"Near Perfect"
On June 2, Armando Galarraga of the Tigers pitched a perfect game against the Indians, the 3rd perfecto in the Majors this season. There, I said it. If you're a baseball fan, you know what happened: ump blew the call at first, everybody knew it, he even admitted it later. I say: give the kid his perfect game. Since when can't you correct an obvious mistake? Since baseball, that's when! And I thought at the very least we were going to get some kind of instant replay out of this mess...so where is it?
Since I haven't written about our nation's pastime for a while, I thought I might remind you of 3 other infamous "near perfect" games, 2 duly heralded in baseball lore, and one you might have missed. But first, here's a quickie quiz, with the answer at the end of the column: if you pitch a perfect game, you allow no base-runners, yet your team could still have an error! How is this possible?
On June 23 1917, Boston's Babe Ruth walked the first Washington Senator he faced on 4 pitches. He argued with the ump, was ejected, and had to be escorted off the field by the police. Ernie Shore took the mound, and on his first pitch, the catcher threw the base-runner out at 2nd. Shore then retired the next 26 batters he faced. 27 up, 27 out, and Shore was on the mound for all of 'em. Perfect game? It used to be, now its listed simply as a combined no-hitter...more on that later in this article.
May 26, 1959, Pittsburgh at Milwaukee, and what many (including myself) consider the greatest pitched game in baseball history. Journeyman Harvey Haddix had a perfect game thru 9 innings. But the game was scoreless, so Haddix pitched 3 more perfect innings! Think of it: 36 up, 36 down. Then disaster stuck. Leading off the bottom of the 13th, Felix Mantilla reached on 3rd baseman Don Hoak's error. Sacrifice bunt by Eddie Mathews, intentional walk to Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock homered, but his hit was reduced by rule to a double when he passed Aaron on the base paths. Haddix lost 1-0, no perfect game, no no-hitter, no nuthin'. Altho I love what he always said: "I know what I did." And so do we, brother, so do we!
One that may have slipped thru the cracks: On June 3 1995, Pedro Martinez with the Expos had a perfect game thru 9 versus the Giants. But again, no score. Expos did score in the top of the 10th, but in the bottom Martinez yielded a lead-off double to Bip Roberts. Mel Rojas relieved, and retired the side. A perfect game for Pedro by the old rules, but not anymore...we're getting to that.
How many perfect games have been lost in the final at bat? The answer is 10, of which 8 were "clean," a base hit by the 27th batter. No doubt Yankee fans will recall Boston's Carl Everett and his 2-strike single off Mike Mussina in 2001. The other 2 finished up as no-hitters. On July 4 1908, Hooks Wiltse of the Giants hit the 27th Phillie he faced, settling for a 10-inning no-hit win. More controversial was the Cubs-Padres game of Sept 2 1972. The 27th batter, pinch-hitter Larry Stahl, worked the count full against Chicago's Milt Pappas, then walked on a borderline pitch. Pappas got his no-hitter, but never forgave the ump, who happened to be sophomore Bruce Froemming, who went on to umpire 35 more years, and call 10 more no-hitters.
Now losing a perfect game or even a no-hitter in the 9th inning is a tough break. Losing it long after the game is over sounds nuts, but on Sept 4 1991, 50 no-hitters disappeared from the record books, as Fay Vincent’s Committee for Statistical Accuracy re-defined a no-hitter. The old rule was: after 9 innings, the meter stopped running and your no-hitter was in the books, no matter what happened in extra innings. The committee changed that: however many extra innings the game went, it had be hitless (or perfect) for all of them or no cigar. This has some logic to it, but there was logic to the old way too. 12 such no-hitters were expunged. The new rule also required a minimum of 9 innings, thus dumping 38 more, including 3 "perfect games" that went only 5 innings, and one that went 7.
I think the 9-inning no-hitters should have stayed. Some players lost the only no-hitter they had. Or take the case of Jim Maloney (who should be in the Hall of Fame!) He was formerly credited with 3 no-hitters: one of 9 innings, one of 10 innings, and one that was hitless thru 10, hit in the 11th. Now of course he only has 2. Both those 10-inning hitless efforts came in 1965, a little over 2 months apart. Pretty smooth if you ask me.
I do agree that those less-than-9-inning no-hitters deserved to go, especially one by the Giants' Mike McCormick on June 12 1959. He pitched 5 hitless innings against the Phillies, then allowed a hit in the 6th. The game was called due to rain, with official stats reverting back to the 5th, and thus a no-hitter for Mike! Now in all fairness, this wasn't his fault, but talk about a cheapie!
But worst of all is the case of a visiting pitcher losing a game, and since the home team didn't bat in the 9th, pitching only 8 innings, but at the same time allowing no hits! 3 such games were wiped out in the 1991 purge, including Yankee Andy Hawkins' weird 4-0 no-hit loss to Chicago in 1990. In 1992 Matt Young also lost an 8-inning no-hitter on the road, 2-1 to Boston. Mind you, in such a case the pitcher IS credited with a complete game! Common sense says that's a no-hitter.
Then you have what I call a "back-end perfect game." This is where the pitcher surrenders a hit to the lead-off batter, then retires the next 27. It's not mentioned anywhere in the record book, obviously, but it's happened 3 times: Robin Roberts (Cin-65), Jerry Reuss (SF-80), and Jim Bibby (Atl-81). Wild, no?
Finally, on another stat entirely: I know of only 2 players to hit 20+ homers in a season, but fail to have at least twice as many RBIs: Kevin Maas 21/41 (Yanks-90) and Chris Duncan 22/43 (Cards-06). (Mark McGwire's half-season with the Cards in 1997, he was 24/42, but he had enough RBIs with Oakland to make up for it.). For 30+, closest appear to be Rob Deer 32/64 (Detroit-92) and Hanley Ramirez 33/67 (Miami-08.)
QUIZ ANSWER: An error is defined as a fielding muff that results in either the batter getting on base, or his time at bat being prolonged. That second part is just a fancy way of saying an error can be given on a foul ball, for example, an easy pop foul that drops out of the first baseman's glove. E3, but no base-runner, hence perfect game! Till next time, watch that invisible man on 3rd, and rock on!
PS....Can't get enough of Stolf? Force yourself, or better yet, check out my daily blog at stolf.wordpress.com. And Cool Daddy, the Weird Beard to the Feared, joins yours truly at stolfpod.podbean.com and thewholething.podbean.com. Listen often, and you'll always have good luck!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
more mayberry trivia (4CE reprint, aug 2010)
10 MORE Things You Didn't Know About Mayberry
(1) Where in North Carolina is Mayberry supposed to be located? That's the $64,000 question, and worthy of an entire column. For now, I'll tell you where Mayberry ISN'T. It isn't where Andy Griffith's home town of Mt. Airy is, near the northwest border with Virginia. He has said Mayberry IS NOT meant to be Mt. Airy, although he acknowledges that most people think it is. Yes, there is a nearby town called Pilot Mountain. Yes, several times Andy is reading a Mt. Airy newspaper, although usually it's the Mayberry Gazette. Yes, a handful of real-life Mt Airy people and places are mentioned on the show. But there's one big problem.
Mayberry is time after time said to be SOUTH of Raleigh, the state capital, and Mt. Airy is NORTH. Sure, Mayberry is occasionally north of Raleigh, too; in at least one episode it's BOTH! But this is typical: not all the places mentioned on the show are real, and the real ones aren't always where they're supposed to be. Nobody kept track, it seems.
(2) But while we're on the subject, Mt. Airy is also the home town of singer Donna Fargo, and the adopted home of the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. Don't confuse Mt. Airy with Mt. Idy, the fictional town made famous by Cliff Arquette as "Charlie Weaver." The routine was inspired by a friend of his mother's, whose letters from Mount Ida, Arkansas she would read aloud to the family.
(3) "What did the mirror say to the dresser?"...Aunt Bee poses this riddle once, but doesn't give the answer. In an interview, the writer said that's because it was a little racy, at least for her: I DON'T MEAN TO CAST REFLECTIONS, BUT YOUR DRAWERS ARE OPEN.
(4) "Never Hit Your Grandma With a Great Big Stick"...Dud suggests this song for the Darlings to play, but it always makes Charlene cry. The title is no doubt inspired by a real Spike Jones song "Never Hit Your Grandma with a Shovel." Good advice, generally speaking. (I don't know your grandma.)
(5) "Gilligan's Island" connection...In the second season episode "The Farmer Takes a Wife," The Skipper, Alan Hale Jr., is a farmer who continually calls Barney "Li'l Buddy" (!!!) And on March 30, 1964 Bob Denver took over the role of Charlene's husband Dudley Wash. He would star as Gilligan in the fall, and the network wanted to remind viewers what Maynard G. Krebbs looked like without the beard.
(6) Opie's name?...The standard answer is it's from Opie Cates, a band-leader and radio actor born Opal Taft Cates, whom Andy & producer Sheldon Leonard are said to have listened to. But then there's Opie Lee Shelton, real-life boyhood friend of Andy Griffith. Also, on "Dennis the Menace," a year before "Andy Griffith Show" debuted, Dub Taylor played a handyman named Opie Swanson in 3 episodes. Another intriguing foreshadowing: Howard "Floyd" McNear as a barber on "Leave It to Beaver"...named ANDY!
(7) All in the family...Andy's then wife Barbara is in the choir in the episode "The Song Festers," and even has a speaking line. Don Knotts' daughter Karen played Opie's secretary in the TV-movie "Return to Mayberry." Ron Howard's dad Rance and brother Clint (as Leon) appeared in a number of episodes. And Bee's niece Martha was played by actress Candace Howard, but I checked: no relation.
(8) Malcolm Merriweather's paper tree...the one he made for Opie? It's a real thing, various websites have instructions, just Google it.
(9) Famous faces you'll see before they were famous: Lee Van Cleef, Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson, Barbara Eden, Bill Bixby, Michael J. Pollard, Jamie Farr, Harry Dean Stanton, Arte Johnson, Keye Luke, Morgan Brittany (using her real name Suzanne Cupito), Terri Garr (look quick!), plus "Murray Slaughter," "Father Mulcahy," "Sam Drucker," and "Grandma Walton."
(10) Finally, as promised, Aunt Bee is Andy's WHAT?...After watching and enjoying the show all my life (I just turned 59), the pieces began to fall into place recently, triggered by something Andy said in the episode "Bee's Crowning Glory": "Family's lived in this county 3 generations, first time we didn't wear our own hair." He obviously meant adult generations, since Opie wouldn't wear a wig, so that would be Andy, his father, and his grandfather.
Curious, since counting Andy there are 6 generations, not 3, back to Mayberry hero Seth Taylor, Bee's great great grandfather. And if Bee grew up in West Virginia (episode: "Aunt Bee's Cousin"), her brother, Andy's father, grew up there too, right? And their father, Andy's grandfather, was in West Virginia as well. Yet the Taylors are a Mayberry clan. Something didn't compute. OK, what if Bee were Andy's father's 1st cousin, not sibling!
Andy's grandfather could have grown up in WV, with his siblings (Bee's father and cousin Bradford's father), then moved back to Mayberry as an adult, and there are your 3 generations. But playing the "fan logic" game, is there any evidence that Bee is Andy's father's cousin, not sister? Yes! The smoking gun is the episode "Baby in the House." Bee is on the phone with her niece Martha and Andy tells Helen: "My 2nd cousin." Bingo!
Your aunt's niece could be you, your sister, or your 1st cousin, but not your 2nd cousin. A 2nd cousin is the child of your parent's 1st cousin, and there it is. Bee has no children, but her siblings are Andy's father's 1st cousins, and their children are Andy's 2nd cousins. Sure enough, in another episode, Bee mentions "Opie's Uncle Todd," the wiper on the oil tanker, and once again Andy comments "My 2nd cousin," meaning the son of his father's 1st cousin, perhaps Bee's rum-cake-loving brother.
So there's your scoop. Andy's father is Bee's 1st cousin, and thus Andy and Bee are 1st cousins once removed. Those who assume Bee and Andy's father are siblings are indeed making an assumption, and not once in 249 shows does she, or anybody else, say that she is! Till next time, try to act like some-BODY, you little buzzard...and rock on!
PS: Lots of new ones since last time at stolfpod.podbean.com. Try it, you'll like it...and I wanna get my hit count up! Plus a spin-off: thewholething.podbean.com. And my new daily blog at stolf.wordpress.com.
(1) Where in North Carolina is Mayberry supposed to be located? That's the $64,000 question, and worthy of an entire column. For now, I'll tell you where Mayberry ISN'T. It isn't where Andy Griffith's home town of Mt. Airy is, near the northwest border with Virginia. He has said Mayberry IS NOT meant to be Mt. Airy, although he acknowledges that most people think it is. Yes, there is a nearby town called Pilot Mountain. Yes, several times Andy is reading a Mt. Airy newspaper, although usually it's the Mayberry Gazette. Yes, a handful of real-life Mt Airy people and places are mentioned on the show. But there's one big problem.
Mayberry is time after time said to be SOUTH of Raleigh, the state capital, and Mt. Airy is NORTH. Sure, Mayberry is occasionally north of Raleigh, too; in at least one episode it's BOTH! But this is typical: not all the places mentioned on the show are real, and the real ones aren't always where they're supposed to be. Nobody kept track, it seems.
(2) But while we're on the subject, Mt. Airy is also the home town of singer Donna Fargo, and the adopted home of the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. Don't confuse Mt. Airy with Mt. Idy, the fictional town made famous by Cliff Arquette as "Charlie Weaver." The routine was inspired by a friend of his mother's, whose letters from Mount Ida, Arkansas she would read aloud to the family.
(3) "What did the mirror say to the dresser?"...Aunt Bee poses this riddle once, but doesn't give the answer. In an interview, the writer said that's because it was a little racy, at least for her: I DON'T MEAN TO CAST REFLECTIONS, BUT YOUR DRAWERS ARE OPEN.
(4) "Never Hit Your Grandma With a Great Big Stick"...Dud suggests this song for the Darlings to play, but it always makes Charlene cry. The title is no doubt inspired by a real Spike Jones song "Never Hit Your Grandma with a Shovel." Good advice, generally speaking. (I don't know your grandma.)
(5) "Gilligan's Island" connection...In the second season episode "The Farmer Takes a Wife," The Skipper, Alan Hale Jr., is a farmer who continually calls Barney "Li'l Buddy" (!!!) And on March 30, 1964 Bob Denver took over the role of Charlene's husband Dudley Wash. He would star as Gilligan in the fall, and the network wanted to remind viewers what Maynard G. Krebbs looked like without the beard.
(6) Opie's name?...The standard answer is it's from Opie Cates, a band-leader and radio actor born Opal Taft Cates, whom Andy & producer Sheldon Leonard are said to have listened to. But then there's Opie Lee Shelton, real-life boyhood friend of Andy Griffith. Also, on "Dennis the Menace," a year before "Andy Griffith Show" debuted, Dub Taylor played a handyman named Opie Swanson in 3 episodes. Another intriguing foreshadowing: Howard "Floyd" McNear as a barber on "Leave It to Beaver"...named ANDY!
(7) All in the family...Andy's then wife Barbara is in the choir in the episode "The Song Festers," and even has a speaking line. Don Knotts' daughter Karen played Opie's secretary in the TV-movie "Return to Mayberry." Ron Howard's dad Rance and brother Clint (as Leon) appeared in a number of episodes. And Bee's niece Martha was played by actress Candace Howard, but I checked: no relation.
(8) Malcolm Merriweather's paper tree...the one he made for Opie? It's a real thing, various websites have instructions, just Google it.
(9) Famous faces you'll see before they were famous: Lee Van Cleef, Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson, Barbara Eden, Bill Bixby, Michael J. Pollard, Jamie Farr, Harry Dean Stanton, Arte Johnson, Keye Luke, Morgan Brittany (using her real name Suzanne Cupito), Terri Garr (look quick!), plus "Murray Slaughter," "Father Mulcahy," "Sam Drucker," and "Grandma Walton."
(10) Finally, as promised, Aunt Bee is Andy's WHAT?...After watching and enjoying the show all my life (I just turned 59), the pieces began to fall into place recently, triggered by something Andy said in the episode "Bee's Crowning Glory": "Family's lived in this county 3 generations, first time we didn't wear our own hair." He obviously meant adult generations, since Opie wouldn't wear a wig, so that would be Andy, his father, and his grandfather.
Curious, since counting Andy there are 6 generations, not 3, back to Mayberry hero Seth Taylor, Bee's great great grandfather. And if Bee grew up in West Virginia (episode: "Aunt Bee's Cousin"), her brother, Andy's father, grew up there too, right? And their father, Andy's grandfather, was in West Virginia as well. Yet the Taylors are a Mayberry clan. Something didn't compute. OK, what if Bee were Andy's father's 1st cousin, not sibling!
Andy's grandfather could have grown up in WV, with his siblings (Bee's father and cousin Bradford's father), then moved back to Mayberry as an adult, and there are your 3 generations. But playing the "fan logic" game, is there any evidence that Bee is Andy's father's cousin, not sister? Yes! The smoking gun is the episode "Baby in the House." Bee is on the phone with her niece Martha and Andy tells Helen: "My 2nd cousin." Bingo!
Your aunt's niece could be you, your sister, or your 1st cousin, but not your 2nd cousin. A 2nd cousin is the child of your parent's 1st cousin, and there it is. Bee has no children, but her siblings are Andy's father's 1st cousins, and their children are Andy's 2nd cousins. Sure enough, in another episode, Bee mentions "Opie's Uncle Todd," the wiper on the oil tanker, and once again Andy comments "My 2nd cousin," meaning the son of his father's 1st cousin, perhaps Bee's rum-cake-loving brother.
So there's your scoop. Andy's father is Bee's 1st cousin, and thus Andy and Bee are 1st cousins once removed. Those who assume Bee and Andy's father are siblings are indeed making an assumption, and not once in 249 shows does she, or anybody else, say that she is! Till next time, try to act like some-BODY, you little buzzard...and rock on!
PS: Lots of new ones since last time at stolfpod.podbean.com. Try it, you'll like it...and I wanna get my hit count up! Plus a spin-off: thewholething.podbean.com. And my new daily blog at stolf.wordpress.com.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
alvin!!!!! (4CE reprint dec 2009)
ALLLLLLVIIIIIN !!!
Once upon a time in the 1950's there were 3 executives at Liberty Records named Al, Ted, and Sy, which is to say Alvin Bennett, Theodore Keep and Simon Waronker. They're gone now, but their names live on of course as the Chipmunks. This month, everything you didn't know you wanted to know about the rodents and their Baby Boomer Christmas perennial "The Chipmunk Song."
First, though, why that title? After all, the hundreds of recordings that came after were all "chipmunk songs", right? Well, Ross Bagdasarian, a.k.a. David Seville, didn't know the record would give birth to a franchise that's still going strong today. As far as he was concerned, this could’ve been the first and last chipmunk song. But it went to #1 in 1958, and when re-released in 1959 and thereafter, it was subtitled "Christmas Don't Be Late", and had a new B-side, the follow-up hit "Alvin's Harmonica." The original 1958 flip was a non-Chipmunk instrumental called "Almost Good", which is actually pretty good.
Ross Bagdasarian, born in Fresno, California, was an aspiring actor, musician, composer and dialect comedian. With his cousin, playwright William Saroyan, he recorded "Come On-a My House" in 1951, a song they had written together in 1939. His then wife Kay Armen also recorded a version with the Ray Charles Singers (see last month's column!), but it was Rosemary Clooney's smash version that convinced Ross maybe he did have a future in music. Moderate chart success came in 1955 with "The Trouble With Harry" by Alfi & Harry. He was Alfi, Harry was Mark McIntyre, another Liberty Records exec, and father of the singing duo Patience and Prudence. (Ross is sometimes incorrectly credited with being their dad.) On this single, Harry is a wayward piano-player, and Alfi provides the narration, becoming exasperated with Harry's antics, a routine that would be re-cycled for the Chipmunks phenomenon: ALLLLLLLVIIIIIIN!!!!
But further Alfi & Harry singles tanked, as did a "David Seville" album. (Ross was stationed in Seville, Spain during WWII.) The song "Witch Doctor" was a last-gasp effort, and it scored big, #1 in Billboard, thanks I believe more to the catchy "oo-ee-oo-ah-ah" chorus than the squeaky high voice; the voice gimmick was tried again, but wasn't enough to save the lack-luster follow-up "The Bird on My Head." Still, Ross figured if one squeaky voice is good, 3 must be better. And boy was he right.
Speed manipulation had been used before. Remember "The Wizard of Oz"? Some early 50's records used fast adult voices to simulate a children's chorus. From the invention of tape recorders in the 1930s, they generally had several speeds. In fact, an early application which apparently fizzled out fast was called "speed telephoning"...playing a recorded message over the phone at fast-speed, then slowing it down for playback. But the speeded voice was difficult to understand; that's why Disney's Chip 'n' Dale spoke in such short, clipped phrases. You could only double or halve the speed, nothing in between. Variable speed recorders were complicated and expensive, but Ross bought one for the price of a decent used car, and fine-tuned the technique to make the voices intelligible. But the real innovation was the use of multi-track recording, pioneered by Les Paul, who BTW claimed he gave Ross the key idea.
And that idea was to take a pre-recorded music track, slow it down, sing along with it, then speed it up again. The slowed down music would be back to sounding normal, but the normal voice would now be squeaky. Contrast that with Danny Kaye's 1942 record "The Babbitt and the Bromide", where 2 stuffy society gents trade pleasantries, and when they arrive in heaven, the chorus is speeded up, voices, music and all. One of the first things I did when I came to work at WSLB in Ogdensburg was to try the technique with another DJ as the Singing Squirrels, Monty & Raoul. You can hear our primitive effort on Dec. 18's Zillion Dollar Friday on WGIX 95.3...at 7am we'll do a Chipmunks special.
But the innovation didn't end there. Each of the voices on "The Chipmunk Song" had to be recorded, along with the slowed down music, separately. With only 2 tracks on recording tape, that would have meant a lot of re-recording (called in the business "bouncing") and a subsequent loss of fidelity. So Ross used 4 tape recorders, one for each voice! And how did he synch them all up perfectly? By recording on 35mm film stock, which was easy to synchronize, since a movie's picture and soundtrack obviously have to be precisely aligned.
(As a curious sidelight, cigarettes were instrumental in the development of the modern tape-recorder. Up thru the 1920s, magnetic recording was done on steel wire or thin steel strips, which were expensive and impractical: for edits or repairs, they had to be welded! Meanwhile, a German tobacco company wanted to replace the thin bands of gold on the tips of their high-end smokes with something less expensive. Austrian inventor Fritz Pfleumer came up with a way to bond thin strips of bronze onto paper, and while bronze isn't magnetic, it occurred to him the same method would work with an iron alloy that was. Thus, the tape came first, with the modern recorder being redesigned around it, the paper backing eventually replaced by flexible plastic.)
Released in late 1958, "The Chipmunk Song" sold 4 million copies in 7 weeks. A month after that Christmas, Ross turned 40, hardly an overnight success. The single came in a picture sleeve illustrating the chipmunks as ugly cartoon rodents, identical except for the initial on their sweaters. On the "Ed Sullivan Show", they were hand puppets. Eventually they became more like little boys on the animated "Alvin Show" which began in 1961. Interestingly, on that show the Chipmunks want to sing "Witch Doctor." Dave says: "I already made that record." Alvin replies: "Not with us you didn't!" And so they do.
What followed was an avalanche of squeaky voice imitators, all manner of insects, birds, creatures and critters. Artists like the Coasters ("Charlie Brown" and "Little Egypt") and Sheb Wooley ("Purple People Eater" and "Luke the Spook") jumped on the bandwagon. One of the strangest was Jesse Lee Turner's "Little Space Girl." She wants to marry him, but he demurs, because she has multiple arms, lips, eyes, etc. Well, Ok, he finally gives in. And on thru the 60's & 70's...Ray Stevens ("Bridget the Midget"), David Bowie ("The Laughing Gnome"), the Cowsills ("Gotta Get Away"), a CB radio take-off with Shirley & Squirrelly, and coming full circle when Chip 'n' Dale recorded "The Chipmunk Song" in 1981.
Then there's the version of "The Chipmunk Song" the Chipmunks recorded in 1968 with Canned Heat of all people..."Hey you mice, get out of our recording studio!" Ross Bagdasarian died in 1972, but his son Ross Jr. took over, and recently turned 60, making him 9 years older than his 3 little brothers. Till next time, hope you get that hula hoop...(how do you wrap a hula hoop?)...and rock on!
Once upon a time in the 1950's there were 3 executives at Liberty Records named Al, Ted, and Sy, which is to say Alvin Bennett, Theodore Keep and Simon Waronker. They're gone now, but their names live on of course as the Chipmunks. This month, everything you didn't know you wanted to know about the rodents and their Baby Boomer Christmas perennial "The Chipmunk Song."
First, though, why that title? After all, the hundreds of recordings that came after were all "chipmunk songs", right? Well, Ross Bagdasarian, a.k.a. David Seville, didn't know the record would give birth to a franchise that's still going strong today. As far as he was concerned, this could’ve been the first and last chipmunk song. But it went to #1 in 1958, and when re-released in 1959 and thereafter, it was subtitled "Christmas Don't Be Late", and had a new B-side, the follow-up hit "Alvin's Harmonica." The original 1958 flip was a non-Chipmunk instrumental called "Almost Good", which is actually pretty good.
Ross Bagdasarian, born in Fresno, California, was an aspiring actor, musician, composer and dialect comedian. With his cousin, playwright William Saroyan, he recorded "Come On-a My House" in 1951, a song they had written together in 1939. His then wife Kay Armen also recorded a version with the Ray Charles Singers (see last month's column!), but it was Rosemary Clooney's smash version that convinced Ross maybe he did have a future in music. Moderate chart success came in 1955 with "The Trouble With Harry" by Alfi & Harry. He was Alfi, Harry was Mark McIntyre, another Liberty Records exec, and father of the singing duo Patience and Prudence. (Ross is sometimes incorrectly credited with being their dad.) On this single, Harry is a wayward piano-player, and Alfi provides the narration, becoming exasperated with Harry's antics, a routine that would be re-cycled for the Chipmunks phenomenon: ALLLLLLLVIIIIIIN!!!!
But further Alfi & Harry singles tanked, as did a "David Seville" album. (Ross was stationed in Seville, Spain during WWII.) The song "Witch Doctor" was a last-gasp effort, and it scored big, #1 in Billboard, thanks I believe more to the catchy "oo-ee-oo-ah-ah" chorus than the squeaky high voice; the voice gimmick was tried again, but wasn't enough to save the lack-luster follow-up "The Bird on My Head." Still, Ross figured if one squeaky voice is good, 3 must be better. And boy was he right.
Speed manipulation had been used before. Remember "The Wizard of Oz"? Some early 50's records used fast adult voices to simulate a children's chorus. From the invention of tape recorders in the 1930s, they generally had several speeds. In fact, an early application which apparently fizzled out fast was called "speed telephoning"...playing a recorded message over the phone at fast-speed, then slowing it down for playback. But the speeded voice was difficult to understand; that's why Disney's Chip 'n' Dale spoke in such short, clipped phrases. You could only double or halve the speed, nothing in between. Variable speed recorders were complicated and expensive, but Ross bought one for the price of a decent used car, and fine-tuned the technique to make the voices intelligible. But the real innovation was the use of multi-track recording, pioneered by Les Paul, who BTW claimed he gave Ross the key idea.
And that idea was to take a pre-recorded music track, slow it down, sing along with it, then speed it up again. The slowed down music would be back to sounding normal, but the normal voice would now be squeaky. Contrast that with Danny Kaye's 1942 record "The Babbitt and the Bromide", where 2 stuffy society gents trade pleasantries, and when they arrive in heaven, the chorus is speeded up, voices, music and all. One of the first things I did when I came to work at WSLB in Ogdensburg was to try the technique with another DJ as the Singing Squirrels, Monty & Raoul. You can hear our primitive effort on Dec. 18's Zillion Dollar Friday on WGIX 95.3...at 7am we'll do a Chipmunks special.
But the innovation didn't end there. Each of the voices on "The Chipmunk Song" had to be recorded, along with the slowed down music, separately. With only 2 tracks on recording tape, that would have meant a lot of re-recording (called in the business "bouncing") and a subsequent loss of fidelity. So Ross used 4 tape recorders, one for each voice! And how did he synch them all up perfectly? By recording on 35mm film stock, which was easy to synchronize, since a movie's picture and soundtrack obviously have to be precisely aligned.
(As a curious sidelight, cigarettes were instrumental in the development of the modern tape-recorder. Up thru the 1920s, magnetic recording was done on steel wire or thin steel strips, which were expensive and impractical: for edits or repairs, they had to be welded! Meanwhile, a German tobacco company wanted to replace the thin bands of gold on the tips of their high-end smokes with something less expensive. Austrian inventor Fritz Pfleumer came up with a way to bond thin strips of bronze onto paper, and while bronze isn't magnetic, it occurred to him the same method would work with an iron alloy that was. Thus, the tape came first, with the modern recorder being redesigned around it, the paper backing eventually replaced by flexible plastic.)
Released in late 1958, "The Chipmunk Song" sold 4 million copies in 7 weeks. A month after that Christmas, Ross turned 40, hardly an overnight success. The single came in a picture sleeve illustrating the chipmunks as ugly cartoon rodents, identical except for the initial on their sweaters. On the "Ed Sullivan Show", they were hand puppets. Eventually they became more like little boys on the animated "Alvin Show" which began in 1961. Interestingly, on that show the Chipmunks want to sing "Witch Doctor." Dave says: "I already made that record." Alvin replies: "Not with us you didn't!" And so they do.
What followed was an avalanche of squeaky voice imitators, all manner of insects, birds, creatures and critters. Artists like the Coasters ("Charlie Brown" and "Little Egypt") and Sheb Wooley ("Purple People Eater" and "Luke the Spook") jumped on the bandwagon. One of the strangest was Jesse Lee Turner's "Little Space Girl." She wants to marry him, but he demurs, because she has multiple arms, lips, eyes, etc. Well, Ok, he finally gives in. And on thru the 60's & 70's...Ray Stevens ("Bridget the Midget"), David Bowie ("The Laughing Gnome"), the Cowsills ("Gotta Get Away"), a CB radio take-off with Shirley & Squirrelly, and coming full circle when Chip 'n' Dale recorded "The Chipmunk Song" in 1981.
Then there's the version of "The Chipmunk Song" the Chipmunks recorded in 1968 with Canned Heat of all people..."Hey you mice, get out of our recording studio!" Ross Bagdasarian died in 1972, but his son Ross Jr. took over, and recently turned 60, making him 9 years older than his 3 little brothers. Till next time, hope you get that hula hoop...(how do you wrap a hula hoop?)...and rock on!
Monday, August 16, 2010
hit or myth? (4CE reprint may 2010)
You may have noticed I deleted all the "Baker's Dozen" columns. They are now a daily feature at Stolf's Blog, http://stolf.wordpress.com. Instead, I'll post some more reprints from "4th Coast Entertainment", viz....
Hit or Myth?
As a young man, Fidel Castro had a pitching tryout with the Washington Senators. One of the all-time great "what-if" rumors, but completely false. What makes it sound plausible is the fact that of the 47 Cubans who played in the majors from 1935-55, 31 spent time with the Senators. Owner Clark Griffith liked those low wages, so they say. Plus, Castro was big in baseball, soccer and track in college, but he graduated with a law degree, and worked early on as a lawyer. Everybody in Cuba knows he didn’t have the level of playing skills needed to be a pro, writes Yale Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in his history of Cuban baseball.
Soon after the revolution, Castro did pitch in an exhibition game with his team Los Barbudos ("The Bearded Ones.") According to "The Sporting News," he pitched one inning, and notched 2 K's, with help from the umpire: "When the arbiter called the batter out on a high, inside pitch, Castro dashed to the plate and shook hands with the ump." It's good to be the king.
Charles Manson auditioned to be a Monkee. Another oft-told myth bites the dust. It is well-documented that he was in prison at the time on a ten-year mail theft and forgery rap. Among the 437 hopefuls who did answer the ad in "Variety" was Stephen Stills. He recounts how they liked his overall looks, except for his crooked teeth and thinning hair. They asked if he knew anyone who looked like him, and he recommended a Greenwich Village buddy of his, Peter Tork!
Superman failed his army induction physical. A hit, although oddly enough, it didn't happen in the comic books. Closest we get is this note in Superman #25, Nov/Dec 1942: "Millions of Superman readers will recall that Clark Kent tried to enlist, but was rejected for faulty vision when his x-ray vision penetrated the eye-chart and read a different chart in the next room." This happened on Feb 18 1942, in the daily Superman newspaper strip.
Says a bewildered Clark: "There must be some mistake!...The Army doesn't want me?" The doc replies: "You're physically superb, except you're obviously blind as a bat...you muffed every line." Sure enough, the next panel shows how he x-rayed though the wall. But no worries: he realized, as the note says, he could "be of more value on the home front operating as a free agent."
Eddie Haskell of "Leave It To Beaver" grew up to be Alice Cooper. Total myth, although Alice himself is inadvertently to blame. Eddie was played by actor Ken Osmond, who grew up to be an L.A. cop (and not porn-star John Holmes, as another rumor has it.) In the late 60s, Vince Furnier and his band the Spiders were struggling, so they decided to take a more theatrical approach, with the new persona "Alice Cooper."
Publicity at the time claimed a ouija board told Vince he was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch by that name, but this was a complete fabrication. Today he says he just picked the name out of the air, because it sounded like "a sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back." Aunt Bee's replacement on "Mayberry RFD", Alice Cooper, played by Alice Ghostly, is apparently just coincidence, as is the mother of Archie's friend Betty, also Alice Cooper.
But what launched the story was Vince's statement in an interview that as a kid he was Eddie Haskell. He meant that was his obnoxious personality, but it was taken literally. An interesting note on Eddie Haskell: in the pilot episode, the character, then named Frankie Bennett, was played by a young Harry Shearer, best know as Spinal Tap's bass-player, and for numerous voices on "The Simpsons." Wally was also played by a different actor, Paul Sullivan, as was Ward, Casey Adams.
Speaking of the Monkees, Jimi Hendryx was once their opening act. True! But what were they thinking? Well, what they were thinking was: Wow! This guy is good! The Monkees just wanted to watch & listen to him perform every night. For Jimi's part, he had 3 top-ten hits in England, but zip stateside, so he figured it'd be good exposure, despite having called the Monkees, in an printed interview several months earlier, "dishwater."
So he signed up for a summer tour in 1967, with predictable results. He's going "foxy...lady..." while the fans are screaming "Davy...Davy..." After half-a-dozen shows, he snapped, flipped the audience the bird, and stormed off the stage. The Monkees let him out of his contract, parting ways amicably. "Purple Haze" was just breaking over the horizon...
The lyrics to John Fred and the Playboy Band's "Judy in Disguise with Glasses" make no sense. This is a half-truth, because some of them actually do make sense. The group from Baton Rouge enjoyed regional success as a boogie-oriented bar band, and if you're looking for "new oldies," their greatest hits CD is highly recommended. "Judy" came about when John Fred Gourrier misheard the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the whole thing was meant as a goof, which nonetheless catapulted them to their 15 minutes of fame. They hated the song, but whutcha gonna do?
Some of the lyrics have been deciphered: "Cross your heart with your living bra" of course refers to the Playtex advertising slogan. "A circus of horrors, that's what you are" is from a 1960 British horror movie by that name. More obscure is the line: "Keep wearing your bracelets and your raras." That's how you'll see the lyrics listed, but it should be spelled "rah-rahs." It was slang in the South 2-tone Oxford shoes, the kind cheerleaders wore. Up north we called them saddle shoes.
But the lines "a chimney sweep sparrow with guise [guys?]" and "you made me a life of ashes" really don't make any sense, if that's what he's really singing. The mystery is why someone doesn't just ask the dude. Also, you may read that John Fred's dad Fred Gourrier was a local celebrity, having played shortstop for the Detroit Tigers. What people don't realize is for 40 years there have been reference books that list everybody who ever played in the Majors, even if for just one game. Now it's all on-line, and if your name ain't there, game over. Turns out Fred was in the farm system, but never made it to The Show.
Postscript on the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." column... The internet says Del Floria, whose tailor shop in NYC "on a street in the East 40's" was the "agents' entrance," had no first name. Wrong! In "The Concrete Overcoat Affair," Mr. Waverly calls him "Bill." That's what happens when you buy the complete DVD set, a Christmas gift from me to me, and watch the whoooooole thing. Anyway, you saw it here first...till next time, rock on!
Hit or Myth?
As a young man, Fidel Castro had a pitching tryout with the Washington Senators. One of the all-time great "what-if" rumors, but completely false. What makes it sound plausible is the fact that of the 47 Cubans who played in the majors from 1935-55, 31 spent time with the Senators. Owner Clark Griffith liked those low wages, so they say. Plus, Castro was big in baseball, soccer and track in college, but he graduated with a law degree, and worked early on as a lawyer. Everybody in Cuba knows he didn’t have the level of playing skills needed to be a pro, writes Yale Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in his history of Cuban baseball.
Soon after the revolution, Castro did pitch in an exhibition game with his team Los Barbudos ("The Bearded Ones.") According to "The Sporting News," he pitched one inning, and notched 2 K's, with help from the umpire: "When the arbiter called the batter out on a high, inside pitch, Castro dashed to the plate and shook hands with the ump." It's good to be the king.
Charles Manson auditioned to be a Monkee. Another oft-told myth bites the dust. It is well-documented that he was in prison at the time on a ten-year mail theft and forgery rap. Among the 437 hopefuls who did answer the ad in "Variety" was Stephen Stills. He recounts how they liked his overall looks, except for his crooked teeth and thinning hair. They asked if he knew anyone who looked like him, and he recommended a Greenwich Village buddy of his, Peter Tork!
Superman failed his army induction physical. A hit, although oddly enough, it didn't happen in the comic books. Closest we get is this note in Superman #25, Nov/Dec 1942: "Millions of Superman readers will recall that Clark Kent tried to enlist, but was rejected for faulty vision when his x-ray vision penetrated the eye-chart and read a different chart in the next room." This happened on Feb 18 1942, in the daily Superman newspaper strip.
Says a bewildered Clark: "There must be some mistake!...The Army doesn't want me?" The doc replies: "You're physically superb, except you're obviously blind as a bat...you muffed every line." Sure enough, the next panel shows how he x-rayed though the wall. But no worries: he realized, as the note says, he could "be of more value on the home front operating as a free agent."
Eddie Haskell of "Leave It To Beaver" grew up to be Alice Cooper. Total myth, although Alice himself is inadvertently to blame. Eddie was played by actor Ken Osmond, who grew up to be an L.A. cop (and not porn-star John Holmes, as another rumor has it.) In the late 60s, Vince Furnier and his band the Spiders were struggling, so they decided to take a more theatrical approach, with the new persona "Alice Cooper."
Publicity at the time claimed a ouija board told Vince he was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch by that name, but this was a complete fabrication. Today he says he just picked the name out of the air, because it sounded like "a sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back." Aunt Bee's replacement on "Mayberry RFD", Alice Cooper, played by Alice Ghostly, is apparently just coincidence, as is the mother of Archie's friend Betty, also Alice Cooper.
But what launched the story was Vince's statement in an interview that as a kid he was Eddie Haskell. He meant that was his obnoxious personality, but it was taken literally. An interesting note on Eddie Haskell: in the pilot episode, the character, then named Frankie Bennett, was played by a young Harry Shearer, best know as Spinal Tap's bass-player, and for numerous voices on "The Simpsons." Wally was also played by a different actor, Paul Sullivan, as was Ward, Casey Adams.
Speaking of the Monkees, Jimi Hendryx was once their opening act. True! But what were they thinking? Well, what they were thinking was: Wow! This guy is good! The Monkees just wanted to watch & listen to him perform every night. For Jimi's part, he had 3 top-ten hits in England, but zip stateside, so he figured it'd be good exposure, despite having called the Monkees, in an printed interview several months earlier, "dishwater."
So he signed up for a summer tour in 1967, with predictable results. He's going "foxy...lady..." while the fans are screaming "Davy...Davy..." After half-a-dozen shows, he snapped, flipped the audience the bird, and stormed off the stage. The Monkees let him out of his contract, parting ways amicably. "Purple Haze" was just breaking over the horizon...
The lyrics to John Fred and the Playboy Band's "Judy in Disguise with Glasses" make no sense. This is a half-truth, because some of them actually do make sense. The group from Baton Rouge enjoyed regional success as a boogie-oriented bar band, and if you're looking for "new oldies," their greatest hits CD is highly recommended. "Judy" came about when John Fred Gourrier misheard the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the whole thing was meant as a goof, which nonetheless catapulted them to their 15 minutes of fame. They hated the song, but whutcha gonna do?
Some of the lyrics have been deciphered: "Cross your heart with your living bra" of course refers to the Playtex advertising slogan. "A circus of horrors, that's what you are" is from a 1960 British horror movie by that name. More obscure is the line: "Keep wearing your bracelets and your raras." That's how you'll see the lyrics listed, but it should be spelled "rah-rahs." It was slang in the South 2-tone Oxford shoes, the kind cheerleaders wore. Up north we called them saddle shoes.
But the lines "a chimney sweep sparrow with guise [guys?]" and "you made me a life of ashes" really don't make any sense, if that's what he's really singing. The mystery is why someone doesn't just ask the dude. Also, you may read that John Fred's dad Fred Gourrier was a local celebrity, having played shortstop for the Detroit Tigers. What people don't realize is for 40 years there have been reference books that list everybody who ever played in the Majors, even if for just one game. Now it's all on-line, and if your name ain't there, game over. Turns out Fred was in the farm system, but never made it to The Show.
Postscript on the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." column... The internet says Del Floria, whose tailor shop in NYC "on a street in the East 40's" was the "agents' entrance," had no first name. Wrong! In "The Concrete Overcoat Affair," Mr. Waverly calls him "Bill." That's what happens when you buy the complete DVD set, a Christmas gift from me to me, and watch the whoooooole thing. Anyway, you saw it here first...till next time, rock on!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
t.r.i.v.i.a. from u.n.c.l.e. (4CE reprint, Feb 2010)
S.T.U.F.F. from U.N.C.L.E.
One of my favorite TV shows from the 60s was "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Significantly, the two stars are still acting 46 years after its debut in 1964: David McCallum as Ducky on “NCIS” and Robert Vaughn on the British show “Hustle.” Here are some de-classified nuggets from the MFU dossier.
"The Ian Fleming Affair"....MFU was the first TV show to capitalize on the 007 craze, but what's little known is that James Bond creator Ian Fleming actually had a hand in its early development. Producer Norman Felton was inspired by both the Bond books and Fleming's travel book "Thrilling Cities." When he heard Fleming was visiting New York City, he flew out to take a meeting. Fleming had a bad heart and on his doctor-prescribed walks around Manhattan, he regaled Felton with tales of his life, his family, his books, anything but a new TV show. Eventually, Fleming produced a wad of Western Union telegram blanks, covered with scribbled ideas, including the name "Napoleon Solo", as well as "April Dancer," intended as UNCLE's Miss Moneypenny, but used two years later for the spinoff GFU series. Better than her original name "Cookie Fortune", no?
The series was to be called "Ian Fleming's Solo", but back in England, the Bond people pitched a fit, especially since "Solo" was the name of a minor villain in the soon-to-be released movie "Goldfinger." The out-of-court settlement allowed the character's name to remain, but not as the series title. (The recently released DVD box set does include the pilot episode, with the title "Solo.") In return, NBC's publicity was to make no mention of Fleming's involvement. He died August 12, 1964, five weeks before MFU hit the air.
"The Wrong K-Man Affair"....In that pilot, the head of UNCLE is Mr. Allison, played by actor Will Kuluva. It's mostly Napoleon Solo's story, with David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin appearing in just a few scenes. The network bosses approved the show, but producer Felton was told that guy with the K-name had to go. He assumed they meant Kuluva, who was replaced by Leo G. Carroll as Mr. Waverly, basically recycling his role of "The Professor" from Hitchcock's "North By Northwest." It later came out that they had meant ditch Kuryakin, since they felt viewers could never relate to a "good" Russian. An exec reportedly told Felton it was the best mistake they ever made.
"The Beam Me Up Scotty Affair"....One first season episode is famous for pairing William Shatner and Leonard Nemoy two years before "Star Trek." In the "Strigas Affair", Shatner plays a small-time pest exterminator recruited by UNCLE to help discredit an Eastern European ambassador played by Werner Klemperer, pre-Colonel Klink. Leonard Nemoy was his ambitious though blockheaded deputy. James "Scotty" Doohan also appeared in a first season show as a merchant marine officer.
And the choice of Robert Vaughn as Solo was a result of his staring role on "The Lieutenant", a series about life on a Marine Corps base. It was produced by, you guessed it, Gene Roddenberry. Had UNCLE not come along, would Vaughn have seen service on the Starship Enterprise? I sort of see him as a prissy doctor, along the lines of Robert Picardo on "Star Trek: Voyager."
"The C.A.R.S. from U.N.C.L.E. Affair"....We remember muscle cars and pony cars as the hot rides of the Sixties, but for grown-ups, there was nothing cooler than a powerful, full-size convertible. Thus, in the first season, the agents drove big Chevys and Pontiacs, and in the pilot, a Lincoln Continental. During the second season, it was Mopar: Polaras and Furys, an Imperial for Mr. Waverly, and Belvederes for taxi-cabs. Things lightened up in the third season: they drove a Dodge Charger for a while, the original one with the extreme fastback. Then came the legendary UNCLE-mobile.
Marbon Chemical, a division of Borg-Warner, built the one-shot CRV, a car to showcase its thermo-plastic Cycolac. AMT turned it into a model kit, re-named it the Piranha, and hired customizer Gene Winfield to built several more full-size versions. For UNCLE, he added gull-wing doors and lengthened the rear end to accommodate enough spy weapons to make an Aston-Martin jealous. Trouble was, the UNCLE car was always breaking down and was difficult getting in and out of. With a glass bubble roof (actually the gull-wing doors), no windows and no AC, it got unbearably hot inside in no time. Then there was the problem of "secret" agents driving around in what was essentially an instant auto show. It was used in just a handful of episodes, and once on GFU; a real "no-go showboat."
"The Affair of the Affairs Affair"....Giving each episode a similar title (it was originally to be "File") had a long history: the original "Dragnet" had "The Big ...", "Perry Mason" was "The Case of the ...", "Burke's Law" had "Who Killed ..." Interestingly, the agents actually referred to their missions as "affairs", although the code-name never matched the actual episode title. Thus "The Four Steps Affair" was called during the episode the "Rubiyat Affair", "The Double Affair" was referred to in the show as the "August Affair", etc. Perhaps the direct inspiration was the long-running radio drama "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar." From 1949 to 1962, virtually all of the 811 weekly installments were called "The thus-and-so Matter", although episode #20 was "The Fishing Boat Affair."
"The Please Don't Shoot the Daisies Affair" ....A TV crossover is when characters from one series appear on another, but would you believe both Napoleon and Illya on the family-friendly sitcom "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"? The episode was titled "Say Uncle," and began with the boys playing UNCLE agents, then becoming convinced their Pop was a spy after seeing him with you-know-who. Pretty silly, but those were the days. UNCLE was thanked for its cooperation in the credits, just like on the real MFU show. Then there was the time David McCallum hosted "Hullabaloo" in character as Illya. “Hi, I’m not a real person…”
MFU was cancelled in January 1968, midway though its 4th season. The Boston NBC affiliate didn’t even air the last few episodes; we had to watch the snowy reception of a Providence, R.I. station. But by its passing, MFU gave life to two other classics: it was replaced on Monday nights by “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”, which revolutionized comedy on the Tube. In fact, the very next week, during the party scene, when Dick says "My mother married my step-father's brother by a previous marriage...you might call me the man from uncle," a waiter turns around: its Leo G. Carroll, who pulls out his pen communicator: "Mr. Kuryakin, get over here fast...I think I've found THRUSH headquarters at last."
And MFU was beaten in the ratings by “Gunsmoke,” slated for cancellation but given a reprieve by CBS president William Paley, who loved the show. It ran for another 8 seasons! Till next time, open Channel D, overseas relay….and rock on!
One of my favorite TV shows from the 60s was "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Significantly, the two stars are still acting 46 years after its debut in 1964: David McCallum as Ducky on “NCIS” and Robert Vaughn on the British show “Hustle.” Here are some de-classified nuggets from the MFU dossier.
"The Ian Fleming Affair"....MFU was the first TV show to capitalize on the 007 craze, but what's little known is that James Bond creator Ian Fleming actually had a hand in its early development. Producer Norman Felton was inspired by both the Bond books and Fleming's travel book "Thrilling Cities." When he heard Fleming was visiting New York City, he flew out to take a meeting. Fleming had a bad heart and on his doctor-prescribed walks around Manhattan, he regaled Felton with tales of his life, his family, his books, anything but a new TV show. Eventually, Fleming produced a wad of Western Union telegram blanks, covered with scribbled ideas, including the name "Napoleon Solo", as well as "April Dancer," intended as UNCLE's Miss Moneypenny, but used two years later for the spinoff GFU series. Better than her original name "Cookie Fortune", no?
The series was to be called "Ian Fleming's Solo", but back in England, the Bond people pitched a fit, especially since "Solo" was the name of a minor villain in the soon-to-be released movie "Goldfinger." The out-of-court settlement allowed the character's name to remain, but not as the series title. (The recently released DVD box set does include the pilot episode, with the title "Solo.") In return, NBC's publicity was to make no mention of Fleming's involvement. He died August 12, 1964, five weeks before MFU hit the air.
"The Wrong K-Man Affair"....In that pilot, the head of UNCLE is Mr. Allison, played by actor Will Kuluva. It's mostly Napoleon Solo's story, with David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin appearing in just a few scenes. The network bosses approved the show, but producer Felton was told that guy with the K-name had to go. He assumed they meant Kuluva, who was replaced by Leo G. Carroll as Mr. Waverly, basically recycling his role of "The Professor" from Hitchcock's "North By Northwest." It later came out that they had meant ditch Kuryakin, since they felt viewers could never relate to a "good" Russian. An exec reportedly told Felton it was the best mistake they ever made.
"The Beam Me Up Scotty Affair"....One first season episode is famous for pairing William Shatner and Leonard Nemoy two years before "Star Trek." In the "Strigas Affair", Shatner plays a small-time pest exterminator recruited by UNCLE to help discredit an Eastern European ambassador played by Werner Klemperer, pre-Colonel Klink. Leonard Nemoy was his ambitious though blockheaded deputy. James "Scotty" Doohan also appeared in a first season show as a merchant marine officer.
And the choice of Robert Vaughn as Solo was a result of his staring role on "The Lieutenant", a series about life on a Marine Corps base. It was produced by, you guessed it, Gene Roddenberry. Had UNCLE not come along, would Vaughn have seen service on the Starship Enterprise? I sort of see him as a prissy doctor, along the lines of Robert Picardo on "Star Trek: Voyager."
"The C.A.R.S. from U.N.C.L.E. Affair"....We remember muscle cars and pony cars as the hot rides of the Sixties, but for grown-ups, there was nothing cooler than a powerful, full-size convertible. Thus, in the first season, the agents drove big Chevys and Pontiacs, and in the pilot, a Lincoln Continental. During the second season, it was Mopar: Polaras and Furys, an Imperial for Mr. Waverly, and Belvederes for taxi-cabs. Things lightened up in the third season: they drove a Dodge Charger for a while, the original one with the extreme fastback. Then came the legendary UNCLE-mobile.
Marbon Chemical, a division of Borg-Warner, built the one-shot CRV, a car to showcase its thermo-plastic Cycolac. AMT turned it into a model kit, re-named it the Piranha, and hired customizer Gene Winfield to built several more full-size versions. For UNCLE, he added gull-wing doors and lengthened the rear end to accommodate enough spy weapons to make an Aston-Martin jealous. Trouble was, the UNCLE car was always breaking down and was difficult getting in and out of. With a glass bubble roof (actually the gull-wing doors), no windows and no AC, it got unbearably hot inside in no time. Then there was the problem of "secret" agents driving around in what was essentially an instant auto show. It was used in just a handful of episodes, and once on GFU; a real "no-go showboat."
"The Affair of the Affairs Affair"....Giving each episode a similar title (it was originally to be "File") had a long history: the original "Dragnet" had "The Big ...", "Perry Mason" was "The Case of the ...", "Burke's Law" had "Who Killed ..." Interestingly, the agents actually referred to their missions as "affairs", although the code-name never matched the actual episode title. Thus "The Four Steps Affair" was called during the episode the "Rubiyat Affair", "The Double Affair" was referred to in the show as the "August Affair", etc. Perhaps the direct inspiration was the long-running radio drama "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar." From 1949 to 1962, virtually all of the 811 weekly installments were called "The thus-and-so Matter", although episode #20 was "The Fishing Boat Affair."
"The Please Don't Shoot the Daisies Affair" ....A TV crossover is when characters from one series appear on another, but would you believe both Napoleon and Illya on the family-friendly sitcom "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"? The episode was titled "Say Uncle," and began with the boys playing UNCLE agents, then becoming convinced their Pop was a spy after seeing him with you-know-who. Pretty silly, but those were the days. UNCLE was thanked for its cooperation in the credits, just like on the real MFU show. Then there was the time David McCallum hosted "Hullabaloo" in character as Illya. “Hi, I’m not a real person…”
MFU was cancelled in January 1968, midway though its 4th season. The Boston NBC affiliate didn’t even air the last few episodes; we had to watch the snowy reception of a Providence, R.I. station. But by its passing, MFU gave life to two other classics: it was replaced on Monday nights by “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”, which revolutionized comedy on the Tube. In fact, the very next week, during the party scene, when Dick says "My mother married my step-father's brother by a previous marriage...you might call me the man from uncle," a waiter turns around: its Leo G. Carroll, who pulls out his pen communicator: "Mr. Kuryakin, get over here fast...I think I've found THRUSH headquarters at last."
And MFU was beaten in the ratings by “Gunsmoke,” slated for cancellation but given a reprieve by CBS president William Paley, who loved the show. It ran for another 8 seasons! Till next time, open Channel D, overseas relay….and rock on!
mayberry trivia (4CE reprint, June 2010)
10 things you didn’t know about Mayberry
(1) The name game...In Mayberry people's names change around a lot. Take Aunt Bee's best friend, played by actress Hope Summers. In the first season she's Bertha Edwards, in the 2nd season she's Clara Johnson, then in later seasons she's Clara Edwards. (She has an unseen son Gale and a sister in Saberton, West Virginia...the once-mentioned "Flora Edwards" perhaps?) Barber Floyd Lawson is first called Floyd Colby. Millie Swanson is introduced as Millie Hutchins. Barney has at various times 3 different middle names: Oliver, P., and Milton. Andy has 2: Jackson and Samuel.
And on and on...when Opie got older, he had girlfriends named Sharon McCall, Sharon Porter, Karen Burgess, Karen Folker, and Ethel: all played by the same actress, Rhonda Jeter! The most famous is Goober Pyle, who is once referred to as Goober Beasley. Here's a quiz for genealogy buffs: Goober and Gomer are cousins (first cousins?), both named Pyle, so you'd assume they're related through their fathers, but how could they be cousins only on their mothers' side instead?
(2) Weirdest cross-over in TV history...A cross-over is when characters from one series appear on another. Remember Napoleon and Illya on "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" from my column a couple months ago? Now several Mayberrians appeared on "Gomer Pyle USMC," many characters spilled over into "Mayberry RFD," and Barney Fife was once on "The Joey Bishop Show," the sitcom, not the talk-show. But then...
After leaving his series in 1968, Andy returned to TV with "The Headmaster" in 1970, about a private school in California. It sunk quickly in the ratings, and was replaced by "The New Andy Griffith show." Now Andy was back in the Tar Heel State, as Mayor of Greenwood, and in the first episode, Goober and Emmett visit him from Mayberry, as does Barney from Raleigh, in his salt-and-pepper suit and sporting mod side-burns. And of course they're all happy to see each other, old friends, etc. Trouble is, Andy Griffith is playing a completely different character! He's now Andy Sawyer, married to Lee Meriwether as Lee (not Helen), with a son T.J. and a daughter Lori. Anyway, 12 episodes and out. That summer, CBS chose to air reruns of "The Headmaster." (BTW, the theme song is sung by Linda Ronstadt!)
(3) Herpes? In Mayberry? Yes, but not THAT kind, for heaven's sakes. The other kind, the blisters you get on your lips. When Andy breaks up with Nurse Peggy (this is before Helen Crump came along), Barney tries to fix him up. One prospective date is Lydia Crosswaithe, but she's a real wet blanket, throwing cold water on every idea they suggest for an outing. A picnic is out because, as she says, "When I go out into the sun, I get the herpes."
(4) Muslims in Mayberry? You'd be surprised. When Jennifer and Clarabelle Morrison sell their moonshine "elixir" only for special occasions, Lars Hansen buys a jar to celebrate Muhammad's birthday. Says one of the sisters, "I could of sworn he was a Lutheran."
(5) Blacks in Mayberry? They are seen in the background and in crowd scenes more frequently than is commonly thought. This website has many screen captures: bookguy.com/Mayberry/BlacksInMayberry.htm. But only Rockne Tarkington had a speaking role, playing Flip Conroy, an ex-football player who returns to Mayberry to run his father's business and coach Opie's team.
(6) Marijuana in Mayberry? Strange but true. In a first season episode, Barney wonders what newly arrived farmer Sam Becker (played by William Schallert, the dad on "Patty Duke Show") is growing up on his farm. Says Andy: "This time of year? Barley or lima beans." Barney says "And/or." Andy: "And/or?" Barney: "And/or marijuana or some other illegal crop." Well I'll be flat dogged. That's far out.
(7) Did you know the mayor's office is in the courthouse, upstairs from the jail? It's specifically mentioned in several episodes, including the one about the goat that ate dynamite. But you'll notice there doesn't seem to be a stairway leading up to it from the ground floor. A separate entrance? Sure enough, it's along the street-side corner of the courthouse: Andy and Ellie come out this door after meeting in the mayor's office to plan the Miss Mayberry Pageant. Check out a cool blueprint at mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/anewsome/private/courthouseblueprint.htm, which shows how to get upstairs, and also speculates as to where the restroom is!
(8) Did you know Andy and Barney are cousins? It's mentioned exactly 3 times in the first season, episodes 1, 2, and 6, then never again, to the point where, when their respective families come up in conversation, they talk as if they are completely unrelated. TV fans call this a "retcon," short for retroactive continuity; not an accidental inconsistency, but a definite change in the "back story." Like when Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were 2 people in the original movie, then in the next movie they were the same person.
The first time they're cousins, it's for the punch-line of a nepotism joke about how Barn got the deputy's job. My take is they're distant cousins, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th, and the significance of that kinship fades over time, in comparison to their friendship since childhood and close working relationship as adults. (The game, sometimes called "fan-logic," is to treat these inconsistancies as if they are absolutely true, and then figure out how to explain them. The "real" explanation is: the writers didn't pay that close attention!)
(9) Even stranger, Andy and Thelma Lou might be related. They both have cousins with the same last names. Hers are Karen Moore and Mary Grace Gossage. His are Evin Moore (from Asheville ) and Ollie Gossage (from Raleigh), whom Ernest T. Bass impersonates in the lonely hearts dance episode. Someday I plan to start a Mayberry Genealogical Society blog and hash all this out. There's lots more, believe me.
(10) But strangest of all...Beatrice Taylor isn't really Andy Taylor's aunt! And there's incontrovertible proof, right on the show! So how ARE they related? Well, that's a topic for a whole other column...something to look forward to.
Quiz Answer: Their mothers could be sisters...let's call them Hilda Sue and Tommie Mae Beasley. And they both married men named Pyle, who weren't related to each other!...Till next time, Stolf says "Hey"...and rock on!
P.S. If you like old commercial jingles (and/or you just miss Cool Daddy and Stolf), check out stolfpod.podbean.com. And if you know anybody looking for a full- or part-time radio jock, direct them to home.rr.com/mastolfi. "It's goooooood. I 'preciate it, and good night."
(1) The name game...In Mayberry people's names change around a lot. Take Aunt Bee's best friend, played by actress Hope Summers. In the first season she's Bertha Edwards, in the 2nd season she's Clara Johnson, then in later seasons she's Clara Edwards. (She has an unseen son Gale and a sister in Saberton, West Virginia...the once-mentioned "Flora Edwards" perhaps?) Barber Floyd Lawson is first called Floyd Colby. Millie Swanson is introduced as Millie Hutchins. Barney has at various times 3 different middle names: Oliver, P., and Milton. Andy has 2: Jackson and Samuel.
And on and on...when Opie got older, he had girlfriends named Sharon McCall, Sharon Porter, Karen Burgess, Karen Folker, and Ethel: all played by the same actress, Rhonda Jeter! The most famous is Goober Pyle, who is once referred to as Goober Beasley. Here's a quiz for genealogy buffs: Goober and Gomer are cousins (first cousins?), both named Pyle, so you'd assume they're related through their fathers, but how could they be cousins only on their mothers' side instead?
(2) Weirdest cross-over in TV history...A cross-over is when characters from one series appear on another. Remember Napoleon and Illya on "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" from my column a couple months ago? Now several Mayberrians appeared on "Gomer Pyle USMC," many characters spilled over into "Mayberry RFD," and Barney Fife was once on "The Joey Bishop Show," the sitcom, not the talk-show. But then...
After leaving his series in 1968, Andy returned to TV with "The Headmaster" in 1970, about a private school in California. It sunk quickly in the ratings, and was replaced by "The New Andy Griffith show." Now Andy was back in the Tar Heel State, as Mayor of Greenwood, and in the first episode, Goober and Emmett visit him from Mayberry, as does Barney from Raleigh, in his salt-and-pepper suit and sporting mod side-burns. And of course they're all happy to see each other, old friends, etc. Trouble is, Andy Griffith is playing a completely different character! He's now Andy Sawyer, married to Lee Meriwether as Lee (not Helen), with a son T.J. and a daughter Lori. Anyway, 12 episodes and out. That summer, CBS chose to air reruns of "The Headmaster." (BTW, the theme song is sung by Linda Ronstadt!)
(3) Herpes? In Mayberry? Yes, but not THAT kind, for heaven's sakes. The other kind, the blisters you get on your lips. When Andy breaks up with Nurse Peggy (this is before Helen Crump came along), Barney tries to fix him up. One prospective date is Lydia Crosswaithe, but she's a real wet blanket, throwing cold water on every idea they suggest for an outing. A picnic is out because, as she says, "When I go out into the sun, I get the herpes."
(4) Muslims in Mayberry? You'd be surprised. When Jennifer and Clarabelle Morrison sell their moonshine "elixir" only for special occasions, Lars Hansen buys a jar to celebrate Muhammad's birthday. Says one of the sisters, "I could of sworn he was a Lutheran."
(5) Blacks in Mayberry? They are seen in the background and in crowd scenes more frequently than is commonly thought. This website has many screen captures: bookguy.com/Mayberry/BlacksInMayberry.htm. But only Rockne Tarkington had a speaking role, playing Flip Conroy, an ex-football player who returns to Mayberry to run his father's business and coach Opie's team.
(6) Marijuana in Mayberry? Strange but true. In a first season episode, Barney wonders what newly arrived farmer Sam Becker (played by William Schallert, the dad on "Patty Duke Show") is growing up on his farm. Says Andy: "This time of year? Barley or lima beans." Barney says "And/or." Andy: "And/or?" Barney: "And/or marijuana or some other illegal crop." Well I'll be flat dogged. That's far out.
(7) Did you know the mayor's office is in the courthouse, upstairs from the jail? It's specifically mentioned in several episodes, including the one about the goat that ate dynamite. But you'll notice there doesn't seem to be a stairway leading up to it from the ground floor. A separate entrance? Sure enough, it's along the street-side corner of the courthouse: Andy and Ellie come out this door after meeting in the mayor's office to plan the Miss Mayberry Pageant. Check out a cool blueprint at mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/anewsome/private/courthouseblueprint.htm, which shows how to get upstairs, and also speculates as to where the restroom is!
(8) Did you know Andy and Barney are cousins? It's mentioned exactly 3 times in the first season, episodes 1, 2, and 6, then never again, to the point where, when their respective families come up in conversation, they talk as if they are completely unrelated. TV fans call this a "retcon," short for retroactive continuity; not an accidental inconsistency, but a definite change in the "back story." Like when Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were 2 people in the original movie, then in the next movie they were the same person.
The first time they're cousins, it's for the punch-line of a nepotism joke about how Barn got the deputy's job. My take is they're distant cousins, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th, and the significance of that kinship fades over time, in comparison to their friendship since childhood and close working relationship as adults. (The game, sometimes called "fan-logic," is to treat these inconsistancies as if they are absolutely true, and then figure out how to explain them. The "real" explanation is: the writers didn't pay that close attention!)
(9) Even stranger, Andy and Thelma Lou might be related. They both have cousins with the same last names. Hers are Karen Moore and Mary Grace Gossage. His are Evin Moore (from Asheville ) and Ollie Gossage (from Raleigh), whom Ernest T. Bass impersonates in the lonely hearts dance episode. Someday I plan to start a Mayberry Genealogical Society blog and hash all this out. There's lots more, believe me.
(10) But strangest of all...Beatrice Taylor isn't really Andy Taylor's aunt! And there's incontrovertible proof, right on the show! So how ARE they related? Well, that's a topic for a whole other column...something to look forward to.
Quiz Answer: Their mothers could be sisters...let's call them Hilda Sue and Tommie Mae Beasley. And they both married men named Pyle, who weren't related to each other!...Till next time, Stolf says "Hey"...and rock on!
P.S. If you like old commercial jingles (and/or you just miss Cool Daddy and Stolf), check out stolfpod.podbean.com. And if you know anybody looking for a full- or part-time radio jock, direct them to home.rr.com/mastolfi. "It's goooooood. I 'preciate it, and good night."
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