Under Construction

Under construction

You Mean We Can Use Characters From Other Comic Strips?

About a year ago, ILT ran a few examples of Sam's Strip, a newspaper comic strip that knew it was a newspaper comic strip. Created by Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas, Sam's Strip was syndicated by King Features, which was worried from the outset that Sam's Strip was too esoteric, featured too many in-jokes, and that no one would recognize the old comic characters that made 'guest appearances.'

But it was brilliant. Some enterprising publisher (are you listening, Fantagraphics and Dark Horse?) should reprint the entire run.

UPDATE: The book is coming out!
Sam's Strip

And our friends at Fantagraphics are doing it, meaning it will be done well.

Click to enlarge the sample strips below.

Spot The Celebrity

The ILT archives include a huge collection of winner's circle portraits - hundreds of them, actually.

The winner's circle tends to be a crowded place following a race, and if you multiply 100's of photos times the dozens of people depicted in each shot, you see how it's possible to overlook a photo with someone special in it.

I was idly looking at the one shown below a week or so ago when I was shocked to discover who one of the people in the picture was. It won't be as tough for you, since you've been tipped off, but if you can spot the celebrity before clicking on the photo to enlarge it... you're good!

More Crappy Disney Vehicles

Some time ago, we turned the ILT spotlight on Donald Duck and his Crappy Cars.

Turns out we spoke too soon - we shouldn't have held Unca Donald responsible for the crappiness.

Pre-1961, The Disney Studio signed lease agreements with a number of automotive lessors, naming its cartoon stars assignees. At the time, it was possible for multiple lessors to share an interest in one vehicle, which caused endless complications for the hot-tempered Duck, who spent enormous amounts of time in the Lincoln Park DMV office on North Mission Road. Angered by the long waits and redundant paperwork, Duck blamed Governor Pat Brown and became a vocal supporter of Richard Nixon's losing '62 gubernatorial campaign when the former Vice President promised to clean house at the DMV and eliminate the evil of two lessors.

Pluto in his XK 140 Jaguar

The studio seemed to assign vehicles without much forethought - Pluto never learned how to operate the stick shift in his Jaguar and could be heard grinding gears while approaching the studio from 3/4 of a mile away.

Donald Duck's 1956 Renault Dauphine

Donald Duck complained that his Dauphine was "a rolling advertisement for the Disney Studio." Adding to his physical discomfort was the car's target market: swans and giraffes.

Mad Hatter's Checker Skyview Taxi

Another unfortunate pairing of vehicle to cartoon personality was the taxi given to the easily-distracted Mad Hatter who, while cruising the lot for fares, ran over Spike, the dog that portrayed the title character in Old Yeller, which was only five days away from the completion of production. The film's ending had to be rewritten.

Mickey Mouse in the Challenger I

Other accidents caused production delays and changes. In the world's first attempt to break 400 mph, a tire on the Challenger I burst into flames at the Bonneville Salt Flats, ejecting the driver. While makeup and long shots hid much of the damage, it's possible to see cuts, bruises, and a flash of a partial body cast in the DVD of Wheelchair Mickey.

"Micky" Mouse "Zepplin"

Neal Gabler finally puts a long-whispered rumor to rest in his massive biography of Walt Disney.

Hollywood legend has it that [Walt] Disney made an attempt to "cash in" following the explosion of the Hindenburg by rushing out a metal toy replica featuring a smiling Mickey and Minnie, blissfully unaware of Donald Duck (and his bomb) just behind them. Nearly all of the scale-model zeppelins were quickly removed from store shelves and melted down, but a reference copy in the Disney Archives proves that the product had never been authorized to begin with. The distributor of the counterfeits claimed that the characters depicted were not Disney characters because the names were spelled differently. In later years, Disney installed a scale model zeppelin at his home and gave rides to friends around the neighborhood.

Disney in his backyard zeppelin