November 2024 No. 35 $10.95
Riddle me this, RetroFans!
TV ICON JOHN ASTIN
su s p a n ni ng r a t s ’s g mornin Saturday
per-hero
E C A A A A P S ! T S O O O O GH ve i 5 n o s k c The Ja ockers al R and other Ren in Animatio
M-m-m-m!
Time for a coffee break!
Isis co-stars Joanna Pang & Brian Cutler • The Name of the Game • Evil Dead II & more! Featuring Mark Arnold • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Mark Voger • Michael Eury Space Ghost © Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Riddler © DC Comics. The Jackson 5ive © Rankin/Bass Productions. All Rights Reserved.
Satiate Your Sinister Side!
“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut
All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.
issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
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CRYPTOLOGY #2
CRYPTOLOGY #3
CRYPTOLOGY #4
The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.
This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!
Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!
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The Crazy Cool Culture We Grew Up With
Issue #35 November 2024
31 47
Columns and Special Features
Departments
3
Retrotorial
Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Space Ghost
23
Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Coffee Advertising
31
Retro Television The Name of the Game
39
61
Retro Animation Real Rockers of Saturday Morning
51
51
Voger’s Vault of Vintage Varieties TV’s Gomez Addams, John Astin
2
20
Too Much TV Quiz TV Astronauts
47
Retro Travel The Smithsonian’s Entertainment Nation
77
RetroFanmail
80
ReJECTED
61
Retro Interview The Secrets of Isis’ Brian Cutler and Joanna Pang Atkins
67
67
Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon On the set of Evil Dead II
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RetroFan™ issue 35, November 2024 (ISSN 2576-7224) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RetroFan, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Ed Catto, Editor, 304 North Hoopes Ave., Auburn, NY 13021. Email: retroed@twomorrows. com. Six-issue subscriptions: $73 Economy US, $111 International, $29 Digital Only. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Space Ghost © Hanna-Barbera. The Riddler © DC Comics. The Jackson 5ive © Rankin/Bass Productions. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2024 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury
BY MICHAEL EURY
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ed Catto PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Mark Arnold Michael Eury Robert Greenberger Dan Johnson Ed Lute Will Murray Ruth Saavedra Scott Saavedra Scott Shaw! Mark Voger DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Jim Alexander Hake’s Auctions Heritage Auctions Cheralyn Lambeth Andy Mangels Steven Thompson VERY SPECIAL THANKS Joanna Pang Atkins Brian Cutler
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Call me “Chief.” Go ahead, I’ll let ya. I’ve no Perry White aversion to the title. Heck, I earned it. Like many of the treasures we mine here for your enjoyment, I’m a bit worn around the edges, having been in the editorial trenches (off and on) since the waning days of the Reagan Administration. The knee cartilage I possessed in the late Eighties may be long gone, but I’m still steering creative content, polishing manuscripts, and juggling myriad schedules—just what you’d expect an editorin-chief to do. But how I do it—not just me, but all of us behind the scenes at RetroFan—is not what you might expect. Normally one pictures a bustling metropolitan office when considering a publication like this one. You know the type: a hive of cubicles buzzing with reporters, editors, and assistants, zipping about at the beck and call of a demanding editor-in-chief. RetroFan Central is nothing of the type. I am a freelance editor, working from the privacy of my home office (not from a top secret subterranean bunker, as has been rumored). In fact, I’m typing these words on Monday, May 27, 2024, Memorial Day morning, when most American workers are on a paid holiday. The only hustle bustle happening within my earshot is the agitator washing machine down the hall, churning the laundry I’ll be placing in the dryer after I finish typing these words. Similarly, designer Scott Saavedra works from his home office (not from a van by the river, as has been rumored). He and I mostly communicate via email. Same with our proofreader, our columnists, and our freelance contributors. We’ve never gathered for an editorial meeting, and many of us have never met face-to-face. Instead of barking orders (punctuated by exasperated “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” lamentations) to our staff, I instead collaborate electronically with our contributors (unlike Perry White, I never yell). It’s not a traditional publishing business model, but the creative and personal freedoms provided by our freelance status has been successful in helping this magazine cultivate its verve and eclectic contents. We’re now in our seventh year in print, so we must be doing something right! There is a secret behind what makes RetroFan such a magical magazine, and taking a cue from that blabbermouth Cindy Brady, I’m gonna tell you what it is. We are fans at heart. If you read the authors’ bios which conclude our columns and articles, you’ll note that many of our writers are seasoned professionals with decades of experience. But despite their thousands of published pages and shelves of awards they are, in their hearts, the little boys and girls who at one stage of their young lives were fascinated by the pop culture that helped raise us. Their articles dazzle us with their informative content but also comfort us with their affection for their subject matter. That’s a fine line to walk, as teetering too far either way can create an article too scholarly or too fannish, but most of the time we collectively produce what is—if I may preen for a sec—the coolest pop culture magazine imaginable. Please welcome Ed Catto (retroed@twomorrows.com) to the RetroFan family as Associate Editor! Ed is a marketing and start-up strategist who has worked to rejuvenate brands such as Captain Action. An instructor at Ithaca College’s School of Business, he has written numerous articles for our sister magazine, Back Issue, and is bustling with enthusiasm about RetroFan. Expect big things from Ed in the future in these pages. (He’s currently deciding whether to work from an underground lair office or from a van by the river.) And you should expect big things in this issue, starting with… Space Ghost. No, make that SPA-A-A-ACE GHO-O-O-OST (guess I do yell sometimes). In the pages that follow you’ll get to know TV Gomez Addams John Astin, walk the set of Evil Dead II, get jacked up on classic coffee ads, meet some friends of the Mighty Isis, explore the innovative TV drama The Name of the Game, groove with the Beatles and Osmonds as cartoon characters, and visit the Smithsonian’s Entertainment Nation. Quite a lot of fun in store! Regular readers will note that our Retro Saturday Morning columnist, Andy Mangels, has the issue off, but we anxiously await his return next ish.
November 2024
THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!
Batman… in Space Hanna-Barbera’s
BY SCOTT SHAW! Born in 1951, I was fortunate to have been in the first generation of American kids to grow up watching newly made-for-television cartoons. The series that impressed me the most were HannaBarbera Productions’ The Ruff and Reddy Show (1957) and Jay Ward Studios’ Rocky and His Friends (1959). Both were hip and clever cartoon shows starring “funny animals” in lengthy adventure stories told in sequential “shorts.” Producer Jay Ward valued quality over quantity and therefore focused on one series at a time. Producers/directors Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had bigger plans and quickly launched a number of very successful cartoon series that introduced Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw, among dozens of others, as well as the prime-time animated TV series The Flintstones [see RetroFan #8], Top Cat [#30], and The Jetsons [coming in RF #37!]. Hanna-Barbera was the Nickelodeon of its era, creating appealing characters and stories that our generation could relate to. I loved them all, watching while laying on the floor, close to the warmth-emitting screen of our family’s television set, with my drawing pad, pencils, and crayons, teaching myself how to draw all of my favorite H-B characters. The first “comic” I ever drew teamed up Ruff and Reddy with Rocky and Bullwinkle. But by 1964, it seemed like H-B was running out of ideas, still grinding out more funny animals, which began to remind viewers of earlier characters—still in syndication—who were (ABOVE) 1966 Space much funnier. The Flintstones Ghost title cel, signed continued to be successful by television animation (although aimed at a much pioneers Bill Hanna and younger audience), but H-B’s Joe Barbera. © Hannaother prime-time series became Barbera. Cel courtesy of one-season wonders. ThereHeritage.
fore, Bill and Joe tried something new (which had a lot in common with the earlier Clutch Cargo). Hanna-Barbera’s adventure series Jonny Quest [see RetroFan #7] proved that the studio could produce something other than talking biped animals, cavemen, and a family of the future. Indeed, it was well executed but tremendously expensive for an animated TV series, so much so that the chiaroscuro shadows on the animated characters in the early episodes were soon dropped. As memorable as it remains, Jonny Quest was yet another one-season wonder. But the show had one positive effect: now Bill and Joe realized that they could do animated cartoons starring more “realistic” characters if they could figure out how to do them less expensively by using “planned animation,” a.k.a. “limited animation.” Disney had tried but he didn’t like the results. Bill and Joe rebuilt the money-saving approach for comedic animation, so they surely could conceive a way to do it with adventure cartoons. Suddenly, a bat flew through their studio’s window (sorta, kinda) to save the day (sorta, kinda). There were already a few animated super-hero–ish characters out there: Max Fleischer’s Popeye (1933–1942) and Superman (1941–1943); Terrytoons’ Mighty Mouse (1942–1961) and Tom Terrific (1957–1959); Adventure Cartoon Productions’The Mighty Hercules (1963); and Total Television’s Underdog (1964–1967). Warner Bros.’ Bugs Bunny dressed in Superman drag a few times too. [Editor’s note: Attention, animation fans! See RetroFan #25 for the Fleischer RETROFAN
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Superman, #32 for Mighty Mouse, #28 for Mighty Hercules, and issue #24 for Underdog.] But none of us were prepared for Batman, which premiered on Wednesday, January 12, 1966 on ABC-TV, airing at 7:30 PM. The campy parody of comic book super-heroes was amusing for the adults, exciting for the kids, and somewhat irritating to longtime Bat-fans. When the first season of the televised Batman ended, a theatrical Batman movie was released to theaters on July 30, 1966 (although it was originally planned to be released before Batman first aired on TV). Batmania had officially arrived! Suddenly, almost every form of entertainment was eager to cash in on this new and genuinely exciting fad. But one of the first—and arguably the best—offshoots of Batmania was Hanna-Barbera Productions creation of “Space Ghost.” If you’re asking yourself, “Has Shaw! been ingesting too many ‘wacky’ gummies? What does the Dark Knight have to do with a rather obscure super-hero who wore an image of himself on his own chest?,” please allow me to explain.
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUT AND THE MAN FOR THE JOB
At various times, Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937– January 30, 2020) was a top-level TV network executive at CBS, ABC, and NBC. He brought the medium such programs as All in the Family, The Waltons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show [coming in RF #43], Charlie’s Angels [RF #7], and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, as well as the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man; Roots; and Shogun. For his uncanny ability to birth and nourish successful TV series, Time magazine declared him “The Man with the Golden Gut” in 1977. Born in New York City, young Silverman’s masters thesis was an analysis of a decade of ABC’s programming. It led to being hired at WGN-TV in Chicago, WPIX in New York, and CBS. Silverman’s first job at CBS was to oversee the network’s daytime programming... which included Saturday mornings. Meanwhile, at H-B, Joe Barbera—who oversaw the “pitches” for new cartoon concepts, characters, and plots to networks and sponsors among his other pre-production duties—was cooking up a slew of new ideas that aligned with the current super-hero craze sparked by Batman. (Bill primarily was in charge of the production of the cartoons that Joe sold and oversaw.) H-B was composed of pro cartoonists who’d worked for all of the major animation studios, but the majority had trained for drawing funny talking animals, not super-heroes. Joe required a cartoonist with a style that possessed simplicity and gravitas. Legendary comic book artist Alex Toth was definitely the right man for the job. Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928–May 27, 2006) was a cartoonist who drew noteworthy material for comic books and animation. 4
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November 2024
(ABOVE) Early pitch art by Alex Toth and Ton Sgroi for “The Space Ghosts,” featuring radically different versions of the cast. © HannaBarbera. Courtesy of Heritage. (LEFT) Television executive Fred Silverman, in 1979. NBC publicity photo, courtesy of Wikimedia. (BELOW) Space Ghost cartoonist Alex Toth. Born to immigrants from Hungary, Toth’s talent was noticed early when a junior high school teacher urged him to devote himself to art. After graduating from the School of Industrial Art in 1947, he was hired by National (DC Comics). While freelancing there, he worked on Green Lantern, the Justice Society of America [in All-Star Comics], Rex the Wonder Dog, All-Star Western, military stories, and eventually, DC’s toy tie-in, Hot Wheels. Alex also drew a number of romance and crime stories for Standard Comics. While serving in the army and stationed in Tokyo, he wrote and drew a comic strip, Jon Fury, for his base’s newspaper. After ending his
The oddball world of scott shaw!
(LEFT) Toth illustration for Cambria Studio Productions’ Space Angel (circa 1963). Courtesy of Heritage.
the visually disturbing “Syncro-Vox” process, which consisted of filmed live-action lips added to mostly un-animated but very appealing inked-and-painted drawings. Toth’s designs for the world of a sci-fi superhero caught Joe Barbera’s interest. (Ironically, Cambria’s owners, cartoonist Clark Haas and cameraman Edwin Gillette, felt that H-B’s Adventures of Jonny Quest was a direct plagiarism of Clutch Cargo, but Cambria couldn’t afford a lawsuit.) Joe Barbera and his writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears—edging out of their day jobs at Paramount as film editors, a decade or so before they launched their contracted work with DC, Alex moved to Los Angeles in 1956, where he began working for Western Publishing, drawing a Disney-based Zorro comic book and four-color adaptations of other TV shows and movies. Toth also drew short stories for James Warren’s horror comics magazines, Creepy and Eerie, as well as Pete Millar’s Drag Cartoons [see RF #22] and Big Daddy Roth [RF #10], both automotive humor magazines. In 1960, Toth began working for Cambria Studio Productions as art director of the show Space Angel. It was the same animation studio that produced Clutch Cargo and Captain Fathom. All three series featured
own studio—worked on characters’ and stories’ descriptions (Jack Mendelsohn may have had some input as well), and Joe and a few artists—including Alex Toth—drew sketches of what a space superhero named “Space Ghost” might look like. Toth’s interpretation of a character who can fly through space, emit power rays, and become invisible, plus his cast of two teenage super-sibings and a monkey and his vehicle, are the designs that were a major element in Fred Silverman’s buying the show. The other reason that happened were three words coming from the mouth of one of animation’s greatest salesmen, Joseph Barbera: “Batman... in Space.”
(ABOVE) The Space Ghost cast we know (and love), with the Toth-designed titular hero, teenagers Jan and Jace, and monkey Blip. (LEFT) Early Space Ghost character design by Toth. © Hanna-Barbera. Both courtesy of Heritage. RETROFAN
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(TOP ) Space Ghost cast model cel, based on Toth’s designs, from 1981’s Space Stars. (CENTER) Color model cel from Space Stars for Space Ghost’s Phantom Cruiser. (BOTTOM) Jack Kirby character design. © Hanna-Barbera. Cels courtesy of Heritage.
In 1978, Mark Evanier, the editor of Marvel Comics’ line of Hanna-Barbera comic books, achieved something that no other editor had attempted: a four-color reunion between Space Ghost and his creator, Alex Toth. The book was Hanna-Barbera’s TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978), with a Toth cover. Inside appeared the tale “Pilgreen’s Progress,” written by Evanier and drawn by Toth, that latter of whom also lettered the story. In 1980, most of H-B’s Sixties super-heroes suddenly returned. Syndicated cartoon shows were becoming successful and Bill and Joe wanted to take advantage of the trend. From 1980 to 1984, Hanna-Barbera’s World of Super Adventure featured material from Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Fantastic Four, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, The Herculoids, Shazzan, and Space Ghost. Ironically, despite the micro-managing Standards & Practices executives, Saturday morning’s super-hero wave of the mid-Sixties was eventually treated like comic books were after Dr. Fredric Wertham published his slanted-and-rigged book, Seduction of the Innocent. Parents’ lobbying groups like Action for Children’s Television began cropping up in the late Sixties, voicing concerns about cartoon violence, stereotypes, and the commercialism and anti-social behaviors associated with hours of sitting in front of the TV. The result were cartoons like H-B’s Super Friends [see RetroFan #25–28], starring DC Comics super-heroes who—and here I’ll quote our son Kirby when he was little—“just stood around and talked to each other.” However, by 1980, Ruby-Spears’ Thundarr the Barbarian [RF #32] seemed to return to the action of the Sixties, now designed by none other than Jack Kirby, who was phasing out his comic book projects to return to his art industry, animation. Ironically, by the next year, Jack was working for Hanna-Barbera on character designs for a new, 90-minute sci-fi program for NBC, Space Stars (1981–1982). It wasn’t a ripoff of Star Wars, but Bill and Joe were definitely riding the tail of George Lucas’ comet. Each 90-minute episode of Space Stars, narrated by Keene Curtis, broke down to this format: f Space Ghost (2 segments, 6 minutes each) f The Herculoids (1 segment, 10 minutes f Teen Force (1 segment, 7 minutes f Astro and the Space Mutts (1 segment, 7 minutes) f Space Stars Finale (1 segment, 7 minutes)
Western Publishing also produced Space Ghost coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, a Big Little Book, and similar print material for kids. On television, the original Space Ghost segments were seen again in the 1976 TV series Space Ghost and Frankenstein Jr. (which replaced the Dino Boy segments with those from H-B’s Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles), which aired on NBC from November 27, 1976, to September 4, 1977. 16
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The fact that you’ve only heard of Space Ghost, the Herculoids, and the Jetsons’ dog Astro is all you need to know about the other characters in Space Stars. Unlike the original shows, gravitas is completely absent, the production values are mediocre at best, and the stories are as forgettable as the cast. At least Jack Kirby designed some new monsters and bad guys and gals for the show. The titles of this iteration of Space Ghost (see episode guide) kinda says it all. Meanwhile, popular comic book artist Steve Rude had been making it no secret that he was a huge fan of Space Ghost. The
The oddball world of scott shaw!
cartoon show inspired him and influenced the design of Steve’s popular indie comics super-hero, Nexus, his co-creation with writer Mike Baron. Eventually, a small publisher, Comico, attained the license to publish an all-new one-shot Space Ghost comic, written by Hanna-Barbera alumnus Mark Evanier and drawn by—yes, Steve Rude. Inking Rude’s pencils was Willie Blyberg, with lush coloring by Ken Steacy, letters by Carrie Spiegle, and editing by Diana Schutz. Due to its creative team, Space Ghost fans still seem be delighted with the results of Comico’s Space Ghost #1 (Dec. 1987). [Editor’s note: As an editor at Comico in 1988, I was assigned to edit a Space Ghost/Herculoids one-shot, a sequel to the 1987 hit one-shot. An agreement with H-B was inked and animator Darrell McNeil, who has since passed, replaced Evanier as writer, with Steve Rude returning for the art chores. Before illustration work on the project began, Rude received and accepted an offer from DC Comics to draw a prestigious World’s Finest project co-starring Superman and Batman and had to table his beloved Space Ghost sequel. Comico soon experienced financial difficulties that shuttered the entire company, and Space Ghost/Herculoids faded into limbo, unproduced.] No one expected it but Space Ghost would be back soon, although not remotely close to what we were hoping for. MTV’s Liquid Television (1991–1994) was a trippy, late night show with animated segments that put cleverness and style over establishing likable characters. It was where Aeon Flux (1991) and Beavis and Butthead (1992) were born. Around that time, Cartoon Network was using classic cartoons for its child-aimed programming blocks. On their bosses’ request, CN producer Mike Lazzo, Andy Merril (who would voice Brak and other characters), and Jay Edwards created a relatively low-budget cartoon series that would appeal to adults. After deciding that Space Ghost would be perfect for their concept, the trio added “Coast to Coast” to rhyme words with “Ghost.” Space Ghost Coast to Coast was a 15-minute-long late-night talk show, with Space Ghost as the animated host, and his former enemies Zorak as the musical director and Moltar as producer, interviewing live-action celebrities of all types, ranging from Björk to Timothy Leary to Ben Stiller. The series proved to be surprisingly popular with audiences, paving the way for the channel to produce similarly strange and original animated series. Space Ghost Coast to Coast was the first original series on Cartoon Network. It premiered on April 15, 1994, and ran five years before ending on December 17, 1999. It was revived for the newly created Adult Swim block, with new episodes produced until April 12, 2004. Unfortunately, for budgetary reasons, Gary Owens, the original (and only, in my opinion) voice of Space Ghost didn’t get the late-night talk-show gig. That did not make Gary happy, and interviewing him on Space Ghost Coast to Coast didn’t either. Instead,
Comico’s 1987 prestige format Space Ghost one-shot, written by Mark Evanier, illustrated by Steve Rude, inked by Willie Blyberg, and colored by Ken Steacy, replicated the lush, colorful visuals of Hanna-Barbara’s original Space Ghost television cartoons. © Hanna-Barbera. Scan courtesy of Scott Shaw!
his job went to the show’s announcer, George Lowe, whose improvisations sometimes make the final cut. In fact, the show’s budget was so low that almost all of the animation in the show was derived from the footage of the original 20 Space Ghost cartoons made at Hanna-Barbera in 1966. But when the budget went up to $30,000 per episode, was Gary Owens invited back as Space Ghost’s voice? Or was the animation improved? Of course not. Spike Feresten, who earned an Emmy nomination for writing the “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld, and Steve O’Donnell, former RETROFAN
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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 the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, 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.
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.
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RETROFAN #27
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The saga of Saturday morning’s Super Friends, Part One! Plus: A history of MR. T, TV’s AVENGERS (Steed and Mrs. Peel), Daktari’s CHERYL MILLER, Mexican movie monsters, John and Yoko’s nation of Nutopia, ELIZABETH SHEPHERD (the actress who almost played Emma Peel), and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, & MICHAEL EURY.
Interview with Captain Kangaroo BOB KEESHAN, The ROCKFORD FILES, teen monster movies, the Kung Fu and BRUCE LEE crazes, JACK KIRBY’s comedy comics, DON DRYSDALE’s TV drop-ins, outrageous toys, Challenge of the Super Friends, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
The Brady Bunch’s FLORENCE HENDERSON, the UNKNOWN COMIC revealed, Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat, a Barbie history, RANKIN/BASS’ Frosty the Snowman, Dell Comics’ Monster Super-Heroes, Slushy Drinks, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
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TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.
RETROFAN #31
RETROFAN #32
RETROFAN #33
RETROFAN #34
Magic memories of ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY for the 60th Anniversary of TV’s Bewitched! Plus: The ’70s thriller Time After Time (with NICHOLAS MEYER, MALCOLM McDOWELL, and DAVID WARNER), The Alvin Show, BUFFALO BOB SMITH and Howdy Doody, Peter Gunn, Saturday morning’s Run Joe Run and Big John Little John, a trip to Camp Crystal Lake, and more fun, fab features!
Featuring a profile of The Partridge Family’s heartthrob DAVID CASSIDY, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, LEGO blocks, Who Created Mighty Mouse?, BUCKAROO BANZAI turns forty, Planet Patrol, an encounter with SONNY AND CHER, Disco Fever, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
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SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM
Say... That’s a well-advertised cup of coffee!
COFFEE ADVERTISING BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA
“Jim never has a second cup.” - Jim’s unnamed wife to party hostess, Yuban coffee commercial (1972) An early Seventies television commercial for Yuban coffee features a couple (Jim and Jim’s wife) about to exit a party. The hostess, oblivious to the departing couple’s intentions, offers a “second cup” of coffee to Jim but not specifically his wife. Clearly, the hostess is better at tracking coffee consumption than being a thoughtful party-giver (or maybe Jim’s wife was “over the limit”). Jim’s wife tries to wave off the hostess speaking the line quoted above. However, Jim is totally into getting another hot cup of the rich, caffeine-laden beverage much to his wife’s mild chagrin. Jim’s wife makes the internal observation, “Jim never has seconds of my coffee.” Even though, per the commercial, Jim’s wife makes a pretty good cup of coffee. She just doesn’t make Yuban branded coffee which has, according to the advertising of the day, “Richness worth a second cup.” And isn’t that just what we want in life? Coffee, and then more coffee? Okay. Maybe we all don’t want coffee, per se, but a nice hot cup of something can be extremely comforting. To this observer, coffee is best. And in the U.S. coffee is the way-ahead hot drink of
(TOP) A happy husband (the goal of many coffee commercials) in this 1961 Maxwell House promotion. © Maxwell House. (ABOVE) Jim’s wife gets a wake-up call at a party when Jim has a second cup of coffee that changes her worldview as it relates to hot caffeinated beverages (she’ll serve Folgers from now on). TM & © The Folger Coffee Company. RETROFAN
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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum
choice. Internationally, tea is supposed to be second only to water. So why do we Americans now like coffee so much especially since when we were but a hardy band of British colonies (a very long time ago) we were committed tea drinkers? Because of advertising and, you know, taxation without representation.
‘AN EPOCHA IN HISTORY’
The American colonists drank more tea than coffee. Tea was more expensive than coffee, but it had more cachet. In 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, intended to support the struggling British East India Company’s monopoly on tea sales in America and increase tax revenues for England. The colonists were not best pleased by this development, and when the tea arrived in ports at Charleston, South Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New York, New York (the colony so nice they named it twice), they prevented the unloading of the tea. But it was the colonists of Boston, Massachusetts, who really pulled out all the stops. Some of the active protestors dressed up as Mohawk natives and tossed millions of dollars (in today’s cash money) of tea overboard. The Mohawk cosplay wasn’t just an attempt to hide the perpetrators’ identities from authorities but to send the message that the colonist’s freedoms were not being respected (as in: no taxation without etc., etc.). You see, the colonists believed that the Mohawk people were a perfect symbol because they represented (sit down for this)… American freedom. Many upstanding colonial citizens were disappointed yet understanding of the unruly behavior. The British, however,
demanded to be repaid for the lost tea and enacted laws (known as the “Intolerable Acts”) that added to the existing tensions in the colonies. George Washington proclaimed that the tea rebellion and the further loss of freedoms “now is and ever will be considered as the cause of America.” And John Adams had lots (seriously, lots and lots) to say, including, “This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, so intrepid, and so inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an Epocha in History.” Benjamin Franklin was a bit briefer and noted that he was, and I quote, “concern’d.” Essentially, our Founding Fathers were for freedom (and sending a message to British rulers) but not super excited about mob rule. The net result was the War for Independence and a ten-year stoppage of tea imports to the troublesome and soon-to-be-former American colonies. This was followed by another tea shortage during the War of 1812 (the one where the British burnt out the White House). Coffee took centerstage as the hot beverage of choice for Americans.
HANDBILLS AND ILLS
In 1652 (160 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue), a handbill was put up for the first coffee house in London. It made a number of promises about coffee, nearly none of them were true. The proprietor, one Pasqua Rosée, claimed that (spelling and punctuation from the original): “It much quickens the Spirits, and makes the Heart Lightsome. It is good against sore Eys… and Head-ach, and will very much stop any Defluxion of Rheums… and so prevent and help Consumptions… It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout, and Scurry… the Kings Evil… Hypocondriack Winds. It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for business.”
(LEFT) What we now call the Boston Tea Party was once known as the Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor which is also the name of this 1846 hand-colored lithograph by Nathaniel Currier of Currier and Ives. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. (RIGHT) The first coffee advertisement appeared in London in 1652. All interested parties curious about this hot new drink were encouraged to go to “St. Michael’s Alley in Cornhill... at the Signe [sic] of [Pasqua Rosée’s] own Head.” Courtesy of Wikicommons. 24
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scott saavedra’s secret sanctum
That’s it! The last one there is the benefit of coffee (and is largely the same as the first stated benefit). The rest is only suitable for bobolynes (a Tudor England–era word for fool) and fopdoodles (period appropriate insult). By the way, the “King’s Evil” is now more commonly known as “mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis” (sadly, not as catchy a phrase) and “Hypocondriack Winds” were believed to be caused by too much reading and produced, as you may suspect, flatulence. Neither are cured by a cup of coffee. Delusional as this early coffee advertisement was the fact remained: coffee did indeed “make one fit for business.”
ORIGINS OF THE BEAN
Nobody knows for sure just when and how coffee beans were first found and turned into a drink (some say it was an Ethiopian goat-herder sometime in the 9th Century that uncovered the coffee bean’s riches), but the earliest actual record appears to place the discovery in Yemen around the middle of the 15th Century. Originally, spreading the joys of coffee was purely a word-of-mouth affair (proper advertising not being a thing back then). Locals and travelers lucky enough to taste it told others about the marvelous “black drink.” Getting actual coffee to Europe and the Americas was a long journey that would take a couple of generations. More years would pass before it became America’s hot beverage of choice.
HOME OF THE BREWED
After the Brits were stomped and sent packing, coffee would be considered more American than tea which was then sometimes referred to as the “traitor’s drink” (a bit harsh). In 1824, Thomas Jefferson received a package from a friend with samples of Columbian coffee. He sent most of the samples to merchants and grocers around Charlottesville, Virginia, to help encourage coffee consumption. Asked for his opinion about the coffee beans he declared in his return letter that “duty to you as (ABOVE) Arbuckles’ Coffee offered convenience up to a point. They sold roasted coffee but the beans still needed to be ground correctly and then boiled into something drinkable. (LEFT) Detail from Arbuckle’s trademark application. The package label is to this day much the same as it was back in 1880. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
well as to myself requires that it should be given with truth and candor. [T]he coffee bean, from it’s mild, and smooth, bitter, it’s essential oil & the aroma that gives it is become the favorite beverage of the civilised [sic.] world.” Punctuation and spelling were weird in our new democracy. Jefferson goes on for a bit on the subject of green (unroasted) coffee beans and is strikingly opinionated on the subject. Fun fact: Jefferson served coffee from an urn of his own design (but of course he did). It was the consumer’s job of the time to roast coffee beans and not everybody was good at it. This is what is known as a business opportunity.
John Arbuckle developed a way to roast coffee to create a consistent product. It involved the use of sugar, eggs, and moss; a combination that kept the coffee flavor in the bean while roasting. Arbuckles’ Ariosa Coffee was a hit. This post–Civil War product was so popular with wagon train cooks in the West that coffee was often referred to as simply “arbuckles.” The company was also the first to sell roasted beans in packages and was an early adopter of color advertising on handbills when it was really quite new. One such handbill from 1872 featured an illustration of two women in a kitchen. One is trying—unsuccessfully—to roast green coffee beans in a skillet (a pillar of smoke emanates from the doomed beans) and she gets frustrated. The other woman, calm and seated, suggests that her friend use Arbuckles Roasted “as I do.” In the realm of coffee advertising this was actually a helpful notice. Roasting beans was frustrating. Making a mistake, even a small one, ruined the flavor. RETROFAN
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retro television
Additionally, with little blowback to the glitzy and glamorous lifestyle Barry’s Howard presented, one could likely trace a line from this series to future extravagant soaps Dallas and Dynasty. Looking back, David Thorburn at American Radio History wrote, “Even in its less imaginative and intellectually ambitious episodes, The Name of the Game held to consistently high standards of production and acting. Both in its formal excellence and in the intermittent but genuine seriousness of its subject matter, the show brought a new maturity to US television and deserved recognition as an enabling precursor of the strongest prime-time programming of the 1970s and 1980s.” In many ways, it was the first show to truly have the slick, feature film–like Universal look that would be the hallmark of their series all the way through the Seventies. Shout Factory ballyhooed the first season company to disc in 2013, but by 2014, they cancelled the plans, and no one has provided a reason.
POSTSCRIPT
(ABOVE) Versatile author Philip Wylie—best known for the novels Gladiator (1930) and When Worlds Collide (1933, with co-writer Edwin Balmer)—penned the Name of the Game episode “Los Angeles: A.D. 2017,” co-starring actress Sharon Farrell. (INSET) Wylie adapted the story into this 1971 The Name of the Game tie-in novel, Los Angeles: A.D. 2017. (BELOW) Stars of The Name of the Game, Stack, Barry, Franciosa, joined by St. James in a promo photo. The Name of the Game © NBC Universal. Above publicity photo courtesy of Jim Alexander.
After leaving The Name of the Game, Franciosa made a handful of films for theaters and television, notably Gene Roddenberry’s Earth II and Across 110th Street. He was reunited with Leslie Stevens in 1972 for Search, another wheel show. He also headed the short-lived Matt Helm series, based on the Donald Hamilton novels. Barry, for his part, remained in demand as a rich adventurer, next seen in ITC’s The Adventurer, with pre-Space 1999 Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. He later reprised both Masterson and Burke in different 1990 series and won acclaim in the 1983 Broadway version of La Cage aux Folles, earning him a Tony Award nomination. Stack’s stentorian delivery grew out of fashion, and he found fewer roles during the Seventies, often repeating the Ness persona. That all changed when Steven Spielberg cast him in 1941, which led to his memorable turn in Airplane. He continued to perform, headlining TV’s popular Unsolved Mysteries, beginning in 1987. As for the comedic St. James, she was successfully paired with Rock Hudson for McMillan and Wife, part of the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie wheel, successfully moving to the newly created Sunday incarnation until she left after a contract dispute. She later was partnered with Jane Curtin in the CBS sitcom Kate and Allie (1984–1989). Retiring from acting, she has remained active in raising her children and pursuing numerous charitable causes. Looking back, you can see the cast and crew were filled with pedigreed performers at various stages of their careers, putting the might of the Universal machine behind a trailblazing concept that delivered thought-provoking stories and hours of entertainment. ROBERT GREENBERGER is a writer and editor of over 100 books and anthologies, many within the DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Star Trek franchises. A lifelong fan of comics and science fiction, Bob co-founded Crazy 8 Press and is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America as well as the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
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RETRO ANIMATION
The
Real Rockers of
Animation A Singing Celebrity Toon-In BY MARK ARNOLD Music and visuals have been a staple ever since movies began. Silent films were never completely silent, as they always had some sort of instrumental accompaniment before proper scores were composed for each film. When silent films transferred to sound films or talkies, music never went away, from either orchestral background scores to today’s trend of having a soundtrack of rock and pop music classics. Like live-action, music was always an important part of animation. The earliest talking cartoons such as Disney’s Steamboat Willie (1928) had a lengthy musical number of “Turkey in the Straw,” for example, that Mickey Mouse proceeded to play on the various animals aboard the small boat he was sailing.
(ABOVE) We love the animated Beatles, yeah, yeah, yeah! Too bad we can no longer watch them! Artwork from the box top of the 1966 Colorforms activity set, The Beatles, a highly collectible toy. The Beatles © Apple Corps. Courtesy of Heritage.
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cartoon, the most fondly remembered team became animated characters such as Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, and Geese Ausbie, along with their manager Granny and dog named Dribbles. The Globetrotters came back on Saturday mornings for a liveaction variety show called The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine (1974–1975), and later, back to animation in Super Globetrotters (1979–1980). Music was always important to the Globetrotters, as they appropriated Brother Bones’ whistling version of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” originally recorded in 1949, as their theme song. The wizard behind the Monkees and the Archies, Don Kirshner, was back to produce a new album of tunes called The Globetrotters that was released on Kirshner’s eponymous label. Kirshner used his same stable of songwriters from the Brill Building, and Meadowlark Lemon was the only actual Globetrotter involved in the project. Lemon went on to record two solo albums, in 1979 and 1998. Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels feature film (1972) features an animated segment that is quite humorous and psychedelic. It was animated by Murakami-Wolf, the principal animation studio behind a number of other projects including singer and composer Harry Nilsson’s The Point animated TV special, as well as many projects with Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan—a.k.a. Flo and Eddie—late of the Turtles music group, which is best known for the
song “Happy Together.” Flo and Eddie contributed music and sometimes voices to the animated Down and Dirty Duck movie (1974) as well as animated TV specials starring Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears. Soundtrack albums featuring the songs from these specials were released during the late Seventies and early Eighties on Kid Stuff Records. For more information on Volman, Kaylan, Flo and Eddie, Frank Zappa, and the Turtles, I’d recommend Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A to Z (AM Radio to Zappa) by Charles F. Rosenay!!! and myself. Rankin/Bass Productions, best known for their holiday specials of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Frosty the Snowman (1969), and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1970) [the latter of which is featured in our next issue—ed.], got into the Saturday morning arena with a couple of musical groups that were the top performing artists of the era. Based upon the hit-making singing family the Jackson Five, Rankin/Bass’ The Jackson 5ive was first, which ran from 1971–1973, and capitalized on the Jacksons’ major hit “ABC,” from the previous year. The series also aired on ABC, creating a great cross-promotion, but the Jacksons’ albums were alas on Motown, not ABC Records. The voices were provided by the actual members of the Jackson Five. When lead singer Michael Jackson broke out as a major solo star a decade later, the series reran on MTV.
Rankin/Bass’ The Jackson 5ive adapted Motown’s most popular singing family, the Jackson Five, to Saturday mornings. And they showed it on… ABC! © Rankin/Bass Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage.
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This was followed up by The Osmonds, based on the crooning family which was at one time known as the Osmond Brothers, which ran from 1972–1973. The Osmonds’ major hit “One Bad Apple” was sung in a Jackson Five vein, and in fact was originally offered to the Jacksons group. Although the Osmonds existed as a singing act for a decade by the time the cartoon came around and were a regular performing act featured on The Andy Williams Show, by 1970 they switched out their “barber shop quartet” stylings in favor of rock and roll. The family band also recruited younger son Donny to sing, and he became their breakout star similar to Michael Jackson. Like The Jackson 5ive, The Osmonds featured the actual Osmond brothers recording their own voices. Their records were released through MGM. After the Archies ran their course on albums, lead singer Ron Dante switched over to Hanna-Barbera, where he recorded an album’s worth of tunes for The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, which aired from 1972. By this time, album releases were not a guaranteed success so the songs recorded for this series could only be heard on the series’ original soundtrack until Dante himself released many of the recorded tracks as part of his Ron Dante’s Funhouse CD in 2020. Filmation’s animated series The Brady Kids (1972–1974) spun off from the live-action The Brady Bunch (1969–1974).
(TOP) Filmation Studios adapted the popular live-action sitcom The Brady Bunch to Saturday morning as The Brady Kids, with music bits reminiscent of the studio’s own Archies. (BELOW) Like we said. The Brady Bunch/Kids © Paramount Television. The Archies © Archie Comics Publications, Inc.
Some might call Rankin/Bass’ The Osmonds “one bad apple,” but it didn’t spoil Donny’s television future, as he soon joined sis Marie for their popular Seventies live-action variety show. © Rankin/Bass Productions. Cel courtesy of Heritage.
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19942024 UPDATE #2
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ZOWIE!
THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE by MARK VOGER
HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others. Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 NOW SHIPPING!
MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s
AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.
by PIERRE COMTOIS This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement! (224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4 NOW SHIPPING!
COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS
NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0
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VOGER’S VAULT OF VINTAGE VARIETIES
John Astin & Gomez Addams Actor’s influence on iconic character endures BY MARK VOGER
The strange, oval-headed man with the jaunty mustache and pin-striped suit sprang from the pen of cartoonist Charles Addams. But John Astin created Gomez Addams. The creepy, kooky TV classic The Addams Family (1964–1966)—a black comedy starring Astin, Carolyn Jones, and Jackie Coogan as members of an odd brood of gleeful shut-ins—was based on Addams’ characters. But Astin, the first actor to portray Gomez, instilled in him a joie de vivre not seen in Addams’ droll cartoons in The New Yorker, in which the characters originated in the late Thirties. Astin’s animated Gomez wore an ebullient smile and piercing eyes ringed in black. He stood on his head, brandished a saber for exercise, and was arguably the most amorously demonstrative husband on television. Gomez practically devoured his “querida” Morticia, played with a beguiling mixture of gloom and allure by Jones. Born in 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland, Astin was well aware of Addams’ work in The New Yorker prior to being cast as the peculiar patriarch of the sitcom clan. “I had been a great fan of the cartoons,” Astin once told me. (I interviewed the actor on five occasions between 1993 and 2008.) “When I was in college, I remember when my roommate first came home with [the 1950 Addams compilation] Monster Rally. We bought another copy so we could razor out a panel or two and frame it. We didn’t want to do that without buying a second copy of the book, because we wanted one un-defaced copy in its virgin condition.
(ABOVE) John Astin created the role of Gomez on TV’s The Addams Family (1964–1966). The sitcom classic was based on Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. © Filmways TV Productions.
“When I realized that a [TV] series was going to be created based on the cartoons, I went back and studied them, trying to find out what was underneath them. What were they really about? I personally concluded that Charlie—whom I later got to know— was expressing the joy and wonder of life.” The Addams Family debuted on Friday, September 18, 1964 on ABC. Coincidentally, another sitcom about a creepster household, The Munsters, debuted six days later on CBS. Both series were cancelled after two seasons, and both have been in reruns ever since, not to mention being adapted in animation, live-action reboots, and movies. Astin led a cast of seasoned veterans. Jones was one of Vincent Price’s exhibits in House of Wax (1953) and canoodled with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley on screen. Coogan (Uncle Fester) played the title urchin in Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpiece The Kid (1921). Blossom Rock (Grandmama) was an MGM contract player seen in the Dr. Kildare movies as Sally, the sassy receptionist. Rounding out the cast was 6-foot-9 Ted Cassidy as Frankensteinian butler Lurch; Lisa Loring as stonefaced moppet Wednesday; and Ken Weatherwax as her roly-poly brother Pugsley. RETROFAN
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Voger’s vault of vintage varieties
ACTOR’S JOURNEY
Prior to landing the role of Gomez, Astin was a steadily Astin garnered early rising actor on Broadway, in movies, and on television. notice in a bit part as a It was live theater that began his professional journey youth dance organizer in earnest. in West Side Story (1961). “You see, unlike movies and television, you can’t © United Artists. ‘rerun’ the theater,” he said. “It becomes something that stays inside of you. I have this memory of Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer in Come Back, Little Sheba. I can still see them on the stage, small figures that they were. They knocked me out. It stays with you. The ephemeral effect of the theater is a great advantage. It’s like life.” Astin decided to become an actor after he and a college buddy put on a play. “I tasted it, and it was overwhelming,” he said. Principal among his mentors in theater was Harold Clurman, who founded the Group Theatre with Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford, “out which came all of our current acting style, really,” said Astin. “The ‘Method’ in America came from their teachings. They learned from [Konstantin] Stanislavsky and brought it here.” Astin studied with Clurman for five years in New York. “I was first trained in the so-called English system of learning stage movements, stage diction, analyzing poetry to read it properly,” he said. “In my life, I’ve tried to combine that with the teachings that emphasize the inner life of something, too, and hopefully create an (LEFT) Another breakthrough for Astin was in That Touch intelligent combination of those approaches.” of Mink, opposite Doris Day (1962). (RIGHT) Astin’s first TV Astin appeared in several Broadway productions during the series was I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster (1962–1963), in which he Fifties such as Threepenny Opera, Tall Story, and The Power and the Glory. co-starred with Marty Ingels. © Universal Pictures. After making his film debut in the gritty crime drama The Pusher (1960), Astin garnered early attention with a small bit in a big film. In HOMETOWN INSPIRATION Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story (1961), based on the To this day, there are hints of the macabre, wickedly funny cartoons Broadway musical, Astin appeared as an organizer of a youth dance of Charles Addams (1912–1988) sprinkled throughout his hometown who tries to cajole attendees—all members of two bitterly warring of Westfield, New Jersey. gangs—to take part in a friendly dance circle. (He fails.) As a youngster, Addams drew inspiration from local classical Another breakthrough for the actor came with a billed role architecture and landmarks. Exact matches for the Rialto Theatre in Delbert Mann’s That Touch of Mink (1962), in which he played a on East Broad Street and Colonial Cemetery on Mountain Avenue villainous romantic rival of… are you sitting?… Cary Grant. show up in two of Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. Addams’ childDuring this period, Astin did a ton of television (Maverick, The hood home still stands at 522 Elm Street. Twilight Zone, Ben Casey) before landing his first sitcom. He played At Westfield High School, Addams played football, contributed one of two title mishap-prone carpenters opposite Marty Ingels in cartoons to the student literary magazine Weathervane, and was a I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster (1962–1963). member of the Art Club and the Slide Rule Club. He graduated in “It was a slapstick show, and I had to do all the falls,” Astin said the Class of ’29. [with what sounded like lingering annoyance]. “They saw that I (Since 2018, the quaint Union County town has held an event could do a fall, so they wrote me another fall, and then another fall. called AddamsFest during the Halloween season, with special So it was a bit like playing football every week. I just remember screenings, tours, masquerade balls and other attractions. Local nursing bruises.” 52
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merchants decorate their windows with Addams’ famous characters during the multi-day festival.) In 1932, Addams made his debut in the pages of The New Yorker. The first of his cartoons to hint at what eventually became known as the Addams Family was published in the August 6, 1938 edition. It showed the as-yet-unnamed Morticia and Lurch (in a beard!) regarding a vacuum cleaner salesman, who boasts of his product: “No well-appointed home should be without it.” The rub is that this dilapidated, cobwebby home is not exactly well appointed. In an early appearance of Gomez, published in the November 14, 1942 edition, he and Morticia sit by an unlit fireplace amid busted floorboards and ever-present cobwebs. “Are you unhappy, darling?” he asks her. “Oh, yes, yes! Completely,” she replies. The cartoonist began featuring the characters regularly [though they weren’t formally named until the TV show]. Little by little, they coalesced into something resembling a family. While the TV show was on the air, the characters took a sabbatical from The New Yorker. Addams eventually drew around 1,300 cartoons—typically black-and-white illustrations rendered in ink and wash—and 65 covers for The New Yorker. Ten compilations of his cartoons were published beginning with Drawn and Quartered in 1946. “There’s nothing really in bad taste, no real horror in Charlie’s cartoons,” Astin said of the cartoonist’s work. “They’re ultimately a kind of wakeup call for us to look at life from a deeper, broader perspective. And they have great wit and style and taste.
In the wake of the Addams Family TV series, Charles Addams’ compilations gained renewed popularity. Shown: A reissue of Monster Rally. © Simon and Schuster.
ANOTHER SIDE OF CARY GRANT In her memoir, Doris Day wrote that in working with Cary Grant on That Touch of Mink, he was pleasant, professional… and distant. The man who grew up in poverty in England as Archibald Leach created the persona we know as “Cary Grant,” a suave actor on screen who could be something of a control freak off screen. John Astin, another Touch of Mink cast member, was once at the receiving end of this trait in Grant’s personality, though Astin harbors no regrets. As Astin told me: “I had a sequence in the film, the end of which got big, big laughs in the theater during the tryouts. But Cary thought what it was doing was a little bit off-color. He wanted a change. It created a bit of a brouhaha. I guess no one else agreed with him. Eventually, however, he prevailed. I re-shot that scene. “But what was so interesting is that he was so considerate of the fact that I might have thought I had been hurt by it or damaged by it. He made it up to me in so many ways, the best of which was that whenever the occasion called for it, he would communicate with me or send a message of encouragement.” Case in point: Astin heard from Grant after taking on Grant’s role in the TV adaptation of Operation Petticoat. “It was a television movie-of-the-week and, ultimately, a series based on the movie he did years If Cary Grant slighted before,” Astin said. Astin on That Touch of “He sent a message to Mink, he more than made me through [producer] up for it. Studio portrait. Robert Arthur saying that he couldn’t be more pleased with the fact that I was doing his role, and wished me all kinds of luck in it. “Whenever we were at the same event, he always made it a point to have a conversation. When you’re Cary Grant, that’s not always easy, because everybody wants your ear. But Cary would walk right over to where I was and start a conversation. He wouldn’t let anyone else interrupt it. That’s so classy. “Cary Grant was, in my opinion, a very modest fellow. He was very much a gentleman. He was very much who he was, but in my view, he didn’t make a big deal out of it. He just was who he was. Beyond that, obviously, he was a very hard worker and wanted things to be always the very best. On the other hand, he was a very kind person. I know he exhibited that kindness toward me.”
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(TOP LEFT) Raul Julia played Gomez in the movie adaptation The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel. © Paramount Pictures. (TOP RIGHT) Tim Curry played Gomez in the TV movie Addams Family Reunion (1998). © Fox Family Films. (LEFT) Gomez was voiced by Oscar Issac in the animated film The Addams Family (2019) and its sequel. © MGM. (RIGHT) Luis Guzman is the latest Gomez Addams in the ongoing Netflix series Wednesday. © Netflix. heart, I kind of felt, ‘If he doesn’t come on to do a show, it’ll be so bittersweet. He just has to!’ When we found out (that Astin agreed to appear), I was just totally beside myself. He turned out to be one of the most generous, wonderful people. “Just before he left and we were saying our goodbyes, his wife Valerie did say, ‘The torch has been passed. You guys can feel good.’ I said, ‘Yeah, we feel great.’” Astin, 93 at this writing, is the last surviving member of the original Addams Family cast. Did the actor have any theories on the enduring appeal of the show? “The Addams Family were strange on the outside, very healthy on the inside,” he said. “That was a metaphor for a lot of things. We always knew we had a good show. I would never have thought that it would still be a current item years later. It’s replayed probably more than any show ever, except for the original Honeymooners. It’s literally never been off the air. “People ask me about residuals. Of course, in those days, we got paid for five reruns, and that was it. People ask me, ‘Aren’t you disappointed?’ You know, one is an actor primarily—at least, 60
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I am—because he wants to communicate with people. I want to spread whatever feeling or message or encouragement there is. Who can ask for more than that it continues? That’s much more important than money.” What of himself did Astin bring to Gomez? “Well, Gomez is really me,” he said. “My brother said that Gomez is the clearest extension of my personality than anything else I’ve done. That’s really who I am. The love of spontaneity, the appreciation of life, the enjoyment of any aspect of life that I can find. I think that’s probably at the root of it.” 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. As a child, he coveted a classmate’s Uncle Fester puppet; as an adult, he finally snagged one for 80 bucks. (Huzzah!) Please visit him at MarkVoger.com. And don’t miss Mark’s feature on Addams Family & Munsters toys in Cryptology #1, on sale now!
RETRO INTERVIEW
The Secrets of Isis Revealed! Meet Brian Cutler and Joanna Pang Atkins
BY DAN JOHNSON If you were a child in the Seventies, then no doubt your must-see TV included CBS’ The Secrets of Isis. The Filmation series, which starred Joanna Cameron as the title character (and her alter ego, Andrea Thomas), was created to serve as a female-centric companion show to the studio’s successful Shazam! [which RetroFan’s Andy Mangels examined way back in issue #4!—ed.]. Two seasons of The Secrets of Isis were produced (with 22 episodes filmed), and the show ran on the network from 1975 to 1978. The Secrets of Isis was a landmark in television as it was the first network show to feature a super-heroine in the lead role.
Recently I had the honor of interviewing two of the other stars from the series, Brian Cutler (who played Rick Mason) and Joanna Pang Atkins (who played Cindy Lee), and they graciously shared their memories of working on the show. RetroFan: How did each of you come to be cast in The Secrets of Isis? Joanna Pang Atkins: Brian was the first one cast, I think. Brian Cutler: Yes, I was. They probably brought in 200 guys and I guess Norm [Prescott] and Lou [Scheimer] liked me the best. Then I was there for all the auditions
for all the women [who tried out for Isis]. When Joanna Cameron came in, they just loved the chemistry between the two of us. There was nothing to not like about her. She was in great shape, she was beautiful, and she exemplified what they saw as Isis. RF: Do you remember any of the other actresses who auditioned for the role of Isis? BC: I really don’t, but any of the lovely women working in the industry in the early Seventies who were Joanna Cameron’s type were brought in. You could go down a list
(ABOVE) Brian Cutler as Rick Mason and Joanna Pang (now Atkins) as Cindy Lee in a publicity photo from Season One of The Secrets of Isis. (INSET) Brian and Joanna at a 2007 San Diego Comic-Con promotion of Isis’ DVD release. Photos courtesy of Brian Cutler. The Secrets of Isis © 1975 Entertainment Rights plc. RETROFAN
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retro interview
(ABOVE) Brian hard at work at the Brian Cutler Actors Studio. (LEFT) Cutler and Atkins promote The Secrets of Isis’ DVD release at the 2007 ComicCon. Photos courtesy of Brian Cutler.
for something, and that makes me happy and proud and full of gratitude that I was able to do that. Also, I would like to mention that anyone interested in learning the craft of acting, please feel free to contact me at my studio, Brian Cutler Actors Studio in Magnolia Park, Burbank, California 91505. You can also reach out to me at www. actorsstudio.com or call 818-424-5470 for 66
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additional information. I am proud to say my studio was just rated best in the area and it is one of the only studios in Los Angeles that shoots live with cameras in every class and we send all the footage to the students free of charge. JPA: I just want to add that it makes me happy and proud to be part of something that meant so much and was rewarding to the people who watched it and learned from it. Some of the fans know, because they see the Facebook posts, that I’ve been teaching world dance residencies for the
last many, many years. Last year, one of the third-grade teachers said, “The students would like to have a Q&A session with you.” Their first questions were about my dance background and what I had done before. I told them, “I was on a very popular show called The Secrets of Isis.” They were so excited to hear about the show, and the teacher knew about Isis. She immediately pulled up an episode on YouTube. So the kids had me there and they were watching the show from the past. It was just so much fun. The memories that Brian and I share are just great because it’s still out there and its still appreciated and still liked, and I too am just honored to be a part of that. DAN JOHNSON is a co-founder, editor, and writer for Empire Comics Lab (empirecomicslab.com) and Old School Comics. Dan has written for RetroFan, Back Issue, Antarctic Press, Campfire Graphic Novels, Golden Kid Comics, InDELLible Comics, and ACP Comics, and is a gag writer for the Dennis the Menace comic strip.
WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON
Dead by
Dawn On Location of ‘Evil Dead II’ BY WILL MURRAY
Way back in the summer of 1986, after I’d begun writing for the Starlog group of magazines, which included Starlog and briefly Comicscene, at that time, my editor, Dave McDonnell, temporally took over Starlog’s popular horror film magazine, Fangoria. I had never read “Fango,” but when Dave asked me to go to the now-defunct [Dino] DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, for a press junket to cover three horror films, I was more than happy to oblige. The previous year, I had visited my first film location, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins [explored in this column last issue—ed.], for Starlog. So I had a little experience under my belt.
This would be my second film junket, and the most complicated. Once again, I would be working with publicist Paul Sammon. The three films were Trick or Treat, King Kong Lives, and… Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (a.k.a. Evil Dead 2). I didn’t know it at the time but I was about to cover one of the most significant horror films of the Eighties. The assignment took me to Wilmington to cover Trick or Treat and King Kong Lives at the DEG Studios. We did this over a couple of fascinating days. I principally remember stepping onto a shooting stage and interviewing the director while a giant King Kong lay supine before us. Kong was awaiting an operation, as I recall. Linda
(ABOVE) Back in 1987, no one could’ve guessed that director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II, the sequel to a gruesome little cult flick that a lot of people missed, would explode into a grindhouse juggernaut, propelling lead Bruce Campbell to stardom. But a bloodbath of continuations and merchandising spewed forth and continue to do so—including this seven-inch Ash deluxe action figure with groovily gory accessories! Evil Dead II © Renaissance Pictures. Movie poster courtesy of Heritage. RETROFAN
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