The Voice Of

Magilla Gorilla

Was....

Allan Melvin

Who passed away January 17th of this year...

I did not know of his passing until yesterday when he was mentioned as another one of the TV Stars that we have lost this year...

Allan is probably better known in 'mainstream' TV watchers' memories as 'Sam the Butcher' on 'The Brady Bunch'!

He also voiced several cartoon characters during the years, including the lion 'Drooper' on the Banana Splits Hour, and Bluto in the 'All New Popeye Hour'. He was also the voice of Vultan, King Of the Hawk Men in the Flash Gordon cartoon series.

I wasn't aware of all that he had done...

I first recall seeing him on an earlier black and white TV Show.

That was the 'Phil Silvers Show' aka 'Sgt. Bilko', where Allan played the  Corporal Henshaw role.

Allan also is known to others as 'Barney Hefner', Archie Bunker's best friend on 'All In the Family', but I just remember Archie talking about him, not really seeing him that much...

Allan died of cancer at the age of 84...

We have an ongoing Comic Con  and Pop Culture convention here at Make It So Marketing, what with our daily blog posts and listings of items for sale!

Thanks for reading this post today and please join us again!

Michael

Goodbye

Larry

'Bozo The Clown'  

Harmon!

There just isn't enough hours in the week to blog about everyone you would like to mention in your blogs.

Earlier this week I mentioned 'Bozo' and Sheriff John (Rovick) in a blog post along with 'Engineer Bill' when a fellow eBayer had a rare Engineer Bill 'Red Light / Green Light Glass' up on auction.

So this morning I read that the man who appeared as 'Bozo the Clown' for decades  passed away yesterday July 3rd at the age of 83.

Contrary to popular belief, Larry was NOT the original Bozo.

However he did  portray the wildy popular frizzy-haired clown in countless TV and onsite appearances during the years.

Where Larry made his mark in pop culture was as an 'entrepreneur', where he licensed the 'Bozo The Clown' character to others, especially to dozens of TV stations around the country after he bought the rights to the character!

Those TV Stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos for their TV audiences. This was in the days before Cable TV, where certain stations had larger broadcast areas than others.

Larry himself called this process 'cloning himself' when he explained how he did it in interviews in the 1990's. He stated that he was the first to do this 'cloning' the character process.

Actually it was Pinto Colvig who originated the character 'Bozo the Clown' when Capitol Records in 1946 introduced a series of children's records!

Larry would later meet his 'alter ego' when he answered a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.

Larry got that job and later bought the rights to 'Bozo'.

If you see earlier comic books or photos, you'll see how Larry emphazized Bozo's distinctive look.

Larry made sure that the orange-tufted hair, the outlandish red, white and blue costume and the oversized nose would be far different from any other clown that Bozo could be compared to.

During Larry's years of running the Bozo license, he trained over  200 Bozos to represent the character in local and world-wide markets.

I myself, a kid of the mid to late 1950's remember watching a 'Bozo The Clown' show for a while, not ever realizing that there were so many of them out there in other areas!

I had no idea that Larry was running what could be considered 'The Santa Franchise' of Clowns in every market!

Larry's contribution to pop culture was a big one... and he will be missed!

We have an ongoing Comic Con  and pop culture convention here at Make It So Marketing, what with our daily blog posts and listings of items for sale! Please join us again for more!

Michael

4th Of July....

And Men In Uniform!

When I was a kid my family used to go to parades on the 4th of July...

Where we would see marching bands and of course men in uniform, because being a 'Navy Brat', we would be living on or close to a Naval Base!

So while checking our blog stats this morning, I noticed our 'Blackhawk' archived blog post having a little bit of viewing activity...

It was because of the efforts of 'men in uniform' that our country was founded, and of course because of many women during the ensuing years our country has stayed free!

'Blackhawk' pictured to the above right, was a comic book feature that started during WWII and was published for several decades.

Just my little 'salute' to why we are having the day off to celebrate this holiday.

Have Sum Fun today!

We have an ongoing Comic Con  and Pop Culture convention here at Make It So Marketing, what with our daily blog posts and listings of items for sale!

Thanks for reading this post today and please join us again!

Michael

So Who's

'Hot'

 In Our Archived Blog Posts

Right Now?

None Other Than...

Red Sonja!

Regular Readers of our Blog know that I check our Blog Stats at least daily to see what topics bloggers are viewing!

Currently this morning of July 4th, the most viewed archived blog post we have, (out of over 1750 total), is the announcement that Rose McGowan will be the next Red Sonja in the 2010 Film of the same name!

So why is this archived blog post so 'Hot' right now with 15% of our viewership???

As we have blogged about the past two years, there have been several actresses proposed as a good update on Brigitte Nielsen's prior 1985 performance in this role.

Additionally there have been several scripts presented, to no avail. Finally it appears that both a script and an actress have been found that should meet the requirements of finally going into pre-production mode!

Hancock 

Just Like 

Stark?

I had an email earlier today asking me if 'Hancock' in the new film of the same name was the first superhero with a booze problem.

Well, there's several 'Modern Age' Super-heroes that have had a bout of having too much to drink at times...

Some believe that Tony Stark was the first modern day superhero to show his tendency to drink, and a major story arc was devoted to his downfall and then 'recovery' in the comics.

Which is why those in the 'know' appreciated that Robert Downey Jr portrayed Tony Stark / Iron Man in that recent Marvel Comics Movie! Although the first movie was too full of plotlines to include that in the first. Possibly the second or third movie will bring that up...!

Matter of fact, I will quote from my blog post of June 5th 2008 about this similarity as follows:

"The first trailer was basically surprising to me, as it appeared to be delving into the past of Iron Man when Tony Stark had a story arc in the comic book title where he dealt with alcoholism."

Have I changed my mind about not going to see this movie at the theater?  I still have to go with my gut feeling as to what this film is all about and what do I want for my entertainment dollar when out at the Movie Theater.

The most recent trailers made this 'Hancock' Film more of an 'upbeat' movie, but as I blogged about earlier, the earlier trailers were not showing what the film was about...

As the director of the film, Peter Berg has said, "The ad campaign for this movie is much friendlier than this film". 

I don't like going to see films on the Big Screen for Big Bucks and then finding out what I thought I would be seeing is not what the ad campaign suggested it would be like!

I think I'll continue to save the Big Bucks to view on the Big Screen for films like The Dark Knight and X-Files - I Want To Believe, and save Hancock to view on rental DVD, as I have liked almost all of Will Smith's previous films and will give this a play when the time comes.

The above is JMHO for now! If you have a different position on this film, feel free to comment below if the comments option is open...

We have an ongoing Comic Con  and pop culture convention here at Make It So Marketing, what with our daily blog posts and listings of items for sale! Please join us again for more!

Michael (and Tina)