Monday, December 21, 2020

Captain's Holiday Library DOCTOR WHO "Father Christmas and the Demon Magician"

Here's a Doctor Who Christmas tale last seen in 1994...but which originally appeared in 1965!

So it's been more than a generation since Whovians have laid eyes on it in any form!
Note, though the cover (with new art by Bill Mevin who drew the original story decades earlier) is from Marvel UK's Doctor Who Classic Comics #15 (1994), the story itself is scanned from Polystyle Publications' TV Comic 732-735 (1965-66).
The reprint's scans weren't very good!
Note the toy cars are Aston Martin DB-5s, James Bond's auto from the then-current movie Goldfinger!

Who are "Grandkids" John and Gillian?
The comic strip didn't license anybody or anything but the Doctor and TARDIS from the BBC, so they created new companions and foes for the Time Lord!
No Susan, Barbara, or Ian!
No Daleks or other established aliens!
For the record, these strips are considered either apocryphal or an alternate universe.
(Unlike the 1960s Amicus movies Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., starring Peter Cushing, which are considered to be "fictionalized" re-tellings of actual events in the Whoverse!)
Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year!
To paraphrase the end of 007's cinematic adventures...
Captain Video WILL Return!
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Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Captain's Holiday Library: Christmas Comics SMILIN' ED & HIS GANG "Visit Santa Claus Land"

One of the most popular kids' shows on radio in the 1940s-50s...
...was Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Gang (later the Buster Brown Show), which had a long-running comic book spin-off!
Note: while this never-reprinted tale from Buster Brown Comic Book #33 (1953) was written by the show's scripter, Hobart Donovan, it's not an adaptation of a radio or tv episode!
Ed McConnell aka "Smilin' Ed" was a long-time radio personality who had his own (adult-oriented) radio show for over a decade before signing with the Buster Brown Shoe Company in 1944 to host their new juvenile radio series.
Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Gang began on September 2, continuing on NBC radio every Saturday morning at 11:30 through April 11, 1953.
There was an adventure story to open the show, ads for Buster Brown shoes, and Froggy the Gremlin might sing a song or annoy another cast member, such as Shortfellow the Poet or Alkali Pete the Cowboy.
The character Midnight the Cat actually spoke a few lines on the show and Smilin' Ed was always prone to sing a novelty song or two by plunking his magic twanger.
The term "plunking" may have come from McConnell's habit of plunking the strings on his piano to emphasize some of the action in his stories.
McConnell was also the voice of Froggy, putting on a low, gruff, Popeye-like croak.
However, whenever McConnell had to sing a duet with Froggy, announcer Archie Presby was the voice of Froggy.
When there was a live audience, Archie would sometimes dress up in a frog costume and carry on to the delight of the screaming kids.
Additional cast members included June Foray and John Dehner.
Foray was called upon to voice Midnight and Old Grandie the Piano.
Bud Tollefson, the sound effects engineer, growled the voice of Buster's dog Tige.
Child actor Patrick Curtis (Baby Beau Wilkes in Gone With The Wind) played Buster Brown in 1949-50. "That's my dog Tige, he lives in a shoe, I'm Buster Brown, look for me in there too!"

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Christmas Radio Classics 
20 Shows on 10 CDs