Friday, September 10, 2010

January 15, 1967 to January 28th 1967



Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, January 15th was the very first Super Bowl Sunday. The Super Bowl has become a national holiday as friends and family gather every year to see what will certainly be the most watched broadcast of the year. It has also become the second-largest day for food consumption in America, second only to Thanksgiving. 

The Green Bay Packers met the Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and defeated them by a score of 35 to 10. A 30-second commercial cost $42,000 and you could get a ticket for twelve bucks.


On that same Sunday, Lisa Velez was born. You may remember her as Lisa Lisa. Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were a pretty good 80’s band. I certainly remember really liking this video back then. I’m sure there were a couple of reasons why.


That Super Bowl was the only one to be broadcast simultaneously by two networks; CBS and NBC. If you had been watching it on CBS, you could have seen The Rolling Stones perform on The Ed Sullivan Show just after the game. The single Ruby Tuesday/Let’s Spend the Night Together had just been released in the States the previous day, so those were the two songs they performed. However, Ed thought that “Let’s Spend the Night Together” was too suggestive, so he asked Mick to sing “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”. Mick went along with it, but every censored lyric met with a wicked eye-roll.


On Wednesday the 18th, Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, was sentenced to life in prison.

Thursday night, NBC aired Arena, the episode of Star Trek where Kirk fights the Gorn. Classic!


Friday the 20th saw the release of the new Rolling Stones album Between the Buttons featuring Miss Amanda Jones, Connection, and Complicated.

On Saturday the 21st, Ann Sheridan, the popular and lovely movie star and pin-up girl of the 30’s and 40’s, died of cancer at the age of 51. She did terrific work with greats like Bogart, Cagney, Raft, and Flynn.






 

 

 

 

 

 

 



On the 27th of January, a Friday, at 6:30 PM in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Lieutenant Colonel Gus Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel Edward White, and Lieutenant Commander Roger Chaffee died when a fire broke out and destroyed their command module. The Apollo 1 disaster was NASA’s first major tragedy. 

Gus Grissom was a very well respected astronaut. He had piloted Mercury-Redstone 4, making him the second American in space after Alan Shepard, and Gemini 3, which made him the first astronaut to make a second journey into space. Had Grissom lived, it is likely that he would have been the first man to step on the moon instead of Neil Armstrong. 

Edward White had previously flown on the Gemini 4 mission where he became the first American to walk in space. 

Roger Chaffee never made it to space. Apollo 1 would have been his first mission. However, it is rumored that he was the one who flew the U-2 spyplane over Cuba and took the famous photos of Soviet missiles that Pres. Kennedy showed on television during the Cuban Missile Crisis. America lost heroes on that day.







Comments and opinions are welcome and encouraged.

Thank you for your interest.




Thursday, September 02, 2010

Top Ten Comic Book Covers – January 1967

10. Strange Tales #152 (Marvel)

Bill Everett drew this cover featuring Dr. Strange and the evil sorceress Umar.


































9. Daredevil #24 (Marvel)

Gene Colan was the artist on this cover which features the jungle lord Ka-Zar getting ready to throw our hero Matt Murdock off the walls of a castle.


































8. Falling In Love #88 (DC)

DC’s romance comic Falling In Love is responsible for some of the funniest covers around. Mr. Ken-head is workin’ that ascot.


































7. Amazing Spider-Man #44 (Marvel)

A great action cover by John Romita featuring Spidey trying to web up The Lizard, one of the most interesting members of the Webhead’s rogues gallery.


































6. X-Men #28 (Marvel)

This issue marked the debut of Sean Cassidy aka Banshee. 

He would appear in X-Men comics for years to come. Werner Roth drew a great cover for him.


































5. Our Army At War #175 (DC)

Joe Kubert was one of the greatest cover artists ever, especially in the war comic genre. His work on Sgt. Rock was particularly acclaimed. Rock is pretty awesome on this cover.


































4. Tales of Suspense #85 (Marvel)

The great superhero artist Gene Colan drew this tremendous cover where Mandarin shoots Tony Stark in the face.


































3. Neutro #1 (Dell)

I love this cover. It was the one and only issue of Neutro. He was the most astounding super hero of all and he does not know the difference between right and wrong. His legs don’t appear to fit into his torso properly. He looks like he’s trying to grab those buildings for support. That’s great.


































2. Our Fighting Forces #105 (DC)

Another fantastic Joe Kubert war cover. Holy crap! It looks like that dude is pushing a red hot grenade into the other dude’s face with his bare hand! That is badass!


































1. Eerie #7 (Warren)

Warren’s classic horror comic Eerie had the best cover of January 1967 with this beautiful Frank Frazetta painting.





































Comments and opinions are welcome and encouraged.

Thank you for your interest.