Comical Books 06: B.C.

 

The comic strip B.C. first appeared in 1958, produced by Johnny Hart and supported by a team of gag writers. It stood out because of its particularly biting wit and cynical humor among the milder offerings from other cartoonists. Once more, it appeared in other papers rather than in our usual San Antonio Light. I suppose our first exposure to the comic was the 1973 NBC special, B.C.: The First Thanksgiving, directed once more by Abe Levitow of Warner Brothers fame and with voices by Daws Butler, Bob Holt, and Don Messick. I’m not sure when we started collecting the paperbacks; possibly the late Seventies. Once more, my volumes are only a few from a much longer list.  

Again, it is another historical transposition, this time set in ‘Caveman Days’. The cast includes a gaggle of cave people, whose over-the-top efforts to come to terms with their lives and niches in the world can be seen as the origins and therefore crude parodies of modern situations and attitudes.

A second stream of animal characters, primitive or extinct, also provide a string of gags, and range from dinosaurs, clams, ants and an anteater, a bird and turtle duo, and ‘an apteryx, a wingless bird with hairy feathers.’

After Johnny Hart’s renewal of his Christian faith in 1984, the direction of the strip took a strange turn, especially considering B.C. literally means ‘Before Christ’. Mainly every Easter Hart would run a strip alluding to Christ’s rising from the dead. This has led some to speculate that the primitive world of B.C. is not prehistoric but post-apocalyptic. After Hart passed away in 2007 his work was carried on by the usual consortium of his relatives.

Life Goes On

The Sun Comes Up, The Sun Goes Down

Back to B.C.

Star Light, Star Bright, First …

No Two Sexes Are Alike

Great Zot I’m Beautiful

One More Time

A Rag and a Bone and a Yank of Hair

What’s New, B. C.?

A Clam for Your Thoughts

Loneliness is Rotting on a Bookrack

The Second and Third Letters of the Alphabet Revisited

B.C. Strikes Back

But Theriously Folkth

Truckin’ On Down

I Don’t Wanta Hear About It

B.C. Right On

Out One Ear and In the Other

Hurray for B.C.

B.C. Is Alive and Well

Big Wheel!

It’s a Funny World

Cave-In

Lover’s Leap

I, B.C.

B.C. On the Rocks

Where the Hell is Heck?

“Life is a Dollar Twenty-Five Cent Paperback”

 

I also have a couple of books without covers, Dip in the Road and Take a Bow, B.C.

And this is the end of this load of ‘Comical Books’. Whether there are any others tucked away right now is a moot point.

Comical Books 05: The Wizard of Id

 

In 1971 a short-lived Saturday morning kid’s show premiered, called Curiosity Shop. It was designed to be a commercial rival to the popular public program Sesame Street. It featured child hosts, puppetry, and the animation of some TV comic strips. Chuck Jones was made the executive producer, and so many other people of pop cultural significance were associated with it that it is surprising that it in not better known. I remember an episode (come upon almost by accident at the time; I was not a dedicated watcher) of Vincent Price singing “On-o-ma-to-PEE-a, On-o-ma-to-PEE-a” and his sing-songy pronunciation of ‘onomatapoeia’ (a term meaning a word that sounds like the noise it mimics). I hear Price every time I see the word. The show premiered ‘Three is a Magic Number’, which kicked-off the popular Schoolhouse Rock, for corn’s sake. Probably the main reason it is not better known is because there were only about a dozen episodes produced, and when the show was over, most of them were erased. Only one or two have survived, almost by accident, as have the animations.

One of these animations was a short directed by Abe Levitow, one of Chuck Jones’ old cronies from the Warner Brothers studios. It featured characters from the comic strip The Wizard of Id, who were voiced by Don Winchell and Paul Messick. Which is all a long road leading to the fact that this was my first unwitting major exposure to The Wizard of Id. This short can be seen today on YouTube.

But if I’m remembering things correctly, my first real encounter with the Wizard was getting The Wizard of Id: Yield (1974), probably a year or two after the publication date. The strip had been running since November 1964, developed by Brant Parker and Johnny Hart, who had already produced B.C. (which we’ll be getting to later). The title was of course a parody of The Wizard of Oz, combined with the Freudian idea of the Id, the chaotic, unformed area of the mind. The strip still runs today, after the deaths of the original creators and being bandied about between members of their families for decades.

My love of both fantasy and satire made it the perfect franchise for me. Since at least The Flintstones the idea of humorous commentary on modern times by transposing them onto an anachronistic historical milieu was a popular concept. The King of Id was a satire on a vain, touchy, and tyrannical government, the Wiz and his powers on the bondage of the technical and creative class to the same. Besides these major themes there were the usual and versatile tropes of humor: characters such as the Wiz’s battle-ax wife Blanche, the alcoholic court jester Bung, the corrupt lawyer Larson E. Pettifogger, the cowardly and inept head of the military Sir Rodney, and the perpetually unfortunate prisoner the Spook were just part of the cast that kept life among the citizens of Id (called Idiots) lively. Between the revolting peasants and the constantly attacking Huns, life for the King (whose short height was a sore point) developed into a royal pain.

For a while I became so obsessed with Id that I feverishly dreamed of a line of figures for them, based on the form of the Pogo Possum premiums made as tie-ins for his animated special. Perhaps it was a fancied resemblance between Churchy La Femme’s nose and Sir Rodney’s enormous schnozz. A while ago they started putting out hard-backed anthologies of Id (I have two), but that seems to have petered out. I also have at least two more Tattered Remnants besides those listed below whose titles have been lost with their spines.

 

Ala Kazot!

Charge!

I’m Off to See the Wizard

Yield

Suspended Sentence Indeed!

Well, This is Another Fine How Do You Do

The Lone Haranguer Rides Again

Every Man is Innocent Until Proven Broke

I Dig Freedom

The Peasants are Revolting!

The Wondrous Wizard of Id

Abra Cadaver!

Pick a Card, Any Card

The Fing is a Kink!

There’s a Fly in My Swill!

The Wizard’s Back

My Kingdom for a Horsie!

We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This

Remember the Golden Rule!

Let There Be Reign

Help Stamp Out Grapes