POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! Hellcat, The Hollies, Holly & the Italians, and Hot Wheels

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post continues my never-ending story of The Everlasting First, recalling my first exposures to a comic book character, two rockin' pop groups, and a popular toy line: Hellcat, the Hollies, Holly and the Italians, and Hot Wheels.

Of the four, the Hollies have had the most enduring impact in my world. The Hollies' song "I Can't Let Go" earns a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1); I haven't shared that chapter on the blog, but I did make a video talking about it (as discussed here and seen here). Very early drafts of GREM! also included a piece about my first Hollies LP, The Very Best Of The Hollies, but that was removed from the book's blueprint quite some time ago.

I still love Holly and the Italians, of course. We just played Holly Beth Vincent's new single "Hey Boy" a couple of weeks back on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. And I also wrote this little bit about her 1982 collaboration with Joey Ramone, covering a Sonny and Cher classic: 

"Starting around 1980 or so, I began telling everyone within earshot that the Ramones should cover the Sonny and Cher staple 'I Got You Babe,' and rope in Blondie babe Debbie Harry to serve as Joey Ramone's duet partner. It seemed a natural prospect to me, especially given that guitarist Johnny Ramone had already played a similar folk-rock riff on the Ramones' cover of the Searchers' 'Needles And Pins.' I was a visionary! Sort of. This 1982 single credited to the one-off Holly & Joey was the closest manifestation of that vision, with Holly Beth Vincent playing the Cher to Joey's Sonny, backed by Holly's own group Holly and the Italians. A friend of mine was amazed and enthused that I'd predicted it as closely as I had, even though it really wasn't all that close at all. When I interviewed Joey for Goldmine in 1994, he told me he really wanted to work with Holly again. When I was briefly in touch with Holly Beth Vincent a few years back, I shared with her what Joey had said, and she immediately broke off all contact with me. Oops? Maybe I'm not quite the visionary I fancied myself to be."

As much as I adored my Hot Wheels cars when I was kid, nowadays I find I don't play with them anywhere near as much as I used to. Pfft. This maturity thing is way overrated. Even in my dotage, though, I would jump at a chance to buy a trade collection of the Hot Wheels comics produced by DC in the late '60s and early '70s. These were solid comics, with some stunning artwork by Alex Toth (and a little by Neal Adams), and they would be well worth preserving.

It would be beyond the scope of this blog to reproduce those Hot Wheels comics here, but I did include representative pages from all six issues in my 100-Page FAKES! blog series, which imagined a bunch of 1970s DC Comics 100-Page Super Spectaculars that never were. The Hot Wheels material was spread out to appear in my 100-Page FAKES! editions of Detective Comics # 449, Detective Comics # 451, Adventure Comics # 444, Detective Comics # 452, Adventure Comics # 445, Detective Comics # 453, Adventure Comics # 446, Detective Comics # 454, Adventure Comics # 447, Detective Comics # 455, and Detective Comics # 456. This places the heroes of Hot Wheels alongside Batman, Aquaman, and other DC characters. Rightly so!

Finally, I don't really have anything at all to say about Hellcat, but I'll repeat that I liked her as written by Steve Englehart in The Avengers. Nonetheless, Hellcat, the Hollies, Holly and the Italians, and Hot Wheels are all on equal footing in The Everlasting First. Those introductions serve as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

POP-A-LOOZA! THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post casts my memory back to 1966, when six-year-old me first encountered a pair of superhero siblings, the Marvel Comics characters Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.

This specific look back (originally posted in 2018) is reprised this week to commemorate the conclusion of the first season of the terrific WandaVision TV series on Disney +. Man, that show is good. At this writing, I haven't yet seen the season (or perhaps series) finale, but I'm very much looking forward to diggin' it the most. The events of WandaVision will feed into forthcoming Marvel movies, especially in next year's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Can't wait! In the mean time, WandaVision has already contributed to our current popular milieu with this insidious (so perfidious!) ditty written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who previously invaded the mass consciousness with their Oscar-winning original song "Let It Go." Their Wanda Vision tune "Agatha All Along" is now a Billboard hit.

 As it should be!

My Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch reminiscence is the most personal Marvel Comics piece I've written to date. That emotional investment makes it my favorite. Which isn't meant to slight my other Marvel-related posts, which include my testimonial to the late Stan Lee, my memory of discovering Marvel Comics to begin with, my failed Spider-Man writing try-out, the silly (and wonderful!) humor title Not Brand Echh, the odd (but I loved it) Marvel book Marvel Super-Heroes, and, of course, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers. I identify as a DC Comics guy. I'm also a Marvel guy. Beatles and Rolling Stones, AM and FM, sweet and savory. Your walls cannot be built here. Avengers assemble! Up, up and away.

And today, these flights of fancy take us to an appreciation of a colorfully-garbed brother and sister whom I saw in a comic book when I was six, and the dichotomy of stability and attrition in the ever-changing world of a child trying to make sense of it all. And I deserve bonus points for opening the piece with a not-really-gratuitous reference to my favorite movie, That Thing You Do! My introduction to Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch provides the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Quick Takes For T [comics edition]

Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every story still needs to begin with that first kiss.

THE TEEN TITANS

Robin the Boy Wonder! Wonder Girl! Kid Flash! Aqualad! I was six years old in 1966, and I I was certainly a fan of ol' Robin from his heroic appearances on my favorite TV show Batman. The others were unfamiliar to me prior to my introduction to DC Comics' junior superhero group The Teen Titans. I didn't even really know Wonder Woman or The Flash yet, and I first encountered Aquaman around the same time as my first issue of Teen Titans. That would have been Teen Titans # 6, cover-dated November-December 1966.

But I for damned sure knew Robin. Batman and Robin! I think I saw a house ad for Teen Titans # 1 before ever noticing the Titans on the spinner rack. I was absolutely fascinated by DC's house ads during this era, colorful come-ons that teased and enticed with glimpses of everything from Batman and Superman to Starman and Black Canary, Dial H For HERO, The Spectre, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Scooter. I don't remember whether or not I ever owned a copy of Teen Titans # 1; I think maybe I did buy it as a back issue in the '70s, but if so, it's long gone now. Either way, though, its cover captivated my young mind, and I wanted it.

In this time frame, my parents frequently allowed me to pluck a comic book of my choice from the rack at Sweetheart Corner, a grocery store in North Syracuse. That's how Teen Titans # 6 came into my possession. Robin was on the cover! Of course. 

And I loved it. This issue guest-starred Beast Boy from The Doom Patrol; my only previous exposure to The Doom Patrol was another irresistible house ad, depicting a team-up of the Doomsters and that Scarlet Speedster, The Flash. My next Teen Titans was # 11 (September-October 1967), which guest-starred The Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy (and opened with a scene revealing the Titans' bulletin board, featuring pinned letters from Earth-One's version of President Lyndon Johnson and that other Fab Four, The Beatles).

Seeing Speedy with the Titans prepared me for the team's TV debut in the fall of '67, as The Teen Titans became one of the rotating guest features on the new Saturday morning cartoon series The Superman-Aquaman Hour Of Adventure. This show aired on CBS, but the Boy Wonder was still contractually obligated to appear with his caped crusadin' mentor over on ABC, thus elevating Speedy to full Titandom, at least on Saturday mornings.

I bought Teen Titans comics when I could. Writer Bob Haney's willful abuse of the English language in pursuit of his outta-touch idea of hip teenspeak can be kinda painful to read now, but I was all in as a young'un. The art by Nick Cardy was terrific, and would become even better as the series continued. Cardy may be my all-time favorite comics artist, and I first encountered his work in Aquaman and Teen Titans. 

(Even beyond his overall skill as a draftsman and visual storyteller, Cardy drew some of the prettiest girls in comics, including Wonder Girl and early '70s Titans addition Lilith.)

DC's Teen Titans comic book lasted 43 issues, succumbing to cancellation at the end of '72. It was brought back for another ten issues in the late '70s, but the latter series was not my cuppa. In the early '80s, writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez managed a popular and critically-acclaimed revival as The New Teen Titans, and that series (which also brought back Beast Boy, renamed Changeling) made the Titans into A-listers from that point forward.

The New Teen Titans was a great book, and it was key to getting me back into comics after I graduated college. The six-year-old superhero fan from 1966 had grown up...but I resisted growing up too much.

THOR

1966 was a big year for me and my superheroes. I liked superheroes before actors Adam West and Burt Ward donned capes and masks to bop the bad guys as TV's Batman and Robin, but it was certainly Batman that knocked that interest into overdrive. My previous affection for Superman comic books grew into a full-blown obsession with all sorts of superdoers patrolling the spinner racks and magazine shelves. I discovered Marvel Comics in there somewhere, starting with Sub-Mariner and The Incredible Hulk in Tales To Astonish. 

I first encountered The Mighty Thor in the pages of The Avengers # 13, the same time and place where I first met Captain America, Iron Man, Giant-Man, and The Wasp. We were vacationing at my grandparents' house in Missouri, and my sister Denise and cousin Cheryl came back from a walk with that comic book in hand. It was an old comic book, published at the end of '64 (postdated February '65, as comics were wont to do), probably coverless. Okay by me. Any book you ain't read is a new book.  

This book was so important to me, and I read it and re-read it many, many times. I have no idea of when I next saw the mighty God of Thunder in a comic book--by the time I got another issue of The Avengers, Thor was no longer an Avenger--but even the one appearance was sufficient to instill wonder and awe in this six-year-old. And if I didn't see Thor in the funny pages, I could see him on TV; Thor joined Captain America, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, and The Hulk as one of the rotating stars of The Marvel Super-Heroes, a series of (barely) animated short cartoons that aired weekday afternoons, beginning in September of '66. The year of the superhero!

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS

My introduction to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was most definitely second-hand. If there were issues of Tower Comics' 25-cent giant T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents on the rack at Sweetheart, I missed 'em, and I didn't get around to seeing any of them (and their sublime Wally Wood artwork) until snagging a couple of back issues in the '70s. No, instead I saw two parodies first. The second of the two was from Marvel Comics, as seen in the humor book Not Brand Echh. I didn't come aboard the Brechh train until its fourth issue, so I missed seeing NBE # 2's cracked-mirror version of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. facing Dynamo and NoMan of The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (that would be Knock Furious, Agent of S.H.E.E.S.H. facing Dynaschmoe and Invisible Man of The Blunder Agents). But I did see it when it was reprinted in Not Brand Echh # 10--"The Worst Of Not Brand Echh"--in the summer of '68. I have all of the Not Brand Echhs in a hardcover collection now.

My first vicarious exposure to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was in a DC Comics humor title: the bad guys in H.U.R.R.I.C.A.N.E., as seen in DC's The Inferior Five # 1 in 1967. We covered that in a previous Everlasting First. I wish there were a hardcover Inferior Five collection I could buy now.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

The classic TV anthology series The Twilight Zone ended in 1964, so four-year-old me should have had no business watching it. Maybe it was still in reruns a little after that? Not that I would have been any braver to face the show at six or seven years old. I remember that creepy opening, and I remember the show scared the livin' chicklets outta me. Ooh! I particularly remember one episode where a mystic scarab or something caused some poor geezer to crumble into dust before my terrified eyes. Brrr! This never happened on Batman. Robin! ROBIN! Save me, Boy Wonder!

Or, y'know, you could send Wonder Girl to save me. That would be fine, too.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

Lights! Camera! REACTION! My Life At The Movies: The Movies I Saw In 2019

I can't claim to be a movie buff. I love movies, and I very much prefer to see them in a theater rather than at home on a TV screen. But I don't get out to see movies all that often. In 2019, I think I only made it to the movie palace a total of eleven times:

On The Basis Of Sex [2018 release]
Captain Marvel
Shazam!
Avengers: Endgame
Toy Story 4
Yesterday
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
Frozen II
Little Women



(It is possible that I didn't get around to seeing two more 2018 releases--A Star Is Born and Mary Poppins Returns--until 2019, but I think I caught both of those before 2018 ceded its parking space to '19. I remember seeing A Star Is Born at The Hollywood Theatre in Mattydale, my favorite second-run movie spot, so it's possible the calendar's page had flipped by then.)

I remain an unapologetic fan of superhero movies. Every stuffier-than-thou complaint I read about comic-book flicks makes me wanna dig in my heels and offer a defiant reply; most of my replies seem to only total two words. Imagine that. I've never reacted well when people have tried to tell me what I could or couldn't/should or shouldn't like. If I heeded those type of naysayers, I never would have fallen for The Ramones. I dig what I dig.



(Incidentally, I consider the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On The Basis Of Sex a superhero film. RBG's a real-life superhero, fighting for truth,  justice, and the American way. I approve of that message.)

Given how few movies I see in a year, I don't bother going to see anything unless I'm reasonably certain I'm going to enjoy it. I rarely see comedies, I certainly don't see horror films, and I'm very selective about documentaries.  I wouldn't mind visiting the cinema a bit more often, but when I go, I have to believe it's going to be worth it.



The happy result of that approach is that I'm generally satisfied with the films I see when I see a film. Of the eleven movies I saw in 2019, Shazam! was the only disappointment. I really wanted to like this adventure of the superhero formerly known as Captain Marvel. Going in, I knew it wouldn't be my Captain Marvel. My Cap was the best-selling comic-book superhero of the 1940s, a character now owned by DC Comics, but DC's arch-rival Marvel Comics trademarked the name when it wasn't being used by the original, and DC wasn't about to approve the making of a movie starring a hero named Marvel. I knew the intent of the Shazam! movie was to remake the film Big as a superhero story, but it was ultimately just too silly for me (and with moments of brutal violence that seemed jarringly out of place in this frivolous context). Unfortunate. Lead actor Zachary Levy looked the part (although I think he looked more like Cap in his role as a doctor on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel than he did in costume in Shazam!), and I can only dream of how he could have been in a Captain Marvel adventure rather than this ill-conceived trifle. (And yeah, I'll probably go see the eventual sequel. Hope springs eternal.)






Other than Shazam!, though, I did indeed dig the films I saw in 2019. I loved Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood, an amazing evocation of Southern California in the '60s, with an ace soundtrack and...well, to say more would be a spoiler. At the close of A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, I whispered in my wife's ear, "Tom Hanks may need to clear some more space on his awards shelf at home." I adored Yesterday's frothy mix of rom-com and Beatles songs. Little Women's accomplished back-and-forth jumps in the chronology of its narrative made the story even more compelling. I did wonder why Little Women's lead actress seemed so familiar to me, before the closing credits flashed the name of actress Saoirse Ronan, whom I remembered from her starring role in the 2015 film adaptation of Colm Tóibín's novel Brooklyn. (No, I haven't seen her in Lady Bird.)




That leaves Disney. Both Toy Story 4 and Frozen II were satisfying follow-ups to animated features I already liked; at the screening of Frozen II, I'm pretty sure that Brenda and I were the only adults in attendance not accompanied by a (much) younger companion. We also enjoyed two of the  Marvel films together, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Brenda's otherwise not much of a superhero fan--the only other latter-day superhero movies she's seen are Black Panther, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man: Homecoming--so she opted to stay home when I went to see Avengers: Endgame.




I am not ashamed to say that Avengers: Endgame was my favorite movie experience in 2019. And it was an experience, the culmination of years of planning, a popcorn extravaganza like no other. It had action, it had emotion, it had pathos, comedy, in-jokes, and a keen awareness of what it was, what it wanted to be, and what it had to be. In the popular parlance, it rocked. And it delivered one particular moment I've been waiting for since the first Avengers movie in 2012, as Captain America finally said, y'know... that line. That line. If you're any kind of Marvel Comics fan, you know what I mean. THAT line. As we watched the movie, my daughter heard the line (which she knew I was waiting to hear), looked over at me with a smile, and gave me a thumbs-up. Me? I pumped my fist as silently as I could manage, a 59-year-old kid in his heaven and the Mighty Avengers on screen. Justice will triumph. 

Some assembly required.

I hope this new year brings me many more opportunities for a visit to the movie theater. I want to see more plays as well, read more, write more, attend more concerts, travel if I can. And movies. Some superhero movies, and some movies without costumed crusaders. Here's to all of us digging whatever we wanna dig in 2020.




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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying the digital download from from Futureman, and/or the CD from Kool Kat Musik.

(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)

Get MORE Carl! Check out the fourth and latest issue of the mighty Big Stir magazine at bigstirrecords.com/magazine

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).