On James Earl Jones’ birthday yesterday, the Muppet History Twitter account remarked that he was Sesame Street’s first celebrity guest, which sent me down a rabbit hole:
In 1969, Jones participated in making test films for the children’s education series Sesame Street; these shorts, combined with animated segments, were shown to groups of children to gauge the effectiveness of the then-groundbreaking Sesame Street format. As cited by production notes included in the DVD release Sesame Street: Old School 1969–1974, the short that had the greatest impact with test audiences was one showing bald-headed Jones counting slowly to ten. This and other segments featuring Jones were eventually aired as part of the Sesame Street series itself when it debuted later in 1969 and Jones is often cited as the first celebrity guest on that series, although a segment with Carol Burnett was the first to actually be broadcast.
Jones is a famous movie star now, but what had he been in when they filmed these segments in 1969? Two movies: Dr. Strangelove and The Comedians. I’m assuming the Sesame Street crowd knew him from his stage work.
For the 40th anniversary of Dr. Strangelove, Jones looked back:
Kubrick based his initial script on “Red Alert,” a tense thriller about the possibility of an accidental nuclear war written by the British author Peter George. When Stanley came to New York to scout George C. Scott for the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George happened to be playing in “The Merchant of Venice” at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. So was I. Stanley recruited George, and given that Kubrick wanted to make the film’s B-52 crew multiethnic, he took me too. It was my first movie role.
As the script evolved, Kubrick decided to bring in the renowned “bad boy” Terry Southern to rework the film as a satire. Among many other changes, an entirely new character was added to the story — the eponymous Dr. Strangelove (initially called Von Klutz). Southern and Kubrick gave all the characters comic-book names. Sterling Hayden’s Gen. Quintin became Gen. Jack D. Ripper. Slim Pickens now played Maj. T.J. “King” Kong. Keenan Wynn was Col. “Bat” Guano, and George was Gen. “Buck” Turgidson. Of course, Peter Sellers took on three roles: Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake, a British Exchange Officer; Dr. Strangelove himself; and U.S. President Merkin Muffley.
My character, the B-52′s bombardier Lt. Lothar Zogg, took his name from Mandrake the Magician’s sidekick, a black and bald-headed man who provided Mandrake with muscle power when prestidigitation failed. In the original script, the bombardier’s role included pointed questioning of the authenticity of Gen. Ripper’s command-orders to nuke Russia. But as “Dr. Strangelove” evolved into a satire, Zogg’s voice of reason shrank to essentially a single question: “Sir, do you think this might be some kind of loyalty test or security check?”
In spite of having been stripped of the lines that made the role attractive to me in the first place, I felt very fortunate to be working with Kubrick, one of the most brilliant and innovative directors of our time.
I had to look up Mandrake the Magician and his supporting cast:
Mandrake the Magician was a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk (before he created The Phantom). Mandrake began publication on June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip’s illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.
Mandrake, along with the Phantom Magician in Mel Graff’s The Adventures of Patsy, is regarded by comics historians as the first superhero of comics, such as comics historian Don Markstein, who writes, “Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics’ first superhero.”
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Lothar is Mandrake’s best friend and crimefighting companion, whom Mandrake first met during his travels in Africa. Lothar was the Prince of the Seven Nations, a mighty federation of jungle tribes but forbore becoming king to followed Mandrake on his world travels. Lothar is often referred to as “the strongest man in the world”, with the exception of Hojo — Mandrake’s chef and secret chief of Inter Intel. Lothar is invulnerable to any weapon forged by man, impervious to heat and cold, and possesses the stamina of a thousand men. He also cannot be harmed by magic directly (such as by fire bolts, force bolts, or spell incantations). He can easily lift an elephant by one hand. One of the first African crimefighting heroes ever to appear in comics, Lothar’s début alongside Mandrake was in the 1934 inaugural daily strip. In the beginning, Lothar spoke poor English and wore a fez, short pants, and a leopard skin. In a 1935 work by King Features Syndicate, Lothar is referred to as Mandrake’s “giant black slave.” When artist Fred Fredericks took over in 1965, Lothar spoke correct English and his clothing changed, although he often wore shirts with leopard-skin patterns.
