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Retro Fan #9 June 2020 (magazine review).

The cover of the latest ‘Retro Fan’ shows the late-1970s Captain America as played by actor Reb Brown in two TV movies. I think the most surprising thing with his interview with Mike Eury here was seeing the raise in fee Marvel wanted per episode compared to ‘The Incredible Hulk’ TV show that made it impossible to go further.

Although I found the two TV films a bit iffy, they did learn between the two of them as to what worked and didn’t. The helmet and semi-transparent shield was more to do with obeying road regulations than a deliberate change for the rest of the uniform, although it doesn’t explain his first zoot suit. Very inciteful.

Jon Pavlansky has a look at American colouring books. From a British perspective, there was quite a variety compared to what we had in the UK. While you Americans had yours centred on comicbook characters, ours were more generic and only strayed into TV series. I’m still trying to find any trace of ‘The Champions Colouring Book’ by the way. I seem to be the only person to have referenced it on the Internet.

Bristol born writer Ian Millsted’s look at ‘The Benny Hill Show’ is more a brief look. Hill’s show was finally cancelled as it was deemed sexist, although as the comedian himself said, for the end sequence it was the man chased by the women not the other way around. With the current bout of British comedians apologising for blacking up in their shows since the 1990s, what comes around goes around as to what is deemed ‘acceptable’. At least Hill had a sense of his own ridiculousness.

As I’ve never owned a car, I never really got the difference of what exactly was an 8-track tape, although Mike Eury’s piece on the subject explains the continual rotation so it never needs to be rewound.

The centrepiece of the entire issue is less about the 1967 one season TV series ‘Captain Nice’, which was never shown in the UK, but the interview with actors William Daniels and his wife, Bonnie Bartlett, covering aspects of his career. Not only the voice of KITT in ‘Knight Rider’ but Daniels’ resume is large and still growing as he’s still in demand. How many actors can say that in their late-80s?

Andy Mangels looks at the ‘Saturday Morning Preview Specials Part One: 1696-1977 with the various characters and actors, the two don’t necessarily mean the same thing, who hosted the morning in the USA.

Scott Shaw!’s ‘America’s Best TV Comics’ has nothing to do with comedians but the animated comicbook material on Saturday mornings in the late 1960s.

Ernest Farino has a look at Bert I. Gordon’s 1957 film ‘The Cyclops’ and the number of beasties that followed after with differing numbers of eyes, including in a film of the same name, ‘Triclops’.

Finally, Mike Eury returns with a look at ‘The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention’ that he co-hosts with a target older adult audience who want to meet the much older film and TV stars.

Remember, TwoMorrows had to pulp a lot of this issue because of the iso-crisis so there will be fewer copies of this issue in circulation so I reckon will likely to become a lot rarer. Don’t forget to grab a copy.

GF Willmetts

June 2020

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

check out website: www.TwoMorrows.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=1531

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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