15. Vaudeville in Grade Two: The Frankensteining of Popular Culture
The memory: In Grade Two, I performed in front of my class. I can't remember how this came about, and it was certainly uncharacteristic of me. But for some unaccountable reason, I came up with an idea, I asked the teacher, she said yes, and I walked to the front of the class. A number of my friends asked to be a part of this performance, and clearly it was partly planned in advance, because I had props.
What I remember about this performance in particular were two props: an outrageously large pair of plastic glasses and a curly black wig. I also remember a particular voice I used, that I can only describe as 'nasal' and coming from the front of the mouth. I remember people falling down, and being knocked down--so the physical humour I had practised at home. I remember a lot of activity, and I think some laughter--or so I hope. And then, at the end, I settled back into my usual pattern in the classroom, of trying not to be noticed.
The context: I know that this event was meant to re-create something I had seen on television, from an afternoon children's show broadcast on local television. In this case, the program was from WKBW, an ABC affiliate in Buffalo, New York, with a host called Jay Nelson. The set for this program was a 'jungle' setting, with the host in a safari hat. The only reason for this that I could tell was to help him segway into his standard filmed entertainments, reruns of old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies. It truly wasn't much of a show, but we weren't very discerning viewers.
But this wasn't what I was imitating from this particular show. This host had a 'bit' that he performed, in which he portrayed a character named 'Professor Smart.' Professor Smart used to be presented with 'answers' to which he asked questions. So the answer was 'Red China' and the question was 'What goes good with a blue tablecloth?' And similarly poor humour. Professor Smart wore a wig and glasses, though I don't remember them well. He spoke with that nasally voice. I based my character on his character.
And, of course, on the Three Stooges. Boys my age at that time loved the Three Stooges. We all watched a lot of television, and imitated what we saw. That might be the sad end of it all, except that all the things we were imitating were in turn imitations, and in turn imitations, reaching back through the history of popular culture in Western Europe.
The character I was imitating was stolen by this children's entertainer from Johnny Carson's NBC late-night talk show, in which he portrayed a mystic who guessed the answers from sealed questions, and then opened the envelopes to read out the questions. That entertainer used that same pursed, nasally voice, which was stolen from another entertainer, Jackie Gleason, who used it on his variety show to play a pretentious, bombastic character, 'Reginald Van Gleason III.' And I'm certain Gleason, a brilliant and influential vocal and physical comedian, borrowed it from someone else. I was, then, another in a long line of comics channelling an ancient character, something like the Dottore in commedia dell 'arte.
The 'bit' my friends and I performed included physical humour, I believe mostly pratfalls, all borrowed from The Three Stooges. These were stock lazzi, also going back a long, long way.
The costuming was from Halloween, in particular the large 'novelty glasses. But it also came from one other place, more unusual--Sunday School minstrelsy. Sitting in my house, in the basement, without any explanation or comment by anyone int he family, was a black, curly, close-cropped wig, the nature and origin of which I didn't know, and that I never saw used by anyone. It was just 'around,' and I co-opted it for this performance, wearing it with the glasses as my costume, setting me up to use 'the voice.'
All of this was as utterly ridiculous as I'm sure it sounds--as it sounds to me. The question I have: Why did I do this? Other children, to the best of my memory, didn't do this in class. I was not an extroverted child; in fact, I was absent quite a bit because of illness. I was very fearful of school, seldom spoke, and generally avoided all exposure. I kept myself safe.
So why on earth, just this once, did I dress up in clothes from the full breadth of cultural historical practice, adopt the voice of a pedant and the physicality of a stooge, and go to the front of the class?
