Online Articles
Articles by Fletcher Rhoden, as posted on Writing.com, Helium.com & others
A PRO BALL LEAGUE TAX TO SAVE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
My fellow Americans:
As a singer/songwriter whose new single Bowl You Over (Rock Your World) celebrates the great American sport football, I am supportive of both public music / arts education and also of the college and professional levels of organized sport. Sadly (and unnecessarily) the two things now seem to be at odds.
One of the great losses of our recent economic challenges is to our public schools across the United States. Music and other arts programs are being cut from the budgets, schools are overcrowded and understaffed. Yet organized sport at the high school level remains a priority. This is because high school athletes get college scholarships, fueling the college ball industry, and the great college athletes go on to populate the pro ball leagues. Without organized sport at the high school level, the professional sports leagues would collapse and with them so many associated industries, such as clothing and home gear manufacture, food vendors, broadcasters and so on. Clearly there are too many good people whose lives depend on pro ball who would be hurt were high schools to abandon organized sport. It is also said that sports are often the only way some kids can get into college, and to deny them this would be unfair. And I agree. On the other hand, the music industry doesn’t recruit its talent from high school or college band classes, nor does Hollywood recruit from high school or college theater. Clearly, organized sport is the more productive choice for our society. There is almost no choice at all.
But there is an option to funding one at the expense of the other: I suggest that since the professional athletic leagues depend so heavily on sports at the high school level that they should pay for it. Let the major leagues pay special taxes that go right to the schools (as federal subsidies) to pay for the gear, the coaches, the buses and gasoline and other expenses. This way the school boards could allocate their sports budgets (along with some surplus) back into the arts and sciences, into building more schools and hiring more teachers, serving better food and supplying better books; not only on the high school level but all the way down to the elementary or middle public school levels, where budget cuts continue to wreak havoc.
Those who object might say that the major leagues will only pass the expenses along to the fans as higher ticket prices. I would say, firstly, that the fans are the ones for whom the entire industry is designed, it is around the fans that the industry revolves, it is the fans who benefit most from the high schools’ investment in young athletes’ futures; why shouldn’t the fans be ready to pay a little more? It could be easily argued that we fans have had it too good for too long. Secondly, I would say a price increase to the fans wouldn’t even be necessary. To pay the league tax, the leagues could charge the ball teams an additional league fee. Should one cry foul that this would strain the ball clubs, let them get some of the money from the players; just as laborers and Teamsters pay dues from their salaries for the benefits of their unions. Should one claim that these young players shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden, I would ask, Why shouldn’t they? They are the ones earning astronomical salaries, and it is most often as a result of the benefits they enjoyed from organized sport at the high school level. Why shouldn’t they give a little back to support the next generation of players, to keep their own industry alive?
Some would argue that only a few star players in each league earn the truly enormous salaries and that most players are conservative earners. Also, some leagues spend much more than others on players’ salaries. To this I would say the dues extracted from the players’ salaries would be commensurate with their earnings. I suggest that a straight percentage would be fair. And how much could that be? In 2009 the NFL salary cap was raised to $128 million per team, with all teams collectively paying roughly $4.1 billion. The league’s independent revenue, according to sources, is almost an additional $1 billion. A CONTRIBUTION OF JUST ONE PERCENT (1%) OF THIS $5 BILLION TOTAL WOULD PUMP $50 MILLION INTO OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS YEARLY. And that’s from the NFL alone.
Not only can they easily afford it, I would go on to say that the pro ball leagues are the only ones who should reasonably be asked to pay. Why should the taxes of someone who has no children and no interest in pro sports have to pay for all this while those who earn fortunes from it contribute only in the general sense? Why should budding artists and musicians have to lose out on their own education and the chances to better their own future? Why is our society ready to settle for a generation of undereducated, malnourished children while one particular industry thrives? Why indeed, when a remedy is so close at hand?
Professional sports are vital to our economy, to our way of life, and to the pride and identity of nations all over the world. But when it comes at the expense of the educational system we rely upon to keep our society great, does this not rob the sports industry of its honor? What are we left with but corporations who sacrifice the health and well-being of their own players (steroid use, increased nervous system injury and cardiovascular failure are only a few such personal abuses) in order to keep alive a billion-dollar revue stream from merchandise and broadcast rights? And doesn’t this corrupt, self-serving attitude trickle down from the power elite to any player who would balk at giving back to the community in this way? Is one single percent really so much to ask, or too much to give? Even the very sports fan whose money and dedication fuel the entire industry is also to blame for failing to insist that the leagues they support do something more to help us recover our public educational system, the same system those leagues have richly harvested at others’ expense.
And it is not a question of sports fans versus non-fans. For there is another vital reason the leagues should pay for the high school sports programs they value so highly and need so dearly; these programs are being cut from public schools across the country, just as music and art programs already have been. This league tax is not simply a good idea, it is a must if the professional leagues want to keep their talent (and thus economic) resources plentiful. Beyond plenty, it would seem a question of simply keeping the entire North American sports industry alive or allowing it to perish from the ground up. And this is something I think we all agree cannot be allowed to happen.
In the United States we are a nation of laws, and such a tax would require the passing of such a law. But must decency and fairness and a sense of responsibility be institutionalized and mandated? If just one major sports league (the NFL for example) could put this together without a law being passed (thus circumventing the long delay of the legislative process) it would set an example the other North American leagues, and later the entire world, would follow. It would demonstrate how great, and how American, our great American pastimes truly are; and how great America still is.
And, as I illustrated, it would put $50 million a year into our public schools, to make sure America stays great in the years to come. We simply cannot afford to ignore this remedy.
This is a big idea and will cost many rich people and their even-richer corporate masters many millions of dollars. As such, it will be met with great opposition. A champion is required to take this idea forward; someone with the clout, power or recognition to bring this plea to light. We need somebody with ties to the worlds of sports, celebrity, politics or all three; or perhaps a team of champions from these professions. Pass this open letter on, forward it to interested parties, and I know we will find our champion. Send a copy to your government representatives with your support. Consider it, discuss it, refine it, define it. Perhaps you are that champion; or perhaps like me you just want to help save our schools, our sports and, with them, our futures.
Fletcher Rhoden
Fletcher Rhoden.com
Moon Over My Spammy
Spam. Here’s how J.D. Falk describes it on spam.abuse.net:
“Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.
There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancelable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at ‘lurkers’, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.
Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.
One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.”
So this is what spam is. But how about what spam ISN’T?
I am a writer and producer with a stream of new releases through Createspace. I have ebooks and video files available for download, all on my site, which has been rebranded as a digital media superstore (Fletcher Rhoden.com) Like many others, I am promoting my products, which include dvds of acclaimed plays LAST TANGO WITH MARLON (https://www.createspace.com/259516) and SOUL CANCER, among others. Where better to market my digital media than the internet? There are lots of like-minded people out there surfing the web who would want to know about my acclaimed works and live performances (maybe even you, dear reader.) And while other types of advertising are becoming less effective and more expensive, the internet provides near-limitless choices and venues and ways to reach people. This is the very heart of the internet, giving voice to the individual, circumventing the gatekeepers and allowing a true democratization of our world society; one person, one voice, one vote. No longer do the rich and powerful record companies, film studios and publishing houses get to decide what’s available for sale, which authors get to share their vision with the world. Now we can all have our say! So, when I recently published THE REBELS OF OZ (http://www.fletcherrhoden.com/therebelsofoz.htm), my digital download graphic novel, I alerted a variety of sites and many of them posted information about the book. So far, so good, no spam to worry about.
Then I went to the user groups. For those who don’t know, these are groups (most are on Yahoo! and Google, though AOL and MSN host quite a few as well) founded by fans of one thing or another and featuring related media and chatting about that thing. There are forums that offer basically the same interactive, message- and file-sharing functions. There are plenty of Wizard of Oz user groups and forums out there, as there are for all kinds of subjects of interest. (And I use this as a hypothetical example, as I relate nothing specifically about any of the Wizard of Oz groups. I’ve posted at Marlon Brando groups, homeschooling groups and others, depending on which product I was marketing.) But after posting a notice about a given product (and my work is widely acclaimed) and where to find it, I was often hit with a request not to, “spam the group.” Often my message was never allowed to be posted.
This is where I get confused.
It’s true, my messages were basically commercial in nature, whether marketing an Oz book to Oz fans or my novella THE TRIAL OF DAVY CROCKETT (http://www.trafford.com/01-0132) to students of American or Latin/American history. But look at the definition of spam again. I never posted any of these messages 20 times (not more than once per group.) I’m sure the group moderators didn’t search all groups to count other postings, as they never numbered even close to 20. Also, my messages were always related to the interests of the group, so it wasn’t like I was sending penis enlargement ads to groups concerned with freeing Tibet. Relevance is key.
Falk says the cost of such advertising is covered by the recipient, and this makes it wrong. But what cost? I have a Yahoo account and several groups and they’re all free. I pay for the internet service, but I’d be paying that anyway. If somebody goes to my new Rist and Rhoden Yahoo! group (http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/ristandrhodengroup/) a place for the individual and joint projects of my friend Robbie Rist and I, and they post an ad for Brady Bunch costar Maureen McCormick’s book, that doesn’t cost me a single penny. So there’s really no harm financially, even in the worst-case spam scenarios. Falk says that some people pay for their internet by the minutes used, and so extra emails cost them money to open and read. But these emails have subject headings, and one glance at them will tell you if its something to invest your time and money in. If the subject appeals and you don’t like the email itself, it seems like a matter of getting what you pay for. If you don’t want to waste your time and money reading it, just delete it en mass with the others you don’t want. And this is just for user group and forum post-related emails. People who send automatically generated spam mail directly to users usually find their goods winding up in the mailbox SPAM box anyway, right? I don’t defend them, in fact I separate myself from them for the purposes of our new parameters. But in any case I haven’t set eyes on one of those for years, or even bothered to empty my SPAM box (it happens automatically.) And in any case that is not the nature of my posts or of posts like mine from other young producers and artists. These are not multilevel marketing schemes to defraud people, rather the faint echoes of an underdog artist’s noble struggle to reach an audience and live out the true meaning of the American dream.
Falk refers to reaching out to, “Lurkers” who read but don’t post. But what’s wrong with that? Maybe they’re bashful about sharing their information (who wouldn’t be?) but still want some good information about the group’s subject of focus? Why shouldn’t they find what they’re looking for?
Falk maybe right that spam makes it difficult for moderators to moderate, but they can allow or disallow comments on a case-by-case basis with relative ease by deleting the membership of the true spammers and letting the rest of us industrious types grab a little face-time.
People have insinuated that these posts interrupt the flow of conversation in the message sections of these groups and forums. But it’s not an interruption in the traditional sense because you don’t have to stop and read it, nobody is physically interrupting anything. Just reply to the message you’re replying to and ignore the ones in between. It’s just a headline on a newsletter, not a pop-up ad! Why is your conversation the only one worth occupying that section of the group?
Of course these uninvited posts do wind up in somebody’s mailbox often enough, but these members choose to have the emails from the group sent to them. They can arrange a daily digest and skip the articles not part of their conversation, if receiving uninvited emails is really a problem. I don’t see why that slight inconvenience has to prevent me from being able to share my work with a potentially interested public. They might even be interested in the work themselves if they’d take a look.
And what harm does even a slight interruption do? An isolated post every now and then about a relevant subject shouldn’t prevent anyone from enjoying their discussions in these groups or forums.
But some of these moderators of those groups disallowed my messages and labeled me a spammer, which may be their right, but they do so not in accordance with the above definition. I know these are privately moderated groups (I’ve founded about five myself), and I’m not suggesting people be forced to allow posts they don’t want. I’m just trying to help clarify this year’s netiquette so we can all enjoy (and yes, USE) the internet to greater effect. The internet is not serving us all the way it should. Instead of greater freedom of expression and more opportunity to reach out and share our lives with others, we have less freedom and more rules, different gatekeepers deciding who can say what to whom. Of course I’m not advocating yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded (internet) theater, or that any forum should be able to be abused by anyone for any reason. But I do think a person promoting animated children’s programing should be able to post their dvd url on a group dedicated to animated children’s programing, such as my new dvd BALLOONZEE (https://www.createspace.com/265047).
So how difficult is it for us all to agree on a parameter? Falk provides us with a good one above (if flawed in spots), one which allows for a person like to me post (within numerical and contextual guidelines) without infringing on the rights of others. If only we could all agree to these parameters, it would be a big step forward in self-governing this wonderful world wide web.
So let’s have a compromise: Group moderators, let the reigns up a bit, give a person a chance to spread his wings and promote their relevant products and services. What’s a plug or two gonna hurt? Promoters, keep it brief and relevant, don’t repeat the same post in any given group. Updates should be allowed if there’s truly new information, but let’s keep it reasonable. You true spammers out there, with your search engines and your email list thefts and your penis enlargement drugs and your get-rich-quick, multilevel marketing schemes, you should be paying for your advertising anyway. Stop ruining it for the rest of us.
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Other online articles by Fletcher Rhoden can be found at this site and at www.fletcherrhoden.com/onlinearticles.htm
Were Marlon Brando and Wally Cox lovers?
Few know that acting legend Marlon Brando and TV actor Wally Cox were long-time best friends. They grew up together in Evanston, Illinois, and shared an apartment in 1950's New York City. They maintained a tense friendship through the next two decades, until Cox's death in 1973.
Of those who do know the story, many believe that the two men were, at least for a time, bisexual lovers (this time likely being the roommate period in 1950's New York.) There are several articles of so-called evidence to substantiate this claim. However this evidence does not hold up and, upon closer inspection, there is no evidence supporting a sexual union between them and there is significant evidence against it.
First, the supposed evidence that Marlon Brando and Wally Cox were lovers:
1) They lived together in the 1950's.
2) Marlon Brando was a confessed bisexual and sexual experimentalist.
3) Wally Cox is perceived as a wimpish, feminine character.
4) After Cox's death, Brando remarked in his autobiography that if Cox had been a woman they'd have been married, and that he loved Cox dearly.
5) There is supposedly a photograph of Brando with his penis in Cox's mouth.
To contradict this evidence is easy:
1) A lot of young people in New York, actors and other artists and students especially, share apartments in the always-expensive New York City. This is no evidence of sexual union, even circumstantially so.
2) Just because Brando confessed to affairs with the likes of Monty Clift and others, and that he shared an apartment with another man, does not indicate that he had sex with that man, his roommate. Again, this evidence isn't even or is barely circumstantial.
3) Wally Cox was actually quite masculine, with a well-developed physique. His popular persona aside, there was nothing feminine about him. Today he might be called a techno-geek or a nerd, but that's another thing entirely.
4) Brando might have wanted to marry Cox had he been a woman, but he wasn't. This is a simple, colloquial turn of phrase that is not a confession of or evidence indicating anything. Brando undoubtedly did love Wally Cox, but the love between friends is not the same as lust or passion or romance and would only be taken that way by someone who wants to believe what there is no reason to believe.
5) I've never seen this photo and I doubt it exists. If it does, it could be that Brando took the shot as a practical joke when Wally slept. Brando is well known to have been a prankster, not shying away from using his penis as a prop. I've never heard of this actually happening, someone photographing their penis in some sleeping person's mouth, but it is said to have happened, and one urban myth carries about as much weight as another.
Now let's look at the evidence against the sexual union of Marlon Brando and Wally Cox.
1) Wally Cox was not gay or bisexual. He was married three times and was never known to have a bisexual relationship or experience with Brando or any other man. He is known to have sexual proclivities, like anybody, but they didn't include homosexuality. Everybody who knew him, and I personally have interviewed several about this very issue, report that Wally had no inclination in that regard. Gossip mongers can assume what they please, but these were Wally's best friends and they knew him better than anyone.
2) Nobody in Brando's circle has reported any sexual conduct between the two men, and they were surrounded by friends almost the entire time they shared that apartment in New York. Friends were always clamoring around Brando, and not a single person has ever stepped forward to report sex between Brando and Cox.
3) There are supposed diary entries from Brando that confirm Cox's disinterest in bisexual activity. The diaries may not be real, but they carry as much weight as any internet-spread "evidence". At least they can be seen and examined, unlike the supposed photograph of Brando's penis in Cox's mouth.
Why then would such a rumor persist?
1) Brando remains an icon in the gay subculture, and the pairing of this hulking man's man and the impish girlie-man might be too much for some imaginations to resist.
2) Both men seem to be magnets for rumor: people speculate on whether Wally Cox committed suicide, on Brando's use of cue cards and his various sexual partners. Some people just inspire this type of speculation.
3) Why do any rumors get started? People enjoy the attention they get when they talk about other people. Hey, I wrote a whole book about these two guys, so I know what I'm talking about. But unlike gossipers, I stuck scrupulously to the truth in writing LAST TANGO WITH MARLON, not only the true facts of their lives, but the truths we learn from them about our own lives. Even so, the truth about their lives seems clear: Marlon Brando and Wally Cox were close friends, one-time classmates, one-time roommates, each a great American visionary in his own way.
But the best evidence indicates that they were never lovers.
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Coining A New Term
Although it is not rare that I should step into the public eye, today I'm taking one of many bold new steps forward -- so take note, as this one appears first among many. I am taking my place beside Ben Franklin and Stephen Colbert and other great Americans and coining a phrase -- step back and prepare, as your life is about to change.
P'OSCAR -- new slang for posthumous Oscar award, such as was given to Peter Finch for NETWORK. Current usage: "Do you think Heath Ledger will win the P'OSCAR this year for THE DARK KNIGHT?" There -- I've coined it, the P'Oscar. And as we all know, copyright law states that as soon as something is fixed in a tangible form, such as a publication, it is copyrighted by virtue of its creation. To my knowledge and to the best of my research, this word has never appeared before ever.
So, do YOU think Heath Ledger will win the P'Oscar?
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Sean Penn: Our Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando and Sean Penn. Both great actors, each arguably the greatest of his generation. But the similarities only begin there. With so much in common, it’s almost impossible to resist calling Sean Penn our Marlon Brando.
The first things one sees are the physical similarities. Both men shared an almost feline posture in youth; slender, forward-leaning with broad but slopping shoulders. Like big cats stalking through tall grass, they moved with heads low and forward and with hulking grace. You see it in Brando’s turn as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Names Desire as he prowls the house like a caged tiger. It’s there in Sean Penn’s bobbing and weaving Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times At Ridgemont High or in his hunched, old-lion turn as Jimmy Markum in Mystic River. Interestingly, these characters are all outsiders, criminals, feral in domestic society, another similarity we’ll get to shortly.
Other physical similarities that help make Sean Penn our generation’s Marlon Brando are collected in close proximity just above the neck. Penn has the doleful eyes, the arching brows, the expressive forehead, the high cheekbones, the strong chin, the air of melancholy; he’d be ideal to play Brando if the opportunity ever arose.
Each man also plays his allure in a similar way; a kind of sullen sexiness that was perfected by Brando’s contemporary, James Dean. Like Dean, Brando and Penn each trade in brooding intensity, be it the driving impetus behind Penn’s performances as Michael O’Brien in Bad Boys and as Brad Whitewood Jr. in At Close Range, or Brando’s legendary Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront or the simmering volcano that was Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
In these same performances two more similarities are underscored. Both Penn and Brando expertly combine the vicious and the humane, each capable of rendering the good and evil that exists in men and letting that rendering be both spontaneous and simultaneous. This is classically illustrated by the image of Don Corleone in the opening moments of The Godfather, lovingly stroking a cat (Brando’s spontaneous innovation) while a local mortician asks him to commit murder in the name of revenge. Later, that powerful head of a criminal empire stands before the same mortician, over the body of his butchered, murdered son, and weeps. But we see this juxtaposition of the tough and tender, the tortured and the terrible, not only in Penn’s Mystic turn, but in The Assassination of Richard Nixon as Samuel J. Bicke and as Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking.
And a glimpse at these roles reveals another striking similarity between Brando and Penn, as mentioned earlier; these men are all criminals (save Waterfront’s Terry Malloy). And they are not the only criminals these one-time leading men have played, by any means. Brando played a cross-dressing assassin in The Missouri Breaks, a kidnapper in Night Of The Following Day, a sadist in The Nightcomers. Sean Penn played a coked-up movie executive in Hurlyburly, a coked-up shyster in Carlito’s Way and a coked-up spy in The Falcon and the Snowman. But neither artist backed down from unglamorous roles that might estrange them from their general audiences or from a lucrative female fan base.
But the similarities go beyond acting choices and into the acting. Each man immerses himself in his characters, from Brando’s lead in Viva Zapata! to Sean Penn’s upcoming performance as Harvey Milk, these men become their characters from the inside out. Brando did it famously in Last Tango In Paris, at such emotional cost that he never invested himself in another role thereafter.
But put the acting aside, as both of these great actors have tried to do; another similarity. Each moved into directing (Brando with One-Eyed Jacks and Sean Penn most recently with Into the Wild). And while a lot of actors become directors, they don’t all disdain acting as much as both Brando and Penn seem to have done. Sean Penn has threatened to retire from the craft a number of times, and Brando’s contempt for it is evident in any number of interviews, particularly his Larry King interview, where he sarcastically chides his stubbornly Hollywood-minded interviewer, “I’m glad you asked about acting, because acting is the most important thing in the world.”
And beyond their careers, both men share a love of their privacy; beyond the needs of most of their contemporaries, it would seem. Sean Penn has reacted violently toward photographers for invading his privacy, and Marlon Brando had to buy an entire island to find the seclusion he so desperately craved.
Also in their private lives, both Brando and Penn were activists; Penn currently as much a high-profile liberal as Brando was in his own generation. Where Penn speaks out against Bush’s war and practices his homespun relief efforts in a flood-ravaged New Orleans, Brando attended a 1968 Black Panther rally and more famously helped bring attention to the plight of the Native American Tribes, struggling to survive and reestablish their national identity. And, returning to the chosen profession of these activists, both Brando and Penn brought their politics back into their films (Brando with Burn! and The Ugly American, Sean Penn with All The King’s Men).
Which leaves us to wonder if the trajectory of Sean Penn’s life will be anything like the last half of Brando’s life. Penn is still very fit, but his family does show a propensity for weight gain, as tragically illustrated in the premature passing of his brother, actor Christopher Penn. In their personal temperaments, both men seem given to flares of temper, as illustrated above. Both men seem strong-willed and idealistic, a characteristic than can often lead to unpopularity in Hollywood. Sean Penn has only recently been embraced by a skittish Entertainment community, causing him to include as part of an Independent Spirit Awards acceptance speech, “You tolerate me, you really tolerate me.” Will Hollywood stop tolerating Penn the way it stopped tolerating Brando, who was at one point barred from getting the role of Don Vito Corleone, the role that put him back on top? Will audiences devalue Penn’s talent as it so often did Brando’s? Is Penn capable of slipping into the kind of lethargy and self-indulgence that marked Brando’s downfall? Could Penn ever resort to a series of soulless performances without even the attempt to masquerade a single-mindedly commercial motivation? Hopefully, we have learned from the past, and we all, Mr. Penn included, will have enough taste and style to ever let Sean Penn truly become our Marlon Brando.
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Who Is Our Wally Cox?
I recently published an article suggesting that similarities between actors Sean Penn and Marlon Brando were so great that Penn was essentially this generation’s Brando. But what of Wally Cox, Brando’s lifelong friend and iconic antithesis? Cox of the thick eyeglasses in TV’s Mr. Peepers and Hollywood Squares, the lisping nasal voice of the classic cartoon series Underdog. Who is our Wally Cox?
A better question might be, who isn’t?
Traces of Cox’s influence are all over every popular media. From the giggling nerd Irkle from TV’s Family Matters to the title character recent animated feature Chicken Little; every little man in big glasses, every brainiac and nerd, every belabored bookworm and bureaucrat character owes a nod to Wally Cox, who made the look acceptable, even popular with modern audiences. It’s not just the eyeglasses, even though his breakthrough role of Robinson Peepers did seem predicated on that look (not an affectation but Cox’s genuine appearance). One can scarcely put on a pair of glasses without invoking the archetype Cox perfected.
But beyond the glasses, Cox perfected the befuddled everyman shtick that Bob Newhart would later become famous with; the stammering moral center of an immoral, comedic universe. The comic and the straight man rolled into one.
And it’s hard to imagine the snickering sarcasm of Drew Carey without recalling Wally’s oft-peevish retorts on Hollywood Squares: When asked by host Peter Marshall, “What your average gorilla weighs?” Cox answered, “Well, I don’t have an average gorilla.”
Wally Cox was an intellectual, a philosopher, a humanist; a Woody Allen without the cult following. Indeed, the traces of Cox’s understated delivery are echoed in Allen’s, voices lodged in the middle of the clenched throat. Would America have warmed to Allen without the familiarity implanted by Cox? Both men trade in a school founded by earlier comics, as we’ll investigate shortly, but Allen cannot stand without some measure of Wally Cox’s shadow passing over him.
Wally Cox was more than a sitcom actor, however. Many don’t know he was a nightclub comic, specializing in characters and sketch-type storytelling, the like of which made Bill Cosby famous in the years after Cox’s success. And his characters had a surreal Americana, a twisted normalcy that would later be Jonathan Winters’ stock in trade. To imagine Winters doing Cox’s bit about the scoutmaster who gets his troops lost on the way back to camp is a glimpse at comedy heaven. The line is even more direct from Wally Cox to the humor of Johnny Carson, loopy midwesterners like Cox’s Dufo and Carson’s Aunt Blabby and Art Fern are kindred spirits. This was America portrayed by Americans; honest, weird, dark America.
And, to make an even riskier connection, to caustic and criminal Lenny Bruce, as far from Cox’s bookish societal cog as the animalistic Marlon Brando. Wally Cox was every bit as ahead of his time as the late comic Bruce. Cox did a bit about the then-outlandish idea of a man who brings his dog to a therapist. Thirty years later people were actually doing that... and they’re doing it today.
But Cox’s influence extends beyond his individual look or style. Popular scholastic sitcoms like Welcome Back, Kotter and Head Of The Class were really just Mr. Peepers updated for their eras. And unlike Peepers, those other series’ refocused quickly on the more interesting students in the class and lost sight of the teachers. But Cox never lost his audience’s attention, something Gabe Kaplan and Howard Hessman cannot say.
And Cox has a part of a dubious part in TV lore as well; his series Mr. Peepers was predicated on a “Will-they/won’t they?” sexual tension that later drove popular series like Cheers and Fraiser. But when Cox’s Peepers married his longtime girlfriend Nancy (Patricia Benoit), the show began a ratings decline that resulted in its cancellation. This was the first time a series ever “Jumped the shark,” one of the key footnotes to Mr. Peepers’ place in TV history.
The influence of Hollywood Squares on the modern preshow has been well documented. But suffice it to say that, with Wally Cox as a regular in the show’s formative years, Squares influenced every game show from Match Game to The Gong Show to Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? After Squares, game shows had to be funny, and Wally Cox was a big part of establishing that comedic tone, not only for Squares but for game shows that followed.
Of course, Wally Cox did not exist in a vacuum. Also noteworthy is the tradition that Wally Cox carried on. Cox is a forgotten heir to the Chaplin line of comic character, that tragic little man who triumphs against overwhelming odds by sheer purity of soul and cleverness of wit, even if success means only one more day of survival. Willing to dream in a world that has cast dreams aside, a gentle expression of his will standing up to great adversity; how like Chaplin greats City Lights or The Gold Rush does Wally Cox’s minor work Ralph Makes Good seem in retrospect.
To read Cox’s autobiographical My Life As A Young Boy is to see a Norman Rockwell painting brought to life. One might think it the supple, philosophical work of O. Henry or Will Rogers. Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Wally Cox wrote, “Hurt a minimum of people.” The gentle misanthropy of that line recalls Mark Twain and Twain’s inspirations Benjamin Franklin and Davy Crockett.
Cox also liked to say, “Walk softly and carry a little twig.” Wally Cox; forgotten comedy genius, TV pioneer, patron saint of nerds and brainiacs everywhere, with generations of protégées to carry that little twig onward into the vast, funny darkness.
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