The World-Color It Happy-1967

Now here's a fascinating oddity. It's the opening credits to an unsold and apparently unaired 1967 Hanna-Barbera pilot that seems designed as that studio's answer to WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR. There's lots of interesting stuff here including Joe and Bill themselves in animated form (with Hanna voiced by VIC & SADE's Bill Idelson!), JETSONS sound effects, a pretty good Burt Bacharach/Hal David theme song sung by Jack Jones, writing credits that include Chuck Jones' favorite collaborator Michael Maltese along with Woody Allen(!) and my own old friend from the Radio Cons, Ezra Stone (who also apparently directed a segment with Woody). Quite frankly, the whole thing looks like it might have been similar to the later BANANA SPLITS with its different segments and mix of live-action and animation but I'd still love to see the rest of it!

Vigilante

After a healthy run in ACTION COMICS and a late 1940's movie serial, the DC cowboy hero THE VIGILANTE disappeared for a couple of decades. He turned up again in reprinted stories in the early seventies, got an all-new Gray Morrow strip, was "revived" with the Seven Soldiers of Victory in JLA, had a new "modernized" version introduced and has gone on (back in his original icarnation) to appear in several of the recent DCU cartoon series. Here are a couple of full pages of THE VIGILANTE from his heyday--a pinup by his main artist, Mort Meskin and a plug for the Ralph Byrd movie serial.

The Sword of Shannara by Gray Morrow-Part 6 (The Conclusion)

Batman In-Joke?

I love finding in-jokes in old Comic books like the villain in an old PLASTIC MAN being "Eloc" which, spelled backwards, is Cole...as in the series creator Jack Cole. Or the sign in an old GIANT-MAN that says "Ayers Oil Company" as in the artist Dick Ayers. Or as in all those early seventies Spider-Man stories where you can spot portions of "backgrounds by (Tony) Mortellero" in nearly every Romita-drawn issue.

Here, from the BATMAN strip in a 1942 WORLD'S FINEST, is a throwaway reference to the GR Hotel. It's widely known that artist George "Inky" Roussos was an assistant on BATMAN during the early forties. How much you wanna bet he did the backgrounds here and threw that in as his little signature?

Colin Baker Signing-2007

He wasn't my favorite Doctor but I always blamed that on the scripts he was presented with and some idiot's behind the scenes decision to give his Doctor a bad disposition. In interviews at the time and since, as well as in his various returns to the role, Colin Baker has shown a real love and understanding of the character and his world.

Worzel Gummidge Titles

When Doctor number three, Jon Pertwee, died, he was eulogized as much for his role as the old scarecrow Worzel Gummidge as he was for his role as the dandy time-lord of the seventies. The children's series never aired in the US as far as I know but ran for a number of series in the UK and, I believe, at least one in Australia.

Billie Piper-The Walk of Life

Sixteen year old Billie Piper was the Britney Spears of England until Rose Tyler met the Doctor. Here's one of her better songs done live on the long-running TOP OF THE POPS.