Anthonynotes
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- May 1, 2001
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1967 review
1967: The famed year of the "Summer of Love", as the "flower power" era kicked into high gear---the age of hippies, along with continued protests over racism, the Vietnam War, and whatnot. Said "Summer" particularly centered around San Francisco, which also happened to be where and when the Black Panthers (and the "Black Power" movement) got its start. At the movies, "The Graduate" is a popular draw, in music, Jim Morrison and the Doors help revolutionize rock music, while on TV, "Star Trek" and "Bewitched" are popular draws.
Re: Comics:
This year's JLA-JSA sit-in involved the two groups trying to free people on Earth-Two succumbing to strange body-possessing-and-turning-evil "black spheres." Features both the second (then-)modern appearance of the Golden Age Wonder Woman (after "The Flash" #137 in the early 60's) and the first (then-)modern appearance of the Golden Age Robin (Dick Grayson), now an adult (and with one ugly costume in this story---think Bats' outfit merged with Robin's; the "Golden Age" Dick's last appearance was probably sometime in 1954, depending on the often-debated cutoff point for Earth-One/Earth-Two stories, and the fact that his world's Bruce and Catwoman got married in 1955); Dick joins the JSA in this story, spends time in the 70's as an ambassador to South Africa (on Earth-Two, apartheid had taken a powder by that point, supposedly), and dies during the "Crisis On Infinite Earths" epic (after which, of course, he's retroactively erased from existence). Since "Bat-mania" is still big, Earth-Two's Robin gets prominently featured on one cover of this storyline (despite, erm, being one of the possessed individuals)...
(And yeah, I know all this comic trivia's DC-focused; not as well-versed on worthless Marvel trivia, unfortunately. Though I guess the Bat-fans might be amused by all the Bat-trivia, at least...).
Re: Saturday mornings:
1967 was the height of the superhero/action show craze----a craze so popular that in a dubious move, it shoved Bugs Bunny & co. to Sunday mornings (!), though "The Roadrunner Show" runs on CBS at the probably-easily-preempted-for-sports 1:30 PM EST timeslot.
Popular/important shows debuting in '67 (info below taken mostly from "TV Party" [www.tvparty.com/sat67.html):
- "Spider-Man": kickin' theme song and all, it debuts this year on ABC and runs for two seasons (with a third made for syndication).
- "The Herculoids": see notes below
- "Birdman": a show about a Hawkman-esque superhero. Birdman returns decades later in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim's "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law" series.
- "Samson and Goliath": NBC series from H-B about a boy and his dog who can turn themselves into the strongman Samson and a lion named Goliath. Airs alongside repeats of last season's "Space Kidettes".
- "Jonny Quest": reruns of one of H-B's best-ever productions debuts on Saturday mornings this year, and runs for five years.
- "George of the Jungle": the classic Jay Ward produced series. Possibly the earliest regular depictions of African-Americans (as a whole) on Saturday mornings, if one counts the various appearances of the African natives, I suppose...
- "Tom and Jerry": aired on CBS on Sunday mornings from 9-9:30 AM starting in 1967, and runs until 1972. Networks used to run cartoons on Sunday mornings as well, though mostly consisting of reruns of otherwise-axed shows; I'm guessing some local stations probably would've preempted some of this for local shows like church services...
- "Batfink": a syndicated series of shorts that parodied Batman, produced by Terrytoons. I've seen these shorts as filler in high school---really goofy, to say the least (set-up: Batfink is a Bat in a superhero costume, whose car is a "Batillac" [a VW Beetle with bat-wings on it], driven by his chauffeur and sidekick, Karate [somewhat-stereotypically-drawn strongman Asian guy]. His main nemesis was "Hugo A-Go-Go", the mad scientist. In *every* episode, Batfink would use his wings as a shield [while telling the foes "my wings are like a shield of steel"], and use his "supersonic sonar radar"---which consisted of him uttering a "beep" noise that literally formed the word "BEEP", followed by seeing the "BEEP" word fly through the air to whatever its target was, and some gag involving the word coming back [one episode had the "BEEP" limping along like a dog, with cans tied to it by the foe...]).
- Along with perennial fave "American Bandstand", Dick Clark produced another show for ABC at 1:30 PM midseason called "Happening '68", with 60's rock group Paul Revere and the Raiders as hosts (they also hosted "Where the Action Is", a daytime teen dance show airing during the mid-60's, another Dick Clark production). A young Stevie Wonder among others showed up on this teen dance series; the theme song went on to become a minor hit on its own. The show went on to six days a week during the summer of '68.
- "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure": Aquaman, DC Comics' "sea king" who'd been running in the comics since 1941, gets his first significant media exposure in his very own show (paired up with Superman's from the previous season). Here, he has adventures with Aqualad (both of whom ride their Silver Age giant seahorses, Storm and Imp---forget whatever happened to them in the actual comics...), and along with the "swimming really fast" and "talking to fish/sea life" powers, also has the ability to create and throw hard water balls underwater. Typical episode: a six-minute battle against a lava man.
If this typical episode were a DC Comic story today, it'd probably involve: three issues alone to build up to the Lava Man's first actual appearance, a four-issue central storyline involving the actual battle itself, crossovers with literally every other DC Comic as part of a "Lava Man Month" promotion, Lava Man action figures, ludicrously-overpriced-statues of Aquaman-vs.-Lava Man (with "light-up hard water ball" effect) sold at comic shops, a "Secret Files and Origins" comic delving into Lava Man's origin as a villain, an upcoming "Lava Man" three-issue miniseries by Peter David that reveals his backstory (including how he's really motivated in his villainy by personal reasons, his ostracization from his fellow Lava People, his grudge against his heroic Lava Creature half-brother [who'll get his *own* miniseries], etc.), a pointless attempt to show how "kewl" Aquaman is now that he looks like a roadie for an 80's "big hair" metal band and (including the inevitable flashback to how his hand got chewed off), endless fan debates online over whether Aquaman's "hard water balls" could sufficiently stop Lava Man, debates over how "out of character" Aquaman's walrus cohort Tusky was in a scene in the story ("he wouldn't have saved that dolphin!" "what do *you* know? Walruses are kind creatures, dude..."), posts on how "kewl Lava Man's powir wuz", posts asking Peter David multiple details on what secrets will be revealed about Lava Man, an inevitable Lava Man cameo in the next inevitable Animated Series spinoff, posts arguing why this proves Aquaman's cool and deserves his own book/miniseries/TV show/etc. again, and finally, posts on how Batman could've beaten Lava Man/Aquaman/"your mama"/all three but only if he has "enough time to prepare". ;-)
Today's shows are:
"Shazzan"
"The Herculoids"
Shazzan
Show description:
Two young people have adventures while travelling around an ancient world on their flying camel, and possess the ability to summon the 50-foot tall genie Shazzan when trouble's brewing.
Saturday's episode:
The youths face a sorcerer summoning up the symbols of the zodiac to use for power; the heroes face a sorcerer with powers over shadows.
Comments:
Another action-based 60's H-B 'toon. No relation to "Shazam!" (aka Captain Marvel), whose show comes along years later, though since the kids yell "Shazzan" whenever they summon up the genie, I'm sure the writers must've been thinking of ol' Billy Batson...
"Shazzan"'s competition at 10 AM EST on Saturdays in '67:
NBC: "The Flintstones". Reruns of the primetime show.
ABC: "Spider-Man". See comments above.
"Shazzan" runs for several seasons, but doesn't get more successful/well-remembered than that, apparently (besides being a "Boomerang" staple from what I've seen of the Boomerang channel).
The Herculoids
Show description:
A primitive family defend their planet against all manner of threats (alien and terrestrial) with the aid of their bizarre menagerie of pets and allies.
Saturday's episode:
The Herculoids foil the deadly games of an emperor named Neron; the Herculoids have a run-in with the worshippers of a stone-idol god brought to life.
Comments:
Yet another classic H-B action cartoon. Liked it as a kid, and still think it's OK. Could see how shows like this might've put the anti-violence folks on high alert---the casualty rate on this show probably would fuel a fair share of "ER" episodes... ;-)
"Neron" is obviously a play on "Nero", the emperor of Rome around c. 65 AD.
"The Herculoids"' competition at 9:30 AM EST:
NBC: "Super President." Debuts for a one-and-a-half season run. The premise: the President of the United States gains superpowers during a cosmic storm that let him turn into steel, granite, etc., and uses them to fight crime---never mind that the prez has the entire might of the U.S. law enforcement and military at his control, and thus doesn't really *need* superpowers.
Granted, the President has been a staple of many superhero stories--- ranging from JFK meeting Superman (and later revised to having met Super*boy*) to Superman serving as Reagan's lackey in "Dark Knight Returns" to Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking at Superman's funeral. There's even a Superman story where JFK poses *as* Clark Kent to help protect Supes' secret identity (with the pre-Nixon innocent-times line from Supes: "if I can't trust the president of the United States, who can I trust?"). However, actually making the president an actual superhero strikes me as, well, *very* strange. Wonder who his enemies were supposed to be---the Viet Cong? Antiwar protestors?! Barry Goldwater?!
Anyway, Super-LBJ (or whatever)'s term gets cut short next season, as he's replaced by a nature show as a midseason replacement (and probably caught up in the anti-violence backlash)...
ABC: "The Fantastic Four": the Marvel comic is a TV show for the first time, complete with a flaming Human Torch (who's missing from its "kinder, gentler" late 70's counterpart). Stories actually fit/came from the original comic books.
"The Herculoids" enjoyed a several season run, probably only getting axed due to the implosion of superheroes' popularity/the anti-violence backlash in several years...
Final note: no, I'm not commenting/watching Sunday's episodes---besides work tomorrow, I plan on taping/watching the unseen-by-me "Man Called Flintstone" movie CN's running... maybe I'll comment on *that*, if anyone wants...
---
Next week, it's 1968---a year with big changes in store, both for the nation and for Saturday mornings; next week's shows are "Wacky Races" and "Birdman".
-B.
1967: The famed year of the "Summer of Love", as the "flower power" era kicked into high gear---the age of hippies, along with continued protests over racism, the Vietnam War, and whatnot. Said "Summer" particularly centered around San Francisco, which also happened to be where and when the Black Panthers (and the "Black Power" movement) got its start. At the movies, "The Graduate" is a popular draw, in music, Jim Morrison and the Doors help revolutionize rock music, while on TV, "Star Trek" and "Bewitched" are popular draws.
Re: Comics:
This year's JLA-JSA sit-in involved the two groups trying to free people on Earth-Two succumbing to strange body-possessing-and-turning-evil "black spheres." Features both the second (then-)modern appearance of the Golden Age Wonder Woman (after "The Flash" #137 in the early 60's) and the first (then-)modern appearance of the Golden Age Robin (Dick Grayson), now an adult (and with one ugly costume in this story---think Bats' outfit merged with Robin's; the "Golden Age" Dick's last appearance was probably sometime in 1954, depending on the often-debated cutoff point for Earth-One/Earth-Two stories, and the fact that his world's Bruce and Catwoman got married in 1955); Dick joins the JSA in this story, spends time in the 70's as an ambassador to South Africa (on Earth-Two, apartheid had taken a powder by that point, supposedly), and dies during the "Crisis On Infinite Earths" epic (after which, of course, he's retroactively erased from existence). Since "Bat-mania" is still big, Earth-Two's Robin gets prominently featured on one cover of this storyline (despite, erm, being one of the possessed individuals)...
(And yeah, I know all this comic trivia's DC-focused; not as well-versed on worthless Marvel trivia, unfortunately. Though I guess the Bat-fans might be amused by all the Bat-trivia, at least...).
Re: Saturday mornings:
1967 was the height of the superhero/action show craze----a craze so popular that in a dubious move, it shoved Bugs Bunny & co. to Sunday mornings (!), though "The Roadrunner Show" runs on CBS at the probably-easily-preempted-for-sports 1:30 PM EST timeslot.
Popular/important shows debuting in '67 (info below taken mostly from "TV Party" [www.tvparty.com/sat67.html):
- "Spider-Man": kickin' theme song and all, it debuts this year on ABC and runs for two seasons (with a third made for syndication).
- "The Herculoids": see notes below
- "Birdman": a show about a Hawkman-esque superhero. Birdman returns decades later in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim's "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law" series.
- "Samson and Goliath": NBC series from H-B about a boy and his dog who can turn themselves into the strongman Samson and a lion named Goliath. Airs alongside repeats of last season's "Space Kidettes".
- "Jonny Quest": reruns of one of H-B's best-ever productions debuts on Saturday mornings this year, and runs for five years.
- "George of the Jungle": the classic Jay Ward produced series. Possibly the earliest regular depictions of African-Americans (as a whole) on Saturday mornings, if one counts the various appearances of the African natives, I suppose...
- "Tom and Jerry": aired on CBS on Sunday mornings from 9-9:30 AM starting in 1967, and runs until 1972. Networks used to run cartoons on Sunday mornings as well, though mostly consisting of reruns of otherwise-axed shows; I'm guessing some local stations probably would've preempted some of this for local shows like church services...
- "Batfink": a syndicated series of shorts that parodied Batman, produced by Terrytoons. I've seen these shorts as filler in high school---really goofy, to say the least (set-up: Batfink is a Bat in a superhero costume, whose car is a "Batillac" [a VW Beetle with bat-wings on it], driven by his chauffeur and sidekick, Karate [somewhat-stereotypically-drawn strongman Asian guy]. His main nemesis was "Hugo A-Go-Go", the mad scientist. In *every* episode, Batfink would use his wings as a shield [while telling the foes "my wings are like a shield of steel"], and use his "supersonic sonar radar"---which consisted of him uttering a "beep" noise that literally formed the word "BEEP", followed by seeing the "BEEP" word fly through the air to whatever its target was, and some gag involving the word coming back [one episode had the "BEEP" limping along like a dog, with cans tied to it by the foe...]).
- Along with perennial fave "American Bandstand", Dick Clark produced another show for ABC at 1:30 PM midseason called "Happening '68", with 60's rock group Paul Revere and the Raiders as hosts (they also hosted "Where the Action Is", a daytime teen dance show airing during the mid-60's, another Dick Clark production). A young Stevie Wonder among others showed up on this teen dance series; the theme song went on to become a minor hit on its own. The show went on to six days a week during the summer of '68.
- "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure": Aquaman, DC Comics' "sea king" who'd been running in the comics since 1941, gets his first significant media exposure in his very own show (paired up with Superman's from the previous season). Here, he has adventures with Aqualad (both of whom ride their Silver Age giant seahorses, Storm and Imp---forget whatever happened to them in the actual comics...), and along with the "swimming really fast" and "talking to fish/sea life" powers, also has the ability to create and throw hard water balls underwater. Typical episode: a six-minute battle against a lava man.
If this typical episode were a DC Comic story today, it'd probably involve: three issues alone to build up to the Lava Man's first actual appearance, a four-issue central storyline involving the actual battle itself, crossovers with literally every other DC Comic as part of a "Lava Man Month" promotion, Lava Man action figures, ludicrously-overpriced-statues of Aquaman-vs.-Lava Man (with "light-up hard water ball" effect) sold at comic shops, a "Secret Files and Origins" comic delving into Lava Man's origin as a villain, an upcoming "Lava Man" three-issue miniseries by Peter David that reveals his backstory (including how he's really motivated in his villainy by personal reasons, his ostracization from his fellow Lava People, his grudge against his heroic Lava Creature half-brother [who'll get his *own* miniseries], etc.), a pointless attempt to show how "kewl" Aquaman is now that he looks like a roadie for an 80's "big hair" metal band and (including the inevitable flashback to how his hand got chewed off), endless fan debates online over whether Aquaman's "hard water balls" could sufficiently stop Lava Man, debates over how "out of character" Aquaman's walrus cohort Tusky was in a scene in the story ("he wouldn't have saved that dolphin!" "what do *you* know? Walruses are kind creatures, dude..."), posts on how "kewl Lava Man's powir wuz", posts asking Peter David multiple details on what secrets will be revealed about Lava Man, an inevitable Lava Man cameo in the next inevitable Animated Series spinoff, posts arguing why this proves Aquaman's cool and deserves his own book/miniseries/TV show/etc. again, and finally, posts on how Batman could've beaten Lava Man/Aquaman/"your mama"/all three but only if he has "enough time to prepare". ;-)
Today's shows are:
"Shazzan"
"The Herculoids"
Shazzan
Show description:
Two young people have adventures while travelling around an ancient world on their flying camel, and possess the ability to summon the 50-foot tall genie Shazzan when trouble's brewing.
Saturday's episode:
The youths face a sorcerer summoning up the symbols of the zodiac to use for power; the heroes face a sorcerer with powers over shadows.
Comments:
Another action-based 60's H-B 'toon. No relation to "Shazam!" (aka Captain Marvel), whose show comes along years later, though since the kids yell "Shazzan" whenever they summon up the genie, I'm sure the writers must've been thinking of ol' Billy Batson...
"Shazzan"'s competition at 10 AM EST on Saturdays in '67:
NBC: "The Flintstones". Reruns of the primetime show.
ABC: "Spider-Man". See comments above.
"Shazzan" runs for several seasons, but doesn't get more successful/well-remembered than that, apparently (besides being a "Boomerang" staple from what I've seen of the Boomerang channel).
The Herculoids
Show description:
A primitive family defend their planet against all manner of threats (alien and terrestrial) with the aid of their bizarre menagerie of pets and allies.
Saturday's episode:
The Herculoids foil the deadly games of an emperor named Neron; the Herculoids have a run-in with the worshippers of a stone-idol god brought to life.
Comments:
Yet another classic H-B action cartoon. Liked it as a kid, and still think it's OK. Could see how shows like this might've put the anti-violence folks on high alert---the casualty rate on this show probably would fuel a fair share of "ER" episodes... ;-)
"Neron" is obviously a play on "Nero", the emperor of Rome around c. 65 AD.
"The Herculoids"' competition at 9:30 AM EST:
NBC: "Super President." Debuts for a one-and-a-half season run. The premise: the President of the United States gains superpowers during a cosmic storm that let him turn into steel, granite, etc., and uses them to fight crime---never mind that the prez has the entire might of the U.S. law enforcement and military at his control, and thus doesn't really *need* superpowers.
Granted, the President has been a staple of many superhero stories--- ranging from JFK meeting Superman (and later revised to having met Super*boy*) to Superman serving as Reagan's lackey in "Dark Knight Returns" to Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking at Superman's funeral. There's even a Superman story where JFK poses *as* Clark Kent to help protect Supes' secret identity (with the pre-Nixon innocent-times line from Supes: "if I can't trust the president of the United States, who can I trust?"). However, actually making the president an actual superhero strikes me as, well, *very* strange. Wonder who his enemies were supposed to be---the Viet Cong? Antiwar protestors?! Barry Goldwater?!
Anyway, Super-LBJ (or whatever)'s term gets cut short next season, as he's replaced by a nature show as a midseason replacement (and probably caught up in the anti-violence backlash)...
ABC: "The Fantastic Four": the Marvel comic is a TV show for the first time, complete with a flaming Human Torch (who's missing from its "kinder, gentler" late 70's counterpart). Stories actually fit/came from the original comic books.
"The Herculoids" enjoyed a several season run, probably only getting axed due to the implosion of superheroes' popularity/the anti-violence backlash in several years...
Final note: no, I'm not commenting/watching Sunday's episodes---besides work tomorrow, I plan on taping/watching the unseen-by-me "Man Called Flintstone" movie CN's running... maybe I'll comment on *that*, if anyone wants...
---
Next week, it's 1968---a year with big changes in store, both for the nation and for Saturday mornings; next week's shows are "Wacky Races" and "Birdman".
-B.
![[classic swim]](/forums/data/avatars/s/324/324637.jpg?1668169542){kind=avatar}