Gone With the Wind Returns to HBO Max

After a brief furlough, executives for HBO Max, the new streaming service designed to compete against the new Disney Plus streaming service, have announced that Gone with the Wind is returning to the lineup. More than a week ago an announcement was made that the 1939 blockbuster (considered one of the 100 greatest movies ever made) was under scrutiny by folks who felt the film was promoting the benefits of slavery. Sadly, social media blew up with comments from both sides (tho, to be fair, more than 90 percent of the comments were in defense of the movie) and what I was shocked about more than anything was the misinformation that was circulating like wildfire. 

Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind

It was apparent (from one perspective) that most of the complaints on social media from people complaining against the film never even saw it. Hattie McDaniel, a talented African American who played the role of "Mammy," ultimately became the first African-American to be nominated for, and win, an Academy Award. But, according to one comment on Facebook, "Hattie McDaniel was just interviewed last week and said she would like to fling the Oscar back," unaware that McDaniel passed away in 1952. Another comment on Facebook remarked: "Gone with the Wind features negative cartoon stereotypes that are insulting to black people, especially Brer Bear and Brer Fox." (Someone should have told that person that Gone with the Wind  has no cartoons and that Brer Bear and Brer Fox are animated characters of another motion-picture.)

I also found it alarming that most of the news reports got the facts incorrect. The majority headlined that Gone With the Wind was banned from HBO Max permanently, or that the movie was banned altogether from broadcasting. Amazon.com sold out of Gone With the Wind, in all formats, within 24 hours as if customers feared they would never have a copy to watch ever again.

First of all: Nobody "banned" the 1939 Hollywood landmark movie. You can still watch the movie on DVD and Bluray, it will continue to air annually on Turner Classic Movies, and continue to be screened over Google Play, Vudu, iTunes and Amazon Prime.

Second, what HBO Max clearly stated (and such factoid was overlooked) was that the company was temporarily removing it from streaming and would bring it back with a special filmed introduction explaining the film's historical significance. "These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible," a spokesperson said. "It will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions." This is not uncommon as many motion-pictures and vintage cartoons contain an on-screen disclaimer, or a disclaimer on the DVD packaging, reminding people that there might be some material offensive to others but for historical reasons the films remain intact and unaltered.

Jacqueline Stewart of Turner Classic Movies

So, for the record, the film was never banned on any permanent level. It was removed temporarily so that Jacqueline Stewart of the University of Chicago Turner Classic Movies could film a special introduction. Let us be honest: many of today's movies and TV shows have far worse material than Gone With the Wind, and frankly, anyone can find a reason to ban any movie (made yesterday or today) if it does not meet up to the Ozzie and Harriet standards. So if you meet someone who says that Gone With the Wind was banned altogether from all platforms, you can correct them and help stop the spread of misinformation.

ROD SERLING'S HOMETOWN OF BINGHAMTON

Rod Serling, award winning playwright and creator of The Twilight Zone, called Binghamton his hometown. Even after he and his family had relocated to California, he would return to Binghamton every summer to see the places of his youth - his boyhood home on Bennett Ave, his high school on Main Street, and his beloved Recreation Park. It was here that he turned for inspiration for one of the most beloved Twilight Zone episodes, "Walking Distance," about a middle-aged man who wants nothing more than to return to the parks and carousels of his youth. 

By signing this petition, we declare that Rod Serling's love for his hometown - and particularly for Recreation Park, be officially recognized by changing the park's name to Rod Serling's Recreation Park. They are attempting to get 1,000 signatures and with a little help from the fans, that can become a reality.

Link below.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/recreation-park-rod-serling?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=&loc=thank-you-page

Retro Fan Magazine is Available Now

Looking for something cool to read during this downtime? Look no further than Retro Fan magazine.

And boy do we have a surprise at the bottom of this blog entry for you!

In an era where digital newsletters and Internet websites have dominated the newsfeeds, there is cause to cheer with the report of a new print magazine available for fans of vintage pop culture. In June of 2018, TwoMorrows Publishing released the first issue of a new quarterly magazine titled Retro Fan. Its tagline — “The Crazy, Cool Stuff We Grew Up With” — defines its subject matter, but to fine-tune that into a more specific demographic, with primary focus to pop culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties.

“I am also the editor-in-chief of TwoMorrows' long-running, award-nominated Back Issue magazine,” editor Michael Eury informed me, “which examines Bronze Age (1970s-1990s) comic-book history, and have written numerous books on comics and pop-culture history, the most recent being Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties. Previously, I’ve been an editor at DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and the long-defunct Comico the Comic Company, and have written for a variety of publishers and clients including Marvel Comics, Nike, and Toys R Us.”

Retro Fan almost started back in 2012. Publisher John Morrow of TwoMorrows and Michael Eury were weighing options for a new project for in addition to Back Issue. “With Back IssueI was so enjoying exploring the behind-the-scenes aspects of the comic books from my youth that I realized another magazine that did the same type of thing for the other stuff I grew up with -- the cartoons, sitcoms, toys, fads, fashions, bubble gum pop music, monsters, trading cards, etc. -- would be a fun read that’s also historically significant.”

For the next few years, the "Retro Magazine" gnawed at the back of Eury’s head, especially when he was working on his Hero-A-Go-Go book and revisiting the camp craze of the Sixties (his elementary school years): Batmania, Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Captain Niceand Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho the Element Man, the Cowsills, The Monkees, Dell Comics' superhero Frankensteinand Dracula, and so on. The book designer, Scott Saavedra, who also grew up with the same and Eury developed a working relationship.

Soon after Hero-A-Go-Gowas published in 2017, Michael Eury proposed to John Morrow that they dust off the "Retro Magazine" concept and he agreed.

One of the toughest challenges we had was settling on a title. “Retro” websites, conventions, T-shirt companies, video game magazines, you name it, had locked in “Retro Magazine” and other similar names. “Then one day John suggested to me, with a ‘You’re not going to like this’ disclaimer, the name Retro Fan. I loved it! And it nailed the tone of the magazine.”

Having read the first three issues of Retro Fan magazine I have to say the contents contain well-researched, professionally written and smartly designed articles. But at its heart is fandom — a passion for a TV show, action figure, junk food, or singing group that made our childhoods special.

Much of the content is provided by regular columnists who have a reader following and keen knowledge about their subjects, starting with Martin Pasko, no stranger to DC Comics fans and genre-TV viewers. “Marty was actually part of this magazine before it was even officially launched,” Eury explained to me. “A few years back at a comic-con he mentioned to John Morrow his interest in writing about superhero cinema and related pop culture. John never forgot and I invited Marty to the mag. John and I talked about a number of other possibilities for columnists, and cartoonist/comics historian Scott Shaw and Hollywood-hero expert Andy Mangels were both on our lists. John was interested in Pete Von Sholly as a monster-column contributor. When I reached out to Pete, he was unavailable… but recommended Ernest Farino. And I’m glad he did. Ernie has an impressive background Hollywood visual effects—and like the other columnists started as a fan, most notably of monster and sci-fi cinema. We brought in Hero-A-Go-Go’s Scott Saavedra as designer, and off we went. Soon I brought in our designer Saavedra, a really funny writer, as a columnist, as well as pulp master Will Murray as a columnist.”

Retro Fan magazine is being distributed to comic shops and sold through the company website (either www.twomorrows.com or www.retrofan.org) as you’d expect of a TwoMorrows publication, but it is also available at Barnes & Noble. This is a risky venture, but a valuable one in an effort to attract a broader commercial audience than currently exists within TwoMorrows’ World. Articles include the 1960s TV series The Green Hornet, interviews with Lou Ferrigno and Mark Hamill, and much more.

For those who insist on digital PDF issues, you can buy back issues for a discount price in digital format through the TwoMorrows website, so the print magazine has evolved into both markets – including one saturated by instant demand as a result of Kindle and other eBook readers. Issue #9 comes out in June.

On June 2, 2020, the editors of the magazine went public by announcing that they took a hit in the past few months. Quoting them "Our distributors, comics shops and bookstores all shut down. We were left with huge losses from unsellable copies that had to be destroyed, printing bills to pay, and no idea when we'll start receiving payments again." This is the result of the closures from the Covid-19 outbreak. So they are now offering subscriptions at HALF price. No joke. Link below. Check them out. A bargain price and this is a great magazine.

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=61

Mel Blanc, the Man of a Thousand Voices

“Mel Blanc is without question the greatest voice-man of all time. I’m not talking about impersonations, I’m talking about voice.”

        --- Rich Little

The new Mel Blanc book.

Mel Blanc was internationally famous as the hardest-working voice in show business history. He was as prolific in old-time radio as he was in advertising, and he will never be forgotten for creating the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester & Tweety, and most of Warner Brothers’ classic cartoon characters.

After ten years of research, Ben Ohmart recently completed a 700 page book documenting the career of Mel Blanc in a way that has never been done before. With first hand materials and Noel Blanc’s partial biography on his father, Ohmart was able to create one of the two best biographies published in the past year. Not only was it an enjoyable read but I really wish most people took a page from tomes like this one and apply the same format for their own projects. 

If I can offer a bit of criticism: a rash of biographies have been published recently that don’t really qualify as biographies. After reading two chapters I discover that the author did nothing more than compile 200 to 400 magazine and newspaper articles, stack them in chronological order, and type the information into book form. Masquerading as a biography, these books could easily have started every paragraph with “On such and such date, the actor appeared on the stage in such and such drama…” and “On such and such date, the actor then moved on to such and such movie…” All it took was a bit of time to maneuver the words to avoid repetition. I consider these works more of a timeline than a biography and while there is always a need for those books, I really wish people would not use the word “biography” on the cover of the book.

Mel Blanc

Thankfully, Ben Ohmart did what most biographies should do. Memories, recollections and stories about Mel Blanc are told through the words of Vincent Price, Gary Owens, Noel Blanc, Stephen Cox and many others who worked with Blanc during his professional career and those close enough to call him their friend. 

This book is not an animation book. As Ohmart explained in the introduction, “There are plenty of books on the history of cartoons, especially Warner Bros. animation, so I’m not going to waste space here replicating cartoon information readily available elsewhere. Read Leonard Maltin, Jerry Beck and Mark Evanier for the full story on animation history.” For that reason, this book is about Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc’s earliest documented role as a radio announcer at KGW in 1927, his childhood life at school, his parents… all documented in the first chapter alone.

The book documents the true origin of Foghorn Legghorn, including Kenny Delmar’s Senator Claghorn character from The Fred Allen Show, clearing up misconceptions that have been reported incorrectly in reference guides. The famed Woody Woodpecker lawsuit is also documented. And Mel’s preference voicing cartoons, “Because I can actually see what happens later, as I watch the cartoon, and it’s a great satisfaction to me to be able to see these things that I do and then wonder when the heck did I do ‘em, you know.”

One of Mel Blanc’s favorite voice people, and the one he felt closest to in radio, was Bea Benaderet (the original Betty Rubble on The Flintstones). He called Verna Felton, with whom he worked on The Judy Canova Show, “one of the most versatile of all radio actresses.” His least favorite radio actor was the prolific Gale Gordon. Al Jolson came in a close second.

There’s an entire chapter devoted to The Mel Blanc Show, a radio program that lasted one season and provided the voice actor the spotlight to prove how talented he was. I recall the episode when Mel broke Mr. Colby’s radio and in desperation hid in the radio and played various roles as Mr. Colby continued to flip channels. Hilarious and worthy of seeking out. 

I always loved this poster since it came out in 1989.

All quotes in the book came from Mel Blanc’s own mouth unless otherwise noted, generously supplied by Noel Blanc. Some of Mel’s words also came from Walt Mitchell’s extensive interviews, which were generous donated to this book. Thanks to Mary Lou Wallace, Walt’s partner-in-Blanc, the discography in the back of the book is truly extensive. 

Full disclosure: I supplied a appendix for this book, but this is not the reason why I am writing this book review or praising the book. Six months ago I bought a copy of Michael Hayde and Chuck Harter’s Harry Langdon book, which I also praise as an excellent biography. Like I said, I read two superb biographies this year. Both a model of success.

Mel Blanc’s personal life is also documented from near-fatal illness to charitable contributions. Noel Blanc, who I have chatted with a few times and has a strong heart for preserving the legacy of his father, contributed much for this book and helps ensure a personal touch that you do not see in most biographies written today. Rather than a month-by-month account of Mel Blanc’s career, we get an entertaining story of a man who voiced the characters we love and if Mel Blanc was alive today… he would probably be pleased. If Mel Blanc wrote another autobiography, this might be that book -- word for word.

The first 230 pages is the biography. The remainder of the book is a massive catalog of Mel Blanc’s radio career, his LP discography, television, feature films, commercials and cartoon voice work. But when I buy a book about Mel Blanc, hoping to read a true biography, such reference lists are also welcome with open arms. Together with Blanc's autobiography, you have everything you need to know about the man of a thousand voices.