Sandman (Netflix)

Arthur Darvill as Richard Madoc

Last week I was running the track at the Rec Center, and a song came on that I knew but I could not place from where. A bombastic anthem of nostalgia and regret with an all-encompassing theme of acceptance.

A quick search reminded me that this song, It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s Over and Done) by Bleu McAuley was the song that played over the closing credits of the Netflix series Sandman, based on the comics series of the same name.

When I was a teenager, I yearned for something which was not yet possible; that a TV show or movie might be successfully adapted from the genre materials that I loved so dear. Not just comics, but also books like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When such attempts were made they suffered from a lack of technology and funding (see the BBC’s TV series for HHGTTG) or the inability to transfer what was essential about the material to the project (see Howard the Duck).

As I was never a DC fan, I had no strong emotional ties to either Superman or Batman, so while those movies (1978 and 1989, respectively) were important, to me they were only weigh stations to something that mattered. When X-Men (2000) was released I was a giddy 32 year old and mostly satisfied.

Sandman was an epic, 75-issue fantasy series which focused on the personification of dreams, sometimes called the Sandman – but not really, he was more often called Morpheus or often just Dream, and his primary function was managing that place we all go when we fall asleep.

Desire
Sandman #41: Brief Lives part 1 (1992)
Pencils: Jill Thompson
Inker: Vince Locke

I loved this comic because it was literate, transgressive, and Goth – Goth in that it was dark and moody and brooding and romantic. It also owes a lot of its imagery to familiar musical acts; Dream appears like Peter Murphy or Trent Reznor, Lucifer like Bowie. Word has it Delirium was modeled after Tori Amos, and Desire, of course, looks like the cover of Duran Duran’s album Rio (Patrick Nagel, RIP). My ex-wife Diana introduced me to the book, which started publication in 1988, and we read them issue by issue. Later, I bought the bound reprint books.

The other night I asked my wife Toni why Sandman has been so important to her (yes, I married two women who love Sandman, quelle surprise) and she reflected to me how expansive it is, and immersive. When she thinks of it, she doesn’t see the panels, the specific artwork, she sees worlds.

When it was announced in 2019 that Sandman would be a series on Netflix, I was excited about that. In the past, such announcements came with a certain amount of dread, like the feel you get every time they announce a new Fantastic Four movie. I love the IP, they are going to fuck it up. The thing about comics, for example, is that they are episodic, and most superhero movies prior to The Avengers (2012) would spend half the movie on the origin story. Even when there was a reboot, they would tell the origin story again.

Then there is the idea of cramming years of potential narrative into one two hour feature. It loses nuance, even when it looks spectacular. There will be nothing unique or interesting. And then there is casting. There were plans for a potential Sandman film in the early 90s that was to star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But mostly, it is the adaptation of one thing into another thing. Comics are one particular thing, and movies a total other. Comics are cheap and movies are expensive, so comics can do so much more because it is only ink on paper and relatively few are reading them, whereas movies are practical and have to make money.

Martin Freeman (Arthur), Sam Rockwell (Zaphod)
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

This is where Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) failed. The source material is a science fiction satire, with the emphasis on satire, not science fiction. To wit; it is veddy British. In the original, a bunch of weird things would happen in the service of a dry, witty punchline, and the film kept the set-up but cut the punchline. The film gives us spectacular visuals and gags presented by writers and directors who did not understand or care why it was popular in the first place.

But now it is the 2020s and not only can you make almost anything look real, popular culture is so fragmented that the idea of a comic book with an enormous – and intergenerational – cult following being turned into not a single feature film but an anthology series makes total sense.

The series dropped in 2022, and we were delighted. Then came the allegations.

I will not describe the allegations here, except in how they relate to the subject at hand. Let us state what was and what is. Neil Gaiman was once a model figure for those who feel outside of the mainstream; he not merely wrote the works that made them feel seen – adult fantasy fiction like Sandman, and also children’s books like Coraline – but was a constant presence in public and on social media who defended the right for people to be different. His tweets were a protection against the trolling of J.K. Rowling.

At the same time, in his personal life, he was a serial abuser, a monster and a creep.

The second season of Sandman dropped this past July, with little notice or fanfare. I didn’t even discover that it had for a month after. The first season encompassed (more or less) the first twenty issues of a seventy-five issue series. They could have easily made three or even four seasons from the remaining fifty-five books, but chose to cram them all into this final, second series. Even the most lauded issue of Sandman, the World Fantasy Award winning story about Morpheus commissioning Shakespeare to write A Midsummer Night’s Dream is briefly shoehorned into a different episode. It is as though the folks at Netflix said, all right, let’s get this shitshow over with.

I chose to watch, even though I was conflicted about doing so. I mean, so many artists contributed to making this show a reality, that’s the thing about artistic collaboration. So I wanted to see it, I wanted to see them. But I was wondering how it would feel, knowing what we know. As it happened, I had my second bout of Covid in late summer, which was an opportune moment to binge the second season while in my own private delirium.

"It had been her own fault."
Sandman #17: Calliope (1990)
Pencils: Kelley Jones
Inker: Malcolm Jones III 

Knowing what we know, certain storylines pop with dread. To quote a meme, “Mister Police. You could have saved her. I gave you all the clues.” One, Calliope, is about Richard Madoc, a famous author with writer’s block who takes action to harbor the actual muse of epic poetry – essentially, he has trafficked her – to spur his creative output.

Dream arrives to free her from the author, something he does not actually have the power to do. The author must freely release her. But Morpheus can torture Madoc, and does so by flooding his mind with so many original ideas he goes nearly insane. When the writer announces Calliope is free, his torment ends, but he can no longer think of anything new or original.

Not arrested, not pursued by other supernatural entities, Madoc simply remains creatively empty, which we are free to assume is something Gaiman believes to be the worst punishment imaginable. (It isn’t.)

Witnessing the second season, released post-allegation, themes of remorse, regret, and atonement are pushed to the forefront. To be honest, they were always there in the text, but are so much more apparent now. Dream had committed an unforgivable act, and in the process of making it right was compelled to do something which (literally) brought the Furies down upon him.

In the end, all the chaos, pain, and anguish, the sum of a lifetime of poor decisions, are wiped away as the entity that was Dream is eliminated and replaced by someone new. End of story. 

But reality is much more complicated. Morpheus apologized, repented, and took responsibility for his actions. To date, his creator has not.

 

Play a Day: Crying On Television

R. Eric Thomas

For Sunday, I read Crying On Television by R. Eric Thomas and posted at New Play Exchange.

Some write plays that really want to be TV shows. Too many locations, to wacky, too much self-awareness. You can tell the playwright is writing for the stage with an eye to adaption into screenplays.

With Crying On Television, Thomas has created a stage play which has agreat deal to do with our collection obsession with television programs, but it is definitely meant for the stage.

It's a heart-warming story of a cadre of folks who (may or may not) live in the same New York City apartment, but rub each other the wrong way in a genuine attempt for connection in the place where they live.

How do adults make friends in the big city? Is it as easy as it is on a sit-com? Or can we find true love on a reality show? Each character is searching for their version of Prince Charming, who could be love but may also be a real friend.

The script is also very witty, the dialgoue had me laughing out loud, and, at one terribly awkward party, even farce-adjacent. And it's sweet.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Drew Goes to the Browns' Game (1999)

There was a time I wanted to be an actor. During the 1990s I was even attached to a talent agency in town, and did all the requisite things you do when you are represented by an agency. I had a composite photo, I had a voice reel. I spent a lot of money in an effort to promote myself, largely in vain.

There were a couple industrials, and by that I mean two. There was the greeting card shoot, a couple radio spots, and dozens and dozens of auditions.

The auditions were ridiculous, they would call lots of us in to pad out a reel to meet some quota the producer requested. Once I read for the pilot for a sit-com on a network. The part I was asked to read was obviously meant to be Asian American (it was the 90s, you could tell) but the agency had few people of color on their roster, it was a national call, and they needed to pad that reel.

One of the managers told me quite frankly that I probably wouldn’t get any work until my thirties, and by that he meant I was losing my hair. I was very glad, later, to have lost my hair, hair never worked for me, anyway. But the losing of it was troublesome.

In 1995, The Drew Carey Show premiered on ABC. Drew was a stand-up comic from the Old Brooklyn neighborhood of Cleveland, something he was and is always proud to mention. We met a couple times in the early 90s, after he broke big on The Tonight Show in 1991. My college roommate’s sister was friends with him, and brought him to see Guerrilla once. After the show he sat me down and gave me a critique of the performance which I did not appreciate at the time.

His sit-com was about working class Cleveland, but though the exteriors were Cleveland locations (the department store, the bar, his house) the whole thing was shot in L.A. There were two occasions when Drew brought the production to town; the opening credits sequence they filmed all over the city in 1997, and the episode about the gang sneaking into the season opener at the brand new Cleveland Browns Stadium in 1999.

News of the impending shoot spread through the community as press releases announced that there would be a massive call for extras to fill sections of Browns Stadium for the show and to be part of a long line for tickets at the box office outside the stadium. There were also calls for featured, non-speaking extras held through my agency.

Frankly, I was not interested. I had been an extra for a couple motion pictures shot in and around the Cleveland area (My Summer Story, House Arrest) and I did not feel that making seventy-five bucks a day to appear in the background of a crowd scene was a valuable use of my time.

However, I did receive a phone call from a different talent agency, a new talent agency, one that had just started business. They had gotten my name from someone at Playhouse Square. Apparently my agency was only sending reels and resumes of “print talent” (see: beautiful people) and the show was looking for ordinary-looking Clevelanders. Would I be available to audition for them, for this new agency? Sure. It’s always flattering to be asked.

They put me on video for my audition, handing me a small blue page of dialogue. They asked me to read three lines, which I thought was a pretty labor intensive way to cast the hundreds of people they were looking for, but fine. It was perhaps the most disinterested read I’d ever given in my life.

I got a call a couple days later. The guy said, rather enthusiastically, that I may have the part, and to make sure my calendar was clear for shooting. I said, "maybe," which was not the response he was expecting. He said he’d get back to me soon.

The next day I was told I had the part! "Great," I said. I told them I planned to be there. They pressed me, I had to be there, and I said, "Sure." I have it on my calendar. Again, I was as surprised by their enthusiasm as they were surprised by my not having any.

Then they asked if I still had the blue sheet. I said sure, and they reminded me to have those three lines memorized.

Wait. I am going to be speaking these lines? On the show, these are my lines? I have lines? Lines of dialogue?

Ah. Now it all made sense. I had just blithely sleepwalked through the audition process for an under-five role (as they say) on a nationally broadcast network sit-com.

Day of shooting, I arrived early at my trailer. Yes, I had a trailer. I never spent any time in it, as it was located well out of sight behind Browns Stadium (they took advantage of the thousands of people who arrived to join a line that stretched around the stadium in the opening aerial shot) and those of us who were contracted got to spent breaks in the new, air conditioned ground floor bar and grill while everyone else had the stand around in the ninety degree heat.

However, it did provide me a place to store the five outfits I had brought for the costumer to consider. I can’t remember what those were, I was wearing brown Chuck Taylors, late 90s high-waisted jeans, and a T-shirt featuring a smiling boy saying, “Cleveland! It’s fun!”

The costumer said what I had on was great, so that’s what I have on in the show.

My job was to stand in line in front of Drew and his friends. Spoiler alert, I ask to buy one ticket, and he makes fun of me for going to the game alone. So I buy five, which happen to be the last available tickets. Cue “Cleveland Rocks.”

This meant I would be on-camera, next to Drew Carey, for the entire pre-credit sequence. And as we were shooting in sequence, and that it took several hours to get through two minutes of gags, I was able to pay close attention to how to act -- how to speak -- when being filmed for television. Because frankly, I could barely hear them. They were just talking so naturally.

I had a brief, personal, mental list of things I would not be doing. I would not attempt to be chummy with the gang; Drew, Ryan Stiles, Diedrich Bader, Christa Miller -- and Jenica Bergere, who, for the past several episodes, had been playing Drew’s girlfriend, Sharon. I would speak when spoken to, offer no suggestions, do what I was told.

Also, I would not fuck up. I had that little, blue sheet of paper in my pocket. I had my lines cold. There had been no rehearsal, I was obviously expected to just leap in, prepared, and that is what I would do.

In hindsight, maybe I should have been a little chummy. On the best of days I can appear imperious, aloof and distant, but that’s because I am terrified of saying something stupid, or worse, tedious. It would have been nice to introduce myself, but I was afraid of being rejected by the cool kids.

Early in the proceedings they asked a member of the line to get into a sleeping bag, one which we all stepped over. Boy, did I feel sorry for that guy. Not only did he spent the afternoon lying on the pavement in a down sleeping bag in the hot, hot sun, he was no longer able to tell his friends to watch for him. You can only see the top of his head and his arm.

When my turn came, they wired me with a mic (you can see the pack in the small of my back) and told me what marks to hit and when. And we just did it. Hit my mark, said my lines, didn’t fuck up.

While they set up for another take, I was just standing by the ticket window with Drew Carey. I wasn’t sure if small talk was in order. Throughout the day I had noticed how, though the episode had a director, Gerry Cohen, Drew was providing a great deal of the acting notes. After all, this was his show, It had his name on it. We’d just done one take, and no one said anything to me about how it went.

So I asked him, “Did you have any notes for me?”

“You?” he said, and did a little, dismissive headshake. “You’re fine.”

Then he leaned in and added, “Everyone who gets a walk-on role treats it like it’s the most important thing they’ve ever done. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

We did another take. This time I looked over from the box office to see the other stars, Stiles, Bader, Miller, clustered by a large cement column, just watching.

Bader looked at me intently and deadpanned, “That was really good.”

In the moment I couldn’t tell if this was one of those situations where you say, “Really?!” And they respond,” Naaah.” So I just kind of shrugged and smiled.

Three takes, and that was it. Last shot of the day. The next day they would shoot all the scenes inside the stadium. Eleven thousand unpaid extras, or so they say. I went back to my trailer (I had my own trailer) picked up my things and went home.

By the time the episode aired it was late September, and I was excited. That day the Plain Dealer ran an article about the "most prominent of the local extras" to be featured on this most-anticipated episode of The Drew Carey Show … but it wasn’t me.

There’s a big reveal at the conclusion of the episode, in which Drew (and the entire stadium) spy Drew’s girlfriend Sharon on the “jumbotron” making out with another guy. That guy, played by Eric Matuschek was represented by my now-former agency, which had the wherewithal to contact the media about their star client.

Most prominent. He didn’t even have lines. You couldn’t even really see his face.

Ah, well. Since then this episode has been rebroadcast countless times in syndication. Every now and then someone new contacts me to say, “Was that you ..?”

I have performed on stage since I was fourteen, in some fifty productions, where my work has been seen by thousands of people. But millions watched me speak those three lines just on that premiere broadcast night, twenty years ago. Two minutes on national TV is my lasting legacy.

"Thanks, pal!"

“Drew Goes to the Browns’ Game” premiered on ABC, Wednesday, September 29, 1999.



Source: "Carey Show At Stadium On Tonight" by Tom Feran & Mark Dawidziak, The Plain Dealer 9/29/1999

M*A*S*H (revisited)

"Heal Thyself"

Summer is here. Theater camp has concluded, my show has opened, and it is time for a little vacation with the family. A two-day drive, with four teenagers in the car, and guess what? We still all love each other.

Hotel life can -- if you can tear yourself away from your computer or phone -- provide the opportunity to take in some old fashioned television. We watched two episodes of M*A*S*H, back-to-back, just like I could on any single weekday during my childhood from seven to eight on Channel 43.

The vast majority of episodes from eleven seasons feature a cast of characters who were created for the television series, and not taken from any of Hooker's novels -- Potter, Winchester, Hunnicutt -- and the characters of Hawkeye and Houlihan grew to bear little resemblance to those from the books or from Altman’s 1970 film version, upon which the TV series is based.

Last night we saw the one where Edward Herrmann plays a relief surgeon who cracks under the pressure of “meatball surgery” (S08E17 "Heal Thyself") followed by the one where Col. Potter receives word that he’s the last survivor of his World War One buddies (S08E18 "Old Soldiers").

I have avoided re-watching the show for my entire adult life. When I was a kid I must have seen every episode several times over. I have probably watched M*A*S*H more than any other television program ever made. But whenever I happened upon a broadcast, revisiting just a few moments, I was appalled at the stupid jokes, the laugh track, and the general “niceness” that all the aforementioned characters fell into once they had jettisoned the difficult Trapper John and the impossible to make sympathetic Frank Burns.

Watching an episode play out in real time, from beginning to end, I was reminded of what made the show truly good. Yes, it was sanctimonious, I knew that as an adolescent. But take for example the way they took their time to play out the young surgeon’s disconnection from reality under pressure was truly affecting. I was surprised to learn they even borrowed from Shakespeare. I didn't read Macbeth until eighth grade. Herrmann’s doctor bemoans his inability to get imaginary (but also very real) blood off his hands.

The blood won't come off.
No matter what I do, it just stays there.
Just take it easy.
See what I mean? Look at that.
Never gonna go away.
No matter how hard I scrub or -- how much I wash it's gonna stay there.
Where do they come from? What do they -- What do they expect me to do? I can't.
I can't.

Well-written and well-played. When we moved into the next episode, and Col. Potter announced a sudden visit to Tokyo General, I knew exactly which episode this was. From somewhere in my head I heard the words tontine and pledge and the phrase, “give that man a cheroot.”

I may have been the only eleven year-old who knew what a cheroot was.

"Old Soldiers"

There were so any elements of the episode that I had no life experience to comprehend. The team of characters do not at first understand the colonel’s behavior, and one suggests he may have received a dire diagnosis himself in Tokyo. They never use the word cancer, not once, but when the gang is summoned to Potter’s tent, they have already braced themselves for the worst. “You have our total support,” says one, before learning the truth about the colonel’s recently deceased comrade.

You have our support? That struck my eleven year-old ear as odd, what kind of support do you provide someone who is ill? “I support you,” like he was being persecuted. Didn’t make sense. Now it makes sense.

Also, Colonel Potter’s entire war record was something I was unable to fathom. What I didn’t know about World War One was a lot. The final act of the episode features Henry Morgan speaking, taking his time, without interruption, describing the provenance of the bottle he has just received, the night in question, the fate of his comrades, an extended toast to lost youth … it is remarkably affecting.

The motion picture M*A*S*H is something I have also not watched in a long time. I saw it very young, and it had a poor effect on the way I saw the world. Indeed, it gave me an education in the madness of combat, and the joys of bucking the system. But it is cynical in the extreme, far too passive in its criticism of institutional racism, and downright condemnable in its treatment of women, especially women in positions of authority.

It is easy to tear down corrupt institutions, easier still to merely ridicule them from a distance. It is far more challenging to build up institutions based on basic human decency and understanding.

See also: Cleveland Centennial, M*A*S*H (TV show), January 20, 2012

2016 Republican National Convention (Tuesday)

Waiting for Trevor at the Breen Center.

Weeks ago, when it was first announced that The Daily Show would produce their show in Cleveland during the convention, I didn’t think twice. I just got the tickets and then told my wife I had done it.

The tickets were free, tickets to daily television programs traditionally are. They need to fill every single seat, every single day. Also, they ask from audience members extraordinary things, and the price tag makes it difficult to complain. After all, you aren’t an audience there to be entertained, as in a rock concert or a play, you are expected to be a participant, a performer even in the proceedings, behaving exactly as they ask you to. They should pay you.

This is not to suggest that they take the audience for granted, heavens no. The day before the Tuesday taping we received an email explaining in detail what we would need to do to receive the real tickets, an exactly when and where to arrive at the Breen Center where the taping would take place.

You see, making a reservation didn’t guarantee a ticket. They need every seat filled, so when the camera pans the auditorium, it is packed with smiling, excited people, so they take reservations for far more people than can be seated. We made plans to arrive early, to make sure we got in.

It was a beautiful day, and we read books and chatted with folks on line before getting our tickets at 2 PM. In the meantime, staffers came out and again explained how seating would work, that those who arrived first would be seated first, etc. They also handed out as much bottled water as we needed.

The wife and I were #24 and #25, so that was cool. Shortly after 2 PM we were able to walk over to West 25th and got a late lunch. Slight digression: I am so proud with how chill my city has been during the Cleveland Summer of 2016™. One million people descended upon East Ninth Street, city government seemed a little unprepared for that, yet everyone was really cool and happy.

So far, there has been little unrest among the activists, the police have been really friendly (and effective, swift and non-violent when things get a little out of hand) and basically the only really horrible things happening this week are all on stage at the Q.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)

Now, I have no idea what it takes to run a daily comedy program inspired by current events. Twenty-four news channels just capture things on video and the describe what they think they are seeing and say what they think they should be saying about them. Comedy news shows have to watch all that crap and then make it funny.

After getting our seats (great seats, by the way) we waited around ninety minutes for the warm-up act to come out. The impression I had was simply that things were taking longer than usual, and in my imagination they were editing footage from that day on the fly.

Curiously, unlike the show they recorded for Wednesday night, Trevor Noah did not tell us who the guest interview would be at the top of the show. It turned out to be former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele. Perhaps he was late? Regardless, we all waited patiently. The air conditioning was not extreme and the playlist was upbeat and spirited.

The warm-up act performed a very funny Q&A with the audience (it took him a while to understand why so many guests sitting the the VIP section were priests, when it finally dawned on him that was hilarious) and taught us how to properly go nuts at the beginning and end of commercial breaks. He also expressed his love of Mitchell’s Ice Cream.

Seriously. I have never heard so many people talking about Mitchell’s in my life. On NPR, on CNN. When Trevor Noah came out for his pre-show Q&A the first thing he started talking about is that goddamn ice cream.

The show itself ran in sequence, the way you see it on TV. At breaks for commercials the host would confer with his producers, perhaps about what is going well, what needs to change, but the breaks were not much longer than actual commercial breaks.

If he wasn’t otherwise occupied by production, Noah would address us, the audience, thanking us, praising us for our contribution, and even continuing to comment on some of the issues raised in the previous segment.

And that was interesting, because it was evident that he, like Jon Stewart before him, is emotionally invested in the material he is presenting and commenting upon. Not just that it be funny, but that it represents a coherent worldview. In fact, the most startling moments of the program were when he would suddenly say something - scripted, on-air - which wasn’t intended to make us laugh at all. Where making his point was more important than being funny.

Michael Steele on The Daily Show (Comedy Central)

The appearance of Michael Steele as Noah’s interview subject was quite surprising, if only because I haven’t seen or heard anything from him since he stepped down as RNC Chair. I don't watch MSNBC, apparently he provides commentary for them now. The interview was long, nuanced and very interesting.

Noah began by asking Steele if he was black, which Steele confirmed, and then that he is a Republican, which Steele also confirmed, to laughs, but then Steele said something which passed without comment, “But I’m black first.”

Steele is no longer beholden to the party, and spoke freely about the things that concern him about Trump, about his own refusal to endorse prior to the nomination, the two spoke about many interesting things and Noah concluded by asking if he believed Clinton qualified to be president, to which Steele said reassuring, in a nutshell, of course she is.

That night, when we watched the broadcast, the interview was cut significantly for time, reduced primarily his introduction and this apparent approval if not outright endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Even I would find that disingenuous, though Comedy Central did something unusual, which was to flash a banner during Steele’s answer about Hillary, urging viewers to WATCH THE ENTIRE, FULL-LENGTH INTERVIEW ONLINE.

And you should, here is the link.

Throughout the program we were thanked for our excitement and enthusiasm, and generally praised by the host and all of his associates who addressed us for the wonderful treatment they were receiving as visitors to our city. Apparently, we were a little too enthusiastic, as they decided to edit one of the recorded packages and re-record ours and Noah’s reaction to it because our laughs and applause had made the show run long. At least, that’s what we were told.

Following the taping, it was odd to emerge into sunlight, but it wasn’t yet eight o'clock. A long day in Ohio City, the air now cooling, we chose to continue our day-long date by finding a place for a drink and appetizers, settling on the Black Pig.

We sat out on the sidewalk patio, taking our time, talking about the evolution of The Daily Show and the state of the nation in general.

I looked down the sidewalk and spied a squad of officers walking across the street as a mother and her two kids were headed the other way past them through the intersection. Yes, I noticed that she and her children were black. An officer exchanged words with her, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I do know there was joyful laughter.

To be continued.

Jim Henson: The Biography (book)

If he had lived, James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) would be seventy-seven years old today. My parents are older than that, though not by much.

His impact on popular culture, on my life and on the life of those my ages and younger, cannot be overstated. Sesame Street is the gold standard in education television, and we were born at almost the same time. I and everyone who follows has watched that program, all across our world.

Prior to the creation of Sesame Street, television programs could be for children, or educational, but not both. Not instructive and entertaining. And there is no way that show would be anything but a brief moment in American media history of it were not for Jim Henson and the Muppets.

Sam & Friends, 1955-61

Arguably, Jim Henson was the most talented and luckiest artist in human history. He was brought up by a loving family that was full of humor and loved to play. He did not aspire to puppetry - because let’s face it, in 1950s America, who would - imagining for himself a life as a scenic designer.

Discovering a knack for this ancient entertainment, he recreated the idea of what puppetry could be on the new medium of television. He redefined the relationship between the puppet and the viewer, breaking the “puppet theatre” model of Howdy Doody and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, inspired by geniuses like Erne Kovacs, he used the TV screen itself as the only boundary for his puppets’ world.

We loved The Muppet Show in my house, which turned the model of having puppets in a human world on its head, inviting human guests into a show populated by puppets. The Muppet Movie took this even further, moving puppets into the real world.

Seriously. Could you have imagined before 1978, the idea of a critically-acclaimed motion picture, one which also generated millions and profits, that stars PUPPETS.

The swamp may be a set … and Jim Henson is underwater with his hand inside a puppet.

You know what is amazing about this guy? His failures are successful. In 1986, the year I graduated from high school and had very little time for fantasy (or David Bowie for that matter, have you listened to the Tonight album recently?) he released Labyrinth, which was a critical disaster and did terrible box office in the United States when it was released.

Since that time, generations younger than myself, who watched it endless times on cable and DVD, have embraced this entirely bizarre move starring David Bowie’s crotch.

Everybody eventually loves everything Jim Henson ever did.

Then there’s this.

His death came in that valley of my wonder, when I was still striving to bury childish things and move into a world of more adult entertainment, studying plays, making videos, avoiding puppets. I was twenty-one years old, but the suddenness of his demise came as a shock. I did not know what it meant. It was just sad.

The rumors were fast and furious. He knew he was dying, that was why he had sold out to that entertainment monster Disney. Or he had died of a staph infection in a hospital while being treated for something else. Or it was because he had been raised Christian Scientist and had died of something which the workaholic Henson had been living with and could have been easily cured.

None of this is true. In the book Jim Henson: The Biography, author Brian Jay Jones lays out in painful detail the encroaching effects of a rare bacterial infection, symptoms even I would have ignored, or tried to ignore, choosing instead to take more naps and over the counter pain remedies. For weeks, it is true. I do that, too. I think most men do.

By the time he felt truly ill, it was far too late. He checked into a hospital and was dead in two hours, at the age of 53. That’s it. That’s all there is to say. Rare, freak infection and it destroyed his internal organs. Could have happened to absolutely anyone.

DID YOU KNOW ..? The song Mah Nà Mah Nà was originally written for an Italian soft porn flick from the 1960s, which is like, duh - that’s exactly what it sounds like.

Reading this book filled me with joy and terror. I thought I had already been through my midlife crisis, but everywhere I look I am reading or seeing evidence of the complete fragility of life, and for the first time I am seriously afraid of death. Not of what comes after, that does not trouble me, but of what is left behind.

Great men walk the earth, and women, too. Those whose names we know, and also those we do not. Their greatness is defined by their acts, those which effects cascade across humanity, having a broad effect, alternating our life experience, making it grander, more relevant, richer, deeper, more, more, more.

Resigned, I am lesser man, and grudgingly content to be so. We, too, have our place. Not all can awe inspire or ground break. But we speak, move and act. We do not cause even little earthquakes, but merely exert our will to shake the walls, and observe and respond so that those in our midst, even those unknowing our works, can say, “Yes, that was worth it,” or “I felt something,” or best of all, simply saying, “Thank you.”


St. John the Divine, NYC
May 21, 1990

Simple Gifts (1977)

New York at Night (1979)

R. O. Blechman (born Oscar Robert Blechman, 1930) is an illustrator and animator, you probably recognize his work. He made a name for himself creating sequential editorial cartoons for the Village Voice in the 1970s, later for The New York Times and plentiful covers for The New Yorker.

DID YOU KNOW ..? Like all great men, R. O. Blechman graduated from Oberlin College.

Without actually doing any research on the subject, I imagine the artist he is most closely compared to is Jules Feiffer, because of the shaky line. However, whereas Feiffer's people have detailed faces of angst and giddy nervous energy, Blechman's characters visages are so glyphic they are almost childlike, often succumbed by wonder.

R.O. Blechman (self-portrait)

His most-seen animation is probably something like the Alka-Seltzer commercial (1967) in which a man has an argument with his own stomach. My favorite work, however, was when he produced an hour-long holiday program for PBS called Simple Gifts. Seven animators presented works on the theme of Christmas.


Blechman's own piece, No Room at the Inn, retells the story of the Nativity with social commentary familiar to those who treasure his work. This acknowledgement of economic disparity and the plight of the poor is also reflected in Maurice Sendak's Introduction where a shoeless, miserable boy sacrifices his life to become a tree that brings joy to others.

Artist Chwast gives life to a bizarre tale from the bizarre novel Orlando by the bizarre Virgina Woolf, and there is an silly Toonerville Trolley cartoon. Three pieces, however, are biographical, and summon up Christmases from America in the 1860s (rich future President Teddy Roosevelt's My Christmas) and in the 1910s (poor future playwright Moss Hart's A Memory of Christmas)
and the tale most haunting, that of the "Christmas Truce" of 1914.


The story told in this letter from by Sir Edward Hulse was only one example of soldiers, largely British and Canadian, emerging from their trenches to meet and greet Germans (there are far fewer records of any French participating) in no-man's land. First they arranged to retrieve their dead, which led to the singing of hymns, then carols, the sharing of family photos and stories and finally playing soccer and exchanging of gifts.

The afterward to this animation, that Sir Hulse perished in the trenches, doesn't make the story any more poignant, if you are familiar with the wholesale carnage of the Great War. He died on a godforsaken field in France. Of course he did.

Following this dangerous breach of continual murderous violence, those at the top mandated that strict punishments would be meted out if there were any further peaceful gestures made toward the enemy. And once poison gas was introduced in 1915, most Christian amity was successfully broken.

A commercially produced video for Simple Gifts was last released commercial in 1993, and is currently available on VHS for around $130. It has never been released on DVD.

The Joy of Christmas

Don't smile.

People, all kinds of people, like to kvetch and moan about how much better things were in the past. Some undefined past, could mean twenty years ago, could mean fifty. But things were less troublesome, more gooder, you weren't being inconvenienced by the thought police and gas was cheaper.


Well, I don't know about all that. If you know me, you know I believe society is a continuum where fates and fortunes are rising for some and falling for others. Ask a member of the homosexual community if things are better for them now than they were fifty years ago.

One community, however, which is always being persecuted, because it is part of their charter, is the Christian community. And who can blame them, since Obama took God off our coins, and no one says the Pledge of Allegiance in our public schools anymore.


What I can say is this, The Joy of Christmas would probably not have been produced today. Fall, 1979 the choirs of Bay Presbyterian Church were asked to participate in a holiday Christmas special for WEWS (ABC) hosted by Eyewitness News anchor Ted Henry.

Anchorman 2 opens December 13.

The holiday set, with fake lampposts and artificial snow was set into one corner of a large room in the WEWS studios on Euclid Avenue. This one room also included the set for Eyewitness News in another corner, for Morning Exchange in yet another corner, with the much smaller set for the Ohio Lottery wedged between.

Mother tells me I joined the choir for that one year so I could be part of the broadcast, which I do not remember, but may be true. However, if I was hoping to "shine" on local television, that did not happen. While the producer kept asking us to put on a bright and cheery holiday smile for the camera, our choral director, Ernie Hisey, quietly warned all of us to do no such thing. The result is that I look a little pissed off.


The program was repeated a Christmas season or two, but was soon after shelved no doubt because of its strong religious content. This is a Christian celebration of Christmas, including Bible verses from the host, classical images of the birth of Christ, and a family sitting around to read the Bible to each other.

It is not true, however, that the big bad president has taken God off our money, he hasn't. It is also not true that kids no longer recite the pledge in public schools, they do, all across northeast Ohio for certain, because I see and hear them do it all the time as part of my job. The United States government, which is supposed to be religion-neutral, is not.

But a program like this may never again be created by a commercial television station, and for strictly commercial reasons. They aren't worried about offending anyone. They are worried about not pleasing everyone, which is quite different. They are worried about losing money, that same American money that still says "In God We Trust" on it.

Happy Black Friday.

Mad Men (TV show)

These things happen.

And now a word about Mad Men. My wife and I are behind, because we must be behind, there isn't time in the day to watch TV on any regular basis (though we did begin watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a family event on Tuesdays and I am beginning to regret that) but when we have a free evening, we will catch and episode or two of what must be the best-written program I have ever enjoyed.

SPOILERS

On several occasions TV networks have tried to capture the 1960s in a bottle, through movies like The 60's (1999) or more recently the series American Dreams (2002 - 2005). From what I understand, these programs failed because the goal of these projects was to once again remind us what an amazing time the 1960s were, that there was never a period of history more important than that one, and that we must once more venture into these heady days, if only to understand, man.

They were, of course, created by Baby Boomers. Like the movie Forrest Gump, another tribute to that era which ironicly puts a moron at the center of great, historic events even though he has no idea how he got there ... like most Boomers who didn't actually do anything but just lived it and feel they earned their place in history. Like George W. Bush.

Mad Men, however, tricked everyone into thinking it was a cheeky period piece. Created by a member of Generation X (Matthew Weiner, b. 1965) he chronicles the events at a fictional advertising agency during a period before he was even born, starting in 1960. And in its way (because I know too much about what is going to happen already) this series stands out in its ability to tell the story of the times and how they were a'changin' better than anyone has for the obvious reason that he started with interesting characters, cast great if largely unknown actors, and have provided them with powerful writing.

Last night we took in the episodes The Fog and Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency back to back.

Let me start by saying my brother tipped me off, maybe a few months ago, that there will be an awful moment involving a lawnmower. And let me say that, in spite of this warning, when someone literally rides a John Deere mower into the office of Sterling Cooper, I was paying such deep attention to all the details of every storyline, that it didn't even occur to me that I was looking at a lawnmower and that something terrible was about to happen.

Back up. So Don's wife Betty (January Jones) is having their third child. Watching childbirth on TV, anything to do with it, always presents an ick factor for me. Because I know what it is to be afraid, every single time. Sometimes they die, these things happen. But not on TV. Even the episode of Six Feet Under, a TV show about death, gave one of the main characters a preeclampsia scare which concluded with a healthy baby and mother. These things happen, except not on TV.

Well, there was that one episode of E.R. I watched, the only episode of E.R. I ever watched, where Doctor Mark Green misses the signs, but even in that one the mother dies, not the baby. Never the baby.

Actor Matt Bushell has a featured role as a prison guard who is expecting his first child and shares the waiting room with Don (John Hamm).  The wife and I were marveling afterwards at what totally amazing scenes they shared together. Bushnell had this incredible, fully-formed character for these few scenes, going emotionally toe-to-toe with John Hamm, it's just another example of what great writing and acting and directing has the potential to be. The guard's anxiety and fear about losing his wife (who is having a very difficult labor, it is a breech birth) and what might happen if he needs to raise a child on his own are palpable and real. His euphoria at the news of the birth of his first child, a son, are beautiful.

After Don's child is born, he visits Betty in the hospital with flowers. He passes the guard pushing his wife down the hall in a wheelchair, Don smiles brightly, the guard looks blank, catches Don's eye, a smile of recognition flickers but then he looks down and away. Cut to Don, who appears confused.

It's such a brief moment. It's never referred to again. These things happen. Who caught that?

Episode reviews:

TIME: Like many of you, I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of the shamed look Dennis [the guard] seemed to give Don when he ran into him in the hallway. But I wonder if it goes back to his pledge that having the baby would make him “a better man,” and realizing now that it was just nerves and the Johnnie Walker talking.

The A.V. Club: And what does the later scene when the two men pass each other in the hall mean? Dennis can’t acknowledge Don. Is he a reminder of a promise already broken?

The Guardian: When Dennis ignores him later on, you almost wonder if their exchange really happened.

Most reviews I found do not even mention this moment. They were all so preoccupied with the guard, with Don, and with Don's issues, no one notices what is so terribly obvious.

The guard, his wife. There is no baby.

As for Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency - one of the most (literally) painful puns in the history of television - I can hardly share the pertinent details. Suffice to say I woke several times in the middle of the night, rubbing my feet together like a neurotic grasshopper.

What is shocking to me is that this program, Mad Men, which received a great deal of attention at the outset because it featured smoking and drinking and wild office parties, and presented this kind of nostalgia for the good old days when men were men and women were women and no one sued you for being an asshole in the workplace, evolved slowly (but not that slowly) into a rumination on the fragility of human existence.

Even in the midst of an ordinary day, you can die. Someone you love might die. A complete stranger can be horribly maimed, right in front of you. You can put your love hope and trust into another person who will hurt you. You can be vaulted from joy to the deepest sorrow, in a moment, just by moving through the ordinary pathways of life.

I have watched in horror as my wife split her brow, my son's skull was fractured, my daughter's forehead gashed, and I have held a dead baby. Ordinary life fucking scares me.

If moments like the lawnmower incident were commonplace in the storyline, the show would be grotesque. Seeming as it so totally random (except, come on people, don't drink and mow) is to me just one more reminder that these things happen, all the time, and we must be careful.

Originally posted on Daddy Runs Fast.

M*A*S*H (TV show)

On any given Friday evening in early 1976, you could tune into CBS at 8:30 PM to view a brand new episode of M*A*S*H (and then switch over to NBC for The Rockford Files.)

This fourth season of the program marked two notable transitions from the Robert Altman film upon which it was based (the movie having been inspired, sort of, by the book by Richard Hooker) with the departure of two major characters, "Trapper" John McIntyre and Colonel Henry Blake. Characters original to the series now included B.J. Hunnicut and Colonel Sherman Potter (seen right.)

The character of Trapper John was always the sidekick to what had swiftly become the leading role in the series, that of Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce, and upon repeated viewings (countless repeated viewings) Trapper was always my favorite character. I am not sure why any longer, there was not much "there" there, but my emulation of him as a pre-adolescent was probably in keeping with my self-image as sidekick to my more popular best-friends.

The characters of Hunnicut and Potter had much in common, in that they were dedicated family men, much more earnest and much less zany than the philandering, alcoholic characters they were replacing. This was in keeping with the tone of the show, which was moving from laugh-fest into a weekly sermon on everything Liberal. A steady diet of Alan Alda, two episodes every Monday through Friday from 7 - 8 PM on Channel 43, made me the knee-jerk, bleeding-hearted Communist I am today.

This fourth season was particularly difficult for Larry Linville, who played the clownish Major Frank Burns. Portrayed in the film by Robert Duvall, Burns was the subject of scorn and derision for his piety and patriotism, though he did seem menacing in his way and in that context his comeuppance (taken from the camp in a straightjacket after attacking Hawkeye) satisfies. However, by the mid-70s, ridiculing Burns' Christianity and love of country seemed churlish and unsympathetic, and so Linville's Burns degenerated into a wimpy boor of no particular stripe. Just irritating and whiny.

Antony & Cleopatra (1964)
Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival
Larry Linville (Octavius), Anne Murray (Octavia), David Tress (Marc Antony)
Lawrence Lavon Linville (September 29, 1939 – April 10, 2000) is one of few Americans selected to train at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England. Unlike Wayne "Trapper" Rogers and McLean "Henry Blake" Stevenson, who left M*A*S*H with plans of capitalizing on their success as lead performers in other shows (and failing, spectacularly) Linville left when his original, five-season contract expired, because his character simply had nowhere to go. Even Burns' former lover, Margaret "Hotlips" Houlihan, was becoming a more sympathetic multi-dimensional character. Unfortunately for this classically trained actor, his life after-M*A*S*H was consisted largely of unremarkable television appearances where he played much the same guy he did in this program.

During the mid-1960s Larry Linville was a company member at Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Lakewood, where he worked alongside his second wife, Kate Greer (Linville was married five times.) Linville not only performed at GLSF, he also directed.

"This is where the full employment is, in the regional theater. And it's good theater. You need both—regional and Broadway. But the regional theater develops the potential playwrights, actors and directors." - Larry Linville in 1965

Sources:
Wikipedia
Cleveland Memory Project - Tony Mastroianni Review Collection

Hey, You!

Saturday Night Live
Season 3: Episode 7
December 20, 1977

"Hey, You!"

Woman.....Gilda Radner

[ open on woman sitting alone at a bar ]

Announcer: Not all women are looking for Mr. Right. Sometimes they might just want a little company for the evening. That's why Olfalo created Hey, You!

[ Woman holds up perfume and sprays it on herself ]

Announcer: Just one whiff does the trick, for those occasions when you can't afford to be subtle.

[ men begin to flock all around the Woman ]

Announcer: Hey, You! The scent you can't ignore.

[ the woman spots a single man sitting alone at the other end of the bar ]

Woman: [ whispering seductively ] Hey... You!

[ the man approaches the woman, who gets up and leaves with him ]

[ once outside, they enter a taxi and take off into the night ]

Announcer: Hey, You! for that special someone you never expect to see again.

[ cut to the next day, as the woman hobbles out of a hotel and tries to catch a taxi home ]

Announcer: Hey, You! The Perfume for One-Night Stands.

[ dissolve to product shot ]

Announcer: From Olfalo.

[ fade ]

My world-view as a nine year-old was that New York City was a gritty, dangerous swinger’s bar and that when I grew up my life would be much like Gilda’s in this fake advertisement -- desperate for love and attention, going home after dark with strangers for risky sex before catching a cab the next morning, half-dressed, with a cigarette clamped between my lips.


I think the fact that she stumbles into the ugly, urban dawn, shrugging on bits of her clothes from the night before didn’t just communicate to my pre-adolescent brain the “Walk of Shame” but that she had, in fact, been raped. I think I read a little too much into this gag.

Source:
SNL Transcripts

Hoolihan and Big Chuck

They always ended the show in their PJs.

Histories have been written about the preponderance of late-night movie programming that featured a terrible B-movie hosted by some kook in a costume. Cleveland’s Ghoulardi one-upped a lot of his national competitors with his regional digs, arch (one might say “meta”) humor, and his adventures into chroma key, placing himself into the movie, decades before MST3K.


Ghoulardi.
When Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson left Cleveland in 1966 to make his fortune as a voice-over artist in Los Angeles, one of his producers Chuck Schodowski and weather man Bob “Hoolihan” Wells took the slot. Now, instead of a dimly-lit studio haunted by a deranged beatnik who blew up things, we had two charming, rubber-faced twits creating hilarious and hilariously cheap comedy shorts to pad out the awful movies.


Now, local television has always been cheap. But reviewing segments from the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show, you can understand how they inspired several generations of dorks from Northeast Ohio to pick up dad’s Super 8 camera and make silent, physical comedy, usually involving obvious costumes, wigs, mustaches, and a grand, goofy, visual punchline.

I am looking at you, Litz.

A keen interest in bizarre music was always a plus.


"Certain Ethnic Bankrobbers"
WARNING: Hideous gay stereotype.
In 1976, Hoolihan and Big Chuck aired at 11:30 PM on Friday nights, which was awesome because that meant we could stay up late and not worry about having to get up for church the next day.

This clip was filmed at the corner of Fleet and Klonowski, and once upon a time the Jolly Tee Cafe may have been on the corner of Aetna and East 76th street in Slavic Village:


Pure Cleveland.

Swill

As a nine year-old growing up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, it was stuff like that bred in me a rich vein of arch fuckery:

Saturday Night Live
Season 3: Episode 9
January 21, 1978

"Swill"

Salesman.....Bill Murray

Salesman: [ seated at lunch counter ] As a salesman, I do a lot of traveling. And when it comes to lunch, I grab what I can, usually on the run. And when I want mineral water, I keep it simple, and I keep it domestic. [ places bottle on counter ] I drink Swill. The water that's dredged from Lake Erie.

[ voice over video of Swill being dredged from Lake Erie ]

Nothing's added to Swill. It comes straight from the Lake to you. Maybe you thought only European countries had mineral water, but let me tell you: we bottle some pretty special water right here in America.

[ cut back to Salesman at lunch counter ]

Yeah. America. Water with a character all its own. Swill's refreshing; it's low in calories; and Swill helps wash down a hearty meal like this that tends to just lay in your stomach. [ pours runny ketchup on his hamburger ]

[ Music Over: "Anticipation" by Carly Simon ]

[ Plays as Swill slowly pours into Salesman's glass, complete with sludge, dirt and a flip-top from a soda can ]

Salesman: I like mine with a twist. [ squeezes a lime wedge into his glass of Swill ]

Announcer: Swill. Everything you've always wanted in a mineral water. And more.

Source:
SNL Transcripts

(Kids: Ask your folks what the hell a flip-top is.)

What's on?

From Cleveland TV Memories (1999) by Tom Feran and R.D. Heldenfels:

In 1954, WJW started a five-minute news program called "Today's Top Story" to follow its late-evening "Sohio Reporter." To do commercials for it, they hired a young blonde actor from the Cleveland Play House to make his screen debut - Paul Newman.

Warren Guthrie was the "Sohio Reporter" on Channel 8. A speech professor at Western Reserve University, he was noted for shunning scripts in favor of delivering the news from memory with the aid of index cards.

Jimmy Dudley and Bob Long anchored the "Gray Drug News Parade" at 7 PM weeknights on WXEL.

Captain Penny referred to the Three Stooges by the Italian "Tre Potsie."

Bob Dale was one of Cleveland's first and most popular TV personalities. He lip-synched records and hosted the "Dinner Platter" show on WEWS. Dale also wore a whiskbroom-sized mustache to play kids' host Tim Twitter, a somewhat befuddled Civil War veteran (see above.)

"Bill Finn's Round the World Adventure" on Channel 5 during the late-evening hours takes viewers to exotic locales.

Kids visiting "Uncle Jake's House" the WEWS show hosted by Gene Carroll had to pretend they were descending into the basement on an elevator by bending their knees and dropping out of camera range.

"The Morning Bandwagon" was the WTAM radio show featuring the stations staff orchestra, conducted by Henry Gordon, and telecast on sister station WNBK-TV. Staff announcers Jay Miltner often lends his vibrant baritone as vocalist.

"Jakies" was the derisive term used by news photographers for the kids and bystanders who wave and crowd into shots on the street and in public places.

"Red Goose Merry-Go-Round" was the popular Saturday morning kids' show on Channel 9. It's host was curly-haired Walt "Kousin" Kay, who came from "Kousin Kay's Korner" on WJW radio. Coco the Clown and Merrily, the Lady from Story Land were his sidekicks.

John Fitzgerald sat at a bar delivering sports scores for Channel 8 on the "Carling Sports Final."

(edited)

The Dark, Dark Hours

The Dark, Dark Hours
Starring Ronald Reagan and featuring James Dean.
Broadcast Sunday December 12, 1954
CBS General Electric Theater

Origins of the Phrase "War On Drugs"
President Dwight D. Eisenhower began what The New York Times then called "a new war on narcotic addiction at the local, national, and international level" with the establishment of an Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics on November 27, 1954, which was responsible for coordinating executive branch antidrug efforts. - About.com

Murder of Elderly Widow
June 30, 1948 at Cleveland, Ohio, James Buchanan was arrested by police of that city for the murder of a 60-year-old East Cleveland widow. After questioning by Police detectives he admitted his participation in the crime and also accused an accomplice. Buchanan admitted having participated, during the previous 6 months in the brutal attack of 16 women for the purpose of robbing them of their money. He stated further he wanted the money to buy wine and reefers (marihuana cigarettes) which he would consume at the same time. Before venturing out to commit their atrocious crimes, Buchanan and his partner would fortify themselves with wine and marihuana. Buchanan was 24 years of age at the time of his arrest, married and the father of three children. --The Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs

Sources:
YouTube
About.com
ReeferMadness.com

Mister Jingeling

Max Ellis

Santa Claus is the man. You can't touch Santa. And since no one owns him, no one can corner the market on his business. Yes, Coca-Cola comes close to having a registered trademark on St. Nick, and good for them. But they can't tell you or anyone else what to do with him. And he can't sell cigarettes or booze. At least not anymore. At least not in America. 

Rankin and Bass did a decent job of adding ancillary characters, though all the best ones are from the original Rudolph special (Hermie, the Misfit Toys, the Abominable Snowmonster, et al.) And there's Heat Miser. After that it gets kind of pathetic. Baby New Year? Little Drummer Boy? Really? Do you have any of those ornaments on your tree?

Before I get too far afield, I am not talking about Christmas characters in general. I am not talking about Scrooge or Jesus, I mean people who are next to Santa.

This one's mine, and it is a treasure.

Now, how many American cities can say they have their own, personal assistant to Santa Claus? One - that's right, I said it, Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Jingeling is the official "Keeper of the Keys" to the North Pole. He is the guy who carries all the keys, to every single lock in Santaland. And you know what they say, the more keys you have, the more important you are.

Jingeling received this position when Santa lost his own key to the Treasure House of Toys, and fashioned a new one for the Big Man. He was created by Chicagoan Frank Jacobi as a promotional event for Halle's Department Store in 1956. He began making appearances on Captain Penny, performed by local actor Max Ellis (seen at top.) For live appearances on the 7th floor of Halle's, he was portrayed by off-duty Cleveland police officer Tom Moviel, carrying real prison keys.

He is best known, however, as played by WEWS producer Earl Keyes (nice one, huh?) who took on the role in 1965 both on television and at Halle's, and kept the copyright to the character when Halle's went out of business in 1982. I saw him on TV during the holiday season's of my youth, providing bumpers to afternoon cartoons on Channel 43, shilling for Halle's.

Keyes died in 2000. But his legend lives on.