Update 4-3-07

Hi,

Let's start with the hard, intellectual stuff.

From Barnet Kellman:  Yep, I was looking for vintage chimp art.
   
    Quickly replied to by Barbara Blitfield Pech:  If Barnet is interested, I gladly offer my kid's collection of what I endearingly call "college dorm art."  I swear to you I have a black velvet rendition of the tasteful-yet-tacky, cigar-smoking, card-dealing bulldogs at a poker table.  I'll even toss in the pool table version of same art on a ceramic plate.  Thankfully, my son's wife has upgraded his taste to Bridal Registry Modern.
   
    And before we move on to food and old TV, this question from Robert Fiveson, our corespondent in Panama:  Could someone please explain to this troglodyte the need to change Southern Belle to Southern Bell?  Have we offended someone yet again?  What is happening folks?  When do hollow and obsequious imperatives in-and-of themselves become offensive enough that we don't bother?
   
    On food, from Marc Jonas:  It's not technically "hometown," but William Greenburg Junior Desserts in New York City will ship pretty darn tasty black and white macaroons and challah bread.
   
    More food, from Jerry Bittman:  Robert Fiveson and I must have been on the same page.  A few weeks ago, I was explaining to some friends out here what a "kitchen sink" was.  I can't remember who had a birthday party at Jahn's, but his mother ordered us a "kitchen sink."  There were maybe ten or twelve of us young boys who insisted we were going to devour that humongous pile of ice cream and a variety of toppings.  Well, it beat us!  Jahn's also had great, great names for their individual sundaes.
        For Chinese food, we always went to the Bamboo Inn, located in Hewlett.
        Over the years, I've told this story many times:  We used to go to Len's in the shopping center.  Their egg creams were not as good as Leo and Molly's, but they were a lot bigger.  What I used to do on occasion was drink half of the egg cream.  I would then pull out a little hair from my head and put it in the egg cream, and then I'd show it to the waitress.  In return, she would reward me with a whole new egg cream.  So I received one-and-a-half egg creams for the price of one.
        However, the funniest incidents always occurred at Cooky's.  I can remember umpteen times when we went there to eat, and Peter Rosen would order two huge burgers, each coming with fries.  And he finished them.  But the funny part was that Peter always had to look good.  So as not to gain any weight, he would always order a Tab -- the worst diet cola ever invented.
   
    Memories, from Ryki Zuckerman:  In November, I went to the 40th reunion of the class of '66.  Sue Spiro, my high school friend who lives in New Jersey, drove the two of us to Valley Stream on Saturday morning.  We drove through Green Acres.  The lawns were lush and green, sprinkled with fallen leaves.  The trees were more majestic, forty years older.  We drove over to South High and saw the locked, rusty gate preventing the use of the path and the bridge.  I believe that the Green Acres -- sorry, Millbrook now -- kids have to walk all the way around, although nowadays, they probably all drive there.  I also realized I'd promised my brother Steve photos of our childhood home, but I had left my camera back at the hotel.  So we stopped at what had been Molly and Leo's hoping to buy a disposable camera.  The place looked drastically different, with a long counter on the left with a glass display case, and I don't think even one table.  The woman who appeared to be the owner was Asian, possibly Chinese, and didn't seem too fluent in English.  The store was generally dingy, but, on the pegboard featuring various wares, there was one, dusty, boxed, disposable camera.
   
    On to TV, from Linda Cohen Greenseid:  One more TV show just popped into my head:  Does anyone remember "Beat The Clock?"  I think Bud Collier was the host.
   
    [Rich -- When I began working at CBS in Los Angeles in 1990, that battered clock -- all that remained of the set -- was still in the scene shop, near Vince Tampio's office.]
   
    And from Linda Tobin Kettering:  Here's a website for the TV oldie fans:  http://www.tv4u.com/.  It has lots of old shows and their original commercials.
   
    Also from Ryki:  Soupy Sales!  I loved him!  From what I have read over the years, the bit with the money happened on New Year's Day.  I think the show was live.  Soupy had a minute or more to kill at the end of the show and told kids to sneak into their parents' room, but not wake them -- they'd been up very late the night before, after all.  Then he hold them to find dad's pants, and then his wallet, and remove the paper money with a picture of Jackson or Hamilton and mail it to him.  He gave the TV station address and promised he'd send them a postcard from Puerto Rico.  Over the next few days, he received $10,000.  I believe he was outright fired, but my memory might well be faulty.
   
    [Rich -- It's a great story, but another classmate reminds us of the line from the old John Ford western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:  "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."  The actual story about the Soupy Sales, from that always useful website Urban Legend:
        On Friday, January 1, 1965, children's TV host Soupy Sales, somewhat miffed at having to work on New Year's Day, had a few minutes to kill at the end of his program.  Ad-libbing, Sales looked into the camera and delivered some variation of his infamous request to his young viewers.  Since the show was aired live, no tape of it exists and a verbatim transcription of his words is not available.
        The reaction from outraged parents came fast and furious, and WNEW-TV in New York pulled Soupy Sales' program off the air by the following Monday.  Contrary to common belief, Soupy Sales wasn't fired over the stunt, nor was his show canceled because of it.  He resumed broadcasting two weeks later, and his program ran on WNEW for close to another two years.
        It's easy for those who weren't around back then to underestimate the frenzied reaction to what now seems like a harmless prank.  But in 1965, adults were livid at the idea of a TV personality crassly manipulating children for commercial gain.  If cooler heads had prevailed, parents might have realized the furor was about nothing. The premise of Soupy's stunt was largely untenable, because it required that children too young to understand or appreciate the concept of money would nonetheless be able to recognize it, surreptitiously remove it from their parents' wallets, put it in envelopes with the correct postage and address -- even though Soupy hadn't provided an address -- and mail it, all without their parents' knowledge or assistance.  Also, the joke didn't work.  Although various accounts credit Soupy with having received up to $80,000 through the mail, Sales himself has revealed on numerous occasions that he netted only a few real dollars, along with a lot of play money and green Monopoly money.]
   
    [Rich -- And while we're on the subject, unfortunately it was another touching piece of misinformation that brought Robert Fiveson -- a hardened Hollywood producer -- close to tears.  The actual story about Fred Rogers, Bob Keeshan, and Lee Marvin, also from Urban Legend:
        Unless all biographical information available about him is wrong, Fred Rogers never served in the military in any capacity, let alone as a Marine sniper or Navy Seal.  Rumors to the contrary have circulated since the early 1990s.  It's unknown where these stories originated, but around 1994 Fred Rogers' supposed military exploits became a hot topic on the Internet.
        Predictably, Rogers' death in February 2003 sparked a resurgence of the old rumors, but with a fresh twist:  this variant attached a newer e-mail hoax about Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan.  Despite some truth sprinkled throughout the story, including the fact that both actor Lee Marvin and Bob Keeshan were Marines during World War II, Keeshan was actually a reservist, and Marvin was wounded while storming a beachhead in Saipan, not Iwo Jima.  According to their respective biographies, Marvin, at the age of twenty, was a private in the US Marines 4th Division.  He was wounded three days after that division invaded the Japanese-held island of Saipan on July 15, 1944, and spent the next thirteen months in Navy hospitals recovering from a severed sciatic nerve.  He was discharged in 1945 with a Purple Heart.
        Bob Keeshan signed up for the Marine Corps Reserve shortly before his eighteenth birthday in 1945.  Since the war was all but over by the time he finished basic training, it's unlikely Keeshan ever saw combat before completing his service a year later, let alone attained the rank of sergeant.  Marvin had already been injured and shipped back to the United States by the time Keeshan entered basic training, so they could not have encountered one another in combat.  Neither was awarded the Navy Cross.
        Those old enough to remember Lee Marvin's appearances on TV talk shows will find the manner and spirit of the storytelling reminiscent of the man himself, but it seems unlikely that he would have trumpeted such lies about another man's service record, nor has any evidence in the form of tapes or transcripts ever proved that he did so.]