Trivia Challenge Answer: Mudd n' Gumm

Hey, check it out--two posts in a row!  I'm on a roll.  

Enjoy it while you can. God only knows how long its gonna last.

This is going to be just a quick post to clue you in on the answer to the trivia question posed in my previous post.  For those with short memories, or who are too bloody lazy to click on the link I've so helpfully provided in the last sentence, said query was: 

What does the two part episode of Batman which featured a guest appearance by the Green Hornet have in common with Star Trek?

The answer is two-fold.  First, the two parts of the episode we're talking about were entitled "A Piece of the Action" and "Batman's Satisfaction".  The former, the hard core Trekkers amongst you will immediately recognize, is also the title of a classic episode of the original Trek in which the Enterprise encounters a society modeled after a book on Chicago mobs of the 1920's left behind by previous visitors from Starfleet a century earlier.  Of course, that second season episode hadn't yet aired by the time those Batman installments ran.

The more obvious and important link, as one of my more astute and pop culture savvy readers rightly surmised, is the fact that the villain whom Batman and the Green Hornet encounter in this adventure, one Colonel Gumm, nefarious leader of a ring of stamp counterfeiters, is portrayed by Roger C. Carmel.  Carmel is best known for his portrayal of the charming rogue Harcourt Fenton (a.k.a. "Harry") Mudd in the first season episode "Mudd's Women" and the second season's "I, Mudd".  He also reprised the role for the animated episode "Mudd's Passion".

Mudd was a great character and I wish there were more episodes featuring the character.  However, in his DVD commentary for the animated episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles", David Gerrold, writer of that episode as well as the original "The Trouble with Tribbles", states that Fred Freiberger, who had taken over as producer for Trek's third year, nixed plans for a live action sequel to "Tribbles" by haughtily declaring that "Star Trek is not a comedy."  Given the light hearted tone of the episodes in which Mudd appeared, especially the outright comedy of "I, Mudd", it is likely that attitude on Freiberger's part that also doomed any chances of Mudd reappearing to further vex Kirk and his crew.

The Green Hornet (Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge 3)

Last night, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, classic TV network Memorable Entertainment Television, a.k.a. MeTV, seen here in Columbus on WCMH's digital sub-channel 4.2, aired a four hour retrospective of the 1966-67 Green Hornet series starring Van Williams and featuring Bruce Lee as Kato. (They called it "The Airing of the Green...Hornet".) 

Now, I'd never seen this show before, and other than the Hornet's appearance on a two part episode of Batman, I was unfamiliar with this particuliar incarnation of the character.  I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.  For a series from William Dozier, executive producer of the Caped Crusader's then wildly popular series and which, by all accounts, owed its very presence on ABC's schedule to that show's success, Hornet is not at all what you would expect.  Rather than duplicating the campy shenanigans of Dozier's earlier hit, Green Hornet is a straightforward, slightly noir tinged, fairly typical 1960's action adventure show that takes itself quite seriously.  Unlike Batman, the villains, mostly mobsters and other common criminals rather than so-called "super-villains", are somewhat more realistic, as is the violence, with characters, including a few of the villains, actually dieing and a notable lack of  cartoony sound effects during the fight scenes, which serve as a showcase for Lee's martial arts prowess.  The Hornet operates for the most part in the shadows and under cover of darkness, with much of the action taking place at night.  Green Hornet is what I suspect those hard core comics fans who to this day lament Batman's campiness would say that show should have been.  I can't help but wonder if perhaps that's part of the reason that it lasted only one season.  Was the viewing public expecting another Batman and disappointed when it got this instead?  Still, when other networks were putting pressure on producers to make their shows more like Batman, you have to credit Dozier for not just repeating himself and trying something different.

What Green Hornet does have in common with Batman is that Dozier took yet another moribund intellectual property, hoping to make lightning strike again and propel the character into a pop culture phenomenon.  The Batman comics, you may have heard, where famously on the verge of cancellation before Dozier's show spawned a global wave of Bat-Mania.  The Hornet was even worse off.  He hadn't been seen in comics since the late 40's and the radio series that spawned the character had been off the air for almost fifteen years.

It's funny--I read on Wikipedia, while doing research for this post (which, I suspect, sets me apart from 99% of comics bloggers), that on radio the Hornet's confidant in the law enforcement establishment was the  police commissioner and Dozier changed it to the District Attorney in order to avoid comparisons to Batman, which had Commissioner Gordon, yet here I've spent the preceding two paragraphs belaboring that very comparison.

Due to the fact that it lasted only one year and, unlike it's companion series Batman, aired on a traditional one day a week schedule, Green Hornet produced a mere 26 episodes, far short of the number required for daily "strip" syndication, and thus has been rarely seen in the intervening 45 years since its initial run.  I, for one, would love to see more.  I believe that the show is available on DVD, and I hope that MeTV can find some room on its schedule for more episodes in the near future.

Anyway, I promised a trivia quiz in the headline for this post, so here it is:

The question concerns that aforementioned crossover with Batman, and invokes yet another iconic 60's TV series, namely the original Star Trek. 

And thus, I put it to you:  What does the two part episode of Batman which featured a guest appearance by the Green Hornet have in common with Trek?

The answer tomorrow--Same Bat-time (more or less), same Bat-web-site.

By the way, for those who give a crap, the second of my series on Firestorm, reviewing Fury of Firestorm #1 from 1982, will eventually appear.  There's no hurry, is there?  We are, after all, talking about a thirty year old comic.

'Tec Support: The Seeds of "Knightfall"--Detective Comics #480

While notable for being one of the first two Batman stories drawn by the late Don Newton (Batman #305 hit the stands that same month), "The Perfect Fighting Machine" from Detective Comics #480 is, in truth, an entertaining but rather unremarkable tale.  According to writer Dennis  O'Neil, however, this obscure little story helped spawn one of the biggest event story lines of the 1990's.  Within the pages of 'Tec #480 lie the seeds of "Knightfall."
But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me tell you about the story first.
The tale begins in medias res, with Batman already locked in a life or death struggle with a silent, hulking brute who appears to be kicking the living crap out of him.  As he's getting tossed around, Bats thinks, "He's creaming me...and I don't even know his name!"  As the taciturn killer is strangling him, Batman decides it's a good time to try and make friends.  He chokes out the words, "Wh-Who are you?", cuing the inevitable flashback.
In the next panel, we are taken back in time six weeks to find a homely, fat schlub being harassed by a trio of young punks who break his calculator and make him drop his ice cream cone.  Slinking away in tears, he is befriended by a stranger identifying himself as Ivan Angst, who offers to buy the poor kid a new ice cream cone.  Angst is soon revealed to the reader as the leader of a terrorist organization known as Mercenaries, Incorporated, whom Batman has been after for several weeks.
While Batman is bedridden with a fever of 104 degrees, Angst, with all purpose mad scientist Dr. Moon, begins the process of transforming the poor nerd he befriended into a the "perfect fighting machine" of the story's title through a series of surgeries and hormone treatments which render him super strong, nearly invulnerable, and unable to feel pain.  Moon later refers to him as a "gork," which, the doctor explains, is "...medical slang for a living, breathing vegetable!" Angst has plans to create an army of such perfect soldiers. When the process is complete, he decides to test his prototype against the "perfect opponent," the Batman, and issues a challenge to the Caped Crusader via a classified ad in the Gotham newspaper.  Despite not being fully recovered from his illness, Batman accepts the challenge, and the story shifts back to the present where Batman is still struggling to survive the relentless onslaught of Angst's perfect soldier.
Just as he's about to deliver the killing blow, the would be assassin falters and collapses.  Moon declares, "As I feared! The strain was too great! His whole system is collapsing! Not being able to feel pain, he didn't realize anything was wrong--until it was too late!"  The dying giant turns to the one man he believed to be his friend, Ivan Angst.  But Angst, calling him "...an experiment--that failed!", refuses.  Enraged, the "gork" turns on Angst as the cowardly Dr. Moon flees.  Batman attempts to pull him off Angst, but he fails.  The "perfect fighting machine" kills Angst before dieing himself, with neither Batman nor the reader ever having learned his name.
Back in 1993, while the "Knightfall" story line was running in Batman and Detective Comics, Dennis O'Neil, then editor of the Batman titles, and Julius Schwartz, editor of 'Tec at the time #480 was published, were in Columbus as guests at the annual SF con Marcon.  They also did a signing at the now out of business local comics shop Central City Comics that Saturday.  I got my friend Dave Alkire to give me a ride out to the shop, and gave him my copy (I've long since aquired another) of 'Tec #480 so he'd have something for O'Neil and Schwartz to sign.  When Dave handed O'Neil the book, the writer told us a little story about it.

Denny hadn't felt that the seventeen pages allotted to him for this story had given him sufficient space to fully explore the premise.  Thus, he eventually returned to the idea, reworking it and expanding it.  This new story was called "Venom," which appeared as issues #16-20 of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight in 1991.
"Venom," of course, introduced the titular strength enhancing drug, which was later used by the villain Bane, the prime mover behind the events of "Knightfall."  This story eventually gave us Jean-Paul Valley, a.k.a. Azrael, as the replacement Batman after Bane break's Bruce Wayne's back.
So, "The Perfect Fighting Machine," a little known seventeen page story from the late 70's, is indirectly responsible for giving us not only this:

...but this, as well:

Furthermore, the success of "Knightfall" may have had a hand in inspiring such later abominations as "Emerald Twilight," the story that introduced Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern even as it transformed Hal Jordan in a cosmic powered mass murderer. (The latter is  the abominable part.  I actually liked Kyle as GL.)

Despite all that, I still like "The Perfect Fighting Machine."  In fact, I like it even more knowing the unheralded role it played in comics history.  I say "unheralded" because, other than hearing it from Dennis O'Neil himself, I've never come across this info in any comics magazine or on the web.  For all I know, I may be first person, even after all this time, to write about this. 
That's kind of cool, actually, if it's true.

Trivia Challenge Answer: "We're Off...."

 As promised on Friday, I am back with the answer to the latest Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge.  You may remember that I asked you if you could name the first co-publishing venture between Marvel and DC Comics, noting that it was not, as you might have believed, Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, though that was, indeed, the first meeting of any of the two companies' super-heroes.
Now, without further ado, the answer is (drumroll please, Maestro.):

MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz

(Published in 1975--A year prior to Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man)

And now, also as promised, the not all that secret origin of this historic comic book...
Through sheer coincidence, in 1975 both DC and Marvel had a Wizard of Oz comic in the works.  Marvel was planning an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novel, while DC had acquired the rights from MGM to adapt the 1939 movie.  Upon learning of DC's project, Stan Lee approached DC publisher Carmine Infantino with the idea that the two companies pool their efforts and jointly put out one book.  What eventually saw print was an adaptation of the film produced by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, the team which had been set to do Marvel's comic based on the book. 

The legend about this book, confirmed by Roy Thomas in an essay in the book Stan's Soapbox: The Collection, is that Buscema laid out the book entirely from memory, without a plot from Thomas, even though he hadn't seen the film for many years.  Thomas claims that when he got the pages back only one or two small scenes where out of place.

Now on to the "bonus question":  What is the word that means, as defined by Wiktionary, "A form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase" (though I've actually only ever heard it used to refer to misheard song lyrics)?

The word is "mondegreen."  I love the word precisely because it's so obscure and I'm really the only person I actually know who's ever heard of it.

If you're wondering how I could hear "new wastes of winter" as "new age of friendship," just listen to the song.  Ian Anderson doesn't exactly enunciate all that clearly.  Besides, either phrase really makes just as much sense in the context of the song, which is to say not very bloody much at all. I mean, "Titanic breaking children lost in melting crystal tears."  What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Actually, if I were going to propose a serious theory, I would suppose that my brain, being unable to interpret Anderson's mumbling, filled in a phrase that fit the song's rhythm and seemed to make sense.  At least as much sense as Progressive Rock lyrics ever make, anyway. For example, is there anybody who can really tell me what "Roundabout" by Yes is supposed to be about?

Honestly, though, however nonsensical "Something's On The Move" may be, I still love it.  It was the first Jethro Tull song I ever heard (or, more appropriately, misheard) and thus my introduction to a truly great band.

Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge 2: To Celebrate The Dawning of the New Wastes of Winter

It's been a while since we've done one of these trivia quizzes, and while I'm sure you haven't exactly missed it or been clamoring for another, I'm going ahead and serving up another one anyway.

Just about everyone knows that Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, published in 1976, was the first ever meeting of super-heroes from the two largest comics publishers, DC and Marvel.  It was not, however, the two companies' first co-publication.  So, what was, then?

I'll let you think on that over the weekend, and I'll be back on Monday with the answer and the story behind that historic first co-publishing venture.

Now for an explanation of the title of this post.  For over thirty years, from the time I first heard Jethro Tull's song "Something's On The Move," I  was sure that the third line in the first verse was "To celebrate the dawning of the new age of friendship."  That line seemed to be perfectly fit the subject of this post, so I decided to use it as the title.  Then I went and looked up the lyrics for "Something's On The Move" on-line.  Well, it turns out I'd been wrong for three decades.  The line is, in fact, "To celebrate the dawning of the new wastes of winter." I couldn't use that line for my post title.  It wouldn't make any sense.  However, I couldn't think of anything else.  So, I went with it regardless and "sense" be damned.

I'd initially planned to include a "bonus question" asking you to name the song I took this post's title from. But I just told you that and the story behind it.  However, that story suggested another "bonus question." 

There is a word for, as Wiktionary defines it, "A form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase."  Do you know what it is?

I do, and I'll tell you on Monday.

Top 5 Presidents With The Most Appearances In Comic Books

At the end of a long and thoughtful comment on the re-posting of my long winded and pretentious piece on "Watchmen As Alternate History," Jonathon Riddle closed with this thought:

"Which American president has had the most appearances in American comics? My guess would be Reagan."

Even though the comment is unsigned, I'm fairly positive that it was Jonathon, since this is a  question he has raised several times in our conversations off-line.  So, when I was trying to think of something vaguely politically themed to write about on this Election Day, I decided to find out the answer to  his question.

Arriving at that answer was  a simple, if somewhat tedious, matter of going to the Comic Book Data Base and counting the listed appearances of the U.S. Presidents. 

Of all the presidents listed on the site, the one with the most appearances is, of course, Lex Luthor.  You may remember that Superman's arch-nemesis was elected President of the United States of the DC Universe in 2000 and remained in office till he went full on battle-suited berserk at the end of the first Superman/Batman story arc, "Public Enemies." Of course, I didn't bother counting all of his appearances, which must number in the thousands.  Of the real world presidents listed, none had more than a hundred.  Although one came close.

Keep in mind that the info on this data base is by no means complete.  I added a previously unlisted appearance of Gerald Ford while I was doing my research, and I know of at least one appearance by LBJ that's not catalogued.  Also, Teddy Roosevelt isn't listed at all, and I know of at least one comic book appearance of the Rough Rider.  Of course, he is drawn as a Disney style anthropomorphised animal complete with cute button nose.  That's because said appearance is in Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.  And, hey, if we're counting fictional characters, how come Prez Rickard isn't listed there.

Anyway, without further preamble, I give you:

The Top 5 U.S. Presidents With The Most Comic Book Appearances

5. Abraham Lincoln

The Honest One earns extra points for appearing on one of the oddest and most memorable covers of the Bronze Age, the Weird Western Tales cover that accompanies this post.

4. George W. Bush

"Poppy," by the way, comes in 9th.

3. Bill Clinton

2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Even though he was President throughout almost the entire Golden Age of Comics, most of his comic book appearances come from the 70's and 80's

And it seems that Jonathon's guess was on the money.  With 92 appearances listed on the Comic Book Data Base, the most frequently appearing president in comic books is:

1. Ronald Wilson "Dutch" Reagan

Now, quit wasting your time reading comics blogs and go vote.

Loose Ends Part II: The Matter of the Barcode

As you may recall, the answer to the first Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge involved the fact that back in the 80's and early  90's newstand editions of comic books carried the Universal Product Code while Direct Market editions did not, and I wondered just why this was so. 

Well, no longer do I wonder.

When I posted a link to that post on Facebook, I received an answer to my query from my Facebook and real life friend Ben T. Steckler.  Ben is a talented cartoonist, one of the funniest and most intelligent guys I've ever met, and, most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, a former comics retailer.

Ben wrote that the reason was "probably because not many direct market comic shops were using Point-of-sale scanners until the mid-90s. In 1990 probably only 1 out of 3 comic stores had a computer in the shop.

"In the late 80s, Marvel still had a co-op program aimed at... getting stores to have cash registers.

"The UPC symbols mainly were for the benefit of stores that used scanners. The direct market really had no use for them until more stores upgraded their technology. Also, separate labeling for the Direct Market identified the copies that shipped earlier, since Direct Market had about a two week lead time over newsstand sales.

" Returns would be the real reason for any difference in cover marking, since the covers of unsold newsstand copies could be removed and returned for full credit. (and thus scanned in easily back at the collection point.) Direct Market copies, being unreturnable, would not get a UPC code."

So now you know...and knowing is...well, you know the rest.

Thanks for your help, Ben. I, and I'm sure my readers, appreciate it.

Trivia Challenge Answer---And Another Question

Yesterday, I challenged you to tell me where the copy of Blue Devil #15 shown at left was purchased.  I picked up my copy back in June of 1985 in the Gift Shop at Conneaut Lake Park where I was spending the summer working as a ride operator, but I wasn't looking here for that degree of specificity.  To succeed at the challenge all you had to know was that the comic shown was NOT purchased at a comics shop.  

As for how you're supposed to know that, cast your eyes down upon the little box in the lower left corner of the cover which contains the familiar and ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) .  I've noticed that until the early to mid-1990's, comics sold through the Direct Market, a.k.a. in comics shops, did not carry the UPC symbol, whereas copies of the very same comic sold outside the comics shop system did not.  For example, this copy of Blue Devil #8, which has a little promo ad where the barcode would be, was clearly originally sold at a comics shop:

Now, I have another question to which I do not have the answer.  Just why was this so? Why did Direct Market comics not carry the UPC symbol? If you happen to know the answer to that one, please share that knowledge with me. I will, of course, pass it along to the rest of my readers.

Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge: Retail Roulette

Today, I'm instituting a new occasional feature here at Gutter Talk: The Gutter Talk Trivia Challenge.  I love trivia quizzes, mainly because I enjoy showing off how much utterly useless knowledge I keep locked up in my over-sized, football shaped head.

For your first Trivia Challenge, carefully study the cover below from Blue Devil #15:

 This was the first issue of Blue Devil that I ever bought.  It appears that Julius Schwartz was correct, at least in my case, when he decreed that putting a gorilla on the cover was a sure way to increase sales.
Anyway, the question for you today is where did I buy this comic: At a comics shop or somewhere else?  And how can you tell.
I'll be back with the answer tomorrow.