When The Justice League Essentially Added Ed 'Kookie' Byrnes to the Team

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Jan 11, 2020

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover how the Justice League was forced to 'add' Edd 'Kookie' Byrnes to the team.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the seven hundred and sixty-fourth installment where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

A DC executive forced Julius Schwartz to add, in effect, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes to the newly formed Justice League.

STATUS:

True

Edward (Edd) "Kookie" Byrnes passed away this week. Byrnes became a surprising star in the late 1950s. Byrnes appeared as a young killer in the pilot episode/TV film of 77 Sunset Strip, but hilariously, fans loved him so much that the studio decide to make him a hero (check out this TV Legends Revealed to see the hilarious way that they addressed it in the show's second episode/first regular episode).

He became a regular cast member on the hit show, as Kookie, the valet of the club next door to the private detectives whose office was at 77 Sunset Strip (he would help the detectives on their cases and eventually became a junior member of the firm)...

He became such a sensation that he even had a hit single with Connie Stevens called "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb," a reference to Byrne's character, Kookie, and his constant combing of his hair...

Neither Stevens nor Byrnes really SING in the song, which is hilarious. Anyhow, it was still a hit.

While best known for his hair-combing, Kookie also would snap his fingers often, which played into the original theme song of 77 Sunset Strip, which involved a bunch of finger-snapping in it...

In 1959, Warner Bros. released Yellowstone Kelly, which, in a clever marketing bit, they decided to have it star actors from all of their various TV shows, so Byrnes was the secondary lead...

This all takes us to 1960's Brave and the Bold #28, the introduction of the Justice League of America.

By the late 1950s, Whitney Ellsworth, once the most dominant editor at DC Comics, was almost completely disconnected from the comic side of the company. He was the guy in charge of the Adventures of Superman TV show and moved to California to run the show and by 1960, he was heavily involved in Hollywood and would only very occasionally fly back to New York to talk about the comic side of things.

However, one of the few major things he did in that late period was to tell Julius Schwartz, who was prepping a revamped version of the Justice Society of America called the Justice League of America (by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky), according to Schwartz in a great trio of interviews by Will Murray in TwoMorrows' Alter Ego #38...

Schwartz: He wanted to have a 'hip' character in there. And there was a television program which name I can't remember -

Murray: 77 Sunset Strip

Schwartz: Right, with a guy who snapped his fingers. And Whit Ellsworth said, "His name is Snapper Carr." And I put him in the League."

So, in Brave and the Bold #28, when Starro is taking over people's minds, one teenager, who clearly DOES look like Edd Byrnes, is immune...

Flash takes Snapper with him to figure out why Snapper was immune...

They realize it was the calcium oxide (lime) that Snapper was using on the lawn. So they use that to defeat Starro and make Snapper a member of the team...