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March 2022 No. 19 $10.95

Pardon me...?

WATERGATE AT FIFTY

HAMMER... HARRYHAUSEN... BOND... BURROUGHS...

e thes g i D y kook les... ctib colle

CAROLINE MUNRO INTERVIEW

Wacky Packages! Bob Kane’s other dynamic duo...

COURAGEOUS CAT and MINUTE MOUSE!

Will the real Ghostbusters please stand up?

Go-Go Dancing • Pauline Peril • Rare Pro Wrestler Erasers • Red Skelton Museum & more! 1

82658 00462

FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury Caroline Munro photo: Dutch National Archives. Wacky Packages © Topps. Nixon illustration © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

AMERICAN TV (1940sCOMIC BOOKS 1980s) Hot on the heels of Back Issue #128, AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s) takes you from the small screen to the printed page, offering a fascinating and detailed year-by-year history of over 300 television shows and their 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades. Author PETER BOSCH has spent years researching and documenting this amazing area of comics history, tracking down the well-known series (Star Trek, The Munsters) and the lesser-known shows (Captain Gallant, Pinky Lee) to present the finest look ever taken at this unique genre of comic books. Included are hundreds of full-color covers and images, plus profiles of the artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and many more giants of the comic book world. Whether you loved watching The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, and Zorro from the 1950s—The Andy Griffith Show, The Monkees, and The Mod Squad in the 1960s—Adam-12, Battlestar Galactica, and The Bionic Woman in the 1970s—or Alf, Fraggle Rock, and “V” in the 1980s—there’s something here for fans of TV and comics alike! (192-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3 • SHIPS SPRING 2022!

JOHN SEVERIN:

TWO-FISTED COMIC BOOK ARTIST A spirited biography of the EC COMICS mainstay (working with HARVEY KURTZMAN on MAD and TWO-FISTED TALES) and co-creator of Western strip AMERICAN EAGLE. Covers his 40+ year association with CRACKED magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB TRIMPE on THE HULK and teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on KING KULL, and more! With commentary by NEAL ADAMS, RICHARD CORBEN, JOHN BYRNE, RUSS HEATH, WALTER SIMONSON, and many others. By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE. (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6 • NOW SHIPPING!

OUR ARTISTS AT WAR The first book ever published in the US that solely examines War Comics published in America! It covers the talented writers and artists who supplied the finest, most compelling stories in the War Comics genre, which has long been neglected in the annals of comics history. Through the critical analysis of authors RICHARD J. ARNDT and STEVEN FEARS, this overlooked treasure trove is explored in-depth, finally giving it the respect it deserves! Included are pivotal series from EC COMICS (Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace and the Big Five war books: All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War, and StarSpangled War Stories), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring the work of HARVEY KURTZMAN, JOHN SEVERIN, JACK DAVIS, WALLACE WOOD, JOE KUBERT, SAM GLANZMAN, JACK KIRBY, WILL ELDER, GENE COLAN, RUSS HEATH, ALEX TOTH, MORT DRUCKER, and many others. Introduction by ROY THOMAS, Foreword by WILLI FRANZ. Cover by JOE KUBERT. (160-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-108-0 • NOW SHIPPING!

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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #19 March 2022

Columns and Special Features

Departments

Retrotorial

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse

53 33

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria On the Set… Movies in the Sixties

Retro Interview Caroline Munro

Oddball World of Scott Shaw! The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril

44 23

2 30 RetroFad Go-Go Dancing

44 Retro Collectibles Wacky Packages

50 Too Much TV Quiz

71 Retro Toys The Bandai Pro Wrestler Erasers of 1987

74 Celebrity Crushes

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Watergate’s 50th Anniversary

RetroFanmail

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters

ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ issue 19, March 2022 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 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, $29 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Caroline Munro 1974 photograph courtesy of Dutch National Archives. Wacky Packages © Topps. Nixon illustration by Murphy Anderson, from From Beyond the Unknown #17 © DC Comics. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse © Trans-Artists Productions. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2022 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

BY MICHAEL EURY

PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Ernest Farino L. Wayne Hicks Mark Kratzner and Doug Carroll Andy Mangels Jeff Moreno Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Anthony Taylor DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS DC Comics Bill Griffith Hake’s Auctions Tami Hamalian Heritage Auctions Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy Rose Rummel-Eury David Saunders Art Spiegelman Topps VERY SPECIAL THANKS Caroline Munro

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RETROFAN

There’s a lot of chatter in this issue’s RetroFanmail about readers’ appreciation for Scott Saavedra’s excellent “Rural Sitcom Purge” column in RetroFan #15. Early this morning I caught a few minutes of Petticoat Junction on MeTV and realized, for the first time, the primary common denominator linking those CBS country sitcoms we grew up with: each had a stable straight man or woman around whom the rest of the show’s crazy characters orbited. In Petticoat Junction it was Kate Bradshaw, the voice of reason amid Uncle Joe’s harebrained schemes, and down the railroad tracks in Hooterville, Oliver Douglas anchored the eccentric cast of Green Acres. On The Beverly Hillbillies, Jed Clampett, despite his lack of erudition, was the smartest guy in the room. On The Andy Griffith Show, it was Sheriff Taylor, although that dynamic evolved in the first season after Andy abandoned his bumpkin shtick from his stand-up days. Does the same hold true here at RetroFan? Is ye ed the only sane soul among a legion of loveable loonies? Truth be told, we’re all a little wacky here, and that’s what makes this magazine so much fun to produce—and judging from your feedback, fun for you to read. If I stand firm amid any insanity, it’s the unpredictability of the world around us that prompts me to hold tight the RetroFan-reins and keep us on a steady path. And on that note, I have an announcement that will disappoint many of you. This is Ernest Farino’s last issue as a regular columnist; his “Retro Fantasmagoria” is being temporarily retired. I say “temporarily” since we have in the pipeline another installment of his “How They Did It” behindthe-scenes looks at Sixties movies (including two of my childhood faves, Planet of the Apes and Fantastic Voyage), giving us something to look forward to. Ernie wanted to personally say goodbye to you… To paraphrase James A. FitzPatrick’s classic closing line from his TravelTalks shorts in the Thirties and Forties, “as the sun slowly sets, I reluctantly say ‘Farewell’ to the colorful pages of RetroFan magazine.” This has been great fun; not only reminiscing on favorite topics, but dusting off collections of long-dormant material. But calls from the Land Beyond to other endeavors have become a collective time vampire, so I must move on. Shakespeare would have titled his play Two Gentlemen of Nostalgia if he had known publisher John Morrow and editor Michael Eury, and their combined enthusiasm, support, and unwavering good cheer has been energizing. Michael’s deft and delicate wielding of his editorial blue pencil polished my writing in ways few editors could. As for the look of the magazine—I have done a fair amount of layout and graphic design myself, but Scott Saavedra’s elegant taste and enormous talent regularly had me slapping my forehead wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that...?” Scott makes us all look good. Stay tuned as RetroFan magazine continues to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear—I know I will! – Ernest Farino Ernie, your deep knowledge of film lore and incredible library of photographs—and most of all, your wit and personality—will be missed. Godspeed, sir! With Mr. Farino’s departure, we welcome a new columnist to our pages: Mark Voger! You may remember Mark from his role as Cousin Oliver during the final season of The Brady Bunch. If you do, you need to adjust your meds dosage. Mark was not Cousin Oliver—that was actor Robbie Rist. But Robbie Rist never wrote a book like Monster Mash, or Groovy, or Holly Jolly. Mark did, all for TwoMorrows (and you can find ordering info elsewhere in this issue). Mr. Voger spent 40 years in the newspaper biz as an entertainment reporter and graphic artist, interviewing tons of celebs along the way. Next issue, we’ll say “hello” to “Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties,” where Mark will say, “Hey, Moe!”… as in Howard, in a look at the final days of the mop-topped leader of the Three Stooges. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here—there’s a ton of fun in this issue. So get ready for another groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

March 2022

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

BY WILL MURRAY I started reading Batman in 1962, during the infamous monsters and aliens phase of the character. It didn’t take long to get the hang of what Batman was all about. As co-creator/artist Bob Kane once put in, “He’s just an average millionaire philanthropist out there fighting master criminals.” I can’t tell if Kane had his tongue in his cheek there. He was usually dead serious in interviews. No matter. I don’t remember when I saw my first Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon. Or whether it was before or after my exposure to Batman and Robin. Sixty years ago is a long time. I do dimly recall that, when I saw the other dynamic duo charging out of their Cat Cave in their Catmobile to the rather adult opening music that was clearly inspired by Peter Gunn’s jazzy theme, I made the connection that this was Batman and Robin for little kids. Since I was young, I had no understanding about how creators developed and sometimes recycled their ideas. I simply accepted that whenever I tuned in to afternoon TV, a Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon would duly appear. And when I went to my local drugstore, there would be Batman and Robin. They were different characters and existed in different worlds, but the parallels were obvious. And suspicious.

(ABOVE) Our heroes are in hot pursuit of the Frog and Harry Gorilla in this Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse pan-production cel, and (BEHIND TITLE) a background painting cel. © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage. (TOP) From the Golden Age of Comics, Batman co-creator Bob Kane poses with a Batman illustration he may or may not have painted. (BOTTOM) Kane later in life. Batman and Robin TM & ©

DC Comics. Photos courtesy of Will Murray.

RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Looking back on it from an adult perspective, there is much to marvel at. For one, why didn’t DC Comics sue Sam Singer, who produced the program? Or at least the show’s creator, Bob Kane. But that would be awkward, since Kane produced Batman and technically licensed it to DC. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse might be safely classified as a parody, much the way Mighty Mouse was seen as a takeoff on Superman. More remarkable still was the fact that original television superhero cartoons did not exist in 1960, when Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse first appeared. Mighty Mouse Playhouse had been running since 1955, but it simply recycled theatrical cartoons. I suspect the TV success of the Mouse of Tomorrow inspired Kane and Singer to pull off the same trick with a cartoon spoof on Batman and Robin. Did I think Batman was an imitation of Courageous Cat? Or vice versa? I wish I could recall. Maybe I just figured it was one of those things, like all those television cowboys who had their own programs and were different, yet somehow all the same.

WHO HE IS AND HOW HE CAME TO BE

The story of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse is a fascinating one. And to my knowledge, it has never been fully told. Long ago, I interviewed Bob Kane. He described the concept in typically unabashed terms: “Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse were a miniature Batman and Robin. I readapted Batman and Robin.” “Readapted” is a peculiar word choice, but that was Kane, an inveterate and shameless copyist. He was nothing if not upfront about it.

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse in a production cel from their series. (INSET) Boy, C.C.’s costume looks a lot like the Golden Age Starman’s, doesn’t it? Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse © Trans-Artists Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage. Starman © DC Comics.

RETROFAN

March 2022

After telling a reporter that Batman was a combination of Zorro, The Shadow, and the Green Hornet, Kane added defensively, “I know it sounds like I’m copying, but everyone saw what I saw. I was re-interpreting. It was my vision, my interpretation.” Back to Courageous Cat’s origin. “I was in Hollywood,” Kane told me, “and I was always interested in animation. I met this animated studio head—his name was Singer—and we were out one night and he said, ‘We’re looking for some new stuff. Do you have anything in mind?’ I said, ‘Why don’t we do a cat and a mouse in the kind of stylized cartoony image of Batman and Robin? We’ll have a Catmobile. And the Frog will be one of the villains, like the Penguin, and speak like Edward G. Robinson.’ It was very simple: I used the same format as Batman and Robin.” Kane had started out as a “big-foot” cartoonist, so it was no great leap for him. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse debuted as a cartoon included on The Tommy Seven Show on New York’s WABC Channel 7. The first episode was broadcast on Wednesday, September 14, 1960. Entitled “Disguise the Limit,” it opened with Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse roaring out of the Cat Cave—its mouth is shaped like a cat’s head—in their fire engine-red Catmobile, which is equipped with supercharger coils 30 years out-of-date at the time the show aired. Like the Batmobile, the Catmobile has a huge stylized head mounted in front. Instead of a bat’s black head, it’s a black cat-head with green feline eyes. The difference is hard to distinguish. They forgot to draw whiskers. Title cards dispensed with, the story unfolds with the canine mayor of Empire City dedicating a statue to Courageous Cat. When

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Courageous Cat merchandise from the early Sixties. © Trans-Artists Productions. Courtesy of Hake’s.

word reaches notorious criminal “Flat-Face” Frog in his hideout in an abandoned mine, he decides to ruin the crimefighting cat’s reputation. Donning a Courageous Cat costume, he robs the pooch-faced Mr. Moneybags and succeeds in putting the blame on Courageous Cat. Then he pillages Fort Knox. Implausibly, considering that his green features are not masked, the Frog convinces Empire City to turn against their beloved hero. Courageous Cat saves Mr. Moneybags from a giant rolling boulder by shrinking it with his “reducing ray gun,” and in the climax, miniaturizes the Frog so that he can be jailed in a birdcage. Minute Mouse has very little to do except to comment on the action in an annoyingly squeaky voice. Bob Kane saw Minute as an inept Robin. “Minute Mouse was his clumsy little helper who always bungled the case just when Courageous Cat was about to solve it,” he wrote. The voice talent was uncredited, but versatile Dallas “Dal” McKennon is said to have assayed virtually every voice. He was also the voice of Gumby and Archie Andrews. Some sources insist that music supervisor Johnny Holiday voiced the Frog and others, and he is credited with that role on a Courageous Cat record album, so that’s likely. I can’t help but observe that Empire City is populated by anthropomorphic dogs of all types. In the first episode, Courageous Cat works with a hound-faced police captain. In subsequent episodes, he reports to a different bulldog, known only as the Chief. What a costumed cat is doing protecting a city of canines is never addressed. The third episode introduced Outrageous Cat, who was Courageous’ rural cousin. He was an outlaw hillbilly who looks

like Sylvester the Cat and talks like Yosemite Sam. Outrageous Cat immediately teams up with the Frog after crashing at the Cat Cave. How the miniaturized Frog broke out of his birdcage cell is not explained. But many episodes ended up with the felonious amphibian behind bars, only to return without explanation. Outrageous Cat returned in a later episode, where they mixed it up again, this time in hillbilly country. In his second appearance, the Frog picked up an accomplice, the dimwitted Harry Gorilla. He would be the first, but not the last. Over the course of the series, the Frog would ally himself with any number of bad guys and, on occasion, team up with Courageous Cat to defeat other interlopers attempting to horn in on his action, as he did when rival gangsters took over his mob in “The Case of the Unthinkables.” He was the Joker to Courageous’ Batman. The eponymous heroes were never seen in their civilian identities, whatever they were. Nor was any origin told. The cartoons were too short for that. Although costumed, neither wore a mask. Maybe they didn’t have other identities. Most episodes showed them living in the Cat Cave. It was a split-level layout. Springing into action, they slid down fireman’s poles from the upper floor to the waiting Catmobile—an idea that appears to have inspired later Batman TV producers, as did Johnny Holiday’s Mancini-esque Courageous Cat opening music. Neal Hefti’s Batman 1966 TV theme would be strangely similar. Courageous Cat wasn’t equipped with a utility belt, although he sometimes plucked something useful from his belt buckle. He had something much better. Whenever necessary, he reached behind his back and pulled out his Cat Gun. It was an impossible weapon, and a bit like Green Arrow’s quiver of arrows. You never knew what would pop forth. RETROFAN

March 2022

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse production art: pencil drawing and inked and painted cel. Characters © TransArtists Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

NOW, THAT’S NOT COOL

In 1966, Moldoff collaborated with Kane on another cartoon. “He also came up came up with another idea—Cool McCool,” Moldoff recounted. “He asked me to storyboard Cool McCool. So I did and I sent it to him.” Kane described the new concept in typical fashion: “That was like Get Smart, only in animation.” “I did the storyboard for Cool McCool,” Moldoff continued, “and then he said to me, ‘I haven’t been able to sell it.’ Well, I found out later on that he sold it to an English animation studio. But he just sold it outright. He wasn’t going to be connected with it. So he gave it to them. But I was entitled to a commission because I did the storyboards. But I never got it. Bob said he never sold it. Which was a lie. But that was normal for Bob. It didn’t mean anything to him.” It’s good that Sheldon Moldoff got his rightful due on Courageous Cat, but Batman was co-created with writer Bill Finger, who at that time still scripted Batman stories for DC Comics. Many of the ideas

RETROFAN

March 2022

on which the Batman mythology was built came from his creative imagination. I have to wonder what Finger thought of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse back in the day. The Batman format was equally his. He could not have been pleased. But it’s too late to ask him. Finger passed away back in 1974. Like Sheldon Moldoff, he never got his just due from Bob Kane. Ironically, Batman himself didn’t get his own animated TV series until 1968. Another original superhero cartoon didn’t come along until Underdog in 1964. An Underdog/Courageous Cat team-up has yet to be floated. But it could work. Courageous obviously got along with dogs. Personally, I would prefer a crossover with Mighty Mouse. Probably will never happen. Ten years ago, a live action/CGI Courageous Cat feature film was announced. It never materialized. Just as well. Can you imagine it? Think of Howard the Duck… it just wouldn’t work. One definition of “camp” is something so bad it’s good. I wouldn’t call Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse campy. It was a kiddie cartoon, after all. Yet it was also—if you’ll pardon the expression—cheesy. But in a good way, if not a great way. 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.

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

HOW THEY DID IT! COMPILED AND CAPTIONED BY ERNEST FARINO

Continuing our collection of behind-the-scenes photos, we present a selection from movies of the Sixties. We hope we’ve included one or two of your favorites. (Another installment will appear in a future issue.) Some feel that photos of this nature “spoil the fun,” but, partly because of my own interest in filmmaking and later involvement professionally, I’ve always enjoyed that glimpse behind the curtain that conveys… well, How They Did It! So… Roll camera… mark it… annnnd… Action!

On The Set… Movies in the S ixties

This issue: Bond, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Hammer

RETROFAN

March 2022

Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

JAMES BOND

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress—the first “official” Bond girl—frolic in the waters of Jamaica.

Author Ian Fleming and star Sean Connery on Ken Adam’s nuclear reactor room set. Fleming was initially unhappy with the casting of Connery, but changed his mind once he saw him on screen.

Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), disguised as a hotel maid, attempts a last-ditch effort to steal the Lektor decoding machine and kill Bond.

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress filming Dr. No in Jamaica.

(BELOW) Director Guy Hamilton gives last-minute instructions to Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore).

Sean Connery and Tania Mallet (Tilly Masterson) enjoy a picnic lunch during the filming of the Mustang-vs.-Aston Martin chase in the Useren Valley, Switzerland, on the Furkasstrasse between Reap and Zumdorf, on Monday, July 6, 1964. 12

RETROFAN

March 2022

Ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Bert Luxford and the model helicopter used in the climax, a sequence directly inspired by the crop-duster sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

(ABOVE) Director Terence Young (in blue shirt) provides some “intimate” direction to Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi in the scene where the Bond first meets Tatiana Romanova. (RIGHT) Director Terence Young stands in briefly to coach Sean Connery on the use of the Armalite AR-7 Sniper Rifle. The exact same prop gun was the weapon of choice of Tilly Masterson (actress Tania Mallet) in the next film, Goldfinger.

(LEFT) Filming the famous golf game in which Bond tempts Goldfinger with a bar of gold.

“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!” Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) prepares to put his “industrial laser” to use in a unique way: bisecting James Bond.

(RIGHT) Beautiful Shirley Eaton, as Jill Masterson, spies on the card game down below in order to help Goldfinger cheat. The hotel balcony was a studio set with rear-projected backgrounds of Miami’s Fountainebleu Hotel.

RETROFAN

March 2022

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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A companion to JACK KIRBY’s FOURTH WORLD series, documenting the history of the NEW GODS in his own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO. How Kirby’s epic came about, where it was going, and how he would’ve ended it before it was cancelled by DC Comics! (160-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4

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RETRO INTERVIEW

Halt the Flow of Time! STARCRASHING WITH

CAROLINE MUNRO

BY ANTHONY TAYLOR

Starting as a model at the age of 17, Caroline Munro lists parts in several of the most well-known movie franchises in history on her resume. She’s appeared in two James Bond films, two classic Hammer horror films, both of Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes movies, one of Ray Harryhausen’s best-loved Sinbad movies, and hundreds of other memorable roles. Dark-eyed and beautiful, Munro never fails to mesmerize onscreen, but in person she’s a woman of great warmth and humor. Still working whenever she feels the urge, Caroline enjoys spending time with her family and her fans, appearing at conventions, signings, and events worldwide on a regular basis. Most recently she has appeared in 2019’s The House of the Gorgon, and in a live stage reading of the un-produced Hammer Films Vampirella script, which also featured her daughter Georgina Dugdale in the title role. RetroFan: Casino Royale had an amazing cast, but was a bit of a circus from a production standpoint. What do recall about your time working on it? Caroline Munro: Oh, yes, everyone was in that, Deborah Kerr, Ursula Andress, Dahlia

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Caroline Munro in her starring role as Stella Star in Starcrash (1978), as the popular Lamb’s Navy Rum model, and as she is today. All images in this article are courtesy of Anthony Taylor.

working was an amazing experience… it really straightened the learning curve. When I finished my scenes, I would just sit and watch everyone else and it was a great experience. And I loved the fabulous costumes by Paco Rabanne!

Lavi. It had five or six directors. I was an extra! It was a total traffic jam, but an enjoyable one, I’d say. I was a guard girl. They photographed quite a lot of stuff with me in the clothes, God knows why. I did a lot of my learning on the set. I didn’t come up through theater, so I got a lot of my training on the job. Being able to watch Woody Allen and all these incredible actors

RF: When did you start as the Lamb’s Navy Rum girl? You were the face of their ads for a while. CM: I think I started in 1969 or ’70, and I went on to do it for 12 years! And we didn’t have a contract. They used to just phone up and ask, “Would you like to do another one?,” and I said, “Yes, please!” And I got paid peanuts in the beginning, literally. Obviously it went up a bit later. Before me, they’d had sailors—dark, navy rum is associated with sailors—but they weren’t selling as much as they’d like so they thought they’d try using a woman in the ads. On the first shoot, they said, “We’re RETROFAN

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retro interview

going to do something slightly daring. We’re going to paint a little ship on your shoulder.” That seemed to work, so we went on with that until in the end, I just wore wetsuits. Very unzipped! And they were all over London on the billboards and in the underground. RF: How did you get involved with Hammer Films? CM: Sir James Carreras used to travel about on the trains and had seen posters of me modeling for Lamb’s Navy Rum. He got in touch and offered me a screen test, and then a contract for two films, which wound up being Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Dracula A.D. 1972, which was a turning point for me—I decided to pursue acting full time while working on that movie. RF: Kronos was written and directed by Brian Clemens, with whom you had a long association. How did that come about? CM: I met him during casting for the film, and he thought I might be right for Karla. He was an amazing director, writer, and producer. RF: He also wrote the screenplay for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. CM: Yes, about a year later. He did such an incredible job on Kronos… I was really impressed with it when I went in to loop my dialogue after we shot. Maybe it wasn’t recognized at the time. They planned a series of films with Kronos but they never made another. I suppose it didn’t do as well as they’d hoped. I’ve heard that Quentin Tarantino quite likes it, and I think it’s been very popular on DVD. RF: Tell me about filming Captain Kronos. CM: Well, I was in it every day. I thought it was very funny and in character. My first scene in the film was where Karla had danced on a Sunday, and she’s been pilloried. They brought in bunches of eggs and tomatoes for the “villagers” to throw at me, and Brian set the scene up and yelled “Action!”, and the extras pelted me. I had raw eggs in my hair, tomatoes all over me. Luckily, they didn’t throw them too hard—they were very nice about it. And it was great for my hair! RF: And then on to Sinbad. Brian Clemens must have really liked you. CM: I guess so! He told [producer] Charlie Schneer and [director] Gordon Hessler 24

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Munro being dressed for Casino Royal (1967), in a promotional photo [from carolinemunro.org] as Carla from Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, and a poster for the movie where Munro can be seen struggling with a cross in the background. Captain Kronos © Hammer Films.

that he thought they should consider me for the part of Mariana, and they said no! They wanted someone with a big name, someone American, but I think Brian was very keen on me and took them to see some footage from Kronos. And I did get the part, which was wonderful! I love that film, it’s so beautiful. Ted Moore was the cinematographer and

he was so talented. There were sets, but we also went on location and shot in real caves, so what you see are these amazing caverns with this beautiful lighting. I think it was a stunning-looking film. John Philip Law made a very dashing and beautiful Sinbad. And Tom Baker was just brilliant. I think this was a pivotal role that helped him land the part of Doctor

retro interview

Who. I ran into him not very long ago at a record shop in London, and he said, “Hello, kid! How are you doing?” We were both shopping, he was looking at DVDs and I was with my daughter. I just loved working with him, we got along fabulously. RF: Was Ray Harryhausen with you on the set? CM: Ray was there for every shot! And when we shot sequences that he would add animation to later, he would take the helm from Gordon Hessler and direct those scenes himself. He knew exactly how his creatures would be and live and breathe. It was an unusual way to work, but very successful. He had storyboarded everything in advance and he would come and show those to us so that we’d know exactly

how everything would look on screen. He’s such a talented artist, the drawings were wonderful! He’d say, “Now this is it, this is what you’re going to come up against,” and he’d give us the dimensions of how tall the creatures were, and we’d go from there. We’d get childlike and imagine what we were supposed to be seeing. And, of course, I must have done it right because Luigi Cozzi saw that film and loved it and hired me for Starcrash because of it. So via Brian and Ray, I wound up getting Starcrash. RF: And you also played Victoria Regina Phibes in The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again. CM: Yes. I was under contract to Hammer, and they weren’t that keen on me doing the

first film, but I wanted to work with Vincent Price. They let me do it, but I’m not credited in the film at all because of the Hammer contract, which is fine. I just wanted to watch Vincent work. I didn’t have any lines, as I was playing a corpse! It was actually quite hard… I know it seems like you’d just lie there, but you become so conscious of not moving or breathing while the cameras are rolling and it was very difficult. There would be long periods in a shot where I couldn’t breathe, and it was slightly claustrophobic in the coffin. RF: How did you like working with Vincent? CM: He was adorable. One morning I came into the makeup room, and Vincent had

spent the entire evening before making this wonderful Pâté and fresh bread for the makeup girls and all of us. He was just brilliant. I wish I’d had some dialogue with him, had the opportunity to actually act with him. He was such a lovely man… I have his cookbook. He signed it for me! RF: In Dracula A.D. 1972 you got to work with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And you had a role with a bit more substance, Laura Bellows. CM: I did! It was a small part, but very emotionally charged. I worked with Alan Gibson, the director, who was fabulous. I wasn’t sure at first, I was a bit nervous with him because he was quite strong and demanding, but I

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Munro as Margiana in Ray Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), a promotional photo for the movie, and a poster featuring Munro and co-star John Fhillip Law as Sinbad. © Columbia Pictures.

absolutely took that little role and became her. For that time on the set, I was this rather quirky, ditzy young lady, and I loved doing it. And Christopher was astounding. He’s RETROFAN

March 2022

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Move Over, Lois Lane, It’s…

The Close Shaves of

PAULINE PERIL! A LOOK AT AN ODDBALL COMIC BY SCOTT SHAW!

If you loved the Swingin’ Sixties, the Sizzlin’ Seventies, and Women’s Lib, but never partook in the more controversial side of the counterculture, this is the funnybook for you... or your grandkids. If you’ve watched Quentin Tarentino’s Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood, you already have a very good idea of what pre-disco Hollywood Boulevard looked like between 1967 and 1973. Although I lived in San Diego, I was often taking car trips north to Los Angeles to shop for vintage comics at Burt Blum’s Cherokee Books (a sleazy shop with lots of Golden Age comics), Malcolm Willits’ and Leonard Brown’s Collector’s Bookstore (the fancy-schmancy equivalent of Cherokee), Bond Street Books (for shopping bags full of dirt-cheap “reader” copies), and Larry Edmunds’ Bookshop, which specialized in entertainment-related material, but no comic books. And only a few blocks to the west was one of the biggest and oldest comicbook publishers in America, Western Publishing—possibly, the biggest and the oldest, at least at the time. By September 1968, I was eager to get my hands on any underground comix I could find. Their outrageous approach to funnybooks made a huge impression on me, the biggest effect since I began reading Marvel Comics in junior high. But mainstream comic books were changing, too, reflecting social issues of those turbulent times in a bid to appear “relevant” while “safe,”

although (like everywhere else) the middle-aged management at the big publishers were now sporting pork-chop sideburns, wearing bell-bottom slacks, and vainly attempting to be hip. Despite the parental editors, writers, and artists always arriving at a corny solution, there was also an influx of young fans-turned-creators who introduced new characters and story themes that addressed issues that were in the news. In 1969, while on my college’s newspaper staff, I even did a full-page article, “Comics Get Relevant!,” citing superhero yarns about overpopulation, Women’s Liberation, racism, the justice system, and Jack Kirby’s The Forever People, a DC Comics series about hippies from Apokolips. (The next year, Len Wein and Herb Trimpe even did “The Underground Gambit,” a horror story for Marvel’s Chamber of Chills about a mainstream cartoonist who, thanks to a wig, has a secret second career drawing underground comix!) However, whenever Western Publishing (Gold Key Comics) ventured into the counterculture, it was with entertainingly, ridiculously lame concepts, like The Modniks, Mod Love, Mod Wheels, and Zody the Mod Rob, which I wrote about in the

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

(CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT) Pearl White performing stunts in 1914’s The Perils of Pauline, Pamela Austin starred in this groovy 1967 version, and Betty Hutton had a head for the role in 1947. The Perils of Pauline © 1914 General, 1947 Paramount Pictures, 1967 Universal Pictures. Photos and posters courtesy of Heritage.

first issue of RetroFan. (Someone was convinced that the word “mod” was a sales-getter.) The exceptions to the trend were Dell Comics’ earlier brilliant beatnik titles, Yak Yak by Jack Davis and Kookie by John Stanley and Bill Williams. I kept my eye on anything that involved cartooning, especially comic books and magazines: Marvel, DC, Charlton, ACG, Archie, Harvey, Tower, and Gold Key... or shall we say, Western Publishing Company, Inc. Since 1938, Western Publishing Company, Inc. had supplied funnybook content for Dell, a major publisher of magazines and books. Their business agreement was that Dell would handle the finances and choose the licenses (often based on samples and mock-ups), and Western would handle the creation of each issue, which meant all of the contents, including covers, back-up stories, text features, “filler” features, and advertising. Western was a printing company—its primary business was making playing cards!—so it handled the production, too. Dell’s circulation numbers were huge because their specialty was high-quality comic books for younger kids, and in service of that, they licensed a lot of popular comic strip and animated cartoon characters, cowboys, television series, and feature films. Cartoonists Walt (Pogo) Kelly and Carl (Uncle Scrooge) Barks became Dell’s best-known creators, and it’s hard to find a Dell comic that wasn’t intelligently written and well drawn. Western eventually maintained two offices, one in New York City (where Dell was located) and one in Los Angeles (where the studios were located, facilitating approvals on adaptations of movies, television series, and animated cartoon characters). The licensed properties also appeared from Western under a number of imprints in other print material, including coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, card games, activity books, and paper dolls. If one of the properties that 34

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Western licensed—such as The Flintstones—caught on with the public, the first wave of licensed product was always paper goods. They could design, draw, color, and print those items within a few months, while booking time with overseas manufacturers to make figural toys took more than a year. In 1962, the two outfits split over financial issues, as often happens in the business world. Dell continued to publish comics, and since they’d lost so many licensed characters, Dell hired editor/ artist L. B. Cole to oversee the creation of new concepts. The initial line-up was similar to EC Comics—very copy-heavy, with adult themes—but when sales lagged, Dell brought on a new editor, bought a number of licensed properties, and even added oddball super-heroes to their line-up. But in 1973, Dell finally threw in the towel. Western also did a number of projects that didn’t involve Dell... or Gold Key, for that matter. They included March of Comics (shoe store giveaway mini-comics), Kite Safety (hosted by everyone from Donald Duck to Fonzie), and The Flintstones At the New York World’s Fair (working with Warren Publications). Western already knew how to create comics, and was in a much better position to thrive. It hung on to most of the licenses and determined what it would publish, all under a new imprint, Gold Key, which had a much more “modern” approach to cover designs and top-quality material between their covers. Indeed,

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Two more Pauline Peril forerunners: (RIGHT) Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longarón’s trailblazing comic strip heroine Friday Foster, brought to life on the big screen by Pam Grier in a 1975 movie; and (BELOW AND BOTTOM) Saturday morning’s fast-driving damsel-in-distress Penelope Pitstop, seen amid the weirdo wheelers on the cover of Gold Key Comics’ Wacky Races #1 (Aug. 1969) and the title card for Perils of Pauline Pitstop. Friday Foster © 1975 American International Pictures. Wacky Races & Pauline Pitstop © 1970 HannaBarbera Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

from June 1962 to 1964, Gold Key had some of the hippest cover designs in the history of comics. The ones that came out of the NYC office also had needless full-color panel borders... but not for long. In fact, within two years, the hip approach was abandoned and replaced with simple gag covers like Dell had always asked for. From that point on, although Gold Key published hundreds of great comics, none of it was anything you might consider hip. So, how does one create a fun and innocent character for kids, but a character that exists in a world teeming with sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll? Snappy dialogue, great character designs, outrageous situations, and innovative layouts seemed to fill the bill.

THE ORIGINS OF PAULINE PERIL

It’s very possible that Gold Key’s The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril, which premiered in 1970, was originally conceived by its creators Del Connell and Jack Manning to be a syndicated comic strip for newspapers. “Women’s Lib” (with “lib” short for “liberty”) was a fairly new concept of feminism that was sweeping the country and all forms of its media. TV shows such as 1966’s That Girl (ABC) and 1970’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS) were both series that softly utilized that underlying theme. Long before Pauline Peril came The Perils of Pauline, originally a silent film in 1914, with new versions in 1933, 1947, and in 1967, a new feature film starring Pamela Austin as “Pauline,” Pat Boone, and Terry-Thomas. It was originally shot as a television series, which co-starred multiple noted character actors of the day, including Edward Everett Horton, Vito Scotti, and even Beaver Cleaver’s principal, Doris Packer. There was also Friday Foster, a 1970–1974 comic strip by Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longarón about the globetrotting adventures of a black female photographer; it spawned a comic book (Dell, Oct. 1972) and a feature film starring Pam Grier (1975). Another syndicated strip, created by cartoonists Mell Lazarus as “Fulton” (Miss Peach, Momma) and Jack Rickard (MAD magazine), was The Adventures of Pauline McPeril, starring another gorgeous blonde lady, this time a secret agent, which a very short run from 1966 to 1967, syndicated by Publishers-Hall Syndicate. Then there was Penelope Pitstop, the “glamour gal of the gas pedal” that drove a racecar called the Compact Pussycat in Hanna-Barbera Productions’ Saturday morning cartoon Wacky Races (1968). According to H-B’s Creative Director Iwao Takamoto, Penelope was an afterthought in the development of Wacky Races. Supposedly, “Mr. B,” a.k.a. Joe Barbera, requested that a female character should be added to the cast of Wacky Races, so Takamoto and cartoonist Jerry Eisenberg designed Penelope and her car in about two hours, meeting the deadline for the “pitch” meeting with CBS. The next year, Penelope starred in her own CBS series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. In a much more direct reference to 1914’s The Perils of Pauline, she portrayed a stereotypical “damsel in distress,” always on the run from Sylvester Sneekly, a.k.a. “the Hooded Claw,” always rescued by the Ant Hill Mob in their car “Chuggaboom.” Penelope was ingenious and athletic, often self-described as a “woman sports champion,” but one who’s incessantly calling out for help. (It’s apparent that no women were involved in the creation of this cartoon show.) RETROFAN

March 2022

RETRO COLLECTIBLES

BY L. WAYNE HICKS Throughout most of the Seventies, the sophomoric humor of Wacky Packages appealed to children and outraged corporate attorneys. The parodies of popular products provided a cynical look at what corporate America peddled to consumers, lampooning the likes of Band-Aid (“Band-Ache,” with skin shown being ripped from an arm) and Spam (“Cram,” which depicted a mother shoving the lunch meat into her son’s mouth). “The whole concept of making fun of these iconic products just seemed so incredibly rebellious,” said Greg Grant, who operates the WackyPackages.org website. “But it was a rebelliousness that a 7-year-old could engage in.” Topps Chewing Gum Inc. began peddling gum in the Thirties, and after World War II thought of new ways to entice customers. The Brooklyn-based company wrapped a slab of gum in mini comics featuring the character Bazooka Joe. Topps flattened out the gum to fit inside packages containing cards featuring baseball players. Pop culture entered the picture in the Sixties when Topps expanded its offerings to include cards of Batman, Superman, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. Sports cards remained the company’s mainstay, however, and it was rare for non-sports cards to enjoy staying power beyond a year or two. Until Wacky Packages came along, that is. Wacky Packages— affectionately called Wacky Packs—became one of the biggest fads for children of the Seventies. In fact, decades later, as the new 44

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millennium approached, Entertainment Weekly magazine would rank Wacky Packages the No. 1 craze for kids of the last 1,000 years. Introduced in 1967, Wacky Packages were not an immediate hit. The first set of 44 beautifully illustrated cards were die-cuts where you could punch out the image, wet the back, and stick it onto something. Some gags were simple, often relying on a tweak to a product’s name. The soft drink 7up, which at the time used the phrase “You Like It – It Likes You” on its bottles, became “6up” with the slogan “You Hate It – It Hates You.” Others skewered products with a sharper stick. To the dismay of its parent company, Ritz Crackers was transformed into “Ratz Enjoy These Crackers” and featured a rat on the box chowing down.

In a roundabout way, Wacky Packages owe their existence to popsicles. Woody Gelman and Ben Solomon had created the advertising character Popsicle Pete in the Forties to help push the frozen treat. Their work attracted the attention of Topps, which hired them to create what would become Bazooka Joe. But it was their outside venture, a publishing line called Triple Nickel Books, aimed at boys, that captivated a 12-year-old from Brooklyn named Len Brown. He wrote to Gelman, offering “a whole bunch of different suggestions” for other books. A few days later, a phone call from Gelman inviting Brown to dinner interrupted the boy’s stickball game. “He became like a father to me,” Brown said, and went to work as Gelman’s assistant at Topps in 1959, just before his 18th birthday. “It wasn’t much of an office in those days,” Brown said. “It was in an old warehouse where they actually made the Bazooka bubblegum. We had offices downstairs and the bubblegum was made upstairs until they moved the manufacturing plant to Duryea, Pennsylvania.” Walking from the train station at 36th Street toward the Topps building, “You could actually taste the sugar in the air.” Among the artists who worked for Topps was Jack Davis, a prolific illustrator who also drew for EC Comics and MAD magazine. A massive fan of MAD, future cartoonist Art Spiegelman, had published his own fanzine called Blasé when he was about 15 and managed to swap copies of it with Gelman in exchange for some of

(OPPOSITE PAGE AND ABOVE) Totally mad RetroFad: Topps’ zany Wacky Packages drove kids and corporate attorneys wild!

Davis’ original art. A noted collector, Gelman hung onto © Topps. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions and the fanzine and recruited Wayne Hicks. Spiegelman to work at Topps when he turned 18. Gelman suggested that Spiegelman produce bubblegum cards featuring products—actual products, treated seriously. Andy Warhol had just turned Campbell’s soup cans into pop-art paintings, and Gelman may have been thinking along those lines. Spiegelman, with Brown backing him, managed to convince Gelman that children were more likely to buy cards featuring parodies of products in the same vein that MAD routinely poked fun at ad campaigns. “The message of Wacky Packages is a similar one that came from MAD magazine, which was, everyone’s lying to you,” said Bill Griffith, who wrote some of the parodies published in 1974 before going on to launch the comic strip Zippy. “Your parents are lying to you. The government is lying to you. All the people that make toothpaste and detergent, they’re all lying to you. They’re making up phony claims and they’re selling you things you don’t need. Wacky Packages are a very healthy reaction against consumerism.” “It was creating a kind of cynicism about consumer culture that I think was pretty healthy for kids of all ages,” said Spiegelman, who recruited Griffith, Jay Lynch, and other underground comix artists to write Wacky Packages. A creative consultant for Topps until 1989, RETROFAN

March 2022

New Magazines!

ALTER EGO #175

ALTER EGO #176

BRICKJOURNAL #72

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27

Spotlighting the artists of ROY THOMAS’ 1980s DC series ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with artists ARVELL JONES, RICHARD HOWELL, and JERRY ORDWAY, conducted by RICHARD ARNDT! Plus, the Squadron’s FINAL SECRETS, including previously unpublished art, & covers for issues that never existed! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and a wraparound cover by ARVELL JONES!

The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!

Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground comix retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #82

KIRBY COLLECTOR #83

BACK ISSUE #133

BACK ISSUE #134

BACK ISSUE #135

“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit Kirby’s work from World War II, the Fourth World, and hidden worlds of Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Microverse, and others! Plus, a 2021 Kirby panel, featuring JONATHAN ROSS, NEIL GAIMAN, & MARK EVANIER, a Kirby pencil art gallery from 1960s CAPTAIN AMERICA, and more!

“Famous Firsts!” How JACK KIRBY was a pioneer in comics: Romance Comics genre, Kid Gangs, double-page spreads, Black heroes, new formats, super-hero satire, and others! With MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, plus a gallery of Jack’s pencil art from CAPTAIN AMERICA, JIMMY OLSEN, CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK, BLACK PANTHER, unseen ANIMATION CONCEPTS, & more!

STARMEN ISSUE, headlined by JAMES ROBINSON and TONY HARRIS’s Jack Knight Starman! Plus: The StarSpangled Kid, Starjammers, the 1980s Starman, and Starstruck! Featuring DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, ROBERT GREENBERGER, ELAINE LEE, TOM LYLE, MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA, ROGER STERN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Jack Knight Starman cover by TONY HARRIS.

BRONZE AGE RARITIES & ODDITIES, spotlighting rare ‘80s European Superman comics! Plus: CURT SWAN’s Batman, JIM APARO’s Superman, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT’s Marvel custom comics, MICHAEL USLAN’s unseen Earth-Two stories, Leaf’s DC Secret Origins, Marvel’s Evel Knievel, cover variants, and more! With EDUARDO BARRETO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ALEX SAVIUK, and more. Cover by JOE KUBERT.

SILVER ISSUE, starring the Silver Surfer in the Bronze Age! Plus: JACK KIRBY’s Silver Star, SCOTT HAMPTON’s Silverheels, Silver Sable, Silver Banshee, and more! Featuring KURT BUSIEK, STEVEN BUTLER, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, RON FRENZ, STERLING GATES, RON MARZ, FABIAN NICIEZA, ALEX ROSS, MARSHALL ROGERS, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROGER STERN, and cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT.

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ALTER EGO #174

FCA [FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA] issue—spearheaded by feisty and informative articles by Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. BECK—plus a fabulous feature on vintage cards created in Spain and starring The Marvel Family! In addition: DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III interview (conclusion)—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on the lost art of comicbook greats—the haunting of JOHN BROOME—and more! BECK cover!

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

WATERGATE! The Golden 50th Anniversary of Our Long National Nightmare BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, is the only president to have a writing credit in MAD magazine (#145, Sept. 1971). The two-page spread is called “That Sinking Feeling…” and features the president’s own words as he discusses the Vietnam War with quotes from 1968 to early 1971. A photograph of a triumphant Nixon with arms spread high and palms open to the sky is first shown standing firmly on a small rock protruding out of a body of water. As his pledge “to win the peace” evolves into more and more reasons to remain embroiled in Vietnam, he slowly sinks underwater until, completely submerged, he says the failure to end the conflict is his “deepest disappointment.” Glub blub. He was also the only U.S. president to resign from office. He did this humiliating thing to avoid the humiliation of being impeached by the House of Representatives, then stand trial, possibly be found guilty by the Senate, and removed from office. This would also have been a first. It was the Watergate Scandal (most commonly referred to as just Watergate) that brought down Nixon, and 2022 marks the awesome golden deluxe 50th anniversary. I guess that means it’s time for a jaunt down memory lane!

FIVE GUYS

America’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General John Mitchell, resigned his office effective March 1st, 1972 to become Director of the Committee to Re-elect the President (a.k.a. CRP or “CREEP” to those unfriendly to Nixon). He had signed off on a plan to illegally enter the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices located at the Watergate Complex (the complex contained six buildings; two were offices, three were co-op apartments, and

one was the Watergate Hotel). The goal was to take photos of documents and place listening devices on a couple of phones. This break-in was conducted successfully. Five men in suits once again broke into the DNC’s offices on the evening of June 16, 1972. The men in suits had so much trouble trying get into the offices they ended up just removing the door. After midnight, an attentive security guard noticed that a supposedly locked parking garage door had been taped to allow it to open and close freely. He removed the tape and returned some time later to find the tape replaced. He called the police. There were two lookouts at the Howard Johnson’s across the street keeping an eye on the five burglars to warn them in the event of trouble, but one lookout found the television broadcast of Attack of the Puppet People more interesting than staring at a building (uh, I guess). The cops who arrived were part of the so-called “bum squad” and dressed like hippies (so they could, you know, buy marijuana cigarettes and such like without arousing suspicion). This allowed them to enter the office building without causing alarm for the lookouts. After a brief search, the hippies arrested the men in suits, who gave up without a fight. Bob Woodward, a Navy veteran and reporter who had been with the Washington Post for about a year, was assigned to cover the arraignment of the five men. They were charged with second-degree burglary. Nothing much about the arrested men

(ABOVE) Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United States, was embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of any American leader. Library of Congress. RETROFAN

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

TAPE DELAY

President Nixon battled furiously to keep his secret tape recordings out of investigators’ hands. Two subpoenas were issued for the tapes. Nixon refused. This was fresh legal territory. After some back and forth, Judge Sirica suggested, as a compromise, to listen to the tapes and only share with prosecutor Cox what was necessary. Nixon refused. The matter moved up to the U.S. Court of Appeals. They agreed with Judge Sirica. The White House had to turn over the tapes. President Nixon had a better idea: He would have someone in the White House listen to the tapes and provide notes to Cox and the Watergate Committee. And, in return, Cox would not ask for anything else from the White House. Cox refused.

There’s your problem. The tape recorder from President Nixon’s Oval Office. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Attorney General Elliot Richardson was ordered by Nixon to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Then Nixon ordered Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus refused. He got fired. Then Nixon ordered the number three guy at the Justice Department, Solicitor Robert H. Bork, to fire Cox. Bork did it. This all happened late on a Saturday and quickly became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. People were shocked. For some reason the president thought that by getting rid of Cox, Nixon’s fellow citizens would rush to embrace him. Instead, his popularity plummeted. This shook the White House, and so the president finally agreed to cooperate with the court order to allow the judge to hear the tapes in private. In other news, an energy crisis was growing with high demand for and lower availability of oil. Also adding to the president’s headaches was the resignation in October 1973 of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, who was under investigation for corruption during his time as governor of Maryland and for tax evasion. Nixon replaced the not-well-liked Agnew (he was sometimes called “Nixon’s Nixon”) with the generally well-liked representative from Michigan, Gerald R. Ford.

PUBLIC INTEREST

Watergate now firmly held the nation’s attention. MAD magazine, which continued to poke at Nixon and his presidency, had finally, in MAD #163 (Dec. 1973), directly mentioned Watergate (for the first and only time, according to the Grand Comics Database) in “Malice in Wonderland or Watergate Through the Looking Glass.” It was written by Lou Silverstone and illustrated by a combination of facial photos and Bob Clarke art (imitating famed Alice in Wonderland artist John Tenniel). The feature compares quotes mostly from those involved with the cover-up to famous lines from Alice, my favorite being the Nixon quote, “I will do everything in my power to insure the guilty are brought to justice” from TIME (May 14, 1973), coupled with “‘Off with their heads!’ shouted the Queen” (Nixon, of course, being the “Queen” in question with Dean, Mitchell, and others running away, afraid of being made scapegoats). National Lampoon #43 (Oct. 1973) took its shots not just at Nixon—again via quotes—in an Edward Sorel-illustrated piece, but also with a Nick Fury comic-book parody, G. Gordon Liddy, Agent 56

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Originally published in National Lampoon #43 (Oct. 1973), the comic parody G. Gordon Liddy Agent of C.R.E.E.P. was reprinted in National Lampoon Comics #7 (1974). © NLI Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

of C.R.E.E.P., with “cover” art by Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos artist Dick Ayers. Marvel Comics’ Crazy magazine also got in on the act. In issue #5 (July 1974), readers could take a trip to “Nixonland” to relive Nixon’s life, until you get to the end and find yourself at “Watergateland” with its crumbling Tower of Integrity and newest haunted-house exhibit, the White House Horrors. It was written by Roy and Jean Thomas, with art by Vance Rodewalt.

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) Marvel’s Crazy magazine #7 (Oct. 1974) poked at President Nixon a bit more sharply than did Cracked. (RIGHT) This back cover from Cracked #112 (Oct. 1973) is by Charlie Rodrigues (signing as Rumpelstiltskin). Weirdly, dispite a year’s separation both magazines’ covers feature parodies of the Kung Fu television show. Crazy © Marvel. Cracked © Literally Media Ltd. Cracked scan by Justinman.

THE UNRAVELING

A new special prosecutor was appointed with the promise of independence from the White House. The prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, expected to get the tapes first requested by Cox delivered to Judge Sirica. Nine were requested, only seven arrived. One had an 18-minute gap. The president’s secretary whose job included transcribing the tapes tried to take the blame for the missing minutes, but her explanations made her look foolish. Experts determined that the tape was purposefully erased, with some five or so stops and starts. Judge Sirica listened to the tapes in private, as had been agreed to, and found himself deflated by what he heard: a vulgar president who, it seemed to the judge, was deeply involved with the cover-up. (You know, much has been made of Nixon’s use of profanity as heard in the White House tapes, so I wondered if he was our most foul-mouthed chief executive. A bit of research seems to indicate that Lyndon Baines Johnson, his immediate predecessor, was the winner of that contest.) The president announced that he was officially done with the whole Watergate affair during his January 1974 State of the Union

speech. “One year of Watergate is enough.” The investigators were having struggles as well. No one had ever indicted a sitting president before, even though it was felt that there was enough evidence to do so. Besides, the Constitution had a mechanism for punishing law-breaking presidents: impeachment. Seven of Nixon’s top people were indicted in March. Nixon would be listed as an unindicted co-conspirator, but that information was not made public and instead sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which wanted to determine if impeachment was warranted. No charges would be brought against him in court. The seven indicted men included former Attorney General Mitchell, former Chief of Staff Haldeman, and former White House aide Ehrlichman. More tapes would be needed for the upcoming trial for the president’s men and the ongoing impeachment investigation, but just before May, the White House sent over 1,200 pages of transcribed Watergate-related material from the tapes instead. Nixon publicly allowed that he would be embarrassed by the revelations, but wanted the American people to know that during the time following the illegal activities now known as Watergate, he was trying to “discover what was right and do what was right.” The transcripts revealed to all an ugly and vengeful side of the American President.

THE HUMOR IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE

The sale of quickie paperback books printing the Watergate transcripts sold in the multi-millions. But comedians who, like MAD, had been poking fun at Nixon for years found their Watergate jokes falling flat. “Comedians in Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami RETROFAN

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

(LEFT) The evolution of a national crisis. First it becomes news, then a bestselling book-turned-hit movie, then, eventually, it becomes history and history becomes collectible. Multiple copies of the Baltimore Sun for Aug. 9, 1974 from a Heritage Auctions lot. All the President’s Men © Warner Bros. Poster and newspapers courtesy of Heritage.

rule. Journalists worked hard to track down the details of Watergate. Carl Bernstein was assigned to work with Bob Woodward on the evolving story that became Watergate. Their reporting especially stood out. Their book about that reporting, All the President’s Men, became a bestseller and was turned into a hit movie of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The two young reporters had an advantage that others didn’t: a high-level inside source, then known only as Deep Throat. The identity of Deep Throat was, for decades, one of the great mysteries of Watergate (the other being the contents of the 18 minutes of erased White House tapes). When it was finally revealed in 2005 that the informant was (as Nixon suspected) Mark Felt, at that point in time an associate director of the FBI, the news was met with a rather loud “meh.” Nixon was pardoned by President Ford on September 8, 1974. Ford wanted to put Nixon in the rearview so he could—understandably—concentrate on his job, but Americans were not happy. Few of Nixon’s inner circle spent time (and not much of it) in prison. This was not American justice. Ford’s popularity dropped, and when he ran for president in 1976 he lost to Jimmy Carter. The former president still fascinates. Richard Nixon, as a character, has appeared in movies and books both serious and silly. Dan Aykroyd was my personal favorite fake Nixon, inhabiting a gangly doppelgänger multiple times on Saturday Night Live over the years. But I completely understand if others prefer the Nixon from the animated Futurama; just a noggin in a jar, “I am not a crook’s head!” I guess the main lesson to be learned from Watergate is that lessons aren’t always learned. We the people are only human after all. So… see you in Fifty! Since I was largely too busy going to school and watching cartoons in 1972, I relied on people smarter than me for the facts of this article. I consulted timelines, online biographies, and various websites, most notably the work of Ken Hughes and his team at the Presidential Recordings Project at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (say that five times fast while being secretly recorded in the Oval Office). Extra special thanks to Pamela Killian’s What Was Watergate? (St. Martin’s Press, 1990), which is a solid and clear history intended for younger audiences with one or two words even newspapers of the day wouldn’t touch.

A peaceful transition of power at a difficult time. President Ford and wife Betty see off former President Nixon and wife Pat as they are about to leave the White House for good. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration.

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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). Check out his Instagram thing, won’t you, at instagram/scottsaav/

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. It’s 1975, and ghosts, werewolves, and mummies are invading your Saturday mornings, but they aren’t animated, despite the fact that they were from cartoon giants Filmation. But how did the stars of the original The Ghost Busters—Spencer, Tracy, and Kong—slapstick their demented way into the future… and how did they stand in the way of one of the world’s most popular franchises? That’s what we’ll cover this time around as it’s The Ghost Busters vs. Ghostbusters vs. Ghostbusters vs. The Real Ghostbusters!

BIG SCREEN TO SMALL SCREAM

As first discussed in RetroFan #6’s spotlight on The Ghost Busters (see this issue’s ad to find how to get back issues), the concept of paranormal investigators has been lurking around Hollywood since cinema began, and entertainment versions included the 1909 Broadway play The Ghost Breaker (adapted into 1914 and 1922 silent films), the 1940s Bob Hope-starring The Ghost Breakers, and the 1951 Monogram Pictures release Ghost Chasers. Ironically, it was the true crime radio series Gang Busters (1936–1957) and the sitcom F Troop (1965–1967) that inspired Filmation head Lou Scheimer to commission plans for the animation studio’s next live-action hit for CBS in 1974. Founded in the early Sixties by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, with ex-disc jockey Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates had been riding high in Saturday morning animation since the 1966 debut of their The New Adventures of Superman series. Although the majority of their shows were animated spinoffs based on live-action licensed properties—Fantastic Voyage, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Batman, The Brady Kids, Star Trek, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, and The New Adventures of Gilligan, to name a few—Filmation eventually branched out to live-action original series. Their first such show was Shazam! in 1974 (see cover story in RetroFan #4), and the series was a huge hit. Live-action series were becoming popular on the traditionally animation-dominated Saturday mornings because animation

(TOP) Get ready to rumble! Animated Ghostbusters on the left and the Real Ghostbusters on the right. (LEFT) Lou Scheimer. (ABOVE) The stars of Filmation’s live-action Ghost Busters, (LEFT TO RIGHT) Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Bob Burns as Spencer, Kong, and Tracy, respectively. Ghost Busters and Filmation’s Ghostbusters © Classic Media Distribution. The Real Ghostbusters © Columbia Pictures Television.

budgets were very high; a live-action budget on a show with a small cast and limited sets could be produced for almost the same amount, and with a much faster turnaround time. The Krofft shows such as H .R. Pufnstuf (1969; see RetroFan #16), The Bugaloos (1970), Lidsville (1971), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973–1975), and Land RETROFAN

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

that I happened to go there and I was able to say, ‘Make the deal. Give them the title.’” Wikipedia repeats the information, adding that Universal owned Filmation’s The Ghost Busters and that Price brokered a deal that sold Columbia the title for $500,000 plus 1% of the film’s profits. Trouble is… none of that is true! While today, the company that owns the Filmation library is Dreamworks, partially owned by Universal, in 1983, Universal had absolutely nothing to do with Filmation. Price could not have been involved in negotiations for the name, though given the timing, he definitely was fighting against Filmation while he was at Columbia! So, Price misspoke in both interviews. Additionally, the money amount cited by Wikipedia is wrong. But let’s let the man in charge at Filmation tell the true story… “They went ahead and released the movie on June 8, 1984, and it made a boatload of money,” said Scheimer. “We went to court over the matter, and in mid-June, after appearing at L.A. Superior Court, Columbia settled with us, paying us for the use of the title. Their obstinance really cost them a lot. They gave us $608,000 for the use of the concept and allowing them to utilize the name and the title, plus we had like one percent of the profit. That profit percentage was a mistake on our part. If you know anything about Hollywood, you know that no picture ever makes a profit. No matter what it brings in at the box office, the accountants have ways of making sure that on paper, no picture is ever profitable. So, taking a piece of the deal was a mistake, as we never got another dime. But we did get $608,000, which was okay. The one other mistake we made in the settlement—and it was my fault for not thinking about it—was that Filmation didn’t keep the rights to any animated version of Ghostbusters. That would end up being a much bigger mistake.”

“DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS… IT WOULD BE BAD”

Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the film Ghostbusters, wanted ownership of the title but had to work out a deal with Filmation first.

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Released with a one-word title, Ghostbusters was a huge hit in theaters worldwide, and the second-highest-grossing film of 1984. It got a reissue in 1985, and its final box office take of over $238 million domestically made it the most successful comedy of the Eighties. Ray Parker, Jr.’s theme song for the film topped the music charts for weeks and was nominated for an Academy Award. The heavens opened for the films’ stars. Now, everyone immediately wanted to be a part of the Ghostbusters gravy train. Filmation had broken open the animation gates with their He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series (coming in RetroFan #22!), which produced 65 syndicated episodes on Monday–Friday afternoons, instead of 13 episodes on Saturday mornings. Syndication offered not only more freedom, but a bigger share of profits from advertising. And Filmation happened to be owned by a syndication company! “The guy who was running television at Columbia was Herman Rush, and he used to be an agent for Filmation,” said Scheimer. “After the Ghostbusters film made it big, I went to Westinghouse and said, ‘Why don’t we do 65 half-hours based on our Ghost Busters?’ And we decided to do it. And then I got a call from Herman to tell me they were thinking of doing their movie as a syndicated cartoon as well. So I talked to Ed Vane, the head guy at Westinghouse, about going down to see Herman. I said, ‘We should really make a deal with them to co-produce the show. If we don’t make it with them, they have every right in the world to go out and do it without us. I’m a friend of Herman’s. We can make a deal to

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

do the show, and they’ll pay for half of it, we’ll pay for half of it, and everybody will be happy.’ “But Ed said, ‘No, we don’t need them.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s go down and talk to them and offer a deal.’ Ed said, ‘We’ll use your version. It’ll save me all kind of headaches because then I won’t have to deal with the people that did the movie, and we’ll get the money like we do on our other shows.’ I told him that was silly because they had the right to do the screen version—which everybody knew—and our version, even though they stole the concept, didn’t have the same caché. Ed was sure that they would never do their own show because they weren’t an animation company.” The mistake Scheimer had mentioned in Filmation’s deal with Columbia had come back to bedevil them. Forbidden by the company owners from approaching Columbia, Scheimer had to watch as Columbia took their Ghostbusters animation plans to rival company DIC, who, unlike Filmation’s American-based animation, took all their shows overseas to animate. “Now it had come back to bite us,” Scheimer recalled. “Their show was to be based on the feature film, with characters, concepts, logo, and theme song carrying over.” Nevertheless, the second week of August 1985, Filmation announced that 65 episodes of its Ghostbusters (changing the title from two words to one, matching the movie) would be offered to

(ABOVE AND BELOW) Production art for Filmation’s animated sequel to their live-action The Ghost Busters. These new adventures star the sons of the original human leads along with Tracy the gorilla. Many new characters have been added as well. © Classic Media Distribution.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

More The Real Ghostbusters entertainment than you can shake a Neutrona Wand at (don’t cross the streams!).

hours of bonus materials were created exclusively for this deluxe collection. Special Features included five half-hour documentaries; 21 innovative on-camera Visual Commentary Tracks featuring producers, writers, artists, voice actors, and other personnel; 88 special on-camera episode introductions, image galleries, isolated Music & Effects tracks, scripts, and storyboards! Producing the Special Features for the set was again this article’s author… making him the producer of three versions of television’s Ghostbusters! Mangels would like to give a special shout-out to James Eatock, publisher of Cereal Geek magazine, for his excellent work on the projects, and also to Dan Riba, who literally rescued Mangels from a hospital after he got near-fatal food poisoning during filming! Today, many of the men and women who created both Ghostbusters and The Real Ghostbusters cartoons are award-winning writers and directors or top-flight animators. Both shows have an astonishing legacy of talent and are quality entertainment. And they hold a special place in Hollywood history as the time when two shows with not just the same premise, but the same title, were on the air concurrently. But what do the producers have to say about their legacy? Lou Scheimer was a bit short-winded about the latter project, looking back at the missteps that could have really changed the company had anyone foreseen what the Ghostbusters film would become. Of his series, he said, “It was a great show, I loved it a lot. Didn’t work too well, unfortunately.” Film and animation producer Joe Medjuck was a bit happier. “It’s amazing… it’s very fulfilling to be involved with something that is so beloved by people. I was, you know part of a number of people, starting with Dan Aykroyd who had the idea, and going through everybody who worked on the cartoon show and on both movies. It is great to be part of something that is so much a part of the world’s mythology, really. Right after the movie came out I remember a friend of—certainly after the movie came out—a friend of mine 70

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was in Africa and he said he walked through a village and someone was playing the Ghostbusters song. [laughs] Now that’s really doing something that made an impact. The cartoon show was like that, too, being in countries all over the world. We had a very good time doing it. Even with the kind of stress of doing the 78 shows the first season, I never remember thinking, ‘I wish I wasn’t doing this.’ It was always fun.” If you want to learn more about the making of either Ghostbusters or The Real Ghostbusters in future Halloween-released issues of RetroFan, write in and let the editor know! Till then, we’ll mix it up one more time: Who you gonna call? Let’s go, Ghostbusters! Unless otherwise credited, the quotes from Lou Scheimer are from the autobiography he wrote with Andy Mangels for Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. Mangels’ interviews with Joe Medjuck were conducted in 2008, and with Ira Epstein in 2010. Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He wrote the bestselling 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 in 2021. He is currently working on a book about the stage productions of Stephen King and other projects. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com

RETRO TOYS

The Bandai Pro Wrestler Erasers of 1987 BY JOHN “THE MEGO STRETCH HULK” CIMINO

s an eover come k ta l a r u lt pop cu wrestling’s o r p ere! d n a e z cra rs everywh i* to h c s e e ll k o c ’s s n a scinate Out of Jap e that still fa n li e r u g fi e obscur

*Keshi (Japanese: 消し or ケシ), a.k.a. keshigomu (消しゴム, literally “erase rubber”) is the Japanese word for eraser. In modern usage “keshi” refers to a collectible miniature figure, often of a manga or anime character, made of colored PVC gum rubber. It should be noted that the Pro Wrestler Keshi line (also called the Puroresurā Keshi line) is referred to as the Pro Wrestler Erasers in the U.S.

THE KESHI CRAZE BEGINS

Japan released the first waves of random keshi figures of many popular pop-culture characters such as Ultraman, Godzilla, Inazuman, and even American comic-book characters including Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man (among many others) during the Seventies. As these pocket-sized (usually two inches) gum-rubber figures became increasingly more known, in the late Seventies they were eventually exported outside of Japan as free prizes in random packages of Bonux (a Proctor & Gamble washing powder) in France and the Ukraine. However, it wasn’t until 1983, when Bandai released the Kinkeshi toy line, that the genre got a massive boost in popularity.

The Kinkeshi were based on the anime and manga stories of a wrestling super-hero known as Kinnikuman (King Muscle), created by Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi “Yudetamago” Shimada, and boasted a total of 418 figures. In 1985, it was licensed and produced by Mattel for the American market as M.U.S.C.L.E. (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere), but they made a (ABOVE) A complete set. (TOP ROW) American wrestlers Animal Warrior, Hawk Warrior, Bruiser Brody, Ric Flair, and Hulk Hogan. (BOTTOM ROW) Japanese wrestlers Hiroshi Wajima, Akira Maeda, Riki Choshu, Jumbo Tsuruta, and Tatsumi Fujinami. RETROFAN

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RetroFan #19