If you’re like me (and I suspect you are, or why would you be here?), you’ve experienced the same thing I have with regard to old cartoon shows: You don’t remember the story, but you remember the song. I don’t know if it’s because the cartoons just weren’t very memorable, or because the songs were just so darn catchy. It all comes down to the power of music, which is our raison d’être (French, doncha know) here on Tuesdays.

In the case of The Mighty Hercules, I can’t recall any of the plots. I have dim memories of some characters, and I remember Newt, the centaur who said everything twice, like Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas. (“I’m gonna go get the papers, get the papers.”) But that’s about it. I do remember the theme song, however.

Sung by Johnny Nash years before his million-seller “I Can See Clearly Now,” the song has a memorable melody as well as some unforgettable lyrics like “iron in his thighs.” You never hear about Captain America having iron in his thighs. You don’t even hear it about Tony Stark, and he’s Iron Man! But old iron-thighs himself, The Mighty Hercules, appeared in 128 short episodes and I’ve forgotten them all. Except for the song by Famous Music veteran Win Sharples. Listen.

Click the link below and sing along.

The Mighty Hercules

Super Duck was created in 1943 by Al Fagaly for Archie Comics, and when he first appeared in Jolly Jingles #10 he lived up to his name by being a standard funny animal Superman parody. By the time he got he his own title in 1944 he had jettisoned this shtick and had become a fairly conventional funny animal character, though one with a unique wardrobe consisting of a black shirt, red lederhosen and ofttimes a jaunty Alpine hat. The Stupid Comics website has called him a “low-budget Donald Duck with even worse fashion sense” but that’s not entirely fair. Sure, he was saddled with such genre stables as an unforgiving girlfriend named Uwanna and an annoying miniature version of himself in the form of nephew Fauntleroy. But his stories were generally a lot more frantic and slapstick driven than most Disney Comics and while a lot of artists worked on the feature (among them Jack Mendelsohn, Ken Hultgren, Joe Edwards and Dexter Taylor) as far as I’m concerned the best issues were drawn exclusively by creator Al Fagaly. Opinions vary, and I’m admittedly not an expert when it comes to funny animal comics but I love his unique art style and the wild, maniacal energy he brought to conventional plots.

His series ran 94 issues and ended in 1960. Unfortunately,the character is now sadly mostly forgotten, except by people like Robert Crumb who, under the impression the character was in the public domain, (or just being Robert Crumb he didn’t give a ripe rat’s ass; he may be a freaking genius and everything, but I wouldn’t let him use my bathroom) created a new “adults only” version of the character for his comic Mystic Funnies #3.

When people are asked, “Who’s your favorite comic book or cartoon character?” nobody ever says “Mister Magoo.” You’ll hear Batman, Snoopy, even the occasional Peter Potamus. Some people like Penelope Pitstop. Some prefer The Incredible Hulk. There are fans of Touché Turtle and there are fans of the Sea Devils. You’ll meet collectors who can’t get enough Bat Lash comic books, and others who search for Little Lulu. All these characters have their devoted fans.

And all the misters! Mister Miracle. Mr. Fantastic. Mister Sinister. Mister Mystery. Mr. Natural. Mr. Ed. Mister X. Mr. District Attorney. Mr. Myxyzptlk. The Strange World of Mr. Mum.

How about some love for Mister Magoo?

To celebrate the long life of Mr. Magoo (who knew that being visually impaired was so funny?) we present to you… the opening theme music from his TV show! Which is nobody’s favorite song.

Click the link below and try to enjoy it.

The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo

The Lion Picture Library was a series of digests that for most of it’s 136 issue run reprinted material from other Fleetway comics, focusing mostly on war stories, but the early issues featured reprints from the weekly Lion. They featured WWII flyer Paddy Payne, factory second Dan Dare space adventurer Captain Candor and three issues featured Robot Archie.

Although I’ve written (and written) about my love of the character but never before have I been able to present one of his adventures in it’s entirety. So, for mostly just me, I present “The Menace of the Masked Arab”.

With a new volume in the Ditko Monsters series from Yoe Books/IDW (our gracious hosts here at the I.T.C.H. blog) due in comics shops imminently, I thought it was a good opportunity to talk about Konga, that great ape of the big screen and the four-color page.

But once again the question is: Are there any songs about Konga? Did the movie have a catchy theme? Is there an old folk song called “When Konga Went A-Wanderin’”? Did Stan Kenton release a jazz album, “The Many Moods of Konga”? Did Eddie Cochran record a tribute entitled “Do The Konga Rock”? (No, he didn’t. Eddie was dead by the time the movie was released in 1961.)

I was worried that no Konga songs existed and I’d have nothing to write about. “Wrong, banana breath!” said a little voice in my head. Some duly diligent research turned up a plethora (yes, I said plethora) of Konga songs, many of them featuring conga drums. Coincidence? Or something more?

Listen to the soothing drumbeats in this song and you can almost see that tiny chimp enlarged to enormous size, stomping around London.

Click the link below and do the Konga stomp!

Konga - Roach

Anyone with even an ounce of empathy, especially writers, should feel sympathy for Jerry Siegel, who along with his partner Joe Shuster had exactly one big idea then spent the remainder of his career trying to come up with something else that was even half as popular and profitable. He had a major misfire in was supposed to have been his next big thing, Funnyman. Not only wasn’t it very good it just seems to try to launch a new superhero in 1948 when comic book companies couldn’t stop publishing them fast enough was a bit of a miscalculation. In the 60′s during the superhero revival he got work writing Archie’s Mighty Comics and at Charlton, and he even got some assignments from overseas publishers, like the UK’s Fleetway — I’m betting there’s a story behind that, I just wish I knew what it was.

He worked on The Spider during the period where the character went from being a cool super thief to a far less impressive superhero and created Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid. It ran in my beloved Lion starting in the May 4th, 1968 issue (which frankly seems a little late if the editors were hoping to get in on the rapidly retreating superhero bandwagon, but then in England time flowed differently; there the 1960′s didn’t actually end until around 1974) and was drawn by Geoff Campion, best known for his work on the Fleetway strips Typhoon Tracy and The Spellbinder.

But what I didn’t know about Campion before starting this piece was that in the 80′s he drew a color strip version of Tales of the Gold Monkey for TV Comic, a comic specializing in strips based on then popular TV shows. Tales of the Gold Monkey was a 1982 series that was intended to be a TV version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but was actually a lot more like a melange of 40′s Warner Bros. movies (To Have And Have Not in particular) and old radio shows and movie serials. Created by Donald P. Bellisario. the man who created Magnum, P.I., and although it only lasted one season it was definitely influential — according to it’s creator Jymn Magon the animated series Tailspin was “inspired” by the show — having seen both I can definitely see it. In fact,it’s so obvious I’m a little startled I never made the connection before.

I remember it being solid entertainment, not that I want to test my memories by watching it again, but Campions strips definitely captures the flavor of the show, as I remember it anyway. Anyone interested can read them at this website: http://www.goldmonkey.com/tvcomic/.

Gadgetman was secretly millionaire industrialist Burt Travis while Gimmick-Kid was lowly “lab apprentice” (which I’m going to go out on a limb and assume wasn’t a real thing) Gary Stewart. The art was pretty solid, and the scripts while not nearly as camp Siegel’s work for Archie was definitely right there on the very edge of outre. Take, for example, bad guys like the Taunting Titan, a giant waterskiing robot.

It only lasted until October, ’69, and so far I’ve only been able to find these three installments, but the first posted here is the first.

I did see The Wolverine last week and I liked it. It was a bit too slashy for my tastes but I guess that goes with the territory when you have adamantium claws. (Named after Atom Ant or Adam Ant, I suppose. Either way, it’s a song cue!)

Last week I presented a song about wolverines that was clearly written before the Wolverine was created, though not before he was born, since Logan (or James Howlett) dates back to the 1880’s. This Tuesday we have a song that’s actually about Wolverine! You loyal I.T.C.H. readers who have been keeping score can take note that this is one time I did not cheat when making a comic book connection with a tune.

Enjoy this musical tribute to Wolverine as we take a look at another version of the movie poster.

Click the link below and slash to your heart’s content.

Mc Chris - The Wolverine

For the end of (this year’s) run of artist Thomas Onwhyn‘s 1850s thru 1860s beach vacation cartoon booklets — and in celebration of the expanding Royal Family — we have the early 1860s book — The Royal Cabinet Album of Sea Side, published in the early 1860′s.

Above, a size comparison of various Onwhyn beach albums.

Like the The Queen’s Album of Sea Side and The Prince’s Album of Sea Side, both of which we showed a couple years ago, The Royal Cabinet Album of Sea Side basically reprints samplings of random cartoon panels from Onwhyn’s earlier booklets. You’ll find scenes here not only from the publications I showed over the past month, but also cartoons from booklets not yet posted.

Enjoy!

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Click here to find more early Summer Vacation Comics.

Doug Wheeler

SummerVacation

Hey, I’m back! Briefly at least. Between floods and paid assignments elsewhere, I’ve also had problems with the site not giving me even the log-in page. But today it did so…

Hey, this should be good. Doc Vassallo and Blake Bell have combined their knowledge for the upcoming Secret History of Marvel Comics and they’ve just started a website.

http://secrethistoryofmarvelcomics.blogspot.com

Our old buddy Rip takes a look at Bazooka Joe comics over at his Dojo. Yoe used to do the Bazooka Joe comics.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2013/08/bazooka-joe.html

Lots of Phantom goodness at Scary Terry’s World including some original art for sale!

http://terrybeatty.blogspot.com

Finally today, check out the great ERB fan art from the likes of Jones, Crandall, Williamson and Frazetta.

http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.com/2013/08/erb-dom-pt-2-11-15-edgar-rice-burroughs.html