Compiled by Albie The Good, your average desert-dwelling, Bible-believing, Christian Beatnik and Incurable Bookworm... Thoughts about stuff... oh, and things too. :)
Albie's Note: I love old DELL Comics and most everything about them, including those "Info-Pages" we skimmed past when we read comics the first time as kids. Recently, while perusing the great COMICBOOKPLUS website, I came across some Info-pages from old issues of THE UNTOUCHABLES and MICHAEL SHAYNE, PRIVATE DETECTIVE, that were a little heavier than the usual "make-your-own-log cabin" kinda stuff!
These were uh... the "hard-boiled" Info-Pages. Informative they were, however...
Albie's Note: Although I was born in 1964 when it was already canceled, and never saw it once growing up, I have been curious for years about FRACTURED FLICKERS. By all accounts this early example of what today would be called "digital dubbing" was a little-seen laugh riot from one of my true heroes Jay Ward [J Troplong Ward, September 20, 1920 – October 12, 1989] creator of Bullwinkle and George Of The Jungle. Now the whole shebang is available on DVD, and yes it is HEE-lair-ee-ous!
Hosted by the great Hans Conreid [a familiar voice to any Bullwinkle or Dudley Do-Right fan] FLICKERS featured silent film footage overdubbed with newly written comic dialogue and music. Here Harry Houdini's actual 1919 serial "The Master Mystery" is given the FLICKERS treatment, and the ensuing hilarity takes us to a simpler, more unpretentious time in American humor. Enjoy.
Read the Wikipedia article on this great show HERE!
Albie's Note: One of the odder American Top Ten hits of the 1960s [a decade known for wonderfully odd fare to begin with-- just sayin'] was this classic "Early American Jazz"-style number from a young English keyboardist called Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell, 26 June 1943 and still swingin' today, I'm told.)
Written-- no doubt-- to cash in on the brief Bonnie and Clyde craze going on at the time, the song is notable not just for a really unusual, downright coolness in it's jazzy musical approach [Fame may have been part of the so-called British Invasion, but his models and heroes were obviously more along the lines of Mose Allison and Hoagy Carmichael than the more usual hoarse old bluesmen!] but also for a real historical honesty in the lyrics! It's a song about sociopaths, after all, and ol' Georgie, to his credit,doesn't romanticize these hoodlums one bit, which makes the song even more refreshing today than when I first heard it years ago on AM oldies radio as "a mere boy and a beardless youth."
In any case, here it is: a #1 hit in England, #7 in the USA...
Check it out!
The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde
Were pretty lookin' people But I can tell you people,
They were the devil's children! Bonnie and Clyde
Began their evil doins' One lazy afternoon
Down Savannah way They robbed a store
And hightailed out of that town Got clean away in a stolen car
And waited till the heat died down.
Bonnie and Clyde,
Advanced their reputation And made their graduation
Into the banking business "Reach for the sky!"
Sweet-talkin' Clyde would holler As Bonnie loaded dollars
In the "Dewlap Bag." Now one brave man,
He tried to take them alone They left him lyin' in a pool of blood And laughed about it all the way home.
(instrumental)
Bonnie and Clyde got to be public enemy number one Runnin' and hidin' from every American lawman's gun
They used to laugh about dyin' But deep inside them they knew That pretty soon they'd be lyin' Beneath the ground together Pushin' up daisies to welcome the sun and the morning dew.
Actin' upon
Reliable information A Federal deputation
Laid a deadly ambush When Bonnie and Clyde Came walkin' in the sunshine A half a dozen carbines Opened up on them
(firearm noises)
Bonnie and Clyde, They lived a lot together
And finally together
They... died.
"Depart from evil, and do good; seekpeace, and pursue it."
Albie's Note:I immediately thought of posting this old comic when I read my on-line pal Oscar'sBLOG about western writer Luke Short [actually Fred Glidden November 19, 1908 – August 18, 1975] This one is a real treat if you have certain interests.... I mean, here we have an adaptation of a pulp story by Short and fine early comic art from John Buscema [1927-2002] all packaged together by the most successful publishing house in comics history: Mighty DELL!
The original story is one I have never been able to find called "Test Pit." Apparently it was printed originally in the pulp Western Story Magazine back in 1938. I am a big fan of Short's fiction so I would love to read the novella behind this comic classic, but so far I have never found it collected anywhere. I would to read Short'ss pulp version and compare the two... but just having this one is great enough! I think you'll agree with me it's a great story, and one that would have made a fine movie in the right hands.
Interestingly, DELL actually printed dozens of these comic one-shots from the fiction of western writers like Short, Zane Grey,Max Brand and Ernest Haycox. They are worth looking around for, and the REALLY cool thing is that you can often find these comics dirt cheap even today!
[I have read that DELL basically kept doing these westerns in the "four color" line because they concurrently held the rights to the paperbacks of the same titles... the idea was to get rural and hinterlands kids started on these sagebrush authors early. I bet it worked well... Heck, like I say, I have been trying to find TEST PIT for years because of the comic treatment!]
