Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) prepares to lose the big game in "A Shot in the Dark."
During its fourth season, when it topped the A.C. Nielsen ratings, Happy Days focused increasingly on the character of Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli. The ultra-cool, motorcycle-riding mechanic, as played by Henry Winkler, captured America's imagination and became a pop culture phenomenon whose influence was felt far beyond the show. Kids imitated him on the playground, and there was a plethora of Fonzie merchandise on store shelves. It was Fonzie who almost single-handedly saved the show from cancellation after its rocky second season, and the producers rewarded Henry Winkler with more airtime than ever before. The third season saw the gregarious greaser move into the suburban Cunningham house, while the fourth season was essentially The Fonzie and Friends Show, starting with the epic "Fonzie Loves Pinky" three-parter.
As a result of these changes, the show's original protagonist, nerdy high school kid Richie Cunningham, became more of a supporting character and a foil to the Fonz. He was still important to the series, but he didn't excite the audience the way Fonzie did. Eventually, actor Ron Howard became tired of being Fonzie's "goody two shoes" sidekick and left the series for a prosperous directing career. In the eyes of many fans, Happy Days never quite recovered from Howard's departure.
But even during the Fonzie-crazed fourth season, there was still room for the occasional Richie story. Case in point: "A Shot in the Dark," in which the red-headed honor student becomes an unlikely star on the Jefferson High basketball team, only to have the newfound glory go to his head. That's the episode my co-host Peter and I are reviewing on this week's brand new installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. We hope you'll give it a listen.
Jean Nieto strikes a seductive pose in this pinup pic.
The incomparable Jean Nieto in 1958.
Last week, I shared with you a couple of high school yearbook photographs of a strikingly attractive young lady who would soon find herself performing in a film now generally believed to be written by Edward D. Wood, Jr. This week, I'm finally revealing her identity and taking a stab at the very first index of her work across various media.
By the late 1950s, in the wake of Hugh Hefner's Playboy, the men's magazine quickly became a pop culture staple. Similar mags proliferated on newsstands, their raison d'etre images of naked women. While these sorts of magazines had existed all the way back to the 19th century, only now were they readily available for mass consumption.
A similar seismic shift was simultaneously occurring in films. The distribution of burlesque strip shorts via mail had begun in the early 1940s, if not earlier, and the films would become increasingly graphic and explicitly sexual over time. Hardcore shorts were also made back then, but seeing one was unlikely unless you were a lodge member, where these so-called "smokers" were commonly screened. As for feature films, female nudity penetrated the cultural landscape via foreign art films. Finally, losing all pretext, a new type of motion picture called the nudie cutie appeared. Russ Meyer's The Immoral Mr. Teas from 1959 is generally considered the prototype, a smashing success whose appeal largely existed in the exhibition of voluptuous unclad women.
In the early summer of 1957, a young lady graduated from Burbank High School in Los Angeles, California. In the wake of the Great Depression, Burbank established itself as the hub of the Hollywood film industry. The Oscar-winning classic Casablanca (1942) was shot there. The population remained almost entirely Caucasian, and that young lady was one of the few students of Mexican descent who attended BHS.
Her name was Jean Nieto, and it could not have been long after high school that she began her career as a performer, dancer, and model. In the short span of a few years, she toured under the name Ramona Rogers as an exotic dancer, dubbed The "Wow!" Girl. An ad for her act appeared in the June 21, 1959 edition of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. At that time, Jean/Ramona was appearing at the Rivoli Theater, which was demolished in 1970.
An advertisement for one of Jean's personal appearances in 1959.
Jean also shot photo features for men's magazines, and her short films were advertised in those same mags, along with sets of nude photos. In 1959, she landed a small role in the nudie Western Revenge of the Virgins. The screenplay for Virgins is credited to Pete La Roche, with the general consensus—and I concur—that it was penned by Edward D. Wood, Jr.
After 1960, Jean Nieto's work on stage and film and in print appears to cease. She certainly wasn't the first young lady who entered the adult entertainment business, only to disappear from it just as quickly. Did she get married and raise a family? Did she descend to the streets and addiction? We will likely never know, but given her charisma, beauty, and poise, I'd bet Jeanie led a successful and fulfilling life. We hope she is still with us, healthy and happy.
What we do know is that she left behind a clutch of films and photos, indexed below. And for that, I'm grateful.
Jean Nieto aka Ramona Rogers
Feature Film:
Revenge of the Virgins (1959) - Directed by Pete Perry. With Charles Veltmann, Jr., Henry Darrow, and Nona Carver. Narrated by Kenne Duncan. As one of the Golden Horde, the topless natives are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Jean is the last credited of the six girls of the Horde, as Ramona Rogers. It's her sole film credit.
Short Films:
NOTE: These short films were made circa 1959 and exhibited in peepshow arcade machines and sold via mail order. In them, Jean often dons a pair of gold earrings that are dead ringers for the pair she wore in her high school graduation photo.
The logo for the Candlelight series.
White S7 - The Starlight series of peepshow/mail order shorts remain clouded in obscurity. When they were made, and by whom, is unknown. Due to the volume and ubiquity of these films, with many hundreds of them still extant, eagle-eyed vintage sex film aficionados have identified enough girls to place these shorts on the West Coast. Those same ID's have aided in pinpointing the approximate time-frame in which these shorts were released. An amazing series, in color and at the forefront of full frontal nudity, Starlight titles often included title cards with an ornamental logo alongside an index number and a first name for the featured girl. Sometimes, less often than not, the model's actual first name would be used. An additional signatory image was that of a statue of a female nude on her knees, stretching back in a near-impossible fashion.That image often appeared on title cards and as a blink-and-you'll-miss-it insert at the halfway point in the shorts. Candlelight was another series related to Starlight. While White S7 is untitled in its surviving form, its alpha-numeric index number places it within the orbit of Starlight-related loops. Jean is breathtaking here, getting fully out of bra and panties on a characteristic motel room bed. Beautifully shot in almost-entirely medium and full closeups, in color.
CA7 - A "softer" cut of White S7, minus full frontal nudity.
Bab W50 - Jean stares into your eyes and hypnotizes you, in this lengthy-for-its-era short. Lasting almost 11 minutes, it appears on volume #198 of Something Weird's Nudie Cuties"Peepland" compilation series, a sprawling collection of sex film shorts largely pre-dating the 1970s and the depiction of hardcore. The setting is another motel room. In lovely color, and, yes, there's full frontal nudity.
Jeanie T51 - Surviving in a eye-catchingly colorful print, we remain in Starlight-territory, given the statue's appearance on the title card. Occasionally, models in these films were credited under their actual first names. Here, for instance, Jean is listed as Jeanie, suggesting that was her nickname. More states of undress and pantyhose madness, with Jeanie fittingly appearing by candlelight, and this time it looks to be shot on a film set.
Connie W51 - Jean in the shower, first in merely a corset and ultimately fully nude. She's clearly teasing the cameraman here—lucky him—making him an unseen part of the action. This was a typical element in the best of the Starlight-related shorts, taking them beyond mere voyeurism.
Some title cards for Jean Nieto shorts.
Untitled/unknown short - Included on Something Weird Video's Nudie Cuties Volume #122, Jean here appears in (faded) color. The brief three-minute short remains relatively chaste— T&A only, minus any full frontal nudity. Jean writhes around on a bed, smiling into the camera as it pans up and down and back and forth across her body.
Untitled/unknown short - Perhaps one of the last of Jean's extant, identified shorts. Jean appears slightly older physically and sapped of her typically bright energy. In B&W, this is the first short on the compilation Nudie Cuties Volume #54.
Men's Magazine Pictorials:
Sheer - vol. 1, no. 7 (1959) (also cover model)
Spice - vol. 1, no. 5 (1960)
Scamp - September 1960 (photography by Del Hayden)
Charles Galioto guest stars on Happy Days as the cousin of Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler).
Have I been doing everything possible to promote These Days Are Ours, my weekly podcast about the classic sitcom Happy Days? Maybe not. I post about the show frequently on Twitter and Facebook, and the podcast has its own Twitter account, but I haven't written about the show that often on this blog. Well, I decided to change that this week.
The premise of These Days Are Ours is simple. Each week, my co-host Peter and I review an episode of Happy Days. We're currently making our way through Season 4. New episodes are posted every Tuesday morning at thesedaysareours.libsyn.com. It is completely free to download and listen. If you're not that familiar with Happy Days or if you don't remember a particular episode, don't worry. We start each podcast by going over the plot of the episode we're reviewing. After that, we delve into the cultural references, music, and fashion choices, while also telling you if we think a Happy Days installment is worth your time or not. And, thanks to some judicious editing, we get all this done in about half an hour. Here's our latest podcast.
This week, the episode up for review is "The Book of Records" from January 18, 1977. It's an unusual one, since it's built around a guest appearance by a non-actor, specifically a high schooler from New York named Charles Galioto, briefly well-known for catching coins off his elbow. Charlie didn't do any more acting than this one sitcom appearance, but he did appear on a few talk shows in his day, doing his famous coin tricks. Here he is on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson back in 1976. My guess is that the producers of Happy Days saw Charlie chatting with Johnny and thought he would be perfect for their show.
At 13, Keith Crocker saw a John Holmes loop that changed his life.
NOTE: Recently, film archivist and lecturerKeith Crockercontacted me and asked if he could write a few articles for this site about the career of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Naturally, I said yes. This is the first of those articles. In it, he reflects on Ed's pornographic loops from the 1970s and how those films have affected him personally. Hope you enjoy. - J.B.
Guest author Keith Crocker
This series is all about archaeology. As fans of Edward D. Wood, Jr., we're looking to fill in information about Eddie's so-called "missing years." Those of us in the know realize that there actually were no missing years in the man's life, just years when he was working under pseudonyms and on the fly. In fact, when Wood was in the worst stages of alcoholism in the 1970s, he was still remarkably one of the most consistently employed men working in adult publications. He brought that skill with him into the world of 8mm porn loops.
In previous articles, Joe Blevins and Greg Dziawer have gone to great lengths to prove that Ed Wood may be the man to have laid down the foundation of the pornographic loop. These loops were short adult films you could watch in the privacy of your own home or even see at an arcade featuring peep shows that you'd watch in a booth for the price of a quarter. And that means lots and lots of people over the long years have seen these films.
After reading Joe's article about Ed Wood's involvement with the first 19 entries in the long-running Swedish Erotica series, and this claim having some validation by Conrad Brooks in Rudolph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), I set about compiling as many as possible 8mm loops in which Ed may have been involved in some way or another. I released those films via Cinefear Video, a "buy demand" DVD business I've been involved with for 30 years. I was very lucky to find that the bulk of the said loops were in a collection of films I'd had in my possession since the late 2000s.
You already know where Joe, Greg, and I stand in relation to those Ed Wood loops, the consensus being that Ed not only wrote the subtitles and box cover summaries but also directed them. I've based my argument on the staging of these films. I could go so far as to say choreography, since Ed claimed to have studied under Martha Graham. Believe it or not, this odd choreography would remain a signature of these films long after Ed's involvement.
But the big question really is: what importance did these 8mm films really have? In other words, what impact did they have on the viewing public? A while back, Greg asked if I would share my experience of having seen a silent Swedish Erotica film back in 1978. I was only 13 years old then, and it was the first pornographic film I had ever seen. I will share this experience in the hopes that it will highlight just how difficult it actually was to obtain pornography back then. Furthermore, this story illustrates the long-term impact Ed Wood had on this series, even when he was no longer involved at all.
Keith Crocker's epic first film!
I've loved films all my life. In the late 1970s, a family friend gave me the long-term loan of a Super 8mm camera. This would fulfill my obsession of wanting to be a filmmaker, which I pursued vigorously. In fact, in 1978, I made my first 20-minute Super 8mm spectacle, a film called Dracula is Alive and Well and Living in Hewlett. (Hewlett was the Long Island, NY town where I grew up.) By 1978, I also had my first Super8/8mm dual projector. It was an Argus 866Z and it was a cheap, all plastic projector, affordable to just about everyone. Because I had this projector, it was not unusual that folks would find film reels in their house often belonging to grandparents and would bring them to me for screenings.
One early spring afternoon, my older brother and his friend showed up with a Super 8mm film in a bold and audaciously colored box that boasted the Swedish Erotica logo. The silent film on the inside of this box was called "Shower Beauty." The stars were John C. Holmes and Kitty Shayne. The copyright on the box claimed 1978. It was fresh product. I was 13 years old. I had seen nudie magazines, but I had never seen hardcore pornography. My eyes were about to be opened like never before. And Lord say a prayer for my future girlfriends. Life was never going to be the same.
Kitty Shayne, goddess.
The plot synopsis on the box boasted: "John Holmes does his girlfriend a favor by mending her plumbing. And he is repaid when his cock finds heaven in her voluptuous body." Short and sweet. Far less evocative than when Ed was writing out the descriptions of the earlier Swedish Erotica shorts. Also, the action in the film tells a different story. For one thing, even though Holmes isn't in a plumber's uniform, it's evident he's there to repair something. When water from the pipe he is fixing gets him wet, he seems annoyed and looks to see what the problem is. He enters through a floor door, which takes him right into the bathroom. Miss Shayne is showering up. He watches her like he's never seen her before. Once Holmes enters the bathroom, Shayne tries to conceal herself. She is clearly not his girlfriend. As usual, Holmes charms her right into the bedroom. This, naturally, leads to the expected fucking and sucking, culminating with one of Holmes' trademark load-on-the-face shots.
Bear in mind that, throughout the whole loop, there's an odd choreography in the way the actors are staged. Not only does the film maximize the limited space in which the scene is shot, but it also adds an odd grace and greater presence to two performers who more than likely lacked grace and presence in any sort of manner. To me, at 13 years old, Kitty Shayne seemed like a Greek goddess. Her body seemed beyond attainable. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest as the film unfolded.
And what can I say about Holmes that hasn’t already been said? He was larger than life, both in endowment and in size. His hair was in a 'fro, a style he had been wearing regularly during the later half of the '70s. There was something suave about him, yet he was an everyday male. Hence, the reasons for his broad appeal. The five-inch film reel played itself out in less than 15 minutes. My innocence (phase one) was gone.
Okay, let's take a look at the landscape here. Videotape was just beginning to emerge. It was beyond affordability. I wouldn’t have my first Betamax until the summer of 1983. Though we lived on Long Island, for some odd reason my brother had picked the film up in an adult bookstore on Staten Island. What he and his friend were doing in Staten Island, I haven't a clue. Don't ask, don't tell. But here's the real interesting thing: my brother had the option of returning this film, paying only an additional $20 and getting another. And he could continue to do this. And he did, for a while anyhow. It was a form of rental. Yes, that’s right, they were renting Super 8mm porn, long before the video boom of the 1980s!
This little Swedish Erotica flick got a lot of play. I had to run it for friends continually, and it even sneaked into some late night projection for my brother's girlfriends. (I came from a big family of six children, three brothers and two sisters.) I remember the girlfriends laughing and covering their eyes during specific scenes, all while the underage projectionist continued to run the film. Yes, this would go over like a lead balloon in today's environment. I'm thankful I grew up in the '70s, dysfunction be damned.
The chicks were a lot cooler back then, too. Some of the old hippie nonsense was still kicking around. In 1979, I got my first tongue kiss from a topless dancer, and my whole body tingled. By 1981, I had my first girlfriend and I could play out what I learned from that Super 8mm film in real time. My apologies for being so open. I'm older and nostalgic, but I also really believe in painting a vivid portrait so you can see and feel what I went through at the time. If I gave you anything less, I'd be cheating you.
The legendary John Holmes
So what does all of this have to do with Ed Wood? Without Wood’s involvement with Swedish Erotica, we would never have had the style that we associate with California-shot porn. New York porn in 1973 was nothing like this. It was just grimy and cheap—shot in one room and usually from one camera angle. Wood was given the opportunity to up the artfulness, and in the first 19 Swedish Erotica loops, he did just that. His impact on the loop series was so strong that the franchise was unable to turn away from the template he had laid down. In those early films, Wood experimented with different genres, including a Western scenario and a supernatural scenario. He also opened up the scope of the common loop, doing outdoor shooting, utilizing gorgeous houses and locations, and trying even to give you narrative in the short time that the loop allowed. This film, "Shower Beauty," was one of Ed’s cinematic grandchildren. And it starred his cinematic son John Holmes. Holmes' career was in many ways founded by Wood. Six degrees of separation but all roads do indeed lead back to Rome.
Within about eight months of my first seeing this loop, Ed Wood, Jr. would die on December 10, 1978. I remember hearing of his passing. I knew who he was. Anyone who owned Heroes of the Horrors, a 1975 book by Calvin Thomas Beck, knew who Wood was because the Bela Lugosi chapter ended with a reference to Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) being Bela Lugosi's final film. I had yet to see a Wood film, though. I wouldn’t have that opportunity until I had a video machine and I could rent Plan 9,Bride of the Monster (1955), and Glen or Glenda (1953).
In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t imagine that Ed Wood had any type of involvement in that dirty little movie that ran through my projector. Of interest, I wouldn't even attempt to suggest Wood had a hand in the loop I had seen. I know of no 8mm version, and I know of no subtitles being available for this film. (Greg Dziawer, please correct me if I'm wrong.) Yet Eddie's influence is so clearly there, and for this to have been my first viewing of a pornographic film, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Some things are just meant to happen, I guess.
Anyhow, I do hope this painted a portrait of what it was like accessing pornography long before the internet. Next time I contribute, I'll be discussing my VHS print of Glen or Glenda under the title of I Led Two Lives. I'll be comparing it to the existing DVD of Glen or Glenda and looking for any differences print-wise. Archaeologists never give up!
Mort Drucker in his studio, surrounded by his own work
My gateway drug to MAD.
Mort Drucker, who has died at 91, turned me into a true art lover at the age of 11. I'd accompany my mother every Saturday morning to the local Hamady grocery store, and I'd always stop by the newsstand to linger over the latest issue of MAD without ever buying it. I remember putting down an issue very quickly because it contained an article called "The MAD Nasty Files," and I was so dumb I thought "nasty" was a profanity. That's what comes from a Catholic upbringing.
Well, somewhere along the line, my mother must have broken down and purchased a MAD Super Special for me without my knowing it. (For the uninitiated, Super Specials were the double-thick issues containing reruns of vintage material.) On Christmas morning 1986, I was shocked and delighted to find the Summer '86 edition of More Trash from MAD rolled up in my stocking. What a gift! Inside were articles illustrated by lots of great cartoonists, all destined to become heroes of mine. Here, in one place, I discovered: the shaggy, dot-eyed creations of Paul Coker; the squiggly line drawings of Sergio Aragones; the bulbous-nosed, pop-eyed buffoons of Don Martin; etc. But uppermost in my estimation were the baroque, evocative drawings of caricaturist Mort Drucker, who mainly worked on MAD's famous movie satires.
More Trash from MAD happens to contain two of Mort's all-time greatest articles: an epic 10-page parody of Superman II (1980) called "Superduperman II" and a masterful spoof of the TV sitcom Archie Bunker's Place (1979-83) called "Starchie Bonker's Place or A Christmas Carol O'Conner." I studied those pages with a devotion normally devoted to holy books. What impressed me most was Drucker's commitment to capturing the personalities, moods, and expressions of his subjects -- not just the stars but also the supporting and background players.
Take that "Starchie Bonker" article (originally printed in January 1982) as an example. It's one thing to draw an instantly recognizable Carroll O'Connor, among the most familiar faces on TV at that time, but it's quite another to give readers perfect representations of Anne Meara, Allan Melvin, and Martin Balsam. That was Mort's commitment to quality. I should mention that this particular article is also brilliantly scripted by Arnie Kogen, a real-life TV writer who worked for Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart and who knew the television business from the inside out.
An excerpt from "Starchie Bonker's Place" drawn by Mort Drucker
Well, after that Christmas, I became an avid reader of MAD -- both new issues and back issues. I spent many hours poring over Mort's material, from the sea of Italian-American faces at the wedding in "The Odd Father" (December 1972) to the masterful two-page spread from "Flopeye" (September 1981) in which the characters from the animated Popeye cartoons stood aside their live-action counterparts. Finding the book Familiar Faces: The Art of Mort Drucker (1988) by David Duncan was another major leap forward in my peculiar scholarship. Digging back into the archives, I learned that Mort's style evolved over the years. I got a kick out of his funky-looking '60s stuff, like "Bats-Man" (September 1966) with its elongated, cadaverous Alan Napier.
A panel from 1966's "Bats-Man."
I was hardly alone in my admiration of Mort Drucker. I'd wager a generation of cartoonists grew up wanting to draw like him. I still have thick portfolios of my failed attempts. I may never get good at art, but I'll never stop trying, and that's largely because of Mort. The man's influence reached beyond cartoonists and wannabe cartoonists. The Coen Brothers, those masters of the deadpan bizarre, have acknowledged Drucker as an inspiration for the look of their movies. I can also remember, years ago, seeing a panel of comedians on some talk show. Wish I could remember the title. Somehow, the topic of conversation turned to depictions of sexy women in comics. One panelist brought up Mort's drawings of Jacqueline Bisset in a parody of The Deep called "The Dip" (April 1978). Several of the other comics on the show also recalled that article and the effect it'd had on them.
Jacqueline Bisset as drawn by Mort Drucker.
Somehow, it always felt odd to me when other people like the Coens or those TV comedians would mention Mort Drucker's name. I'd somehow gotten the crazy notion that Mort's work was my own private discovery. Maybe I even dreamed that Mort's articles were intended just for me alone. Who else was scrutinizing those MAD panels, trying to find little background details? But I think a lot of people were. MAD tends to inspire that brand of solitary devotion. Mort's work belongs to the world, just as the work of every great artist belongs to the world. And I don't hesitate to call Mort a great artist. It's just that his best work happened to appear on cheap butcher's paper rather than on gallery walls.
I realize I have not even begun to summarize Mort Drucker's career or legacy. I've not even mentioned his work outside of MAD -- his movie posters, advertisements, comics, etc. But this was intended as a mere reminiscence of how Mort's work personally affected me. I hope that, if you were also a fan, it rekindled some memories.
Let's play a game. I'll think of someone with a connection to Edward D. Wood, Jr., and you try to guess who it is. Sound good?
We have a wide variety of candidates to consider here. After all, among the multitude of creative talents who crossed paths with Eddie during his three tumultuous decades in Hollywood, some are instantly recognizable cult icons, including Criswell, Vampira, and Tor Johnson. Legends all. Most were like Ed, though, working on the fringes of the industry in near-anonymity. While Ed's obscurity evolved into a beyond-the-grave infamy, others in his orbit have been all but forgotten by time.
One of those obscure performers intrigued me, though her connection to Ed was both fleeting and speculative. We can safely say that "maybe" she worked with Ed. I happened to find her high school graduation photo, showing a pert, smiling brunette with a sensible hairdo and outfit. You wouldn't guess there was anything even vaguely scandalous in her future. Something about this rather benign image captured my imagination and made me want to know more.
Another photo revealed that this young lady was in her school's Spanish Club. It's a typical yearbook group shot: a lot of awkward Caucasian kids, some wearing sombreros, grinning for the camera. A couple of wisenheimers in the back row clutch a poster advertising the Plaza de Toros de Madrid. Our girl stands off to the right, looking perhaps a bit more self-satisfied and confident than her peers. Perhaps she did or said something noteworthy right before the photo was taken. Indeed, a few other members of the club seem to be looking her way. They, like me, want to know, "Who's that girl?"
One of the people in this Spanish Club will eventually work with Ed Wood.
Any ideas yet?
Well, I'm feeling charitable, so I'll give you a few additional hints about our mystery woman:
She stripped under a stage name, dubbed The Wow Girl.
Her sole feature film credit is a movie Ed is believed to have scripted.
She appeared in some explicit-for-their-era peepshow arcade shorts (or loops), as well as some skin mag photo features.
Do you know who she is?
Join us here in one week to find out. The next installment in this series will feature the first-ever published index of her work across various media.
A tabloid article about Floyd Shaffer, the religious clown.
Floyd Shaffer's first book.
The Reverend Floyd T. Shaffer was looking for a new way to reach his congregation in 1969. How could he possibly get through to his practical, sensible flock during that tumultuous age of Vietnam, Woodstock, and Manson? The unlikely answer was by donning a fright wig, floppy shoes, and a round, red, rubber nose.
Though he may not have invented the form, Floyd Shaffer became, for a time, perhaps the most prominent and beloved proponent and practitioner of religious clowning in America. Born in 1930, the kindly and gentle Shaffer was a devout, deeply sincere Lutheran minister whose career trajectory took him from Michigan to Maryland to Ohio. In fact, Shaffer experienced his greatest period of productivity and prominence in the Buckeye State during the Reagan-Bush years. But to appreciate this man's story in full, we must travel back to the Age of Aquarius.
Destined to become a literal Holy Fool, Floyd Shaffer started upon his unusual path in the late 1960s in Columbia, Maryland, where he preached God's word at the still-existent Abiding Savior Lutheran Church. It was at Abiding Savior that Shaffer first introduced costumed clowning into his ministry and encouraged others to follow his example. According to fellow religious clown John Garrett, Floyd was aligning himself with a liturgical tradition stretching back to the Middle Ages, when so-called "holy interrupters" would lighten the mood of formal services with their comedic outbursts. Although a keen student of clowning history, Shaffer was more likely influenced by the counterculture of his own time. Clowning and mime were art forms beloved by hippies, who also had a penchant for face-painting and the donning of colorful, garish clothing. Back in 1969, a preacher dressed as a clown could almost be considered edgy or hip.
In those early years, Shaffer and his ilk were not always welcome among mainstream Christians. The soft-voiced pastor related to his followers the story of his disastrous appearance at a 1970s youth conference held at Houston's famed Astrodome. There, Shaffer and his fellow beneficent buffoons were regarded with extreme skepticism. Thinking the clowns were blasphemous, the other conference attendees derided and, in some cases, attacked Shaffer's troupe. Arlene Trapp, an original acolyte of Shaffer, recalled being "treated like Jesus, kicked at, hit, and mocked."
Still in all, Shaffer's tomfoolery-based evangelism must have yielded positive results in those early days, because he kept at it. In 1974, still based in Columbia, he founded Faith and Fantasy, a nondenominational clown ministry popular enough to have lasted into the 1990s, though its alumni remember it as a loosely-affiliated "non-organization" whose members were never keen on rules. During these years, determined to spread the message of Christ through the techniques of Emmett Kelly and Marcel Marceau, Shaffer and his followers performed their wordless, mime-based act at weekly Lutheran services and also visited numerous hospitals and nursing homes, where they found an appreciative, if captive, audience for their antics.
By 1981, having relocated to Ohio, Floyd Shaffer was well-known enough to attract the attention of the popular press. In August of that year, the black-and-white tabloid Weekly World News ran a profile of Shaffer with the headline "Preacher clowns for God to fill the pews." While essentially flattering to the clown minister, the article also described him as "wacky" and "bizarre." The Christian Science Monitor followed suit in September with a slightly more dignified article by Stewart McBride headlined "Holy fools rush in." More wide-ranging than the Weekly World News piece, McBride's article looks at different examples of clown ministry from across the United States. In this context, rather than the isolated kook portrayed in the tabloid, Floyd Shaffer is part of a vital, burgeoning movement. The Monitor still recognized Shaffer as a pioneer, however, calling him "one of the first clergymen to perform a Sunday service in whiteface and clown costume" and declaring that "hundreds have followed in his suit of many colors."
The cover of the infamous video.
A few years after these articles introduced the Christian clown phenomenon to a national audience, Floyd Shaffer began writing a series of guidebooks about the topic dearest to his heart. If I Were a Clown and Clown Ministry appeared in 1984. Clown Ministry Skits for All Seasons followed in 1990. Of these, it is Clown Ministry that brought Shaffer a sort of late-blooming, ironic notoriety. The book was accompanied by a 92-minute instructional video that, decades later, was widely excerpted and mocked (shades of the unhappy Astrodome experience!) on video-sharing sites like eBaum's World, Daily Motion, and YouTube.
That was how I first became acquainted with Floyd Shaffer and Clown Ministry. In February 2011, comedians and avid thrift store scavengers Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher used clips from Shaffer's 1984 video inan episode of their web series, The Found Footage Show, which they originally produced for the A.V. Club website. They said they found the VHS tape at a church rummage sale. "This one was intended for budding Christian clowns who wanted to start their own clown ministry," explained Prueher. "I've never understood the connection between Christianity and clowning, and this video certainly didn't help." To which Pickett added: "Really, this video is the best argument against putting your grandparents into a nursing home."
For those whose curiosity has been piqued, the entire Clown Ministry video is now available for viewing on YouTube. In these 92 minutes, Floyd Shaffer walks us through the history and purpose of Christian clowning, demonstrates how to properly apply clown makeup, and even lets us tag along on a typical nursing home visit. It is this last aspect of the video that has attracted the most attention and ridicule over the years, as the elderly patients here seem bewildered and frightened, rather than delighted, by the antics of Shaffer and company.
Floyd Shaffer today
"The clown has no age," Shaffer optimistically told the Weekly World News in 1981. Mankind, however, is not immune from the ravages of time. Now 85 years old and comfortably retired since at least 2006, Floyd Shaffer has returned to his home state of Michigan, where he lives with his wife in Saginaw. The couple have two grown children. Though no longer clowning, Floyd Shaffer is still a loyal follower of the Lutheran faith.
The man's longstanding influence on the world of Christian clowning remains undeniable. In a September 2013 article on the World Clown Association website, Janet "Jellybean" Tucker recalled how seeing Shaffer changed her life; "It was in 1979 or 1980 at a Clown, Mime, Puppet, Dance Ministry Workshop in Oberlin, Ohio, and I saw Floyd Shaffer do a bit on feeding the hungry where his clown ate gobs of popcorn but offered it to a hungry person one kernel at a time. I began reading the Bible through different eyes and began to see the Bible characters as real people."
Obviously, despite the snickering of the internet, Shaffer's message got through to some viewers. As recently as April 2015, Christine Fontaine, a religious-minded mime in Northfield, Massachusetts, contacted Floyd by phone to seek his advice and counsel on how to proceed with her work. The two talked for an hour. As always, Floyd Shaffer remained committed to clowning for Christ.
UPDATE FOR 2020: Amazingly, some more vintage footage of Floyd Shaffer has surfaced! In addition to touring with their collection of offbeat videos, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher also have a weekly YouTube series called VCR Party Live. In a recent "quarantine" edition of the show, the hosts interviewed film archivist Skip Elsheimer, who specializes in educational and industrial films. One of the clips Elsheimer showed during this visit depicts Floyd, both as himself and in costume, doing some Christian clowning.
After Pickett described the clip as "clown communion," Elsheimer responded: "That one, I can't remember. The title just suddenly left my brain. That one I got recently, and that one I have not shown online anywhere." He went on to say he didn't know where this film was originally shown. "I think this is too scary for Sunday school class." Pickett and Prueher note that the film is dour and that the clowns in it do not seem happy.
Floyd Shaffer appears as himself and as a clown in a newly-discovered film from the 1970s.
Scored with incongruous ragtime piano, the footage seems to date back to the 1970s when Shaffer was working with the Faith and Fantasy troupe in Columbia, Maryland. It may have been made as a record of what their performances were like back then. The movie begins with shots of a congregation in a mid-sized church. Floyd himself, with a full head of curly hair, enters the room in traditional vestments. A slight smile passes over Floyd's face as he stands behind the altar, and through the magic of editing, he transforms into a clown, complete with a red nose and a derby hat. The parishioners are understandably shocked and confused, though some kids giggle.
Floyd opens a gift box and retrieves a card that says FOR THE CONGREGATION. (This may be the title of the film.) The box also contains a pile of severe-looking nails. Shaffer takes one of these nails and hands it to another clown who has joined him at the front of the church. He presses it firmly into the second clown's palm, as if this is communion, and the nail is a wafer. He performs this same service for a third clown, and a title card reading "Communion" appears onscreen.
Floyd pulls a heavy wooden crucifix from a red box, then places bread and wine on the altar. After that, he fills a metal bowl with water from a jar. He takes the bowl over to a small group of clowns and has them place their hands in the water. They dry their hands. Shaffer then solemnly raises the loaf of bread and the wooden crucifix in front of him. He places the bread on the cross as if the bread itself were Jesus being crucified, but then he breaks off a hunk of it from the bottom. Shaffer then mimes pouring invisible blood from the crucifix into a bottle already filled with wine. He and the other clowns silently, seriously eat the bread and drink the wine as the film fades to black.
The relevant portion of the video begins at about the 28:25 mark. Enjoy.
UPDATE FOR 2021: In my research on Shaffer's career, I found an elaborate article about him in the August 26, 1961 edition of the Fort Lauderdale News. Back then, he was serving as the pastor for Christ the King Lutheran Church. The article includes background details on Floyd's early life and a great picture of the man himself.
An article about Floyd's younger days.
And here's an article from the June 1, 1975 edition of The Baltimore Sun.
Baltimore Sun story about Floyd (part 1).
Baltimore Sun story about Floyd (part 2).
Wherever Floyd went, publicity followed. Here's a huge article from the June 10, 1981 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi tread the boards in Bride of the Monster.
The movie that inspired a writing project.
I've been on the internet since before the internet was any good at all. In the mid-1990s, when I first started posting to Usenet newsgroups, there was no such thing as social media, and most of the platforms we use every day (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) were still years in the future. Even Google didn't start until 1998, leaving AltaVista as the search engine of choice. Back then, I had a dial-up modem, some rudimentary typing skills, and a lot of pop culture opinions.
If all this sounds achingly familiar, it's because I've written about this era of my life before when I posted my Glen or Glenda transcript from 1997 and my Orgy of the Dead script parody from 1998. Well, today, I'm going to share yet another vintage chunk of text from the olden days, though this one at least dates from the current millennium.
In the late 1990s, my online life revolved around a Mystery Science Theater 3000 newsgroup called rec.arts.tv-mst3k.misc. The show was still airing new episodes back then on the Sci-Fi Channel, and fans would regularly post reviews on RATMM. In August 1998, when MST3K premiered its version of the 1961 monster movie Gorgo as part of its ninth season, I decided to upload a short script called Gorgo: The One-Act Play to the newsgroup. This was basically a little comedy sketch featuring characters from the original film, Sam and Joe, discussing the possible consequences of bringing a Godzilla-like monster to London. (Sample dialogue: "Say, Joe, you don't think they're made at us, do ya?")
The response to Gorgo; The One-Act Play was fairly positive on RATMM, so I kept writing comedy sketches based on other episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Thus was born The MST3K One-Act Play Project. Another RATMM regular, Craig J. Clark, started writing his own MST3K-based plays just a few months after I started. Craig eventually put together a now-dormant websitecollecting both his plays and mine. It looks like the last entry in The MST3K One-Act Play Project was posted by Craig in June 2004. Remarkable longevity for such a gimmicky idea.
What follows is the text of my one-act play based on Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster. It was originally posted just over 18 years ago on March 7, 2002. I was more than a decade into my Wood fandom at that point, but Ed Wood Wednesdays wasn't even a glimmer on the horizon. At the time, I was in my mid-20s and working as a junior high Spanish teacher in Joliet, IL. I can remember writing these plays during my lunch break and then emailing them from my school computer to my home computer. Good times.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this artifact from the semi-distant past.
