By the time I started collecting comic books the celebrity titles, fairly popular comic rack fodder way back in the fifties and sixties, had all but disappeared. I managed to get a few of DC's JERRY LEWIS titles via various flea market stacks and such, but for the most part the long line of BOB HOPE and JACKIE GLEASON titles were long gone from the racks and they sure weren't turning up in any rummage sales I happened to be haunting!
Didn't really matter to me much tho since my tastes were runnin' closer to the superhero and horny teenager line o' product and besides, the celebrity titles I were able to snatch up weren't too hotcha at all, capturing none of the funny stuff that these comedians were known for via tee-vee and the moom pitchers for the most part and falling flatter'n a well-timed pratfall ever could. 'n besides, I gotta say that a lotta these tee-vee or moom pitcher transferred to comics likenesses looked nada like the actors as anyone who ever looked into one of those Dell REAL McCOYS efforts could tell ya. (At least DC had Bob Oskner who was talented enough to crank out a halfway decent Jerry Lewis, and didja know that Mort Drucker got his comic book start at DC doing Hope which is why he got stuck drawin' the guy's likeness at MAD f'r years on end.)
Superior's UNCLE MILTY doesn't fare too well when compared with the Lewis or Hope titles. Not that trying to capture Milton Berle's cheap laff gagsterisms would transfer well into a comic book tale inna first place, but the stories that were used have nada to do at all with the whole Berle mystique for wont of a better term. In this title there are two stories featuring the famed television star, the first having him stuck in a torturous funhouse trying to remember Mother Goose rhymes in order to escape the horrors within only to continually goof up the final lines, while the other has him mistaken for the new riveter on a skyscraper whose lack of knowledge about the craft actually turns him into a last-panel hero for once! Don't worry if I gave this 'un away because you ain't gonna read it---I just know...
The non-Berle 'uns ain't any better what with one featuring a sidewalk hawkster selling a tonic that grows hair on anything but bald heads, another with a character called "Brother Frank" who, with his own brother goes on a Canadian hunting trip with a smart aleck French guide, a three-pager with some chubboid guy called Marco attempting to do some sorta water-skiing and the last about a vaudeville talent scout who finds the perfect dog act---with a weird catch that's more dumbfounding than amusing.
Naturally none of whatever you could get outta Berle can be found here, and although the artwork is good enough for such endeavors it's nothing spectacular. Gee, if there was only some sorta funny gag line or Berle character trait that coulda been worked into these stories to make them floor-rolling worthy enough for a suburban slob like myself to enjoy...like say the rumors everyone's heard about a certain part of Mr. Berle's anatomy that, like Supercar, is the marvel of the age. Naw, I don't think anyone could work that particular aspect of the Berle legend into a kiddie comic any more than we can work the ones we've heard about Danny Thomas or Louie Prima had they their own specialty titles!
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lol
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