Sixties on Sunday

I think those guys in the white suits were more interested in watching Andy Williams than the girls.

The song Music to Watch Girls By was also an instrumental hit, and when I was a kid I thought it was by Herb Alpert, but it was done by Frankie Valli’s producer Bob Crewe. The influence of the “Bond, James Bond” theme is also apparent.

The tune actually started as a Diet Pepsi commercial, written by Sidney Ramin, with words for the vocal version by Anthony Velona.

http://youtu.be/G1RXYEr4O_g

My confusion about Bob Crewe’s recording was understandable, because of this Sixties TV commercial.

The Teaberry Shuffle was Herb Alpert’s Mexican Shuffle.

Which brings me to my point, that watching the past two seasons of Mad Men didn’t give me a feeling of the Sixties as I knew them, starting in 1965. The series nailed the short-lived Kennedy Camelot era, but as a period piece it seems to have had trouble leaving it behind.

Look! Up in the sky! Listen! Up in the Fresh Air!

Terry Gross on Fresh Air interviews Larry Tye, author of a new book about Superman and the men who created the character.

Tye apparently isn’t essentially a comic book fan, which is perhaps a good thing. I don’t know yet how he portrays Siegel and Shuster, the creators of Superman. In recent years it’s become apparent that there was a lot to not like about writer Jerry Siegel the man, and Joe Shuster drew sleazy fetish illustrations, perhaps out of financial necessity and/or an interest in the genre. There’s a Fresh Air segment about that, too.

He’s Mighty Sore!

At the request of Mark Sinnott, I scanned a picture of the original, unedited cover to Journey Into Mystery #83 that his dad, Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, inked over Jack Kirby’s pencil art, for the first appearance of The Mighty Thor. Hover over the color picture to see how the illustration looked on Joe’s drawing table. Click here to see the scan I’m sending to Mark.

A point of particular interest to Silver Age comic book fans is the fact that the figures of the alien stone men were removed (undoubtedly at Stan Lee’s direction) during post-production, after Joe had inked them and turned in the finished job. Later, another comic book inker, who I shall not name, took it upon himself to sometimes erase background figures from Jack Kirby’s penciled pages, rather than ink them.