Podcast Tuesday: "The Marshall-Belson Experiments"

Will Hutchins and Sandy Baron on Hey, Landlord!

One of the strangest major studio movies of the '90s was Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998), an extremely literal remake of the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic of the same name. If you've ever seen Van Sant's film, you know that it is a curiously empty, uninvolving experience. The actors are self-conscious and ill-at-ease, and scene after scene falls flat. But why doesn't it work? Van Sant's actors, including Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, are faithfully reenacting the original. The cast and crew are certainly talented enough. Shouldn't it be just as good? There must be some intangible element that is missing from the remake.

A classic episode.

This phenomenon can work in reverse, too, when a remake outshines its predecessor. I'll give you an example. One of the most famous episodes of Garry Marshall's Laverne & Shirley is "Guinea Pigs" (original airdate: January 18, 1977), in which the title characters participate in kooky medical experiments in order to earn some money to attend a fancy cocktail party. The problem is, the girls are so zonked-out from the experiments (Laverne has been deprived of regular sleep, Shirley of normal food) that they struggle mightily to make it through the party once they get there. Like Hitchcock's Psycho, "Guinea Pigs" is considered a classic in its field.

What I didn't know until recently is that the plot of "Guinea Pigs" is recycled from a previous Garry Marshall sitcom, Hey, Landlord!, which ran from 1966 to 1967. This earlier show revolves around two roommates, Woody (Will Hutchins) and Chuck (Sandy Baron), sharing a bachelor pad in a New York brownstone. In "Testing... One, Two," the boys agree to take part in some medical experiments so they can have the money to rent tuxedos for a neighbor's photography exhibition. You can probably guess how it turns out. It's the same story that worked so well on Laverne & Shirley, but I'll bet you've never heard of, let alone seen, "Testing...One, Two." Why is that?

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, my cohost and I review the Hey, Landlord! episode and try to deconstruct why this series never caught on. We'd be most appreciative if you would join us. The podcast is available right here:

I'm sorry, Aunt May. I'm sorry.

Guest appearance by Vera Miles. Thanks, Vera.

I fully realize that the character of Aunt May, Peter Parker's nigh-saintly guardian in The Amazing Spider-Man, has undergone a rather dramatic makeover in the movies. She was played by Sally Field in the previous Spider-Man film series, and she's played by Marisa Tomei in the current one. But the Aunt May of my own youth—the one depicted in the Marvel comic books I grew up on—was an impossibly decrepit old lady with a gaunt, haggard appearance and a wardrobe out of the 1890s. She was supposed to be lovable, I think, but I found her off-putting and even frightening, more threatening in her own way than any of Spidey's declared foes. Imagine the Crypt-Keeper dressed as Granny from Looney Tunes.

Anyway, the "classic" Aunt May lives on in the daily Amazing Spider-Man newspaper comic. And she's as unsettling as ever, as evidenced by today's strip. So I decided to have a little fun with her, Hitchcock style. No offense, Aunt May. Really.

My idea for a can't-miss Halloween theatrical event

Neither Sissy Spacek nor William Katt are involved, unless they want to be.

Be part of the magic!

So I had this idea a few years ago for what I still think would be a really cool theatrical experience. I'd stop short of calling it a "play" because it's not quite that, though it would involve actors, props, costumes, a massive "set" (more on that later), and some ingenious practical effects. It's an immersive adaptation of Carrie, specifically based on the 1976 film version by Brian De Palma, and it's called Bates High Prom '76. De Palma renamed the high school in the story "Bates High" as one of the many, many, many Psycho homages he's made in his career. Anyway, Bates High '76 would not be staged in a traditional theater, but rather a gymnasium, VFW hall, or other large public space, possibly even a warehouse if need be.

The idea would be to recreate the prom from the movie as closely as possible. The venue would be decorated to look just like the gymnasium in the movie, complete with silvery stars hanging from the ceiling. We'd get real musicians to portray Vance or Towers, the band seen in the movie. They're the ones performing "Education Blues" in the background. I guess I'd also have them perform "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me" and other tunes from the Carrie soundtrack. Mostly, they'd be playing mid-1970s Top 40 stuff all night. Ticket-buying attendees would be encouraged (not required) to wear either prom-appropriate clothing or 1970s-appropriate clothing. Both, if possible.

My actors would portray all the characters from the movie: Carrie White, Tommy Ross, Sue Snell, Billy Nolan, Miss Collins, and the ginger-haired super-villainess herself, Chris Hargensen. The prom would play out more or less in real time, and the actors would just be intermingled with all the other attendees -- not bothering people, you understand, just doing what they'd normally be doing under the circumstances. A lot of what they said and did would be scripted, but they'd have to improvise a lot, too. What would set the actors apart from the spectators is that the former would be miked and made up to look like the actors from the movie. How much of what a spectator hears during Bates High Prom '76 depends on his or her relative location and ability to notice details. If you attend the show, the story would be happening all around you: Carrie coming out of her shell, Miss Collins beaming from the sidelines, Chris and Billy rigging the election, etc.

And then... well, you know. You've all seen the movie by now, I hope, and you remember what goes down at the prom. Imagine living through it... or a safe simulation of it, at least. That's where practical effects, lighting, and sound come in. We'd have smoke machines, sprinklers going off, strobe lights, gallons of fake blood everywhere. It would be the most fun ever. Bates High Prom '76 is one of my many totally impractical ideas, and it probably wouldn't work in real life, but I'd like to give it a try sometime.  

UPDATE: My ever-reliable West Coast connection, Bob Blackburn, informs me that Carrie:The Musical is actually being staged in a manner similar to this in Los Angeles... to great reviews, no less! In a way, I feel justified. Maybe my ideas aren't as impractical as I'd thought. I'd love to see it. I think the only way to really do Carrie as a live show is to completely engulf the audience in the story and make them feel is if they are living it.

Have I ever told you about the Keyes Motel?

The Keyes Motel as it looked in days of yore.

The Keyes Motel today

I live right around the corner from the real life Bates Motel. No, actually, that's not even close to true. But I do live very close to a motel that looks a lot like the Bates Motel from Psycho. It's called the Keyes Motel, and it's located in Arlington Heights, IL.

I've never stayed there because it's in my home town, and I have no need of staying there. It's maybe three or four minutes (by car) from my apartment. I have driven by it hundreds of times, though, and it gives me the creeps every time. I say that in the best way possible. I kind of love the Keyes Motel—not the place itself, since I've never even pulled into the parking lot, but my idea of the place and what it represents.

I have no idea of how old the motel is, but that vintage postcard up there dates from 1953, back when the busy commercial thoroughfare called Rand Road—now crowded with gas stations and strip malls—was a quaint little byway called Route 12. It seems to be a relic of a bygone era when people were still seeing the USA in their Chevrolets. The place hasn't changed much in over 60 years, and it's still not part of any nationally-recognized hotel/motel chain.

As such, the Keyes Motel manages to stick out like an eerily nostalgic sore thumb from its bland modern surroundings. It looks like it was cut and pasted from another era entirely. Right across the street, for instance, is a perfectly ordinary Family Video that looks like it hardly belongs in the same universe as the Keyes Motel. What makes this roadside inn so atmospheric, beside the retro architecture (which wasn't retro when this place was built), is the fact that it is surrounded by tall trees that keep the property shrouded in dark, mysterious shadows all the time.

So has this place been the site of murders and disappearances? Nah. Some drunk crashed his car there in 2013 and got arrested, but that's about it. Hardly enough for a series on A&E. Still, though, it's cool to think that there just might be a haunted motel within walking distance of my home.

(today's zomby) AND EVERY VERSION OF THE SONG "PSYCHO" I COULD FIND

You can usually tell what kind of day I've had by the joke (or lack thereof) in each day's Zomby.

And now, today's Zomby...

Let's keep the grim mood going with one of the darkest songs ever written, "Psycho" by blind San Antonio street musician Leon Payne (1917-1969) a.k.a. "The Blind Balladeer." The song was written in the late 1950s, but the most famous recording is probably a 1973 cover by Jack Kittel. This track was featured on the soundtrack of the Bill Murray movie Larger Than Life.



But that's just the tip of the psychotic iceberg. Ten more demented cover versions after the break!