The Mad Scientists' Club - Publication History

Publication History

The Mad Scientists began as a series of short stories in Boys' Life magazine, the official youth magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. They were later collected into two volumes, The Mad Scientists' Club and The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club, originally published by the MacRae Smith Company of Philadelphia. Only about 1000 copies of the third novel, The Big Kerplop!, were published in 1974 before MacRae Smith went bankrupt, so it is not well known. Later publications in 1965 included Scholastic Book Services in paperback out of New York, London, Richmond Hill and Ontario.

Sheridan Brinley, the son of the author, authorized Purple House Press to reprint these books starting in 2001. The new edition of The Big Kerplop! was released in 2003 (with the exclamation point included), which includes all new interior illustrations by Geer. The earlier MacRae Smith version is the only MSC title without interior drawings, since Macrae Smith never commissioned them. On November 17, 2005 they released the final one, the previously unpublished second novel titled The Big Chunk of Ice, which has been newly illustrated by Geer.

A two-part episode in 1971 of the TV series Wonderful World of Disney was loosely based on "The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake". It was titled "The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove" and starred Burgess Meredith. It was repeated a few times, but doesn't seem to be available on DVD or Video.