Li'l Groove loved cartoons. Loved 'em to death. When I was just a little shaver, we didn't just get cartoons on Saturday mornings, but on Sunday mornings, as well. T'was a good time to be a kid! Now, I'd dabbled in comics since I can remember, due in no small part to ABC TV's Batman, but in the late summer of 1967, the cartoon and comicbook worlds collided for me in a way that just blew my pre-school mind, baby! My parents, bless 'em, I don't remember how they did it, but they got wind of a mail-in offer from Marvel Comics and ABC TV called, you guessed it, America's Best TV Comics, sent in a quarter and waited. I can vaguely remember (I was barely four years old after all) the mail coming in and Mom handing me a package, smiling, telling me to open it. Need I say I flipped when I got that wrapper open? The Fantastic Four. Spider-Man. Casper, the Friendly Ghost. George of the Jungle. King Kong. Journey to the Center of the Earth. 68 pages of heaven! I held Saturday morning in my hands! I don't remember much after that, I must have passed out from the ecstacy of it all...
Yep, the Spidey, FF, and Casper stories are reprints (from Amazing Spider-Man #42, Fantastic Four #19, and an issue of Casper I can't pin down). But they were all new to Li'l Groove!
The reasons why I love the Internet: eBay, downloads, and blogging (okay, there's SingSnap, too, but I ain't goin' there here...). Memories can be reclaimed and made tangible once more! As I dug back into my long-lost friend (America's Best TV Comics--you sure have a short memory today!), I started noticing the ads for other ABC shows. Some I remember either well or at least vaguely, others are so unfamiliar as to seem like they came from an alternate world. How many of these shows do you remember, Groove-ophile?
Somebody please fill me in on the following: Cowboy In Africa (I really dig Chuck Connors, but I absolutely can't remember that show), The Second Hundred Years, and Custer (who starred in that one?). I'm counting on ya! Don't let Ol' Groove down!
