I’ve been reading an excellent book, The Horror! The Horror!, by Jim Tombetta, about the short-lived horror genre of comic books, in the first half of the 1950’s. In response to public pressure, resulting from Senate Subcommittee hearings led by Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn), the industry censored itself with a regulatory agency called The Comics Code Authority — which, as of last week, seems to finally be at an end. I’ve always felt the weakness in the defense of the comic book industry, in testimony by E.C. publisher William M. Gaines, was his failure to cite radio shows like Suspense and Inner Sanctum as inspirations for the horror stories. Those programs were very popular with both kids and their parents.
That same period of time saw one of the all-time greatest comic book creators, Carl Barks, hit his stride, working in the funny animal genre. Superheroes, the formerly dominant genre, had fallen on hard times after WWII, and had yet to recover in the mid-50’s. One thing that helped bring it back was the success of The Adventures of Superman on TV, which had previously been a radio series, and a movie serial.
Watching the DVD set of the series, it started out as a surprisingly hard-hitting, and often spooky, drama, but like comic books it lost its edge and lightened up. Throughout the show’s run, Jimmy Olsen was played with great spirit by Jack Larson. Some years ago, Denro and I saw Larson in Boston, introducing a collection of Superman shows, and talking about the series and his life since then. One of the screenings that evening was the pinnacle, or nadir, of Superman silliness, a pilot for a proposed Superpup series. This brief bit of video was taken from a 2006 TV special, narrated by Kevin Spacey, who played Lex Luthor in Superman Returns; a movie that did nothing wrong, yet failed to spark imaginations.
Now THAT’s what I call horrible! Here’s Jack Larson in an interesting recent interview. He’s slowed down from his “golly gee” youth, but Jack’s still as personable and engaging as ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjV9H35Hu5w
A more extensive video interview with Larson, from the Archive of American Television, can be found at this link. I would have embedded it here, but it’s an unlisted YouTube video.