When Disneyland—the first episode of what the world would later come to think of as The Wonderful World of Disney— premiered on October 27, 1954, no one thought to warn audiences of the racially insensitive content to come, such as Tinkerbell hopping around pretending to be Native American and footage of Uncle Remus from Song of the South.

But when it was rebroadcast last Sunday on TCM, an advisory was deemed necessary.

Here are the shocking sentences that appeared at the beginning of the program.

Were you as shocked as I was? And I don’t mean by existence of the apology itself. What I mean is … well …

Did you “accep” their apology?

Two typos, TCM? Really?

It’s been such a busy year that I fell behind in my reading of The Paris Review, to which I was given a lifetime subscription by my wife in 1979. (I wonder how long that subscription will last?) But I’ve been binge-reading the magazine this week, so I just caught up with in the Adam Phillips interview in the the Spring 2014 issue.

I’d never heard of Phillips, I’m embarrassed to say, but that doesn’t mean the interview wasn’t interesting, as all Paris Review interviews are.

Here’s the passage that stood out for me the most— (more…)

My October 2009 Flash Forward interview conducted by Mike Zipser recently got tossed onto YouTube, so you no longer have to search for it in their archives. Which means it’s easier for you to see who I was and what I thought I was doing with my life five years ago. (As opposed to who I was and what I thought I was doing with my life twenty-four years ago, when John Pomeranz interviewed me for the same show in 1990.)

As I watch this, the one thing I wish I could go back in time to whisper into my ear is—Chill out, dude! Relax.

I don’t know how I sound in that video to you, but to me, I seem to be in a race, talking much too quickly, and rushing to squeeze as many words as possible into the time allotted, which I think can only unsettle an audience.

Maybe none of that is there, and my reaction is simply the one we all tend to have to the sounds of our own voices.

But I think not. What do you think?

As you may recall, I recently took issue with the ending to the 1950 comic book romance story “Too Fat for Love” because of its implied message that unless an overweight girl got thin, she didn’t really deserve to find true love. While wandering the excellent resource Comic Book Plus, I just found another story on the same theme in the June 1949 issue of First Love Illustrated.

Note that I didn’t discover this because I was actively looking for another similar story; it just appeared. For all I know, this was a frequent subject for romance comics to tackle at that time.

In “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?,” drawn by Bob Powell and written by someone whose identity is apparently no longer known, 16-year-old Roz is miserable because “the world may love a fat man but the world’s boys sure detest the fat girl.”

Let’s see how things turn out for the her, shall we? (more…)

According to the inside back cover of the Summer 1945 issue of True Comics, the whole Marvel family—and that’s Marvel family as in the original “Shazam!” Captain Marvel, not Marvel Comics—wants you to subscribe to Mechanix Illustrated.

I’m sure the fact Mechanix Illustrated was published by Fawcett, the same company that put out Captain Marvel‘s line of comics, had nothing to do with his opinion that any “wide-awake fellow” wouldn’t want to miss an issue. (more…)

Thanks to a Tumblr post, I was reminded of a Marvel Bullpen moment I’d completely forgotten. The following response apparently appeared in answer to a reader’s letter about Wolverine’s height, and was published in X-Men #103 (cover dated February 1977).

Did we really say those things? I’m no longer sure.

If we didn’t say those things, then who put those words in our mouths? I’m no longer sure of that either.

It was probably Chris Claremont, as he was writing X-Men at the time, and the writer of a book always got first shot at putting together that title’s letters column unless there was a compelling reason against it. But all this time later, I don’t feel comfortable guaranteeing it was him and not one of the Assistant Editors.

I guess I could always track down Chris and see whether his memory is any better than mine …

While I was reading the Winter 1950 issue of the romance comic Darling Love (as one does on a Sunday afternoon), I came across the 8-page story “Too Fat for Love,” written by May Richstone and drawn by Harry Lucey. And I wondered—would I be as pleased with its ending as I was with the slut-shaming smackdown from that 1954 issue of Dream Book of Romance?

By which I mean …

… would Mona Cacchio, constantly ridiculed for her weight, be allowed by the storytellers to find true love without having to conform to society’s pressures to achieve a supposedly ideal size? Or would they insist she become slim to be seen as deserving of a mate?

Let’s see, shall we? (more…)

Sam Maronie continues to be my personal time machine. After turning up old cosplay photos of me bare-chested and wielding a broadsword, he’s now shared something far more horrifying.

I mean, would you take a look at that shirt!

I completely understand why Don Perlin, the artist for my Captain Midnight Action Book for Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, can be seen averting his eyes.

This pic is from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention. I was 20 years old. Remind me to tell you sometime how a 20-year-old kid ended up in charge of programming and putting together the program book for Marvel’s first convention …

While serving myself some of Todd Supple’s turkey meatballs during Sunday’s Writers Group From Hell holiday party, I made the joke that “you get no bread with one meatball” and was met with nothing but blank stares. I’d thought that if any group would catch my reference to a 1944 Tin Pan Alley song, it’d be that one. But no!

So I pulled out my iPhone and sought out the version I knew best (by Josh White) and while doing so found something better—this comic interpretation by Candy Candido, delivered in three different voices, that gave me a big, goofy smile.

Who was this guy? And why had I never seen a performance of his before?

It turns out I had, but hadn’t known it. And you’ve probably experienced Candy Candido, too, whether you knew it or not.

How? (more…)