RetroFan #17 by TwoMorrows Publishing

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape!

November 2021 No. 17 $9.95

JAWSMANIA

Dark Shadows’

LARA PARKER comes alive in an exclusive interview!

Aurora Monster Model Kits

It’s a

Mad Monster u’re Party and yoin vited!

The Haunting • Drak Pack • George of the Jungle • James Bama • TV Dads’ Jobs & more! 1

82658 00438

FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

RetroFan:

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

SUBSCRIBE! SIX ISSUES: $68 Economy US (with free digital editions) $80 Expedited US • $87 Premium US

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RETROFAN #13

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Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, catching up with singer B.J. THOMAS, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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Exclusive interviews with Lost in Space’s MARK GODDARD and MARTA KRISTEN, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Hogan’s Heroes’ BOB CRANE, a history of WhamO’s Frisbee, Twilight Zone and other TV sci-fi anthologies, Who Created Archie Andrews?, oddities from the San Diego Zoo, lava lamps, and more with FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY!

Holy backstage pass! See rare, behind-thescenes photos of many of your favorite Sixties TV shows! Plus: an unpublished interview with Green Hornet VAN WILLIAMS, Bigfoot on Saturday morning television, TV’s Zoorama and the San Diego Zoo, The Saint, the lean years of Star Trek fandom, the WrestleFest video game, TV tie-in toys no kid would want, and more fun, fab features!

Sixties teen idol RICKY NELSON remembered by his son MATTHEW NELSON, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rural sitcom purge, EVEL KNIEVEL toys, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Saturday morning’s Super 7, The Muppet Show, behind-the-scenes photos of Sixties movies, an interview with The Sound of Music’s heartthrob-turnedbad guy DANIEL “Rolf” TRUHITTE, and more fun, fab features!

An exclusive interview with Logan’s Run star MICHAEL YORK, plus Logan’s Run novelist WILLIAM F. NOLAN and vehicle customizer DEAN JEFFRIES. Plus: the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons of 1966, H. R. Pufnstuf, Leave It to Beaver’s SUE “Miss Landers” RANDALL, WOLFMAN JACK, drive-in theaters, My Weekly Reader, DAVID MANDEL’s super collection of comic book art, and more!

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

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NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with ’70s’ Captain America REB BROWN, and Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT) WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE BARTLETT! Plus: Coloring Books, Fall Previews for Saturday morning cartoons, The Cyclops movie, actors behind your favorite TV commercial characters, BENNY HILL, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, 8-track tapes, and more!

NOW BI-MONTHLY! Celebrating fifty years of SHAFT, interviews with FAMILY AFFAIR’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN” REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH, rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon preview specials, fake presidential candidates, Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s, and more fun, fab features!

HALLOWEEN ISSUE! Interviews with DARK SHADOWS’ DAVID SELBY, and the niece of movie Frankenstein GLENN STRANGE, JULIE ANN REAMS. Plus: KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER, ROD SERLING retrospective, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, TV’s Adventures of Superman, Superman’s pal JIMMY OLSEN, QUISP and QUAKE cereals, the DRAK PAK AND THE MONSTER SQUAD, scratch model customs, and more!

CHRIS MANN goes behind the scenes of TV’s sexy sitcom THREE’S COMPANY— and NANCY MORGAN RITTER, first wife of JOHN RITTER, shares stories about the TV funnyman. Plus: RICK GOLDSCHMIDT’s making of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, RONNIE SCHELL interview, Sheena Queen of the TV Jungle, Dr. Seuss toys, Popeye cartoons, DOCTOR WHO’s 1960s U.S. invasion, and more!

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

CONTENTS Issue #17 November 2021

Columns and Special Features

Retro Hobbies Aurora Monster Model Kits

7 3

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon James Bama: Man of Monsters

Retro Interview Lara Parker, Dark Shadows’ Angelique

24 15

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Drak Pack and Monster Squad

Departments

2 Retrotorial

22 RetroFad Jawsmania

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! George of the Jungle

Celebrity Crushes

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria “Whose Hand Was I Holding…?”

Too Much TV Quiz Theme song lyrics

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum TV Dads of the Sixties’ Jobs

RetroFanmail

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

Retro Animation Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party?

RetroFan™ #17, November 2021. Published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $68 Economy US, $103 International, $27 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Aurora Frankenstein model photo courtesy of Mark Voger. Mad Monster Party © 1997 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Superman TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2021 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

by Michael Eury EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Ernest Farino Rick Goldschmidt Rod Labbe Andy Mangels Brian Martin Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Dan Curtis Productions Heritage Auctions Jim Pierson Anthony Tollin Mark Voger

I never went trick-or-treating when I was a child—or if I did, I have zero memories or photographs of those experiences. My formative years were spent in a small apartment, and since my parents both worked full-time, they didn’t have time to drag a costumed kid around each October 31st. When I was turning eight, we moved into a house and my baby brother was born, and so Mom and Dad were now occupied with a crying baby and a rambunctious grade-schooler—and their jobs. I certainly wasn’t a deprived child—I was showered with no end of love, comic books, and toys… and the Ideal Toys Batman helmet and cape I got in ’66 gave me lots of costumed playtime. Also, Dad worked at a grocery store, so while most kids relied upon annual door-to-door Halloween candy begging, I got candy (as well as cupcakes and ice cream) every week (and I had the flab and zits to show for it)! Still, subconsciously I must have felt some void from being denied this childhood ritual, since as a young adult I began to don costumes—for money! In the mid-Eighties, I dressed up as everyone from Popeye to Superman for movie spoofs while hosting a cable-access comedy show, and followed that up with a stint as a costumed singing telegram messenger, where I serenaded ladies as the dapper Mr. Wonderful and the wildman Seymour Swinger. And then, for many years my wife and I masqueraded at adult Halloween parties, finally discontinuing the practice a few years ago as we aged out of nighttime outings. So, back in RetroFan #2, I vicariously enjoyed the trickor-treating experience when writing about Ben Cooper Halloween costumes, the manufacturer of those cheesy but adorable plastic masks and paper smocks that regaled children for decades. That feature was a crowd-pleaser, so for those of you who would like to learn more about the venerable manufacturer of kids’ costumes, I’m happy to report that Jason Young has recently published a new book, An Old School Halloween, that digs deeper into the subject. Jason is also the author of The Wonderful Artwork of Wax Wrappers, NEXT ISSUE a “visual journey” of non-sports card wrappers, which has gone into multiple printings. RetroFans interested in ordering Jason’s books can find more info by visiting the Facebook group Oldtimes Blue Ribbon Digest. We’ll always dream of Jeannie... This is the annual Halloween edition of EXCLUSIVE BARBAR A EDEN RetroFan, the only issue each year our eclectic interview magazine flirts with a theme… although amid the The Battle monsters and monster-makers in the pages that of the Sexes TOMMY follow you’ll also find articles about Jay Ward’s ...COOK wacky cartoon George of the Jungle, the occupations of Ward Cleaver and other sitcom dads, and a few HannaBarbera’s TV Super-Heroes other fun features. There’s something for everyone of the Sixties The Invaders • Monster Times • ‘How to Draw’ Books • Cartoon Xmas Cards & more! here, so get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with! January 2022 No. 18 $9.95

VERY SPECIAL THANKS James Bama Lara Parker

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RETROFAN

November 2021

with event organizer

FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury

RETRO HOBBIES

A Horde of…

Monsters in My Bedroom! by Rod Labbe In November 1963 (not long before President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated), the “Elm Plaza,” a brand-new shopping center, opened on the outskirts of my hometown, Waterville, Maine. “Oooo,” I blubbered, as we (my parents and two sisters) pulled into its expansive parking lot early one Friday evening. What an adventure! There’s a Mammoth Mart department store! And W. T. Grant! A book emporium… First National supermarket… Radio Shack… an S&H Green Stamps store… and the biggest bowling alley, ever! So many choices, but Grants, as we called the W. T. Grant department store chain, intrigued us the most since it had an attached “family restaurant.” Before settling in for a meal, we ogled the spacious aisles dividing Grants from front to back. You could get anything there! Furniture, clothing, toiletries, shoes, candy, appliances, and toys galore. One-stop shopping, at its very best. And I saw them… boxed monster model kits by Aurora Plastics, stacked neatly in an eye-catching exhibit: Frankenstein’s Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, the Mummy, and an about-to-pounce Wolf Man. I had some vague notion about model kits. People built them, right? Usually, boats and airplanes and cars and stuff. But monsters? A bold concept! I picked up Dracula, felt its heft, studied the atmospheric box-top illustration (painted by James Bama), and checked for a price tag: 98 cents. Within my allowance/budget! Too bad I knew zip about making model kits. Otherwise, I might be taking home a vampire! Little did I realize that Fate’s wheels were inexorably spinning. One innocuous school day, my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Pelletier, stood in front of our classroom blackboard and read from a mimeographed sheet. “Next month, St. Joseph’s

(ABOVE) Aurora monster model kits… the stuff from which nightmares and sticky glue spills were made! Courtesy of Heritage. All characters © Universal Pictures except for Godzilla © Toho.

RETROFAN

November 2021

retro hobbies

My veteran monsters, like the Creature, slowly fell victim to any number of calamities. It wasn’t unusual to return home after school and find a broken model on my bed or desk, accidentally destroyed by mom when she’d vacuumed. I’d diligently restore them… half-heartedly, I’ll admit. 1968 revved into a tumultuous whirlpool. Two political assassinations, an escalating war in Vietnam, and college riots peppered news programs every night. What few kits I received were for Christmas—the Lost in Space Robot, Land of the Giants’ “snake scene,” the Incredible Hulk—and assembled with zero enthusiasm. On November 2, I’d turned 16 and other worries were on my mind, like the very real possibility of a high draft number in a few years. Don had already given up model making, and I followed suit… though I continued to collect comics. He’d stopped doing that, too. A chasm cracked open between us, barely noticeable, at first. The breach ultimately widened, and neither one of us could cross it safely. Disaster loomed. High school graduation came and went (1971), but rather than college, I opted to work. At least, for a short while. One day, perusing the hobby section in Grants, I spotted Aurora’s “Frightening Lightning” kits. They were reissues of the originals, with certain pieces that glowed. I was tempted to buy one. The reason I resisted? Maturity. Growing older, I’d rejected the trappings of childhood. I wanted to be an adult, someone responsible and serious. Spending money on plastic monsters and revisiting old “haunts” seemed counterproductive. A bright future awaited me, offering many surprises, trials, and triumphs. Why weigh it down with memories of the past? Why, indeed? That was almost 50 years ago. One by one, touchstones fell to Time, and casualties piled up like war dead. Today, I’m 69—far from being an adolescent, at least, outwardly. The maturity I so desperately desired barged through my door and settled in, an uninvited party guest who refuses to leave. I’ve experienced deaths of loved ones, including my parents, stood before Donald’s grave and shed tears, felt the crushing pain of disappointments, and love affairs gone fallow. Life is no longer carefree, when all I had to worry about was making sure I never missed an episode of Dark Shadows or The Avengers (Steed and Peel only, thank you). There are deadlines and consequences, worries aplenty, and the undeniable fear about Age and my own mortality. Adulthood has cheated me, stealing childhood away, and laughing about it. Like vivid photographs in a keepsake memory scrapbook, those fanciful younger days are clear as crystal, yet untouchable. I think of them at the oddest times, as winters melt to spring, when the first autumn tree blazes with color. On Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. St. Joseph’s school is gone; I watched its bricks tumble. Aurora Plastics liquidated in 1977, selling off their model molds to rival Monogram; in 1976, Grants went bankrupt, dissolved, and closed. 6

RETROFAN

November 2021

Fester—uh, we mean, feast—your eyes on this ad for Aurora’s Addams Family House model. © Filmways Television Productions.

It’s a harsher existence. People smile less, and the pace of life races faster and faster. What are we all heading toward? I shudder to think. The house where I lived has fallen into disrepair. Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, in dreams, I’m home, again. Mom and Dad are alive, and 2021’s a future year out of The Jetsons. Duchess, my long-dead Cocker Spaniel, is chasing butterflies as we run through the backfield beyond our fence, and all that I say and do is underscored by a strange urgency. I wake, confused and disillusioned. Things change. Times change. Still, I’m joyfully reminded. Boxed and built-up vintage models regularly sell on eBay, and other companies—like Polar Lights and Moebius Models—have championed Aurora’s grand legacy by reissuing almost all their classic kits to an adoring, appreciative, and graying public. Last week, I passed a downtown hobby shop, and an array of plastic monsters was in the window: Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, the Mummy, and King Kong. The sight transported my elderly psyche back to sunny kite flying Saturdays, late-night bike rides, The Beatles… and monsters in my bedroom. Ah, sweet nostalgia. One of these fine days, I might try my hand at another Creature from the Black Lagoon. And guess what: I’ll even paint him first! ROD LABBE is a New England-based writer specializing in Baby Boomer pop culture and all it entails.

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

James Bama Man of

Monsters by Will Murray

(LEFT) Detail from a familiar sight for many RetroFans: box art for the Frankenstein Aurora model kit as painted by James Bama, shown here in an undated photo. Frankenstein © Universal Pictures. Photo courtesy of Anthony Tollin.

I grew up in an epoch of monsters. They were everywhere. Popping up on TV. Lumbering through television, films, and even dominating comic books. One of my first clear memories of childhood was in the spring of 1961. A neighborhood kid took me to the local Rialto, where I saw my first Saturday matinee double feature, Mister Roberts and Gorgo. When I wondered about the dark orchestra pit beneath the screen, I was advised, “That’s where the monsters live.” I believed him. I was eight. I vaguely recall coming out of the theater and spotting a copy of Gorgo comics on the racks. I wouldn’t start buying comic books until year’s end, but before that, I started collecting the Spook Stories bubble-gum cards based on the Universal Monsters, which were all over TV, thanks to the “Creature Features” airing reruns. When I did start collecting comics, in addition to Superman and Batman, I grabbed things like Marvel’s Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish, which were chock full of giant monsters such as Jack Kirby’s Two-Headed Thing and Steve Ditko’s Hagg, Hunter of Helpless Humans. The Incredible Hulk was born at that time. I loved them all. The first magazine I ever purchased was Famous Monsters of Filmland. So naturally, I bought the Aurora Plastic Company Universal Monster kits, which began proliferating in 1961 A.D., early in the Monster Craze. Or should I say, Monster Revival, since many of its most memorable monsters had been created a generation before. RETROFAN

November 2021

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

ED AND EXP COND SE ION! EDIT

THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID

MAC RABOY

25th anniversary retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW and COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors!

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time, in cooperation with DC Comics! Two unused 1970s DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus unseen TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE and SOUL LOVE magazines!

Examines the complicated relationship of Marvel Universe creators JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE through their own words (and Ditko’s, Wood’s, Romita Sr.’s and others), in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and TV interviews!

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Master of the Comics

ROGER HILL documents the life and career of the artist of BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR., with never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics! (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

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IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB, the acclaimed horror comics history magazine! (192-page trade paperback) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $10.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST

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RETRO INTERVIEW

Lara Parker

The Tender Beauty of Angelique by Rod Labbe

From actress to author, Lara Parker has continued the Dark Shadows canon as a novelist. © Curtis Holdings, LLC.

There are countless interviews that tread all-too-familiar waters, but my challenge as a writer has always been to explore those paths less traveled. So when I contacted Lara Parker for an epic (and exclusive) RetroFan profile, I proposed we do something a tad different from the usual “tell us how you became an actress” stuff. Lara agreed, and together, we tilled new soil. An adventure lay ahead! Establishing camaraderie was essential. Within minutes of our first phone conversation, we were laughing and carrying on like old friends. To be precise, Lara and I had never met, but being a fanboy, I’m familiar with her magnificent work on Dark Shadows, ABC-TV’s “gothic” soap opera (1966–1971), a bonafide cultural sensation. She portrayed Angelique Bouchard, amateur witch, the gorgeous villain everyone loved to hate. I should add that I’m an original fan of DS, having signed on in late April of 1967. I was 14 then, an unpopular eighth grader, and watching Barnabas (Jonathan Frid) Collins and his sundry relatives, friends, and adversaries go through their supernatural paces brought much-needed fun and escapism into my fractured life. Conducted in February 2021, the interview began, and together, we stood contemplating two distinct directions: the path less traveled or a road familiar and ultimately unchallenging. Which one to navigate? Rather than touch all the same (ABOVE) Lara Parker as Dark Shadows’ bewitching Angelique. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Courtesy of www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com.

RETROFAN

November 2021

retro interview

personality, torn between the humanity he still has and blood lust. Very compelling. RF: I wonder how much of the Barnabas profile was due to scriptwriters or Jonathan Frid himself. LP: Jonathan chose to make Barnabas a guilt-ridden, manifestly ashamed, and anguished vampire. Because of Angelique, everyone he loved or who loved him would be destroyed. That’s the tragedy Anne Rice picked up on; her vampires are like real people with complex human emotions.

are tombstones going back to the 17th Century, right in the center of town. Barnabas takes David on a trip to Salem for Halloween and is shocked at how commercial everything has become. Seeing tourists celebrating one of our nation’s greatest tragedies by dressing up in costumes, and stores selling silly things like vampire kits, with fake fangs, fake blood, gives him the creeps.

RF: Where’d you go? LP: Antioch [College in Yellow Springs, Ohio]. First, I had to submit an application and a sample of my writing. I sent them something from Angelique’s Descent, and they turned me down flat! “This is a course in literary writing,” the acceptance committee said, “not genre writing.” So, I applied again and sent them a short story about my mother being in the hospital. That did the trick. RF: How long was the program? LP: Two and a half years. It’s called a lowresidency program. Every semester, you spend one week on campus, and classes run all day and into the evening. Very intensive. Afterwards, you communicate online with an advisor and students within your group. Much less expensive; you don’t need a place to live, for one thing, and the variety of courses is impressive. A grand learning process! I had to go back and rethink my entire perception of writing.

RF: Maintaining some human aspect, even as a vampire, means you’re ultimately vulnerable. LP: Vulnerable to love and heartbreak, rejections, disloyalty, and abandonment. Why are we so fascinated with the Greek gods? They had human failings. Zeus was a womanizer. Aphrodite was vain, and Dionysus a drunkard. Their personalities were flawed. Lara Parker guest-starred on Kolchak: The Night Stalker’s “The Trevi Collection” (Season 1, Episode 14, originally aired on January 24, 1975) with star Our God, as we worship Him today, is indestructible, Darren McGavin. © NBCUniversal Television. infallible. He has no human RF: Weren’t you also failings. If and when there’s teaching? a quality with which LP: Yes! I love teaching. My we identify, so many emotions can be RF: Does your development as a writer mentor, Jim Krusoe, recommended me, explored. That’s why Barnabas struck a surprise you? and I taught basic remedial English classes chord with fans. He brought humanity to LP: I wouldn’t say surprise… but I’ve grown, at Santa Monica College. Once again, I was the concept of a supernatural character. and there’s room for improvement. With analyzing great pieces of literature and each new project, I learn more. Just the trying to figure out why they worked, why RF: Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch has other day, I took another look at Angelique’s they’re so captivating to read. a premise combining historical elements Descent and wished I could cut some of with fiction. It’s my favorite of all your the overwriting. That’s what comes from RF: How did all of that fit in with your books. having so much enthusiasm and passion acting exploits? LP: The Salem Branch is a prequel, before for a subject; I piled on the descriptive LP: Acting is no longer a significant part of Angelique’s time in Martinique. She was language. my life, in the broader sense. When you’re connected to the dark forces, the devil, in older and audition and don’t land the part, ways that she could not escape. The Salem RF: After Angelique’s Descent, you it’s very disappointing. Acting is a series of Branch is by far my best-written book. It’s embarked on an exciting journey: higher highs and lows, with mostly lows. I found also my least popular. education. Specifically, a Masters of Fine something else: family life, teaching, being Arts. What motivated you? a wife and mother. I lived in Topanga with RF: Did you visit modern-day Salem? LP: I felt it was the right time to hone three children; we had a horse, did a lot of LP: I did. So much sad history there, my writing skills and discover just what I skiing and backpacking, and now, we have when America was young. The 1692 could do. Pursuing a higher degree in your a sailboat [laughs]. Thankfully, as a working witch executions are the famous ones; middle years isn’t easy, but I felt up to the actress, I made enough to support myself they hanged innocent people. There challenge. And you end up with an MFA and my family. after your name [laughs]! 18

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retro interview

RF: Which of your books sold the best? LP: Angelique’s Descent, and Salem’s Branch sold the least, despite it being better-written, in my opinion. Someone suggested to me that I get the rights back from Harpers for Angelique’s Descent, and I followed that advice. My agent was able to sell the rights to England, Spain, France, Hungary, and Tor Books. I did audio books of the first three. I’m a performer and didn’t find it particularly difficult. Time consuming, yes [laughs]. I did accents, the whole deal. RF: Is it difficult to scare people? I mean, outside of the cheap jump-scare, which is pretty hard to do in a book. LP: There’s an essay by Freud called The Uncanny, wherein he talks about what frightens us. Fear lies not in the unfamiliar; Freud claimed the uncanny lies in what’s familiar. Like a desk you’ve worked on that has carvings, and they come to life. Or you hear a sound from the closet, and slowly, the door creaks open. The homey and reassuring have darker sides. So much horror takes place on Elm Street in suburbia, which is no coincidence. Our familiar, safe world can be much more horrifying. RF: Horror in the everyday. Hmm. I think my toaster is haunted. LP: [laughs] You’re so funny!

RF: Do you use an outline? I find them difficult. LP: Outlines provide structure, so yes, I use them. I’ve a sense of story and plan out the plot, but I also like being surprised. Watching things take an unexpected turn is a thrill. When I finished The Salem Branch and sent it to Tor, they went over it with a fine-toothed comb and said, “You can’t use the word guillotine. It’s a Halifax gibbet, and they probably wouldn’t have had such a thing in Salem. Here, you said her eyes were blue, and now, they’re green.” There’s something on every page, and at first, it’s almost overwhelming. But that’s how you grow as a writer, and it’s nice that someone keeps you in line.

Sadly, Jonathan passed away before he had a chance to see the finished film. RF: And the retelling made sense to you? LP: It had a different tone than our show. We never turned around and winked at the audience. “Oh, look, ha-ha, Barnabas is a bat, he’s sleeping in Collinwood’s linen closet. He’s hanging upside-down from a chandelier.” Our show was not a satire or a spoof. Sometimes it came off as campy, because of the situations and the characters, but we never played it for laughs. Barnabas might’ve been a vampire, but he was human and believable, and the actors’ performances were totally realistic. Helena [Bonham Carter] told me, “We’ve been playing this show in our make-up room, and we’re hooked.” Then, she added, “but none of us take it seriously.”

The actress experienced an eyebrow-raising (make that “singeing”) experience during this DS scene. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions.

RF: The mechanics of writing. You’ve a handle on them? LP: Writing is also about crafting sentences and paragraphs. Along with character and plot, I’ve become aware of the importance of structure. “Her eyes filled with tears” is a cliché. How am I going to say she’s going to cry, without falling into those word traps? You’re writing at a certain pitch, so what do you use in place of a cliché, to say this in a new unaffected, clear and powerful way? Working on screenplays is excellent training; it encourages the visual. If they see the scene, the story unfolds cinematically. As for dialogue, I can still hear the voices of the Dark Shadows actors in my head!

RF: In 2012, Tim Burton’s big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows hit cinemas. Fans, including myself, looked forward to this, but the end product was a bizarre pastiche. Gets me steamed just thinking about it. LP: Such a wasted opportunity. We were eager to do the film, but at least give us some lines, some sort of significant exchange to make it more obvious for those watching that we’re from the show. Once on set, Jonathan was having difficulty standing. He didn’t want any help or a chair and just wanted to get on with it. I knew, with his physical restrictions, that we couldn’t do much.

RF: In my opinion, Burton and his wacky scriptwriter ruined the material and futzed around with longheld memories. A no-no! LP: Fan reaction was immediate and negative. They didn’t see the original as silly. Dan Curtis described Dark Shadows as gothic romance. Tim and Johnny [Depp] brushed over this with needless sophistication, like we were all in on the joke. Except nobody laughed.

RF: Though I know Burton and Depp pushed this as a love letter to the original show, it made me wonder if they genuinely respected the material. LP: Simply, it wasn’t Dark Shadows. RF: Characterizations changed, too. I loved your Angelique for her impetuousness. She worked from emotion. Eva Green’s a skillful actress, no doubt, but I anticipated something of you in the role. She was all wrong—too hard and way too calculating. LP: I wouldn’t say Eva Green was all wrong, just different. The characters on Dark Shadows were multi-layered. Circumstances motivated their actions, but they also had secrets, resentments, RETROFAN

November 2021

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

“You Knew the Show Was Dangerous When You Saw It”

George of the Jungle by Scott Shaw!

Watch out for that… you know. Animation cel of Jay Ward’s loinclothed lamebrain. © Ward Productions, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

I think that Jay Ward Productions’ George of the Jungle was the last truly great Saturday morning cartoon show of the Sixties… maybe ever! Only 17 episodes were made for a single season airing on ABC from 1967 to 1968, but the series was well-received, the characters are still well-known and beloved, and the writing, voiceover cast, designs, and animation are all funny and outstanding. Of course, I’m kinda biased. I’ve been a big fan of the show since I was 16, which was 50 years ago. Apparently it was never aired in San Diego, because I never saw a single episode of Crusader Rabbit—a primitive TV cartoon series that was created and produced by Jay Ward and cartoonist Alex Anderson in 1947 as “Television Arts Productions” (although NBC’s Jerry Fairbanks stole the title of “Supervising Producer”). I did have a Crusader Rabbit coloring book, which greatly intrigued me. Who were those characters? They looked pretty cool to me, especially Crusader Rabbit’s uniquely parallel bunny ears.

Moose and Squirrel Save the Day

But I was right there at Ground Zero for the first broadcast of Rocky and His Friends on November 19, 1959, on San Diego’s ABC affiliate, XETV/Channel 6, which broadcast from a studio in Mexico, right after Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. I was mystified by the presence of a laugh track on a cartoon. Rocky and Bullwinkle’s “Jet Fuel Formula” rocked my little world forever, as did the rest of the show. I became an obsessed fan of the series. Due to the physics of transmission, my folks’ B&W RCA television 24

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November 2021

was capable of receiving signals from Los Angeles television stations in those pre-cable days, at least early every morning. Rocky and His Friends aired four times every Sunday morning, with a different “Rocky and Bullwinkle” segment’s story arc in all four time slots. I made myself a chart so I could keep track of all of the hilariously convoluted stories. Yeah, I was that hooked. Like Hanna-Barbera’s The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957) and The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958), Jay Ward’s new funny-animal series was hip and full of modern-day references that kids understood, partially because there were contemporary elements and slang in them that I didn’t need my grandmother to interpret for me. Up to this point in time, kids of my generation had practically memorized every Warner Bros., MGM, Fleischer Bros., and Terrytoons cartoon ever broadcast on television, and even though they were indeed classics, we were all getting pretty bored with seeing the same shorts over and over. But finally, the cavalry had arrived to rescue us in the form of Rocky and His Friends. I loved the series and all of its permutations, including The Bullwinkle Show (1961), The Dudley Do-Right Show (1969), as well as the insanely clever Fractured Flickers (1963), a live-action series consisting of re-dubbed classic silent movies. I’ll never forget the FF makeover of Lon Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, “Dinky Dunstan, Boy Cheerleader.” But when Hoppity Hooper hit the airwaves in 1964, I felt something was missing. I’d just turned 13 and sensed that the series was playing to a younger,

less-hip audience… and indeed, that was the case, a demand of General Mills, the show’s sponsor. I wasn’t as interested in HH but I was nuts about the televised commercials for Quaker Oats’ new cereal, Cap’n Crunch, obviously produced by Jay Ward. Within a few years, I was knocked out by the TV spots starring Quaker’s latest cereal stars, Quisp and Quake [see RetroFan #11]. I was just as knocked out by a new syndicated series that, in my opinion, looked like a Jay Ward cartoon, was written like a Jay Ward cartoon, was even cheaper than a Jay Ward cartoon, as was as funny as a Jay Ward cartoon… but Ward had nothing to do with it. But Roger Ramjet was produced by Ken Snyder and created by the legendary puppet show Shrimpenstein! cocreators Jim Thurman and Gene Moss. Both of their series still mean a lot to me. So, where was Jay Ward when we needed him? H-B’s last decent funny-animal characters were in The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series. Yeah, that’s the official name of the show that starred Wally Gator, Touché Turtle, and Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har. The studio’s further output was plummeting in quality. I wasn’t wild about other studios’ Milton the Monster, Courageous Cat, Kimba the White Lion, or older stuff like Clutch Cargo (although I dug its comic-strip style) and the wretched Spunky and Tadpole. I was watching them but I wasn’t learning much. Other than the

Beatles cartoons and Iwao Takamoto’s designs on H-B’s The Space Kidettes on NBC, there wasn’t much out there to inspire me.

The Super-Hero Invasion

And then, thanks to the overwhelming success of ABC’s Batman in 1966 and its resulting Batmania, the super-hero genre suddenly became the Prime Directive of SatAM network programming. Fall 1966 saw Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman on CBS, and during that season and the next the genre exploded especially on that same network, under the guidance of Fred Silverman. He stocked his 1967 schedule with some fairly good cartoons from Hanna-Barbera, simplistic but visually impressive results for what Bill Hanna called “planned animation.” The shows, almost all designed by Alex Toth, were: Space Ghost (sold as “Batman in space”), The Herculoids (sold as “Tarzan in space”), Shazzan!, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, and my personal favorite among H-B’s super-hero wave, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, for its campy scripts, cool character designs, and outstanding layouts (come back next issue for more info!). Silverman finished up the morning with Filmation’s Aquaman [see RetroFan #3] and more Superman, and reruns of H-B’s Jonny Quest [see issue #7]. Meanwhile, NBC was jumping into the super-hero business, with DePatie-Freleng’s Super 6 (another favorite of mine, at least in

Could toonmaster Jay Ward (1920–1989) pull another cartoon hit out of his hat after Rocky and Bullwinkle? Rocky and Bullwinkle © Ward Productions, Inc. and Classic Media. Cel courtesy of Heritage.

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November 2021

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA Hill House, a large, eerie mansion with a history of violent death and insanity, is being investigated by Dr. Markway. His research aims to prove the existence of ghosts. With him are the insecure Eleanor, whose psychic abilities make her feel somehow attuned to whatever spirits inhabit the old mansion, the clairvoyant Theodora (“Theo”), and the skeptical young Luke. It becomes clear that they have gotten more than they bargained for as the ghostly presence in the house manifests itself in horrific ways. (Doug Sederberg/IMDb) The following is adapted from the original screenplay by Nelson Gidding: No one can say what suggests evil in the face of a house, yet Hill House is overwhelmingly evil. Enormous and dark, it is so covered with decoration as to appear diseased. Inside Eleanor’s bedroom—Theo sits up in the big double bed idly leafing through a book. Eleanor locks the door and gets into bed. Theo burrows under the covers. Later, in the middle of the night: Shadows and moonlight on a section of wallpaper shift the pattern into the visage of a not-quitehuman face. From behind it comes the steady SOUND OF A VOICE BABBLING, the words too low to be understood. Eleanor’s face is rigid with fear and as white as the pillow. ELEANOR (whispers to Theo) Are you awake? Don’t say a word, Theo. Don’t let it know you’re in my room. From behind the “face” in the wallpaper—a small gurgling laugh. ELEANOR (lowering her hand) Hold my hand, Theo. Unseen, below the frame, Theo evidently takes her hand. The VOICE continues babbling but then, abruptly— absolute SILENCE. ELEANOR Is it over? Do you think it’s over? (her eyes flinch with pain) Theo, you’re breaking my hand! Then– the SOFT CRY OF A CHILD—infinitely sad, heartbreaking. ELEANOR’S VOICE (her thoughts) This is monstrous. It thinks to scare me. Well, it has. And poor Theo, too. (wincing) I honestly think she must be breaking my hand. No matter. I will take a lot from this filthy house, but I will not go along with hurting a child. No, I will not. I will, by God, get my mouth to open right now and I will yell— STOP IT! 38

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November 2021

ELEANOR

A light flashes on. Eleanor bolts up, all alone, now seen to be on the chaise lounge on the far side of the room. She looks in consternation to her hand— held rigidly, clenched around— nothing. CAMERA PANS across the room to Theo, alone on her side of the big double bed—far away on the other side of the room.

THEO What? What, Nell? What…? ELEANOR Good God... Eleanor remains frozen for an instant, then brings her shaking hand in toward her chest and slowly opens her fingers.

” ? . . . g n i d l o h I s a w d an

“Whose h

Ernest Farino takes a look at what many consider to be the scariest ghost story ever made…

A Robert Wise Film / Screenplay by Nelson Gidding From the Novel by Shirley Jackson

SPOILER ALERT! Scary scenes described here. (See the movie, then read the article… )

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November 2021

ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Do you want to see something really scary?” So says Dan Aykroyd to Albert Brooks in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). If I didn’t know better, I’d have assumed he was referring to Robert Wise’s 1963 film The Haunting, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson. After working professionally on make-up effects for “scary” films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Men in Black 3, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Amityville Horror, Pet Sematary II, Hellboy, 13 episodes of American Horror Story, and over 100 more films, you’d think my make-up artist friend Bart J. Mixon would be numb to the shocks. But as he wrote as recently as October 2020 on Facebook, “The Haunting is the only film to actually frighten me…” And none other than renowned director Martin Scorsese referred to The Haunting as “absolutely terrifying” in The 11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time (The Daily Beast, Oct. 28, 2009). I saw The Haunting when it premiered on network television in the Sixties. I have been unable to pin down the date of the broadcast, but it would have been in the mid-Sixties on one of the Saturday Night at the Movies-type series. I would have been in my early teens—i.e., still very impressionable—but I remember the whole family was thoroughly creeped out. Turns out we weren’t the only ones…

The Book

Moreso even than The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson is probably even better known for her short story The Lottery. First published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, the short story generated more mail—estimated at around 300 letters— than any work of fiction the magazine had published up to that time. Remarkably, in 1963 (the year The Haunting film was released), Jackson said of The Lottery, “I hate it. I’ve lived with that thing 15 years. Nobody will ever let me forget it.” But it’s become “psychologically iconic” (to coin a phrase) and has been required reading for decades. Like many, I first read it in high school and was struck by my first exposure to a rather chilling “O. Henry”style surprise ending. RETROFAN

– Shirley Jackson, The Lottery In 1999 Paula Guran provided insight into the backstory of the book in her essay Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House on the DarkEcho Horror website. Guran wrote that Jackson “decided to write ‘a ghost story’ after reading about a group of nineteenth century ‘psychic researchers’ who studied a house and somberly reported their supposedly scientific findings to the Society for Psychic Research. What Jackson discovered in their ‘dry reports was not the story of a haunted house, it was the story of several earnest, I believe misguided, certainly determined people, with their differing motivations and background.’ Excited by the prospect of creating her own haunted house and the characters to explore it, she launched into research. She later claimed to have found a picture of a California house she

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in hardcover by Viking Press (New York, 1959, 246 pages), at a cover price of $3.95 (about $35.00 today), was a finalist for the National Book Award and is considered one of the best literary ghost stories of the 20th Century.

Shirley Jackson.

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”

November 2021

believed was suitably haunted-looking in a magazine. She asked her mother, who lived in California, to help find information about the dwelling. According to Jackson, her mother identified the house as one the author’s own great-great-grandfather, an architect who had designed some of San Francisco’s oldest buildings, had built. Jackson also read volume upon volume of traditional ghost stories while preparing to write her own, and said, ‘No one can get into a novel about a haunted house without hitting the subject of reality head-on; either I have to believe in ghosts, which I do, or I have to write another kind of novel altogether.’” Jackson finally settled on a story of three strangers who are invited to Hill House by Dr. Montague (“Markway” in the

ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

movie) to scientifically prove the existence of the supernatural. Turns out, the house is haunted—really haunted—and one of the two women, Eleanor, is especially affected by the unfolding strangeness of the experience. Cristina Arreola commented on the website Bustle in 2018, “It’s terrifying on a supernatural and psychological level, and it’s an absolute must-read for anyone who’s obsessed with horror.” Stephen King, meanwhile, said that Hill House has one of the best openings he’s ever read, calling it “the sort of quiet epiphany every writer hopes for.” Writer Carmen Maria Machado wrote in The Atlantic that while at a writers’ retreat she was told that her own story reminded readers of Shirley Jackson. “When I went back home to Philly, I picked up a copy [of The Haunting of Hill House]. And I just devoured it. I read it in one sitting. It scared the sh*t out of me. Even though the events that appear to be supernatural activity are few and far between, those scenes are so chillingly written— as if Jackson was describing a phenomenon she’d seen before and really understood. The book’s particular brand of surreality felt, to me, like that experience of walking home from a party a little bit drunk, when the world somehow seems sharper and clearer and weirder.”

Handsome leading man Richard Johnson was considered for the role of James Bond in Dr. No but turned it down because he didn’t want to sign a multi-picture contract. Johnson later played a similar role, Bulldog Drummond, in the 1967 film Deadlier Than the Male. He was married for a year to sultry actress Kim Novak in the Sixties.

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” – Shirley Jackson

Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, was published in 1962 and has been acclaimed as her masterpiece (it sold 30,000 copies)—“a brilliantly strange, claustrophobic tale of two sisters who barricade themselves in against the torments of the outside world.” Following that work, Jackson herself came down with crippling agoraphobia, anxiety, and writer’s block. Becoming severely overweight, her health deteriorated significantly and she died of a heart condition in 1965 at the age of 48. You can read about Shirley Jackson in much greater depth in former New Republic editor Ruth Franklin’s biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright, 2016).

“Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.” – Shirley Jackson

The Movie

Production began at the MGM studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England (about 15 miles northwest of London), on October 7, 1962. Other films made at Borehamwood include several of the Star Wars films, many of Stanley Kubrick’s films including Lolita and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many more.

Julie Harris gives the standout performance in the film as the fragile, insecure, tormented Eleanor Lance. Her accomplishments are many, including for five Tony Awards (of ten nominations) for her work on the Chicago stage, three Emmys (of 11 nominations), a Grammy Award and an Oscar® nomination for her first film role in A Member of the Wedding. She was a recipient of the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors and was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1994. Harris’ appearances ran the gamut from Requiem for a Heavyweight to an episode of The Love Boat, and, outside of The Haunting, she is often remembered for her role opposite James Dean in East of Eden and a seven-year stint on the TV series Knots Landing. She was married and divorced three times, and had a son from her second marriage.

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November 2021

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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SUPERHEROES VS. MONSTERS! Monsters in Metropolis, Batman and the Horror Genre, DOUG MOENCH and KELLEY JONES’ Batman: Vampire, Marvel Scream-Up, Dracula and Godzilla vs. Marvel, DC/Dark Horse Hero/Monster crossovers, and a Baron Blood villain history. With CLAREMONT, CONWAY, DIXON, GIBBONS, GRELL, GULACY, JURGENS, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and a cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN.

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

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

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

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

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HORRIFIC HEROES! With Bronze Age CREATOR-OWNED COMICS! Featuring histories of Man-Thing, the Demon, and in-depth histories of MATT WAGNER’s the Creeper, Atlas/Seaboard’s horrifying Mage and Grendel. Plus other indie heroes, and Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch) sensations of the Bronze Age, including rides again! Featuring the work of CHRIS COLLEEN DORAN’s A Distant Soil, STAN CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, ERNIE SAKAI’s Usagi Yojimbo, STEVE PURCELL’s COLON, MICHAEL GOLDEN, JACK KIRBY, Sam & Max, JAMES DEAN SMITH’s Boris MIKE PLOOG, JAVIER SALTARES, MARK the Bear, and LARRY WELZ’s Cherry TEXIERA, and more. Man-Thing cover by Poptart! With a fabulous Grendel cover by RUDY NEBRES. MATT WAGNER.

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TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

BACK ISSUE #126

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SCOTT SAAVEDRA'S SECRET SANCTUM

Ward Cleaver and TV Dads of the Sixties’ Jobs by Scott Saavedra Ward Cleaver went to his office job in the morning and came home at the end of the day. Sometimes he would come home early and his wife June would, without fail, say, “You’re home early.” He would wear a sweater around the house and read only magazines and newspapers despite the presence of many books in the home. He would strive to guide his sons to a straight and narrow path because that was his duty. It was all pretend, though. Ward was father of Wally and Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver and husband to June for 234 half-hour episodes of Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963). He wasn’t a real dad or even a real person, but he was a fine example of the Fifties- and Sixties-era father as anyone could ask for. In real life dads were human, flawed, even weird. Once, I was playing with Army men at a friend’s house when his dad suddenly came in and, deeply unhappy that we were playing with war toys, asked us very aggressively if we’d ever seen a man hit by ordinance. He had. We hadn’t. The military wasn’t recruiting eight-year-olds, so… yeah, no… no, sir. But TV dads of the time had the rough edges smoothed over. Ward could be stern, but fair as a parent. And as a breadwinner, he did well enough that June could stay at home and raise the boys, make meals, and look well-put-together in her housedress. When I was small my mother also wore housedresses as a stay-at-home mom. Like so many families (on TV and in life),

we were a single-income home. My father worked as a… uh, I really didn’t know at the time. As a kid, very little thought was given to what my—or any—dad did for a living. He went to work and then came home. On Fridays he’d come home with a treat. Maybe small bags of Planters Peanuts (which I still love) or a package of four Hershey bars for his five children (math, I guess, was not his strong suit). I did know that a grade school friend’s father was a vice president at Mattel Toys. That’s the kind of information that sticks in a kid’s head. Otherwise, I had zero idea about what other dads did for a living. As such it wasn’t odd in any way if I saw a TV dad who didn’t seem to have a specific job. This was more the case for sitcom dads. Adventure show dads usually had more defined work. Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene, Bonanza, 1959–1973), who outlived three wives (!) and was only 13 years older than his two oldest boys, was a rancher with a cook. Schuyler “Sky” King (Kirby Grant, Sky King, 1951–1962) was a father figure to his niece—life status of parents unknown—and a rancher with a plane. Lucas McCain (Chuck Conners, The Rifleman, 1958–1963) was a widower (another dead spouse, there will be more), single parent, and rancher with a rifle. (Quick family story about Chuck Conners: He winked at my wife Ruth’s namesake, Aunt Ruth, in the Market Basket grocery store in Palm Springs. We still talk about this at family gatherings.) RETROFAN

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Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum

I used to think that TV sitcom dads of the period worked at largely unspecific jobs. That’s certainly how it seemed to me as a young viewer and pretty much how I remembered it. But in fact decades of reruns pored over by devoted generations of fans and scholars have made it possible to find out what kind of work the best-known TV sitcom dads of the Sixties did. There was one fictional father who was a particularly tough nut to crack—I’m looking at you, Ward—but with millions of eyeballs having watched these shows no fact stays hidden for long. We begin our job search at the top of the heap with America’s favorite TV sitcom dads.

Best Fathers to Know

According to numerous Best TV Dad lists that crop up around every Father’s Day there are three television dads of the Sixties who always make even the shortest, most modern-programmingbiased line-up: Andy Taylor, Mike Brady, and Ward Cleaver. Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith, The Andy Griffith Show, 1960–1968) was a small-town sheriff, widower, and single dad. He was written to be patient, thoughtful, and competent. He wanted to raise his son to be prepared for life: “I don’t want him to be the kind of boy lookin’ for fights, but I don’t want him to run from one when he’s in the right.” It probably didn’t hurt that his son Opie (Ron Howard) was the best TV son ever. Andy did some of his finest parenting while at the Mayberry Courthouse or out and about during his workday. Mike Brady (Robert Reed, The Brady Bunch and spin-offs, 1969– 1974 and beyond) was certainly a bit cooler than the other dads, but not by much: “Greg, it may be the hip thing to call parents

Mike Brady (CENTER) is an architect and Andy Taylor (RIGHT) is a sheriff. What does Ward Cleaver (LEFT) do? 56

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by their first names, but around here, we’re still Mom and Dad.” Mike was an architect and had an additional office at home. His workplace did appear on camera and we even met his boss. The premise of The Brady Bunch is well known: a lovely lady and a man named Brady blend their two families together. It’s here that the whole dead spouse thing rears its ugly head again. Mike was a widower and his new wife Carol was originally supposed to be divorced, but that was still not okay for wholesome television family entertainment so her former husband was a corpse, too. Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont, Leave It to Beaver, 1957–1963) was, quite simply, a classic dad (I would go so far as to say he was the classic Fifties/Sixties dad), spouting classic TV dad advice: “There’s nothing old-fashioned about politeness.” He wore a suit, carried a briefcase, and went to a downtown office to… do… work. What kind of work was never exactly mentioned beyond maybe a reference to commissions being down or something. Basically, he was tired at the end of the day so we know he worked hard, but beyond that… pfft. So two out of these three top beloved TV dads had specific jobs and Ward, well, he had his own office in which to do whatever. In an interview for the Television Academy Foundation, the Beaver himself, Jerry Mathers, shared his theory about why we didn’t seem to know what his TV father did for a living. “I think what [the writers] wanted to do was maybe hold it off in case they wanted to write a show where he was an insurance salesman, a real estate salesman, who knows what.” Ward Cleaver did have a co-worker, Fred Rutherford (Richard Deacon, better known as Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show).

Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum

Herman Munster digs graves, the Darrin Stephenses dig advertising.

He was father to Wally’s friend Lumpy. Fred’s familiar good-bye to Ward was, “Well, see ya ’round the salt mines.”

Office Space

Not only did most of our favorite TV dads of the period have reasonably specific jobs, some even had actual places of work that were a regular part of the show. My memory is that the aforementioned Andy Taylor was seen at work way more than he was at home. Since Opie often visited his father at the Courthouse with its jail cells, he could hang out with criminals and the town drunk (I loved Otis, but where was he getting his booze, wasn’t Mayberry in a dry county?) any time he felt like it. He almost certainly got an education not available to most kids. Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke, The Dick Van Dyke Show, 1961–1966) spent plenty of time at the office as the head writer of a comedy program with a rich set of characters. It’s true that Rob was a dad and had a home life, but I really didn’t give a fig for his son Ritchie, played by Larry Mathews (sorry, man), and more enjoyed the back-and-forth between Rob and Mary Tyler Moore as his wife Laura. I’m just going from memory, but of all the sitcoms from the Sixties Rob Petrie seemed to have the best work/life balance. Also, he was pretend-married to Mary Tyler Moore. Darrin Stephens (Dick York and Dick Sargent, Bewitched, 1964– 1972) was a reactive dad and spouse (with the Dick York version getting especially exasperated) whose work relationships—he was in advertising—were an important part of the show. He brought his work and his boss home with him often. Mostly, he deferred parenting duties to his (magical) wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery).

Nice Work If You Can Get It

If you’re noticing that most of the jobs in discussion are white collar, then you’ve been paying attention so far. I just live in

society, I don’t really understand it, but all of these white-collar workplaces strike me as being more aspirational for the majority of viewers than a reflection of their circumstances. Broadcast programmers must have noticed that, too, since by the Seventies blue-collar work was beginning to be more represented and divorce was no longer taboo. Maude Findley (Beatrice Arthur, Maude, 1972–1978), while most definitely not a blue-collar worker, had a divorced daughter living with her and her fourth husband (Maude’s first husband died and she divorced the other two—I guess that’s a kind of progress). There were TV dads who definitely had jobs, though the actual place of work was rarely if ever seen. Stephen Douglas (Fred MacMurray, My Three Sons, 1960–1972), another sweater-wearing, hang-around-the-house widower, was an aeronautical engineer. Henry Mitchell (Herbert Anderson, Dennis the Menace, 1959–1963) was an aerospace engineer, had an office, and a shared secretary. Bill Davis (Brain Keith, Family Affair, 1966–1971) was an engineer with a manservant, Mr. French (the completely wonderful Sebastian Cabot), who was English. The set-up behind Family Affair was especially grim as both parents of the kids in the show had to die so that comedy laughs could be had. Again, a reminder: a trail of dead parents was a more appealing set-up for a comedy program—to broadcast executives—than divorce. In the Sixties, I knew exactly one kid with a divorced parent (the Mattel exec) and none—not a one—with a deceased father or mother. Just sayin.’ And speaking of dead parents, widower Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, 1969–1972) had to raise his son Eddie (Brandon Cruz) completely on his own and run his magazine publishing company with only the help of his employees and a housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki). Staying with the dead (or, more correctly, undead) theme, Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne, The Munsters, 1964–1966) was a gravedigger (a rare bluecollar TV dad job) and formerly deceased.

Stephen Douglas (LEFT) performs vital engineering work and Rob Petrie (RIGHT) writes.

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Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum

The proof.

Ward’s rough takedown really shook up Wally (it annoyed him, mostly). Ward is really bothered by this while at work and his co-worker, Fred Rutherford, hears the woeful tale and offers up some unnecessary advice. The big gag is that it is Fred’s son, Lumpy, who wants to join the Merchant Marines because it is his father that’s so, so unreasonable (I’ve now forgotten what about but Lumpy probably deserved the punishment). While the two are talking in Ward’s smallish private office, a revealing detail on the office wall can be seen. Two framed documents. The smaller of the two can’t be read but appears to be a diploma and the larger more visible one says, and I quote: “The Stock Exchange, Certificate of Membership, Ward Cleaver.” The what? Beaver’s dad is a stockbroker! It may not be a fact confirmed by word in the show and viewers of the day could have blinked and missed it, but somebody with the program decided that, sure, Ward sold penny stocks or something. Mystery maybe kind of solved. So, yeah, that’s that. But one fresh thing did puzzle me while watching this episode. The Leave It to Beaver opening title sequence produced another conundrum while introducing our main characters. In this version of the opening credits, the Cleaver menfolk are seen doing yard work. Ward is trimming the bushes, Wally is mowing the lawn, and Beaver is… also mowing the lawn. Mom brings out refreshments and all are smiling. So… wait, the Cleavers are a single-car family but they have two lawnmowers? I don’t recall that being a middle-class aspiration. 60

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What Did You Do In the Office, Daddy?

All this talk of dad jobs prompted me to ask my adult children if they were aware of what I did job-wise when they were kids. My oldest, Edward, remembered that I was an artist who made comic books. He thought that was pretty cool. My youngest, Kate, said that she saw me move things around on the computer to make books and magazines. Both correct answers. She also recalled that in 7th grade some of the other students wanted to know if I worked in the fields (no doubt due to our Hispanic surname). A reminder that we don’t live in TV Land and all the kids aren’t Opie and the Beaver. Ward Cleaver, where are you when we need you? A special shout-out to total internet stranger and eagle-eyed Straight Dope (straightdope.com), message-board contributor, us66man, for noticing the Stock Exchange certificate on Ward’s office wall. Where would I be without you? Nowhere, that’s where. So I sincerely thank you and I don’t mind saying it because there’s nothing old-fashioned about politeness. SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a Retro Explorer operating from his Southern Californiabased Secret Sanctum. He is a writer (more or less), artist (like, for this article), and graphic designer (you’re soaking in it). Check out his Instagram thing, won’t you, at instagram/ scottsaav/

RETRO ANIMATION

Rankin/Bass Productions Historian Examines the Cult Film’s Growing Popularity by Rick Goldschmidt After writing a 2011 book and multiple magazine articles about Rankin/Bass Productions’ Mad Monster Party? [yes, officially with a question mark—ed.], and after co-producing a few related DVD and one Blu-ray releases, I’ve observed that the monster-bash kid’s film is gaining popularity as time goes on. In case you haven’t yet discovered it, Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party? (MMP) was a 1967 stop-motion movie, originally a theatrical release from Embassy Pictures, that gathered “The Worldwide Organization of Monsters” on the Isle of Evil and featured the voices of Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett, and Phyllis Diller. Karloff played Baron von Frankenstein, joined by take-offs of classic screen monsters: Frankenstein’s Monster, a.k.a. “Fang”; Count Dracula, a.k.a. “Drac”; the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a.k.a. “Quasimodo”; plus the Mummy, the Werewolf, the Creature [from the Black Lagoon], the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the King Kong-like “IT,” and supporting characters Yetch and Skeleton, as well as humans Felix Flanken (the Baron’s nephew) and Francesca. Turner Classic Movies now shows MMP in primetime, instead of the wee hours of the morning as it originally did. DVD and BluRay sales have picked up over the years. MMP is a Halloween must-see for me (and others) as I hand out candy to neighborhood kids.

In MMP’s initial release, as Rankin/Bass composer/conductor Maury Laws said, “It was snuck out” into theaters beginning on March 8, 1967. It was actually shown over a three-year period in Saturday kiddie matinees through 1967–1969, receiving its official review in the New York Times in early 1969.

An Invitation to the Party

After the premiere of Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer [see RetroFan #12] on the NBC General Electric Fantasy hour on December 6th, 1964, the phone at Rankin/Bass Productions in New York City was ringing off the hook. “People were calling us up saying, ‘Could we have one of those?’ ‘Could you make us similar?,’ etc.,” said producer Arthur Rankin, Jr. The TV special caught the attention of legendary film producer Joseph E. Levine and in May of 1965, a three-motion-picture deal was signed between Rankin/ Bass Productions and Levine’s company Embassy Pictures on New York’s Sixth Avenue in the Time/Life building. Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass, and Maury Laws attended the luncheon/signing. The trio of Levine-produced Rankin/Bass films that would follow were The Daydreamer (1966), a mix of live action and puppets based upon the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen; the traditionally

(ABOVE) Some of the creepy, kooky cast from Rankin/Bass Productions’ 1967 cult classic, Mad Monster Party?, from theater lobby cards. Courtesy of Heritage. © Miser Bros Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

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retro Animation

these puppets when they were owned by my friend Kevin Kriess from Time and Space Toys. The puppets stayed in my home when we took them on television news shows and to the Brookfield Zoo and bookstores. It wasn’t until recently that I realized these are the publicity-photo and NBC Display Animagic figures from New York and not the screen used figures that were featured in the Tad Mochinaga display. Tad’s Santa has a shorter beard and the beard is decaying in two lines on the sides of his mouth. The same lines and beard you can clearly see in the actual TV special. The publicity Santa has a much rounder and larger beard, something you never see in the TV special. I learn something every day as the Rankin/Bass Productions historian!

The Party Isn’t Over

As stated earlier, Mad Monster Party? is growing in popularity. I have heard raves about it from many movie producers over the years. A few even came to a Mad Monster Party? event held in October 2012, at the Van Eaton Galleries in Van Nuys, California. At one time, Frankie Avalon’s and Annette Funicello’s families took out an option on a remake, and later, Variety reported that the writers of the film Analyze This were writing an MMP treatment. Over the years I have assisted with several products based on the Mad Monster Party? characters. First there was a Boris Karloff statue sculpted by Tony Cipriano and licensed by Karloff Enterprises. Many of those sold from rankinbass.com, when the internet was expanding in the late Nineties. Funko made a series of eight plastic figures that I assisted with around 2009. Diamond Toys Produced three figures sculpted by Tony Cipriano again around 2011. The line featured Boris, Dracula, and Fang, with accessories. The problem with this line was that if you removed the figures from the packaging, their plastic legs didn’t support the bodies and they leaned over. Despite this, it was a popular line which many fans wanted to continue, but it never did. Trick or Treat Studios produced a series of six Mad Monster Party? Halloween masks, which included Yetch, a Zombie band member, the Creature, Uncle Boris, Fang, and Dracula. I display these at all of my appearances and the fans love them! In October of 2017, my friend, artist Shag (Josh Agle), released a beautful Mad Monster Party? print, and I appeared at both his West Hollywood and Palm Springs stores. The stores were packed with fans and we even brought along some actual Animagic figures to display. Mad Monster Party? music composer Maury Laws and the author. © 2008 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

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One of Goldschmidt’s out-of-print and highly sought-after MMP masks.

Don Duga, the storyboard artist on Mad Monster Party?, was very helpful to me with my books. He saved the Jack Davis designs and some of his storyboard art, materials that Rankin/Bass had long discarded. Don taught animation at the School of Visual arts in New York until computers took over about ten years ago. When my first Rankin/ Bass book was released in 1997, Don and Arthur Rankin spoke at an event at the School of Visual Arts and signed books. Don really enjoyed the MMP musical sequences and remembers the sequence for the Mummy as a favorite. “That was actually choreographed by a famous dancer named ‘Killer’ Joe Piro, who was famous for doing the modern dances at the Peppermint Lounge in New York,” said Duga. Mad Monster Party? has always been a favorite project of his, and he continued to do art based on the film for years. The animation in the film was directed by Tadahito “Tad” Mochinaga. While Jules Bass was given the screen credit of director and Arthur Rankin the producer credit, Arthur was the only one of the two who visited Japan, where the stop-motion animation was produced, to oversee things. The puppets were made by Kyoto Kita and Pinchan Ichiro Komuro. I can’t overemphasize the importance of the work of this Japanese crew. There is a charm with Rankin/Bass Animagic that can’t be replicated in CGI or any other forms of animation. This is the unique quality everyone identifies with Rankin/Bass Productions, a very believable universe of stop-motion puppets that each have a personality of their own. I am hopeful that in the near future we will see a new, higherresolution version of the film, released by Kino Lorber on BluRay. I am ready to lay down the commentary with Lee Gambin. I think if the film can continue to get national exposure on Turner Classic Movies, particularly if they screen it at Halloween in primetime, that will help immensely. I believe Mad Monster Party? will continue to bring families together in front of the television for many more Halloweens in the future! Unless otherwise noted, images accompanying this article are courtesy of Rick Goldscmidt/Miser Bros. Press. Miser Bros. Press co-founder RICK GOLDSCHMIDT is the historian/ biographer for Rankin/Bass Productins and the author of several books on the revered holiday films and other movies produced by the company. www.miserbros.com and www.enchantedworldofrankinbass. blogspot.com

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Monster Squad

drak pack by Andy Mangels

The concept of history’s greatest monsters walking, creeping, and howling in the shadows of the night… together… may have been mostly a construct of Hollywood, rather than scary folklore or novels and pulp writing, but the topic of monsters mashing together was popular long before the 1962 novelty song “Monster Mash” delighted listeners. As we face another Halloween, lets open the crypt door and peer through the cobwebs to see how Saturday mornings were invaded yet again by Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man… in Monster Squad and Drak Pack!

Monster Mash-Up History

As first discussed in RetroFan #2’s spotlight on Groovie Goolies (check elsewhere to find how to get back issues), three monsters reigned supreme in the realm of cinema horror. Immortalized onscreen by Universal Studios in feature films between 1931 and 1941, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man—as portrayed by Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney, Jr., respectively— thrilled audiences alongside other creatures and spooks such as the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, the Bride of Frankenstein, and more. RETROFAN

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

(CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE) Count Dracula, Drak, Jr., Frankie, Howler, Vampira. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Count Dracula cell courtesy of Heritage.

“Endeavors.” The villains operated out of OGRE Island, where Dred had his Dredquarters. Dred’s evil plans over the run of the series included stealing color from his adversaries, stealing treasures and priceless artifacts, stopping time to commit robberies, changing the weather, using shrink rays, and even creating an evil amusement park. The animators worked from character designs by Chris Cuddington—who also directed the series—but most of the production work was done at Hanna-Barbera’s Australian satellite studio, known as “Hanna-Barbera Pty. Ltd.” The studio had been founded in 1972, and lasted until 1983, eventually changing names to become Taft-Hardie Group, then Southern Star Group, and finally Endemol Shine Australia. Comic legend Jack Kirby actually designed some of the elements for Drak Pack as well, including the flying blimp known as the Dredgible. The voice actors for the series were mostly Hanna-Barbera regulars, and most of them used voices that impersonated 74

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popular actors. Drak’s voice was done by Jerry Dexter, a radio announcer who played Aqualad in the 1967 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (see RetroFan #3). Dexter affected a voice that mimicked that of Don Addams’ character on the Get Smart TV series. William Callaway, famous as Aquaman on Super Friends, played both Frankie and Howler. Alan Oppenheimer, who would become infamous later for voicing Master of the Universe’s Skeletor, here gave Dracula the same kind of thick Hungarian accent

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Vampira, Dr. Dred, Mummyman, and Toad (IN FOREGROUND) decend from the Dredgible as Fly buzzes overhead. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

(ABOVE) Detail from TV Guide ad promoting Drak Pack and the rest of 1980’s Fall Saturday morning CBS line-up. (LEFT) Early Dredgible design by the legendary artist Jack Kirby. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

that film star Bela Lugosi had in the original Dracula film. Hans Conried, infamous as Captain Hook in Walt Disney’s Peter Pan and Snidely Whiplash in Jay Ward’s Dudley Do-Right, again twirled his moustache for evil purposes as Dr. Dred. Julie McWhirter modeled Vampira’s dialogue after actress Eva Gabor, while Don Messick’s Toad was clearly voiced as if he were bug-eyed actor Peter Lorre. Comedian Chuck McCann rounded out the villains, voicing the wrapping-covered Mummyman.

Although a Screen Actors Guild strike that involved voice actors threatened productions of many projects in Hollywood during the summer of 1980—and a few sources cite that the Fall Saturday morning schedule was delayed from September 6th debuts to November 8th debuts—research into TV Guide listings and newspaper listings show that Drak Pack did indeed begin airing its 16 episodes on September 6, 1980, sandwiched between The All-New Popeye Hour and The New Fat Albert Show on CBS. RETROFAN

November 2021