Now this is getting interesting. We know Superman has met Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Lucy Ricardo, the Quik Bunny, the Hulk, Predator, Orson Welles...and now, Laurel and Hardy?
Actually there's no way of knowing if this cover gag had anything to do with the story inside. Why? Because this issue, DC's LAUREL AND HARDY # 2 from around 1972, was never published! I'm not certain why at the moment. Not even sure if issue 1 ever came out. I know an advertised companion digest comic did NOT; a rights dispute most likely. Seems odd that DC would have sought out the rights at all having just recently cancelled the long-running Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis tie-ins. The art, as you can tell by the signature, was by humor artist, inker and future ARCHIE staple, Henry Scarpelli (whose son Glenn would appear in later episodes of the CBS seventies sitcom, ONE DAY AT A TIME).
Okay, here's the answer to the Human Torch mystery from yesterday. One reader got it close by suggesting ACG. Since ACG really only had two silver age heroes--Magicman and Nemesis-- it was a 50-50 shot. The answer is...NEMESIS! That's right, Nemesis (NOT the warlock one!), a clear contender for the most ridiculously clad super-doer of them all! On the one hand, he was a clone of DC's SPECTRE, an avenging spirit from beyond who revisits Earth to use his mystical powers for good. On the other hand, his arch-enemies were known to have died laughing at his hoodie and cute li'l striped short-shorts!! He had an interesting run in the early to mid-sixties, though, with quirky stories from Richard Hughes and art by Pete Costanza, Chic Stone and, as seen on this sample cover, Lou (Kirt Schaffenberger) Wahl.
By the way, if posts are erratic over the next couple of days, it's because we're having Internet/PC issues and the repair guy can't get here until late Friday. This is the first successful log-on I've had since yesterday so I thought I'd clear up the Torch mystery before possibly going AWOL for a bit! Back soon!
Here's a treat for me! OTR friend Dan Hughes posted on YouTube this abridgement of a 1996 re-creation of a LONE RANGER episode at that year's CINCINNATI OLD-TIME RADIO AND NOSTALGIA CONVENTION. This was one of the happiest of all the re-creations with which I've been involved as it was the first time I played opposite Jack Benny uber-fan, Karen Hughes. Karen, age 11 here I believe, has become an unofficial good luck charm for the Cincy Con over the years since. A very good actress, I have had the great pleasure to appear opposite her dozens of times. I have been her father, her son, her husband, a robot who replaced her husband and, even though we had no scenes together, we appeared together this past weekend yet again in RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE.
Karen's dad Dan appears at the beginning of this clip as another outlaw opposite me. (I'm the guy with the beard and a lot more hair than I have now in case you didn't know). Toward the end, you also see and hear Joel Senter who, along with his lovely wife Carolyn, got my wife and I involved in these OTR cons in the first place two decades ago. The sound effects here are done live by the late Barney Beck, a wonderful, larger than life character and one of the best sound men from the late days of OTR. At one time or another he had done the sound effects for BOB AND RAY and SUPERMAN amongst many others!
The title role of THE LONE RANGER is here played by its long-time announcer Fred Foy who had played the role in the original broadcast of this script when star Brace Beemer took ill suddenly. My wife and I were priviliged to have dinner with Mr. Foy that weekend and he spoke of all the folks he had met while also announcing the late sixties DICK CAVETT SHOW.
A couple years back, this same script was re-done at Cincinnati with both Karen and I cast in our "original roles" a decade later. Unfortunately, show business being what it is, I ended up getting bumped for Bob Hastings that time. As Bob is always a treat and I learned everything I know about radio acting from him (not that its ever likely to come up away from the annual gathering), I got past it quickly.
I had not seen any clips of this performance. I'm not bad! Thanks, Dan, for posting it and a big public thank you for bringing your family--now our extended family-- back to the convention every year since!
We all love the Human Torch, don't we? Whether the Golden Age android Torch or the FF's Johnny Storm, it's always so cool to watch him "Flame On!!" and go into fiery action against the criminals, terrorists and super-villains of the Marvel Universe! Here's a brief sequence from the Silver Age showing exactly that...or is it? I will tell you that this is NOT the Human Torch. This hero is not even a Marvel character! In fact, this isn't even the way he normally looks! Taken out of context like this, however, it's hard to tell who this hero is, isn't it? Tell you what, let's see who the first person is who knows it or can guess it! Then I'll post the rest of this page!
Here's a nice photo just received from Chitra Neogy. Longtime readers will remember that Chitra played the villainous...well...Chittra in the previously lost Christa Helm feature, LET'S GO FOR BROKE! An impressive filmmaker in her own right these days, a million years distanced from seventies schlock, Chitra is still working tirelessly to raise money for what will undoubtedly be her magnum opus, SAND SHADES. All of you independent film lovers out there, here is your chance to help finance what looks to be a truly lovely indie picture. Here we see Chitra explaining the plot. Be sure to click on the related YouTube videos or visit the SAND SHADES site at http://www.sandshades.org/to find out how YOU can be involved.
This is a subject that deserves a bit more depth and perhaps I'll get around to that some day. Perhaps I'm overstating my point, also. I don't know, though. The more I think about it the more I think that Harvey Kurtzman was THE most influential person on twentieth century pop culture. You decide:
Here's my argument that Harvey Kurtzman was the most influential figure in 20th Century pop culture
In the 1950's, Harvey Kurtzman created a series of historically accurate war comics that took an unprecedented anti-war stance. these comics were marketed to impressionable children. These children a decade later would be draft age during the Vietnam War and presumably anti-war. Thus Kurtzman influenced the growth of the sixties anti-war movement.
Also in the 1950's, Kurtzman created MAD. MAD promoted many of the so-called "sick" comics of the day and later influenced the sense of humor of several generations. It also influenced the growth of the anti-establishment movement of the sixties.
In the early 1960's, Kurtzman created HELP. HELP sought out new talent and became the first mainstream publication to print Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Jay Lynch, Joel Beck and many others of the early Underground Comix movement of the late sixties.
Kurtzman's assistant editor on HELP was Gloria Steinem. After learning how to run a magazine, she would go on to become the most prominent public figure of the women's movement in the early 1970's and the founder and editor of MS. Magazine.
Ms. Steinem's replacement as Kurtzman's assistant at HELP was a young cartoonist named Terry Gilliam. At one point, a young actor visiting New York from the UK, John Cleese, was hired for a photo feature in the mag and he and Gilliam would remain in touch, eventually co-founding Monty Python. Cleese would go on to become an elder statesman of comedy while Gilliam would become known as a controversial epic film director.
In the mid-sixties, Kurtzman and Will Elder began Little Annie Fanny at PLAYBOY, offering sexy political and social satire and, in effect, influencing every young lad who ever snuck a look at his father's dirty magazines and, in theory, making adult material more acceptable for subsequent generations.
Harvey Kurtzman also taught art and comics history, more directly influencing his students over the years.
Thus Kurtzman can arguably be given at least part of the thanks/blame for the anti-war movement and the eventual downfall of President Johnson it precipitated, the mainstreaming of the women's movement and the fight for the ERA, the anarchistic and artistic aspects of the counterculture, the changing sense of humor in America and the world and its influence on movies and television over the past few decades as well as society's gradual acceptance of adult entertainment!
