Video Fridays: THE GREEN HORNET in "Programmed for Death"

Continuing our weekly feature "Video Fridays"...

Frank Miller tries to kill The Green Hornet!
No, not THE Frank Miller, writer-artist of 300, Daredevil, Dark Knight Returns, and other comic classics!
This guy was a criminally-oriented gemologist who tried to freeze the Hornet in today's episode "Programmed for Death", the third show aired on ABC in 1966, but the first episode filmed.

There's a number of differences between what you'll see here and our previous two posts.
It's slower-paced since it had to introduce the various elements of the show to an audience unfamiliar with the character.
The last Green Hornet radio show was 14 years earlier, and an entire generation had grown up with no idea as to who he was!
Unlike Batman, there were no ongoing Green Hornet comic books or licensed products during this period, except a couple of lp record albums of radio shows, which, ironically, were released along with The Shadow, the Lone Ranger, and others due to the success of the Batman tv series!
The heroes have different masks (see photo) that actually work better to hide their identities, but obstructed peripheral vision. After this episode, molds were taken of their faces and new, form-fitting masks were created and used for the remainder of the show's run.
Note that Kato does all the hand-to-hand fighting in this episode.

While the 60s tv series is not yet available on official dvd, it is available on YouTube.
Here's the THIRD broadcast episode "Programmed for Death" in three segments.
Enjoy!

A Feast of Film Heroines--Luana & Gwendoline

In our ongoing search for pop culture coolness, Atomic Kommie Comics™ has come across posters for two of the funkiest flix of the 70s-80s for our line of kool kollectibles including t-shirts, mugs, messenger bags, and other tchochkies...
Luana (aka Luana - la Figlia della Foresta Vergine [Italy], Luana - Der Fluch des weißen Goldes [West Germany], Luana, the Girl Tarzan [USA]) was an Italian jungle flick featuring the only Eurasian jungle princess I've ever seen, a little-known actress named Mei Chen who looks really good in a fur bikini!
Produced in 1968, but not released in the US until the mid-70s, the flick is best known for two American posters featuring art by none other than the late, great fantasy art legend Frank Frazetta!
There was also a novelization by Alan Dean Foster [who did a helluva lot of them in the 70s] using the Frazetta art on the cover!
The key art was also used as the cover for Vampirella #31, which featured a comic adaptation of the movie!
Needless to say, we've found BOTH of the posters (along with a non-Frazetta European one) and are offering them all at our Menacing Maidens section of Seduction of the Innocent™.

PLUS: we've added the Indiana Jones-style poster for the 80s Just Jackln movie version of John Wilie's Sweet Gwendoline strip called Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak, featuring video vixen Tawny Kitaen.
The film is perhaps the classiest R-rated sexploitation film ever done, with a real sense of visual style, and actors who can actually act, despite truly awful dialogue!
(The director also did the 1980s movie versions of Emmanuelle and The Story of O.)

Mix in posters for both Cleopatra Jones blaxploitation flix, SuperChick, the pre-Charlies' Angels Ebony, Ivory & Jade team, The Domino Lady, and Barbarella, and you'll see why Menacing Maidens is a must-see site for the SERIOUS schlock fan!

Video Fridays: THE GREEN HORNET in "Give 'Em Enough Rope"

Continuing our weekly feature "Video Fridays"...

Followers of this blog are well aware of how much of a fan I am of The Green Hornet (and Kato, natch) in his various incarnations.
While the 60s tv series is not yet available on official dvd, it is available on YouTube.
Here's the second broadcast episode "Give 'Em Enough Rope" in three segments.
Enjoy!

The Coming of...Cave Girl!

In the 1940s-50s, one of the most popular genres in comics was the "jungle hero", the most famous one of all being Tarzan.
A horde of imitators followed, with some interesting variations, including an entire sub-genre--the "jungle heroine"!
While many had weird names like "Sheena", "Rulah", or "Zoot", one of the best-illustrated was known only as "Cave Girl"!

Beginning as a backup in Frank Frazetta's Thun'da comic, Cave Girl was a little girl named Carol, whose explorer parents were killed by natives in the jungle they were mapping.
Before Carol could also be put to death, an eagle swooped down and took the child to it's nest.
There, the eagle and a wolf raised the girl to young adulthood, teaching her how to survive and communicate with other animals.
Though in the first couple of stories, the jungle was shown to be home to timelost creatures like sabretooth tigers and Neanderthals, by the time she got her own title, it was pretty much a generic jungle heroine strip...with one notable exception!
Legendary "good girl" and romance artist Bob Powell handled the art as Cave Girl cut a svelte path thru Africa's villains from backup feature to four exciting issues of her own title!

The Atomic Kommie Comics™ crew has found a home for two of her best covers on shirts, mugs and other stuff in our Heroines™ section.
As a cool retro-styled gift, she appeals both to guys who enjoy seeing an attractive woman in dynamic action, and gals who like viewing an empowered woman who stands tall and proud in a male-dominated world!
Talk about the best of both worlds!

Fear...the Fantom of the Fair!

The 1939-1940 Worlds Fair in New York City was a BIG event whose influence was felt throughout pop culture, in particular, fantastic fiction;
The first science fiction convention (NyCon 1) was held on the fairgrounds!
Charlie Chan caught a murderer in the Worlds Fair-themed film Murder Over New York!
Doc Savage fought "The Worlds Fair Goblin" in the pages of his pulp magazine!
DC Comics launched a book called Worlds Fair Comics. (After the Fair closed, it was retitled Worlds Best, then Worlds Finest) This tied-in with "Superman Day" at the Fair, featuring the first actor to play Superman in costume, Ray Middleton!
And a super-hero was created specifically to protect the Fair and fairgoers!

Appearing in Amazing Mystery Funnies, The Fantom of the Fair was dedicated to defending those who walked the grounds of the exhibition, battling evil within it's boundaries.
The covers and stories incorporated elements and locales of the Fair.
While the Fantom's real name and the reason he fought crime were never revealed, readers did learn a number of things about him during his two-year run:
He had above-normal strength and agility, plus the ability to hypnotize people and alter their memories.
He operated out of the labyrinth of service tunnels under the fairgrounds, which enabled him to travel unseen, and had a secret headquarters within them (inspired by similar elements of the Phantom of the Opera)
His face was never revealed. When he wore civilian clothes, his visage was obscured by a fedora.
Despite changing his name to FantoMan when he received his own title, and expanding his operations to the whole of NYC, the character's series ended a couple of months after the Fair closed.

While he inspired the similarly-named Phantom of the Fair who was integral to the retconned origin of DC Comics' Golden Age Sandman, he hasn't popped up yet in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers, where most of his publisher's other characters have already appeared. But, it's probably just a matter of time.
Meanwhile, the crew at Atomic Kommie Comics™ felt a kool hero like the Fantom should not be forgotten, so we incorporated a pair of his best covers into the Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line, giving him his own section!

If you want to show that special pop-culture-oriented someone (who's into Worlds Fair kitch) that you want to share their interests with them, do a 1939 Worlds Fair-themed present!
Combine one of our cool Fantom of the Fair collectibles with a copy of a World's Fair-themed book, the Images of America book 1939-1940 NY World's Fair or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, or Doc Savage "The Worlds Fair Goblin" by Kenneth Robeson! All titles are in-print and currently available!
Then party like it's 1939!