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The Saturday Comics: Dondi

6 Oct

October 6, 2012

Dondi was a comic strip about a war orphan brought to America. It ran from 1955 to 1986, a great run in any book. But before I begin, I need to point something out.

I never took Dondi seriously. He tended to talk, especially in the early days, in some sort of half-kiddie, half-foreign gibberish never heard from the mouth of any child anywhere. And worse, he looked like a monkey. Not any old monkey, Dondi looked just like Speed Racer’s monkey Chim-Chim.

From wikipeida, which is also often written in some sort of half-kiddie, half-foreign gibberish:

Dondi’s original backstory describes him as a five-year-old World War II orphan of Italian descent. The boy had no memory of his parents or his name, so when a pretty Red Cross worker said he was “a dandy boy,” he thought she was naming him “Dondi.” Two soldiers who spoke no Italian, Ted Wills and Whitey McGowan, found the child wandering through a war-torn village. The soldiers brought the child back to the United States and Ted eventually became his adoptive father.

Like other comic strip boys, such as Dennis in Dennis the Menace, Dondi’s character never ages. This became problematic in later years, as Dondi’s age made the origin story implausible. Eventually, references to his Italian origin ceased, and he was adopted by Ted and his wife, the former Katje Bogar. “Pop” Fligh, a former pro baseball player, became Dondi’s adoptive grandfather when he married Ted Wills’ widowed mother. Following this, Dondi was portrayed simply as an adopted child, although in the early 1960s there was a reference to his being an orphan of the Korean War. During the mid-1970s, there was a reference to his being from Vietnam.

A recurring character was Mrs. McGowan, who was the mother of Whitey McGowan. In a rather startling development for a comic strip at the time, Whitey and his new bride died in a car crash on their honeymoon, leaving Dondi to Mrs. McGowan, who had initially resented the boy, but came to love him and accept him as her grandson. This explanation was permitted to fade into the mists as the strip grew farther away from World War II.

So Dondi’s parents were killed in a war (take your pick which one) and then his adopted parents were killed in a car crash? Wow, what could be worse? The movie version of Dondi. How bad was it? Here is the theme song:

Once you finish washing out your ears, assault your eyes with these examples of Dondi’s newspaper strip. And speaking of eyes, notice that Dondi’s are just dark black spots.

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Late Night Movie House of Crap: The Nude Bomb

3 Oct

October 3, 2012

No Classic Repost today, Mr. Blog is all new!

I consider it a hard and fast rule to never put the word “bomb” in the title of a movie. You’re just asking for trouble. And it this case it is justified.

I’ve seen this film. And I have asked myself, over and over and over, “why would anyone make a softcore porn version of Get Smart?” Now I admit, calling this softcore porn is a stretch. There is no frontal nudity. But the jokes are a little on the risqué side, especially for anyone who grew up with the sanitized 50’s-era TV show upon which this is based. And Don Adams working blue? Why? As you’ll see in the trailer, they take a typical Get Smart joke- Don shooting himself with his gun- and turn his catchphrase into a double entendre. Meanwhile, the rest of the TV cast? Gone. In later years in later Get Smart revivals, this film is mercifully ignored.

As befitting a bomb of a movie, I’ve gone to a bomb of a website for more info. From wikipedia:

In the film, Smart is called back into service in order to stop a nefarious KAOS terrorist plan from exploding a bomb that destroys only clothing, so as to leave KAOS as the only supplier of clothes to the entire world.

Adams’ cousin Robert Karvelas (Larrabee) is the only other cast member from the television series to return for this film. Dana Elcar plays the Chief in this film (as Edward Platt had died in 1974); no reference is made to Barbara Feldon’s character from the TV series, Agent 99, or even her marriage to Smart. Sylvia Kristel, at the time well known for her appearances in the Emmanuelle film series, makes a brief appearance as Agent 34, with actress Andrea Howard playing as Agent 22 (Agent 99-type role) and Vittorio Gassman playing the Blofeld-like villain. Agent 13 was recast as Joey Forman, who played Harry Hoo in the TV series. Pamela Hensley, who was by now well known to science fiction fans for playing Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appeared as Agent 36.

Smart’s agency, called CONTROL in the TV series, was called PITS in this film, an acronym standing for Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service.

In spite of the title, the film was given a PG rating because there was no frontal nudity in the film. There are five times in the film where the bomb is detonated, but in each case the actors cover up their private areas with strategically placed briefcases or guns (Buckingham palace guards) or are shown only from the waist up. In one case members of a football team are in a huddle when a bomb detonates, revealing bare behinds of some of the players. In the final scene, the three stars of the film are rendered nude by fallout from the destruction of all the bombs at the enemy headquarters, but are seen from the backsides from a distance, and then with a “the end” caption covering each of their backsides.

The film was a box office disappointment. Nearly a decade later another revival film was produced, this time for TV, on ABC. Get Smart, Again! would feature most of the surviving original cast members and ignored the events that took place in The Nude Bomb for continuity purposes. This was followed by a short-lived revival TV series for Fox.

And just for fun, here is a truly funny foreign movie poster.

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