Another Theater Tale

    The majestic Fox Theater in San Francisco, and the one upcoming attraction whose display I never forgot! Amazingly, someone coincidentally took and preserved a record of that particular ad art that mesmerized me as a child of seven!  The year was 1961.

    Based on the information I was able to glean from the various online forums and sites dedicated to San Francisco history, 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' was one of three summer films my family and I caught at the Fox that season.

     The attention grabbing artwork was already up ond the side of the movie palace by the time we all went to see 'The Parent Trap' playing a couple of weeks prior, but the moment my family stepped off the trolley, or walked the few blocks from Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, and I first laid eyes from across Market on the U.S.O.S* Seaview [Holy cow! Sixty five years later, and I just now caught the pun!!] there was no way this kid was was gonna let his parents refuse to take them, er, me to see the flick! Just look at that menacing squid! 

    Besides, my twin sister Georgene and I would turn seven just ten days before the opening. What a perfect birthday treat! I'm sure my sister was just as excited. However, of our two older sisters Yvette and Angie, Yvette the eldest was the who talked to me the most about looking forward to the movie.

     Boy oh boy, what a film it was! Although, the only downside was my having to "go" in the middle of the feature. My daddy wasn't too happy about that, as he walked me to the restrooms in that palatial theater. I well remember even on the way and back, trying to catch glimpses of the onscreen action through the various aisle entry doors we passed! Luckily, in those days, you could just wait to see the film play again and leave "where you came in" or in this case leave after watching the scene you missed the first time, although it did mean watching the second , now totally forgotten feature ('Sniper's Ridge') as well.

 

The Fox Theater (June 23-29, 1961) Courtesy of OpenSFHistory.org
Slide image color-balanced, touched-up, and cropped by me.

 Kudos to OpenSFHistory.org, the San Francisco Public Library, NewBank Inc., the San Francisco Chronicle (1865 - 2017) digital archive, and Blogger's San Francisco Theatres.

 

 

The following background information was copied directly from my image file. The raw text merely awaiting to be edited into this post:

From OpenSFHistory.org: The Fox Theater, June 1961 (sometime between the 23rd and 30th of the month when 'Snow White and the Three Stooges' was on the bill.

I forgot to save this touch-up (TU) image file to my laptop and Google Photos when I initially posted it to social media. 

Fortunately I able to retrieve the post and securely download the JPG to my device and Google storage.

Curiously, the reason I went searching to find the picture on my laptop was because my re-cropped and cleaned-up copy of the tarnished and scuzzy, original Open Sf History.org image, was in turn used by someone else.

Fair enough.

My version of the picture now sits on a Blogger site lovingly dedicated to all the San Francisco theaters that ever were, entitled 'San Francisco Theaters'.

Fox lineup from June 30 to August 31, 1961, and those films (✔) I saw at the theater.

✔ 'The Parent Trap'
June 30 to July 20, 1961

Walt Disney's 'Nikki: Wild Dog of the North'
July 21 to August 1, 1961

✔ 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
August 2 to August 15,1961

Jules Verne's 'Master of the World'
August 16 to August 24, 1961

✔ 'Alakazam, the Great!'
August 25 to August 31, 1961 

'Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics'

Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club
Manuel Antares Richard Sanchez

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 9:58PM PST, posted the following to the Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club Facebook group. It drew some flak for my imprecision.

Here's what I originally wrote: 

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

 

 

I did my best to correct myself eventually editing the final form of the post to read:

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame.

 

If I had my druthers, I would have struck through the preposition "behind" (something this text file nor Facebook can do) and left it in place, writing the post thusly [color highlights mine]:  

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame. 

 

Having to delete and replace "behind" altogether makes it seem as if the substitution "within" was always the way the original post read, and that the readers were somehow at fault for the initial confusion. They weren't, That error was mine.

    I did leave a concluding comment. It seemed germane.

    Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics. My bad.

     Though in no way meant as an attack, this parting "thought" might nevertheless draw fire from those utterly contemptuous of anyone feigning any semblance of wit, however minuscule that wit may be, let alone attempting it.

    Oddly, a new memory just came back to me from the early to mid 1960's. My elementary school teacher once observing: "Oh Richard, you're always making mountains out of molehills!"

    ;-)

     Finally, another nod to MAD Magazine and its March 1966 take-down of the Sea Pew to periscope depth! 'Voyage to See What's on the Bottom!'

Mad No. 101, March '66, Page 13. Art by |||ort Drucker 

 *(United States Oceanographic Survey)

 

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MAD Magazine Memories My Murky Mind Mustily Maintains

Today February 15, 2026 is my cousin Sammy's 84th Birthday

It's also my neighbor Darnell Moore's Birthday as well! 

Not that either event has anything directly to do with this post, save that... 

    Today is also the day I happened on TVintage.com where they have all 550 issues of MAD Magazine (minus the specials) digitally stored.

The third, Harvey Kurtzman logo design (1956-1964) I liked best.

     Growing up in the 1960’s, I simply loved MAD Magazine. A young budding artist myself, many a delightful hour were times spent pouring over the works and humor of MAD’s accomplished staff of illustrators: Sergio Aragonés, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker (my personal favorite), Al Jaffee, Don Martin, Antonio Prohías, Jack Rickard, Basil Wolverton, Wallace Wood to name a few. To this day I owe my quirky illustrative sense of the ironic to this publication.

     However, MAD didn't come life into my right away, and it took until my older sister brought an issue home from high school before I saw my first copy. When exactly that was, I began to wonder, as I downloaded this new discovered digital treasure trove. Was I eight? Or 9? Hmm.

    However was a way to help determine the date.

    My earliest recollection, you see, involved three distinct images. Two came from within the pages of the magazine, and the other was a cover. Find them, and I’ll have pinpointed the year I discovered MAD. Therefore, starting with the oldest memory, I'll tackle the one panel first, then the cover, and lastly the second panel.

    The first panel I recall was a parody of Captain Kittinger's historic skydive in 1960. Having, in my childhood, already seen the iconic photograph of Kittinger leaping from the gondola, I was then well enough familiar with it to instantly recognize its reproduction in MAD.

    I located the Kittinger recreation: From MAD Magazine, March 1961, Volume I, Issue 61, page 46:

The earliest MAD Magazine panel (highlighted) I can confidently remember.

    So I was at the very youngest, just over six and a half years old when I spied my first MAD, Mad itself was nine years old!

Below is the 1960, Kittinger freefall jump, fresh in the news, that MAD was parodying in the above panel. I have also provided some background information on the skydive courtesy of Wikipedia.

Captain Joseph Kittinger's August 16, 1960 freefall jump from Excelsior III (102,800 feet)

 

Wikipedia: "Excelsior III: On August 16, 1960, [Captain Joseph] Kittinger made the final high-altitude jump at 102,800 feet* (31,300 m). Towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 614 miles per hour (988 km/h) before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet."

*Like the MAD article said, 19 miles or 19.469697 miles to be precise.

 

 

        The second image, a cover illustration, was that of Greek-style, public edifice with Alfred E. Newman not holding up his share of the capital. This should be easy enough to find.

    Voila! Mad Magazine September 1961, Volume I, Issue 65! 

This is earliest MAD Magazine cover I can actually recall.

 

 Quid Me Anxius Sum?

What? Me worry?

Literal translation: What am I worried about?

Another Latin way to write the phrase: Quid? Sollicite me?

 

      The third image involved a panel depicting an outer space creature entering the airlock or view portal of a rocketship much to the alarm of the pilot. As a child learning to read, here too, is where the first MAD Magazine word I ever learned, having read it by my very self was 'Lummox", which at the time, I assumed was the name of the creature. It wasn't. 

     Nevertheless, here is that very panel!

    From Mad Magazine, April 1961, Volume I, Issue 62, Page 15: The art, would you believe it, is by none other than Wally Wood (Woody) himself!

The second panel and the very first MAD word (highlighted) I read on my own: Lummox!
Art by Wallace Wood

 

  Respectively, these are the covers for Issue 61 and Issue 62, but which failed to make an impression.

The issue containing the first panel of which I spoke,
but whose cover did not enter my memory.

 

The MAD issue featuring the "Lummox" panel.

 

    One thing I have to point out, in reviewing the 1961 issues, is that I recognize an earlier image from the January 1961 copy of MAD Magazine. It's Charlie Brown and Lucy as drawn by someone other than Charles Schulz. Is this recognition because my sister had that issue, and I merely forgot the illustration, only to remember on sight upon seeing it after all these years? Or is it because the fake ad from a later reprinting which MAD Magazine Special Editions were apt to do (normally featuring a loose collection of artwork and articles from its prior publications)?

    Here is the said drawing from the inside front cover of MAD Magazine, January 1961, Volume I, Issue 60.

Possibly the earliest MAD parody artwork I recognize today, 
though most likely it's from a MAD special reprint.

     The famous half right side up, half upside down, MAD Magazine, January 1961, Volume I, Issue 60

 

The double-sided, "upside-down" issue
featuring the above Peanuts parody. 

 

Five Years

From my Facebook feed for today:

On this February morning, the fifth anniversary of my sister’s passing, I just wanted to again remember her.
This studio portrait was from her high school days and senior year at Polytechnic in San Francisco.
The summer of love.
With love,
Richard
Pictured: Angelica Ingrid Alma Staley.

Angelica Ingrid Alma Staley nee Sanchez (1967)

This second image below dates to when, I don’t know. Steve Staley, her future husband, is the photographer however. During their courtship and throughout their marriage, he and my sister would often go on random photo outings to wherever - the location too, escapes me. Steve, a camera buff, loved photographing Angie every chance he could. I wonder if they were still just dating or already newlyweds, when this picture was snapped.

Angie, in the role of a photo subject, posing for Steve, someplace somewhere.

Text

The Roosevelt

[NOTE: Due to the news of the untimely passing of one of my favorite comediennes, Catherine O'Hara, four days after I posted this fourth post for the month of January (2026-01-26) I have moved this minor entry to the top of February instead.]




From a 2026-01-26 reply to post from my ‘San Francisco Remembered' Facebook group.

i

My very first memory, or possibly my second,* was there.

It was the Roosevelt then, and I recalled watching a clip from George Melies' 'A Trip to the Moon' followed a little later by Cantinflas' Passeportout. He was madly scrambling to catch a hot air balloon just in the nick of time. 

Both scenes were from the Michael Todd 1956 extravaganza, 'Around the World in Eighty Days'. 

I was two.

;-)

*The other memory competing for first place is the time an old, unused stove fell over and swallowed me whole!

This overview of the theater’s history by Tom Mayer is from Cinema Treasures:

This Mission district neighborhood theatre opened as the Roosevelt Theatre on September 22, 1926 with Norma Talmadge in “Kiki”. It had 1,006-seats and was designed by the architrectural furm Reid Brothers. In 1946 it was remodeled to the plans of architect Otto A. Deichmann. It retained the Roosevelt name until at least 1957. By 1971 it had been renamed Teatro York screening Spanish language movies. In later years the theatre was known as the York Theatre which was programed as a repertory movie theatre in the 1980’s.

The York Theatre closed as a movie house in 1993.

In the fall of 2001, the theatre was restored and reopened as Brava Women’s Theater Arts.

The theatre has retained its screen for movies but is now primarily a performing arts center.

Contributed by Tom Mayer

1951 look at the theatre from the San Francisco Assessor's Office

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