Thursday, April 26, 2007

Surprise of the Day

Just when you think the approval rating for George W. Bush can't get any lower, he outdoes himself.

Actually, the public doesn't seem to like anyone very much. And why should they?

• Posted at 12:32 PM · LINK

Happy Tuska-Norris Day!

We spend way too much time on this webpage saying goodbye to great artists and writers of the early days of comics. So let's say Happy Birthday to two of 'em...

George Tuska is 91 years old today. George did his first known work in the comic form in 1939 as an assistant on the Scorchy Smith newspaper strip (which he later handled all by his lonesome) and for the Eisner-Iger shop. He's drawn thousands of comics in his day but is probably best remembered for his work on Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay and for a long stint at Marvel drawing, among other comics, Iron Man. Stan Lee often referred to him as "Genial George Tuska" or "Gentleman George Tuska" and both those adjectives apply.

Paul Norris is 93 years old today. Paul started cartooning for the Dayton Daily News in 1937 and was drawing comic books by 1941. His most lasting contribution to the latter was as the co-creator of Aquaman. He later worked on a number of syndicated strips including Brick Bradford, which he wrote and drew from 1956 until it ended in 1987. I was delighted to write some of the comic books he also drew during that period (including Dynomutt) and to get to know this fine man.

George and Paul may not see this posting. I don't think either of them has Internet access and anyway, they'll probably be out partying 'til all hours. But I wanted to wish them well and to note how much entertainment they've provided over the years for so many.

• Posted at 9:47 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

In the past, I've linked you to clips of great kids' shows of the past that I liked. Here's eight minutes of Andy's Gang, a show I could never stand when I was a child.

Andy's Gang was a kind of successor-in-interest to an earlier radio and TV series called Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Gang. It started on radio in 1944 with Smilin' Ed McConnell. The goal was to sell Buster Brown shoes, and I guess it did, even though its connection to the Buster character and his newspaper strip and even to his shoes was largely ceremonial. Buster appeared in commercials — in today's clip, he's played by former Munchkin Jerry Maren — but very little that was on the show came from the strip. McConnell and his crew came up with a colorful band of characters who peopled the show and for some reason, young listeners got hooked.

The radio show aired on Saturday mornings throughout the forties and a TV version began in 1950. The radio version ended in 1953 and Ed McConnell ended in 1954 when he stopped smiling and passed away, not necessarily in that order. The program was done on film so it kept rerunning for a while...but in '55, the same producers began offering instead, episodes of Andy's Gang with the same cast of puppet players and supporting characters, but with former western actor Andy Devine as the host.

Most histories say this show lasted until 1960 but I think that's misleading. My understanding is that the production company made a bunch of them and local stations just ran the same episodes over and over in unimportant time slots as long as someone was tuning in...which wasn't often after shows like Rocky and His Friends and Huckleberry Hound debuted. I recall one station in L.A. airing them at 5:30 AM for a while, and that was in the days before TiVo. You actually had to get up at that hour to watch it. I didn't...but every now and then, I'd be up with a stomach ache or something and I'd catch a little Andy's Gang. The show had a surreal atmosphere, like it was filmed on some other planet, and it seemed even odder that early in the morning.

Even though it was weird, I'm afraid I never warmed to the show. Every bit seemed to go on half past forever, and the kids in the audience laughed and screamed at everything, no matter what happened. It was the phoniest audience reaction in the world, especially since the on-stage action was obviously not filmed in front of them. I was able to figure that out at age six and I couldn't have been the only one. What I always suspected was that they had about two minutes of footage of those kids and just spliced it into each episode at random. The one thing that was occasionally amusing was when character actor Vito Scotti would duel with Froggy the Magic Gremlin, but it wasn't worth watching the show just for that. Not if anything else was on. At 5:30 AM, you could often catch a Farm Report and it was a lot funnier.

Please don't write and tell me it was your favorite show. Even if you could make me believe that, my reaction would be, "Good for you. I still couldn't watch it." The following link is offered for historical reasons, just in case anyone ever asks you where the phrase, "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy" came from...

• Posted at 1:03 AM · LINK

April 27, 2007 • Current • April 25, 2007