Wink Martindale passed away yesterday at the age of 91. Most tributes are acknowledging his career as a game show icon so Balladeer’s Blog will look at his roles outside of that sphere.
MARS PATROL (1953-1955) – At age 19 – and already smiling like somebody just broke his jaw – the go-getting Winston Conrad “Wink” Martindale was the star of 514 episodes of Memphis’ weekday show Mars Patrol. (Ignore the incorrect IMDb entry which lists him as the star of just 1 episode. Memphis newspapers and Martindale himself recount how he starred in the entire series.)
Wink starred as Mars Patrol Captain Martindale and with six Mars Guard children aged 6 to 10 he would blast off in his cheap-looking spaceship. After he and the kids did their live ad for Bosco, that is.
Martindale and the diminutive Mars Guard members wielded ray-guns in their adventures and also hosted episodes of old Flash Gordon and other space serials of the past, making Wink a kind of movie host variant as well. The young fans of Mars Patrol could write in and join the show’s Star Dodgers Club, complete with Captain Martindale photos and other merchandise. Continue reading
THE TREASURE OF THE FLAMING MOUNTAIN – The early Pulp adventures of Kapitan Mors continue. The part-Captain Nemo & part-Robur the Conqueror and his mixed crew of Europeans and people from India are flying over Nicaragua. They prevent the suicide of a despairing young woman whose father has been imprisoned by an up-and-coming dictator to try forcing him to reveal the location of his hidden treasure. 
THE GUARDIAN OF MYSTERY ISLAND (1896) – Written by Dr Edmond Molcini. Mystery Island lies off the coast of Maine and everyone near the coast considers the place haunted by a true monstrosity – a large ghost-dog. 
SERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie machine-gun toting Randy and Richard, as members of the fictional Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) showed and mocked another chapter of the Republic Serial Radar Men from the Moon (1952).
THE MOVIE: Blood Beach (1980) was one of the least effective horror films of the 1980s. It had a half-decent premise – a monster beneath the sand at a California beach sucking victims down into its hellish maw – but squandered that premise with incredibly slow pacing. 
A terrific item cited by lifelong freedom fighter Roberto Alvarez Galloso.
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The last two teams standing were the MOHAWK VALLEY COLLEGE HAWKS (should be Mohawks) and the HERKIMER COLLEGE GENERALS. Defense was the name of the game as Halftime found the Hawks on top of Herkimer College by a mere 27-16. After the break the Generals outscored MVC 35-31 but still lost the game 58-51. Isaiah Earl led the Hawks with a Double Double of 15 points and 10 rebounds. 
This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will conclude my look at Marvel’s 1943-1948 heroine from when the company was known as Timely Comics. For Part One and her origin click 
MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #64 (Jun 1945) 
Balladeer's Blog 