Comedian Caricatures in Batman

Here's a panel from an early 1940's BATMAN mystery in DETECTIVE COMICS in which the storyline features thinly disguised versions of famous movie and radio comedians being menaced by an unknown stalker! From left to right the REAL folks would be Eddie (Banjo Eyes) Cantor, W. C. Fields, Jack Benny, Fred Allen and...hmmm...Buster Keaton?

More substantial posts return in a few days so stay tuned!

Bob Hope Ad

Just finishing up a Bob Hope movie on TCM that I'd never seen before--RHYTHM ROMANCE. Long since retitled on television from its original SOME LIKE IT HOT ( for obvious reasons). It's short, fast-paced, funny and with a bunch of swell familiar character actors like Rufe Davis and hometown girl Una Merkel. For some reason, though, it reminded me of THE ADVENTURES OF BOB HOPE comic book that DC published for nearly two decades. That brought to mind this mid-sixties ad for same and made me wonder if they had to pay Bob extra for having his cartoon doppelganger plug the comic in the ad! Although it wouldn't surprise me to find out he'd never read a single issue, Hope reportedly kept a mint condition set!

Missing William Shatner

Not much to say about today’s book-off-the shelf mainly because it’s in German and I don’t read German. As a big STAR TREK fan, however, whose early internet excursions were often to TREK sites, I couldn’t let this 1997 guidebook pass.
It also, however, serves to illustrate the story of my near-miss of meeting William Shatner this past week. Yep, while I was off work last Tuesday and up way too early watching THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE on a Classic TREK rerun, little did I realize that Captain Kirk was boldly going to turn up at my job that day.
Sad to say, reports are that "the Shat" lived up to his reputation. Through the magic of security cams, I was able to see his brief "visit" in which he seemed to stay only until he was recognized. One employee followed him out and asked if she could ask him for his autograph and he reportedly replied, "If you must." He reluctantly signed after requesting the employee to block him so others wouldn’t see. A second employee came out and he refused to sign any more…politely, I’m told.
On the security cam, he was seen to be wearing an outrageously loud Hawaiian type shirt with a matching floppy hat—not exactly the kind of thing you wear if you don’t want to be noticed.
I had one friend who once told me that Shatner was amazingly nice to her and showed me a twenty minute video of her encounter as shot by her sister. I pointed out that of course he WOULD be nice to her cuz’ she was getting it all on tape!!!!
Over the decades I’ve met George Takai, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, DeForrest Kelly, James Doohan, and most of the STTNG cast and every one of them has been just wonderful.
In recent months, some of the celebs who’ve wandered through my store include Mary Matalin (very nice), Tony Shaloub (very tired but friendly), Ron Jeremy (impressive as all get out), Nick Lachey (extremely friendly) and Vanessa Manillo (a little curt but very pretty!) so I can’t complain that I’m never there when the famous folk wander through. Still, I know William Shatner’s not into all the fan worship so I doubt I would’ve expected anything else. Would have been nice to have seen one of my long-time heroes, though, if only for a second.

Jerry Lewis and the Price of Gas

$19.50 for 50 gallons!!?? WOW!! But then...you had to put up with nebbishes like that guy at so-called "service" stations. Still, I paid $33.00 for gas the other day and it barely got my tank half full. Low prices might be worth the nebbish cost. Nostalgia...as they say...isn't what it used to be.

Trailers

Trailers. Sometimes all the nostalgia you need is in the movie trailers. You don’t really need to see the whole film. Just the preview. Maybe that’s why I so enjoyed the eighties trend of taking old movie trailers (many of which no one bothered to copyright) and doing VHS compilations on certain themes. They were cheap and often poorly recorded but they were fun damn it! As I say, they were often even more fun than sitting down and watching hours and hours of the movies themeselves!
Seen here are JERRY LEWIS AT THE MOVIES, DRACULA IN THE MOVIES, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO IN THE MOVIES and MONSTER MANIA. Also in the collection here are trailer compilations from James Bond films, Bowery Boys films, the CARRY ON series, Godzilla films (in the original Japanese!) and a surprisingly dull collection from late sixties/early seventies adult films. For the most part these were usually under-the-radar bargain bin items that you were lucky to find at all but they usually were actual releases, not just somebody’s mail order dubs.
I recently saw a couple of new grindhouse trailer compilations on DVD in stores so maybe the trend is coming back! I’d love to see MGM musicals, Doris Day films, Hitchcock pictures, spaghetti westerns, Cary Grant films, Bob Hope comedies and Disney trailers! Wow! The possibilities are endless and the entertainment value high. Not only that, if you work it right these collections could still be used to sell the actual pictures themselves on disc!

Sword and Sorcery Mystery!

Mark Evanier always says that whenever he has a question all he has to do is post about it on his site and the answers pour in immediately. Well, I don't have his readership but I know I can count on you guys! Loyal reader (I'm not worthy!) Robby Reed of DIAL B for BLOG - THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMIC BLOGAZINE, is looking to identify the book cover for which this picture was shot as reference. If you know right off the top of your head, please post the answer. If not, please feel free to repost on your own blogs until we find someone who does!

Here's what we know:

The girl is Chris Noel, a 1960's starlet and later a favorite with our boys overseas. IMDB says she was born in 1941. By the mid-'60's she was working steadily in film and TV so that would seem to date this to the early part of the decade. Hard to tell as she played one for so long but she could still be a real teenager here.

The man is Steve Holland, TV's FLASH GORDON in the early fifties and later a successful male model for many years known best as James Bama's model for DOC SAVAGE in the sixties/seventies ( and even eighties by other artists) reprints. Holland continued modeling for romances, westerns and sci-fi covers until not long before his 1997 death and always looked good but here he looks like he probably would have in the late fifties/early sixties.

Obviously, it has a sword and sorcery feel but outside of CONAN, the real heyday of that type of paperback was in the early seventies. This definitely looks to predate that by at least a decade. Note, though, that it could concievably be for a romance cover!

I've scoured through old MEDIASCENES, sci-fi histories and mass market paperback cover collections as well as sites on Holland, S & S and various cover artists to no avail. I've got a bad toothache and I have to return to work at 4:30 AM so I thought I'd throw the ball to you guys! Have fun!

Would You Believe...?

As GET SMART—in spite of lukewarm reviews—proves itself a comedy hit this summer, let’s revisit the era of the original TV series (as we often do around here). Just how popular was GET SMART in the mid-sixties? Well, it may not have been as popular as BATMAN but it was enough to spawn this undoubtedly unofficial spin-off—"Would You Believe…? Cards." Exploiting one of Max’s (and Don Adams’) signature bits, here we have someone attempting to make a quick buck off of GET SMART without having to license a darn thing! Of course, nowadays, Don could have probably sued for intellectual property theft.