Comic Comics #3: You Can't Lose

Happy birthday to Harry Anderson who would've been 67 today. As you all know, Anderson was the star of NBC's Night Court as Judge Harold T. Stone and CBS' Dave's World as real-life newspaper columnist Dave Barry. Few people probably know that Anderson was also an author. In 1989, Anderson wrote two books with a friend of his, Turk Pipkin. In 2001, the books were reprinted into one book, Games You Can't Lose. Here are a couple of anecdotes from the book and some pictures of Anderson that were included.

A fool and his money were lucky

to get together in the first place.

-Anonymous

The books talk about how to play tricks on people and how not to get tricked. The first part talks about how to play tricks. He starts out describing a trick on how to drink a shot of whisky that's placed under a hat without touching the hat. It's a trick that he played on the show Cheers to Cliff Clavin. The second part talks about how not to get tricked by casinos and carnivals.

photo by John Tenney

The Dollar Bill $windle

"Say Turk, I got another little bet I been workin' on, but I ain't too sure about the odds. Wanna give it a try in the name of scientific research?" 

Turk inquires about the cost of said experiment and I respond: "Oh, a trifling wager--say...twenty bucks?" His coughing fit prompts me to adjust the opening line. "Okay. That's too high for an afternoon bet. We'll make it a dollar." 

At a buck, he's at least willing to hear what the game is. "It's simple. I take out a one-dollar bill. Like all U.S. currency, this one's got eight digits in the serial number, letters excluded. You try to guess three numbers without missing. Miss one and you lose. But guess just three correctly and you win even money!" 

Turk's eyes glaze over as he calculates the variables. There are ten possible digits (0 through 9) and eight digits on the bill. He only has to guess three. It sounds like a breeze! Eagerly accepting the wager, he calls out his guesses: three, seven, and eight. 

"Darn! You're right!" I say. "They'll all here. You win yourself a buck, Turk. I must've miscalculated the odds." Taking out another one-dollar bill, I offer to try it again. 

Turk selects zero, one, and five and I wad up the bill and toss it in his direction. 

"You win again," I say. "I guess the bet should've been four digits. Ah well, let's try one more. Shoot! I don't have another one-dollar bill. All I got is that twenty I was gonna bet the first time, but you didn't want...What's that? You want to go to the twenty now? Same bet? Well, I guess so. Call 'em out!" 

He ventures. "Six." 

"Nope. No six. You lose. Tough break. What the hey. I shouldn't, but I'll give you a second try, double or nothing on the twenty. Seven? Uh...no. No seven and no six." The guy is wired in now and he keeps betting and he keeps guessing and he keeps losing. "Sorry, Turk. There isn't a six, seven, four, three, or a two." 

Turk doesn't think this is possible and insists on seeing the bill before paying up. I consider this an insult to my integrity, but display it anyway. What a lucky fluke for me that the serial number on my twenty is: 15511515. 

It seems that in all the excitement he neglects to consider the possibility of repeat digits. He protests that with only two digits on the bill he couldn't possibly guess three. This is an excellent observation Turk has made. On his advice, I may even keep this bill in my wallet in case the bet comes up again sometime. This compliment cheers him up a bit, even as he pays me the hundred bucks.

photos by John Tenney

Those Three Little Milk Bottles

A few years back, I was in this little town about twenty miles west of San Diego and this burg was s-l-o-w, slow. So I decided to check out the visiting entertainment, the Mole Brothers Carnival, which was set up in a little field on the edge of town. 

I'm standing around, just minding other people's business, when an attractive shape happens by and I just cannot turn my gaze away. Now, I am always one to need glasses for matters such as settling wagers on the number of hairs on a hirsute mole, but I am blind and stupid too if I do not fall for this doll. However, hanging on to her arm is a big clown sporting a well-worn letter jacket and I take it by the patches on the sleeve that he is some kind of baseball star. 

My suspicion is confirmed when the pair stops at a milk bottle booth--one of those joints where, for fifty cents, you get to throw three baseballs at three phony milk bottles. Knock 'em all down and you win a fairly fine prize, in this case a big cuddly teddy bear that the light of my life has set her heart on. 

In no time, the local sports fans have gathered to cheer their hero as his state championship arm hurls about five bucks' worth of baseballs at those bottles. Sometimes he tips over one, sometimes he knocks down two, but he never busts out all three. About the fiftieth throw, he makes an awful noise and grabs his arm in pain. 

"Oh, joy!" I think. "Failure is his!" 

The pitchman jumps right in and starts trying to convince somebody else to try to win that teddy bear for the little lady, but the injured Bubba-Romeo is growling them off like a pawn-shop dog. More stunned beauty than scared by beast, I step up and toss a half buck at the operator. I never played any school ball but somehow I know I can't fail. 

"This is for you," I say to the girl. She smiles--which helps me summon my strength to fire the first ball. Boom! go the bottles. The top one flies ten feet through the air. The other two don't do much as flutter. Her dark eyes shining, I rifle the second ball at the bottles. The right one pops up in the air and lands smack on the left bottle, which teeters--but doesn't fall. The crowd starts to cheer me on. I turn in the direction of a squeeze on my arm. It's her! 

Nothing can stop me now. I grip the third ball and bite my lip. The ball makes a whoooosh as it tears through the air, smashing dead center into the last bottle, which tips back to about a forty-five-degree angle, hangs there for an eternity, then stands back up straight. I can't believe my eyes. I stand there frozen in surprise for a moment and when I turn, the light of my life is already walking away with the letter jacket. She gives me a little look over her shoulder that seems to say "Too bad, it might have been." 

My sleep that night is pretty poor and it isn't helped any when, about five in the morning, I am tossed out of my flea circus/mattress by an awful shaking. It's not the fleas doing the rumba, but one of those terrifying California earthquakes--knocking cheap velvet pictures off the wall, water pitchers off the nightstands, and every can of groceries in town off the shelves and onto the floor. 

Well, I ain't gonna hang around trying to make money from people who really are down and out so the daylight finds me pointed toward greener pastures. Heading out, I pass the Mole Bros. Carny and if town is bad, this is worse. The ten-in-one tent is lying flatter than a pancake. Strings of electric light are strewn across the ground. The Ferris wheel is on its side and most of the trailers are piled on top of each other at the bottom of a hole in the ground that wasn't there the day before. All the roustabouts are trying to get an old elephant up off his side and back on his feet. 

And in the whole place the only thing left standing are those three milk bottles.

Turk Pipkin, left, and Harry Anderson. Photo by John Tenney.

"Choose your co-author carefully."

Comic Comics #2: Ride Fast for Wyoming

Cowgirls are much more than the sexy lingerie that popped up in the sidebar of Google when I went to search "cowgirls". The women of the American West were an important part of the history of the establishment of the "wild west". There is very little information on cowgirls that would drive cattle up the trails like their fellow cowboys. The women, for the most part, worked side-by-side with the men on ranches and farms and worked to get pro-woman laws passed such as the ability to vote. Women, as cowgirls, came into their during wild west shows where they were able to show that they could handle a horse, bull, and gun just as good or, in many cases, better than a man.

photo by Evelyn Cameron

Fiction House was a publisher of pulp magazines and of comic books. They got into the comic book game, along with everybody else, in the late 1930s, their first title being Jumbo Comics which featured Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Soon, Fiction House was publishing about a dozen titles that were all selling very well. They helped start the careers of several future comic stars such as Nick Cardy and Bob Powell but also had a staff of women that included Ruth Atkinson, Fran Hopper, Lily Renee, and Marcia Snyder.

Fiction House titles would prominently feature strong, powerful female characters and kept away from the damsel-in-distress trope that was so popular at the time. Sadly, due to this, Frederick Wertham targeted Fiction House in his Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham blamed not only the horror-themed comics for juvenile delinquency but also the sexy and powerful women featured in the titles. Unable to compete in a shrinking market without their biggest titles, Fiction House stopped publishing comics in 1954 and went out of business the following year.

One of their titles was Cowgirl Romances, a combination western and romance title. It lasted twelve issues from 1950 through 1953. We're going to take a look at Cowgirl Romances #1 and the first story in the issue "Ride Fast for Wyoming".

First, I want to point out the cover dress with a woman roping a cow across the logo. That's just amazing and that definitely made me at least pick up the comic if I saw it on a newsstand. The cover is a bit odd--what does this man hear and why are those horses so interested in watching those people do it?

"You keep your mind on weddin' clothes and when our happy day is going to be!"

"No, Rusty--please! The thought of that makes me want to jump in front of stampeding cattle."

According to the information on this comic, the art was done by Al Feldstein who created Sheena for Fiction House but also would go on to work as cover artist and editor for EC Comics' horror, crime, and suspense titles. When EC had to cancel all their titles, Feldstein soon moved into being the editor of Mad, a post he held until 1984. I assume that Feldstein drew this story and Bart Hastings wrote it unless Hastings is a pseudonym for either Feldstein or someone else.

"Is he hurt bad?"

I don't know. He actually looks pretty dead and that horse is like "...the hell...?"

His shirt is getting more tattered with every panel.

I think the J-Box were chasing because he's a stranger...with green pants!?

Ok. Knock it off.

What's this?! A damsel in distress? And here we were just talking about how Fiction House didn't do damsel in distress.

Oh, she's not in distress. Right now, she'd hang him if she could.

Holy jumpin' Jerusalem! She's gonna burn down the Old West Patriarchy. She's gonna do what you lilly-livered men are too chicken shit to do!

"Because even though I rallied the troops, got their blood boiling, and came up with a plan, the men still aren't going to listen to a tiny dumb woman like me."

I want everyone to look at that next to last panel. Take a good hard look at it. Do you notice anything a bit off?

THEY'RE ALL SITTING IN THE KID CHAIRS IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE!! I don't know what happened to the desks BUT THE KID CHAIRS!!

Bess has apparently hitched her wagon to a horse with no legs. Bess is my new favorite character.

So Bess couldn't even be in the meeting with the men? Were they afraid that all the testosterone in the schoolhouse would be too overpowering and she wouldn't be able to keep her clothes on?

THAT'S who Rusty reminds me of. FUNNYMAN!

Just without the clown get-up and long red nose.

Yeah, and that Buffalo Boss is full of tricks. He tricked you good by getting your attention, riding past the door, and shooting you.

Have we gotten to Wyoming yet? Has it been explained why these people are so angry? Ok, you want the grass but you aren't explaining what you want to do with it. I don't get it.

still don't know what's going on...

What? "Trussed up like a turkey"? "What happened, gal? Were they mean to you? Did they tie up widdle-ole you?"

I feel really bad about the death of this character I, and also Bess, wasn't really into. It's a damn shame. Hopefully she can take consolation in the fact that his last words were the exact same thing she said two panels before.

Aren't men named Rusty in the Old West a dime-a-dozen? Just find yourself a new Rusty, I'm sure there are plenty and all basically interchangeable.

It's bad luck to not bury a cowboy with his guns. You just sentenced Rusty to an eternity in Cowboy Hell, missy.

Why are so many faces in the shadows? To hide the fact that they look slightly different than they did in the panel before?

I also don't like the random ranch names they're using. J-Box, Dot-In-A-Box. Sure, they sound real enough but are they really?

Heh. They're gonna meet at Indian Butts tomorrow.

"Du-uh! I'm Tex!"

Now you're listening to Rusty? Earlier you wanted him to shut up and called him a "gun-shy old maid" because he didn't want to just go around shooting everything.

The writer seems to be putting a lot of stock into what Rusty's spirit is saying. If we didn't listen to Rusty when he was alive then why would we listen to him in death?

Also, that horse seems to be having a war flashback or something.

Oh, good. Mr. Green-Pants is back.

I wish Bess' hat would decide what it wants to do. Either be on her head and stay there or just hang off the back of her neck. Make a decision.

At least he gets to raise the roof one last time.

First I'm gonna shoot him then I'm gonna beat his skull in with the handle.

Horse: "Looks like another fine mess you've gotten yourself into."

Hey, proof that we are in Wyoming. So we don't really need to ride fast to Wyoming because we are already there.

"It's Rusty's writing, all right...backwards e's and all."

Well, that was quite an act. There was a thought bubble and everything that led us to believe you were the real villain in the story.

"By the way, was it also an act when you sexually assaulted me? Was that part of the plan? Did Rusty know about that part?"

Huh. Well, that was easy. It's kind of weird that 1)the fire was still burning...wouldn't it be put out before they fall asleep and 2)no heads were sticking out of the sleeping bags, which, to me, would raise suspicions.

I guess if some are "down at the crick" then they would've left the fire burning. But still, their heads.

Holy crap! A background character that has been in every scene of the story is the bad guy and NOT the guy in the green pants? Whodathunk?

"And I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

Wait. If Rusty and Chip are brothers then why doesn't Chip have red hair? Don't get me wrong, I understand how genes work. Different fathers? Maybe their mother was a whore in Denver or Abilene. I don't think that's a story they did in the Golden Age.

Yes, "some crazy things". He punched Rusty, sexually assaulted his brother's girlfriend, and then tied her up. People could've died or been otherwise physically hurt by your actions but he had a reason.

Was calling you "sister" kind of a hint? And you are way too okay with that kiss when you learned it was all part of the plan.

"Quick, kiss me!"

"No!"

"Kiss me. I'll explain later!"

"No!"

"I'll explain later!"

"The explanation isn't the problem!"

Women love being compared to cows.

It's like Rusty and Chip made a pact. "Hey, bro, if I ever die, I want you to ask out, date, and sleep with my girlfriend. Promise me that." "I promise, bro." "Swear on my life?" "I swear on your life, bro. I'll date your girl so hard."

Bess' hat still can't make a decision.