On the Road with Cool Daddy (4CE reprint Sept 2012)

On the Road with Ask Cool Daddy

Dear Cool Daddy: I know that the auto industry took a 42 month "vacation" from domestic production during World War II. Which auto makers active at the start of the pre-war shutdown didn't emerge for the post-war boom?

The answer, oddly enough, is none…every auto maker active when the freeze began on January 1, 1942 came back to life when it was lifted on July 1, 1945. These were the Big Three…General Motors, Ford and Chrysler…and the Middle Five…Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, Packard, and Willys-Overland. Even the diminutive Crosley compact, introduced in 1939, continued until 1952. And Checker, making cabs since 1922, survived until 1982.

As Baby Boomers growing up in the '50s and '60s, our dads, uncles, and grandfathers regaled us with the glories of extinct makes from the past. In the first 3 decades of the 20th century, hundreds of auto companies came and went…it was tough to compete with the Ford Model T, which would eventually lay claim to literally half the cars on the road. Thus the "shake out" had pretty much been completed by the time the stock market crashed and the Great Depression hit in 1929. There were less than 30 car companies left, and those below the Middle Five folded fast, even though most had existed for over 20 years.

Erskine, Kissel, and Moon ended production in 1930. Jordan, Gardner, Durant and Dupont were gone after 1931. Essex folded after 1932, Peerless and Marmon after 1933, Franklin after 1934. The second half of the decade saw the demise of Auburn, Cord, Cunningham, Duesenberg, Pierce Arrow, Reo, and Stutz. Hupmobile and Cadillac's LaSalle gave up the ghost in 1940, as did Graham-Page. Its assets were sold to to Kaiser-Frazer in 1947, which in turn merged with Willys as Kaiser-Jeep in 1963, bought out by AMC in 1970…the last of the Middle Five still standing.

Dear Cool Daddy: I don't ever remember seeing a "pink Cadillac" back in the day…was there really such a thing?

Pink Cadillacs are associated with the 1950s, when everything about autos was the most flamboyant. For example, Aretha Franklin's 1985 song "Freeway of Love" mentions a pink Cadillac, and the drawing on the 45 picture sleeve is a pink convertible, altho not a production model…it's the LeMans dream car from 1953, a full-size 2-seater. In the black-and-white music video, her 1957 Seville hardtop turns pink with a white top at the very end. But if you examine factory paint-chip charts, you won't find the bright, gaudy, in-your-face PINK pink we're talking about. 

Closest are subdued hues like "Mountain Laurel" from 1956-57, and 1959's "Wood Rose"…what today might be called "dusty mauve." Salmon/Coral/Peach was also available some years. But Cadillac colors were always on the conservative side, especially compared to the wild shades everybody else was offering...and those snazzy 2-tone and 3-tone combinations.

The mystique of the Pink Cadillac started with Elvis...he owned 2...repainted by a neighbor in a color they nicknamed "Elvis Rose"...note: NOT pink! The first was a 1954 model, totaled when the brake linings caught fire. The second was the famous 1955 Series 60 that's still on display at Graceland. It originally had a black top, but was repainted white to match the first one around the time Elvis had it reupholstered. 

He does mention a pink Cadillac in his early recording, "Baby, Let's Play House." When he returned from the service, Elvis gave the 1955 to a buddy, in favor of a 1961 Coupe deVille, white with a pink roof. Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics gave Pinkillacs to her top salesmen beginning in 1969, painted "Mountain Laurel Blush" at the dealership to match her compact cases. But despite no eye-popping pink on the official Cadillac pallet, its fame compelled Lincoln to respond in the form of an over-the-top 1956 lavender…what they called "Wisteria"…not to mention a pinker "Amethyst" and a peachy "Island Coral." Shield your eyes...

Dear Cool Daddy: I've noticed that Andy Griffith as Sheriff  Taylor is always driving the latest model Ford...can you date the episodes by the model year of the squad car?

Only approximately…that's because they started filming for the new fall season in the summer, too soon for the new model year. So the first half of a season contained the previous year's model, then the new patrol car generally debuted in the spring. Thus, a 1960 Ford could indicate the 1959-60 TV season (an episode shown in the spring of 1960) or one from the 1960-61 season (originally aired in the fall of 1960.)

As was mentioned each week in the closing credits, Ford provided vehicles for the show. That's why you'll see all those Thunderbirds, Mustangs, old Fords, new Fords, and that groovy Mercury Comet with the slanty tail-lights that pops up in episode after episode, year in and year out. The squad car was generally a Ford Galaxie, sometimes a base model Ford Custom. But the citizens of Mayberry certainly saw to it that their lawman always had the newest ride!

Dear Cool Daddy: I heard that Jan & Dean's "Dead Man's Curve" was a about a real place, and a crash by Mel Blanc, the Man of a Thousand Voices. Hit or myth?

Mostly hit. Jan Berry wrote the music and DJ Roger Christian wrote the lyrics for the imaginary race between Jan's Sting Ray and Roger's Jaguar XKE. The route runs west thru Los Angeles along Sunset Blvd...besides the legendary Schwab's drugstore, where Lana Turner was supposedly discovered, they mention real cross-streets...Vine St, Crescent Heights Blvd, La Brea Ave, and North Doheny Drive. The only discrepancy is: "He passed me at Doheny and I started to swerve / But I pulled her up and there we were at Dead Man's Curve." This downhill right-hand curve...just past Whittier Drive, north of the UCLA campus…is actually a good 4 miles west of Doheny Drive…that had to be one long "swerve"!

Roger Christian originally wanted the race to end in a tie, but Jan thought it would be cooler for one of them to spinout. By the time the song came out in March of 1964, the roadway had been repaired and was no longer as dangerous…the trouble was a bow to the outside that would force cars into the oncoming lane if they were coming down the hill too fast…especially treacherous at night. 

The song was indeed inspired by what happened to Mel Blanc on January 24, 1961…but he wasn't racing anyone…he was coming uphill the other way, east into Los Angeles, when he was hit head-on by a college student, who suffered only minor scratches. Mel almost died from his injuries, and had to take a hiatus from recording Barney Rubble's voice for "The Flintstones." That's why for several episodes, it sounds like somebody else doing the voice...because it is…Hanna-Barbera's jack-of-all-trades Daws Butler. 

At the time of the accident, it was reported that there had been 6 fatalities there in the past year...other sources say 23 accidents and 3 fatalities in 2 years. But almost losing Mel spurred the DPW into action. BTW, there are 2 versions of the song. The original on the "Drag City" LP says "my frenched tail-lights," and lacks the skidding and crashing sound effects. The more familiar 45 version says "my 6 tail-lights"…yes, Sting Rays had 2 on each side, but it was a common custom trick to add a third, mimicking the triple tail-lights on the big Impalas. Till next time, pleasant motoring…and rock on!

Land of the Rising Fastball (4CE reprint August 2012)

Land of the Rising Fast Ball

With the success Japanese ballplayers in the US, Yu Darvish being the latest, you might be interested in how baseball differs between our 2 countries. And yes, Darvish is not a Japanese name…his father is Iranian.

There are 2 leagues in Japan, each of 6 teams…the Pacific League uses the DH, and the Central League doesn't. Each plays a 144-game season which includes inter-league play. Rules are pretty much what they are in the US. The ball is slightly smaller, with larger seams, and supposedly wound tighter…ballparks are also smaller. One major difference is that there is a time limit on the games...if the score is tied after 12 innings, it goes into the record books as a tie and is not replayed. A team will typically have around 10 ties a season, and while they are listed in the standings, ties are not counted towards the winning percentage…thus a team can finish ahead of another team that has more wins, as can still happen in the NHL.

This time limit exists so that fans can catch the trains home...altho if they can, they'll stick around for the traditional on-field post-game player interviews. Even so, televised games are routinely cut off in favor of regularly scheduled programs…so every game is potentially a Heidi Game!

There are also 2 minors leagues, the Eastern and Western Leagues, fed by high school, college, and amateur industrial leagues. The high school championship tournaments are especially popular, almost as much as Major League games. Players switch teams far less frequently, and the Japanese custom of employment-for-life applies even after one's playing career is over. 

Teams are owned by big corporations in other industries...and named after them. Thus Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants and Nagoya's Chunichi Dragons are both named after newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun and Chunichi Shimbun. And if you ever wondered about the Nippon Ham Fighters and what the heck is a Ham Fighter…they're actually the Fighters, owned by Nippon Ham!

The post-season playoffs are known as the Climax Series. Stage I in each league is between the 2nd and 3rd place teams, best-of-5. If 2 teams are tied for 3rd, the team with the better record the previous year advances. The winner goes on to face the 1st place team in Stage II, but with a twist: as a reward for finishing 1st, that team starts the 6-game series credited with one win…thus it needs to win only 3 to advance, while the Stage I winner must win 4. Interesting idea, altho many players dislike this rule, and it's only been in place for both leagues since 2007…the Pacific League introduced it in 2003. 

The 2 league champions then meet for the 7-game Japan Series. Tie games are still possible in the postseason, when the time limit expands to 15 innings…but as in the regular season, ties are not replayed. Thus a post-season series itself can end in a tie, in which case the tiebreaker is the teams' regular season records. 

In Japan, attitudes towards coaches and umpires are strangely reversed. Teams have more coaches than American teams, and along with the manager, they rule with an iron fist...literally, since they are allowed to physically strike a player, who then must apologize to the coach! On the other hand, despite the fact that umpires are ritually saluted by the batter when he comes to the plate, their control of the game is less overt. Consider what happens in the US with a disputed call. The manager comes out to argue, a player might have to be restrained, but the call stands. In Japan, the umpires will huddle among themselves for as much as 15 or 20 minutes...and when their decision is finally announced, they will apologize for the delay. Needless to say, in Japan Armando Galarraga would have had his perfect game!

The Japanese are oddly fascinated by blood types...that's right, A, B, AB, and O. They are like astrological signs, believed to predict personality traits and the potential success of romantic matches. Blood types are a hot topic month after month in women's magazines, and they are important in baseball as well. Which is not to say the stars are ignored: astrological predictions based on the position of Mars are also a part of Japanese baseball. 

Back in the day, teams were allowed only 2 foreign players, usually Americans…called "gaijins," literally outsiders or aliens, but used more in the sense of "helpers." Today the limit is 4 per team, and they can become fan favorites if they earn it on the field. Here are some gaijins you might recognize: Jerry Adair, Matty Alou, George Altman, Ken Aspromonte, Don Blasingame, Clete Boyer, Don Buford, Larry Doby, Jim Gentile, Frank Howard, Davey Johnson, Willie Kirkland, Jim Lefebvre, Roman Mejias, Don Newcombe, Joe Pepitone, Wes Parker, and even Aaron Pointer, older brother of the Pointer Sisters, who went on to a long career as a ref in the NFL.

Also Andre Rodgers, Richie Scheinblum, Daryl Spencer, Bart Shirley, Dick Stuart, Lee Thomas, Fred Valentine, Zolio Versalles, and Don Zimmer…not to mention Buddy Bradford, Willie Davis, Clarence Jones, Roger Repoz, Tony Solaita, Walt "No Neck" Williams...and brothers Leon and Leron Lee, one of whom is the father of Derrek Lee. The Japanese are far less tolerant of foreigners than we are, especially those who refuse to fit in. Tom Selleck's 1992 movie "Mr. Baseball" was right on. This plays into the important Japanese concept of "wa." 

Wa means team harmony or cooperation...prima donnas of any kind in Japan are few and far between. As they say, "The nail that sticks up is the one hammered down." There is also "ma," meaning a pause or hesitation…almost what we would call a "psyche." It is a powerful weapon for the pitcher, and altho balks are in the rule book they are seldom called. Japanese fans are very keen on the individual match-ups between pitchers and batters, and these are discussed and analyzed in great detail...and yes, blood types must be considered!  Often a pitcher and batter are fondly remembered as a pair, and their many battles are the thing of baseball legend. For example, one book devotes 6 pages to describing Ichiro's first at bat against Dice-K in 1999. When they first faced each other here in 2007, Japanese headlines called it "Genius vs. Monster"…I'll let you guess which was which!

There are many other different baseball customs: when crossing the plate after a home run, a player is presented with a stuffed animal. Foul balls hit into the stands are not kept as souvenirs but returned to an usher. Up until 2010, balls and strikes were counted backwards...a full count was 2-and-3...but now Japan does it like the rest of the baseball world. A winning manager is tossed into the air, like Eskimos with a bear-skin. 

At home, teams have organized rooting sections, much like in college football, with songs, chants, drummers and other noise-makers. These are lead by a man in white gloves, resembling a Japanese traffic cop. There are actually try-outs for these fan clubs, and some of the members are paid, either by the team or by the local crime syndicate…which operate much more openly in Japan. You might have been surprised to hear of the Yakuza organizing relief efforts after the March, 2011 earthquake, mobilizing far quicker than government authorities. But folks, we're not in Kansas anymore, you know?

Don't miss weekly genealogy at deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com and other Stolf stuff at stolf.wordpress.com. Till next time, keep in mind: you've gotta have wa…and rock on!

10 Things You Didn't Kn-O About Hawaii Five-0 (4CE reprint July 2012)

10 Things You Didn't Kn-O About Hawaii Five-0

Back in the day, I was a big fan of private eye shows and secret agent/spy series...cop shows, not so much. But by the 1970s, "Hawaii Five-0" had grown on me, and I can honestly say I'd rather watch that show today than any other crime drama, bar none. Steve McGarrett is the quintessential no-nonsense, chisel-jawed good guy. Viewers agreed, as the show ran for 12 seasons, 1968-1980...but here are a few things you might not have known...

(1)  So which is it, Five-Zero or Five-Oh?… "Five-0" refers to Hawaii being the 50th state, so the short answer is, it's a zero, since there's a zero in the numeral 50. But it's always pronounced "oh"…just as James Bond is called "double-Oh-7," not "double-Zero-7." To check this, I examined half a dozen magazines and both local and national newspapers from the 1960s, and with one exception, all used a type-face (the old-fashioned word for "font") that distinguished between a zero and a capital O...the the capitol O is fat and rounder, the zero skinny and oval-shaped. That one exception, oddly enough, was TV Guide, which used a skinny 0 for both.

And if you grant that the title graphic of the show's opening sequence ought to be definitive...from season 1 thru season 12, they used a skinny 0, not a fat O. True, the O cropped up occasionally in print, like in the liner notes on the cover of the soundtrack LP on Capitol Records. But typewriters in the 1960s were just making the transition from one key for both…to separate keys, one for each, so there could still have been confusion. This wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for that current "reboot" series on CBS. They've officially said several contradictory things on this subject...all I can do is look at their opening graphic...and I see a capital O, not a skinny zero. If this is indeed to distance it from the original series, so be it. 

(2)  But no, it's not real... Because Hawaii is the only state that has never had a state police force. This ironically was the inspiration for the series: producer Leonard Freeman was talking with then Hawaiian governor John Burns about his unsuccessful attempt to sell a state police force to the state legislature, and thought: great idea for a series!

(3)  Was Wo Fat really Chinese?... The character yes, a Communist agent. The actor no, altho he's generally assumed to be. Kenneth Dickerson was born in Spring Lake, New Jersey, of British, Egyptian, and Sudanese stock. He changed his name for show business to Khigh Dhiegh when he found his career niche. By the way, it's pronounced to rhyme with Eye Dee...not Die or Day as you'll commonly hear. 

(4)  Tabac, anyone?... Well, just about everybody on TV smoked in those days, so the fact that Steve McGarrett did not, nor did he drink except for the occasional ceremonial sip of bubbly, further set him apart from the run-of-the-mill TV hero. For the record, on the show Danno occasionally enjoyed a cigarette, and of course Chin Ho had his pipe. 

(5)  Speaking of Danno, what's up with the pilot episode?... Titled "Cocoon," it was a 2-hour movie broadcast 6 days before the series premiered in September of 1968. A few things were changed from the pilot to the actual series...Steve got a bit less intense, Chin Ho less jovial, gone for the most part were the Hawaiian print shirts...and oh yeah, they got a new actor to play Danny Williams. Tim O'Kelley was Danno in the pilot, and his approach was a little too, shall we say, earnest? Test audiences didn't connect, like they would with the more laid back James MacArthur. In syndication, the pilot was shown as a 2-part episode, and apparently nobody cared if viewers noticed the Danno discrepancy...sort of like "the 2 Darrins" on "Bewitched." 

(6)  And speaking of syndication, isn't there a lost episode?... Indeed, the 16th episode of the 2nd season, called "Bored, She Hung Herself," shown once then never again...not as a repeat, not in syndication, not even on the 2nd season DVD box set. It concerned a group of hippies who practiced an esoteric meditation technique involving simulated hanging...and sure enough, one ends up hung for real, and dead. Altho hushed up at the time, apparently someone who saw the show tried it, and died...hence the the episode's disappearance. 

Copies do circulate among collectors, so you could probably see it if you wanted to bad enough...but the consensus is it's not that great an episode...just lost. Interestingly, this episode was directed by John Newland, the host of "One Step Beyond." But it does remind us that "Hawaii Five-0" did occasionally dabble in the "weird" or "kinky" plot elements that would become so popular decades later. 

(7)  Where'd Zulu go?… Born Gilbert Lani Kauhi, Zulu (a high school football nickname) was the ultimate Waikiki beach boy...a surfer, singer, comedian, disc jockey, even served a tour in the Coast Guard. He was hired for the show because of his burly native looks and became famous for bursting thru the door during the opening sequence. But he was frustrated by having nothing to do but say "Yes, Steve, no, Steve" week in and week out for 4 seasons. Long story short, a series of unfortunate circumstances resulted in his losing his temper during a taping, and saying some things that he shouldn't have. Exit "Zulu as Kono." He remained a popular Hawaiian celebrity and night club entertainer until his death in 2004...and indeed had a part in the 1997 revival attempt.

(8)  What revival attempt?… It was a TV movie by Stephen J. Cannell, but the brass at CBS didn't like it and it never aired. Gary Bussey was the new lead cop with Russell Wong as his right-hand man…and Danny Williams was now the governor! The roles of Kono, Duke, Truck, Che Fong and even Chin Ho were reprised by the original actors…this despite the fact that Chin Ho Kelly had been killed in the final episode of season 10. Apparently Cannell wasn't aware of this, and nobody, least of all actor Kam Fong, bothered to mention it until the movie was completed. Maybe he needed the work…

(9) The Magnum Connection…"Hawaii Five-0" ended its long run in the spring of 1980, and Tom Selleck's "Magnum P.I." premiered that fall…a coincidence? Think again, my friend. CBS had a lot of money invested in the extensive Hawaiian sets and production facilities, and wasn't about to let it go to waste. What's more, there were even hopes of getting Jack Lord to do a few cameo appearances as Steve McGarrett, which is why there are Hawaii Five-0 references during the first season…like when Magnum says of of an old Navy buddy: "Putting Dan on this stuff was like making McGarrett the meter maid." But Lord couldn't be coaxed out of retirement, and that was that. 

(10)  But in the beginning… It's always interesting to find out what might have been. Leonard Freeman's original name for the series was "The Man"…kind of bland, altho perhaps not so much back then, when "the man" was synonymous with "the fuzz." Richard Boone was his first choice to play McGarrett, and that made sense since at the time he was actually living in Hawaii, but he turned it down…as did, of all people, Gregory Peck! Fortuitous, I'd say, given who they eventually got.

Don't forget the weekly blogs at stolf.wordpress.com and deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com…plus "car tunes" weekdays starting at 3pm on 1340 WMSA in Massena…and as was told to me along the coconut telegraph: rock on!

Ask Cool Daddy 4 (4CE reprint...June 2012)

"Ask Cool Daddy 4"

Dear Cool Daddy: Did we ever find out why the 1969 disaster film "Krakatoa, East of Java" was so named, when that island volcano is actually west of Java?

No authoritative explanation has ever emerged, altho there are a couple of stories out there. One says the mistake wasn't noticed until after the advertising and publicity material had been prepared, and it was too late by then to change it. Another says that the producers knew it was wrong from the beginning, but just preferred the sound of it, calling to mind the popular movie "East of Eden" from 1955.  And as it was pointed out at the time, since the world is round, Krakatoa really is east of Java...eventually!

My personal theory is that they may have been confusing the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa with the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora, which is indeed located east of Java. Tambora is believed to be the biggest volcanic explosion in recorded history. It spewed 40 cubic miles of ash and another 400 cubic miles of sulfurous gas into the atmosphere, disrupting agriculture worldwide, and resulting, a year later, in The Year Without a Summer, when snow fell in July over Maine and northern Europe. Tambora killed 10,000 outright, and another 60,000 due to starvation and disease.

Krakatoa was bad, but not that bad. It received more worldwide notice because it was in the middle of international shipping lanes, while to that extent, Tambora was more "out of the way."  When the movie was re-released to theaters, it was renamed "Volcano," altho it's back to the original infamous title on DVD. And it's a shame that it's mainly remembered for the geographical goof-up, since it's an excellent movie, especially the tidal wave effects, still impressive 40 years later.

Dear Cool Daddy: Franco-American canned spaghetti was a staple on Baby Boomer lunch-tables…but am I the only one who noticed that while spaghetti is Italian, “Franco” means “French”? 

Well, at our house “franco-american” was the generic term for that mushy, orange-colored pasta…if Chef Boy-ar-dee was on sale and Mom fixed it for us, we’d look at our plates and say: “Oh boy, franco-american!” And I really did like it…it had a pleasant little tang to it, as I recall. We would also from time to time have real spaghetti, in a real sauce with meatballs, so we didn’t really think of Franco-American as spaghet’, any more than we would macaroni or lasagna. But I noticed it was "French" eventually, and the reason is what you might expect...the company was started by a French immigrant, Alphonse Biardot, in Jersey City in 1886. 

His most prominent line was soups, many with a decidedly French twist…green turtle, terrapin, chicken consommé, purée of game, mulligatawny, mock turtle, ox-tail, tomato, chicken gumbo, French bouillon, julienne, pea, printanier, mutton broth, vegetable, beef, pearl tapioca, clam broth, clam chowder, and others. The Franco-American Food Company also made canned sauces, patés, custards, and puddings…in fact, an early advertisement reads: "English Plum Pudding made by a Frenchman! Why Not?"

They were sold to Campbell’s Soup in 1915, accelerating the ethnic diversification. The earliest I can find Franco-American spaghetti is around 1930…and it was marketed as being in the style of Milan…“à la Milanaise”…which is of course French…in English that would traditionally be “Milanese”…today you also see “Milano”…in Italian it's “alla Milanese.” There seems to be no agreement as to what style that is today…sauce having cream as a key ingredient…or fennel and sardines…or ham and mushrooms…or who knows? Back then, it was parenthetically explained as “tomato sauce with cheese”…and it became the Franco-American brand’s flagship product.

Dear Cool Daddy: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg... just think of it as a baby chicken. It will grow up to be an adult chicken, but as an egg, it's a chicken already. You can't have a grown chicken without first having a baby chicken, or a chicken egg. But you can have a chicken egg without having a mama and papa chicken who made it, which is the whole idea behind the biological process of mutation.

To take a real-life example, it is believed snakes evolved from lizards. The gene for the legless mutation occurred during the creation of 2 lizard gametes, the ovum from the mother and spermatozoa from the father, that united to result in a legless offspring....which, if it could survive, would propagate a new species...snakes. So in this case, you would have had a baby snake without it having adult snakes as its parents. But an adult snake can only grow from a baby snake, not from a baby lizard. Which is just another way of saying, the first thing that was a snake was a baby snake, not an adult snake. And for snakes...and chickens too...that means the egg came first.

Dear Cool Daddy: A war (ha ha) was broken out at our house over which actors from the movie version of "M*A*S*H" recreated their roles on the TV show. We agree on Gary Burghoff as Radar, but my husband thinks there was one more, but he can't think of who. Care to referee?

Little old peacemaker me. Your husband is correct...there was one other...that was actor G. Wood who played General Hammond in the movie, then in the first couple of episodes of the series, and never again. "G." was his professional name...he was either George or Gene, depending on who's telling it. But interestingly, there were 3 other actors who appeared in both versions of M*A*S*H, altho as different characters.

Corey Fischer was Capt. Baldini in the movie, then the guitar-strumming dentist Capt. Phil Cardozo in the 2nd season episode "Five O'Clock Charlie." Timothy Brown was Cpl. Judson in the movie, and Capt. Spearchucker Jones in 6 TV episodes, taking over the role from Fred Williamson. And finally, John Fujioka appeared briefly, and uncredited, as a Japanese golfer in the movie, and in 3 different guest roles on TV.

The thing is, when M*A*S*H made the transition from large screen to small, there was at the start some indecision as to which characters would be carried over. Obviously, the lead surgeons were cut from 3 to 2, with Capt. Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest (Tom Skerritt in the movie) the odd man out. Hawkeye, Trapper, Radar, Col. Blake, Hotlips, Frank Burns, and Father Mulcahey, no longer nicknamed "Dago Red," were retained...and of course, Spearchucker was tried but dropped. 

Aussie "gas-passer" Ugly John Black (Carl Gottlieb in the movie, John Orchard on TV) appeared in 10 episodes, sometimes as sort of a surrogate "3rd surgeon" if the plot called for it. Swamp houseboy Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood/Patrick Adiarte) was on 7 TV shows, the naive Pvt. Boone (Bud Cort/Bruno Kirby, then Robert Gooden) on 3, and Lt. Dish (Jo Ann Pflug/Karen Philipp) on 2. Also absent from the TV version was the suicidal dentist Walt Waldowski, the Painless Pole...altho he's supposedly mentioned a couple of times...I don't remember that, but listen closely next time you're watching!

And the next time you've got the movie on, watch for Ed O'Neill from "Married With Children," who's said to have an uncredited cameo as an MP. Till next time, weekly blog at stolf.wordpress.com, Genealogy for Baby Boomers at deepfriedhhoodsiecups.wordpress.com...and if you have any time left from cleaning the pool, rock on!

Related How Again? 2 (4CE reprint...May 2012)

"Related How Again? the 2nd"

Rhoda Morgenstern's siblings. A "retcon" is when an established fact in a continuing work of fiction is changed…it stands for RETroactive CONtinuity….yes, essentially changing the past. Sometimes, a suitable explanation for the change is given or can be inferred. Other times, the change is completely inconsistent with the original circumstances, and you are just expected to accept it. Such was the case when the Rhoda Morgenstern character on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was spun off into her own series in 1974. She now had but one sibling, her younger sister Brenda, and no others, complete with old photos and home movies to prove it.

But things were different on the original show. In one episode, her mother Ida comes to visit, and mentions Rhoda’s brother and sister, Arnold and Brenda. A “younger brother” is referred to in several other episodes, maybe Arnold, maybe not. Then later in that episode, Ida says she is next going to visit "your sister in Chicago"…is this Brenda or a different one? We don't really know, so that's either 1 or 2 sisters so far, and at least one brother.

The only sibling we ever see in person is Debbie, played by Liberty Williams, whose claim to fame, apart from sharing her first name with a fictitious outlaw of the Old West, was her role as Elizabeth Montgomery's grown-up daughter in the short-lived sitcom "Tabitha." Mary and Rhoda went to New York City for her wedding…remember Brett Somers as “Aunt Rose”? Did Debbie at one point live in Chicago? Now we're up to either 2 or 3 sisters.

And once, in keeping with the story-line of Rhoda's bad luck with men, she told of how she was once so depressed, she slept thru her sister's wedding…which was just as well, since her sister was marrying her ex-fiance. This sister can't be either Brenda or Debbie, so that's 3 definite sisters…and if none of these 3 lived in Chicago, that's 4 all together. Along with Rhoda and Arnold, a total of either 5 or 6 siblings…a far cry from just 2, wouldn't you say?

At least that's how the Fan Logic game works. The truth is, the writers weren't keeping track, and figured they could get away with just an unmarried Brenda, since viewers would have forgotten the married Debbie…except of course some of us didn't, not then, and not now either. But that's the TV Universe…love it or leave it. 

On "The Addams Family," whose Uncle was Fester?  The simple answer, based on the TV series which ran 2 seasons from 1964-1966, is he is Morticia's uncle…his full name is Fester Frump and her maiden name is Morticia Frump…case closed. Granted, he sometimes talks as if he were a biological Addams, sharing the distinct peculiarities of the Addams lineage…altho oddly enough Morticia sometimes does that too! But in a 2-part flashback episode to Morticia and Gomez' courtship, he is clearly established as the brother of Morticia's mother Hester Frump, portrayed by Margaret Hamilton…the Wizard of Oz witch, naturally.

The problem is, there were also 2 animated Addams Family series, a made-for-TV movie, 2 theatrical movies, an additional direct-to-DVD movie, and a revival TV series "The New Addams Family" which ran on the Fox Family Channel for 2 seasons in the early 1990s. And if you were puzzled when the 1993 film came out and Fester was now Gomez' brother…hence uncle to Pugsley and Wednesday, and no longer to Morticia…you had apparently forgotten that that's how it was in the 1973 cartoon series…and has been in every other production since the original.

Grandmama's relationship to the clan is similarly confused. The TV series was based on Charles Addams' cartoons in the New Yorker Magazine, published beginning in 1938. The characters never had names, so for the series, he came up with some…in fact, one of his original names for Pugsley was "Pubert," re-used for the mustachioed new baby brother in the 1993 film. In his original notes, she was Granny Frump, Morticia's mother…but for the series she was Gomez' mother. Then in the subsequent productions she alternated between the two…with names like Eudora Addams and Esmerelda Frump. This confusion was slyly referred to in the 2010 broadway Addams Family production, with a "My mother? I thought she was your mother!" gag.

And there was another inside joke by the writers, acknowledging the inconsistencies…in "The New Addams Family," where there was no longer a Pubert, Wednesday remarks that there was a third sibling, but they ate it. Hardy-har-har. 

Why wasn't Marlo Thomas one of her father's daughters on "The Danny Thomas Show"? It seems like it would have made perfect sense. After all, the inspiration for the show was Danny's own family and home-life. The initial premise was that his character, being a nightclub singer and comedian, was away from home much of the time, which was true in real life. In fact the series original title, "Make Room For Daddy," was what his wife Rose Marie Thomas would say when the children were little and they had to stop sleeping in her bedroom because their father was coming home. The first episode, aired Sept. 29, 1953, was titled "Uncle Daddy." But there were 2 reasons why Marlo was not a daughter on the show.

The first was that she was simply too old. When the show debuted, she was a month shy of her 16th birthday. Danny's 2 TV children, Sherry Jackson as Terry and Rusty Hamer as Russell, were in real life aged 11 and 6, just about the ages of Marlo's 2 younger siblings. The character of Terry was named after Theresa Thomas, nick-named Terry, and as an adult spelled "Terre." Rusty was patterned after Charles Anthony Thomas, or Tony. So as not to be left out, Danny's on-screen wife was named Margaret, which was Marlo's real name…Marlo was how as a child she mispronounced Margo, the family's nickname for her.

The other reason was, Marlo wasn't yet committed to being an actress. She went on to college at USC and earned a teaching degree. Then she was a teacher for a brief time before finally succumbing to the acting bug. Interestingly, in her first 2 TV roles in 1960, on "Dobie Gillis" and "77 Sunset Strip," she was billed as "Margaret Thomas." And indeed she did appear just once on her father's show…on March 27, 1961, an episode that served as the pilot for the sitcom "The Joey Bishop Show," which debuted that Fall. It lasted for 4 seasons, and for the first season, she played Joey's starstruck younger sister Stella. Other regulars included Abby Dalton as his wife, Corbett Monica, Madge Blake, Guy Marks, Warren Berlinger, Joe Besser, Joe Flynn, and for one season, Bill Bixby. 

Marlo Thomas' breakthrough came on the stage, in the London production of "Barefoot in the Park" in in 1965, which lead directly to her starring role in "That Girl" in the Fall of 1966. For the record, Danny acted with his daughter 4 other times...early on in "Zane Grey Theatre"...once on Danny's series "The Practice" in the 1970s...and twice on "That Girl"...the first time in a cameo as a priest..."father," get it?...then several years later when Danny appeared as himself, the actor. Till next time, good luck twice removing those 3rd cousins…and rock on!

. 

Silver Screen Beatles...Not! (4CE reprint April 2012)

The Silver Screen Beatles...Not!

Did you ever wonder why, given the phenomenal success of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", the Beatles never made a third live-action movie? Well, those days of doubt and confusion are over, my friend. Read on...

Of course they did film the 60-minute "Magical Mystery Tour" for television in 1967. It was aired on Dec. 26, 1967 on BBC1 in black and white, then 10 days later in color on BBC2. The music was a hit (an LP in the US, a double EP package in the UK), but the aimless shenanigans of the film were roundly panned by all and sundry. As a result, it didn't see theatrical release in the United States until 1974, and wasn't on TV here until it was syndicated in the early 1980s, making its network debut of sorts on USA's "Night Flight" program in May of 1985. 

To tell the truth, I've found it's grown better with age, a charming cultural relic of a unique moment in time. One highlight, which isn't on the LP, is the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's performance of "Death Cab For Cutie," a send-up of the "teen death" record fad of the early 1960s.  

In 1968 came the animated "Yellow Submarine"...altho the Beatles appeared as themselves in a scene at the end, the voices throughout the movie were done by others. In fact, half-way thru the recording, "George" was discovered to be a deserter from the British army and dutifully arrested. "Ringo" covered his part of the rest of the film. And in 1971 came the documentary "Let It Be."

But if it seemed to you a natural course for the Fabs to hit the silver screen for a third go-around, so also did it seem to Brian Epstein …not to mention the fact that they had a 3-film contract with United Artists, which eventually had to be satisfied by "Yellow Submarine." The problem was finding the right script. Three projects were seriously considered...but the chances of a third Beatles live-action feature film all but died when Brian Epstein did, on August 27, 1967.

The most publicized of these was called "A Talent For Loving." In fact in 1965, before "Help!" was even completed, it was announced the third Beatles flick would be...of all things...a western! Which made perfect sense, appealing to the Americans obviously, and also to all the would-be buckaroos in Europe, of which the Beatles themselves were four. For the script, Richard Conlon, author of "The Manchurian Candidate," adapted his light-hearted novel of 1961 about a horse race from the Rio Grande to Mexico City in 1871, the prize being a wealthy bride.

No reason for the Beatles ultimately rejecting "A Talent For Loving" has ever emerged...the basic premise was perfect for the Beatles...more of the same, with a different twist. The movie was eventually made in 1969 with a different cast, including Richard Widmark, Caesar Romero, Genevieve Page, Caroline Munro, and Israeli actor Topol. For home video it was renamed "Gun Crazy."

The second possible movie, in development in late 1966 and early 1967, was called "Shades of Personality"...to be shot in Spain and directed by heavyweight Michelangelo Antonini of "Blow-up" fame. The plot involved a man, to be played by John, whose personality split into 3 separate individuals: Paul, George, and Ringo. But by this time, studio recording was consuming all of the Beatles time and energy, and "Sgt. Pepper" took precedence.

But also in the works at this same time was "Up Against It." Brian Epstein commissioned this script from up-and-coming comedic playwright Joe Orton…it was set in a future where women ruled, men were subservient, and involved political assassination, cross-dressing and hints of "alternate lifestyles." The Beatles weren't too keen on much of the concept, and Orton's work on a re-write ended with his murder just 18 days before Brian Epstein's death. In fact, his body was discovered by Epstein's chauffeur, sent to fetch him for a meeting on the project. It was later considered as a vehicle for the Rolling Stones, costarring Ian McKellen, but that plan also came to naught. More than 20 years later, in 1989, an off-Broadway musical based on the unused script, with music by Todd Rundgren, came and went amidst some fanfare. Demos of his songs were later released in Japan on a CD, but they are no great shakes, sad to say.

Without Epstein, the Beatles were rudderless and the world saw the inevitable results. Let's face it, these cats weren't businessmen! But among the many other ideas pitched to the Beatles over the years, probably the most intriguing was Disney's animated version of "The Jungle Book." Remember the four "moptop" vultures, who spoke with cockney accents? They were indeed intended to be portrayed the Beatles, and Epstein was in negotiations with Walt when the lads got wind of it. John was especially adamant against lending their voices....their disappointment with the Saturday morning Beatles cartoon show was still fresh in their minds, and the matter was dropped. 

It's ironic, since "The Jungle Book" is most famous for its wonderful musical score…it was the first animated movie soundtrack to earn a gold record, and "Bare Necessities" was nominated for an Oscar, losing to Dr. Dolittle's "Talk to the Animals." Imagine it with a song or two by the Beatles! The strange thing is, Walt Disney died during the production, in December of 1967, within months of the deaths of Epstein and Orton. 

A remake of the Three Musketeers was another idea seriously considered, and it again would have been an interesting vehicle for the Beatles...a "period piece" infused with their own brand of mayhem. Again, it was the Beatles themselves who weren't convinced...altho interestingly, when a new "The Three Musketeers" hit the screen in 1973, it was directed by Dick Lester, who had also directed "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help."

John Lennon pushed hard for purchasing the rights to "Lord of the Rings." He saw himself in the role of Gollum, with Paul as Frodo, George as Gandalf, and Ringo as Sam. The others didn't share his enthusiasm, since John saw himself as the star, and as Paul remarked: "The strength of the other films is that we're all equal." In any event, J.R.R. Tolkien himself balked at turning the Beatles loose in Middle Earth, and that was that. 

One of the oddest near-misses was early on in 1963, when the Beatles were big in the UK but hadn't yet conquered the US or the world. Titled "The Yellow Teddy Bears," it concerned a group of schoolgirls who wore yellow badges to indicate they'd "done the deed," if you get my drift and I think you do. A bit too cheeky for the Fab 4's image? Apparently the problem was that they would have had to sing other people's songs, and their response was thanks but no thanks. The movie was made without them…pop singer Iain Gregory fronting Kinky Carson and the Embers…and the home video years later was re-titled "Gutter Girls." Lovely. 

But it's interesting to note that all four Beatles worked on individual movie projects in the late 1960s. John appeared as Musketeer Gripweed in Dick Lester's WWII satire "How I Won the War" in 1966. Ringo was with Peter Sellers in "The Magic Christian" in 1969, the title song sung by Badfinger and writen by Paul. (The title, by the way, was the name of a yacht.) 

George composed and performed a soundtrack of Indian music for the movie "Wonderwall" in 1968. Jane Birkin was in it, as a photographer's model named Penny Lane, but the meandering film wasn't even a cult favorite until its re-release in the 1990s. The best solo cinematic effort was Paul's well-received scoring of the 1966 comedy "The Family Way," the travails of a newly married couple played by Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett. Till next time, keep watching the screen…and rock on! 

The 60's...What a Joke! (4CE reprint March 2012)

The 1960s…What a Joke!

This month's column is dedicated to the proposition that the 1960s…were a joke. Specifically, Elephant Jokes and Tom Swifties.

How can you tell if there's an elephant behind you? You smell the peanuts on his breath. How can you tell an elephant's been in your refrigerator? You see his footprints in the butter. And if the reaction of adults was "That's dumb" or "That doesn't make any sense," well, that suited us kids just fine, didn't it?

The Elephant Joke craze appeared about the same time as slot-car racing and bikes with high-rise handle-bars and banana seats. According to a scholarly article (seriously!) in a folklore journal in 1967, Elephant Jokes first appeared in Texas in the summer of 1962. They spread to California by early 1963, and by that summer had gone national. LIFE magazine first mentioned them in October 1963, and by the summer of 1964, this joke was sent in to Boys' Life: Why did the elephant wear sunglasses? He didn't want to be recognized with all the Elephant Jokes around.

How did the elephant get in the oak tree? He sat on an acorn and waited 20 years. Why did the elephant paint its toenails red? To hide in a strawberry patch. How do you fit 4 elephants in a Volkswagen? 2 in the front, 2 in the back. How do you fit 5 elephants in a Volkswagen? Put one in the glove compartment. What game do elephants play in a Volkswagen? Squash!

Elephant jokes began with the absurdist premise that you didn't know how big an elephant was, and quickly expanded from there. They were sort of anti-riddles, eschewing the clever puzzles of old-fashioned riddles, and the tortured puns of more modern ones, although play-on-words were sometimes involved, like: How do you stop a charging elephant? Take away his credit card. How do you get an elephant out of a theater? You can't, it's in their blood. (OK, maybe that was a little sophisticated, but I remember getting it.)

What's gray and comes in a can? Campbell's Cream of Elephant soup. What's gray and has a trunk? A mouse going on vacation. Why are elephants wrinkled? Did you ever try to iron one? How do you shoot a blue elephant? With a blue elephant gun. How do you shoot a red elephant? Hold its trunk till it turns blue, then shoot it with a blue elephant gun.

Many of us stocked up on them by buying "101 Elephant Jokes" at a Scholastic Books fair at school. Someone was recently asking $300 for a copy on eBay…good luck with that. How do you get down off an elephant? You don't, you get down off a duck. How do you make a dead elephant float? Ginger ale, 2 scoops of ice cream, and a dead elephant. And some parodied other riddles, like: Why did the elephant cross the road? It was the chicken's day off. Why did the elephant wear red suspenders? Because the fireman finally bought a belt. 

Eventually, other animals and other things got into the act: What's purple and swims in the ocean? Moby Grape. A group of San Francisco musicians were so tickled with that they named their rock group after it. Another good name for a group would be the Ball-Point Banana…you know, what's yellow and goes click click? What did the grape say when the elephant sat on it? Nothing, it just gave out a little wine…OK, so there were a few bad puns mixed in here and there.

One of my favorites was a two-parter: Why do ducks have flat feet? To stamp out forest fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out flaming ducks. As with all fads, Elephant jokes soon died out, but not before clueless grown-ups got into the act and psychoanalyzed the whole deal, citing everything from racial aggression to "an ambient father figure," whatever that means. But google "Elephant Jokes" on the internet today and you'll get over 11 million hits…so I guess kids young and old still enjoy the iconoclastic buffoonery that was at the heart of it all. 

Appearing at the same time, Tom Swifties were more sophisticated, appealing to both kids and adults. TIME magazine announced their arrival in their May 31, 1963 issue, although again their origins are hazy. Perhaps an English teacher dreamed them up to enliven Vocabulary Day. Tom Swift was of course a youthful inventor in juvenile fiction, beginning in 1910 with "Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle"…and soon came "Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship," 'Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone"…we used to joke about "Tom Swift and His Electric Grandmother." 

But the series continued thru the years and new books are still published today. Baby Boomers might remember Tom Swift's Atomic Earth Blaster, Diving Seacopter, Triphibian Atomicar, Megascope Space Prober, and Ultrasonic Cycloplane. I heard they were going to do one with an his Automatomic Autosuggestive Subvibratory Superaccelerator, but ran out of space…no wait, that was from a 1944 science fiction story by Fredric Brown called the "The Yehudi Principle." Sorry 'bout that.

But to get to the point…in the opinion of some critics, series author Victor Appleton never met an adverb he didn't like, and that led to the Tom Swiftie formula: I need a pencil sharpener, said Tom bluntly. Nay, said Tom hoarsely. Is the doctor ready to see me, asked Tom patiently. Our boat is sinking, said Tom balefully. 

And the puns got worse and worse. My oar is broken, said Tom robustly. I have no recollection of the last 24 hours, said Tom lackadaisically. Is this Japan or China, asked Tom, disoriented. I'll never be a realtor, moaned Tom listlessly. I have multiple personalities, said Tom, frank and earnest. This just doesn't add up, said Tom, nonplussed.  They had to amputate at the ankles, said Tom, defeated. This is mutiny, admitted Tom bountifully. And then you lose some, said Tom winsomely. Ouch!

I manufacture tabletops, said Tom counterproductively. My EKG came out OK, said Tom wholeheartedly. Send that SOS again, said Tom remorsefully. A steamroller can't hurt me, Tom flatly denied. We're off to Scotland, said Tom clandestinely. Think about the number between 7 and 9, Tom suggested considerately. That is one ugly beast, said Tom hypocritically. 

But you didn't really need an adverb per se: There goes my hat, cried Tom off the top of his head. I will not finish in 5th place, Tom held forth. Don't add too much water, said Tom with great concentration. The average frequency of my voice is 160 Hz, said Tom in measured tones. Yeah, they could get pretty elaborate! 

Or you could do it with just the verb: Keep the fires burning, Tom bellowed. I'm dying, Tom croaked. I fixed your pipes, Tom rejoined. Save the whales, Tom spouted. The sun is rising, mourned Tom. And other folks got into the act: If we're going to Oz, let's hit the road, Auntie Em barked. Well, OK, there were a million of them…probably my favorite was inspired by those pipes Tom fixed: Your fly is open, was Tom's zippy rejoinder. 

I googled Tom Swiftie and came up with 94 thousand hits, so they still have a few fans. And then there were Shaggy Dog Stories…but that's a tail for another column. In the meantime, if you can't get Stolf and Cool Daddy the old-fashioned way, over the air…try the internet at 1340WMSA.com. Blogs daily at stolf.wordpress.com and twice a week at deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com. And hope to see you at the Ogdensburg Boys and Girls Club Expo! Till next time, rock on, said Stolf, taking it for granite. 

Beach Boys Hit or Myth (4CE reprint Feb. 2012)

Beach Boys Hit or Myth

The group's original name was Kenny and the Cadets. You'll often hear this said…it's essentially a myth, although the explanation is a bit complicated. The group Brian Wilson formed in high school with his brothers Dennis and Carl, and cousin Mike Love was called Carl and the Passions. (Mike's mother was the brothers' Aunt Emily, sister of their father Murry.) Brian came up with that name to entice Carl to join…he was more interested in cars and girls than music. By the time they made their first studio recordings in the fall of 1961, at the small Los Angeles record company Candix, their name was the Pendletones, after their favorite brand of shirts, Pendleton…plaid shirts, not the vertically striped ones they would make famous. When they got the first 45s of their song "Surfin'," they were surprised to discover they were now the Beach Boys. Candix promo man Russ Regan explained that label owner and producer of the record Hite Morgan instructed him to "change the name to something more commercial." 

But it hardly mattered…when they first heard their record played on the radio, while driving down Hawthorne Avenue in Brian's 1957 Ford, Dennis recalled: "Nothing could ever top the look on Brian's face, it was the biggest high ever…and Carl was so excited he threw up." So where did Kenny and the Cadets come in?

While at the Candix studio, Hite Morgan asked the group to add vocals to the instrumental tracks of 2 songs his son Bruce had written, which had been recorded by other musicians. Their mother Audree Wilson added her voice as well, and these were released in 1962..."Barbie" backed with "What Is a Young Girl Made Of?" So it's the Beach Boys singing, but not playing…and in any event, it was never the official name of the group, just a name on a record label.

Brian Wilson recorded in mono because he was deaf in one ear…A half-truth if there ever was one. Brian is indeed almost completely deaf in his right ear. Depending on who tells it, this was either a condition from birth, or because of a beating from his father. But he recorded in mono because everybody did. Stereo records had been invented to recreate the left-to-right sweep of a symphony orchestra…as a practical matter, stereo wasn't really relevant to pop music. Consider the Beatles: early on they recorded on 2 tracks, music on one, vocals on the other, then mixed them to mono and went home. It was up to the engineers to put together the stereo mixes, which is why they had that weird half-and-half sound…vocals in one speaker, music in the other…prompting Capital to invent "Duophonic," boosting highs in one channel, lows in the other, nicknamed "fake stereo."

Beach Boy stereo mixes were better, since Brian recorded to 3 tracks…but up until the mid-1960s, his concept of a song's ultimate sound was meant to be mono, "all in one place," again with an engineer determining the stereo separation. This explains for example why in the instrumental break of the song "Wendy," you can hear someone cough. The cough is buried deep in the mono mix and hence inaudible, but it's clear as day in the stereo mix. Why was it left in? Probably an oversight that nobody thought worth fixing…after all, mono records far outsold stereo at the time, and pop music in those days was thought to be almost as disposable as newspapers…kids would listen to records till they got tired of them, then buy new ones.

And that's why if you really pay attention, you'll hear mistakes on all kinds of records, from the Beatles to the Supremes, and everyone in between. Warning: newer CD stereo mixes of "Wendy" edit out the cough…spoilsports!

The Beach Boys recorded a version of the Beatle's "A Day in the Life"…That's a blooper you'll encounter from time to time…confusing it with the Brian Wilson song "A Day in the Life of a Tree" from their 1971 LP "Surf's Up." They did record 3 Beatles tunes on their 1965 "Party" LP…"I Should Have Known Better," "Tell Me Why," and "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away." The Beatles returned the favor with their Beach Boys spoof "Back in the U.S.S.R." John Lennon wrote it in early 1968, while in India with the Maharishi…but Mike Love was also at the ashram, and suggested to John that it would sound more like the Beach Boys if he put in lyrics about girls…like from Georgia and the Ukraine…and John was happy to oblige. 

The Beatles, minus Ringo but plus Donovan, even performed the impromptu "Happy Birthday, Michael Love," done with a Chuck Berry beat, on his 27th birthday, March 15th. Mike preserved the song on a cassette tape…debuted it on a radio show in 1976…and it's been hitting the bootleg circuit ever since. But this brings up an interesting point: most of the top artists were more buddies than rivals,…which is why on the 1964 LP "In Concert," the Beach Boys perform "Little Old Lady from Pasadena"…it was all about pleasing their fans, not "our songs" versus "their songs." And of course, Brian wrote songs for Jan and Dean, although not that one...and the duo was an opening act for some of the Beach Boys live shows.

Glen Campbell was a Beach Boy…He certainly was, in every way except "officially." Instrumentally, the Beach Boys could hold their own live on stage, but Brian was a perfectionist, so for studio recordings he often brought in others…like Glen Campbell to supplement Carl's guitar work. Glen was a member of the so-called "Wrecking Crew," a group of studio musicians who performed on hundreds of recordings…did you know for example that the piano bit at the end of the Tijuana Brass' "A Taste of Honey" is played by Leon Russell? 

So when an anxiety attack forced Brian to stop touring in late 1964, Glen was the natural choice to take his place. On stage he played bass and sang high harmonies. But after about a year, his own budding career as a singer prompted his replacement by Bruce Johnston. And actually, the precise Beach Boys lineup in the earliest days is often misunderstood…13-year old David Marks was not an original member as is often supposed.

The Pendletones that recorded for Candix consisted of the 3 Wilson brothers, Michael Love, and their high school buddy Al Jardine (the one who looked like a Kennedy!) But Jardine's first love was folk music, so by the time they signed with Capitol Records in April of 1962, he'd quit and been replaced by Marks, who lived across the street from the Wilsons, and often jammed on guitar with Carl. Marks played on the first 4 Beach Boys LPs, and in over 100 concerts and TV appearances. Then in the spring of 1963, Al Jardine returned to temporarily replace Brian Wilson on the road…but Brian was back on stage by October, replacing Marks who quit over disagreements with their manager, the brothers' father Murry Wilson. 

Marks, along with  Mark Groseclose, a drummer who filled in several times for Dennis on stage, formed the group the Marksmen, and released one of the first 45s on Herb Alpert's A&M records, co-produced by Russ Regan, that Candix promo man who re-named the Beach Boys. Jeepers, was everything back in the day connected to everything else? Yeah, pretty much!

And speaking of who's related to who, got a genealogy question? Send it to stolf@hotmail.com, then watch for the answer Sundays on "Genealogy for Baby Boomers" at deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com. Don't forget the daily blog at stolf.wordpress.com…and Cool Daddy tries to steal the show weekdays 3-7pm on 1340 WMSA. Till next time, be true to your school, get some help from Rhonda, and rock on!

Rock n Roll Hit or Myth (4CE reprint Jan. 2012)

Stolf's Oldies… jan 2012

Rock & Roll Hit or Myth  

Buddy Holly's signature eyeglasses were just for show. A myth...in fact, Holly didn't want to wear glasses, fearing it would detract from his rebel image. But he had horrible eyesight...a guitar pick dropped on stage was lost forever. And he couldn't tolerate contacts for more than a few hours. Of course in the 1950s, they were quite primitive, covering almost the entire eyeball. But according to an article in the Wall Street Journal last month, his vision in both eyes was 20/800. 

Now if you can only read the top line of the standard chart, your vision is 20/200. That's the threshold for legal blindness, but only if your corrected vision is no better than that. Buddy's vision was correctable…but how bad exactly is 20/800? If your visual acuity goes off the standard chart, they'll use the CF method...count fingers…as in ”How many am I holding up?” If you can see the fingers at 10 feet, but not 11 feet, you're 20/800. This scale goes all the way up to 20/8000, meaning you can't count fingers any further away than a foot. 

So according to J. Davis Armistead, Holly's Lubbock, Texas optometrist…who is still alive at age 96... the plan was for Buddy to wear the most “boring,” nondescript frames available. He found them with the “everyman” glasses Phil Silvers wore on TV as Sgt. Bilko, and offered Buddy a choice of black or brown. He chose black, and that was that. Iconsville.

The Beach Boys recorded a song written by Charles Manson. Strange but true, a harrowing sidebar to the history of our music. After his release from prison in 1967, having spent more than half his life behind bars, Charles Manson gravitated to the hippie scene in San Francisco, then Los Angeles. While in jail, he had learned to play the guitar from Alvin "Creepy" Karpis of the Ma Barker gang, and he was convinced he could be "twice as big as the Beatles." Opinions varied, but some really liked his songs, including Neil Young and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. It was Dennis who took him in for a recording session and also let Manson and his followers crash, and trash, his mansion. 

One song Dennis especially liked was called "Cease to Exist." He changed the line to "cease to resist," retitled the song "Never Learn Not to Love," and it came out on the Beach Boy LP "20/20" in 1968. Despite the typical Beach Boys sheen, it's not much of a song, altho again, some people seem to really like its weird intensity. But by this time, the friendship was souring. In exchange for giving up writing credits, Manson was given cash and sent packing. Within a year, well, you know what happened. But if you sample a few Manson songs on YouTube, he wasn't that bad a singer. In fact, if all you've ever heard from him is the rambling prison interviews that come out from time to time, you'd hardly believe it was the same person…which I guess was the scary part... 

The Beatles never recorded a Christmas record.  Half-way between a hit and a myth. Relatively few Top 40 artists recorded Christmas LPs back in the day…most that did are legendary: the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Four Seasons, the Royal Guardsmen, the Ventures, and of course Elvis. Others recorded Christmas 45s...like Simon and Garfunkel, the Blues Magoos, Canned Heat, Elton John, the Kinks, Bob Seger (“Sock it to Me, Santa” from 1966). But far more never did, and the Beatles can be included in that group...well, sort of. What the Beatles did do was issue flexible plastic “Christmas Greetings” discs to their fan club members at the end of each year, and these contained unfinished Christmassy song fragments, sounding more like demos or jam sessions.

The best-known is “Christmas Time Is Here Again” from 1967, mainly because a complete 6-minute version has been circulating on bootlegs for ages. Back in 1995, when Capitol Records emptied out their Beatles vault for the Anthology series, a shortened version came out as the flip side of "Free As a Bird." So technically, it can be considered the Beatles' Christmas song...altho it's really no more than a chant set to music, repeated over and over. And of course, it wasn't generally available, nor played on the radio, when the Beatles were a real group in the Sixties, so you make the call.

Tommy James & the Shondells had connections to organized crime.  A hit, no pun intended (none taken)…at least to the extent that their label Roulette Records was indeed a front for the Genovese crime family, involved in money laundering and other unsavory sidelights. In his recent book "Me, the Mob, and the Music," Tommy James lays it all out…and this isn't some sensationalized memoir, blown out of proportion to sell copies. If anything, James and the band weren't fully aware at the time just how dangerous their "bosses" really were, these Italian businessmen with names like Fat Tony Salerno and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. They knew something was "up," but they were naive young pop stars, and it's probably just as well that they were as oblivious as they were to the "business" end of it all. 

But another interesting revelation is that the “Crimson and Clover" we all know and love was actually an unfinished version, what's called a "rough mix." James had intended it to be much more elaborate, but when he played it for a Chicago DJ…and it ended up being played on the air all over the country, swapped around from radio station to radio station…Roulette decided to release it just as it was, much to Tommy's consternation. He says that at the time, he hated the released version, but has come to think that "it isn't really so bad." I agree with him!

The Rolling Stones made a TV commercial for Corn Flakes. Not so much a myth as a mistake, because in 1963 they did write and record a 30 second jingle for Kellogg's Rice Krispies. It went: "Wake up in the morning there's a Snap around the place / Wake up in the morning there's a Crackle in your face / Wake up in the morning there's a Pop that really says: Rice Krispies for you and you and you…" They do not appear in the commercial, just the recording, being judged on a "Juke Box Jury"-type panel show. Look for it as a CD bonus track…it's out there!

Where Corn Flakes do come in is the fact that “Good Morning, Good Morning” on the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" LP was inspired by Kellogg's “The Best to You Each Morning” jingle on TV at the time, both in the US and UK. And yes, the Who really recorded a commercial for Coca Cola, and the Yardbirds did one for Great Shakes powdered mix…seriously. 

And it looks like a "hit"…Thanks for all the nice comments I've received on my 3-7 afternoon show on 1340 WMSA in Massena. Catch the blogs at stolf.wordpress.com and deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com. Haven't been any new podcasts in a while at stolfpod.podbean.com, but there are over 50 old ones that are pretty cool, according to Cool Daddy...and old Fourth Coast Entertainment columns are at travelingcyst.blogspot.com. Till next time, let a smile be your umbrella…you'll be happy…and wet…and rock on!