Here is PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM #3 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: May, 1972), a comic I've had for months but, it wasn't until I decided to read it today that I noticed something wrong with this cover!
Anyone wanna take a quick guess as to what?
No, huh?
How 'bout you? Yeah, you? Take a shot! Win a prize! Oh, wait? No prize? Okay, then... How about for good old personal satisfaction?
Hmmm... good guess, but not quite! No, it's not the GOLD FILLINGS in that rhino-o-saurus' mouth! Look closely and you'll see them! Or, is that just a case of Charlton using a little too much yellow? We'll never know! 
Okay, here's a hint...
Take a look at the book's LOGO...
...Now, look at the cover again...
See anything unusual?
No?
Look again...
LOGO...
COVER...
COVER...
Ya get the feeling that something - or someone - is missing?
...No?
Maybe if we focus in a little tighter on that logo...
C'mon... Do we have to hit you over the head with it?
Look again...
YES! YES! YES!
PEBBLES IS MISSING FROM THIS COVER!!!
...Did you?
Or, bigger question, did Charlton's editors?
...Ohhh, Charlton... You've done it again!
"Don't laugh, Bamm-Bamm... They didn't PAY me for that one!"
4 comments:
Unless Pebbles dyed her hair blonde and changed her hairstyle, Bamm-Bamm's gonna have some 'splaining to do!
Bamm-Bamm AND the Charlton editors, Sergio!
For more reasons requiring Bamm-Bamm's... er, uh, "cave-mansplaining", look no further than THIS COVER and THIS COVER!
Why, even in their FIRST ISSUE, he was UP TO THIS! …Um, actually PEBBLES was the one who was UP!
…I guess all those childhood muscles went to his head!
Don't know how or why the editorial policy occurred, but in Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm #1 from Charlton, Pebbles explicitly states to her father Fred that "Bamm-Bamm is my good buddy. We don't date!" Sure enough, throughout the Charlton run, Pebbles is usually shown dating Fabian Fabquartz while Bamm-Bamm is depicted with Cindy Curbstone. These pairings frequently extend to the covers, as well. On the TV show, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm apparently WERE dating (see the scenes in the malt shop to confirm), while Fabian and Cindy nearly always hung together except on rare occasions when Cindy would make a play for Bamm-Bamm (as in the computer dating episode). But it seems bizarre for the title characters of the comic book to have such a "hands-off" policy toward each other, especially considering that their TV counterparts apparently did not have the same restriction.
As to why Pebbles is absent from this cover--maybe her salary demands were too high? But I can offer another equally baffling mystery involving Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. On the cover of Cave Kids #15, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are depicted with the Cave Kids, with the sub-heading "With Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm." But on the INSIDE of the book--they don't appear at all! How can the Cave Kids be "with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm" when this juxtaposition only occurs on the cover? In previous issues, the Bedrock Babies had appeared both on the cover and inside the book. I suppose the "with" can be justified with only a cover cameo, but it still seems odd.
Anyway, there's my two rocks' worth! Yabba-dabba-doozy!
Scarecrow (you write):
“Don't know how or why the editorial policy occurred, but in Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm #1 from Charlton, Pebbles explicitly states to her father Fred that ‘Bamm-Bamm is my good buddy. We don't date!’”
Given that it’s CHARLTON, I wouldn’t even be too sure of an actual “editorial policy”, as everything they did seemed free-wheeling, sometimes contradictory, and often even alien to the characters themselves.
That said, the PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM title (…for which I thank you for prompting me to read against my characteristic-but-loveable stubbornness) was done at a time when Charlton’s basic editorial standards had become generally higher (Yes, really!) than those they routinely demonstrated when taking over the classic Hanna-Barbera characters from Gold Key in 1970.
I don’t feel like checking it right now, but my guess is that editor George Wildman was responsible for the overall difference in quality. And even Ray Dirgo noticeably improved on his art, from the shockingly poor stuff he did in 1970-1971. …Something that the perhaps even more atrocious Kay Wright never did!
But, still, Charlton was… um, “unpredictable”… but in more of a fun way by that later time, that has largely been responsible for my fascination with them as a publisher. Though I’m not going to put much stock in any hard-and-fast editorial policies. More like… things just happened as they did!
Scarecrow is correct about Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm’s interior absence from CAVE KIDS #15 (that next-to-last issue of the series even featured The Gruesomes and an Augie Doggie text story) but the TRUE oddity concerning the CAVE KIDS title was in its last issue, CAVE KIDS #16!
It was cover-billed as CAVE KIDS AND SPACE KIDETTES (the 1966 Hanna-Barbera Sat-AM animated series)… and, true to its title, the Cave Kids “stopped” at the literal half-way point of the book… and the Space Kidettes “took over” for the entire second half – with the exception of a single Cave Kids one-page gag on the final interior page of the comic!
It was also the FINAL ISSUE for both the Cave Kids and the Space Kidettes, as the title “just disappeared” with no indication of its discontinuance… not unlike THE PHANTOM BLOT and other Gold Key Comics of the period.
CAVE KIDS #16 was released in December 1966, with a cover date of March 1967. From that point on, they would only be seen in backup stories in Gold Key’s FLINTSTONES title, until it ended in the summer of 1970 in favor of the “All New Stories & Art” offered by Charlton! …The Space Kidettes, I’m quite certain, were never seen again in comics.
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