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May 2024 No. 32 $10.95

DISCO FEVER

Saturday morning swordplay with

We think we love him!

The puppet planeteers of PLANET PATROL

The Partridge Family’s Don’t be a blockhead -read our LEGO history!

DAVID CASSIDY

Buckaroo Banzai • Mighty Mouse • Sonny & Cher • Get abducted to Roswell & more!

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Thundarr the Barbarian © Ruby-Spears Productions. Planet (Space) Patrol © ITV. LEGO® © The LEGO Group. All Rights Reserved.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BY MICHAEL EURY

Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Michael Eury Paula Finn Katherine Kerestman Shaqui LeVesconte Andy Mangels Joe Meno Will Murray Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! DeWayne Todd Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Buzz Dixon Mark Evanier Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions Rick Hoberg

July 2024 No. 33 $10.95

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Larry Houston The LEGO® Group

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RETROFAN

I am “asportstual.” No offense to you hootin’-and-hollerin’, decked-out-in-your-team’s-regalia, sports-lovin’ RetroFan readers, but I was a chubby kid who spent most of his youth on the couch. Sure, I’d occasionally run around outside, but team sports were the kryptonite to my Superman. Only when forced by those I once regarded as the tormentors of the junior high school faculty, the Physical Education teachers, would I participate in team sports (and I was always the last one picked when choosing sides). My late dad, as big a New York Yankees fan as you’ll ever find, wanted me to be the next Mickey Mantle. I just wanted to read comic books, watch TV, and listen to music. My dad might’ve been disappointed that I didn’t play baseball, but then again if I had, I might not have taken the career path that led me to helm this fine publication. Really, somebody’s gotta be the ringleader of this wild and crazy crew of RetroFanatic writers. Might as well be me. But growing up with a baseball-mad dad meant that while my eyes might’ve been on the latest issue of The Brave and the Bold or The Amazing Spider-Man, there was often a Yankees or an Atlanta Braves (Dad’s second favorite team) game on the tube in the background. And there was one time during my youth that I did indeed succumb to a sports mania: when Hammerin’ Hank Aaron became Major League Baseball’s home run king. It was fifty years ago this month (April). The Yankees’ legendary Babe Ruth had long held the record of 714 home runs. The Braves’ Hank Aaron had been creeping up on the Babe’s record, tying it on April 4, 1974. Four days later, on April 8, 1974, during an Atlanta Braves/Los Angeles Dodgers game, Aaron made the record books when walloping his career 715th homer off of Dodgers pitcher Al Downing. I remember watching it live, with Dad and my little brother. Even my mom, who’d usually NEXT ISSUE pay no heed to Dad’s ballgames with her own nose cheerfully burrowed into a sewing project, watched this one. We were glued to the set with breathless anticipation as Hank’s bat cracked his record-shattering hit. My arm hairs still tingle when thinking about that great moment in history. Mr. Aaron regrettably didn’t live to see this The Bionic golden anniversary of his achievement, but in his Duo! memory RetroFan raises its Hank Aaron Slurpee cup LINDSAY to salute this milestone. WAGNER & LEE Ya know, I think our contributors have knocked MAJORS it outta the park this issue, too. In the pages ahead By Herbie J Pilato you’ll meet one of the Partridge Family, an oddball You’ll flip over FANTASTIC FOUR cartoonist, and a couple of cartoon characters; on Saturday mornings MODESTY BLAISE explore bizarre sci-fi realms; meet Sonny and Cher’s : T LS most daring fan; and put on your boogie shoes. So O E Years H E rly get ready for another groovy grab-bag of the crazy, He Ea W Th cool culture we grew up with! TV Westerns • Movie Icons vs. Axis Powers • San Diego Chicken & more!

May 2024

THE HEYDAY OF HOSTESS

Featuring Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Lee Majors/Lindsay Wagner photograph courtesy of the Classic TV Preservation Society. Spider-Man and Fantastic Four © Marvel. Modesty Blaise © Modesty Blaise Ltd. Hot Wheels © Mattel. Hostess Twinkies © Hostess Brands, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES

DAVID CASSIDY Triumph, tragedy, and the specter of Keith Partridge

He hung up Keith Partridge’s maroon crushed-velvet suit in 1974. Then David Cassidy spent the rest of his BY career eluding the specter of the fictional TV alter ego MARK he portrayed for four seasons of The Partridge Family. VOGER The former teen idol recorded, toured, starred on Broadway, and mounted glitzy Vegas productions—yet he still encountered fans clutching Partridge (CENTER) David Cassidy called Keith Partridge Family lunch boxes. The problem: Though Cassidy “totally the antithesis of who I was.” But he played a fictional character, he really did sing all of never denigrated fans of the TV show that those Partridge hits like “I Think I Love You” (#1), “Doesn’t launched him to superstardom. (INSETS) Somebody Want to be Wanted” (#6), and “I’ll Meet You Cassidy in the Seventies. Publicity photo. Halfway” (#9). Still, Cassidy was grateful for the early exposure, and maintained a sense of humor about his Partridge past. The singer had larger concerns. After several DUIs in the 2010s, For Cassidy’s legions of fans, this revelation made his death he owned up to a drinking problem. “Getting behind the wheel seem even more tragic. But those fans can take comfort in the fact when you’re impaired is a horrible, horrible thing to do. Call a cab,” that Cassidy always expressed gratitude for their loyalty, so much he told me in 2011. so that he continued performing live through his turbulent final In 2017, Cassidy announced that he was living with dementia, years. Cassidy did this on his own terms, by not allowing himself to and died later that year at age 67. But it wasn’t dementia that took be overshadowed by Keith Partridge. (He never reprised the role in him—nor did he actually suffer from the debilitating malady that a reunion film project, for one profound example.) claimed his mother, actress Evelyn Ward, in 2012. I spoke with the New York City native (born 1950) during five All came to light a year after Cassidy’s death, when an A&E interviews conducted between 1991 and 2011. In our final converdocumentary about him presented interview excerpts in which sation, Cassidy spoke about his drinking problem—by then, the cat the singer confessed that he lied about having dementia. The true was out of the bag—but was still concealing its severity. culprit that took Cassidy’s life? Alcoholism. “I did it to myself, man,” Recalling these interviews today is an exercise in spotting what he admitted in the interview. “I did it to myself to cover up the Cassidy was really trying to tell us about his sometimes troubled sadness and the emptiness.” life: being torn between divorced parents; sudden fame at 20; a RETROFAN

May 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(LEFT) The fake band’s very real second album, Up to Date (1971). (RIGHT) The gang’s all here— even the dog and the bus— on the picture sleeve for the #6 hit “Doesn’t Somebody Want to be Wanted” (1971). © Bell Records. The Partridge Family © Sony Pictures.

Cassidy was cast as the eldest sibling of a Cowsills-like singing family opposite his real-life stepmom, Oscar-winner Jones [see RetroFan #8 for the Cowsills’ story.—ed.]. Also portraying the titular clan in ABC-TV’s The Partridge Family (1970–1974) were Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce, Suzanne Crough and, depending on the season, Jeremy Gelbwaks or Bryan Forster. They traveled along in a psychedelic school bus—actually, it was a faux-Mondrian design—joined by Dave Madden as their flustered manager. It was a weird surprise for Cassidy that his stepmother would be playing his mother. But according to Jones, the situation presented a personal upside. Jones told me in 1992: “I was always kind of the ‘wicked stepmother’ in David’s eyes, even though I tried in every way possible to win favor with him. He was very bitter about his father’s divorce. Only when we worked on Partridge—until we had a close, daily relationship on an adult level—did we get to know each other.” Portraying Keith Partridge for four seasons could often be uncomfortable for Cassidy, who described the character as “totally the antithesis of who I was.” For one thing, Cassidy said he felt “uncool” appearing alongside the younger actors. “I mean, when you’re 19, you want your other friends who are 19 and 20 to think that you’re cool,” he said. “You don’t want to be with 12- and 13-year-olds. Imagine! It was hard for me. “Don’t get me wrong. I liked the people I was with. I believed in what I was doing. I knew that I was good. And I knew that the music we were playing was good. But the music was pretty much focused on an audience that was younger than me. And I wanted to make records for people my age.” Said Cassidy on maintaining the Keith Partridge haircut: “I never got it cut. I just would let it grow. You know, once every couple of months, I’d cut it, probably, as 6

RETROFAN

May 2024

I can recall. But I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it, except getting up in the morning, taking a shower and having to spend half an hour drying it.” On whether he still owned his maroon stage costume: “Oh, my crushed velvet? Um, sadly, I don’t. I sure wish I did, though. The crushed velvet was one of those magical outfits that went along with the bus and Mondrian that is that style.” On the Partridge Family bus: “It was a 1958 International, I think. It was a beat up, old, real seriously no-power, no nothing. It was a grinding old hunk of junk that they painted to look good. The inside of it was a mess. It was really a retired, beaten-up old school bus. Because in those days, they didn’t want to spend more than they had to. I think they paid $250 for it, and I’m not exaggerating. You know, studio execs go, ‘Ah! Find some old school bus and we’ll paint it. Let’s not spend any money on this!’ That’s the way they did things in those days. A different world than we live in now.” On being mobbed by fans: “They wrecked and destroyed five limousines when I played Madison Square Garden. They turned one of them over. I wasn’t in any of them, but when you get that kind of mass hysteria, that was pretty intense.” On a favorite piece of memorabilia bearing his likeness: “There was a great piece in MAD magazine about ‘The Putrid Family.’ I was Teeth Putrid. It’s brilliant.”

Angelo Torres’ art from the Partridge Family parody in MAD #150 (1972). Cassidy called Torres’ depiction of him as Teeth Putrid “brilliant.” © EC Publications, Inc.

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

2 3 7 1 4

1) Excellent likenesses of the TV cast by artist Don Sherwood grace the cover of Charlton’s comic book The Partridge Family #13 (1972). 2) Box art for Milton Bradley’s The Partridge Family Game (1971). 3) David is “Doing His Thing” in card #24 of Topps’ Partridge Family trading cards (1971). 4) The singing Partridges on Seeley Thermos’ Partridge Family lunch box (1971). The faux-Mondrian bus on the flip-side. 5) Ooh, spooky! The Ghost of Graveyard Hill (1971) is the fourth Partridge Family novel and Marked for Terror On the Partridge Family songs he sang: “People tend to look at that and say, ‘Well, it’s bubblegum’ or ‘It’s kids’ stuff.’ Some of the arrangements are so sophisticated and so hip, that it’s a wonderful thing to go back and listen to it.”

ARTISTIC EXPLOITATION

As a pop singer, Cassidy was frequently used as pin-up fodder for teen magazines aimed at pre-pubescent girls, such as 16, Tiger Beat, and Teen Keen. These magazines, charged the singer, fabricated interviews with him outright. “It was completely and totally contrived and made up to promote an image that was selling a lot of magazines for them,” Cassidy said. “It was very frustrating. I would sit down and have an

(1973) is not a thriller by Robert Ludlum, but the tenth Partridge Family novel. 6) David Cassidy as Keith Partridge in art by Don Sherwood, from the cover of The Partridge Family #3 (1971). 7) That’s right, David Cassidy starred in his own comic book! As himself! David goes solo in a panel from Charlton’s David Cassidy #2 (1973). 8) Cassidy, tagged “Teenland’s Heartthrob,” strummed on the Oct. 29, 1971 cover of Life magazine. The Partridge Family © Sony Pictures.

interview with them and say, ‘Really and truly, my favorite music is Hendrix or [Eric] Clapton.’ They’d write, ‘David loves the Monkees.’ “I could tell them that I was into bondage, and they would have written, ‘David loves to go to sleep with his puppy at night.’” What was Cassidy’s pick for the most ludicrous fan magazine headline about him? “That I love wearing David Cassidy love beads,” he said with a laugh. “‘David sleeps with his love beads.’ There were more of them—‘David near death.’ I try to block most of that stuff. ‘Be David’s lover.’ ‘Win a trip to Hollywood, be David’s lover.’” The production company, too, used Cassidy as their cash cow. His likeness appeared on Charlton comic books, Seeley Thermos lunch boxes, Curtis paperback books, Milton Bradley board games, Topps trading cards, and more. RETROFAN

May 2024

Voger’s vault of vintage varieties

(ABOVE) Months before his untimely death at 67, Cassidy pleaded his case on TV’s Dr. Phil. © Harpo Productions. (BELOW) Cassidy said of his Partridge years: “I think that depicts a very, very happy time in a lot of people’s lives. It certainly does in mine, too.”

ladies’ restroom of a restaurant in 1985, after the two finished shooting a video for Cassidy’s song “Romance.” Fox said she put a stop to Cassidy’s advances with a knee to the crotch. Of course, Cassidy was no longer around to respond to the charge, but Fox told interviewers she wasn’t “piling on” in the wake of his death. Rather, the timing was tied to the publicity tour for her book. There was another posthumous revelation: Cassidy’s dementia disclosure, it turned out, was just more subterfuge. Cassidy confessed the true cause of his decline to producer Saralena Weinfield, who had been working on the A&E documentary David Cassidy: The Final Session. Cassidy told Weinfield in a taped phone interview: “I have a liver disease. There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning. The fact is, I lied about my drinking.” So... how do you solve a problem like David Cassidy? The singer’s tragic end is an inextricable aspect of his life story. But we don’t have to think about it every time “I Think I Love You” comes on the radio. For his part, the singer spent much of his post-Partridge career striving to ensure that Keith Partridge would not become his sole legacy. Though he sang Partridge Family songs on the stage, he kept his vow never to participate in a reunion TV movie with the sitcom’s cast. “I think it would permanently taint our impression of the whole thing,” he once told me. “When you finish something that’s that successful, it’s perfect. To go back would be messing with it. I think that’s a mistake.” That said, Cassidy never denigrated the more Partridge-focused members of his fan base—the ones clutching the lunch boxes. “I think that depicts a very, very happy time in a lot of people’s lives,” he said. “It certainly does in mine, too. I know it was a great time for all the people who saw it, dug it, loved me and the show. In its time.” When many of us RetroFans reminisce about Cassidy, we go straight to not so much Keith Partridge, but to the guy with the perfect hair and crushed-velvet suit who reluctantly played him. In his Keith getup during the first half of the Seventies, Cassidy was undeniably an icon, like Elvis Presley or Bruce Lee. And those songs—from the familiar hits to deeper cuts like “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” and “Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque”—still sound darned good. If we wish to, we can reconcile the invincible, iconic David Cassidy of our imagination with the flawed human one. MARK VOGER is the author and designer of six books for TwoMorrows Publishing, including Monster Mash (a Rondo Award winner), Groovy, Holly Jolly, and Britmania. He’s not kidding about “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat”—check it out! Please visit him at MarkVoger.com.

RETROFAN

May 2024

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

Who Created Mighty Mouse? BY WILL MURRAY I guess I’ve known the Mouse of Tomorrow for as long as I’ve lived. As far back as my memory goes, Mighty Mouse was always there. If there was a greater cartoon mouse, I never encountered him. Sure, Mickey Mouse has his supporters. But in my estimation, Mighty Mouse towered over all other animated rodents. I imagine that I first met the colorful super-rodent on TV sometime in the late Fifties, but no later than the early Sixties. He was a staple of early television. But his glorious history went back further than that. For Mighty Mouse was no cheap, limited-animated TV cartoon product, but a true star of motion pictures.

YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES

Mighty Mouse was the product of Paul Terry’s Terrytoons cartoon studio, which was founded in 1929. Terry was a San Franciscan who came to New York City in 1910. “I started out as a newspaper’s combination photographer and artist,” he related. “In the 1900s, I saw the first animated cartoon put out by Winsor McCay, and I knew then that’s what I wanted to do.” The year was 1914. Over six months, Terry laboriously created his first animated cartoon, Little Herman, a takeoff of popular sleightof-hand magician Herman the Great, then sought a distributor. “It was a beautiful spring morning and I had to borrow money for the train ride,” remembered Terry. “When I reached his office,

(ABOVE) Mighty Mouse had taken on his traditional appearance by the time animation house Terrytoons released this 1946 lobby card promoting his theatrical adventures. But the cartoon crusader originally called Super Mouse had earlier gone through several permutations. Mighty Mouse © CBS. Lobby card courtesy of Heritage. (LEFT) Future Terrytoons

head honcho, animation pioneer Paul Terry, in his studio in the Twenties.

the producer said he preferred to look at my picture with an audience! I rushed out into the street, but there wasn’t an adult in sight. I finally rounded up a group of youngsters. They weren’t too eager to come. “As Little Herman appeared and went into a magic act, the kids tittered. Then they giggled. At the end they were howling with laughter. The producer roared, too, and Little Herman was sold on the spot.” The experience would guide Terry in his future career. “And that tipped me off to the idea to draw things that would appeal to kids; because if they laughed at it, the adults wouldn’t have to know if it was funny, or whether it wasn’t, because kids’ laughter is so infectious. I decided right then and there to make pictures for the kids. I probably didn’t know enough to make anything for adults, anyway.” Terry next created Farmer Al Falfa in Down on the Phoney Farm. This led to him producing and directing a series featuring the character for Bray Productions. RETROFAN

May 2024

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

A nameless mouse that is captured by a lion and released after he promises to help the lion if ever needed, seeks refuge in a jug of hard cider, and quickly becomes drunk. When hunters go after the lion, the mouse stirs from his inebriated state and inexplicably transforms into Super Mouse, after which he performs his usual feats of super-bravery. They end as friends. Super Mouse never seems to encounter any serious setbacks in these early cartoons. He always comes in late in the action, and invariably triumphs through a combination of brute strength and various superpowers, which vary from episode to episode. Sometimes he can shoot force from his fingertips. Super-hypnotism and X-ray vision are also called into play. His weakness: noxious fumes, among them Limburger cheese, whose odor can overcome him. This is the problem with the series. The muscular mouse is merely a deus ex machina, always late to the fight, but is invariably triumphant, regardless. There may have been complaints because in the next cartoon, Super Mouse shows up immediately, emerging from what appears to be a comet. He signs autographs and otherwise shows off. But he’s nowhere to be found when a trio of cats invades the rodent happy hunting ground. When he does swing into super-action, it’s the usual routine round of cat bashing. Problem solved. 16

RETROFAN

May 2024

Mighty Mouse and his Terrytoons pals, as seen in theatrical posters from (LEFT) 1946 and (RIGHT) 1957. By the time the latter poster was issued, the characters had transitioned to television. Mighty Mouse and related characters © CBS. Courtesy of Heritage.

(INSET) Mighty Mouse leapt to television in 1953 on CBS-TV’s children’s program Barker Bill’s Cartoon Show.

MIGHTY MOUSE IS BORN!

With his eighth cartoon, The Wreck of the Hesperus, Super Mouse becomes Mighty Mouse, but is otherwise unchanged. He’s still wearing Superman’s red-and-blue uniform, set off with pristine white gloves borrowed from Mickey Mouse. Why did Paul Terry order the character renamed? It’s a mystery. Isadore Klein suspected that it was legal pressure from Superman trademark holder DC Comics. But others believed that it was the result of a similar character, Supermouse, debuting in publisher Ned Pines’ Standard Comics’ Coo Coo Comics the summer before Super Mouse’s debut. Unlike Terry’s character, he receives his powers from a distillation of thunder, lightning, sun atoms, and a teaspoon of sugar he mistakes for strawberry soda. After dipping a piece of cheese into this concoction, he eats it becomes Supermouse.

Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

The original artist behind Standard’s Supermouse was a former Terrytoons staffer named Milton Platkin, who was professionally known as Kin Platt. It was widely suspected that Platt purloined the idea, but it may have been a coincidence. It’s been asserted that Terry didn’t want his cartoons promoting a comic book character, nor did he care to be involved in a lawsuit over the name, probably because Supermouse predated his cinematic concept by three months. So Terry changed his character’s name. Terry also made a deal with Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman, who launched Terry-Toons Comics in 1942. Super Mouse never appeared in its pages, but Mighty Mouse showed up beginning in 1945. Stan Lee wrote many early Mighty Mouse scripts for the company that would eventually become Marvel Comics. When Mighty Mouse was given his own title, Lee gave him a girlfriend named Mitzi Mouse and pitted him against a villain he called Dr. Doome. With Eliza on the Ice, a 1944 adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the uniform colors abruptly change. In his bright red duds, he looks like Captain Marvel.

It wasn’t until The Sultan’s Birthday that the ultimate yellowand-red Mighty Mouse costume debuts. In this episode, for the first time Mighty Mouse is portrayed as living not in a supermarket on Earth, but in a star in the sky. It’s from the star that the Mouse of Tomorrow hurdles Earthward when he learns of danger threatening Terrytown’s rodent population. Conrad Rasinski redesigned Mighty Mouse, giving him a big barrel chest, making him more robust, and removing all resemblance to a rat. Given the lack of continuity, one might argue that Mighty Mouse is an entirely different entity than Super Mouse. Mighty Mouse and the Pirates in 1945 modifies the format by turning the cartoon into an opera with dialogue lines sung instead of spoken. This became the pattern of the series going forward. Mighty Mouse didn’t sing in that first operatic effort, but he did in the follow-up, Gypsy Life. The Bat-cats from Pandora’s Box return in this story. This Terrytoon earned Mighty Mouse his first and only Academy Award® nomination. That elevated Paul Terry’s industry profile. One newspaper called him “a top chucklesmith.”

The Mouse of Steel has long been a staple of comic books, including (LEFT) 1953’s special edition Three Dimension Comics and (RIGHT) 1957’s launch of the TV tie-in title Mighty Mouse Fun Club Magazine. Mighty Mouse © CBS.

RETROFAN

May 2024

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®

BRICKJOURNAL #86

LEGO LANDSCAPING! A detailed look at how to create realistic stone and foliage from bricks: ANU PEHRSON’s White Wall from Game of Thrones, and JOEL and JONATHAN NEUBER’s (working!) Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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Celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary in LEGO! Disney Castles with MARTIN HARRIS and DISNEYBRICK, magical builds by JOHN RUDY and editor JOE MENO, instructions to build characters, plus: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

Head to the city: Ellis City by GARETH and CATHY ELLIS, New Hasima by STEFAN FORMENTATO, and Fabuland City by STEVEN LAUGHLIN! Plus a wealth of other MOCs (”My Own Creations”) are showcased, along with: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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RETRO TOYS

before BY JOE MENO

When LEGO was Wood! Most of you are familiar with a LEGO® set. The LEGO Group, now the largest toy company in the world, is a company with stores, theme parks, and television shows worldwide. All of this has happened through LEGO’s basic product: the LEGO construction system. However, the LEGO Group started without the LEGO brick, or even toys. The company’s history is a bit more interesting and covers nine decades and four generations. Here’s a look at the first two generations and the early days of the company.

FIRST-CLASS QUALITY CRAFTSMANSHIP

The company was started when then-journeyman Ole Kirk Kristiansen moved in 1916 to the small town of Billund in Denmark, buying the Billund Maskinsnedkeri (Billund Woodworking and Carpentry Shop). Billund was a small community, and Kristiansen marries Kristine Sørensen. They have four children: Johannes, Karl Georg, Godtfred, and Gerhardt. Before Ole Kirk’s purchase, the carpentry shop built houses in the summer and furniture in the winter. Other items

Author Joe Meno sits happily at the desk of the LEGO master, Ole Kirk Kristiansen.

produced included cabinetry, coffins, and bodywork for carts. All of these items were made with first-class quality craftsmanship by Kristiansen and his workers when he took over. Other larger projects began to come in, such as farm buildings, and the dairy at Billund and another at the neighboring community Randbøl. Ole Kirk won a building contract for a church in Skoldberg. However, the contract yielded only a little profit. His reply: “Oh, well—it was for a good cause.” This quote gave a quick glance at Ole Kirk’s character. He was a man of faith and lived his life to a basic principle: to look after what has been granted to him as well as possible. In his work, he kept the highest standards, and outside of work, he was involved with community and church activities. Faith gave Kristiansen optimism, and with hard work and determination, helped him weather hard times. Adversity is something that everyone experiences, and for Ole Kirk, these instances proved to be life-changing. In 1924, his sons Godtfred (four years old at the time) and Karl Georg (at age five), while playing in the workshop, tried to light a fire in a glue heater. Nearby wood shavings caught fire, and the workshop and their home burned to the ground. RETROFAN

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With architect Jesper Jespersen, a new home was designed. Using a Danish style of architecture (the Better Building Practices style) that was used between 1915–1940, Ole Kirk’s house was rebuilt in 1924. The building had the distinction of being the most advanced building in Billund at that time and also the first building in town to have cement sidewalks. Two cement lions were placed at the front door to the home, which quickly gained the title of the Lion House. Another fire, this time caused by a lightning strike, happened a year later, destroying the workshop and commissions again. Ole Kirk had to rebuild once more. By this time, it’s 1925, and the shop grew with new commissions and contracts. Ole Kirk’s reputation spread, and while the next few years were bright, the stock market crash of 1929 hit Europe, leading to price collapses in wheat, butter, and pork in Denmark. Construction dried up, and unemployment and bankruptcies spiked. Ole Kirk’s shop felt the effects of the downturn, and by 1931 was in financial trouble. With his primary income sources in construction and furniture dried up, he turned to making scaled-down items and wooden toys to sell.

‘PLAY WELL’

That year, a new worldwide toy craze— yo-yos—hit the scene in Denmark, and Ole Kirk quickly set up his shop to meet the demand. At the same time, a lumber merchant visited the woodshop and enamored by the quality of Kristiansen’s work, made an advance order for the coming Christmas season. Things appeared to be turning around for Ole Kirk and the nowrenamed O Kirk Kristiansen’s Woodwork & Toy Factory, but it was not to be. Once again, adversity made itself known. In the summer of 1932, Ole Kirk’s wife, pregnant with their fifth child, had a miscarriage and later died, leaving him to take care of his four sons. It was also learned that the merchant that ordered for Christmas also went bankrupt, leaving Ole

(ABOVE) Kirk’s Ball Track (Kirk’s Kuglebane) was a wooden toy designed for beach play. (RIGHT) An early success for LEGO was this wooden duck pull toy. A modern plastic version was released in 2020 (LEGO The Wooden Duck Set 40501). LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of the LEGO Group. © 2024 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. 26

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Kirk with a huge stock of toys. To recover what he could, Ole Kirk loaded his truck and set out to sell the toys, going from shop to shop and wherever else he could go. Kristiansen managed to sell most of his stock, but since times were tough, he ended up bartering for his toys. He returned with raisins, tapioca, and almonds, which gave his family a few treats for Christmas. By then, the yo-yo craze had also ended, leaving Ole Kirk with a stockpile of yo-yos no one wanted. With the passing of his wife and mounting debts, Kristiansen was considering bankruptcy. A visiting

retro toys

lawyer, Flemming Friis-Jespersen, convinced him otherwise and gave Ole Kirk some time to recover and consolidate his business by filing a letter of indemnity on his Lion House for his creditors. It also allowed Ole Kirk to hire a housekeeper. The previous housekeeper only lasted a year before she abruptly resigned. The new housekeeper only lasted seven months before Ole Kirk married her. From the marriage he was able to settle debts from his wife and family. Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s Woodwork and Toy Factory regained its financial footing, but needed something else: a new name. Flemming Friis-Jespersen recommended finding a name that was memorable for Kristiansen’s toy factory. Ole Kirk had gone to the annual trade fair in Fredericia twice and noticed that all the major firms at the fair had original names. Inspired by that thought, he gathered his eight employees and offered two bottles of his cider as a prize to the person who could name their factory. The two best suggestions were LEGIO and LEGO, and both came from Ole Kirk himself. The first referred to legions of toys, but the other was a contraction of the Danish words Leg godt, which means, “play well.” The second suggestion was selected because it sounded good and could be pronounced by everyone. LEGO was first officially used by the company in 1936. Many years later, the company learned that LEGO in Latin means, “I assemble.” The company wasn’t idle during this time, as toys were being produced by the workshops in Billund. The factory, now named LEGO, was producing a wide variety of toys, from pull-toys to wooden cars and vehicles. One of the most popular toys was a pull toy of a mallard duck. Another toy was the first construction toy by the company, Kirk’s Ball Track. Meant to be used in a beach, the toy was a set of wood tracks and tunnels that could make a path from the top of a sand pile, allowing a ball to roll down the path. This was also the first toy by the LEGO Company to have instructions. The year 1936 was the last time that The LEGO Company participated in the trade fair in Fredericia, and it’s there that an assortment of wood cars were displayed. Called Billund Auto, their wheels were from old yo-yos; the yo-yos were sawed and repainted as car wheels. It’s also at this time that Ole Kirk became a first adopter to technology, as he purchased the company’s first router in 1937,

for a price that equaled one third of the LEGO company’s total profit from the previous year. This was a big risk that paid off, as the router could make precise cutouts and could add the rounded corners to the wooden toys being produced. This wouldn’t be the only risky investment that Ole Kirk would make. The rest of the decade was marked by rising profits, as LEGO toys became more popular. Ole Kirk began looking beyond Denmark for selling. One of Ole Kirk’s sons, Godtfred Kirk Cristiansen (who changed the spelling of his family name), began designing toys for the company in 1937 at the age of 17. He was part of the company since he was very young and would eventually lead the LEGO Company after Ole Kirk’s retirement. Godtfred guided the company into the modern age with the use of plastics and more importantly, the creation of the LEGO brick. Before that, though, adversity raised its head yet again. In 1940, Germany occupied Denmark. However, something worse happened in spring of 1942. The LEGO workshop again burned down, along with all of its designs. Once again, things had to be rebuilt, but this time things were a little different. By selling the toys that were undamaged in a “Total Clearance Sale,” Ole Kirk was able to pay loans owed to his family and friends. The new factory was completed by the end of the year and is designed with more efficiency in production. Toy production increases because while there was a war going on, toys were still a necessity.

THE PLASTIC AGE

World War II turned out to be a profitable time for LEGO, as toy sales went up 30 to 40 percent annually. LEGO became one of the biggest and most highly regarded toy manufacturers in Denmark. With this, the stage was set for LEGO to step into a new medium. After the war, LEGO was still producing wood toys, but interest was growing in a new material, after dealing with the shortages of wood and supplies. Plastic was starting to show up in consumer items in Denmark and Ole Kirk, being an early adopter, decided to buy an injection molding machine that ended up being one of the first in Denmark. Before it arrived, though, the person who sold the injection molder visited Billund and met Ole Kirk, presenting him a box of plastic brick-like blocks. The salesman suggested that LEGO could make something similar when the molding machine was set up in Billund. The bricks were Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, from Great Britain. Kiddicraft was founded by Hilary Fisher Page in the Thirties. Page applied for a patent on the bricks, and in 1947 was granted one in England, France, and Switzerland. This was noted on the box of bricks that was presented to Ole Kirk. There wasn’t a patent for Denmark. When LEGO designed what became their brick, they made three differences: sharp corners, flat studs, and an eight-millimeter RETROFAN

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RETRO SCI-FI

Planet Patrol

“This is Earth, the year 2100. “New York is the headquarters of Space Patrol, and men from Earth, Mars, and Venus live and work there as guardians of peace. This is the story of those men whose courage and daring make the universe safe for us all.” – Extended opening narration from the first Space (Planet) Patrol episode, “The Swamps of Jupiter” We close in on a fiery roaring sun, then the planet Saturn, the ringed wonder of the solar system. A humming chord signals a craft flashing past us—also ringed, a circular hull wrapped around a cylindrical core inside a whirling sphere of energy. With a melodic four-note signature, the craft passes the Moon and heads for Earth. With a cymbal crash, a stylised title zooms toward us… SPACE PATROL. Known as Planet Patrol in the U.S.A., to avoid confusion with the Fifties series Space Patrol, the British version was a marionette show similar to Fireball XL5. This had made its debut in the U.S. on NBC (ABOVE) Hop aboard a Hover Jet and join the Planet Patrol in action! (LEFT TO RIGHT) Slim the Venusian (sitting), Colonel Raeburn, Husky the Martian, and Captain Larry Dart. © ITV. All images accompanying this feature are courtesy of Shaqui Le Vesconte. 32

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in the spring of 1963, whereas Planet Patrol’s distribution was more sporadic. WPIX in New York was first to air it from January 1964, running the series several times until the fall of 1968. CKLW out of Ontario, Canada, started in the fall of 1964, with KHJ in Los Angeles following in the fall of 1965, as did KCMB in Honolulu.

ROMANTIC BEGINNINGS

Planet Patrol was the brainchild of author/producer Roberta Leigh. This was a pseudonym for Rita Lewin, who began writing romance novels in the Fifties. When she had a son, Jeremy, she started writing bedtime stories for him. With independent commercial television (ITV) about to start in the U.K. in 1955, Leigh pitched these as a puppet series, The Adventures of Twizzle, about broken or lost toys forming their own Stray Town. Having no experience of production, she approached AP Films to make it. This company belonged to Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis and, with work being lean, they agreed to take it on. The 52-part series had a meagre budget of £450 per episode but was a success, repeated by various U.K. regions until the early Seventies. The follow-up Torchy the Battery Boy, about a toy which rescues others from abusive children, was commissioned and aired from 1959, to even more acclaim and success. In some ways, Torchy laid the foundation for Planet Patrol—the eponymous battery-powered hero had a rocket which took him to the star Topsy-Turvy Land, where toys came to life. Leigh was

(LEFT) Planet Patrol creator Roberta Leigh (1926–2014), a pseudonym used by romance novelist Rita Lewin. © ITV. (ABOVE) Broadcasting trade journal from January 1964, touting the new Planet Patrol series.

interested in space and conceived Planet Patrol purely as a television series. Inspired by a translated Russian book on space travel, Leigh’s vision of the solar system in the year 2100 was an alliance between Earth, Mars, and Venus. The Martians were tall and well-built with spiked hair, while the Venusians were petite with silver hair and pointed heads. Policing this United Galactic Organization (UGO) was Space Patrol, who flew the Galaspheres seen in the opening titles. Each was crewed by three men, one from each planet, with the focus being Galasphere 347 (024 in the pilot and early episodes). In charge was the bold bearded Captain Larry Dart, voiced by the American-born comedy writer and actor Dick Vosburgh. He was aided by the ever-hungry Martian engineer Husky, whose favorite delicacy was Martian sausages, and the meticulous Venusian navigator Slim, both voiced by the versatile Ronnie Stevens. Stationed in a futuristic skyscraper was the head of the UGO, Colonel Raeburn, voiced by Canadian actor Murray Kash. From his rotating desk, Raeburn kept a watch on the planets, assisted by his beautiful efficient Venusian secretary Marla. Her precise sing-song tones were provided by Kash’s wife, Libby Morris, both of whom has moved to the U.K. in the Fifties and became big names on British television and radio. For scientific matters, Raeburn called upon the quirky Irish Professor Haggarty, whose eccentric brogue was provided by Stevens. “Don’t call me Pop!,” he would often exclaim of his daughter Cassiopeia, who preferred to be called Cassie, another part for Morris. Despite Leigh’s romance novels being praised for featuring strong-minded modern women, Leigh’s future was decidedly male-dominated. Only a brief appearance by a female French President in “Time Stands Still” gave any modicum of balance. Later episodes saw actress Ysanne Churchman join the voice cast and take on the roles of Marla, Cassie, and some of the alien characters.

Rounding out the regular characters is the one best remembered. Gabbler (short for Gabbladictum) was Husky’s Martian parrot, first appearing in “The Slaves of Neptune.” Haggarty teaches it to speak English, turning it into an unruly conceited chatterbox. Libby Morris’ performance was a wonderfully comedic tour-de-force, as seen in episodes such as “The Forgers” and “The Robot Revolution.” Gabbler had its uses, inadvertently providing solutions in some episodes. “I told everyone I was clever, but no-one believed me,” it laughs in “Force Field X.” “If only I knew what I’d said!”

TOEING THE LINE

Planet Patrol attempted to steer a fine line between fantastic adventure and scientific realism. Leigh enlisted science author Colin Ronan as a “space consultant” to keep matters within the boundaries of the possible—more or less. The Earth of 2100 used undersea farms for food, with a robot workforce (“The Robot Revolution,” “The Miracle Tree of Saturn”), and had weather control (“The Cloud of Death”). Venus is an idyllic if hot world, while Mars is largely a desert with drought and energy issues (“The Buried Spaceship,” “The Glowing Eggs of Titan”). The Moon has a base, Station One, and an observatory (“The Cloud of Death,” “Explosion on the Sun”), but by 2100 has been largely mined out (“Mystery on the Moon”). Asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, such as Pallas, are used as communication relays (“The Shrinking Spaceman”) although occasionally become a threat when hit by comets (“The Wandering Asteroid”). A number were still uncharted, and useful sources of minerals (“The Unknown Asteroid”). The Galaspheres travelled at 800,000 miles per hour—fine for the inner solar system with journeys only taking days, but to reach RETROFAN

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retro Sci-Fi

(ABOVE) From 1964, a Space Patrol centerspread comic strip from Polystyle Publications’ TV Comic #675. Art by Bill Mevin. (LEFT) In late 1966, The Beezer, a British weekly comic, premiered a two-page Space Patrol color strip drawn by Terry Patrick, running for 26 weeks beginning with issue #558. The image is a “Next Week” preview from issue #557, and depicts the opening frame, albeit just from the original black-and-white art. Like U.S. comics, the color was done separately. © ITV. effort by British standards, although Leigh’s uneven script lets it down. When this failed to sell, Leigh enlisted writer John Brunner to work on a revised format called Space Command. Brunner’s hard-edged science-fiction approach for a prime-time show diverged markedly from Leigh’s family-friendly stance, with her reworking well-worn stories from Planet Patrol once more. Around 1970, she gave up on television production and ‘returned’ to writing romances, although she had still been publishing serials and novels under her other pseudonym Rachel Lindsay. She clocked up over a hundred novels by the Nineties, and attempted reviving her children’s book character Mr. Hero as an animated series, about a boy’s shadow that comes to life. Planet Patrol was thought lost for years, but in the Nineties, Tim Beddows of Network Video urged Leigh to check whether she had prints. In a locked storage unit, it was found she had all 38

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39 episodes on 16mm film. These were released on VHS and DVD, enabling the series to be seen for the first time in 30 years. More recently, a complete Blu-ray set has been released, restoring the prints as best they could. Rita Lewin, a.k.a. Roberta Leigh, passed away in December 2014, three days before her 87th birthday. SHAQUI Le VESCONTE, previously seen in RetroFan in issue #25’s Space: 1999 article, has had features published in the British magazines Comics International and Infinity. Shaqui has worked for Anderson Entertainment, run by Gerry Anderson’s son Jamie, on their Comic Anthologies as Consultant, Editor, and Writer.

RETROFAD

BY MICHAEL EURY Sex, drugs, and—no, not rock ’n’ roll, but Disco. And let’s add fashion to the mix. When recalling the contagion we know as Disco Fever, one can’t easily separate the glam, glitter, and gettin’-it-on from the throbbing dance hits that temporarily transformed the world into a boogie wonderland. Prior to the Sixties, “Disco” was not yet in the vernacular, outside of an obscure comic book character named “Disco, the Boy Detective” appearing in an obscure 1940 comic book titled Hyper Action Comics. (It is unknown if Disco ever got down and boogied.) Some old-timers might’ve recalled the defunct townships of Disco, Tennessee, and Disco, Illinois. “Discothèque,” which Wikipedia tells us is French for a “library of phonograph records,” became used to describe mid-century Paris nightclubs before the term spread beyond France’s borders. By the Sixties, there were discothèques in cities across the globe, packed with gyrating young people, sparking dance crazes along the way such as the Twist (see RetroFan #10) and go-go dancing (see #19). What’s a girl to wear when Twisting the night away? The “discothèque dress,” a slinky, sleeveless little number trotted out in 1964. As Denny Hilton reported in a disco history posted in October 2012 on Oxford University Press’ OUPblog, 1964 was also the year “discothèque” was first shortened to “disco,” originally in a July 12, 1964, Salt Lake Tribune article about the dress’ popularity, then in the September 1964 Playboy Magazine, where “disco” was namedropped when describing L.A. nightclubs. According to DiscoAfterDark.com, “It was possible to get amplifiers and speakers that could deliver clear, powerful sounds,” thus creating a verve that ignited bodies in motion on the dance floor.

(ABOVE) We know that everybody was kung-fu fighting back in the Seventies… but they were Disco-dancing, too! Detail from the poster for the 1978 theatrical release Disco Fever, a.k.a. Jukebox, with other faves getting up and boogieing on the RetroFan dance floor. Disco Fever © Group 1 International

“Technological advances Distribution. Love At First Bite in amplifiers and speakers © American International. enabled a high-fidelity sound Mickey Mouse Disco and to be combined with non-stop Sesame Street © Disney. Roller music so dancers didn’t miss Boogie © Skatekey, Inc. All, a step from one song to the courtesy of Heritage. next,” a trend that started in gay nightclubs in New York in 1969 before soon extending to other cities. In the early Seventies, DJs began to take center stage at many big city clubs, holding court as slick, hip masters of ceremonies while simultaneously spinning records. Black nightclubs pulsated with what DiscoAfterDark.com calls “hot, danceable music”—R&B, funk, and soul—producing “a discothèque environment and set[ting] the stage for the creation of disco music.” But it wasn’t yet Disco music being played at discos. So, what exactly is Disco? “Disco music is known for its ‘four-on-the-floor’ rhythm, which referred to the constant quarter-note bass drum beat—you’ll find four-on-the-floor beats (with some variation) in almost every famous disco hit,” according to GroovyHistory.com. Wikipedia expands this definition by noting Disco music’s “often-reverberated vocals, often doubled by horns, over a background ‘pad’ of electric pianos and ‘chicken-scratch’ electric guitars.” Disco music was RETROFAN

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THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Detroit’s Mad Monster-Maker/Cartoonist

Dave Ivey

(and how he originated Ghostbuster’s Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man without getting any dough!) BY SCOTT SHAW! It all started with Shock Theater in October 1957. Originally marketed as Shock!, Shock Theatre was a package of 52 films from Universal Studios, many of which featured indelible characters now known as “the classic Universal Monsters.” It also contained suspense, mysteries, and anything with a tinge of spookiness. The films were licensed to appear on local stations, sometimes as “Million Dollar Movies” that ran every evening and four times on both Saturdays and Sundays, usually on late night Saturdays under the title Shock Theater. In 1958, Universal released 20 more horror-ish movies as Son of Shock to add some cool new ghouls into the content. “All the local TV stations had to fill time, so they’d buy a package of movies from a distributor, which they would use for six months,” explained cartoonist Dave Ivey. “They might get one hundred films and maybe ten or 20 of them would be considered sci-fi or horror. Most of them were black and white and pretty old and junky. So they didn’t quite fill a two-hour time slot, so

(ABOVE) Dave Ivey’s “radio-active biscuit,” the Abominable Snowman, squares off against Ultra Ghoul—years before Ghostbusters! © Dave Ivey estate. 46

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the TV stations around the country were recruiting from within their ranks, people to host the sci-fi shows, the horror shows, and stretch them out a little bit, put some bumpers in there, talk to the viewers about one of the stars, or something like that, like Svengoolie does now.” All of those horror hosts and hostesses left a fond mark on more than one generation of those of us who now refer to ourselves as “MonsterKids,” many of whom are also faithful readers (and writers and the editor) of TwoMorrows’ RetroFan. From 1957 well into the Eighties, a few MonsterKids even achieved the dream job of working with local TV stations’ weathermen, morning show hosts, and goofy gaffers in the lucrative and respected industry of horror-hosting. Of course, local programming attracted local talent, as well as people already working for the local stations. Newcomers gladly traded a paycheck for training and experience, while the funniest employees among the stations’ staffs had a great time performing as horror hosts for a few extra shekels in their paycheck. Dave’s widow Claudia recalls, “Dave loved drawing. He wanted to make cartoons, or any other kind of art. He also had a love for cameras. His dad gave him a camera when he was young, and Dave would get his friend, and sometimes one of his brothers and he would make up scripts, and Dave would film them and make short movies. Dave also liked camping, scuba diving, and going to the

(LEFT) Cartoonist and puppeteer Dave Ivey and his wife, Claudia Lee Ivey. (RIGHT) A big Eighties flashback! Dave Ivey with children Miki, Bryan, and Michelle, plus a couple of E.T.s. Courtesy of the Ivey family.

movies. In school, Dave was always drawing, making little comic strips. He was more of a loner and got picked on a lot.” During San Diego’s Comic-Con International in 2022, I met Dave Ivey’s daughters Michele and Miki and his recently widowed wife Claudia for the first time. As someone who’s spent decades in the animation industry, I’m not only impressed with Dave’s work, but it made me wish I’d had a chance to get to know him… and to let you know who he was.

WHO WAS DAVE IVEY?

The middle of three brothers, David “Dave” Ivey was born on July 14, 1950. He was born and raised raised in Detroit, Michigan. He loved animated cartoons, especially the Warner Bros. shorts and everything from Walt Disney and Jim Henson, comic books, National Lampoon, and Fractured Flickers, Jay Ward’s TV series comprising repurposed silent movies. Therefore, Dave’s #1 fixation as a kid was making movies and cartoons. “When I was in my early teens, I was crazy about animation,” Ivey said. “I wanted to, like, go work for Walt Disney or something, and I would buy these 50-foot, 8mm movies at the department store, and I’d run them through my projector one frame at a time and study the movements and how fast things moved per frame. And I started experimenting with my camera at home. I was making crude animated films when I was, like, 12, 13. When I was 15, though, I made the opening for a local kids’ show called Jerry Booth’s Funhouse, and they ran that for two years. I was in high school. Everybody was high-fiving me, ‘Hey, you got a cartoon on TV.’” Dave Ivey met his wife Claudia Lee at Ferndale High School in 1968, in 11th grade. Ferndale is a northern suburb of Detroit. Dave was a fanboy and an outsider, but schoolgirls would often ask him to draw their boyfriends. “I never went to art school. I never knew that the Center for Creative Studies existed,” Ivey recalled. “I had a hard time getting through high school, because I was always drawing cartoons. And I’d get dragged down to the office and [the principal would] tear up my cartoon in front of

me. ‘Don’t do this anymore.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ I’d go back and start drawing a new comic strip about the principal. ‘I’ll get him!’” Claudia recalled, “In most classes he was more interested in drawing cartoons than listening to the lessons, but to me he had to be listening. Dave was very intelligent. Dave kept to himself, and didn’t talk much. In the 8th grade I was asked by some kid if Dave Ivey was my brother; as they pointed at him, he was standing near the end of a hallway. I asked why. They said because we both were good in art and because we both had dark hair. I told them no, that my brother was blond. I knew about Dave because he made a cartoon. I didn’t have Dave in any of my classes until 11th grade. He was in my art class.” Dave Ivey and Claudia Lee were engaged on December 25, 1971, married on June 24, 1972, and raised three children: Miki, Bryan, and Michele.

GHOULS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

While Dave was selling his cartoons to National Diver magazine, he discovered a local show that showed vintage horror movies that was hosted by an entertaining weirdo horror host known as “The Ghoul.” “David always loved horror host shows,” according to (TOP) The Ghoul and Froggy the Gremlin appear in this undated Brainsqueezins cartoon by Dave. (BOTTOM) Jacques Cousteau gets ribbed by Dave as Jock Ghoulsteau. © Dave Ivey estate.

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The oddball world of scott shaw!

foam rubber. Dave designed and built costumes and character suits that were used as mascots for businesses and restaurants, or as promotional props for shops and markets—and guess who actually wore some of those getups? “I made these costumes for my wife and I,” Dave recalled. “We were called the Volcano Gods. I was Krakatoa, she was Saint Helen. Volcanos, right? And we started winning contests left and right. We won trips, we won cruises, we won money. We got a trip to the Mall of America with a thousand bucks to spend!” Dave also worked for Erebus, the world’s longest walk-through haunted attraction, headquartered in Pontiac, Michigan. His talents often stood out among the seemingly never-ending displays. “I worked at Erebus when they started out in 2000,” Ivey recalled. “They were just getting the building ready; we were, like, two weeks late opening. But I was building giant animated creatures. I did that big demon that is holding the word ‘Erebus’ over the front door of the place. It was a big sculpt. I had to glue multiple layers of pink board together and then carve it down with a chainsaw, knives, and sanders and stuff to make the finished product.” Dave and Claudia’s creativity and fannish interests certainly rubbed off on their girls, Michele and Miki. Michele is known as the top expert on Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Miki is an outstanding designer and sculptor. Dave once said, “I taught my daughter Miki how to sculpt, and she’s become very good at it. In fact, she has sculpted floats for the Halloween parade in Disneyland. So, she is excellent.” Dave also has a son, David “Bryan” Ivey, whose creativeness lies in his writing and sense of humor he definitely got from his dad.

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Dave Ivey left our planet on July 24, 2020. The 70-year-old was MonsterKid to the very end, making corny jokes from his hospital bed. Many thanks to Dave’s family—Claudia Lee Ivey, Miki Ivey, and Michele Ivey—for their kind assistance. Also, thanks to radio station WGHS 89.5, from which Dave Ivey’s quotes were taken from an interview, and transcriber Brian Martin for their help with this article. 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.

ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING (LEFT) Thundarr the Barbarian title card art. (BELOW LEFT) Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla as drawn by Jack Kirby. Thundarr

Joseph Ruby and (BOTTOM RIGHT) Kenneth Spears.

BY ANDY MANGELS Welcome back to “Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning,” your constant guide to the shows from yesteryear that thrilled us, exciting our imaginations and capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross-legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to “Retro Saturday Morning”! This issue, we’re taking a long-requested look at one of the most beloved Saturday morning shows from the Eighties… Thundarr the Barbarian! The opening credits for Thundarr set up the most destructive view of a post-apocalyptic future that had ever been shown on Saturday mornings, complete with earthquakes, volcanos, and tidal waves wiping out entire cities. Dick Tufeld intoned, “The year, 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man’s civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice. With his companions, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword, against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!” But how did Thundarr come to the air, and how did the series bring together the world of comics and Hollywood like never before? Read on…

DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Ruby and Spears began working for Fred Silverman at CBS—and then ABC—taking West Coast pitches for the New York-based executive. Because networks worked closely with studios on content at that time, Silverman asked them to help supervise the Saturday morning shows, and in 1977 they founded Ruby-Spears Productions, a direct animation competitor to Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. Their first series was 1978’s Fangface, followed by 1979’s The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, and 1980’s Heathcliff and Dingbat. Prior to 1980, the world of Barbarians and post-apocalyptic futures had been confined mostly to pulps, novels, comic books, and feature films. Although the apocalypse was a story as old as time, showing up as Ragnarök in mythology or the Last Judgment/ Second Coming in the Bible, it often was comprised of the destruction of man on Earth due to climate events, astronomical catastrophe, medical pandemics, alien or zombie invasions, or religious endtimes. In the 1800s, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Edgar

RUBY-SPEARS & THE APOCALYPSE & NEARLY NAKED MUSCLEMEN

Through the early days of Saturday morning animation, two studios had dominated the market: Filmation Associates and Hanna-Barbera Productions. Working side-by-side at HannaBarbera were Joseph Ruby (film editor) and Kenneth Spears (track reader), and in 1959, the pair began to write episodes of series such as Space Ghost and Herculoids together and develop shows. Their first big hit was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which they co-created, but they left shortly after all the new episodes for the series were completed, frustrated that they couldn’t move up on the ladder to the role of associate producers. After a period of time at RETROFAN

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andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

him—especially the female segment of the audience. Daredevil was interesting to the kids, but, as it turns out, he’s virtually unknown outside the relatively small comics readership. So a Daredevil series was as a big a gamble for the networks as Thundarr. When it came down to a choice between the two, the network preferred Thundarr, for exactly the same reason, I imagine, that Marvel made the decision to publish Conan 11 years ago; it was different. The ABC schedule already had its fill of super-heroes, and our show offered a change of pace, a little variety.” For Gerber (who had been required to write the Daredevil pilot) and Kirby, the triumph of Thundarr even behind the scenes was a bit of revenge. In Comics Feature #12, Gerber said, “I was very pleased when the network chose Thundarr over both Daredevil and Spider-Man for that half-hour slot. The notion that Joe Ruby, Jack Kirby, and I could walk in with a totally original creation and win out over all these ‘pre-sold’ items was very gratifying—not the least because of the way Jack and I were treated in the past by Marvel.” Indeed, both had an acrimonious relationship with the comics publisher. Alex Toth, the man who had designed many of Hanna-Barbera’s series, was brought in to develop Thundarr’s heroic trio of Thundarr, Ookla, and Princess Ariel. But then… Toth left. No reason has ever been revealed as to Toth’s departure, thought the book Genius Animated: The Cartoon Art of Alex Toth says that it was because Toth heard that Jack Kirby was being brought in to work on the show and didn’t want a situation where two “alpha dogs” would be fighting in the kennel. In research, this is the only version of this story found; all other interviews and memories state that Kirby was brought in only after Toth left. Either way, Toth was gone, returning to work at Hanna-Barbera. Gerber said that he first met Kirby in 1979 when he came in to Ruby-Spears to do production work on Thundarr. “It was my idea and Mark Evanier’s to bring him in on that project,” Gerber said in 1983. “Alex Toth had done the earliest Thundarr drawings, designed the three lead characters and the equort beast that Ookla rode, and then for some reason, left the project. To this day, I don’t know why. The studio was looking for someone else who could draw that kind of adventure stuff. It took Mark and me about three seconds to come up with Kirby’s name.” Kirby did the majority of the production and character design for Thundarr, creating the supporting characters, villains, creatures, weaponry, and even settings. Gerber told Comic Times in 1980 that, “I am completely in awe of him… He has a totally visual mind. I have never seen anyone who can match him in comics or in any other visual medium… Jack is unparalleled as a designer of costuming and setting (mise-en-scene). His depiction of the heroic figure has become a classic in its own time.” Kirby’s production designs were largely inked by another famed comic book veteran, Alfredo Alcala. Gerber said, “We asked Alfredo to use a different style than the one he’s so famous for from The Savage Sword of Conan and he did a magnificent job. The inking style is vastly simplified from Alcala’s other work. It retains Alcala’s distinctive characteristics without his usual line rendering in order to keep Kirby’s power.” According to Mark Evanier, Jack’s wife Roz Kirby inked a few of the presentation pieces as well. The backgrounds to many of Kirby’s designs were done by Andre Gordon. Gerber and his friend, fellow comic writer Martin Pasko, had dinner in the Westwood area one night, which they did weekly. As Pasko related in an interview for the TwoMorrows book The Krypton 56

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Presentation art by Jack Kirby: (ABOVE) Ariel and Ookla approach the remnants of New York City via a magically created ramp. (BELOW) Thundarr’s nemesis Gemini in its inked form before being painted.

(LEFT) Writer Buzz Dixon. (RIGHT) Artist Jack Kirby. Companion [written by editor Michael Eury], “we were wandering around Westwood as Steve was telling me about how the network was frustrating him with its insistence on a Wookie-like character. He had worked out how the creature could be made to seem somewhat less derivative. but was stuck for a name for it. Just then,

andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(LEFT) Ariel and Thundarr promotional art by Jack Kirby and Alfredo Alcala. (INSET) Lizard Men attack Thundarr as he wields an early version of his sword. Art by Kirby. (BELOW) Kirby’s ability to create wildly imaginative settings are on display as our heroes battle a mutant spider.

we passed one of the entrances to the UCLA campus and when I saw the acronym on signage, the phonetic pronunciation leapt to mind. Entirely facetiously, I said, ‘Why not call him Oo-clah?’ Steve did the unexpected and bit. And this, God help me, I will have on my tombstone.” Pasko would go on to write several of the Thundarr scripts, and he eventually became a story editor on the series’ second season. The material written by Gerber, and designs and presentation boards by Alex Toth and Jack Kirby, were gathered together to show ABC. As Gerber said in Comics Feature #12, “All of that was finally presented to the network, along with the ‘bible,’ the pilot script, and the pilot storyboard. The entire series was sold on that basis. At that point, I was hired to story-edit the series, in addition to writing scripts.” But what exactly would Thundarr the Barbarian be about other than cool visuals?

WE HAVEN’T LOST THE PLOT

Thundarr had much more backstory than most animated series at the time, especially comedy shows. As noted in the credits, the series was set 2,000 years after the desolation of Earth in 1994, with a split Moon hanging in the sky. Evil wizards had combined and manipulated the magical forces which had emerged—along with ancient technology—and used them to enslave what was left of mankind, as well as the mutated animal-human hybrids and mythical creatures that now roamed the planet. While some of humanity existed in caves, tree-dwellings, or the ruined cities of the past, others lived in cities or citadels ruled by overlords and wizards. Born into slavery, Thundarr teamed

Writer Martin Pasko.

with a giant brutish bear-like creature named Ookla to rebel against evil wizards. Aiding Thundarr and Ookla in their rebellion was the empathetic sorceress Princess Ariel; in the show’s bible, she was the step-daughter of the evil wizard Sabian, and the one who gave Thundarr his magical Sunsword. The weapon crackled and glowed with lightning energy, absorbed magic, cut through anything smoothly, and attached magnetically to Thundarr’s wrist gauntlets. Ariel herself wields her magic, while Ookla can utilize both his bow and immense strength to fight foes. After defeating Sabian, the three set out to explore future Earth—or at least future North and South America—determined to fight for freedom and against oppression. Along the way the trio discovered Serpent Men, werewolves in Washington, Lizard Kings, the Hoover Dam transformed into a holy monolith, river pirates, Sandsharks, mutants, and more. The only twice-recurring villain of the series was Kirby creation Gemini, whose helmeted head not only shot laser beams from his eyes—à la Kirby’s own Darkseid—but also swiveled to show a more benign face on its backside. The difference between the main cast members was marked when compared to other shows of the time. Thundarr was noble, but often angry and crude, dismissing the past as something that didn’t matter. Ariel was erudite and classy, even when riding on horseback through the ruined Earth. She was also a powerful sorceress in her own right, and of Asian lineage—most likely Chinese. Ookla was an emotional beast, part-ape, part-lion, and part-human. He rode a quadrupedal animal called an equort and only spoke in guttural noises. Unlike the Super Friends or other group shows, the trio did not always agree on a course of action, and often had disagreements or sarcastic words between then. In Comics Feature, Gerber would say of Thundarr’s personality that, “I knew what I wanted, which was essentially a large, strong, brawny, but illiterate character—a guy with no formal education at all. His only guide to his personal conduct would be his own instincts, his own sense of fair and unfair, right and wrong. He would have a native, but undeveloped intellect, whereas Arial RETROFAN

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RETRO HOLLYWOOD

40 Years Later BY D eWAY NE TO DD

‘CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE THEN…’

It was the summer of 1984. 20th Century Fox was launching its next big blockbuster franchise to rival Raiders of the Lost Ark and James Bond. Headlined by a stellar cast who were on tap for at least five films, the series would explore a richly detailed universe that had been under development for a decade. Peter Weller. Jeff Goldblum. John Lithgow. Ellen Barkin. Christopher Lloyd. These critically acclaimed actors were entering the prime of their careers, bringing a dramatic veracity to the leading roles. Bolstered by contemporary music and a hip rock ’n’ roll aesthetic, this movie was at the cutting-edge zeitgeist of Japanese-American fashion and Zen philosophy. Revealed at the conclusion of the film, the sequel to this hip science fiction action-adventure was already titled: Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. 64

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There was only one glaring (ABOVE) Buckaroo Banzai problem… No one could figure and his fashionable out how to sell the movie. crew incorporated an Lacking a clear description of assortment of Eighties the film, it would be impossible fashions. Buckaroo Banzai to create an effective marketing © 20th Century Studios. Unless and promotional strategy. otherwise noted, all images Uncertain what to do, studio illustrating this article are executives opted to push the courtesy of DeWayne Todd. film release from early June to early August, right in the middle of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Marketers decided to expand the title of the film and test the market appeal with a limited distribution. The five-month paced release of the movie effectively killed a strongly coordinated advertising campaign. As a result of this misguided launch, the film never found an audience and was a bomb at the box office, recouping only half of its $12 million production costs.

Auspiciously, this was not the end of the movie. In the mid-Eighties, the home video and cable industries were beginning to explode and Buckaroo Banzai was the perfect film to capture these new markets. The movie quickly began to develop a group of fans through videocassette rentals, college campus screenings, and midnight showings. Viewers that did not have the opportunity to see the movie in its limited theatrical release could now experience the movie in the comfort of their homes. Although a strong following began to grow, Buckaroo Banzai never appealed to the casual viewer. The film is complicated by design and requires multiple viewings to savor the complexity of the story and directorial style. However, when someone likes Banzai, they really like it, often to the point of obsession. It is the repeat-viewing, dialogue-quoting, and enduring devotion of its fans that makes Buckaroo Banzai one of the best, if not the greatest, of all cult films. While Buckaroo Banzai could have easily passed into quirky cult obscurity, the magic of this film continues to insert itself into motion picture and comic book arts without crossing into mainstream pop culture. The influence of Banzai can be seen in Stranger Things, Ready Player One, Star Trek, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over the years, the dense cinematic mythos created for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension continues to be kept alive by passionate fans. But even now, 40 years later, Buckaroo Banzai remains one of the most elusive to define but quintessential films of the Eighties.

‘THEIR TRUE BACKGROUNDS ARE SHROUDED IN SECRECY’

(LEFT) As creative and outlandish as the film itself, the Australian day bill attempted to explain the unexplainable. (RIGHT) While the French advertising art looks fantastic, viewers expecting a Mad Max–style alien invasion may have been disappointed. © 20th Century Studios.

Buckaroo Banzai, originally named Buckaroo Bandy, is the brainchild of screenplay writer Earl Mac Rauch, who developed his first Banzai story in 1974, under an agreement with fellow writer W. D. Richter. Rauch would continue to create new stories about the character for years, including The Strange Case of Mr. Cigars, Lepers from Saturn, and Find the Jetcar, Said the President – A Buckaroo Banzai Thriller. As Richter and Rauch worked on a potential Buckaroo Banzai film treatment, Richter would establish his own flourishing career as a screenwriter with the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dracula (1979), and the Academy Award®–nominated Brubaker (1980). Earl Mac Rauch also proved himself successful, producing scripts for major films like A Stranger Is Watching and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York. Despite these other projects, the exploits of Buckaroo Banzai continued to be refined through the Seventies and the collection of tales became a repository of adventures, characters, and subplots, which would eventually populate the Banzai universe. It was ten years before the project finally made its way to the big screen in a script that was simply titled Buckaroo Banzai. Along the way, the focus of these adventures changed from creating an

updated version of singing cowboy Gene Autry to producing a hero for the Eighties: a hard-rockin’ neurosurgeon-physicist who drives racecars, practices martial arts, and fronts a rock band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Rauch described his vision for Buckaroo Banzai as a “pulp adventure inspired by serials and the Seventies’ kung-fu movies.” W. D. Richter, who would direct the Banzai adaptation, cited Gene Autry’s 1935 Saturday matinee serial, The Phantom Empire, the first science fiction/Western film ever made, as the primary inspiration.

‘THE ONE THE ONLY… BUCKAROO BANZAI’

Moving from screenplay to film, the on-screen character of Buckaroo Banzai continued to evolve, becoming an enigmatic convergence of inspirations from Rauch, Richter, and the lead actor, Peter Weller. Weller reflected, “That movie changed my life. I connected to his Zen-ness. First, I had never done a film—or anything—that took so much physical discipline. I was 36… I was 20 pounds overweight… the last of my party days—when L.A. was wide open... I turned to discipline. I was running six miles a day, which I started doing for Buckaroo…. It also got me reading and sent me on some scholastic channel that I’m still on… That was one of the greatest times of my life.” RETROFAN

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retro Hollywood

The unique Lectroid design was conceived at a lobster dinner. Tom Burman Studios designed these “vicious” Lectroid aliens that walk among us. © 20th Century Studios.

A real-world inspiration for the Cavaliers came from one of the hottest bands in L.A., Billy Vera and the Beaters, a blues rock ’n’ roll group that included its own horn section. Richter brought in several of the Beaters to provide back-up in the concert sequence where Peter Weller, a trained musician, actually plays the pocket horn. To give the movie even more authenticity, singer-songwriter and Grammy Award–winning musician Billy Vera is featured in the movie as the irascible Blue Blaze Irregular, Pinky Carruthers. The soundtrack for the film was developed by Academy Award®–winning composer Michael Boddicker, one of the pioneers in synthesizer music. The rich soundtrack is unusually sparse for an action film, but few audiences can forget Boddicker’s end credits march, a magical tune that accompanies Buckaroo and his friends as they stride through an L.A. aqueduct. Wes Anderson would shoot an homage to this sequence years later in his film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

drove Begelman to step in and replace celebrated Blade Runner cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth weeks into production. In his place, Begelman brought on stolid photographer Fred Konencamp without informing director Richter. Another infamous conflict centered on the red glasses Buckaroo Banzai wears. Begelman complained that “heroes don’t wear glasses” and they made Banzai look “gay,” a stereotype that was anathema in the early Eighties. The escalating clash over this issue was only resolved by an agreement that Richter could show the glasses no more than three times in the film. Otherwise, Begelman would stop the entire project. Eventually, Begelman disengaged from the daily agitation, leading to one of the most memorable moments of the film. Jeff Goldblum observes, “What is that watermelon doing there?” and is told, “I’ll tell you later.” Completely random and never explained, many viewers have pointed to this moment as a defining representation of what is either wonderful or annoying about the movie. It all depends on the viewer’s perspective. Although Richter would provide a logical explanation years later, the real story was that the production designer stopped at a fruit stand on the way to the set and decided to test whether Begelman was still watching the dailies from the film. The completely random nature of the watermelon would be a test. After shooting the sequence, Richter and crew confirmed that the producer was no longer engaged with micro-managing production of the film because nary a word was spoken. Throughout the film, W. D. Richter boldly fills the screen with nods to some of the greatest films in the history of cinema—2001: A Space Odyssey. Doctor Strangelove. The Right Stuff. Citizen Kane. An entire sequence is lifted from one of the greatest episodes of The Outer Limits, “The Architects of Fear.” But as the movie wrapped production, it became clear

‘PERHAPS YOU CAN EXPLAIN YOURSELF’

Principal photography for Buckaroo Banzai began on July 12, 1983, but as the film started to take shape, studio executives and marketing teams began to be troubled by its offbeat structure. As he reviewed the daily footage, Producer David Begelman realized that Banzai was something completely different than the conventional action franchise he had promised investors. Begelman was a charismatic and highly influential Hollywood producer, despite having been convicted of forgery and embezzlement in the past. Without Begelman’s support for Buckaroo Banzai, the movie would likely never have made it to production. In the tradition of directorial nightmares, Begelman began to harass Richter and the production team about the look of the film and repeatedly threatened to shut down production and fire Richter. Disagreements over the lighting and camerawork 68

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(LEFT) Peter Weller as Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, a man that can do anything while wearing his contemporary red glasses. (RIGHT) “The one, the only, Buckaroo Banzai.” © 20th Century Studios.

retro Hollywood

that this film could not be easily categorized. What is it? Science fiction? Action? Comedy? Or some wildly profound docudrama? Everyone seemed to get something different from this movie that defied description. Peter Weller would recall, “I kept asking myself, what in the hell is this movie about? Saving the world? Understanding the interplanetary reaction of racism? I don’t know, man; the movie has everything. It has politics, the central adjustments of racism; a whole extraterrestrial look at what’s good and evil. Socialism, man. I don’t know what the hell it’s about, but it’s a comedy for sure….” It did not help that in the first 20 minutes, Buckaroo performs neurosurgery on an Eskimo, drives a supersonic car through a mountain, gives a concert, and practices martial arts in his own tour bus that keeps an eye on worldwide communications. Buckaroo defines himself as a renaissance man, but Weller would caution, “He is not a super-hero! Buckaroo’s an ordinary guy. He just uses his time well.”

as “the latest issue!” The idea of an internal metaverse was quite original when Banzai came out, although it is more common in modern productions. Another running gag is the notion that Buckaroo Banzai exists in the real world. This concept became part of the promotion of the film when Sherwood Productions sent letters to film critics claiming that the villainous Hanoi Xan had tampered with the mail and shanghaied promotional materials that had previously been sent out. This marketing ploy often confused journalists. A similar mock disclaimer from the estate of Orson Welles disavowing any knowledge of what happened on Halloween 1938 was placed in the novelization, planting the seed that the film was based on real events. Years later, W. D. Richter and Earl Mac Rauch’s audio commentary for the first DVD release was made under the contextual premise that the movie was based on the real-life exploits of Buckaroo Banzai, who was aptly played by Peter Weller.

‘I KNOW YOU… YOU’RE PECOS’

Even Buckaroo Banzai doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, the film passionately embraces its own odd quirkiness. Right out of the gate, the movie sets a fast pace and never slows down to explain what is happening. It is as if everyone is expected to know who Buckaroo Banzai is and go along for the ride. Although common in modern films like Fury Road, A Quiet Place, and many Marvel movies, this cinematic technique of throwing the audience in the middle of a story and letting them figure it out with minimal explanation was way ahead of its time. “Buckaroo Banzai is a million things,” explained Richter. “It’s not even just a movie. Buckaroo Banzai to us is a world.” A world that includes Buckaroo’s fame. Within the movie, Buckaroo is aware of his own prominence and has a franchise that includes video games, comic books, posters, and assorted publications from the the physicist. Patients in a mental health facility are playing a Buckaroo Banzai video game. Two random duck hunters are so familiar with Buckaroo’s adventures that they recognize a random comic book (ABOVE) Christopher Lloyd as Lectroid John Bigbooté… Tay… Tay… Tay! (LEFT) The unique Lectroid design was conceived at a lobster dinner. Tom Burman Studios designed these “vicious” Lectroid aliens that walk among us. © 20th Century Studios.

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