With college football kicking off in the divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog in just a few days, here’s something I haven’t done in years – a look at football helmets for some very obscure teams.
MINERSVILLE
Team Name: BATTLIN’ MINERS
Comment: This team name begs the question “Is there also a team called the Minin’ Battlers?”
*** Continue reading
Filed under Cool Helmets
Back in 2021 I reviewed the first 12 1970s stories featuring Marvel’s martial arts hero Shang-Chi HERE. Then in 2024 I reviewed several stories which teamed up Shang-Chi and another 70s Marvel kung fu hero – Iron Fist, HERE.
For newbies to this IP, in 1973 Marvel licensed the use of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu plus other characters from the Fu Manchu tales. Rather than just churn out a Fu Manchu comic book series “the House of Ideas” instead combined it with the Kung Fu craze of the time and created Shang Chi, the son of Fu Manchu.
Shang Chi, as a surrogate Bruce Lee, and Sir Denis Nayland-Smith, as a surrogate Braithwaite from Enter: The Dragon, were the core of the new series. Shang Chi started out as an operative of his evil father Fu Manchu but realized the error of his ways and threw in with Sir Denis and his team to battle his father’s malevolent schemes.
Many of Sax Rohmer’s other characters showed up in the series, including Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu. The series expanded from just Fu Manchu storylines. Writer Doug Moench and artist Paul Gulacy churned out some of the best stories in this title, with Gulacy often drawing Shang-Chi to resemble the late Bruce Lee.
Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu had its own inimitable style and was largely one of the most innovative comic books of the 1970s and early 1980s. “Largely” is the key word.
Idiotically, Marvel depicted Shang-Chi forever barefoot and forever wearing a goofy outfit like he was advertising a local martial arts academy. It mars the MOKF series as surely as the artwork for Ebony drags down 1940s and 1950s Spirit stories. So, when possible I will sprinkle in pics of 1970s martial arts movie star James Ryan who genuinely looked like Shang-Chi but wearing regular clothing.
MASTER OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #29 (Jun 1975)
Title: The Crystal Connection
Villains: Velcro and Razor-Fist
Synopsis: Sir Denis Nayland Smith has Shang-Chi join him and other team members in a mission against international heroin dealer Carlton Velcro. The other team members are series regular Black Jack Tarr, former Royal Marine Commando, and semiregular Clive Reston, a walking meta reference.
NOTE: Clive Reston is a capable espionage agent whose schtick was that offhand references he makes establish something that is never specifically spelled out – his father must be James Bond and his grand-uncle must be Sherlock Holmes. It was kind of clever at first but eventually grew tiresome.
Our heroes take a seaplane to Velcro’s mansion in a grotto near France’s Gulf of Lions. Reston poses as a buyer of a large amount of heroin who then burns all of his purchase and an enormous amount of the drug dealer’s additional inventory of smack.
All this was a distraction to allow Shang-Chi and Black Jack Tarr to infiltrate the mansion. Reston ends up captured and Shang-Chi comes face to face with Velcro’s bodyguard Razor-Fist in their VERY FIRST encounter. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Full title: THE REV. JOHN SMITH DIED – AND WENT TO JUPITER VIA HELL (1908) – This bizarre but memorable work was published by the Juno Society of the time and was written by an anonymous author. The title clergyman passes away and finds himself in Hell – not forever, but as an ambassador to Jupiter.
Before he can be sent to that interplanetary posting Smith must witness the horrors of Hell. In this odd tale the ruler of Hell is a woman named Satinita the Sexless Queen. She first shows him how many fellow clergymen are in Hell for eternal punishment.
After that, Satinita takes Rev. Smith on a tour of New York City’s Red Light District, bars, illegal casinos … and the Stock Exchange. Following this ham-fisted attempt at satire, Smith is dropped off on Jupiter as a guest of the planet’s Omu Family.
The family members become his guide to life on Jupiter, where everyone is ruled by a being called the Unity. There is one planet-wide language, and that’s just the beginning. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Previously, Balladeer’s Blog examined the first six Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court when six was the full roster on that court. For subsequent Justices click HERE.
ASSOCIATE JUSTICE WILLIAM PATERSON
Served: March 11th, 1793 – September 9th, 1806 (Died)
Brethren on the Court: Chief Justices: John Jay, John Rutledge, Oliver Ellsworth and John Marshall. Associate Justices: William Cushing, James Wilson, John Blair, James Iredell, Samuel Chase, Bushrod Washington, Alfred Moore and William Johnson.
Some Highlights: Paterson helped write the U.S. Constitution in 1787. This made him one of the very few Supreme Court Justices qualified to weigh in on the “original intent” of the framers.
While riding his Circuit, William presided over the trials of the people indicted for treason for participating in the Whiskey Rebellion. He wrote the Court’s decision in Penhall v Doane’s Administrators (1795), which ruled that America’s current federal courts had jurisdiction over Prize Cases, not any of the American courts which preceded the U.S. Constitution. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster starred in several big-name films. Early in his career he played the hero in a few swashbuckler movies.
THE FLAME AND THE ARROW (1950) – In 1100s Lombardy, evil Count Ulrich (Frank Allenby) rules on behalf of Emperor Frederick the First. Ulrich abuses his power and even takes the unfaithful wife of Dardo Bartoli (Burt Lancaster) into his own court as one of his mistresses. This drives archer and swordsman Dardo into opposition against him.
One day Dardo shows off by shooting Count Ulrich’s prized hunting hawk out of the sky with an arrow. The Count has his men try capturing our hero, but his son Rudi helps him escape only to wind up a prisoner in Ulrich’s household where he is reunited with his mother.
Dardo now goes all out against the Count, leading rebels both high born and low in Robin Hood style banditry against Ulrich from an old Roman fortress in the hills. At one point Dardo and his allies abduct Count Ulrich’s niece Anne (Virginia Mayo) in hopes of exchanging her for Rudi. The Count instead captures Dardo’s father and several other villagers, threatening to kill them all unless the rebel and outlaw surrenders. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
THE OLD LADY OF NIGHTMARE ALLEY was the character who hosted the film show Nightmare! on KTLA in Los Angeles. She was played by the elderly actress Ottola Nesmith, who started in Silent Films in 1915 and appeared in over 100 movies, including Invisible Ghost with Bela Lugosi.
Nightmare! ran from October 1st, 1957 to October 7th, 1958. KTLA aired the program Tuesday nights at 9:30pm and produced 53 episodes. The show’s director was Loring d’Usseau, one of Nesmith’s sons, who was surprised to learn he would be directing his own mother (see below right).
Ottola’s Movie Hostess character The Old Lady eschewed the sex appeal approach of predecessors like Vampira and instead employed a memorable gimmick, albeit one which once got herself and KTLA in legal trouble.
The Old Lady was a deranged woman who claimed to be a fallen movie starlet living in a tiny apartment on Nightmare Alley with only her victrola and doll Boris to keep her company. She was like Sunset Boulevard‘s Norma Desmond on steroids and also had qualities of the Arsenic and Old Lace murderesses as well as the future Baby Jane.
(Yet the Los Angeles Times called her “pixielike.”) Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts
FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE. FOR PART TWO CLICK HERE. FOR PART THREE CLICK HERE. FOR PART FOUR CLICK HERE. FOR PART FIVE CLICK HERE.
PART SIX – Corresponding with the one-day hiatus from the story tellers and singers performing the Ozidi Epic, our hero has been sleeping after slaying Badoba. Tall Badoba was the latest of his father’s killers to meet their end at the hands of Ozidi the Younger. Only the leader of the murderers remained – Ofe.
At the end of the previous installment, cowardly and treacherous Ofe had fled Orua in hopes of escaping Ozidi’s wrath. Overnight, however, he realized that Ozidi would never abandon his revenge quest because he had to slay every single one of his father’s killers in order to free Ozidi the Elder’s spirit from the deadlands limbo in which it was imprisoned.
Ofe glumly returned to Orua and sought shelter in his home. Meanwhile, at the home of Ozidi’s uncle King Temugedege, the mentally unfit ruler installed as a puppet by the murderers of Ozidi the Elder, it was time for Ozidi the Younger to wake up.
Our hero’s mother Orea and his sorceress grandmother Oreame fed him breakfast until he was full. Then it was time once again to go into action, so Ozidi reached down his throat and pulled out of his mouth his sword made of lightning, his battle clothing, his musicians and attendants plus his spear and other weapons. He pulled out his monkey and lizard, too.
As Ozidi walked Ado, the capitol of Orua, the people all grabbed their children and fled into the jungle to avoid being caught in the fallout of the battle between Ozidi and Ofe. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
THE NEW ODD COUPLE (1982-1983) – This sitcom was a reboot of the 1970-1975 series, now starring former Barney Miller co-star Ron Glass as obsessively tidy photographer Felix Unger and former Sanford & Son co-star Demond Wilson as pathologically sloppy sports reporter Oscar Madison. Coincidentally, Glass had made guest appearances on two Sanford & Son episodes in the 1970s.
John Schuck played Murray the Cop, Bart Braverman was Roy and Christopher Joy was Speed. The Pigeon Sisters were portrayed by Sheila Anderson and Ronalda Douglas.
Due to a writer’s strike at the time, eight episodes of The New Odd Couple were flat-out remakes of original Odd Couple installments. That prevented the new series from developing its own way and contributed to falling ratings and the show’s cancellation after just 18 episodes.
THOSE EPISODES:
THE IDES OF APRIL (Oct 29th, 1982) – Felix must go down to the IRS office to correct a computer error. While there, he accidentally lets slip Oscar’s tax cheating. Oscar gets audited, but Felix manages to get his roommate through the ordeal successfully. ESTHER ROLLE guest starred.
THE HUSTLER (Nov 5th) – Oscar helps Felix raise money for his amateur theater troupe via a Casino Night party. It’s a success, but then Oscar risks losing all the winnings playing pool against a hustler. It was Trivia Heaven for viewers as guest stars included Al Molinaro (the original Murray the Cop), Florida Friebus playing her Bob Newhart Show character Mrs. Bakerman, Ian Wolfe as Mr. Bakerman and Ben Powers from The Jeffersons as Side Pocket Sidney. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN THE 1850s, CLICK HERE.
PART 73 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the July of 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure.
*** Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt for the media blitz accompanying his hunting trip to South America. Pearson and his Fool Killer liked Theodore as president but he was tired of the media circus surrounding every move of Roosevelt’s post-presidency life.
*** The federal government, for allowing starvation inside the U.S. while sending out millions to feed people overseas.
*** Tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for trying to distract from his slaughter of miners and their women and children in Ludlow back in April by teaching Sunday School and doing charitable work to help prostitutes find another way of life. The jokes that were made about the kind of “work” that Rockefeller was doing with the Red Light Ladies should be obvious.
*** Treasury Secretary William McAdoo, who had pushed for the reintroduction of the Income Tax the previous year. Pearson, though a self-confessed socialist, did not meet the 2026 definition of socialism because he opposed income taxes as a blow against the working class and not the wealthy.
*** Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, whom he blamed for destroying the U.S. economy. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
Balladeer’s Blog presents another look at an ancient Greek Comedy. This time around it’s one written by Eupolis who – along with Aristophanes and Cratinus – was one of the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy.
MARIKAS (c 421 B.C.) – This was the second comedy to emerge in the new subgenre of Attic Old Comedy called “the Demagogue Comedy”. Aristophanes led the way a few years earlier with The Knights, his comedy attacking the politician Cleon. The play Marikas finds Eupolis attacking the demagogue Hyperbolus, whose reputation for character assassination by way of overstatement lives on in our language by way of the word “hyperbole”.
As with most ancient Greek comedies Marikas has survived only in fragmentary form. Those fragments, along with contemporary references in surviving works, provide what is known about the play. Marikas, the title character, was used by Eupolis to represent the politician Hyperbolus the same way Aristophanes had used the Paphlagonian to represent Cleon in The Knights.
The ancient Greek comedies made a point of breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis (despite the way so many people have convinced themselves that that is a “postmodern” development) and Marikas opened up with a character assuring the audience that the play they were about to see was NOT just a rehashing of The Knights. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy
