the Cowsills were everywhere: on stage, on the charts (“We Can Fly,” “Indian Lake,” “Hair,” and more), on Ed Sullivan and other variety shows, in teen zines, and hawking milk and other products. At times you could even hear them without seeing them, thanks to their vocals on the themes for the movie The Impossible Years and the TV series Love, American Style. These real-life singing siblings—with their mom and little sis as part of the group—even inspired TV’s The Partridge Family (whose studio-created sound also appropriated the Cowsills’ cheerful harmonies), and under other circumstances might’ve actually starred in that musical sitcom themselves. But it turns out that behind the scenes, the home life of my favorite family band wasn’t always as happy as their music… and as quickly as they became superstars, the Cowsills seemed to disappear. In his “Meet the Cowsills” interviews leading off this issue, Rod Labbe—who first appeared in our pages with RetroFan #5’s TV dinners article—gets comfy with Bob, Paul, and Susan Cowsill as they open up about their fame, music, home life, and legacy, which continues to this day with concert tours and amazing new music. And while we’re in the family spirit, this ish we welcome one of TV’s most beloved mothers, June Lockhart, the delightful Lassie and Lost in Space matriarch extraordinaire, in an interview. A few other celebs also drop by in other articles: DynaGirl herself, Judy Strangis; Six Million Dollar Man creator Kenneth Johnson; and MAD’s maddest artist, Sergio Aragonés! Between our regular columnists firing on all cylinders to our guest contributors swinging by with bonus features, this issue might be our best yet! What could be better? How about two more issues of RetroFan a year? That’s right, with this issue we are now published bimonthly (that’s every other month for the calendar-impaired)! Your enthusiastic support of our first seven issues has encouraged our fearless leader, publisher John Morrow, to increase our frequency. So whether you subscribe or pick us up online, at Barnes & Noble, or at your friendly neighborhood comic shop, thank you! And tell your friends. We can never have too many fellow RetroFans. So kick off your sandals, plop down on your beanbag chair, and get ready for another groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with.

RETRO MUSIC

Cowsills Meet the

Bob, Paul, and Susan! by Rod Labbe

It’s early August, 1968, and mom is driving us to our local shopping center, the Elm Plaza. My younger sister’s lost in 16 Magazine. “Must be a groovy article,” I comment from the front seat. “You’re hardly blinking.” She looks up. “I’m reading about the Cowsills. Gonna buy their single today, at Grant’s.” “What’s a Cowsill? And what single?” I wanted to know, since I’d more than likely be hearing it day in and day out. “‘Indian Lake.’ They had an outasite record last year, too, called ‘The Rain, the Park and Other Things.’ Paula played it for us at my slumber party.” “They’re some new rock group?” “Yeah. A family of boys. Their mother, Barbara, and kid sister, Susan, are in the band, too. Ugh. I hate Susan’s guts.” Now this intrigued me. “Really! Why the hate?” “Because she’s my age and gets to sing with all these hunky guys, and that’s what I wanna do. How does she rate? I can shake a

tambourine just as good, and my dancin’ ain’t bad, neither.” “Either. The proper word is either.” “Pfft! Leave me alone.” “Wellll,” I drawled, playing devil’s advocate, “Susan’s in 16, so she’s already famous, right up there with Bobby Sherman and Davy Jones. You’re unknown. As for her brothers…”

(ABOVE) Paul, Susan, and Bob Cowsill in a 2019 promotional photo. Photo by Danny Clinch. Courtesy of Bob Cowsill. (ABOVE INSET) Louise Palanker’s documentary Family Band, released in 2011 and originally aired on Showtime, revealed the Cowsills’ bright moments and dark secrets. © 2011 Thinking Bee Productions. (LEFT) “You take a bus marked ‘Lakewood Drive,’ and you keep on riding till you’re out of the city”… but the Cowsills’ popular single “Indian Lake” could be found in various pressings, with photo sleeves. © MGM.

RetroFan

April 2020

RETRO music

Meet the Cowsills, in a family pic that made the Sixties teen-zine circuit: (BACK ROW) Richard (Dickie), John, Bob, Paul. (FRONT ROW) Bill (Billy), Susan, Bud (Dad), Barbara (Mom), Barry.

Bob Cowsill

Back in Time, There’s a Place I Remember… “Shut up. Ma, make Ronnie stop buggin’ me.” “Ronnie, stop bugging your sister.” “Ooookaaay.” Judy did indeed buy “Indian Lake” by the Cowsills that day, and as predicted, played the thing constantly. I remember dancing to those infectious harmonies in our big living room and even lip-synching, using a paper towel tube as a faux microphone. Suddenly, my sister’s bedroom was festooned with pin-ups of the Cowsill boys, with Barry being her favorite. No pix of Susan, natch! Her Cowsill fervor continued, right into 1969 and beyond. “Hair,” a monster hit for the band and something far removed from “Indian Lake’s” pop sheen, scored their best sales yet. I could tell my fan-struck sibling felt a wee bit subversive buying the 45 RPM single, as if she was somehow contributing to America’s anti-war movement. “Hair’s” layered vocals cemented the Cowsills’ place in modern rock history. Their commercial hooks may have been sister Susan and their miniskirted mom, but what legitimized this singing family from Newport, Rhode Island, was the performing brothers, musically gifted and adept at any instrument, style, or beat. 1969 became 1970, and by year’s end, the Cowsills had vanished from the Top 40 landscape. Despite hit records galore and a bright future, they’d simply imploded. Fame is a harsh mistress… and coupled with internal turmoil, the road ahead is oftentimes bleak and treacherous. Only true warriors navigate it. Ask Bob Cowsill. He knows. About a year back, I saw a clip in my Facebook feed from Louise Palanker’s Family Band: The Cowsills Story (2011). What’s this? A documentary? I’d read somewhere that the Cowsills had never stopped making music. Three brothers, Bill, Dickie, and Barry (a casualty of Hurricane Katrina), had passed away, and John took off for a different musical horizon as the drummer for the Beach Boys. This might be a good time to reconnect and on a personal level. One speedy order to Amazon, and the DVD arrived. I popped it into my player and was mesmerized. Bob’s evocative intro set an intimate tone. Watching, listening, and learning, I realized we were approximately the same age and grew up together in the same tumultuous time period. Most importantly—and I can’t emphasize this enough—we’d survived. I needed to interview these people. It wouldn’t be easy, logistically, but I was a determined lad. Full speed ahead, pedal to the metal, and my goals were met. All three of the performing Cowsills (Bob, Paul, and Sue, currently doing the yearly Happy Together tour) found time to “spill the tea” with yours truly. What you’re about to enjoy is the ideal companion piece to Family Band, and it’s right here, in RetroFan.

RetroFan

April 2020

RetroFan: Tell us about your early days, Bob, and leave no stone unturned! Bob Cowsill: [laughs] Okay! In terms of playing music, I started young. Bill was eight, I was seven, and one day, Dad returned home from an overseas Navy trip with two four-string guitars. And they were not ukuleles! This was our introduction to playing and creating music. Jack Johnson, a friend of my father’s, taught us some chords. Our fingers were little, but we had energy, desire, and enthusiasm, and from the time Dad gave us those guitars, Bill and I just never stopped playing. During my sixth grade, we did a local TV show called Spotlight on Talent, one of the early talent competition programs, with host Gene Carroll. That was in Canton, Ohio, where we were living. Bill and I wore little charcoal suits and sang Baby Blue. I told my classmates, “Hey, I’m gonna be on TV,” and we got beaten by a magician. Man! Hard to live that one down, especially at age 12. Besides playing guitar, we became interested in harmonizing. We idolized the Everly Brothers, and our little “girl” voices blended beautifully. Bill could even sing “Where the Boys Are,” and he sounded just like Connie Francis [laughs]. That emerged from a great training ground; we were all in a 50-member choir at our church, St. Joseph’s, in Newport, Rhode Island. Before Mass began, we’d all march in, accompanied by a huge, majestic pipe organ. It sent chills down my spine. RF: Weren’t you singing as a duo, for gigs? BC: That we were, like playing at Boys Club dances. My solo was “Traveling Man,” made famous by Ricky Nelson. We’d watch The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet [ABC,

RETRO music

1952–1966], just to see the part where Ricky sang. I wanted to study his technique. By then, we’d moved to Newport. RF: Newport’s an island, isn’t it? BC: It is, and to us, the outside world seemed far away. Our only connection was television, movies, and the records we bought. A lot of records! We tried to figure out how to do things by observing and mimicking. Nowadays, people go to YouTube for tutorials, but Billy and I learned the hard way. RF: For a while, you guys were swept up by the folk music craze. BC: Around 1961, ’62, yeah. Folk music caught our attention, and Billy and I began performing at hootenannies. Those were lengthy evenings of folk music that had tons of verses. We wore red-and-whitestriped shirts, with white pants. Folk music occupied our time up until the Beatles came out and changed the world. RF: Ah, what didn’t the Beatles change? They were truly a cultural phenomenon! BC: Everything changed for us! Music selection, stage presence, how to perform, what to wear, our demeanor and attitude… all of it. When Barry turned eight, we added him as a drummer first and played as a trio for a while. Then we learned about bass guitar. We moved Barry to bass and put John on drums. He’d just turned seven. So we had our “Beatle-y” foursome and were ready to go. RF: Like me, I’m sure you guys glued yourselves to the tube when they played on The Ed Sullivan Show. BC: For three consecutive Sundays! They performed 12 songs, and in those days, you didn’t have DVRs and videos; what you saw, you committed to memory. My brothers and I were like sponges, soaking up how they played, how they stood, how they sang. From that moment on, Bill, Barry, John, and I sounded like the Beatles. Not a tribute band, per se, but there was no denying our muse. New prospects opened up. We started playing in a local club in Newport called Dorian’s, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, Bill and I would play

our folk music. And around that time, the entire family took part in a big act held at King’s Park. I can’t recall how or why we got involved, but I assume Dad put something together. All of us played and sang, including our mother and our brothers, Richard [Dickie] and Paul. RF: And so the British Invasion commenced. BC: What a remarkable time in popular music! Not just British singers and bands, but here in the States, too. The Mamas and Papas, the Byrds—nothing else like them. Lots of excitement and creativity, and we were right in the middle of it. RF: Anybody discover you? BC: That happened at Dorian’s, in 1964. We’re playing, and two people from The Today Show saw us. They said, “Oh, my God, look at those four adorable brothers!” It got us 20 minutes on the show, which led to a recording contract with Johnny Nash. You remember him, the “I Can See Clearly Now” guy? We knew Johnny as the lead singer for the Hercules cartoon show theme song [laughs]! Johnny saw our segment and signed us to his label, Joda Records. This was in 1965. Joda’s acts were primarily black, and we went into a studio and did some demos. The writers were black, the musicians were black, and we’re the only white boys there. It was soul music, Motown stuff, and Bill and I were in Heaven. We fell in love with Johnny and the whole operation. Unfortunately, our record stiffed! RF: What’s the title? BC: “All I Really Wanta Be is Me.” Catchy tune, but our time had yet to come. WPRO put it in a contest against another new release. The night came, and it was the first time we’d ever heard ourselves sing on the radio. Man, it was just incredible. We stacked the deck with our friends and relatives, getting them to call in and vote! The ploy worked.

BC: Only a little ditty by Simon and Garfunkel called “Sounds of Silence”! RF: What? Come on! You’re pulling my leg. BC: [laughs] Have you ever seen That Thing You Do, the Tom Hanks film? About a music promoter who discovers an unknown rock band and gets them airplay? If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was based on our lives. Hanks caught it with so much authenticity. We lived that exact thing, except in our case, the record tanked, and we were dropped. RF: Not the happiest of developments, but this was only the beginning. BC: We had momentum, slight as it might be. Mercury Records signed us next. I’m in the 11th grade and thinking,

(ABOVE) Publicity photo from 1967 of the Cowsills receiving a gold record for their first hit single, “The Rain, the Park and Other Things.” Making the presentation is MGM Records President Mort Nasatir. (BELOW) Two of the group’s earliest singles. Record photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RF: What was the other song? Something obscure?

RetroFan

April 2020

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“Okay, our label just dropped us, and our record bombed, so I’m gonna lay low and not make any predictions about this one.” At Mercury, we were assigned to Artie Kornfeld, staff producer. Artie was 22, maybe 23, and not too jazzed about working with a family group. Once he got to know us, however, Artie realized our commitment. He became our George Martin! RF: He taught you the fundamentals? BC: Yes, and what an excellent teacher! His kindness and support were invaluable. With Artie, we put out three records. Two flopped, but one, “Most of All,” went to #112 on Billboard, before stalling and dying. That we had even made the charts was impressive! Even with increased airplay and chart activity, Mercury dropped us… but that was okay, because Artie had faith in our talent. So strongly, in fact, he quit Mercury, too! RF: Artie wrote your first hit, “The Rain, the Park and Other Things.” BC: Otherwise known as the “Flower Girl” song. Artie composed it with his partner, Steve Duboff. They took us into the studio again, we made this great track, and applied the vocals. RF: You had a record label interested? BC: Nope! No record deal. After we’d finished, the powers that be—my dad, for sure—thought Mom would be just what the group needed to set it apart. Bill and I were like, “This is the kiss of death.” A typical teenager’s response. Even Artie was against it. Singing and playing with your mom? Oh, God. Back into the studio we went, to do her vocals. She’s so afraid, her knees are knocking. Finally I had to stand behind her, and we sang the part together. That’s me and Mom doubling the high melody, “I love the flower girl” part. RF: You were signed to a long-term contract with MGM soon afterwards. The pendulum was swinging! BC: MGM bought us lock, stock, and barrel. Meanwhile, I graduated that

RetroFan

April 2020

As far as 16 Magazine readers were concerned, the Cowsills were America’s First Family of the late Sixties. 16 © Primedia.

June [1967], and “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” takes off the following autumn. Our band was evolving, growing from four to include Mom and seven year-old Sue, who was just a bundle of energy. Paul joined the group, too, as “Mr. Soul Man.” In those early days, if we wanted to take audiences up a notch, Paul would come out wearing a white suit. We’d introduce him as our “soul brother,” and he’d lead the audience in singing “Mickey’s Monkey”! A great performer. RF: Signing with a major, and you’re barely out of high school. Awesome! BC: Unbelievable. Although we’d been dropped by two labels previously and had three flops in a row, this seemed like something special. MGM put us on a promotional tour, with dates at MGM conventions across the country. That’s when things started moving. Our song jumped on Billboard and Cashbox at #89, with a red bullet. Time to ride that bullet right up to Number One! We heard it while touring. What a thrill! The Cowsills had a smash record! RF: It propelled you right up to #1 in Cashbox and #2 on Billboard. BC: A million-selling hit record, and we’re suddenly the #1 family band in America. We’re doing TV variety hours, like Kraft Music Hall, The Johnny Cash Show, and Hollywood Palace—you name it, and we’re there. NBC gave us our own special, gueststarring Buddy Ebsen, and the teen mags loved us! RF: 16 Magazine was my first introduction to the Cowsills. Summer of ’68. BC: Tiger Beat and 16 embraced us because of Barry and John, just so cute and innocent. Those magazines were the go-to place for information about our family,

what the band was doing, the whole nine yards. Gloria Stavers ruled as gatekeeper at 16, and we hit it off with her instantly. All of that helped market our image, for better or for worse. We were right there in Gloria’s wheelhouse, on covers and in issue after issue. We rode that bullet, man! RF: Tell us about The Ed Sullivan Show. BC: CBS broadcast The Ed Sullivan Show live Sunday nights at 8 o’clock. Everyone—and I mean everyone—had dreams of gueststarring on Ed’s show. In those days, there were only four stations: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. We were signed to a one-million

THE PIED PIPER OF WOODSTOCK Musician-turned-record producer Artie Kornfeld produced some of the Cowsills’ earliest records, including “The Rain, the Park and Other Things,” which he also co-wrote. He is best known as the man behind 1969’s epic Woodstock concerts, and shares his story in his book, The Pied Piper of Woodstock, available at www.artiekornfeld-woodstock.com.

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dollar, ten-show deal. Biggest ever, bigger than the Beatles. Ed just loved us. RF: So why’d you make only two appearances? BC: During one performance, Bill’s microphone went dead. This was live television. Dad freaked out and got in to an intense argument with Ed’s son-in-law, the show’s producer Bob Precht, and Ed took the other eight back. RF: I’ve seen clips, and you all had such a professional manner. John rocked it hardcore on the drums. No butterflies? BC: By that time, we’d been performing for eight years. I was ten when I did our

The Cowsills helped make Ed Sullivan a “really big show.” The Ed Sullivan Show ©

CBS/Sullivan Productions.

first gig! So, no, I didn’t have butterflies, not during the first episode. I was nervous during the Ed Sullivan Christmas show, though! We’re singing Christmas carols, and I had “Sleigh Ride.” Except I was having trouble remembering the bridge—the part about Currier and Ives. God, I was panicking, and if you look closely, you can see cold terror in my eyes. RF: I never would’ve suspected. You looked like you’re having a ball. BC: It been years, but I’ve never forgotten that cold feeling of approaching doom. Remember, we were singing live— nobody lip-synched. The kids all did well, considering that pressure. Susan, bless her heart, was a natural.

RF: 1969 was the height of your career as MGM hated the song because it didn’t a group? fit the Cowsills’ accepted template. One BC: Yes, 1969. We had our biggest of those radio stations held a hit with “Hair” and also little contest. If listeners recorded the theme song to guessed the group ABC’s Love, American Style singing “Hair,” they’d for a season. Whatever win a mug and a T-shirt. my father got involved Nobody could, and with withered on the vine, demand grew and grew. and Love, American Style MGM decided to release was no exception. Even our it, after all, and it shot up © ABC. milk commercials lasted only a the charts. Our biggest seller! year. People just did not want to deal with him. We were going to be a summer RF: Not long afterward, Bill was forced replacement for The Carol Burnett Show, out of the group, and your direction and Dad demanded 30,000 bucks up front, floundered. for an old Navy buddy. They wouldn’t give BC: It went like this: We were getting it to him, and he walked out. That was the ready for a big tour, and Dad had found end of our summer replacement series. pot remnants in Bill’s car. “Okay, into the living room!” he barked, and we all RF: According to Family Band, “Hair” went. In a military family, you didn’t almost fell into your lap! talk back, you obeyed. So, we’re sitting BC: You wouldn’t believe how we came to around, and Dad tells us what he record that song. Carl Reiner, the famous found. “When people don’t follow the writer and comic—he’d created The Dick rules, there are consequences.” Bill was Van Dyke Show [which you read about in officially out of the group and out of our pages last issue—ed.]—was putting our family, too. together a TV special for NBC called The Thinking back, that decision Wonderful World of Pizzazz [broadcast ended the Cowsills. Bill and I had been March 18, 1969], starring Michele Lee. We together since we were boys, so to have were asked to do a bit involving wigs. Just that jarring, horrible disruption… well, a funny little comedy segment, where the there was no fixing it. kids and Mom would model wigs while lipsynching to “Hair.” RF: Was there any time for fine-tuning before the tour? RF: From the Broadway musical Hair. BC: None. We boarded a plane, and Odd choice for a family band tagged as now we’re six, not seven. Our leader’s lightweight. missing. I took over Bill’s parts and BC: Exactly why it appealed to us. pulled it off with some DNA help. Listening to the cast album, Bill and Paul took over my parts, and so on I agreed the song had strong vocal down. We were scrambling! Wherever possibilities. We took it into the studio, we performed after that, I felt Bill’s just the guys—without Mom or Susan absence. You can’t cut out the heart and to start, and nobody from our record expect the body to live. Our chemistry company—and laid down the basic track. had been messed with by Dad. He Other than our first release on Joda, we’d fired Artie Kornfeld, too, followed by never played our own instruments, but this [producer] Wes Ferrell. time, we did the entire thing ourselves. At that stage of our careers, we’d had a few RF: Wow. A genuine derailment. hits, but nothing out of our comfort zone. BC: You said it. Derailed and headed for Your mindset is different as a younger disaster. person; you want to be creative because you can. That’s how we were. RF: Jumping ahead, your newer music While on tour, we carted the acetate of is just beautifully done. “Some Good “Hair” from radio station to radio station.

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Years” is an affecting testament to youth told from an older perspective. BC: “Some Good Years” originally started out as a tribute to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was retiring, and back then, they’d do an overview of someone’s career on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, with an appropriate song playing in the background. And since I’m a fan, I wrote “Some Good Years” for Kareem. As time went by, we didn’t get anything to him. I can’t tell you how many plans go awry [laughs]! Eventually, I turned it inward, changed the lyrics, and made them more applicable to us. A Beach Boys kind of tune. That song and two others—“Is It Any Wonder” and “She Said to Me”— led to Global, our then-newest album and the best we’ve ever done, to date. But this is the Cowsills we’re talking about, and if something can go wrong, it will. RF: Global is sublime. What lured you into the studio again? BC: I was doing a lot of writing, solo and with my wife, and that led to the new album. Things had changed considerably since our heyday. We released Global on our own label, when social media was just taking off. It appeared on YouTube and all over the web. Sales are consistent, and they’re still growing. A validation, coming on the heels of Cocaine Drain, which was a serious album project and not about

drugs, by the way [laughs]! Since it never got released, we took the bull by his horns and put Global out there ourselves. RF: Which brings me back to Family Band, the documentary. All of your hits were covered, the rise, the crest of success and drawbacks of fame. The afterword struck me as sketchy… once your dad’s abuses were revealed, focus veered off and concentrated on him, rather than what made you guys musical pioneers. BC: Good call. The trick about Family Band is this: It was, more or less, an accurate account of what went on in families back then. I had friends whose dads were just as bad as mine. Our parents grew up with the Depression and World War II as backdrops. That meant severe economic challenges, people out of work, homeless and starving. It would do a number on just about anyone. We didn’t need to worry about where the next meal was coming from—we were a Navy family, a military operation, and pulled our weight. RF: But with the documentary obsessing on Bud, your dad, your story stopped dead in its tracks. BC: True, it did. In a way, the documentary turned out to be about an almost fictional band, and what we had was an exercise in survival and forgiveness. The music took a back seat, and to me, our story is the music—we weren’t defined by the situation with our father.

RF: What’s most shocking is how quickly your earlier career crumbled. Almost overnight. BC: With Bill out, the die was cast. You’re on top one minute, and Pow! The next, you’re down for the count. RF: You and Bill were a team since childhood. I’d assume not seeing him was a bitter pill to swallow. BC: It was, Rod. The separation from Billy ruined some of us. The money dried up, and we owed the IRS a bundle—a real, honest to God mess. Barry was sent spinning into a dismal life—things happened to him that weren’t good. And just when he’d decided to make a change, Hurricane Katrina took him from us. My twin brother, Richard, also went down a challenging and unforgiving road, and we lost Dickie, too. None of us saw Billy for years after that. He’d gotten into drugs, alcohol, you name it. Just terrible. RF: Yet, you survived. Personally, I mean. BC: I had children and responsibilities, and that tends to get your attention. Giving in to despair was not an option. I was grounded in my response to all of it and tried not to flounder. RF: Louise Palanker, a fan from way back, was the driving force behind Family Band. How were those dots connected? BC: Friday nights for 28 years, I played at a local pub, and one night, a woman in the audience said, “Hi, I’m an old fan of

Veteran MAD magazine cartoonist Jack Davis illustrated the family on the front and back album covers of 1969’s The Best of the Cowsills. © MGM.

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yours and would love to do a documentary about your family!” I thought, Okay, like we’re going to do that! But she was relentless and just would not leave me alone [laughs]! Finally, I met with her, and we talked. I listened and said, I’ll run this by my brothers and sister. Bill, Richard, and Barry were still living, and we made the decision to do it.

Didja know that the Cowsills had their own comic book? Harvey Pop Comics #1 (Nov. 1968). Ernie Colón is the suspected cover artist.

There’s a heartbeat to it that’s real. How can people in their 60s and 70s enjoy what we’re doing, unless these songs aren’t the best songs to come down the pike? Think about it. They want to hear “The Rain, the Park and Other Things.” They want to get up out of their seats and dance to “Hair” and “Indian Lake.” And we deliver!

RF: A straightforward documentary, chronicling the band’s rise, fall, and resurgence? BC: Yeah. At first, filming moved in a linear fashion: our early years, the musical influences, etc. But once Dad entered the picture, it’s no longer the Cowsills as a creative entity, but a story of how this man abused us. We were disturbed by it, to the point where we just stopped and walked away. RF: Just zip, project’s over? BC: That’s right. We’d seen some promotional material, and it was almost like they were making a horror movie. Our version of Mommie Dearest! No way did we want to go down that rabbit hole. Louise agreed, and filming stopped for two years. RF: But you went back and finished. BC: We’d been discussing it, and leaving Louise in the lurch wasn’t the right thing to do. So, after a few adjustments, we got on board again. There was enough footage shot to make two documentaries! Family Band played on Showtime, multiple times a day. In the interim, we’ve lost three brothers, and that hasn’t been easy. Death and departure never are. RF: Let’s address what happened to Barbara, your mom, since she kinda disappears from the documentary. BC: She stayed with Dad, and that put a big space between us. Mom started suffering from what had been done to her children and the fact that she seemed powerless to stop it. The family was breaking up. Let’s face it, she didn’t want to be in this singing group! But because Dad wanted it, Mom went along. I’ve no doubt my parents loved one another. Bottom line, they were too young to have seven kids, and neither one of them knew how to parent effectively.

RF: Bud helped open doors that might’ve remained closed, so some good was accomplished. BC: Very true. He’d do crazy things. One time, he drove us to Brown University, and we got permission to plug in and play out on the lawn. Dad passed around business cards, and soon, we were performing at frat parties and appearing in teenage nightclubs that were all the rage. In 1966, when we started the club scene, that’s when things took off. Dad took notice and said, “You kids are pretty decent! Look at these children of ours, they’re doing something that keeps them inside the house! Get them an amplifier, get them a bass guitar!” RF: Do you remember your first gig? BC: Sure do. A women’s luncheon, when we were 12 and 11. They paid us ten bucks apiece! It was profound, Rod. Might as well have been 1,000 bucks. What, we can get money for this? Unreal! RF: And now, you’re better than ever! You never get bored, singing the same songs over and over? BC: Never. We’re enthusiastic and up, and that energy comes out at every performance.

RF: You strike me as a contented soul, Bob. Have you reached a level of satisfaction? BC: Satisfaction’s a good word. As I grow ever older, I do see trouble brewing. Thirty years ago, there was still a feeling of adventure and pursuit left over from the Sixties. It’s gone, now, and I’m afraid for our future. The younger generation isn’t involved, they’re unaware. When I was 18, kids were facing serious issues, like Vietnam and Civil Rights. It’s important not to forget what’s come before. RF: You know, we’ve neglected to touch upon The Partridge Family connection. Care to share? BC: Be glad to. In 1970, Screen Gems approached us with an idea about a sitcom based on our band. We were still touring and felt a situation comedy wasn’t a good fit. All the same, they met with us, to get the “feel” of our family. Bill, Paul, and I were too old, but they loved Susan, Barry, and John. The real sticking point was Mom. Screen Gems conceived The Partridge Family as a Shirley Jones vehicle, and Dad didn’t like that. He refused to have anything to do with the project unless Mom was cast. They ended up taking the basic idea of a mother joining her family’s rock band, and I’m sure our fans could tell it was based on the Cowsills. Even had a #1 single, “I Think I Love You,” with David Cassidy and Shirley Jones on vocals and studio musicians backing

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(LEFT) The great pretenders: Yes, we think we love the Partridge Family (and David Cassidy’s hair), but fate almost brought the original family band, the Cowsills, to the small screen each week. © Sony Pictures Television. (BELOW LEFT) Got milk? The Cowsills sure did, in a popular ad campaign for the American Dairy Association. © American Dairy Association.

side, a cappella, and the other, 12 new songs. It’s called Rhythm of the World, for a 2020 release. We’ve also added a new team member to the Cowsills, Executive Producer Dr. Rock Positano. Google this guy, seriously!

them up. Today, we perform that song in honor of their legacy. David was a multi-talented musician, and he’s what made The Partridge Family shine. So tragic that he passed away… our world lost a good one when David went. RF: I saw the A&E documentary about him, David Cassidy: The Last Session. Hard to take. That poor guy really suffered. BC: I know. My thoughts are with his loved ones. RF: The 2019 touring season has just ended, and I’ve been hearing rumblings of a new Cowsills album. Truth or fiction? BC: For an “oldies” band from the Sixties, we have a lot going on right now. We tour all winter with our family band and summers are spent doing Happy Together. We’ve also continued to write and record songs and will be finishing a double album—one

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RF: Doc Rock’s now the engine powering all things “Cowsill”? BC: More capable hands cannot be found. After the collapse of Pledge Music, the album-funding campaign we’d started under their banner died, too. Rock stepped up to the plate, not only for the Cowsills, but for our fans. It’s important that each person who pledged understands their money is safe, and once our album’s done, all the free CDs and signed memorabilia will be forwarded to everybody who’s ordered. RF: Your paths crossing is cool serendipity! BC: Thank social media for that. Rock’s love for the Cowsills goes way back to the Sixties and early Seventies. While teaching at Brown University, he discovered Newport, Rhode Island, only to find out that his favorite childhood band hailed from there. Rock felt it was destiny that we’d work together, and I agree. We’re honored that he’s our Executive Producer. RF: Can you say soaring? Yep, 2020’s gonna be the Cowsills’ year. The stars are aligned, so go for it, bro. BC: Soaring would be nice [laughs]. More fun than crashing! RF: Phew! We’ve reached the end of what can only be described as epic. I need me a Gatorade, quick! Thanks, Bob, ol’ chum, for the honor of your presence. RetroFan’s readers will love this.

BC: I’ve enjoyed going over Cowsill memories with you. Your next task is to track down Paul and Susan. When you’re done interviewing them, we’ll discuss the future. Who knows, Rod, this might lead to something bigger than all of us!

Paul Cowsill

A Measure of Happiness Paul Cowsill just doesn’t casually sashay into a room, he bursts in like the Tasmanian Devil, cyclone whirling, arms and legs flying. I found that out for myself when we met for this interview! His personality is so utterly engaging, you can’t help but be swept up by the sheer, unbridled energy of it. Encountering a celebrity who not only wants to talk but takes an active interest in giving you the best material EVAH is a rare treat. Today, married and the father of two grown boys, Paul has lost none of his youthful energy… and energy makes for a great interview. Subject matter covered was sometimes painful, but Paul didn’t hold back. Listening to him, watching him, I realized just how important the human spirit is—how it can move mountains and heal old wounds and propel us into the realm of dreams. With that said, I’ll let Paul take things from here… RetroFan: You’re very upbeat, Paul. I like that. Paul Cowsill: I am as upbeat as anyone can get. My wife, LouAnn, and I run a hay farm in central Oregon, and moving up there was the best thing I could’ve ever done. I just wanted to do what I liked and enjoyed. This is it, man. Throw in playing music with my brothers and sister, and it’s pretty satisfying. Personal happiness is what life’s all about, Rod. I’m lucky enough to have found it, because a lot of people just don’t. We’re very lucky, considering. RF: The seclusion is terrific. Just sky and fields and wilderness.

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PC: I love it. We’re so out of the way, my cell phone doesn’t work here [laughs]! At Christmas, there are nephews and nieces, 23 people, gathered on our farm, and all the kids have to climb a big hill to get service. RF: Them’s th’ perks of rural living! PC: Yeah! Funny, but I’m in the process of writing a song about people and their phones. And don’t expect to find me on Facebook. Bob said there was some password I could use to access our Cowsills page, but it’s way too complicated for me to keep all that stuff in my head. Someday, I’ll figure it out, though I don’t know when. I stumbled on there a few times, and it’s great to see so many people talking on it and sharing good memories. RF: Your earlier days as a kid making hit records… does it seem like a dream, Paul? PC: Those crazy early days! Once in a while, I’ll run into people who claim they’ve lived before, as a queen or a slave. Never a garbage collector [laughs]. My sister, Susan, for example, swears she was someone else in a former life. I’m not quite done with this one, yet, but I will say my earlier life was like a dream, what with all the ups and downs and wild rides in between. But I lived and loved that younger life, and it unfolded like something you’d see in a movie. Come on… seven rambunctious kids from Newport, Rhode Island, and we’re cutting records, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, headlining our own TV special, hobnobbing with Johnny Cash, drinking lots of milk, and touring the country? Who wouldn’t think it was a dream? When the Cowsills first started happening, I was 13 and living a normal life, playing Babe Ruth baseball. Touring in a band didn’t interest me, but I still had to go along. I wanted to stay behind and live with a family my parents knew and do sports, but Dad said no. A bus rolled up, we dragged our equipment in, and asked “What about our other stuff?” Dad promised us it would all be sent out. Guess what, it wasn’t. We left Newport the fall of 1966 for an appearance on Soundblast 66, with the Beach Boys, and didn’t return for a long time.

RF: Bill’s expulsion in 1968 dealt a serious blow to the group. PC: Yes, that was bad. None of us recovered; Bill and Bob started the band. We were fractured. RF: Your first night playing live—a baptism of fire? PC: Disastrous! We had a Homecoming gig at Purdue. With Bill gone, Bob had to sing all of Bill’s leads. Dad told him, “Teach that guy how to play keyboards,” meaning me. When we got to Purdue, Bob and I sat behind the piano. “This is your G chord,” he said, but it was really an F. They called all the other chords by different names. Bob was a patient teacher. The songs were written out on sheets, and during our performance, they flew into the orchestra!

drank heavily, which didn’t help, and we were so ragged around the edges. You could almost call us white trash! But Dad kept us in line. We cleaned our rooms, made our beds, and obeyed orders. Or else. If we showed even the slightest attitude, he’d smack us. A belt, a fist, didn’t matter. RF: He kept a tight ship. PC: I’ll say! Bud Cowsill was a career Navy man, we were his recruits, and recruits do what they’re told. We’d walk on eggshells, trying not to upset him. Even my mother, because he abused her, too. He’d give you this look, and the next moment, his fist is connecting with your face. Rod, I was frightened all the time. We were Catholic, and I’d pray It’s a beautiful day for some neighborly tunes! The Cowsills were among the recording artists selected for the album Thank You, Mister Rogers: Music and Memories, a collection of songs written by Fred Rogers, one of America’s most beloved icons. They lead off the collection with their wonderful harmonies on “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” The album was released in October 2019 as a companion to the Tom Hanks-starring Rogers biopic. © Dennis Scott Productions. CD cover courtesy of Bob Cowsill.

RF: I’d laugh, if it weren’t so nerve-jangling. PC: I was losin’ it! And forget about singing and playing at the same time. Impossible! I’d stay late and practice. If it hadn’t been for my brother, Bob, I don’t know what I would’ve done. He had my back, for sure. RF: You’re the middle child of seven. We hear about middle kids being shortchanged. As one myself, I enabled my parents and siblings. You do the same? PC: My duties had to do with the babies. I took care of Susan her whole life, from diapers on up, and John and Barry, too. Mom had all these kids to deal with, and it was a stressful time for her. Our parents

for help. I got into the love and peace thing. After a while, I realized praying wasn’t doing a bit of good. RF: Unanswered prayers are the worst. PC: I viewed it as a betrayal of spirit. What was supposed to be comforting left me empty and abandoned. Still, I wanted my kids to experience the Catholic religion, so they’d have some idea what it was like and could make their own decisions. At Christmas, when they were seven and ten, I took them to Mass. I hadn’t been in decades, and I’m standing in church, happy to return, since I’d lived that life earlier… except now, there’s no Latin. It’s all a bunch of English gibberish. And they do Confession right there, in the

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The family band in 2004, from their Billy Cowsill Benefit held at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Bob, Barry, Paul, Richard, Susan, and John Cowsill. Photo by Randy Bellous. Courtesy of and © Louise Palanker.

pews. No tradition, the priest faces the congregation, and we’re expected to turn to strangers and shake their hands. I’m not shaking hands with people I don’t know! I just looked at my kids, picked them up, and we were out of there. RF: Apparently, the tutorial didn’t work. PC: I told them, “Listen, guys, that’s how the Catholic faith is in the 21st Century. If you’re interested in it or any other religion, keep searching and find your own way.” RF: Good dad advice. PC: Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. Seek and ye shall find. Do it right and don’t have regrets. Above all, learn from your mistakes! Regret ruined my parents. My mother wanted to see a psychiatrist to try to figure out her problems, and she was dying! And my dad attempted to make up to us, but it came across as awkward and unnecessary. RF: Were you ever on the receiving end of abuse? PC: It was inevitable in our house. Some people could deal with Dad, but he screwed us up, mentally, emotionally, philosophically. Physical punishment was part of our daily routine. I’m a father, and when I looked at my own two little guys growing up, I’d think,

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RF: I hesitate to ask, but any memory that’s particularly strong? PC: There’s one I remember when a friend asked me to go to a party with him in Bloomington. We found my dad, and he asked, “Where are you going?” I pointed to the burger joint across the street. “To get a hamburger.” He said, “Okay, but be back early, because you have to perform tomorrow.” Well, we went to the party, and I got in late, around 3 or 4 in the morning. Didn’t drink anything, totally sober. I saw that my parents’ bedroom door was open, and so was mine. And I smelled cigarette smoke. RF: Uh-oh. I’ve a feeling I know where this is going… PC: Dad was drunk and asleep in my bed. I woke him up, trying to make him think he’d made a mistake by being in the wrong room. He looked at me and said, “Do you have anything to say, you piece of sh*t?” Then he beat the living crap out of me, hauling me from wall to wall. My feet never touched the floor. Split my lip and blackened my eyes. Just wailed on me. The next morning, he saw my face and muttered, “You’re not playing tonight.” But I did anyway. Usually, the bruises he gave us were hidden by make-up and stage costumes. RF: Geez, I’m at a loss for words. It’s a miracle you guys survived. PC: We managed… but you can’t undergo that level of physical and emotional abuse without some residual effect. RF: Your dad was gone for six months of the year [with the Navy]. It must’ve felt good, that freedom. PC: Half a year of peace and the rest of pure terror. Our mother would tell him

what rotten kids we’d been, and he’d line us up for corporal punishment. Dude, this was our life! When we lived in Newport, which is a real island, I’d escape to the ocean, paddling a Styrofoam boat out and circling the whole thing. Just being away, safe and secure and happy. RF: Have you come to terms with your childhood? PC: I’ve forgiven our parents, if that’s what you mean—but I’m unable to forget. They were young and lacked the nurturing tools to raise even two kids, let alone seven. The ones who didn’t forgive had their own set of problems. I’ve chosen to feed the positive. What’s done is done… but I’ll tell ya, when I die and get to those pearly gates and see Mom and Dad inside, I’ll turn around and go in the opposite direction [laughs]! RF: Barry had it rough, huh? PC: Barry was a talented man, charming as hell, but he couldn’t overcome his personal demons. He wanted to do serious music and hated the bubblegum label. There’s no denying his abilities, but again, he’d been abused, and that has long-

Photo by Angela Cartwright.

“How can anyone ever hurt someone so innocent?” We were three and four and getting hit. Today, it would be considered child abuse, but back then, parents smacked their children.

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY Original Cowsills drummer John Cowsill, in addition to touring with the Beach Boys, can currently be found alongside his wife, Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles fame), and musician/Lost in Space alumnus Bill Mumy in the group Action Skulls. Learn more about the band at www.billmumy.com/ ActionSkulls.html.

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lasting effects. Barry lived as a vagabond, moving from town to town and couch to couch. Ironically, he made the decision to get clean, right before being caught in Hurricane Katrina. We miss him. And our other two brothers, Billy and Dickie. They’re together on the other side, man. No worries there. RF: When the group disbanded, did you go back to living a normal life? Could you even grasp the concept of “normal”? PC: Our contracts were done, and we had to figure out what to do. When bands break up, some members go solo. Only Billy did that, not the rest of us. I was serving in the Navy. Bob sold all his guitars and finished college and gave up music. He worked at a medical place, cleaning up, and they hired him on as an Emergency Ward technician. After my discharge, I worked as a sound guy and road manager for John Denver, Neil Diamond, and Helen Reddy. Barry, John, and Susan went back to junior high and high school. A rocky transition from the stage to obscurity. RF: Yet, none of that destroyed you. PC: I’m a strong-willed guy, you know? My past would not beat me. It’s today we’re given, and today is what you make it. Don’t let the past hold you down. RF: Since this is a RetroFan interview, Paulie, let’s look at a Baby Boomer touchstone. Where were you when JFK was assassinated? PC: Friday af ternoon, November 22, 1963, a day I won’t easily forget. We were going to have an intramural football game. The gym teacher huddled us together and said, “Sorry, guys. Go home, there’s no game this af ternoon. Just go home.” So, I went home, trudged into our house, and boy, was I pissed. No football! Everybody’s around this little black-andwhite TV, and my brothers look at me and say, “The President’s dead.” I reacted with, “So what? They cancelled my football game!” We were living history and didn’t even realize it. RF: Do you long for your Baby Boomer youth, when history was made?

PC: No, not really. It’s true, I missed out on things, but I still had a great time. We didn’t live like normal kids, but how many teenagers earn gold records [laughs]? All of us have remained close over the years, and when I see my brothers and sister, it’s good. Sue, Bob, and I just came off our fifth Happy Together tour, and we’ll be doing another in 2020. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had with them. RF: I’ve watched Family Band a dozen times. Fascinating stuff. And emotional, too. PC: It ran on Showtime for two years straight. Outstanding exposure. The Cowsills were hot again, and we began performing regularly. RF: Your story gave me insight into how Baby Boomer families worked. Even with the negatives, good memories abounded. PC: We had a great childhood, if you don’t count the abuse. Bob and I are tight—he’s my best friend. We even slept in the same room, as kids! He’d throw me out and then help me move my stuff back inside. [laughs] We really love each other. RF: Any long-term school pals? PC: Nope! I don’t have one friend from school because we moved around so much. We went from Catholic to public school, professional school in New York, and finally, Hollywood professional school. As a junior, I spent 30 days in class and brought home “incompletes” on my report card. You could not take that home to our dad—he’d beat us. No matter if the others had As, if somebody failed, we all got it. RF: Did your relationship with Mom improve? PC: At times, my mother could be delightful, but other times, watch out. Mr. Hyde’s on the loose! I once went with her to the doctor’s, and he started lecturing about smoking and its effects. No sooner were we in the car, she lights up. I said, “Mom, remember the doctor’s warning.” She gave me a dirty look and said, “Mind your own f’n business.” RF: Yeep!

PC: No changing the dynamic. One day, she complained to me, “Why doesn’t anybody ever call us? We never hear from you kids.” “Well,” I answered, “You need to apologize, Mom.” She was flabbergasted. “Apologize! For what?” Neither one of them recognized the awful job they’d done as parents. Both were blind to it. RF: I can hear the sadness in your voice. PC: I’m sad because they didn’t realize what fine kids we were. None of us answered back, had run-ins with the law, or shirked responsibility. We knew and respected the protocol. RF: On a lighter note, you’re exploring new avenues of creative expression with film and television work. Kudos! PC: Management, a movie starring Jennifer Aniston, was being made in Oregon, and I wondered if they needed any painting work done. I’ve run residential and commercial painting businesses over the years. They asked me if could paint a hotel to look like it’s in Flagstaff, Arizona. No sweat! That was my first taste of it, and I had a great time. RF: What’s this about you and the Twilight movie franchise? None too shabby! PC: A buddy turned me on to that. “Paulie, there’s a big movie coming here to Oregon, and a lot of scenes will be filmed outside.” That turned out to be Twilight. I applied for the job of greensman and worked with trees, bushes, flowers, and greenery. I’d done some greensman stuff on The Brady Bunch Movie and said, “Let’s do it.” Man, what a grueling job! The hardest thing I’ve ever done, but so rewarding. Amazing experience. It led to my working on NBC’s Grimm for quite some time. RF: Grimm’s cancellation left a gaping hole in my weekly viewing line-up. PC: Mine, too. The ratings were never high, but they produced quality stuff.

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April 2020

RETRO music

RF: Hmmm… What started out as a casual interview has outgrown its creators! Schedules have been daunting, but I’m grateful you guys are going the distance to help out a struggling, not-so-young journalist. Means a lot, dude. PC: My pleasure. You’re easy to talk to, and this has almost been like a catching-up between old friends. Let me know if you need anything else, okay? In the meantime, live life to its fullest!

Susan Cowsill

Slick roads ahead! As the deadline loomed larger, threatening to block out the horizon, we seized our opportunity. Sue rang me up from the Cowsills’ tour bus. Within an instant, storm clouds parted, sunshine cascaded through, and the universe reeled. I’d met my objective. Susan Cowsill-Broussard has matured from a tambourine-shaking, Watusigyrating preteen to accomplished musician, chanteuse, and songwriter. Her transformation reflects the Cowsills’ strong familial bond… but also a spirit tested by adversity and pain. Susan, you have the floor… and our hearts.

fly, Sue. You cats are mega-busy! And the Days Ran on the Susan Cowsill: Seems like I never have enough time to think and relax, but we’ll Forever… RetroFan: Sorry we had to catch you on

Deadlines, deadlines, and more dreaded deadlines, the bane of a writer’s existence! When I approached RetroFan with my proposal for a Cowsills retrospective, I’d no idea what convoluted paths lay ahead and how long it would take to safely traverse them. Potholes, speedbumps, detours, and all manner of roadblocks abounded. Treacherous terrain notwithstanding, I stayed the appointed course: mining history and presenting Bob, Paul, and Sue Cowsill as flesh and blood people. In other words, a balanced overview of their lives and careers, individually and collectively. Step one, I interviewed older bro, Bob. Several times, actually (the most enjoyable Q&A I’ve ever conducted, bar none). Middle brother, Paul, came next, a laugh-filled talk that heightened my mood. Sue’s section followed, rising up like a monolithic mountain range before me. We’d connect then disconnect, make new plans, and shrug when Responsibility sparked still another setback. Would she and I ever snag a seemingly elusive heart-to-heart?

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April 2020

THE COWSILLS: ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY `` The Cowsills Plus the Lincoln Park Zoo (1967) `` The Cowsills (1967) `` We Can Fly (1968) `` Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools (1968) `` The Best of the Cowsills (1969) `` The Cowsills in Concert (1969) `` II x II (1969) `` The Cowsills: All Time Hits (1970) `` On My Side (1971) `` Global (1998) `` The Best of the Cowsills: 20th Century Masters-The Millennium Collection (2001) `` Painting the Day (compilation) (2006) `` Cocaine Drain (originally recorded in 1978 but unreleased; issued digitally in 2008) `` The Dockside Silhouettes: An A Capella Experience (2018) `` Rhythm of the World (2020)

make this work. My brothers are usually the ones who love to talk, so I’m sure they’ve already given you a book or two. Don’t know what I could add to all their craziness, but let’s give it a shot. RF: You’ve been performing for decades. Has music always been your avocation? SC: Not at first! I didn’t have a huge urge to be part of the family band, but Dad wanted it, and there was no questioning his decisions. “Give the kid a tambourine [laughs], and people will think she’s the cutest thing.” RF: Right now, you’re finishing up your fifth Happy Together tour. A sell-out across the country! SC: Honestly, this tour has been the most fun we’ve had in 50 years of performing. A lot of the world didn’t know we were still alive! Happy Together has allowed us to play alongside such classic acts as the Turtles, Gary Puckett, and Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night), and meet older fans and newer faces. We’re surfing the Boomer wave, baby! It’s where we belong. RF: The old school finale, with everyone on stage in a kind of wild free-for-all, really defines what “happy together” means. SC: The joy is legit, Rod. We obviously love performing, and when we get into our hits, audiences literally jump to their feet, sing and clap along and dance. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. And the finale is an electrifying moment. All those Baby Boomer groups rockin’ out! RF: Voices of my generation. SC: The energy is there, crackling around us. RF: As a tyke, you had no say-so when it came to being a part of the family band? SC: Are you kidding [laughs]? No! Bud said, “You and Mom are in, and that’s it, end of discussion.” I was not involved in the workings of the group. I just did what they told me. “Keep your piehole shut, stand there and look adorable.” If things had

RETRO music

RF: Today, in 2020, you’re a respected artist with a varied palette. What drives you, Sue? SC: Music saved me and continues to save me. I do it for expression, comfort, and a life-line. We won’t get rich from this, but who cares? It’s good money, sure… but I’m not eyeing potential millions. To be steadily working and making fans smile, that’s the best reward. They love us, and we love them. RF: Anybody influence you, like your bros were influenced by the Beatles? SC: So many women. Carly Simon, Carole King, Linda Rondstadt, and Karla Bonoff are but a few who’ve paved the way for me. I don’t know if we’ll ever see the likes of them again. Karla is my main writing muse. I’ve grown to appreciate singer/ songwriters, and they flourished in the early Seventies. It was their era. Look at Carole’s Tapestry. My word! It just resonates on and on. That’s real staying power. RF: You’re right. Tapestry was released in 1971, almost 50 years ago! SC: Carole King can do anything. What a musician! Time and age will never wear her down. RF: Back in the day, I was exposed to the Cowsill sound via my younger sister. It was summer of 1968, and “Indian Lake” dominated the airways. She bought a copy, and we lip-synched to your vocals in our living room mirror. SC: I love hearing these stories! “Indian Lake” was one of our biggest hits, and when we sing it in concert, people fill the aisles. We do the theme from Love, American Style, too. You’d be surprised at how many fans know that song. RF: My sister was so jealous of you. Funny now to think of it.

SC: That’s interesting. Why would she be jealous? RF: Because you’re both the same age, you sang hit records, danced on TV, and had Barry as a brother. All she got was junior high, lip-synching with paper towel tubes, and me. SC: [laughs] Well, you’re perfectly charming, with the patience of a saint. She should count her blessings! RF: Ha! From your lips to God’s ears! When the Cowsills broke out and became a pop culture force to be reckoned with, were you allowed any input on the music chosen? SC: Absolutely not [laughs]. I was just a clueless little kid. Don’t get me wrong, Rod, I enjoyed every minute of it. The excitement generated at concerts and live performances swept me up higher and higher. It’s great to feel all that love, rolling toward you in a wave. RF: Even with your dad calling the shots? SC: On stage we were out of his reach, so I liked that. A safe haven. Behind the scenes, we marched to his tune. Have you seen our documentary, Family Band? RF: I did. I’ve covered all the bases: listened to your music across the board, watched performances on YouTube, and bought Family Band, and immersed myself in what it was like to be a Cowsill. SC: Stop, stop, you’re exhausting me! You’ve done your homework, though [laughs]. Very commendable. RF: You guys are born performers; the fever’s in your blood. SC: Till the day we die, yes, sir, which is hopefully later and not sooner. Playing music with my family is like coming home again. We’re always looking for ways to improve. Music, as an art form, is a living thing. It’s organic, changing and growing. Someday, we might just get there before the final curtain comes down. RF: So, where are you right now? SC: Riding on our tour bus. Between arriving at the venue, rehearsing, prepping, and performing, it’s a whirlwind

affair. We also meet and greet fans, do interviews like this one and hopefully eat and sleep. RF: My plan is to attend one of your concerts. I’ll hawk RetroFan’s Cowsill extravaganza, and pretend I’m somebody with cred! Will you autograph one for me? SC: Of course! When will this be on the stands? RF: Spring of 2020. Seems like a long time from now, but the wait will be worth it, I promise. SC: I’ll hold you to that! RF: I know you need to rest, so I’ll end our convo by saying this: interviewing the performing Cowsills is a cherry on my writing career sundae. You’re not only a tight family band, but family. Here’s to health and much continued success, Sue. And good luck on your new album! I’ll be in touch. SC: You’d better. We can autograph copies of RetroFan together! All interviews conducted early fall 2019. ROD LABBE is a New Englandbased 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. His interview with Dark Shadows’ David Selby will appear in RetroFan #11.

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April 2020

Photo taken on the set of Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift in Brewer, Maine, summer of 1990.

been different, I would’ve become a vet or a geologist finding ancient cities and artifacts, or even a first-grade teacher. In my early teen years, after the group broke up, I was just trying to find a place to live, a place to grow in. I lived with Paul for a while, and that stability helped me out.

Too Much TV

1) Arnold Ziffel the pig 2) Clarence the cross-eyed lion 3) Flash the Basset Hound 4) Elvis the alligator 5) Aristotle the octopus 6) Dino the dinosaur 7) Fred the cockatoo 8) Lucky the cat 9) Cousin Bessie the chimpanzee 10) Freeway the Lowchen (dog) 16

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April 2020

Background photo: Pixabay/manfredrichter

If your old m an used to gri pe that you’d anything wit never learn h your nose g lued to the b here’s your c oob tube, hance to pro v e h im doesn’t alwa wrong. (Fath ys know best er .) Each of the p ets or anima ls in Column corresponds One to a show in C olumn Two. M up, then see atch ’em how you rate !

“Arb arb ar arb arb!” b

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

A) The Dukes of Hazzard B) The Flintstones C) The Beverly Hillbillies D) Miami Vice E) ALF F) The Addams Family G) Green Acres H) Hart to Hart I) Daktari J) Baretta

The Addams Family and Green Acres © Filmways Television. ALF © Alien Productions/Warner Bros. Television. Baretta and Miami Vice © Universal Television. The Beverly Hillbillies and Daktari © CBS Television. The Dukes of Hazzard © Warner Bros. Television. The Flintstones © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Hart to Hart © Sony Pictures Television. All rights reserved.

RetroFan

April 2020

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

TV’s Private Eyeful

by Will Murray Years ago, a small publisher asked me to revive the famous female private eye, Honey West. As someone who loved the 1965– 1966 TV show of that name, I naturally jumped at the opportunity. One of the first things I did was to watch a bunch of the episodes and for the first time read some of G. G. Fickling’s original novels. Although the opportunity soon fizzled, I always cherished it. Honey was a fun character to write. For this column, I delve into Honey West and how she became one of the most famous TV characters of the Sixties—even though she lasted only one season.

Burke’s Law Spin-off

It all started with the husband-and-wife team of Forrest (“Skip”) and Gloria Fickling. They knew Richard Prather, whose Shell Scott private-eye novels were selling fabulously in the era of Mike Hammer. Skip wondered why Prather didn’t take a stab at a female private eye. Overcommitted, Prather countered with, “Why don’t you try it?” The Ficklings huddled and they came up with sexy L.A. P.I. Honey West, which Skip wrote as “G. G. Fickling” with Gloria pitching in as “sounding board and technical advisor.” (G. G. was Gloria’s maiden-name initials.) 18

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“I first thought of Marilyn Monroe,” Skip explained, “and then I thought of Mike Hammer and decided to put the two together. We thought the mostused name for someone you really like is Honey. And she lives in the West, so there was her name.” In the 1957 debut novel, This Girl for Hire, Honey took over her father’s investigative practice after he was murdered. It was a solid setup, and This Girl for Hire led to several semi-salacious sequels, for busty Honey had a tendency to lose her clothes at lot. By 1965, Honey fever had cooled, but she was still in print. Enter Four Star Productions’ Aaron Spelling. While visiting Great Britain, he caught an episode of The Avengers, which starred Patrick Macnee as British secret agent John Steed and Honor Blackman as his associate, Dr. Cathy Gale. Blackman was adept (ABOVE) Live and in living black and white, Anne Francis as Sixties sexy sleuth Honey West and images from the show’s title sequence. Courtesy of Ernest Farino. Honey West © 2020 Gloria Fickling.

Anne Francis flanked by “G. G. Fickling,” Honey West creators Skip and Gloria Fickling. In 2017, the documentary Honey West: The Gloria Fickling Story, produced by Nick Jerge, was screened in Southern California, an event which also honored the then-91-year-old visionary. © Gloria Fickling.

at judo and liked to do her crimefighting dressed in a black leather catsuit. Spelling thought such a bold character would be a hit with American audiences. Returning to the States, he acquired rights to Honey West. Then he proceeded to reimagine Honey in the vein of Cathy Gale. “We met with ABC to tell them our idea about this sexy female private detective,” he recalled, “and I had Nolan Miller draw sketches of this slinky, beautiful Honey for them. In one she carried a whip and the other she was sitting with a tiger. ‘And that,’ I said, ‘is the show.’ Like James Bond, it was based on a series of books, and ABC bought it immediately.” Spelling tried to lure Honor Blackman stateside, but she had gone on to greater glory as Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. So, he settled for Anne Francis—if you call that settling. The 34-year-old veteran actress had recently appeared on an episode of Burke’s Law, which starred Gene Barry as a wealthy playboy police detective. It was smart and stylish, virtually an updating of Barry’s turn as Bat Masterson. Playing the killer on an episode was a coveted gig, much the way being a Batman villain would soon become. “I enjoyed the experience,” Francis said at the time. “I suspect there is a wicked streak in all of us. Most actresses lead quiet, normal, humdrum lives. The chance to be a wanton hussy killer in the bargain was something I found impossible to resist.” In her career, Francis had avoided starring in a TV series. She had done a sitcom pilot called Claudia, but realized that comedy wasn’t her strength. Also, she had seen too many actresses sink into neuroses under the relentless TV grind. “I wanted an offbeat role,” Francis reminisced, “something different that I could sink my teeth into, and which would make the risk of becoming a neurotic worthwhile. And then an idea came to me when I saw the Amos Burke [Burke’s Law] series. Why not have a female counterpart? As much as I liked it, I never mentioned the idea to anyone. Then, Aaron Spelling, who created Burke, called me and told me about the character of Honey, which was exactly what I had in mind. I guess we had both been on the same psychic wavelength. This character Honey West is sophisticated and a swinging-type gal. I like her.” Spelling decided to test Honey on an episode of Burke’s Law titled “Who Killed the Jackpot?” [Season 2/Episode 30, original

Originally, Honey West paperbacks featured the same type of gritty, illustrated covers you’d find on other gumshoe novels, but after the TV show’s premiere photo covers featuring Anne Francis were common. © Gloria Fickling.

airdate 4-21-65]. When one of Honey’s clients is murdered, she runs afoul of Captain Burke, and sparks fly. Throughout, the wary rivals are constantly colliding and trading witty repartee as they pursue their parallel investigations. Honey is supported by Sam Bolt, who works for her agency and operates sophisticated surveillance equipment out of a disguised TV repair van. John Ericson, who had co-starred with Francis in the 1955 film Bad Day at Black Rock, played Bolt. Burke and Honey have a superficially flirtatious but professionally competitive relationship, which perfectly establishes her independent character. Burke is chauffeured around in a Rolls-Royce, while Honey drives a Jaguar convertible. Both characters reeked of glamour and sophistication— two Aaron Spelling trademarks.

The Girl (with an Ocelot) Next Door

Audience response was positive, but Spelling and ABC proceeded cautiously. Burke’s Law was an hour show. They shot a half-hour black-and-white Honey West pilot. Prior to 1965, no detective drama had ever starred a woman. RetroFan

April 2020

will murray’s 20th century panopticon

“No one has ever attempted it,” Spelling said of the risk. “The odds are really against the show. The question is whether the public will accept a girl lead in a half-hour adventure show.” Coincidentally—or perhaps not—another husband-andwife team, Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov, scripted that Burke’s Law episode, and developed the series’ format, which added Sam Bolt, who was not in the novels, as a counterweight to Honey. For the pilot, Honey is pitted against a suave jewel thief played by Cesare Danova. “The Gray Lady” showcased her feminine wiles versus a cunning male antagonist and played up Honey’s extreme attire. Allegedly, this was the first TV series to boast a significant fashion budget. Designer Nolan Miller was given $125,000 to play with. And it showed. “My wardrobe will be very high fashion, except for the times when I wear black leotards and high boots to sneak in and out of places,” Francis recited. “Otherwise, I’ll be groomed in beaded gowns, chinchilla-trimmed jackets and wraps, a tiger coat, a black snakeskin trench coat, a leopard-trimmed gown, slinky white beaded gowns, and so on.” Regrettably, the full impact of Honey’s feline ensembles was lost to the black-and-white photography, not to mention its muting Francis’ blonde hair and striking blue eyes. Only her trademark facial beauty mark came through. One of the early casualties was Honey’s exotic trench coat. “I did wear it in the pilot film,” Francis allowed, “but then we decided a snakeskin coat was too conservative. Almost any kid you see on the street today wears clothes farther out than that.” ABC held “The Gray Lady” until December, choosing instead to premiere with Bagni and Dubov’s “The Swinging Mrs. Jones,” in which Honey goes undercover as bait for a blackmailer of wealthy women. Reportedly the producers felt that the pilot didn’t showcase the characters as well as they had hoped. The real reason may have been because their star wore a tiger-skin bikini in the replacement episode. Back in 1965, TV was exploring new genres. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. had started the year before. I Spy was new. The James Bond spy craze was well underway [which you read about in RetroFan #6 thanks to columnist Ernest Farino—ed.]. To some, that meant espionage. To others, tricky gadgets was sufficient. “The whole TV industry is going on a spy kick for a while,” Spelling said at that time. To capitalize on that trend, Honey was given a raft of James Bond-style gadgets. TV Guide once did a feature on the collection, which included a sunglasses radio transmitter, various electronic bugs, and a folding grappling hook for scaling buildings after dark. Spelling joked, “We like to think of Honey West as just a normal, average American girl who is a karate expert, drives a custom-built sports car, has an ocelot for a pet, and loves gadgets, like earrings that are really little gas bombs.” Most of these devices involved tricky lipstick tubes and exploding makeup compacts. “To protect myself,” Francis related, “I grab a garter off my leg which is immediately converted into a gas mask. That’s probably the most daring gimmick we use.”

P.I. or Spy?

Like Burke’s Law, Honey West was told tongue-in-cheek. Francis explained, “I guess you could say Honey West is in the Burke’s Law tradition—flippant, chic, a mixture of murder and mirth. I think viewers will accept a spoof on a female detective. I’m sort of a 20

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April 2020

female Gene Barry—or a latter-day Pearl White. I spend half my time sliding up and down ropes or jumping off buildings or slugging someone. But there are compensations. I drive a sleek, expensive sports car and wear Paris originals.” For obscure reasons, Honey’s Jaguar was replaced with an AC Cobra convertible equipped with a radio telephone. These gimmicks led to some genre confusion. Was this a private-eye program, or an espionage-adventure vehicle? “Our show is a boy-girl James Bond sort of thing,” insisted Ericson. “We’re two adventurers. The detective angle is a gimmick to get us into our story. We get involved beyond mere detecting.” “We aren’t going to be James Bondish, or futuristic like they are in U.N.C.L.E.,” countered Francis in another interview. “I’m a private investigator with offices in Los Angeles.” Eventually, the co-stars got on the same page. “Our heavies are oddball.” Ericson observed. “They use strange devices, devices unknown except to senate investigating committees. We’re trying to return to the typical hero and heroine. Honey and Sam are extreme individualists. They don’t conform. There are no limits to the series. We can go anywhere. We wear disguises. We’re not really Bondish at all.” You couldn’t tell it from some of their undercover capers. “One week I was a dance hall girl and last week I was dressed in a Polynesian outfit,” quipped Francis. The truth was that the show tried to straddle both genres. Many episodes had an action-adventure feel to them. While Honey West was in production, convinced that spies were the

will murray’s 20th century panopticon

way to go, Spelling retooled Burke’s Law drastically. Amos Burke quit the force and went to work for the C.I.A. Conceivably, the producers were considering a similar direction for Honey West’s future. One big concern was the relationship between Honey and Sam Bolt, professional and otherwise. On Burke’s Law, Sam was an employee of H. West & Co., Private Investigators. The pilot was shot that way, too. Early promotional material suggested that Sam’s personal goal was to convince Honey to quit gumshoeing and settle down in matrimony—preferably with him. That slant was swiftly abandoned. “Sure, it’s Anne Francis’ series,” John Ericson admitted, “but I knew in the beginning the premise would have to be changed. Originally, private eye Sam Bolt was working for Honey, but that wouldn’t last long. How many fans are going to dig a guy working for a girl? Sure enough, the sponsors changed that setup quickly and made Sam and Honey partners in their detective agency. We have to be equals. We’re in love, we’re two very secure people, but neither of us is interested in marriage yet. There’s too much adventure ahead of us.” But you can’t squeeze much romance into 30 minutes, so that angle was dropped, too. “We’ll let the audience read into it what they want,” Ericson later said of their relationship. “I’m the image of the cavalry—I come in to get Honey out of her scrapes.” Anne Francis saw their relationship differently: “It’s very apparent it’s a warm one. We work together with loving animosity.” But they were not an item, as Francis also pointed out. “We’ll keep things humming by projecting a romantic interest in every segment, too—the same way they do on Burke’s Law—some of the handsome scoundrels will fall in love with Honey only to find out she wants to arrest them.” In order to put a safe distance between the two, the producers introduced a chaperone—Irene Hervey as Honey’s Aunt Meg, who lived with Honey in her hidden ultra-modern apartment that was accessed through a secret door behind her office. Meg usually minded Honey’s pet, Bruce Biteabit, played by a 28-pound

ocelot that in real life was named Honey. Both characters were created by the producers. In the novels, Honey was a lone operator. Bruce proved to be a problematic cast member. “The ocelot is just a gimmick,” Skip Fickling pointed out. “That’s one thing we don’t need. In fact, to tell you the truth, Anne didn’t like the ocelot a bit. It kept nipping at her.” “At times,” lamented Francis, “it was like trying to hold a pair of cobras; each end of him was going one way or the other. I learned pretty much to keep ahead of him when he was squirming. I do love animals, so we got along quite well. But many actors who came on the show were petrified of him.”

Honey Gets Her Kicks

By 21st-Century standards, Honey West is as much sexist as it is sexy. Honey was often dubbed a “Private Eyeful.” The Women’s Liberation movement didn’t get going until the late Sixties. Consequently, Anne was often forced to defend the femininity of her character, a judo and karate expert who threw burly bruisers around like they were mere stuntmen. “I don’t think the role is unfeminine,” she asserted. “True, ABC and the producers are concerned about this. But I don’t feel unfeminine. After all, Honey West isn’t a gal who goes around bars looking for a fight so she can practice karate. She simply protects herself. If I knew karate before I’d certainly use it to protect myself.” In fact, she told one journalist that her martial-arts prowess was a selling point. “There must be a lot of ladies in the audience who would like to slug their husbands, and they can get a vicarious thrill watching me chopping men—I’ve had fights in every show so far. And usually I get beaten up in the stories; let’s face it: there are a lot of men around who get their kicks out of watching that.” Ericson saw it the same way. “Now we want to keep Honey ultra-feminine and to have Sam ultramasculine. She’ll go off on a wild goose chase, relying on her instincts, and I’ll have to come along and rescue her. The way I see the situation, it’s woman’s instinct versus facts and figures, meaning Sam Bolt.” According to Anne Francis, Honey West (ABOVE) P.I. partners: Francis did her own rescuing, as Honey and John Ericson as thank you very much. Sam Bolt. (LEFT) Sorry, Julie “Honey is a modern lady Newmar, but Anne Francis was a in an exciting profession. TV catwoman before you! Honey West and Bruce Biteabit (an She’s swinging, she’s ocelot named—believe it or not— unattached, she’s Honey). Courtesy of Ernest Farino. © shrewd. When she Gloria Fickling. gets in trouble Honey will use her femininity RetroFan

April 2020

will murray’s 20th century panopticon

Some of the Honey West merchandise available during the mid-Sixties. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions and Hake Auctions. © Gloria Fickling.

to rescue herself. When that fails, she’ll use violence. Honey will carry a .38 revolver, but she won’t have to use it very often. I’m glad. I don’t particularly like to fire guns. She also has more physical attributes than first meet the eye: In one episode she scales a 13-story building, in another she flips crooks with her karate (which, incidentally, I had to learn for the series). And she’s forever getting zonked on the head. It will be a physically active show, but I love that kind of work.” In the beginning of production, Francis had been enthusiastic, learning judo as well as karate. “I think that Honey West will do me good even if it’s not a success. It can’t hurt me, because it’s a flashy part and it shows me off. And it probably will get me out of that rut—all those lush girls with problems.” Between the 12-hour days and technical problems, however, her enthusiasm began wearing thin. “We started trying to shoot an episode in three days,” Francis told one reporter. “But it was killing all of us. The show isn’t like a living room comedy. It has a lot of physical action. I was doing all my own stunt work here. The stunt girl they sent didn’t know jujitsu.” Then there were the gadgets. “We’ve had our problems with the gimmicks,” Francis explained. “Everything is supposed to work and we have to learn to work it. Even the olive in the martinis has a transmitter. The only place we’re un-buzzable is in the shower.”

One-Season Wonder

Honey West production started in January 1965, for a September 17 premiere, so a lot of episodes were in the can by the time the first one aired. By August, Anne Francis was complaining, “I’m so sick of playing with chinless wonders I could scream. I give anything if they get some men in this business. Would you believe it, that I played with an actor the other day on the show who complained I hurt him. The next day he came up to me and said: ‘Gee, you really hurt me badly.’” 22

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Watching the opener during a press event, the star expressed her growing weariness in oblique terms. “Frankly, I am brainwashed. This one took place so long ago that it doesn’t seem real, as if it hadn’t really happened. I was originally very excited about the show but you get so involved with the upcoming episodes I really don’t have the vaguest idea what audience interest will be.” Despite her fatigue, the actress continued to believe that she had been smart to take the part. “The trouble is you put in all those years and it amounts to nothing. No, I don’t really mean that. But producers look at you and say, “Let’s see, you played….’ And they are always a mile off. That’s what this series is going to do—give me an image. Ten years from now, someone will say, ‘Honey West playing a prostitute? I don’t believe it!’” Despite everything, Honey West proved to be a ratings success. But ratings don’t always guarantee renewal. Francis had hoped to get three seasons out of the gig, and Four Star wanted to shoot the next season in color. But it was not to be. Despite an Emmy nomination and other awards, the show was cancelled after 30 stylish episodes. Aaron Spelling gave one reason: “Honey West is the kind of a program which needs more than one season to build a following. Only the sponsor wasn’t willing to wait.” John Ericson blamed it on ABC’s failure to explore the simmering possibilities of the Honey West-Sam Bolt relationship. “The trouble with show business today,” he complained at the time, “is that nobody has any guts. Everybody’s scared to try anything new and different. We were told that the network didn’t want any sex on Honey West—everything had to be neuter, neuter, neuter—and Anne and I wanted to find out why. But we couldn’t get to see anybody at the network to talk about it.” “We had high ratings and a loyal audience,” asserted Francis, who earned a Golden Globe for the role. “But network politics knocked it off.”

will murray’s 20th century panopticon

Years later, she admitted to the uncomfortable truth. Honey West had been replaced by the very show that inspired it. “Cancellation had nothing to do with the ratings—it was doing very well. But ABC was able to buy The Avengers for a lot less money then it cost to produce Honey West. Once they found that this genre would work, they dropped Honey West and brought over The Avengers—which did very well here.” All along, the actress always knew that this was a possibility and was philosophical about it. “Even should Honey West fail,” she remarked at the beginning, “I will have had my chance as well as my fun. I can always go back to playing the street walkers and the boozers.” That seemed to be the end of Honey West. But it wasn’t. The novels continued, albeit less often, the final two appearing in the early Seventies. For her last two appearances, Honey went the way of Amos Burke. She became an “international eye-spy,” or espionage operative. But readers were turned off by Honey battling Red Chinese masterminds like Madame Fong. “It seems like in the [Seventies] the interest in her sort of dropped completely out,” Skip Fickling observed in 1986. He planned to update her, making Honey age 45 instead of 25. “She’s still as sexy as ever, but has a little bit more, shall we say, sexual maturity,” he insisted. The year the TV show went off the air, there was talk of a Honey West film. It seems almost sacrilegious to say it now— considering how indelibly Anne Francis is identified with the role—but Mamie Van Doren was announced for the part. Given that she belonged to the Marilyn Monroe class of Hollywood sexpots, and that Honey was modeled after Monroe, it’s not such a stretch. That project was never greenlit. Instead, Mamie Van Doren went on to star in the immortal Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. I suspect the Ficklings were behind that failed project. They were not big fans of the TV show. “They hoked it up more than we’d like,” complained Gloria. “The books were a lot more sophisticated than the series.” Everyone involved moved on from the disappointment of the cancellation. Producer Spelling experienced a double disappointment when Amos Burke, Secret Agent, was also dropped. “Spy, campy, and silly season series have had it,” he bemoaned. “You can’t even mention a spy series to the networks any more.” He was wrong. I Spy and Get Smart became hits. He also predicted that Batman would become a one-season wonder. Fortunately, Spelling bounced back with The Mod Squad and later Charlie’s Angels. Both featured lady crimefighters. [Editor’s note: If you missed last issue’s Charlie’s Angels features, it’s not too late to get a copy through TwoMorrows’ website!] John Ericson went back to guest-starring; he never again played a recurring TV character. Anne Francis saw it as a mixed blessing. Her star only shone more brightly. She went on to play a higher caliber of character than the alcoholic nymphomaniacs she was formerly known for. “Although it was ego-crushing at the time,” she reflected, “life’s too short to brood over it. Honey had challenges I liked, but I wouldn’t want to do another series. I wasn’t too happy with her either, in the end. I was enthusiastic at first, because it seemed to be shaping like a great series. But I began to get mixed emotions about her: she wasn’t physical enough, and there wasn’t any

Still sleuthing! In 2010, Moonstone published a seven-issue Honey West comic-book miniseries by Trina Robbins and Cynthia Martin. Since then, the publisher has released additional miniseries, teaming Honey with retro heroes Kolchak the Night Stalker, T.H.E. Cat, and Captain Action and That Man Flint. © Gloria Fickling.

character development. Honey was just a shallow private eye, and I wanted her to be more than that.” Yet that was not the end of Anne Francis in the role. Aaron Spelling revived Burke’s Law in 1994. For one episode, “Who Killed Nick Hazard?,” he brought in a number of actors who had played famous TV detectives, among them Buddy Ebsen of Barnaby Jones fame and Jameson Parker from Simon & Simon. Most were thinly disguised versions of their classic roles. Anne Francis played a blind sleuth named Honey… Best. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it wasn’t Mamie Van Doren. And that was good enough for me. In the early Nineties, the possibility of another Honey West film was floated. Sharon Stone and Geena Davis were among those talked up as the next Honey. Asked in 1992 if she would consider participating, the 62-year-old-original was polite but realistic. “Actually, I really wouldn’t have any idea where I would fit into something like that at this point. Yes, I would be interested, but it would depend on what the role was. Not the Irene Hervey the part, thank you very much!” The production fizzled, as did the promised novel restoring the 45-year-old Honey to her original role as a private investigator. Thanks to reruns, Honey West kept Anne Francis in the public consciousness until the day she died in 2011. To date, there has never been another Honey West—although Reese Witherspoon was briefly attached to the property. I suspect if one comes along, Francis will still own the role. As she declared back in 1965, “I am Honey West. I really don’t see much difference between us.” Neither do I. WILL MURRAY is the writer of the Wild Adventures (www.adventuresinbronze.com) series of novels, which stars Doc Savage, the Shadow, King Kong, the Spider, and Tarzan of the Apes. He also created the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with legendary artist Steve Ditko. RetroFan

April 2020

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

The Bedrock

Chronicles by Scott Shaw!

While growing up in the Fifties, I was a kid with five primary interests in life: drawing, paleontology, comic books, animated cartoons, and monster movies. I was considered a “weirdo” by my supposedly normal classmates. (Fortunately, I also had a lot of weirdo pals, a junior support group.) But one day in 1960, a cultural phenomenon came along that changed my life and even gave me legitimacy and even a sliver of hipness with the “normals”… probably because it embraced four of my five favorite things in the world. Felix the Cat was the first image ever transmitted on commercial television, and as American households began to embrace the tube, it wasn’t difficult to have the opportunity to view Terrytoons’ “Farmer Alfalfa” cartoons in the morning, Max Fleischer’s “Superman” cartoons at lunch, MGM’s “Tom and Jerry” and Disney’s “Donald Duck” cartoons after school, and UPA’s “Gerald McBoing-Boing” in the evening—all in the same day. It offered an entertaining and informative introduction to the history of animation to those of us who were observant, but there came a point where I realized I’d watched every one of them enough times that I was beginning to experience allergic reactions. Despite no access to books on the subject (if there were any at the time), I managed to mentally cobble together a rough history of animated cartoons, primarily from information I pried from my parents and grandmother. But repeated viewings of the surprisingly diverse array of cartoons available on TV and at marathon cartoon matinees had saturated my brain. Fortunately, the cartoon cavalry had arrived in the (ABOVE) Fred helps show off our esteemed columnist with a hand-drawn poster he drew in the sixth grade for a school election. “This was the year after The Flintstones premiered,” Scott says, “and the show was a big deal, the equivalent of the buzz that The Simpsons generated.” The young candidate also handed out shipping tags to his “potential constituency” with a hand-drawn Flintstones character on each and his slogan, “You really ought to vote for Scott!” And they did! Scott won the election. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

form of Hanna-Barbera Productions and Jay Ward Productions, remnants of MGM and UPA with new, hip, and smart cartoon shows. Upon their first airings, I was an immediate fan of H-B’s Ruff and Reddy and Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends, both serialized adventures of funny animals. Ward’s cartoons were funnier, but Hanna-Barbera’s cartoon series—which soon included Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw—had better production values and were more plentiful. I loved ’em all, but none would hold a firefly to what was about to come. H-B’s publicists promised TV Guide and other publications that their new cartoon series would appear at night, partially because it was supposedly aimed at adults—and that it was a prehistoric version of The Honeymooners starring Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, a very popular live-action television series. My eight-year-old self was ecstatic. I already loved a prehistoric story arc of H-B’s Ruff and Reddy that introduced a lost world inhabited by dinosaurs and the elusive Chickasaurus. And being a fat kid, I dug Jackie Gleason a lot, too. Plus, Hanna-Barbera Productions was my favorite cartoon studio. So this new animated primetime show was sounding better by the minute. But a half-hour-long RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw!

cartoon solely devoted to prehistory, dinosaurs, and a caveman who looked like my dad? And it’s called The Flintstones?!? I immediately became obsessed with the show, even before I’d ever seen it. As it loomed closer every day, I gathered more information about the show, including the depressing news that it would be airing on the same day and time as my latest waste of time, music lessons, either for the accordion or the violin. (I suffered through both.) Therefore, I launched a campaign to convince my culture-conscious parents that The Flintstones was not only gonna be the greatest cartoon show of all time (although I’d only seen a few pieces of publicity art in the San Diego Evening Tribune), it was gonna be absolutely life-changing in a way that music could never provide. I was considered a child prodigy by my teachers (“gifted” became the worst word in the English language), as well as being an entitled (and probably obnoxious) only child, so my parents eventually relented, I got my way, and yeah, The Flintstones changed my life, just like that. Hanna-Barbera’s The Flintstones premiered on ABC on Friday, September 30, 1960. (MeTV recently replicated that event by premiering The Flintstones on September 30, 2019.) And I was there. (No, not at Hanna-Barbera; that happened in 1978.) I was sitting six inches away from the black-andwhite TV screen, prepared with an arsenal of drawing implements and sketchpad paper. The episode, “The Flintstone Flyer,” is one of those “boys’ night out” stories that were standard fare in The Honeymooners, so even as a child, I realized that Hanna-Barbera had no qualms about appropriating the intellectual property of others. Years later, after editing the first episode of a show I produced for H-B, Bill Hanna actually advised me, “Kid, don’t create anything if you can steal it!” But I loved the whole thing, especially the bowling sequence and the sight gags with the prehistoric animals. Toward the end of the show, I distinctly recall leaning even closer to our TV set’s screen and quietly telling myself, “That’s what YOU’RE gonna do!!!” Halloween was right around the corner, and since Ben Cooper Fred Flintstone costumes were a year or two in the future, I made my own. In those days, marketing wasn’t so pervasively aggressive and licensees waited to sign up properties after 26

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they’d proven their popularity, so the first Flintstones products out there were the most easily produced: printed material such as comic books, coloring books, and card games. That was fine with me; the more print versions of the Flintstones, the more research images I had to teach myself how to draw cartoons— especially the Flintstones—then sell cartoons commissioned by my classmate for pennies, so I could afford to buy more funnybooks. It was like The Lion King’s Circle of Life for ten-year-old boy cartoonists. As the public popularity of The Flintstones grew, so did my collection of Flintstones merchandise, including the best “toy” I ever received, Lakeside’s “Draw the Flintstones TV Show Electric Drawing Set,” complete with a light board and model sheets. I felt like a pro. And when I write “the best toy I ever received,” I’m not joking. It helped me learn the process of cartooning, albeit in the simplest possible way. Only 15 years later, thanks to writer/editor/ quizmaster Mark Evanier, who had offices at H-B’s nearby studio, I was inking funnybook stories, including ones starring the Flintstones, for Marvel’s line of Hanna-Barbera comics. I worked for former Western Publishing editor Chase Craig, and later, for Mark. That led to writing and drawing stories starring a wide range of H-B characters. This gig directly led to a staff position at Hanna-Barbera Productions, first in their Layout and Model Design Departments. Eventually, I was drawing storyboards, then writing scripts, then doing presentations of new show concepts, then publicity art, then directing, then producing, all at H-B. And I often worked closely with Bill and/or Joe. My nine-year-old head would have exploded if I’d known that fact of the future! Mark once claimed that “Scott Shaw! is the man who was born to draw The Flintstones.” I guess he wasn’t wrong. Not only did I work on their comic books and cartoon shows, I also designed Flintstones toys and art-directed the TV commercials and drew the box art and designed the premiums for Post Pebbles Cereals for over two decades. And now I’m the one who’s diabetic. In 1988, my friends John Cawley and Jim Korkis, both knowledgeable cartoon historians, decided to launch a new magazine about animation, Cartoon Quarterly (Gladstone, Winter 1988). They asked me to write an article about the history of The Flintstones for their first-and-only issue, one I also illustrated and even lettered. Here it is; I’ll catch up with you after the slabs.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw!

RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw!

RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw!

RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw!

RetroFan

April 2020

The oddball world of scott shaw! (LEFT) Scott Shaw!’s 2019 recreation of the cover of 1961’s Dell Giant #48, the firstever Flintstones comic book, produced for an auction held at the San Diego ComicCon. (BELOW) For a kid who grew up loving dinosaurs, producing these character designs for Pebbles Cereal’s Mermaid premium was a dream come true for Scott! (INSET) A Shaw! illo of Fred eating a bowl of Pebbles. Yabba dabba doo, it’s tasty, too! Flintstones TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Pebbles © General Foods Productions.

Taking up where my “Bedrock Chronicles” piece left off... In 1988, the retconned miniature version of Bedrock’s most recognizable inhabitants teamed up with the King of Prehistoric Pop in ABC’s The Flintstones Kids “Just Say No” Special (ABC, 1988) starring “Michael Jackstone” (with someone named Kip Lennon subbing for little Michael, who apparently ignored his own advice to kids). In 1993, ABC—The Flintstones’ original network—aired two 90-minute primetime “event” specials, I Yabba-Dabba Do! and Hollyrock-A-Bye Baby, and a one 60-minute one, A Flintstone Family Christmas. The events? In the first special, adult-ish Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble fall in love and get married, transforming Fred and Barney into in-laws. Unfunny hilarity ensues. In the second one, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm outdo their parents by giving birth to twins, Roxy and Chip. More unfunny hilarity ensues. The third one revolves around Stoney, a homeless adolescent whom Fred and Wilma adopts, mysteriously never to be seen again in any Flintstones story anywhere. I guess the hilarity finally ran out. 1994 brought a genuine event, Universal Studios’ The Flintstones, a live-action, high-profile feature film directed by Brian Levant, and starring John Goodman, Elizabeth Perkins, Rick Moranis, Rosie O’Donnell, Halle Berry, and Elizabeth Taylor. It was a valiant attempt to capture the original Flintstones TV series, and although it was wildly successful, earning almost $300,000,000, human beings impersonating animated cartoon characters never seems to work for us purists. That same year, ABC aired another animated special, A Flintstones Christmas Carol, which filled a two-hour time slot. I worked on the storyboards and thought that director Gordon Kent did a good job handling an all-toofamiliar story with an all-too-long script that resembled UPA’s Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol all too much. 32

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Next came a few smaller projects, starting in 1995 with a seven-minute short for Cartoon Network’s What a Cartoon! anthology series, “Dino: Stay Out!” The next year, Cartoon Network finally adapted a vintage comic book from Western Publishing based on a Hanna-Barbera property that was never actually animated, Cave Kids, sort of like a prehistoric version of the Little Rascals with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm reverted to little kids. And in 1997, Cartoon Network’s What A Cartoon! ran a second short set in Bedrock, “Dino: The Great Egg-Scape.” In 2000, Brian Levant returned to direct Universal’s The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (Universal, 2000), a prequel to the earlier feature. It was actually more successful in capturing the tone and staging of an animated cartoon, but its cast—which included Mark Addy, Kristen Johnston, Stephen Baldwin, Jane Krakowski, Joan Collins, and Alan Cumming as a very disturbinglooking Great Gazoo—indicated the film was made on a much lower budget. (Baldwin’s casting as Barney Rubble was indeed inspired, though!) Rarely seen, Cartoon Network’s The Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001) was a twinkle-toed step in the right direction. Directed by Chris Savino and David P. Smith and re-designed by Craig Kellman, it took the concept and characters back to the more “adult” Ed Benedict era (yes, that’s a geologic term). Unfortunately, the show’s 90-minute length worked against its sitcom premise. Why Cartoon Network has buried this special, with a memorable bowling alley sequence by Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, remains a sad mystery. In 2006, cartoonist and toy manufacturer Todd McFarlane initiated a line of action figures based on a number of Hanna-Barbera characters, including the Flintstones. Larry (Beanworld)

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Marder supervised the production of nearly 20 figures that I designed. After appearing in hundreds of animated television commercials for Pebbles Cereal (many of which I worked on), Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble find themselves exiled to the product’s box after Kraft sells its Post Cereal brand to Ralcorp (formerly Ralston-Purina) in 2007. Now the TV ads only feature The Flintstones’ theme song, but no animation whatsoever. In 2011, it was announced that Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane would be reviving The Flintstones for the Fox network, with the first episode to air in 2013. It never happened, probably because it’s merely difficult to produce a cartoon series for one studio, but to produce one for two studios, it’s practically impossible. MacFarlane wisely chose to abandon work on the project. Warner Bros., which has owned the Hanna-Barbera characters since the Nineties, announced in 2014 that an animated Flintstones feature film was being developed for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to write and produce. The projected release date was 2018, so it’s not surprising that WB is claiming that the project is “still in development.” The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown! (Warner Bros., 2015) was directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone and art-

directed and designed by Shane Glines. The feature-length tie-in to wrestling was duplicated in two similar home videos starring Scooby-Doo and the Jetsons. This project, although well executed, made it apparent that Warner Bros. was getting desperate to sell their once-popular characters that were slowly losing their public recognition. Continuing their corporate mission to sell classic HannaBarbera characters to a new generation, the WB brass ordered DC Comics to come up with a new version of The Flintstones. The result, designed by Amanda Conner, written by Mark Russell, and drawn by Steve Pugh, was published in 2016 and was well received by everyone who’d never seen the original Flintstones. Instead of cartoon characters, these were illustrative humans who looked like an ad for Flintstones Halloween costumes, or perhaps an adaptation of the 1994 Flintstones blockbuster. The stories, although well written, were introspective and depressing. Yabba dabba don’t. Possibly the biggest misstep in the history of the Flintstones, 2019’s Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs!, was originally created to evoke Pokemon, starring pre-adolescent faux anime versions of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as liaisons between the citizens of Bedrock and the wild dinosaurs living outside the prehistoric town. When its pilot episode bombed in testing, WB went back to the drawing board, reinventing the Flintstones into naively crude designs resembling the “June” and “Henry” characters in Nickleodeon’s far superior KaBlam! It was scheduled to run on Boomerang but was cancelled before it started. The producers probably tossed the entire season of cartoons into the La Brea Tar Pits, unseen forever. And finally, here’s a relatively uplifting Flintstones rumor that may or may not ever pan out: At this writing it was recently announced that actor Elizabeth Banks’ production company Brownstone Productions is developing a Flintstones reboot animated series aimed, like the original, at an adult audience. Ahhh, but will it include commercials for Winstone, er, Winston cigarettes? All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Scott Shaw!

A print advertisement by cartoonist Scott Shaw! featuring a hitherto unseen side of Barney’s personality. Flintstones TM & ©

Hanna-Barbera Productions. Pebbles © General Foods Corporation.

For 48 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW! has written and drawn underground comix, mainstream comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, TV cartoons, toys, advertising, and video games. He has worked on such characters as Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew (which he co-created with Roy Thomas), Sonic the Hedgehog, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the Simpsons, the Futurama gang, the Muppet Babies, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids, and yes, even Annoying Orange. His career has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award, and a Humanities Award. Scott is also known for his “Oddball Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the craziest comic books ever published” and for his regular participation in “Quick Draw!” with Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also one of the teenagers who co-created what is currently known as Comic-Con International: San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan event. He can be reached at shawcartoons.com. RetroFan

April 2020

CELEBRITY CRUSHES

Jeannie or Samantha? by Jerry Smith

Jeannie the Genie. Bubbly, smoking hot, a barely hidden belly button in the middle of an adolescent boy’s costume dream. Samantha the Witch. A cultured beauty who can host your dinner party, make your martini, and rock your world. Both have superpowers that can make you a king. Or at least feel like one. Which one? Which one? Both easily fall under the realm of celebrity crush. Barbara Eden was the fun girl, born Barbara Jean Morehead from Tucson, Arizona. She can sing, she can dance, she can do comedy like nobody’s business. But on I Dream of Jeannie she was so beautiful it was hard to get it through your head that she was a talented actress with perfect comic timing. Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery, a Los Angeles native, was the serious one, giving Charles Bronson a run for his money in one of the darkest Twilight Zone episodes ever made. Or naked and scaring viewers to death as Lizzie Borden, dispatching her father and stepmother with abandoned glee (and, of course, an ax). Elizabeth was the serious thespian, ready to commit to any role. She wanted to stretch, while Barbara liked to have fun and make people laugh. And considering co-star Larry Hagman’s reported unhappy antics on the I Dream of Jeannie set, apparently Eden is also a saint for tolerating such behavior. In their most famous TV sitcom roles, Sam from Bewitched is selfless, giving up her powers (a-hem) for the man she loved. Jeannie, from I Dream of Jeannie, is the opposite, selfishly using her powers to gain the man she loves. The plans worked for both women, but they approached things from opposite ends, each using their magic (or not) to the best of

their abilities. And boy, did they make it sexy and fun to watch. Not to mention funny. So, who’s the winning celebrity crush? No losers here, but gun to my head I’d have to go with Samantha. It boils down to one word: sophistication. Sam was the perfect wife, mate, and lover. She was always unflappable, letting the stress of the latest disastrous advertising campaign or the nosey neighbor or her pushy mother wash over her until she found the perfect (sometimes magical) solution. Jeannie was a bull in a china shop, crossing her arms and nodding Major Healy to the Arctic or the bottom of the ocean. Viewers, do not get between Jeannie and Tony Nelson. You will find yourself on the dark side of the Moon. Without oxygen. It’s nice to have someone love you like that. Sadly, the world lost Elizabeth Montgomery from cancer far too early in 1995. However, Ms. Barbara Eden, Jeannie the Genie, is going strong and remains the oldest woman on Earth I would ask on a date. Are the times too modern to get at least one, “How may I serve you, master?” Hmmm. Probably, especially after I chose Samantha. After all these years—and reruns—my celebrity crushes on Jeannie and Samantha remain ironclad. I suppose nothing bonds to an adolescent boy like a gorgeous woman who can wiggle her nose and whip up a pot roast or blink and make one an Arab sheik. Barbara Eden and Elizabeth Montgomery both brought real magic to my tiny, boyhood TV screen over 50 years ago. It’s still going strong. JERRY SMITH is a sales rep and freelance writer living in northern Kentucky. Follow his blog about comics and pop culture at https://jerryshumbleopinions.blogspot.com.

Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/ Eighties Celebrity Crushes with RetroFan readers! You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crushes column to the editor for consideration at euryman@gmail.com. 34

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RETRO TELEVISION

June Lockhart An Interview with One of TV’s Most Beloved Moms

by Shaun Clancy

Gene (1891–1951) and Kathleen (1894–1978) Lockhart were a famous Hollywood couple back in the Thirties and Forties who met in 1923 while performing together on a Thomas Edison-sponsored cross-country train that promoted inventions. They married a year later and continued their acting careers in plays, movies, and radio. Their daughter June Lockhart was born June 25, 1925, and the whole family up and moved to California to work at MGM. June’s first-ever acting performance was at the age of nine in the play Peter Ibbetson. Her first movie role was at the age of 13 with her parents in the 1938 classic A Christmas Carol. Other films she worked on early in her career were Sgt. York, All This and Heaven Too, and Meet Me in St. Louis. An often-overlooked area of the Lockhart family’s career is their extensive amount of radio appearances in the Thirties and Forties. Radio during those times was treated the way we treat TV today. Every home had a radio, around which the entire family would sit and

June Lockhart as Lassie’s Ruth Martin, and the show’s canine star. Autographed to the author’s mother, Sandy. Lassie © Classic Media. Unless

otherwise noted, all photos accompanying this article are courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

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listen to popular shows like Suspense, Gunsmoke, Dragnet, and Jack Benny. June Lockhart’s first radio show was on the Lux Radio Theater program. This attracted the attention of MGM, who wanted to put June under contract, but her father insisted that she finish school before committing. She took her dad’s advice and graduated from the Westlake School for Girls in Hollywood in 1943. The school was full of Hollywood children including Shirley Temple, who was a year behind June. Among the first films June acted in after graduating was Son of Lassie (1945), a property which she would later work on for TV for six years (1958–1964). Her role on TV’s Lassie was followed by Lost in Space, where she co-starred as galaxy-traveling matriarch Maureen Robinson for the series’ three seasons (1965–1968). As with a majority of fans, my first exposure to June Lockhart’s career was on those two TV shows, which are among her favorite memories. June has remained active all these years with plenty of TV walk-on appearances and movie cameos. She’s even done several media conventions with other cast members, and the Lockhart acting bug has been handed down to June’s daughter, Anne Lockhart, who played Sheba on the 1978 TV show Battlestar Galactica [which we’ll cover in a future issue of RetroFan].

Years later, when it came time for me to then assume the role of the mother in the Lassie series, Rudd said, “Oh, yes, get June because she knows how to work with the dog.” It is different, you know, because they cue the dog while you’re acting. So you have to hold your dialogue while they say, “Lassie, Lassie!” to get the dog to turn around and look at the trainer, who is holding up a piece of meat to get the dog to look alert. And you hold your face and hold your dialogue until they’ve got the look they want from the dog, then you go ahead and speak your line. The sound is all cut out in the editing room. RF: Was it just the one dog during the movie? JL: No. There were always three or four dogs and when we did the series, there were always about four dogs. One for the running, one who does the pretend fighting, which was actually two dogs having a romp and then they laid in the soundtrack, which was the damnedest dog fight you’ve ever heard. These two dogs have been raised since birth to romp and play and roll over. We would all gather around to watch the so-called “fight” scenes because it was such fun to see the dogs having themselves such a jolly time! When the director had enough of what he wanted, he’d yell “Cut!” and the dogs would sit down and “pant, pant, pant,” waiting for their treats, because they’d done their job.

RetroFan: Were you aware that there was a Lassie radio show that started in 1947? It ran about three years. June Lockhart: No, I wasn’t, and I had nothing to do with it. RF: Rudd Weatherwax, who owned and trained Lassie, was involved with that program, but it was nothing like the TV show. Did you see him on the set of Son of Lassie, and if so, how much involvement did he have with the dog? JL: I had worked with Rudd on Son of Lassie (1945) and we worked very well together, he and his assistant trainer, whose name I have forgotten, but he was the man who later went on to own the dear dog on Petticoat Junction. [Editor’s note: Higgins, trained by Frank Inn, was Petticoat Junction’s dog. Higgins went on to play the original Benji.] Anyway, I liked Rudd and the trainer and got on with the dog very well. 36

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RF: Where was the Lassie television show filmed? JL: What is now Paramount… anyway, it was RKO… Gower Street Studios, Melrose and Gower.

June Lockhart’s senior yearbook photo, from 1943. Courtesy of Ms. Lockhart, via Shaun Clancy.

RF: And the on-location shoots? JL: Oh, anywhere out in the valley. My God, we worked in all places. Chatsworth, San Fernando Valley, out in the heat, sometimes down in a bean field in Orange County. One time we were shooting and it was early Monday morning we got down there and were out in a bean field shooting a scene. All of a sudden, two jet planes flew over us at about 200, 300 feet over our heads, and the producer Bob Golden, who had been down there Sunday, selected the spot and went off to play golf, not realizing the spot he had chosen was at the end of the runway down of the naval air base. Well, of course, the dog freaked!

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The Lassie cast at two stages of the show’s history: June Lockhart as Ruth Martin, Hugh Reilly as Paul Martin, Jon Provost as Timmy Martin, and, of course, Lassie. Both signed by Jon Provost. Lassie © Classic Media.

I hit the ground. I mean… the noise of those jets! So we had to time the scenes in between take-offs for the rest of the day! It really shocked the hell out of us, let me tell you. The poor dog! My Lord! RF: Do you recall why Cloris Leachman left the series? [Editor’s note: Cloris Leachman played the role of Ruth Martin on Lassie for the 28 episodes of the 1957– 1958 season. June Lockhart replaced her in the role beginning the next season, her tenure eventually totaling 207 episodes.] JL: Well, Cloris had never liked the part very much and they weren’t very pleased with Cloris. RF: So it was mutual. JL: Oh, yeah. They had offered it to me before Cloris went into the part, but I was living in New York, had two children, and was married to a doctor. In the meantime, during the time she played it, the marriage had dissolved and I had come back home with the two children and was in the middle of a divorce, so when I was offered the job again by Bob Golden and Bonita Granville… whom [laughs] I ran into at a

red light on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. They pulled up beside me and we greeted each other. I had known both of them since I was about 12 years old. Bob was the producer. And so, I said, “Well, I’m living back here now. I moved back out.” We were talking from one car to another at a red light! He said, “We wish you would do the mother in the Lassie series for us.” I said, Well, I’ll be home, I thought, “What am I being so damn grand about?” I knew Cloris was leaving and knew the part was available. There it is. It’s a nice, dignified role, it’s fully sponsored, it’s on the air and it’s with CBS; this just might be heavensent. They’ve offered this to me now three times, so I called my agent and said, “Find out what they are offering,” because during that time, I was flying back every couple of weeks to New York to do things like Studio One, Climax, and all those other live TV shows and a lot of game shows and by this time, I’d done years and years of a current-event news show with the White House press called Who Said That? with Merriman Smith and Bill Lawrence and H. V. Kaltenborn, and John Daly was the moderator.

RF: You were definitely busy. JL: Oh, yes. I worked all the time during all those years. RF: Was some of the issue because it was an exclusive contract with Lassie and you wouldn’t be able to work on other things? JL: No, I was able to work on other things when we were shut down. We shot nine months and had three months off; however, the contract was specific about what roles I could and couldn’t play. I couldn’t play a drunk… but I played all those before I went into the contract with Lassie. I couldn’t play a wanton woman, you know. They said in my personal life, I was “never to behave in any manner that was not in keeping with the image and concept of the mother in the Lassie series.” This was such an extraordinary thing to have in a contract that I carried it with me, and with every interview that I did, I showed it to the interviewer [laughs]. RF: [laughs] Did you have to do promotional tours, personal appearances? Do any of those stand out? Were you surprised by any of the RetroFan

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reactions you were getting from the public? JL: Oh, yes. But there again, they were careful to never let us know how beloved we became. Apparently more than any other mother and son in this show, because it had been played by Jan Clayton, whom I’d known when I was on Broadway. We’d known each other since the Forties. [Editor’s note: Clayton played Ellen Miller opposite screen son Tommy Rettig as Jeff Miller during the 1954–1957 seasons of Lassie.] RF: You might have had an inclination when they nominated you for an Emmy… JL: …Oh, yeah, but that was the first year, ’58 or ’59. There again, I had won a Tony on Broadway, but it was amazing to see whatever it was that we did in that show at the time, starting in ’58 for the next six years, it became more important, more exciting, and then we went to color on the last episodes that I did.

Mom supreme in front of and behind the camera! (TOP LEFT) June with daughters Anne and June in an April 28, 1961 Lassie promo photo. Image restored by Film Rescue International. Lassie © Classic Media. (TOP RIGHT) Later that decade, the girls visited their mother on the Lost in Space set. Lost in Space © Space Productions. (BOTTOM) June and daughter Anne Lockhart.

RF: In 1965, I think. Do you remember who played opposite of you? JL: Hugh Reilly [co-starring as Paul Martin]. RF: I don’t think I remember… JL: That is just the right reading for it. He never registered strongly. You couldn’t picture him, could you? RF: No. JL: He had been a working actor on TV in New York, but there was a sort of a “nebbish” quality about him. Nice man; he and I got along nicely. Jon Provost was the kid in the show [Timmy Martin], and had already been in it for a year when I joined. I just called and talked to him recently for his birthday and have been congratulating him on his birthday every year. When his mother was alive, he said, “My mother forgets my birthday, but you never do!” RF: His involvement with dogs has been very touching. I see his Facebook page and he always talks about what he’s working on. Have you appeared places with him? JL: Oh, yes, we do conventions. We did one with all the Lost in Space cast. Jon was also there, so we have pictures taken, we do the whole thing together. With the Lost in Space cast, we have never grown apart. We enjoy each other 38

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so much. We have great fun! It’s quite lovely and this is not just anything that is my doing, but there is a genuine affection among all of us. RF: Before we get into Lost in Space— on all the Lassie promotional stuff and merchandising, did you receive any compensation for that? JL: Oh, no, it was in the contract, but you know... Even for Lost in Space. Every once in a while, we’ll get a check for $3.40, which made us all laugh a lot, because you know, they really cleaned up on that! RF: [laughs] It’s worth more not cashed! Now, why did you leave Lassie? JL: I was written out! They had decided they had run all the changes on the Lassie show that they could with the mother and father, and the kids, and the dog. So, the dog was turned over to a forest ranger. The ranger was an actor named Bob Bray, and they thought they would make it more of an adventure series. It

was a success and went on for a long time. Bob Bray had a little drinking problem and he was married and lived at Lake Arrowhead. One night he was on the phone with his local girlfriend and asked her to come over and she didn’t want to come over. He said, “I have a gun in my hand and I’ll shoot myself if you don’t come over.” She said, “Well, I’m not coming over,” at which point the gun went of f and shot of f three fingers of his hand. At which point, he was no longer able to be an actor playing a forest ranger, so he got himself written out of the show. And then they put in two actors to play the part and I don’t remember their names… RF: Me either, actually. [Editor’s note: Jack De Mave and Jed Allan followed Bray as leads on Lassie.] JL: …But they were on location the whole time. By then, the bloom was sort of off and I think it then went into syndication… and I went into Lost in Space.

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RF: Was there any down time between both shows? JL: No, I kept working doing series shows, I did all the Westerns, and I did a whole lot of other shows, but it was only a few months between one and the other. I did Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea as a guest star and on the second day, [show creator/producer Irwin] Allen came down and asked, “We’re doing a show called Lost in Space. Do you want to do another series?” I said, “Yes, I’d like it. It suits me.” He brought me the script, and the next day I said, “I love it! I’d like to do it.” He said, “Okay you’re in,” so I was the first one hired for Lost in Space.

truck and he ran out and said, “Where are you taking it?” They said, “We’re taking it to the dump.” He said, “No, here’s my address. Take it to my home and leave it in the living room.” And so, he got the main Robot, which he later sold to a guy up in Seattle for over $200,000! In the meantime, Bob Kinoshita, the man who designed the original Robot, made some copies, so there’s usually one when we do conventions, but the original is up in Seattle at a science [museum]…

RF: Since you played in a lot of shows with drama, did you ever get the urge to do comedy? JL: Oh, yes! I made my debut on Broadway in comedy and always enjoyed comedy, and still do. Whenever I could, while doing the Lassie series, if I could put some little look or some tag on a scene, or do some little bit of comedy, I’d stick it in there.

related to the injured driver and wanting to talk with him on the phone to make sure he was okay. The hospital put her through, and Dick took the phone from her and proceeded to ask several live questions on the air about the accident before they figured out what was going on and disconnect him. [laughter] JL: Oh, no! Oh, my God!

RF: Were there any practical jokes going on during filming of Lassie? JL: Oh, God no, that would have been frowned upon. At least, I don’t remember.

RF: Toward the end of his life, he had something wrong with his vocal cords, cancer... JL: Yes, isn’t that sad? Isn’t that strange? It was cancer of the throat, wasn’t it?

RF: Was an episode of Lassie done in a week’s period? JL: Usually, it would be three days or it might be three and a half days. We shot quite quickly. RF: I don’t know if I previously mentioned this or not, but Dick Tufeld, who did the Robot’s voice on Lost in Space, was a part of our radio group and I knew him personally. JL: Wasn’t he a dear? I loved Dick Tufeld! RF: Oh, he had some funny stories. His James Dean story, I don’t know if he talked to you about that… JL: No, tell me about that. RF: When James Dean was killed in an auto crash, Dick mentioned to me that the person who collided with James Dean was in a local hospital with orders that no one be allowed to contact him. Dick was working in radio in those days doing the news, and came up with the idea of having someone from the radio station call into the hospital pretending to be

RF: Yes, that’s correct and he had a vocal chord removed. JL: We used to see him at conventions. Yes, I liked him very much. RF: Since he was the voice of the Robot, was he on the set? JL: No… Oh, sometimes while he was recording, he’d come over to the set to say hello. But, no, he didn’t hang around.

RF: It’s at the MoPop Center and I believe it was Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, that bought the Robot. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #5 for more information about Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.] Why was Dr. Smith, Jonathan Harris, billed as a “guest star” for the entire Lost in Space series? JL: He came up with that because he joined after all of us had our contracts in place and knew he’d be playing a big part and he didn’t want his name in the regular list of people in the show each week. He only came on for five episodes initially, so he came up with that idea of “special guest star” for the five episodes and just left it that way. RF: Were you together as a group for contract negotiations? JL: No. Interesting enough, for the three years I did the show, I was always paid less than the men. I was paid more than the other women, but less than the men. RF: Did you voice that objection? JL: No.

RF: Who was inside the Robot? JL: A man named Bobby May, who was absolutely brilliant. He found ways to make it move and found things to do with the arms. He really created a character out of that Robot.

RF: Why did you choose to be on Lost in Space? JL: Oh, I loved the idea, the concept! I was also at that point very involved with following NASA, and, of course, since then I have become great pals with many astronauts. I am constantly involved with NASA.

RF: Robot had a life of its own and had fans. I remember seeing something about it being auctioned… JL: Well, no, there’s a man who took it home with him. He was in his office at Fox and he had been promoting the Lost in Space memorabilia thing and he saw this Robot going in the back of a pickup

RF: Do you have a favorite episode of Lost in Space? JL: Well, the first five episodes were broken down from the initial pilot we did. The pilot had so many climaxes it was laughable about what was going on with this family, so they then broke it down into five different episodes and wrote scripts RetroFan

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(LEFT) Four members of the Lost in Space cast: (SEATED) Marta Kristen as eldest daughter Judy Robinson, (STANDING) Mark Goddard as Major Don West, June Lockhart as space mom Maureen Robinson, and Guy Williams as space dad Professor John Robinson. Signed by Ms. Lockhart to Shaun Clancy’s father Phil. © Space Productions. (ABOVE) The Petticoat Junction cast, late in the series’ run. (FRONT, LEFT TO RIGHT) Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe Carson), Higgins (Dog), June Lockhart (Dr. Janet Craig), Meredith MacRae (Billie Jo Bradley). (BACK, LEFT TO RIGHT) Rufe Davis (Floyd Smoot), Lori Saunders (Bobbie Jo Bradley), Linda Henning (Betty Jo Bradley Elliott), Mike Minor (Steve Elliott), and Frank Cady (Sam Drucker). Petticoat Junction © Paramount Television.

leading up to the climaxes. Does that make sense to you? RF: Yes, That’s pretty common to regurgitate the pilot. JL: They are rehabbed. RF: Lost in Space was a movie in 1998… JL: Yes, I played the schoolteacher in that and I have a scene with the then-new mother and said, “Why do you want to take him? He should remain in school.” We went to England to do that. That was that, and the movie was terrible. I remember going to the ArcLight Theater with a couple of friends of mine, and I turned to this man and said, “This is awful!” The characters were all so angry with each other!

RF: They appeared to just want to cash in on the name recognition and added a bunch of special effects. JL: It was funny, because one thing you would feel with us and our family was an affection we had with each other.

note: Bea Benaderet, who starred as Petticoat Junction’s Kate Bradley beginning with the show’s 1963 launch, died in 1968, with June Lockhart stepping in to lead the cast as Dr. Janet Craig during the show’s final two seasons.]

RF: With Jonathan Harris’ Dr. Smith, he would eventually stick by the family when it got really rough. JL: That’s the way it was written. I tolerated him [Harris], but he was a very difficult man to work with. He was very greedy.

RF: I recall watching that show quite a bit and I know a lot of fans love it. Everybody grew up watching you being the dream mom everybody wanted. In your personal life, did you lose a lot of privacy? I would imagine fans would recognize you immediately. JL: That was very nice to say, but we had no paparazzi in those days. The work I did, I considered myself a character actress since the age of eight. I was never swamped like that.

RF: For scenes or for lines? JL: Everything. He wrote all his own dialogue and they let him do it because he had caught the imagination of the audience. So anyway, it didn’t matter. I knew that professionally, I would simply finish out the contract and move on to something else, which I did immediately with Petticoat Junction. RF: I had forgotten that you had been on that show until I did the research before I called you. That must have been fun. JL: Oh, yes, it was lovely, and [producer] Paul Henning was such a pro! [Editor’s

Among the merchandising bearing June’s likeness: this Lost in Space trading card (shown front and back). © Space Productions. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. 40

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This interview was conducted by telephone on March 15, 2015. Special thanks to Rose Rummel-Eury for transcribing the interview for RetroFan. SHAUN CLANCY started collecting comic books in 1975 at the age of eight, and today collects original comic art and interviews many of the industry’s creators. A devotee of old-time radio, he currently owns a heating and air-conditioning company in the Seattle area and interviews many radio and screen personalities.

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The Smiley Face by Michael Eury

You might be surprised to discover that the Smiley Face, that arcgrinned, button-eyed avatar of elation, has become a catalyst for conflict. As a child of the Sixties and teen of the Seventies, I never saw that coming. Back then, the Smiley Face was yet another muchneeded diversion from an ugly world whose invasive headlines of war, inequality, violent protests, and political assassinations tried their damnedest to rob us of a peaceful childhood. The Smiley Face’s reassuring smirk never wavered, reliably reminding us, as did our sing-along radio hits, bumbling TV deputies and first mates, and beep-beeping roadrunners of cartoons and comic books, to C’mon, get happy! Most sources cite Harvey Ball (1921–2001), a Massachusetts commercial artist, as the father of the feel-good icon also known as “Smiley” (although in an alternate reality, the slow-witted but fleet-footed Forrest Gump created the image). While rapidly jotted, encircled smiles had occasionally punctuated handwritten notes for as long as anyone could remember, Ball popularized the Smiley Face in its traditional yellow and black form in 1963. He was commissioned by State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worchester, Massachusetts, to create a mark that would improve employee morale, which had taken a beating after a recent merger. Ball’s simplistic design, which he reportedly whipped up in a matter of minutes, did the trick. State Mutual Life cranked out 100 Smiley buttons for its staff, turning many sourpusses’ frowns upside down. Ball himself wasn’t happy for long, however. After receiving a mere $45 for the design, which he did not trademark or copyright, Ball soon witnessed bootleg Smiley Face buttons flooding the market and selling millions of units. In less than a decade his cutesy design had been appropriated into a cash cow. Murray and Bernard Spain, two brothers operating greeting card stores in Philadelphia, observed the popularity of Smiley Face buttons and saw an opportunity. In the early Seventies, they took Smiley and tagged it with the phrase “Have a happy day” (soon to be changed to “Have a nice day”), copyrighting the concept and merchandising it. On the other side of the world, Franklin Loufrani, a French journalist, trademarked the Smiley Face (sans “nice day” slogan) for commercial use in 1972, originally using it to spotlight positive news reports in his newspaper, the France Soir. Soon he was marketing iron-on Smiley decals for T-shirts. Before long, the apparels market was beaming ear-to-ear over brisk business for shirts, patches, and buttons bearing both Loufrani’s Smiley and the Spains’ uplifting message, and beyond personal wear, stickers, mugs, posters, pillows, and other items featuring the Smiley Face were wildly popular. Whereas the Peace Sign exemplified America’s growing antiwar sentiment of the Sixties, the Smiley Face became the de facto political symbol of the Seventies. American soldiers

plastered Smiley Face stickers on their helmets during the final years of the Vietnam War. Back home, Smiley Face creator Smiley came to represent the egocentric Harvey Ball. Smiley Face culture of the decade’s Me Generation © The Smiley Company. (hey, when shrugging off a presidential resignation, energy crisis, and inflation, a lot of Baby Boomers needed this little helper to “Have a nice day”). By the time the Big Eighties rolled around, Pac-Man—itself a yellow-faced circular icon—gobbled up ol’ Smiley’s popularity for the new decade. But unlike other flashes in the pan, the Smiley Face refused to pull up a rocking chair alongside the Pet Rock and Mr. Microphone in the Retirement Home for Fads. In the decades since its debut it has become a recognizable mark epitomizing Americana, dotting everything from rave posters to ecstasy tablets, boxer shorts to smartphone cases, socks to vinyl handbags, and designer sweaters to contact lenses, even pointing the way (without hands, mind you!) to the emoticons that now “speak” for us today in social media. As such, altering the Smiley Face has become a tool for making a political statement. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal, dystopian super-hero opus, Watchmen, published by DC Comics beginning in 1986, bloodied a Smiley Face on its iconic first issue cover. Grunge band Nirvana x-ed out Smiley’s eyes and crinkled his smile in the Nineties. These and other Smiley subversions have allowed creative artists to criticize American culture in a much less offensive manner than, say, flag burning. Since 1996, the Smiley Company, a London-headquartered firm fronted by Nicholas Loufrani, son of Franklin Loufrani, has held the trademark on the traditional yellow-and-black Smiley Face in over 100 countries and has licensed the image for clothing and other uses. According to the Wall Street Journal, this lucrative mark has generated global sales of over $400 million, no doubt engendering cheerfulness for its licensor. The Smiley Company’s lawyers have frowned upon unlicensed uses of the icon, aggressively protecting the mark with cease-and-desist notices, the confiscation and destruction of unlicensed products, and litigation. The Smiley Company’s most famous court case involving the mark was a decade-long battle with Walmart over its Smiley icon that was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2007. Many would consider it ironic that a symbol of happiness has triggered such courtroom drama and has become synonymous with the dollar sign. Charlie Ball, son of Smiley’s creator, Harvey Ball, certainly did. In 2001, the year his father passed away, the junior Ball launched the World Smile Foundation, a nonprofit that contributes to grassroots charities. Somewhere, his father, who regretted not having obtained the copyright or trademark for pop culture’s most famous grin (sorry, Mona Lisa), is no doubt smiling. RetroFan

April 2020

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

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ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Mars Attacks by Ernest Farino

or… Martian Mayhem on Mankind Creates Catastrophic Chaos! (at 5¢ a pop…)

“The end of our existence represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they’re out there, we better hope they never find us.” – Rick Yancey, American author of suspense and science fiction According to the U.S. government, UFOs don’t exist. According to Ray Bradbury, Ed Wood, and Ray Harryhausen, they do. Who you gonna believe…?

Don’t Believe Everything You Read…

In 1897, Pearson’s magazine in the U.K. paid English author H. G. Wells £200 (about $6,500 today) to serialize his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds. Cosmopolitan magazine serialized the novel in the U.S. and it was later published in hardcover by William Heinemann of London (and has been in print ever since). Written from 1895 and 1897, the battle with an extraterrestrial race commences when southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel established several concepts that have become staples of science fiction: Mars (or any other planet) is an ancient world nearing the end of its life inhabited by superior beings capable possessing advanced science and engineering who are keen to conquer the Earth. The term “Martian” has also entered into the lexicon as a generic term for alien life. Ripe for dramatization, future Hollywood wunderkind Orson Welles adapted the story as a radio play in 1938 and, formatted as a “live” newscast that interrupted regular programming, the vivid descriptions of invading Martians laying waste to New

Jersey frightened naïve listeners, some of whom fled their homes in panic. Probably the first example of what we know today as “fake news.” Ray Harryhausen, who would later (TOP LEFT) Author H. G. Wells. (TOP RIGHT) create visual effects for the science Orson Welles performfiction-themed films Earth vs. the Flying ing his radio broadcast Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth (an of War of the Worlds, 1938. (ABOVE) War of alien creature coming to Earth from the Worlds (1938), in pulp Venus this time), and H. G. Wells’ own magazine-like format. First Men “In” the Moon, was drawn to Wells’ Martian story soon after he finished work on Mighty Joe Young in 1949. In 1994, he told author Mike Hankin, “I always thought that War of the Worlds had great potential. I made several drawings and some continuity sketches based on the Wells book. I did a step outline, keeping it in the Victorian period, because once you bring it into the present you run into the problem of the atomic bomb and other modern weapons, which had started to become cliché. I wanted to keep Wells’ vision, with the huge walking machines and the cylinder that opened to reveal the octopus-like creature. I shot a brief test in 16mm color, which I had blown up to 35mm.” Ray told Mike Hankin and animator Steve Archer in 1985 that he had taken the package to various studios: “Jessie Lasky, Sr. became very interested in it, but he was working on another film at the time. I also showed it to George Pal and several other people, but no one else seemed interested. One reason, I believe, was the cost of mounting a period picture. The need for costumes RetroFan

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and sets of the Victorian era was always an expensive proposition. Paramount Studios owned the rights to the property, bought originally for Cecil B. DeMille [in 1925, along with When Worlds Collide], and, of course, George [Pal] made his updated version for that studio a few years later, which was wonderful, but not as I would have done it. A little while later, I offered my Martian model to Howard Hawks to use in The Thing, but he had in mind something quite different.”

“Do you wish to report a UFO? Over.”

– Air Traffic Controller (David Anderson), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) On July 16, 1945, seven days after establishing White Sands Proving Ground, the first nuclear weapon, codenamed Trinity, was detonated by the United States Army 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico. Two years later, on June 25, 1947, an Oregon newspaper published the first story to mention flying saucers. Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho, pilot flying his CallAir Model-A single-engine, fixedwing aircraft at 10,000 feet above the snowy peaks of Mt. Rainier reported “nine saucerlike objects flying at 1,200 miles an hour at 10,000 feet. The objects were flying over Mount Rainier in Washington State and appeared to weave in and out of formation.” Arnold later said, “These objects are aircraft of a strange design and material Kenneth Arnold, who first report- unknown to the civilization of ed “flying saucers” in 1947. this earth.” As of June 26, 1947, newspapers began using the term “flying saucer” to describe the objects. The modern age of “flying saucers” had begun. Two years later, the July 8, 1947 edition of the Roswell Daily Record led with the headline, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” Army intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel reportedly recovered the “disc” and flew it to headquarters, but it was never seen again. The Air Force later stated that the “saucer” was a weather balloon. However, Marcel’s son, Jesse Marcel, Jr., later told HuffPost reporter Lee Speigel that he was shown pieces of the UFO by his father, describing them as “I-beams about 12 to 18 inches long [with] symbols or writing on the inner surface. I thought, at first, it was like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but when I looked closer, it seemed more like geometric symbols of some kind—it was very strange.” Roswell crash conspiracies persist to this day. George Adamski wrote Flying Saucers Have Landed. When preparing the special effects for his film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers in 1965, Ray Harryhausen sought out Adamski and met him twice in California. In 1989, Ray said that “when I first met him, he was most convincing, describing everything about sighting and meeting aliens in minute detail. I later saw him again, doing 44

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what I thought was a rather mundane task for a supposed space traveler—building a brick wall at his home. He started talking about Jupiterians or Jovians or something and I began having my doubts.” Ray also went into the desert where UFO sightings had been reported but nothing ever happened, of course. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers was specifically suggested by the book Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Major Donald E. Keyhoe, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), a former rocket scientist, aviator, and fiction writer. Over a period of more than 20 years, Keyhoe published four studies of UFO phenomena and was eventually appointed director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). On January 26, 1953, Albert M. Chop, Air Force Press Desk, Department of Defense, wrote to Henry Holt & Co., the firm planning to publish Keyhoe’s book. Chop wrote: “We in the Air Force recognize Major Keyhole [for his] responsible, accurate reports. His long association and cooperation with the Air Force, in our study of unidentified flying objects, qualifies him as a leading civilian authority on this investigation. The Air Force, and its investigating agency, ‘Project Bluebook,’ are aware of Major Keyhoe’s conclusion that the ‘Flying Saucers’ are from another planet. The Air Force has never denied that Flying Saucers from Outer Space this possibility exists. Some by Major Donald E. Keyhoe, U.S. of the personnel believe that Marine Corps (Ret.), the “inspirathere may be some strange tion” for Ray Harryhausen’s film natural phenomena completely Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. unknown to us, but that if the apparently controlled maneuvers reported by many competent observers are correct, then the only remaining explanation is the interplanetary answer.” And that was enough to kick off Keyhoe’s book, and then Harryhausen’s movie. However, Keyhoe was appalled by Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and said that he wished he could stand outside every theater to denounce it.

More Incredible Than the Mind Can Imagine!

Of course, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers was not the first (nor would it be the last) film to thrill audiences with an invasion of aliens and flying saucers. Specific “Mars” movies including Flying Disc Man from Mars (1950), Flight to Mars (1951), Red Planet Mars (1952), Invaders from Mars (1953), The Angry Red Planet (1959), and Battle in Outer Space (1959). One the most famous (or infamous) flying saucer films was Plan 9 from Outer Space, written and directed by the unflappable Edward D. Wood, Jr., released in 1959. Always entertaining in a perverse, head-scratching kind of way, Plan 9 utilized plastic model kits of flying saucers (not the automobile hubcaps as has been reported). In November 1956, Wood went to Reginald

ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Denny’s hobby shop and bought three commercially available plastic kits by Lindberg models, the Flying Saucer, which had originally come out in 1952. One of the better movies was Devil Girl from Mars (1954). Mark Thomas McGee wrote in his recent book You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!—A Front Row Look at the Science Fiction and Horror Films of the 1950s (BearManor Media, 2018), “A flying saucer lands in a field behind an isolated Scottish inn. The pilot, a woman named Nyah (Patricia Laffan), uses her robot and an invisible shield to hold the people at the inn captive, while she decides which of the men she wants to take home with her. It seems that a war between the men and women of Mars left the men sterile. “What makes the film so delightful is Laffan’s performance in the title role. She looks and talks like she hasn’t had a bowel movement for twenty years, strutting disdainfully about the room in her dominatrix outfit. If she is an example of the other women on Mars, no wonder the men are sterile. ‘I laugh when I think about it,’ said co-star Hazel Court, ‘but I still get fan mail, and I’m even told Steven Spielberg got some ideas from it. Nearly fifty years later, I wonder if women in leather still rule Mars.’”

“This is amazing… !”

— Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), War of the Worlds (1953)

But the granddaddy of them all was George Pal’s Technicolor production of War of the Worlds, based on the original H. G. Wells novel (although modernized from Victorian England to 1953 Los Angeles). Pal’s film remains the high-water mark for alien-invasion movies, and it leaves an indelible mark to anyone who sees it, from the everyday movie fan to superstar actors. Two-time Oscar®-winning actress Sally Field directed an episode of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. I was the Visual Effects (ABOVE) Poster, War of the Worlds (1953). Supervisor and after a (RIGHT) Producer George Pal shows a Martian war machine model used in his take on the blue screen film of War of the Worlds to Tony Curtis stage I impulsively and Janet Leigh, then starring in anothsaid, “This is amazing!” er Pal film, Houdini (1953). © Paramount in my best Gene Barry Pictures.

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Before Mars attacked: Poster, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). © Columbia Pictures Corporation. Poster, Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). © Reynolds Pictures. Patricia Laffan as Nyah in Devil Girl from Mars (1954). © Danziger Productions Ltd.

basso profondo voice. Sally turned to me, thinking I was making fun of the shot, but I said, “That’s from War of the Worlds when Gene Barry sees the Martian ships—” and that’s as far as I got. Sally lit up and carried on the story: “Yes! When they rise up out of the gully and start firing their heat rays and those green plasma bolts with the ships in those protective glass shields—” and so on. It was great fun to see someone you might not expect immediately kick into an enthusiastic account like that. Sally ended with, “My mother was in a science-fiction movie, you know!” I said, “I do know that.” (Margaret Field was the female lead in Edgar Ulmer’s low-budget cult classic The Man From Planet X in 1951). So Pal’s film set the bar, and set it pretty high. In dignified yet foreboding tones, Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s narration opens of the film, immediately establishing a feeling of dread and impending doom (condensed a little here): “No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th Century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by

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intelligences greater than Man’s. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against us. The inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences of which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate. Of all the worlds that the intelligences on Mars could see and study, only our own warm Earth was green with vegetation, bright with water, and possessed a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility. It did not occur to mankind that a swift fate might be hanging over us, or that from the blackness of outer space we were being scrutinized and studied.” So books, radio dramas, and films all set the stage for one of the most significant, mind-bending, frightening, gory, exciting, controversial creations in the history of pop culture, a “toy” that thrilled kids, horrified parents, and infuriated legislators. And which was delivered in a format no one expected. Bubble gum cards.

Bazooka Joe, Hopalong Cassidy, and… Martians!

In 1890, Morris Shorin formed the American Leaf Tobacco Co., importing tobacco to the United States for sale to other tobacco companies. But he was cut off from Turkish supplies of tobacco during World War I and faced further difficulties during the Great Depression. Deciding to focus on a new product, he relaunched the company in 1938 as Topps for the manufacture of chewing gum, still somewhat of a novelty sold in individual pieces. In 1950, Topps came out with trading cards featuring Western movie and TV character Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd). But baseball cards soon took center stage. Sy Berger, with Woody Gelman, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card set on the kitchen table of his apartment in Brooklyn. Today a pack of 1952 Topps baseball cards is worth at least $5,000, and a PSA-graded “Mint 9” 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 baseball card, the most valuable card of the modern era, sold at auction in 2018 for $2.88 million. But Topps’ most successful early product was Bazooka bubble gum, with its small color comic strip on the wrapper. In 1953 Woody Gelman hired American cartoonist Wesley Morse to create the Bazooka Joe comic strip. A regular contributor of sketches to magazines like Film Fun, Snappy Stories, and Judge as well as magazine advertisements that appeared in Collier’s, The New Yorker, and LIFE, Morse in the early Twenties worked alongside Alberto Vargas as one of the artists for the Ziegfeld Follies. Quite the ladies’ man, before marrying Lucy Olsen in 1944, Morse dated actresses Ruby Keeler, Avonne Taylor, and Barbara Stanwyck. His son, Talley, was the inspiration for many of the Bazooka Joe strips and Morse created more than a thousand comic strips so far ahead of schedule that new ones continued to appear for years after he died. 46

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In 2018, Joshua Weiss interviewed Mars Attacks co-creator Len Brown for SyFy Wire, and Brown described the beginnings of the Mars Attacks cards: “It started [with] Woody Gelman, who ran the new product development and I worked for him. We talked about maybe doing a horror series of trading cards because horror comics were really big a few years prior. Then all the EC stuff all got banned.” [Editor’s note: The explicit content of horror comic books published by EC Comics, publisher of MAD magazine (originally a color comic book) as well as a classic horror comics line which included Tales from the Crypt, was partially responsible for a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing against the comics business, charging the industry with allegations of inciting juvenile delinquency. Many publishers folded as a result, and EC canned its horror titles.] “But we thought, ‘Hey, maybe we can get away with doing a horror series.’ But management was a little nervous when we told them what we were doing. So instead we felt like, Well, science fiction’s been big [like] War of the Worlds. The movie that inspired me a lot when I was growing up was a Universal Picture that actually had a creature that [was] very Mars Attacks-looking, sort of a big brain head: This Island Earth (1955). It was one of the early color films made by Universal and I remember really loving it. So, we were trying to figure what a Martian should look like and I showed them a picture from one of the magazines that were coming out, Famous Monsters of Filmland or something like that. I showed it to Woody and he liked it and we had some sketches made up about doing a possible series of cards on a Martian invasion.” As it turned out, there is no real “story” to the card set, although kids (like me) couldn’t have cared less about that. I mean, after all, when you have an Army soldier bashing in the exposed brains of a Martian invader with his Carbine rifle, blood spurting in geysers, the last thing you’re thinking about is story logic. In any case, the storyline was simple, as summarized in the card set itself: Planning to conquer the Earth, Mars sends flying saucers through space carrying deadly weapons. Burning the cities, the Martians destroy much of Earth’s population. The enemy then enlarges insects to over 500 times their normal size and releases them on the helpless planet. People go into hiding, knowing that death is the consequence if they are discovered by the creatures. Despites its losses, Earth launches a counter-attack that shatters the Martians on their home planet, Mars. In retrospect, two aspects of the Mars Attacks card set are nothing less than genius: First, the cards told a continuing story in “serial” fashion, which created a fever-like excitement amongst us young (LEFT INSET) The iconic 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 baseball card, which, graded PSA Mint 9, sold at auction for $2.88 million in 2018. (TOP INSET) Topps’ Bazooka bubble gum. (LEFT) Topps’ Bazooka Joe bubble gum comic strip, art by Wesley Morse. © The Topps Company, Inc.

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(LEFT) EC Comics’ Weird Science #16, with cover art by Wally Wood, one of the direct inspirations for Mars Attacks. (CENTER) Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), an inspiration for the look of the Martians in Mars Attacks. (RIGHT) The “Metaluna Mutant” from This Island Earth (1955), another inspiration for the Martians. Weird Science © EC Publications. Invasion of the Saucer Men © Malibu Productions. This Island Earth © Universal Pictures.

MonsterKids. We were at the local dime store or drug store practically every other day hoping to get new cards. The only downside there was that of the five cards that came in each pack, you invariably got two or three that you already had; great for trades, but frustrating when trying to get that one elusive card. How much stale bubble gum can a kid chew, anyway? On LostWackys.com, a pop-culture website, collector Jeff Shaffer of Portland, Oregon, reported on how he obtained many of his original cards. “I bought the Mars Attacks cards in Palo Alto when they first appeared in packs. Then they disappeared for a while. Then the neighborhood supermarket where we shopped put out a little mechanical vending machine with six different varieties of cards in it, and you put in a nickel and pushed the slot thing (like the money slot thing on coin laundromats) and five cards slid out. And Mars Attacks was one of the six available types of cards. So I got most of mine by loading nickels into that machine. I have never heard anyone else describe buying loose Mars Attacks cards in this way.” The second “genius” feature was a black-and-white thumbnail of a detail of the next card in the series on the back of each card, providing a tantalizing “preview of coming attractions.” Those little thumbnail previews of “Burning Flesh,” “Destroying a Dog,” or “Prize Captive” drove us all into a frenzy or excited anticipation.

“One Look is Worth A Thousand Words”

– phrase coined by Fred R. Barnard, Printers’ Ink (advertising trade journal), December 8, 1921 The big draw, of course, was the art itself. Even if you weren’t a comic-book fan or collector and didn’t know the names Norm Saunders and Wally Wood, these images jumped out at you in vivid 3-D hyper-realism.

In addition to the “Metaluna Mutant” from This Island Earth and other similar concepts, product developer Len Brown was also inspired by Wally Wood’s cover for EC Comics’ Weird Science #16. Wood fleshed out his and Woody Gelman’s initial sketches and Bob Powell did the final designs. Norm Saunders painted the 55-card set. Len Brown told Joshua Weiss on SyFy Wire, “Woody [Gelman] was, besides being the nicest man I ever met in my life, a kindhearted soul and a great boss. He was also a very creative guy and came up with a lot of ideas. He believed that each card should look like a movie poster. You look at the card and there’s some story being told without reading the back of the card to see what’s happening. [He wanted] something that would make some impact when you looked at the card. So, we would try to come up with a scene of tension, high drama, and we sat around and brainstormed a lot of those ideas. “Then we brought in a couple of artists to help who were also pretty good at brainstorming, people from the comic field. One was Bob Powell, who had done a lot of work for Topps in the past; he was a pretty respected comic-book artist in the Forties and Fifties.” [Editor’s note: Among Powell’s Golden Age comics art: Sheena, Cave Girl, and Mr. Mystic.] “And then Wally Wood gave [us] a hand also. It was just great fun to work on, I remember looking forward on Sunday night, knowing I’d be going into the Topps office on Monday morning and working on this stuff again.”

Wally Wood

Wallace “Wally” Wood was an American comic-book writer, artist, and independent publisher, best known for his work on EC Comics’ MAD and Marvel’s Daredevil. He illustrated for books and magazines, advertising, packaging and product illustrations, gag cartoons, record album covers, posters; syndicated comic strips, and trading cards. Wood produced both covers and interiors for more than 60 issues of the science-fiction digest Galaxy Science RetroFan

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Fiction, illustrating such authors as Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Jack Finney, C. M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Robert Sheckley, Clifford D. Simak, and Jack Vance. He painted six covers for Galaxy Science Fiction Novels and his gag cartoons appeared in the men’s magazines Dude, Gent, and Nugget, as well as comic strips and covers for various Warren publications, including Spacemen and Monster World. Sadly, Wood suffered from chronic headaches, kidney failure, and a stroke that caused a loss of vision in one eye. All of these problems, plus Wood’s embitterment about declining income, took their toll and the artist died by suicide by gunshot in Los Angeles on November 2, 1981. EC editor Harvey Kurtzman, who worked closely with Wood during the Fifties, said, “Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up. I think he delivered some of the finest work that was ever drawn, and I think it’s to his credit that he put so much intensity into his work at great sacrifice to himself.”

Norman Saunders

After contributing to Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang from 1928 to 1934, Norman Saunders left Fawcett Publications to go freelance. Known for his fast-action scenes, his beautiful women, and his ability to meet a deadline, Saunders worked in Westerns, weird menace, detective, sports, and the saucy pulps. He was able to paint very quickly and produced 100 paintings a year (two a week from 1935 through 1942). In 1958, Saunders began with Topps in 1958 painting over photographs of baseball players who had been traded, so that they would appear to be wearing the jersey of their new team.

(LEFT) Artist Wallace “Wally” Wood in his apartment. (BOTTOM LEFT) Artist Norm Saunders poses for a reference photo.

Saunders also created artwork for many other cards, including Batman in 1966, Ugly Stickers, Nutty Initials, Make Your Own Name Stickers, and Civil War News. Remarkably, Saunders’ original paintings for the Mars Attacks cards are very small, averaging 3-3/4 inches by 5-1/4 inches, not much larger than the cards themselves.

The Invasion Begins

Card #1: The Martian leaders voted and decided that Mars would have to attack the Earth. Life on the 4th planet would not be able to continue much longer. Martian scientists had reported to their government that atomic pressures had been building up beneath the surface of Mars for many years. A mammoth atomic explosion was weeks away, perhaps only days. The explosion would destroy all life on Mars, turning the planet into a barren wasteland. To protect the survival of their civilization, the Martian officials plotted the conquest of Earth. The fearless Martian warriors were prepared for their journey through space, confident that their weapons would soon conquer earth.

Next: Card #2: “Martians Approaching”

And so it goes. With cards titled “Washington in Flames,” “Death in the Cockpit,” “Destroying a Dog,” and “Crushing the Martians,” this series was one of the highlights of 1962, right up there with the Aurora monster model kits (the first monster kit, Frankenstein, was a huge success in early 1962, and Dracula and the Wolf Man were in stores in time for Christmas 1962). Famous Monsters magazine and others were going strong, Shock Theater packaged Universal horror movies for TV syndication, reaching a whole new generation, and TV series like Thriller kept us enthralled within the dark recesses of The Twilight Zone (The Munsters, and other horror and sci-fi-themed series would soon follow).

Shocking… Positively Shocking…

– James Bond (Sean Connery) Goldfinger (1964)

Card #1, “The Invasion Begins” (front). “The idea to start on Mars was Woody’s,” says so-creator Len Brown, referring to Topps creative director Woody Gelman, who developed the series with him. “We worked fairly sequentially, as I recall, so this was the first card Norm Saunders painted.” © The Topps Company, Inc. 48

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While the “Control Voice” of The Outer Limits would assure us the following year that “there is nothing wrong with your television set,” those pesky grownups just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Complaints started coming in from concerned parents, and “Destroying a Dog” (card #36) was singled out as particularly offensive. We kids ate it all up, of course, and somehow, for the most part I imagine, grew up to be reasonably decent people. But the graphic violence and implied sexuality had parents and teachers in a tizzy.

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Topps anticipated problems and listed a fictitious company, “Bubbles Inc.,” as the manufacturer of the series. Eventually, Topps decided to revise and tone down 14 of the cards (originally it was thought that 13 cards had been revised, but one of the original paintings that was recently sold by Robert Edward Auctions was discovered to have been a revision, which made it the 14th card). In a 2009 article by Kurt Kuersteiner, titled “Norm Saunders: The Book & Cards!,” published in The Wrapper, Norm Saunders’ son, David, said, “My father did paint [the revisions]. I saw him doing it and I remember the entire controversial process of producing a less offensive version of certain cards. The image of the girl in bed that is being attacked by a Martian breaking through her window, was repainted to show a guy in bed, but instead of just any guy, Norm thought it was fun to make the guy a self-portrait, so that guy in bed with a mustache is a self-portrait of the fifty-five-yearold Norman Saunders!” Interestingly enough, Saunders made his revisions by painting over the original artwork (i.e., he did not create a new painting). The original art of the revised card #19B, “Burning Flesh” (3-3/4 inches by 5-1/4 inches), recently sold on auction for $8,295.00. Topps was in the midst of reworking 13 of the cards but even that was not enough—a Connecticut district attorney made inquiries and that was the last straw. Topps was thrown into a tailspin and ceased production of Mars Attacks altogether before the replacement cards were printed. In his book Norman Saunders (The Illustrated Press, 2009), David Saunders concluded by saying that, “In the end, the lure of potential profits was not as great as Topps’ fear of bad publicity for their more lucrative business of selling wholesome bubble gum and baseball cards, so the revised set was shelved and no additional printings were made.” Today, original Mars Attacks cards in good condition can go for hundreds of dollars and up, and card #1 (“The Invasion Begins”) and card #55 (“Checklist”) are the priciest. An unmarked “Checklist” card is particularly difficult to find since most of us actually used it to keep track of our cards (who knew from collecting in those days…?). Reprint editions of the cards have been published over the years, and while not as exciting as owning a set of the originals, of course, serve as decent “reader copies” to enjoy without worry of damage or fingerprints.

Read the Cards… See the Movie

(TOP) Early character sketches of the Martians. (ABOVE) Toned-down revision and printed original version of “Prize Captive” (card #21). (RIGHT) Revision and original version of “Burning Flesh” (card #19). © The Topps Company, Inc.

Or maybe not. Tom Burton’s film of Mars Attacks! (1996) featured an allstar cast including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Natalie Portman, Lisa Marie, and Pam Grier. Burton took welcome inspiration from Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs. the Flying Saucers for his spaceships, and otherwise more or less adhered to the look of the Martians. However, Burton took a comedic approach to the film, which surprised many. Topps designer Len Brown told Joshua Weiss, “I tried to get involved, wrote a note to Tim Burton’s office. Topps was very excited to hear a [film was being made about a] property that they created as a little trading card set and was only moderately popular—it did not make a fortune in its initial release. We were very excited about it. But I didn’t really care for the movie that much. It started out where they actually depicted RetroFan

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria (LEFT AND CENTER) Mars Attacks counter display box and wax paper wrapper containing five cards and a stick of gum. (RIGHT) The Martians (CGI animation) from director Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! film (1996).

a scene that was on the card, which was called “Burning Cattle” [card #22], where the cows had been set on fire by Martian ray guns. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! This is gonna be great!’ “But then, it just got to be, to me, a comedy. It didn’t take itself that seriously, and obviously that’s what Tim Burton wanted. I had written him a letter, a note, saying I was the co-creator of Mars Attacks. [I think] I asked him in that letter if I could appear in a scene if I came down, thinking it would be really neat. He never did answer it. I called his office, I spoke to his secretary, and she remembered my letter coming in and she said Tim didn’t get it. He never responded in any way to anyone at Topps.” Although Burton’s approach alienated purists like myself, one can appreciate the problem: in the mid-Eighties Bob and Denny Skotak, Oscar®-winning visual effects creators who would work on The Abyss, Terminator 2, and others, and I discussed the notion of a Mars Attacks movie. The problem, previously of little concern to our 12-year-old selves of two-plus

decades earlier, was the lack of a definable storyline. We weren’t in much of a position to do anything about making a movie anyway, but it sure was fun to consider. Unfortunately, of course, my own bias skewed my opinion of the Burton film, which, for other reasons as well, I consider to be something of a misfire (if wellintentioned). So, as we “Blast Off for Mars” (card #46), remember that warning from another great science-fiction film: Keep watching the skies…! Special thanks to Mark Thomas McGee and Pete Von Sholly. All pictorial material reproduced herein derives from the voluntary, non-compensated contributions of pictorial or other memorabilia from the private collections of the author, and from the select private archives of individual contributors.

(INSET) Storyboard drawings for the Mars Attacks! movie by Pete Von Sholly. (RIGHT) The fleet of Martian spaceships leaves Mars, headed for Earth. Saucer design influenced by and a tribute to Ray Harryhausen’s film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. © Warner Bros. Mars

ERNEST FARINO recently directed an episode of the SyFy/Netflix series Superstition starring Mario Van Peebles, as well as serving as Visual Ef fects Consultant. Previously Farino directed Steel and Lace starring Bruce Davison, episodes of Monsters starring Lydia Cornell and Marc McClure, ABC’s Land of the Lost starring Timothy Bottoms, and extensive 2nd Unit for the miniseries Dune starring William Hurt, Noah’s Ark starring Jon Voight, and Supernova starring Luke Perry. A two-time Emmy®-winning Visual Ef fects Supervisor for SyFy’s Dune and Children of Dune miniseries, Farino supervised the Emmy-nominated visual ef fects for the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon; James Cameron’s The Terminator, The Abyss, and T2; as well as Starship Troopers, Snow White–A Tale of Terror, Creepshow, and many others. His publishing enterprise, Archive Editions, has published Mike Hankin’s elaborate three-volume book set Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks, The FXRH Collection, and more. 50

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM DEPARTMENT

A SECRET SANCTUM Look At

Getting MAD in the Seventies by Scott Saavedra

“Friends, roaming paperbacks… Lend MAD your jeers! It comes to bury humor… Not to raise it!” Such was the typically self-deprecating promise on the back cover of The Ides of MAD, a mass-market paperback reprinting material from Fifties-era MAD magazines. Included was a parody of one of Shakespeare’s most famous scenes, Marc Antony’s funeral oration. Not that I made the connection when I first read the back cover. My idea of literature then—I was around ten—was limited pretty much to a burgeoning interest in comic books and whatever printed words I had to consume in school. Ides was my first MAD purchase—a gift from my dad—made at a newsstand one night in Los Angeles. I got it because I had looked over a friend’s copy and had my mind boggled by the thing. Dad and I had just come from seeing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey—more boggling of the mind—and the MAD paperback was an extra treat. That was one of my more formative nights to be sure. As I read, re-read, examined every letter, absorbed every line, and simply stared at my beautiful copy of Ides of MAD for long periods of time, I found that I had so many questions. Mainly, what I wanted to know was… what… is… this… thing?

Son of Harvey

I suspected that MAD wasn’t always a magazine when I came across paperback reprints of comic-book style material making fun of comic characters I had never read (or heard of). And it’s true, MAD began life as a ten-cent comic book in 1952. These modest but colorful publications were at the bottom of the popular-culture pile at the time, a position nurtured by cheap,

(LEFT) The author’s introduction to a world he didn’t know existed appeared in the pages of Ides of MAD. The first few years of MAD paperbacks were reprinted multiple times; this is the 13th printing, ca. 1969. It has been read nearly into oblivion (not to worry, a backup copy is on hand). (ABOVE) The covers to the author’s earliest copies of MAD could not withstand multiple re-readings. Photos by the author unless otherwise indicated. TM & ©

EC Publications, Inc.

short-sighted decisions regarding pay, working conditions, and quality of the product, a sad legacy of the earliest days of the medium’s debut in the Thirties. Many people in the business were embarrassed to toil in that field. Harvey Kurtzman was one such man. Unfortunately for him, he had an uncommon knack for the work. Not only was he a gifted visual storyteller, but despite his meticulous, difficult reputation as an editor, his charismatic skills became legendary. He swept up into his circle some of the finest cartoonists then working in the field, people like the versatile Wally Wood, the animated Jack Davis, and my forever favorite, the Lon Chaney, Sr. of comics, Will Elder (he could mimic anyone’s style). MAD has one of those origins that is somewhat tainted by the quirks of memory, time, and bad water under the publishing bridge. I think that it’s fair to say this: Kurtzman worked for William M. Gaines, the eccentric son of a pioneering comic-book figure and publisher, who intended to be a teacher until his (LEFT TO RIGHT) Harvey by Harvey, a self-caricature from The Illustrated Harvey Kurtzman Index (Glenn Bray, 1976). Al Feldstein and William Gaines, as drawn by Angelo Torres (MAD #143, June 1971). Kurtzman

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father died an untimely death. Gaines reluctantly took over the family business and was encouraged by an artist he hired ahead of Kurtzman, Al Feldstein, to publish the kinds of comic books he himself would like to read. Gaines’ company, originally Educational Comics, became Entertaining Comics or, more commonly, just EC. Feldstein was a powerhouse, editing and writing almost the entirety of EC’s most profitable comics, horror-themed series like Tales from the Crypt. He even found time to draw the occasional cover or story. Meanwhile, Kurtzman, who heavily researched EC’s two modern and historical adventure/war comics, felt his efforts deserved more compensation. Well, yes, but that was not how the comic-book business worked. Gaines suggested that Kurtzman create a humor comic because he knew Harvey could do funny and since it wouldn’t require as much effort he would quickly improve his income (a pipe dream, really, because for Kurtzman there were no shortcuts). The comic book MAD was not an immediate success, but soon racked up sales and imitators (Eh!, Flip, Get Lost, etc.) followed. Kurtzman began to dream of greener pastures outside of comic books and, in order to keep him on board, MAD was turned into a so-called “slick” magazine (though it was printed in black and white on cheap paper). Public outrage in the mid-Fifties over comic-book excesses both real and imagined eventually left Gaines with only one publication, MAD. It wasn’t long before a dispute over creative control of the magazine led Gaines to part ways with Kurtzman and bring Feldstein in as his replacement. Al Feldstein would go on to be MAD’s most successful editor and was at the helm for 29 years, including the entirety of the Seventies. Gaines sold MAD in 1961 (after which it was sold and resold to ever larger business entities), but it remained under his control until his death.

(LEFT) MAD starts the Seventies off on an unusually weak note with the cover to issue #132 (Jan. 1970). (BELOW) My first MAD was #144 (July 1971). That issue featured a parody of JOE, a Rated R movie I still haven’t seen. (BELOW INSET) MAD stayed on top of the latest trends and fads like the smiley face (see the Retro Fad page elsewhere this issue) on the cover of issue #150 (Apr. 1972). TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

What. Me Worry?

I was just one of many who found their underpinnings a bit shaken by MAD. My childhood was a safe, largely happy one, and the worries of the world around me did not generally penetrate this cocoon. But after reading MAD I had to wonder, Just what the heck was going on out there? MAD, with its trust-no-one, disrespectful attitude, was very aware of the times it was in. MAD grabbed the Here and Now by the ears and poked at it rudely. That… was very, very interesting to the young don’t-make-waves version of me. I didn’t always get everything in MAD at first, but that was likely pretty common for young readers (MAD rewarded repeated readings over the years). I also didn’t get MAD regularly until I was 11. Apparently, my timing was perfect. In 1966, a publication for school children, READ Magazine, featured an interview with Feldstein (many thanks to MADtrash. com for reprinting the full article) where he shared who he 52

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believed MAD’s audience was. “Our readership starts around age 11. About then, kids move out of childhood and start thinking more realistically about themselves and the world. If they have any sensitivity and perception, they begin to realize that life isn’t one big fairy tale…” Uh… yep. What I lacked in perception I made up for with sensitivity. I started sixth grade at a new school in a new town when I was 11. I was shy kid. Early into the school year, one girl didn’t want to sit next to me in class so she screamed and scampered over and across our shared tables to get away from me, sending Pee-Chee folders, ditto copies, and wooden pencils everywhere. To be fair, I had face scabs following a week away with chickenpox. Still, I was mortified by her reaction, which everybody else thought was absolutely hilarious. A dramatic move was clearly needed if I was going to make friends, so I

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum Department

The object of the 1979 Parker Brothers’ MAD Magazine Game—with the busy Jack Davis box art—is, of course, to lose all your money. Publisher William M. Gaines did not much like MAD-related merchandising as he didn’t want to rip off his readers, but a specific objection to this item has not been uncovered. MAD TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

decided that learning the piano (“Make friends! Be the life of the party!”) was the way to go. It wasn’t. Fortunately, I discovered that my then-primitive ability to draw was an icebreaker. It was a skill, as it developed, that would serve me well in the future.

An Unusual Gang

Most of MAD’s top creative talent left with Harvey Kurtzman, who helmed—I’m very, very sorry to say—the much less successful humor magazines Trump, Help, and the too-beautiful-for-this-world gem, Humbug (unique in that it was owned by the artists themselves). What Feldstein lacked in Kurtzman’s charisma, he made up for with hard work, publisher Bill Gaines’ steady checkbook, and, most importantly, some luck in getting talent. Those who wandered into MAD’s orbit looking for work became, essentially, lifers. Writer of song parodies Frank Jacobs (my favorite of the wordsmiths), cover artist Norman Mingo, master of the bent-feetinsane-sound-effect school of humor, Don Martin, and the unlikely (he was an historical illustrator) George Woodbridge— who drew a lot of people with red, runny noses—were on board early in Feldstein’s tenure.

One of the things that I find so fascinating about the MAD talent is that their specialties basically were made up as they went along. Mort Drucker, who was the magazine’s top caricaturist, had previously been drawing war comics for DC Comics. Sergio Aragonés was already a humor cartoonist, but he created a new regular feature by showing how he could produce cartoons for the margins of the magazine that previously used the space for humorous text. These bits of filler had been written by Associate Editor Jerry DeFuccio who, apparently, was happy to be rid of the assignment. Jack Davis, a particularly gifted and animated cartoonist, had left MAD with Kurtzman in the Fifties. After doing material for MAD imitators Sick, Cracked, and Dell’s Yak Yak (a humor comic written and drawn by Davis), he returned to MAD only after he was solidly convinced William Gaines harbored no ill will about his earlier departure. Gaines was thrilled to have him back. Another who had left with Kurtzman, Al Jaffee, returned as well, creating the popular feature “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” (a modern version of Rube Goldberg’s “Foolish Questions” comic feature of the early Twentieth Century) and the iconic “MAD fold-in.” The artists were the most important to me of the MAD talent (eventually designated “The Usual Gang of Idiots” in MAD #51, Dec. 1959), but I liked the writers, too. They were the ones to come up with the concepts and were absolutely a key to the success of MAD. By the time I picked up my first copy of MAD, the elements that made MAD MAD in the Seventies were largely in place.

You Know It’s a MAD World When…

…You go to the magazine rack at your local Food Fair with 35 cents in your hand to buy the latest issue of MAD only to find that it’s raised its price to 40 cents (ouch!).

High Culture

Ides of MAD almost certainly was my first exposure to Shakespeare, with Marc Antony’s previously mentioned speech alongside a more “up-to-date” version: “Friends, Romans, hipsters, let me clue you in.” It was a reprint from MAD #39 (May 1958). My initiation to high culture via MAD proved useful in high school when I gave a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” straight from my copy of Utterly MAD which featured a humorously illustrated but otherwise straight reprint—from MAD #9 (Mar. 1954)—of the dark classic to the utter bafflement of my teacher. “Casey at the Bat,” a classic poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, has been parodied by, well, everyone, but by MAD at least twice in the Seventies. Tom Koch wrote a sequel to the original, “Casey at the Contract Talks” in MAD #165 (Mar. 1974), and Frank Jacobs Other, less successful, humor magazines like Sick, Cracked, and, seen here, Crazy Super Special #1 (Sum. 1975) all poked fun at the category leader MAD. TM & © Marvel.

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(ABOVE) With three specials and (OPPOSITE PAGE) a handful of paperbacks published each year, MAD fans were rarely at a loss for fresh presentations of both old and new material. The Specials featured inserts like records, posters, or a sheet of stamps. With MAD Special #9 there were occasional comicbook-type inserts reprinting in color material from MAD’s early comics issues. They were intended to remain attached, as the author unfortunately learned after accidentally destroying both the Nostalgic MAD #1 reprint and much of the Special’s spine in a desperate attempt to remove the insert. TM

& © EC Publications, Inc.

wrote “Howard at the Mike,” which appeared in MAD #155 (Dec. 1972), making fun of brash sportscaster Howard Cosell who, though ill, attempts to return to announce a football game. He strikes out, so to speak, having lost his ability to speak. (Fun fact: MAD first had fun with “Casey at the Bat” in issue #6.) It helped to be aware of culture beyond comic books and television so I’d get maximum value for my money. This was important because MAD went from 35 cents to 75 cents an issue in the space of a decade (weird fact: this tracked pretty close to the average cost of a gallon of gas at the beginning and end of the Seventies). Pages read—and I read them all—but not understood were a waste of money. The more informed and more culturally aware I became, the better I could enjoy my cheap comedy rag.

EC for Me, See!

You know those artists who say that they’ve wanted to draw or paint or whatever since they were, oh, fetal? That’s not me. I have no idea when I started to draw or why. I think I was seven or eight years old when I drew my first comic strip, “Mr. & Mrs. Door,” 54

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which was about, you know, two sentient doors who were married. I recall the punch line on one strip having something to do with Mrs. Door being pregnant, and boy, was she showing. Since my mom was always pregnant and our house had doors, I guess I was just writing about what I knew. So… art. I strongly suspect that as soon as I started getting MAD I started copying its artists. Mainly, I would trace the work of Jack Davis and Paul Coker, Jr. My father took notice of this and when America was briefly gripped by the Citizen’s Band (a.k.a. C.B.) Radio craze (any “fans” of Convoy out there?), my dear dad instructed me to copy art from MAD to illustrate C.B. terms for a paperback book on the subject. This book was to be self-published (hard now, nearly impossible then even if you knew what you were doing and, frankly, we didn’t). Fortunately, the C.B. thing was over before you could say “Ten-four, good buddy” and the project was mercifully set aside. Tracing to learn is one thing. Tracing for profit? That’s some furshlugginer stuff, Smokey. The MAD World of William M. Gaines (Lyle Stuart, 1973) by Frank Jacobs almost certainly had an impact on my desire to be a cartoonist. This book was the first I ever read to present a behind-the-scenes look at a comic-book publisher’s (even if that part of the business was in the past) personal and professional story. Jacobs fills the pages with still-retold anecdotes and facts revealed so expertly that the paperback edition is easily one of the most-read books I own. An early tale in MAD World really got my attention: “Other company heads may demand quiet and decorum. Not Gaines, who summons his staff with an interoffice shout and who once gleefully filled his office water cooler with five gallons of white wine and roared with laughter as the day rolled on and he and several of his staff got gloriously swacked.” I’d never heard the word “swacked” before (nor since) but I could figure out the context and, at around 14, knew from television that drunkenness was funny (I’m looking at you, Foster Brooks). Anyway, I thought, wow, EC Publications would be a great place to work someday (spoiler alert: didn’t happen). At the very The MAD World of William M. Gaines by Frank Jacobs (Bantam, 1973) just might have been the first biography of a comic-book publisher ever written.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum Department

TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

John Putnam, MAD ’s Secret Weapon

least, it made the idea of a regular job like selling shoes or working in a factory seem like failure (sadly, yes to both). Still, I did manage to eventually forge my own path as a cartoonist and MAD had an outsized impact on that journey.

High Culture of Another Sort

The most jarring introduction to the greater world for me was MAD’s crusade (an odd word to use for a publication so resolutely unserious, but it’s a correct one) against drug use. I was stunned and very self-conscious about the cover to MAD Special #7 (Fall 1972), which showed three of the 16 “Presidential Candidate” and “Shocking Message” posters as part of the Special that included an image of a young man’s very dead arm tied off with rubber tubing and a used syringe hanging from visible track marks next to drugs under the headline, “In Memory of Those Who Died in Vein.” Also shown: a poster of Richard Nixon that said simply, “ECCCH.” Interestingly, this is one of the few MAD covers without the grinning mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. MAD also had a strong anti-smoking bent that predated the drug commentary. Gaines did not allow smoking in the MAD’s offices. Early on in the publication’s run, cigarette ads were spoofed in much the same manner as toothpaste, automobiles, or any other

John Putnam, the art director and designer of MAD from 1954–1980, was the first such professional to whom I could put a name. Without knowing it at the time, Putnam was MAD’s secret weapon. Neither Cracked, Sick, nor Crazy mimicked magazines, ads, forms, and other necessary ephemera like Putnam. I found his attention to detail and his use of typography a real source of fascination and joy. I’m weird, I know, but I’m also the designer of RetroFan, so you can see where that fascination has led me. Putnam sounded like a fun guy, if The MAD World of William M. Gaines is accurate. Jacobs wrote that Putnam “was a throughly unkempt man” in a “perpetual state of amusement.” At one time he kept a potted pot plant discretely in the art department until forced to remove it by “an editor.” It became the basis for the potted plant Arthur that made several cameos in MAD once upon a time. John Francis Putnam was born June 21, 1917. In 1980, he developed pneumonia and died while in Germany on one of MAD’s legendary group trips. Though the rest of the tour group had to leave, MAD artist George Woodbridge stayed by his side and escorted Putnam’s remains to the U.S. John Putnam as drawn by Angelo Torres (MAD #143, June 1971). TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

consumer product. But by the Seventies there was zero subtlety about the habit with the smoker’s inevitable death often being the punch line.

You Know You’re a Clod When…

…A palm-reading article in Ides of MAD (reprinted from MAD #35, Oct. 1957) shows Alfred E. Neuman having six fingers on one hand. Since I apparently took what I read in MAD to be the straight dope, I expected Alfred to always be shown with six fingers on one hand at least. No. I was disappointed about this for years because I’m a straight dope.

Dirty Dick and Dirtier Hippies

MAD had a strong anti-drug bent, but Al Jaffee’s Fold-In for issue #158 (Apr. 1973) offered up a typically cynical reason for objections to legalizing pot. TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

“Spy vs. Spy” by Antonio Prohias, Don Martin’s pages, and Sergio Aragonés’ work, plus other gag-oriented stuff was easy to get, but MAD’s constant satiric hits on President Richard Nixon baffled me at first. President Nixon came across horribly (his V.P. Spiro Agnew presented even worse). Weren’t presidents supposed to be the good guys? As much as MAD could be disorienting, learning your president was a liar and a generally lousy person—and everybody seemed to know it—was nuts. Notice, too, that on this subject I completely believed a humor magazine with a “trust no one” attitude.

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It wasn’t just Nixon but other presidents—Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter took some hits as the decade wore on— and political types were mocked as well. In “MAD Interviews a Typical Liberal Family” (MAD #158, Apr. 1973), a family from “New Leftchester” is revealed to be hypocritical and self-centered. Similarly, in “MAD Interviews a Typical ‘Middle American’ Family” (MAD #146, Oct. 1971), members of the “Silent Majority” with their aggressively smoky backyard barbeque are revealed to be hypocritical and self-centered. Yeah, read enough MAD magazines in a short period of time and you will notice some satirical patterns. I don’t see this as MAD trying to give targets equal time so much as an acknowledgment that we are all imperfectly human. Except Richard Nixon, who was eccch. The magazine’s interest in hippies mystified me. The only hippies I ever saw as a kid were on television shows, man. They seemed harmless, silly, and colorful. Of course, if I had gone to Woodstock or Altamont or had one as a disappointing offspring my opinion might have been a bit different. By around 1978 I saw some actual hippies (in Santa Cruz, California), but by then they seemed like anachronisms, as if I had just come across a Civil War veteran or wooly mammoth.

Peak MADness

MAD maintained a creative cruising altitude in the Seventies. A copy of MAD from the mid-Seventies looked pretty much like a copy from the mid-Sixties. This was a plus, not a minus, at least to anyone following a favorite artist or feature. At the most recent [2019] Comic-Con in San Diego, I asked Sergio Aragonés if he thought that MAD during the Seventies was different or similar to working on the magazine during the Sixties. He said, “MAD has been consistent, so the Seventies and the Sixties, I think, [were] quite similar except changing [with] what’s changing with the world.” (Was it cool to talk to Sergio Aragonés about MAD, even for just two minutes and 45 seconds? Yes, yes it was.)

(ABOVE) Political satire wasn’t just limited to well-earned slams at President Richard Nixon. Even for the most patriotic year of the Seventies, 1976 (the U.S. Bicentennial), MAD pulled out all the stops with this “200-year-old” issue of MADDE for MAD Super Special #19 (Fall 1976). (LEFT) The bestseller: MAD #161 (Sept. 1973). TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

Sales reached their zenith in 1973 with MAD #161. That issue sold 2.4 million copies. Ironically, the cover highlighted a parody of the disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (“The Poopseidown Adventure”). Like the cruise ship in the film, MAD’s sales began to sink and never recovered. My interest in MAD trailed off after 1976, but I would get an issue every once in a while. However, by the time of William

A Finger Too Far

TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

MAD #166 (Apr. 1974), known by some as “The Finger Issue,” had a cover so alarming that publisher William Gaines wrote personal letters of apology to those who were offended. Under the headline “The Number One Ecch Magazine” is a fist proudly displaying the middle finger. There is no grinning Alfred (I suppose that it’s his “bird”), nor is there, interestingly enough, Norman Mingo’s signature on the art, though he clearly painted it. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw it. The notion of not buying an issue of MAD wasn’t an option. After I brought it home, I hid the thing (after reading it surreptitiously), and as a result it remained in pristine condition for years while the copies of other issues fell apart. In 2018, when MAD rebooted with a new first issue, the cover featured Alfred shoving his middle finger up his nose. Wisely, this issue was printed with an outer wrap that hid the inner cover.

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Gaines’ death in 1992, the magic of the thing—there would be no more water coolers full of wine—was severely weakened.

Close Encounters of the MAD Kind

The comic-book portion of my creative career began in 1986 with It’s Science with Dr. Radium (SLG Publishing), a comic I wrote and drew featuring an unnecessary scientist in the perfect world of tomorrow. In the years that followed, SLG went to numerous comic-book conventions, often with me in tow. At the 1991 ComicCon in San Diego, the SLG booth was right next to the MAD booth, and during lulls we conversed with our neighbors. It was like talking to a living issue of the magazine. One-liners, wisecracks, and entire movie parodies (kidding) spewed out in rapid fashion. Fun more than funny, but fully fascinating. Unfortunately, I can’t recall who was there in the MAD booth much beyond Don “Duck” Edwing (by that time drawing in addition to his writing for the magazine which he had done for years, sometimes as an uncredited scripter of Don Martin’s work). When the MADmen had to be out of the booth, SLG publisher Dan Vado and I watched over it. We were gifted MAD swag for our efforts. I still have mine. Awhile back, MAD moved its operations from New York to Burbank, California. They were advertising for staff and, living in Southern California as I do, I applied (you can guess what happened). Eh, it would have been a nasty commute anyway.

You Know It’s a MAD World When…

…You finally buy your first subscription to MAD magazine, and it ceases publication (sort of). Yep. MAD’s future is a bit hazy. The latest news is that MAD will move to half-reprint issues to fulfill current subscriptions (awesome). Newsstand sales have ended but MAD can be found

National Lampoon wasn’t so much a competitor of MAD during the Seventies as a place to go once you grew up a bit and could handle some nudity and bad words. Their parody of MAD, originally from the October 1971 issue and reprinted in National Lampoon Comics (1974), is largely effective and features John Romita’s solid cover take on Alfred E. Neuman, a pretty good Mort Drucker style parody by Ernie Colón, and a single-page gag by MAD veteran Joe Orlando (et tu, Joe?). © NLI Holdings, LLC.

in comic-book shops. I bought my first MAD in a supermarket and I always found it comforting to see the thing it in every magazine rack I ever walked past. I know change happens. The old Food Fair market is gone, first replaced by a juvenile detention facility and then by a post office (through which some subscribers will now get their half-old MADs). MAD is too valuable a piece of intellectual property to abandon, but, I guess, not profitable enough to put real effort into keeping the magazine afloat as a vital concern. Do we still need a magazine like MAD? Maybe not, I’m just not ready to bury it. Now MAD-style humor shows up in real time, not months later. Even a random comment on Twitter can be as clever as anything in MAD (minus, say, Jack Davis or Paul Coker, Jr.). Sergio Aragonés recognizes the changing landscape, saying with a bit of a laugh, “The world has become a satire in itself.”

These MAD Bookends from 1976 were originally sold as part of a wrapped set of five Don Martin original material paperbacks. TM & © EC Publications, Inc.

SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a graphic designer, writer, and artist who read too many MADs and too many comic books when his brain was young. 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/) RetroFan

April 2020

A 25 Year Celebration! th

THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

In 1994, amidst the boom-&-bust of comic book speculators, THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #1 was published for true fans of the medium. That modest labor of love spawned TwoMorrows Publishing, today’s premier purveyor of publications about comics and pop culture. Celebrate our 25th anniversary with this special retrospective look at the company that changed fandom forever! Co-edited by and featuring publisher JOHN MORROW and COMIC BOOK ARTIST/COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine’s JON B. COOKE, it gives the inside story and behind-the-scenes details of a quarter-century of looking at the past in a whole new way. Also included are BACK ISSUE magazine’s MICHAEL EURY, ALTER EGO’s ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY (author of KIMOTA!, EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE, and other books), MIKE MANLEY (DRAW! magazine), ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON (MODERN MASTERS), and a host of other comics luminaries who’ve contributed to TwoMorrows’ output over the years. From their first Eisner Award-winning book STREETWISE, through their BRICKJOURNAL LEGO® magazine, up to today’s RETROFAN magazine, every major TwoMorrows publication and contributor is covered with the same detail and affection the company gives to its books and magazines. With an Introduction by MARK EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS, Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new cover by TOM McWEENEY! NOW SHIPPING! (256-page FULL-COLOR Trade Paperback) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $15.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-092-2 (272-page ULTRA-LIMITED HARDCOVER) $75 Only 125 copies available for sale, with a 16-page bonus Memory Album! HARDCOVER NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH DIAMOND—ONLY FROM TWOMORROWS! GET YOURS NOW!

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ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Judy Strangis (LEFT) as DynaGirl and Deidre Hall (RIGHT) as ElectraWoman. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

by Andy Mangels

anthology series The Krofft Supershow they decided to debut a pair of lovely live-action female crimefighters who put would zap evil-doers with an amazing array of electra-gadgets. ElectraWoman and DynaGirl dazzled the airwaves for only one brief season, but its campy, glittery essence has stayed popular for over four decades!

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, The Rise of the Kroffts Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ The world of Saturday morning television Hollywood Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind The was in its heyday in the mid-Seventies, Sid and Marty Kroft, 1976. Camera… three decades of reporting on and only a few companies ruled the animation and live-action—in addition roosts on the three networks: Hannato writing many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and Barbera Productions, Filmation Associates, DePatie-Freleng I’m still enthusiastic. In this RetroFan column, I will examine shows Enterprises, and Sid and Marty Krofft. Though Filmation had that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and been dabbling with live-action among its animated offerings, the capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit crossKroffts had almost singlehandedly kept live-action on Saturday legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday mornings since the Sixties, first designing The Banana Splits for Morning! Hanna-Barbera in 1968, then creating their hallucinatory (some would say hallucinogenic) hit H. R. Pufnstuf in 1969. In 1976, the United States was smack in the middle of its The Montreal-born brothers Sid and Marty Krofft were Bicentennial and the Women’s Lib movement, and television the sons of a watchmaker, and Sid worked in vaudeville as a was awash with super-heroines. puppeteer, eventually being featured in the Ringling Bros. and Filmation’s The Secrets of Isis had Barnum & Bailey Circus shows. His one-man puppet show, “The led the pack in 1975, followed Unusual Artistry of Sid Krofft,” toured the world in 1940, where he closely by Lynda Carter in Wonder worked with his father. Younger brother Marty eventually learned Woman, and Lindsay Wagner in the the puppet trade on stage, and began working with Sid. In 1957, Six Million Dollar Man spin-off, The they even produced a risqué puppet touring production called Les Bionic Woman. Pulling the strings Poupées de Paris. of every Saturday morning puppet The Kroffts created the costumes and world of The Banana Splits for Hanna-Barbera in 1968, working for the first time with on the air were producers Sid and Marty Krofft, and for their fall 1976 a respectable budget and national audience. They decided to RetroFan

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break off on their own the following year, having simultaneously created H. R. Pufnstuf, which they sold to NBC. It was their first opportunity to let their fertile imaginations run wild with oversize puppets interacting with humans, kaleidoscopic colors and production design, and even crude special effects. Despite the fact that most fans (and publications) insisted Pufnstuf and other shows were drug-inspired, the Kroffts have claimed otherwise for years. “You cannot be creative and do a show stoned,” Marty Krofft said in a 2016 video interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “It just isn’t going to work. Sid and myself really never did the drugs. The bottom line is, the audience was probably getting loaded.” H. R. Pufnstuf was a monster-sized hit, and the Kroffts were picked to do further Saturday morning development. They created the insect-themed musical series The Bugaloos for NBC (1970–1972), the anthropomorphic hat series Lidsville for CBS (1971–1973), the humans-adopt-a-cute-sea-creature show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters for NBC (1973–1975), the adventures of a family trapped in an alternate world full of dinosaurs and lizard-men Sleestacks known as the Land of the Lost for CBS (1974–1976), and androids from the future trapped in the present in ABC’s The Lost Saucer (1975).

(ABOVE) It’s the Dynamite Duo and their ElectraComps! (ABOVE RIGHT) The 1976 ABC Saturday morning line-up included The Krofft Supershow with ElectraWoman and DynaGirl episodes. (RIGHT) Hall as Lori and Strangis as Judy. © Sid and Marty Krofft

Productions.

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With their other series in perpetual reruns by 1976, Krofft made a deal to create something new for ABC’s fall schedule: a 90-minute anthology series with different components, hosted by a musical group. Due to FCC regulations on commercials, the networks preferred 60- and 90-minute programs to offer advertisers as a package. Additionally, CBS had live-action hits with Filmation’s The Shazam/Isis Hour and Ark II, while NBC offered Big John, Little John and McDuff the Talking Dog. ABC wanted in on the live-action kid’s show market, and the Kroffts were their answer. The Krofft Supershow, as the new series was dubbed, would contain two-part stories throughout its run, with the first half 12.5 minutes shown one week, leading to a cliffhanger ending that would keep kids tuned to the same channel to view the second half 12.5-minute story the following week. Hosted by a band created just for the series—the disco-riffic and be-glittered Kaptain Kool and the Kongs—the four components of the series would be: Dr. Shrinker, in which a mad scientist shrinks some teens who escape into the wilds of his island; Wonderbug, in which teens attach a magic horn to a car which comes to life and can fly; slightly shortened reruns of The Lost Saucer; and a feminine take on the campy Sixties Batman series titled… ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. “The Krofft Supershow, we created some great shows there,” Marty Krofft said in a 2000 video interview for the Emmy TV Legends website. “They were all in reality and we didn’t have to do them in Lidsville or the Living Island. We had a shot at surviving with these shows

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning (LEFT) An ElectraWoman and DynaGirl concept drawing by Alex Toth. (RIGHT) The ElectraCar, designed by George Barris. (INSET) The ElectraPlane. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

and we found great creativity… That whole group of shows was very important.”

Electra-Creation and Electra-Casting

In the Seventies, the networks were intimately involved with the creation of Saturday morning content, and ABC’s head of Children’s Programming was Fred Silverman, working with Squire Rushnell as his Vice President of Children’s Programming, and Peter Roth. “With The Krofft Supershow, our motive was to create a large block of programming with very compelling characters, melded together with the highly likeable Kaptain Kool and the Kongs,” Rushnell tells RetroFan. “Of the dramatic elements, my favorite was ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. Of course, the wraparounds for the show were also a favorite… after all, 30 years later, I ended up marrying Louise DuArt, one of Kaptain Kool and the Kongs!” Developing the concept of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl (and Wonderbug) for the Kroffts and ABC were four ex-Hanna-Barbera writers: Joe Ruby, Ken Spears, Dick Robbins, and Duane Poole. The latter two also served as story editors and writers for the shows. Early designs for ElectraWoman and DynaGirl were done by legendary comic artist and animation designer Alex Toth. What they created was a series that was almost literally the female version of the Batman live-action series of 1966–1968. Lori and Judy were two female reporters for NewsMaker magazine, but they were also secretly the crimefighting “dynamite duo” of ElectraWoman and her teen sidekick DynaGirl. The series combined Batman’s Commissioner Gordon and Alfred into one person: Frank Heflin, a genius scientist whose lab was in the ElectraBase, an underground headquarters beneath Lori and Judy’s home. When Frank’s powerful computer CrimeScope alerted him to criminal activity, he would summon the heroines, who would ElectraChange into their spandex-and-caped costumes in a flash of light, then dash away in their three-

wheeled ElectraCar—or their car transformed into the ElectraPlane—to confront dastardly villains. Fun fact: The ElectraCar was designed by George Barris, the designer and car customizer who also designed television’s famous Batmobile! The crimefighting duo never fully exhibited super-powers of their own—and networks Standards and Practices department wouldn’t allow them to throw many punches or high kicks—but they were able to handily defeat villains and escape traps due to various technological gadgets. Chief among these were large, wrist-mounted ElectraComps that each heroine wore on her left wrist (and which predated Apple Smart Watches by 40 years!). The ElectraComps had video and radio communication capability, and with special cartridges, could fire a kinetic ElectraBeam, capture villains in an ElectraForce Shield, defy gravity with the ElectraDegravitator, remote-control the ElectraCar, speed things up with the ElectraStrobe, guide themselves through obstacles with the ElectraScan, and more! Judy/DynaGirl was played by Judy Strangis, and although she was only two years younger than costar Deidre Hall, Strangis had a more significant Hollywood resumé. Her first film role had been in 1957, at the age of seven. “When I was younger, I did shows like Batman and Love, American Style,” Strangis tells RetroFan. “I did Twilight Zone with Burt Reynolds. They were different ages and different times of my life. I remember years ago doing a Mod Squad with Bobby Sherman when he was really popular. My career goes way back—a lot of episodic television and movies of the week. People remember me from different shows—whatever they were excited about.” Strangis had one steady series from 1969–1974, a high school drama called Room 222, on which she played the smart, good girl student, Helen Loomis. The year the series ended, she also did voices for Hanna-Barbera’s Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, and embarked on a series of commercials for Chrysler. “I was the Chrysler girl, Mean Mary Jean. There was a car called the Duster and I was the spokesperson and Ricardo Montalban was RetroFan

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doing the Cordoba [ads] at the same time. I traveled across the doing my classes for the soap opera.’ It was a little crazy because country with Ricardo. I went there to sign autographs, not to this was obviously not soap-opera material, it was quite the talk or anything.” Her car commercials with sport stars like O. J. opposite [chuckles], it was campy. That’s what I remember. She Simpson, Bob Younger, and Bobby Clark—as well as a line of 1976 was doing both shows. I believe she was running back and forth… commercials for Mattel Toys to promote Barbie—proved popular, Deidre is lovely and so pretty. She and I would just make fun of as she had wholesome American teen appeal. everything.” It was that appeal that brought her to the part of DynaGirl. Remembering the looks of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl “Squire Rushnell was the… Vice President of Children’s with a laugh, Strangis notes that the booted Hall looked so Programming then,” recalls Strangis. “Before this, I worked on much taller than she. Hall’s boots, she admits, “didn’t help my a lot Hanna-Barbera cartoons, doing height. Sometimes I’d stand on boxes. voiceovers. They knew me from that. [chuckles] I had to; I still do. I was a little FAST FACTS When this came up, they called me in squirt. What is Deidre? Like five-seven and said, ‘What do you think?’ I tested or something?” Her innocent teen look was a hit as well. “I think that’s what they with Deidre Hall and another girl I don’t remember. I think I was the only one for liked about it. I had my little pigtails. The DynaGirl, I don’t think they had another other girl who [screen]tested with me [as ElectraWoman], she was a very pretty person in mind. I was offered the part.”

ElectraWoman and DynaGirl `` No. of seasons: One `` No. of episodes: eight twopart stories/16 parts `` Original run: September 11, 1976–September 3, 1977 (Saturdays) `` A segment of The Krofft Supershow `` Network: ABC

ElectraWoman

thoughtful.

Strangis recalls that Peter Roth and Marty Krofft were both involved in the two tests she did for the role. Lori/ElectraWoman was played by Deidre Hall, a former model who had been toiling in guest-star roles from 1970–1976 on such series as Emergency!, Kung Fu, Columbo, and S.W.A.T., and a twoyear role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. At the same time as she was playing ElectraWoman, she also booked a role that would last her for four decades: as Dr. Marlena Evans on the daytime soap Days of Our Lives. Strangis recalls that Hall got the drama role as shooting began on the Krofft series. “I remember she said, ‘Oh, my gosh. I just got a role on a soap opera!’ at the same time. I remember she was going to acting classes and she said, ‘I’m 62

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Primary Cast `` Deidre Hall: ElectraWoman/ Lori `` Judy Strangis: DynaGirl /Judy `` Norman Alden: Frank Heflin `` Marvin Miller: Narrator Guest Villains `` The Sorcerer: Michael Constantine `` Miss Dazzle: Suze LanierBramlett `` Glitter Rock: John Mark Robinson `` Side Man: Jeff David `` The Empress of Evil: Claudette Nevins `` Lucretia: Jacquelyn Hyde `` Ali Baba: Malachi Throne `` The Genie: Sid Haig `` Pharaoh: Peter Mark Richman `` Cleopatra: Jane Elliot `` Spider Lady: Tiffany Bolling `` Leggs: Robert Sutton `` Spinner: Bruce M. Fischer

DynaGirl is Electra-Enthusiastic! © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

blonde girl—she was also very tall, so I think [the Kroffts] may not have wanted that.” As for DynaGirl’s signature pigtails, those came from Strangis and her “Mean Mary Jean” Chrysler commercials. “That’s how they saw me. I came up with the pigtails. I said this is the character and said, ‘What do you think of it?’ and they loved it. My hair was down when I was just plain Judy.” Asked if she ever wore pigtails again, Strangis laughs. “No! I think I did once for Halloween.” Although super-heroines were vibrant on television—The Secrets of Isis, Wonder Woman, and Bionic Woman were all airing, and Batgirl was a constant in syndicated Batman reruns—Strangis doesn’t recall any feminist mandate for the series. “I remember it just being a female Batman

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Hall, Strangis, and Norman Alden as Frank Heflin test the ElectraComps at ElectraBase! © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

and Robin. That’s how it was described to me. I don’t remember anything like that at the time. Now I look back and I see it, but at the time, I don’t think we were thinking that. It’s so funny, it was so campy, I didn’t take it seriously.” Strangis enjoyed the fact that her character was also named Judy. “Yes, they named me after me! That was an easy one! The costume—it was a great costume. Years later, [comics and television writer] Mark Evanier gave it to me. I was at an autograph signing and I guess he got it. I don’t know how he found it, but he presented it to me at an autograph show. I was so excited. I have it framed right now. I don’t have the boots— just the outfit. Back in those days, you didn’t get the wardrobe. Nowadays, actors can swing getting something from the show, but back then, we didn’t get anything from the show, except I got my name on my chair and that was about it.” Asked about other props, like the ElectraCar, Strangis exclaims, “I would have loved it! The ElectraCar we couldn’t get—it didn’t go anywhere, but it would have been fun to get. I would have loved the boots, the ElectraComps. It would’ve been great—especially at the shows. People love that stuff.” Speaking of Batgirl, Strangis knew the femme stars of Batman closely from her guest-appearances as teen girls on that series. On the show, “I was a fan of a singing group—Chad and Jeremy, I think. I was with Cristina Ferrare. I was very young. I have an older brother, Sam, and he was a director [and production manager] of Batman in those days, so I personally knew Yvonne Craig. She came to our house a lot. Yvonne and Catwoman, Julie Newmar. I kind of grew up with them because of my brother.” Coincidentally, Judy’s nephew, Greg Strangis, would be a writer for some ElectraWoman and DynaGirl episodes (he had also written four episodes of Room 222). Although there were only two steady male presences in the series, both of them had a connection to another superhero: Aquaman. The man who was the voice of Aquaman on Hanna-Barbera’s long-running animated Super Friends franchise, Norman Alden, played Frank Heflin! In a 2007 interview with Alden on the website Aquaman Shrine, the actor recalled that he

got both the ElectraWoman and DynaGirl job and the Super Friends job due to a friend he had once loaned a car to! Heflin was originally supposed to narrate the show as well, until the network objected. Thus, the unseen show narrator was recast with Marvin Miller, who had been the voice of the Sea King for the 1967 Filmation series The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (see article in RetroFan #3). Oddly, Heflin, the genius inventor seemed to have no life outside of ElectraBase; perhaps the eccentricities that allowed him to create Electra-riffic inventions also left him unable to deal with anyone but dynamic heroines? Strangis recalls Alden fondly. “I think I had worked in some episodic shows with Norman. Norman was a serious actor. He did a lot of episodic television shows, so I knew Norman when he was doing the show. He was terrific. We both would laugh… he was just a doll. We were used to being on series in the past—network shows, primetime. We would laugh and say, ‘Do you believe this?’ It was so campy and wasn’t something we were used to doing.”

Electra-Filming and Electra-Guests

The series shot two shows a week in June and July of 1976. “Our director was Walter Miller,” says Strangis. “We had so much fun with him. His son [Paul Miller] was assistant director; I think he is a very, very big producer/director now. Walter Miller was just so fun to work with. He was a great director and we were lucky to have such a wonderful director. Understand something: We did two shows a day. We only worked on this for two months. Everything was very quick.” Strangis recalls that many of the exteriors for the series were shot near Yamashiro restaurant on North Sycamore in Los Angeles, near the famous Magic Castle. “That’s where we shot a lot of exteriors, up that driveway. It’s a long driveway and we’d drive up there in our little vehicles.” Other exteriors were shot at Griffith Park. Interiors were shot on sound stages at KTLA Channel 5 in Hollywood (also home to the Krofft-produced Donny and Marie, and others). “We were next door to the Osmonds,” remembers Strangis. “Marie was always busy, but Jay Osmond would always come over and watch our show.” The Osmonds actually wrote—and sometimes performed—the music for Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, and they wrote the theme for the heroines’ series. While it’s rumored that Marie Osmond actually sang the ElectraWoman and DynaGirl theme song, Strangis says that she doesn’t believe that to be the case. Strangis remembers the first time the public saw DynaGirl, but it wasn’t on TV. “When we were working on the show, my sister was having a baby. I remember that I ran with my costume on at the time, and ran to Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica to see my nephew born. Now, remember—the show had not yet been on! They looked at me like I was some kind of freak! I ran out with my pigtails and my boots—I just ran out so fast! I didn’t want to miss it. I just said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m just coming from a television show and I have to see my nephew. I have to see him and my sister!’ My sister was out of it. Believe it or not, this is ten o’clock at night. I tell you, I went right off the set! This was RetroFan

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(TOP ROW, L to R) Michael Constantine as the Sorcerer, Jane Elliot as Cleopatra, Peter Mark Richman as Pharaoh, Tiffany Bolling as Spider Lady. (MIDDLE ROW, L to R) Sid Haig as the Genie, Malachi Throne as Ali Baba, John Mark Robinson as Glitter Rock, Claudette Nevins as the Empress of Evil, Jacquelyn Hyde as Lucretia. (BOTTOM ROW, L to R) Suze Lanier-Bramlett as Miss Dazzle, Andrea Hall on left with Strangis and twin sister Deidre. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

in Hollywood and I had to go all the way to Santa Monica. So I didn’t have time to change.” As with the Batman series, the villains on ElectraWoman and DynaGirl were ultracolorful, campy and scenery-chewing, and always had highly intricate plots and deathtraps that were foiled by the heroines. Each outrageously costumed villain always had at least one hench-person; sometimes male, sometimes female, but always subservient to the alpha villain’s plan. The Sorcerer was one of two villains to face ElectraWoman and DynaGirl onscreen twice, once to rob Fort Knox, and another time to steal Merlin’s Mirror. The Sorcerer was played by Michael Constantine, who had starred with Strangis on five seasons of Room 222, and won an Emmy for his portrayal. Strangis says she did not influence Constantine’s casting. “I had nothing to do with that. At the time, ABC just used their family like Aaron Spelling always used the same people. That’s what they did in those days. I don’t know if they do that anymore, but back then, yes.” The Pharaoh, played by Peter Mark Richman, also faced the high-voltage vixens twice; once to release the energy being Solaris, and later, to steal the mystic Coptic Eye. Other villains included: Glitter Rock, who wanted to use his hypno-music 64

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satellite to take the world over with a disco beat; the Empress of Evil, who kidnaps DynaGirl and unleashes a Banshee in her plot to rule the world; Ali Baba and his Genie (Sid Haig, who, sadly, passed as this article was being prepared), who wanted to spread evil with their Metamorphosis Formula; and the curvaceous Spider Lady, who changes herself into an evil duplicate of ElectraWoman to wreak havoc [insiders say the Spider Lady was used due to a network executive who had an *ahem* thing for spider women]! Strangis remembers that Claudette Nevins, who played the Empress of Evil, was, “very elegant. I don’t remember any comedy coming from her. She was very straight.” Jane Elliot, who was Cleopatra, was friends with Deidre Hall from the soapopera world. The special effects on the series were primitive by today’s standards, but with smoke bombs, lasers, glitter explosions, psychedelic camera trickery, and animated-on-video ElectraBeams, young audiences were supremely entertained. Many of the effects were either animated or green-screened. One effect was achieved in a way that will surprise most fans. As with seemingly every super-hero show in existence, an evil twin/duplicate was created of ElectraWoman in “The Spider Lady.”

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

The woman playing the evil ElectraWoman was not Deidre Hall, but Andrea Hall! “Her twin was on the show with us,” Strangis recalls. “I think her sister was a teacher or something, but I remember her sister did a show with us.” In another episode, when DynaGirl goes bad, Strangis played that part with relish.

Electra-Airing and Electra-Licensing

The 1976 new TV season debuted on September 11th, with ABC airing The Krofft Supershow from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The 16 quarter-hour episodes—eight storylines—were spread out with one airing each week. In some areas of the country, the show was switched to 4:30 p.m.—or preempted entirely—due to West Coast college football games. On December 4th, The Krofft Supershow was cut back to one-hour (10:30–11:30 a.m.) and The Lost Saucer reruns were dropped; ABC put Super Friends reruns in the remaining time. Although ElectraWoman and DynaGirl seemed popular enough with audiences, Krofft decided to change The Krofft Supershow for its second season, starting in September 1977. Gone were ElectraWoman and DynaGirl and Dr. Shrinker, and added in were the new series Bigfoot and Wildboy and Magic Mongo. The series moved networks in 1978 and became The Krofft Superstar Hour on NBC, with the Bay City Rollers replacing Kaptain Kool and the Kongs as musical hosts, and adding the series Horror Hotel and The Lost Island. That new series only lasted for eight episodes, before being cut to a half-hour titled The Bay City Rollers Show, which limped to a measly five episodes before disappearing off the schedule for good. Released at a time just before character licensing boomed (with Star Wars), ElectraWoman and DynaGirl was still licensed for a few items during and after its run: Ben Cooper released an ElectraWoman costume (no DynaGirl); Ideal released the ElectraWoman

and DynaGirl board game; HG released an ElectraWoman and DynaGirl 70-piece puzzle; Aladdin released a Krofft Supershow metal lunchbox and thermos with ElectraWoman and DynaGirl on one side, Wonderbug on the other, and other characters around the side panels; Golden Books released a Krofft Supershow IronOn Transfers book with ElectraWoman art by Gabe Josephson; Harmony released a calculator Puzzler; and GAF released a three-reel View-Master set and booklet, adapting the episode “The Spider Lady.” Strangis recalls that seeing herself on licensed products— such as the lunchbox—at the time was, “Weird! I had to go buy it, but Deidre and I never saw a dime from it. They never paid us any money or anything like that. My husband saw something on the Internet and we bought a lunch pail. I have it all framed in Lucite in my house! I have the costume, a lunchbox, and the board game.”

ELECTRAWOMAN AND DYNAGIRL THEME SONG ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, Fighting all evil deeds! Each writes for a magazine, Hiding the life she leads! ElectraWoman and DynaGirl!

At the 2009 TVLand Awards, a tribute to Sid and Marty Krofft was performed, with dancing choreographed by Tony Basil. Dressed as the Empress of Evil, singer Cyndi Lauper (LEFT) sang the ElectraWoman and DynaGirl theme song, while models dressed as the heroines danced behind her. A third verse— possibly intended for the original credits but unused—was added with the following lyrics:

Summoned to ElectraBase, By the ElectraComps they wear, Lori and Judy dare to face, Any criminal anywhere! ElectraWoman and DynaGirl!

ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, Criminals all beware! One sign of an evil deed, And those heroines will appear! ElectraWoman and DynaGirl!

Written by Alan Osmond, Merrill Osmond, Wayne Osmond, and Ronald Myers.

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Decades later, further licensing was released: Kid Rhino produced a VHS tape of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl’s first two episodes, and later, a boxed DVD set titled The World of Sid and Marty Krofft; Sideshow Collectibles put out a “Tooned Up” Television Bust Set of the two heroines; Living Toyz issued an ElectraWoman action figure; and Vivendi released a DVD called Sid & Marty’s Saturday Morning Hits which contained one episode of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. Fans who had to settle for bootlegs of the series to see it in its entirety were finally rewarded in when Australia’s Beyond released a multiDVD World of Sid and Marty Krofft boxed set that contained the complete ElectraWoman and DynaGirl (as well as H. R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters).

Once… Twice… Three Times the Ladies

Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, starring YouTube personalities Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart in the title roles. © Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

In 2000, Warner Bros. Television began development with the Kroffts on a half-hour sitcom revival Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (now with spaces in their names). A TV pilot was written by Elisa Bell and Jeff Klein, and it used the original series as its starting point. Now 25 years later, ElectraWoman (played by Markie Post) is retired, cynical, and alcoholic, and DynaGirl is gone, having taken Lori’s husband with her. A college girl named Judy Pope (Anne Stedman)—who had been saved by the duo as a child— tracks ElectraWoman down and attempts to reactivate her because Judy 2.0 wants to become the new DynaGirl. Although a 15-minute pilot was shot (which featured DC Comics’ Aquaman and Flash onscreen, and mentions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman!), the WB chose not to pick up the series, and it appeared that the ElectraBase was to be shuttered for good. On February 26, 2015, a press announcement was released, touting that a new version of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, starring YouTube personalities Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart in the title roles. The series, directed by Chris Marrs Piliero, and produced by Tim Carter and Tomas Harlan, was filmed in Vancouver during February and March 2015. Now titled Electra Woman & Dyna Girl (with an ampersand), the show was released on streaming platform Fullscreen in eight 11-minute webisodes. Those were then combined into an 81-minute feature film that was offered digitally on June 7, 2016, and on DVD on July 5, 2016 through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. No follow-up ever appeared… … Although in July 2018, Marty Krofft did tell Comic Book Central podcast that he had Akiva Goldsmith attached to produce a new ElectraWoman and DynaGirl feature film. Strangis never saw the 2001 pilot, but did watch part of the 2016 version. “They redid Electra Woman and Dyna Girl a few years ago. Oh, my God! It was nothing like what we did! It was quite different. I saw a few minutes of it and kind of turned it off. I was disappointed with it. It has nothing to do with them, they are YouTube stars, and I’ve met them and they are lovely people… I didn’t like the way they made it and didn’t like the storyline. It was too serious. I only watched it for five to ten minutes. I wished they’d gone in a different direction. I was really looking forward to it; I really wanted it to work. I was excited about it.” 66

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Electra-Legacy

Despite not being widely seen in syndication, nor significantly on the video market, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl remained one of Krofft’s most beloved series. Nick at Night and TV Land both occasionally reran the show, and whenever the brothers Krofft appeared at conventions or public appearances, the heroine showcase was always an audience favorite. In the 40+ years since its debut, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl has now achieved a kind of cult celebrity. Deidre Hall has worked steadily since the series ended, playing the role of Dr. Marlena Evans on the soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1976–1987, and again from 1991–present; she has filmed more than 4,000 episodes in the role (and other lookalike characters) to date. Hall has been nominated for three daytime Emmy Awards, and won seven awards from the soap-opera community. She rarely talks about ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, although on a July 1996 appearance on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, she told one story about the aftermath. “I have a three-and-ahalf year-old son, and I thought, what a great thing to finally have played a super-hero sometime in my life. He’ll just think I’m really terrific. So somebody sent me an old tape of a show, and I put it on for him, and it was one of those shows where I got caught up in a big net and dunked in oil or something like that. He started crying and walked away.”

ELECTRAWOMAN AND DYNAGIRL TITLES Although episodes were split into two segments in The Krofft Supershow, they are considered one show, and have been released as such since their original airing. 1. The Sorcerer’s Golden Trick 2. Glitter Rock 3. Empress of Evil 4. Ali Baba 5. Return of the Sorcerer 6. The Pharaoh 7. The Spider Lady 8. Return of the Pharaoh

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning A sample of Electra-Wow special effects.

ELECTRA-EVERYTHING!

Throughout the episodes, DynaGirl would add the description of “Electra” on anything possible. Here’s an Electra-Awesome list of her Electra-additions (with thanks to the defunct website ElectraWoman and DynaGirl Webopedia)...

Hall did make one public appearance with Strangis and Sid and Marty Krofft for the 35th anniversary of the series, at the Hollywood Collectors Show in early October 2011. Strangis herself has done three other shows, all in L.A. (January 2003, August 2011, and November 2019). It was at the 2003 show that Mark Evanier gave her the suit. In his online blog at www.newsfromme.com, Evanier wrote the following story (reprinted with permission): “Back then, I was dating a lovely lady named Bridget Holloman who worked as a dancer on Krofft shows and other programs, and one day I mentioned to her that the Kroffts’ wardrobe department was throwing out a lot of old outfits that seemed to be no longer needed. She asked me to see if I could snag any that she’d worn… so one day when no one was looking, I slipped over to that part of the building and rooted around in a dumpster. In it, I found a couple items with Bridget’s name on the tags but I also found one each of the old ElectraWoman and DynaGirl costumes. Deidre and Judy believed there were two DynaGirl suits made and three ElectraWoman outfits. Initially, two of each were fashioned—one to wear, one for a backup—but then there was an episode that called for an evil twin of ElectraWoman. That was an easy special effect: They just made an extra costume and had Deidre Hall’s twin sister wear it.

“I took the ElectraWoman and DynaGirl suits home and for years, they were in my closet. Every so often, I’d show them to friends and complain they didn’t quite fit me. Actually, the ElectraWoman suit fit Bridget perfectly. She was quite a sensation once when she wore it to a Halloween party. “I took [the DynaGirl costume] up to the Hollywood Collectors Show and handed it over [to Judy]. She was, of course, floored. It’s faded and the Velcro is coming off, but it’s still more or less in one piece. Judy said she couldn’t wait to take it home and see if it still fits. I’m betting it does. She looks like she’s aged about five years since ’76. (By the way, she had a pretty good crop of guys my age lined up to buy signed photos.)… The ElectraWoman suit is now part of a travelling museum of artifacts from children’s television.” Strangis recalls some of her fan interactions fondly. “I have one guy who came to the show and was wearing a snake around his neck and shaking when he met me, ‘Oh, my God, I’m meeting DynaGirl!’ So you get all kinds. [chuckles] Mostly men have been my fans.” One of those male fans was Chris Hardwick, host of Talking Dead. “He went to school with my stepdaughter. He went nuts. He brought me all the ElectraWoman and DynaGirl tapes, and he was such a big fan! Through the years— truly a big fan.”

Electra-Blinding Electra-Close (2) Electra-Confusing Electra-Cool Electra-Dumb Electra-Grim Electra-Easy Electra-Great Idea Electra-Fantastic (3) Electra-Far Out Electra-Mess Electra-Nerve Electra-Now Electra-Phony Electra-Ridiculous Electra-Right Electra-Scary Electra-Smart Electra-Super (2) Electra-Terrific (4) Electra-Tight Electra-Tricky (2) Electra-Trouble Electra-Turkey Electra-Weird Electra-Wild (2) Electra-Wow (15) Electra-Yuck

Strangis is still recognized today, even without pigtails. “I know [the shows] were popular but became more popular as the years went by. It’s such a cult! Room 222 did not go into reruns and syndication necessarily at the time, but ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl? I’ve gone to banks and other places, ‘Excuse me, are you…?’ I’m shocked. It surprises me but it’s very sweet. I don’t RetroFan

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis reunited in 2011. Photo by

Matthew Rettenmund.

make fun of it. It was what it was and a fun show to do and I never took it seriously.” One of her fans was somebody who had costarred with her in the pilot episode of Room 222, and then became a super-hero himself, at the same time as Strangis was playing DynaGirl: Michael Gray, who played Billy Batson on Filmation’s Shazam! [see RetroFan #4]. “Years ago, somebody was sending me flowers and there was Michael at the door,” Strangis recalls. “He was delivering the flowers. He just had to see me. He was so cute. I was in shock. He told me he owned the shop, but I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my God! Is he delivering them?’ Then he explained it to me. You don’t know how to react to something like that. He’s such a sweetheart.” Gray had seen Strangis’ name on the delivery order for his flower shop and told his wife that he had to make this delivery in person. Although she continued to work regularly in Hollywood in front of the camera, Strangis also did a lot of cartoon voices, including for the series Goldie Gold and Action Jack, Donkey King on Saturday Supercade, and even an episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Even today, she “loops” dialogue as a voice actress, including on shows such as CSI, on which her brother Sam was a producer. Post-1984, though, Strangis all but disappeared from view in live-action roles. The reason was not a lack of offers, but something far more sinister: a stalker. “I quit,” Strangis says somberly. “I had a stalker and kind of quit after that. I had to change my house and phone numbers. I don’t really like talking about it now because he’s still around I don’t want to revive it. But that’s why. I was really scared. He’s looking for where I live and what I do. That’s why I’m nervous. 68

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They want me to do an autograph show for Love, American Style, in three or four weeks and they’ve been asking me and calling me, and I get nervous because I don’t know who that person is. The police went to that person; they lived out of town and did approach them, but in today’s world, I’m just nervous.” Her voice quavering, Strangis says quietly. “They ruined it, unfortunately.” Looking back on ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl, Strangis is pleased, overall. “At the time, we were given a script and shot two shows a day. I didn’t have time to think! [chuckles] Now that I look back, I do get embarrassed. I’m not going to lie. I did a lot of episodic shows—serious shows—and I think that’s where Deidre’s coming from, too… but, it is what it is. You have to accept things for what they are. We were surrounded by wonderful people, wonderful, creative people. I look back and go, ‘Oh, my God, what did I do?’ For myself, I’m embarrassed, but not for the show.” The fan reaction from boys and girls who are now grown enthuses Strangis. “I think because of that, I have grown to like the show more than I did. They look at it differently. I looked at it as an actor saying, ‘Oh, my.’ Actors all get embarrassed at their performances, I don’t care what it is. We look at it differently from how you look at it. But now, I thank them, I think it’s very sweet. When Chris [Hardwick] or Rosie O’Donnell talk about how they like it, I laugh. I think it’s terrific. I’m not going to put it down at all.” Looking at the legacy of ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl, the first super-heroine team-up show in history, Strangis says, “I think it’s fun. The world is so serious now, sometimes you have to forget everything and just have fun. That’s what it was—fun. It wasn’t serious or any big Shakespeare kind of acting. I thank everybody who are still fans, and I hope we get a new audience… Maybe they’ll pass it to their children.” And what does one call passing on the energy from ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl? ElectraTransmission! The quotes from Judy Strangis are from an interview conducted in September 2019 by Andy Mangels, with transcription by Rose RummelEury. Quotes from Squire Rushnell are from an October 2019 email interview. Thanks also to Joe Ruby and Marty Krofft for factual clarifications in October 2019. Many thanks for help to the fantastic Mark Evanier! Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels, unless otherwise credited. ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He recently wrote the Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www. WonderWomanMuseum.com

BONUS SUPER COLLECTOR

An Interview with

Kenneth Johnson By Terry Haney

A Collection of Bionic Proportion By Terry Haney Anything Can Be A Collectible

Collecting is one of the hottest games in town. From pop culture to historical memorabilia—nothing is off limits. Disney collectibles are known as Disneyana, while gas station items are Petroliana. Every collectible has its own moniker and a loyal following. Years ago, I read a collectibles magazine ad requesting firecracker wrappers. At that moment, I realized there’s a collector for anything! I’m no exception, so I’d like to share with you one of my hobbies.

Larger Than Life

Growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, I spent a considerable amount of time watching TV. While I had many favorites, I had an affinity for the mystery solvers, crimefighters, and larger-than-life characters—the ones swooping in and saving the day. I must say that after all these years and with the incredible strides that have been made with production and special effects, I’m still a huge fan of these classics. The Seventies offered a veritable smorgasbord of both animated and live-action shows from which to choose—Wonder Woman, Superman, Super Friends, The Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, The Man from Atlantis, Shazam!, Isis, and Batman, to name a few. Many of these, particularly Superman and Wonder Woman, are focal points of my collection, but two other classic shows—The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–1978) and The Bionic Woman (1976–1978)—also caught my attention for several reasons.

The Hottest Shows in Town

The Six Million Dollar Man, based on the novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin, hit the airwaves first and became a hugely successful series for Lee Majors and company. Near the end of Season Two, Lindsay Wagner was introduced as Steve Austin’s love interest, Jaime Sommers, who becomes bionic and tragically dies at the end of the classic two-part story. Fans revolted and wrote thousands of letters, insisting that the character be brought back. With the creative genius of writer, Kenneth Johnson (check out the sidebar interview that Kenny graciously granted) and the revolutionary science of cryogenics, Jaime Somers was brought back to life and quickly became the star of The Bionic Woman.

Broadcast News

Every week, I would plant myself in front of the TV for the bionic escapades. Because information was not so readily accessible as it is now, I depended heavily on TV Guide to

Writer, director, and producer—Kenneth Johnson is a triple threat in TV and film. While he has worked on numerous projects and won multiple awards, readers will likely be most familiar with his work on The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, V, and Alien Nation. RetroFan: Kenny, please tell RetroFan readers how the opportunity came to you to work with The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. KENNETH JOHNSON: My classmate and dear pal from the Drama Department at Carnegie-Mellon University, Steven Bochco, had gotten his foot in the door as a writer for Universal TV. After I’d had success in New York as a TV producerdirector and Exec Producer of The Mike Douglas Show, I came West and Steve introduced me to his Universal pal Steve Cannell, who became a life-long friend. I had always been focused solely on directing and producing. Writing only came about because the Steves badgered me into it. I never had much confidence in my abilities as a writer, but I kept at it. Steve B showed one of my spec features to Harve Bennett, who was producing Six Million Dollar Man. Harve liked it and asked me to bring him episode ideas for his show. I suggested The Bride of Frankenstein—which became The Bionic Woman. RF: Did you do additional work on the SMDM after the BW became a spin-off series? If so, in what capacity? RetroFan

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keep me informed about the upcoming episodes. Some weeks my mom would buy it for me at the grocery store, and other weeks she just gently suggested that I wait and be surprised about what my favorite characters would be doing. During the weekly grocery trip, you could often find me at the newsstand reading TV Guide so that I would get a preview of what to expect. I was never more devastated than when I read that my bionic friends were being pre-empted by some lame special broadcast!

KJ: While I was writing and helping to cast BW, Harve took me under his wing and asked me to join SMDM as a writerproducer—with the understanding that I would also be able to direct, which has always been my strongest talent.

Human or Superhuman?

RF: I have read that you were against killing off Jaime, even though her appearance was only planned for the two-part SMDM story. How and why was this decision made? KJ: That’s what the studio and network insisted upon, until the mountains of angry mail came in demanding Jaime be brought back—and also they noted that the BW episodes rated that higher than SMDM ever had. “Hmmmm…” they said, “Why did you kill her off anyway, Kenny? That was stupid.”

Who could forget the classic, narrated introduction of the SMDM that has become synonymous with the show and character: Steve Austin, astronaut—a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man—better than he was before. Better… Stronger… Faster! The opening credits of both series showcased the tragic accidents and miraculous rebuildings of our hero and heroine and had this superhero fan hooked from the very beginning. But what is it about these characters that was so endearing? The bionic feats were impressive, at least by Seventies standards. Lee and Lindsay did a number of their own stunts and also had some amazing stunt doubles for the riskier moves. But beyond the bionics, they really were human characters with human flaws, and even some bionic flaws. There was a limit to how much they could lift, how fast they could run, how low the temperature could be before the bionics malfunction. Neither character is bulletproof and both have to rely as much on brains as brawn. This human/ superhuman combo struck a chord with me and with millions of other viewers, creating thousands of wannabe bionic kids who were running in slow motion and making cheesy sound effects. My wife will tell you that I still run through the house in slow motion and occasionally make the bionic sound effects!

A Collection Begins

The success of the series also initiated a merchandising frenzy—toys, action figures, playsets, books, magazines, puzzles, records, games, lunchboxes, and posters—oh, my! As a child growing up in rural Alabama, my collecting of bionic memorabilia began with trips to the local “five and dime” stores and the area drug stores that typically had a small section of toys, books, and records. My first purchases included a few coloring books, records, and games in the sleepy little town of Henagar, Alabama. Although I occasionally found a few other items during my childhood, the bulk of my bionic collection would be assembled during my adulthood! Over the years, I have frequented antique malls, thrift shops, comic shops, and toy/collectible shows, not to mention all of the online options afforded to the beginning or seasoned collector! Bionic fans are also fortunate in that a large number of items were produced in conjunction with these two series.

They’re Not Dolls, They’re Action Figures!

Some of the most sought-after items are the action figures produced for the title characters. Multiple versions of the 12-inch figures of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers were produced in the U.S. Several international versions were produced as well. Of course, the boxed versions are still the most appealing to fans and fetch higher prices in all markets. Each figure typically came with some crimefighting accouterments or items to showcase the bionic skills of Steve and Jaime—an engine block for Steve to lift, for example. One of the oddest items included with any of the action figures is a bracelet 70

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RF: Describe some memorable experiences working with Lindsay Wagner, Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks, Rita Egleston [stunt double for Lindsay Wagner]… KJ: Richard, Lee, Marty, and I hit it off immediately. They’d all been impressed by my screenplays for BW, and when Harve brought me onto the team they welcomed me warmly and became terrific collaborators from the get-go. When Harve and I were looking for the actress to play Jaime I was struck by the footage I saw of Lindsay’s work. She had the ability to make any role totally real and like she was making up the dialogue as she went along—astonishing spontaneity. Plus she had a killer sense of humor — which I very much wanted to bring into the bionic shows. A huge debt for the success of BW is owed to Rita, who was an absolute genius at looking truly bionic. RF: Fembot and Bigfoot episodes are fan favorites. What were some of your favorite episodes? KJ: In addition to all the original Bionic Womans (“Return of…,” “Welcome Home, Jaime”), my faves included “Sister Jaime” and the one we did with my pal, Vincent Price. RF: Describe something humorous from the set. KJ: The original Bigfoot was also great fun. When we were filming in the rotating ice tunnel (part of the Universal tour), the effect on your peripheral vision was so

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that came as bonus item with the later SMDM Biosonic figure. This version of Steve Austin is definitely one of the more rare 12-inch figures.

Imitation May Not Always Be the Sincerest Form of Flattery

As is true throughout the realm of science fiction, every self-respecting super-hero must have an archenemy or villain of some type to fight along the way. It also goes without saying that at some point every hero and heroine must fight an evil twin or some type of villain with duplicate powers. This is certainly true with the bionic series, and Steve Austin met an interesting challenge in the firstseason episode, “Day of the Robot.” In the end, Steve battles one of the robot creations of Dr. Dolenz. The lengthy slow-motion fight between Steve and the robot version of his friend, Major Sloan, inspired another 12-inch figure in the bionic toy franchise known as Maskatron. The figure even has an additional mask to be able to impersonate Steve himself. Likewise, Jaime encounters one of the series’ most famous adversaries in the form of the Fembots! Dr. Franklin created this army of formidable females to rival our bionic friends and to seek revenge on Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells and the entire OSI. Katie was the first Fembot featured in the epic three-part story arc entitled “Kill Oscar” that crossed over both bionic series. Katie was the inspiration for the 12-inch Fembot figure, and yes, she also came with an extra mask to impersonate Jaime. If you survey fans about some of the most memorable episodes, you will likely hear about one or both of these storylines. Both stories were revisited in subsequent seasons of each show with “Return of the Robot Maker” and “Fembots in Las Vegas.” The Maskatron and Fembot figures are two of the more highly sought-after collectibles from the Kenner toy line.

Lunch Break

The Seventies also continued the trend of the character/TV series lunchboxes. Our bionic heroes have been forever immortalized in the metal medium. Both characters had two different versions of lunchboxes. The BW lunchboxes both feature the classic scene of Jaime in her role as a teacher, ripping a large phonebook in half to get the attention of her less-than-cooperative students. I must admit that I’ve wanted to do that once or twice during my career as an educator! The flip side of the lunch boxes feature photos of Jaime using her foot as a bionic brake and running with Maximillian, the bionic dog, respectively.

powerful it was nearly impossible to stand up straight much less walk, but Andre [the Giant], playing Bigfoot, had to walk carrying unconscious Lee, who whispered to me, “He’s gonna drop me on my ass, Kenny.” But I had taught Andre the secret: don’t look straight ahead… look at the floor. So we got the shot. RF: Lindsay Wagner won an Emmy for her dual role in “Deadly Ringer.” What memories do you have of that script and “Mirror Image,” another dual role episode? KJ: Actually, although “Ringer” was singled out, her award was for Best Actress in a Series. Certainly her work in “Doomsday is Tomorrow,” which I wrote and directed, and also in several others was equally as good or better. RF: According to The Complete Directory of Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows, The Bionic Woman was an ABC mid-season replacement during 1975–1976 and ended with a #5 ranking and was ranked #14 for Season Two. Those ratings seem very high for cancellation. KJ: As I recall, Fred Silverman, who headed ABC, was peeved at Universal about something else entirely and did it as a barb. RF: When BW moved to NBC for the final season, did your responsibilities change? KJ: No, but I had asked Uni[versal] to let me leave the show shortly before that happened. The extraordinary working relationship Lindsay had developed from the beginning through Season Two was being undermined by others around her who were pursuing their own agendas, and Lindsay was entering a darker time in her life. It was time for me to step away. RF: Were there any un-filmed Bionic Woman scripts? KJ: Not while I was there. RF: What was most challenging about your work on the two bionic series? KJ: When I started, one-hour drama shows including SMDM were filmed in six days. A tremendous challenge for all concerned— particularly on shows like ours with action and special effects. When ABC wanted to spin off BW into a series, I warned UTV’s president, Frank Price, that Lindsay would not have 71

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The SMDM lunchboxes both feature completely different graphics. Many are generic bionic feats/scenes, but you will find Bigfoot featured on the side panel of the earlier-made box. It should be noted that on more than one occasion, Lindsay Wagner has stated that the lunchbox is her favorite merchandising item from the BW. [Editor’s note: We direct you to RetroFan #2, which contains a Super Collector article about character lunchboxes.]

The Royal Treatment

I have not personally invested a lot of time and effort in seeking out collectibles that were issued in other countries, but I have been interested in the British Annuals that were released in conjunction with a variety of TV shows, cartoon series, and comic characters. Steve and Jaime were given the “royal” treatment in the form of the Annuals: four different ones for SMDM and two different versions for BW. These Annuals primarily feature comic illustrations and stories for each character, but they do also contain a few photographs of the stars themselves.

The Holy Grail

One of the greatest creations for a toy fan is the production of toys that are taken directly from specific story arcs in a series. You’ve seen examples of that in the form of the Maskatron and Fembot figures. Several playsets were also created, based on specific elements of the two series. I recently attended a toy show and was able to add boxed versions of the OSI Headquarters and Jaime’s Classroom to my collection. Oscar’s office and Jaime’s classroom were regularly featured on the shows, so seeing those elements of the series recreated in miniature form was a dream come true for fans of all ages. Two items from my collection that are often considered the holy grail from the Kenner toy line and were also taken directly from key episodes of the series. The first is Bigfoot—no need to watch Finding Bigfoot, because he has been located! Portrayed first by Andre the Giant and then by Ted Cassidy, the Bigfoot storylines capitalized on the Sasquatch searching news stories of the Seventies. I located this one a few years ago at an area toy store and was thrilled to add it to my collection. It brought back vivid memories of the show and all the times that my cousin and I re-enacted those crazy fight scenes with “The Sasquatch Beast”— sound effects included! Since we both wanted to be the hero of the battle, arguments sometimes ensued because someone had to be Bigfoot! The Venus Space Probe is said to have been the last item in Kenner’s bionic toy line and was produced as SMDM and BW were both near the end of their final seasons. It seems that because of the waning popularity of the shows, the toy was produced in much smaller numbers than earlier toys. I saw a collector being interviewed about 20 years ago who used the term “holy grail” to describe this item. I resigned myself to likely 72

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the stamina for a six-day schedule. He said I had no choice. But every episode spilled over into seven days… exactly as I predicted. Soon other shows followed, and seven days became the norm. Then CBS wanted me to turn The Hulk into a series and I had to tell Frank that because of the makeup and effects it would have to be an eight-day shoot. Nope—No way—Never. We were the first series to go to eight days! Within a year most others followed. RF: While many shows quickly fade, BW and SMDM have remained popular with old and new fans. What makes these characters endure? KJ: They became iconic because of many factors—always starting with the writing. Without the special work done by all writers involved with both shows they would not ever have achieved such success and iconic status. They were groundbreaking concepts: they were like the classic stories of demigods like Hercules, ordinary mortals who were also semi-divine, brought into the present. And in Jaime’s case she was one of, if not the, first female action heroes. An empowered woman who could hold her own physically and intellectually with anybody. Lindsay and I had lunch a couple weeks ago, and she reflected on the amazing impact we had and inspiration we brought, particularly to young girls… I was humbled and honored to think that we had accomplished so much. RF: This feature includes information about bionic memorabilia. What items have you collected? KJ: Not much. I have a Bionic Woman board game. But my relationship with Kenner Toys did not blossom. When the Kenner president and his (all male) lackies came to show me their plans for the Jaime doll, everything about it was fashion and makeup including the Bionic Beauty Salon. I gagged! I asked if any of them had even seen the show? Did they not notice that Jaime didn’t spend time looking in a mirror, primping for “a date with Steve”—but was an empowered female, doing battle when necessary and working as a tennis pro and junior high teacher? I said I was stunned that they were fostering “girly” second-class citizen stereotypes. The president’s response

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was, “Well… I think most of us are pretty comfortable with those stereotypes, aren’t we?” Years later, my wife Susie found a Jaime doll on eBay, and my pal Jim Parriott, who had written and produced BW and The Hulk with me, gave me an Oscar doll.

never find one, certainly not a boxed version. Through the magic of online collectibles sales, I was able to add this gem to my collection. This too brought back fun memories of acting out scenes from the show. I’m grateful that video cameras were not around to capture these impromptu fight sessions, but it is certainly a lot of fun to travel down memory lane and recount the fun times that were inspired by these classic shows.

Star Struck

For many collectors, meeting or becoming acquainted with celebrities is a huge thrill. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to meet Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner, I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Kenneth Johnson, the brilliant writer— director—producer who is responsible for many of the SMDM and BW storylines and for actually creating the character of Jaime Sommers. When my proposal for this article was accepted, Kenny graciously agreed to an interview. I was also able to obtain two incredibly awesome autographed photos from him: one of him with Lindsay and the other is a behind-the-scenes shot of Kenny, Jaime, and Bigfoot! The second photo was shot between takes during the filming of “The Return of Bigfoot.”

Rules of the Collecting Game

Anyone who knows me, and any student I’ve taught over the years, knows about my obsession—I mean, collection! No matter how much time has passed, a chance meeting with a former student will always lead to the inevitable question: Are you still collecting toys? It was an instant way to connect with kids, and I’ve found that it creates an instant connection with many adults. Simply stated—collecting can be loads of fun, but be forewarned: it’s addictive! Every resource for collectors will provide cardinal rules for collecting. In one of my favorite resources, Collector’s Guide to TV Toys and Memorabilia, authors Greg Davis and Bill Morgan provide a salient piece of advice: “Understand the phrase ‘out of print’. If you really want it, buy it. Remember money is still being printed, but The Brady Bunch game hasn’t been manufactured since 1973!” And you will find the same principle to hold true for all things bionic! Happy Collecting—may the force be with you! Perhaps that’s an article for another day! TERRY HANEY is also a huge fan and collector of DC Comics memorabilia—Superman and Wonder Woman, in particular. He also collects Lynda Carter memorabilia from her music, film, and television projects. Terry is an educational consultant, working with math teachers and other educators. He and his wife, Rebecca, make their home in Alabama, and he occasionally does some freelance writing. The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman © Universal Television.

RF: Michelle Ryan starred in an unsuccessful reimagination of Bionic Woman in 2007. What is needed for a successful series or movie about Jaime or Steve? KJ: I had seen the pilot for the new BW prior to its airing and predicted that it would fail—it had none of the elements that made our original so successful. It had no humanity, no humor, and was completely devoid of heart. It went exactly in the opposite direction. Plus they didn’t have an actress who could hold a candle to Lindsay. I later heard that creator David Eick (who scored a great hit with his respected Battlestar Galactica remake) afterward admitted that they “never knew what Bionic Woman was about,” that it didn’t have humanity, humor, heart (really: he said that!), and he and his team took the blame. I don’t know David personally, but in my book that makes him a heads-up, honorable guy. RF: What do you currently have in the works? KJ: Currently working to set up V The Movie as the first of a Theatrical Movie Trilogy, wherein I would remake the original miniseries as a feature, followed by two sequels drawn from my novel, V The Second Generation. People can check for the latest at www.kennethjohnson. us/ and on my Facebook page—Kenneth Johnson Author. Folks might be interested in two recent novels, published by and available on Amazon: The Darwin Variant came out recently, and The Man of Legends came out in 2017 and became an instant Amazon Bestseller (#31 out of all Amazon bestsellers in 2017) and is still the #1 bestseller in Metaphysical Fiction. It has almost 3,500 reader reviews giving it a 4.3 out of 5 stars—with Darwin following in that same tradition. RetroFan

April 2020

RETRO TRAVEL

Sweethaven on the Mississippi Visiting Chester, Illinois, for the Popeye Picnic

by Brian K. Morris At the water’s edge of Sweethaven, a one-eyed sailor studies the passing boats as they make their way north and south along the mighty river. In front of him stretches the only bridge between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau that connects Illinois to Missouri. Behind him, far from the shoreline, his friends, his sweetie, and his enemies are immortalized in stone. Of course, that isn’t a scene from Robert Altman’s 1980 film, Popeye. In our world, the real-life equivalent rests on the banks of the Mississippi River, a town with its own cast of fascinating characters as well as a celebration of the Sailor Man’s life. It’s also a town with an important identity of its own. It’s literally the birthplace of Popeye the Sailor and his creator.

Grist for the Mills

The town of Chester is the county seat of Randolph County, Illinois. Slightly over an hour’s drive from St. Louis, the land was initially purchased from the federal government by Judge John McFerren in 1816 after filing a claim on the 47-acre parcel on September 30th. McFerren would later become one of the first State Senators once the territory became the official State of Illinois in 1818. Initially, the community was known as Smith’s Landing. After establishing the first housing in the summer of 1829, Samuel Smith christened the area “Chester” in honor of his wife Jane’s birthplace, Chester, England. 74

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Early local industries included a castor oil press, established circa 1830, whose product found itself delivered as far as England. The company’s owner, R. B. Servant, not only supplied local farmers with seeds for planting beans, he also bought back some of their crops to extract their oil. In 1937, Nathan Cole opened a sawmill with an attachment that ground corn. The Cole Milling Company soon built a flour mill, which also encouraged further agriculture in the region. The mill still exists, although it’s now owned by Ardent Mills, the leading flour supplier in North America. Cole also purchased an early power generator for his mill. The excess energy went to power the town’s streetlights, decades before Chicago itself had them. That generator is now on display at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The International Shoe Company and the Prim Hosiery Mill were major employers from 1916 and 1925 respectively, until the Sixties. In their places, the Glister Mary Lee Corporation’s massive complex exists, producing over 8,000 food items for over 500 different private label brands. During the era of steamboat transport, Chester’s many fine hostelries proved a frequent He yam what he yam—and he yam a sculpture! Erected beside the Visitors Center near the Chester Bridge that connects the town to Missouri, the Popeye Statue is the town’s only Popeye Family statue not made of stone. Note its inscription’s tribute to Popeye’s creator, cartoonist E. C. Segar. Photo by Cookie Morris.

(LEFT TO RIGHT, FROM PREVIOUS PAGE) Whether you enter Chester, Illinois, on State Route 150 or Rt. 3, you’ll be greeted by the town’s favorite (fictional) son on welcome signs. In fact, you don’t have to look far to find Popeye all over town! Popeye and related characters TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Photos by Cookie Morris.

stop for travelers. Charles Dickens visited the town with his wife on April 11, 1842. Mark Twain made frequent stops in Chester, as chronicled in his book, Life on the Mississippi. In fact, numerous scenes from the 1967 motion picture In the Heat of the Night and 1993’s The Fugitive were filmed here. However, they weren’t the only celebrities to travel through the town. Some were born here.

“Ja’ think I’m a cowboy?”

Born December 8, 1894 in Chester, Elsie Crisler Segar got a job at 12 years of age, painting the Chester Opera House, built in 1875. Eventually, Segar moved up to being a film projectionist as well as a performer, often as a drummer. Inspired by the acts and films he saw, and enjoying drawing as much as he did, Segar took a correspondence course on cartooning when he was 18, working well past closing time to hone his illustrative skills. Moving to Chicago, he met Richard F. Outcault, who’d gained fame with his Buster Brown and Yellow Kid newspaper strips. Impressed with the young man’s talent, Outcault referred Segar to the Chicago Herald, where E. C. wrote and drew a strip featuring Charlie Chaplin. From there, Segar moved to the Charles Randolph Hearst-owned Chicago Evening American, working as the second-string theater critic as well as a cartoonist. Segar’s editor referred him to King Features Syndicate, where he sold a couple of strips, the most successful being Thimble Theatre. Segar based some members of his cast of characters on certain prominent personalities of Chester. For instance, Segar’s manager at the theater, J. William Schuchert, became J. Wellington Wimpy, while slender, dark-haired businesswoman Dora Pascal was the model for Olive Oyl. And a squinting muscle man, Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, who used to carry beer barrels across town on his back, was immortalized as Popeye, originally a guest-starring character in Thimble Theatre until readers demanded his return. Legend has it that Segar visited Chester many times and handed the strong man checks as thanks for making him a cartooning celebrity. “Don’t ask why,” he’d tell Rocky, “just cash the check.” Now, knowing the history of Chester, seeing the name of “Oyl,” along with family members “Castor” and “Cole,” makes perfect sense.

Today, the former Opera House hosts not only the Popeye Museum and Spinach Can Collectibles, but the headquarters of the International Popeye Fan Club as well (along with an attached resale store, Opera House Antiques). But that’s not the only place where you’ll see the likeness of the world’s most famous sailor. The image of Popeye appears on the signs that greet you as you enter town, as well as the sides of the city’s fire trucks and the patches sewn onto the sleeves of the local police.

A Picnic for Popeye

On the first weekend following Labor Day, Chester celebrates its most famous citizens, both real and fictional, during the three days of the Popeye Picnic. The event features many free family activities such as carnival rides, Wimpy’s Wiener Dog races, trivia contests, balloon play sets and petting zoos for the kids, a 5K run, live music, a flea market, and a varied assortment of food trucks offering the usual assortment of deep-fried goodies, ice cream, smoothies, kettle corn, and other culinary delights to stimulate the palate and expand the waistline. Every year, the Picnic offers a theme. During my visit in 2018, the event celebrated Illinois’ 200th year as an official State. Other themes include 2016’s Popeye Rides Again (or “Ja’ think I’m a cowboy?”), Popeye for President (2015), and Popeye Gets an Edjumacation (2014). But one of the more peculiar reasons to celebrate the Sailor Man came in 2007. In April of 1978, Official UFO Magazine, a periodical devoted to what we now call “fake news” about extraterrestrial visitations, reported the town being totally destroyed by aliens. The verymuch-alive-and-well-thank-you town commemorated the “event” with an old satellite dish and a smoke machine stuck inside the upstairs window of a downtown business, demonstrating what happened to one poorly driven spacecraft that evidently ran afoul of the world’s most famous spinach eater. The weather usually cooperates with the Popeye Picnic. All three days are often sunny and comfortably warm. In 2018, however, after the food vendors and balloon play area set up on Friday afternoon, a powerful storm front moved into the area, dropping several inches of rain overnight, accompanied by strong winds. Thus, the overall attendance for Friday and Saturday found itself affected negatively. RetroFan

April 2020

RETRO travel

However, nothing less Unlike similar festivals, such than a spinach-powered as the Superman Celebration in whirlwind keeps the diehard Metropolis, Illinois [see RetroFan fans away. Even as the storm #3 for an article on Your Friendly builds in strength, many Neighborhood Euryman’s visit to of the regulars find each the 2018 Celebration], the Popeye other around town, even Picnic doesn’t often host guests. though the nightly showing However, when they do, those of old Popeye cartoons guests are impressive. won’t occur in Gazebo Park, Hy Eisman, the writer/artist located next to Spinach Can on the Sunday Popeye newspaper Collectibles. strip since 1994, has visited By mid-morning on before and his original artwork Saturday, the rain finally rests inside one of the display comes to an end on the cases on the wall. Also, former busiest day of the Picnic. Charlton Comics editor and longSpinach Can Collectibles time Popeye comic-book artist on 1001 State Street opens George Wildman left several In 2018, Nana Oyl (Dianna Mueller) its doors and people begin pieces of signed original artwork. and Cole Oyl (Ted Mueller) help unveil the former’s statue with the help of congregating inside, filling Nicola Cuti, who wrote many of their daughter, Olive, and a celebrity the air with conversation. Popeye Picnic Chairman the scripts for the Charlton run of maritime hero. Photo by Cookie Morris. since 2012, Debbie Brooks greets her extended the Popeye comic, paid a visit to family that travels from all corners of America and the Picnic in 2012. over 70 different foreign countries for this event. Later in the morning, the Her husband Mike would also say hello, but he’s frequently annual parade occurs. The various conveyances meet at the moving from one location to another, ensuring that the event high school before taking Swanwick Street to the downtown runs smoothly. area, past Spinach Can Collectibles, and ultimately ending up Regular visitors to the Picnic, many of whom are members at the Randolph County Courthouse. Many local businesses of the Popeye Fan Club, check in to say hello to Debbie and to represent themselves from their decked-out cars or from atop their long-distance friends. Within the walls of Spinach Can the floats pulled by farm tractors as they toss sweets and can Collectibles, Debbie makes certain to introduce the visitors who cozies towards the waiting throngs. Children dart from the haven’t attended in a couple of years, or to those who find this curb, gleefully competing to see who can snag the most candy their first visit, to the regulars who make the annual trek. before their mothers entreat them to not venture too far into As one enters the store, a huge display of Popeye-related the street. publications—comic books from IDW, the six-volume Segar Of course, Popeye and Olive are well represented. In the reprints from Fantagraphics, an assortment of older baggedearly part of the parade, Jim and Cathy Dello perform their and-boarded comic books from decades ago, relevant copies of annual cosplay as the sweethearts of Sweethaven. On another various magazines and books—fill the wooden shelving on the float, actors in foam rubber costumes wave to the crowd. The left. To the right is a spin rack of the Max Fleisher cartoons on parade of ten lasts about an hour as other nearby communities DVD. Stroll deeper into the building to see a huge selection of join the festivities, everyone wearing their brightest smiles and toys, refrigerator magnets, ball caps, and T-shirts, all emblazoned giving their most vigorous waves. Even schools and businesses with the images of Elsie Segar’s creations. are represented from nearby Sparta, Illinois, the former home In the rear of the store rests a display of Popeye products from of the one-time printer for most of the major comic-book all over the globe. Boxed spinach-flavored pasta to toys to comic companies from 1948 until it closed in 1992. books, all regularly changed out to delight returning visitors with While waiting for the next event of the day, one strolls new discoveries. You through the downtown business district, where many of the can even see a can windows carry paintings created by local artists of Popeye and of Popeye Spinach his friends. To the northeast, Reid’s Harvest House serves a inside the glass rotating selection of breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes from its displays. smorgasbord. They also sell their own line of T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, key chains, and other knickknacks, all emblazoned with images of the Thimble Theatre cast. Spinach Can Collectibles is the cultural epicenter of the Popeye Picnic, and also the home of the Official Popeye Fan Club, the picnic’s auction, and the Popeye Museum. Photo by Cookie Morris.

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April 2020

A Gallery of Statues

During the down times, one might tour the municipality to study the statues erected in various locations around the town. The 900-pound brass Popeye statue stands in Segar Park in all his bronze glory, just as he has since 1977. However, he’s now one

RETRO travel

Blow me down, you’d be hard pressed to find a member of the Thimble Theatre/Popeye cast not immortalized in stone along Chester’s streets (these are just a sample). Photos by Cookie Morris.

impressive statue among 14. Since 2006, a new statue is designed, funded through sponsorships, and then erected in time to be unveiled on the Saturday of the Picnic. Since Wimpy in 2006, the Segar characters annually honored in granite are Olive Oyl, along with Swee’Pea and Eugene the Jeep; Bluto; Castor Oyl with the Whiffle Hen that gave Popeye his incredible strength; Sea Hag and her pet vulture, Bernard; Cole Oyl; Alice the Goon; Poopdeck Pappy; Professor Watasnozzle; Roughhouse; nephews Pipeye, Peepeye, Poopeye, and Pupeye; and King Blozo in 2017. The placement of the statues includes Inside the Popeye Museum, visitors find the displays packed with toys, comic books, records, Big Little Books, original artwork, and so much more from Thimble Theatre’s century-long history. Popeye and related characters TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Photo by Cookie Morris.

the local Walmart, the Chester Public Library, two of the local schools, a shopping plaza, and City Hall. In 2018, on Saturday, September 8th, the Nana Oyl statue was unveiled at the Manor at Craig Farm, an assisted care facility on the northeast side of town. Mural artists Ted and Dianna Mueller, whose work adorns the interior and outside walls of Spinach Can Collectibles, portray the iconic roles of Olive Oyl’s parents, Cole and Nana, respectively. Totally in character and with on-model costuming, the artists interact with the audience and pose for numerous pictures by themselves as well as beside the newest statue. Later on Saturday afternoon, the annual meet-up of “Segar’s Sketchers” occurs at the Chester Public Library. Normally, the Library closes at 1 p.m. on Saturdays, but Administrative Librarian Tammy Grah keeps the doors open for a couple of special occasions. The Smithsonian Institute brought in a huge presentation on the rich history of Chester. Visitors wander through the maze of displays of old photographs and memorabilia from over two centuries of the town’s rich history. Library volunteers cheerfully answer questions and ensure that everyone takes in all of the information. But not everyone visits for the rare history lesson. Ken Wheaton, a New York State-based artist, lends his versatile pencil and brush to characters such as Radioactive Man, Kolchak the Night Stalker, the Simpsons, I Dream of Jeannie, Moonstone Monsters, Spencer Spook, and, of course, Popeye for IDW Comics. Every year, Ken leads a lively and informative chalk talk on how to draw the Thimble Theatre character whose statue was unveiled only a couple of hours earlier in the day. This year, Nana Oyl is the obvious star of Ken’s show. With the help of fellow artist Matthew Snider, Ken demonstrates the basic shapes of artistic construction, the circles and ovals that make up Nana. Ken further demonstrates how basic geometric forms unite to form the features of the world’s strongest sailor, Popeye. Once his enraptured audience is up to speed, Ken passes out the official drawing paper and pencils. Then everyone who RetroFan

April 2020

RETRO travel

Despite precipitation that would have any other community building arks, the hearty visitors to 2018’s Popeye Picnic line up in eager anticipation of the annual parade. Photo by Cookie Morris. (INSET) The voice of the Official Popeye Fan Club, Popeye Fan Club News, a three-times-yearly magazine, features articles, cartoons, a “How to Draw” page by Ken Wheaton, comic-strip reprints, and more. For subscription information, go to www.popeyethesailor. com/club/main.htm. Popeye TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

participates creates their version of the character. After a few minutes, Ken and Matthew gather the work to carefully assess each finished piece. The audience turns to each other in animated conversation, many wondering if they might walk away with an award for their artistic efforts. As the judges deliberate, Leonard “Lenny” Kohl steps to the easel to demonstrate his own artistic chops. He skillfully executes drawing after drawing, particularly Bluto, of whom Lenny is the spitting image. Lenny writes a regular column for the Fan Club newsletter, “Another Rambling Article from Professor Bluteau,” and he knows his Popeye history thoroughly. Finally, Ken announces the winners in five different age classifications, from very young to “almost dead.” The winners then display their work to the appreciative onlookers, while posing with Ken and Matthew. The pictures will see print in the pages of the News Magazine as well as on Facebook. That evening, members of the Popeye Fan Club, visitors, and their guests assemble at the Chester Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall for an evening of camaraderie and a seemingly endless supply of hot comfort food. Mike Brooks emcees the proceedings, with comments from Cathy Rinne as well as Cindy Snider with an opening prayer. For twenty years, several members of the Popeye Fan Club wrote, produced, and acted in original dramas, reminiscent of the old Popeye radio show from the Thirties. The event usually found itself simulcast on a local internet radio station. As an added treat for those For more information on Spinach who attended Can Collectibles and the International the show in Popeye Fan Club, go to person, the www.popeyethesailor.com. actors actually dressed up as For a schedule of Popeye Picnic events, their fictional go to www.popeyepicnic.com. counterparts. After 20 years For more about the City of Chester and its history, go to www.chesterill.com. of performing,

VISIT THE POPEYE PICNIC

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April 2020

the original Popeye Players, which include Rinne, Snider, Brooks, and Kohl, hung up their costumes and put away their makeup in 2016. However, in 2018 a new group took to the microphones (Ryan Maxwell, Cynthia Guiterrez, Emily and Kaleb Keyser, Ted Mueller, and Liz Meek), reviving the tradition, although the original performers promise a temporary comeback. Then many of the attendees return to Spinach Can Collectibles to take part in the annual auction to help raise funds for the Fan Club. The items for bid rest in a counter all weekend long, collecting pre-bids. But now, as the street vendors close their tents for the night, the live auction happens and the bidding is brisk for the rarities which have included original artwork from George Wildman and Hy Eisman, DVDs of the Robert Altman film signed by the actors, toys, video collections of the Fleisher cartoons signed by cover artist Stephen DeStefano, craft items, and other amazing one-of-a-kind items. As the Moon climbs higher in the sky, many return to their motel rooms while others take to the highways to soon sleep in their own beds.

All Good Picnics Must End

By Sunday morning, many of the attendees stay as close to the last minute as possible before returning to the mundane world, if they haven’t left already. A couple dozen members of the Fan Club enjoy breakfast together before taking a group shot at the newest statue for the Club newsletter. Eventually, sunset spreads its scarlet glow over the town on Sunday evening and the cleanup begins as does the planning for the 40th Annual Popeye Picnic next year. But the curtains never truly fall upon this real-life Thimble Theatre. The statues pose eternally for the many tourists who make one more trek around Chester to get one last selfie with Poopdeck Pappy or Sea Hag or Popeye’s four nephews. While the rainclouds part and the mundane world comes into sharper focus, one could almost hear Jack Mercer’s gravelly voice singing… “This Picnic got wetter, next year will be better, says Popeye the Sailor Man!” (TOOT! TOOT!) Many thanks to Debbie Brooks of Spinach Can Collectibles for her assistance in the creation of this article. BRIAN K. MORRIS is a prolific author and comics writer, independent publisher, host of two weekly Facebook Live shows, an “awardwinning” playwright, occasional actor, frequent convention guest, and former mortician’s assistant. A one-time transcriber and occasional writer for BACK ISSUE magazine and other TwoMorrows titles, Brian lives in Central Indiana with his wife, no children, no pets, and too many comic books. For more information on Brian and his nefarious activities, please go to www.RisingTide.pub, or find his books on www. amazon.com/author/briankmorris. In this photo by Cookie Morris, Brian (RIGHT) is receiving from Ken Wheaton a certificate for meritorious illustration from 2015.

Dan Hagan shared with us the following message, which he received in response to his article about TV’s The Greatest American Hero and accompanying interview with its star, William Katt, in RetroFan #5… Gee whiz, you did a wonderful job putting this story together… you kept the article honest and gave the read a nice forward momentum! Thank you for taking time to visit and write something I’m proud to share with family and friends. I’m humbled by it! WILLIAM KATT

Before I begin with my letter, let me get a little something out of the way: I’m a bit younger than the majority of the readers of your RetroFan magazine. Specifically, I’m a 17-yearold teenage boy who was born in the wrong decade, because instead of tapping away on a smartphone or watching videos of people falling down stairs and whatnot, I’m busy watching, looking at, and collecting the things you guys used to and still love, and I think your mag is great! Every ish has something interesting that tickles my fancy, and I’m always learning something new from ’em. Who knew there were plans to do a Beany and Cecil amusement park in California? I would loved to make the trip to that proposed Bob Clampett amusement paaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrk! had it actually gotten made and I was alive back in the Sixties. It’s hard to choose a favorite column or article, but Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning column is always very informative. And Scott Shaw! always has something interesting to discuss. For individual articles, Ernie Farino’s article on Ray Harryhausen was fascinating. The other Scott’s [Saavedra] column on Sea Monkeys was very interesting. And, being a Harvey fan and having been on Jonathan Sternfeld’s quite cool and eclectic website, I liked his article on his collection. Same goes to the other Super Collectors who have been featured in your illustrious periodical. Your article on Irwin Allen was also, as Leonard Nimoy might say, “fascinating!” When I’m not busy reading your zine, I like to collect. Specifically, I really like to collect comics, postcards, Funko POP! vinyls, records, and whatever else I find during my many antiquing and flea-marketing trips. I’ve only got one of ’em, but I also really like those old pranks and gags which used to dot comic books back in the day in those “Treasure Chest of Fun” type ads (buggy ice cubes, anyone?). I also really like me some classic cartoons, especially the Looney Tunes, Popeye, and MGM stuff. For comics, I like me some heroes and horror, but I really go for the humorous stuff—Archie, Harvey, Donald Duck, Jughead, Carl Barks, Dan DeCarlo, Warren Kremer, et al. Quite a shame that the Harvey characters really haven’t been successfully

exposed to this generation. The world could use a lot more Casper and Wendy. Oh, and I’ve got a suggestion to keep in mind for the future: more articles (or maybe a whole series of ’em!!) about those “FUN TRICKS – FREE THINGS” which used to be advertised in all the old comics. An article on the Polaris Nuclear Sub might be interesting, so would be ones on companies like Honor House or Fun Factory. EVAN SCHAD Evan, you are the son I always wanted! Re those ads for cheesy novelties: I highly recommend Kirk DeMaris’ incredible 2011 book, Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads, which shows you what you were promised in those ads… and what you actually got.

Well, of all your varied features, this time [issue #5], the one most connecting with me was TV dinners. Loved some of them as a kid. It seemed a fun way to eat, with the various compartments, plus peeling back the foil to unveil the contents. I knew of Major Matt Mason—my brother had one and some of the equipment—but other than the rippled texture of his arm and leg bands, I remembered very little of it. Two articles surprised me. I’m no real fan of Star Wars [the cover-featured Mark Hamill interview] or Tarzan, yet I enjoyed both articles… Star Wars because it was about an actor hitting it big; the expectations and challenges he faced because of it. Not just rehashing the movies or his character’s history. The Tarzan coverage was appealing as it had a universal hook beyond the character: an adult trying to trace a memory back to childhood. Trying to see where a half-forgotten incident took place. That was intriguing to me, where an encyclopedic recitation of Tarzan, himself, would likely have lost me. The Moon landing article was of interest. I remember the Gemini and Apollo space programs, but from the perspective of a young kid. Coverage was always interrupting my shows. I knew they were racing to the Moon, but why or what they’d do there once they accomplished that was beyond me. Still, it did seem like a big deal when we heard they’d made it. I knew, even at age 11, that it was an historic day. I realize some articles might not have connected with me since it’s a mixture of eras and interests. Snuf fy Smith and Barney Google radically predate me and The Greatest American Hero was af ter my interest in television radically waned, but still, a nice mix. Something for everyone, and quite a lot that hit for me this issue. JOE FRANK

I was a huge Jason of Star Command as a child, so I was pleased to find the article in issue #5. However: Craig Littler and Sig Haig made personal appearances in Orange County, CA!?! I think I need to have a conversation with my mother! I did chuckle at (but don’t argue with) the statement that Littler is most recognized today as the Gorton Fisherman. I would have said it was for his small part in Blazing Saddles as “Tex,” the cowboy with his feet resting on the stage at the beginning of the “I’m Tired” number. DOUGLASS ABRAMSON

As a youngster in the Seventies and Eighties, I remember watching a lot of syndicated Asian TV programming, like Ultraman, Spectreman, Speed Racer, Johnny Sokko, and Robotech. I thought it would be cool if you could do a story on the history of these programs and how they made their way to the U.S. One I really used to enjoy was Space Giants. I really don’t hear about that one much anymore. What about doing a story on that show, updating us on the actors and where they are now and what they have been doing. That used to be one of my favorite shows and I can’t believe that it isn’t talked about more or made it to video. TYLER WALKER Tyler, like you, I spent many afternoons watching Space Giants on TBS, back in the early days of cable. Hopefully we’ll get Goldar, Gam, Rodak, and the rest of the cast into our pages one day! Same with Speed Racer and those other Japanese imports. 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: June 2020 No. 9 $8.95

IT’S COLORIN’ TIME!

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLORING BOOKS

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An EYEwitness Acco

Seventies’

Captain America

REB BROWN

MEET TV’S

Captain Nice... WILLIAM DANIELS

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Whipple! Clara! Madge!

Behind the Commercial Characters

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON FALL PREVIEWS

Benny Hill Invades America • 8-Track Tapes • Secret ID Quiz & more! FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

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April 2020

by Scott Saavedra

I’m going to rebuild Spot!

REMCO HOME BIONICS LAB

YiKES!

Craziest Non-Sports Cards of the Sixties!

“THE CIVIL WAR’S MOST BRUTAL BATTLES STARRING THE MONKEES” “THE HORRORS OF PREHISTORIC HUNTING RITUALS WITH FRED AND BARNEY” PLUS: RARE PHOTOS OF THE UNFINSHED “BEATLES VERSUS BUMS” SET

DATING DILEMMA! 80

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April 2020

Honey West and Electra Woman on the difficulties of finding a man who can take a punch

ALTER EGO #163

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ALTER EGO #166

DRAW #36

The early days of DAVE COCKRUM— Legion of Super-Heroes artist and co-developer of the revived mid-1970s X-Men—as revealed in art-filled letters to PAUL ALLEN and rare, previously unseen illustrations provided by wife PATY COCKRUM (including 1960s-70s drawings of Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes)! Plus FCA—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on PETE MORISI—JOHN BROOME—BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Spotlight on MIKE FRIEDRICH, DC/Marvel writer who jumpstarted the independent comics movement with Star*Reach! Art by NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, IRV NOVICK, JOHN BUSCEMA, JIM STARLIN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, FRANK BRUNNER, et al.! Plus: MARK CARLSONGHOST on Rural Home Comics, FCA, and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Justice League of America cover by NEAL ADAMS!

WILL MURRAY showcases original Marvel publisher (from 1939-1971) MARTIN GOODMAN, with artifacts by LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, MANEELY, BUSCEMA, EVERETT, BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SCHOMBURG, COLAN, ADAMS, STERANKO, and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt with more on PETE MORISI, JOHN BROOME, and a cover by DREW FRIEDMAN!

FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA) Special, with spotlights on KURT SCHAFFENBERGER (Captain Marvel, Ibis the Invincible, Marvel Family, Lois Lane), and ALEX ROSS on his awesome painting of the super-heroes influenced by the original Captain Marvel! Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” on Superman editor MORT WEISINGER, JOHN BROOME, and more! Cover by SCHAFFENBERGER!

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! Contains mild nudity for figure-drawing instruction; for Mature Readers Only.

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ER EISN RD !! AWA NER IN W

BACK ISSUE #119

BACK ISSUE #120

BACK ISSUE #121

BACK ISSUE #122

BACK ISSUE #123

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ISSUE! A galaxy of comics stars discuss Marvel’s whitehot space team in the Guardians Interviews, including TOM DeFALCO, KEITH GIFFEN, ROB LIEFELD, AL MILGROM, MARY SKRENES, ROGER STERN, JIM VALENTINO, and more. Plus: Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon before the Guardians, with CHRIS CLAREMONT and MIKE MIGNOLA. Cover by JIM VALENTINO with inks by CHRIS IVY.

HEROES OF TOMORROW! Mon-El hero history, STEVE LIGHTLE’s Legionnaires, and the controversial Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years era. Plus SEKOWSKY’s Manhunter 2070, GRELL’s Starslayer, Charlton’s Space: 1999 tie-in, Paradox, and MIKE BARON’s unfinished Sonic Disruptors series. Featuring the BIERBAUMS, BYRNE, GIFFEN, MAYERIK, SIMONSON, TRUMAN, VOSBURG, WAID, and more. LIGHTLE cover.

CONAN AND THE BARBARIANS! Celebrating the 50th anniversary of ROY THOMAS and BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’s Conan #1! The Bronze Age Barbarian Boom, Top 50 Marvel Conan stories, Marvel’s Not-Quite Conans (from Kull to Skull), Arak–Son of Thunder, Warlord action figures, GRAY MORROW’s Edge of Chaos, and Conan the Barbarian at Dark Horse Comics. With an unused WINDSOR-SMITH Conan #9 cover.

Celebrates the 40TH ANNIVERSARY of MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PÉREZ’s New Teen Titans, featuring a guest editorial by WOLFMAN and a PÉREZ tribute and art gallery! Plus: The New Teen Titans’ 40 GREATEST MOMENTS, the Titans in the media, hero histories of RAVEN, STARFIRE, and the PROTECTOR, and more! With a NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED PÉREZ TITANS COVER from 1981!

SUPERHERO ROMANCE ISSUE! Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark’s many loves, Star Sapphire history, Bronze Age weddings, DeFALCO/ STERN Johnny Storm/Alicia Pro2Pro interview, Elongated Man and Wife, May-December romances, Supergirl’s Secret Marriage, and… Aunt May and Doc Ock?? Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB LAYTON, DENNY O’NEIL, and many more! Cover by DAVE GIBBONS.

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TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #22 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #23

P. CRAIG RUSSELL career-spanning interview (complete with photos and art gallery), an almost completely unknown work by FRANK QUITELY (artist on All-Star Superman and The Authority), DERF BACKDERF’s forthcoming graphic novel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, CAROL TYLER shares her prolific career, JOE SINNOTT discusses his Treasure Chest work, CRAIG YOE, and more!

WENDY PINI discusses her days as Red Sonja cosplayer, and 40+ years of ELFQUEST! Plus RICHARD PINI on their 48-year marriage and creative partnership! SCOTT SHAW! talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot, and Flintstones work! GIL KANE’s business partner LARRY KOSTER about their adventures together! PABLO MARCOS on his Marvel horror work, HEMBECK, and more!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #78

SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! How Kirby kickstarted the Silver Age and revamped Golden Age characters for the 1960s, the Silver Surfer’s influence, pivotal decisions (good and bad) Jack made throughout his comics career, Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, a classic 1950s story, KIRBY/STEVE RUDE cover (and deluxe silver sleeve) and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (DELUXE EDITION w/ silver sleeve) $12.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #79

See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits into the grand scheme of things! His creations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, inconsistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK, editorial changes in his comics, big concepts in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS, MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel, PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover based on OMAC #1! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Spring 2020

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RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With! If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, editor MICHAEL EURY’s latest magazine is just for you!

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RETROFAN #1

for shipping in the US.

RETROFAN #2

RETROFAN #6

RETROFAN #7

RETROFAN #10

Interviews with MeTV’s 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 ARCHIE-DOBIE GILLIS connection, Pinball Hall of Fame, Alien action figures, Rubik’s Cube & more!

Featuring a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit 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!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Fifty years of SHAFT, Family Affair’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN” REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH, rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon preview specials, fake presidential candidates, SPIDERMAN/THE SPIDER parallels, STUCKEY’S, and more with FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and EURY!

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RETROFAN #3

RETROFAN #4

RETROFAN #5

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), SEA-MONKEYS®, 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 way-out 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!

Interviews with MARK HAMILL & Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, MOON LANDING MANIA, SNUFFY SMITH AT 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features!

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RETROFAN #9 (NOW BI-MONTHLY!)

RETROFAN #9 features interviews with two TV superheroes, Seventies’ Captain America REB BROWN… and Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT) WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE BARTLETT! Plus: remembering the Captain Nice TV series, the Wonderful World of Coloring Books, star-studded Fall Previews for Saturday morning cartoons, an eyewitness account of The Cyclops movie, the actors behind your favorite TV commercial characters, Benny Hill’s invasion of America, a trip to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, 8-track tapes, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, Please add $1 per issue and SCOTT SHAW! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.