MGM: The Adventures of Mr. Crippen

No drawings in this post, only writing. Hence, if you are the type who would rather not visualize images of what might have been, look away and all is forgiven.

My recent intentions have been to move away from my dad's MGM years, yet I continue to be compelled to spin freefall down the rabbit hole. Here's my latest semi-obsession: The Adventures of Mr. Crippen.

First of all, what about that title!? Most of you will undoubtedly glom onto the surname Crippen, for although it neither common or uncommon, there can be only one Crippen known to my dad, and that would be the animation industry's inimitable Fred. For the uninitiated, I'll provide a link to his imbd listing, but that hardly provides any real detail of the man's career. Why my dad chose the name, I don't know; but who cares? Perhaps a little inside joke.

In this character overview, my dad cuts a very broad path of Mr. Crippen's preternatural abilities. All but the title page are xeroxed, so I assume this got passed around the MGM offices.

Below is a story based on the above. What strikes me about this is that the idea does not seem to be conceived as a typical MGM half-hour one-shot, but rather as an episodic show. Can you imagine MGM doing a Saturday morning cartoon show at the dawn of the 1970s? What if my previous post, M. Flamingo was intended as such as well? And with the talent at the studio at that time, those of us young enough to remember might have had something substantial to bite on as an alternative to Filmation (which Anonymous commented upon in the previous post.) I can't say that if this were the case there would never have been a Filmation, but my dad might have been spared from writing "Sieze them!" a half-dozen times per episode.