Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.
Doris Day passed away on Monday at the age of 97. Her remarkably long life left her as one of the last leading ladies of a bygone era. Naturally, for someone who had such a major impact on the world of popular culture, Doris Day was referenced a lot in comic books over the years, including, amazingly enough, in a spotlight BEFORE she was famous!
When Bob Hope's comic book series launched in late 1949, DC clearly wasn't totally sure what to do with the comic book format. So there was a section in there that was just a biography of a then-popular actress, Rhonda Fleming (Fleming is still alive, by the way. 95 years old) and then, later in the comic, there was a spotlight on Doris Day, who was then a singer on Bob Hope's radio show...
Even by this point, Day was a very popular recording artist, but she had not yet hit it big in pictures.
One of her first big hits was the 1955 film, Love Me or Leave Me, opposite Jimmy Cagney. In the second issue of Mad to be in the magazine format, Day made her Mad debut in a bit making fun of a specific line of dialogue from a 64-year-old movie....
Day plays a "dime a dance" girl who meets a guy who owns a laundry and runs a protection racket and he gets her into the night club singing scene. Someone tries to pay off Cagney's character, hence the line, "Why can't I pay you off once and for all?"
By the early 1960s, Day was one of the biggest box office draws in the world. Therefore, she was easy prey to be part of a gag in the delightfully bizarre Herbie comic. In 1964's Herbie #3 (by Richard Hughes and Ogden Whitney), Herbie's father raised a bunch of money for charity but was then robbed, so Herbie is going out of his way to raise money to save his dad's bacon. Herbie even asks Cary Grant and Doris Day!
A sign that Day was huge at the time was present in 1964's Mad Magazine #88, where she shows up in TWO Larry Siegel/Mort Drucker gags!
First, in their parody of the film, Charade (done as Charades), she is secretly disguised as Cary Grant in the film!
Later, in a parody of the Gene Barry detective series, Burke's Law (done as Buck's Law), about a womanizing detective who had multiple celebrity cameos in every episode (as the possible killers), Day appears as one of his many love interests...
Day was parodied a few more times in the 1960s. Her last major appearance was when Stan Hart and Angelo Torres savage the Doris Day Show (a show Day famously produced as well as starred in. However, it was only because her husband signed her up for a five-year contract with CBS without her knowledge)....
Torres drawing her in the sexy outfits and the Superman costume was quite impressive.
Drew Friedman and his brother, Josh Alan Friedman, were famous for their comics about celebrities where the celebrities appeared almost photo-realistic (Friedman spent hours adding the lines to make it look like a photograph) and their stories were these lurid sort of mixes between comedy and drama. Here, from 1984's Weirdo #12, Doris Day appears only as part of the ill-fated love affair of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors...
Finally, in Golden Age #3 (by James Robinson and Paul Smith), Doris Day goes out with the superhero, Dynaman, not knowing that his mind has been switched with...Hitler!
Rest in peace, Doris!
If anyone has a suggestion for a future Knowledge Waits (basically, anything comic book related that you think would be interesting to see me write about), drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com