COOL SERIALS & LESSER KNOWN HEROES (1930's, 40's & 50's)

 

This electrifying Saturday Night Special is all about the serials!

Serials were a big deal in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, but these days they're about as popular as 8-track tapes. We've covered a lot of the cool ones that featured colorful characters like Captain Video, Commander Cody, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel, Superman, The Batman, and The Green Hornet, but there are some lesser known heroes I know we'll probably never get around to, but I'm about to remedy that a bit!

 

In 1934, Jack Muhall played a hero who was also a race car driver in a twelve chapter serial called "Burn-'Em-Up' Barnes."

 

In 1936, there was a character named "The Clutching Hand." "15 Thunderbolt Chapters," now how cool is that? 

 Republic Studios were responsible for many of these serials, and in the "The Fighting Devil Dogs" from 1938, the United States Marine Corp were the heroes.

In 1940, Republic Pictures decided to turn it around a bit, and used the name of the villain instead of the hero as the title for the serial!

Dr. Satan was "CRAZED WITH THE LUST TO KILL" or at least that was what the tagline said.

  The hero of this series was actually named Copperhead and was played by Robert Wilcox.

 

Villains were big in 1940, and "Drums Of Fu Manchu" was another 15 episode serial brought out by Republic. 

 

 

Also from 1940 was "The Green Archer," which seems like it's going to be a period piece, but isn't. Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, it's modern times, but older weapons are used by the hero, such as a box and arrow!

 

 1942 brought us a new hero, a fellow named "Spy Smasher." Seriously, who is going to fuck with a guy named "Spy Smasher?" 

 

 

If you're a spy guy, and you're not in the mood to get smashed, I suggest you get the Hell out of town!

 

"Secret Agent X-9" was a serial from 1945 that starred Lloyd (Sea Hunt) Bridges in 13 thrilling episodes.
 

You can actually buy a freakin' 27" X 40" replica of this poster from Walmart for $19.98, and while I normally would never give a plug to Walmart, that's one Helluva deal!

 

In 1966, they decided to try and recycle the 1946 serial titled "The Crimson Ghost" into "Cyclotrode X," and while I give them a lot of credit for trying, you have to admit "Cyclotrode X" sounds a lot like it could be the next Covid variant!

There were many more colorful heroes and villains in serials over the years like Dick Tracy, Tarzan, Zorro, The Masked Marvel, The Black Widow, Spy King, and Don Daredevil. The list goes on and on and on. Probably 90% of them can be found on YouTube or The Internet Archive so there's no excuses for not watching them instead of the drivel they choose to air on TV these days!

In 1947, television was pretty much responsible for the demise of the serial, now it's time to turn the tables.

A GUMBY ADVENTURE / "Toy Crazy" - 1956

Here's a story from the first season, my cousins and I watched the crap out of Gumby for years. It was kinda crazy-cool, you know, like, different...

This display is up in Gumba's kitchen, GUMBASIA is a 3 minute short from a year earlier that shows off Clokey's clay animation chops, done over some jazzy music, it's available online for viewing.

It's Gumby's birthday, he's stuck in a dream mode where he changes into whatever he's dreaming about. Gumbo decides to bring him out of his sleep by playing loud music. Man, they got a pretty sweet layout at their place.

Our little guy finally gets up and is reminded that it's his birthday today! And, he gets to go to the toy store and pick out something he wants...

Let's see, hmm, do I want a doll?..

Gumby does his gliding around mode to save time. He messes around with a few instruments but they're too damn big!

Pokey is late to the show, he wants to help Gumby figure out what to get for his birthday.

In the meantime, Gumby decides he want to look at a robot, way up high.

He shimmies up a pole and is ready to check out the robot when Pokey finally shows up... Wow, check out the contortion Gumby's making here! It looks like they put his face on his backside?!

I think what's cool sometimes is they show toys from that era. Like that Custer's Last Stand item there, you'd get like 80 small plastic figures for 99 cents, I had two sets of the army guys and would play a marble game with them.

Pokey wants Gumby to try out a rocking horse! Now, how in the Hell could they ever get that thing back to the house?!

Gumby and Pokey go for a ride in a Jaguar roadster.

They have to stop for a toy train that's coming by. I'm pretty sure they used this train in another adventure, called a trick-track-train I believe. where the train only has a certain amount of track that adds and subtracts as the train moves along.

Gumby tricks the train into going in the back of a Rescue Squad van, he slams the doors and tells Pokey to follow him home...

But Pokey drives under a loader and gets buried in sand. Gumby helps dig him out. In the meantime though...

The trick-track-train escapes from the back of the van.

They go back to Gumby's place only to discover that the train has escaped!

Gumby's upset, but dad tells him that he'll pick him up another train the next day. Gumby and Pokey then chow down on some good old clay birthday cake!!

BURKE'S LAW - "Who Killed Mr. X?" (1963)

 

This Wednesday's TV Extravaganza is from season one, episode two of the great 1960's TV show "Burke's Law."

"Burke's Law" was on for 81 episodes from 1963 to 1966, and went through some different transformations over the years.

The first two seasons all had episodes that started off with "Who Killed..." This particular one was called "Who Killed Mr. X?"

There's a party going on at an amusement park!

One of the guests is not going to make it to the party! Who is this mysterious man, and why is he dead? That's what Amos Burke and his crack team are going to have to try and figure out!

Amos Burke is a very wealthy man, but he is also a Captain in the Police Department. He's having a poolside party, and this woman is trying to get his attention! Novel, but it doesn't really work!

Burke gets a call that there's an unidentified dead body by a merry go round. The party wasn't really that important to him anyway, so off he goes to investigate.

The dead man has absolutely no identification, and the only clue they can find is a vintage book of matches from the "Crystal Pier Ballroom" with a number, possibly a phone number, written inside it.

This is Burke's main team. There's Regis (The Phantom Creeps) Toomey as Detective Les Hart, and Gary (I Was A Teenage Frankenstein) Conway as Detective Tim Tilson. Regis Toomey had an amazing career that went from 1929 to 1982, and included 272 credits.

 

Over it's three seasons, "Burke's Law" had a truly amazing array of guest stars, and beautiful actresses like Elizabeth Montgomery, and that's the reason my editor, Perry White Dittmar sent me on this assignment! Just for the record, if you're interested in hearing the very best in alternative music of all styles, he's the guy you need to go visit!

What can I say about Elizabeth Montgomery? I just think she's great no matter what she does, and Perry and myself agreed this might be one of her finest performances. Here she has the role of a Stacey Evans, a kept woman! It was her phone number found inside the matchbook.

Stacey is a bit of a lush! She's an actress that has been set up by a rich guy named Emery Flood. He gave her this nice house, and she gets $500.00 a week, but she has yet to get a job as an actress. She never sees him, and five years have passed by.

Captain Burke rather fancies Stacey Evans. Here he asks her what she'd like to listen to, classical music or jazz.

It's time to talk to this Mr. Emery Flood, but Mr. Flood is nowhere to be found. His main man here gets calls every day, but hasn't seen him in thirteen years. The man who watches over all his stuff is called Mr. Gregory, and was played by Charles (The Invisible Woman) Ruggles. Charlie worked consistently from 1914 to 1976.

What a cast is all I can say! Here's Dungeon Hero Soupy Sales as Henry Geller. Back in 1953, Soupy had his own Saturday morning kid's show that was unforgettable. Besides being a terrific comedian and a great actor, Soupy was also the Father of Fox and Hunt Sales, who were in the fantastic band Tin Machine with David Bowie, as just one of their musical accomplishments.

There are at least four kept women in Emery Flood's life, and Stacey Evans is just one of them!

Stacey gets the most on screen time, because she's the one that both Burke and myself are the most interested in.

Barrie (It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World) Chase is Alison Grahame, another one of Emery Flood's kept women. She too has a drinking problem. It seems to come with the territory!

A third kept woman is Dina Merrill as Barrie Coleman. Dina was Calamity Jan in three episodes of the "Batman" TV series. In the 80's and 90's Dina was in films like "Twisted," "Fear," and "Suture."

 To top off this all-star cast is another Dungeon Hero, Jim Backus as Harold Mason. Jim, of course was Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island," and the voice of Mr. Magoo in countless cartoons.

 

It seems like they could have continued this story. Stacy's still drinking and Amos Burke just might get lucky! If you 'd like to see for yourself, and I recommend that you do, the Internet Archive is the place to go!