From the October 1964 Jack & Jill

Another great kids' magazine was Jack & Jill. Here is some stuff from its October 1964 issue.

 

 



 

"At My Desk" was, as you can see, reders' submissions.  A couple are about Halloween.

See you tomorrow!

Age Hath Taken Its Toll . . .

Once upon a time I built monster models from Aurora. One of the latter-day ones was their version of Bride of Frankenstein . . .



 

 

She was supposed to look like the above depictions.

Alas, wear and tear can happen to the best of intentions.  When I first got my Bride model around 1969-1970, it doubtless looked something like the lovely tableau above.

However, 40 years later, this is all that's left of her:

Yep -- no table, no lab.  Not even a left hand!

Next to her is a relic of some 1980s candy packaging.  There were little candies similar to M&Ms that were sold in clear plastic tubes (like oversized test tubes), and this mummy guy was the topper for the tube.

These two relics, along with some others I'll be sharing with you, are kept in the attic in our Halloween stuff for 11 months out of the year.

Who knows what I'll dig up next?  Tune in tomorrow and see!

An Antique Calendar

From the 1965, October issue of Golden Magazine, here's an activity calendar for October.

 

Even if the days of the week don't match 2012, it's still fun to read!

 

And check out the spooky Headless Horseman!

 

 

Note the costume advice at the top center of the bottom calendar page.  Come to think of it, I have never seen anybody dressed as a radish OR as a rocket!

See you tomorrow.

This Drink Chills Itself!

Back when I used to haunt thrift stores, I came across this thermos. However, I've never seen the lunch box that it presumably was issued along with.



 

 

Note that there is no problem with using a likeness of Glenn Strange for the Frankenstein Monster.

The Mummy really has no face.  The Phantom of the Opera is definitely Lon Chaney (Senior).

 

But who is that Dracula guy?  Count Floyd?  "Bleahh!  Scary, kiddies!" he says, complete with pointed ears.

 

The "Wolfman" -- one word here -- looks like Lon Chaney, Jr.

Stop back tomorrow to see the next fright -- or fun!

Enter Freely, and of Your Own Will . . .

 

For Day Two of Blog-o-ween, let's hearken back to pages from a 1991 Universal Monsters Coloring Book!

Notice how very carefully the art DOES NOT resemble any of the actors who played these roles.  After all, the heirs have the rights to the actors' FACES -- not to the CHARACTERS.



"Hmm," thinks Harker.  "Seems legit."

But who are these gals wandering around in Snuggies?

And why is Count Dracula challenging me to a breakdancing contest?

Perhaps, dear reader, you will find out in a few more days!  See you tomorrow!

MA-23 - Disc of Doom

WELCOME  TO  BLOG-O-WEEN . . .

Here it is, Halloween Time!  Time for Blog-o-ween, a celebration of that fun and funky time of year!

And this is this year's spooky and silly music compilation.  These are the tracks:

1)  Count Chocula Intro    13 Days of Halloween    0:40

2)Trick or Treat       Halloween       3:11
3)Have You Ever Seen?      Boss Martians     3:16
4)Spook Opera        Hawaiian Pups   2:55
5)TV Monster Show  The Munsters    2:05
6)Land of the Dead   Voltaire   1:59
7)Dracula's Deuce     Freddy & the   Four-Gone Conclusions  2:37
8)It's Spooky in Here     Baha Men     2:41
9)Green Slime The Green Slime 2:18
10)My Body's a Zombie for You Dead Man's Bones 4:30
11) Spooksville Nu-Trends 2:37
12)The Mummy Radio Ad 0:48
13)The Ballad of Vlad the Impaler Bettie Blackchurch 1:31
14)Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Matthew Sweet 3:11
15)Exorcist Theme Halloween Remix      4:59
16)I'm Gonna Scare You Sue Rose 2:39
17)The Bat Children of the Night 2:37
18)Munsters Theme (Halloween edit)  Figure 2:42
19)Return of the Living Dead Ghoultown 3:35
20)Martian Hop    Ran-Dells 1:28
21) Halloween Party Music Andrew Gold    3:04
22) The Haunt of Room 402 Wally Wingert 3:00
23)Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati Rose & The Arrangement  2:12
24) Rockin' in the Graveyard Jackie Morningstar 2:37
25) Banditos Halloween Mash Jonathan Rubinger 4:49
26) Phantom of the A-Go-Go Don  Hinson and the Rigamorticians 2:32
27) Castin' My Spell Marci Lee 2:09
28) Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Lewis    Lee  2:54
29) Werewolf Five Man Electrical    Band     3:28

Here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?5y7tknnny5ulc3l 

 

Enjoy, I hope!  And see you tomorrow for more . . . BLOG-O-WEEN!

Book Review - The Cryptoterrestrials by Mac Tonnies

            Mac Tonnies died of heart problems at the age of 34 in 2009.  It’s a great shame, because this guy could write stimulating, thoughtful questions and observations.

 

            He starts from a simple question:  What if the UFO phenomenon reported by witnesses is essentially as reported -- but (no matter what the UFOnauts say) what if they’re not from OUT THERE but from HERE on Earth?

 

            Jacques Vallee said some of the same ideas when he observed that the modern generic “alien from space” character appears to fulfill the same mythological/cultural niche as fairies and “the Good Folk” in Celtic societies -- they are The Other, able to do un-Human things, and are often not to be bothered with Human concerns, but they are definitely also native to the planet we live on.

            Similarly, in his writings, John Keel describes some of the silly, repetitive actions of UFO intelligences as appearing to simply be the latest manifestation of a supernatural race of beings that are trying to restructure man’s view of reality.  After all, we only took samples of Moon rocks over SIX Apollo voyages; UFO occupants have been witnessed doing apparently the same thing HUNDREDS OF TIMES.  (Maybe they have a bigger collectibles market?!?)

 

            But where Tonnies differs from these Great Old Men of UFO Thought is his next “what if”:  What if they are not supernatural (vide Vallee) or Ultraterrestrial (vide Keel)?  What if they are physical critters?  Think of the last Japanese World War II soldiers hiding in the jungle, not knowing the War was over -- and their worry that somebody might burn the jungle down and drive them into the open.

            If a group of such theoretical refugees in an occupied land were forced to forage in the outer world, what “cover stories” might they invent?  And if the pockets of refugees (or “leftovers” from a once-mighty civilization) had lost contact with each other, mightn’t they provide conflicting fibs?

 

            If “they” -- these elusive critters who CLAIM to be from “out there” -- were stuck here with us, this would explain the sudden warnings against global destruction and ecological disaster that arose as Man’s Atomic Age dawned.  What if these reputed “Aliens from space” are flesh-and-blood and merely possessed of a *slightly* higher rate of technology than us?  Consider our own inklings of how electronic fields can influence the brain’s perception of reality.  Or, imagine a cloud of nanoparticles capable of instant coalescence into the material objects necessary for a little “reality charade.”  Such a concept could explain the impossible aerobatics of UFOs -- they’re not solid objects UNLESS THEY CHOOSE TO BE.

 

            These Cryptoterrestrials’ role would be akin to Grandma in the backseat watching as her drunk grandson drives the family car at a high rate of speed on a mountain highway.  “Slow down before you kill us all!”

 

            And if the warning sounds more credible if relayed by a cop than if given by Granny -- what if “Granny” can (briefly) appear like a cop (to our eyes) if she wants to?

 

            Now, Tonnies posits this kind of question a lot more insightfully.  Somebody could make a much longer book by simply unpacking a few of his paragraphs.  The book is 127 pages long and was finalized by friends after Tonnies’ sudden death.  It doesn’t seem truncated at all -- it just packs a big punch into a small package.

            He also considers where “they” might be living/hiding, and why they seem to take so many different forms.  But you’ll have to find out for yourself!

 

            If you have ready access to the book through your library, grab it NOW.  I suspect that, like me, after reading it once you will then buy yourself a copy.  It is a worthwhile book for many reasons, not just for the author’s “Might They Live Here?” theory.  He also makes many simple observations about various other theoretical explanations for UFO sightings that are “wow” moments many times over.

 
            You should really read this book.

See you Monday, October 1 for the beginning of

BLOG-O-WEEN!

Book Review - Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers

 

            This book is an interesting read and has a laudable intent, to show how the producers of the Superman radio show used it as a sort of carrier-wave to transmit very basic American messages of tolerance, fear play, and the equality of all.

            However, the book falls short of my hopes in several ways.

            First, it uses “Breathless Documentary-Speak!”  Author Rick Bowers is either lazy or does not know that he writes in a voice equivalent to a Discovery Channel documentary.  Examples:  The production staff for the radio show doesn’t work in just ANY radio studio, it has “state-of-the-art” studios (page 95).  This is a worthless string of words.  That’s like saying that my dad was as tall as his height.  If the studio existed, then by its very existence it was at the state of its art for that time.  DUMB use of words.

            In another example of maybe thoughtless word-association, Bowers is talking about kids’ fan letters to the radio program, using the Superman Code given out to listeners.  The show’s sponsor just didn’t have some people deciphering the messages, on page 116 we learn of  “a crack team of decoders.”  Not just any ol’ team, a CRACK team (as in crackerjack I guess).  This is another example of lazy word use.

            There are also several errors & irritations that got under my skin and made me a little cranky.

            In talking about the young Jerry Siegel’s love for pulp magazines on page 12, Bowers talks about  “the smudged type on that thin paper.”   WRONG!  Pulp paper is coarse and THICK.

            On pages 13-14, he writes about the KKK’s distrust of the New deal, “President Roosevelt’s program  to restore the economy by putting people to work.”   DISINGENUOUS!  A truer “explanation” would include the fact that Roosevelt was putting people to work by creating semi-temporary government agencies to employ them doing various projects -- from sociological surveys to construction projects, USING TAXPAYER DOLLARS.

            Did you know that Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator is “the first science fiction novel to introduce a character with superhuman powers” (page 15)?  WRONG!  What about Dracula?  I’d say crawling down a wall is pretty superhuman.  What about Gilgamesh, for that matter?  And spare me the “science fiction” qualification.  What about Wells’ Invisible Man?  That was pretty superhuman and science-fictionish.

             The book is stretched-out and padded, to try and fill a book length.  There are cut-lines top and bottom of each page to fill space, and the text is almost double-spaced.  The reader is given chapters of background info on Superman’s creation and development, which is really not necessary for Superman fans.  The elongated book stretches to 160 pages, with a meager four-page color insert.

            If they were really hurting for content, why didn’t Bowers include some pages from the scripts in question?  No matter how purple the dialogue, it would still be great fun to read the actual words.

            You don’t even get a mention of the Ku Klux Klan at all, until page 48!

 

            Other mistakes include Bowers stating on page 95 that radio scriptwriters “added the roles of cranky editor Perry White and copyboy Jimmy Olsen.”  WRONG!  What the radio show did was, give a specific name to Jimmy.  A youngster working for the Daily Planet first appeared in Action Comics #6 in 1938, and is generally accepted as the character who “grew into” becoming Jimmy. While Clark and Lois’s first editor was called George Taylor, Perry White first appeared in the comics in Superman #7, in 1940, roughly contemporaneous with the beginning of the radio show.

            In his closing words about the Superman character, Bowers makes a simple mistake on page 148 in saying that “Superman teamed up with Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Captain America …”  Umm, Superman DID NOT team up with Captain America, who was a Marvel Comics character.

            Even the index is disappointing.  For example, you can’t find Philip Wylie or his book Gladiator in it.  On page 118 of the book, the radio script “The Scarlet Widow” is mentioned as a storyline which “featured one of the few female criminals to clash with the Man of Steel.”  But you can’t find her in the index.

            It’s a real shame that a book like this was not written by a Superman fan, who could have avoided silly goofs and omissions like these, and made it a much more intriguing read.

Book Review - Superman by Larry Tye

Here is a fine example of a perfectly good book that is basically unnecessary.

 

It’s 400 pages of (according to the subtitle) “The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero.”  If Tye had spent his 400 pages on THAT topic -- an examination of WHY Superman is American, and Enduring, and a Hero -- then this book would have more of a distinctive niche.  But as it is, it is more of an explication of a broad Superman history, for the under-initiated.

 

In my case, for instance, I already have 164 books that I have classified in my database as “Super”;  this book doesn’t have enough “distinctiveness” to make me want to add it to my “collective.” (STAR TREK reference)

 

This book is kind of like a lot of the books in any well-defined category:  Nothing really wrong with them, and fine as a kind of overview, but not really special enough to warrant purchase by the true aficionado.

 

There are a few indications that the book was NOT written or proofread by one of us “Super Aficionados”:   In the photo section, a staged publicity photo of Noel Neill and George Reeves (in their Kent and Lane wardrobe) contains the statement that “off the set George Reeves could relax with Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane …”.  First off, the fact that the actors are dressed in their filming wardrobe (complete with pillbox hat for Neill and buttoned double-breasted suit for Reeves) indicates that they are NOT relaxing, but WORKING by POSING for publicity shots.  Secondly, it is well-known by fans that Reeves did NOT “relax with” other cast members offset.  They were a friendly “family” at work, but Reeves went his own way socially offcamera.

 

Another small error is on page 170, in Tye’s discussion of the Silver Age “Weisinger Explosion” of characters that survived Krypton’s destruction.  He mentions Kal-el’s dog Krypto, and  then says, “Beppo the Super-Monkey and Titano the Super-Ape took similar paths to Earth.”  Umm, wrong!

 

 

The first part of Tye’s statement is correct.  First introduced in Superboy #76 (cover-dated October 1959) and given his cute name later, Beppo was an experimental Kryptonian lab monkey sent  into space in another of Jor-El’s rocket trials.  Beppo later became a member of the Legion of Super-Pets.

 

 

The second part of Tye’s statement is an incorrect conflation of two characters.  The character Titano is indeed called “Super-Ape” in the story title, but he is NOT from Krypton.  As told in the Silver Age, the Filmation cartoon series, and the Byrne refit, Titano is an American space research chimp launched into orbit.  His capsule underwent irradiation from a passing Kryptonite meteor and on his return, Titano became a giant, rampaging beast with Green-K vision -- but who still remembered his kind treatment by Lois Lane, which was a key to his eventual neutralization and capture.

 

 

 

Now, THIS character came from Krypton, and he is *kind of* a Super-Ape as told in the February, 1958 issue #238 of Action Comics.  He’s actually a Kryptonian guy zapped by a devolution ray, which turned him into a gorilla, and then sent into space long ago.  Later he crash-lands on Earth, and Hilarity Ensues.  After “King Krypton” (the name given him by Jimmy Olsen -- sounds like a “wrassler” to me!) has gone several rounds with Superman and eventually ends up beaten to a pulp, he sort of re-evolves and groans a mea culpa before expiring due to Green K exposure.

 

So, thanks to all of this erudite commentary by Yours Truly, you know know that, contrary to Tye’s statement, “Titano the Super-Ape” did not take a similar path to Earth as Krypto and Beppo.  King Krypton the Super-Ape DID, however.

 

Anyway, with that super-obsessive correction out of the way, let me again state that this book was a lot of work for Tye.  It’s not bad at all.  But it’s not a feverish, inspired book with anything in it to make it really exceptional among the other many books that chronicle Superman’s development from origin to icon.

 

I am glad I could read it as a library book, and did not buy it, because it really didn’t tell me anything new.  I think any Superman fan would enjoy it, but if you can read it without buying it, your wallet will say Thank You when you are finished.



 

 

On Neil Armstrong and the Moon

 

When the first Man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, died on August 25, 2012, I was reminded of that summer in 1969, and my feelings and actions.

 

I was twelve years old, the youngest child of a couple very much in love, who believed in the American dreams of achievement and boundless opportunity available to those who dare.

 

I probably had it too easy, with my own room and a stereo on which I blasted the soundtrack to 2001, along with “Snoopy vs the Red Baron.”  I was a child of the Sixties in a GOOD way, born in 1956 and growing up with a respect for rules and authority that was NEVER shown as unfounded in my personal life.  Even when I disagreed with my parents (over stupid things like my hair length or the Beatles’ White Album), I never doubted, or had cause to doubt, that my parents loved me and placed my upkeep and growth over their own.

 

As a white-bread American kid, I saw those news reports about a war in Viet Nam through the dislocated point-of-view of a youngster viewing the activities of the adult world from afar.  Along with my best friend Tommy Hefner and other neighborhood kids, I played Army and Civil War (we pronounced it “Silver War”) knowing from our own parents’ lives that the good guys would win.

 

It was with that profoundly optimistic (nowadays some would say hopelessly naïve) view that I watched TV (Walter Cronkite on CBS) on Sunday night, July 20, 1969.  There were mostly talking heads and people waving plastic models around in front of a globe of the Moon.  There was little in the way of “live” anything -- video or audio -- but there was TONS of excitement and suspense.

 

The First Step took place July 21, 02:56 UTC -- luckily for me in Oklahoma, that placed it at just before 9PM -- not too late at all for a school night.

Believe it or not, this photo is about as good as it got, as far as the quality of the video image.  And you’ve also heard the staticky audio.  But that didn’t matter, because this was real, this was NOW, and this was the state of the art in 1969.

 

I cut out and glued down a whole lot of news articles and ads relating to the Apollo 11 moonshot.  That scrapbook is somewhere up in my attic.  One day I will think about it in cooler weather and drag it down and scan some of it.

 



 

 

When the heroes of Apollo 11 came home, they got some justly deserved parades and acclaims.  They were an example of American know-how, courage, and grit.  I personally wish that more people could summon up similar pride in America’s achievements nowadays.  As adults, I have come to learn that, sadly, the dreams of America -- achievement, self-determination, teamwork, fair play -- are in the hands of none-too-perfect human beings with (sadly personal and petty) goals of their own.

 

But I still smile in remembered pride at the thoughts of Apollo 11 and its achievements, and I thank Neil Armstrong for carrying the dreams of so many American kids down that ladder.

 

One last thing I want to share with you is this:  Some time after the Moonwalk and before I went to bed that night of July 20, 1969, I went outside.

 

 

From Bartlesville, OK, the moon was about one-third full.  I looked up and pointed to it and said in pride, “We got you!”

 

See you next week.