Len Brown, the writer and radio personality who co-created the legendary Mars Attacks! franchise and worked on iconic properties like The Garbage Pail Kids, has passed away.
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Brown died Aug. 11 at a care facility in Bee Cave, Texas, just outside of Austin, per his online obituary. According to the New York Times, the 84-year-old’s cause of death was arteriosclerosis.
Brown kicked off his career at Topps Chewing Gum in the Product Development Department, fresh out of high school as an 18-year-old in 1959. The Brooklyn-born creative spent 40 years with the company (eventually becoming the company’s Creative Director), which married chewing gum to trading cards themed after TV shows and, famously, baseball.
However, Brown made his biggest pop culture splash in 1962, when he pitched the concept of Mars Attacks! to his boss, Woody Gelman. Per The Times, Brown was partially inspired by the cover of an EC Comics magazine, Weird Science, illustrated by Wally Wood. The cover sported a trio of kids hiding behind a rock as space aliens with bulging heads disembark a flying saucer…
Brown and Gelman brainstormed the germ of an idea, coming up with a concept of an entire line of cards (with Wally Wood himself providing sketches and artists Bob Powell, Norman Saunders, and Maurice Blumenfeld rounding it out) depicting malevolent Martians gleefully setting Earth ablaze… even the family dog.
The 55 card series never quite kicked off due to parental concerns over the content. However, memories of the cards from kids who managed to nab the forbidden pop culture fruit fostered decades of love and nostalgia for the series. This resulted in later reissues, toys, collectibles, and a 1996 comedy film directed by Tim Burton and starring an all-star cast led by Jack Nicholson.
Meanwhile, Brown and Mars Attacks artist Wood went on to create the comic T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics. Brown would also be instrumental in ushering in the Garbage Pail Kids, a 1980s gross-out parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls.
Brown was also an avid music fan and historian. He penned Encyclopedia of Rock ’n’ Roll and Encyclopedia of Country and Western Music with Gary Friedrich in the early 1970s. He went on to program for country-western shows at three New Jersey Stations starting in the 1970’s until he retired from Topps in 2000.
From there, Brown moved outside of Austin, Texas, where he enjoyed a second career hosting a country music show called Country Root for KOOP.
Fans didn’t mind his Brooklyn accent.
Brown leaves behind his wife, Abby; his children, Jon and Valarie; his step-sons, Todd, Eric, and Harris Demel; and his step-grandsons, Taylor and Jared Demel.