The late cartoonist Johnny Hart is known for 2 creations, B. C. and The Wizard of Id, both of which are still running today, long after Hart has passed on.
There was, once upon a time, some interest in developing Wizard into a television show. Jim Henson tried it first in 1969 with Muppet characters, a few months before Sesame Street took off and became the icon it is today. A year later, animation legend Chuck Jones took a stab at it, commissioned by ABC.
Unfortunately, the network subsequently passed on green-lighting a series. This short pilot, directed by frequent Jones collaborator Abe Levitow, and co-written by Hart with Bob Ogle, features the voices of Paul Winchell, Don Messick, and Bob Holt. Co-creator Brant Parker was credited, but did not contribute to this project.
Here at home, the Wizard no longer appears in local papers, but, as noted, the strip is still being published today, written and illustrated by Hart's grandson, Mason Mastroianni.
Rating: A-.
6 comments:
The Wizard of Id is still printed in mine (The Toledo Blade), oddly they don't print Hart's other strip, "B.C." but they do carry the Mastroiannis' other strip "The Dogs of C Kennel". 2 out of 3 ain't bad I guess.
In Troy, we only get B. C., but not the other two. Go figure.
It can vary, I suppose the paper either didn't get enough interest in B.C. or people haven't heard of that dog strip yet. My paper did have B.C. at one time, but that was sometime before I was born in the late 70's. I think either Cathy or Garfield probably took its place when those became big.
Had to check to make sure, right around the time I was born, no B.C. (using Google's newspaper search function), but I did see Cathy, I guess they scooped that up pretty quickly.
These days it doesn't really matter much anymore, thanks to the net, I don't have to buy out-of-town papers or paperbacks to see these when I want!
You think you've got probs? The Daily News dumped Dick Tracy a while back, and that's a major bummer.
I bet, assuming they had time to wrap up whatever storyline was being developed. I don't know if that was ever in my paper though there used to be two daily newspapers in town years ago. I only recall noticing Dick Tracy while looking at the Chicago Tribune Sunday comics at one time. My paper though carried "Steve Roper & Mike Nomad" as well as "The Amazing Spider-Man".
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