RetroFan #37

March 2025 No. 37 $10.95

May the Farce be with you!

STAR WARS COPYCATS

They’re the modern Space Age family…

The

Jetsons It’s a far-out foray of

Freaky Frankensteins!

Everything’s Archie, Josie, and the

Saturday Morning Rockers!

The Glam...

The Slam... of GLOW! with HOLLYWOOD

Build Your Own Adventure books • Crazy kitchen gadgets • Toymaker Marvin Glass & more!

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Battle Beyond the Stars © 1980 Orion Pictures/New World Productions, Inc. The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Archies © Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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There’s also three interviews with Dave conducted by CBC editor JON B. COOKE, two Q+A’s with Dave by guest associate editor STEVEN C. RINGGENBERG, and JEFF GELB’s conversation with the artist recorded during the making of The Rocketeer motion picture. Dave’s sister JENNIFER BAWCUM shares about her brother in an exclusive chat, and we also interview some of Dave’s closest friends, including MICHAEL W. KALUTA, about their memories of the man. Plus: a conversation with KELVIN MAO, the director of the 2022 film documentary, Dave Stevens: Drawn To Perfection, about making the movie and its recent success on streaming services, which has resulted in an entirely new generation of Dave Stevens fans. And, of course, no such tribute would be complete without a heartfelt salute to America’s sweetheart BETTIE PAGE!

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LEN WEIN’s life as writer/editor from creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine, to MOORE and GIBBONS’ Watchmen, and more! Plus the sad demise of WILL EISNER’s P*S Army Preventive Maintenance magazine, interview with romance and pin-up artist JAY SCOTT PIKE, more of STEVE WILLIS, and SHAUN CLANCY reveals the saga of ADRIAN LOPEZ’s Harpoon/Apple Pie humor mags! FRANK CHO cover!

PAT BRODERICK discusses his career, from the Crusty Bunkers to unforgettable work on Firestorm, Micronauts, Captain Marvel, and more! Plus JACK KIRBY’s humiliating return to Marvel in the ’70s, the 1940s KKK-crushing district attorney FIGHTING LAWYER, profile of PAUL BUHLE, SHARY FLENNIKEN interview, 1972 heroes by WRIGHTSON, REESE, WINDSOR-SMITH, and others for Esquire magazine, and more!

Informative conversation with “Big” JOHN BUSCEMA and a biographical essay about the Marvel legend by JON B. COOKE, including an awesome art gallery. Plus we share about the life and tragic fate of BILL MANTLO (co-creator of Rocket Raccoon and Cloak and Dagger), inside comics printer Eastern Color Printing by SHAUN CLANCY, more with SHARY FLENNIKEN, chat with RIC ESTRADA, and more!

CARMINE INFANTINO radio interview by KEN GALE and ED MENJE, JON B. COOKE on Carmine’s stint as DC editorial director/ publisher, ROBERT KANIGHER’s 1989 conversation with STEVE WHITAKER and TIM BATEMAN, World War 3 Illustrated with PETER KUPER and SETH TOBOCMAN, DAVE COCKRUM’s Aurora model kit pamphlets, GLEN CADIGAN’s interview with horror comics writer JOE HILL, and more!

GENE COLAN showcase with TOM FIELD, Gene’s 75th birthday celebration from Comic-Con 2001, MARK WHEATLEY spotlights former boss MYRON FASS’ Heavy Metal rip-off GASM, JON B. COOKE’s visit to defunct comics publisher CROSSGEN, CAROL LAY interview, more with JOE HILL, SHAUN CLANCY’s look at HILLMAN PERIODICALS (publisher of Crime Does Not Pay and Airboy), HEMBECK, and more!

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #37 March 2025

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Columns and Special Features

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The Jetsons

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35

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Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties Freaky Frankensteins

29

Retro Sci-Fi Star Wars Copycats

35

Retro Reading Choose Your Own Adventure Books

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65

Retro Sports Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling and Hollywood

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Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Amazing! Incredible!

Unbelievable! Kitchen Gadgets

Departments

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Retrotorial

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Too Much TV Quiz Brady Bunch guest characters

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Fictonal Rock Bands

RetroFad

By Jim Beard

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RetroFanmail

Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Marvin Glass, Troubled King of Toys!

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RetroFan™ issue 37, March 2025 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

Ed Catto, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Michael Eury, Editor Emeritus. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Ed Catto, Editor, 304 N. Hoopes Ave., Auburn, NY 13021. Email: retroed@twomorrows.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $76 Economy US, $117 International, $29 Digital Only. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. The Jetsons © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Battle Beyond the Stars © 1980 Orion Pictures/New World Productions, Inc. The Archies © Archie Comics Publications. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2025 Ed Catto and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BY ED CATTO

Ed Catto

PUBLISHER John Morrow

CONTRIBUTORS Jim Beard Jon B. Cooke Michael Eury Robert Jeschonek Andy Mangels Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

Mark Voger

DESIGNER Scott Saavedra

ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR Tommy Zieger

PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington

SPECIAL THANKS Jeanne “Hollywood” Basone Kathe Catto

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www.twomorrows.com or through our Digital Storefront at

Geez, that’s a tough act to follow. Hi! I’m the new sheriff in town. My name is Ed Catto and I’m thrilled to be the new editor-in-chief of RetroFan. I’m not thrilled, however, to be following in the footsteps of my great pal, Michael Eury. He, along with his many collaborators, established and built RetroFan and Back Issue Magazine. He did it all with grace, panache, and made it all seem easy. (I’ve already learned it’s not!)

Like all of you, I still miss seeing Michael’s thumbprints on this one. Being the kind of guy he is, we’ve installed a blinking red Hotline phone between our two offices so I can call on him as needed.

So don’t worry.

I’ve been in this retro mindset for some time. A number of years ago, my business partner and I relaunched the beloved ’60s toy­—the world’s first super-hero action figure—Captain Action. This toy was, for me, one of the best birthday presents ever. Our idea was to honor the original efforts, be respectful of the nostalgia, but build something new. And in many ways, we’ve been doing just that.

When it came time to put a title on the business cards, I could have used something like “Founding Partner” or “Co-CEO”, but instead I named myself a retropreneur. I admit it, this is one of those clever-but-annoying made-up words that summed up my ongoing efforts in helping Captain Action ensure “Justice is Done”.

And through our Captain Action efforts, I met Michael, as he was one of the leading authorities on the figure’s history and background. That led to Michael inviting me to write for Back Issue magazine, and to this eventual handoff of the editorial reins to RetroFan. I love nostalgia and I love to read, but I think that RetroFan is more than that. The magical thing about this magazine, I feel, is the way it allows fans to re-engage with properties, trends, and events that they loved with fresh new eyes. It’s more than just watching an episode of a favorite TV show­— it’s to better understand the hopes and dreams of the creators behind it. It’s learning about the ups and downs of these efforts that have become immortalized as classics.

RetroFan is about discovery. It’s about discovering new topics that you might not have been exposed to before. Topics that may be right up your alley, with articles written and researched by passionate, professional writers.

It’s a big tent that RetroFan pitches. There’s so NEXT ISSUE much to include, so much to re-view and so much to learn. There’s a wide-open vista just waiting for all of us—to research and to celebrate! I’m so glad you’re along for the ride and I am eager to keep looking ahead as we look to the past.

One last thing: drop me a line and let me know what you want from RetroFan. Back in my advertising and marketing days, we were all about understanding what the customer wanted. That’s baked into the way I work, and I want to hear from you. Email me anytime, or all the time. I’m at RetroEd@twomorrows. com.

We’ve got a great issue for you this month and some amazing articles coming up in the months to come. So glad you are along for the ride.

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

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Looking forward, Retro-Ed Catto

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Meet the Jetsons The Jetsons crowd into the family’s flying car in this promotional cel circa 1980s. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

BY WILL MURRAY More than sixty years ago, a futuristic cartoon predicted Zoom calls, flat-screen TVs, telemedicine, remote office work, online classes, FaceTime, household cleaning robots and a host of other innovations that didn’t materialize until well into the 21st-century.

That show was ABC’s The Jetsons, and it was the second Hanna-Barbera Productions cartoon to be telecast in prime time.

The Flintstones had debuted two years before as the first ever animated sitcom, and was a solid hit for ABC. Joe Barbera recalled, “Somebody said, ‘What’s next?’ And we went from the rock era into the future.”

“It was very simple,” explained partner Bill Hanna. “We just thought, “Let’s do the flip side of The Flintstones and go into the future.”

The Jetsons premiered Sunday night, September 23, 1962, in the 7:30 time-slot.

One of the staff artists who worked on the project, Iwao Takamoto, remembered how it all began: “One day Joe called a group of us in and said, ‘There’s going to be a new series about a family in the future,’ and that was the beginning of The Jetsons. It was to be similar to The Flintstones in the respect that the episodes were built on gimmickry and gags, only this time the gags are all futuristic spoofs on everyday life instead of stoneage ones.”

The Flintstones was consciously modeled after Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners sitcom, which was then out of production.

Hanna-Barbera took their inspiration for The Jetsons from an entirely different medium.

INSPIRED BY BLONDIE

“The inspiration for this show was the old Blondie movie series,” revealed Takamoto, “which also had a husband dealing with both his family at home and a demanding boss at work. Whereas the stories in The Flintstones were often driven by Fred’s bombastic over-enthusiasm about one thing or another, The Jetsons was structured in a more farcical way, with misunderstandings between the characters often driving the plots.”

No question that The Jetsons borrowed the template originated by artist Chic Young in his long-lived comic strip, Blondie. George Jetson was Dagwood Bumstead, and his wife Jane stood in for Blondie. The futuristic couple had two children, a young boy named Elroy and a daughter, Janet. The Bumsteads had Alexander and Cookie.

George was often at odds with his boss, Cosmo G. Spacely of Spacely Space Sprockets, just as Dagwood struggled to please his boss, Mr. Dithers.

Blondie, the vintage movie series, served as the inspiration for The Jetsons. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

The task of designing the cast fell to several artists, but it’s unclear who deserves credit for whom.

H-B staffer Jerry Eisenberg recalled, “I remember trying to design the main characters, actually. Sometimes, it would be a blend. I know Iwao designed Astro the dog. And I think one or two of the other characters might have been ultimately designed by Bick [Dick Bickenbach]. Or maybe Ed Benedict was involved.”

Bickenback is believed to have been responsible for the final designs. Willie Ito and Gene Hazelton were also among H-B’s chief designers at that time, and presumably contributed to designing some Jetson family members.

(LEFT) Where’s HR when you need them? Dagwood and his boss, Mr. Dithers. Cover art to Chic Young’s Dagwood Comics #89 (Harvey, 1958) attributed to Paul Fung, Jr. ©King Features Syndicate, Inc. (RIGHT) Cosmo G. Spacely was modeled after Mr. Dithers, Dagwood’s boss, seen here in a illustration by Bob Singer circa 2000s. (BELOW) Early Elroy Jetson design by Jerry Eisenberg (1962). © Warner Bros. Studios. Images courtesy of Heritage.

YOUNG AT HEART

Preliminary concepts depicted a beefier George Jetson who resembled Fred Flintstone’s distant descendant. He was streamlined and modeled after actor Alan Young, then starring in Mr. Ed. Jane Jetson evolved from a short-haired blonde housewife to a saucy redhead.

Children were not part of the original family unit. At first, Judy was much younger than teen-age.

Even Astro was an entirely different breed of canine. Eventually, the familiar Jetson family took final form.

In one of those false starts that often plagued Hanna-Barbera during this time, they hired comedians Morey Amsterdam and Pat Carroll as George and Jane Jetson. After recording one episode, the duo were summarily fired, supposedly due to sponsor conflicts since the pair were also cast members of popular live-action TV shows. They sued for breach of contract, but lost. Amsterdam and Carroll were replaced by George O’Hanlon and Penny Singleton, who ironically had played the titular lead in numerous Blondie radio shows and movie features. This cemented the identification with their inspiration.

O’Hanlon, who had auditioned unsuccessfully for Fred Flintstone, once observed, “George Jetson is an average man. He has trouble with his boss, he has problems with his kids, and so on.

The only difference is that he lives in the next century.”

VISIONS OF THE FUTURE

“We’ve taken today’s family and moved them 100 years in the future,” noted Joe 4

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Barbera. “Their problems are the same we find today, but their solutions are more complicated.”

The Jetsons lived in the Sky Pad Apartments in Orbit City, which consisted of buildings modeled after Seattle’s Space Needle. George worked only three days a week for three hours. His job, according to different sources, was either a “referential unisonic digititap indexer,” or a “digital control operator”—which means he’s office foreman for a factory so completely automated he’s the only employee.

“His job was simply to go in in the morning, sit down, and press one button,” explained Barbera. “Is anything easier than that?“ The Spacely Sprockets Company supplies materials to General Rotors. Many storylines hung on George’s frequent work travails, which went beyond routine push-button duty.

As Joe Barbera explained, “In reality, however, George is frequently required to do more than push a button, especially when he is caught between the demands of his family and those of Cosmo G. Spacely, who is engaged in an unending struggle with his business rival, Mr. Cogswell, chairman of Cogswell Cogs.”

The Jetsons (ABOVE) He was almost focused on George! Morey Amsterthe traditional dam from the Dick Van sitcom themes Dyke Show. © CBS. (LEFT) (home, family and Publicity photo of a young work) that were Alan Young circa 1944. also fodder for

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Flintstones segments—but with a futuristic twist that was diametrically opposite the absurd-but-hilarious gags depicting prehistoric retrotechnology that TV viewers loved.

“If The Flintstones featured the likes of Stony Curtis and Ann Margrock,” Barbera explained, “the Jetson family would go to see Dean Martian perform at Las Vegas hotels such as the Sonic Sahara, the Riviera Satellite, or the Flamoongo.”

And as Bill Hanna has pointed out, the color palette chosen to bring The Jetsons to life was also the flip side of The Flintstone’s earthy Stone Age. “Earth shades and pastoral hues were distinctly colors of the past,” he explained. “In their place, our artists referred to a whole new spectrum of celestial blues, metallic grays, and synthetic pastels in order to impart distinctly modern tones to the computerized and climatized world of The Jetsons.”

The Jetsons was ABC’s first color telecast and only new primetime cartoon scheduled after the wipeout of the previous season, which felled Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat. “The Jetsons is the product of over sixteen months of extensive research and planning by our talented artists and writers,” Joe Barbera said at the time. “The feeling around our shop was that the public was intensely interested in what the future held for them in

(LEFT) Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera are joined by the classic cast of The Jetsons Movie. (BELOW) Tune-in to tomorrow! An ad for The Jetsons on Los Angeles KABC. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment.

terms of space exploration, better things for better living, etc. Voilà: The birth of the family of the future.”

The first true nuclear family, one might say.

“This is the right year for The Jetsons, with the space age breaking wide open right before our eyes,” observed Barbera. “Five years ago, the public wouldn’t have been ready for it. But what’s on the timetable today for the future may be a scientific accomplishment tomorrow and old news the next day, the way the things are moving now.”

The problem, they discovered, was making The Jetsons futuristic by 20th century standards.

“Our biggest trouble with the series is keeping enough ahead of actual scientific discoveries to perpetuate the feeling of the way-out future,” Barbera admitted. “We come up with an idea only to find out that science is already producing the product.

For instance, we had to discard six months of work with future jet air-cars when the Seattle World’s Fair had similar models on display.

WHAT’S FOR DINNER TONIGHT?

“The Stone Age Flintstones never gave us this worry,” Barbera added. “We’re stressing the new in visual gimmicks here. In other words, if it’s ever been seen before—anywhere, in any form—we don’t want it for this animated series. But believe me, the fast-shifting contemporary scene is keeping us hard-pressed to stay one jump ahead of the reality of Telstar, Cape Canaveral, computers, robots, and such.”

One of them was the Foodarakacycle, a super food processor which generates meals from pre-loaded scratch. Jane simply selects a menu card and inserts this into the unit. A perfectly cooked meal pops out. After mealtime, the disposable dishes are not washed, but pulverized at the push of another button. The family moved around their apartment on “slidewalks.”

A running joke throughout the series was that even with all these labor-saving devices, George and Jane complained about their tiring automated routine.

(TOP) 1964 New York World’s Fair buildings. Photo courtesy of AbandonedNYC.com. (LEFT) The futuristic skyline of Orbit City. © Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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(ABOVE) Hey, whatever happened to “Work from Home”? The morning commute of the future! (RIGHT) Jane Jetson prepares dinner with the Jetson’s Foodarackacycle in this publicity cell. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment.

(ABOVE) The flying car was routinely dreamed about in pop culture.

This from Arthur Radebaugh’s Closer Than We Think Atomic Age comic strip published April 6, 1958. © Chicago Tribune.

“Although we’ll be loaded with gags,” Barbera promised 1962 viewers, “these are basically warm stories about a family. We promise them no two-headed monsters, no violence, just an honest glimpse of what lies ahead mixed with humor and fantasy. Each week it will be a member of the family who finds himself in the starring role. Even Astro has his own starring segments.”

Joe Barbera cited the labor-saving miracle of the electric dishwasher as an example of how technology spoils people.

“But now nobody wants to have it start or put the clean dishes away,” he observed.

“In 100 years even if housekeeping is nothing but button pushing, women will want someone else to push the buttons.”

STILL MAN’S BEST FRIEND George drove a flying saucer-style Astro was the family dog, voiced by Don Messick, who later aerocar, which didn’t require a parking became the actor behind the even more famous H-B cartoon dog, space. Instead, it collapses into a briefcase.

Scooby-Doo. Astro was introduced in the fifth episode when Elroy Sight-gags like that were integral to The brought the stray canine home.

Jetsons’ projection of future society.

“He was evolved enough in rover intellect to actually “It wasn’t that brilliant really,” allowed communicate in English with his owners, despite his inescapable Barbera, “but we used a lot of gimmicks and (ABOVE) 1975: And the Changes to Come gadgets, and it worked.”

by Arnold N. Barach was orginally As he remembered it, the first thing published by Harper and Row in 1962.

Barbera did as conceptual artist was to (RIGHT) “Ruh-roh, Reorge!” Astro is visualize the America of 2062. “What I did the dog of the future. © Warner Bros. was I created living quarters that were based Entertainment. actually on the remnants of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Circular buildings up on a staff. So I converted those to apartments with hydraulic lifts. In case the smog was up there, you’d just lift the apartment above it. So what I was doing was looking into the future.“ The world of The Jetsons was also modeled on the futuristic Googie architecture that sprang up in Southern California after World War II. Futurist Arnold N. Barach’s 1962 book, 1975: And the Changes to Come, was another huge influence. It depicted the kinds of household appliances and other inventions expected to be common in that decade yet to come.

But The Jetsons was not centered around gadgets, although there were plenty of those. It was the characters who drove the animated sitcom.

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) The hardest working family member: Rosie the Robot.

(BELOW) Rosie the robot sketches from 1962. © Warner

tendency to begin every word with the letter “r”—“Rots of ruck!” explained Bill Hanna.

Messick once observed, “Both Scooby and Astro have these gravelly, what I call ‘dog-produced voices.’ But they’re different.

Astro has a voice in the mid-range, whereas Scooby’s voice comes from a little deeper down. Joe Barbera envisioned both Astro and then later Scooby as not being too articulate. It wasn’t really my decision to make.”

YOU JUST CAN’T GET GOOD HELP

The premiere episode, “Rosie the Robot,” introduced the Jetson’s rotund robot maid, who was described at the time as “an old demonstrator model named Rosie, who has one foot in the junkyard.” But Rosie is also “very warm, efficient and aggressive­—a sort of mechanical Hazel.”

Hazel was the lead in the popular 1961–66 sitcom of that name, starring Shirley Booth as a bossy household maid, and was based on Ted Key’s long-running Saturday Evening Post panel cartoon.

Jean Vander Pyl, who did her voice, created Rosie’s pushy personality. “I really had to rack my brain for Rosie. I thought and I thought. Then, it came to me. I said, “Wait a minute… Hazel.’ This was the gal. She was older and a bit intimate with the boss, she told folks off, but she wasn’t too bad about it. That’s perfect for Rosie.

That’s where I got the idea for ‘OK, Mr. J. Never fear when Rosie’s here.’ They liked it and went with it.”

Vander Pyl recalled that she had played several minor Jetsons roles before receiving the “Rosie the Robot” script, indicating that it was not the first episode filmed. Despite her prominence in Jetsons lore, Rosie appeared in only two original episodes.

“I don’t think anyone expected Rosie to go as far as she did,” Vander Pyl reminisced. “Rosie was born in 1962. I had worked on The Jetsons several times before she was introduced. The Jetsons went to a robot store to hire a maid. All the robots were paraded out in front of Jane, for her to select from. Rosie was not old and broken down, but she was not the new French model.”

Elroy Jetson may have sounded like a boy, but Daws Butler contorted his adult voice to bring him to life. “Everybody always assumed Elroy was really a kid,” he remembered. “For me, it’s like self-hypnosis. You must convince yourself you’re nine years old again; let it go through your whole body.”

THE EVOLUTION OF HANNA-BARBERA

The Jetsons was an important evolutionary step for Hanna-Barbera, which had started producing Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoons during the pre-television era. Their early TV efforts continued in the same vein with anthropomorphic cartoon animals.

But while Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear were popular with kids, the company had to think outside that juvenile talking-animal cartoon box if it wanted a place in prime time.

“As we discovered in The Flintstones,” reflected Barbera, “the man must be humorous, but the woman (even in a cartoon) must be human.”

“The important thing is that its characters are human, i.e. not animals, and that the program has an appeal to the whole family,” echoed Hanna.

“This is what we have to do today,” Barbera admitted frankly. “We can’t make a cat and mouse cartoon today.

There’s nothing new to do.”

Bros. Entertainment.

This thinking led to the more realistic Jonny Quest the next TV season and a host of super-hero shows like The Fantastic Four, Space Ghost and The Herculoids in the years that followed.

The partners had developed a system that enabled them to manage the grueling schedule of producing 25-minute weekly cartoon shows.

“What I would do is concentrate on getting the material and recording,” revealed Joe Barbera. “And Bill would concentrate on getting the work done in production and give it to the animators, and check the layouts and the timing. Thank goodness, because the system worked.”

Barbera also cast the shows and directed the episodes.

THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT

Although declining ratings are often cited for the cancellation of The Jetsons after one season, the reason for that decline is an ironic one. The 1962–63 season was the first one in which the Flintstones and the new Jetsons show were telecast in color.

The Jetsons paved the way for another family in the future: The Herculoids. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment

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Bill Hanna expressed confidence at the time, saying, “I know we’re opposite Disney this season, and it doesn’t really worry me, especially as we too shall be in color.”

Unfortunately for The Jetsons, color television sets were so uncommon in America that few saw the show as telecast, with its innovative pastels and metallic hues. This probably led to the ratings drop.

It did not help ratings that The Jetsons was up against Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on NBC and Dennis the Menace on CBS. As Joe Barbera recalled in his 1994 autobiography, My Life in Toons, “It is a testament to the fundamental strength of The Jetsons that it wasn’t simply creamed by these shows. What did happen is that the Nielsen share split neatly into three virtually identical parts—something like a sixteen or seventeen share for each show. But doing relatively well like that is not good enough….”

The following season, ABC moved The Jetsons to Saturday mornings in reruns, where they were more successful. Over the following two decades, the show appeared on the Saturday morning kids’ block of all three networks.

NOT FADE AWAY

It simply refused to fade away.

“There are only 24 of them, but they kept the cult going for 25 years,“ Barbera reflected.

In 1974, Joe Barbera pitched a cartoon series focusing only on grown-up reporter Judy Jetson and teenager Elroy, but the network countered by asking for a different futuristic animated show that became Partridge Family, 2200 AD. Astro popped up a few years later in a short-lived series called Space Stars, which included a segment called Space Mutts. Astro was one of three dogs who worked for Space Patrol Officer Space Ace. The Jetsons were supposed to appear in this series, but it was terminated after 11 installments.

When Jetsons reruns became popular with college kids in the 1980s, and Hoyt Curtin’s Jetsons theme unexpectedly charted in 1986, it created interest in

(TOP) Bing Bing Bing-bing! Hoyt Curtin, the man behind the music. Courtesy of “snoopy the dog”/wikipedia. (ABOVE) The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. © Columbia Pictures Television.

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Jetsons merchandise (CLOCKWISE FROM THE TOP) Rosey the Robot Game (Transogram, 1962), Hot Wheels Premium Jetsons flying car (Mattel, 2022), George Jetson tin litho hopper toy (Marx, 1963), Jetson’s Space Copter (Transogram, 1962), Jetson’s Space Ball (Marx, 1962), Astro hand puppet (Knickerbocker Toys, c. 1962). © Warner Bros. Entertainment. Hot Wheels flying car courtesy of Worthpoint. All other toys courtesy of Heritage.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

The original cast returned for The Jetsons reboot. Standing (LEFT TO RIGHT) Jeff Hall (associated producer), Daws Butler (Elroy Jetson), Penny Singleton (Jane Jetson), Joe Barbera (executive producer), Bob Hathcock (producer), George O’Hanlon (George Jetson), Janet Waldo (Judy Jetson), Mel Blanc (Mr. Spacely), and Don Messick (Astro). Kneeling (LEFT TO RIGHT) Gordon Hunt (recording director), Kris Zimmerman (talent coordinator), and Andrea Romano (casting director). Courtesy of Heritage..

a revival, this time for syndication. Another motivation for Hanna-Barbera to resume production was that networks were shying away from short-run cartoon series, preferring programs that could run three months before repeats kicked in.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Between 1984 and 1987, for 51 new episodes, the Jetsons lived again. Original episodes were folded into this sequel series. Some updating proved necessary.

“We’re living in the age that was predicted in the original Jetsons,” explained story editor Don Nelson. “All that technology that we had in the original shows has happened. So, now the technology must be a little bit different. I don’t think it’s so much that we have to continue to predict what’s going to happen further in the future with The Jetsons. What’s funny about it is how the technology always comes back to the human side. In The Jetsons, the machines have personalities. The computer talks back to you and gives you flack. Also, there is the combination of high-tech and crazy, old-fashioned Rube Goldberg technology, which makes it funny. George’s computer, Rudy, gets sick, and the robots go on strike and have hurt feelings. It’s that human involvement that makes it interesting.”

While not seamless—the animation was more sophisticated thanks to cutting-edge computer techniques, and a new character, Elroy’s color-changing pet alien Orbitty, was introduced—a new

Twenty years after being cancelled, the Jetsons were back in business.

“So they brought the original cast back,” recounted Jean Vander Pyl. “We were the oldest cast in Hollywood. George O’Hanlon was blind and in a wheelchair. He had had a stroke so they recorded him separately, and of course Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, and myself. Penny Singleton just turned 80. She’s the original Jane Jetson. She got her voice back up. We all managed to match our original voices.”

(ABOVE) Limited edition Jetsons cel signed by the voice cast of the second season of the show (1985). Orbitty, a new character, is seen peeking around Astro’s feet. (RIGHT) Title card from the second season Jetsons episode that introduced Orbitty. © Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

generation of kids got to meet the first family of the future. Rosie and Astro were played up, appearing in many more episodes than before.

“My favorite was the time Rosie feels really old,” recalled Jean Vander Pyl, speaking of the episode called “Rosie Come Home.”

“I guess that’s why I relate to it now; she feels old and her circuits aren’t working well anymore. She sees George Jetson looking at new model robots, although he’s really there to buy replacement parts for Rosie, and she figures, ‘That is all. This is it. The end of me.

My time is up.’ Then, she leaves a note for the family and heads for the junk heap. She’s going to jump into the pressers to commit suicide. It’s really sad. They rescue her and take her home.”

These episodes veered away from sophisticated satire in favor of slapstick, more Sci-Fi storylines aimed at the kid audience. After the revival ran its course, The Jetsons enjoyed another decade as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera syndicated block.

But this was not yet the end.

FLINTSTONES, MEET THE FLINTSTONES

Having the Jetsons meet their counterparts from the Stone Age was probably an inevitable development, but in 1987 as part of their Hanna-Barbara Superstars 10 series of TV movies, they finally did. The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones is a surprisingly complex story in which the heads of both households find themselves in trouble at work.

Enter Elroy’s experimental time machine. The Jetsons decide to use it to take a vacation in the 25th century—which is their future.

Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the storyline, Astro bumps one of the controls, setting it for the past.

When they first meet, Fred Flintstone and George Jetson are mutually surprised by one another, but George soon becomes valuable to Fred in his work problems, thanks to George’s scientific knowledge.

Back in the year 2062, there are frantic efforts to retrieve the stranded Jetsons from their time dilemma by Rosie the Robot and Henry Orbit. But this backfires, resulting in the Flintstones being brought into the Jetson’s era.

A good deal of the adventure involved the two household heads attempting to navigate their opposite ages while seeking to return to the safety and security of their own times. It was remarkable for the fact that almost all of the original casts of both TV shows reprised their roles. Some, like Jean Vander Pyl, doubling. In this case, she voiced Wilma Flintstone and Rosie the Robot. Legendary

The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones! Was it in the past, the future or in 1987? © Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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EEP OPP ORK AH AH

Jet Screamer screams! © Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Every father wants their daughters to love them and (just as importantly) to respect them. But there comes a time when daughters inevitably become enthralled with folks closer to their own age. Fathers blink, just for a moment, and are astonished to find their girls have grown up, carelessly relegating them to a category of the uncool.

But George Jetson gave every dad hope! In the episode “A Date with Jet Screamer”, young Judy is starstruck by the Elvis-like pop star, Jet Screamer. In the end, George gets to show off his drumming skills in Screamer’s performance and redeems himself.

Hoyt Curtin, the Hanna-Barbera musical director, is well remembered for his many contributions to animation. His magnificent arrangements, often used to reinforce the emotional hook of a scene, helped established the soundtrack for adventure, foreboding, urgency, and humor of an entire generation.

So it might be curious that Curtin is credited (along with Joseph Hanna and William Barbera) with writing this enduring tune. It lovingly parodies pop songs and the slang that every generation invents in order to thwart the scrutiny of the older establishment.

“While we don’t see many songs these days beginning with drum solos, the call and response of ‘Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah’ from Jet Screamer and the back-up singing trio is timeless,” notes Ithaca College’s Tommy Zieger .

“These identical triplets, who look like the Andrews Sisters sprouted antennae, fade in and out of the background,” continued Zieger. “When Jet’s telling the story, the girls sing pure ooh’s in simple third harmonies to fill out the sound. But during the call and response sections, they become a new character in the space. This new character invites the audience to sing along, and get down with the goofy, new-age language! Adding to the futurism is that synthy keyboard we hear at the beginning, and bringing us right back to the blue suede, hound dog days is Screamer’s southern accent and rockin’ guitar solo.”

Like The Jetsons, the song would live on… and on.

In 1995, punk bands like The Dickies and The Violent Femmes would cover the song. More recently, the simple —yet hidden—message of “I love you” is celebrated via a plethora of T-shirts and stickers on Etsy.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) Rockin’ with Judy Jetson production bumper.

(RIGHT) The poster for The Jetsons: The Movie. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

voice actor Mel Blanc continued in the dual roles of Barney Rubble and Mr. Spacely. The only exception was that none of the original Betty Rubbles reprised their role.

JUDY ROCKS... AND HER HEARTBREAK

The following year, the voice cast returned for another TV movie, Rockin’ with Judy Jetson, a futuristic animated musical that harkened back to the 1962 episode, “A Date with Jet Screamer,” and its memorable song, “Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah.” Judy and her new idol, Sky Rocker, find themselves battling the forces of an intergalactic witch known as Felonia Funk, who is out to conquer the universe and banish music.

Less successful perhaps in contrast with The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, this production broke the traditional mold as much as the previous movie.

The original voice cast was once more reunited in 1990 for Universal’s Jetsons: The Movie, but time had caught up with some of them.

Daws Butler had passed away prior to filming and was replaced

by Patric Zimmerman, who had been trained by Butler.

“For Patric,” Jean Vander Pyl recalled, “it was a special role because he was imitating his teacher’s voice.”

Most controversially, Janet Waldo was passed over as Judy Jetson. In her place was pop singing sensation Tiffany, who was originally hired simply to be Judy’s singing voice. The change was instituted after Waldo had recorded her lines.

“They dubbed in all of Judy’s lines with Tiffany,” explained Jean Vander Pyl. “To me, that’s heartbreaking. After all these years, it’s just not the same.”

Waldo was devastated. “It’s like part of me was killed. I can’t think of her as Judy Jetson. I think of me as Judy Jetson. And so do millions of Jetsons fans.”

Later, Joe Barbera publicly apologized for bowing to pressure from Universal and the singer’s management to let Tiffany completely take over the beloved role.

Artist Iwao Takamoto returned as the project’s supervising director. His responsibilities included slight redesigning of the cast for modern computer-enhanced animation.

“The difference between the old TV series and this movie,” he recounted, “is primarily dimensional, in terms of the animation process, and enrichment in terms of the story. We’ve taken great pains to keep the TV series’ integrity, its feeling and look. But we also felt that, with a movie’s length and ’90s technology to play around with, there was much more we could do.”

One of the advantages of computer animation was the introduction of depth. When the Jetsons traveled through space, they moved into it, not merely across a semi-static starfield background.

This had been prohibitively expensive in the old limited animation days.

“The major challenge we saw in creating a story for a future was to take the characters out of what had been fundamentally a sitcom situation and broaden it out into something that had a little more substance and dimension,” continued Takamoto. “I remember that a lot of brainstorming went on between Joe Barbera and [screenwriter] Dennis Marx to get just the right elements of the story in place.”

For this story, George and his family are yanked out of their comfortable life on Earth when George is appointed vice president of Spacely Sprockets and Spindles’ troubled mining colony on an ore-rich asteroid. The Jetsons struggle to adjust to living in space while George tries to understand why the mining operation is suffering from sabotage attempts.

Despite its innovative ’90s approach, the movie was not well received. It had a dystopian quality and its focus on environmental RETROFAN

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

DC’s “realistic” take on the Jetsons from 2017. © Warner Bros Entertainment.

Jetsons Limited Edition Maquette Group of 5 (1996). © Warner Bros Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

issues seemed at odds with the original Jetsons’ sunny optimism.

For example, Orbit City is depicted as smog bound. While this was part of the original concept, the Sky Pad towers were never shown as enveloped in dark clouds, but rising above them when necessary.

George O’Hanlon and Mel Blanc passed away during production, O’Hanlon suffering a fatal stroke in the recording studio while doing pickups. In tribute to their contributions, the film was dedicated to them. Jeff Bergman took over voicing George at this point, continuing in the role in subsequent productions. Jetsons: The Movie proved to be Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s final theatrical co-production, making the movie an unofficial finale for the series.

But not the end of the Jetson family.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

The dystopian theme was continued in a 2004 episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, in which George Jetson once again traveled into the past, this time in order to sue over the melting of the ice caps, which resulted in the destruction of his 2062 civilization.

The social conscience theme was topical for its time but at odds with the traditional Jetsons techno-milieu. Amusingly, George used a DeLorean time machine to reach our time.

George Jetson once again traveled through time in the 2017 animated film The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WestleMania! Here, George goes into the past to recruit top historical wrestlers to battle evil

(LEFT) “I’ll take the case!” Birdman and the Jetsons!

(RIGHT) We didn’t see this team-up coming: The Jetsons and WWE: Wrestlemania! © Warner Bros Entertainment.

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wrestle-bots. This was a direct-to-home-media production and far from the Jetsons’ finest hour.

The Jetson family had come pretty far from their pure optimistic first-season roots. A low point was reached in 2001 and 2002 when John Kricfalusi’s Spunco company produced two Jetsons web shorts in their trademark crude gross-out style. Regrettably, this darkly grotesque reimagining proved to be the last Jetsons product co-produced by Hanna-Barbera.

In 2017, DC Comics released a short-run Jetsons comic book where the cast was drawn realistically in yet another bizarre dystopian attempt to update the beloved property.

The most recent appearance of the Jetsons was in a 2024 episode of Jellystone, in which Yogi Bear, El Kabong, and other classic Hanna-Barbara characters travel into the future to put down a robot uprising, during which they encounter George and Judy Jetson. Jeff Bergman reprised his George Jetson.

HAZY FUTURE

More than thirty years have passed since the last Jetsons movie.

Now Warner Brothers is planning a new Jetsons CGI film. Perhaps it will come to pass. What is certain is that despite its original status as a one-season wonder, The Jetsons has become a fixed part of Americana, thanks to a steady stream of video games and comic books, as well as animated projects.

The irony of The Jetsons’ prime-time failure leading to its now-classic status as a visionary series was not lost on the show’s creators.

“It’s not particularly brainy to say, ‘Well, we’re Stone Age here.

Let’s go into the future there,’” Barbera recalled. Although admit-

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

some of the original episodes from that first season, I marvel how Elroy’s television wristwatch and George’s household treadmill that seemed so fantastic back in 1962 have become increasingly commonplace items today.”

THE PRESCIENCE OF THE JETSONS

A wonderful dream of the future! © Warner Bros Entertainment.

ting to have been stunned by The Jetsons’ longevity, he indirectly credited it to his staff of Hanna-Barbera writers and animators. “I think it’s imagination and good stories.”

Looking back in his 1996 autobiography, A Cast of Friends, Bill Hanna observed, “Although the initial lackluster ratings of The Jetsons following its premiere were disappointing, we were still proud of the quantum leap the series creatively symbolized at the time. Joe still claims the show was ahead of its time, and I’m inclined to agree. Many of the futuristic elements devised for the series were remarkably clever and imaginative. Some of the concepts, in fact, have proved to be downright visionary. In viewing

Back in 1962, Joe Barbera predicted flatly, “Everything we think of will be done.” And he was correct.

The tech-dominant world inhabited by George Jetson and his family is still developing in our time. Some of its innovations—such as a capsule that travels through the human body and transmits images of internal organs to doctor’s video monitors—which undoubtedly seemed absurdly far-fetched sixty years ago—have materialized. Civilian space travel is becoming a reality, but the long-promised flying car remains out of reach.

While prototype flying cars do exist, they are expensive and consequently are far from ubiquitous in our 21st century skies. It should surprise no one that in 2024 a Swedish company produced a one-person flying car it marketed as the Jetson One. So that last, lingering prediction is finally coming true….

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

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Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) Harry Matthews, Mike’s pool-hustling boss 2) Kids’ show host Kartoon King 3) Prof. Hubert Whitehead, kooky archaeologist 4) Brady girl pediatrician Dr. Katherine Porter 5) Demanding perfume heiress Beebe Gallini 6) Bobby’s first kiss, Millicent 7) Penelope Fletcher, unsuspecting talent scout for Shirley Temple impersonators 8) Jesse James biographer Jethroe Collins 9) Tank Gates, Carol’s high school boyfriend 10) Marcia’s head-cheerleader competitor, Pat Conway The Brady Bunch © Paramount Television. All Rights Reserved.

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If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong. (Father doesn’t always know best.)

Each Brady Bunch guest character in Column One corresponds to a guest actor in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan Ratings That Millicent’s a great kisser, but she gave me cooties!

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!

COLUMN TWO

A) Hal Smith B) Natalie Schafer C) Abbe Lane D) Vincent Price E) Rita Wilson F) Denny Miller G) Jim Backus H) Melissa Sue Anderson I) Burt Mustin J) Marion Ross

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

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Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

Freaky

Collage: Mark Voger.

Forgive them, Mary Shelley, for taking your creation’s name in vain

BY MARK VOGER In the Frankenstein films of the Thirties and Forties, there was much talk of the “Frankenstein family name”—how it was disgraced by the murderous monster, not to mention malicious gossipers and torch-wielding villagers.

But the true cause of Frankenstein’s fall from grace is the fact that Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel fell into the public domain. As a result, there have been many Frankenstein movies wherein the family name is exploited, if not downright disrespected.

Much as we revere Universal Studios’ canon, the series was the first to commit this crime against classic literature. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man? Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein? Admit it: Universal took liberties.

Subsequent film titles got even crazier, though they are catnip to shlock aficionados. Yes, there’s a movie titled Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Yes, there’s a Frankenstein Island. These have little to do with Shelley’s novel, even as they depict (alleged) descendants of her antihero Victor Frankenstein.

My Top 10 picks for the freakiest Frankenstein movies follow, plus a “dishonorable mention” list. So, tighten up those neck bolts ...

I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

Whit Bissell as Professor Frankenstein—a first name is never given—is the real monster in this quickie follow-up to AIP’s surprise hit I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

He slaps and emotionally abuses his fiancé (Phyllis Coates). He coerces a colleague (Robert Burton) into becoming an unwilling accomplice in his mad experiments. He imprisons his creation, a weirdly buff teen monster (Gary Conway), in a darkened morgue.

Gary Conway in monster mode gets rough with Angela Austin in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. © American International Pictures.

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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) Whit Bissell as Professor Frankenstein takes Conway as the monster out for a little drive in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. (RIGHT) Viewers would get to see Gary Conway’s chiseled good looks in shows like Land of the Giants. Pictured here on the cover of TV Guide (January 25–31 1969) with Deanna Lund. (BELOW) An advertisement for I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.

And if that’s not enough, he maintains an alligator pit.

So, Herbert L. Strock’s film is less about the fate of the teenage Frankenstein than Bissell’s richly deserved comeuppance. I figured him for alligator food from the get-go.

Set-up: Professor Frankenstein is a visitor from England, though you’d never know it from Bissell’s non-accent. The Prof has been lecturing in America about his controversial theories in transplantation. (His infamous surname doesn’t seem to alarm his Yankee hosts.)

“I plan to assemble a human being using parts and organs from different cadavers,” he confides in his assistant Dr. Karlton.

“You don’t dare!” is Karlton’s reply.

“Don’t dare?” the Prof says. “I’m sure that someone spoke those same words, and hurled that same challenge, at that great ancestor of mine whose name I bear. The knowledge, the know-how, is in my blood. It’s my heritage. But where Baron Frankenstein created a monster, I shall bring forth a perfectly normal human being.”

Good luck with that.

IWATF doesn’t evoke the then-contemporary teen world like its predecessor. I Was a Teenage Werewolf was largely set at a high school; it depicted a teen party and presented a rock ’n’ roll song.

In contrast, Teenage Frankenstein briefly visits a Lovers Lane. Otherwise, Bissell continually reiterates that the monster is made of teen parts, in a bid to justify that seductive title.

The climax is in color. The process is not exactly Technicolor… more like Techni-Magenta. Bissell should be commended for keeping a straight face while delivering the film’s most memorable line: “Speak! You’ve got a civil tongue in your head. I know you have, because I sewed it back myself.”

Teenage Frankenstein © American International Pictures. Land of the Giants © 20th Century Fox. Image courtesy of TV Guide Cover Archive.

contemporary themes: television and atomic power. All that’s missing is Bill Haley and the Comets.

The meta premise has the last surviving Baron Frankenstein (Karloff) allowing a TV crew to film a horror series in the original Frankenstein castle. The Baron needs the money, you see, to buy an atomic reactor for his lab so that he can (yawn) revive the original Frankenstein monster.

Tortured by the Nazis, the baron is disfigured with a droopy eye and nasty facial scars. The pompadour—another Fifties touch?—doesn’t help his appearance either. Adrift with a comicbook script and lackluster direction, Karloff is left with no choice

FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958)

Released in 1958 but set in the far-off futuristic year of 1970, Howard W. Koch’s film brings back the O.G. himself—Boris Karloff—to show the small fry how it’s done. Karloff fails at this, unfortunately, but he’s hardly the sole culprit.

It’s a shame, because Frankenstein 1970 — as Marlon Brando once put it—could’a been a contender. The sometimes campy film updates the centuries old legend with a couple of then 18

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Boris Karloff revisits his old stomping ground as the last surviving Baron Frankenstein in the meta horror update Frankenstein 1970 (1958). © Allied Artists Pictures.

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but to ham it up. But the actor never played down his Frankenstein association, once calling the monster “my best friend and benefactor.”

FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (1965)

Godzilla, that giant radiated lizard who left Tokyo in flaming ruins, was clearly a metaphor for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the Japanese filmmakers behind the monster movie classic Gojira (1954)—released in America as Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956)—took on the bombing of Hiroshima squarely in, of all movies, Frankenstein Conquers the World.

Director Ishirô Honda and FX artist Eiji Tsuburaya, the team behind the original Godzilla, reunited for the sometimes silly, sometimes surprisingly profound Frankenstein Conquers the World. This was the first of several Japanese-American co-productions of the period, and it has an American star in Nick Adams.

Frankenstein Conquers the World unambiguously depicts the 1945 bombing which resulted in an estimated 140,000 deaths, with many civilian casualties. The Hiroshima bombing, along with that of Nagasaki three days later, ended Japan’s involvement in World War II. FCTW (Japanese title Furankenshutain tai Chitei Kaijū Baragon or Frankenstein vs. Baragon) amazes out of the box with a prologue set in Germany and Japan during the war with period vehicles, artillery and uniforms. At a sprawling laboratory inside a snowbound castle, German scientist Dr. Reisendorf (Peter Mann) secures an unidentified object in a portable locker. Just then, the Gestapo goose-steps in and takes possession of the locker. After they march out, Reisendorf thrashes his beakers and tubes in impotent rage.

The locker is transported by a German submarine to a Japanese submarine. Once in Japan—Hiroshima, to be precise—one of Japan’s great actors (in a brief role) sets up the story that follows.

Takashi Shimura, a distinguished member of Akira Kurosawa’s acting troupe, plays an unnamed scientist who reveals the coveted contents of that locker: Frankenstein’s heart.

(LEFT) Movie poster for Frankenstein 1970. © Allied Artists Pictures.

(BELOW) American actor Nick Adams is featured in a lobby card for the made-in-Japan monster movie Frankenstein Conquers the World. © Toho Co., Ltd. RETROFAN

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“It’s immortal,” he tells Kawai (Yoshio Tsuchiya), the young naval officer who has delivered the locker. Indeed, the heart is still beating. Explains the scientist: “The heart is a living thing. I can learn from its cellular structure, whether wartime or peace. Illness or injury, we would be able to help everyone.”

He adds that by studying Frankenstein’s heart, he hopes to learn how to grow body parts and organs for transplanting—a crackpot idea in the Forties.

Later, as the scientist begins work on this experiment, a title card tells us the date: Aug. 6, 1945. We see a plane (presumably The Enola Gay) and hear sirens. Then comes the big flash, followed by fireballs and a mushroom cloud. Hiroshima has been decimated by an atomic bomb.

Flash-forward to 1960. In the Hiroshima International Institute of Radiotherapentics—as the sign at the building informs us—we see American doctor James Bowen (Adams) interacting with patients and staff. A dying girl whose parents were killed by radiation from the bomb has made an embroidered pillow for James as a thank-you.

“The story of Hiroshima is tragic,” James tells his Japanese co-workers. “But it has given us a new opportunity to study the cellular tissue of the body. It’s ironic, but science progresses this way. We’ve got to work on turning that tragedy into hope for the future.”

James and his work crush Sueko (Kumi Mizuno) have a romantic dinner at her place, wearing kimonos, no less. They spot a wild vagrant boy (Koji Furuhat) who has been eating local pets. The boy is later captured and studied, and it is learned that he grew up alone in an area of high radiation—in fact, near the destroyed laboratory at which Frankenstein’s heart was last seen. While in captivity, the boy grows increasingly larger. He also develops a flat-top and protruding brow like Karloff wore in the 1931 Frankenstein. Hmmm ...

James makes a confession to his sort-of girlfriend: “Sueko, I was one of the people involved with the A-bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. That’s why I came here. I wanted to devote my life to rehabilitating mankind, not destroying it.” (So, this means James worked for the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer.)

Why is the boy becoming a giant? Why is he looking more and more like the original Frankenstein? Could it have something to do with the fact that he found and ate Frankenstein’s heart?

And how weird is it that Frankenstein Conquers the World is only the third Japanese 20

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(TOP) A wayward boy (Koji Furuhata), who has become a Frankenstein-like giant due to atomic radiation, fights the monster Baragon in Frankenstein Conquers the World. (CENTER LEFT) Sueko (Kumi Mizuno) is menaced by a boy (Koji Furuhata) who has been slowly evolving into a Frankenstein-like creature in Frankenstein Conquers the World. © Toho Co., Ltd. (CENTER RIGHT) Famous Monsters of Filmland #39 (1966), with its cover painting by Vic Prezio, is surely the only cover story about Frankenstein Conquers the World in American publishing history. © Warren Publishing.

(LEFT) Frankenstein Conquers the World—also known as Frankenstein vs.

Baragon. © Amazon MGM Studios.

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(TOP LEFT) Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell) and Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold) are Martian leaders in Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965). (TOP RIGHT) The space monster itself. (LEFT) An advertisement promises protection from being abducted into outer space. (RIGHT) Scientist Karen Grant (Nancy Marshall) tries to help an astronaut-turned-“Frankenstein”-monster (Robert Reilly). © Allied Artists Pictures.

movie to depict the bombing of Hiroshima? (The previous films are 1952’s Children of Hiroshima and 1953’s Hiroshima.)

You’d think such a movie would be accused of trivializing the tragedy of Hiroshima by exploiting it as a plot device. But has FCTW ever been called out for this? I’ve never found a murmur of criticism. In my heart of hearts, I believe it’s because the movie came from Japanese filmmakers who were earnestly addressing an unthinkable real-life tragedy, which they disguised as a childfriendly monster story.

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965)

“We have here, for all practical purposes, a normal human being created out of normal parts transplanted, except for his synthetic skin and the electronic sensory control system, of course.”

No, those aren’t the words of Dr. Frankenstein.

Rather, it’s scientist Adam Steele (James Karen) describing astronaut Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly), who only a select few NASA insiders know is part-man, part-machine. Frank is poised to become the first Earthling to walk on Mars—that is, until his rocket is shot down by Martians who are in desperate need of “good breeding stock.”

Frank becomes “Frankenstein” when one of the Martians blasts him with a ray gun, turning half his face into a Stouffer’s Lasagne.

Adam warns that Frank may become violent as a result. “What you’re saying is, he could turn into a Frankenstein!” exclaims Karen (Nancy Marshall), Adam’s fellow scientist.

And that’s all the connection to Mary Shelley’s novel that you’re going to squeeze out of this movie.

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is low-budget sci-fi, without question, but it is savvy low-budget sci-fi. It rarely bores.

It integrates visuals with sound design. It has two songs produced by legendary hitmaker Bob Crewe. (Both are heard twice each.)

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And someone at NASA opened the film vaults to this production. We see so much cleverly used stock footage of locales, vehicles, machinery and liftoffs that it’s gotta be an inside job. My guess? A near-retirement administrator indulging his aspiring-filmmaker grandson.

The campy performance by Lou Cutell as pointyeared alien Dr. Nadir alone is worth the price of admission. Cutell walks a fine line; he doesn’t wink at the camera, literally, but he does sometimes catch its gaze.

His costume would be right at home in a leather bar.

For the record, those two songs are “To Have and to Hold” by the Distant Cousins and “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be” by the Poets, both real-life singles by real-life bands on the real-life label DinoVoX. The Poets, of Scotland, were managed by Andrew Loog Oldham, who also shepherded the early Rolling Stones. The Stones became superstars, while the Poets got a song on Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Life can be cruel.

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER (1966)

Actually, it’s Frankenstein’s granddaughter who Jesse James meets, but that’s the least of the gaffes in this insane (but endearing) genre mashup.

There once was a prolific director of low-budget films who became known as William “One Shot” Beaudine, due to his propensity for settling on the first take while shooting a given scene. Beaudine had a history with horror, having directed Bela Lugosi in four films. In 1966, he filmed two back-to-back horror westerns as a double feature for the drive-in market.

(ABOVE) Rudolph Frankenstein (Steven Geray) and his sister Maria (Narda Onyx) work on their latest monster (Cal Border) in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.

(LEFT) Movie poster for Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966). © Embassy Pictures.

The second feature was titled—it never gets old — Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.

For starters, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter addresses the obvious question: How does a Frankenstein end up in the Old West? Siblings Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray) have relocated from Vienna to the American West for two reasons. No. 1: The plentiful electrical storms. No. 2: They were wanted by the Viennese authorities for­— what else—carrying on their grandfather’s unorthodox experiments.

Meanwhile, the outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) and his musclebound sidekick Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder) are being pursued by a lawman (Jim Davis). Once Maria lays eyes on Hank, she knows she has found the perfect subject for a brain transplant. (Maria brought her prize possession all the way from Vienna: the final artificial brain made by her grandfather. Don’t question the logic, just enjoy the movie.) Soon Hank is lumbering around with a prominent surgical scar atop a shaved head. It’s not a terrific makeup job, but anyway, he’s a Frankensteinian monster.

Believe it or not, JJMFD has a connection to the movie that started it all, James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein. The laboratory scenes feature recognizable electrical props from Whale’s seminal horror film. These were loaned to Beaudine’s production by Ken Strickfaden, Hollywood’s electrical wizard who supplied the props and know-how for Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.

An outlaw-turned-monster (Cal Bolder) is egged on by his creator, Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx), in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966). © Embassy Pictures.

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Estonia-born Onyx is like a low-rent Ingrid Bergman. But she fully commits to lines like “I am Maria Frankenstein! I command!

You obey!” For whatever reason, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter was her final film.

DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

“The Most Shocking Horror Show of the Year!” proclaimed Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Was this because Famous Monsters editor Forrest J Ackerman has a cameo in the film? Or did the physical deterioration of Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carroll Naish make Dracula vs. Frankenstein the “most shocking?”

Probably both. Al Adamson’s tawdry-but-entertaining film is a classic horror buff’s dream—or nightmare. Besides reuniting Chaney and Naish (last seen together in 1944’s “House of Frankenstein”), the movie has Angelo Rossitto, the 2-foot-11 actor who was Bela Lugosi’s sidekick in three Forties films.

(LEFT) Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carroll Naish team up again in Dracula vs. Frankenstein. They earlier co-starred in House of Frankenstein (1944). (RIGHT) Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J Ackerman, center, is flanked by the title monsters for his cameo. Wholly coincidentally, the movie got wall-to-wall coverage in the pages of Famous Monsters. © Independent-International Pictures.

According to producer Samuel M. Sherman in his 2021 book “When Dracula Met Frankenstein,” the movie took two years to finish; it had four titles; it didn’t originally have Dracula or Frankenstein; two actors played Frankenstein; Chaney and Naish were hired sight unseen, and both actors showed up in iffy condition, healthwise; Dracula’s death was filmed with no optical effects (we never knew!); and the actor who played Dracula was renamed “Zandor Vorkov” for the movie. You can’t make this stuff up.

I remember reading about Dracula vs. Frankenstein (then called Blood of Frankenstein) in Famous Monsters #80 (1970). I was 12, and here was an article about a brand new movie with two House of Frankenstein co-stars! (I couldn’t understand why they didn’t have Chaney play the Wolf Man, though. I do now.) I was so excited to see this movie. But despite my diligence, I never saw it listed in The Phila(LEFT) Zandor Vorkov delphia Bulletin. (not his real name) as a Nearly 20 years later, when I Frank Zappa-influenced finally saw Dracula vs. FrankenDracula in Al Adamson’s stein, it was love at first sight. monster mashup Dracula So, what if it’s cheesy? With vs. Frankenstein (1971). the participation of Messrs.

(RIGHT) John Bloom as Chaney, Naish, and Rosito—no the Frankenstein monster matter what condition they wears Golem-like makeup were in—there are so many created by Tony Tierney. ghosts, so many echoes of © Independent-International Hollywood’s past Gothic Pictures. glories.

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LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

This Italian re-imagining directed by Mel Welles—Mushnik in the original Little Shop of Horrors — has it all. There’s blood, guts, nudity, and a bona fide (albeit, faded) Hollywood star looking miserable in period sideburns: Joseph Cotten, a player in Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and Shadow of a Doubt.

To his credit, the actor gets down-and-dirty as Baron Frankenstein. Cotten makes like Peter Cushing, getting his hands bloody while yanking a dripping heart out of a cadaver; pushing a brain into an exposed head cavity; and sewing up the messy result.

(What would Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock have thought?)

Just prior to the experiment that brings life to the monster, the baron’s sexy daughter Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) returns home from university as “a licensed surgeon.” Tania confesses to Daddykins that all along, she knew about his unorthodox transplanting practices, and now wishes to help in his work. “I am my father’s daughter,” she deadpans.

Then, at the end of Act 1, the baron is killed by his own creation (Riccardo Pizzuti wearing a “big head” prosthetic with a gnarly protruding eyeball). Where do you go when your star is no longer in the movie?

Upon finding the baron’s crumpled, lifeless body, Tania takes charge to protect his legacy—and continue his experiments. Meanwhile, the escaped monster goes on a murder spree, often targeting people who are having sex, long before this became the specialty of hockey-mask-wearing Jason in the Friday the 13th series.

Tania will do anything, and I mean anything, to further her father’s work. She becomes intimate with, and marries, the baron’s smitten assistant Charles (Paul Muller). She transplants Charles’ brain into the body of hunky, dimwitted servant Thomas (Herbert Fux). And then, go figure, she likewise becomes intimate with the “new” Thomas. Tania has such a good time that, in the film’s twisted climax, she doesn’t seem to notice as Thomas strangles her during their passionate undulating. Yep, Lady Frankenstein earns its R rating.

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(TOP LEFT) Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) and his assistant (Paul Muller) gaze upon Frankenstein’s creation in Lady Frankenstein (1971). (TOP RIGHT) Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) cares for her latest experiment (Herbert Fux). (ABOVE) The monster (Riccardo Pizzuti) murders his creator Baron Frankenstein. (LEFT) Movie poster for the racy Italian horror film Lady Frankenstein (1971). © New World Pictures.

BLACKENSTEIN (1973)

It’s not a great, or even a good, movie. But I’m so glad Blackenstein exists, if only for the ridiculous— albeit, irresistible—title. It makes a tantalizing double-feature with its (far superior) predecessor Blacula (1972).

And it presents Strickfaden’s final onscreen contribution (though his name is misspelled in the credits).

William A. Levey’s Blackenstein is one in a long line of movies comprising the horror subset of the so-called “blaxploitation” genre. Others include Scream Blacula Scream, Sugar Hill, Abby, Dr. Black/Mr. Hyde and The Thing With Two Heads.

Setup: Vietnam veteran Eddie (Joe De Sue) in his only movie role) loses all four limbs in a land mine explosion. His fiancé Winifred (Ivory Stone) goes to work for her old university teacher

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

Dr. Stein (John Hart), and pleads with the doctor to treat Eddie.

Undergoing Dr. Stein’s untested “DNA formula” regimen, Eddie grows back his limbs. But Stein’s butler/nurse Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson) is sweet on Winifred, and messes with Eddie’s formula.

The result: Eddie is transformed into a Frankenstein-like monster. He develops the requisite Franken-brow, and even the flat-top, which is surrounded by an Afro. (This was a decade before Kid of Kid ’n’ Play popularized the look.)

Singer Cardella Di Milo plays herself, performing a song at The Parisian Room, a real-life jazz venue on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles that hosted the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Redd Foxx.

John Miller—a sergeant in From Here to Eternity – is hissible in an extended POV rant as a sadistic hospital attendant who abuses

(ABOVE LEFT) In his only movie role, Joe De Sue plays the title monster in Blackenstein (1973).

(ABOVE RIGHT) This photo of Blackenstein cast member Marva Farmer wearing an expression of wide-eyed terror became the prevailing marketing image for the film. (LEFT) This advertisement for Blackenstein calls the title creature the “king of the monsters.” © Prestige Pictures.

Eddie. Liz Renay—a onetime gangster’s moll and stripper—plays a sex-obsessed senior murdered by Blackenstein. (It looks like Renay wore her own sheer “baby doll” negligee in the bloody sequence.)

Strickfaden’s finale is a cultural milestone that went unnoticed. There’s lots of sparkly pyro, like the climax of a Fourth of July fireworks show.

FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND (1981)

For a Universal Studios Frankenstein geek, Jerry Warren’s hot mess Frankenstein Island is a must-see. The Frankenstein angle alone doesn’t make viewing a requirement. Sealing the obligation is the participation of John Carradine, a presence in three of Universal’s Frankenstein movies (Bride of Frankenstein, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula).

Is Frankenstein Island all that bad? Hoo, boy. Those 101 minutes feel like three hours.

Synopsizing this disaster is a fool’s errand. Four men wash up on an island. There’s a cave. There are island girls in animal-skin bikinis who throw luaus, play bongos, and cavort with snakes. The men find a descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein who is—here we go again—continuing his experiments.

The lead is played by Robert Clarke, who worked with Karloff and Lugosi at RKO Studios in the Forties.

(LEFT) The original Frankenstein monster (James Webb) is back, and this time it’s personal! From Jerry Warren’s stinker Frankenstein Island (1981). © Cerito Films.

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Clarke also directed and starred in The Hideous Sun Demon (1958). So, this guy had a measure of prestige in the horror genre, which he all but obliterated by taking a role in Frankenstein Island.

You could call Katherine Victor a member of the Warren acting troupe, if you wanted to be generous by calling it a “troupe.” Her most famous (or infamous) role was as the title super-heroine in The Wild World of Batwoman (1966), Warren’s attempt to cash in on the TV Batman craze. In Frankenstein Island, Victor makes quite an entrance.

“My best brandy, the oldest in stock,” she says as she slinks down a staircase, looking like a retired Vegas showgirl. “I’m Sheila Frankenstein!”

Sheila? Her cotton candy hair is Karl Lagerfeld white. Her plunging neckline leaves nothing to the imagination. No, seriously, nothing. We’re seeing stuff we don’t wanna see.

But Victor seems to be the only cast member having fun with this thing. Clarke looks embarrassed. Cameron Mitchell looks hungover.

Andrew Duggan looks like he’d rather be playing golf.

John Carradine’s not even in the movie, strictly speaking.

(Another Jerry Warren bait-and-

(ABOVE) From left: Katherine Victor, Robert Clarke, Robert Christopher and Patrick O’Neil try to sort out the all-overthe-map storyline in Jerry Warren’s stinker Frankenstein Island (1981).(LEFT) John Carradine gave his all as Dr. Frankenstein making pronouncements from beyond the grave. © Cerito Films.

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(LEFT) An advertisement for the Jerry Warren stinker Frankenstein Island (1981). © Cerito Films. (RIGHT) Patty Mullen stomps through Times Square in Frank Henenlotter’s raunchy horror comedy Frankenhooker (1990). © Levins-Henenlotter.

switch!) When Victor pops in a pair of those “white eye” contact lenses, mugging for the camera while the laboratory crackles, it’s probably the film’s highlight.

A big reveal near the end has Frankenstein’s original monster (James Webb) suddenly coming back to life in a watery cave. The makeup job is a passable rip-off of Jack Pierce’s design. Webb grunts and waves his arms in an exaggerated Karloffian manner. It doesn’t rescue Frankenstein Island, but it’s something.

As for Carradine’s contribution, he plays the specter of the original Dr. Frankenstein, Sheila’s great-great-grandfather, who exerts influence from beyond the grave via astral projection.

(Framed photos of Carradine reappear throughout the film, as a reminder that Warren paid Carradine a few hundred bucks, I’m guessing, to exploit his name and likeness.) It looks like Warren shoved Carradine against a blank wall and started filming. Typical of Carradine’s dialogue in this, his return to the Frankenstein subgenre of horror: “O, disciples of the golden thread! The power ye seek shall be given! The power! The power!” He doesn’t even open his eyes.

FRANKENHOOKER (1990)

There’s more than meets the dismembered eye to Frank Henenlotter’s raunchy horror comedy Frankenhooker. The setup has Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz)—an electric company worker and medical school dropout—mourning the death of his fiancé Elizabeth (Patty Mullen), who was mangled by a self-driving lawn mower. So naturally, Jeff scoops up Elizabeth’s severed head and plots to build her a new body.

Henenlotter is taking aim at several deserving targets with his seemingly comic-book plot. He contrasts New Jersey suburbia against New York’s seamy underbelly. He sends up the “slasher” genre of the Eighties, when Jason, Freddy and Leatherface ruled, and Fangoria magazine published entrails-packed movie stills.

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(ABOVE LEFT) Patty Mullen gets the juice as the Frankenhooker. (LEFT) Amateur scientist Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) sorts through body parts in his quest to construct the perfect body for his late wife.

(ABOVE) The movie poster for Frank Henenlotter’s Frankenhooker. © Levins-Henenlotter.

And, not for nuthin’, Henenlotter also pokes fun at himself.

After his debut feature Basket Case (1982) became a cult hit on the midnight movie circuit—a real feat in the burgeoning VHS years—Henenlotter was cast as a wunderkind of horror. With Frankenhooker, the director out-Henenlotters himself.

When Jeff crosses the Hudson from Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, into New York City in search of hookers for their body parts, it’s like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die meets Re-Animator. Henenlotter brings us into a bygone New York, when Times Square was still a dirty, scary place—before Mayor Giuliani Disney-fied it. Once Jeff revives Elizabeth, her vocabulary is limited to “Wanna date? Need some company? Got any money?” Any johns with which she has contact are electrocuted.

Watch for cameos by horror host John Zacherle (as a manic TV weatherman) and Louise Lasser (as Jeff’s passive-aggressive mama). Basket Case alum Beverly Bonner plays the head of a sex worker advocacy group, H.O.O.K.E.R., which stands for Hold Onto Our Knowledge of Equal Rights.

Fair warning: This is not your great-grandfather’s Frankensteinian comedy. The R-rated Frankenhooker is often downright nasty. But for all of its blood, guts and exploding hookers, the movie is played for laughs.

DISHONORABLE MENTION

There have been scads, literally scads, more. Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) was supposed to be a lady monster, but even the

movie posters showed her/him shirtless with hairy pecs! How to Make a Monster (1958) revived the teenage Frankenstein. Japan’s War of the Gargantuas(1966) was a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World, though all references to FCTW were omitted from the English dub. In Universal’s Munster, Go Home! (1966), Fred Gwynne reprised his TV character Herman Munster.

In Mexico’s Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter (1972), the masked wrestler’s blood is coveted by you-know-who. Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973), a.k.a. Flesh for Frankenstein, was rated X. Italy’s Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1974) starred Rossano Brassi as “Count” Frankenstein. See also The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie (two versions, in 1984 and 2012), The Monster Squad (1987) and others.

Last year saw the release of the rom-com Lisa Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro’s remake starring Oscar Isaac is slated for release this year. Flaming windmills, exploding labs and bubbling sulfur pits couldn’t put an end to the Frankenstein monster. Ol’ Flat Top just keeps lumbering back.

MARK VOGER is the author and designer of seven books for TwoMorrows Publishing including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy and Britmania. When he was little, just the word Frankenstein itself scared him, even though he didn’t yet know what it meant. Please visit him at MarkVoger.com.

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UPDATE #1

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RETRO SCI-FI

Space Opera Copycats of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

BAWHOOOOM!

The Cataclysmic Explosion of the Death Star was the climax of the original Star Wars, released in May 1977 (retitled, much later, as Star Wars: Episode IV–A New Hope). The Death Star—planet-shattering super-weapon of the wicked Galactic Empire—was destroyed by Force-wielding farm-boy-turned-pilot Luke Skywalker, scattering shards of itself in all directions across the starry firmament. (Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, was interviewed in RetroFan #5 –RetroEd.) As big of a hit as that movie became (the highest-grossing film of all time for the next five years), it was sure to inspire a similar big bang in Hollywood, scattering copycat space operas across movie theaters worldwide. Science fiction fans had good reason to expect a new golden age of space opera cinema, with visions of thrilling struggles on distant worlds powered by bigger budgets and more advanced filmmaking techniques than ever before.

That isn’t quite what happened, though. Star Wars did seed a cinematic space opera boom, but the results did not always reach the heights achieved by director George Lucas and the stalwart special effects wizards at Industrial Light and Magic.

Obi-Wan-Kenobi visits the cloning facilities on the lost 13th colony of Earth the planet Kamino in Star (while uttering exotic profaniWars: Episode II – Attack of ties like “frak” and “felgercarb” the Clones (2002). © Disney. along the way).

Though Galactica was one of the first copycats to hit the big screen after Star Wars, it was actually the pilot episode of a new weekly TV series set to air on the ABC network… and it had a lot going for it. The cast was led by Lorne Greene, a venerable actor best known for playing patriarch Ben Cartwright on the long-running NBC-TV Western series, Bonanza. The special effects were created by Apogee, a studio formed by John Dykstra and

FRAK THAT FELGERCARB, YOU DAGGIT

At first, it seemed the space opera boom would live up to the hopes of fans. Case in point, Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World, which premiered in theaters just over a year after the release of Star Wars.

Instead of hordes of jackbooted, armored stormtroopers, the humans of Battlestar Galactica fought for survival against hordes of jackbooted, armored robots called Cylons. Betrayed by a cosmic Benedict Arnold, the remnants of humanity escaped the robotic holocaust in a ragtag fleet of starships, embarking on a quest for

Battlestar Galactica debuts on TV screens in the US. Fantasy painter Frank Frazetta supplied three images to help the launch. © Universal Studios.

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Even Caroline Munro couldn’t help David Hasselhoff save Starcrash. © Nat and Patrick Wachsberger Productions.

several colleagues from Industrial Light and Magic, the effects house that had worked on Star Wars. The series was developed and produced by Glen A. Larson, the mind behind hit series like The Six Million Dollar Man. As for the money, each episode of the show was allocated a budget of a million bucks—historically high at the time.

The success of Battlestar Galactica seemed inevitable… until it wasn’t. After the theatrical release of Saga of a Star World on July 8, 1978, the weekly Galactica series hit the small screen on September 17, 1978. In spite of high ratings out of the gate, the show ran out of steam and ended up flushed down the waste chute after a single 24-episode season. (Marvel’s Battlestar Galactica was covered in our sister publication, Back Issue magazine #89 –RetroEd.) It was time for a new hero to save the day, a larger-than-life protagonist with the moxie to propel the space opera boom to brave new heights.

That hero’s name was David Hasselhoff.

BIDDI-BIDDI-BIDDI

A scantily clad space princess with wicked intentions! A female fighter pilot dressed in skintight spandex! A bare-chested bad guy called Tigerman! A sidekick robot with the voice of Bugs Bunny!

With all that and more going for it, how could Buck Rogers in the 25th Century possibly go wrong?

Based on a classic character created in 1928, Buck was updated

by Battlestar Galactica producer Glen Larson. This time, Larson went for a more light-hearted, rollicking tone, emphasizing action and humor over gloom and doom.

HOFF… IN… SPACE !

In December 1978, not long after the TV debut of Battlestar Galactica, the Italian film Starcrash landed on movie screens—and yes, “The Hoff” was one of its stars. As Prince Simon, Hasselhoff starred alongside the Tony-winning (and eventually Academy Award-winning) Christopher Plummer… and a cast whose names were not quite so well-known to the general public. The poster promised a thrilling epic with breathtaking dogfights in space, gunslinging, helmeted bad guys, lightsaber-like weapons, and a scantily clad female warrior… but the reality did not live up to the promise.

With a derivative script, cheap special effects, problematic performances, and an overall shoddy look and feel, Starcrash did not win over many moviegoers.

Another space opera savior would have to arise… one with a classic pedigree… glitzy 1970s style… … and a big ol’ side order of cheese.

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Buck Rogers also took a page from Star Wars’ merchandising playbook with these Mego figures and spaceships. © Universal Studios.

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Larson and his team developed a full-length pilot that debuted as a theatrical film in March 1979. Gil Gerard starred as Buck, a 20th century astronaut who awakens to a brave new world of adventure in the 25th century after spending hundreds of years adrift in cryogenic hibernation.

Gerard brought an irreverent 1970s attitude to the far future as he foiled villainous plots and battled alien warriors with the help of sexy wingwoman Wilma Deering (played by Erin Gray) and sassy Twiki the robot (voiced by Man of a Thousand Voices, Mel Blanc). Twiki was always ready with a quip and his trademark catch-phrase, “Biddi-BiddiBiddi,” an electronic noise he made each time he used human speech.

The theatrical release made enough of a splash that NBC ordered up a weekly TV series. Debuting in September 1979, the Buck TV show did well enough in the ratings to make it to a second season.

Unfortunately, an actors’ strike cut that season short at 11 episodes, and Buck stopped there. Yet another space opera copycat had flamed out… but it wouldn’t be the last, or even the biggest.

Not even close.

THE MOUSE’S HOLE

No actors quite personify the space opera genre like Ernest Borgnine and Slim Pickens. Why else would a major studio like Walt Disney Productions cast them in its sure thing answer to Star Wars?

Released in December 1979, The Black Hole seemed poised to scoop up Death Star-loads of yummy Star Wars cash. Marketing for the film promised breakneck action, exotic starship settings, cute floating robots called V.I.N.CENT. and BO.B, and a Darth Vader-adjacent killer droid named Maximillian. (Boo! Hiss!) Best of all, with the coffers of Disney opened wide to fund the film, and groundbreaking new special effects technology in the mix, it seemed a memorable spectacle was guaranteed for all.

Sybil Danning and Richard Thomas grill Lost In Space’s Marta Kristen in Battle Beyond the Stars. © Disney.

Jack Kirby’s The Black Hole newspaper adaptation ran from Sept. 2, 1979–Feb. 24, 1980, for 26 installments in newspapers’ Sunday Comic Sections. © Disney. Courtesy of Heritage.

Instead, audiences were treated to a less than thrilling tale of a Captain Nemo mad scientist type slowly going down a cosmic bathtub drain. The film turned a profit and garnered two Academy Award nominations (for cinematography and visual effects) but never caught fire like Star Wars, in spite of the rayguns, robots, evil droid, and the presence of Borgnine (and voice of Pickens as BO.B.).

(Disney got the last laugh, of course, when it bought Lucasfilm and all of Star Wars decades later.)

Did Hole fizzle because of competition from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which opened two weeks earlier? Were audiences confused by the film’s PG rating, the first ever for a Walt Disney picture? Or did it just lack the snap of Star Wars, the kind of storytelling magic that makes moviegoers return for repeat viewings?

Whatever went wrong, one thing was certain: The Black Hole didn’t kill the space opera boom. By the time the next Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, premiered in May 1980, other movies were already lining up to tap the box office in its wake.

Did they realize they didn’t have to be as good as Empire to take advantage of the good will fans felt for it? Consider Battle Beyond the Stars, and you be the judge.

TITANIC GENIUS MEETS JOHN-BOY

Quick! Space operas featuring a boyishly handsome hero and a roguish space cowboy become two of the biggest movies of all time! What actors do you hire to bring similar star quality to your forthcoming rip-off picture?

If you guessed Richard “John-Boy” Thomas and George “Banacek” Peppard, you win the kewpie doll!

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When B-movie impresario Roger Corman spun up this space opera flick, he signed Richard Thomas of the long-running TV series The Waltons for the lead role of Shad the farmer, a Luke Skywalker stand-in who sets out to recruit mercenaries for a mission and ends up becoming a warrior pilot. For the Han Solo clone, literally named Space Cowboy, Corman snagged George Peppard, who’d played the titular private eye in the TV series Banacek (and years later, hit it big as “Hannibal” Smith in the NBC series The A-Team). Corman also scored Robert Vaughn, who’d played Napoleon Solo on TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s, for the role of Gelt, a space assassin in the mold of a character he’d played in the film The Magnificent Seven… an awesome callback, since Battle was pretty much The Magnificent Seven in space.

The story might have been cribbed from The Magnificent Seven (which itself was inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai); the characters and style may have been straight out of Star Wars 101; and the cast might have been less than A-listers; but the film featured production design and special effects from future superstar producer/director James Cameron. Cameron, who went on to greatness with The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, Avatar, and more, jumped in when the first art director lost the gig. His work on Battle was well-received and is considered his first big break in the business.

Still, Battle was no Star Wars. Corman turned a profit, but the movie was nowhere near a smash hit when it premiered in July 1980.

The Hollywood space race was far from over, though. Filmmakers already had another powerhouse ready to charge the box office, an archetypal space opera hero who had been fighting the good fight onscreen at least as long as Buck Rogers.

FLASH IN THE PAN

Could Flash Gordon be the one to outclass the Star Wars films that had been inspired to some degree by his long-ago adventures on planet Mongo?

Flash! Ah-ahhhh! (You get this reference to the theme music or you don’t.)

Sam J. Jones rides to the rescue as the hero in Flash Gordon (1980). © King Features Syndicate.

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Outclass, no. Outcamp, definitely.

For this late-1980 release, producer Dino De Laurentiis spared no garish costume, over-the-top sight gag, or hammy performance to bring the classic hero of comics and old-time movie serials back to the big screen. The synchronicity seemed especially perfect, as Flash now stood poised to snatch back the crown of space opera supremacy from George Lucas, who’d only made Star Wars after De Laurentiis had refused to sell him the rights to Flash.

Hitting theaters on the heels of The Empire Strikes Back, though, Flash Gordon had the look of a sci-fi-inspired acid trip. The story leaned heavily on humor, and the sets, costumes, and script infused the proceedings with layers of camp and disco style.

With a football-star-out-of-water as its hero and a villainous Ming the Merciless in the spirit of RuPaul’s Drag Race before Drag Race existed, Flash Gordon twisted the classic space adventure into a bizarre pageant of outrageous design choices and conflicted sensibilities. Every frame blazed with primary colors galore, recalling Flash’s glory days in the comic strips from King Features Syndicate… plus a cartoony reliance on silliness, slapstick humor, and childish simplicity that brought the concept back to its kid-friendly roots. But that approach just didn’t quite connect with a general audience used to fare like the Star Wars franchise.

Money was made, but not as much as expected. Some moviegoers loved it (and still do), but not enough to fuel a sequel (if such a thing were even possible after a Battle of the Death Star-level feud between De Laurentiis and star Sam J. Jones). In the end, there are only two things that most people can agree on when it comes to Flash Gordon.

One, there can be too much gold lamé and red Lycra in a sci-fi movie. And two, the theme song by Queen, propelled by the celestial vocals of Freddie Mercury, truly rocks.

PART ALIEN… PART HUMAN… ALL NIGHTMARE!

When Captain Kirk returned to the big screen in June 1982, this time in a powered-up second Star Trek film—The Wrath of Khan—

retro Sci-fi

(LEFT) “Part Alien…Part Human… All Nightmare” It’s just another day on Forbidden World. (RIGHT) Vince Edwards and David Mendenhall are two Space Raiders. © Concorde-New Horizons. Poster Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

studio execs knew they needed a new hero to steal his thunder… someone who, like Kirk, knew his way around the space opera genre.

Reenter none other than Roger Corman, the driving force behind Battle Beyond the Stars. Corman was well prepared to jump back into the sci-fi fray, applying everything he’d learned on Battle, even recycling footage from that film in his new opus, Forbidden World.

More a horror tale in the vein of Ridley Scott’s Alien (which had made a gruesome splash in 1979), Forbidden World featured a runaway genetically engineered bug monster that reduces the inhabitants of a remote research outpost to piles of delicious goo.

“Part alien, part human...all nightmare!” was the tag line, and the low-budget production delivered, especially on the “nightmare” part. Audiences did not flock to this schlock in droves.

That didn’t stop Corman from trying again, though. In July 1983, soon after Return of the Jedi capped off the Star Wars trilogy with another box office big bang, Corman released another cosmic shoot-’em-up, Space Raiders.

As he’d done with Forbidden World, he incorporated recycled footage from Battle Beyond the Stars, which, let’s face it, could get confusing for viewers who’d seen either or both of those movies.

As for the story, it stayed true to the genre with plenty of ray gun shootouts, spaceship fights, explosions with thunderous sound effects defying the laws of physics in a vacuum, and aliens with abundant rubber appliances stuck to their noggins. The trailer tag

line set the stage: “The action explodes as the fight for freedom races across the universe!”

Sadly, Space Raiders did not live up to its billing. The budget was lower than rock-bottom, the creative spark was barely a flicker, and the picture flopped as Forbidden World had done before it.

In spite of these two clones’ failures, however, there’s still something about their sheer, cheap cheesiness that is perhaps entertaining in its own right. It could be argued that these Corman cash-grabs are so bad they’re almost good.

Other movies of the era reached higher, and didn’t do much better in the end.

PUTTING YOU IN OUTER SPACE

What better way to outshine the Star Wars films than to go to the one place they’d never gone? Specifically, the Third Dimension!

That was the plan for Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. Columbia Pictures released this film one week before Return of the Jedi, so they must have been confident in the selling power of its gimmick. Bringing 3-D effects to a modern-day space opera must have seemed like the hottest twist ever, especially in an era when 3-D filmmaking was starting to take off again.

What better way to make audiences jump than to have the beams of ray guns blast off the screen at them? Or to make spaceships seem to hurtle across the theater, no longer bound to a two-dimensional screen?

The trailer called it, “The first movie that puts you in outer space!” The promise was there, great riches just ripe for the taking as legions of fans grabbed their 3-D glasses and immersed themselves in the epic saga of Peter (Rich Man, Poor Man) Strauss and Molly (Sixteen Candles) Ringwald rescuing three marooned women from a psychotic drug lord called Overdog, on a lackluster post-apocalyptic planet rife with fembots and giant Amazon women.

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Spacehunter’s Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwald as they adventure in the Forbidden Zone. RetroEd took a date to this movie. It clearly wasn’t a good date movie. © Sony.

Needless to say, the dynamite concept and resulting film were all in on making the most of the 3-D effects.

And Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone did not deliver on Columbia’s high hopes to horn in on George Lucas’s turf.

YOU GOT FANTASY IN MY SPACE OPERA

With so many failed clones in the rearview mirror, Hollywood continued to seek new twists to enliven their Star Wars copycats.

Such was the root of Krull, another post-Return of the Jedi release with a twist. This time, the creators decided to lean into epic fantasy as a way to freshen the space opera genre. The result, according to Variety, was a “hodgepodge of Excalibur meets Star Wars.”

Sounds like it might just work, doesn’t it? Especially with accomplished British director Peter Yates at the helm, a score by James Horner, a fat budget, and the marketing might of Columbia Pictures (hedging their bets by releasing Krull just two months after Spacehunter).

But then audiences found themselves spending two hours on the dull, distant planet of Krull, and the not-so-magic spell was broken faster than the movie’s trademark “Glaive” throwing star weapon could chop the braids off horny Kegan (played by Liam Neeson, who ironically went on to play Qui-Gon Jinn in an actual Star Wars movie, Episode I – The Phantom Menace).

The fantasy and sci-fi elements just didn’t gel in a crowdpleasing way. Like so many other copycat efforts of the era, it couldn’t hold a lightsaber to the Star Wars franchise.

Though there are those who might argue that even the Star Wars franchise itself couldn’t do that, at least when it came to the prequels.

“LUKE, I AM YOUR COPYCAT”

In the decades since the release of the original Star Wars trilogy, the tide of space opera and sci-fi films and TV shows has continued to rise, not always with spectacular results.

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Liam Neeson in Krull. © Sony Pictures

Even films guided by George Lucas himself—the Star Wars prequel trilogy, for example, starting in 1999—have suffered by comparison with the original films. In a way, Episodes I–III—and the sequel trilogy of Episodes VII–IX—were the ultimate copycats, trying to recapture the magic of Star Wars from within the same cinematic universe.

But perhaps that magic has been best realized elsewhere, in big-budget, trailblazing films like Blade Runner, Aliens, Avatar, and Dune Parts 1 and 2… movies that might not have happened when they did without the widespread interest in science fiction spurred by the original Star Wars trilogy.

We still have that trilogy to thank—along with some of the not-so-great copycats from Corman, De Laurentiis, and the rest— for giving us visions of worlds beyond our own and futures filled with excitement, hope, and laughter.

Not all of it intentional.

ROBERT JESCHONEK is an envelopepushing, USA Today bestselling author whose articles, fiction, and comics have been published around the world. He has written official Star Trek, Doctor Who, Captain Midnight, and Green Hornet fiction and has scripted comics for DC, AHOY, and others.

His stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Pulphouse, Black Cat Weekly, and many other publications. His slipstream novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, was named one of Booklist’s Top Ten First Novels for Youth. He won an International Book Award, a Scribe Award for Best Original Novel, and the grand prize in Pocket Books’ Strange New Worlds contest. Visit him online at www.bobscribe.com.

RETRO READING

“As contagious as chicken pox.”

That’s how New York Times correspondent Aljean Harmetz described a paperback book series she observed her daughter becoming obsessed with reading at the time—the time being the early 1980s and the series, Choose Your Own Adventure. In the years that followed, CYOA would become jaw-droppingly popular among eight- to 13-year-olds. It proved to become a children’s book phenomenon of epic proportions—is it a game? Is it a book? Is it a… gamebook? Put simply, the CYOA franchise totally blew the freakin’ minds of young readers, mainly Gen X middle-schoolers who feverishly bought copies during the late ’70s and through the ’80s in droves.

In that dawning age of Atari and Nintendo, the real miracle of CYOA was to divert, however fleetingly, the collective attention span of kids away from the allure of video games and to get girls and boys to read actual books. And, in retrospect, the CYOA publishing legacy is nothing less than staggering. CYOA was the fourth most successful kids book series of all time, which, by the

end of the 20th Century, would sell 250 Can you find the million copies worldwide. Between 1979 unicorn? An amazand 1998, those millions, more than a few ing array of Choose translated into as many as 40 languages, Your Own Advenincluded 184 different titles in the primary ture covers. series published in paperback by Bantam— © Chooseco LLC. not to mention (take a breath) 52 volumes in the Bantam Skylark CYOA series for readers 7–10; 12 CYOA Walt Disney books; a pair of Choose Your Own Super Adventures; six CYOA: Passport; and, perhaps inspired by the ’90s Goosebumps craze, 18 Choose Your Own Nightmare selections. There were also 18 Young Indiana Jones tie-ins; three Star Wars versions; a six-volume science fiction spin-off called Space Hawks; and even a kiddie series under the umbrella title, Choose Your Own First Adventure.1

1 Those listed here reflect only the Bantam catalog’s original CYOA trademarked series and their spin-offs, and none from subsequent publishers.

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THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

The origin saga of CYOA, an oft-told tale in the publishing realm, is the stuff of industry legend, a success boasting two fathers and numerous midwives (in the guise of agents, editors, and writers), a creation 12 years in the making that began with a stymied Manhattan antitrust/entertainment lawyer thinking up bedtime stories on the fly. One night in 1969, an exhausted Ed Packard was concocting a yarn for his two daughters, Caroline and Andrea.

“I was tired from a long day at work,” he told the Marketplace website, “and I couldn’t think of what should happen next. So I asked them. I got two different answers. I could sense that this was an unusual approach. They could not just identify with the main character; they could be the main character.”

Struck by that experience and the notion of giving readers a choice of different endings, Packard wrote his first book, The Adventures of You: Sugarcane Island, during the train commute between his law office in the city and his suburban Connecticut home.

Packard’s effort was then shopped around by an enthusiastic agent he enlisted, but the concept failed to catch any publisher interest, with one responding, “It’s hard enough to get children to read, and you’re just making it harder, with all these choices.” And so, the manuscript languished for five years until Packard, while on a ski getaway, picked up the Spring 1975 issue of Vermont Life.

Therein, Packard found the perfect publishing team in Connie and Ray Montgomery (LEFT) The Adventures of You Series: Sugarcane Island (Archway 1978).

(BELOW LEFT) Which Way Books edition (Archway 1982). (BELOW RIGHT) Revised and expanded as Choose Your Own Adventure #62 (Bantam 1986). © Chooseco LLC.

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(ABOVE LEFT) Edward Packer, creator of the Choose Your Own Adventure series in 1984. (ABOVE RIGHT) A 1984 photo of editor Judy Gitenstein. (RIGHT) Publisher and writer, Ray Montgomery.

of Waitsfield, Vermont. The magazine profile described the couple’s intention as Vermont Crossroads Press to “design, write, and create a series of children’s books, games, and activities that are specifically and exclusively for children.” To the attorney’s relief, the Montgomerys were sparked upon reading Sugarcane Island, immediately recognizing that the formula lurking within Packard’s fictional scenario was one rife with potential. It was also an excellent fit for their stated mission to bypass traditional purchasers of children’s books—the gatekeepers of parents, librarians, and teachers­—and publish efforts that appealed directly to kids.

In a recent interview, onetime Bantam series editor Judy Gitenstein mapped out the CYOA formula: “Choose Your Own Adventure is a series in which the main character is you, the reader. The books are told in the second person. The scene is set on page one. You are a deep-sea diver or detective, or any number of other things, setting off on an adventure. In the course of reading, you, the reader, come to a point in the story where you have to make a decision as to what you want to do. Depending on the choice, the story crosses and crisscrosses to its ending. You might come out okay or meet your end, and, in every case, you can dive back in to make another choice and live another ending. In each book, there could be hundreds of possible combinations of plotlines and about 40 possible endings.”

Sugarcane Island became a top seller for Vermont Crossroads, but the company was too small to alone capitalize on the vast promise offered by the “Adventures of You” premise, and (newly divorced) Ray Montgomery and Packard, who together owned stakes in the property, went on to separately peddle the idea of a series before the larger publishing houses. Packard’s pitch found a receptive audience with “upstart” editor Joëlle Delbourgo at Bantam Books, who immediately recognized the innovation’s potential. “My first

retro Reading

reaction was that it was a brilliant concept and, to make an impact, you had to publish it as a series with a unifying cover concept,” she told Harmetz in 1981, two years after rescuing Sugarcane Island from getting submerged in the publisher’s slush pile.

Delbourgo, who would soon leave Bantam and ultimately become a literary agent herself, shared in 2014 with Jake Rossen in a Mental Floss website piece, “I got really excited, I said [referring to Montgomery’s literary agent] ‘Amy [Berkower], this is revolutionary.’ This is pre-computer, remember. The idea of interactive fiction, choosing an ending, was fresh and novel. It tapped into something very fundamental.” As a result of Delbourgo’s lobbying with higher-ups, Bantam was sold on the idea and contracted for a half-dozen books. In her comprehensive New Yorker feature on CYOA titled “Now What?” (from the Sept. 19, 2022, issue), Leslie Jamison explained, “As Packard tells it, Bantam ‘wouldn’t sign the deal’ without Packard’s involvement; as Montgomery’s widow, Shannon Gilligan, tells it, Montgomery’s sense of fairness, as well as a feeling that six books in a year was too much for one writer, inspired him to get Packard involved. However it happened, they eventually split the deal.”

The first entry in the series was also among CYOA’s most fondly recalled, The Cave of Time [1979], a story involving time travel, (LEFT) The first Choose Your Own Adventure title, The Cave of Time (Bantam, 1979). Cover and interior art by Don Hedin working as Paul Granger. A pre-historic human is delighted by those who can draw (and aren’t we all?). © Chooseco LLC.

dinosaurs, and UFOs (and much more), which was initially conceived

by Andrea Packard (she of the bedtime storytelling ten years prior).

Jamison revealed that Packard’s daughter “had recently gone spelunking at summer camp, crawling into a small cave beneath the main cave, farther than anyone else, and felt torn between exploring more—had anyone ever seen these tunnels?—and returning to safety.” Her father, facing the daunting task of having to write six titles in a short timespan, shouted “Great idea!

Get started!” With that, he chucked Andrea a legal pad to start scribbling. As one internet scholar mapped out, The Cave of Time contained 40 possible endings, 13 of which resulted in death, a few by cataclysm and a couple as the result of being eaten alive. (Packard’s daughter would receive credit in the book for the concept, title, and editorial assist, and, to this day, she collects a portion of the royalties for that debut volume, which had been reprinted by Bantam at least 32 times.)

Flush with confidence regarding the series, Bantam extravagantly promoted CYOA from the word go. Gitenstein revealed that an entire print-run was put aside for free distribution. Delbourgo told the Times, “We did absolutely nothing except give the books away. We gave thousands of the books to our salesmen and told them to give five to each bookseller and tell him to give them to the first five kids into his shop.” That remarkable gamble paid off. Word-of-mouth praise spread like a virus, and a true cultural phenomenon infected an entire generation. Summarizing its impact, Jamison reported, “The Choose franchise hit a generational sweet spot, alongside the rise of Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. Back then, it was these text-based experiences RETROFAN

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which could most powerfully deliver the possibilities of interactive narrative.”

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Native-born New Yorker Judy Gitenstein had already been working on children’s book imprints at Dell when she first caught wind of CYOA, and this was even before being acquired by Bantam. “We bid in the auction, and I admit I was relieved that Dell didn’t get the books,” she said, “because it seemed to me that the editing process would be more like completing a Rubik’s Cube than editing a linear narrative.

I was right because, two jobs later, I was working at Bantam Books. I moved into the office of the editor who had bought the series and my job was—you guessed it—to handle Choose Your Own Adventure.”

And, boy, what a challenge Gitenstein found herself facing.

(LEFT) Cover to Journey Under the Sea (Bantam, 1979), book “On my desk were uncut galleys,” said she. “I had two days to correct #2 in the CYOA series but originally published by Vermont them and get them back to production so the pages could be Crossroads Press in 1977. (RIGHT) Illustration by Paul composed, meaning laid out in order, with the illustrations in place.

Granger from the book. © Chooseco LLC. That meant I had to figure out the ‘turn to’ page references for the branching storylines. We couldn’t find the original manuscript, the author lived in Vermont (this was before the days of using FedEx at the drop of a hat), and Joëlle, the acquiring editor, had already scribing 32 of same, with various offspring, relatives, and occasional moved over to Ballantine Books. It turned out to be a good thing. By spouse also partaking in the writing assignments.) trial and error, and a lot of guessing, I pieced together the storylines In an effort to keep the books graphically enticing, the series and added the ‘turn to’ page references. I learned how to edit CYOA template included for each to be profusely illustrated, with only the by deconstructing those galleys and got to know the series from the occasional spread remaining text-only, and the franchise employed inside out. That allowed me, over the years, to edit fearlessly, and to a cover device long embraced in the world of comic book collecting.

“To capitalize on the momentum, Bantam decided to roll out go in and trace any mistake in construction back to its origin.” one title a month,” Rossen explained. “In turning up the frequency When the reader in 1979 opened her/his $1.95 paperback copy to serial levels, the publisher hit upon another of The Cave of Time, a disclaimer, such as to be novelty that would prove irresistible. Because the found in no other book series up until that time, books were numbered sequentially, kids started screamed, “WARNING!!!! Do not read this book collecting them like trading cards.” (Of course, the straight from beginning to end. These pages practice was hardly new, even in the paperback contain many different adventures you can business; think Doc Savage, for instance.) go on in the Cave of Time… Remember—you Among the series illustrators were a few cannot go back! Think carefully before you make recognizable names from the world of comics, a move! One mistake can be your last… or it may including Howard Bender, Frank Bolle, June lead you to fame and fortune!” (The ultimate Brigman, Ralph Reese, and Howard Simpson. reward, of course, was bestowed upon not just (Of the CYOA gigs, Brigman shared, “I really don’t the publishing outfit, but also the fathers of remember much about the books, except that CYOA, Packard and Montgomery, who would go they were easier than drawing comics. But then on to receive their share of national press and again, everything is easier than drawing comics!”) become two decidedly rich gentlemen. And the The first illustrator enlisted for the series, veteran pair worked hard for their money, with Packard Illustrator Don Hedlin a.k.a. illustrator and onetime Reader’s Digest art director writing 55 of the primary series and Montgomery Paul Granger.

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Don Hedin, contributed to 25 editions of the primary title, including the first ten, whether under his real name or as his pseudonym, Paul Granger.

Aside from within their own families, Montgomery and Packard recruited other writers, a roster that included notable authors who benefited from the creators’ generous spirit. Montgomery’s (albeit partisan) obituary at the Choose Your Own Adventure website explained, “From the first contract, Montgomery opted not to use ghost writers, but to acknowledge every CYOA author by his or her name. This ran counter to the standard publishing practice of the time of crediting all books to the founding author. This act helped launch the publishing careers of several young authors, including… a winner of the National Book Award.” Gitenstein confirmed the custom’s benevolence for freelancers: “The subcontracted writers had their names on the covers, which was unusual at a time when other series had one author name on the covers while the books were written by multiple authors. Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Sweet Valley High subcontracted writers served as ghostwriters and adhered to a more stringent series style. I always thought it was generous of Ed and Ray to encourage that level of variety within the series.”

Andrea’s spelunking dilemma that inspired The Cave of Time—to continue exploring or get back safely—epitomized the essential pull the series had on readers: any and every decision was theirs to make. Gitenstein said, “What spoke to me most about the books was the fact that they’re about making choices and being brave enough to act on those choices for readers who didn’t have much choice in their lives. Since the

CYOA books were told in second-person, kids got to engage in the decision-making. As editor, my challenge was to make the choices at each juncture so compelling that the reader would want to do both things. And they could. In fact, they could go back and read again and again, making endless combinations of choices.”

KID POWER

From its very inception, a key aspect of the series’ success was to consider the insight and observations of children themselves, gathered in ad hoc focus groups in classrooms and elsewhere, including when Montgomery shared photocopies of Sugarcane Island with a local teacher to gauge student reaction. In her New Yorker essay, Jamison revealed that, in contrast to 60 fellow students who enjoyed it, the lone reader who found the manuscript “boring” had nonetheless re-read the book eight additional times!

Despite The Cave of Time’s introductory admonishment, “you cannot go back,” Jamison wryly notes, “But of course, you can go back, and you will. After the first few books, the warnings stop…

They understand that going back is the point—not the making, but the re-making of choices, the revocability of it all. In childhood, you get to take things back. It’s a small compensation for having very little power in the first place.”

Still, there was power in numbers when it came to kids making their own purchasing decisions at the bookstore. It was eight- to 13-year-old readers buying the books for their own pleasure who made CYOA the success it became. “The time was right for CYOA,” Gitenstein shared.

“Bantam was quite visionary in seeing that you could market directly to kids. Everything about the rollout of the series was unique, focusing on kids and bypassing the gatekeepers: librarians, the teachers, parents. The marketing and promotion effort was 100% word-of-mouth. The quotes on the first page of each book were all from those children. One of

(LEFT) The subject matter for each CYOA book would change with each edition. Fantasy, mystery, and...

Space and Beyond (Bantam 1980).

(CENTER) Title page. (RIGHT) In space, happy endings are not guaranteed. © Chooseco LLC. RETROFAN

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This unicorn appears in them, Anthony Ziccardi, who many stories in the CYOA was 12 at the time and the son universe. Illustration by of a Bantam sales manager, is Suzanne Nugent. now a publisher himself.” © Chooseco LLC. The editor continued, “The push in publishing at the time was to appeal to reluctant readers, and Bantam realized go… Each book by the end looks more that CYOA really did that in a like gnarled tree roots than branches. completely new way. Kids who The difficulty as editor was in making may have had trouble reading sure that each piece of information or didn’t like to read, could pick and each plot twist made sense, no up a CYOA book anywhere, turn matter what branch of the story you to any page, and be involved— came from and no matter where the in snippets. A reader could put branches joined or crisscrossed.” the book down, pick it up, bookmark where they were, or start CHOOSE WISELY anywhere. CYOA was much Recalling her introduction to editing more exciting than the stilted, the series and upon making sense controlled-vocabulary books called ‘high/low’ out at the time that of the CYOA components spread out across her desk, “The trialwere designed to have high appeal with a low reading level. High/ by-fire of turning around the galleys was my first task as editor,” low books were like medicine. CYOA was pure fun.”

Gitenstein revealed. “My second task was to help the legal departAs producing that fun numerous times a year for just two writers ment protect the series. The name hadn’t been trademarked, had, as mentioned, proved and we rushed to do it. The words ‘choose your excessive for Packard and Montown adventure,’ had been deemed too general to gomery, other wordsmiths came trademark. Bantam created a logo that pushed on board and were brought up it through, so what became the trademark was a to speed. Gitenstein explained, “My job, and that of the subsequent editors, was to balance tone and narrative from all the authors, so that the books felt like a series while keeping each author’s distinct style.”

As for the variety of content inside the books themselves, individual book titles betray a vast array of scenarios and genres, including The Third Planet from Altair, The Abominable Snowman, Prisoner of the Ant People, The Horror of High Ridge, Supercomputer, Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?, and Ghost Hunter, to name just a few. Story construction remained pretty much the same, Gitenstein said.

“Visually the books look like a large tree with branches. The trunk is the beginning of the Noted comic book story. You are a deep-sea diver or a space traveler or artist Ralph Reese an archaeologist starting your assignment and you provided both (LEFT) hit a snag, say, when the person who is supposed cover and (RIGHT) to pick you up at the airport doesn’t show up and interior art for House a shady-looking person does. Do you go with that of Danger (Bantam person or do you go off on your own? That’s just one 1982). © Chooseco LLC. example, but it gives you an idea of how the stories 40

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combination of the series name and a distinctive visual, so that the books became an identifiable product in the marketplace.”

Gitenstein was gratified by the response from some of the “gatekeepers,” as she shared, “Teachers and librarians until then had been reluctant to take on books that were more like games or comic books, but they quickly saw the value of CYOA as they drew in those reluctant readers, who simply wanted books that spoke to them.”

Recalling a time when she met with a portion of the CYOA readership, Gitenstein said, “I remember my first school visit with Ed Packard. It was a sunny afternoon and after the classroom talk, many kids eagerly forfeited recess to meet the author and to get their personal copies signed. I remember talking to a boy who had a book in one hand and a catcher’s mitt in the other, telling me that these were the books that made him like reading. As an editor that was a thrilling moment and a highlight of my career.”

Still, the series was not universally acclaimed, derided by some educators and child experts as being unsophisticated with no emotional depth to the characters, though Gitenstein maintains there was another function at play to consider. “The books did more than encourage reading. They encouraged participation. The message was: be involved. I think that many kids’ early pleasurable reading experiences were CYOA books and all the books and series that came after.” Anyway, despite them being accused of being superfluous reads, she defended the guilty pleasure. “I really embraced the series after that and became an advocate for light reading for kids in the same way adults had ‘airport reading’ and a range of genres to choose from.”

THE END

An academic paper, “Rearing Children of the Market in the ‘You’ Decade: Choose Your Own Adventure Books and the Ascent of Free Choice in 1980s America,” by Eli Cook, maintained that CYOA did indeed fit its time: “Perfectly designed for a television dominated era in which it was believed that the attention spans of children were rapidly diminishing, one could swiftly consume five or six different stories, from beginning to ‘THE END,’ in a matter of minutes.” And that “END” would sometimes be a violent one, even grisly (though never really final with the option of endless do-overs), a consequence that perversely added to the series’ appeal and anticipated, Cook maintained, “one of the hallmarks of future video games, the reader came in knowing that he or she was going to die numerous times.” He added, “As a result, the emotional charge of these books emanated not from traditional plot elements or character arcs, but rather from the desire to choose ‘wisely’ and experience many different endings.”

Of her reference to “all the books and series that came after” CYOA, Gitenstein points to a number of imitators, some launched

by Bantam itself. “During that time,” she revealed, “I edited a few

(LEFT) Arachnophobes beware! Some choices end in peril. (ABOVE) Ninjas have snuck up on you! If you had chosen differently, you might have gone undetected… or had to face the lava monsters on the next page. Illustration by Suzanne Nugent. (BELOW) A harrowing image from Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? Illustration by Paul Granger. © Chooseco LLC. other series in the gamebook, multiple-ending tradition. I worked with the book packager Byron Preiss2 on two main series. The first one was called Be An Interplanetary Spy, which was quite an amazing book series, ahead of its time. Each book looked like a comic book, but with text not always in 2 The brilliant publishing innovator and comics champion [1953–2005] was profiled in depth by this writer in “Byron Preiss: The Life of the Creative Visionary,” an extensive feature (which initially acquainted the writer with Ms. Gitenstein and led to this article) in Comic Book Creator #32 [Fall 2023], published by TwoMorrows.

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More recent editions of CYOA books. (LEFT) Secret of the Ninja and (CENTER) The Magic of the Unicorn.

(RIGHT) The story map of The Magic of the Unicorn gives a bit of a peek at the choices ahead. © Chooseco LLC. balloons. It was formatted as a mass market-size paperback, and it was an interactive game within a book.

“The promotion for the series described it as a video game in a book. Those books were a tougher sell, because at that time, around 1982, teachers and librarians were still reluctant to embrace comic books. I think that Byron broke that barrier in so many ways and paved the way for the acceptance of graphic novels in schools and libraries… I worked with him because of my experience with Choose Your Own Adventure.” She added, “We also worked together on the Time Machine books, which were more like CYOA, but historically accurate. Byron and I had a similar need for things to be accurate, true, and real.”

Though Bantam’s CYOA line came to an end in 1998, the concept lives on in the book world and beyond, as we see CYOA’s innovations manifested in other forms, as well, including as inspiration for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a movie whose storyline is so clearly swiped from CYOA that Netflix was compelled to settle out of court with CYOA’s current trademark holder.

Why exactly the once-raging CYOA fever broke is up for speculation, but, by the ’90s, Gen Xers moved

Note: This writer acknowledges his deep gratitude for the able and expert assist of editor extraordinaire Judy Gitenstein in the fine-tuning of this piece.

You did it! You found the sword of destiny! Now turn to page 86.

JON B. COOKE is an editor, designer, writer, and the founder of Comic Book Creator from TwoMorrows Publishing.

© Chooseco LLC. 42

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over to find a similar empowering experience in interactive digital gaming. And, as demand started to cool, Gitenstein herself would move on. “I passed the baton after editing 22 of the CYOA books.

I moved to another publisher, wrote one of the books during that time—Summer Camp, #18 of the Skylark Choose Your Own Adventure titles—and then moved back to Bantam as editorial director of the young readers department. I didn’t actively edit the series after that, but I was there to help those who were.

“In 1992, I left Bantam to go freelance, and Choose Your Own Adventure continued to be my ticket for many years, as consultant and for credibility.” And Gitenstein would grow to recognize CYOA, an iconic series she had helped shepherd through its golden age—an important and beloved cultural artifact vividly recalled by an entire generation—would be embraced as lovingly by the next one. “I was at a tech and marketing conference one year, clearly the oldest person in the room,” she confided. “The conference was small enough to allow each person to introduce themself. When it was my turn to speak, everyone started fidgeting. What could I, so much older, share that would be of value? That’s what they wondered, not what I wondered. I began with, ‘Chances are I edited some of the books you read when you were younger, like Choose Your Own Adventure.’ At that moment I became the wise elder of the conference. Nowadays, I use that intro quite a lot.”

March 2025

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Fake It

(LEFT) Please, Christmas, don’t be late! Alvin and the Chipmunks sing “The Christmas Song.”

(BELOW) The proto-Alvin album: The Witch Doctor! © Bagdasarian Productions.

Till You Make It Fictional

Rock Bands

fabricated musical groups, who appeared in animation and live action, as studios and networks tried to grasp the tenuous ages when kids became tweens became teens. Our story will take us from 1960 to 1988, and will attempt to be a comprehensive look… although I will no doubt miss someone’s favorite!

THE NUTTY SQUIRRELS VS. ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (1960/1961)

BY ANDY MANGELS WELCOME BACK TO Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, your constant guide to the shows that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross-legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday Morning! This issue, gimme a beat, as we’re taking a look and listen to the rock-and-roll world of Saturday mornings, with the fictional bands that used to dazzle you with their catchy songs and repetitive dance moves!

Two issues ago, I took a rare issue off, and Mark Arnold gave readers a look at the “real world” musicians who had made it onto Saturday morning. But this time, we’ll search instead for the first

In the world of music, novelty records were an interesting and unusual way to sell records; similar today to short Tik-Toks or joke memes.

One of the most unusual of these came about due to a method that all kids with record players knew. Records rotated at 33 1/3 rpm (rotations per minute), but singles rotated at 78 rpm. If one played a regular record at 78 rpm, the voices were sped up and sounded silly and high-pitched. Armenian-American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor Ross Bagdasarian (known onstage as David Seville) used this sped-up effect in 1958 on a novelty song called “Witch Doctor,” which hit #1 on the charts.

Bagdasarian was inspired to do more in the format, and created a trio called The Chipmunks, naming them Simon, Theodore, and Alvin after the three record producers who managed him at Liberty Records. His first song with them was “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late),” released in November 1958. It hit the #1 spot by New Year’s Day. More Chipmunk songs followed, as well as toys and plans for an animated television series.

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(LEFT) Dig it, Daddy-O! The Nutty Squirrels on vinyl. © Transfilm-Wylde Productions. (BELOW) The Beagles, inspired

by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. © DreamWorks Classics/ DreamWorks Animation.

bebop jazz elements. As the Squirrels rose in popularity, a race ensued to see who could get on television first. The Chipmunks were having troubles with their designs, so in September 1960, The Nutty Squirrels Present debuted on syndicated television stations all over the world. Filmed in color, the show was transferred into black-and-white for some countries. Thirty half-hour episodes were created, comprised of 150 six-minute shorts, with Elliott and Burland supplying their voices.

Although The Nutty Squirrels Present is the first animated series about a music band, it was not original to animation, nor was the second such series, The Alvin Show, the animated television series featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks that aired on CBS from October 4, 1961, to 1965. Each episode of The Alvin Show featured a sevenminute Chipmunks adventure, a seven-minute Clyde Crashup story, and one or two musical sequences of a Chipmunks song. Broadcast in black-and-white during its first season, The Alvin Show moved to color in 1962, when CBS moved it to Saturday morning broadcast.

(LEFT) This made it tough for their secret identities—the band was also called the Impossibles. (RIGHT) The Impossibles original production cel title card. © Warner Bros. Entertainment 44

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THE BEAGLES AND THE IMPOSSIBLES (1966)

CBS decided to double down on musical cartoons in 1966, introducing two music-based shows to the nascent Saturday morning schedule. The Beagles was produced by Total Television, a company affiliated with the General Mills food corporation. Although the name would imply a Beatles pastiche, the show instead featured a duo inspired by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, rather than a quartet.

The Beagles ran for one year on CBS before cancellation; ABC picked it up for reruns from 1967–1968. None of the Beagles’ musical numbers made it to record shops.

The second music show on the CBS docket was Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles, which included a segment about a trio of super-heroes named The Impossibles—Coil-Man, Fluid-Man, and Multi-Man—who were also as a popular rock-and-roll group when

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

they weren’t out saving the world. The trio all played guitars from atop a bandstand that could secretly transform into the Impossimobile, the Impossi-jet, and other motorized vehicles! Each of the 18 episodes were only six minutes long, so the music that was played was often very short snippets of five total songs, and did not result in any ancillary records.

THE ARCHIES AND THE BANANA SPLITS (1968)

With their musical appetite whetted, CBS wasn’t about to quit.

On September 14, 1968, Saturday morning television was given a seismic jolt when Filmation Studios’ The Archie Show debuted.

Adapting the comic characters from Archie Comics Group, the animated series soon became one of the highest-rated TV shows on the air, with its combination of comedy, teenage players, music, and dancing. Not only were the kids from Riverdale obsessed with (ABOVE) Tra la la, la la la la… The Banana Splits! (BELOW) Making up a mess of fun! The Banana Splits #4 from Gold Key, Oct. 1970. © Warner Bros. Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

The Archies are ready to rock! (BELOW) The Archies band were frequently in Archie Comics. © Archie Comic Publications. Comic courtesy of Heritage.

typical teen things, they also were all in a rock band together!

Music producer Don Kirshner created the musical sound of The Archies, utilizing singer Ron Dante, backed by Toni Wine.

The Archie Show and its fictional band The Archies were soon everywhere—in magazines, comic books, toys, and even on cereal boxes!

The Archie Show featured two eight-minute stories, a threeminute musical segment, and other “how to dance” or short joke segments [see a full article on The Archies TV history in our sister magazine Back Issue #108 –Editor]. The musical segment would feature The Archies as a band, singing a pop song. Because that music wasn’t specific to any of the plots, Kirshner and his team could work on their own, independent of the animation or storytelling process. Kirschner had turned The Monkees into a hit,

and now, he was using his magic on a musical super-group that wouldn’t talk back… because they were animated.

“When it came to the songs, we’d tell Kirshner what we wanted to do, what the attitude should be, and what kind of stories we were doing, and then he would produce the songs and deliver them to us whole,” Filmation head Lou Scheimer said in interviews for the book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation [also from our publisher, TwoMorrows –Editor again]. As noted, the show needed three-minute catchy pop songs, as well as brief segments that would teach kids to dance. Scheimer recalled that the music scenes were, “kind of like early music videos. We’d show The Archies playing their guitars and drums and singing, and there would be groovy effects behind them. We also taught a ‘Dance of the Week’ which were some very weird dances put together by a bunch of animators who were not teenagers… and probably not dancers either.”

Although it had never been done before, The Archies’ music was planned for public release. Filmation contracted for two years with Kirshner for eight singles and two albums, to be distributed through RCA Records. The first release for record and 8-track cartridge tapes was simply to be called The Archies, and ads for the debut album appeared in TV Guide the same week as the show started on September 14, 1980. Both The Archie Show and The Archies album were monster hits. In a television first, The Archies became the first animated band to be featured on a late-night variety show, The Ed Sullivan Show!

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moving to NBC). Along the way, The Archies’ music ate up the chart, with one international mega-hit, “Sugar, Sugar.”

Sugar, sugar!

Filmation’s Sabrina makes life so sweet!

MYSTERIES AND COOL CATS (1969)

Seeing the success of The Archies, and not wanting to lose out on the nascent rock-and-roll teen animation genre, rival network ABC commissioned Filmation to produce The Hardy Boys for Fall 1969.

Repackaging the teen mystery series by adding a teen girl and —in a first for children’s animation—an African-American boy, Filmation followed the Archie formula of adding a short song and music video to each episode. The Hardy Boys’ music was produced by Chicago’s Dunwich Productions, and also released under the RCA Calendar label, as with The Archies. A promotional tour with an actual live band performing songs went to ten cities, and the songs charted. Unfortunately, the TV series wasn’t a huge hit—though it

© Archie Comic Publications.

vocals), Bingo the ape (on drums and vocals), Drooper the lion (on bass guitar and vocals), and Snorky the elephant (on keyboards). All of them—and the psychedelic look of the show—were designed by brothers Sid and Marty Krofft.

When not running around the Six Flags Over Texas theme park or playing humorous jokes on each other or driving in their Banana Buggies, the quartet—members of “The Banana Splits Club”— would sing bubblegum pop songs. Many of these were released on a Decca Records album, We’re the Banana Splits, in 1968.

In the war between the bands, The Archies won easily. Their first single, “Bang-Shang-A-Lang/Truck Driver,” went to #22 on the Hot 100 charts, while their second, “Feelin’ So Good (S.k.o.o.b.y.D.o.o.)/Love Light” hit just below #50. For the Banana Splits, their theme song, “The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana),” hit its highest at #96.

The Banana Splits garnered a second season from 1968–1970, then was shown in syndication from 1970–1982. The Archie Show, meanwhile, would go on into other incarnations including The Archie Comedy Hour (1969), Archie’s Fun House (1970), the music-less Archie’s TV Funnies (1971), the music-added-back-in Everything’s Archie (1973), The U.S. of Archie (1974), and The New Archie/Sabrina Hour (1977,

The Cattanooga Cats promo illustration from the Saturday Morning Cartoon ad that ran in comics. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment.

did garner two albums, three singles, four comics from Gold Key, and other licensed merchandise—and the band lasted longer than the show itself. Today, more people know The Hardy Boys as a band than know them from this series [see Back Issue #129 for the comic book version of this Hardy Boys show –Editor].

ABC’s second musical series for 1969 was Cattanooga Cats, a series from Hanna-Barbera. This one-hour show contained four segments, almost all of which are forgotten to the ages: Cattanooga Cats, Around the World in 79 Days, It’s the Wolf! and Motormouse and Autocat. The Cattanooga cast were four hippie cats that sang and played guitars or drums; singing voices were by Michael Lloyd (later a huge producer) and Peggy Clinger (a member of The Clingers, one of the first all-female rock-and-roll bands). As with The Archies, the Cats’ musical segments were psychedelic pop-art fever dreams.

One record was released in 1969, but it failed to chart.

INVASION OF THE ROCKERS (1970)

In 1970, more than half of Saturday morning was filled with rock bands, but two of them reigned supreme: Groovie Goolies and Josie and the Pussycats.

(LEFT) The idea was that the real life Hardy Boys actors could perform the songs live! © Simon & Schuster.

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Sabrina’s extended family, the Groovie Goolies! © Classic Media/DreamWorks.

Pussycats, and she was reconceptualized as the girl leader of an all-girl band: Josie was the lead vocalist and guitar player; blonde Melody is the drummer; Valerie is the bassist and tambourine player. Of special note for the cartoon are the facts that Valerie was the first lead female Black character in animation, and Melody’s singing voice was by a then-unknown, pre-Charlie’s Angels Cheryl Ladd.

The musical and plot change for the Josie series at Archie was not a coincidence; Hanna-Barbera had requested something from the Archie library they could develop as a direct competitor for Filmation’s hyper-successful Archie shows, and the publisher told Groovie Goolies was a Filmation original creation, tied into their Archie spin-off in a series called Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies. A mélange of monster movies, soft rock songs, fourth-wall-breaking self-awareness, and counter-culture humor, nothing quite like the Groovie Goolies had ever aired on television before. “I always wanted to do a show with the monsters Dracula, Frankenstein, and a werewolf as comedy characters,” said producer Lou Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. “Every once in a while, they’d make fun of these guys in the live-action theatricals, but they were perfect comedy characters. And there was certainly no way we could do horror characters any other way for animation.” In 1968, Scheimer hired writers Jack Mendelsohn and Jim Mulligan to develop a comedy concept with the monsters, all living at Horrible Hall, a haunted boarding house.

In each episode, the Goolies offered an original Groovie Goolies rock song presented in the form of a wildly animated music video.

In the animated band, Drac played the organ, Frankie played the xylophone and drums, and Wolfie played a stringed instrument that resembled a lyre. The four “guest bands” that sang the guest songs were The Mummies and the Puppies (led by diminutive ukulele-playing Tiny Tomb and his mummified cyclopean wife, Missy, alongside Mama Casket and four literal puppies), The Spirits of ’76 (a trio of ghosts in tri-corner hats), The Rolling Headstones (Hudson Rock, Captain Marble and General Granite), and The Bare Bones Band (three skeletons). Richard Delvy Productions was in charge of producing the music for the bands, which included 32 songs for the season (two per week) and the theme. A co-producer, Dick Monda had a huge hit with a redone version of one of the Goolies songs, “Chick-A-Boom.” A debut Groovie Goolies album was released the first week in September 1970. (For more on Groovie Goolies, see the feature article in RetroFan #2 –Editor.) Groovie Goolies would go on to a solo second season in 1972.

Josie and the Pussycats was another CBS series, and another Archie-based show, but this time Hanna-Barbera had scooped the rights away from Filmation. Archie cartoonist Dan DeCarlo had created Josie based on his wife wearing a cat costume while they were on a cruise. She appeared as the headliner of a comic, She’s Josie, from February 1963 to November 1969. With the 45th issue of her series (December 1969), the title was changed to Josie and the

(ABOVE) Long tails, and ears for hats! Josie and the Pussycats! (LEFT) Josie and the Pussycats on vinyl! © Archie Comic Publications.

Courtesy of Heritage.

DeCarlo to make the change.

Onscreen, the plots for the 16 episodes of Josie and the Pussycats were very similar to Hanna-Barbera’s hit series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, with the girls touring the world as a rock band, only to be interrupted by mysteries, spooky happenings, robberies, and disappearances that only they could help with. Often, their songs would play over chase scenes between them and villains. Capitol/ EMI Records released a soundtrack album of songs—and six singles—from the series in 1970.

Both Groovie Goolies and Josie and the Pussycats garnered second seasons in 1971, though both consisted entirely of reruns. In 1972, Hanna-Barbera refreshed their series as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, which ran for almost two seasons.

Three other new shows in 1970 featured pseudo-rock bands: Doctor Dolittle, Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, and The Bugaloos. Each of them offered a bizarre new take on the concept.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

The NBC series Doctor Dolittle (also known as The Further Adventures of Dr. Dolittle) was from DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, and was based on the 1967 live-action feature film and prior book series by Hugh Lofting. In them, the kindly Doctor Dolittle is an animal doctor who has the ability to talk to animals.

In the series, Dolittle sails around the world on a ship called “The Flounder,” helping animals in distress, and keeping them safe from a group of evil pirates based on Sub-Mar Island. In the first episode, Dolittle saves Grasshopper Island, and a group of them come with him. Living in his medicine case, they form a rock group called George and the Grasshoppers, and in each episode, they perform a pop or rock song! Besides the psychedelic medications that light up in Dolittle’s case, some of the songs are said to have more than a hint of drug implications. The series lasted only one season, and no records were released.

Meanwhile, over on ABC, the prevailing thought was that the kids would go ape over a show about real monkeys, so Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, two former writers on Get Smart and The Carol Burnett Show, teamed with producer Allan Sandler to create Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. The series was filmed live-action, with a cast of chimpanzees in costumes, acting out satirical spy missions, comedy, magic, ventriloquism, and… music. Human voices overdubbed the chimps’ lip movements, and the all-chimpanzee band was called The Evolution Revolution. The quartet of chimps wore hippie wigs and clothes and played the requisite guitar, drums, tambourine, and organ. A soundtrack album, Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution, was released in 1970 by ABC/Dunhill; it was recently re-released in a deluxe limited-edition set by Enjoy the Ride Records. (For more on Lancelot Link’s comic book adventures, see BackIssue #128 –Editor.)

Not content with just Doctor Dolittle’s insect band, NBC also ordered The Bugaloos for 1970, giving them two insect bands. This series was a live-action show from brothers Sid and Marty Krofft.

In it, four British teenagers with wings and antennae live in the

The Evolution Revolution from Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. © Film Chest Media Group.

fantasy world of Tranquility Forest. There, when not foiling the plans of the evil Benita Bizarre (comedienne Martha Raye), they have formed a band called The Bugaloos. The four are: a grasshopper named I.Q. who plays guitar and sings; a butterfly named Joy who plays percussion and sings; a bumblebee named Harmony who sings back-up and plays keyboards; and a ladybug named Courage who sings back-up and plays drums. The actor who played Harmony, Wayne Laryea, was Black, but neither the Kroffts nor NBC pushed any attention toward the racial integration onscreen, and the show went on without a hitch, for 17 episodes. The series was all reruns the following year, and later syndicated as part of the Krofft Superstars from 1978 to 1985.

THE KIDS DIVERSIFY (1971–1972)

While several shows were in reruns in 1971, CBS aired one new rock series, a spin-off of The Flintstones called The Pebbles and BammBamm Show. The daughter of Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Pebbles, and the son of Barney and Betty Rubble, Bamm-Bamm, are no longer tykes; they are now nearly-grown teenagers, going to high school, dating—each other!—and playing in a rock band called The Bedrock Rockers.

Behind the scenes, the casting was interesting: Jay North who voiced Bamm-Bamm had previously been a child actor starring as the title character on Dennis the Menace; and Sally Struthers voiced Pebbles, at the same time she was beginning to get greater glory and fame on Norman Lear’s sitcom, All in the Family! The series was folded into The Flintstone Comedy Hour for the 1972–1973 season.

Perhaps the most famous Saturday morning rock band debuted in 1972, and its arrival—and longevity—was seismic What’s the buzz? for not only the industry, but for viewers as It’s the Bugaloos! well. Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids debuted © Sid and Marty Croft. on September 9, 1972, and it was the first animated series with an all-Black led cast

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) Hey-hey-hey… It’s Fat Albert and the gang! © Bill Cosby.

that was not based on real people (The Harlem Globetrotters had been on CBS in 1970, and The Jackson 5 had been on ABC in 1971).

The series was based on a comedy sketch by Bill Cosby about his friends growing up in a North Philadelphia junkyard, and while a primetime animated special, Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert, had aired on NBC, this new series would prove to last much longer.

Each episode of Fat Albert was designed to be both funny and educational, with somebody in Albert’s gang of friends learning a lesson. At the end of each show, Fat Albert and the crew would play a song, utilizing junk from the junkyard they played in as musical instruments. Most of the songs had something to do with the lesson learned in the previous story. The Junkyard Band the kids played in was put together by producer Richard Delvy, and many of the songs were written by Ed Fournier. Singing on the songs was done by a combination of Michael Gray playing Fat Albert (not the same Michael Gray who later starred in Filmation’s Shazam!), as well as Fournier and a young Kim Carnes (who would later have her own pop career)!

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was an enormous success, and would be on the air with new episodes for 13 years, from

1972–1985, although it eventually left CBS and aired daily in syndication. During the time, topics on the show included lying, stealing, medical operations, racism, bullying, stage fright, gang violence, drug use, graffiti, the plights of Native Americans, smoking, sexually transmitted diseases, rape, child abuse, con artists, gun violence, prison, and even death! Fat Albert generated multiple music albums, and a lot of licensing, but despite its educational nature and massive impact on viewers, it never won an Emmy Award. Sadly, today, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is remembered by many wistfully, as the time when Bill Cosby wasn’t viewed as a monster who did unspeakable things to prey on women.

CBS also aired a differently diverse series in 1972, called The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, the series was very loosely based on a series of pulpy mystery novels and films, which began to see publication with the 1925 book, The House Without a Key. In the animated series, Chinese detective Charlie Chan and his ten children and dog travel the country in the Chan Van, which can transform into other vehicles, thus allowing them to solve mysteries and be a rock band. Yes, it was another mystery-solving, van-driving, music-loving group from Hanna-Barbera, but this one was different because… they were all Chinese! The songs were produced by Don Kirshner, who brought his Archies singer Ron Dante along to sing the tunes. The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan was criticized by several Chinese media groups, one of which even testified against it to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission)! No second season was ordered, though the series did go into syndication in 1976.

EVERYBODY ROCK NOW! (1973–1975)

When anyone talks about rock music on Saturday mornings, they cannot help but consider the long-running Schoolhouse Rock! shorts on ABC. Not technically a series, Schoolhouse Rock! was animated

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan! © Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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(LEFT) I’m just a bill! From Schoolhouse Rock. (RIGHT) Conjunction Junction, what’s your function? © Disney. musical short films—always educational—which were used as interstitial programming, airing between shows or in commercial breaks of the Saturday morning children’s programming block. The three-minute segments included topics like math, science, politics, grammar, history, civic duties, and economics.

Schoolhouse Rock! was created by David McCall, an advertising executive who hired a musician to write a song to help teach his child multiplication. A fellow advertising artist created some imagery for it, and they pitched it as a show to ABC. The first song, “Three Is a Magic Number,” actually debuted in 1971 as part of a show called Curiosity Shop. In January 1973, ABC debuted a new “season” of the shorts, under the umbrella title of Multiplication Rock, explaining math. Fall 1973–1975 saw the debut of more shorts, under the heading of Grammar Rock, and teaching about nouns and verbs and adjectives. The most famous song from this set was “Conjunction Junction.”

With the United States about to celebrate its bicentennial (200th) birthday, the 1975–1977 season was America Rock, with governmental and historical shorts, including the famous “I’m Just a Bill.” In 1978 and 1979, Science Rock covered everything from gravity to the anatomical system of bodies to energy, environmentalism, meteorology, and astrology. The 1980s saw a handful of shorts about computer technology, but these became outdated quickly. ABC finally dropped Schoolhouse Rock! in 1985, though from 1993 to 1996, a few new shorts were created, and Schoolhouse Rock! returned to the air on Disney’s One Come along with me: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids: Stephanie Merilee, Butch, Wally, and Elvis. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment.

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Saturday Morning block. Schoolhouse Rock! is now available both on DVD and digital platforms, and it has a soundtrack CD set.

The only new rock show in 1973 was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, an NBC series from Hanna-Barbera that had absolutely nothing to do with the western characters immortalized

by Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the 1969 film. Instead, it followed the adventures of four teens and their dog as they solved mysteries for the government. Along the way, they were also a pop-rock band called the Sundance Kids, with the requisite guitars, drums, and tambourine. One oddity was that Mickey Dolenz, star of the real rock group The Monkees, voiced Wally, the drummer for the group. Four songs from the animated group were released as singles, but a promised full-length record never appeared.

THE END OF AN ERA (1976–1978)

By the mid-1970s, the networks seemed to tire of rock-and-roll themes, and new series moved away from the concept. In 1976, the only new show in the genre was Jabberjaw, an ABC show created by Hanna-Barbera. Following the popularity of the film Jaws, Jabberjaw featured a great white shark as the title character,

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) One of two Kaptain Kool and the Kongs albums.

(RIGHT) A Kaptain Kool frame tray puzzle. © Classic Media/ DreamWorks.

though rather than eating swimmers, he was friendly to everyone, he could shape-shift into almost any form (!), and he even played drums in a band called The Neptunes. The four other members of The Neptunes were water-breathing humans from the underwater world, and they would often solve mysteries or stop bad guys from hurting the ocean cities such as Aquahama, Hydrostan, Aqualaska, Hydrabia, Panaqua, and, of course, Atlantis. Often, songs from The Neptunes would play over chase sequences between the band members and the bad guys. Jabberjaw finished a first season of 16 episodes in 1977, and then reruns were aired from 1977–1978.

Producers Sid and Marty Krofft had a wild ride on Saturday mornings, producing almost exclusively live-action shows. But while a few of their shows, The Banana Splits and The Bugaloos, had been a music-oriented creation, they had mostly stayed out of the arena, instead turning out fantasy fare ranging from Land of the Lost

to Sigmund and the Sea Monsters to Far Out Space Nuts. Starting in 1976 though, they moved into their “variety” era, producing shows that harkened more back to their vaudeville, circus, and even burlesque roots. That year they produced the primetime Donny & Marie show, starring the Osmonds, and The Krofft Supershow, both for ABC. The Krofft Supershow was comprised of five segments: Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (see RetroFan #8 –Editor), reruns of The Lost Saucer, and Kaptain Kool and the Kongs. The latter was a manufactured rock band which hosted the show, and instead of being the typical hippie-style rockers, they were instead styled as a crazy “glam rock” band, verging on disco. The band sang songs—most of which were written by the Osmonds—and told corny jokes or performed comedy skits as they introduced other segments of the show. Their scenes were multi-purpose, as they were filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, at the indoor World of Sid and Marty Krofft amusement park, thus promoting that venture.

The 1976–1977 season of The Krofft Supershow featured five members of the Kongs: Kaptain Kool (actor Michael Lembeck), Superchick (Debra Clinger, another sister from The Clingers), Turkey (Mickey McMeel, later briefly in Three Dog Night), Nashville (Louise DuArt), and Flatbush (Bert Sommer). For a second season of the Supershow in 1977–1978, the Flatbush character was dropped, and filming switched to Hollywood soundstages, in front of an audience of kids. During 1978, two albums featuring Kaptain Kool and the Kongs were released, as well as one single. In fall 1978 the Supershow was ended, and Kaptain Kool and the Kongs were ousted, replaced by a “real” band, the Bay City Rollers for an NBC variety show called The Krofft Superstar Hour.

Filmation took one final shot at success with musical acts, releasing their own variety series in Fall 1978 on NBC. The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! was a super-hero souffle, teaming up a half-hour animated version of Shazam! that was ultra-faithful to its comic book roots (see RetroFan #4—pesky Ed again), with Hero The musical live-action heroes of Hero High, a part of The Kid Super Power Hour.

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SATURDAY MORNING MUSIC YEAR-BY YEAR 1960 The Nutty Squirrels Present (Syndicated) 1961 The Alvin Show (CBS) 1962 The Alvin Show (CBS) 1963 The Alvin Show (CBS) 1964 The Alvin Show (CBS) 1965 The Alvin Show (CBS) 1965 The Beatles (ABC) 1966 The Beatles (ABC) 1966 Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles (CBS) 1966 The Beagles (CBS) 1967 The New Beatles (ABC) 1967 Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles (CBS) 1968 The Archie Show (CBS) 1968 Banana Splits Adventure Hour (NBC) 1969 Cattanooga Cats (ABC) 1969 The Hardy Boys (ABC) 1969 Archie Comedy Hour (CBS) 1969 The Monkees (CBS) 1969 Banana Splits Adventure Hour (NBC) 1970 Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (ABC) 1970 The Hardy Boys (ABC) 1970 Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies (CBS) 1970 Josie and the Pussycats (CBS) 1970 Archie’s Funhouse (CBS) 1970 The Monkees (CBS) 1970 The Bugaloos (NBC) 1970 Jackson Five (ABC) 1971 Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (ABC) 1971 Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm (CBS) 1971 Josie and the Pussycats (CBS) 1971 The Monkees (CBS) 1971 Doctor Dolittle (NBC) 1971 The Bugaloos (NBC) 1972 Jackson Five (ABC) 1972 The Osmonds (ABC) 1972 Brady Kids (ABC) 1972 The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (CBS) 1972 Josie and the Pussycats (CBS) 1972 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1973 Brady Kids (ABC) 1973 Mission: Magic (ABC)

1973 Josie and the Pussycats (CBS) 1973 Everything’s Archie (CBS) 1973 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1973 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids (NBC) 1974 Partridge Family 2200 A.D. (CBS) 1974 The U.S. of Archie (CBS) 1974 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1975 Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm (CBS) 1975 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1975 Josie and the Pussycats (NBC) 1976 Jabberjaw (ABC) 1976 The Krofft Supershow (ABC) 1976 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1977 The Krofft Supershow (ABC) 1977 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1978 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (CBS) 1978 The Krofft Supershow (NBC) 1979 The New Fat Albert Show (CBS) 1979 The Bay City Rollers Show (NBC) 1980 The New Fat Albert Show (CBS) 1981 Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!

(NBC) 1982 The New Fat Albert Show (CBS) 1983 Menudo (ABC) 1983 Schoolhouse Rock! (ABC) 1983 The New Fat Albert Show (CBS) 1983 Alvin and the Chipmunks (NBC) 1984 Schoolhouse Rock! (ABC) 1984 Wolf Rock TV (ABC) 1984 Alvin and the Chipmunks (NBC) 1984 Kidd Video (NBC) 1985 Schoolhouse Rock! (ABC) 1985 Hulk Hogan’s Rock ’n’ Wrestling (CBS) 1985 Alvin and the Chipmunks (NBC) 1985 Kidd Video (NBC) 1986 Schoolhouse Rock! (ABC) 1986 Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling (CBS) 1986 Alvin and the Chipmunks (NBC) 1986 Kidd Video (NBC) 1986 Schoolhouse Rock! (ABC) 1987 Kidd Video (CBS) 1987 Alvin and the Chipmunks (NBC) 1988 The Chipmunks (NBC) 1988 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (NBC)

Time for rehearsal!

Original Archies production cel. © Archie Comic Publications. Courtesy of Heritage.

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High, a new comedy series that showcased the adventures of teen super-heroes in high school. The concept had been developed as a super-heroic version of The Archies, but when the relationship with Archie Comics ended, NBC asked Filmation to create new characters instead. The super-students were also utilized in live action, portrayed by the same actors who voiced them, as a rock band.

The Kid Super Power Hour live segments were filmed in front of a child-filled studio audience on a stage at Filmation West Studio in Canoga Park, California, where the actors mimed playing guitars, drums, keyboards, and tambourines, and told corny jokes to each other and the kids. The spandex-clad heroes were charming, and included Captain California (Chris Hensel), Glorious Gal (Becky Perle), Misty Magic (Jere Fields), Punk Rock (Johnny Venocour), Dirty Trixie (Maylo McCaslin), Rex Ruthless (John Berwick), and Weatherman (Jim Greenleaf), making them—at seven members—officially Saturday morning’s largest rock band in history.

In a 2007 interview for a Hero High DVD set, John Berwick recalled, “We all got to play instruments in the band. I played the drums, and I know between takes, I drove the crew crazy, because I just couldn’t stop, I loved playing the drums so much… it was like we were going to a playground every day, as opposed to working in front of a camera, and of course, we were up there to tell jokes to kids, and that was a ton of fun.

It was a lot of slapstick-ish stuff, and the kids got a kick out of it, especially when we had the live group of kids come in, I think several hundred were brought in to shoot when we did the wraparounds, and the kids loved it, they were just howling out in there in the audience.”

Although there were plans for an album and concert tour for the Hero High actors, the plans fell apart when the show ended after its first season. Several of their songs did appear on the 1980 album Rock ’n’ Roll Disco by Fat Albert & the Junkyard Band, though they are rerecorded by different performers than The Kid Super Power Hour singers.

OR DID IT JUST GO DORMANT? (1983–1988)

As the 1970s ended, so too did the reign of rock-and-roll on Saturday morning television. Many of the older shows were in syndication, and music tastes had changed,

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) An updated Alvin and the Chipmunks return in 1983. © Bagdasarian Productions. (RIGHT) Jem from Jem and the Holograms. TM Hasbro. Courtesy of Heritage. with hard rock, glam rock, punk rock, and other genres moving the sound away from kid-friendly tracks. And many newer shows were being designed either from toy lines, or being designed for toy lines. Then too, MTV had debuted in 1981, pulling young viewers to it with nearly non-stop music videos and bands.

But the drive to feature music wouldn’t completely die, and in 1983, NBC revived Alvin and the Chipmunks for a new series from Ruby-Spears. This show also introduced a trio of female chipmunks, who had formed their own group, The Chipettes. Each episode showcased 1–2 songs in the sped-up Chipmunk fashion; most of them were cover songs of popular music. Alvin and the Chipmunks ran from 1983–1988, then changed name to The Chipmunks from 1988–1990, and again changed its name to The Chipmunks Go to the Movies for its eighth and final season in 1990–1991. With well over 100 songs recorded, the Chipmunks had material for dozens of albums, but they “only” released seven during the show.

But as popular as the Chipmunks were, the band that has the largest following from Saturday mornings is probably the last big hurrah from the 1980s… Jem, also known as Jem and The Holograms.

The series was a collaborative effort between animation companies Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions, and Hasbro, a toy company. The same trio had already had hits with G.I. Joe and Transformers, but those were boys’ shows, and they wanted to bring that same energy to create a girls’ show.

Jem was about the globe-trotting adventures of Jem and the Holograms, who travel around the world playing gigs and feuding with two rival girl groups: The Misfits and later foes, The Stingers.

Most of them are unaware that Jerrica Benton, the owner/manager of Starlight Records, is also secretly Jem, the lead singer of the Holograms; Jerrica is aided by a holographic computer named Synergy that her late father created.

With two bands to play, each episode featured up to three songs, presented as flashy special effects-filled music videos. The clips were not unlike those showing on MTV, and the Holograms and others were styled with contemporary clothes, big candy-colored hair, and a style that evoked then-current Madonna and

others. Jem debuted in 1985 with seven-minute shorts as part of Sunbow/Marvel’s Super Sunday/Saturday block (along with Robotix, Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, and Inhumanoids). In Spring 1986, Jem transitioned to a half-hour show, which it stayed through 1988.

In all, 65 episodes were produced, with a total of 151 unique songs recorded and 187 music videos. This number makes Jem the undisputed queen of animated musicians, followed by The Chipmunks and The Archies.

From squirrels to insects and super-heroes to recording moguls, the world of Saturday morning music has been an ever-evolving concert. But one truth holds… if you have a guitar, drums, and a keyboard, you must have a tambourine!

Unless otherwise credited, artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of thirty 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 best-selling Wonder Woman ‘77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and has written six Fractured Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior High audiences, released by Abdo Books, as well as Bookazine projects (available at any grocery store checkout) on Ant-Man, Iron Man, and The Little Mermaid. He is currently working on a series of graphic novels for the online game Planet Xolo, Kickstarter graphic novels for The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Born With the Devil In Me: The Life and Deaths of H.H. Holmes, and a book about the stage productions of Stephen King. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over forty DVD releases. He also sings and releases one song a day on social media! His moustache is infamous. Follow him on multiple sites at https://linktr.ee/andymangels RETROFAN

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

MARVIN GLASS Troubled King of Toys!

BY SCOTT SHAW! I’ve been lucky in many ways. One of those gifts—in my experience at least—was to be an “only child.” I didn’t have to compete with anyone but myself, and I was able to focus on my interests. I was a boy cartoonist/paleontologist/weirdo, armed with pencils, crayons, correctly-pronouncing-dinosaur-names, and Disney’s 200,000 Leagues Under the Sea introduced me to science fiction and the concept of world peace when I was three years old. Of course, I was a spoiled rotten kid.

So it wasn’t any surprise that when Ideal Toys’ Mr. Machine was released to the world, I was immediately fascinated that he was a toy robot that I could take apart and reassemble. On September 4, 1960, I received him for my ninth birthday, one of the greatest toys I ever owned... until King Zor arrived on the scene.

Two years later, my Mr. Machine and all of his parts were still doing fine. King Zor, a massive robot dinosaur would turn 180 degrees if you hit him in the tail, then shoot balls at you. King Zor was the coolest, most aggressive dinosaur toy up to that point in time. I rebuilt my Mr. Machine and added cardboard parts to resemble King Zor. It was a great gimmick for campaigning the message to my parents that I really needed King Zor for Xmas. And here’s a photo to prove that it worked!

My nostalgia for these meaningful gifts led to researching their background. Both were produced by Ideal Toys—at the time, one of the industry’s better companies—and created and designed by Marvin Glass and Associates. The studio’s creative output definitely had an influence on my career when I was designing Hanna-Barbera and Simpsons figures for McFarlane Toys.

Marvin Glass and company created imaginative toys that made millions of kids happy for decades. Unfortunately, when the man behind the fun was a kid named Marvin I. Goldberg, he was anything but happy.

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(ABOVE) King Zor box art.

Digitally altered.

(LEFT) Scott Shaw! and his majesty, King Zor. Photo courtesy of Scott Shaw!

To flee the anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia, Marvin’s paternal grandparents and their children—the middle child of six kids was Marvin’s father Louis—joined two million other Jews to flee to America. Arriving in the U.S. sometime between 1894 and 1897, they settled in Chicago, where Louis finished his schooling and focused on the garment industry. There, he met Rose Glass, his future wife and Marvin’s mother. Rose’s family—including her four brothers: Theodore, Jacob, Frances, and Harry—came from what is now

(LEFT) Toy legend Marvin Glass thoughtfully observes a Robot Commando toy robot on the cover of the Chicago Tribune Magazine for November 5, 1961. © Chicago Tribune.

Western Ukraine. Harry eventually developed dementia and was committed to the Chicago State Hospital at the age of thirty-nine.

On June 29, 1913, Louis Goldberg and Rose Glass were wed; the next year, on July 14, their son Marvin I. Goldberg was born.

Six years later, the family had moved to Bucktown and into a three-story brick apartment. Louis, now a garment salesman, was often on the road for days at a time, leaving Marvin alone with his mother. It’s unknown if or how Rose’s increasingly hostile mental issues were related to her brother Harry, but one thing was certain. One day, when Louis wasn’t at home, Rose attempted to murder her only child by trying to throw him out of an upper-story window. She was committed to the “insane hospital” outside of Chicago, Dunning Institution, where Rose remained for decades.

Rose’s sister Frances and her husband Louis Goldberg (no relation) took over the duty of raising Marvin. They lived in the Polish section of the Southside Chicago neighborhood known as the “Back of the Yards,” named for its location, west of the city’s Union Stock Yards. The stench of enormous slaughterhouses; miles of penned hogs, sheep, and cattle; fertilizer plants; rendering vats; garbage dumps accumulated alley trash; a few tanneries; and a fetid sewer known as “Bubbly Creek” made Marvin’s new life not much better than his old one. “Aunt Frances” and “Uncle Louis”, however, truly loved him. In Before AI, there was… Mr. Machine! TM American Classic Toy, Inc. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

reaction, young Marvin was very “unruly,” tossing ink on the drapes, stomping his feet, and having angry tantrums.

During this, Marvin’s actual father, Louis Goldberg, continued to live in Chicago, remarrying the same year his son turned ten and bearing a daughter, Sonia, when Marvin was sixteen. Louis’ son reconnected with him and his new family.

Eventually, Marvin learned to ignore his situation by obsessing on the fantasy world of entertainment. His hero was the movie star and creative genius Charlie Chaplin, with whom the Chicago youngster greatly identified. They both struggled through troubled childhoods, had mothers with mental problems, and lived in poverty. He was also very interested in hypnotism. By the time he grew to be a pre-teen, Marvin had become an enterprising go-getter, selling encyclopedias at a furious rate.

“I didn’t have many toys as a child,” Marvin once said, “and I became very concerned about them. I guess I never stopped thinking about toys. In many ways I’ve remained a child.”

As an adult, Marvin avoided sharing information about his life or family with the public. He would alter their names, nationalities, locations, and beliefs, as well as his own history, such as schooling.

He’s noted for attending many different colleges and universities, but there is no evidence that he was ever in college. He was so secretive that there is no accurate information regarding what Marvin was doing with his life during most of his twenties. It’s very possible that he was working for his biological father Louis, who by that time was involved with the liquor industry and gambling syndicate. Marvin contradicted himself in interviews so many times that he eventually became known as “The Troubled King of Toys.”

Marvin’s earliest semi-professional gig was working with a freelance graphic artist named Carl Sachs, working together on “some sort of paper items,” probably for Louis’ secret partner. Marvin also had an uncle in the art business, Theodore Glass, who had worked at an engraving company in Chicago. He had moved to California, and was also an inspiration to young Marvin.

In 1942, while visiting his mother in the sanitarium, Marvin met Judd Reed, a commercial artist working for an advertising company, who was there to see his wife. While the two young men chatted, Judd introduced Marvin to the toy industry. Their chemistry and backgrounds were ideal; Judd was an industrial designer, artist, sculptor, and graphic designer, while Marvin was an outstanding salesman. The two of them would be business associates for decades. Their team expanded with the addition of artist/illustrator Eoina “Joe” Nudelman. According to Marvin, “For years, we lived and worked together in Nudelman’s studio, playing Gypsy music, drinking vodka, RETROFAN

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

and talking toy ideas. The Depression was no time to do much saving. For a long time, I slept in that rented studio and stayed up nights because of the cold.”

Before meeting Marvin, under the title Reed and Associates, Judd and Eoina were creating paper toy products, due to wartime America requiring steel, iron, zinc, rubber, rayon, and other material for necessary weaponry, although paper drives were also held. Both men challenged their creativity by hatching concepts for various elaborate three-dimensional punch-out/ fold-up paper toys. By 1942, these included a Movie Musical Ferris Wheel, Spot ’em, American Skyhawk Squadron, the Land, Sea, Air Super Battleset and many more, all paper and a few with a bit of wood, bearing the label Reed and Associates. In 1943, their new teammate came up with a new idea: Tiny Town Theatre, promoted with “See your favorite comics come to life before your eyes!” Although there was no actual projector, kids could run pre-printed “funnies” across the toy’s paper screen, as well as syndicated comics that they cut out of their parents’ newspapers. Marvin considered it “our first important success.” However, Reed and Associates sold the concept directly to their client for $500. The manufacturer then sold the product to the public, making more than $30,000. Marvin later claimed, “That was the first and last time I ever designed a toy without getting a royalty.” As well as the patent. He also admitted, “But the theatre was so successful I never did anything after that but toys.”

And well into the 1980s, that’s exactly what Marvin Glass and his team did, creating well over five hundred toys of various types, from goofy gags to phones and video games (so many that to cover them all, this article would fill this entire issue of RetroFan!) Now that he was a businessman, Marvin decided to change his name. On July 29, 1944, he was now Marvin Irving Glass. The newly named Reed and Associates’ latest toy design was the “Baby Jim” Exerciser, manufactured by a Chicago company, United Products, which Marvin described as “a baby-crib chinning bar festooned with toys and gadgets.” Steadily selling for two years straight, Marvin felt that it was an important product that determined the direction of their company’s output.

While Reed and Associates was still creating new ways to make paper products, including hinged appendages, the company bought the licenses for the popular Walt Disney characters and King Syndicate’s Popeye the Sailor as new paper punch-outs.

However, Marvin’s salesman skills weren’t satisfying enough; he needed to run the company. Therefore, in 1944, Marvin convinced his partners Judd Reed and “Joe” Nudelman to sell him their shares of the outfit.

Marvin Glass continued to create new forms of paper toys for a new manufacturer, including licensed Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, Hoppy the Flying Bunny, and other Fawcett “Magnetic Action” Mickey and Minnie Mouse figures and box. © Disney.

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(ABOVE AND RIGHT) The early efforts of Marvin Glass with Captain Marvel paper toys. © Warner Bros.

Entertainment. Courtesy of Heritage.

characters. He also decided that if his company owned a manufacturer, the profits would be greatly more generous. Marvin partnered with a novelties salesman named Sol Mintz to run Masco. They were also its sole employees. Their first product was Tricky Dogs, a white plastic Scottie dog with a magnet inside and a black version of the same. The very popular toys were originally manufactured by Irving Fishlove, but Marvin approached the Tricky Dogs creator, Walter J. Blake, and charmed him into selling him the license before he could sign a new agreement with Fishlove. It also allowed Masco to produce two similar magnetic toy sets featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and a bullfighter with a bull. Masco was still making a lot of paper novelties, and the offshoot company was looking at a wonderful future. But their line of products were on the shelves for a year or so before Masco went out of business. No explanation has ever been given to the public. Sol Mintz went on to run a variety of businesses while Marvin decided to start having Reed and Associates manufacture items under its name.

The first of these was not for children, but for a specific belief system: the Catholic Weather Chapel. The next batch of merchandise was Christmas Tree Windows, miniature plastic versions of

The oddball world of scott shaw!

(ABOVE) A. Eddy Goldfarb’s patent drawing for the (INSET) Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth. Courtesy of Worthpoint. stained-glass church windows backlit by bulbs, to hang on the boughs of holiday trees. However, due to multiple problems, including poorly timed advertising that lacked the address to order, six-week-long shipping, and shoddy merchandise that was returned, the Christmas Tree Windows were an absolute disaster.

According to Marvin Glass, Reed and Associates lost between $800,000 and $1,000,000.

Now, nearly penniless and with $300,000 in debt, Marvin had only one feasible solution. He borrowed money from friends to start all over again... and this time, just toys.

And while assembling his new company, Marvin fully understood that he wasn’t remotely as skilled as an idea man as he was a salesman. He needed to hire truly imaginative people to provide lucrative concepts and prototypes.

A. Eddy Goldfarb, a future Toy Hall of Fame inventor was the first among many who fit the need. Working out of a few rooms that Marvin rented in Chicago’s Hotel Alexandria, the duo began to create and construct. But who would manufacture them?

Marvin met a Chicago businessman named Dave Trager and taught him about the toy industry so Dave could start his own toy company—Topic Toys—that would manufacture Marvin Glass and Associate’s new products... with a 7% royalty to Marvin.

Topic Toys’ first product was based on a concept hatched back at Ross and Associates, “Joe” Nudelman’s Hungry Piggy, described as “Based on the psychological mechanism of mimicry, Hungry Piggy easily persuades baby to eat where all of mother’s commands and whiles may fail.” The follow-up was Busy Biddy Chicken, an appealing mechanical plastic hen who can lay as many as five plastic eggs.

It was created and designed by A. Eddy Goldfarb, whose next creation is still considered a corny classic.

While A. Eddy was thumbing through a newspaper, he saw an ad for containers to keep false teeth when their owners were sleeping. He found it amusing, but it was the false teeth that stuck in his mind, seeing them as “a pair of dentures, chomping and sputtering down the road like a car, and parking on their own.”

The final result was released in 1949 as Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth, manufactured by H. Fishlove and Co. Why not Topic Toys? Dave Trager considered Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth, to be a novelty, not a toy. Oddly, Marvin wasn’t wild about them either, saying that they were in bad taste (although all of the cash they brought in was probably quite tasty.)

TOYTIME

But while Marvin’s career seemed like a rollercoaster, his personal life was solid, having married a “personable and extraordinarily bright” woman, Dorothy Chambers, in 1948.

1949 magazine ad featuring the Merry Go Sip to encourage children to drink and Nudelman’s Hungry Piggy designed to teach children how to eat.

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(LEFT) Tumble Bug (1954), an early much-needed success for Marvin Glass. (BELOW LEFT) Big Max and his Electronic Conveyor from Remco.

(LEFT) Mr. Machine box front.

(RIGHT) Robot Commando. Mr. Machine courtesy of Worthpoint. Robot Commando courtesy of toytent.com

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Meanwhile, Topic Toys was busy with a long line of goodies: Merry-Go-Sip, Mov A Toy Book, and themed spoon sets, toothbrush sets, and whistles (1949); Yank A Tooth, Dipsy Diver, Goosy Lucy, and Lazy Daisy (1950), Koo-Koo Clock, Tidy Teddy, Magic Cage, Blushing Sweethearts, Noah’s Nesting Ark, Jack in the Bank, and assorted whistles and flutes; and The Unimal, Moody Mutt, and Back Seat Driver (1951) and Bull’s Eye Bomber (1952.) Meanwhile, H. Fishlove and Co. handled Hi Pardner Pencil Pistol, Pin Up Pencil, Katy Kangaroo, Razzer Tie Clip Elephant (1951), and Razzer Tie Clip Donkey (1952.) Marvin Glass’ Endless Stream Fire Boat was a recurring theme, beginning with Amerline.

Unfortunately, those years’ efforts were mainly to survive.

Goldfarb left the company in 1952 and Nudelman exited a few years later. And Topic Toys was no longer exclusive to Marvin Glass and Associates, who was still borrowing money to stay afloat. Fortunately, his outfit got back on track, with a new team of outstanding model makers who were familiar with then-contemporary technology, as well as many new manufacturers. The post-WWII baby boom brought a huge wave of toy-seeking children who watched the somewhat new media, television, complete with advertising.

America’s culture and fads shifted to the young.

However, 1953 though 1955 were still rough for MGA, although Marvin acquired the rights to Hank Ketcham’s popular new comic panel series, Dennis the Menace, in 1954. But during this period, MGA had only one true success: 1954’s Tumble Bug, gelatin pill capsules with a weighted ball inside, a gimmick that had been around since the mid-1800s, but with the added appeal of games and races for the tumble bugs. Most of the other toys and novelties seemed more or less similar to the toys they started out with.

Their Whoops (H. Fishlove and Co., 1959), a plastic slab of phony vomit, became a classic in the Halls of Practical Jokes. However, in the second half of the decade, MGA was starting to take advantage of current fads, especially science fiction, with Robo the Robot Dog (Wyandotte Toys, 1956), the magnetic robot Big Max (Remco, 1957), and Robot Hands and Mask (Kilgore, 1958.) These sci-fi toys led to MGA’s first massive breakout toy that put Marvin Glass and Associates on the map.

By this time, Marvin had expanded the number of rooms he rented at the Alexandria Hotel, with multiple locks on every one to insure security. He now had a team of a dozen designers and model makers. As Marvin described their process, “All the men in my shop have become necessary to each other by some process of symbiosis. One is a designer, one an engineer, one an artist; every man lets other man’s ideas seep in and enhance his own, sort of converging his own talents and abilities. The idea of the creative genius that could sit down and come up with a great toy, well, you

The oddball world of scott shaw!

can do it once, maybe, but not twice, and not over and over. To have a consistent roll of products you need a group. When one of us gets an idea, that idea goes to the art department, the mock-up department, and then to preliminary engineering. That might take two and a half or three months just to come up with a workable model. At that time, we’re not interested in cost, we’re interested in appeal. If we see it has appeal, we try to see if we can reduce it to a practical price.” That hotel may have had better days, but it was certainly seething with creativity!

ROBOTS + DINOSAURS

In 1960, Ideal Toys’ Mr. Machine premiered on the shelves of toy shops and department store across America. With a top hat and a bolt for a nose, this robot had a naive element, therefore making him appealing to young and not-so-young kids. The ability to take him apart and then re-build him was the cherry on the sundae. His sales were huge, which inspired Ideal Toys to make him its mascot as well as solidified a strong relationship between MGA and the toy corporation for decades.

(LEFT) Inspired by Rube Goldberg cartoons, the Mouse Trap Game has become a perennial favorite. (ABOVE) A game with teeth! The King Zor game. (BELOW) You knocked my block off! Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. King Zor photo courtesy of Scott Shaw! Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots and Mouse Trap Game courtesy of Heritage.

The next year, another Ideal toy was MGA’s biggest seller, Robot Commando, a weaponized robot that fired missiles out of his head, so aggressive that he was cast in an episode of Nat Hiken’s cop comedy TV series, Car 54, Where Are You? (NBC, 19611963.) Among other MGA toys, there was also an Ideal Mr. Machine board game that same year, as well as a goofy talking robot toy named Yakkity Yob. 1962 featured MGA’s ultimate robot toy, King Zor, promoted as “the mechanical monster that fights back!” A massive mechanized dinosaur who’d hunt down its owner to shoot balls out of his back, he also had a protruding tongue that, if it touched a surface in its way, would turn 180 degrees to further ownerhunting. It also came with a heavy-duty dart gun to fight against King Zor, by far the greatest toy I ever owned.

That same year, MGA had an incredible lineup of new Ideal toys, including Odd Ogg (a half-turtle/halffrog robot that played catch); Haunted House, a spooky game in a plastic Charles Addams-esque edifice); Pachink (a child’s version of the Asian pinball game) and a King Zor board game. For other manufacturers, there was a tabletop golf game called Golferino and another silly figure game, Bubble Gum Cow.

Silly games were big, and MGA/Ideal was prepared with one of the silliest and biggest ever: Mouse Trap. In 1963, the Rube Goldberg-inspired, three-dimensional board game cemented the opinion of my generation that Ideal was by far the coolest toy company around. In fact, Mouse Trap is still available in toy stores, albeit now manufactured by Milton Bradley. It also heavily influenced further two very similar games from Ideal, Crazy Clock (1964) and Fishbait (1965).

MGA skipped a robot toy for two years in a row, but in 1964, they came back fightin’... literally, with Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots... by Marx! Thanks to television’s The Munsters and The Addams Family,

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monsters had become a fad, so The Mystic Skull and Monster Lab (both from Ideal) were also introduced.

And as with Mouse Trap, they’re still available on toy shelves. MGA also released 14 other toys that year, from dolls to trains. That same year, the Alexandria Hotel was razed, replaced by a five-story parking lot.

Fortunately, Marvin had planned for it, purchasing an old 10,000 square foot, two-story brick building to gut and renovate as their new studio. The place was intelligently re-designed, with most of the rooms festooned with fine art from Marvin’s personal collection. He felt that the paintings would inspire his staff’s creativity. He also heightened the studio’s security to make certain that visitors would never see their in-progress projects.

Two screen captures from a circa 1976 commercial for Lite Brite. © Hasbro.

CLASSICS GAMES FROM YESTERYEAR

Marvin Glass and Associates was finally at its peak... and remained there for decades. With its incredible output, there are many more classic toys from MGA that require mentioning.

Mystery Date (Milton Bradley, 1965)—which seemed like a forerunner of the TV series The Dating Game—was aimed at girls too young to date. Their bachelor selections featured a beach dude, an athletic skier, a bowler, a “dreamy” prom date, and a sloppy, unkempt “Dud,” the boy to avoid.

Operation was created by John Spinello as a young man still attending college. He sold Operation directly to Marvin Glass, who paid the kid a mere $500 for the electric game in exchange for hiring him... which Glass never did. At least we all now know who was operated on.

Originally, Marvin Glass was delighted to acquire the rights for the first four James Bond films. Unfortunately, the James Bond 007 Action Figures and Toys (Gilbert, 1965) were sold exclusively at Sears department stores for the first year. Although the project was given a lot of creative attention, the products bombed. I recall seeing the 007 metal figures for sale for a nickel each at Pic ’N’ Save a few years later.

Lite Brite (Hasbro, 1967) was the perfect creative toy for kids during the first wave of the Hippie Generation. No sex, no drugs, but glowing color to make flowers, butterflies, and whatever kids with or without talent think is pretty and cool. Any toy that urges kids to create is a good toy.

The name came first for Ants in the Pants (Schaper Toys/Ideal, 1969), but it sure worked. Its pants with the suspenders was also a bucket in which to store the plastic insects. It was an instant success for Schaper Toys, second only to their Cootie game. Eventually bought by Milton Bradley, it’s still on the shelves these days.

Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle (Ideal, 1973) was not only the best-selling toy from MGA that year, but it led to many other spinoff toys related to the stunt biker, including Evel Knievel Stunt Stadium, Evel Knievel Scramble Van, Evel Knievel Hobby Kit, Evel Knievel Canyon Sky Cycle, Evel Knievel Sky Cycle X-2 Radio, Evel Knieval Stunt Game; Evel Knieval Toothbrush, and Evel Knieval Stunt World.

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The Ants in the Pants Game still delights kids to this day. © Milton Bradley.

Courtesy of Worthpoint.

Simon was originally called Feedback. TM Hasbro. Photo courtesy of Hasbro.

The oddball world of scott shaw!

game that could actually improve a players’ memory. It was introduced to the press in the hedonistic disco Studio 54 as the “Simon Celebrity Challenge,” attended by Bianca Jagger, Carol Channing, Geraldo Rivera, Parker Stevenson, and Abe Vigoda (?), among others. The event was somewhat ridiculous, but three months later, Simon’s premiere was enough to sell millions of the colorful new toy.

THE LEGACY LIVES ON

In the ’70s and ’80s, Marvin Glass and Associates still created its own toys, but also ventured into other properties, including Batman, The Wild World of Sports, Star Trek, McDonalds, Jaws, Mickey Mouse, Jay J. Armes, Spider-Man, The Bionic Woman, Big Jim, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Zaxxon, Masters of the Universe, Voltron, and Rambo, among others. MGA also designed a number of video games—Domino Man, Wacko, Journey, and Tapper­— for Bally Midway in 1983.

Although Marvin Irving Glass died on January 8, 1974, at the age of 59, his company existed until 1988.

Several partners from Marvin Glass and Associates subsequently started Chicago-based Big Monster Toys. They were the lucky ones. Two years later, managing partner Anson Isaacson, partner Joseph Callan, and designer Kathy Dunn were shot and killed—with two others seriously wounded—at the company’s offices in Chicago. The perpetrator was 33-year-old Albert Keller, a designer suffering from paranoid delusions who then killed himself.

It’s darkly ironic that even after Marvin’s death, the worst aspects of mental health still affected his team. Fortunately, those

somewhat lurid details of Marvin Glass and his team are microscopic compared to the joy that they gave children through the toys that Santa, their friends, and family financed.

Don’t worry, though; although all of those vintage toys are now selling online for many times their original prices, at least Marvin Glass isn’t around to take his cut!

Many thanks to A World Without Reality: Inside Marvin Glass’s Toy Vault, written and published by Bill Paxton (2019) for the quotes and reference.

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

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RETROFAD

Moon Over the Five and Dime Some of Jim’s moon memories. Photos courtesy of Jim Beard. Moon photo courtesy of NASA.

BY JIM BEARD Like most every other kid in the early 1970s, I was moon-crazy.

I sometimes wonder if NASA had any real idea of what they did to us back then. Did they know the impact the Apollo program would have on children? Did they suspect their innocent little moon landings would become such a huge part of our daily grade school lives? Did they ever figure there’d be a small, plastic Moon Rover shrink-wrapped to jars of Tang?

From 1967 to the very end of 1972, we kids suffered the symptoms of acute Apollo Astronaut Obsession. It manifested in many ways, but one of the most pervasive signs of the insidious ailment had to be the overwhelming desire to bring the moon itself into our bedrooms, dens, and even to the dining room table. Luckily for us—maybe not so much for our parents—nearly every manufacturer of goods everywhere was feeding that bottomless appetite with a steady, and heady, stream of stuff from every possible angle.

In short, wherever we turned, we were being mooned.

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For me personally, those halcyon days of an early childhood spent in a crater were represented mainly by toys and books, not necessarily in that order.

I had already been introduced to Mattel’s Major Matt Mason figures in 1968—shared with my older brother—but for Christmas of 1969 I welcomed a GI Joe Astronaut and his Space Capsule into the family, and from that moment on I never looked back.

Dinosaurs were quickly set aside to make room for six-inch plastic Astronauts from Marx Toys, Airfix’s HO-scale set of moon explorers (57 pieces!), and a huge rub-down transfers diorama of astronauts vs. aliens (from Letraset?). And let’s not forget the model kits my brother and I couldn’t get enough of. Companies like Revell and

Confessions of a Grade School Apollo Addict Aurora kept us supplied with enough Saturn Vs and Lunar Modules that we were never bored on a rainy afternoon, or a sunny one, either. I can still smell that lemon-scented, non-toxic glue we used to propel us to the moon and back.

Games, which sort of rate as “toy adjacent,” were an immense component of my and my siblings’ daily existence. The moon craze provided some stunning examples of adapting Apollo to playing boards and dice, such as Count Down from E.S. Lowe, Edu-Card’s Space Race Card Game, and my personal, all-time favorite, Avon’s Moon Flight Game (“with Non-Tear Shampoo”!), an amazing set with a plastic playmat and a clever dice-rolling contraption that looked like a pneumatic Command Module and a Lunar Lander “die.” That plastic mat was great in keeping the tears of those I defeated at the game from getting on my mom’s carpet.

I was a bookish kid, and the Apollo program provided seemingly endless fodder for publishers to fill up my bookshelves. I was abnormally fond of Scholastic’s The Moon Explorers by Tony Simon, Hallmark’s Pop-Up book Astronauts on the Moon, and Random House’s You Will Go to the Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman, a little hardcover I had no idea back in ’71 was actually a retread of a 1959 book with new, updated illustrations to reflect Apollo. What did I know? It was about a kid like me going into space! And to give me an extra push toward that goal, Saalfield’s Apollo Man on the Moon coloring book (“Based on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Program”) joined my model kits as a worthy pastime for a crater-conscious child like me.

When the Apollo missions didn’t keep us glued to our televisions to watch Walter Cronkite play with spacecraft models that looked so much cooler than ours, we were collecting Man on the Moon bubblegum cards from Topps (and throwing away the bubblegum), wearing Apollo 11 T-shirts, staring into our GAF View-Master viewers to click through the Apollo Moon Landing reels (with “Actual Stereo Photographs of America’s Historical Apollo Project”!), and drinking from Libbey Glass’ ubiquitous Apollo glassware—you know the ones, the glasses Marathon had at their gas stations back in the day and that no antique mall or flea market booth can be seen without today.

At night, I crawled into my bed, snug and warm under my Apollo astronaut bed spread featuring a nearly full-size posterized photograph of a spacewalk. I was covered no matter what time of day or night it was. I was an Apollo Kid. I was the future of NASA’s astronaut program. I was the one destined to launch from a moonbase on my way to Mars or Venus…

And yet, on one fateful day someone told me that there was no way in the world a kid who wore glasses and had asthma could ever

(LEFT) Jim holds his G.I. Joe Space Capsule. (RIGHT) Jim, sitting next to his sister, wears an Apollo 11 T-shirt. be the next Neil Armstrong (or Buzz Aldrin, for that matter). I was hurt and heartbroken—why were my eyes and lungs betraying me?—but I turned back to my books and models and G.I. Joe Astronaut and continued to dream of space and Saturn Vs and eventually Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab (which I never did see with the naked eye no matter how many times they told us we could). I may never have had a chance then of being a retired astronaut now, but I could at least still surround myself with all that wonderful stuff and keep watching the skies.

Back then, Apollo had us in its grip and every which way we could turn… but loose. It was an amazing moment in time, made all the richer and sweeter by blatant, beautiful commercialism. What did I care? I was only going to be a kid once and by Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, I was going to enjoy it.

JIM BEARD, a native Toledoan, was introduced to comic books at an early age by his father, who passed on to him a love for the medium and the pulp characters who preceded it. He’s written official Spider-Man, X-Files, and Planet of the Apes prose fiction, Star Wars and Ghostbusters comic stories, and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. Jim is also the co-publisher at Flinch Books, a small-press pulp house.

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Campy, Kitschy, and Captivating The Rise and Fall of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

BY DAN MURPHY “We’re the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling We’re all champions in the ring We come from the streets We come from the cities We come from a world where there is no pity.”

In September 1986, thousands of unsuspecting television viewers were greeted by two dozen scantily clad beauties (and one very awkward tuxedoed man) belting out this rap inside a pink-roped wrestling ring.

Yes, the rap needed work; it was somehow even hokier than the Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” released ten months earlier. The hair was teased high, the Lycra was tight. The dancing ranged from hip-swiveling gyrations to arrhythmic swaying and handclapping. But the pure “what the hell is this?” hypnotic spectacle of it all was enough to give pause to the most jaded of channel surfers.

America had discovered GLOW. And America was captivated.

The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was the brainchild of David B. McLane, an aspiring television promoter (and the aforementioned awkward tuxedoed man) hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana. A professional wrestling fan since childhood, McLane had established

a fan club in honor of Indiana rasslin’ hero Dick the Bruiser as a teenager. Dick the Bruiser (real name William Afflis Jr.) was also co-owner of the World Wrestling Association, the regional wrestling promotion in the area. McLane’s passion, energy, and dedication caught Afflis’ attention and the grappler brought McLane onboard to help in the office and eventually become an on-air ring announcer and commentator.

But the era of small regional pro wrestling territories was coming to an end. In 1982, Vince McMahon Jr. took the reins of the World Wrestling Federation from his father. Unlike Vince Sr., Vince Jr. wanted to expand the WWF outside of its base in New York and the Northeast and grow it into a national wrestling company. Over the next few years, McMahon raided talent from other promotions, bought them out, or beat them down by competing head-to-head against them in their own market. Buoyed by stars like Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, and “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka—and agreements with NBC and MTV—McMahon’s WWF had garnered the lion’s share of the wrestling market.

While many territorial wrestling promoters groused about McMahon’s business practices and cartoonish and gimmick-heavy presentation of wrestling, McLane saw inspiration and opportunity.

Women’s wresting had been a novelty act since Mildred Burke started turning heads and kicking asses in the 1930s, but Afflis had been reluctant to push women’s matches in the WWA. The WWF had terrific success with Wendi Richter as women’s champion in 1984. Instead of having one female star, why not start a company full of them? McLane set out to establish an all-women’s pro wrestling promotion.

GLOW BEGINS

While searching for investors, McLane managed to connect with Meshulam Riklis, the multi-millionaire businessman and owner of the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and the then-husband of actress Pia Zadora. Riklis put McLane in touch with Matt Cimber, a producer, writer, and exploitation film director who had previously been married to Jayne Mansfield.

The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, ringside with David McLane in 1986. Courtesy of IMDb. RETROFAN

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McLane had envisioned a traditional wrestling promotion featuring young, attractive women, presented with the sharp, modern MTV-style television production that the WWF had pioneered. Cimber wanted to up the entertainment aspect and lean hard into camp and burlesque aspects.

The result was a unique hybrid wrestling show meets variety show—Saturday Night’s Main Event meets Hee Haw. “Riklis thought that Cimber could add some sizzle to McLane’s women’s wrestling (LEFT) Emily Dole, wrestling under project. Cimber started adding in the the name Mt. Fiji, prepares a huge comedy sketches and rap songs,” said over the head slam to a competitor Jeanne “Hollywood” Basone, who was a cast in the ring. (RIGHT) Jayne Adams, member for all four seasons of GLOW (see celebrating a victory as The Califorsidebar Q&A). “To McLane, the campy bits nia Doll. Courtesy of IMDb. were probably a necessary evil. Riklis had the money; Cimber had the connections.

If the show was ever going to get off the ground, they were going to have to work together.” definitely already athletic, so it was an easy transition. I had mixed McLane and Cimber put out a casting call looking for athletic feelings about it. I thought it could be a fun experience that would young women looking to be part of a “sports entertainment” show. allow travel, TV time, and fun, and an adventure I could tell the More than 200 aspiring actresses, dancers, showgirls, and models grandkids about some day.” turned out for the audition at the Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in The women were put through a crash course in pro wrestling Hollywood. When McLane and Cimber announced they were training led by veteran grappler Mando Guerrero. Guerrero taught casting spots for a professional wrestling program, many of the the women how to fall, how to safely throw their opponents, and the basic psychology and timing of professional wrestling. women quickly walked out. Those that remained, while not neces“Training with Mando was wonderful; it was a terrific experisarily sold on the idea of becoming professional wrestlers, were at ence,” said former GLOW champion April “The Royal Hawaiian” least intrigued.

Hom. “He always stressed that we needed to pay attention so “I was in college and doing modelling and convention gigs nobody got hurt. One day, a bunch of the girls weren’t paying attento make extra money,” said Jayne “California Doll” Adams, cast tion, so he grabbed the closest girl, put her in a sleeper hold, and member for seasons one and two. “I auditioned with Matt Cimber knocked her out. She collapsed to the mat and Mando said, ‘Now at the Riviera Hotel. I didn’t have any experience wrestling but was do I have your attention?’ Needless to say, he did.”

After two months of training, 16 women were selected to film the show pilot: Royal Hawaiian, Spanish Red, Americana, California Doll (played by Lynda Aldon before the role was recast with Jayne Adams), Tammy Jones, Matilda the Hun (the only cast member with prior pro wrestling experience), and tag teams Pepper and Salt, Debbie Debutante and Suzie Spirit, Hollywood and Vine, Heavy Metal Sisters Chainsaw and Spike, and Tina and Ashley (yes, T&A).

Royal Hawaiian and Ashley pulled double duty, also wrestling under hoods as chain-wielding rednecks Sara and Mabel.

The pilot was shot on December 5, 1985, at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The main event saw the precocious Tammy Jones upset the much larger Matilda the Hun to become the first GLOW champion. The show featured five matches, video packages featuring the song New Attitude by Patti LaBelle, some backstage Ursula Hayden as the Farmer’s Daughter. Sirkka Ottonen (Kindness33)/Wikipedia.

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Popular character Dementia charges the camera with murderous intent. © Tubi.

vignettes and interviews, Matilda the Hun singing about her love of raw meat, and a generous amount of leotard wedgies and spreadeagle camera shots.

While there was certainly content to titillate male viewers, GLOW gave the ladies center stage. The women had clearly defined characters and storylines. The wrestling—while not masterful by any means—was passable, especially considering everyone other than Matilda had only had a couple months of training.

Mercedes Martinez, a current respected women’s wrestler who has competed in World Wrestling Entertainment and All Elite Wrestling, has said that she was a fan of GLOW as a child and found it empowering to see women get characters like male wrestlers and be promoted on television.

McLane, Cimber, and several of the GLOW girls took the pilot to the National Association of Television Program Executives convention in New Orleans and looked to get a syndication deal.

The crew set up a small platform surrounded by their signature pink ring ropes. A monitor played the pilot, and Matilda the Hun, Hollywood, Tammy Jones, and Americana performed the GLOW rap song to catch the attention of passing executives. It worked.

GLOW was picked up for syndication to air in 30 major markets in the United States (including the new Fox Network) and in six other countries.

GLOW ON AIR

Tapings were held on Saturday afternoons at the Riviera. Casino patrons were encouraged to attend to enjoy a free show as part of a studio audience, cheering the good girls and booing the rulebreakers.

McLane served as the ring announcer and television commentator while Cimber oversaw production. Each episode included singles and tag team matches, interviews, and backstage comedy sketches. One recurring gag setup saw the GLOW girls visiting the company doctors, “Drs. Fiel and Grope,” specializing in “Gynecology, Plastic Surgery, and Psychiatry,” according to the sign on their office door. These visits were often the setup for a corny one-liner, like when Glow girl Daisy consulted the doctor (it was never quite clear if the doctor was Dr. Fiel or Dr. Grope) and remarked “I heard eye doctors make very bad teachers.” “The’s right,” the doctor replied.

“They can’t control their pupils.”

Then it was back to the ring for more hair pulling and in-ring shenanigans.

To their credit, some of the GLOW cast developed into competent wrestlers in their own right. Trainer Guerrero had instilled in them some Lucha Libre training which showcased the quickness and agility of the more athletic women. Some of them were hitting impressive missile dropkicks, dives off the top rope, and quick reversal sequences that women wrestlers in the WWF and other traditional territories weren’t doing.

Guerrero trained the first group of girls, then training was overseen by the more senior women training the newcomers.

Matches were kept short and entertaining. The show felt more like a low-budget imitation of MTV than a traditional wrestling show. It didn’t take long for GLOW to find an audience. Regular fans would begin attending tapings, not just curious onlookers wandering in from the casino floor.

“My greatest memory was the GLOW fans,” said Tracee Leigh Meltzer, who wrestled as Roxy Astor. “The moment they announced your name for the match, the fans would go wild. The fans were, and still are, so passionate. They know more about our matches than we do.”

Tempo Publishing rolled out a glossy GLOW magazine chockful of pin-ups and action shots of all the GLOW girls. In 1990, GLOW girls were brought in to face off against a squad of World Championship Wrestling for a pair of “Battle of the Sexes” specials. Matilda the Hun made appearances on Mama’s Family, Night Court, and In Living Color. Jackie Stallone—the mother of the biggest action star of the era —even got in on the action. Sly’s mom was cast as the matriarchal manager of the good girls. The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling had entered the cultural zeitgeist.

McLane and Cimber continued to recruit new women and introduce new characters like the Soviet strumpet Ninotchka, voodoo-inspired super heavyweight Big Bad Momma, terrorist Palestina, Sally the Farmer’s Daughter, Godiva (in a near-nude colored bodysuit), Gremlina, Roxy Astor, Beastie The Road Warrior, Stinky, and many more.

While GLOW was proving to be popular with fans, founder David McLane was becoming disillusioned. Even though his onscreen awkward straight-man persona seemed custom-made for GLOW’s campy motif, McLane was a wrestling purist at heart, and the company he created was moving further and further away from traditional professional wrestling with each episode. McLane left GLOW during the second season. McLane was replaced by Johnny Cafarella who was billed as Johnny C. and became the figurehead “owner” of the company, buying McLane’s shares of the company in a storyline. Senior referee (and television writer) Steve Blance took another on-air role as a storyline commissioner.

McLane went on to create the short-lived Powerful Women of Wrestling promotion and later produced Women of Wrestling (WOW) in 2000. WOW ran from 2000–2002, shut down, then re-launched in 2015. It is still in syndication today.

For seasons three and four of GLOW, tapings moved out of the Riviera to a former warehouse a few blocks down the street.

Seven different women held the GLOW championship: Tammy Jones, Royal Hawaiian, Americana, Tina Ferrari (who would go on RETROFAN

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to wrestle in WWE as Ivory in the 1990s– 2000s and be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018), Ninotchka, Cheyenne Cher, and Daisy. In all, more than 60 women of all shapes and sizes performed under the GLOW banner.

“You didn’t have to be perfect, petite, or pretty to be in GLOW. Fans connected with different characters, and they still do,” Meltzer said. We empowered both men and women.”

In 1991, the GLOW girls were told that there would not be a fifth season. Creative burnout and financial issues have been cited as primary reasons for the show’s end, but an official explanation was never announced.

“I vividly remember the day we got the news that GLOW was finished,” Basone wrote in her memoirs, Hooray for Hollywood.

“I was at the GLOW House (a house on Tropicana Avenue where the talent stayed when in Las Vegas for TV tapings) and Matt Cimber was pacing back and forth, wearing his big white robe. He was waiting on a phone call from Riklis. ‘Nobody uses the phone,’ he would yell out. ‘I’m waiting on a call.’ Again, this was back before we had cell phones; we had to keep the line open.

Matt was walking back and forth with this nervous pacing until the phone finally rang.

He ran over and picked up the receiver.

‘Uh-huh,’ he said. And a pause. And, after

Cover to the July 1988 issue of GLOW magazine. Courtesy of Archive.org

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Q&A with “Hollywood” Jeanne Basone Jeanne Basone today. Courtesy of Jeanne Basone.

Jeanne Basone was one of the first GLOW girls to be hired, and she remained part of the cast for the full four-season run (from 1986–1991). As one-half of the tag team Hollywood and Vine, and later as one of the company’s top singles stars, Hollywood was one of the most recognizable GLOW girls and went on to appear on Married… With Children, Family Feud, and other television programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Q: What was your reaction when you showed up at the audition and found out you were auditioning for a pro wrestling show?

A: I was pretty surprised, to say the least.

They had said that it was a sports-related show. But I figured I’m young and I’m fearless. What do I have to lose?

Q: Can you remember any specific matches where the unexpected happened and things didn’t go as planned?

A: Yeah, there were a few different times when the unexpected happened.

One time, Mount Fiji—who was 350 pounds—picked me up and just threw me as hard as she could onto the mat.

She didn’t mean to hurt me or anything, but she was just so strong and didn’t realize how strong she was. That fall took the wind right out of me. And there’s no time-outs out there. You have to finish the match even when you’re hurt.

Q: What was the atmosphere in the GLOW locker room? Was it catty and cut-throat or relaxed?

A: Well, we didn’t exactly have a locker room. I mean, we had a locker room in our sketches. But backstage everybody seemed to get along very, very well. But I was wrestling multiple matches at each

taping so I was always concentrating on what I needed to do for each match. I wasn’t always paying attention to what other people were doing. But, like any TV show, there are always some catty characters around.

Q: GLOW helped you land appearances on Married... With Children, Family Feud, and several other popular shows of the time. Which of those non-wrestling TV spots stands out as your favorite?

A: I think the Married... With Children show stands out the most just because it was one of the most popular television shows on in the early 1990s. To be on that show and to work alongside Christina Applegate, Ed O’Neal, Katey Sagal, and David Faustino was a dream come true for me.

Q: When did you realize that GLOW was becoming a cultural phenomenon?

A: I actually didn’t realize exactly how big it had been until years after it was off the air! It wasn’t until many of the GLOW girls were interviewed for a documentary in 2011 (GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling). Once that came out, we were doing film festivals and meet-and-greets, and I got to hear from so many fans who enlightened me about how much they had enjoyed it.

Q: How accurate was the Netflix GLOW series that was based on the original GLOW? A: The Netflix show was not a carbon copy of our show. But I thought they did a great job, creating drama and scenarios for their version of GLOW. Chavo Guerrero (the nephew of the original GLOW trainer, Mando Guerrero) was the stunt coordinator on the show. I had asked him how he trained the actresses. He said he only trained

retro Sports

them for the specific part of the script that called for wrestling. That way, they wouldn’t hate wrestling. So, they didn’t exactly get the same crash course introduction we did.

Q: Who were your favorite opponents to work with and why?

A: Working with Tulsa (Jody Haselbarth) was perfect because she let me do all the high-flying maneuvers on her like the flying head scissors, which was a Hollywood classic.

Q: What was your reaction when you found out that GLOW was not being renewed?

A: I was stunned. “What? No! Really?

Why? Now what am I going to do for a job?” I had been wrestling for five years on TV and now that spot just vanished. It really sucked. It was disheartening.

Q: What have you been up to since GLOW went off the air?

A: I started my own wrestling company, Hollywould Productions, in 1997. I make regular appearances for many wrestling promoters at their conventions. I’ve also been working for a video company, Limited Run Games, signing and reprising my role as Jane from the 1993 3DO Interactive video game “Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties” (which was re-released in 2021 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S).

And I am the CEO of my soap company, NashvilleBotanika.com.

Q: You recently wrote your memoirs, Hooray for Hollywood. What compelled you to write that book, and where can people find it?

A: I knew soon after the show was finished that I wanted to write about my involvement as a pro wrestler and the many jobs, opportunities, and experiences I receive from it. I thought it would be a very unique story. My life has been full—and I mean full—of unforgettable friends and experiences. It is available on Amazon and at my website, www. jeannebasone.com.

a while, he said, ‘Okay,’ let out a little bit of a sigh, and hung up the phone. ‘That’s it,’ he said to Johnny (Cafarella). ‘No more GLOW.’ The announcement came as surprise to the talent of the show. GLOW’s popularity may have waned slightly since the first two seasons, but it was still popular among fans and television viewers. But the decision was made and GLOW was finished. The women went their separate ways. Many of them lost contact with each other altogether.

“One of the oddities of the GLOW shows is that we were given characters and then we were given fictitious names to go along with those characters,” said Angelina “Little Egypt” Altishin in a 2015 interview with the website Diva Dirt. “So that when we were working those seasons, we never referred to each other by our real names. We always referred to each other by our character names. Trying to find those characters was almost impossible.”

A GLOWING REVIVAL

Poster for the documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

A GLOW revival was attempted by Ursula “Babe the Farmer’s Daughter” Hayden in 2003, but it never quite got off the ground. In 2011, several of the GLOW girls were contacted by filmmakers Brett Whitcomb and Bradford Thomas.

In 2012, they released a documentary entitled GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling which received critical acclaim and won the Best Documentary award at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. The documentary launched a sort of revival of the GLOW brand as various wrestlers gathered for conventions, appearances, and reunions.

There was even a series of “AfterGLOW” reunion cruises reuniting the wrestlers and some of their biggest fans. In 2017, The Cauliflower Alley Club—a benevolent organization honoring members of the professional wrestling fraternity—honored the women of GLOW with its Women’s Wrestling Award, acknowledging the contribution GLOW made to the wrestling industry.

The Netflix series GLOW starring Alison Brie “The fact that people are still and Betty Gilpin lasted three seasons. © Netflix. talking about it 38 years later and reliving the 1980s through GLOW is amazing. It was something I was proud of,” Meltzer said. “GLOW will live on as the first all-female wrestling TV show. No one can take that away from us.”

DAN MURPHY is a former senior writer for Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine and co-author of the book Sisterhood of the Squared Circle: The History and Rise of Women’s Pro Wrestling.

A Buffalo, New York, native, Dan has also written several books on Western New York history. He lives with his wife, two step-kids, and three very pampered adopted dogs.

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

Amazing!

Incredible!

Unbelievable!

Kitchen Gadgets!

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA What if I told you that with this one amazing Secret Sanctum collection of vowels and consonants you could remove the ugly stains of boredom from your daily grind? Expand your mind?

Improve your chances of having interesting conversations at cocktail parties? What would you pay for that? One million dollars?

Twenty dollars? How about a mere ten U.S. dollars and a scant ninety-five cents for a curated prime selection of sentences carefully placed—by hand—into thoughtful paragraphs. That would be the most astounding bargain of all time! You know it. I know it. But wait, there’s more. If you read this installment of Secret Sanctum right now we will add punctuation and photographs at no extra charge! You can’t afford to pass up this incredible limited-time offer.

What if we made this an even better deal with no added cost to you, your family, or the people of your community? You’d be amazed, right? We will give, without any hidden fees or expectation of appreciation, eleven additional professional RetroFan features collected in a handsome magazine format fully in color and with a quality square binding once found only in the finest magazines of Europe. This is a once-in-a-two-month period offer than you simply can’t pass up.

Act now!

A good kitchen gadget ripple. Far too many don’t live could really make a up to their promises. But what homemaker’s day (if you they aren’t are funny novelties. believe the advertising).

A corncob butter applicator is a novel gadget. A corncob holder in the shape of human ears is a novelty. Kitchen novelties are for office Secret Santas and something to give your mother when you’ve run out of good ideas for a gift.

Some of the items were designated “As Seen on TV,” a term of salesmanship that could apply to any number of products featured in television commercials. Usually, it’s applied to gadgets demonstrated by very enthusiastic individuals. In the Sixties and Seventies, sellers of these gadgets relied on brief commercials to

THE KITCHEN GADGET

The kitchen has to be one of the top three rooms here at the Secret Sanctum mainly because that’s where the food and coffee comes from. Unsurprisingly, it’s where all the kitchen gadgets live.

What exactly is a kitchen gadget then? It’s basically a tool that is electrical or mechanical and solves a genuine or perceived need in a novel way. Not everything here will exactly fit that description.

The rules of logic are very fluid in the Sanctum. Mostly, they are devices that purport to fix a need that is, at best, useful-ish and, at worst, another darn thing cluttering up the place. Many kitchen gadgets are impulse buys that come and go without much of a

(LEFT) The Automatic Corn Butterer is a novel gadget while the (RIGHT) human ear corn holders are a novelty item and therefore not a proper kitchen gadget.

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make their pitch and snag the sale quickly by offering to ship before you even had to pay. (“Order now. Operators are standing by.”) The post office would collect on delivery. The rise of credit cards and a lack of desire on the part of the postal service to have delivery personnel stopping here and there to collect cash changed all that.

Fun credit fact: circa the mid-Seventies, housewives (adult women) needed a husband’s approval to get her own credit card.

There have been gadgets that have become kitchen necessities and considered important advances in homemaking tech. Among the top devices (and debut date) are the blender (1919), the toaster (1919), the ice cream scoop (1896), Mr. Coffee (1972), and the can opener (1858). This edition of the Secret Sanctum has nothing to do with anything like that.

‘IT SLICES, IT DICES’

Food processors are fairly common now, but that wasn’t the case when the Veg-O-Matic made its debut in 1963. The Veg-O-Matic was a non-electric device for preparing vegetables with greater ease, and it got home chefs (okay, housewives) interested. Take your potato (please) or canned meat product (Spam!), and the Veg-O-Matic can slice it and dice it quickly and cleanly.

The Veg-O-Matic was the creation of Samuel Joseph Popeil (1915–1984). Popeil was the CEO of Popeil Brothers Inc., makers of a number of gadgets including the Pocket Fisherman. Popeil got his start as a product salesman for the family business when he was 17. At first, he did not enjoy demonstrating vegetable peelers and the like in department stores to shoppers, but it eventually grew on him. He rose up the ranks of Popeil Brothers and became quite wealthy, so wealthy his estranged wife wanted to have him killed.

The intended assassin was a man named… Peeler. Yep, yep, yep.

It was Samuel’s son Ron whose salesmanship and inventiveness would take the Veg-O-Matic (and other home gadgets) into a whole new level of public awareness. Ron Martin Popeil (1935–2021) didn’t want to be poor and he didn’t want to live with his grandparents anymore (having been sent to them after his parents divorced when he was four). At 16 Ron moved to Chicago where Popeil Brothers made their products. He began selling Popeil’s housewares (which he bought from his father at wholesale) as a

The Popeil Brothers’ Chop-O-Matic chops nuts and other smaller food items. Unlike some of the kitchen gadgets here, this one is actually fun to use and a good stress-reducer. © Popeil Bros. Inc.

pitchman at swap meets and other locales. According to his autobiography The Salesman of the Century (Delacorte Press, 1995), he made more money than he’d ever seen before.

However, Ron noticed that he used up lots of vegetables when demonstrating the Veg-O-Matic at fairs, department stores, and five-and-dimes and that made for a burdensome overhead. There had to be a better way to sell his wares, and there was: television.

His first two commercials were for the Ronco Spray Gun, his own invention, and the Popeil Brothers’ Chop-O-Matic. The ChopO-Matic has a hazy origin. In fact, according to But, Wait! There’s More! The Irrestible Appeal and Spiel of Ronco and Popeil by Timothy Samuelson (Rizzoli, 2002), getting solid intel on the history of these gadget sellers is difficult. It wasn’t history that the Popeil Brothers or Ronco were after. It was sales.

Then came the commercial for the Veg-O-Matic. That really made an impact. By 1968 Ronco had almost $9 million in revenue, and in the next year went public. Sales for the Veg-O-Matic dropped off once electric food processors took hold. Unmentioned in the Veg-O-Matic sales-pitch was the fact that you needed a bit of strength to use it. According to As Seen on TV by Lou Harry and Sam Stall (Quirk Books, 2002) Ron Popeil had a “vice-like grip”, so using this un-powered gadget was easier for him than it was for gentle moms in the kitchen.

(LEFT) The Veg-O-Matic was invented by Samuel J. Popeil circa 1963. It was one of the first products to have be touted as “Seen on TV.” (RIGHT) The Popeil Kitchen Magician does to vegetables what the Veg-O-Matic can’t. © Ronco. Veg-o-Matic courtesy of BitBytes/ Wikipedia. Kitchen Magician courtesy of Worthpoint.

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A quick note: The “o-matic” suffix is what your smarter word scientists call a “back-formation.” Basically, it’s a slimming of “automatic” wherein an automatic vegetable cleaving device becomes a “Veg-o-matic.” The first use of the suffix appears to go back to the Twenties in the U.S. and was attached to a heating company product, the Oil-O-Matic. (RetroFan, come for the crazy, cool stuff, stay for the esoteric etymology.)

And speaking of words: Ron Popeil claims that he never said, “It slices, it dices”—which is very much associated with the Veg-OMatic—in any of the product’s commercials.

COLD COMFORT

If you like to entertain, it all begins in the kitchen (or, to be fair, a bar or speakeasy if you have one at home). And if you want to serve up your drinks in a nice cold glass, be it lemonade or a classy martini, a quick, easy way to chill and frost drinkware might be nice. Ron Popeil has got you covered with the Ronco Glass Froster. Many other gadget makers produced similar items, like the Instant Icer, Chill Master, Jr., and Chiller Diller.

Basically, a pressurized spray can of, according to one company, “special formula liquid” was set in a container with a specially

(ABOVE) The Invento Chiller Diller circa 1960 and several other similar gadgets all basically used the same technology. © Hammacher Schlemmer. designed lid. Place the open end of a glass in need of frosting down on the lid and zing! Frosted glass. It was probably fun to watch (the first time) and did the job.

But wait, there’s more.

In 1969 a report from the National Commission on Product Safety Hearings outlined two main issues with the pressurized spray cans and their contents. The main safety issue was the potential for frostbite, and it was recommended that the spray cans be kept away from children (“Sorry, Billy, no martini for you. So scram”). The other issue wasn’t about safety so much as customer satisfaction. The cans left a brief odor in the glass that could affect the taste of one’s drink. The recommendation here was to wait a moment before pouring the beverage.

And while we’re on the subject of cold. Anyone recall needing to thaw refrigerator freezers? There were cheap solutions designed to combat the frost, including an electric infrared defroster that claimed to work so quickly that frozen food won’t have time to thaw. Another ice-buster was Frost Free, an aerosol spray defroster that “doesn’t harm metal”. So that’s nice.

EGGS

Solutions for problems that we modern refrigerator owners no longer have: (TOP) An infrared defroster and (ABOVE) a defroster in a can.

Eggs are a versatile staple food. Some say it’s the perfect food. So why mess with success? But then again, why not? We are a nation of inventors after all.

The Egg Cuber is one of those “why did this happen?” type of inventions (and I am genuinely curious but have no answers). What the Egg Cuber does is, with a bit of effort, make a hard-boiled egg maintain a rounded square shape instead of a non-creepy egg shape. The only real excuse offered up by the makers is to prevent eggs from rolling away but putting them in a bowl would have the same effect. The process to square an egg takes several minutes per egg. You have better things to do.

Another puzzler is the Ronco In the Shell Egg Scrambler. This device fulfills no crushing need whatsoever. In theory, you can make a yellow hard-boiled egg, but recipes that call for that sort of thing are likely pretty rare. Additionally, once scrambled in the shell RETROFAN

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is electrocution. The doomed hot dogs are impaled on opposing pointy connectors in the Hotdogger’s interior thereby completing a circuit, heating your “tube steak” to a proper eating temperature.

The design of the original Hotdogger is dodgy as heck, and it looks like it would be alarmingly easy to zap yourself once it’s been plugged in. The ’70s update has a more attractive design and appears much safer, though it cooks only five dogs instead of six.

(LEFT) The Egg Cuber promised to solve the problem of rolling eggs. (RIGHT) The Ronco In As with many kitchen the Egg Scrambler actually scrambles eggs, but at a cost. © Ronco. Courtesy of Worthpoint. gadgets, there are knock-offs and forerunners. Where the Spe-De Wee-Ne (cute) hot dog cooker falls in that spectrum is unknown, but it claims to cook three the egg needs to be placed into a hot oven surround by foil and wieners in two minutes with the similar electrocution method of water. After some time passes you have a yellow hard-cooked egg, the Hotdogger. Hamilton Beach, a respectable maker of kitchenwhich is strange. However, the scrambled egg in the eggshell can ware, put out the Fast Frank hot dog cooker, which also works via be cracked open and dumped into a skillet, and it does make a very electrocution. Fast Frank cooks hot dogs in “minutes” and appears well blended scrambled egg. A word of warning: there is a learning to have been around from the curve to using this device, so expect some broken eggs. ’70s into the ’80s.

Let us now turn our attenHOT DOG! tion to the buns.

I recall my mom saying more than once to us kids, “you can’t just have hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner every night!” Us The Master Chef Big Top in unison: “Yes, we can!” We were food brats, no doubt about it.

“Six-At-Once” Dog ’N Bun But hot dogs are such a personal favorite that just writing about Steamer steam cooks both hot them means dinner tonight will include hot dogs (dead serious). dogs and buns in a device that The quality of the meat in hot dogs have been a concern for well is supposed to look like a circus over 100 years and not just because some places at some time may tent minus circus-y colors and have used actual dog meat in their hot dogs (looking at you parts of Germany in the 19th and maybe the 20th century). We’re here (LEFT) The name says it to talk about hot dog gadgets and not health concerns. Safety all: Big Top “Six-At-Once” concerns, however…

Dog ’N’ Bun Steamer.

The Presto Hotdogger claimed to cook six hot dogs in a single © Master Chef. Courtesy of minute. How does it achieve this miracle? The most commonly Worthpoint. used word to describe the science behind this quick-cook device (LEFT) The first Presto HotDogger had easy to access electrified prongs, while the 1970s redesigned version (RIGHT) looked more modern and appears to be relatively safer. © National Presto Industries, Inc. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

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joy. Fans of the English language are likely puzzled by the Six-AtOnce in quotations since you can actually cook six hot dogs and six hot dog buns at once. Are they being ironic somehow? And aren’t hot dogs more associated with baseball games? Should I even have this many questions in a fluff piece like this?

If six cooked hot dogs and six warmed buns are five too many, then the Sunbeam Coney Island Steam Frank ’n’ Bun is for you. This 1977 “invention” (that’s how you use quotes) appears to just have room to steam one hot dog and one hot dog bun. “Ingenious.”

“Hey, man. What if you cook only one hot dog and you still have an opened package of hot dogs left over?” Excellent question.

Tupperware, a very clever maker of kitchenware, has a plastic wonder called the Dog House which is, sadly, not a house made of hot dogs as I had hoped. Rather, it was a specially designed container to hold a full package of hot dogs or any hot dog-shaped food item you may wish to keep fresh.

SODASTREAM

This was very unexpected: SodaStream, the device that carbonates water in the home, is not some fairly recent drink machine, but was around during the RetroFan years. Maybe not in the U.S. but it was very popular in the U.K. during the 1970s and 1980s and Brits of a certain age are quite nostalgic for it. The main draw were the syrups that added various flavors to the carbonated water, like cola, lemonade, something called Dracula’s Blood, and so on. The company was founded in 1903, and the royal family looooved it (as did other upper class sorts). Soda, healthful fruit flavors, and sugarfree options are currently available, but if online comments are any indication (and they are), Dracula’s Blood is sorely missed.

Eat less bread, gain less weight by turning one slice of bread into two is the thinking behind the Invento Slim-a-Slice bread cutter. © Hammacher Schlemmer. Courtesy of Worthpoint.

intended for dieters looking to cut down (I guess that was a pun, sorry) on calories by making a sandwich that, presumably, easily fell apart when handled. Also, you could make your own melba toast.

Invento products were in a number of places like ads in the back of women’s magazines, gift catalogs (sometimes not identified as an Invento product), and they were very well represented in Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs. As it happens, Invento is a division of Hammacher Schlemmer.

RetroFans most likely know Hammacher Schlemmer for its glossy retail catalogs with housewares and unusual gift items like, for instance, a Bertazzon Venetial Carousel, a hover boat, and a coin-operated rocket ship. Not exactly the kind of sensible middle-American type of goods found in a Sears catalog (although Sears did sell some Invento items). Hammacher Schlemmer is one of the oldest retailers in America, having begun

THE INVENTIONS OF INVENTO

Invento Products of Long Island City, New York has produced all manner of both silly and/or useful items over the years. Many have been designed for kitchen use. The Invento Food and Plate Warmer keeps plated foods or soup tureens warm until ready to be served (just like at Denny’s, I guess) but is a bit of a kitchen counter hog. The Food and Plate Warmer is clearly made for folks with much larger kitchens than I’ve ever lived in and probably best used for entertaining. The much smaller Slim-a-Slice, was a simple stainless steel device that would safely hold a single slice of bread allowing it to be cut with the included serrated-edged knife into two really narrow slices of bread. This contraption was

(LEFT) The Invento Food and Plate Warmer maintains any temperature from “high to low” (1971). (RIGHT) A cordless electric peppermill from a 1971 Hammacher Schlemmer catalog for those who can’t grind without help. © Hammacher Schlemmer.

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(CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT) The Cordless Electric Spoon is for use in any bowl, cup or pan. Just don’t try and eat with it. © Troy Industries. The Salad-Shooter slices olives, which would be more impressive if sliced olives weren’t so easy to buy. © National Presto Industries, Inc. Courtesy of Worthpoint. The 1970s-era Carocelle

Countertop Dishwasher appears to be practically a toy. According to one user sharing their experience online of using the device, “it didn’t really work that well on dirty dishes.” Courtesy of RedKittieKat/reddit.

The world’s biggest salad bowl was supposed to give “a dramatic touch to that special salad!” claims a desperate catalog description writer.

its retail story in 1848. They still produce their catalogs. As this issue goes to press, the most recent 2024 catalog still showcases outlandish stuff (a kid’s slide for the stairs) and limited-use kitchen goods like a table-top pizza cooker. The cover-featured “Kinetic Art Time Machine” is a clock which could, I suppose, be useful in a kitchen if you happen to have $10,000 to spend in your kitchen clock budget.

THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED

Some gadgets are multi-purpose, while others are single-minded.

The cordless electric peppermill falls into the latter category. It turns peppercorn into properly sized bits with just the touch of a button, and that’s pretty much it. A quick word about “cordless electric” products. Ron Popeil noted that customers reacted poorly to the term “battery powered” because they could see themselves endlessly buying batteries. But a “cordless electric” 76

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product, well that term went down better (but, really, you still needed to buy batteries).

The Corn Tenderizer is a device that rolls over a cooked corn on the cob and pops open each juicy kernel, allowing you to suck all of the goodness off of the cob with no biting needed (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence).

The Cordless Electric Spoon from Troy Industries is not for eating. It’s more of a spoon/mixer combo, and you’d tangle-up your lips if you tried to use it as a normal spoon (which it is not).

And the Giant Salad Bowl is billed as “the world’s biggest salad bowl” and is, indeed, a very large bowl. For salads.

While we’re on the subject of salads, there were, and continue to be, kitchen gadgets dedicated to salad making and its related activity of cutting up vegetables quickly and in interesting way.

That the Salad Shooter cut up vegetables and lettuce quickly and then shot it out should come as no surprise to anyone. Why

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) This mid-century Snackanyone needs to shoot out a Master may have been available salad is a surprise to me. Some during the early Sixties. It is a plastic people like a bit of a show with plate shaped like an artist’s palette. It their salad apparently. holds a sandwich, chips, dessert, and For those who weren’t a hot cup of tea or coffee. Basically, satisfied to simply make salads, it’s an accident waiting to happen. there was the Dazey Meat cutting tools. These kitchen knives, first introduced in Selling point: useful for “television Grinder and Salad Maker, which 1926, were very sharp and guaranteed for life, replaced service.” © Snack-Master. (RIGHT) sounds like, at best, a very for any reason. There was nothing flashy about these Fresh meat with your salad? The unlikely combination and not knives. They did the job. Being inexpensive to make, Dazey Meat Grinder and Salad Maker they were often advertised as giveaways for other prodsomething that vegetarians circa 1960. © Dazey. could find appealing, I’d wager. ucts like Mazola Oil and Old Dutch Cleanser. And they There were many makers of produced many knives for boardwalk and department such devices. store pitchmen.

First appearing in 1960, the Burg-O-Mat Vertical Broiler cooks When Quikut debuted, a small article appeared in the June meat the same way you might make toast. In fact, this device also 3, 1926 issue of Hardware Age magazine. It noted the impressive makes toast and cooks bacon. The inside of one of these things cutting quality of the knives, but warned about misuse, as it after some use must be a horror show. would “impair the fine cutting teeth.” And they specifically warned against using the knife as a can opener. The knives were AND THAT’S NOT ALL popular and sold well.

An ordinary kitchen knife is not normally considered a kitchen gadget, but rather an essential tool. The Quikut company made inexpensive kitchen knives in addition to other types of home

(LEFT) The Clip-On Ash Tray clips on to plates and saucers for your chain-smoking guests. Comes in four colors.

(RIGHT) The Burg-O-Mat cooks vertically as seen in this 1963 catalog illustration, solving the problem of too many horizontally cooked steaks. © The Cole Electric Mfg. Co. RETROFAN

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Eventually Quikut hooked up with Cinécraft Productions, a maker of promotional films. Cinécraft is credited by the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website (https://case.edu/) as being the first to make an infomercial in 1949 for Vitamix blenders, more a kitchen essential than gadget. This was a 30-minute film that may or may not have been broadcast on TV (sources vary). Early restrictions of commercials limited their length. It would take a change in broadcasting laws in the 1980s for informercials as we know them to begin.

Cinécraft began making commercials for Quikut in 1968, using language and demonstrations that would be recognizable to any viewer of Ron Popeil’s general spiel. The Quikut knife is shown slicing a tomato and then cutting through a tree—not a branch, a tree—(“Great Scott!,” exclaims the announcer). Another sales feature of the knife was the “simulated ivory” handle, which is an adorable way to say “white plastic.”

A decade later, Dial Media, a producer of infomercials, took a shine to the Quikut knives, but not the name. They needed something snappier, something that evoked the quality product of another nation. France? Japan? Germany? The Dial Media principles, Ed Valenti and Barry Becher, and copywriter Arthur Schiff picked Japan due to both its reputation for quality steel and the famed cutting attributes of samurai swords. A Japanese-sounding name was decided on, but it’s not definitive who came up with the most famous word in As Seen on TV history: Ginzu. It may seem to be Japanese, but it means nothing except “$$$”. The knives were made in Ohio.

The first Ginzu commercial in 1978 was outlandish with its fake karate master (played by Ed Valenti) breaking a board with a blow from his hand, but unable to cut a simple tomato. Enter the Ginzu knife, which cut through a drink can, paper, and a frozen vegetable package with ease. All very impressive (or crazy) but an earlier Quikut commercial showed a frozen vegetable package embedded in a large cube of ice being cut in half by one of the Quikut knives.

And then there was the “but, wait… there’s more” moment, a concoction of Arthur Schiff. More and more was added to the deal: carving fork, steak knives, a multi-purpose kitchen tool, a potato spiral cutter, and the knives have a 50-year guarantee! And you get free shipping!!

Order now!!!

Ginzu knives took off like a serrated-edged rocket (interesting mind picture).

Mental Floss (Nov. 24, 2022) reported that between the product’s introduction in 1978 onward to 1985, Valenti and Becher Before the Ginzu knife there sold $30 million was Quikut and their outlandish worth of knives for commercials seen filming in 1968. which they, at first, The cameraman is Harry Horrocks. paid a mere 75 cents Ray Culley, the director of the apiece. commercial, is holding the knife.

As mentioned © The Scott Fetzer Company. before, a knife isn’t 78

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Iconic highlights from Ginzu knife infomercials: It cuts through frozen vegetables, a can (and still cut through a tomato!), only $29.95—but, wait­—there’s more! © Ginzu. a gadget, but the Ginzu was sold like a gadget—something you didn’t know you needed and, if you were being honest, probably didn’t. One commenter, mumblesslam, reacting to a YouTube video of a Ginzu informercial, shared that it brought back memories of his dad who couldn’t even “cook frozen pizza” buying the knives, even though they already had knives.

AS SEEN ON TV

In 1984 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) removed regulations that prevented the long-form infomercials from appearing on broadcast television. Infomercials became a common feature of late, late night TV replacing more usual twilight fare like Three Stooges shorts and very vintage black-and-white movies (which straight up annoyed this night owl). The infomercial really took off during the 1990s, selling not just kitchen gadgets but other novel devices of varying value. Here at the Sanctum, we have a Slap-Chop from that period (it still works great—very slappy and choppy) and some stupid vegetable dicer that doesn’t do squat, has never done squat, and yet is still squatting in a kitchen cupboard.

Where once you needed to order from a catalog or catch a commercial for kitchen gadgets, today there are As Seen on TV stores dotting our great nation and spread out virtually over the internet. And better still, there are some YouTube broadcasters getting their hands on vintage gadgets and attempting to demonstrate them. It makes for fun viewing.

It’s not hard to find new kitchen gadgets for sale. Just when you think you’ve seen the strangest, craziest, kitchen gadget there is… but, wait… there’s more.

SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a Retro Explorer operating from his Southern California–based Secret Sanctum. He is a writer (more or less), artist (occasionally), and graphic designer (you’re soaking in it). You can find him on Instagram as scottsaav where he updates infrequently.

Let’s start off with one more letter commenting on RetroFan #33: I just had to tell you how much I enjoyed the Mattel Hot Wheels feature in the July issue. It had incredible insight into the development and history of this range, and clearly they were of a much better quality than the Hot Wheels toys available today. The article was beautifully laid out and my only (minor) niggle was that there weren’t enough pictures of the cars described, it should have run one more page.

I was particularly intrigued with the other model car ranges mentioned, and hopefully there are plans to cover some of these in future. In fact, I would be happy to read about any popular toys of the era.

I also liked most of the other articles, notably the TV Westerns which made a subject I had no interest in seem entertaining, as did Modesty Blaise.

The piece on the Bionic Man was okay, but it was written in an odd style with numerous redundant words. It read like it had been written in a foreign language and translated on Google.

Also, I think the feature on the San Diego Chicken was, shall we say, allocated more pages that the subject merited.

BRETT BALLARD Part of the charm of RetroFan, I think, Brett, is the ability to stumble across new things that aren’t necessarily nostalgic to us individuals.

I’m so glad you are open to learning things—as I think most RetroFan-atics are!

Another fine issue of RetroFan showed up in my mailbox! I always love the wide range of subjects you cover; I always find something entertaining.

If any RF issue had a theme, I suppose this one’s unifying thread would be Nice Guys.

While I wasn’t a regular viewer of CHiPs, the article nicely showcased the other accomplishments of the cast. Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox’s dedications to various worthy charities show that they aren’t just the guys who used to play Ponch and Jon. It reminded me of Dick York, whose health forced him to give up his stint as Darren on Bewitched. York still used his star power as a well-recognized celebrity to help charities. The CHiPs guys are doing the same, and I respect them for that.

The look at Tiny Tim was almost heartbreaking. Tiny took a lot of bashing and bullying for his (albeit questionable) talent and his looks, but the people who knew him

said he was a gentle, kind-hearted man who always saw the best in people. Sure, he was an oddball, but he was a nice oddball and, for whatever reasons, unique enough to become a memorable part of culture.

RF often reaches one hand into the swamp that is my brain and dredges something I had not thought of in decades. Perusing the Bill Campbell and the Weird-Ohs article, I saw the illustrations on page 25 and immediately recognized Endsville Eddie. I remembered the lolling tongue, the gaping mouth, the skull-topped gearshift, and the foot with brake pedal crashing through the front. I remember all of this because my older brother gave me one of the statues referred to in the article as a Christmas gift. Knowing my brother, it was one of those “I don’t know what to get Mike but Mom told me I had to get him something” gifts. He likely grabbed the first thing in his price range and crossed my name off his gift list.

I had no idea what to make of this statue. It was molded from a bluish-green plastic and, to my brother’s astonishment, I liked it. I kept it for years, studying its detail and overall weirdness.

It’s long gone now, but seeing the likeness of it in your magazine… well, there you go, pulling something out of the swamp again.

My Endsville Eddie statue is on my list of Childhood Things I Wish I Still Had, right up there with my oversized deck of “Monster Old Maid” cards that featured the Universal creatures on them. Does anyone else remember those?

A nice article on John Candy, another Nice Guy. I didn’t know that his big breakthrough was Planes, Trains and Automobiles, one of my favorite comedies. The man’s gift for eliciting a laugh just from raising an eyebrow or reacting to someone is a testament to his talent.

Finally, I wanted to mention the Plastic Man feature. Plas is a character who has been popular since the 1940s, visually appealing, and is a unique take on the standard super-hero trope. It’s baffling to me that he hasn’t been greenlit for a DCCU movie. This has been on my mind for years; when Jim Carrey first emerged as a movie star, I thought he’d be perfect to play the pliable hero. This article tells of a lot of false starts toward a Plastic Man film. When are we going to actually see a live-action movie? Come on, DCCU, make it happen!

MICHAL JACOT We can only hope that with the new folks taking the reins of the DC cinematic universe, they will give Plas a try! In fact, we’ve got to make sure they are subscribing to RetroFan.

Enjoyed RetroFan #34 more than I anticipated, seeing as I was unfamiliar with roughly half the subject matter. Yet very pleasing, regardless.

I’ve heard of CHiPs, but never saw it. Still enjoyable, even without nostalgia. I was amazed that not only did Estrada force Wilcox off the show, in the last season, but that Wilcox forgave him, and they appeared together at signings and events. That’s some sense of charity and forgiveness.

It was also amusing that both appeared, earlier, though separately, on Hawaii Five-O. So, two charismatic actors looking for a guest-work and then, ultimately, a series. The two faces that made me smile more were supporting players Robert Pine and Lou Wagner. I recall both from their guest roles on Lost In Space, back in 1967.

Great to see they’re still around.

I knew nothing of Remo Williams. But the article was fun for, of all things, Will Murray’s experiences that led him to work so long writing articles about the film industry. Sometimes, things work out well by accident.

The article I was especially looking forward to—Plastic Man—didn’t disappoint. I love the original Jack Cole rendition, way before my time, but occasionally reprinted. So cleverly done.

I also recall that 1966 Plastic Man #1 (by Gil Kane). Wonderful art. Less impressive story.

But, based on the supposed cartoon of him in preparation, at that time, I wonder if DC brought back his comic book, after having the rights for a decade, to refresh memories of the character?

I’d been collecting Marvel Comics for all of two months when I saw Plastic Man on the spinner rack. I just thought, in my naivety, “What a copy of Mr. Fantastic!”

That Alex Toth character design sheet was worth the cover price alone. Amazing! And so fun. Plus, he noted that Plas didn’t have a muscular form, something the ’79 show seemingly ignored.

I was completely unaware that they had a live-action Plastic Man on later. News to me.

But, for once, he looked good; ideal for the role.

One thing I didn’t quite understand: Why did they call it the Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show? What was gained in categorizing things in the elongated title rather than, oh, simply calling it Plastic Man? JOE FRANK Thanks for another great letter, Joe. Sorry we had to trim it a bit for space. And you know what? That’s a good question. As usual, it’s easy for us all to shake our heads in wonder at what must have been the involvement of network executives, or their marketing department, in developing the nomenclature.

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at RetroEd@twomorrows.com.

ED CATTO Editor-in-Chief

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BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA

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ROGER HILL’s conversation with diabolical DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, a Killer “B” movie classic, plus horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book, and more!

Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

See MARS ATTACKS banned cards, model kits, comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! Also, the chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN, terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Get ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Spend Hammer Time with the “Brides of Dracula”, and 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, chill to pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS, see a Killer “B” movie, and more

by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

SKULL & BONES ISSUE! Ghost Rider from comics to movies, skeleton covers from Atlas Digests and pre-Code horror comics, HY FLEISHMAN’s 1950s skeleton covers and stories, Disney’s skeletons, ’70s Pirates of the Caribbean models and Last Gasp’s Skull Comics, the films of William Castle, and Killer B films: House on Haunted Hill, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, plus our Hammertime section!

ZOMBIE ISSUE! The films White Zombie and I Walked With A Zombie, GEORGE ROMERO and LUCIO FULCI’s zombie apocalypses, zombie pre-Code comics, BERNIE WRIGHTSON’s undead creations, horror comics of Brazil, the contributions of black stars of classic horror cinema, Hammer’s The Plague of Zombies, Fantaco’s Night of the Living Dead, France’s Revenant, and more!

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ALTER EGO #195

RICK VEITCH discusses his career from undergrounds and the Kubert School; the ’80s with 1941, Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal; to Swamp Thing, The One, Brat Pack, and Maximortal! Plus TOM VEITCH’s history of ’70s underground horror comix, part one of a look at cartoonist ERROL McCARTHY, the story behind Studio Zero— the ’70s collective of artists STARLIN, BRUNNER, WEISS, and others, and more!

THOMAS YEATES career-spanning interview about the Kubert School, Swamp Thing, Eclipse Comics, and adventure strips Zorro, Tarzan, and Prince Valiant! GREG POTTER discusses his ’70s Warren horror comics and ’80s reboot of Wonder Woman with GEORGE PÉREZ, WARREN KREMER is celebrated by MARK ARNOLD, plus part one of a look at the work of STEVE WILLIS, part two of ERROL McCARTHY, and more!

An abridgment of EDDY ZENO’s “Drawn to Greatness” book, showcasing Superman artists who followed JOE SHUSTER: WAYNE BORING, PAUL CASSIDY, FRED RAY, JACK BURNLEY, WIN MORTIMER, and others. With appreciations by ORDWAY, KUPPERBERG, ISABELLA, JURGENS, WAID, MACCHIO, NEARY, NOWLAN, EURY, THOMAS, and more! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

ROY THOMAS celebrates 60 years in comics! Career-spanning interview by ALEX GRAND, e-mails to Roy from STAN LEE, the history of Wolverine’s creation, RT’s 1960s fan-letters to JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and his top dozen stories compiled by JOHN CIMINO! With art by BUSCEMA, KANE, ADAMS, WINDSOR-SMITH, COLAN, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and cover by TONY GRAY!

NEAL ADAMS REVISITED! Interviews by ALEX GRAND and BILL FIELD, as well as EMILIO SOLTERA—and an overview of Neal’s merchandising art for Marvel and DC Comics and in other fields, conducted by JAMES ROSEN! Plus Adams art, as inked

by PALMER, GIORDANO, VERPOORTEN, ROUSSOS, SINNOTT, DEZUNIGA, and others! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

KIRBY COLLECTOR #94

KIRBY COLLECTOR #95

BRICKJOURNAL #89

BRICKJOURNAL #90

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage!

Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

SPACE RACES! Jack’s depictions of cosmic gods and life on other planets, including: how Ego, Tana Nile, and the Recorder took Thor to strange new worlds, OMAC’s space age future, time travelers in Kirby’s work, favorite Kirby sci-fi tropes in his stories, plus: a 1967 LEE/KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story, robotic pencil art gallery, cover inked by TERRY AUSTIN!

MADNESS! Kirby’s most deranged work: Dingbats, Goody Rickels, Destroyer Duck, the Goozlebobber, Not Brand Echh, and wild animation concepts! Plus, a 1980s Kirby interview by JAMES VAN HISE, a look at Jack’s psychedelic coloring, Kirby’s depictions of Dr. Strange, Forever People art gallery, MARK EVANIER, a crazy 1950s Simon & Kirby story, behind an unused Machine Man cover inked by STEVE LEIALOHA!

This issue, we combine LEGO and fine art, with brick-inspired paintings by STEFANO BOCANO, ADNAN LOTIA’s growing collection of LEGO mosaic album covers, and we visit a LEGO art gallery

by BRICKGALLERIA!! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

THE BIG ISSUE! We get on board MARK STAFFA’s giant (working!) steam engine, and show PAUL HETHERINGTON’s colossal LEGO creations, including the biggest version of It’s A Small World you’ll see outside of Disneyland! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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New from TwoMorrows!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK RETROFAN #38 CHRONICLES: 1945-49 Tune in to Saturday morning super-heroes

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

(288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

RETROFAN #40

RETROFAN #41

Can your mind stand the shocking truth of… ED WOOD CAST CONFESSIONS? Plus: Ideal Toys’ Zeroids, television Tarzan RON ELY, Planters® Peanuts’ Mr. Peanut, CHARLES ADDAMS, TV’s The Fugitive, the forgotten 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, ED CATTO, and MARK VOGER.

Here comes TV’s Dennis the Menace, with stars JAY NORTH, GLORIA HENRY, and JEANNIE RUSSELL! Plus: Hogan’s Heroes turns 60, TV Western Have Gun–Will Travel, Big Little Books, The Incredible Hulk in animation, MICKY DOLENZ as Circus Boy, and more! Featuring columns by ED CATTO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER.

We kick off with TV’s original Kung Fu starring DAVID CARRADINE, a NANCY DREW history, Disney animator FLOYD NORMAN, TOM CORBETT: SPACE CADET, collectible ’60s and ’70s cereal premiums, in search of SAM GOODY, and more! Featuring columns and contributions by HERBIE J PILATO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, and editor ED CATTO!

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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RETROFAN #39

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Mod Squad, Hanna-Barbera cartoonists, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mr. Potato Head, ‘Old Yeller” actress BEVERLY WASHBURN, Flying Nun collectibles, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

BACK ISSUE #159

BACK ISSUE #160

BACK ISSUE #161

BACK ISSUE #162

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 40th ANNIVERSARY! Pre-Crisis tour of DC’s multiple Earths, analysis of Crisis and its crossovers, Crisis Death List, post-Crisis DC retro projects, guest editorial by MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Featuring BARR, ENGLEHART, GREENBERGER, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, ORDWAY, THOMAS, WAID, and more! With GEORGE PÉREZ’S Crisis on Infinite Earths Index #1 cover.

SUMMER FUN ISSUE! Marvel’s Superhero Swimsuit Editions, Betty and Veronica swimsuit gallery, DC’s Strange Sports Stories, the DC/Marvel softball rivalry, San Diego Comic-Con history, Impossible Man Summer Vacation Specials, DC Slurpee cups, DC/Whitman variants, and more!

Featuring BATES, DeCARLO, HUGHES, JIM LEE, LOPRESTI, MAGGIN, ROZAKIS, STELFREEZE, and more! GUICE cover.

MUTANT MAYHEM ISSUE! BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’s Weapon X Wolverine, the romance of Havok and Polaris, Rogue and Nightcrawler limited series, Brood and Arcade villain histories, “Mutant Massacre” crossover, and more! With JON BOGDANOVE, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, LOUISE SIMONSON, MIKE WIERINGO, and more!

WINDSOR-SMITH cover.

BACK ISSUE GOES MAD! Things get crazy this issue as we cover Madman, Batman: Mad Love, MAD superhero movie parodies, the Mad Hatter, Madballs, and more! Featuring the work of MICHAEL ALLRED, BRUCE TIMM, PAUL DINI, GERRY CONWAY, DOUG MOENCH, MIKE W. BARR, JEPH LOEB, and others. Madman cover by MICHAEL ALLRED! Edited by ROGER ASH.

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BACK ISSUE #158

HEY, MISTER ISSUE! The FF’s Mr. Fantastic, STEVE DITKO’s Mr. A, the 40th anniversary of MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s Mr. Monster, Mr. X, the Teen Titans’ Mr. Jupiter, R. CRUMB’s Mr. Natural, Archie’s Mr. Weatherbee, and a Mr. Freeze villain history! Featuring BYRNE, CARDY, CONWAY, DeCARLO, DINI, ENGLEHART, the HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, MOTTER, and more!

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Dear TwoMorrows customers, Diamond Comic Distributors has filed for bankruptcy without paying for our December and January magazines and books, leaving us with enormous losses—and we still have to cover our expenses on those items, and keep producing your favorite publications. Until payments from our new distributors begin in a few months, we’re staying afloat with webstore sales. So here are some ways you can help: 1) Order something at www.twomorrows.com!

Anything you purchase directly from us—print or digital—will help us stay in business, and avoid disruptions to our upcoming releases. NOW WITH LOWER INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING PRICES! Download our new 74-page 2025 interactive catalog for easy ordering at: https://shorturl.at/gA9Fv and don’t miss: • Full 8-volume sets of American Comic Book Chronicles hardcovers at 30% off!

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3) Tell your comics shop to switch their Diamond orders to Lunar Distribution!

Diamond has cancelled orders for all our future products, so ask your local comics shop to order through Lunar Distribution, or you can order them from our website. Look for these new TwoMorrows items in the March issue of Lunar’s Next Phase catalog (#39): • Alter Ego #193 • Back Issue #159 • BrickJournal #89 • Cryptology #3 • Comic Book Creator #38 • Jack Kirby Collector #93 • RetroFan #38

• Alter Ego #194 • Back Issue #160 • BrickJournal #90 • Comic Book Creator #39 • Cryptology #4 • Retrofan #39 • Marshall Rogers: Brightest Days & Darkest Knights (hardcover)

4) Tell bookstores to order our books through SCB Distributors & Turnaround Distribution!

Our new bookstore distributor (SCB Distributors) services stores in the US and Canada, and the UK via Turnaround Distribution in London. And our new books will be available on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk giving you even more options for purchasing our books worldwide.

With the help of loyal readers like you, TwoMorrows Publishing will get through this, and emerge even stronger. Thank you for your many years of support. TwoMorrows’ fans are the best!

John Morrow, publisher TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 • USA (919)449-0344 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • web: www.twomorrows.com