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It is high time to recognize Bill Finger as CO-CREATOR of BATMAN! Why it takes a highly dedicated historian/intellectual comic geek to make us realize the TRUTH about Batman's creation?
—sharkpaul

Wow someone has alot of free time.
—blakmarvel79

Thank you, Brent Frankenhoff:


You are the first to publish the cover of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman.

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Introduction to subseries “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” (including list of interviewees).

What were you doing professionally before you were cast as Velma?

I was doing You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. The people from Hanna-Barbera—director Gordon Hunt—came to see the show. I must’ve sort of looked like the girl.

Did he approach you after the show?

Yes, he sort of said something after the show and then my agency called me and said he wanted to meet me. They showed me the drawings and gave me lines to read. They must have shown pictures of Velma. She looked like me enough that I could see why he wanted me to come in. He hired me.

What were you told and/or shown about the show before auditioning?

I don’t know if you should write this. In those days, I wanted to be Daniel Day Lewis, Emma Thompson. I was not interested in being in voice-over. I needed to make a living and wasn’t doing anything else at the moment. [With Scooby-Doo], I didn’t think I was doing something iconic. It was like getting a soap opera when you wanted to be in a Scorsese film. I thought it was like a drive-by.

How old were you in 1969?

I don’t remember but young. In Charlie Brown, I played Peppermint Patty. I could see afterward why [Hanna-Barbera] wanted me. I played Patty like a know-it-all, which I guess I am. That character is kind of like Velma. [But] she was sweeter than Velma.

Did you know any of the other voice actors on the show beforehand?

No. The only person I knew was Heather North, but neither of us had any idea what this would be like. Heather was more of a girl next door. She was a great girl. I assumed everyone would look like their character on some level. I don’t even think I thought about the dog. I thought this was a stepping stone to paying my rent and I would go off and do greater things.

Did you socialize with them at the time?

Never. I don’t know what voice people are like today but in those days, I thought they were kind of weird. Somebody of 40 was playing somebody of 20. Somebody was playing a dog. It wasn’t like doing a movie when everybody bonds. Before the show, Heather was on Days of Our Lives. I don’t know how we met. We shared an apartment on Crescent Hei

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Introduction to subseries “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” (including list of interviewees).

What’s your professional background?

I started out as a musician, a working musician. When I left college I was on the road about a year and a half with a band. Got married, played nightclubs in California, transitioned to studio work. Then I started getting hired. That was in the late 1960s. I came to California from New York in 1966.

What were you doing in 1969 before the Scooby call came?

I was hired by Lee Hazlewood, a record producer in those days. I was doing background dates (meaning I was a background singer) and producing records for him. When I left his company, I went to A. Schroeder, a music publishing company. Randy Newman, Barry White were some of our writers. One of the music catalogs we administered was Hanna-Barbera. In that capacity we also provided theme music for their shows. We put our writers to work on their shows. One of the shows that we did was Scooby-Doo.

How did you get involved with Scooby?

I had a three-and-a-half octave range so I could do girls’ parts. I was handy to have around the studio. When the theme was written for Scooby-Doo, my boss said I want you to do the vocals.

Larry Marks late 1960s

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Part 1 of 2.

Now, in conclusion: one more story with two lessons.

When I finally produced an animation demo that my agent liked, I waited. And waited. Nothing. I sent out demos, promotional postcards, and muffin baskets to animation casting directors. No bites.

I got a call from my grey-haired mother back in Austin, Texas. I shared my frustrations. She said, “Why, honey, you should write to those fellows at Hanna-Barbera and remind them about that letter you wrote them when you were eight.”

See, my grandmother got me started writing letters to famous people as soon as I could write on my own. I wrote to astronauts, senators, actor Ed “Kookie” Burns of 77 Sunset Strip…and I got letters back from most of them. In 1960, when The Flintstones premiered in primetime on ABC, I became enamored of it and learned to draw a decent Fred Flintstone. So I wrote to Mr. Bill Hanna and Mr. Joe Barbera, the show’s creators.

The letter went something like this: “Hello, I am a third grader in Oklahoma, and as you can see, I can draw Fred Flintstone. Can you use me?”

Amazingly, I got a kind reply, probably written by some secretary over their signatures. It explained that, no, they could not use an eight-year-old in Oklahoma to help animate the show, but that I showed talent and initiative, and if, when I grew up, I became a professional illustrator and happened to live in Southern California, by all means contact them. And there was a line about believing in yourself and going for your dreams. Very nice.

So Mom continues: “Why don’t you just call them up and remind them about that letter.” Mom. Mom. Sigh. No, you don’t understand. This is big-time Hollywood out here. We are represented by talent agents; we don’t go calling up producers about letters they received from children decades ago. That’s just ridiculous. Forget it.

However, after a few more months of no response, I thought, “Oh, what the hell.” So I wrote: “Dear Mr. Hanna and Mr. Barbera: You could not possibly remember this, but as a child I wrote to you with my scrawled drawing of Fred Flintstone, offering to go to work for you from my home in Oklahoma. Kindly, you wrote back and suggested that if I became a commercial artist when I grew up, I should look you up. Well, as it happens, I am a professional voice-over talent living in Los Angeles and I thought I would see if that offer still stands. I have not been able to make any inroads with your casting people and my mother thought I should ask you if you would be willing to let me audition for any roles you have coming up. Sorry to have bothered you… Sincerely, etc. I mailed the letter and promptly forgot about it.

About three weeks later, I got a call from one of the partners of the talent agency that represented me. This was the top guy, not an in-the trenches agent. “Beau…,” he began, tentatively, “…I have a booking here for you fo

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Now for something different. The only person I interviewed in connection to this show was its star, the genial Beau Weaver, the voice of Superman.

He responded to my questionnaire with a spirited narrative, so I will just run it as is rather than force it back into a Q&A format.

Then

Now

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Introduction to subseries “The Plastic Man Comedy Show” (including list of interviewees).

Getting to know Mark Taylor was one of the most moving aspects of this experience for me. I will not elaborate because you will soon see why, but I will say that during our actual conversation, there was a lot of “Wow,” “My gosh,” “You are an inspiration,” and the like from me. In transcribing, I have cut that out so you can mentally insert your own reactions as you read.

NOTE: Some of Mark’s turns-of-a-phrase in e-mail showed that he was able to snap right back into Plastic Man mode. My favorite was a time when he had to reschedule a talk:

“You have to be flexible if you’re going to deal with Plastic Man.”

How did you get the job on Plastic Man?

It’s coincidental. I was doing comedy in San Francisco and doing a little acting, modeling, commercial work.

One of my agents [told me that there was] an audition for this cartoon character. My interest was not at all in doing in a children’s show. This was about an hour out of San Francisco. I declined to do it. Most auditions aren’t fruitful. And then I realized that on the weekday afternoon of that audition I just happened to have a lunchtime college gig in that area. I thought, well, I’m in the area anyway so it was convenient. I called her back and said let’s do it. They liked it and I got the job.

Do you remember what you had to do the for the audition?

I think I had to read script and see if I could get in the ballpark of that voice. They had a couple of different cartoon voices. I was looking for a voice similar to Don Adams’s Get Smart. I was a fairly trim fit guy and if they just added a little shoulder muscle

Introduction to series “Super ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Introduction to subseries “The Plastic Man Comedy Show” (including list of interviewees).

How did you get the job of packaging Plastic Man for syndication? Don’t the big companies like Ruby-Spears typically do that themselves?

Arlington Television was a divisional offshoot of Golden West Television which at the time was owned by Jeff Simmons. I had produced and directed many TV shows for Jeff in the five years prior to Plastic Man. When Arlington made the deal with Ruby-Spears to repackage Plastic Man, Jeff Simmons told them he had just the guy to create the shows.

I got a call from Simmons in which he said, cryptically, “Son, Plastic Man looms large in your future” and I said “Who?” I had about three days before my interview with Ruby-Spears to create a show using wraparounds to introduce the library of cartoons. I figured who better to introduce the cartoons than Plastic Man himself. I’d been a fan of Captain Satellite, a character who hosted cartoon shows on a local San Francisco Bay Area station when I was a kid. I think I finalized the idea for the pitch on the plane to LA and I’m sure I heard some of the ideas for the first time as they came out of my mouth during the meeting.

[At the offices of] Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, I pitched them my idea of a live Plastic Man hosting the show from the Plasti-Jet and talking directly to the young viewers as friends. They bought the creative concept on the spot. I got the gig with full control to produce it in the San Francisco Bay Area.

What does packaging for syndication typically entail? Shortening the running time?

Re-packaging for syndication usually entails changing the format and structure of the show. They wanted to go from once a week to five days a week. That meant they need 130 half-hour shows, which is five days a week for six months, and then it starts again. A re-packaged show is actually a new entity separate from the original, but containing some of the same content. We edited some of the cartoons and segments to fit time frames.

Did you ever have to ask for new animated material?

Not really. We just edited animated material that already existed into our show format. That’s how our live Plastic Man has conversations with the animated Chief. We used inter-cuts and editing of phrases the Chief spoke to Plastic Man in the cartoons to have her speak to our live-action Plastic Man.

What was the process like to get approval from DC Comics?

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