RetroFan #9

June 2020 No. 9 $9.95

IT’S COLORIN’ TIME!

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLORING BOOKS

ccount

An EYEwitness A

Seventies’

Captain America

REB BROWN

MEET TV’S

Captain Nice...

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

WILLIAM DANIELS

Whipple! Clara! Madge!

Behind the Commercial Characters

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON FALL PREVIEWS

Benny Hill Invades America • 8-Track Tapes • Secret ID Quiz & more!

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82658 00401

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FEATURING <right> Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

Captain America, The Thing, Mr. Fantastic © Marvel. Captain Nice © NBC. The Cyclops © Allied Artists. All Rights Reserved.

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The crazy cool culture we

grew up with

CONTENTS Issue #9 June 2020

43

Columns and Special Features

3

Retro Super-Heroes TV Captain America Reb Brown interview

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Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Ad Men & Women: Favorite Characters from TV Commercials

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3

Retro Television Captain Nice

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Retro Interview William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Cartoon Preview Specials, Part One

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58

20

Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

America’s Best TV Comics (1968)

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Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria The Cyclops

Departments

2

Retrotorial

10

Too Much TV Quiz

13

Retro Toys The Wonderful World of Coloring Books

27

Retro Brit Benny Hill

30

RetroFad 8-Track Tapes

64

Celebrity Crushes

73

Retro Travel The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention – Hunt Valley, Maryland

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RetroFanmail

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ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ #9, June 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. Captain America cover artwork by Lin Workman. Captain America, the Thing, Mr. Fantastic © Marvel. Captain Nice © NBC. The Cyclops © Allied Artists. 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 Brian Chrisagis Shawn Chrisagis Michael Eury Ernest Farino Dan Hagen Andy Mangels Ian Millsted Joe Pavlansky Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Ron Adams Gary Browning Gene Carpenter Ted Davenport Mark Evanier Ed Felinski Martin Grams, Jr. Joe Harvey Heritage Auctions Laura Inglis Laura Kooyman Marvel Comics Mark Thomas McGee Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention Chuck Rothman Rose Rummel-Eury Stephen Sansweet Bryan Schemine Cheryl Spoehr Universal Television Robb Versandi Pete Vilmur Leon R. Vincent Mark Wolf Steven Woolf Lin Workman VERY SPECIAL THANKS Bonnie Bartlett Reb Brown William Daniels Dennis Klein Terence H. Winkless Chuck Woolery

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RetroFan

Miniskirts and 8-tracks. For most, these fashion and music fads are linked only by their Sixties heritage, but I can’t think of one without the other coming to mind.

My first direct exposure to 8-track tapes was in the fall of 1969, when my next-door neighbor and classmate Babs and I were driven to junior high each morning by Babs’ older sister Becky, a high school student who had a powder-blue Mustang. Becky, like the Brady Bunch girls of that new TV show that had just premiered, was lovely and had hair of gold. And like Marcia Brady, she wore miniskirts—the mini-er, the merrier.

The plump, shy 12-year-old me had a clear view of Becky’s bare knees protruding below her miniskirt hemline, and despite my prepubescent stirrings I had the decorum not to stare (my momma taught me well). So I instead fixated on the carrying case of 8-tracks in the backseat with me, which were in constant rotation in the Mustang’s dash-mounted tape deck. At this young age I had already amassed a growing collection of LPs and 45s, plus some kid-friendly Playtapes, and was aware of 8-tracks from my trips to the record aisle at the local W.T. Grant store. But since 8-tracks were still mostly confined to automobile dashes, the only sound-enhancing device I had attached to my own set of wheels was a Mattel V-rroom! bicycle “motor.”

What struck me about the 8-track tapes were the (often wrinkled) labels on the fronts and backs of their plastic casings. These were the same images I’d seen on record albums. 8-tracks I remember in Becky’s car were Santana (with its cover illustration of a roaring lion), Chicago Transit Authority, The Association’s Greatest Hits, and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Green River. I’d read the labels (occasionally sneaking a peek at Becky’s knees), lusting over how cool 8-tracks were. But by the time I got my driver’s license, cassette tapes had come into vogue, so I never got an 8-track player of my own. At least I got to write about them in this issue’s RetroFad column.

Ah, memories. That’s what RetroFan is really about. At the heart of every article is nostalgia. With each issue’s eclectic contents, we take you back to your childhood… but instead of simply warming your heart we also blow your mind with trivia and information. Our forte is shining the spotlight on subjects you never suspected you wanted to learn more about… until they get the RetroFan treatment.

Like TV commercial ad men and women. They squeezed the Charmin and asked, “Where’s the beef?” throughout our childhood, but only our own Scott Saavedra could lift the (washer) lid off the Maytag Repairman and other as-seen-on-TV characters to reveal the people behind the pitchmen.

And those Friday night preview specials promoting the upcoming fall lineup of Saturday morning kids’ programs. Andy Mangels begins a two-parter looking back at an offbeat primetime world where Fat Albert, the Road Runner, and Darth Vader could share the stage in a single television special.

Accompanying that is Scott Shaw!’s “Oddball Comics” reminiscence of America’s Best TV Comics, a Marvel Comics-produced 1968 comic-book counterpart to those preview specials that Andy covers.

Horror movies are a favorite topic in RetroFan land, and this issue Ernest Farino draws bead on The Cyclops, a 1957 shocker that’s so bad it’s good.

Guest columnist Ian Millsted takes a gander at the surprising success of Benny Hill in the U.S. Why did this comedian, of the many that starred on British television in the Sixties and Seventies, go on to receive a popular following that eluded so many others? And why did it all end so suddenly? Ian’s article is the first of a proposed semi-regular “Retro Brit” column examining the places where British and American retro-culture meet. Let me know if you want to see more “Retro Brit”!

As a kid you were probably too busy just trying to color inside the lines Don’t STEAL our to wonder about the origins of coloring books, but pop-culture historian Joe Digital Editions!

C’mon citizen, Pavlansky peers into their past—and no, he didn’t scribble his manuscript in DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom Crayola! Dan Hagen, last seen in issue #5 with his Greatest American Hero/William & Pop publisher like us needs Katt interview double-feature, returns with the story behind another TV caped every sale just to survive! DON’T crusader, Captain Nice—and adds a wonderful interview with the esteemed actor DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! behind this campy crimefighter, William Daniels, joined by his remarkably talBuy affordable, legal downloads only at www.twomorrows.com ented wife, Bonnie Bartlett. Plus, we open the issue with an inspiring chat with or through our Apple and Google Apps! genial Reb Brown, who brought Captain America to life in two 1979 telefilms.

All that and more is waiting for you, making RetroFan #9 yet another groovy & DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with. producing great publications like this one!

June 2020

N W O R B B RE RETRO SUPER-HEROES

The Motorcycling

Captain America of Seventies TV

by Michael Eury

Muscular, chisel-jawed athlete Reb Brown started his screenacting career on the wrong end of a snake attack in the 1973 chiller Sssssss. He soon found no end of work making guest appearances in many popular TV series of the Seventies and Eighties including Kojak, Emergency!, The Six Million Dollar Man, CHiPs, Happy Days, Three’s Company, The Rockford Files, The Love Boat, and Miami Vice.

Brown is also no stranger to the big screen, with many of his roles taking advantage of his physicality. His film credits include Big Wednesday (1978), Hardcore (1979), Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983), Uncommon Valor (1983), The Howling II (1985), Death of a Soldier (1986), Distant Thunder (1988), Space Mutiny (1988), Cage (1989) and Cage II (1994), and more recently, Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel (2016) and Surge of Dawn (2019).

Yet to many RetroFans Reb Brown is Captain America, having played Marvel Comics’ Sentinel of Liberty in two madefor-TV movies produced by Universal Television that aired on CBS in 1979. Like Christopher Reeve, who at the time had personified DC Comics’ Man of Steel in December 1978’s bigbudget blockbuster Superman: The Movie, Brown was the spitting image of the comic-book crusader he portrayed with his broad shoulders, shock of blond hair, and earnest demeanor. Liberties with the subject matter were taken with both Captain America movies, sidestepping the traditional World War II setting for a contemporary tale of Steve Rogers, Jr., a drifter/artist given superhuman abilities via the injection of the “FLAG formula.”

Pumped up into a super-soldier, Rogers—initially with great reluctance—followed in the footsteps of his father, the original crimefighter dubbed “Captain America,” but quickly proved worthy of wearing the legendary patriotic battlesuit.

(TOP) Reb Brown revs into The airing of Reb Brown’s action as Captain America.

Captain America telefilms Captain America TM & © Marvel. followed CBS’ previous Photo © Universal Television. successes with Marvel-inspired Scan courtesy of Andy Mangels. live-action series The Amazing (ABOVE) Reb Brown in 2018 at a store appearance at Spider-Man and The Incredible Krypton Comics in Omaha, Hulk, plus a 1978 live-action Nebraska. Photo by Cornstalker/ Doctor Strange television Wikimedia Commons. movie—all of which were riding a wave of TV super-hero popularity that also included The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, and Wonder Woman. Despite revving onto the small screen on a red, white, and blue motorcycle—and often bursting into action careening the bike from the back of a van—Brown’s Captain America arrived a bit too late to fully enjoy the Seventies’ comic-hero trend and his two telefilms unfortunately did not receive the green light for a weekly TV series.

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June 2020

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RETRO super-heroes

However, impact that Brown’s starspangled performances made upon comic-book fans and children of 1979 has shadowed the actor for decades. Captain America’s more recent resurgence in massmedia popularity in the Marvel Studios films of the 2010s has by extension made Reb Brown a familiar face at comic-cons and Hollywood conventions across the country—and as you’ll discover while reading this exclusive RetroFan interview, the man behind Captain America’s cowl (and motorcycle helmet) has the kindness and conviction of a real-life super-hero.

RetroFan: You had a lot of guest-starring roles on television before Captain America, but how did you get the part of the Star-Spangled Sentinel?

Reb Brown: I was under contract at Universal at the time, and Monique James was the head of talent and she set up a meeting with Allan Balter, who was the producer of Six Million Dollar Man. We had lunch together and it was like two bears meeting in the woods—we got along. It just seemed to fit. I looked like what they had in mind, and it just seemed to fit.

RF: You definitely looked the part. You were very fit then, but did you have to go through more training after you got the role?

RB: No. I’ve been working out since I was 21 years old, my whole life. I was an athlete—I played football, basketball, baseball, I surfed, and was doing heavyweight boxing and martial arts.

RB: I read the comic book, and there was a cartoon in 1966, where “Captain America throws his mighty shield.”

RF: I love it! [sings] “When Captain America throws his mighty shield!” [laughter] The theme is probably better known than the cartoon itself.

RF: You were one of the first actors to play a super-hero who had the physical build of a super-hero. Today, Chris Hemsworth as Thor—he bulks up for that, but there was a time a while back, like with Michael Keaton playing Batman, when they built the suit for him. You fit the suit.

RB: Yeah. There was no CGI for my Captain America!

RF: How familiar with you with Captain America before you got this role?

Cap unmasked—and un-helmeted!

Reb Brown in costume from 1979’s first Captain America telemovie. © Universal

Television. Courtesy of Andy Mangels.

Captain America in the Movies and on Television <izquierda> 1944: Captain America (15-chapter

Republic movie serial)—Played by Dick Purcell

<izquierda> 1966: Captain America in The Marvel Super Heroes (syndicated TV cartoon)—Voiced by Sandy Becker

<right> 1979: Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon (TV movies)—Played by Reb Brown <izquierda> 2011–2019: Captain America: The First Avenger (and other Marvel Studios films)­—Played by Chris Evans

<arriba> 1980: Captain America Public Service Announcement (animated commercial)— Produced by the U.S. Department of Energy

Note: Captain America has also made numerous appearances in many Marvel animated TV <izquierda> 1990: Captain America (theatrical series from the movie instead released direct-toEighties to today. video)—Played by Matt Sallinger

Captain America TM & © Marvel.

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June 2020

RETRO super-heroes

it, with its red and clear stripes instead of the traditional red and white stripes.

What was it made of, and how much did it weigh?

RB: It was a very heavy plastic, and the reason it was see-through was because the highway patrol would not allow something you couldn’t see through [when driving]. You had to have a shield you could see through so you could be able to see everything going on.

RF: The shield doubled as a windshield.

RB: We had the helmet, too. The cowl is normally what Captain America wears, but we had to have the helmet for that same reason.

RB: I really enjoyed watching it and connected with it. It really was important for me.

One question people ask me is, “How do you feel about the character, Captain America?” The one thing I feel is, it is pure. There is nothing going on behind the scenes—no hidden agendas. He just wants to do good for the American people.

In essence, he is taking care of business the best way he possibly can.

RF: That is a strength, if not the strength, of the character. Captain America goes well beyond the red, white, and blue costume. He is unwavering in his convictions.

RB: So many other heroes have a hidden agenda—there’s always something going on and there’s something dark there.

There’s nothing dark here, with Captain America—it’s just pure. It’s about doing good and being the one who is going to help. That’s the whole goal.

RF: We need some Captain Americas in the real world right now, don’t we?

RB: Yes, we do.

RF: One thing that stands out with your Cap was the motorcycling. But that wasn’t the first time you were on a bike, right? You had some experience with riding…

RB: Yes, I did. I had done a Honda commercial early on and was on CHiPs, in three episodes. Before you got to ride a motorcycle in CHiPs, you had to go with the highway patrol, and they taught you how to ride to look like you knew what

Don’t let go! A perilous stunt being filmed for the first Captain America TV movie. © Universal Television. Courtesy

of Reb Brown/Facebook.

you were doing. I enjoyed it a lot, but don’t ride anymore because of the way people are today. That way they are driving is too dangerous. But I enjoyed it at the time.

RF: There were a lot of stunts in your two Captain America movies. I’m assuming you had a stunt double, but I know you did some of them yourself. How much of the stunt work did you actually do?

RB: I did stuff that wasn’t like riding along a wall! [laughs] Gary Davis was one of the stunt people, and Al Wyatt [Allan Wyatt, Jr.]—he passed away some years ago.

He was a wonderful guy, too. And they had Mic Rodgers, who also doubled Mel Gibson. I had some good people doubling.

You talk about something happening when you’re filming… in the first one [Captain America], there’s a thing where I come off the motorcycle and jump onto a helicopter. They had the ramp all set up and the airbag and everything and it looked really good. I jumped off the ramp onto the helicopter skid and I looked down. When I looked down, because of the rotors on the helicopter, the airbag deflated!

RF: Oh, man!

RB: Needless to say, I squeezed the blood out of that thing.

RF: What about the iconic Captain America shield? You could see through

RF: I understand you carry a replica of your Captain America shield with you to personal appearances. How do you get it onto an airplane?

RB: My wife and I pack it up with bubble wrap, and it gets checked onto the plane.

RF: I’m glad you don’t try to board with the shield as a carry-on—I could imagine you trying to explain it to a TSA screener! [laughter] The two movies you did—they both aired in 1979, about ten months apart.

Did they film back to back or was there a hiatus between them?

RB: Actually, we filmed the first one and they showed it and it did very well in the ratings. Then we did the second one. I was anxious to do that one. I asked

FAST FACTS Captain America `` Original airdate: January 19, 1979 `` Director: Rod Holcomb `` Cast: Reb Brown, Len Birman, Heather Menzies, Steve Forrest `` Network: CBS Captain America II: Death Too Soon `` Original airdate: November 23, 1979 `` Director: Ivan Nagy `` Cast: Reb Brown, Len Birman, Connie Sellecca, Christopher Lee, Lana Wood `` Network: CBS

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June 2020

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RETRO super-heroes

character, to me, was so pure. I enjoyed that very much.

RF: That purity was no doubt appreciated by the audience. At the time it was just a few years after Watergate, and there was a lot of cynicism in our culture. We needed Captain America to come show us a better path.

RB: That we did—we needed someone to come through and be clean and pure and clean everything up, especially after Vietnam.

RF: The costuming: Do you have any bad costume stories?

RB: It was quite warm. Going to the bathroom was an event! [laughs] “Hey, Cap needs a break! I’ll back as soon as I…”

(ABOVE AND RIGHT) Reb in the first film’s costume, and (TOP RIGHT) in the more traditional uniform in the sequel. © Universal Television. Courtesy of Andy Mangels.

Allan Balter, “When are we going to do this? I’m planning on getting married on September 8.” He said, “Oh, you’ll be fine.”

We got married that Saturday and started working on Monday!

RF: Oh, wow! Short honeymoon.

RB: We ended up going to Hawaii for a few weeks afterward.

RF: [chuckles] Good thing she was patient about that.

Captain America’s costume changed between the two TV movies.

RB: The thing that happened on the first one, his name was Jean-Pierre Dorleac, if I remember right—he’s the one that designed the first costume. It had boots, Italian boots… uncomfortable as heck to run in. It was much appreciated when we got the original-style boots [for the second movie]. Then I had the cowl over my face and looked more like I was supposed to look like.

RF: They took liberties with superhero cinema in the Seventies. Before Lynda Carter played Wonder Woman, there was that Wonder Woman TV movie with Cathy Lee Crosby, who was wearing a costume 6

RetroFan

June 2020

that looked more like a running suit, not unlike Lee Majors on Six Million Dollar Man. They were doing things stylistically that matched the era’s fashions. But you’re right, that second Captain America costume was definitely very much like the original from the comics.

RB: It was cool. I felt good being in it. It’s funny how you can put on something and all of a sudden, it becomes a part of you.

RF: So, did you have a transformational moment when you first slipped into the suit?

RB: Yeah, I got in that position and looked in the mirror, and thought, “Hey, I’m doing my thing,” and I was ready to come out of the back of the van.

RF: Did you have any hesitation about playing Captain America? Today you have actors lining up to be in a Marvel movie, but back then there was a bit of a stigma to such roles, although that was starting to wane with Hulk and SpiderMan on TV. RB: Never bothered me. I was thrilled to play Captain America because the

RF: [chuckles] You were still a relative newcomer, but you played opposite a few heavy hitters in the Captain America movies: Steve Forrest, then Christopher Lee in the second. I know you have a few stories about them…

RB: Steve was a great guy. I liked him very much. He was a class act and working with him was a real pleasure. I didn’t have that much to do with him in the first one. Most of the time, he was doing his thing trying to set off a bomb.

With Christopher Lee, I really liked him a lot and got to work with him again on The Howling II. He was in the SAS [Britain’s Special Air Service, which started during World War II—ed.]; he put nooses around Nazis.

A quick story about Czechoslovakia, when we were there filming Howling II and were filming at a church. At this church, there were two of the guys that assassinated Heinrich Himmler, I think, the general, who was a horrible man.

Christopher had actually trained them and knew them quite well. We were in the church and you could still see some of the bullet holes in the concrete from what had taken place. [Christopher Lee] was very moved, to the point of tears.

It was amazing to me… he’s a classy guy. And to top it off, the guy spoke eight

RETRO super-heroes

languages! He spoke Russian, French, German…

RF: And he had such a dynamic screen presence, as we also saw in his Dracula movies.

RB: He was a lot of fun to be with. In Czechoslovakia, we shared a dressing room during The Howling II. The place we were in was kind of like a castle, so they put us sharing a dressing room. We had a good time together. He was a wonderful human being.

RF: Hmm… “Christopher Lee in a castle.”

I hope nobody tried to drive a stake through his heart while you were there.

RB: [laughs] He was cool. It was a real pleasure to work with him. Steve, too.

I was fortunate. I got to work with a lot of great people. I worked with George C. Scott in Hardcore when I was starting out.

I got to work with James Coburn in Death of a Solder in Australia. John Milius, who wrote and directed Big Wednesday—he also wrote Conan the Barbarian (1982)—he could tell a story like nobody else! I worked with Gene Hackman in Uncommon Valor, and John Lithgow in Distant Thunder… and James Garner on The Rockford Files, and Lillian Gish on The Love Boat.

They were all class acts, real people who did their jobs. There’s no BS about them, they are just who they are. I enjoyed it very much.

And Connie was sweet, too, and a pleasure to work with. Why they changed the casting, I don’t know.

RF: Given the gap between production of the two, it’s probably something as simple as Heather wasn’t available for the second movie.

RB: Could very well be.

RF: What do you think you personally, as an actor, brought to the character of Captain America?

RB: The purity. In the first movie, once I decided to do what I decided to do, I

wanted to be like my pop—Steve Rogers, Sr.—and do a good job of it. Get things done, and take care of business. I wasn’t afraid to do it. In the second one, I chased guys down in a dune buggy and threw them out. I said, “Listen, don’t mess with the old people—they’re my friends.” I liked that. Some of the things I got to do made me feel very good. Physically, I fit it spoton: six-foot three-and-a-half inches, blond hair, blue eyes, 230 pounds.

RF: You looked a lot like Jack Kirby drew you, a comic-book page come to life.

RF: That’s wonderful. In both Captain America movies, you had two different leading ladies—Heather Menzies and Connie Sellecca. They played the same character, right?

RB: They did. I don’t understand why Heather wasn’t in the second. I worked with her in the first movie I ever did, Sssssss. It was produced by Zanuck/Brown, and featured Strother Martin, and I was killed by a snake in it. They needed a football player in it to be the bad guy. I did it pretty well. That was the first thing I ever did. The cast was Dirk Benedict, Heather Menzies, and Strother Martin. I liked Heather very much.

Poster for Captain America, originally aired as Captain America II: Death Too Soon but internationally distributed to movie theaters in 1980. © Marvel/Universal.

Courtesy of Heritage.

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June 2020

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RETRO super-heroes

RB: That’s exactly right. When I met John Cassady, the famous comic-book artist, he said, “Because of you, I became interested in Captain America.”

$2500 dollars per episode, okay? For Captain America, they wanted $50,000…

RF: Whoa, that’s a jump!

RB: …per episode! So that meant I’d be riding the motorcycle around the living room [as a budget cutter]. It broke my heart when it didn’t go on to a series… I would’ve done that.

Back then, it was fun. I remember a couple of times filming and I was on the lot in my uniform and I’d get behind the tram and cruise around—it was fun.

RF: Really? He’s a great artist.

RB: In [my copy of] Marvel Knights: Captain America: The New Deal,” He did a drawing of Captain America and signed it, “To RB: Thank you for being a pillar of my love for Cap.” RF: That’s really cool. You inspired him!

RB: Very much so. When he was a kid he used to imagine he was coming out of the back of the van [on the motorcycle]. I met him at TerrifiCon, and what a pleasure it was to have somebody say that to you. It really moved me, I’ll tell you that!

RF: I heard you had a funny encounter as a drunk when you were dressed as Captain America. Is this true?

RB: [chuckles] It’s true. It was Venice Beach, California, and we’re down there to film. You look around, it’s like Star Wars’ bar. I’m in my dressing room. I got my uniform on and got my shield and I’m ready to come out. It’s transmission time, “Excuse me, time to kick ass and take names.” I’m coming out and there’s a drunk on a wall, about a four-foot wall, and he has one of those things you squeeze to get wine out of. He looks up at me and says, “Hey-ush. I gotta stop drinkin.’” [laughter] Of course, I cracked up and completely lost what I was doing. All of a sudden he drops off the wall and comes back up and he’s blinking his eyes. He looks at me and goes, “Maybe not!”

RF: I’ll bet. That role for you has become iconic.

When the two movies were aired, it was still the era of Six Million Dollar Man and Evel Knievel, and there were some flourishes of those in Captain America. Do you think that helped or harmed your two movies?

RB: I think that was state of the art at the time. We didn’t have CGI and I did a lot of physical stuff during my career… and my body tells me so.

It’s interesting and fun: Think back— you’re probably too young, but when you had these TV shows running, they had 25 or 30 shows running at Universal at that time.

RF: Well, I grew up with this stuff—I was in college when Captain America came out.

RB: Okay. People loved it. The purity of it all—it was fun. You could get behind this stuff and go, “Yeah, I could do this. This is cool.” I think that was a big part of it and added to it. When they brought it back, we didn’t go back in time to the Nazis in the Forties, but it made it seem possible that that could take place.

RF: That’s always been one of the most believable things about Captain America: he’s one of the few superheroes that might actually be able to exist in the real world. Others, you have to accept the fantastic—like Superman or the Hulk. But with Captain America, Iron Man, Batman—those could be possible.

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RF: Heck of a lot worse things you might see when you’re drunk than Captain America, right?

RB: I will never forget that; it cracked me up.

(TOP) Reb Brown is Captain America!

(ABOVE) Marvel Team-Up! TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno and TV Cap Reb Brown, at the 2018 Cape Comic Con. Courtesy of Reb Brown/Facebook.

RB: You see what’s going on with the technology and you’re blown away by what can take place now.

RF: At the end of the second movie, I’m assuming this was testing to see if you’d go on to series?

RB: Yes, it was, and basically what happened was, I don’t know if Marvel didn’t get enough money from The Hulk, but on The Hulk, they were getting a licensing fee of

RF: You mentioned The Incredible Hulk… your Captain America movies were part of this Seventies Marvel TV machine, following Hulk and The Amazing SpiderMan. In the late Eighties, they brought back the Hulk in a trio of reunion movies.

One of them had Thor and one of them had Daredevil. Did they ever talk about bringing in your Captain America for a team-up with the Hulk?

RB: They never mentioned that to me. I would’ve enjoyed doing that.

RF: You have teamed up with the Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno, though…

RB: Lou Ferrigno and I worked very well together; we did those two Cage movies and had a lot of fun. He’s a character.

RETRO super-heroes

Last time I saw him, it was at a show at Cape Girardeau in Missouri. He looked at me and said, “Reb, you’re getting old.” I said, “Lou, have you looked in a mirror?”

RF: [chuckles] Getting old is better than the alternative.

RB: Exactly! He’s a good guy, I like him a lot. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #1 for our interview with Lou Ferrigno.]

RF: Another missed opportunity—you would have been great in a cameo in one of Marvel Studios’ Captain America movies…

RB: They never contacted me. They said they were going to, but they never did. It disappointed me too, because I thought it would be a lot of fun.

her, she was Cisse Cameron, and we met on a television show she was doing at the time and I was a guest star. You saw The Godfather, so you know about the thunderbolt. That’s what happened. The first day I saw her, I told her I loved her and the second day, I told her I was going to marry her.

RF: That’s wonderful!

You’ve played a lot of roles over the years, and you make a lot of personal appearances. Which of your characters

RF: It disappointed me, too. It would have been a fun little Easter egg for the fans, and I’m sorry it didn’t happen.

RB: Yeah, I think the physicality—I’m a large guy and that might have been part of it. They didn’t want that taking place. I think they did a great job with what they had and what they did. I’ve enjoyed the movies. They’re fun. I see them and think, “Wow! I wish we’d had that kind of money [for our Captain America]!”

RF: I guess you have some degree of pride, at least historically, to see how popular Captain America has become in these Marvel Studios’ movies. Chris Evans was excellent as Cap, as well.

RB: He did a very good job! Like I said, the character is so wholesome and real.

There is nothing derogatory about it.

No hidden agendas, just, “This is what I’ve gotta do.” That’s cool. I think that’s wonderful and they’ve kept it real.

RF: You’ve had some great opportunities to continue to touch people in many ways. I hope I get the opportunity to meet you face-to-face at a convention.

RB: I’d like that.

RF: And like you, he fits the suit!

RB: Exactly!

RF: I understand you’ve been married for a long time…

RB: My wife, Cisse, we recently celebrated our 40th anniversary. I met her in show business and if nothing else ever happened, that was the most important thing that ever took place as far as my career is concerned. I’m very fortunate to be married to her for 40 years and am very lucky to have met her. When I met

attracts the most attention from fans when they meet you in person?

RB: When I go to these shows, one thing that thrills me, like at TerrifiCon, is that some fans come up with tears in their eyes.

They have their children with them. They are touched to meet me, and that touches me. That’s the kind of reaction you get, and it’s wonderful. It’s so wonderful to see that reaction and the feeling they have.

You look at these people, and my Captain America is their youth! They are grown-up now, but it’s still a part of them. I’ve had someone tell me, “I worked out because you inspired me,” and that makes me feel fabulous.

And of course, I have fans of Yor—they get a kick out of that. I have pictures from Three’s Company, Happy Days, Miami Vice—different shows like that where I was a guest star.

When I go to these shows, you can see the memories in people’s eyes.

They flash back and I really enjoy it.

I enjoy meeting with the people and talking with them and having time to talk. That’s just the way I am. I’m warm in that direction and appreciate the feelings they have and want to express mine to them.

In Uncommon Valor, I played “Blaster,” a demolitions expert, and was in Death of a Soldier. A lot of veterans, they come up to me and say, “Because of you, my wife understands now.” They come up to me and sit there and they talk with me. I thank them for their service. I really appreciate what they do. The Wounded Warriors and all that. It upsets me when people don’t respect that.

RF: Thank you very much for your time.

RB: I enjoyed it very much. Thank you and take care.

(TOP) Poster from Reb’s 1983 sci-fi/ fantasy cult favorite, Yor, The Hunter from the Future. © Columbia Pictures.

Courtesy of Heritage. (ABOVE) Brown and cast in an Uncommon Valor lobby card. © Paramount Pictures. Courtesy of Heritage.

This interview was conducted by telephone on September 24, 2019. Special thanks to Steven Woolf for helping coordinate the interview and to Rose Rummel-Eury for transcribing the conversation. For more information about Reb Brown or to arrange a personal appearance, visit: www.rebbrownofficialwebsite.net.

RetroFan

June 2020

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Too Much TV

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 T V superheroe s in Column O corresponds ne to a secret id e ntity in Colum Match ’em up n Two. , then see ho w you rate!

1) Super President 2) Mr. Terrific 3) Web Woman 4) The Man from Atlantis 5) Hong Kong Phooey 6) Automan 7) Isis 8) Captain Nice 9) Super Sphere 10) Underdog 10

RetroFan

June 2020

“There’s no ” need to fear!

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

A) Kelly Webster B) Penrod Pooch C) Shoeshine Boy D) Carter Nash E) Curly Neal F) Stanley Beamish G) Andrea Thomas H) James Norcross I) Otto J. Man J) Mark Harris

Automan © 20th Century Fox Television. Captain Nice and Man from Atlantis © NBC Television. Hong Kong Phooey and Super Sphere (of the Super Globetrotters) © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Isis © CBS Television. Mr. Terrific © Universal Television. Super President © DePatie-Freleng Productions. Underdog © Classic Media, Inc. Web Woman © Filmation Associates. All rights reserved.

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June 2020

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A 25 Year Celebration! th

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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) $15.99 • 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!

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Beginning with his WPA etchings during the 1930s, MAC RABOY struggled to survive the Great Depression and eventually found his way into the comic book sweatshops of America. In that world of four-color panels, he perfected his art style on such creations as DR. VOODOO, ZORO the MYSTERY MAN, BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. Raboy went on to illustrate the FLASH GORDON Sunday newspaper strip, and left behind a legacy of meticulous perfection.

Through extensive research and interviews with son DAVID RABOY, and assistants who worked with the artist during the Golden Age of Comics, author ROGER HILL brings Mac Raboy, the man and the artist, into focus for historians to savor and enjoy. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER includes never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics! Introduction by ROY THOMAS! NOW SHIPPING!

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RETRO TOYS

The Wonderful World of

COLORING BOOKS

by Joe Pavlansky

Nine of Joe Pavlansky’s favorite character-based coloring books. Tarzan © ERB, Inc. Planet of the Apes © 20th Century Fox. Hulk and Captain America © Marvel. Superman © DC Comics. The Shadow © Condé Nast. Courtesy of the author.

Writing on this subject really took me back some decades, to when life was much simpler, cartoons were aplenty, and every shelf at the department store seemed to have a toy on it. I remember many of the joyful activities of my youth, and still today, I attempt to bring some of that feeling back with my many areas of collecting.

But when I started to think about coloring books, not only did my memories come flooding back but also the smell of the paper and crayons. Everything mixing together was almost too much, and I found myself remembering times of being in my G.I. Joe pajamas, eating a bowl of cereal, watching cartoons, and getting ready to color. Let me try and somewhat set the scene for you as I remember it.

The smell of pulp paper fills your nostrils as you lie belly down on the living room floor or take a comfortable seat at the kitchen table. A quick flip of the pages delights your youthful eyes as you see picture after glorious picture of dynamic black-and -white illustrations. The excitement begins to grow as you set the book down and swiftly grab the cardboard box gently resting next to the book. On the cover of the box gleams a bright rainbow of colors that not only draw a smile to your young face, but also starts to get the wheels turning in your head. With so many shades to choose from, the possibilities could be endless. Superman’s cape could be green. The sun could be ablaze with a purple glow. The Hulk could be blue mixed with orange and red. Having so many colors and possibilities to choose from, the outcomes could be as endless as our imagination.

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As you open the newly purchased box of crayons, the fresh also black-and-white illustrations. Since it became fashionable to smell of wax blends perfectly with the pulp to send a cornucopia color the images in for entertainment, several copies from that of magical fragrances through the air. The vast array of colors is period have been found to be hand-colored. almost too much to take in as you begin to find the perfect page Although the popularity of coloring books are still debated to start on. Not the first page—that’s too easy. You franticly flip as a means of entertainment for aristocrats, one thing is for through the pages and… KA-PLAM! You found it! Grabbing the certain, their use as an educational tool was invaluable. These best color for the job, the delicate process of filling in the lines has books containing intricate outlines were utilized as artistic now begun. Up and down, side-to-side, small circles. Whatever training tools to help people, mainly artist apprentices, use and your forte, the only real question on how to properly apply your understand watercolors. As the books became popular with colors is, and always will be, the highly the creative types, they also debated: Does it matter if I color inside or started to garner the attention outside the lines? of people seeking new forms of This was always the hardest part for amusement. me when trying to bring my pages to life.

By 1760, and with the Usually I started around the perimeter popularity of coloring on the of the illustration and worked my way rise in London, Robert Sayer inward. But still I managed to be outside published a 60-plate book the lines most of the time. Then I tried entitled The Florist. The title small circles, concentrating so hard that page reads, “Being a New my tongue would be pressed against my Work intended for the use & upper lip mimicking the directions of my amusement of Gentlemen and hand. When it was all said and done even Ladies Delighting in that Art.” coloring inside or out of the lines didn’t This book, specifically designed matter. I had fun! And I kept on having for general aristocrats, provides fun throughout the whole book, even information on which colors going back to provide touch-up colors on to use, how to mix colors, and previous works of art. also how to properly apply the Knowing what I know now about colors to each illustration. coloring books and their collectability, Elite adults were not the I’m not sure if I would have colored in only ones able to benefit from them but set them safely in a box. I’m the early paint books. Children’s sure that if I could go back in time to illustrated books were scarcely speak to my younger self it wouldn’t available, that is, until the have mattered much. I wanted to color invention of lithography in 1796, the images and bring them to life, which drastically reduced the formulating unlimited adventures until printing time and cost. Many my hands started to hurt… or my crayons children didn’t have access to went dull. these creative mediums at the But where did these fantastic books time, but that would all change come from, and what was their evolution with the first United States Title page for Poly-Olbion, by Michael Drayton (1563–1631). kindergarten class in 1856. over the decades, or even centuries?

What is it now that has changed so much Wikipedia Commons.

Young children needed a about coloring books that make them way to stimulate their minds more collectable rather than an object of artistic fun? I’m not and get their creative juices flowing before entering elementary talking about the new kids books or adult-themed books, but the school. Teachers found that the use of painting books in the vintage ones about super-heroes, movie stars, cartoon characters, classroom were a perfect teaching tool because kids were having and other horror-, fantasy-, and sci-fi-themed genres. You know fun while learning at the same time. This led indubitably to the the ones I’m talking about! early rise of paint books in the late 1800s and their continued popularity from generation to generation.

Color in the History

Let’s go back… way back, to where it started, or probably started.

The exact beginning of coloring books, or paint books as they were once known, is shrouded in mystery. Fortunately, more information continues to surface as the years pass by, and will hopefully continue to do so.

One of the earliest known variations of coloring books comes from the 1612 poem, Poly-Olbion, by Michael Drayton, which had also been reproduced in 1622 due to its popularity. The 15,000-line poem describes England and Whales through, not only words, but 14

RetroFan

June 2020

And Now We Paint…

One of the first American companies to produce coloring books was the McLoughlin Brothers, a company that had been producing children’s ephemera since 1828. Their first painting book, The Little Folks, was produced around 1879 and contained artwork by popular Victorian artist Kate Greenaway. Information from the inside of the book reads: “The need of a Cheap, and at the same time interesting and sensible Book of Pictures for Children, to try their skill at painting, has long been felt. We have

RETRO TOYS

thought it best to make the book without reading matter in order to give a greater number of pictures… Anything that will keep the children still, has always been a desideratum with parents; and there is probably nothing which is so universally popular with the little ones, as painting their own Paint-Boxes, as their SpellingBooks and Primers too often show.”

The McLoughlin Brothers was eventually bought out by the Milton Bradley Company in 1920 and continued, as a subsection, to sell painting books until the end of World War II. In December 1951, the McLoughlin Brothers was sold to Julius Kushner, a toy manufacturing company from New York. Grosset & Dunlap bought the McLoughlin Brothers line of children’s books in June 1954, and would drop the McLoughlin imprint from books by the early Seventies.

Some of the other earlier, more notable, publishing companies were: M.A. Donohue and Company, the Saalfied Publishing Company, Thompson and Thomas, Goldsmith Publishing Company, Whitman Publishing Company, the Platt and Munck Company, and Merrill Publishing Company.

Most of the books available from 1900 to 1929 were centered on animals, nursery rhymes, and children.

Some titles included: Playtime Painting and Drawing (M.A. Donohue and Co., c. 1900), Painting Plays for Rainy Days with Easy Drawing Lessons (Thompson and Thomas, 1908), Favorite Paining Book (Saalfield Publishing Co., 1916), The Delightful Paint and Crayon Coloring Book (McLoughlin Brothers, c1929), Young America Coloring Book (Platt and Munk Co., 1928), and Mother Goose Paint and Crayon Book (Whitman Publishing Co., 1929).

Franklin Mfg. Co., Prang Educational Co., and the Milton Bradley Co., in an effort to support the art and education programs in schools, also began to produce wax-based crayons in the late 19th Century.

In June 1903, the Binney and Smith Company began to sell their “Rubens Crayola” box of six wax crayons, of which only four boxes are known to exist today. After the crayons became a hit the company also released, that same year, their first box of eight, containing the colors black, blue brown, red, purple, orange, green, and yellow. Since then, the estimation is well over 120 different wax crayon colors known to exist on the market.

By the Twenties the undeniable popularity caused several books to begin carrying a label stating that paints or crayons could be used, a label that became more prominent in 1930.

Coloring Craze

Through the Thirties and most of the Forties, paint and color books held on strong while introducing a variety of cartoon characters, movie stars, advertisements, and holiday-themed illustrations. A majority of the titles in the Thirties dealt with simple animal illustrations, nursery rhymes, and children’s activities. The simple and larger illustrations made it easier for young kids to relate and color.

In 1932, Shirley Temple burst on the scene with The Red-Haired Alibi, making children of all ages fall in love with her singing, dancing, and boisterous personality.

Saafield Publishing also saw the potential to market her smile and personality by creating a line of Shirley Temple-themed coloring books. From what I can gather, Saafield began producing these books in 1935 and continued to do so well into the late Fifties. By the Forties, Shirley began to mature and lose some of her child-like charm, although the publishing company kept the appearance she maintained throughout her younger years.

Oh, That Smell…

Probably one of the most ingrained smells a person can imagine, even if it hasn’t stimulated the olfactory senses in decades, is that of a freshly opened box of wax crayons. As I’m writing this I can distinctly smell the various wax sticks and the paper used to wrap them. Memories of buying (or my parents buying) a new box at my local Hills Department Store, along with other toys, then rushing home to lie on my living room floor and color, are hitting me hard with nostalgia. But I digress…

Wax crayons originally began in the mid- to late 1800s and were imported to the United States from Europe. Around June 1876, E. Steiger & Co. of New York released a catalog containing advertisements for wax crayons. Other companies such as The covers of early paint—and coloring—books sometimes depicted their star actually painting (or coloring). Mickey Mouse

© Disney. Bugs Bunny © Warner Bros. Courtesy of Heritage.

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RETRO TOYS

Color the stars of yesteryear! Courtesy of Heritage.

Other books contained illustrations of Tom Mix and Skeezix, along with characters from Little Folks, Little Annie Rooney, Little Orphan Annie, Smitty, Our Gang, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Pinocchio, Snow White, Skippy, and The Wizard of Oz. All titles were popular, but not to the extent that Shirley Temple enjoyed.

By the Forties, variety stores throughout the United States and the world began to see an increase in the demand and sales of paint and coloring books. With the market starting to explode, publishing companies quickly began to acquire the rights to television, radio, film personalities, comic-strip characters, and anything else that could turn a quick buck.

Another major factor in the popularity of coloring books occurred on December 7, 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II. Up until Japan’s surrender on August 19, 1945, U.S. military and patriotic coloring books became a huge part of the market and were geared towards all ages. Some books like America the Land of the Free Coloring Book (1942) contained American history; others such as War Planes Tanks and Jeeps (1942) contained captioned illustrations to identify equipment.

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Some of the more common titles of the Forties contained characters and personalities such as Roy Rogers, Bugs Bunny (and other Warner Bros. cartoon characters), Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Dick Tracy, Joan Carroll, Betty Brewer, and Gene Autry (popular through the late Seventies), along with characters from the comic strips Li’l Abner and Terry and the Pirates.

The Fifties saw books being published in all shapes and sizes, and a huge change to the front cover happening almost overnight. The popularity of wax crayons sent paintbrushes running for cover as crayons dominated the market and caused the near disappearance of the title “paint book.” Although the title had come back on certain occasions, paint books were out and coloring books were in!

Kids couldn’t get enough of the books, and teachers had had enough. Many educators spoke out against the books due to the opinion that they didn’t provide enough creativity for the students. Everyone knows what happens when teachers don’t like something: kids want it even more—and more they got. With many publishers pumping out a wide variety of coloring books, Saafield Publishing and Whitman Publishing were the prominent companies with the most soughtafter titles.

Silver screen and radio stars started to become the more sought-after titles as film and television brought imagination to real life… and right in your living room! Store racks could be found flooded with such characters and titles as Eve Arden, Bob Hope, Grace Kelly, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (a Western coloring-book favorite through the mid-Sixties), Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Baby Huey, Felix the Cat, Popeye (popular through the Eighties), Prince Valiant, Red Ryder (one of my favorite chapter-play films), Steve Canyon, Walt Disney (popular to this day), Ben-Hur, Annie Oakley, Andy Griffith, the Hardy Boys, Cisco Kid, Gunsmoke, and the Lone Ranger and Tonto (my personal favorite cowboy… “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!”).

Television personalities continued to lend their influence to coloring books in the Sixties, even rivaling longtime mainstays such as Disney, Westerns, and cartoon characters. This decade also brought with it adult coloring books in the form of dark satirical illustrations and captions. Two of the most famous adult satire coloring books were The Executive Coloring Book (1961) and The John Birch Coloring Book (1962). The medium really began to evolve during this period with the coverage of politics, society, human anatomy, television, movies, history, and comic books and strips.

Of course, Westerns, comic strips, and cartoon characters were still popular with boys and girls, but the impact that television had in the Sixties is undeniable. Just about every primetime television show from The Addams Family to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had an illustrated book available just waiting to be filled in with all sorts of colors. To say that the little square picture box had an influence would be an understatement.

Would mega-influence be more suitable?

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Marvel Comics and DC Comics broke into the coloringbook scene with titles such as Captain America and Superman, respectively, both produced by Whitman Publishing Company.

The Batman television show (1966–1968) inspired several coloring books from the Watkins-Strathmore Company, full “camp” and all. Can I get a “ZOWIE!”?

Titles and characters during the Sixties included the Three Stooges, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Peanuts, Mister Magoo, Road Runner, Blackbeard’s Ghost, Daniel Boone, The Jungle Book, Dr. Dolittle, The Valley of Gwangi, Chiquita Banana, The Andy Griffith Show, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Ben Casey, Bonanza (into the Seventies), Bewitched, Dick Van Dyke, My Three Sons (into the Seventies), The Dudley Do-Right Show, Dr. Kildare, The Flying Nun, Flipper, Gilligan’s Island, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., My Favorite Martian, Tarzan, and many, many more.

From the Seventies and onward through the Nineties, coloring books still enjoyed much popularity, especially from movies and Saturday morning cartoons, not to mention the shows that aired during the weekdays that compelled kids to run home from school to watch.

Hard to believe there was a time before digital video recorders.

With the outside world changing, coloring books pretty much maintained their status quo in what titles were being published.

Television and movies dominated the shelves, some political books such as Jimmy’s Coloring Book (1976) brought politics once again into the medium, and comic-book characters started to become more prevalent.

If you found yourself perusing the shelves during this decade, many titles would be found containing popular characters, films, or television shows such as Archie, Jughead, Flash Gordon, The Flintstones, Nancy and Sluggo, Wonder Woman, Uncle Scrooge, Mary Poppins, Mickey Mouse, The Rescuers, Winnie the Pooh, Pippi Longstocking, Benji, The Bionic Woman, The Brady Bunch, Captain Kangaroo, Emergency! (medical show), Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, H. R. Pufnstuf, Happy Days (books produced into the Eighties), The Harlem Globetrotters, Hee Haw, The Incredible Hulk, Land of the Lost, Laurel and Hardy, Mork & Mindy, The Partridge Family, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Shadow (my favorite pulp hero), The Waltons, and Welcome Back, Kotter.

As the “Decade of Decadence” rolled in, the coloring-book industry began to roll back. Sure, the vast ensemble of Disney titles, comic strip, comic book, and cartoon characters were prolifically published and readily available at any local store, but the television and film personalities that were so popular in the last several decades had now began to wane.

It seems the Saturday morning cartoons and their related toy lines had a huge impact on pop culture and the decline of interest toward coloring books. Kids had to choose a side: paper

and wax versus plastic and animation. Okay, well, some kids could have both, but the undeniable popularity of cartoons and their subsequent toy lines did have an effect on kids and where their interest shifted. Heck, being a child of the Eighties myself, I could remember the onslaught of cartoon-themed toys at my local department store and how the colors and varieties put me in a trance-like state while I begged my mom to buy me the latest G.I. Joe or Masters of the Universe action figure. Times were definitely changing, but coloring books still managed to remain somewhat relevant in a society bombarded by cartoons and their mountains of merchandise.

Popular characters and titles found in the Eighties were Elvis, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Mr. T (cartoon series), Punky Brewster, The A-Team, CHiPs, The Dukes of Hazzard, Diff’rent Strokes, The Fall Guy, Laverne & Shirley, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Masters of the Universe, Silverhawks, Thundercats, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Smurfs, GoBots, Get Along Gang, Shirt Tales, Care Bears, Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies, The Real Ghostbusters, Big Top Pee-wee, Alf, The California Raisin Show, and Pound Puppies.

The listed titles from each decade are by no means an exhaustive list, as there were hundreds of different books produced each year, and way too many to list here. I’ve compiled some of the more popular ones that coincided with pop culture at the time. Also worth

Be they illustrations like Al McWilliams’ 1952 Flash Gordon cover or photos like this Sixties Beatles cover, famous faces began to replace generic subjects on mid-century coloring books. Flash Gordon © King

Features Syndicate. The Beatles © Apple. Courtesy of Heritage.

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RETRO TOYS

noting is that sometimes a coloring book based on a show was produced toward the end or after the series had ended; it didn’t necessarily coincide with the show’s run.

Once the World Wide Web became more common during the Nineties, coloring books started to take a back seat to immediate gratification and the Information Age. Although some still sought out the more collectible ones, others, who grew up with the originals, were now introducing them to their own children.

Disney, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Looney Tunes, and other cartoon characters were still scarcely available on racks; the medium was a shell of its former self and rapidly slipping.

Paper Dolls

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the impact of paper doll coloring books that were popular during the 20th Century and remain a sought-after collector’s item.

Around 1918, paper doll-themed coloring books began to hit the market and target little girls who loved to play with their toy dolls and play dress-up. These coloring books contained cutouts of dolls, people, and clothing that a child could paint in order to create an almost endless combination. The books, mainly focused towards girls, were published with a plethora of cartoon dolls, female celebrities, and animals.

In 1964 Hasbro released the 12-inch G.I. Joe dolls (Action Figures!) with replaceable clothing and battle gear. Now boys could have an unlimited supply of accessories for any backyard adventure or military campaign. With the popularity of the new line of dolls (Action Figures!), the Hassenfeld Brothers

Political coloring books for grown-ups! JFK (1962) and (OPPOSITE PAGE) Jimmy’s Coloring Book (1976), the latter featuring art by Neal Adams.

Incorporated obtained the license for the toy line, which subsequently led to Whitman Publishing producing several coloring books in 1965.

Along with the G.I. Joe titles, some of the more popular paper doll books were Little Dancers Coloring Book (1972), Betsy McCall (1971), Baby Tenderlove Coloring Book with Doll and Clothes to Cut Out and Color (1971), Doris Day Coloring Book and Cut Out Dolls and Clothes (1953), Judy Garland Fashion Paint Book (1940), and Tubbsy Coloring Book (1968).

Other paper doll books contained characters, stars, or titles such as Space: 1999, The Addams Family, Queen Elizabeth, Santa Claus, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Kim Novak, Jane Russell, Donny and Marie Osmond, Loretta Young, Baby Alive, and Charlie Chaplin.

More to Color

TV properties began dominating coloring book content in the Sixties. Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera.

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No kid’s Christmas stocking would be complete without a holiday-themed coloring book and a pack of brand-new crayons.

Christmas coloring books were one of the most popular holidaythemed coloring books to be produced. The Jolly Old Elf himself graced just about every Christmas coloring book you could find.

From placing presents under the tree to guiding his sleigh and reindeer through the sky, Santa Claus and his rosy cheeks made every kid feel the magic of the season as they colored in Santa’s suit, a decorative tree, and most importantly… the presents. Other Christmas books contained angels, dogs and cats wearing festive hats, toys, decorations, and even snowmen.

Every popular holiday from New Year’s Day to Christmas had and still has a coloring book. Religious beliefs such as Paganism,

RETRO TOYS (BELOW) Another early coloring book for adults: Berni(e) Wrightson’s The Monsters: Color-the-Creature Book, published by Phil Seuling in 1974. © Bernie Wrightson estate. Courtesy of Heritage.

states, various countries, clothing, and different cultures were all covered and formatted so that kids could have fun without realizing that they were learning, a huge benefit for parents and schoolteachers.

Military books were mainly geared toward little boys, although some featured little girls on the cover and in illustrations. The books primarily served as propaganda tools and equipment identification for future service members. Some were drawn in a very campy and cartoon style, while others were more lifelike and accurate. Either way kids loved them and companies like Saalfield Publishing Co., Merrill Publishing Co., and Whitman Publishing Co. were making a huge profit from the sales.

A Revival of Sorts

Christianity, Catholicism, and many other faiths have books available for all ages as well.

Another popular coloring book genre is advertising. Back in 1894, C.L. Hood & Co. was the first to publish an advertisement paint book with Hood’s Sarsaparilla Painting Book. In order to purchase the book a person would have to send 12 cents in stamps along with three trademarks from Hood’s Sarsaparilla products to the company. When kids received the book they had the opportunity to copy from an already-colored page or to create their own. Each illustration in the book followed suit—one colored and one black and white.

Advertising coloring books spread from large brand-name companies, to local mom and pop shops, to traveling circuses. Toy companies also used this method to coincide with a new line of action figures or doll—a great marketing gimmick to get kids and their friends excited over a new product.

Some of the advertising book titles were The Rainbow Brite “I’m a Fit Kid” Coloring Book (1983), Big Boy Patriotic Coloring Book (restaurant, 1976), Carson & Barnes Circus Coloring Book, The Wizard of O’s Food Fun for Kids (1977), The Adventures in Round Town Coloring Book (Spaghetti O’s and Life Savers, 1989), Peter Pan Coloring Book (peanut butter, 1963), Ronald McDonald Giant Story Coloring Book (1975), Cracker Jack Coloring and Activity Book (1984), Hoover Coloring Book (c. Sixties), and The Dutch Boy’s Hobby, A Paint Book for Girls and Boys (1926).

Historical and military coloring books are also worth mentioning since they were mass produced and well liked. United States Presidents, the Queen of England, Native Americans, the American Civil War, the Crusades, information on cities and

Coloring books were scarce in the early 2000s; however, they made a huge comeback during the 2010s with adult-themed books. Not to say the subjects were risqué, but more intricate designs were used to garner a meditative and therapeutic affect to relieve stress and anxiety. Not only did these books help the well-being of adults, they also took them away from technology and transported them back to a simpler time and feel of their childhood. Adults no longer interested in the activity, and even those who loved the artistic release but hadn’t done so in years, began to seek out their old coloring books on the secondary market. I’m sure some even rifled through old boxes in their parents’ attic to locate those lost treasures of yesteryear.

Comic book and toy shows, antique book shows, and genrespecific conventions are a great place to find old paint and coloring books, depending on which titles you are looking for.

The internet and specialty magazines are another good place to purchase or find information and to even network with those in the community.

Whatever the reason, coloring books are back in full swing as collector’s items, entertainment, and learning tools. Maybe the medium isn’t as popular as it once was, but the fascination and fun are still there for any age to join in on.

Now, grab your box of fresh wax crayons, your perfectly illustrated coloring book, and choice beverage, and take yourself back to when you were a child and the only worry was—coloring inside the lines.

JOE PAVLANSKY has a Bachelor of Arts in History and has published two books, Images of America: Campbell and Images of America: Forest County, from Arcadia Publishing. Along with his love for pop culture, Joe is an avid classic horror and sci-fi fan and a contributing writer for Scary Monsters magazine.

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

AD MEN

&

Favorite Characters From TV Commercials

WOMEN

by Scott Saavedra When watching television as a kid in the Sixties, if you were too lazy to get up during the commercial breaks (hello) then you were just stuck watching them or doing your best to try and ignore them. This used to be perfectly normal behavior (I guess you had to be there). Channel surfing was only something I did if I couldn’t remember what station was broadcasting, say, Munsters reruns.

The types of commercials I enjoyed were those for toys and candy, but the memory of them has faded over time. The ones that seemed to really stick featured humorous personalities that described or demonstrated the benefits of the product being sold. The best of these characters were just like you and me but friendlier, and just barely on the sunny side of sanity. Just barely. Remember: repetition is important in commercials. These personas turned out to be well embraced by the consumer. A good thing, because television advertising was pretty lackluster in the previous decade and a half of the medium’s short history.

Broadcasters treated early efforts as merely radio ads with pictures.

The Bulova Watch Company was the first—in 1941—to broadcast a commercial on television (an image of a clock showing the time). It ran 20 seconds and cost $9 (a bit less than three pairs of men’s socks at Lord & Taylor according to that year’s (ABOVE) I Love Lucy features many beloved episodes out of the 180 produced, but the first season’s “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” has got to rate among the best. Here Lucy as played by Lucille Ball is beginning to feel the unsteadying effects of the product she’s trying to sell, Vitameatavegamin. © CBS.

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catalog). Some 4,000 people—exact numbers vary, but about half of all television sets in the U.S.—are said to have seen it.

Why, that’s fewer people than the 5,360-person population of the fictional small town of Mayberry (watched over by the pair of Fife & Taylor).

Before the use of videotape or film, early commercials were done live. A notorious example of the hazards of that approach was recounted by TV advertising pro Harry Matthei in American Heritage (May–June 1977). During a live demonstration of an “easy open” Westinghouse refrigerator, the actress could not cajole the door to open despite her best, most heroic efforts. We late Baby Boomers (and BB-adjacent generations) weren’t around to see such sights but we have witnessed (over and over again) Lucille Ball, comically inspired by such incidents, as she tried to sell Vitameatavegamin (a product containing an absurd amount of alcohol) in the “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” episode from the first season of the classic series, I Love Lucy. [Editor’s note: My wife and I have a “talking” Lucy Vitameatavegamin Christmas ornament!]

Jingles, dancing cigarette boxes, and animated mascots like Alka-Seltzer’s Speedy (voiced by Dick Beals) became popular as advertisers worked to compete with each other. Human product trademarks were also featured. In the Fifties, “Betty Crocker” would appear near the end of the television ad to help make the sale. But “Betty,” sadly, was a bit of a stiff.

As I said, that changed by the Sixties. The agreeably odd product salespersons were the stars of the ads and not a tacked-on sales device. And when they became popular (and helped move product), we devoted TV viewers saw their weirdly

In this 1966 commercial, Josephine the Plumber, as played by acting veteran Jane Withers, really likes her Comet. © KIK Custom Products, Inc. (BELOW) Before she ever put on plumber’s overalls, Jane Withers was a successful child star of the Thirties. Withers and an unsettling ventriloquist’s dummy (is there any other kind?) share this half-sheet for 45 Fathers (1937). © 20th Century Fox.

specific, repetitive adventures play out in 30-second increments over months and even years. Let’s meet some of them, okay?

Okay.

Josephine the Plumber and the Swamp Wizard

I always accepted the notion of Comet cleanser’s Josephine the Plumber as a plumber. She wore appropriate work clothes and was often seen around sinks, which was, I assumed, a popular focus of plumber attention. She even fixed a sink or two. Of course, no plumber anyone has ever hired concerned themselves so much with getting out stains “that other leading cleansers can’t” as did Josephine. Josephine’s single-minded pursuit of excellence in sink cleaning lasted over a decade, from 1963 to 1974, making her a hugely successful creation with as many as 20 different (I use that word loosely) installments of her story told each year.

One of the more shocking Josephine commercials featured a very young Robby Benson as a lad preparing to put on a sandwich board. The front of the board read, “Josephine says DON’T USE COMET.” Robby, clearly upset, thinks that such a sign was, and I’m quoting here, “naughty.” Josephine comforts young Robby by showing him the other side of the sign, “USE NEW SUPER STAIN-REMOVING COMET.” Robby was eye-poppingly relieved as

Josephine then held up a can of the new Comet. And, boy, she just had the craziest look on her face.

Josephine was played with a certain amped-up flare by Jane Withers and the Swamp Wizard actress Jane Withers.

(1944), by Kathryn Heisenfelt. The Withers’ acting career fascinating www.series-books.com calls began, well, before the ending “bizarre and unsettling” she was even alive. Her and leaves the reader feeling “creepy mother wanted a girl so and repulsed.” the child could have the show business career she herself missed. Withers frequently told the story of how her mother (pre-child birth) would look at movie theater marquees and try to come up with a name that would look good up in lights and go with the family name. Say what you will about Mother Withers’ plan (and I’m trying hard not to say anything), she was right and Jane Withers was born—in 1926—a natural.

Withers’ big break came when she was cast as a mean kid opposite sweet little Shirley Temple in the 1934 film, Bright Eyes.

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Apparently, young Jane’s can-do attitude and gif t for mimicry—her imitation of actress ZaSu Pitts wowed them—got her the role. She was a topten box-office draw twice during the remainder of the Thirties. In the early Forties, Jane Withers “starred” in three adventure books from Whitman.

Two featured a character who looked like Jane Withers and was named Jane Withers but was not Jane Withers. The third and final book, Jane Withers and the Swamp Wizard (1944), did star some version of the real Jane Withers. Unlike many child actors, Withers managed the transition to working adult actor, with her role as Josephine the plumber providing a successful second act.

The Many Regenerations of the Maytag Repairman

The original Maytag Repairman, also known as “the loneliest guy in town,” Ol’ Lonely, and Lonely George, first appeared on television screens in 1967. In one form or another the Repairman continues to this day in what is possibly the longest-lived of any human TV commercial persona.

The initial gimmick was that Maytag products were so well made that official Maytag repairman had nothing to do and so they were sad but the consumer was happy because it meant that they had purchased a reliable product. The ads were apparently difficult to create, as they all had to use the same punch line of the lonely guy at the end. The Repairman didn’t leave his office for years.

Veteran character actor Jesse White played Ol’ Lonely from 1967 to 1988 in 68 commercials. His career also included stints in vaudeville and on Broadway. RetroFan readers likely know him from his guest roles on shows like The Real McCoys, The Andy Griffith Show, The Munsters, etc., etc., etc. He did voice work for cartoons and both volumes of Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America. White appeared, often in smallish roles, in a number of films including Bedtime for Bonzo, the comedianstuffed It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and a couple of AIP Annette Funicello beach pictures playing someone called “J. Sinister Hulk.”

White was about 71 years old when Maytag replaced him with Gordon Jump, some 15 years his junior. Gordon Jump was best known as the kind, befuddled station manager of Cincinnati station WKRP on WKRP in Cincinnati (LEFT). One line of his in particular from a first season episode is well remembered by many (including me) following a Thanksgiving promotional stunt gone terribly, horribly wrong: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

Jump played the Maytag Repairman from 1989 to 2003. He was replaced by Hardy Rawls, who was replaced by Clay Jackson.

Having tired of trying to make the character slightly younger with each iteration, Maytag made its most daring changes yet to their long-running creation. Currently, the Maytag Repairman is taller and more fit in the guise of Colin Ferguson (you may know him as the sheriff on Eureka), who now wryly embodies the appliances themselves.

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(TOP) Character actor Jesse White as the under-used Maytag Repairman sleeps through an entire 1989 Christmas season commercial. © Maytag. Jesse White was a busy character actor in both film and television. (CENTER) A stranger trio you’ll never see appears right here on this lobby card for the 1958 film, Country Music Holiday. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Zsa Zsa Gabor, boxer Rocky Graziano, and White. © Paramount Pictures.

(BOTTOM) TV commercial giants Jesse White and Jane Withers appeared together this 1985 IRS public service ad.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Clara Peller’s film career consisted of two 1985 movies, Moving Violations (seen here with Nedra Volz) and The Stuff. Moving Violations © Moving Violations Productions. A Milton Bradley board game (TOP), a card game, puffy stickers, serving trays, hats, T-shirts, towels, and hamburger-shaped gum, were quickly produced to take advantage of the ad’s popularity. © Hasbro.

Lady Finds Beef, Gets Fired

If the advertiser and its client are lucky, a commercial character becomes well liked enough to last for years. The “Where’s the Beef?” Lady had a brief broadcasting life (and more on that in a bit), but she shone with the light of a thousand GE Bluecoat FourShot Flashcubes. More importantly, she sold lots of hamburgers, Wendy’s hamburgers.

The 1984 television spot that started the phenomenon was entitled “Big Bun,” the premise being that Wendy’s hamburgers were larger and of better quality than their competitors. To illustrate the point, three post-retirement-age ladies examine a hamburger that consists of a gigantic bun with a dollop of meat barely larger than the pickle slice that tops it. Two of the women are politely puzzling over the food, and the diminutive third lady—at 4’10” she barely comes above the counter—looks around and bellows out the words that will forever define her, “Where’s the Beef?” A star was born.

Clara Peller, whose official role, according to the Internet Movie Database, is “Old Lady,” became known as the Where’s the Beef? Lady instead. Unlike an actor playing, say, a manicurist, Peller was a manicurist who became an actress. For 35 years she worked as a manicurist in Chicago before she was discovered while providing her fingernail magic for a local commercial shoot. She appeared in a number of TV ads until the Wendy’s job changed her life at age 81. People magazine (Apr. 2, 1984) described her as a “bigschnozzed, gravel-voiced granny” (rude, right?). To be fair, this was true, plus she was hard of hearing, had emphysema, and was unable to speak long sentences. But she sure had character.

The sudden attention suited her just fine, apparently. Sales at Wendy’s shot up and more commercials followed. Clara Peller appeared on talk shows, a card game and a board game, a 45 RPM record, puffy stickers, an Armitron watch, and boxes of hamburger patty-shaped bubble gum. She followed the Wendy’s

BEHIND THE BEEF

All of the stars aligned just right to make the Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” TV commercial blow up into a phenomenon in the way it did. Clara Peller, with her smallness of person and bigness of personality, was vital to the success of the ad campaign. But here’s the thing… she didn’t do it alone. Of course, she didn’t do it alone. Duh. There was some quality talent behind the scenes and I wanted, as a fan of quality talent, to mention two people behind the iconic “Big Bun” ad.

Cliff Freeman wrote and developed the concept and script to “Big Bun.” At the time, he was the Creative Director at Dancer Fitzgerld Sample. Basically, he had the same job fictional Don Draper did in Mad Men. According to the amazingly helpful The Advertising Age Encyclopedia of Advertising (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2002), Freeman also wrote the “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t” jingle for Mars’ Mounds and Almond Joy bars.

The spot’s director, Joe Sedelmaier, is a bit better known (in that I’d heard of him before). Sedelmaier’s early work is described by the Encyclopedia of Advertising as “inspired dementia” and perhaps best represented by the popular “Fast-Paced World” ad of the Eighties for FedEx (then Federal Express) with speed talker John Moschitta, Jr. (recognized as one of the very fastest speakers on Earth). It was common for Sedelmaier to cast non-actors for roles. That leads us back to Clara Peller, an actress but at the time only recently and just barely, if you know what I mean.

The result of this wonderful collaboration: TV commercial perfection.

“Where’s the beef?!” yeller Clara Peller (ABOVE) in “Big Bun,” the explosively popular 1984 ad for Wendy’s Hamburgers. © Quality Is Our Recipe, LLC.

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ads with other commercials including a spot for Prego spaghetti sauce. In the Prego ad, Peller asks her famous question while examining a sauce jar, “Where’s the beef? I found it! I really found it!” (catchy). This 1985 commercial ended the ties between Peller and Wendy’s.

Clara Peller kept riding the fame train at full steam ahead until her death in 1987. As for Wendy’s, the burger chain suffered a sales dip and a loss of “customer awareness” for years until the company’s founder, Dave Thomas, proved to be an effective brand mascot himself. Fun fact: It was Thomas, back in his early days as a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee, who encouraged Colonel Harland Sanders to put himself in the company’s commercials.

From Soap Opera to Soap

And speaking of manicurists…

From 1966 to 1992 Madge, a manicurist for the “Salon East Beauty Parlor,” would make fun of her customer’s lousy hands… to their faces. Then she would tell them they should use Palmolive dishwashing soap instead of whatever caustic chemical horror they were melting their fingers with because it’s so, so gentle on the hands (even as Madge is harsh on the confidence). The customer would shrug off the notion that a dishwashing liquid could be so kind

to one’s hands. Then Madge would pounce, “You’re soaking in it!”

(Ha, ha, ha! You idiot!)

In real life this willfully weird and deceptive behavior would get Madge fired and maybe even put in the care of a mentalhealth professional. But this is TV Commercial Land and, well, America just loved her sass and wit. Actress Laura Dern was so smitten by the character while growing up that she told AdAge (June 19, 2017) that she would love to play Madge in a series of commercials. So far, nothing seems to have come from that wish.

As for the actress who did play Madge, Jan Miner, she had a career that included television roles on Cagney & Lacey, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, and Law & Order. Miner appeared in a few films (Lenny with Dustin Hoffman and The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster), but her most popular role before Madge was as Julie Erickson on Hilltop House, a radio soap opera she joined in 1948. That show was sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company, makers of Madge’s stealth “beauty product” (no record was found linking one thing to the other).

It was stage work that Miner seemed to enjoy the most, often with her husband, actor Richard Merrell.

Mr. Whipple, the Comeback Kid

Not long ago, while grocery shopping with my wife and daughter, I found myself absentmindedly (but gently) squeezing loaves of bread as we passed through the bakery department.

My daughter, exasperated, said in a reasonably respectful under-her-breath tone, “If you’re not

(LEFT) Madge shares her signature surprise, “You’re soaking in it!” and the horrified reaction (RIGHT) in these screen captures from a Seventies-era Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid commercial. © Colgate-Palmolive Company. (INSET) Madge’s alter ego, Jan Miner, in her radio days, on the cover of Radio-TV Mirror vol. 40 #1 (June 1953).

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(LEFT) This is how it begins: Grocery manager Mr. Whipple, played by Dick Wilson, takes a dim view of customers squeezing the Charmin Bathroom Tissue. It was a steely look he would use again (UPPER RIGHT) playing wacky Nazi Captain Fritz Gruber in three episodes of Hogan’s Heroes (Wilson was a busy character actor too). © Viacom. But, of course, Mr. Whipple (RIGHT) is as weak-willed as any of us and he just can’t resist a little smush.

Screen captures from a Sixties commercial. © Procter & Gamble.

going to buy it, don’t squeeze it!” Mr. Whipple would have loved her. Me, not so much—I remain a very tactile shopper.

The makers of Charmin Bathroom Tissue had an advertising problem: How do you address the delicate subject of toilet-paper quality while not mentioning human buttocks or the purpose of the product? Why, you invent Mr. George Whipple (also known as George the Grocer), a grocery manager who is one part tinpot dictator, one part genial hypocrite, and one part pre-use excrement removal paper fetishist (but in a fun way).

The classic set-up of a Mr. Whipple commercial involves scenes of lady shoppers gathering around a large Charmin display to chat and squeeze the toilet paper. Mr. Whipple turns a corner, sees the squeezing, puts a stop to it, and chastises the shoppers with his signature line, “Don’t squeeze the Charmin!” Then, thinking no one is watching, Mr. Whipple cops a couple demure gropes, and is chastised in turn by the shoppers. So busted, Mr. Whipple smiles sheepishly and gets in a micro grab or two.

There were some 500 (!) of these “slice-of-(strange)-life” 30-second plays made from 1964 to 1985, plus print ads and radio spots. Like any good long-running story, new characters were occasionally added including a stockboy (played by Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame) and a competing grocer, Mr. Hoffmeier, who actually wanted his customers to squeeze the Charmin (what in the hey?). In a stunning plot twist (perhaps inspired by Mr. Hoffmeier), Mr. Whipple himself eventually chased after customers trying to entice them to squeeze the Charmin.

Actor Dick Wilson played Mr. Whipple in a pleasant, blustery, ever-so-slightly bonkers manner. In addition to his work in the Charmin ads, Wilson appeared in a number of television programs likely familiar to RetroFan readers. He played a lovable drunk on Bewitched a few times (he was in jail with both Darrins, according to harpiesbizarre.com). He was a wino on The Rockford Files and played a drunk, a tipsy man, and a bar fly on other programs (ironically, Wilson was a teetotaler). He played a motel manager and jewelry store clerk (uh, please don’t squeeze the diamonds?) on The Doris Day Show and a grocer on others. Just in case you thought he was always horribly typecast, in the 1966 movie Our Man Flint Wilson played—and this is a fact— Supervisor of Pleasure Units Conditioning.

Amazingly, Mr. Whipple (and Dick Wilson) returned in 1999 in a series of commercials that included a new catchphrase, “Is Mr. Whipple watching?” (Wait, what?) These commercials were actually a lead-in for a new series featuring cartoon bears which still run today. When Dick Wilson died in 2007, a tribute commercial ran celebrating both the man and the character, and, I guess, the toilet paper that brought them together.

But Wait, There’s More!

Of course, there were plenty more commercial characters that popped up during the crazy, cool era we cover here but were RetroFan

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passed over due to space and because they weren’t my top favorites. Still, they were all part of the background noise of our TV watching life and should at least be mentioned: Rosie the waitress for Bounty paper towels (played by TV great Nancy Walker), Joe Isuzu for Isuzu automobiles and trucks (assayed by the perfectly cast David Leisure), and the Ty-D-Bol Man for the TyD-Bol toilet bowl cleaner (brought to life by four different actors including NBC Charlotte, North Carolina, weatherman Larry Sprinkle, who is really pointed out here because, wow, Sprinkle is a great name and RetroFan is the pride of North Carolina). Perhaps a sequel to this Secret Sanctum is in order. Readers? Anyone?

Bueller?

A couple of interesting threads were revealed as I researched these commercial characters. Firstly, the actors seemed to genuinely like the jobs. Acting is a tough way to make a living for most performers but if one is open to it, a long-term advertising campaign pays better than most other assignments. True, there are requirements beyond, say, squeezing toilet paper in the commercials. Public appearances need to be made and “morals

THE DAY RODNEY ALLEN RIPPY AND I ALMOST DIED!

While at an advertising symposium held at my high school, I got to see Rodney Allen Rippy (then the tiny, adorable star of Jack in the Box’s popular Jumbo Jack campaign where Rodney struggled to eat the larger than usual burger), and have lunch. The then-hot advertising agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, was there as part of the event. They were known at the time for a series of Volkswagon Bug ads that were both clever and highly regarded, and were having success with the Jumbo Jack commercials. Long story short, I got to see Rodney Allen Rippy, then suddenly there was a bomb scare and we were all ushered out of the building.

Outside, we were offered Jumbo Jack lunches. I recall hearing grumbling and the burgers didn’t seem to be very popular. I had two.

In re-reading the headline to this sidebar I realize I may have oversold it. Well, that’s advertising for you.

Rodney Allen Rippy adorably struggles with his Jumbo Jack in this commercial screen capture. © Jack in the Box, Inc. 26

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Rosie the Waitress, played by “Rhoda’s mom” Nancy Walker, from Bounty Paper Towels ads (“They’re the quicker picker-upper!”) and Mr. Whipple encounter each other in this Seventies’ Charmin commercial. © Procter & Gamble.

clauses” (or something similar) need to be respected. Still, it must be said that I did not come across a single unhappy word from any of the actors covered here about their experience. In fact, they seemed quite grateful for the work.

Secondly, advertising agencies—especially the most creative ones—got tired of the formula of these popular ads very quickly.

So did the TV audience. And yet, the commercials served their purpose to maintain or increase customer awareness of the product. In short, they worked. And, it should be noted, these products—from Comet cleanser to Wendy’s burgers—continue to be sold to this day.

Television commercials are still a thing, though not as universally seen as in the past because of the ways in which the media landscape has continued to change. And since entertainment and information are all around us and at our fingertips, advertising is everywhere, too. We are—I can’t let this opportunity pass—soaking in it.

In the interest of journalistic transparency the reader must be informed that we at the Secret Sanctum regularly use Comet cleanser and have used Maytag dishwashers but prefer Dawn or Method dish soap to Palmolive, Five Guys burgers to Wendy’s, and Kirkland’s toilet paper over Charmin (not because it’s more squeezable but because it’s just more— those Costco packages are huge).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled entertainment…

SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a graphic designer, writer, and artist who watched way too many commercials when his brain was fresh and formulating. 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/)

RETRO BRIT

Benny Hill

by Ian Millsted In December 2018, the church that my wife, daughter, and I attend had an evening of comedians doing a Christmas-themed show. Of tangential interest to RetroFan readers, one of the comedians, Dominic Holland, is the father of current SpiderMan actor Tom Holland. Hosting the evening was Paul Kerensa, best known in the U.K. as a writer of sitcoms. As part of his act Kerensa put up two lists on the screen. One was a list of wellknown tunes and the other of Christmas carols, the idea being that any of the carols could be sung along to any of the tunes. The overwhelmingly popular choice was the tune simply identified as “The Benny Hill Theme.” How interesting that, 30 years after his show was cancelled largely due to being seen as not acceptable for modern audiences, the name elicited such a warm response from, of all things, a church audience. The church we go to may be a little unconventional, but—even so!

Benny Hill was both a traditionalist and a pioneer at the same time. He had been a star of British television for 20 years before the first signs of success in America emerged, and he should be given all due credit for making that success happen. He was steeped in the vaudeville tradition, while also understanding the need of modern television for programs of a certain length that could also accommodate commercials. The risqué nature of much of his comedy meant that it was cutting edge in the Sixties and out of fashion by the Nineties. The tone and style of the programs changed little over time.

Benny Hill’s character Fred Scuttle, as immortalized in wax at Madame Tussauds in London. Photo by Ricardo Liberato/

Wikimedia Commons.

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Having been named Alfred Hawthorne Hill by his parents, Hill took the stage name Benny Hill in tribute to Jack Benny, of whom he was a fan and on whom he modelled his direct to audience style. After serving in the British army in Normandy in 1944, Hill sought a career in show business. He worked as a stagehand at the Windmill Theatre, which had a curious mix of comedians and stationary nude models (the censors only allowed nudes on stage if they didn’t move!), which may have influenced the shows he later made. Hill gradually made something of a name for himself on radio, some of which recordings still exist in the BBC archives, but found true success when his pitch for a television sketch show was commissioned by the BBC. From 1955 to 1967, Hill made The Benny Hill Show for the BBC to great success. He also starred in a couple of films, Who Done It? (1960) and Light Up the Sky (1960). The former was the last comedy to be made by the legendary Ealing Studios and the latter is a World War II-set piece that allows Hill to show off some of his vaudeville-style act.

It was the move from the BBC to ITV in 1968 that really gave Hill the opportunity to make it to the very top. ITV was the only rival to the BBC from the Fifties to 1982. It was therefore the only commercial television network in the U.K. and had an effective monopoly on TV advertising revenues. The network was divided into about a dozen different companies for different regions with each contributing a certain proportion of the primetime

degree of creative control; he wrote the scripts and supervised the choice of music, some of which he wrote himself. The theme tune was actually a pre-existing piece called “Yakety Sax” by saxophonist Boots Randolph, but which almost everyone now knows as “The Benny Hill Theme.”

The Benny Hill Show as made by Thames Television was never a regular weekly show. Hill was given enough time to make hour-long specials that would be scheduled when ready. There were typically three or four of these a year, with one usually shown somewhere over the Christmas holiday season. Thames Television was also more entrepreneurial than the BBC and actively sought ways to sell their shows overseas. The first sales to syndication in America were made by re-packaging the shows down to 24-minute episodes suitable to fit into a half-hour slot with commercials. By the mid-Seventies there was enough color material to package whole series, which is what local American stations were looking for. It also helped that Hill worked with a regular group of support actors (Henry McGee, Jackie Wright, Nicholas Parsons, and Bob Todd), so arranging new contracts was relatively easy. It didn’t hurt that they were paid quite well either.

Many other British comedians envied Hill’s American success, but none of them were willing to do the logistical part of the process that Hill did.

Possibly they didn’t understand what he had been doing. Only Monty Python’s Flying Circus achieved anything like the same number of syndication sales, even though Python and Hill represented opposite ends of the comedy spectrum.

(LEFT) Poster for a 1974 theatrical release of sketches from The Benny Hill Show, from programs produced in 1969–1972. © EMI. Poster courtesy of Heritage. (BELOW) Lovely, leggy ladies—Hill’s Angels—were a popular attraction on The Benny Hill Show. © AH Hill Residuals Trust.

programming. Greater London had such a large share of the population that it was split into two separate companies—one for weekdays and one for weekends. It was for Thames Television, which had the weekday franchise, with whom Hill signed. The advertising money was plentiful enough that they could offer Hill big money for making the shows.

They also made the series in color, where the BBC had still been in black and white. Hill also had a high 28

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RETRO brit

executive John Howard Davies, citing the cost and that the star and show were looking tired. The budgets on the shows were quite high but more than recouped by overseas sales (nearly a hundred countries bought the shows), so the cost was something of a red herring. The truth was that ITV was embarrassed to be making the program that was being criticized by younger comedians such as Ben Elton. Even there, for a program going out of fashion, it was pulling in double the ratings of anything Elton was doing at the time.

There is certainly casual sexism in The Benny Hill Show—the number of women asked to appear in their underwear is disproportionate and objectifying. Hill’s defense was that the men are all portrayed as idiots and that the end chase scenes are all him being chased by others rather than him chasing women.

It seems appropriate that the last ever Hill special was made in New York, the first U.S. market to buy the shows.

Hill was devastated by the cancellation.

He spent little of the money he made, he never married, lived modestly, and just wanted to go on making the shows that he believed people still wanted to see (ITV got mountains of letters asking for the return of the program). Hill died in 1992, having sought solace in drink and over-eating. I’m not entirely comfortable with some of his sketches, but there is no doubt that he was a skilled comedian and a shrewd operator in the world of television. In an era when nearly every female actor, of age, cast in Game of Thrones is asked to go nude to an extent that is rarely required of the male actors, The Benny Hill Show looks positively innocent.

When it was announced in 2003 that a remake of The Italian Job was being made, a friend asked me who I thought could do the Michael Caine part. “Never mind that,” I replied. “Who can they find these days who could possibly replace Noel Coward and Benny Hill?” Wisely, they didn’t try.

Benny was a popular feature in the U.K. kids magazine Look-in (a.k.a.

Junior TVTimes), sometimes appearing on covers and occasionally in one-page comic strips inside the magazine.

The Benny Hill Show was very much a working-class program, made for popular appeal and without pretensions to be anything other than it was. Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a product of the upper middle class, largely Cambridge and Oxford University-educated, establishment types. What they had in common was a heavy stress on visual comedy, a 24-minute format, and a willingness to be as silly as possible. The likelihood of seeing a pretty girl with not many clothes on in each case probably helped as well. For some reason Hill has received a lot more criticism for that over the years than the Python gang, although there is actually more skin shown in some Python episodes than there ever was in the Hill shows.

My own relationship with Benny Hill was limited. My mother didn’t approve, so it was rarely seen when I was growing up, but I was aware of Benny Hill from his occasional hit songs (“Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West”) and cameos in three of the most regularly shown movies on British television in the Seventies (Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Italian Job). When we visited my Aunt Joyce she always kept the television on, even with visitors in the house, and she only ever watched ITV, so I occasionally caught glimpses of Hill there.

The Benny Hill Show was almost always the top-rated TV show in Britain in any week in which it was shown, right from 1969 to the mid-Eighties. After that the ratings started to slip a little, but not much. It stayed in the top ten. It was the changing tastes of the television establishment rather than popular opinion that worked against Hill. The program was cancelled in 1989 by

IAN MILLSTED is a writer and teacher living in Bristol, United Kingdom. He has also lived and worked in the U.S. and has a love of the culture of both places. Special mention to Alicia’s dad.

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RETRO FAD

8-Track Tapes

by Michael Eury Almost everyone’s got his or her own playlist today. We plug in Lear himself, had toyed with it as early as the Forties, such as our ear buds and unplug the world around us, retreating inside George Eash, an inventor who applied the endless loop to his the tune cocoon nestled snugly within our smartphone or device “Fidelipac” cartridge in 1959. But it took a madman to marry this of choice. evolving tech with the car culture that was careening into our Yet there was a time when our music selections were limited hit songs, TV shows and movies, and plastic model kits—Earl to the platter we’d slap onto our turntable, or the jukebox pick “Madman” Muntz, that is. Muntz, a one-time used car salesman a coin drop and button push would and boyfriend of Phyllis Diller, was provide. Sure, our car radios could be an L.A. impresario and engineer who dialed to our favorite Top 40 station simplified and popularized electronic offering random hits, but drivers back devices for mass consumption and in the Sixties dreamed, Wouldn’t it be promoted them with zany spiels nice to play our music of choice, right here on television. His 4-track cartridges in the comfort of our upholstered bucket (a.k.a. “CARtridges”) brought licensed seats? music from albums of the day to the Bill Lear of Lear Jet Industries American car in 1962, with Bill Lear (now Learjet) made that dream come taking notice, looping us back to true in 1964 when spearheading where our story began. a research-and-development The 8-track tape cartridge was conglomerate—including automobile a revolutionary step forward from giants Ford and General Motors and the 4-track, which was generally telecommunications corporations limited to roughly 40 minutes of RCA Victor, Motorola, and Ampex— music. According to Wikipedia, the that introduced the “Stereo 8 endless loop 8-track’s ¼-inch tape Cartridge” to the market. Recordings featured “four programs of music … made on magnetic tape dated back with two tracks on each program to to the Forties with the reel-to-reel create stereo sound.” This expansion, tape recorder, originally an unwieldy which could feature 80 minutes of contraption requiring the threading recorded music, allowed long-playing of large spools. In ensuing decades albums (that’s “LPs” for you young the reel-to-reel tape recorder became whippersnappers) to be adapted to streamlined into portable units 8-track and played inside your car. that could be used by Opie Taylor to The Ford Motor Company—one covertly eavesdrop on prisoners in the of that Lear consortium of Stereo 8 Mayberry Jail and by elected officials A 1966 magazine ad promoting the newest music innova- Cartridge originators—included a to record U.S. presidential confabs for tion for car and for home. Lear Jet/Learjet © Bombadier. dashboard-mounted 8-track player posterity (18-minute erasures aside). option in three of its 1966 models (the Still, the annoying rethreading of reel-to-reels limited its appeal Mustang, the Thunderbird, and the Lincoln), while another of to the general consumer. the developers, RCA Victor, rolled out a selection of close to 200 It was the advent of the endless (or “infinite”) loop tape new 8-track releases, culling from their library of albums. Soon, that was a game-changer. A number of visionaries, including other record labels and automobile manufacturers added 8-track 30

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releases and installations, and if you weren’t in the market for a new car, auto-parts dealers and various retail outlets sold car 8-track players you could install yourself.

With their stereophonic sound, portability, and ease of use, 8-tracks were also introduced into the home. Home 8-track players were sold separately, or in some cases built into the same stereo component as a record player and AM/FM radio. At that time most Americans lacked a television remote control, meaning someone—one of your kids, if you were a bossy dad—had to get up, walk over to the set, and turn the dial to change stations. But with the advent of 8-track tapes in the home, Americans no longer had to turn over their record to hear A factory-mounted AM-FM stereo— with 8-Track player!—in a 1978 AMC the B-side of a music album. The endless loop Matador. Photo by CZmarlin/Wikimedia 8-track tape was an important early step in the Commons. creation of the couch potato!

Lear’s 8-track cartridge enjoyed healthy sales for a decade, inspiring new twists on the acknowledged the product’s mobile format. One was the Playtape, a 2-track tape roots with slogans such as “Music for that was smaller in size and recorded memory.

People on the Go.” Conceived by Frank Stanton, Playtape rolled Sure, they were easy to use and out in 1966 and 1967. Its compact size and were the first widely popular device hand-held, easy-to-tote player made Playtape that allowed music portability, but perfect for kids and teens. (After drooling 8-tracks weren’t without their problems. over one advertised in the Sears Christmas Sometimes a tape would break, or worse Wishbook, I added a Playtape player to my yet, unravel, snaking into the player and wish list and Santa kindly obliged, throwing gumming up the works. People would in some cartridges of popular artists including frequently leave their 8-tracks in their the Beatles and the Beach Boys… plus a Dean cars, on a car seat, and just a few hours Martin tape I’ve got a feeling my mom put Saint of hot afternoon sunlight could warp Nick up to.) Playtape’s smaller size was also its A Playtape player was a giveaway from tapes and distort their sound. TapeMennen in this mid-Sixties magazine ad. player heads could become grimy from limitation, as its cartridges could only hold a few tunes. Yet Playtape and Madman Muntz’s Mennen © Colgate-Palmolive. overuse, dust, cigarette smoke, and 4-track couldn’t compete with the market other contaminates, adversely affecting dominance—and the sheer coolness—of the Lear-launched sound quality. Tapes would annoyingly change tracks mid-song, 8-track tapes and systems. or stop changing tracks altogether, and head-alignment problems Throughout the rest of the Sixties and the early to midsometimes caused two tracks to play simultaneously, called Seventies, 8-tracks spun profitably alongside record albums, even “double-tracking.” The cartridges themselves lacked the visual being offered in music clubs like Columbia House and in ads in appeal of the larger album jacket, their labels often wrinkled by magazines and comic books. 8-track tapes were generally sold poor glue application—and labels tended to fall off with use, inside an open-faced cardboard box, but due to their shoplift-able requiring some owners to scribble the 8-track’s contents onto the size they were also marketed inside a cellophane-windowed, tall cartridge in magic marker. It’s no surprise that the advent of the cardboard box that compatibly fit into LP bins. Some of the boxes smaller cassette tape (which, like the LP, had to be turned over to play its B-side) squeezed the 8-track’s market share beginning in the Seventies (but hey, the CD came along in the Eighties to put those fad-busting cassettes out to pasture!). By the early Eighties 8-tracks became harder to find, usually available only through record clubs. It’s reported that Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits, a 1988 release, was the last 8-track issued by a record label. By the end of the Eighties 8-tracks were being dumped by retailers, remaindered at cut-out prices.

Nostalgically, the 8-track has proven more durable than the product itself. Today there are Baby Boomers (and occasional younger converts) called “trackers” who collect 8-track tapes and players, and fanzines like 8-Track Mind have appeared. A collector named Buck Burnett offers on YouTube a guided virtual tour of his Eight-Track Museum. And someone has even proclaimed April “Trackers” generally prefer mint condition, unplayed 8-tracks when 11th as National 8-Track Tape Day! Ask your boss for the day off, collecting, like this Bond soundtrack collection. Courtesy of Heritage. shove in a Kool and the Gang 8-track, and celebrate!

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MONSTER MASH

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

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RETRO TELEVISION

Captain Nice The Short and Happy Flight of America’s Insecure Superman

“Watch out for the fallout!” Carter called. “I’m going to take the potion!”

“Do it, boy!”

There was a blinding explosion!

A cloud of smoke billowed up from behind the couch! A sulphurous odor filled the air! Then a figure, choking, eyes tearing, stepped from the smoke. It was: Captain Nice!

He spread his arms, lifting his cape, revealing the lettering on the chest of his red, white and blue uniform. His muscles bulged, his jaw jutted, his steely eyes glinted.

“And to think!” Mrs. Nash murmured. “A moment ago, that was my finky son, Carter!”

“It’s still me, Mother,” Captain Nice said. “No matter what I become, I’ll always be your son.”

— William Johnston, Captain Nice paperback novel (1967)

© NBC.

by Dan Hagen

On the evening of January 9, 1967, NBC viewers were treated for the first time to these sprightly, though not deathless, lyrics: Look! It’s the man who flies around like an eagle.

Look! It’s the enemy of all that’s illegal.

Look! At the muscles on those arms, they’re like hammers.

Look! It’s the nut who walks around in pajamas.

That’s no nut, boy, that’s Captain Nice.

Nice! Nice! Nice! Nice! Nice!

The theme song was written by Brooklyn-born composer Vic Mizzy, who’d also penned the catchy themes to Green Acres and The Addams Family. Mizzy didn’t find Captain Nice funny, and the show’s creator Buck Henry, in turn, didn’t care for Mizzy’s theme song. He’d have preferred to punctuate his comedy with an instrumental theme, like the one Irving Szathmary had written for Henry’s other parody sitcom, Get Smart.

ABC’s Batman had become TV’s surprise hit the year before, a fact not lost on the other two networks. Debuting the same night

(TOP) Able to bend steel in his bare hands! William Daniels in a publicity photo for Captain Nice. © NBC. (ABOVE) Jack “King” Kirby’s promotional poster for NBC’s Captain Nice. Courtesy of

The Jack Kirby Collector. © NBC.

as Captain Nice, actor Stephen Strimpell gained the strength of a thousand men and the ability to fly in another Superman spoof, the CBS sitcom Mr. Terrific. Pretty much a yawn.

Captain Nice ran opposite CBS’s sitcom The Lucy Show and ABC’s World War II adventure Rat Patrol. The critics ran from cold to lukewarm to warm, at least preferring the show to Mr. Terrific.

In the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Bob Hull said Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific were “embarrassing likenesses in theme, RetroFan

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costume and gag.” But both the Boston to pop a government-developed power pill FAST FACTS Globe and the Detroit Free Press used the and become a flying, super-strong secret phrase “Nice is nicer.” agent for a maximum of 100 minutes.

Captain Nice In the New York Times, George Gent said To the general audience, both Mr. `` No. of seasons: One Captain Nice “…at least gave some evidence Terrific and Captain Nice were obviously `` No. of episodes: 15 of a sense of style.” In the Washington Superman parodies. But the two `` Original run: January 9, 1967– Evening Star, Bernie Harrison called the show protagonists also resembled a largely August 28, 1967 smartly written, brisk, and ingenious. forgotten DC Comics superhero, Hourman. `` Primary Cast: William In retrospect, it’s clear that NBC had He, too, had gotten his time-limited Daniels, Alice Ghostley, Ann the fresher approach. “The show was just powers of strength and speed from a Prentiss irreverent enough to make it work both as wonder drug. In fact, both sitcoms were `` Created by: Buck Henry spoof and super-hero,” recalls fan Chuck sometimes criticized because of America’s `` Network: NBC Rothman. “Carter was never as dumb as growing uneasiness about drugs.

Maxwell Smart, but often had problems With the It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s trying to live up to the super-hero lifestyle.”

Superman! musical having just closed on Broadway and four Buck Henry, in creating his clever but largely unappreciated live-action superheroes (Batman, The Green Hornet, Captain show, anticipated with comic effect something that might Nice, and Mr. Terrific) on TV’s three happen in real life if some masked, super-strong fellow were to networks, maybe it was just a fly around doing good deeds. case of “capelash,” as one wit We imagine helpless, grateful citizens being suggested. overawed, and look-up-in-the-sky-ing, but very, very But in fact, Daniels’ quickly we’d get used to him, just as we get used “insecure Superman,” to every impossible thing that happens—men played for laughs, landing on the Moon, Japanese nuclear reactors anticipated the evolution poisoning the Pacific, walking around with Star of less campy super-hero Trek communicators in our hands, and so forth. stories in later decades.

Henry’s satire was deft. I remember laughing at an episode in which a highway bridge, ruined by Publicity photo of Captain Nice corrupt contractors, collapses during its dedication stars William Daniels and Ann Prentiss. © NBC. ceremony. When police chemist Carter Nash (William Daniels) appears as Captain Nice to catch the bridge and save the day, the mayor wonders if he wouldn’t mind just standing there to support the bridge permanently.

Cheryl Spoehr, a fan of Captain Nice, recalls, “I loved the way he defended the whole concept of comic-book heroes, as well as showing how a real person might be if they got powers. He never liked the taste of his super-serum, often getting a stomach ache from it… and he was the only sane and moral man in his hometown.”

A couple of decades after the show’s early demise, Daniels put it down to the audience’s inability to cheer for an “insecure Superman.” But after all, Henry’s Get Smart featured an inept super-spy and ran five seasons. Later, Daniels said CBS’s decision to air Mr. Terrific a half-hour before NBC’s Captain Nice really hurt both shows.

Mr. Terrific starred Strimpell as Stanley Beamish, a filling-station operator whose unique biochemistry permitted him

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Writers would wonder: What if the superhuman protagonist wasn’t a pure moral paragon, but had ordinary human hangups like most people—dominated by his mom, nervous around women? The concept had dramatic legs, and Marvel Comics under writer/editor Stan Lee was headed in the same direction at the same time. Writer/producer Stephen Cannell explored that same territory more than a decade later with The Greatest American Hero on ABC [which writer Dan Hagen also covered in these pages, in RetroFan #5—ed.].

Henry saw to it that Captain Nice had a satiric point, whereas Mr. Terrific pointedly did not.

“They kept saying ‘Do another series!’ so I said, ‘Okay, superhero,’” Henry told Jim Benson on TV Time Machine. “It’s something we all grew up with. And you know, I knew where the jokes would be.”

Henry knew the face of the actor he wanted to play Carter Nash, if not his name—that guy who had played stuffy child welfare worker Albert Amundson in the 1965 film A Thousand Clowns.

He turned out to be William Daniels, a busy actor who’d appeared on Broadway even in his teens in the long-running play Life with Father. Daniels had received the Obie Award for Distinguished Performance by an Actor in Edward Albee’s 1960 off-Broadway play Zoo Story.

And so it was that Daniels left the cast of the Broadway musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and flew to Hollywood to film his first TV pilot, Captain Nice. Afterward, he got on an Air France jet to Paris to appear in the Stanley Donen film Two for the Road with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney.

Joining Daniels in the Captain Nice cast was Alice Ghostley, best known to TV audiences as the insecure witch Esmeralda on Bewitched. She was much surer of herself as Carter’s mom.

When Carter resigned from the police lab on principle, his mother was full of sympathy. “What is it, dear?” she asked. “You haven’t eaten a thing since you lost your job and began feeling like a worthless failure.”

Playing love interest Sgt. Candy Kane was Ann Prentiss, who closely resembled her sister, actress Paula Prentiss.

Big Town Mayor Finney was played by Liam Dunn, who went on to turn in classic comic performances in Blazing Saddles and What’s Up, Doc? William Zuckert was cast as Chief of Police Segal.

Byron Foulger “appeared” as Carter’s father (Why the quote marks? Because the out-of-touch character always had his head buried behind a newspaper).

Goggled and caped, the super-hero was visibly a little embarrassed, but remained plucky. Captain Nice could catch bullets, punch through walls, survive artillery blasts, and fly around the world in under an hour.

“You know I can’t fly at night,” he once remarked. “I don’t have wing lights.”

“Well, it had Buck Henry, and he would take a script, go into a room, and make it funny,” recalled Daniels in an interview with Will Harris. “He was a terribly gifted comic writer.”

Daniels once got his head banged into a wall while flying, and that wasn’t the only mishap.

“There was a scene where I supposedly knock down a door and come charging in, and I was standing next to the director, right near the door, when they were practicing it. And suddenly they blew out the door, and it makes a tremendous noise. And

Publicity photos of Daniels’ derring-do as Captain Nice, and (INSET) as the hero’s alter ego, Carter Nash. © NBC.

I had a ringing in my ears that went on for a couple of days, so I finally went to a doctor, who said, ‘Well, sure, you’ve got a ringing: They broke your eardrum!’ I said, ‘Well, how do you know?’ He said, ‘Because there’s blood in there!’ [laughs] So he says, ‘You’re going to lose some of your [hearing] highs.’ Which I have.”

“Unfortunately, Captain Nice was no stronger a personality than Carter Nash was normally—shy, unassuming and motherdominated,” observed The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows. “In fact, if it had not been for his mother, who demanded that her son wage war on the evil forces that constantly threatened society, he would not have gotten actively involved in fighting crime at all. The sight of Captain Nice trying to maintain his composure while flying over Big Town (he had an acute fear of heights) in his baggy, moth-eaten, red-white-andblue leotards (made for him by his mother) did not exactly terrify evil-doers.”

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RETRO television (LEFT) Original art by Wallace Wood for a comic to appear as part of Topps’ proposed Captain Nice trading card set. The project went no further than test cards. Courtesy of Heritage. © NBC. (BELOW) One shot was all he got! The photo covers and the first page (with Joe Certa art) from Gold Key Comics’ Captain Nice #1 and only (Nov. 1967). © NBC.

Quote 2: General Rock Ravage (Frank Maxwell): “Time’s not the answer here, boy! It’s bombs!”

Still, Captain Nice managed to keep Big Town safe from its un-terrified criminals for 15 witty episodes: Episode 1: The Man Who Flies Like a Pigeon Airdate: January 9, 1967 Synopsis: Unassuming police scientist Carter Nash doesn’t want to use his superpower formula on himself, but can’t convince anybody else of its value. Finally he must become “Captain Nice” to save Sgt. Candy Kane and stop the criminal Chameleon (which, oddly enough, was also the name of the first supercriminal Spider-Man fought).

Trivia: The super-hero’s nom de guerre comes from Carter’s spur-of-the-moment attempt to explain away the initials “CN” on his belt buckle.

Episode 2: How Sheik Can You Get? Airdate: January 16, 1967 Synopsis: Captain Nice saves a visiting Arab dignitary from assassination, but then the man wants to make Candy Kane his 120th wife.

Quote: Captain Nice: “This is a democracy, Mr. Ibid. We can arrest people for practically anything.”

Episode 3: That Thing Airdate: January 23, 1967 Synopsis: While stopping jewel thieves, Captain Nice breaks a bottle of his super-formula, which is ingested by a hungry caterpillar. The super-hero and the military are unable to stop the gigantic insect’s rampage, and fear it will become a superbutterfly. But then Captain Nice super-charges his pet parakeet, which consumes the caterpillar.

Quote 1: Dr. Von Keppel (Johnny Haymer): “I am a scientist, and if there’s one thing I don’t joke about, it’s caterpillars!”

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Episode 4: That Was the Bridge That Was Airdate: February 6, 1967 Synopsis: When a new bridge collapses during its dedication, Captain Nice is on hand to prevent disaster.

Discovering that the crooked contractors have used oatmeal instead of concrete, the super-hero must rescue Mayor Finney, whom the crooks have kidnapped.

Episode 5: The Man with Three Blue Eyes Airdate: February 20, 1967 Synopsis: Ex-con “Big Joe” Kowalski dies before he can tell anyone where he cached the $2 million he stole, and criminals decide to kidnap a charlatan mentalist whom they think can find it for them.

Trivia: This episode introduces the Great Medula, played by veteran character actor John Dehner (who was the voice of Paladin on radio’s Have Gun Will Travel).

Episode 6: Is Big Town Burning?

Airdate: February 27, 1967 Synopsis: Captain Nice corrals an arsonist (Vic Tayback) who threatens to expose his secret identity to keep Carter from testifying against him.

Episode 7: Don’t Take Any Wooden Indians Airdate: March 6, 1967 Synopsis: Poison darts fly when a disgruntled South American explorer plots murder against his financial backer.

Episode 8: That’s What Mothers Are For Airdate: March 13, 1967 Synopsis: Because Captain Nice is so good at catching criminals, the Big Town City Council decides it doesn’t need a police force any longer, and fires Carter. In revenge, Carter’s mom hides his Captain Nice costume and super-formula so that the city will be left at the mercy of crooks.

RETRO television

Episode 9: Whatever Lola Wants Airdate: March 20, 1967 Synopsis: Carter is annoyed by the loud nightclub located next to his lab. Actually, the music is being used to disguise the noise being made by criminals who are tunneling into the city jail to free a fellow crook. When Carter intervenes, he’s slipped a pill that makes him appear to be drunk.

Episode 10: Who’s Afraid of Amanda Wolf?

Airdate: March 27, 1967 Synopsis: A guest in the Nash home, Amanda Wolf (Madlyn Rue), is willing to testify against crime boss Mr. X, but Carter must fend off both her romantic attentions and an attack by the gang.

Quote 2: Candy: “Don’t try anything or I’ll fire a couple of warning shots right into your leg.”

Kincade: “Sergeant, maybe we can make some kind of a deal.”

Candy: “I don’t make deals with thieves and hoodlums.”

Kincade: “Why not?

Candy: “Gee, I don’t know. I just don’t.”

Quote 3: Medula: “To a metaphysician, nothing is impossible if he has three things: profound concentration, complete faith in his own ability, and a switchblade hidden in his back pocket.”

Despite its brief run, Captain Nice inspired both a Gold Key comic book and a Tempo paperback novel.

Things came full circle in July 1967 when Action Comics #354 (cover-dated Episode 11: The Week They Stole Sept. 1967) hit the newsstands. The cover Payday showed Superman powerless to defeat a Airdate: April 3, 1967 skinny super-hero called Captain Incredible.

Synopsis: Can Captain Nice recover the The character was Superman editor Mort stolen Big Town city payroll while saving Weisinger’s wink at Captain Nice and Mr. his mom and Candy Kane from kidnappers?

Terrific, and the issue was published just as Trivia: Victor French and Pat the last reruns of both sitcoms were being Harrington, Jr. guest star. aired.

“William Daniels went on to have a Episode 12: Tastes Okay, But distinguished career, with Knight Rider and St. Something’s Missing Elsewhere being two of his TV successes,” Will Airdate: April 10, 1967 Murray noted in Michael Eury’s book HeroAlthough Captain Nice was a short-lived A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, Synopsis: Criminal Harry Houseman series, the character inspired this DC and Culture of the Swinging Sixties. “Strimpell’s (Simon Oakland) holds Carter and his Comics take-off in Action Comics #354 (Sept. acting career languished over the next two mother hostage while his gang loots the 1967). TM & © DC Comics. post office. How can Captain Nice stop decades, but [he] is today remembered as them when he’s run out of a key ingredient for his secret formula? an excellent acting teacher. Coincidentally, both former TV rivals appeared in the 1976 TV miniseries, The Adams Chronicles.”

Episode 13: May I Have the Last Dance?

Although he left the role of Captain Nice behind in 1967, Airdate: April 17, 1967 Daniels played a hero again, more than once. In the Broadway Synopsis: When Candy tries to clear Carter of a theft charge, musical and film 1776, Daniels’ songs and speeches as John Adams Captain Nice finds he must round up a gang of female fur thieves rang out like the Liberty Bell. He went on to portray both John disguised as a dancing school.

Quincy Adams and Samuel Adams as well.

“I have now played every important member of the Adams Episode 14: One Rotten Apple family, except for Abigail,” Daniels noted dryly.

Airdate: April 24, 1967 And when he ended his seven-year run on the hit sitcom Boy Synopsis: Who’s trying to kill egotistical nightclub owner Meets World, Daniels, as Mr. Feeny, gave his now-grown students Lloyd Larchmont (Bob Newhart)? Candy and Carter try to find out, some final words of advice that were worthy of the super-hero he despite the interference of Carter’s mom. once was: Trivia: Charles Grodin and Jo Ann Worley also guest star.

“Believe in yourselves. Dream. Try. Do good.”

Episode 15: Beware of Hidden Prophets Airdate: May 1, 1967 Synopsis: Medula returns to help Captain Nice capture a gang of art thieves.

Trivia: Joseph Campanella also guest stars as the criminal mastermind Kincade.

Quote 1: Medula (gazing into his crystal ball): “I predict there’s a 50-50 chance that one well-known nation—which, for political reasons, I cannot name—will go to war with another nation, also unnamed, possibly within the next few years or a while af ter that…”

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

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William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett

by Dan Hagen

He’s been, among other things, John Adams, the Graduate’s dad, a super-hero, a surgeon, and the voice of a car.

Born in Brooklyn in 1927, William Daniels was a child performer from the age of three who, in 1960, earned critical acclaim and an Obie Award in Edward Albee’s play Zoo Story.

He’s had notable roles in numerous memorable movies, including A Thousand Clowns (1965), The Graduate (1967), The President’s Analyst (1967), Two for the Road (1967), Marlowe (1969), and The Parallax View (1974).

Daniels originated the role of John Adams in the 1969 Broadway musical 1776, and played the part again in the 1972 film version.

His starring TV roles included Captain Nice (1967), Mr. Feeny in the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World (1993–2000), and two TV series at once during the Eighties.

Daniels was Dr. Mark Craig in the critically 38

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acclaimed St. The way they were and are: Award-winning Elsewhere (1982–1988) Hollywood super-couple William Daniels and the distinctive and wife Bonnie Bartlett. Courtesy of William voice of KITT the Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett. supercar in the popular Knight Rider (1982–1986). Daniels won two Emmys for because we can play many different kinds St. Elsewhere, and Bonnie Bartlett—who of roles. We’re not typecast. That’s the has been Daniels’ wife since 1951—also reason I am still working in my late 80s. won one. He was president of the Screen “As a character actor I became a star, Actors Guild from 1999 to 2001. but a very small one, and I saw time and “When strangers recognized me in again how the big stars—the leading public they still didn’t know my name, men—surrounded by sycophants, but they remembered the uptight doctor lost their sense of reality and then lost in that hospital show,” Daniels recalled everything: their families, their marriages, in his memoir I’d Rather Be Elsewhere. “It’s and, in some cases, their lives.” an odd way to live, but there are many actors and actresses who have had the RetroFan: Are your grandchildren same experience. … We don’t end up on aware that you were once a comic-book the cover of People magazine. But many of super-hero? us without name recognition make a fine William Daniels: I don’t… living, put our kids through college, and, Bonnie Bartlett: Yeah, Liam. if we’re lucky, enjoy long careers precisely WD: Does Liam know that?

BB: Our son Michael showed Liam one of the Captain Nice shows. Mike found them somewhere and he showed them to him.

And Liam loved it.

Was there a parrot you talked to on the show, Bill?

WD: Um-hm.

BB: Liam loved that, so he was very busy doing the parrot, and talking about the parrot.

WD: As I walked by, the parrot would say, “I love you,” and I would reluctantly say to the parrot, “I love you, too.”

RF: Somebody for the character to talk to, I guess. Batgirl had the same thing, oddly enough.

BB: Really? They probably stole it [laughter].

RF: My friend Cheryl described Captain Nice this way. She said it was Get Smart in reverse. Instead of a silly man in a highlevel government spy organization, it was the only sane and rational man in a town full of foolish and corrupt people.

BB: That’s funny. That’s good.

WD: That’s pretty good.

RF: That’s one of the reasons I liked it, that he seemed to be the only sane person.

WD: [chuckling] Well, you know, Buck Henry wrote both those things. And he has a great sense of humor. I enjoyed very much working with him, or for him. And in The Graduate, too.

RF: Captain Nice was a Superman spoof, as you say. You would have been 11 years old in 1938 when Superman arrived, the perfect target audience. Did you follow the character in comics or on radio, or were you aware of it?

WD: I was just aware of it. No, I didn’t follow it on any source.

BB: No, he was too busy working. Bill doesn’t know any of the movies of the time. I went to the movies. He never went to the movies. He was working.

RF: What did you think about the fact that Mr. Terrific aired at virtually the same time as your show?

WD: Well, it was one of those things where the networks were fighting against each other. We were, I think, in rehearsals when we heard that suddenly CBS decided to do this Mr. Terrific. And that would have been all right, but they scheduled its first

(TOP) Daniels as TV super-hero Captain Nice, from the back cover of the 1967 comic book Captain Nice #1. (BOTTOM) CBS-TV’s competing caped crusader, Mr. Terrific. Captain Nice © NBC. Mr. Terrific

© Universal Television.

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Daniels as John Adams and the cast of the Broadway musical 1776 with President Richard M. Nixon after a special 1971 performance in the White House’s East Room. White House Photo Office.

showing a half-hour before ours. We were NBC, and they were CBS. So I think it was kind of two networks fighting with each other.

RF: It probably hurt the reception of both shows.

WD: It didn’t help either one of those shows.

RF: What is your overall impression of Captain Nice, looking back now?

WD: You know, we’re going back a long way. I thought it had some amusing writing. Buck Henry is a talented guy that way. He was the producer-writer. Looking back now… I haven’t given it much thought [laughs].

BB: I can tell you all about it. He had a very good time doing it. He loved doing it, he loved Buck, he loved all the people that were working on it. He loved Alice Ghostley.

And the guy who played the [mayor], Liam Dunn. Anyway, Bill really had a good time.

RF: Alice Ghostley was a very forceful mother for Carter Nash, and you had a forceful mother, too, right?

WD: Yeah, but Alice was, I thought, a wonderful comedienne. My mother wasn’t a comedienne [laughs]. My mother was an ambitious woman with her kids, and put us both into show business.

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RF: Is flying an uncomfortable business?

WD: Only when they first put me up straddled on pulleys, and ran me across the studio and banged my head into the wall on the opposite end.

RF: Ouch.

WD: That wasn’t very funny. They were filming it just for the opening credits, I guess.

BB: I [also] had to fly for three days or something for a commercial, and it was frightening. They almost destroyed my

whole pelvic region there. Oh, Christ Almighty!

WD: It wasn’t fun being in those…

BB: No, they were not comfortable!

RF: I read an interview in which Buck Henry said he felt he’d let down a very talented cast because the show didn’t last longer. What did you think of that?

WD: No, I think that, as I said, the networks… As soon as CBS heard we were doing this Captain Nice, they put together, quickly, this Mr. Terrific in opposition to us.

St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) stars William Daniels, Ed Begley, Jr., Mark Harmon, and Ed Flanders. St. Elsewhere © MTM Productions.

RETRO INTERVIEW: WILLIAM DANIELS AND BONNIE BARTLETT

And it hurt us, because it previewed the same night a half-hour earlier, you know. I think it hurt both shows.

RF: Boy, 1967 must have been one busy year for you. You had a TV series, The Graduate, and The President’s Analyst.

WD: [chuckles] Yes, it was a very busy year.

BB: And then you went on to do a play.

RF: I’m sort of amused that you didn’t want to be credited as the voice of KITT the car when everybody who heard it, including me, recognized you instantly.

BB: [laughs] WD: First of all, there’s a kind of a little story there. This was before this sort of thing was done—A car that talks?—and I read this and I thought, “This is ridiculous.”

[The producer] wanted me to come and tape a section of it and he’d take it to New York and plug it for producers. I had worked for this producer before, on a Movie of the Week, so I went over and I just kind of halfheartedly did it. And he went off and I forgot about it.

And then he called me and said, “We sold it! So, will you be willing to do it?” I said, “Well, you know I’m doing St. Elsewhere. He said, “I know you’re doing St. Elsewhere. We’ll just work around you. So my agent said, “Billy, you really can’t ask for more than that.” So I did St. Elsewhere and I’d go over there and do this part of the car. I think for an hour show it took me about 45 to 50 minutes to knock off my part of it. And I never did meet David Hasselhoff, who had the lead, until we had a Christmas party. I just knocked it off, and

I couldn’t believe that it was a success, but it turned out to be!

RF: It did. Tell the story about the fan who asked you where you were in the car.

WD: Oh, God. I was doing a signing in England, outdoors, I remember, sitting at an outdoor table. And these poor people were paying like 15 pounds or something to get an autograph or a picture and a signing. And this one man—he looked very well put-together, mid-thirties, I suppose—and he said, “Excuse me, sir, may I ask you something?” I said, “Sure.”

I was signing his thing, and he said, “Where were you in the car when you did the voice?” So I looked up and I said, “You mean, was I under the hood?” [laughter] He said, “Yeah,” and he was serious. So I had to inform him that I was really in a studio, and he kind of lef t sort of disappointed.

RF: The poor guy. You know, I sometime see in your roles a sharp note of authority and intellect. What do you think is the source of that?

BB: He has it. Bill has no education, and it wasn’t until he came to Northwestern that I kind of taught him how to just go to school. He’d never really gone to school. I just taught him how to. By the time he was finished at Northwestern, he was writing wonderful, wonderful papers. He got a scholarship to get a master’s.

He has one of those—I don’t know what you call it, a kind of a hidden intellect. It’s like he never thought about

it, it never occurred to him. A lot of people who are intellectual like to flout it. But he would come up with the damnedest things, just out of the blue, and I would look and say, “Oh, God, that’s pretty good!”

RF: It comes off as very genuine on screen, the intellect. On Boy Meets World, I always thought of Mr. Feeny as [The Paper Chase’s] Prof. Kingsfield for kids. You know, John Houseman?

BB: Oh, yes! That was wonderful.

WD: Oh, yes, yes. It was more in that area, although I didn’t fashion myself off of him or anything like that.

BB: No, but it was that kind of thing. The wonderful thing you see is that the kids responded to that.

RF: They do. To both you and Houseman.

People are looking for that kind of thing, I think, in many ways. You modeled the value of education in Boy Meets World. It’s sort of under assault in America now, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on that, if I could.

WD: Well, I’ll tell you a little story. When this part was offered to me, I went to the producer, and I said, “This is a teacher, and he has a kind of funny name, Mr. Feeny.”

And I said, “I don’t want to make fun of a teacher.” I said, “I think they’re very important for society and they’re totally underpaid.”

And he assured me, the producer said, “Bill, I had a teacher in high school who became a mentor of mine. I had a great deal of respect for him, and I based this part on my reflections about him.

(FAR RIGHT) Bill and Bonnie, stars of St. Elsewhere, at the 39th Emmy Awards’ Governor’s Ball on September 20, 1987.

Emmy photo courtesy of Alan Light.

(RIGHT) Mad about each other!

The couple’s St. Elsewhere roles of Dr. Mark Craig and Ellen Craig were lampooned by writer Frank Jacobs and artist Mort Drucker in “St. Healthscare,” appearing in MAD #281 (Sept. 1, 1988). MAD TM & © EC Publications. Courtesy of Heritage.

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RETRO INTERVIEW: WILLIAM DANIELS AND BONNIE BARTLETT

So this part is going to be treated very respectfully, and not made fun of.” And I said, “Well, that’s fine.”

BB: And they had a lot of humor in it, there were a lot of funny things.

WD: Oh, sure, but never did it deride the profession.

NOT UNDER THE HOOD.

RF: Right. I just watched the last scene of the show, and it really is touching.

WD: Oh, that, yeah. That was wonderful.

He wrote a wonderful scene there, he set it up beautifully. I remember very well being moved myself by it, when they left the classroom and I said, “I love you all.” It was very moving for me as well.

RF: That was a perfect dramatic set-up, that Feeny said it only after they’d left.

Would you say you owe part your success to the G.I. Bill, because that enabled you to attend Northwestern?

WD: Oh, yes, absolutely. And that’s where I met my wife, who got me through Northwestern! Because you know, I was a performer, so I seldom had much basic education. I went to a professional children’s school. And I’d just check in and say I had an appointment, then I’d go down to Chock Full o’ Nuts and have coffee and a doughnut and read the New York Times instead of going to the class. I had a very spotty education until I met her. She was head of her class.

RF: It was kind of brave of you to go to Northwestern when you’d had such a spotty education.

WD: I know.

BB: It never occurred to him.

WD: No, it didn’t.

BB: [laughing] It never occurs to him.

RF: He’s as brave as John Adams or Captain Nice, I guess.

WD: Yeah, I just stumble along from one thing to the next.

BB: That’s what he’s supposed to do.

WD: But anyway, that’s where I met Bonnie, and actually she taught me how to get through all this learning business. Writing essays, doing reading assignments, taking tests.

BB: But he’s basically, what do you call it?

An autodidact?

RF: An autodidact, yes. Self-taught.

BB: He really went on from there.

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My husband, the car! William Daniels voiced super-car KITT in the popular NBC action show, Knight Rider. © Universal TV. William Daniels photo by Alan Light.

RF: This is an off-the-wall question, but what’s your favorite Western, your favorite Western movie?

WD: Mmmmmm. Probably anything that John Ford directed. Henry Fonda did one…

RF: My Darling Clementine.

WD: Yeah, Clementine.

BB: Wasn’t there Red River?

WD: Red River was Montgomery Clift. I loved that picture.

RF: What do you like about Westerns?

WD: I love them. They don’t do them anymore, not like they used to, when the studios were turning out all those Westerns.

RF: Somebody said—and I think there may be some validity in it—that the Western genre was sort of what the super-hero genre is now. Instead of cowboys, there are super-heroes.

WD: Maybe so.

BB: I think it’s people trying to say what is good and what is bad. They’re fairy tales.

WD: The cowboy movies were very realistic. Nowadays, these supermen things are just filled with special effects.

BB: The cowboy movies weren’t realistic.

They seemed realistic.

WD: Well, they seemed so, given our understanding of what the West was like.

RF: People didn’t fly, anyway.

I think Westerns, private-eye things, police stories, and super-heroes—it’s all about good and evil, right?

BB: Sure, sure, sure. And that’s the reason you like to read a thriller is to catch the bad guy. We just watched something.

Bill rarely will sit with me and watch something on television, but he got caught on a Belgian movie and wanted to find out who did it [the murder] [laughter].

RF: It occurred to me while reading your book—I imagine you can’t say the name “Michael” in a crowd without somebody thinking of KITT the supercar. [laughter] BB: They love it. He did a commercial recently, and all he had to say was, “It’s the future, Michael.” [laughter] RF: I don’t want to keep you too long.

It is great to hear that incredible voice.

[Daniels laughs] You must just thrill people, walking down the street and talking.

BB: He gets beautiful, beautiful, beautiful letters from fans. He really does.

RF: I bet. It’s been really great talking to you, and I thank you very much.

BB: Bye-bye.

WD: Oh, sure. Bye-bye.

BB (to Daniels): We have to go to the post office.

WD: All right, let’s go!

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Saturday Morning Preview Specials Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber are surrounded by ABC’s stars in this promo for the 1973 Saturday Morning Sneak Peek program.

Part One: 1968–1977

by Andy Mangels

Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. Since 1989, I have been writing columns for magazines in the U.S. and foreign countries, all examining the intersection of comic books and Hollywood, whether animation or live-action. Andy Mangels Backstage, Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ Hollywood Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind the Camera… three decades of reporting on animation and live-action—in addition to writing many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and I’m still enthusiastic. In my RetroFan column, I will examine shows that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit crosslegged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday Morning!

Normally in this column, I have spotlighted one series or set of series, giving you behind-the-scenes stories, cool factoids, and interviews. In this column and the next, I’ll instead be giving you the Retro Saturday Morning treatment of one of the most anticipated shows every fall from 1968 forward… the Saturday Morning Preview Special.

In the September 26, 2008 issue of TIME magazine, Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane gave his own thoughts on the

phenomenon: “I was obsessed. Every year, the Friday before the new Saturday-morning shows would premiere, the networks would do this big preview special, and I was always glued to the TV. As horrible as they were, they were entertaining at the time. There was a lot of showmanship from the networks based around the new lineup.”

The problem with nostalgia for the Preview Specials is that they were only ever aired once. They were never rerun, never offered in syndication, and never released on home video, DVD, or streaming. Because of the cross-platform licensing rights for clips and music, they never can be legally released. Some of them exist in parts and pieces on YouTube—a few of them exist completely there—but by and large, this set of shows is a missing part of television history. Very little has been written about them, and even Wikipedia has many of its crowd-sourced facts wrong.

Until now.

Now there’s RetroFan to the rescue. Utilizing this author’s amazing resources, here is as much information and material that could be dug up on the astonishing phenomenon of Saturday Morning Preview Specials! Beware, though… proceeding without caution can bring untold emotions, unfettered joy, and quite possibly, madness!

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1968 NBC - Meet the Banana Splits

Airdate: Friday, September 6, 1968, 9pm, 30 minutes Song: “You’re The Lovin’ End” (Banana Splits) Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions This is the first Saturday Morning Preview Special ever aired, and the formula for such shows was not yet in place. As NBC had only one new series debuting in the fall on 1969, this special mostly previewed that series only. The half-hour show was hosted by the Banana Splits, and contained segments of early episodes of the series that would debut the following morning: Kellogg Presents The Banana Splits Adventure Hour.

The Banana Splits were four large, furry creatures who lived in their dream house Banana Pad, and played in a rock band. They were Fleegle the dog guitar player (suit actor: Jeff Winkless a.k.a. Jeffrey Brock; voice actor: Paul Winchell), Drooper the lion guitarist (suit actor: Dan Winkless a.k.a.

Daniel Owen; voice actor: Daws Butler), Bingo the gorilla drummer (suit actor: Terence H. Winkless a.k.a. Terence Henry; voice actor: Daws Butler), and Snorky the semi-mute elephant keyboard player (suit actor: Robert Towers). Other elements from their show, introduced on this special were the live-action serial Danger Island, and two animated segments, The Arabian Knights and The Three Musketeers.

It is unclear whether or not other returning Saturday morning NBC shows were mentioned in the special, though it is likely they were. The season also included Super Six, The Flintstones, Top Cat, Underdog, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, and Super President.

Promo image for the Meet the Banana Splits special. In the back (LEFT TO RIGHT) are Fleegle, Snorky, and Bingo, while Drooper sits in front. © Hanna-Barbera Prod.

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Press photo for the 1969 ABC Special, showing Edward Mulhare’s sea captain ghost on the television, and Hope Lange’s Mrs. Muir looking on. © 20th Century Fox Television (INSET) An ABC Super Saturday Club sticker.

1969 ABC – The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Present the ABC Super Saturday Club Special Airdate: Thursday, September 4, 1969, 7:30pm, 60 minutes Produced and directed by Bob Henry

This awkwardly named special crystallized the form almost every successive special would take, combining live-action stars, music, clips from a variety of series, and non-canonical appearances by television characters not in their natural habitat. In this case, the stars were from an ABC series titled The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, in which Hope Lange played widowed writer Carolyn Muir, and Edward Mulhare haunted her as the ghostly sea captain Daniel Gregg. Also appearing were fellow cast members Reta Shaw, Charles Nelson Reilly, Kellie Flanagan, Harlan Carraher, and dog Scruffy. Making a guest appearance in the episode was Jonathan Frid, in character as his 175-year-old vampiric Barnabas Collins from the ultrasuccessful gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

During the special, the live-action band the Hardy Boys (Deven English, Nibs Solpysiak, Bob Crowder, Reid Kailing, and Jeff Taylor) materialized in one scene, to perform a song and to promote their new Filmation series, The Hardy Boys. Other shows promoted on the special were new entries debuting that weekend: Smokey the Bear, The Cattanooga Cats (including segments of Motormouse and Autocat and It’s The Wolf ), Hot Wheels, and Sky Hawks.

In addition to this special, ABC advertised and promoted a Super Saturday Club for kids to join. Members received a pinback badge, membership card, pennant, montage poster of cartoon characters, stamp album, sticker decals, a club membership book, and premium coupons. Promised for the future were newsletters.

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(TOP LEFT) Wild examines the usually hidden operating parts of Freddy the Flute. (LEFT) Jack Wild, star of Sid and Marty Krofft’s H. R. Pufnstuf, joins the Banana Splits. (ABOVE) Gorgeous color art promoting the special by Hanna-Barbera and comic-book artist Jack Manning. © Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

B&W photo courtesy of Mark Yurkiw, color Wild photo courtesy of Scott Awley.

1969 NBC - The Banana Splits and Friends

Airdate: Saturday, August 30, 1969, 9:30am, 60 minutes Produced by Don Sandburg and Hanna-Barbera Productions NBC’s second preview special was again hosted by the Banana Splits, but was the first preview to be aired on a Saturday morning. It was broadcast in the regular timeslot of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, the week prior to the new fall schedule’s debut.

The show featured the Banana Splits having a club meeting, with Coach Bingo telling the others that they would be initiating new members. First up were the animated Terry Dexter, his pet Bipup, the gnome-like Grump, and his pet dragon, stars of the new series Here Comes the Grump. Next were the stars of The Pink Panther Show, including a live-action costumed version of Pink Panther. Third were Marshall Thompson and Judy the Chimp from the live-action animal series Jambo (a spin-off from Thompson’s Daktari), followed by another Krofft creation (Sid and Marty Krofft had built the Banana Splits for Hanna-Barbera).

Representing H. R. Pufnstuf was Jack Wild, who played Jimmy on that series.

Terence H. Winkless, who was inside the suit for Bingo, the drummer, informs RetroFan, “I will never forget working with Judy the Chimp while I was Bingo the Gorilla; she wanted to take me apart piece by piece. The terror has always stayed with me, even now 50 years later.” Winkless would later go on to write 1981’s The Howling and direct many episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and its spin-off series.

The producer for the special was Don Sandburg, who had kids’ show experience as “Sandy the Tramp” on Chicago-based WGN-TV’s Bozo’s Circus. Jack Manning, a Hanna-Barbera artist, created a piece of color preview art for promotional purposes, utilizing many of the characters aboard a train. It included characters from returning show The Heckle and Jeckle Show.

Filming for the second season of The Banana Splits had been completed by the time work began on this preview special, so ironically, the footage shot for this special was filmed after the second season. Because the show never got a third season, it is thus the final Banana Splits footage to be filmed. A later syndicated version of the series was packaged as the similarly named The Banana Splits and Friends Show, but it did not include footage from either of the preview specials.

RetroFan

June 2020

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1969 CBS - The Funtastic Show

Airdate: Sunday, September 7, 1969, 7:30pm, 30 minutes Written by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears Directed by Sam Gary Produced by Jacqueline Smith (CBS)

CBS jumped into the fray with their first preview special, tapping the cast of their hit comedy series Family Affair to host it. Sebastian Cabot (Mr. French), Johnny Whitaker (Jody), and Anissa Jones (Buffy)

all appeared in character. Joining them were Melanie Fullerton and Susan Neher, who were about to debut as Pokey and Penny Endicott on a new sitcom called To Rome With Love.

The hosts previewed new series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop starring the Ant Hill Mob, and The Archie Comedy Hour (introducing Sabrina, the Teenage Witch). A complete short from Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines was also included.

The Brady Bunch meet four of the Jackson 5.

1971 ABC - The Brady Bunch Visits ABC

Airdate: Friday, September 10, 1971, 7:30pm, 30 minutes Song: “Joy to the World” (Brady Bunch) Written by Samuro Mitsubi and Dennis Klein Directed by Gordon Wiles Produced by Jack Watson, Garry Marshall ABC doubled down in their second special, featuring not only the stars of their ultra-popular sitcom The Brady Bunch, but also the popular singing group the Jackson 5! In the show, Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Barry Williams (Greg), Eve Plumb (Jan), Christopher Knight (Peter), Susan Olsen (Cindy), and Mike Lookinland (Bobby) all go to ABC Studios to watch a taping of The Odd Couple. Sadly, they’ve come on the wrong day for that series, but happily, they break away from their guide and run into the stars of the new Jackson 5ive series, brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon, and Michael (Tito was missing from the group).

Exploring the ABC lot, the Bradys visited the set of Curiosity Shop, wandered into the studio paint shop and the set of the Krofft series Lidsville, toured the office of a network executive and the master ABC control room, and eventually invaded the viewing room. There, they see clips from new series Funky Phantom and Sunday series Make a Wish, as well as scenes from returning series The Road Runner Show, Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, and Bewitched!

Filming for the Brady and Jackson meeting was done on July 9, 1971. That same day, the Jackson 5 was filming their own television special on the ABC lot, Goin’ Back to Indiana, which aired on the

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network on September 16, 1971. Those wondering who writer “Samuro Mitsubi” was would only recognize his name from a few Hollywood credits. It was, however, a pen name for famed writerdirector Garry Marshall.

Co-writer Dennis Klein informs RetroFan via email that his original title for the special was “The Brady Bunch Visits A Studio,” and that, “For a few years I was Garry Marshall’s writing partner in everything he did, but I was uncredited in order for him to be perceived as a solo writer/director/producer/executive producer.

He paid me $100 per week out of his own pocket and I was thought of at Paramount as ‘Garry Marshall’s assistant,’ when what I was was his writing partner. And when Garry agreed to make this Special, he had me be the writer of it, although for a bunch of reasons he took co-writing credit for it under his pen name, a name (Samuro Mitsubi) chosen by him because he believed Asians were underrepresented in television comedy writing. Garry had no part in the Special at all. It was only me…

“There was no brainstorming. I just sat down one afternoon and wrote the script. That’s all. After the Special was made and aired, the format for those Specials became people repeating the format of what I’d come up with, as is the case with any television series, from I Love Lucy to… whatever TV series is popular at the moment: The first show establishes the series and after that the series simply repeats the formula.” Asked if there were any challenges to the special, Klein says, “Nothing in writing is a challenge. It’s all simply sitting down and writing. A challenge would’ve been if ABC executives and Paramount executives had been in a machine gun turret firing at me as I dodged bullets while trying to write the script.”

As for memories of filming, Klein was on the set for most of it, and writes that, “I have many memories of the filming. I had a wonderful time on it and became friends with all those children and I already knew the one adult, Charlie Martin Smith, because he was good friends with Ron Howard, and I was the uncredited co-creator of Happy Days when it was a Love, American Style segment called ‘Love and the Happy Day,’ that Garry and I wrote together. In addition to meeting Marty Kroff t and becoming good friends with him, I enjoyed fun times with both casts: the Bradys and the Jacksons. They were all good kids and delightful and talented. It was sad to me to see children missing out on childhood. I got more friendly with Michael than with his brothers because Michael actually had a personality. I liked

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1972 NBC - Howdy Doody and Friends

Airdate: Tuesday, September 5, 1972, 7:30pm, 60 minutes Songs: “It’s Howdy Doody Time,” “We’re Back on NBC,” “The Clarabell Song,” “The Rhyming Song,” “Howdy Doody’s Do’s and Don’ts/The Popcorn Song/Go to Bed” (Howdy Doody cast) Written by Jack Ainob, Lan O’Kun Directed by Mike Gargiulo Produced by Mike Gargiulo, Florence Small NBC went ultra-retro with their third preview special, all the way back to the kids’ variety show The Howdy Doody Show, which began airing on NBC 25 years before, back in 1947 (to 1960). This special

their mother but not their father. And I remember having long talks with Barry Williams, the oldest Brady, about comedy. He wanted to know why the comedy of The Brady Bunch was not as respected in the entertainment industry as the comedy of The Odd Couple, and yet I was writing for both series and writing for both in the same style. I explained to him how show business works, which—surprisingly— neither Sherwood [Schwartz, the Brady Bunch creator] nor anyone else had ever done.” Klein would go on to write much more television; he scripted much of the long-running Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and was Emmy-nominated for his work on The Larry Sanders Show and Buf falo Bill.

Bobby and Marcia have groovy fun with a cut-out of Rankin-Bass’ Michael Jackson from The Jackson 5ive.

reunited puppeteer Buffalo Bob Smith with his wooden marionette partner Howdy Doody, as well as Clarabell the clown (Lew Anderson) from the Triple B Ranch. The group had left the air but continued to tour college campuses and schools, performing for the “peanut gallery” kids who had grown up watching them. NBC had been deluged with letters from people wanting to attend the taping for the special when word got out about its production; audience attendees were separated into the Alumni Peanut Gallery (for adults) and the Howdy Doody Peanut Gallery (for kids). Unlike any other special to date, this one was filmed in New York City.

The special is charming in its retro attitudes and old antics, and Buffalo Bob takes a lot of time greeting the adult audience and remembering them as kids. In an opening scene, Howdy Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody, together again.

Doody (puppeteered by Carl Harms) appears with sunglasses and a hip beard, as Bob tries to figure out why he’s so familiar.

Howdy brings a message from NBC that they want Bob to help introduce the new fall Saturday morning schedule, debuting the following weekend. He verbally goes through Underdog and The Jetsons before showing a clip from The Pink Panther Show and talking with the Abominable Snowman, one of that show’s Ritts Puppets featured in cartoon wraparounds.

Next up, newcomer Cynthia Goodheart (Jill Choder) delivered another secret message with a fast-talking rhyme.

Interpreting a boxed smoke-signal puff, Goodheart introduces The Houndcats with a three-minute scene. Clarabell appeared in the following scene, chasing and spraying Cowboy Bob with a bottle of seltzer water. Clarabell introduces the next long clip, for Roman Holidays. Howdy Doody’s protest sign next leads to a clip from The Barkleys, DePatie-Freleng’s rip-off homage to All in the Family. Clarabell and Cynthia introduce Sealab 2020, followed by Bob singing a vintage show song that leads to a clip from kids’ game show Runaround. Cynthia then shares a clip from Around the World in 80 Days, and the trio introduced clips from the nearly forgotten “kids interview important celebrities” show Talking With a Giant. Finally, Bob sings a fairly funny song about the fall Saturday line-up to the near-rap tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from Pirates of Penzance. In all, though Howdy Doody himself gave me nightmares as a child, as an adult watching this again, it’s one of the nicest—and least bizarre—of the Saturday Morning Previews.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1973 ABC - Saturday Morning Sneak Peek

Airdate: Friday, September 7, 1973, 8pm, 30 minutes Song: Theme from Mission: Magic! (Rick Springfield) Directed by Art Fisher Produced by Bernard Rothman, Jack Wohl

The Brady Bunch are shown cartoon previews by Voo Doo and Toulouse-Lautrec!

1973 ABC - The Brady Bunch Meet ABC’s Saturday Superstars

ABC made history with this preview special, which featured the first official live-action meeting between Superman and Batman! Popular Sixties comedian Jack Burns and his partner Avery Schreiber are the hosts for this special, in which Jack helps Avery throw a birthday party for his nephew by inviting some famous friends over. Those live-action (not animated) friends include Bugs Bunny (voiced by Mel Blanc), Superman (Chuck Woolery), and Batman (possibly Kurtwood Smith), Yogi Bear (voiced by Daws Butler), Lassie, singer Rick Springfield, and invisible dog Goober (voiced by Paul Winchell, and represented by a collar and hat on a stiff leash)!

All were appearing on the 1973 ABC cartoon line-up starting the following day, and 90-second clips from their shows are presented as well, including from Super Friends, Yogi’s Gang, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, Mission: Magic!, Goober and

Airdate: Friday, September 15, 1972, 8pm, 30 minutes Directed by Tony Charmoli Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft The Brady kids are back again, but this time, instead of just seeing sets for a Krofft series, they’re actually interacting with them after Lidsville’s villainous Voo Doo the Magician (comedian Charlie Callas) zaps them inside their own television set! There, they interacted with artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Billy Barty) and his three “zany brothers,” Too-Little, Too-Soon, and Too-Much, and even Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes, appearing from H. R. Pufnstuf, now on ABC in reruns).

The Bradys got a preview look of the new fall Saturday morning schedule, including The Osmonds, Saturday Superstar Movie, Brady Kids, and Kid Power. Charles Nelson Reilly had played Hoodoo for the first Lidsville season on ABC, but he declined to do so for this special, meaning that Charlie Callas was brought in to play Hoodoo’s brother, Voo Doo. Lidsville’s sole director, choreography Tony Charmoli, did the honors here as well.

Although she loved the Kroffts themselves, and had initially been excited to visit the nearby sets of their series— which had filmed on the same lot as The Brady Bunch in years past—in the book Love to Love You Bradys, actress Susan Olsen wrote about Lidsville that, “My character, Cindy, was supposed to love Lidsville. When I saw Lidsville, it was a typical Krofft show, and I was mortified that people might think I really liked it in real life. I found it quite fitting that Cindy would like it, and that added to my belief that Cindy was an idiot.” The Bradys would also work with the Kroffts again for The World of Sid & Marty Krofft at the Hollywood Bowl (1973) and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1976).

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Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber officiate the world’s first live-action meeting between Batman and Superman (Chuck Woolery)!

the Ghost Chasers, The Brady Kids, The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (an animated Lost In Space pilot), American Bandstand, and Grammar Rock! At one point, Rick Springfield—Australian accent still sharply present—sings the Mission: Magic! theme song with a guitar that appears from mid-air, leading Yogi and Schreiber to dance along as if possessed.

The identity of the Batman actor has been hotly debated, though Superman is definitely Chuck Woolery, a singer-actor who would become much more famous later as a game show host and now conservative political broadcaster. The Superman and Batman suits were created for this Special, and Batman mentions Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Robin, and identifies them all as members of the Justice League. It would be 43 years before the World’s Finest heroes would share a live-action screen again, for 2016’s feature film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a dark romp wherein they found a common bond since both their mothers were named Martha.

Contacted by email, Woolery wrote this about the Sneak Peek: “Then only thing I can share is that I was told the Superman costume was the original costume and was not made for me. I have no idea who Batman was. Another thing that might be of interest is that I was cast for the part by the two producers at Burt Reynolds’ home in Beverly Hills.”

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1973 NBC – NBC Starship Rescue

Airdate: Friday, September 7, 1973, 8:30pm, 30 minutes Barely eschewing the surreality of the other networks, NBC decided to blast off into space for its 1973 preview special. “Astronut” Billy Barty is in command of the NBC Star Ship, which happens to be carrying all of the new season’s premiere episodes. When he accidentally crashes the ship on a remote beach, brothers Johnny and Scott (Johnny Whitaker and Scott Kolden from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters) try to help. But the ship only has enough fuel to get back home, not to the NBC headquarters. It’s soon up to the stars of the live-action primetime hit Emergency! and voices for the spin-off

1974 ABC - Funshine Saturday Sneak Peek

Airdate: Friday, September 6, 1974, 8pm, 30 minutes Song: “A Funshine Saturday On ABC” Written by Jeff Harris, Bernie Kukoff Directed by Lawrence Einhorn Produced by Bernie Kukoff, Jeff Harris

ABC broke out the big guns again for its 1974 special, getting none other than the Six Million Dollar Man (played by Lee Majors) to co-host, alongside their network brand ambassador, Funshine Saturday, a costumed host of kids’ programming, played by Will B. Able (gangly clown Willard S. Achorn)! To make sense of the plot, commentator Don Adams provides narration in his trademark Get Smart-style nasal voice.

In the show, actor Lee Majors is going to present the Saturday preview clips to an audience of kids assembled at ABC Studios in Hollywood. On his way to the studio with the tapes is Funshine, but when his helicopter lands, four members of the villainous group PSSST! (Public School Saturday Sunday Too!) steal the videotapes! The PSSST group think kids should be in school seven days a week, and that Saturday morning shows have no value.

The PSSST quartet are played by members of the Ace Trucking Company, an improvisation group made up of George Memmoli, Michael Mislove, Bill Saluga, and Fred Willard.

Guided by Funshine, Lee Majors calls Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) and Colonel Steve Austin, and after a split-screen conversation between Majors and Austin, the bionic hero must join with Funshine to stop the bad guys and recover the tapes.

Along the way, they invade ABCs costume department to don disguises, after which they stumble onto the set of the daytime game show Let’s Make a Deal, where hosts Monty Hall and Jay Stewart help roust them.

Austin recovers one set of tapes from a ballet-clad PSSST member, and shows him clips from Schoolhouse Rock (the segment shown was the preamble to the Constitution) and These are the Days, convincing him of the educational value of the shows. Then it’s after the Santa-wearing PSSST member on the backlot, who watches a clip from Korg: 70,000 B.C., and a jungle-style PSSST

Emergency! +4—Kevin Tighe (as Roy De Soto) and Randolph Mantooth (as John Gage)—to rescue Barty and the films, with help from Inch High, Private Eye! Throughout the episode, characters from the NBC season and from the world of Sid and Marty Krofft appeared to preview the new shows with clips. With the theme of the show, it was no surprise that the crown jewel would be a preview of the new animated Star Trek series from Filmation [see RetroFan #1]. Also previewed were Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Addams Family, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Emergency! +4, Inch High, Private Eye, and Go! Lidsville, now on NBC, The Jetsons, and The Pink Panther Show were given shorter airtime.

goon who views Devlin and The New Adventures of Gilligan. The final PSSST member is dressed as a mummy, and he’s bested by Austin, then shown a clip from Hong Kong Phooey.

As expected, PSSST are all taught the error of their ways: not only are ABC shows entertaining, but they provide education, worthwhile lessons, and pro-social values! Later, a peeved Austin confronts Lee Majors and says he’s tired of doing all the work, while Majors gets the credit. Majors promises to watch Austin’s show, which comes on the air “in just a few minutes.”

The special was shot during the week of August 30, 1974.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1974 CBS – CBS Socko Saturday

Airdate: Friday, September 6, 1974, 8pm, 30 minutes CBS press materials touted a new “diversified” look for their fall line-up, showing that diversity was an issue being addressed in kids’ entertainment even in 1974, as were “pro-social” messages and a dearth of any hint of onscreen violence. CBS Socko Saturday was hosted by cast of the Hudson Brothers, whose new show, The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show, was a spin-off of a short-lived primetime series from earlier in the year. The Hudson Brothers were a trio of Portland brothers who played in a pop/rock band, and whose cultural importance mostly had to do with introducing “hot pants” shorts to television viewers and culture in 1972.

Significantly guest-starring were nine of the Harlem Globetrotters, a group of African-American basketball players whose touring exhibitions in arenas throughout the world combined athletics, comedy, and immense likability. The group had already starred in a 1970–1973 Hanna-Barbera animated series for CBS, and the show previewed their new live-action variety series for Saturdays, Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine. Newcomer child comedian Rodney Allen Rippy, who had charmed viewers in commercials for Jack in the Box, also appeared with them on the special, as he did in Popcorn Machine.

The show also featured previews of Filmation’s live-action series Shazam! [see cover story in RetroFan #4] and CBS’s new animated offerings for the fall, Hanna-Barbera’s Valley of the Dinosaurs and Partridge Family 2200 A.D., and Filmation’s U.S. of Archie.

Johnny Whitaker (LEFT) and Jimmy Osmond (RIGHT), with cool Seventies hair.

1974 NBC - The NBC Saturday Morning Preview Revue

Airdate: Friday, September 6, 1974, 8:30pm, 30 minutes Songs: “Saturday Celebration,” “Down by the Lazy River,” “The Circus” (all Jimmy Osmond), “Ain’t She Sweet” (Petey), “By the Sea,” (Sigmund and the Sea Monsters cast) Written by Si Rose Directed by Bob Lally Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, Si Rose Brother producers Sid and Marty Krofft already had a great relationship with the Osmond family, so it was an obvious choice when they were developing this special to feature them, along with their own characters. Thus it was that 11-year-old Jimmy Osmond became host of the show, alongside Johnny Whitaker, star of the new series Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Along with them were a 36-piece puppet orchestra and puppet chorus girls to sing and dance, as well as a giant purple peacock named Petey (who wasn’t the NBC peacock) and Dinah the dinosaur, plus a circus-themed finale, all featuring characters from The World of Sid and Marty Krofft.

Throughout the show, a walking and talking television set named Mister Telly showed excerpts of NBC’s new line-up, including Hanna-Barbera’s Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, D’Angelo’s Run, Joe Run (German Shepherd Joe made his own barking appearance on stage), Kroffts’ Land of the Lost, Fred Calvert Productions’ Emergency! +4, the adventure documentary series Go!, Kroffts’ Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (the entire Ooze family and Whitaker sang a song), and Filmation’s Star Trek.

For the special, Las Vegas and Hollywood choreographer Joe Cassini worked with four dancers-turned-puppeteers, and taught six puppeteers how to dance, to create the movements for 16 puppet kick girls and six standard puppet show girls, all

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

of whom performed as if they were real chorus girls alongside young Osmond (who had to avoid walking into strings while dancing with the puppets). “I stage the numbers just like I would with all live people,” Cassini said in a 1974 interview in the Odessa-American newspaper. “If we did it with people, it would look pretty much the same. The puppeteers make it all happen. They and the craftsmen who make the puppets. As for the puppets themselves, they’re great to work with—they never talk back.” If they could have talked back, I’m certain they would have objected to the number “Down by the Lazy River,” in which an Elvis-clad Jimmy Osmond debuted the “flossing dance” while dancing with hip “street” African-American puppets and the puppet Electric Mushroom band!

The Kroffts had a busy week; two days prior, on Wednesday, September 4th, they had also produced the comedy variety special The World of Sid and Marty Krofft at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring 40 of their characters!

H. R. Pufnstuf enjoys the show along with an audience made up of children.

1975 CBS – The Dyn-o-mite Saturday Preview Airdate: Thursday, September 4, 1975, 8pm, 30 minutes Written by Allan Manings, Al Burton, Neal Israel Directed by Gordon Wiles Produced by Allan Manings, Virginia Carter Jimmy’s duet with a puppet.

CBS had a primetime hit with the Norman Lear-produced sitcom Good Times, so they tapped “Dyn-o-mite” catchphrase-spouting star Jimmie Walker to host this special, along with co-stars BernNadette Stanis and Ralph Carter, who played (respectively) J.J., Thelma, and Michael Evans on the comedy. The special incorporated comedy and magic as it previewed the significantly live-action new Saturday-morning line-up.

New for the fall were Filmation’s The Secrets of Isis, which became television’s first series to headline a liveaction super-heroine (and which was part of The Shazam!/ Isis Hour), Filmation’s Ghost Busters with Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker [see RetroFan #6], and the Kroffts’ Far Out Space Nuts, featuring Bob Denver and Chuck McCann as two goofy guys accidentally launched into space. Also on tap was The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, repurposing Warner theatrical toons.

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1975 NBC - The Saturday Preview Revue

Airdate: Friday, September 5, 1975, 9pm, 30 minutes Song: “Ease on Down the Road” Written by Marty Lesher, Rod Warren, Bob Booker, George Foster, and Joe Byrne Directed by Tony Mordente

1975 ABC - Funshine Saturday Sneak Peek Airdate: Friday, September 5, 1975, 8pm, 30 minutes

ABC continued its commitment to the Funshine Saturday theme with a near-hallucinogenic, mostly anthropomorphic line-up as seen in this special. The show was hosted by Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi in character as Fi and Fum from The Lost Saucer, a new Krofft series. In their show, the pair are aliens from a technologically advanced planet who accidentally get unstuck in time on Earth. For this special, their scanners start picking up strange transmissions from the 1975 ABC Saturday morning schedule, including a 30-foot purple gorilla, animal reporters sloppy dog Fleabag and super-neat cat Spiffy, and a strange man (Charles Nelson Reilly) dressed in a crocodile outfit. As Fi and Fum attempt to find “Funshine Saturday,” they elude the Air Force and converse with a fire hydrant and an organ grinder and his monkey.

Programs spotlighted on this special were DePatieFreleng’s The Oddball Couple, Hanna-Barbera’s The Tom and Jerry-Grape Ape Show and Speed Buggy, and Filmation’s bizarre Uncle Croc’s Block, which was an anarchic series that featured cartoons mixed with the slapstick goings-on behind the scenes of a kids’ cartoon show hosted by Uncle Croc. Also given a plug on the Sneak Peek was the expanded Schoolhouse Rock series of shorts, given a Bicentennial spin for the coming American historical celebration.

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NBC’s preview show for the year introduced viewers to “an exciting new dance form,” courtesy of the street dance troupe known as the Lockers: Don “Campbellock” Campbell, Fred “Mr. Penguin” Berry (a.k.a. “Rerun”), sole female member Toni Basil, Leo “Fluky Luke” Williamson, Greg “Campbellock, Jr.” Pope, Bill “Slim the Robot” Williams, and Adolpho “Shabba Doo” Quinones. Campbell and Basil had formed the group in the early Seventies, recruiting dancers from Soul Train and perfecting the “locking” dance style and early breakdancing, mixing improvisational moves while wearing baggy pants and striped knee socks. Basil would later become a pop singer and major choreographer, while members of the Lockers would become film stars in Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, among others. Today, the Lockers are viewed as one of the most revolutionary dance troupes in modern street-dancing.

But for now, the Lockers welcomed an audience of children to NBC Street to introduce the new Saturday morning line-up.

Joining them as guest-stars on the program was Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon, who recited the poem “Casey at the Bat” as the Lockers performed it, as well as Johnny Whitaker and Billy Barty, the stars of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Whitaker and Barty (in character and costume as Johnny Stuart and Sigmund Ooze) previewed scenes from Filmation’s parody series The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty, as well as D’Angelo Productions’ live-action sea-faring adventure series Westwind (starring ex-Green Hornet star Van Williams) and DePatie-Freleng’s film and television spin-off, Return to the Planet of the Apes.

Fred “Mr. Penguin” Berry teaches Sigmund the Sea Monster to dance!

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1976 CBS - Hey, Hey, Hey! It’s the CBS Saturday Preview Special

Airdate: Tuesday, September 7, 1976, 8pm, 30 minutes Still popular into its fifth season, Filmation’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids’ stars finally got to host the 1976 CBS special. In it, the gang finds a broken television in the junkyard, but they have to dig it out and get it to work again. With the help of a magic lamp and live-action guest-stars Joanna Cameron as Isis and John Davey as Captain Marvel, they make the TV work… just in time to see a preview of the CBS fall Saturday morning schedule!

Showcased on the special were sequences from the new Hanna-Barbera series Sylvester and Tweety, Hanna-Barbera’s Clue Club starring detective hounds Whoofur and Whimper, and Filmation’s Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. The live-action post-apocalypse series Ark II from Filmation and the athletic competition series Way Out Games also got clips, as well as scenes from the returning The Shazam!/Isis Hour and The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour.

Jimmy Osmond surrounded by dancers.

1976 ABC – ABC’s Saturday Sneak Peek

Airdate: Friday, September 10, 1976, 8-9pm, 60 minutes Song: “How to Build a Rock Star” Directed by Art Fisher Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, the Osmond Brothers For the first time since 1972, a network went with a 60-minute block for their preview, and this one packed in the talent since its entire Saturday morning schedule was changing! The comedy-variety special was hosted by now-13-year-old Jimmy Osmond, still the youngest performing member of the musical Osmond clan, pride of the Mormon church. Joining him to present the special were much more famous siblings Donny and Marie Osmond (who had their own primetime show, Donny & Marie), and Osmond family members George (father), Olive (mother), and brothers Wayne, Merrill, Alan, and Jay. Also appearing were American Bandstand host Dick Clark, comedian Marty Allen, Australian ventriloquist Chris Kirby, and the first appearance of a new manufactured rock band, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs!

The glam rock band was a creation of Sid and Marty Krofft as hosts for their new anthology series, The Krofft Supershow. The members were Kaptain Kool (Michael Lembeck), Superchick (Debra Clinger), Turkey (Mickey McMeel), Nashville (Louise DuArt), and Flatbush (Bert Sommer), and all segments with them were filmed at The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, an indoor amusement park in

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Marty Allen, Jimmy Osmond, and Michael “Kaptain Kool” Lembeck attempt to define “glam rock.”

Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to music (mostly written by the Osmonds) and comedy segments with Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, The Krofft Supershow consisted of four live-action elements: Wonderbug, Dr. Shrinker, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl [see RetroFan #8], and The Lost Saucer.

Other ABC series previewed during the special were three Hanna-Barbera series: The Tom & Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show (a crime-solving snickering dog, Mumbly was the new segment), the shark-starring Jabberjaw, and The Scooby-Doo/ Dynomutt Hour (to be covered in an upcoming RetroFan). The sole new live-action show was the competition series Junior Almost Anything Goes, hosted by Soupy Sales.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) Freddie Prinze.

(RIGHT) Hand-painted signage helps set the tone. (BELOW) The Monster Squad meets Fred Grandy (in sweater) and host Prinze.

1976 NBC – The Great NBC Smilin’ Saturday Morning Parade

Airdate: Friday, September 10, 1976, 8pm, 30 minutes Songs: “Smilin’ Saturday Mornin’,” “Be a Clown,” “When It Hit Me” (Freddie Prinze and cast) Written by Draper Lewis Directed by Bob Wynn Produced by Alan Landsburg, Don Kirshner, Bob Wynn, Merrill Grant Taped the week of August 28th at the Magic Mountain amusement park, near Los Angeles, this special was hosted by Freddie Prinze, the star of the primetime series Chico and the Man. Beginning the show, Prinze is dressed in a pink-and-white polka-dotted suit and pink-orange-red cape, which could only have looked good to someone on hallucinatory substances. Prinze was helped by the four male members of The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. (only two of which looked anywhere near high school-aged), and four tights-wearing tumbling clown girls named Eenie, Meenie, Mienie, and Mo (Paula Beyers, Tina Edwards, Kathie King, and Kathy Pickle).

As the Kids and clowns lip-synced to the “Smilin’ Saturday Mornin’” song (written by Mitch and Phil Margo), Prinze quickly ran through brief scenes from the only new animated series on the schedule: The Woody Woodpecker Show, as well as the liveactioners McDuff, The Talking Dog; The Monster Squad; Land of the Lost; Big John, Little John; The Kids from C.A.P.E.R.; and Muggsy. After a brief commercial break, the crew sang and danced through Cole Porter’s “Be a Clown”—well, the Kids attempted to dance, and Prinze attempted to sing—before longer clips from the “Cartoon Festival” two-hour block (Woodpecker and the returning The Pink Panther Show).

Next up, Dr. Calvin Campbell (Walter Willison) and his invisible talking sheepdog McDuff made a brief appearance, followed by the daytime appearance of Dracula, Wolfman, Frank

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N. Stein, and Walt (Fred Grandy, perhaps the only Saturday morning star to become an elected member of the House of Representatives) from D’Angelo productions’ The Monster Squad.

Previewed next was Monster Squad, before the crew launched into a reprise of “Be a Clown.” Another commercial break, a reprise of “Smilin’ Saturday Mornin’,” and then Prinze launched into a rap song about being two people instead of just one. Child star Robby Rist then showed up in an oversized suit in character as John Martin, a science teacher who accidentally drank from the fountain of youth and unexpectedly changes from age 40 to 12 in the series Big John, Little John.

The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. then took the clown girls for an adventure through Magic Mountain while “singing” their song “When It Hit Me,” before clips from their new comedy series rolled. Another short clip from the crimefighting preteen girlsleuth series Muggsy aired, before Prinze and company finally got to the “parade” of the special’s title. Prinze welcomed the Long Beach Junior Concert Band and the Reseda Youth Band, who played the show’s theme once again. All of the guest-stars who had appeared on the special marched—or rode—in a parade through the streets of Magic Mountain, to cheering crowds.

Finally, mercifully, Prinze disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sadly, Prinze committed suicide less than four months later.

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1977 CBS - The Wacko Saturday Morning Preview and Other Good Stuff Special

Airdate: Thursday, September 8th, 1977, 8pm, 60 minutes Songs: “High School Dance” (the Sylvers), “Twilley Don’t Mind” (Dwight Twilley Band) Written by Rick Kellard, Bob Comfort, Bo Kaprall Directed by Stanley Dorfman Produced by Chris Bearde, Bob Wood, Coslough Johnson, Richard Adamson, Kathe Connolly 1977 was the year that the networks attempted to really outdo each other in terms of content and guests, and all three of them presented one-hour specials. CBS’s aired first, hosted by the cast of their new live-action variety series Wacko (Charles Fleischer, Julie McWhirter, and Bo Kaprall). Also appearing on the show were bug-eyed comedian Marty Allen, voice of Mr. Magoo Jim Backus, Filmation’s animated Batman and Robin, comedienne Carol Burnett, space star Jonathan Harris, voice actor Gary Owens, host Soupy Sales, M*A*S*H star Loretta Switt, singer-

songwriter Harry Nilsson, and musical groups the Sylvers and the Dwight Twilley Band. And appearing across space and time… was Imperial bad guy Darth Vader!

In-between guests, the show promoted the new CBS Saturday morning line-up, which included The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, the new DePatie-Freleng series What’s New, Mr. Magoo?, HannaBarbera’s The Skatebirds, Filmation’s live-action Space Academy and animated Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour, Nephi-Odin Productions’ Wacko, and the returning Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The Wacko special taped in mid-August 1977. “This is the wackiest show I’ve done,” Soupy Sales said in a syndicated newspaper column. “It starts off with everybody throwing 20 pies, and I don’t even get one.”

Apparently at one point in the special, Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, uses his gloved hand to crush the neck of Jim Backus. No explanation is known as to why, but Lucasfilm archivist Pete Vilmur tells me that the man behind Vader’s mask was not David Prowse, but was a Lucasfilm publicity stand-in, most likely Kermit Eller (now Bryce Eller).

Mister Magoo’s Jim Backus stands behind (LEFT TO RIGHT) Darth Vader, Marty Allen, Julie McWhirter, Soupy Sales, and Bo Kaprall. B&W photo courtesy of Pete Vilmur at Lucasfilm.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1977 ABC – Kaptain Kool & The Kongs Present ABC All-Star Saturday

Airdate: Friday, September 9, 1977, 8pm, 60 minutes Songs: “Sing Me a Song,” “You Put Some Love in My Life,” “You Kissed Me Again” “You Saved Me,” “You Got Me Crazy Girl,” “I’m Late,” “Celebrate,” “The Whole World Will be Dancing,” “He Looked For You All Over the World” (Kaptain Kool and the Kongs), “That’s Rock N’ Roll” (Shaun Cassidy), “Well Did You, Evah!””

(Meadowlark Lemon) Written by Frank & Harry Karamazoff Directed by Jack Regas Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft

The spin is strong in Shaun Cassidy and Meadowlark Lemon. B&W photo courtesy of Pete Vilmur at Lucasfilm.

Glam rock band Kaptain Kool and the Kongs is back to host their a disco Wizard, comedian Lennie Weinrib playing Dorothy in second preview special, though this time the group is a quartet drag, plus a sexy wicked witch, cameos by H. R. Pufnstuf and (Lembeck, DuArt, Clinger, McMeel) and Dr. Blinky, and some creepy cornpone Flatbush (Bert Sommer) is gone. ABC had Munchkins. two different promotional tracks for the Next up, a smiling-too-hard Parker Kaptain Kool and the Kongs. special, one emphasizing Kaptain Kool— Stevenson and a somnambulistic Pamela whose name was in the title—and a more Sue Martin introduced Shaun Cassidy common one for the guests, Hardy Boys singing, before the Kongs showed Darth teen heartthrob stars Shaun Cassidy and Vader previews of the new Saturday lineParker Stevenson, Nancy Drew Mysteries up. Although he didn’t choke anyone with star Pamela Sue Martin, and the biggest the Force, Darth Vader (not voiced by James star, flying his TIE Fighter over from the Earl Jones, and rarely heavily breathing) CBS network: Lord Darth Vader! That’s did terrify Kong member Turkey, whose right, the Dark Side of the Force was strong ever-escalating mugging should have had that week on television. its own sitcom. Previewed were Scooby Immediately prior to the show opening, Doo’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and its various Donny and Marie Osmond introduced the segments, Hanna-Barbera’s Captain special, and promoted their upcoming Caveman and the Teen Angels, and The All debut. Then, a series of gold masks gave New SuperFriends Hour. Kaptain and Turkey way to the Kongs and dancers in golddid a Sherlock Holmes riff, then it was back and-red glitter costumes, singing “Sing to showing Darth Vader clips, this time of Me a Song” and disco dancing. Intro’ed The Krofft Supershow’s segments Bigfoot next by the group were the guests, before and Wildboy (coming in a future RetroFan the animated Scooby-Doo made a quick column), Magic Mongo, and Wonderbug. appearance to roller-skate with the Kongs.

A Charlie’s Angels sketch making timely The next segment saw “The Wizard fun of the attempt to replace Farrah Revizited,” with Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon playing Fawcett Majors was next (with a fun Darth Vader cameo), then Turkey sang a song next to the audience, followed by eightwoman dance troupe the Krofftettes doing a song-and-dance Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin. medley. Welcome Back, Kotter Sweathog Robert Hegyes and Meadowlark Lemon next appeared as worried football players, with Darth Vader and surprise guest Billy Barty showing up. A giant finale saw most of the cast in red and gold again, dancing and singing—including Weinrib, but sans Hegyes, Barty, or Vader)—while Lemon got a solo and did some basketball tricks.

Strangely, a promised-in-the-press appearance by a liveaction Benji was cut, as was a singing and dancing production number tribute to Star Wars, but some Mego-looking dolls for the Kongs did appear briefly! Even more oddly, press photos promised that Darth Vader would referee a basketball spinoff between Shaun Cassidy and Meadowlark Lemon… but the Force was apparently not with this scene. Game company Parker Brothers was a major sponsor of the show, even getting their name in the advertising.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1977 NBC - C’Mon Saturday

Airdate: Friday, September 9, 1977, 8pm, 60 minutes Written by Thomas Meehan Although NBC’s nickname for its Saturday mornings was “The Fun Machine,” they did not name their preview special that, nor did they feature Darth Vader. They did, however, attempt to frontload their show with some major stars, even if the match-up was a bit strange. Andrea McArdle, the thirteen-year-old star of Broadway’s Annie was tapped to host the special, playing a pint-size NBC programming executive who is putting together the fall schedule with the help of a half-dozen of adolescent boys (one of which was her ten-year-old brother, Michael). McArdle did have another tie to the show that even hardcore fans and viewers may not Andrea McArdle meets boxing have realized; the script was legend Muhammad Ali. written by Thomas Meehan, who, as a playwright, had written the book for… Annie!

Guest-starring on the show were comedians Arte Johnson and Ruth Buzzi, space legend Leonard Nimoy, and boxing champion Muhammad Ali! Also appearing on the show for unknown reasons were Liza Minnelli lookalike Peggy Matthews, along with Barbra Streisand and Phyllis Diller lookalikes. Nimoy reportedly played some sort of adult guide named “Mister Wister” to McArdle’s character, and at one point, he had to sing—in a baritone voice—to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” the lyrics “Turn, Turn, Turn your dial, Right to N-B-C!” Previewed on the special were Hanna-Barbera’s C.B. Bears, Filmation’s Young Sentinels and The New Archie/Sabrina Hour, Farmhouse Films’ I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali, live-action horse series Thunder, Canadian series Search and Rescue: The Alpha Team, and the live-action-and-animated DePatie-Freleng show Baggy Pants and the Nitwits, with Johnson and Buzzi reprising their Laugh-In characters of Tyrone and Gladys, sanitized for Saturday morning. The final new show was D’Angelo’s Red Hand Gang, a live-action preteen sleuth series.

Former Wonderama kids game show host Irwin “Sonny” Fox had been given the job as vice-president of children’s programming for NBC in 1977, and he wanted to change Saturday morning programming to be even more pro-social.

He added multiple new series, as well as a spotlight-on-kids commercial segment called Junior Hall of Fame, but the line-up was an immense flop. Almost all of the shows were cancelled or renamed before the year was even over, and reruns of older shows were slotted in their places. Perhaps if Andrea McArdle really had put the fall schedule together…?

Next issue we’ll have a look at even more Saturday Morning Preview Specials, including appearances from Kristy and Jimmy McNichol, Plastic Man, the Bay City Rollers, Erik Estrada, Joe Namath, Henry Winkler, Dick Clark, Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, Spider-Man, “Weird Al” Yankovic, C-3PO and R2-D2, and Pee-wee Herman!

The quotes from Terence H. Winkless, Dennis Klein, and Chuck Woolery are from November–December 2019 email interviews. Many thanks also to the wonderful Gary Browning at L.A.’s Paley Center for research help, Pete Vilmur and Stephen Sansweet at Lucasfilm, and 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 and a series of graphic novels for junior high audiences.

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.

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

America’s America’s

Best TV TV Comics Comics (Rabbit-Ears and Knobs Not Included!)

by Scott Shaw!

It was 1967 and thanks to Batman, ABC’s primetime, live-action smash hit about to enter its third season, “Batmania” was not only ruling primetime television, it was also ruling the attention of everyone in the U.S. who happened to be under 30 years old— and quite a few older people, too!

The other television networks and all of the Saturday morning animation studios took note of this trend and responded in force…

In 1966, NBC introduced DePatie-Freleng’s Super 6, which employed a clever gimmick: five macho super-heroes and one puny, goofy one who receive their assignments from what amounts to a temp agency. Otherwise, Hanna-Barbera’s Atom Ant (in reruns) was the only other super-hero in its line-up. The remainder consisted of H-B’s The Flintstones, The Space Kidettes, Secret Squirrel, and the Jetsons. Reruns of King Features’ Cool McCool, a spy in the Get Smart mode created by Batman co-creator Bob Kane (must have been pretty easy to sell a show by the man associated with ABC’s biggest hit, eh?), aired at the end of their SatAM schedule. But at least both of NBC’s 1966 super-hero shows were pretty good ones.

CBS thrilled us with Hanna-Barbera’s Space Ghost (sold to the network as “Batman in outer space”), Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, Format Film’s The Lone Ranger (complete with steampunk super-villains!), and Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman, the studio’s first-ever TV series and one that successfully duplicated the style of DC’s Superman-centric funnybooks. Plus, the network aired reruns of Terrytoons’ The Mighty Heroes and Total Television’s Underdog, as well as the deliciously violent classic Road Runner and Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon shorts. How Total Television’s The Beagles got in there is anyone’s guess.

But ABC’s schedule for 1966 seemed to be lagging behind the times. Without a single super-hero, its rather puny schedule included King Features’ The Beatles, Rankin-Bass’ King Kong, and reruns of Porky Pig, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Bugs Bunny, Magilla Gorilla, and Hoppity Hooper. They needed to beef up their line-up with beefcake… namely the super-types that their competition was exploiting to snag high ratings.

Oddly enough, no network or studio had considered doing a Batman cartoon show… yet.

However, whether due to wised-up executives or a new corporate regime, ABC was smart to make a deal with the rival of Batman’s publisher, Marvel Comics. The “House of Ideas” already had a syndicated cartoon series ion 1966, Grantray-Lawrence’s Marvel Super-Heroes, featuring five of their characters: Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the Mighty Thor, and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, (Spider-Man was initially to be part of this line-up, but when ABC ordered 20 episodes of SpiderMan from Grantray-Lawrence for its network, he was rapidly replaced by Namor). They also order 20 episodes of The Fantastic Four from Hanna-Barbera.

“Six Fabulous FILM Features”? Only King Kong and various adaptations of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth novel ever appeared in films. However, back in 1967, TV cartoons were filmed, with each cel filmed for a minimum of two frames, if not many, many more. Hey, it was the era of “limited animation”!

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Meanwhile, CBS’s Fred Silverman was its Head of Children’s Programming and again, he knew what kids wanted to watch in the Bat-drenched world of 1967. Its Saturday mornings began with good ol’ Captain Kangaroo, followed by Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles (rerun); three brand-new H-B series: The Herculoids (sold as “Tarzan in outer space”), Shazzan (about two lost kids and a chuckling genie), Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor (respectively, a super-hero whale and a super-hero caveman); plus Filmation’s The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure [see RetroFan #3] and reruns of Jonny Quest, The Lone Ranger, and The Road Runner.

The shows in NBC’s (RIGHT) America’s Best TV Comics’ new 1967 SatAM schedule were only inside front cover, with Saturday slightly less fueled by testosterone. Super morning airtimes. (Casper looks like he 6 was joined by DePatie-Freleng’s Super needs a good chiropractor.) (ABOVE) President and H-B’s Samson and Goliath and This colorful ad ran in Marvel comic Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. Reruns of Cool books during the late summer of ’67.

The Beatles, shown on both, were McCool, Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, and Top woefully missing from the comic itself.

Cat brought up the rear of the morning.

In other words, ABC was up against super-hero cartoons with interesting concepts from established fail” cartoons of yore, with robots studios. CBS’ line-up was particularly strong; Fred Silverman subbing for evil had a close relationship with Hanna-Barbera and tied up their cats and foxes, top writers and artists with the new super-hero shows. (To non-humorous keep some of H-B’s old-timers, like Mike Maltese and Warren Foster, shows like The Herculoids were structured like violent “try/ gags that the veteran board men could easily cook Title: America’s Best TV Comics up.)

Having licensed Issue Number: #nn upstart publisher Cover Date: Summer 1967 Marvel Comics’ Page Count: 68 (72, counting covers) two bestselling Publisher: Marvel Comics properties, The Cover Artists: Mr. Fantastic penciled by Herb Trimpe Fantastic Four and and inked by John Verpoorten; Casper the Friendly Spider-Man, ABC’s brass had the rather brilliant idea of enlisting Ghost penciled and inked by Warren Kremer; The Marvel Comics itself to package and publish a special comic book Fantastic Four designed and penciled by Jack Kirby and to promote ABC’s new SatAM line-up directly to the loyal fans of inked by Joe Sinnott; The Amazing Spider-Man penciled Marvel’s super-hero characters. Thus, America’s Best TV Comics was and inked by John Romita, Sr.; Journey to the Center born. Oddly, there are only two mentions of Marvel Comics itself of the Earth penciled by Paul Reitman, undetermined in this entire comic: “corner box” images from the covers of The inker; King Kong and George of the Jungle drawn by Fantastic Four and Spider-Man added to each story’s “splash page.” undetermined artists.

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

Here are the contents of America’s Best TV Comics. First, the stories: `` “Casper the Friendly Ghost” in “The Flying Horse,” drawn by Warren Kremer and lettered by Joe Rosen, a reprint of a story that originally appeared in The Friendly Ghost Casper #17 (Jan. 1960). When a wicked magician named Ali Booboo kidnaps Casper’s equine pal Nightmare, it’s up to the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch—with the aid of a cute genie who vaguely resembles Superman’s impish foe Mr. Mxyzptlk—to recover the flying horse. In the course of their mission, Casper saves the life of Ali Booboo, causing the magician to end his evil ways and in the end, they part ways as friends. `` “The Fantastic Four” in “Prisoners of the Pharaoh,” by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stan Goldberg, and Sam Rosen, edited down from Fantastic Four #19’s (Oct. 1963) 22 pages to ten pages.

Surprisingly, although many of the surviving panels are scrambled from their original order, the story still makes sense, thanks to the fact that Marvel did the editing, although no specific editor is mentioned in this thick comic’s indicia.

The story itself, one of the comic-book stories adapted for H-B’s FF series—scripted by Stan Lee, plotted, designed, and penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers— introduces “Pharaoh Rama-Tut,” a brawny time-traveler from the future who’s taken over ancient Egypt with his “magical” technology. Unlike most Kirby characters, he appeared sparingly after this, probably after various Marvel comics suggested that Rama-Tut, Kang the Conqueror, and Doctor Doom were all various identities of the same man. `` “The Amazing Spider-Man” in “The Birth of a SuperHero,” by Stan Lee, John Romita, and Sam Rosen, edited down from The Amazing Spider-Man #42’s (Nov. 1966) 20 pages to ten pages. Again, panels showing the ongoing storylines regarding Peter Parker’s civilian life—including the historic first appearance of Mary Jane Watson and the ongoing tale of the super-villain 60

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(LEFT) Mickey, Huck, and pals were tooned out of their dominance of Saturday morning TV by the mid-Sixties’ super-hero invasion, as the amazing Wallace Wood showed in this illo ca. 1967. Courtesy of Scott Shaw. (ABOVE) No, that’s not Jed Clampett… it’s Luke Carpenter, a man trapped in a world he didn’t make, in America’s Best TV Comics’ fullpager promoting ABC’s The Second Hundred Years.

the Rhino—are gone, but the Spider-Man vs. J. Jonah Jameson’s hulked-out-son stuff is still intact and better yet, despite the drastic edits. As mentioned, this story— script by Stan Lee, pencils and inks by Johnny Romita— is about Jonah’s U.S. astronaut son John, accidentally given super-strength due to his exposure to “space spores” on a mission, and his short career as a superhero. When Spidey is spotted “stealing” a cash pouch from a bank, he’s labeled a criminal, despite the fact that the bag actually contained a ticking bomb that the WebSpinner disposed of. Always resentful of Spider-Man, Jolly Jonah encourages John to capture the “outlaw” WallCrawler. When the enhanced astronaut’s powers get out of control, it’s up to Spidey to lure him into an electromagnetic field to remove ’em.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

What’s odder, the Frontier Fighter and Caped Crusader on one page, or Marvel Comics stalwart George Tuska drawing DC Comics’ Batman and Batgirl? Tuska also penciled the Custer promo. Inker unknown.

`` “George of the Jungle.” In this untitled story, two scurrilous ivory poachers happen to see George’s pet elephant Shep burying doggie bones and assume that they’ve discovered the fabled elephants’ graveyard. When the baddies get a drop on George and Shep, the big-chinned hero mistakenly lets out the wrong “jungle call” for help, and suddenly, they’re surrounded by bunny rabbits! They try to make a getaway, but Shep chases them (and the purloined doggy bones)—and George— into a quicksand pit. George’s sexy mate(s) also makes an appearance… but is it Ursula or Fella? Artist(s) undetermined.

The advertisements in America’s Best TV Comics are not your everyday funnybook ads.

Instead, they’re all for various ABC shows, including Batman (probably something that Smilin’ Stan Lee didn’t smile about):

`` “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” In this untitled story, Dr. Lindenbrook and his crew attempt a boat ride down the Styx River, but series baddies Count Sacknussem and Torg, a “monster lizard,” a whirlpool, a chalk-faced quintet of creepy giants, Cerberus the three-headed pooch, and a store of molten lava do everything possible to stop them from reaching their goal. Penciled and inked by Paul Reinman, inker underdetermined. `` “King Kong.” In this untitled story, Prof. Bond and his kids Billy and Susan are offered $100,000 for charity if Kong performs for a week at the famous circus of entrepreneur P. T. Bunkum, and they can’t resist the offer. All goes well until a storm causes the circus animals to escape, and it’s up to King Kong to recapture the beasts without anyone getting injured or killed. Artist(s) undetermined.

`` `` `` ``

`` Inside front cover: “Saturday Spectacular on ABC” B&W advertisement, featuring images from: Casper the Friendly Ghost, The Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth, King Kong, George of the Jungle, and The Beatles (the only SatAM ABC show not to merit a story in this comics compilation.

But why, because by this time, it was all reruns?). `` An advertisement for Cowboy in Africa, a one-season, primetime series starring Chuck Connors, artist(s) undetermined. `` An advertisement for The Second Hundred Years, a one-season, primetime series starring Arthur O’Connell and Monte Markham, artist(s) undetermined.

A 2/3-page advertisement for Custer, a one-season, primetime series starring Wayne Maunder and Slim Pickens, penciled by George Tuska, inker undetermined.

A 1/3-page advertisement for Batman’s third season (which introduced Batgirl), also penciled by George Tuska, inker undetermined.

An advertisement for Off to See the Wizard, a Rankin-Bass animated series very loosely based on the classic books and film, artist undetermined.

“Sunday is Fun Day,” an inside-back cover B&W advertisement for ABC’s Sunday morning line-up for young audiences, featuring new art depicting the shows: Milton the Monster, Linus the Lion-Hearted, Peter Potamus, RetroFan

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© NBC Television.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

This issue’s interview subject William “Captain Nice” Daniels wasn’t the only TV star taking to the air (as well as the airwaves) in the Sixties. So was Sally Field, as The Flying Nun. Back cover to America’s Best TV Comics.

Bullwinkle, Discover ’67, The Beagles, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Magilla Gorilla, all reruns acquired from the other two networks, artist undetermined. `` An advertisement for The Flying Nun on this comic book’s back cover, artist(s) undetermined.

There are a number of people on the internet who have attributed the undetermined artwork to professionals who couldn’t possibly have worked on these pages. Those questions have yet to be answered.

But there’s also an unanswered question about this Oddball Comic that remains to be addressed: Why the heck isn’t there a Beatles story included in this unique anthology?!?

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. Saturday 62

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June 2020

AMERICA’S BEST TV COMICS… THE SEQUEL?

Harvey Comics produced this Saturday Morning NBComics one-shot in 1991 in conjunction with NBC-TV to promote the network’s Fall 1991 Saturday morning kid’s line-up of programming. At the traditional 32-page comic size, it featured all-new, Harvey-produced short stories starring the properties Wish Kid, Yo Yogi, ProStars, and Spacecats, plus several Saved By the Bell ads and a Yo Yogi activity page. The comic was distributed at Toys “R” Us as a free giveaway. morning toon heroes Super 6, the Mighty Heroes, the Impossibles, and George of the Jungle influenced his initial desings for the Zoo Crew. 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.

Copyright Info: Batman and Batgirl © DC Comics. Beatles © Apple Corps. Casper © DreamWorks Classics. Fantastic Four and Spider-Man © Marvel. The Flying Nun © Sony Pictures Television. George of the Jungle © Bullwinkle Studios.

Journey to the Center of the Earth © 20th Century Fox Television. King Kong © Classic Media. The Second Hundred Years © Sony Pictures Television. Superhero Invasion art © Wallace Wood Estate.

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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CELEBRITY CRUSHES

My C

by Shawn Chrisagis

h t i rush on Jaclyn Sm

On September 22, 1976, at the age of seven, I was watching with my family a TV movie pilot called Charlie’s Angels when the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, in a white bikini, got out of a pool and picked up the phone and said, “Good morning, Charlie.” That woman was Jaclyn Smith. At that second I could not see anyone in the room except her. She was the epitome of perfection, with the most beautiful face the world has ever seen; perfect skin; dark brown, wavy, long hair; big, sweet, green eyes with long lashes; and a thin, curvy body, 5-foot-7 in height, with an angelic smile that melted my heart and gave me goose bumps.

Her voice was velvety and soothing. Every part of me was smitten, and I couldn’t think clearly at all. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I liked it and wanted to feel that way forever.

My mom had to sit me down and explain my feelings toward a lady that I had never met but I knew was God’s most perfect masterpiece from Heaven. He surely made Jaclyn on a good day. No matter what TV episode of Charlie’s Angels came on, Jaclyn was all I focused on. All her posters hung in my room. In fact, the famous poster with Jaclyn in white resting on pillows on a bed, very classy and tasteful, was above my bed, and every night I kissed it before falling to sleep. She was also a fixture in my prayers every night.

My mom was okay with my dream woman because Jaclyn was also a lady in the style of Loretta Young and Audrey Hepburn, a true class act with oldfashioned morals. My mom raised me in the ways of the Lord, and Jaclyn was raised the same way. So in my young mind I knew Jaclyn would be the perfect wife and mother and that my mom would agree to her marrying me. (I was such a stupid child, determined to marry this gorgeous goddess!)

The TV series Charlie’s Angels ran until June 24, 1981. Jaclyn Smith also spread her wings in the greatest movies and epics ever made. I was her most faithful fan and loved all her work in such films as Escape from Bogen County (1977), Nightkill (1980), Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981), Rage of Angels (1983), The Night

They Saved Christmas (1984), The Bourne Identity (1988), and Family Album (1994), among others. She has also been named the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” more than any woman in history

by People, TV Guide, and beauty polls, as well as “Queen of the TV Movies and Miniseries.” She was the gorgeous Max Factor spokesmodel for two decades. “Part of the art of being a woman is knowing when not to be too much of a lady.” That was her quote in her famous Epris ad from Max Factor, and she has balanced that art better than anyone ever has.

Jaclyn is not just a beautiful lady and actress but a successful businesswoman. She was one of the first stars to develop and market her own brand of clothing, perfume, furniture, wigs, beauty, and skin care and make it a billion-dollar company. She started that in the Eighties and is still going strong. She has always taken time out to help cancer patients, crippled children, all kinds of hurting people, and has been the hands of Christ for so many who have needed love. She started that long before she ever stepped onto the screen—her parents and grandparents instilled that behavior in her when she was small, and she has never walked away from that.

She has used her fame and success to give back and she actually cares about others.

I know because I have met her a few times and you can feel genuine love and sincerity around her. She truly is an angel who is beautiful from the inside out. I have never been so star-struck or nervous over meeting anyone. I travel all over the world and am now a grown man, but when I met her I became that seven-year-old child who got overwhelmed and lost myself in her heavenly beauty and sweet angelic spirit. Meeting her was my #1 Bucket List item, and now I can at least die with a smile on my face that I got that dream fulfilled. I can speak for all of her fans that are thankful for all the assets of her legendary career.

My crush has now grown into true respect, admiration, and love—that’s my story, and I am honored to tell it about such a great iconic lady of integrity.

Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/ Eighties Celebrity Crush with RetroFan readers! (Celebrity stalkers, please do not apply.) You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crush column to the editor for consideration at euryman@gmail.com.

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My C

by Brian Chrisagis

rush on

September 22, 1976 through June 24, 1981: when a young boy like me realized that women rule a man’s emotions, among other things. Those were the years Charlie’s Angels ran on the airwaves and made every hot-blooded male’s heart go pitter-patter. Six gorgeous women detectives who answered to a man named Charlie. I thought Charlie was the luckiest man alive with those Angels… but while watching the show I realized that Bosley was actually the luckiest—he was the one who worked closely with them.

There were two Angels that were my major crushes: Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Ladd. Farrah caught my eye immediately, and I was in the stratosphere for a season of fantasies that would make great romance novels. Then she left the show after only one season, and I was in a great depression. I finally understood what my grandmother was talking about when she told me about the “Great Depression”—it was a life without Farrah. My parents didn’t get it— they were like, “We’ll take you to Disneyland this summer.” I didn’t need a mouse to make my life a happy place. I needed a blonde who in my book was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

When the next season of Charlie’s Angels started, my twin brother Shawn was glued to the TV watching his favorite Angel, Jaclyn Smith. I was so upset… I had nothing to look forward to. I went to my room that night without even eating—I was going to starve myself until Farrah came back. Then my family gathered in the living room, calling my name to come see the new Angel who replaced Farrah. I refused. No way was I betraying the love of my life! Then my brothers Shawn and Anthony dragged me out of my room and sat me in front of TV. I closed my eyes and turned my head. I swore I would never watch that terrible show, but they forced my eyes open… and within seconds Cheryl Ladd bounced her way into my heart.

I remember at the end of the two-hour special that introduced Cheryl as Kris Munroe the new Angel, while looking at her I remembered a Bible verse that my mother taught came to me, Psalm 139:14: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Well, at that moment I realized that some are made fearfully and others like Cheryl Ladd were made wonderfully. Cheryl Ladd had become my major crush, and I continued to follow her amazing career and her life filled with integrity. She combined the girl next door with stunning

d d a L l y r Che

supermodel looks that made me go ga-ga. My mom agreed to buy me a poster of Cheryl, but I saw lots of eye-popping posters that I knew she wouldn’t agree to for a boy so young. So I ran into the store before mom got to the poster section and hid all the sexy posters of Cheryl. I found one with her in red shorts and a black T-shirt, and another in a checkered shirt with jeans that was taken in a barn. Mom agreed to those and brought them home to hang on my wall. But the memory of the other posters lingered in my young mind… and when I was older I bought them as well.

(Mom never knew!)

As a child I was fascinated by Cheryl Ladd’s beauty. As I grew up I realized that this eye-catching masterpiece that God created was also a woman of great substance. She was a Christian who made stands against child abuse as an ambassador for ChildHelp USA, even winning a Woman of the World Award for her work. She was also one of the best actresses I had ever seen. She could play a range of parts, and every movie she did had a message. She starred in more than 30 made-fortelevision films, including as Grace Kelly, the Philadelphia heiress who became a Hollywood glamour girl and then a European princess, in a biopic that was begun shortly before Kelly’s death. She made blockbuster movies for Danielle Steele like Now and Forever. She took on gritty roles that conveyed powerful messages.

What’s funny is that my bond with Cheryl started even earlier, as I had a crush on a cartoon character named Melody from Josie and the Pussycats (1970–1972). Little did I know at the time that the singing voice of Melody was a young “Cherie Moor,” Cheryl’s stage name before she met and married David Ladd. She got her start as a singer, and later would return to singing and to release many wonderful recordings.

I was beyond blessed when I got to interview her on our radio show with my brother Shawn, and then finally met her face-to-face. Most crushes can’t live up to the larger-than-life persona in our fan dreams, but I am thrilled to say the reality of who Cheryl Ladd is surpasses any dream or fantasy I had. Cheryl is still a knockout with dazzling looks and a heart as big as the world. So I will close by saying the words of Charlie: “Well done, Angel.”

Follow the CHRISAGIS BROTHERS Music Ministry and Productions at Chrisagisbrothersministries.org.

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June 2020

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ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

“You Won’t Believe Your Eye!” THE CYCLOPS AND FILMMAKER BERT I. GORDON

by Ernest Farino As part of the 64th Academy Awards, on March 7, 1992, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented stop-motion artist Ray Harryhausen with the ninth Gordon E. Sawyer Award, honoring “an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.” Two-time Academy Award®-winning superstar Tom Hanks stepped onto the stage as Master of Ceremonies to introduce Harryhausen’s body of Were you one of the kids who got work and proclaimed, “Some people say Casablanca an eyeful of The Cyclops on TV? or Citizen Kane, but I say [Harryhausen’s] Jason and the The Cyclops © Allied Artists.

Argonauts was the greatest film ever made!”

As Visual Effects Supervisor I had the pleasure of working with Tom for a year-and-a-half on the HBO miniseries (I almost said, “Well, not that far From the Earth to the Moon and found him to be as smart and as back,” but golly—do the math: that’s 56 personable as his public image conveys. But here I have to take years ago—more than half a century. So I exception. In what can only be a momentary lapse of memory, guess that is way back…)

Tom appears to have overlooked the one film that stomps on all of As I’ve mentioned before in these those with a giant Godzilla foot. pages, that was a magical time for The Cyclops. me. I was 12 years old, immersed in Made in 1957 by Bert I. Gordon, whom wordsmith and punster everything from monsters to Ed “Big Forry Ackerman nicknamed “Mr. B.I.G.” in the pages of Famous Daddy” Roth hot rods, to monsters, to Monsters of Filmland, The Cyclops starred Clark Gable lookalike James Bond, to monsters, to—well, you James Craig, the lovely Gloria Talbott, the heavy-drinking Lon get the idea. So one day I’m studying Chaney, Jr., and Duncan Parkin as the one-eyed-wonder. Filmed the local El Paso, Texas, TV Guide to plan in the picturesque, cave-strewn, “I’ve-seen-it-in-a-hundred-other- out my week of The Munsters, The Outer movies” valley called Bronson Canyon in the Hollywood Hills in Limits, The Twilight Zone, Bewitched, and less time than it will take you to read this magazine, The Cyclops more, and lo and behold, the Saturday has emerged as a bonafide cult classic among those in the know. midnight horror movie is The Cyclops. The logline in the listing was Casablanca? Citizen Kane? probably something like, “An expedition to Mexico does battle Pffft! Neither of those movies has a 25-foot one-eyed giant. with a mutated 25-foot man with one big eye.”

So there.

All riiiight! That Is For Me! So let’s join business magnate, inventor, scientist, Nobel Now, this was the “Silver Age” of monsters, and a whole crop laureate, gourmand, and two-time Olympic medalist Mr. Hector of TV horror hosts had sprung up following the success of Maila Peabody and his adopted son Sherman in the WABAC machine for Nurmi as Vampira: there was Zacherley, Ghoulardi, M. T. Graves, an all-new episode of “Peabody’s Improbable History.”

Seymour, the original Svengoolie, and no doubt many other local All the way back to 1964. yokels who slathered on some greasepaint and chomped down 66

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on a pair of plastic fangs. [For a look at the horror hosts of the day, check out Dan Johnson’s excellent “Haunting the Airwaves” article in RetroFan #2, accompanied by an interview with today’s ghoul-girl, Elvira, by Mark Voger.] Most of them carried the slate of horror movies packaged as Shock Theater in 1957 and Son of Shock in 1958, released for television syndication by Screen Gems, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. These collections included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, and others, and televising these films gave them new life by introducing these classics to a whole new audience of baby boomers and MonsterKids. Combined with articles on the emerging monster craze that appeared in mainstream magazines such as LOOK and LIFE, this wave of films on TV was an inspiration for Famous Monsters magazine, which in turn lead to the Aurora monster model kits, Mars Attacks bubble gum cards, and much more.

Well, we didn’t have an actual horror host. Not that I minded; I wasn’t really aware of the other hosts, despite East Coast-based Zacherley being prominently and regularly featured in the pages of Famous Monsters (I remember thinking, Who is this guy…?). No, I have a dim memory of our Lights Out program opening on a black cloth-draped table with candles and a skull enshrouded by floating clouds of low-hanging dry ice. As SCTV’s Count Floyd would later exclaim, “Oooh, scary stuff, kiddies…” And we didn’t have the Shock Theater package. I think our local station simply jumped on the bandwagon by licensing low-budget, halfforgotten “B” horror movies. But you didn’t hear me complain— to this day I have a vivid memory of watching the Italian-made blob movie Caltiki–The Immortal Monster on TV back then, the only movie ever to give me nightmares (and I can remember the nightmares, too).

When creatures clash! Cyclops vs. boa constrictor: the photo that appeared in Monster World magazine. (INSET) Monster World #1. Cyclops © Allied Artists.

Monster World © 1964 Warren Publishing.

In any case, I didn’t need any help from TV Guide. Being a cardcarrying monster fan in good standing, I was already up to speed about The Cyclops. A full-page photo of the Cyclops wrestling the boa constrictor had appeared in the first issue of Forry’s companion magazine, Monster World, which had come out in late

1964. Thus, this broadcast of The Cyclops was “Must-See-TV” (even before that phrase was even invented).

Step One: Pleading With the Parents.

This was a midnight show, and I had never stayed up that late before. Please, Mom, PleasePleasePleasePLEEZE let me stay up!

I guess I was persistent (or annoying) enough to wear down my parents and override normal bedtime because they finally gave in. I remember my mother wondering if I’d make it through the whole movie, but I assured her that there was so much adrenaline pumping through my veins that I could’ve bottled it.

Step Two: Setting the Stage.

Finally: Saturday night. 11:45 p.m. The rest of the family had gone off to bed as I shook my head at how oblivious they were to the wonders about to unfold.

The house was as quiet as a moonbeam. A single table lamp cast a circle of light on my left. I reached out and turned on the TV and waited with high expectation as it warmed up (yes, it took a minute back in the days of cathode ray tubes). Conveniently, Kellogg’s had just come out with Pop-Tarts®, so, fortified by a pair of lightly toasted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts® and a large glass of ice-cold Tang, the orange-flavored powdered drink mix made famous during John Glenn’s Mercury space flight in 1962, I settled back for a glorious evening of low-budget thrills and horror.

And fell asleep.

Okay, well, not totally asleep asleep, but that in-between foggy-minded limbo in which you drif t of f to other worlds while half-consciously taking in the reality in front of you. In this case, I would occasionally shake it of f and wonder if the scene that just played out was in the movie or something I made up in my stupor.

And then it happened: a scene that, for all its shock value, could have jolted the Frankenstein monster to life. About a third of the way into the movie our intrepid explorers have made it to the valley and into the cave where they think Gloria’s brother ended up. They’ve found evidence of his having been there— airplane parts, clothing, and, significantly, his wristwatch. And just as they’re wondering what’s going on, and just as I am once again slipping away into a drowsy dream state…

ROAWRRR! The Cyclops himself leaps up from behind a huge boulder in the mouth of the cave, letting out a bellow that could be heard from here to Albuquerque.

Well, you had to peel me off the ceiling, let me tell you.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Cyclops’ audience-chilling cavern reveal. © Allied

Artists.

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Now, part of this was due to my drowsiness, part of it was from the lull of the movie itself, part of it was my solitude and the quiet of the room. But all of it was a moment of sheer terror. Just a few years ago I met Bert Gordon at one of the sci-fi conventions and told him this story, and he grinned ear-to-ear, no doubt very pleased that the very effect he was going for had been borne out.

Years later I became involved in the film industry with a focus on special effects. The tricks of the trade diluted some of the magic; it’s tough to be scared when you know you’re looking at foam rubber and Karo syrup dyed with red food coloring (or that the blood trickling down the shower drain in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, being a black-and-white film, was chocolate syrup). Trust me—as the saying goes, you don’t want to know how the sausage was made.

So I love that moment in The Cyclops. It doesn’t pack quite the same punch today as it did then, but my sense-memory kicks in every time I see the film and I can enjoy it on many levels all over again.

Rear projection setups for (ABOVE) The Amazing Colossal Man and (BELOW) The Beginning of the End rear projection setup. © American International Pictures (AIP).

Mr. B.I.G. Hits the Big Time

Bert I. Gordon made numerous low-budget B-movies, mostly of a science-fiction nature. A few notches above Ed Wood and his Plan 9 from Outer Space, but still a few notches below Roger Corman and even Roger’s “cucumber” monster that inhabited the same Bronson Cave when It Conquered the World (well, almost conquered). Bert’s films were made for the drive-in theater circuit.

King Dinosaur started things off, followed by [Earth vs.] The Spider, The Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the Puppet People, and War of the Colossal Beast. When I met Bert at that convention, we got to talking about optical effects—I think he warmed up to the fact that I had done optical effects work myself, and, when working on Roger Corman’s production of Galaxy of Terror in 1981, that I had worked with B-movie optical guy Jack Rabin. Bert told of how they wouldn’t let him take movie lights into Carlsbad Caverns for The Spider, so he ended up shooting still photographs of the caverns on very long time exposures (because of the low light levels), later using split screens to matte in his live actors filmed against partial cave sets. Over the years Bert did pretty well with straightforward, split-screen combinations, assisted by his wife Flora, although his traveling matte composites, even for black-and-white movies, left a lot to be desired. Bert and Flora’s daughter, Susan Gordon, appeared in several of his films.

Bert, Susan, and Flora Gordon. (RIGHT) Recent photo of Bert with a newly made Cyclops latex mask. Courtesy of Ernest Farino.

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Bert was also a big proponent of full-size rear projection, combining ef fects scenes with live action by having Army soldiers or others positioned in front of a large rear-projection screen. Most of the time these ef fects were passable, especially in the context of films of this type, although, famously, his “giant grasshopper” movie Beginning of the End used large photographic prints of buildings on which the live grasshoppers could crawl about. Unfortunately, and apparently unnoticed by anyone, quite a few of them skittered right of f the building into the area of the sky on the photo backdrop. Which, of course, kinda sorta spoiled the illusion…

Probably Bert’s most ambitious movie was The Magic Sword (1962), starring ex-Sherlock Holmes Basil Rathbone, future 2001: A Space Odyssey astronaut Gary Lockwood, the comically hideous Estelle Winwood, and the fetching Anne Helm.

Bringing things full circle to the original TV horror hosts, “The Hag/Sorceress” was played by Maila Nurmi (Vampira herself). Future James

ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria BONUS

[Earth vs.] The Spider’s Bert Gordon and actress June Kenney in a partial cave set to be matted into still photograph backgrounds of Carlsbad Caverns. © AIP.

Bond villain Richard (“Jaws”) Kiel was in it, and Bert Gordon standby Paul Frees did some voice work. And The Magic Sword was in color! Yikes! There’s a two-headed fire-breathing dragon to boot, and while we all regretted the lack of Harryhausen-style stopmotion animation for a creature like this, Bert’s dragon is a pretty good example of effective mechanical work.

Another Bert Gordon film worth mentioning is Tormented (1960), which is a fairly effective ghost story starring Richard Carlson and the lovely Juli Reding, who is mostly a bodiless head.

Many of these movies are remembered fondly, even while we recognize their cheesiness. Nevertheless, the law of averages rears its two fire-breathing heads and Bert’s filmography includes a few major fails. Look up the word “painful” in Merriam-Webster and you’ll find the poster for Village of the Giants (1966). This film is notable for an early appearance by Beau Bridges and only really watchable for a welcome appearance by Joy Harmon, who the next year would become famous for soaping up herself and her car in front of Paul Newman and the rest of the chain gang in Cool Hand Luke. (Having retired from acting in the early Seventies to raise a family, in recent years Joy created Aunt Joy’s Cakes and runs a wholesale bakery in Burbank, California.)

Bert had a knack for drawing in “name” actors over the years, including Vincent Price, Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Pamela Franklin (twice), Vince Edwards, Chuck Connors, Ralph Goliaths-a-go-go!

Poster for Gordon’s wild and wacky Village of the Giants. © Embassy

Pictures.

(TOP LEFT & FAR LEFT) The Magic Sword poster, and Gordon with actress Anne Helm on its set. (ABPVE & LEFT) Tormented poster, and Gordon with ghostly image of star Juli Reding. The Magic Sword

© United Artists. Tormented © Allied Artists.

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ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

The stars of The Cyclops: (LEFT TO RIGHT) Lon Chaney, Jr., Gloria Talbott, James Craig. © Allied Artists.

Joan Collins shows that there are no hard feelings between her and the giant ants in Bert Gordon’s Empire of the Ants. © AIP. (INSET) Cyclops co-star Gloria Talbott’s standout film, I Married a Monster from Outer Space. © Paramount Pictures.

Meeker, Ida Lupino, Robert Lansing, Jacqueline Scott (who had starred opposite Cliff Robertson in the premiere episode of the original series of The Outer Limits), Guy Stockwell, Robert Forster, Lydie Denier, Kari Wuhrer, Joan Collins, and, amazingly, Orson Welles. So while his filmography is a mixed bag, there’s usually enough reason to watch, if only for the various actors that show up from time to time.

“There’s Something About His Face…”

The Cyclops came about because Bert was asked to do a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man. He basically just re-wrote The Cyclops, feeling that he had said everything there was to say in Colossal Man, although one wonders what that movie really had to say. In any case, RKO was originally going to handle the film but sold it to Allied Artists when RKO disbanded their distribution department.

Bert had six days to shoot the movie. The trick there is to assemble a cast of actors who are professionals; “hitting the mark” and not flubbing lines, and other small matters of craft like that can make all the difference in staying on schedule. “Hit the ground running” is the order of the day.

James Craig was a stalwart hero who had appeared in over 50 films and several TV series by the time of The Cyclops, including Fritz Lang’s 1956 film noir thriller While the City Sleeps.

Lon Chaney, Jr., had, of course, followed in his father’s footsteps as the “monster man” for Universal, his signature role as The Wolf Man forever placing him in the pantheon of great horror actors.

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He also played all the other famous movie monsters at one time or another: Dracula (technically, the Son of), Frankenstein’s monster, and on several occasions, Kharis the mummy. By that time, though, Chaney had started drinking heavily, and there are numerous stories of his falling over as his Mummy attempted to carry off the latest damsel-in-distress.

The standout in The Cyclops, though, is Gloria Talbott. Born in Glendale, California, a city co-founded by her grandfather, in 1947 16-year-old Gloria won the “Miss Glendale” beauty contest. School plays led to small parts in films and ultimately Gloria enjoyed an extensive career in films from 1937 to 1966, appearing many TV series such as Wanted: Dead or Alive, Perry Mason, Bat Masterson, and The Untouchables. However, in addition to The Cyclops and The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, Gloria is best remembered by genre fans for the lead role in I Married a Monster from Outer Space in 1958. Don’t let the title throw you off—it’s a smart little thriller that has some interesting twists and, for its time, remarkable special effects by master movie magician John P. Fulton (most famous for parting the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments in 1956).

My friend and colleague Mark Wolf produced Attack of the B-Movie Monster (later released as The Naked Monster), a spoof film that brought back sci-fi veterans like Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, and Gloria Talbott. Mark said that Gloria was utterly charming and clearly enjoyed returning to her old stomping grounds at Bronson Canyon.

Tom Weaver spoke to Gloria for his book Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers (McFarland, 1988), and she recalled filming the opening plane ride in a mock-up of the Stinson Voyager airplane in a studio in Hollywood. She and James Craig were in the back seat while Lon Chaney, Jr. and Tom Drake were in front. “Well, both Lon and Tom were absolutely smashed,” she said. “James Craig was nipping a little too, but nothing like what was going on in the front! And in this h-o-t, tiny mock-up I was getting blasted from the fumes! It was such close quarters, and so hot, that I was ingesting alcohol through my skin. I was

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“and we kept running on top of the pond! We all finally realized there was at least twenty years of duck sh*t, cement-hard, forming the surface that went out a good ten feet. And, I swear to God, they yelled, ‘Cut out a piece of the sh*t so we can get the actors in!’ I actually sat there and watched them bring out a chainsaw and hack out a big area for James Craig and me to wade in. And I thought to myself, ‘This is glamour? This is fame and fortune?’ I just wanted to go home.”

Be on the lookout for this guy! (INSET) Ai-yi-yi! Cyclops gets a spear you-know-where. © Allied Artists.

getting absolutely stoned, and by the time we got out of there I was weaving!”

The plane lands, of course, in the valley of Bronson Canyon.

Not far from Griffith Observatory, Bronson Canyon and the caves still exist (and are still used for films). You can visit by heading north on Canyon Road from Franklin Ave.

Did

Paramount Pictures.

THEN CAME BRONSON

You

Kn ow?

A young actor named Charles Buchinski had already appeared in small parts in films such as Pat and Mike (1952), Vera Cruz (1954), and House of Wax (1953). Seeking to revitalize his career, he thought a more marquee-worthy last name might be the answer. While driving along Franklin Avenue one day in 1955, he stopped at the intersection of Bronson Avenue. Eureka! So Charles Buchinski became Charles Bronson and went on to be one of the industry’s major stars, appearing in numerous TV episodes, including the third season premiere episode of The Twilight Zone on September 15, 1961, opposite future nose-twitcher Elizabeth Montgomery, and major feature films such as The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Sergio Leone’s epic Western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). So the switch must have worked (a Buchinski by any other name…)!

Before finding the Cyclops, our intrepid explorers encounter giant reptiles and insects, and one chases Gloria into a lake. The filming location was the Arboretum in Arcadia, California, also seen in The Zombies of Mora Tau (1957), Teenage Caveman (1958), and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). “We tried it once,” said Gloria,

What a crappy job! James Craig and Gloria Talbott flee a giant iguana lizard into a swamp covered with hardened duck poop. © Allied Artists.

As Mark Thomas McGee wrote in his book You Won’t Believe Your Eyes! A Front Row Look at the Science Fiction and Horror Films of the 1950s (BearManor, 2018), “The film’s best line comes from Gloria af ter she’s been kidnapped by her 30-foot tall lover. ‘There’s something about his face,’ she tells James Craig.

‘That lef t side that’s not completely mutilated, makes me feel sorry for him.’ At the sneak preview the audience laughed so hard Gloria’s agent hustled her out of the theater before anyone recognized her.”

Of Cyclops and Doughboys

Prolific actor and voice artist Paul Frees provided the growling “voice” of the Cyclops, and appeared (or provided voice) in several other Bert Gordon films. On screen he can be seen as one of Frank Sinatra’s assassination team in Suddenly (1954), as scientist Dr. Vorhees in Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World (1951), and as a radio announcer in George Pal’s The War of the Worlds (1953).

Frees’ voice can be heard in When Worlds Collide (1951), Gigantis the Fire Monster (1955), Francis in the Haunted House (1956), Rodan (1956), The Deadly Mantis (1957), Beginning of the End (1957), The 27th Day (1957), The Monolith Monsters (1957), The H-Man (1958), Space Master X-7 (1958), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956–1958), and The Shaggy Dog (1959). Remarkably, of his work in this field, Frees’ greatest achievement was probably as the voice of Josephine, the 71

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female character Tony Curtis played in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959).

Fans of Ray Harryhausen’s films from the Fif ties will likely recognize Frees as the voice of the lead alien in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) who gravely announces in somber tones, “People of Earth—attention! People of Earth—attention! This is a voice speaking to you from thousands of miles beyond your planet.”

Even more far afield is Frees’ memorable voice for Boris Badenov, the “villain” in the Jay Ward Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series, and, completely unrecognizable, was, incredibly enough, the giggly voice of the original Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy in TV commercials. (I animated four stop-motion Doughboy commercials in 1979, with soundtrack voice by the Cyclops himself, Paul Frees. Six degrees of separation…?)

It has been said by those who worked with him that Frees was the consummate professional. So much so that if, say, he had a hour session to perform 30 seconds of voiceover, he would arrive at the recording studio and spend 59 minutes and 30 seconds regaling the sound crew with stories of his adventures in Hollywood, and then proceed to nail the required line reading in the remaining 30 seconds. And he’d do it perfectly, in sync, on Take 1.

No doubt that “ROAWRRR!” that scared the living daylights out of me back in 1964 was Paul Frees nailing it on Take 1.

If you think this has just been a personal trip down Memory Lane for me only, I hasten to admonish you with the only remaining recall of my high school French: “Au contraire!” Nine times out of ten, movie buffs in the know will perk up when you mention The Cyclops (and we really don’t care about that tenth guy, do we?), enthusiastically speaking of the fight with the boa constrictor, our shared boyhood crushes on Gloria Talbott, and memories of visiting or working in Bronson Canyon.

Independent filmmaker Brett Piper has gone one step further and put his money where his mouth is. Brett has made several micro-budget features, often featuring remarkably well-done stop motion animation, several of which are inspired by The Cyclops. Most notably is Brett’s film Triclops, which proves the old adage that Three Eyes Are Better Than One. So if The Cyclops shows up on CometTV or MeTV or one of the other retro channels, have a look.

“Eye” guarantee a fun time…

Thanks to Mark Thomas McGee and Mark Wolf.

All pictorial material reproduced herein derives from the voluntary, noncompensated contributions of pictorial or other memorabilia from the private collections of the author, and from the select private archives of individual contributors.

(TOP) Voice maestro Paul Frees, known for cartoon characters, the Cyclops’ “speech,” and (RIGHT) Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy. This stop-motion commercial was animated by the author of this article, Ernest Farino, at Coast Productions in 1979. The Doughboy character was originally created at Cascade Productions in the Sixites by Phil Kellison, Joe Raynor, and Jim Danforth for the Leo Burnett Agency in Chicago. Pillsbury Dough-

boy © General Mills.

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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.

RETRO TRAVEL

The

Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention

by Michael Eury Imagine a minefield of movie posters, celebrity autographs, DVDs of rare films and TV shows, trading cards, comic books, Baby Boomer-era toys, cartoon collectibles, LPs and 45s, and cinema-related books (of all vintages), loaded to explode with warm memories at every step. Whether you’re looking for an original Pee-wee’s Big Adventure one-sheet or an autograph of Lash LaRue or a Captain Kangaroo comic book or a Frankenstein T-shirt, this is your destination. Now picture a 24-7 movie room with classic and cult film showings, plus late-night horror screenings.

And a full slate of scintillating seminars exploring everything from the long-uncredited Batman co-creator Bill Finger to old-time radio reenactments. And an assemblage of familiar faces from the small and big screens, like Loretta Swit, M*A*S*H’s own “Hot Lips” Houlihan, live and in person, waiting to meet you. No, this isn’t an impossible dream—this extraordinary three-day event exists, once a year. It’s the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention (MANC), held each September in Hunt Valley, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore.

I attended MANC for the first time last year, on September 12–14, 2019, to promote RetroFan and other TwoMorrows

publications. When I’m a guest or exhibitor at traditional comiccons, whose audiences skew younger than most of you reading this magazine, I often cast a piteous eye across the crowded convention aisles, hoping for that reader with gray hair to wander my way to discover my wares (in addition to RetroFan, I edit the comics-history magazine BACK ISSUE and have written many comics-history books). But at MANC, ye ed wasn’t the odd (or old) man out—I was among my people! Like the guy in a Wild, Wild West T-shirt. And the Yul Brynner/Westworld cosplayer. And Geri Reischl, the convivial actress/singer who played Jan Brady in one of TV’s most offbeat spin-offs, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (my very Brady interview with “Fake Jan” appears in our next issue).

And the friendly fan that informed me that actor Tom Jacobs portrayed random Mayberry townspeople in a whopping 64 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. My people!

Convention History

From programming to guests to vendors, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is a blast from the past. “MANC is a throwback to what conventions used to be,” contends convention organizer Martin Grams, Jr., the author of books and articles about some of the same topics you find in our very pages RetroFan

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(including The Time Tunnel, The Twilight Zone, and The Green Hornet), as well as old-time radio and script analyses. “Over the years I have noticed an evolution in what conventions have become and perhaps for the demographic that attends those events. Comiccons, for example, now attract cosplayers who do not read comic books but rather enjoy watching movies based on super-hero comic books. Regardless of how large the attendance at our show, we still maintain a family community with a relaxed, laidback atmosphere.”

Grams, 42, launched the show back in September 2006.

He had “attended multiple conventions across the country: Ye editor with actresses silent film festivals, Western (RIGHT) Loretta Swit and cowboy film festivals, vintage toy (BELOW) Loni Andercollectible shows, comic-cons, and son. (BELOW RIGHT) the like. There were specific bullet Iron Knight Cosplay’s Joe points of each show that I liked Harvey as Evel Knievel.

(None of Joe’s bones were and those that I felt were terrible broken while appearideas. So a friend of mine, an ing as the motorcycling author named Terry Salomonson, daredevil.) suggested I start my own show and include all the likes, avoiding the dislikes. When I noticed that the attendance was dropping progressively year after year at one of my favorite conventions, having seen the handwriting on the wall, I felt the best course of action was to establish my own show and in the long run provide a continued platform that carried the torch. (I must have succeeded because that show did close up and many of those attendees come to my show year after year now.)”

MANC’s beginnings were modest, at a hotel in Aberdeen, Maryland. With a small slate of guests including Lost in Space’s Marta Kristen (who will appear in these pages in issue #13), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea’s David Hedison, and actress Lana Wood, Grams’ inaugural show attracted just over 250 people. “During the fourth show, held in 2010, the crowd had grown so large that I told the hotel staff that unless they build rubber walls, we could not continue holding the event at their hotel. There were attendees asking for their money back that year because they could not walk through the aisles and hallways.” That expansion necessitated the event’s relocation to a larger venue, the Hunt Valley Delta Marriott Hotel in Hunt Valley, Maryland, which remains the show’s present-day location; a spacious convention center is adjacent to the facility. “The event is so large that they can hold car shows here,” Grams says.

Celebrities and Programming

MANC’s biggest lure is its roster of celebrity guests. Joining the aforementioned actresses at 2019’s show were WKRP in Cincinnati’s Loni Anderson, Big Chill star Tom Berenger, Daniel Boone co-star Darby Hinton, Oscar®-winning actress Tatum O’Neal, Newhart’s 74

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William Sanderson, among many, many others. Previous years’ conventions have featured such celebs as Gilligan’s Island’s Dawn Wells, Hart to Hart’s Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner, The Partridge Family’s Shirley Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man’s Lee Majors and The Bionic Woman’s Lindsay Wagner, Monkee Micky Dolenz, and RetroFan fave Larry Storch.

From my observations and encounters with MANC’s 2019 celebrities, the lines for most guests moved smoothly and most celebs were willing to share a quick story with the more curious and talkative fans. Many attendees simply wanted a photo or an autograph, with most celebrities charging reasonable fees for both.

Some of the celebrities participated in programming where they shared behindthe-scenes perspectives of spotlighted works, such as Bond girls Maud Adams and Britt Ekland appearing at a special screening of 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun, and West Side Story’s George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn doing the same at a screening of that 1961 movie musical. As with moderatorhosted creator Q&As at comic-cons, several of the Hollywood stars appeared on stage in interviews before enthusiastic fans.

Despite the stars being a major attraction, Martin Grams does “not consider MANC a Hollywood celebrity convention, per se, even though we have celebrities signing autographs and posing for photos with fans in a similar setup as other venues. I often joke that our show is similar to a comic-con, but geared for older people.”

Each of MANC’s three days is packed with seminars. Just a mere sampling of 2019’s programming: “The History of Lee Falk’s The Phantom,” “Baseball in Popular Culture,” “60 Years of The Twilight Zone” (hosted by Rod Serling biographer Nicholas Parisi, who is providing a Serling article in RetroFan #11), “Bob Hope and Carol Burnett: The King and Queen of Television Comedy,” “A History of Dragnet,” and a variety of old-time radio programs.

MANC’s movie room is the couch potato’s paradise, cranking out a non-stop schedule beginning at 6:00 p.m. on the eve of the three-day convention and running through the afternoon of the final day. Its marquee boasts an eclectic mix of classic TV episodes and films, some of which are selected to spotlight the roles of

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guest celebrities. Just a few examples of the movie room schedule from the 2019 show: episodes of Route 66, Kojak, and Gene Roddenberry’s lesser-known TV series, The Lieutenant; the unaired 1961 TV pilot for The Phantom (about which Martin Pasko wrote in RetroFan #1); other unaired pilots including Wolf Man Lon Chaney, Jr. in 1948’s The Life of Riley and Kurt Kasner starring in 1958’s Nero Wolf (with a young, co-billed William Shatner as Archie Goodwin); a hodgepodge of cartoons; and a wild range of movies including Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the swinging Matt Helm thriller The Wrecking Crew, the latter featuring MANC guest Nancy Kwan. The movie room remains open all night with horror flicks.

This blend of creator appearances, in-depth presentations, and film screenings adds a lot of meat to the convention’s bones.

Actually, there’s so much going on at MANC, occasionally an attendee might have to choose between a seminar and a favored flick. “Thousands of people flock annually to attend slideshow seminars, watch vintage black-and-white movies in the movie room, and browse treasures for sale on vendor tables,” Gram explains. “Many other events use the word ‘convention,’ or ‘con’ for short, but I often feel the term is used in the

of media subjects and is slickly produced, in full color. Some of the 2019 guide’s articles’ subjects: “Old Dark House Chillers,” a Woodstock 50th anniversary salute, obits for celebrities who passed during the previous year, “The Misunderstood Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis Team,” and Tallulah Bankhead.

Topping off the event is a Saturday evening buffet dinner which includes an awards ceremony and a variety of entertainment, and a charity auction for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It is here where MANC diverges from most other conventions. As Grams reveals, “MANC is non-profit, so the money raised in admission each year goes to the funding of next year’s convention. Celebrities are contracted to minimal numbers so they do not charge at our show what has become known among fans as ‘comic-con autograph prices.’ Every decision we make is what is best for the attendees.”

(LEFT) Two-time Bond girl Maud Adams signs autographs.

(TOP LEFT) Big Frankie welcomes you to the Monster Bash table.

(TOP RIGHT) Monster Bash’s Ron Adams (in orange hoodie).

Vendors

wrong context. Many events are simply autograph venues; no slide shows, no movie rooms, no program guides. For example, a horror convention held annually at this same show every October charges $10 more per day in admission than we charge and they hand every attendee a one-page schedule of events; no program guide. We, on the other hand, provide a magazine-sized program guide with biographies on each of the weekend guests, with informative articles and advertisements that might appeal to the masses. Thousands of fans convene (hence why I prefer the term ‘convention’) to learn something new during the slide-show seminars, suggesting an academic appeal and so much more during the weekend that people have multiple reasons to attend for more than a few hours in a single afternoon. I often say if the majority of our attendance decided to show up for a few hours on one day and leave after getting their autographs, we failed in our mission.”

Grams has every right to be proud of MANC’s 48-page program guide—it’s packed with short articles about a variety

MANC’s seminars may stimulate the mind, but its vendor room delights the heart (make that vendor rooms, as a groovy gauntlet of sellers line both the main convention hall and the adjoining hallway—plus another corridor on the second floor, outside of the seminar and movie rooms). Not only is the vendor room a confluence of everything imaginable under the pop-culture sun, it’s a clubhouse of adults who, despite varied interests, share a commonality: the love of “the crazy, cool culture we grew up with.”

Ted Davenport of Radio Memories (radiomemories.com) came from Arkansas to sell CDs of programs from the Golden Age of Radio. As a self-professed TV baby of the Sixties, I asked him to explain his fascination with radio. “When you’ve grown up with TV, you’ve got a different mindset because radio is all imagination. You have to actually get involved with it to enjoy it.

You’re not passively looking at it. It’s not all spelled out for you.

It’s all storytelling at its best. If they happen to hear one on the air, it [often] sparks an interest. It doesn’t spark an interest for everybody. Every once in a while, you get someone who loves storytelling. That’s how I am—I love storytelling.”

Davenport may be jazzed by old-time radio, but it’s horror movies that Ron Adams of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, digs.

His Monster Bash (creepyclassics.com) booth—with a life-size RetroFan

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Frankenstein statue as its sentry—is a tomb of terrifying treasures for sale, tons of vintage creepshows on DVD, monster mags (including Adams’ own Monster Bash, which he edits and publishes), and monster clothing. As a child he was wired for the weird first by a love of dinosaurs, then by the cartoon Milton the Monster. When Ron was around five years of age, he spied an item at a local street fair that changed his life. “I remember seeing one of the long boxes of an Aurora model of Frankenstein,” Adams recalls. “I didn’t even know what Frankenstein was, but the box art by James Bama attracted me.” After begging his parents for it didn’t net results, young Ron did a good deed for his folks and was gifted the model as a result. Adams, who works in radio, enjoys displaying at MANC because its audience is compatible to the one that attends his own Monster Bash conventions, in the Pittsburgh area. “We are light and fun and it’s like a family reunion of people who grew up with Famous Monsters magazine back in the Sixties, and people come from all over.”

Bryan Schemine’s Lost Empires Movie posters display, with closer looks at some and lobby cards are of his pristine playthings, includbountiful at MANC, ing the rare Batman “Batzooka” with dealers like and Maverick paint-by-number Leon R. Vincent, set. who operates Artistic Soul Studio (ArtisticSoulStudio.etsy.com), “Kentucky’s best little movie poster shop,” from the city of Bowling Green and also sells posters online via Etsy. Vincent approaches the posters from an artistic perspective, having cultivated a passion for art while attending architectural school in the Seventies. His display of movie posters, dating back to the Twenties and running through the Nineties, is impressive, as are his moderate prices and guarantee that he sells only originals, “no duplicates.”

Having collected Boomer-era toys for decades, my geek radar throbbed when passing several vendors specializing in classic toys, ranging from loose playthings for sale for a couple of bucks to store-stock-mint items never removed from their packaging.

Toy vendor Bryan Schemine of the Lost Empires (thelostempires. com) from Maysville, Ohio, falls into the latter category, his display packed with factory-fresh collectibles, including an ultra-rare, mint-in-box 1966 Batman “Batzooka” that I didn’t even know existed until seeing it under glass on his table. “Rather than have an item that is incomplete, or the box is beat up, I’m looking for complete or very nice condition [items],” the condition-conscious Schemine says. “That’s a certain niche and harder to buy. This creates fewer customers because the price goes up, but that’s 76

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what I like for my own collection… and for a lot of customers, that’s what they’re looking for, as well.” Ed Felinski, co-proprietor of Arsenal Models and Blue Snag Toys (arsenalmodels.com) in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, routinely displays at MANC. “We’re here at the convention with a display of vintage toys and memorabilia from the Fifties to the Eighties and small display of our prop replica business, as well, which is the core of our show convention business.” The toys, collectibles, and merchandising dotting his expansive booth represent numerous icons from our childhoods: Superman, Muhammad Ali, Charlie’s Angels, J. R. Ewing, Pogo, Magilla Gorilla… heck, if you grew up with it, Ed’s probably got it for sale, including “the Power Rangers.

Things that kids played with in the Nineties are starting to come in demand,” Felinski says. “As I’m sure you know, there is a time in life where things get hectic and life starts to weigh them down, they start to think of a simpler time when they were children and they want the things they played with, and they’ll spend hundreds of dollars to get back the toys that they played with to try and recapture that simpler time in their life.”

Arsenal Models’ replicas are pretty darn amazing, too!

Robb Versandi from Toys Around the Clock (toysaroundtheclock.com) in St. Petersburg, Florida, deals in both toys and art, but only brought the former to MANC. Versandi is a former Archie Comics artist whose home is decorated with art that would make that make the average RetroFan reader salivate: “Yes, I have some Frazettas hanging on my walls, not for sale,” Versandi says. “I’ve got some Carl Barks on the wall. I’m a big movie serial fan. I have a one-sheet from virtually all of the major comic serials.” (Versandi, a loyal follower of this magazine, will be penning a Super Collector article for a future issue.)

Several vendors peddled vintage comic books, most of which were skewed to MANC’s broader audience, with media tie-in titles (many with dynamite photo covers) aplenty. Maryland’s own Gene Carpenter of All American Comics and Collectibles’ sprawling display wall of comic books was a medley of Baby Boomer memories: Tarzan, Pat Boone, I Dream of Jeannie, Hot Wheels, The Virginian, The Banana Splits, The Untouchables, and many, many more. A comic dealer for 50 years and a veteran of East Coast comic-cons, Carpenter appreciates the non-superhero audience afforded him by MANC. “I love this show! I love these types of shows, so I get a chance to show off material you wouldn’t show at a regular comic-con,” Carpenter says. “I like showing off the movie and TV books. I think of myself as one of the bigger Western comics dealers in the country and in the world.”

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Laura Kooyman of ReinKarnations has been a vendor at MANC for several years now and appreciates the convention’s “family atmosphere.” “I don’t miss attending because it’s a lot of fun,” she beams. “I know lots of the guests, the customers/ shoppers. I’ve already had a couple stop by today and say, ‘How are you doing?’ It’s like saying, ‘Happy New Year’ to people because I haven’t seen them in a year.”

Kooyman, an art teacher, “reincarnates old junk—old vinyl records, board games, toys—into something new… anything nostalgic into something you could wear or use now. If it was headed to a trashcan or Goodwill, I saved it.” My wife Rose purchased from ReinKarnations a set of coasters created from old record labels.

From our RetroFan/TwoMorrows Publishing table, Rose and I were blown away by the enthusiastic response we received from fans. There were some regular

(TOP) Robb Versandi of Toys Around the Clock. (RIGHT) A few of Arsenal Models’ dead-on replicas. (BELOW LEFT) MANC’s volunteer staff. Show organizer Martin Grams, Jr. is standing, center, in the black shirt. (BELOW LEFT) Ed Felinski with some of the retro wonders at his booth.

(INSET) MANC volunteer Laura Ingels.

Next show: September 24–26, 2020 Hunt Valley Delta Hotel 245 Shawan Road Hunt Valley, Maryland 21031 443-286-6821 www.midatlanticnostalgiaconvention.com martingramsjr@gmail.com Admission: $20 per person, per day Advance ticket price: $15 per person, per day

TwoMorrows readers thrilled to see the company’s products on display. I met a few people who had previously encountered RetroFan at Barnes & Noble and who purchased from our table an issue or two they missed. But most exhilarating were the folks who gaped with awe at our RetroFan banner, then bought the entire run—and subscribed to the mag on the spot without seeing anything other than our covers!

Midway through day two of the show we had nearly sold out of our entire stock of RetroFan issues (we promise we’ll be better prepared at upcoming nostalgia shows we attend). Getting this level of support for the mag was rewarding, and if you were one of the people I met at MANC, thank you for reading RetroFan!

It Takes a Village

Martin Grams, Jr. may be MANC’s organizer, but the event runs smoothly thanks to his dedicated team. “It is the convention staff, all volunteers, that run the show,” Grams says, “which is why I let them make judgment calls when necessary. There is no bad decision when the decision is made based on what is best for the attendee.”

Laura Inglis is one of those volunteers, with 2019 being her fourth time working MANC. “I am responsible for the vendors,” she says. “I assign tables, and make sure things run smoothly.”

Of the convention’s appeal, Laura smiles, “We have people from North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio… people are willing to travel because it’s not your traditional comic-con or pop-culture show. It’s much more relaxed. Totally different merchandise. You can walk up and talk to a celebrity and don’t get asked to ‘move on.’”

While autographs and other items are indeed reasonably priced, make sure you bring lots of disposable income because you’ll be tempted by must-have oldies you might not ever see again elsewhere. And you’ll also want to bring a wrap, as the main convention hall’s air conditioning keeps the room chilly. Attending the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention was one of the best times I’ve had in years, and I highly recommend the show to RetroFan readers.

Special thanks to Martin Grams, Jr., the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, and its staff for their hospitality; to the interviewed subjects; and to Rose Rummel-Eury for interview transcriptions.

RetroFan

June 2020

77

WOW! Great work, Michael… but why should I be surprised, since I’m long familiar with your past work in magazines and books published by TwoMorrows? All the articles are of interest to read (which is highly unusual in publications today) and bring back a ton of memories.

I can understand, after reading the RetroFanmail pages, that you want to keep the focus of the magazine on the Sixties through the Eighties (as editor it’s your baby and good call). Despite the census putting labels on groups in the country, I fall into the so-called “Baby Boomer” generation, so it wouldn’t hurt too much to dip slightly into the Fifties, with TV’s Superman and Disney’s Zorro, which slightly slipped into the Sixties.

KEVIN NICASTRE

© Disney.

We’re now peeking into the Fifties upon occasion, starting with this issue’s look at the 1957 movie The Cyclops and #11’s article about Adventures of Superman.

RetroFan has fast become one of my favorite magazines! You have an uncanny knack for unearthing subjects that have been buried in my memory banks for a long time. I hadn’t thought of the original Ghost Busters in decades until I saw the excellent article on the show.

I enjoyed the pinball article, and it reminded me of the many, many quarters I contributed to my local arcade. The Butch Patrick interview was very enjoyable too; it was filled with little tidbits of information I didn’t know, much like articles in BACK ISSUE. I love finding little gems like that!

I got a kick out of Scott Saavedra’s article on letter writing. It is always a pleasure when you write to a celebrity and get a personal reply. It made me think of my celebrity crush from the Seventies, Sally Struthers (Gloria on All in the Family). I read an article about her that disclosed her birthday. Since that day was approaching, I sent her a card and a fan letter, gushing about how I adored her. I thought that was the end of that, but imagine my surprise when I got a reply—a drop-dead gorgeous photo of Sally with the inscription, “Michal, thank you for the birthday wishes, Sally 78

RetroFan

June 2020

Struthers.” It’s little things like that that make growing up so much fun!

When I was growing up I was nuts about the line of Whitman books, particularly their TV line. They were sturdy, thick hardcover adventure novels featuring shows like Gunsmoke, Land of the Giants, Flipper, and Leave it to Beaver. Any chance of giving us an article on them (and maybe a checklist off their TV titles)?

And finally, since I couldn’t find the answers to the Too Much TV Quiz anywhere on that page, I’ll assume I got 100%.

MICHAL JACOT Whitman Books’ TV titles would indeed make a RetroFan-perfect article… we’ll see if we can make it happen one day.

Re issue #6’s Too Much TV Quiz: a production error darkened the quiz’s “RetroFan Ratings” box and the underlying copyrights, making them difficult to read and obliterating the quiz’s key at the bottom right corner of the box. Here’s the missing key: ANSWERS: 1–G, 2–J, 3–C, 4–A, 5–H, 6–B, 7–I, 8–D, 9–F, 10–E. Similarly, there was a production goof in #7’s Too Much TV Quiz. It was missing its second paragraph, which explained that the unflattering nicknames in column one were related to a character and show in column two.

We apologize for these errors and are taking measures to alleviate these problems.

Having just acquired the Summer 2019 issue [#5] and reading the brilliant Matt Mason article instantly opened a far corner of my 55-year-old brain.

File opened to Christmas 1969, when I first obtained a white-suited Matt and his Space Crawler Vehicle. That was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and now that I look back at it with a more critical view, the design put into that toy was engineered beyond any toy today.

The “Space-fuel-cell” compartment was where two D alkaline batteries were put in, and she was ready to go! Sit Matt in it, and it went all over the place… and did indeed crawl: over rocks, stairs, dogs, and in mud. Boy, to play with that today would be just too cool.

I also remembered that I have existing photographic evidence of me once owning it (boxed in front of the half-ton TV, with me in obviously a self-powered transportation device that I’m sure would be banned today because parents today think you could get killed in it, but I endured and survived NASCAR-level wrecks, wearing no helmet in that thing).

Keep up this magazine! It is an outstanding form of journalism in true printed form.

L. KEITH McLEROY Nice wheels, Keith!

I loved the James Bond article [#6], but I wish you could have carried it further into the comics—anyone else remember Jimmy Olsen as “Agent Double 5”? How about Aquaman vs. O.G.R.E.? Or the Man (and Girl) from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.? And the Space Canine Patrol Agents? On a similar note, weren’t there some Dr. Goldfoot movies?

How about an exploration of TV crossovers? Maybe some example of spin-offs, such Green Acres coming out of Petticoat Junction and crossing over with The Beverly Hillbillies? Those shows would be interesting to explore also as they contained some of the weirdest humor on television.

One more esoteric suggestion: How about an article on the beach movie series with Annette and Frankie? I recall there being continuity between movies as well as character bits with Buster Keaton and other comic actors.

You probably have material for making RetroFan bimonthly, which I would love but probably couldn’t afford. Just keep up the good work.

STEVE ANDREWS While Ernie Farino’s Bond column didn’t follow the spy craze into comic books,

© 1965 American International Pictures.

I covered that topic in my 2017 book, Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties (still available from TwoMorrows).

Speaking of Jimmy Olsen, Scott Saavedra will be writing about Superman’s pal in issue #11. And yes, Vincent Price headlined two Dr. Goldfoot spy spoof/ beach party mash-ups, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966). That would make a fun RetroFan article, as would

your other suggestion of the beach movie craze itself. We’ll see what we can do.

And TV crossovers is a great idea for an article!

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: August 2020 No. 10 $9.95

Can I come to your house and play?

RARE GODZILLA TOYS

FIFTY YEARS OF Can You Dig It?

Family Affair’s fabulous...

y Bu

hH L o CH Funny, ur’s g roov y GERI R EIS freaky FAKE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES nc

Thanks for the interview with Svengoolie, a.k.a. Rich Koz, in RetroFan #6. Like correspondent Dan Johnson, I first discovered Sven in the pages of Scary Monsters magazine years before I was finally able to see him on broadcast television, and I’ve rarely missed a Saturday night Sven-cast since my initial viewing of the show on January 5, 2013.

That night’s movie was Revenge of the Creature (1955), followed a week later by Island of Lost Souls (1932). I was quickly hooked on Sven and MeTV. A particularly memorable occasion in Sven-history is the episode that aired on September 3, 2016. The movie was The Frozen Ghost (1945) with Lon Chaney (an entry in Universal’s Inner Sanctum series), but that Saturday evening also marked the debut of a new Sven anthem, “The Svengoolie Stomp,” written and performed

by Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, an early rocker known for hit songs like “Palisades Park” and “Tallahassee Lassie.” The accompanying video features Sven and Freddy singing the catchy tune. Fun stuff.

The RetroFan interview includes some interesting history behind Sven’s 40 years on the air, from his 1979–1986 tenure as Chicago’s Son of Svengoolie to his first national broadcast on MeTV in April 2011, to the Rondo Award-winning horror host he is today. I have enjoyed many of the earlier Sven skits via YouTube, including some vintage Screaming Yellow Theater sketches from the original Svengoolie, Jerry G. Bishop.

Personally, I don’t mind when Sven departs the horror genre now and then for something more comedic like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), a wonderful Don Knotts vehicle I’ve enjoyed for decades.

Attaboy, Luther!

On March 10, 2018, the Svengoolie program provided my introduction to the seldom-seen The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), a unique fantasy musical from the imagination of Dr. Seuss. Sven revealed that the Seuss picture prompted a number

of viewer complaints, but I found it an intriguing oddity. Sven himself called it a “pretty bizarre film” when introducing it.

Another departure from the usual horror format was a one-time airing of the Star Trek television pilot “The Cage” on September 10, 2016, closely coinciding with Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. I enjoyed it very much, as well as Sven-casts of classic TV movies like Duel (1971) and Gargoyles (1972). Also in 2016, Sven showed the Abbott and Costello comedy-fantasy The Time of Their Lives (1946), and in 2018 he launched the Three Stooges into space with Have Rocket—Will Travel (1959). And way back in 2012 he hosted the Marx Brothers classics Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933).

I have to admit that Svengoolie has shown a few duds over the years. The TV movies Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977) and Terror Out of the Sky (1978) and the theatrical film Barracuda (1978) are three examples of less-than-stellar material selection, films that really earned their flying rubber chickens. But even when the movie is bad, the Goolie is good!

My thanks to the “Man in the Hat” Rich “Svengoolie” Koz, his musical sidekick Doug Scharf, rubber chicken mascot Kerwyn, and the entire Goolie crew (“Hit the theme for us, Chas”) for giving me seven (svenen?) great years of entertainment Saturday nights on MeTV. TIMOTHY M. WALTERS

T h e Br a d

“Three Letters to Three Famous People” was great. Loved the zeal to identify and ask about comic-book covers on a Saturday Evening Post cover. Of course, no offense to Norman Rockwell (or Neil Armstrong), but I was far more interested in the Jack Kirby photo and interaction.

Enjoyed the article on Alien toys. What a concept: a product for kids based on a R-rated movie they weren’t allowed to see.

I know of Dobie Gillis, but don’t recall seeing too many episodes in syndication.

For me, it was just weird spotting Gilligan in a beard.

The pinball machine article was entertaining in that I hadn’t thought of them in decades. To me, they were something you played at the airport if an incoming plane was delayed beyond

belief. Otherwise, while fun, I saved my money for something sensible like comics.

Easy early Seventies choice: two fleeting games of pinball or a new comic book? The gathering of so many pinball machines in one place sound cool, though I suspect it’s noisy beyond belief. I’m sure for gamers today, with no end of video options and graphics, a pinball machine is about as prehistoric as can be. Still, no denying, they had their charm.

JOE FRANK

Kathy Garver Ed “Big Daddy” Roth • Spaghetti Westerns • The Spider/Spider-Man & more!

FEATURING <right> Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

Shaft © Ernest Tidyman. Family Affair © Don Fedderson Productions. Godzilla © Toho Co., Ltd. Brady Bunch © Paramount. Howard the Duck © Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

RetroFan

June 2020

79

REJECTED!

C Color ME for a Change!

SPECIAL “COLORING BOOK” ISSUE! SATURDAY MORNING

MISFIRES

Original Kung Fu Babies • Billy Beer Yahoo Laff Round-Up • The Batman/Superman/Aquaman/ Green Arrow/Solomon Grundy Drum Circle Hour

A Super Collection of Coloring Books from Top Shows

Color REB BROWN as Captain America or Yor, Hunter from the Future!

60 Minutes · The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson: Favorite Guest Hosts · Let’s Make a Deal · Rich Man, Poor Man · ABC Afternoon Special: “Stoned“

TV Commercial Characters Who Were German Scientists During the War

by Scott Saavedra 80

RetroFan

June 2020

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!

RETROFAN #10 (NOW BI-MONTHLY!)

RETROFAN #10 celebrates fifty years of SHAFT—can you dig it? Plus: interviews with 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, Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s, and more fun, fab features!

Featuring columns by ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships July 2020!

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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!

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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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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.

EXPANDED SECOND EDITION—16 EXTRA PAGES! Looks back at the creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s complicated relationship! Includes recollections from STEVE DITKO, ROY THOMAS, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and other Marvel Bullpenners!

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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.

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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!

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