November 2021 No. 17 $9.

95 You don’t tug on

Superman’s cape!

JAWSMANIA
Dark
Shadows’
LARA PARKER
comes alive in an
exclusive interview!
Aurora Monster
Model Kits

It’s a
Mad Monster
Party and yoin
u’re
vited!

The Haunting • Drak Pack • George of the Jungle • James Bama • TV Dads’ Jobs & more!
1 82658 00438 5 FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury
Mad Monster Party © 1997 Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Superman TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
 RetroFan:
Pop Culture
You Grew Up
With!
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EURY’s latest magazine is just for you!
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 38

The Crazy Cool Culture 55

We Grew Up With

CONTENTS Issue #17 November 2021

61
Columns and 67
Special Features Andy Mangels’
Retro Saturday Morning
3
Retro Hobbies Drak Pack and Monster Squad
Aurora Monster Model Kits

7 Departments
Will Murray’s
7 20th Century Panopticon 2
James Bama: Man of Monsters
Retrotorial
3
15
Retro Interview 22
Lara Parker, Dark Shadows’ RetroFad
Angelique Jawsmania

24
Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
37
George of the Jungle Celebrity Crushes

38 52
Ernest Farino’s Too Much TV Quiz
Retro Fantasmagoria
Theme song lyrics
“Whose Hand Was I Holding…?”
24
55 78
15 Scott Saavedra’s RetroFanmail
Secret Sanctum
TV Dads of the Sixties’ Jobs
80
61 ReJECTED
Retro Animation RetroFan fantasy cover
Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party? by Scott Saavedra
RetroFan™ #17, November 2021. Published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407
Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow,
Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount
Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $68
67 Economy US, $103 International, $27 Digital. Please send subscription
orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Aurora Frankenstein
model photo courtesy of Mark Voger. Mad Monster Party © 1997 Miser Bros. Press/Rick
Goldschmidt Archives. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Superman TM & © DC
Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material
© their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2021 Michael Eury and
TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224
 by Michael Eury

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Michael Eury
I never went trick-or-treating when I was a child—or if I did, I have zero memories or photo-
graphs of those experiences. My formative years were spent in a small apartment, and since
my parents both worked full-time, they didn’t have time to drag a costumed kid around
PUBLISHER
each October 31st. When I was turning eight, we moved into a house and my baby brother
John Morrow
was born, and so Mom and Dad were now occupied with a crying baby and a rambunctious
grade-schooler—and their jobs. I certainly wasn’t a deprived child—I was showered with no
CONTRIBUTORS end of love, comic books, and toys… and the Ideal Toys Batman helmet and cape I got in ’66
Michael Eury gave me lots of costumed playtime. Also, Dad worked at a grocery store, so while most kids
Ernest Farino relied upon annual door-to-door Halloween candy begging, I got candy (as well as cupcakes
Rick Goldschmidt and ice cream) every week (and I had the flab and zits to show for it)!
Rod Labbe Still, subconsciously I must have felt some void from being denied this childhood
Andy Mangels ritual, since as a young adult I began to don costumes—for money! In the mid-Eighties,
Brian Martin I dressed up as everyone from Popeye to Superman for movie spoofs while hosting a
Will Murray cable-access comedy show, and followed that up with a stint as a costumed singing
Scott Saavedra telegram messenger, where I serenaded ladies as the dapper Mr. Wonderful and the
Scott Shaw!
wildman Seymour Swinger. And then, for many years my wife and I masqueraded at adult
Halloween parties, finally discontinuing the practice a few years ago as we aged out of
nighttime outings.
DESIGNER
So, back in RetroFan #2, I vicariously enjoyed the trick-
Scott Saavedra
or-treating experience when writing about Ben Cooper
Halloween costumes, the manufacturer of those cheesy
PROOFREADER but adorable plastic masks and paper smocks that regaled
Rob Smentek children for decades. That feature was a crowd-pleaser,
so for those of you who would like to learn more about
SPECIAL THANKS the venerable manufacturer of kids’ costumes, I’m happy
Dan Curtis Productions to report that Jason Young has recently published a new
Heritage Auctions book, An Old School Halloween, that digs deeper into the
Jim Pierson subject. Jason is also the author of The Wonderful Artwork
Anthony Tollin of Wax Wrappers,
a “visual journey” NEXT ISSUE
Mark Voger
of non-sports card January 2022 No. 18 $9.95

wrappers, which You’re in for

a reel treat!
VERY SPECIAL THANKS
has gone into
James Bama
multiple printings. RetroFans interested in ordering
Lara Parker
Jason’s books can find more info by visiting the
Facebook group Oldtimes Blue Ribbon Digest. We’ll always 8mm MOVIES

dream of Jeannie...
Don’t STEAL our This is the annual Halloween edition of EXCLUSIVE
Digital Editions! RetroFan, the only issue each year our eclectic BARBAR A EDEN
interview
C’mon citizen,
DO THE RIGHT
magazine flirts with a theme… although amid the
The Battle
THING! A Mom
& Pop publisher monsters and monster-makers in the pages that of the Sexes
with event organizer

follow you’ll also find articles about Jay Ward’s

like us needs TOMMY
every sale just to ...COOK
survive! DON’T
DOWNLOAD
OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE!
wacky cartoon George of the Jungle, the occupations
Buy affordable, legal downloads only at of Ward Cleaver and other sitcom dads, and a few Hanna-
www.twomorrows.com Barbera’s TV
or through our Apple and Google Apps! other fun features. There’s something for everyone Super-Heroes
of the Sixties

here, so get ready for another groovy grab-bag of
& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS
the crazy, cool culture we grew up with!
The Invaders • Monster Times • ‘How to Draw’ Books • Cartoon Xmas Cards & more!
FEATURING Ernest Farino • Andy Mangels • Will Murray • Scott Saavedra • Scott Shaw! • Michael Eury
Barbara Eden photo: Getty Images/Hansom & Schwam Public Relations. The Impossibles © Hanna-Barbera Productions. All Rights Reserved.

OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep

producing great publications like this one!

2 RETROFAN November 2021

RETRO HOBBIES

A Horde of…
Monsters
in My
Bedroom!
by Rod Labbe

In November 1963 (not long before President John Fitzgerald

Kennedy was assassinated), the “Elm Plaza,” a brand-new
shopping center, opened on the outskirts of my hometown,
Waterville, Maine.
“Oooo,” I blubbered, as we (my parents and two sisters)
pulled into its expansive parking lot early one Friday evening.
What an adventure! There’s a Mammoth Mart department
store! And W. T. Grant! A book emporium… First National
supermarket… Radio Shack… an S&H Green Stamps store… and
the biggest bowling alley, ever!
So many choices, but Grants, as we called the W. T. Grant
department store chain, intrigued us the most since it had an
attached “family restaurant.”
Before settling in for a meal, we ogled the spacious aisles
dividing Grants from front to back. You could get anything
there! Furniture, clothing, toiletries, shoes, candy, appliances,
and toys galore. One-stop shopping, at its very best.
And I saw them… boxed monster model kits by Aurora
Plastics, stacked neatly in an eye-catching exhibit:
Frankenstein’s Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon,
Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, the Mummy, and an
about-to-pounce Wolf Man. I had some vague notion about
model kits. People built them, right? Usually, boats and
airplanes and cars and stuff. But monsters? A bold concept!
I picked up Dracula, felt its heft, studied the atmospheric
box-top illustration (painted by James Bama), and checked for
a price tag: 98 cents. Within my allowance/budget! Too bad
I knew zip about making model kits. Otherwise, I might be
taking home a vampire!
Little did I realize that Fate’s wheels were inexorably (ABOVE) Aurora monster model kits… the stuff from which
spinning. One innocuous school day, my fifth grade teacher, nightmares and sticky glue spills were made! Courtesy of Heritage.
Mrs. Pelletier, stood in front of our classroom blackboard and All characters © Universal Pictures except for Godzilla © Toho.
read from a mimeographed sheet. “Next month, St. Joseph’s
RETROFAN November 2021 3
 retro hobbies

is holding its first annual hobby day,” she droned. “Grades five Okay, fine, no problem. Thinking cap in place, I retrieved
through eight are expected to bring in a hobby. Show us your my sister’s old “paint by numbers” set from her closet. Fishy
talents. Show us your [yawn] skills. Use good, old-fashioned greens and blues swirled onto the brush. A touch of red, a dollop
American ingenuity and do St. Joseph’s proud. First prize is a 20 of yellow and brown, and the Creature snarled, stalked, and
dollar savings bond.” glistened.
Well, at ten, I didn’t have any hobbies per se, other than Glistened… because this was oil-based paint. It never dried.
watching scary movies, but winning a savings bond instantly Aargh!
attracted me. In order to compete, I For my second excursion into Aurora
needed a tangible hobby, but quick. horror, I selected the Phantom of the
Boom! Why not be different and build Opera. Mom and Dad threw in several
myself some monsters? bottles of Testor’s paint, and my artistic
This was a legit academic project, abilities flourished. Swish, swish, dab,
so the folks provided both funds and spill, whoops, spill again, aargh! Paint
encouragement. Off we went to Grants everywhere! What happened?
again, where they bought me model The Phantom’s face mouth, eyes, and
glue and a gorgeous Creature from the nose were shapeless blobs. No problem!
Black Lagoon. We had another tasty I’d just have him wear his handy-dandy
meal, too. I could get used to this! mask. Any port in a storm, as they say.
Back home on familiar turf, I Frankenstein’s monster came next…
bounded upstairs to prepare a suitable easier to paint, and no eyeballs to speak
working area (bedroom desk with light, of, merely slits. Definitely a plus. The
newspapers, and an old washcloth). simplicity of this kit made me breathe a
Slowly, I withdrew the Creature from his bit easier. Just a tombstone, two stone
paper sack, tore away the cellophane, markers, and Frankie himself. It’s still my
carefully lifted the lid, and was hit by favorite Aurora monster.
Creature from the Black Lagoon © Universal Pictures.

what would become Following an eternity of gluing,

painting, and wiping (a supremely messy
job), three gruesome monsters emerged,
ready to crush, kill, and destroy. Would
they impress fellow schoolmates or
brand me a laughing stock?
And would I win that precious savings
bond? Fingers crossed!
Hobby day arrived. I carefully packed
up my terror trio and left for school. St.
Joe’s basement auditorium buzzed with
activity. Uh-oh. Apparently, I wasn’t
the only one who collected Aurora
Holy Hobbies, Batman! This store ad for monsters. There were Wolf Mans,
some of Aurora’s TV- and comic-inspired Mummies, Phantoms, sundry Creatures,
model kits drove kids like Rod Labbe wild! lumbering Frankenstein “monstahs,” and
Poster courtesy of Heritage. Superman, Batman an army of Draculas. They’d even (gasp)
and Robin, Batmobile, Superboy, Wonder Woman painted the eyeballs!
© DC Comics. Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk © Cowed, but not defeated, I found
Marvel. Lost in Space © Space Productions. Voyage an empty shelf and bravely arranged
an all-too familiar scent: fresh styrene to the Bottom of the Sea © Irwin Allen Properties, Frankenstein, “Creech,” and Phantom for
plastic. LLC/20th Century Studios. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. maximum effect.
Inside lay pieces of a metallic green © Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Enter- Instant response… and instant defeat.
Creature and its directions, complete tainment, Inc. Zorro © Zorro Productions, Inc. “Hey, the Phantom ain’t supposeta
with origin story. Nirvana! be wearin’ his mask, you stoopid,”
Time to get busy. I picked up two sneered an eighth grader, reducing me
pieces of an arm and fit them together. Half an hour later, I sat to a mumbling mound of pre-adolescent jelly. “What’s with your
back, sighed smugly, and beheld what I’d created: Creature Creature? Yuck! He’s all sticky and covered in dust! Guys, check out
extraordinaire! Then, I read the directions more closely, and my this goofy kid’s crappy stuff. It’s a riot! Ha-ha!”
euphoria withered like a leaky balloon. Gulp! I was supposed to My ten-year-old ego imploded. Turning tail seemed a viable
paint him first? option. Instead, I laughed good-naturedly, while crying buckets
How could I have missed such an essential step? Dumb, dumb, on the inside. Sufficiently abused, defeated, and again deflated,
dumb. The euphoria I’d been feeling was probably due to sniffing I skulked home and hid my sorry monsters in the closet. I was
airplane glue! done.

4 RETROFAN November 2021

 retro hobbies

Welp, so much for “hobby day.” Maybe I should just collect If 1965 had been a great modeling year, 1966 manage to top
stamps. No muss, no fuss, and no suffocating glue and slams it. Aurora really pushed the creative envelope, exploring diverse
from the peanut gallery. areas like television, super-heroes, and movies: the Munsters
Needless to say, I also kissed goodbye to the savings bond. Living Room, the Addams Family Haunted House, Wonder
Life went on. Winter melted into spring, and I began noticing Woman, Wolf Man’s Wagon, Superman, Superboy, Batman,
my best friend Donald’s hands were paint-spattered. “What’s Robin, William Castle’s the Vampire, Blackbeard the Pirate,
with the paint?” I asked him, one afternoon. “You helpin’ your dad Zorro, Alfred E. Neuman (of MAD magazine), and Hercules and
in his wood shop or sumpthin’?” the Lion. I almost couldn’t keep up!
“Nope! Makin’ models,” he casually responded, as if this was The best of these were the Munsters Living Room and
the most natural thing. “Monster models, to be exact.” the Addams Family Haunted House. I especially wanted the
“You mean, like for hobby day?” I could feel my ears burning. Munsters, after seeing a full-page ad in Famous Monsters #38.
Don had brought four monsters to school, and they were only Donald bought one first, so I was able to examine it up close
slightly better than mine. “I thought you’d given those up.” and personal.
“Yeah, sorta, but I changed my mind. They’re cool. I got six of Hmm. This obviously called for a lot of intricate painting—
’em so far.” smallish details, like Lily Munster’s face and
“Six?” The number sent my temperature soaring.
“That’s almost the entire collection!”
“Yep. This fall, I’m gonna buy the Hunchback. You
oughtta come over and see what I got. Might start
you buildin’ models, too. There are new ones all
the time, and it’s fun.”
“Yeah. Heh-heh. I oughtta.”
Okay, I’ll admit, I was one jealous kid! So
jealous, in fact, my own monster mania shot
off like a bottle rocket. I had to beat Don!
During the summer of 1964, I formulated
a strategy. First on the agenda: repainting
the Creature. I used Testor’s enamel, and lo
and behold, it dried! Procuring the Wolf Man, Author Rod Labbe in the fifth
Dracula, and Mummy followed, each an artistic grade, the dawning of the Age of
challenge and one well met. For Christmas, I Aurora (model-making).
asked for and received King Kong and Godzilla,
two bigger kits (retailing for $1.49) that
absolutely thrilled me. Let the competition
commence!
Through intense practice, I’d developed
into a slightly more skilled model-maker,
reading and constantly consulting the (ABOVE) The Monster Craze collided with the
directions from front to back, painting each model craze on Norman Mingo’s painted cover
piece, being cautious and patient (the glue for MAD #89 (Sept. 1964). (LEFT) If you thought
didn’t always set like it should), and adding an Alfred E. Neuman Aurora model kit was just
the final touch: a generous dollop of Testor’s a MAD cover fantasy, think again! MAD © E.C.
red paint. All of my models were bloody Publications, Inc. Both, courtesy of Heritage.
messes!
1965 was even better, a collector’s dream
year. I eagerly awaited the release of every new Eddie’s “Woof-Woof” doll. Usually, I spent
Aurora offering. One by one, the Hunchback of approximately 24 hours total constructing an
Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde, Madame Aurora kit, but Herman and crew set a new
Tussaud’s the “Chamber of Horrors” Guillotine, record: six days! Blame it all on my sorry “skills,”
the two Men from U.N.C.L.E. (purchased or lack thereof. I just couldn’t master that evil,
individually and designed to connect in an epic uncooperative brush.
diorama), the Bride of Frankenstein, and the Salem Witch were 1967 saw a different me. I’d gotten into comics collecting and
welcomed into the fold. monster magazines, and started high school… but Aurora was
Frankly, I liked the competitive aspect of my model-collecting still part of my world. Christmas morning, Lost in Space, Batman’s
hobby. Donald had thrown the gauntlet, and I went at it full bore. nemesis the villainous Penguin (bearing a striking resemblance
But truthfully, the Bride’s absence in his collection bothered me. to Burgess Meredith), Tarzan, and Captain America sat under
My best boyhood friend was losing interest. Not only would I our resplendent tree. Truth be told, I was more “obsessed” with
eventually eclipse him, we’d stop discussing anything related to comic-book collecting. New product every week and no gluing (or
model-making. painting) required. Yay!
RETROFAN November 2021 5
 retro hobbies

My veteran monsters, like the Creature, slowly fell victim to

any number of calamities. It wasn’t unusual to return home after
school and find a broken model on my bed or desk, accidentally
destroyed by mom when she’d vacuumed. I’d diligently restore
them… half-heartedly, I’ll admit.
1968 revved into a tumultuous whirlpool. Two political
assassinations, an escalating war in Vietnam, and college riots
peppered news programs every night. What few kits I received
were for Christmas—the Lost in Space Robot, Land of the Giants’
“snake scene,” the Incredible Hulk—and assembled with zero
enthusiasm. On November 2, I’d turned 16 and other worries were
on my mind, like the very real possibility of a high draft number
in a few years. Don had already given up model making, and I
followed suit… though I continued to collect comics. He’d stopped
doing that, too.
A chasm cracked open between us, barely noticeable, at first.
The breach ultimately widened, and neither one of us could cross
it safely. Disaster loomed.
High school graduation came and went (1971), but rather
than college, I opted to work. At least, for a short while. One
day, perusing the hobby section in Grants, I spotted Aurora’s
“Frightening Lightning” kits. They were reissues of the originals,
with certain pieces that glowed. I was tempted to buy one. The
reason I resisted? Maturity.
Growing older, I’d rejected the trappings of childhood.
I wanted to be an adult, someone responsible and serious.
Spending money on plastic
monsters and revisiting old Fester—uh, we mean, feast—your eyes on this ad for Aurora’s
“haunts” seemed counter- Addams Family House model. © Filmways Television Productions.
productive. A bright future
awaited me, offering many
surprises, trials, and triumphs. It’s a harsher existence. People smile less, and the pace of life
Why weigh it down with races faster and faster. What are we all heading toward? I shudder
memories of the past? to think.
Why, indeed? The house where I lived has fallen into disrepair. Sometimes,
That was almost 50 years ago. not all the time, but sometimes, in dreams, I’m home, again.
One by one, touchstones fell Mom and Dad are alive, and 2021’s a future year out of The Jetsons.
to Time, and casualties piled up Duchess, my long-dead Cocker Spaniel, is chasing butterflies as
like war dead. Today, I’m 69—far we run through the backfield beyond our fence, and all that I say
from being an adolescent, at least, outwardly. The maturity I so and do is underscored by a strange urgency.
desperately desired barged through my door and settled in, an I wake, confused and disillusioned. Things change. Times
uninvited party guest who refuses to leave. change.
I’ve experienced deaths of loved ones, including my parents, Still, I’m joyfully reminded. Boxed and built-up vintage models
stood before Donald’s grave and shed tears, felt the crushing regularly sell on eBay, and other companies—like Polar Lights and
pain of disappointments, and love affairs gone fallow. Life is no Moebius Models—have championed Aurora’s grand legacy by
longer carefree, when all I had to worry about was making sure I reissuing almost all their classic kits to an adoring, appreciative,
never missed an episode of Dark Shadows or The Avengers (Steed and graying public.
and Peel only, thank you). There are deadlines and consequences, Last week, I passed a downtown hobby shop, and an array
worries aplenty, and the undeniable fear about Age and my own of plastic monsters was in the window: Dracula, Frankenstein,
mortality. Wolf Man, the Mummy, and King Kong. The sight transported
Adulthood has cheated me, stealing childhood away, and my elderly psyche back to sunny kite flying Saturdays, late-night
laughing about it. Like vivid photographs in a keepsake memory bike rides, The Beatles… and monsters in my bedroom. Ah, sweet
scrapbook, those fanciful younger days are clear as crystal, yet nostalgia.
untouchable. I think of them at the oddest times, as winters One of these fine days, I might try my hand at another
melt to spring, when the first autumn tree blazes with color. On Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. And guess what: I’ll even paint him first!
St. Joseph’s school is gone; I watched its bricks tumble. Aurora
Plastics liquidated in 1977, selling off their model molds to rival ROD LABBE is a New England-based writer specializing in Baby
Monogram; in 1976, Grants went bankrupt, dissolved, and closed. Boomer pop culture and all it entails.

6 RETROFAN November 2021

WILL MURRAY’S 20TH CENTURY PANOPTICON

James
Bama (LEFT) Detail from a familiar sight for many
RetroFans: box art for the Frankenstein Aurora
model kit as painted by James Bama, shown
here in an undated photo. Frankenstein © Universal
Pictures. Photo courtesy of Anthony Tollin.

Man I grew up in an epoch of monsters.

They were everywhere. Popping up on TV. Lumbering

of
through television, films, and even dominating comic
books. One of my first clear memories of childhood was

Monsters
in the spring of 1961. A neighborhood kid took me to the
local Rialto, where I saw my first Saturday matinee double
feature, Mister Roberts and Gorgo. When I wondered about the
dark orchestra pit beneath the screen, I was advised, “That’s
where the monsters live.” I believed him. I was eight.
I vaguely recall coming out of the theater and spotting
a copy of Gorgo comics on the racks. I wouldn’t start buying
comic books until year’s end, but before that, I started
collecting the Spook Stories bubble-gum cards based on the
Universal Monsters, which were all over TV, thanks to the
“Creature Features” airing reruns.
When I did start collecting comics, in addition to Superman
and Batman, I grabbed things like Marvel’s Strange Tales and
Tales to Astonish, which were chock full of giant monsters such
as Jack Kirby’s Two-Headed Thing and Steve Ditko’s Hagg,
Hunter of Helpless Humans. The Incredible Hulk was born at
that time. I loved them all.
The first magazine I ever purchased was Famous Monsters
of Filmland. So naturally, I bought the Aurora Plastic Company
Universal Monster kits, which began proliferating in 1961 A.D.,
early in the Monster Craze. Or should I say, Monster Revival,
since many of its most memorable monsters had been created
by Will Murray a generation before.
RETROFAN November 2021 7
 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

Back in the early Sixties, monsters were a big deal. In fact, they memorable box art. Even as a little kid I thought his work was
were stupendous, colossal in their grisly gargantuan grandeur…. great. More than great, it was perfect for the subject matter.
Moody, intense, and very realistic––which is what an eight-year-
Model Citizen old demands of his monsters.
Which brings me to the subject of this column, James Bama (b. My younger brother and I used to alternate purchasing
1926), considered the greatest commercial illustrator of the 20th the kits. Frankenstein was his first one. I took Dracula. And all
Century. down the line over the following four years. Every time Aurora
I didn’t know his name when I first started building the Aurora released a new kit, we had to figure out which one of us got
monster model kits. But Bama was the artist who painted the to buy it. I felt it was a triumph when I got the Creature from
the Black Lagoon kit. To me,
that was the best kit Aurora
ever manufactured. Modeled
from emerald plastic, once
assembled, it required only a
few touches of paint before it
was ready for display.
As a boy growing up in
New York City’s Washington
Heights section during the
Great Depression, Bama
caught all of the classic
Universal Monster films during
their first runs.
“When I was a kid,” he
recalls to RetroFan, “that’s when
all the monster movies came
out. I think I was five years
old when I saw Frankenstein.
And they were very traumatic
for me. They left a lasting
impression. I had to sleep with
my mother for three nights
after I saw The Mummy. I was
afraid to go to bed. And when
I was in my thirties, I got to do
all the monster kits for Aurora.
Things I was terrified of when I
was a little kid!”
Bama recalls that there
were five theaters within
walking distance in his
neighborhood, and a matron
in white would police the kids
during matinees.
“That was the beginning of
all those horror movies. I think
my mother started taking me
to those movies when I was
five years old. They’re still very
vivid. And they were good.”
Bama’s favorite? “Probably
King Kong, because of my
dramatic relationship with
The stuff nightmares (and fun times) are made of! Bama’s iconic it when I was a kid. I was terrified of King Kong. And to this day
Wolf Man, Frankenstein, and Dracula portraits, gathered for when he breaks through the stockyard, it scares me. It’s still the
this Aurora ad that appeared in the October 1962 edition of Boys’ best King Kong.”
Life magazine. Monsters © Universal Pictures. Courtesy of Heritage. Despite his natural affinity for to the spooky subject matter,
the plum assignment found Jim Bama, not vice versa.

8 RETROFAN November 2021

 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

“I was working at Cooper Studios,” he recalls, “and

there was an art director who came in looking for
someone to do the monster kits. And they just gave
them to me. That’s how it all started. I did Frankestein
first. Then Dracula.”
Initially, Bama painted the box art the way he
imagined they should look.
“I didn’t copy the models,” he relates. “They wanted
them to look more exciting. I based them on movie stills.
I saw all of those horror movies. I was the perfect guy for
it. It was like reliving my childhood. I loved doing them.
It was a fun part of my life, frankly.”
Trouble started brewing right away.
“I did them from movie stills and a lot of the parents
complained that they didn’t look like the kits. When
I did the Mummy, King Kong, and Godzilla, I painted
them from the kit. When I did the Guillotine kit, some
mothers complained about it being gross with the heads
being chopped off. They had all kinds of problems like
that.”
Although he found painting from the assembled
models less satisfying, the artist made them work,
applying his own techniques.
“I think I may have assembled a lot of them myself,”
he recalls. “I used different lighting so they didn’t all
look alike.”
Before he quit, Bama painted box art to more than
20 Aurora kits––all of the Universal Monsters, as well
James Bama and wife Lynn in 2017.
as TV tie-ins such as The Munsters and the Addams Family
Photo by and courtesy of Anthony Tollin.
House. The company made millions. But for the artist, it
was largely a labor of love.
“I got paid less than a pittance,” Bama remembers. “I
think I got less than 300 dollars for each box. They never
raised the price. Which I thought nothing of. And all of a sudden His Bantam career started when he met art director Len
they’ve become a collector’s item and a cult kind of thing.” Leone at a 1962 party. An offer to the paint the cover to a reissue
Eventually, Aurora ran out of Universal Monsters to of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea resulted. This led to
plasticize. An oversized Gigantic Frankenstein kit dubbed “Big hundreds of assignments, including reissues of Frankenstein, King
Frankie” sold poorly due to its high price––five times the 98- Kong, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as more
cent cost of the regular kits. Bride of Frankenstein and the Witch contemporary books.
bombed. Most boys preferred masculine monsters and couldn’t Bama recalls, “Len said, ‘How would you like to do a
be bothered applying glue to their mates. So in emulation of Ed Rembrandt version of Frankenstein?’ He’d get me all worked up.”
“Big Daddy” Roth’s Rat Fink and Hawk’s “Weird-Oh” monster- Naturally, Bama used Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster
manned hot-rod kits, the company turned to customized car kits for reference. A photo of RKO’s King Kong looming over helpless
like Frankenstein’s Flivver and Dracula’s Dragster. Fay Wray tied to the sacrificial altar served for the King Kong
“When they started to do the monster hotrods,” Bama notes, “I novelization’s cover. His portrait of Dr. Hyde was the 1931 Fredric
did the Wolf Man, Frankenstein, and Dracula. And I couldn’t take March incarnation, not the later Spencer Tracy version.
it anymore. I finally quit. I didn’t like the idea of making them into Branching out into promotional art for TV, Bama painted the
humorous things. To me, they were scary.” first commercial images for shows now considered classic.
“I did the original Star Trek ad for NBC,” he reveals. “I did The
Paperback Covers Andy Williams Show, Star Trek, and Bonanza, which kicked off the
I had given up by that time, too. King Kong and Godzilla were the 1966 NBC season. I went down to see a screening of Star Trek and
last kits my brother and I assembled. I would have loved to build a I came home so excited. I told my wife, ‘Wait’ll you see this thing!
Gorgo kit, but had to settle for Godzilla. Glow-in-the-dark reissues It’s great!’ The funny story––which is true––is Bantam picked it up
came along in the Seventies, captivating a new generation. as a book cover. And [Bantam Books President] Oscar Dystel, who
Bama didn’t care. By that time, he was one of the hottest cover knew nothing about art but knew how to make Bantam the best
artists of the early paperback revolution, working principally for company in the business, came in one day and said, ‘Why can’t we
Bantam Books where, once again, he got to indulge in his love of get our artists to do work like this?’ By that time, I’d probably done
Universal Monsters. 200–300 covers for him. He didn’t even know it was mine!”
RETROFAN November 2021 9
 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

In 1964, Leone tapped Bama to

paint the cover to The Man of
Bronze, the first of what
became a phenomenally
successful reissue of the
original Doc Savage
pulp novels by Lester
Dent.
Once again, it was
familiar territory.
“My uncle used to get
pulp magazines,” Bama
notes. “I was 12–13 years
old, and I remembered the Doc
Savages. It seemed like he was always
in the jungle with jodhpurs on, his
shirt torn. That’s all I remembered
25 years later. That’s why I conceived
him that way. And when I look at the
first Doc Savage Magazine cover today,
I wasn’t that far off!”
Once Leone realized that Bama
had read Doc, he became the obvious
artistic choice to launch the series.
“They may have chosen me
because I did the box covers for
Aurora’s Universal movie monster
model kits,” Bama speculates.
The artist hired former TV Flash
Gordon star-turned-model Steve
Holland to pose for a photo shoot
in a ripped shirt, riding boots, and
jodhpurs, producing the iconic
modern image of Doc Savage, the
Man of Bronze.
Standing alone, bronze muscles
gleaming and looking formidable
against a black background, Bama’s
Doc was poised to sell paperbacks.
Except that Len Leone didn’t like
the hero’s natural red hair. Leone
had been an art director for Fawcett Bama turned chiseled screen star Steve Holland into the pulps’ Doc Savage in this iconic
Publications during the heyday of pose for the Man of Bronze novel. Doc Savage © Condé Nast. Courtesy of Heritage. (INSET) When
Captain Marvel and saw Doc as a worlds collide! As a gag, Bama took this photograph of Steve Holland wearing a Phantom of
kind of super-hero. He asked for the Opera mask while in the Doc Savage shredded shirt. Courtesy of Mr. Bama, via Will Murray.
something more science-fictional,
suggesting a widow’s peak.
Bama painted in a more extreme blond haircut, and the way. If you look at the poses where Flash Gordon stands with
Bantam Books Doc Savage was born. his feet wide apart, his fists clenched, looking back over his
“I made it up because I didn’t have anyone with a widow’s shoulder, it’s the same as my Doc Savage. There was always
peak,” Bama admits. “The big advantage is drawing. I was a whiz the essence of Doc being symbolic, never working up a sweat,
at drawing, and I could make it look convincing.” never looking like he was in trouble, anticipating, but always in a
A fan of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon growing up, Bama looked heroic manner.”
to Raymond as much as the original Doc Savage Magazine cover
artist Walter Baumhofer for his inspiration. The Man of Bronze Strikes Gold
“I think of Flash Gordon as a bigger-than-life super-hero Between 1964 and 1971, Bama painted most of the Doc covers,
who can conquer all odds––gorillamen and lizardmen and his photorealistic, monochromatic approach propelling sales to
prehistoric animals,” Bama reveals. “And I conceived Doc that astronomical heights. Millions of Doc Savage paperbacks jumped

10 RETROFAN November 2021

 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

One such cover was The Sea

Angel. “That’s the Creature from the
Black Lagoon,” Bama reveals, “with
The Creature Walks Among Us! Doc Savage takes on the Sea some tentacles added to him. I’m a
Angel. Bama’s scaly menace was painted after he did the movie fan, so I know where to get
legendary Creature from the Black Lagoon painting for the reference. I had done the Aurora
Aurora model kit. Doc Savage © Condé Nast. Courtesy of Anthony Tollin. cover to the Creature from the Black
Lagoon.”
Mad Eyes was another. “That was
an amoeba, some kind of jellyfish
that I found. It was taken verbatim.”
“The hardest one to do was Doc in
the block of ice,” he recalls, referring
to The Munitions Master cover. “I got a
photograph of a block of ice and tried
to figure out how he’d look in it.”
For the spectral apparition of
King John on The Sea Magician,
“That was a movie still of Mel Ferrer
playing King Arthur. The one with
all the wires plugged in his head,”
he notes, referring to The Midas Man,
“was Supreme Court Judge Learned
Hand. I did it from a photograph in
Life magazine. I used myself on The
Who Smiled No More. I was one of the
guys carrying the sacks from the salt
mines.”
When Bama painted the dramatic
cover to World’s Fair Goblin, set at the
1939 New York World’s Fair, it was
another flashback to his childhood.
“I went to that fair. I was 13 years old.
So I remembered the Trylon and the
Perisphere.” Atop the Perisphere
is an apelike creature that looks
suspiciously like King Kong. No
coincidence. It was a silent homage to
the artist’s favorite monster film.
In the beginning of the series,
Bantam’s cover reproduction did not
do justice to Bama’s conceptions.
“They didn’t have offset
lithography then,” he reflects.
“Registration was terrible. Some of
those first covers, like The Red Skull,
don’t look at all like the original
off the racks. I was one of those attracted to the series, thanks to painting. By the time they got into things like Dust of Death, they
the lure of Bama’s electrifying covers. I bought them all. Those had beautiful reproduction. But the one with the lizards, The
books changed my life, and directly led to my long writing career, Fantastic Island, was terrible. And The Thousand-Headed Man. That
which included new Doc Savage novels. snake in Thousand-Headed Man, that was a papier-mâché prop.
Even there, the illustrator could not escape monsters. The Man I used to go to the TV prop houses. In New York, you can get
of Bronze fought his share of fiends, and it was up to Jim Bama to anything.”
bring them to life on canvas. Inasmuch as he preferred to paint Of the atmospheric Squeaking Goblin, Bama admits, “I didn’t
from photographs, the artist was reliant on “scrap”––whether it like the one with the skeleton in the coonskin hat. But it worked.
was publicity stills or pictures he took himself. The one where he’s holding his throat and there are electric sparks
“I used a lot of movie stills to do paintings, and changed them all around him, I thought that was very effective.” Merchants of
enough so we didn’t get sued.” Disaster was the title.
RETROFAN November 2021 11
 Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon

“Dust of Death was the best Doc Savage I ever did,” he adds. “And the next was
Death in Silver. Those were the two that I thought were the best ones I’d ever done.
The colors were so muted, yet it still worked. I find that when we get into more literal
situations, like ships crashing in the ocean on The Terror in the Navy, to me that’s not
Doc Savage. That’s True or Argosy. When I get into symbolic or unusual situations, it
works. The other one was The Mystic Mullah. I was brought up with all these fantasies
of Tong wars in Chinatown.” A photo of Boris Karloff from The Mask of Fu Manchu was
the basis for the ghostly green Mullah. The hunchbacked villain for The Vanisher was
based on a shot from the 1931 Universal Frankenstein film, depicting Dwight Frye as
Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant, Fritz.
“Wherever I could,” Bama states, “I tried to symbolically do a cover that referred to
the story. Unless it was something I couldn’t do, like Fear Cay. I had him wrestling with
a giant on a beach.”
For paperback covers, Bama developed new techniques to compensate for the
small image area, pioneering the all-black or all-white background.

(TOP) Bama’s extraordinary

“World’s Fair Goblin” and
(ABOVE) “Squeaking Goblin”
Doc Savage prints. (LEFT)
If the hunchbacked horror
in Bama’s “The Vanisher”
reminds you of a certain cretin
from Dr. Frankenstein’s lab—
you’re right! Doc Savage © Condé
Nast. Courtesy of Anthony Tollin.

12 RETROFAN November 2021


“I’m basically a designer and a vignette painter,” he states.
“With art technique and realism, I evolved a look. I tried to keep
my covers simple and put them in one color mood so they would
read easily on the newsstand. If they read fast like Red Snow,
people can see what’s going on right away.”
Over the eight years he painted Doc, Bama’s portrayal of the
Herculean Man of Bronze evolved.
“When I first started,” he confesses, “I did Steve pretty much
the way he was. I bulked him up a little. Then it took on a life
of its own and he became more and more symbolic. I really
didn’t do that intentionally. But I notice there was a tremendous
discrepancy, because I was doing them from photographs I had
taken, not for specific covers, but of symbolic moods. The one
where Doc’s standing with the clouds behind him, the blue and
orange around him like a big explosion, he just got huge. I would
say that was a gaffe on my part.”
Bama’s palette also grew more colorful. Vivid oranges and
purples dominated the cover to Hex, on which a spooky old witch
lurks in the background. It was another flashback to the artist’s
Aurora days. Bama’s wife, Lynne, her attractive features aged and
distorted, posed for the Witch kit box art.
Eventually, the artist became disenchanted with Bantam
Books for the same reason that he left Aurora Plastics.
“I made millions of dollars for those people,” he points out.
“They never offered me more money. I probably would have kept
Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon
doing Doc Savage indefinitely if they had treated me fairly. It was
the hardest thing for me to leave.”
After painting a final Doc Savage cover in 1971, James Bama
struck out on a lucrative and satisfying period as a fine artist
specializing in Western subjects.
I think the Doc covers were successful because I had a feeling
for it,” he concludes. “No one would read the stories but me. I
came up with my own situations, my own sketches, and they
left me alone. And I produced a good product because I enjoyed
doing it, frankly. I never had a correction. I did Doc Savage with
conviction. I did him as a real person. Larger than life, but real.
I was in the right place at the right time and I think I have a
childhood fantasy memory about it that other people wouldn’t
have. I wish I had done The Shadow. It was a shame that I didn’t
finish Doc Savage.
“I loved this stuff. I still love this stuff. It’s my childhood. I’ve
had a long, storied career. I tell my wife all the time that Doc
Savage and the Aurora monster kits will outlive me.”
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 November 2021 13
 All characters TM & © their respective owners.
ED
AND
EXP COND
SE ION!
EDIT

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RETRO INTERVIEW

Lara Parker
The Tender Beauty
of Angelique

by Rod Labbe

There are countless interviews that tread

all-too-familiar waters, but my challenge as
a writer has always been to explore those
paths less traveled.
So when I contacted Lara Parker for
an epic (and exclusive) RetroFan profile, I
proposed we do something a tad different
from the usual “tell us how you became an
actress” stuff. Lara agreed, and together, we
tilled new soil. An adventure lay ahead!
Establishing camaraderie was essential.
Within minutes of our first phone
conversation, we were laughing and
From actress to carrying on like old friends. To be precise, Lara and
author, Lara Parker I had never met, but being a fanboy, I’m familiar
has continued the with her magnificent work on Dark Shadows,
Dark Shadows canon ABC-TV’s “gothic” soap opera (1966–1971), a bona-
as a novelist. © Curtis fide cultural sensation. She portrayed Angelique
Holdings, LLC. Bouchard, amateur witch, the gorgeous villain
everyone loved to hate.
I should add that I’m an original fan of DS,
having signed on in late April of 1967. I was 14
then, an unpopular eighth grader, and watching
Barnabas (Jonathan Frid) Collins and his sundry
relatives, friends, and adversaries go through their
supernatural paces brought much-needed fun and
escapism into my fractured life.
Conducted in February 2021, the interview
began, and together, we stood contemplating
two distinct directions: the path less traveled or a
road familiar and ultimately unchallenging. Which
one to navigate? Rather than touch all the same

(ABOVE) Lara Parker as Dark Shadows’ bewitching

Angelique. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions. Courtesy
of www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com.

RETROFAN November 2021 15

 retro interview

“typical” bases, I suggested we discuss

Lara’s experiences in the writing field and
segue into her acting triumphs. She liked
that idea.
Lara has primarily been a novelist since
Angelique’s Descent (Harper Collins, now
Tor, 1998), an account of her character’s
early life and how she became a witch. Its
runaway success led to Dark Shadows: The
Salem Branch (Tor, 2006), Dark Shadows:
Wolf Moon Rising (Tor, 2013), and Dark
Shadows: Heiress of Collinwood (Tor, 2016),
thus far. And there are more tales bubbling
within her cauldron! I honestly cannot
think of anyone more qualified to create
them than the woman behind daytime’s
favorite witch.
Join us now for a special Halloween
treat, as the Enchantress speaks!

RetroFan: Watching Angelique weave her

spells at Collinwood, I’d no idea that one
day, she and I would actually be sitting
across from one another and engaging in
an amiable chat!
Lara Parker: Life does move mysteriously,
doesn’t it? Dark Shadows has brought so
many people together over the years, and
I especially enjoy talking with original
viewers.

RF: I was there at the beginning! Well,

heh, almost the beginning. 1967.
LP: Me, too [laughs]!
RF: For this interview, we’ll be examining
my favorite Lara Parker novels,
Angelique’s Descent and Dark Shadows: The
Salem Branch. Up for it?
LP: Oh, yes! I don’t get asked about
my writing often, so I welcome the
opportunity.
RF: You began with Angelique’s Descent, in
1998. How did that come to be?
LP: Harper-Collins approached me about
doing a series of novels based on the show.
I’d been taking screenwriting classes at
UCLA but had no idea how to tackle a
full-length book. “Just do the best you
can,” they said, “and we’ll get a real writer,
a ghost writer, to whip it into shape.”
Well, maybe it was presumptuous, but I
found the idea of someone rewriting one
word of a book I created, imagined, and
slaved over insulting. There was some
pushback to my writing it myself. People
think blonde, blue-eyed actresses are
superficial, and maybe I don’t strike people
as intellectual. Truth is, I majored Lara Parker as Angelique, from 1970’s “Parallel Time”
in Philosophy and have immense storyline on Dark Shadows. The show regularly went
respect for education. through story arcs for several months, and “Paral-
lel Time” followed “The Leviathans” when Barnabas
RF: Did you know what you were discovers a room in Collinwood that shows an alternate
getting into? The scope and timeline with different characters (all played by the
breadth of it? same actors). The Angelique plot starts with her being
LP: No, and it became a little dead, and the portrait had been painted to memorialize
overwhelming. I read writers I her. Later, she returns from the dead, switches places
admired and quickly realized with her twin sister, and wreaks havoc! Dark Shadows ©
their skills were beyond me. Still, Dan Curtis Productions. Courtesy of Jim Pierson.
I forged ahead. I planned to set
the novel in Martinique, where
Angelique grew up, and did a lot LP: What’s more common is for someone
of research on sugar plantations and the to write his or her first book and not
slave revolt. I was also able to draw from be able to do a second. It’s a very small
my own experiences; the idea of the living percentage of writers who finish their first
goddess, for instance, came from a trip I book. Once you’ve done it, you become a
took to Nepal. I sent my editor the first 50 much sterner critic. The first time, you’re
pages, and she was encouraging. The last thinking, Who am I trying to fool? For me,
100 sprung directly from the show and Angelique’s Descent was an outpouring of
Angelique’s point of view. passion, my attempt to create as a gothic
writer. I could’ve rewritten and edited
RF: Seems like everyone talks about endlessly. That’s where a deadline is
writing a book, but doing so is something blessing. The manuscript has to leave your
else entirely. hands, eventually.

16 RETROFAN November 2021

 retro interview

RF: There’s a big temptation to polish and
tweak and polish and tweak?
LP: Believe me, I’ve been there. You reach a
point where you’re reinventing the wheel,
and for me, that’s the third or fourth draft.
I’ve reinvented that wheel many times.
There’s an annoying little voice tugging
at the back of my brain, You can make this
better.
Working under a deadline eliminates
the option of going back and rewriting. It’s
the best thing about keeping to a contract
with your publisher.
RF: You’ve demonstrated a real knack
for the genre; I hear Angelique’s voice on
every page.
LP: Thank you. My imagination has always
been active. I love thinking up very weird
things [laughs].
RF: Are you limited to what you can do by
the Dan Curtis estate [overseers of the
Dark Shadows intellectual property]?
LP: There are parameters. As long as I
don’t stray too far from original canon,
I’m allowed to create new characters
and new locations. Time-travel is even
an option. Bottom line, I would never
do anything to damage the show’s
reputation for excellence.
RF: I’ve noticed you downplay the horror
angle.
LP: Dark Shadows wasn’t so much a
horror show, in my opinion. I saw it as
a mysterious, supernatural romance,
so I muted the horrific aspects. There’s
a certain boundary beyond where you
don’t go. Instead, I sometimes take
circumstances from the show and put a
different spin on them. And I stay with a
strong sense of story: lots of conflict, lots
of suspense.
RF: What attracted me initially to
Dark Shadows was the gloomy, gothic
atmosphere, the acting, and the rather
glorious idea that a vampire roamed
Maine’s spooky woods. As a Mainer, I
couldn’t help but be instantly intrigued.
LP: You can imagine it, and imagination
fills in the blanks.
RF: Is there a difference between terror
and horror?
LP: A distinct difference. I see terror as a
higher aesthetic form. It’s the scratching
of a tree limb outside your window, a
moan under the bed,
and soft footsteps in the
hall. It creates dread and
anticipation.
RF: And your definition of horror?
LP: Much more graphic. Horror is the
depiction of blood and gore, of monsters
and deformity. Terror seduces audiences,
drawing them in; horror repulses them,
pushing them away. The vampire’s
complex existence straddles both
realms—an immortal being, but also a
dead one.
Religions are built on the idea of
living forever. Therefore, the vampire is a
godlike figure, and he’s cadaverous, too,
which we find revolting. The two forces
at work create a dramatic tension that is
undeniably seductive.
Yet horror is where so many young
filmmakers go, and sometimes to lesser
effect. Let’s have blood and guts and all
manner of mayhem.
Viscerally, horror works like a
rollercoaster ride. You’re glad when it’s
over! I prefer more subtle fears, where
you’re kept on edge, wondering and
waiting.
RF: But you’re dealing with a vampire!
Isn’t it difficult to keep things muted,
given what we already know about
Barnabas Collins?
LP: Not at all. Someone who sleeps in
a casket and sucks human blood could
be considered a monster, I suppose,
but Barnabas Collins never wanted to
be a vampire. He’s a tortured, tragic

(LEFT) Poster for director Tim Burton’s 2012 Dark Shadows film, signed
by original series stars Lara Parker (over actress Eva Green, the movie’s
Angelique) and Kathryn Leigh Scott. (ABOVE) When casts collide! A
Collinwood party scene in Burton’s movie allowed for cameos for some of
the TV show’s beloved stars: (LEFT TO RIGHT) Scott, the film’s Michelle
Pfeiffer, David Selby (see RetroFan #11 for Rod Labbe’s Rondo Award-
nominated interview with the DS actor), and Parker. Dark Shadows © Dan
Curtis Productions. Poster courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

RETROFAN November 2021 17

 retro interview
personality, torn between the humanity
he still has and blood lust. Very
compelling.
RF: I wonder how much of the Barnabas
profile was due to scriptwriters or
Jonathan Frid himself.
LP: Jonathan chose to make Barnabas a
guilt-ridden, manifestly ashamed, and
anguished vampire. Because of Angelique,
everyone he loved or who loved him would
be destroyed. That’s the
tragedy Anne Rice picked
up on; her vampires are like
real people with complex
human emotions.
RF: Maintaining some
human aspect, even as a
vampire, means you’re
ultimately vulnerable.
LP: Vulnerable to
love and heartbreak,
rejections, disloyalty, and
abandonment. Why are
we so fascinated with
the Greek gods? They
had human failings.
Zeus was a womanizer.
Aphrodite was vain, and
Dionysus a drunkard. Their
personalities were flawed. Lara Parker guest-starred on Kolchak: The Night Stalker’s “The Trevi Collec-
Our God, as we worship tion” (Season 1, Episode 14, originally aired on January 24, 1975) with star
Him today, is indestructible, Darren McGavin. © NBCUniversal Television.
infallible. He has no human
failings. If and when there’s
a quality with which
we identify, so many emotions can be
explored. That’s why Barnabas struck a
chord with fans. He brought humanity to
the concept of a supernatural character.
RF: Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch has
a premise combining historical elements
with fiction. It’s my favorite of all your
books.
LP: The Salem Branch is a prequel, before
Angelique’s time in Martinique. She was
connected to the dark forces, the devil, in
ways that she could not escape. The Salem
Branch is by far my best-written book. It’s
also my least popular.
RF: Did you visit modern-day Salem?
LP: I did. So much sad history there,
when America was young. The 1692
witch executions are the famous ones;
they hanged innocent people. There
18 RETROFAN November 2021
are tombstones going back to the 17th
Century, right in the center of town.
Barnabas takes David on a trip to
Salem for Halloween and is shocked at
how commercial everything has become.
Seeing tourists celebrating one of our
nation’s greatest tragedies by dressing up
in costumes, and stores selling silly things
like vampire kits, with fake fangs, fake
blood, gives him the creeps.
RF: Does your development as a writer
surprise you?
LP: I wouldn’t say surprise… but I’ve grown, at Santa Monica College. Once again, I was
and there’s room for improvement. With
each new project, I learn more. Just the
other day, I took another look at Angelique’s they’re so captivating to read.
Descent and wished I could cut some of
the overwriting. That’s what comes from
having so much enthusiasm and passion
for a subject; I piled on the descriptive
language.
RF: After Angelique’s Descent, you
embarked on an exciting journey: higher
education. Specifically, a Masters of Fine
Arts. What motivated you?
LP: I felt it was the right time to hone
my writing skills and discover just what I
could do. Pursuing a higher degree in your a sailboat [laughs]. Thankfully, as a working
middle years isn’t easy, but I felt up to the
challenge. And you end up with an MFA
after your name [laughs]!
RF: Where’d you go?
LP: Antioch [College in Yellow Springs,
Ohio]. First, I had to submit an application
and a sample of my writing. I sent them
something from Angelique’s Descent,
and they turned me down flat! “This is a
course in literary writing,” the acceptance
committee said, “not genre writing.” So, I
applied again and sent them a short story
about my mother being in the hospital.
That did the trick.
RF: How long was the
program?
LP: Two and a half
years. It’s called a low-
residency program. Every
semester, you spend one
week on campus, and
classes run all day and
into the evening. Very
intensive. Afterwards, you
communicate online with
an advisor and students
within your group. Much
less expensive; you don’t
need a place to live, for
one thing, and the variety
of courses is impressive. A
grand learning process! I
had to go back and rethink
my entire perception of
writing.
RF: Weren’t you also
teaching?
LP: Yes! I love teaching. My
mentor, Jim Krusoe, recommended me,
and I taught basic remedial English classes
analyzing great pieces of literature and
trying to figure out why they worked, why
RF: How did all of that fit in with your
acting exploits?
LP: Acting is no longer a significant part of
my life, in the broader sense. When you’re
older and audition and don’t land the part,
it’s very disappointing. Acting is a series of
highs and lows, with mostly lows. I found
something else: family life, teaching, being
a wife and mother. I lived in Topanga with
three children; we had a horse, did a lot of
skiing and backpacking, and now, we have
actress, I made enough to support myself
and my family.

RF: Which of your books sold the best?
LP: Angelique’s Descent, and Salem’s
Branch sold the least, despite it being
better-written, in my opinion. Someone
suggested to me that I get the rights back
from Harpers for Angelique’s Descent, and
I followed that advice. My agent was able
to sell the rights to England, Spain, France,
Hungary, and Tor Books. I did audio books
of the first three. I’m a performer and
didn’t find it particularly difficult. Time
consuming, yes [laughs]. I did accents, the
whole deal.
RF: Is it difficult to scare people? I mean,
outside of the cheap jump-scare, which is
pretty hard to do in a book.
LP: There’s an essay by Freud called The
Uncanny, wherein he talks
about what frightens
us. Fear lies not in the
unfamiliar; Freud claimed
the uncanny lies in what’s
familiar. Like a desk
you’ve worked on that has
carvings, and they come
to life. Or you hear a sound
from the closet, and slowly,
the door creaks open. The
homey and reassuring
have darker sides. So much
horror takes place on Elm
Street in suburbia, which
is no coincidence. Our
familiar, safe world can be
much more horrifying.
RF: Horror in the everyday.
Hmm. I think my toaster is The actress experienced an eyebrow-raising (make that “singeing”) experi-
haunted. ence during this DS scene. Dark Shadows © Dan Curtis Productions.
LP: [laughs] You’re so funny!
RF: The mechanics of
writing. You’ve a handle on them?
LP: Writing is also about crafting sentences
and paragraphs. Along with character and
plot, I’ve become aware of the importance
of structure. “Her eyes filled with tears” is
a cliché. How am I going to say she’s going
to cry, without falling into those word
traps? You’re writing at a certain pitch,
so what do you use in place of a cliché, to
say this in a new unaffected, clear and
powerful way? Working on screenplays is
excellent training; it encourages the visual.
If they see the scene, the story unfolds
cinematically. As for dialogue, I can still
hear the voices of the Dark Shadows actors
in my head!
RF: Do you use an outline? I find them
difficult.
LP: Outlines provide structure, so yes, I
use them. I’ve a sense of story and plan
out the plot, but I also like being surprised.
Watching things take an unexpected turn
is a thrill. When I finished The Salem Branch
and sent it to Tor, they went over it with a
fine-toothed comb and said, “You can’t use
the word guillotine. It’s a Halifax gibbet,
and they probably wouldn’t have had such
a thing in Salem. Here, you said her eyes
were blue, and now, they’re green.” There’s
something on every page, and at first, it’s
almost overwhelming. But that’s how you
grow as a writer, and it’s nice that someone
keeps you in line.
RF: In 2012, Tim Burton’s big-screen
adaptation of Dark Shadows hit cinemas.
Fans, including myself, looked forward
to this, but the end product was a bizarre
pastiche. Gets me steamed just thinking
about it.
LP: Such a wasted opportunity. We were
eager to do the film, but at least give
us some lines, some sort of significant
exchange to make it more obvious for
those watching that we’re from the
show. Once on set, Jonathan was having
difficulty standing. He didn’t want any
help or a chair and just wanted to get
on with it. I knew, with his physical
restrictions, that we couldn’t do much.
retro interview
Sadly, Jonathan passed away before he
had a chance to see the finished film.
RF: And the retelling made sense to you?
LP: It had a different tone than our show.
We never turned around and winked at
the audience. “Oh, look, ha-ha, Barnabas
is a bat, he’s sleeping in Collinwood’s
linen closet. He’s hanging upside-down
from a chandelier.” Our show was not
a satire or a spoof. Sometimes it came
off as campy, because of the situations
and the characters, but we never played
it for laughs. Barnabas might’ve been
a vampire, but he was human and
believable, and the actors’ performances
were totally realistic. Helena [Bonham
Carter] told me, “We’ve been playing this
show in our make-up room,
and we’re hooked.” Then,
she added, “but none of us
take it seriously.”
RF: In my opinion, Burton
and his wacky scriptwriter
ruined the material and
futzed around with long-
held memories. A no-no!
LP: Fan reaction was
immediate and negative.
They didn’t see the
original as silly. Dan Curtis
described Dark Shadows as
gothic romance. Tim and
Johnny [Depp] brushed
over this with needless
sophistication, like we
were all in on the joke.
Except nobody laughed.
RF: Though I know Burton
and Depp pushed this
as a love letter to the
original show, it made me wonder if they
genuinely respected the material.
LP: Simply, it wasn’t Dark Shadows.
RF: Characterizations changed,
too. I loved your Angelique for her
impetuousness. She worked from
emotion. Eva Green’s a skillful actress, no
doubt, but I anticipated something of you
in the role. She was all wrong—too hard
and way too calculating.
LP: I wouldn’t say Eva Green was all
wrong, just different. The characters
on Dark Shadows were multi-layered.
Circumstances motivated their actions,
but they also had secrets, resentments,
RETROFAN November 2021 19
 retro interview
LP: That’s famous… it almost got out of
and hidden desires. Because of this rich and at first, I played Angelique in the control [laughs]! The prop master kept
complexity, there were several depths same manner. Jonathan took me aside adding more lighter fluid, and when I lit it,
to plumb. That’s the tender beauty of about a week into the storyline and said, boom! My eyelashes were singed!
Angelique’s character. She had reasons “You’ve got to forget about being the
for doing spells and incantations, and heroine. You’re a pretty little witch girl. RF: We’re all dying to hear Lara Parker’s
they had to do with people, like Barnabas, Ingénues come and go, but you’re the personal story. You hail from Tennessee
who’d wronged her. But Angelique wasn’t villain everybody loves to hate. Take it and and trekked to the Big Apple and
the only one struggling. Barnabas suffered play it.” subsequent stardom. A rocky journey?
tremendously. He had human traits, and LP: The life of an actor is never easy; there’s
they fought constantly with instinctive RF: Wow. Awesome advice! insecurity and disappointment around
bloodlust. LP: Jonathan knew the key to this every corner. Once in a while, you stumble
on something good. That’s
RF: Angelique’s tender what happened to me
beauty. Pure poetry. I like and Dark Shadows. I’m
it! so very, very fortunate
LP: No other way to and thankful the show
describe her. came into my life. Ask any
actor—such instances are
RF: When I interviewed rare.
Tim Burton for Fangoria
regarding Dark Shadows, RF: What about your
I asked him straight out Southern childhood? A
if he’d included Willie memorable time?
opening Barnabas’ LP: Delightful. It was in
coffin an iconic scene. He some ways provincial,
very neatly dodged the but I had an eye on the
question, and that told future and where I could
me everything I needed to go. I acted at a young
know. age, went to Vassar for
LP: I’m not surprised. two years and graduated
There was no gripping from Southwestern
connecting story, just a College, with a major in
series of elaborate set Philosophy.
pieces. We weren’t about
style and flash. It’s the RF: Was Vassar a culture
story, not individual spots Angelique has been shock, after a provincial
that try to outdo what’s turned into a vampire childhood?
come before. Every scene by warlock Nicholas LP: Somewhat. Nothing
we did presented a conflict. Blair as punishment. too debilitating [laughs].
You were on the edge of From the Dark Shadows I graduated from high
your seat, wondering what “Adam is Created” school at a very young age
might happen next. storyline. Dark Shadows and always felt different,
© Dan Curtis Productions. a little separated from my
RF: Such agonizing Photo courtesy of Jim peers.
suspense! Like when Pierson.
Jeremiah’s ghost RF: You went on to grad
tormented Angelique. school to find your muse?
LP: Dan’s writers kept us jumping; they character. You’re blonde and blue-eyed, LP: Life never turns out like you planned.
made you gasp. And there’s no denying the and the audience will be taken aback. I After Southwestern College, I applied to
overall strength of their storyline. You’d finally grasped that people liked it when the University of Iowa for graduate work
think writing a soap would be easy, right? I appeared. I savored those moments. and did a year there in Drama. My goal
But Dark Shadows wasn’t your typical soap, I must admit, I went through a period was to become a drama teacher… but I
not by a long shot. of adjustment. I wanted to be Josette, ended up married and having a baby, so
the heroine, the one he loved. Jonathan I moved to Missouri with my husband
RF: Nothing can beat the eternal triangle helped me see the light. And let’s face it, and child. I took acting courses, and he
of Josette, Angelique, and Barnabas. It those spell-casting scenes were great fun! and I and another couple founded a small
was electric. theater company which still exists, in
LP: When that happened, Rod, I felt RF: I remember one where you built a Arrow Rock, Missouri, and put on period
accepted. Previously, I’d been the ingénue, house of cards and set it aflame. dramas, such as Sheridan and Shaw. I

20 RETROFAN November 2021


didn’t get to play any roles that first year;
with an infant in tow, I made costumes!
RF: I gotta ask—what’s it like, as an artist,
having created a character so identified
with you?
LP: I’m reminded of that most when I
attend the Dark Shadows conventions.
Ever go?
RF: Once, the 2003 Fest [Dark Shadows
Festival; darkshadowsfestival.com]. My
sisters and I toured Ground Zero first,
which was a sobering sight, as you might
imagine.
LP: We’d held a Fest at the World
Trade Center in August of 2001,
only a month before.
RF: Ah, what an existence!
Sometimes it’s downright
scary, and I don’t mean in an
entertaining way.
LP: I prefer imagined scares.
They’re better for the spirit.
RF: The 2003 Fest fulfilled all
my expectations. An involved
undertaking and efficiently run.
LP: Jim Pierson [of Dan Curtis
Productions] arranged and put on
the conventions and coordinated
everything, including booking the
venue at a big hotel. Thousands
of people attended. Those fests
were yearly events, and we did
Lara Parker performs her own words in this dramatized
them out of love of the show. No
reading. © Curtis Holdings, LLC.
compensation, just plane fare and
hotel costs. We’d talk to fans till two
and three in the morning and sign
hundreds of autographs.
RF: Because you’re family.
LP: True. We’re famous enough to attract
a huge following but not so famous that
any discomfort arises. Our relationships
are unique. Lovely memories, too. The
last year alone, we’ve lost four of our
group: Johnny Karlen, Diana Millay, Chris
Pennock, and Geoffrey Scott, wonderful
friends beloved by fans. Heartbreaking.
RF: You played a vicious witch on Kolchak: RF: What, he actually said something to
The Night Stalker. Classic stuff. Give us
the inside scoop on “The Trevi Collection”
(Season One/Episode 14, original airdate
January 24, 1975)!
LP: It was serendipity, one of those jobs
that literally falls into your lap.
I’d been in Memphis celebrating
Christmas with my family and got a call
to come out and do the part. No audition,
no reading, nothing. Just do the show, an
ideal assignment. I’m sure the casting had
to do with Angelique, and that was fine by
me.
A slice of life in the cutthroat fashion
industry. I played a contemporary witch
named Madelaine, who also happened to
be a model!
RF: Darren McGavin struck me as an
amiable sort. How was he to work with?
LP: Not so amiable. A leading actor or
actress carries the show, and he seemed
to think things weren’t going well. The
director shot a master, and then we
alternated close-ups. There was half an
hour between each one, and my character
had been screaming and angry, so I
thought I should scream during Kolchak’s
reaction. Nope! Darren McGavin did not
appreciate my help. He didn’t know I’d
done anything supernatural or witchy
prior. I was just a supporting player.
you?
LP: Yes. “Please don’t do that, I don’t
need you to do that.” It was a little
condescending. Sometimes, you just
don’t click with a co-star. I wish I’d known
him better, in retrospect. He had a lot on
retro interview
the line, being the main character, so I
understood his feelings, overall.
RF: And you had your head put in a bucket
of water!
LP: The big reveal. My face is blue, and I’m
monstrous. Not very comfortable, but it
was what the story needed, I guess.
[Editor’s note: See RetroFan #11 for our
look at Kolchak: The Night Stalker.]
RF: Most of the interviews you do
probably start out with, “How’d you get
cast on Dark Shadows?” To shake things
up, I’m gonna ask it at the end!
LP: [laughing] I’d just arrived in
New York, and Dark Shadows was
the second professional audition
of my life. I was paralyzed with
fear. Absolute fear. They had me
do a love scene with Jonathan
on camera, and he helped me
struggle through. Such a generous
man. I’ve never forgotten his
kindness.
RF: So, you became Angelique, and
a star was born.
LP: I absolutely love and adore
Angelique. She made her debut
at the cusp of the women’s
movement… an empowering
character who gave new meaning
to the term, “a woman scorned.”
RF: You can say that again
[laughs]!
Gee, I wish we weren’t limited
by time constraints! I could talk
for hours. This has been a real
eye-opener for me, Lara. Your admirers
in Retro-land will love it. A happy
Halloween to you.
LP: This has been a fun talk. Happy
Halloween, Rod!
From 1986 through 2014, New England-
based writer ROD LABBE regularly
contributed to Fangoria magazine. His
other magazine credits include Famous
Monsters of Filmland, FilmFax,
Scary Monsters, Gorezone, and The
Fantastic Fifties. Thus far, Rod’s received
12 prestigious Rondo Hatton Award
nominations for his work profiling the
stars of Dark Shadows and for other
horror topics.
RETROFAN November 2021 21
 RETROFAD

by Michael Eury

Batman warned us. He wisely armed Live. “Bruce” the mechanical

himself with a can of Bat-Shark Repellent shark, the oft-malfunctioning

Saturday Night Live © NBC.

in his 1966 theatrical movie and narrowly (during filming), 25-foot “star”
escaped the jaws of an exploding shark. of the film, became a media
And we laughed. darling, the subject of no end
No one was laughing nine summers of television, magazine, and
later when Jaws, a man-versus-maneating- newspaper reports.
shark shocker that cost a paltry $7 million to Jaws was such a success
Batman TM & © DC Comics. produce but scared up over $470 million at as a movie and a cultural
the global box office, frightened people away from sunny beaches phenomenon that theaters were flooded with imitators, making
(“You’ll never go in the water again,” warned a promo line) and the Seven Seas the deadliest place on Earth: Orca the Killer Whale,
into darkened theaters. No one, that is, but Universal Pictures, Piranha, Alligator, The Jaws of Death, Great White, and an adaptation
theater managers, and the young director Jaws made famous, of another of Benchley’s books, The Deep. Shelley Winters, still
Steven Spielberg, as folks lined up to see again and again what is waterlogged from The Poseidon Adventure, and the lauded John
now regarded as the first summer blockbuster. Huston and Henry Fonda were lured into the embarrassingly bad
I was there—no, not on the cursed beach of the fictional octopus thriller, Tentacles.
Amity Island, New York, where waders’ gams became a great
white’s yams, but at the Gem Theatre in Kannapolis,
North Carolina, for a packed house during Jaws’ opening
weekend. To this day, when I re-watch Jaws, I still shut
my eyes when (spoiler alert!) the dead guy’s head comes
a’bobbin’ from underneath the shark-decimated boat.
That unexpected scare made everybody jump out of
their skins, including the frantic woman behind me who
screeched “Good Lord-a-mighty!” as she bounded from her
seat and flailed her concessions all over this poor schmuck
in the seat in front of her.
Like chucking bloody chum into shark-infested waters,
two weeks before the film’s release, Universal Studios
flooded the airwaves with Jaws commercials, whipping
moviegoers into a feeding frenzy. A perfect storm of script,
performances, direction, music, and marketing, Jaws was
the movie-house equivalent of a roller-coaster ride, one
you couldn’t wait to board again as the end credits rolled.
Enthusiastic word of mouth helped Jaws go “viral” long Artist Roger Kastel paint-
before our current social-media platforms were created. ed the iconic Jaws image,
You couldn’t escape Jaws, even if you didn’t go to the used on this movie poster
movies. Peter Benchley’s horrifying 1974 novel upon and elsewhere in licensed
which it was based was a bestseller, enjoying bang-up merchandise. Kastel’s
paperback sales in the summer of ’75. Also available, and painting has been frequent-
officially licensed through Universal Studios, were Jaws ly lampooned. Poster courtesy
T-shirts, beach towels, posters, and a soundtrack album. of Heritage. Jaws © Universal
Racked alongside Benchley’s novel were the “biting humor” Pictures. MAD © EC Publica-
paperbacks 101 Shark Jokes and Jaws Jokes and Other Funny tions, Inc. Superman and Action
Fish Stories. Receiving radio play was Dickie Goodman’s Comics © DC Comics. Spider-
1975 comedy single “Mr. Jaws,” a mock “interview” with the Man and Ghost Rider © Marvel.
shark and other characters from the movie, their “replies” The Electric Company © The
being audio clips from pop songs. Chevy Chase donned a Children’s Television Workshop.
shark head for a “Land Shark” sketch on NBC’s Saturday Night

22 RETROFAN November 2021

 If you believed Hollywood in the mid- to late-Seventies,
wildlife clearly had a beef with humans, and it wasn’t limited
to the water: Grizzly (killer bear), The White Buffalo (killer bison),
Nightwing (killer bats), The Swarm (killer bees), Squirm (killer
worms), Rattlers (killer snakes), and H. G. Wells’ Empire of the Ants
The Spy Who Loved Me © Danjaq, LLC.
(duh) were among the horror flicks with refugees from nature
documentaries as movie monsters. The film that started it all
quickly begat its own sequels, Jawsmania.
starting with 1978’s Jaws 2.
Jawsmania infected not
only moviedom’s critters but
its humans as well. Novelist
Ian Fleming’s steel-tusked
criminal Sol Horror was
reimagined as the super-
villain Jaws, as portrayed with scenery-chewing gusto by the
towering Richard Kiel in the James Bond thriller The Spy Who
Loved Me and its follow-up, Moonraker. Even the porno biz stuck a
toe (and other bare body parts) into the waters with 1976’s Gums,
about a sex-crazed mermaid’s attacks on skinny-dipping men.
Surprisingly for a horror movie targeted toward adults
and teens, Jaws was popular with children. It almost didn’t
turn out that way, as the film’s gory shark
attacks threatened to earn it a prohibitive “R”
rating (no one under 17 allowed without adult
accompaniment), leading producer Richard D.
Zanuck to lobby for the film’s “PG” rating since
Jaws contained no sex and limited foul language.
Kids joined their parents in viewing Jaws…
and also became a target market for Jawsmania.
Rubber and plastic sharks, from a licensed
Jaws figure to knock-offs like the “Maneater,”
filled cheapie toy bins. Ideal Toys released a
Jaws game in 1975, a nod to the board game
Operation, where players fished items like
a boot and an anchor out of a great white’s
mouth before its jaws clamped shut. MAD magazine offered
readers “Jaw’d,” while competitors Sick and Cracked each did
spoofs they called “Jawz.” Two different cartoon comedies
starring sharks made their Saturday morning debuts in the fall of
1976: Hanna-Barbera’s Jabberjaw, featuring a shark that was also
in a rock band, and DePatie-Freleng’s lesser-known Misterjaw, a
hat-wearing shark that shouted “Gotcha!” when he, well, gotcha.
Mego re-released its Aquaman super-hero action figure in a
deluxe playset with a great white shark as an
adversary. Costumer Collegeville marketed a
Jaws 2 Halloween ensemble, complete with
a plastic shark mask, for trick-or-treaters (see
RetroFan #2).
In comic books, sharks popped up where you
expected them, battling action heroes from the
Bionic Woman to Tarzan, and where you didn’t
expect them, such as the covers of DC’s spooky
anthology The House of Secrets and Marvel’s kid-
friendly Electric Company tie-in Spidey Super Stories.
Old villains like Tiger Shark and Killer Shark Saturday morning TV’s Jabberjaw (with his band,
returned. Luke Cage got a jagged-toothed foe the Neptunes) and Misterjaw kept the kiddies in
named Piranha Jones. Jawsmania invited Marvel stiches. Jabberjaw © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Misterjaw of Bat-Shark Repellent when
to dust off an anemic smuggling story from the © DePatie-Freleng.
Fifties and repackage it in Weird Wonder Tales under a “Deadlier
Than JAWS!” cover. Superman encountered Green Lantern rogue
the Shark, and Marvel pitted its flame-skulled, motorcycling
Ghost Rider against a maneater. Were that not enough to stretch
the Marvel Universe’s elastic borders of credibility, there were
flying sharks in Ka-Zar’s Savage Land! The world of pop culture
was in danger of (yes, I’m going to say it) jumping the shark with
In fact, this issue’s RetroFad played a role in introducing
“jumping the shark” to our lexicon. On the September 20, 1977
episode of Happy Days, Fonzie, clad in his leather jacket and
swimtrunks, made a waterski leap over a shark in a tank in the
ABC series’ cringe-worthy attempt to capitalize on Jawsmania.
This infamous moment was a point of no return for the once-
venerable sitcom juggernaut and signaled that Happy Days had
passed its expiration date. As such, “jumping the shark” has
been used to describe negative turning points for long-running
programs or concepts.
Jaws’ own sequels strayed farther offshore with each outing.
Steven Spielberg was a star by the time 1978’s Jaws 2 was made,
and Jeannot Szwarc (Somewhere in Time, Supergirl) was tapped
to direct this serviceable but predictable entry that once again
placed Roy Scheider in familiar waters. Jaws 3-D (1983) was a
gimmicky cousin of a teen-slasher movie. With 1987’s Jaws: The
Revenge, the fourth film in the franchise, Ellen Brody, now the
widowed wife of Scheider’s shark-battling Sheriff Brody, was the
last woman standing from the original main cast (“This Time It’s
Personal,” claimed the tagline). With all due respect to the very
capable actress Lorraine Gary, Jaws: The Revenge was about as
exciting as a Rocky sequel thrusting Adrian Balboa (“Yo, Adrian!”)
into the boxing ring.
But that wasn’t the death knell for the Jaws phenomenon.
A funny thing happened along the way. Those kids who
accompanied their parents to Jaws back in 1975 became adults
and introduced their kids to the film—and its sequels. Even those
of you who were born long after Jaws’ release have probably
watched it multiple times on cable, home video, DVD, and now,
via streaming. Some of you grew up with it, humming along
with John Williams’ eerie half-step theme (“Buh-dum buh-dum
buh-dum buh-dum”) and reciting the “We’re gonna need a bigger
boat” line along with Roy Scheider. To a generation or two, Jaws
is as revered a summer family film as A Christmas Story and It’s a
Wonderful Life are at yuletide.
And as such, the Jawsmania that chomped into America
throughout the Seventies and
Eighties spawned an institution
where Bruce the shark became
an amusement park ride,
where cable networks sponsor
“Shark Weeks” of oceanography
films and Jaws knock-offs, and
where Sharknado, a ridiculously
cheesy made-for-cable movie
combining two unstoppable
menaces (sharks and twisters)
into one, produces high ratings
and sequels. Where’s your can
you need it?
RETROFAN November 2021 23
 THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!
“You Knew the Show Was Dangerous When You Saw It”
George of the Jungle
by Scott Shaw!
I think that Jay Ward Productions’ George of the Jungle was the last
truly great Saturday morning cartoon show of the Sixties… maybe
ever! Only 17 episodes were made for a single season airing on ABC
from 1967 to 1968, but the series was well-received, the characters
are still well-known and beloved, and the writing, voiceover cast,
designs, and animation are all funny and outstanding.
Of course, I’m kinda biased. I’ve been a big fan of the show
since I was 16, which was 50 years ago.
Apparently it was never aired in San Diego, because I never
saw a single episode of Crusader Rabbit—a primitive TV cartoon
series that was created and produced by Jay Ward and cartoonist
Alex Anderson in 1947 as “Television Arts Productions” (although
NBC’s Jerry Fairbanks stole the title of “Supervising Producer”). I
did have a Crusader Rabbit coloring book, which greatly intrigued
me. Who were those characters? They looked pretty cool to me,
especially Crusader Rabbit’s uniquely parallel bunny ears.
Moose and Squirrel Save the Day
But I was right there at Ground Zero for the first broadcast
of Rocky and His Friends on November 19, 1959, on San Diego’s
ABC affiliate, XETV/Channel 6, which broadcast from a studio
in Mexico, right after Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. I was
mystified by the presence of a laugh track on a cartoon. Rocky
and Bullwinkle’s “Jet Fuel Formula” rocked my little world forever,
as did the rest of the show. I became an obsessed fan of the series.
Due to the physics of transmission, my folks’ B&W RCA television
24 RETROFAN November 2021
Watch out for that… you know. Animation
cel of Jay Ward’s loinclothed lamebrain.
© Ward Productions, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.
was capable of receiving signals from Los Angeles television
stations in those pre-cable days, at least early every morning.
Rocky and His Friends aired four times every Sunday morning, with
a different “Rocky and Bullwinkle” segment’s story arc in all four
time slots. I made myself a chart so I could keep track of all of the
hilariously convoluted stories. Yeah, I was that hooked.
Like Hanna-Barbera’s The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957) and The
Huckleberry Hound Show (1958), Jay Ward’s new funny-animal
series was hip and full of modern-day references that kids
understood, partially because there were contemporary
elements and slang in them that I didn’t need my grandmother
to interpret for me. Up to this point in time, kids of my generation
had practically memorized every Warner Bros., MGM, Fleischer
Bros., and Terrytoons cartoon ever broadcast on television, and
even though they were indeed classics, we were all getting pretty
bored with seeing the same shorts over and over. But finally,
the cavalry had arrived to rescue us in the form of Rocky and His
Friends.
I loved the series and all of its permutations, including The
Bullwinkle Show (1961), The Dudley Do-Right Show (1969), as well
as the insanely clever Fractured Flickers (1963), a live-action series
consisting of re-dubbed classic silent movies. I’ll never forget
the FF makeover of Lon Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
“Dinky Dunstan, Boy Cheerleader.” But when Hoppity Hooper
hit the airwaves in 1964, I felt something was missing. I’d just
turned 13 and sensed that the series was playing to a younger,
less-hip audience… and indeed, that was the case, a demand of
General Mills, the show’s sponsor. I wasn’t as interested in HH
but I was nuts about the televised commercials for Quaker Oats’
new cereal, Cap’n Crunch, obviously produced by Jay Ward.
Within a few years, I was knocked out by the TV spots starring
Quaker’s latest cereal stars, Quisp and Quake [see RetroFan #11].
I was just as knocked out by a new syndicated series that, in
my opinion, looked like a Jay Ward cartoon, was written like a
Jay Ward cartoon, was even cheaper than a Jay Ward cartoon,
as was as funny as a Jay Ward cartoon… but Ward had nothing
to do with it. But Roger Ramjet was produced by Ken Snyder
and created by the legendary puppet show Shrimpenstein! co-
creators Jim Thurman and Gene Moss. Both of their series still
mean a lot to me.
So, where was Jay Ward when we needed him? H-B’s last
decent funny-animal characters were in The New Hanna-Barbera
Cartoon Series. Yeah, that’s the official name of the show that
starred Wally Gator, Touché Turtle, and Lippy the Lion and Hardy
Har Har. The studio’s further output was plummeting in quality.
I wasn’t wild about other studios’ Milton the Monster, Courageous
Cat, Kimba the White Lion, or older stuff like Clutch Cargo (although
I dug its comic-strip style) and the wretched Spunky and Tadpole.
I was watching them but I wasn’t learning much. Other than the
Could toonmaster Jay Ward (1920–1989) pull another cartoon hit out of his hat after Rocky and
Bullwinkle? Rocky and Bullwinkle © Ward Productions, Inc. and Classic Media. Cel courtesy of Heritage.
Beatles cartoons and Iwao Takamoto’s designs on H-B’s The Space
Kidettes on NBC, there wasn’t much out there to inspire me.
The Super-Hero Invasion
And then, thanks to the overwhelming success of ABC’s Batman in
1966 and its resulting Batmania, the super-hero genre suddenly
became the Prime Directive of SatAM network programming. Fall
1966 saw Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman on CBS, and
during that season and the next the genre exploded especially
on that same network, under the guidance of Fred Silverman. He
stocked his 1967 schedule with some fairly good cartoons from
Hanna-Barbera, simplistic but visually impressive results for
what Bill Hanna called “planned animation.” The shows, almost
all designed by Alex Toth, were: Space Ghost (sold as “Batman in
space”), The Herculoids (sold as “Tarzan in space”), Shazzan!, Moby
Dick and the Mighty Mightor, and my personal favorite among
H-B’s super-hero wave, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, for its
campy scripts, cool character designs, and outstanding layouts
(come back next issue for more info!). Silverman finished up
the morning with Filmation’s Aquaman [see RetroFan #3] and
more Superman, and reruns of H-B’s Jonny Quest [see issue #7].
Meanwhile, NBC was jumping into the super-hero business, with
DePatie-Freleng’s Super 6 (another favorite of mine, at least in
RETROFAN November 2021 25
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

terms of design), Al Brodax’s Cool McCool (created by Batman’s Bob

Kane), and two tepid super-hero shows from H-B, Birdman and
Samson and Goliath. Finally, on the “third network” every Saturday
morning and multiple times on holiday weekends, ABC served
up H-B’s outstanding adaptation of The Fantastic Four, Grantray-
Lawrence’s Spider-Man, Rankin-Bass’ King Kong, and Filmation’s
Journey to the Center of the Earth. It was a very diverse line-up from
a wide variety of studios. Best of all, ABC picked up another new
series, a new show from Jay Ward Productions, George of the Jungle.
Jay’s cavalry was back for a second rescue!
Even though I fully realized that the intended market for the
incredibly numerous SatAM super-hero shows had taken over
television, I watched most of ’em. (Even TV Guide acknowledged it
with an article about the trend, brilliantly illustrated by Wallace
Wood.) I’d sit close to the TV screen with a sketch pad and lots of
sharpened pencils at hand, and try to teach myself how to draw
everything from H-B’s The Flintstones to Format Films’ artsy The
Lone Ranger—also on CBS in 1966 [and coming to these pages
in issue #20—ed.]—which struck me as an animated version of
Marvel’s Western comics that featured cowboy heroes fighting

costumed villains and monsters in a style that very similar to the

classic Tarzan cartoonist Jesse Marsh’s. Nice stuff.

Ward and company poked fun at beefy Elmo Lincoln, Holly-
wood’s first Tarzan, with George of the Jungle, shown this
page and opposite in images from original model sheets
created in 1967. Tarzan © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. George of the
Jungle © Ward Productions, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.
A Missed Opportunity
But George of the Jungle was something special. I knew that from
the first day it aired, which was five days after my 16th birthday,
September 9, 1967. It was like a late birthday present. And in a few
months, I got something else from Jay Ward—a job offer.
Although I’ve worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions and am
known for my love of The Flintstones, I’m equally influenced by
the cartoons by Jay Ward Productions, although I only worked
on the studio’s characters just once, drawing a limited edition
collectible cel for Universal, replicating the final shot in Rocky
and Bullwinkle’s segment opening in Rocky and His Friends. They
were so expensive that even I don’t own one! But it’s impossible to
measure how much Jay Ward’s cartoons had a massive influence
on my senses of humor, art, and subversion.
My high school counselor didn’t take cartooning seriously, so
the only art class I was allowed to take was as a student teacher
at the junior high I’d attended. I was assigned to assist the same
teacher I had my single art class, Miss Yaekel. Although most of
her students were scared of her, we got along fine, because she
did respect my passion for drawing funny stuff. She even asked
to share my sketchbook—which included “The Interplanetary
Drag Race,” a story heavily influenced by the then-new George of
the Jungle’s “Tom Slick” segments. Unknown to me, the person she
shared it with was another of the school’s art teacher, who was
the ex-wife of a director working at Jay Ward Productions named
Jim Hiltz. Unknown to me, she sent my sketchbook to Jim, who

26 RETROFAN November 2021

 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

reduced the quality, if not the funniness. In fact, a few

years later when General Mills passed on the George
of the Jungle and Super Chicken pitches, Jay Ward was
actually relieved that he didn’t have to deal with
Gamma anymore. (On the other hand, Bill Hanna once
considered sending ink and painting to a Mexican
prison!) Instead of relying on Mexican cartoonists
to deliver the goods, almost every segment in the
entirety of George of the Jungle was conceived and
animated at Jay Ward Productions.

Just Call for Super Chicken

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s use the WABAC
machine to travel back to 1959, when Chris Hayward
and Lloyd Turner first created Super Chicken for Jay
Ward Productions. In their “Super Chicken vs. Yeggs
Benedict” pilot script and storyboard, Super Chicken’s
secret identity was “J. Pullet Wealthy,” and Fred was
called “Lawrence Lion.” Yegg’s Benedict’s henchman
was named “Denver Omelet.” Around the same time,
Watts Gnu was a puppet show that became a pet
project of Jay’s that never found a home.
Ward’s most notorious failure was an hour-long
collection of live-action comedy skits, a Laugh-In four
years before its time called The Nut House. The concept
wasn’t even Jay’s! As Bill Scott said, “CBS approached
our studio. They wanted a fast and zany show. So
must have shown it to the studio’s production manager (or who that’s what they got.” Unfortunately, the focus group testing
knows, maybe even Bill Scott or even Jay Ward?). revealed that over 80 percent of the audiences disliked the live-
A few weeks later, an envelope arrived at our house, addressed
to “Mr. and Mrs. Shaw” and sent from Jay Ward Productions at
8200 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. My knees buckled when
my father read to me that I’d been invited to “work” for Jay
Ward as an unpaid intern. I was only 16, still in high school, and
lived 200 miles away from the studio. What followed was like
a bizarre reworking of an episode of Leave It to Beaver, with my
parents patiently attempting to coax me into understanding
that the circumstances made their offer impossible. I eventually
got over it, which was good training for the constant instability
of freelance cartooning. Although I had a few pleasant social
conversations with the Ward studio’s Bill Scott, I never contacted
the studio or Jim Hiltz after I’d become a professional, if for
nothing else, to thank them for giving me hope when I was a kid. I
still really regret not doing it.
The only thing about Rocky and His Friends that bugged me as a
kid—but not enough to diminish my enjoyment—was the sheer
shoddiness of the productions. Paint flashes, voices coming out of
the wrong character, feet not touching the ground, missing facial
details… all of these were very frequent in most of the segments
of the show. Little did I know that it was due to the fact that
the animation, inking, and painting were done in Mexico with
very little supervision. This was due to a very complicated deal
made with the show’s sponsor, General Mills, and its advertising
agency, D-F-S. In short, the cereal manufacturer determined
that the animation was to be done at a studio in Mexico, Gamma
Productions, that also animated all of the Total Television shows
like Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo. The goal was to reduce the
budget, which it did. (When Gamma ran out of cel vinyl paint,
they resorted to using house paint.) Unfortunately, it also
RETROFAN November 2021 27
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
Ursula, George and the Tooki-Tooki
Bird, and the elephant Shep in a presen-
tation cel sold at the Dudley Do-Right
Emporium. Signed by Jay Ward. © Ward
Productions, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.
action, but dug the short animated segments that were directed
by Pete Burness. Jay went back to what he did best: making funny
cartoons.
At this point, Jay Ward Productions’ primary income was from
Quaker Oats for their various advertising campaigns. General
Mills ordered another 26 half-hours of Hoppity Hooper. But Jay
Ward was very frustrated. He loved doing those commercials,
with a contract that allowed his team to be creatively
unencumbered, but he felt that Hoppity Hooper, aimed at a
younger audience than Rocky and Bullwinkle, wasn’t challenging
his creative team’s abilities. Jay was always pitching new series, a
few of which were green-lit, then vanished into the ether before
production even began, including an unmade series titled Sir
Melvin. Here are some of the unsold concepts and shows that Jay
Ward unsuccessfully attempted to sell: Clobbered Classics, Colonel
Swagger of the Office of Odds and Ends a.k.a. Colonel Beanbottom,
Secret Agent X-6 7/8, Simpson & Delany, and The Picadilly Squares. Jay
was very frustrated, so much so that it began to be a joke around
the studio. At the Bullwinkle Block Party, he rigged a miniature
wishing well with a sign that read: “MAKE A WISH—Throw
$200,000 In And Wish For A Jay Ward Productions Series.”
But Jay Ward believed in Super Chicken and refused to relent
and continued to tinker with the cartoon’s concept.
By 1964, Super Chicken was “Nelson G. Cluckerfeller,” portrayed
by Don Knotts, Fred was played by Louis Nye, and Marvin
28 RETROFAN November 2021
Miller was the narrator. The voice casting was brilliant, but the
soundtrack was re-recorded by Bill Scott and Mel Blanc. It was
the only time he worked for Jay Ward. Then, Bill Scott re-recorded
Super Chicken’s voice, now sounding like Jim Backus doing his
“Thurston Howell III” routine. Next, Super Chicken became “Hunt
Strongbird, Jr.,” a take-off on a CBS executive’s name. The cartoon
was a two-parter about Henry and Edsel Fraud, who escape
Devil’s Egg Island disguised as Orville and Wilber Wright, only to
repeatedly be thwarted by Super Chicken. This pilot was designed
and storyboarded by Al Shean.
It was first pitched as The Super Chicken Show, with two SC
cartoons with a third unrelated one sandwiched between them.
New (unsold) premises for the slot included Farcical Fables (which
eventually became Aesop and Son), The Picadilly Squares, and Colonel
Swagger/Beanbottom. There was no Super Sauce transformation
yet (keep reading), and the Chicken Coop was literally a flying
wooden chicken coop.
Tickle Me, Elmo
Allan Burns and Chris Hayward’s original George of the Jungle pitch
concept starred the annoying and nerdish, dimwitted schlub
son of one of England’s richest noblemen. His family sent him to
Africa rather than have to endure his behavior at home. He didn’t
swing around the jungle—instead, he got around on a motor
scooter (and it wasn’t a cool Vespa, either!). George’s sidekicks

were Lamont the mauve-crested dinglebird (later replaced by the
Tooki-Tooki Bird) and Harry the ape. Swinging into tree trunks
was already his shtick. Burns and Hayward left to write for live-
action TV shows soon after.
“Bill Scott took it over and gave it his twist on it (which was very
good) and it became a slightly different show than what I had done.”
– Allen Burns
The Tarzan that Jay Ward and company were making fun of
was the first Tarzan movie, Tarzan of the Apes (1918), starring Elmo
Lincoln. Both Burns and Scott were big fans of silent movies, as
Ward’s Fractured Flickers demonstrated. Apparently, no one at ABC
or Standards and Practices noticed that “Tooki” was sexual slang.
General Mills commissioned pilots for both concepts. The
George of the Jungle pilot was scripted by Bill Scott, based on an
idea by Jim Critchfield, and was designed, storyboarded, and laid
out by Shirley Silvey and directed and laid out by Gerard Baldwin,
with help from Duane Crowther. For some unknown reason,
General Mills passed. Jay Ward immediately pitched it to ABC,
who bought it early in 1967 and ordered 13 episodes, then upped
it to 17. The production schedule made it necessary to subcontract
two shorts—“Little Scissor” and “Rescue is my Business”—to
be animated from another Hollywood studio, Fred Calvert
Productions.
The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
Jay Ward’s Super Chicken wasn’t the only cartoon that
spoofed the swashbuckling literary/film hero the Scarlet
Pimpernel—Warner Bros.’ Sylvester and DePatie-
Freleng’s Pink Panther are among the toons that did
Pimpernel parodies. But they didn’t have Fred! Super
Chicken and Fred in the Chicken Coop. © Ward Productions,
Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.
With ABC’s Batman igniting a campy super-hero fad in 1966 and
the resulting explosion of super-hero TV shows, the time was right.
After all, George and Henry were unlike modern super-heroes, but
instead like the unusual heroes their creators read about in their
youths: Tarzan, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Tom Swift.
Late in 1966, Jay Ward pitched the George of the Jungle and Super
Chicken pilots to ABC’s Richard Zimbert and Ed Vane. Due the
fact that both characters were heroes, it jibed perfectly with the
latest trend. They were asked to add a third character to fill the
open slot in the show and Tom Slick was born after a very short
gestation period.
Jay’s deal with ABC included a decent but far-from-lavish
budget and a grueling schedule, but overriding everything, the
network’s creative approval would be significantly diminished. As
a small concession, Super Chicken finally became “Henry Cabot
Henhouse III.”
RETROFAN November 2021 29
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

Paul Harvey was hired to design and direct George of the Jungle’s
title sequence. He was a commercial designer who’d worked for
UPA and Elektra Films. That weird squawking jungle bird with the
wiggly tongue was drawn for production exactly like it was in the
thumbnail storyboard. Shirley Silvey fleshed out his thumbnail
storyboard and the layouts. The main title’s animators included
Phil Duncan, Rudy Zamora, Duane Crowther, and Rob Scribner.
Phil did all of the segment intros by himself.
The psychedelic opening titles, individual segment intros (that
lion’s definitely stoned!), and final credits constituted three-and-
one-and-a-half minutes that they didn’t have to animate. Those
elements were the show’s high point when it came to animation,
so none of the viewers complained. In general, George of the Jungle
represented a huge leap in sophistication and hipness in terms of
the character designs, backgrounds, and overall color palette.
The show had a few budgetary and production problems. Jay’s
earlier stuff was often just characters standing around saying
hilarious stuff to each other, but George of the Jungle, starring three
different action heroes, required a lot more movement. Ward was
paid $38,500 for each episode. Whenever Jay tried to cut down
their animation costs, he was never happy with the results and
often redid scenes. Tight schedules from ABC and too-sketchy
linework from Xerox (hand-painting had vanished from SatAM
cartoons) were also problems
that plagued the production.
The studio’s TV commercials
for Quaker displayed what
his Hollywood team could
achieve, which made it harder
for him to accept the cost-and-
quality cuts of kids’ television.
Watch Out for That Tree!
George of the Jungle premiered on ABC on September 9, 1967 in the
11:30 AM time slot. It began with this snappy theme song, which
gave us the show’s catchphrase, “Watch out for that tree!”:
“George, George, George of the Jungle,
“Strong as he can be.
(Tarzan yell) “Watch out for that tree!


“George, George, George of the Jungle,
“Lives a life that’s free.
(Tarzan yell) “Watch out for that tree!


“When he gets in a scrape, He makes his escape
“With the help of his friend, An ape named Ape.
“Then away he’ll schlep on his elephant Shep
“While Fella and Ursula stay in step…
“With George, George, George of the Jungle,
“Friend to you and me.
(Tarzan yell) “Watch out for that tree! Watch out for that...
(Tarzan yell) “Oooh! …tree!


“George, George, George of the Jungle,
“Friend to you and me!”
Parodying vintage films adapting the Tarzan of the Apes
novels of pulp-master Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as other
classic movies, George of the Jungle managed to avoid any racial
controversy regarding the Jay Ward-style African tribesmen.
The solution was simple—Jay’s team made ’em all Jewish. Like

(ABOVE) Long before

“Young Adult” was a
book genre, boy inven-
tor Tom Swift was
piquing the imagi-
nations of juvenile
readers. (RIGHT)
He inspired Ward
Productions’ Tom Slick,
shown here racing his
Thunderbolt Grease
Slapper in a 1967
animation drawing by
Lew Keller. Tom Swift ©
Stratameyer Estate. Tom
Slick © Ward Productions,
Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

30 RETROFAN November 2021


Tarzan, George protects his jungle and the beasts that live there
and encounters poachers, witch doctors, and cults… but all in a Jay
Ward sorta way.
The George of the Jungle characters:
George is Mbwebwe Province’s physically powerful, mentally
lacking, good-natured, gullible, never-described-as-“bright”
jungle king. Swinging from vine to vine, he’s slammed into half
of the trees in the forest, which accounts for his usual dazed
condition.
Ape is George’s best friend, an intelligent, civilized, and
sophisticated gorilla who’s the voice of reason, speaking like
British-born actor Ronald Colman.
Ursula/Fella are beautiful female twins who live with George
as his mates. They rarely speak and the only time they’ve been
seen together is in the show’s main title sequence.
Shep is a full-grown bull elephant that thinks he’s a puppy dog.
And so does George.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that the design of George,
Ursula, and Fella’s treehouse changes from episode to episode,
although they all were laid out by the same artist.
George’s villains include: Tiger Titherage and Weevil Plumtree;
Dr. Chicago; Ungawa the Gorilla God; Tiny Tony Tuxedo the
Tip-Top Tailor from Tanganyika, a.k.a. “Little Scissor”; The Duke
of Wellington and his wife Cynthia; Gerry Mander; Seymour
Nodnick; and various witch doctors who sound like Phil Silvers.
You Knew the Job Was Dangerous When You Took It
With quick-fire shots of funny images with very little animation,
Super Chicken’s intro segment was directed by Bill Hurtz and
designed and laid out by Shirley Shivley. It featured a cameo
photo-appearance by Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster.
The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
Original scene cel of the Tom Slick cast: Marigold, Tom, and
madcap mechanic Gertie Growler. © Ward Productions, Inc.
Courtesy of Heritage.
The images were brilliant, but it’s the Super Chicken theme
song that everyone remembers:
“When you find yourself in danger,
“When you’re threatened by a stranger,
“When it looks like you will take a lickin’ (>Buk buk buk< )
“There is someone waiting, Who will hurry up and rescue you,
“Just call for Super Chicken! (>Buk ack!<)


“Fred, if you’re afraid you’ll have to overlook it,
“Besides, you knew the job was dangerous when you took
it (>Buk-ack!<)
“He will drink his super sauce
“And throw the bad guys for a loss
“And he will bring them in alive and kickin’ (>Buk buk buk<)


“There is one thing you should learn
“When there is no one else to turn to
“Call for Super Chicken! (>Buk buk buk<)
“Call out for Super Chicken! (>Buk-aaack!!!<)”
The Super Chicken characters:
Super Chicken, a.k.a. wealthy Henry Cabot Henhouse
III, is a costumed hero with super-powers who looks like the
swashbuckling Scarlet Pimpernel. The source of his non-
specific super-powers is his “Super Sauce,” which spectacularly
RETROFAN November 2021 31
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
transforms the wealthy playboy into an overconfident but
surprisingly clever cluck.
Fred, an African lion who wears a sweatshirt, is like Super
Chicken’s version of Seinfeld’s “Kramer.” He’s a goofy pal who
simply hangs around—occasionally referred to as a “butler,”
although that doesn’t seem to be the case—making observations
that could either be very smart or very goofy. Fred’s the pilot of
Super Chicken’s egg-shaped flying vehicle, “The Chicken Coop.”
He also often fetches Henry’s Super Sauce. (Get it?) I always had
the impression that Fred showed up at a party, crashed in Henry’s
mansion, and forgot to move out. And as the song says, Fred
provides Super Chicken’s catchphrase, “Fred, you knew the job
was dangerous when you took it!”
Super Chicken’s villains include: Appian Way; The Zipper, Rotten
Hood; The Oyster; Prince Blackhole of Calcutta; Merlin Brando;
Wild Ralph Hiccup; The Geezer; Salvador Rag Dolly; The Easter
Bunny; The Noodle; The Fat Man; Briggs Bad-wolf; The Laundry
Man; The Muscle; Dr. Gizmo; and The Wild Hair.
That last Super Chicken short, director Bill Hurtz’s “The Wild
Hair,” included one of the most subversive gags I’ve ever seen
in a TV cartoon. In order to defeat a giant living toupee, Super
Chicken launches a campaign to get the monster to worry so its
32 RETROFAN November 2021
Storyboards by Lew Keller for the Tom Slick
opening credits. © Ward Productions, Inc. Courtesy of
Heritage.
hair would fall out. (Typical Jay Ward logic, eh?) One of the gags is
when Super Chicken phones the hair-that-walks-like-a-man and
says he’s from the Army’s draft office. Of course, that gag wasn’t
so funny if the viewer realized that thousands of young men were
getting killed in Vietnam. Since it was the final Super Chicken
episode, it’s apparent that it was overlooked by ABC’s Standards
and Practices, as did George’s Tooki-Tooki Bird.
There’s No Such Word As ‘Fail’ in Auto Racing
Since Super Chicken and George of the Jungle had been developed
and refined for years before, it makes sense that their concepts
and cast seem more “solid,” creatively speaking. But since he was
conceived specifically to fill remaining slot in the three-slot hero-
show, Tom Slick feels like it wasn’t completely “cooked” creatively.
That said, the concept was closely tied to the hot rod culture
of Southern California, which had gained national coolness
thanks to guys like Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (see RetroFan #10), George
Barris, and CARtoons magazine. The segment was also creatively
indebted to Blake Edwards’ The Great Race.
Tom Slick’s racecar, “The Thunderbolt Grease Slapper,” may
have been named thusly because it was slapped together once
ABC made it clear that they wanted to buy Ward’s George of the

Jungle as a series with three segments. The character was named
after the fictional young inventor Tom Swift, the star of a series
of boys’ novels. The too-subtle-for-kids gag was if Tom Swift was
still around, “he wouldn’t be a backyard inventor, he’d be a racecar
genius,” definitely not Victor Appleton’s “Tom Swift, Jr.”
The Tom Slick theme song’s lyrics:
“Tom Slick.
“Tom Slick.
“Let me tell you why
“He’s the best of all good guys
“Tom Slick.
“Tom Slick.
“In the Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper, once he’s on your tail,
“He won’t quit because you know there’s no such word as ‘fail’ to
“Tom Slick.
“Tom Slick!”
Our hero obviously did not heed his theme song’s warning
on the cover of Gold Key Comics’ George of the Jungle #2
(Oct. 1969). Cover art attributed to Paul Fung, Jr. © Ward
Productions, Inc.
The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
The Tom Slick characters:
Racecar driver Tom Slick is as wholesome as they come,
resembling the adult Ron Howard but with a voice like Dudley
Do-Right. He always plays fair, which drives his opponents crazy.
Marigold is Tom’s sweet, supporting, and spaced-out
sweetheart. She rarely has much to say other than to fret over
Tom’s safety.
Gertie Growler, reminiscent of Jonathan Winters’ “Maudie
Frickert,” is an elderly automotive mechanic and ironic “wiseguy.”
She and the baddies have all of the funny dialog.
Gertie’s constant “patient,” the Thunderbolt Grease Slapper,
is an all-terrain racing vehicle which mechanical genius Tom
Slick often customizes into almost anything that moves fast. It
has been a blimp, a train, a boat, a submarine, a skateboard, a
snowmobile, a desert vehicle, and a swamp buggy.
The unnamed and unimpressed crowd of race spectators
who appear in almost every episode of Tom Slick are kind of a
hive-character in itself, flatly intoning “Yay” in unison but without
a scintilla of enthusiasm. (Ken Snyder’s Roger Ramjet, a very
funny, low-budget series, goes even cheaper, with the word
“YAY!” filling the screen rather than animating anything!)
Baron Otto Matic is Tom Slick’s primary rival and all-around
bad guy, the automotive equivalent of Snidely Whiplash. He’s
easily irritated, usually demanding, and consistently a bad
loser.
His assistant Clutcher has the body of the Hunchback of
Notre Dame and the voice of TV comic actor Frank Fontaine’s
Crazy Guggenheim. He’s hilariously subservient, yet
frustratingly incompetent, always taking a klop! in the skull,
administered by Baron Otto Matic’s heavy wrench, wielded
with ridiculous accuracy at preposterous distances.
Other racing nemeses include: Lobo Fanguzzi; Fred G.
Frankenstein; Count Lew Gozzi; “Lucky” Pool; Floyd Britches
and Brenda; Felini Scalappini; Steve McQueasy; Harley Angel;
Amsome Snobsworth V; Wilma Willow; Ringo Starfish; Sweet
Willy Rollbar; The Sneaky Sheik; Sonya Nar; Sepulchra; Prince
Monte Carloff; and Dranko the Dragster from the planet Merth
(referencing cartoonist Bob Dranko).
George is On My Mind
George of the Jungle comic books were published, cover-dated
February and October 1969. They were created through the
New York offices of Gold Key, the comics imprint of Western
Publishing. Unlike most of Western’s output based on
animated characters, these didn’t really capture the cartoons
that they were based upon. (If only they’d hired artist Al
Kilgore or some of Jay Ward’s cartoonists who did a wonderful
job drawing a number of giveaway promotional mini-comics
packed in Cap’n Crunch, Quisp, and Quake cereal boxes….)
George of the Jungle wasn’t picked up for a second season.
Instead, ABC aired the show’s original 17 episodes for two
more years. After it aired for the final time in September 1970,
George, Henry, and Tom went AWOL for almost 20 years.
After George of the Jungle was finished, all the business
that Jay Ward Productions had on a regular basis was from the
world of advertising. Jay liked doing commercials, but what he
didn’t like was dealing with Madison Avenue know-it-all CPAs.
And even the material his team was creating for Quaker was
routinely becoming less special with every memo from the cereal
RETROFAN November 2021 33
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!
More images from original
model sheets created in
1967. George of the Jungle ©
Ward Productions, Inc. Courtesy
of Heritage.
company’s ad agency. Ads for Shakey’s
Pizza were added to the studio’s schedule.
Meanwhile, Ward wasn’t having much
luck with the new cartoon series he was
pitching, which included Elementary, My
Dear Rocky (a nutrition-themed half-hour
special), Orville Wrong of the Laffingyette
Escadrille, Ragnar the Chicken (a Viking), The
Magic of Christmas (a TV special), Captain
Cutlass, Space Granny, Once Upon a Safari,
Hawkear the Scout, Fang the Wonder Dog,
and Rah Rah Woozy. Three of the pitches—
Hawkear the Scout, Fang the Wonder Dog,
and Rah Rah Woozy, the latter, the funniest
of the three, eerily foreshadowing Pinky
and the Brain with its genius lab mouse
secretly creating gadgets to aid his
college’s football team— made it to the
pilot stage but never sold, although they
34 RETROFAN November 2021
FA ST FAC TS
George of the Jungle
` No. of seasons: One
` No. of episodes: 17
` Original run: September 9, 1967–
December 30, 1967
` Writers: Alan Burns, Bill Scott,
Lloyd Turner, John Marshall
` Layout Artists: Shirley Silvey,
Sam Cornell, Bob Kurtz, Don
Jurwich, John Marshall, Al
Wilzbach, Rosemary O’Conner,
Don Ferguson, Willie Ito, Lew
Keller
` Animators: Bob Bachman, Fred
Madison, Gary Mooney, Jack
Scherk, Alan Zaslove, Bob Goe
` Background Painters: Jack
Heiter, Bob McIntosh, Walt
Peregoy, Gloria Wood, Bob Inman
` Musicians: Stan Worth and
Sheldon Allman
Voice Cast
` Bill Scott: George of the Jungle,
Super Chicken, Tom Slick, Gertie
Growler
` June Foray: Ursula, Marigold
` Paul Frees: Ape, Fred, Baron
Otto Matic, misc. villains and
characters
` Daws Butler: Clutcher, misc.
villains and characters
` William Conrad and Hans
Conried: Narrator of pilots
were occasionally screened in special
presentations at museums and art house
theaters during the Eighties. Ward
even did an unaired TV special starring
Bullwinkle that honored Arbor Day, but
the project wasn’t as fun as Jay had hoped
for.
Not giving up, Ward turned to selling
concepts for live-action sitcoms, including
Officer, You Dropped Your Purse (about a lady
cop), Uncle Lefty, and Prince Fred. None of
them sold. For The Garry Moore Show, the
Ward studio created “Flicker Songs,” sort
of a musical version of Fractured Flickers,
and some animated blackouts directed by
Bill Hurtz and Jim Hiltz. In 1966, Jay Ward
produced and Bill Scott wrote The Crazy
World of Laurel and Hardy, a feature film
composed of clips from the film library of
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, which was
later released with Jay Ward’s Intergalactic
Film Festival. He also assembled The Golden
Age of Buster Keaton, The Vintage W. C. Fields,
and Those Marvelous Benchley Shorts. Ward
and Scott monetized the studio’s library to
create more anthology features: Jay Ward
Movie Madness, The Jay Ward Total Catharsis,
and Jay Ward’s Film Festival.
In 1980, ABC expressed interest from
Ward in a football-spoofing TV special
called The Stupor Bowl, featuring Rocky,
Bullwinkle, and even Dudley Do-Right. A
filmed storyboard was well received by
the network, but unfortunately, the NFL
had a very negative reaction to Ward’s
 The Oddball World of Scott Shaw!

portrayals of football Godzilla with Matthew

team owners as an idiot, a Broderick.
sexpot, a gangster, and a On February 12, 2008,
brat. Then ABC proposed Classic Media released a
a one-hour series, The complete DVD collection
New Bullwinkle Show, that of the 1967 series, which
would feature most of included as a bonus
Jay Ward’s stars of the feature the original
past, plus some new ones, pilot cartoons for both
mentioned above. It was George of the Jungle and
announced in the showbiz Super Chicken. However,
trades that Friz Freleng the DVD omitted the
would produce the show, interstitials.
but the network never Most of Jay Ward’s
made a commitment and staff thought that George
The New Bullwinkle Show of the Jungle represented
was quickly (and sadly) the best work they ever
forgotten. did. Its viewers and fans
From that point on, certainly still agree.
although he still had an And now that I’ve lived
interest in creating new in the Los Angeles area
projects, both animated for the past 40 years, I’m
and otherwise, Jay Ward still waiting to get another
spent most of his time letter from Jay Ward
hanging out in Dudley Productions inviting me
Do-Right’s Emporium, a to take on a non-paying
cool gift shop on Sunset job as an intern. Sign me
Blvd. near the studio up, Jay!
that sold all sorts of
items, including Xeroxed Thanks to Keith Scott’s The
storyboards for the Moose That Roared (St.
pitches of George of the Martin’s Press, 2000) and
Jungle and Super Chicken. Darrell Van Citters’ The Art
In 1997, Disney had the of Jay Ward Productions
license to adapt certain (Oxberry Press, 2014)
Jay Ward characters. This for quotes and obscure
resulted in a hit live- information. And if you’re
action George of the Jungle If you knew the cartoon, you a big Jay Ward fan yearning to learn more about the studio, these two
feature film starring “got” this poster for the 1997 volumes comprise the verbal and visual history of Jay Ward Productions
Brendan Fraser, Leslie Disney live-action movie. as completely as is humanly possible.
Mann, and John Cleese. © Ward Productions, Inc./Disney.
To coincide with the film, Poster courtesy of Heritage. For 48 years (and counting), SCOTT SHAW!
two new sets of toys were has written and drawn underground
released, both in the style comix, mainstream comic books, comic
of the Jay Ward cartoon show: a playset of PVC figures and plush strips, graphic novels, TV cartoons, toys,
dolls of George, Ape, and Shep. An inevitable direct-to-video advertising, and video games. He has worked
sequel, George of the Jungle 2, directed by the maestro of DTV on such characters as Captain Carrot and
sequels, Alex Zamm, followed in 2003, but without the original his Amazing Zoo Crew (which he co-created
version’s stars. with Roy Thomas), Sonic the Hedgehog, the Flintstones, the
In 1998, VHS tapes of the George of the Jungle cartoons were Jetsons, the Simpsons, the Futurama gang, the Muppet Babies,
released. Some were renamed and reissued a few years later, Garfield, the Garbage Pail Kids, and yes, even Annoying Orange.
aimed at children. These tapes included the show’s original 30 His career has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award,
second-interstitial segments as well as the full-length cartoons. and a Humanities Award. Scott is also known for his “Oddball
In 2007, Canada’s Nelvana Productions acquired the rights Comics Live!” visual presentation of “the craziest comic books
to you-know-how and produced an unsatisfying makeover of ever published” and for his regular participation in “Quick Draw!”
George of the Jungle, a concept that worked just fine without any with Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. He was also one of the
meddling. Then, like a cockroach, it returned in 2015 for new teenagers who co-created what is currently known as Comic-Con
episodes. When I think of this incarnation of George of the Jungle, International: San Diego, America’s biggest annual fan event. He can
it’s with the same distain that kaiju fanatics hold for the 1998 be reached at shawcartoons.com.

RETROFAN November 2021 35

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CELEBRITY CRUSHES

WKRP’s Bailey Quarters

Jan Smithers
by Brian Martin

“Baby, if you ever wondered, female equality she began to

“Wondered who really did it
for me.
“It wasn’t Jennifer, it was Bailey,
“On Cincinnati’s WKRP.”
When WKRP in Cincinnati
debuted in 1978, it was
ostensibly the story of
much-travelled program
director Andy Travis, played by
Gary Sandy. However, anyone
watching soon realized that the
series had a whole number of quirky
and interesting characters, most of
whom received a fair bit of attention and
storylines. That being said, some received more
of the spotlight than others.
One of the characters in the limelight was
secretary Jennifer Marlowe, portrayed by blonde bombshell
and sex symbol Loni Anderson. Anderson was undoubtedly
gorgeous, and her character was portrayed as arguably the most
intelligent person on the entire show. But for me, and as I have
discovered talking to other WKRP fans over the years, the other
main female on the show was the subject of my Celebrity Crush.
Bailey Quarters was a quiet, rather mousey character
portrayed by Jan Smithers. Bailey was the understudy to Richard
Sanders’ bumbling news department head Les Nessman. Though
not a prominent character early on, maybe it was her understated
role that attracted me to her. Or maybe what
drew me to her was the fact that she was
portrayed as much more conservatively
dressed, and less flamboyant. Maybe
she was just more real, or more likely,
someone a regular guy might have a
chance with. The fact that I was only in
my early teens at the time didn’t deter my
attraction at all.
Regardless of the reason, Smithers
began to play a more prominent part in
proceedings as the series continued, engaging
in an on-again, off-again relationship with Howard
Hessman’s iconic DJ Doctor Johnny Fever. In a blow for
campaign for more and more
responsibility in the news
department, much to the
chagrin of her boss, Mr.
Nessman. After a long fight
for every spot she requested
to take over, Les came up
with a… well, this was a
sitcom… perfectly valid reason
why he could not relinquish that
spot. She persevered, though,
and using logic and facts, not
stereotypical sex appeal, and got what
she wanted and deserved, moving up to
write stories and eventually appear on air
reading the news.
As for my crush, I think it started with
the fourth season episode “Rumors,” where
Johnny is forced to stay at Bailey’s apartment for a
few days, precipitating the titular rumors (and in the time-
honored sitcom tradition, thoughts in Johnny’s head due to
misinterpretation of Bailey’s words), and when she finally gets
tired of them, she decides to fight fire with fire. So the next
morning she comes in dressed totally inappropriately, and tells
station MCP and self-proclaimed ladies’ man Herb Tarleck,
portrayed by Frank Bonner, that she woke up, had nothing on,
and could only find Johnny’s T-shirt. Add in her accompanying
salacious facial expressions, and that may have literally
kickstarted puberty for me!
I honestly cannot remember seeing
Jan Smithers in anything else since, but
reruns kept her in my mind, and the
fairly recent release of the complete
WKRP series on DVD means I can view
Bailey Quarters in her prime any time I
want.
BRIAN MARTIN lives in Oakville, Ontario,
Canada, where they spell “Rumors” as
“Rumours.” Beyond Jan Smithers, another of his
passions is comic books, and he frequently contributes
to ye ed’s other TwoMorrows magazine, Back Issue.

Hey, lovelorn, quit sobbing into your pillow and writing diary entries—instead, share your Sixties/Seventies/Eighties
Celebrity Crush with RetroFan readers! You can become famous, get three free copies of the magazine, and earn a
whopping $10 as well. Submit your 600-word-maximum Celebrity Crush column to the editor for consideration at
euryman@gmail.com.
RETROFAN November 2021 37
 ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

Hill House, a large, eerie mansion with a history of violent death and insanity, is being investigated by Dr. Markway. His research
aims to prove the existence of ghosts. With him are the insecure Eleanor, whose psychic abilities make her feel somehow attuned to
whatever spirits inhabit the old mansion, the clairvoyant Theodora (“Theo”), and the skeptical young Luke. It becomes clear that they
have gotten more than they bargained for as the ghostly presence in the house manifests itself in horrific ways. (Doug Sederberg/IMDb)

The following is adapted from the original screenplay by Nelson Gidding:

No one can say what suggests evil in the face of a house, yet Hill
House is overwhelmingly evil. Enormous and dark, it is so covered
with decoration as to appear diseased.

Inside Eleanor’s bedroom—Theo sits up in the big double bed idly

leafing through a book. Eleanor locks the door and gets into bed.
Theo burrows under the covers.

Later, in the middle of the night: Shadows and moonlight on a

section of wallpaper shift the pattern into the visage of a not-quite-
human face. From behind it comes the steady SOUND OF A VOICE
BABBLING, the words too low to be understood.

Eleanor’s face is rigid with fear and as white as the pillow.

ELEANOR
(whispers to Theo)
Are you awake? Don’t say a word, Theo.
Don’t let it know you’re in my room.

From behind the “face” in the wallpaper—a small gurgling laugh.

ELEANOR
(lowering her hand)
Hold my hand, Theo.

Unseen, below the frame, Theo evidently takes her hand.

The VOICE continues babbling but then, abruptly— absolute

SILENCE.

ELEANOR
Is it over? Do you think it’s over?
(her eyes flinch with pain)
Theo, you’re breaking my hand!

Then– the SOFT CRY OF A CHILD—infinitely sad, heartbreaking.

ELEANOR’S VOICE (her thoughts)

This is monstrous. It thinks to scare me. Well,
it has. And poor Theo, too.
(wincing)
I honestly think she must be breaking my hand.
No matter. I will take a lot from this filthy house,
but I will not go along with hurting a child. No,
I will not. I will, by God, get my mouth to open
right now and I will yell—

ELEANOR
STOP IT!

38 RETROFAN November 2021

 A light flashes on. Eleanor bolts up, all alone, now seen to
be on the chaise lounge on the far side of the room. She
looks in consternation to her hand— held rigidly, clenched
around— nothing.

CAMERA PANS across the room to Theo, alone on her side of the
big double bed—far away on the other side of the room.

THEO
What? What, Nell? What…?

ELEANOR
Good God...
Eleanor remains frozen for an instant, then brings her
shaking hand in toward her chest and slowly opens her

? ”
fingers.

a s I h o l d i n g . . .
Wh o s e h a n d w
“ Ernest Farino takes a look at what many consider to be
the scariest ghost story ever made…

A Robert Wise Film / Screenplay by Nelson Gidding

From the Novel by Shirley Jackson

SPOILER ALERT! Scary scenes described here.

(See the movie, then read the article… )

RETROFAN November 2021 39

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria
Do you want to see something really scary?”
So says Dan Aykroyd to Albert Brooks in Twilight Zone: The
Movie (1983). If I didn’t know better, I’d have assumed he was
referring to Robert Wise’s 1963 film The Haunting, based on the
novel by Shirley Jackson.
After working professionally on make-up effects for “scary”
films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Men in Black 3, A Nightmare
on Elm Street, The Amityville Horror, Pet Sematary II, Hellboy, 13
episodes of American Horror Story, and over 100 more films, you’d
think my make-up artist friend Bart J. Mixon would be numb
to the shocks. But as he wrote as recently as October 2020 on
Facebook, “The Haunting is the only film to actually frighten me…”
And none other than renowned director Martin Scorsese referred
to The Haunting as “absolutely terrifying” in The 11 Scariest Horror
Movies of All Time (The Daily Beast, Oct. 28, 2009).
I saw The Haunting when it premiered on network television
in the Sixties. I have been unable to pin down the date of the
broadcast, but it would have been in the mid-Sixties on one of the
Saturday Night at the Movies-type series. I would have been in my
early teens—i.e., still very impressionable—but I remember the
whole family was thoroughly creeped out. Turns out we weren’t
the only ones…
Shirley
Jackson.
The Book
Moreso even than The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson is
probably even better known for her short story The Lottery. First
published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, the short
story generated more mail—estimated at around 300 letters—
than any work of fiction the magazine had published up to
that time. Remarkably, in 1963 (the year The Haunting film was
released), Jackson said of The Lottery, “I hate it. I’ve lived with that
thing 15 years. Nobody will ever let me forget it.” But it’s become
“psychologically iconic” (to coin a phrase) and has been required
reading for decades. Like many, I first read it in high school and
was struck by my first exposure to a rather chilling “O. Henry”-
style surprise ending.
40 RETROFAN November 2021
“Although the villagers had forgotten the
ritual and lost the original black box, they still
remembered to use stones.”
– Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
In 1999 Paula Guran provided insight into the backstory of the
book in her essay Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House on
the DarkEcho Horror website. Guran wrote that Jackson “decided
to write ‘a ghost story’ after reading about a group of nineteenth
century ‘psychic researchers’ who studied a house and somberly
reported their supposedly scientific findings to the Society for
Psychic Research. What Jackson discovered in their ‘dry reports
was not the story of a haunted house, it was the story of several
earnest, I believe misguided, certainly determined people, with
their differing motivations and background.’ Excited by the
prospect of creating her own haunted house and the characters
to explore it, she launched into research. She later claimed to
have found a picture of a California house she
The Haunting of Hill
House by Shirley
Jackson, published in
hardcover by Viking
Press (New York,
1959, 246 pages), at a
cover price of $3.95
(about $35.00 today),
was a finalist for the
National Book Award
and is considered one
of the best literary
ghost stories of the
20th Century.
believed was suitably haunted-looking in a magazine. She asked
her mother, who lived in California, to help find information
about the dwelling. According to Jackson, her mother identified
the house as one the author’s own great-great-grandfather,
an architect who had designed some of San Francisco’s oldest
buildings, had built. Jackson also read volume upon volume of
traditional ghost stories while preparing to write her own, and
said, ‘No one can get into a novel about a haunted house without
hitting the subject of reality head-on; either I have to believe
in ghosts, which I do, or I have to write another kind of novel
altogether.’”
Jackson finally settled on a story of three strangers who
are invited to Hill House by Dr. Montague (“Markway” in the
 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Handsome leading
movie) to scientifically prove the existence of the supernatural.
man Richard Johnson
Turns out, the house is haunted—really haunted—and one of
was considered for
the two women, Eleanor, is especially affected by the unfolding
the role of James
strangeness of the experience.
Bond in Dr. No but
Cristina Arreola commented on the website Bustle in 2018,
turned it down
“It’s terrifying on a supernatural and psychological level, and it’s
because he didn’t
an absolute must-read for anyone who’s obsessed with horror.”
want to sign a
Stephen King, meanwhile, said that Hill House has one of the best
multi-picture
openings he’s ever read, calling it “the sort of quiet epiphany every
contract. Johnson
writer hopes for.”
later played a
Writer Carmen Maria Machado wrote in The Atlantic that while
similar role, Bulldog
at a writers’ retreat she was told that her own story reminded
Drummond, in the
readers of Shirley Jackson. “When I went back home to Philly,
1967 film Deadlier
I picked up a copy [of The Haunting of Hill House]. And I just
Than the Male. He was
devoured it. I read it in one sitting. It scared the sh*t out of me.
married for a year to
Even though the events that appear to be supernatural activity
sultry actress Kim
are few and far between, those scenes are so chillingly written—
Novak in the Sixties.
as if Jackson was describing a phenomenon she’d seen before and
really understood. The book’s particular brand of surreality felt,
to me, like that experience of walking home from a party a little
bit drunk, when the world somehow seems sharper and clearer
and weirder.”

“No live organism can continue for long to exist

sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
– Shirley Jackson

Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, was

published in 1962 and has been acclaimed as her masterpiece (it
sold 30,000 copies)—“a brilliantly strange, claustrophobic tale
of two sisters who barricade themselves in against the torments
of the outside world.” Following that work, Jackson herself
came down with crippling agoraphobia, anxiety, and writer’s
block. Becoming severely overweight, her health deteriorated
significantly and she died of a heart condition in 1965 at the age
of 48. You can read about Shirley Jackson in much greater depth
in former New Republic editor Ruth Franklin’s biography, Shirley
Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright, 2016).

Julie Harris gives the standout performance in the film as

“Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing
relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield
to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it half-
way.”
– Shirley Jackson
The Movie
Production began at the MGM studios in Borehamwood,
Hertfordshire, England (about 15 miles northwest of London),
on October 7, 1962. Other films made at Borehamwood include
several of the Star Wars films, many of Stanley Kubrick’s films
including Lolita and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many more.
the fragile, insecure, tormented Eleanor Lance. Her accom-
plishments are many, including for five Tony Awards (of
ten nominations) for her work on the Chicago stage, three
Emmys (of 11 nominations), a Grammy Award and an Oscar®
nomination for her first film role in A Member of the Wedding.
She was a recipient of the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors and
was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in
1994. Harris’ appearances ran the gamut from Requiem for a
Heavyweight to an episode of The Love Boat, and, outside of
The Haunting, she is often remembered for her role opposite
James Dean in East of Eden and a seven-year stint on the TV
series Knots Landing. She was married and divorced three
times, and had a son from her second marriage.
RETROFAN November 2021 41
 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

By the time of The Haunting

Lois Maxwell had already
appeared in Dr. No and From
Russia With Love as Miss
Moneypenny, and would
continue that role in a total
of 14 consecutive Bond films
until A View to a Kill in 1985.
Maxwell summed up her
Bond career in this way: “I
always said I’d have Roger
Moore for a husband but Sean
Connery for a weekend lover.”

(RIGHT) Horror film fans

probably remember Diane
Clare for her starring role in
the Hammer Film The Plague
of the Zombies (1966). She also
appeared in Witchcraft (1964)
(ABOVE) Claire Bloom was launched into stardom as a result and an episode of The Aveng-
of being handpicked by Charlie Chaplin to star opposite him in ers (1965).
Limelight (1952) at age 19, only her second film. Bloom appeared
in many classical films, including Richard II opposite Laurence
Olivier. She married actor Rod Steiger and they appeared togeth-
er in The Illustrated Man and Three Into Two Won’t Go (both 1969).
More recently she had a brief cameo in Ray Harryhausen’s final (LEFT) Rosalie Crutchley
film, Clash of the Titans (1981), as Hera (reuniting opposite Olivier as appeared in a staggering 167 films
Zeus), and had a recurring role in the British TV series Doc Martin and TV episodes over her long
(2013). She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the career, often appearing sinister
British Empire) in 2013 for her services to drama. or villainous. Appropriately, she
played Madame Defarge in both
the film of A Tale of Two Cities
Russ Tamblyn is best (1958) and a later BBC television
known as a dancer, version in 1965.
but began as a young
actor in films such as
the excellent film-noir
thriller Gun Crazy
(1950). He went on to
appear in tom thumb
(1958), The Wonderful
World of the Brothers
Grimm (1962), How the
West Was Won (1962),
West Side Story (1961),
and many more. No
doubt a highlight on
both our résumés,
Tamblyn starred in
Wizards of the Demon Valentine Dyall was sometimes described as “the British Vincent
Sword (1991), co-written Price” for his deeply resonant and mysterious voice, which he put
by Yours Truly. to frequent good use as a narrator and voiceover artist (such as
the narrator for Ray Harryhausen’s film First Men “In” the Moon in
1964). He appeared primarily in television.

42 RETROFAN November 2021

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Robert Wise was a versatile director, moving with equal accomplishment from
film noir (The Set-Up, 1959) to science fiction (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951, The
Andromeda Strain, 1971, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1979), to musicals (West
Wide Story, 1961, and The Sound of Music, 1965). Wise began his remarkable career
as a film editor on none other than Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece, Citizen Kane.
Wise once remarked, “You know, people always think if you start out as a film
editor, you shoot less footage. Actually, just the opposite is true. I tend to grab as
much coverage as I can because as a former editor I know how important it is to
have those few frames.” As for The Haunting, Wise said that he was immersed in
reading Shirley Jackson’s novel when screenwriter Nelson Gidding burst into the
room with a question. Wise jumped out of his chair, and realized that “if the book
can have that much of an effect on me, I simply have to make this movie…”

Production Begins… At the same start

The New England locale from the original book was maintained,
party, the caption
but the film was produced in England. Wise had approached
reads: “Claire Bloom
United Artists but they turned him down. Wise owed MGM a
wears a pocket watch
film under an old contract but they would only give Wise a $1
supported on a chain
million budget. So Wise took it to England. During a trip to the
around her neck
United Kingdom for a Royal Command Performance of West Side
as she drinks
Story, Wise pitched the project to MGM’s Borehamwood Studios
a toast to the
subsidiary. They offered a budget of $1.050 million (about $9.2
new film.”
million today). This was combined with the rebates generated by
the EADY Plan.
Created in 1950, the EADY Plan had theaters pay a certain
percentage of box-office receipts to a central agency. At the end
of the year, the percentage is distributed in proportion to the box-
office receipts of each qualifying film, amounting to as much as
40% of the cost of production. To qualify, at least 80% of salaries
must be paid to British nationals. Richard Johnson and Claire
Bloom were cast (partly) because they were both British nationals
and thus helped satisfy the EADY Plan requirements. Also, the
film must be photographed in Great Britain.
Thus, an example of the behind-closed-doors machinations
that often contribute to the final form of any given film.

Unlike many “horror” films today, Robert Wise chose to

(LEFT TO RIGHT) Actress Fay Compton, Claire Bloom, and Julie
Harris at a “kick off party” at the Savoy Hotel in London for The
Haunting on October 10, 1962. (Compton is not in the film, and was a
guest at the party).
basically show—nothing. By pulling the viewers’ imaginations
into the proceedings as an unwitting participant, the film’s mood
and overt scares are all the more effective. What we imagine is
far creepier than anything that could be shown explicitly on the
screen.
As Nelson Gidding wrote the screenplay, he leaned towards
the idea that the goings-on were actually the disturbed thoughts
of the lead character, Eleanor Vance. As Gidding told Tom Weaver
(I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror
Filmmakers, McFarland, 2001), “If she was having a nervous
breakdown, Hill House might actually the hospital where she is
held, Markway is her psychiatrist, the cold, banging, and violence
are the results of shock treatment, and the opening and closing of
doors reflected the opening and closing of hospital doors.” Wise
and Gidding travelled to Bennington, Vermont, to meet Shirley
Jackson, who told them that it was a good idea but that the novel
RETROFAN November 2021 43
 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Every member of the cast enjoyed working with Robert Wise, a strong director with great instincts and no ego. Julie Harris remembered
him as a “calm gentleman” who never got ruffled, and Claire Bloom found working with him “marvelous.” Richard Johnson later said
he received invaluable film acting advice from Robert Wise. Wise told him to keep his eyes steady, to blink less, and to try not to time
his acting (Wise said he would take care of that in the editing room). Johnson also credited Wise with helping him to craft a much more
natural acting performance.

was definitely about the supernatural. Some ambiguity remains,
but the fact that Theo experiences the banging on the door and
later all four characters observe the door bulging in, it’s pretty
clear that the manifestations of ”haunting” are intended to be real
phenomena.
It was also during their visit to speak with Jackson that Wise
and Gidding chose the title for the film. As they did not want to
keep the book title, they asked Jackson if she had considered an
alternative title. She suggested simply The Haunting, which Wise
and Gidding immediately adopted.
Cinematographer Davis Boulton had been a well-known still
photographer in England. Wise recalled, “He worked exclusively
with the lighting and did a marvelous job of it. All handling of the
camera was left to the operator, Alan McCabe, who worked with
me on the setups. I was very pleased with their work.”
Wise continued, “The widest angle Panavision anamorphic
lens available at that time was 35mm or 40mm. I wanted the
hallways to look long and dark, so I asked [Panavision president]
Bob Gottschalk if he didn’t have a wider lens. He said they had
a 28mm, but that it had a lot of distortion. I told him that was
exactly what I wanted for certain places. He didn’t want me to
use it, but I kept insisting until he gave in—on the condition
that I would sign a paper saying that I knew the lens was in an
experimental state and I wouldn’t complain about the distortion.
We used it most effectively for certain shots.”
Color had become obligatory for major productions, but Wise
insisted on Panavision black-and-white, and had this condition
written into his contract. As he later noted, “I felt that the subject
lent itself to the wide format [2.40:1 ratio] and that it had to be in
black-and-white.” That black-and-white had been specified in his
contract prevented Turner Entertainment from colorizing the film
for video release (a similar clause in Orson Welles’ contract for
Citizen Kane, defining the production as “a black-and-white film,”
also legally prevented Turner from colorizing that film).

44 RETROFAN November 2021

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

All of the film’s interiors were designed by British artist Elliot

Scott and built on Borehamwood stages. Scott had previously
designed I Accuse (1958) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
(1962), and he and Wise saw eye-to-eye on the picture’s visual
style.

(RIGHT) “That’s a Wrap!”—After 58 days of filming, principal

photography was completed on March 30, 1962.

(BELOW) Julie Harris chose to keep her distance from the rest of
the cast as a “Method”-like device to enhance Eleanor’s isolation
and inward turmoil. Claire Bloom later said that she didn’t pick
up on this during the filming and thought she had said or done
something that offended Harris. After the film, Harris visited
Bloom and explained things, and the two women became friends.

THEO’S WARDROBE designing dresses and skirts that were six or seven
inches above the knee. She is thus credited with taking
Mary Quant, a rising star on the British fashion scene a style that had not really taken off and making it
in the Sixties, was hired to design the chic and stylish popular. Her style soon became known as “The Chelsea
wardrobe for Theo (Claire Bloom). Theo is described Look”—simple, neat, and young, made from cotton
by Shirley Jackson as “gorgeous, icy, sophisticated, gabardines and almost always featuring little white girly
independent, dressed in black haute couture and very collars—and it soon became copied and was popular
clever. Theo would probably everywhere.
like to be the center of Mary Quant also sported the sharply cut geometric
attention.” Theo’s fashions “five-point cut” hairstyle by Vidal Sassoon, one of the
certainly stand out in contrast most famous cuts of the era. The hairstyle and the short
to the demure Eleanor, who skirts “made” the Sixties fashion look.
remarks, “If Theo is wearing
velvet I must be Eleanor in
tweed.” That contrast alone is a
prime example of how careful
wardrobe selection can inform
and affect the characters in a
film.
In the Sixties, André
Courrèges was a French fashion designer known for
his streamlined, futuristic look that exploited modern
technology and new fabrics. Additionally, John Bates,
one of the most influential British designers of the
Sixties, was regarded as “the unsung inventor of the
mini skirt.” He dressed Diana Rigg in The Avengers TV
series and models Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton and
singer Dusty Springfield all wore his designs.
In 1965 Mary Quant took the shorter dress styles
of Courrèges and Bates even shorter, and by 1966 was

RETROFAN November 2021 45

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

This is a favorite scene of mine—as Eleanor and Theo engage

in getting-to-know-you girl talk, Eleanor innocently asks, “You
married?” Theo stares at her for a long moment, very still, process-
ing the extraordinary naïveté of this person, and quietly says,
“No…” And Eleanor still doesn’t get it—she thinks she has simply
crossed the line into someone’s personal life and blurts out,
“Sorry. I’m stupid and wicked and untrustworthy and not good for
anything at all.”

DELETED SCENE process of being rehabilitated. Now she goes to

It has become well known by now that Claire Bloom’s
character of Theodora (“just Theo”) was a lesbian. In
the final film, this aspect of her character comes across
in very subtle ways, so subtle that many viewers don’t
even pick up on it (and certainly I, as a young boy, never
registered something like this). However, her lesbian
nature was originally depicted more overtly, and a scene
early in the film was written by Nelson Gidding and
filmed by Robert Wise.
From page 10 of Nelson Gidding’s script:
EXT. A GREENWICH VILLAGE APARTMENT -
UP ANGLE AT THE WINDOW – DAY
THEODORA leans from the second floor
window shouting down at CAMERA.
THEODORA
Okay, okay, so take your precious weekend.
I won’t be here when you get back.
work on the room in earnest. She kicks over
a potter’s wheel, and smashes a clay nude of
herself which her friend has in progress. From
the table she grabs up a framed photograph
and bitterly contemplates the inscription
across the bottom.
INSERT - THE PHOTOGRAPH
It is of an attractive girl also wearing a turtle-
neck sweater. The inscription reads:
To Theo, All of whose special gifts I admire,
L.C.
BACK TO THEODORA
She smashes the frame and rips the picture
to shreds. Then she scrawls across the mirror
in lipstick: “I hate you.” As she catches sight
of herself in the mirror, she takes a long look,
deflates, and adds, slowly: “You too.”

The cloud of rage across her face contrasts Julie Harris said that film censors demanded that
with the delicacy of her features framed in a Theo never be shown to touch Eleanor, in order to
halo of blonde hair. She wears tight Levis and a minimize the appearance of lesbianism. However, they
black turtle-neck sweater. touch several times, including when Theo is sitting
on her bed. Towards the end,
INT. THEODORA’S Eleanor’s naïveté comes around
APARTMENT – DAY and she angrily confronts Theo,
saying, “You’re a monster, Theo.
She marches over to the open You, you’re the monster of Hill
door. Artistically lettered House.”
across it a sign reads:

China - Ceramics - Objets

d’Art
Lovingly Repaired
by Theodora Claire Bloom in the above-described
deleted scene in her art studio,
She slams the door so hard expressing her rage at being jilted by
a china figure bounces off a her lover, a photo courtesy of Retro-
work table and shatters. She Fan’s French friend Laurent (who, like
glares around, breathing “just Theo,” prefers “just Laurent”).
hard. There are sketches Laurent’s astonishing website devoted
on the walls, a half-finished to The Haunting, compiled over the past
mosaic cocktail table, an 20+ years (!), is a must-see for any fan of
old espresso machine in the this great film: www.the-haunting.com

46 RETROFAN November 2021

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

The Breathing Door

One of the most effective and often-remembered sequences
in the film is when all the characters are in Eleanor’s bedroom
when the door—well, let’s let screenwriter Nelson Gidding tell it:

The House
Can a house be “born bad”…?
Shirley Jackson described Hill House in this way (slightly
abridged): “No human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence
of line and place which suggests evil in the face of a house, and
yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle,
some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into
a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hill
House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank
windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice. A STRAIGHT DOWN SHOT ON ROOM
house arrogant and hating, never off guard, can only be evil. It
was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a The NOISE of the next attack on the door hits
fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter with such fury the three of them seem forced
the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was back by the concussion.
until it was destroyed.”
The location for the exteriors of “Hill House” was Ettington ELEANOR
Park House, a Post Medieval gothic revival house remodeled in (whispering)
the 19th Century 400 miles south of Wards Hill. Today it is a hotel. It can’t set in. It can’t get in, don’t let it get in.
The earliest parts of the present house were built for the Underhill
family in the 16th and 17th Centuries. A number of alterations and Abruptly the door is quiet. The door knob
extensions, including a new entrance hall and dining room, were rattles under a little caressing touch. Markway
made in the 1740s–1760s. Major alterations were made 1810–1811, steps close to the door again, pressing his head
and further work was in progress in 1820. A major program of against it, listening. Now the door is attacked
restoration has been carried out since the building was turned without a sound, seeming almost to be pulling
into a hotel in 1983. away from its hinges, ready to buckle and go
In 2010 Cinema Retro magazine hosted a screening of The down.
Haunting at Ettington Park. Richard Johnson was a special guest
and said that he had never actually set foot in the hall during CLOSE UP - ELEANOR’S EYES
filming—that 2010 screening was the first occasion he had
actually been inside the premises (such is the “magic of movies”). darting around for an avenue of escape.
RETROFAN November 2021 47
 As effective as it is, the bulging of the door effect was
ELEANOR
simplicity itself: no CGI (which didn’t exist in 1963, actually)
(whispering} or optical effects. A full-size prop door was made of layers of
Oh, God. It knows I’m here… laminated wood and a burley Grip (a stage hand, who are almost
always burley) slowly pushed on it from the other side.

OPTICAL EFFECTS
For years I thought this shot was a “split screen” optical
in which a hand-drawn matte dividing the scene more
or less down the middle combined two separately
photographed elements: Eleanor in the foreground
and Markway and Theo in the background. This
was sometimes done in films to combine extreme
foreground and background planes, although certainly
“deep focus” cinematography was common by then
(largely spearheaded by cinematographer Gregg Toland
in Citizen Kane in 1941). I briefly thought this shot might
have been accomplished by the use of a “split diopter”
lens, one which, like bi-focal eyeglass, has two levels
of focus ground into the glass. But that approach is
usually betrayed by a softness at the point of the split.
In any case, I recently re-watched the Blu-ray disc of The
Haunting, which is an excellent transfer, and paid even
greater attention to the shot. Rather than a split screen
the shot is actually a traveling matte.
There is an almost imperceptible “jiggle”—almost
microscopic—of the Eleanor image. Not a flaw,
and very much within acceptable tolerances of film
registration, but looking at the left side of her image in
particular, one can detect this tiny movement. Which
is the giveaway that her entire image has been added
on top of the background scene. What had appeared
to be “drapery” that Markway steps out from behind
is not drapery, or anything to do with the set. Rather,
it’s Eleanor’s hair, reading “dark” because it’s not in the
direct lighting.

48 RETROFAN November 2021

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria

Tom Howard was the Visual Effects/Optical [1926].” Instead of the commonly used orthochromatic
Supervisor, and was a prominent figure in British visual film, Struss said that he “had begun using [black-
effects in those days. Moreso than, say, miniatures, and-white] panchromatic film, which is sensitive to
Howard was known as an optical and/or “blue screen all colors. The leprosy spots were red make-up, which
guy,” which supports the viability of the traveling matte registered when shot through a green filter, but when
idea. His extensive credits include 2001: A Space Odyssey, we gradually moved a red filter over the lens, the make-
Where Eagles Dare, and many others. up disappeared. The Hyde make-up was also in red
There’s another shot a bit later, inside the house, and didn’t show at all when the red filter was on the
where Eleanor appears to walk forward, the room lens, but when the filter was moved down very slowly
behind her gradually darkening (fading out). This shot, to the green, Mr. Hyde appeared.” Similarly, a gradual
too, was a traveling matte with Julie Harris “walking replacing of the filter over the lens in the “cold spot”
in place” on a small treadmill on the stage. Likewise, as scene created a very subtle change in the pallor of the
Eleanor drives up the path to the front gate when she skin of the players. This technique only works in black-
arrives, the first two to three shots are “real” (the camera and-white, for obvious reasons.
mounted on the hood of the car with real backgrounds
visible outside the rear and side windows), but
suddenly there are two to three shots in which the
background trees and the overall view appears
markedly different. These, too, are traveling mattes.
The reason for the switch will never be known, but,
having faced many “fix-up” tasks myself on films,
my guess is that those last couple of shots were
either added later (and since they were no longer
on that location had to be staged in studio), or the
negative was damaged, or something like that.
Some of the exterior house shots were split
screens, used to add the spooky time-lapse cloud
elements, but many of the Hill House exteriors were
filmed with Eastman’s black-and-white infrared
film. As my late friend George E. Turner, a visual
effects historian, wrote for The American Society
of Cinematographers (Elegant Chills: The Haunting),
“infrared emulsion is not sensitive to visible colors
of the spectrum, but instead registers longer
waves that lie invisibly beyond these colors. Solid
objects reflect and absorb infrared light differently
from ordinary light. Green grass and foliage are
reproduced as almost white, skies come across
very dark grey to black, and other everyday objects
usually yield unexpected results. When used with
a small aperture and a deep orange or red filter
such as Wratten 25, 88A or 89B, infrared produces
a strong night effect in daylight, with strange tone
variations appropriate to an ‘evil’ house.”
Another remarkable “in-camera” effect utilized
additional make-up and a shifting of filters (not
infrared film stock) during the scene when the
group step into “a genuine cold spot,” subtly changing A rather remarkable optical effect shows the aging of
their skin tones to a paler shade. This technique goes Abigail Crain from age six (Janet Mansell) to age 80 (Amy
back to Paramount’s 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dalby). Nowadays it would he done with a digital “morph,”
Hyde starring Fredric March. Director of photography an effect that can even be done on home computers. But
Karl Struss, ASC, described the technique during a 1976 in 1963 it was done with a series of slow dissolves, such
dinner at the American Society of Cinematographers. as was often used to transform Lon Chaney, Jr. into the
He had advocated that Jekyll’s change should have been Wolf Man or revive Dracula in countless Hammer horror
mostly psychological, a mental rather than a physical films. What makes this remarkable is the precision of
change, with subtle make-up, and said that “the first the alignment and the smoothness of the transitions. The
time Jekyll changed, we used a technique I had devised illusion was so effective that it generated a full page in
years before to show the healing of the lepers in Ben-Hur LIFE magazine. © LIFE.

RETROFAN November 2021 49

 ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria
The Spiral Staircase
The rickety staircase—described in the script as “an iron spiral
staircase that climbs the wall three stories into the tower. There
are thousands of moldy, dung-colored books on the other three
walls”—features prominently in the film. Towards the end, a
mesmerized Eleanor climbs the staircase, followed by Markway,
their combined weight threatening to pull the iron spiral from
the walls. In several shots the camera seems to glide up the
stairs, curving around to follow the spiral shape of the staircase.
The simple solution was to engineer a small dolly the width of
the stairs, the grooved wheels running along both railings. Onto
this a lightweight camera (possibly an Arriflex) was mounted,
the final rig affording a wonderful vertigo-inducing ride up and
down the spiral staircase. For the actual photography, the “dolly”
descended the staircase, taking advantage of gravity, and the film
was reverse-printed in the optical printer to create the “going up”
version.
(RIGHT) The British “Quad” poster, similar in size to
the U.S. “half-sheet” (22x28). The Haunting © 1963 Turner
Entertainment Co. and Argyle Enterprises, Inc.
50 RETROFAN November 2021
The “Second Mrs. Crain” was played by Frieda Knorr. After being
startled by an unseen horror, she backs away and stumbles at the
tops of the stairs, falling backwards, tumbling down the stairs
in a violent fall. She comes to rest at the bottom of the. As Nelson
Gidding wrote, “Her head dangles backwards over the last step in a
peculiar attitude, her neck broken. The scream still frozen onto her
mouth, her eyes wide open, she stares up into CAMERA.”
The fall itself was accomplished by veteran British stuntwom-
an Connie Tilton, who also depicted the “companion” (Rosemary
Dorken) hanging herself from the top of the spiral staircase. Tilton
did stunt work in British-made films such as Gorgo (1961), Operation
Crossbow (1965), and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), doubled
for Vivien Leigh in a 40-foot jump in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), fell
off London Bridge for Sophia Loren in The Millionairess (1960), and
doubled for Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). When
the cast of The Haunting congratulated her on her stunts, Tilton
shrugged and said, “It’s a living.”
(ABOVE) Aside from “Theodora–?” (no last name) and “Eleanor
Vance,” the names on the blackboard in Dr. Markway’s office are all
friends or family of screenwriter Nelson Gidding. Albert Trepuk
was his stepfather, Charles Stern, Ruth Murray, Rufus Matthew-
son, and Paul Kirschner were friends, and Joshua Walden was his
then–14-year-old son.

“Hill House has stood for �� years
and might stand for �� more. Within,
walls continue upright, bricks meet,
floors are firm, and doors are sensibly
shut. Silence lies steadily against the
wood and stone of Hill House.
“And we who walk here... walk
alone.”
Special thanks to Laurent: www.the-haunting.com
All pictorial matter reproduced herein derives from the voluntary,
non-compensated contributions of pictorial or other memorabilia
from the private collections of the author, and from the select private
archives of individual contributors. The Haunting © 1963 Turner
Entertainment Co. and Argyle Enterprises, Inc.
ERNEST FARINO directed an episode of the SyFy/Netflix series Supersti-
tion starring Mario Van Peebles, Steel and Lace starring Bruce Davison,
episodes of Monsters starring Lydia Cornell and Marc McClure, ABC’s
ernest farino’s retro fantasmagoria
– Eleanor Lance
Land of the Lost starring Timothy Bottoms,
and extensive 2nd Unit for the miniseries
Dune starring William Hurt, Noah’s Ark
starring Jon Voight, and Supernova starring
Luke Perry. A two-time Emmy®-winning
Visual Effects Supervisor for SyFy’s Dune
and Children of Dune miniseries, Farino
supervised the visual effects for the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries From the
Earth to the Moon and James Cameron’s The Terminator, The Abyss,
and T2. His Archive Editions published Mike Hankin’s Ray Harryhau-
sen–Master of the Majicks.
RETROFAN November 2021 51
 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 theme song lyric in Column One corresponds to a classic sitcom in Column Two.
Match ’em up, then see how you rate!

COLUMN ONE

1) “A hot dog makes her lose

control.”

2) “I know that you can lend a

helping hand.”

3) “And there ain’t nothing we can’t

love each other through.”

4) “She was a sister who really

cooked.”

5) “She’s mine alone, but luckily for

you…”

6) “You’re gonna say she’s all that

you adore.”

7) “He’ll give you the answer you

endorse.”

8) “He’s a one-boy, cuddly toy.”

9) “Never heard the word impossible.”

10) “A whole lotta lovin’ is what

we’ll be bringing.”
52 RETROFAN November 2021
 RetroFan Ratings
10 correct: Fine-Tuned RetroFan
“Hey, Sock it to me, baby! I bet you know
theme song lyrics too!
Wilbur, 7–9 correct: Rabbit-Eared RetroFan
it’s sing- Dy-no-mite! You wasted your
childhood with the rest of us!
along 4–6 correct: Fuzzy-Receptioned
time!” 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) Laverne & Shirley

B) Maude

C) Chico and the Man

D) Mr. Ed

E) The Patty Duke Show

F) The Courtship of Eddie’s

Father

G) Gidget

H) That Girl

I) The Partridge Family

J) Family Ties

Chico and the Man © Warner Bros.

Television. The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
© MGM Television. Family Ties, Laverne &
Shirley, That Girl © Paramount Television.
Gidget, Maude, The Partridge Family ©
Sony Pictures Television. Mr. Ed © Filmways
Television. The Patty Duke Show © United
Artists Television. All rights reserved.
ANSWERS: 1–E, 2–C, 3–J, 4–B, 5–H, 6–G, 7–D, 8–F, 9–A, 10–I
RETROFAN November 2021 53
 THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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 SCOTT SAAVEDRA'S SECRET SANCTUM
Ward Cleaver
Ward Cleaver went to his office job in the morning and came
home at the end of the day. Sometimes he would come home
early and his wife June would, without fail, say, “You’re home
early.” He would wear a sweater around the house and read only
magazines and newspapers despite the presence of many books
in the home. He would strive to guide his sons to a straight and
narrow path because that was his duty.
It was all pretend, though. Ward was father of Wally and
Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver and husband to June for 234 half-hour
episodes of Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963). He wasn’t a real dad or
even a real person, but he was a fine example of the Fifties- and
Sixties-era father as anyone could ask for.
In real life dads were human, flawed, even weird. Once, I
was playing with Army men at a friend’s house when his dad
suddenly came in and, deeply unhappy that we were playing with
war toys, asked us very aggressively if we’d ever seen a man hit
by ordinance. He had. We hadn’t. The military wasn’t recruiting
eight-year-olds, so… yeah, no… no, sir. But TV dads of the time had
the rough edges smoothed over.
Ward could be stern, but fair as a parent. And as a
breadwinner, he did well enough that June could stay at home
and raise the boys, make meals, and look well-put-together in her
housedress. When I was small my mother also wore housedresses
as a stay-at-home mom. Like so many families (on TV and in life),
and
TV Dads
of the
Sixties’
Jobs
by Scott Saavedra
we were a single-income home. My father worked as a… uh, I
really didn’t know at the time. As a kid, very little thought was
given to what my—or any—dad did for a living. He went to work
and then came home. On Fridays he’d come home with a treat.
Maybe small bags of Planters Peanuts (which I still love) or a
package of four Hershey bars for his five children (math, I guess,
was not his strong suit). I did know that a grade school friend’s
father was a vice president at Mattel Toys. That’s the kind of
information that sticks in a kid’s head. Otherwise, I had zero idea
about what other dads did for a living.
As such it wasn’t odd in any way if I saw a TV dad who didn’t
seem to have a specific job. This was more the case for sitcom
dads. Adventure show dads usually had more defined work. Ben
Cartwright (Lorne Greene, Bonanza, 1959–1973), who outlived
three wives (!) and was only 13 years older than his two oldest
boys, was a rancher with a cook. Schuyler “Sky” King (Kirby Grant,
Sky King, 1951–1962) was a father figure to his niece—life status
of parents unknown—and a rancher with a plane. Lucas McCain
(Chuck Conners, The Rifleman, 1958–1963) was a widower (another
dead spouse, there will be more), single parent, and rancher
with a rifle. (Quick family story about Chuck Conners: He winked
at my wife Ruth’s namesake, Aunt Ruth, in the Market Basket
grocery store in Palm Springs. We still talk about this at family
gatherings.)
RETROFAN November 2021 55
 Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum
I used to think that TV sitcom dads of the period worked at
largely unspecific jobs. That’s certainly how it seemed to me as
a young viewer and pretty much how I remembered it. But in
fact decades of reruns pored over by devoted generations of fans
and scholars have made it possible to find out what kind of work
the best-known TV sitcom dads of the Sixties did. There was one
fictional father who was a particularly tough nut to crack—I’m
looking at you, Ward—but with millions of eyeballs having
watched these shows no fact stays hidden for long. We begin
our job search at the top of the heap with America’s favorite TV
sitcom dads.
Best Fathers to Know
According to numerous Best TV Dad lists that crop up around
every Father’s Day there are three television dads of the Sixties
who always make even the shortest, most modern-programming-
biased line-up: Andy Taylor, Mike Brady, and Ward Cleaver.
Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith, The Andy Griffith Show, 1960–1968)
was a small-town sheriff, widower, and single dad. He was
written to be patient, thoughtful, and competent. He wanted to
raise his son to be prepared for life: “I don’t want him to be the
kind of boy lookin’ for fights, but I don’t want him to run from
one when he’s in the right.” It probably didn’t hurt that his son
Opie (Ron Howard) was the best TV son ever. Andy did some of
his finest parenting while at the Mayberry Courthouse or out and
about during his workday.
Mike Brady (Robert Reed, The Brady Bunch and spin-offs, 1969–
1974 and beyond) was certainly a bit cooler than the other dads,
but not by much: “Greg, it may be the hip thing to call parents
Mike Brady (CENTER)
is an architect and
Andy Taylor (RIGHT)
is a sheriff. What does
Ward Cleaver (LEFT)
do?
56 RETROFAN November 2021
by their first names, but around here, we’re still Mom and Dad.”
Mike was an architect and had an additional office at home. His
workplace did appear on camera and we even met his boss.
The premise of The Brady Bunch is well known: a lovely lady and
a man named Brady blend their two families together. It’s here
that the whole dead spouse thing rears its ugly head again. Mike
was a widower and his new wife Carol was originally supposed to
be divorced, but that was still not okay for wholesome television
family entertainment so her former husband was a corpse, too.
Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont, Leave It to Beaver, 1957–1963)
was, quite simply, a classic dad (I would go so far as to say he was
the classic Fifties/Sixties dad), spouting classic TV dad advice:
“There’s nothing old-fashioned about politeness.” He wore a suit,
carried a briefcase, and went to a downtown office to… do… work.
What kind of work was never exactly mentioned beyond maybe
a reference to commissions being down or something. Basically,
he was tired at the end of the day so we know he worked hard, but
beyond that… pfft.
So two out of these three top beloved TV dads had specific
jobs and Ward, well, he had his own office in which to do
whatever. In an interview for the Television Academy Foundation,
the Beaver himself, Jerry Mathers, shared his theory about why
we didn’t seem to know what his TV father did for a living. “I think
what [the writers] wanted to do was maybe hold it off in case they
wanted to write a show where he was an insurance salesman, a
real estate salesman, who knows what.”
Ward Cleaver did have a co-worker, Fred Rutherford (Richard
Deacon, better known as Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show).
 Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum

society, I don’t really understand it, but all of these white-collar

workplaces strike me as being more aspirational for the majority
of viewers than a reflection of their circumstances. Broadcast
programmers must have noticed that, too, since by the Seventies
blue-collar work was beginning to be more represented and
divorce was no longer taboo. Maude Findley (Beatrice Arthur,
Maude, 1972–1978), while most definitely not a blue-collar worker,
had a divorced daughter living with her and her fourth husband
(Maude’s first husband died and she divorced the other two—I
guess that’s a kind of progress).
There were TV dads who definitely had jobs, though the actual
place of work was rarely if ever seen. Stephen Douglas (Fred
MacMurray, My Three Sons, 1960–1972), another sweater-wearing,
hang-around-the-house widower, was an aeronautical engineer.
Henry Mitchell (Herbert Anderson, Dennis the Menace, 1959–1963)
was an aerospace engineer, had an office, and a shared secretary.
Bill Davis (Brain Keith, Family Affair, 1966–1971) was an engineer
with a manservant, Mr. French (the completely wonderful
Sebastian Cabot), who was English. The set-up behind Family
Affair was especially grim as both parents of the kids in the show
had to die so that comedy laughs could be had. Again, a reminder:
Herman Munster digs graves, the Darrin Stephenses dig a trail of dead parents was a more appealing set-up for a comedy
advertising. program—to broadcast executives—than divorce. In the Sixties, I
knew exactly one kid with a divorced parent (the Mattel exec) and
none—not a one—with a deceased father or mother. Just sayin.’
He was father to Wally’s friend Lumpy. Fred’s familiar good-bye to And speaking of dead parents, widower Tom Corbett (Bill
Ward was, “Well, see ya ’round the salt mines.” Bixby, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, 1969–1972) had to raise his son
Eddie (Brandon Cruz) completely on his own and run his magazine
Office Space publishing company with only the help of his employees and a
Not only did most of our favorite TV dads of the period have housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki). Staying with the
reasonably specific jobs, some even had actual places of work that dead (or, more correctly, undead) theme, Herman Munster (Fred
were a regular part of the show. Gwynne, The Munsters, 1964–1966) was a gravedigger (a rare blue-
My memory is that the aforementioned Andy Taylor was seen collar TV dad job) and formerly deceased.
at work way more than he was at home. Since Opie often visited
his father at the Courthouse with its jail cells, he could hang out
with criminals and the town drunk (I loved Otis, but where was he
getting his booze, wasn’t Mayberry in a dry county?) any time he
felt like it. He almost certainly got an education not available to
most kids.
Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke, The Dick Van Dyke Show, 1961–1966)
spent plenty of time at the office as the head writer of a comedy
program with a rich set of characters. It’s true that Rob was a dad
and had a home life, but I really didn’t give a fig for his son Ritchie,
played by Larry Mathews (sorry, man), and more enjoyed the
back-and-forth between Rob and Mary Tyler Moore as his wife
Laura. I’m just going from memory, but of all the sitcoms from the
Sixties Rob Petrie seemed to have the best work/life balance. Also,
he was pretend-married to Mary Tyler Moore.
Darrin Stephens (Dick York and Dick Sargent, Bewitched, 1964–
1972) was a reactive dad and spouse (with the Dick York version
getting especially exasperated) whose work relationships—he
was in advertising—were an important part of the show. He
brought his work and his boss home with him often. Mostly,
he deferred parenting duties to his (magical) wife Samantha
(Elizabeth Montgomery).

Nice Work If You Can Get It

If you’re noticing that most of the jobs in discussion are white Stephen Douglas (LEFT) performs vital engineering work and Rob
collar, then you’ve been paying attention so far. I just live in Petrie (RIGHT) writes.

RETROFAN November 2021 57

 Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum
If we add in animated cartoon dads (and why not?), Fred
Flintstone (The Flintstones and various incarnations, 1960–1966
and beyond) was a bronto-crane operator, another blue-collar
occupation. George Jetson (The Jetsons and various incarnations,
1962–1963 and beyond) had a two-day one-hour-a-day work “week”
turning a Referential Universal Digital Indexer off and on. I have no
earthly idea what category such a stupid job could be put into.
Repeat Fathers
Watching television in the Sixties meant watching repeats from
the Fifties, especially if you sat in front of the Boob Tube as much
as I did. Dads from Fifties had jobs too. Danny Williams (Danny
Thomas, Make Room for Daddy a.k.a. The Danny Thomas Show,
1953–1964) was a nightclub performer, Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz, I
Love Lucy, 1951–1957) was a nightclub performer, and Jim Anderson
(Robert Young, Father Knows Best, 1954–1960) was in insurance.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–1966) began as a radio
program (first broadcast in 1944), then a television show, with
the two running concurrently for a couple of years. Ozzie Nelson
(played by Ozzie Nelson) wandered around the house in a sweater
sounding somewhat befuddled and handing out dad advice but
never leaving to go to any kind of job.
However, Ozzie Nelson, the character, did have a job. Prior
to the TV show a movie, Here Comes the Nelsons (1952), served as
kind of a television pilot. In the film, Ozzie was an advertising
executive whose job focus was ladies’ private undies. This
was never followed up on the TV show and the job was never
mentioned again. Because the real Ozzie Nelson was a former
bandleader who starred in a television show, viewers surmised
that his television character with the same name did the same
work. It was an easy assumption to make, even though early
episodes made a point of informing audiences that the Nelson
Tom Corbett (LEFT) lost his wife and found a show. Bill Davis
(RIGHT) lost a brother and sister-in-law but kept a man-servant.
58 RETROFAN November 2021
family—Ozzie, Harriet, David, and Ricky Nelson [see RetroFan
#15—ed.]—were just playing completely and utterly unrelated
characters named Ozzie, Harriet, David, and Ricky Nelson.
Further compounding the mixed signals, the television Nelsons’
home exterior was the actual Nelsons’ home exterior. The interior
set of the Nelson’s home was designed after the Nelsons’ actual
home interior. Granddaughter Tracy Nelson has said that TV
Ozzie was actually a lawyer, which is fine if it was ever mentioned
on the show. With The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet being one of
the longest-running sitcoms of all time at 435 episodes (beaten
only by The Simpsons with 639 episodes and counting!), I don’t feel
like watching them all to try and find out. Given the popularity
and longevity of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, it is likely the
source of the cliché of the TV dad without a known job who is
WARD CLEAVER, A
BIOGRAPHY
Ward Cleaver was born in 1910 and hails from Shaker
Heights, Ohio. He father was a farmer. Nothing is
known of his mother. During the Second World War
he served in the United States Naval Construction
Battalions (better known as the Seebees). He graduated
from “state college” with a philosophy major. It is also
where he met June Evelyn Bronson, who would later
become his wife and mother to their two boys, Wallace
and Theodore. Ward regularly went to an office where
he worked. He enjoyed golf and was handy with an
outdoor grill. He attended church. He chewed gum but
only once. He died in 1977. He was 67.
Ward may have been a fictional character, but
many of his appealing qualities came from the second
actor to portray him, Hugh Beaumont (Max Showalter
was Ward in the Leave It to Beaver pilot episode).
Beaumont was born February 16, 1909 in Lawrence,
Kansas. His father was a traveling salesman. He was
a conscientious objector during WWII but served as
a medic. His film career began in 1940 and he moved
to television by 1950. After Leave It to Beaver ended
Beaumont continued to work in film and television. He
was also an ordained minister in the Methodist church.
He had two sons and a daughter. He died in 1982 at the
age of 73.

Ward’s home office was most often used to
have serious talks or phone calls.
always home. One wag pointed out that Ozzie only left the house
for ice cream. However, if we take the whole of the Ozzie and
Harriet radio-film-television career as canon—and that’s what I
feel like doing—then Ozzie was an advertising executive with a
distinct specialty in women’s undergarments.
What About Ward?
So… Ward Cleaver. Is he truly a TV dad with a job of unknown
specificity? Yeah, I believe with a pretty high level of confidence
that the exact nature of his work was never explicitly presented
on the program. And the internet backs me up on this (there are
a lot of Leave It to Beaver fans out there). However (there’s always
a “however”), an episode of Leave It to Beaver was broadcast that
gives us not only a look of Ward at work but a solid—some might
Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum
say definitive—clue to his field of
endeavor.
“The Merchant Marine” was episode
30 of the fifth season of Leave It to
Beaver and first broadcast on April
23, 1962. The situation creating the
comedy begins with Wally getting
a talking-to by Ward in the den. The
den is also Ward’s home office, but it
is only ever used as a place for a good
dressing-down or making a phone
call. In this episode, the mad-dad bit
happens off-camera while we see the
Beaver help June with dinner dishes.
Beaver is worried for Wally’s personal
safety, but in fact Ward is never seen
yelling at the boys or smacking them in
the head. One very endearing quality
of the show was its low-key nature.
But in this episode, Ward admits that
he “gave it” to Wally “pretty good.”
He looks very honked-off when he
enters the kitchen seeking a post-
beatdown cup of coffee. “Why are you staring at me?” he
sharply demands of the Beaver (jeepers), who gets the heck
out the kitchen, but quick. Beaver finds Wally unhappy as well.
This is actually worse than anything I experienced as a kid. My
dad was not a yeller or a spanker in my memory. If we’d get out
of hand he’d say to my mom (whether she was nearby or not),
“Kay, get my belt,” and we’d double-time quick to shut down
our antics. It worked every time until my second-youngest
brother Neil pointed out that dad was already wearing his
belt, didn’t need Mom to get it, and never hit us anyway. That
forever ended a bit of fondly remembered parental theater.
What leads us to Ward’s office is a mix-up (of course).
June and Ward think that Wally wants to join the Merchant
Marines after getting in such horrific trouble. They think
SINGLE MOMS WITH JOBS
In matters of being a breadwinner it definitely was a man’s
world for TV comedies in the Sixties. However, there are
always exceptions, and, yes, both shows are about widows.
Kate Bradley (Bea Benaderet, Petticoat Junction, 1963–
1970) ran the Shady Rest Hotel with her three daughters.
Petticoat Junction was the first victim of the Rural Purge
that removed all of the country-character-centric shows
then on the three networks to make room for more
sophisticated fare (see RetroFan #15).
Julia Baker (Diahann Carroll, Julia, 1968–1971) lost her
husband in the Vietnam War, which was a storyline more
torn from the headlines than any other show mentioned
thus far. Julia had one son and worked as a nurse not in a
hospital but in a doctor’s office at an aerospace firm. Rare
for a show of the period there was not a laugh track (one
was added after its original network run). Rarer still, Julia
was a non-servant black female lead.
RETROFAN November 2021 59
 Scott Saavedra's secret sanctum
Ward’s rough takedown really shook up Wally (it annoyed him,
mostly). Ward is really bothered by this while at work and his
co-worker, Fred Rutherford, hears the woeful tale and offers
up some unnecessary advice. The big gag is that it is Fred’s son,
Lumpy, who wants to join the Merchant Marines because it is his
father that’s so, so unreasonable (I’ve now forgotten what about
but Lumpy probably deserved the punishment). While the two
are talking in Ward’s smallish private office, a revealing detail on
the office wall can be seen. Two framed documents. The smaller
of the two can’t be read but appears to be a diploma and the
larger more visible one says, and I quote: “The Stock Exchange,
Certificate of Membership, Ward Cleaver.”
The what?
Beaver’s dad is a stockbroker! It may not be a fact confirmed by
word in the show and viewers of the day could have blinked and
missed it, but somebody with the program decided that, sure,
Ward sold penny stocks or something. Mystery maybe kind of
solved. So, yeah, that’s that.
But one fresh thing did puzzle me while watching this episode.
The Leave It to Beaver opening title sequence produced
another conundrum while introducing our main characters. In
this version of the opening credits, the Cleaver menfolk are seen
doing yard work. Ward is trimming the bushes, Wally is mowing
the lawn, and Beaver is… also mowing the lawn. Mom brings out
refreshments and all are smiling. So… wait, the Cleavers are a
single-car family but they have two lawnmowers? I don’t recall
that being a middle-class aspiration.
60 RETROFAN November 2021
The proof.
What Did You Do In the Office, Daddy?
All this talk of dad jobs prompted me to ask my adult children
if they were aware of what I did job-wise when they were kids.
My oldest, Edward, remembered that I was an artist who made
comic books. He thought that was pretty cool. My youngest,
Kate, said that she saw me move things around on the computer
to make books and magazines. Both correct answers. She also
recalled that in 7th grade some of the other students wanted
to know if I worked in the fields (no doubt due to our Hispanic
surname). A reminder that we don’t live in TV Land and all the
kids aren’t Opie and the Beaver. Ward Cleaver, where are you
when we need you?
A special shout-out to total internet stranger and eagle-eyed Straight
Dope (straightdope.com), message-board contributor, us66man, for
noticing the Stock Exchange certificate on Ward’s office wall. Where
would I be without you? Nowhere, that’s where. So I sincerely thank you
and I don’t mind saying it because there’s nothing old-fashioned about
politeness.
SCOTT SAAVEDRA is a Retro Explorer
operating from his Southern California-
based Secret Sanctum. He is a writer (more or
less), artist (like, for this article), and graphic
designer (you’re soaking in it). Check out his
Instagram thing, won’t you, at instagram/
scottsaav/
RETRO ANIMATION

Rankin/Bass Productions Historian Examines the Cult Film’s Growing Popularity

by Rick Goldschmidt

After writing a 2011 book and multiple magazine articles about
Rankin/Bass Productions’ Mad Monster Party? [yes, officially with
a question mark—ed.], and after co-producing a few related DVD
and one Blu-ray releases, I’ve observed that the monster-bash
kid’s film is gaining popularity as time goes on. In case you haven’t
yet discovered it, Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party? (MMP) was
a 1967 stop-motion movie, originally a theatrical release from
Embassy Pictures, that gathered “The Worldwide Organization
of Monsters” on the Isle of Evil and featured the voices of Boris
Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett, and Phyllis Diller. Karloff played
Baron von Frankenstein, joined by take-offs of classic screen
monsters: Frankenstein’s Monster, a.k.a. “Fang”; Count Dracula,
a.k.a. “Drac”; the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a.k.a. “Quasimodo”;
plus the Mummy, the Werewolf, the Creature [from the Black
Lagoon], the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the King
Kong-like “IT,” and supporting characters Yetch and Skeleton, as
well as humans Felix Flanken (the Baron’s nephew) and Francesca.
Turner Classic Movies now shows MMP in primetime, instead of
the wee hours of the morning as it originally did. DVD and BluRay
sales have picked up over the years. MMP is a Halloween must-see
for me (and others) as I hand out candy to neighborhood kids.
In MMP’s initial release, as Rankin/Bass composer/conductor
Maury Laws said, “It was snuck out” into theaters beginning on
March 8, 1967. It was actually shown over a three-year period in
Saturday kiddie matinees through 1967–1969, receiving its official
review in the New York Times in early 1969.
An Invitation to the Party
After the premiere of Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
[see RetroFan #12] on the NBC General Electric Fantasy hour on
December 6th, 1964, the phone at Rankin/Bass Productions in
New York City was ringing off the hook. “People were calling us up
saying, ‘Could we have one of those?’ ‘Could you make us similar?,’
etc.,” said producer Arthur Rankin, Jr. The TV special caught the
attention of legendary film producer Joseph E. Levine and in May
of 1965, a three-motion-picture deal was signed between Rankin/
Bass Productions and Levine’s company Embassy Pictures on New
York’s Sixth Avenue in the Time/Life building. Arthur Rankin, Jr.,
Jules Bass, and Maury Laws attended the luncheon/signing. The
trio of Levine-produced Rankin/Bass films that would follow were
The Daydreamer (1966), a mix of live action and puppets based
upon the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen; the traditionally

(ABOVE) Some of the creepy, kooky cast from Rankin/Bass Productions’ 1967 cult classic, Mad Monster Party?, from theater lobby
cards. Courtesy of Heritage. © Miser Bros Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

RETROFAN November 2021 61

 retro Animation

animated The Wacky World of Mother Goose The Daydreamer is seeing a BluRay
(1967); and the stop-motion monster-bash FA ST FAC TS release from Kino Lorber in 2021 with my
Mad Monster Party? (1967). commentary as well as film historian Lee
Levine had produced many low-budget Mad Monster Party? Gambin. The film is actually quite good for
films prior to this, including Santa Claus Voice Cast many reasons, including a star-studded
Conquers the Martians [see RetroFan #12] ` Boris Karloff: Baron Boris von cast, but one can see what probably
and some Hercules films. According to Frankenstein disappointed Levine. The main character,
Maury Laws, “I know Levine wanted to up ` Allen Swift: Felix Flanken, Chris Andersen, lets his friends down
his game and produce something on the Dracula, Fang, Werewolf, repeatedly through the film, which causes
level of Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. He was Quasimodo, Invisible Man, Jekyll the film to not be the happy funfest of the
looking for Rankin/Bass’ The Daydreamer and Hyde, IT, Yetch, Skeleton, typical Rankin/Bass TV specials or the Walt
to be that picture. When he saw the Chef Machiavelli, Mr. Kronkite, Disney films. Visually and creatively, it is
finished [Daydreamer] film along with The other supporting characters a success, but psychologically, it may have
Wacky World of Mother Goose, that sort of ` Gale Garnett: Francesca been a disappointment.
soured the deal and Mad Monster Party? ` Phyllis Diller: The Monster’s Mate It is too bad that Mad Monster Party?
didn’t have a chance [to receive Levine’s wasn’t the first of the trio released.
enthusiastic and full support]. Previously, Rankin/Bass Productions
© Miser Bros Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.
“[The record release of] our had never really made a Halloween TV
soundtrack for the film was shelved, special. So much hard work and planning went into this
until [Percepto Records’] CD release of film that I am sure they felt they had done all they could
it in 1998,” Laws said. “Robert Goulet with monsters. Boris Karloff’s work for the film was
actually sang our theme song for The performed October 6th and 7th of 1965. He also appeared
Daydreamer on The Ed Sullivan Show. in The Daydreamer. Later he would go on to do an award-
The plan was to release the film winning voice performance for Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch
directly after that, but Levine was so Stole Christmas. It took years for Karloff’s performance in
disappointed, it didn’t happen.”
The soundtrack for Mad Monster
Party? was quite a departure for
composer Laws and lyricist Bass, a musical
journey into the world of jazz, and it stands out
as one of the greatest in the Rankin/Bass catalog.
“The movie was sort of a spoof, so for the theme,
sung by Ethyl Ennis (also a RCA Victor recording
artist), we sort of spoofed James Bond’s Goldfinger
for fun,” said Laws.

(ABOVE) LEFT TO RIGHT: An unidentified

Levine associate, Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules
Bass, Joseph E. Levine, Maury Laws, and
another unidentified Levine associate.
(LEFT) Rankin working on Mad Monster
Party? in his New York office in 1965, with
the unused Jack Davis poster art on his desk.
(RIGHT) The voice actor behind most of
the monsters, Allen Swift. His voice
was also familiar to RetroFans in
The Howdy Doody Show, as the
original Burger King, and in
other Rankin/Bass holiday
TV specials such as his role of
Santa Claus in ’Twas the Night
Before Christmas. © 2012 Miser
Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

62 RETROFAN November 2021

 retro Animation

Mad Monster Party? to be recognized. His

daughter, Sara Karloff, and I became good (LEFT) MMP movie poster, featuring Frank
friends. She didn’t see MMP in the theaters Frazetta art. Courtesy of Heritage. (BELOW)
and wasn’t familiar with it until I sent her a Detail from the original, unused poster
copy. Since then, we have appeared together for Mad Monster Party?, featuring art by
at the Chiller Theatre Toy, Model, and Film character designer Jack Davis. © 2018 Miser
Expo in Parsippany, New Jersey, and I even Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt.
dug up her dad’s MMP contract!

Putting the MAD in Mad Monster

Party?
I actually learned of Mad Monster Party?
in the early Seventies when watching a
washed-out print on a small Chicago TV
station, Channel 44. I later learned that the
film first appeared in the Chicago television
market on WGN-TV. Most fans did not see
MMP at a Saturday matinee in the theaters,
although some did and remember it fondly.
Like other Rankin/Bass Productions, Mad
Monster Party? was primarily discovered on
television.
I am often asked in interviews: What drew you to Rankin/Bass?
How did you become the Rankin/Bass historian/biographer?
I always talk about my dear, late friend, cartoonist Jack Davis
(1924–2016), who actually pointed me toward my professional
relationship with Rankin/Bass. My degree is in art/Illustration,
and beginning in the early Nineties Jack and I would talk about
the business by phone. I knew he designed Mad Monster Party?
and I always loved the film, so I asked Jack about what happened
to his working relationship with Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass.
He said he was still doing work for Arthur periodically. In fact, Coker, Jr., which I did, and Paul gave me Arthur Rankin’s Bermuda
Jack designed a sequel for Mad Monster Party? [the traditionally phone number. I called up Arthur and said there should be a book.
animated cartoon Mad Mad Mad Monsters, shown in the He said, “Send me two chapters!” I did, and the rest is history, with
September 23, 1972 installment of The ABC Saturday Superstar The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass (Miser Bros. Press) first being
Movie—ed.]. Arthur was trying to launch an MMP follow-up in published in 1997.
CGI called Mad, Mad Monster Reunion. I felt that Rankin/Bass As an artist, the look of a film has to really grab me. Jack
Productions’ work should be preserved in a book. Jack Davis told Davis’ Mad Monster Party? designs grabbed everyone, including
me to get ahold of his fellow MAD magazine cartoonist Paul Jim Henson, who based his Muppet character “The Count” off
of Jack’s MMP Dracula design, complete
with a monocle (something Jack attributed
to Dracula). I noticed all of the incidental
characters very early on and saw Jack’s
trademark bird in the old lady’s hat in the
drug store, etc. MMP’s Francesca is busty,
like all of Jack’s movie poster women. The
film had Jack Davis written all over it. Later,
I got ahold of Jack’s unused poster art,
which I like the best, and made it available
to the public. The movie poster art that
was used for the film was a series of Frank
Frazetta roughs that were published

Comedienne Phyllis Diller, voice of the

Monster’s Mate, became friends with
Rankin/Bass historian and biographer
Rick Goldschmidt.

RETROFAN November 2021 63

 retro Animation
unbeknownst to him at the time. Frazetta saw a one-sheet
hanging at a movie theater and made a hot phone call to the
producer to get paid. When Arthur Rankin paid me a visit in 1997,
he signed my linenbacked Frazetta one-sheet and thought it was
Jack Davis’ art. I believe Arthur wanted to use Jack’s art, which
he had very early on in the project, when the project was called
“The Monster Movie” (at one point, the film was also known as “Mad
Monster Rally,” the title used in early storyboards), but Joseph E.
Levine made a last-minute change. Years later, a more-finished
color piece from Frazetta turned up, and it is included in my book.
Arthur Rankin and I shared a love for Jack Davis’ art. Arthur
was the art director at ABC television in the Fifties and knew
talent when he saw it. Len Korobkin wrote the script for MMP,
and Jack Davis recommended his pal Harvey Kurtzman (1924–
1993) to Arthur to punch up the script with one-liners with
his typical MAD-type humor including “Veeblefetzers” in the
drug store. I believe the title of the film was a suggestion from
Harvey to sort of take a jab at MAD, which he had departed
by then and was a bit resentful towards. Even the question
mark after the “Mad Monster Party” title had to have come
from Harvey. I did interview Harvey Kurtzman for my book,
but he couldn’t remember much about the history and at the
time was suffering from
Parkinson’s. “I turned in the
entire script and I never met
Harvey Kurtzman,” said Len
Korobkin. “Some have said
that Forest Ackerman [of
Famous Monsters of Filmland
acclaim] had a hand in the
script, but that is not true.
In fact, I was called back to
add some scenes, because
Levine wanted the picture to
(TOP) Francesca is unimpressed with Yetch. © 1997 Miser Bros.
Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives. (ABOVE) Recording artist Gale
Garnett, the voice of Francesca, as seen on the cover of her
1965 RCA Victor album The Many Faces of Gale Garnett. Also
an actress, Garnett can be found in episodes of television’s
Bonanza, Hawaiian Eye, The Real McCoys, and Have Gun, Will
Travel. (Ethyl Ennis, singer of MMP’s title track, was also an
RCA Victor artist.) © RCA Victor. Courtesy of Rick Goldschmidt.
64 RETROFAN November 2021
AND HERE’S TO YOU,
MISTER LEVINE!
Executive Producer Joseph E. Levine (1905–1987) had
a busy 1966 and 1967! Besides executive-producing
the three Rankin/Bass films during those years, he
produced 13 more. A few were surprise hits, including
The Producers and The Graduate, with modest Levine
budgets. One film, Nevada Smith (released through
Paramount), was co-executive-produced by an
uncredited Steve McQueen. Nevada Smith benefited
from a much larger budget than other standard Levine
fare. As the author recently reviewed Steve McQueen’s
body of work, he discovered Rankin/Bass writer Romeo
© 1968 United Artists. Poster courtesy of Heritage.
Muller derived the name
of his sheep in Rankin/
Bass’ The Little Drummer
Boy (1968) from “Baa-
Baa,” a third-season
episode of McQueen’s TV
Western, Wanted Dead
or Alive. Levine was so
busy with films during
this period that one
could easily see how Mad
Monster Party? got lost in
the shuffle.
be longer. This is where the chef scene and the zombie birdmen
with Yetch came from.”
If I have heard any complaints about the film, it is that Mad
Monster Party? is too long and somewhat boring, especially in the
scenes Len was asked to add. Arthur Rankin thought so, too, and
years later made his own edit of the film for VHS and gave me
those deleted scenes. But I am such a monster fan, that I love it
all. The beautiful Bass/Laws score brings it all together. For me,
the only other monster-bash film that rivals this one is Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein. I don’t think any monster animated film
even comes close.
When I called Phyllis Diller (1917–2012) up to interview her for
my book The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass, you could hear the
excitement in her voice! She absolutely loved the film. “I got to
sing a song! Ha-ha!” said Diller. “I was staying at the Beverly Hills
Hotel and we had a rented piano brought in and I learned that
wonderful song, ‘You’re Different.’” Phyllis was an accomplished
musician and artist, and we shared our musical bond and became
friends. She did another interview for me, for a 1999 documentary
hosted by Billy West for the VHS release of the film. When I co-
produced the MMP soundtrack CD in 1998, I ran copies of it over
to Phyllis’ agent Milt Suchin’s office. She was blown away by it.
She wrote me a very complimentary letter about my Mad Monster
Party? book as well. She was a big fan of Rankin/Bass Productions
and felt the MMP film captured all of her trademarks.
Allen Swift voiced all of the monsters and incidental characters
and Boris’ nephew Felix Flankin. RCA Victor recording artist
Gale Garnett was the voice of Francesca. Allen and I really hit it
off when we did our interviews for my first book. He appeared
 retro Animation

in many Rankin/Bass Productions including ’Twas the Night
Before Christmas and the Rankin/Bass-produced off-Broadway
play called A Month of Sundays. He based all the voices in Mad
Monster Party? on famous screen actors, ones he
impersonated as a youngster. Felix was based on
Jimmy Stewart, Yetch was based on Peter Lorre,
etc. I asked Allen to be in the Mad Monster Party?
documentary for Lion’s Gate, which he graciously
did but died shortly after. “I had so much fun
doing all of the voices in Mad Monster Party?,” said
Swift. “It was like going to work to play and I got
paid for it.” Gale Garnett eventually moved to
Canada and became an author. Her most famous
recording was “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” which
she also wrote; it was performed by many famous
crooners of the time.
Many fans ask: What happened to the
Animagic figures used in the production? In April of 2019, I
was featured in the premiere of MeTV’s Collector’s Call with
Lisa Whelchel, and a 30-minute episode was dedicated to my
© Miser Bros Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.
the actual screen-used Animagic figures from Rankin/Bass
Productions. They were featured in a Japanese exhibit, and I
included photos in my book. As I began this article, I recalled
an episode of the Japanese TV series Princess
Comet (1967–1968) that features a dragon from
Rankin/Bass’ The New Adventures of Pinocchio
and a talking IT (King Kong) from Rankin/Bass’
Mad Monster Party? who ends up saving the day!
Princess Comet features a young girl who comes
to Earth to look for her lost Prince. Kong has
much more screen time in this and is quite funny
as he talks too! Tad Mochinaga animated this
and saved both puppets, which are featured in
my book Frosty the Snowman’s 50th Anniversary
© Miser Bros Press/Rick Scrapbook. IT really gets a workout in this episode
Goldschmidt Archives.
of Princess Comet and I am surprised he survived
in such good condition. He is about 22 inches tall
(INSET), about the same size as the Abominable Snow Monster
from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (Thanks to my friend Mark
Caballero for refreshing my memory on this!) YouTube has the

collection. Arthur Rankin, Jr.
gave me a wood-carved Fang
and Dracula Salad Fork and
Spoon set (LEFT) that was made animators.
for him as a gift by the Animagic
puppet makers during the
making of the film. He actually
sent it to me as a Thanksgiving
present around 1999. This set
was appraised on the TV show
in the ballpark of $25,000. As
far as I know, these are the only
Mad Monster Party?-made figures to survive in the United States. I
believe many of them may have survived in Japan.
When I wrote my book The Making of Santa Claus is Comin’ to
Town and The Daydreamer (Miser Bros. Press, 2018), I discovered
that the late director/animator Tad Mochinaga kept many of
Spanish-dubbed version, Senorita Cometa, posted. I can only
confirm the existence of IT in Japan from Mad Monster Party?, but
it is very possible others survived in the collections of the actual
Speaking of puppets, when I wrote my Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer article for RetroFan #12, it was before auctioneer Profiles
in History auctioned
off the Animagic
figures of Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer
and Santa Claus in
November of 2020 for
$368,000. I assisted
with the very cool
catalog for this auction.
From 2006–2008 I
appeared at shows with

IT’S ABOUT TIME

Before the three-picture deal with Joseph E. Levine, in
1965 Rankin/Bass Productions (known as Videocraft
International at the time) released its first feature film, the
stop-motion Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, through
Magna Pictures Distribution Corp. Jack Davis also did the
poster art for this film, and Len Korobkin was given credit
© 1965 Videocraft International.

for Additional Dialogue. Korobkin had written episodes
of Videocraft’s syndicated TV series The New Adventures of
Pinocchio (stop motion, 1960–1961) and Tales of the Wizard
of Oz (traditional animation, 1961). Willy was conceived by
Antony Peters, credited for Continuity Design.
This film was shot simultaneously with Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer, with many of the same voice actors, but
with some additional actors added, like James Doohan (Star
Trek). Peters’ lettering, well known from Rudolph, was also
used in the titles of this film. Len Korobkin died April 26, 2021. This article is
dedicated to his memory.
Dell Comics produced this 1967
one-shot movie adaptation (without
the title’s question mark on the cover
logo, although it appears on the story
inside). The interiors are written
and drawn in traditional comic
style by uncredited creators. In 1999,
Black Bear Press also released a Mad
Monster Party? comic adaptation.
Four issues were planned, but only
one was published. Courtesy of Heritage.

RETROFAN November 2021 65

 retro Animation
these puppets when they were owned by
my friend Kevin Kriess from Time and Space
Toys. The puppets stayed in my home when
we took them on television news shows
and to the Brookfield Zoo and bookstores.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized these
are the publicity-photo and NBC Display
Animagic figures from New York and not the
screen used figures that were featured in
the Tad Mochinaga display. Tad’s Santa has
a shorter beard and the beard is decaying in
two lines on the sides of his mouth. The same
lines and beard you can clearly see in the
actual TV special. The publicity Santa has a
much rounder and larger beard, something
you never see in the TV special. I learn
something every day as the Rankin/Bass
Productions historian!
The Party Isn’t Over
As stated earlier, Mad Monster Party? is growing in popularity. I have
heard raves about it from many movie producers over the years. A
few even came to a Mad Monster Party? event held in October 2012,
at the Van Eaton Galleries in Van Nuys, California. At one time,
Frankie Avalon’s and Annette Funicello’s families took out an option
on a remake, and later, Variety reported that the writers of the film
Analyze This were writing an MMP treatment.
Over the years I have assisted with several products based
on the Mad Monster Party? characters. First there was a Boris
Karloff statue sculpted by Tony Cipriano and licensed by Karloff
Enterprises. Many of those sold from rankinbass.com, when
the internet was expanding in the late Nineties. Funko made
a series of eight plastic figures that I assisted with around
2009. Diamond Toys Produced three figures sculpted by Tony
Cipriano again around 2011. The line featured Boris, Dracula,
and Fang, with accessories. The problem with this line was that
if you removed the figures from the packaging, their plastic
legs didn’t support the bodies and they leaned over. Despite
this, it was a popular line which many fans wanted to continue,
but it never did. Trick or Treat Studios produced a series of six
Mad Monster Party? Halloween masks,
which included Yetch, a Zombie band
member, the Creature, Uncle Boris,
Fang, and Dracula. I display these at all
of my appearances and the fans love
them! In October of 2017, my friend,
artist Shag (Josh Agle), released a
beautful Mad Monster Party? print, and
I appeared at both his West Hollywood
and Palm Springs stores. The stores
were packed with fans and we even
brought along some actual Animagic
figures to display.
Mad Monster Party? music composer
Maury Laws and the author. © 2008
Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt Archives.
66 RETROFAN November 2021
One of Goldschmidt’s out-of-print and
highly sought-after MMP masks.
Don Duga, the storyboard artist on Mad
Monster Party?, was very helpful to me with
my books. He saved the Jack Davis designs
and some of his storyboard art, materials
that Rankin/Bass had long discarded. Don
taught animation at the School of Visual
arts in New York until computers took over
about ten years ago. When my first Rankin/
Bass book was released in 1997, Don and
Arthur Rankin spoke at an event at the School
of Visual Arts and signed books. Don really
enjoyed the MMP musical sequences and
remembers the sequence for the Mummy as
a favorite. “That was actually choreographed
by a famous dancer named ‘Killer’ Joe Piro,
who was famous for doing the modern dances at the Peppermint
Lounge in New York,” said Duga. Mad Monster Party? has always
been a favorite project of his, and he continued to do art based on
the film for years.
The animation in the film was directed by Tadahito “Tad”
Mochinaga. While Jules Bass was given the screen credit of
director and Arthur Rankin the producer credit, Arthur was the
only one of the two who visited Japan, where the stop-motion
animation was produced, to oversee things. The puppets
were made by Kyoto Kita and Pinchan Ichiro Komuro. I can’t
overemphasize the importance of the work of this Japanese
crew. There is a charm with Rankin/Bass Animagic that can’t
be replicated in CGI or any other forms of animation. This is the
unique quality everyone identifies with Rankin/Bass Productions,
a very believable universe of stop-motion puppets that each have
a personality of their own.
I am hopeful that in the near future we will see a new, higher-
resolution version of the film, released by Kino Lorber on BluRay.
I am ready to lay down the commentary with Lee Gambin. I think
if the film can continue to get national exposure on Turner Classic
Movies, particularly if they screen it at
Halloween in primetime, that will help
immensely. I believe Mad Monster Party?
will continue to bring families together
in front of the television for many more
Halloweens in the future!
Unless otherwise noted, images
accompanying this article are courtesy of
Rick Goldscmidt/Miser Bros. Press.
Miser Bros. Press co-founder RICK
GOLDSCHMIDT is the historian/
biographer for Rankin/Bass Productins and
the author of several books on the revered
holiday films and other movies produced by
the company. www.miserbros.com and
www.enchantedworldofrankinbass.
blogspot.com
 ANDY MANGELS’ RETRO SATURDAY MORNING
Monster
Squad
&
drak
pack by Andy Mangels
The concept of history’s greatest monsters walking, creeping,
and howling in the shadows of the night… together… may have
been mostly a construct of Hollywood, rather than scary folklore
or novels and pulp writing, but the topic of monsters mashing
together was popular long before the 1962 novelty song “Monster
Mash” delighted listeners.
As we face another Halloween, lets open the crypt door and
peer through the cobwebs to see how Saturday mornings were
invaded yet again by Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man… in
Monster Squad and Drak Pack!
Monster Mash-Up History
As first discussed in RetroFan #2’s spotlight on Groovie Goolies
(check elsewhere to find how to get back issues), three monsters
reigned supreme in the realm of cinema horror. Immortalized
onscreen by Universal Studios in feature films between 1931 and
1941, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man—as portrayed
by Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney, Jr., respectively—
thrilled audiences alongside other creatures and spooks such as
the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, the
Bride of Frankenstein, and more.
RETROFAN November 2021 67
 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

The “creature features” were a huge hit for World War II-era producers at its head were Raymond S. Allen, William P. D’Angelo,
and post-war audiences, and Universal soon created a “shared and Harvey Bullock.
universe” for sequels and spin-offs. The first team-up out of the Allen had been a writer in Hollywood since 1956, toiling on
gate was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942), followed by House scripts for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Andy Griffith Show, The
of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945), which brought Danny Thomas Show, a 1964 Archie TV film based on the comics, The
together into the same film Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, Flintstones, Hogan’s Heroes, and Love, American Style. D’Angelo cut
and others. The comedic film Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein his teeth in the Sixties as a writer, director, and producer for such
(1948) showcased a monster romp, with the monsters facing off series as No Time for Sergeants, Love, American Style, and Room 222,
against two of filmdom’s most popular screen comedians. though his biggest success was as an associate producer for the
Although Universal moved away from the monster films, mammoth hit series, Batman. Speaking of Gotham City’s super-
in England, Hammer Films staked their own series of films hero, Harvey Bullock is the name of one of the Gotham P.D.’s most
utilizing the same characters, often starring Peter Cushing and famous characters, but it’s also the name of a writer and series
Christopher Lee, among others. The Universal features were creator since 1954, who worked on The Real McCoys, Rango, Gomer
offered to television stations in a 1957 syndication package from Pyle USMC, and many
Screen Gems, and the monsters were now enjoyed by kids, safe in Harvey of the same shows that
their homes. Bullock. Raymond Allen wrote for.
In August 1962, Bobby “Boris” Pickett released a novelty song As D’Angelo-Bullock-
called “Monster Mash,” in which he mimicked the voices of Boris Allen (DBA) Productions,
Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The song quickly shot up to #1 on the the trio produced five
Billboard music charts. Monsters were now verging on being both other live-action Saturday
kid-friendly and funny, instead of nightmare-inducing. morning shows for NBC
From September 1964 to May 1966, CBS aired the sitcom The mornings: Run, Joe, Run
Munsters (see RetroFan #2 and 6), which featured a family with a (1974–1975), Westwind
Frankenstein-like father, a vampire wife and vampire father-in- (1975–1976), McDuff, The
law, and a werewolf son. Concurrently with The Munsters, ABC Talking Dog (1976), Big
aired a similar macabre sitcom called The Addams Family (1964- John, Little John (1976),
1966), though its characters were based on the morbidly funny and The Red Hand Gang
humor of cartoonist Charles Addams rather than (1977). Although this
horror monster tropes. As detailed elsewhere in output would seem
this issue, Embassy Pictures released Mad Monster to rival Filmation and
Party?, a stop-motion animated musical feature film Krofft for live-action
from Rankin-Bass which featured their own version shows, none of the DBA
of almost every major movie creature as part of a Productions shows were
“Worldwide Organization of Monsters.” With Aurora terribly popular, and
monster model kits being advertised to kids in William P. several didn’t even air all
comics and in the pages of the pun-filled newsstand D’Angelo. of their episodes prior to
magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958–2017), cancellation.
horror was now friendly. The credited creator
Filmation Associates created the first Saturday of Monster Squad was
morning show to capitalize solely on the idea of the Stanley Ralph Ross, a
monsters working together, creating the Groovie talented writer that had
Goolies animated series for CBS in September 1970
(see RetroFan #2). In that show, Drac, Frankie, Wolfie, and their Stanley
ghoulish family and friends haunted Horrible Hall and had wacky Ralph Ross.
slapstick adventures and told groan-inducing “spooky” jokes.
CBS ran Groovie Goolies through Fall 1972, and again, in late 1975
to Spring 1976. Filmation even shot a live-action segment of Drac,
Frankie, and Wolfie for the December 16, 1972 ABC special The
Saturday Superstar Movie: Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie
Goolies. Neither the success of Groovie Goolies—nor the perpetually
syndicated The Munsters and The Addams Family—were lost on
NBC, nor with a newer Saturday-morning production studio…

Children of the Night…

The Creation of Monster Squad
Whatever its suspicious relationship to past monster-mash-up
series was, Monster Squad was assembled in 1976 by D’Angelo-
Bullock-Allen Productions, which was a relative newcomer to
providing content for Saturday morning television. The trio of

68 RETROFAN November 2021

 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

(LEFT TO RIGHT) The stars of Monster Squad: Fred Grandy as Walt, Michael Lane as Frank N. Stein, Henry
Polic II as Dracula, and Buck Kartalian as Bruce W. Wolf. © D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions.

also developed and written ABC’s live-action Batman series, and
ABC’s Wonder Woman series starring Lynda Carter, among others.
The plot for Ross’ new series was easily explained by narration in
the opening credits: “My name’s Walt. I work as night watchman
here at Fred’s Wax Museum to put myself through criminology
college. It used to be very lonely, until recently, when I plugged
in my Crime Computer. Suddenly, oscillating vibrations brought
to life three legendary monsters: Dracula, the Werewolf, and
Frankenstein! Creatures hated and feared for centuries, now
determined to make up for their past misbehaving by fighting
crime wherever they find it. Together, we’re the Monster Squad!”
Why Walt had created a prototype Crime Computer, which
he hides in a large Egyptian sarcophagus that is surrounded by
an exhibit of monsters, is never quite clear. Although Walt often
stayed behind to monitor crime from a variety of crazy super-
villains—who would apparently go unchallenged if the newly
christened Monster Squad didn’t exist—the three monsters
would keep in touch with him through communicators, using
the codenames “Chamber of Horrors” for Walt, “Nightflyer” for
Dracula, “Green Machine” for Frank, and “Furball” for werewolf
Bruce. Travelling to crime scenes in their all-black Monster Van,
the creepy commandos used their respective super-powers to
battle enemies who always had a goofy pair of henchmen with
them.
In a career-spanning interview with EmmyTVLegends.org in
February 1998, Stanley Ralph Ross recalled, “I wrote every single
story for that show. What happened was, I wanted to get all the
scripts done at once. I wrote all the stories on a weekend. Bill
RETROFAN November 2021 69
 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

[D’Angelo] took me down to his place in Newport on a Friday, and

I wrote through Sunday night. I wrote like 70-some-odd pages
over the weekend. Now we brought in the best writers we could
find, guys who wouldn’t normally write those kind of shows…
Sherwood Schwartz’s brother Al Schwartz, Chuck McCann, just
a bunch of different people who you wouldn’t normally get to
do this. And the deal was, all they had to do was write a first
draft, and I would do all the second drafts… I was writing it for
teenagers, kids 13 and up, because it was very hip. It was a really
hip show.”
Continuing, Ross said, “I wrote the beginning and the end. The
first drafts are the hard part—called ‘scratch paper writing,’ the
blank paper writing. So, as long as they adhered to my stories…
What happened was, I had a stack of stories, and after they
watched the pilot, I said, ‘Okay, guys, here are 13 stories. Each of
you pick one. It doesn’t matter make a difference which one you
pick. They’re all the same. Just pick one. Follow it exactly as I have
written it… Follow it scene by scene. Do not deviate.’ Only one guy
deviated, and the rest of them were terrific.”

Decrypting Monster Squad

The stars of Monster Squad were mostly character actors of
the era.
Youthful-looking Fred Grandy, who had appeared previously
on Love, American Style and other sitcoms, was cast as Walt. In
a 2019 interview on the Reel Talk with the Hollywood Kid Podcast,
Grandy recalled of Monster Squad that the show was “one of
my favorite jobs, to tell you the truth. First of all, this was the
brainchild of a guy named Billy D’Angelo, who had produced the
Batman series with Adam West. And it was very similar. We had
one set and they just repainted it every week. It was a half-hour
comedy which we usually shot in two days. We did 13 episodes
and I think we did them all in a month. I mean, it was lickety-split.”
About his wardrobe as Walt, Grandy recalled, “I dressed like Pat
Boone. I had… a bowtie, and a cardigan sweater. A regular guy
back then. You wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that stuff now.”
Henry Polic II was a relative newcomer to Hollywood when
he got the role of Sheriff of Nottingham in Mel Brooks’ 1975 ABC
series When Things Were Rotten, a parody of Robin Hood. After

© D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions.
that series ended, he was almost immediately cast as Dracula in
Monster Squad. In an August 1976 interview with The Miami News,
Polic said he was happy to be buried under make-up as Dracula
and be unrecognizable. “I am a character actor and I feel that I am
very successful when people don’t know which part I played on a
show or in a play. This may sound odd, but I believe recognition
will come when it’s due me.” Polic also admitted to the newspaper
that he would not be able to watch Monster Squad when it aired;
not only did he not own a television, but during its time on the air,
he would be in Spain, filming The Return of Beau Geste.
A proud Armenian and a veteran of World War II, the five-foot-
two-inch Buck Kartalian had been a bodybuilder and professional other shows. One day, he calls me in. So, I go in, and there’s three
wrestler prior to embarking on an acting career. Best known to other guys there. He says, ‘Okay, on the new series, called Monster
genre fans as the cigar-smoking Julius, ape guard of the caged Squad, you’re the Wolfman… [laughs]’ And I’m looking at him, and
humans in Planet of the Apes (1968), Kartalian was cast as the I said, ‘What? Are you playing games here? What do you mean, ‘I
werewolf, a.k.a. Bruce Were Wolf, without even auditioning. In am?’ He says, ‘You are.’ I said, ‘You don’t want me to read?’ And he
Justin Humphreys’ book, Names You Never Remember, With Faces said, ‘What read? You got the part!’ Of course, I was in total shock
You Never Forget, Kartalian said about producer William D’Angelo, the next couple of days. No one comes over and says, ‘Hey, you got
“I’d done a war show, The Gallant Men, I think he was the producer the part.’ If you want to read for one line, you’ve got to read.”
of that. I worked with him one or two other times on a couple of

70 RETROFAN November 2021


Cast as Frank N. Stein was the towering Michael Lane, who, at
six-foot-eight, had also previously been a professional wrestler
and a boxer. He had also previously been the Frankenstein
Monster in the little-seen Allied Artists film Frankenstein 1970
(released in 1958); the film also featured the famed Boris Karloff
as Baron Victor von Frankenstein. Lane appeared in dozens of
Western and adventure TV shows, but knew the producers from
his work on episodes of Batman and Love, American Style.
To say that the style and plots of Monster Squad borrowed
liberally from the style and plots of Batman would be polite, not a
surprise given the producers and Stanley Ralph Ross’ involvement
with that series. But this being Saturday morning budgets, most
of the villains were portrayed by other character actors, who were
given directions to pour on the camp, but present it as straight-
faced as possible. The biggest names among them would be
scenery-chewer Jonathan Harris of Lost in Space acclaim, and
ever-present sultry seductress Julie Newmar [coming in RetroFan
#21!—ed.], who portrayed the Astrologer and Ultra Witch,
respectively. Also an actor, Ross himself appeared in the “Music
Man” episode as telethon host Jackie Joey.
Shot on film during July 1976, most episodes of the series
only featured two sets: the standing wax museum set, and
another created just for the episode. The writers were hobbled
by Television’s Standards & Practices in terms of scary content or
violence, so they attempted to make up for the lack of excitement
Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning
(OPPOSITE PAGE
AND THIS PAGE)
Dracula, Bruce, and
Frank in the Wax
Museum (one of the
show’s two standing
sets). © D’Angelo-
Bullock-Allen
Productions.
with bad puns and moments of adult humor, plus slapstick
and sight gags. The mandated lack of violence did have a few
workarounds: in one episode, Dracula and the Wizard have a
swordfight with invisible swords, while in another, the Skull
attempts to stop Werewolf by literally throwing a silver bullet at
him.
With episodes that featured tickle torture, ray guns that
turned the heroes into cardboard, and obesity as a punchline,
the final episode of Monster Squad would contain what may be a
first for Saturday mornings: a hermaphroditic villain character
Albert/Alberta, portrayed by Vito Scotti, who was costumed and
made up as literally half-man and half-woman! In the days before
modern non-binary gender identification, the villain’s henchmen,
Half Wit and Half Nelson, even have trouble with whether to call
their boss “Ma’am” or “Sir.”
It’s Alive… Monster Squad on the Air
The Monster Squad was announced to the press by NBC’s director
of children’s programming, William H. Hogan, in mid-March 1976.
The characters made their debut appearance on The Great NBC
Smilin’ Saturday Morning Parade (see an article on this and other
Saturday morning preview specials in RetroFan #9) on Friday,
September 10, 1976. In an introductory scene, host Freddie Prinze
and cast members of The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. met the Monster
Squad cast.
RETROFAN November 2021 71
 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Monster Squad debuted with NBC’s new season on Saturday,
September 11, 1976, sandwiched between McDuff, The Talking Dog
and Land of the Lost. The debut episode was its seventh-produced
show, “The Astrologer,” not “Queen Bee” as online sources assert.
Although Monster Squad lasted the entire season, the series was
not the… *ahem*… monster hit that NBC was hoping for, and it
disappeared the following year as the whole Saturday morning
schedule was retooled.
In his 2019 interview on the Reel Talk with the Hollywood Kid
Podcast, Grandy said that the show was “very funny. It was very
hip. And we found out that even though it was not probably
targeted to the right audience because it was a Saturday morning
show and by that time, I think the audience out there had become
so acclimated to watching animation and cartoons that live-
action on Sunday [sic] morning seemed a little foreign to them.
But it was a tremendous hit with a lot of burned-out frat boys who
were waking up from the night before… And so, it had a kind of
cult following, and I enjoyed it a great deal. In terms of the guest-
stars, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was obviously for me, a
preview of things to come once I started on Love Boat.”
Grandy would go on to the biggest fame of anyone involved
on the series. In 1977, he was cast as Gopher on The Love Boat,
a role that lasted for nine seasons and shot him to television
prominence. In 1986, with Love Boat barely in his wake, Grandy
ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives,
representing Iowa. He served four terms there, but his direct
political career ended in 1994. Throughout the 2000s and into
the 2010s, he hosted conservative radio and TV talk shows, and
worked with far-right anti-Muslim groups. Today, he occasionally
acts, and is the only surviving cast member of Monster Squad.

Promotional photo for the first FA ST FAC TS

and only season of Monster Squad.
© D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions. Monster Squad
` No. of seasons: One
` No. of episodes: 13
` Original run: September 11,
1976–September 3, 1977 (NBC,
Saturdays)

Primary Cast
` Fred Grandy: Walt
` Henry Polic II: Dracula
` Buck Kartalian: Bruce W. Wolf
` Michael Lane: Frank N. Stein
` Edward Andrews: Mayor
Goldwyn
` Paul Smith: Officer McMacMac
` Richard X. Slattery: Officer
McMacMac

Villain Cast
` Alice Ghostley: Queen Bee
` Barry Dennen: Mr. Mephisto
` Ivor Francis: The Tickler
` Billy Curtis: The Ringmaster
` Marty Allen: Lorenzo Musica/
Music Man
` Edward Andrews: No Face
` Jonathan Harris: The Astrologer
` Julie Newmar: Ultra Witch
` Arthur Malet: The Wizard
` Geoffrey Lewis: The Skull
` Avery Schreiber: The
Weatherman
` Joseph Mascolo: Lawrence of
Moravia
` Vito Scotti: Albert/Alberta

Also starring Stanley Ralph Ross, Sid

Haig

72 RETROFAN November 2021

 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

series! It’s unclear who actually created the series, although H-B
producer Doug Paterson shepherded it along the spooky highway
from designs to airing.
The plot of the series was pretty much explained in the
opening narration. Three teenage boys—Drak, Jr., Frankie, and
Howler—are the descendants of the monster trio of Dracula,
the Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man. How undead
creatures had mated and produced offspring was never quite
© Hanna-Barbera Productions.

explained, but the boys were normal enough until they did the
“Drak Whack”: they clapped their right hands together and yelled
“Whacko!” Then, as if by magic, they would transform into super-
powered costumed versions of their forefathers.
Drak, Jr., the great-grandnephew of Dracula, could fly, change
shape, cling to walls, and use telekinesis. Frankie was green-
skinned, extremely strong (especially when angry), and could spark
electrical blasts from his neck bolts. Howler had an ultrasonic
howl, and super-breath, like the Big Bad Wolf of fairy tales. Count
Those Meddling Kids… No, Those Other Ones! Dracula himself would often appear to counsel the teens, but they
“From the monsters of the past, comes a new generation, referred to him as “Big D” (yes, that’s what she said). Dracula was the
dedicated to reversing the evil image of their forefathers. Under president of the Transylvania Retired Spooks, Spectres, and Spirits
the leadership of none other than Count Dracula—known as Society, and favored his injury-prone pet spider.
‘Big D’—three teenagers formed a do-gooder group named Travelling to fight evil in their flying car known as the Drakster,
‘The Drac Pack.’ With special powers, they can transform into the Drak Pack fought against the blue-skinned Dr. Dred and his
super mighty monsters and use their skills against all evildoers… creatures from O.G.R.E. The acronym for the villainous group
especially the diabolical Dr. Dred and his renegade rowdies Toad, stood for Organization of Generally Rotten Enterprises… except
Fly, Mummyman, and Vampira, a group known as ‘O.G.R.E.,’ the for when the writers forgot and said that the “E” stood for
Organization of Generally Rotten Enterprises. It’s right versus
wrong, good over greed, niceness against naughtiness… that’s the
dedication of the terrific trio Frankie, Howler, and Drac, Jr., the
Drak Pack!”
So intoned narrator John Stephenson at the beginning of
Hanna-Barbera’s 1980 series Drak Pack, which seemed to...
*ahem*… borrow… *ahem*… heavily from Monster Squad.
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had been producing
animated fare together since 1939, when they met when they both
worked for MGM’s animation division under Rudolf Isling. After
creating the successful Tom and Jerry and Droopy theatrical shorts,
among many others, the pair headed founded their own studios
in July 1957; Hanna’s name came first due to a winning coin toss.
H-B Enterprises, Inc. morphed into Hanna-Barbera Productions in
1959, and the pair—and an ever-growing team—would become
one of the most successful suppliers of television animation
ever. Borrowing heavily from The Honeymooners, they created the
primetime hit The Flintstones in 1960, and went on to create such
hits as The Yogi Bear Show, The Jetsons, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, Space
Ghost, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Speed Buggy, Super Friends, and
many more. Alongside Filmation Associates, Hanna-Barbera
ruled Saturday morning airwaves for decades.
Although they had previously dabbled with monsters in
Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles [coming next issue!—ed.], the
Scooby-Doo franchise, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, and The Funky
Phantom, when CBS announced their Fall 1980 Saturday morning
schedule in early spring of that year, it was revealed that Hanna-
Barbera would feature actual monsters on the new Drak Pack

(RIGHT) Promotional art for the teen stars of Drak Pack.

© Hanna-Barbera Productions.

RETROFAN November 2021 73

 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

(CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE) Count Dracula, Drak, Jr.,

Frankie, Howler, Vampira. © Hanna-Barbera Productions. Count
Dracula cell courtesy of Heritage.

“Endeavors.” The villains operated out of OGRE Island, where Dred

had his Dredquarters. Dred’s evil plans over the run of the series
included stealing color from his adversaries, stealing treasures
and priceless artifacts, stopping time to commit robberies,
changing the weather, using shrink rays, and even creating an evil
amusement park.
The animators worked from character designs by Chris
Cuddington—who also directed the series—but most of the
production work was done at Hanna-Barbera’s Australian satellite
studio, known as “Hanna-Barbera Pty. Ltd.” The studio had been popular actors. Drak’s voice was done by Jerry Dexter, a radio
founded in 1972, and lasted until 1983, eventually changing names announcer who played Aqualad in the 1967 Superman/Aquaman
to become Taft-Hardie Group, then Southern Star Group, and Hour of Adventure (see RetroFan #3). Dexter affected a voice that
finally Endemol Shine Australia. Comic legend Jack Kirby actually mimicked that of Don Addams’ character on the Get Smart TV
designed some of the elements for Drak Pack as well, including series. William Callaway, famous as Aquaman on Super Friends,
the flying blimp known as the Dredgible. played both Frankie and Howler. Alan Oppenheimer, who would
The voice actors for the series were mostly Hanna-Barbera become infamous later for voicing Master of the Universe’s Skeletor,
regulars, and most of them used voices that impersonated here gave Dracula the same kind of thick Hungarian accent

74 RETROFAN November 2021

 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Vampira, Dr. Dred, Mummyman, and Toad (IN

FOREGROUND) decend from the Dredgible as
Fly buzzes overhead. © Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Courtesy of Heritage.

(ABOVE) Detail from TV Guide ad promoting Drak

Pack and the rest of 1980’s Fall Saturday morning
CBS line-up. (LEFT) Early Dredgible design by the
legendary artist Jack Kirby. © Hanna-Barbera
Productions. Courtesy of Heritage.

that film star Bela Lugosi had in the original Dracula film. Hans
Conried, infamous as Captain Hook in Walt Disney’s Peter Pan
and Snidely Whiplash in Jay Ward’s Dudley Do-Right, again twirled
his moustache for evil purposes as Dr. Dred. Julie McWhirter
modeled Vampira’s dialogue after actress Eva Gabor, while Don
Messick’s Toad was clearly voiced as if he were bug-eyed actor
Peter Lorre. Comedian Chuck McCann rounded out the villains,
voicing the wrapping-covered Mummyman.
Although a Screen Actors Guild strike that involved voice
actors threatened productions of many projects in Hollywood
during the summer of 1980—and a few sources cite that the Fall
Saturday morning schedule was delayed from September 6th
debuts to November 8th debuts—research into TV Guide listings
and newspaper listings show that Drak Pack did indeed begin
airing its 16 episodes on September 6, 1980, sandwiched between
The All-New Popeye Hour and The New Fat Albert Show on CBS.
RETROFAN November 2021 75
 Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Although it went to a second season on CBS, no new Plunder in the “No Face” episode of
episodes were ordered, and Drak Pack had its last the series, and the pilot transporting
airing on Saturday on September 19, 1981. The series Dracula’s coffin in the movie!
then moved to Sunday mornings from September Drak Pack, meanwhile, had
20, 1981 to September 19, 1982. almost no footprint on pop-
culture history. No comics were
Monstrous Legacy produced, nor any licensing of any
Although the series was only on the air for a short kind, despite the two-year run.
time, Monster Squad was ideal for merchandising, Drak Pack: The Complete Series was
and several companies planned and/or released eventually released on DVD by VEI
toys. These included a small version of the Monster and Millennium Entertainment on
Van for Ideal’s Micro Mighty Mo line, though an September 6, 2011.
eight-inch Mego-sized line of dolls and a larger van Today, team-ups between
from the same company were cancelled before monsters and shared universes
production. Milton Bradley offered a board game, are common in comics, film, and
HG Toys released a puzzle, Rand McNally published television, with occasional monster
a Monster Squad coloring book, GLJ Toys sold a Frank mash-ups in animation as well.
bop bag, and Collegeville put out costumes for Universal created a syndicated
Dracula and Wolfman. animated series called Monster Force
© Hanna-Barbera Productions.
With almost no syndication of any of the in 1994. Showtime’s 2014 series
D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions shows, a deal to release Penny Dreadful brought together many horror trope characters,
Monster Squad and the others on DVD through BCI Eclipse was as did both the British and American versions of Being Human.
discussed—your author here would have produced the sets—but The CGI-animated Hotel Transylvania film and resultant TV series
it was contingent on a deal that would have included getting the showcased the descendants of the monsters just as Drak Pack
Batman TV release rights. Instead, Monster Squad had to wait until had. The Underworld film series, and projects like Buffy the Vampire
June 23, 2009, when Virgil Films and Entertainment released the Slayer and True Blood couldn’t have existed—and thrived —
312-minute DVD set, Monster Squad: The Complete Series. without the jumbling together of horror icons.
Today, the mention of Monster Squad is more likely to evoke Monster Squad and Drak Pack may be mostly forgotten pieces
memories of the August 1987 TriStar feature film The Monster in the monster mash history, but they were indelibly a part of
Squad, which was also a commercial our collective spooky Saturday morning
failure, but has since become a cult memories.
classic. That film featured a preteen FA ST FAC TS
group of kids known as the “Monster Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection
Squad” who face down a group of of Andy Mangels, unless otherwise credited.
villains led by Count Dracula. Despite
Drak Pack
the name and conceit of a group of ` No. of seasons: Two ANDY MANGELS
monsters, the two Monster Squads do ` No. of episodes: 16 (second season is the USA Today
share one other element in common: all reruns) bestselling author
actor David Proval played henchman ` Original run: September 6, and co-author of
1980–September 19, 1982 (CBS, 20 books, including
Saturdays and Sundays) the TwoMorrows
book Lou Scheimer:
Primary Voice Performer Creating the Filmation Generation, as
Cast well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes,
` Jerry Dexter: Drak, Jr. Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a
` William Callaway: Frankie, lot of comic books. He recently wrote the
Howler bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the
` Alan Oppenheimer: Count Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and
Dracula, a.k.a. “Big D” DC Comics, and has written six Fractured
© D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen Productions.

` Hans Conried: Dr. Dred
` Don Messick: Toad, Fly, Additional
Voices
` Chuck McCann: Mummyman,
Additional Voices
` Julie McWhirter (Dees): Vampira
` Marian Zajac: Additional Voices
` John Stephenson: Narrator
Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior
High audiences, for Abdo Books in 2021.
He is currently working on a book about
the stage productions of Stephen King
and other projects. 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

76 RETROFAN November 2021

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I received the latest issue [#13] and just read
the interview with Mark Goddard. What an
interesting fellow! I really enjoyed hearing
his take on work and life, and I feel like I
encountered a kindred spirit when he talked
about his work as an educator. Since that is my
profession, and I’ve always been drawn to the
“underdog,” I was particularly moved by his
comments. I’m always excited when the new
issue arrives. Thanks for keeping retro current!
TERRY HANEY
WOW! Another awesome issue of RetroFan!
Loved the double interviews of Mark
Goddard and Marta Kristen. I wanna see
that Jupiter Experience side show. I bet
they don’t have what I have, an original TV
Guide from 1965 with Guy Williams and June
Lockhart on the cover, and a complete set of
the 1967 Lost in Space View-Master slides. Also
loved the articles on Blue Falcon and Dynomutt,
Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane, The Twilight Zone,
and Who Created Archie Andrews?
Attached are my personal autographed
photos of Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen.
CHRIS KRIEG
Receiving RetroFan magazine is always a big
event in our house! Read ’em, save ’em, and
read ’em all over again! Keepers, one and all!
Thank you for a FANTASTIC magazine!!
BILL SMITH
To start off I would just like to say I love the
magazine and have bought every issue and
recently started up a subscription.
I really enjoyed the article “Misty Regions,”
on anthology television series of the Sixties,
in issue #13. I even found a few I didn’t know
existed that I will definitely track down. I
consider The Twilight Zone the best television
show of all time, so it’s always great reading up
on it and learning something new.
I did, however, notice an error on page 18
in the caption regarding my favorite episode,
“To Serve Man.” The late, great Richard
Kiel actually portrayed the Kanamit, not
78 RETROFAN November 2021
© CBS
Ted Cassidy. Richard Kiel is probably most
remembered as “Jaws” from the Roger Moore
James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and
Moonraker.
I always look forward to the next issue, so
keep up the excellent work!
JASON ROBINSON
D’oh! How could I have missed that?? Not only
is “To Serve Man” my favorite Twilight Zone
episode, too, but The Spy Who Loved Me is my
favorite Roger Moore Bond film, partially
because of the menace of Richard Kiel’s Jaws
(to which I’ve given a nod in my “Jawsmania”
RetroFad column this issue). And back in
issue #14 I penned the “Keeping Up with the
Cassidys” guide in our lettercol in response
to a different writer confusing Jack and Ted
Cassidy. Everyone involved is embarrassed
over this goof. Thanks for pointing it out,
Jason, for the record.
I really enjoyed the San Diego Zoo article and
am looking forward to Part Two, especially
the Zooarama coverage. I have never seen an
episode, but it was hosted by the late San
Diego treasure, Bob Dale, and more Bob is
always good. Finally, if it didn’t find its way into
Part Two, could you see if Scott Shaw! has any
stories about his father, as head of security,
versus Ken Allen, the Zoo’s very intelligent
orangutan with a real gift for escaping his
enclosures, including a brand new “escape
proof” enclosure, in a matter of hours.
DOUG ABRAMSON
Ken Allen definitely got a spotlight in issue
#14’s Part Two, Doug!
My first subscription issue of RetroFan arrived
this week! I’m impressed with your durable
packaging.
As always, I enjoyed the entire issue. But
the standout piece for me was easily the
interviews with Mark Goddard and Marta
Kristen. I was, and still am, a huge Lost in Space
fan. LIS may have its detractors, and it has been
unfairly compared to Star Trek simply because
they were both science-fiction programs of
the same era (and I would point out that not
everything Star Trek produced was pure gold;
“Spock’s Brain,” anyone?). But even as a kid,
I recognized the appeal of LIS, which both
interviewed cast members mentioned. It was
about family. The show could have been about
one lone astronaut lost in space and it would
have been very different. I recognized the
family dynamics at work. I saw kids relating
with their loving parents. That they were
fighting aliens and meteor showers and that
ever-present quicksand pit was just an overlay
to the heart of the show, that family bond.
Many years ago I had the opportunity
to meet Mark Goddard at a convention. He
was (and judging from the interview, still
is) a genuinely sincere man, appreciative of
his fans. Since he was the first celebrity I’d
ever talked to, I was starstruck and couldn’t
think of anything to say. So, if you read this,
Mr. Goddard and Ms. Kristen, know that
you both were part of a show that influenced
me and ignited the imagination of a kid in ways
you’d never believe. I’m sincerely grateful to
you. Thank you.
I also enjoyed the retrospective on sci-fi TV
anthologies. One picture pulled a name out of
my memory. I remembered seeing the name
Janos Prohaska involved in many of my favorite
shows, and I regarded him as the “go-to” guy
for monster portrayals. Is there any chance of
seeing an article highlighting his career? I’ll bet
he was a man with a lot of interesting stories.
MICHAL JACOT
No Prohaska plans for RetroFan, Michal…
but if any of our columnists are interested in
writing about him, they’ll let me know.
This email is in response to J. Howard Boyd’s
call for help regarding the “Pizza Death” song.
He says he “definitely” remembers Erin Moran,
Scott Baio, and Marion Ross on a “Fifties”
nostalgia special.
Sadly, his memory is incorrect. The song
was “performed” in 1976 on the short-lived
TV series The Rich Little Show. This show aired
on NBC. The guests on this episode were
Tom Bosley (who “narrated” the song) and
three Sweathogs from Welcome Back, Kotter. I
remember Ron “Horshack” Palillo was one of
the three Sweathogs who sang the song. I can’t
remember which Sweathog was missing.
No Erin Moran, no Scott Baio, no Marion
Ross. The reason I remember this pretty well is
because I used my tape recorder to record the
song, which I believe I still have!
Incidentally, The Rich Little Show was
released on DVD and is available through
Amazon. Hope this clears things up!
P.S.: Boyd also writes about Folgers coffee
being “good to the last drop.” I believe that
was the tag line for Maxwell House coffee, not
Folgers.
JOHN HOWARTH
Thanks for your letter, John. You’re right
about the coffee commercial taglines: Maxwell
House is “good to the last drop,” while “the best
part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”
 Your reply to Howard Boyd’s query led
me to run a web search on “Pizza Death.”
A YouTube video clip of the song was once
posted but presumably removed for copyright
violations (although it should be available
on the Rich Little Show DVD box set you
mentioned). The missing Sweathog in that
sketch was apparently Vinnie Barbarino, or
breakout star John Travolta, as Welcome Back,
Kotter online fan sites cite Lawrence Hilton-
Jacobs and Robert Hegyes as being in the skit.
Which reminds me… We’ve really got to
do a Welcome Back, Kotter feature here in
RetroFan…
Just read my copy of #13 today and was very
impressed with everything inside. Outstanding
stuff! Usually if an article mentions any sort
of radio program I’ll probably have something
from it. I’m sharing this photo of the back cover
of a Bob Crane album [the 1962 LP Laffter Sweet
and Profane] I have from his radio days… the
record was entertaining!
© CBS
I met both Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen
in 2015 in Seattle at a show called the Galacticon,
which turned out to be a complete promoter’s
mess but great for fans. Half the guests
cancelled or were cancelled for lack of ticket pre-
sales and no local advertising to promote the
location or remaining guests, which meant that
only a few hundred fans attended this two-day
show. The guests were bored, but that meant
lots of one-on-one time with them for the fans,
like with me [see photo below]!
In reference to Rod Serling: In 1973–1974 he
created a radio show called Zero Hour, in which
he narrates in the Twilight Zone style. It was at
first very well received, so much so that CBS
created its own radio show which more people
may recognize, The CBS Radio Mystery, created
by Himan Brown (Inner Sanctum creator—
thus, the same creaking door intro), which
ran from 1974–1982. A sample of Zero Hour
was posted on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/
watch?v=OHRSm-8urzU.
Will Murray’s Archie article was impressive!
He had contacted me in reference to it and did
a very thorough job of researching. It’s among
the best Archie history summaries I’ve seen to
date. One little correction, though: Harry Lucey
was Betty Tokar’s brother-in-law, not brother.
SHAUN CLANCY
Thanks for the photos and the Archie
correction, Shaun. RetroFans, Mr. Clancy—
who brought us issue #8’s interview with June
Lockhart—will be back next issue with an
interview with actor Tommy Cook, promoter
of the Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs “Battle
of the Sexes” tennis match!
Had to laugh when you covered lava lamps. I
remember seeing and liking them, in the late
Sixties, just not to the extent of actually buying
one. It was a combination of factors. I wasn’t
much of a “swinger” at age nine, nor would I
spend $30, a fortune back then, on something
other than comic books.
Frisbees, in contrast, aren’t so time-specific.
Born a year after Wham-O introduced them,
they were always around. For me, they led
to social interaction: ringing the neighbor’s
doorbell to note it’d gone into their backyard.
Though I was far from a big Hogan’s Heroes
fan, I did enjoy the look at Bob Crane’s radio
career prior to that classic sitcom. Showed a
talent striving for bigger things and succeeding.
He was a radio celebrity but persevered until
others were interviewing him. Can’t help
thinking of his sad passing as I always pass by
the Winfield Place apartment complex, five
minutes away, on my way to the market.
Wasn’t a great follower of the horror
anthology shows of the Fifties and Sixties, even
in syndication, but enjoyed your look at them
this issue. Now, all have a certain charm: never
knowing which rising celebrity of that era
would be appearing in any given episode. Also
really enjoyed the format of your presentation:
almost more photos than text. Terrific as an
occasional way to provide an overview on a
wide array of series and performers. Where
else in 2021 am I going to see Wally Cox, Peter
Lorre, and Pat Buttram? Plus, I got to see what
Vic Perrin looked like. If he was the Outer Limits’
control voice, I believe he was also Dr. Zin on
Jonny Quest. [You are correct!—ed.]
As I suspected, the real thrill, this issue, was
the Lost in Space coverage. As to why it’s fondly
remembered and still in syndication, I think
both Mark and Marta got it correct: it was a
show from the heart and all about a family.
If nostalgia plays a role, that would only be
for the folks, like me, who caught the original
airings, not all the generations who’ve enjoyed
it since.
From the sound of it, both were somewhat
disappointed, at the time, about the comedic
direction the show took, rarely giving their
characters showcases for what they, as actors,
were capable of. But… it’s 50 years later, and
they’re still remembered, admired, and
beloved for what they contributed. How many
people can say that?
I echo a greater fondness for the first
season, where it was played far more dire and
straight. It worked better as an ensemble show
where everybody had something to contribute.
At least Mark’s character was always given
a meaningful audience identification role
as someone confrontationally outraged by
Smith’s constant betrayals.
I, too, would have enjoyed seeing Don and
Judy as a couple. Yet with no intimacy allowed,
by CBS, how was that ever going to happen? The
only demonstration of physical affection was a
brief kiss on the hand while fixing the Chariot.
Loved meeting the both of them at
conventions and, more recently, seeing them,
in character, on the Lost in Space BluRay, for a
table reading of a final resolution script.
If they didn’t realize what the show meant
to people during the original run, they must
surely know by now.
Finally, the accompanying two-page Jupiter
Experience was reason enough to break out
the magnifying glass and explore all the visuals
up close. The cast dummies in velour were fun;
both for the ones whose likenesses seemed
fairly close (Professor Robinson and Will) and
the other extreme where the face (Maureen) or
hair (Dr. Smith) was noticeably off. Still, based
on the second season clothing, no problem
telling them apart.
The flight deck would look more real to me
if it were shooting sparks.
Loved the treasure trove of Lost in Space toys
and merchandise. Favorite shown: the gum
cards. It had photos, which I really wanted to
see and own. I remember the Aurora models,
the board game, and the Remco Robot. Almost
bought it for the first season cast color shot
on the box. My favorite commemorative item,
back then, was the View-Master slides from
“Condemned of Space.” Now my favorites
are the episodes themselves and the various
soundtrack releases of the many episode
scores (some by Johnny Williams). If I’d known
I’d have all this, as an adult, able to watch and
listen to it anytime, it wouldn’t have been quite
so traumatic to miss an episode in 1965.
Anyway, thank you profusely for the cover-
featured Lost in Space cast members. Hope
you’ll get Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright
for an upcoming issue, as well. Even Jonathan
Harris’ son or Guy Williams’ two children to
chat about their parents. All very much of
continued fascination.
JOE FRANK
Tell your friends about us, and share your
comments about this issue by writing me at
euryman@gmail.com.
MICHAEL EURY
Editor-in-Chief
RETROFAN November 2021 79
 ReJECTED!

Just keep telling yourself, "This isn’t a real cover... this isn’t real a real cover..."

by Scott Saavedra

Signed by
the Star of
JAWS!

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#12

80 RETROFAN November 2021

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teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on KING KULL, and more! With commentary by NEAL ADAMS,
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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #80 is a double-size
book titled “Old Gods & New”, documenting
the genesis of Kirby’s FOURTH WORLD series,
his use of gods in THOR and other strips prior to the Fourth World, how those influenced his DC epic, and affected later series like
THE ETERNALS and CAPTAIN VICTORY. To commemorate this landmark publication, TwoMorrows is offering both a
SOFTCOVER EDITION, and a LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION (just 400 copies), only available directly from the
publisher! By JOHN MORROW, with contributions by JON B. COOKE.
(160-page full-color LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION) $35.95 • (Std. trade paperback) $26.95
(Digital Edition) $12.99 • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4 • NOW SHIPPING!

CBA BULLPEN: The Magic Is Back!

COLLECTING THE UNKNOWN
ISSUES OF COMIC BOOK ARTIST!
COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN collects all seven issues of the
little-seen labor of love fanzine published in the early 2000s by JON
B. COOKE (editor of today’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine),
just after the original CBA ended its TwoMorrows run. Featured are
in-depth interviews with some of comics’ major league players, includ-
ing GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY BEATTY, and FRANK
BOLLE—and an amazing all-star tribute to Silver Age great JACK ABEL
by the Marvel Comics Bullpen and others. That previously unpublished
all-comics Abel appreciation (assembled by RICK PARKER) includes
strips by JOE KUBERT, WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE
SEVERIN, GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many
more! Includes the never-released CBA BULLPEN #7, a new bonus feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown
1960 baseball card art, and a 16-page full-color section, all behind a KIRBY COVER!
(176-page TRADE PAPERBACK with COLOR) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.99
ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 • NOW SHIPPING!
 New Comics Magazines!

ALTER EGO #171
PAUL GUSTAVSON—Golden Age artist
of The Angel, Fantom of the Fair, Arrow,
Human Bomb, Jester, Plastic Man, Alias the
Spider, Quicksilver, Rusty Ryan, Midnight,
and others—is remembered by son
TERRY GUSTAFSON, who talks in-depth
to RICHARD ARNDT. Lots of lush comic
art from Centaur, Timely, and (especially)
Quality! Plus—FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT,
JOHN BROOME, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
ALTER EGO #172
ALFREDO ALCALA is celebrated for his
dreamscape work on Savage Sword of
Conan and other work for Marvel, DC,
and Warren, as well as his own barbarian
creation Voltar, as RICH ARNDT interviews
his sons Alfred and Christian! Also: FCA
(Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL
T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt,
PETER NORMANTON’s horror history From
The Tomb, JOHN BROOME, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2021
ALTER EGO #173
BLACK HEROES IN U.S. COMICS!
Awesome overview by BARRY PEARL,
from Voodah to Black Panther and beyond!
Interview with DR. WILLIAM FOSTER
III (author of Looking for a Face Like
Mine!), art/artifacts by BAKER, GRAHAM,
McDUFFIE, COWAN, GREENE, HERRIMAN,
JONES, ORMES, STELFREEZE, BARREAUX,
STONER—plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT,
and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2021
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #26
Career-spanning interview with TERRY
DODSON, and Terry’s wife (and go-to
inker) RACHEL DODSON! Plus 1970s/’80s
portfolio producer SAL QUARTUCCIO talks
about his achievements with Phase and Hot
Stuf’, R. CRUMB and DENIS KITCHEN dis-
cuss the history of underground comix char-
acter Pro Junior, WILL EISNER’s Valentines
to his wife, HEMBECK, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27
Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective by
GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself,
VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM
TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus
a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT
discusses his career as underground comix
retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher
of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and
mail-order bookseller; our regular colum-
nists, and the latest from HEMBECK!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Winter 2022

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

KIRBY COLLECTOR #81
“KIRBY: BETA!” Jack’s experimental ideas,
characters, and series (Fighting American,
Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby
interview, inspirations for his many “secret
societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda),
non-superhero genres he explored, 2019
Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER,
MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND
HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED
JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2021
KIRBY COLLECTOR #82
“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!”
From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit
Kirby’s work from World War II, the
Fourth World, and hidden worlds of
Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria,
Atlantis, the Microverse, and others! Plus,
a 2021 Kirby panel, featuring JONATHAN
ROSS, NEIL GAIMAN, & MARK EVANIER,
a Kirby pencil art gallery from MACHINE
MAN, 2001, DEVIL DINOSAUR, & more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Winter 2022
BACK ISSUE #131
THE KIRBY LEGACY AT DC! Explores Jack
Kirby’s post-Fourth World Bronze Age DC
characters! Demon, Kamandi, OMAC,
Sandman, and Kirby’s Odd Jobs (Atlas,
Manhunter, and more). Plus: the SIMON
& KIRBY Reunion That Wasn’t! Featuring
BISSETTE, BYRNE, CONWAY, GIBBONS,
GOLDEN, GRANT, RUCKA, SEMEIKS,
THOMAS, TIMM, WAGNER, and more.
Demon cover by KIRBY and MIKE ROYER!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!
BACK ISSUE #132
1980s MARVEL LIMITED SERIES!
CLAREMONT/MILLER’s Wolverine, Black
Panther, Falcon, Punisher, Machine Man,
Iceman, Magik, Fantastic Four vs. X-Men,
Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., Wolfpack, and
more! With BOGDANOVE, COWAN,
DeFALCO, DeMATTEIS, GRANT, HAMA,
MILGROM, NEARY, SMITH, WINDSOR-
SMITH, and more. Cover by JOE
RUBINSTEIN. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Nov. 2021
BACK ISSUE #133
STARMEN ISSUE, headlined by JAMES
ROBINSON and TONY HARRIS’s
Jack Knight Starman! Plus: The Star-
Spangled Kid, Starjammers, the 1980s
Starman, and Starstruck! Featuring DAVE
COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, ROBERT
GREENBERGER, ELAINE LEE, TOM LYLE,
MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA, ROGER STERN,
ROY THOMAS, and more. Jack Knight
Starman cover by TONY HARRIS.
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95
(Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Jan. 2022

SUBSCRIPTION RATES ECONOMY US EXPEDITED US PREMIUM US INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ONLY

Alter Ego (Six issues) $68 $80 $87 $103 $27
Back Issue (Eight issues) $90 $103 $113 $137 $36
2021

BrickJournal (Six issues) $68 $80 $87 $103 $27

Comic Book Creator (Four issues) $46 $56 $60 $69 $18
Jack Kirby Collector (Four issues) $49 $59 $63 $72 $18
RetroFan (Six issues) $68 $80 $87 $103 $27

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