Here's a great one-page gag from ABBOTT AND COSTELLO # 5 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: November, 1968)! Story: Steve Skeates. Art: Henry Scarpelli.
And here it is broken-out by panel for your reading pleasure!
With all that back-and-forth dialogue, it's almost like watching them do one of their old routines, isn't it?
9 comments:
Oy! And the art looks great! That H-B show had one of the best end credits of any H-B show ever.
JoeC:
If you mean the “opening” credits… YES! Very much so!
I’d say Michael Maltese must have had a hand in creating that sequence, as it opens with “London Bobby Bud” casually handing “London Bobby Lou” a pair of handcuffs and, in pantomime, directs him to cuff a suspect!
Then, the reveal… As if it were Daffy Duck and The Shropshire Slasher (or, for a western setting, Nasty Canasta), the suspect is a giant, whose wrist is larger than both cuffs! That was a great sequence, with a great opening theme!
What a shame it’s virtually forgotten today – except by us hardcore Hanna-Barbera fans!
Warner released one cartoon on THIS DVD SET, so there must be no rights issues to prevent a more comprehensive release from Warner Archive!
I *do* have a …um… “Private Label” DVD of the H-B Abbott and Costello cartoons, but it only has 20 shorts on it – nowhere near enough to satisfy me.
Then again, for years, I’ve had a WALLY GATOR “Private Label” DVD with only 17 cartoons on it but, more recently, actually found a …um (again)… “Private Label” Blu-ray of the complete series! So, anything’s possible…
The Abbott and Costello comics are a definite cut above some of their other, later H-B comics!
Also, as a former New Yorker, you may recall that H-B’s ABBOTT AND COSTELLO has the uncommon distinction of being one of the very few CARTOONS to be run on WOR Channel 9 – whose specialties, at the time, were primarily old movies and the Mets!
Great stuff!
True confessions time: I saw those Abbot and Costello comics on the stands. I found the covers somewhat appealing. But I never bought one or asked my parents for one. Why? Because--believe it or not--I did not know who Abbot and Costello were! (GASP!) I rarely if ever got comics if I didn't know something about the characters. And our household was not into classic comedy--no Abbot & Costello, no Martin & Lewis, no Burns & Allen, no Marx Brothers. We watched Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bob Newhart--but we never watched A & C. Neither of my parents was particularly a fan of theirs, and the tastes of the parents affect what the children are exposed to--so to this day I have not read an "Abbot and Costello" comic book. (Thank goodness our whole family was fans of "The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," "Yogi Bear," and "Top Cat." So I got plenty of good exposure there.)
Until now, of course, when I got to read up close this delightful one-page gag. OK, I'm sold! From now on I will try to get some more A & C comics into my life. This definitely looks like a winner! Of course, by this time in my life I am well familiar with A & C as well as the other above-listed comedy teams. And now I know there was a cartoon series on which these comics were based--which, also, I never saw as a child. Which I guess just goes to prove that there's always some great stuff out there that one has missed through no deliberate intent of one's own. Thanks for bringing more delights to your readers! Keep 'em coming!
Scarecrow:
I *did* see ABBOTT AND COSTELLO comics on the stands back in the day, but “back in the day” was also a time during which I simply couldn’t buy every comic I would have liked to.
By the time that improved somewhat, my poor view of Charlton’s HUCKLEBERRY HOUND, THE JETSONS, etc. did not make sampling their ABBOTT AND COSTELLO title a very high priority.
However, over the years I continued to hear good things about the title (that is, when I heard ANYTHING AT ALL – it was good). How the art was suitably cartoony without much of the “Charlton” type of distortion – and that it had a tendency toward META humor, which I like so much.
Like THIS ONE, for instance! You can’t get much more META than that!
Abbott and Costello were all over New York television in the 1960s, so I was very familiar with them. As you might imagine, I particularly enjoyed their masterful wordplay!
But, even more than the movies, I loved their 1950s TV show, which played on New York’s WPIX for decades – usually as time filler after televised Yankees games, more’s the pity! Mr. Fields, Joe Besser, Hillary Brooke, Mike the Cop, Mr. Bacciagalupe… It was WONDERFUL!
No less than Jerry Seinfeld who, as a suburban New Yorker like me, watched those same 1950s reruns on WPIX, and was moved to go into comedy!
There was a “Complete Series” (2 seasons) DVD set of THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW released in 2010! As great as the comics are, like me, you’d enjoy this even more!
“…There's always some great stuff out there that one has missed through no deliberate intent of one's own.”
Truer words were never spoken… Okay, maybe “The Sky is Blue!” or “We Need Air, Water, and Food to Live!” but there is truly no end to the great stuff to be found, once you really look for it! And, that’s what I am trying my best to do in my (still-very-early, mind you) retirement years! …That and be Averi’s most beloved grandfather! But, I’ll share that honor with the others (two on each side) if I must!
“Thanks for bringing more delights to your readers! Keep 'em coming!”
Keeping ‘em coming is one of this Blog’s missions! Thus, the emphasis on “Adventures in Comic-Boxing” and the wonderful things I encounter – or rediscover – on this wonderful journey!
And let’s not forget the “delights” flow two ways… dare I mention THE THREE MOUSEKETEERS, WALTER MELON, or the modern DOCTOR WHO… to name a few!
Oh, and there will definitely be more ABBOTT AND COSTELLO comic book posts to come. I oughta know, as I’ve already written a few to be released later!
Uh, Joey, you do know Warner Archives is releasing a complete Wally Gator collection at the end of this month, don't you? Fo' reals! Evidentially, you didn't learn your lesson with the bootleg Tex Avery DVD, so I have once again contacted the proper authorities. Do say hi to the Beagle Boys for me when you're incarcerated, won't you?
Mike Maltese did indeed work on the A&C shorts, as you will observe in this vid with the full opening AND rarely seen closing credits. I only wish the actual cartoons were as imaginative and entertaining as this-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=51c1jJTbmMA
TCJ:
Awww maaan… First, I did “hard time for Tex”, and now I’m going “up the river” (that feeds the swamp) on a Gator rap!
Maybe I should stop chuckling at those “FBI Warnings” that I routinely fast-forward through, and realize that kicking in my door at 4 AM, on a DVD offense, is quicker and easier for them than stopping all the criminal activity that goes on every day in Washington – and in certain presidential campaigns! …I can dream, can’t I?
Just my luck, the day after I finally buy the (now ALMOST complete) set of THE NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES, Warner Archive will come to terms with whomever controls “The Addams Family”, and release an ACTUAL “Complete Set” – so now I can have 3 copies of “Scooby-Doo Meets Batman”!
The Beagle Boys HAVE been in regular contact with me! They repeatedly ask me why their current comic book dialogue no longer sounds as lively and clever as it did HERE and HERE - but has become dumbed-down, tepid mush!
I just haven’t the heart to tell them why…
That ABBOTT AND COSTELLO link is incredible! Thank you for supplying that!
I have never seen that version! Perhaps that’s what Joecab was referring to, and I didn’t realize it! This has Mike Maltese written all over it, in addition to the “handcuffs bit”, Costello sweeping-up the discarded “musical notes” (that may have morphed into “something else”?) is Daffy “cleaning up the “one-horse town”! …Or maybe they just stole it from “the little sweeper-guy” in Mr. Peabody’s theme sequence!
Oh, the actual cartoons were pretty good for H-B at the time, considering they were poised to soon begin a serious decline, from which they would never truly recover… Scooby-Doo excepted, of course! And, it was one of Maltese’s “Last Hurrah’s” (the actual one being “The Perils of Penelope Pitstop”?) After that, he returned to Gold Key Comics, where he made The Pink Panther act like Snagglepuss!
It was a “last hurrah” in another sense too… As this may have been the last series H-B produced for syndication, and not for a TV Network – and all the creatively-stifling demands that went with that.
And it still has a GREAT theme! Perhaps the BEST post-1965 theme to come out of H-B!
EVERYONE, drop what you’re doing (…which can’t be TOO HARD, if you’re reading this, as opposed to juggling pianos or fine china) and SEE THIS NOW!
Just my luck, the day after I finally buy the (now ALMOST complete) set of THE NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES, Warner Archive will come to terms with whomever controls “The Addams Family”,
Oh yeah… those guys. I think it's just the plain old Charles Addams Estate, but at any rate, they are in the Tintin league when it comes to overprotectiveness of their copyright. As I recall, they actually sued some poor woman on the Internet for producing a series of Addams Family fanfilm — quite a funny and well-made series it was, too; Adult Wednesday Addams, or, what happens when Wednesday grew up and tries to get a job in the normal world of everyday people. It was based more closely on the 1990's movies' version than anything else, but, y'know, those movies were pretty good, and as concerned Wednesday in particular, Ricci was a heckuva child actress.
…what was I talking about? Oh, right! Yes! Well, the whole thing just goes to show that if you're already getting in trouble for bootleg Tex Avery sets (I never heard about that, what's the story?), don't touch the Addamses with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. At least as far as physical DVDs are concerned.
Okay, I've watched those Abbot and Costello credits — very lively indeed! Slightly shameful anecdote: the most I ever saw of Abbot and Costello up til now being Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I am not exactly well-versed in the lore of the duo, so to speak. So… it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what cartoon-Costello's vaguely incomprehensible (and, oh my poor ears, quite shrill) utterances of 'EEEE-YABBAH!' were actually supposed to mean.
Achille:
Oh, there’s no “Avery/DVD trouble” at all! It’s just a long-running-joke I have with our great friend “Top Cat James”, much of which very likely took place before you were a follower of this Blog!
And, if you’re gonna start somewhere with Abbott and Costello, “A&C Meet Frankenstein” is a GREAT place to start! …Just don’t leave it at that, ‘cause you’ll be missing out on a LOT of great stuff… Films, TV series, comics, cartoons, etc.
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