2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 19: Meanwhile on 'Three's Company'

She zinged you pretty good there, Stanley.

I was alive for the entire run of Three's Company from 1976 to 1984, but I didn't really watch the show until it was in syndicated reruns. It was one of those sitcoms that would be on every weekday after school. That puts it in the same basic category as The Brady Bunch and Happy Days. I didn't necessarily seek these shows out; I simply watched them because they were on TV. That's how it was in the pre-internet, pre-streaming days. Choice was barely a factor in entertainment. 

Looking back, I wonder what percentage of the jokes on Three's Company went sailing over my head. I'm pretty sure one episode was about a "call girl," and I had no idea what that term meant. I certainly could not have understood the many, many impotence jokes directed at poor, beleaguered Stanley Roper (Norman Fell) by his wife Helen (Audra Lindley). It's possible that Three's Company introduced me to a lot of risque topics.

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 14: CHEESE!

Show those pearly... uh, grays.

How's your Advent going? Mine's going okay, I guess. I haven't been religious in years. Maybe I never was. I went to church a lot as a kid, but it wasn't my idea. My mother was Catholic, which meant we were all Catholic. My dad didn't grow up in any particular religion, but he converted to Catholicism to marry my mom. Took classes and everything. I remember spending some of the most boring hours of my life at a church in Flushing called St. Robert Bellarmine. Mostly these were Sunday masses. But there are a few extra holy days scattered throughout the year when you have to go to church on, like, a Tuesday night or something.  

I remember that one of these extra masses happened the very same night the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol was airing on TV. I didn't want to miss any of it, so I was extremely anxious for that mass to end. If I recall correctly, we got home just as the movie was starting, so I didn't miss much or any of it, thank God. The ghoulish looking fellow in today's comic reminds me a bit of the ghost of Jacob Marley. This is yet another comic panel I found through Comics Outta Context and repurposed.

P.S. Has a professional photographer ever told you to say "cheese"? Is that something that happens in real life?

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 4: The Adventures of Batman & Robin

What, you think superheroes are oblivious to name-calling?

For the first few years of my life (1975-1981), my family lived in a little ranch-style house in a cozy little neighborhood in Flint, Michigan, right down the street from my rambunctious Uncle John and his family. I've retained quite a few memories from those days, and some of the fondest revolve around Channel 20, a local independent UHF station we used to watch quite a lot. It showed mostly (or all?) reruns back then. Typical offerings included Lost in Space, The Adventures of Superman, The Abbott & Costello Show, and, best of all, Batman.

Thanks to MeTV, I've gotten to revisit Batman in recent years, and the series and its characters have again taken up residence in my imagination. Hence the terribly-drawn comic above. Please forgive me for it.

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 3: The monster cereals are always in season!

I've never had any Carmella Creeper. Is it good?

I never had any of General Mills' monster cereals as a child. My parents just wouldn't go for it. Frosted Flakes and Apple Jacks were okay, but Franken Berry and Frute Brute were out of the question. I remember seeing a box of Count Chocula at a friend's house once and being consumed with both fascination and jealousy. I finally got to have them as an adult. By then, according to those who know, the recipes had been changed (for health reasons) and the cereals weren't as good as they used to be. They tasted fine to me. Maybe it's a good thing I never had any of those cereals in their '70s and '80s heyday. I might still be chasing an impossible Boo Berry high from when I was seven.

Anyway, the comic above was written back in October but I'm just sharing it now. Maybe, in this context, it's Advent and not Halloween that arouses Carmella Creeper.

Podcast Tuesday: "Grecian Kid Stuff"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) meets a sorceress on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

One of the most anxious nights of my childhood happened circa 1985 when a local TV station—probably WKBD in Detroit—announced that it would air the film Clash of the Titans (1981) as part of its Friday night lineup. Ads for the movie ran frequently during the station's weekday cartoons, which I watched routinely after school, and I was hyped for the upcoming broadcast. You know how impressionable kids can be. Clash of the Titans became all I could think about.

I'd been a little too young (just five years old) when the film was originally released, but I was now ready for the action and thrills of this Greek myth-inspired blockbuster and its wonderfully hideous stop-motion creatures. I'd been going through a Greek myth phase at the time, and my parents had even rented a VCR so we could screen Jason and the Argonauts (1963) for my birthday. Based on the ads, Clash of the Titans looked like Jason on steroids. I couldn't miss it.

But there was a problem! You see, Friday nights were when my family and I would go out to dinner and spend quality time with each other. That's a lovely tradition, but I couldn't bother with family togetherness when Perseus, Medusa, and a robot owl were waiting for me at home. Today, I could just DVR Clash of the Titans or stream the movie whenever I wanted, but such options were not available to me in 1985. So I just tried to eat as quickly as I could and hurry my family through dinner as much as possible. No one was happy with me. As I remember it, we got home just as the film was starting. I may have missed the opening credits, but I saw the rest of the film, and it blew my mind.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing an episode called "Greece is the Word." It, too, is based on Greek myth, and it is even less faithful to those stories than Clash of the Titans. But does it make for a good episode? Let's find out together!

Podcast Tuesday: "If You're Going to San Francisco"

Erin Moran confers with Suzi Quatro on Happy Days.

The eternal question.

There was a time when kids supposedly dreamed of running away with the circus in order to escape the stultifying boredom of domestic life. I doubt many of them actually went through with it, though. As I understand it, circus people were traditionally born into the strange, nomadic lifestyle, indoctrinated by parents and grandparents. It's an insular, cloistered world, and it's unlikely that experienced circus performers -- hardened by years on the road -- would want to take on any inexperienced runaways. Would you? And I'm guessing that the alleged "glamour" of circus life would fade away quickly if your job were shoveling elephant shit or hosing down the sideshow freaks.

The 1950s brought a new, even wilder kind of circus called rock & roll. Now this was something that might convince a kid to run away from home. You get to travel from town to town, wear sparkly outfits, and perform for screaming crowds. And, unlike the circus, you can do all this without walking on a tightrope or sticking your head in a lion's mouth. It's a win-win, right? I would guess that rock & roll led to more runaways than the circus ever did. In the 1970s, there was literally a band called The Runaways.

In the Happy Days episode we are covering this week, "Fonzie and Leather Tuscadero: Part 2," young Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran) seriously considers ditching her unsatisfying home life in order to join rocker Suzi Quatro on the road. It turns out she's tired of living in the shadow of goody two-shoes brother Richie (Ron Howard). This story turns into one of the more dramatic episodes that we've reviewed so far on the podcast.

Here's our take on "Fonzie and Leather Tuscadero: Part 2" (aka "Fonzie, Rock Entrepreneur: Part 2"). Enjoy it in good health.

Revisiting a (mostly bad) Christmas album from my childhood

This album was somehow part of my family's Christmas tradition.

Built for comfort, not for speed.

The Winston Singers. They sound famous, right? You're pretty sure you've heard of them. They had that one song. Or was it an album? Or maybe it was a TV special with Jim Nabors and the Marine Corps Band. Whatever. They did something.

Didn't they?

The truth is that The Winston Singers were a bunch of uncredited session musicians who made two quickie cash-in Christmas albums for a low-budget record label in Pennsylvania called Wyncote in the mid-1960s. For the most part, their albums weren't even sold in real record stores. Instead, middlemen called "rack jobbers" would rent space in drug stores and department stores to hawk these inexpensive albums to people who were buying sweaters or talcum powder or lawnmowers.

One of those LPs, simply titled Christmas Carols (aka 14 Christmas Carols and released in 1964), found its way into my family's music collection, along with my dad's Joan Baez albums and the Sound of Music soundtrack. We used to bring it out every December, though the only thing we had to play it on was a Fisher-Price portable turntable that was designed to be sturdy rather than acoustically pleasing. Eleven months out of the year, this album was collecting dust in some hall closet.

In retrospect, that was probably for the best. I recently revisited The Winston Singers' album and found it to be mostly terrible. The jacket does not include any sort of credits or liner notes, just plugs for other holiday-themed Wyncote LPs like Organs and Chimes and Silent Night. No legitimate singers, musicians, or producers would want their names on an album like Christmas Carols. Wyncote may not have been at the absolute bottom of the American record industry, but it was in the lower third. The nicest thing I can say about the LP is that it's pressed on good quality, durable vinyl, much better than some of the flimsy compilation albums I've found from the '70s and '80s that are so wobbly they're almost like flexi-discs. (Even the sleeves on those are thin and cheap.)

The short-lived, low-budget Wyncote Records.

As its title suggests, Christmas Carols—which was available in both stereo and mono (our family splurged for the stereo)—consists of chintzy, rinky-dink choral renditions of Yuletide songs like "Jingle Bells," "I Saw Three Ships," and "Joy to the World." The stuff everyone knows, in other words. Of the 14 selections, there were only two titles I didn't immediately recognize: "Hail to Christmas" (from the Babes in Toyland operetta) and a somber number called "Christmas Hymn," which closes the album.

The music is best described as loud and shouty, with very little subtlety or nuance. Dynamics are not in evidence here. I can't quite tell how many Winston Singers there are. It sounds like maybe five to ten, both men and women. They are accompanied by an organist, whose shrill tones occasionally threaten to drown out the vocals. The mixing seems noticeably "off" somehow. I'm not sure if the singers could hear the organ at all, since they're never quite on pitch. Musically, Christmas Carols is just not of professional caliber. It's more like what you'd hear at a smallish church or school with limited resources.

The one track I remembered most vividly from my youth was "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." That's a carol I've always liked anyway because it has an eerie, spooky vibe to it. Plus it name checks Satan—rare for a holiday tune. And, sure enough, "God Rest Ye" is probably the strongest part of the entire Christmas Carols experience. The tinny organ and curdled vocals actually kind of work to the song's advantage.

"Go Tell It on the Mountain," on the other hand, is a disaster. I don't know why the very Caucasian Winston Singers thought they could tackle a spiritual, but they were misinformed. At least this rendition is brief. In fact, all 14 songs on this album are brief. I doubt anything goes past three minutes. A wise decision. Christ is merciful; albums recorded in his name should be, too.

Overall, despite its many technical shortcomings, Christmas Carols fulfills its destiny, which is to be generic, instantly recognizable holiday music. On that count, it succeeds where the bombastic Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra so often fail. The Winston Singers' LP is something (mostly) unobtrusive to have on in the background at a holiday party, for instance. My folks used to have big Christmas parties at our house every year, inviting mostly work friends, and I'm sure this record got some playtime there. You could also listen to the album while wrapping presents or trimming a tree. Maybe we used it for that, too.

The sophomore (and farewell) LP.

And so, this obscure, indifferently made Christmas album from 1964—probably the result of an afternoon's work by people who did not care how it turned out—became an integral part of my family's holiday traditions. It served in that capacity for at least a decade, maybe more. Because I associated this record with vacations and presents, I was even excited to see the ugly LP cover, which depicts some creepy, dead-eyed Dickensian caroler figurines in an unflattering close-up.

I'd say we got our $1.99's worth out of this LP.

No other Christmas album ever had quite the same importance in our household as the Wyncote budget record, but there were a few pretenders to the throne. My mother bought a copy of A Very Special Christmas in 1987, for instance, only to be horrified that it contained a newfangled rap song, "Christmas in Hollis" by Run-D.M.C. Even the offerings by Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, and Bruce Springsteen were too noisy for her liking. About the only track that met with her approval was "The Coventry Carol" by Alison Moyet.

Maybe The Winston Singers were on to something. Or maybe not. They released a second album, Little Drummer Boy, in 1966. The title track was the only new recording on it; the other nine songs were borrowed directly from Christmas Carols. Neither "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" nor "Go Tell It on the Mountain" made the cut. Wyncote Records went under the next year.

Revisiting the 1966 'Batman': What have I learned?

Batman was everywhere in 1966, including the cover of Mad.

A favorite from the cathode ray tube era.

This Saturday night, the nostalgia-based cable channel Me-TV airs its weekly hour-long Batman block for the last time. The network likes to turn over its schedule every now and again, and they've already cycled through the entire 120-episode run of the series. I suppose if I really need my Bat-fix from now on, I could just break down and buy that boxed set of the complete series.

But Me-TV's weekly airings of the 1966-68 Batman were a great way to watch the episodes at a reasonable pace. With a show as stylized and intense as this, two episodes a week are about all I could handle. Any more would be like trying to eat my own body weight in cotton candy. Besides, since the show was airing across the country, it was an opportunity to comment on each episode via Twitter in real time and commune with other Bat-fans. I'll miss that.

I wasn't alive when Batman originally aired, but I definitely saw the reruns on Channel 20, an independent UHF station in the Flint, Michigan area. Channel 20 was one of my main sources of entertainment and enlightenment during my formative years. It's where I saw The Abbott & Costello Show, The Three Stooges, The Adventures of Superman, and Lost In Space. (Coincidentally, Lost in Space will be occupying Batman's old time slot on Me-TV.)

While I had definitely seen episodes of Batman since then—I vaguely remember the show airing on FX or some other, similar basic cable network—I hadn't revisited the series in any kind of systematic way since my early childhood. But now, thanks to Me-TV, I've seen all the episodes a few times over. And here are my thoughts as an adult.

1. Batman is a Zen master. Robin is a hothead.

Peter Deyell and Lyle Waggoner.

Think just anyone could slip into some tights and be the World's Greatest Detective? Think again, citizen.

Batman would have been a very different series if producer William Dozier had gone with the other finalists for the roles of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. Respectively, Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell screen tested for these parts. The contrast between this Dynamic Duo and the familiar team of Adam West and Burt Ward is stark. Waggoner's take on the Caped Crusader is stolid, humorless, and utterly lacking in self-awareness. Isn't that how West played him, too? Well, yeah, but West brought a whole level of stylized humor to the part that Waggoner's interpretation totally lacked.

In the 1999 documentary Hollywood Screen Tests, Dozier's assistant Charles B. Fitzsimmons puts it best: "Adam and Burt were, in our opinion, absolutely perfect. Lyle could have performed it. Peter could have performed it. But it would not have been what it became with Adam."

Outside of Batman, Adam West was at home in purely comedic roles, like the delusional title character on the Conan O'Brien-scripted Lookwell or as the daffy, childlike mayor of Quahog on Family Guy. And then there was his classic appearance in the "Mr. Plow" episode of The Simpsons. His version of Bruce Wayne/Batman is one of the great pop culture creations of the 1960s, a man so totally caught up in his dream of protecting Gotham while dressed up as a bat that he doesn't realize it's ridiculous. Adam West seems to exist almost in a dream state on Batman, detached from reality even when he's supposedly relaxing at stately Wayne Manor. The actor all but croons his dialogue, and his dramatic... pauses, flowery phrasing, and over-pronounced diction might even put William Shatner to shame.

Robin, meanwhile, is often thought of as a wide-eyed, squeaky-voiced innocent, constantly in slack-jawed amazement at the events unfolding around him. ("Holy _____!" is his famous catchphrase.) And that was exactly how Peter Deyell played the part. But that's not how Burt Ward plays it. His Robin is a snarling pit bull whom Batman has to keep on a (figurative) leash. And, yes, I realize the animal metaphors are getting scrambled here. The point is, when Robin threatens to fly off the handle, it's Batman who has to keep him in check. Notice how often Burt Ward punches the inside of his palm when his character is upset. His growly voice is even deeper than Batman's!

Adam West's Batman is a true Zen master, almost eerily calm and reserved. Whereas Robin tends to act on instinct, Batman is contemplative and cool, often thinking three steps ahead of the week's villain. One of my favorite aspects of this version of the character is that he's a true believer in rehabilitation. He honestly believes his enemies can mend their ways, and he wants to see them become productive citizens. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much support from the higher-ups, as we'll soon see.

2. Yes, Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara are useless. But so is every official in Gotham, which is why the city needs Batman so badly.

A pair of do-nothings.

It's a well-known trope of the '60s Batman series that Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara are two past-their-prime do-nothings who spend most of their time shooting the breeze in Gordon's office. Meanwhile, the thousands of uniformed Gotham City policemen largely stay offstage. Whenever there's even the merest inkling of trouble, Commissioner Gordon is quick to call Batman on that fancy red phone he keeps under a glass dome like a freshly prepared pheasant.

But Gordon and O'Hara aren't the only screen doors on the submarine that is Gotham. Warden Crichton, who heads the Gotham City Penitentiary, is a weak, namby-pamby bumbler who has no idea how to keep the likes of Joker or Penguin under control. Prison escapes are incredibly common and incredibly brazen. Joker dips out during a baseball game in the rec yard. Shame's accomplices breach the walls of the penitentiary with an honest-to-goodness tank.

It would seem that, in the Batman '66 universe, the entire government consists of spineless bureaucrats who bow to the merest pressure. Take Mayor Linseed, for example. In "Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club," he actually fires Commissioner Gordon at the behest of his wife, when the latter threatens to stop cooking and cleaning for him. That's it. That's all it takes. No mind control. No hostages. Just a tiny amount of nagging. If Mayor Linseed had been able to withstand that, an entire episode's worth of trouble could have been avoided.

Oh, and by the way...

3. Gotham is totally New York.

Mayor Linseed and Mayor Lindsay.

Not much to say here. While Marvel's characters tend to live in real-life places like Los Angeles, DC's characters often hail from made-up locales like Metropolis. And Metropolis, we all know, is DC's stand-in for New York City. But what does that make Gotham? Chicago? Christopher Nolan must have thought so, since he filmed The Dark Knight there. (He actually shot the Joker's bank robbery in an abandoned post office right across from the building where I was working at the time.) In Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gotham and Metropolis seem to be right next to each other on the map. Go figure.

But if Batman '66 is to be believed, Gotham is definitely New York City. Which makes sense, since "Gotham" is supposedly a nickname for New York. On this show, Gotham is governed by the weak-willed, glad-handing Mayor Linseed. This character is clearly named after John Lindsay, who was mayor of New York from 1966 to 1973. Lindsay, in fact, is both younger and more handsome than Linseed. Usually, it goes the other way in popular culture. And whatever state Gotham is in, its governor is named Stonefellow, a nod to Nelson Rockefeller, the real governor of New York State from 1959 to 1973.

That's all the evidence I need. Gotham is New York. I guess Metropolis must be Pittsburgh or something.

4. In this version, Batman is largely the protector of Gotham's wealthy elite.

A rich guy protecting other rich guys?

The Batman franchise has gone through many, many incarnations since 1939, some more serious, some less so. But one theme has remained remarkably consistent. If the rich people in Gotham are going to have some kind of fancy-schmancy fundraiser or pretentious art opening or whatever, one of the city's supercriminals is going to show up and cause chaos, partly for material gain and partly for the satisfaction of doing it. That happens again and again on Batman '66.

But maybe that kind of thing happens too often on the show. It seems like this Batman spends all his time at jewelry stores, furriers, high-end galleries, ritzy restaurants, and musty mansions. The villains on this show are forever trying to snag expensive trinkets like diamonds or rare books, and Batman is right there to punch them in the jaw. Sure, he'll come to the aid of the rank-and-file of Gotham, too, but that's usually only when a villain is attempting some city-wide scheme like poisoning the water supply. (What is it with bad guys and water supplies?) For the most part, Batman is like an unpaid, extremely violent security guard for Gotham's wealthy elite.

There's a classic scenario that I associate with the Batman mythos. Picture this. An average citizen of Gotham, perhaps an older, gray-haired lady, is walking along one of the city's lonely back streets at night, just trying to get home. Suddenly, this citizen is accosted by a snarling thief wielding a knife. It looks like the old lady is about to get robbed at the very least. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a bat-shaped shadow appears from overhead. It's Batman! Our hero wastes no time, first disarming the thief and then knocking him out with a well-placed right hook to the jaw.

Stuff like that almost never happens on the 1966 Batman, and I have to wonder why. This version of the character is a little too uptown for his own good.

5. There's never been a hotter TV couple than Batman and Catwoman (or, more specifically, Adam West and Julie Newmar).

The ideal Mrs. Batman: Catwoman.

Long before such "will they or won't they" couples as Sam and Diane on Cheers or Dave and Maddie on Moonlighting, there was Bruce and Selina on Batman.

To my mind, there has never been a more intriguing romantic pairing than Batman and Catwoman on the 1966 Batman. The chemistry between Adam West and Julie Newmar is undeniable. It helps that no one has ever looked as good in the skin-tight Catwoman costume as Newmar. I could rhapsodize about the way she wears her belt! (In short, very low on her hips.)

Newmar's Catwoman is a flirty, clearly well-educated society girl who seemingly commits elaborate crimes just to get Batman's attention and alleviate her own boredom. She's clearly smart enough to make money in any number of legitimate ways. And it would be easy enough to sink her cat claws into some wealthy nitwit and drain his bank account. But she doesn't want any wealthy nitwit, not even Bruce Wayne. She wants Batman.

He wants her, too, but only if she can mend her ways and become a law-abiding citizen. That's the thing keeping them apart: their very natures. She could no more become a rule-following square than he could become a cat-burgling crook. Neither one can change, and so at the end of a caper, they have to part ways. It's almost tragic. He's a Montague; she's a Capulet.

One of my favorite running gags on the show, by the way, is Catwoman's complete and utter contempt for Robin. It's series canon that Robin is somehow too young to appreciate the opposite sex, so he doesn't understand why Catwoman holds such appeal for Batman. Catwoman, for her part, is bored and irritated by the Boy Wonder, whom she sees as an irksome impediment to her plans. I don't think she'd ever actually kill Batman, but she'd gladly push Robin off the side of a building without a second thought.

6. Alfred is incredibly underpaid and just all around awesome.

Give this man a raise!

Alfred Pennyworth, butler to millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, is a major part of just about any version of the Batman saga, and the 1966 series is no exception. In fact, this may be the most integral Alfred yet! This dapper, well-spoken majordomo (played beautifully by Universal contract player Alan Napier) raised Bruce Wayne single-handedly after the little rich boy's parents were killed, and now he manages the sprawling Wayne Manor without apparent help. I've never seen any other servants on Batman; maybe they're restricted to certain parts of the house, a la Beauty and the Beast.

Alfred knows all about Bruce's secret life as Batman, and he's perfectly at home in the Batcave (which he apparently accesses by elevator). And he doesn't just know about it; he actively participates in the crime-fighting enterprise. I mean, he's not literally out there punching bad guys every week, but he'll run risky errands for his boss all over town, sometimes getting himself kidnapped for his troubles. If the need arises, he'll even don the Bat-suit himself and impersonate the Caped Crusader, especially when it's necessary for Batman and Bruce Wayne to be in the same place at the same time.

That's a huge part of what makes Alfred so vital to the operation. He's instrumental in maintaining the Batman/Bruce Wayne illusion. Our hero's life is so complicated, so full of duplicity, that Alfred may be the only other person on earth who can keep it all straight. He's never fazed, this guy. "I'm sorry. Master Wayne is indisposed at the moment." "I'm afraid you just missed Batman, Commissioner Gordon." He even manages to tolerate Aunt Harriet and keep her from snooping around in Bruce Wayne's library. Whatever this guy's making, it's not enough.

One more great aspect of Alfred's character on this series is his relationship with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. So let's discuss her next, shall we?

7. Batgirl was a great addition to the series, and you doubters can just shut your filthy mouths right now.

Batgirl: Oh, she's a worthy addition all right!

Like the third season of the original Star Trek, Season 3 of Batman takes a lot of heat from fans. and not without reason. ABC had obviously cut the budget by then, so there were fewer elaborate death traps for the Dynamic Duo and fewer full-scale Bat-fights. The writers, too, were grasping for ideas, so they wound up recycling plots from Seasons 1 and 2 or relying on increasingly far-fetched gimmicks. Even Adam West and Burt Ward seem a little checked-out during certain Season 3 episodes. Due to some contractual snag, Frank Gorshin's Riddler doesn't appear during this cycle of episodes. (John Astin briefly fills in for him.)

Nevertheless, I'll say the latter-day episodes are enjoyable, in sort of the same way that lesser-quality pizza is still pizza. The basic elements of the show—the Batmobile, the Neil Hefti theme song, the onscreen sound effects, the extremely arch dialogue, William Dozier's hyperbolic narration ("What's this?!")—are all still there. One of my favorite episodes, "Surf's Up! Joker's Under!," is from Season 3, and that one episode continues to inspire its own merchandise!

The best reason to watch Season 3, though, is definitely Batgirl. As played by former ballet dancer Yvonne Craig, she is a well-needed shot of adrenaline for the series. Whether as Batgirl or as mild-mannered librarian Barbara Gordon, daughter to the police commissioner, she's tough, sexy, and a total charmer, not to mention a fashion icon. She also gets her own cool theme song, co-written by Stan Freberg collaborator Billy May! What's not to like? I even enjoy her interactions with her pet bird, Charlie. Some might try to lump Batgirl in with such tacked-on TV characters as Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch or Scrappy-Doo from Scooby-Doo. Those people are misguided, to put it mildly.

One of my favorite aspects of the Batgirl character is that Alfred knows her secret identity and acts as her confidant and assistant. I could 100% see a Batgirl spinoff working, but I would have set the whole thing in England. Just come up with some reason for Barbara Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth to move to the UK, then have them be an Avengers-like duo, DC's answer to Emma Peel and John Steed. I'd have watched the hell out of that.

8. Sure, I have ideas for villains I'd like to have seen. Don't you?

My pick for Poison Ivy: Edy Williams.

Let's face it. When it comes to Batman baddies, there are the big four—Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman—and then there's everyone else. But even here there are strata. Echelons of respectability, if you will. Foes like Mr. Freeze, Clock King, and Mad Hatter were all imported directly from the pages of DC Comics. Others, like Egghead, King Tut, and Bookworm, were created especially for the TV show but were well-received enough by fans to be accepted into the Bat-canon, eventually making appearances in the comic books and getting their own action figures.

When I was a kid tuning into Batman on Channel 20, I was always hoping for one of the big four. (Little wonder that the 1966 Batman theatrical movie includes all of them.) But I learned to appreciate some of the others, too, especially Otto Preminger's fussy, ill-tempered Mr. Freeze. (Perhaps as a result of growing up in Michigan, I was always interested in coldness-based heroes and villains, including Captain Cold and Killer Frost.) During my Batman re-watch, I've become a fan of Roddy McDowall's persnickety, leather-suited Bookworm and Cliff Robertson's befuddled cowboy Shame.

But I can't help wondering why some classic Batman villains from the comics never made it to the small screen. The seductive Poison Ivy debuted in June 1966, just in time to be immortalized on the series, but it never happened. This would have been a perfect role for perennial man-eater extraordinaire Edy Williams. Edy actually appeared on Batman a few times, but never in this part. A pity.

And what about Two-Face, arguably the most famous of the Bat-foes never to make it on the series? Edward G. Robinson might have knocked this out of the park, and it's not unreasonable to think that he'd do it, because he did guest star as himself on Batman once. (He and Batman discussed art!) But if they couldn't get Edward G. Robinson, the obvious choice would have been George Raft, the tough guy actor famous for habitually flipping a coin. How did this never happen?

Scarecrow, too, might have made a decent Batman character. The producers clearly loved using colored smoke bombs on the show, so Scarecrow's "fear gas" would be a natural. And I think Ray Walston, then probably best known for My Favorite Martian, would have done very well with this part. Ra'as al Ghul debuted just a wee bit late (1971) for this show, but I can definitely see Robert Goulet in this part.

To me, though, the biggest missed opportunity in Batman history was that they never got Jackie Gleason to play a villain. He would have been great at it, wearing tacky plaid suits, smoking cigars, and barking orders at henchmen. Jackie's Honeymooners costar Art Carney was tragically miscast as the pseudo-Shakespearean baddie Archer in a Batman two-parter that doesn't really work at all, But Carney would have made a great dim-witted sidekick to a Gleason villain. I'd have had Gleason play some kind of billiards-themed bad guy, spoofing his image from The Hustler (1961). The Pool Shark or Gotham City Fats or something like that. It would have made for some great visuals. Imagine the Dynamic Duo strapped to a giant billiard ball, about to be knocked into the ocean by a pool cue the size of a battering ram. Fortunately, our heroes are able to escape at the last second while Gleason and Carney have one of their trademark arguments. ("Will you get on with it?!")

As you can see, I've put a lot of thought into the 1966 Batman series. Probably too much. It might be a good thing that Me-TV is changing its schedule.

Journey to the dark, dank heart of my 1980s sticker collection

"The mummy's ready for his mystical journey!"

Where were you during the sticker craze of 1982-83? Me, I was attending Springview Elementary School in Flushing, MI. And, yes, like a lot of kids my age, I got caught up in the fad. There was even a store called Happyland at the local mall that sold pretty much nothing but stickers. For a few months there, that store was the center of the kid universe. Then it went away and no one even noticed.

Recently, I discovered my old sticker album from those days. Well, to call it an "album" is being generous. As you'll see, it's just a bunch of loose pages of typing paper crudely stapled together. But it's an excellent indicator of my tastes during the early Reagan years. I was obsessed with cartoons, comics, video games, and movies. Other than my near-total lack of interest in video games other than Tetris these days, very little has changed in the last 35 years.

Anyway, out of some misplaced nostalgia, I've decided to scan the entire thing so that we can all peruse it together. I think it provides valuable insight into who I was back then and what pop culture was like. Page 1, for instance, is dominated by E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), but there's a little Pac-Man thrown in there, too. I guess that ghost is supposed to be Inky, but he's the wrong shade of blue. Or maybe he's just a pixelated Fry Guy from McDonald's.

E.T. and Pac-Man stickers

I don't claim to have had great taste as a kid. My love of cartoons and comics knew no bounds, as evidenced by these stickers representing Ziggy and The Smurfs. Hey, I wish I could say I was a 7-year-old hipster, browsing through record store shelves for the latest Plasmatics and Husker Du albums. But it's not true. I read Ziggy and watched The Smurfs. Come at me, bro. It should be noted that all the stickers on this page are puffy stickers. Those were the best kind for some reason.

Ziggy and Smurfs stickers

If cartoons and video games were great on their own, then surely the combination of the two was doubly intoxicating. Which brings me to my utter fascination with Nintendo's Popeye arcade game from 1983. Oh, did I love this game, but I only got to play it at the local roller skating rink. And I was lousy at it, which meant my quarters were soon gone. You have to understand that Popeye himself was my favorite cartoon character, and I consumed as much Popeye media as I could back then. Bonus: these stickers are made from some kind of felt-like material. They're still soft and fuzzy all these decades later.

Also on this page: the wizard mascot from Mystiks, which were these weird, animal-shaped stickers filled with some kind of color-changing oil. If I remember correctly, these were sold only one at a time rather than on pages. It was kind of a big deal to get one of these. The flat, unchanging wizard stickers just came free with the sticker you were actually buying. Sadly, this album does not contain any of the oil-filled Mystiks. Just this lone wizard. "I'm a sticker too!" he pleads. Yeah, right. Go to bed, old man.

Popeye video game stickers.

Did I tell you my love of Popeye was intense back in 1982? I have at least three pages of these stickers, featuring Popeye, Wimpy, Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea, and Bluto. I only scanned one page, though, because the other two are just copies of these same designs. I must have gotten a pack of these.

Popeye stickers

And it's right back to the video games. These are some awesome Donkey Kong puffy stickers. The main sticker even has googly eyes. Who knew Mario was on his way to one of the mightiest franchises in video game history? And who's that woman he's rescuing? Peach? Daisy? Nope. It's Pauline. And this wasn't her last game by a long shot. But, sticker people, she was a brunette, not a blonde.

Donkey Kong stickers

This sticker album also shows how I was growing and maturing in those days. It may be a stretch to call Masters of the Universe more "grown-up" fare, but remember that just a few pages back, we were dealing with Ziggy and The Smurfs. This is a fairly lame representation of the franchise: the logo, Man-At-Arms, He-Man, Skeletor, Beast Man, and two crummy weapons. Barely enough to fill up a page. Ultimately, though, it's stuff like Masters of the Universe that would lure me away from stickers.

Masters of the Universe stickers

Would you believe it? More puffy stickers based on a video game. Go figure. Bet you didn't see that twist coming. These are from Q*bert, another game I only played at the local roller rink. (The joint had a real catchy name, too: Roller Skating. That was the name.) But how often did I get there? A couple of class trips per year? Maybe a birthday party?

Q*bert stickers

Pac-Man, on the other hand, was everywhere. Grocery stores and pizza parlors had Pac-Man cabinets. There was a Pac-Man TV show in 1982-83. We even had a miniature Pac-Man home version. He had a level of ubiquity that Q*bert couldn't touch. These stickers specifically say "Pac-Family." There was no game with that title, but Pac was a family man on his show. (These designs are a little different, though.) And what have we here? More googly eyes!

There are a few randos in here as well: a hockey player, a rocket ship, plus a couple of stray Muppets. The Fozzie sticker makes no sense. It's Halloween, obviously, and he's dressed as a clown. Which tracks, I guess. But he's talking to a pumpkin-headed ghost who looks just like him. And he's saying, "Halloween sure is fun!" like it's some kind of secret. Shrug. (By the way, that "HOT SHOT" scratch 'n' sniff sticker used to smell like cinnamon. Now it just smells like paper. Time, time, time. See what's become of me.)

Pac-Man and Muppets stickers

This next page is sparse but very indicative of its time. It contains three large stickers depicting video games of the era (from top to bottom): Centipede, Frogger, and Defender. I never played Defender even once, and Centipede hurt my hand. You played that one with a track ball, and your skin would always get trapped between the ball and the arcade cabinet. Ouch! Maybe that's why I stuck this one to the page upside-down. Frogger, on the other hand, I played a lot. It's a game I still think about because I live near a very busy street, and crossing it on foot is tricky. My strategy is to make it to the center island and from there to the other side. I don't just play Frogger now; I live it.

Centipede, Frogger, and Defender stickers.

Not much to say about this next page. It's mostly just more randos, including your standard-issue Terrifying Clown from the Depths of Hell™. The one licensed character on this page is Snoopy. The only thing really remarkable about these stickers is that they're (mostly) the shiny, reflective kind. Those were sort of neat, I guess. Not as neat as Masters of the Universe or Popeye, but still kind of eye-catching. I honestly don't get the stickers down at the bottom. They're a bunch of strange props: an old-timey phone, a boiling cauldron, a piggy bank. Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.

Random shiny stickers

More of the dregs here, I'm afraid. Fairly generic-looking aliens and spaceships. Snoozers. I do like the idea of giving a child a "Pretty Bright!" sticker, though. "Hey, kid, you're fairly intelligent! Not a genius by any means but certainly adequate!" At the bottom of the page are these strange "Penny Power" stickers. I have no idea what these are or where they came from. Google didn't tell me jack squat.

Aliens and Penny Power stickers

Oh, but things turn around in a big way here! Even by the age of 7 or 8, I was already a nerd for old-timey, long-dead comedians like Abbott & Costello and W.C. Fields. So I can remember being ecstatic with happiness at finding these Laurel & Hardy puffy stickers at a drug store one afternoon. Curiously, these designs are based on a 1966 animated series from Hanna Barbera. I can't say as I ever saw that show, but I do remember Stan and Ollie turning up on Scooby-Doo. Also on this page: more Penny Power nonsense, plus Felix the Cat, a panda bear, "I Love My Dog" (we always had dogs in my family), and a now-dormant peppermint scratch 'n' sniff.

Laurel & Hardy stickers, plus Felix the Cat and more!

And now, the end is near, and so I face... Hello Kitty. Look, back then, I was a sticker junkie. I'd take whatever I could get. Even Sanrio stuff. Remember Happyland? That place was like Sanrio Heaven. It's only natural that some of that stuff would filter into my collection. Maybe the American flag helps balance it out. There's some more interesting stuff on this, the final page of my little sticker album. See that Smurfs sticker down there, for instance? It's another scratch 'n' sniff, but this one actually still smells like peanut butter. I'm not kidding. Don't believe me? Smell your screen.

You might notice some Hi-C/Return of the Jedi stickers, too. Turns out this was part of a whole promotion. I somehow wound up with arguably two of the lamer stickers in this collection. Wonder what happened to the rest? Anyway, thank you for taking this voyage with me down Memory Lane. You have a real nice rest of your day.

Hello Kitty and Return of the Jedi stickers

Damn you, Burger Chef! I blame you for all the disappointments in my life!

See? I even desecrated your crummy logo!

Do you remember Burger Chef? Of course you don't. It was a crummy, substandard fast food chain that went out of business over 20 years ago and for good reason. But I remember Burger Chef. Oh how I remember. When I was growing up in the suburbs of Flint, MI, the only Burger Chef location anywhere near our house was at the Genesee Valley shopping mall, but we never went there. This was because McDonald's and Burger King existed. Why, unless those places (and every other fast food chain on the planet) disappeared overnight, would anyone voluntarily eat at Burger Chef?

The executives at Burger Chef knew that their restaurant chain was unwanted and unloved, so they came up with a marketing gimmick: "We'll lure the kids in with promises of Star Wars merchandise!" And so, cruel bastards that they were, they unleashed the following TV spot. You'll notice that it contains appearances by C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (probably Kenny Baker). And if that's not enough, the supposed Burger Chef employee is played by Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beuregarde in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and was also a regular on The Electric Company, a show I was very much into at the time.

Now that's the kind of commercial that fires up a child's imagination. I could just imagine getting one of those posters and then taping it directly to the drywall in my bedroom with scotch tape. So I lobbied my (already overworked) mother to take me to Burger Chef. And she did. So what did I get for my trouble? Nothing. When we got there, the Burger Chef employee -- not Denise Nickerson, I might add -- blandly informed us that the restaurant was "out" of posters. We did not stay to eat or drink anything, I need hardly add. In fact, to this day, I have no idea what Burger Chef's food was like. I'm guessing it tasted like the ashes of a burned-down orphanage.

Who knows why kids remember certain incidents from their childhood? All I know is that the pain of the "Burger Chef betrayal" never left me. I've carried it with me for decades. I believe this devastating setback caused me to lose faith in the grownup world. My long-ago failure to attain a Burger Chef Star Wars poster is at the root of all my current problems. Or at least that's the excuse I've settled on. And it's not like I'm being bitter over nothing. Those posters were awesome. Just check 'em out:

One of these should have been mine. It was my birthright!

Incidentally, in researching this article, I found something bizarre about Denise Nickerson. In 1971, the very same year she was a human blueberry in Willy Wonka, she played the title role in a stage musical called Lolita, My Love, based on the infamous Nabokov novel. Does that sound right to you? An all-singing, all-dancing Lolita? With Violet Beauregarde in the lead? The songs were by John Barry (best known for scoring 11 of the James Bond movies) and musical theater legend Alan Jay Lerner. With his ex-partner Frederick Loewe, Lerner had produced such hits as My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, and Camelot. Clearly, the Lerner/Barry partnership was not as successful. The Lolita musical rightfully flopped, closing before it ever even reached Broadway. But somehow, there's a cast album for it anyway. Here's Denise's big number:

Remember: someone did this on purpose.

The complete and utter horror of... FOO TI FUM!

That crudely-rendered monster is Foo Ti Fum. The city he's terrorizing is Portland, Oregon.

My cousin's favorite gum

When I was growing up in Michigan, my uncle and his family lived right down the street from us, so my cousins were regular visitors to our home, especially during the summers. My uncle's youngest son, Derrick, was practically a brother to me in those days. He was one of those kids who, like the tykes in Family Circus, was always mispronouncing words in a way which grownups found cute. Derrick had a genuine love for Fruit Stripe gum back then, which I could never understand because, even at that age, I knew that Fruit Stripe was a total ripoff. A few seconds of flavor, then nothing.

Well, anyway, Derrick could never manage to say "Fruit Stripe gum" correctly, and it always came out sounding like "Foo Ti Fum." And that particular turn of phrase lodged itself into my mind and stayed there, long after I moved away from Michigan and my relatives. When I learned of a Marvel Comics character called Fin Fang Foom, I began to think of "Foo Ti Fum" as a similar character, a huge, snarling monster with the exact color scheme of the Fruit Stripe gum packaging.

This thought became so deeply rooted in my mind that, in moments of extreme boredom, I would actually Google "Foo Ti Fum" hoping to see pictures of this totally nonexistent character. Of course, nothing came up. Well, I finally decided to fix that. Here is a genuine article about Foo Ti Fum with a picture to go with it. If I ever Google the beast's name again, this will appear. That's good enough for me.

Some thoughts on the Pope's visit to America

Sadly, THIS is my idea of a compelling theology.

The Pope is visiting America right now, and all the TV channels are covering it, which means that when I make my daily phone call to my dad, I have to talk about it for a few minutes. The truth is that I haven't been a practicing Catholic in over a decade, and I haven't been a believer... ever. I went along with it for the first few decades (!) of my life to humor my parents, but I'm done now. Way done. You know what they say: "You can take the boy out of the church... and, all things considered, you probably should. Quickly." No, seriously, this current Pope seems like a nice guy, way nicer than the last couple of Popes, especially that one who looked like the Emperor from Star Wars. But, to me, he's still just a guy in a pointy hat. Hopefully, he can use his (unearned) position of (imaginary) power to do good in the world and inspire others to do good in the world. That's the best you can hope for with something as silly as the Papacy. Non-Catholics often think of the faith as a weird, bizarre cult with all kinds of spooky rituals, but the truth is that growing up Catholic was extremely boring. John Waters has written with as much humor and honesty as anyone about the "Catholic kid" experience. He can remember sitting through mass and fantasizing about the roof of the church caving in. That still makes me laugh, because I had very similar thoughts as a kid. Our church, in fact,had these big ceiling fans hovering over the congregation, and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if one came plummeting to the floor. That's how boring Catholic church really is.

Pointless nostalgia time: 'Meadowlark Lemon Presents the World' (1979)

I didn't hallucinate it. This movie really existed.

The way you can remember the difference between latitude and longitude is that latitude lines are like the rungs on a ladder, while longitude lines look like long telephone poles. Got it? That's a little detail I stored away from a 1979 educational film called Meadowlark Lemon Presents the World, a lighthearted, 17-minute primer on basic geography hosted by a member of the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters. Though I never attended one of their games in person, the 'trotters were nevertheless a vital part of my couch potato youth, what with their two (count 'em!) Hanna Barbera series and innumerable appearances on talk shows and specials, not to mention their utterly ridiculous and unmotivated crossovers with Gilligan's Island and Scooby-Doo. Who can hear "Sweet Georgia Brown" without feeling the urge to spin a basketball on one's index finger? Yeah, the clown princes of the court were everywhere in the 1970s and 1980s, including, it seems the classroom.

I was lucky enough to be around for the last few years of educational films being actual reels of film being threaded through a projector. The transition to VHS and those omnipresent rolling TV carts did not occur until my middle school years. No, if a teacher wanted to kill some time with a movie, he or she actually had to have some rudimentary AV skills. My parents were both teachers, and I can still remember going with my dad to the Flint Public Library when he wanted to check out an educational film. (This was before video stores.) The movies -- 16mm, I guess -- came in these big, flat, grayish-brown boxes, about the size of a small pizza, and they were held shut with straps. I don't know why, but I thought that was neat. You had to go to a special room on the second floor of the library to get them. I thought that was neat, too.

But, anyway, back to the movie at hand. Somewhere around the third or fourth grade, a teacher must have shown our class Meadowlark Lemon Presents the World as part of a unit on how to read maps or something. It was the kind of weird, fun, little movie that just might take up residence in a person's subconscious forever. It certainly did in mine. Interestingly (to me), Presents the World was made by the same group of amiable zanies who did the fondly-remembered Close Encounters parody film Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind in 1980, just a year later: director Rick Harper, writer Bob Rogers, and actors Stan Greiwe and Sandy Stotzer. I imagine they had fun with this assignment. Also in the cast is Mike Jittlov, director, writer, and star of the (unseen by me) cult classic The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988).

Meadowlark Lemon Presents the World, sadly, is not to be found in its entirety on the Internet. A company called Pyramid Media markets a DVD of it, but it'll cost ya: thirty bucks for personal use, ninety bucks for instructional use. If you're planning on buying me a copy for my birthday next month, please choose the $30 option. Happily, there are some clips available online, like this one featuring Stan Greiwe as a detective-turned-superhero and Mike Jittlov as a sinister, black-hatted villain. Enjoy:



What's really weird is the complicated, nesting-doll structure of Meadowlark Lemon Presents the World. It starts out as a film-within-a-film, and before long it becomes a film-within-a-film-within-a-film. You see, the introduction involves a hapless grade school teacher (also Greiwe) showing this movie to his unruly students. Then Meadowlark takes over and shows even more films, like the one above. It's like Inception for eight year olds.