The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis debuted on CBS on September 29, 1959. Based on a popular book by Max Shulman, which had already been made into a movie, this new situation comedy starred Dwayne Hickman as Dobie and Bob Denver as his beatnik pal, Maynard G. Krebs. The series lasted four seasons and its name was quietly changed to just Dobie Gillis for a while, then it was Max Shulman's Dobie Gillis and I think it went back to The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis at some point. This is not something that I — or as far as I can tell, anyone — noticed at the time.

I remember liking it a lot back then and thinking it was very smart and very "hip" comedy. Then again, I was seven in 1959 and maybe not the best judge of what was smart or hip. I knew it was smarter and hipper than most other situation comedies back then but that wasn't hard to be. In later years, I remember liking the reruns but thinking they maybe weren't quite as wonderful as I recalled.

I also remember buying the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis comic book which DC launched not all that long after the show debuted. The first one hit the stands on 3/8/60 and it ran for 26 issues, actually lasting almost a year longer than the show did. Sales (obviously) declined when CBS took the program off. While it lasted, the comic did a pretty good job of replicating the show, I thought. There's a bit of a mystery though as to who did this very good job. There were credits only on the last few issues.

Bob Oksner was the main artist and he was ideally suited for the book as he was good at drawing likenesses of real people and real (italics for emphasis) good at drawing pretty ladies. In fact, Oksner was one of those artists — and he was not the only one of these — who didn't get much recognition for much of his career because he didn't spend most of it drawing super-heroes. About when he retired, which was in the mid-eighties, fans and students of comic art finally began to say, "Hey, this guy was terrific." I guess it takes time for some of them to notice a good artist and Oksner had only been drawing comic books and comic strips since 1940.

But he got a fair amount of help on those 26 issues of Dobie. Mike Roy did some of the penciling work here and there and Mort Drucker seems to have pitched in now and then. (Drucker also drew unrelated gag pages that ran in some issues.) Sam Burlockoff did some of the inking and there may have been a few other helpers. Oksner appears to have acted as a kind of Art Director for the book, occasionally retouching the work of others.

Who wrote the comic is more elusive. The last two or three issues were written by Arnold Drake but only the last two or three. Various names have been tossed about as to who wrote the rest and certainly a number of them were unofficially written by Oksner. Why he did this "unofficially" is an interesting story.

The editor of the comic up until #24 "officially" wrote some of them but it's been said — by Oksner and others — that this editor would coerce someone else into writing scripts for him for little or no money, then he would pocket the entire writer's fee himself. His modus operandi, as reported by others, was to tell someone like Bob, "I advanced some money to a writer who was in dire need of money and then he never handed in a script. The company may take legal action against him unless someone can write a script I can pass off as his and I don't have the time."

You might think a person would have to be pretty gullible to fall for this but back then, there were editors who extorted kickbacks from freelancers — "If you want work from me, you have to slip me some bucks." Some freelancers — and remember, these are mostly guys who grew up in The Great Depression — accepted this as a necessity in order to get steady work. This particular editor allegedly did this too, and Oksner admitted he sometimes paid kickbacks or wrote scripts without pay. He wrote some issues of Dobie Gillis though, try as he might, he couldn't identify which issues.

Some have guessed Cal Howard might have written at least a couple. Howard wrote a lot of DC's funnier comics including The Adventures of Bob Hope for the same editor around the same time but there's no evidence he wrote Dobie Gillis.  In 2002, Oksner was an honored guest at Comic-Con and I got to interview this very nice, talented man who, alas, didn't recall much about back when he worked in this comic.  When I asked him if Howard wrote any issues of Dobie Gillis, Bob replied, "Probably but I don't remember if he did." So make of that what you will. All I can say for sure is that I thought some of the scripts were pretty good.

Someone at DC in 1969 must have thought so too because that's when they brought it back — but not as Dobie Gillis. As I've written before here, I thought DC management from about '68 to '75 did a lot of things wrong. They did a lot of things right too but those included being too hasty to give up on some of those things they did right. DC then paid nothing to writers and artists when their past work was reprinted…not a cent. Nothing. Bupkis. And they tried a few times to repackage old material as new.

This, I thought, was one of the things they did wrong.  They no longer had the license to make Dobie Gillis comics but there was apparently nothing stopping them from reprinting those old issues if they changed the names and faces…and while they were at it, Maynard got an upgrade (?) from beatnik to hippie.  Oksner redrew the covers and they looked a little contemporary…but inside the book, someone who was not as skilled as he was retouched the hair styles and clothings and other identifying markings. They relettered some names, too. But here — rather than explain it further, let me just show you what they did…

See what they did there? They didn't change the stories. They didn't change the dialogue except to change Dobie to Willy, Maynard to Windy and other named characters to differently-named characters. Put 'em together and what have you got? Why, The Way-Out World of Windy and Willy.  It lasted for one issue of Showcase and four issues of its own book.  Nelson Bridwell, who was on staff then, told me it might have been the worst-selling book the company ever published.

And why wouldn't it be?  America had changed a lot in those years and in '69, it was way outta step with what teenagers were doing and thinking and how they were talking.  This practice of updating old stories and passing them off as contemporary to save money is probably what killed off the love comic genre; that and trying to do stories about dating (and by implication, sex) under the Comics Code.

Reprinting a classic comic intact as a historical piece can be very saleable, especially these days when reprints usually have better paper and reproduction than the original publications.  But I can't think of many times that customers bought refried, clumsily-updated old material.  Matter of fact, at the moment, I can't think of any…but I'm saying "many" just in case there are one or two.

I have a few more articles coming up here about things I think DC did wrong between 1968 and 1975.  They include canceling a lot of very good comics too quickly…but they were sure wise to get rid of this one, a.s.a.p.

John Oliver returns with new shows on February 16…

I caught a little of the hearings today in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was quizzed about things that would matter if he is to be our secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. I got the feeling that all or most Republicans who get to vote on his nomination are thinking that the guy is an uninformed and dangerous idiot but they've got to vote for him because, you know, Donald Trump.

Politifact and FactCheck.org each list some of what the man got wrong or where he tried to have it both ways on an either/or issue.

Everyone seems to be talking about the price of eggs these days like (first of all) it's a crisis of epic proportions and (second of all) it's some sort of failure by either the Biden administration or the Trump administration, depending on which of the two you wish to view as utterly incompetent. But I dunno. I still seem to be able to order eggs for around thirty-five cents each from Costco (that's them above) and while that's higher than just a few years ago, the cost still doesn't seem to be that horrible.

I got two dozen from Costco last Sunday.  The Ralphs Market near me seems to have them for between 75¢ and a buck an egg which leaves me to ponder a couple of questions. How is Costco getting their eggs at a price low enough for them to sell them for around a third of what Ralphs is charging? Before you answer that Costco is such a huge retailer that they can get deals that smaller markets can't, remember that Ralphs is part of the Kroger corporation and they're pretty danged big, too.

Are the people at Costco just nicer to not raise prices at this time? Or is this a loss-leader for them like all that cheap toilet paper in the rear of each Costco warehouse or the hot dogs in the food court?

Is the management of Ralphs taking advantage of a shortage to jack prices up more than necessary? I would imagine Costco customers wouldn't bitch too much if Costco did raise egg prices as long as they stayed well below chain stores like Ralphs.

And is it possible that the price of eggs, which seems to have a lot to do with the Bird Flu, is just one of those things that no President of the United States can do a whole lot about? I mean, it's not like this country has warehouses full of strategic egg reserves that the Chief Exec can release.

Still, people who thought COVID was a hoax or a minor inconvenience like the flu seem to be really upset at what it costs to make an omelet. I don't understand these priorities.

From a 1983 episode of Late Night with David Letterman, here's Larry "Bud" Melman performing stand-up comedy…or at least trying to. If you've never been to an Open Mike Night at a comedy club where anyone can get up to perform, trust me. You will see far worse than this…

"Early Bird" hotel bookings are now open for Comic-Con International, which takes place a mere 176 days from today in San Diego. And there's a coincidence: 176 is the exact number of panels I'll be moderating there.

"Early Bird" hotel bookings are for hotels that aren't that close to the convention center but (a) they're usually cheaper, (b) all or most of them are on the shuttle line that will get you to the convention center and (c) they're available now. It's a few months until the stampede commences for the hotels closer to where the action is and you might find yourself wishing you'd booked one of those "Early Bird" opportunities. Find out more on this page.

After reading this post here, a reader (who prefers to remain anonymous) sent this to me…

Up until last November, I spent nearly a decade working for one of the big companies that provides TV listings for print, newspapers and cable guides. I edited listings for hundreds of stations, everything from small, local independents to Top 10 network flagships and I can assure you that the Big 4 networks all still produce a half-hour promo program in the fall, and for spring as well.

They are not aired as part of the network schedule, but are optional programs that we only listed if the local stations included them on their schedule. That varied from station to station, with some rarely or never airing them, many airing them only once and usually on a weekend timeslot that could be overnight but more often was in the afternoon on a slow sports day or in prime access. And some local channels will air them multiple times, either because the network or the local station is really excited about the new lineup, or more likely (just a guess) because the channel needs some filler programming.

These programs are part of optional programs all the major networks produce, which also includes religious specials (both holiday ones as you'd expect but usually one or two a year that stations always air on a Sunday morning, if they choose to air them at all) and sports specials that are optionally available virtually every week, especially during NFL season. In the system we used, these were called O (for Optional) channels and each network has one in the database. These are not actual channels but rather a place in the database that the data and metadata is stored as if they were real, and if a station listed an optional program from the network, that is where we would pull it from to add it to a specific station's listings as a one-time only (OTO) addition to regular programming.

That's all interesting but the promo stuff I worked (briefly) on wasn't formatted for that kind of broadcast…or at least, it wasn't when I worked on it. It also wasn't prepped, as some other e-mailers suggested, for the network upfronts to show to affiliates or potential advertisers. I suspect the material was for reporters who might be writing articles about the upcoming season but that's just a guess. Nobody told me exactly what I was doing. This is not an uncommon situation at TV networks.

About the only thing they told me — and this seemed to be true of all three networks at the time — was that the main thing they were selling was the concept of Family. Think of the network as part of your Family. Watch their network with your Family. If you believe in America and the concept of Family, you have to watch their network. But they had somehow resisted working the word "Family" into their slogan for that season. Instead, the slogan was "That Special Feeling" — which of course describes many a thing you can't do on television.

By the way: My old pal Pat O'Neill recognized the voice of the narrator of the ABC video. It was William Schallert, who at one time or another seemed to be on every TV series of the sixties but was best known as a professor on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis or the father on The Patty Duke Show. There may have been some sort of F.C.C. regulation requiring every show to hire him, Dabbs Greer and Burt Mustin at least once. Burt Mustin was probably especially good at giving you That Special Feeling.

I'm a few days tardy in noting the passing of Art Nichols, a very fine artist and a real good guy. The cause was cancer and he was 63. Comic book fans knew him from his work on, among many others, The Punisher, The New Mutants, Team Titans, Conan, Justice League of America and Magnus, Robot Fighter. He also assisted a great many artists (including at times, Neal Adams) on work that did not bear his name. I knew him as all that plus as a guy I liked to hang out with at Comic-Con, talking about just about everything but mainly comics.

Sorry to hear the bad news. Like I said: A very fine artist and a real good guy.

I don't know if they still do them but the three major TV networks used to preview each new season with a promo film about the newly-debuting programs. I worked briefly on the one for ABC's 1983 Fall Season and no one ever gave me a satisfactory answer to where these promo films were shown.

This is the one for ABC's 1969 season. You won't remember most of these shows but you may spot some people who later appeared on shows you do remember…

The "45 Years Ago Today" refers to when I first posted this blog item, which was on November 8, 2006. I was writing then of my memories of the Bel Air Fire of 1961. A reader of this blog called this post to my attention and thought it said some interesting things in light of all the fires that have occurred lately in Southern California. So here it is again — and don't bother clicking on the link near the end. It used to lead to, as I recall, a pretty good article posted by the Los Angeles Fire Department but it no longer leads anywhere…

45 years ago today, much of Bel Air was on fire. Bel Air is a loosely-defined area of Los Angeles nestled to the east of and below the Santa Monica Mountains. I don't know if this is still the case but years ago, a realtor told me there were no official boundaries for "Bel Air." You could advertise a trailer park home in the worst part of South Central L.A. as choice Bel Air property and not technically be guilty of false advertising. Nonetheless, everyone pretty much knows what area you're talking about when you mention Bel Air. It's a large community of twisting, hard-to-drive streets lined with fancy, expensive homes, surrounded by lush foliage.

In 1961, they had a terrible fire there that was made worse by all that foliage. I was nine at the time and it was the first time I was aware of a genuine disaster — one that involved people I knew. My family lived some distance from Bel Air but we were close enough to see flames on the hills and clouds of dense, red-black smoke that filled the Northern sky. There were kids in my class who lost their homes and others who told of agonizing days when they couldn't get into the area to find out if their houses were still there. A lot of famous people suffered as a result of the calamity, including Burt Lancaster, whose kids went to my school…and everyone wanted to help. My mother and I helped out for two days at a little command center to which people donated blankets and clothes and other necessities to aid all the victims. As a kid, you tend to think of property as something to be kept and owned and possessed and not given away…but here were cars pulling up, dropping off tons of useful items, some of which were purchased specifically to be donated. I thought it was a wonderful outpouring of compassion and selflessness.

As I recall, it was a one-two punch for the people of Bel Air. The fire was as bad as it was because we were under several years of drought conditions and the hills were covered with dry brush. Then — wouldn't you know it? — a few days after the fire, we had torrential rains. It arrived too late to help the fire fighters and of course, since the mountains above Bel Air were now devoid of plants, all that water rushed straight down the hillsides. Some of the houses that had escaped the fire didn't escape the floods.

The other memory I have of that week was the news coverage. All the stations went to non-stop news but it was a local outfit, KTLA Channel 5, that had everyone's attention. That was because they were the only TV station in town — maybe even in the country — with a helicopter equipped to transmit live video. It was stunning to see those images on television…and then I could go to the window, look out in the distance and see the fire, plus I could see the KTLA TeleCopter hovering over it, sending back the pictures.

Here's an article from the L.A. Fire Department telling of the Bel Air Fire. I suppose it's a tacky subject for nostalgia but I do recall it as the first time I was ever aware of how people need to band together in times of tragedy…and will. It was also the first time I think I was aware of the power of live television, particularly in terms of immediacy and the conveyance of useful, necessary information.

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UPDATE, LATER ON 1/27/2025: I take back what I said above about the link to the L.A. Fire Department Report on the Bel Air Fire. Reader-of-this-site Ron Glasgow found its new location and now that link will lead you to it. Thanks, Ron!

I've mentioned Ed Bluestone a number of times on this blog — a very funny (I think) stand-up comedian who never quite got the attention and bookings I thought he deserved.  Before he did stand-up, he worked for a time for the National Lampoon and reportedly was the guy who devised one of the most-imitated covers…the one with a photo of a cute dog and the threat, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."

I'm embarrassed that I completely missed the obits last year for Mr. Bluestone.  They said he died from complications of a stroke on October 24 and that's depressing. He had a unique style and unless you hang out a lot at comedy clubs, you don't know how rare that is. So many guys who think they "have what it takes" turn up with mediocre imitations of whoever's hot at the moment and, too often, they crib their material from other comics who aren't as visible.

One night at the Improv, I heard a guy who was unknown and has rightly remained that way…but he had a couple of lines that made me think, "Hey those sound like Ed Bluestone jokes" and it turned out they were. Shamelessly stolen from Ed. But that's how special Ed Bluestone was. He had a way of thinking that was different from other comics and we always need more of that.

I'm sorry I missed the reports of his demise. I'm also sorry I can't find one of his best spots on the web to embed here. This one is the best I can do at the moment. It's pretty good but one of these days, I'll find and feature him at his best and you'll really understand why I liked him so much…

Good afternoon and welcome back to the great new game that's sweeping the nation, "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" It has far surpassed the previous game that was sweeping the nation before yesterday, "Playing Pickleball Against An Otter." And before we dive into it, let me just remind you of the rules for "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" as I explained them here yesterday…

You look at these two drawings of Batman, then you guess what I think is wrong with them. Simple? Good. Here they are one more time…

I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Here is what Mark thinks is wrong with these pictures…

THE ANSWER: They're not drawings of Batman. They look more to me like drawings of Superman in a Batman costume.

Consider for a moment the key difference between those two popular characters: Superman is from another planet. He has super-powers that include super-speed, super-strength, x-ray vision, sometimes a kind of heat vision, super-hearing, the ability to fly and total invulnerability.

Now, consider the super-powers that Batman has: None.

He can't do any of those things. But he is pretty smart and he is pretty driven and he can do great but human-level physical feats. He also has developed an identity that…well, as he put it in the most reprinted and parodied origin story of all time in comics…

Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible…

Criminals fear him because he comes out of nowhere to stand against them. Often, they wonder if he's human. He's scary because they don't know who or what he is…and we love his adventures because in every one of them, he's risking his life, even if he's only going up against one drug smuggler with a pocket knife. Superman can't be harmed by a thousand thugs, each armed with The Guns of Navarone.

Superman poses for pictures. Batman doesn't…but in those photos above, he's posing and looking friendly.  And look at the muscles on that guy.  They're the exact same muscles those artists would draw on Superman, the guy who can juggle Buicks…and I'm not faulting the artists.  Not really.  Pretty much everyone who has ever drawn super-heroes draws the same muscles-on-top-of-muscles body over and over, just changing the costume.  There are exceptions. Spider-Man is (usually) slimmer than most and has more distinct poses.  The Hulk is wider and has bigger hands and feet. Plastic Man is…well, plastic. But almost all the men in super-heroic comics have always been built the same as each other…with bodies that would make Mr. Universe jealous.

Stare at the Batman drawings again, especially the one on the left.  Would it surprise you if a Batman with that body pulled off his outfit and it was really Superman in disguise? The Batman on the right is on a rope connected to God-knows-what but he sure looks like a guy who knows how to fly.  The rope isn't even taut.  He looks weightless.  He looks clean.  He looks happy. He does not look like a man trying to strike terror in the heart of anyone unless there's some guy tied to the other end of that rope.

I'm not saying these are not very good drawings. Carmine Infantino (who penciled them) and Murphy Anderson (who inked them) produced wonderful work even though Carmine didn't like Murphy's inking and Murphy didn't like inking Carmine. In a more fair and just industry, they would have been teamed with others…or done both halves of the art jobs themselves. I just think this is bad casting the way great actors are sometimes assigned the wrong roles.  Infantino drew some good Batman stories and he drew a slimmer crimefighter with a slimmer physique.  For some reason though, when he drew Batman for a poster, he drew a smiling powerlifter.

Anyway, that's what Mark Thinks Is Wrong With These Pictures. If you disagree, that's fine. And since we may not have another round of "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" for some time, you may have to go back to "Playing Pickleball Against An Otter." I hope you don't mind…and by the way, I asked the otter if he knew what I thought was wrong with the Batman pictures and he got it right away. Smart otter.

I'm not watching or reading a lot of news or political chatter at the moment but on a whim, I read this article by Rich Logis and thought it was spot-on about what we're facing in this country right now, Trump-wise.

Years ago, I wrote a comic book story about a new executive in the top job at a TV network. When he took over the office of the guy before him, the guy before him said something like, "I've left three sealed envelopes in the desk for you. The first time you get in trouble, open Envelope #1 and do what it says. The second time you get in trouble, open Envelope #2 and do what it says. And then the third time you get in trouble, open Envelope #3 and do what it says."

The New Exec thanks him but doesn't think he'll need whatever advice may be in those envelopes. Then a week or three later, he gets in terrible trouble because some decision he made has gone sour and he's panicky until he remembers those envelopes. In the spirit of "What have I got to lose?", he opens Envelope #1 and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Blame your predecessor." So he blames his predecessor and that gets him through the crisis.

A few weeks later, there's another disaster and he panics until he remembers the envelopes. He opens Envelope #2 and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Blame your predecessor again." So he blames his predecessor again and that gets him through the new crisis.

A few weeks later, there's yet another catastrophe and this time, he doesn't hesitate. He rushes right to Envelope #3, opens it and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Prepare three envelopes."

I think those who put the felon-predator back in the Oval Office will grant him a lot more than three blamings of his predecessor but at some point, some of them will figure out that things were never as bad during the Biden Administration as they were led to believe and there are just some things Trump promised that are beyond the jurisdiction of any President of the United States. And meanwhile, he — and his family of friends — are getting richer and richer and richer.

Yesterday was apparently National Moose Day and I have no idea what anyone is supposed to do with that information. Do you buy someone a moose and if so, how do you wrap something with antlers? Do you buy something for a moose and if so, what do you buy the moose and what do you do if, like some of us, you don't happen to have a moose in your life at the moment? I suppose you could celebrate National Moose Day by walking around all day dressed as a moose but how would that make it different from any other day?

About all you can do, I guess, is celebrate the Jay Ward cartoon studio and its superstar, Bullwinkle J. You-Know-What. And that's what Peter Bosch has done over on the 13th Dimension website. It's a real good article except that it makes the all-too-common error of thinking that Al Kilgore did a lot of the art on the Dell comic books of those properties. I debunked that notion here but it persists widely on Ye Olde Internet.

From 1959 to 1961, the great Ernie Kovacs had a weekly half-hour prime time game show on ABC called Take a Good Look. It was an odd game show because, at least the times I saw it, nobody won much of anything…or if they did, it didn't have much to do with winning a game. It was mostly a celebrity panel trying and (usually) failing to solve puzzles that Kovacs and his crew whipped up in little pre-taped skits and…well, you'll understand if/when you watch this episode from March 16, 1961. It was also the last episode.

The panel on this one consists of Cesar Romero, Hans Conried and Jacqueline Susann. This was some time before Ms. Susann became famous for her best-selling novel, Valley of the Dolls, and I can't understand why she was on the program unless it had something to do with her being married to the producer. As you'll see, it's not much of a game and the clues don't make a whole lot of sense…but everyone on it seemed to be having a good time and I guess that was the point of it all…