September 2020 Can I come

No. 10 $9.95 to your

house and
play?

RARE GODZILLA TOYS

FIFTY YEARS OF

?
Can You Dig It

Family Affair’s
T h e Br a d

fabulous...
y Bu

hH L
nc

o CH
Funny, ur’s g roov y GERI R EIS
freaky
FAKE PRESIDENTIAL
CANDIDATES

Kathy Garver
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth • Spaghetti Westerns • The Spider/Spider-Man & more!
1 82658 00414 9 FEATURING <right> Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury
Shaft © Ernest Tidyman. Family Affair © Don Fedderson Productions. Godzilla © Toho Co., Ltd. Brady Bunch © Paramount. Howard the Duck © Marvel. All Rights Reserved.
 Keep RetroFan & TwoMorrows spinning!
Two great ways to help us stay in business!
Just as RetroFan #9 was about to go on sale, comics shops
and our Barnes & Noble distributor shut down due to the
worldwide pandemic, and we had to dispose of thousands of
copies that never made it to stores. We’ve incurred huge losses
on all those copies, and even as distributors and stores reopen,
it’ll be months before they catch up on payments—and we’ll
see lower orders as some stores close permanently, and the
ones that survive will be cutting back.
But when TwoMorrows Publishing was founded in 1994,
our publications weren’t sold through comics shops or book-
stores—only by mail order and subscriptions. With your help,
we’ll continue shipping worldwide by mail, even if stores and
distributors are forced to shut down again. So here’s two sim-
ple ways you can keep us publishing new material:
#1: Subscribe for a half-year!
Your direct orders help us plan our print runs, and provide
the cash flow to keep printing. So we’re temporarily offering
less expensive half-year subscriptions, which let you support
us for the short-term, then go back to purchasing at your local
store over the next few months. Even if you don’t subscribe,
please consider ordering RetroFan #9 if you missed it at Barnes
& Noble—every print or digital purchase helps!
#2: Get older issues of RetroFan!
Download our new, easy to use 2020 Digital Catalog at:
https://www.twomorrows.com/2020InteractiveCatalog.pdf
and order our books and magazines online. If you prefer not
to order online, we can also take orders by phone or mail, and
will include a free printed catalog with your order.
Finally, don’t miss the World of TwoMorrows 25th
Anniversary book, available now in Softcover, Ultra-Limited
Hardcover, and Digital Editions. If you’ve enjoyed the
material we’ve produced for the last quarter-century, you’ll
love learning how we made it happen all these years!
Now stay safe, and let’s keep RetroFan and TwoMorrows
spinning for another 25 years!
- John Morrow, publisher

Currently, RetroFan & BrickJournal

ARE NOT SOLD at many Barnes & Nobles!
SUBSCRIBE
now for a
half-year
(or double
it for a full
year)!
It supports us in
the short-term,
and ensures you RETROFAN #12 RETROFAN #13 RETROFAN #14 BRICKJOURNAL #65
Hollywood interviewer CHRIS MANN Exclusive interviews with Lost in Space’s Holy backstage pass! See rare, behind-the- BrickJournal celebrates the holidays with
don’t miss any goes behind the scenes of TV’s sexy sit- MARK GODDARD and MARTA KRISTEN, scenes photos of many of your favorite brick sculptor ZIO CHAO, takes a offbeat
com THREE’S COMPANY—and NANCY Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Hogan’s Sixties TV shows! Plus: an unpublished look at Christmas with our minifigure
issues! MORGAN RITTER, first wife of JOHN Heroes’ BOB CRANE, a history of interview with Green Hornet VAN customizer JARED K. BURKS, and decks
RITTER, shares stories about the TV funny- Wham-O’s Frisbee, Twilight Zone and WILLIAMS, Bigfoot on Saturday morning the halls with the holiday creations of
Due to the recent man. Plus: RICK GOLDSCHMIDT’s making other TV sci-fi anthologies, Who Created television, WOLFMAN JACK, The Saint, KOEN ZWANENBURG! Plus: “AFOLs”
pandemic store of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, Archie Andrews?, oddities from the San the lean years of Star Trek fandom, the by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by-
RONNIE SCHELL interview, Sheena Queen Diego Zoo, lava lamps, and more with WrestleFest video game, TV tie-in toys step “You Can Build It” instructions by
closings, we’ve ad- of the TV Jungle, Dr. Seuss toys, Popeye ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL no kid would want, and more features CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!
justed our schedule cartoons, DOCTOR WHO’s 1960s U.S. MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT from FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY,
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
invasion, & more fun features! SHAW! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.
for 2020 releases. (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2020
See our website for (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 Look for #66 in February 2021!
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2020 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2021 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships April 2021
other ship dates.
HALF-YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS ECONOMY US EXPEDITED US PREMIUM US INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ONLY
Alter Ego (Three issues) $34 $40 $43 $51 $14
Back Issue (Four issues) $45 $51 $56 $68 $18
2020

BrickJournal (Three issues) $34 $40 $43 $51 $14

Comic Book Creator (Two issues) $23 $28 $30 $34 $9
Jack Kirby Collector (Two issues) $24 $29 $31 $35 $9
RetroFan (Three issues) $34 $40 $43 $51 $14

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

The Future of Pop History. Don’t miss exclusive sales, limited editions, and
new releases! Sign up for our mailing list: http://
groups.yahoo.com/group/twomorrows
TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
 68
19

The Crazy Cool Culture

We Grew Up With

CONTENTS Issue #10 September 2020

Columns and 46
61 Special Features Retro Interview
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’s
3 Geri Reischl
Retro Heroes
50 Years of Shaft 53
Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
11 Ed “Big Daddy” Roth
53 16 Scott Saavedra’s
Secret Sanctum 61
Running for Laughs: Fake Ernest Farino’s Retro
Presidential Candidates Fantasmagoria
The Italian Westerns of
19 Sergio Leone
Retro Interview
Family Affair’s Kathy Garver
Departments
24 2
Will Murray’s 20th Century
Retrotorial
Panopticon
The Secret Origin
of Spider-Man 16
RetroFad
The Twist
31 31
Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday
Morning 44
Cartoon Preview Specials, Too Much TV Quiz
Part Two
68
46 Retro Toys
Godzilla Merchandise in the
11 U.S.A.

76
Retro Travel
Stuckey’s

80
ReJECTED
3 RetroFan fantasy cover
by Scott Saavedra
RetroFan™ #10, Sept. 2020. Published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Shaft © Ernest
Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Tidyman Estate. Shaft artwork by Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Ivan Nunes. Shaft art ©
Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: Dynamite. Family Affair © Don Fedderson Productions. Godzilla © Toho Co., Ltd. Brady Bunch ©
RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, Paramount Television. Howard the Duck © Marvel. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their
New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©
subscriptions: $67 Economy US, $101 International, $27 Digital.  2020 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224
 by Michael Eury

As this issue went into production in early February 2020, Americans were reeling from the Senate
presidential impeachment trial, the partisan rancor after the State of the Union address, and the
confusion clouding the voting tabulations at the Iowa Democratic caucus. Yikes! It doesn’t matter
which political party you support, or if you’re non-partisan and trying to peacefully coexist in the
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF middle—it’s a political madhouse out there! The Monster Times, the tabloid fanzine that thrilled
Michael Eury fandom during its 1972–1976 history, might have had the right idea when endorsing Godzilla for
PUBLISHER
President in 1974, in the wake of Watergate, another highly charged, politically polarizing event. Of
John Morrow course, with all due respect to that mag’s editorial staff, Godzilla, being born in Japan, was ineligible
to run for the U.S.A.’s highest office. Still, no one can raze a battlefield like the King of the Monsters,
CONTRIBUTORS so we can imagine what a blast a Ford/Carter/Godzilla 1976 presidential debate might have been.
Shaun Clancy By the time you read this in the summer of 2020, the U.S. presidential campaign will be well
Robert V. Conte
Michael Eury
underway—and so this issue our own Scott Saavedra revisits the days when both stand-up comics
Ernest Farino and characters from the comics alike took a stab at getting votes (as well as laughs). Fake presi-
Tim Hollis dential candidates have been around for a long time to spice up an
Andy Mangels otherwise sober process, and new ones tend to surface every four
Will Murray years, with J. R. Ewing, Bill the Cat, Cthulhu, and Stephen Colbert
Scott Saavedra
Scott Shaw!
among the many additional “candidates” who have since vied to
David F. Walker become POTUS in campaigns that never took themselves too seri-
ously. (And if you’re still sore that King of the Monsters—featured in
DESIGNER a special Godzilla merchandise article this issue—didn’t make it to
Scott Saavedra the White House back in the Seventies, the good news is, eligibility
PROOFREADER
aside, he’s running again in 2020.)
Rob Smentek John Shaft never ran for president, but he changed America
in a major way. First appearing in the 1970 novel Shaft by author
SPECIAL THANKS and The French Connection screenwriter Ernest Tidyman, John
Nick Barrucci Shaft was the trailblazing black detective that inspired a gen-
Gary Browning
Dynamite Entertainment
eration of African Americans and proved a box-office and mul-
John S. Eury ticultural success. This issue, we welcome guest writer David F.
Mark Evanier Walker—author of Shaft novels and comic books—who has
Brian Heiler penned a scintillating Shaft history commemorating the charac-
Heritage Auctions ter’s multimedia journey that now spans 50 years. Special thanks go Chris
Sean Lickenback
Alan Light
Clark Tidyman, widow of Shaft creator Ernest Tidyman, for kindly and enthusiastically approving
Anthony Molchan RetroFan’s coverage of her husband’s famous creation.
Alexis Persson There’s lots more waiting for you this issue. Regular NEXT ISSUE:
Rose Rummel-Eury columnists Ernest Farino, Will Murray, and Scott October 2020

Toho Company, Ltd.

Why can’t I
No. 11 $9.95

Shaw! are in fine form, Tim Hollis is back with another

get a date?

VERY SPECIAL THANKS

RetroTour, and we welcome two multitalented celebri-
Kathy Garver ties to our pages, as Kathy Garver (beloved as Cissy from
Geri Reischl Family Affair and the voice of Firestar on Spider-Man and
Chris Clark Tidyman His Amazing Friends) and Geri Reischl (known and loved SUPERMAN’S FREAKY PAL,
JIMMY OLSEN

as “Fake Jan” from the infamous Brady Bunch Variety Hour) Interview with

are interviewed. And columnist Andy Mangels has dug David Selby
Don’t STEAL our Dark Shadows’
Digital Editions! up so much wild and wacky information about those fun Quentin Collins

C’mon citizen,
but insane Saturday morning preview specials that we’re
DO THE RIGHT
THING! A Mom
expanding what was to be this issue’s concluding Part Who is... The Niece
& Pop publisher
like us needs
Two of his serial into three parts, meaning more preview of Frankenstein?
every sale just to
survive! DON’T
madness awaits next issue! There’s so much material
DOWNLOAD
OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE!
in the pages that follow, we’ve had to bump this issue’s
an
Buy affordable, legal downloads only at Celebrity Crush and RetroFanmail features to next issue. Kolchak: entu
re s of
Su perm

www.twomorrows.com Adv
or through our Apple and Google Apps! In the meantime, don’t forget to tell your friends about The Night
Stalker TV’s
The

us, and share your comments with me about this issue at Casper • Rod Serling • Scratch models • Quisp and Quake & more!
euryman@gmail.com.
FEATURING <right> Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury
& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Superman and Jimmy Olsen © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep

producing great publications like this one!

2 RetroFan August 2020

RETRO HEROES
by David F. Walker

Fifty
It is difficult to fully understand the
tremendous impact John Shaft had on the
pop-culture landscape 50 years ago, but to

Years
say that he helped change that landscape
forever wouldn’t exactly be hyperbole.
When the black private detective stepped
out of the pages of Ernest Tidyman’s 1970

of
novel Shaft and on to the big screen in
the 1971 film of the same name, the world
of pop culture was primed and ready for
something new. And that something new,
embodied by actor Richard Roundtree,
strutted through the gritty streets of
Times Square to the rhythm of a funky
theme song written and performed by
Isaac Hayes. Audiences went wild, and
everyone from book publishers to film
producers to toy manufacturers took
notice as the popularity of Shaft and a
handful of other films paved the way
for the blaxploitation movement that
dominated the first half of the Seventies.
To be clear, Shaft was not the only
character to bring about a seismic change
in how black masculinity was portrayed
in popular entertainment, nor was
director Gordon Parks, Sr.’s film truly a
blaxploitation movie in the truest sense
of the word. But at the same time, any
examination of the emergence of the black
action hero in the Seventies, the explosion
of films produced and marketed to an
urban (black) audience, and the lasting
legacy of badassery must shine a spotlight
on the black private dick. John Shaft was
to black action heroes in the Seventies
what James Bond was to spies in the
Sixties, the difference being that there had
been plenty of spies before Agent 007, but
only a very small number of black action
heroes came before Shaft.
Given the iconic legacy of John Shaft, it
is hard to believe that he was the creation
of a middle-aged white man trying to
change careers. Ernest Tidyman, a crime
reporter from Cleveland, was looking
to transition from journalism to fiction,
but had found little success with his first
novel, 1968’s Flower Power. At the same
time, Macmillan Press mystery editor Alan
Rinzler was looking for something new to
shake things up within the genre. Rinzler
had already worked with author Claude
(ABOVE) Cover artwork to Dynamite Entertainment’s comic book Shaft #1 (Dec. Brown on his successful memoir Manchild
2014). Art by Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz, with colors by Ivan Nunes. Shaft © in the Promised Land (1965). Set in the
Ernest Tidyman Estate. Shaft art © Dynamite. Forties and Fifties, Brown’s gritty coming-
RetroFan August 2020 3
 RETRO heroes
of-age account of his experiences in Harlem became a critically
acclaimed and controversial bestseller. Rinzler hoped to capture
the gritty realism of Manchild in the Promised Land, and give it a
home in the mystery genre, leading him to reach out to literary
agent Ronald Hobbs. One of the few black literary agents in the
Sixties, Hobbs suggested Tidyman, who was still better known for
his reporting than his fiction.
Commissioned by Rinzler in 1968, Tidyman began to develop a
mystery for Macmillan that would star a hardboiled black private
detective named John Shaft. Tidyman’s creation began to take
shape in late 1968, but John Shaft was not the first black private
detective in crime fiction. Shaft had, in an artistic sense, several
brothers—or perhaps cousins—who came before him, clearing
some of the paths yet to be traversed in mainstream books or
movies.
One of the most important of Shaf t’s older literary brothers
was a character introduced more than 60 years ago, and
largely forgotten today. Toussaint Moore is considered by
historians to be the first black private detective to appear in
fiction. Introduced in author Ed Lacy’s 1957 book Room to Swing,
Toussaint Moore returned in 1964’s Moment of Untruth. The same
year that Lacy’s Room to Swing was published, author Chester
Himes published the first of his “Harlem Detective” novels,
chronicling the exploits of Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger
Jones, two tough-as-nails detectives in the New York Police
Department. Himes wrote eight novels starring Coffin Ed
Johnson and Gravedigger Jones between 1957 and 1968, and the
characters would be crucial in clearing the way for Shaf t to take
America by storm.
Along with Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, another
literary character was pivotal in laying the groundwork for
Shaft. In 1965, author Joe Ball’s In the Heat of the Night introduced
4 RetroFan August 2020
readers to Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs. On paper,
Tibbs and Shaf t have very little in common other than their skin
color and the fact that like Toussaint Moore, their creators were
white men. But the importance of In the Heat of the Night and
Virgil Tibbs is undisputed, as the character came to life on the
big screen in Norman Jewison’s 1967 film adaptation starring
Sidney Poitier. Winning the Oscar for Best Picture, In the Heat
of the Night would go on to spawn six more novels by Ball, two
more films starring Poitier (The Organization and They Call Me Mr.
Tibbs), and a television series starring Howard Rollins as Tibbs.
Ernest Tidyman went to work writing Shaft in late 1968 with a
publishing deal in place. He finished the book in 1969, and began
shopping it in Hollywood nearly a year before its publication.
Even before Shaft came out, there was interest in turning it into
a movie. In the Heat of the Night had been a turning point for the
Room to Swing’s Toussaint
Moore and In the Heat of the
Night’s Virgil Tibbs were
among the trailblazing black
detective works paving the
way for Shaft. In the Heat of the
Night © United Artists. Courtesy of
Heritage.
portrayal of black masculinity in film. In one of the film’s most
revolutionary moments, Virgil Tibbs slaps a white man who
seconds earlier had slapped him. And there was no retaliation.
Tibbs was not made to pay for his ultimate sin of striking back
against the racist power structure. Nothing like this had ever
happened before in the history of cinema. Even football player-
turned-actor Jim Brown had yet to do anything as incendiary in
films like The Dirty Dozen and Ice Station Zebra.
While Sidney Poitier had earned his place as one of
Hollywood’s top leading men in the Sixties, Jim Brown was
establishing himself as the first black action hero in mainstream
film. Before Brown’s rise to stardom, the closest thing to a true
black action hero in Hollywood had been Woody Strode, but his
roles had been in films of a different era—made before Virgil
Tibbs slapped a white man. Brown’s movies came after the slap
heard around the world, and he soon found himself as the leading
man in movies like The Split and 100 Rifles.
 RETRO heroes

The success of films like In the Heat of the Night and The market. Having cost less than a million dollars to produce,
Split left Hollywood producers looking for something with a Sweetback was on its way to becoming one of the most financially
hardboiled black protagonist, just as Tidyman’s soon-to-be- successful independent films of the time, earning close to $15
published manuscript was making the rounds. Columbia Pictures million at the box office. Producers and studios sensed there was
was interested in Shaft, thinking it would be a good vehicle for money to be made on this newly discovered “special market,” and
actor Yaphet Kotto, who had a breakout performance in the 1970 the rush was on to find the next hit. As it turns out, the next hit
film The Liberation of L. B. Jones. Largely forgotten by film critics or was already in production in New York, with Parks directing and
scholars, The Liberation of L. B. Jones is one of the most important Roundtree starring.
movies in the development and evolution of what would become Shaft debuted in the United States in June 1971. With a
blaxploitation. In the movie, Kotto’s character kills a white police production cost of $500,000, it would go on the earn $14 million.
officer, and escapes unpunished for his crime. This is the same The success of Shaft and Sweetback opened the floodgates to a
thing done by the lead character in Melvin Van Peebles’s seminal wave of nearly 200 movies that would be released between 1972
1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadasss Song, only Kotto’s Sonny Boy and 1979. Between the two films, the archetypes and conventions
did his killing a year before Van Peebles’ Sweetback did his. of what would become blaxploitation were firmly solidified, but
Columbia passed on Shaft, and the book landed at MGM of the two, Shaft was the more mainstream title. Sweetback made
Studios. MGM was in bad financial a lot of money, but it was initially
situation following a series of box-office X-rated, and not an easy sale to
flops, and it was looking for inexpensive white audiences. By comparison,
films that could potentially pull in the R-rated Shaft not only found
decent profits. The studio had wrapped success with black audiences,
production on Cotton Comes to Harlem, it also had crossover appeal.
based on the novel by Chester Himes MGM successfully marketed
and directed by Ossie Davis. Starring the film by comparing Shaft to
Godfrey Cambridge as Gravedigger James Bond and Bullitt—the
Jones and Raymond St. Jacques as iconic hero portrayed by Steve
Coffin Ed Johnson, the film was released McQueen—and in doing so, John
shortly after MGM bought the rights to Shaft became a name-brand
Shaft. Cotton Comes to Harlem was a huge badass.
financial hit for MGM, earning it a place Although the film is faithful
as one of the better-grossing films of to Tidyman’s original novel—
1970, and laying the groundwork for the Shaft is hired by the Godfather
coming blaxploitation movement. of Harlem to find his daughter
Macmillan released the first who has been kidnapped by the
hardcover edition of Shaft in April of Italian Mafia—the character
1970—one month before Cotton Comes was watered down. In the book,
to Harlem opened in theaters. The book John Shaft had a backstory
was a critical and commercial success, that involved life as a juvenile
and the deal made between Tidyman delinquent and gang member,
and MGM was for three films starring a tour of duty in Vietnam, and
the Shaft character. a brief stint as a college student
MGM offered Shaft to director with aspirations of being a
Ossie Davis, who turned it down. lawyer. Having been orphaned at
Gordon Parks, Sr., a highly respected an early age and bounced around
Macmillan’s first edition of Ernest
photographer who made his film- Tidyman’s novel, Shaft (1970). Cover various foster homes, Shaft is a troubled boy
directing debut with The Learning Tree, illustration by Mozelle Thompson. grown up to become a troubled man, prone
was brought on as director. After a long © Ernest Tidyman Estate. Courtesy of Heritage. to bursts of violence and distrustful of nearly
search for a leading man that included everyone. Nearly all of the personal history
James Earl Jones, Ron O’Neal, Jim of Shaft was lost when he made the leap to
Brown, Bernie Casey, Billy Dee Williams, Raymond St. Jacques, film, making the cinematic iteration far less dimensional than the
and Nathan George (who is rumored to have been cast in the film literary one from which he’d grown. But for all the elements of
and then fired before production started), a little-known model- the book missing from the film, John Shaft was still a memorable
turned-actor named Richard Roundtree was cast as John Shaft. character.
Filming of Shaft began on location in New York City in January Film audiences had never seen a character quite like private
1971. In April of that year, Van Peebles’ independently produced detective John Shaft before—tough, two-fisted, and black. It was
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song opened in theaters, becoming his blackness that differentiated Shaft from other hardboiled
a huge financial hit. Gritty, raw, and unapologetic in its black private dicks like Mike Hammer and Sam Spade. These other
militancy, Sweetback was unlike any movie ever made, and as it heroes existed in mostly white worlds where black people
appealed to a predominantly black audience, it quickly became were few and far between, and never in positions of power or
clear that it was serving a largely untapped (or unexploited) importance. In the mean streets of worlds populated by the
RetroFan August 2020 5
 RETRO heroes
Hammers and Spades, there were petty criminals, and elevator
operators, and shoeshine guys, all of whom might be black, but
they did nothing to propel the story, let alone carry the narrative.
John Shaft, as created by Tidyman, and as interpreted by Parks
and Roundtree, was a fresh, new spin on a recognizable genre
character. Writers like Mickey Spillane and Raymond Chandler
had been writing down-and-dirty gumshoes for decades.
Likewise, some of Hollywood’s top leading men had played such
characters in a long list of films and even television shows. But
there had never been a character like those who also happened to
be black. Even Virgil Tibbs, for all of his affirmative action points,
was not John Shaft.
Much of the popularity and success of Shaft can be tied
directly to the Oscar- and Grammy-winning soundtrack by
musician Isaac Hayes, who auditioned for the part of John Shaft
before successfully transitioning into acting with Truck Turner.
Hayes’ double-album soundtrack became a chart-topping hit and
went platinum within a month of its release. More importantly,
Hayes’ score helped change the way music was used in film,
bringing in a more contemporary, funk/soul-driven sound. It
had an especially significant impact on the coming wave of black
films, setting the standard for how R&B music would be used in
films, and marketed alongside of individual movies. The influence
of Hayes’ Shaft soundtrack could be heard in a long list of movie
soundtracks that included Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly, Marvin
Gaye’s Trouble Man, James Brown’s Black Caesar, Barry White’s
Together Brothers, Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street, and Gene
Page’s Blacula.
The success of many blaxploitation films became tied directly
to the soundtrack, which took on a new importance after Shaft.
In many cases, like Super Fly, the soundtrack made more money
than the film. Not only did a movie require a soundtrack that
could propel the drama, action, and emotions on the screen, it
had to have a killer theme song that could get radio play. Not
since John Barry’s James Bond theme had the concept of a song
(BELOW) This MGM lobby card’s movie still of leather-clad
private dick John Shaft became famous from the first
film’s poster and advertising. (RIGHT) The Austra-
lian release of Shaft featured an illustrated version
of the iconic Roundtree image and traded upon the
marquee value of white action heroes Bond and Bullitt.
© MGM. Shaft © Ernest Tidyman Estate. Courtesy of Heritage.
6 RetroFan August 2020
being directly tied to a character been so crucial. Shaft, however,
upped the stakes. It wasn’t enough to have a recognizable
instrumental track, there now had to be lyrics that spelled out
everything people needed to know about a character. The result
was audiences knew Shaft through the theme song before they
saw the movie. The same was true for Super Fly and Foxy Brown,
and a long list of movie characters.
After the release of the novel in 1970, Tidyman was
contracted to write two more John Shaft novels. As the film
neared completion in 1971, MGM felt confident enough to begin
developing a sequel, hoping that Shaft could be like Bond and
grow into a lucrative franchise. Tidyman provided MGM with an
outline for a sequel, but the studio passed. This initial outline
would evolve into the second Shaft novel, the oddly titled Shaft
Among the Jews.
In his second novel, John Shaft finds himself caught up in
the deadly world of diamond thieves, killers, and Israeli secret
agents. If it’s possible for a hero to be tougher than tough-as-
nails, Tidyman takes Shaft there, upping the quota of violent
confrontations and bodies piling up. Shaft Among the Jews would
hit bookstores in 1972, right around the time the first film sequel,
Shaft’s Big Score, was released in theaters.
With Roundtree and Parks returning, and the blaxploitation
craze now moving full steam ahead, Shaft’s Big Score delivered
a more over-the-top version of private detective in much the
same way Shaft Among the Jews had done. While the first movie
had been marketed as being like a 007 film, it was in fact much

more like Mike Hammer or Philip Marlowe in its sensibilities.
Both the film and book sequels to Shaft took steps to make the
character more like James Bond. Shaft had one big-action climax
that involved the detective jumping through a window and
gunning down a group of mobsters. Shaft’s Big Score has a much
bigger climax involving a high-speed car chase that moves to a
speedboat, and involves a helicopter—that Shaft shoots out of
the sky.
Tidyman provided the screenplay for Shaft’s Big Score, which
would also become his third novel, released shortly after the 1972
release of the film and Shaft Among the Jews. At a cost of nearly $2
million, the budget of Shaft’s Big Score was significantly higher,
while its $10 million gross wasn’t quite as impressive as what the
first film earned. Still, the success of the movie ensured that MGM
would want another sequel, despite what Tidyman wanted. It was
no secret that Tidyman was not pleased with aspects of the first
film, and as MGM continued to exploit the character on the big
screen (while the rest of Hollywood cranked out imitations), the
author sought to take Shaft in a different direction elsewhere.
Before the release of the film and book sequels to Shaft,
Tidyman began to develop the character for a daily syndicated
newspaper comic strip. Tidyman sought out an artist to help put
together a sample of daily comic strips that could be shopped to
different syndicates. The first artist to work with the author was
David Russell, who drew several test strips and came up with two
storylines. Tidyman and Russell could not come to a financial
agreement, and the cartoonist walked away from the project.
Several months later, Tidyman commissioned artist/writer Don
Rico to produce 24 sample strips to be shopped for a deal.
Despite the popularity of Shaft in books and movies, the
private detective couldn’t seem to find a home as a newspaper
strip. With the 1973 release of the third film, Shaft in Africa, rapidly
RETRO heroes
(LEFT) A photo of
Richard Roundtree
was featured on this
teaser poster for the
first Shaft sequel,
while (RIGHT) John
Solie is attributed as
the artist for the actual
Shaft’s Big Score poster
and its follow-up,
Shaft in Africa. © MGM.
Shaf t © Ernest Tidyman
Estate. Posters courtesy of
Heritage.
approaching, as well as two more books, Tidyman gave up on
the idea of a comic strip. With no involvement in the new film,
and a growing dissatisfaction with the live-action version of his
character, the author focused his attention on more Shaft books,
as well as other projects. Tidyman had won an Oscar in 1972 for
his screenplay of The French Connection (a gig he’d gotten on the
strength of the unpublished Shaft manuscript), and was looking
for more work in Hollywood. In 1973 he wrote the screenplay for
the Clint Eastwood Western High Plains Drifter. Tidyman would
also publish two more Shaft books in 1973, Shaft Has a Ball (April)
and Goodbye, Mr. Shaft (December). Part of the author’s prolific
output with the Shaft books can be attributed to ghostwriters
Robert Turner and Philip Rock, who helped in the writing process
starting with the third and fourth books.
When Shaft was released in 1971, it was one of the first of its
kind. The term “blaxploitation” which was used to describe nearly
all of the films made and marketed to black audiences hadn’t
even been coined at the time. But by 1973, when Shaft in Africa
was released, it was just one of many films flooding theaters
on a weekly basis. Blaxploitation reached its peak in 1973 with
a tremendous amount of films being quickly churned out to
theaters. The level of output at this time was incredible. To put
it in context, director Larry Cohen’s Black Caesar starring Fred
Williamson was released in February 1973, while the sequel, Hell
Up in Harlem (also directed by Cohen and starring Williamson),
was shot, edited, and released eight months later in December.
Williamson would star in two other movies in 1973, the James
Bond rip-off That Man Bolt, and The Soul of N***er Charley, a sequel
to a Western he had made the year before.
And it wasn’t just Fred Williamson. Pam Grier starred in three
films in 1973, including her breakout movie Coffy (directed by Jack
Hill), which solidified her as one of the first true female action
RetroFan August 2020 7
 RETRO heroes

Samples for the unpublished Shaft comic strip written by Shaft
creator Ernest Tidyman and illustrated by Don Rico. © Ernest
Tidyman Estate. Courtesy of David F. Walker.
stars. Jim Brown starred in three films that year as well, including
Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, a sequel to 1972’s Slaughter. Some of the
best films of the blaxploitation movement came out in 1973,
including The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Gordon’s War, The Mack,
and Detroit 9000. This was also the year that James Bond would
get in on the action with Live and Let Die, a film that co-starred a
large cast of black actors including Yaphet Kotto, Gloria Hendry,
and Julius Harris, all of whom could be found in the other black
films of the time.
One of the contributing factors to the success of
blaxploitation was the mass exodus of white people moving
from the cities into the suburbs starting in the Fifties and Sixties.
Known as “the great white flight,” this happened at a time when
most movie theaters were located in urban areas abandoned
by middle-class whites, and now largely populated by African
Americans. Suburban theaters and multiplexes were just starting
to appear, but the vast majority of theaters were still in the
inner city in the early Seventies, and empty because the target
audience had moved out to the ’burbs. Blaxploitation films drew
audiences that had not being going to the movies before into
these urban theaters, which generated income for Hollywood
that was desperately needed.
With so many movies to compete against, Shaft in Africa
wasn’t able to do the same kind of business as the first two films
in the series. By his third cinematic outing, MGM went for broke
in trying to shape John Shaft into a James Bond-like character,
sending the private detective on an international case to break up
of global slavery operation. The result was a film that was bigger
in scope than the previous entries, but also seemed to remove the
character from his core. The version of Shaft that went to Africa
bore very little resemblance to the Shaft created by Tidyman.
While Hollywood was quick to cash in on the audiences that
had made Shaft and Sweetback a hit, the success of Tidyman’s
book had not gone unnoticed. Paperback publishers known for
churning out pulp-like potboilers began to get in on the black
action craze. While Bantam was publishing the paperback
editions of the Shaft books, Paperback Library quickly turned
out the Superspade books by B. B. Johnson (a.k.a. Joe Greene)—a

8 RetroFan August 2020

 RETRO heroes

series of six books published in 1970 and 1971. Signet jumped on tried to do a spin-off of The Rockford Files entitled Gandy & Gabby,
the bandwagon by reissuing Chester Himes’ “Harlem Detective” starring Isaac Hayes and Lou Gossett, Jr. as a pair of black private
books, complete with new, blaxploitation movie-inspired covers. investigators.
Signet also published Marc Olden’s popular Black Samurai series, The impact and influence of Shaft could be found everywhere
which included eight books released in 1974 and 1975. in 1973 and going into 1974. But for the character himself, his
The most prolific publisher of black pulp fiction in the days were numbered. CBS did not renew the series and the final
Seventies was Holloway House, a company known for churning episode aired in February 1974. Meanwhile, more and more
out exploitation potboilers in a variety of genres. Holloway House blaxploitation movies continued to be turned out. With hard-
had begun to make a name for itself with its “black experience” hitting movies like Truck Turner and Foxy Brown in the theaters,
novels—mostly crime fiction penned by authors like Iceberg there was little need for a watered-down version of Shaft on
Slim (a.k.a. Robert Beck), Donald Goines (also writing as Al C. television.
Clark), and Odie Hawkins. The publisher also released Roosevelt As the live-action version of John Shaft seemed to wither and
Mallory’s Radcliff books, chronicling the exploits of a coldblooded die on the vine, Tidyman continued to work with ghostwriters
hitman. Joseph Nazel wrote Turner and Rock to produce four
more than 30 titles for Holloway more novels, including 1973’s Shaft
House, ranging from biographies Has a Ball and Goodbye, Mr. Shaft,
of notable black figures like Magic Shaft’s Carnival of Killers (1974), and
Johnson and Paul Robeson to The Last Shaft (1975). Goodbye, Mr.
horror titles like The Black Exorcist. Shaft would prove to be one of
Nazel also wrote seven books in the best books in the series, while
the Iceman series, as well as the Shaft’s Carnival of Killers would be
Black Cop series (penned under the the weakest. Published only in
name Dom Gober). England, The Last Shaft was literal
Shaft in Africa had yet to be in its title, as Tidyman killed off his
released in theaters when it was private detective in the final pages
announced that John Shaft would of the book.
be making the move from film to By the time Tidyman killed off
television later in 1973. The Shaft John Shaft in 1975, the character
TV series would consist of seven had already influenced film,
episodes, each clocking in at 74 television, pop music, and pulp
minutes, which were presented fiction. But the influences didn’t
as part of the alternating line-up stop there. In 1975, Los Angeles-
of made-for-television movies based toy company Shindana
that aired on The New CBS Tuesday released its Slade: Super Agent
Night Movies. Roundtree returned action figure. With an uncanny
as John Shaft, but aside from resemblance to Richard Roundtree,
the name and the actor, there by way of Mattel’s Big Jim line
was almost no resemblance to of action figures, there was no
the character in the three films, mistaking the fact that Slade was in
and even less in common with fact Shaft. Though Slade has been
Tidyman’s original creation. In largely forgotten as a toy, it serves
order to make the character as a very telling indication of the
suitable for television, the heart popularity and familiarity of Shaft
and soul of Shaft was cut out, within the black community. Even
making him just one of many Poster for the third Shaft movie, Shaft without the name of Shaft, the action figure was
in Africa. © MGM. Shaft © Ernest Tidyman
private detectives that could be recognizable, and perhaps more important was one
Estate. Courtesy of Heritage.
found solving cases any given of the few black action figures on the market. In
night on any given network. much the same way Tidyman recognized the need
To make matters worse, the for a black hero in pop culture, and the way Shaft
influence of blaxploitation on television was not limited to the and the films that followed fed a hungry audience, Shindana saw
Shaft series. In what can only be seen as a move to compete with a customer base that other toy companies were ignoring.
Shaft on CBS, NBC aired its show Tenafly, starring James McEachin With the book series having come to an end, and no more
as black private investigator Harry Tenafly. Over at ABC, Teresa films or TV series in production, Shaft began to fade from the
Graves starred in Get Christie Love, a series that sought to capitalize public eye just as the blaxploitation craze was starting to lose
on the popularity of Pam Grier films like Coffy and Foxy Brown. steam. The quality of films peaked in 1974, and by 1975 the already
The ABC series Starsky & Hutch featured the popular supporting low budgets of these films began to shrink, resulting in cheaper
character Huggy Bear, played by actor Antonio Fargas. A second- versions of cheap movies that frequently cannibalized each
season episode of Starsky & Hutch was actually a “backdoor pilot” other. So many blaxploitation films were released between 1972
for a Huggy Bear spin-off series. Likewise, NBC unsuccessfully and 1976 that the target audience had grown tired of the low-
RetroFan August 2020 9
 RETRO heroes
rent, recycled plots and increasingly inferior
production values. By the time the Shaft rip-off
The Guy from Harlem was released in 1977, it was
clear that blaxploitation as it existed was circling
the drain. With diminishing box-office returns,
Hollywood began to turn its attention to a new
type of film—mega-blockbusters like Jaws and
Star Wars.
By the Eighties it appeared that blaxploitation
was dead, and characters like John Shaft had
become more of a punchline to a larger joke about
Seventies pop culture. But this wasn’t exactly the case, for though
blaxploitation as it was known had largely gone away—the
notable exception being the awful movies that Fred Williamson
continued to make in the Eighties—in reality the black action film
and its heroes merely evolved into something else. Richard Pryor
transitioned from supporting actor in the early Seventies like The
Mack to a leading man in the late Seventies and early Eighties
in both comedies (The Toy) and dramas (Some Kind of Hero). This
was during the time that blaxploitation was taking on a new
appearance. The problem, of course, is that many people didn’t
Publicity still from the Shaft CBS TV show’s episode “The
Killing,” with Ed Barth as Lt. Al Rossi and Richard Roundtree
as John Shaft. (INSETS) On other networks, viewers could tune
in to Tenafly and Get Christie Love. © MGM. Shaft © Ernest Tidyman
Estate. Tenafly and Get Christie Love © NBC Universal Television.
make the connection between blaxploitation and hip-hop, or
blaxploitation and the career of Eddie Murphy. But the reality is
that hip-hop pioneers like RUN DMC embodied the swagger and
machismo that grew out of Shaft, Sweetback, and all the films that
followed. Likewise, Eddie Murphy’s star-making performance in
Walter Hill’s 48 Hours is the love child of blaxploitation. And when
Murphy strutted across the stage for his Delirious comedy concert,
decked out in a red leather suit, he was following in footsteps first
laid by Richard Roundtree in Shaft.
For much of the Eighties and Nineties, John Shaft languished
in obscurity, relegated to a mishmash of nostalgia and comedic
10 RetroFan August 2020
parody. Films like Action Jackson starring Carl Weathers tried
to revitalize the black action hero, while the comedy I’m Gonna
Git You Sucka satirized the same heroes. Late-night reruns on
television and home video kept Shaft from drifting into oblivion,
though Tidyman’s books were out of print, and forgotten by most
that remembered the films, but had never bothered to read the
novels. That appears to be the case of everyone involved in the
2000 reimagining of Shaft, directed by John Singleton. With
actor Samuel L. Jackson cast as the police detective nephew
of John Shaft (Roundtree in a small supporting role), the new
version of the film had nothing in common with Tidyman’s
character and books, and only a tenuous connection to the
original films. It was, by most measures, a bad film, which only
seemed to get a little better with the 2019 release of yet another
Shaft.
The most recent film version of Shaft, directed by Tim Story,
reinvented Singleton’s movie so that Jackson and Roundtree were
now son and father, with a third generation of Shaft being played
by Jesse T. Usher. The resulting film was a clumsy mix of comedy
and action that not only had close to no connection to Tidyman’s
original character, it died a horrible death at the box office,
making it one of the lowest-performing films of 2019.
Although the last two decades have not been
particularly kind to the cinematic incarnation of John
Shaft, he has fared slightly better in the world of
print. In 2014, I had the opportunity to write the
first of two Shaft graphic novels for Dynamite
Entertainment (Shaft: A Complicated Man and
Shaft: Imitation of Life), as well as the prose novel
Shaft’s Revenge in 2015—the first new Shaft stories
since 1975. Working with the blessing of Tidyman’s
estate (he died in 1984), I stuck to the books as the
only source for the character, leaning heavily into
the backstory created by the original author in the
first seven novels. For me, writing John Shaft was
an incredible opportunity, and one I had thought
about for many years, after having read Tidyman’s
original book in the Nineties.
There will no doubt be some other version
of Shaft in the future—the character is too rich,
iconic, and badass to fade away. Maybe there will
be another graphic novel, or perhaps yet another film,
which hopefully will go back to Tidyman’s books for inspiration.
But no matter how the character makes his return, there’s no
denying the lasting impact the private detective had on pop
culture. As one of the first brand-name black action heroes to
conquer multiple mediums, John Shaft helped break down the
door that would lead to the action films of everyone from Wesley
Snipes to Will Smith to Michael B. Jordan. Although the line from
Shaft to Marvel’s Black Panther can be difficult for some people to
trace, it is there all the same.
DAVID F. WALKER is a journalist, filmmaker,
and comic-book writer. He is the co-writer and
co-creator of Bitter Root (Image Comics) and
Naomi (DC Comics).
SCOTT SAAVEDRA’S SECRET SANCTUM
Running for Laughs: Pat Paulsen and
Other Comic Candidates for President
by Scott Saavedra
If I could eat hot dogs every night for dinner and eat Cap’n
Crunch sugar cereal every morning and sit around reading comic
books and MAD magazine and watch reruns all day and watch
my favorite shows at night and watch Warner Bros. cartoons on
Saturday, then my life would be perfect. As a kid. That was my
perfect kid life. I should have mentioned that straightaway. Also,
I didn’t want to ever go to school. I wasn’t interested in the Math
number-making or the English word writing-stuff (clearly). I was
eight years old. It was 1968. Except for everything I didn’t want to
be doing (school), I would end up having a pretty good year.
That was me.
America… well, she was having a tough go of it.
Various sources peg 1968 as a uniquely turbulent time.
“Turbulent” is very much the required adjective. The
year began with North Korea capturing the crew of
the U.S.S. Pueblo, claiming that the ship was in their
territorial waters (the U.S. said, “Uh, no”). The war in
Vietnam continued to be unpopular and the “national
dialog” about it was more shouting match than
conversation. The North Vietnamese “Tet Offensive”
surprised U.S. and South Vietnamese forces, a negative
turning point for the conflict. More than one hundred
years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African
Americans were past done being treated as second-
class citizens and the murder of civil rights leader Martin
Luther King, Jr. on April 4th only made tensions worse. Oh,
and it was an election year. A really rough one. President
Lyndon B. Johnson declined to run for another term.
Candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June,
nearly five years after his older brother, President John F.
(ABOVE) Pat Paulsen campaign poster detail, 1968. Courtesy
of Heritage (www.ha.com). (INSET) The President I Almost Was
by Jeanne Abel writing as Mrs. Yetta Bronstein. Reports of
Yetta’s campaign may have doubted her chances of winning
but didn’t dig deeper and uncover the hoax cooked up by her
husband Alan.
Kennedy, was killed. That was soon followed by the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago that was a violent, chaotic mess.
It was, in short, a welcome time for some laughs by way of
amusing candidates for president.
She’s a Man, Baby!
Mrs. Yetta Bronstein was a write-in “The Best Party” candidate for
president in both 1964 and 1968. Her slogan was “Vote for Yetta
and things will get betta.” She was a no-nonsense but kindly
mother of one (a young budding musician of limited skill). At
least, that’s what people paying attention were supposed to think.
The first anyone had ever heard of Mrs.
Bronstein was on a radio program called Table
Talk out of the Chicago Playboy Club. She
felt it was time for a “housewife” (her words)
to run for the highest office in the land.
She promised National Bingo and to put a
Suggestion Box in front of the White House.
Clearly, Mrs. Bronstein wasn’t a serious
contender. New York Times reporter Ben
A. Franklin (who—and this is a true fun
fact—stayed at the Benjamin Franklin
Hotel when in Philadelphia) wrote at the
time that not only was there no urgent
desire for National Bingo but that this
“housewife” (his words) might “fail to
carry a single district.”
Mr. Franklin was both correct and
incorrect. It was true that Mrs. Yetta
Bronstein had a zero-to-none chance at capturing the
White House, but Franklin failed to realize that Yetta wasn’t
a housewife. She wasn’t a person at all. She was three people:
a hoaxer named Alan Abel and his wife Jeanne performed as
Yetta for phone interviews (Mrs. Yetta Bronstein didn’t make
any personal appearances), and a photo of Alan Abel’s mother
provided the face on campaign posters.
RetroFan August 2020 11
 scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

The New York Times acknowledged its mistake in an article in comedy albums. His material challenged the status quo in a way
its April 21, 2016 issue. most mainstream comedians didn’t even attempt at the time.
Alan Abel would go on to unleash other hoaxes over the years. One routine performed before a largely white audience was
The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals was another of his about going into a restaurant in the South. The waitress told him
pranks to net him media exposure: an appearance on the Mike that they didn’t serve “colored people” and he was fine with that
Douglas Show, an afternoon talk program, with feature host Mike because, said Gregory, “I don’t eat colored people.”
Douglas and his other guests looking on politely as Abel exhibited Richard Claxton Gregory was born in 1932 in St. Louis,
a drawing of a once-naked cow discretely dressed in a Muumuu. Missouri. As a child, Gregory recalled, in his campaign-promoting
Abel died in 2018 but managed to fool the New York Times into book Write Me In! (Bantam Books, 1968), that he wanted to grow
printing his obituary years earlier, in 1980. up to be “a champion” and break through a “cruel and accepted
The New York Times acknowledged its mistake in an article in system.” It was during a stint in the Army that a sergeant
its April 21, 2016 issue. encouraged him to pursue his comedy. He used humor to express
Jeanne Abel, as Mrs. Yetta Bronstein, wrote a book about his social-reform goals.
her 1964 campaign, The President I Almost Was (available in both Gregory declared his 1968 write-in candidacy for president
hardcover and paperback). running under the Freedom and Peace Party banner (which is not
to be confused with the Peace and
The Other Dick in the Race Freedom Party—seriously). This was
The Republican candidate for president in 1968 was not his first political contest. In 1967
Richard Nixon. He was also known as “Tricky Dick,” he ran for mayor of Chicago and
a nickname earned earlier in his political career lost to then-three-term incumbent
and never shaken off. He had run for president in Richard J. Daley (who was widely
1960 but lost to John F. Kennedy. Before that he was criticized for the handling of
Vice President to the beloved two-term Dwight D. the protests during the 1968
Eisenhower. Nixon may not have had the personal Democratic National Convention).
appeal of JFK or Ike but he was a dead-serious Was Dick Gregory a serious
candidate and, you know, white, unlike someone we candidate? Certainly, he had
could mention. Let’s meet him now. serious convictions, and he did
Dick Gregory was a stand-up comedian and civil register as a write-in candidate so
rights activist. Gregory had, earlier in the Sixties, that votes for him would count.
been performing at segregated clubs when he was But he was a comedian, after
exposed to a national audience via television and all, and likely knew that while
he wouldn’t win the vote, he
could make a point. And the
way Gregory talked about the
things that concerned him was
through humor. He claimed his
first order of business would be
to paint the White House black
and that Eartha Kitt would
handle White House dinner invitations (Eartha
Kitt for President would have been purrrfectly awesome, right,
Bat-fans?). He had printed promotional fake one-dollar bills with
his face on them.
This got Gregory
into some trouble
because they
worked in change
machines (much
like the $3 bill
MAD magazine
continued on pg. 14
(LEFT) Comedian Dick Gregory in 1963, a few years ahead of his
first campaign. Photo: Herman Hiller. Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection. (ABOVE) Jokes and serious
ideas mix a bit like oil and water in Write Me In! by Dick Gregory.
(INSET) The front of Dick Gregory’s U.S. dollar bill-style promo-
tional handout. It worked in change machines of the day, which
got the attention of the Secret Service. His argument that a black
man would never have his face on U.S. currency convinced a
judge and got him out of trouble.

12 RetroFan August 2020

 scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

CARTOON CHARACTERS FOR PRESIDENT

I believe very firmly that any cartoon Howdy Doody
character that runs for high office has Howdy Doody was
not properly thought things through a before-my-time
completely. As any professional type thing, but I
politician will tell them (there’s a somehow managed
conversation I’d pay to see), no matter to be aware of
what you do or say, somebody will be him and Buffalo
very angry with or deeply disappointed Bob and Clarabell
in you. Maximal appeal is a cartoon the Clown and
character’s lifeblood. An un-beloved the whole Peanut
cartoon character is a forgotten cartoon Gallery hoo-haw
character (I’m looking at you, Flip as I grew up. The
the Frog). You’d think that’d be sound beloved puppet star
advice, right? was the creation of
Here are some colorful fictional Buffalo Bob Smith,
© NBC.
individuals who have run for president host of the long-
despite the possible downsides and running (1947–1960) NBC show, Howdy
survived. Doody. Howdy ran for president twice,
in 1948 and 1952. The first campaign
Betty Boop required that Howdy get plastic surgery.
This Fleischer Studios’ animated “Beaten with an Ugly Stick, then run
superstar Betty Boop made her first over with an Ugly Backhoe, and then
cartoon appearance in Dizzy Dishes kicked with an Ugly Boot” is the best
(1930). Her success must have gone way to describe the first version of
quickly to her head because only two Howdy Doody. Ten thousand “I’m for
years later she ran for high office Howdy Doody” buttons were made
against the nightmarish Mr. Nobody and offered to viewers who wrote in.
(a headless body of rubbery limbs) in A quarter million buttons, by Buffalo
Betty Boop TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc./Fleischer Studios, Inc. TM Hearst Holdings, Inc/Fleischer Studios, Inc.
Alfred E. Neuman
MAD as magazine and comic
book was not a stranger to
political humor. Alfred E.
Neuman, the magazine’s idiot
boy mascot, entered the fray
almost immediately. The impish
fellow made his first full color
appearance on the cover of
MAD #30 (Dec. 1956). More
importantly, it was also when
Alfred announced his first run
for president. In the years that
followed, various covers would
feature “Alfred E. Neuman for
President” gags and various
related novelties were produced.
Howard the Duck
With the desire to be transparent I have
to admit to a political bias: I do not care
that Howard the Duck ran for president.
The appeal of Howard—all due respect
to his creator, the late Steve Gerber—
just failed to take hold of my heart (nor
get past my meager comic-book budget).
That said, the duck named Howard
was a Marvel Comics character done in

Betty Boop for President. Mr. Nobody’s
campaign promised that nobody
will tend to the nation’s ills. Betty,
on the other hand, offered concrete,
if whimsical, solutions (such as a
giant umbrella to keep rain off the
city). Her stump speech/song had her
transforming her face into that of
the Republican Herbert Hoover (then
president) and Democrat Al Smith,
Hoover’s opponent in 1928. Betty Boop
for President was also the name of a 1980
TM & © EC Publications.
Bob’s estimate, were requested. a “realistic”
Toymakers took notice, and so did the funny-animal
builder of Howdy’s (yeech) puppet, style who
Frank Paris. He wanted a piece of the existed “in
action. NBC said, “Uh, no.” Paris left and a world he
took his handiwork with him. A full- never made”
head-bandaged fill-in was used until a (me, too). The
new puppet (made by Velma Dawson) comic was
could be completed and revealed. It a satire of
would have the face so many remember many things
so fondly. Best-ever fun fact: A young (Star Wars,
William “Khaaaaaaan!” Shatner filled super-heroes,
in (at least once) for regular host Timber and the like),
Tom as “Ranger Bob” for the Canadian and so it
Howdy Doody show called (you can see was perhaps
this coming, right?) The Canadian Howdy inevitable © Marvel.
Doody Show. that Howard
ran for president, which he did in 1976.
A swell button (“Get down America!”)
and a poster, both with art by the great
Bernie Wrightson, were offered to
readers. Over the years, Howard the
Duck has popped in and out of the
Marvel Universe both in films and in the
comic books, but his politicking days
seem to be well behind him.

compilation film comprising badly To you fans of other cartoon candidates

traced and colored sequences from like Tintin, Zippy the Pinhead, and
earlier, better black-and-white animated Lois Lane (who, it must be said, was
shorts. Fun fact: Tom Smothers did only running for senator—against
the voice of Pudgy the dog for this Superman), my heartfelt apologies for
production. their absence.

RetroFan August 2020 13

 scott saavedra’s secret sanctum

CELEBRITIES FOR PRESIDENT “Not Another Pretty Face”

It’s probably fair to say that most celebrity candidates for
president are comically inclined, if not just straight-up
comedians. And it’s likely also true that publicity is the
main goal. American humorist Will Rogers ran in 1928, in
part as a circulation builder for the ailing Life magazine
(then a humor publication until it sold its name to the
owners of Time). Radio and television comic Gracie Allen
(of Burns and Allen fame) ran in 1940 as a member of “The
Surprise Party” (which I would join in a heartbeat). That
same year, W. C. Fields wrote a book, Fields for President,
with art by Otto Soglow (creator of the comic strip The Little
King). I only read a small bit of it but do not follow any of
his advice for interacting with wives, girlfriends, or any
individual of the woman sort. I love W. C., but just… no.
It has been reprinted in hardcover in 1971 and paperback
in 1972 (without Otto) and again in 2016 (with Otto!). And
then there’s Jayne Mansfield. Actress, model, and energetic
seeker of publicity. Her run for high office appeared to
be an opportunity for some pin-up photos and naughty-
ish jokes all neatly packaged into thin book form as Jayne
Mansfield for President: The White House or Bust (Books, Inc.
1964). These are just
tip-of-the-iceberg
examples, of course.
Morris the Cat (shill
for 9Lives cat food)
ran in 1988. Strangely,
the original Morris
died a decade earlier.
It’s a mystery that I
will look into and get
back to you about, uh,
someday (no breath-
holding, please).
(ABOVE) The cover
to Jayne Mansfield
for President (Books,
Inc., 1964) and an
interior page (LEFT)
as some kids watch
their dads (appar-
ently) get friendly
with not-their-mom-
my. Photo: David Attie.
Scans by Darwin-Dregs.
© Books, Inc.
published in 1967 which also got the attention of the Feds). Even
more seriously, the Washington Post (August 22, 2017) reported
that in 1968 then-F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover—America’s top
police officer—wanted to “neutralize” Gregory with the help
of the Mafia (who, as we know, are ideal for this type of law
enforcement work). The “plan” did not appear to be carried out.
Dick Gregory received over 47,000 write-in votes.
A fact of life, as a kid growing up, was that Pat Paulsen ran for
president. I knew he never won and I don’t think that I had any
idea what else he did, even though I’m sure I saw him turn up
on television between elections. I also knew that he was funny. I
watched so much TV back then and saw many, many actors that
were forever nameless to me, but Pat Paulsen stuck in my brain.
Kind of a weird thing considering I don’t recall watching him on the
show that made him famous, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Patrick
Layton Paulsen
was born
July 6, 1927 in
South Bend,
Washington.
In an age when
parents often
told their kids
that anyone
could grow
up to become
president,
young Patrick
was among the
many for which
this “truism”
would prove
false. However,
he would grow
up to get a few
laughs out of the
election process.
But that would Pat Paulsen campaign window card (1968).
Courtesy of Heritage.
come much later,
after a stint in
the Marines at the tail end of World War II, followed by a number
of odd jobs including that of Fuller Brush salesman.
By 1959 he was a guitar-playing solo comedy act. He met
Tom and Dick Smothers, two folk musicians, while they were
all performing in San Francisco. When the Smothers Brothers
came to Hollywood to star in a second attempt at a television
program (the first Smothers Brothers show was about an angel
and a swinger, an article for another time, certainly), they brought
Paulsen along to be part of it.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour debuted in 1967 and
was intended to be moderately “with it”—but not too “with
it”—entertainment. You know, so as to appeal to the youths.
Pat Paulsen became the show’s editorialist, providing deadpan
commentary on contemporary concerns. Fun topics like
gun rights and the financial stability of Social Security. So,
what prompted Paulsen to become a candidate? A political
advertisement, appropriately enough.
TV critic David Bianculli shares a well-informed version of
Pat Paulsen’s rise from bit player and songwriter to editorialist
to breakout star as a fake presidential candidate in Dangerously
Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
(Touchstone, 2009). Paulsen’s political career began with business
types making a decision that stirred up creative types: CBS sold
five minutes of airtime on Smothers Brothers for a political ad. The

14 RetroFan August 2020


(ABOVE) Ethel Kennedy was instrumental in
getting her husband, eventual 1968 candidate
Robert Kennedy, to meet with fake presidential
candidate Pat Paulsen. Originally intended to be
part of an upcoming special, the footage was not
shown following Kennedy’s assassination. © CBS.
(RIGHT) Pat Paulsen’s How to Wage a Successful
Campaign for the Presidency (Nash, 1972) probably
shouldn’t be followed by anybody.
show’s writers heard about the ad ahead of time
and, upset about the loss of show time, prepared a
tart disclaimer starring Pat Paulsen distancing the
show from the ad by making a reference to it being
unfair to Paulsen as a candidate (the candidate
comment was just a one-off joke then). CBS
refused to air the bit.
Show writer Mason Williams (creator of the 1968 Grammy
Award-winning instrumental hit, “Classical Gas”) had suggested
satirizing elections and politicians by having the Mona Lisa or the
Statue of Liberty run for president. As happens in collaborative
arts, input was added by others and, well, Pat Paulsen found
himself running for president of these here United States.
In a fairly remarkable bit of preparation for what was—let’s
be realistic—a joke, the show secured the services of an actual
political consultant, one Don Bradley, who had assisted JFK’s
presidential run. Bradley pointed out that a possible candidate
could stay in the news by playing a “Will he or won’t he?” game.
The show followed the consultant’s lead.
Paulsen began his presidential run in January 1968 by denying
that he would be a candidate, saying, “I will not run if nominated.
And if elected, I will not serve.” Oddly, the actual president, Lyndon
Baines Johnson, declared several weeks later in similar terms to
“not seek, and… not accept” a nomination for another term. But this
wasn’t a ploy—Johnson was shockingly out of the running.
Before Johnson’s retreat, Tom Smothers, Pat Paulsen, and
a camera crew filmed interviews with attendees of a charity
function. Various celebrities were asked on camera for later
use their opinions about Paulsen’s run. Bobby Kennedy, a fan
of the show, agreed to participate, though possibly regretted
the cooperation once Paulsen started to crack up the not-yet-
declared-but-soon-to-be candidate. The footage between
Paulsen and Kennedy was never shown however (but can be
found on YouTube, of course), as Kennedy’s cruel and pointless
murder occurred before the material was to be aired.
scott saavedra’s secret sanctum
The Pat Paulsen for President special episode of Smothers
Brothers was shown just ahead of the 1968 election. It was packed
with footage taken over many months of Paulsen campaigning in
various states (promising in each locale to move there after the
election to distance himself from “the phonies”). Bianculli called
the documentary style program “stunningly ahead of its time.”
Tommy Smothers, interviewed decades later by Rich
Freedman of the Vallejo
Times-Herald (and shared at
patpaulsenforpresident.com) noted
that if The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour was a painting, “[Paulsen] was
the brightest color.”
Pat Paulsen ran in each race
for president from 1968 to 1996. He
died in 1997 from complications
from pneumonia, having been
diagnosed with cancer in 1995.
Richard Nixon won the presidency
in 1968 and again in 1972. In 1974 he
became the first president to resign
rather than face impeachment.
During the previous year, a Nixon
campaign “Opponents List” of
20 individuals determined to be
“enemies” (or vocal critics, as a
mentally healthy person would
call them) of the president was
revealed. Later, this list was found
to be much larger and included a
broad selection of American citizens including Dick Gregory as
well as national treasure, voice actress, and animation legend
June Foray (really, dude?).
To the delight of few, 2020 is a presidential election year.
There will, of course, be many jokes about the candidates (heck,
I’m laughing already). This isn’t new. Neither are funny candidates
(see sidebars). A straight-up comic presidential run in the manner
of Pat Paulsen hasn’t emerged yet, but anything could happen.
I can’t predict the future, but I can promise one thing during the
waning weeks and days of the whole process and I’m dead certain
of it. Comfort food will be the order of the day. I will be eating hot
dogs. Lots and lots of hot dogs.
Oh, and hey, U.S. friends, don’t forget to vote. Sure, the
process can be crazy, but it’s better than the alternative (plus
Yetta, Dick, and Pat would appreciate it).
SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a graphic designer,
writer, and artist who has voted in nearly
every election for which he was eligible and
thinks representative democracy is the bee’s
knees. He is perhaps best known as the creator
of the long-ago comic-book series It’s Science
with Dr. Radium (SLG), and he wrote for the
short-lived Disney Comics line, where he scripted stories featuring
Chip ’n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and others. His
fanzine, Comic Book Heaven, about crazy vintage comics, had a
devoted but, sadly, tiny following. Check out his Instagram thing,
won’t you? (instagram.com/scottsaav/)
RetroFan August 2020 15
RETRO FAD

No two words strike fear in the hearts fighting off a flock of attack blue jays” (well, this was the era of
of so many than “Let’s dance!” Hitchcock’s The Birds, so maybe that skill would come in handy).
While some folks are quick to line While singer Chubby Checker became the poster child for
up to Two-step or Shag or Conga, the Twist, band frontman Hank Ballard was the first musician
others recoil from the dance floor, to elevate this burgeoning boogie to stardom. Ballard spied
that sadistic surface designed to teens Twisting at a Tampa nightclub and in response wrote
expose self-consciousness, rhythmic the tune “The Twist,” which became the B-side of the 45rpm
awkwardness, and memorization single “Teardrops on Your Letter,” recorded by his R&B
weakness. group Hank Ballard and the Midnighters in 1959.
That’s why the Twist became America’s Oldest Teenager, Dick Clark,
a sensation—it was the dance host of the popular music-and-
that almost everyone could dance television show American
do. You didn’t have to worry Bandstand, couldn’t help but
about two left feet with the notice how many kids were
Twist. With this dance your Twisting on his studio dance
feet remained planted— floor and realized that the Twist
not unlike my partner in my by was The Next Big Thing. Clark
college tennis class, Norman, Michael recommended that Chubby
whom I’d call “The Tree” because he’d Eury Checker, whose cherubic image
only return a ball lobbed directly at him—pivoting was more family-friendly than the
slightly on the floor while your torso, hips, and legs harder-edged Midnighters’, do his
rotated. Really! It was that simple! Put that in your own cover of Ballard’s song. Chubby
pipe and smoke it, Checker’s version of “The Twist” rocketed
Arthur Murray! to Number One in 1960.
The Twist evolved Checker followed that up with “Let’s Twist
in the late Fifties Again” in 1961, and for a while it seemed as if
and early Sixties as an every pop musician who could draw a breath
outgrowth of rock ’n’ roll, wanted to get into the act as songs encouraging
that “provocative” (or so teens to Twist whisked onto the airwaves and
decried the killjoys) form record stores, among them: “Twistin’ U.S.A.”
of music that would, it was by Danny & the Juniors, “Twist and Shout”
warned, lead a generation by the Isley Brothers, “The Peppermint
and perhaps society as Twist” (inspired by Manhattan’s popular
a whole to ruin. It was, like so many other dances before Peppermint Lounge) by Joey Dee and the
and after it, a form of youthful expression and liberation, Starliters (the club’s house band), “Twistin’
with some Twisters given to such wild abandon that Time the Night Away” by Sam Cooke (which
magazine reported that the dancers’ arm movements got a second boost of popularity in 1978
possessed “the piston-like motions of baffled bird keepers when appearing on the soundtrack of

16 RetroFan August 2020

National Lampoon’s Animal House), “Mama Don’t
Allow No Twistin’” by Bo Diddley, “Dear Lady
Twist” by Gary U.S. Bonds, and “Twistin’ Postman”
by the Marvelettes. Outside of the U.S.A., Britain’s
Beatles did their own cover of “Twist and Shout”
while Bill Haley and the Comets scored in Mexico
with “The Spanish Twist.” Back in the States,
even Saturday morning’s singing Chipmunks got
into the groove with “The Alvin Twist”—and in
nighttime animation, Bedrock became “a town
I know where the hipsters go” as The Flintstones
spoofed the dance craze as “The Twitch.” The
dance even twisted its way into comic books,
most notably a 1962 one-shot from Dell Comics
titled The Twist. Its story involved a competing
nightclub (the “Marshmallow Club,” a take-off of the
aforementioned Peppermint Lounge) and pizza joint
both hungry for Twisting patrons.
Hollywood took notice of the craze, and three
different studios raced Twisting films into production,
all of which were released in late 1961. Columbia Pictures
distributed the hastily produced (in 28 days!) Twist
Around the Clock, starring Twist-master Chubby Checker in
a swinging fable about a record promoter who discovers a
new dance in a small town and makes it a national sensation.
If that plot sounds familiar (and it’s certainly been done to
death), it was, like its title, recycled by the same screenwriter
from the 1956 movie Rock Around the Clock, a swinging fable where
Images © the
respective copyright holders.
a music promoter discovers a new sound
in a small town and makes it a national
sensation. Joey Dee’s “The Peppermint
Twist” gave birth to the movie Hey, Let’s
Twist, while jazzman Louis Prima—best
known to RetroFans as the voice of King
Louie of the Apes in Disney’s animated The
Jungle Book (you’ll have “I Wanna Be Like
You” stuck in your head all day now)—
starred in Twist All Night (a.k.a. The
Continental Twist), a movie which
included (I’m not making this up)
how-to Twist demonstrations for
its audience. In the spring of 1962,
Chubby Checker was back in bijous in
another go-round from the same movie
producers, Don’t Knock the Twist. (Useless
but fun trivia: Both of Checker’s Twist
movies were directed by Oscar Rudolph,
known for many Sixties TV directing credits
including episodes of Batman.) There was
a whole lotta Twistin’ goin’ on in the early
Sixties!
Leave it to your old man to step in
and spoil the fun for
everyone. What
started as a
generation’s gyration soon lured
their parents to start Twisting on
America’s living room carpets,
quickly rerouting the Twist to
Squaresville. Even Rob and Laura
Petrie—who often cut a rug on
The Dick Van Dyke Show—spun their
own TV spoof of the dance called
“The Twizzle.” Enough was enough, and
in 1962 teens were defecting the Twist for
other dances (including Twist variations like the
Swim, the Jerk, and the Frug).
Those wanting to continue to milk the trend knelt to its
patron saint for a miracle, and it occurred when Chubby Checker’s
“The Twist” record was re-released in 1962, once again rising to
Number One. But that was the Twist’s last gasp as a sensation.
Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ “Do You Know How to Twist”
barely mustered a Number 87 spot on the charts that year, and
when Checker tried one more Twist platter, 1963’s “Twist It Up,”
it peaked at Number 25. Soon the flower children and hippies
would have the young crowd digging a whole new scene.
But the Twist never really went away. Maybe it’s because it’s
so easy to do. Or because it’s such a distinctive snapshot of the
early years of rock ’n’ roll. Uma and Travolta made it cool again
in Pulp Fiction (and they added a dash of the Batusi!), and Twist
competitions remain fun events for Boomers and their kids, such
as the one in Florida in 2012 when Chubby Checker—still Twistin’ in
his early seventies!—sang his big hit before a record-setting group
of 4,000 Twisters. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna see if my old
buddy Norman is available to Twist the afternoon away.
RetroFan August 2020 17
 MONSTER MASH
The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972
Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American
mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines,
toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely
illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on FAMOUS
MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows
(SHOCK THEATRE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, and DARK SHADOWS), “MARS
ATTACKS” trading cards, EERIE PUBLICATIONS, PLANET OF THE APES, and more! It features inter-
views with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN
(Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters),
JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY”
ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a
Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of
“The Dark Age”).
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-064-9 • Diamond Order Code: MAR151564

GROOVY
When Flower Power Bloomed
In Pop Culture
GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads.
This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC
COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as
PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID
CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM,
THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast
members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN
and THE BRADY BUNCH. By MARK VOGER.
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95
ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9 • Digital Edition: $13.99
Diamond Order Code: JUL172227

HOLLY JOLLY
CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS PAST IN
POP CULTURE
Break out the candy canes! HOLLY JOLLY is a colorful sleigh ride through the history of Christmas, from
ve owners.

its religious origins to its emergence as a multimedia phenomenon. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER
explores movies (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life), music (White Christmas, Little St. Nick),
their respecti

TV (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), books (Charles Dickens’ A
Christmas Carol), decor (1950s silver aluminum trees), comics (super-heroes meet Santa), and more!
Featuring interviews with CHARLES M. SCHULZ (A Charlie Brown Christmas), ANDY WILLIAMS (TV’s
rs TM & ©

“Mr. Christmas”) and others, the story behind DARLENE LOVE’s perennial hit song Christmas (Baby
Please Come Home), and even more holiday memories! Written and designed by MARK VOGER
All characte

(author of the TwoMorrows’ books MONSTER MASH and GROOVY), the profusely illustrated
HOLLY JOLLY takes readers on a time-trip to Christmases past that you will cherish all year long!
SHIPS NOVEMBER 2020!
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-097-7

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

The Future of Pop History. Don’t miss exclusive sales, limited editions, and
new releases! Sign up for our mailing list: http://
groups.yahoo.com/group/twomorrows
TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
 From
Family Affair,
Firestar, and
Beyond
An
Interview
with
Kathy Garver
by Shaun Clancy
As a kid growing up in the Seventies and
Eighties, my exposure to Kathy Garver’s
TV work was probably the same as
many of you. I would occasionally see a
rerun of the popular sitcom Family Affair
(1966–1971) on various channels (although
I would develop a deeper appreciation
of the show later, as an adult). Family
Affair was about an engineer, Bill Davis
(Brian Keith), a bachelor with an active
social life living in New York City who
takes on the unexpected role of raising
his orphaned nephew (Johnny Whitaker
as Jody) and two nieces (Anissa Jones as
Jody’s pigtailed twin Buffy, known for
carrying her doll Mrs. Beasley, and Garver
as teenaged Cissy) who showed up one
day at his doorstep. With the help of his
valet (Sebastian Cabot), “Uncle Bill” and
his newly formed family had five seasons
of warm-hearted adventures with light-
hearted humor aimed at adults. During
its first three seasons, Family Affair was
nominated for three Emmys.
The TV show featuring Kathy Garver
that really grabbed my attention was
the animated Spider-Man and His Amazing
Friends (1981–1983), which aired Saturday
mornings on NBC. This cartoon introduced
a female character that I wasn’t familiar
with in my Marvel Comics collection
(although she was soon introduced into
comics)—Firestar, voiced by Garver, who
interacted very well with her co-stars
Iceman and Spider-Man, which made for
a nice balance. The viewers apparently
agreed, as it ran three seasons! “Spider-
Friends, go for it!,” Kathy reminisces.
Kathy Garver started her long and
versatile career as a child actress and has
since amassed credits in radio, stage,
television, films, cartoons, and voiceovers.
Her early movie roles include The Ten
Commandments and The Bad Seed, with
more recent film appearances in Mom,
Murder & Me and The Princess Diaries. Her
voice characterizations have appeared in
many cartoons, commercials, audio books,
and film voiceovers. And for decades she’s
been a familiar face on television, from her
pre-Family Affair childhood and teenaged
roles on Our Miss Brooks, The Millionaire, Dr.
Kildare, and The Patty Duke Show to more (TOP) Kathy Garver on the set of Family
Affair. (ABOVE) The actress’ memoir,
recent TV roles including a guest spot on
Surviving Cissy: My Family Affair of Life
the 2002 remake of Family Affair on The
in Hollywood (2015). © Kathy Garver. Family
WB to starring in the newly developed
Affair © Don Fedderson Productions.
Travis Hunt production, the series Aunt
Cissy, announced in the summer of 2019
as “a new family comedy that is not an accomplished author, with several
exactly a sequel to Family Affair… but it has books to her credit including Surviving
elements of the premise of that classic Cissy: My Family Affair of Life in Hollywood
TV series, plus a few surprises.” She’s also (2015), X-Child Stars: Where Are They Now
RetroFan August 2020 19
 RETRO INTERVIEW: KATHY GARVER
(co-written by Fred Ascher, 2015), and
the cookbooks The Family Affair Cookbook
(2009) and Holiday Recipes for a Family Affair
(2019).
What follows is a transcription of my
telephone interview with Kathy Garver
from May 2014, which was transcribed
by Rose Rummel-Eury in late 2019 and
updated in January 2020 for publication in
RetroFan with Ms. Garver’s approval.
RetroFan: You did some radio work in
the Fifties on a show called Whispering
Streets.
Kathy Garver: This was with Bette Davis,
and I was so excited to see Bette Davis
and record Whispering Streets with her. My
mom came to pick me up; I was a child. We
went over to ABC, and we all got dressed
up. We got there a little late and said,
“Where’s Bette Davis?” “She’s not here.” “Is
she late?” “Oh, no, she records her part in
New York.” “Nooo!” …and I never did get to
meet her. I was so disappointed.
It was an anthology series, and I did
maybe three of them. I also did Heartbeat
Theater, which I still have the script for and
I believe it was an episode with [legendary
cartoon voice actress] June Foray. On the
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon,
I played Firestar, and June played Aunt
May. I just had a little reunion with Dan
Gilvezan. He played the part of Spider-
Man, and the last time I was in L.A., he
FAST FACTS
Spider-Man and His
Amazing Friends
` No. of seasons: Three
` No. of episodes: 24
` Original run: September
12, 1981–November 5, 1983
(although the episodes
continued to be aired through
1986)
` Production companies:
Marvel Productions Ltd. and
Toei Animation
` Network: NBC
Primary Cast:
` Dan Gilvezan: Peter Parker/
Spider-Man
` Frank Welker: Bobby Drake/
Iceman
` Kathy Garver: Angelica Jones/
Firestar
20 RetroFan August 2020
gave me this wonderful
documentary about
how it all began and
the process of Spider-
Man and His Amazing
Friends. Stan Lee is the
host of it all, and it’s
very interesting.
RF: Did you audition
for the Firestar
part, or were you
selected?
KG: We all
auditioned. I had
just moved to San
Francisco, so I flew
down and they were kind of stern in a way.
They knew what they wanted.
RF: Did you know you were auditioning
for the Firestar role specifically or was it
just a general audition?
KG: No, I knew it was for Firestar.
RF: In the audition, did you play opposite
anybody, or just read it cold?
KG: In the first audition, I just read and
then they had us back and then I read with
Frank and Dan. Then we found out we had
the parts and Dan found out he didn’t have
it, and then he did.
RF: Who was the director?
KG: Al Dinehart. Alan was an independent
contractor, and Marvel was pretty much
running it with Stan Lee. This was the first
time that they had animated one of their
comic books into a television series.
RF: Did you work off of a storyboard?
They usually like to animate to the
recorded voices.
KG: Well, they did the storyboards first,
but we really just worked from script. We’d
do a roundtable to get the feeling of how
the show was going, and then we would
record.
RF: You did some other Spider-Man voice
acting after Firestar…
KG: I played Aruma of the Jungle and
Miss America [in Spider-Man: The Animated
Series, 1994–1998]… and I also played Storm
[in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends],
which was kind of cool. Brian Keith, who
did my television series Family Affair, was
also a character in Spider-Man [Uncle Ben
on Spider-Man: The Animated Series].
Publicity image of Firestar
autographed by the actress who
gave her voice, Kathy Garver.
Firestar TM & © Marvel.
RF: You’ve also done voice work for other
cartoons.
KG: I did a lot for Hanna-Barbera: Yogi
Bear [The New Yogi Bear Show, 1998], Super
Friends… I did Dixie on Dixie’s Diner (1989).
I played an evil character, Enyah, in JoJo’s
Bizarre Adventures, and I also did Pepper in
Chuck Norris’ Karate Kommandos.
RF: Did you work opposite Chuck Norris,
or did he work separately?
KG: He worked separately, but I had met
him before. He taught me how to break a
piece of balsa wood! I was very impressed
that A, he could do it and B, that he could
teach me how to do it!
RF: Did you have any interaction with
Stan Lee when you were voicing Firestar?
He was in the California studios at that
time pushing to get things going.
KG: Oh, totally! This was the first time
[Marvel] had done it, so he worked with
the scriptwriters to get it just right and
was intimately involved with the casting,
the storyboards, and actual animation. It
was a very hands-on thing. He wanted it
to be really, really well done because it was
the first. He was a very sweet, energetic
man.
RF: When you do voiceover work in
live-action movies or television, are you
taking the voice of the main character
and using your own voice [dubbing] over
theirs?

KG: For ADR [Automate Dialogue
Replacement, formerly called “looping”]?
Yes, I teach that as well.
RF: Do you ever do any voice work for
foreign films?
KG: Yes. I did a whole series of Chinese
films about 15 years ago, which were fun. I
also voiced some Japanese anime—JoJo’s
Bizarre Adventures. I do the dubbing for
anime, cartoons, live action—the Chinese
films were actually live action, and the
ADR was with Ron Howard on his movies.
RF: What was the beginning of your
professional acting career?
KG: They were trying to replace [radio’s]
Baby Snooks and I remember my mom
dressed me up in this little smock dress
and we went on the interview, and I didn’t
know why I was getting dressed up for
radio. They decided they weren’t going to
do the show. Then one of the first things I
did was The Night of the Hunter, the movie
(1955), followed by The Ten Commandments
(1956). That was a great introduction to the
entertainment field.
RF: Was your mom trying to push you
into this career, or was it something you
wanted to do?
Family Affair cast photos signed by
Kathy and inscribed to interviewer
Shaun Clancy’s parents. Family Affair
© Don Fedderson Productions.
KG: Well, I started singing and dancing at
the Meglin Studios in Hollywood, at three
years old, as was Shirley Temple, who was
also discovered there. I think my mom had
the vision of her little daughter as Shirley
Temple. My hair was in the little ringlets…
“Well, Shirley Temple was discovered
there…” But I actually wasn’t discovered
until seven years later.
RF: Discovered by whom?
KG: Cecil B. DeMille, actually [director of
The Ten Commandments]. I was supposed
to be an extra, and we were in the Exodus
scene and I was riding on a wagon and I
heard this big voice say, “Don’t let the little
girl’s face get in the camera!” I’m thinking,
“What did I do? Was that God?” [laughter]
This man came over to me and put this
blanket around me. We did the scene and
it wasn’t God, it was Cecil B. DeMille, doing
an overview on the crane. He came down
and talked to me and he wrote scenes
that put me in the movie… with Charlton
Heston. So I can say I was discovered by
Cecil.
RF: Do you watch your own
performances? Do you enjoy them, or
cringe?
KG: It depends. I don’t usually cringe.
“That’s interesting.”
“Oh, that isn’t a very
good angle; they
could’ve gotten a
better angle.” I was
watching a little bit
of the latest movie,
but I don’t usually
watch. I’ve been
watching a few of
the older things
RETRO INTERVIEW: KATHY GARVER
because I’ve been putting together a reel
for an appearance. I’m putting together a
reel of my new things, so I’m forced to look
at everything—what do I want here; what
do I want there?
RF: Have you done any local or national
commercials?
KG: Oh, yes. National. I did this one Sugar
Jets commercial and it almost ruined my
career. My brother and I were on this big
papier-mâché mountain, we were hiking
and wolves were baying below us. All of a
sudden, we find Sugar Jets and fly off the
mountain, getting away from the howling
wolves because of the Sugar Jets we had
just ingested. We were all rigged up to fly
off the mountain when it was time to take
a break, but I didn’t want to take the time
to take off the harness. So, I stayed on
the mountain and ended up slipping and
almost falling off. The rigging handler saw
me slipping and guided me back up to the
top of the mountain!
RF: I don’t remember Sugar Jets. Was it a
candy, or a soft drink?
KG: No, it was sugary cereal… before it was
banned forever.
RF: Was it a prerequisite that you
had to eat the merchandise for these
commercials?
KG: Yes, and I would be in horror that I
would have to do a pickle commercials
because, at the time, I hated pickles. But
God heard my plea and didn’t make me go
on any commercials for pickles.
RF: Did you go to public school?
KG: Yes, public school, and that’s part of
the reason I’m relatively sane today. My
RetroFan August 2020 21
 RETRO INTERVIEW: KATHY GARVER
Publicity photos from 1969. Courtesy of
Kathy Garver.
mother said, “Don’t tell everybody you’re
acting. Just go to school and say you were
out.”
RF: How did you get the part on Family
Affair?
KG: I had just started at UCLA and had
been working since I was seven. They had
this new series which my mom inquired
about and said to me, “Oh, you have an
audition. The only thing is, they want a
blonde, blue-eyed girl.” That was fine,
except I had brown eyes and brown
hair. My ever-creative mom came over
and sprayed my hair. It came out like
something out of Goldfinger like it was a
helmet.
She took me down to CBS and I met
with the producer, Ed Hartmann, and he
said, “What’s wrong with your hair?” I said,
“My hair?” He said, “Yes, it’s turning green.”
I said, “Oh, no.” That got us chatting and I
did a screen test for it. They put on a long,
blonde, Alice-in-Wonderland wig, and I
had a little blue-checkered dress—I was
something out of Alice in Wonderland. My
agent at the time was Hazel McMillan—
who is Gloria McMillan’s mother [Gloria
played Harriet Conklin on the Our Miss
Brooks show]. My sister, who is just
brilliant, was going to Mount St. Mary’s
school, and that’s where Gloria was also
going to school and put on a play called
Everyman, and my sister rounded up my
brother and myself for this play. My sister
22 RetroFan August 2020
was 11 years old. Hazel was there because
Gloria was in the play and my mother met
Gloria and took down her number.
A couple years later, she called Hazel,
and Hazel took me on as a client. Hazel
was one of the most successful theatrical
children’s agents at the time. Actually, now
that I think of it, the very first thing I did
was a little part on the Ann Southern TV
show, before I played in Family Affair. My
mother took me and I played the part of a
little Italian girl with my dark hair and dark
eyes. They dyed my hair reddish blonde so
I’d fit in better.
RF: Do you remember who you
auditioned against for the part of Cissy?
KG: They already had someone for my
part, and she hadn’t signed the contract.
She went off to Europe and came back
and had gained about 15 pounds. They
thought, “Hmm, this might not be too
good.” When I did the screen test, they
were already shooting the pilot and they
needed somebody immediately and there
I was, Johnny on the spot!
RF: Had the other Family Affair cast
members done any scenes with the other
Cissy?
KG: She hadn’t acted in it at all. Johnny
[Whitaker] and I didn’t come in until the
end of the pilot.
RF: Who had more authority on the show,
Brian Keith or Sebastian Cabot?
KG: Maybe Brian, and to a lesser extent,
Sebastian. It was one of the first times
that the star of the show actually owned
part of the show. The first one was I Love
Lucy, and she kind of took over as producer
and owned the show. But in order to get
movie stars to do TV, well, Don Fedderson
was the producer of the show and he had
started this formula with Fred MacMurray
and My Three Sons. In order to get these
guys, he said, “You only have to work three
months out of the year and you can go
and do your movies, plus you get part of
the proceeds of the show.” They tried to
do this with Family Affair and they first put
an offer out to Glenn Ford, and Brian, who
had just finished Parent Trap, said, “Oh, it
sounds fine to me.” Brian loved to work
and he loved kids. This was right up his
acting alley and he said, “Okay.”
RF: Did he help cast the show?
KG: I don’t know really. I first met the
writer/creator/producer, who was Ed
Hartmann. Then I did the screen test with
the director. Then they showed footage
to Don Fedderson, the executive producer
along with Mr. Hartmann.
I don’t know if they ever showed it to
Brian. I know that Brian suggested Johnny
Whitaker to them, because originally, it
was supposed to be a six-year-old, a nine-
year-old, and a 15-year-old [in the roles].
When Brian worked with Whitaker on
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are
Coming, he thought he would be a good
boy [for the role of Jody]. He suggested
FAST FACTS
Family Affair
` No. of seasons: Five
` No. of episodes: 138
` Original run: September 12,
1966–March 4, 1971
` Primary cast: Brian Keith,
Sebastian Cabot, Kathy
Garver, Johnny Whitaker,
Anissa Jones
` Created by: Edmund L.
Hartmann and Don Fedderson
` Network: CBS
Spin-offs:
` Family Affair (remake starring
Gary Cole as Bill Davis and
Tim Curry as Mr. French,
2002–2003, 15 episodes)
` Aunt Cissy (pilot and initial
episodes shot in late 2019)

Johnny. They had already cast Anissa and
they looked so cute together they decided
to change them to twins, “And we’ll cast
Cissy as older.”
RF: How old were they imagining you as
in the show, because you were in college?
KG: Fifteen!
RF: So, you were playing a younger
person.
KG: Oh, yeah! I’ve always played younger,
and if you look at a lot of the series, I’m
like five-foot-one. [My Three Sons’] Barry
Livingston and Stanley Livingston are
shorter! [laughter] My very good friend
John Stevens, who worked on the show,
said, “When we were casting for a show,
we always took a look at the parents. If the
parents were short, that meant there was
a very good chance that the kids wouldn’t
outgrow their parts.”
RF: Was the pilot picked up immediately?
KG: Before we even did it, it was already
sold. I know that’s an anomaly, but
Fedderson already had a really good track
record with CBS and he said, “Okay. Here’s
the premise and here are the stars.” They
said, “Go ahead.”
RF: You worked with Brian Keith before
the show?
KG: Yes, when I was a child, he had a
short-lived show called Crusader, and I
played a waif in that. I also worked with
Don Fedderson when he produced The
Millionaire. I played Betty Murdock. It was
a drama where a millionaire would give
out a million dollars and see what people
would do [with the money].
RF: Was Family Affair a hit right away or
did it take some time to build?
KG: Oh, it was a hit right away. It followed
The Andy Griffith Show, which was a really
good lead-in. The thing is, it was on at
9:30, because they had envisioned that
the audience would be taken with the
bachelor around town going to all these
eateries. But we were so cute and so good
that they liked the kids in the story more
than Brian.
RF: How was Sebastian Cabot to work
with?
KG: It was great, because Sebastian
and Brian had totally different styles.
Sebastian came from England and I
RETRO INTERVIEW: KATHY GARVER
went to the RADA, the Royal Academy 6:30 [p.m.] every day. Some of my scenes
of Dramatic Art, after UCLA. He was wouldn’t tape until the end of the day.
very analytical. He’d set the scene and When you’re with somebody all the time,
his diction. It took him a long time to you don’t hang out. I was too old for the
memorize his lines. He had to get every kids and too young for Sebastian and
word right in every line and get his dialect Brian.
perfect. Brian would come in and say,
“What do we have today? Uh-huh, uh-huh, RF: Were there any mistakes or flubs that
uh-huh, okay.” He came from a different stand out from that show?
acting style of moment to moment and KG: [chuckles] Greg Fedderson, who was
Sebastian came from a totally different the son of Don, he played my boyfriend in
acting style, which I think together made
for a very dynamic style and appeal.
That’s how they were. The way I act is an
amalgam of them. I analyze and figure
out who the character is and where the
person is going, on an intellectual level,
and then forget all that and just focus, and
go moment to moment.
RF: I’m sure you hear this all the time, but
what happened with Anissa Jones?
KG: After the show, she was fed up with
the show. She was nine when the show
started but was playing a six-year-old.
When the show ended, she was 14 and still
carrying around the doll and wearing short
dresses with her hair in pigtails. Any child
that’s 12 to 15 years old is trying to find
their own identity.
So, when the show was done, she was
done. She was considered for a part in The
Exorcist but turned it down. She said, “I’m
not doing this anymore,” and she didn’t.
When she was 18, there was a birthday
party at her mom’s house. Her mom took
me aside and said, “I’d wish you’d spend Kathy Garver today. Courtesy of Kathy Garver.
some more time with Anissa, because
she’s really with a bad group of kids.” I said,
“I’d love to. I’m leaving tomorrow for six the show and didn’t have much experience
weeks to do My Fair Lady. As soon as I come acting, and we started dating off the show.
back, absolutely.” Don Fedderson didn’t really like that. I
While I was gone, she took the would just get tickled at Greg because
overdose. She was tiny; she was four-ten. he was a darling but very ingenuous. We
I think that contributed to it. When you’re had one scene where I started laughing at
smaller and take a lot of drugs, you don’t something he said because he’d forget his
know the effects. lines, and then I’d get myself under control
and then he’d start laughing. We were
RF: Socially, did the Family Affair cast up to like, 56 takes—“Hello, hello!”—and
hang out after work? the assistant director came over and said,
KG: No, not really. Especially for me, “What are you doing?!” I said, “Nothing,
since I was over 18. The kids could work nothing.” It was a giggle fest. I think it was
only eight hours a day and Brian had to sexual repression! We would both giggle! I
get all his scenes [with them] done at the usually did everything in one take, but not
beginning, so we’d be shooting scenes for with Greg! [laughter]
four different shows [episodes] all at once.
Sebastian had some health problems, so To discover more about Kathy Garver or to
there I was, the young, healthy workhorse, book a personal appearance, please visit www.
and I would be there from 6:30 [a.m.] to kathygarver.com.
RetroFan August 2020 23
WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON
The Secret Origin of
SPIDER-MAN
by Will Murray
In interview after interview, the late Stan Lee related how his
publisher initially refused to print Spider-Man.
Lee recalled: “My publisher said, in his ultimate wisdom––
‘Stan, that is the worst idea I have ever heard. First of all, people
hate spiders, so you can’t call a book Spider-Man. Secondly, he
can’t be a teenager—teenagers can only be sidekicks. And third,
he can’t have personal problems if he’s supposed to be a super-
hero—don’t you know what a super-hero is?’”
Martin Goodman’s objections usually killed any Marvel
project. But Lee had an ace––or should I say, an arachnid––up his
sleeve:
Does whatever a… well, you know. (LEFT) The Master of Men
debuts in The Spider vol. 1 #1 (Oct. 1933), a pulp magazine
series that inspired young Stan Lee. Cover painting by
Walter M. Baumhofer. (RIGHT) Spidey’s first appearance,
in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Sept. 1962). Cover by Jack Kirby and
Steve Ditko. The Spider TM & © Argosy Communications, Inc. Spider-
Man © Marvel. Courtesy of Heritage.
24 RetroFan August 2020
“When I was about 10 years old, I used to read a pulp
magazine called The Spider and subtitled ‘Master of Men.’
Perhaps it was the Master of Men that got me, but to my
impressionable, preteen way of thinking, The Spider was the
most dramatic character I had ever encountered. He ranked
right up there with Doc Savage and The Shadow. Even better,
he wasn’t as well known as the others, which gave me the warm
feeling that his fans belonged to an elite club.”
Goodman should have known this. He once published a pulp
magazine called Ka-Zar the Great.
Lee pressed his case: “For my part I told him his logic was
incontrovertible, but hear me out. Then I told
him about The Spider. Verily, I bared my soul,
mentioning how my childish heart would
madly pound in breathless anticipation of each
new issue. I zealously explained how I hoped
that Spider-Man would be a trend-setter, a
funky freaky feature in tune with the times.”
The year was 1962 when Spider-Man was
conceived. Officially, Lee claimed inspiration
struck when he spied a housefly climbing his
office wall.
Another, more complicated version of
Spider-Man’s origins had it that artist Jack Kirby
brought in the rough concept. Lee planned
to have Steve Ditko ink Kirby on the new
property. But when Ditko saw the first pages,
he recognized a strong resemblance to a super-
hero called the Fly, which Kirby originated with
partner Joe Simon just three years before. In
both cases, a young boy was transformed into
an adult super-hero via a magic ring.
Either way, you could say that a lowly fly inspired Spider-Man.
 Lee always said that Kirby’s muscular Spider-Man looked too
heroic for a character requiring underdog appeal. That was the
public explanation. Fearful of a lawsuit from Archie Comics, who
published The Adventures of the Fly, Lee huddled with Steve Ditko.
Together they formulated a reimagined version. It was published
in Amazing Fantasy #15, which Goodman promptly cancelled,
orphaning a follow-up story.
That might have been the end of it except for the fan mail. It
poured in, demanding more Spider-Man.
Reversing course, Goodman instructed Lee take that orphan
story and add another, releasing the Amazing Spider-Man in his
own magazine six months after he was cancelled.
It’s an amazing story. No pun intended. And it parallels how
Lee’s favorite pulp hero came into existence.
Lee’s recollection of the wall-crawling fly that inspired Spider-
Man is eerily similar to the account told by Popular Publications
founder, Harry Steeger, who conceived The Spider in 1933. When
Steeger saw that The Shadow Magazine was selling like crazy, he
wanted to publish something like it:
“The Spider (as a title) came about on a tennis court, of all
places, where I was playing tennis and noted a
large member of the species walking along the
edge of the court.”
But Steeger, too, feared a lawsuit. So, he
huddled with his lawyer. Said lawyer came up
with a scheme: Hire an established writer and
have him transform an existing character into
a rival to The Shadow.
R.T.M. Scott owned a fictional wealthy
detective named Aurelius Smith, who was
aided by a Hindu assistant, Langa Doone.
Overnight, he was renamed Richard
Wentworth, and his Hindu assistant was given
the name of Ram Singh. Thus, Secret Service
Smith became the dreaded Spider.
Scott wrote two Spider novels, then
gave way to newspaperman Norvell Page
to continue the series as Grant Stockbridge,
a cockeyed tip of the slouch hat to Maxwell Grant, the nominal
author of The Shadow.
No suit was filed. Over time, The Spider morphed into more
and more of an imitation of The Shadow, donning a black cloak,
carrying twin .45 automatics, and laughing maniacally as he
blazed away at armies of criminals.
But armies of criminals do not sustain a monthly magazine.
Very soon, The Spider was taking on super-criminals, terrorists,
mad scientists, and other sundry forerunners of comic-book
super-villains you could imagine.
Here is where we start to see the parallels to what Stan Lee
did with Spider-Man three decades later. While it’s true that’s The
Spider and Spider-Man were very different characters, their paths
intersected in ways that are amazing coincidences––if they are
coincidences.
First, The Spider is wanted by the law, which saw him as
a vigilante criminal. But Wentworth believed himself to be
a crusader, on a holy mission to eradicate rampant crime. By
contrast, poor Peter Parker simply wanted to get by, and found
himself hunted by the law, which also misunderstood him.
Nothing particularly new here. This was the same formula
Stan Lee had been milking with the Marvel Western comic Kid Colt
Outlaw. Unlike the Kid, Peter Parker early on learned the burden
of responsibility when he achieved his spider-powers. With The
Spider, he was driven by duty to a higher calling:
“Richard Wentworth, secretly The Spider, was the champion
of oppressed humanity, its shield and protector against the
murderous outbreaks of the underworld; wherever crime struck
terribly, that way he hastened, taking up the challenge. The police
had offered rewards totaling thousands of dollars for his capture
‘dead or alive.’ And the underworld hated him, and plotted his
destruction with a fierceness bred of abject terror.”
In those days before the advent of Superman, The Spider had
no spider-powers. Yet according to Norvell Page, he possessed
a forerunner of Spider-Man’s spider-sense, which tingled in the
same eerie way:
“But through years of ceaseless struggle and hourly danger—
not alone from the Underworld but also from the police who
considered his brand-marked executions of criminals only
murder––he had developed an uncanny feeling like the sixth
The Amazing Spider-Men: (LEFT) Norvell Page.
(RIGHT) Stan “The Man” Lee as Spidey, by John
Romita, Sr. Both, courtesy of Will Murray.
sense of bats. Flying in the dark, scarcely seeing, the convoluted
facial feelers of a bat received, apparently, an impact of
airwaves that forewarned the animal of obstacles in its path. So
something—thought waves?—warned The Spider of danger.”
Actually, this sounds a lot like Daredevil’s radar sense. Either
way, you can see where Stan Lee got the idea.
Another example:
“Had The Spider been spotted? He couldn’t be sure, but there
was a tingling along his spine that seemed to warn of danger.”
The Spider liked to go around branding the criminals he slew
with his red spider-seal.
Stan Lee recalled: “He wore a slouch hat and a finger ring with
the image of an arachnid—a ring which, when he punched a foe
fearlessly in the face, would leave its mark, an impression of a
spider. It was The Spider’s calling card, and it sent goose pimples
up and down my ten-year-old spine.”
Here, Lee was confusing The Spider with Lee Falk’s Phantom.
Actually, Wentworth pressed the base of his cigarette lighter to
the foreheads of his kills, which imprinted the scarlet seal the
underworld dreaded.
RetroFan August 2020 25
 will murray’s 20th century panopticon
In one story, The Spider got the idea to imprint the spider-
symbol on the lens of a flashlight and then shine the light at
cowering criminals. A frighteningly huge spider was thus created.
The origin of Spider-Man spider-signal? Sure sounds like it!
The Spider did not shoot out liquid webs, but he carried in his
cloak a strong cord, which he called his Web. He used it to snag
cornices and climb buildings and do other spidery acrobatics. Like
Spider-Man, Wentworth was at home crawling across rooftops of
New York City.
To list all the parallels between The Spider and Spider-Man
might take several installments of this column. But let’s look at
the more interesting ones.
There are some spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t written read
the early issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, you might want to
tread carefully.
Early in the run, Lee and Ditko introduced a shifty reporter
named Frederick Foswell. He was a running character who
worked for newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson, who is the
equivalent of Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick in the
Spider stories. Just as Peter Parker sold photographs to Jameson
for cash, the very man that hunted Spider-Man, Richard
Wentworth’s closest friend was Kirkpatrick, who vowed to bring
The Spider to justice and plant him in the electric chair.
After several issues, Foswell was unmasked as a master
criminal. I won’t say which one, because Lee’s Spider-Man was
as much of a crime comic as it was a super-hero one. Just like The
Spider.
In The Spider magazine, Norvell Page introduced a reporter
who seemed to be nothing more than an extra cast member. So
readers were understandably shocked when in the next issue, this
reporter was unmasked as that novel’s master criminal.
One early Spider novel was Slaves of the Crime Master. I imagine
Lee got the name of the famous Spider-Man villain from that
story. No such character appeared in that tale. Instead, two super-
criminals named the Tempter and the Doctor teamed up for that
yarn, which climaxed with a huge spider descending on Yankee
You light up my life! (LEFT) John Newton Howitt illus-
trated this Spider symbol, which The Spider applied to
a flashlight to intimidate criminals. (RIGHT) Spidey
takes a page from that playbook on Ditko’s cover to
Amazing Spider-Man #22 (Mar. 1965). The Spider TM & ©
Argosy Communications, Inc. Spider-Man © Marvel.
26 RetroFan August 2020
Stadium during the World Series. Wentworth fought back with
giant poisoned spider-webs.
Just as Spider-Man had its soap-opera qualities in the Sixties,
the Spider stories were emotionally charged. They were very
different, of course. Times had changed. But both characters
struggled to cope with involving personal lives that their brethren
usually never faced.
In one Spider novel, The Flame Master, he was confronted by
a strange creature who called himself Aronk Dong, the Lion Man
from Mars. This character talked like just about every alien Stan
Lee wrote back in the early Sixties. Here’s a sample:
“Did you think you could master me, Spider?” Aronk Dong
jeered. “Puny earth worm. Did you think you could outthink a
man from Mars?”
Now you know where the Incredible Hulk got the word “puny.”
In one Spider novel, he battled a villain called the Iron Man,
who resembled a robot but was actually a super-criminal in an
armored battle suit. Was this the inspiration for Iron Man? We’ll
never know….
Stan Lee had a fondness for story titles like “The Coming of
Sub-Mariner,” which he used over the decades. I’m pretty sure he
got that from the Spider novel entitled The Coming of the Terror. It
was the first of a four-part series of novels in which the Master
of Men battled his most dangerous fall, Tang Ahkmut, the Living
Pharaoh.
Sounds like a Stan Lee villain, doesn’t it?
The first thing the Living Pharaoh did was to connive to
bankrupt Richard Wentworth, forcing him on the run, penniless
and hunted by the law. That set-up was used many times in
various Marvel Comics. If it worked in the Thirties, it still worked
in the Sixties.
Recurring villains were a stable of The Spider. The first was the
Fly, who twice vexed Wentworth even though he was killed at the
climax of his debut story, Prince of the Red Looters.
That was another thing Page pioneered in his stories that later
became a comic-book staple: the ridiculous resurrection.
Ever since Batman co-creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger first
tried to kill off the Joker, were upbraided
by their editor, and forced to
bring him back to life, comic-book
creators understood that a great
villain was worth his weight in
gold. You can make it seem as if
he’s dead, but you always have to
bring him back. The same with
heroes.
In the Spider novel The Pain
Emperor, Wentworth’s trusted
assistant, Ronald Jackson,
sacrifices himself by donning
the robes of The Spider, and
confessing to his crimes before
getting blown away, getting
Richard Wentworth off the hook
for all time.
Readers must have howled
in anguish. A few months later,
Jackson shows up, pops a snappy
salute, and reports back to duty
 will murray’s 20th century panopticon

with a lame series of excuses

that he had been secretly
recuperating and didn’t want to
be a bother….
Overlooked was the fact that
Jackson was given a military
burial at Arlington National
Cemetery. He was deader than
dead.
In another novel, The
Spider’s loyal Great Dane, Apollo,
is poisoned. One of Page’s
understudies didn’t get to read
that issue, and Apollo was soon
back barking and guarding
Wentworth’s girlfriend, Nita Van
Sloan. Eventually they stopped
mentioning him, so it seems
Apollo really was dead, after all.
So how did the Fly come back
from the dead? He didn’t. An
upstart imposter took over his
identity. How many heroes and
villains has Marvel revived via a similar subterfuge? We can start What’s in a name? (LEFT) The Spider encountered the Crime
Master in the April 1935 edition of his mag. Cover by John Newton
with the Green Goblin….
Hewitt. (RIGHT) The Green Goblin cackles while Marvel’s Crime
Less easily explained was the fate of Munro, a quick-change Master (also Crime-Master) blasts the Wall-Crawler in Amazing
artist reminiscent of Spider-Man’s Chameleon. Literally beheaded Spider-Man #26 (July 1965). Cover by Ditko. The Spider © Argosy
at the end of his first skirmish with The Spider, he returned for Communications, Inc. Spider-Man and related characters © Marvel.
two additional outings. Well, the readers demanded it. The
editors reasoned that they would swallow any lame excuse. And
they did. Wentworth’s father had died heroically in a World War I battle
I should mention that among The Spider’s greatest foes was the son also fought in….
a fiend called the Bat-Man, who flew around on artificial wings Believe it or not, there is even a Spider analog to the famous
and controlled a cloud of vampire bats. Stan Lee wasn’t the only sequence in the Master Planner series in which Spider-Man was
Golden Age creator who read The Spider…. pinned under titanic machinery and had to muster all his strength
Just as Peter Parker’s super-hero career was launched by his to free himself in order to fight on.
uncle Ben’s murder, Wentworth was similarly inspired: Spider-Man fans still talk about that episode the way Spider
“It had been for Professor Brownlee’s sake that Wentworth readers cheered the climax of The Spider and the Slaves from Hell in
first had taken the law into his own hands and deliberately shot 1939. Picture this:
to death a man who was driving Brownlee to prison in disgrace… The police have clamped balls and chains on The Spider’s
[Brownlee was] the man whose misfortunes had first turned a ankles. This is supposed to prevent him from getting to the
younger and more buoyant Wentworth on the path that was to rooftop where the evil Butcher has planted a powerful bomb,
lead presently to the birth of The Spider. Since the day in college with Nita and Kirkpatrick trapped nearby.
when Wentworth had saved Brownlee from disgrace, the older Against all odds, The Spider crawls up the side of the building,
man had been his staunch ally, his unfailing friend, lending his dragging the dead weight of twin iron balls along with him,
expert chemical and mechanical knowledge to The Spider’s agonizingly but eventually reaching the top and defusing the
battles.” bomb, saving the building and his friends. This, after Wentworth
Three years in, Page killed off Ezra Brownlee. He stayed dead. had been shot by the police, suffered a concussion, attendant
Crossovers were not common in the pulp days. But in one amnesia, and a curative brain operation, forcing Nita Van Sloan to
issue of The Spider, his opposite, Jimmy Christopher, the star of take up his disguise and carry on in his place as––wait for it––the
Operator #5, cameoed. The Spider treated him with disdain, and Black Widow! At the end of all those intense heroics, The Spider
we never saw Christopher in the pages of The Spider magazine escapes the police dragnet, still a wanted criminal….
again. It was deliciously nutty stuff, and as daring for its time as
Absurd continuity errors were a specialty of Norvell Page. Spider-Man was a radical departure from the stuffy super-hero
In one story, he asserted that Wentworth’s father had been a comics of his era.
lawyer assassinated by vengeful criminals. In another, both We must be fair when we talk about these parallels. By that
parents perished in an Alpine skiing accident. In yet another, point in the series artist Steve Ditko was plotting the stories and
they died when their car plunged of f a bridge. All of which Stan Lee was merely dialoguing them. I once asked Ditko if he
contradicts what R.T.M. Scott established in the first novel. had read The Spider. He admitted to reading at least one of the
RetroFan August 2020 27
 will murray’s 20th century panopticon

paperback reprints.
And he remembered
The Spider serials
from the Thirties and
Forties. I didn’t ask him
if the celluloid Spider’s
webbed cloak and full
facemask had inspired
Spider-Man’s unique
costume in any way.
But it certainly seems
plausible that it could
have.
In the pulps, The
Spider wore various
masks and disguises,
often making up his
face to look sinister,
with a hooked nose
designed to mirror
that of The Shadow’s
trademark hawk-like
proboscis. But in the
Columbia serials, white
web-lines patterned the
full-face black mask and cloak. Masked and manhunted! (LEFT) There’s a price on the Master of Men’s head in The
Spider’s April 1942 issue. Cover by Rafael DeSoto. (RIGHT) Throughout much of the
I could go on and on. Although they Sixties, the cops—often fueled by J. Jonah Jameson’s anti-Spidey editorials—dogged the
belonged to dif ferent generations, The Web-Slinger. Cover to Amazing Spider-Man #70 (Mar. 1969) by John Romita, Sr. The Spider
Spider and Spider-Man were riveting © Argosy Communications, Inc. Spider-Man © Marvel.       
characters. They were also very dif ferent
from one another. Richard Wentworth
was a wealthy aristocratic fellow, driven, stubborn, and of ten like the Lone Ranger. If he had accidentally killed someone, Peter
arrogant––not your typical cool-tempered pulp hero. Parker would probably burn his Spider-Man costume and quit.
“There’s a madness that gets in me when The Spider walks….” That was one key difference between the two. But was also
he once confessed. reflective of what was acceptable during the Great Depression
And paranoid? At one time or another, Wentworth turned and what the Comics Code would permit in the Sixties.
against virtually all of his inner circle, accusing them of betrayal Speaking of quitting, both arachnid-ian heroes did so multiple
and vowing to punish them. times, yearning for a normal life. but never escaping their tragic-
“I’m suspicious of everyone,” he admitted, “even of myself heroic destinies.
sometimes.” When super-hero comic books surged in the late Thirties,
How’s that again? Spider magazine circulation suffered. Norvell Page and his editors
A psychologist might easily diagnose Richard Wentworth struggled to fight back. This was the era when The Spider battled
as an untreated manic-depressive verging upon paranoid cartoony criminals such as the Skull, the Fox, and the Snake, and a
schizophrenia, coupled with untreated delusions of grandeur, gang garbed in blue chainmail just like the original Blue Beetle, as
who was subject to violent mood swings. Climbing to unutterable well as the Faceless Cavalier, who looked exactly like Steve Ditko’s
heights of exultation in one chapter, he invariably crashed into the Question. Ditko was not too young to have been reading The
the blackest depths of despair in a later scene. When the Spider- Spider in the early Forties. Page and Ditko probably got the idea
madness seized him, Wentworth would take up his prized from Dick Tracy’s the Blank, who dated back to 1937.
Stradivarius violin and embark upon a night-long serenade But nothing could save The Spider magazine. It was cancelled
of soul-searching. Or, he might transform his handsome in 1943.
countenance into terrifying lines, don black floppy hat and ebon Here we come to an essential truth about creators who
cape, then go out Spidering…. produce series characters. They find their inspiration everywhere
By contrast, Peter Parker lived a life of comparative ease. His and anywhere. In doing so, they may borrow, they might steal, or
problems ranged from a guilt complex over responsibility for his simply be inspired in the same way.
uncle Ben’s death by neglect, to typical teenager issues, usually
money and romance. And fighting hordes of bad guys, of course. I make no accusations in this survey of my favorite arachnid
Without killing anyone. avengers. But they have fascinated me for years. Although these
The Spider had no compunctions about slaughtering are very, very different characters and personalities. Having read
criminals. He slew them by the score, making the Punisher seem most of The Spiders and collecting The Amazing Spider-Man during

28 RetroFan August 2020


his first decade, I must confess I love them equally. These days,
I find myself writing Richard Wentworth’s latest exploits in The
Wild Adventures of The Spider novels.
Stan Lee and I were not the only creators influenced by The
Spider. Some unlikely names were also enthralled.
John Stanley, who wrote and drew Little Lulu, produced
periodic episodes where Tubby Thompkins donned the black
cloak and hat of a sinister detective called “The Spider” to ineptly
solve neighborhood mysteries. Usually, these “crimes” were
the products of Tubby’s delusional imagination, with the chief
suspect typically Lulu’s oblivious father.
Fascination with the bloodthirsty Spider seems to have
gripped cartoonists who specialized in the antics of little kids.
Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts fame once confessed, “My
greatest reading during those days was the Sports pulps and The
Spider magazine. I could hardly stand to live from one month to
another when the new Spider novel would come out. As I look
back upon my days of reading The Spider, I imagine that it was the
action that impressed me. I still remember how he used to leap
into a room doing a somersault while his two heavy .45s jumped
into his hands. They were great stories.”
I concur. They were also deliciously nutty––operatic,
overwrought, and overblown. For Norvell Page attempted
something no one before Stan Lee and Steve Ditko dared. He
wrote super-hero novels where the cast were mature, realistic
human beings, and acted like it even when that month’s super-
villain was pulverizing Manhattan’s highest skyscrapers around
them.
will murray’s 20th century panopticon
In 1941, when The Spider was locked in a losing death struggle
with the upstart new super-heroes for reader’s dimes, one fan of
both wrote:
Dear Mr. Stockbridge:
It seems to me that you go to great length to devise logical
ways in which The Spider can extricate himself from the various
and dangerous difficulties in which you place him. Why not let
him be more of the miraculous, or super-man type?
I would like to have Dick Wentworth so strong he could
heave automobiles around, break gun barrels and tear down
buildings!
Yours for a Super-Spider! (Signed) Ben Rayburn
Harry Steeger considered publishing a Spider comic book
set in the year 2042, starring Wentworth’s descendant, lawman
Rick Worth. He decided against it. The Spider never graduated
to super-hero status. But a year after Norvell Page’s 1961 death,
Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gave the world the next best thing: the
Amazing Spider-Man.
WILL MURRAY is the writer of the Wild
Adventures (www.adventuresinbronze.com)
series of novels, which stars Doc Savage, The
Shadow, King Kong, The Spider, and Tarzan of
the Apes. He also created the Unbeatable
Squirrel Girl with legendary artist Steve
Ditko.
RetroFan August 2020 29
ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING
Saturday Morning
Preview Specials
Part Two: 1978–1983
by Andy Mangels
Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. Since
1989, I have been writing columns for magazines in the U.S. and
foreign countries, all examining the intersection of comic books
and Hollywood, whether animation or live-action. Andy Mangels
Backstage, Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ Hollywood
Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind the Camera… three decades of
reporting on animation and live-action—in addition to writing
many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and I’m
still enthusiastic. In my RetroFan column, I will examine shows
that thrilled us from yesteryear, exciting our imaginations and
capturing our memories. Grab some milk and cereal, sit cross-
legged leaning against the couch, and dig in to Retro Saturday
Morning!
Normally in this column, I have spotlighted one series or set of
series, giving you behind-the-scenes stories, cool factoids, and
interviews. Starting in my last column and concluding in the next,
I’ll instead be giving you the Retro Saturday Morning treatment of
one of the most anticipated shows every fall from 1968 forward…
the Saturday Morning Preview Special.
In the September 26, 2008 issue of TIME magazine, Family
Guy’s Seth MacFarlane gave his own thoughts on the phenomena:
Celeb sibs Jimmy and Kristy McNichol, plus some of kids’ favorite
stars of 1978, from an ad for that year’s ABC All-Star Saturday Preview
Special.
“I was obsessed. Every year, the Friday before the new Saturday-
morning shows would premiere, the networks would do this big
preview special, and I was always glued to the TV. As horrible as
they were, they were entertaining at the time. There was a lot of
showmanship from the networks based around the new lineup.”
The problem with nostalgia for the Preview Specials is that
they were only ever aired once. They were never rerun, never
of fered in syndication, and never released on home video, DVD,
or streaming. Because of the cross-platform licensing rights
for clips and music, they never can be legally released. Some
of them exist in parts and pieces on YouTube—a few of them
exist completely there—but by and large, this set of shows is a
missing part of television history. Very little has been written
about them, and even Wikipedia has many of its crowd-sourced
facts wrong.
Until now.
Now there’s RetroFan to the rescue. Utilizing this author’s
amazing resources, here is as much information and material
that could be dug up on the astonishing phenomenon of Saturday
Morning Preview Specials! Beware, though… proceeding without
caution can bring untold emotions, unfettered joy, and quite
possibly, madness!
RetroFan August 2020 31
 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
1978 ABC - Kristy and Jimmy
McNichol Present The ABC All-
Star Saturday Preview Special
Airdate: Friday, September 1, 1978, 8pm,
60 minutes
Songs: “Love Will Find a Way” (Donny
Osmond), “Here’s Some Love” (Donny
Most), “He’s So Fine” (Kristy McNichol),
“Girl You Really Got Me Goin’” (Jimmy
McNichol), “Boogie Oogie Oogie” and
“Last Dance” (Kristy and Jimmy McNichol)
Written by Franelle Silver, Steven Adams,
George Geiger, Lee Maddux, David Brown,
Bruce Kirschbaum, Scott McGibbon
Directed by Tim Kiley
Produced by the Osmond Brothers, Toby
Martin, Dennis Johnson, Bill McPhie
Not a lot is known about this special,
produced by the Osmonds, except that it was hosted by brother-
sister duo Kristy McNichol (an Emmy winner from Family)
32 RetroFan August 2020
and Jimmy McNichol, and it featured
appearances and performances by
Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, Donny
Osmond, Joey Travolta, Adam Rich (Eight
is Enough), Donny Most (Happy Days), and
Haywood Nelson and Danielle Spencer
(What’s Happening!!). Also appearing were
Benji and the Pink Panther.
Promoted on the show in clips were
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Fangface,
Challenge of the Super Friends, Scooby’s All-
Stars, All New Pink Panther Show, and ABC
Weekend Specials. Kids who didn’t want to
watch that could view a rerun of Wonder
Woman over on CBS instead. The special
was taped in mid-August in Orem, Utah,
at the Osmond Entertainment Center
production complex.
(ABOVE) Hosts Jimmy and Kristy McNichol. (INSET) Ad for the
special. © ABC.

1978 NBC - The Bay City Rollers Meet
the Saturday Superstars
Airdate: Friday, September 8, 1978, 8pm, 60 minutes
Songs: “Saturday Night,” “Money Honey” (Bay City Rollers),
“Rock and Roll Love Letter” medley (Bay City Rollers with Erik
Estrada, Scott Baio, Billy Barty, Sharon Baird), “And I Never
Dreamed” (Kaptain Kool and the Kongs)
Written by Mark Evanier, Lorne Froman, Rowby Goren
Directed by Jack Regas
Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, Bonny Dore, Craig Martin,
Albert J. Tenzer
A screaming horde of preteens greeted the limousine arrival of
Scottish pop-rock band Bay City Rollers (Stuart Wood, Derek
Longmuir, Alan Longmuir, Eric Faulkner, Leslie McKeown) as this
special started, and the quintet sang a song, then introduced
themselves and their special guests for the show: Erik Estrada
(CHiPs), Scott Baio (Who’s Watching The Kids?), and Joe Namath
(The Waverly Wonders)…
though the latter is at
first impersonated by
little person Billy Barty.
Baio tried to teach the
Rollers how to talk
to American women,
starting with a Cher
impersonator (Louise
DuArt), but struck out.
Good thing the Rollers
had another song up
their glitter sleeves.
Nashville (also
DuArt) and Turkey
(Mickey McMeel) from
Kroffts’ Kaptain Kool
and the Kongs popped
over to join the Rollers
to read the reviews on
the first half of their show, followed by a Kongs song. Next,
Joe Namath was a guest at Witchiepoo’s (Billy Hayes) Horror
Hotel—a segment with The Lost Island and the Bay City Rollers
as part of the new Krofft Superstar Hour—incurring the wrath
of Dracula (Jay Robinson). Other appearances at the hotel
included Hoo Doo (Paul Gale), Stupid Bat (Sharon Baird, voiced
by Lennie Weinrib), Dr. Blinky (Louise DuArt, voiced by Walker
Edmiston), Seymour Spider (Billy Barty, voiced by Walker
Edmiston), and other characters from various Krofft series.
Clips were shown from The Godzilla Power Hour (with Jana of the
Jungle) and The Fantastic Four (with H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot!).
A Fifties rock-and-roll medley followed with song and
dance from not only the Rollers, but also Estrada, Baio, and a
song and dance with Barty and fellow little performer Patty
Maloney, who often played Barty’s wife on other shows. As
with many Krofft specials, the musical finale was capped with
a stage-obscuring balloon drop.
One of the oddest things about this special when
compared with others of its kind is the amount of sex appeal
andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
the show was selling. Many of the males had bare chests or
revealing shirts and jackets, the female dancers wore tiny short
shorts, and there was much caressing between characters and
talk of getting “together with” female fans after the show… it may
have been appropriate for the swinging Seventies, but it seems
almost PG-13 rated for today’s television shows. Bernie Harrison,
a TV listings writer for the Washington Star, stated of the as-yet-
unaired special, “See mommy and daddy throw up.”
This was the first of five preview specials that would be
written or co-written by Mark Evanier, a comic-book scribe for
Walt Disney’s overseas publications and Gold Key Comics from
1972 to 1976. Beginning in 1974, Evanier would write for sitcoms
and variety shows, story editing on Welcome Back, Kotter, running
Hanna-Barbera’s comic-book line, and scripting animated fare
such as Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian,
and Garfield and Friends/The Garfield Show. Today, he still scripts
comics—notably Groo the Wanderer—and both live-action and
animated television series, as well as chairing half-a-bajillion
panels at Comic-Con
International each year.
Evanier notes that this
job came from his first job
with the Kroffts, writing
for the new Krofft Superstar
Hour. “At the end of the
season, the producers
called up and said, ‘Can
you do one more episode
for primetime?’ So we
did. We were supposed to
make 13 episodes and we
made 14. Everybody who
worked on the regular
show—they extended
everybody’s contract.” The
cast members seen in the
special were all regulars
on the series, which had
already finished taping its first season when this went into
production.
Regarding the Bay City Rollers, Evanier says, “The Bay City
Rollers were terrific guys who came over to do the Krofft Superstar
Hour after our first, second, and third choices couldn’t make a
deal. The first choice was ABBA, believe it or not. The Bay City
Rollers had technically disbanded by that time, so they reformed
it to do this show because as with the Marx Brothers and Chico,
they needed the money. They were in the process of going
through legal problems. They were great guys, but there were
legal problems and I tried to stay away from that.
“We got them on the downside. I think Alan had actually
left the group. He came back because we needed five. The guys
who had been in the group at the end of it could not be in it, so
he came back to his old position to play guitar. On the show, they
were lip-syncing to a record they had done and occasionally Alan
was lip-syncing to a song he had not done.”
(ABOVE) Title card featuring the Bay City Rollers. And their hair.
© Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.
RetroFan August 2020 33
 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

day—he was filming Waverly Wonders on the same lot—he did

not appear in the finale.
As for the sexual overtones in the special, Evanier jokes,
“That was because it was a Sid and Marty Kroff t production.
They were all full of sexual overtones! I’ll tell you, one of the
problems doing that show was, we had 15-year-old girls camped
out around that studio all during the taping and rehearsals.
When I lef t at night, they would be following me—hoping I’d
take them to where the Rollers were staying. This was during
the entire series, not just the special. They’d sneak onto the set
occasionally and get onto the lot. It was an omnipresent issue
for us. The whole show was taped at KTLA. We put up a sign
that said ‘NBC’ someplace. When we taped the Rollers arriving,
we actually had a problem getting them in. We put them in
a limo and the limo drove around the block to come into the
entrance again before we could tape them coming in and we
had problems with the girls mobbing the car and almost getting
run over. There was a problem with these girls trying to get near
them. It was like being in A Hard Day’s
Night, but with the Rollers.”

(ABOVE) The Bay City Rollers Meet the

Saturday Superstars ad. (LEFT) Patty
Maloney and Billy Barty rock out.
(BELOW) San Francisco artist Tom
Crabtree did this promotional art
Evanier recalls that the showcasing NBC’s 1978 line-up. © NBC.
problematic Scottish accents
were a challenge for production.
“We had enormous problems
with their accents and most of
them weren’t used to talking on
camera—they were musicians. We had to simplify the scripts
down. They worked with a dialogue coach named Jonathan Lucas,
who is a very famous behind-the-scenes emergency director, who
would come in and help people who had talent problems. Their
talking wasn’t very good. They were humble about it—almost
apologetic that they weren’t better talkers on camera. They were
great guys. I got along great with them, even if they didn’t get
along great with each other.”
Only a portion of the special was taped live, and Evanier
recalls that he “was on the set for the whole film taping. We did
only the Bay City Rollers in front of the audience. I did the warm-
up for the taping, welcoming people and talking to them.” The
music was all lip-synced. “They were miming to their records
and we did some music enhancement on them so they’d sound a
little different, but they were the same records. The conclusion—
which was the Fifties medley—was recorded new for that show.”
While Baio, Barty, and Maloney sang their own recordings for
the finale, Estrada’s voice was provided by a different singer. “We
taped the Fifties medley without an audience. As a matter of
fact, [comic-book scribes] Len Wein and Marv Wolfman were ‘the
audience,’ sitting with me at the time! [Evanier chuckles] One of the
dancers was my girlfriend, Bridget Holloman. That’s where we
met—doing that show.” As Joe Namath was only on set for one

34 RetroFan August 2020

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1979 ABC – Plastic Man and ABC Saturday shrinking super-hero Mighty Man and ugly dog Yukk, African-
Morning Sneak Peek American futuristic teen detectives in Rickety Rocket, and monster
Airdate: Sunday, September 2, 1979, 7pm, 30 minutes dogs Fangface and Fangpuss sharing the spotlight). Interstitials
Written by Mark Evanier announced for between shows included the returning Schoolhouse
Directed by Charles A. Nichols, Bob Bowker Rock and advice from Alex & Annie. New episodes of the ABC
Produced by Joe Ruby & Ken Spears, Jerry Eisenberg, Bob Bowker Weekend Specials (hosted by Young) were noted to include The
Incredible Detectives (incidentally, Mark Evanier’s first animation
“Out of the pages of DC Comics comes Plastic Man!” So began script ever), The Big Hex of Little Lulu, and The Girl with E.S.P., and
ABC’s 1979 preview, which was co-hosted by the animated American Bandstand’s 27th season was announced. Also hyped was
stretchable hero—watching a super-size TV with girlfriend Penny Young’s Sunday show, Kids Are People Too, with interviews with
and Hawaiian sidekick Hula Christopher Reeve, Henry
Hula—and live-action Kids Winkler, Dom DeLuise,
Are People Too entertainer Marvin Hamlisch, Susan
Michael Young. It remains Ford, Lenny and Squiggy, Erik
the only preview special to Estrada, and Cindy Williams.
include a fully animated ABC’s new Sunday night
episode of a TV series—in angel-meets-orphans show
this case, Plastic Man—which Out of the Blue was also given
was never rerun! a quick promo with Jimmy
Throughout the episode, Brogan making a cameo
the all-new Plastic Man appearance—showcasing an
episode, “Louse of Wax,” episode guest-starring Mork
was presented in long from Ork—and new Sunday
segments, in which the evil, series Animals, Animals,
candle-headed Wick (voiced Animals was plugged.
by Walker Edmiston) was Besides being the only
angry at Plastic Man for Plastic Man never re-aired—
stealing the spotlight from and Warner didn’t include it
Wick’s Wax Museum. on the 2009 The Plastic Man
Inside the museum were Comedy/Adventure Show:
various monsters, including The Complete Collection
Frankenstein’s monster, DVD set—“Louse of
Dracula, a Yeti, a pineapple Wax” contains two other
creature, and—seen from distinctions. First, Plas
behind in one shot— made a reference to both
Mickey Mouse in Fantasia’s Batman and the Super
sorcerer robes! Later that Friends, establishing
night, Plas was supposed himself firmly in the DC
to meet and entertain the Universe. Secondly, the
Maharajah of Rinjapur and opening sequence actually
get a priceless pearl, but included a very brief
Wick pitted him against the explanation of Plas’ origin,
watery Creature, a Viking, including an animated
a caveman, and a pirate, reproduction of the splash
and the hero was captured. image of Jack Cole’s art
Wick took Plas’ shape to from Police Comics #1 (Aug.
steal the Maharajah’s pearl, 1941), the first appearance of
and fooled Penny into Plastic Man! Although the
going with him aboard the Ad and title card for Plastic Man and ABC Saturday Morning Sneak Peek. Plastic Man cartoon series
PlastiJet. Luckily, Hula Hula would show a different
helped free Plas, and the day was saved. Too bad that due to the comic book in the opening scenes, the special featured its own
adventure, Penny and Hula Hula were the only ones that got to exclusive cover.
watch the TV previews, but the Chief gave Plas a quick taste of the The other oddity for the Ruby-Spears Production special
new fall line-up before the show closed. was that it was aired several weeks early—due to a cartoonists’
Between the adventures, Young introduced clips from strike scuttling premiere plans—as a supertext would spell out
Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Spider-Woman, The World’s Greatest every time Young would mention the new Saturday mornings:
Super Friends, and The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (with “New season starts 2 weeks from Saturday.” Due to this, a second

RetroFan August 2020 35

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

special—the one-hour The Plastic Man Preview Hour—

was run on Saturday, September 15, alongside The Best of
Super Friends!, a rerun of the Out of the Blue premiere, and
a Saturday version of Kids Are People Too. The official new
season began the following week, on September 22nd!
Writer Mark Evanier notes of the production and
scheduling of the special, “I have no idea why the Plastic
Man special aired the way it did. I know we put it together
in record time—it was one of the fastest cartoon shows
ever produced for television. I think from the time I wrote
the script to the time it aired was about six weeks. We
had finished production on Plastic Man for the time being.
I got called in and I was told, ‘We need to write another
episode of Plastic Man and you’re the fastest writer we’ve
got.’ I had a bunch of outlines that I had written for the
Plastic Man show and they hadn’t used them all. We
looked over the leftover outlines and Joe Ruby said, ‘I like
this one; let’s do this one.’ I described to Jerry Eisenberg,
one of the producers, what the villain would look like—
the guy with candle on his head. He designed the character to me to do them because I had a day to write this thing.” And
literally before I wrote the script. I went home and wrote the was Evanier responsible for the Mickey Mouse cameo? He claims
script in one or maybe two nights. They recorded it the next day. It he wasn’t responsible, and only learned of it when the show was
was the fastest show ever produced. We literally had no time and completed. “I didn’t see this thing until it aired on ABC the first
the animation was going on.” time.”
Unlike other specials, Evanier was not involved with anything Plastic Man and ABC Saturday Morning Sneak Peek is the only
past his animated segments; an uncredited writer wrote the live special for which I was able to find ratings. It was 62nd for the
sections with Young and Brogan. “I turned in my script and I was week it aired… dead last among the three networks’ offerings. As
done with it,” Evanier says. As for the comics-accurate opening, he Evanier wrote on his must-read website blog www.newsfromme.
notes, he rewrote the opening for the series—announced by Dick com, “Its Nielsen rating was close to a negative number and at the
Tufeld—because the series opening wasn’t completed yet! “I just time, I felt like the only human being on the planet who’d seen it.”
rewrote it for the special because the animation for the opening
of the show wasn’t done yet. Somebody else animated that [series (ABOVE) Plastic Man’s first comic-book page re-imagined for his
opening]. I just expanded it a little bit for no visible reason. The animated opening. Plastic Man © DC Comics.
reason we did a lot of things on this show was because it occurred

1979 NBC – A Gary Coleman Saturday Morning

Preview: The Thing Meets Casper and the Shmoo
Airdate: Friday, September 7, 1979, 8pm — CANCELLED

This special was scheduled to air on September 7th, but due

to a cartoonists’ strike that began on August 13th (regarding
studios sending work overseas), the networks delayed many
of their fall debuts. One casualty of the delay was this special,
which was to have had Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman co-
hosting with Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Introduced
on the show would have been Casper and the Angels, Fred and
Barney Meet the Thing (the weirdest Marvel series ever), Li’l
Abner spin-off The New Shmoo, and Filmation’s Flash Gordon.
From my research, this special may never have aired.

(CLOCKWISE, LEFT TO RIGHT) Casper the Friendly Ghost, the

Thing, the Shmoo, and Gary Coleman, from promotional materi-
als for NBC’s 1979 A Gary Coleman Saturday Morning Preview.
© NBC.

36 RetroFan August 2020

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

a scene for the audience. Winkler asked Welker to sing “Happy

Preview Party to You” as the voice of 15 ducks, including Donald
Duck, and Welker did so with aplomb. As Clark tried to next
introduce a clip from the new Mork & Mindy animated series, the
voice of Orson (Ralph James), ruler of Ork, interrupted.
Clark welcomed live-action costumed versions of Scooby-
Doo and Scrappy-Doo to the next sequence, showing a clip from
The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour. Clark next introduced
ventriloquist Willie Tyler and puppet Lester (hosts of ABC’s
Weekend Specials) to do a quick verbal rundown of the ABC fall
schedule (poor Aquaman got left out of the Super Friends plug).
Next up, Clark brought out a picnic basket full of live puppies to
introduce a clip from The Puppy’s New Adventures, then segued into
showing an entire 11-minute new animated adventure of The Little
Rascals.
After much teasing through the whole show, Clark finally
let loose with the long-awaited (by the rambunctious audience,
anyhow) Pac-Man clip. After that rolled, Dick Clark brought Marty
Ingels (the voice of Pac-Man) into the crowd to show them all
how to sound exactly like the little yellow chomper. As the show
wrapped, the voice of Orson reminded viewers to also watch
Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and an instrumental version of
Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” helped the crowd
dance through the end credits.

1982 ABC - Pac Preview Party

Airdate: Sunday, September 19, 1982, 7pm, 60 minutes
Songs: “Happy Preview Party to You” (Frank Welker), “ABC
Saturday Morning Fall Schedule” (Willie Tyler and Lester)
Written by Ken Shapiro
Directed by Barry Glazer
Produced by Larry Klein

The networks all took a break from preview specials from

1980–1981, then returned to the mix in 1982. The Pac Preview Party
was hosted by Dick Clark, who interacted with a child audience
that was far too hopped up on candy and punch. He first showed
the audience how storyboards for Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/
Fonz Hour were created, then introduced Henry “Fonzie” Winkler
(Happy Days) and Frank Welker (as sidekick Mr. Cool) to voice act

(ABOVE) Ad for ABC Pac Preview Party. (TOP RIGHT) Henry

Winkler and Frank Welker not only share the process of provid-
ing voices for cartoons but sneak in duck voices as well. (RIGHT)
Host Dick Clark interviews Scrappy-Doo as Scooby-Doo and an
unknown child look on. The unknown child has reportedly been
haunted by nightmares to this very day. © ABC.

RetroFan August 2020 37

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

1983 ABC - The ABC Saturday Preview Special Peabody in Rocky and His Friends (1959), Dynomutt (1978), and Dollar
Airdate: Tuesday, September 6, 1983, 30 minutes in Richie Rich (1980), all leading to The New Scooby & Scrappy-Doo
Song: “That Special Feeling” Show and Petey the Puppy in The Puppy’s Further Adventures.
Written by Mark Evanier Next up was a preview of The Littles and the animated The
Directed by Bob Bowker Little Rascals, as well as new seasons of Richie Rich and Pac-Man.
Produced by Bob Bowker A look back at Disneyland (1954) and Mickey Mouse Club (1955)
transitioned into a preview of The Monchhichis and retrospectives
This is the first and only preview special treated as an historical on Rocky and His Friends (1959), Beany and Cecil (1962), and Lunch with
retrospective, as host Dick Clark discussed and showed clips from Soupy Sales (1963). Clark next introduced T. K. Carter, who played
30 years of Saturday morning shows
on ABC. Presented in front of a live
audience, on a set festooned with
images from hundreds of ABC series
past and present, this special packed
a lot into its half-hour (including
the voice of Frank Welker as the
announcer).
Clark started with clips from
1951’s Sky King, then 1954’s Space
Patrol, 1961’s early kids’ game shows
On Your Mark, 1953’s live-from-
Chicago Super Circus, and Cartoonies
in 1963. Clark then introduced “Dr.”
Emmanuel Lewis (from Webster), an
expert in “Saturday A.M. Sciences,”
to explain how dogs played a major
role in Saturday mornings, including
Goober and the Ghost Chasers (1973),
Hong Kong Phooey (1974), Lassie’s Rescue
Rangers (1973), Mighty Man and Yukk
(1979), Mumbly in The Mumbly Cartoon
Show (1976), Marmaduke (1981), Mr.

38 RetroFan August 2020

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

“the world’s hippest genie Shabu” on the new primetime series any clips of Soupy Sales? So, we went out and I turned to Bob and
Just Our Luck. Carter discussed magician Mark Wilson, rocker Rick said, ‘We’ve gotta go back. I have a thought we have to try.’ He
Springfield on Mission: Magic! (1973), the heroes of Super Friends said, ‘That woman will take your head off.’ I said, ‘Nope, we gotta
(1973), Plastic Man (1979, using footage of the origin clip from the go back.’ We went back to her and I said, ‘Excuse me. I know you
1979 special), and the new series Rubik the Amazing Cube. don’t have any copies of the Soupy Sales show, but could you look
The next segment spotlighted Clark himself with American up and see if you have copies of Lunch with Soupy Sales?’ which was
Bandstand scenes from 1958, 1964, and 1983, followed by The the name the show had when it originally came out in Los Angeles
Osmonds (1972), Jackson 5ive (1971), The Beatles (1965), and the new on Saturdays. It was a Saturday hour show. She said, ‘Yes, we have
Menudo live-action series (the first kids’ series broadcast in both 105 hours of that.’”
English and Spanish). Next up were clips from The Jetsons (1962, Another clip they wanted was from The Osmonds. “We called
also ABC’s first color series), Jonny Quest (1964), and Top Cat (1961). the company that owned it and they said, ‘We don’t own it.’ We
Clark ended with a quick rundown of the entire new Saturday said, ‘Yes, you do.’ We had to convince them. We had the clip,
morning schedule before telling parents that, “If you clean your but didn’t have the clearance to run it. We got them to sign a
room up and remember to take the trash out, maybe your kids release that said, ‘We do not guarantee that we own it, but if
will let you watch, too.” we do, you have permission to use it.’ We ran it and nobody ever
Prepping to write his third special, Mark Evanier recalls complained!”
going to the studio where they taped
American Bandstand at ABC, with
director Bob Bowker, to pitch Dick
Clark on the project. Evanier had
worked with Clark previously on
several variety specials. “We literally
walked over to a taping of American
Bandstand one day and took Dick Clark
aside to go over a script with him on
a break. He said, ‘I know you guys.
I’ve worked with you. I’ll do whatever
you say.’ And that was it! That was the
meeting. Dick was absolutely a pro like
you wouldn’t believe. We needed him
on the set at 12 noon, and he walked
in at one minute to 12 and we rolled
tape and we did the whole segment in
five minutes. He was so good and we
taped a lot of stuff without a studio
audience, then brought in a studio
audience that was mostly kids, and
then I brought in Frank Welker to
be the announcer and to warm up
the audience and be the host. When
you have a live audience, you need
somebody to take care of them. Frank did Evanier had a very personal element in the show; he
voices for the kids and told stories. He was drew the art for Emmanuel Lewis’ chalkboard dissertation
just great. We had a terrible downtime— on cartoon dogs. “He’s standing in front of a blackboard
we suddenly had to pad 45 minutes for a that has a drawing of Scooby-Doo on it. I did the drawing.
technical glitch. He spent 45 minutes with I decorated the blackboard. You also see my arm in the
the audience, just to keep the audience show because we went to the L.A. Zoo and interviewed
there and fine.” some people, asking what they favorite kids’ shows were,
Part of Evanier’s responsibilities were and that’s my arm holding the microphone.”
finding clips that were “cleared” to air for
the special, and that meant everyone who appeared or had a
voice on the clip had to agree. One problem was the Soupy Sales (OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP) Ad for the ABC Satur-
clip. He went to the ABC film vault “and asked for a Soupy Sales day Preview Special. (OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM)
clip. The lady got angry. She said, ‘We don’t have any clips of Soupy Show host Dick Clark. (ABOVE) Emmanuel Lewis talks
about cartoon dogs with an uncredited artistic assist from
Sales here. Why do you people keep bothering me? Every day, the show’s writer Mark Evanier. (INSET) Mark Evanier in
people call and ask for a Soupy Sales clip, and we don’t have any.’ July 1982 in a photo by Alan Light. © ABC.
She was impatient with us. How were we to know she didn’t have

RetroFan August 2020 39

 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

“release” in the next season

on Happy Days), leading into
clips from The Charlie Brown
and Snoopy Show and The CBS
Film Festival’s “Benji, Zax &
The Alien Prince.” Hogg and
Coltrane mistook musical
group names ELO and Asia
for a plot to overthrow the
government and tried to arrest
everyone, but Baio smoothed
it all out by sharing clips from
Dungeons & Dragons and The
Biskitts. Next time you’re
pulled over, try that one on an
officer…
1983 CBS – The CBS Saturday Morning Preview To wrap up this
Special moonshine-inspired show,
Airdate: Wednesday, September 14, 1983, 8pm, 30 minutes Coltrane was so tickled by
Song: “Some Girls” (Scott Baio) his animated appearance in
Written by Richard Laurens a preview of The Dukes that
Directed by Art Fisher he took to disco dancing, and
Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, Michael Stokes mercifully, the credits quickly
rolled. Nowhere in the show
Country met disco in this bizarre special. Boss Hogg (Sorrell were either returning hit The
Booke) and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) from The Dukes Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show
of Hazzard travelled to the city—still somehow a part of Hazzard
County—to spy on Scott’s Place, a happening discothèque. Hogg
wanted 50% of the profits, while Baio just wanted to show his
adult disco dancer previews of Saturday morning shows. A sole
cowboy-esque Krofft puppet (oddly listed as “Puppets” plural in
the credits) popped up to comment on the action.
Previewed first was Saturday Supercade (Donkey Kong, Donkey
Kong Jr., Pitfall, Frogger, and Q-Bert), while Coltrane interviewed a
“Valley Girl” about modern music (“And U2, why they’re like far
out to the max, you know?”). Scott Baio took to the stage to sing
the inappropriate-for-children song “Some Girls” (a song he would

or The New Fat Albert mentioned. If my

synopsis wasn’t clear enough about the
nonsensical mess this special was, let me
just say that at one point, Coltrane puts
a red panty/thong on his head to dance,
and at another, Hogg said the clips made
him “swimmy-headed.” I think anyone
who watched this—sans liquor or drugs—
probably got swimmy-headed as well.

(ABOVE LEFT) Title card to the

CBS Saturday Morning Preview Special.
(ABOVE RIGHT) Ad featuring Snoopy,
Scott Baio, and others. (ABOVE) A thong
and song, with Sheriff Coltrane. (LEFT)
The cast gathers. © CBS.

40 RetroFan August 2020


1983 NBC – The 1st Annual NBC Yummy Awards
Airdate: Friday, September 16, 1983, 8pm, 60 minutes
Songs: “Everyone’s a Winner” (Lee Curreri), “My Buddy and I” (Fred
and Barney), “I Go to Rio/Copacabana Medley” (The Chipmunks)
Written by Rod Warren, Elizabeth Medway, George Beckerman,
Ernest Chambers
Directed by Jeff Margolis
Produced by Ernest Chambers, Jeff Margolis, Joe Vinson
Unknown children arrived by limousine to walk the red carpet
at NBC’s 1st Annual Yummy Awards show. Dwight Schultz (The
A-Team) was on the microphone outside with the cheering child
throng, but he’s ignored by live-action costumed versions of Fred
[Flintstone] and Barney [Rubble], Hulk, Spider-Man, and others.
Inside, the faux awards show is about to start, with a golden
ice cream cone as the coveted trophy. An announcer read off
an endless list of guests and presenters before introducing the
master of ceremonies, Ricky Schroder (Silver Spoons) to the live
crowd.
The award show format was the idea of producer Ernest
Chambers, who promised to the S.F. Sunday Examiner that only
andy mangels’ retro saturday morning
about six minutes of the hour-long show would be clips, unlike
other previews. “We have an opening number, just like other
award shows. In this, we kinda duplicate that old Gene Kelly
movie (Invitation to the Dance, 1957), mixing live and animation
with Lee Curreri with the animated Smurfs.”
Indeed, Fame’s Lee Curreri kicked things off with a song
about Saturday shows while animated Smurfs danced on his
piano, followed by Kari Michaelsen (Gimme a Break) and Gumby
presenting the award for “The Best Comedy Show Starring Three
Singing Animal Brothers” to Alvin, Simon, and Theodore of Alvin
and the Chipmunks. Next, Tina Yothers (Family Ties) and Bozo the
Clown presented the award for “The Show With A Star Whose
Name Is The Easiest To Spell” to Mr. T (the star appeared by video).
Next up was ventriloquist Paul Winchell and dummy
Jerry Mahoney to give the award for “The Best Comedy Show
With Stone-Age Stars Who Have Rocks In Their Heads” to
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble of The Flintstones, who then
performed a song and dance. Following was Kookla, Fran, and
Ollie, who got the Life Achievement Award. Kim Fields (Facts of
(ABOVE) Hosts Dwight Schultz and Ricky Schroder. © NBC.
RetroFan August 2020 41
 andy mangels’ retro saturday morning

(ABOVE LEFT) Spider-Man accepts his Yummy Award, flanked by

his amazing friends Iceman and Firestar. (TOP RIGHT) Award-win-
ning Hulk. (RIGHT) Ad for the 1st Annual NBC Yummy Awards. © NBC.

Life) next introduced a clip from The Smurfs, then gave Papa Smurf
the award for “The Best Show Starring Little Blue Persons Three
Apples Tall.”
Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney guided viewers on a short
retrospective of clips from kids’ shows through history, including
The Howdy Doody Show, Mickey Mouse Club, Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons,
Tom & Jerry, Sky King, Zorro, Juvenile Jury (with an appearance by
toddler Bernadette Peters, later a Broadway star), Gumby, and
others. Afterwards, Foobie the Robot and Glenn Scarpelli (Jennifer
Slept Here) gave the award for “Best Series About A Barbarian And
An Evil Wizard” to the cast of Thundarr the Barbarian (Thundarr,
Princess Ariel, and Ookla the Mok appeared live).
Speaking of live heroes, Justine Bateman (Family Ties)
and Pinky Lee then presented an award for “Outstanding
Achievement By A Super-Hero Who Derived His Power From
The Insect World” to a live-action Spider-Man and his amazing
friends, Iceman and Firestar! Presenting next were Mindy Cohn
(Facts of Life) and Lassie to give “Outstanding Achievement In A
Show Starring Six Funny, Furry Friends” to the stars of Shirt Tales,
then the Chipmunks took to the stage for an incomprehensible
tropical medley.
Dwight Schultz and Schroder gave out the final award for
“Best Adventures Series With A Mean Green Super-Hero” to the
Hulk, who smashed out part of the set to get his award. And with
that, the first—and only—Yummy Awards wrapped.

Next issue we’ll conclude our look at Saturday
Morning Preview Specials, including appearances
from “Weird Al” Yankovic, C-3PO and R2-D2, Pee-wee
Herman, the Smurfs, Joyce DeWitt, Ted Knight, Bugs
Bunny, Richard Pryor, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, and Hervé
Villechaize!
The quotes from the fantastic Mark Evanier are from a March
2020 interview, with transcription by Rose Rummel-Eury.
Many thanks also to the wonderful Gary Browning at LA’s Paley
Center for research help! Artwork and photos are courtesy the
collection of Andy Mangels.
ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling
author and co-author of 20 books, including the
TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the
Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and
Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor,
and a lot of comic books. He recently wrote the
Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman
series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and is currently working on a book
about the stage productions of Stephen King and a series of graphic
novels for Junior High audiences. Additionally, he has scripted, directed,
and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD
releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and
www.WonderWomanMuseum.com

42 RetroFan August 2020

 BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

ER
EISN RD
AWAINEE!
NO M

MONSTER MASH GROOVY MIKE GRELL HERO-A-GO-GO!

MARK VOGER’s time-trip back to 1957-1972, to
explore the CREEPY, KOOKY MONSTER CRAZE,
when monsters stomped into America’s mainstream!
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95
(Digital Edition) $11.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-064-9
A psychedelic look at when Flower Power bloomed
in Pop Culture. Revisits ‘60s era’s ROCK FESTIVALS,
TV, MOVIES, ART, COMICS & CARTOONS!
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95
(Digital Edition) $13.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9
LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER
Career-spanning tribute to a comics art legend!
(160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $27.95
ISBN: 978-1-60549-088-5
(176-page LTD. ED. HARDCOVER) $37.95
ISBN: 978-1-60549-087-8
(Digital Edition) $12.99
MICHAEL EURY looks at comics’ CAMP AGE, when
spies liked their wars cold and their women warm,
and TV’s Batman shook a mean cape!
(272-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $36.95
(Digital Edition) $13.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1

KIRBY & LEE: IT CREPT

STUF’ SAID FROM THE TOMB
EXPANDED SECOND EDITION—16 Digs up the best of FROM THE
EXTRA PAGES! Looks back at the TOMB (the UK’s preeminent horror
creators of the Marvel Universe’s comics history magazine): Atomic
own words, in chronological order, comics lost to the Cold War, censored
from fanzine, magazine, radio, and British horror comics, the early art of
television interviews, to paint a pic- RICHARD CORBEN, Good Girls of a
ture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON
complicated relationship! Includes HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH,
BRUCE JONES’ ALIEN WORLDS,
recollections from STEVE DITKO,
HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL,
ROY THOMAS, WALLACE WOOD, and more!
JOHN ROMITA SR., and other
Marvel Bullpenners! (192-page trade paperback) $29.95
(Digital Edition) $10.99
(176-page FULL-COLOR trade ER
EISN RD ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6
paperback) $26.95 AWAINEE!
ED NOM
AND
EXP COND
(Digital Edition) $12.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6
LOU SCHEIMER
SE ION!
ED IT
JACK KIRBY’S CREATING THE
THE MLJ FILMATION
DINGBAT LOVE GENERATION
COMPANION The final complete, unpublished Jack
Kirby stories in existence, presented
Biography of the co-founder of
Documents the complete history Filmation Studios, which for over 25
of ARCHIE COMICS’ super-heroes here for the first time, in cooperation
years brought the Archies, Shazam,
known as the “Mighty Crusaders”, with DC Comics! Two unused 1970s
Isis, He-Man, and others to TV
with in-depth examinations of each DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales,
and film!
era of the characters’ history: The plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE and SOUL
GOLDEN AGE (beginning with the LOVE magazines! (288-page paperback with
Shield, the first patriotic super-hero), COLOR) $29.95
(176-page FULL-COLOR
the SILVER AGE (spotlighting the (Digital Edition) $14.99
HARDCOVER) $43.95
campy Mighty Comics issues, and The ISBN: 978-1-60549-044-1
(Digital Edition) $14.99
Fly and Jaguar), the BRONZE AGE ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5
(the Red Circle line, and the !mpact
imprint published by DC Comics), up
AND THESE
to the MODERN AGE, with its Dark AMERICAN MAGAZINES
Circle imprint!
COMIC BOOK ABOUT COMICS &
(288-page FULL-COLOR trade
paperback) $34.95 CHRONICLES: POP CULTURE:
(Digital Edition) $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0
8 Volumes Covering
The 1940s-1990s
COMIC BOOK
IMPLOSION
In 1978, DC Comics implemented its FOCUSING
ON GOLDEN &  
“DC Explosion” with many creative SILVER AGE COMICS
new titles, but just weeks after its
launch, they pulled the plug, leaving COMICS OF THE 1970s, ’80s and TODAY!
stacks of completed comic book OR
-COL
stories unpublished. This book marks FULLDCOVER THE NEW VOICE OF THE COMICS MEDIUM
the 40th Anniversary of “The DC HAR RIES
SE nting
TM

Implosion”, one of the most notorious me f

docu ecade o
events in comics, with an exhaustive d y!
e h s histor
ac
oral history from the creators involved com ic
(JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN
WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others), plus C o l l e c t o r
detailed analysis of how it changed CELEBRATING
THE LIFE & CAREER OF THE “KING” OF COMICS
the landscape of comics forever! THE CRAZY COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH

TwoMorrows.
(136-page trade paperback with
COLOR) $21.95
(Digital Edition) $10.99 Phone: 919-449-0344
ER
EISN RD ISBN: 978-1-60549-085-4 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com
AWAINEE!
NOM
Web: www.twomorrows.com

The Future of Pop History.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
 Too
Much
TV
If your old man used to gripe that you’d never learn anything with your nose glued to the
boob tube, here’s your chance to prove him wrong. (Father doesn’t always know best.)
Each of the TV spin-offs in Column One corresponds to a parent series in Column Two.
Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

COLUMN ONE

1) Fish
2) Mork & Mindy
3) Honey West
4) The Andy Griffith Show
5) The Ropers
6) Enos
7) The Jeffersons
8) Green Acres
9) The Misadventures of
Sheriff Lobo
10) Richie Brockelman,
Private Eye

44 RetroFan August 2020

 RetroFan Ratings

Nanu 10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan

Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know
theme song lyrics too!

Nanu! 7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan

Dy-no-mite! You wasted your
childhood with the rest of us!

4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned

RetroFan
Up your nose with a rubber hose ’til you
spend more tube time!

0–3 correct: Tuned-Out RetroFan

Ya big dummy! Put down that book and
go watch some classic TV!

COLUMN TWO

A) The Danny Thomas Show

B) B.J. and the Bear
C) Happy Days
D) Petticoat Junction
E) All in the Family
F) Three’s Company
G) Barney Miller
H) The Rockford Files
I) Burke’s Law
J) The Dukes of Hazzard
The Andy Griffith Show © Mayberry Enterpris-
es. Enos © Warner Bros. Television. Fish and
The Jeffersons © Columbia Pictures Television.
Green Acres © Filmways Television. Honey West
© Gloria Fickling. Mork & Mindy © Parmount
Television. Richie Brockelman and Sheriff Lobo
ANSWERS: 1–G, 2–C, 3–I, 4–A, 5–F, 6–J, 7–E, 8–D, 9–B, 10–H © Universal Television. The Ropers © The NRW
Company. All rights reserved.

RetroFan August 2020 45

 Fake Jan by Michael Eury

H. R. Pufnstuf is considered by many to

be the trippiest TV show from kid-vid

Gets Real
producers Sid and Marty Krofft.
You sure about that? Have you seen
the Kroffts’ singing and dancing Bradys?
Sure, the musical Brady Kids kept on
movin’ through their share of sunshine
days during The Brady Bunch’s original
run, and oldest bro Greg even went out

An Interview with on his own as Johnny Bravo. The Brady

parents didn’t shun the spotlight, either,
from mom Carol’s miraculous Christmas

The Brady Bunch morning solo to dad Mike’s turn (in green
leotards) as Prince Charming in a backyard

Variety Hour’s
production of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs.
But the Kroffts’ The Brady Bunch

Geri Reischl Hour—also known as The Brady Bunch

Variety Hour—defied categorization
during its nine-episode run that began
on November 28, 1976. Those hoping to
see more sitcom antics from America’s
grooviest family instead got a lot of stage-
show slapstick… and songs… and dance
numbers… and sparkling bellbottoms.
Plus the shakin’, quakin’ Krofftettes!
The show’s set-up was, the Bradys were
chosen to star in their own variety show,
prompting architect Mike Brady to spend
more time with open-collared ruffled
shirts and choreographed vocalizations
than his T-square and blueprints. Gone
was the split-level Brady home (recently
the star of HGTV’s A Very Brady Renovation),
replaced by new beachfront digs.
Also gone was Eve Plumb as Jan Brady,
and that’s where our story begins…
Enter Geri Reischl, now branded by
many—especially herself—as “Fake
Jan.” A veteran of numerous television
commercials, Geri fit the part: lovely,
with hair of gold (like her mother). Like
previous TV cast changes (Darrin Stevens
and Chris Partridge, anyone?), the new
Jan replaced the old, and sure, diehard
fans noticed. But they also noticed that…
this girl could sing! Those who might
have wanted to reject Geri as Fake Jan
couldn’t help but be enticed by her
fantastic voice. And it’s no wonder—she’s
been singing since childhood, and over
the years has performed on stage and
screen with everyone from Red Skelton
Brady Bunch Variety Hour promotional still, signed by Geri Reischl to RetroFan’s
super-groovy editor, Michael Eury. Courtesy of Geri Reischl. © Paramount Television/Sid and to Sammy Davis, Jr., from Marty Robbins
Marty Krofft Productions. to Donny and Marie. As a young actress,

46 RetroFan August 2020

she made guest appearances on TV series
including Gunsmoke and The Bold Ones,
and was featured in the horror movies The
Brotherhood of Satan (1971) and I Dismember
Mama (1972). She’s also known for two
Hollywood near-misses: Geri was one of
the final contenders for what became
Linda Blair’s head-spinning role in The
Exorcist, and was cast as Blair in the pilot
for the Diff’rent Strokes spin-off Garrett’s
Girls (soon retitled The Facts of Life) but had
to forfeit that role for contractual reasons.
But it’s the offbeat sitcom-variety
show mash-up The Brady Bunch Hour for
which she’s most adored by fans. I had
the pleasure meeting Geri Reischl at the
Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in
Hunt Valley, Maryland, in mid-September
2019, when we recorded the interview that
follows, and was instantly enchanted by
just how darn friendly she is. Fake Jan is a
real delight… one groovy chick!
RetroFan: So, Geri, how old were you
when started acting?
Geri Reischl: I was six years old.
RF: …and singing?
GR: I started singing around the same
time. My mother noticed I loved to sing,
because I would stand up in the booths at
restaurants and start singing to everybody
when I was two years old. So, I started my
whole career when I was six.
RF: You were in a lot of commercials as a
kid…
GR: Yes, I did over 40. I did everything
imaginable, from clothes to food to toys,
Geri Reischl as “Fake Jan.” Courtesy of Geri Reischl.
© Paramount Television/Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.
just about everything, but I was mainly
known for my commercials for Mattel
Toys. I would say I was their Mattel Toy girl.
RF: What were some of the products you
promoted?
GR: For them, I did Barbie, I did Skediddle
Kiddles, I did all kinds of their baby dolls.
The very last commercial I did for then was
called Rock Flowers. I was 12 and they said
I was getting a little bit too old for the toys,
so they gave me a going-away commercial,
and one of the dolls was Heather. They
made her in my likeness. If you see her—
my hair was extremely long then—you’ll
see the long, blonde hair on the doll. And
there were three different dolls. One
Mattel’s Heather, of its Rock Flowers doll
line, was patterned after Geri Reischl.
(INSET) Geri capped off her childhood
career as the “Mattel toy girl” with
this 1971 commercial for Rock
Flowers. Each figure in this
line of 6.5-inch bendable dolls,
competitors to Topper Toys’
Dawn dolls, included a 45rpm
single with music by the Rock
Flowers, a girl band created
by Partridge Family music
producer Wes Farrell. © Mattel.
had kind of auburn hair, one was African
American, so they made Heather look like
me.
The other ones people remember, I
was in commercials for Crispy Wheats ’n
Raisins cereal. I did those for three or four
years. We had different characters from
the Wizard of Oz in our commercials. I was
Dorothy for all of those. We had the Good
Witch and the Bad Witch, we had the
Munchkins, and we had the Tin Man and
the Scarecrow. We had everybody there.
RF: Did you work doing commercials with
other actors and actresses that people
would know outside of their commercials?
GR: Um… I can’t really remember, but I
do know we would always be up for the
same commercials. Pamelyn Ferdin, Kathy
Richards, who is now Kathy Hilton. I did go
out with a lot of them. I don’t remember
doing a lot of them with anyone who went
on to do things other than commercials.
RF: Let’s talk about Jan Brady. Given
the era of RetroFan magazine, many of
our readers are Brady-o-philes. As we
discussed in a preliminary talk, you wear
the moniker “Fake Jan” as a badge of
honor, which you should.
GR: Yes.
RF: Tell me how you got that role on the
Brady Bunch variety show, and why wasn’t
Eve Plumb returning as Jan?
RetroFan August 2020 47
 RETRO INTERVIEW: GERI REISCHL
Lee, Farrah, Bradys, and more were
promised in this TV Guide ad touting
the new Brady Bunch Variety Hour. The
Brady Bundy Hour © Paramount Television/
Sid and Marty Krofft Productions. TV Guide
© CBS Interactive Inc.
GR: Okay, my mother got a call one day
and my agent called and said they are
“needing a girl to replace the middle child
of the Brady Bunch, and I’d like Geri to go
in and audition for that.” It was going to
be a variety hour with a lot of singing and
dancing, and that was right up my alley
because I loved singing and dancing. So
I went on these interviews with Sid and
Marty Krofft, and they happened to like
me. Every time I went on an interview, I’d
have to sing and dance… cry… They gave
me a script to read where I was doing a
scene with Bobby Brady. There were only
three interviews. They were interviewing
kids from the east coast to the west coast
and I would say there were close to 5,000
girls that were interviewed. I happened
to have the look and the musical ability
and that fit in very nicely for this show… I
had the long, blonde hair. After the first
interview, I remember my mom telling
me that Marty [Krofft] went up to her
and said, “We’re very interested in your
48 RetroFan August 2020
daughter—she seems to have exactly
what we want.”
RF: And you were how old?
GR: I was 16. My mom was very happy
with that. I will say there were three girls
[in the running for Jan], the top three,
and I was one. I don’t remember one
of them, but the other one was Kathy
Hilton—Kathy Richards at that time.
So, I was the one chosen for the
role. I was at school and my mom
called my counselor and said, “Please
let Geri know she got this role and
you need to get her classroom stuff
ready so she can do that on the set.”
So, my counselor calls me in and I
thought, “What did I do? I’m on the
honor roll in school—I don’t get in
trouble.” He called me in and told me
what happened. I jumped up so high I
thought my head was going to hit the
ceiling. I was so happy I was going to
get to do that.
I have to say, I didn’t really watch
The Brady Bunch growing up because I
was doing quite a bit of work myself with
movies, guest appearances on television
series, commercials, my band—I had a
band. I was quite busy and didn’t watch
a lot of television. But I was thrilled. I
knew about The Brady Bunch—who didn’t
know about The Brady Bunch at that time?!
I thought it was a really cool show. I
didn’t watch it regularly, but flicking the
channel or seeing it in magazines. So, I
went there. Was I nervous? No, because
I’m not a nervous type of person. They all
introduced themselves and I met them
and they seemed to really like me. Oh!
I had worked with Susan [Olsen, a.k.a.
Cindy Brady] on a Mattel Toy commercial
when I was very young, so we had worked
together. We clicked right away, Susan and
I. We all clicked. They were all very nice to
me.
Barry Williams [Greg Brady] had nice
things to say and everyone else did, so it
made me feel very at ease. Robert Reed
[Mike Brady] welcomed me to the family
and said that it felt like I’d always been a
part of it, so that made me feel really good.
Susan, Mike [Lookinland, a.k.a. Bobby
Brady], and I, we would always hang out,
or Mike and I would cruise around in his
new Toyota Corolla after work. Susan and I
ditched school for a while, but our teacher
found us. We were hanging out with Chevy
Chase and Paul Schaffer in their office,
singing and goofing off. We’d watch our
teacher in the parking lot looking for us and
when our moms found out, we did kind of
get in trouble. So we had to stop ditching
our three hours of schooling on set.
RF: It’s hard enough being 16 and going
to school, but when you add to that work
FAST FACTS
The Brady Bunch
` No. of seasons: Five
` No. of episodes: 117
` Original run: September 26,
1969–March 8, 1974
` Cast: Robert Reed, Florence
Henderson, Ann B. Davis,
Barry Williams, Christopher
Knight, Mike Lookinland,
Maureen McCormick, Eve
Plumb, Susan Olsen
` Network: ABC
Spin-offs
` The Brady Kids (animated
series, 1972–1973, 22 episodes)
` Kelly’s Kids (Season Five Brady
Bunch episode starring Ken
Berry, failed pilot for spin-off
series)
` The Brady Bunch Hour (a.k.a.
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour)
(variety, 1976–1977, 9 episodes)
` The Brady Girls Get Married
a.k.a. The Brady Brides
(reunion series, 1981, 10
episodes)
` (1981)
` A Very Brady Christmas (TV
movie, 1988)
` The Bradys (drama, 1990, 6
episodes)
` The Real, Live Brady Bunch (off-
Broadway show, 1991)
` The Brady Bunch Movie (movie,
1995)
` A Very Brady Sequel (movie,
1996)
` The Brady Bunch in the White
House (made-for-TV movie,
2002)
` A Very Brady Renovation
(reality show, 2019)
` Building Brady (digital-only
companion series to A Very
Brady Renovation, 2019)

Brady Night Fever! The singing cast (sans Ann B. Davis
as Alice) of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Those groovy
Brady men were rocking these funky fashions a year
before John Travolta boogied down in Saturday Night
Fever. © Paramount Television/Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.
on a television series, it must’ve been
difficult.
GR: For me, I was used to it because
for any job I had, I had to have school,
unless I was filming in the summertime.
One of my movies filmed totally in
the summertime, so I just had a social
worker with me; I did not have to do any
schooling, but I was always used to it.
Even if I filmed a one-hour commercial,
I still had to have three hours of school. I
was quite used to it. I got all my subjects
and everything I needed to do from the
teachers. My mom would turn it in for
me. Don’t ever take ceramics when you’re
shooting on a show, because it was really
tough. My mom had to go get the clay
and all kinds of other stuf f. Luckily there
was a sink and water in the room we were
having our schooling in. So, my mom
really helped me out with that.
RF: Your mom passed away recently.
GR: Two months ago.
RF: I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been there.
GR: It’s terrible. She was 95. I don’t care
how old they are, it’s horrible.
RF: Good luck with the holidays. The first
year is really tough.
GR: Oh, my, I know. I keep thinking, “Oh,
I’ve got to call my mom. Oh, I can’t do
that…”
My mom, even at 95, lived on her own
in that house and was still 100% with her
mentality. I thought I knew everything
about my mom until the last few days
together, but I learned a whole lot more
before she passed away and I have all
that right here [pointing to her heart]. She
told me one last thing before she passed.
She said, “Geri, the proudest and most
happiest moment I ever had in my life
was the day I adopted you.” It’s in my
heart forever, so rather than a tear, that
brings me such happiness to know that
I was the happiest thing ever—I know
she loved my daddy—but the proudest
moment was when she adopted me. She
took me home at three days old. She told
me when I was four or five years old… the
biggest gif t ever she could ever given to
me. When I was four or five years old, she
wanted me to know I was adopted. She
didn’t want me at 15, 16 years old to find
out and think there was something wrong
with being adopted. Every time she
RETRO INTERVIEW: GERI REISCHL
brought it up—I never ever thought I was
adopted—every time she brought it up, I
would say, “Mom, you’re just saying that
so I’ll feel extra special.” I had the best
parents and upbringing. My mother was
very strict and I’d think, “Wow, she’s very
strict.” I think back and your parents kind
of mold you—you can do your own things
too, but I had a good family base. She
instilled good things in me and I worked
with them and am still working through
them. I miss her so much.
RF: Did she help you with your schooling
when you were playing Jan Brady?
GR: What she did was build my art project
for me. She built me a really nice candy
dish out of the clay and even sculpted a
really nice bird on the top as a handle to
take the lid off. My teacher had to know I
didn’t do it because I was terrible in art! I
got an A on it, though, and my mother did
it for me!
It was great working on the set. We
had famous guest stars every week and
they were wonderful, as well. I had the
best time doing it. It was like going to
Disneyland every day! I never thought of it
as work.
RetroFan August 2020 49
 RETRO INTERVIEW: GERI REISCHL

you okay?” I said, “I’m fine, I’m fine, but can you help me up?” And
everybody started laughing once they knew I was okay. I had a
great time with that episode because I got to use Milton Berle’s
huge powder puff to hit Chris Knight—Peter Brady—with, and
all the powder goes all over the place. One time, I hit him so hard
I almost knocked him down, not realizing my strength. He just
goes, “Whoa!”
I have so many stories about all the fun we had. Working with
a bunch of kids, we’d just goof off and we wouldn’t hear a cue or
they’d want to change something here or there.
So, one time we were doing the song [singing], “One, singular
Guitar-strumming Geri, sensation!” We had sequins on dresses and brown derby hats. My
as seen in a Seventies
mom and Susan’s mom said, “I just know Geri’s not going to do
teen magazine.
that; she’s not listening and she’ll do it wrong.” We were supposed
to go “Boom,” with my hat up and I did it at the wrong time.
They just left in all our bloopers. After the first show, if you
watch it, you see all the bloopers. Barry Williams roller skating
at a Roller Rama Rink and he falls and they just left it in and I’m
saying, [in Jan Brady voice] “Oh, I could just D-Y-E die!” I’m wearing a
poodle skirt and have a ribbon in the back of my hair in a ponytail
and it just starts falling down. You’ll see it here, and then farther
down here, and then all the way down. They never did anything—
just left the bloopers in. They said, “Time is money, money is
time—$10,000 each shot when we gotta remake it/reshoot it.” It
was a fun time.

RF: Did you meet H.R. Pufnstuf?

GR: No, there were some Krofft people there—maybe the
Keystone Cops?

RF: One of the Lidsville people?

GR: Yeah, they were there. There was a lady who had been part of
H. R. Pufnstuf, a shorter person, and she was on there.
RF: This show was interesting in its composition as a variety
show and a sitcom.
GR: Right. We were in California and lived in Malibu on the beach.
[Mike Brady] was an architect and we still had our Alice with us!
You never saw our bedrooms. You never saw a bathroom, but
you’d see us coming out of what was the bedroom and seeing
Lee Majors and Farah Fawcett-Majors sleeping on the couch.
You only saw the living room and briefly, the kitchen. Usually we
were on stage, singing, dancing, and wearing crazy costumes.
I was a chicken! It was when Milton Berle was a guest. I wore a
chicken suit with big, huge wings and big, huge feet! We all had
the craziest costumes on! Robert Reed was wearing a Carmen
Miranda costume with red sequins all the way down and coconuts
for the chest, a hat full of fruit going up way high. We were
dancing on pedestals three or four feet high. I was dancing and
had to flap my wings a bunch. Well, I didn’t weigh anything then. I
flapped my wings so hard that literally, I took off!

RF: Like the Flying Nun! [laughter]

GR: I flew off and landed right on my back almost in our pool we
had for the Krofftette dancers. I landed on my back and my big,
huge feet are sticking straight up and my wings are out to the
side. Robert Reed in his long dress and white tennis shoes—he
looked very elegant—came running down and said, “Geri, are
“One… singular sensation…” The Brady girls belt out a show
tune from A Chorus Line. (LEFT TO RIGHT) Susan Olsen
as Cindy, Geri Reischl as Jan, and Maureen McCormick as
Marcia. © Paramount Television/Sid and Marty Krofft Productions.

50 RetroFan August 2020


RF: No shortage of fun costumes.
GR: There were a ton of them! I was a
scarecrow in one of them. I was Raggedy
Ann in one. It was like Halloween every
day, too. I loved it! They’d size you up real
quick and put you in the costume.
RF: Did they do any merchandising based
on the Variety Hour?
GR: They didn’t do any merch for that, but
we were in every Teen Beat magazine, all
those teen magazines.
RF: After watching fan response to you
here at this convention and on Facebook,
I see that fans have embraced you as a
member of the Bradys, but you were the
first substitute. Was there any pressure
taking on what had been someone else’s
role?
GR: For me, I never thought about that, I
just started doing Jan. It was like doing a
role in one of my movies, just figuring out
the best way to do it.
On The Brady Bunch Variety Hour pilot,
they had me very whiny—a typical over-
the-top Jan. [in Jan’s voice] “Why couldn’t I
have been one of the Waltons?” “Greg, we
don’t have a bathr…” Just really weird lines.
I’m sure people thought that Jan was really
weird, but after they saw such a great
response to a new Jan, they didn’t have me
be whiny or crying, “Oh!”
One time, I had to stomp my feet at
something Florence [Henderson, a.k.a.
Carol Brady] said and went, “Oh, I am not!”
I was going, “Oh, my God! I’m just going to
be whining all the time.” The fans seemed
to embrace me. I got just as much fan mail
as everyone else. I got nice gifts and nice
letters. Move forward many years later, 35,
40, now people are saying, “Oh, I wrote you
a letter and you were so nice, you wrote
me back.” I still have some of the jewelry
and pencil-drawn sketches.
Then, a gentleman—Ted Nicholson—
started looking for me. He said, “I want to
know what happened to Jan Brady—to
Geri Reischl.” He found me and said, “You
gotta get back out there. Your fans are
looking for you. They want to know where
you are and what you’re up to these days.”
He did a website for me and said, “You
gotta get on social media.” I got onto social
media and thought it was mainly for kids.
I didn’t know. I started doing Facebook
and thought, “Oh, my gosh! There are
people older than me Facebooking.” It’s
cool. I first started on MySpace and then
he said do Facebook. Then, he said, “You
gotta do Twitter for the 40th anniversary
of the show. You’ll be asked questions
there.” I’m really glad I did and have so
many wonderful fans who are kind and
caring. I give them a little bit of my world
and I don’t have anything to hide. I’ll post
anything and everything on Facebook. My
page is just for anything fun; I don’t post
anything negative.
When fans come to see me, I know
their names and when we talk, I know
their personal lives. If I can help anybody
in any way possible—if they have a family
member with dementia, or they have a
health problem, anything—relationship
problem, I will give them a little bit of
advice I think might help with them.
RF: Let’s wind down with a discussion
about what you’re doing now. Today you
work with people with dementia. My
mom, in her last years, had dementia.
For her, it was a blessing. She was never
belligerent, she was kind. She was in a
happy space. It kept her from focusing
on her body, which wasn’t doing what
it should anymore. She would come up
with stuff when we were talking, and
I’d improvise and go along with her then
steer her into a different direction.
GR: You have to. I can be asked one thing
20 times within two minutes. So, what
I do, I know they don’t know they’ve
asked it before. I try to come up with a
different answer, or I’ll answer the same
way. Someone will say, “Oh, is dinner at
five? Will I have it in the dining room?”
“Yes, dinner is at five and you’ll have it in
the dining room.” “Okay, thank you very
much.” I’ll get asked again in two minutes,
but I have an infinite amount of patience.
We all have to remember that all the
people with Alzheimer’s and dementia
used to be just like us. They used to go out
in the world and function perfectly and
hold a job, and sometimes things change.
If you become that person one day, you
hope the kindness you give will come back
to you later, if it happens down the road.
I’m tearing up… I think of them as all my
parents because my 95-year-old mother
just passed away. So, I have a whole bunch
of moms. A whole bunch of dads, but
they’re all very special to me.
RETRO INTERVIEW: GERI REISCHL
Fake Jan is the real deal! Geri Reischl
at the Chiller Theater Expo on October
27, 2019. Photo by Xgdfalcon.
RF: That’s sweet. And you’re right about
that memory thing. We’d come in to
visit Mom and she’d have crumbs on her
mouth and I’d ask, “What did you have
for lunch, Mom?” “Oh, they haven’t fed
us yet.”
GR: That’s very typical. “I didn’t get my
breakfast.” “Yes, you did.” I’d say, “You
got your breakfast, but let me go double
check.”
There are all stages. You’ll have some
that will remain very sweet. Some that
get to Stage 4: Dementia turning to
Alzheimer’s. You can be called the worst
names and then the next day, that person
will be so sweet and kind and love you to
death! I was bitten one time on my arm
and it turned purple, but didn’t break the
skin. You can’t get mad… you can’t get
upset. If they were in their right minds,
they wouldn’t be doing stuff like that.
Most of the time it’s, “Hi, Blondie! How are
you doing?” Even in Alzheimer’s, they’ll
call me Blondie. “I’m fine, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” I have higher functioning
[seniors] also that I work with. I see all
levels, I call them my “senior star citizens.”
RF: I’m glad to share with RetroFans
readers how Fake Jan is an angel of
kindness today.
GR: I wanted to say something else about
Fake Jan. I decided I needed to separate
myself because I didn’t want people to
think I was the original Jan. So, I decided
to get my own little brand and it make it
RetroFan August 2020 51
 RETRO INTERVIEW: GERI REISCHL

ke
my own fun and make it kind of quirky,

a
F dys
Each of TV’s original Brady girls because the show was kind of quirky.
took a sabbatical from a spin-off
and was substituted by these lovely RF: You came up with it?
ladies with hair of gold: GR: Somebody else had said it years ago.

Bra
So, I said, “I’m going to go by Fake Jan,” and
made the little buttons [with that slogan,

Rob DiCaterino.
as shown on our cover]. Then Susan Olsen
made a holiday called “Fake Jan Day,” and
it’s on January 2, because I’m the second
Jan.

Leah RF: I’ll celebrate it!

Ayres GR: People all over the world celebrate

it and send me pictures. I was at Susan’s
[Fake Jan Day] party… You have to
(Fake Marcia, The Bradys) celebrate with a cheeseball—the kind
with the nuts on top. Susan had one at
her party and I wanted it, but nobody
had cut into it yet. I ate about half of it. I
thought, “Oh, this is my favorite new food.
Love the cheeseball.” Susan remembered
it, so my Fake Jan’s favorite food is the
@Silver Age Television.
cheeseball. She goes, “It’s cheesy.” The Fake
Jan is cheesy, the variety show is cheesy.
I just want to have fun with it and fun
being Fake Jan! My Fake Jan super-groovy

Geri stickers! Everything is groovy, baby! Groovy.

My kids say, “Mom, you going to use that

Reischl word?” I say, “I don’t care if I’m 90—I’m still

going to use my favorite word.”

(Fake Jan, The Brady RetroFan editor MICHAEL EURY (here with
Bunch Hour) Geri Reischl on the day this interview was
recorded) so loves The Brady Bunch, he once
had a Brady man-perm! Michael also edits
the Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE
magazine for TwoMorrows Publishing.
Rob DiCaterino.

Special thanks to Rose Rummel-Eury for

transcribing this interview.

Jennifer
Runyon
(Fake Cindy, A Very Brady
Christmas)

And let’s not forget Fake Sam the Butcher in A Very Brady Christmas, with
Lewis Arquette subbing for Allan Melvin!

52 RetroFan August 2020

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!
Kustom Kulture King, Fink-Father, and Automotive Oddity
Even if you’re a “nice kid” who
keeps out of trouble and gets
good grades, by the time
you reach the age of nine or
ten, you start to rebel against
your parents in subtle ways…
and eventually, in obvious ways,
too. I was that “nice kid,” although
one more interested in reading,
drawing, and planning to grow up
to be a paleontologist or a cartoonist
rather than a cowboy or a policeman. The bullies called me a
“weirdo,” an insult I chose to embrace.
Then, late in 1957, everyone was suddenly interested in
weirdos… in the form of Universal Studios’ classic monsters:
Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, Invisible Man, Mummy, Wolf
Man, and other ghoulish guys ’n’ gals. The Universal Monsters
were collected in a late-night anthology slot usually known as
Shock Theater in the schedules of dozens
of TV stations. In its wake, outrageous
monster-themed magazines, comic
books, trading cards, decals, and other
grisly-but-goofy goodies were sucking
up schoolboys’ loose change. And those
selfsame monsters also offered our first
pre-teenage attempt to defy our folks.
The monster craze persisted and
thrived, like a lizard growing as big as
a skyscraper after being exposed to
radioactive waste. It was around the
time Aurora Plastics launched its first
three Universal monster model kits—
Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolf Man—
and Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “The Monster
Mash” Top 40 radio hit for the first of
many times (it really was a graveyard
smash!) that my junior high school
buddies and I started to attend car shows
at downtown San Diego’s Community
by Scott Shaw!
Concourse, where we first encountered the man who would push
the monster theme into weird new areas and with a new wild
and wacky vibe, one that would irritate our parents to no end,
especially our fathers. Why? Because although that man’s name
was Ed Roth (1932–2001), to his fans he was, without a doubt, our
“Big Daddy”! “The kids idolize me because I look like someone
their parents wouldn’t like,” Ed once said. “…The first monsters I
designed had a lot of shock value for kids who wanted to freak out
their parents.”
A Weirdo is Born
Ed Roth was born in Beverly Hills, California, on March 4,
1942. His own big daddy, Henry, a strict cabinetmaker who
moonlighted as the chauffeur of silent film star Mary Pickford,
and his mother, Marie, were immigrants from Germany. Ed
grew up in Bell, California, with his younger brother, Gordon,
in a German-speaking household. Although he had to learn
English in elementary school, Ed was a good student at Bell High
School who (unsurprisingly) enjoyed
his auto shop and art classes, and like
most budding cartoonists, spent most
of his free time drawing monsters, hot
rods, and airplanes, which his mother
encouraged. Henry taught both sons how
to use the tools in his workshop; that’s
where Ed learned how to make wooden
molds to create fiberglass components
for his custom show cars. At 14, Ed bought
a 1933 Ford Coupe in 1946, his first car.
After graduating high school in 1949, he
attended East Los Angeles College with
a major in engineering to further his
understanding of automotive design. But
Cover to 1964’s Big Daddy Roth Magazine #1.
Cover art attributed to Pete Millar. TM © Ed
Roth, Inc. Rat Fink TM & © Ed Roth, Inc. Courtesy of
Heritage Comics Auctions.
RetroFan August 2020 53
 The oddball world of scott shaw!

The Monkees’ Monkeemobile, and his famous

custom car, the Mantaray. But Miller stayed the
course, making weirdo shirts weirder than ever.
Along with T-shirts, a
related monster fad that
Ed would embrace was
grisly decals featuring
hip depictions of a wide
variety of creatures. The
top artist in this field
was a young man named
Don “Monte” Monteverde,
a professional artist and
pinstriper who left a job as
a Disney in-betweener to
Roth’s bubble-topped hot rod Beatnik Bandit, on display at the National Automobile
Museum, Reno, Nevada. (INSET) Carded original Hot Wheels’ Beatnik Bandit, includ- draw outrageous images of creatures, fiends,
ing a Roth sticker of authenticity. Beatnik Bandit TM & © Ed Roth, Inc. Photo by Nick Ares. Hot and flaming skulls to affix to bicycle fenders. His
Wheels © Mattel. Hot Wheels scan courtesy of Hake’s Auctions. decals were very popular with kids, especially
because they were so easily affordable. Monte’s
style would also be a strong influence on Roth’s
when Ed became frustrated with the lack of cars in his lessons, in approach to designing monsters. He also may have had a hand in
1951 he dropped out of school to join the U.S. Air Force. creating Ed’s most famous character.
Honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1955 and back in Ed began to take his T-shirt business as seriously as his real
the Golden State, Ed met Sally, who he soon married. To support love, custom cars. Still drawing and airbrushing them without
his growing family—Sally eventually bore him five sons!— help, Roth began to advertise them in Petersen Publication’s Car
Ed took a job at Sears-Roebuck in its display department. He Craft magazine as “Weirdo Shirts” selling for $4.50 each. These
moonlighted with freelance gigs pinstriping (adding gracefully shirts, with the mass-produced images silk-screened onto them,
flowing linework and patterns to accent a car’s body design) were sold through the mail, but Ed was also selling personally
cars and motorcycles. Ed rented a garage for his late-night and airbrushed versions at the car shows he frequented. Those
weekend business, pinstriping cars for $50 to $150 each. Ed began events also gave Ed a chance to bond with his eager adolescent
to experiment with fiberglass, a new material that was essential acolytes—like me.
in building custom cars. In 1955, he customized a 1930 Ford Model
A Tudor, swapping out its engine for one with an Oldsmobile, and Maywood Madness
called it Little Jewel, which won a number of car show trophies. He In 1959, Ed Roth moved his operation to Maywood, California. It
also began to delve into a popular new fad, probably inspired by was a run-down neighborhood, but the price was right and the
the wave of monster-driven movies airing on television—“weirdo new location had plenty of room for building cars and mass-
T-shirts.” producing weirdo shirts. Ed proudly announced the move in a Car
As his family grew, Ed needed more money coming into Craft ad, which immediately attracted a nutty mixture of visitors:
the household, so he partnered with another well-known, gearheads, pre-teen fanboys, policemen, musicians, FBI agents…
experienced, and eccentric pinstriper, Jesse E. Crozier, better and outlaw bikers. This last group, who shared Roth’s sense of
known as “The Baron,” and Crozier’s grandson, Tom Kelly. outrageous rebellion, would have both positive and negative
Ed also continued to work on his “Weerdo T-shirts” (note effects on Ed and his career. The first result was that they
the misspelling, his branding), joining a thriving trend that other convinced him to buy his first motorcycle, a new Harley-Davidson
automotive artists were mining. Those young Turks included Sportster. Many more would follow.
drag-strip cartoonist Pete Millar, futuristic vehicular designer Roth’s sense of car design was surreal and futuristic. He loved
Dean Jeffries, and Detroit cartoonist Stanley Miller, Jr., a.k.a. bubble-tops, asymmetrical configurations, and lots of chrome.
“Mouse!” Their styles shared certain elements—bug-eyed Many of his creations looked more like rolling sculpture than
creatures resembling mutated beatniks driving impossibly automobiles, trading practicality for the cool quotient.
exaggerated torqued-out hot rods (usually drawn with Ed’s show cars were wildly surrealistic (and subtly subversive)
remarkable accuracy) that belched fire and clouds of exhaust. The but they were also quite small. They weren’t created to be useful
craze got its first national exposure in the August 1959 issue of Car passenger vehicles—they were built to impress car-show ticket
Craft magazine. On June 2, 1962, ABC’s Leave It to Beaver featured buyers and fellow gearheads—although the majority of them
an episode titled “Sweatshirt Monsters,” in which Beav and his were street legal and capable of being driven. Ed, however, was 6
pals dare each other to wear their weirdo sweatshirts to school. foot, 4 inches tall, and it was impossible for him to fit inside most
Millar went on to edit B&W comic magazines full of “inside” of ’em.
humor about car culture, while Jeffries’ career led him to design In 1958, Roth pinstriped and bought Tweedy Pie from its
such famous custom vehicles as The Green Hornet’s Black Beauty, original owner, Bob Johnston. Ed displayed it at car shows to

54 RetroFan August 2020

 The oddball world of scott shaw!

promote his skills as a pinstriper and indeed, it won a number of commissioned by the producers of ABC’s The Addams Family
awards and got him the attention he sought. for use in the show’s third season, intended to vie against CBS’
Ed’s first true show car was Outlaw, a masterpiece built with The Munsters’ Munster Coach and Dragula. Unfortunately, The
plaster and fiberglass, which made the scene in 1959. (It was Addams Family was cancelled after its second season, so the Druid
originally named Excalibur, after his mother-in-law’s vintage Princess (named by Robert Williams) was only seen at car shows.
Revolutionary War sword that Roth used as its gearshift, but not Its gas tank and battery are hidden inside a child-sized coffin
many of his pals could pronounce “Excalibur.”) mounted in the rear.
1960’s Beatnik Bandit remains one of Roth’s two most 1967’s Wishbone was Ed Roth’s least-favorite show car
recognizable custom cars. A 1950 Oldsmobile chassis was the creation. He spent a lot of time and effort to complete the
foundation for this iconic hot rod; its engine is also an Olds. Its Wishbone, only to be told by Revell that the delicate front
bubble-top was molded in a pizza oven! suspension and spindle wheels were too difficult and expensive
Ed’s Mysterion (1963) is his other most famous show car, and to mass produce in scale for the model kit. Roth’s reaction was
it’s no wonder why. The dual Ford engines, the hydraulic bubble- to cut the Wishbone into pieces and tossed them in the trash,
top, and the asymmetrical searchlight all add up to a vehicle declaring he never wanted to see Wishbone again.
that looks more like a spaceship than an automobile. The weight The body of Roth’s L.A. Zoom (1989) was made from Kevlar
of the engines was a constant problem; surreal it may be, but fiberglass, which was powered by a computerized Acura engine
Mysterion’s frame was always cracking and breaking due to the located in the trunk. Unfortunately, Ed never found a computer
stress. The Mysterion is such a classic that there’s an entire book expert smart enough to get that !?!#$%&!?! engine to work!
written on it. Beatnik Bandit 2 (1995) was Roth’s tribute to his own Beatnik
Roth’s Surfite (1964) was cute and had a slot to carry a Bandit. It was sleeker, more compact, and more futuristic than
surfboard… but not much good on the beach. At a photo shoot for the original, but the biggest difference was its muscular chromed
the cover of an issue of Pete Millar’s Drag Cartoons, the Surfite got Chevy 350 engine. When asked about the horsepower he put into
stuck in the sand! this car, Ed said he wanted something with which to enter all of
A show car that was never the basis for a Revell model kit, Ed’s those “wild burnout contests.”
Orbitron (1964), had a set of three colored headlights designed 1999’s Stealth 2000 was Ed Roth’s final completed show car. It
to mimic the eye of the Martian in George Pal’s 1953 film War was powered by a Geo Metro engine, and the design was inspired
of the Worlds. Over the years this show car disappeared, only to by stealth technology of the military.
be discovered, decades later, as a flower planter in front of an Judged “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster of 1958,” AMT
adult bookstore in Mexico! It’s since been restored to its original bought George Barris’ Ala Cart in 1961 and released the kit late
condition. that year. It was a huge seller and
1965’s Road Agent was Roth’s is still re-issued from time to time.
last car to become a Revell model kit. In response that same year, Revell
It was powered by a Corvair engine signed a deal with Ed Roth to
and its translucent bubble-top had a develop plastic model kits of both his
yellow cast to it. custom cars and T-shirt monsters for
Rotar (1965) was Ed’s stylish them. The custom car model kit race
hovercraft, with two 650cc Triumph was on!
twin engines mounted on their
sides and high-pressure propellers “Big Daddy” is Branded
mounted to each one. They created Revell planned to use Ed’s name
a cushion of air that allowed Rotar to and image each model kit’s box,
propel itself on land and water! but the company’s new VP of Public
Yellow Fang was designed and Relations, Henry Blankfort, felt
built not by Ed Roth, but by his friend that Roth’s name wasn’t flashy
George “Bushmaster” Schreiber in enough. Blankfort, who’d been an
1965. Ed helped out George with ex-screenwriter and was blacklisted
construction funds as part of his during the McCarthy era, asked
personal “sponsorship,” as well as Ed if he ever been known by any
creating the artwork. Roth sprayed nicknames. Roth said he had
the entire car in bright yellow epoxy sometimes been called “Big Ed” in
(with white lettering) after its first high school because of his height.
run, which came at Long Beach in Blankfort knew that Roth had five
May 1965. It was the only dragster children, so he suggested inserting
with which Roth was ever involved. Big Daddy made the scene on the boxes and “Big Daddy” into the middle of Ed
side panels of Revell’s model kits of his Custom
The Druid Princess (1966) was Roth’s name. Roth agreed, and “Ed
Monsters. Rat Fink, Mr. Gasser, Brother Rat Fink, Drag
an ornate coach that resembled Nut, Mother’s Worry, and Surfink TM & © Ed Roth, Inc. ‘Big Daddy’ Roth” was born. Roth
that of Cinderella. It was originally Images courtesy of Hake’s. took Blankfort’s advice to heart.

RetroFan August 2020 55

 The oddball world of scott shaw!

He ditched his paint-stained overalls and began showing up at Ed Roth’s Rat Fink very well might have strong ties to
his personal appearances wearing a tux, top hat, and monocle. characters created by Stanley “Mouse!” Miller and Monte
It transformed him into a recognizable character to anyone Monteverde, whose work was already being sold when Ed got
attending middle school. into the “weirdo shirt” business. Rat Fink’s overall design is very
The process was fairly simple: Revell’s brass would select one similar to that of Mouse!’s Freddy Flypogger, and some of the
of Roth’s cars or drawings, then that car would be sculpted, first in details of Rat Fink are very similar to details in Monteverde’s decal
clay by Roth, then in wax by Revell’s Harry Plumber, then molded art. (It’s even been suggested that Monte re-penciled and inked
in plastic. Roth’s artwork that would be used for the first Rat Fink decal.)
In 1962, Revell issued its first Ed “Big Daddy” Roth plastic In many of his magazine ads, Mouse! even drew a hairy, hulking,
model kit, Outlaw, his first fly-infested rat with a “Roth”
show car. It was followed the tattoo on an arm. Once Ed
next year by Tweedy Pie and Roth began to dominate the
the original Beatnik Bandit. weirdo-shirt business, their
Then came Mysterion, with good-natured rivalry started to
Road Agent and Surfite not far turn sour.
behind. Decades later, Revell
issued two kits that ballyhooed Model Citizens
Ed Roth pinstriping and paint Ed “Big Daddy” Roth was a
jobs, a ’56 Ford F-100 and a remarkable individual, but
’57 Chevy Bel Air, as well as a he could only create a limited
Tweedy Pie 2. number of cars and shirts.
However, once he committed
Rat Fink his concepts to paper, Ed could
It’s surprising, but Ed “Big hand them over to other,
Daddy” Roth’s best-known more talented artists to be
character and one that’s re-penciled inked, colored, and
recognized by a surprisingly turned into mass-produced
wide variety of people, Rat decals, T-shirts, and other
Fink, didn’t appear until 1963. merchandise that could be
Based on sketches, he was sold throughout the world. Big
conceived in 1962, but the Daddy was the first to admit
design was still evolving. that his artwork was rather
However, there’s no denying crude compared to the kids he
that the one and only Rat hired. Roth wound up with a
Fink made his first public core staff of 25 artists, but he
appearance in the pages of was always looking for new
the July 1963 issue of Car Craft talent.
magazine in its monthly “New After leaving the Art
Products” feature in the form Center College of Design,
Matted and framed, a Rat Fink limited edition lithograph,
of a decal. However, his name produced in 1996 by Joe Copro/Nason One, signed and Ed “Newt” Newton joined
wasn’t even mentioned. By numbered by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. TM & © Ed Roth, Inc. Courtesy Ed Roth’s staff in the early
1965, he not only had his full of Heritage. Sixties, soon becoming the
name, Rat Fink also became ever-growing group’s de facto
part of the official Ed “Big Art Director. Newt designed
Daddy” Roth logo. To the world of fink-fans, he had become the characters for Roth, and also created a series of wild magazine
#1 Fink! and catalog advertisements for Roth’s products. Newt also
So, what is a “fink”? The term is Yiddish, and is the equivalent helped Roth design of several of his custom cars, including the
of “finch,” a bird that sings. Therefore, it’s a derogatory referring Orbitron, Surfite, and Wishbone. Besides cars, Newt did tons of
to a tattletale, a snitch, or a spy. The term gained familiarity due Roth T-shirts.
to a man named Albert Fink, who worked for the Louisville and Robert Williams had graduated from Los Angeles City
Nashville Railroads from around 1860 to the late 1880s. Fink College, where he contributed artwork to the school’s newspaper.
worked his way up from engineer to president of the company. He had trouble finding work—until the manager of the local
His spies—the original “finks”—infiltrated the labor unions unemployment office hooked him up with a local business.
to report on their meetings and plans for strikes. In the early “They told me that the freak that ran it was some guy called Big
Sixties, comedian and talk-show host Steve Allen adopted the Daddy and I said, ‘Wait a minute, would that be Ed Roth?’ They
term “Rat Fink,” and began using it on the air constantly. That’s said it was, and I said, ‘Let me at it. I was born for this job.’” Taking
when non-Jewish America embraced the word “fink.” over for Ed Newton, Williams’ early work for Roth consisted of

56 RetroFan August 2020

 The oddball world of scott shaw!

creating monthly advertising, graphic design, and elaborate hot- Hawk Plastics’ package illustrator, William Campbell, who’d
rod projects. But as Robert found his own unique style, he began painted realistic front-panel masterpieces for the model-kit
drawing nudes and violent scenes. Big Daddy repeatedly warned company for decades, pitched a successful series of automotive
Williams that they were creating products for the mass market, abominations known as Weird-Ohs.
and such themes were inappropriate. “Inappropriate” would It’s likely that the surfer theme for that last line may have
become Robert’s stock-in-trade once he became an underground given Monogram (a.k.a. MPC) the idea to license Mike Dormer’s
cartoonist and an outrageous “lowbrow” fine artist a few years character Hot Curl the Surfer, a long-haired, long-nosed fellow
later. always clutching a can of beer in his hand. They gave Hot Curl a
Robert’s wife Suzanne, also a fine artist, worked for Ed as the girlfriend, a little brother, a dog, and a “woody” station wagon to
studio/garage’s receptionist/troubleshooter. pad the brand with three more kits.
Steve Fiorilla was a staff artist who excelled at weird and Aurora was last to jump on the automotive monster
funny drawings. He worked on a lot of Roth’s magazine ads, too. background; its line of Monstermobile kits featured the Universal
Revell also had a line of monster models with an origin not Monsters (minus the Creature) driving some really ugly hot rod
in the automotive world, but in the vein of the T-shirts Big Daddy designs. Finally, at trend’s end came Marx Toy’s line of Nutty
sold by the thousands at car Mads, not kits but well-
shows and through the mail. designed, cleverly sculpted,
Rat Fink was first. It was and well-balanced solid plastic
essentially a “shell” model figures. Only a few were
kit sparely consisting of R.F.’s automotive-related, but since
front side, back side, nose- Marx already had a license
bulb, feet, and platform. It from Hawk, the company
wasn’t much of a challenge to produced six figures based on
assemble, but it was perfect pre-existing Weird-Ohs behind
for both first-timers and the wheel.
experienced painters. Through mail order and at
The next wave of kits car shows, Ed had an incredible
consisted of Mr. Gasser, variety of merchandise for
Mother’s Worry, and Drag Nut. sale. In addition to dozens
Brother Rat Fink, Surf Fink, of illustrated T-shirts and
Angel Fink, and Superfink sweatshirts, there were decals,
were next. Then came Scuz “chrome” plastic “surfin’
Fink, Outlaw with Robbin’ helmets” (configured like WWII
Hood Fink, Tweedy Pie with German helmets), hillbilly hats
Boss Fink (a finky version of Ed bearing the initials “R.F.,” biker
himself), and finally, possibly Sixties’ kids flipped their lids over posters, buttons, and copies of
because Big Daddy wanted to krazy products like decals, Rat Fink his biker magazine, Choppers.
wipe ’em out and begin again, rings, and a Rat Fink Halloween Rat Fink rings, sold in
Fink Eliminator. costume! Rat Fink and characters TM & © Ed gumball machines and on
Revell even sold two Ed Roth, Inc. Products courtesy of Hake’s. cards, were manufactured
Roth slot car kits, Rat Fink in by GiGi Sales Company and
Lotus Ford and Mr. Gasser in considered to be one of the
BRM. Also, the model-glue magnate Testor’s sold its own brand most successful pocket-change kids’ products in America at the
of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth Custom Paint—“Like Metal-Flake! Candy! time.
Pearl! Super Gloss! Wild and Wonderful!”—in bottles and spray In 1965, Ed self-published the Ed “Big Daddy” Roth Coloring Book.
canisters. The painted cover art was executed by Bud Moore.
During 1963, Revell paid Roth a one-cent royalty for each
model kit sold. Ed brought in $32,000 that year in royalties. Multimedia Big Daddy
Eventually, the royalties increased to hundreds of thousands of As the name “Big Daddy” gained recognition around the country,
dollars! Ed began to have a presence in unexpected areas. For example,
from October 1964 to May 1965 automotive cartoonist Pete Millar
Weird and Nutty Competitors published four bimonthly B&W issues of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth
In 1968, Mattel introduced its new line of Hot Wheels toy magazine, edited by another cartoonist, Dennis Ellefson. Some
automobiles. Roth’s Beatnik Bandit was one of the first 16 die-cast issues included stories written and drawn by Alex Toth and Russ
mini-cars produced. Manning. Millar Publishing Company also produced Drag Cartoons
Of course, once Revell’s competition noticed how successful and Wonder Wart-Hog magazines.
their dual line of Roth custom show car kits and Roth fink figure Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos was a novelty music group led by
kits were, they went the hot-rod monster route… and beyond! Roth as Mr. Gasser. Its musicians included Glen Campbell, Leon

RetroFan August 2020 57

 The oddball world of scott shaw!
Russell, and other members of Phil Spector’s legendary Wrecking
Crew. The group’s three surf-rock LPs were Hot Rod Hootenanny
(1963), Surfink! (1964), and Rods n’ Ratfinks (also 1964). Their label
was Sundazed Records, distributed by Capitol Records.
Beginning in 1964 and for decades since, different official Rat
Fink Halloween masks, tails, and outfits have been produced by
Collegeville Costumes.
In 1966, toy company Wham-O manufactured a “Wheelie-
Bar” accessory for bicycles. Roth was enlisted to give a testimonial
quote regarding the product, as well as design a unique Fink-
monster to promote it and appear on its packaging.
Roth’s Surfite appeared in two Hollywood films, Beach Blanket
Bingo and Village of the Giants (both 1965). “They made all the beach
movies at Sportsman’s Cove in Malibu,” Roth recalled. “I got wind
of a new movie [Bingo] Annette Funicello was making and she’s
my all-time heartthrob. So, I drove down and parked the Surfite
next to Buster Keaton’s dressing room, pretending to be one of
the cast.” Although Surfite does appear in the film, it’s only on-
screen for the few seconds it takes for Annette to walk past the
miniature surf-wagon.
The title of Tom Wolfe’s 1965 best-selling collection of articles,
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, is also the title
of one of the articles within, entirely about Roth and custom car
culture. Although Wolfe found Ed Roth to be “an intellectual” and
“the Salvador Dali of the hot rod world,” before interviewing him
Wolfe was worried: “I had been told that Roth was a surly guy who
never bathed and was hard to get along with.”
Two- and Three-Wheelers
In the mid-Sixties, Roth began customizing motorcycles and
tricycles. It’s been estimated that he created over 40 different
ones, but most of them were destroyed in one way or another.
These are the ones that are known to have survived:
` Designed by Ed Newton for Roth’s California Choppers
Magazine’s letters page, Mail Box (1967) was powered by a
Crosley four-cylinder engine.
` Powered by a Buick V6 engine, 1967’s Mega Cycle was originally
58 RetroFan August 2020
named Captain Pepi’s Motorcycle & Zeppelin Repair, but car-
show promoters insisted that Roth change its name.
` Ed’s American Beetle (1968) was the first-ever Volkswagen
tricycle. He used a 36-horsepower engine from a 1957 VW and
a front fork from a Honda.
` Roth’s 1968 Candy Wagon was the same underpowered trike
that Los Angeles meter maids used to drive. He used it to
participate in parades, but the first time he used it, tossing
candy to kids, the children’s excited reactions spooked the
parade’s horses. So much for free candy!
` High Flyer (1969) was a trike damaged in an arson fire but
completely restored to Ed’s satisfaction by cartoonist Ken
Mitchroney.
` Ed said of 1970’s California Cruiser, “Would I have made any
changes or do anything different if I had to do it all over
again?!? …NO! To me, the California Cruiser turned out better
than I could ever have imagined. And that is somptin else!”

` Secret Weapon (1976) was Ed Roth’s concept of what a modern
U.S. Army Jeep should be, a motorized trike with a low
center of gravity. Unfortunately, the driving position was so
comfortable, Ed kept falling asleep at the wheel!
` With a VW Type 4 engine and an automatic transmission,
Roth’s Great Speckled Bird (1976) was an easy tricycle to drive.
He also added a five-gallon water tank and a windshield-
wiper motor to keep the driver and passenger cool in hot
weather.
` Its Buick V-6 engine got 1986’s Asphalt Angel from Los Angeles
to St. Paul, Minnesota’s, Street Rod Nationals, but they turned
Ed away because it wasn’t based on a car that was originally
build before 1949.
` Roth’s American Cruiser tricycle (1987) was essentially a V8
engine connected between a Harley front fork and the rear
end of a dragster.
` Designed to resemble a 1934 Ford Roadster, Roth’s Globe
Hopper (1987) was named by Robert Williams after Ed drove
it to Alaska.
` 1995’s Rubber Ducky had a Kevlar unibody that was designed
as an oversize gas tank that held 26 gallons of fuel for its
600cc Honda engine.
MPC issued a plastic model kit based
on Ed Roth’s motortrike designs for the Mail
Box Chopper in 1971.
Mainstream automotive magazines
that once built circulation with his name
and image on their covers suddenly
refused to run Roth’s motorcycle-related
articles and advertisements due to
his friendly relationship with the local
outlaw biker gangs, so Ed started his own
publication. California Choppers Magazine
(eventually shortened to Choppers
(LEFT) Big Daddy Roth Magazine #3 (Feb.–Mar.
1965) featured this photo cover unveiling the
swingin’ Surfite. (RIGHT) Ed “Big Daddy” Roth
Coloring Book (1965). Cover painting by Bud
Moore. TM & © Ed Roth, Inc. Courtesy of Scott Shaw!

Magazine) was a small B&W monthly that ran from 1967 to 1970,
the first magazine exclusively devoted to custom motorcycles.
Ed invested his life savings into the publication, insisting that it
be packed with legitimate technical information that would be
of value to bikers.
In the early Seventies, Mexican company Lodela re-issued
Roth model kits with new names. For example, Mr. Gasser
became Mr. Smog!
Big Daddy’s Big Troubles
As the monster fad died down, many who worshipped Big
Daddy Roth as kids were now old enough to be drafted to serve
in Vietnam. Politically, Ed was conservative. He supported the
Vietnam War, wanting to provide a product his war-torn fans
would appreciate. Unfortunately, the outrageous Roth approach
to T-shirt humor wasn’t a good fit for the war. Ed offered custom
printing, so entire Army platoons could sport their brand of Roth
shirts… except many of the orders were sent back from Nam to
Maywood, because every member of those selfsame platoons
had been killed in action. It was a painful time for the Finkfather,
and things would only get worse.
Due to being the publisher of Choppers Magazine, Ed’s
relationship with the outlaw biker’s gang known as the Hell’s
Angels got tighter. They even considered Roth to be an honorary
member of their club. At the time, the public viewed the Angels
as dangerous psychopathic criminals, but Ed saw them as
misunderstood outcasts—at least initially. Since outlaw bikers
were the targeted readership for Choppers, Ed often included
articles and photos featuring the more dangerously outrageous
aspects of motorcycle culture.
In 1966, Time magazine convinced Ed to allow them do a
story about him and his popularity with American youth, so
when Time contacted him again, he was willing to accommodate
them, assisting the magazine with an article on the Hell’s Angels.
A writer and photographer visited his studio and asked Ed to
pose on a Honda moped he used for errands. To add “color” to
the photo, they put one of the plastic German helmets Ed sold
on his head and hung a cheap plastic Maltese cross around
his neck. When the article was published, the photo ran with
the accompanying caption that described Roth as “the supply
sergeant to the Hell’s Angels.”
The big shots at Revell were very concerned about Ed’s
controversial depiction. According to Ed, “Revell calls me in and
politely informs me … they would have to cancel my contract if I
didn’t straighten up.”
The IRS also reacted to the Time article. Since motorcycle
gangs were often connected with organized crime and Roth was
connected with the Hell’s Angels, they sent FBI agents to breathe
down Big Daddy’s neck. Neither the FBI nor the IRS was able to
detect any wrongdoing on Ed’s part.
Unfortunately, there was wrongdoing already brewing... but
not by Ed. At first the gang enjoyed the attention and notoriety
the famous “Big Daddy” brought them—but soon, gang
members, unaware that Choppers Magazine was doing very poorly
financially because national advertisers wanted no part of it,
began complaining that Roth was getting rich off them.
One day, seven armed gang members confronted Ed in his
studio, griping that Big Daddy had been turning the biker photos
The oddball world of scott shaw!
More model kits
of Roth’s Custom
Monsters. Brother
Rat Fink, Drag Nut
TM & © Ed Roth, Inc.
Images courtesy of
Hake’s.
he took into posters and selling them at car shows. They wanted a
cut of his profits. Roth agreed they deserved some compensation,
and began giving the gang considerable sums of cash on a regular
basis. But tempers flared again when Roth, ever the relentless
entrepreneur, suggested selling the Hell’s Angels iconic logo on
a T-shirt. The gang members went berserk. An enraged group
of Angels chased down Big Daddy, surrounded his studio, and
trapped him inside. When Ed refused to come out, several
gunshots were reportedly fired into the building, thankfully
missing Big Daddy. Roth decided to try and wait things out—but
the gang refused to leave, and a standoff began. No one called
the police. Some accounts of this story say the police knew exactly
what was going on but had no desire to jump into a raging gang
war, perhaps hoping that everyone involved would kill each other
and do them a favor.
Eventually, Big Daddy proposed to end the standoff by
challenging the leader of the gang to a one-on-one fistfight,
winner take all. The gang leader agreed—a big mistake. Roth
was a huge man, and he also had a black belt in Karate. The fight
took place right in the middle of Roth’s studio. Blows were traded,
but Big Daddy gained the upper hand and, according to one
account, “just started to beat the living crap out of the guy.” With
their leader beaten fairly and decisively, humiliated in front of
his entire entourage, the gang members dispersed, and the crisis
seemed to be over. But very soon after this incident, Roth came
to work and found his studio had been looted. Everything was
gone—literally, the only thing left was the cement floor. So much
for being an “honorary Hell’s Angel.”
Then things got worse.
After the news of Big Daddy’s faceoff against the bikers
reached Revell, the model company allowed his ten-year contract
with the company to expire in 1972, without any interest in
renewing it. Revell had warned Ed repeatedly, but he had ignored
them.
By this time, most of Ed’s multimillion fortune was gone, with
no studio left. Ed sold Choppers Magazine in 1969; its new publisher
shut it down the next year. In 1970, Ed was forced to sell 15 of his
custom show cars for the paltry figure of $5,500.
RetroFan August 2020 59
 The oddball world of scott shaw!

Then came the final blow. His Big Daddy is Somptin Else!
wife, Sally, filed for divorce, moved to In recent years, there have been a
Cudahy, California, and took Ed’s sons number of licensed (and bootleg) toys,
with her. (Ed would marry three more garage kits, and collectibles featuring
times.) Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s Rat Fink and
other monstrous characters. There was
Spin-outs even a set of skateboarding Rat Finks
Desperate for a stable income, in 1970 in a rainbow of colors for collectors in
Roth took the first “normal” job of his Japan.
life. For the next five years, Ed worked Roth was active in counterculture
for Jim Brucker’s Cars of the Stars auto art and hot-rodding his entire adult
museum in Buena Park, California, life. At the time of his death in 2001,
spending much of his time driving a he was working on a hot-rod project
large car carrier cross-country, picking involving a compact car planned as a
up and delivering vintage autos for the departure from the dominant tuner
collection. Ed’s boss, Jim Brucker, said performance modification style.
Roth was loyal and a very hard worker, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth died of a heart
even though he was not making much Album cover for the Birthday Party’s 1982 attack in his Manti, Utah, workshop
money. Roth’s Druid Princess and album Junkyard, penciled by Ed Roth and at age 69 on April 4, 2001. Revell
California Cruiser were two of the many finished by Dave Christensen. Rat Fink TM & © Ed continues to reissue Roth’s finks and
unusual vehicles on display there. Roth, Inc. Junkyard © 1982 Missing Link Records. custom car kits.
Big Daddy’s next job was working Tales of the Rat Fink, a documentary
as a designer and artist for Orange about “the life and times of famed hot
County’s “other” theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm. He worked there rod and custom car designer Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth” by Ron Mann,
for about five years, until 1980. Ed’s hand-painted work on Knott’s starring John Goodman as the voice of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, was
Berry Wagon was featured on the cover of the January 1979 issue theatrically released in 2006.
of Hot Rodding magazine.
In December 1977, Robert and Suzanne Williams, with Skip There is no question that the legacy of Big Daddy permeates
Barrett, organized the first Rat Fink Reunion, an annual event to modern culture. People may not know the names “Ed Roth” or
celebrate the legacy of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. There are small fink- “Rat Fink,” but they certainly think “hot rod” the instant that they
fan conventions with unique fun such as contests in pinstriping see any of his images… or for that matter, those of his imitators.
toilets, beer kegs, and other unlikely objects. Rat Fink Reunions Roth once said, “I have always enjoyed working with my
are still held to this day at the site of Roth’s final residence in hands. I have also had a great respect for the talent that I have
Manti, Utah, and at the Moon Equipment Company (the home of been given and have tried to exercise it with at the greatest
Mooneyes auto parts) in Santa Fe Springs, California. discernment possible. The finished machine has never turned me
Ed penciled the cover art for Junkyard, a record album by the on as much as the process of getting it together. I love grinders,
Australian post-punk band the Birthday Party, released in 1982 by lathes, drill presses, and the unlimited things that are possible to
Missing Link Records. The art was finished by Dave Christensen. do with them. The limit is our minds.”
In January 1986, Roth contributed a Santa Rat Fink cover to Fink—er, think that over, parents of America!
The Rocket magazine. The image was taken from a T-shirt Roth
sent to the publishers, who combined drawings on the front and For 48 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW! has
back of the shirt to create a Christmas-themed cover. written and drawn underground comix,
In 1986, Ed Roth pitched the concept of an animated Rat Fink mainstream comic books, comic strips, graphic
cartoon TV series to Marvel Productions’ Stan Lee and Margaret novels, TV cartoons, toys, advertising, and video
Loesch. Ed didn’t seem to appreciate or understand Hollywood’s games. He has worked on such characters as
process of creative and financial development. There were no Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew
further meetings. (which he co-created with Roy Thomas), Sonic
From 1987 to 1992, ten comic books starring Ed’s Rat Fink were the Hedgehog, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the Simpsons, the
published. Futurama gang, the Muppet Babies, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids,
In 1993, a major exhibition was held at the Julie Rico Gallery and yes, even Annoying Orange. His career has garnered him four
in Santa Monica shortly after the Laguna Museum show Kustom Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award, and a Humanities Award. Scott is
Kulture. It was at this time that the lowbrow art movement began also known for his “Oddball Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the
to take on steam. Featured in the exhibition titled “Rat Fink Meets craziest comic books ever published” and for his regular participation
Fred Flypogger Meets Cootchy Cooty” were Roth, Williams, and in “Quick Draw!” with Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also
Mouse! and their creations. The L.A. Times placed Roth’s Rat Fink one of the teenagers who co-created what is currently known as
on the cover of the Culture section December 20, 1993, with an Comic-Con International: San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan
article about the exhibition. event. He can be reached at shawcartoons.com.

60 RetroFan August 2020

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

A Fistful
of Pasta
The Italian Westerns
of Sergio Leone

by Ernest Farino

Poster art from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). U.S. poster art
by Frank McCarthy. © Paramount Pictures.

RetroFan August 2020 61

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. And the man who made them
was someone named Sergio Leone (pronounced Lee-O-nay,
incidentally, not Lee-own).
I soon learned more about Leone and his films. Prior to the
Westerns, he had worked as an assistant director of some 50-
odd films, including William Wyler’s 1959 epic Ben-Hur, for which
Leone was one of the assistant directors on the famous chariot
race sequence. His first feature as a director was The Colossus
of Rhodes, one of the seemingly endless stream of “sword and
sandal” epics of the early Sixties. That film demonstrated little
of what would become Leone’s distinctive visual style, but was
clearly a great opportunity (even though the film itself is rather
dull).
Intermission. And then Leone convinced producer Alberto Grimaldi to back
What—already? Not in-between features; this was back a Western, and in making A Fistful of Dollars, Leone reinvented
in 1968 when longer movies stopped in the middle for a break. an entire genre. He cast a tall, good-looking novice actor named
And on one Saturday afternoon in 1968 at the Irving Theater in Clint Eastwood after having seen him on the American TV series
Irving, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), my friends Roger and Bill and I Rawhide. Leone later remarked that it was more about Eastwood’s
staggered out into the lobby after the first half of the movie. presence than anything—he “moved like a cat”—which fit right
And we were speechless (and to those who know me, that’s into Leone’s concept of the laconic loner, a cowboy anti-hero who
really something). I wandered over to the water fountain and had
a drink. That’s all I can remember.
The movie was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And what we
didn’t know—yet—was
that, as stunned as we
were by what we had just
seen in the first half, the
best was yet to come…
Being primarily
focused on monster
movies and Ray
Harryhausen and
Toho’s Godzilla movies,
we hadn’t paid much
attention to “oaters” (as
Variety called them) and
had heard only vague
rumors about these
“Italian Westerns.” One
of them, something
with the word “Dollars” (TOP) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly graphic. Images of
in the title, involved (LEFT TO RIGHT) Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and
Eli Wallach taken from the main title of the movie itself.
an old guy who was a (LEFT) The U.S. three-sheet poster for A Fistful of Dollars.
coffin-maker, and… well, Since United Artists bought the first two films togeth-
the information kind of er, they knew what was coming, so they came up with the
dried up after that. Of slogan “It’s the first motion picture of its kind. It won’t be
course, the first two films the last!” (ABOVE) Sergio Leone directing Clint Eastwood
and Margarita Lozano (as Consuelo Baxter) in a scene from
in what later became A Fistful of Dollars (1964). © United Artists.
known as “The Dollars
Trilogy” were A Fistful of

62 RetroFan August 2020

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

U.S. three-sheet poster of For

a Few Dollars More. Continu-
ing its advertising strategy,
United Artists warns us that
“The Man With No Name is
Back!” In the original films,
the Clint Eastwood character
actually had several names: in
A Fistful of Dollars it was “Joe,”
in For a Few Dollars More,
“Manco,” and in The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly, “Blond-
ie.” Since restored for DVD,
mention of the name “Manco”
to Lee Van Cleef by a sheriff
at the very end of a scene was
physically trimmed from
the original release prints in
order to maintain the illusion
of “The Man With No Name.” © United Artists. (RIGHT) In the
studio during the filming of For a Few Dollars More, (LEFT TO
RIGHT): Unidentified staffer, Sergio Leone, Lee Van Cleef,
Clint Eastwood, unidentified woman.

spoke more clearly with his six-guns than with words. To that in serious films and was very focused on projects with a political
end, Eastwood himself trimmed a lot of dialog from the original, message.
wordy script. For a Few Dollars More also saw the first appearance of Lee
Side note: It was United Artists’ publicity department that Van Cleef as a “good guy” and rival bounty hunter to Eastwood’s
came up with the concept of “The Man With No Name.” They had “Manco.” Van Cleef had already appeared in many American
picked up the first two films, based on the success of Fistful in films and TV episodes, often in Westerns. As one of Frank Miller’s
Europe, and tooled their ad campaign to tease with “It’s the First (Ian MacDonald) gang, he has the distinction of being first on
Motion Picture of Its Kind… It Won’t Be the Last” and released the first screen in Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952). Van Cleef was
two films eight or nine months apart. In the original versions, now also sharpshooter Corporal Stone who fired the atomic isotope
restored on DVD, Eastwood’s character is named “Joe” in Fistful that killed Ray Harryhausen’s “Rhedosaurus” in The Beast From
and “Manco” in For a Few Dollars More, but original prints often had 20,000 Fathoms in 1953 (when asked if he could handle the high-
visible splices and jumps where the names had been cut out in powered rifle, Van Cleef casually replies, “Pick my teeth with
order to feed the “No Name” concept. it…”). All excellent on-the-job training for one of the great stars of
Superb Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté played the villain Italian Westerns in years to come (by the mid-Sixties Van Cleef’s
in the first two films (though different characters). Volonté was career was on the wane and he had pretty much retired and was
reportedly not terribly enthused about the films, regarding them immersed in his hobby of oil painting when the call came from
as common exploitation entertainment. He was more interested Leone and his career took off like never before).
And then came The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, an epic Civil
War-era adventure. This
time Eastwood and Van
Cleef (now playing bad guy
“Angel Eyes”) are joined by
Eli Wallach as the Mexican
bandito “Tuco Benedicto
Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez”
(“Known as the rat,” Eastwood
smirks at one point). Wallach
embraced the role with
gusto, injecting much humor
and nuance and creating a
character that is most often
first remembered by fans of
Lee Van Cleef draws a bead on his bounty, “Guy Callaway,” these films. The “roots” of
in the opening sequence of For a Few Dollars More (1965). Tuco can be seen in previous
(RIGHT) Leone fine-tunes Van Cleef’s shooting stance for
Wallach performances such
a scene in For a Few Dollars More. © United Artists.
as “Calvera” in John Sturges’
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
RetroFan August 2020 63
 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

(also starring future Leone star Charles Bronson) and

“Charlie Gant” in How the West Was Won (1962).
In the early Seventies, in Dallas, a friend of
mine, Mark, had a cousin whose family was friends
with Lee Van Cleef. As it happened, Mark owned a
real Colt .45 six-shooter with holster (collectively
referred as a “rig”), strictly for target shooting and
quick-draw practice. One day the cousin excitedly
told Mark to come over to the house—Lee Van Cleef
was visiting! “And bring your rig.” Van Cleef, perhaps
travelling for a film, had his own rig with him, so
they set up a quick-draw contest (checking each
other’s guns first to make sure they weren’t loaded).
Mark later told me that he never once got his gun
even out of the holster before Van Cleef had “fired.”
Mark complimented him as the fastest quick-draw
he’d ever seen, but Van Cleef just shook his head.
“Clint is the fastest. There are no camera tricks or
fancy editing in these films—nobody is faster on the
draw than Clint Eastwood.”
One of the photos Ernest Farino selected from Leone’s book of contact sheets:
With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone felt Tonino Delli Colli films Eli Wallach and Mario Brega (as “Wallace”) as they
he had done what he came to do with regard to leap from the train.
Westerns and wanted to move on to other things.
Paramount Pictures agreed to finance his next
project, but with one stipulation: it had to be a Western. So Leone in the grave of “Arch Stanton,” and the haunting “Jill’s America”
rolled up his sleeves and, collaborating on the screenplay with in Once Upon a Time in the West. Both selections were performed
notables like Bernardo Bertolucci (famous in years to come as by Edda Dell’Orso, a soprano with a three-octave range who
director of important films such as The Conformist, 1900, Last Tango reportedly could take one look over the score and, in a very
in Paris, and The Last Emperor) and horror-maestro Dario Argento job-like matter-of-fact fashion, perform the music in one take.
(The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’ Nine Tails, and Suspiria), “Jill’s America” captures both the longing for the “Old West” and
Leone fashioned one of the true epic masterpieces of modern a heartfelt optimism for a fresh future, and in this regard, has
cinema: Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). since been played at many weddings. A wonderful modern (but
Leone also collaborated again with music composer Ennio faithful) version of the theme was performed by German-born
Morricone, who had himself used the Westerns as a springboard Slovak operatic soprano Patricia Janečková in the Miss Reneta
to creating a whole new “sound,” often involving sound effects student competition, Czech Republic, March 30, 2012 (available on
and choral accompaniment. Their collaboration was so thorough YouTube).
that Morricone would compose and record several themes from Another important element to these films is the
which Leone could choose, and then this temp music was played cinematography. Massimo Dellamano shot A Fistful of Dollars
on the set during the filming of key sequences. and For a Few Dollars More and Tonino Delli Colli shot The Good, the
Morricone’s music is also famous for its wordless female Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. Both infused
vocals, notably the rousing “Ecstasy of Gold” that pushes Tuco the films with a sense of style and a mastery of widescreen
along as he races through the immense graveyard at the finale composition, although I feel that the photography of For a Few
of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly searching for the treasure buried Dollars More is the most refined and polished. I worked with
renowned cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on the
SyFy miniseries Frank Herbert’s Dune in 2000 and asked
Vittorio about Tonino Delli Colli as I had heard they
were friends. The one thing that stood out for Vittorio
about Tonino had nothing to do with photography;
rather, apparently Tonino Delli Colli was someone who
was obsessed with figuring (legal) ways to get a better
break on his taxes…
For Once Upon a Time in the West Leone was able
to recruit a roster of major stars: Claudia Cardinale,

Can’t we all just get along…? Eastwood, Wallach, and

Van Cleef between scenes at the “Sad Hill Cemetery”
location in Spain.

64 RetroFan August 2020

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Says Ernest Farino: “In 1970, Clint Eastwood came to Dallas to promote
Two Mules for Sister Sara. In an unlikely sequence of events, I was able to
get up into the loft of the Majestic Theater downtown where Eastwood
was ‘judging’ a miniskirt contest (as the song goes, ‘those were the days,
my friend’). Equipped with my Super-8 camera on a tripod, I elbowed
my way through the crowd on the street and bluffed my way upstairs as
a member of the ‘Press’ (a pioneer of ‘fake news’ even back then). I had
the foresight to grab this color still as I left for the event and Eastwood
looked very amused when I presented it to him to sign. (I have no idea
who won the miniskirt contest.)” (INSET) “For Three Men the Civil War
Wasn’t Hell. It Was Practice!” The U.S. poster for The Good the Bad and
the Ugly. © United Artists.

So, Fonda took the job, and, since

Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards,
Gabrielle Ferzetti, Lionel Stander, Jack Elam,
Frank Wolff, and Keenan Wynn.
Like many, I was quite smitten with Claudia
Cardinale. She appears as the first major female
character in any of Leone’s films and Leone
once said, “You can see that the whole film
moves around her. If you take her out, there’s no
more film. She’s the central motor of the entire
happening.” Given her significance to the story,
and my own unrequited crush, I brought this up
when I interviewed Leone in his offices in 1971.
But sometimes such “star-struck” impressions
are brought down to earth by prosaic realities:
I asked him, “Did you cast Claudia Cardinale
because she was a talented, experienced actress,
a world class beauty, a genuine movie star on the world stage?”
Leone replied, “All of those things, certainly (“certo”), but also
because she was an Italian national and, as such, we could get a
tax break…” (These Italians and their taxes, I swear…)
Henry Fonda was dubious. He couldn’t make heads or
tails of the script so he called up his friend Eli Wallach since
Wallach had just recently worked with Leone on The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly. Wallach replied, “Forget the script. Just do it.
You will have the best time you’ve ever had on any movie…”
he was supposed to be the baddest
villain in the history of the movies (a
child-killer, no less), he had brown
contact lenses made to cover his
baby-blues and grew a handlebar
mustache. When he showed up in
Italy Leone was aghast: “No, no, no!”
he exclaimed. “I don’t want a cliché
villain! I want the audience to be
shocked to see that the baddest of all
bad guys is Henry Fonda! ‘Tom Joad,’
‘Young Mr. Lincoln.’” So, they changed
everything back, and af ter Frank and
his gang massacre the family and
the camera cranes around to first see
his face, I can personally attest to
observing numerous audiences gasp
as one: “My God! It’s Henry Fonda!”
Trivia break: In the opening
sequence at Cattle Corner station, Jack
Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mullock wait for Charles Bronson
to arrive on the train, and a fly lands on Jack Elam’s face. He
proceeds to while away the time by playing with the fly, finally
trapping it in the barrel of his pistol. The fly was a total accident,
which they then expanded on to create an amusing, extended
piece of business. (The wife of a friend of mine doesn’t care for the
film for its deliberate pace and every time it’s mentioned she says,
“Is that one with the fly…?!” All things considered, the fly probably
should have gotten billing…)

(LEFT) Henry Fonda as “Frank” (no last name) in Leone’s epic masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West. (CENTER) Charles Bronson
as “Harmonica” (no other name) in Once Upon a Time in the West. (RIGHT) Italian actress (actually, born in Tunisia) Claudia Cardinale
as “Jill McBain” in Once Upon a Time in the West. Academy Award®-winning cinematographer Conrad Hall photographed Claudia a
few years earlier in the Richard Brooks Western The Professionals and described her as “A cameraman’s dream—a perfect [element]
of nature—there is not much you can do wrong in photographing her.” All © Paramount Pictures.

RetroFan August 2020 65

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

And to finally put to rest the “Dollars” trilogy, Leone originally

wanted the three guys waiting to ambush Bronson to be played
by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach, and then kill This is James Coburn in
’em off in the first ten minutes. Wallach was game, but Van Cleef Duck, You Sucker. I was
was unavailable and Eastwood was simply not interested. So thrilled to meet Coburn
much for that idea. when I was in Melbourne,
Australia, as the Visual
Bronson: Did you bring a horse for me…?
Effects Supervisor and
Elam (snickering): Looks like… looks like we’re shy one horse… 2nd Unit Director for
Bronson (shaking his head): You brought two too many… the NBC miniseries
Blamm! Blamm! Blamm! Noah’s Ark starring Jon
During this time, I started making my own 8mm movies: a Voight. Coburn had a
James Bond film (of course), an epic college class project based on small cameo part and
Dante’s Inferno, and my own “Italian Western,” Duel for a Dollar. In was there only for a
addition to writing, directing, and editing, I also stepped in front few days, but we chatted for about 20 minutes on the
of the camera to play the Lee Van Cleef-inspired villain. One day set and he remembered working with Leone fondly.
in the midst of many weekends of filming, my silver long-barreled Regarding Leone’s penchant for shooting many takes
Colt .45 (a plastic toy gun) actually melted in the Texas sun. For from different master shot angles, he said that at one
point during a tavern scene he and co-star Rod Steiger
the rest of the scenes I could only have the gun holstered, as the
finally exclaimed, “Sergio! You got it! We’re done!”
pearl handle was the only thing that survived. and they finally moved on to the next scene. Coburn’s
In 1971 I attended the University of Dallas, primarily to take handwriting here is a little shaky because at the time he
advantage of their exchange program. A Catholic university, UD was suffering from advanced arthritis. I was prepared
had a campus in Rome and sophomores could elect to attend to back off from the autograph, but he generously (and
there for a semester. It was a great adventure—“The Eternal very genially) agreed. I left the photo in an envelope in
City” was not lost on me and I thoroughly explored the city, his trailer, and I think his being able to sign it in private
attended a public audience with Pope Paul VI inside the Vatican, helped avoid embarrassment. I thanked him the next
visited Florence twice to see Michelangelo’s David and other art day as we passed each other on the set and he smiled
treasures, went on a school-sponsored ten-day tour of Greece that wonderful toothy grin and said, “My pleasure!”
(ending up in Athens, where I caught a screening of Run Men Run,
Sartana’s in Town—an Italian Western dubbed into English with
Greek subtitles), and on spring break I took the train to London to would be delayed a bit longer as Leone’s new film Giu La Testa (in
meet Ray Harryhausen at his home. I even learned a little Italian. the U.S.: Duck, You Sucker, a.k.a. A Fistful of Dynamite) was set to
I was determined to try and interview Leone for a book had premiere and that Leone was going to travel with it to premiere
in mind (though that has yet to come about), and on that premise it in other cities. However, she added that there was going to be a
I contacted his office. His secretary, Mrs. Marotta, was very special private preview screening that night and Leone had asked
pleasant and accommodating, and she said that while Leone her to invite me! I was thrilled, and for the rest of the day the
would be unavailable for a while, she would try and schedule adrenaline never stopped flowing.
something and would let me know. The screening was at 9:30 and the location was on the exact
I had become friends with opposite side of Rome! Sr. Gilda called a cab and told the cab
an American nun, Sister Gilda, driver about my 9:30 appointment and asked him to hurry.
who was assigned to the We arrived at 9:15 at a cost of 2000 lire (at that time, about
convent where the University $3.00). Upon entering the building, I immediately recognized
had set up its campus. Sr. the place as being a film studio with editing rooms and other
Gilda was quite taken with facilities.
all my talk of movies, and we I went up to a tall gentleman by the door, thinking he was
enjoyed many interesting the doorman. I awkwardly asked him where to go, and he took
conversations. She also spoke me to the stairs and told me the screening room was on the third
fluent Italian, which helped in floor down. Later I heard him being introduced to someone, and
many ways. it turned out that he was Fulvio Morsella, producer of Leone’s last
Some time later I was three films! And I thought he was the doorman...
surprised by a telephone call The room was a recording studio. At the back was a large
from Mrs. Marotta. She said white screen and two-thirds back from the screen was a huge
that the interview with Leone mixing console. Microphone booms and other equipment lined
the walls. About 30 chairs had
been arranged in front of the
The U.S. three-sheet poster for Once Upon a Time in the West with
art by famous Western artist Frank McCarthy. Among his many
console but another 20 were
movie posters, others from the Sixties with McCarthy artwork later added when it became
include the classic James Bond films Thunderball and You Only apparent that there was going
Live Twice (both with Robert McGinnis). © Paramount Pictures. to be more of a crowd than
expected.

66 RetroFan August 2020


So, I went over and took a front-row seat, and no sooner did
I sit down than in walked composer Ennio Morricone. He was
dressed casually and was known by everyone and was having
quite a good time.
Soon there was a small commotion at the door—in walked
Sergio Leone. He nodded greetings to everyone, shaking hands.
Mr. Marotta decided to introduce him to everyone, and as I was
sitting nearest to the front, they came up to me first.
Not sure of how well Leone spoke English, I kept it simple. We
shook hands and “Buon Giorno”–ed each other and he moved on.
Leone was the center of my attention for the next few minutes,
and before I knew it, somebody else was bringing Morricone
around and the same thing occurred.
The film soon started. Definitely “Sergio Leone,” yet not Leone.
There is not, for example, the traditional climactic gundown
scene, and the whole film is somewhat depressing. James Coburn
plays the strong, laconic straight man whereas Rod Steiger is the
livelier and comic “Tuco”- type of character.
Regardless, I came away realizing I was one of the first 50
people in the world to see Sergio Leone’s new film.
The day after the screening, Sr. Gilda and I headed down to
Cinecittá film studios. She had been able to arrange a tour and
we got in with no problem. On the wall of the general manager’s
office, a large map of Cinecittá had thumbtacks indicating who
was doing what and where: Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti,
Franco Zeffirelli, and Sergio Leone all had studios, theaters, and
other facilities reserved.
I saw the deteriorating remains of “Verona” from Franco
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, the under-construction Arch of
Constantine for Fellini’s film, the now-vacant lot where they
built the chariot stadium for Ben Hur, and the Western set,
which is built in a curving “L,” one end being the old American
West and the other end a Mexican town.
About two weeks later, I got the call to come to Leone’s office
for the interview. I arrived a little early and was asked to wait in
Leone’s of fice. I noticed a large, finely crafted antique bookcase
along one wall, extending floor to ceiling. It was completely full
of books on the American Civil War. Leone arrived and was very
gracious and forthcoming, and his producer (and brother-in-law),
Fulvio Morsella, who spoke perfect English with no trace of an
accent, was there to translate. Afterwards, Leone kindly signed
Innovative music composer (LEFT) Ennio Morricone and
Sergio Leone, c. 1972.
ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria
Wannabe Italian Western director
Ernesto Farino (the name seems to fit
somehow) on the Western street backlot
at Cinecittá in 1972.
photos for me and on the spur of the moment pulled out another
portrait of himself and signed that one to me as well.
As he was leaving, Leone invited me to stay a little longer
and go through his books of contact sheets to order any photos I
might like. Not wanting to abuse the privilege, I only picked out a
handful of behind-the-scenes shots from The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West (several of which are seen in
these pages of RetroFan).
Once you’re a fan of these Westerns you’re in it for life, and
I continue to enjoy them to this day. One of the best non-Leone
Italian Westerns was The Big Gundown, directed by the “other
Sergio,” Sergio Sollima, also starring Lee Van Cleef and with
another terrific Morricone score. A drive-in theater on the far side
of Fort Worth double-billed The Big Gundown and Once Upon a Time
in the West. An hour’s drive from home? No problem…
And speaking of drive-ins (talk about “once upon a time”),
in the early Seventies a local drive-in booked Once Upon a Time
in the West. I was working as an usher at an indoor theater that
was part of the same chain, so I went to the booth to say hello to
the projectionist and tell him to “give us a good show.” He said,
“I hope you get to see it all.” What? He explained that on this first
night of the run they had only received the first half of the movie
and were frantically trying to locate the missing reels. So, my
friends and I kept watching the “changeover dots” in the upper-
right corner of the frame at the end of each reel, exclaiming
“Yesss!” in unison when we moved on to the next reel. After four or
five reels we figured they had retrieved the rest of the print and
we were good to the end.
Whew! Talk about suspense…
ERNEST FARINO recently directed
an episode of the SyFy/Netflix series
Superstition starring Mario Van Peebles,
as well as serving as Visual Ef fects
Consultant.
RetroFan August 2020 67
RETRO TOYS
by Robert V. Conte
In the fantastic genre of “movie monsters,” few iconic characters
have reigned supreme at 65-years-young. Sure, Dracula,
Frankenstein’s monster, and King Kong are considerably older, but
few horrific characters can surpass the immense success of one of
the most merchandised monsters in the world—GODZILLA!
The King of the Monsters (KOTM) first appeared on screen
in 1954’s Gojira in Japan (released two years later in the United
States as an edited, repurposed version starring Raymond
Burr). The fire-breathing, radioactive beast—reawakened from
mankind’s nuclear testing to wreak havoc upon the world—would
outperform other B-movie behemoths from the era. Films like
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms quaked in comparison to the might
of Godzilla’s box-office success worldwide. To date, 35 movies
(including three animated features) have been made—the most
films in motion-picture history to feature the same character!
There are two known variants of Ideal’s 1963 Godzilla Game. Some
have play instructions printed on the inside box, while others
include a separate printed sheet inside it. There is ongoing debate
among collectors over which version was available first, but both are
extremely hard-to-find in complete and good condition. © Toho Co., Ltd.
Godzilla is owned and licensed by Toho Company, Ltd. and,
throughout the last six decades, thousands of toys, apparel, and
other collectibles have been produced. Kaiju (meaning “Japanese
monsters”) collectors are intimately familiar with the vast
magnitude of products sold in Japan. To chronicle and discuss them
at length would result in a book as mammoth as Godzilla himself!
This article specifically focuses on Godzilla’s history in the
United States, including the first official items in the early
68 RetroFan August 2020
in the
Good Ol’
U.S.A.
Sixties through the end of Toho’s arrangement with UPA in the
mid-Nineties.
The Golden Age of Godzilla Licensing…
Godzilla did not have domestically licensed consumer products
until 1963—nine years after the character’s debut. Arguably,
there are two reasons: First, the original film was not intended to
become a platform to sell tchotchkes to children; it was meant to
be an allegory on the ravages of nuclear weapons (Japan suffered
greatly from the real-life bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
near the end of World War II). Second, the first sequel, 1955’s
Godzilla Raids Again, was initially released in America as Gigantis,
the Fire Monster in 1959. Its U.S. producers and distributor, Warner
Bros., either was not permitted to—or elected not to—use the
name “Godzilla,” instead opting for its own moniker. For over
25 years, Gigantis would be
the least-known KOTM film
until it appeared on cable
television and released on
home video in the Eighties.
Ironically, the first-ever U.S.
item featuring Godzilla—
though not licensed from
Toho—was a 1961 Horror
Monsters trading card
featuring a publicity still
showing “Gigantis” and his
first nemesis, “the Angurus
Monster.”
Godzilla’s first U.S.
licensing agent was the
Weston Merchandising
Company, founded in 1960
by G.I. Joe co-creator Stanley Weston (1933–2017). Weston was a
pioneer who saw the potential of teaming intellectual properties
(IPs) owned by multiple companies, as he famously did in 1966
with Captain Action [see RetroFan #7], the super-hero action figure
that could also change into myriad licensed characters (if only the
Captain had a Godzilla outfit…!). He was encouraged to represent
Godzilla after learning one of his key clients, Universal Pictures,
would distribute 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla in the United States.
Reportedly, Weston seized this opportunity under the condition
he would also sell King Kong licenses on behalf of RKO Pictures.
Godzilla’s first licensed product was a board game. Ideal Toys,
one of the most iconic makers of family entertainment including
Betsy Wetsy dolls, Mouse Trap, and Rubik’s Cube, produced
the Godzilla Game in 1963. A companion to the company’s
 Although Weston Merchandise Corp. had been instrumental
in licensing Godzilla products domestically in the Sixties, it
would eventually discontinue this role in favor of more lucrative
opportunities. Reportedly, the last Weston-era official Godzilla
item is a scarce bicycle license plate by Marx, circa 1967.

Calm Before the Storm…

United Productions of America (better known as UPA) started as
a movie-and-television animation studio known for its Academy
Award®-winning cartoons featuring the Nearsighted Mister
Magoo and Dr. Seuss’ Gerald McBoing Boing. Film producer
Henry “Hank” G. Saperstein (1918–1998), who had previous
experience licensing IPs (including Elvis Presley and the Lone
Ranger), became the driving force that would eventually turn
his company into a licensing juggernaut. His collaborations with
Toho resulted in several of its Kaiju films becoming international
successes including Monster Zero (1965/1970), Frankenstein
The box art for the first issue of Conquers the World (1965/1966), and War of the Gargantuas
Aurora’s 1964 Godzilla model kit
(1966/1970). [Editor’s note: Throughout this article,
was illustrated by the legendary
James Bama; its original plastic theatrical release dates are noted first by their debut
pieces were molded in the unusual date in Japan, followed by their U.S. openings where
color of fuchsia. Aurora re-released applicable.] To help increase worldwide appeal, these
the model kit in 1972 with “glow-in- titles were released in the United States (sometimes
the-dark” parts (RIGHT); the body
years after their initial Japanese openings), with
was now molded in green for model
builders who did not wish to paint additional footage featuring American actors.
theirs. © Toho Co., Ltd. As UPA’s relationship with Toho blossomed,
Saperstein’s role excelled beyond co-producing and
dubbing films for the studio. Soon he became Godzilla’s
simultaneously released King Kong exclusive licensing agent in the Western hemisphere
Game (featuring the character’s and, as the Seventies began, campaigned for an
original 1933 incarnation), this virtual tie-in utilized artwork based unprecedented explosion of KOTM success!
upon King Kong vs. Godzilla on the box and the playing board. The After the theatrical release of Monster Zero (a.k.a. Godzilla
theatrical run of KOTM’s third movie—the first filmed in full-color vs. Monster Zero) in 1970, Saperstein moved away from co-
and depicting both adversaries in a campy context—appealed producing films for Toho. He focused upon the growing market
to audiences of all ages and helped spark the next big product of syndicated television. Before the days of home video and
category: Monsters! streaming services, one could only get a monster-movie fix by
With Toho and RKO’s separate blessings, Weston was able being in front of a TV on the designated day and time a program
to co-package Godzilla and Kong—with the entire roster of would air. Watching Godzilla films were special events not to be
Universal Monsters—for product licensing including Count taken lightly!
Dracula, the Creature, and the Bride of Frankenstein. Aurora Saperstein increased Godzilla’s exposure in American homes
Plastics Company, widely known for its vast line of injection- by strategically airing films in multiple time slots on television.
molded model kits, launched its “Monsters from the Movies” From the mid-Seventies through early Eighties, Godzilla led the
series introducing the first-ever Godzilla Model Kit in 1964. pack of giant movie monsters over the airwaves, helping build a
Loosely based on the design from King Kong vs. Godzilla, its sales devout fanbase for Godzilla and company!
soared when Godzilla vs. the Thing (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. Mothra) hit
movie theaters that same All-Out Attack!
year. In 1969, Aurora Saperstein’s efforts to keep Godzilla in Americans’ public
reintroduced the consciousness would also be realized by theatrical
kit with glow- releases of films that had been only released
in-the-dark in Japan. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973/1976),
enhancements, Godzilla vs. Cosmic Monster, a.k.a. Godzilla vs.
and then re- Mechagodzilla (1974/1977), and Godzilla on
released it Monster Island, a.k.a. Godzilla vs. Gigan
again in 1972. In 1966, a Godzilla Go-Cart model (1972/1977), were edited to be granted
kit debuted as part of another Monster series.
Unassembled, inside-the-box Go-Carts with A Sixties publicity photo of the late
Henry G. Saperstein, owner of UPA
original instructions are considered among animation studios and Godzilla’s North
the rarest American Godzilla collectibles American licensing agent for Toho Co.,
today! Ltd. Courtesy of Robert V. Conte.

RetroFan August 2020 69

 RETRO TOYS

“G” ratings from the Motion Picture Association of America

(MPAA). This move helped propel KOTM’s popularity to an YOU KNOW THE NAME OF KING KONG…
all-time high—Godzilla was now a “good” movie monster that
1933’s original King Kong inspired Godzilla’s creation
protected mankind! some 20 years later. But how did the 1976 King Kong
One of Saperstein’s biggest achievements took place in March remake influence the wave of KOTM merchandising
1977. As Godzilla vs. Cosmic from the mid- to late Seventies?
Monster ran in theaters, I often conversed with Henry G. Saperstein about
he scored a primetime all things Godzilla. Affectionately known as “Hank” by
spot on NBC-TV where those who knew him (as I did while editing stories for
Godzilla vs. Megalon Dark Horse Comics in the Nineties), we once discussed
aired for the first the Paramount Kong picture starring Jeff Bridges,
time. It was hosted Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange:
by famed Saturday “Paramount [Studios] did some job in marketing
their new movie long before it hit the screens,” Hank
Night Live comedian
remarked to me. “I had been at some [film] industry
John Belushi, who event and saw a seven-foot standee of the new Kong
wore an actual Godzilla atop the Twin Towers in New York City. His feet
costume throughout its spread across both of them! The art was refined by the
Screen capture of NBC-TV’s presentation! time it hit the public,
1977 airing of Godzilla vs. The gamble of taking but what had already
Megalon—featuring SNL’s Godzilla into a family-friendly been done was enough
John Belushi in the KOTM direction paid off: multiplied for companies to sign
suit! © Toho Co., Ltd./NBC. deals and open their
ticket sales at the box office
and countless letters written checkbooks.”
by fans of all ages to TV stations demanded more Godzilla!
© Universal City Studios. Hank was right. When
King Kong was released
at the end of 1976, a
Godzilla Stomps Everywhere! plethora of merchandise
Not to be undone by the record-setting licensing campaign supported it including
of the 1976 King Kong remake, Saperstein was determined to posters, drinking glasses
surpass the success of Godzilla’s former cinema adversary. With and cups, Colorforms,
the character’s strong presence at toy-and-licensing events, puzzles, board games,
combined with trade ads teaming KOTM with Mr. Magoo, View-Master reels, model
Saperstein aggressively secured various merchandising deals kits, bop bags, peanut-butter cups, records, and trading
including: cards. The new Kong definitely had an incredible
AURORA PLASTICS CO. – Shortly after the 10th anniversary impact on children like the then-six-year-old me!
of the consistently selling Godzilla Model Kit, the hobby company “The new Kong motivated me,” Hank continued.
“The domestic distributor for Godzilla vs. Megalon
licensed two new additional monsters: Ghidrah, the Three-
and I wanted to make the most of the competition.
Headed Monster and Rodan. As Saperstein’s arrangement We had an artist render Godzilla on one of the Twin
with Toho was specific to KOTM, he had to obtain the studio’s Towers and Megalon on the other. Then we rushed it
additional approval. Both kits were discontinued after the out and booked the film in theaters months before the
company was sold to Monogram in 1977. Fortunately, Godzilla’s remake [of Kong] hit. Paramount was angry, and Dino
glow-in-the-dark kit was reissued again, this time with a [DeLaurentis, King Kong producer] didn’t like what we
photograph on the box showing the completed model! did too much, either. And, of course, the actual movie
BEN COOPER, INC. – As King Kong had no such scene! [laughs] That’s real marketing, kid!”
remained a consistent seller over
decades, the iconic Halloween-themed
company [see RetroFan #2] produced a
Godzilla costume in 1978. The first release (FAR LEFT) How many of you
was sold in its own branded box featuring RetroFans went trick-or-treat-
art from Marvel Comics’ Godzilla #8. It was ing as the King of Monsters?
later repackaged for inclusion in Cooper’s Ben Cooper, Inc.’s Godzilla
costume and mask set was
“Monster,” “Famous Faces,” and “Play Suit” packaged in no less than
lines (the latter allowed repackaged overstock four configurations from
to sell all year round). Although Godzilla’s mask the company’s branded
remained the same, the vinyl smock’s chest boxes. The actual costume
area has two known variants—the first a yellow has two known variants.
(LEFT) Blue Öyster Cult’s
background and the second green so the outfit single, “Godzilla.” © Toho Co.,
appeared more authentic. Ltd./Columbia Records.
In 1980, Ben Cooper slightly modified its 1974 Pre-
Historic Dinosaur “Jiggler” (a rubber figure with small

70 RetroFan August 2020

 RETRO TOYS

giant 100-piece puzzle were

produced, all illustrated by
fantasy artist Earl Norem.
Norem, known for painting
the cover (over a Jack Kirby
sketch) for Marvel Comics’
first-ever original graphic
novel, The Silver Surfer, by
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, as
well as for painted covers of
various Marvel-produced
black-and-white magazines
of the Seventies, modeled his
Monster on view! Among View-Master’s Godzilla products: a three-reel packet, Godzilla’s inclu- KOTM after Trimpe’s design.
sion in the “Monster Gift Pak” set (side view of cannister), and V-M’s Show Beam projector. © Toho Titles include “Air Attack,”
Co., Ltd. View-Master © Fisher-Price. “City Rampage,” and “Harbor
Havoc.”
In 1979, the company
strap designed to dangle from automobile rear-view mirrors and released its Godzilla Battles the Tricephalon Monster Play Set.
high surfaces) by removing a horn atop its head. Add some green This amazing item—pitting Godzilla against an adversary
paint on the creature’s back fins and, voilà, Godzilla! (No, not resembling a “Mecha-ghidrah”—was ahead of its time.
really!) Inadequate marketing and promotion led to its untimely demise
CBS/COLUMBIA RECORDS – KOTM served as inspiration as it was overshadowed by Mattel’s Godzilla toys. The direct
for his very own song! Known for memorable tracks “Don’t Fear competitor advertised its products heavily in mass print and
the Reaper” and “Running for You,” hard rockers Blue Öyster on television, while HG Toys relied upon orders from its trade
Cult recorded “Godzilla” for their 1977 album Spectres. Their label catalogs and consumers seeing its products in stores. As a
issued a single for radio airplay, in seven-inch and 12-inch formats, result, unsold units were returned and destroyed. Many Godzilla
with studio and live versions of the song. It features a picture collectors did not know this item actually existed until years later,
sleeve featuring a promotional still from Godzilla vs. the Sea resulting in its high collectability today!
Monster! KEN FILMS – Before Betamax video recorders and players
GAF VIEW-MASTER – The 21-scene, three-reel packet were commercially available, many
“Godzilla’s Rampage” was produced for the popular line of 3D American homes relied on film
standard and Talking View-Master viewers in 1978. The Pictorial projectors. Scenes from Destroy
Products company included a black-and-white activity booklet. All Monsters, Godzilla vs. the Thing,

© Toho Co., Ltd.

Although in-house artist Pete Dorsett was credited for the
illustrations, the fact is all depictions of Godzilla were actually
traced from Herb Trimpe’s artwork printed in the first two issues
of the Marvel Comics Godzilla series!
Joined by Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and Wolf Man, an
edited version of the Godzilla story was included inside a seven-
reel “Monster” expanded set, and again as a “Monster Gift Pak”
including a standard 3D viewer inside a branded canister!
In 1979, GAF released a Godzilla/Mr. Magoo cassette
compatible with its Double-Vue film viewer featuring clips from
the Hanna-Barbera animated Godzilla show. Lastly, a “Godzilla-
Godzooky” cartridge from the same program appeared in 1980
(repackaged in 1982) for its Show Beam Projector.
GLJ TOY COMPANY, LTD. – This Long Island-based company,
granted a patent for Inflatable Action Toys, dabbled in IP licensing to support losing control over its IP, as well. Yet, four-color
and utilized its technology to release the first-ever Godzilla Bop
Bag in 1978. Other products that year include the Godzilla Ball
Target Game and Godzilla Toy Wrist Watch. In the collector’s
world, GLJ’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters Bendy Figure remains
among the most collectible items today.
HG TOYS – After lackluster sales of American Publishing’s
Godzilla, King of the Creatures Puzzle in 1977 (reportedly, the
image based on the original 1954 film was considered “too
gruesome” for children), a new license for this category was
granted to HG Toys. In 1978, three 150-piece puzzles and one
Ghidrah, and other Toho monsters
were available via mail order and
camera shops. Although these Super
8mm reels lasted only a few minutes,
watching Godzilla and gang at your
leisure was an appealing alternative to
missing them on TV.
MARVEL COMICS – It was 1976 and, as Godzilla’s 20th
anniversary in the U.S. approached, Saperstein envisioned new
ways to increase profitability of Toho’s number-one monster—
including new adventures taking place in America instead of
Japan! U.S. television and film studios balked at the idea; the
budget for 1976’s King Kong was considered astronomical and
the film did not meet financial expectations. Toho was unlikely
adventures of KOTM could be done inexpensively and quickly.
Enter Marvel Comics Group! A story was developed where
Godzilla, at first trapped in an iceberg that floated from Japan to
Alaska, rampaged through the nation while battling super-heroes
including Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Mighty Thor along the
way!
From 1977–1979, 24 monthly issues of Godzilla, King of the
Monsters comic books were published. All but two issues were
penciled by Herb Trimpe (1939–2015), whom Saperstein approved
as artist after seeing his stunning work on Marvel’s The Incredible
RetroFan August 2020 71
 RETRO TOYS

WONDERLAND
(FAR LEFT) Before Godzilla vs. RECORDS – In 1977
Megalon was released in Ameri-
one would find this
ca, giveaway four-page comics
were provided to participating item in the “Children’s
theaters promoting the film. Records” section at
These comics predate Marvel’s their local record
Godzilla comic series. (LEFT) store. Featuring
Marvel’s Godzilla #1 (Aug. 1977).
Trimpe’s art from
Cover art by Herb Trimpe.
(INSET) Trimpe’s corner box Marvel Comics’
art from the Marvel series was Godzilla, King of the
used by Toho in the Nineties Monsters #1, the
on the “Stomp album includes two
of Approval”
15-minute stories:
for virtually
every autho- “Godzilla vs. the Alien
rized Godzilla Invasion” on Side
product. © Toho A and “Godzilla vs.
Co., Ltd./Marvel. Amphibion” on Side
B. The disc plays like a
radio drama and feels
Hulk! [Editor’s note: To discover more about Marvel’s Godzilla, see like a prelude to the Hanna-Barbera animated series that would
Back Issue #6 and 116, available via twomorrows.com.] debut the following year. Interestingly, Godzilla’s roar throughout
MATTEL – The toy company that brought us Barbie, Hot the recording is the menacing original from the first 1954/1956
Wheels, and Masters of the Universe, impressed by Saperstein’s film, not the kid-friendly version of the time.
stateside success with Godzilla, wanted to join Toho’s team of Many consider American Godzilla product licensing of the
licensees. Considered by many to be the crème-de-la-crème of Seventies to be the most inconsistent era of the character’s
KOTM collecting, its 1978 Shogun Warriors Godzilla skyrocketed history, as Saperstein’s goal to make KOTM family friendly
in sales and lifted popularity of the entire Shogun Warriors line. ultimately diluted the brand.
Collectors are known to spend precious time and money seeking
specific variants of this figure. Some argue that the earliest Return of the Original Titan of Terror…!
known models, made in Japan for Mattel via Bandai, are the most The advent of home video changed the entertainment industry
desired. Others claim the later U.S.-made versions are preferred forever. Saperstein realized selling uncut, commercial-free
due to improved sculpting of Godzilla’s tail, shooting claw, and Godzilla films would be a powerful way to reintroduce the brand.
fire-breath lever! He owned the rights to the original U.S. releases of Godzilla, King
Other Mattel/Toho toys released include the 1978 of the Monsters and Rodan (1956/1957). Granting a license to Vestron
Godzilla Game (not a reissue of the Ideal game—its original, Video, both films were simultaneously released in all available
all-plastic design features a “pop-up” Godzilla with “roaring formats (Beta, VHS, CED, and Laserdisc) in mid-1983. Backed
sound”); the Godzilla’s Gang eight-figure series (that bizarrely by a huge advertising campaign including oversized double-
includes Japanese monster characters outside of KOTM’s sided posters and standees, sales topped Saperstein’s wildest
Monsterverse), and perhaps the scarcest Mattel/Toho toy of imagination. Throughout the Eighties, many Godzilla films made
all—1979’s Rodan. through 1975 were released for home use.

You wanna piece of me? The HG Toys line of Godzilla Puzzles, illustrated by Earl Norem, are simply fantastic. The company’s Godzilla
vs. the Tricephalon Play Set is, perhaps, the ultimate find for KOTM collectors. © Toho Co., Ltd.

72 RetroFan August 2020


Once Toho announced plans to remake the original Godzilla
for a new generation, Saperstein believed he could re-invigorate
the property to its former glory. Working with New World
Pictures, rights were secured to bring The Return of Godzilla to
U.S. audiences. With Raymond Burr returning as reporter Steve
Martin, the film was marketed as Godzilla 1985—a direct sequel to
the 1956 original!
Imperial Toys, LLC was granted a “Master License” for the
holiday season including a 48-inch Godzilla Bop Bag (with new
commissioned art, reissued in 1992); a 6-foot Inflatable Godzilla,
Bubble-Blowing Godzilla, Spark-E-Godzilla, Godzilla Action
Stickers, and three sizes of its Articulated Godzilla PVC Figure.
Other licensed products sold throughout the decade include
a Godzilla Poster featuring an original illustration from Banning
Entertainment; Godzilla Heads and Shreds Bubble Gum from
Amurol; several black-and-white comics and two portfolios
published by Dark Horse Comics; and a Petster Godzilla from
Axlon. Petsters were a short-lived line of battery-operated,
electronic plush figures that responded to clapping sounds.
Godzilla was licensed to increase popularity and sales of the
company’s entire line of robotic, furry animals. It did not work.
Surprisingly, there are two variants—the second looking cuter
and having brighter colors than the first.
Perhaps the coolest KOTM item of this decade was 1989’s
Godzilla, Monster of Monsters video game made for the Nintendo
Entertainment System (NES). Although Epyx Games had released
its computer game Movie Monsters featuring Godzilla for Apple
II and Commodore 64 in 1986, the NES cartridge was the first
time Toho permitted the use of Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, Gigan,
King Ghidorah (formerly “Ghidrah”), and other Monsterverse
characters in a domestic consumer product.
UPA’s Last Licensing Onslaught!
By the early Nineties, Godzilla’s heyday seemed over in the
US. Godzilla 1985 was a commercial and critical failure, still
remembered today for its overuse of product placement by
sponsor Dr. Pepper and Raymond Burr’s stiff performance.
Its sequel, Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), was not released
theatrically in America; its distributor Miramax dropped out
prompting a lawsuit filed by Toho that was eventually resolved.
From Mattel: Godzilla, from its Shogun Warriors series licensed from Japan, is the
emerald gem of KOTM collecting. The Godzilla’s Gang figures are highly collectible
because of Godzilla being teamed with characters from the Japanese TV show, Ultra-
man. 1978’s Godzilla Game pitted players as astronauts trying to land their space-
RETRO TOYS
SATURDAY MORNING GODZILLA
Saperstein’s passion developing original Godzilla
content for the North American market led to an
agreement with Hanna-Barbera Productions for an
animated cartoon. With Jonny Quest creator Doug
Wildey [see RetroFan #7] on board as producer, 26
episodes aired on NBC-TV from 1978–1981, sometimes
packaged with other H-B characters including
Quest, Hong Kong Phooey, and the Super [Harlem]
Globetrotters! This series took inexplicable liberties
including Godzilla’s newfound ability to shoot laser
beams from his eyes, the inclusion of “nephew”
Godzooky, and actor Jack Cassidy (Lurch from
TV’s original Addams Family) “voicing” Godzilla.
Merchandising of the cartoon series yielded few
products: Godzilla Puffy
Magnets, Stickers, and Key
Chains featuring the
entire cast from
the show bombed
at supermarkets
and toy stores;
Cinnamon
House published
several Godzilla
Activity Books;
and Knickerbocker
Toys released bean
dolls of Godzilla and
Godzooky—now desired
items among collectors.
© Toho Co., Ltd./Hanna-Barbera.
Saperstein’s tie-in with White Castle for its Godzilla Monster
Meal almost fell through. Fortunately, the fast-food chain made
lemonade from lemons, completing its “Godzilla Devours White
Castle” campaign distributing several KOTM premiums including
Frisbees and drinking cups throughout the country.
Promising licensees such as Dark Horse Comics continued to
build a strong product line. The publisher released a Godzilla Color
ships on a platform before Godzilla catches them!
© Toho Co., Ltd., except Godzilla’s Gang © Toho and Tsuburaya.
RetroFan August 2020 73
 RETRO TOYS
Among the Godzilla merchandise of the
Big Eighties: an action figure, bubble
gum, a sparking figurine, and a video
game. © Toho Co., Ltd.
Special written and drawn by Arthur Adams, an all-new, 17-issue
Godzilla series, and various short stories and specials including
a Godzilla vs. Barkley comic as a tie-in to a national promotion
crossing KOTM with the superstar basketball player.
While Toho moved forward to rebuild its star IP by producing
several more films and licensing new products in Japan, the
American market was in decline. With exception of Godzilla 2000,
another ten KOTM films produced by Toho would not reach
American theaters.
Undeterred throughout his vast career, Saperstein’s drive
to rebuild the IP he nurtured for over two decades remained
stronger than ever. His agreement with Toho was revised; he
would now act as the studio’s licensing consultant for the North
American territory. Under this arrangement, all-new Godzilla
licensees had to follow a strict style guide for product packaging.
Some items produced during this time include:
CRAFT HOUSE – Godzilla Crayon-By-Number Coloring Kits,
Magic Rocks, and Super-Detailed-Snap Model Kits (1995)
COLLEGEVILLE COSTUMES – Godzilla Character Mask (1994)
JPP/AMADA – Godzilla Chromium Trading Card Set (1996)
SIMITAR ENTERTAINMENT – Remastered and redesigned
versions of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Mothra,
Godzilla’s Revenge, and Terror of Mechagodzilla for the first time on
DVD and, for some titles, the last time released on VHS.
GODZILLA MERCH M.I.A.
Sometimes, consumer products are
licensed, developed, and solicited but
ultimately do not reach the marketplace
© Toho.
due to lack of retailer interest, low
pre-sales, company insolvency,
and creative impasses between
the licensor and licensee.
Anticipated Godzilla items that
never came to market include:
` Godzilla AM Radio (Concept 2000, 1980) (ABOVE)
Eddie Day.
` Godzilla Gazette Fan Club Newsletters (Banning
Entertainment, 1985)
` Sparking Mechagodzilla (Imperial Toys, 1985)
` Godzilla vs. KISS Graphic Novel (Dark Horse Comics,
1995)
74 RetroFan August 2020
TRENDMASTERS – This “Master License” became a home-
run hit due to the company having rights to use other Toho
characters including Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, King-Ghidorah,
and Mechagodzilla. All-new lines of Godzilla Action Figures
(available in four-inch, six-inch, and ten-inch sizes), Hatching
Monsters, and Godzilla Bendies came with exclusive trading
cards or mini comic books. Under its “King of the Monsters,” “Final
Wars,” and scarce “Doom Island” series, Trendmasters produced
over 100 different configurations of Godzilla-related products.
After proving once more that Godzilla could defeat any
challenge, Saperstein had one last dream to come true. Acting as
a negotiator on Toho’s behalf, he worked out a multimillion-dollar
deal for Columbia Tristar Pictures to produce and release an all-
new Godzilla movie in Hollywood!
Sadly, Saperstein died less than a month after the release
of 1998’s Godzilla. In 1999, new Godzilla licensing agent Sony
Signatures, Inc., gave classic KOTM new breath under its
“Godzilla Origins” program and issued several of the domestically
unreleased Godzilla films from the Nineties on home video. One
thing was certain: Godzilla would not die!
We Can’t Stop the Fire…
In the 2000s, Toho would open its own domestic office on the
U.S. West Coast and start a new line of licensing with dozens
of companies including Classic Media, Bandai USA, Diamond
Comic Distribution, and NECA. Soon after, an agreement was
reached with Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. for another
incarnation of Godzilla. What Hank Saperstein always wanted—
to produce top-notch KOTM films in America using Toho’s entire
Monsterverse—did indeed happen with 2014’s Godzilla and 2019’s
Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Toho retains its IP to produce films
in Japan, as well. 2016’s Shin Godzilla is considered one of the best
films in the saga.
With the forthcoming release of Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla
vs. Kong (tentative title) later in 2020, hundreds of new products
featuring both characters are under development for release
this holiday season. Whether or not the mighty Kong may defeat
Godzilla in this long-anticipated rematch, the lord of Skull Island
is unlikely to ever beat the King’s place on the throne as a licensing
phenomenon!
Special thanks to fellow Kaiju expert Sean Lickenback for his feedback
and photography (www.showcasedaikaiju.com); Brian Heiler and
his awesome archive of Seventies memorabilia (www.plaidstallions.
com); Henry G. Saperstein for being an important mentor to me; and
my mother, Joan Walker Conte (1943–2019), who encouraged me to love
monster movies as much as she did.
ROBERT V. CONTE is a pop culture historian
whose multiple contributions to Godzilla
canon include comic books and graphic novels
published by Dark Horse Comics, a trading-
card set from Comic Images, and limited-
edition lithographs through his company,
Studio Chikara. Robert also co-hosted two
Godzilla shows on Home Shopping Network (HSN), produced
an unreleased documentary short about the original film, and is
currently planning an auction of his entire Kaiju collection. Visit
www.studiochikara.com for details!
 ALTER EGO #165
WILL MURRAY showcases original Marvel
publisher (from 1939-1971) MARTIN
GOODMAN, with artifacts by LEE, KIRBY,
DITKO, ROMITA, MANEELY, BUSCEMA,
EVERETT, BURGOS, GUSTAVSON,
SCHOMBURG, COLAN, ADAMS,
STERANKO, and many others! Plus FCA, Mr.
Monster’s Comic Crypt with more on PETE
MORISI, JOHN BROOME, and a cover by
DREW FRIEDMAN!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
WORLD OF TWOMORROWS
Celebrate our 25th anniversary with this
retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW
and Comic Book Creator magazine’s
JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes
with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS,
GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other
TwoMorrows contributors! Introduction by
MARK EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS,
Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new
cover by TOM McWEENEY!
(224-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $37.95
(Digital Edition) $15.99 • Now shipping!
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #23
WENDY PINI discusses her days as Red Sonja
cosplayer, and 40+ years of ELFQUEST! Plus
RICHARD PINI on their 48-year marriage and
creative partnership! SCOTT SHAW! talks
about early San Diego Comic-Cons and
friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot,
and Flintstones work! GIL KANE’s business
partner LARRY KOSTER about their adven-
tures together! PABLO MARCOS on his
Marvel horror work, HEMBECK, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now Shipping!
ALTER EGO #166
FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA
(FCA) Special, with spotlights on KURT
SCHAFFENBERGER (Captain Marvel, Ibis
the Invincible, Marvel Family, Lois Lane),
and ALEX ROSS on his awesome painting of
the super-heroes influenced by the original
Captain Marvel! Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s
“Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” on Superman
editor MORT WEISINGER, JOHN BROOME,
and more! Cover by SCHAFFENBERGER!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2020
BACK ISSUE #121
CONAN AND THE BARBARIANS! Celebrating
the 50th anniversary of ROY THOMAS and
BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’s Conan #1! The
Bronze Age Barbarian Boom, Top 50 Marvel
Conan stories, Marvel’s Not-Quite Conans
(from Kull to Skull), Arak–Son of Thunder,
Warlord action figures, GRAY MORROW’s
Edge of Chaos, and Conan the Barbarian
at Dark Horse Comics. With an unused
WINDSOR-SMITH Conan #9 cover.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #24
TIMOTHY TRUMAN discusses his start at
the Kubert School, Grimjack with writer
JOHN OSTRANDER, and current collabo-
rations with son Benjamin. SCOTT SHAW!
talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons
and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain
Carrot, and Flintstones work! Also PATRICK
McDONNELL’s favorite MUTTS comic book
pastiches, letterer JANICE CHIANG profiled,
HEMBECK, and more! TIM TRUMAN cover.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2020
ALTER EGO #167
Salute to Golden & Silver Age artist SYD
SHORES as he’s remembered by daughter
NANCY SHORES KARLEBACH, fellow
artist ALLEN BELLMAN, DR. MICHAEL
J. VASSALLO, and interviewer RICHARD
ARNDT. Plus: mid-1940s “Green Turtle”
artist/creator CHU HING profiled by
ALEX JAY, JOHN BROOME, MICHAEL
T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster on MORT
WEISINGER Part Two, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2020
BACK ISSUE #122
Celebrates the 40TH ANNIVERSARY of
MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PÉREZ’s
New Teen Titans, featuring a guest editorial
by WOLFMAN and a PÉREZ tribute and
art gallery! Plus: The New Teen Titans’ 40
GREATEST MOMENTS, the Titans in the
media, hero histories of RAVEN, STARFIRE,
and the PROTECTOR, and more! With a
NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED PÉREZ TITANS
COVER from 1981!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Sept. 2020
BRICKJOURNAL #63
UNDERSEA LEGO building! RYAN VAN
DUZOR’s Coral Reef, the many creations
of COLIN HEMMEN’s Brickiverse, plus a
look at JOHN KLAPHEKE’s scenes from
the Indiana Jones movies! Also: “AFOLs”
by GREG HYLAND, “You Can Build It”
instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK,
BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY
WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization
with JARED K. BURKS, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now Shipping!
KIRBY COLLECTOR #78
SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! How Kirby
kickstarted the Silver Age and revamped
Golden Age characters for the 1960s, the
Silver Surfer’s influence, pivotal decisions
(good and bad) Jack made throughout
his comics career, Kirby pencil art gallery,
MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists,
a classic 1950s story, KIRBY/STEVE RUDE
cover (and deluxe silver sleeve) and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95
(DELUXE EDITION w/ silver sleeve) $12.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
BACK ISSUE #123
SUPERHERO ROMANCE ISSUE! Bruce Wayne
and Tony Stark’s many loves, Star Sapphire
history, Bronze Age weddings, DeFALCO/
STERN Johnny Storm/Alicia Pro2Pro interview,
Elongated Man and Wife, May-December
romances, Supergirl’s Secret Marriage, and…
Aunt May and Doc Ock?? Featuring MIKE
W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE ENGLEHART,
BOB LAYTON, DENNY O’NEIL, and many
more! Cover by DAVE GIBBONS.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct.. 2020
BRICKJOURNAL #64
Classic LEGO® themes re-imagined! PIET
NIEDERHAUSEN’s creations based on
the Classic Yellow Castle, CHRIS GIDDENS
(originator of Neo-Classic Space theme),
and tour the Masterpiece Gallery at
Denmark’s LEGO House! Plus: “Bricks
in the Middle” by HINKLE and KAY,
“You Can Build It” instructions by
CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure
Customization with JARED K. BURKS!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2020
KIRBY COLLECTOR #79
See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits
into the grand scheme of things! His cre-
ations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights
illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, incon-
sistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK,
editorial changes in his comics, big concepts
in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS,
MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel,
PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover
based on OMAC #1!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2020
BACK ISSUE #124
HORRIFIC HEROES! With Bronze Age
histories of Man-Thing, the Demon, and
the Creeper, Atlas/Seaboard’s horrifying
heroes, and Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch)
rides again! Featuring the work of CHRIS
CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, ERNIE
COLON, MICHAEL GOLDEN, JACK KIRBY,
MIKE PLOOG, JAVIER SALTARES, MARK
TEXIERA, and more. Man-Thing cover by
RUDY NEBRES.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Nov. 2020
TwoMorrows.
The Future of
Pop History.
TwoMorrows Publishing
10407 Bedfordtown Drive
Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
919-449-0344
E-mail:
store@twomorrows.com
Order at
twomorrows.com
RETRO TRAVEL
If you grew up going on long family
road trips during the Fifties, Sixties, or
Seventies, most likely you remember
pulling over at one of the more than 300
Stuckey’s stores that lined the major
highways. Now, that is not to imply that
those three decades were the beginning
and the end, or that Stuckey’s is no longer
around—on the contrary, those yummy
treats and kitschy souvenirs can still be
found. But those were the years when the
chain was at its peak, and had its market
practically all to itself.
Oh, there were imitators, but even
most of those had their roots in Stuckey’s
own corporate structure. Especially in the
days when the nation’s interstate highway
system was in its infancy, travelers would
have to drive for miles and miles before
finding a business where they could “eat
and get gas,” as the old gag put it. Stuckey’s
was a pioneer of building on the interstates,
and until bigger fish such as McDonald’s,
Exxon, and Holiday Inn took the bait, often
Stuckey’s was the only choice.
A legend has circulated for so many
years that even the Stuckey family is unsure
how much of it is true. It claims that the way
Williamson Sylvester Stuckey would pick
out the spots for his stores was to set out
from a major starting point such as Atlanta
76 RetroFan August 2020
W. S. Stuckey’s original building was a simple roadside stand, but by
the time of this color postcard, it had been replaced by a much larger
complex on U.S. 341, on the outskirts of Eastman, Georgia. © Stuckey’s
Corporation.
by Tim Hollis
or Nashville. Stuckey would have his
chauffeur drive until he felt the need for
a restroom. The story goes that wherever
that urge occurred, that is where the next
Stuckey’s store would open. Whether the
locations were chosen by Stuckey’s bladder
or more scientific research, it proved to be
a successful formula. (Lending credence
to the more formal research idea, it is
significant that many Stuckey’s that
were located on older U.S. highways also
happened to be where future interstates
were going to form interchanges by
crossing those routes. Obviously, someone
was studying maps of things that did not
yet exist.)
From the scant research that was done
while the major players were still alive,
we can learn that W. S. Stuckey first went
into business during the Great Depression,
when he began buying and selling pecans
in the region around his hometown of
Eastman, Georgia. His profit was a grand
one cent per pound, but it was a start.
In one interview, Stuckey recalled, “We
By the early Sixties, ads such as this one
were appearing in a variety of national
magazines. Stuckey’s was well on its way
from being merely a chain of Southern
roadside stands to becoming a tourism
institution. © Stuckey’s Corporation.
would work so hard and so late loading cars, we’d just go to sleep
on top of the bags.”
Much information was already hazy when early attempts
at documenting Stuckey’s history was being done, but it seems
that by either 1935 or 1936, Stuckey was selling his pecans from
a roadside stand. Apparently, the only photo of this stand was
taken years later, when it was recreated for publicity photos. It
was while running this stand that Stuckey had the idea of adding
pecan candy to the nuts he was already selling, and he talked
his wife Ethel into making goodies—even though she had never
done anything similar before.
The roadside stand was soon replaced by a more permanent
store in Eastman, which grew into a chain of three stores spread
across middle and southern Georgia before World War II. After
the war, when tourists took to the highways in unprecedented
numbers, a large percentage of them were headed for America’s This impressive double-page magazine layout from the early Fifties
demonstrates not only how rapidly Stuckey’s reputation was
concept of paradise: Florida and its beaches and palm trees. The
growing and spreading, but how many different styles the build-
first decade or more of the Stuckey’s success story is inextricably ings could take in those pre-standardization days. The chain now
linked to Florida tourism, as those were the routes where most numbered 16 stores, primarily located along main tourist routes in
of the early promotion was found. In fact, just as with his later Georgia and Florida, but also beginning to creep further afield, into
rumored method of picking locations, Stuckey had a philosophy Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia. © Stuckey’s Corporation.
when placing his stores along the old two-lane U.S. highways. His
ideal spot was on the righthand side as the highway led north, but by its pink buildings adorned with murals advertising its
or away from Florida. Why? He firmly believed that people were ice-cold Florida orange juice. If you are old enough to remember
most likely to buy candy or souvenirs at the end of their vacation, when most cars did not have air conditioning, you can well
rather than carrying such non-essentials around with them as imagine what a welcome thought that was.
they visited Silver Springs or Parrot Jungle. Those on long trips were also glad to find a dependable source
While most people considered Stuckey’s a Southern chain, for that other great necessity, clean restrooms. Every Stuckey’s
and indeed that was where it was based, by the Fifties it had store was laid out in a pattern by which the restrooms were
crossed the Mason-Dixon line and had at least one location only located at the farthest back corner, necessitating that visitors
two miles south of the battlefield at Gettysburg. That must have wend their way through all the merchandise on the counters to
been particularly delicious to Georgia-bred W. S. Stuckey, who get there.
was once quoted as observing, “Thank God the North won the Now, about those restrooms: their cleanliness was only
war. It would have been awful if there hadn’t been any Yankees one aspect in which the company takes justifiable pride today.
to sell to.” (Similar sentiments were expressed by a Georgia In an era when segregated facilities were the norm, Stuckey’s
congressman who went on record saying, “A Yankee tourist is restrooms were always open to everyone, regardless of where
worth a bale of cotton, and they’re twice as easy to pick.”) the stores were located. This admittedly might have caused
Throughout most of the Fifties, a Stuckey’s could be readily problems in townships where racial segregation was, in fact, the
identified by not only its bright yellow signage with red letters, law rather than mere local custom, but most Stuckey’s stores sat

Throughout the Fifties, most Stuckey’s locations were built in the style of this store on U.S. 301 at Statesboro, Georgia. Their target
audience of Florida tourists was quite obvious in the tropical-themed murals that adorned the pink exterior walls. © Stuckey’s Corporation.

RetroFan August 2020 77

 RETRO travel
so far from population
centers that they were
beyond the reach of any
such enforcement. All
were welcome at Stuckey’s,
and all were tempted by
those various candies and
kooky souvenirs regardless
of the color of their skin.
Everyone’s money was
green.
On the subject of color,
it was in the early Sixties
that Stuckey’s gained what
would turn out to be its
most readily identifiable feature: its bright aqua-colored roofs.
The buildings had already evolved from their pink gas station-
type design to more expansive structures with peaked rooflines,
and once the aquamarine color was applied to those, it made
spotting a Stuckey’s from a distance a welcome game for bored
youngsters.
Perhaps even more common than the buildings were the
omnipresent Stuckey’s billboards, which followed the tradition
of counting down the miles to the next location. The Stuckey’s
billboards became such a familiar part of the American roadside
scene that they were immediately recognizable even when not
referred to by name. For example, there is the 1955 episode of I
Love Lucy in which Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel encounter 500 miles
of signs advertising “Aunt Sally’s Pecans and Pralines.” When
they finally arrive, they find the candy shop out of business. Fred
wisecracks, “I thought Aunt Sally was spending too much money
on all those signs.” Anyone who had gone for even a short drive
would have recognized the true identity of Aunt Sally and her
pecan candies.
Earlier, we mentioned Stuckey’s competitors, quite apart from
Aunt Sally. Just as various creative people who worked for Walt
Disney decided they could do just as well on their own, so too did
some former Stuckey’s franchisees choose to bite the hand that
was feeding pecans to them. One of the first was Bob Horne, who
began working for Stuckey’s during the lean World War II years,
and in the Fifties struck out on his own. His Horne’s chain was a
carbon copy of Stuckey’s, even to the steeply pitched roofs of his
stores (which were bright yellow instead of aqua). A glance at a
map of Horne’s locations from its early-Seventies peak shows
that it was thickest along the East Coast routes to and from
Florida.
Meanwhile, out in Eldon, Missouri, I. J. Nickerson opened
what is credited as the first Stuckey’s west of the Mississippi
River. After a dispute over how elaborate to make his
store’s dining area, Nickerson left the parent company and
began Nickerson Farms, a chain that spread throughout the
Midwest. Besides having more full-service restaurants as
Kids who persuaded their parents to stop at Stuckey’s in the
early Seventies could be treated to this board game. The goal
was to start from home and end up at the “Last Resort,” avoiding
pitfalls and making regular Stuckey’s stops along the way. By
this time, the chain was at its peak in the number of locations,
mostly located at exits along the growing U.S. interstate
highway system. © Stuckey’s Corporation.
78 RetroFan August 2020
In the early Sixties, Stuckey’s
introduced a new building
design that emphasized its new
aqua-colored rooftops. Another
feature was the zig-zag canopy
over the gas pumps, which was
known throughout the company
as the “gull wing” style. Its aqua
coloring matched that of the
building’s roof. © Stuckey’s Corpo-
ration.
opposed to Stuckey’s snack
bars—the main reason for the
split—each Nickerson’s Farm
location had a working beehive
built into the wall, the product
of which would then be bottled and sold in the gift shop.
Of course, nothing remains the same forever, and Stuckey’s
(not to mention Horne’s and Nickerson’s) was just beginning
to figure out its eventual role in the new interstate highway
system when W. S. got an offer from Pet Inc., the condensed milk
company, to merge with them and make Stuckey’s an operating
subsidiary. W. S. pocketed $15 million in Pet stock in exchange for
his trademarks and marketing.
One of the major changes during the Pet years was the
introduction of a new building design. The aqua roofs remained,
but the new buildings featured what was known as the
“cathedral” design, which towered over the parking lot and gave
a truly magnificent scale to the interiors too. Unfortunately, not
long after the cathedral roof design was introduced, rising energy
costs caused many of the stores to cover up their interior space
with inexpensive drop-tile ceilings, the better to heat and cool the
structures, my dear. Today very few can still be found with their
original soaring interior space visible.
It was during the first decade of the Pet ownership that
Stuckey’s was truly at its peak (not even counting the peaked
roofs). The chain was at its largest in the early Seventies, with
some 350 locations spread out from coast to coast. Although it
retained its Southern flavor, there were actually more Stuckey’s
in Texas than anywhere else, owing mainly to that state’s vast
geography and miles of otherwise barren interstate stretches.
Unfortunately, the early Seventies were also a time when
the entire tourism industry took its first hit in what would
prove to be a decade of pummeling. In 1973, thanks to the
always reliable (to concoct an emergency when desired, that

is) U.S. government, there was a perceived “energy crisis” that
convinced the public that the country was running out of fuel.
Gas prices soared, and family vacations became one of the
casualties, prompting President Richard “I Am Not a Crook”
Nixon to reassure the public that no one would ever have to pay
a dollar for a gallon of gas. Yessiree Bob, when a politician tells
you something, you better believe it, Buster! Before the decade
was over, more genuine crises in the Middle East caused further
headaches for travelers, and when gas prices reached 99 cents
per gallon, some stations decided to close rather than charge
such extravagant prices.
For several years af ter the merger with Pet, W. S. Stuckey
still ran the division bearing his name, but as one biographer
phrased it, “It was hard for Stuckey to be a second lieutenant
when he had been a general all his life.” Stuckey stuck it out,
though, and had just put in a full day of work in his Eastman
office when he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the
evening of January 6, 1977.
In the years following the founder’s death,
internal changes within Pet threatened to
scuttle Stuckey’s. Obviously, no one
could manage the chain as well
as the man who started it, and
things got even worse after Pet
was acquired by Illinois Central
Industries in 1978. IC, as it was
known, seemingly had no idea
what to do with the once-
powerful chain of candy and
gift shops.
By 1982, the number of
Stuckey’s stores had dropped
to 270, from a peak of 350 After reacquiring the company in 1985, one of Bill Stuckey’s first reopening some of the long-
a decade earlier. Of the 32 acts was to have the roofs on the remaining stores repainted a dark closed locations.
states where Stuckey’s still royal blue, covering up the aqua color that had usually become faded
to the point of being an eyesore. Look closely here and you can see
had a presence, Texas still had the telltale aqua peeking out from the paint job along the roofline.
the most stores; the fewest © Stuckey’s Corporation.
were in Maryland, Minnesota,
Washington, and West
Virginia, with one store each.
It had become obvious that the only person who could
ef fectively run Stuckey’s would be someone bearing that name.
W. S. Stuckey’s son, Bill Jr., had served five terms as a Georgia
congressman from 1967 to 1976. With his political career behind
him, Bill began to take notice of the deteriorating state of the
company, and realized, “That was my family name on all those
signs.” In 1985, he purchased what was lef t of Stuckey’s from
Pet/IC Industries and immediately set about trying to right the
sinking ship.
After regaining control, one of Bill’s first projects was to have
the roofs of the remaining stores repainted from their Sixties
aqua color to a deep royal blue. With so many former Stuckey’s
dotting the landscape, this was the easiest way of distinguishing
the operating ones. He also negotiated a profitable deal with
Dairy Queen to operate the restaurants in the stores, replacing
his dad’s now-outmoded lunch counters. And, while every box
of Stuckey’s candy during W. S.’s lifetime had displayed his
signature, now Bill’s signature was added to their design as an
assurance to customers that a Stuckey was in charge once again.
RETRO travel
By 1992, the Stuckey’s chain was at about a third of its peak
size, with 95 stores in 23 states. Over the next several years,
the marketing focus began to change from full-size stores
to having the Stuckey’s brand of candy and some assorted
souvenir items placed on sale in various travel plazas along the
highways. This served as a terrific way to keep the brand alive
without the expense of maintaining the traditional stores, most
of which were being allowed to close as their leases expired.
Today, the company states that there are only around 16 of the
traditional Stuckey’s “pecan shoppes” still operating; however,
there are approximately 70 “Stuckey’s Express” locations (more
like 7-Eleven stores), and more than 300 travel plazas sell the
Stuckey brand of candy and souvenirs, so, in reality, there are
more Stuckey’s outlets than at the height of its popularity—just
in a dif ferent form. And, of course, Stuckey’s retains its place
in the public’s nostalgic consciousness, making cameo
appearances in two recent feature films,
The Green Book and The Irishman.
With Bill Jr. aging into retirement,
the company again fell victim to
mismanagement and appeared to
be drif ting. In late 2019, Bill Jr.’s
daughter Stephanie took
up the reins with ambitious
plans to bring Stuckey’s back
to its former glory. Since her
ascendancy to the leadership,
she has worked tirelessly to
let people know the company
is still worth its pecans, and
among the plans for the
future are some intentions of
So, that is how things stand
now. For a more complete,
full-color photographic history
of the company, we direct you
to Arcadia Publishing’s volume titled simply Stuckey’s (by Yours
Truly, coincidentally enough), published in 2017 and available
through archadiapublishing.com and amazon.com. And, if reading
all of this history has given you an uncontrollable urge to jump
in the car and head for the nearest Stuckey’s to get a pecan log
or box of salt water taf fy, but there happens to not be one near
you, the company is as close as your web browser. The whole
line of products is available through www.stuckeys.com, and just
as good as you remember them.
All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Tim Hollis.
TIM HOLLIS has written 32 books on pop
culture history, ranging from tourism to
cartoon merchandise to television and beyond.
He also operates his own museum of such
memorabilia near Birmingham, Alabama. He
may be contacted at hollis1963@aol.com.
RetroFan August 2020 79
REJECTED!

Put yer
But I
hands up,
hain’t got
ya meaty
no hands,
varmint!
sheriff!

SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife

FOR PRESIDENT! His Plan to
His Plan to
Fight Crime End Corruption

“NIP IT IN “NIP IT IN
THE BUD!” THE BUD!”
His Plan to His Plan to
Tackle Global Improve
Warming Horticuture

“NIP IT IN “NIP IT IN
THE BUD!” THE BUD!”
Godzilla demands
SHAFT more challenging
0 ,00 0 B .C!
1,00 roles: "A fun little
The sights and
sounds will astound Hallmark Channel
you, sucka! romantic comedy
would be nice."

by Scott Saavedra

80 RetroFan August 2020

 RetroFan: The
Pop Culture You
Grew Up With!
If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties,
editor MICHAEL EURY’s latest magazine is just for you!

RETROFAN #11 (Now Bi-Monthly!)

Just in time for Halloween, RETROFAN #11 features interviews with Dark Shadows’ Quentin Collins,
DAVID SELBY, and the niece of movie Frankenstein Glenn Strange, JULIE ANN REAMS. Plus: KOLCHAK
THE NIGHT STALKER, ROD SERLING retrospective, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, TV’s Adventures
of Superman, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, QUISP and QUAKE cereals, the Drak Pak and the Monster
Squad, scratch model customs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ERNEST FARINO, ANDY
MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 • (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships October 2020

RETROFAN #6 RETROFAN #7 RETROFAN #8 RETROFAN #9 RETROFAN #10

Interviews with MeTV’s crazy creepster
SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself,
BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original
Saturday Morning GHOST BUSTERS, with
BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty NAUGAS!
Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I
Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters
to Famous People,” the ARCHIE-DOBIE
GILLIS connection, Pinball Hall of Fame,
Alien action figures, Rubik’s Cube & more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
With a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we
reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and
visit the Guinness World Records’ largest
Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: interview
with LARRY STORCH, The Lone Ranger
in Hollywood, The Dick Van Dyke Show,
a vintage interview with Jonny Quest cre-
ator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of
Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero
playset, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with the
’60s grooviest family band THE COWSILLS,
and TV’s coolest mom JUNE LOCKHART!
Mars Attacks!, MAD Magazine in the ’70s,
Flintstones turn 60, Electra Woman & Dyna
Girl, Honey West, Max Headroom, Popeye
Picnic, the Smiley Face fad, & more!
With MICHAEL EURY, ERNEST FARINO,
ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT
SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with
’70s’ Captain America REB BROWN, and
Captain Nice (and Knight Rider’s KITT)
WILLIAM DANIELS with wife BONNIE
BARTLETT! Plus: Coloring Books, Fall
Previews for Saturday morning cartoons,
The Cyclops movie, actors behind your
favorite TV commercial characters,
BENNY HILL, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia
Convention, 8-track tapes, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Celebrating fifty
years of SHAFT, interviews with FAMILY
AFFAIR’s KATHY GARVER and The Brady
Bunch Variety Hour’s GERI “FAKE JAN”
REISCHL, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH,
rare GODZILLA merchandise, Spaghetti
Westerns, Saturday morning cartoon pre-
view specials, fake presidential candidates,
Spider-Man/The Spider parallels, Stuckey’s,
and more fun, fab features!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99

RETROFAN #1 RETROFAN #2 RETROFAN #3 RETROFAN #4 RETROFAN #5

LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom
in Hollywood, Filmation’s STAR TREK CAR-
TOON, “How I Met LON CHANEY, JR.”,
goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s
rare ELASTIC HULK toy, RetroTravel to
Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry),
interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou”
of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW), TOM
STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles,
and MR. MICROPHONE!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA,
SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and an interview
with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE
GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE
ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS!
The long-buried Dinosaur Land amuse-
ment park! History of BEN COOPER
HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunch-
boxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY
(the British Barbie), and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
Interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE
director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN
ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morn-
ing’s undersea adventures of Aquaman,
horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and
Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet
paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL
(home of the Superman Celebration), SEA-
MONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages,
Superman/Batman memorabilia, & more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
Interviews with SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN
(Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL
(Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET
in Hollywood, remembering monster maker
RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the way-out Santa
Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a
Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the
Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic
THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich
museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
Interviews with MARK HAMILL & Greatest
American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast
off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND!
Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR
CULTURE! Plus: “The First Time I Met
Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, MOON
LANDING MANIA, SNUFFY SMITH AT
100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV
Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun,
fab features!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99
 WARNERARCHIVE.COM
©2020 Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved