Category: News

We here at ComicMix celebrate all manner of pop culture from today’s obvious hits to the arcane wonders of yesteryear. every now and then we get a notice about something that seems just outside our realm of interest but there’s a thing or two that grabs us. Something like an unaired pilot to the legendary Dr. Kildare series is one of those things. Not only that, but the series gave us Richard Chamberlain as a star (long before he was resurrected for Leverage). The show not only boasted an impressive guest cast, as noted below but it featured some of the best writers working in television including a pre-Star Trek Gene Roddenberry. So, here’s the press release for those who remember and remain interested:

Warner Archive Collection continues to unveil some of the finest series in television history with its release this week of DR. KILDARE: THE FIRST COMPLETE SEASON. The newly remastered DVD premiere includes a “lost” episode – “The Eleventh Hour,” the original, never-aired pilot for the Wendell Corey drama.

Young Richard Chamberlain and veteran actor Raymond Massey don the surgical scrubs – first made famous in the Dr. Kildare films of the 1930s and ‘40s by the team of Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore – for the equally successful TV incarnation in the 1960s. Chamberlain’s star ascended quickly, as the show swept him from being a relative unknown to full-on teen idol status (in a show pointed squarely at adults, no less).

The guest cast features a stunning array of Hollywood notables and future primetime TV and film stars. Notable guests from DR. KILDARE: THE FIRST COMPLETE SEASON include film legends Joseph Cotten, Mary Astor, Margaret O’Brien, Lee Marvin, Ellen Burstyn and Dorothy Malone. Television luminaries appearing in the first season spotlight William Shatner, Ted Knight, Jean Stapleton, Suzanne Pleshette, John Fiedler, Herschel Bernardi, Gavin MacLeod, Anne Francis, Jan Murray, Ken Berry, Donna Douglas, Harvey Korman, Ross Martin, Richard Kiley, Roger Mobley, Edward Platt, Martin Balsam, Arte Johnson, Jack Albertson, Bill Mumy, Pat Hingle, William Schallert, Glynnis Johns, Rip Torn, Michael Constantine, Dean Jagger, Joyce Van Patten, and BOTH Bewitched Darrins, Dick York and Dick Sargent.

William Shatner is featured in this clip from DR. KILDARE: THE FIRST COMPLETE SEASON:

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Beyond the impressive guest cast, the true star for TV fans is the “lost” episode. “The Eleventh Hour,” the never-aired pilot, teams Dr. Theodore Bassett with Drs. Gillespie and Kildare to get to the bottom of what the devil is wrong with Ann Costigan (Vera Miles).

All episodes have been newly remastered especially for this DVD premiere release. Initial quantities of this release will be traditionally replicated (pressed) in anticipation of high consumer demand.

Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, Wonder Women! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.

Take a look at the documentary now until June 14th below…

Watch Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

via Video: Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines | Watch Independent Lens Online | PBS Video.

From Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures comes “Man of Steel”, starring Henry Cavill, directed by Zach Snyder. The film also stars Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Henry Lennix, Christopher Meloni and Laurence Fishburne. In theaters June 14th.

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Comic-Con International is proud to announce the nominations for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards of 2013. The nominees, chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges, reflect the wide range of material being published in comics and graphic novel form today, from crime noir to autobiographical works to cartoon adventures. Three titles lead the 2013 list with 5 nominations each.
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The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers has announced their Scribe Award nominees for 2013.

Acknowledging excellence in this very specific skill, IAMTW’s Scribe Awards deal exclusively with licensed works that tie in with other media such as television, movies, gaming, or comic books. They include original works set in established universes, and adaptations of stories that have appeared in other formats and cross all genres. Tie-in works run the gamut from westerns to mysteries to procedurals, from science fiction to fantasy to horror, from action and adventure to superheroes.  Gunsmoke, Murder She Wrote, CSI, Star Trek, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Resident Evil, James Bond, Iron Man, these represent just a few.

The Scribe Awards are being presented in July at ComicCon International.

ORIGINAL NOVEL

• Darksiders: The Abomination Vault by Ari Marmell
• Pathfinder: City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt
• Mike Hammer: Lady, Go Die! by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
• Star Trek: The Persistence of Memory by David Mack
• Star Trek: Rings of Time by Greg Cox
• Tannhäuser: Rising Sun, Falling Shadows by Robert Jeschonek
• Dungeons and Dragons Online: Skein of Shadows by Marsheila Rockwell

ADAPTED NOVEL

• Poptropica: Astroknights Island by Tracey West
• Clockwork Angels by Kevin Anderson
• Batman: The Dark Knight Legend by Stacia Deutsch
• Batman: The Dark Knight Rises by Greg Cox

AUDIO 

• Dark Shadows: Dress Me in Dark Dreams by Marty Ross 
• Dark Shadows: The Eternal Actress by Nev Fountain
• Doctor Who Companion Chronicles: Project Nirvana  by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

You’d think we’d have learned as a people – if you find a large humanoid form frozen in the ice, don’t thaw it out.  And really don’t thaw it out if you’re cut off from humanity, like in an arctic research base, or as in this episode, a sinking Soviet Russian submarine.  With The Doctor being mistaken for a spy, and an ancient Martian conqueror trying to blow up the world, things were set for an unpleasant interpretation of the term…

COLD WAR
by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Douglas Mackinnon

A Russian submarine unearths an Ice Warrior, frozen in the permafrost of the North Pole.  The Doctor arrives (aiming for Las Vegas) and attempts to broker a peace between the already very skittish Russian crew and a warrior who presumes that his people are dead, and that he has nothing to lose.

Gatiss pulls off a great version of the traditional “trapped with a monster” story, wit well-timed scares, the one guy who thinks he can side with the monster, and a smattering of 80s dance tunes.  Tense, exciting, and an ending that is rather a surprise.  The direction is dead-on for such a film – snatches of images only, never a shot of the full beast, cause there’s no need.

GUEST STAR REPORT

David Warner (Professor Grisenko) is Evil.  Or was, anywway, in the classic Time Bandits.  His career in and out of the genre is considerable – he played Jack the Ripper in another time-travel classic, Time After Time, voiced The Lobe in Freakazoid! (not to mention Ras Al Ghul on Batman the Animated Series) and played Sark in Tron.  His history with Doctor is equally deep. He was in fact offered the role of The Doctor in 1974, but turned it down.  Since then he’s appeared in a number of audio adventures, provided a voice in the Dreamland mini-series, and played The Doctor, albeit an alternate one in Big Finish’s Unbound series.

Liam Cunningham (Captain Zhukov) is currently fighting the winter in Game of Thrones as Ser Davos Seaworth. Like warner, he was almost The Doctor – he was in the running for the role in the 1996 TV movie, eventually played by Paul McGann.  He also appeared in the Titanic mini-series that brought us our first look at Jenna.

Tobias Menzies (Lieutenant Stepashin)  will also be appearing in GoT later this season. He also appeared in ROME as Marcus Brutus.

Mark Gatiss (writer) has been lobbying to bring back the Ice Warriors for some years, and Moffat finally relented.  He’s been busy co-writing and creating the new Sherlock series, as well as appearing in the recent series of Being Human.  He’s also written An Adventure in Time and Space, the anniversary story of the creation of the series, due to be broadcast near the time of the anniversary.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Ice Warriors first appeared in an eponymous tale during the Troughton era with a number of parallels to this story, in that both feature a frozen member of the Martian race thawed out in haste.  In the original adventure, the Ice Warrior Varga was played by Bernard Bresslaw, a regular castmember of the “Carry On” films.  He was 6’7″ in stocking feet, and was usually paired with the diminutive Charles Hawtry, letting the difference in size provide much of the comedy.  They reappeared shortly after in The Seeds of Death, mainly as a way of justifying the expensive costumes.  They reappeared in the Pertwee years in the two Peladon stories. By this time, the former Martians had renounced their warlike ways.  The tenth Doctor alluded to them in The Waters of Mars, theorizing in a cut scene that they may have discovered The Flood and froze it in the glacier, abandoning the planet in reponse, recognizing their threat.

Like so many classic series villains, they’ve appeared in many stories in novels and audio plays which served to greatly expand their history. The rank of Grand Marshall and some of the details of the caste system first appeared in the novel Legacy So far, little of the information we’ve seen in those expended adventured have been much used in the series, but contrariwise, little of it’s been expressly discounted either.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

A MODEL THE SIZE OF A QUARTER…AN EXCELLENT DECEPTION – This is one of the first times in years where the special effects on the series were done as model work and not CGI.  The Russian submarine was a huge model filled in a miasma of smoke standing in for water.

…AND AGARN’S WEARING A DRESS – I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but I am a complete sucker for the gag where a character makes a suggestion to do something, and another character is all “No, NO way, NOT happening, UH-uh”, and in the next shot, there’s the first character doing their suggestion.  It was described perfectly in <a href=”

target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>this scene from Freakazoid!

“Am I speaking Russian?” The TARDIS translates languages for its inhabitants, except of course, when it’s dramatically or comedically expedient not to, like in last week’s episode.

“This wasn’t a test” – Except when it is, of course.  The Doctor placed Victorian Clara in a position of danger in The Snowmen, and when she asked “Is this s test?”, he told her it was.  Remember rule one – The Doctor lies.

“Jaw jaw, not War War” The Doctor is paraphrasing Winston Churchill, who we learned in Victory of the Daleks is a great friend of The Doctor.

“I reset the HADS” – The Hostile Action Displacement System is a defense mechanism on the TARDIS, last seen in another Troughton episode, The Krotons.  When attacked by a threat of sufficient force, the ship dematerializes, removing itself from danger.  It’s supposed to rematerialize a short distance and time from its departure point, but as is traditional, things on the TARDIS don’t always go smoothly.  It’s a perfect way to get the TARDIS out of the way and force The Doctor to think on his feet, and more inventive (not to mention obscure) that simply having it break down.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT / CLEVER THEORY DEPARTMENT –

Another theme has arisen between this episode and the last – Song. Skaldak talks about “singing the songs of the Old Times” with his daughter.  It’s how The Doctor describes the call the Ice Warrior uses to summon his suit. It’s an odd choice of words, so I must assume it’s deliberate

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Hide.  The title, and very good advice.  Next Saturday.

I was something of an odd kid growing up so it may have made sense that I liked odd comedians. My memory was that I was the only person in our household who liked Ernie Kovacs; I must have been about 7 or 8 when his TV show was on. I thought he was funny and just so damn strange.

The same must be said as well for Jonathan Winters who died Thursday at the age of 87. A remarkable improviser, he could become anyone or anything. Hand him a prop or a hat and he could do four or five characters one after the other, morphing from one to the next in a heartbeat. Famously, Jack Paar just gave him a stick and Winters <a href=”

turned in character after character , including a terrific imitation of Bing Crosby.

I have a memory of Winters on The Jack Parr Show simply taking it over. Parr couldn’t get him to shut up or get off the stage. Parr was one of many many comedians or entertainers who were huge Winters’ fans. Robin Williams really owes his career to him. He pops in on <a href=”

this interview that 60 Minutes did with Winters and it’s fun not only to see the two riffing together but also for some of the serious insights that Winters gave on comedy and being a comedian.

What may be interesting to ComicMix readers is that he studied cartooning at Dayton Art Institute, meeting Eileen Schauder who would become his wife. Makes sense to me; his act often had him becoming a living cartoon.

He was also upfront about his stays in a private psychiatric hospital for manic depression which was brave and may have cost him. You could dismiss his act as that of someone too wired and a bit crazy instead of as the comedic genius it was.

There’s so many ways you may have encountered Jonathan Winters. He was an actor as well as a comedian. One of my favorite films that he made was The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming playing as police deputy that may have been related to Barney Fife. More manic but not more competent. He was also one of the few things that was watchable in the comedic gang bang, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He was the white suited garbage man on Heft commercials who had a refined accent and pronounced  garbage as “gahrbaj” – which I still use myself on occasion.

Winters, being a cartoon himself, also voiced cartoons, voicing Grandpa Smurf. Among the others were Tiny Toons Adventures (where he once voiced Superman!) and Fish Police – based on the comic book – doing Mayor Cod.

One of the most surreal (and with Jonathan Winters, that’s saying a lot) series of appearances was on Mork and Mindy where Winters was the son to Robin William’s Mork. As you may recall, Mork was an alien and his race aged backwards. It gave Williams a chance to work with his idol. It must have been easy to script; just point the two of them in a general direction and turn them loose.

One of Winters’ best known characters was Maudie Frickert who looked a bit like Whistler’s Mother and talked like Mae West. Maudie appeared everywhere, on all the variety shows, on the Tonight Show (Johnny Carson’s Aunt Blabby was, shall we say, a “direct descendent” of Maudie), and any place on TV that you can think. She had a career of her own. Maudie was just one of several recurring characters that Winters created.

When Jonathan Winters died this last week, all those characters, all those voices, died with him. They still live on videos and I encourage you to check YouTube and other places on the webby-web for them. He was an original, an antic mind, and with his death the world is a little less funny at a time when we need a few more real laughs.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten