Marvel’s Stan Lee on British TV and radio in the 1970s

[markdixon]

I’ve been a fan of Marvel Comics for a long time, but it’s only very recently that I found out that the archives of Stan Lee (writer, co-creator of Spider-Man and the Hulk etc.) are held at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. The collection contains a vast amount of video and audio tapes dating from the 1960s onwards. As you’d expect, most of these are of American origin, but I know there is at least one example of missing British TV in the archive. The university has a video tape of Stan Lee’s appearance at the Roundhouse, London, on 20 October 1975, which was filmed by the pay TV channel Greenwich Cablevision. Apparently, the British author Rob Kirby was trying to get this tape digitised in 2013, but I don’t know if he succeeded.

Strangely, there’s also video footage from the Bath Pop Festival 1970 in the collection.

I’ve had a look at the inventory of the archive and there are some boxes containing “miscellaneous” video and audio material from the 1970s. Could there be more missing British material in there?  

I’ve made a list of some of Stan Lee’s appearances on British TV and radio during the 1970s. It’s possible that he kept copies of excerpts (or even complete editions) of some of these programmes:

??/10/1974: BBC-1’s “Pebble Mill at One” (interviewer was Bob Langley)

??/10/1974: LBC’s “Sounds New” arts programme (host was Tony Palmer)

04/03/1975: Thames TV’s “Magpie” (interviewer was Mick Robertson)

??/10/1975: BBC Radio 4’s “PM Reports” (presenter was Gordon Clough)

??/10/1975: BBC Radio 1’s “Newsbeat” (reporter was John Walmsley)

??/10/1975: Marc Bolan interviewed Stan Lee on Thames TV’s “Today” programme (audio exists on Soundcloud)

??/10/1975: BBC-1’s “Nationwide” (interviewer was Bob Wellings)

??/10/1975: Janet Street-Porter interviewed Stan Lee on LWT’s “The London Weekend Show” (I think this exists in the ITV archives)

??/10/1975: Capital Radio’s “Hullabaloo” programme (presenters were David Briggs and Maggie Norden)

??/10/1975: BBC Radio Birmingham (interviewer was Bob Langley)

23/10/1975: Interview on Piccadilly Radio, Manchester

23/10/1975: Tony Wilson interviewed Stan Lee on the “What’s On” segment of “Granada Reports” (Clive James appeared dressed as Spider-Man)

??/10/1976: Appearance on STV’s “Scotland Today” news programme

03/03/1979: Appearance on BBC-1’s “The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop”

??/03/1979: Another appearance on “Pebble Mill at One”?


Any additional information or corrections are welcome.


   

[John Green]

It's a good point,Mark. Stan had,and has, close connections to the UK.

[John Smith]

Any further info on the Bath Festival footage?

[markdixon]

The archive inventory doesn’t go into much detail about the Bath Pop Festival footage. The following description is the only information I have:

Bath Pop Festival with Lindsey Clennell - rock concert in London (reel-to-reel), circa 1970

I know that Lindsey Clennell is a film director and producer. The filmography on his website includes a documentary called “Bath Rock Festival” completed in 1971. I don’t know if the reel-to-reel film footage in the Stan Lee Archives differs from Bath Pop Festival footage available elsewhere.

[John Smith]

Oct 31, 2017 21:30:54 GMT markdixon said:

The archive inventory doesn’t go into much detail about the Bath Pop Festival footage. The following description is the only information I have:

Bath Pop Festival with Lindsey Clennell - rock concert in London (reel-to-reel), circa 1970

I know that Lindsey Clennell is a film director and producer. The filmography on his website includes a documentary called “Bath Rock Festival” completed in 1971. I don’t know if the reel-to-reel film footage in the Stan Lee Archives differs from Bath Pop Festival footage available elsewhere.

Possibly NTSC Sony Portapak footage as hinted to here:

www.ukrockfestivals.com/bathvideo.html

Does anyone know anything about this:

In addition, the low quality video feed footage that came onto the market about five years ago had footage of Hot Tuna , Jefferson Airplane, Zappa, Fairport, The Byrds, Santana, Country Joe, Dr John ,It's a Beautiful Day and Pink Floyd . Its sad to think that this footage exists , in barely viewable condition , but viewable nevertheless. The most likely possibiltiy is that its never going to be released commercially as disputes about copyright will tie up any footage for the forseeable future even if the material is made available for editing and transfer . Also , the longer the footage is kept the harder it will be to transfer it and to preserve its quality .

First i've heard of that

[Gary Mooney]

Thanks for posting Mark. Big Marvel fan myself and would love to see some of those appearances again.I remember watching the 1975 Magpie one, and audio taping it on my old cassette recorder.I might still have that somewhere. Stan's wife was English and he kept in touch with the family over here. Quite possible that a family member recorded them.