Back in 1975, fandom entrepreneur Alan Light, who founded what we now call the Comics Buyer's Guide, had an idea. He recorded most of the panels at that year's San Diego Comic Con and issued excerpts as a long-playing, 33 and a third RPM record. I bought one and still have mine, though I don't think I ever got around to listening to it. Apparently, not enough of us flocked to purchase the thing because Alan never did another.
With his permission, a new website called Comic-Convention Memories (run by the same folks who gave us the Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger tribute sites) has digitized the record and you can listen to tracks online. There's some neat stuff there with Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Ray Bradbury, Daws Butler and June Foray and many more. Here's a direct link.
Also on the site is an article I wrote in 1974 about the local (i.e., Los Angeles) comic book convention scene, particularly about a series of monthly one-day cons that a friend of named Greg Koudoulian was operating. Not long after this article ran, Greg got too busy with other matters to continue them so I conned another friend, a fellow named Mark Shimmerman, into taking up the cause. If I get a moment later today, I may reminisce about them because they were a lot of fun. When you have a con with cheap admission and cheap dealer tables, it leads to dealers selling comics real cheap.
Chris Cillizza offers up thought on a president's (any president's) first year in office.
I am not displeased by Obama's, though some of that is because Bush lowered the bar so damn low. I mean, Obama could sell a couple of states as cheap Buy It Now offers on eBay and we'd still say, "Well, he's better than the last guy." I am disappointed that he's reversed himself or hedged on some progressive promises like ending "Don't ask, don't tell" and — despite his technical denial that he ever campaigned on the issue — a public insurance plan. But I also recognize that he's facing a Republican wing of Congress that would filibuster his order from Papa John's Pizza...so maybe it's all understandable.
By the way: I am still amazed that this president — who won't mention terms like "single payer insurance" or "more progressive taxation" is viewed as a "Communist" by so many of his opponents. One of the more interesting exchanges during the election, I thought, was when Jon Stewart was chatting with Bill Kristol and Kristol predicted (in a rare instance of William Kristol being right about anything) that Obama would be a fairly moderate, slightly-left-of-center Chief Exec. Mr. Stewart then made the comment, with which Kristol could scarcely disagree, that folks like him knew that and believed that...but were willing to paint the guy as a Commie because they thought it would get votes.
I think that is still the basic operating strategy of the Republican party. What I don't get is why if they're going to call Obama a Stalinist no matter what he does, he doesn't just figure he might as well lean a little more to the left...say, about as far as Richard Nixon did.
Arnold Stang was, as we all know, the voice of Top Cat. But he wasn't the first voice. Apparently, when the show was developed, the Hanna-Barbera crew had in mind to employ the Phil Silvers-like delivery that their star actor, Daws Butler, also supplied for Hokey Wolf. Daws does not seem to have actually recorded any episodes before the decision was made to seek another voice. Why? When I asked him, Joe Barbera said he didn't recall so we're left to speculate.
Perhaps the studio feared that the show would come out so close to Bilko that someone would sue. It was similar in so many ways and they weren't helping differentiate it by hiring Maurice "Doberman" Gosfeld to supply the voice of Benny the Ball. (Interestingly, shortly after Top Cat ended production, Allan Melvin — who'd played one of Sgt. Bilko's two corporals, became the star of several H-B cartoons...and Harvey Lembeck, who played the other corporal, turned up in a few unbilled roles on Hanna-Barbera shows.) Or perhaps there was the fear that the Hokey Wolf voice was too identified with that character or with kids' shows.
In any case, the studio cast a character actor named Michael O'Shea to play Top Cat. O'Shea was a minor star in 50's television. He was nominated in 1955 for an Emmy as "Most Outstanding New Personality" but lost to George Gobel. (So did another nominee in the category that year, Walt Disney.) Mr. O'Shea was married to actress Virginia Mayo and did mainly bit parts in movies and TV shows throughout the sixties and seventies when, it is said, he also worked for the C.I.A. in an undercover capacity. He does not appear to have done any other animation voicework.
O'Shea recorded four or five episodes of Top Cat before the decision was made to replace him. My pal Earl Kress and I have wondered if at any point, they considered giving the role to Jerry Mann, an actor who was doing some work for the studio at the time, usually supplying a voice that was in the Phil Silvers ballpark, though not as close as Daws' semi-impression. Barbera seems to have liked the Mann's Silvers-like voice and employed it in several installments of The Flintstones, including giving it to Dino in the one episode where the loyal pet spoke.
Arnold Stang was an odd choice, as he was usually associated with milquetoast, whiny characters and Top Cat was a cool, confident fellow. But someone thought he was worth a read and when he auditioned, Hanna and Barbera liked what they heard. Before the week was out, they had him signed and he re-recorded the relevant lines in the shows that had already been done. He was quite wonderful in the part. (Ironically, a few years after the show was cancelled, Arnold relocated to the East Coast and so he was unavailable when H-B featured Top Cat in a guest appearance on a kids' record. When that happened, they usually had Daws Butler do the Hokey Wolf voice...and Daws also used it in one episode of Top Cat where he played a rival con-man/feline. Arnold did return to do T.C. in the 1985 series, Yogi's Treasure Hunt.)
While we're talking Stang Voice History: Many obits note that Arnold was the voice of a character called Shorty who served for a time as Popeye's sidekick in wartime cartoons produced by Famous Studios. They make it sound like a long, important gig. Just for the record, Shorty only appeared in three cartoons and Arnold only did his voice in the third, Moving Aweigh. The first two were Happy Birthdaze and Marry-Go-Round, and Jack Mercer supplied Shorty's voice in them. The character looked a little like Arnold (more so in the third cartoon) and sounded a little like Arnold even when Mercer did the role...but though Arnold was heard in many Famous Studios cartoons, including a few other Popeyes, he only played Shorty in one.
From a 1962 special on ABC which aired not long before he took over The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson introduces Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. They then perform one of those routines that no one remembers was also on their first 2,000 Year Old Man record...
December 24, 2009
