'Thanks, We're All Yn...'

Before you sit down...

another few words 'around about' amiable

In looking for photos for the previous post, I happened onto 'net pics
of comic books from a '62-'63 TV show 'our friend' was in that I never
before knew existed, (and I have seen many by-now-obscure ones).

The first issue's cover jumped out instantly as by far the best of the three.
All likely publicity stills made for the show well before the comics occurred
to anyone.

I was bestirred enough to actually buy 'n' try that # from a deep sale at
Mile High Comics. (The cover scan and panel crops are mine, from that copy).

I don't know what I was expecting. Probably nothing. Just curious to see how
Allyn's likeness would fare, having tackled a few actors myself, either putting
them in actual comic stories, or grabbing someone for later by drawing directly
from the TV. It's a lot harder to capture the right (or any) 'soul' than you might think.

Usually it's the person's eyes that wind up dull ballpoint lumps and there's almost no hope of representing the unique, nuanced life in them without a still photo. Especially if theirs is a varied personality best seen in action.


Too young to be a fan of the show itself, and a smidge before my earliest
'buying' phase, I find it's not the sort of comic I would have bought as a kid.
Waayyyy too many humans, in wayyy too many uniforms, doing wayy too
much of 'the same' throughout. Give me an overwrought 'aminal' any day.

As usual then, for this and other companies, the artist is not credited. But, I'm
reminded first of Ric Estrada, who could crank out such serviceable pages by
the truckload, (whereas lazy, amateurish me would be tearing my soul's hair
out after only one page of lookalike miltary ciphers).

Whoever it is, they did an okay enough job on Joslyn's likeness. It's no worse than other TV tie-ins. Bear in mind such comic projects were seldom supplied with an abundance of morgue material from half-interested Hollywood p.r. departments. Often the artists had to cough up entire views of a person via one or two stills. And without even being fans of the shows or films involved.

Hmm. Crop two, Col. Blackwell 'fatigued' is not unlike my attempts at Robert Hutton. But, then those pencil mustaches can add a sameness to just about any dark haired white guy back then. As ubiquitous as frisky caterpillars--- (ub, the mustaches, not the white guys).


Happenstance and apropos of absolutely nothing but the thread of my previous post, Allyn Joslyn's character in the show is first named 'Harvey'.

It's hardly 'the same' as the real person of course. Such celebrity or media related representations are almost never as satisfying as whatever source the real live
actors are appearing in. And this comic is nothing to get thrilled over either.

The plot, probably supplied from a moot episode script, 'merely' involves the boy cadets of Westfield Military Academy in un-competition for team points 'cooking', 'acting', and in mock battle, that they don't really want, lest team leader friends Tubby and McKeever have to unfairly be declared victor over the other and expose their fake cadet 'Miller', whom they pose as, taking up the slack. (Hunh?). And I only spot read it.

Anyway, there's truly barely a scrap of kitschy irony to be had from the thing. It's all too mainstream for me, despite the baroque plot.


Evidently, also, the sort of television comedy ranking 'down there' in the lower
middle someplace, in sloppycat conception, with 'It's About Time', 'Mr. Terrific'
'The Chicago Teddy Bears' and 'Rango'. You know, whatever genre has been
a hit someplace gets the 'treatment'. The list of what they think America will
swallow is seemingly endless.

None of which is to put down the efforts of the actors and so on, anyone
who tried to make the thing work. It couldn't have been the worst show on
then, or certainly since. It must have had it's moments.

I don't recall the kid from anything, tho' I've since seen a blog comment that hipped me to his slightly more recognizable buddy, 'Tubby': Keith Taylor, 'Harry' on several post-'Larry Mondello' episodes of Leave It To Beaver; a couple of Lost in Spaces wearing a fringed leather jacket if memory serves; the 'Miri' episode of Star Trek; and so forth. He was the sort of a kid we all knew on the playground or the lunch line.

More notably, perhaps, as I recently viewed within the last year or two, Keith was 'Din-Din' (Oh, yeah, I get it, he was a bit chunky. Or, then again, maybe just a bit noisy at home?), in "The Young Animals" (1968), a school gang fracas before its time, convincingly panicked while strapped to the hood of a fast moving car.


Yet another unexpected aside, and proof (do we need it?), on cover #2, that Joslyn and Jackie 'Fester' Coogan had worked together before Addams Family.

From the two poses here, as the harried Colonel's beleaguered second banana, 'Sgt. Barnes'. (The black and white photo is not in issue #1; there are none inside as Dell sometimes did. And the character does not appear in the issue either).

Unlikely to ever be on tape or dvd, (I have not checked), it's all a sort of a side alley dead end in the Labyrinth of Nostalgia for me. Though some who saw the show may feel otherwise. It all depends on where you were, who you were or weren't with, and so on as to what marshals a nostalgic trip for you. God bless yas.

And, 'At ease. And hang up if my wife answers'.

March 5, 2010

Sometime in the early eighties,
I had a dream where an older,
heavier Curly Howard ran into
our garage, hurried up to an
inside balcony ledge which isn't
there and, 'to be funny', hurled
himself to the pavement in front
of me, onto his back.


It was not fatal.






















In recent years, I've briefly imagined how, if Curly had survived somehow, he
would have made an odd, fun and at least passable Uncle Fester.




Tho', of course, Jackie Coogan is wonderful, as was. And Curly, being
born eleven years earlier than Coogan and at an age 61 when
"The Addams Family" series started, would necessarily have had to
perform with somewhat less vim and with more concern for his safety.
But, it's still amusing to me to imagine the possible differences.