King Tut's Gorilla by Dave Goode

Of all the Bat-Villains that were created specifically for the Batman television series of the swinging sixties my favorite was King Tut. I could easily picture the character in the comic books. Actually I would have loved to have seen him in the comics. A King Tut would be added to the list of Bat-Villains in the comics. But that would be decades after the series was canceled. And that Tut had very little to do with the over the top character portrayed by Victor Buono on the 60s TV show. That of schizophrenic William Omaha McElroy,professor of Egyptology at Yale who when conked on the noggin imagines himself the reincarnation of King Tut.

Buono's leering and lecherous Tut set a new standard for scenery chewing on a series that was known for over the top performances. I personally thought he would have been great playing Nero or some other decadent despot in an Italian costume melodrama.

One of the things that I found sorely missing from the Batman series was a gorilla. Think about it. This show was aired during the Silver Age of Comics. But it never featured one of the Silver Age's most popular tropes. Now I'm not suggesting that there should have been episodes that featured Karnak,the Living Beast-Bomb from Detective Comics No.339. But one of the Bat-Villains could have owned a pet gorilla. The logical choice would have been the bad guy who thought himself the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh. The only question would be who would play the beast. George Barrows or Janos Prohaska?

 

ITEM: Do you enjoy the fun of the silver age of comics? Do you dig super gorillas? How about a gorilla with a human brain?! If you do you, MUST grab a copy of JUDO COMICS by Dave Goode over at lulu.com! Not only do you meet the Phantom Gorilla, you also meet Dr. Judo, Mr. Incognito, and the Golden Adonis! Magazine sized mayhem for fans of the atomic and silver ages of comics!

ITEM: Halloween is just around the corner friends and this is the perfect time of year to order Vance Capley's Halloween Tricks & Treats and Meet the Monstrosities! Both are available at lulu.com...order yours today!

Casting A Saturday Morning Favorite! by Dave Goode

 

Saturday mornings back in '66 and '67 were very cool if you were a comic book loving kid*. Aside from cartoon shows featuring comic book stand-bys like Superman and the Fantastic Four you also had new characters created just for TV. Birdman,the Galaxy Trio,Mighty Mightor even a Super President. At the top of my list was Space Ghost. A sort of Batman in outer space. But running a close second was The Herculoids. The show was created and designed by Alex Toth for Hanna-Barbera Productions and featured the adventures of Zandor, the Tarzan-like ruler of the jungle planet Amzot (later renamed Quasar) and his allies the Herculoids.

The Herculoids were 5 alien creatures. There was Tundro a rhino/triceratops hybrid that shot "energy rocks" from his horn. Zok was a space dragon who could not only breathe fire but could shoot laser beams from both his eyes and tail. Gloop and Gleep were two protoplasmic shape-changers who were able to absorb and deflect energy rays. And then there was my favorite Igoo,a great stone ape who I couldn't help but imagine being brought to life in a live-action Herculoids movie by Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen could have taken care of bringing the Herculoids to life.But who to cast as Zandar and his wife and son Tara and Dorno???

Truth be told Zandor and his family always reminded me quite a bit of Tarzan,Jane and Boy from the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies from MGM and RKO. In fact Zandor was originally going to be called Zantor (Which is Tarzan spelled sideways...sort of). So if I'm casting an alien Tarzan in the 1960s my first choice for the role is Ron Ely who portrayed Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle hero on television.

When I first thought of casting a Herculoids movie the first actress I thought of to portray Zandor's wife was Marissa Mell who became a cult figure appearing in Italian B-Movies in the 60s including DANGER:DIABOLIK.

 

As for Dorno that becomes a bit more difficult. Jay North would have been 16 in 1967. A wee bit too old to play Dorno. So maybe Tommy Norden who played the younger brother on FLIPPER.

 

DAVE GOODE AND VANCE CAPLEY HAVE CREATED A GREAT
RETRO COMIC BOOK! SET IN THE BRONZE AND SILVER AGE OF COMICS, JUDO COMICS TRIES AND SUCCEEDS IN BRINGING THE READER A FUN COMIC BOOK! GRAB YOURS TODAY! JUDO COMICS

 

editor's note* If you were a kid growing up in the early 1980s, you might recall the Herculoids on Saturday mornings. They were featured, along with Space Ghost, in new adventures on NBC's Space Stars. For many of us "monster kids", this was the gateway into the world of HB superheroes.