Redartz: All aboard; time's a wastin'! Our Retro Metro is taking us back to Saturday, February 23, 1974. Which, actually, is a fairly portentous time for your humble host: the very month that a young Redartz discovered the wonderful world of comics! Actually, this was a great time to get hooked into pop culture. Let's head back and see why...
As we step off the bus, we pass a movie theatre, showing the film with the top song in the US this week: Barbara Streisand, singing "The Way We Were"
Rounding out the top five:
2. Terry Jacks- "Seasons in the Sun"
3. Aretha Franklin- "Until You Come Back to Me"
4. Jim Stafford- "Spiders and Snakes"
5. Love Unlimited Orchestra- "Love's Theme"
My good friend in Middle School, who was instrumental in my new comics addiction, also has got me started listening each week to Casey Kasem and "American Top 40" on the radio. I love it. I also love another song, further down the charts that we talked about in Spanish class: "Eres Tu", by Mocedades.
Tops in the UK: Mud- "Tiger Feet"
I'm not familiar with this one, Casey hasn't played it yet...
Oh, and hey, it's Saturday again! And there's enough good viewing on the networks this morning to require a couple extra bowls of cereal. I never miss Scooby Doo and his guest stars, but also must catch Emergency Plus 4 , Star Trek and the Addams Family. A very full Saturday schedule!
US Network Television Schedule:
Saturday Morning:ABC offered Bugs Bunny, Yogi's Gang, Super Friends, The Saturday Superstar Movie, and more
CBS had Flintstone comedy Show, New Scooby Doo Movies, Jeannie, Speed Buggy and more
NBC was showing The Addams Family, Emergency Plus 4,
Star Trek: The Animated Series and moreBut wait, what's on tonight? Fear not, let's pull the TV Guide out of my backpack and see...
Prime Time:
 |
| Carol Burnett Show Cast |
CBS: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show
NBC: Emergency!, NBC Saturday Night at the Movies
BBC1: Cilla, The Saturday Thriller: Let's Kill Uncle, News, Election Broadcast
BBC2: Falstaff, Election Broadcast, The Pallisers
Mary Tyler Moore Show Intro
Although I'm a faithful viewer of "Emergency", that CBS schedule is absolute comedy perfection! I always catch M*A*S*H when "Emergency" is a rerun. And I never fail to tune in Mary, Bob and Carol. Best night on tv all week, in my opinion.
And of course, as we still have some time to kill before turning on the console tv in the living room, let's stop in the local drugstore and check out the spinner racks:
Boy, it's no wonder I've gotten hooked on these comics. How to choose from these, and all the others? Well, that Amazing Spider-Man is already sitting on my shelf at home; it's the very comic that has just returned me to the Marvel fold. Oh, and I had to grab that Giant Size Super-Stars with the Fantastic Four: what a cover! And they used the old logo, too!
Well, that's about all we have time for on this excursion back in the bronze age'. But don't worry, the Retro Metro will be back before we know it, ready to take us to another dynamite date...
10 comments:
I discovered Marvel comics on November 16th 1974 (Planet Of The Apes weekly #5) so on February 23rd I was still nine months away from that momentous day. At this time I was reading The Beezer and The Topper, both published by D.C. Thompson and both stablemates of the more famous Beano and Dandy (Charlie Horse, did your Scottish relatives send you any Beezer or Topper annuals ?). "Tiger Feet" was the first of Mud's three UK #1 hits - the others were "Lonely This Christmas" in December '74 and "Oh Boy" in 1975. And "Seasons In The Sun" made #1 in March '74. Those "election broadcasts" on BBC1 and BBC2 were ten-minute appeals to voters from the political parties ahead of the general election on February 28th which had a Donald Trump/Hillary Clinton outcome - the Conservatives got the most votes but Labour won the most seats in Parliament so Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath was out and former PM Harold Wilson was back in. But I was only 8 and didn't care about such things :D
Great post!
1) I remember writing a letter to ABC to see if they would allow Karen Dey to show her sensuous navel (Parttidge Family).
2) I remember buying the Giant Size Hulk-Thing off the spinner but like a year earlier??? (I was still living in Gary, Indiana.). One of my all time favs, still have it!
3) My family spent a lot of time watching Carol Burnett. We loved it! So, so funny! I'd love to hear HB's analysis of that show. So, so funny!
Colin B - interesting last minute comments on yesterday's blog!
Cheers all!
Colin J !!!! You're really, really hitting my sweet spot when you write words like Beezer and Topper! (Oxygen please!). Sure did get those sent to me via Dundee. Beezer was a major player, no second banana, and ran from 1956 to 1990! Tickled my funny bone for sure! (Charlie Horse got a two-fer today! I better play the lottery!)
I was born in 1970 so find 1974 the most exotic of things, forever out of reach and yet intimately familiar.
Not much else to add aside from the related observation that I love reading comics from this year. Unlike 1974 TV - which seems dated - the comics are somehow timeless.
PS Thanks Charlie!
I was only two at this point, so I don't remember anything. But I watched a lot of the shows (MASH, All in the Family, MTM, Emergency) in syndication, and I've read quite a few of the comics since then too.
Yep, it's was a favorite time of mine.., moving from the summer of '73 anticipating greater and better things from the Marvel Bullpen. That FF Superstars ish was great. Loved them using the old villain profiles you used to see in Silver Annuals.., but having just started collecting a year prior, seeing these was a cool 'first look'..
Captain America was still fightin' the Secret Empire, still reading ASM letters pages about Gwen's death. And the CBS Saturday evening line-up with MASH, Archie Bunker and Mary Tyler Moore still ruled. And I believe the Trek TAS series was on Saturday mornings still..
If I were to have a "Favorite Month" (Favorite Week, even?) in all of my comics collecting, it may have been this one. This was the month that I obtained from my pal Bryan a HUGE stash of his older brothers' comic books-- many of which went right up to this very month! Hulk #175 gives it away, of course. (They did, for some reason, cut the Marvel Value Stamp out-- even though they weren't serious about collecting them. . . ). The very next month, I decided I was all-in, and bought Hulk #176 myself-- along with a few other things. (Kamandi and WWBN spring immediately to mind.)
And it was the Bronze Age at its finest, wasn't it? If I had more time, I'd do a bit of mental detective work to recall what title was in what arc, 'cause I came into possession of a whole lot of current ASM, Defenders, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and a scattering of many others.
Favorite panel from this week? Hulk #175-- Black Bolt has used his horrific vocal powers to try to stop the Hulk--- and the Hulk doesn't go down immediately-- but Herb brilliantly and simply conveys the Hulk subtly swing his head side-to-side, trying to clear his ears, and you KNOW exactly what he's feeling--- ohhhh, I just love it all!
CH-- Carol Burnett's show was flippin' BRILLIANT. I have never, ever laughed so hard at a program as I did during the famous "interrogation sketch"-- which went on forever due to Tim Conway's planned and unplanned improvisations. Please everyone, do find the time to watch it. Korman, Conway, and Wagoner. I saw it when it aired and nearly fainted from asphyxiation. Hitler hand-puppet, and-- no, no--- spoilers. . .
HB
Colin Jones- thanks for the info on Mud, and on the election programming. I was wondering!
Charlie Horse 47- Susan Dey was one of the reasons I watched "Partridge Family" too. Even if she was a few years older...
david_b- you're right, those feature pages were a nice extra in those Giant-Size comics and annuals. And yes, those letters about Gwen just seemed to keep on coming. I recall reading about her death (having missed those classic issues) right about the time of today's 'bus stop' and being shellshocked.
HB- we're on the same page again, that month may have been my favorite too. A great month to start reading comics! Especially with a head start such as you got!
As for some of those arcs you mentioned: Fantastic Four was in the middle of the Sue -and-Reed split/ Sub-Mariner arc. Spidey was battling Molten Man. Avengers were in Mantis' origin and Zodiac. Cap was fighting the Secret Empire. Daredevil was fighting Mandrill and Nekra. Defenders had the Squadron Sinister. Man-Thing had my fave, "Night of the Laughing Dead". And that's just some of Marvel (I wasn't much into DC yet, but soon). What a month...
Ooh-- that Mandrill/Nekra arc in Daredevil-- yep, that one was in the stash as well. Not. . . the strongest of offerings, if memory serves. Really dragged on, and. . . wasn't there a big blimp or something that was the deadly base of operations? And honestly, I never exactly got what the Mandrill was, or why he existed, or how in the world his power-over-women schtick was remotely related to his appearance. . .
(Any major Mandrill fans out there--?)
HB
1974 falls into this strange gap of continuity for me. I received comics from my cousin that carried me mainly from about 1966 through 1972. They were "old" at the time I received them. I started buying my own comics in 1976. So there is a significant gap of about three years - much of which I have filled - that lacks a certain nostalgia in my eyes. I have owned numerous comics you have pictured like the Defenders, Captain Marvel, and Life with Archie and the superhero comics always felt like they filled a space that I had covered with my imagination from the brief flashbacks in later comics.
HB, I first came across the Mandrill in a later Defenders issue (guest starring Daredevil) and I always had a certain sympathy for his character because if I remember correctly he was a mutant and had that ugly mandrill appearance even as a child so his parents abandoned him at a young age in the desert where he had to fend for himself. His parents were scientists at Los Alamos and they were exposed to radiation, etc - but their treatment of the child was horrific. On the other hand once he developed his pheromone control powers, he used the abilities in dispicable ways much like the Purple Man used his powers. Mandrill first apppeared in a Shanna the She-Devil comic. Nekra was affected by the same radiation; her mother was the cleaning lady that worked with the Mandrill's father. Very convoluted. But that abandoning in the desert stuck with me as an interesting aspect of the characters evolution.
Post a Comment