Gilligan's Island Final Season Theme

Millie the Model

Even girls had their own comic books in 1966. By Stan Goldberg for marvel no less!

Donruss Marvel Cards

These silly cards with mostly unfunny (and sometimes misspelled) captions--to say nothing of the horrid coloring-- came out in '66. On the back were puzzle pieces. Here are the Captain America ones.

Marvel and DC Together in the UK's Smash!

Peter, Paul and Mary-Blowin' In The Wind

Peter, Paul and Mary were perhaps the most mainstream of the folk groups that proliferated in the early sixties and their beautiful harmonies interpreting Bob Dylan's BLOWIN' IN THE WIND helped spread his fame as a songwriter. Here they are performing it in '66.

Chamber of Horrors

Actor Patrick O'Neal looks quite a bit like a clean-shaven Vincent Price in this '66 chiller. The Boston Strangler murders were in the news so the publicity for this refers to the film's killer as The Baltimore Strangler.

Originally a TV pilot abouta  pair of sleuths, Cesare Danova and Wilfrid Hyde-White,  who also run a wax museum, this was deemed a tad too gruesome and given theatrical release instead. Even then the Wiilliam Castle type gimmicks of the Fear Flasher and the Horror Horn, introduced in voiceover by actor William Conrad prior to the opening credits, were added to incite some ballyhoo.

Sean Connery Introducing Sammy Davis, Jr

Having a Rave Up-The Yardbirds

Batstuff # 29

I used to love glitter paint sets! Heres a Batman from 1966. Go here to see a few more!

Pistols 'N' Petticoats

Here's the opening for a short-lived TV series I really enjoyed way back in that wonderful year of 1966, PISTOLS 'N' PETTICOATS. The ill-fated Western sitcom was meant to serve as a vehicle for former Warner Brothers "Oomph Girl," Ann Sheridan, but the actress failed to disclose just how ill she was with cancer and died before the end of the show's first and then only season.

The premise dealt with an Old West family known for being the best shots around--the Grandfather, the Grandmother, the Daughter (Sheridan) and the Granddaughter. The daughter was played by pretty but relatively generic Carole Wells but the grandparents offered my initial introduction to the great character actors Douglas V. Fowley (nowhere near as aged as he played here) and the delightful Ruth McDevitt. Charismatic McHALE'S NAVY alumnus Gary Vinson (later a real-life victim of suicide) rounded out the regular cast as the sheriff.

If you've never seen the series, a few rare episodes are online here: http://tv4u.com/ 
Originally posted at BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY

The Amazing Spider-Man

Quickly becoming the most popular comic book character of them all, 1966 was a seminal year for Marvel's Spider-Man. Included here, as usual, are the two 1966 issues actually on sale at the end of '65 as well as the two 1967 issues that rounded out '66. 

The issue above features a classic cover and story by Steve Ditko that is still listed consistently as perhaps the best single issue comic of all time as far as Silver Age fans are concerned. 

Ditko's final issue above. He didn't even bother to do a cover so one was pieced together in-house using panels from the story. In spite of all the behind the scenes contentiousness, it is still a good issue.

John Romita debuts as the new Spidey artist with a classic cover and a major two parter.

Other than a couple of Ditko reprints in MARVEL TALES, the issue above was my very first issue of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

The first new post-Ditko villain, the Rhino would become one of Spidey's major opponents. 

Above and below, two favorite issues from the early Romita period as our hero had to fight the Lizard with an injured arm. 

Besties

Me with my best friend in the summer of 1966, Jimmy. That's me on the right. In middle America, long hair was still a few years in the future. Comic books, TV shows and toy guns were my consuming passions! I had yet to discover radio as anything other than what Mom listened to before she headed off to work. I was the smartest kid in second grade and should have been wearing glasses but I did everything I could to avoid that for another year or so even though I had a pair. Oh, and boys could put their arms around each other in those days. There were no fingers pointed or bullying remarks. We were just pals. We lived in the alleys behind my house, setting up a spaceship in the old stone pipes in a vacant lot or exploring the dilapidated and abandoned office building that had three years of mail stuffed inside its mail slot. We ate whatever we wanted to eat, then ran it off until well after dark, playing with kids we never even saw in the daytime. If we had to go to the bathroom, we peed in the alley. Too much trouble to run home just for that. There were, after all, garage roofs to climb on.

It really was a different world that summer of 1966.

The Hero

Here's the opening to the 1966 TV comedy, THE HERO, starring future SOAP star Richard Mulligan as an actor who played a western hero on TV. His wife is played by Mariette Hartley who would finally find fame in a series of TV camera commercials with James Garner a decade later. Thanks to Kliph for the heads up.

TV Radio Mirror

There really was no need for the word "radio" in the title of this long-running magazine by '66. Note the mention of Kathy Lennon of the Lennon Sisters at the top. She and all of Lawrence Welk's TV family would dominated the TV magazines for most of the sixties into the early seventies. All I can guess is that Welk was canny enough to give them great access and thus they knew they could always get a story there. Must have worked as the LAWRENCE WELK SHOW is still popular in reruns in 2012!

Doc Savage

Beginning in 1964, Bantam Books began reprinting the 1930's and '40's DOC SAVAGE pulps with surprising popularity. Actor Chuck Conners was reportedly scheduled to play the Man of Bronze in a movie in 1966, of which this sole issue of a God Key comic book from that year was meant to be a tie-in. The film was never made.

Batstuff # 28

I actually have one of these. As I understand the story (from memory here), the guy who made them ended up doing something wrong and thus wasn't allowed legally to distribute them in '66. Years later, sitting on a ton of them, he instead dumped them onto the market, numberless, as collectibles. Can't find mine at teh moment, though, so this image is from the 'Net.

Secret Agent X-9

Here's a 1966 SECRET AGENT X-9 daily strip by Bob Lubbers. Not long before that venerable strip was taken over by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson and changed to SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN.

The Four Tops-Baby I Need Your Loving

Here's the great voice of Levi Stubbs as the original Four Tops perform their 1964 hit, "Baby I Need Your Loving" on TV in 1966.

Gidget

1966 was both a good year and a bad year for fans of GIDGET. On the one hand, there was a new GIDGET novel from the original author, GIDGET GOES PARISIENNE. On the other hand, the TV version which made a star out of future Oscar winner Sally Field, came to an end. 

Paul McCartney and the Family Way

Technically the first solo Beatles album and Paul's first film soundtrack as well. During the break before 1967's SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, John went to Spain and co-starred with Michael Crawford in Richard Lester's HOW I WON THE WAR. McCartney stayed closer to home and scored this slice of life British drama featuring Disney favorite Hayley Mills in an uncharacteristically adult performance...complete with a brief nude scene.

00 Division # 22

THE SPY WITH A COLD NOSE is a dog The human stars of the picture include Laurence Harvey, Daliah Lavi and the great Lionel Jeffries. Oddly enough, in a tiny role as a belly dancer you'll find Nai Bonet who, 13 years later, wrote and starred in NOCTURNA, a mob-funded horror/disco/comedy starring her as Dracula's daughter opposite John Carradine and Brother Theodore.

The Spirit

The last SPIRIT stories had appeared more than a decade earlier by the time Harvey Comics, home of CASPER and RICHIE RICH, came out with this collection in '66. It followed on the heels of a few questionably legal reprints from IW/Super, a surprise appearance in Harvey Kurtzman's HELP, prominent exposure in Jules Feiffer's THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES and an all-new Eisner story in a 1965 New York newspaper. This, though, was the one the kids saw. This was the one that made Eisner and Spirit fans out of the baby Boomer kids and led to the dozen other revivals of this great, classic strip!

I first saw it at my friend Greg's house that summer and I didn't know what to make of it. It was unlike anything I'd seen before in comics in all my..what?...6 months?...of collecting. I wasn't sure I liked it. But it made an impression. And I remembered it when it was revived and have been a fan ever since. Today would have been Will Eisner's birthday. His SPIRIT, to use the obvious line, lives on.

Space Kidettes