THE NEW THREE STOOGES CARTOON - MUMMIES BOYS

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

R. I. P JACK DAVIS

You may not recognize the name, but you will recognize the artwork. Mad magazine and TV Guide covers, print ads for the TV show Cheers, Sesame Street children's books, covers for several country artist (he must have been a favorite of Homer & Jethro), the famous "giant Frankenstein Monster poster" that was advertised in comic books of the 60s & 70s, the designs for Mad Monster Party and the Jackson 5 cartoon and the Man From UNCLE lunchbox. Jack Davis was everywhere.

MUHAMMAD ALI: SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON STAR

As the news of the death of Muhammad Ali spreads across the world, I thought it would be a good time to remember that in the 1970s, Ali was everywhere, including Saturday morning cartoons. NBC aired the animated show, I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali.

The show featured Ali, his niece, Nicki, and nephew, Damion, traveling the world with trainer or manager, Frank. They frequently had to solve mysteries. Once Ali had to go to outer space.

Here is a complete episode I found on YouTube.

R.I.P PAT HARRINGTON JUNIOR

I made a Father's Day post feature the fathers of famous "junior." I was never able to find a photo of Pat Harrington Senior, who was an Irish tenor, just like Morton Downey Senior.

Anyway here is one of my favorite role of Pat Harrington Jr. The phone company representative from The President's Analyst. Did you know he was also the voice of the Atom on the Aquaman cartoon show and the voice of Inspector Clouseau on the Pink Panther cartoon?

MERRY DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS!

I believe this is the work of future Archie artist Dan DeCarlo.

MONSTERS LAUGHING GIF

This is from a Mickey Mouse cartoon of the 30s. It is Dracula, Mr. Hyde and the Frankenstein Monster.

Van Beuren's Magic Mummy Cartoon

I've said on this blog before that the Van Beuren Studios made some of the worst cartoons ever. This is one of the few good ones.

I mentioned on an earlier post about Van Beuren's Milton Mouse that got them a lawsuit from Walt Disney. This is Van Beuren's ripoff of the popular Mutt & Jeff comic strip and cartoon characters named Tom & Jerry. These cartoons have been used in many budget compilations of cartoons because they are in public domain and they have the same name as the more popular cat & mouse team from MGM.

This has a Phantom of the Opera type character and dancing skeletons. The mummy is more of a Goth chick/zombie, who sings in a Betty Boop-like voice. Oh yeah, also Tom & Jerry are cops at a gay precient. There are two singing cops wearing eye shadow and lipstick. The other cops spend their time dancing with the jails inmates. Enjoy this bit of strangeness.
   

SPOOKY EARLY DISNEY CARTOON 2: Mickey Mouse in The Mad Doctor

FOUR MONSTERS DANCE

From a 1938 Warner Brothers cartoon called "Have You Any Castles?" In it books come to life. Here Mr. Hyde, Fu Manchu, the Phantom of the Opera and the Frankenstein monster do a silly dance.

R. I. P STAN FREBERG

Wow! I did not know this existed. I'm going to have to look into the origin of this stop-motion animation version of  Stan Freberg's "St. George." At any rate, the audio is the original Capitol record. I hope to dedicate a whole post to Freberg in the future.

IS MR. SPOCK THE GREATEST TV CHARACTER EVER?

What was it about Mr. Spock that captured the hearts and imagination of millions around the world? I'm not sure you would call him cool. He wasn't the streetwise kind of cool like the Fonz or Vinnie Barbarino, nor was he that slick, charming kind of cool like Napoleon Solo, but he was cool in a way that was different. He was smart and philosophical than everyone else on the Enterprise, so you might say that made him a nerd or a nerd's ideal. Let's face it, there were a lot of other things that made Mr. Spock popular. Even though he exist in an idealized future, his life, like ours, isn't perfect.

Yes, he was smart, had superhuman strength (which he rarely used), mind reading abilities, a self-defense technique that renders people unconscious, and didn't have emotions to weigh him down, but he wasn't good looking with those bangs, greenish complexion,  the windshield-wiper eyebrows and, of course, the pointed ears. He was the hero for those who weren't good looking. Mr. Spock was the epitome of the person who stood out in a crowd.

You might say, Mr. Spock didn't fit in with his other crew mates. He was in the shadow of the dashing, heroic and good looking Captain Kirk, who you might say was sort of the jock to Mr. Spock's nerd. If Spock was a nerd, you can continue using junior high and middle school archetypes by pointing out that McCoy was the redneck who was always picking on people. He constantly harassed Spock about his green blood.

Add to this another thing about the Mr. Spock character he was multiracial. We found out during the course of the show that Mr. Spock was the child of a Vulcan father and an Earthling mother. Since he wasn't full blooded of either kind, he also didn't fit in with other children on the planet Vulcan, as was shown in the animated series.

This week in 1967, NBC aired one of the first episodes to give us an insight into Mr. Spock, "This Side of Paradise." Granted, they were tidbits thrown out through dialog in a story in which Spock is reunited with a beautiful female colleague named Leila (played by Jill Ireland, who looks like my old flame, Eunice Moneymaker), who had a major crush on him. Spock, of course, paid no attention to her because love is "a human emotion."

The landing party is supposed to evacuate the people on this communal planet, due to a radiation contamination, however, they don't want to go because they are "happy" and "healthy." It turns they are under the influence of strange plants that spray spores causing a euphoria. When Mr. Spock is sprayed with by one of the plants (which looks like a plant called caster beans that my Grandpa Jones planted around his garden to keep moles out), he not only notices how beautiful Leila is, but also notices clouds and rainbows. "Before today, I could tell you how they form in the sky, but until now I never noticed how beautiful they look." He is very close to singing "Both Sides Now."  Mr. Spock also begins defying Captain Kirk's orders and climbing trees.

Besides seeing that Mr. Spock is awkward at love, we find out in this episode about his parents, and he has super strength. Captain Kirk finds that the spores are counteracted by anger. He brings Mr. Spock back to normal by angering him to the point of violence with some rather vicious insults about his looks (Mystery Science Theater 3000 opened one show with a parody of this episode). This and "Amok Time" are the quintessential Spock episodes.

Almost as soon as Star Trek debuted, Mr. Spock became a fascination with people. 93 KHJ Boss radio in Los Angeles ran a Star Trek contest, where the winner got to meet Leonard Nimoy on the set of Star Trek (See the above KHJ Boss 30 Countdown flyer). Cheer Laundry Detergent altered a future man character (played by Robert Rodan, who played Adam on Dark Shadows) to look like Mr. Spock.

 


I noticed on many comments on retro blogs, social and news media websites after the death of Leonard Nimoy that many people said they had a Mr. Spock toy, t-shirt, pajamas, or Halloween costume. Matter of fact, when I was six years old, I was Mr. Spock for Halloween. I made the costume, although none of the stores in Lebanon or Springfield sold the pointed ears, so I had to make due with some "giant" plastic ears. I also had a pair of tube socks with Mr. Spock's picture on them.

I even had this Star Trek coloring book with Mr. Spock wearing a red shirt on the cover. Don't worry, he survived the coloring book.

I think kids gravitated toward Mr. Spock over the other characters because he was the different one. They could be a Captain Kirk or a Dr. McCoy, but Mr. Spock was something they couldn't be...a highly intelligent being from another planet, who was one of the good guys.

Mr. Spock is probably the most complex characters ever created for TV. While he prides himself on being emotionless, he is far from being one-dimensional and boring. Bravo ranked him 21st on their list of 100 Greatest TV characters ever and TV Guide ranked him sixth on their list of 50 greatest TV characters. Personally, Mr. Spock is the greatest TV character ever. Live long and prosper.   


 

R.I.P GARY OWENS

THE ONLY CUTE SCARECROW THING I'LL EVER POST

I'd Love to Take Orders from You (5.25.36) by CarlStallingEnthusiast

I have made it known that I don't like "cute scarecrows" for Halloween decorations. I prefer horror themes, but this cartoon about a cute scarecrow made me smile. The man doing the voice of the father scarecrow used to portray a character on radio named Senator Frankenstein Fishface.

RANDOM TRIVIA & THOUGHTS ABOUT 75 YEARS OF BATMAN

Batman's first comic book appearance

July 23, 2014 has been designated Batman Day to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Batman's debut.

I first became familiar with Batman through the Superfriends TV show. As I have mentioned before, the TV show was never in reruns in this area until Me-TV came to town earlier this year. However, we did have The New Adventures of Batman cartoon of the late 70s. One local TV station did air the movie on late night TV occasionally and I did have the View Master reel of the episodes "The Purr-fect Crime /Better Luck Next Time."

I liked just about all of the superheroes but for some reason I liked Batman, probably because he doesn't have super powers. You might say Batman has a scary outfit and PLENTY OF BLING (or as the Joker said in the 1989 movie "those wonderful toys"). He didn't fly, but he had a cool car, boat, plane and helicopter

When I was nine, my parents bought me the book Batman: From the 30s to the 70s, an anthology of great Batman comic book stories. We got it at a discounted price because the dust cover was missing. Above is the dust cover art by Carmine Infantino.

ROBERT LOWERY - WORST BATMAN EVER

Of course, I have went on record saying that I disliked The Dark Knight movie. I only saw half of Batman Begins, but I liked it much better than The Dark Knight. However, my vote for worst Batman is an actor from Missouri. Robert Lowery was the second Batman First off, the costume is awful. My father made me a Batman cowl and cape out of an old dark blue and white polka doted table cloth my mom was throwing away. I looked more like Batman than Robert Lowery did. The main thing about Lowery is his lack of enthusiasm or excitement. He sounds like he is reading straight from a cue card.

Most hardcore Batman fans hate me because not only do I love the TV show, my favorite movie is the 1966 movie. ONE HINT...THE WORST IS YET TO COME!  My second favorite Batman movie is Batman and Robin starring George Clooney and my third favorite is Batman Forever with Val Kilmer. Fourth is the 1989 movie and fifth is Batman Returns. I hate the dead serious "Dark Knight" stuff. Some of you will just have to get over it!


Speaking of Batman humor!

World's Finest comics featured Batman and Superman teaming up. It also featured many of the notorious DC "Imaginary Stories." In this one Batman blames Superman for his parents death and goes after him with a vengeance. You may not be familiar with the story, but one panel of this story has become pop outside of the comic book story. Robin tells Batman he is out of control and Batman slaps him. That panel has become a popular meme on Facebook. People change the words in the balloon for various reasons. This is the original version.

THE ORIGINAL BATMAN SLAPS ROBIN PANEL

TRIVIA: What other character did Adam West and Val Kilmer both play before they played Batman? Doc Holiday. Warner Brothers tried to sell a Doc Holiday TV series with West in the staring role during the 50s Western boom. He played Doc Holiday in episodes of Lawman, Sugarfoot and Colt 45. None of the three networks showed interest. West has joked that the networks didn't think TV viewers were ready for a coughing and wheezing hero. Kilmer, of course, played Holiday in Tombstone. Another added Batman connection: In the 1939 movie, Frontier Marshal, Doc Holiday is played by future Joker Cesar Romero.

The man pictured above is Olan Soule. He was the voice of Batman in cartoons from 1968 til 1984. First in the Filmation Adventures of Batman and then on The Superfriends. After 1984, he switched to voicing Professor Stein, the mentor of Firestorm. The voice of Batman was taken over by Adam West. Soule also appeared on the TV shows Captain Midnight, Dragnet and The Andy Griffith Show. The voice of Robin was Casey Kasem.

While on the subject of Batman cartoons, let's straighten something out. Many articles, websites and reference books have claimed that the character of Bat Mite, who was played a prominent role in the 70s New Adventures of Batman cartoon series from Filmation, was created for that series. Nope! He was one of several attempts by DC to copy successful elements of the Superman comics. Bat Mite was supposed to be a good version of Superman's villain, Mr.Myxlplyx. Batman got Ace the Bat-Hound much like Superman had Krypto the Super Dog.

And yes, Batman even had to marry his nosy girl reporter, Vicky Vale, in a cover story. Bob Kane claimed he modeled Vicky after a girl he met at a Hollywood party during the filming of the first Batman serial (which featured Bruce Wayne's first girlfriend, Julie Madison) named Marilyn Monroe.

Incidentally, Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft (pictured above), who stared in the first Batman serial, are the youngest actors to play Batman and Robin. Wilson was 23 and Croft was 16. Croft and Burt Ward are the only actors to play Robin, who were in their teens (Ward was 19 when the TV show started).

No, this isn't the Joker from one of the serials. The villains in the serials were a Japanese mad scientist and a typical movie serial "hooded" mad scientist. This is the inspiration for the Joker. It is actor Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine in the 1928 silent movie, The Man Who Laughs. Batman comic writer gave this same photo to artist Jerry Robinson, who drew the version you see on the right.

Last but not least, this is a 1966 children's record of songs about Batman. It credits "Dan and Dale." In reality it is the rock group the Blues Project and experimental jazz musician Sun Ra doing the music. This was the same year Blue Project released their Projections LP.  The Who, The Kinks and Jan and Dean also recorded versions of the theme song.

Let's leave with these words of wisdom from Batman.