Author: Robert Greenberger

Walt Disney had a gift, an ability to take someone else’s property and recraft it for a modern audience. Just about every time he touched a fairy tale or legend, he struck paydirt.  Look what he did with Grimm’s fairy tales or A.A. Milne’s [[[Winnie the Pooh]]]. Largely overlooked these days is the incredibly popular 1950s television series based on Johnston McCulley’s pulp hero, Zorro.

The black and white series, starring Guy Williams, ran a mere two seasons but spawned over 500 licensed merchandise items in addition to enjoying a long syndicated run in the 1960s and again after the birth of the Disney Channel. Back in the ‘50s, the season ran 39 weeks and a half-hour show actually had 25 minutes of story so there was plenty of material to recycle.

Fortunately, Walt Disney Home Entertainment noted the enduring appeal of the character and has this week released the complete run in two attractively packaged volumes. Both volumes are available in numbered limited edition tins that come complete with certificate of authenticity, label pin, black and white still of [[[Zorro]]], and a booklet detailing the contents.

Leonard Maltin, who grew up watching the series when it originally ran on ABC from October 10, 1957 through June 2, 1959, provides introductions to seasons one and two, providing some context and information that nicely sets the stage. The seasons nicely fit into five discs and both volumes contain a sixth disc with bonus material.

McCulley’s somewhat clunky prose style was full of ideas: that of a masked avenger rising to protect the citizens of the small town of Los Angeles in the early part of the 19th century. Taking a cue from the precedent set by Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s [[[Scarlet Pimpernel]]], introduced a decade before in 1903. Don Diego de la Vega decided he needed to play the fop so no one would suspect he was the black-cloaked fox known as Zorro.

The stories fired the imagination and were quickly adapted to screen, first in the silent films and then in the movie serials before it enjoyed feature film status. Along the way, McCulley actually incorporated some of the changes made for film into his prose. In 1952, Disney tried to acquire the rights and it took him until 1957 before it was a done deal. In September 1957, on his Walt Disney Presents,  Uncle Walt told stories to his Mousekteers on his fourth anniversary show and it was used to introduce Williams as Zorro, leading people to watch the show which debuted weeks later.

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The 1970s remained a good time to be a kid, as the three networks continued to program Saturday mornings with hours and hours of programming aimed right at them. On the other hand, it was clear that finding new series to click with the evolving kiddie set was harder and harder so series seemed to come and go at a faster clip with shows from earlier years revived to fill gaps or revamped to bring the familiar to new audiences.

While super-heroes were largely done, magic, fantasy, and real adventure found their niches with series starting to be aimed at the younger set earlier and slightly more mature offerings as the hour grew later. All told, the dozen shows represented in Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s
, out tomorrow from Warner Home Video, are snapshot into the decade.

For that younger set, there is [[[Help! It’s the Hair Bear Bunch]]], which ran from 1971-1974, and featured three fairly stupid bears – Hair, Square, and Bubi – who escaped the Wonderland Zoo each episode, had an adventure and wound up back behind bars.

For those weaned on the reruns of the CBS sitcom, [[[The New Adventures of Gilligan]]] continued following the castaways, with most of the actors reprising their voices and a hideous laugh track for what was rather unfunny fare. It was just one of many prime time sitcoms to make the transition – none successfully other than [[[Star Trek]]].

Older fans were offered [[[Sealab 2020]]], a solid episode of which is here, showing that attempts were being made to bring in real world themes, plus attempts at characterization and serious stories.

Included here is [[[Shazzan]]], which is an oddity considering it originated in the 1967-1968 season and was never rerun in the 1970s. Two siblings find halves of a magic ring, which summoned a genie named Shazzan when put together. They were taken to a fantasy world with the hopes of finding their way home but had adventures along the way, getting rescued at least twice a story by the magical being. The two-disc set’s sole extra is [[[The Power of Shazzan]]] as a number of folk look back at the show, marveling at Alex Toth’s strong design and ridiculing the state of writing in the 1970s.

Another show that debuted in 1968 and was gone by 1970 and is therefore in the wrong set is the atrocious [[[Banana Splits Adventure Hour]]]. Inspired by NBC’s [[[Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In]]], four guys in costumes, designed by Sid and Marty Kroft (who got better when left to their own devices) performed short bursts of slapstick humor accompanied by two music videos that owed something to the Monkees. Interspersed throughout were three adventure shows. Two were animated: [[[Arabian Knights]]] and [[[The Three Musketeers]]] and we get their debut stories in this inaugural show. Both were standard cookie cutter H-B fare, largely unmemorable and gone after a season. The third was [[[Danger Island]]], attempting to turn [[[Jonny Quest]]] into a live-action show that was largely dubbed and poorly performed. Of note here is that the “hunk” was young Jan-Michael Vincent, well before [[[Airwolf]]].  What is astonishing given how bad the humor and the drama are is the fact that the entire first season was directed by Richard Donner. Yes, that Richard Donner.

Better was the two season show, [[[Valley of the Dinosaurs]]] that saw the Butler family accidentally lost in this time-frozen world accessed from the Amazon River. While seeking a way home, they were befriended by Gorak and his family. The mixed families formed the spine of the show as they struggled to learn from one another and survive dinosaur attacks.

Less memorable is [[[Inch High, Private Eye]]], which brings the bumbling secret agent to animation in the form of the diminutive detective, aided by his attractive niece, Lori, and the dim-witted would-be detective Gator (imagine Jethro Clampett). The episode included was entirely forgettable and unamusing.

Returning from volume one is [[[The Amazing Chan Clan]]], along with the familiar [[[Batman]]], [[[Tom & Jerry]]] and [[[Looney Tunes]]].

Studios were increasingly having their hands bound by parents groups and network regulators who didn’t want the viewers adversely affected by the violence they saw while eating their cereal. Much of the conflict was reduced or removed, with the writing suffering greatly for this as witnessed by the witless Hair Bear Bunch or the edits made to Road Runner reruns. Even when Captain Marvel arrived in the live action [[[Shazam]]]! (sadly missing from this set), he could barely touch the bad guys let alone duke it out with them.

Clearly, the Golden Age for Saturday morning had passed and quality fare for children would have to wait for the advent of cable television and the plethora of channels able to cater to their needs with verve and imagination.

With three networks programming cartoons from 8 a.m. until just about noon throughout the 1960s, there was a rich variety of characters, situations, and styles. While Hanna-Barbera pretty much owned the first half of the decade, Filmation and others arrived and brought some different looks.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell from the second volume of Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s, coming out Tuesday from Warner Home Video. Making return appearances are [[[The Jetsons]]],[[[Magilla Gorilla]]], [[[Atom Ant]]], and the [[[Looney Tunes]]] gang instead of shows yet to be sampled.

New for the second volume, which was sent for review, are [[[The Space Kidettes]]], [[[Samson & Goliath]]], and [[[The Adventures of Gulliver]]]. [[[The Kidettes]]], a show I had forgotten about, ran for a single season, 1966-1967, and featured four adorable tykes living in their space clubhouse (a converted Gemini capsule) and outwitting the nefarious Captain Skyhook. Two cute for words.

Samson may have inadvertently inspired Roy Thomas with  a teen, Samson, gained an enhanced form and super-powers by clanging together his bracelets, saying “I need Samson Power” and transformed into an adult hero. Clanging them a second time turned his trusty dog into a powerful lion, Goliath. No secret identities and lots of fighting evil organizations. The stories are predictable and Samson seems devoid of personality.

The one featurette, Completely Bananas: The Magilla Gorilla Story is short but points out this 1964 series was the end of an era for animal-centric series with H-B’s [[[Jonny Quest]]] about to debut and a move towards more human adventures. And as the super-heroes rapidly burned themselves out after just two seasons, networks sought other stories such as ABC’s The Adventures of Gulliver. The disc provides the pilot episode showing how the boy, Gary Gulliver, and his dog Bib survived a shipwreck and washed ashore on the very “lost” island they sought with Gary’s dad, now presumed missing. While Gary is drawn straight, the Lilliputians are cartoony and comical but a détente is achieved.

The disc also includes fresh installments of Wally Gator, Ricochet Rabbit, Mushmouth and Pumpkin’ Puss and their template, [[[Tom & Jerry]]. And assorted other features far more familiar than the above.

The two-disc set does not feel as fresh and inviting as the first and that could be because the mix isn’t as strong this time or, the nostalgia has worn after since the first volume came out earlier this year. Clearly, this is for the late Baby Boomers hoping to relive those years.

Once again there’s the absurd advisory about the material not suitable for this year’s kids.

For a true feel for the decade, we should have had [[[Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales]]], [[[Fireball XL-5]]], [[[Jonny Quest]]], [[[Superman]]], [[[Spider-Man]]], [[[Banana Splits]]], [[[Wacky Races]]], and of course [[[George of the Jungle]]]. Rights issues, no doubt, prevented this from being properly representative.

The Marvel Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded

400 pages, DK Books, $40

These days, you can’t follow Marvel’s or DC’s continuities without a scorecard and thankfully more than a few reference sources have arrived to help out. The latest is DK’s 70th Anniversary contribution, a revised version of 2006’s [[[The Marvel Encyclopedia]]]. What a difference three years can make to continuity.

The key difference in the editions is the addition of pages, bringing the total to a hefty 400 pages. DK did everyone a favor and kept the cover price consistent at $40. Frank Cho’s cover is replaced with a Brandon Peterson piece that attempts to reflect the full history of the Marvel heroes. Matt Forbeck deftly took the original text, written by a quintet of experts such as Tom DeFalco and Peter Sanderson, and brought dozens of entries up to date in addition to adding entirely new ones where warranted. The crack design team replaced only a handful of images to existing entries but where they expanded or added new entries, the art nicely reflects the subject matter.

Forbeck’s updates take readers into the Dark Reign era but merely its beginnings so many of the events in the second half of 2009 are not reflected in the text. It might have been better to cut things off after Secret Invasion. As it is, some key events — Aunt May’s wedding to J. Jonah Jameson’s father, Brother Voodoo not listed as next sorcerer supreme, Firestar’s cancer — are missing. I also think Emma Frost, Nick Fury, Rick Jones and Speedball’s current situations get short shrift. And while many new entries are welcome, some stand out characters are missing such as Jameson’s father, Peter Parker’s new supporting cast, Ezekiel, Valeria Richards and each member of The Twelve. Also, the war and western characters are barely represented which is a shame. Similarly, only a few of the 2099 and M2 characters are here.

New spreads covering the significant modern day events – Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Annihilation – make the book feel nicely up to date but then older events such as the Kree/Skrull War and Secret Wars now feel overlooked. It would have been nice if the Fifty- State Initiative spread actually listed which heroes covered which states or which humans were replaced by Skrulls in the SI spread but these are minor nits. A larger nit is that a few characters receive spreads showing Key Moments and while I agree that House of M is major, I refuse to accept Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom a key moment. Fortunately, the book ends with a spread on the more prominent parallel universes which will help the less devout reader.

Production demands meant that many entries had artwork reduced to fit in new entries but overall the pages do not feel overly packed and are easy to read.  From what I can tell, just a few characters were dropped in favor of more current figures so say bye-bye to Marlo Chandler, Hornet, Libra, N’Garai, Candy Southern, and, Tana Nile.

Of the art chosen, I have very few quibbles over choices made but would have preferred a Gene Colan Dracula and would have updated the mis-proportioned Don Heck illo for Pepper Potts.

Clearly, this is a much neater and more effective updating than DK’s second edition of [[[The DC Encyclopedia]]] (which I was a coauthor on). You won’t want to miss picking up this fact-filled tome.