Well, dear readers, this week is already flying by, like a gazelle doing the Pachanga. Actually, forget the gazelle, I want to do the Pachanga. All right, everyone off their lazy butt cheeks and let’s do the Pachanga.
That was exhilarating, wasn’t it? How many of you were bad, bad dear readers and just sat there like so much fish? Well, you see, you see, if you get up and do the Pachanga you’ll feel like a million. A million WHAT I have no idea, but, for example, I feel like a million macaroons right now, and I’m jiggy with that. What the HELL am I talking about?
Back in the mid-1980s, the decade from hell, I did work – it wasn’t all hell, just most of it. And one of the most rewarding things I got to do in that entire decade was a little KABC TV Special called Weekday Heroes. My friend Richard Jones (husband of muse Margaret) was doing work for KABC and was doing these little Specials they did from time to time. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but at some point I either asked to do one or was asked to do one and the idea I came up with was to do an homage to the local LA kiddie show hosts that I’d grown up with – those fantastic folks who were on TV every day, live, coming into our homes as if they were loved ones. It was unlike today – back then, it was PERSONAL. We kids really felt like we knew these hosts, like they were our friends, or even family. I got the go-ahead to do it, the budget was set, and we went about going after the three hosts I wanted most. And we found them all, alive and well. Chucko The Clown, Engineer Bill, and my beloved Sheriff John. They were all thrilled that we were doing this program, because I’m sure they felt forgotten. I assured them that not only were they not forgotten, they were loved and more missed than ever, especially in that sorry decade known as the 80s. I believe they were all living out of town. We decided to shoot the show on location at Wattles Mansion, a grand old house built in the early days of Hollywood. It had a beautiful outdoor lawn, various rooms to shoot in, and it just seemed like the right place to do it, being in Hollywood and all.
I hired Tony Dow to be our host. I thought it would be a wonderful opening if we had a kid of today (well, the mid-80s) playing an electronic game on TV (like Colecovision or whatever was popular back then) – then Tony would enter and talk and invite us to go back to a time when life was simpler and less complicated for kids. We did a “lock-off” shot, and when that first bit was finished, we re-dressed the kid in a 1950s cowboy outfit, and put Howdy Doody on the TV screen, and shot that. Then, in editing, we were able to do a slow seamless dissolve from one to the other – it was really cool. Actually, now that I am remembering, we shot Chucko at his house (or maybe it was his son’s house – I just can’t remember). He was a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman with a white moustache and goatee, and he was just delightful in his interview and his memories were wonderful. I sat off-camera asking the questions, and you could just tell he was having a blast. First up at Wattles was Engineer Bill. We shot in a nice-sized room and dressed it with several train-like accoutrements. Engineer Bill looked great, and he was so much fun and his stories were priceless. I also got him to play his TV game – Red Light/Green Light – wherein you have a glass of milk and you drink when someone calls out Green Light, but you can’t drink when someone calls out Red Light, and you never know what direction will be called. He did great until I “got” him at the end – it was hilarious.
Then we did several lead-ins with Tony Dow, and then Sheriff John arrived. What a dream come true for me to meet him – he was my favorite and I never missed his show (he’s very much a part of the first Kritzer book), and I watched it until I was in my teens, long after I should have. I discovered the wonderful world of Crusader Rabbit on his show, and he had Susie and Her Sketchbook, and the old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. And he sang two great songs in every show, Laugh And Be Happy, and The Birthday Song. Oh, and all three of them brought me their 45rpm records and signed them to me – and I have wonderful photographs from the set – I’ll have to try and find them. We shot the Sheriff’s scene in the same room as Engineer Bill, but with different set dressing – in this case we had a birthday cake, a sandwich, and a glass of milk on his desk. Again, I sat off-camera and asked him questions. At one point, he told what would have been an incredibly moving story about a young boy who never missed the show – the boy was very ill, and died, and the Sheriff had gotten a letter from the mother telling him how much he’d meant to the boy and how happy it made the boy to watch him every day. But the Sheriff kind of talked around it, as if he was afraid of it. He just got through it quickly and moved on. After a couple more questions, I suggested a quick five-minute break to change tape (we didn’t really need to change tape). I took the Sheriff aside and I gently told him that I thought the story about the boy was so moving and would mean so much to people, but I felt he was afraid to tell it. I asked him if we could try the story one more time, and he agreed. We rolled tape, I asked him the question that led to the story, and this time he told it and told it beautifully and simply and there was not a dry eye anywhere in Wattles Mansion. And I defy anyone to watch the show and that story without tearing up. Cannot be done.
For our finale, we got a bunch of local LA 1950s folks on the lawn to sing Laugh And Be Happy along with our three hosts. We had Billy Barty, Lucille Bliss (the voice of Crusader Rabbit), Walker Edmiston (did a lot of 50s TV, including my favorite puppet show, Thunderbolt, The Wondercolt), and a few others. It was great seeing all of them together again.
In editing, I had the one and only surviving tape of the Sheriff John show, which just happened to be his final show, which was perfect for our purposes. I used some earlier sections from that color broadcast, but turned them into black-and-white so they looked more 1950s. I had one complete Engineer Bill show, and a couple of Chucko The Clown shows. I’d never put together this type of show, and I learned so much about how to edit down long stories into manageable stories by using photographs to bridge the sound edits, and I learned a lot about structuring this type of show. In the end, it came out beautifully. I also wrote the music for the show, and even wrote a song for the end credits.
The reaction to the show was wonderful – no e-mail in those days, but I got a lot of calls and letters. While we didn’t get up for a local EMMY (I was really hoping we would), we did get up for and win an Angel Award – I’m not sure what an Angel Award is, but we won it – I think it’s something to do with religion in media. I have the award somewhere in storage.
I own the show now, and at some point I’d love to put it on DVD – IF I can find either the one-inch master or the three-quarter inch tape. All I have is a VHS and I’m not about to go with that quality. Anyway, the show was one of the highlights of my life and meeting those Weekday Heroes was incredibly special to me.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I have lots of stuff to talk about in the next section.
Yesterday was a fantastic day for one very specific reason: I went and listened to the tapes of our upcoming Kritzerland limited edition soundtrack release. I had nine tapes, and according to the boxes it did not bode well for what they contained. The original LP of this soundtrack was released in both stereo and mono. What these tape boxes contained were three sets of mono album masters, a 1630 digital album master, also in mono (unbelievable), and no stereo album masters at all. However, there was one reel of the stereo three-track album side two (the edited session tapes, from which the quarter track mixed album masters were made). And there was one other reel that said three-track, but not stereo – on the metal reel of that tape was marked side one and nothing else. I’d already sort of made the decision to master side one from a mint copy of the LP – the problem with doing that, of course, is that the three-track edited session tapes had a completely different sound – very dry – and I didn’t want to really have to match to the old-fashioned plate chamber-like reverb used on the original LP masters. But, if we had to we had to. We first put up the stereo side two edited session tapes, which sounded absolutely amazing, like it was recorded yesterday. Yes, a little dry, but adding a nice, subtle, clean and airy reverb (basically adding the room ambience that the recording lacked) would make stunning sound. I then pulled out the other three-track tape, the one that said side one, but no mention of stereo. It was then that I noticed that the side of the box was exactly like the side of the box that contained side two – only where the word “stereo” was on the side two box, there was a sticker. I suddenly got very excited. We put up the tape and sure enough, it was the edited session masters for side on in stereo. I was beside myself (no mean feat) with joy (what Joy was doing there, I have no idea). So, those tapes are being transferred and put on my iDisk where they will be retrieved by my mastering engineer. And I’ll announce the title two weeks from today. Color me excited, because this was a soundtrack I have wanted on CD since CD came into existence. Two years ago, a very well-known film music label was going to do this score, but couldn’t find anything by the one side in stereo – if they’d looked a little bit harder they would have realized the story, but am I glad they didn’t. Interestingly, this score was reissued on LP back in the day – in mono, because I’m sure they couldn’t figure it out back then, and rather than bother with it, they just used the mono album masters that were right there (1/4-inch tape, rather than the three-track 1/2-inch tape).
I also had a call from the Music Center – they want me to record a commercial for their upcoming revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’. So, I’ll be doing that a week from Thursday. My fee, as always, is four cherce opening night tickets and the opening night partay.
Other than that, I couldn’t do the long jog because it was incredibly cold and windy out. When I got home, I had to attend to some work on the computer, and then I finally relaxed and watched a motion picture on DVD.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Love Songs, a French motion picture from France, starring Miss Catherine Denueve. I really wanted to love it – I thought I WOULD love it. I mean, Deneuve, a Michel Legrand score, good actors, but it’s just not a very good film, unfortunately. It’s Legrand in his early 80s disco mode or whatever mode that was, although there are a couple of pretty themes. And the characters, save for a child played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, are oddly unlikable. The transfer is pretty bad – letterboxed, but not anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs, and not very sharp.
Today, I was going to be having a work session with David Wechter, but that’s been pushed to Wednesday, so I’ll just ship out about twenty packages, do some work on the computer, do a few errands and whatnot and relax.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (weather and wind permitting – but I REALLY want to), I must ship packages, do errands and whatnot, and eat something amusing somewhere whilst proofing the new novel. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite childhood TV shows – the ones aimed specifically at children. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I jump for joy about our new project. Why am I doing everything for Joy these days, that’s what I want to know.