Retro Fan # 14 May 2021 (magazine review)

One of the main advantages ‘Retro Fan’ has with Will Murray presenting material is he can call upon his knowledge of interviewing many people for ‘Starlog’ over 30 years. Here, he presents more information about Van Williams (1934-2016) who was the Green Hornet of the TV’s 1966 single season, filling in gaps in his acting history and then moving over to working for the CIA, which he was obviously reluctant to talk about. There’s also a great photograph of the ‘Black Beauty’ car, which he called ‘the Black Ugly’, now housed in a museum.

Scott Saavedra has a look at the fan element that grew from the 1960s ‘Star Trek’ which has given us pretty much what we have today. Although he doesn’t go that far, only to the first film, it ultimately became the prototype of fan fiction and such for other TV shows.

With ‘The Saint In The Sixties’, Dan Hagen looks at our British series of ‘The Saint’ starring Roger Moore and the problems it initially had being shown in the USA and why syndicated rather than primetime broadcasting although the colour seasons changed that. The only absence of information Hagen does miss out on is Templer did use an alias of Sebastian Tombs. Oh, another photo, this time of the Saint’s Volvo, now in a German museum. Hope this become a trend. We really need to see more photos of these classic cars if only to encourage us modellers to match models more closely.

Mike Eury looks at the paper dresses from 1966, including one using Campbell’s Soups. Although he thinks paper clothing is making a comeback with the pandemic, I should correct him there about that as paper coveralls have been used since at least the mid-1980s with protection in forensics and laboratory work. Having worn them, I do know they can keep the heat in.

The real nugget for this ‘Retro Fan’ issue has to be Ernest Farino’s photograph selection of mostly behind the scenes of various American shows and a few English from the 1950s-60s. Oddly, he doesn’t identify the Anderson shows and thinks the two photos shown come from ‘Fireball XL5’ when in fact one show Mike Mercury from ‘Supercar’ being helped to read his newspaper and a gantry shot of the Tracy Island lounge. I think some of my favourites are from ‘The Outer Limits’, ‘The Munsters’ and ‘Bewitched’, although I bet some will be attracted to the original ‘Star Trek’ photos. The photos of Adam West and Yvonne Craig as Batgirl would seem to indicate the former had to have been wearing the bat cowl to have had such sweaty hair. I hope we see more photo sets in later issues.

I would comment on Mike Eury’s piece ‘TV Tie-In Toys No Kid Would Want!’ and the inclusion of the Corgi ‘Kojak’s Buick’ which was deemed an adult show. In the UK, ‘Kojak’, like ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Man From UNCLE’, also having Corgi cars, was frequently shown at a teenager access time and certainly cos of his lines, known to them so wouldn’t have been considered unusual to have a car tie-in.

Scott Shaw! Continues his exploration of the San Diego Zoo back in the 1970s, covering some of its more famous animals and idiocy of its visitors. Totally compelling.

Less so is ‘Bigfoot And Wildboy’ from Andy Mangels, but that’s mostly because it never had a British viewing, although reading here, I think that might have been a good thing. Even so, this shouldn’t be treated as a criticism. Without articles like this, we wouldn’t have heard of these shows and there are many more who’ve hit the dust that would otherwise be forgotten.

For those of you who like ‘Scooby-Doo, then you might like to see how quickly one  30something fan gathered up his enormous collection.

Finally, I almost turned my nose up at seeing a mention of American wrestling but the focus by John Cimino was more to do with the arcade computer game using them as characters.

I should, as always, point out ‘Retro Fan’ is a fun read and still amazed how quickly I read and devour each issue. If you’re into nostalgia, then this magazine should be in your buying list.

GF Willmetts

April 2021

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 82 page magazine. Price: $ 9.95. (US). ISSN: 2576-7224. Direct from them, you can get it for $ 9.95 (US))

check out website: www.TwoMorrows.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_152&products_id=1565