If you're creepy and you know it, clap your hands!
Vol. 11
I'm feeling perky! The weather is cooling down, Autumn is in the stores, events are being announced. Don't know about you, but where I live (take the elevator down to the third ring of hell, thank you), it's a ghost town in the Summer, so Autumn means not only a break from the intense heat, but also the return of entertainment. Oh, I do long for the joy of being chased through a corn field by an evil scarecrow.
To my recent subscribers, thank you for joining me. It's too creepy to be here alone.
The Chocolate Flip
It may sound like a modern name, but flips were a popular type of cocktail first noted in the late 17th Century. The word “flip” was what we would now call “froth”, and it tells you that the cocktail involves an egg for froth, sugar and alcohol, similar to a nog but without the cream. While the alcohol is said to “cook” the egg somewhat, in the way citrus “cooks” raw shellfish in a ceviche, I don't need to tell you to use the freshest egg you can get. Don't take it from a random old nest you come across. I'm saying that because I use to buy fresh eggs from a strange guy named Randy and I noticed they were getting smaller, and then tiny like a sparrow's...but you might leave the egg out all together. You won't have the light foamy texture but you'll still have the flavor of cherry chocolate.
This recipe comes from Let's Bring Back: The Cocktail Edition by Lesley M.M. Blume.
1 oz Chartreuse
1 oz maraschino liqueur
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp powdered sugar
1 egg
Put all the ingredients in an ice-filled shaker and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled goblet.
Spooky Booky
It's not just a single book this time, it's a collection. Beginning in the 50's, Alfred Hitchcock's name went on the cover of a vast number of short story collections that published into the 70's, with names like Alfred Hitchcock's Tales to Make Your Hair Stand On End, Down By the Old Bloodstream, and maybe the best title, I Am Curious (Bloody). No one can say Hitchcock and his publisher didn't have a sense of humor. Some of the cover art itself is worth a giggle, with Hitchcock donating blood while a vampire is hooked up to the receiving end of the same machine, or Hitchcock's disembodied head floating on the cover.
And judging by my own small collection of these anthologies, the editor truly had standards. Whether Mr. Hitchcock was involved in the choosing or not, his name and likeness was on the cover of each book and he demanded excellence. Some stories had been previously published, but I've seen quite a few that were chosen after being published just once a decade or so before. There may be a few that stretch the boundaries of the crime or spooky genres, but the authors tend to be excellent.
Picking up 12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV, you'll find by Margaret St. Clair, Jerome K. Jerome and M.R. James. Death Bag contains Hal Ellson and Jack Ritchie, while Once Upon a Dreadful Time, published in 1964, features Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block and Gilbert Ralston.
The books are usually cheap, I've found them in used bookstores and online, picked up for as little as $2 each, but the quality of the stories they contain makes them a steal. If you see one, grab it and start a new obsession.
Here's one that was included in 12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV, “The Perfectionist” by Margaret St. Clair: https://www.sphstigers.org/ourpages/users/jasher/SSBootCampWebsite/Perfectionist.pdf
My God, It's A Candy Emergency!
(I've always prepared for this day)
Hershey's is warning that they may not have enough Halloween candy. They're blaming the supply chain, as the chocolate maker relies on raw ingredients and equipment from both Western and Eastern Europe. As both the regular and Halloween candy are made on the same lines, they've had to prioritize the everyday candy lines.
Know Your Boo!
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special
The name Paul Lynde may mean nothing to you, but the man was on American television practically every day in the 70's. If it wasn't his appearances as the permanent center square on Hollywood Squares, it was playing Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, or a guest spot on any and all variety shows, or starring in his own sitcoms. He's still best remembered as Ann-Margaret's dad in Bye Bye Birdie, but the point is, Lynde was a real favorite and had so much work that he was probably beating the offers away, because he was genuinely funny. 1970's funny, but still, he could really sell a joke.
So if you've never heard of him, you might want to watch a few minutes of clips on Youtube, just to get a feel for Lynde's style, which is ascerbic. He was the king of the smiling, biting insult or observation, usually delivered with a head wag.
Aaaaand you're wondering why I'm talking about a comedic actor who's been dead for 40 years.
It's because, among all his years of other appearances, Lynde starred in a wonderfully horrendous Halloween special that has developed into a cult watch.
As I describe this wreck, keep a few things in mind:
1. That one of the head writers was Emmy-winning writer Bruce Vilanch.
2. That I've now watched it twice.
3. And that as I was typing in the search box to watch it again, I found that instead of typing Paul Lynde, I'd subconsciously typed the words My God.
On October 29th, 1976, ABC aired The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, with special guests Margaret Hamilton from The Wizard of Oz, Billie Hayes from H.R. Pufnstuf, Roz Kelly from Happy Days, Tim Conway from The Carol Burnett Show, Florence Henderson from The Brady Bunch, Betty White from Mary Tyler Moore, Billy Barty from every Sid & Marty Kroftt show ever made, and “a rock and roll explosion by KISS!” There's also an uncredited appearance by Donny and Marie slamming a trash lid on Lynde. I know, but wait, it gets even stranger.
The show starts with Lynde singing various holiday songs while his housekeeper, (Hamilton) keeps interrupting to tell him he has the wrong holiday. Finally he admits to having an issue with Halloween, which leads to a revised version of “Kids” from Bye Bye Birdie while sequin costumed dancers with pitchforks spin around and jab at him. Then Lynde does a little stand-up. “When I was young, Halloween was a little different. There was something about me that stood out. In fact, everything stood out. I was faaaaat!”
Hamilton drives Lynde to her sister's house, which is a spooky old mansion, and Hamilton and Hayes turn out to be witches who grant Lynde three wishes in exchange for him helping change their public image. I know. But hold on, it's just getting started.
Lynde's first wish is to be a truck driver decked out in a rhinestone covered outfit and fighting another trucker (Conway) over a sexy truck stop waitress (Kelly) who's enormous wig seems like it would cause back spasms. This would be cringe-worthy shit no matter who was doing it, but I have to assume that part of the humor then was the fact that Lynde was gay but playing straight-ish in this skit. He certainly wasn't publicly out in the 70's, but he also wasn't trying to hide it. He might have thought it was funny himself, who knows, but it's hard to believe where this skit went next.
After Lynde wins the waitress, the cafe becomes a... I don't know, was it supposed to be a ranch? A prairie? The three stars sing a square dance song about what has occurred while spandexed truck drivers dance a hoe-down and a cowboy pastor runs in and marries Lynde and Kelly.
We cut back to the mansion, where KISS enters the room through an elevator and play “Detroit Rock City”. The difference in both film quality and camera work when KISS plays is noticeable, as if the director, Sydney Smith, wanted to do his best here, and the band have three memorable songs in the show, DRC, “Beth” and “King of the Night Time World” that include a few flares and the fog machine giving the scene a live feel, but then the camera starts spinning like a scene change in Batman.
Lynde's second wish is to be a seductive sheik attempting to win the love of a cold British aristocrat (Henderson), which has Lynde grabbing Mrs. Brady and planting a surprisingly deep, long kiss on her like Mr. Brady never did.
Lynde's third wish is to take the witches to a Hollywood disco. The rest of the show is pure gold.
Florence Henderson is allowed to do a disco version of the standard “That Old Black Magic”, for which she should have been thrown off the balcony she was twirling around on. I'll also mention that the two- storied room was filled with disco dancers wearing disco clothes and doing disco things that I can't appreciate as I don't do coke. Meanwhile, Hamilton, who must have been 75 years-old, is standing there dressed as The Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz and surely wondering where the world went wrong. But wait, it gets worse.
Lynde and Henderson are joined on the dance floor by Conway and Kelly. Roz Kelly is an unknown now as her acting career seems to have lasted for just a few years, but she made some noise back then due to her role as “Pinky Tuscadero”, Fonzie's girlfriend for a couple of episodes of Happy Days, and that's how she was credited on this show: Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly. So she wasn't all that famous, but she was given the opening stanzas here of “Disco Baby”, a revision of a hit at the time, “Disco Lady”, which Lynde then joined in singing and dancing. It's like catching your favorite uncle leering at your friend's mom.
“Move it in,
move it out,
move it in,
round about, Disco Baby”
There was high-pitched squeal throughout the song that sounded like the air being pinched from a balloon, but it was just me.
All through this car wreck, the members of KISS were standing on a small, enclosed balcony watching. Not singing along, just talking to each other, making vague gestures, perhaps locked up there and trying to signal for rescue.
And now Lynde thanks us for watching, reminds us who took part in this debacle, and it's all over. Until the need to show it to a group of drunk friends arises.
glow in the dark t-shirt, pumpkin spice soda
available @ Cracker Barrel