After being ousted from his own studio in the early 1940s, animation innovator, Max Fleischer, wound up working for Jam Handy, the Olympic Swimmer turned industrial filmmaker who produced instructional and commercial films.

The Jam Handy Organization produced a lot of films for the Army and Navy during WWII, and after the war, they were hired to produce an animated short for Montgomery Ward. That short turned out to be the first ever adaptation of the poem, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer that Robert May had written as a giveaway book for Montgomery Ward in 1939.

A year before May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, turned the story of Rudolph into a hit song, and sixteen years before the Rankin-Bass stop-motion-animated TV special that everybody knows, Max Fleischer brought May’s poem to life on the big screen. Above you see a newly-restored version that uses the 35mm print that belongs to The Library of Congress.

This restoration was done by Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored!, who have a Patreon page you can support HERE.

This week and next we will bring you the rest of the best Radio Free Charleston Christmas specials, to help you try to get in the mood. Above you see our 2009 special.

The much-anticipated (at the time) 2009 Christmas episode of Radio Free Charleston, being a Christmas show, had the holiday-apppropriate name ”Terry Funk Shirt.” This extra-long episode is packed with music from Molly Means, Joseph Hale, Todd Burge, and Melanie Larch with The Diablo Blues Band. There’s also some classic animation from the British studio Halas and Batchelor, plus a news flash about a visit from Saint Sputnik.

Coincidentally, Joseph and Todd’s songs were recorded at The Boulevard Tavern. We returned to the Tavern for our 2013 Christmas show, with two festive songs from The Bob Thompson Unit. You can see RFC 194 below.  “Hasa Diga Shirt,” was our 2013 Christmas spectacular, with music from The Bob Thompson Unit and Frenchy and The Punk, plus a message from Santa, and animation from Jake Fertig, which opens our show with a commercial for The Bearded Axe.

One more holiday special this week sees us jumping back to 2010. This episode of Radio Free Charleston presents the talented crew from The Contemporary Youth Arts Company singing Christmas Carols and songs from Mary: A Rock Opera.

The PopCulteer
December 16, 2022

Okay, so technically it’s not Winter yet, but a week ago today your humble blogger and Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, began our day by hopping off the Amtrak Cardinal in Charleston, after having spent almost a week in Chicago.

This was a big deal because we haven’t been to our favorite city since right before the pandemic hit, and we haven’t been able to go for Mel’s birthday since 2019.

This year we were determined to go, and we managed to cram in enough cool stuff to make the trip blogworthy. So blogworthy was this trip that I am going to tempt fate and see how many photos I can cram into a single post. I’ve  had issues with this since moving to our new location, but I’m feeling lucky (plus I’ve stopped updating the old Gazette-Mail version of PopCult, so I don’t have to worry about the nagging  cross-compatibility issues). Tell me in the comments if the photos take too long to load.

Continue reading

It’s probably too late to get this in time for Christmas, but I wanted to let you know that now you can order Jason Brown’s excellent 2019 Documentary short, Them That Work, on DVD.

This documentary on the legacy of John Sayles’ Matewan and the lasting impression it left on the people of West Virginia is included as a bonus on the Criterion Collection edition of Matewan, but now you can own it on a very low-priced DVD for a mere three dollars, plus shipping.

I’d wanted to include this in The 2022 PopCult Gift Guide, but Jason couldn’t get everything in place to sell it it until last week, when your PopCulteer was in Chicago. So since I prodded him into doing this, I’m telling you about it now. It’s a really worthwhile project.

You can also get this documentary on the Criterion Edition of Matewan, but this way you can have a stand-alone copy, in case you want to have a WV Filmmaker film festival in your home.

In Them That Work, we hear from Daniel Boyd, Denise Giardina, Ellen and John Bullock, Pamela Haynes, Dave Brock and many others West Virginians, plus there’s archival footage of James Earl Jones.

The IMDB synopsis is as follows:

John Sayles came to West Virginia to make his film MATEWAN, about the gun fight over labor in the coal fields. The film has had a lasting impact on locals regarding the subject and the filming’s influence on people’s lives.

Snagging a copy of Them That Work is a cool way to support the local scene and learn about how the making of a movie reawakened a part of WV history that had been deliberately downplayed over the years.

You can order it at THIS LINK.

It’s that time of the week again, folks. Even with last-minute shopping and holiday parties and churchly gatherings and uncomfortable family dinners, we still have a partial list of stuff you can go do this week in Charleston and Huntington. Much of it is even Christmas-y, so you get that as a bonus!

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday it’s Andrew Pauley. Saturday we actually have a graphic, so check it out below!

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. Many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out.

Also, it’s the holiday season, so don’t be a jerk.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the rest of this week, roughly in order.

It’s Tuesday on The AIR  and that means it’s Radio Free Charleston time, and we’re back from our week wandering around in Chicago with another new three-hour episode of Radio Free Charleston. You simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

We have three full hours of music, much of it new, local and not, at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.   This week our latest Radio Free Charleston has killer new tunes from Byzantine, John Radcliff, Nina Hagen, The Puncturists and many more artists.

Yours truly is back from the City of Wind, where he had a wonderful time that he will tell you all about this Friday. I think the vacation helped me recharge a bit, and this week’s show is pretty awesome.

Throughout the show we continue our mix of local, independent and major-label artists, just to keep you on your toes.  Byzantine’s new EP is incredible and we’re happy to open the show with a track from it.  Nick Carter, a New England-based singer/songwriter was brought to our attention by our Chicago connection. The Puncturists contacted us from the UK, and had the perfect song to kick off a punky set in our first hour. The rest of the show has tons of new tunes from Bottle and Bride, John Radcliff, NOFX, Adrian Belew, Frenchy and The Punk, J. Marinelli, Novelty Island and more.

I loaded this week’s show up because next week RFC will be bumped for the premiere of The AIR Christmas Party, which will hopefully include segments introduced by all of our music specialty show hosts.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Live links will take you to the artist’s page…

RFC V5 111

Byzantine “Purity”
Nick Carter “My Guitar Is My Compass”
The Anchoress “Sweetness Follows”
Jim Lange “Love Is Casual”
Zhang Ling “Salmon Love”
Jonathan Mason “Mourning The Ghosts”
Frenchy And The Punk “Oxygen”
The Puncturists “I Hate Living In A Place Like This”
Payback’s a Bitch “Star Star”
Nervous Twitch “Social Chameleon”
Unmanned “Rose Colored Lashes”
Todd Burge “Rapid Fire”
J Marinelli “What Columbus Wants”
Nina Hagen “United Women of The World”

hour two
Sierra Ferrell “Whispering Waltz”
John Radcliff “Tangle”
Buni Muni “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”
The Routes “Radioactivity”
The Long Lost Somethins “Great Bottom Lake”
NOFX “Don’t Count On Me”
Remnant Collective “Laika”
The Company Stores “There Went The Neighborhood”
Adrian Belew “Good Morning Sun”
Dukes of Stratosphear “Tin Toy Clockwork Train”
Andy Prieboy “All Your Hard Times”
Tautologic  “The Gospel Lady”
Wren Allen Band “Before Hello”
Tyler Childers “Purgatory”
Frank Zappa “City of Tiny Lights”

hour three
Novelty Island “Over & Over”
Bottle and Bride “Brighter”
Elk City “Your Time Doesn’t Exist”
Bane Star “I Almost Said Goodbye”
The Alright Maybes “Man Who Plays The Part”
Ann Magnuson “Blow Away”
Jobriath “Heartbeat”
Heavy Set Paw Paws “Song of Solomon”
Mediogres “Fever Dream”
The Paranoid Style “Alive And Vexing”
Alan Licht “Jump”
Elvis Costello “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight,  and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.  At 3 PM we have two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.

So, I was in Chicago most of last week to celebrate my beautiful wife’s birthday, and that’s the real reason we did Marathon Week on The AIR and last week’s posts might’ve seemed off a bit, since they’d all been written a week earlier.

However, I did not cheat for this week’s art. We got back Friday morning, and on Saturday I did this small painting, using thick acrylics and plastic eating utensils for brushes. It’s based on a few photos I took of the Christmas Tree in Union Station in Chicago last Thursday, as we were waiting for our train back home.  If you’re looking at this on a computer monitor, you’re probably seeing it at the actual size it was painted, if not a little larger.

I did this on paper for pens and photographed it using a small ring light because it was not dry enough to scan.  I also didn’t want to smoosh the brushwork, because I think it looks pretty cool. Once in the computer I cropped the borders and tweaked the white balance to make it look more natural. I usually do some kind of Christmas-y art this time of year.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we wrap our December marathons with a day split between Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack and yours truly hosting Beatles Blast.  Our programming stunt to cover my trip to Chicago is over, so Tuesday we’ll be back to whatever passes for normal on The AIR, with a new RFC that’s loaded with new music.

This week PopCult brings you the final two chapters of a previously unknown 1939 movie serial based on what was then a very new comic book character, Batman. Or do we?  You can find the first two chapters HERE. The second two chapters can be found HERE.

Here’s what is says in the YouTube description for this amazing discovery:

Here it is… Chapter 1, completely uncut, with a special introduction by Michael Monroe, Dean of Film Studies at the Dini College of Arts. Monroe is the author of “WHAT’S IN YOUR SERIAL? THE BUSTER CRABBE STORY.”

Discovered in December, 2015, MYSTERY OF THE BATMAN is a little-known serial which would have featured the first appearance of DC Comics’ Batman, in any medium, outside of comic books.

Young “Batman” author, Bob Kane, had gone to Hollywood, early in his career, in the hopes of pitching The Caped Crusader as the star of a film series. This was just as the character was being introduced in the pages of DETECTIVE COMICS magazine.

Originally intended for twelve chapters, MYSTERY OF THE BATMAN was produced by BJC Pictures, an obscure poverty row studio, which went bankrupt with only six episodes filmed and completed.

All of the studio’s assets were thought to have been destroyed, until a massive collection of 16mm prints, video transfers and original posters turned up in a barn outside of Beeville, Texas.

Thanks to the passionate effort of historians and fans, the existing chapters of MYSTERY are currently undergoing an extensive digital restoration.

It sounds incredible, doesn’t it? Well it is. See this isn’t really a long-lost find, but is, in fact, a meticulously-produced fan-made hoax, which is a loving tribute to Batman and to the early days of movie serials.

They give it all away further down in the description:

Before anyone feels too clever, I’m sure by now it’s obvious this project was produced in 2016, and in NO WAY is intended to be anything other than a loving parody.

This short film was done in good fun, as a love letter to the history of Batman and his family. Please stay tuned till the very end for the proper credits.

Thank you!- Ryan Bijan, Director

This is a real blast.  The credits are loaded with in-joke references to folks who have worked on the Batman comics over the decades. The art direction and music are spot-on, and the only big give-away that this is not a real period piece is the acknowledgement of Bill Finger as Batman’s co-creator.

In truth, Finger was not give proper credit until more than forty years after his death in 1973.  It’s a nice touch for the filmmakers to risk the joke in order to give credit where it was long overdue.

Any fan of vintage movie serials will appreciate the nods to the form, and the direct tributes in some of the shots.  This was obviously a labor of love. Ryan Bijan and his crew deserve major kudos for this.

Many thanks to Jon Raider for turning me on to this cool project. Tonight and over the next two weeks, PopCult’s Sunday Evening Video will bring you all six chapters of Mystery Of The Batman, two per week, so you can enjoy it for yourself and also enjoy waiting a week between some of the episodes, just to give you the movie serial experience.

If you’re impatient and want to watch all the chapters now, you can go to the YouTube page for Big John Creations, and visit their Facebook page for all kinds of cool behind the scenes info and other cool stuff.

Chapter Five can’t be embeded here, so you’ll need to go watch it at YouTube.  However, after you do that, come back and watch the final chapter below.

Above you see “West Virginia Shirt,” our Christmas, 2007 episode. This show features Mountain Laurel Ensemble, 69 Fingers, The Android Family and animation by Brian Young and Rudy Panucci.  It’s hosted from Stately Radio Free Charleston Manor and it’s part of the Christmas that almost wasn’t. This show was remastered and returned to public view in 2014, after a six-year absence.

Your loyal host and blogger got really sick while editing this show, and never quite got around to writing any production notes. I shot the host segments myself while putting up my Christmas tree later than I ever had before. It was a ridiculously busy time and exhaustion and a sinus infection caught up with me. In fact, that year I was so sick over the holidays that I went eight days without posting to PopCult, my longest gap ever.

If I can recall correctly, I recorded Mountain Laurel Ensemble at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in South Hills. It was a solo shoot using tripods because they rehearsed in the daytime while camera two was at work. 69 Fingers was recorded the previous summer at the La Belle Theater in South Charleston.

This show also includes The Android Family Christmas Special, the magnum opus of our favorite family of psychotic robots. To date, this is the most recent installment of The Android Family, but I’m looking to change that when we bring Radio Free Charleston out of the video show mothballs. Our animation is a collaboration between yours truly and Brian Young, and depicts the life of Christmas trees.

The PopCulteer
December 9, 2022

This is it. The Master List of every single thing I recommended in The 2022 PopCult Gift Guide.

I made changes to The Gift Guide last year.   Last year I started combining every day’s recommendations into a single post. This forced me to be more concise in my descriptions, which was a good thing. Instead of writing 4,000 words every day about three gift ideas, I managed to cover five gift ideas a day in about 1,500 words. That continued this year, and the end result was more than 100 gift suggestions made in 20 days.

This made my life easier, as did skipping weekends. It’s no secret that a good number of PopCult readers visit the blog while they’re at work. Dropping gift suggestions over the weekend gave the items I picked then a bit of a short shrift. This way every gift suggestion gets full exposure, and I got a couple of days each week to recharge my batteries. Plus I didn’t have to suspend PopCult‘s regular weekend features for the month.

Because of the nature of how I did the gift guide this year, the links will take you to the post that includes the items listed, but you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact item you’re looking for.

With that said, let’s dive into the Master List…

COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Complete Eightball 1-18
Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991
To Be Announced!
Tails of the Super-Pets
Popeye Volume 1: Olive Oyl & Her Sweety
ICONIC – The Graphic Novel of The Beatles Revolver Cover Artwork
Captain Action: The Classic Collection
Fantastic Four: Full Circle
The Spider: Crime Unlimited
Love and Rockets: The First Fifty: The Classic 40th Anniversary Collection
Groo Meets Tarzan
Superman Smashes The Klan
Marvel Comics Mini-Books Collectible Boxed Set: A History and Facsimiles of Marvel’s Smallest Comic Books
EC HORROR Collections
EC Science Fiction Collections
EC Crime and Thriller Collections
SIX By SIX: The Journey Internal

TOYS

THE 2022 HESS TOY TRUCK
McFarlane Toys Super Powers Action Figures 
Madmaniverse Mod Metal Lunchbox
Foodie Mini Brands
AUTO WORLD 18′ SCOOBY DOO MEETS BATMAN & ROBIN SLOT RACE SET
Stevo’s Horses
Cosmic Force: Purple Yogz Foot Soldier Figure Set
LEGO Everyone Is Awesome
MEGO 50th Anniversary World’s Greatest Super Heroes

VIDEO

The Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection: Uncensored
Batman: The Complete Animated Series
The Outer Limits Season One
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection
Ultraman Nexus: Complete Series & Ultraman: Next

BOOKS

The Art of Tiki
Mad For Kicks: A Tokey Wedge Swinger
The Beatles Rubber Soul to Revolver (Beatles Album Series)
Joy and Fear  The Beatles, Chicago and the 1960s
Britmania: The British Invasion of the Sixties in Pop Culture
KELLOGG’S: The Story of America’s Breakfast King
I Pity the Dolls
Knock-Offs : Totally Unauthorized Action Figures
Calendar Girls, Sex Goddesses, and Pin-Up Queens of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s
TALES OF THE STARCHILDREN
Memories of Marx Toys: Glen Dale
It’s All in the Mind : Inside the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, Vol. 2
Shudder’s Creepshow: From Script to Scream
The Kinks: Every Album Every Song (On Track)
Holly Jolly: Celebrating Christmas Past in Pop Culture
The Art of Glen Brogan (Second Edition)
Christmas Eve in the Mountain State
Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome
Number One Is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions
Fearsome Weirdos Family 
Random

GAMES

Retro Series Sorry! 1958 Edition
Classic Battleship game Retro 1967 edition
Classic Yahtzee, An Exciting Game Of Skill And Chance
Pressman Retro Mastermind
RACK-O, Retro package Card Game
You Lying Sack
Target: Rats | The Board Game
GO GO GARGOYLE! THE GAME
Horrified: American Monsters Strategy Game
Space Explorers

MUSIC

Todd Rundgren Space Force
Paul Weller Will of The People
Robert Berry’s 3.2 Alive at ProgStock
TOYAH Anthem Super Deluxe Edition
Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years
Ringo Starr – EP3
The Beatles Revolver Special Edition Super Deluxe

RETAILERS

The West Virginia Music Hall of Fame
Kin Ship Goods
Oddbird Gift Emporium
Plaid Stallions Shop
American Science & Surplus

ART

Do Not Mock The Tiki God
The Pulp Tarot by Todd Alcott
The Art of Glen Brogan (Second Edition)
The Lights of Broadway 2022

SHIRTS

New Munktiki Crest T-shirt – GLOW INK
Aloha Republic Hawaiin Shirts
Mitch O’Connell Shirts
Retropolis Tees
GI Trekker’s Threadless Shop
Svengoolie Art Shirts
Sami Zayn: Honorary Uce
EC Comics T-Shirts and Socks

TIKI

Trader Vic’s Baining Fire Dancer
Tiki Farm KON TIKI REPRO MILAN GUANKO TIKI MUG
BarConic® Peacock – 18 oz. – Tiki Mug
Tiki Mugs Cocktail Set  Large Tumblers 
The Bone Collector
The Art of Tiki
Do Not Mock The Tiki God
Glass Floats Zombie Glass – Blue & Green Variant
New Munktiki Crest T-shirt – GLOW INK
Aloha Republic Hawaiin Shirts

RANDOM STUFF

Victrola 50’s Retro Bluetooth Record Player & Multimedia Center
Retro Frigidaire Refrigerators
RETRO STYLE TRANSISTOR RADIO
EC Comics Plush Throws

And that is the end of that. Thank you for reading The 2022 PopCult Gift Guide. I hope you found it helpful and/or entertaining. That is today’s PopCulteer.  Check PopCult for fresh content every day, including several reliable regular features…and have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever floats your boat.