When it premiered in 1972, as politically active a period as any, Kung Fu was defined by industry professionals and television fans alike as a Fugitive/Shane fusion, with a compound of corporal, cerebral, and ethereal creeds imported from Asia. Or as Cleveland Amory observed in TV Guide, “This show is a kind of combination of The Fugitive, Run For Your Life, and President Nixon’s trip to China.”
Ancient Shaolin wisdom would come in handy whenever Kwai Chang Caine (portrayed by David Carradine) was confronted with the ignorance and deception of Western America in the 1870s. Inner sightings (sometimes in the form of the show’s trademark flashback sequences) from Caine’s past (when he would be portrayed by Radames Pera, and sometimes Keith Carradine,David’s younger brother) would depict guidance for the reality of the present.
His and ours.
“This was the ’70s,” said Stacey Byham, a third-grade teacher, martial arts expert, and ardent fan of the series. “And here was a show that defied and challenged people’s beliefs with storylines that dealt with bigotry and racism. White characters were often seen as unscrupulous folk who, by the end of the episode, had learned a valuable lesson from their interaction with Caine.”
During the somewhat murky social norms of the 1970s, people of all ages, creeds, colors, and religions were comforted by Caine’s wise words, kind manner, and respect for other people’s truths. As the affectionately named Grasshopper learned from Master Po (played by Keye Luke) and Master Kan (Philip Ahn), many Old Western souls were gaining insight from Caine. Viewers were enlightened by both generations. With near-mosaic screen imagery, through popular TV, the viewer was inspired by and inspirited with a strong message—a memorandum derived from several different sources. The show’s writers gathered information from Confucius, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, Zen Buddhism, and the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, all of which share a similar theme: gentleness, peace, and compassion are of the utmost importance if one is to have a spiritually sound and happy existence.
BY HERBIE J PILATO
Alisa Joaquin, a fanfiction writer who has penned almost one hundred stories about Kung Fu, observed, “If you go back and listen to what was being taught in the show, it’s
no different from what other religions try to teach, but the words are said in such a way that any person can understand and even relate to them. They are thought provoking. Not many shows produced today can say that.”
Who isn’t familiar with the phrase, “Take the pebble from my hand,” initially voiced in Kung Fu by Ahn’s Master Kahn to Pera’s young Caine?
Grasshopper has sprung eternal, as The CW network recently found success with the rebooted TV edition of Kung Fu, while the original series show remains popular on DVD. Now, Universal Pictures is readying the new Kung Fu feature film.
Five decades ago, President Nixon held historic meetings in 1972 with Chairman Mao in China, just as the original Kung Fu (broadcast on ABC from 1972 to 1975) debuted. In doing so, the show’s central figure, David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine, introduced Asian thought to the American mainstream on a weekly basis. As Caine relayed the message of collective health for the mind, body, and spirit, assertive and alternative thought and medicine increased in popularity.
“Many of the roles in Kung Fu were dignified and not negative stereotypes,” said Jeff Chinn, the world’s foremost collector of Bruce Lee memorabilia. “I grew up with so few Asians on TV that when one did appear, my entire family would stop what they were doing just to take a look.”
Today, Kung Fu, and its 1990s sequel, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (in which Carradine portrays Caine’s grandson), remain popular in syndication. The 1986 TV film Kung Fu: The Movie (with the late Brandon Lee) has become a cult classic, as has the 1987 one-hour pilot, Kung Fu: The Next Generation (also starring Lee).
THE SINCEREST FORM
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In that case, Kung Fu’s Kwai Chang Caine should retain a massive ego, as he has been parodied extensively.
Greg Ehrbar, author of Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History, said the 1974 Saturday morning cartoon Hong Kong Phooey initially drew inspiration from the show. “At the time, a lot of Saturday morning cartoons were either based on or inspired by hit primetime series. ABC had success with the Kung Fu series. The animated spoof was originally called ‘Kung Phooey,’ but it was too close to the primetime version.
“Somehow, the creative pitches to ABC, sponsors, and others with a ‘say’, evolved into the approved premise starring a dog—with a feline sidekick. Thus, the series was convoluted in the grand Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning tradition and worked. The watercolor look, the wacky humor, and connecting dual-adventure format was a lot of fun and certainly well-remembered.” Parodies were also seen on The Tonight Show, 7-Up commercials, In Living Color, and Saturday Night Live, with Carradine as host. In the movies, there was 1996’s Beverly Hills Ninja and 1989’s Lethal Weapon II. And for a while “everybody was kung-fu fighting”, and disco dancing to the hit novelty song by Carl Douglas.
Kung Fu also inspired Pat (Happy Days) Morita’s Mr. Miyagi and Ralph Macchio’s young Daniel (from the 1984, 1986, and 1989 Karate Kid films, as well as 1994’s The Next Karate Kid, with the pre-Oscar-winning Hilary Swank subbing for Macchio), and the new Cobra Kai streaming series (starring Macchio).
The original Kung Fu also inspired Luke Skywalker (from Star Wars) and Michaelangelo, Splinter, et al. (of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), both of which are products of the Caine/ Master Po relationship. Some even credit the moody feel of Clint Eastwood’s big-screen Unforgiven (1992) to Kung Fu’s groundbreaking, non-MGM-Technicolor cinematic style.
It is evident just how much 2000’s big-screen Jackie Chan hit Shanghai Noon employed Kung Fu as inspiration (e.g. fugitive from China flees to the American Old West), while 2001’s multi-Oscar-nominated blockbuster Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s sleek, mammal-martial-arts-moves were first introduced to the American mainstream by Kung Fu’s Caine three decades earlier (the original pilot for Kung Fu was intended as a feature film to be entitled The Way of the Tiger, the Sign of the Dragon). Even contemporary martial arts television star Lorenzo Lamas paid homage to Kung Fu. As he
once revealed to Starlog magazine, his lead TV character in the then-syndicated series, The Immortal, was named Cain. And though it is spelled without an “e” at the end, it does not contain any allegorical Biblical references. Still, it is meant, according to Lamas, as a tribute to Kung Fu and its star David Carradine, both personal favorites of the actor.
“I especially liked the flashbacks where Caine goes back to the Shaolin Temple, where his master gives him lessons,” Lamas told Starlog. “As a kid, I was interested in that show’s logical and mental aspects as much as the fighting. And I knew that no matter how long the wait, there would always be a good fight” (with concentration, of course, on the “good”).
In Starlog #208 (November 2000), director James Cameron explained how he, too, was inspired by Kung Fu, when he created his series Dark Angel (in the form of Jessica Alba’s edgy spy).
THE MARK OF CAINE
Kung Fu has even made its mark online: Entertainment Weekly Online enjoyed the popularity of Kung Fu 3D, starring the voice of David Carradine, the first ever animated internet television show spawned by a TV classic. Moreover, hundreds of websites are devoted to Kung Fu and Carradine (and the martial art itself, not to mention life after death, UFOs, angels, mysticism, and a myriad of topics related to spiritualism, religion, philosophy, and the New Age).
E! Network produced and aired David Carradine: The E! True Hollywood Story, which has become one of history’s top ten E! True Hollywood Stories
Since their inception, Inside Kung Fu and Masters of Kung Fu magazines (both of which were instituted due to Kung Fu) have published several Kung Fu-related articles (several of which have been written by Herbie J Pilato).
Warner Bros. Home Video has released Kung Fu: The Complete Series on DVD (with extras, including two minidocumentaries featuring David Carradine, series creator Ed Spielman, and Kung Fu author Herbie J Pilato, who also served as the DVD’s main consultant).
David Carradine’s long list of additional works include his charismatic role in Quentin Tarantino’s hit feature films Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (which were inspired by Kung Fu).
“It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed since the original show aired, and how much a profound impact that it had and still does with so many people, including myself,” said Joaquin.
In February 2024, Universal Studios announced the production of the all-new Kung Fu feature film to star actor and well-known martial artist Donnie Yen. Frequent Universal collaborator David Leitch will serve as producer with Kelly McCormick via their Universal-based 87North Productions alongside Guy Danella.
Stephen L’Heureux is producing the movie via Solipsist Films. Leitch will also serve as director of the film, which has
a script by Stephen Chin. The movie’s executive producer is original Kung Fu TV creator Ed Spielman.
THE LEGEND BEGINS
Originally envisioned for theatrical release, the original Kung Fu was created by Spielman and Howard Friedlander in the mid-1960s.
Spielman and Friedlander’s Kung Fu screenplay had rested on the shelf at Warner Bros. until 1971. That’s when studio executive Harvey Frand dusted off the script and commissioned it to be transformed into a TV movie for ABC.
At the time, ABC was enjoying enormous success with its weekly 90-minute Movie of the Week series that showcased original productions (harkening back to CBS’s earlier Playhouse 90 TV era).
Once Warner Bros. and Frand hired Spielman and Friedlander to convert the Kung Fu screenplay into a teleplay, the Kung Fu TV movie was given the green light. Ultimately,
Has a Clue Nancy Drew
state. Her father was criminal attorney, Carson Drew. Nancy had lost her mother at the age of 10. Hannah Gruen was the family housekeeper.
Nancy was an amateur sleuth, clever, brave, and surprisingly assertive for a teen-aged girl. Adults were in awe of her. I found her fascinating.
At the end of the school year, we got to choose a book to keep. I grabbed Carolyn Keene’s immortal classic, The Secret of the Wooden Lady. I still have it.
BY WILL MURRAY
Back in third grade, my teacher introduced me to a young lady I shall never forget.
Her name was Nancy Drew.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, my grammar school, Boston’s Francis Parkman, used advanced teaching methods. A prior principal had written a book called Why Johnny Can’t Read, and his vision was being upheld by the staff of 1963.
One day, Mrs. Dunn displayed a table of books and invited each student to read their selection. Many were Hardy Boys, and a few were Dana Girls. The rest comprised the adventures of Nancy Drew, by Carolyn Keene.
I can’t explain why I gravitated toward Nancy Drew, but I think reading about a bunch of kids put me off. I was accustomed to adult superheroes. Nancy Drew sounded grown up. The copies lacked dust jackets. The cobalt blue bindings depicted a silhouette of Nancy holding a magnifying glass like a skirted Sherlock Holmes. She looked mature.
Nancy wasn’t an adult. But she was close enough, and I really liked the first novel I read, The Secret of Red Gate Farm, wherein she investigated a spooky hooded nature cult, the Black Snake Colony. I moved on to The Secret of Shadow Ranch, then others.
Nancy Drew was a 16-year-old recent high school graduate who lives in River Heights in an unspecified middle western
I didn’t encounter Nancy again for a few years when I discovered reissues with illustrated board covers in a department store. So I purchased The Secret of Red Gate Farm, The Secret of Shadow Ranch, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, and Nancy’s Mysterious Letter.
This second flirtation with Nancy Drew didn’t last long. I was collecting comic books. My dollar allowance didn’t stretch far.
My interest in Nancy was rekindled when the originating author was rediscovered in the 1980s. And her name wasn’t Carolyn Keene.
The Nancy Drew series was launched with the simultaneous release of the first three stories in April 1930. Book packager Edward
(ABOVE) Cover detail to Nancy Drew Ghost Stories by Carolyn Keene (Minstrel Books, 1983). Art by Ruth Sanderson. (RIGHT) A 1931 edition of Nancy Drew in The Secret of the Red Gate Farm. TM Simon & Schuster.
Stratemeyer produced the books, which were published by Grossett & Dunlap. Even during the Great Depression, they sold phenomenally well. Over successive generations, Nancy Drew books sold millions of copies, making her the most successful character in her category.
Nancy was still going strong during her 50th anniversary year, 1980. That was when, unhappy that Grossett & Dunlap declined to promote the milestone, the Stratemeyer Syndicate broke away. During the course of a 1980 lawsuit over whether Simon & Schuster had the right to replace them as publisher of the perennially popular series, the truth of who really wrote Nancy Drew came out. Ghostwriter Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was called to the stand. She set the record straight.
“I wrote all of the early Nancy Drew stories, and always believed that I created the main character,” she asserted. “It surprised me that this later became controversial.”
The first four Nancy Drews originated from Edward Stratemeyer plots, making him technically her originator— although he wanted to call the new heroine Stella Strong.
“He gave me outlines of two or three pages,” Benson said, “and I wrote the Nancy Drew books from them. The books were 200 to 300 pages.”
This was an embarrassment to Stratemeyer’s daughter and successor, Mrs. Harriett Stratemeyer Adams. For years, she had plotted, edited, and rewritten many of the early texts, but claimed sole authorship, never mentioning Benson.
Both women held valid claims to developing the character. Yet they saw her very differently.
“In those days,” Benson recalled, “the characters in girls’ series had little freedom. Girls’ books were so namby-pamby, Pollyanna-type writing. So when I got the outline from Mr. Stratemeyer for the book, I decided to do something different. The plots provided me were brief, yet certain hackneyed names and situations could not be bypassed. Therefore, I concentrated upon Nancy, trying to make her a departure from the stereotyped heroine commonly encountered in the series books of the day. I didn’t analyze. I just started to write. I had no plan.”
Stratemeyer disliked the first manuscript, The Secret of the Old Clock.
Benson remembered, “He did not think it would be well received because Nancy Drew was too flip and out of character with other series books. He did not like the character of Nancy.”
Grossett & Dunlap’s editors disagreed. They saw in Nancy Drew a refreshingly new type of modern heroine.
“At the time,” Benson noted, “I was expressing a sort of ‘tomboy’ spirit. Nancy was no real person—she was imaginary—but an ideal. She took command of situations, rescued people, got herself out of scrapes without any help.”
Two weeks after Nancy’s debut, Edward Stratemeyer died unexpectedly.
“The publishers were aghast,” remembered Harriett Adams. “They wanted to know when the next books were going to come. I got hold of a couple of ghost writers my father had. I learned something from them, too.”
Adams took over the syndicate and kept Benson on the series for most of the first 25 titles.
The first female graduate of the University of Iowa’s school of journalism, the former Mildred Wirt started ghostwriting juvenile books while still in school, using the university’s typewriters to bang them out under the guise of writing her thesis.
“I might have four to six weeks to write a Nancy Drew book,” Benson remembered.
“In addition to that, I held a full-time job and raised a family. I was writing the books at night.”
A hitch occurred in 1933. Walter Karig replaced Benson on Nancy’s Mysterious Letter and two other titles.
“I refused to write those three books because of a disagreement with the syndi-
The Secret of the Old Clock by Caroline Keene (Grosset & Dunlap, 1942). Courtesy of Worthpoint.
Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, the original Nancy Drew author. Courtesy of Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson Papers, Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.
she insisted. “I don’t even read my books after they’re published. They’re part of the past. I don’t dwell on it.”
Yet Benson was understandably proud of her accomplishment. “I knew I was writing a very good series of books, because you could feel it. I never knew it would go on that long.”
She did appreciate the flood of fan letters. “It feels good to finally have your work acknowledged. I remember one girl said that she was actually locked in a trunk by a hold-up guy and she thought of Nancy Drew. She got out by her own efforts, which she attributed to Nancy Drew. That one surprised me.”
Benson’s favorite Nancy Drew story was the second release, The Hidden Staircase. But she couldn’t explain why. “I just liked it. I don’t think about it.” It got the most fan mail.
Encouraged to pen one last Nancy Drew, the first Carolyn Keene declined. After ghost-writing more than 200 juvenile novels—only a few under her own name—she stopped, in part due to the death of her second husband. It was work.
“Always panic took possession of me,” she recalled. “If only I had an idea! A plot! Three plots! Usually several days of painful concentration would bring the glimmer of an idea upon which one could build. First, the story’s opening problem and the climax were plotted. If these were sufficiently strong, and basic complications satisfactory, then interior chapters fell into place.”
Benson was content to write her Toledo Blade column, “On the Go,” into her 90s.
Some of her seminal Nancy Drews were completely rewritten until they were virtually new stories. “It was a very poor job,” Benson insisted. “I’ve signed a lot of books for people that I never wrote. The titles are the same, but the words aren’t mine.”
Harriett Adams continued to write the outlines to every Nancy Drew mystery
One of the earliest Nancy Drew collectibles, Parker Bros.’ board game. Nancy Drew is TM Simon & Schuster.
until her death in 1982. The ghostwriters who followed Mildred Benson were legion. Many are still unknown.
After 175 novels, the original Nancy Drew series ended in 2003 with Werewolf in a Winter Wonderland. But the character was too valuable to retire. She reemerged in other incarnations.
Attempts to update Nancy included the Nancy Drew Files and Nancy Drew on Campus. These modernized stories veered into relevant topics previously shunned, such as drugs, date rape, and interracial themes, as well as putting the cast in serious danger of injury or death. Ned Nickerson was briefly shunted aside for a pre-med student, then promoted from friend to “special friend”.
Simon & Schuster canceled them in 1997, but Nancy was reinvented for contemporary readers. The Nancy Drew Diaries aimed at more sophisticated girls. River Heights was a teen romance spinoff in which Nancy rarely appeared.
In later life, Mildred Benson took up flying a private plane and went on archeological trips to Mayan ruins in true Nancy Drew spirit. Near the end of her life, a magnifying glass was needed to read her computer screen. Falling ill
at her Toledo Blade desk in 2002, she died in the hospital at 96.
NANCY ON SCREEN
Despite her tremendous popularity, Nancy Drew rarely crossed over into other media successfully. Bonita Granville played the starring role in a quartet of 1930s B pictures. Further planned installments were abandoned.
In the late 1970s, Pamela Sue Martin played the girl sleuth in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries for TV. Initially, the two Stratemeyerlicensed series alternated.
“Casting the role of Nancy Drew was one of the toughest things we did,” admitted executive producer Glen A. Larson. “The difficulty was that with 50 years of books you have a following of all ages. Everyone had a preconceived of what she should be like.”
Martin had the requisite background. “I read a few of the Nancy Drew books and loved them when I was a youngster. So I can identify with the part. When you read things at a young age, they are implanted in your mind forever.”
But she was not a perfect fit, as the 24-year-old actress herself admitted.
(LEFT) The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking by Carolyn Keene was released in 1972. Published by Grosset & Dunlap. (RIGHT) Nancy Drew Mysteries Lunchbox, from the Pamela Sue Martin series. Nancy Drew is TM Simon & Schuster.
“When I’m working on the show,” she said of playing the part, “I take each step as it comes along, scene by scene. I don’t consider the concept of a teenage girl detective. Nancy isn’t quite human. I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll ever be allowed to cry on the show. I don’t think she will.”
Martin saw TV as merely a stepping stone to film roles, and that attitude came through in interviews.
“I have artistic doubts of my own about Nancy Drew,” she admitted frankly. “The producers are trying to make it sophisticated enough to
attract the adult viewers as well as the kids. If adults can enjoy the other junk on TV, they can sure enjoy Nancy Drew.”
The actress tried to push the character into being something other than the wholesome Middle American Nancy Drew of old.
“The thing about Nancy is that she wants to go one step over the line,” Martin related. “She won’t look at people for surface value, she’s always jumping around, getting into trouble. She’s innocent on one level, but not on another. The level that she’s not innocent is the level I like, because innocence is boring.”
Storylines were original, and not based on the novels.
“The books were written in form and a time span that would take too long to tell,” explained Glen Larson. “We have no restriction against using the books, but some of them are just not that easy to transfer to the screen, but as we have more time, I think we’ll use more material from the books. As a producer, it’s nice to know that sitting on a shelf are all those stories to go to.”
But the series did adhere to Stratemeyer Syndicate restrictions.
“We try for a sense of realism,” Larson stated, “but there are times when our villains don’t act realistically because we’re in the pre-family hour. We can’t have guns or violence.”
“What crimes we’ll have will be non-violent crimes,” Martin echoed. “No murders. Our villains will be embezzlers, people like that.”
Unexpectedly, The Hardy Boys installments proved more popular, thanks to teen idol Shaun Cassidy. In season two, Nancy was downgraded to supporting guest character in the merged show. Upset, Martin quit, saying, “It’s not for me. I don’t find The Hardy Boys as
BY MARK VOGER
“This is the age of the conquest of space! 2350 A.D., the world beyond tomorrow!”
So exhorted an announcer in Fifties-perfect tones, as one of TV’s earliest sci-fi series debuted. Before Lost in Space and Star Trek, there was Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (19501955), 15-minute episodes broadcast absolutely live in glorious shades of gray.
Corbett was emblematic of the science fiction genre’s influence on the then-new medium of television. More than 15 sci-fi TV series aired throughout the decade.
Serial retreads were popular across the TV landscape, and sci-fi was no exception with Buck Rogers (195051), Flash Gordon (1954-55) and a TV edit of the theatrical serial Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1955). Kid-targeted fare included Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949-55), Space Patrol (1950-55), Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954), Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (1954), Captain Z-Ro (1955-56), and even a live-action/ puppet hybrid called Johnny Jupiter (1953-54).
Adult-friendlier material was presented in Science Fiction Theatre (1955-57) and Men Into Space (1959-60). Atom Squad (1953-54) is said to have explored Cold Warthemed topics, including the threat of nuclear weapons. Sadly, no episodes are known to still exist.
Blast off with the pioneering TV space opera
So Tom Corbett thrived in a crowded field. The show starred Frankie Thomas as the stalwart titular hero; Jan Merlin as his hotheaded wingman Roger Manning, and Al Markim as friendly Venusian Astro, all wearing Brylcreemed Fifties haircuts. The three Space Academy cadets navigated their spaceship, the Polaris, and reported to sage Captain Strong (Ed Bryce). Also on hand were resourceful Dr. Joan Dale (played by Margaret Garland and Patricia Ferris), Tom’s sister Betty (Denise Alexander); cadet Jo Spencer (Norma Clarke), and cadet Eric Raddison (Frank Sutton, later Sgt. Carter on Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.)
FRANKIE THOMAS
Tom Corbett was inspired by Robert A. Heinlein’s 1948 novel Space Cadet. Of course, the TV production made some tweaks.
As New York native Thomas (1921-2006) told me in 2000: “They pictured him (Heinlein’s protagonist) as the youngest of three cadets. Astro and Roger were ahead of him and watching out for him. Then they changed the whole idea around. Tom became, not the little guy, but the older one. That’s the concept we took before the cameras.”
The ensemble clicked right away, although they were thrown together.
“I didn’t know Jan Merlin; I didn’t even know he existed,” Thomas said. “The same goes for Al Markim and Ed Bryce. And they probably didn’t know me; maybe they saw me in pictures or something.”
“We worked well together. Some combinations, they just click. Our vibes were right. Al just fell into the character of the Venusian. And Jan was the wise guy. He wasn’t happy unless he was playing that kind of a part.”
From there, Corbett-mania seemed to catch on overnight among viewers.
“The show hit almost instantaneously,” Thomas recalled. “By the second week, we had a very good idea that we had made it big, because all of the disc jockeys on the
radio started using our expressions: ‘Don’t blow your jets,’ ‘Smoke and rockets,’ ‘Spacemen’s luck.’ Suddenly, we were everywhere.
“And before you knew it, we had two half-hour radio shows in addition to three 15-minute television shows. And then we tacked on an extra half-hour television show on NBC. I think Tom was the only show to run on two networks at the same time. Yeah, it happened real quick.”
Corbett’s hearty cast performed their own stunts live under hot lights and daunting conditions, with no edits or retakes.
“We never had any stuntmen,” Thomas said. “We staged all of our own fights. That’s not so hard if you’ve had motion picture experience. That’s one thing you learn out in Hollywood: how to stage a fight.”
Early in the series, Captain Strong was recast. “Ed Bryce came to us the third week,” Thomas said. “The original
Captain Strong couldn’t make it, as far as lines were concerned. He just couldn’t grab ’em. So we got Ed Bryce. He was good, Ed. And that continued all the way through the life of the show. We were on for five years.”
According to Thomas, one of the trickiest aspects of the show was keeping it within the exact time allotted—no more, no less.
Said the actor: “On television, live television, your big enemy is the clock. Because you’d rehearse the show, and you’d have some actors in there who were playing, perhaps, supporting roles. You know, they were only in one or two sequences. And they’d rehearse all right. But then on occasion, when that red light went on and we were in 40 million American homes, suddenly they started to play Hamlet,” Thomas added with a laugh.
But the core cast was so tight, so connected, that they could almost read one another’s thoughts, Thomas believed. He recalled: “We would have time problems. We would be over time. We had to speed things up, you know? So we’d get a signal; most often, I would get the signal from the floor manager, because Tom was always looking out the porthole
Tom Corbett’s space ship, The Polaris.
anyway. And so I would turn to say my next line—after getting the signal— and those guys (Merlin and Markim) would know. Was it something about the way I moved? I can’t explain it. But they would know, and bingo. We would speed it up. We would belt those lines out.”
“I used to say to the producer, ‘Look, the last sequence in most of the shows is between the principles.’ That’s just the way it worked out. And I’d say, ‘You know, we’re playing this as if we don’t like the lines, we’re going so fast!’ That, of course, was not on every show. But it happened on numerous occasions.
“Like many things, it was a matter of teamwork, of pulling together. And the teamwork was there right from the beginning. It was an awful lot of fun.”
There was also extracurricular work, such as personal appearances.
“On the weekends, I was making appearances all over the country,” Thomas said. “Philadelphia, Boston, Akron, Ohio, Detroit—we were big in Detroit. The first appearance I made was in Philadelphia, and there were 10,000 kids with their parents there. It was a line that ran all through the store. They didn’t expect this.”
Detective (1938), Nancy Drew Troubleshooter (1939), Nancy Drew Reporter (1939), and Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939). [We’ve got more Nancy Drew in this issue for you! –RetroEd.]
I asked Thomas about working with a future president of the United States in Angels Wash Their Faces.
But Thomas was accustomed to fame. Prior to Corbett, he had been in movies as a teenager. Thomas had roles in such film classics as Boys Town (1938) with Spencer Tracy, Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) with Ronald Reagan, Invisible Stripes (1939) with James Cagney, and The Major and the Minor (1942) with Ginger Rogers. Thomas also played Ted, the love interest of girl sleuth Nancy Drew (Bonita Granville), in four films: Nancy Drew
“Ronnie?” he came back, referring to Reagan, who played the leading man opposite Ann Sheridan as Thomas’ big sister.
“Oh, he was very pleasant to work with. And Ann Sheridan was far more beautiful off camera than on. She was just delightful. I saw her years later. She came East to do a television series. She was on it, I think, for about six, seven months. I was in the same area; I guess we were doing one of the Corbett shows. I saw her and I said, ‘Ann!’ and she said, ‘Ohh, Frankie!’ I mean, come on. It had been quite a few years.”
“But she was just wonderful to work with. She was a doll. Ann and Ginger were two of the nicest female stars I ever worked with. They were just wonderful.”
JAN MERLIN
“Don’t blow your jets!” went a catch phrase from Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. One character who always did seem to blow his jets was Roger Manning, Tom’s irascible right-hand man.
Roger was played with taunting wit and a fresh crewcut by New York native Jan Merlin (1925-2019) who, speaking of sci-fi, played a bit role in the giant ant movie Them! (1954). When we spoke in 2000, I asked Merlin
Disney’s Legendary Troublemaker
BY SCOTT SHAW!
In 1978, I was hired by Hanna-Barbera Productions to work on a new Flintstones series, The New Fred and Barney Show for NBC. Due to the studio’s financial juggling, I was first assigned to the studio’s upcoming The Godzilla Power Hour’s layout team. The show consisted of a Godzilla half-hour story, and sharing the hour long series was Jana of the Jungle Both shows were produced by Jonny Quest creator Doug Wildey. Larry Huber and Don Morgan supervised the layout team for Godzilla, and Floyd Norman oversaw the layouts for Jana. I was focusing on learning how to set up and draw pencil layouts that were essential to both the animation and background painters departments. I enjoyed drawing the monsters, but my skills were puny, especially when my friend Dave (The Rocketeer) Stevens was making every layout sketch look like a masterpiece. (Doug and Dave really hit it off; their longtime friendship began at HB. It wasn’t a coincidence that Doug and Dave’s Rocketeer character “Peevy” looked exactly alike!) I didn’t have much interaction with the
Jana team, but I got to know Floyd a bit, since he’d often bring in a box of fresh donuts for the layout department.
table. Courtesy of Floyd Norman. Unless otherwise noted, other images courtesy Scott Shaw!
We were all working in the original building on 3400 La Cahuenga Blvd., but a few months later, after I was finally working on The New Fred and Barney Show, the crew moved to a new building next door. The Xerox and ink and paint departments were located in the warehouse’s ground floor, with animation, backgrounds, model designers, library, and layout on the second floor, connected by elevators. Floyd and I were assigned to the same cubicle, and Floyd was assigned to be my “partner” in overseeing the layouts for The New Fred and Barney Show. I liked Floyd a lot, although I had little knowledge about his career and no idea how much this modest, soft-spoken man would influence me throughout my career and life, not to mention how Floyd would become a Disney Legend and an influence on animation and the youngsters who are interested in becoming animators.
EARLY LIFE
Floyd Norman was born on June 22, 1935, in Santa Barbara, California. His parents, James Norman and Evelyn Davis Norman, were originally from Natchez, Mississippi. He also had two brothers. They ran a small restaurant/diner that was very popular in the beach town.
Floyd has said, “Most of my family played at least one musical instrument simply because they enjoyed it. Music was always part of our household. I learned how to read music because it would broaden my educational experience. I studied the violin, clarinet, and flute, and played in the high school band and orchestra. This skill came in handy when I began making motion pictures because I could read a music score. You never know how many early experiences will help you later in life.”
After school, or on weekends, Floyd would sit in one of the diner booths, teaching himself how to draw. Almost all of the cartoonists I’ve known share the same goal at a young age—we were born to be cartoonists, and we all realized that not long after we could grasp a pencil.
Floyd’s interest in art and cartooning began in childhood after his mother took him to see the classic animated Disney film Dumbo in 1941. The next year, Floyd saw Disney’s Bambi, by which time he had pretty much decided he wanted to be a cartoonist working for Disney when he grew up. Floyd has said, “I first recognized Walt Disney’s signature before I could read. I would see that famous signature on books and comics, and I asked my grandmother, ‘What is that name?’ She said, ‘That’s Walt Disney.’ I never forgot that name. I just felt like I wanted to work at the Disney Studio one day.
“I fell head over heels in love with animation when I was a kid. However, books on the subject of animation remained few and far between, so I made do with Robert Field’s The Art of Walt Disney (Macmillan, 1942) and Preston Blair’s wonderful Animation (Walter T. Foster, 1949).
“If I remember correctly, my storytelling began when I created my own comic books as a kid. Because I needed something to draw, I simply made up my own stories. Some were funny animal stories in the tradition of Carl Bark’s Donald Duck adventures, and others were based in the stuff we did as high school kids growing up in Santa Barbara. Stupid yarns to be sure, but what the heck—I was just a kid and simply having fun.”
His parents encouraged his dream, and it seems like the community of Santa Barbara did, too.
“My science teacher, Jacob Turnoff, played golf with a local cartoonist,” says Norman, “and my science teacher said, ‘Agh, we got this kid in my class who doesn’t do his work. He’s always drawing cartoons,’ and the cartoonist said,
‘Send him over to me.’”
That cartoonist, Bill Woggon, made Norman his assistant on Katy Keene, “The Fashion Queen” for Archie Comics.
According to Bill Woggon’s son, “The great part about all of this was that there were half a dozen kids who were extremely talented and wise. They came to our house in Santa Barbara and would visit. What we found out is that these kids ended up in careers in the arts, directors of art departments or interior designers. One of the highlights of my dad’s career was the kids that went into art because of the encouragement they got from my father and the comic book. Floyd Norman was an African American kid who lived in Santa Barbara. He was reading the comic book and came to visit my dad. He applied for a job. He started out inking and doing borders.”
“My first big break came while I was still in high school,” said Floyd. “I met a local cartoonist who was writing and drawing a comic book. I was lucky enough to become one of his assistants, and it was my first job as a professional. The name of the gentleman was Bill Woggon. His studio was located on his ranch in the foothills of Santa Barbara. Bill was my first boss and mentor. I learned a great deal about writing and drawing a professional comic book from him. Bill Woggon was a wonderful boss, and taught me all the basics about working in the comics business. He was a writer as well as an artist, and at the top of his career doing Katy Keene, he employed a number of assistants to churn out the number of comic pages and strips. His brother,
Elmer Woggon, was also a cartoonist. Maybe you’ve heard of a comic strip he did back in the Forties and Fifties. It was called Steve Roper and Big Chief Wahoo. Mr. Woggon’s studio was on his ranch in Santa Barbara, California, and it was actually called Woggon Wheels Ranch. This first job was very exciting, because I was learning so much. It was a very enjoyable experience working with professional artists and writers for the first time and having them share their knowledge with me. I guess my time doing Katy Keene was my favorite time, because I was young and everything was fresh and new. Yet, I’ve enjoyed every comic book job I’ve done from the Hanna-Barbera comics in the Seventies, to the Disney comics in the Eighties and Nineties. As far as I’m
concerned, every job is special. It’s hard to choose one over the others.”
After graduating from high school in Santa Barbara, Floyd took his portfolio to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, whereupon he was advised to go to an art school. Floyd registered at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, majoring in illustration. In 1956, during his third year there, Floyd was invited to work at Walt Disney Productions as an animator on the film, Sleeping Beauty, so he dropped out of school in order to accept the offer for his dream job. Floyd was employed as an inbetweener on Sleeping Beauty (released in 1959) at the Walt Disney Company, becoming the first African American artist to remain at the studio on a long-term basis.
Always seeking excellence, Walt Disney offered the new inbetweeners a series of nighttime classes that examined numerous aspects of animation that Floyd was never taught at Art Center. On top of that, the classes were free. According to Floyd, “Of course, animation was the main focus of this series of classes. The majority of our class members aspired to be animators
one day, so a rigorous series of pencil tests were required. However, I still cringe when I remember my early attempts at animation. I was awful, and I’m glad my future wasn’t determined by those early tests. Those of us who attended night school in the Mouse House were a lucky bunch of kids. A day at Disney in the 1950s was pretty darn good. But sometimes the nights were even better.”
In 1958, just as Floyd was beginning to feel comfortable in the Disney job he’d always dreamed about, he got a call from his uncle—specifically, Uncle Sam. “Like many other Disney artists, I put down my drawing pencil to do my duty and serve my country in the armed forces. This was during the 1950s, and the draft still required service to one’s country. Although it seems like ancient history now, the incident we were dealing with then was the so-called Korean Conflict. Eventually, my tour of duty ended and I returned to the United States after 14 months in Korea. My return home was made even better by a letter I received from the Walt Disney Studio, informing me my old job was waiting for me upon my return to Burbank.”
However, once his plane from Korea landed in America in 1960, Floyd faced a situation that he’d never experienced before, one that was more upsetting than his time during the overseas war.
“My flight made a stop in Atlanta, Georgia, where we were invited to deplane before continuing on to Los Angeles. It was the city that I discovered something most remarkable. I saw segregated society for the first time in my life. There were signs everywhere designating where one could sit, drink, or use the restroom. Of course, the separation was based on the color of one’s skin. Here’s what I find even more amazing. I had just returned from a foreign nation where I could pretty much go anywhere I chose. Yet here I was in in my own country, being restricted to certain areas of the city because of my color. Adding insult to
injury, I was wearing the uniform of the United States military. It appears that the freedom I was fighting for overseas applied to some people—but not to others.”
AN ASSISTANT ANIMATOR
Fortunately, once Floyd was back at Disney, he had another surprise—he was promoted from inbetweener to assistant animator. “I ended up getting to work a bit on the very end of production on 101 Dalmatians on the car chase scene. While the next feature was being developed, most of us shifted over to working on the television show and introducing the character of Ludwig Von Drake, whose final design had been done by Milt Kahl,” said Floyd. Those included Goliath II, Donald in Mathmagic Land and, best of all, The Saga of Windwagon Smith.
A favorite of Floyd and mine, this 13-minute featurette was originally theatrically released on March 16, and aired on NBC’s The Magical World of Disney as “Three Tall Tales” (Sunday, Jan 6, 1963.) It was an experiment of “planned animation,” with flat, cartoony characters and sets. Walt wasn’t wild about this attempt to try what the other studios were doing, but Floyd not only enjoyed it, but it was also a milestone in his career.
“I remember The Saga of Windwagon Smith because one of my favorite animators gave me the opportunities to be more than a clean-up artist. My dream of being a Disney animator seemed just a little bit closer because of my experience on the movie. Yet even with our tiny crew, there were still no screen credits for Chuck (Williams) or me. Animation assistants were not to be deemed worthy of credit until another decade had passed. No matter. I was delighted to have worked on a special Disney cartoon with a very special crew.”
ONE OF LIFE’S greatest joys as a child of the ’60s and ’70s was walking down the cereal aisle with mom and picking out a cereal box. A trip to the supermarket during these fleeting decades in history was a magical experience. Once you got past the fresh produce, the dairy aisle, and the baked goods, an entire world of wonder opened up upon entering the row where breakfast dreams were made. After quickly passing by the Cream of Wheat, pancake mixes, associated syrups and other boring stuff, you had arrived. The wait was over. All that was needed was for mom to say those highly anticipated words, “I guess you can pick out a box of cereal.”
If you were like me, a lot of preparation went into this moment. There was a multi-week buildup consisting of a daily dose of TV advertising, and that dose was tripled on Saturday mornings. New mascots and existing characters were being brought forth in those sixty second ad spots in between The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Hour and The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The think tanks in Battle Creek, Michigan (with some eventual help from Chicago’s Michigan Avenue and New York’s Madison Avenue) were in a state of collusion to market the coolest, grooviest characters, while appealing to our taste buds with the permanent introduction of sugar into the cereal sphere. And if that wasn’t enough, there was this thing called premiums.
The idea of cereal premiums was not new to the decades of the Sixties and Seventies. Early cereal pioneers began marketing premiums to kids starting in the 1900s. One such example of promoting premiums on cereal boxes was done by the Kellogg
BREAKFAST CEREAL PREMIUMS
of the 1960s and 1970s
PART ONE
family on one of their fledgling offerings, Corn Flakes. Initially, a children’s book called The Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Book was given away at the cash register when two boxes of Corn Flakes were purchased. By 1912, over 2.5 million of these books had been distributed. The promotion continued in various forms and editions until 1937! In order to streamline the management of this promotion, not only internally but with the point-of-sale merchants, Kellogg’s launched the maila-way premium. Sending in a dime with two box tops would be rewarded with the premium. The success of this marketing tactic caused other cereal moguls to take note; mainly Post, Quaker, General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nestle, and Nabisco.
The 1930s ushered a turning point in the cereal industry by inserting actual premiums inside the cereal box! This novel approach brought instant gratification to the young cereal buyer. Although it would take another couple of decades before the kinks were worked out, cereal manufacturers were already realizing success with this method. Kellogg’s is a case in point. In 1945, the company placed pin-back buttons inside one of its flagship cereals, Pep Cereal. Pins featuring military and newspaper comic personalities became all the rage.
Even today, there are collectors devoted to piecing together Pep pin collections. By the 1950s, cereal executives—and their corresponding Chicago and New York Mad Men (slang for the golden age of advertising executives)—figured out that integrating Hollywood and pop culture with cereal, among many other initiatives, could positively impact revenue. Hence, the intersection of characters and themes such as Howdy Doody, Western TV stars, Superman, and many other 1950s icons with the cereal industry became a no-brainer for attracting buyers to its products.
That brings us to what I’ll call the true Golden Age of cereal collecting: the 1960s and 1970s. Like so many other genres— automobiles out of Detroit, rock and pop music starting with the British Invasion and through the 1970s (disco doesn’t count), television and the standardization of the sitcoms (think Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, et al.) and adventure series (Lost in Space, Star Trek, Six Million Dollar Man, etc.)— the cereal aisle was no different. It took a quantum leap in innovation, led by exemplary character design, advertising, taste, and of course, the notion of “free inside.”
The idea of covering the golden age of cereal premiums (1960s-1970s) is a daunting task. With so many brands, flavors, characters, and premiums, I have to admit this got real big, real fast. So after initially discussing with RetroFan founder Michael Eury and now RetroFan Editor-in-Chief Ed Catto, we
have agreed to explore this topic in several installments. This column will focus on Quaker’s Cap’n Crunch. Future issues will dive into more Quaker, Kellogg’s, Post, Ralston and others. That said, there are many different cereals and characters within each brand. My goal is to cover the highlights and most memorable characters of the two decades. Coolness will prevail! More obscure examples may follow in another article at another time.
Morning! This issue, we’ll offer the third of our three-part dive into Marvel Productions’ heroic animation of 1981-1983, continuing with the highly rare 1981 Spider-Man syndicated series!
Please note that some of this information has been written about in the first two parts of this series, in RetroFan #38 & 40, but taken as a whole, readers will get a complete understanding of the interlinked shows.
SPINS A WEB, ANY SIZE…
Marvel’s red-and-blue-clad wall-crawling super-hero premiered on ABC television on Saturday, September 9, 1967 with a jazzy theme song, and stories that could have been lifted almost directly from the comics of the time. The half-hour animated series by Grantray-Lawrence was an answer to Filmation’s popular The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, based on National Periodical Publications’ (now known as DC Comics) heroes of the air and seas [see RetroFan #3 & 25 –RetroEd]. It was also a companion piece to Hanna-Barbera’s other Marvel series, Four, also on ABC [see #33] and Grantray-Lawrence’s syndicated Marvel Super-Heroes weekday show.
Screen captures from (1981) featuring Spidey (TOP) and (RIGHT) Peter Parker.
The new Spider-Man series (sometimes spelled onscreen without the official hyphen) was based on the creation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who had made his comic book debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 (September 1962). In the fourcolor lore, when high school student and science nerd Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, he developed super-strength, enhanced senses, and the ability to stick to any substance like a spider. Using his science knowledge, Parker developed a synthetic web that he could shoot from wrist launchers, which enabled him to swing around New York City, and trap villains in sticky webbing. Although he initially was a reluctant hero, he eventually learned that “with great power comes great responsibility,” and he began to use his abilities to fight crime. Now, garbed in a red-andblue skintight suit, he called himself Spider-Man.
The Marvel hero—nicknamed “Spidey,” “wall-crawler,” or “web-slinger”—next appeared on television as a live-action guest-star (played by Danny Seagren) during the 19741977 seasons of the Children’s Television Workshop public television series called The Electric Company. Unlike his comic counterpart, this Spidey was silent, with no quips or snappy comebacks… but he did get to team up with later Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman!
For the Fall 1977 primetime season, Stan Lee sold CBS on a new primetime live-action Amazing Spider-Man show, produced by Charles Fries, and starring Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker and the wallcrawler. Although the pilot did well in the ratings, the network failed to
green-light a regular series, instead airing 12 further episodes over the next two years. The series featured significant swinging and wall-crawling stunts by stunt coordinator Fred Waugh, but its bulky webbing and lack of costumed villains left fans unhappy.
Japanese audiences got a far more special effects-filled version of the hero. The famous Toei Company produced 41 live-action episodes of Spider-Man (pronounced “Soupaidaman”) which aired on TV Tokyo from May 7, 1978 through March 14, 1979. With alien foes, giant robots and kaiju fights, and a flying Spider-car named “The Spider Machine GP-7,” Spider-Man remained unseen in the U.S. until the late 1980s when bootleg videos began to show up in collectors’ circles.
Saturday mornings webbed up an animated Spidey for the future, as the wallcrawler guest-starred in two episodes of ABC’s Spider-Woman series during the 1979-1980 season. The hero was voiced by Paul Soles, reprising the role from the 1960s show. The series was itself based on a female spinoff of Spider-Man that Marvel Comics had created for copyright purposes. The show was animated by
DePatie-Freleng, who would soon have a closer working relationship with both Marvel and Spider-Man.
DEPATIE-FRELENG ENDS AND MARVEL PRODUCTIONS BEGINS
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises (also known as DFE) was the full name of Spider-Woman’s production company, and the studio had been founded in 1963 following the shutdown of Warner Bros.’ Burbank-based animation department. The studio’s two principals were David DePatie and Friz Freleng. DePatie had worked at Warner his whole career to that point, and was a production executive. Freleng was a popular director who had introduced or developed most of Warner’s biggest animated stars.
Although DePatie-Freleng had a long resumé, its biggest project ever was creating the animated adventures of the Pink Panther, who debuted in 1963 in the opening credits of a film—also titled The Pink Panther—about a bumbling detective. The company moved between animated shorts designed to play prior to feature films in theatres, to television cartoons on NBC, to advertising. They also created the title sequence for I Dream of Jeannie and the lightsaber animation for the first Star Wars film!
By 1980, however, Freleng was ready to move on from DFE, and the partners sold their company and its assets to Marvel Comics on June 19, 1980. Freleng returned to Warner Bros., and DePatie became the new CEO and President of the newly christened Marvel Productions. He kept onboard some of his DFE staff, including, significantly, Lee Gunther, who became Vice President in Charge of Production. Other initial hires were producer/writer Al Brodax (of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine) as Director of Program Development/Special Projects, and Jerry Eisenberg as Senior Producer.
Marvel Productions already had some work lined up thanks to DFE, including commercials for Oscar Mayer and Owens-Corning, and Pink Panther and Dr. Seuss prime-time specials to deliver for ABC. In their announcement of Marvel Productions in the Hollywood Reporter, the company promised, “twenty developmental presentations for Saturday morning, cartoons, primetime specials, and pilots.” Their budget from June until the end of 1980 was only $100,000.
Marvel Productions was a subsidiary of the New York-based Marvel Entertainment Group—itself a subsidiary of Cadence Industries—which was the publisher and licensor of Marvel
Comics and its characters. By owning their own animation studio, Marvel hoped to be able to successfully break into Hollywood in a big way. Until that time, nothing they had done had lasted more than one season except for CBS’s live-action primetime series, The Incredible Hulk. [See RetroFan #1 for the incredible story of the live Hulk series, and last issue for more on the animated series –RetroEd.]
While Marvel president James Galton and editor-in-chief Jim Shooter remained in New York to run the comics division, company figurehead and past publisher Stan Lee, who had the ebullient personality and skills of a carnival huckster, moved to Los Angeles specifically to pitch Marvel shows.
Marvel Productions’ office was a one-story building at 4610 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, directly across from a major porn studio. It was a rather modest building with a sunny atrium in its center; all the offices had windows or glass walls looking into the outdoor area. The initial employee count at Marvel Productions was around 18, including Lee, DePatie, Gunther, Brodax, and Eisenberg. It was a small shop. Lee was given the title of “Vice President, Creative Affairs,” and his main responsibilities were to get more films and TV series going based on both existing Marvel characters or on any new characters Marvel Productions created. He generally didn’t write, or even offer, stories to
and animator Bill Wray in 1983.
any of the projects. He just promoted them to studio and network executives. Answering a Comics Interview query (#5, July 1983), Lee talked about dealing with the networks. “First of all, we had to convince the networks that we had the ability, the capability, the know-how, and the dependability. Luckily, David DePatie has climbed aboard as the president of Marvel Productions, and his great credentials gave us a certain credibility with the networks. Beyond that, we had to submit outlines—what they call ‘bibles’ of the entire concepts of the shows.”
Rick Hoberg, a storyboard artist on Spider-Man, says of those early days that, “The whole push of the company was to showcase and expand the Marvel characters into film. And it’s easy to assume that Stan was looking for his time in the sun as a Hollywood hotshot. Personally, I really liked the guy. Stan was what he seemed to be, cut out of the same cloth as P.T. Barnum, Cecil B. DeMille, or Flo Ziegfeld.”
Layout artist Bill Wray recalls that, “Stan Lee was kind of a figurehead, like completely, but totally comfortable with
(LEFT) A hungry youth devours a tiny fist-full of popcorn in this screen capture from a drivein movie snack bar ad (c. 1960). (BELOW) An ancient corn popper from the Paracas culture. Courtesy of Art Institute Chicago (Gift of Nathan Cummings).
BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA
There was a time—and this will wiggle your cranium— America was not a snacking country. Eating between meals was thought to be unhealthy. Granted, nutritional experts would still rather you don’t eat snacks between meals but ours is a world of infinite nibbling options so snacking seems to be here to stay. We have peanuts to thank for that, and potato chips, and popcorn.
Here at the Secret Sanctum we’ve discussed peanuts, which began as food for livestock and was then consumed by the very poor, in our story about Planters Peanuts [RetroFan #39 –RetroEd] and touched on the rise of Frito-Lay, makers of Lays potato chips, in an article about the Frito Bandito [RetroFan #28 –RetroEd]. It was the potato chip that truly sent American snacking into the stratosphere, much in the same way Superman kickstarted comic book consumption. So, clearly, we now need to talk about popcorn.
My earliest memories of popcorn are yellow. As in, the popcorn was yellow. The yellow color was intended to evoke the idea of butter. I don’t exactly recall the specific flavor of the popcorn, but I do happily remember eating it out of a gigantic plastic bag while sitting in the family station wagon watching Disney movies at the drive-in with my parents and siblings. Our grabbing and munching had to be fairly crazed because finding popcorn between seats and elsewhere in the
station wagon months after a drive-in visit was kind of a running joke.
Sometimes, we would get boxes of Cracker Jack. Fancy. Finding the prize was only a bit more satisfying than finding the few peanuts in each box. I also recall that once—one single time—we had Jiffy Pop popcorn. If you’ve never seen it, the popping corn came in a flat aluminum pie tin with a thin scrunched aluminum cover. It’s placed over a heat source and horizontally shaken. Then comes the waiting… watching… pop, pop, pop! Seeing the foil top expand as the popcorn popped was a huge treat. The popcorn ended up burnt, but what a fine show.
WHO’S ON FIRST?
Peanuts and popcorn are considered the first snacks in America. Their exact origins as snack food is elusive. It’s too bad, firsts are fun. And I did try to track down which was actually first, popcorn or peanuts. Some sources claimed that Peanuts first appeared on October 2, 1950 but I quickly realized that these were not the facts that I was looking for. Until better data emerges we will have to settle for peanuts and popcorn sharing the stage as the earliest of snacks. Both, I might add, remain people pleasers still.
LET THE POPPING BEGIN
Peru—or, rather, the plot of land that would become Peru—appears to be ground zero for popcorn innovation. You have to go back a
few years though. Popcorn comes from a type of corn crop which came from Mexico about 9,000 years ago. But the future Peruvians were the ones to watch, popcorn-wise. Popcorn appears to have been made and consumed about 6,700 years ago according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 2012. Circa 300 A.D. the not-quite-yet-Peruvians (the Moche and Paracas cultures) also created the first corn poppers.
The earliest ears of popcorn ever found date back some 4,000 years to a place in New Mexico (USA) called—hang on to your bat-shorts, bat-fans—the Bat Cave.
A quick word about terminology: popcorn can refer to un-popped kernels (a.k.a. seeds) on the cob or off the cob and the fluffy white popped end-product.
Early corn poppers from Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary (Houghton, Mifflin and Company 1882). (BELOW) Popcorn kernels unpopped. Corn poppers courtesy of Internet Archive. Kernels photo courtesy Bill Ebbesen/Wikicommons.
POPCORN AT THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
There is a popular tale with various versions involving Pilgrims and either Quadequina or Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag people bringing popcorn to the first Thanksgiving meal. Sadly, there does not appear to be any evidence of such a thing. Popped Culture by Andrew F. Smith (University of South Carolina Press, 1999) notes that the contemporaneous publication A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth [sic]
in New England by Edward Winslow and William Bradford (John Bellamy Printer, 1622) only mentions deer and fowl on the Thanksgiving menu. This book is often referred to by its shorter title: Mourt’s Relation, named after Puritan Separatist George Morton (note the spelling) who was not at the first Thanksgiving nor did he write the booklet.
EARLY POPPIN’
Popping corn in the 19th century was hot and potentially hazardous. It could involve an open flame, heavy cast iron cookware, and the likelihood of burning yourself. Or in more rural places, just dig a hole in the ground, throw in some flaming corn cobs, toss in green corn leaves, toss in corn kernels, add more leaves, cover it all with dirt, wait twenty minutes, scrape off the dirt, and there you have it: a tasty if filthy snack. Eating frequently burnt popcorn from the ground and searching every possible place the little popped kernels could have flung themselves was just a fact of life for many. The invention of a dedicated corn popping device came in the 1830s and began to change that.
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By the 1840s popcorn
RETROFAN #41
sweet substance were popular. An early recipe in The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia of Useful Information for the
We kick off with TV’s original Kung Fu starring DAVID CARRADINE, a NANCY DREW history, Disney animator FLOYD NORMAN, TOM CORBETT: SPACE CADET, collectible ’60s and ’70s cereal premiums, in search of SAM GOODY, and more! Featuring columns and contributions by HERBIE J PILATO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, and editor ED CATTO! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
