By various anonymous (Brown & Watson)
No ISBN:
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comprise the funniest comedy duo of all time. Your opinion may differ, but mine’s correct.
Known all over the world, they became famous for their appearance and filmic characters, which made it pretty easy to establish an intellectual properties license for them after their passing.
Larry Harmon was the stage name of Laurence Weiss (1925-2008), one of a select group of American actors to be legendary icon Bozo the Clown. He was – also albeit unwillingly and to prove a point – a Presidential candidate in 1984. Make of that what you will.
In 1956, Harmon purchased the rights to Bozo, instituting a ferocious marketing strategy for advertising, merchandise and the growing television field. By the 1960s he had made Bozo a star in every US home (using local franchise performers) and generated an animated avatar on those live-action shows.
Harmon’s animation studio then took over the screen rights to Popeye in 1960, releasing a new series of TV cartoons, and in 1961 bought the merchandising rights to Laurel and Hardy. In the subsequent series that resulted, hands-on Harmon voiced Stan, just as he had voiced Bozo in those animated segments of the live action shows. There were 156 episodes which first aired in the US from September 10th 1966 to March 25th 1967.
Although not to my taste, those Laurel and Hardy cartoons were hugely popular, spawning a Gold Key comic book and a 1972 DC Digest Special in the US, and a new comics series in the UK (and presumably, the Commonwealth that British distributor Thorpe & Porter and its affiliated imprints such as Williams exported to) as well as being syndicated to European countries such as Germany where they were Dick und Dorf…
From 1969 to 1974 T&P generated their own licensed comic book iteration: at least 136 full-colour issues, 8 double-sized softcover albums (including at least one Christmas Special) and 2 proper hardback annuals – of which this is the first – via licensed properties specialists Brown Watson, who eventually evolved into Grandreams.
Stan and Ollie were certainly no strangers to British comics readers. The Odd Couple were a front-page staple of Film Fun from the 1930s to 1957 (rendered by the astounding George William Wakefield and inherited by his artist son Terry). The starred in Film Picture Stories (1934) and through the 1960s were a big draw in TV Comic.
After their solo comic folded, the puckish pair continued as a supporting feature and occasional headliner well into the 1980s.
In this first official Annual from 1972, an anonymous band of artisans begin the procession of slapstick tomfoolery with prose vignette ‘Mugs of the Legion’ wherein the dopey duo return to the theme of their movie The Flying Deuces, sticking out like sore thumbs in the desert until they accidentally capture the villainous scourge Abdul el Ratta…
A brace of pages full of one-off cartoons, ‘Stan & Olly’s Gag-Bag!’ leads to a second prose story wherein ‘Laurel & Hardy Go Camping’ with typically calamitous results, before the strips begin – in full colour – with ‘Rocketship Rumpus’. Here, the best window washers in the Space Program are accidentally sent to another world only to upset aliens and save space dragons…
Once back on Earth, Olly’s biggest mistake is letting Stan have ‘The Puppy’, and when the full-grown beast is stolen by a burglar, he’s not the only happy chappie, after which short strip ‘The Aerial’ proves why some household jobs should never be “do-it-yourselfâ€â€¦
Extended epic ‘The Treasure House’ sees the hapless loyal oafs as destitute beggars, but everything changes when Olly inherits ramshackle estate Fool Hardy Manor and learns there’s a valuable hoard hidden somewhere in its dilapidated walls…
Leaving Stan ‘Washing the Car’ proves a recipe for disaster and their time as ‘Private Detectives’ even more so, but nothing is as crazy as assuming Stan’s lesson’s in ‘Self-Defence’ can ever be successful, before the duo-chrome prose material takes an encore.
‘The Specialists’ see Stan and Olly revive the window washing gig, only to end up on the wrong side (that is INside) of a top-secret super jet, after which two more pages of ‘Stan & Olly’s Gag-Bag!’ and three of assorted puzzles, activities and games take us to the big finish as the eternal idiots agree to clean scary domicile ‘The House of Secrets’ and stumble into terror and criminality in equal measure…
Gentle, unassuming and – admittedly – a touch dated, these old-fashioned efforts are still effective and engaging examples of comedy cartooning and all-ages humorous storytelling that will appeal to the kid in all and most little kids of your acquaintance. Why not seek them out and give them a go again?
© 1972, Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation.