RetroFan #23

November 2022 No. 23 $10.95

All you need is love!

YELLOW SUBMARINE

The Creature’s here to greet ya!

Dive in to the Black Lagoon

He is not a number!

He is a free man!

Before The X-Files there was… Shadow Chasers • M&Ms • TV’s Zoom at 50 & more!

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Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury

Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Yellow Submarine © Apple Corps. Colorforms © Colorforms Brand LLC. Mickey Mouse © Disney. The Prisoner © ITV Ventures Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With!

Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, TwoMorrows’ new magazine is just for you! Editor MICHAEL EURY (author of numerous books on pop culture, former editor for DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics, and editor of TwoMorrows’ Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE magazine for comic book fans) has assembled an unbeatable roster of regular and rotating Celebrity Columnists to cover the pop culture you grew up with: • ANDY MANGELS (best-selling sci-fi author and award-winning pop culture historian) • ERNEST FARINO (Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer, animator, and director) • SCOTT SHAW! (acclaimed cartoonist, animator, Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist, and historian) • WILL MURRAY (pulp adventure novelist and pop culture historian) • SCOTT SAAVEDRA (graphic designer, cartoonist, and COMIC BOOK HEAVEN creator) • MARK VOGER (renowned pop culture newspaper columnist and book author), and others!

RETROFAN #25

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #21

RETROFAN #20

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview!

Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features!

Like, totally! 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.

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, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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TwoMorrows.

The Future of Pop History.

RETROFAN #19

RETROFAN #18

RETROFAN #17

RETROFAN #16

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!

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.

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

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!

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25 The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With

Issue #23 November 2022

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Columns and Special Features

Departments

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Retrotorial

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Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum M&M’s

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RetroFad Fiftiesmania

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Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties ‘Creature’ Feature

Too Much TV Quiz Top cops

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RetroFanmail

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ReJECTED

by Scott Saavedra

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Retro Toys Colorforms

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon The Prisoner

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Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Yellow Submarine

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Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning Flash Gordon

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Retro Kid-Vid Zoom at 50

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Retro Television Shadow Chasers RetroFan™ issue 23, November 2022. (ISSN 2576-7224 ) is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

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. Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Yellow Submarine © Apple Corps/Subafilms, Ltd. Colorforms © Colorforms Brands, LLC. Mickey Mouse © Disney. Zorro © Zorro Productions, Inc. The Prisoner © ITC Entertainment, Inc. 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

BY MICHAEL EURY

Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Wayne Hicks Andy Mangels Jeffrey S. Miller Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw!

Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS Colorforms Brands LLC Heritage Auctions ITC Entertainment Inc. Mars Incorporated Universal Studios WGBH VERY SPECIAL THANKS Kenneth Johnson

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RETROFAN

I was raised by three parents: a mother, a father… and the TV set.

Little did they realize it at the time, but Mom and Dad, as well as my schoolteachers, had back-ups thanks to my “extended family.” During early childhood, it was Captain Kangaroo and Shari Lewis helping teach me the basics. As I grew older, Sheriff Andy Taylor, Mike and Carol Brady, and television’s coolest teacher, Pete Dixon, shared their wisdom. Batman and Steve McGarrett taught me to respect the law. Red Skelton and Flip Wilson made me chuckle. Nurse Julia Baker and associate producer Mary Richards taught me that women were capable professionals. The Lawrence Welk orchestra and Al Hirt taught me music appreciation.

Joining these unofficial godparents was my TV “grandfather”—no, not Grandpa Walton, but CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, who each night shared stories from the real world, where problems could not be solved in a 23-minute episode with a laugh track.

As I segued from adolescence to young adulthood, most of the pursuits I had developed—reading comic books, reading adventure novels, and drawing—all took place in front of the television, which was almost always on. The digest-sized TV Guide magazine was my gateway. I read its articles and combed its listings, circling my personal must-see TV. I also studied numerous books about television history, discovering the programs that predated me and learning the histories of the shows I enjoyed. By my mid-twenties, I’d often fall asleep while watching late-night television, being awakened by the playing of the National Anthem as a station signed off in the early morning’s wee hours (remember those days when stations didn’t broadcast 24/7?).

With an upbringing like that, I thought I had been exposed to just about everything television had to offer in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties.

Then Jeffrey S. Miller proved me wrong.

Jeff pitched to RetroFan an article about the short-lived Eighties TV series Shadow Chasers, a paranormal precursor to The X-Files. Even though I didn’t watch every show back in the day—occasionally I would pry myself away from the tube (I didn’t need SNL guest host William Shatner to admonish me to “get a life”)—I had either read about them or remembered the existence of most shows.

Except for this one.

Shadow Chasers? What the heck was Shadow Chasers?

I had to do some web searching for info about the show before answering Jeff’s query… I didn’t want to expose my ignorance. Once I found out that the show’s driving force was Kenneth Johnson—who brought us the Seventies TV hits The Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk, among other fare—I was anxious to learn more about Shadow Chasers. And Jeff’s superb article—which I’m so happy I accepted for publication—educated me about this clever series that might very well have aired before its time.

But that’s one of the joys of RetroFan—even for a pop-culture smarty-pants like me, a guy who can belt out a Sixties TV show or cartoon theme song at a moment’s notice. I continue to learn from each and every issue. Not just about television, but about music. And toys. And monsters. And movies. And candy. And crazes. Judging from the response I receive from our readers, most of you feel the same way.

So prepare to get “educated” this issue… but school was never this much fun, not even in Room 222 (or among Mr. Kotter’s Sweathogs)! In the pages ahead, you’ll sample Scott Saavedra’s tasty history of M&M’s (yes, that’s the official spelling, not “M&Ms”) and Scott Shaw!’s flashback to the trippy eye-candy of the animated Beatles film, Yellow Submarine. Animation know-it-all (that’s a compliment!) Andy Mangels blasts off with Flash Gordon’s flashy cartoon history, while Will Murray chronicles the development and baffling denouement of the eerie television drama, The Prisoner. Our newest columnist, Mark Voger, braves the perilous Black Lagoon to offer a colorful history of a beloved Universal monster: the Creature. Returning writer Wayne Hicks—who brought us issue #19’s delightful retrospective of Topps’ Wacky Packages—shares a remembrance of Zoom (the kids’ TV show, not the Internet teleconferencing platform). And I learned so much—and had a blast doing so—while researching and writing this issue’s “RetroFad” column on Fiftiesmania, plus our “Retro Toys” history of the perennially popular art toy, Colorforms.

So get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!

November 2022

SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM

M&M’s The Little Giant of Candy Favorites

Photo: Evan-Amos/ Wikipedia. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates.

All Rights Reserved.

pleasant taste of nostalgia combined with here and now enjoyment.

M&M’s & ME

When I think back to my earliest confectionary memories, M&M’s don’t appear very often. The strongest taste sensations I can recall are of Hershey bars (boring), Whoppers malted milk

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA balls (still love ’em), and Planters Peanuts (I eat more peanuts than candy these days). M&M’s usually only turned up during the best time of the year for a candy-loving kid: Halloween. Or, as I saw it, Candy Day (see sidebar). The main problem with being a little kid is that often you end up getting the candy an adult wants you to have M&M’s candy, the delicious chocolate treat encased in a sugary instead of your own heart’s desire. shell, has been one of America’s favorites almost since it was first Growing up and moving out on my own (with a dozen other introduced in 1941. Generally speaking, as a child my favorite candy people in a beach house during a wet off-season) gave me the was candy. I was willing to eat candy cigarettes (both the chalky opportunity to more hard ones and bubble gum variants), candy buttons on a fully explore my candy paper strip, and little wax soda options. For my 19th bottles containing a dribble birthday, my roommate, of sweet fluid. Even as a kid I a guy I had known since knew that stuff was sub-par, high school, was going to take but… candy, it had to be me out to celebrate, but went consumed. I haven’t had any of on a date instead. By way them in decades, but they are of apology, he left me a still available should you think note, a six-pack of beer, and a very large bag of I’m making this stuff up. M&M’s Peanut M&M’s. The (which I have been eating while roommate moved writing this article to, you know, out a few weeks get in the mood) more suits the later, and I never saw him adult me. again. But a beer and a bunch I don’t mean to imply Peanut M&M’s package, circa of M&M’s became my go-to that M&M’s are high class or 1960. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its anything of the sort. Though major treat. I thank him for that affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy they do present better in a candy dish even though, honestly, I just can’t of CandyWrapperArchive.com than, say, a limp pile of Big League Chew sit down and munch on a big bag of shredded bubble gum (of course, if you like candy anymore. I don’t feel the need “ironic” displays, knock yourself out). M&M’s are a and I have nothing to prove.

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Moderating input of M&M’s is a bit of a challenge since they are sort of like potato chips, in that they are so snackable (you can’t eat just one). They are designed that way. M&M’s are formulated to be not too sweet, but refreshing so that you crave more. How insidious!

The story of M&M’s is one that is a little bit sweet and a little bit sour. It also involves that other great American confectionproducing company, Hershey’s. It is a story of war, betrayal, and relentless work and invention. And, of course, yummy candy.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE

Chocolate is produced from the cocoa bean. The Olmec civilization (about 1500 BCE to around 400 BCE) had the earliest known consumers of chocolate.

Chocolate was largely taken in as a drink. It was expensive and usually only enjoyed by royalty and the wealthy.

Christopher Columbus introduced cocoa beans to Europe from the New World, but personally did not care for the stuff nor did he ever taste it (depending on the source). George Washington often had a warm chocolate drink for breakfast (his first recorded purchase of chocolate was in 1757).

It was the invention of milk chocolate by a Swiss chocolatier in 1875 and consequent improvements that led the way for Milton Hershey’s development of the five-cent milk chocolate Hershey bar in 1900, which became an empire-building success. Others would soon follow and try to meet the country’s growing appetite for chocolate. Among those early candy successes would eventually be Franklin C. Mars.

THE MUDDLED MYSTERY OF M&M’s

(ABOVE) 1922 advertisement for Franklin Mars’ first candy bar success, the Mar-O-Bar. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

ROUGH START

(BELOW) British Smarties TV ad, circa 1960. © 2022 Nestlé.

In 1911, Franklin Mars and his second wife Ethel began the Mars Candy Factory. It failed. They followed this up in 1920 with the Mar-O-Bar Company, named after his signature candy bar made of (cheap) chocolate, nuts, and caramel. In those days, Franklin would rise early in the morning to make that day’s batch of his special Victorian butter creams. The bar and butter creams were a regional success, but national sales were elusive for nearly all candy makers except for the Hershey juggernaut.

Franklin’s son by his first wife, Forrest, had grown up away from his father with little or no contact (again, depending on the source). They reconnected in 1924 when Franklin bailed his adult son out of jail. It may not have been a crime spree exactly, but the younger Mars oversaw a billboard crew that had gotten too enthusiastic and covered over vital signage with their advertising posters. Once free, so the legend goes, 4

RETROFAN

Forrest and his father went to a soda fountain and spent some time catching up. It was here that Forrest suggested his father recreate the flavor of a chocolate malted milk in a candy bar. The result was the Milky Way, a success still popular to this day (I’m not a fan). The two started working together, but it was not a smooth partnership.

In 1932, Franklin bought out his son’s interest in the company.

Forrest moved to England to oversee taking the Milky Way into the European market and to create his own company, Mars, Ltd. There he bought Chappel Brothers, the British arm of an American pet food company, the first to make canned dog food (originally from horse meat, but that is not the formulation that Mars later used and one that Forrest personally tastetested—seriously). In 1934, Franklin Mars died, and notably Forrest did not go to the funeral.

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The oft-repeated tale is that Forrest Mars got the idea for M&M’s while visiting Spain during the Spanish Civil War, circa 1936–1937, where he noticed soldiers eating chocolate covered in a candy shell to prevent melting. Traveling to a war zone seems a risky way to get ideas for candy, but that is one version of the story. Another is that Forrest copied (stole) the idea from Rowntree’s & Co., a British confectioner.

And yet a third version has Forrest and a family rep from Rowntree’s both going to have a look at Spanish Civil War chocolate possibilities and both noting that the candy eaten by the soldiers was worth duplicating.

So they proposed a gentleman’s agreement to allow each other to make a version to sell in their respective spheres of operation: America and Europe. Rowntree’s got to market first in 1937 with Smarties Chocolate

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Beans. Before Forrest could proceed into the American market he needed two basic ingredients: milk chocolate and money. He knew where he could find both, and that was in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

At the time, the top people at Hershey’s got along with and even respected the top people at Mars (and visa versa). In fact, Hershey supplied Mars with the milk chocolate to make Milky Way and Snickers (the latter named after a favorite family horse), among other candies. Later, the two companies would become fierce rivals, and part of the reason for that would be due to Forrest’s aggressive business style. But for now, Forrest needed Hershey.

Forrest Mars approached the president of Hershey, William F. R. Murrie, who ran the company while the founder, Milton Hershey, both pursued other interests and mourned the loss of his beloved wife who had passed years earlier. He asked Murrie to not just have Hershey provide him with the necessary milk chocolate, but the needed capital by way of a 20% stake in his company, Mars Ltd., from Murrie’s son, Bruce. Forrest even promised to name the candy M&M’s (for Mars and Murrie). Samples he produced for the meeting helped clinch the deal. The elder Murrie thought it was a fine idea, and the younger Murrie went along with it. Hershey would also provide equipment and support.

THE ANATOMY OF AN M&M’s CANDY

M&M’s made their debut in 1941. Plain M&M’s are composed of a lentil-shaped piece of milk chocolate surrounded by a hardened sugary shell. As previously noted, Milton Hershey created the first milk chocolate bar in 1900. The outer candy shell of M&M’s is the result of hard panning, a process invented in France during the 17th Century (if you’ve ever been to a wedding you’ve probably seen Jordan almonds, Not available to the the result of early French general public during hard-panning experiments).

World War II, M&M’s So why did it take so long to were included with standard rations. Modern put these two candy-making concepts together? reprint of a 1942 billboard The short answer is that it ad. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its didn’t.

The essential concept affiliates. All Rights Reserved. of a hard candy covering a

A modern handful of Czech Lentilky candies. © 2022 Nestlé. Photo: Kasia/Flickr.

chocolate center dates to a Czech candy created in 1907. Then there were the coated sweets Forrest saw in Spain (who made them is unknown). Rowntree’s had been making a similar product called Chocolate Beans (no actual beans were involved) since the 1880s.

Today they are more simply christened Smarties (no relation to the American sweets of the same name) and were sold in a round tube.

In the beginning, M&Ms’s were also packaged in a round tube.

Does this mean that M&M’s aren’t an original product? Well, let’s concede this: They are a successful product. It took a while for that to happen, though, because at first, M&M’s weren’t available to the general public.

M&M’s GO TO WAR

Milk chocolate has a melting point below the temperature of the human body. You’ll notice this when you bite into an M&M’s and the milk chocolate… well, it just melts in your mouth in the most pleasing way (sounds like part of a great slogan). It’s the headache and the beauty of milk chocolate. In the early days of candy-making, the product often didn’t travel well. Getting the goods to the warmer Southern states was problematic. Melted milk chocolate separates out the cocoa butter, and when re-cooled the cocoa butter creates unappealing white streaks and spots.

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(ABOVE) This nearly 100-year-old Mars factory in Chicago, with its beautiful Spanish style architecture on a tree-lined street, currently produces some of North America’s M&M’s candies but is expected to be shut down around 2024. Google Maps.

(INSET) Hershey’s infamous tough-to-eat Ration D bar. Courtesy of U.S. Army Center of Military History.

The desire to create a more robust and still-tasty milk chocolate was an important goal for both Hershey and Mars, not just for normal retail sales, but for the lucrative military supply market. As the Second World War loomed, a chocolate that would survive rough travel and not melt all over our servicemen and women would have a ready client in the military.

Candy served a couple of functions for our Armed Forces: both as a quick pick-me-up, and as a morale booster. Hershey created the Ration D bar (and later the Tropical Bar for the Pacific Theater), a survival ration high in calories that could remain solid even in high temperatures. It was so tough that soldiers had to shave a bit off the bar with a knife so it could be eaten. Many Ration D bars

ended up in the garbage. M&M’s, on the other hand, melted in your mouth and not on your rifle or other vital ordinance and was included with regular rations. Tootsie Rolls (invented in 1907 and named after the creator’s daughter… Tootsie, not Rolls) were also a popular part of rations during the fight against fascist tyranny.

M&M’s, like many consumer products during the War, were not available to the general public until after hostilities ceased. The tube was retired and M&M’s were given a modern new home in plastic bags similar to the ones in use today.

PEACE TIME (NOT EXACTLY)

Mars and Murrie did not enjoy a smooth partnership. Forrest treated Bruce like an underling instead of as a junior partner, which he technically was. Murrie eventually sold Mars his interest in the company and left in 1949. Meanwhile, M&M’s sold well, but Forrest felt they weren’t selling like they should. In 1950, he brought in a noted Chicago ad agency, Ted Bates & Co., and they came up

Illustrations of M&M’s Plain and Peanut wrappers plus that of their Mars brand candy cohorts from a 1976 magazine ad. © 2022 Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

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November 2022

scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

SOME OTHER CRAZY, COOL CANDIES WE LOVED M&M’s, along with Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and a handful of others, have been massively popular candies for decades. But they’re not the only fun treats that have been enjoyed by humans and foolish dogs (no chocolate for dogs, it’s poison to them!) over the years. Here are some highlights, by decade.

Sixties: Many popular candies of this decade were actually created in the first half of the 20th Century. Smarties were invented in 1949. Sugar Daddy suckers (1925) were originally called Papa Sucker (I can’t quite decide which name is worse… both?). Boston Baked Beans are actually intended to look like cooked beans (the exact origin date is lost, but the Ferrara Candy Company’s version has been around since 1924). Pixy Stix were invented in 1952, but really hit their stride in the Sixties. Dum Dum lollipops debuted in 1924, but were very popular in the Age of Aquarius. Good and Plenty may actually be the oldest branded candy in America, having first appeared in 1893. If you’re not recalling ChooChoo Charlie’s Good and Plenty ad music right now, you may be reading the wrong magazine.

Candies created during the Sixties include Sweet Tarts (1963) and Starburst (introduced in the U.K. in 1960 and in America in 1967). Razzles, the candy that turns into gum (I am having an unpleasant taste memory right now), appeared in 1966.

Seventies: Pop Rocks were invented accidentally in 1956 as part of an attempt to make instant soda. Several years later, a second look at the “failure” resulted in the fizzy popping candy becoming a sensation in the mid-Seventies. And, no,

despite the rumors, cute little Mikey of Life Cereal commercial fame (“He likes it!”) did not explode to death eating Pop Rocks while drinking Coke.

Reece’s Pieces appeared in 1978 and become a hit following their cameo in E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982). Famously, M&M’s had first dibs, but passed (they were not impressed with director Steven Spielberg’s previous film, 1941). 1979 saw the release of suckable jewelry, the Ring Pop. Eighties: Pop Rocks were briefly available in this decade as, wait for it… Action Candy. Thankfully, the original name has since returned. Jelly Bellies first appeared in 1976 (a precursor from 1965 was called the Mini Jelly Bean), but really enjoyed mass popularity in the Eighties (they were a favorite of President Ronald Reagan). Haribo gummy bears date to the Twenties, but homegrown gummies didn’t appear in the U.S. until the Eighties. Sour Patch Kids were invented in 1980 in Canada and came to America in 1985. In 1989, Mars introduced Bounty Bars to compete against Mounds. It failed after only two years, despite being a superior candy (that’s just a fact), illustrating the industry belief that consumers pick favorites and then stay with them. It doesn’t hurt that Mounds (and Almond Joy) have a superior jingle associated with them (it’s in your head now, isn’t it?). And Nerds, made by taking sugar and coating it with more sugar, were introduced in 1983.

Unfortunately, this list only scratches the surface, and I haven’t included the Chunky Bar, Fruit Stripe gum, Air Heads, or Abba-Zabba (yes, I realize that I’ve left Whatchamacallit off the list, too). Amazingly, most of the candies listed here are still being made.

(LEFT) Reese’s Pieces ad from 1985 featuring a non-E.T., the Extraterrestrial alien. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved.

(RIGHT) He’s doing it wrong. Screen capture from a Sugar Daddy TV commercial circa the Sixties. © 2022 Tootsie Roll, Inc. RETROFAN

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with one of the all-time classic promotional taglines: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” (I tested this as a kid. It’s not true.

The outer candy gets sticky on a hot day if you hang onto it long enough.)

In their earliest days, M&M’s candies were known simply as M&M’s and made without the little “m” on each piece (that would come in 1950). The “Plain” designation didn’t happen until 1954 with the release of Peanut M&M’s (Forrest, by the way, was allergic to peanuts). Currently, the non-peanut version is called Milk Chocolate M&M’s. I only just learned this, though the name change happened 22 years ago, and I’ve eaten about an SUV’s worth of these things in that period.

The first television ad to feature anthropomorphic M&M candies, Mr. Plain and Mr. Peanut, appeared during popular programing like The Mickey Mouse Club also in 1954. Sales rose.

By 1964, Forrest finally gained control over what is now Mars, Inc. By many accounts he was a difficult boss with high standards.

He yelled frequently and prodigiously. On the plus side, employees were well paid. Competition with Hershey’s heated up as well, forcing the venerable company to advertise for the first time in 1970. Forrest retired in 1973, leaving the company completely in the hands of his three children. His two sons were yellers, too. They also had a penchant, inherited from their father, for extreme privacy.

This aspect has held great interest for the business press and seems odd to candy-lovers. How can candy-makers be so off-putting?

Consumers, especially kids, didn’t care, so long as affordable and appealing products came out of their factories and landed in sufficient numbers on store shelves.

RED SCARE

The colors of M&M’s have changed a bit over time. The longestserving colors are brown, yellow, and green. Red was popular, too, but disappeared for a while due to public-relations reasons.

In the Seventies, greater concern emerged over the health effects of sugar and what was termed “junk food.” Nothing wrong with that. It’s important to know what you consume. A 1971 Russian study linked Red Dye No. 2 to cancer. This alarmed consumers and safe-food advocates. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given Red Dye No. 2 its GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status but retested the dye and banned it in 1976. M&M’s did not use Red Dye No. 2, but all of the negative publicity caused them to replace red candies with orange-colored ones. Red M&M’s returned in 1987.

And while we’re on the subject of the candies’ colors, green M&M’s won’t make you horny. There is simply no medical or

Three examples out of many, many M&M’s television commercials: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Fifties-era M&M’s mascots Mr. Peanut and Mr. Plain, a Silence of the Lambs–type moment from this Sixties-era spot, and the groovy fellow with the two (nude) candies is Mr. Candy Man, a brief M&M’s spokes-cartoon circa 1970. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

Mars was a big believer in advertising: (CLOCKWISE LEFT TO RIGHT) 1960 newspaper ad, 1976 magazine ad, and 1985 comic-book ad. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved. science-based proof. However, the current female Green M&M spokes-candy does seem to have a certain something. Just sayin’.

MARS IN SPACE

M&M’s joined the crew of the space shuttle Columbia in 1981. Why? The astronauts requested them. NASA kept things low-key and didn’t promote the brand so much as show the astronauts enjoying life in space with a common hard-candy-covered milk-chocolate treat. Ultimately, M&M’s went on over 130 trips into space.

ROCK ’N’ ROLL ’N’ M&M’s

When I first heard, years ago, that Van Halen (a musical group with some danceable song performances) had a group of contractual requests (demands) known as riders that included NO BROWN M&M’s, I could not imagine for the life of me what that was all about. Turns out, it was the result of a pretty smart observation about human nature.

In the Eighties, Van Halen had a fairly large and complicated stage set-up. This required that each venue be prepared to host the show safely. When the “no brown” stipulation was not met, the band knew that the potential existed that other more important matters may have been missed as well. To help make their point, RETROFAN

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

CANDY DAY For me, Halloween was not so much a dress-up, In this 1960 photo, fun, spooky early-evening romp, but more of a a witch and a Union Candy Day (a misnomer, I know, since we headed Pacific Engineer out during the early evening, but I looked forward gloat over their pile to it all day). Getting as much candy as possible was of Halloween treats the primary goal, and when my mom said it was time including a bag of to go home, we begged to hit “just one more house.”

M&M’s. Unlike today, I don’t recall our success rate. Low, I imagine. fresh fruit, random Getting home, we each took our little plastic change, and small pumpkins or decorated paper bags and dumped out unsealed bags of loose our pickings and sorted them. (I dreamed of carcandy are part of the rying a pillowcase and filling it up, but that never haul. happened.) Chocolate candies had pride of place.

Then other wrapped or boxed candies. And then the homemade stuff: candied apples, popcorn balls, and the occasional cookie. By the time I stopped trick-or-treating at around 12 years old, the stories about needles and razor blades stuck in treats began their annual appearance in the local evening news. I always felt that I had dodged a major bullet.

By the time I was a parent, Halloween had become downright stressful. “Is that wrapped?!” “Don’t eat it! Give it to me!” “Spit it out right this instant!”

Fun fact: Wife Ruth took our kids out trickor-treating one year with some of their school friends and parents, including—and this is a true statement—the (now) late Thomas Kinkade, the actual “Painter of Light.” He was clothed entirely in leather. Externally. I can’t speak to the state of his undergarments. All the adults were drinking wine. Our kids came home with a massive pile of full-size (!) candy bars. So, yeah, that holiday sure has evolved.

Anyway… Candy Day. There was an actual Candy Day in October, and it’s not Halloween. It all began because American candy-makers loved that they got a sales bump each Easter and Christmas. Wouldn’t a sales bump also be nice in the fall, they wondered. Around 1916, the National Confectioners Association (NCA), a trade organization for the candy industry, proposed an actual Candy Day to encourage buying and giving away candy while being sweet to each other. It was to be held every second Saturday of October.

Candy Day was renamed Sweetest Day in the early Twenties, and to my utter astonishment has continued to this very day in various regions of the U.S. (bits of the Midwest, Northeast, and Florida). Mark your calendar for October 15 this year. It’ll be sweet.

By the Sixties, pre-packaged candy became more and more popular with busy parents to give out for Halloween, and by 1970 it seemed like that’s what the holiday had been about all along.

Clara Kimball Young, a popular silent film star, helps with the celebration of Sweetest Day 1925 as recorded in this microfiche copy of the trade publication The Manufacturing Confectioner.

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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

“m” as on the regular candies. It did not last long.

M&M’s were the official candy of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and there were some tie-ins. I’ve encountered pins and glass jars. Mars was working to expand internationally, and being a sponsor of an international event made sense.

By the Nineties, the floodgates opened and other M&M variants like pretzel, peanut butter, and crispy ricefilled candies embodied by various M&M’s computer-animated characters, one for each color and each with its own personality, turned up in books, stuffed toys, animated candy dispensers, web games, and more. It’s been quite a production. A successful one. Mars, Inc., makers of M&M’s and Snickers as well as pet-food products and Ben’s Original Ready Rice (formally Uncle Ben’s), is one of the largest family-owned companies in the world.

And I wish them well. Personally, I don’t cotton to all the fancy-fancy stuff in my M&M’s. A simple candy coating, some milk chocolate, a peanut inside and a beer a cup of coffee (eh, things change). The simple pleasures. I never get tired of them.

(LEFT) Astronaut Loren J. Shriver eats floating chocolate candies (a.k.a. M&M’s) aboard space shuttle Atlantis (July 31–August 8, 1992). M&M’s have gone into space more than 130 times since 1981. Courtesy of NASA. (RIGHT) In the last few decades, M&M’s have grown in flavor types and other variations, plus they have appeared in a slew of related merchandise. This candy dispenser is a gift to the author from his mother, also a longtime M&M’s consumer. It is used for special occasions. © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved. the group would trash their dressing room at any venue that didn’t follow the “no brown” rule. How rock ’n’ roll is that?

THE QUIET BEFORE THE STORM

Management was cautious in the Seventies and into the Eighties.

There was not a lot of candy invention or branded M&M’s merchandise produced. One unusual item I came across was the Hasbro Candy Gun featuring actual M&M’s candy “ammunition.” I played with many toy guns as a kid, but this thing is an insane creation.

What rational child would want to shoot candy away from himself?

It makes no sense. None.

M&M’s dipped a toe into brand expansion in the Eighties with a lightly mint-flavored product called M&M’s Royals. It was marketed to adults and featured a tiny crown on each piece instead of the letter

The days of simple plain and peanut M&M’s are long over.

Candy Pop popcorn is just one of many variations of the popular candy. Candy Pop © 2022 SNAX-Sational Brands. All Rights Reserved.

M&M’s © 2022 The Hershey Company. All Rights Reserved.

I have to recommend The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars (Broadway Books, 2000) by Joël Glenn Brenner. Even though only a fraction of it really applied to my story here, it is a detailed and well-sourced tale that I found compelling. The early chapters especially are a very human look at the people behind the candy creativity. Also valuable was The Mars Family: M&M Mars Candy Makers (ABDO Publishing, 2011), for young readers, by Joanne Mattern.

It was this book that first clued me into the personal drama behind the scenes, something I found kinda funny in a book for kids. Oh, please be aware: National Chocolate Covered Nut Day is always celebrated on February 25th. Eat responsibly.

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/ RETROFAN

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RETROFAD

a i n a Fiftiesmania m s e Fif ti

BY MICHAEL EURY

While those days weren’t happy for Americans oppressed by ethnicity, gender, religion, or economic class, the Fabulous Fifties—the era of ponytails, greased-back hair, Thunderbirds, drive-ins, roller-skating carhops, and the birth of rock ’n’ roll—made a comeback in the Sexy Seventies, at a time when bras and draft cards were being burned and a disco inferno enflamed the nation.

It seemed like “the good old days” were under assault as soon as the last page was ripped from the 1969 calendar. Television’s Rural Sitcom Purge of 1970 junk-heaped its long-running “country” comedies in favor of urban-centered shows featuring opinionated feminists who were gonna make it after all.

The Vietnam War and civil unrest still dominated the news, pollution choked the air and contaminated the water, and an oil embargo forced drivers to idle in long lines waiting for their turn at a fill-up. And then there were the Watergate hearings, when the nation that once liked Ike grew to hate his veep-turnedprez, Tricky Dick.

So the middle-aged moms and dads of America, whose aging eyes had been squinting at those disturbing headlines, doffed their “readers” and instead donned rose-colored glasses. They imagined a Fifties’ Pleasantville of well-manicured lawns and well-behaved teenagers (conveniently ignoring the decade’s McCarthyism, Jim Crow, Red Scare, juvenile delinquency, and sweaty, pelvis-grinding dancing) and yearned for yesterday in the best way they knew how: through the music they grew up with.

It didn’t take long for the record industry to realize that there was money to be made in the doo-wop, rockabilly, and love ballads of the Fabulous Fifties. Oldies radio stations popped up on the dial, playing the platters of Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Patsy Cline, Sam Cooke, Bill Haley and his Comets, the Shirelles, Buddy Holly and the Cricketts… if the Fifties artist’s pompadour was Vitalis-ed, or their poofy dress chiffon-ed, their records got spun. Collections of these tunes were reissued and many former headliners stepped out of retirement and launched reunion tours.

Contemporary artists took note. An a cappella singing group from New York’s Columbia University, the Kingsmen, found that the Fifties harmonies in their repertoire were crowd-pleasers. They 12

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redubbed themselves Sha Na Na and hit the big time in August 1969 on the most unexpected of stages— Woodstock. Sha Na Na’s success exploded throughout the Seventies, including their own TV variety show that began its four-season run in 1977.

Fifties music inspired Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey to write the stage musical Grease, which premiered in 1971 at a Chicago nightclub. In February 1972, Grease made it to Broadway, its original cast including Barry Bostwick (three years before The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Danny and Adrienne Barbeau (on the verge of becoming a household name in Norman Lear’s Maude) as Rizzo.

Elton John scored his first Number One hit with his homage to the Fifties, 1972’s “Crocodile Rock.”

While Sir Elton crooned lyricist Bernie Taupin’s wistful line “I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will,” in more recent years the artist has admitted a disdain for the tune—“It was written as a joke, like a pastiche.”

High schools across America hosted “sock hops,” throwback dances where girls borrowed their mothers’ old poodle skirts and bobby socks and boys slicked back their hair and wore white socks with penny loafers.

Teens rocked around the clock on their gymnasium floors, gyrating to music that shook, rattled, and rolled the previous generation. (My high school hosted a sock hop in 1974, and I was among the members of its jazz band playing the gig. Our “charts” weren’t era-specific, though, mainly being Big Band music of the Forties.

Luckily, “In the Mood” got kids

American Graffiti © Universal Pictures. Grease © Paramount Pictures. Happy Days © Paramount Television. Images courtesy of Heritage.

hopping just as much as “Jailhouse Rock” ever did.)

Then Hollywood slipped into its retro leather jacket, and the Fifties muscled its way onto screens large and small.

George Lucas—the filmmaker who launched the Seventies sci-fi fad with the 1977 premiere of Star Wars—was also behind the mass popularization of Fiftiesmania, directing American Graffiti, released in August 1973. The film followed a night of cruising

by California teens.

Although set in 1962, its soundtrack featured Fifties hits, and its soundtrack LP, a double album packed with 41 tunes, was a runaway bestseller.

Where Lucas might be regarded as Fiftiesmania’s Johnny Appleseed, its patron saint was television auteur Garry Marshall. Marshall in 1971 struck out with ABC-TV when attempting to sell the network on a Fifties-set sitcom titled New Family in Town. Its premise was tweaked into an installment of ABC’s rom-com anthology, Love, American Style, with the Marshallpenned “Love and the Happy Days” premiering on February 25, 1972.

From that episode evolved Marshall’s sitcom Happy Days, centered on a Midwestern middle-class teen and his family. TV’s one-time Opie Taylor, the carrot-topped, freckle-faced Ronny Howard (who had recently headlined Lucas’ American Graffiti), got another shot at a starring role as the Archie Andrews–like Richie Cunningham, although at the time he was transitioning to his ultimate goal of becoming film director Ron Howard (The Boys, the 2021 memoir co-written by Howard and his brother Clint, is highly recommended to all RetroFans). Premiering in January 1974, Happy Days took a while to build an audience, but became a ratings juggernaut and family favorite. It initiated no end of merchandising, from lunch boxes to View-Master reels to trading cards to comic books—most of which was built around the image of breakout star Henry Winkler as TV’s coolest greaser, Fonzie, a.k.a. “The Fonz.” Running until 1984, Happy Days also spawned the spin-offs Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983)—a Fifties-set sitcom about two opinionated feminists who were gonna make it after all (just sayin’)—Mork & Mindy (1978–1982), Joanie Loves Chachi (1982–1983), and

the little-remembered Blansky’s Beauties, 1977’s quicker-picker-upper starring Nancy Walker as the cousin of Happy Days’ dad Howard Cunningham; it fizzled after only 13 episodes. Another short-lived sitcom, 1979’s Out of the Blue, wasn’t exactly a Happy Days spin-off, but was instead built around “Random,” a crossover character.

Fiftiesmania revved in at the box office with such entries as 1974’s greaserpacked coming-of-age film The Lords of Flatbush (co-starring both Henry Winkler and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone) and two 1978 biopics, American Hot Wax (about one of the DJs who popularized Fifties rock ’n’ roll, Alan Freed) and The Buddy Holly Story (which earned bad-boy star Gary Busey a Best Actor Oscar® nom in the title role).

Fiftiesmania’s pinnacle was 1978’s blockbuster movie adaptation of the stage show Grease, buoyed by superstars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as its hood-meetsvirgin couple, Danny and Sandy. Sure, its phenomenal cast—packed with actors well in their 20s and 30s—might’ve been a tad too old to be truly convincing as pimply teenagers, but their gottalove-’em performances, the big screen’s colorful exploitation of Fifties styles, and its spectacular soundtrack and dance numbers, to which we remain hopelessly devoted, made Hollywood’s Grease one of the most popular watch-again, sing-along movies of all time. It was a smash at the box office and to date has grossed some 400 million bucks.

Of course, when you reach such a high, there’s nowhere else to go but down. And by 1979, the Fifties fad, like the middle-agers who had started it, was starting to show its age. Happy Days was on a slow ratings slide, as was Laverne & Shirley, although Garry Marshall’s sitcom characters still managed a translation to Saturday morning cartoons beginning with 1980’s The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. The film sequels More American Graffiti (1979) and Grease 2 (1982) underperformed. By the mid-Eighties, “Grease” was no longer the word, and Fiftiesmania had fizzled.

Yet Fiftiesmania unleashed a nostalgia cycle that has continued with each passing decade, where young adults fondly look back 20 years to their own youthful passions. Nor have the Fifties been forgotten, as they are often revisited in film and stage biographies and musicals. But for those of us who experienced firsthand the Fiftiesmania of the Seventies, this jumpin’, jivin’ craze that bridged a generation gap with hits and hops were truly happy days.

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BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

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Documents the life and career of the master Golden Age artist of Captain Marvel Jr. and other classic characters!

LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER

Career-spanning tribute to the Legion of Super-Heroes & Warlord comics art legend!

Looks at comics' 1960s CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV's Batman shook a mean cape!

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OLD GODS & NEW

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN

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Documents the genesis of JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD series, his gods in THOR and other strips, how those influenced his DC epic, and affected later series like ETERNALS and CAPTAIN VICTORY!

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GROOVY

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VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

Creature Feature Quick! Which of the following Fifties movie monsters is different from the rest?

Is it the giant spider in Tarantula… the Metaluna mutant in This Island Earth… the veiny varmints in Invasion of the Saucer Men… or the Gill-Man in Creature From the Black Lagoon?

You guessed correctly. The Creature emerged from his lagoon ten or 20 years too late. He could have been a contemporary of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, et al.

He was the right height, the right character design. There could have been a movie titled The Wolf Man Meets the Creature. (Plot: Larry Talbot lands in

How the poignant Gill-Man swam into our hearts BY MARK VOGER

Florida in search of a cure for lycanthropy; he belly-flops into a lagoon during a full moon; and comes face-to-face with you-know-what.)

Yep, the Creature swam alone among his contemporary monsters in the Fifties.

C’mon—don’t try to tell me Old Fish Breath fit in with the typical Fifties roster of radiated insects and bulbous aliens.

Still, Universal-International’s three Creature movies—Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)—are staunchly Fifties films. They have the requisite broad-shouldered hero on a scientific expedition; the independently minded damsel; and the older “authority figure” who

The Gill-Man in Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.

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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

Julie Adams seems less than thrilled to meet the Gill-Man in Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.

is on hand to explain, in concise pseudo-scientific terms, how the monster came into existence.

(To be honest, all those Fifties horror/sci-fi hybrids can be formulaic to the point of tedium. The Creature’s edge? The supercool monster design, of course!)

The Creature might have stayed back there in the Fifties with the Edsel and the Del-Vikings if not for the so-called “Monster Craze” that built steam at the turn of the decade. When marketeers commenced cranking out monster-themed merchandise to satisfy a sudden demand, they didn’t exclude the Creature merely because he came along later than the other classic monsters. So, by way of this pervasive trend, the Creature finally ascended to his rightful post alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, and the rest of the gnarly gang.

The Creature was, and remains, iconic and popular. Guillermo del Toro’s homage The Shape of Water (2017) won the Best Picture Oscar, fer cryin’ out loud. But, despite some promising false starts, there has never been a proper remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon. We have only the trio of Fifties films, plus that muthaload of merch, with which to ponder the question: Who, what, and why is the Creature?

CREATING THE CREATURE

The Creature movies are a little bit King Kong, a little bit The Mummy, and a harbinger of Jaws. Like Kong, Creature is about a group of scientists from (so-called) civilization who hear tell of a still-living fabled being, and mount an expedition into a far-flung locale to find it, and—as Robert Plant sang—bring it on home.

Of course, everyone concerned would have been a lot happier, and the body count lower, if only these learned men had left well enough alone. In his resentment of the surface-men’s intrusion, 16

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Artist Milicent Patrick worked on the design of the Creature costume. Patrick was also a model and actress. © Universal Pictures.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

the Creature has something in common with Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner of Marvel Comics fame.

The Gill-Man has a Hollywood-ready origin story. In the book Creature From the Black Lagoon: The Original Shooting Script (1992, from the Universal Filmscripts Series published by Magic Image), author Tom Weaver writes that producer William Alland once met a “South American movie director” at a dinner party hosted by Orson Welles.

This director spoke of “a race of beings” living in the Amazon that were “human in shape [with] gills in lieu of ears, webbed hands and feet, and fish-like skin.” Years later, Alland wrote a memo based on this idea he titled “The Sea Monster” which, through the oftenprotracted process of script development, eventually evolved into Actor Ben Chapman played the Creature on land in Creature From the Black Lagoon. © Universal Pictures.

Creature From the Black Lagoon. The final script was credited to Harry Essex and Arthur Ross, and the film was produced by Alland.

Who to credit for the look of this magnificent monster? Well, it wasn’t like the old days when Jack P. Pierce, working solo, designed the iconic Universal monsters, credited only for “make-up.” For the Creature movies, Bud Westmore (then head of Universal’s make-up department) held the sole screen credit. Source after source depicts Westmore as more than happy to have fostered the impression that the Creature was his baby alone. But the costume went through so many permutations (and hands) over an eight-month period, its design cannot rightly be ascribed to one person.

According to DVD commentary by Weaver and collector extraordinaire Bob Burns—both trusted, reliable sources—four artisans in particular should be acknowledged: Milicent Patrick (a model-actress and one of Disney’s first female animators) worked on the design; Chris Mueller sculpted the head and hands; Jack Kevan (Westmore’s assistant) made the full-body cast of swimmer Ricou Browning; and Tom Case painted the final, as did Patrick.

Though the three Creature movies (the first two were released in 3D) have undeniable redundancies, they are generally distinct from one another. The first one is about finding the Creature. The second one is about dragging the Creature to “civilization.” The third one is about… the Creature getting a facelift and wearing pajamas?

‘CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON’

“In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.”

Um, is this the opening narration to Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments? Nope. Try Jack Arnold’s Creature From the Black Lagoon.

This pronouncement stolen from the Old Testament is followed by pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo about something not covered in said sacred document: evolution.

Then, following a mere hop of 15 million years, we’re transported to the “upper reaches of the Amazon,” where all is well at Instituto de Swimmer Ricou Browning played the Creature in underwater scenes in all three Creature movies. © Universal Pictures.

Publicity image touting the 3D process. The first two Creature movies were released in 3D. © Universal Pictures.

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Biologia Martima. The old professor (Antonio Moreno) is professoring. Researcher Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams) is attending to her duties in an enchanting ensemble with crisp white short-shorts (which provide zero protection against Amazonian insects). Kay trades tepid romantic banter with handsome scientist David Reed (Richard Carlson). Only a Velveeta-on-Wonder-Bread sandwich could make this scene any more Fifties.

The professor is like a kid on Christmas with his latest discovery: the fossilized bones of a clawequipped limb found in a limestone deposit “dating back to the Devonian Age.” (Savvy monster fans recognize it as belonging to a relative of the Creature.)

Pipe-smoking scientist Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell, who had a face made for sci-fi) reckons the bones belonged to “an amphibian that spent a great deal of time in the water.” Hmmm.

An expedition is organized to find a rumored living example of this genetic anomaly. For the professor, it’s in the interest of science. But for boss man Mark Williams (Richard Denning)—a slippery character whose flirting with Kay is uninvited—it’s in the interest of commerce.

A regrettable trope of old monster movies set in far-away regions dictates that innocent natives are the first to be slaughtered. In the case of Creature, victims #1 and 2 are Luis (Rodd Redwing) and Tomas (Perry Lopez). We get glimpses of the Creature, and are introduced to his earworm musical theme—three notes on shrill trumpets courtesy of composer Herman Stein. Once you hear it, you cannot un-hear it.

As the expedition sails along, Kay takes an illadvised little swim in a clingy white one-piece. (White is apparently her color.) The Creature—who is part man, after all—takes notice of this lovely female. The celebrated sequence in which Kay swims along the surface while the curious Creature does a back-stroke beneath her is a hallmark of romance in classic horror, right up there with Mary Philbin unmasking Lon Chaney, and Fay Wray wriggling in King Kong’s fist.

Ginger Stanley, who regularly appeared as a mermaid at the Weeki Wachee Springs aquatic attraction in Hernando County, Florida, doubled for Adams in the swimming sequence (although Adams swims beautifully in those scenes where her face is visible).

When Kay is gently brushed by the Creature, it reminds us of the opening scene in Jaws—the ill-fated young lady’s midnight swim. Steven Spielberg was paying attention.

The expedition party finally spots the Creature, and just as in Kong, we root for him over the unfeeling, well-armed men who insinuate themselves into his unspoiled habitat. Damn you, human interlopers!

When the Creature finally meets his end, his death is, as any self-respecting monster fan knows, imperma-

A menacing poster for Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). © Universal Pictures.

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nent. He’ll be back. We’ve been through this too many times with his forebears like Drac, Frankie, and Wolfie.

‘REVENGE OF THE CREATURE’

In early treatments for Creature From the Black Lagoon, the title monster was to be taken back to civilization, à la King Kong. Instead, the filmmakers squirreled that idea away for the sequel. Arnold’s Revenge of the Creature is all about how he fares as a tourist attraction in Florida. (Spoiler alert: Not well.)

Filmed in part at the Marineland theme park in Florida, Revenge is the ultimate, pardon the pun, fish-out-of-water story. And it has Clint Eastwood in a brief bit as a scientist with a gravity-defying pompadour. (No matter how many Oscars they throw at old Squint, Revenge of the Creature will always be the fossil in his closet.)

We first see colorful Captain Lucas (Nestor Paiva, repeating his role from the first film) waxing philosophical as he steers the Rita II toward—where else?—the Black Lagoon. “This beast exists because it is stronger than the thing you call evolution,” he says in his generic Hollywood “foreign” accent. The captain’s musings are ignored by the Creature’s latest pursuers.

The Gill-Man’s first appearance in the film is disturbing: He kills a sweet, unassuming exotic bird. (I can’t say for sure whether the noble bird was killed in real life, but it sure looks bad.) The Creature is eventually transplanted to Florida, where his wellbeing

(ABOVE) Posters for the two Creature sequels, Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).

(BELOW) In this colorized promotional still, a quiet moment between John Agar and Lori Nelson from Revenge of the Creature. © Universal Pictures.

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is overseen by two pros, Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson) and Clete Ferguson (John Agar, on a downward career trajectory that will lead inexorably to The Mole People).

A high-strung publicist (Dave Willock) makes like the mayor in Jaws, brushing aside any threat the Creature may pose. “I’ve got every man, woman, and child in the civilized world waiting to meet the Gill-Man,” he bellows. “The hotels are booked for 50 miles around!”

Yet another Kong reference: The Creature is freaked out by flashbulbs. Tourists pose by a life-size cardboard cutout of the monster.

Chained, he swims—more like flails—behind glass as ticket-buyers gawk. This is no life for so majestic a being. When the Creature finally cuts loose and rampages through Marineland, as screaming tourists stampede for the exits, it’s comical and not a little bit meta.

‘THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US’

The anticlimactic third film, directed by John Sherwood, has as much “adult” drama as monstrous goings-on. Wealthy scientist William Barton (Jeff Morrow) funds yet another Creature-finding expedition, in a ship equipped with a tuxedo-clad steward and a piano. Morrow seems bent on speeding up the evolutionary process that spawned his prey. “Gentlemen, the Creature can be changed,” he tells his crew in transparent exposition. “We can make the giant step and bring a new species into existence.”

But Morrow sabotages his own mission by toting along his hotsy-totsy wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden), who fires a rifle at sharks from the deck, to the consternation of the crew. All the while, Marcia emasculates her hubby by flirting openly with any and all susceptible males.

(LEFT) A faithfully sculpted Creature mask and hands marketed by Don Post Studios. © Don Post Studios. (RIGHT) Halloween costume purveyor Ben Cooper was behind this Creature mask. © Ben Cooper. Creature © Universal Pictures.

The Creature as cover boy: Mad Monsters #4. © Charlton Publications. The May 1954 issue of Mechanix Illustrated. © Fawcett Publications.

Monster World #4. © Warren Publishing.

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A cutesie Creature design marketed as an iron-on by Captain Company. © Universal Pictures. © Warren Publishing.

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(TOP) Aurora Plastics’ Creature model kit (1963). © Aurora Plastics Corp. (BOTTOM) Marx’s toy Creature figure (1963). © Marx Toy Co. Creature © Universal Pictures.

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When the Creature (played by Don Megowan on land and Browning underwater) attacks a reconnaissance team, he is dealt with cruelly: doused in gasoline and set aflame. The badly scalded Creature’s scales are burned away to reveal human-like skin, and he now peers through human-like eyes. The Creature undergoes a life-saving tracheotomy, which interferes with his ability to breathe underwater. The “new” (but not improved) Creature is then dressed in glorified pajamas, and spends much of the remainder of the movie moping around within a fenced area—an ignominious destiny.

The Creature was not the first movie monster to take his own life. (Who can forget Boris Karloff declaring, “We belong dead” before pulling the handy Explode-O-Lever in Bride of Frankenstein?)

No longer belonging in either water or land, the forlorn Creature

takes a cue from Fredric March in the 1937 A Star Is Born, and simply walks into the sea. Good night, Gill-Man.

MONSTROUS MERCH

Some quick backstory: The Monster Craze of the Sixties was ignited in 1957, when a package of 52 horror (and horror-ish) movies were aired on TV. For the first time, kiddies were seeing such classics as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy. The Creature movies were not among them. After all, they had only recently been in theaters. [Editor’s note: For more Monster Craze history, see RetroFan #2.]

But in the glut of monster-related merchandise that soon followed, the Creature became a star anew. 1963 alone saw the release of Aurora Plastics’ lovingly sculpted Creature model kit;

Topstone named its Creature knockoff mask “Lagoon Monster,” but fans knew who they were really talking about.

Castle Films’ home movie version of Revenge of the Creature. © Universal Pictures. © Castle Films.

© Topstone Rubber Toys.

Colgate’s “Soaky” bubble-bath toy fashioned after the Creature (1963).

A Creature From the Black Lagoon novel was put out by Dragon Publications in 1954. © Universal

Cover art for Dell’s Creature From the Black Lagoon comic book adaptation. © Universal Pictures. © Dell

© Universal Pictures. © Colgate.

Pictures. © Dragon Publications.

Publishing.

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Marx’s Creature figure that appears to have been rendered by the same talented sculptor; Colgate’s Creature bubble-bath toy; and Hasbro’s Creature-themed board game, The Black Lagoon Mystery Game. A cutesy cartoon of the Gill-Man was among iron-on decals sold through Captain Company, Warren Publishing’s merchandising arm.

Mask-making master Don Post marketed an exquisitely detailed (and accordingly priced) Creature mask. Another mask-making operation, Topstone, specialized in “generic” and “knockoff” monsters, and brought out a “Lagoon Monster” mask that barely eluded lawsuit-level imitation. Halloween costume purveyor Ben Cooper [see RetroFan #2—ed.], too, hopped on the Creature bandwagon.

In print, there was a Creature From the Black Lagoon novel by John Russell Vearn (using the non de plume Vargo Statten), brought out by Dragon Publications in 1954 (in hardback, yet).

The Creature graced the cover of Fawcett Publications’ Mechanix Illustrated (May 1954), Charlton’s Mad Monsters #2 (1962), and Warren’s Monster World #4 (1965, in Vic Prezio art). Dell Publishing brought out a one-shot Creature From the Black Lagoon comic-book adaptation (1963), with a cover painting by Prezio and okay interior artwork.

CAMEOS AND ‘COUSINS’

The Gill-Man appeared in film projects beyond his trio of movies.

In the sex comedy The Seven Year Itch (1955), Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe go on a date to see… Creature From the Black Lagoon. (The Creature can be seen prominently in signage atop the theater.)

The sequence ends with the oft-replayed scene in which Monroe’s billowy skirt is blown upward by a subway vent. (Presumably, this too would have inspired the Creature to go into his backstroke.)

On television, the Creature met Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in an episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour (1954). There was also a Creature cameo of sorts on The Munsters which, as a Universal-produced sitcom, had legal access to all of the classic Universal monsters.

In the 1965 episode “Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights,” the Munsters are visited by their Uncle Gilbert. (Get it? Gilbert?) Uncle Gilbert is dressed, however, so we only see the Creature’s head. (It’s a safe bet the mask was provided by Don Post.)

Then there are what you might call “cousins” of the Creature— movie monsters that remind viewers of the Gill-Man (minus the considerable budget and staff it took to create the Creature costume). Consider, or not, the seaweed-drenched beings in Monster From the Ocean Floor (1954), The She Creature (1956), Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959), Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961), Horror of Party Beach (1964), and Beach Girls Meet the Monster (1965). A Creature surrogate designed by MAD artist Jack Davis appears in Rankin/ Bass’ 1967 puppet-animated theatrical release, Mad Monster Party? [yes, the title ends with a question mark!—ed.].

A parallel trend in the horror genre is the sea monster movie, which includes Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Viking Women

(TOP) Beneath prominent Creature signage, Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe film a scene for The Seven Year Itch (1955). © 20th Century Fox. (MIDDLE) Lou Costello meets the Creature on TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour. © NBC. (BOTTOM) Beloved Uncle Gilbert visits in a first-season episode of The Munsters. © Kayro-Vue Productions.

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and the Sea Serpent (1958), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966). The one sea monster to give the Creature a run for his plankton is Jaws (1975), which spawned dreary imitators like Orca (1977), The Deep (1977), and Piranha (1978). Somehow, this trend continues to the (relatively) modern day with lamentable fare like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009), Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010), Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010), Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011), Piranhaconda (2012), Sharknado (2012), and Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (2014). It pained me to type all those titles.

P.S.: Singer Ariana Grande brightened Halloween 2021 by posting photos of herself on Instagram as “Miss Creature From the Black Lagoon.”

[Editor’s note: Learn more about both Mad Monster Party? and Jawsmania in RetroFan #17!]

MONSTROUS MEMORIES

At first, Julie Adams fretted that doing Creature From the Black Lagoon would be a step down, career-wise. As the actress told me in 2003: “When I first was handed the movie at the studio, I just thought, Creature From the Black Lagoon? I’d worked on many other movies that I enjoyed so much with, you know, James Stewart and Tyrone Power.

But I read the script and I thought, ‘Well, it might be fun.’

“So we did it. We all worked very hard. It was such an enjoyable film to work on. The whole cast was so harmonious, and Jack Arnold was a dream to work with. He made everything seem easy.

For Halloween 2021, singer Arianna Grande shared on Instagram photos of herself as Miss Creature From the Black Lagoon on Instagram. © Arianna Grande.

But we certainly didn’t think that it was going to be some sort of classic. The whole picture somehow works.”

(Adams died in 2019.)

Ricou Browning is the graceful swimmer who played the Creature underwater in all three films.

“The suit, being made of sponge rubber and latex, was buoyant in the water,” Browning told me in 2004. “I had to wear lead weights. I had a little chest plate that I wore, and then I wore something like bi-pads in a football suit made out of lead. I wore some lead around my ankles, to keep my feet from popping up. I would get neutrally buoyant in fresh water. We’d have to change it, of course, when we worked in salt water, because salt water is more buoyant.

“The feet were built out of sponge rubber and latex. But they were too flimsy, because they weren’t like swim fins. So I had them stiffen the bottom of the foot, so that it would work more

(CLOCKWISE, LEFT TO RIGHT) Lobby card for Monster of Piedras Blancas.

Producer Jack Kevan worked on the Creature costume. © Filmservice Distributors Corp. A Creature lookalike in a still from The She-Creature (1956). © American International Pictures.

A comical Creature lookalike in the lowbudget beach-movie parody Horror at Party Beach. © 20th Century Fox. A Creature-inspired design

by MAD artist Jack Davis for the puppet-animated movie Mad Monster Party? © Rankin/Bass Productions.

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like a swim fin than just a foot that flops around. That helped a lot.”

In the films, Browning is seen in the Creature getup swimming underwater for long periods of time without a cutaway. He accomplished this by taking breaths from air hoses hidden off camera or among the vegetation.

“It’s kind of like breathing from an aqualung, but a little more difficult,” Browning said. “I had four safety men. I would breathe from the air hose, and the cameraman would signal that he’s ready.

Then I would let him know I’m ready for the scene. I’d let go of the hose, give it to the safety man, go into the scene, hold my breath, and do the scene—or do as much of the scene as I could—holding my breath.

Then I would go to another safety man on the other side of the ‘frame,’ and get another air hose to breathe from.

“I had a signal with all of the safety men because I was always moving. Either my hands, my legs, or some part of me was always in motion. But if I went totally limp, that was my signal to them: ‘I need air.’ And they would swim in and give me air. That’s how it worked.”

Ben Chapman, who played the Creature on land in the first film, sought guidance from the director. As Chapman told me in 1998: “I asked Jack Arnold, ‘How do you want me to play him?’ He said, ‘I don’t want you to play him as a cartoon.’ In other words, not clump-clump-clump, like they do with a lot of monster movies today. There’s no basic story to it today. There’s no feeling to it.”

Visibility was a problem for Chapman, who said the eyeholes were fashioned in three sizes, depending on the shot.

“Otherwise, I worked with flashlights,” Chapman said. “I would keep the eyes out and rehearse while I could see everything. Then they would put me back on the mark, put the eyes back in—I couldn’t see anything—and I’d walk where they told me to, and follow the light from this flashlight.”

So compromised was Chapman’s vision, he accidentally knocked Adams’ head into a faux cave while carrying her in one scene. The resulting injury required medical attention. (Chapman died in 2008.)

Like Adams, Lori Nelson was less than thrilled when offered the role of the heroine in Revenge of the Creature. As Nelson told me in 1996: “I did not want to do that picture. In those days, you just didn’t do them; you didn’t like to do science fiction or ‘creature features,’ as they were called. But as it turned out, it was a big production. It turned out to be a great source of pride for me.”

One aspect Nelson was proud of: “I did most of my own swimming, and a lot of the skin-diving stuff in the tank. They wanted shots, through the portholes, of me inside the tank. When they put the aqualung on me, and I went down in the tank, there were manta rays and sharks down there! But they were fed every hour,” 24

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Watery relationships: (TOP) Julie Adams and the Creature. © Universal Pictures.

(BOTTOM) Still from Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning homage to the Creature, The Shape of Water (2017). © Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Nelson added with a laugh. “I wasn’t allowed to go down until all the fish had been fed.” (Nelson died in 2020.)

Like some of the classic Universal monsters that preceded him, the Creature evokes sympathy in viewers. Chapman noted that Marilyn Monroe’s character in The Seven Year Itch verbalized this sentiment.

Said Chapman: “When you get to that scene where Marilyn Monroe is coming out of the movie theater with (co-star) Tom Ewell—as they turn and they’re walking towards that grate, just before it blew the dress up—if you look in the back, the marquee has huge letters that say Creature From the Black Lagoon. It has this huge picture of me, this cutout. Marilyn Monroe turns to Tom Ewell and goes, ‘Wasn’t that a sad movie?’ And she says, ‘I felt so sorry for the Creature.’

It’s a great part of the movie.

“The toughest thing for an actor to do is to act without being seen. Because you can’t use any facial expressions. So I had to use body language, so as to make you feel sorry for me. It’s almost like doing mime.”

“There’s a poignancy to our Creature,” agreed Adams.

“I think that’s probably the secret: There’s an empathy there for the Creature. It has elements of a fairy tale about it. The sequence where I’m swimming, and he is swimming beneath me, is very poetic.

“But there’s a mysterious element. There’s that mystery of the water, and what’s under the sea or what’s under this dark lagoon, that appeals to everyone. People have great affection for this film.

So that adds up to affection for the Creature.”

Monroe’s Seven Year Itch character sums it up in the scene cited

by Chapman: “He was kind of scary-looking, but he wasn’t really all bad. I think he just craves a little affection—you know, a sense of being loved and needed and wanted.”

MARK VOGER is the author and designer of five books for TwoMorrows Publishing, including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy, and Holly Jolly. Voger worked in the newspaper field as an entertainment reporter and graphic artist for 40 years, and lives at the Jersey Shore. As a child, Voger thought Laurel and Hardy were cartoon characters, not real people. Visit him at MarkVoger.com.

RETRO TOYS

n o k c u t S e B We’ll Always

BY MICHAEL EURY Patricia and Harry Kislevitz, creators of Colorforms. People of Play.

Mid-century kids’ toy boxes were as gender-segregated as their school restrooms: G.I. Joe, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, and Hot Wheels for him; Barbie, Mystery Date, and Easy Bake Oven for her.

Few toy manufacturers of the era dared cross the pink-and-blue line to create a product that would attract both sexes. One of the most successful that did debuted in the early Fifties and has, well, stuck around ever since, with over a billion (no, that’s not a typo) sets sold—Colorforms®.

While Colorforms will need no definition for the majority of RetroFan’s readers, just in case you somehow missed out on one of Time magazine’s “All Time 100 Greatest Toys,” Colorforms are boxed playsets of multicolored precut vinyl pieces that stick to an illustrated playboard (or “workboard,” in Colorforms-speak), inviting children to create their own pictures—which can then be peeled off and used again and again. An art project in a box. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the Colorforms concept was conceived by a pair of art students.

BATHROOM ART

Harry (1927–2009) and Patricia (1929– ) “Pat” Kislevitz were young illustrators who met in New York

A peek inside the original Colorforms kit, now reissued and available at Amazon and other retailers. © Colorforms Brand LLC.

City in the late Forties. At the time Harry was a World War II Navy veteran living on a G.I. Bill shoestring budget, and Patricia, a South Carolina native, had recently graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in art. While studying at New York City’s Art Students League, they were both smitten by the Mid-Century Modern aesthetic that so influenced postwar design, and decorated their tiny Upper West Side apartment accordingly.

Harry took a fancy to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian abstract-expressionist known for using colorful geometric patterns in his paintings.

A portraitist, Harry found the cost of tubes of oil paints beyond his reach. Plastics were all the rage during this Atomic Age, and Harry thought they might be employed to fill in colors for his large works of art.

An alternate version of the Colorforms origin states that the Kislevitzes were instead searching for an affordable option to wall paint so they might spruce up the drab confines of their narrow, “railroad” apartment.

Both versions intersect with Harry obtaining several large rolls of brightly hued, paper-thin vinyl from a manufacturer to use as an artistic medium. Soon the Kislevitzes’ claustrophobic residence on West 29th Street was crammed with intrusive rolls of vinyl.

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“We had this plastic and we didn’t know exactly what to do with it,” Patricia told John C. Ensslin of NewJersey.com. “It sat there. But we found that if we cut a piece and stuck it on anything, a mirror, a glass, a shiny plate, any shiny surface, it would adhere to that.” They also discovered that those plastic pieces could be removed and reapplied in a different spot.

So the Kislevitzes snipped geometric and artistic shapes and whipped up an art exhibit in the most unusual of places—their apartment’s bathroom. Patricia painted the bathroom in orange enamel, and the couple decorated the room by adhering hand-cut plastic forms to its walls. For fun they left behind a pair of scissors and additional vivid strips of vinyl so that visitors could join in on their work-in-progress.

Harry and Patricia quickly discovered that their cheapo “canvas” was a crowd-pleaser. When entertaining artsy guests, “Our friends would go in and do the most marvelous Matisse

(TOP) It yam what it yam, and it yam Colorforms’ first licensed “Cartoon Kit,” Popeye, from 1957. (BOTTOM) Popeye Goes Swimming, released in 1963, combined traditional vinyl colorform pieces with figural photography. Note that designer Dick Martin’s credit appears on the box. Popeye © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

Enter the Fortress of Toyitude! Colorforms’ 1964 Superman Cartoon Kit featured box art by Curt Swan and George Klein and a black-and-white “workboard” surface evoking the spirit of the Fifties’ Adventures of Superman live-action TV show. Superman TM & © DC Comics. From the collection of Michael Eury.

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Extraordinary illustrations like this one by an unidentified artist were a hallmark of licensed Colorforms kits of the Sixties. From a 1964 Munsters kit. The Munsters © Kayro-Vue Productions. Original art courtesy of Heritage.

things on the wall. And they’d never come out [of the bathroom],” Patricia told the L.A. Times’ Sheila Hotchkins in a 2001 interview. “I think we’ve got something here,” her husband smiled to her.

And so the Kislevitzes decided to market their invention—but not as a toy.

Instead, they conceived their creation as a home medium for artists. Working from Patricia’s designs, from the rolls of vinyl the couple hand-cut shapes of simple objects like bottles and thimbles and created a prototype. Patricia coined their invention’s name: “Let’s call it what it is: color forms.”

With the Colorforms prototype under his arm, Harry pounded the pavement to different retailers in the Big Apple, and brokered a deal to launch Colorforms through the legendary Manhattan toy retailer, FAO Schwartz, which ordered 1,000 units. FAO Schwartz pressured Kislevitz for exclusive marketing rights for Colorforms, but Harry, realizing the product’s potential even at that early stage, declined the exclusive.

The initial Colorforms set first marketed in 1951 consisted of five sheets of geometric shapes—circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles—in red, blue, yellow, green, and

Colorforms plant manager Pat Dinitto operating a die-cutting machine at the company’s Norwood, New Jersey, factory, Februrary 1965.

The Record, Hackensack, New Jersey, February 26, 1965 edition. Staff photo by Carl Di Piazza.

white, plus a spiral-bound booklet with pages of different colors as work areas.

The items were packaged inside an elegant black box of Patricia’s design. The husbandand-wife duo produced those first 1,000 in their apartment, silkscreening the colors, but sending the sheets out to a vendor to be die-cut.

Colorforms became an instant hit among artists of varying skill levels as well as hobbyists, but the simplicity of Colorforms and their vivid colors proved attractive to children.

Initially directing an expansion of the Colorforms line from their apartment, Harry handled marketing, while Patricia managed product development. Before long, the couple moved out of their apartment and across the river to New Jersey,

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts were perennial Colorforms favorites. Shown here are the original box art to the Snoopy’s Beagle Scouts set from the Seventies, and its color proof. Peanuts and Snoopy © Peanuts Worldwide LLC. Courtesy of Heritage.

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Legendary graphic designer and art director Paul Rand (LEFT) created the colorful Colorforms logo in 1959—and while it’s been slightly modified in recent years, it’s still in use today! © Colorforms Brand LLC. expanding their operation and eventually settling into a River Edge home. Their muddled basement was their business and creative headquarters, although a multi-building factory in neighboring Norwood later followed for Colorforms production.

‘NO SCISSORS, NO PASTE, NO MUSS’

Patricia began to employ bright colors of vinyl that were pleasing to children, and Deluxe Colorforms sets were created in the Fifties that included kid-friendly forms such as boats and clowns.

The spiral-bound original Colorforms booklet morphed into the slick-coated paper workboards, which consumers were told to “just wipe with a damp cloth from time to time” to maintain their efficacy. New kits provided educational value. Funny Animals sets were favorites of young girls and boys. Gender-skewed kits also catered to each of the sexes. Girls could play with the Dress Designer Kit—a stick-on upgrade of the classic, perennial favorite, the paper doll—which came packaged with three plastic dolls and colorform sheets of various clothing and accessories, while boys could design their own rockets and spacecraft with the Spaceforms set of 1958—which today is among the rarest of Colorforms collectibles!

Most of the artwork for the earliest Colorforms sets was produced by Patricia and Harry Kislevitz themselves, or by artists the couple commissioned for projects. Harry Zelenko was one of those contracted artists, creating the first Colorforms logo that appeared on early packaging and, along with his wife, Marion Zelenko, designing the Junior Dress Designer kit.

In 1957, Colorforms introduced its first original character with its Miss Cookie’s Kitchen (full title: Come Into Miss Cookie’s Kitchen) set. Girls (and possibly some boys destined to become chefs) assisted Miss Cookie in filling the fridge, stocking the cupboard, and staging the presentation of meals by using stick-on pieces.

Miss Cookie’s Kitchen, a deluxe-sized set that originally sold for $1.98, got a boost from a television commercial that spoke 28

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more to moms than their daughters with its opening narration, “Here’s the way to play kitchen, and never make a mess. Listening, Mother?” (Come Into Miss Cookie’s Playroom later followed, and Cookie’s galley and pantry got an aerospace makeover with Miss Cookie’s Moon Kitchen in 1969, the year Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took his famous “one giant leap for mankind.”)

Also in 1957, Colorforms released its first “Cartoon Kit” based upon a licensed property—the longtime animated favorite Popeye the Sailor, licensed from King Features Syndicate. In addition to the Popeye box top’s standard marketing copy touting the ease of Colorforms’ use (“no paint, no paste, no scissors”), its graphics conveyed the squinty mariner’s personality by having Popeye himself (in a word balloon) tout the joy of Colorforms: “Blow me down! Even I yam a’ artisk with these magic plastic shapes!” The kit itself featured colorforms of Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto, plus word balloons, in fun shades of orange, pink, green, and blue vinyl.

By this time in the late Fifties, more properties with TV visibility became Colorforms sets, including Bugs Bunny in 1958. Captain Kangaroo, CBS-TV’s grandfatherly morning kid-show host, and Lariat Sam, the animated cowboy whose toons appeared on the Captain Kangaroo program, were also early licensed entries for Colorforms, as was The Mickey Mouse Club. Television commercials kept the burgeoning Colorforms product line in the public eye.

In 1959, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz tapped Paul Rand, a lauded graphic designer responsible for creating corporate logos that have since become iconic (see sidebar), to put a “face” their product.

Cleverly applying the simple shapes of a blue triangle (for a hat), a yellow half-circle (for a face), and a pink square (for a body), Rand

‘EVERYTHING IS DESIGN!’ Born Peretz Rosenbaum in Brooklyn, New York, art director-graphic designer Paul Rand (1914–1996) enlivened mid-century American visual arts and corporate iconography by infusing innovative European design elements into his work. Through a career spanning six decades, Rand regarded graphic design as a “universal language,” combining geometric shapes and identifiable typography into his work. In addition to his creation of the timeless Colorforms logo, Rand also designed corporate logos for ABC Television, IBM, Enron, UPS, Westinghouse, Steve Jobs’ NeXT, and other firms.

retro toys

designed a happy figure to symbolize the Colorforms brand and an accompanying logo that has withstood the test of time and is still used today. Rand also designed some Colorforms sets.

In the early Sixties, the Kislevitzes sometimes printed their commissioned artists’ credits on the box tops. Credited artists/ designers from this era include Jerome Kuhl (Captain Kangaroo), James Caraway (Beany & Cecil), and Dick Martin (Huckleberry Hound, Popeye Goes Swimming).

With the advent of licensed properties, the Mid-Century Modern aesthetic of primary colors and geometric shapes that dominated the original and early Colorforms slowly gave way to graphics that mirrored the looks of their host properties—although the brightly hued, simple forms that defined the initial sets continued to be visible in company-owned concepts such as the Sixties favorite, the Dinosaurs kit. Similar to the sculpted puppets and dioramas constructed for 3-D View-Master reels, with select licensed properties Colorforms featured figural photography for the workboards.

Yogi Bear and two Popeye sets—Popeye the Weatherman and Popeye Goes Swimming—were produced in this manner.

OUTER SPACE MEN One of the more popular toy creations of Mel Birnkrant (1937– ) was his design of the Outer Space Men, an actionfigure line produced from 1968–1970 by Colorforms. Author James H. Gillam, in his book Space Toys of the 60’s (1999, CG Publishing, Ltd.), wrote, “These figures, as with the Major Matt Mason line of toys, were made of a pliable rubber compound molded over a wire metal skeletal framework. The wires seem to have held up well in many cases, and appear to be of better quality than the Major Matt Mason line that it attempted to emulate.”

In addition to two series of Outer Space Men figures (listed below), Colorforms also produced the Birnkrantdesigned Space Warriors Colorforms Adventure Set released during 1977’s Star Wars mania, and jigsaw puzzles featuring the characters.

A PRODUCT LINE TAKES SHAPE

(TOP) Beatlemania inspired this hard-to-find 1966 Colorforms Cartoon Kit based upon the animated cartoon series, The Beatles. (BOTTOM) Batmania inspired not only a 1966 Batman Cartoon Kit but also other, non-“stick-on” Colorforms Batman products, like Print Putty. Colorforms also produced Print Putty products for the Green Hornet and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. The Beatles © Apple Corp. Batman TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

© Colorforms Brand LLC.

The company manufactured a variety of arts-and-crafts activity sets in the early Sixties, often exploiting popular character licenses.

A child could color their favorite trio of knuckleheads with Colorforms’ Three Stooges Pencil Coloring Set or produce ink-page

OUTER SPACE MEN SERIES ONE f Alpha 7 – The Man from Mars f Electron+ – The Man from Pluto f Orbitron – The Man from Uranus f Colossus Rex – The Man from Jupiter f Astro-Nautilus – The Man from Neptune f Commander Comet – The Man from Venus f Xodiac – The Man from Saturn

OUTER SPACE MEN SERIES TWO f Cyclops – The Giant beyond the Milky Way f Gamma-X – The Man from the 4th Dimension f Gemini – The Man from the Twin Star ALGOL f Inferno – The Flame Man of Mercury f Metamorpho – The Man from Alpha Centauri f Mystron – The Man from Hollow Earth

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wife co-managed Boutique Fantastique, a New York business that handcrafted what Birnkrant called on his website “authentic reproductions” of “antique toys and music boxes that never existed in the first place.”

Renowned today for his extraordinary collection of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, Birnkrant received a phone call in 1964 from Colorforms’ Harry Kislevitz, whom he described as “a brilliant, complex individual with an insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge.”

Kislevitz wanted Birnkrant to bring new ideas to the company. “He had tasted success with Colorforms,” Birnkrant said, “and now, rather than build upon it, he wanted to do something new.” Birnkrant—never an official employee of Colorforms, instead a freelance “creative director” consultant paid in product royalties—was involved with the development of new concepts, including Tina the Talking Paper Doll, Inch Worm, and the Flower Xylophone.

Birnkrant brainstormed several boys’ (LEFT) Yes, that’s a young Brooke Shields as the child model on the photo toys that played upon current trends, and to box for Colorforms’ Seventies Ballerina Barbie Dress-Up Kit! (RIGHT) David this day remain on contemporary collectors’ Cassidy is ready for his groovy stick-on fashions in his Colorforms kit, want lists. The Sixties super-hero craze, which produced during the heyday of his TV hit, The Partridge Family. Barbie © Mattel. brought Batman and Green Hornet cartoon kits to Colorforms, inspired Birnkrant to illustrations with the Shari Lewis & Her Friends Printer Set. At design supplemental items such as the Batman Shadow Light and one time or another, Colorforms has produced both crayon and Green Hornet Signal Ray. The decade’s Space Race led him to create colored-pencil coloring sets, paint sets, sparkle art sets, chalk sets, Colorforms’ Outer Space Men, rubbery alien figures in the vein of metal-tapping sets, wallet-crafting sets, and Paint-It-Yourself Mattel’s popular Major Matt Mason line (see RetroFan #5 for the Christmas Cards, among other products.

Matt Mason story). Birnkrant continued to roll out innovations for But the stick-on playsets remained Colorforms’ bread-andthe company until the mid-Eighties; his website (melbirnkrant.com) butter, and licensed properties became more common—The is bursting with information and extraordinary images from his Addams Family, Beany & Cecil, The Beatles (animated cartoon), The Colorforms days, as well as photos of his Mickey Mouse collection Beverly Hillbillies, Dick Tracy, Family Affair, The Jetsons, The Munsters, and histories of other aspects of his remarkable career.

Rocky and His Friends (followed by Bullwinkle), Supercar, and Over the years, Colorforms has also manufactured its own Superman were among the popular television series adapted to board games, some of which employed stick-on pieces. Fondly Colorforms kits during this era. remembered is 1979’s Don’t Tip the Waiter, a standee of a restaurant Nonetheless, in 1965, Miss Cookie was joined by another original server whose tray, when loaded with player-placed colorform pieces, character, Miss Weather, in a kit that taught children about climamight topple and lose the game for that player. Other Colorforms tological conditions through interchangeable pieces representing games have included the baseball game Play Ball! and Colorforms fair and foul weather and appropriate clothing. Colorforms’ Miss variants of classic board games including Monopoly Weather was updated from time to time in the decades that followed. While Miss Weather has remained Colorforms’ chief meteorologist, at least two licensed characters also got into the weather-forecasting act with the Popeye the Weatherman and How’s the Weather, Lucy? (from Peanuts) cartoon kits. (Similarly, Miss Cookie has had culinary kinship from Colorforms’ Sesame Street–licensed Cookie Monster’s Kitchen set.)

Mel Birnkrant began an influential partnership with Colorforms in the mid-Sixties. He and his

Star Trek got the Colorforms treatment in the Seventies. Star Trek © CBS Studios, Inc. 30

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and Candy Land, with stick-on colorforms as playing pieces.

Yet the licensed-property Colorforms stick-on sets continued to reign, the Seventies introducing additions to the line including Barbie, Buck Rogers, Charlie’s Angels, CHiPs, David Cassidy, Disco Snoopy, Donny & Marie, The Fonz, KISS, Mork & Mindy, Scooby-Doo, Sesame Street, Space: 1999, Star Trek, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Eighties Colorforms licenses included ALF, The A-Team, Cabbage Patch Kids, California Raisins, Dungeons & Dragons, E.T., Garfield, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Knight Rider, Masters of the Universe, Michael Jackson, Mr. T, (LEFT) Colorforms updated its Miss Cookie Kitchen to a lunar locale in 1969. (RIGHT) Muppet Babies, My Little Pony, 1977’s Star Wars box-office success led to Colorforms’ re-presentation of its Outer Space Pac-Man, and Transformers. Some Men action figures as a stick-on set in this Space Warriors kit. © Colorforms Brand LLC. of those Eighties properties also appeared as Shrinky Dinks® kits friction at the organization, left Colorforms and relocated to produced by Colorforms. Shrinky Dinks, the art-craft kits where Southern California. Patricia, whose Southern poise often quelled plastic sheets of images would reduce in size after being baked in an oven, premiered elsewhere in 1973 but were produced under the the chaos churned up by her husband, stayed behind in New Jersey to continue overseeing Colorforms. The Kislevitzes’ sons took over Colorforms umbrella during the Eighties. from their mom upon her retirement, in the late Eighties selling The classic Colorforms playsets spawned myriad variations the company to the Canada-created Toy Biz, which soon thereafter that refreshed the stick-on concept, including Play House and Doll became a subsidiary of Marvel Comics during a tumultuous time in House sets, Sew-Ons, Magic Glow Colorforms, “Lace and Dress” Marvel’s corporate life. Colorforms soon changed ownership again Dancing Dolls, Puppetforms, Colorfelts, Stand-Up Colorforms, upon its acquisition by the San Francisco–based University Games.

Panorama Play Sets, 3D Fashion Theater sets, holographic stickers, With each passing decade, Colorforms sets were produced World’s Largest Colorforms sets, and interactive Colorforms books. reflecting the kid-friendly franchises of the day: Blue’s Clues, New Kids on the Block, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Teenage COLORFORMS WILL STICK AROUND FOREVER! Mutant Ninja Turtles, Urkel, and Where’s Waldo in the Nineties, Changes were in store for the Colorforms company in the Eighties. and beginning in the 2000s, Dora the Explorer, Harry Potter, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz divorced. Harry, an impassioned SpongeBob SquarePants, and lots of Disney tie-ins. creative force prone to bipolar tendencies that sometimes caused Colorforms got a new lease on life in 2014 when it was purchased by Colorforms Brand LLC, a division of children’s media giant Out of the Blue Enterprises LLC, producer of hit television STICKY BUSINESS series for preschoolers including Blue’s Clues and Daniel Tiger’s So, you finally added that elusive Colorforms set (The Neighborhood. In 2015, Colorform Brands LLC revitalized the product Beatles? The Green Hornet? Or maybe you’re an Urkel colline with upgrades more appealing to the easily distracted eyes of lector…) to your curio cabinet… but were bummed that its contemporary children: glitter, glow-in-the-dark, and even sound vinyl pieces had lost their ability to cling. Decades of dust effects. Two classics were reintroduced: a reissue of the original accumulation can adversely affect Colorforms pieces’ Colorforms set and an updating of Miss Weather. Despite compeability to stick to surfaces. tition from no end of interactive toys and videogames, the tactile But fear not! According to Athena Hessong, contribappeal of Colorforms—what kid doesn’t love stickers?—and the utor to OurPastimes.com, “If your Colorforms no longer acquisition of hot properties continues today, keeping alive what stick, do not throw them away. There is a single, simple toy historians have dubbed the perfect “rainy day toy.” way to get your Colorforms to stick like new again.”

Yet no matter what innovations await the Colorforms playsets, its Hessong recommends bathing the Colorforms pieces artistic roots have been immortalized: The prototypical Colorforms in a bowl of soapy water, thoroughly rinsing them, then set crafted by Patricia Kislevitz in the early Fifties now permanently allowing them to air-dry. resides in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. For a step-by-step description of her method, check out her “Make Colorforms Stick Again” post on (FOLLOWING PAGES) A montage of Colorforms OurPastimes.com. licensed properties from the RetroFan years. © Colorforms Brand LLC. Characters © their respective copyright holders.

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Pop Culture Books from TwoMorrows!

BRITMANIA

by RetroFan’s MARK VOGER

Remember when long-haired British rock ’n’ rollers made teenage girls swoon — and their parents go crazy? BRITMANIA plunges into the period when suddenly, America went wild for All Things British. This profusely illustrated full-color hardback, subtitled “The British Invasion of the Sixties in Pop Culture,” explores the movies (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, HAVING A WILD WEEKEND), TV (THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR), collectibles (TOYS, GAMES, TRADING CARDS, LUNCH BOXES), comics (real-life Brits in the DC and MARVEL UNIVERSES) and, of course, the music!

Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, GROOVY, HOLLY JOLLY), BRITMANIA features interviews with members of THE BEATLES, THE ROLLING STONES, THE WHO, THE KINKS, HERMAN’S HERMITS, THE YARDBIRDS, THE ANIMALS, THE HOLLIES & more. It’s a gas, gas, gas!

(192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-115-8 • NOW SHIPPING!

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Monster Mash • Groovy • Holly Jolly Normally 120, get this specially-priced trio for only $ 99.95! $

Save $24!

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

Since 2000, FROM THE TOMB has terrified readers worldwide. This second “Best of” collection of the UK’s preeminent magazine on the history of horror comics uncovers Atomic Comics lost to the Cold War, rarely seen (and censored) British horror comics, the early art of RICHARD CORBEN, GOOD GIRLS of a bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH, BRUCE JONES’ Alien Worlds, HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL, and a myriad of terrors from beyond the stars and the shadows of our own world! It features comics they tried to ban, from ATLAS, CHARLTON, COMIC MEDIA, DC, EC, HARVEY, HOUSE OF HAMMER, KITCHEN SINK, LAST GASP, PACIFIC, SKYWALD, WARREN, and more! Edited by PETER NORMANTON. (192-page Trade Paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490816 (Digital Edition) $10.99

HERO-A-GO-GO!

HERO-A-GO-GO! celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. RETROFAN magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPER-FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!”

CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, Spider-Man), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), and more!

(272-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $36.95 ISBN: 9781605490731 (Digital Edition) $13.99

AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s) From The Small Screen To The Printed Page

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. If you loved watching The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, The Andy Griffith Show, The Monkees, The Mod Squad, Adam-12, Battlestar Galactica, The Bionic Woman, Alf, Fraggle Rock, and “V”—there’s something here for fans of TV and comics alike.

(192-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605491073 (Digital Edition) $15.99

THE BEST OF FROM THE TOMB This first collection compiles features from its ten years of terror, along with new material meant for the NEVER-PUBLISHED #29 • (192-page Digital Edition) $10.99

LOU SCHEIMER

CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION

Biography of the co-founder of Filmation Studios, which created the first DC cartoons with Superman, Batman, and Aquaman, ruled the song charts with The Archies, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmy-winning Star Trek: The Animated Series, taught morals with Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and swung into high adventure with Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, live-action shows Shazam! and The Secrets of Isis, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Written by LOU SCHEIMER, with RetroFan’s ANDY MANGELS. (288-page Digital Edition) $14.99

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Pop History.

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Who Created

BY WILL MURRAY

?

In the summer of 1968, an amazing British television show was broadcast over American TV: The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. It was an electrifying show, and despite its surreal and unsatisfactory—some say infuriating—conclusion, by popular demand, acclaim or whatever, CBS reran it the following summer.

Those viewers who missed it the first time had a rare opportunity to become enamored with or outraged by it. Being an impressionable teenager at the time, I was as mesmerized as anyone.

In the half-century-plus since The Prisoner first aired, innumerable articles and multiple books have been written on the subject.

The meaning of the show and the enigma of its denouement have been endlessly argued about, dissected, and rehashed.

Since that cottage industry is still going strong, there’s no reason this column can’t delve into the interminable controversy all over again.

HE’S A SECRET AGENT, MAN

Television series were done differently in Great Britain than in the U.S. The seasons were shorter. Shows often followed an arc that led to a natural conclusion, and no matter how high the ratings were,

(ABOVE) Screen capture from the opening, series logo, and character montage from the cerebral, and some say confounding, one-season series, The Prisoner. © ITC Entertainment Inc. RETROFAN

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that was that. No more episodes were filmed. Typically, a British series ran 13 episodes.

In this case, 17 episodes of The Prisoner were produced. CBS declined to show one of them because the network thought it would be too confusing to American viewers. But a few years later, PBS reran the series and finally the U.S. audience got to see the forbidden episode, entitled “Living in Harmony.”

Patrick McGoohan was a rising star in British TV in 1960 when he was cast as John Drake in the ITC series, Danger Man. In its original two-season incarnation, Drake was an agent of NATO working out of Washington, D.C. After having run its course, Danger Man left the air. Then the James Bond craze kicked in. McGoohan had been offered the part of Bond, but turned it down. Likewise he declined the role of Simon Templar in the British-produced Saint TV series [see RetroFan #14], which went to Roger Moore, later Sean Connery’s successor as Agent 007.

Producer Sir Lew Grade brought back Danger Man as an hourlong show. McGoohan resumed the role, increasingly making it his own. In the second series, the concept was reformulated. Drake now worked for M9, a British Intelligence ministry.

The show was syndicated worldwide, making the actor a rising international star. In America, the show was renamed Secret Agent, and Johnny Rivers’ theme song became a huge hit. One line—“They’ve given you a number and taken away your name”— would later prove ironic.

Danger Man was rolling along when it went into its fourth season, the first to be a shot in color. Then its star threw a monkey wrench into the production. Even though Patrick McGoohan had made the character his own, investing John Drake with some of his own personality quirks—including his refusal to carry a gun or kiss a girl on-screen, which the actor saw as a response to the excesses of James Bond and his imitators—the actor had had enough of the role.

McGoohan was the hottest star in Great Britain at the time. Sir Lew Grade didn’t want to lose him.

So he did something unusual. He gave the actor carte blanche to produce his own TV series, making McGoohan executive producer.

‘THE VILLAGE’ PEOPLE

As so often happens, both McGoohan and his script editor, George Markstein, later disagreed about the genesis of the series.

For years, the actor had been thinking of a project focusing on the individual versus bureaucracy. No doubt that’s true. He was a guy who nearly became a Jesuit priest before embarking upon his acting career.

Markstein was rumored to have had a background in Intelligence, which he steadfastly denied. Indisputably, he knew a lot about the subject. He became aware of the existence of a secret spot in Scotland called Inverlair Lodge, a luxury prison where the British government forcibly retired Intelligence operators who knew too much to be allowed to remain at liberty.

Markstein believed that in the Cold War climate of the Sixties, here was a great springboard for a TV series.

McGoohan agreed. The Danger Man pilot had been filmed in a Welsh hotel village called Portmeirion Lodge, which often doubled 36

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(TOP) Was TV’s John Drake actually Number Six? What do you think? Patrick McGoohan photo cover for Gold Key Comics’ Secret Agent #1 (Nov. 1966). (BOTTOM) Patrick McGoohan as Number Six at the groupthink getaway (or is that “Go Away”?), The Village. © ITC Entertainment Inc.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

McGoohan (SITTING) as Number Six, Angelo Muscat (RIGHT) as the Butler, and Leo McKern (INSET) as Number Two. © ITC Entertainment Inc.

for a Mediterranean town due to its unusual Italianate architecture. McGoohan was so impressed by the place that six years later, Portmeirion became an Inverlair Lodge simulacrum cryptically known as “The Village.”

“This was a setting that could be beautiful enough, mysterious and often confining enough, to be the place for our man… in isolation,” stated McGoohan.

The premise was straightforward. A nameless British intelligence agent angrily resigns, giving his letter of resignation to an equally anonymous bureaucrat played by Markstein himself.

Returning home, he packs for a vacation when a jet-spray of gas squirts in through a keyhole, knocking him out.

Upon awakening, his immediate surroundings lead him to believe he’s still in his London flat. But when he looks out the window, he’s staring out at a picturesque storybook village.

Exploring this new environment, he discovers that the inhabitants have numbers instead of names, and he’s been assigned Number Six, which he angrily rejects with his defiant mantra, “I am not a number, I am a free man!” Summoned to a dominant building topped by a green dome, he’s met by a seemingly mute, diminutive

butler, who escorts him into the futuristic office-chamber of the chairman of The Village, a man known only as Number Two. Two wants to know why he resigned. Number Six refuses to say.

And so begins the contest of wills between Six and the outwardly benign yet sinister authoritative bureaucracy that controls The Village.

Number Two wants to first break Number Six, get him to reveal his secrets, and then force him to conform to Village life. But without harming him. The Prisoner’s sole goal is to escape, which he later modifies. He also wants to return and flatten The Village, which he considers anti-individual, and therefore evil.

Behind it all is the shadowy, mysterious Number One, whom the successive Number Twos fear. When they are inevitably replaced, it’s usually in punishment for their failures. Paranoia dominates the lives of both the prisoners and their warders.

WHO IS NUMBER SIX?

Number Six’s circumstances parallel McGoohan’s abrupt resignation from Danger Man at the beginning of its first color season.

Naturally, one wondered if the Number Six was in reality John Drake.

McGoohan always denied this, quipping, “He was never called John Drake, he just happened to look like him.”

But the truth is more complicated. Other participants, such as Markstein, claimed that he was, and early scripts signified the protagonist as “Drake.” This was later changed to “P,” for Prisoner.

Many have pointed out that the photograph of Patrick McGoohan which is X’d out by a typewriter in the opening sequence RETROFAN

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(LEFT) The mysterious yet beautiful Village where Number Six trusts no one. (RIGHT) There is no escape. The Rover captures all. (BELOW) The residents of The Village are under constant surveillance. © ITC Entertainment Inc. is a production still from Danger Man, depicting John Drake. There are other indications of a connection, equally as oblique.

McGoohan frankly admitted later on he didn’t use the name John Drake because he didn’t want to pay royalties to Danger Man creator Ralph Smart. This suggests that initially John Drake and Number Six are identical. But the production scrupulously avoided naming the Prisoner.

During the course of the first episode, Number Two hands off the reins of power to a new Number Two, setting the stage for a revolving door approach to that role. In fact, the only other regularly recurring character was played by Angelo Muscat, in the role of the diminutive Butler. He never spoke. And his role in the series is enigmatic to the very end. Suggestively, he has no number or name.

“There was always the possibility that he might be Number One,” McGoohan later observed. “Because he was always at the side of Number Two, there should have been an implication that perhaps he was a sinister character.”

Despite its quaint architecture, The Village is a hive of futuristic surveillance. Cameras are everywhere. Finding three sides blocked by mountains, the Prisoner escapes by the sea, only to be intercepted by Rover, a giant white blob that polices the inhabitants.

Originally, Rover was an advanced hovercraft. But when delivered to the set, the prototype was woefully inadequate. Rover couldn’t run out into the water like a hovercraft, and it wasn’t able to climb walls as intended. When production designer Bernie Williams got into the thing, which looked like a flying saucer with a blue police light on top, he couldn’t see through the narrow driver’s port to navigate safely, and the motor fumes almost overcame him.

Filming stopped dead.

No one knew what to do. McGoohan and Williams were discussing the problem, then one of them looked up and noticed a flock of meteorological balloons floating by. The clock was ticking, so the production raced to acquire 200 weather balloons 38

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and fill them full of whatever gas was needed to make them function in a particular scene. With added sound effects of roaring, it worked!

Even though he later claimed to have rewritten it, McGoohan said that he thought Markstein’s “Arrival” was the best pilot script he had ever read. He sat down to write his first episode, “Free for All.” Other writers were enlisted to pen three other scripts.

These writers later said that they were given unprecedented freedom to conceive novel storylines to explore The Village. Most recalled that no one bothered to give him the series a writers guide.

They were flying blind.

MORE THAN ONE NUMBER TWO

“Arrival” and “Free for All” were shot back-to-back. Then reality began hammering the production schedule.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(TOP AND MIDDLE) Are they all pawns in an unknowable game? (BOTTOM) Number Six found himself combating a variety of Number Twos. Here Number Two is portrayed

by Eric Portman. © ITC Entertainment Inc.

There were problems with “Checkmate,” wherein Six is beginning to navigate the tricky issue of which of his fellow villagers are prisoners like him, and which are spies keeping an eye on everyone.

So it was put aside pending reshoots. After reviewing the first cut of the “Dance of the Dead,” McGoohan felt it didn’t work and ordered it permanently shelved. It was an important episode in the sense that the thrust of the story involved a body that washed up on The Village’s beach being surgically altered to stand in for Six’s own corpse. Thus, the outside world would believe that the nameless intelligence agent now called Number Six no longer lived.

This significant detail was later lost in the rush of production, because in subsequent stories, when the character managed to reach London, his reported death was never referenced.

Subsequently, production returned to the episode with the result that “Dance of the Dead” was salvaged in editing and finally telecast much later in production order than originally intended.

Consequently, the fifth episode filmed, “The Chimes of Big Ben,” ended up running as the second episode aired. It was the first episode in which the Prisoner actually escaped The Village.

Periodically, this was done both for practical reasons and to inject variety into the episodes. Filming in Portmeirion was challenging because it was an active hotel and production had to work around staff, guests, and their activities. On another level, it was believed that the show needed to step outside of The Village from time to time to avoid becoming claustrophobic.

The same dual thinking drove the frequent changes of Number Twos. By rotating that role, guest-stars could be brought in to liven up the episodes and give variety to the Prisoner’s main antagonist.

“It was a very brilliant idea,” commented Anton Rodgers, who played the role in “The Schizoid Man.” “The whole premise was, ‘Would this week’s Number Two succeed when the others had failed in cracking this man’s psyche?’”

The producers also felt that Number Two needed to change periodically for story purposes. Otherwise, Number Six and Number Two could start to figure out one another, altering their relationship in ways that undermined the dramatic tension of the protagonist’s situation.

Leo McKern played Number Two in “The Chimes of Big Ben” and was held over for the next episode, which was filmed as “Degree Absolute.” Here, production hit its first insurmountable wall. McGoohan and McKern fell too deeply into their characters, with the result that McKern had a nervous breakdown before the episode finished shooting.

“Leo McKern came in on short notice to do it,” recalled McGoohan. “It was mainly a two-hander, a brainwashing thing. He was trying to brainwash me and then the end Number Six turns the tables. Leo, one lunchtime, went up to his dressing room, and I went to see the rushes. I knew he was tired. I went up to the dressing room to tell him how good I thought he’d been in the rushes. And he was curled up in the [fetal] position on his couch there. And he says, ‘Go away. Go away. I don’t wanna see you again.’

I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘I’ve just ordered two doctors,’ he says, ‘and they’re coming over. Go away!’

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“And he had! And he didn’t work for three days. He’d gone. He cracked, which was very interesting. It was terrific pressure.”

Leo McKern remembered, “He was difficult, nearly impossible to work with, a dreadful bully, always shouting and screaming and yelling about the place.” Yet McKern also admitted, “That was great fun, even though it was agony.”

“Degree Absolute” had to be shelved until McKern recovered.

This turned out to be crucial to resolving the series when the time came, many months later. McGoohan scripted this one.

SIXTIES SPY-FI

As production moved forward, the focus veered in the direction of what is today called Spy-Fi—espionage stories in which science-fiction elements loomed large. This was the territory of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and James Bond.

And it made sense for the times, with the Space Race underway and computers beginning to emerge as a fact of modern life.

“The Schizoid Man” was an ingenious episode in which Number Six’s memory is partially erased and other manipulations occur. When he awakens, his captors treat him as if he is Number Twelve, a double assigned to break Six. After this charade, his exact duplicate is introduced—as Number Six. The idea is to make him question his own identity, and thereby break him.

Many episodes ended with Six being outwitted, and finding himself still a prisoner. This was one of the few exceptions.

Another notable variation was “Hammer into Anvil.” After witnessing the suicide of a female prisoner who couldn’t take a rough interrogation by a particularly sadistic Number Two played

by Patrick Cargill, Six targets Two for psychological countermeasures, with the objective of forcing him to crack.

“It’s Your Funeral” is more conventional. Even here, it puts the Prisoner in a unique position. Learning of an assassination plot targeting an outgoing Number Two, Six struggles to convince the older man of the danger. His motive is to avoid the inevitable reprisals that will fall on all of his fellow prisoners.

Actor Darren Nesbit, who played the incoming Number Two, later expressed his confusion upon reading the script. Conferring with the director didn’t help. Robert Asher didn’t understand the series, either!

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Upon screening the first episode, Asher became even more confused, which didn’t help Nesbit figure out how to approach the part.

As Nesbit recounted, “McGoohan came up to me and said, ‘This is not a comedy. You look like you don’t know what it’s about!’ I said, “I’ve got no bloody idea what it’s about. You tell me what it’s about.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m not sure.’ So I played my Number two thoroughly confused.”

“A Change of Mind” reverts into science-fiction themes, as does “A, B and C” and “The General,” both of which co-starred Colin Gordon as a nervous and paranoid Number Two. As with the back-to-back Leo McKern episodes, these were not telecast in production order, disrupting continuity.

In “A Change of Mind” and “A, B and C,” entirely different efforts are made to penetrate Six’s psyche.

“The General” concerns an advanced method of teaching by subliminal suggestion, but with a sinister twist. The number of episodes where various types of mind control and behavior modification are employed is surprising in such a short-lived series, but all of them fit the theme, and the variety of schemes remains ingenious. As were Number Six’s methods of thwarting them.

“Many Happy Returns” was written to close out the planned first series of 13 episodes. It was another one that tried to break out of the confines of filming at Portmeirion.

Artist Paul Mann illustrated One morning, Number this extraordinary montage Six wakes up to find The for this Prisoner 50th Village entirely deserted.

Anniversary limited edition Alone, he builds a raft in poster, produced in 2017. © ITC order to sail to civilization.

Entertainment Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

After several dangerous incidents, he reaches London, where his story of The Village is not believed by his former supervisors. They wonder if he has gone over to the other side.

This intriguing episode concludes in its usual typical fashion: All is not as it seems, and Six is once again the Prisoner.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

LIFE BEYOND ‘THE VILLAGE’

This episode, which was entirely silent until the second act, was meant to set the stage for a second season of 17 shows, which would have explored the concept of the entire world as The Village.

The series was going to move beyond Portmeirion as its principal setting.

However, production pressures, as well as financial constraints, changed the trajectory of the series. Over the course of the filming, McGoohan had become increasingly difficult to work with. He fired two different directors, taking control of the episodes himself.

Increasingly, he and George Markstein disagreed about the direction of The Prisoner.

Markstein wanted to adhere to the conventions of the genre, and envisioned his protagonist escaping to have global adventures while being monitored by his former captors.

McGoohan, who saw the series as experimental, pushed the series toward allegory and symbolism.

“McGoohan was writing, was conceiving, was directing—and didn’t know where he was going,” Markstein later complained. “My presence was superfluous….”

Ultimately, Markstein quit, washing his hands of the series.

The creative reins fell entirely into Patrick McGoohan’s lap, and the pressure was enormous. The budget was growing thin. Two working scripts were junked for various reasons, creating a scramble for replacements.

At this point, the actor was exhausted and was forced to admit that the premise could not be sustained for the planned 26 episodes needed for U.S. broadcast. He always held that only seven were necessary to tell the story, although he never specified which seven he meant.

“It has knocked me out,” McGoohan confessed. “I’m whacked.

This is why I’m stopping. I just can’t do any more.”

Sir Lew Grade ordered McGoohan to wrap everything up in four additional episodes in order to complete a series of 17.

Complicating this was the fact that during his four-month hiatus, the actor had signed on to co-star in Ice Station Zebra, filming in America. So McGoohan turned to scriptwriter Vincent Tilsley,

who had written “The Chimes of Big Ben,” and gave him an almost impossible task: Write a Prisoner episode in which Patrick McGoohan’s character is seen only at the beginning and the climax. The plan was to reintroduce the concept as the second-series opener.

Opinions vary, from Tilsley going too far out on a limb to my own feeling that “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling” was a brilliant episode, especially under the circumstances.

The shadowy officials whom Number Six originally worked for want to locate a scientist named Seltzman, who has disappeared. Number Six is the only one who can find him. But how to motivate him?

Using Seltzman’s technology, they transfer a drugged Six’s mind to that of another man, and return him to his London flat.

When Six wakes up in his old digs, he’s astonished to see in the mirror that he’s not himself anymore. He knows that only Seltzman could have engineered this. So he undertakes a search. But not before making contact with his disbelieving former supervisors and his bewildered fiancée.

In the end, Six is back at his body, having completed his mission by thwarting it, and engineering a final twist that I won’t reveal. But it’s a doozy.

Predictably, McGoohan was dissatisfied with the episode and ordered reshoots.

BALL OF CONFUSION

The next episode is equally (TOP AND CENTER) The outside the box. McGoohan Prisoner occasionally told needed a story that avoided yet its stories away from The Village, including London another Portmeirion cat-andmouser. So he reset the stage and the Old West. © ITC when he requested someone Entertainment Inc. (BOTTOM) pen a classic Western script.

McGoohan’s interest in “Living in Harmony” finds his Prisoner series waned the Prisoner reliving his when he took a part in the resignation, but as an old-time film Ice Station Zebra.

American Western sheriff © MGM. who gets dragged to the town of Harmony. There, the town judge harasses him about his reasons for resigning, then jails him for refusing to take up his six-gun and badge.

This episode was so strange that, between the psychedelic mechanism for Number Six’s predicament, its veiled anti-war message, and the fact that it did not open with the usual Prisoner resignation reenactment, but as a Western variation giving no RETROFAN

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indication that it was an episode of The Prisoner, CBS chose not to air it during either of its summer runs.

The next episode filmed also avoided Portmeirion. “The Girl Who Was Death” is a surreal excursion into a sendup of Danger Man, James Bond, and everything in that genre. It makes no sense until the closing scene, where everything is put into an Who is Number intelligible context. An unused Danger Man One? Not concept was hastily adapted to create the this guy. © ITC episode.

Entertainment Inc. I have to admit this was my least favorite episode, then and now. But I understand it better now that its point is clear to me.

Beyond that, “The Girl Who Was Death” is basically filler. It adds nothing to the series, and the presence of children late in the story is at odds with the fact that previously no children have been seen in The Village at all.

Pressure was mounting to wrap up the series and reveal resolution presented. Well, that’s what we were promised. But everything. McGoohan went back to the shelved episode “Degree that’s not what we got.

Absolute,” which was at one point considered for the Season One “Fall Out” was a surreal Kafkaesque slice of televised Theatre closer, renaming it “Once Upon a Time.” Now it was going to serve of the Absurd—raucous, confusing, far more over-the-top than as the springboard for the long-awaited denouement, with an anything else that had come before. I watched it wide-eyed and almost-unrecognizable Leo McKern back as Number Two. open-mouthed, and in the end, was as disappointed as only a It might have been an example of clutching at straws. teenager could be.

McGoohan had attempted to write an ending on the flight back Again, I don’t want to inflict spoilers upon those who may from filming Ice Station Zebra, but it wasn’t yet see the series. The Prisoner finally jelling. He scrapped that script. escapes—or does he?

By the time he got home, the actor The ending is at once surreal and FAST FACTS practically had a gun to his head. Sir Lew baffling. Yes, questions were answered, but they are not obvious ones. But not every Grade recalled, “He came to me and said, THE PRISONER question was resolved.

‘Lew, I just cannot find an ending. I’ve got f No. of seasons: One We never learn who runs The Village, too confused with the project.’” f No. of episodes: 17 or where it is. We don’t know which side Throughout production, McGoohan f Original run: September 29, they’re on. Or if they’re on any side. always deflected questions as to Number 1967–February 1, 1968 In the decades since, people have One’s identity. “I told them it’s a secret until f Primary cast: Patrick McGoowritten about this climax, some praising it I eventually wrote it,” he revealed. han, Angelo Muscat, as brilliant, others deriding it as insufficient In reality, McGoohan later confessed Peter Brace, Leo McKern given the buildup over the previous 16 that he himself had no idea. But deadlines f Network: ITV episodes, as well as the many clues sprinbring epiphanies. kled throughout the show, which seemed to “Well, it got very close to the last SPIN-OFFS AND indicate that Number Six’s superiors were episode,” he recounted, “and I hadn’t REMAKES: somehow involved with The Village. written it yet. And I had to sit down this f The Prisoner (six-episode teleIn hindsight, they may not have been terrible day and write the last episode. And vision remake premiering on clues so much as the conveniences of televiI knew it wasn’t going to be something out AMC on November 15, 2009; sion production. The fact is virtually all the of James Bond. In the back of my mind I starring Jim Caviezel as Number Number Twos are Englishmen or women knew there was some parallel between the Six and Ian McKellen as Numsuggest one reality. character of Six and Number One. I didn’t ber Two, with Lennie James, RaYet other clues point in another direcreally know until I was a third through the chael Blake, Ruth Wilson, and tion. In episodes where the Prisoner makes last script.”

Hayley Atwell) it back to London and confronts one or the McGoohan later claimed that he other of his erstwhile supervisors, they scripted the climax, “Fall Out,” in 36 hours. sometimes painted them in a semi-sinister Frankly, it shows. light. As was the fact that when the PrisWatching it as a kid, I was filled with oner returned to London in “Many Happy eager anticipation. Finally, we would see Returns,” his superior, Thorpe, was played every question answered and a satisfactory

by Patrick Cargill, who had been Number 42

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Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

(LEFT) Marvel Comics developed two unpublished attempts to continue the Prisoner saga in the Seventies, first by artist Gil Kane (shown here) and later by artist Jack Kirby.

Courtesy of Heritage. (CENTER) Plotter/artist Dean Motter and writer Mark Askwith collaborated on a four-issue Prisoner sequel for DC Comics in 1988. (RIGHT) In 2018, Number Six’s story continued in Titan Comics’ The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine. © ITC Entertainment Inc.

Two in “Hammer into Anvil,” the episode filmed immediately before. But once again, we don’t receive explanations to these plot questions. Instead, we are given hints at larger philosophical issues.

All of this mirrored the Cold War paranoia of the time. Were Number Six’s former superiors suspicious due to his inexplicable return after his abrupt resignation, fearing that he had defected to the Soviet side, only to return as a double agent? Or were they in on the efforts to break him and force a confession as to his motives for abandoning his old life? In at least one episode, the answer was clearly the latter.

At the age of 14, I wasn’t interested in philosophy, allegory, or ambiguity. I wanted a final face-off and unmasking. Oh, McGoohan did provide that much. But it went by so quick you weren’t sure what you saw. And even when it was later explained by the actor himself, it was not as satisfying as it should have been.

I won’t go to so far as to assert that McGoohan blew it. But I didn’t think then, and I still do not think now, that he gave his audience an ending that fit what he was producing up until “Fall Out.” Producer David Tomblin saw it differently. “The ending was in the style of the series,” he insisted. “We had a lot of conversations and discussed various possibilities and over that period of time

all these things went into the mental computer and it came out at the other end, not quite as we discussed, but sort of.”

When that finale aired in England, viewers were largely outraged. They felt cheated of a typical television resolution. Their reaction was so extreme that McGoohan, feeing unsafe, fled London with his family, hiding out in Wales until it all blew over. Yet he was delighted by the strong reaction.

“It’s marvelous when people feel enough to be angry,” he declared.

“Righteous indignation is terrific, and they’re entitled to it.”

Plans were considered for a spin-off series, starring Alexis Kanner, the young actor who played the rebellious hippie Number Forty-Eight in “Fall Out,” with Angelo Muscat reprising has role as the Butler, as they roamed the world, faceless Village enforcers in hot pursuit. But the idea went nowhere.

After that, the actor was finished with British TV. Eventually, McGoohan relocated to America and launched a new phase of his distinguished career.

TRAPPED IN A WORLD HE MADE

The Prisoner controversy followed McGoohan to the end of his days.

Responding to continual audience bafflement whenever the series was rerun, he pointed out, “I think the reason they were confused and became disappointed was because they expected the ending to be similar to a Bond thing, with this mystery man, the head man, whatever they call it in Bond. And of course it wasn’t about that at all.

It is about the most evil of human essences, that is ourselves.”

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George Markstein took a harsher view. “I think that in many ways The Prisoner is a tragedy,” he insisted, “because McGoohan became a prisoner of the series, and it’s never nice to see that happen to a human being, the combination of ambition, frustration, wanting to be writer, director, actor—you name it. It was sad, it was very sad, I think. It did something to him that wasn’t very good, and it was reflected in the series. And that’s why the series ended like that, and that’s why people have said, ‘I don’t understand the end.’ Of course they don’t understand the end, because there is no end. I don’t think even McGoohan understood the end…”

In one respect, the two men were in agreement. “There’s no final conclusion to it,” McGoohan admitted. “And I was very fortunate to be able to do something as audacious as that with no final conclusion to it.”

George Markstein once revealed that in his imagination, The Village was originally Number Six’s idea, but he decided it was not humane. Six quit when he discovered The Village project had been put into operation without his knowledge.

Markstein quipped, “Not even Patrick McGoohan realized that Drake’s expression on waking in The Village wasn’t bewilderment—it was recognition!

Patrick McGoohan as The Prisoner’s Number Six makes a cartoon cameo on an episode of The Simpsons. © 20th Century Studios.

“Who is Number Six is no mystery,” he insisted. “He was a secret agent called Drake who quit.”

In 2009, the year Patrick McGoohan died, The Prisoner was remade as an AMC miniseries starring Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen.

Discarding Portmeirion, it was filmed in a barren landscape of endless desert and modest uniform cottages. I watched it to the bitter end, and it bored me to tears. Alas.

Periodically, filmmakers have floated other Prisoner remakes, and none have gotten off the ground. I just wish someone would film a conclusion that fit with the unfolding story McGoohan and Markstein developed so long ago. Over a half-century later, I’m still waiting for a satisfactory conclusion to one of the greatest cult television shows of all time.

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

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Pushing the Panic Button:

BY SCOTT SHAW! My first viewing of Yellow Submarine was on November 13, 1968, its American release date. Nothing could have prepared me for what I viewed that night, so blazingly unique that I returned to watch it again a few nights later. And again. And a few more hundred times.

And after all of those viewings and all of the years since, I still find new aspects of Yellow Submarine to appreciate and love every time I view it, usually on Blu-ray these days.

But little did I realize that this mind-blowing animated movie had an even more mind-blowing production history, one fraught with so many obstacles that it’s a showbiz miracle that the film ever got made at all, let alone made magnificently.

Here are some little-known facts regarding Yellow Submarine’s “secret origin” and how we got here from back there.

AND THE BAND BEGAN TO PLAY

Producer Al Brodax—described by one of the film’s voiceover actors as having “…the Hawaiian shirt on and the big fat cigar… a caricature (of an) American”—was the head of King Features’ motion picture/television department. He had previously produced syndicated cartoon shorts starring Beetle Bailey, Popeye the Sailor [see RetroFan #12], and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, all animated adaptations of King Features comic strips. On February 10, 1964, the day after the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, Brodax approached Beatles manager Brian Epstein—who Brodax once referred to as “a very difficult person,” and others described as “the unsung hero of Yellow Submarine”—for the animation rights to the Beatles. The deal was by no means a bargain —$32,000 to produce each half-hour show, with a big chunk of that going back to Brian—but the American producer was an expert at squeezing blood out of a stonehard deal, so he took production overseas to a studio called TV Cartoons of London, among others. “Eppy” promised Brodax that if his proposed The Beatles cartoon series for ABC proved successful, he’d give Brodax the approval to produce an animated Beatles feature film afterwards.

The Beatles cartoon was so successful, it ran from September 25, 1965 to September 7, 1969, on Saturday mornings on ABC-TV. Its second season bore traces of the increasingly countercultural flavor of the Beatles, with some of its later episodes foreshadowing Yellow Submarine’s otherworldly vibe, but more scary than trippy.

Paul McCartney says he had the inspiration for the 1966 song “Yellow Submarine” while in a “dream-like state”

The Odyssey of

Yellow

Submarine

(RIGHT) Late-Sixties filmgoers took a trip to the movies to see the animated Beatles film, Yellow Submarine. © Subafilms Ltd. Six-sheet movie poster courtesy of Heritage.

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just before he fell asleep. From its inception, he intended it to be a song for Ringo Starr to perform.

John Lennon added his contribution, as did George Harrison, Ringo, and even non-Beatle Donovan. This sing-along kids’ favorite appeared on the Beatles’ LP Revolver and as a 45 single with “Eleanor Rigby,” a song also in the theatrical Yellow Submarine. Even today, Ringo refers to it as his “official theme song.”

The Beatles’ first two movies were A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965). Both films were made for United Artists in a three-picture deal. Yellow Submarine was reportedly created to fulfill the contract, although the Beatles only appear for a few minutes. Magical Mystery Tour (1967) originally aired on television and Let It Be (1970) was not part of UA’s original deal.

AND OUR FRIENDS ARE ALL ABOARD

The British animation studio that made many of the Beatles television episodes (there were seven such studios in all) was George Dunning’s aforementioned TV Cartoons of London (TVC).

That’s why he and his studio were chosen to direct, develop, and produce Yellow Submarine. Dunning was determined to make a film that would be a work of art as well as entertainment.

Unfortunately, he agreed to restrictions of time and money that no other successful animated feature film has ever contended with. Dunning became sick so often that he wound up with the nickname “Uncle Plasma.” It was so exhaustively draining that the experience may have even led to the early death of Mr. Dunning 11 years later, at age 59.

Due to the agreed-upon budget—$1,000,000, minus $200,000 for the Beatles—and schedule—12 months and counting—Yellow Submarine remains a shining triumph of art direction, and emphasis of graphic design over traditional animation (not that the animation in this 86-minute epic is all that routine). It had to be as creatively imaginative yet as frugal and cleverly practical as possible. The crew rose to the challenge and succeeded brilliantly.

But first, they needed someone to lead the way.

Kids of the mid-Sixties could tune in to The Beatles each Saturday morning. © Apple Corps.

Although Al Brodax insists that a script for Yellow Submarine existed since the deal was struck, the surviving directors dispute that as “a crock of sh*t.” By all descriptions, there was a chaotic amount of wasted creative thrashing about for the first month or so of “development” due to a lack of any script. Everything was at question regarding the film’s story, visual style, and character designs.

What they did have was a list of approved Beatles songs to be included in Yellow Submarine. When director George Dunning opened a brown package by the then-auditioning Czechoslovakian-born designer-illustrator Heinz Edelmann from Germany—who had first been recommended to King Features by Charlie Jenkins—his visualizations of John, Paul, George, and Ringo were immediately exactly what they were looking for, although Al Brodax wanted to use the same character models as his TV series… until focus group testing went wild for Edelmann’s appealingly contemporary designs. Edelmann deconstructed his Beatles

(LEFT) Yellow Submarine director George Dunning. (CENTER) Animation producer Al Brodax. (RIGHT) The artist responsible for Yellow Submarine’s psychedelic look, visionary Heinz Edelmann.

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designs to the point of being “paper dolls,” each with a unique structure that allowed maximum “extreme” poses without completely redrawing characters. Then, while the directors attempted to cobble together a storyline that could connect the selected songs, the animators were experimenting with Edelmann’s designs to perfect a less-dimensional style of animation and a smooth cleanup line devoid of sketchiness.

Edelmann was blind in one eye, hence the “flat” look of his style in the Sixties. He also insisted on using Dr. Martin’s watercolor dye, highly concentrated, incredibly bright stuff that was used in psychedelic “light shows.”

The first footage animated for Yellow Submarine was also the first scene in the movie, with the Undertaker Twins marching into the shot and emitting a rainbow from their hats that forms a portal into Pepperland.

There was no other illustrator-designer available during that time that was more appropriate for Yellow Submarine, not only due to his artwork, but also for his innate story sense, which was essential to the film’s development.

So if the art director also guided the story, who else supposedly came up with Yellow Submarine’s story and script? The writers? The cartoonists? Who? Which ones? And when?

Officially, Yellow Submarine’s story was written by Lee Minoff, and various screenplays were written by Lee Minoff (“too candyflossy” and childish), Al Brodax (because “Big Al” was the producer and he always gave himself plenty of credit), Jack Mendelsohn (“too Hollywood”), and Erich (Love Story) Segal (whose script—written in four parts at a time throughout the film to make simultaneous storyboarding possible—seems closest to the final product), with Liverpudlian poet and performance artist Roger McGough contributing amusingly authentic dialogue and rhymes.

However, unofficially, the film was “written” by Heinz Edelmann, with organic input from directors George Dunning; Bob Balser and Jack Stokes; man-of-all-trades Charlie Jenkins; and gagman Bob Godfrey. One of them described their goal as to achieve a smart silliness similar to Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends cartoon series. They all agreed that the actual “final script” went unwritten until after the animated Yellow Submarine was narrowly finished a year after it began, and was possibly transcribed by Segal as well.

A depressing number of “fans” are convinced that Peter Max was somehow the creator of the film, although Max never had any actual participation in creating Yellow Submarine. Push Pin Studios’ founder Milton Glaser is a designer-illustrator-packager who, like Edelmann, was one of the most significant commercial artists of the Sixties. He has verified that Edelmann had been working in the Yellow Submarine style for years before Max—who once apprenticed for Glaser—ever surfaced in the art scene. However, to this day, Peter Max insists that Al Brodax offered him a million dollars to design Yellow Submarine, although the producer claims it was in regard to another project. Heinz Edelmann will always be “the father of Yellow Submarine art,” according to the movie’s crew.

SKY OF BLUE AND SEA OF GREEN

The Beatles absolutely loathed Al Brodax’s The Beatles cartoons due to the formulaic writing, crudely caricatured designs, jerky animation, and bogus voiceovers by an American—the otherwise well-respected Paul Frees—faking two English accents. (Lance

(TOP) Color model sheet for Yellow Submarine’s animated, and trippy, Fab Four. Specific hues were even assigned to Ringo’s fingerwear! (BOTTOM) Heinz Edelmann original artwork, the model sheet for the Flying Shoes from the “Sea of Time” sequence. © Subafilms Ltd. Model sheets courtesy of Heritage.

Percival, the other two voices, was an actual Englishman and wound up doing voiceovers for Yellow Submarine, too.) Actually, based on the show’s schedule and budget, they did a fairly good job, but the results were still embarrassing to the Fab Four.

According to animator Malcolm Draper, who was in the “sweat box” when John Lennon was about to get his first look at some rough Yellow Submarine animation tests, John, with his English accent, sarcastically asked, “This isn’t gonna look like the foo-king Flintstones, is it?” Paul, on the other hand, was expecting to see something more in the Disney style, but like the others—George called Yellow Submarine “a classic”—he quickly warmed up to a contract-fulfilling project that was becoming increasingly creative.

With a reputation as a brilliant but eccentric (and “troubled”) genius, director George Dunning oversaw the entire production, RETROFAN

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but was notorious for being private and reclusive. His most direct contribution to the film was the elegantly psychedelic “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” sequence. He knew what he wanted, and he assembled a crack team to achieve that goal.

Animation director Bob Balser handled Yellow Submarine’s “travel” sequences, while animation director Jack Stokes handled the “Pepperland” sequences.

Technical wizard Charlie Jenkins applied his thinking to many of the trickier scenes and sequences that he and Edelmann would concoct. And John Coates became TVC’s in-house producer of Yellow Submarine, a thanklessly, near-impossible task that didn’t even earn him the screen credit he deserved.

The Beatles “gave” the film three songs they weren’t intending to use on any of their albums: “Hey Bulldog,” “It’s All Too Much,” and “All Together Now.” To fulfill a contractual commitment, George wrote a fourth tune overnight, “Only a Northern Song.” The title was his “inside” reference to “Northern Song,” the printer of the sheet music that George used.

Of course, not only did Sir George Martin produce all of the Beatles’ songs used in Yellow Submarine, he also composed six soothingly pastoral tunes and music cues that effectively identify Pepperland as a place where we’d all like to live.

Voiceovers included: John Clive as “John Lennon”; Geoff Hughes as “Paul McCartney”; Peter Batton as “George Harrison”; Paul Angelis as “Ringo

Starr,” “George Harrison,” and the “Chief Blue Meanie”; Dick Emery as “Max,” the “Lord Mayor,” and “Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D.”; and Lance Percival (who played “Paul” and “Ringo” for Brodax’s original The Beatles TV series) as “Old Fred.” Halfway into recording, Liverpudlian Peter Batton was hauled away to serve time in military jail for being AWOL from his post with the British Army in Germany!

Rather than do imitations of each Beatle’s voice, these actors sought to duplicate the Beatles’ chemistry with each other in terms of timing, delivery, and tone. To insure that their accents could be understood in the U.S., they were instructed to speak slowly and with clarity. At the beginning of the film’s production, it would have been impossible to schedule the Beatles themselves to record their own voices; they were in India studying with the Maharishi much of the time. But once they began to see finished footage, the real Beatles were much more interested in making time to record their own voices for Yellow Submarine. Alas, animation was too far into production to re-animate to a new soundtrack. Although initially hesitant, the Beatles liked these voices much more than those on the Beatles TV show—except that none of the Beatles liked whoever was doing their own voices.

FULL STEAM AHEAD!

(TOP) A mind-blowing Yellow Submarine lobby card. (LEFT) Boo! Hiss! Setup cel featuring the blue and menacing Blue Meanie. © Subafilms Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

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Yellow Submarine’s production was grueling and stressful, but the young crew did their best to adapt to the demanding regimen necessary to deliver a finished, high-quality product in less than a year. Working on an official Beatles project was a strong incentive to achieve excellence, and quality control was a top priority as much as were speed and frugality. As time grew short, the crew’s numbers swelled to 220 employees. Typical for the day, a lot of alcohol and marijuana was consumed during the creation of the movie… but not by the key members of the crew, who often got by only with a nap on TVC’s broken-down couch.

And over the year of production, there were five marriages and a total of 13 babies were born to 13 unwed couples serving aboard Yellow Submarine. Talk about a “children’s cartoon”…

Yellow Submarine has a structure that resembles a number of short illustrated pamphlets between two impressive bookends. After establishing the peacefully bucolic realm of Pepperland

The oddball world of scott shaw!

Eight different sheets of Beatles Yellow Submarine Rub-Ons were free inserts in boxes of Nabisco’s Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys cereals. Empty boxes are highly collectible today. Yellow Submarine © Subafilms Ltd. Rice Honeys © Nabisco. Courtesy of Heritage.

(opening with the first scene ever animated for the film), it’s suddenly attacked by the forces of the Blue Meanies (originally Communist Red Meanies, now Police Officers). Unprepared, the population is defeated, all except Old Fred, who pilots the Yellow Submarine in search of help as ordered by Pepperland’s Lord Mayor.

As Old Fred departs for London, the first “bookend” sequence segues to the opening titles. From this point on, this 87-minute feature’s odyssey of the Yellow Submarine through London and beneath the waves of a series of “seas” feature becomes like an animation festival, events which were very popular at the time, showcasing “artsy” and experimental animation alongside traditional stuff by mainstream masters such as Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Each sequence bears a marked variation in the overall style that noted illustrator Heinz Edelmann created for Yellow Submarine.

For example: f After giving us a tour of London to the tune of “Eleanor Rigby,” Old Fred locates Ringo Starr wandering the streets in a darkly philosophical mood. This sequence is marked by a number of amazing effects created by manipulating photographic elements to great effect, a specialty of the endlessly inventive Charlie Jenkins. f Once inside Ringo’s apparent home, “The Pier,” we enter a space filled with Pop Art renditions of various King Features–owned heroes and villains until we meet the Frankenstein Monster, who a potion transforms into John Lennon. In fact, transformation is a visual theme throughout Yellow Submarine, a personal fascination of Heinz Edelmann. Next, George Harrison is introduced, discovered atop a windy mountain in the Himalayas and surrounded by a cosmic display of photograph-derived weather.

When Paul McCartney finally makes his appearance while exiting a formal piano performance, it’s a bit of a disappointment after all of the spectacular stuff, but it strikes one as a deliberate effort to downsize the spectacular stuff for the sake of comedy. f When the sub takes off for the ocean, there’s an incredible 25-second “trip” (in more ways than one) across Liverpool, set to the in-

strumental bridge of “A Day in the Life,” composed almost entirely of photo images from postcards purchased all around London. f Everyone’s on board (in more ways than one) with the mission to save Pepperland, so they head out to the ocean inside the Yellow Submarine, singing “All Together Now” while they get accustomed to the sub’s controls. The confined space they have to operate in is jam-packed with steampunk pipes, machines, and elaborately decorative gauges and monitor displays. It seems like a visual nod to M. C. Escher, a cozy if somewhat claustrophobic haven when compared to what’s ahead for our boys. f “The Sea of Time” plays around with charming vintage storybook-style numerals-turned-illustrations, presented to the tune of ”When I’m Sixty-Four” as if from a vintage “magic lantern.” There is very little actual animation in this inventive sequence. f The visualization of “The Sea of Science” is appropriately as techno-looking as hand-drawn animation could get in the late Sixties. Superimposing oscillating meter readouts over high-contrast depictions of the actual Beatles is even eerier thanks to the otherworldly “Only a Northern Song.” f “The Sea of Monsters” is a visual delight, with some really silly creature designs—the Vacuum Cleaner Beast is so iconic—and funny sight gags and physical comedy, so the sequence is ably carried by humor rather than music. It gives the viewer a chance to catch their breath before the next sequence… f …“The Sea of Nothing.” This not only introduces the “Nowhere Man,” Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D., but uses the song itself to maximum psychedelic effect with both beautiful and bizarre animated images. f When the boys reach “The Foothills of the Headlands,” the “windows of the mind” provide an ideal stage to present director George Dunning’s memorable interpretation of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” featuring “painterly” rotoscoping of vintage footage of Ruby Keeler, Eddie Cantor, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, and the Goldwyn Girls. Animator Billy Sewell was also crucial to this sequence.

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

f The final entry in Yellow Submarine’s unofficial film festival is “The Sea of Holes,” which features a staggering Op Art illusion so viscerally disorienting that many of the crew regarded it as the film’s finest moment, made possible by an accident somewhere between the animation camera and the film processing.

Once our heroic hippies reach Pepperland, the film returns to the iconic style established in its earliest sequences, forming the movie’s second “bookend.” The songs “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Baby, You’re a Rich Man,” “Hey Bulldog” (finally in the American cut), and “All You Need Is Love” support the action as the Beatles lead the residents of Pepperland to triumph over and win over the Blue Meanies. But there are two more surprises: “It’s All Too Much” is Yellow Submarine’s over-the-top-withcolorful-details celebratory finale, yet it almost didn’t happen at all. The most astonishing aspect of this impressive sequence is that time and money had run out, and Dunning, Stokes, Balser, and Jenkins cobbled it together, mostly using preexisting artwork created for earlier scenes in the film. Then, finally, the live-action Beatles make an appearance, charmingly hamming it up in delightful fashion before reprising “All Together Now.”

AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES

(TOP) How many of you RetroFans toted your PB&Js to school in this lunch box? Does anyone have it and its thermos in your collection today? (CENTER) Gold Key Comics’ Yellow Submarine one-shot of 1968 was produced before the film was completed and varies from the movie’s final version. (BOTTOM) Yellow Submarine merchandise continues to attract collectors, like these hand-painted porcelain figurines. © Subafilms Ltd. Courtesy of Heritage.

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Sadly, as in many showbiz production companies, various political factions fought bitterly late in the post-production process.

This and the need to increase their staff to meet the looming deadline nearly bankrupted TVC. Fortunately, they reached the finish line in time and survived to become a very successful and respected animation studio.

In the end, two versions were assembled; England got “Hey Bulldog” while America didn’t. There were issues with the movie’s length and again, other political motives, but many of us in the cartoon business agree that its humor seems out of place in Yellow Submarine and its presence within the film’s climax slows down the action for no good reason. But still, those of us in the U.S. sure felt cheated until Yellow Submarine’s restoration and re-release in 1999.

On Thursday, January 25, 1968, the Beatles shot their Yellow Submarine live-action sequence at Twickenham Film Studios.

Their dialogue was scripted, but after a number of run-throughs, they delivered a performance that was fun and easygoing, with great interpersonal chemistry. We never suspected that wouldn’t last much longer.

Yellow Submarine’s British premiere was held at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus on July 17, 1968, featuring the Beatles, their wives, and an audience of “the beautiful people.” It was also the last public example of “Beatlemania,” as a mob of hundreds of ardent fans surrounded the theater. The key creators from TVC were there, too, but the voiceover artists were not invited.

King Features didn’t want to spoil the impression that the Beatles performed their own roles.

In England, the reviews were surprisingly lukewarm and results at the box office reflected that, but five months later in America, the reception was wildly positive. That time gap was very beneficial regarding publicizing Yellow Submarine in America, targeting Beatles fans, children, animation fans, and countercultural youth. Although the film was very popular in

The oddball world of scott shaw!

the States and ran in theaters for months, corporate skullduggery made sure that it was never considered all that “profitable.”

The original wave of Yellow Submarine merchandise was aimed at children and teenage Beatles fans, such as activity books, a model kit, a lunch box, and a die-cast Yellow Submarine. But since 1968, Yellow Submarine products have proliferated—especially after the 1999 re-release—to the point where there’s something for everyone. Clothing, jewelry, lava lamps, porcelain statuettes, and jukeboxes are only a few of the pricey Pepperland items waiting to be added to someone’s collection… or altar.

Cover-dated February 1969, Western Publishing/Gold Key Comics’ The Yellow Submarine #1 (and only) adaptation, written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by José Delbo, appeared on American newsstands in July 1968, months before the film’s release. Although the funnybook featured a distinctive centerspread poster of Yellow Submarine’s core cast, the story itself barely resembles that of the film. Due to the process of producing, printing, and distributing a 68-page comic book, Newman and Delbo probably worked on it early in 1968 when the film was still being cobbled together without a real script, so it’s anyone’s guess as to the source of what they were given to follow. Comparisons between the various existing scripts indicate that Newman was given a storyline cannibalized from pieces of all of them. They did the best they could with what they had, but the results sure didn’t match Yellow Submarine’s storyline, which must have severely confused a lot of young Beatlemaniacs.

So, aside from the Beatles’ music, why is Yellow Submarine still considered to be a classic of feature animation? Heinz Edelmann’s character designs for the Beatles are particularly appealing; they represent an idealized version of the hippie Beatles, all looking their

best, despite the fact that in real life, the Beatles were on their way to disbanding. Pepperland has its own iconic style, one so comfortably unique that you can recognize the source just by looking at a figure-less background.

Old hippies watch it with tears in their eyes.

Middle-aged people watch it because they’ve heard the great music.

Children watch it because Pepperland’s the best getaway since Oz. And parents watch it because their children are watching it.

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

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Too Much TV COLUMN ONE

1) Capt. Barney Miller

2) Lt. Bill Crowley

3) Capt. Harold Dobey

4) Capt. Adam Greer

5) Sgt. MacDonald

6) Lt. Eddie Ryker

7) Chief Peter B. Clifford

8) Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson

9) Capt. Martin Block

10) Chief Dan Matthews 52

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If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong.

(Father doesn’t always know best.)

Each top cop in Column One corresponds to a TV series in Column Two. Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

RetroFan Ratings

A fine lot o’ lawmen, sure’n they are!

10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know theme song lyrics too!

7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan Dy-no-mite! You wasted your childhood with the rest of us!

4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned RetroFan Up your nose with a rubber hose ’til you spend more tube time!

0–3 correct: Tuned-Out RetroFan Ya big dummy! Put down that book and go watch some classic TV!

COLUMN TWO

A) The Mod Squad B) McCloud C) Police Woman D) Car 54, Where Are You? E) The Rookies F) Starsky and Hutch G) Highway Patrol H) S.W.A.T. I) Barney Miller (shame on you if you miss this one, really…)

J) Adam-12 Adam-12, Car 54 Where Are You?, McCloud © NBC Universal Television. Barney Miller © Columbia Pictures Television. Batman © DC Comics/Warner Bros. Television/20th Century Fox. Highway Patrol © MGM Television. The Mod Squad © Paramount Pictures Television. Police Woman, The Rookies, S.W.A.T., Starsky and Hutch © Sony Pictures Television. All Rights Reserved.

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

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New from TwoMorrows!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #85

BACK ISSUE #139

BACK ISSUE #140

BACK ISSUE #141

KIRBY: ANIMATED! How JACK KIRBY and his concepts leaped from celluloid, to paper, and back again! From his 1930s start on Popeye and Betty Boop and his work being used on the 1960s Marvel Super-Heroes show, to Fantastic Four (1967 and 1978), Super Friends/Super Powers, Scooby-Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Ruby-Spears.

Plus EVAN DORKIN on his abandoned Kamandi cartoon series, and more!

NOT-READY-FOR-PRIMETIME MARVEL HEROES! Mighty Marvel’s Bronze Age second bananas: Doc Samson, Jack of Hearts, Thundra, Nighthawk, Starfox, Modred the Mystic, Woodgod, the Shroud, Thunderbird and Warpath, Stingray, Wundaar, and others! Featuring the work of BUSIEK, DAVID, ENGLEHART, GERBER, GIFFEN, GRANT, MANTLO, MICHELINIE, STERN, THOMAS, and other A-list talent!

DINOSAUR COMICS! Interviews with Xenozoic®’s MARK SCHULTZ and dinoartist extraordinaire WILLIAM STOUT! Plus: Godzilla at Dark Horse, Sauron villain history, Dinosaurs Attack!, Dinosaurs for Hire, Dinosaur Rex, Dino Riders, Lord Dinosaur, and Jurassic Park! Featuring ARTHUR ADAMS, BISSETTE, CLAREMONT, COCKRUM, GERANI, STRADLEY, ROY THOMAS, and more. SCHULTZ cover.

SPIES AND P.I.s! Nick Fury from Howling Commando to Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ms. Tree’s MAX ALLAN COLLINS and TERRY BEATTY in a Pro2Pro interview, MARK EVANIER on his Crossfire series, a Hydra villain history, WILL EISNER’s John Law, Checkmate, and Tim Trench and Mike Mauser. With ENGLEHART, ERWIN, HALL, ISABELLA, KUPPERBERG, STATON, THOMAS, and cover by DAVE JOHNSON!

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Golden Age great EMIL GERSHWIN, artist of Starman, Spy Smasher, and ACG horror—in a super-length special MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT by MICHAEL T. GILBERT—plus a Gershwin showcase in PETER NORMANTON’s From The Tomb— even a few tidbits about relatives GEORGE and IRA GERSHWIN to top it off! Also FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and other surprise features!

Celebrating the 61st Anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1—’cause we kinda blew right past its 60th—plus a sagacious salute to STAN LEE’s 100th birthday, with never-before-seen highlights—and to FF #1 and #2 inker GEORGE KLEIN! Spotlight on Sub-Mariner in the Bowery in FF #4—plus sensational secrets behind FF #1 and #3!

Also: FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, a JACK KIRBY cover, and more!

THE YOUNG ALL-STARS—the late-1980s successor to ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with first artist BRIAN MURRAY and last artist LOU MANNA—surprising insights by writer/co-creator ROY THOMAS—plus a panorama of never-seen Young All-Stars artwork! All-new cover

by BRIAN MURRAY! Plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and beyond!

The fast-changing world of LEGO MECHA! Learn how to build mechs with the best mecha builders in the world: BENJAMIN CHEH, KELVIN LOW, LU SIM, and SAM CHEUNG! Plus: AFOLs (“Adult Fans of LEGO”) by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

DON McGREGOR retrospective, from early ’70s Warren Publications scripter to his breakout work at Marvel Comics on BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, SABRE, DETECTIVES INC., RAGAMUFFINS, and others. Plus ROBERT MENZIES looks at HERB TRIMPE’s mid-’70s UK visit to work on Marvel’s British comics weeklies, MIKE GOLD Part Two, and CARtoons cartoonist SHAWN KERRIE! SANDY PLUNKETT cover!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #84

STEVE SHERMAN TRIBUTE! Kirby family members, friends, comics creators, and the entertainment industry salute Jack’s assistant (and puppeteer on Men in Black, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and others). MARK EVANIER and Steve recall assisting Kirby, Steve discusses Jack’s Speak-Out Series, Kirby memorabilia from his collection, an interview with wife DIANA MERCER, and Steve’s unseen 1974 KIRBY/ROYER cover!

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING

BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning, and prepare to leave the safety of Earth to join the savior of the universe as he and his allies combat evil on the planet Mongo, and battle to keep our own planet safe! Or, in the words of the hero himself, from the opening of the 1979 animated series…

“Blasting off on a desperate mission to save Earth from the evil plottings of the tyrannical space lord Ming the Merciless, Dr. Hans Zarkov and Dale Arden have joined me, Flash Gordon, on a fantastic journey into worlds where peril and adventure await us!” Taking a trip to both the past and the future, adventure awaits Flash Gordon.

Rounding out our look at historical heroes on Saturday mornings— following explorations of Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, and Zorro in previous issues of RetroFan—in this issue, Flash Gordon gets the spotlight as we explore his unique animated superstardom!

ORIGINS OF FLASH GORDON

Buck Rogers, created by Philip Francis Nowlan and drawn by Dick Calkins for National Newspaper Service, became the most popular science-fiction adventure hero in newspaper comic strips following his January 1929 debut.

Rival newspaper content providers King Features Syndicate saw the success of Buck Rogers and commissioned a new science-fiction hero in late 1933 from

writer-artist Alex Raymond (working with ghost-writer Don Moore). Flash Gordon first appeared in daily U.S. newspapers on January 7, 1934, and the fantastical adventure strip almost immediately became a huge hit, branching out to Sundays, and then expanding to multimedia.

The base story for Flash Gordon followed the adventures of a handsome blond polo player named “Flash,” who was kidnapped along with the comely Dale Arden by Dr. Hans Zarkov and taken off-planet in Zarkov’s experimental rocketship. The initial intent was to stop a mysterious planet from colliding with Earth, but the trio soon discovered that the planet Mongo held more danger than a “mere” collision.

Mongo and its many lands were ruled by the evil Ming the Merciless, but on the surface of the planet were realms like the forest world of Arboria, the flying city of the Hawkmen, icy Frigia, the jungle-like Tropica, and even undersea kingdoms! Flash had to gain allies—many of whom were at war with

(ABOVE) Flash Gordon comic strip detail by Alex Raymond (Aug. 14, 1938). (LEFT) Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe movie serial poster (1940). © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

each other—to help overthrow Ming and save the galaxy!

Flash Gordon started to branch out beyond newspapers, first in Whitman Publishing’s Big Little Books series beginning in 1934. A weekly radio serial called The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon began on April 22, 1935, and the following year, Flash hit the real big time. That was the year that Buster Crabbe starred in the first of three movie serials for Universal Pictures, bringing viewers to theaters every weekend for installments of Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). Comic books for the hero also began in 1935, and appeared occasionally from that date to the modern day.

Universal Studios controlled the production rights to Flash Gordon in Hollywood for a decade, but allowed them to lapse in 1954. Former Universal executives Edward Gruskin and Matty Fox quickly made a licensing deal with King Features to produce a Flash Gordon series for a new audience: television! The 39-episode series that followed featured Steve Holland in the title role, but changed the plot. Now, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov were agents of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, and they travelled through time from 3203 to help keep Earth safe. The series was filmed largely in Marseille, France, and West Berlin, Germany. It was later syndicated in the United States, mostly on independent television stations.

By the Sixties, sci-fi heroes and movies had proliferated, and the Flash Gordon serials (or feature-length compilations from them) and the television series had saturated the airwaves to the extent that adventures on Mongo didn’t have as much gravitational pull for audiences. The Seventies were largely a dormant time for Flash Gordon, but his future would eventually be bright.

FLASH’S FIRST ANIMATION

Flash Gordon made his first animated appearance in a 1972 ABC Saturday Superstar Movie called The Man Who Hated Laughter. He appeared there alongside almost every major King Features comic-strip character, including cast members from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Bringing Up Father, Henry, Hi and Lois, The Katzenjammer Kids, Little Iodine, The Little King, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, Popeye, Prince Valiant, Quincy, Steve Canyon, Tiger, and Tim Tyler’s Luck!

Lou Silverstone’s plot for the 60-minute special found Professor Morbid Grimsby planning to eliminate laughter by getting rid of all the Sunday newspaper comedy characters. He lured them all onto his yacht, the SS Hilarious, dispatched Popeye’s stash of spinach, and took them captive. The President of the United States, a comic reader, then sent all of the Sunday comic-strip adventure heroes out to the rescue. Hijinks ensued.

Bob McFadden voiced animation’s first Flash Gordon (as well as almost everyone else), while Corrine Orr gave voice to Dale Arden in her animated debut. Animation was listed as “produced by King 56

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(TOP LEFT) Actor and Doc Savage paperback book-cover model Steve Holland starred in 39 episodes of the syndicated Flash Gordon television program (1954–1955). (TOP RIGHT) Lothar, Mandrake the Magician, and Flash Gordon and (LEFT) Dale Arden and Flash in screen grabs from the 1972 The Man Who Hated Laughter. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Features Syndicate,” but the project was truly overseen by Abe Goodman, who had also worked on the 1968 Beatles animated film, Yellow Submarine, along with Hal Seeger. The Man Who Hated Laughter aired on October 7, 1972 on ABC, and was repeated in some markets on February 9, 1974, and in other markets on May 25, 1974.

The next time Flash Gordon appeared in animation, it was far more substantially than the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie offered.

But it was not without several false starts…

FILMATION’S LONG TRIP TO MONGO

Founded in the early Sixties by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, with ex-disc jockey Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates had enormous television success by licensing properties from other media such as film, television, and comics. Their The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure; Journey to the Center of the Earth; The Archie Show; Fantastic Voyage; and The Batman/Superman Hour were warm-ups for series like The Hardy Boys; The Brady Kids; Lassie’s Rescue Rangers; Star Trek: The Animated Series; My Favorite Martians; The New Adventures of Gilligan; Shazam!; Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, and more. Filmation was one of the top content providers for Saturday morning animation. While they practically owned the weekend schedule for CBS, they produced fewer shows for ABC and NBC, at the time, the only other two networks in town.

Company head Lou Scheimer had grown up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Thirties, and read newspaper comics he found in recycling piles. Scheimer loved the adventure strips, especially Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant. Four decades later, he made a deal with King Features for the rights to Flash Gordon, both for television and for film. In spring 1977, Filmation announced a deal with NBC to bring Flash Gordon to animated life as a feature-length television movie for fall 1978. In 2012 interviews with me for the TwoMorrows

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

Turnaround model sheets for Flash (LEFT) and Dale (RIGHT). © King Features Syndicate, Inc. (INSET) Dino de Laurentiis, producer of the Flash Gordon film. book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, Scheimer recalled, “Originally, Flash Gordon had been written as a live telefilm by Sam Peeples, who wrote the Star Trek pilots (live and animated). But, when we told NBC the budget for live would be $10 million, they balked and asked us to do it animated. We managed to get a commitment out of them for $1 million, but even that was too low. The film was going to have 22 voices and be done with full animation, and King Features wanted a hefty percentage of the fee.”

To solve the budget problem, Scheimer’s business partner, Norm Prescott, had a unique solution. In August 1977, Prescott presold Flash Gordon’s animated foreign television and theatrical release rights to film producer Dino de Laurentiis for $1,500,000!

As Scheimer says, the deal was “essentially a pay-off fee, as de Laurentiis wanted to do his own $12 million live-action Flash Gordon film, but, because we owned those rights, he had to make a deal with us, even if he wasn’t going to do anything with the animated version.”

In a January 1981 Starlog magazine interview, Norm Prescott said that de Laurentiis “originally used some of our production materials—our script and a lot of art—as a kick-off point.” In addition to the Flash Gordon deal, Filmation got de Laurentiis to pony up a $4 million budget to produce Filmation’s first full-length live-action theatrical film. The film was to be called Seven Warriors–Seven Worlds, and it was to be scripted by respected science-fiction author Harlan Ellison. And now, with de Laurentiis investing, the animated Flash Gordon had a much more respectable $2.5 million budget.

1978 came and went without Flash Gordon. In early 1979, when ABC planned to have Filmation produce a live-action series called The Dracula Hour—and with Star Wars mania surging across the world, and de Laurentiis working on his big-budget Flash Gordon— NBC decided they had to lock Filmation down. “NBC made an early pre-buy of Flash Gordon for Saturday mornings, even though we had yet to finish the feature-length movie for them,” said Scheimer.

“Mike Brockman, who was then the vice president of daytime programming, offered us 24 episodes of the series for a two-year

run.” At the time, when networks were buying 13–16 episodes for a first season, and three to eight for a second year, the fact that NBC pre-bought 24 episodes was “precedent-shattering,” as Norm Prescott told reporters.

Work had already begun on the feature film, but now the series was set to spin off from it. NBC set September 7th as the film’s debut date, with the Saturday morning series’ debut to follow.

The one thing that was a bit difficult was that the film was meant for primetime and an adult audience, whereas the series was for kids. “The telefilm was a far more adult affair than we could do on Saturday morning,” said Scheimer.

In the story, Flash Gordon was a former Olympic athlete who was acting as an American agent in Warsaw in 1939, at the start of World War II. When he discovered that Adolf Hitler and Ming of Mongo were planning to conquer not only Earth but the universe itself, Flash headed for Mongo in a spaceship with Dr. Hans Zarkov and journalist Dale Arden to stop Ming. There, they were forced to join forces with King Vultan, the rotund ruler of the winged Hawkmen; King Thun, the leonine leader of the Lion People; and Prince Barin, the Errol Flynn–esque leader of the tree folk of Arboria. Meanwhile, Ming developed an unhealthy interest in Dale Arden, and Ming’s daughter, Princess Aura, similarly took note

The inclusion of Adolf Hitler, historical monster, was fine for the Flash Gordon animated movie, but was a no-go for the regular Saturday morning series. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. RETROFAN

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(LEFT) Dr. Zarkov turnaround model sheet. (RIGHT) Pre-production art of Zarkov’s crashed ship. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

of the handsome Flash Gordon. Along the way, the plot included spaceship battles, Lizard People, and more.

Filmation’s artists took great care to follow the design and feel of the original Alex Raymond comic strips, updating them only slightly. The costumes for the women were sexy, and even Flash Gordon showed some skin as his clothes got progressively torn away like Doc Savage, until he changed into his familiar red-and-blue bodysuit toward the end of the story. “We shot extensive live-action footage of human actors for rotoscoping, so that the human animation would have fluidity,” said Scheimer.

“One of the women we filmed was Don Christensen’s secretary, Karen, who was both very good at running in slow motion for rotoscoping, and also an excellent belly dancer. For some reason, we never had any problems getting male artists to work on footage of the Flash Gordon girls!” Indeed, Filmation put out a call for new artists in the trade papers and at comic shops and animation/art supply stores, utilizing Flash Gordon as the draw to work for the company!

In a 2006 interview, the late Darrell McNeil, an animator and cartoon historian, recalled, “We had a lot of rotoscoping; it was very much a very labor-intensive process, but it looked really, really good in places. I worked with a guy named Les Christensen, who was my layout mentor on this thing, and we worked on one scene with Princess Aura, where she’s on a couch, and she kind of rotates over and looks to Flash, and does what she tends to do, and the director looked at it and kind of gave us a look, and we said, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ and he said, ‘Well, she’s not… alluring enough.’ And we kind of got the hint, and knew what to do after that.”

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“I can remember Don Christensen asking me at one point when I was working at Filmation what my favorite project would be to work on, and I told him at that time it was Flash Gordon. It was quite a long time before we got the rights to do it. When we did, he came to my office and told me, ‘Well, it’s finally happened, we’re going to do Flash Gordon,’ so it was almost like getting a present.” Kline credited most of the basic character designs to longtime Filmation designer Herb Hazleton. “We tried to be faithful to Alex Raymond in our designs, and evoke that feeling.” Kline himself did many preproduction drawings that papered the walls at Filmation, showcasing fantastic cities, aliens, plants, and more. He also designed characters and creatures including some dinosaurs and dragons and Ming’s robots.

The effects team, headed by John Grusd and Paul Huston, developed clay models and maquettes of the characters, ships, and creatures. The models of the ships were painted white and covered in thin black lines, then filmed in live-action with a computerized multi-axis camera.

The film negatives were then printed as cels, creating “positive” versions of the ships for the animators to use for exact movement and perspective… no redrawing required! Combined with early computer animation and rotoscoping, this was essentially the nascent beginning of the kind of

(LEFT) Model sheet art of Ming the Merciless, now and forever Flash’s greatest foe. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

(INSET) Animator Darrell McNeil.

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CGI motion-capture technology now used in feature films today!

“We were pioneers of the technique on Flash Gordon!” Scheimer explained.

Other effects work expanded Filmation’s technical capabilities.

Bob Kline told Starlog in 1981 that “We utilized bottom lighting… we used moiré patterns to achieve ray effects and the energy screen behind Ming’s throne. All those types of things were experiments that paid off.”

All of the rotoscoping and creature and ship models and backgrounds could be reused for the Flash Gordon series, helping that show’s budget. “Because we had developed all this material for the film, we could transfer it to use as stock for the Saturday morning show, and thus have a show that looked fantastic,” said Scheimer.

“We also made the decision to use some of the footage from the film for the first four episodes or so of the series, but that decision created problems of its own.” Due to Saturday morning censorship restrictions, out were any scenes set in World War II or with Hitler

FAST FACTS FILMATION’S THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLASH GORDON f No. of seasons: Two f No. of episodes: 32 (16 @ 22 minutes, 16 @ 8 minutes) f Original run: September 22, 1979–November 6, 1982 (NBC, Saturdays) f Studio: Filmation

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Robert Ridgely: Flash Gordon, Prince Barin f Diane Pershing: Dale Arden, Queen Undina, Queen Fria, Queen Azura, Queen Desira f Alan Oppenheimer: Dr. Hans Zarkov, Gundar the Desert Hawk, Ming the Merciless f Allan Melvin: Thun the Lion Man, King Vultan f Melendy Britt: Princess Aura f Lou Scheimer: Narrator, Gremlin, additional voices or Nazis—meaning the entire set-up for the show was now missing.

The series had to be introduced only in the opening credits, with Flash, Dale, and Zarkov arriving on Mongo in Episode One with little explanation!

The sexy girls and shirtless Flash also got covered up. “We took a lot of the animation we had done and redid it with the costumes changed,” said Scheimer. “Princess Aura was still sexy, and there were still harem girls, but not quite as many as in the film. And Flash got into his red-and-blue jumpsuit much quicker.” Gone too were Earth guns and references to death or destruction of Mongo cities, replaced by fantasy weapons and open-ended denouements.

What was going to be four of the first 16 episodes expanded slightly from the film, instead became an alternate retelling of the film, with added characters and sequences. In total, the first four episodes of Flash Gordon only used 46 minutes out of the 104-minute feature!

(TOP) John Grusd works on a ship model created to guide animators and (BELOW) the animated ship in action. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. (INSET) Storyboard director Robert Kline.

The first season of Flash Gordon was mapped out and written entirely by Sam Peeples and Ted Pedersen. The story was essentially serialized, with Flash, Dale, Zarkov, Thun, Barin, and Vultan traversing the planet Mongo and interacting with—or fighting against—the various peoples, creatures, and species they met.

With more time to explore Mongo, the stories introduced underwater cities and Gillmen and Mermen, Beast Men, snow dragons, giants, witches, and more. Elements from Alex Raymond’s comic strip were adapted that were mostly true to the feel and tone of the original Flash Gordon adventures, even if they had to be changed either due to budget constraints or network censorship.

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I said, ‘No, I don’t feel I have enough experience to do the whole thing, but I’d love to do a segment,’ so…

Don Christensen produced the first season, the first year that we worked on it, and I did several segments. The second season, they had me take over as head director on the show.”

The budget of the film allowed for a more robust cast, but a number of the actors had to be replaced for the series by multi-character voice actors. One of the film voice actors was Ted Cassidy—best known as The Addams Family’s Lurch—who recorded his lines as the Lion Man Thun shortly before his death; Flash Gordon was his final project.

As fall 1979 approached, with a cartoonists strike halting production for almost every studio, Filmation’s productions were affected. NBC decided to delay the Flash Gordon telefilm until a later date, and instead planned the debut of the series whenever the strike ended. The delayed fall season brought The New

FAST FACTS FILMATION’S FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL f Telefilm f Original Airdate: August 22, 1982 (NBC, Sunday) f Length: 95 minutes f Studio: Filmation

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST

(INSET) Director Gwen Wetzler. (ABOVE) Flash struggles to contain Princess Aura, daughter of the evil Ming.

(BELOW) Flash strikes a defensive and classic pose. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

f Robert Ridgely: Flash Gordon f Diane Pershing: Dale Arden f Vic Perrin: Ming the Merciless f Bob Holt: Dr. Hans Zarkov f David Opatoshu: Prince Vultan f Melendy Britt: Princess Aura f Robert Douglas: Prince Barin f Ted Cassidy: Thun the Lion Man Adventures of Flash Gordon to debut at 10:00 a.m. on September 22nd, 1979.

The show did not do as well as expected. “Ratings were not at all what NBC was hoping for,” Scheimer said. “The problem was that shows generally repeated four times a year. When a specific episode would get great ratings, they would play them more. Doing [serialized] cliffhangers that were going to be repeated four times a year really made the networks crazy because they couldn’t change the order. So, they couldn’t repeat Flash Gordon based on ratings due to its serialized nature!” Flash Gordon was moved to the end of the Saturday schedule in April 1980, and by early May, the series was announced as cancelled for the fall, even though NBC was committed to a second season!

Things looked even bleaker for Flash when Dino de Laurentiis’ big-budget Flash Gordon feature film was released to theaters on December 5, 1980, starring Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max

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© King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Don Christensen produced the first season, and Scheimer made a groundbreaking decision about one of the directors: “We asked a very talented lady, Gwen Wetzler, to direct some of it. She ended up directing parts of the first season and maybe even scenes of the movie, and did a fantastic job. It was very unusual to have a woman directing animation at that point in time; I believe that the first woman in the U.S. to direct for animation was Gwen Batchelor in 1935 for a Robin Hood theatrical, but it was not common at all on television.

Gwen had worked as an animator at [Ralph] Bakshi’s and Hanna-Barbera before coming to us, and she was great. Not all of the guys agreed, though, and there was a lot of resistance to having a woman direct. But she was talented, and it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

Gwen Wetzler herself recalled in a 2006 interview that “the first season, they asked me if I wanted to direct the feature, and

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(LEFT) Dale and Flash share a tender moment in this screencap from Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All. (BELOW) Poster for the big-budget Flash Gordon movie.

(INSET) Writer Michael Reaves. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

von Sydow, Topol, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed, and others.

Despite a dazzling look and an awesome soundtrack by rock band Queen, the film was a critical and financial failure. On television and film, Flash Gordon had crashed harder than a rocketship on Mongo.

FLASH ADOPTS A DRAGON?

Filmation still had a contract to produce eight new Flash Gordon half-hours for NBC, and the peacock network was trying to figure out exactly what to do. Head honcho Fred Silverman asked Scheimer to reconfigure Flash Gordon’s second season to be more viewer-friendly; gone were cliffhangers and serialized storytelling, replaced by two short stories per episode. Also added to the second season was a baby dragon named Gremlin, meant to appeal to younger viewers.

Writer Michael Reaves, who wrote several stories for Season Two, recalled in 2006, “I was excited to write for Flash Gordon. I was a big Alex Raymond fan, and I thought that [Filmation] just nailed it in the movie, I thought that the movie was probably the best Flash Gordon I’ve ever seen, I thought it was miles better than the live-action

movie. It’s as good, in its own way, as the Buster Crabbe serials were. So, it was fun for me to write on the show.”

“We had spent a great deal of the budget on this first season, with all the development and the movie changes,” said Scheimer, “so by the time we got to the second season, there wasn’t a lot of the budget left. So, I put Gwen Wetzler in charge of directing a smaller crew whose job it was to just work on Flash Gordon, and they had kind of a mini-studio over at Filmation West.

She had animators and storyboard and layout people, but she also

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Thun the Lion Man, Prince Vultan, Prince Barin, and Princess Aura. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. RETROFAN

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(ABOVE) Cast of Defenders of the Earth: (LEFT TO RIGHT) Kshin with Fuzzy, Jedda, L. J., Rick Gordon, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, the Phantom, Lothar, and Ming the Merciless. (RIGHT) Promotioal poster for Defenders of the Earth. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. used a lot of newcomers and assistant animators, and trained them how to do animation on the job.”

Filmation’s crew had finished the unaired Flash Gordon telefilm in 1980, and were working on the second season of the series throughout 1981, around other assignments. NBC, meanwhile, was running out of time for the telefilm; although they held the rights to three broadcasts, they had until sometime in 1982 to broadcast the feature for the first time, or the domestic television rights would revert to Filmation.

On August 21, 1982, NBC finally aired the Flash Gordon telefilm in primetime. It was now titled Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All, and it garnered absolutely rave reviews. Variety called it “wild and often imaginative and mostly a hoot, and the drawing is far above the usual Saturday morning fare.” Judith Crist in TV Guide said it was “[g]reat stuff and delectable nonsense... enjoy it you will with its straight-forward, no-nonsense, adventure-filled storyline... its wonderfully imaginative creatures and creations; and, of course, its very classy hero.” History will never know if the series might have been a hit had NBC shown the telefilm prior to the series.

NBC also decided to put the second season of Flash Gordon onto its Fall 1982 schedule, debuting it on September 18th. The show was preempted constantly for sports or special events—mostly on the West Coast—and many viewers were never able to even see the complete series until its DVD release in 2006!

FLASH JOINS A TEAM—DEFENDERS

In 1981, animation producer DePatie–Freleng Enterprises was purchased by Cadence Industries, which at the time also owned Marvel Comics Group. Cadence renamed the company Marvel Productions that same year. The company produced shows for NBC, CBS, and the syndicated market, including Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends; The Incredible Hulk; Pandamonium; Dungeons & Dragons; G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero; Muppet Babies; Transformers; Jem and the Holograms; Inhumanoids; and My Little Pony & Friends, among others. Most of the shows were based either on Marvel 62

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characters or on toy lines, but in 1985, King Features Syndicate joined forces with Marvel to produce a new show based on King’s comic-strip adventure heroes: Defenders of the Earth.

The series was a merging of the comic universes, positing a world on which Flash and Dale Arden had a son, African hero the Phantom had a daughter, and both Mandrake the Magician and his bodyguard Lothar had offspring (though Mandrake’s was adopted).

Bedeviling the heroes constantly was Ming the Merciless, whose plans involved draining Earth of its natural resources, and Ming’s own offspring, as well as innumerable Ice Robots, space pirates, and various others.

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Bryce Malek was the story editor in charge of the series. “I was working at Marvel Productions with my partner, Dick Robbins,” Malek recalled in a 2006 interview for the DVD set. “We were head story editors of the studio at that time. We had just been finishing up the first year of the Transformers, and Margaret Loesch, who was the executive producer there, asked us to come onto Defenders of the Earth and be story editors of that series, for the 65 episodes they were doing. The show was actually created before we got in on the show. It was being developed by Larry Parr… He went on to something else, and we got brought when in the show was up and developed, and ready to go.”

Producer David J. Corbett talked about the series development in a 2006 interview. “The series was initially designed to bring the kids of the super-heroes in to see if it could attract kids to the original characters, Flash Gordon, Phantom, Lothar, and Mandrake…

And there were some initial changes in the beginning, as it went

through development. There was a daughter of Flash Gordon who became a son, and there was a son of the Phantom who became a daughter, so the series went through a lot of developmental changes, but the involvement of the kids was to just bring a kid viewpoint into a series involved with super-heroes.”

Ming the Merciless was one of Malek’s favorite characters to write on the series. “He did say a lot of stereotypical things, like ‘You fools!’ or ‘Invaders! Alert!’… sometimes it was just sort of over the top. He was not as active, obviously, as his minions, his minions had to actually do more, he had to actually pose more. But occasionally, he did get into the action as well, that was fun to do… We tried to make him as imperious as we possibly could, and so he, being a very traditional, classic villain, we had a lot of fun working with him.”

One of the most prominent writers on the series was David Wise, who wrote 15 of the 65 episodes. In a 2006 interview, Wise

(LEFT) Ming is, of course, the featured bad guy in Defenders of the Earth.

(RIGHT) Flash Gordon, other comic strip heroes and their offspring. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

FAST FACTS DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: 65 (22 minutes) f Original run: September 8, 1986–December 5, 1986 (syndicated, M–F) f Studio: Marvel Productions/King Features Entertainment

© King Features Syndicate, Inc.

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Lou Richards: Flash Gordon f Peter Mark Richman: The Phantom f Peter Renaday: Mandrake the Magician f Buster Jones: Lothar f Loren Lester: Richard “Rick” Gordon f Dion Williams: L. J. (Lothar, Jr.) f Sarah Partridge: Jedda Walker f Adam Carl: Kshin f Diane Pershing: Dynac X f Ron Feinberg: Ming the Merciless f Hal Rayle: Prince Kro-Tan f Jennifer Darling: Princess Castra f William Callaway: Octon, Garax, Kurt Walker

said, “These were great characters: Mandrake, the Phantom, Flash Gordon, these are classic, these are the kind of characters you’d sell your mother... to be able to write for.” One of Wise’s stories, “Flesh and Blood,” was a spotlight on Flash Gordon.

“There’s this group of robot-haters… the old racism… this is an old science-fiction ploy, that the hatred of machines is a stand-in for racism,” Wise said. “We stood this on its head a little bit. A paramilitary group—since this is set in the future—who think that robots are making humanity soft, and stealing our souls, and all that, and are generally bad, go around committing acts of terrorism, destroying robots… [Flash] makes a realization, that this anti-robot group are robots. They’re robots that have been programmed so perfectly to think they’re human, that they’ve started an anti-robot movement. And there’s a scene where Flash Gordon walks up to one of the robot guys and says, ‘I usually find that whatever a person hates most, whatever a person takes the most offense with, is usually what that person is, under the surface,’ and he rips off the guy’s chest, and there’s robotics underneath. This is the textbook definition of the psychological term of projection, which is, basically, ‘I attribute my own faults to the people around me.’

And… this is pretty deep stuff for a kids’ show. There was just outrageous stuff in these.”

Production of the series did have a new element: according to Wise, it was the first series to be entirely animated in Korea! “Korean animation was… definitely second to Japanese animation quality at this time, they were just getting their industry RETROFAN

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up on their feet. Now, the Korean industry is excellent, the Japanese use the Korean industry all the time. But the craft of the artists and designers and writers and story people behind it, I think, really shows through... And also look at the end credits, because there were some pretty heavyweight artists involved with the design of the show, such as [Jim] Valentino, who went on to found Image Comics, and Alex Nino, who’s a great, famous designer. The show has a lot to offer.” Other famous comic artists that worked on the comic-inspired series include Rudy Nebres, Nestor Redondo, Mike Sekowsky, Pat Boyette, Will Meugniot, Nicola Cuti, and Rick Hoberg.

As with many of the syndicated animation series of the mid-Eighties, Defenders of the Earth was produced as 65 episodes, airing Monday–Friday, beginning September 8, 1986, and finishing its first run on December 5, 1986.

Malek has good memories of Defenders of the Earth. “When I look at the show now, there’s a lot of good animation, a lot of effects that were very technical for the time,” he reflected. “Nowadays, we have computer-generated graphics and animation that really, really, is outstanding, and looks much better than we could do in 1986. For 1986, it had a lot of quality to it, there was a lot of good animation, there was a lot of good color. I believe that the stories themselves were both exciting adventures, yet they had some family elements to them, some human elements, that the characters could actually interact with each other, and as father or son, or children and parents, the generations. So, I think there’s a good mix of that.

“I was very proud to work on this show because I thought it was fun for kids, and I thought it wasn’t something that was condescending to them, either. It just had a nice mix of all the elements.”

FLASH’S LEGACY

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© King Features Syndicate, Inc.

FAST FACTS HEARST’S FLASH GORDON f No. of seasons: One f No. of episodes: 26 (22 minutes) f Original run: September 1996– September 1997 (syndicated) f Studio: Hearst Entertainment

PRIMARY VOICE PERFORMER CAST f Toby Proctor: Alex “Flash” Gordon f Paul Shaffer: Dr. Hans Zarkov f Lexa Doig: Dale Arden f Lorne Kennedy: Ming the Merciless, Ijad f Tracey Hoyt: Princess Aura f Andy Marshall: Prince Talon, King Vultan f Lawrence Bayne: Prince Barin, General Arden, Chump f Ray Landry: General Lynch, Frank Gordon f Tyrone Benskin: Kobalt f Dana Brooks: Sulpha f Krista White: Thundar f Additional Voices: Rob Cowan, Shirley Douglas, Allegra Fulton, Julie Lemieux, Marjorie Malpass, Rino Romano, Ron Rubin, Alison Sealy-Smith, Adrian Truss, Lisa Yamanaka

© King Features Syndicate, Inc.

FLASH RIDES A SKATEBOARD?

Flash Gordon all but disappeared from the public eye for a decade following the Defenders of the Earth series, but Hearst Entertainment (the parent corporation of King Features) wasn’t going to give up their champion so easily. In 1996, Hearst worked with Lacewood Productions and French partners to create a new 26-episode Flash Gordon series. This version though was a significant departure from anything that had come before. Here, Alex “Flash” Gordon was a teenager on Earth who was the son of Air Force astronauts.

After Flash and fellow Air Force teen Dale Arden were accidentally brought aboard Dr. Zarkov’s interdimensional rocketship, they became embroiled in a battle against the forces of Ming the Merciless. With the help of Ming’s daughter, the trio from Earth destroyed Ming’s wormhole portal to Earth, but they were now trapped on Mongo! Soon becoming skilled at the use of a floating skateboard known as a “hoverboard,” Flash and his allies traveled to other planets and lands, determined to bring together an anti-Ming coalition that might end the space tyrant’s plans once and for all.

Along the way, they encountered familiar Flash characters and threats including Prince Barin of Arboria, King Vultan of the Hawk People, Rock Warriors, an underwater kingdom, a Pantheron mercenary, Shark People, cave-dwelling Trogs, and dragons.

This third version of Flash Gordon was syndicated weekly beginning in September 1996. The voice cast was mostly made up of actors from Toronto, Canada.

Departing from the classic look: (ABOVE) Flash and Dale. (LEFT) Sketches for a radically different Ming.

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chance on television. A poorly received SyFy network live-action animation you’ll see in the business… it was a very good work series was mercifully ended following a 2007–2008 airing. experience.”

On July 18, 2006, following the success of DVD releases of As for Defenders of the Earth, producer David J. Corbett said, “The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, BCI Eclipse released Flash whole development and the creation of Defenders of the Earth as a Gordon: The Complete Series as part of a series of the Filmation and series… there was a phenomenal group of talent on the show. We Hearst libraries on DVD. Defenders of the Earth vol. 1 was released had some of the best designers in the genre, we had some great on October 10, 2006, with vol. 2 coming out on April 3, 2007. Each directors, and I think just, in terms of where it stood as a series, it was a multi-disc set produced by was a little groundbreaking for the the author of this very article, Andy time. It had a lot of historical value, it Mangels, and included all episodes, had great characters, and the writing plus multiple crew interviews, was great. I think it turned out to be image galleries, commentary a really wonderful character-driven tracks, and more. The Flash Gordon super-heroic show, which is often set also featured a two collectible rare in this world.”

4x6 exclusive Flash Gordon art Whether or not Flash Gordon cards by acclaimed comic artists will ever again grace animation—or Frank Cho and Gene Ha, while the whether he has gracefully retired Defenders of the Earth sets included to Mongo with both Dale Arden cards by Mike McKone, Stephen and Princess Aura, sipping wine Sadowski, Michael Allred, and from the empty skull of Ming the Rafael Kayanan.

Merciless—is unknown. But the hero Oddly, at the time of production and his friends did keep audiences of these sets, Hearst did not have entertained for almost 90 years. a master copy of the Flash Gordon: Maybe it’s time he caught a break?

The Greatest Adventure of All telefilm, Or maybe he’ll return someday to so the project was not released. save every one of us… Maybe, just Years later, while working on the maybe, he’ll be back… in a flash!

Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation [Editor’s note: Can’t get enough Generation book, this author found of Flash Gordon? Check out the a master ¾-inch video of the September 2022 issue of our sister project, but by then, Hearst was not magazine, Back Issue #138, for artiinterested in a further release. Fans cles about Flash’s comic appearances have only bootlegs—most taken in the Seventies and Eighties. www. from a Japanese laser disc or NTSC Flash Gordon DVD box art. © King Features Syndicate, Inc. twomorrows.com] VHS videotape source and featuring hard-coded Japanese subtitles—to Unless otherwise credited, the quotes from Lou Scheimer are from the look to for the telefilm (although a YouTube version has been autobiography he wrote with Andy Mangels, for Lou Scheimer: Creating posted in multiple parts). the Filmation Generation. Interviews with Darrell McNeil, Bob Kline, As for the 1996 Flash Gordon series, Lionsgate released a trio of Gwen Wetzler, Michael Reaves, Bryce Malek, David J. Corbett, and David DVDs in September 2004, as well as a compilation movie titled Wise were all done by Mangels in 2006. Artwork and photos are courtesy Flash Gordon: Marooned on Mongo – The Animated Movie. the collection of Andy Mangels. Some photos were provided by Heritage All three series are currently available to download on Amazon Auctions.

Prime Video.

In 2006, artist Robert Kline said, “I look back on Flash Gordon ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestwith a lot of pride. I think we probably spent more time and effort selling author and co-author of 20 books, on that single project than any other. We did a lot of live-action including TwoMorrows’ Lou Scheimer: reference, we did a lot of model work that paid off in giving the Creating the Filmation Generation, as well show a much more sumptuous look that most of the other Filmaas Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: tion projects I worked on.”

Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books.

Gwen Wetzler agreed, saying, “It was a good movie. We did that He recently wrote the bestselling Wonder show for approximately $2 million, which is a very, very low budget, Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman when you consider some Saturday morning episodes now are about series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and has written six Fractured a million dollars an episode, and we did a feature for two, two Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior High audiences, released by Abdo million. And it was a good movie. We did a lot of experimenting Books in 2021. He is currently working on a book about the stage with effects, we had some fine animators on, we had some young productions of Stephen King and other projects. Additionally, he has people coming along learning to do that kind of high-caliber work. scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries There are some animated scenes in there that I think really rivaled for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyDisney’s. The ostriches with the beautiful girls riding them, that Mangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com Lou Kachivas animated, were beautifully done. Some of the finest RETROFAN

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RETRO KID-VID

50 Years After Its Debut

BY L. WAYNE HICKS In casting Zoom—the Seventies television show for children whose theme song urged its audience to “come on, give it a try”—the executive producer picked everyday kids over experienced actors.

“We didn’t want talented kids,” said Christopher Sarson, the British-born executive who created Zoom. “We wanted kids who were willing to try things and who had a spark of ingenuity about them. That’s what I was after. I was very keen that our kids not be professional. I wanted them to be the kid next door.”

For six seasons beginning in January 1972, Zoom entertained rather than educated. While the program shared the same public broadcasting airwaves as Sesame Street and The Electric Company, Zoom eschewed focus groups and surveys and presented to its viewers what they themselves had submitted. The jokes, plays, and activities all came from viewers around the country who were invited (via a catchy song) to send their ideas to “Box 350, Boston, Mass., Oh-2134.” The letters poured in, at first by the hundreds and then by the thousands.

“We were just doing like what kids would do when they’re together and play-acting—putting on a skit for their parents or their neighborhood or something,” said Bernadette Yao, who joined Zoom in its second season. “That’s what it kind of felt like.”

Broadcast from WGBH-TV in Boston, Zoom relied on a rotating cast usually made up of seven preteen children who remained for a season. The exception was the fourth season, which featured ten in the multiethnic cast.

“We were just a bunch of kids who happened to create something that was incredibly magical at a time in America when it was really needed,” said Dr. Joseph Shrand, today a psychiatrist who was part of the initial cast. “There was a lot of strife and anger and racial discontent and other things like that going on in the early Seventies, and then there was Zoom.”

Sarson, who previously oversaw Masterpiece Theatre for WGBH, thought up Zoom after watching how his own young son and daughter interacted with other children.

“They’re very amenable to new ideas at that age,” said Sarson, who served as executive producer of Zoom for its first three seasons. “They’re very 66

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These kids Zoomed before you were forced to during the pandemic lockdown! WGBH. (INSET) Zoom’s mailbox was filled with colorful letters from viewers. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. (OPPOSITE PAGE) The Zoom cast: the kids next door.

Courtesy of WGBH.

keen to experiment. They’re very keen to do things if adults will let them.”

The episodes opened with the cast singing and dancing in front of giant letters that spelled out Zoom, followed by each person introducing himself. When it was Yao’s turn, she showed off a move with her arms seeming to rapidly twist around each other. That, along with the theme song and the made-up Ubbi Dubbi language (where the introduction of “ub” before each vowel sound turned the name of the show into “Zuboom”), became fixed in the memories of viewers.

“It was relatable, and I think it sparked—which it was intended to do—in everyone the idea that you have this amazing potential,” said Shrand, the author of six books on improving mental health.

“It doesn’t matter what color you are, what socioeconomic level, whether you’re a boy or a girl. It doesn’t matter. You have in you have this remarkable potential. That is the foundation for everything that I have done in my career as a psychiatrist. This idea that you’re always doing the best you can.”

Zoom continues to resonate decades later, a fact proven by references that appear in other television programs. Mentions have been made in The Big Bang Theory and King of Queens, where characters speak Ubbi Dubbi, and in The Simpsons, where Sideshow Bob remembers writing to “Box Oh-2-1-3-4.” An episode of Friends revealed Joey lied on his résumé by claiming to be one of the “Zoom kids.”

Zoom even made it into the halls of the (fictional) White House.

Briefly, during a walk-and-talk moment in the second season of The West Wing, actress Emily Procter fluttered her arms in a move reminiscent of what’s come to be known as “Bernadette’s arm thing.” Decades after that scene, Procter admitted two things on The West Wing Weekly podcast: She thought she was off-camera, and she was indeed copying Bernadette’s moves.

“Everybody remembers the arm thing,” said Yao, who today is a composer, musician, and holistic healer.

The Zoom cast rehearsed after school on Wednesday and taped segments on Friday. That meant long days, but anyone selected for the show had to promise to keep up their grades. In keeping with the notion that the children were not intended to be future stars, the cast was simply urged to try their best.

“Even on the taping days, it wasn’t so much about perfection,” said David Alberico, part of the second season of Zoom. As an adult, he went on to work as an actor and then moved behind the scenes in the film and music industries. “It was really just the spontaneity and the joy of the moment.”

“None of us were professionals in any manner of speaking,” said Maura Mullaney, who joined the cast in the second season and today is a railroad conductor for Amtrak. “I think that’s what made it so endearing. Kids could watch it and think, ‘Well, I could do that,’ and I think that was one of the magical things about Zoom.”

Zoom ran for 155 episodes and won three Emmy Awards.

WGBH produced two record albums and a Zoom activity book and went on to revive the program in the Nineties, but it wasn’t the same. The children in the revival were more polished, more professional, and viewers could email their ideas instead of dropping a letter in the mail.

L. WAYNE HICKS is a Denver-based writer who previously worked for newspapers in Florida and Colorado. He has written about such pop-culture figures as Fess Parker, Captain Kangaroo, Encyclopedia Brown, Dick Tracy, KISS, and Romper Room.

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THE

CHARLTON COMPANION

by JON B. COOKE

An ALL-NEW definitive history of Connecticut’s notorious all-in-one comic book company! Often disparaged as a second-rate funny-book outfit, Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by DICK GIORDANO in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of STEVE DITKO and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers—and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom. From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including GIORDANO, DENNIS O’NEIL, ALEX TOTH, SANHO KIM, TOM SUTTON, PAT BOYETTE, NICK CUTI, JOHN BYRNE, MIKE ZECK, JOE STATON, SAM GLANZMAN, NEAL ADAMS, JOE GILL, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for ALAN MOORE’s cross-media graphic novel hit, WATCHMEN. By JON B. COOKE with MICHAEL AMBROSE & FRANK MOTLER. SHIPS NOVEMBER 2022!

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THE

TEAM-UP COMPANION

by MICHAEL EURY

THE TEAM-UP COMPANION examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics—DC’s THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and DC COMICS PRESENTS, Marvel’s MARVEL TEAM-UP and MARVEL TWO-INONE, plus other team-up titles, treasuries, and treats—in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes. Go behind the scenes of your favorite team-up comic books with specially curated and all-new creator recollections from NEAL ADAMS, JIM APARO, MIKE W. BARR, ELIOT R. BROWN, NICK CARDY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE GERBER, STEVEN GRANT, BOB HANEY, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, PAUL LEVITZ, RALPH MACCHIO, DENNIS O’NEIL, MARTIN PASKO, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other all-star writers and artists who produced the team-up tales that so captivated readers during the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s. By BACK ISSUE and RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY. (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7 • NOW SHIPPING!

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

by GLEN CADIGAN

From the letters pages of Silver Age comics to his 2021 induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the career of DAVE COCKRUM started at the bottom and then rose to the top of the comic book industry. Beginning with his childhood obsession with comics and continuing through his years in the Navy, THE LIFE AND ART OF DAVE COCKRUM follows the rising star from fandom (where he was one of the “Big Three” fanzine artists) to pro-dom, where he helped revive two struggling comic book franchises: the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and the X-MEN. A prolific costume designer and character creator, his redesigns of the Legion and his introduction of X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan) laid the foundation for both titles to become best-sellers. His later work on his own property, THE FUTURIANS, as well as childhood favorite BLACKHAWK and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, plus his five years on SOULSEARCHERS AND COMPANY, cemented his position as an industry giant. Featuring artwork from fanzines, unused character designs, and other rare material, this is THE comprehensive biography of the legendary comic book artist, whose influence is still felt on the industry today! Written by GLEN CADIGAN (THE LEGION COMPANION, THE TITANS COMPANION Volumes 1 and 2, BEST OF THE LEGION OUTPOST) with an introduction by ALEX ROSS. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 • (LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4 • NOW SHIPPING!

RETRO TELEVISION

Shadow Chasers The Forgotten Eighties Supernatural Show

BY JEFFREY S. MILLER Pop quiz: Can you name the television series that featured a skeptic who questioned the supernatural teaming up with a believer of all things paranormal to investigate mysterious incidents at the behest of a cranky superior? If you answered The X-Files, you’re not wrong, but the description also applies to a littleknown series from the mid-Eighties that aired on the ABC network. The show was called Shadow Chasers, and its combination of horror and comedy was something new for the time.

Shadow Chasers premiered on November 14, 1985, with only nine episodes airing on Thursday evenings, the last on January 16, 1986. Bootleg collections of the series do exist and are secretly sold and traded among fans. Almost all of the episodes in varying quality can be found on YouTube, while the two-hour pilot occasionally shows up as a standalone movie on cable networks (including the Mystery Channel and the SyFy Channel).

WHO ARE THE SHADOW CHASERS?

The whimsical series starred Trevor Eve as uptight anthropology professor Jonathan MacKensie, who lives in the shadow of his famous scientist father. His boss, Dr. Juliana Moorhouse (played by film veteran Nina Foch), blackmails Jonathan into heading up her newly formed Georgetown Institute Paranormal Research Unit by holding up his research grant unless he complies. Jonathan is a true skeptic and doesn’t believe in anything that is supernatural or paranormal. His first assignment is to investigate a haunted house where weird occurrences center on a teenage boy.

On the case he meets author and tabloid reporter Edgar “Benny” Benedek (Dennis Dugan), an irreverent,

Before television’s Mulder and Scully, investigative journalist Edgar “Benny” Benedek (Dennis Dugan) and Professor Jonathan MacKensie (Trevor Eve) explored the unexplained—and found laughs along the way—in the short-lived television series Shadow Chasers. ABC publicity photo. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television.

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overly excited, and enthusiastic believer in everything from Bigfoot and flying saucers to ghosts and Egyptian curses. Although Jonathan is put off by Benny, the two work together to solve the case. Jonathan uses Benny for information and as a way to shorten his involvement in the case, while Benny uses Jonathan’s academic credentials to get into places and talk to people he normally could not access due to the notoriety of his newspaper. After solving the case, Jonathan and Benny decide to continue to work together, despite the misgivings of Dr. Moorhouse, who barely tolerates Benny. Eventually, Jonathan and Benny become close friends as well as investigative partners.

As the series continues, Dr. Moorhouse gives the duo cases to investigate. From time to time they also stumble upon weird phenomena on their own. Almost always, Benny brings in one or two experts to help solve the case—these are eccentric characters that drive Jonathan crazy, including a ventriloquist medium and an aerobics-instructor exorcist. Usually, the mystery is wrapped up in the end, with science explaining away anything supernatural. Yet there are almost always one or two strange events from the case that can’t be explained. Benny takes great delight in pointing these out to Jonathan, who remains skeptical about the paranormal. A few times, the cases do not have scientific explanations and the duo simply accept the fact that the supernatural is at work (such as the episode “Let’s Make a Deal,” involving a witch).

With a style that would also be seen in the feature film Ghostbusters (1984), the episodes always mixed comedy with horror and/or science-fiction themes. Looking back, Shadow Chasers was seldom scary, though there were occasional spooky moments as well as creepy sequences (especially in the pilot film). At the same time, most of the comedy came from Jonathan being annoyed with and embarrassed

by Benny, as well as Dugan’s somewhat obnoxious take on the character and his often silly dialogue.

THE ‘HULK’–‘SHADOW CHASERS’ CONNECTION

The series was created by Kenneth Johnson and Brian Grazer. Johnson was a prolific television producer, director, and writer.

He created the series The Bionic Woman, Cliffhangers, The Incredible Hulk, and V. [Editor’s note: See RetroFan #1 for our look at The Hulk and a Lou Ferrigno interview.] After Shadow Chasers, Johnson created the TV adaptation of the popular sci-fi movie Alien Nation. His film credits include directing Short Circuit 2 (1988) and Steel (1997). He also wrote and directed such made-for-TV movies as Senior Trip (1980), 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993), and Don’t Look Under the Bed (1999).

Just after Shadow Chasers, Brian Grazer formed Imagine Entertainment with director Ron Howard. A prolific producer, Grazer’s films include such titles as Parenthood (1989), Apollo 13 (1995), The Nutty Professor (1996), and Cinderella Man (2005), among many, many others. He’s been nominated for an Academy Award four times and with Ron Howard won Best Picture for A Beautiful Mind (2001). He has continued to produce and create television series in addition to his film work.

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(ABOVE) Shadow Chasers series creator Kenneth Johnson in 1985, during the filming of the pilot.

Courtesy of Kenneth Johnson. (LEFT) Veteran actress Nina Foch, described in ABC press materials as a “strict academician” (the oversized glasses are a giveaway), as Dr. Julianna Moorhouse. ABC publicity photo. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television.

In a telephone interview with RetroFan, Kenneth Johnson explains how he met Grazer and came to be involved with the show: “It was a very curious situation.

My attorney had met a client that he said he thought could use my help, and maybe we could help each other in different ways because he had just had a successful movie and was building quite a theatrical career for himself. He had just sold the idea of a show to ABC and needed some help in trying to figure out what it really was. So I went over to Disney and met with this crazy young guy named Brian Grazer, who had just had a huge hit with Splash (1984), so he was everybody’s golden boy in town and really energetic and highly interesting and told me that he had just had a terrific meeting with ABC where they had bought his idea to do a show about two guys who investigate unexplained phenomena. And I said, ‘Okay. So tell me about it.’ He said, ‘That’s it.’ I said, ‘Well, what did you tell them? What was the story? What were the characters?’

He said, ‘I didn’t tell them anything. I just said two guys investigating unexplained phenomena and they bought it and they want

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Kenneth Johnson creating a spooky mood. Courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

to do it and they’re looking forward to putting it on the air as a series.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And he said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Well, I think we’re starting from scratch.’

“Then he began to get a couple phone calls, so I’m sitting there thinking about it. I’m walking around his office while he had other phone calls for about ten minutes or so, and… I had remembered an idea I had used on an episode of The Bionic Woman that I wrote and directed called ‘[The] Ghosthunter.’ And it was about a young boy that was telekinetic—he could move things with his mind—but he did not know it because it only happened when he was asleep like Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet (1956). And I said, ‘Okay, you have two guys—you need some opposition going, so one guy should be probably an academic and the other guy should be one of my favorite characters which was always [investigative reporter] Jack McGee from the National Register in The Incredible Hulk pursuing David Banner through all the five years of The Incredible Hulk that we did [a character based on Inspector Javert from Les Miserables].’ And I loved the National Register as a place to jump off from—we still have a collection somewhere of real headlines like ‘Live Baby Found in Watermelon,’ all of that crazy stuff.

“So I said, ‘How about [there are] two guys, one is an academic who doesn’t really believe in this, doesn’t really want to do this kind of stuff, he’s an aesthete, and the other guy is a yellow-rag journalist much more broad and in-your-face than Jack McGee was and the way Jack Colvin played Jack McGee on The Hulk. We pair them up and we have to do a pilot where they meet because they’re both searching for the same thing and they get hooked up; they get involved. And we need an overseer which became [Dr. Moorhouse] who was the woman who was in charge—she was based on Thelma Moss, who had been the head of the UCLA paranormal studies… she was the pattern for the little woman who played that role in Poltergeist (1982). And so she wants to suck in her protégé, who was the academic guy, and get him involved in this. But he hates that stuff; he doesn’t want it; he doesn’t like it and he really has great difficulty with this charlatan, Benny, who is this guy from the National Register.’ [I used] exactly the same newspaper

(ABOVE) Dr. Moorhouse (Nina Foch) seems dismissive of Prof.

MacKensie (Trevor Eve) in this publicity still from Shadow Chasers’ pilot. ABC publicity photo. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television. (RIGHT) The Incredible Hulk menaces reporter for the National Register, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin). © NBCUniversal. The Incredible Hulk TM & © Marvel.

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Screen captures from Shadow Chasers as our heroes confront strange lights from the sky. Prof. MacKensie (LEFT) is shocked, while journalist “Benny” Benedek appears delighted. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television. as I used in The Incredible Hulk, because I knew [the title] was already cleared.”

In a way, using the same newspaper—which was based on the National Enquirer—places TV’s The Incredible Hulk and Shadow Chasers in the same fictional universe. When asked if Jack McGee might have made a cameo on the show if it had not been cancelled so soon, Johnson replied, “That’s a funny idea. It might have had I thought about it…”

offering. They were desperate to get something and for some reason so eager to get me back on the lot after all that had happened.

And I said, ‘Well, it’s got to be carefully done.’ There was a lot of mishandling of funds because of the way the Warners production department buried a lot of the costs of the original V and I didn’t want to get stuck with that again. I sat down with Alan Shayne and Barry Meyer, who was then head of Business Affairs at Warners TV and later became CEO, and I said, ‘Look, guys, I don’t trust you… if

A RETURN TO WARNER BROS.

Regarding Shadow Chasers’ development, Johnson continues, “And so I spit all of this out to Brian when he got off the phone. I mean literally, I created the show in about ten minutes while he was on the phone. And he said, ‘That’s great!

That’s cool! Let’s go tell them about it!’

“So he called them up, made an appointment for the next day, and we went over to ABC and they said, ‘That’s great! We love it!’ And they bought the show. And we had our choice of where to do it—Brian, of course, had a connection with Disney and Paramount and a couple of others. So we talked to a couple of the studios and everybody wanted to do it; everybody was making offers to do it and at one point, Brian said, ‘Let’s talk to Warner Bros.’ And I said, ‘Naaah, I don’t want to go there’ [due to a] debacle I had had with [them over] V and the bad blood that had been left from that. I was very frustrated with the way I was treated at Warners and I said no. And he said, ‘Come on, it will probably just get the bidding up.’ Well, it did. Warner Bros. offered us twice the money that any of the other studios were 72

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Kenneth Johnson setting up a shot, during the pilot episode. Courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

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we’re going to do this with you, it’s going to be the accountants for Brian and my company that are going to be overseeing the budget so that nothing goes astray.’ And they said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, sure, whatever you want,’ and they even had a Visitor [from V] action figure/doll that they had marketed somewhat and gave me one when I came in the first day on the lot again, saying, ‘So glad to have you back.’ And it was bizarre… [but that’s] Hollywood.

“So basically, walking around Brian’s office for ten, 15 minutes, I spun out what could be the pilot and ABC bought it and Warners bought it, and suddenly we were in business putting this together.

I wrote the story and put Brian’s name on the story, too. I felt that was fair, although I really wrote the story myself, but I wanted him to get the residuals and royalties that he might get from it. And he really didn’t have anything to do—much to do at all with the pilot or the series. Now bear in mind, this was happening before there was an X-Files. Before Ghostbusters came out. Ghostbusters was about to come out, but had not yet—nobody had ever seen it yet, so we were sort of in new, interesting kind of turf.”

THE ‘SHADOW CHASERS’ CAST

Casting the show came next. As Kenneth Johnson tells RetroFan, “I found a terrific actor named Trevor Eve, an English guy who was just a sensational actor and had all kinds of levels and colors and stuff and was great. Eve was cast as serious scientist Jonathan MacKensie, who is often forced to sacrifice his dignity during a case (such as when he wore a chicken suit in order to get access to some hospital records).”

The actor was barely on American audiences’ radars at the time.

“Eve started acting in the early Seventies, and his first big success was playing Paul McCartney on stage in 1974,” Johnson says. “He was primarily a theater actor, but in 1979 he gained fame playing the titular private investigator in the British series Shoestring.”

Eve appeared in Children of a Lesser God in 1981, but American audiences first took notice of him when he portrayed Jonathan

Prof. MacKensie searches for medical records. © 1985 Warner Bros. Television.

Harker in the 1979 film version of Dracula. After Shadow Chasers, Eve continued acting, mostly sticking to British television programs and made-for-television movies.

Though Dennis Dugan was perfectly cast as Edgar Benedek, he was not Johnson’s first choice. “I found several guys that I really liked for Benedek including Jeffrey Jones, who had just played the Emperor in Amadeus (1984), the one who told Mozart he was writing too many notes. Jeffrey came and read, and I loved him, he was great; and there were a couple of other guys also, but Brian had encountered Dennis Dugan at a party somewhere and thought he’d be great. Dennis came in and he was kind of freewheeling, and

(LEFT) Dennis Dugan from the Richie Brockleman, Private Eye opening (1978) © NBCUniversal, (CENTER) Trevor Eve in Dracula (1979) © MGM, and (RIGHT) Nina Foch in I Love a Mystery (1945). © Columbia Pictures.

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Brian really loved him. I liked Jeffrey better, but we ended up going with Dennis, who did a really fine job and really got all the essence of the character that I was looking for. His sparks with Trevor were terrific, and it gave Trevor great stuff to play off of.”

Dugan was a staple of television in the Seventies, guest-starring on many television series including M*A*S*H, Columbo, Cannon, The Mod Squad, and The Rockford Files. His character from Rockford was spun off into a short-lived series called Richie Brockelman, Private Eye. On the big screen, Dugan appeared in such films as Night Call Nurses (1972), Night Moves (1975), Norman… Is That You? (1976), and Disney’s Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979). Horror fans will remember his character from The Howling (1981), where he helps to save Dee Wallace Stone from werewolves. After Shadow Chasers, he continued to make appearances on film and television, but more and more turned to directing, specializing in comedy. He helmed continued on page 76

SHADOW CHASERS EPISODE GUIDE Episode 1 and 2: “Pilot” Note: Although the pilot was shown as a two-hour premiere, most reference sources such as IMDB and Wikipedia count this as the first two episodes.

Written by Brian Grazer and Kenneth Johnson Directed by Kenneth Johnson Original airdate: 11/14/85 Synopsis: Dr. Jonathan MacKensie is forced by his boss, Dr. Juliana Moorhouse, to head up a paranormal investigation unit for the Georgetown Institute. His first case, a house supposedly haunted by an occultist who died there in a fire, brings him into contact with tabloid reporter Edgar “Benny” Benedek. Despite their differences, the two work together to solve the mystery and figure out why much of the supernatural incidents seem connected to the occultist’s teenage son.

Episode 3: “The Spirit of St. Louis” Written by Craig Buck Directed by Victor Lobi Original airdate: 11/21/85 Synopsis: Jonathan and Benny head to St. Louis, where artifacts from King Tut’s tomb are being studied. A mysterious death attributed to the curse on the tomb leads them to a teenage cult preparing to offer a sacrifice to the boy king.

Episode 4: “Amazing Grace” Written by Susan Goldberg, Bob Rosenfarb Directed by Barbara Peeters Original airdate: 11/28/85 Synopsis: Benny is severely injured in a car crash and taken to a hospital, where he has an out-of-body experience. The spirit of a dead woman named Grace begs him to go back and stop a hospital staffer from killing more patients.

From the pilot: (TOP) Johnson and grip Joe Graham.

(BOTTOM) Johnson directs cinematographer John McPherson (LEFT) and an unidentified crew member.

Both, courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

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Episode 5: “The Middle of Somewhere” Written by Renee Longstreet, Harry Longstreet Directed by Chuck Braverman Original airdate: 12/5/85 Synopsis: Jonathan, Benny, and Dr. Moorhouse are on their way to a convention when their small aircraft is caught in a storm. The plane crashes, and Jonathan and Benny wake up

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in a strange facility where they meet such historical figures as Elvis and Wyatt Earp. The two initially think they are in heaven, but soon learn they are in an asylum where the patients have taken over.

Episode 6: “Parts Unknown” Written by Linda Campanelli, M. M. Shelley Moore Directed by Bob Sweeney Original airdate: 12/12/85 Synopsis: Reports of grave-robbing and zombies lead Benny to a sinister health club… and to an early grave. Jonathan must follow in his footsteps to find Benny and save him.

Episode 7: “The Many Lives of Jonathan” Written by Richard Manning, Hans Beimler Directed by Cliff Bole Original airdate: 12/19/85 Synopsis: Jonathan is possessed by the spirits of those who died in a hotel fire. Benny brings in an aerobics exorcist to help cure him (and find out who started the fire).

Episode 8: “Phantom of the Galleria” Written by Peggy Goldman Directed by Alan Myerson Original airdate: 12/26/85 Synopsis: Jonathan and Benny search a shopping mall for a mysterious creature that has been sighted there.

Episode 9: “How Green Was My Murder” Written by Susan Goldberg, Bob Rosenfarb Directed by Tony Mordente Original airdate: 1/9/86

Synopsis: A botanist may have been killed by his own plants after changing his will to leave his fortune to them.

Episode 10: “Let’s Make a Deal” Written by Peggy Goldman Directed by Barbara Peeters Original airdate: 1/16/86 Synopsis: Jonathan and Benny must help a senatorial candidate break a contract she unwittingly made with a witch while she was in college which would force her to turn over her son on his 16th birthday.

Episode 11: “Cora’s Stranger” Written by Diane Frolov Directed by Alan Myerson Original airdate: N/A Synopsis: Jonathan and Benny meet an elderly woman who is the last surviving witness of a UFO sighting 40 years before.

The woman has been pregnant ever since then, and it looks like the father is due for a return visit.

Episode 12: “Curse of the Full Moon” Written by Maryanne Kasica, Michael Scheff Directed by Bob Sweeney Original airdate: N/A Synopsis: Investigating reports of a possible werewolf, Jonathan and Benny encounter a feral young girl who has been raised by wolves.

Episode 13: “Blood and Magnolias” Written by Maryanne Kasica, Michael Scheff Directed by Chuck Bowman Original airdate: N/A Synopsis: The guys head to a small Southern town to help a woman who claims she has fallen under the spell of a vampire.

Episode 14: “Ahead of Time” Written by Renee Longstreet, Harry Longstreet Directed by Tony Mordente Original airdate: N/A Synopsis: A naked girl appears in Jonathan’s bathroom, claiming she was sent back from the future to prevent one of Jonathan’s students from causing global havoc.

Double-page ad for the premiere of Shadow Chasers. © 1985 Warner Bros.

Television.

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Problem Child (1990) and Brain Donors (1992) before directing Adam Sandler in some of his biggest hits including Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999), and Grown Ups (2010).

Film veteran Nina Foch was cast as Eve’s superior, Dr. Moorhouse. In the Forties, at the age of 19, Foch signed with Columbia Pictures and appeared in a handful of horror and noir films. She starred in two classic horror films, Return of the Vampire (1943) with Bela Lugosi, and Cry of the Werewolf (1944). She had a great year in 1945 appearing in I Love a Mystery, Escape in the Fog, A Song to Remember, and the fondly remembered mystery My Name Is Julia Ross. In 1951, she starred with Gene Kelly in An American in Paris and appeared in The Ten Commandments for Cecil B. DeMille in 1956. In 1954, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Executive Suite, and in 1960, she appeared in Spartacus, directed by Stanley Kubrick. From the late Sixties on, she appeared mostly on television, including memorable appearances on Columbo, as the series’ first murder victim; and Lou Grant, for which she was nominated for an Emmy. Foch also became well known (and beloved) for teaching acting and directing at USC. The talented actress and instructor died in 2008 at the age of 84.

Among the directors on the series was Barbara Peeters, once known as the “Queen of the Bs.” Often working for Roger Corman, Peeters helmed such low-budget pics as Bury Me An Angel (1972), Summer School Teachers (1974), and Humanoids From the Deep (1980) 76

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Behind the scenes of the pilot, whose externals were shot at the USC campus. (TOP) Co-stars Trevor Eve and Dennis Dugan, and crew. (BOTTOM) Eve and associate producer Craig Schiller. Both, courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

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before turning her talents to television. She directed episodes of Remington Steele, Matt Houston, and Falcon Crest and oversaw two of the best episodes of Shadow Chasers: “Amazing Grace” and “Let’s Make a Deal.” Johnson remembers, “It was nice to bring Barbara Peeters in to direct a couple of episodes because at that time there was, like, zero women directing episodic television, and I’ve always been a big champion of trying to [give women more opportunities].

I just think women have been so underserved in our industry, that it’s great when you can do that, and I was happy to help Barbara back then.” Today, Peeters is retired and living in Oregon.

Joseph Harnell, who composed the now-iconic “Lonely Man Theme” for The Incredible Hulk, provided music for Shadow Chasers.

The catchy theme song over the title credits was by Marc Tanner and Jon Reede.

SERIES HIGHLIGHTS

There were other strong episodes as well. “Amazing Grace” had Jonathan and Benny in a car crash, with Benny almost dying and having an out-of-body experience. The spirit of a woman who recently died in the hospital implores Benny not to “let it happen again.” The two investigate and learn that someone on the hospital staff is killing the patients. Tonally, like the pilot, this episode is anchored by a good mystery, but also features both touching and humorous scenes between Jonathan and Benny.

Zombies are central to the episode “Parts Unknown,” as Benny connects a fitness club to disappearing bodies. Benny is supposedly killed in this episode. His crazy funeral, attended by Jonathan and Dr. Moorhouse, is held at the National Register office and is hosted

by Benny’s editor, played by Avery Schreiber. Schreiber, most famous THE BEST LITTLE HAUNTED for being part of the comedy team HOUSE IN TEXAS Burns and Schreiber—and for his The pilot for the series is memorable, long-running series of Doritos commerfeaturing Jonathan and Benny cials-—also appeared in the pilot in investigating a haunted house where the same role. This episode features an occultist descended from a Salem a long sequence following Jonathan’s witch resided with his family until investigations accompanied by a song he died in a fire. His son tried to get called “Haunting Energy.” help from the neighbors, but they The episode “The Many Lives of Jonaall ignored him. Now, supernatural than” is one of Kenneth Johnson’s favorincidents seem to be occurring and ites due to a wonderful performance they center on the occultist’s son

by Trevor Eve. In the episode, multiple and his widow, for whom Jonathan spirits possess Jonathan while he and develops an attraction. Soon, the Benny look into a haunted hotel about Shadow Chasers find their own lives to be demolished. Of Eve’s different endangered when events start to personalities, Johnson praises, “It really repeat themselves. showed off what the guy could do. He The pilot features some spooky was British, but he could do ‘American’ moments and an engaging mystery. as good as anybody, such as a Texan “The pilot was enormous fun to do,” with a twang… It was fascinating to see Kenneth Johnson remarks to RetroFan. him work.”

“My longtime cinematographer John Most of the Shadow Chasers McPherson shot it for me, and we used episodes were offbeat, but “How the house that had been built for The Green Was My Murder” had an Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). It especially odd premise. A botanist is was the [Best Little Whorehouse] interior studying ways of communicating with Advertisement for the third episode, “The that was sitting on the backlot that we plants, and he even changes his will to Spirit of St. Louis.” © 1985 Warner Bros. Television. used. We also used an exterior up in leave his fortune to his florae. When Camarillo.” the botanist is murdered, it looks like The pilot opens with a sequence showing Benny at the National the plants are the main suspect(s)!

Register offices. “The original script that I wrote for the pilot started “Let’s Make a Deal” is one of the series’ best. A senatorial with the spooky stuff,” Johnson explains, “and ABC thought, ‘It’s candidate and Georgetown alumnus named Gwen Page asks Dr. really great and spooky, but we think we need to set up more of a Moorhouse for help. When she was in college, she jokingly agreed comedic feel at the beginning,’ and I said, ‘Okay.’ So I sat down and to a deal with her eccentric female friend exchanging a life of in about 20 minutes wrote the opening scene where we’re taking success for her firstborn on the child’s 16th birthday. Gwen’s son is this tour through the National Register’s office, with people with just about to turn 16 and the woman has shown up to claim him— fire coming out of their hands with sprinklers going off and all that having not aged a day! The Shadow Chasers discover that Gwen ridiculous stuff, and it was very funny. And then we got to the scary made a binding pact with a witch. They track down a method to stuff, so we set up a good tonality [but] at the same time, right from break the contract, but the witch attempts to stop them every step the beginning, you knew it was a comedy.” of the way. Part of the method includes fighting a dragon, which Critics liked the pilot. “Critics could not have been kinder,” is creatively worked into the story by the writers. This episode according to Johnson. They “thought it was a whole really fresh also has an unexpected musical number—Benny brings in three way to go because it was a science fiction, paranormal kind of tough African-American women as bodyguards for Gwen and they show, but with a real sense of humor about it.” perform their own rendition of Aretha Franklin’s song “Respect.”

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Kenneth Johnson recalls the episode “Cora’s Stranger” as another of his favorites. “It was about a very old woman that we realize in the course of the episode had been pregnant for a very long time… That was fun, because we did a little Close Encounters [of the Third Kind (1977)] kind of thing on a shoestring budget.”

“Cora’s Stranger” was written by Diane Frolov, “the wife of Andy Schneider,” as Johnson explains. “Andy and I had met on Cliffhangers, and he became my story editor on The Incredible Hulk for years, and then went on to a terrific career himself. Actually, he and Diane partnered up in the midst of all of that and ended up doing Northern Exposure and Sopranos and Deadwood, and then they just created, a few years ago, Chicago Med for Dick Wolf and they’ve been doing that ever since.

They’ve had a terrific career together. Diane was also one of the writers on the sequel to my original V because she just had an incredible sensibility with characters that she brought out in ‘Cora’s Stranger’ and some of the other scripts that she wrote for the series.”

THE END OF ‘SHADOW CHASERS’

The last episode of the series, “Ahead of Time,” unexpectedly works as a series finale. A naked girl appears in Jonathan’s shower and claims she has travelled back in time from 2016 (in real life, time travel was not developed in 2016, as we now know). One of Jonathan’s Johnson (CENTER), with current students later becomes Shadow Chasers stars Nina a global terrorist, causing a Foch and Trevor Eve. Courtesy terrible world war. The girl has of Kenneth Johnson. been sent back, Terminator style, to put him on a different path, and she enlists the help of Jonathan and Benny. Benny believes the girl’s story after she quotes passages from the autobiography he hasn’t yet written! Jonathan isn’t as easily convinced. He ends up developing a romantic attraction to the girl, who reveals that she had a crush on the older Jonathan from her present. The episode is rather sweet as well as thought provoking.

ABC cancelled the series after the airing of the episode “Let’s Make a Deal.” Four other episodes had been completed, and these were broadcast only on the Armed Forces Network.

Kenneth Johnson explains why the series came to an end so soon: “We had some really bad guidance from the guy who was then president of ABC, who was not the sharpest tack in the box, and we had to sort of dance around him because he felt that everything that appeared to be paranormal had to be proven that it wasn’t. I felt, ‘You’re missing the boat,’ so we sort of bent away from him as quickly as we could.

“But then this same genius put us on Thursday nights opposite [The] Cosby [Show] and Magnum [P.I.] at their peaks of popularity on Thursday nights at 8:00 or 9. It was insane because ABC had not 78

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been able to get a rating in that time period for about four years before we got there. We gave them the highest rating they did have in the time period—before we were cancelled. Our numbers were the highest they had had up until that point and the highest they had in that time period for five or six years after we went off. I’ve had it happen before, with Cliffhangers back at Universal, where they put us up against Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley in their heyday, where they were getting 40 shares with reruns. Nobody knew we were there. So [Shadow Chasers] got a little bit of a cult following, but it wasn’t on long enough to gel, nor did it have the opportunity to really catch fire with the public.”

Shadow Chasers may very well have been one of the inspirations for The X-Files. Johnson recalled meeting X-Files creator Chris Carter at a party. “As we were doing our series, he was just batting around the idea of X-Files, and we talked about it one evening. He took it in a much more sort of straight-faced, serious direction than we did; ours was much more whimsical and really like Ghostbusters, combining that serious, scary stuff with a real sense of humor.”

It’s a shame Shadow Chasers was cancelled before it really had a chance to grab the attention of genre fans. Kenneth Johnson agrees: “I think that if we had had a really good shot at going in at a decent time period, it could really have gone on and on. We were all frustrated that it hadn’t, people that I had brought along with me. Several of the writers that had worked with me on The Hulk and V and other stuff in the past wrote some terrific episodes, and we had great fun putting it together.”

Shadow Chasers is worth checking out, so if you get a chance, join the fun as Jonathan and Benny merrily investigate some weird and wacky supernatural phenomena!

Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, JEFFREY S. MILLER lives in Hollywood, California, and works for the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. He is the author of the book The Horror Spoofs of Abbott and Costello (also providing the DVD commentary for Hold That Ghost) and has contributed to volumes from Midnight Marquee Press. Jeff has written articles for Midnight Marquee, Mad About Movies, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Filmfax, Nostalgia Digest, Television Chronicles, and Whisky Advocate. He is obsessed with the Incredible Hulk and has been collecting the character’s comics and memorabilia since 1978.

RetroFan is one of those magazines that, even when it’s not firing on all cylinders, it’s still a ton of fun. Most of the subjects covered in RF #19 did not hit my radar in my youth; I didn’t collect Wacky Packages, and I had no idea who Courageous Cat or Caroline Munro was.

(I know, I know—what kind of poor excuse for a Baby Boomer was I?) But I still found the articles fun and fascinating. I even looked up that “Goody Two Shoes” video on YouTube to see Ms. Munro.

I loved the piece on Go-Go Dancing! If anything captured the zeitgeist of the Sixties, it was this fad. Whenever I think of Go-Go Dancing, I always think of Laugh-In’s Goldie Hawn and the lucky, lucky guy who got to paint her body. It reminded me of a story I read about Ms. Hawn while she was filming Death Becomes Her. There’s a scene where she drinks a youth-restoring potion. Various special effects tricks were used to produce the regeneration sequence, but one trick was about as old school as you could get. In the film, Ms. Hawn watches in amazement as her saggy bosom rises and enlarges. To achieve this effect, a stagehand simply kneeled in front of her (out of the camera view), reached under her blouse, and pushed her breasts up! You’ve got to wonder if he ever talked to the guy who painted Goldie in her Laugh-In days. “So, you got to paint funny sayings on her stomach? Well, let me tell you what I got to do …”

The highlight of this issue was the analysis of Watergate. I lived through the Nixon years, the scandal, and the resignation, but I was at an age where I didn’t really grasp the scope of what was going on. Now that it’s documented history, I’ve found it a fascinating subject to look back on, and I’ve become quite the (ahem) retro-fan about it. In addition to the disgrace and the disillusionment, we also got a first out of the whole debacle: a sitting United States President who never got a single vote!

Half the fun of growing up reading comic books was looking at the product ads. Any chance of seeing the stories behind those Charles Atlas ads, Sea Monkeys, or a look at those outrageous products from Johnson and Smith?

I look forward, as always, to seeing the next issue of RetroFan hit my mailbox.

MICHAL JACOT Scott Saavedra wrote about the history of Sea Monkeys way back in RetroFan #3, Michal.

Scott’s also in training now to do the heavy lifting of a Charles Atlas article scheduled for issue #29!!

Hard to be overly impressed with Bob Kane’s accomplishments [including Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, as explored in RetroFan #19—ed.] as, under examination, it’s frequently some uncredited ghost doing the majority of the work. Granted, Kane’s name is well known, and he made money from the endeavors. But his claims of glory must be taken with much skepticism. I laughed aloud at the photo of him with the Batman painting where the caption openly wondered if he even painted that.

As for Bob’s contributions to Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, I enjoyed the story where Sheldon Moldoff, who did it all, discovered Bob was dishonest about sharing half, got caught in the lie, and had to pay up. I’ve never seen the show and, from the sound of it, don’t need to.

The look at Go-Go Dancing was funny. It was so time specific and bizarre. I just recall musical talent on TV shows, singing some song, while the ladies behind them gyrated wildly; more like objects than real human beings. Could be that why it didn’t last long? Of course, I don’t think anyone was forced to indulge. Maybe ladies just tired of it?

The biggest laugh was your including DC Comics’ go-go checks, which needlessly cluttered up their covers for a while.

Though I’ve been a comic collector for 56 years, you got me with Pauline Peril. Never saw it.

Never even heard of it. From reading the strange story descriptions, I may’ve saved myself 60 cents on the run.

Early on in the article, Scott Shaw! mused about his trips to Los Angeles to shop for vintage comics. That I would love to read about! What the stores were like, what sort of inventory they had, how he could afford purchases and issues he either scored, saw, or just missed. Not knowing of any back issue stores in my area, I was dependent on older brothers of my school friends who had some unseen issues stashed in their closets.

I probably would have enjoyed Wacky Packages had I seen them as a young kid. They seemed specifically targeted to a juvenile audience. Think they would have connected at eight or nine, but not in 1973 at age 15. Still, even now, I had to laugh at Ratz Crackers, imagining the actual company looking on it with horror.

I do recall the Watergate coverage all too well. Kind of had the suspicion—correctly, as it turned out—that I was living through a historical moment (though it lasted over two years).

Scott Saavedra’s Watergate article touched on many of the things I loved at the time:

Kamandi #15, with the Watergate mess viewed from a hilarious future perspective.

Impressionist David Frye and his hysterical Nixon albums; you could do a whole article on him. The guy was just so spot-on and funny. And it wasn’t just Nixon. He did a William F. Buckley that was so brilliant, I used to laugh afterwards when I saw the real Buckley on TV. The newspaper and TV coverage of his resignation in August ’74. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

Loved the inside-the-helicopter shot of the Fords wishing the Nixons goodbye. I’d never seen that.

Nor had I seen the Wit and Wisdom of Watergate humorous-caption magazine. That I would have bought.

What I always remember, with great fondness, about the whole situation is my dad telling me, “You know who’s coming out smelling like a rose here? Spiro Agnew!” Some months later, he was one of the first to go.

Finally, liked your coverage of comedian Red Skelton. Always enjoyed him. He seemed to like laughing at his own jokes, so if he was having such a good time, so too was the audience. Plus, I believe he was a partner or investor with Irwin Allen in Lost in Space. That pegged him, for me, as a good guy.

JOE FRANK

Tell your friends about us, and share your comments about this issue by writing me at euryman@gmail.com.

MICHAEL EURY Editor-in-Chief

NEXT ISSUE January 2023 No. 24 $10.95

There’s no need to fear!

UNDERDOG IS HERE!

Look who we found!

Lost in Space’s

Angela Cartwr ight & Bil l Mumy Rankin-Bass’ Christmas classic

The Little Drummer Boy

THE CRAZY CREATIONS OF CARTOONIST MIKE DORMER!

Land of the Lost’s Wesley Eure • X-Mas Gifts You Didn’t Want • Cabbage Patch Kids & more!

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Hot Curl © Michael Dormer and Lee Teacher. Underdog © Classic Media. Lost in Space © Space Productions. Leave It to Beaver © NBCUniversal Television. Little Drummer Boy © Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. All Rights Reserved.

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ReJECTED! Not every great idea is successful, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the also-rans, the nearly-made-its, and the ReJECTED. Mix a beloved comic strip with a popular toy and stir in a little cultural updating and sometimes you get a winner. Sometimes.

BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA with Michael Eury

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