Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Tribute Thread!

[Hepcat]

A close examination of the ads for other kits on the sides of the Revell "Big Daddy" Roth kit boxes reveals that unlike Hawk which released the Weird-Oh kits in groups, Revell released the "Big Daddy" Roth kits individually. Here is the order in which they were released:

Custom Hot Rods

1962

H-1282:198 Outlaw

1963

H1286:198 Tweedy Pie
H-1279:200 Beatnik Bandit
H-1277:200 Mysterion
H1274:200 Road Agent

1965

H-1240:200 Surfite

Finks

1963

H-1301-100 Mr. Gasser
H-1302:100 Mother's Worry
H-1303:100 Drag Nut
H-1305:70 Rat Fink

1964

H:1304:100 Brother Rat Fink
H-1306:100 Surfink
H 1307:100 Angel Fink
H-1308:100 Superfink

1965

H-1309:100 Scuz-Fink
H-1310:100 Fink Eliminator
H-1270:200 Outlaw with "Robbin Hood Fink"
H-1271:200 Tweedy Pie with Boss-Fink

Once again the last number indicates the suggested retail price of each kit, e.g. 198 translates to $1.98. Note the inconsistency in the format of the serial numbers from one kit to the next which also serves to indicate that the kits were released one at a time. Nor are the kits consecutively numbered by the apparent order of their release.

Now the final two kits listed, Outlaw with "Robbin Hood Fink" and Tweedy Pie with Boss-Fink, may have been released at the same time. The others though appear to have been released individually.

It's interesting that Revell released no more "Big Daddy" Roth kits after 1965. Part of the reason is that the whole Fink/Weird-Oh phenomenon had run its course. "Big Daddy" Roth's own T-shirt designs had by the late sixties evolved away from finks and more toward featuring a specific make and model of a car.

But custom show car kits remained very popular until the mid-1970's. After all Monogram released a whopping 77 model kits based on show car concepts by Tom Daniel between 1968 and 1975. The other reason that Revell stopped releasing "Big Daddy" Roth kits was that Roth started to do more custom motorcycle designs by the mid-1960's while Revell wanted cars. Moreover he then started to associate with the Hell's Angels. This didn't exactly jive with the kid friendly corporate image Revell was trying to present. A scruffy beatnik who designed wild show cars and even wilder fink T-shirts was fine with Revell; an outlaw biker was not.

Pity. Roth's Orbitron and Druid Princess custom cars would have made for great model kits.

These "Big Daddy" Roth kits were runaway best sellers through 1965. Revell evidently sold a whopping 3.2 million of these kits in 1963 alone because Revell paid Ed Roth $32,000 in 1963 at a royalty rate of $0.01 per kit. Ed Roth should in retrospect have had an agent to negotiate a better deal for him.

[Hepcat]

Ed Newton rendered the line art for Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's Sidewalk Surfer design sometime in the latter part of 1964 with colouring here by Weldonmc:



Perhaps a couple of months later Newton re-pencilled the above design with a Rat Fink-like character upon the same board:



Since skateboards were a mega popular fad with kids at the time, Revell also released this Superfink kit in the latter part of 1964 featuring box art by the indomitable Jack Leynnwood:



So whose artwork inspired whom? Or did both fellows work completely independently using "Big Daddy" Roth's airbrushed design?

[Hepcat]

Ed Newton was then hired by Roth in 1964 both to design show cars and to create magazine ads for Roth's T-shirt line. The first ad designed by Newt was for the August 1964 issue #6 of Drag Cartoons.

But Newt quickly leaned on Roth to be allowed to turn Roth's airbrushed concepts into finished line art for T-shirts. The ads designed by Newt soon began to showcase his own T-shirt renderings.

I've been corresponding with Ed Newton to get his recollections and nail down sundry facts about his tenure at Roth Studios.

Ed Newton("Newt") tells me that Killer Plymouth was the first Roth T-shirt design which he pencilled:



I'm guessing Killer Corvair came shortly thereafter:



Colouring of the above two designs courtesy of Weldonmc. Both designs appeared in this Newt ad from the September 1964 issue of Car Craft:

[Hepcat]

I can't find any Roth design that I would consider a precursor to the curiously named Scuz-Fink which Revell released in 1965 for which Jack Leynnwood once again rendered the box art:



Revell promoted the kit with a this contest that was advertised on the back cover of many DC comics as well as on the back cover of the April-May 1965 issue of Big Daddy Roth:





Wow! Winning "Big Daddy" Roth's company as a house guest for a week! How cool would that be?

While Spacefink, Astrofink or Cosmofink would have been more natural names, Revell probably received thousands of entries with those names so that no unique contest winner could therefore be selected from those entries. The winning Scuz-Fink name was submitted by a girl in her early teens from New Jersey. I imagine that her parents were less than thrilled at the prospect of having Ed "Big Daddy" Roth as a houseguest for a week but the $250 that came with Ed for his care and feeding left them much more positively disposed.

Nor can I find any Roth design that might have served as a precursor to the Fink-Eliminator kit issued slightly later in 1965:

[Hepcat]

I can't find any precursor T-shirt design for this the second last Revell "Big Daddy" Roth kit for which Jack Leynnwood once again did the box art:



It's also the second hardest to find these days.

Nor does there seem to be any precursor T-shirt design for the last Revell "Big Daddy" Roth kit which also happens to be the very hardest to find these days:



Jack Leynnwood was the box artist of record for the above kit as well. But rumour has it that the Roth kits were far from his favourite commissions because at heart he was an airplane guy.

[Hepcat]

Wes Bennett had at some point in late 1963 or early 1964 tweaked the Mother's Slave design to instead feature a Rat Fink-type character on a motorbike:

The Mother's Slave design was also continued after being completely redrawn for a tougher look by Ed Newton:

[Hepcat]

I'm sad to report that Weldonmc passed away in 2018. I've really missed Weldon's presence here on this board. His posts added incredible life and colour to this thread and others. Here's his obituary thread in the Cemetery:

http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?topic=36474.0

[Hepcat]

This group of decals from 1963 rendered by perhaps Carl Kohler was probably the earliest decal offering from "Big Daddy" Roth:













Rat Fink of course after some colour changes became Roth's most iconic design.

Chicken Shift underwent a redraw by Wes Bennett(?) and continued to be offered for at least a couple more years:



Bad News and Born Mean also continued to be offered after redraws well into 1964:





The Pray for Surf character may have inspired Revell's Surf Fink kit but didn't last much into 1964. Speed Addict's tenure as a Roth offering was mercifully short.

[Hepcat]

Here's a picture I lifted off the net of two more of these Revell Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Iron-On Transfers:

Here's another one from the collection of Jim H. Madison:



Jim is not only a big time Roth fan but is an artist in his own right. He offers a wide assortment of fully licensed limited edition prints of both classic Roth designs and wild cool collages of Roth designs such as these:









Here's his Etsy store:

Jim H. Madison - Etsy

[Hepcat]

I won a couple of eBay auctions for Roth German Surfer Helmets made by Roth artist Mark Harmon.

This is the classic version (red, yellow, and white, on a black helmet):



Here's a pic of Mark Harmon with Ilene Roth's son Cody who's wearing one of the helmets:



These are new items and are authorized by the Roth estate (Roth's widow Ilene), so they bear the Roth copyright.... I usually prefer vintage collectibles but these are infused with that '60s Ed "Big Daddy" Roth vibe and they really resonate with me. Mark has created a striking tribute to Big Daddy's memory and the '60s Fink/Hot Rod/Surfer aesthetic. They scream '60s Monster Kid Fink Army for me.

Mark Harman's rad cool art is available here on his Instagram site:

markart1 - Instagram

[Hepcat]

These "Big Daddy" Roth kits were runaway best sellers through 1965. Revell evidently sold a whopping 3.2 million of these kits in 1963 alone because Revell paid Ed Roth $32,000 in 1963 at a royalty rate of $0.01 per kit. Ed Roth should in retrospect have had an agent to negotiate a better deal for him.

I found that particular factoid on www.MrGasser.com:

During 1963 Revell paid Ed a one cent royalty for each model sold. Ed brought in $32,000 that year in royalties.

But Lone Wolf, a poster on another board, made the following statement two days ago:

Interesting note, I did meet Roth (at a Staten Island model show in the late 1970's) and we talked a while about the value of his old kits.

He said Revell gave him three cents a kit royalty on every kit they produced and he received a total of about $100,000

A royalty of three cents for each kit sold is more in line with what I would have expected.

[Hepcat]

This Wild Child design rendered in pen and ink by the legendary Ed "Newt" Newton in 1964 was a particularly successful "Big Daddy" Roth T-shirt design. Here it is with masterful colouring by Weldonmc:



I was delighted to see it being worn back in 1981 in the Neighbors flick:

Neighbors Trailer

But "Big Daddy" Roth had a slight redraw done to the design in 1990 to replace the dripping hatchet with an ice cream cone and eliminate the brass knuckles and straight razor because he didn't think these elements were consistent with the wild but harmless image he sought to convey. Here it is with colouring once again by Weldonmc:



Was this perhaps "cancel culture" before the term was coined? Well maybe, but I like the redraw! If there's one thing that "Big Daddy" Roth represents to me it's outright over-the-top zaniness. And I think an ice cream cone in the hands of Wild Child conveys sheer zaniness better than does a hatchet.

Another slight redraw of the design also included a retitling:

[Hepcat]

T-shirt concepts were in fact renamed fairly often. This was the Bad News T-shirt design sold in 1964:



The Pure Hell design appeared in the Roth catalog released in the latter part of 1964:



But by the time the next Roth catalog was released in mid-1965, the above design was rebranded Bad News. Here it is with colouring by Weldonmc:

[Hepcat]

This Chevy's Worry design was advertised in the February 1965 issue of Drag Cartoons which meant that the ad copy had to be done well prior to year end 1964:



The title was very quickly changed to 100% Ford since the previous title didn't make the wearer's loyalties clear. Here's it is with colouring courtesy of Weldonmc:

[Hepcat]

Grave Digger was a Roth design turned into finished line art for T-shirt by Wes Bennett in 1964:



By the time the 1964 Roth catalogue was issued very late in the year, the design had been renamed Cherry Picker with a very modest redraw beside the spade. Here it is coloured in by Weldonmc: