Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The strange but true saga of the 'What's My Line' intruder (updated for 2024!)

This pleasant young man somehow wandered onto the set of What's My Line.

Game show host John Charles Daly
The appeal of live television has always been the possibility that something might go seriously wrong on the air in front of an audience of millions. Much of what we see on TV is carefully planned, rehearsed, and edited before it ever reaches us. It's no wonder, then, that we hunger for a little chaos amid all that control. Let's face it, this is the main justification for Saturday Night Live's continued existence. The long-running comedy-variety series could easily be pretaped, but it would lose its sense of danger and spontaneity.

We hunger for an element of risk in our entertainment. I can't help but think about Dave Chappelle's stand-up routine in which he discusses the infamous night in 2003 when magician Roy Horn was attacked by a tiger during a show in Las Vegas. "That's why we really go to the tiger show, right?" Chappelle says to the audience. "You don't go to see somebody be safe with tigers."

These days, pretaped shows are the norm and live broadcasts are considered special events. This was not so in the earliest days of the medium in the 1940s, when virtually everything on TV went out over the airwaves as it was being made and relatively little was saved for posterity via crude kinescopes. A major change arrived in 1951, when Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had the foresight to film their sitcom I Love Lucy on 35mm stock, thus ensuring the episodes would be preserved for future reruns.

Over the course of the 1950s, videotape technology improved and became more common in the industry, allowing shows to be shot in advance and edited. This was seen as a potential breakthrough for the medium. On his 1957 record "Tele-Vee-Shun," satirist (and stubborn TV skeptic) Stan Freberg begrudgingly admitted that "videotape may help somewhat." Freberg himself had been a puppeteer on the children's show Time for Beany (1949-1955) and had learned about the hazards of live television when he'd burned his hand during a sketch involving a clown. On a DVD commentary, Freberg recalled that the clown puppet made "a fast exit" from the scene after catching on fire.

By the 1960s, many shows were being filmed or taped in advance, but the venerable panel show What's My Line (1950-1967) was still being broadcast live every week from the CBS studio in New York City. Produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, What's My Line is the kind of stately, old-fashioned program that seems inconceivable to modern day audiences. The premise is very simple. The host introduces a contestant with an unusual occupation, and then four celebrity panelists—generally culled from the theater and publishing worlds—try to determine that occupation (or "line") via a series of yes/no questions. ("Do you work with animals?") The contestant's goal is to stump the panel for as long as possible.

For me, the highlight of each What's My Line episode is the appearance of a celebrity "mystery guest." During this round, the panelists wear blindfolds and attempt to guess the identity of the famous person, again through yes/no questions. ("Are you known for your work in the theater?") This is an exceedingly polite and genteel program, making it truly seem like a relic from a bygone age. The show's stuffiness is now, at least to me, its chief selling point.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Transmutation of Jeron Charles Criswell King, Part 2 1940-1947 (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

This week, James further explores the life and career of Criswell.


"Like other skeptics, I once made the mistake of underrating the cold readers."
William Lindsay Gresham, Monster Midway 

 

Note: The search for information about Jeron Charles Criswell King is complicated by the multiple names that he employed up through at least the age of 40. He variously used Charles Criswell, Charles Criswell King and C.C. King as his legal name, while using Charles Cris King, Jeron Criswell, J. K. Criswell, King Criswell, and simply Criswell as stage names (along with the dubious titles of Doctor and Reverend). Similarly, his wife Myrtle Louise Stonesifer used Louise Howard, Halo Meadows, and Halo Vanessa as stage names. I will simply refer to them as Criswell and Louise.

The dawn of the 20th century found Hollywood a quiet place of orchards, farm fields, and scattered homes [1, 2]. A decade later, Hollywood Boulevard had been transformed into a wealthy residential street of stately mansions and impressively manicured yards [3, 4, 5]. The early 1920s saw the arrival of the film industry with a large number of movie studios, theaters, and shopping centers along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards [6, 7]. The legion of workers needed to support the rapidly expanding industry drove an ever-growing need for dense residential development. By 1930 rural Hollywood and most of the stately mansions were a distant memory – replaced by bungalow courts, duplexes, and multi‐story apartment buildings [8]. Hollywood was not unique in this regard but mirrored development throughout the region. From 1900 to 1940, the population of Los Angeles skyrocketed from 103,000 to 1.5 million as it progressed from being the 36th to the 4th largest city in the nation.

The new arrivals brought with them an unprecedented diversity of beliefs reflective of a trend away from traditional religion that had been spreading across America since the mid-1800s. Among the new faiths to be found in Los Angeles were charismatic and esoteric Christian sects, spiritualism, New Thought ministries, Theosophy with its national headquarters [9], Guy Ballard's I Am Movement, ceremonial magic orders such as the Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis, as well as a host of lesser occult and metaphysical lights. The film industry, with its seductive subtext that all things are possible, multiplied the effect by attracting individuals dissatisfied with tradition and seeking to create a new life on the West Coast. Newspaper reports revealed 1930s Los Angeles to be "a seething mass of spiritual guides, mystics, fortune tellers, palm readers, and invented sects, with classified ads promising answers for seekers of love, fortune, a salve to their pain, or the access to a higher truth." Many movie stars immersed themselves in metaphysical practices and paid seers handsomely to warn them of astrological changes that might adversely affect their careers.

The reaction by Los Angeles officialdom to this increasingly influential subculture was anything but positive. Newspapers warned readers of charlatanry run amuck with cautionary tales of crooked gypsies and mediums [10]. City leaders suggested that fortune tellers should have to publicly demonstrate their powers or lose their licenses. Police investigated criminal gangs of psychics who extorted, blackmailed, and even sexually assaulted their followers. To the cynic, Los Angeles had become a "haven for psychopaths and confidence-workers of every stripe and degree… Its most elaborate commercial structures are mortuaries… the native Angeleno, who qualifies for such after a six-month residence, is a superior braggart, annoyingly boastful over what turns out to be nonexistent."

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Transmutation of Jeron Charles Criswell King, Part 1 1926-1939 (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

This week, James Pontolillo gives us a glimpse at the early years of Plan 9 star Criswell.

"You know, kid… lad like you could be a great mentalist. Study human nature."
William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley

Note: The search for information about Jeron Charles Criswell King is complicated by the multiple names that he employed up to the age of 40. He variously used Charles Criswell, Charles Criswell King and C.C. King as his legal name, while using Charles Cris King, Jeron Criswell, J. K. Criswell, King Criswell, and simply Criswell as stage names (along with the dubious titles of Doctor and Reverend). I will simply refer to him as Criswell. It is often claimed that his surname is actually Konig. There is no evidence to support this assertion. Criswell's surname traces back unchanged to his earliest known ancestor, Samuel King (1775 Virginia).

The publication of Edwin Lee Canfield's Fact, Fictions, and the Forbidden Predictions of the Amazing Criswell (2023) has finally provided fans with an abundance of material on the quirky psychic and key Ed Wood repertory player. Canfield corrected a long-standing problem where Criswell was concerned – a lack of basic information and leads to pursue. Nearly all online biographies about Criswell are short and riddled with errors. The man himself provided few clues beyond brief disjointed statements scattered across interviews, magazine articles, and the introductions to his prophetic books. These statements are generally unreliable in their details. If Ed Wood, Jr. was a bullshitter about certain aspects of his life, then Criswell by comparison would have to be called The Amazing Bullshitter.

One particular claim that Canfield reproduced caught my attention: that for two summers Criswell served as a manager/actor at Greenkill Park Theater outside of Kingston, NY. If true, this placed him a mere 19 miles from Ed Wood, Jr. Was it possible that young Eddie had seen Criswell perform on stage with neither man being aware of this connection when they met up yet again years later in Hollywood? I immediately began a deep dive in search of confirmation. Uncovering many previously unreported details on Criswell's life, I realized that there was a much larger story to be told. The story of the unlikely transmutation of a rural Indiana high school boy into the Amazing Criswell.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Podcast Tuesday: "Cavemen and Dinosaurs Living Together! Mass Hysteria!"

Fonzie and cavewoman Bruta on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

It's me, okay? I wasn't ready to let the Happy Days podcast go. I had to keep it going somehow! So now, my poor cohost has been wrangled into reviewing the animated spinoff The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang episode by episode. Don't feel too bad. This entire podcast was my cohost's idea in the first place. Now it's become sort of like a Chinese finger trap. The more you try to escape, the more it clings to you.

My memories of TFATHDG are vague at best. I do remember watching this very goofy Hanna-Barbera show when it was new in the early 1980s and being excited that both Richie (Ron Howard) and Ralph (Don Most) were on it, since they'd just left the live-action Happy Days. The focus here is obviously on Fonzie (Henry Winkler), who gets to be more like he was in the early days of the sitcom, i.e. impossibly cool, irresistible to women, and seemingly in possession of magical powers. The cast is rounded out by a ditzy "future chick" named Cupcake (Didi Conn from Grease) and Fonzie's irritating dog, Mr. Cool (animation legend Frank Welker). All these characters are bouncing around through history in a time machine that looks suspiciously like a flying saucer.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we review what is essentially the pilot for the animated series, the prehistoric adventure "King for a Day." I say "essentially" because this barely qualifies as a pilot. The theme song (narrated by Wolfman Jack) sets up the premise of the show, but there is no further explanation for why Fonzie and pals are traveling through time in a spaceship. They just are, and we have to be fine with that.

Were we fine with that? Find out by listening to our latest podcast below.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 179: The Perverts (1968) [PART 2 of 2]

An unusual massage from Ed Wood's The Perverts. (Image courtesy of Bob Blackburn.)

Let's play a game.

I'll give you a passage from The Perverts (1968), a sexual guidebook Ed Wood wrote for Viceroy under the assumed name "Jason Nichols," and you try to tell me what this chapter is actually about. Ready? Here goes:
Time and the tide seldom changes. It only revamps itself to progress other thoughts. The river continues to run year after year and one might wonder why it never runs dry. The story is that the river is once more sucked up into the sun and redeposited at the head again.
Okay, maybe that wasn't enough. I'll give you the entire next paragraph:
Sex is much the same way. As has been stated over and over again during these chapters, SEX per se is never satisfied. It is only sucked up into the body of another and redeposited for another fling, and so it shall be to the end of time and since there is no such thing as the end of time so there shall never be an end to SEX and the variations thereof.
Give up? That was from the chapter about incest. So what was all that stuff about tides and rivers and the sun? You got me. But I'm trying to give you an idea of what reading The Perverts is like. 

As a writer with a restless mind, Ed Wood will go off on philosophical tangents that have little or nothing to do with the subject at hand. Remember Glen or Glenda (1953), in which narrator Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell) is supposed to be telling us about cross-dressers but somehow gets onto the topic of "the modern world and its business administration"? Much of The Perverts is like that. The book's quasi-lofty tone is also highly reminiscent of the ponderous narration of Ed's The Young Marrieds (1972). Very often in that film, the narration will play over footage of waves crashing against the rocks, similar to the tidal imagery used in The Perverts.

Speaking of images, last week I complained that my edition of the book lacked the photos that were in the original printing. Well, Bob Blackburn heard my plea and sent me some of the pics from his copy of The Perverts, which in turn was Ed Wood's own personal copy of the book! Bob says that there are about 20 to 30 "mostly topless" black-and-white photographs altogether in his edition. It does not look like the publisher, Viceroy, commissioned new photos based specifically on Ed Wood's text, but instead used whatever photos they happened to have lying around that sort of matched what was in the book. Below is a collage of images from the chapters on troilism, fetishes, and lesbianism. 

A triptych of images from The Perverts.

I'm grateful to Bob for giving me a sampling of the visual content in The Perverts. Feel free to explore this gallery of images if you're interested in seeing more. But now, let us talk about the literary content in this remarkable book.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 178: The Perverts (1968) [PART 1 OF 2]

The Perverts is sort of the Swiss army knife of Ed Wood books.

Artificial intelligence has been on my mind a lot recently. I think that's true of many of us, since we're bombarded with AI-generated songs, images, videos, and articles on a daily basis. It's getting difficult to know what's real and what isn't. And then comes the flood of ethical questions. Is AI an incredible boon to humanity or the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it? We don't know yet. I guess we'll have to see how this plays out. If, in 20 years, Earth is a smoldering husk ruled by artificially intelligent automatons, I owe you a Coke.

Eros warned us; we didn't listen.
Science-fiction writers have been warning us for decades about the perils of teaching computers to think, but we didn't listen. We did it anyway. That's human nature for you. We never consider the ramifications of our actions. Remember Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)? The alien Eros (Dudley Manlove) tells pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) that we humans have been building newer and more powerful weapons before we even fully considered the consequences of doing so. We're jeopardizing the entire universe through our stupidity and violence. Jeff responds by punching Eros in the face. Oh well. It was a nice universe while it lasted.

So far, I've found that artificial intelligence is quite good at mimicking and rearranging what already exists, even if the results are still slightly stilted and predictable. If you want a particular pop song, for instance, sung in the voice of a cartoon character, AI has you covered. Where it falls down is in true innovation and spontaneity. Ask AI to make a profound insight into the human condition or make us laugh in a way we hadn't even considered before, and it won't be able to do it. For now, only people can do those things.

But if we fed the collected works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. into some chatbot and asked it to churn out a "new" Ed Wood book? Or a whole string of books? It should be eminently possible. Although he had various modes or styles he would adopt as an author from one project to the next, Eddie had a definite cadence to his writing. There were certain beloved words and phrases he used time and again. He also had topics and themes that he returned to repeatedly. And much of his writing is already kind of stilted, as if it were being written by some nonhuman entity who had observed people without truly understanding them. Surely, then, a computer could absorb all of Ed's short stories, novels, articles, and nonfiction books and churn out dozens more for us to read in the 21st century.

The first book to emerge from such an experiment might very well turn out like The Perverts, which Eddie wrote for Viceroy under the name "Jason Nichols" in 1968. (That same year, he wrote Sex Museum and One, Two, Three for Viceroy under the same bland pseudonym, plus Hell Chicks for Private Edition as "N.V. Jason.") Put simply, The Perverts is a distillation of just about every Wood book and article I've read and reviewed so far on this blog. It serves as a Whitman's Sampler of Eddie's obsessions. If you don't have room in your life (or your bookshelf) for Ed Wood's dozens of nonfiction books and articles—most of which are about sex and crime—this one will give you a solid idea of what they're like.