Tuesday, December 15, 2009

12 Days of Christmas: Steve Gerber's "What If...Famous People Were Santa Claus?"

Welcome back to the Christmas party for 2009, Groove-ophiles! Today's a short but sweet chuckle-fest was produced by the late, great Steve (Howard the Duck) Gerber, the enigmatic Warren Statler, and top-Archie artist Henry Scarpelli. "What If...Famous People Were Santa Claus?", from Spoof #4 (December 1972) is a neat look back at some of the top celebrities of the day. The main focus is on writer Gerber, himself, along with then-Vice President Spiro Agnew, TV sensation Flip Wilson, and the immortal John Lennon, but it's also filled with fun cameos by icons like John Wayne, Charlie Brown, Superman, Captain America, Beetle Baily, the Hulk, and Cher.


Just short of four years later, Marvel would take that What If...? title and create a whole new truly far-out (and serious) superhero mag around it, ya know. But that's a tale for another day...

3 comments:

  1. wow, i have this(bought it new) but i didn't know it was Gerber's, the Agnew and John'n'Yoko pages are brilliant!

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  2. Steve, RIP. The comics world misses you terribly. To think of what you would have made of Sarah Palin...

    "Bring me back your candy cane, sweet darlin'!" I'll bet they laughed long and, uh, hard in the Bullpen at getting that one past the CCA!

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  3. Boy I too miss Steve Gerber. Never seen this one either. I loved it, it was great seeing Flip wilson, that brought back some great memories. I loved his show on NBC.

    Gotta love the Nixon elf as well. Really funny stuff! Loved the candy cane bit also. The sensors were probably so old, they didn't get it.Thanks for another great story! Your site always brightens my day & brings back great memories for me.

    ReplyDelete

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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