WEEK OF AUGUST 18

This week in 1947: On this day in 1947 Bob Stark, frustrated by the lack of recognition for Hoverboy decides to create a ‘new’ superhero character.  He tells his second wife, Marge, “I’ve created one superhero, how hard can it be?”  Spurred on by his enthusiastic bride Bob Stark spends almost two months working in the basement every evening.  Marge later tells a friend she could often hear him crying.   

This week in 1962:On this day in 1962 a somewhat burnt out Bob Stark reads a Fantastic Four comic and decides to make Hoverboy part of a superhero team.  Stark is inspired by the dynamic artwork of Jack Kirby, and by a large debt he has accumulated from his divorce to his third wife Edith. 

This week in 1993: On this day in 1993 Hoverboy is honoured at the Toronto Ad Astra Science Fiction convention.   Almost a dozen people attend the panel discussion.  Unfortunately, only one of the panel attends, comic book expert Mark Askwith.  Undaunted, Mark argues both for and against the proposition that Hoverboy Is Lame.  At one point Mark becomes so involved he smacks himself in the face. 

HOVERBOY PEZ

his Hoverboy Pez Dispenser was made as a tie-in for the late 70's, low budget film, HOVERBOY'S NINJA ADVENTURE, which was, in fact, not really a Hoverboy film at all. Originally, "Ninja Adventures" (or HNA to the fans) was a Hong Kong action picture about a Milkman whose face is so horribly mangled in a brawl with Chinese gangsters, that he wears a metal helmet while wreaking vengeance on the criminal gang that disfigured him. There are no scenes of hovering in the original film, all of which were added for the North American re-release. In the American translation, all the good Chinese characters speak perfect English while the 'Commie' Chinese speak with thick German and Russian accents. Hoverboy's voice was dubbed by the Bucket-Boy's regular Saturday Morning voice, actor Dick Python, (who appeared in porn movies shortly before being cast as Hoverboy, and then again, shortly after his work on this film, under the name Python Dick).

Of note is the fact that under the buckets of this particular Pez Dispenser toy is found the faces of either Steve Guttenberg, Bruce Jenner or (Village People Cowboy singer) Randy Jones. These were supposed to be collectibles for the movie "Can't Stop the Music", but when "Music" tanked at the

box office, the producer of Hoverboy's Ninja Adventure, Zig Felberson, bought up the Pez dispensers for a song, and hired 200 illegal aliens to glue buckets on them. An interesting story about Pez's least known superhero tie-in.

HOVERBOY BI-ANNUAL #2
"KAMRADE BEAR "
October

Issue #2...of what was originally an Annual...but they had trouble keeping up the grueling schedule. There was never another issue after this. Of special note is the missing leg on Kamrade Bear and the missing eye on Santa Boy. Especially odd since no such deformities exist on the characters inside the issue, though the artists for each story was, in fact, missing a body part. Perhaps this strange cover was a shout out the often maimed artists who worked on this series.

Apparently the cover artist for this issue (A guy who went under the pen name "Tico") had a strange habit of doing this thing with the missing limbs and eyes, as a form of political art. It was his symbol for the decay of society and culture in the mid-seventies, after Watergate, Bobby Kennedy and MLK, Viet Nam and the cancellation of Star Trek. Of note, "Tico" was missing his left hand, but not due to the war. He lost it after falling asleep next to a pizza oven when he was twenty three, and he swears his own missing limb had nothing to do with his art featuring so much of that kind of deformity. He eventually left comics when he caught his right hand in an elevator door in 1979, and was dragged to his death...

WEEK OF AUGUST 11

This week in 1945: A second attempt at launching the Hoverboy radio series is tried by the Mutual network. Only the words " Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls Hoverboy is on the air..." was broadcast before being interrupted by a newsflash announcing the Japanese surrender, and the end of the second world war. After the FIRST attempt (broadcast the day of Germany's surrender in Europe) the executives at Mutual began to believe that Hoverboy's radio show had magical powers to end conflict, and episodes were broadcast to the Korean peninsula in May of 1950 to calm local tensions following the Daegu Uprising. Sadly, it resulted in the communist backed army of Kim Il Sung overrunning the 38th parallel and beginning the Korean War.

This week in 1947: On this day in 1947 Bob Stark unveils his ‘new’ superhero, which he swears will, “make Hoverboy look boring.”  When he unveils his creation, “Professor Pedestrian” his young wife Marge cannot hide her disappointment.  Bob defends his creation saying, “What does a stupid woman know about what men like?”  She later claims it was the beginning of the end of their marriage.

This week in 1967: The producers of the Batman TV show receive what appears to be real documents suing them copyright infringement.  The suit claims Batman is an obvious rip-off of something called Hoverboy.  The suit demands the then unheard sum of 8,000 dollars.  The letter offers to settle out of court for 100 dollars.  At first the letter causes consternation because no one can figure out if Hoverboy is real, but one of the series writers claims he’s heard of it.  Lawyers at ABC fire back a letter to the plaintiff, Robert J. Stark International Enterprises, threatening to sue him for libel, defamation and public mischief.  A letter of apology from Stark’s son Elmer, soon arrives.  Elmer told several people he took away his fathers typewriter after this incident.

This week in 1973: The live-action HOVERBOY/METAL GUY ACTION HALF-HOUR premiers. Though the Hoverboy adventures featured in the first segment of this one-season show aren't particularly noteworthy, the show caused much controversy over the it's second-billing hero, Metalguy; a refrigerator repairman turned superhero. Whenever evil was afoot in Spring River, Abe Schwartz would climb into his specially modified refrigerator to do battle! Unfortunately, dozens of children tried to emulate Metalguy, and suffocated in abandoned refrigerators across the country. When the lawsuits started, the producers of the show laid the blame squarely at Bob Stark's feet, thought he claimed he never had any part in producing the show beyond licensing Hoverboy.

HOVERBOY #91
"NAKED DOOM"
April, 1979

This comic opens with Doctor Nerbish, a bumbling biologist, on a field trip with three female students. Downstream of a Nuclear Dump site he discovers a mutant herb.  When his students load up their pockets with this strange plant, they discover it dissolves fabric.  Instantly!  Driven mad by the sight of real, live, naked girls, something no scientist has ever seen, he transforms into… Doctor Natural!  Dubbing his dangerous herb, Anti-Establishi, he claims we can the world's problems if people have nothing to hide... literally.  He leaves a trail of bare bodies from Montana to New York.

The textile and fashion industry send out heavily armed vigilantes to stop him, but to no avail.  Doctor Natural denudes them all, screaming, “This is the ultimate fashion statement!”  People are too embarrassed to go outside.  Soon every business and industry in the city grinds to a halt.  Except tourism. 

Desperate, the clothing companies call on Capitalism’s Canny Crusader, “Hoverboy.”  He soon locates Doctor Natural and they exchange punches and insults.   Hoverboy tells Dr. Natural

he has bad B.O..  Furious, Dr. Natural hurls handfuls of Anti-Establishia.  Hoverboy retreats to the Hover-Lair, without a shred of either his costume or his dignity.  And now that the herbal compound is on his skin, everything he puts on evaporates.

Except a hemp rope belt!?  The rope smells familiar, “Like Dr. Natural’s B.O.. Aha!  That’s why his costume never disappears—it’s woven from Hemp.  A Commie, Hippie plant if ever one grew.” 

TUESDAY AUGUST 5 , 2008

Today we begin our reprinting of the classic 1940's Hoverboy comic strip which ran in most southwestern newspapers and Arkansas. This is the earliest full story I've been able to get my hands on. Though the strip is credited to Nutt and Stark, it's clear from the framing of the strips that this one was done after artist Bob Stark started using a "Ghost-facer"- an element of human anatomy he was completely incapable of drawing.

Keen-eyed readers will recognize this story as a reuse Charles Nutt's story "NAZI ROBOTS OF FUTURES PAST" which originally appeared in FICTIONAL SCIENCE ADVENTURE. Though be warned our coverage of that issue does contain spoilers for this story, so don't read it if you want to be surprised!

Don't worry if you miss a chapter, past weeks will be archived in a new section starting next week.

WEEK OF AUGUST 4

On this day in 1937: Hoverboy makes a brief guest onscreen appearance in the Three Stooges two reel comedy, “Mop That Gob, Sailor!”  Some have suggested the man with the bucket who is hovering in the back of the big finale scene is not Hoverboy, but simply a sailor with Moe’s bucket on his head.  They claim if you look carefully you can see he is standing on a small step on the side of the battleship.

On this day in 1974: a member of the Nutt family approaches the manufacturers of Mop ‘N’ Glow Floor Wax about having Hoverboy become the spokesperson for their product.  Ala ‘Mr. Clean.’  The company cannot figure out how to have him fill the bucket with water and Mop ‘N’ Glow when the bucket is upside down on his head. 

This week in 1993: the several member's of Bob Stark's family from his second marriage sue the Nutt family for their share of the profits of Hoverboy POG sales. POGs, the small, round, cardboard disks, are a sudden fad amongst kids. By the time the lawsuit reaches court, POG's are passé, as kids realize, "Hey, these are just stupid round discs." It’s the first legal action in almost a decade and signals the beginning of a revival of interest in the Bucket-Topped dynamo. That interest also fades as kids realize, "Hey, it's a guy in a bucket."