Memorabilia: 1967

• William Gee sends in information on an embossed Thing license plate...

  I bought this in 1967. It's a bicycle license plate depicting the Thing. It was manufactured by Louis Marx and is inscribed with a date of 1967. It measures 4 x 2 1/4 inches. I don't know how many different ones Marx made, but I have another one depicting Captain America. I literally have not seen any of these anywhere since I bought mine 35 years ago, and I've been collecting comics for that length of time. I've been to hundreds of cons and no luck.

• A set of 55 stickers were printed by Philadelphia Gum and feaured several Marvel characters. The FF ones were:
  • #1 - Human Torch "I must get that roof fixed!"
  • #2 - Human Torch "How do you like your hamburgers?"
  • #7 - Thing "It's clobberin' time!"
  • #8 - Thing "No fair using water guns!"
  • #9 - Human Torch "I wish I'd used that sun tan lotion!"
  • #16 - Human Torch "Butterfingers!"
  • #17 - Thing "Stop talking while I'm interrupting!"
  • #20 - Thing "I'm not fat, I'm just short for my width!"
  • #25 - Thing "That dry skin cream is just no good!"
  • #32 - Thing "Clyde! How you've changed!"
  • #36 - Thing "I may not be brave, but I'm handsome!"
  • #51 - Thing " We're the new singing group -- Him, Her and It!"
  • #55 - Human Torch "Don't you call me a slob!"
• A Fantastic Four t-shirt was sold through Marvel comics depicting the image shown at the far right.
• The same ads also sold a Thing sweatshirt. The front was a classic Jack Kirby Thing with the backing saying It's Clobberin' Time!
• At 9:30 a.m. on September 9, the Fantastic Four debuted as an animated series by Hanna-Barbera. The animation was done rather well and the stories were taken directly from the comics. However, it had been watered down for television, and the FF's personalities resembled the Mighty Mightor and Space Ghost more than the comic book FF.
  Gerald Mohr was the voice of Mr. Fantastic, Jo Ann Pflug was the Invisible Girl, and Jack Flounders was the Human Torch. The Thing was played by Paul Frees (who is well-known for his voice work as Boris Badenov). Alex Toth was credited with the character design and Jack Hanrahan and Phil Hahn got story credits. The episode titles are:
  • Three Predictions of Dr. Doom
  • It Started on Yancy Street
  • Behold a Distant Star
  • Demon in the Deep
  • Danger in the Depths
  • Prisoners of Planet X
  • Menace of the Mole Men
  • Diablo
  • The Way it All Began
  • Return of the Mole Man
  • Invasion of the Super-Skrull
  • Rama-Tut
  • The Mysterious Molecule Man
  • The Terrible Tribunal
  • The Deadly Director
  • The Micro World of Dr. Doom
  • Klaws
  • Behold the Negative Zone
• To coincide with and promote their TV programs, ABC published a comic book featuring Casper, Batman and Robin, King Kong, George of the Jungle, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. The stories, however, appear to all be reprints of then-existing material and the FF story is taken from issue #19 featuring Rama-Tut.
• Lancer released a paperback volume (suspiciously titled The Fantastic Four Return) reprinting issues 33 and 35, as well as "The Final Victory of Dr. Doom" from Fantastic Four Annual #2. It seems that some of the pages were omitted for this reprinting however.
• Remember those cheesy, plastic coveralls that somebody decided should be printed up as Halloween costumes? What you see below and to the left is the box from the Mr. Fantastic costume and a Dr. Doom mask. Manufactured by Ben Cooper.