Making Flippy Floppy

I'm already in the mood for Halloween. I think it's partially due to the fact that in my unemployment, I discovered recently that at 2pm on TV Land is The Munsters followed by The Aadams Family. I've never been too into the dry Aadams bunch, but I'd forgotten how much I loved those kooky Munsters. Yvonne De Carlo as Lilian was the original goth chick and poor Marilyn, the "normal" cousin is pitied by the rest of the family for being so ugly. The plots might not always be deep, but the writing is witty and the characters are loveable.

Some interesting Munsters trivia from Wikipedia: Lily was not in the original pilot episode of The Munsters. Instead, Herman is married to a much more gothic-looking wife named Phoebe, played by Joan Marshall. The producers scrapped the Phoebe character after deciding she seemed almost an exact double of the Morticia Addams character on The Addams Family. Lily appeared in the second pilot and all other episodes. For the role, Yvonne de Carlo had to wear a wig that weighed 20 pounds (9kg). Fred Gwynne (Herman) wore so much padding and so many layers of clothes that despite drinking gallons of lemonade and taking salt tablets between takes and using an air hose between his neck and costume, he sweated so much that he continuously lost weight, becoming dangerously thin. Portrayed by Al Lewis, Grampa's given name is said to be Sam Dracula. Lewis ran as Green Party candidate for Governor of New York in 1998. In that race he sought to be listed on the ballot as “Grandpa Al Lewis”, arguing that he was most widely known by that name. His request was rejected by the Board of Elections, a decision upheld in court against his challenge. Despite this setback, he achieved one of his campaign objectives. His total of 52,533 votes exceeded the threshold of votes set by New York law (50,000), and hence guaranteed the Green Party of New York an automatic ballot line for the next four years. He said that, with “no [political] machine and no money” backing him, the likelihood of winning the governorship would be “like climbing Mount Everest barefooted”. Marilyn was originally played by Beverley Owen who was 30 years old at the time. She was meant to be a copy of Marilyn Monroe (similar in name to Marilyn Munster) and had to wear a blonde wig for the part. According to Al Lewis in a 2001 interview with Pittsburgh radio's Doug Hoerth, Owen was having relationship problems in that she missed her boyfriend who was 3,000 miles away (from Los Angeles) in New York City. After Lewis and Fred Gwynne petitioned the studio, the actress was let go. The role was taken over in episode 14 by Pat Priest after Owen left to marry Jon Stone. Pat Priest looked enough like Beverley Owen that many never even noticed that the role was played by another actress. It also helped the studio in that she was Owen's size and so fit into her wardrobe.

In the spring of 2001, Sandra and Charles McKee of Waxahachie, Texas began construction of a fully livable recreation of the Munster home, inside and out. With initial construction completed in 2002, cast alumni Al Lewis and Butch Patrick appeared at the public grand opening. Lewis exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, "This brings back warm memories." The house comes equipped with a grand staircase (which opens up to reveal Spot), a rotating suit of armor, trap doors, secret passages, Grandpa's electric chair, a pipe organ, raven cuckoo clock, a crooked bat weather vane on the roof and even a dungeon complete with trap door. Since then, the McKees have opened their private home to the public for two nights each year on the weekend of Halloween. Since the death of Lewis, Pat Priest has returned to appear multiple times. The Munster Mansion Halloween Bash each year selects a local charity and donates all proceeds from the event.

Their pets:

• Spot - A fire-breathing dragon living under the staircase. Though never fully appearing on camera, his eyes could be seen glowing in the darkness beneath as a hinged section of the stair steps swung open by tilting backward one of the bannister newels. He eats metal and just about anything else and a tail view of him shows him as a large dinosaur.
• Igor - A bat who lives in Grandpa's lab and assists with his work.
• Kittycat - An average-sized black cat who roars like a lion.
• Charlie - A talking raven who lives in the cuckoo clock in the living room, who often says "Nevermore" in reference to "The Raven" poem (usually voiced by Mel Blanc, but sometimes voiced by Bob Hastings).
• Goldfish - They devour food like ravenous piranhas.
• Elmer - A snake that lived beneath the garbage bin in the backyard.

The inevitable reunion special (video below): The Munsters' Revenge (1981), a made-for-TV movie. The owner of a museum with a Munsters exhibit makes robots of Herman and Grandpa and uses them to rob a bank. Gwynne, De Carlo, and Lewis recreated their roles, but Eddie and Marilyn were played by K.C. Martel and Jo McDonnell respectively.

Labels: Munsters, Random Thoughts, Retro Fun, TV, Videos

Labels: Googly-eyes, Retro Fun, Strange Happenings, Videos

Labels: Incidental Findings, Retro Fun, Watery Death

(I've been shuffling through some boxes trying to turn my spare room into an organized and functional space and came across some random things I wrote in High School, approximately 18 years ago. I remember this exercise, actually. Mr. Partington would give us three unrelated words and we had to include them in the first line of a story. Once the first line was written, we'd hand it to a classmate who would finish the story. I recognize the handwriting as that of my old friend Rebecca - now Rebecca McNeil, local actress and box-office queen. She wrote the first line, I finished it. The three words written at the top are "yellow", "dark", and "potatoes".) The Rise and Fall of the Bloodthirsty Death Grip Potatoes of Lust 1989 Up from the dark recesses of the playground, the potatoes began slithering around the yellow pole of the swing set of death. Little Bobbi, young and so innocent, felt a sudden sharp pain in her outer left thigh, four and a half inches above and one and a qaurter inches to the right of her knee. Forty seconds later, little Bobbi was dead. Finally. The potatoes of despair. The bloodthirsty, death grip potatoes of lust. The Satanic potatoes of all that is bleak and black. The potatoes...of death! Slithering again across the cornfield, the potatoes found their way into the sunshiny Pleasantville, Ohio kitchen of Theodore and Betsy Jones. Later that evening, the Jones' gathered together on the patio for a sampling of Betsy's famous prizewinning potato salad.

Labels: Potatoes, Retro Fun

She was truly one of the beautiful people, a rare wonderful creature whose positive outlook transcended the bullshit and set forth an attitude of acceptance and humanity. The absence of her outrageous, fabulous spirit leaves a giant hole in the fabric of our culture. There will never be another quite like her... Update: Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog has stopped obsessing over Condi's hairdo long enough to post some fantastic Tammy Faye MP3's to download. Tammy may be long gone, but that delightfully grating caterwaul of a voice will reverberate forever.

Labels: Links, Memorial, MP3, Retro Fun, Tammy Faye

Labels: Random Photos, Retro Fun

Earlier this year, I posted some highlights from an old copy of the Spokesman-Review from September 1965. I finally have a follow up to this slowly ongoing series of old local papers. A few days ago, at a junk shop in Wallace, I came across a yellow, decaying copy of the SR dated Tuesday, October 9, 1951 for a measly dollar. Here's some interesting scans from the nearly 56-year-old artifact:

Labels: Incidental Findings, Retro Fun, Spokesman-Review, Thrifting

I just read in today's newspaper that today is opening day for the season at Wild Waters. Not only that, it's the opening day for their 25th season. 25 years of Wild Waters! We're talking 1982. So many fragmented memories. I was ten and that was a long, hot, chlorine-soaked, prune-skinned summer indeed. I can't recall if my parents allowed me the luxury of a much-desired Wild Waters Season Pass that first year or not, but I was a proud card-carrying member for probably 2-3 years in a row. They even put your geeky little picture on your pass and it made me feel like I was really somebody important with it at the front of my dayglo nylon velcro wallet. It always seemed like such an enormously long climb to the top of that hill on a scorching day. Or maybe I was already lazy back then. I dunno, but it felt great to get to the top and line up for your slide of choice. The slides varied in wildness, from the mellow Jersey Cream to the intensity of the Twister and the Double Trouble. Some of the best days to go were cloudy and rainy days because few people braved it on days like that, and we could basically have the whole park to ourselves. There could be quite a howling breeze atop the mountain with just a few hardcore kids standing around dripping and shivering in the rain. The water would actually seem comfortingly warm to jump into on those days. Like anyplace where kids of various ages gather, there was kind of a caste system in effect at Wild Waters, and the 16-year-old attendants that worked the top of the hill ruled the roost. Looking back, I think they had some kind of superiority complex, power trips, and they would make you wait forever when you just wanted to dive into that slide and go go go. There was some kind of tricky science to the way the water flowed through those tubes, you weren't supposed to go unless the water was gushing a certain way. Only the uber-cool attendants knew the exact moment when it was time for you to begin your watery descent. Still, if you weren't careful you'd get stuck halfway down in a dry spot and the person after you would suddenly come around the corner and whoosh! A painful and wet collision would ensue. Then there was the threat of catching too much air on the way down and flying right out of the slide into the dirt. I don't know if that actually happened to anyone or not, but some of those corners got pretty hairy at 35 mph or whatever. Every once in a great while, a great surge of water would come up under you in such a certain, specific way that it would pull your swimming trunks or bikini bottoms right off your body, and you'd have to catch up with them when you landed in the pool at the bottom, hoping and praying that no-one even noticed. Seems like someone always noticed. I could never really get into the short slides further down the hill, the really fast ones that were basically vertical with a ten foot drop at the bottom. Those were scary to me, and I avoided them in favor of the long, slow tube float. It was fun to hover around forever stuck inside a giant round floater, slowly plopping down from level to level. The back rubber of those innertubes could get asphalt hot in the sun, so you'd have to flip the exposed side over every now and then, to let it cool in the lukewarm water of the pool. It was also endlessly entertaining to paddle around in the channels that ran between the main pools, because you could swim under the wooden footbridges. Then there was the giant silver water faucet with the red handle whose mighty water flowed so forcefully, it was daring and painful experience to stick your head under it. One place or another, we would stay in bleachy, urine-filled Wild Waters until we were red-eyed and bloated, our hands pickled and wrinkly, like those of a hundred year old woman. The Zoo was the radio station of choice and hits like "Don't You Want Me?", "Eye of the Tiger", "Rio", and "Little Red Corvette" flowed out of the omnipresent speakers, from the snack bar to the grassy area to the top of the hill. On those rare moments we weren't in the water we could be found by in the "Surfside Cafe" with a hot dog and a blue raspberry Icee, or in the gift shop caught up in a game of Ms. Pac Man. I remember the gift shop was kind of tragic - what did they sell besides a ton of useless crap with the Wild Waters logo? Few people know that Wild Waters was actually the first waterpark ever to open in the entire Northwest. In fact, there were only a handful in the entire country at the time. One early 80's summer, my cousins from San Jose, California came to visit for a few weeks and they didn't even have any water slides yet! It was the one cool thing that we had here in Idaho and they didn't. We put in a lot of hours there while they were in town, listening to Journey, sliding and diving and soaking up the sun. Eventually, the novelty wore off of Wild Waters, or maybe we just outgrew it. Anyway, it was kind of nice to return to the nature and simplicity of our abundant lakes and rivers. These days it's $25 for single day's admission, which is not too far under what an entire season pass must have cost in 1982. One of those now runs a whopping $110, which seems like it might be a little more than it's really worth. To stay competitive with Silverwood's Boulder beach waterpark up the road, Wild Waters is putting in some new stuff, including a 12,000 foot "Lazy River" ride, waterfalls and a "Wild Willy Rope Swing" (sounds kinky.) Judging by the amount of tourists who ask me for directions there on a daily basis, Wild Waters doesn't seem to have slowed down or lost it's appeal over the years. Here's an idea: I'll find someone I know with a summertime birthday and convince them to spring for one of the group birthday party packages that Wild Waters offers. Wouldn't that be kitschy? I don't know how eager I am to send my tired old body flying down any water slides, but it sure would be a fun retro way to spend the day sometime. I'm sure the moment I walked in the gate and that smell of chlorine hits my nose, a million long-suppressed childhood memories would come flooding back.

Labels: Retro Fun, Swimming, Watery Death

News Flash: One of the last bastions of old-school Coeur d'Alene is soon to be no more. The cashier at Sherman IGA told me this morning that they are no longer going to be an IGA. They are going fully independent and are renaming the store "Peterson Family Foods." A modernization and redecoration is in the works. I suppose this is a good thing, but it has been an IGA since the dawn of time, and it will be a little disturbing when the signs come down. As long as the Chester Fried chicken remains intact it'll be OK, I suppose... When I was growing up, my grandmother lived directly behind the store , which was "Spencer's IGA" at the time, I do believe. I spent a lot of time there, annoying cashiers, buying 5 cent candy and getting mucky little fingerprints all over fresh comic books. One of my first memories (I must have been 4...5...6..?) is unintentionally walking out with an unpaid-for pack of gum in my hand, and my mother discovering it and freaking out! Boy, I was in trouble. It was my first lesson about stealing, and she made me march back in that store, tell them what I did, and pay for the gum. I've never even thought about pocketing gum since. Even back then, IGA seemed pretty run down. I have a polaroid snapshot of myself when I was about 4 sitting in some kind of funny-car parked in front of IGA, flanked by two men wearing extremely ghetto big bird and cookie monster costumes. The moment is gone from my actual memory, but the look on my face in the photo says it all: WTF? Who are these wannabes? And that is the appeal of the IGA in a nutshell. It was never a big-shot deal like Albertsons or Safeway. The selection is rather minimal, the prices aren't great, there's no "club cards" or 10 for 10 sales. However, they have basically what you need, and you can get in and out fast with a minimum of drama. Basically it's like a quickie-mart that wants to be a big-box grocery. I'm actually glad to hear they're going fully indie. I think the IGA brand name was starting to bring them down. The place is way past due for a facelift, and I think it will be nice to see what they do with the remodel. The cashier who broke the news to me this morning was also excited to reveal that they were now going to be carrying the full line of "Western Family" products. Ooh, la la! I do think the name "Peterson Family Foods" is maybe a little wordy - it just doesn't roll off the tongue like "IGA" does. I guess we can call it "Peterson's" for short. Or "Pete's." "Honey, I'm going to Pete's for some cheese." In reality, they could paint the place black and silver, hang disco balls and name it "Studio 55", but to me it will always be IGA, and that's how I'll continue to refer to it.

Labels: Food, IGA, Memorial, Random Thoughts, Retro Fun

There's just something magic about the eyes...

Labels: Googly-eyes, Jesus, Retro Fun, Videos

Target's Sweet Exotica and Freaky Treacle I could probably come up with a whole new blog just about trying new kinds of candy. I was depressed for months when the Penny Candy store in downtown CDA sold it's last buttery mint and shut down last summer. On gorgeous sunny days like today, I would walk downtown for some fresh air and exercise and stop into the Ramblin' Rose for some Nag Champa incense, browse the towering shelves at George Nolan books, and always the Penny Candy store. Of course, the candy there was never actually sold for a penny, and a trip through the variety of baskets with even a small bag would set you back at least five bucks. They had candy there from all over the globe, and there was always something new to try. Since then, I've been looking for a place with a reasonable selection of oddball and foreign candies and chocolate, and it was under my nose the whole time - Target. It's nowhere near as quaint, and they don't carry the small, individually wrapped candies, but they do have quite an intriguing selection of yummy things. For Valentine's Day, I treated myself to a trip through the Target candy department and came home with these exotic products: Green & Black's Organic Ginger Chocolate, Frey Citron & Poivre (Lemon and Black Pepper) Dark Chocolate, and Australian Soft-Eating Real Red Liquorice, which actually lists "treacle" as an ingredient. That's just the tip of the iceberg, sugar junkies. I also pondered purchasing Brazillian chocolate with cayenne pepper, authentic homemade saltwater taffy, carrot cake candy bites, and peanut-butter yogurt covered graham crackers. Target seems to be one step of the curve when it comes to the mainstream candies as well - I'd never before seen a "Snickers Extreme" (all nuts, no nougat) or a peanut butter stuffed Hershey Bar. It's the only place I've ever, ever seen the coveted Buttered Popcorn Mike-n-Ikes. Oh, the pure decadance! Target even has it's own in-house line of candies sold under the name "Choxie", which is not the most appetizing name, is it? Choxie is way pricey, however, and it has ugly, 70's-nouveau packaging, but my auntie Bonnie Jo swears by the stuff. Insaniquarium Addiction: I Need Help. It's so ridiculous for someone my age to be addicted to a video game, isn't it? I was never really that into them - X-Box 360s and Wiis do nothing for me, I was one of few kids not to own an Atari, and I'd rather stick a quarter ina newspaper machine than a video game. Granted, I did get sucked into the original Sonic the Hedgehog years ago when I lived above Miss Hannah in Spokane. She'd leave her back door unlocked so I could sneak in and play Sonic when she was at work. Eventually, I did finish the game and felt like I'd really accomplished something major. Then, about four years ago it was The Sims that had me glassy-eyed in front of the computer at 4:45AM, pale sun coming up in the window, soda cans and full ashtrays covering the desk. Fun game, but after awhile I got tired of those little buggers yelling at me in their annoying little language, shaking their fist at me, begging for me to clean their house and do their dishes. Sometimes I let them starve to death on purpose. Now, it's hundreds of buggery little fish that have me abusing my mouse and coming away with sore wrists and fingers after hour after lost hour of clicking action. Who new this game had so many levels, they just go on and on in the form of "bonus worlds" and I have an obsessive need to reach some kind of end. Insaniquarium Deluxe is very simple, really. You have a virtual fish tank and you start each round with two guppies and you feed them and they grow and shit coins and other objects that you collect for points so you can afford to buy more food, more fish, and stronger weapons to fight off the "aliens" that periodically invade your tank. You get some creature friends that have odd talents and help you in different ways, and after many levels you fight "the big boss" alien and then (to my surprise and slight chagrin) the whole thing starts over again in the form of "bonus worlds" and you can keep earning points and new creatures for ever and ever and ever, it seems. I find myself using it as a reward - "OK, if I slam though this pile of work in two hours, that'll leave me with three hours to play the game" I'm getting ready for a fix as soon as I post this, in fact - bad, bad, bad. Playlist: New Wave Instrumentals Since I bought my Sansa MP3 Player, I've fully been sucked in to the world of digital-only music and I'm saving a fortune on CD's. I've had a free trial of Rhapsody for several months and I'm keeping it, for sure. For 15 bucks per month, the cost of one CD, I have full access to literally hundreds of thousands of albums, pretty much anything currently in print and including new releases each Tuesday. I can store them on my hard drive and on my mp3 player, or just play them off the site itself. They have "channels" which are 6-8 hours worth of a particular genre of music (My fave:"Computer World") that I can download to my player, as well as Playlists that have about 12-20 tracks and are created by other users and even celebrities. It's kinda like an all-digital mix CD. To some of you, this is probably old hat, but I'm new to the concept and loving it. Anyway, my first Playlist that I contributed is all about swooshing synths and shadowy European moods. (I don't know if there's a way to actually share the music with you via Rhapsody, but you can probably do something similar with iTunes, SoulSeek, or whatever you got...) 01 Simple Minds - Theme From Great Cities 02 Human League - Dance Vision 03 Duran Duran - Tel Aviv 04 David Bowie - Speed Of Life 05 OMD - Architecture and Morality 06 Throbbing Gristle - Walkabout 07 A Flock of Seagulls - DNA 08 Gary Numan - Airlane 09 Depeche Mode - Nothing to Fear 10 Japan - Canton 11 The Cure - A Reflection 12 Brian Eno - Somber Reptiles 13 Tones On Tail - You, the Night and the Music 14 Public Image Ltd - Radio 4 Anyone else think of any other moody instrumentals from the robot hair sex era? I want to add to this playlist. Let me know.

Labels: Addictions, Candy, New Wave, Product Reviews, Retro Fun

If you enjoy the tunes of that woozy boozy decade the 70's, you need to follow my link over to Bradley's Buzz blog. For the last few weeks, Brad has been counting down his personal favorite singles from 1970-1979 and with each entry he tells an interesting little story. I know Bradley, and I can imagine it must have taken many wine-soaked winter evenings in front of the old turntable making lists and narrowing all those thousands of possibilities down to a mere one hundred musical highlights of the feathered hair era. It's a huge task I'd never have the stamina to undertake, but Brad's not afraid, and the result is meticulous and entertaining. It's a very uniquely Brad-esque list, a world where Dolly Parton rubs her boobs on Gary Numan and The Partidge Family share a joint with Lou Reed. It's probably the only retro-70's list ever to include a Lisa Hartman single and not one but two Melanie singles (so far. We still have the Top 20 to go.) Check it out here: Bradley's taste is pretty (very) pop oriented, but if I were to make a similar list, it would wander off a bit into "artier" territories. Here's a few more singles from the seventies, not necessarily the best, but just some essentials off the top of my head... Brian Eno: King's Lead Hat T-Rex: 20th Century Boy Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells The Cure: Killing an Arab Kraftwerk: Trans Europe Express David Bowie: TVC15 The Rolling Stones: Street Fighting Man Orchestral Manoevers in the Dark: Electricity Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi's Dead Can: Spoon The Human League: Being Boiled Donna Summer: I Feel Love Lou Reed: Perfect Day The Normal: Warm Leatherette Siouxsie & The Banshees: Hong Kong Garden

Labels: Bradley's Buzz, Links, Music Reviews, Retro Fun

I love old local newspapers, postcards, menus, and whatever other kind of random ephemera I can pickup cheap by combing the thrift stores. I think I'll start featuring some of these artifacts here, partially as a tribute to cdadave, who recently relocated to the Oregon coast, but used to feature quirky local retro finds all the time on his old blog. I recently paid a buck for a musty copy of the Spokesman-Review dated September 6, 1965. The front page news was the death of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, but not much else really seemed to be happening. Here are some highlights:

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Labels: Retro Fun