Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat:

Mark Arnold: I was doing an interview for the Total Television book, interviewing this voice artist named Bradley Bulky who did the voice of Chumley the Walrus on Tennessee Tuxedo. And he answers the phone, he goes, hello. You know, and he sounds just like Chumley the Walrus. So I’m like, brought me back to being like 3 years old.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Mark Arnold is a comic book, animation and pop culture historian. He’s published 10 books and numerous articles in various publications. His books include the Harveyville Fun Times, if you’re cracked, you’re happy, the Story of Cracked Magazine, Book One and Book two. Mark Arnold picks on the Beatles, Frozen in Ice, the Story of Walt Disney Productions, 1966-1985, think Pink, the Datti Freeling Story, as well as books on Total Television productions, Dennis the Menace, the Monkeys and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Mark’s latest books are about the music group The Turtles and a two volume Mad magazine history, all of which came out in 2024. I’ve read both Unconditionally Mad Part 1 and Unconditionally Mad Part B and can tell you they deeply and thoroughly researched histories of the ongoing seven decades run of Mad Magazine. If you want to know all about the people behind some of the most hilarious writing and drawing ever, as well as other pop culture sensations, I highly recommend you check out all of Mark’s books. He’s also produced and recorded DVD commentaries for Shout Factory and Kino Lorber and has helped the Cartoon Art Museum and the Schnitzer Museum with various art shows. Mark also hosts the Fun Ideas podcast. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s my distinct privilege to welcome the author and pop culture historian Mark Arnold to Story BE today. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Arnold: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

Steve Cuden: It’s great to have you on the show, believe me. So let’s go back in time just a little bit. When was it? At what age? Was it when you first fell in love with animation, comic books and other pop culture sensations?

Mark Arnold: Probably comic books were first. I remember him just being around. I didn’t really collect them. M they were Just around when I was a kid. And we seem to have a little variety of everything. I can name the titles even, because it wasn’t too many. It was a handful of things. So we had a Casper issue. We had a Windy issue. Uh, there was an underdog issue with Scooby Doo, Walt Disney Comics and Stories, Mighty Thor, you know, just a little march of comics of Three Stooges, march of comics of Yogi Bear, things like that. So they were just kind of around.

Steve Cuden: How old were you? Were you a kid?

Mark Arnold: Kid? Well, some of them were dated as far back I was born 66. Some are dated as far back as 67. So, you know, it was just things we acquired. But, you know, I didn’t know anything about how to collect comics or where they were sold. It just, you know, people would give them to me as gifts or say, hey, Mark, I might like this. And it’s like, yeah.

Steve Cuden: So as a kid, you started to read them, obviously.

Mark Arnold: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And what drew you to them? Was it the art? Was it the writing? What drew you to them, I think.

Mark Arnold: Initially was the art. I mean, I do remember this, which is really weird. But, um. And I was probably, like, three years old. One of the earliest issues of Casper that I had is number 110. And I remember that there was a story in it, uh, that originally my parents would read to me. And then I wanted to have them read to me again. And they said, will you figure it out? You know, and, um, I distinctly remember, you know, just kind of reflecting on it, that there was a time where I remember I couldn’t read it, but I was trying to figure something out because of the pictures. And then later I did learn how to read. And I, for some reason, thought my story that I created prior to learning how to read was better than the one that it actually was. Now, I don’t remember what I used to say. It was just impressions in my mind. Back when you’re A little kid, 3, 4, 5 years old, do you think.

Steve Cuden: You learned how to read a little bit by reading comics?

Mark Arnold: Oh, certainly, yeah.

Steve Cuden: Certainly.

Mark Arnold: The helper for me was I was, uh, charter members of the Sesame street group.

Mark Arnold: Um, my parents like to say, you know, when Sesame street came on, we sat you in front of the TV on day one, and, uh, okay, because I was like two and a half years old, I don’t remember it per se, but I have seen that very first episode again. And, yeah, I remember that stuff. Of course, they repeated segments many times over, but still, I was there from.

Steve Cuden: The beginning at what Point. Did you start to study it as a serious study study?

Mark Arnold: Um, well, I mean, I, uh, learned how to where you could buy comics probably when we went to Hawaii in 1973. So I was like 6 years old/ay when we moved to Southern California like the next year, I kind of figured out that the older ones had some sort of value to them, but I didn’t really know history per se. But I was always kind of curious about that. Over time, what helped a lot is I probably got the first, uh, I mean I did get the first over street price guide, uh, in 1976. And that opened like, you know, like floodgate sign. Oh, okay. Well, there’s all these different publishers. I didn’t even think about different publishers doing things, you know, I just thought like superheroes. Oh, just they’re all published, you know, I didn’t realize Superman’s, dc, Spiderman’s, Marvel, blahah, uh, you know, and things like that. And so I suddenly started in my mind or whatever categorizing everything and go, oh, these guys do this, let’s this, you know.

Steve Cuden: Well, what prompted you in the first place to get that guy?

Mark Arnold: Because I was curious about like, a lot of the comics I was reading about that time is like, you know, some of that had pretty high numbers, you know, like well over a hundred sometimes. And I was like, well, how far do these series go? When did they go? And I found out like action comics went back to when my dad was born. And I go, wow, you know, it’s as old as my dad. You know, it’s like I thought that was ancient, you know, and uh, you know, that the current time, I think it was around number 400 or something. And so, you know, it was just like just basic curiosity. And since nobody would talk about stuff like that, I took it upon myself to kind of, you know, any, anything you would find. You know, there’s no Internet or anything, so anything you would find about comic books. Um, you know, I absorbed it. I mean, there was a magazine when I was a kid called Dynamite, and they reprinted like Origins. And there was those books that came out which actually they just put out of the 50th anniversary. The, uh, Marvel Origins book, Fireside Book. And you know, then I started saying, oh, yeah, well that’s interesting how these comics started, because by the time I was reading them, they’re well established. You assumed you knew the history. And sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. You know, like in the case of Superman, I knew the basic story on how Superman came to be, but like Fantastic four by the 70s, I didn’t know how it came to be. They were, they just were, you know, things like that.

Steve Cuden: And that’s true for a lot of kids, especially today. They don’t, they only know the history from going to the movies. They don’t even necessarily know it from reading the comics. So did you then turn that into some kind. Obviously you’ve turned it into a kind of a career in a way. I mean, were you always thinking about how does this work and why? Who are these people? Was that something that fascinated you early on?

Mark Arnold: Yeah, I mean I always was kind of that way, but I wasn’t trying to turn it into a career or I never even thought I was the writer. I would, you know, take like notes and stuff like that on, you know, books I read and stuff like that. Uh, other people would highlight books and stuff like that, but I would tend to just take notes on note paper and I would catalog stuff, I would organize stuff. And if there was a list of like something I found out, you know, that the book that I was reading was incorrect, I would make my own list and stick it in the book saying this is the real accurate list that they forgot, you know. And you know, it never occurred to me to write to the author saying you left out this or something, you know, it just was like, um, you know, I just know more information than that guy and I’ll put it in the book. So.

Steve Cuden: Well, my having read your two books, which are close to 900 pages worth of material on MAD magazine alone and they’re very, it’s very comprehensive and very detailed. So clearly you have a, uh, real love of those details.

Mark Arnold: Yeah, I’ve always been highly detailed oriented. Fortunately I have a, uh, publisher which has usually been over at Bear Manner Media, that allows me to do something as comprehensive as a two-volume mad book. I mean another publisher might say 900 pages. You better cut that down to 500 and take out stuff, you know, and it’s like, well, if you want the complete story, this is it. I mean I do cut it down, believe it or not, because you uh, get like 37 interviews with 37 mad creators. You’ll hear the same story over and over and over. I can’t tell you how many times, uh, they talked about the MAD staff going to Haiti to meet the one MAD reader that didn’t resubscribed. So they went to his house and got him to resubscribe. And it’s been tell 27 different ways by as many creators. And it’s like, uh, I said I got to pick out the best version of this story where people be bored to tears seeing the same story over and over.

Steve Cuden: And you have managed to make it very granular. It’s pretty detailed.

Mark Arnold: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that being that detailed is helpful in terms of, uh, the way that the audience looks at Mad magazine?

Mark Arnold: Well, I mean, I do try to cater to the audience, but sometimes I’m trying to cater to myself. Um, um, I will name a couple other authors over the course of time because I started to develop other interests, which I have now. I always say that my interests are comic books, animation, movies, TV and music. So. And I’ve written books, and that’s what the podcast is about, those basic subjects. Um, an author that I like that I later became friends with is Steve Cox. And he wrote books on various TV shows like Green Acres and I Dream of Genie and different shows that I just happen to watch. Over time, he got the interviews and, um, uh, he, uh, showed pictures of, like, the merchandise and, you know, different things like that. For me, I said, I like the way this guy writes because it’s a pleasant reading style. You conversational, I guess, is the way you could say it. But it’s not, you know, being really highbrow saying, whoa. And I’m like a big fan of the Beatles. There are Beatles books like that. They’re very sophisticated and, you know, and stuff like that. And I go, um. And they have lots of footnotes and endnotes and this notes and that notes. I like just, you know, reading something straight through. If you’re gonna reference something, just reference it in the text. And that’s the way that I write. I don’t have somebody flip to the back of the book and find out where that quote came from. I find that really dist. Disturbing and, you know, not disturbing. What’s the word?

Steve Cuden: It’s annoying.

Mark Arnold: Just annoying is a better word. Yes. Thank you.

Steve Cuden: You know, well, you are clearly writing about things that are entertaining. They’re in the entertainment industry, and they are entertaining in some way. They’re. Most of what you write about is not deeply intellectual stuff in the first place. So what you write about should be somewhat entertaining too.

Mark Arnold: Yeah. And that’s what I tend to do. So if that came across, then I’ve achieved my goal. Cause I’m the worst audience for my own stuff is like, well, you know, uh, looks good to me, but I’ve had people read it prior to it. Being published, saying, well, this isn’t entirely clear, you know, you haven’t really mentioned, you know, who Steve is or whatever, you know, and it’s like, oh, oh yeah, I forgot to put his last name and explain who he was. You know, you know, things like that.

Steve Cuden: Well, when you write that much, you’re gonna fluff over some things inadvertently, right?

Mark Arnold: Because in my head I’m like, well, I know who Steve is. You know, he does this podcast, you know, I’m fine, you know, and I go, wait a minute, I have to think about somebody who’s just reading this for the first time. I have to introduce this person like a new character into the book. And so, you know, I made sure, using the Mad book as an example, you know, whenever I brought somebody new in, let’s say, and then Harvey Kurtzman came into the, uh, offices and tried to get a job. Well, if I just leave it at that and never say who Harvey Kurtzman was, then people are going, who, what? Why? Who is he? Who cares? So then you have to kind of describe, you know, I’m assuming you’ve never heard of him.

Steve Cuden: For those listeners who don’t know who Harvey Kurtzman was, who was he?

Mark Arnold: Well, he’s credited as the creator of Mad magazine. That’s the easy, uh, response. But prior to that, he worked at EC Comics, which was the publisher and still is. And uh, he created two war-themed comic books, and frontline combat. Prior to that, he, uh, worked for Marvel Comics when it was referred to as Timely. And he did, um, these fun comic pages called hey look, that were just a one page gag filler strip that would appear in various Marvel or Timely comics. Prior to that, I mean, I mean, I guess he was in school and things like that, but, you know, now I’m doing Overkill. But I mean, you know, it’s kind of a basic introduction that I want to kind of bring people up to date. Okay. You know, why was this guy qualified to create a Mad magazine? Well, he did humor stuff in other publications and he also wrote and drew other stories for the same publishers, things like that, and edited too.

Steve Cuden: And he was working for the infamous and well known William Gaines, who was the publisher of Mad. Correct?

Mark Arnold: Correct.

Mark Arnold: Yes.

Steve Cuden: All, uh, right. So what was it about William Gaines that made him unique?

Mark Arnold: I think because in general he had different vision than most publishers. He had this kind of attitude of I couldn’t care less. Only because, uh, and I explained it in the Mad book, you know, his father died in a boating accident. Who was the founder of the EC comics line. And he wasn’t planning to inherit this company. He wasn’t planning to be the publisher, he wasn’t planning to do anything. He was planning to become a schoolteacher. And, uh, when his dad passed away, this company was foisted upon him basically. And, uh, he could have continued it the way it was, but I don’t think he would have found that very enjoyable. There was a lot of, you know, Bible stories and children’s comics and things like that. But Gaines had other ideas. He said, you know, like me with my books, you know, it’s like he wanted to publish things he’d like to see himself. You know, he liked horror, he liked science fiction, and a Western. So why not publish things about that, you know, and he did.

Steve Cuden: In life, you should be doing those things that really make you happy. You shouldn’t be trying to please others, especially in the entertainment business. You should try and be, please yourself first. And if you have any taste at all, others theoretically will also be entertained by it.

Mark Arnold: Right.

Steve Cuden: When you’re writing your books, do you think of yourself as a storyteller at times?

Mark Arnold: Um, especially because a lot of these, um, books I’ve written don’t necessarily lend themselves to a story per se. Because, I mean, when the people were creating a lot of these, you know, publications, and you can name any of them, Mad, Cracked, Harvey Comics, Archie, whatever, they weren’t sitting there. It’s like, oh, we’re doing this today. And, you know, being hyper analytical about what they’re doing. I mean, they do have an ultimate goal in mind. Yes, we’re going to create some popular characters that will give a big return on our investment and we’ll be rich. Bluntly, that’s really what they’re trying to.

Steve Cuden: Do, all about the money.

Mark Arnold: But, um, there’s interesting storylines that kind of weave in and out just because of things that happen. I’ll keep using me as an example because that’s probably the easiest to do. There’s so much history, you know, it’s like they’re going along doing parodies of song lyrics called Sing along with Mad, saying, hey, that would be a fun insert to put into one of our super special annuals. And then they get sued because now the songwriters are citing copyright infringement to their songs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, opening a big lawsuit and everything like that. Well, who could have foreseen that? But it’s an interesting story, you know, even though it’s probably nerve wracking for gains and everyone else, because they could theoretically lose the company. But then the suit was settled. That, you know, and it did help people later on, like Weird Al and Alan Sherman and all sorts of people that do parody lyrics, that you can do parody lyrics on things you really don’t.

Steve Cuden: It’s not a violation of copyright to do so.

Mark Arnold: But they needed that court case to kind of confirm that instead of just Mad assuming that. And Matt had difficulties with that early on. It’s like they did a parody of Superman and DC said, hey, you’re not supposed to make fun of our sacred Superman character. Why not? It’s parody. You know, time and again they got, you know, by the good graces of everyone, you know, got, uh, seen as parody is in their favor. That, you know, what they’re doing is not wrong. You know, they’re not expressly saying that they own Superman, but they certainly can poke fun of it, uh, including the name by calling it Super Duperman instead of Superman. Things like that.

Steve Cuden: So what do you think it is about MAD magazine in particular? I have my own feeling on it. But what makes MAD so great? What makes it special and great?

Mark Arnold: Well, I’ll just tell you how I discovered mad. So I discovered mad 50 years ago.

Steve Cuden: That’s amazing because you’re only 28, right?

Mark Arnold: Exactly. My sister actually found it. Um, there was a MAD super special that had, uh, these Don Martin art posters, and if you’re familiar with Don Martney, like these wacky characters that had bent feet and, you know, had weird sound effects like Flubadoove and Schizopriitz and whatever. And they did some sort of, usually it is one page gag. Some sort of grotesque thing happened. Like the guy’s head would get run over in the barber chair. And then, uh, the steamroller would pave his head and paint his head. And then the punchline was, that looks great, but you got the part on the wrong side. Things like that. Yeah. You know, a typical example of, you know, kind of grotesque humor brought back to Earth in just kind of a mundane situation.

Mark Arnold: Um, but immediately my eye was attracted to his artwork. You know, that was the guy. And I said to my mom, can I have this? You know, these posters were full color. They were on nice paper. They looked really neat. Of course, I pulled them out and stuck them in my wall. And, um, uh, the rest is history. I was a confirmed buyer ever since. And then the one story, and I think I do related in my book then my dad says, oh, I read Bad when I was a kid, too. And I was like, I didn’t believe him because I thought my dad was too nerdy or square to even think of something like Mad, you know, is something to buy. And he was reading the Kurtzman comic book issues, the early ones. And you know, then the next Mad special that came out, they had a reprint of one of those comic books. And I got, I guess you’re right. And my dad said, of course I’m right. It’s like, how do I know? My dad used to kind of bend the truth at times, you know, because, you know, what’s the point of having kids if you can’t mess around with them every often?

Steve Cuden: So you were drawn to both the art and the humor. Yeah, you can’t really have Mad magazine without both combined.

Mark Arnold: Right. I’ve gone on record saying this about the four major humor magazines that are around. When I was a kid, there was Mad, Cracked, Crazy and Sick, and there’s also National Lampoon, but that kind of goes outside the scope of the black and white humor makes so’ll say that all disease. Yeah, it’s like I used to say, Mad. Mad is the best because it has good art and good writing.

Steve Cuden: Mhm.

Mark Arnold: Uh, the fault I had with Cracked at the time was I thought it had great art or good art and the writing was kind of, hm, crazy. I thought had the opposite problem. I thought it was funny, but the artists sometimes were like. And then sick. I thought, dad, at least at the time I was reading it, you know, bad art and bad writing. And was like, how is this still being published? And of course that was the first one to go under in 1980. So I found out that, you know, yeah, the best thing to do is have good art and writing on, um, these things.

Steve Cuden: That helps. That helps a lot.

Mark Arnold: You know, it seems obvious, but some people don’t understand that and they wonder, uh, well, what my comic or publication. And well, it wasn’t very funny or the artwork atrocious.

Steve Cuden: So a lot of what’s in Mad, I think is or was and may to this day still be somewhat, if not a great deal, politically incorrect.

Mark Arnold: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And it plays with various tropes and with our society and culture and all those things. I’m just wondering if you think, if no one had ever created Mad magazine, would they be able to start something like it up today or would they be. No way would they get away with it.

Mark Arnold: It wouldn’t be a magazine as they started it today.

Steve Cuden: What would it be? It would be online.

Mark Arnold: It would be something online. Yeah. I think the equivalent now is like tik tok videos maybe, you know, just little short skits that you sometimes see online. TV wise, you know, Saturday Night Live still tries to carry on that tradition, even though, you know, everybody usually says it’s not as funny as it used to be. But they. You say that about Mad, it’s not as funny as it used to.

Steve Cuden: Well, I used to love watching Mad TV when it was on.

Mark Arnold: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: So I mean, I thought that was. It wasn’t exactly Mad magazine, but it had kind of that. It was different from Saturday Night Live and it was even a little more whacked out. It was a little further out there.

Mark Arnold: Right. But, uh, yeah, there’s elements of humor. I mean, if you’re talking about when the time mad started in 1952. Well, I mean, there were humorous comic books, if you count like funny animal comic books. You know, like every cartoon character had their own comic book back then. And you know, you could say they’re funny, but I guess for the most part it was pretty much gentle humor. Even though, like I said, Kurtzman had his hey look Pages in the 40s and Basil Wolverton had, uh, things like culture Corner over in FSST comics, things like that. And of course he worked for MAD later too. Um, so there was a few wacky people out there, but I think MAD was probably the one that actually kind of brought him home to roost to like be under the same umbrella instead of just a filler page and something. Could. Would somebody have come up with a mad? Uh, possibly. I mean, there were predecessors to mad, you know, like ballyhoo and things like that. Um, a lot of them didn’t have a lot of artwork. A lot of them were kind of like joke books and they might have a single panel gag. So it wasn’t exact same format as mad, but you know, it could have come somewhere along the line.

Steve Cuden: How important do you think Mad magazine in particular has been over all these years? How important has it been to culture in general?

Mark Arnold: I think it was very important, especially in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Not so much since. I mean, I hate to say there’s people now that never even heard of Mad magazine. Or they go, is that still being published? And you know, I used to say yes for a number of years. Now I say yes barely since it’s in reprints.

Mark Arnold: But uh, well, it’s hard to keep.

Steve Cuden: That up with all of the various attention grabbers that are out there. Back then there were very few attention grammars. Now there are thousands of them.

Mark Arnold: But yeah, the 60s, 70s and 80s, those particular decades especially. Yeah, people would look forward to the parody. You know, there’d be a new show like Star Trek, let’s say, coming on or Batman or whatever. Oh, let’s see what MAD will do next month. You know, some movie come out, the Godfather. Let’s see what MAD does next month. You know, and it’s like, things like that. And Mad was like the pulse of whatever was popular. I mean, I have to admit the very first time I heard of Harry Potter actually was Mad magazine, because I was past. I was already an adult when the book started coming out. And there’s plenty of children book series that have come down the pike, you know, since I was a kid. So I, I might have seen it glancingly, you know, just a, you know, bookstore in the kids section. But it didn’t really impress me one way or the other. They had not done the movies yet. And, um, Mad put it on the COVID And so at that point I said, hm, hmm. If Matt is discussing this, it must be something to pay attention to. And sure enough it was. Because in the next few years she finished the books and there was eight movies and even spin off movies and other things. You know, to this day I would.

Steve Cuden: Argue, and I’m curious if you agree, that if it weren’t for Mad magazine, you would not have things like the Fire Sign Theater or Monty Python or Saturday Night Live. I don’t think those things would exist without mad.

Mark Arnold: Definitely Fire, uh, SC Theater and, uh, Saturday Night Live. Monty Python. I don’t know if in England they read Mad as voraciously as the people in the U.S. i mean, it was published as significant period of time. But, you know, you talked to the Python guys and they cite their references more as the Goon show on Radio.

Steve Cuden: Oh and the Goon show, of course.

Mark Arnold: Although interestingly, John CLE and Terry Gilliam. Well, Terry Gilliam worked for Help, which was a Harvey Kurtzman publication. Came after Mad, started in the 60s and he used John Cleese in one of those Fumetti things where Cleese is falling in love with a Barbie dol. And you know, I have to say, by that point, if they have not seen Mad magazine, they’re just blind. So they must have seen it somewhere along the line. But they never cited it as an influence over there.

Steve Cuden: Well, as it’s true for a lot of things in art and science and culture, sometimes there’s just something in the water at that time in history. And many different, uh, creators and discoverers are discovering and creating things that are Similar in nature at that same moment, even though they’re completely disconnected.

Mark Arnold: Right.

Steve Cuden: That I think may have happened. That there was that period in the, as you say, the 60s and 70s and the 80s with that kind of humor that I think has dwindled somewhat. I think it’s now gone back to a little bit more meat and potatoes and a little less completely off the wall out there stuff, which I really love. That’s my particular proclivity. But while you were doing your research on mad, what did you come across that was like a eureka moment that you knew nothing about that kind of like really blew your mind a little bit.

Mark Arnold: Was there anything probably anything that, um, came out more recently? I mean, there’s a few things in the early days, but there’s been other MAD histories. I even reference them in the book. I say, you know, there’s other MAD histories. I didn’t even want to do a MAD history because I figured it’s already been done. But then I realized that the most recent version of the mad history was published like in 1993. Um, so you got like 30 years of things that aren’t or weren’t covered. Now, longtime readers may argue, well, those are the crummier anyway. But it’s like I wanted to know. I kept reading Mad, you know, even after everybody quit the publication or passed away or whatever, because I’ve always been curious and I subscribe to it now. I always am curious as what they’ll do next. But, uh, probably the most interesting stuff was like the more recent stuff that isn’t covered anywhere. There’s, um, an exhibit that was showing Mad art at the Norman Rockwell Museum. But they did, uh, a piece on it on Sunday Morning. And if you watch it, they give the impression that Matt ended in 2018 after 550 issues. And that’s it. That’s all she wrote. And, uh, well, it’s still being published. It started. Started over again. It actually started over with brand new issues, uh, edited by Bill Morrison, who worked for the Simpsons. And even he was kind of peeved on Facebook and social media that he wasn’t even mentioned that he brought MAD back. And, uh, you know, it’s reurn now and he’s not no longer part of it. But one of the things he did, and it actually makes for an interesting later story that I didn’t know anything about, but I interviewed him about. And Tom Richmond the artist about is Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker, big MAD fan. And he wanted Mad to be present in Once, uh, Upon a Time. In Hollywood.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Mark Arnold: And so originally, he was just. He just contacted Tom Richmond out of the blue because he knew, oh, he’s a MAD artist. He can kind of draw like the MAD magazine artists of the past that are no longer with us. Uh, so maybe he can recreate a TV Guide cover or something. And then it expanded to can I also do a MAD cover since I work for mad? And can I actually do a parody of this story in the actual MAD magazine of this fictitious TV show that’s in this movie? And it just kind of blossomed out, uh, there. That whole story wasn’t told anywhere, even in the press or anything. Just the movie came out. You saw MAD in it, and life goes on. But I was curious about it because why were they doing so much parody? Why was there so much connection? And so I like uncovering things like that.

Steve Cuden: So when you were creating the work itself, were you needing to get rights to anything? Pictures, stories, anything like that? Did you need any kind of rights, clearances?

Mark Arnold: Well, I’m savvy enough doing this for a number of years to know what I can do and what I can’t do with what they call the fair use. A couple things I was trying to slip by, but it didn’t work. But you. I’ll explain in a second. Uh, but typically, I know MAD is very possessive about their artwork, and they don’t want anybody reprinting anything, even in part of their articles and art. Everything. That’s their job. They don’t want some third party, especially is not authorized by the company doing anything. So I knew that. And so I made, uh, special, uh, whatever to make sure I didn’t have a lot of artwork from the publication. I can’t say I did that 100%.

Steve Cuden: But, I mean, no, you have covers and all kinds of things in there.

Mark Arnold: Yeah, well, the covers are a little bit different. Covers are kind of more like fair use because, I mean, you know, there are websites like Grand Comics Database, that has all the covers. I mean, are they gonna be taken down? Because they put all that up, I think, early on, sites like that. And Doug Guilford’s MAD cover site got in a lot of trouble. And that’s even in the book. Um, because what are you doing putting our precious cover art on the Internet? You know, nowadays it’s like, it’s all over the place. But, you know, New Frontier. We didn’t know what was going on. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I also knew that even though, like, Alfred E. Newman, as an entity, is basically a public Domain character.

Steve Cuden: How’s that? How do you become public domain?

Mark Arnold: Because it was originally used in advertising that dated back to, like, the 19th century painless dentist head where the tooth was missing and it didn’t hurt a bit. You know, things like that. And MAD went through a whole lawsuit trying to figure out, you know, who owned this thing, because they just started using it just arbitrarily, this tooth missing character. And then they dubbed it Alfred He. Newman. He didn’t even have a name. It was just a, what me worry kid or something like that. But, uh, people started writing, well, my father created that character 1903, and you owe me a billion dollars because, you know, back royalties and everything like that. And they’re going, good grief, you know, so they took their lawyers and figured out, you know, they’d find instances of the character used prior to that. And so that, you know, totally negated their ownership. But what MAD did is they got artist Norman Mingo to create a definitive version that’s the version that’s theirs, that everyone knows. So if I use that or anything that’s been published in the magazine, especially if I call it MAD and have the name Alfred E. Newman all attached to it, they’re gonna come down at me. But I was very careful, so I put up the COVID prior to it being published, saying, coming soon, my MAD book. And the MAD lawyers came after me. And it was like the only time I’ve ever really gotten a lawyer involved. And so he made me make a couple changes here. One is, I was using the actual MAD logo, and that is a trademark logo. So I said, well, what if I use something similar? So this isn’t the real MAD logo.

Steve Cuden: So it’s a faux MAD logo.

Mark Arnold: Yeah. And he was okay with that. Uh, this is the way the lawyers speak because they never. He never gave me full approval. But he said, we’re not gonna bother you. That’s about the best I got.

Steve Cuden: This magazine that has spent 70 years parodying and satirizing things can’t handle their own satire.

Mark Arnold: Exactly. I know this is still in the proper typeface, but it’s not, you know, man. Anyway, he also emphasized I had to put unauthorized in different color and large enough so that people could read it on the color. Fine, I don’t care. And I also had to put interviews with MAD writers and artists on here. And I go, fine, okay. And the other thing quibbled about is, uh, we did slap an Alfred head as probably as a Norman Mango Alfred head. But I figured if I covered it up with a paper Bag, you know, and the guy was freaking out because he thought it was Alfred. And this drawing or painting is actually of my friend Lee Hester, who runs a comic book shop called Lee’s Comics. And it’s actually Lee’s head. No paper bag, just Lee’s head. And, uh, I asked Lee, he’s a good friend of mine, I asked him, can I use this for the COVID And he goes, sure. And I go, I got a great idea. That’ll be funny. You won’t be on the COVID but I’ll do something. And then he loved this, the whole Alfred in disguise bag. And so then I started promoting the book, saying, I have a Jack Davis cover. And oh my God, so many people were like, how did you do that? He’s been dead for seven years. You know, it’s like he did artwork that didn’t appear in MAD Folks. And, uh, he did commissions all the time. So that’s where that was. But, yeah, MAD came down on me on that and said, you can’t publish it as is. I changed the logo. Uh, he finally gave me clearance, as it were, for Alfred the way it was. And then I. On the copyright page, I had to change the copyrights the way MAD likes their copyrights, which, without looking at it’I don’t remember how they do it.

Steve Cuden: There was a bit of a hassle for you to get it there.

Mark Arnold: Yeah, but it was less of a hassle than, you know, like, if I picked pieces from all the different artwork over the year, had Mole and Super.

Steve Cuden: Duper man, then you’d really have to get clearances.

Mark Arnold: Yeah. You know, and he asked me that. He says, you don’t have a bunch of artwork in there. I go, no, I don’t. I have a bunch of photographs of the creators. Well, he couldn’t do anything much about that, so.

Steve Cuden: All right. So speaking of the creators, you have lots of interviews in the book. I mean, lots and lots. How many of those people did you actually interview?

Mark Arnold: I probably interviewed about 30 or 40 people over the years.

Steve Cuden: And how difficult was to set those interviews up?

Mark Arnold: Not very difficult. I mean, um, I’ll say this. On interviews with people, with people who have passed away, I went through and got the best archival interviews I could. I mean, Comics Journal used to do great interviews with Gaines and Feldstein, the later editor and things like that. Um, and various artists over the years. There’s also some MAD related publications. They gave me permission to use their interviews. One was called Mad Freaks, One called the Mad Panic. Uh, one called Was Called the Journal of Madness. They all had interviews, the creators, that are long past. And I said, can I reprint stuff from that? And I wasn’t reprinting the interviews verbatim all the way through. But, I mean, if I’m writing about how the Folden was created and there’s like this choice interview with Al Jaffe that he’s talking about it, well, I want to be able to grab it instead of just telling the story. I’d rather have him say it in his own words. What inspired him to do the Fold in, You know, things like that.

Steve Cuden: So over time, was there any material that you wished you could have gotten? Aside from the obviously copyrighted stuff, Was there anything you wished you could have gotten that you didn’t, or anyone that you wished you could have spoken to that even though they were alive, they wouldn’t let you?

Mark Arnold: There was nobody that really outright refused me. Um, there’s people that were hard to get. Sam Viviano, the art director, he was a late edition. And I actually had the book. I actually even sent it off to be published. And, uh, he says, wait, I’ll do your interview. You know, and it’s like, I contacted Ben at the at Bee manner, and I said, you know, Sam Viviano wants to be interviewed. And I’ve interviewed him before because I interviewed him for the Crackbook too. And he will give a lengthy interview, which he did. He talked to me for four hour show. Can we hold this book? And he goes, absolutely. So, you know, and Viviano was great in giving further information about basically the last 20 to 30 years when he was there, which was very helpful because it was getting to be. I, uh, hate to say, you know, it was getting to be just like a list of just the new issue of what was in it. And I said, I need a little more material for this later stuff. So I was very happy to get that. Uh, the only disappointment, I guess, is, uh, John Fakar, the longtime editor in New York, always has turned me down. I think he just turns everyone down because there’s very few interviews with him anywhere. So he’s not really, uh. I guess he doesn’t consider him the spokesperson for mad. I mean, he has been interviewed.

Steve Cuden: Clearly he doesn’t like to be interviewed.

Mark Arnold: Yeah. So the people that do San Viviano does after a little urging. And then I got Dick Dep. Bartolo. He loves to be interviewed, you know, So I got him for the book. And, um, some people I didn’t bother because, I don’t know, it’s like there’s A lot of interviews. I didn’t interview Sergio Arones. I met him a few times. And some people I interviewed back on the Crack books. And I said, well, you know, if I interview them again for the MAD book, I’m not really gonna ask him anything I didn’t ask before. So I can use some of that material that didn’t appear in the Crackbook. In the MAD book. Because I was smart enough when I interviewed for the Crackbook, I said, I’m gonna ask about MAD and everything else because I didn’t think I was going toa do a MAD book. But I said, I just want to know. And you never know, I might use it somewhere. And I did, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: So let’s talk about a little bit of your other work too. You’ve obviously worked on subjects like the turtles and the monkeys and the beetles. Your fascination for music, did that happen around the same time you were getting into cartoons and animation and magazines?

Mark Arnold: Kind of. I mean, I didn’t develop a strong love for it probably until like the late 70s. Um, in the early 70s, late 60s. I mean, you know, things were tied in. Like my parents got me the Sesame street book and record, and obviously that tied into Sesame street, you know, and I got a Mr. Rogers album that tied into Mr. Rogers neighborhood. So, you know, things kind of tied in there. I wasn’t really into, say, rock and roll or whatever, but, you know, my mom would listen to the radio and occasionally she’d buy a 45 or even an album of some artists. And so we had various albums around, like I and Tina Turner working together, which had, uh, Crow Mary on it, and Janice Joplin’s Pearl that had me and Bobby Mugee, things like that. And I didn’t know the history behind this stuff is just stuff we had. And they would buy know, uh. I think the big turning point for me is, um, when I became a Beatles fan and I tell this story, but I’ll tell it again. I was already a Monty Python and a Saturday Night Live fan, right? And Eric Idle appeared on Saturday night live in 76. And he did this bit which is on, uh, I’m sure online, and it’s certainly on the home video where he comes out and he goes, I’m gonna sing you a song. He has a guitar and goes, um, here comes the sunom, um, here comes the sun. And I say, it’s all right. I like. I’m looking at my parents, you know, watching this, and I’m going, what does that song actually sound like? And my parents said, oh, yeah, we got that album, it’s called Abbey Road and has, uh, the Beatles. Oh, I’ve heard of the Beatles. Well, you know, it’s like, um, they’re walking along the street and everything. It’s that album because say Beatles on the COVID go, okay, like oh, here it is. Okay. So I put the needle on the record and go, oh, I’ve heard this song. It just Erich IDL was singing it very poorly and I had no idea what he was imitating.

Steve Cuden: You’ve obviously written about some these famous bands like the Monkeys and like the Beatles. Do you think that there’s a similarity in terms of the way that you approach those books to the way that you approach your histories of comics and so on?

Mark Arnold: Well, there’s probably an underlying theme in everything I like. I mean, you’ve talked to Charles Rose before, my co author twice, and he probably has said this. If you didn’t. He said on other interviews, uh, one of the things that was appealing about groups like monkeys, turtles, beetles, the sense of humor. You know, they weren’t like dull drips that just said, uh, oh, we’re going toa play some music. And here we are. You know, you know, they actually had a good sense of humor. They have great personalities. They, you know, they appeared in films and, you know, they could do actual comedy. You know, I think that helped because comedy was always my first love. Going back to comic books, I always was attracted to more of the humor stuff than, uh, the superhero stuff. I like superhero stuff when it’s humorous. When it gets too serious, I start to lose interest. So there’s that underlying theme about everything that I like, that there has to be some sort of element of humor to it or I don’t like it. I mean, I have a few exceptions. Like I like Twilight Zone, you know, things like that. That’s usually pretty straightforward, but sometimes they have humorous things on there. You know, things like that.

Steve Cuden: So you like to have that comic edge to whatever it is.

Mark Arnold: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: That you’re not only looking at, but also writing about.

Mark Arnold: Yeah, because I don’t think everybody should take themselves so darn seriously. Like I’m, you know, doing this proper music and uh, uh, you know, the Beatles would make fun of themselves. You know, they, would make faces on stage while they’re playing and stuff like that.

Steve Cuden: Well, considering the times that we’re in right now, which are pretty serious and in some ways quite dire, I guess we could use a little more what me worry right now. I think, yes.

Mark Arnold: Fortunately, uh, ma going back to MAD. MAD’s latest issue, which just came out. Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to find. You have to subscribe to it or find it in a comic book store. They actually did about half new material, which is good. And they even put the current candidates on the COVID Going down a roller coaster, you know, because it is a big roller coaster. Right, for everybody. So, you know, at least they’re still trying to hit the targets. It is more difficult because everybody’s so polarizing, you know, I, uh, won’t name names either way, but it’s like, you know, some people are like, how could you make fun of Phil and the M candidate? Mad never did that in the past. And you go in the past. Mad always was making fun of the candidates. Always, you know, and, uh, certainly they’re gonna make fun more fun of the candidate that is doing goofy stuff or is in political trouble, you know, to put it mildly. Then, you know, the candidate that’s just kind of sitting there passively and, ah, everything’s great. But even then, they used to do political humor. They poked fun at all the presidents, they poked fun at all the candidates.

Steve Cuden: And we need, I think, a lot more of it today.

Mark Arnold: Yes.

Steve Cuden: To deflate some of these, uh, very serious bubbles that we have. Now, you mentioned Charles Rose, who has been on the show twice, and that you collaborated with him and you’ve had a number of collaborators in your books over time. What would you say makes a good collaboration work?

Mark Arnold: Certainly one that I can work with, if that makes sense.

Steve Cuden: But how do you know that before you start?

Mark Arnold: I don’t always know that. So I’ve had, like three or four collaborators. I’ll use Michael, uh, Ventrella, and, uh, Charles Rose is the examples, because Charles, I worked with Turtles and Michael on the Monkeys books. Michael, I knew prior because he did a fanzine called Animato about animation. He came to me saying, I liked your Beatles book, but I think you should do a book where it would be like a Siskel and Ebert thing, but about the Monkeys. And, uh, he said, I’d love to do the Beatles one, but your book’s already published. Uh, you. Let’s not do them Beatles one again. I go, that’s fine. So I again, well, that’s a pretty good idea. But at that point, yeah, we were discussing, and I make sure to kind of like, it’s like a job interview, you know, it’s like I vet the person, you know, And I’m going to ask him, are you going to be so stubborn about how to do Something that I won’t be able to get any of my ideas in, you know, or anything like that. And he goes, no, you know, of course, proof is in the pudding, uh, you know, once you start working with somebody. But, I mean, if that started happening, we would discuss things, and for the most part, we were pretty civil about it. And, you know, sometimes he was a little more adamant about something. Sometimes I was a little bit more adamant about something. I remember I wanted to put more information about the Monkey’s history in the book, and he was just interested in doing the songs, but he wanted to put in the chart positions, and I wasn’t as interested in that. So we kind of came up with the compromise. I said, well, if you want to put the chart positions, I want to put the history. And he goes, all right, we can do that. And so it worked out. We would negotiate like that.

Steve Cuden: It just makes it a richer book, doesn’t it?

Mark Arnold: Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t so adamantly opposed. There was some things he would ask my opinion on, and vice versa, you know, and sometimes with a voice of reason, you’d say, well, that doesn’t do anything for the book. Uh, let’s not cover that, or whatever. Like, originally, the original Monkeys s book was supposed to cover the solo stuff. He vetoed that right away. Now, when we came around to doing a second book, because the publisher wanted a second book, well, what do we do now? We’ve done everything in the other book. And I go, well, now we could do the solo stuff. It’s kind of funny. I think he was more into the first book than I was, and I think I was more into the second book than he was. And it was mainly because other Monkeys books had been written. So I thought, you know, we’re kind of, you know, going on the same territory. Whereas the solo stuff nobody ever really covered before. So I was more excited about that.

Steve Cuden: So did you get to talk to any of the Turtles or Monkeys that were any of the Beetles that are left?

Mark Arnold: Beetles? No, Monkeys. Uh, we didn’t talk to any of them specifically for the book, but I had met face to face every one of the Monkeys over time and got to shit chat with him and stuff like that and seen him in concert, things like that.

Steve Cuden: Same with the Turtles.

Mark Arnold: Turtles. For the book, Charles, uh, got Howard Kalin. You know, I was trying to help him, get him and everything like that. He did the podcast with this other guy named Plastic EP. This Australian guy, which is how Charles and I actually met on his podcast. Uh, so they did the interview and I was cool with that. But I did supply questions for Charles to ask. And of course, uh, some of the questions were a little out there. But, you know, I wanted to know. In Howard’s, uh, autobiography, talks about, um, that he used to do these little records on Coney island for himself when he was like a teenager, you know, and a kid, you know, just singing and stuff into a microphone is you get a little record and you take it home, you. But he mentions this, but he didn’t say anything else about it. And so I was kind of curious. Would you ever put those out on an official releasing? The Turtles when he was a kid or something like that? And Howard was like, who’d want it? You know? But it was like I wanted that reaction because I wanted to see what he’d say about it. I mean, he might say, oh, that’s a good idea. Which, know sometimes happened. But I was just curious about it because he just kind of offhandedly threw it out there and never said anything more about it. So I tried to do that as find answers beyond what somebody’s writing about something brief. Big question.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s what a good historian or author should do, is you should be seeking stuff that’s not been asked before. So I wanna spend half a minute talking about animation before we wind to show down a little bit. I’m just curious. Do you think there are any animated properties that should be revived?

Mark Arnold: Only if they do it right. I’ll put the qualified.

Steve Cuden: I wrote an episode of the 1990s X-Men, and they’ve now recently revived it for X Men. They call it X-Men 97. But it’s today. I mean, they’re doing new shows and, uh, it’s different. It’s not the same thing at all, though they’re giving homage to it. Do you think there are any other types of shows that you admire and think maybe they should revive or do new episodes of?

Mark Arnold: Only if they could do it right. Um. U. I always was a fan of Freakazoid when it was out M. And they only did like, I don’t know, 20 episodes or something like that. It was never immensely popular, which is probably why they haven’t done them again. But, um, like I said, if they can do it right and bring back the same kind of humor. An example it’s similar that. That they did bring back, but it was a little bit shaky. But I liked it is they revived Animaniacs, which was kind of on the same thing. They brought back the same voices, but they didn’t bring back any of the old writers, which I thought was kind of strange.

Steve Cuden: That’s the way they do it. They will just eliminate all the old writers and think that they can do it themselves. And they don’t know what it was like to do it back then. You know, it’s a real problem.

Mark Arnold: And then the revivals I always hate are the ones that are like so completely different. It’s like, why didn’t you create something brand new? You know, it’s like characters don’t have the same personalities, they don’t look the same. It’s like, you know, I’m not citing anything in particular, I’m trying to think of one. Well, they’ve done it with like Donald Duck. I’ll use that. You know, it’s like to me, Donald Duck should be fluid animation and he should look like Donald Duck. I know there’s been wonky ones they’ve done over the years where, you know, I think UPA, one of the other studios did some Donald Duck commercials where it looks kind of UPA style and stuff like that. Well, yeah, but a little one off, that’s fine. But you know, to do an entire series, you know, like they did a Looney Tune series somewhere where they gave them huge feet for no reason. And was the show funny? It was okay, you know, but it’s.

Steve Cuden: Like, why was it Looney Tunes or Lunatics Unleashed?

Mark Arnold: Uh, u Lunatics on Leash is another one that they did, but I think it was called Looney Tunes. But they had big feet.

Steve Cuden: And I wrote several episodes of Lunatics Unleashed.

Mark Arnold: Okay, that was a little bit different. And that one took an idea that’s a little bit different. And I’m not saying that because you’re here. It’s. That’s taking an idea in, kind of morphing it into something kind of new. Mhm. That’s a little bit different. What I’m talking about is when you’re doing arguably, what’s established, you know, the same thing and other than the name, they’re really not, you know, uh, and they do this all the time with live action things. Like I love the original Hawaii. I use that example part of it. The charm was Jack Lord was to by the book guy. And uh, you know, he had Dano with him was kind of like a little more loose and you know, he had all his other sidekicks that were a little more loose and doing the crime fighting and everything. But Jack Lord is, you know, I forgot his char about that. Steve McGarrett Steve McGarrett. Thank you. It was like the buy the book sky and, you know, you know, kind of like, uh, Jack Webb on Dragnet. When they did the newer version, they threw all that out the window, and it was just like Baywatch. You know, it was just young kids, uh, they’re kind of doing crime fighting, but they seem like they’re having more fun just running around the beach without their tops off.

Steve Cuden: Are there any properties that you know of that have never been animated or treated as movies that you think should?

Mark Arnold: Well, since I’m a big Harvey Comics fan, I always thought that they should have made attempts to animate characters. They never did like hot stuff. I know they tried to. There’s stories behind that. And, you know, there’s issues with the Bible bel not approving of a devil character or whatever, but there’s a lot of other characters. They never really did animation, like Stumbo the Giant and trying to think, well, for a long time they didn’t do a good version of Richie Rich. They finally did, you know, just things like that.

Steve Cuden: Obviously, Casper got a great big motion picture. Yeah, I. I think several, in fact.

Mark Arnold: Yeah, they did about three or four. Only one was in the theaters with a lot were direct to video. So, yeah, they did a bunch of stuff like that. They’re of varying quality. You know, I’m not totally adverse to remakes and, you know, but try to stick to the source material unless you can improve on it. Actually, Casper is an interesting thing because Harvey, uh, comics actually did improve on it because originally, uh, it’s the famous Paramount cartoons where they just go, it’s a good ghost. And there wasn’t much to it. So Harvey Comics, in that case, actually did improve on it. So if you can actually improve on it and write, uh, stories in the Enchanted Forest that actually have some action and adventure and humor, well, then, okay, you know.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think everybody that starts out to make those kinds of things thinks they’re improving on it. They frequently don’t get there, but that they’re not trying to make it worse. They’re trying to make it so that people will go, look at us, you know, we’re even better. But at last, I say that doesn’t always work out well. I’ve been having a, uh, really fun, fascinating conversation for an hour now with Mark Arnold, the author and historian of pop culture, all things pop culture, really. And we’re going to wind the show down a bit. And you’ve clearly been around a while and you’ve Met a lot of people, and you’ve dealt with a lot of things in the business. And I’m just wondering, in all of your experiences, do you have a personal and oddball, weird, quirky, offbeat, or just plain funny are there any. that you can share?

Mark Arnold: With this as far as pop culture goes? Um. Um, I like interviewing people. And, you know, originally I was a little bit shy, and it was hard to get into it, you know, over the years. But, uh, eventually I overcame that, and I pretty much can talk to anybody. It doesn’t matter who it is. But the only time I really got starstruck, and it still makes me laugh because it’s just how it happened. I was doing an interview for the Total Television book and interviewing this voice artist named Bradley Bulky, who did the voice of Chumley the Walrus, uh, on Tennessee Tuxedo. And I don’t know my impressions of famous people, as it were. Uh, they always have secretaries or somebody answering their phone for them, or you get a voicemail or something. And, you know, so I called him up because I was going to ask him to do an interview or was time to do the interview or something. Uh, I might have emailed him. He said, sure, call me this Saturday or whatever, you know, but I didn’t hear am. I just did an email. And so I called him on the Saturday or whatever, and he answers the phone himself. He goes, hello. You know, and he sounds just like Chum the Walrus. So I’m like. And he goes, hello. Hello. And I finally got my sense of. Hi. Hi. Is this, uh, Bradley Bulky? Um, this is Mark Arnold. I’m here to interview you for my total, uh, television book. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you. Well, whatever. And, uh, it’s. It’s on an audio cassette. You can hear it. You know, obviously, I didn’t transcribe all that into the book, but the only thing I can figure out is it struck a nerve that, you know, Tennessee Tuxedo and those underdog cartoons and stuff were things I watched way back. You know, I’m talking about Sesame street, but in the early comic books, but those TV cartoons were already on. They were on every day of the week. And so just to hear somebody on the other end of your phone line doing one of those voices brought me back to being, like, three years old. You know, I’ve met, you know, celebrities all over the place. You know, can. I can name different ones? Alice Cooper, Huey Lewis. They give, uh, music ones right now. Jack Lemon, the actor, you know, just different people. And it’s like, hi, how are you doing? O was, you know, great, you know, and then you just start chitchatting. It’s no big deal. But it was just that one time. I’m like.

Steve Cuden: Imagine if it had been Don Adams.

Mark Arnold: It would have been worse. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, I guess Don Adams had passed away by the time I did that book. So, you know, I didn’t get to talk to him. I really wish I had, but.

Steve Cuden: Very good. So, last question for you today, Mark. You’ve given us a certain amount of pretty good advice along the way here, but I’m wondering if you, you have a single solid piece of advice did you like to give to people who are starting out in the business of being a, uh, historian or an author or whatever, or maybe they’re in just a little bit and trying to get to the next level?

Mark Arnold: I always tell people, because I figured it out for myself, if you want to be a writer, make sure you like to write. It sounds like a silly thing, but if you don’t like what you do, why are you doing it? And if you’re doing it solely just for money, forget it. You know, you’ll never enjoy it and, you know, do something else. Play the stock market, I don’t know, invest in old comics, I don’t know. Uh, but if you do like to write and you have that big novel or that big piece of nonfiction or that history that you think should be out there, and, uh, nobody’s published it yet, well, people always saying, oh, I need to get an agent, I need to do this. And like, no, the first thing you need to do is write the damn book. So if you have this great idea, fiction or nonfiction, just start writing it. I mean, all that other stuff will come along in time. You know, it’s like if you have a 500 page novel and you go to talk to agents, that’s better than if you have an idea in your head of a possible novel you may write someday. Because at least if you have something done, they can look at you. The only other piece of advice I always tell people is like, if somebody won’t publish you or listen to you or whatever. And a lot of people do this nowadays, thanks to, uh, YouTube, TikTok, whatever. If nobody will publish you, publish yourself. Eventually you’ll get noticed. Because if you do it long enough and, you know, are sincere with it and everything like that, you’ll eventually get noticed.

Steve Cuden: Well, that is extremely wise advice because today it’s a whole lot easier with Amazon and so on to actually self publish or a far more books self published today than ever before and their print on demand as opposed to large print runs that you have to then figure out what to do with massive numbers of books now you just it’s all print on demand. That is uh very wise advices that you know take care of it yourself. There’s a ah, there’s no substitute I think for doing things on your own when you can. Obviously sometimes you need much bigger entities especially on a TV show or a great big publication, uh, like a big magazine run or something like that that requires bigger infrastructure. Mark Arnold, this has been a lot of fun for me and I can’t thank you enough for your time, your great energy and all your wisdom today. And I thank you for spending time with me.

Mark Arnold: Thank you very much, Steve. Pleasure.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Tune in, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.