StephenJondrew
Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 04:15 AM
Syndicated - Originally Posted Here (http://thestandardcomic.com/2011/03/14/standard-mania/)
In last Tuesday’s blog, I talked a bit about the cultural impact of superheroes becoming a presence in the real world. But let’s take a brief moment to specifically discuss how America responded to The Standard in particular in his original heyday, through the late 1960s and 1970s.
News coverage – in print, radio and television – was of course dominated by the latest exploits of Sky City’s amazing new masked hero. The demand to know what he’d been doing and how he’d done it overran the headlines each and every day in those initial weeks, and in the subsequent months and years rarely a day went by without some mention of The Standard’s latest activities. Some journalists took the mystery angle of trying to figure out his secret identity (though nobody guessed that it was humble scientist Gilbert Graham), while others were content to simply marvel at his latest awe-inspiring feat of strength, speed or durability. Both approaches made for a compelling narrative, more engrossing than much of the fictional alternatives available for public consumption at the time. As such, news broadcasts regularly ranked among the most watched shows on television amongst all age groups. Questions at the time of the newspaper market being in decline were temporarily silenced, as the nigh-unquenchable desire for the latest photographs of The Standard in action led to front page after front page that sent papers flying off the racks.
America was in love with The Standard. Look up archival photographs of Halloween 1967, and you’ll be greeted with now iconic images of a sea of little pint-sized Standards trick-or-treating on the streets. One radio show host famously joked that Congress was thinking of renaming the holiday as “Standardfest”.
1967 saw the launch of the radio serial The Further Adventures of The Standard, a weekly drama telling original scripted tales of The Standard’s adventures. These shows were deliberately styled in a retro fashion that was intended to recall the early superhero-themed radio serials of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s in terms of tone and presentation, even going so far as to cast a veteran actor from those old shows - Brock Crossinger – in the role of The Standard. The show wasn’t overly popular, ultimately being cancelled late in 1968. But it is still an interesting piece of history, as while The Standard seemed to many to be an example of superhero fiction stepping out into the real world, The Further Adventures of The Standard was the first example of the entertainment industry bringing things full circle by taking this fiction-turned-reality figure from the real world, and adapting him back into the realm of fiction.
Much greater success came with the Saturday morning cartoon series that launched on television in 1969, with the shortened title of The Standard. Brock Crossinger reprised the role of The Standard, and in that early period when The Standard was largely publicity-shy, when people saw The Standard they imagined him with the voice of Brock Crossinger, not Gilbert Graham. By today’s standards, the production values of the cartoon series are embarrassingly poor, but at the time these 15 minute shows – often comprising of 2 or 3 5-10 minute stories – were a huge ratings smash, and in some circles are still fondly remembered. Reports indicate that Gilbert Graham himself was never happy with the show’s crude characterisation and casual racism, factors which have ensured that – in this commentators opinion, at least – the cartoon has aged very poorly.
You’ll be able to make up your own mind on the cartoon, as I’ve managed to unearth from the archives an obscure early episode of the show, and will be posting it up on the blog in the near future. I’m quite excited about this discovery, and am eager to share it with you all. So be sure to keep checking the blog so you can take a look for yourself!
You can start by coming back tomorrow, where I’ll be taking a look at the generation of superheroes that The Standard inspired.
In last Tuesday’s blog, I talked a bit about the cultural impact of superheroes becoming a presence in the real world. But let’s take a brief moment to specifically discuss how America responded to The Standard in particular in his original heyday, through the late 1960s and 1970s.
News coverage – in print, radio and television – was of course dominated by the latest exploits of Sky City’s amazing new masked hero. The demand to know what he’d been doing and how he’d done it overran the headlines each and every day in those initial weeks, and in the subsequent months and years rarely a day went by without some mention of The Standard’s latest activities. Some journalists took the mystery angle of trying to figure out his secret identity (though nobody guessed that it was humble scientist Gilbert Graham), while others were content to simply marvel at his latest awe-inspiring feat of strength, speed or durability. Both approaches made for a compelling narrative, more engrossing than much of the fictional alternatives available for public consumption at the time. As such, news broadcasts regularly ranked among the most watched shows on television amongst all age groups. Questions at the time of the newspaper market being in decline were temporarily silenced, as the nigh-unquenchable desire for the latest photographs of The Standard in action led to front page after front page that sent papers flying off the racks.
America was in love with The Standard. Look up archival photographs of Halloween 1967, and you’ll be greeted with now iconic images of a sea of little pint-sized Standards trick-or-treating on the streets. One radio show host famously joked that Congress was thinking of renaming the holiday as “Standardfest”.
1967 saw the launch of the radio serial The Further Adventures of The Standard, a weekly drama telling original scripted tales of The Standard’s adventures. These shows were deliberately styled in a retro fashion that was intended to recall the early superhero-themed radio serials of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s in terms of tone and presentation, even going so far as to cast a veteran actor from those old shows - Brock Crossinger – in the role of The Standard. The show wasn’t overly popular, ultimately being cancelled late in 1968. But it is still an interesting piece of history, as while The Standard seemed to many to be an example of superhero fiction stepping out into the real world, The Further Adventures of The Standard was the first example of the entertainment industry bringing things full circle by taking this fiction-turned-reality figure from the real world, and adapting him back into the realm of fiction.
Much greater success came with the Saturday morning cartoon series that launched on television in 1969, with the shortened title of The Standard. Brock Crossinger reprised the role of The Standard, and in that early period when The Standard was largely publicity-shy, when people saw The Standard they imagined him with the voice of Brock Crossinger, not Gilbert Graham. By today’s standards, the production values of the cartoon series are embarrassingly poor, but at the time these 15 minute shows – often comprising of 2 or 3 5-10 minute stories – were a huge ratings smash, and in some circles are still fondly remembered. Reports indicate that Gilbert Graham himself was never happy with the show’s crude characterisation and casual racism, factors which have ensured that – in this commentators opinion, at least – the cartoon has aged very poorly.
You’ll be able to make up your own mind on the cartoon, as I’ve managed to unearth from the archives an obscure early episode of the show, and will be posting it up on the blog in the near future. I’m quite excited about this discovery, and am eager to share it with you all. So be sure to keep checking the blog so you can take a look for yourself!
You can start by coming back tomorrow, where I’ll be taking a look at the generation of superheroes that The Standard inspired.