We all know that somehow, in addition to being part of "Real Life™" (whatever that is) in the 30th Century, LICC is also a television show, broadcast over K-NIT TV-47.

Other than the fact that the head honcho is known as "J.B.", and there is an Evil Executive who wants to ruin LICC, almost nothing is known about this mysterious television station.

Who runs it? Where is it located (other than west of the Mississippi)? What other shows are on it? Who are its sponsors (other than Chish&Fips)?

Let's put all our paranoid speculations here!

Back in the 60's a comic company called "Phantom Returns" was founded. It was a weird little comic. However, One comic "the Adventures of Tacoman" took off, and was made into a four year television show. It consisted of Tacoman, Taquito boy and their battles in the City of Port Mike. Another Comic called "Captian Frangellica and the Spidermen", introducing most of the characters. Phantom Returns was brought out by the parent corporation, Dell-Viacom-News. K-NIT is a their Television Division, operating out of St. Louis. They obtained the rights, merged the two stories, and ... made a crappy 1992 Movie. It flopped, but had Jason Priestly, Kristin Swanson, Donald Sutherland, and that Pee Wee guy. They then about 6 years latter, They got the writters toghether, who made a show much better than the film in every possible way. LICC was Great, but they had to cancel it due to production costs.

Don't forget the terrible rift between the founders Rick Strongman and Peter Lard, which temporarily caused "JARSO, Inc." ("Journals Against Rick Strongman's Obtuseness") to split off from "Phantom Returns Comics." The two partners eventually smoothed over their differences and re-merged after JARSO's "Hamburger Pattie in Space" finsihed its brief run.

Um, St. Louis? I don't think so, not with the K prefix. Well, it is on the Miss, so I may be wrong.

Anyway, I say it's an indie station out of Seattle or L.A.

In 2005, Nit TV becomes the fifth major broadcast network, with affiliates in 20 major metropolitan areas.

STL is a K prefix. It's west of the Mississippi. I spent a few years there, and they are a K prefix. K-SHE 95, and KMOX, (erstwhile) home of the (football) Cards.

St. Louis, If I remember correctly, is around where Phil lives, thus a tribute.

I did have the creator of LICC come on once. He stated that he was only doing this for the money.

Phil lives in Springfield, MO.

I was going to insert a simpsons comment here after seeing springfield but i thought better of it...

And then there was the radio show that inspired the original comic book...It was a filler in the "Jack Mightee Radio Adventures"

D'oh!

Well, Adon can exist both inside the LICC universe, and in the K-NIT universe, oddly enough. I suppose if he knew where it was, he could exist in the Real World as well.

A Portal opens next to Jason, and Adon steps out. He looks at the monitor as Jason stares in surprise at meeting his creation face-to-face.

"So this is what the LICC universe looks like from the outside. Kinda... boring to look at, isn't it? Oh well, I had better be getting back before I'm missed."

With that, he steps back through the portal, which closes behind him. Jason blinks a few times and looks closely at the "add a message" window. Everything that happened had somehow typed itself in.

That was unexpected!

K-NIT is a universe/dimension of couch potatoes who watch the goings on in other universes. ;-)

And IIRC one of the other sponsers was Dr. Denton's Adult Diapers.

With the K-prefix thing... here in Kansas City, a lot of the TV stations have a K...
KCTV...KMBC...KCPT...KCWE...KSHB...KPXE...KSMO...
and well, all of the other non-cable stations, except for WDAF... of course, they were the first TV station on the air...

Hey, how bout a K-NIT website? I think we could have some real fun making up shows.

I believe TV47.org s available...

Then we could have K-NIT.TV47.org

I suspect knit-tv47.* is also available.

You know, Brian, if we get a K-NIT website, maybe we could convince Kira to move the LICC archives there!

Incidentally, licc.net is still available. The .org and .com variants are taken.

Anyone who wants to pay for a spiffy new domain name out of their own pocket and move the Archives there is welcome to do so. I request that the current administrators retain admin privledges and that major changes in layout or format be run by us. Any new administrator should be wanred that the fans will expect them to upload all 52 adventures of LICC2, which time contraints have prevented us from doing.

I could help you with the Archive site Kira. It never took me long to upload the Archangel chapters, and in those cases I would edit spelling and grammar errors, and replace red dots with the intended swear word. With LICC I would stick to your rules and not edit at all, thus getting them up that much faster. Doing the links though, I leave to the masters.

During the mid 80's, a new age of PR comics started when "Pattie: The Dark Hamburger Returns" Was released, detailing the adventures of an older, less attractive Pattie, who could no longer do cartwheels. It marked Donna's first appearance, as Pattie's long lost daughter. This is why Donna has such a convoluted back story, they wanted her in the regular comics.

Before the Crisis on infinite boards, the full PR line was Tacoman, Tacodude, Tacoboy, Lance, Tacogirl, Tacodog, Pattie, The Amazing Hamburger Pattie, The Uncanny Hamburger Pattie, Adon, Adon: Year one, Nighttaco, Tacomen of the world, Tacoman: Classic, Adon: Psycho depressed version, Adon: Happy joyful version, LICC, LICC 2, LICC vs. Lucasfilm et al., Adon destroys stuff, World without art, Reign of the Tacomen, Furby, Furby and friends, Furby Rock, Furby vs. Shelly, Anotherworld, Jallad dude, Jallad Pizza man, The Wrath of Shirkaron, Quque who?, Supertacofriends, Commander Milkshake: Ready to blow stuff up, and the Charming Generation LICC. Also published was the Magna, Showme Drop, which published Sailor Moon, Endyimon, Gomatt, Mobile suit milkshake, Star Trek GT, and the infamous LICC Kabuki.

That was "Jadlad Dude" and "Jadlad Pizza Man" (I should know Matt). And don't forget the 1972 Chicago Convention giveaway that introduced Jadlad's sister Alison during the "Women's lib movement" of the early 70s "Alison Hu'tt: Stagehand and Heroine" which is going for $47.00 and its sequel that came out in 1993 called "Alison Hu'tt: No Need for Jadlad" of which only 1200 copies were printed and had a holographic foil embossed cover.

Also there was the horrible short lived 1978 TV series "Alison's Starship". It only lasted 4 episodes before being restarted mid-season with the same supporting cast under the name "Jadlad: Hero for Hire", but it only ran an extra 7 episodes.

Didn't Pattie: The Dark Hamburger Returns spark a lawsuit from the original author?

Don't I get a comic??? I'm going to pout now.

She was going to, but the Comics Code Authority thought her spear was too phallic.

She did get a 3 page spread in the Annual Champions Swimsuit comic, though.

It did actually. Bob Kame did sue PM Comics for damage done to Pattie. However, PM Comics retrieved the contract. It took a while, as the blood signatures degraded and had to be restored. They read that "All material submitted to PM Comics becomes our sole property. Aw haw!" They eventually resolved the case out of court, for a undisclosed amount of porn, as well as the title "Excecutive Consultant", for all future television and film projects.

Sorry about Jadlad. Now try to think why no Enesku comics were released.

After LICC's first season, the show was doing great. However the comic "Those who have the legal right to use force" was canceled, due to the fact that Quenzicola and Manshake had a homosexual relationship. They shipped the writer back to LICC. He did okay there, but the show's brevity suffered. He was given his own spin-off Archangel, to take some of his darker characters to, as well as Ahz, a Adon Villain from the 1970's, Jake Tacoman, a ill fated character from the "Tacoclone saga", the Yeagers, a magna family, and the Dimensional police plotlines of the mid 80's, who are considered by many to be the cause of the infinite boards crisis.

The last comic was "Order of Jedi", a British comic where the Jedi Observer, Rikard, Insane, Enseku, and Artsy first appeared.

Chish & Fips, which does commericals on K-NIT, has been around since the late 1980's, but has a dark secret; K-NIT actually owns a 15% stake in the Chish & Fips company, so C&F pays NOTHING whatsoever to advertise on the channel. The restaurant was first started in Sheboygan, Michigan by two brothers who later moved to Florida and sold the company in 1996, after more than 32 restaurants popped up across the country. The first restaurant was destroyed by a fire in 1993, and wasn't rebuilt.

The Chish & Fips company actually switches owners every once in a while, but K-NIT still owns their 15%, no matter what.

The C&F commericals, however, are written by people at the company, not at K-NIT, which explains why they occasionally get the name or rank of a LICC member wrong when they are mentioned in the commercials.

[/i{Actually, I screwed up and put `Captain Adon', I believe, in a commercial by accident and didn't catch it until it was too late, and decided to keep doing things like that as a running gag}]

Chish & Fips also has a spin-off chain called Pucky O'Eh's which is based in Canada, and serves similar food. Its basically C&F with a different name and a red and white color scheme.

I was around since the 1940s, where I was originally created as a patriotic Second World War hero. I belonged to one of the comics companies which later merged with Phantom Returns. Where Ubermensch came from, I have no idea.

Ubermensch was from a German Comic book company founded using Jewish Slave Labor about the glory of the heros of the fatherland. Eventually, the slave labor took it over after the war and made it into a parody of German national mythlogy. It too was brought out by parent company.

The Parent company, Dell-Viacom-News, was founded off the Riches of Phil Farland after the untold success of the Nitpicker's guide to Star Wars, Voyager, Assorted movies, DS9 II, TOS and Nextgen Update, Buffy, X-files II, The Nitpickers philsophy, and the sale of little dolls of Phil, hawaiian shirts, his Cookbook, his Jesus statuettes, and Movie rating system. With his money he bought Dell publishing, and put out three lines of fiction, purchased PR comics, and started his own software company to boot. He wanted the Family Channel, but had to buy all of News corp to get it. Eventually he brought out Viacom when he was sued by it. He restructured his vast holdings, and his fortune quadrupled after the IPO of Nitcentral.com. He retired at 50, and now hosts "The 4700 Club". (Alternate universe people)

Rocket Ranger was the brainchild of comics genius (and vacuum cleaner salesman\self-help guru) Miller Franklin, whose first hit, The Adventures of the Spork Knight, was highly acclaimed by critics back in the 1970's. Rocket Ranger was introduced as the brother of the Spork Knight in issue #4, and was created to cash in on the craze from the sci-fi shows that were on tv at the time. Miller Franklin was also a fan of 1940's movie serials, so he gave Rocket Ranger a cheesy edge.
Unfortunately, the comics company that Miller Franklin eventually folded, and the last issue of Spork Knight was issue #31.

In the late 1990's, Miller Franklin, who had acquired the rights to his characters from the former owners of the old company, brought his heroes back in the legendary mini-series, The Spork Knight Returneth. To keep up with the times, Rocket Ranger, who appeared in the last two issues, was changed into the hero that all the fans of LICC know and love to this day.

Rocket Ranger was also given his own regular series, which folded with issue #47 after Miller Franklin suffered burn-out and refused to let another writer take over. Fortunately, after a three year hiatus, Rocket Ranger reappeared thanks to tons of letters from fans, and Miller Franklin has vowed to produce one four-to-six issue Rocket Ranger mini-series every year.
In fact, it was a write-in campaign by fans that got Rocket Ranger on LICC in the first place!

(K-NIT doesn't have the rights to actually have the Spork Knight appear, but they can mention him, which is why he hasn't been shown; negotiations are currently underway to change the situation.)

Frangelica made her first brief appearance in a 1940's comic book called "The Adventures of the Amazing Eight" written by a depressed writer named Earl Marcus. Marcus, who had recently been turned down by the inappropriately-named Big Name Komiks (BiNKs), published the "Amazing Eight" series out of his own basement, in hopes of the world recognizing his genius, makign him a millionaire, and giving him the wherewithal to run BiNKs into the ground. Unfortunately, the "Amazing Eight" series failed to gather any significant following, and its run ended prematurely in 1947 when Marcus, dressed as his hero "Captain Ghallahame," tried to stop a jaywalker by swinging from a line at the top of the City Courthouse, lost his grip, and broke his neck.

Fortunately, the jaywalker was a connisseur of little-known comics, and realizing the effect of her heinous crime, decided to carry on Marcus' mediocre work. Daria Fontaine's "The Frangelica Flash" was accepted by BiNKs and enjoyed a limited run, introducing such characters as Settergen Snow (who was initially a villain), Sylphana (an underworld informant, later "The Mysterious Sithlike Sylph of the Shadows"), Dark Munaevsky, and the Muffin Men. Fontaine later paired with Rick Strongman to produce the "Urban Defense League" series and the radio shows "Mark and Doug's Morning Show," and "The Inspector Mystery Hour," whose characters sometimes made appearances in the "Flash." Frangelica also received a male counterpart, "Frangelicoh," in 1951. The "UDL," the "Flash," the "Morning Show," and the "Inspector Hour" were all cancelled in 1953 when BiNKs chairman Benny Adams decided to go to law school.

Rick Strongman revived most of his characters when he founded PR, at which point it published "Captain Frangelica and the Spidermen." Frangelica appeared briefly in a cheap animated "Amazing-8" movie that flopped, but other than that, her only on-screen appearances have been as a member of the L.I.C.C.

Did Fluke Piestalker ever appear in The Spork Knight Returneth?

Note to Kira and Others: You don't have to stick with my faux infomation. I won't be crushed, it was spectulation.

Fluke Piestalker? Never heard o' da bum!

Lord of the Hamburgers first appeared in a one-shot giveaway comic produced for Chish & Fips in 1994. Lord of the Hamburgers and the French-Fried Zombies is a much sought-after comic, as only five-thousand copies were ever made. Lord of the Hamburgers was actually created by Isaac `Chish' Baker, one of the two founders of Chish & Fips, and his physical appearance is based on that of Isaac's favorite baseball player, whose name shall remain anonymous.

Onion Ringster and the spaceship Condimental first appeared in the second giveaway comic Chish & Fips produced, Invasion of the Ketchup-Men, a few months later. This comic isn't as prized as the first, as over 40,000 copies were made. Sgt. Milos Fortesky also made a cameo appearance in the book, appearing in three panels near the end.

As for Bigg M.A.K.K. and Blotzus, they didn't arrive on the scene until LICC; they were added to bolster Lord of the Hamburgers' crew. However, they were slated to appear in a third giveaway comic, but the people who bought the Chish & Fips company nixed the idea and the comic was never published.

Lord of the Hamburgers and Jadlad's membership in F.O.O.D. was mentioned only once, in one panel in the first LotH comic, but Hot Chocolate Hottie and the other members of F.O.O.D. have yet to actually appear, other than on a poster hanging on the wall of LotH's Condimental quarters in one panel in the second comic.

(Lord of the Hamburgers' real name and the origin of his powers have never been revealed, by the way)

After only three episodes the LICC spin-off Arhcnagel was dropped, but was later picked up by HBO as replacement for the exiting hit shows The Italian Sterotype Show and Sluts in New York. While not a wild success, arhcnagel pulls in enough viewers that HBO renewed it for two more seasons.

Bizarro World is based on a series of recurring characters who have appeared in the LICC comic. it was spun off into a seperate show, and was aired on the K-NIT Sci FI, where it airs after •••••• Puppet Show in the "Stuff that K-NIT Superstation wouldn't air."

Oh, K-NIT Superstation is the cable edition of K-NIT, where it is boardcast across the country. NITfilms, is the Movie Channel.

Actually the name is just Bob Kam the e was a typo. (The credits in the first issue read Bob Kame, squire.)
As a lawyer I was able to get a special contract from publisher Abe (CC) Wynot about the ownership of the character of Pattie. Besides he owed me for squashing that paternity suit and keeping him from being taken to the cleaners on his third divorce.

The problem was that the new owners didn't know, or care, that it was a different contract. Also they tried to argue that since my contract was with Wynot they weren't bound by it.

We did eventually reach an out-of-court settlement. (Pats pocket containing the negatives)

Hey, what about me?

Yeah, sure, Bob 'created' Pattie. Pattie was to originally appear in the JARSO line of Romance Comics, only then she was called Suzy Wood, Super Secretary. Typical romance shlock. Secretary, secretly in love with her PI boss... Boring.

I had the idea of her secretly helping out her boss by dressing up as a vigilante.

Bob 'thought up' the name, Hamburger Pattie. I thought he was joking.

Anyway, I wrote most of the Pattie stories, but do I get any royalties? Nooooooo!

The few fans who know my name, just ask me ridiculous questions like, "In issue 47, why did Furbitoman try to kill Pattie in a giant pinball machine, instead of just shooting her?", "In issue 69, why did he try to crush her on a giant pool table by using a giant pool cue to strike giant balls?", "How many socks did Pattie use to stuff her bra?", "Why are you so obsessed with giant objects?"

When was K-NIT first mentioned? Was it in Port Mike?

K-NIT had to move out of their original studios about seven years after the station was founded.

It seems that one of their most beloved tv personalities, Wilbur "Rags" Monday, a former blues musician who hosted K-NIT's late-night monster movies as "Count Crapula" and, for a while, a morning kiddy show as himself, died under mysterious circumstances while on the air. It was believed that he was somehow murdered, but it was never proven.

"Rags"'s ghost began haunting the studio soon after his death, causing all sorts of inteference and other problems. K-NIT built a new studio across the street, and now uses the old building for storage.

I think I invented it on JARSO, but I'm not sure.

I'm almost positive that I was the first person to refer to "K-NIT TV-47", but if anyone can remember doing it before me, I'd be willing to listen.

Don't Forget the Japanese Import LICC Kabuki. It stared "The Super Awesome Wrapped Beef Man", "Adon-senshi" and "Frangelica-chan". It started Last Year, and they have finally gotton to the Battle between the LICC and the Shogun Death Squadren of the Mirror World.

Oh, and Bizzarro World is a Comic, not a television show.

Spurred by their other superhero series, K-NIT launched a live action series and a concurrent comic book: "The Adventures of the Amazing Quantum Man".

Needless to say, both were a flop, and cancelled after one episode and one issue. Copies of The Adventures of the Amazing Quantum Man #1 are now worth a lot of money. That's because everyone burned them, and there are only two known extant copies.

Wow... then I probably shouldn't have used the one I bought at the comic book convention as a bird cage liner...

Author's note. I like my character. I really do. I'm just playing up the no respect thing because it's fun!

Actually, The Archangel Trilogy is not a show either, but rather a trilogy of novels (hence all the Chapter Headings, snoggans). :-) The books are to date the best-selling LICC related novels of all time, second only to the Unofficial Guide To The LICC which can be found for a relatively cheap 25 dollars at any sci-fi convention.

Well, according to Anonymous on Board 13, K-NIT TV-47 is located in St. Louis.

Yeah, but Anonymous is crazy.

Besides the whole St. Louis thing may have been a bluff to throw off the Pezzys.

Oh, and I want to Retcon. The company wasn't PM Comics, it was originally N.C. Comics. Phantom Returns was their main line, however, N.C. Comics, which used to publish stuff like "Lockbox of Horror" and "Tales from the Old Folks Home," eventually became a holding company, which had no other activity outside the line.

The earliest reference I could find was this post on Mystery Science Theater 3000: Soap Operas: Port Mike 233-420.

It's unattributed, but the style looks like mine, and I seem to recall coming up with the concept.

At a recent sci-fi and comics convention, Miller Franklin dropped two bombshells on the public:

First, he didn't actually create Rocket Ranger. It turns out that there was actually a pilot for a radio show taped back in the late 1930's called The Amazing Adventures Of Rocket Ranger produced by the legendary team of Lars and Gene Brannigan. It seems that the only episode produced did air and garnered good ratings, but the voice actor who played Rocket Ranger died in an auto accident while a script for the second episode was still being written, and the project was cancelled because they couldn't find a decent replacement.

Miller's wife Matilda was the Brannigans' niece, and he acquired a tape of that single show and the partial script for the second episode from Gene in 1968 (Lars had already died), who gave him his blessing to do whatever he wanted with the character.

Rocket Ranger's character was never fleshed out in the radio show, but he was called Quincy once in the partial script. Miller also admitted that the idea for Rocket Ranger to be a Space Marshall came from that partial script, and was Lars' idea.

Second, Miller admitted that he is dying from terminal stomach cancer, and that his sons Edward and Kevin actually parts of the last Rocket Ranger mini-series and have been given his blessing to carry on writing the character.

Miller is working on a 64 page one-shot comic to be published after his death. No details have been given about the comic, nor will there be before it is actually published.

The Brannigan brothers wrote and produced over a dozen different radio shows between 1936 and 1952, when they retired due to Lars' sudden illness. Gene considered trying out as a tv show producer, but decided against it. By 1951, both men had become incredibly wealthy, so they didn't need to work if they didn't want to.

Gene did, however, produce a movie in 1958. A detective film starring Alan Sinclair called The Night Is Black. Gene and Lars actually appear briefly in the movie, but only Lars actually has any lines. (Gene is the bandleader and Lars the bartender in the nightclub that the main character visits about halfway through the movie. Lars was originally supposed to play the detective's father, but was too ill to play more than a bit part.)

Lars died in his sleep of pneumonia in November 1964. (Lars' real name was Lawrence, but he used Lars as his professional name because he didn't want to be referred to as `Larry')

Gene, however, is very much alive and kicking, but doesn't grant interviews. He's still sharp-minded, but physically frail, at the age of 98. His son Edgar is a tv station manager in Spokane, Washington.

D'oh! That was supposed to say `His son Edgar is a tv producer in Spokane, and his daughter Theresa is a school teacher in Washington, D.C.'