The Disgraced Mime

In THE ANNALS of Tacitus, we meet "one Cassius, a mime disgraced for his use of his body." (tr. A.J. Woodman)

Mann Crush

Finished BUDDENBROOKS. Didn't find an owl in it, crushing my previously stated hope - which really seemed possible! - that Thomas Mann would have owls in all his books. He was on a roll there! Oh well. Life just serves up one bitter disappointment after another. I did, however, stumble upon an owl in one of my secondary texts, the ratty, tattered paperback I found stuffed in a hole in the park. As you may recall, it's one of those books where Victoria is the queen and yet there are computers everywhere. You know. That kind of book. And two of the characters go to see a panto... you remember what a panto is! Remember when I used to help out with an annual Christmas panto in Chicago? What? You don't? Then why don't you just go to hell. So they go to a didactic panto featuring communist acrobats, you heard me. That kind of book. The name of the panto is "Mazulem the Night Owl." I think I spelled that right. I don't care, though.

Martha Raye Agonistes

As I humorously tweeted earlier today, "Watching a Doris Day movie last night, there was a song lyric 'see the clown falling down, it's the best show in town' and I thought what town is this? They need more options in this town!" Now, if I'm going to be honest, it's clear from context that the singers are referring to the whole circus, not just the clown falling down, when they claim "it's the best show in town." Still, the lyric, which is by no less a genius than Lorenz Hart, if the credits are to be believed, lends itself to humorous misinterpretation, and so I stand by my tweet. On the other hand, the song is performed during a parade that has, like, a dozen snow-white horses outfitted with Pegasus wings, and (unrelated to the horses) the most convincing ape makeup and pantomime I have seen outside of Kubrick's 2001. Also, they have a caged Martha Raye in a bright red lion costume. Now, leaving aside the fact that the plot centers around a rundown circus that is about to go broke - in which case, maybe cut back on the elaborate horse costumes - I have to admit this "show" looks pretty great, maybe it is the best show in town, what the hell do I know?

A Defining Gesture

Thanks to a timely tip from Megan Abbott I watched some of I'LL TAKE SWEDEN on TCM last night. But - and here's the fascinating part! - I went to bed before it came on. But then I couldn't sleep! So I got up and watched it until our old, box-shaped TV from the 1990s finally died. I'LL TAKE SWEDEN killed our TV! And then - this is true, also - I got up and had a terrible new back pain and I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and some of my hair had turned white! I mean, I noticed a lot more white than I've noticed there before. I'LL TAKE SWEDEN! It's mostly Bob Hope walking around gracefully in many different beautiful suits, which I am sure he kept, because he was a terrible cheapskate. But I mean, he is a good walker and hand gesturer. Here (above) we see him with one hand just below his ribs, seeming to pantomime the thought, "These kids these days!" I would describe it as a defining Bob Hope gesture, though it occurs just once in the film (at least in the hour I saw last night). McNeil could confirm its essentialness and describe it better than I could. He has a knack for cataloguing these things. I remember once we were watching a movie in which Jeremy Northam played Dean Martin, and Jeremy Northam (as Dean Martin) was applauding something while holding a cigarette between two fingers, and McNeil said with delight and authority, "That's just how Dean Martin clapped!" Oh, how I wish McNeil had been here. Only he would have understood why I actually laughed a couple of times, once at a fantasy sequence in which Bob Hope's imaginary grandchildren are forced to eat a parrot, and once at some dumb wisecrack Bob Hope made while riding around with his head sticking out of the sunroof of a small Swedish vehicle.

There is one part (seen here) when he is looking at Frankie Avalon with real hatred. Like, I don't think he's acting! Or, actually, I think he turns out to be a better actor than we ever gave him credit for. Or both! He seems to be thinking, "THIS is what it's all come to? THIS? THIS FRANKIE AVALON?" Or he could be deep in character, thinking, "No way this motor-scooter riding rascal is gonna marry MY daughter!" I just can't tell. In addition, Frankie Avalon takes Tuesday Weld to a strip club on a date! For all his grousing about Bob Hope do you think this is where Mike Nichols got the idea for the scene in THE GRADUATE? Tuesday Weld is much more blasé about the strip club than Katherine Ross was, though there is identical twirling involved! However, it is not graphically portrayed in this case. The twirling in question occurs offscreen and is alluded to discreetly by Bob Hope and Tuesday Weld (see also). The strip club is called The Pink Kitten and the bouncer dresses like this:

"Blog"trospective 17: Cigarette Lighter Appendix

My previous "blog"trospective, which covered the 20th century, wore me out. But last night I was watching an old episode of THE SIMPSONS, a flashback to the birth of Bart, and Bart's first act on the earth was to set fire to Homer's necktie with a lighter. And that's when I knew I needed, at long last, to manufacture a new "blog"trospective, a storehouse for everything I would have put somewhere in my cigarette lighter book if only it weren't too late to add anything to my cigarette lighter book. Here is that short but growing list: amazing, but who cares---ancient death ray of Archimedes---Aniston, Jennifer; burns a leprechaun's nose with a car cigarette lighter---Aykroyd, Dan; lights a whole pack of smokes with a blowtorch---Brown, Larry; spends four pages on the lighting of a cigarette---Chevalier, Maurice; fails to light a cigarette lighter---cigarettes and monocles in the early work of Lubitsch---Columbo borrows a lighter; a comically long flame shoots out---COUPLE OF COMEDIANS, A (novel by Don Carpenter)---Cummings, Robert; sets off a sprinkler system by holding a match under it---Dahl, Arlene; burns John Payne's hand with a lighter---Disney, Walt; makes a grown man cry and throw away his new lighter---Eastwood, Clint; mangles his cigarette in his lighter, a la Jerry Lewis---Eastwood, Clint; needs a light---Felix from THE ODD COUPLE mangles a cigarette---Fitzgerald, Barry; uses a small, unidentified cigarette-making (?) machine---Fitzhugh, Louise; lights Janet Gaynor's cigarette---five-foot-tall cigarette lighter---flint and steel of circumstances---Ghost Rider himself sets off a sprinkler system the way a lighter often does in popular entertainment---"Gotta Light" Guy from TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN, The---Grant, U. S.; witnesses tobacco smuggling, corn husk cigarettes---guy gets lost inside his own cigarette lighter, a---guy shoots the ends off two cigarettes with a single bullet, a---heating Pop Tarts one bite at a time---Hope, Bob; cracks wise about lighters---Lewis, Jerry; can't find his lighter---lighter as clue---lighting a cigar with a burning house---lighting of cigarette as an accommodation to power---Mailer, Norman; narrator of overcome by the solemnity of a cigarette lighter---man scares panther with cigarette lighter---Martin, Dean; tosses his gold cigarette lighter out the window---musical cigarette lighter in FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY---newborn Bart Simpson sets fire to his father's necktie with a lighter (see above)---Northam, Jeremy; lighter of won't work at crucial moment---Novak, Kim; requests a light by means of Jack Lemmon's already-lit cigarette---O'Brien, Edmond; flirts using cigarette lighter---Powell, William; offered numerous lights simultaneously---Pryor, Richard; yells "Flick my Bic!" (was that the advertising slogan for the Bic pen or the Bic lighter? In any case, see "link" for rationale)---Quaid, Dennis; uses lighter to set off fire alarm---Russell, Kurt; blows an alien's mind with his lighter---STAR WARS robot gives a "thumbs up" with its built-in lighter---Stritch, Elaine; fills a cigarette lighter with secret booze---structurally significant lighter---Tati, Jacques; tosses lighter out of car window---undetermined pun based on the name of fire historian Stephen J. Pyne---use of lighter as spy communication---use of lighter to impress cavemen---Wallach, Eli; uses an imaginary cigarette lighter---what not to do with a lighter on the deck of a warship---woman asks for a cigarette; men come skittering from every direction, a---woman dressed as a cigarette lighter frolics behind Miley Cyrus, a. I'm forgetting something.

Your Best Bet

I was really enjoying this movie GIRLFRIENDS on TCM just now, and you know how they have those little capsule descriptions of whatever you're watching and whenever you hit the "info" button on your remote control they appear? So I hit the "info" button to find out more about the movie and the capsule description informed me that this movie was about "a chubby photographer." I was taken aback! First of all, this is the month that TCM is featuring films by women directors, of which GIRLFRIENDS is one. Second of all, the supposed "chubbiness" of the protagonist is not even part of the movie. It's not an issue or a subject of discussion, save for one passing comment near the end that MIGHT be construed that way. If the movie were about a guy, I don't believe a comment on his body type would have been part of the capsule description. I don't know who writes these things, somebody at TCM or somebody at the satellite company, but somebody should be ashamed. And now I have three more things to say about GIRLFRIENDS. 1. Eli Wallach uses an imaginary lighter to light an imaginary cigarette in it. That's a scene I could have used in my cigarette lighter book! But it's too late. I guess that's going to happen all the time now. But I immediately thought of two sections where it would have come in handy. 2. If you want to see Christopher Guest and Bob Balaban in the nude, this movie is probably your best bet! 3. Everybody wore turtlenecks. I think I counted six turtlenecks.

Hilarity, Texas

Dr. Theresa and I watched PARIS, TEXAS last night. Dr. T said that Harry Dean Stanton made her think of Buster Keaton, and I was already thinking of the Laurel and Hardy movie BLOCKHEADS (I think that's the one), where Stan doesn't know the war is over and Ollie has to reintroduce him to civilization. And there were obvious parallels to Chaplin, especially THE KID. Harry Dean does lots of pantomime, like when he's learning to walk like a "rich father" and the subsequent scene where he breaks the ice with his estranged son by skipping and walking backward. They even waddle into the sunset together Chaplin style at the end of that sequence. Yet PARIS, TEXAS is a pretty somber movie! So I started to enjoy making all these comedy connections. Like, Dean Stockwell and Harry Dean Stanton have a scene high up on a billboard featuring a beautiful woman, just like Dean and Jerry at the beginning of ARTISTS AND MODELS. That may be stretching it. And there's a scene with the dinosaur from PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, though that's just a coincidence because PARIS, TEXAS came out first. Not by much! I like to think they were filming at the same time. What a party that would have been. Ah, it's all just a big coincidence. In fact, by the end of the movie I had started getting depressed, like, a million people have probably already thought of this. I'm not even going to google it. I had recorded the movie from TCM, so after it was over, I watched the intro. Dr. Theresa had better things to do. The actor Jason Lee had chosen PARIS, TEXAS in his role as "guest programmer." And he told Robert Osborne that it reminded him of Chaplin! So I was like, I'm not even going to "blog" about this. And then I did.

Kent's Delightfully Obscene Pantomime

I was up at the City Grocery Bar regaling everyone for the millionth time about that thing James M. Cain said when the interviewer asked him what he thought about what the movie studio had done to his novel MILDRED PIERCE and he said something like, "Why, they didn't do anything to it, it's sitting right here on the shelf." And Kent said, "Why, my dear, they didn't do anything to it, it's right over... WHAAAAA??????" And then he pantomimed the unspeakably obscene thing that he imagined James M. Cain might have seen being done to his book at that moment. We ate at Gus's Fried Chicken yesterday and that reminded Kent of the time that he was in another city wolfing down awful cubed-chicken hotel nachos and when he walked outside there was A GUS'S FRIED CHICKEN RIGHT THERE! RIGHT OUTSIDE THE HOTEL! But it was too late. Kent was already full of terrible nachos. "It was heartbreaking," Kent said.

Imaginary Research

So I was reading in this paean to the cigar called HOLY SMOKE by G. Carbrera Infante, which I picked up at the used book stall the other day, about the movie MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE, in which, according to Infante, David Bowie "smokes a cigarette that isn't there: he lights it, he draws, he enjoys the smoke..." Oh boy! I thought. Maybe David Bowie uses an imaginary cigarette lighter! That's just what my cigarette lighter book could use. Hot stuff! Gee, I hope he doesn't use an imaginary match. What a bummer that would be. So I watch it, and despite what Infante says, David Bowie doesn't light his imaginary cigarette at all! He just smokes it. David Bowie's imaginary cigarette is pre-lit! If you want to know what I do every day, this is what I do every day. Thanks for nothing, G. Carbrera Infante.

For McNeil Only

This one is just for McNeil. The rest of you (there are two of you, I think) can skip it. But I happened to find out by accident that Jerry Lewis and Public Enemy were going to be on THE TONIGHT SHOW last night. I contacted McNeil right away. He loves Jerry Lewis and Public Enemy. But I found that McNeil was going to be unable to watch the show. So he asked me to file a report. Here is that report. Jerry entered, looking frail but game, as the Roots played him on with the Beastie Boys hit "Hey Ladies" - the significance of which to Jerry we have remarked upon before. When he arrived at his seat he noticed to his apparent consternation that his necktie was hanging out of his jacket. "WAAAAAH! I thought it was my tongue," said Jerry, which got a big laugh. Then he appeared to tuck his necktie into his pants... on purpose? I couldn't tell. Of course, the great thing about Jerry is that so often YOU JUST CAN'T TELL. Maybe tucking your necktie into your pants is an old show biz trick. Jimmy Fallon started reciting scenes from THE NUTTY PROFESSOR to Jerry Lewis, which was nicely intended, but odd. I will paraphrase from memory. Jimmy Fallon was like, "And you go to the gym and lift weights but then you drop the weights without letting go of them and they stretch out your arms like six feet long. But it's not over. Because then you're in bed that night and your feet are itching and a hand comes out and scratches your foot, and it's your hand because your arms were stretched out really long." It reminded me of that old SNL sketch with Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. Jerry took it well. Well, no, at some point he cut off Jimmy Fallon's rambling by handing him what was apparently a shocking and obscene note. I don't know what happened there. It was mysterious. Then Jimmy Fallon started describing a scene from THE ERRAND BOY, the famous pantomime to music behind the executive's desk. They showed a clip of it and Jerry said, "When I write, I think in terms of music," which is something Barry Hannah used to say, more or less. Then Jimmy Fallon tried to get him to do a bit in which he and Jerry Lewis would "talk" to each other by lip-syncing to the instrumental music of the Roots. Jerry was confused at first. I suppose he was thinking about how dumb the idea was, how many weeks it had taken him to conceive, design, rehearse, shoot and edit that ERRAND BOY set piece, but he went ahead and tried. You could see the wheels turning and it was nice. The Roots played some music and Jimmy Fallon flapped his gums but Jerry introduced some hand gestures to good effect and really tried to engage with Jimmy Fallon... to push the bit into going somewhere. It didn't. Then Jerry told a dirty joke about a parrot. Public Enemy came out and did their song "Public Enemy #1." I half expected Flavor Flav to give a shout-out to Jerry Lewis in his introductory verse. He didn't, but I see some similarities there, especially in verbal mannerisms, but some of the physicality too. I'm not suggesting direct influence, of course, just expressionistic instincts in common. Think of Flavor Flav's "Cold Lamping": "We got Magnum Brown, Shooshki Palooshki/ Supercalafragahestikalagoothki/ You could put that in your don't know what you said book/ Took-look-yuk-duk-wuk." More Jerryish lyrics would be tough to find. Especially "Shooshki Palooshki." Or "You're eating dirt because you like eating dirt from the graveyard/ You put gravy on it." Can't you just hear Jerry yelling "You put GRAVY on it!"? And when Flavor raps about "chocolate, strawberry, sarsaparilla" who can help but recall Jerry's rhapsody on strawberry milkshakes from THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR? What? Everybody? Okay.

Sometimes Hilary Duff

Yesterday I turned on the TV and it happened to be tuned to one of these here movie channels, so I saw part of a Hilary Duff movie. See, Hilary Duff was helping out a street musician. This young woman was busking with her violin but it wasn't going well - maybe she was playing uptight violin music that only squares and eggheads could love! (I hasten to add that I have no idea if I am interpreting the scene correctly; I came in at the tail end of it.) Anyway, Hilary Duff and some harmonizing buddies of hers convinced the violinist to play a Four Tops song instead, and Hilary Duff and all her friends sang along, and then suddenly everybody was thrilled. The music faded out and the scene went into slow motion and then it was just Hilary Duff laughing and clapping in slow motion while a mime in a beret and a red-and-white striped shirt waved sparklers in slow motion! This went on longer than you can imagine. I think the filmmaker's intent was whimsy but instead it really seemed that the sparkler mime was horning in on the street musician's turf. He just popped up and started waving his sparklers like a jerk, hoping to cadge some of that sweet Four Tops money, in slow motion, forever and ever, waving his sparklers, while Hilary Duff laughed and laughed, so slowly, kind of terrifying, HA... HA... HA. Then we cut to Hilary Duff on the roof of a building, saying to a boy, "Sometimes I come up here to think." I wonder how many movies that line has appeared in: dozens and dozens, I bet. Later in the day as I was attending to a mundane chore I turned on TCM for company (see also and also) and the movie MRS. SOFFEL was just coming on - a prison romance between Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. I saw that one in the theater. It doesn't bother me anymore that movies I saw in the theater routinely come on "classic" movie channels now. All I remember about MRS. SOFFEL is walking out afterward and saying to my companion, "They should have called it MRS. SO AWFUL." Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, the thoughtless barbs of youth. I am sure Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson worked hard to provide an enjoyable experience, and maybe they did, maybe I was dumb back then, I guess we'll never know. Hey let's keep going with our theme of "movies." As you know, the homepage of my email provider has been illustrated lately with photos of "satisfied customers," I guess they are supposed to be, but they look more like deranged maniacs. Take this guy (above). He's the latest! I don't know if you can see the fine print, but he is supposed to be writing a screenplay... I don't know what that has to do with email. But here is what he has written: "The South Pole. Ext. Yves is sitting on a hill, sobbing. In the distance, Elliott shivers in the cold." He's grinning demonically at the human suffering he depicts in his incorrectly formatted masterpiece! It's obvious my email provider is TRYING TO DRIVE ME CRAZY. Sometimes Yves goes up there to think.

We Had Mime-O-Sass

Here is a sentence from the novel by Lauren Graham: "We had mimosas!" But typographically the word mimosas is broken up because it comes at the end of a line... mimo- + sas. So in my head I pronounced it "mime-o-sass." Like, I don't know, sass you get from a mime. Or maybe Mime-O-Sass is a troupe resembling Mummenschanz, except sassy. Ha ha ha oh dear Lord it is so funny when I read things wrong and tell you about it. Good for me! You earned that drink, Pendarvis!

Mime Reconsidered

Wait! Can he really be a mime when he starts singing at 1:14? I am going to say that he is more of a "robot man."

Mime to the Rescue

I haven't been "blogging" much lately because I have "blogged" about everything and there is nothing left to "blog" about. OR SO I THOUGHT. Then my friend Scott sent me this clip ("click" here) of a rock band featuring a mime on the Jerry Lewis telethon. Scott says he got it from WFMU, natch!

What Happened a Few Minutes Later

And then a few minutes later I paused the show to demonstrate my impression of the facial expressions of the young protagonist secretly obtaining her vengeance in weekly installments. I showed Dr. Theresa how, every time some vengeance is being wreaked, the actress (pictured) will display a tiny smile, but when someone suddenly turns around and looks at her in the midst of the surprising (to the victim) vengeance, she is forced to switch in an instant to a slightly concerned poker face that seems to indicate, "Hmm, what is going on with all this vengeance around here?" Except I did not explain this to Dr. Theresa in words! I did it through my masterful skills in the ancient art of pantomime. To which Dr. Theresa responded in the driest conceivable tone: "Yeah, she must practice that for hours." WHAT IS UP WITH DR. THERESA?

Imaginary Kitten Clip

Kelly Hogan writes in to suggest that our cartoon caption should be, "My kitten clip went viral. Colonoscopies on the house!" I love it! You know, it's like I'm running my own imaginary caption contest for imaginary NEW YORKER cartoons without leaving the comfort of my own home. It's the job of the future! Once I had a good idea for a NEW YORKER cartoon about a mime, but I knew I would never be able to approach the NEW YORKER with it, so I gave my idea to a character in my story "Lumber Land" from my second book, YOUR BODY IS CHANGING. So go to your local library if you want to read my imaginary NEW YORKER cartoon about a mime! Hey, I did a reading with Ben Greenman and Pia Z. Ehrhardt when YOUR BODY IS CHANGING came out, I am recalling. Ben Greenman works for the NEW YORKER! Our reading took place at the wonderful McNally Jackson bookstore in New York City (it had a slightly different name then). So I read my NEW YORKER cartoon section, because in my mind it was almost like getting a cartoon into the NEW YORKER to read aloud about my NEW YORKER cartoon ideas while someone who worked there was forced to sit and listen to me. It's really those little victories that make life so unbearably sweet.

Oh, Gigot

Mr. Ward and I were just debating whether or not GIGOT could be considered a sad clown movie. Oh, come on! You remember GIGOT! Jackie Gleason is Gigot, a French guy who can't talk. "He clowns for the children, doesn't he?" asked Mr. Ward. "And he's beaten by the adults." The character is in the sad clown tradition, then, I would say - especially the LA STRADA sad clown tradition - except that he never quite makes the jump to being an actual clown, though by necessity he expresses himself exclusively through the art of mime! But by profession, Gigot is a maintenance man. Still, I am certain there must be a scene in which he has big sad eyes and hands a mean person a flower. I should admit I've never seen it, and only ever heard of it through Mr. Ward's agonized retellings over the years. Just to be clear, though, a sad clown movie can't MERELY star a comedian who is acting sad. It must be ABOUT a professional entertainer who makes people laugh yet all the while his heart is breaking. Or, you know, he's tormented in some other secret fashion. Got it? Speaking of Jackie Gleason, I watched the entire movie SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT on one of these here movie channels last night, and I don't suppose I have seen it since it came out in 1977, and here is a line from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT which I certainly didn't expect: "Do you know who I think revolutionized American musical theater? Stephen Sondheim." That's a line from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT.

Mummenschanz! Mummenschanz?

Remember when I told you about Mummenschanz and you were like, "So what?" I will admit that I thought neither of us would ever have to contemplate Mummenschanz again. Yet according to the New York Times, Mummenschanz is back for some reason and everyone is confused. Half the audience wants a hot dog and the other half wants to stroke their beards and go, "Hmm, I see." Mummenschanz! Now let's make a pact to forget Mummenschanz forever.

Trouble at the Fall Festival

SPOILER ALERT! I guess I will tell you some more about WHEN MICHAEL CALLS, a movie you will never see. But just in case you do, remember I said SPOILER ALERT! So, the aforementioned sheriff is at the Fall Festival but no one else is around. He says something like, "I wonder why nobody else is around." Then he starts dawdling around the empty booths and displays. He drinks some bright orange punch and empties most of his glass back into the punchbowl, which seems like an awful thing to do. He tries to play a jukebox but it doesn't work, and he does a bunch of professional actor pantomime about how mad he is that the jukebox isn't working. Then he hears a voice: "Help me, sheriff! Help me!" It's the same high-pitched weird voice we've heard before WHEN MICHAEL CALLS. So the sheriff naturally climbs some rickety ladder to investigate. Cut to the Fall Festival in full swing. Michael Douglas gets hit in the face with a pie for charity. Twice! Ha ha ha! Everyone has a great time. Then it's time for the pumpkin carving contest. Nobody can find the sheriff, hint hint, so Ben Gazzara is asked to be the judge, which makes no sense, because his daughter is one of the contestants. Anyway, it doesn't matter, as you have already guessed. The blue ribbon for pumpkin carving will soon be the last thing on anyone's mind! All the carved pumpkins are behind a big curtain. "And now we're turning the lights off for a moment," says some old guy who is in charge. "That way we can enjoy the magnificent glow of the carved pumpkins with the candles in them." (I am paraphrasing.) The deputy tugs and tugs on the rope, but the darn curtain won't seem to open all the way. I think you see where this is going! (Hey, when I looked for a picture of the guy who played the sheriff in WHEN MICHAEL CALLS I found out there is a statue of him for some reason! What reason? Leave me alone! I'm too tired to investigate and I have a terrible cold or something so maybe I will look it up for you tomorrow. Why are you still reading this? But anyway, that's crazy, huh? A statue of the guy who played the sheriff in WHEN MICHAEL CALLS.)

Obscure Commerce

Don't you want to hear about a commercial I saw in the wee hours when I couldn't sleep? As I have noted before, commercials at that hour are obscurer. This one was for a jewelry store, which is not as obscure as the time I saw the one for the chimney sweep. And I seem to recall a birdseed commercial I saw back in Atlanta one time. Ah yes, I love to sit back and nostalgically consider commercials I have seen. Last night's scene was set in a family garage. Dad was under the car, tinkering away! You know how he is! He rolled out to retrieve something and his son surprised him by asking advice on the subject of marriage proposal. "You need to get down to Riddles Jewelry Store. They have great bargains and the finest quality merchandise. She's worth it," the dad suggested. I am paraphrasing, but that's pretty close. I believe that was the name of the store: Riddles. At the close of his advice, the dad rolled back under the car and called for a wrench. When he rolled back out, his son did not hand him the wrench, for the son had already scooted off to Riddles! The dad looked around, amazed. Then, as the announcer drove home the message about Riddles, we were treated to a pantomime scene of the son at the ring counter, his face aglow with happiness. He was holding the wrench aloft! That's where the wrench went! The son ran so fast to the store that he forgot he was holding the wrench! I could almost hear the director: "Hold it higher! Higher! We have to see the wrench! That's the payoff!" The result was somewhat unnatural for the poor actor required to display the wrench. He probably said, "Why would I be holding the wrench like this?" And the director was like, "You're so excited, you forgot you have it!" And the kid said, "Okay, I guess that could happen, but in that case wouldn't it just be held loosely at my side like this?" And the director said, "Then there's no payoff! The jewelry counter is blocking the shot!" And they argued a little, and the director said, "What are you, John Cassevetes? I can get a hundred other kids in here who will hold the wrench. Just do it!" The unintended consequence was that the final scene in the commercial looked like a jewel store robbery in progress! If the man didn't hand over the goods, the kid was going to slug him with a wrench! That was the general impression. Of course the kid had a big goofy smile plastered on his mug, but maybe he was one of those grinning psychopaths you hear about.