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SubTitle: Comics
Posted by: DAN BLAINE (100.53680@germanynet.de) on 12/07/1997@23:34hrs:
1. Billy Batson was Captain Marvel and his magic word was SHAZAM! I always thought he really had an advantage over Clark Kent who was always looking for a phone booth or an alley to change clothes in. By the way, where the hell did Clark carry his Superman suit? The extra credit answers to this question: Captain Marvel Jr. was in reality Freddie Freeman, the crippled newsboy, and Mary Marvel was Billy Batson's sister (I think). Billy Batson gained his super powers when he went into a cave ruled by a wise old philosopher (Socrates?) who had statues representing the seven deadly sins: greed, gluttony, jealousy, untruthfulness, ignorance (can't remember the rest... probably because I'm guilty of all of them). Anyhow Billy could get by the seven of 'em and won the $64,000 prize: he became Captain Marvel...later he got Freddie hired on, and after that Mary, which as a girl-hating little kid I thought was terrible!
2. Melvin Koznowski was of course one of Mad's featured characters. Nobody got the meaning of Potzrebie, and I don't think there was a real meaning...I think it was a nonsense word made up by the writers.
3. The couple that went from "Rags to Riches" was Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. The allusion to going to riches: wasn't there a fad for Raggedy dolls a few years back that rivaled the "The Cabbage Patch Doll"?
4. The group of heroes flying around together were the "Blackhawks". As Charlie pointed out, at some point they switched from prop-driven fighter planes to jets, but they always flew back to their home base on Hawk Island. The extra credit portion: I, too only remember the Frenchman (Andre), the Norwegian (Olaf), the Pole (Stanislaus) and the Chinese cook (Chop-Chop?). If there are any BlackHawk buffs out there, please post the names and nationalities of the others. Of course we could assume that the American was named "Joe"...in those days all of us always took the name "Joe" when playing "War". Remember getting "shot" and dramatically collapsing while saying "He got me Joe!"?
5. The comicbook counterpart of "Alice in Wonderland" was MaryJane and
Sniffles, her mouse friend. While she sprinkled the magic powder on
herself she recited this mantra: "Poof, poof, piffles...make me small
as Sniffles"...DAN