68 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
68 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
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Subject: More on TV Legends
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First, pearl@sw.stratus.com (Dan Pearl) writes:
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+
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+>> The "little bastards" comment was made by a radio personality by the name
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+>> of "Uncle Don" (in the 40's?). After his sign-off jingle "sing this
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+>> song with your Uncle Don", he thought he was off the air when he uttered
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+>> his famous line.
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then, system@codewks.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall) writes:
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+>I heard this was a UK announcer, who after Children's Hour (Sundays at 7pm?)
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+>having read the story the announcer said "well that should keep the little
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+>bastards happy for another week". I was told this was about the same era -
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followed by lorange@spot.Colorado.EDU (Hans L'Orange) who writes:
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+
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+A friend claims (you have to love it) to have seen the following during a
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+local kiddies TV show in the late '60s:
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+
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+ The host ( a clown in more ways than one ) was trying to get a little
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+ hippie kid (the 60s remember) to play some game with the other kids.
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+ There was no way he was going to roll the egg with his nose or
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+ whatever it was but the clown kept trying to 'nicely' badger him in
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+ to it. They finally cut to commercial when the kid yelled out ...
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+ "CRAM IT, CLOWN !!!"
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Ah, this is great. Several variations on similar themes. In
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_The Mexican Pet_, JHB mentions several of these legends and
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records the following:
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In version A of "Bozo the Clown's Blooper," a fellow named John
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Witkowski wrote a letter to JHB in November 1984 on the legend
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recounted by Hans. "Bozo the Clown" aired in the late 1950s and
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early 1960s. There is a group of children who are playing a game
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where they try to carry an egg in a spoon across the room. One
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kid drops the egg halfway and swears. Bozo "gently reprimands"
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the kid and the kid tells him "shove it or worse." John had
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at least a half-dozen friends who claimed to have seen the
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episode but were always vague as to approximate date shown and
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exact language used.
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There is another version where Bozo is interviewing the kids in
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the audience and asking them routine questions such as what do
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they want to be when they grow up. One kid then says "Ram it,
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clown!" The show is cut to a commercial and when it returns,
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the kid is gone and "order is restored." The fellow Douglas
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Kaplan recalls that this happened on the Baltimore version of
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the Bozo the Clown show when it was done live. When he moved
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to New Orleans, he heard his boss say that line. His boss
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then said that he got it from the New Orleans version of that
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show.
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In true UL fashion, the line mentioned by Dan and Wayne (or one
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very close to it) has been attributed to virtually every children's
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local TV host in the US. "Despite a complete lack of supporting
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evidence--no one telling the story had ever seen the episode
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themselves--the myth was widely believed. Many who heard it as
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children still consider the myth fact." [This last part JHB
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attributes, heh, heh, to Morgan and Tucker's _Rumor!_, p. 92).
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JHB himself says he thought that the host of one of his favorite
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kids _radio_ shows "Happy Hank" which he thought he heard in
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Lansing, Michigan in the 1940s had said those words (about the
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bastards). He also was pretty sure that some kid had sassed
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"Uncle Howdy" on radio as well. But that's the way it goes.
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