Here's yet another example of a gag only Charlton Comics would have done!
I should keep a log of them, like THIS ONE!
From THE GREAT GAZOO # 8 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: February, 1975) comes the following...
How does that patch of grass move along with Fred from side-to-side, each time he changes direction? ...And did Gazoo just make Barney appear - complete with HIS OWN patch of grass? Grass that WASN'T THERE, before Barney entered the scene.
We are grateful that Fred wasn't just a tad less "fleet-of-foot"!
...And thank goodness for panel borders!
9 comments:
A very strange gag, for the reasons you mention. I’m surprised the Comics Code Authority allowed it. I suppose they, too, must have said, “Thank goodness for panel borders!”
It seems that during its run in Charlton comics, “The Flintstones” was, indeed, an “adult cartoon” in the sense we think of today.
On the positive side, I’m impressed with the title of this one-pager: “So is Lady Godiva.” I was not familiar with that legend, so I had to look it up: https://www.history.com/news/who-was-lady-godiva
I’m happy I learned something new today. I wonder, though, how many kids in the seventies would have understood the reference.
I still can’t believe The Great Gazoo had his own title. It seems strange to me that such an infamous character, generally regarded as the cause of “The Flintstones” jumping the shark, would have his own title. Was Gazoo always unpopular, or did he become unpopular in retrospect, like Scrappy-Doo?
Sergio:
Now that you mention it, in the bizarre tone of its humor, the Charlton run of Flintstones comics DID sometimes resemble the multi-level humor and flat-out weirdness of FAMILY GUY!
Those sensibilities are also on display HERE, and in at least two other posts I have stored in the vast TIAH Blog queue. Having such a backlog allows me to continue delivering “the-best-in-what’s-left-of-Blogging-today”, while the rest of life falls down around me (…metaphorically, of course)! I hope to get around to them soon, but I never want to do too much of any single thing all at once. Keep it fresh, I always say!
I might have to recuse myself from the question of how many kids in the seventies would have understood the Lady Godiva reference because, at the time the issue would have been published, I was on the verge of turning 20 (and was not reading comics then, anyway)… and how could I pass up any legend about a naked woman?
But, I tend to believe that more ‘70s youngsters might have been aware of Lady Godiva than you might imagine, because her name comprised the first two words of the opening theme for the popular Norman Lear TV series MAUDE (1972-1978), with the comic actually falling smack in the middle of that run!
HERE are the lyrics to that well-known ‘70s TV theme! And, for anyone who’s never heard the MAUDE theme, HERE’S Sergio’s link to learn what they were singing about!
I’d attribute the unlikely event of The Great Gazoo getting his own comic title to these two words: “IT’S CHARLTON!” Gold Key used him once (and wisely sent him home at story’s end), and the publishers that followed used him sparingly… perhaps best in SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP! But, as I repeatedly point out… with Charlton, anything goes… or went! After all, they also gave DINO his own title, and darned if they didn’t find a way to make that one work… sometimes.
Despite being thought of as “The-Thing-That-Killed-The-Flintstones”, I don’t recall any great animus toward The Great Gazoo in 1966. But, consider that fandom was VERY different then – if, indeed, it existed at all. Whatever did exist was surely not vocal about anything, except maybe BATMAN, STAR TREK, and DC vs. Marvel - and, of course, The Beatles and The Monkees.
By the time Scrappy-Doo came along, things were surely changing but, outside of the scrappy-one’s being decidedly out-of-place in a “normal” Scooby-Doo series, there was (again) little actual animus. Scrappy’s anti-legend GREW AND GREW as we moved into the more fannishly familiar ‘80s and ‘90s, and Gazoo was naturally lumped in there with him for the same crimes against humanity…
….And that’s how the character of POOCHIE was born! :-)
Amazing what they could get past the censors in them there days!
And yes, I agree the tufts of grass appearing and disappearing are a bit of an anomaly...but not as much as the (unthinkable) mental image created by Gazoo's comment! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there ain't much to the background. The artist may have needed a shorthand way to establish that Fred, Gazoo, and Barney are on three separate planes. Although there would surely be better ways to accomplish this than have tufts of grass popping up and popping out all over the place. But any way you look at it, this entire page is somewhat horrific, even for Charlton!
As for Lady Godiva, there is a precedent with the Flintstones! In a scene excerpted at the very top of the second-season episode "Operation Barney," Fred has an exchange with a hospital nurse (voiced delightfully by Jean Van der Pyl using her New York accent). Fred: Are you the desk nurse? Nurse: No, I'm Lady Godiva, and this is the kissing booth!
Proving that the Godiva legend was at least a reference that adult viewers would recognize in 1962.
And that's only the beginning of a very clever dialogue and action bit between Alan Reed and Jean. A highly satirical episode, and worth a fresh look!
The only other comic book/comic strip reference to the streaking fad (at least that I am aware of or can recall) is when Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip decided to "get with it" and take part in the craze. Only thing is, since he never wears clothes anyway except his dog collar--there doesn't seem to be much purpose (or shock value) in it, which is probably the point of Mr. Schulz's gag. In any event, it's not likely a gag that could have been inserted into one of the animated television specials!
I think the "tufts of grass" were intended as shadows by the penciller, but were misunderstood by the inker and colorist...
You know, Shad... that's brilliant! And makes perfect sense, once you got me to think out of the box! Well done!
And, hello, from the old Harveyville days!
Scarecrow:
You write “Amazing what they could get past the censors in them there days!”
Considering that the floodgates of censorship pretty much BEGAN their vast opening in the 1970s (…or, to paraphrase BAT-MITE from the amazing “Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases” in the animated BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD… “Back when this was made [THE 1970s], Batman couldn’t even throw a punch!”), let alone what it meant to Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and (horrors!)… The Three Stooges(!)… “them there days” weren’t quite as “them there” as some might think!
…They were just considerably more “free” than they are now… which, when you come right down to it, is actually very telling!
That said, and to its eternal credit, Charlton had a way of slipping under the radar! Perhaps, by that time, no one was paying attention. The Comics Code had been seriously relaxed – as well as outright circumvented by a growing number of publishers – and was on its way out, anyway! But, still…
And, yes… Leave it to our resident “Flintstone-ologist” to unearth a “Lady Godiva” reference from the series itself! Bravo!
Finally… a VERY clever gag by Mr. Schulz! Wish I’d seen it, but I think I was out streaking at the time… maybe… it’s all a blur, dad-gum it!
This strip feels very much like the editor was thinking, "This issue is one page short. Draw something, would'ja?"
So, Deb…
Does that mean that the editor remedied his “one page short” problem with a “one page short”?
That happened A LOT in Charlton comics. Some books were literally peppered with “one page shorts” all over the issue, around a few multi-page stories.
But, I’ll give them some serious credit for one aspect of this matter… They continued the tradition of the One Page Gag, long after Western abandoned it in their later 1960s Gold Key Comics! And I think those GK books lost some “energy” or “special quality” without some (more judiciously spaced than Charlton did) perky and reliable One Page Gags!
...Good heavens! I might actually have become a "Charlton Apologist"!
The strange places life can take you, if you live long enough!
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