Good Humor, Part 3

In case you thought product placement was a relatively new phenomenon, check out this Fawcett comic.

In a movie that is itself an eighty-minute paean to Dubl-stix, Humorettes, I-sticks, Regular cups, Large cups, and Sundaes, another sponsor bought in to the proceedings - Fawcett Comics, home of The Big Red Cheese (Captain Marvel to those of you who haven't had the good sense to follow his adventures).

DC comics had filed a lawsuit against Fawcett in 1941 claiming that Captain Marvel was nothing but a crass rip-off of Superman. This took two tons of chutzpah, because Superman was himself a blatant rip-off of the pulps' Doc Savage, whose "Man of Bronze" had been transformed into the "Man of Steel." Savage also had something called a Fortress of Solitude in the arctic, and oh, by the way, Doc's real first name was Clark. DC eventually prevailed, however, shutting Captain Marvel down in 1953. One can only imagine the collective wail that went up when the Captain suddenly disappeared. (If anybody should have sued Captain Marvel, it was Fred MacMurray, whose face had been appropriated by the Fawcett artists and given to Captain Marvel).

Given the fact that Captain Marvel and Superman were locked in a battle to the death for newsstand survival, some of you may well be aware of perhaps the greatest irony in the history of the cinema, which takes place when when we meet Mr. Nagel, the villain of The Good Humor Man (and the rival for girlfriend Margie's affections). He's introduced to us in his office at the Peerless Insurance Company...

The Good Humor Man is so interesting for so many reasons.

For instance, the use of the Three Stooges sound effect library (Good Humor Man was a Columbia picture).

I'm having too much fun to stop... Part Four tomorrow.