Ghosts of Halloweens Past

I recently attended a luncheon meeting with a new manager at work. It was a get to know you lunch for the whole department. To break the ice, she asked that we go around the table and share our favorite Halloween costume as a kid.

I had to think about this for a while. My favorite Halloween costume growing up? I can't say that I have one. I also could only remember three.  When I was a kid, I don't remember people making elaborate or clever costumes. Pretty much all I remember were those Ben Cooper costumes you could buy at the drug, toy or department store. You know the ones that came in a box with a window in it that showed the plastic mask and the body of the costume was some sort of synthetic material with the costume printed on it.

Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers all wore those. All I could remember was being Secret Squirrel in First Grade one year and Superman in Second Grade.  And then in Fifth Grade, my parents decided to make us original costumes. I was a hippie and my sister Debbie was a Hula dance. My youngest sister, Wendy, was a princess of some sort. She was still in a Ben Cooper. I guess she was too young to have a homemade costume! 

Oh my God! Those Ben Cooper costumes! The plastic mask with the holes for eyes and the slit for a mouth. Remember trying to breathe in those things? I can remember how you were basically breather on yourself. The hot breath sometimes causing a fog, especially if it was cold outside, (which it usually was in late October after dark in Albany, NY). 

Look at that handiwork! That's me on the right...the tall one. I'm wearing a cowboy hat and my mother's fall (the 1960s version of extensions for women with short hair), a white t-shirt over a darker long sleeve t-shirt, a white vest made of vinyl with brown contact paper made to look like a cow hide, and a medallion. And then one of my teeth is blacked out and I've got stubble make up on my face. Excellent!

As for my Dad's costumes, this was just the beginning. They got more elaborate. The following year for my sister Debbie, he made a Smiley Face costume. Two pieces of plywood, cut in a bug circle and fitted together with a couple of 2x4s(?) and then it slid over her heard and she held on to the 2x4s I think. Big and clunky. But clever and different.

The year after that, he re-purposed it. He cut into a wedge and repainted it, added cotton to the edges and it was a slice of pizza. Less bulky. Still awkward. Better her than me!

I don't ever remember having another home made costume after that one. I believe from that point on, I was a hobo. When I was growing up, once you hit pre-adolescence, you were too cool for a costume but you still wanted candy, so everyone from age 12 - 14 went out as a hobo. All that meant was you went out in a t-shirt or flannel shirt an jeans and carried a pillow case for candy.  Boom! instant hobo!

Getting back to the meeting. I was thinking, "What do I answer when it gets to me?" I was towards the end of the table so I knew I'd be one of the last to go. So I'm thinking I'll mention Secret Squirrel. I knew I would probably have to explain that one to most in the room.  One of my managers says hobo. Yes! Me too!  Then my supervisor says....Secret Squirrel. I couldn't believe it! How crazy is that? Random. But then she and I are the same age so not so much. I was practically epileptic! I was the next in the room, so I pretty much just piggy backed her. That was my answer too!

For those of you who don't know, Secret Squirrel was a Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera cartoon in the late 1960s. He was part of the Atom Ant Show. And he was basically a squirrel that was a spy and he looked like this...

But I have to wonder, why can't I remember any of my other Halloween costumes? Were those my favorites? Did I block the others out because I didn't like them?  If so, what does that say about me? Superman, Secret Squirrel and a Hippie. Well, the hippie obviously because it was so elaborate..well for the time...well for us.  And it could be that I actually have a picture of that one and none of the others.

Superman and Secret Squirrel were both superheroes in a way and both had secret identities. Was I hiding something too? Did I have a secret identity. Or was it merely wish fulfillment? I need to hide behind a mask or secret identity not wanting to deal with my true identity? Hmmm...alright! Don't read anything into it. They were just costumes. 

Happy Halloween!

My Not So Secret Love Continued

Yesterday, I told you about my love for television growing up. Today, I give some details about how active my imagination was. Some of this is embarrassing so please kind. I know was a little weirdo.

When I was a kid I fantasized that Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore might be my real parents. I fantasized about being discovered by no less than Lucille Ball.  She would have me a guest star on her show and from that I would get my own Monday night sitcom on CBS...The Richard Van Slyke Show. I would have annual specials too so I had an opportunity to sing and dance of course.

In the Fifth grade, my friends Bob Pohl and Nick Mangus would play The Odd Couple during recess. Bob was Oscar, Nick was Felix and I was Murray the Cop. Murray the Cop. Really?  I fancied myself the star. Instead I'm the fat guy with the big nose? Great!

As I entered later high and into college, my favorite show was Guiding Light. This happened when it expanded from a half hour to an hour and pushed my All in the Family reruns back a half hour. So when I got home from school at 2:30 Guiding Light was just tarting. So I watched and it quickly became my favorite show on TV. I loved it! Rita and Ed. Holly and Roger. Alan and Elizabeth and Justin and Jackie and Mike Bauer of the core Bauer family.  Roger raping Holly. Holly shooting Roger and Roger "dying". The failed kidnap attempt of Christine leading Roger in full clown makeup chasing Holly though a carnival hall of mirrors while Enough is Enough played in the background? Awesome! The introduction of the younger characters, Nola and Kelly an Morgan. The episode that opened with 15 minutes of Kelly confronting Nola about al her lies that had been building for about a year and a half? Brilliant!

Late nights in my college years, CBN (now known as ABC Family) ran reruns of 1950s sitcoms and discovered Burns and Allen, My Little Margie, Private Secretary, I Married Joan.  Then Nick at Nite went on the air and boom! More 1950s 1960s shows.

Now, TVLand and Nick at Nite shows are from the 1990s and even more recent. And we have Retrotv Antenna TV and ME TV. But they are analog channels and without cable, who can get them? Plus they air the same old shows.

So now I collect DVD sets. A lot of DVD sets. I have the complete series of Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Newhart, Family Affair, Hazel, That Girl, Get Smart, Green Acres, All in the Family, Rhoda, WKRP, News Radio, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Odd Couple, Soap, Will & Grace and selected seasons of other series.

Yeah, I think I may have problem!

My Not So Secret Love

I began yesterday's blog by starting to get into this but wound up on another related subject. So here it is...

Over the last few years, I have become more open about this and have begun the slow process of coming out to my friends. I have always been a bit embarrassed to admit this about myself. But I am more comfortable sharing this about myself. I've been afraid of being labelled a "geek" or a "nerd". So here it is...

I love television. No, I mean really LOOOOVEE it! I cannot imagine living without it. I know more about television shows and the actors and creators then I do about the people in my own life. I am a walking encyclopedia of television history. I know the Emmy winners through the years. I can tell you the top rated shows from the beginning (1947 Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle) through today (NCIS). I can tell what years and networks that shows aired on and who starred on them, who they were married to, who directed, produced etc.

I even won a great deal of money on Trivial Pursuit - America Plays, the game show.

I used to go straight the TV insert of the Sunday paper every week and memorize it.

I started reading the weekly Nielsen ratings every week when I was 12 and I haven't stopped.

But my knowledge kind of trails off as we get into the mid-2000s because of the proliferation of the cable networks and subsequently other sources of programming such as Netflix. But when it comes to the networks (ABC CBS and NBC) I know everything. Even who runs the networks and who ran them in the past. Its in there. In my head. And whenever someone says something that I know is incorrect, I immediately blurt out the correct answer. It's almost like tourettes. I can't help it! I think I may have a problem.

I'm not so crazy for present day TV. Most of it is like movies anyway. They look the same. They're just 22 or 43 minutes in length. I miss the days when it was just the big three (ABC CBS and NBC) . They programmed for everyone. Now, everything is splintered. Networks for kids, networks for women, networks for sports, networks for original movies.  No more Saturday morning cartoons on the networks. No more made for TV movies of Hallmark Hall of Fames. No more original programming on Saturday nights!

I miss the old shows. I grew up in front of the TV. On Friday nights, my sisters and I would roll out the sleeping bags, get into our PJs and watch the ABC Friday night line up (Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple, and Love American Style), fall asleep and wake up on Saturday morning to watch all the cartoons (Archies, Sabrina and the Groovie Ghoulies, Scooby Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, The Monkees, HR Pufnstuff,  The Jetsons, Pebbles and Bam Bam). Saturday nights, the whole family including my parents watched the CBS line up (All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett). Sundays were Disney and Lassie.

Afternoons were loaded with reruns, Bewitched Jeannie, Mr. Ed, Superman, Mickey Mouse Club, The Musters, The Addams Family, Gilligan, the list goes on. The networks used to program  daytime reruns in the mornings of their recent shows The Lucy Show, Andy Griffith, The Beverly Hillbillies, Dick Van Dyke, That Girl.  There were the game shows, Concentration, Password, Match Game, Tattletales, Joker's Wild.

My parents were always after me to get out from in front of the TV and to go outside and play. "You've seen this I Love Lucy 100 times!"

What's left today? Two game shows on CBS and that's it. No more daytime reruns. Only four soaps and no cartoons.

Because of the fractured landscape of television today, we don't sit down as a family and watch TV together anymore. Kids today don't even watch TV on a TV! And never mid rushing home to catch your favorite shows. You can watch it anytime thanks to DVRs and streaming services.

I an still remember the thrill of rushing home from my part-time job at Sears on Friday nights to catch Dallas. Watching the drama unfold from week to week on St. Elsewhere and Knots Landing. God! How I loved those shows. I miss that. I want the old days back. Or am I just old?

And if you doubt my knowledge of TV history, go ahead and ask me if you see me. Its kind of hard to prove on here. Who's to say I won't use the internet to get the answer. So if you see me in person, ask away.

What do you think? Do you prefer the good ole days? Or do you prefer television today?  Or am I just an ornery old guy longing for the good ole days? I'd like to hear from you.

I'm Obsessed with The Doctors in Living Color on NBC

I have something I want to confess. This is difficult for me. Because I've only recently learned to embrace my geekiness. I used to hide it because I was embarrassed. But the truth is I am addicted to television.

My latest obsession is reruns of The Doctors on Retrotv. Not The Doctors talk show that is currently in syndication, but the original The Doctors soap opera that aired on NBC from April 1963 through December 1982. How many of you remember that show?

Fun fact: It debuted the same day as General Hospital on ABC and in the late 1960s and early 1970 was the higher rated of the two shows. Each of these shows were ABC and NBC's first real successes with the soap opera. CBS had dominated the soap genre since the early 1950s with its soaps. (Search for Tomorrow, Love of Life, Guiding Light, Secret Storm, As The World Turns, The Edge of Night).

Last fall, Retrotv started airing two episodes a day of The Doctors starting with late 1967. Right now they are into March of 1970 in the story. I don't get Retrotv but there are people who do who then upload the episodes to various on line outlets.

They are fascinating to watch. A) because they were kind of low budget; B) to see the hair styles and clothing; C) think about this. They had JUST switched from black and white to color! D) because every once in a while you'll see familiar face as an uncredited extra. Paul Michael Glaser was on a few episodes as an orderly and dancing in a nightclub scene. Kevin Dobson was an ER doctor in another. No lines, but there they are plain as day.

And who knew that Terry Kiser (Bernie in Weekend at Bernies) did soaps? And not as the comic relief! He plays a young doctor on the show.

Another reason I am fascinated with watching this show is this. In the mid-1960s soaps started to switch from live daily airings to videotape. From the late 1960s through the late 1970s, the tapes were all recorded over to save money because back then videotape was expensive. So virtually no soap opera episodes from the late 60s to mid 70s even exists. Dark Shadows was the exception. So the fact that these exist is huge! At least to a TV geek like me.

Also the process of videotaping back then was different. They recorded what they called live to tape. This means that they did not stop for retakes unless something went horribly wrong. So even though it was shot on tape, they went on as if it were airing live. As a result, you will hear offstage coughing, door slams, the occasional boom in the shot and flubbed lines. Remember, this was professional network television!

This was one of my mom's favorite soaps when I was a kid. But then, I think at one point she watched all the CBS soaps. I remember Search for Tomorrow with Jo and Stu. Jo's big love interest in the late 1960s was played by Robert Mandan who went on to play Chester on Soap. That one was on at lunchtime which is why I remember the characters. And Love of Life with Van and Bruce. Right before lunch.  The other shows I didn't watch but I remember the opening titles. Like the kind of eerie opening credits of The Edge of Night Dum Dum Da DUM. The Eeeeedge of Night!  (As the Cincinnati skyline fades to black.) Or the splashing waves on the rocky coastline of The Secret Storm. Eventually, as shows expanded to an hour and game shows became more successful, the soaps started getting cancelled so my mom moved over exclusively to the NBC soaps, Another World The Doctors and Days of Our Lives. She still watches Days to this day. The others have all died off.

I love the fact that back then there were around a dozen soaps that shot in New York City employing dozens of actors directors, costumers, writers, set designers etc. And so many actors were employed for years (decades in some cases) in one role. I mean the same job as an actor for years! Think about that. In what other genre does that happen? It doesn't. That has always fascinated me. Most actors go from job to job and have long periods of unemployment, but not soap actors
. Alas, there's an entire industry that no longer exists in New York City.

But back to The Doctors. It was the first soap to win a daytime Emmy for Best Daytime Drama in 1974. And again in 1976. Elizabeth Hubbard won for Best Actress in one of those years. I am familiar with her work years later on As The World Turns which I started watching in high school.  Its really interesting to see her as another character completely different from the one she played on World Turns. Her scenes with her main love interest are amazing. Their chemistry is undeniable. She plays Althea Davis, a well bred New England doctor who runs the clinic and she falls for the brash hot-headed brilliant neurosurgeon Nick Bellini played by Gerald Gordon. He flies off the handle every day. But my favorite character is Nurse Carolee Simpson played by Carolee Campbell. She is sweet and funny and endearing. Even when she is in a dramatic story line, she has quick little quips.

So every day, I watch the latest two episodes and then go on the forums to read other people's comments. And I am anxious to see how the story lines play out and see how the technology advances and budgets grow as we get into the 1980s. And oh yeah...some actor named Alec Baldwin joins the cast somewhere around 1980.

Damn Yankees and other classic musicals

This week I went to see Cabrillo Music Theatre's excellent production of Damn Yankees.  The next day I could not get the songs out of my head. Now, I should explain that I have been in two productions of DamnYankees so I know the songs pretty well.  So the songs were already in there (my head that is). This just brought them out.

It got me to thinking how much I love this show and many of the classic shows from Broadway's "golden age" (1943 to 1964).  Now to the part where I sound like a crotchety old man. Many younger people think these shows are old fashioned or dated. Maybe its a sign of my age but there's a reason these shows are classics. I have always considered this show among my favorites. Would Iplace in the same league as say Sweeney Todd? No way! I have categories of faves or classics. For instance this would fall under the category of fun or joyous shows a la Pajama Game, Guys & Dolls, Bye Bye Birdie. I like the big brassy funny shows, The Producers, Hairspray. Then there are the esoteric classics, pretty much anything Sondheim. Or groundbreakers like A Chorus Line (the IT show when I was in my teens) Rent, and now Hamilton.  What am I not a fan of? Pretty much anything Lloyd Webber, British mega musicals of the 1980s.  Younger folks tend to go for Spring Awakening, American Idiot, and the jukebox shows to which I go "Eh? I don't get it."

Am I old? Showing my age?  No. I love newer shows like Next to Normal, Avenue Q, Book of Mormon.  As an actor and because I am now older or an "adult", I've had a chance to re-visit some of the classic shows and let me tell you there is a reason those are classics. Last year I was in an excellent production of The Music Man. Now, some people might say it's hokey or old fashioned. But I can honestly say after working on it that I firmly believe this is one of the best musicals of all time.  That opening scene on the train? One of the best opening numbers ever written. The songs are classic and the story is great. Its a perfect show.

Back in the day, Broadway shows produced many hit songs. These songs, in turn,  became a part of our pop culture. When I was growing up, (after the classic era had pretty much come to end but still a part of our very recent past), we sang these songs in grade school music class and in chorus. All of them. From Wells Fargo Wagon to Hey Look Me Over to Oklahoma to I Won't Grow Up.  And when's the last time a song from a Broadway musical ended up on the pop charts? (Rent in 1996 maybe) And apparently Hamilton may land on the pop charts too. I'm hoping so.

My thoughts are this, the 1950s musicals were FUN! Great songs, amazing choreography by the masters, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Michael Kidd, Onna White.  Maybe not the greatest books (I've always taken issue with the whole out clause, etc and Two Lost Souls limbo scene in Damn Yankees). But who cares with those songs and dances?

I suppose with the big effects musicals of the 1980s and the more recent musicals attempts to integrate more modern forms of music and dance, (which don't get me wrong, should be happening), younger generations consider the older stuff, well, old. Also the fact that these shows have been done by every high school and community theater in this country for 50 years have contributed to the belief by some that they are outdated.

But when you dissect them or see them done with a decent budget or in a first class professional production, you can see them for the true classics they are.

So forgive me if I go on about the "classics". I will take them any day. I want to leave the theater singing! I want to leave there wishing I could dance like that. I'd rather that than a helicopter or a barricade or a floating tire any day.

My point is this...you kids out there. Don't discount the classics. They're great shows.  They may be old fashioned to you but they stand up. I am all for newer styles of shows. We need them to draw in younger and more diverse audiences. It's very important. Its critical that they reflect the diversity of our country. They need to reflect the times, but there is still room for the old style Broadway belt, the 11:00 number.  And you'll forgive me for belting out the score of Gypsy over American Idiot. There's room for both on my plate.