Whitman TV Books part 4

This will be my last post on this subject for a while - I know, some of you are thanking your lucky stars ;-).  I scanned several more book covers, and here are the results.

Yet another Lassie version.

Wrapping up the western themed books, here's another Bonanza.

And here's Zorro, another popular TV series.

Westerns gave way to both spy shows and science fiction shows.  Some lasted longer than others.  Remember The Invaders?  Neither do I.

Sadly, Star Trek got one of the later sketchy illustrations for a cover.

And Land of the Giants.

Patty Duke had a popular show and she got a cover too.

This one puzzles me.  Janet Lennon was a singer on the Lawrence Welk Show.  Kids only watched the Lawrence Welk Show because their parents made them.  Take it from one who knows all about that. I paid as little attention as possible, and usually I left the room until something else came on.  So why would Whitman think that any kids were interested in a book about a kid singer on that show?

And last for this post, a second more rare Munsters book.  Both Munsters books got great covers.

Whitman TV Books part 3

I've got the day off and since we have snow on the ground, the chain saw is getting its blades sharpened, and I'm feeling lazy, I decided to scan more of the Whitman TV books.  Yes, there are more.  And some more after this, although this batch represents most of what's left to show.

Let's start with a little Mod Squad, still one of the coolest cop show titles ever invented.

Yes, it originally cost all of 69 cents.  

The public's appetite for western shows was incredible in the 1950s and into the 60s.  Annie Oakley was just one of many.

Even Bat Masterson got his own show.

Gene Autry was among the most popular cowboys, along with Roy Rogers.  I have a couple Roy Rogers titles, but they pre date the glossy book covers.  I'll get to those in the next batch.

Before he was Jim Rockford on The Rockford Files, James Garner was Maverick.

Barbara Stanwyck got top billing, but The Big Valley also starred Lee Majors before he was the Six Million Dollar Man.

Lassie got several different book covers, including this one.

I can't say I ever saw Ripcord, but it sure looks like an adventurous show.

Situation comedies got a few book covers too.

I also don't recall ever seeing and episode of The Real McCoys.

I like the art on the Munsters book.

I'm kinda surprised the Monkees didn't get more Whitman TV book titles than this one, but I think these guys showed up in a lot of Scholastic books paperbacks when they were at the height of popularity.  Does anyone else remember the scholastic books you could buy in school?  

Whitman TV Books part 2

Here's another batch of Whitman books from my collection.

The Rifleman was one of my favorite TV westerns.  Old Chuck could really handle that Winchester.

Nick Adams was The Rebel.

Everybody remembers Rin Tin Tin, but poor Rinty never quite carved out much of a career under the big lights.

Hey Beav, that fireman looks kinda spooky...

Circus Boy had at least two Whitman books.

Circus Boy was played on TV by Mickey Braddock.  Look closely at that kid monkeying around on the cover.  Yep, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.

Before there was Jeff Bridges and 'The Dude', there was Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt.

This little buddy is supposed to be one of the more rare Whitman TV books.

Before there was Duckie on NCIS, there was Ilya on the Man From U.N.C.L.E.  Stop swooning girls.

VTTBOTS was another favorite TV show of mine, too bad they didn't use any of the characters on this cover.

Whitman TV Books

I'm in Seattle for a week starting today, but I had a post saved up so you faithful Uncle Atom blog followers won't miss out or go through withdrawal.

Collecting stuff that ties to classic TV shows from the 1950s and 60s and early 70s is a big focus of the things that gathers dust at the Uncle Atom crib.  Here's another example.

I'm still working on a good way to display a vast collection of future dust gatherers, my horde of kids books published by Whitman.  Whitman also published those tiny Big Little Books.  You probably see these books all the time.  I do too.  I used to pick up the best examples a lot, until I think I found nearly all of the TV themed books.

While some later ones had photo art on the cover, the earlier examples had either photo art or an illustration with a glossy plastic coating on the colorful cover.  Most also had a logo on the cover that said something like "Authorized TV Edition." A lot of these you find today have peeling covers.  Over the years I was buying these, I cherry picked the ones that didn't have peeling or loose covers.

The art on some of these is really great.  They kind of remind me of the lunchboxes I also collect - very colorful, graphic drawings or photo illustrations confined to a standard size.  I can't help it, I love em.

I've never actually read one of these. I doubt if I could tolerate the writing for long.  But they capture an era before videos and video games, when you might get three TV channels if you were lucky, and stuff like comic books and board games were all you had.

I plan to make a display shelf that would show the covers of these rather than the spines.  It's on my to do list, but then, that's a long list.  In the meantime, I will scan these little by little and throw them up on the blog.

Does anybody else have these Whitman TV books?  How do you display them?  Am I nuts?