InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "hmm"

dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-28 00:04:00

Entry tags:

creator: jack kirby, era: silver age, publisher: marvel comics

Some of those people on the Rainbow Bridge look awful familiar
From the tenth of issue of NOT BRAND ECCH, Jack Kirby decides to throw in some celebrities from 1968. I imagine that, in a lot less than four decades, current hot numbers like Megan Fox or Will Smith will have become the answer to trivia questions. ("Who were the MEN IN BLACK?" "Oh, heck, I know that... Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, right?")

(I believe the gorilla with the lollipop is not anyone in particular, just any of a number of lollipop gorillas you used to see on TV...)

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rab62
2009-09-28 04:44 am UTC (link)

Yes…I too remember those halcyon days when American television offered viewers a wide selection of gorillas with lollipops. In the 1967-1968 television season alone, CBS had the sitcom The Gorilla and J.J. Lollipop, NBC had The Goodtime Gorilla Lollipop Variety Hour, and ABC offered the crime drama Jack Lollipop, Gorilla At Law. Then the public eventually lost interest, and all of these disappeared from our screens and apparently our memories as well. It seems like hardly anyone remembers these shows besides you and I...

I agree in general about the fickleness of celebrity. But apart from Lollipop Gorilla, pretty much all the celebrities on view in that panel remain well known today. Muhammad Ali will never be obscure; likewise Bob Dylan. The Monkees, Mao Zhedong, LBJ, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, Frank Sinatra…even Mia Farrow is prominent these days, though not for her association with Frankie. Kirby never gets the credit he deserves as a caricaturist; these are all very recognizable.

There are a couple I can't name, but the most impressive thing is Kirby working in a cameo by Yoda (mistakenly colored yellow) above Sore's elbow, some twelve years before the character was seen anywhere else!

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dr_hermes
2009-09-28 04:56 am UTC (link)

DC had an absolute ZEAL for putting gorillas on covers. Carmine Infantino was particularly obsessed, convinced that they boosted sales (he was probably right. I knew I had watched too many cheesy movies from the 1940s and 1950s when I had a favorite gorilla suit.

Mia Farrow had quite a lifestyle shift in her time, married to Frank Sinatra and then to Woody Allen. Yikes.

Looking at this panel, I had the thought that the Monkees were the Jonas Brothers before the Jonas Brothers were born.

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	thekamisama.livejournal.com 2009-09-28 05:12 am UTC (link)
	Is the guy with the stick Victor Borge? I am also going to assume the guy over Doom's shoulder is Jackie Gleason. The only other ones that I cannot say 100% I know are the Jimmy Durantesque guy in Civil War attire and the Howard Hughesish guy in the Hawaiian shirt... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-09-28 05:25 am UTC (link)

The guy with the baton is Mitch Miller. He had the corniest TV show you ever saw, with a chorus singing old songs like "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or "In the Good Old Summertime," with lyrics on the screen so audiences at home could join in. SING ALONG WITH MITCH was incredibly popular. The gimmick was used before in 1930s cartoons shown in theatres.

The fellow in the Hawaiian shirt looks to me like Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He was from Harlem and served in the House of Representatives for decades. Always in controversy, people loved him or hated him.

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	dr_hermes 2009-09-28 05:32 am UTC (link)
	Oh, and the guy with the prominent nose between J Jonah Jameson and the Munsters, that would be Charles De Gaulle. General of the Free French Forces during WW II (maybe he met Captain America or Sgt Fury in some story?). He was President of France in that era. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	arilou_skiff 2009-09-28 07:22 am UTC (link)
	The entire concept was launching, IIRC, in swedish television a few years later. It's still going and became ludicrously popular in the 2000's. Seriously. Had something like 3 million viewers in a country of 9. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-28 08:41 pm UTC (link)
	There's no explaining these things, people are surprising. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	timgueguen 2009-09-29 04:31 am UTC (link)
	Mitch Miller's show was parodied in an episode of the original Flintstones cartoon as Hum Along With Herman. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	thekamisama.livejournal.com 2009-09-28 04:45 am UTC (link)
	Surprised they got away with Alfred E. Newman. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-28 04:57 am UTC (link)
	It would be so ironic, considering how their whole mission was satire and spoofing, if MAD objected to a cameo of Alfred. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	thekamisama.livejournal.com 2009-09-28 05:14 am UTC (link)
	Still, it is the trademark of a rival parody magazine, it's almost like putting a caricature of Ronald McDonald on a bag for Burger King kid meals. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-28 05:28 am UTC (link)
	I see your point, but I imagine it would seem hypocritical for Bill Gaines to complain about Marvel using a caricature of our Alf once in a while, when MAD was not much else but spoofs. Spider-Man and the Hulk were shown in MAD many times. (Usually drawn by Don Martin, of course.) (Reply to this) (Parent)

alschroeder
2009-09-28 11:13 am UTC (link)

left foreground: the Monkees, plus Don Knotts right next to them. Behind the Monkees are Bob Dylan and Mao Tse Tung and LBJ. Behind Mao is Cassius Clay and behind LBJ is Mitch Miller. I believe that's Jackie Gleason behind Clay, next to Doctor Doom, and of course, as someone pointed out, Charles De Gaulle next to J. Jonah Jameson. Two of the Munsters are next to De Gaulle.
(sp?) Behind Alfred E. Newman are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Beside Alfred is...hmmm. Is that Bobby Kennedy? Not sure. If so, it was drawn before Bobby's death on June 6th. Likewise, I'm not sure of the three right by Mitch Miller and behind Aunt May's umbrella...they almost look like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Errol Flynn, but they would be older then.

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	halloweenjack 2009-09-28 05:32 pm UTC (link)
	I'm thinking that that would have been Sinatra, rather than Fred Astaire, with Mia Farrow, whom he used to date. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	alschroeder 2009-10-05 01:25 pm UTC (link)
	Ah. Yes, I think you're right. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	lieut_kettch 2009-09-28 06:22 pm UTC (link)
	Mao Tse Tung and Cassius Clay? Someone's age is showing. Nowadays, its Mao Zedong and Muhammad Ali. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	alschroeder 2009-10-05 01:27 pm UTC (link)
	Absolutely. I guess I reflexively used the names that they would have used at the time. (Yes, I am old enough to remember when this first came out.) (Reply to this) (Parent)

kamino_neko
2009-09-28 11:21 am UTC (link)

The art's very odd in that some of the real people are really easily identifiable...others...not so much. (Fictional characters are easier, of course.)

It would have been easier if they'd gone with caricatures for everyone (as with de Gaul), instead of mostly just slightly cartoonifying them.

For instance, I'd have never recognized the Monkees, were it not for Peter's hat - Davy looks more like Walter Koenig, and Mike's unrecognizable...Mickey's a good likeness, though.

Chaiman Mao, I'm still not 100% I've ID'd correctly, but I know he's there, so that must be him (wedged in among Dylan, the Monkeys, Muhammad Ali, and LBJ*)...

* I actually have no idea how I recognized him...it was the hat which consciously caused it to click, but I don't actually remember seeing a picture of him - either photo, cartoon, or caricature - which featured a cowboy hat.

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fredneil.livejournal.com
2009-09-28 01:29 pm UTC (link)

Mike is the one with the hat. That was the clue, but once you've got him, the others are recognizable. Micky looks like an older version of himself and Peter sort of does, but if it came out today, I'd think he was Austin Powers. I didn't see the Walter Koenig resemblance, but since Koenig was originally hired to be Star Trek's answer to Davy, I guess they had similar looks.

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kamino_neko
2009-09-28 01:40 pm UTC (link)

Mike is the one with the hat

Er...yes. I have no idea why, but I constantly - CONSTANTLY - get Peter and Mike mixed up. Even while watching the show or their movie.

The 'Mike - Hat; Peter - no hat' thing SHOULD make it clear, but somehow I always manage to swap them in my head.

I didn't see the Walter Koenig resemblance

It's his mouth - Koenig has a rather distinctive mouth, and Davy's sporting it here. (Add in the hair, which was, as you said, modelled on Davy, and he looks almost exactly like Chekov...before Koenig grew his own hair out and stopped wearing the wig.)

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	arilou_skiff 2009-09-28 08:47 pm UTC (link)
	You recognize Mao by his creepy smile. hence the roflMao meme. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-29 03:24 am UTC (link)
	Thank you, that never occurred me in all these years. I love puns. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	halloweenjack 2009-09-28 05:35 pm UTC (link)
	It was Weeping Gorilla, before he stopped self-medicating his depression with sugar. (Reply to this)