Share Your Nostalgia – Round 3 Wrap Up

Over the past week, I have featured some of my blogging friends in a round of Share Your Nostalgia. I always feel happy when someone tells me “Yes! I’d love to participate and write something for you.” I feel even better when those who respond are those who will write a piece that you find interesting and entertaining. This week, was no exception.

This round tapped into the childhood of my guest bloggers. I asked them to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up. Each of them wrote a piece different from the other. Each relayed an experience that was unique to them, yet shared with you and me. I extend to each of them my sincere gratitude for taking time to participate. Thank you!

I love features like this because the contributions will sometimes be familiar and sometimes be an introduction to something new. That has been the case with each Share Your Nostalgia round. Randy, Max, Dana, Dave and Paul all wrote of familiar toons (Gumby, Underdog, Musical cartoons, Huckleberry Hound, and Top Cat). Christian introduced us to a long running German cartoon (The Show Starring the Mouse). Now, it is my turn to wrap up the topic.

Saturday mornings were such a great time for my brother and me. My mom often slept in on Saturdays (because she was watching old Kung Fu movies the night before). My dad would usually be at work. So when we got up, we’d run out to the living room and turn on the TV. Cartoons were usually on until noon and on all three of the network stations. Chris and I would be up around 8am and be in front of the TV until the toons were over.

The one that was a staple was The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show.

This show seemed to be on all morning. It was constant Looney Tunes! We watched this a lot. We discovered other shows when we’d switch channels because Pepe LePew, Road Runner or some other character we weren’t really into came on. When we discovered that, we were really perplexed as to what to watch. Neither of us knew how to read the TV Guide, so we often stumbled on shows by accident.

I believe that is how we discovered the crazy Laff-a-lympics show, which featured many Hanna Barbera characters.

If the Super Friends was on, we’d certainly stop to watch that. Both of us were fans of the superheroes. The show paired Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman with The Wonder Twins in some seasons and Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog in others.

I seem to also remember watching all things Scooby-Doo. We’d catch the classics (Scooby-Doo Where Are You?) and The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The “movies” featured famous folks that the gang would meet (The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Batman and Robin, Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, Sonny and Cher, Jerry Reed and even the Addams Family) and the real star (in most cases) provided their own voice.

So many cartoons! Saturday mornings were heaven for us kids!

Dave said in his piece that he tended to like the Hanna Barbera cartoons more than the others. I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that they “owned” Saturday mornings. As a matter of fact, my choice also comes from Hanna Barbera – Hong Kong Phooey.

1974. Confetti and banners appear high above a parade. We see the back of our hero riding in a convertible. Then the narrator says: “Who is this superhero? Sarge? No. Rosemary, the telephone operator? No. Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? Could be!”

Hong Kong Phooey aired from September to December. There were only 31 episodes. To me, it seemed like there were so many more. The show aired September through December of ’74 and was rerun through 1976. There were so many things that I loved about this show.

Fun Fact: Originally the show was meant to be a vehicle for Huckleberry Hound, playing Hong Kong Phooey, until it was decided to make it more original.

Our hero is kind of clumsy. Many times it is his sidekick, Spot, who is there to help him catch the villain. He sort of reminds me of the Inspector in the Pink Panther movies. He’s a bumbling, clownish character. Spot would sometimes prove to be the brains of the two, helping Hong Kong Phooey out of certain jams. The humor of the incompetence of Hong Kong Phooey is a recurring theme of each episode.

Greg Ehrbar, host of The Funtastic World of Hanna and Barbera Podcast and author of Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History said, “Joe Barbera and the team auditioned everyone possible for the perfect Penry/Hong Kong Phooey voice. Scatman Crothers really impressed them with his talent in 1966 with his performance as the Cheshire Cat in the album version of the classic Alice In Wonderland. He voiced Meadowlark in the CBS Harlem Globetrotters series in 1971 and became the definitive Hong Kong Phooey in 1974, making him the first African American to play the lead in an animated TV series.”

I cannot imagine Hong Kong Phooey without Scatman’s voice. It was a perfect fit.

Sergeant Flint finds himself annoyed by our hero and feels that he is a hinderance to the police. The character is voice by Joe E. Ross, who many remember from Car 54, Where Are You? He even uses his “Ooo Ooo” catchphrase for this character.

Rosemary, the telephone operator is voiced by Kathy Gori. She explained in an interview how she came up with the very unique voice: “My inspiration was “Rhoda”, played by Valerie Harper, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was a combination of Rhoda and Rhoda’s mom, played by Nancy Walker. I used to watch Rhoda all the time and thought that’ll be funny.”

Rosemary is an important character because she always answers a call about a crime and tells Sergeant Flint about it. Penry, the janitor (and HKP’s secret identity) over hears her. Then he’s off to change and fight crime. To do so he goes behind the vending machine, jumps into a filing cabinet (always getting stuck, and is freed by Spot) and once disguised, jumps on an ironing board that flattens him against the wall only to drop onto a couch that he uses to bounce into a dumpster that houses the “Phooeymobile.” The vehicle can change into other forms of transportation simply by hitting a gong!

When perplexed with a problem, he never worries about it. He simply turns his copy of The Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu, a correspondence-course martial-arts instruction handbook!

The idea of having a clumsy and incompetent character be a hero was not something new. It was the precursor to many other characters including Inspector Gadget. The premise works and fans enjoy it. Hong Kong Phooey was feared by criminals and admired by citizens, despite his clumsiness and flaws.

Over 50 years later, Hong Kong Phooey remains popular. Kathy Gori (Rosemary), says she still receives fan mail in connection with the cartoon! One guy took his love for the cartoon a bit far. In 2002, a plumber in England changed his name legally to Hong Kong Phooey out of admiration for the character. He did this without telling his wife, who only found out when utility bills addressed to Hong Kong Phooey started arriving at their house. She was not pleased.

In 2006, I saw that the entire series had been released on DVD. Naturally, I rushed out to buy it. The DVD set includes commentary on select episodes as well as a documentary of the show from its development through its legacy. The set also includes production designs, never-before-seen original artwork, and new interviews. It was worth every dime!

Finally, I couldn’t write about the “number one super guy” without playing his theme song!

Again, I thank all of the bloggers who participated this time around. Perhaps I’ll come up with another topic in the future. If you have a suggestion, please let me know. Thanks for reading!

Rocking At The Schoolhouse

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I thought about ways to tie this post into Movie Music Monday, but I really couldn’t find a way to do it. That being said, the feature will return next week. I decided to revisit one of the first topics I blogged about, as there are many new followers since 2018.

As a kid, we lived for Saturday mornings! We never slept in because we knew that all morning long we had our choice of back to back cartoons! There was Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Hong Kong Phooey, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, The Laff-O-Lympics, The Flilntstones, The Pink Panther and many more! It was great! We’d sit and watch these shows all morning long with a big ole bowl of cereal and laugh away!

Saturday mornings, while full of explosions, anvils, and slapstick silliness, was also educational at times. I know this for a fact because one of the things that helped me in school was School House Rock. These little three minute musical features helped me learn multiplication, history, and English. I cannot tell you how many times I found myself singing those songs in school!

Schoolhouse Rock made its debut on this day in 1973. It remained a Saturday morning staple through 1985. The story of how it came about is much like that of today’s Internet sensation Miss Rachel. A caring parent wanted to help their child.

The series was the idea of David McCall, an advertising executive of McCaffrey and McCall, who noticed his young son was struggling with learning multiplication tables. He noted that his son had no issues remembering lyrics to Rolling Stones songs and thought music might help. He hired musician Bob Dorough to write a song that would teach multiplication. The song would became “Three Is a Magic Number.”

Tom Yohe, an illustrator at McCaffrey and McCall, heard the song and created visuals to accompany it. That led to Radford Stone, producer and writer at the ABC network. He suggested they pitch it as a television series, which caught the attention of Michael Eisner, then the senior vice president in charge of programming and development at ABC, and cartoon director Chuck Jones.

The first season was Multiplication Rock. Learning the times table is one of those things that ALL kids absolutely hate! God, I hated those 60 second tests where you had to write the answers to as many problems as you could. The stress of that was awful for an elementary student. School House Rock helped!

“Three is a Magic Number” was the first to air. If it truly is a magic number, what better way to illustrate it than with a magician?

Counting by twos was illustrated by Noah and the ark. The biblical account talks of Noah bringing all the animals on the ark in pairs. So throughout this number, Noah answers his son’s question of how many animals were on the ark by counting the animals two by two as the exit the boat.

What child didn’t do a bit of daydreaming in school? To remember how to multiply 8, all we had to do is think about the little school girl who daydreamed she was a figure skater. She skates her figure 8 and the song told us how.

The most memorable one for me was counting by fives. I remember when I had to help my son learn his times tables, I sang the “ready or not, here I come” song which helped you count by 5. This little song centered around a game of hide and seek, and they had to count to 100 by fives while the rest of the kids hid. To this day, when I have to count by fives – I think of this song!

The next season was called Grammar Rock. It focused on the parts of speech. Before they taught me about nouns and verbs in school, I was ahead of the game because i’d already heard of them on Schoolhouse Rock.

English was one of my best subjects. I remember being in 5th or 6th grade and going to something called the Academic Olympics. Schools within the district had these little game show like contests with teams for Math, Science, English, and History. I was chosen to be on the English team. I certainly never had an issue with the parts of speech because of Schoolhouse Rock.

Yep! Thanks to SHR, the little girl and her dog – we knew a noun was “a person, place or thing”!

What’s happening? Verb! That’s what’s happening! The coolest “action” hero? Well, I don’t know about that, but a verb shows action….and I always remember him!

Why do I remember this? Because the music was cool. The character was cool. We didn’t even know they were trying to teach us something!!! We were learning and it was cool!

And what about describing a noun? Well all you had to do was unpack some adjectives…but watch out for the scary, hairy bear!

Adjectives and adverbs were so hard for some kids to get. I could not ever understand why. I got it pretty quickly … because of a little girl and her trip. You see, her friends ask her to describe her camping trip. She said that all she had to do was unpack some adjectives.

Schoolhouse Rock’s song about adverbs was memorable because it was just a fun little song that takes place in (where else?) an adverb store! Need an adverb – shop at Lolly’s! The brilliance of this song is it is like a commercial for the store…and they really sell it! If I really needed to go buy and adverb – I would shop at Lolly’s!! After all … they are family owned!

I still remember learning about interjections for the first time. I also learned about the punctuation that followed it. This song was full of characters – the kid with the flu who needed a shot, the gal getting asked out on a date, the fans at the football game, and others who were all full of interjections!

While all of these are memorable, probably the most memorable Grammar Rock song is about three small words and a small little train conductor. The bluesy swing song with the repetitive refrain and the amazing vocal talents of Jack Sheldon makes Conjunction Junction one of the all time BEST sing a longs. Jack is one of the most memorable voices from the series.

Ask any child of the 70’s to give you a conjunction and they will spout off “and”, “but”, and “or” immediately! That’s a sure bet!!

As America headed into the Bicentennial celebration in 1976, the series created a season called America Rock. This focused on aspects of the American government and important moments in American history. Some of the biggest events in US history were brought to life in 3 minutes of musical perfection!

Interest in American History is still abounding today. A few years ago, there was an AMC series called Turn! which was about the Revolutionary War and George Washington’s spies. Then there was an HBO series on John Adams and the role he played in the Independence of America. Let’s start around there …

No More Kings was a silly little song about the colonists coming to America and being taxed for everything. This leads to the Boston Tea Party and America wanting no part of King George (who can see what’s happening through his telescope).

What followed was the Revolutionary War. Which got it’s own song called The Shot Heard Round the World, which of course is then followed by the Declaration of Independence, which got it’s own little song … and Fireworks.

Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, today I can still recite:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
That all men are created equal
And that they are endowed by their creator
With certain inalienable rights.
That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Then, of course, after we declared our independence, we had to have a Constitution. Memorizing the Preamble of the Constitution was no problem for me in school … I had it set to music!

There have been many Amendments to the Constitution, and the 19th was a biggie! It allowed women to vote! It is hard to imagine that they didn’t have that right until 1920!! The right was referred to as Women’s Suffrage. School House Rock Tackled this historic occasion with the song “Sufferin’ Until Suffrage”.

Women were American’s too. They wanted the right to vote. The video for this song is part cartoon and part black and white pictures of women throughout history. It’s a rocking number that gets the point across and you can here the “victory” in her voice in this “gospel”-ish song.

Oh, we were suffering until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote, no matter what age,
Then the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule.

As I stated earlier, people are still interested in history. A couple years ago, there was a movie about the battle over AC/DC current between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as electricity was gaining use throughout the country. I am currently reading a book about that battle. This point ties in with the next song.

Throughout history, we’ve seen many inventions that have made our world a better place. “Mother Necessity” was the character who is in this song and the “mother” of the inventors of these wonderful things. We hear of the Wright Brothers and their airplane, Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, Samuel Morse and the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone and a few others.

“Mother Necessity where would we be indeed!”

Finally, the School House Rock showed me how the legislation process happens…with our friend, Bill. Bill is just that – a bill.

How does a bill become a law? I learned how with this song. Performed again by Jack Sheldon (Conjunction Junction) perfectly, you learn about the whole process and lengths a bill goes through to be a law. Naturally, we all feel great when he finally becomes a law at the end!

In 1985, Schoolhouse Rock left the air. It was a few years later that some new songs and new seasons came out. In 1993, two new songs were made for Grammar Rock. One was about prepositions.

Then, in 1995 an entire new series called Money Rock aired until 1996. In 2003, the creators began work on two more songs to include in the 30th anniversary collection. They were about the Electoral College and How the President is elected. Finally, in 2009, a direct to DVD collection called Schoolhouse Rock: Earth was released in response to climate change.

I hope you have enjoyed this look back at one of my fondest childhood memories. Thank you School House Rock for helping me and many other children learn so much about so many things! Now, to end with an interjection….

“Darn! That’s the end…”

Summer Memory – The Good Humor Man

As I was walking to my car to leave for work today, an ice cream truck was driving down my street. I found it odd that it was not playing music. Usually, you can hear the sounds of “Little Brown Jug”, “Turkey in the Straw”, “Pop! Goes the Weasel”, or “The Entertainer” (among others) when the ice cream man was driving around. That wasn’t always the case, though.

My first memories of the Ice Cream Man are from when we lived in Sterling Heights in the early 1970’s. The Good Humor Man always drove his white truck (like the one pictured above and below) and there was no music. There was a set of bells attached to a string that the driver pulled to ring them. I remember hearing the bells from the next street over and running over to my mom and dad to get a dollar of change to buy ice cream.

If you look carefully above the windshield in the picture above, you can see the bells the driver would ring. Here are the bells detached from the truck:

I’m sure that the loud music is a better at getting the kids attention today, but we always listened for those bells!

I remember many summer days running up to my dad (who was usually mowing the grass, or working outside) and he’d walk to the curb with us to stop the ice cream truck. There were SO many treats to choose from! When I was a kid, I guess I wasn’t so OCD. I used to try different ice creams all the time. Today, I have favorites and stick with those. Some of the treats I remember most:

The Ice Cream Sandwich. I still love them. The chocolate still sticks to my fingers while I eat them. The good ice cream trucks took this amazing treat a step further –

Vanilla, Chocolate AND strawberry ice cream?! Yes, please!!!

Push Ups. I remember them being orange mostly. Some trucks had the Flintstone theme, some had polka dots on them. I remember we used to save the plastic stems and piece that pushed the ice cream up and used them for something with our Star Wars figures.

The Chocolate Éclair was always a favorite of mine. I also like the variation where there was a chocolate candy center. No crunchies on that one, but it had a hard chocolate coating over vanilla ice cream.

As much as I love chocolate, I preferred the Strawberry Shortcake version! You can buy these in the stores today, but the ones from the ice cream truck always seemed to taste better.

The Bomb Pop! This seemed to be the favorite of many kids in the neighborhood. All of us kids had red and blue lips after eating this thing. I’m not sure why, but this one always seemed to melt faster than anything else I got from the ice cream man.

Who didn’t love a Snow Cone!? It was another favorite! It also left whatever color it was all over your face. Really, it’s a pretty lame treat. It’s just a little flavor over ice. The flavor ended up at the bottom of the wrapper as it melted. That was kind of the bonus, you got to drink a shot of all three flavors after all the ice was gone.

Tweety Bird Ice Creams were the ones I remember most. They came in other characters, too. I think there was Bugs Bunny, The Pink Panther, and Spider Man. Today, I know the most popular of this creation is SpongeBob. They all had gumball eyes and after you unwrapped it, it rarely looked like the character it was supposed to be!

The “cup” of ice cream was always available. It may be vanilla or vanilla with chocolate. Some had a real thin layer of chocolate syrup on it. Sometimes it came in a plastic cup, sometimes I was in a paper one. Either way, it almost always came with that little wooden scooper/spoon.

The Screwball was a favorite of mine for some time. It was a flavored ice (kind of like Italian Ice) with a gumball at the bottom of the cone/cup. Sometimes they were called Tornadoes or Twisters, but I remember them as Screwballs. They also had one with two gumballs at the bottom.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be the Drumstick. I guess that’s why I still buy them at the store occasionally. I always loved how it had that one bit of frozen chocolate at the bottom of the cone. Bonus chocolate is always a good thing!!

As I grew older, the bells from the Good Humor trucks made way for the repetitive songs from warped records. As older children, we still chased down the trucks, but because of the loud music, we had to yell “STOP!” in order for them to slow down. The larger sides of the truck allowed for more room for the “Poster Price List”. We still looked in awe at the many treats and made the difficult decision of choosing just one to cool us off on a hoy summer day.

I have fond memories of getting ice cream with my dad and mom. I also have great memories of buying them for my sons. I wish, however, the sounds of those Good Humor bells were still ringing in neighborhoods today. If they were, I guess I’d be one of the first “kids” to run out and yell, “Stop!”

“Made in 1938”

Introduction

Since I started blogging about a year ago, I have stumbled on some great blogs that focus on old movies, film noir, music, books, and various other things that I find interesting. Some of these blog sites have hosted Blogathons, and I have participated in a few of them. A while back, the “Pop Culture Reverie” and “In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood” sites announced their “Made in 1938 Blogathon”. The only real rule that was that whatever you wrote about had to be something “made” in 1938. This blog is my contribution to this blogathon. I am posting a day early, but you can read the other participants blogs by clicking:

https://popculturereverie.wordpress.com/

https://crystalkalyana.wordpress.com/

At first, I began to look at movies from that year, hoping there would be one of my favorites from that year. Then, because of the celebrity birthday page I had on Facebook, I wondered if there were any famous people born in ’38 that I might find interesting to write about. In looking over the list of celebrities, three stood out as having a significant part in my life, so I chose to write about them. I hope you find this blog interesting and entertaining. What follows is a brief salute to a great impressionist/comedian, a great radio personality, and a great actor.

Rich Little (Born November 26, 1938)

Rich Little shares the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices” with the great Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc). While they both have many voices that they do, Mel’s were more original voices and dialects for cartoons, while Rich did impersonations or imitations of real celebrities. He claims to be able to do about 200 voices, and he has had quite a career “being” other people! He even eludes to this in the title of his 2014 book “Little by Little: People I’ve Known and Been…”

I remember when we first got cable TV. HBO often featured stand up comedy shows and specials. One of the first specials I ever saw was Rich Little’s A Christmas Carol. I was mesmerized by this guy! This special was like an awesome dream come true – all these big celebrities playing the different roles of the Dickens classic – except, they were all done by one man, Rich Little. Can you imagine WC Fields, Jack Benny, Peter Sellers, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Falk (as Columbo), Jimmy Stewart, Richard Nixon, Johnny Carson, Laurel and Hardy, and Groucho Marx all in the same show?! He made it happen!

As a kid, not knowing what I really wanted to do with my life, and thinking I was funny, I thought maybe I could do what he did. After watching him often, and listening to him, I began to try out voices on relatives. I really thought I did an excellent Richard Nixon, but in reality, I was doing a bad impression of Rich Little doing Richard Nixon. (Later on in my radio career, while on Honey Radio I did create a few generic voices that I used on our morning show, but never anything close to what Rich has mastered!)

I was always excited when there was some new Rich Little Special on HBO, whether it was his stage act or his take on Robin Hood (which is where I first saw him do his Carol Channing, which blew me away). Every time he did a new celebrity I hadn’t seen him do, I would watch in awe. There was no shortage of people he could do.

One surprising fact that I was unaware of was one of my favorite singers played a big part in his American TV debut. He was asked by singer Mel Torme’ to audition for the Judy Garland Show in 1964. He did, made an impression (pun intended) and made his first appearance on American TV on her show. He stated in an interview that if you watch this appearance, you should watch Judy. She had never seen him perform before they taped the show and her reactions are very genuine. He went on to appear on other TV shows like Love on a Rooftop, That Girl, The Flying Nun, and Petticoat Junction in guest roles. He is probably best known for his appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Kopycats (a show featuring impressionists), and The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.

Rich is often asked which impressions are his favorites. He says he has many, but the two that stand out are Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Stewart. His Reagan is just wonderful and President Reagan loved it too! He did two albums as Reagan – “The First Family Rides Again” and “Ronald Reagan Slept Here”. I owned them both, and they are very funny (one of them features a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards)! His Reagan is a great example of how Rich can find something unique about someone and use it in his imitation. I’ll be honest, I never knew how many times Reagan started a sentence with the word “Well…” until I saw/heard Rich doing it in his act!

Jimmy Stewart was the first celebrity impression he worked on (and it is amazing). Rich was on the dais of The Dean Martin Roasts when Jimmy was the “Man of the Hour”. He got to the podium and began to school Jimmy Stewart on how to do Jimmy Stewart! After Jimmy tries to do all the things Rich is telling him, Rich finally tells him that there is no hope for him and that Jimmy was doing “The Worst Jimmy Stewart” he’d ever heard! Rich even went as far as to have the audience stand up and do Jimmy, to which Rich tells Jimmy that everyone does a better Jimmy Stewart than he did! Word is this was all ad-libbed and Jimmy, being the amazing guy that he was, went along with it all.

It would be hard for me to pick my favorite Rich Little Impressions, because they are all so good. Among his best, in my opinion, are Reagan and Stewart (just mentioned), Richard Nixon, Jack Benny, Don Rickles, Raymond Burr, Truman Capote, James Mason, John Wayne, Paul Lynde, and Johnny Carson. His Carson was so good, he was asked to play him in the movie about the David Letterman/Jay Leno feud called “Late Night”. After seeing Rich do an impression of him, Jack Benny sent him an 18 karat gold money clip that was engraved; “With Bob Hope doing my walk and you doing my voice, I can be a star and do nothing!”

How good are his impressions? When David Niven was ill, he actually dubbed in lines for Niven in a couple Pink Panther movies. He did the same for James Cagney in the 1984 film Terrible Joe Moran and for Gene Kelly in a 1991 Christmas special. I’m not sure how true it is, but some people say that there was some fierce competition between Rich and Frank Gorshin (The Riddler on TV’s Batman), who was also a good impressionist. Those sources say that this little rivalry only made Rich work even harder to perfect his voices.

In researching for this blog, I came across a quote from Rich that really made me admire him even more. He said, “I don’t like it when people imitate someone for political reasons or if they hate somebody. I’ve never imitated anyone that I’ve really hated. Usually, it’s people I admire.”

Thanks Rich, for the many laughs you provided throughout my childhood. Sorry about my Nixon impression!

Wolfman Jack (Born January 21, 1938)

Radio Legend! What more can I say?! He was one of the best. He knew what people wanted and gave it to them. He was a master at talking to his audience. He could be making you laugh out loud one minute, and crying the next. I never had the chance to hear a live show of his, but I was lucky enough to hear some of his syndicated stuff growing up. I can tell you this, I can only WISH to be as good and as talented as he was! In my 30 year radio career, I have never come close!

With the creation of the Internet and access to YouTube and other radio websites, some of Wolfman’s radio stuff is available to listen to and enjoy. I’m no dummy, I know that he must have done a lot of prep for his shows, but everything seemed so spontaneous and ad-libbed! Maybe it was, I don’t know, but I do know that it was good. His interactions with listeners were always entertaining. His random thoughts about peace, love, and brotherhood always hit the nail on the head. In this world where hatred runs amuck, we could use more people like Wolfman spreading the “love” on the air.

I got into radio because of the guys I listened to growing up (Paul Christy, Jim McKenzie, Richard D., Boogie Brian, Dick Purtan, etc…), and so did Wolfman Jack. To keep him out of trouble, his parents bought him a radio and he fell in love with R&B music. He listened to Jocko Henderson from Philadelphia, Dr. Jive from New York, the Moon Dog from Cleveland, Alan Freed (who coined the phrase “Rock and Roll”), and his mentor John Richbourg from Nashville. He spent a year at The National Academy of Broadcasting and landed a radio gig in Virginia where his on air name was “Daddy Jules”.

Three years later, he took his “Wolfman” character to XERF, a Mexican radio station that broadcast at 250,000 watts (5 times the power of any US radio station), and people listened! The station pretty much covered most of the US. The music he played (lots of great R&B) and his vocal stylings started to make news. His popularity grew and there were feature stories about him in Time magazine, Newsweek, and Life magazine. Newspapers from all over the country all wrote about him, too, wondering, “Who is this guy and where did he come from?!”

In 1972, he became the host of an NBC show called “The Midnight Special” where he co-hosted and interviewed musical guests. Director George Lucas grew up in North Carolina and was a fan of Wolfman’s show growing up. In 1973, he cast him in the film “American Graffiti” and made sure that he got a small percentage of the profits from the film. The success of the film brought Wolfman to New York to do a radio show on WNBC, but the commuting back and forth to do TV and radio became a hassle, so he moved back to California.

Wolfman Jack became the first radio DJ to nationally distribute his radio show. The show was heard on over 2000 stations nationwide and in 53 countries! Along with his radio work. he continued to do movie work and appeared on TV shows like The Odd Couple, What’s Happening, Vega$, Wonder Woman, Hollywood Squares, and Married…With Children. He also appeared as himself in the 1974 hit single by The Guess Who entitled “Clap for the Wolfman.”

In 1995, he wrote his autobiography (a must read for people in radio) “Have Mercy: Confessions of the Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal,” which received good reviews in The New York Times and LA Times. On July 1, 1995, after finishing a broadcast from The Hard Rock Café in Washington DC he boarded a plane and flew home. He had been away from his family for days promoting his book. He told his limo driver as they pulled in front of his house that he was happy to finally be home. He walked inside, hugged his wife, and collapsed after having a massive heart attack. He was 57 years old.

To close this section of my blog – here are some of my favorite Wolfman quotes:

“We are put on this earth to have a good time. This makes other people feel good. And the cycle continues.”

“I know it may sound corny, man, but I like to bring folks joy and I like to have a good time. I know folks like to be with someone who’s having a good time. You sure as hell don’t want to be with somebody who’s having a bad day.”

“Love is not a matter of counting the years – it’s making the years count.”

“If you do right. Everything will come out right.”

And my favorite quote, which I often used (giving him credit, of course) to close my own radio show:

“Remember to keep smiling because a smile is like a light in the window letting people know your heart’s at home”.

Thanks, Wolfman, for being an inspiration to young DJ’s like me, and for being a positive in a world full of negativity!

Christopher Lloyd (Born October 22, 1938)

When I first saw the trailer for Back to the Future, I was filled with anticipation. It was everything a 15 year old boy could ask for, action, adventure, and time travel! I’ve always been a fan of time travel stories. I have a collection of old radio shows that all have time travel as a theme. What kid didn’t wonder, “What would it be like to see my parents as kids? What would it be like to go back to the past?” I had to see this movie!

The Back to the Future trilogy remains one of my favorites (second only to the Godfather). Looking back now, I can’t imagine anyone but Christopher Lloyd playing Doc Brown. While there are great characters (and actors) in the film, Lloyd makes it all worth watching! He’s the epitome of a crazy scientist! He’s everything you expect one to be! He’s manic! He’s constantly moving! He’s always thinking and processing! In an interview he said that there were times he was so into the role that he didn’t know exactly what he had done until he saw it on screen! Believe it or not, he almost passed on the role!!

In an interview I found, he said that when he was initially contacted about playing the role, he had some doubts about it and seriously considered passing on it. He was in Mexico when his agent called to tell him that the producers wanted to meet with him. “I was anxious to do a play that I had been offered back east, and I wasn’t sure this was something I wanted to get involved in at that point.” Luckily, his future wife Carol reminded him that “I always told myself never to turn anything down without at least checking it out.” After the meeting he says he was “ready to put on the wig and hop into the Delorean!”

Doc Brown is probably one of two roles that Christopher Lloyd will forever be identified with. The other is that of “Reverend” Jim Ignatowski on the TV show Taxi. That character won him two Emmy Awards! I have always appreciated when a TV show has a great ensemble cast – Taxi was one of them. Each character stands out in their own way, and Reverend Jim never ceased to make me laugh! One of the greatest scenes in this show is when Jim has to take his driver’s test. Almost all of the gang is there while he is taking it and trying to help him. If you’ve never seen it – it’s comedy gold! Here is the link:

Christopher is one of those actors who is believable in comedy roles as well as dramatic roles. I have always felt that is what makes a great actor. He reminds me a lot of Robin Williams, in that he can play comedy for comedy, play straight for comedic effect, and nail a dramatic role perfectly. In his first movie role, as a psychiatric patient in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he is brilliant! It is one amazing performance!

He is one of those actors that has so many memorable roles. It would be impossible to give space to each one of them. One movie that sometimes gets over looked is the 1985 comedy Clue. As Professor Plum, we are treated to Christopher playing straight for comedic effect. In one of my favorite scenes, the characters are paired off to search areas of the house. Plum is paired with Mrs. Peacock (played brilliantly by Eileen Brennan) and he looks at her and says, “It’s you and me, honey bunch.” As strait as he says it, that line cracks me up every time! What an amazing cast in this film!

As someone who doesn’t care too much for movie remakes, I was pleasantly surprised at the Addams Family films. I loved Christopher as Uncle Fester. I always felt like the TV show was more comedy than dark comedy. The films were closer to the comic strips and I thought Christopher captured that dark comedy and mischievous aspect of the character in his portrayal of Fester. This is probably because he was a fan of the comic strip and claims to have always read the New Yorker Magazine (where the strip was featured in every issue).

Two of Christopher’s roles were so powerful they scared me! The first being that of Klingon Commander Kluge in the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. He is just so vicious, and over the top in this film. One of my favorite scenes is where one of his crew destroys a ship and he yells that he wanted prisoners. The crew member says it was a lucky shot. At this, his anger boils over and Kluge kills the crewmember. After this, he simply says “Animal.” He really does a great job of showing us how crazy the character is.

The other role that scared me was his role as Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? As much as I hated him throughout the movie, when he snaps and goes nuts at the end, wow! When he is run over by the steamroller you are almost happy! When he melts, you are ecstatic! When an actor makes you hate a character he is playing that much – he’s done it right! He says that people come up to him often and mention how much this character scared them, so I am not alone. He also says that he loves playing villains, because it’s a “license just to be as bad as the script allows you to be”.

There are many other movies that Christopher has played in that you may be familiar with, like The Dream Team, Dennis the Menace (Switchblade Sam is an awesome villain), and My Favorite Martian. He has done so much more that I wish I had been able to see. For example, in 2010, he starred as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in a Weston House Production. I can only imagine how well he played this iconic role. In 2008, he played Scrooge in a production of A Christmas Carol with John Goodman and Jane Leeves. WOW – I would LOVE to see him as Scrooge!!!! Many have played Scrooge, and played him well…but I know that Christopher’s interpretation would have been off the charts!

He continues to do voice work (my kids loved him as the Hacker on Cyberchase), television, and movies and is very active on social media. If you don’t already, follow him.

Thanks, Christopher for entertaining so many over the years! You are a treasure!

In Closing

I want to thank the hosts of this blogathon, “Pop Culture Reverie” and “In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood”, for allowing me to participate. It was a lot of fun for me to think about these three influential men and their work, and ultimately write about them. I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.