Our Take On: The Complete Steve Canyon On TV Volume 1 DVD! From The Milton Caniff Estate
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TODAY'S FEATURE IS BLOG #3827 - At the recent WonderCon 2013, held in Anaheim, California... There was a panel titled 'The Business and Hobby of Collecting Comics', which I already blogged about, #3822. At that panel, one of the panelists, John Ellis, waited for someone to mention the secret phrase. When he spoke up about it, my wife, Tina LoSasso, said 'Steve Canyon'! Then repeated it with vigor, 'Steve Canyon'! John gave her the copy of the DVD shown at the top right of this blog, 'The Complete Steve Canyon On TV Volume 1'. Afterwards, John, myself, Greg Koudoulian, another, and Tina went out to a quick bite of dinner at the Marriott bar. There I found that John was working on Volume 3 of the DVD set, which would be the last of the 34 episodes of the 1958-59 TV Series, which ran for one season only! This is a labor of love for John, which you can read about at his blog, SteveCanyonOnDVD at Blogspot. The character, Steve Canyon, has its own Wikipedia entry at this link, with a section on the TV Show. I'm going to post a couple of mini-reviews from our watching the 1st DVD this weekend. (Well, actually disc 1 of the 2 disc set in Volume 1. First, Tina, who won the DVD, had this to say about watching the DVD: "I thought that this show was written very well for a 1950s genre TV show. The male characters were well written, while the female characters were very stereotypical for the late 1950s. I would give this a 7.5 (Very Fine Minus) for the episodes that we watched. As for myself, (Michael) , I wanted to say this: I've read Steve Canyon in the newspapers while it ran. Up until the 1970s. Of course I knew who Milt Caniff was. However I had not even seen this TV show mentioned, let alone watch an episode before viewing this DVD! I took a look at the 1958-59 TV Season schedule and saw that it was up against The Lawrence Welk Show and the Gale Storm show. Well, we watched the Lawrence Welk show for sure, as we only had one TV set in the family, LOL! I thought that the half hour episodes we watched were pretty darn good. I liked the pacing of the episodes, and also seeing TV stars in their early years, including Marion Ross (later of Happy Days!), Larry Pennell (later a lead actor in Ripcord), Russell Johnson (later the Professor in Gilligan's Island), and Philip Abbott (later of the F.B.I. TV show), just to mention a few. The DVDs covers have a cartoon Steve Canyon shaking hands with Dean Fredericks who played the character role in the TV Show, as seen in the top left photo of this blog. Dean's Wikipedia entry can be found here. I found this DVD set to be a fun one to watch, and was amazed at the cigarette commercials that were included, as Chesterfield King sponsored the show! Also found the ABC lead ins for their other ABC shows to be fun to view. Please note that the Steve Canyon show aired on NBC, and re-runs were aired on ABC. The package the DVD set came in was very well thought out. With liner notes for each episode, and with a note on the added extras inserted in each episode. I would give this DVD set a Very Fine / Very Fine Plus (VF/VF+) 8.25 out of a possible 10.0 comic book grading scale. Here is my son Vinnie's review: This previous Saturday night I watched the first 6 episodes of the one-season Steve Canyon tv show that originally aired back in 1958. It was a show about a man, Steve Canyon, in the United States Air Force, with episodes revolving around Steve flying jets in differing situations and circumstances. Due to the time it aired, all the episodes were filmed in black and white.
As a teenager who hasn't heard of Steve Canyon, I started viewing these episodes uninformed. I have previously heard the name "Milton Caniff" (who is the creator of the Steve Canyon comic strips which this show is based on,) but I never knew who he was or what he did. I had also never heard of the actors and actresses present on the show, however, my father was picking out a few of them and saying what they were otherwise known for or where they've appeared.
The show itself was quite an enjoyable experience. Each episode was 30 minutes of high-flying tales with their original advertisements, just how they aired.
I thought the acting was done quite well and the stories were mighty interesting. The actors portrayed the characters well, and they had developed a strong personality by the end of the episode, clearly displaying how their character acts, and how he or she interacts with each other. The stories were presented with a clear storyline. The topics were intriguing and relative to the characters and the show's intended "character".
All in all, the show was quite enjoyable, even for the difference in time from it's original airing and today. It's a shame the show only lasted for one season, a total of 34 episodes.
I would give the "Steve Canyon" dvd set a comic book grade of Very Fine Plus (VF+), an 8.5 out of 10.0 grade scale. Thanks, Vinnie, for a comprehensive review! It is surprising to me that he gave it such a high grade, for someone who had not read the Steve Canyon comic strip before. So it would appear that this show would be okay for all age groups to view today... Here is the link to where you can purchase the first two DVDs of this three DVDs set. My thanks to John for providing the DVD as a prize at the panel, and to Tina for winning it! ~ Michael
 NOTE FROM Michael D Hamersky On Comics: My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,827 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog!
BTW, You can 'follow' this blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app link! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! Note: My online 'Local' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item(s) that was mentioned here today...! If I have it, you'll find under the BIG TOP of Comics, at Comic Books Circus.com! Web Page Note: This blog post is written per the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safari, Netscape, Firefox and the other browsers serve the page up slightly differently, sorry about that! The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. Note: Your computer's resoulution may be set differently, but the above resolution is the most commonly used resolution at the time of this blog post. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners. Comics Creators: If you are breaking into, or already work in the comic book industry or other pop culture productions, you are welcome to email or mail us press releases, news items, and updates that you feel would be of interest to our blog readers. Including YOUR own works! To mail printed items to us for possible review, send to: Make It So Marketing Inc., PO Box 130653, Carlsbad, CA 92013  Also, if you are a Facebook member, I would have liked you to send me a 'Friend Request'. However, I have reached the maximum limit of 5,000 Facebook Friends and Fan pages already, so I've added a New 'Facebook Fan Page' so that even more of YOU can 'Like' what I am doing, and be interactive with me and others there. Here is the link to that 'Facebook Fan Page': Michael D Hamersky On Comics! Please click the 'Like' button on that page!---------------  In Addition, I started a YouTube Channel just before the 2011 Comic-Con International, where I am slowly uploading videos from conventions or other events that we attend that are also pop culture related. You are invited to 'subscribe' to that channel also! As found at 'HamerskyOnComics'!
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Some random facts we learned about Comic Book Artist Jim Lee from the man himself. 
Note From Michael: Jim's photos from this panel and another panel I caught him at, can be found at my special photo album titled: 
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I also enjoyed listening to her 45s and LPs. I had almost a complete collection of her recordings at one time...
Here is her Filmography:
